I heard them before I was certain that I had seen the signature red wing. Numerous Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) have taken up the west side of the Shedd Aquarium and surrounding gardens as their nesting territory. I did not expect to find them in such an urban habitat, but apparently the coast of Lake Michigan is just marshy enough. And I should have known to look for them. Red-winged Blackbirds of Chicago made news last summer, bad news.
This guy served as sentry for the nests (pluralized since they are polygynous) in the hedge below. I watched him attack Seagulls whose flight path was cutting too close to the his genetic investment. 13 June 2009
On 27 May 2009, a White-eared Bulbul (Pyconotus leucotis) hatched. Boris and Bulbulicious are now proud (and very defensive) parents.
Fledge date: 7 June 2009
While I usually save the crushed eggshells for my birds, I decided to share some with the garden, a few weeks ago, having already invested some long hours in the sun into what I hope will blossom into an attractive hedge. About a week later, while watering the plants and glossing over the pigmented shards of chicken eggshells scattered about, I suddenly became aware that one of those shell fragments was not like the others.
16 May 2009, an avian contribution to the garden
The bluish tint and the dimensions lead me to believe that it is Starling’s egg. Indeed, Starlings abound at the new homestead.
And what better day than Bird Day to resurrect this blog?
Well, it has been a while. I moved. This was not like the time when FinchWench migrated from LiveJournal to WordPress. This time, it was more like I took up all of my precious sticks and twigs and shiny objects and moved them to a new nest box. It has been exhausting, because the new nest box is not new at all and requires a lot of remodeling and reconstruction (and I had accumulated rather too many shiny-to-me objects; some call it “hoarding,” but I prefer to think of it as Bower Bird Syndrome).
On the upside, there is a yard, so the birds now come to me.
27 February 2009, in my backyard or at least on the property line
“Unobtrusive, quiet and retiring, without being shy, humble and homely in its deportment and habits, sober and unpretending in its dress, while still neat and graceful, the dunnock exhibits a pattern which many of a higher grade might imitate, with advantage to themselves and benefit to others through an improved example.”
Apparently, the sexual escapades and tensions of some* of the Dunnocks were carried out in the hedges unbeknownst to Rev. F.O. Morris. For the breeding season of some of the beloved songbirds, which he so touted as the avian role model for his parishioners, is a frenzy of mating conflicts, infidelity, pursuit and revenge against forbidden lovers, paternity tests, and other such affairs that should not fill the days of the lives of ecclesiastical Christians.
‘Tis the season for just that. After the uncharacteristically heavy rains in San Diego, the insectivorous birds have a feast. I spotted a Yellow Rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata) just outside of the laboratory. I had seen them before on campus but was never so fortunate to capture a photograph. This was the first time for me to see one loitering in the courtyard of the engineering building.
A retired Berlin man was found to be sharing his one-bedroom flat with at least 1500 roommates: Budgerigars. That is an order of magnitude too many, even by my standards. Local veterinary services made the discovery when responding to complaints by neighbours about noise and odor.
Veterinary service workers spent seven hours netting up the budgies. And there was not sufficient vacancy for them in local shelters, so some of the birds were transported to shelters in neighbouring towns even.Lenta.ru
Remarkably, the birds appear to be healthy for the most part, and obviously, they were breeding quite successfully. It was mentioned in at least one press releaseLenta.ru that the veterinarian, Margrit Platzer, had not observed evidence of disease, except that they suffered from parasites. I think that ectoparasite infestation (i.e. by mites) was implied. Because of the litter, the flat was deemed uninhabitable even for humans,AFP and the now displaced elder Budgie enthusiast could face charges of endangering the life of animals.Lenta.ru
According to Wolfgang Apel, president of German Protection of Animals Alliance (Deutscher Tierschutzbund), such cases have been on the rise recently, and he added that in the past week alone, 160 animals had been rescued from private residences in boroughs of Berlin.Spiegel. The pensioner initially purchased the birds allegedly “because he felt lonely,AFP” but I would think that a handful of those noisy and talkative little parrots is already more than sufficient to quench loneliness in the flat.
According to the photographer, this boy was one charged with steering a flock of sheep in a narrow, green pasture alongside a road between the Kokjar and Tolok villages in Naryn Oblast of Kyrgyzstan. When beckoned for a photograph, he seemed “happy to oblige” but took a curiously long time in making his way over. Not until looking through the lens did Campbell notice the secondary prize in his primary subject’s grasp. After the photo was snapped, the young shepherd released his feathered captive, and ran over to approve the image. Campbell reports of the boy’s verdict that “he loved” it.
So do I. Thanks to Martin Campbell for sharing the photo and the narrative.
They played with appearances and got lost in the convergent evolution game. Fleischer et al. have proposed a new family for the Hawai’ian birds long believed, since the time of Captain James Cook’s last voyage, to be Australasian Honeyeaters (Meliphagidae). From museum specimens collected more than a century ago, researchers at the Smithsonian Institute sampled DNA of the five nectarivorous songbirds, formerly endemic to Hawaiʻi, but now extinct, and report that they are not Honeyeaters at all!
