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Unless you always bird by yourself, an important and under-appreciated skill is being able to get other birders onto a good bird. Nick Lund, who formerly wrote The Birdist, created this video to show just how difficult that can be sometimes. I know I have been involved in this type of conversation (playing both roles) many times.
This video of a displaying male Spoon-billed Sandpiper was filmed by David Erterius in Chukotka in June 2010. Spoon-billed Sandpipers are critically endangered due to habitat loss across their range and other factors. This individual failed to find a mate.
Golden Eagles are powerful hunters. Unlike Bald Eagles, which primarily hunt fish and often scavenge, Golden Eagles will take a variety of mammals and land birds. Last night, Lady Woodpecker tweeted this video of a Golden Eagle taking down a young goat.
There seem to be at least two different hunts combined in this video with the first and third segments showing the same hunt from different angles.
This video of a warbler visiting a hummingbird feeder was posted on YouTube.
Songbirds sometimes visit hummingbird feeders, either to drink nectar or to catch insects attracted to the feeder. (See the photos here for another example.) Many warbler species, which primarily eat invertebrates during the breeding season, will drink nectar from flowers on their winter grounds in Central and South America. So it is not all that surprising that they would take advantage of artificial nectar sources as well.
The bird in the video above is most likely a Prothonotary Warbler. Not many warblers have that combination of bright yellow throat and breast, white vent, and plain upperparts (with a bluish cast). The dark head may indicate a hatch year bird. While spring adult males have bright yellow head, other plumages show varying amounts of olive on the nape and crown, with the most olive coverage on first fall birds. Prothonotary is one of the warbler species known to nectar.
The only element that bothers me is the apparent dusky neck,* but that could be an effect of the lighting, which appears to be coming from behind. I also do not see location information on the video or user pages, so there is a question of whether the range is appropriate. The site is in North Carolina, so this would be within the Prothonotary Warbler's normal range. What do you think?
* After checking a few more sources, I found that first fall Prothonotaries may have an olive wash on the flanks and throat.
Thanks to Peter Vankevich for bring the video to my attention.
I found this gem via the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center's Twitter stream.
This video aired on Late Night last evening, though apparently it is several years old. Pretty funny, though the producers mismatched woodpecker species. Somehow they ended up with a more appropriate image in the process.
In this Daily Show segment, Jon Stewart reports on the ignored email story from last week. If the embedded video does not work, try here. In addition, John Hodgman comments on the oil addiction.
Patrick found this old video from the Daily Show in which Steve Carell reports on the World Series of Birding. Or, rather, he distracts some teams while they are trying to find birds – all in good fun, of course. Enjoy!
Good luck to the Sandy Hook Century Run and all the other teams heading out today!
[If the video does not embed properly, you can find it here.]
Three Bermuda Petrels (Pterodroma cahow) have returned to Nonsuch Island. The species was last recorded breeding there 400 years ago. Most recently birds of this species were breeding on small islets in Castle Harbor, Bermuda. The new pairs were translocated to Nonsuch Island as chicks to prevent the breeding population from being wiped out by a hurricane. While nesting has not yet been recorded, the petrels have engaged in courtship and nest-preparation behaviors.
Under the direction of Dr. David Wingate, Bermuda’s former Conservation Officer, Nonsuch Island has undergone ecological restoration over the last 45 years, with the replanting of native and endemic trees and plants. “This has now formed a young closed-canopy forest, similar to what the first settlers on the island in the early 1600s described the bird as nesting under”, said Jeremy Madeiros of Bermuda’s Department of Conservation Services, who has managed the Cahow Recovery Programme since David Wingate’s retirement.The following video shows footage of a Bermuda Petrel (a.k.a. "Chahow" nest site).
During February this year, Jeremy Madeiros and Andrew Dobson, President of the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds, visited Nonsuch Island at night to check for evidence of Bermuda Petrel breeding activity.
“One bird landed next to us so we could check its band [ring], weigh and measure it,” said Andrew Dobson. “It then spent at least two hours in the burrow.”
Jeremy Madeiros says the recapture of translocated birds back on Nonsuch and the courtship and nest prospecting activity are important milestones. But the project will not be considered a success until nesting occurs. “If this activity follows the pattern already observed at the original breeding islets, this could happen as early as 2009–2010.”
While at Jamaica Bay on Friday, I recorded a couple of videos with my camera. The better of the two is an immature black-crowned night heron that we saw at Big John's Pond. The sound in the background is the air traffic from JFK International Airport.
Uploaded at BirdCinema.
Bird Cinema is a new Youtube-like service where users can upload, view, and comment on digital videos of birds. The site so far looks promising. Good bird videos have been posted on Youtube and other video sharing sites, but finding them among all the other videos can sometimes be difficult. This should make that aspect a little easier. Of course, the value of a service like this depends on how many people choose to participate. The sound and video appear to be a little out of sync on some videos, but for the most part the quality is good. Below is a video of a yellow-breasted chat.
Since I saw an American Bittern over the weekend, here is a video of one feeding in someone's backyard. The mix of prey items is interesting. It includes some small oblong creatures that I assume are large insects, plus one thing that appears to be a small snake.
Link
Here is another bird in the "coming soon" category. Today, Youtube brings you the Baltimore Oriole. Actually, orioles ought to be in town already. If you have not seen one yet, you will be seeing one soon.
First, an up-close view of an oriole eating:
Next, a video of an oriole singing:
Speaking of migratory birds, this weekend the National Zoo is holding its International Migratory Bird Day celebration. If you visit the Zoo this weekend, you can meet representatives of conservation organizations, including the DC Audubon Society, Maryland Ornithological Society, DC Fisheries and Wildlife, Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, National Wildlife Federation, National Park Service, the USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, and many others.
John James Audubon described cerulean warblers as follows:
It arrives in the lower parts of the State of Louisiana, in company with many other species of Warblers, breeds there and sets out again about the beginning of October. It is as lively as most species of its genus, possesses the same manner of flight, moves sidewise up and down the branches and twigs, frequently changing sides, and hangs to the extremities of bunches of leaves or berries, on which it procures the insects and larvae of which its food is principally composed. The liveliness of its notes renders it conspicuous in those parts of the skirts of the forests which it frequents; and its song, although neither loud nor of long continuance, is extremely sweet and mellow.
