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Birding research

Hummingbirds on the move: Evolution on fast-forward

by Anders Gyllenhaal December 31, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

A few weeks ago, dozens of readers from around the country shared their hummingbird stories on our Facebook page after we ran a post on the growing numbers of the tiny birds that are skipping migration and staying in the U.S. for the winter.

Birdwatchers from Michigan to Texas, Seattle to North Carolina reported seeing the birds stay longer into the fall, and sometimes through the winter in the warmer states. Randell Fleet of Houston seemed to speak for everyone when he said: “I hope they’ll be OK.’’

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

The outpouring made us want to know more about what was going on. So we talked with scientists and researchers around the country who specialize in hummingbirds. The story that emerged, which is running in The News & Observer of Raleigh this week, is not just about the changing migration of hummingbirds.

It’s also a look at modern-day evolution on a fast-forward speed as birds struggle to adjust to their altered environments. The story focuses on North Carolina, because this is where a lot of the action is. But hummingbirds, particularly Ruby-throated and Rufous, are starting to stay the winter all along the southern Atlantic coast and down through the Gulf states.

Hummingbird researcher Susan Campbell explaining how she bands the tiny birds

“It’s a really fascinating subject,’’ said Scott Weidensaul, an author and researcher who’s one of the country’s leading experts on hummingbirds, “one that ties together a couple of important threats, including climate change and the adaptability of birds in the face of change.’’

One part of the story we found particularly intriguing, which we couldn’t delve too deeply into in The N&O piece, is how this break with the migration pattern places a spotlight on exactly how birds adjust – and how a pivot like this can play out for generations to come.

Nobody can say when the first hummingbirds decided to skip the long and arduous fall trip to the tropics. I loved the comment by the Audubon Society’s Geoffrey LeBaron, head of the Christmas bird count, who said: “If you don’t have to fly across the Gulf of Mexico, why do it?’’

December 31, 2019 0 comment

Third major report in succession establishes a new era of bird research

by Anders Gyllenhaal December 16, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

We spent many hours during the last spring migration at the crest of Washington D.C.’s Rock Creek Park, hanging out with some of the area’s most experienced birders waiting to see what species would appear next.

When the mornings were slow, the conversation sometimes turned to how unpredictable the migration has become: Some days would be as quiet as July, and others suddenly filled with a flurry of unexpected migrants flying through.

Species in today’s study include many warblers, songbirds and wading birds, such as this Whimbrel. Photo from Cornell Lab by Kyle Horton. Cover photo of Long-billed Curlew is by Nick Saunders.

For years, birders around the country have watched the evidence gather that the bird world has been disrupted.

But this fall, three scientific reports in succession, including a major study released today, have fundamentally altered the picture of what’s happening. Modern technologies are enabling a new level of research about birds, migration, breeding and populations with a precision not possible just a few years ago.

Today’s study is the first to document how birds are starting their spring migration journeys a great deal earlier to keep up with climate change. And while migratory birds are trying to adjust, the research based on 24 years of weather radar data suggests that the intricate balance of when plants flower, insects arrive and birds start breeding are falling out of sync for some of these species.

“How bird populations respond in an era of such rapid and extreme changes in climate has been a black box,” said Andrew Farnsworth, a co-author of the migration study and researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Capturing scales and magnitudes of migration change over time has been impossible until recently.”

Here are some of the Cornell Lab photos of species that are part of the migration research:

December 16, 2019 0 comment

Bird of the Week Birding Birding research

Can the Wild Turkey survive? Thanksgiving is the least of its troubles.

by Anders Gyllenhaal November 21, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Something is after the Wild Turkey. Actually, almost everything is.

A pair of Wild Turkey hens forage in a field in Eastern Maryland.

A combination of coyotes, hunters, loss of habitat, hawks, climate change and troubles in the nest is undermining the species that once competed for the title of national bird. In parts of the country, populations are down by half and the overall drop is about 15 percent.

“We have a problem,” said Michael Chamberlain, a University of Georgia wildlife expert who leads a 15-state consortium working to find a response. “A lot of things like to eat turkeys.”

For the past half century, the Wild Turkey was the poster bird for how to bring back a species approaching extinction. Starting in the 1970s, after decades of overhunting and habitat loss, hunters, environmentalists, wildlife managers and researchers joined forces in a campaign that pushed the nationwide population up to more than 7 million birds.

