Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2021 i BirdWatching

A big fight against a small foe Teya Penniman’s career in bird conservation and research began with an internship tracking the habits and haunts of White-crowned Sparrows, Wrentits, and Spotted Towhees in California’s coastal scrub. It was supposed to be a short hiatus from college for Penniman, but that three-month stint morphed into nine years as a staff biologist with Point Blue Conservation Science, much of it on remote islands. Now, a new chapter has started both for Penniman and bird conservation on islands in Hawai‘i, where a project to combat a small enemy in a big way is beginning. “I never grew tired of sitting in a blind, watching the antics of Brandt’s Cormorants stealing nest material from an absent neighbor, and I never lost the awe of extracting…

When winter arrives, it’s tempting to leave your camera in its bag, cozy up to the woodstove, and leaf through travel catalogs for birding trips to the tropics! But don’t let the cold keep you indoors. Wintery weather — frost, ice, and especially snow — can result in unique and dramatic bird photos that transcend standard portraits. They reveal the bird’s experience of its world, evoking strong emotional reactions in the viewer. Plus, who can resist a bird with feathers all fluffed up against the cold? However, winter bird photography can present challenges to you and your camera. Here are some things to consider before you head outdoors. SAY NO TO GRAY SNOW Sparkling white snow gives a photo a magical quality, but when you include snow in the frame,…

Before a warbler takes to the sky with a tiny geolocator, researchers must catch it, and that is not always easy. Just ask Hankyu Kim, who is completing his Ph.D. dissertation at Oregon State University examining the routes, behaviors, and habitats of Hermit Warblers. The elusive warblers nest only in Washington, Oregon, and California within mature coniferous forests and flit among the towering tree canopies. They migrate about 2,000 miles to Mexico and Central America. Using playback calls and a plastic decoy Hermit Warbler, Kim lured male warblers down from above to fly into mist nets set up in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon. “One bird took six hours to catch,” he says. “We tried many different net formations.” Birds often become wary of mist nets and playback…

THE PROJECT TO restore migratory Whooping Cranes to eastern North America, now in its 20th year, initially taught young cranes to migrate from breeding areas in central Wisconsin to west-central Florida for the winter. Over the years, the birds have had other ideas about where best to winter. The first few showed up at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alabama in 2004, and they have been coming back ever since. Last year, at least 14 Whoopers wintered among the thousands of Sandhill Cranes that also spend the colder months at Wheeler. In mid-November 2020, a few Whoopers had already come back to the refuge to settle in for winter. Read more about birding at the refuge on the next page. HOTSPOTS NEAR YOU no. 307 wheeler national wildlife refuge decatur,…

Helping others has long been regarded as a human behavior. Nowadays we know that primates and some other social mammals also show so-called prosocial behavior. Dutch biologist Jorg Massen has found in past studies that birds of certain species will sometimes help another individual. Recently, he set out to learn if such behavior is instinctive or flexible — and “whether these birds might also take into account how great the need of the other animal is.” He discovered that his study species, Azure-winged Magpie of eastern Asia, will share food with other birds of their species that do not have enough to eat. “They seem to take each other’s perspective into account in their decision and thus seem to show sympathy,” says Massen, who is based at Utrecht University in…

You know how it is when couples first get together. You ask all kinds of questions. What’s your favorite book, movie, color, season? “Winter,” I told my future wife, and not to be contrary. I do love winter, and I’m not even a skier. Winter is pure, the air intoxicating. And the light is delicious. The low sun hugging the horizon strops an edge to all it touches. And the birds? Fabulous. Only in winter do I find ponds lacquered in waterfowl. Seventeen species is about par in Cape May, and that’s not counting the scoter, Long-tailed Duck, and the odd eider sitting in Delaware Bay. Some avid birders are dismissive of waterfowl, claiming that all wayward waterfowl are tainted by the suggestion that they may be a “possible escape.”…

We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.— T.S. ELIOT It’s been quiet. Too quiet? “Nothing here,” I mumble. Nothing that is, except several Black-crowned Night-Herons dozing in the birch woods flanking the pond. The herons haven’t moved since I arrived. Not known to be loquacious, they utter a laconic qwok when disturbed and in the gathering dusk, when they vacate their day roost to fly with measured wing beats to their evening foraging grounds. In spring and summer, they are the signature avian species at Big John’s Pond. Their laid-back, languid nature is my standing invitation to tune into the rhythms of the pond and shed the impatience I have brought with…

In the popular imagination, owls are often regarded as denizens of dense and spooky woods, hiding by day and hooting it up in the darkest night. The Short-eared Owl breaks all of these norms. It lives in wide-open spaces — fields, marshes, tundra — and often hunts in broad daylight. Exploiting this open-country niche, the Short-eared has become one of the most widespread owls. In North America, its breeding range extends across Alaska and Canada and south into the northern states. At the southern edge of that range, it has declined in numbers. Today, in most of the lower 48 states, it is most likely to be seen as a winter visitor. In winter, Short-eared Owls congregate in areas with high populations of voles or other small rodents, so their…

Two studies published in the September 2020 issue of The Journal of Raptor Research have expanded our understanding of the migration and population stability of the Peregrine Falcon. The first, from Oscar Beingolea and Nico Arcilla of the International Bird Conservation Partnership, reports that Peregrines banded at their North American breeding or natal sites or during migration all flew to Peru for the winter. Eight falcons banded at breeding sites from Alaska to Nunavut to Minnesota and Nebraska between 1963 and 2016 were later found at sites in Peru, the study shows. And 13 falcons banded at migration sites in Texas and along the East Coast also turned up in Peru. A bird from Alaska traveled the farthest — 6,630 miles (10,671 km). The findings suggest that falcons of two…

High-tech bird tracking is taking rapid flight in an era of global scientific cooperation. Birds as small as warblers are signaling their locations from breeding and wintering grounds, from stopovers and long migrations thanks to ever-more-sophisticated miniaturized tracking devices. Scientists harness the power of the sun, satellites, automated radio telemetry, and even the International Space Station to follow birds like never before. At stake? The future of bird life on Earth. Three billion birds lost since 1970 in North America is incentive alone for scientists coming together and to assure that critical technology is affordable and accessible. “We don’t have a lot of time,” says Pete Marra, director of the Georgetown Environment Initiative. “Many species are declining right before our eyes, and we don’t know why.” Marra is thrilled to…

Eh? What’s that you say, little bird? My saddest moment as a birder was when, about 10 years ago, I saw a Golden-crowned Kinglet singing. The bird was only about 10 feet away as I watched its tiny body vibrate with sound as it opened and closed its beak, but I couldn’t hear a note. According to the Mayo Clinic, about a third of Americans between the ages of 65 and 75 suffer some hearing loss. For most, the loss is at higher frequencies rather than across the board, so we usually can hear someone’s lower-frequency vowel sounds after we’ve lost the higher-frequency consonants, making them sound as if they’re mumbling. As a birder, I was heartbroken to lose that Golden-crowned Kinglet along with Brown Creepers, Cedar Waxwings, and Blackburnian…

Across much of the world, winter is a season for studying waterbirds, and if you have access to a large body of water (ocean, large lake, or river), then it’s worth looking for waterbirds during storms. This has the potential for some of the most exciting birding. Birds sense the lower pressure of a storm and respond by searching for food. Strong winds make it difficult or impossible for birds to rest on the water, so they gather on beaches, open fields, or parking lots where they can rest, or they simply fly. Ocean birds have adapted to wind, so windy conditions (to a point) might be preferable, as the wind allows them to travel faster with less effort. And strong waves along the shoreline can stir up the sand…