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Anders Gyllenhaal

BirdingBirding research

Coming soon: A foolproof way you can instantly ID that birdsong

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

First of two parts

For more than a year, a CD of birdsongs was stuck deep inside our car stereo and would start playing without warning on every drive. By the time we finally dislodged the CD, Beverly had committed almost all the songs to memory while I was still struggling to tell the Tufted Titmouse from the Song Sparrow.

The art of birding by ear has always separated the truly gifted birder from the rest of us. But help is on the way for those of us who struggle. A scientific research project designed to track birds by their sounds has turned out to have a wonderfully practical use for the common birder.

It can decipher birdsongs the way the Shazam app identifies music.

We’re devoting two weeks on Flying Lessons to the art and science of birdsongs. Today’s post looks at modern research’s advances in tracking songs and calls. Next week, Beverly will tell her story of how learning specific songs can vastly enrich your birding — and she’ll share ideas on how to make progress.

The latest form of the Haikubox. The poetic name is intentionally vague so that future versions might be used for a wider variety of research purposes.

The most interesting development on the science front is a new device, called the Haikubox, coming out later this year.  You’ll set it up in your yard or porch, and it will identify every birdsong within reach of the recorder. Then it will send a stream of IDs to your computer or phone, providing a comprehensive census of nearby bird life.

“We think we have a good idea,’’ said David Mann, head of Loggerhead Instruments, a small Florida company working with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to develop the device. “It’s going to be a great learning tool.’’

At the same time, smartphone apps that deliver precise IDs are now becoming available. Unlike early versions of these apps, the latest draw on thousands of songs and call samples that make them far more accurate.

Cornell Lab Director John Fitzpatrick

John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab, says people have been clamoring for just such a tool for years. “If I had a dollar for every time somebody asked when there’d be a Shazam for birds, I’d be able to fund all this research with that alone,’’ he said. 

The lab itself is behind much of this progress.

Cornell established its Center for Conservation Bioacoustics to apply the study of sound to bird research. Since birds are so vocal, scientists found they can track migration, breeding and overall populations by recording their calls and songs. The field took off when tech companies started sharing their software for deciphering photos and text for internet searches.

Over the past several years, Cornell and an array of academic and commercial partners perfected the recording technology, sound equipment and artificial intelligence applications used to analyze the bird recordings. Today, Cornell has an archive of 6,000 species it can identify through bioacoustics.

The beauty of bioacoustics is that it enables research in places too remote to easily reach, in  rain forests and on distant islands, for instance, where scientists are studying endangered species. (Here’s a link to our story on this science that ran in the Washington Post in January.)

The same research mechanics are powering the tools for deciphering songs and calls for birders.

Holger Klinck with one of the devices that collects bird calls and songs

The Haikubox, which looks like an oversized wooden birdhouse, will keep an ongoing record of every song and call it collects. It converts the sounds to spectrographs and compares them against its library of sounds. Depending on the weather and noise levels, it will collect sounds up to several hundred feet away.

“You can put it in your backyard and hook it up to your wireless network,’’ said Holger Klinck, director of the Cornell bioacoustics center. “It will continually detect species 24/7.

“It’s a gateway to bring new people into the world of birds and get excited about it,’’ he said.

Loggerhead’s David Mann

Loggerhead’s David Mann said he’s not exactly sure who all might be likely to buy one of the devices, which are expected to cost under $500. The most likely customers are birders, but he hopes it will appeal to all kinds of people with an interest in the environment.

As he tests out a version of the Haikubox at his home in Sarasota, Florida, he found he was suddenly much more interested in the birds coming through. “I found I was paying more attention,’’ he said. “Since you get real time feedback. I’d hear something and say, ‘What was that?’ You can go and look.’’

Song Sleuth app

The Haikubox joins a long line of birdsong recognition systems, most of which are apps that tend to work for only a small sample of songs — if at all. Here’s a review of some of the early versions, and here’s one of a popular app called Song Sleuth that’s draws on a library of 200 species and gives you a choice of likely contenders. 

BirdNET app

Cornell’s own app called BirdNET has set a new standard for accuracy, since it draws on the lab’s huge library of sounds. BirdNET’s Android version has been downloaded a million times. Its Apple version was supposed to be available last year, but has been slow to reach market. Cornell makes its research available for free to other makers, so the quality of these apps should get steadily better.

Holger Klinck, looking over the system used to test the bioacoustic network set up around the lab’s campus

This is good news for birders – but also for birds.

The results of the sightings on the apps, the Haikubox and whatever other products come along all help feed Cornell’s research with data on where birds are and where they’re going.

Like the eBird apps, which birders use to record the birds they see, the data has fueled the world’s most successful citizen science project and has helped track bird populations all over the world. The birdsong identifiers will add to that store of knowledge – and will be even more accurate because of the precision of these devices.