Michael Chamberlain

But today, the combination of accelerating development, warming temperatures and all those predators has started setting back that progress, particularly in southern states. “We thought maybe it was just a natural phenomenon, where the population had peaked,” said Chamberlain.. “But fast-forward to today, the populations are not doing as well.”

November 21, 2019 0 comment

Birding research Conservation Migration Video

Probing a hummingbird mystery — one band at a time

by Anders Gyllenhaal November 7, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

The tiny captive is a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, held firmly in fingers that are far bigger than he is. What happens next will help solve an intriguing migration mystery affecting one of the world’s most intriguing birds.

Along the North Carolina coast, hummingbirds are creating a birders’ kerfuffle by staying into the winter when they’re expected to be headed to South American with millions of their fellow migrants. Susan Campbell, an ornithologist from Southern Pines, and the state’s leading expert on hummingbirds, is trying to figure out why.

First, Campbell tags the hummingbird with a small aluminum band on his leg, then weighs and measures him and puts a dollop of white paint on his forehead. After a sip of nectar, this young male is ready to be set free in the woods near North Carolina’s Hatteras Island to join the research project.

Susan Campbell

“This is one of the last frontiers in bird research right now,’’ Campbell said. Over the past 20 years, she has banded some 4,000 hummingbirds in North Carolina in hopes of tracking their travels to try to make sense of these migratory patterns.

The banding last month was part of a demonstration to raise visibility of the volunteer campaign to study the 15 species of hummingbirds that migrate through North Carolina. This is one of the best places there is to do it: More hummingbirds have been spotted in North Carolina than anywhere in the U.S. but Arizona.

Here’s a video of the banding process:

November 7, 2019 1 comment

Birding research Conservation

“This isn’t only a bird crisis. The birds are just the messenger.”

by Anders Gyllenhaal October 17, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Part of a series

John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, has spent his career talking about why people should care about birds.

John Fitzpatrick

This fall, that argument has shifted to include a tougher, more compelling question: Why should people care that a quarter of the bird population has been lost in the past 50 years?

Fitzpatrick is one of the world’s leading voices on behalf of birds and a visionary researcher whose career roughly spans that half century of declines.

“The question of why people should care is so important,’’ he says. “The answer is a series of things, on a number of different levels.’’

He starts with the power and beauty of birds and our relationship with them. “Birds are not an optional lifestyle for us,’’ he says. “They sing to us emotionally, spiritually. They appear in poetry from 2,000 years ago. They are part of our fabric.’’

Birds also serve as a kind of messenger from the front lines of the environment we all rely upon, he says.

Fitzpatrick with some of the lab’s specimens.

“We need to watch the birds as a barometer of the things that are going on,’’ he says. “We need to listen to what the birds are telling us, and the birds are telling us that things are getting steadily harder for them.’’

The news that about 3 billion birds have been lost from the overall population came in a major study published in the journal Science three weeks ago. Cornell joined with the American Bird Conservancy, the Smithsonian, Audubon and Georgetown University to assemble the most comprehensive look at North American bird populations ever conducted.

The news was not a surprise, since the declines in the overall volume of birds have been the subject of many studies. They are obvious to anyone watching birds over time. But the dimensions of the losses were shocking, as was the discovery they are occurring not just with endangered birds but across almost all species, including such common birds as Cardinals and Blue Jays.

October 17, 2019 0 comment

Birding research Conservation

10 things you can do to help stop the alarming decline in birds

by Anders Gyllenhaal October 10, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Part of a series

The recent study that found a quarter of the bird population has been lost in the U.S. and Canada made such a big splash that it had one unexpected consequence: Some people came away thinking things are too far gone to do anything about it.

The group of organizations that sponsored the research say the opposite is the case — that now is the perfect time to confront the crisis.

Scientist Ken Rosenberg/Photo Cornell Lab of Ornithology

“What we’re saying is that this is a lot of loss, but it’s still at a point where we can turn things around,’’ said scientist Ken Rosenberg, the lead researcher on the study. “We’re not saying all these birds are going to go extinct. We’re saying it’s so much easier and less costly to be proactive, to work on this while the birds are still coming.’’

The research published in the journal Science found that the total number of birds of breeding age lost in the past 50 years has reached 3 billion. This statistic represents the volume of birds not being replenished during the avian life cycle, creating a trend with alarming potential. The total population in North America is now about 7 billion birds, down from 10 billion in 1970.

The consortium of organizations — including the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the American Bird Conservancy, the Smithsonian, Georgetown University, and Audubon – put together a mix of solutions, from pushing for legislation, to increasing protection for endangered species, to limiting deadly pesticides.

But at the heart of the initial campaign is this simple idea: Average people can make a difference by taking a few basic steps around the house.

This post is part of a series delving into the Science research and its impacts. Click here to view an initial report on the findings, and here for a piece about how to make sense of the enormous dimensions of lost birds. Watch for future articles on why we should care and more detail on what can do done to combat the declines.

Here are 10 things any of us can do to help. The list is taken from the consortium’s recommendations, interviews with the study’s authors this week and reactions and reviews that the report generated.

Safeguard your windows against bird collisions: About a billion birds die each year from crashing into glass they mistake for airspace. You can protect birds by putting up screens, breaking up reflections that confuse birds and marking outdoor windows. For practical tips on how to do this, click here.
Keep cats indoors: One of the biggest threats to birds is the huge number of outdoor and feral cats. Cats kill an estimated 2.6 billion birds each year in the U.S. and Canada. The consortium says the solution, keeping cats indoors, is good for both birds and cats. Here’s some guidance.
Avoid plastics: Disposable plastics, such grocery bags, wraps, straws and silverware, often end up in landfills or in the oceans. Birds, fish and turtles can die when they eat the plastic or become entangled in it.
Put up a bird feeder: As habitat for birds has decreased, backyard feeders have become more important. You can help birds by feeding them, and at the same time attract year-round and migratory birds that you can enjoy at home.
Reduce lawns and non-native plants that don’t support birds: The steady conversion of land for housing and other development destroys habitat that birds must rely on. Development isn’t likely to slow, but raising native plants enables you to support many species that coexist with people. Here’s an Audubon site that helps you determine appropriate plants for where you live..
Go a step further and deliberately create bird habitat: You can help create habitat by letting dead trees remain as homes for birds, building a brush pile that certain species favor and planting nut- and fruit-bearing trees. A good summary of these and other steps can be found in this essay published last week in the New York Times.
Avoid the use of pesticides in your household – as well as in your food. The ban on DDT 50 years ago helped save such species as the Osprey and the Bald Eagle. Today the use of pesticides, in particular a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids, is harming birds and the insects they rely on for food. The greater problem is in farming, but avoiding the household versions of these pesticides can make a difference. The consortium suggests going one step further to consume organic foods to support the use of pesticide-free farming.
Support legislation to protect birds: A number of bills pending in Congress would help reduce the losses. They include legislation to promote bird-friendly construction and an important bill called The Recovering American Wildlife Act. It would provide $1.4 billion to state and federal wildlife agencies to help a variety of endangered wildlife species. Another worthy bill, Saving America’s Pollinators Act, would prohibit the use of neonicotinoids pesticides altogether.
Contribute to bird organizations: The struggle to save birds will also require more ambitious and expensive efforts to protect land parcels and support research. Each of the major bird organizations – Cornell, the American Bird Conservancy and Audubon – play complimentary roles. Contributions are a big part of funding their work.
Join one of the “citizen science” projects that help track birds by reporting what you see: We can all contribute to the study of birds by reporting sightings to Cornell and Audubon. This helps track bird populations – and also supplies birders with guidance on what birds you can see and where. Click here for information on Cornell’s eBird app. Here’s information on Audubon’s Migratory Bird Initiative.

John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab

Some of these suggestions may seem small compared to the size of the problem. But there’s power in numbers, said John Fitzpatrick, one of the country’s leading bird experts and director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a primary sponsor of the research.

“The idea is that we need to give people things they can do on a daily basis that make a difference,” Fitzpatrick said. “If you multiply that by millions, which can turn into billions, we will be able to change the direction of the needle.”

The consortium is working on other measures as well. Go to the website 3billionbirds.org for more details on things you can do on many of these suggestions, as well as links to the Science report, conservation measures and ways you can get involved in this project.

Ken Rosenberg, the lead author and scientist who works with both Cornell and the American Bird Conservancy, said the next phase of research will seek to break down the results by regions to determine how the losses are playing out in different places.

Future research will delve more deeply into the causes of the decline, said Mike Parr, president of the American Bird Conservancy.

Some are obvious, such as the loss of habitat and the impacts of climate change. Others are hard to pin down.

Mike Parr, president of the American Bird Conservancy

“We need to dig into the threats more,” Parr said. “It’s tough, because nature is not a laboratory where you can say, ‘Oh, let’s remove the cat threat and see what happens.’ You just can’t do that. More threats might be coming that will muddy the picture.”

