The Bird Thead

[Art Vandelay]

Holiday gift idea for you bird enthusiasts:

Bird Puzzle Set

[LFC]

Somebody was texting as they flew through the forest. And we just had the windows washed!

[Bact PhD]

Dec 17, 2021 21:33:03 GMT LFC said:

Somebody was texting as they flew through the forest. And we just had the windows washed!

Isn’t that the same principle as the thunderstorm hitting right after you wash the car/hang out the heavy laundry?

[LFC]

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker has been removed from the Endangered Species List due to extinction. There has been no definitive evidence that it still exists since 1944.

There have been plenty of claims, the most infamous being the video pushed as evidence by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology in a so-called scientific paper in 2005. The paper was a train wreck and was eviscerated by some of the finest field birders, people with vastly more expertise in field identification than the average ornithologist. The following quote from the link above gives you an idea of how badly the scientists flubbed it.

Fitzpatrick said that audio recordings of a large black-and-white woodpecker near Arkansas’ Cache River made a couple of years later had very similar acoustics to the birds recorded on the Singer Tract in 1935, the only confirmed audio of ivory-bills (though bird calls resembling kents have been recorded in the intervening years, including a 1968 recording from Texas). But the recordings from Arkansas weren’t published.

“We made the decision by that point in 2008 that the last thing we need to do is to get into another pissing match about whether this is proof,” Fitzpatrick said. “From the very start, I personally and we generally at the lab never regarded my obligation as being trying to convince everybody that we were correct. We regarded our obligation—and I regarded my obligation—as making sure that we do our best at providing all the evidence we have and letting people draw their conclusions from the evidence we have.”

So they didn't publish the recordings because they didn't want "another pissing match" (which wasn't a pissing match, it instead was extremely valid criticism) but "We regarded our obligation—and I regarded my obligation—as making sure that we do our best at providing all the evidence we have and letting people draw their conclusions from the evidence we have.” Oh vey.

[LFC]

Posting this bird flu article here because while the human impact is possible the bird impact is already here.

So far, at least 5,400 wild cranes have died infected with the new H5N1 avian flu, which Israeli authorities fear could expand into a global emergency.

Of the 30,000 Eurasian cranes passing this winter at the Hula Nature Reserve, 17 percent are dead, and scientists fear the worst for their surviving brethren, at least 10,000 of which appear to be ailing. The infection of the cranes is the same strain of avian flu which infected chicken coops throughout northern Israel, and led to the cull in recent days of nearly 1 million birds.

Israelis will be without their beloved chicken schnitzel—and without eggs—until a supply chain of imported birds is established.

[LFC]

I went offshore yesterday and got this shot of a young Bonaparte's Gull, one of the smallest gulls we have here in North America.

[AnBr]

[LFC]

They're learning more about how birds navigate.

Birds navigate in many ways, among them sight, smell, and even the stars. Perhaps most remarkably, they seem endowed with some kind of biological compass that helps them follow Earth’s magnetic field — an invisible field produced by the planet’s rotation and liquid-metal core.

The mysteries of magnetic perception in birds have intrigued scientists for decades. Now we have some fresh clues into this astonishing ability. A new study in the journal Science suggests that Eurasian reed warblers — and likely other migratory songbirds — sense a specific aspect of Earth’s magnetic field, called the angle of inclination, to know where to roost on their journey north. It functions as a kind of magnetic address or “stop sign,” the researchers write, that tells the birds when they’ve arrived.

[pnwguy]

Jan 3, 2022 0:50:01 GMT AnBr said:

"Now where did I drop my cigar..."

[LFC]

Feb 1, 2022 0:57:32 GMT pnwguy said:

Jan 3, 2022 0:50:01 GMT AnBr said:

"Now where did I drop my cigar..."

"To all the rodents about to die, I sal-hoot you."

[AnBr]

[LFC]

Reminds me of this Crowned Woodnymph photo I took in Honduras.

[AnBr]

The one I posted was IDed as a Glittering Starfrontlet.

[AnBr]

[LFC]

Saw-whet Owl coughing up a pellet. The pellet consists of the indigestible fur, feathers, and bones of its prey. This species is only about 7"-8" long full grown and is one of my wife's favorites.

[LFC]

You wait and you wait and you wait and you wait until finally the damn bird takes off. Osprey taken at Forsythe NWR, NJ.

[AnBr]

Ten Fascinating Facts About Hummingbirds

[AnBr]

[LFC]

Eastern Screech-Owl, reddish morph. They nest around my house and we hear them on a fairly regular basis if we're out in the evening. They also come in gray and brown morphs. There doesn't seem to be any color preference when they pair up.

[LFC]

[Bact PhD]

I intended to post this the other day:

www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2022/03/07/one-million-yellow-cardinals-nesting-gainesville-near-uf/9411370002/

Wildlife watchers have a chance to spot one of the rarest birds along the country's east coast in a wooded area at the University of Florida.

Experts say Gainesville's newest feathered friend is a one-in-a-million picturesque yellow cardinal.

While there are an estimated 15 million red cardinals across the eastern U.S., making it one of the most common birds in the wild, there are just 10 to 15 yellow cardinals flying around the region.

EDIT: I’ll try and copy the pic via the laptop. It’s stunning.

[AnBr]

[Bact PhD]

Thanks!

[LFC]

[LFC]

Due to major reno project aftermath and other obligations we have not been able to get outside as often as we'd like, as in hardly at all. Yesterday we hit the coast of South Jersey for some birding. This beautiful creature is a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron.