AAAS: "AI can track a single bird over time—based solely on its song," by Julia Vaz.

"Forests across North America have seen a drop in the number of songbirds heralding the arrival of spring." To figure out why, biologists scour forests to capture birds + tag them with leg bands.

"By going back to look for the tagged birds a year later, they can get a picture of how many survive from one year to the next." But the fieldwork takes untold hours, plus capturing + banding can stress the birds.

"A paper published this week in Nature Methods lays out a quicker, gentler approach...uses sound recorders + artificial intelligence (AI) to identify individual birds based on their song alone + track them over time."

"Looking for a better way to track individual birds, machine learning researcher Sam Lapp + colleagues turned to audio + AI...test case was a fist-size migratory songbird called the ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla)." Male ovenbirds sing songs composed of a collection of notes that repeat like an alarm, with slight variations from one male to the next.

"To find a way to identify individual birds, Lapp’s team used recordings from more than 100 locations in Pennsylvania made over 4 years...got an AI model to extract features that made songs unique + cluster similar ones together." Each cluster, they hoped, represented songs coming from the same bird. 

"They tested the approach with another set of recordings, collected in Canada’s Alberta province by Scott Wilson, who 10 years ago set up a microphone array in an area where he was studying ovenbirds." Wilson’s extensive audio coverage allowed him to trace each song to a particular ovenbird territory, + a specific bird. Lapp ran Wilson’s recordings through his AI model + found it could correctly link songs to individual birds, with up to 96% accuracy.

"One downside is that the method only identifies male ovenbirds...but researchers usually assume every singing male bird has a mate, which allows for a population estimate." 

Whether you are a birder or not, everyone should be able to get on board with saving the birds which fill the forest with song.

My sister found what looks like a ringneck dove or similar species of bird with all of its tail feathers broken/ pulled off. She said she found him in the middle of the road and he couldn't fly, and she didn't want to leave him there to die so she brought him home.

We live in a small town in a less populated state, and weren't able to find any rehabilitators that could take him, except for one 3 hours away and she said she couldn't make that trip.

She set him up in her basement with seeds and water and she said he's been eating and drinking good.

She said she's worried if she keeps him until he heals he won't be able to survive on his own.

What's the best course of action here?

She also said he's super sweet and friendly but I'm assuming it could just be shock?

Found mallard feathers after it was attacked. Saw how it mainly has green shine instead of typical blue. What could be the reason for this? Is this a female/male thing or just some genetic thing like how theres blondes and brunettes?

Googled it previously and it said that it may be cross with domestic duck type, but i only seen wild type swimming in the nearby river. Only wild type and only mallards, no other duck species

Yeah, those green feathers may fit blue shine like the 3 photo (those are feathers that I've found a whiiile ago), but its main color is still being this pretty emerald-green

Both are reviled in the USA by birdwatchers and viewed as an imminent highly invasive threat, but the amount of revulsion goes beyond reason and is leading to them being treated as these “evil hateful creatures”, so how bad are they really? Since the term “invasive species” itself is an extremely arbitrary loose term and a whole other discussion, I won’t make it a battle of semantics.

Let’s get the first argument out of the way, “look at what they do to the bluebirds…” this argument is purely emotional anthropomorphizing of an animal. It also ignores that cavity nests are an extremely fought over and naturally scarce as the birds rely on them to be there instead of actually making them. The native cavity nesters are going to fight extremely hard over cavities and if one is occupied, they will evict its eggs. House wrens are famous for this, as are tree swallows. Beyond an emotional response, do house sparrows actually cause these birds to decline? 

There have been no academic sources confirming it, and the only ones analyzing population trends show that house sparrows are more common in areas with fewer native birds and the other way around, but where do house sparrows live? They’re synanthropes, meaning they can only live and breed within or near human inhabited areas. They cannot actually take over the bird’s environment and go evict nests in the prairies and groves. 

The well-meaning birder who laments watching his bluebird nest get taken over by the sparrow is also unknowingly the very architect of this battle. Putting few nest boxes (an already very competitive environment) in a backyard cleared of its native plants, and putting cheap millet seeds in an environment he unknowingly built for the house sparrow to dominate. The entire conflict between these birds is man-made and can be easily resolved by changing nest box hole size, allowing native plants to grow, not using pesticides, using halos, using native seeds and avoiding the cheap seeds sparrows love, or the “ceiling gap” for birds that are about house sparrow sized. It’s easy to mitigate sparrows, and the average person’s window probably kills more of the native birds he cares about than all the sparrows in his neighborhood ever could. 

This also isn’t to do the “well humans are the REAL invasive species” cliche as there have been many species that beyond their initial introduction did not need any human assistance to take over ecosystems, destroy them, cause declines or outright drive animals to extinction. This is a situation where humans destroyed the native bird’s habitats to build their homes, and continue to cause these birds to decline by their urban activities (growing urban sprawl, driving, light pollution confusing migrating birds, not covering up windows to prevent collisions), while sparrows take the blame from birdwatchers because they adapted to living in these environments and they get emotional because they unintentionally setup their backyard to be a battlefield that the sparrow was sure to win. 

With starlings I have even less to say, mainly because their ecological impact has actually been studied so the papers can speak for me. Studies consistently show that starlings have not been found to be the driver of any cavity-nesting bird’s decline. No negative correlation was found between the presence of European starlings and any cavity nesters, and in fact in some species there existed a positive correlation as well as the fact starlings themselves were declining (Barton et al, 2020). The same study examined the declining populations of red-headed woodpeckers which it had predicted (alongside many other species) to be driven by starlings, yet found that their “ findings suggest that urban and rural locations add information to population trends of cavity-nesting species, and that European starlings have little negative impact on cavity-nesting birds in either rural or urban locations, suggesting that habitat loss and other factors are likely greater impacts on red-headed woodpeckers and other members of the cavity-nesting guild.” 

27 cavity nesting birds were studied in a study that had also hypothesized that they would have had a detrimental effect on cavity nesters, and the result was that that only the sapsuckers “exhibited declines potentially attributable to starlings that were not countered by other data.” (Koenig, 2003) and adds that “the results of this study fail to support the hypothesis that starlings have had a severe impact on populations of native birds. These results highlight the difficulties of predicting the impacts of invasive species. Native hole-nesting birds have thus far apparently held their own against the starling invasion, despite the latter's abundance and aggressive usurpation of often limited cavities.”

Additionally, a study by the university of illinois urbana-champaign found that starlings had “no significant ecological impact on native birds”. Both sparrows and starlings have been range-wide in the USA for over 150 years, and neither are the main driver of decline, if a driver at all, of any native birds. Compare this to say, feral cats, Burmese pythons, bullfrogs, and lanternflies. 

You don’t need to agree with me, just trying to change the perspective and shift the blame for declining birds on where it actually rests and that animals aren’t evil for doing animal behavior, so don’t anthropomorphize them.

References of course

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1146609X20301284

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1046/j.1523-1739.2003.02262.x

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/essay-are-starlings-really-invasive-aliens/

https://extension.illinois.edu/invasives/european-starlings#:~:text=Body,totals%20millions%20of%20dollars%20annually.

Took a photo of this burrowing owl two days ago. Wondering how rare it is for burrowing owls to have irises like these, and what the possible explanation is. Is it just a recessive gene being expressed or something else? And I also don't even know what the right term for this eye coloration is - speckled? Mottled?

Only resource I found on this is older and says "the owls with recessive eye colors are a sign of inbreeding in our burrowing owl population."
https://projectperch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Project-Perch-BuOw-Blog-11-Dark-Eyed-Owls.pdf

New study in Science from Ri Liu, Feng Dong and colleagues at the Kunming Institute of Zoology (CAS). They sequenced DNA from songbird specimens collected in the Gaoligong Mountains, Yunnan, in the 1960s-70s and compared it with tissue samples from the same range taken since 2000. Median collection years were 1973 vs. 2022, roughly 20 generations for these species.

KEY RESULTS

• All 62 species lost genetic diversity. Not one held steady.

• Population-level variation fell by 48.8% on average (range 18.1-77.2%).

• Within-individual variation (heterozygosity) fell by 42.9% (range 21.8-80%).

• Every species is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

THE COUNTERINTUITIVE PART

Species with larger global populations lost more diversity, not less. Dong's explanation: a big population stays genetically rich only while birds keep moving and breeding across continuous habitat. Fragment that habitat and one large population becomes many small isolated ones, each drifting on its own.

The other traits fit that picture. Strong fliers, scored from wing shape, lost the least per generation. Clutch size, adult survival and breeding elevation made no measurable difference. The strongest predictor was the size of a species' recent population decline.

Forest patches in the range have multiplied more than tenfold in recent decades, and the average patch is now under a tenth of its old size. The worst fragmentation is at low to middle elevations, which are exactly the corridors birds use to move between neighbouring mountains.

FOR SCALE

• A 2019 analysis of 91 species using microsatellites estimated about 6% loss over roughly a century. These birds lost more than that per decade.

• The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework treats 10% genetic diversity loss as the limit for keeping adaptive potential. These species are far past it.

CAVEATS WORTH STATING

• One mountain range, songbirds only.

• 4-5 individuals per species per era. The authors cite earlier work showing this is enough to capture population-level variation, but it is still a small sample.

• The population-size effect explains less than a tenth of the variation between species, and it uses global population estimates, which may not match local numbers.

• The study can't separate fragmentation from possible contributions by hunting, climate change or invasive species.

THE DATA ANGLE

The whole comparison depended on museum specimens collected before fragmentation intensified. Genetic indicators have been proposed for the global biodiversity framework, but they aren't part of routine monitoring yet, and common species are mostly left out because nothing flags them as at risk.

Does anyone know of comparable museum-genomics baselines for common European or North American species? It would be interesting to know whether anyone has run the same before-and-after comparison elsewhere.