The researchers agree that while more study is needed, now is the time for action. There’s still time to address the crisis, but nobody can say how much time.

“I don’t think we can wait until we have perfect science,” Parr said. “It’s clear right now that there’s a combination of threats, some of which are more serious, some not. We should focus on the threats we can see immediately.”

October 10, 2019 2 comments

Birding research Conservation

Why 3 billion birds vanished: Understanding the startling new research

by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal September 22, 2019

written by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal

First in a series

Many causes contribute to the losses. Solutions will be just as complex.

Three billion birds have vanished in North America in the span of a single lifetime. They’re just gone. It’s as simple as that. But at the same time, this staggering finding from the study of bird populations published last weekj in the journal Science is so complex — the number so large — it’s hard to get your arms around it.

What does it mean to the environment, to the balance of nature, to the species themselves, that roughly a quarter of the avian population has disappeared since 1970?

In the coming weeks, we’ll explore these and others questions raised by the research that has uncovered a crisis over the future of birds in U.S. and Canada. Upcoming posts will look at why people should care, what these findings mean for other segments of wildlife and where the research will go from here.

The study shows that a combination of forces more powerful than previously thought is wreaking havoc across almost all bird species, according to its authors, scientists and researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Smithsonian, the American Bird Conservancy and four other institutions.

Some of the causes are indisputable: The most obvious is the way the places birds live are being developed at a pace affecting not just endangered species but our most common birds as well. It runs from the general to the specific. For example, the loss of grasslands to farming and housing has cost of the lives of half the Eastern and Western Meadowlarks and a huge numbers of sparrows. Many coastal species are hurt by the fact that so many people now live along beaches and waterways that birds are being squeezed out. At the same time, rising water levels are impacting the shallows where many species live and breed.

And then there’s the problem of insects. As their names imply, species like flycatchers and swallows survive on bugs, and they’re disappearing, too, due in part to newer types of powerful insecticides called Neonicotinoids. Warming trends are throwing off the life cycles of birds and cutting into their nesting and breeding seasons that fuel future generations.

A Scientific American graphic on the study.

The declines have been devastating to birds, but they also signal broader shifts in environments that all life forms depends on.

“We can do better, and we must, if only in our own self-interest, because trouble for birds means trouble for us as well,” Cornell Lab CEO John Fitzpatrick and Peter Marra, director of the newly created Georgetown Environmental Initiative, wrote in an essay for the New York Times this week.

While some causes are clear, the declines of certain species mystify researchers. The loss of millions of migratory birds — which make up about 40 percent of overall population — are a puzzle, since they rely on environments spread all across the hemisphere and make arduous trips twice a year that expose them to all sorts of hazards.

September 22, 2019 0 comment

Birding Birding research Conservation Featured

New research finds 30 percent of the bird population lost over 50 years

by Anders Gyllenhaal September 19, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Every birder will want to tune into a study published today in the journal Science that reaches a startling conclusion: Three billion birds — or 29 percent of the total population across all species — have been lost in North America since 1970.

The research is much more than a traditional study. All of the major bird organizations pooled resources to collect data from the last half century, track what has happened to every species and analyze the modern state of the avian landscape with a precision never before possible.

What this study means is that a sharp and widespread drop in the bird population is taking place. It includes not just the endangered species that get the most attention, but familiar, common birds like orioles, blue jays, sparrows, blackbirds that seemed to be thriving.

Grassland birds (down 53 percent) are losing habitat with the spread of farms, while coastal birds (down 37 percent) are affected by development and climate change. Populations of forest birds are down by about 30 percent from 50 years ago, and arctic birds are down 23 percent.

Go to the end of this piece for links to the many stories, opinion pieces, graphics and videos on this research. To read the Science paper itself, go to the website developed as part of this project, click “findings” at the top right and you’ll find a link.

One of the posters the Cornell Lab released with the study

The findings are so stark and surprising, the authors say, that they have reason to hope this might lead to the kind of public response that followed Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” that helped forge strong new conservation laws.

The research is delivered in the form of a dispassionate scientific study. But the authors –- a Who’s Who in ornithology — do not mince their words when describing the conclusions.

“This data suggests that we are facing the beginning of the end for nature as we know it,” said Mike Parr, president of American Bird Conservancy (ABC). “If we continue to put economic benefits first at all costs, that’s where we are headed.”

