Black-Capped or Carolina Chickadee?

Bird Feeder

“Those are Black Capped Chickadees,” declared the man next to us. Yes, I thought, COSI is north of Interstate 70 but, if that chickadee flies a quarter of a mile south, across the highway, people at the Grange Audubon Center would identify that very same bird as a Carolina Chickadee! Why? Location, location, location, it’s all about location. Melanie Shuter had shared this chickadee I.D. tip with me just weeks earlier. Since then I have been learning all I can about the whimsical little chickadee.

Location, location, location

Cooper's Hawk Vs. Squirrel At The Bird Feeder

Bird Feeder

When a pair of the squirrels scooted up a nearby tree, things got testy, in an adversarial kind of way. Perched on a thin limb that gave it a great vantage point to observe the goings-on at the feeder was a meat-eater, a predator, a Cooper's hawk.

Backyard standoff ends in peaceful parting

Help Build A Bird Database

Bird Feeder

Help to build the bird database by clicking through the images:

"We'll show you a photo of a bird and ask a series of questions. You'll sharpen your observation skills. And, your answers will train Merlin to identify birds in photos! "

Help build Merlin

Black-capped Petrel Chick Photo

Bird Feeder

"Scientists working in Haiti have obtained the first-ever photos of an endangered Black-capped Petrel chick—a little ball of gray fluff that was discovered at its nest inside a mountaintop cave. The finding helps answer questions about this secretive species’ life cycle."

Chick photos renew hope for endangered Caribbean seabird

2012 Great Backyard Bird Count

Bird Feeder

"Anyone can participate in this free event and no registration is needed. Watch and count birds for at least 15 minutes on any day of the count, February 17-20, 2012. Enter your results at www.birdcount.org, where you can watch as the tallies grow across the continent. The four-day count typically records more than 10 million observations."

Great Backyard Bird Count Perfect for New Birders

Birds And Biodiversity

Bird Feeder

This inspiring footage of birds and wildlife celebrates the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's long-standing tradition of documenting and sharing information about the natural world. Thanks to you, that tradition continues. We hope you'll keep watching, listening, and exploring with us to improve the understanding and protection of birds and biodiversity.

Explore the World of Birds and Biodiversity

The Spread Of House Finches

Bird Feeder

That reddish finch at your feeders is an amazing bird, capable of great feats of resilience in the face of some very hard times. Consider its recent history: Its ancestors were netted for years along the West Coast and sold, illegally, as caged birds, valued for their year-round singing. Transported, again illegally, to the East by pet dealers, some dozens were released around New York in the 1940s to avoid federal investigators.

House finches spread like wildfire

Science On Ice-Arctic Ocean Research

Bird Feeder

Check out the video and information on the book. Click Science on Ice below.

"The book tells the story of scientific research at the extremes of the earth: at the southernmost penguin colony in the world; during spring thaw in the Bering Sea; in the unexplored depths of the Arctic Ocean; and amid the blue lakes and rushing moulins that sit atop the Greenland ice sheet. It’s a picture book, stuffed from cover to cover with Linder’s signature photos, which are at once beautiful and insightful in their illustration of scientists at work in their surroundings."

Science on Ice

Using RFID For Tracking Birds At Your Bird Feeder

Bird Feeder

The same technology used to locate lost pets is now being used to track common backyard birds. Scientists and students at the Cornell Lab have collected data on hundreds of thousands of feeder visits so far by Black-capped Chickadees and other birds. Tiny tags weighing less than one-tenth of a gram are attached to the birds' legs and are detected each time the birds visit specially-rigged feeders. Watch this in which David Bonter describes the radio frequency identification (RFID) technique and what we can learn by keeping track of who's coming to dinner.