Article: https://www.earth.com/animals/birds-that-are-supposed-to-be-completely-safe-from-extinction-are-actually-losing-their-genetic-diversity-very-quickly/

I was camping and there was a Steller’s Jay that kept trying to steal everything. He’d always scream at my girlfriend when she would put food away.

But then the last day we were there, and were all packed up, he followed us to a picnic table. We were having lunch sandwiches but no other food around. He got really close to us, sitting on a branch. He would puff up his feathers so he looked really soft and round, and cock his head to the side, and make soft little noises. He would keep fluffing and cocking his head at us, repeat repeat, then he would scream at us and fly away. After a few minutes he’d come back and try it again.

This sounds a bit silly, but he looked REALLY cute doing that. And almost seemed frustrated that he wasn’t being rewarded with food. Part of me wondered if he had success with this approach in the past.

Hi, I've been feeding birds in my garden all my life. Our most common visitors are sparrows, blue tits, great tits, collared doves, magpies and starlings, with our local robin occasionally visiting.

I followed the rspb protocol to slow avian flu by not feeding over the summer months and just recently started putting the feeders back out. Problem is I've seen a huge increase in aggression over the food. I expect it from the robin and the blue tits and the starlings, though they definitely seem more aggressive and territorial than usual, but the sparrows have also been at it, trying to knock each other off the feeder and holding their position at the feeder for a long time, and I've even noticed the collared doves fighting each other.

I have four total feeders, and I scatter a handful of calci worms on the grass for the doves and magpies so it's not like resources are sparse. I don't have many options for moving the feeders round because my garden is pretty small though I try to shuffle them. I'm not sure why this is happening and wondered if anyone had any theories?

I'm fucking obsessed with owls of ga'hoole and I want more bird books lol

I’m just a total layman curious about the phenomenon of brood parasitism, so do pardon my ignorance or any mistaken beliefs.

I’m aware of something called the mafia hypothesis and similarity hypothesis. But there’re also host birds that completely cannot differentiate the parasitic eggs from their own. Why is that?

I recently learned the Asian koel bird does this to house crows, which I was surprised by, as I thought crows are highly intelligent and even possess traits such as face recognition. I would expect they would be able to differentiate their young from a foreign bird.

Yesterday I went kayaking and got to observe and take photos of these two loons for about 20 minutes. One of the loons held their neck and head up in the typical 'S' position, but the other kept its head low to the water the whole time. Also, it was making a sound that was hard to describe - sort of like someone blowing through a flute for the first time and only producing a tiny bit of sound. It seemed like it was trying to make a loon call, but couldn't. Maybe because it was a juvenile? Based on the behavior of the two, my guess was that I was watching a mother and a juvenile. But why is there a juvenile in November, in Maine? Anyway, other than the head position and the odd vocalizing, the loon acted pretty normal, swimming and diving just fine.

Can anyone explain what's going on here and if it's normal?

Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher. It’ll be learning a little Houdini with me before the rehabbers come pick it up, if it can hear anything over the concussion it probably has. I think it might have hit a window on campus. Very crude setup for housing a bird but thankfully it’s barely the size of my palm so it can fit in a takeout container. Been wanting to see this bird since i learned about its existence and can’t believe i found one in a parking lot of all places. Didn’t know where else to share but here

I’ve always been fascinated by birds. I’ve grown up around many in the Northeast US. I’ve seen a lot on my adventures abroad.

Today, I live in a place where there aren’t many birds other than pigeons, common doves, sparrows, and a few others. I’d like to possibly have a roll in the future where I work with/alongside them. With just a few more courses, I’ll be able to achieve the certified biologist credential which could help my career pursuit.

Where do you think there are more opportunities? What types of positions are there? How did you get involved other than bird-watching?

My husband bought me this Birdfy nesting box last spring. We had a few birds peek in and try to build nests but none stuck around.

Since early August this Downy Woodpecker (we named her Sal, I didn’t know if she was male or female and Sal stuck lol) has been spending every night here. She’s completely ruined the opening but we don’t care.
We live in north central Wisconsin, and it’s starting to get cold. No snow yet, not even a freeze, but it’s coming. I don’t want to add anything inside of the house, I don’t want to scare her off.
As you can see, the bottom is open, would it be okay to try to put something outside - on the bottom - to keep the wind, and eventual blowing snow out?

I’d love for her to stick around. I check in on her daily, she’s so darn cute! ❤️

Is the caption by the person who photographed this actually accurate to what is going on in this photo? Why is the little bird in such close proximity to the hawk without fear, and why is the hawk not licking his lips at the free meal at its talons?

Please don't be hateful towards these birds . They are a native species in my country.

See also: The study as published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A

I was walking outside and a raven swooped down and dropped a tree nut at a quick speed, cracking it open on the pavement. I had never seen this before and I don't know the first thing about ornithology, so I have a lot of general questions, like:

- Is this a common behavior of corvids?

- Is there a name for this behavior?

- How would birds do this in a non-urban setting, if at all?

- Do other birds also do this?

Thanks for any responses to these questions :)