Christmas Bird Count Continues Through January 5th

Bird Feeder

For the 112th year, volunteer birders are fanning out across the country for the annual birding census this winter. The Christmas Bird Count continues through January 5th.

Christmas bird watching with a benefit

 

Birds And Biodiversity

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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

Downy Woodpecker At The Bird Feeder

Bird Feeder

Seed and suet feeders are visited many times a day by chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and the woodpecker that is the smallest American member of its family, the downy woodpecker.

Downies are part of action at bird feeder

The Spread Of House Finches

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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

Unusually Warm Weather Means Fewer Birds At The Feeder

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"When weather is less demanding and natural food is in abundance, birds eat less at feeders," he explained.

No snow, just cold for Christmas

Tips For Feeding The Birds

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The bird feeders out my kitchen window are bustling with activity. Our most frequent visitors include nuthatches, chickadees, woodpeckers and sparrows. If you would like to attract and feed birds this season, here are a few bird feeding tips.

Winter bird feeding

Christmas Bird Count Tradition

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On Dec. 27, area bird enthusiasts will meet and spend the day counting as many varieties of bird species as they can spot in a 24-hour period as part of the annual Christmas Bird Count.

Local bird count an annual holiday tradition

Help With The Kouchibouguac Bird Count

Bird Feeder

 

"Kouchibouguac National Park's Annual Christmas Bird Count is here again.

On Dec. 28, the park will allow bird lovers to accompany staff in identifying and counting all the birds in the park that day."

 

 

Kouchibouguac bird count set

 

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

Snowy Owls In The Lower 48 States

Bird Feeder

Slowly at first, but now quickly picking up steam, Snowy Owl reports continue to mount, signaling a significant movement of this species into the Lower 48 from coast to coast -- or in other words, an irruption year! But what is really causing these birds to move into our area? We need your observations of this species to learn more.

Got Snowies?  

Using RFID For Tracking Birds At Your Bird Feeder

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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 

Oak Park's Mystery Hummingbird Is Identified

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The verdict is in on the Oak Park Hummingbird mystery:

Then I looked at the mitochondrial sequence, the gene nd2. The results weren't immediately clear to me, so I ran a couple of quick analyses; then I knew. It's 100% Rufous Hummingbird, Selasphorus rufus.

Oak Park's Mystery Hummingbird Identified

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 

Hope In The Bayou

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"Whether a struggling, oil-covered Brown Pelican on the Gulf Coast or the beautiful “sweet, sweet, sweet” song of a male Prothonotary Warbler along the Mississippi River, birds have the power to reconnect us to our deepest hopes for all life. Once we feel that connection, we know we must act on it. I so appreciate the actions so many have taken and are taking to make conservation not just a hope but a reality."

Glimmers of Hope in the Bayou

Bolivar Christmas Bird Count

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"Five decades ago, when Bill Graber started the Bolivar Peninsula Christmas Bird Count in southeastern Texas, the brown pelican’s future was in doubt. The widespread use of DDT had made the birds’ eggshells too thin, causing the parents to unintentionally crack them during incubation. Despite these setbacks, the species could still be found in small numbers along the Texas coast—but Graber had never seen one during his annual tally. In 1977 his luck changed."

Christmas Bird Count Bastion

Identify Cooper's and Sharp-Shinned Hawks

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"Cooper's and Sharp-shinned hawks pose a real ID challenge, even for longtime birders. Throughout the year, there is great variation in plumage and in size for these two species. They look so much alike that no single field mark stands out to help bird watchers easily tell one from the other."

Hung Up on Hawks

Project Feeder Watch Count Day Instructions

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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

Project Feeder Watch Photo Gallery

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More photos have been added to the Project Feeder Watch Website. Click the link below:

Photo Gallery 2010-2011

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

 

 

Hummingbird Mystery In Oak Park, Illinois

Bird Feeder

Click the Oak Park's Mystery Hummingbird below for updates on this hummingbird.

The bird was initially believed to be a broad-tailed hummingbird, a species that breeds in the Rocky Mountains and spends winters in Central America. Experts know of no previous sighting of a broad-tailed hummingbird in Illinois.

BIRD WATCHERS ALL AFLUTTER OVER MYSTERY HUMMINGBIRD IN ILLINOIS

 

Oak Park’s Mystery Hummingbird 

"Most recent update to this page: December 9, 10:43 a.m. Central Standard Time

TODAY IS BANDING DAY — NO VISITORS ALLOWED IN OUR YARD. We want to give the hummer a chance to recover from its banding experience.

Most recent sighting: Friday, December 9, at 10:37 a.m.The hummer first visited our feeders today before sunrise, at 6:39 a.m., despite the thin coating of snow on the ground.

Banding and DNA updateVern Kleen came to the our yard this morning to capture and band the hummingbird, and HE WAS SUCCESSFUL!  You can read about it here:http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/IBET.html#1323448279

Along with detailed measurements that could help with identification of the hummer, Vern and two Field Museum scientists collected samples that will be used for DNA testing. Here is a Field Museum scientist’s summary of how DNA testing is done, and what it can tell us: http://www.ilbirds.com/index.php?topic=49536.msg69112#msg69112  (This was written back when we thought we would only have a fecal sample to work with.)"

2011 Christmas Bird Count

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"The count period for the 112th Christmas Bird Count will begin on December 14, 2011. Please check the Current Year's Results link to the right to find out what CBC circles reported on the 111th CBC. "

Christmas Bird Count 

Join The Ontario SwiftWatch Monitoring Program

Your Bird Feeder

Ontario SwiftWatch is a volunteer-based program where community groups and professional biologists work together to locate and describe nesting and roosting Chimney Swift habitat within Ontario's urban areas. These grass-roots groups find and track Chimney Swift nest and roost locations within their communities, count numbers of birds, and act as urban stewards for active habitat sites. Bird Studies Canada (BSC) helps facilitate this process by providing training, support, monitoring resources, and data management and analysis.

Ontario SwiftWatch Monitoring Program 

Two Projects Make Top Twenty UNEP-GEF List

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Sustainable Conservation of Globally Important Caribbean Bird Habitats: Strengthening a Regional Network for a Shared Resource ran from 2003-2007, receiving around $1 million from the GEF. Based in the Bahamas, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, this project enabled the development of a strong network of organisations committed to the conservation of Caribbean birds and biodiversity at Important Bird Areas (IBAs).

BirdLife projects flying high in UNEP-GEF top-twenty

Winter Bird Watching-Woodpeckers

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Winter is a good time of year to observe woodpeckers hunting in dead trees. The Downy, Hairy, and Piliated Woodpeckers are compared in this episode.

Woodpeckers:winter bird watching

 

Bird Watching Video In Carvallis Oregon

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Made for the Naturalist, this video gives a short over-view of bird watching in Corvallis.

Bird Watching in Corvallis, Oregon

How To Select Your Bird Feeder

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How to Choose a Bird Feeder -

In the cold weather, birds need extra help finding the seeds they crave.

How to Choose a Bird Feeder

Bird Watching In Thailand

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Nice video of birds in Thailand

Video of Ashy Drongo, Blue-winged Leafbird, Chestnut-flanked White eye, Japanese White eye, Mrs Gould Sunbird, Velvet Nut Hatch,Plumbeous Water Redstart male and female, Rock Thrush, Chestnut tailed Minla at Doi Inthanon National Park.

Thailand bird watching in Doi Inthanon National Park