Tracking Feeder Birds with RFID 

Research In Maine To Help Baja California Peninsula

Bird Feeder

Over the last 38 years, techniques developed by Dr. Stephen Kress, Director of Audubon’s Seabird Restoration Program and Project Puffin, have restored breeding Atlantic Puffins and other seabirds to Maine’s coastal islands. Beginning this spring, the innovative approach, which uses decoys, mirrors, and recordings to attract birds to suitable nesting sites, will be implemented on the Baja California peninsula.

Techniques Pioneered by Audubon for Maine Puffins will Help other Species 3,300 Miles Away 

Project Feeder Watch Count Day Instructions

Bird Feeder

Get the full instructions for Project Feeder Watch by clicking the count day instructions below:

FeederWatch count days are two consecutive days when you count the birds at your feeders for Project FeederWatch. Count days always come in pairs. Pick days that will maximize the time you have to count birds. Schedule your count days in advance, if possible. Do not change your count days just because you see remarkable numbers or kinds of birds. Doing so would bias your data. If you are unable to count during a particular week or count period, that's okay. Your data are valuable even if you were only able to count on a few occasions.

Count Day Instructions

Great Backyard Bird Count 2011 Photo Contest Winners

Your Bird Feeder

From an elegant American Tree Sparrow to an acrobatic, snake-snatching Red-shouldered Hawk, the photos submitted for the 2011 GBBC photo contest were stunning. Our judges have made their choices and we are delighted to present the 2011 winners and runners-up, chosen from the nearly 6,000 images submitted.

 

2011 Photo Contest Winners

 

 

Snow Goose Migration

Bird Feeder

This is a great video showing the snow goose migration.

Snow Goose migration is spectacular!

Cornell Lab of Ornithology photographer Gerrit Vyn takes us to New York's Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge to experience this yearly event.

Through the Lens: Snow Goose Migration 

Watch The 2011 Parade of Students

Bird Feeder 

To watch the 2011 Parade of Students at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology click the link below:

Our 2011 Parade of Students consisted of 53 research projects in 53 minutes—a breakneck tour through student research here at the Cornell Lab.

Watch Our 2011 Parade of Students

Identify The American Tree Sparrow

Bird Feeder

Learn to identify the American Tree Sparrow:

Plump and long-tailed, American Tree Sparrows are busy visitors in winter backyards and weedy, snow-covered fields across southern Canada and the northern United States. 

American Tree Sparrow

Participate In The Bird Color Challenge

Bird Feeder

This is a fun exercise. Click Bird Color Challenge to participate.

"We'll show you a bird for five seconds, then take the photo away and ask you to recall the bird's main colors. After you've chosen, we'll show you the responses that other players have selected. The game sharpens your powers of observation—and teaches Merlin about the ways that people perceive and describe colors."

Bird Color Challenge

Barrier Island Shorebirds

Bird Feeder

Louisiana's barrier islands provide critical and unique habitat for a range of migrant and wintering bird species. Shorebirds in particular utilize a variety of specialized feeding techniques to harvest their own favored types of prey.

How Nature Works: Barrier Island Foraging Strategies 

Project Feeder Watch

Bird Feeder

"We have started shipping kits for the 2011-12 FeederWatch season, which begins November 12. Be sure to sign up if you haven't already!"

The 2012 Great Backyard Bird Count Dates Are Announced

Bird Feeder

The next Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) takes place Friday, February 17, through Monday, February 20, 2012.

Click below for the results of the 2011 Count

Participants submitted more than 92,000 checklists to the GBBC this year--the third year in a row that checklists topped 90,000. New checklist records were set in 11 states and in 7 out of 13 Canadian provinces and territories, resulting in a new overall checklist record for Canada. Altogether, participants identified 596 species and 11.4 million bird observations.

Great Backyard Bird Count Highlights

Details Of Nest Watchers

Bird Feeder

This article explains why all the nesting details are necessary for following birds as they nest and produce young.:

NestWatchers often question the importance of entering data from individual nest checks. “Do I really have to report what was in the nest every time that I visited?”

The Devil is in the Details