“It’s all about developing methods that allow us to do a comprehensive job of assessing what’s going on in remote areas. That’s the end goal,’’ said Klinck. “The data is what drives conservation.’’

Loggerhead Instruments is testing the Haikubox with a network of beta users around the county. We’re going to be one of these testers starting this summer and will post our experiences on Flying Lessons from time to time. 

And finally, here’s a video that gives you a sense of what you see on your computer as birds are identified by the Haikubox:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PhotoPost

PhotoPost: How the Bluebird made its comeback — and won our hearts

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

PhotoPost is a new feature on Flying Lessons built around photos and videos. Today’s subject is the bluebird, a conservation success story that can be found in every state in the U.S. The bluebird seems sent from central casting, with deep luminescent blue color, musical song and daily routines that make it easy to watch. All of this makes the bluebird an avian startlet. 

The most striking trait is its royal blue color, which is actually an illusion created by the refraction of light in its plumage. It’s depth of color varies with the sun, as this Eastern Bluebird shows in the soft afternoon light.

Bluebirds were in sharp decline in the mid-1900s, squeezed out of their habitat by starlings and finches. That led to a rescue campaign that planted bluebird boxes across the U.S. and brought back the three species, the Eastern, Western and Mountain Bluebird. Today, they are often on display where people tend to live, perched on fences, wires and branches, and simple to identify as a flash of blue. They’re active, expressive and don’t seem to mind an audience, as these photos show:

 
Here’s a 45-second video of an Eastern Bluebird in hunting mode. Watch how he studies everything around him:

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Birding researchConservationMigration

Rebuilding troubled species takes decades of patience and persistence

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

What does it take to rebuild a depleted species with birds bred in captivity? In the case of one of the longest-running breeding projects, it can take decades of patience and persistence – and hundreds of chicks added to the wild for every one that will go on to thrive.

A Loggerhead Shrike in eastern Canada. Photo by Larry Kirtley.

Our stories in the Washington Post on the rescue mission of the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow prompted a call from the research project that has been working for more than 20 years to save the Loggerhead Shrike in eastern Canada. Researchers there have valuable perspective on the laborious process of captive breeding.

“In our case, it’s years in the making,’’ said Jane Hudecki, coordinator for the Shrike conservation breeding program with Wildlife Preservation Canada. “It can be a tough field to work in.’’

Added Hazel Wheeler, the lead biologist on the project: “I’ve certainly read a lot of papers that speak to the long-term investment needed for a successful recovery program.”

There are a number of parallels between the shrike project and the mission to save the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, which just had its first hatchings produced by captive birds in the wild. While both programs have figured out how to raise, release and establish mating pairs, questions loom around what it will take to restore the wild populations to strength.

Researchers put a transmitter on a Loggerhead Shrike to track its movement and migration. Photo by Sarah Matheson.

Wildlife Preservation Canada has released 1,300 Loggerhead Shrikes since the recovery program’s formation in 1998. Still, only about 20 breeding pairs remain in the areas of Ontario where the local subspecies settle for the spring and summer. “Basically, we’re just keeping the wild population stable,’’ she said.

The Canadian shrikes and Florida grasshopper sparrows are very different species, living on either end of the continent.

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BirdingBirding researchBreeding and Nesting

Hatchlings! Grasshopper Sparrow rescue mission finds a dose of hope

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

The decades-long push to save the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, which was on course to be the next bird to go extinct in the U.S., got its first hopeful news in years this week: An experiment to restore the sparrow population with captive-bred birds has produced its first fledglings in the wild.

Florida Grasshopper Sparrow chicks in their nest. Photo by Sarah Biesemier

More than a dozen chicks and fledglings, along with eggs in a number of nests, have been spotted in the grasslands south of Orland where a coalition of agencies is staging a last-ditch rescue mission. “We’re very excited,” said Juan Oteyza, the state biologist who oversees the project. “It’s not only working, but it’s working well.”

The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow’s population dropped to just 30 breeding pairs in the four Central Florida locations where the last of the species lives. That prompted an ambitious campaign to start breeding captive sparrows to release into the wild. Among the questions that loomed over the effort was whether the birds would have the innate abilities to survive and whether they would be capable of breeding and raising a new generation of sparrows.

State biologist Juan Oteyza

For weeks, researchers have been watching the stretch of Florida prairie where about 150 of the sparrows were released last year and this spring. The birds are tagged with a set of bands that identify them, so the staffers can track every one of the individual birds that hold the key to the species’ future. 