Last week, Allan Mueller, manager of avian conservation at the Nature Conservancy in Arkansas, initiated a search effort with teams of volunteers and expert field biologists in order to verify the existence of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) in the Big Woods. Mueller reported last year spotting the bird assessed to be extinct in 1994. A generous reward of $50,000 has been promised by an anonymous donor to anyone who leads the team to living proof.
The search team is armed with surveillance cameras and audio technology to ease acquisition of undeniable photographic evidence:
The video of the Kestrel feeding ceremony included in a previous post provoked criticism from master falconers. Apparently, the consensus is that the “dancing” as seen in that video is more like the dancing at a club in Cancún or any Spring Break destination: a blatant copulation attempt. And this, they claim, is evidence of malimprinting.
In order to assuage concerns about survival of that Kestrel, I asked one of the volunteers (she is the one who can be heard offering forewarnings and directives in the video) of his status. As it turns out, Kip had refused to be hacked off and returned to the facility, but most of the others of his mews moved on.
The master falconers were mostly disapproving of the direct contact made with the raptors, and I think that there is merit in their criticisms. There are more optimal hacking protocols for raptor reintroduction, and maybe wildlife care centers could benefit from collaboration with falconers. However, I had the impression that the criticism from members of the falconry community was systematic in that they (independently) expressed disapproval of wildlife rehabilitators and their education programs, in general. For the record, Louise Shimmel, founder of Cascades Raptor Center, in her chapter written for Hand-Rearing Birds, recommends the use of “feeding puppets, ghost costumes, [and] feeding through a chute or slot” for feeding and handling of raptors if re-nesting and fostering by a conspecific adult is not possible. So there is at least one raptor rehabilitator, a former president of International Wildlife Rehabilitation Council (IWRC), who likely meets the falconers’ standards for handling.
Kip’s behavior and my reception should not be advertised as conventional protocol for Kestrel-rehabiliator interaction, but it does not occur often there. Rogers Wildlife accommodates thousands of birds in a year, and they are proud to publish their release rates. Besides, considering all that the volunteers of Rogers Wildlife do, I would not condemn them for an occasional imprinted Kestrel whose quality of life is quite good.
The Pied Raven (Corvus corax varius morpha leucophæus) was endemic to Faroe Islands (Hvítravnur is Færoese for “White Raven”) and is now believed to be extinct.
As recounted by Robert Gray in his The Birds of the West of Scotland, including the Outer Hebrides, William MacGillivray, 19th century Scottish ornithologist, encountered a Pied Raven on the island of Harris of Outer Hebrides, and described it as a distinct species, Corvus leucophæus.* As quoted in Charles Darwin’s Natural Selection, MacGillivray’s observation that the bill of the Pied Raven compared to other Ravens “is much larger being not only higher at the base, but more elongated,& in form more attenuated at the end.” It is not specified in the text whether or not MacGillivray was comparing the Pied Raven to the nominate subspecies or to other specimens of C. c. varius found on Iceland and Faroe Islands. The individual encountered by MacGillvray on the Ourter Hebrides was an estranged wanderer, who being not well-received as far from Faroese territory, was a “neglected & persecuted stranger.”
And a contemporary comparison is detectable in the pardons of President George W. Bush. He seems to favor the Turkeys over Bald Eagles this Fall. Among his final acts in the executive seat, he has salvaged “Pumpkin” and “Pecan” and pardoned Leslie Owen Collier, the farmer from Charleston, Missouri, who pled guilty to poisoning three Bald Eagles (although it was not his intention to kill any birds, a Red-tailed Hawk and a Great Horned Owl were also included in his Furadan massacre).
While of Kestrel feathers I know (well, really practical things like tensile strength of primaries), peculiarities of Kestrel behaviour I could not have known.
As a “guest volunteer” at Rogers Wildlife, I had the opportunity to feed Kestrels (Falco sparverius). One greeted me ceremoniously by dancing upon my head before I could make it through the entrance even. The reward for such a display is a portion of beef heart.
Of the progeny (male and female), 50% are expected to be split for Penguin. The single male of the progeny is assumed to be Black Cheek/Lightback (whether or not he is also for Fawn or Penguin or both must be verified by test breeding).
While I do not know the details of hierarchy at Iraqi prisons, I suspect that for cheerleaders, the dominant (or rather prominent?) member of the team is often at the crest of the pyramid. However, for captive Bronze-winged Mannikins (Lonchura cucullata) studied by Calf et al., this is not the case. Researchers reported that the dominant flock members occupied the central locations, of the “Bronze-wing Huddle” more often than other members of the flock. The occupants of central locations in the linear huddle and central base locations in the pyramid likely enjoy thermoregulatory benefits during nocturnal roosting. The most subordinate members (deemed so by their eagerness to leave the feeder when any other, and therefore more dominant, member alighted) of the flock tended to occupy the termini in linear aggregations. Researchers also mentioned that in four of six flocks studied, the most massive individuals were the most dominant. If my suspicion about cheerleader hierarchy is true, such a correlation between social dominance and mass as observed for Bronze-winged Mannikins would be unfortunate if also applicable to cheerleaders.
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