Declines among birds have been well studied in recent years, usually focused on those most threatened. Drawing on all the previous data, decades of bird counts and 10 years of weather radar, this study stands out for its breadth of data and sweep of focus.

“Multiple, independent lines of evidence show a massive reduction in the abundance of birds,” Ken Rosenberg, the study’s lead author and a senior scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and American Bird Conservancy, said in a release this afternoon. “We expected to see continuing declines of threatened species. But for the first time, the results also showed pervasive losses among common birds across all habitats, including backyard birds.”

September 19, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birding research Conservation

What will it take to mobilize the country’s birders?

by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal August 13, 2019

written by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal

Our long-planned visit to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y., this week began just as the White House announced plans to weaken the Endangered Species Act. The move seemed to strike at the heart of the lab’s work to protect birds in a time of accelerating declines.

We were at the lab for a day of interviews on all sorts of topics, but conversations kept circling back to these changes to the law. Many birds are already threatened by the combination of habitat loss, urbanization, pesticides and early impacts of climate change.

Specimens of extinct species are part of the research collection.

What will happen if the bedrock legislation that helped restore and preserve the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the Alligator, the Grizzly Bear and countless threatened bird species loses its teeth?

A second question kept coming up from members of the staff of more than 200 researchers, scientists, archivists, photographers and computer specialists:

What would it take for the millions of Americans who care about birds to come together on a scale equal to the threats so many species are facing?

“The bottom line is that we need to have a voice,’’ said Ken Rosenberg, an applied conservation scientist who works both for the Cornell Lab and the Washington-based American Bird Conservancy. “We need to be a force that the politicians have to reckon with.”

Executive Director John Fitzpatrick

This isn’t a new question when it comes to birders. It’s hard to pin down their exact numbers in the U.S., but government surveys put the number at around 40 million people. They range from backyard birders to weekend birders to those who’ll travel wherever the latest rare species can be found.

That’s a huge group that has so far remained passive and diffused through a rising tide of bad news for birds. The authoritative State of the World’s Birds Report concluded last year that 40 percent of the Earth’s species are in decline. A May United Nation’s study predicted that a million species of birds, animals, plants and insects are threatened with extinction in the coming decades if action isn’t taken.

More research along these lines is on the way: The most comprehensive report ever conducted on the state of North American birds is about to be released in a scientific study on what’s happened to the overall bird population over a span of 50 years.

The findings, assembled jointly by all the major bird organizations, are embargoed. But many who’ve worked on the study say its conclusions are alarming enough to serve as a call to action.

Will bird-lovers answer that call?

At the Cornell Lab, researchers have been chronicling the vital role that birds play in the balance of nature since 1915. Executive Director John Fitzpatrick, who has shaped the lab into the research and digital powerhouse it’s become, makes the point that birds are the key to understanding our environment.

“They are literally the heartbeat of the Earth’s system,’’ he said. “They tell us how nature works.’’

Director John Fitzpatrick and Cornell staff writer Pat Leonard look over lab specimens.

The lab’s mission is science and information, leaving the outright advocacy to others. But lab staffers seem to agree that it will take more than the traditional arguments to mobilize the country’s birders in the same way the National Rifle Association, for instance, advocates for gun ownership or hunters push for protection of game species.

Today, even if the groups were to fully mobilize birders, it’s not clear how those interests would be represented in the political realm, or how funds might be collected to power a broad campaign. “The truth is, there’s no mechanism for that to be done,’’ said Rosenberg.

The major birding organizations are indeed pushing for protections, lobbying government agencies and legislators and speaking out on the issues of the day. The Audubon Society published an immediate response to the reshaped Endangered Species Act Tuesday. More pressure is certain to follow as the likely impacts of the these changes become clear.

Mike Webster, director of the lab’s Macaulay Library that collects and organizes millions of bird photos, recordings and videos.

But each of the bird groups has separate emphases, and while they work together on select projects, they have yet to create a true omnibus campaign that might help to unite their supporters.

As the news from Washington circulated through the lab, the question of how to pull that off was on the minds of everyone we talked to.

“Awareness is no longer the bar,’’ said John Bowman, head of the lab’s Conservation Media program that produces vivid reports to support the lab and its partners. “Changing behavior is the bar.’’

A portion of the lab’s enormous mural that shows every major species type around the world — along with species that have become extinct since the arrival of humans on Earth

August 13, 2019 1 comment