Feature Channels: Birds

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A new study from scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology examines public attitudes toward non-native bird species and whether people are willing to manage them to protect native cavity-nesting birds, such as Eastern Bluebirds and the American Kestrel. The findings are published in the Journal of Environmental Management.

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Scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Colorado State University used observations from the Lab’s eBird citizen-science program to estimate the seasonal species richness of nocturnally migrating passerines within 333 well surveyed urban areas in the contiguous U.S. “Richness” is defined as the number of different species in an area.

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There's been a huge bump in the number of people connecting with birds and nature as people stuck close to home during this past year, and the trend is continuing. The perfect gift for new—and veteran—birdwatchers is the gift of knowledge. There's so much to learn about birds! Below are holiday gift ideas that are meaningful and environmentally friendly—and your purchase supports the nonprofit conservation work at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

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U.S. pollution regulations meant to protect humans from dirty air are also saving birds. So concludes a new continentwide study published today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Study authors found that improved air quality under a federal program to reduce ozone pollution may have averted the loss of 1.5 billion birds during the past 40 years.

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Biodiversity Research Institute announced that a series of scientific studies that assessed the impact of mercury on air, water, fish, and wildlife in New York State was published in the journal Ecotoxicology, an international journal devoted to presenting critical research on the effects of toxic chemicals on people and the environment.

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Animals that migrate "live fast and die young", new research shows.

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If you’ve ever seen a seagull snatch some fries or felt their beady eyes on your sandwich in the park, you'd be right to suspect they know exactly when to strike to increase their chances of getting a human snack. A new study by the University of Bristol is the most in-depth look to date at the foraging behaviours of urban gulls and how they’ve adapted to patterns of human activity in a city.

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Before the journey, many birds molt their bright feathers, replacing them with a more subdued palette. Watching this molt led scientists to wonder how feather color changes relate to the migrations many birds undertake twice each year.

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A study of the relationships between cognition and the gut microbiome of captive zebra finches showed that their gut microbiome characteristics were related to performance on a cognitive assay where they learned a novel foraging technique. Researchers also identified potentially critical bacteria that were relatively more abundant in birds that performed better on this assay. This correlation provides some of the first evidence of a relationship between a bird's gut microbiome and its brain.

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A research team from Osaka University has developed an innovative new animal-borne data-collection system that, guided by artificial intelligence (AI), has led to the witnessing of previously unreported foraging behaviors in seabirds.

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Fossils recovered from Antarctica in the 1980s represent the oldest giant members of an extinct group of birds that patrolled the southern oceans with wingspans of up to 21 feet that would dwarf the 11½-foot wingspan of today's largest bird, the wandering albatross.

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A new study from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology confirms that most birds—but not all—synchronize their migratory movements with seasonal changes in vegetation greenness. This is the first study of its kind to cover the Western Hemisphere during the year-long life cycle of North American migratory birds that feed on vegetation, seeds, nectar, insects, or meat.

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A new study by Australian scientists is the first to find a relationship between plastic debris ingested by seabirds and liver concentrations of mineral metals, with potential links to pollution and nutrition.

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Scientists from the University of Bristol and the Royal Veterinary College have discovered how birds are able to fly in gusty conditions – findings that could inform the development of bio-inspired small-scale aircraft.

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Mammals and birds today are warm-blooded, and this is often taken as the reason for their great success.

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Fifteen papers have recently been published in a special issue of the journal Ecotoxicology. Findings: at least 58 songbird species show demonstrated effects from mercury. The journal’s October 2020 issue presents results of field, laboratory, and museum studies—from Alaska to Maine to Puerto Rico.

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Researchers have developed a new metric called the stopover-to-passage ratio that can help determine if a majority of birds are flying over a particular site or stopping at the site to refuel or rest. This can have important implications for what is done on the ground to help migratory birds.

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Surviving on a warming planet can be a matter of timing—but simply shifting lifecycle stages to match the tempo of climate change has hidden dangers for some animals, according to new research from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour and Cornell University.

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Cornell University ecologists Aaron Rice and Amanda Rodewald are part of a cross-disciplinary effort to understand how human impacts and activities affect animals – from small birds to the largest whales – and the ecosystems we all share.

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Day and night, across the country right now, a river of migrating birds is flowing overhead. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology holds its Migration Celebration to take note of this remarkable natural phenomenon. This year, Migration Celebration is taking place virtually with two weeks of special online events, including articles, activities, and live events.

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Many of the characteristics related to auditory attention in birds match those of humans, according to a study from the University at Buffalo. The findings published in the journal PLOS ONE provide novel insights into evolutionary survival mechanisms, and are the first to behaviorally measure the cognitive process responsible for a non-human animal’s ability to segregate and respond to meaningful targets heard in simultaneous sound streams.

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Using the Wood Stork, researchers compared city storks with natural wetland storks to gauge their success in urban environments based on their diet and food opportunities. Results provide evidence of how a wetland species persists and even thrives in an urban environment by switching to human foods like chicken wings and hots dogs when natural marshes are in bad shape. These findings indicate that urban areas can buffer a species from the unpredictability of natural food sources.