The birds, most of them about a year old, began to match up with mates, some with wild sparrows and some with other captive-bred birds. Researchers could tell from their songs that the birds had started mating. Then they began to find nests with eggs in them. The first six or so fledglings are now beginning to leave the nests and head out on their own, said Oteyza, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.

Our story on the arduous path leading up to the release of the sparrows appeared two weeks ago in The Washington Post (and here’s a companion piece on the unique nature of the project that ran on Flying Lessons.). The effort is part of a number of scientific interventions around the world to stave off precipitous declines in various species. The sparrow, though a small, nondescript bird without much star power, is a symbol of the unique Florida grasslands.

This isn’t the first captive-bred experiment in the U.S., but the sparrow’s declines has made it a difficult case that scientists admit they still don’t fully understand. 

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Bird of the WeekVideo

A Green Heron’s Fishing Lesson: Knowing just when to strike

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

The Green Heron, moving so slowly that it blends into the background, is all but invisible. That can be a fatal mistake. 

Gradually lifting one foot, then the other, the heron edges forward until it’s within striking distance of its prey. Then with breathtaking speed, it snaps up a tiny fish in a single move and swallows almost as quickly, before it moves on to the next encounter. 

We stumbled upon this magnificent bird last weekend at Raleigh, N.C.’s Crabtree wetlands. The swampy expanse not far from downtown is a feathered circus this time of year, with swallows circling constantly, warblers adding color to the trees, a Bald Eagle passing overhead, a Great Blue Heron snagging a fish of its own, and crows and grackles supplying the soundtrack.

All the while, the Green Heron makes its way around the shallow water, nearly invisible in all the clamor until it makes its move. 

Here’s the cast of colorful characters gathered in these wetlands:  

Our Green Heron, the star of the show

Yellow Warbler

Bald Eagle

Black-and-white Warbler

Palm Warbler

Eastern Phoebe

Great Blue Heron with its fish

Prothonotary Warbler

 

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BirdingFeaturedHow we're birding now

Flocks of new birders are turning out, which should be good news for birds

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

In the weeks leading up to Saturday’s Global Big Day, the eBird team at the Cornell Lab noticed something they’d never seen before.

The eBird smartphone app that has become the standard for filing bird sightings was flooded with new users. That was followed by tens of thousands of fresh checklists and thousands of reports from back yards across North America. In parts of the world, eBird observations jumped as much as 2,000 percent between this April and last.

Jenna Curtis

With much of the world at a near standstill from the coronavirus, it wasn’t surprising that people trapped at home would try birding to pass the time. But the dimensions of surge were so big, scientists guiding the project are hard at work to make sense of what they they’re seeing.

“We’re waiting kind of cautiously before we decide what we can really do with this,’’ said Jenna Curtis, eBird project co-leader at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “But it’s very exciting.’’

Pages from the eBird mobile app / Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The statistics tell one part of the story: eBird checklists, which birders file to Cornell based on the species they identify (by either seeing or hearing the bird), increased nearly 50 percent over a year ago. Some of the specific elements birders send in, such as bird audios and photos, saw similar or even greater increases.

As a result, sometime this month, Cornell says eBird will reach a whopping 800 million total observations on birds – for a sudden boomlet at the world’s largest citizen science effort.

The other part of the story is how the surge plays out for birds. It’s almost certain to be a good thing, but it will take some time to know exactly how.

Is the quarantine giving birth to a new wave of birders, or will interest fade when schools and stores reopen? Will the avalanche of data lead to new discoveries about species, particularly those closest to where people live? Will the jump in birders strengthen conservation and raise public support for protections?

Flying Lessons: One of the intriguing elements of the eBird surge is what it tells us about the relationship between birds and people. While we travel in separate orbits, we react to each other in a number of ways, such as how our activities influence bird songs, and the way people are turning to birds in a troubling time.

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Birding researchConservationPhotography

The transformation in bird research may hold the key

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

One of the topics we explore here on Flying Lessons is the transformation taking place with modern bird research. When we start talking about this with friends and relatives, it can be hard to hold their attention.

But here’s why this is worth sticking with: At a time when habitat loss, climate change and urban hazards have destroyed a third of the bird population in our time, the best remedy may be the powerful technologies that scientists are using to create more powerful conservation practices. 

Archbold researcher Reed Bowman. Photo by Anders Gyllenhaal

One such story is running this week in The Miami Herald, about a radio telemetry system at the Archbold Biological Station in Central Florida where we visited a few months ago. The research project equips young Florida Scrub-jays with solar-powered tags that enable scientists to track their every waking move.

Scrub-jays, the only bird found exclusively in Florida, have steadily lost population to development as the state has grown into the country’s fourth most populated. Researchers think they can halt the jays’ decline if they understand how to make the most of the remaining scrub habitat, including a string of public lands through the state’s mid-section.