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How do different bird species respond to extreme weather events that occur for different amounts of time, ranging from weekly events like heat waves to seasonal events like drought? And how do traits unique to different species — for example, how far they migrate or how commonly they occur — predict their vulnerability to extreme weather?

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In uncertain times, it makes sense to manage risk in your endeavors — whether it’s investing in money-making opportunities or deciding where to lay your eggs. Brood parasites are birds that are known to lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. Cowbirds and cuckoos are among the most famous examples of this group.

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Plastic waste in the ocean is an increasing problem for wildlife, including seabirds who frequently mistake it for food.

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From emus to woodpeckers, modern birds show remarkable diversity in skull shape and size, often hypothesized to be the result of a sudden hastening of evolution following the mass extinction that killed their non-avian dinosaur cousins at the end of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago.

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New research using the most comprehensive study of feathered dinosaurs and early birds has revised the evolutionary relationships of dinosaurs at the origin of birds.

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Bird and reptile tears aren't so unlike our own, shows a new study in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

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A half-century of controversy over two popular bird species may have finally come to an end. In one corner: the Bullock's Oriole, found in the western half of North America. In the other corner: the Baltimore Oriole, breeding in the eastern half. Where their ranges meet in the Great Plains, the two mix freely and produce apparently healthy hybrid offspring. But according to scientists from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, hybridization is a dead end and both parent species will remain separate.

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Plucky, beautiful and declining in numbers at about a 2% annual rate, the rufous hummingbird makes its long annual migration in different timing and route patterns based the birds' age and sex, new research by Oregon State University shows.

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New research has revealed when it comes to flying the largest of birds don't rely on flapping to move around. Instead they make use of air currents to keep them airborne for hours at a time.

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A new study from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology highlights specific features of urban green spaces that support the greatest diversity of bird species. The findings were published today in the journal Landscape and Urban Planning. The study focuses specifically on parks in New York City. It uses observations submitted to the eBird citizen-science database from 2002 through 2019 to estimate the variety of species found on an annual and seasonal basis. Bottom line: the more green space available, the greater the diversity of birds. Models show that Increasing the area of green space by 50% would result in an 11.5% increase in annual and an 8.2% increase in seasonal species diversity.

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Antarctica is considered one of the Earth's largest, most pristine remaining wildernesses. Yet since its formal discovery 200 years ago, the continent has seen accelerating and potentially impactful human activity.

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Antarctica is considered one of the Earth's largest, most pristine remaining wildernesses. Yet since its formal discovery 200 years ago, the continent has seen accelerating and potentially impactful human activity.

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Biodiversity Research Institute announces the successful results of its long-term loon translocation and restoration project Restore the Call: A male loon chick that was translocated in 2015 from New York to Massachusetts returned in 2018 to the region from which it fledged, and now has formed a territorial pair, nested, and successfully hatched a chick in Fall River, Massachusetts.

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Ornithologists at the University of Utah say that community science bird data shows different trends in bird populations than professional bird surveys do, especially in developing countries. More observations are needed, the researchers say, both by birders and professionals.

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In the Adirondacks, the black spruce, tamarack, and other boreal species are being overcome by trees normally found in warmer, more temperate forests. These invaders could overtake a variety of northern species, eliminating trees that have long been characteristic of Adirondack wetlands.

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Forest conservation areas in oil palm plantations play a vital role in storing carbon and boosting rainforest biodiversity, a new study on palm oil agriculture in Borneo has revealed.

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A new study in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, published by Oxford University Press, suggests that wildfires change the types of songs sung by birds living in nearby forests.

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Studying bird feathers at the Advanced Photon Source has given scientists a picture of the mechanism that holds those feathers together when birds fly.

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The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has been awarded $1.3 million from DOE's Solar Energy Technologies Office to develop technology that can cost-effectively monitor avian interactions with solar energy infrastructure.

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Bird wings adapted for long-distance flight are linked to their environment and behaviour, according to new research on an extensive database of wing measurements, led by the University of Bristol.

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Birdwatchers set a new world record on May 9 for birds documented in a single day. During the annual Global Big Day, participants reported a record-breaking 2.1 million bird observations, recording 6,479 species. An all-time high of 50,000 participants submitted more than 120,000 checklists, shattering the previous single-day checklist total by 30%.

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Oyster farming as currently practiced along the Delaware Bayshore does not significantly impact four shorebirds, including the federally threatened red knot, which migrates thousands of miles from Chile annually, according to a Rutgers-led study. The findings, published in the journal Ecosphere, likely apply to other areas around the country including the West Coast and Gulf Coast, where oyster aquaculture is expanding, according to Rutgers experts who say the study can play a key role in identifying and resolving potential conflict between the oyster aquaculture industry and red knot conservation groups.

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Migratory birds are now flooding across the continent, as they return to their nesting grounds this spring. World Migratory Bird Day is on May 9, 2020, as people around the globe welcome birds back—and lend them a helping hand.

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The biggest window of opportunity is opening up now to protect birds returning to the United States and Canada on their spring migrations. Analyses by scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Colorado State University pinpoint key periods with the heaviest movements of birds in April and May. Turning off or reducing non-essential lighting at homes, businesses, and high-rise buildings will help protect hundreds of millions of birds migrating over brightly lit cities.