These studies are expensive and time-consuming, and they require a level of public and political support that doesn’t come easily. That’s why we think it’s worth coming back to these research projects and trying to tell the stories in detail. We hope you’ll take a moment to read this piece in the Herald, as well as earlier Flying Lessons posts on the Scrub-Jay, one about the striking character of this bird and another about the early findings on this study. 

The base-station antenna that supports the research is installed by Michael Lanzone, head of Cellular Tracking Technologies, and lead researcher Young Ha Suh. Photo by Reed Bowman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Birding researchConservationFeatured

What the Grasshopper Sparrow is teaching us as it skirts extinction

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

For the next month or so, biologists from a coalition of wildlife agencies will be standing on the sidelines of a grassy prairie in Central Florida, pacing like worried relatives in a hospital waiting room.

A captive-bred sparrow steps from its cage.

They’ll be peering through binoculars and listening for bird calls for signs of the revival of the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, whose total population has fallen to a just 30 breeding pairs.

Our article on the campaign to save the sparrow runs this week in the Washington Post. It’s a story about the mysterious decline of one of Florida endemic species and how a consortium of state, federal and non-profit agencies is staging a biological intervention sparrows bred in research centers to hold off extinction.

Sarah Biesemier (left) and Juan Oteyza, state biologists who oversee the project, arrive at the prairie with a carrying case full of sparrows.

It’s also a story about what’s happening on the front lines of the world of birds in a time of extraordinary change. On the one hand, researchers have built more tools, they’ve developed better research practices and they know more about birds like this sparrow than ever before. On the other hand, the threats to many species are unprecedented. A study in the journal Science a few months ago found that a third of North America’s breeding bird population has vanished in the last 50 years.

We came home from weeks in Central Florida, after visiting the research centers and talking to dozens of scientists, with a question nobody could answer very well: Do we have the collective wherewithal, and the financial and political capital, to put this kind of rescue mission together for the growing number of species certain to need it in the future?

Every grasshopper sparrow on the prairie is identified and tracked by four bands on its legs to follow their progress.

The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow is not the most likely candidate to win the kind of scientific full-court press it’s getting. It’s a small, brown, nondescript bird that’s never seen by most people. It’s found only on the Florida prairie, a unique environment slowly evaporating as the state grows. As a brand, this sparrow is on the far end of the appeal spectrum from such conservation successes as the Bald Eagle, the California Condor and the Osprey.

And yet, an ambitious plan has come together on behalf of this bird. It’s powered by state and federal researchers, some of whom have devoted their careers to studying Florida’s birds, and it’s supported by such non-profits as Florida Audubon and the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida (which just announced a grant for this project.)  It is all the more impressive given the anti-environmental streak now running through modern politics.

The consortium makes a persuasive case that the grasshopper sparrow should be saved: It is one of the symbols of the Florida environment. With its haunting song and its place on nature’s ground floor, it’s a key piece of the puzzle of the biosphere we rely on. “The grasshopper sparrow is one of Florida’s flagship birds,” said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Flying Lesson: The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow is a harbinger of a future in which many species are threatened with extinction. Researchers have built an ambitious rescue plan to save this bird, but is there enough public and political support to undertake missions like this for dozens of birds at the same time?

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Bird of the WeekHow we're birding nowPhotography

Quarantined with an Owl Nextdoor: But will we ever find him?

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Part of a series

When we finally spotted our neighborhood’s Barred Owl, perched deep in the nearby woods but still within hooting distance of our balcony, we realized he was one step ahead of us.

Our owl watching from one of his favorite spots / Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

The owl had been watching us long before we found him.

We spotted him planted on a branch midway up a towering ivy-covered tree, camouflaged with a background that perfectly matched his plumage. He was staring down at us as if to say, what took so long.

The Barred Owl is a surveillance wonder. Its huge, dark eyes have telescopic vision. It can sit for hours scouring its territory. It can swivel its heads almost all the way around in either direction, a feat so impressive researchers at Johns Hopkins University conducted a full-fledged study to figure out how owls do what no other creature can. (See the explanation below after the second photo gallery.)

 

Almost as soon as we moved into our new home not far from downtown Raleigh, N.C., we started hearing our owl’s “Who Cooks for You” hoot. (Click for samples.) Barred Owls are homebodies, staying mostly put and rarely traveling far throughout their lifetime. Despite the urban setting, ours found a slice of woodlands with just the mix of aged trees, thick underbrush and a running stream owls prefer.

Flying Lessons: The Barred Owl has abilities no other creature does. Between its telescopic eyes and its swiveling head, the owl’s attributes have long been under study. A nocturnal bird that blends into its surroundings, the owl likes to stay out of sight. But when you do get a look, he’s a sight to behold.   
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