ABA Blog

Rediscovery in Australia, and Questions

Among the world's rarest birds there is no species that holds quite the air of mystery as the Night Parrot of Australia. Incredibly rare and otherworldly elusive, the species is known from a few scattered historical accounts and a bare handful of salvaged roadkilled specimens since 1979. It is without doubt one of the most mysterious birds in the world, and the acquisition of photos of the species has been something of a Holy Grail for ornithologists in Australia and beyond.

Enter controversial naturalist John Young who, just last week, announced in a highly anticipated media event in Queensland that he had discovered and recorded a Night Parrot five years ago (remarkable in and of itself) and used that recording helped him track down a bird which he was able to photograph earlier this year. Those photos and a video were reportedly shared with those in attendance. One of the photos can be seen in a heavily wordmarked version on the website of The Australian News.

Somewhat oddly, however, Young has decided not to work with governmental agencies to safeguard the bird and the site where he found it in southwest Queensland, intending instead to raise $2 million (AUS) so that the area can be maintained privately. He has stated that he believes the government would mismanage the site, and that this possibly remnant population would be set upon by hordes of birders. He has also not released his recording of the call, the only one known to be in existence.

Young is not without his share of controversy, particularly with regard to "rediscoveries" of seemingly extinct species. His claims of finding the Paradise Parrot, a species believed to be extinct, in 1980 did not pan out when followed up on by others, and his photographs of a species reportedly new to science, the blue-browed fig-parrot, published in the newspaper The Australian in 2007, were challenged by many.

It's hard to argue that John Young is in the wrong this time in the face of photos and apparent video, though, he certainly has put in the work in the bush and has the backing of several prominent Night Parrot experts in Australia. How this all shakes out remains to be seen, but even so it certainly appears to be one of the most fascinating bird stories in recent memory

More information on John Young's discovery can be found at the following sites:

Rare night parrot sighting - ABC News

Rare bird ruffling feathers - The Australian News

ABA Blog in Review: June 2013

This month was a difficult one for those of us at the ABA. We mourned the loss of our friend and colleague Betty Petersen, whose incredible work for birders and bird researchers in Latin America through the Birders' Exchange program was truly inspirational. We all owe a great debt to Betty, both for her work as a force for good for birds, and her role as something of an institutional historian. We will miss her terribly.

Here at the ABA Blog, we had a great month, no doubt thanks to the great work of our contributors, both regular and guest.

The most far-reaching of those guest posts was Brooke McDonald's The Field Glass Ceiling, a look at the relative absence of women in positions of authority in birding.

We also had an insider's look at a exhibition of the nature artist Owen Gromme by Susan Ford-Hoffert and a piece by Dave Magpiong encouraging birders to take opportunities to promote birding whenever they can.

As for our regular contributors, Events Coordinator George Armistead announces the ABA's first event outside of the ABA Area, a safari to Africa in the fall of 2014.

Big Year guru and board member Lynn Barber announces the winner of her recent contest, and considers the ephemeral nature of Big Years, and how they may not stand the test of time.

Birding editor Ted Floyd is at his provacative best, challenging ideas if what a Big Day, or even a Big Year can be. He also challenges the rules of birding, both overt and unsaid.

Greg Neise's piece on how the family of birders can cut across lines what other aspects of our culture cannot, was one of the month's highlights.

Summer for Bill Schmoker means lots of fun outdoors, including an experiment in boat-borne cameras and a trip to South Dakota with some beautiful photographs.

Noah Strycker gets to us twice in one month with a piece on an intense 48 hour bird race, and an even more epic week-long birdathon in Peru.

June was a productive month for #ABArares, as John Puschock kept us all informed of Red-necked Stint in Massachusetts, a state first Tropical Kingbird in Pennsylvania, an amazing Lesser White-fronted Goose, Dark-sided Flycatcher, and White-throated Needletail in Alaska, and Variegated Flycatcher in Florida.

Thanks for reading this month, and if you're a fan of the ABA and you have not yet joined the organization, please continue joining us!

See you in July!

Is it ABA countable? The Ultimate Flowchart

It has happened to every birder at one point or another. A great bird is seen, maybe even a lifer, and in the wake of the initial euphoria a single question is posed.

"Is it countable?"

Thankfully for those birders not interested in wading through the official rules on countability, Nick Lund of the irreverent birding blog The Birdist has created the ultimate flowchart that every birder who has ever asked that question, or even those who haven't, should have a look at.

If your quandry has not yet been settled, you'll need to head over to The Birdist for the resolution. 

It's well, well worth your time.

Mercury Poisoning and its Effects on Birds

John Beetham of DC Birding Blog, whose curation of noteworthy bird notes every week is among the very best of any subject on the web, draws attention to a recent study that offers a great deal of insight into one of the more insidious and quiet killers of wild birds in North America, mercury poisoning.

photo by nebirdsplus via flickr

We're well aware of mercury's effects as a neurotoxin on human populations such that stringent restrictions are placed on its disposal, but methylmercury has been documented in several bird species as well and while we don't know the extent of how it manifests in birds, we do know that it can impact learning and memory (much as it does in humans). This means that birds affected by mercury in their environment can have difficulty memorizing and retaining songs, among other things.

That study Beetham elaborates on was one authored by Sheila Scoville and Oksana Lane and published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology concerning the analysis of the tissues of a young Saltmarsh Sparrow, particularly the bird's brain, which suggested disturbing things about the omnipresence of mercury in many ecosystems.

From John's post:

Based on feather samples taken from adult birds at the study site, it can be inferred that this fledgling's mother had high exposure to mercury at the time that she laid her eggs. This is analogous to in utero exposure in humans. In humans, in utero exposure can lead to brain abnormalities like Minamata Disease. This fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow showed abnormalities in its cerebellum that would have similar effects on motor control and coordination. Birds with these sorts of defects would have trouble recognizing and escaping danger, thus making them more susceptible to predation and accidental deaths.

While this fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow is only one data point, the findings have disturbing implications. Since mercury levels among adult birds were so high, many other young Saltmarsh Sparrows are presumably exposed to mercury at the time of egg formation. We cannot know how many of them have brain abnormalities like the one documented in this study, but it seems safe to assume that the problem is widespread.

It's hard to know precisely what to do about this issue. Chief among contributing factors are coal-burning power plants, which are the single greatest source of methylmercury in the environment. In addition to climate concerns, it seems critical that we shift away from coal as an energy source to reduce the amount of mercury entering these ecosystems for the sake of those birds, and other wildlife, that are clearly feeling the stress.

The full paper is available here.

Get Your BOY Stickers and New Items in the Shop

Our new membership drive last month was a huge success, with 178 brand new members joining the ABA during that 2 week period. Welcome to those of you who signed up and thanks so much to those of you who continue to support the ABA through your continued membership. 

If you missed the stickers in the Jan/Feb issue of Birding that featured the Common Nighthawk Bird of the Year cover, and we know that some of you did, we want to make sure you get them. There's no better way to make yourself known as an ABA member out in the field.

So if you're missing the BOY nighthawk sticker please drop an email to Liz Gordon at lgordon AT aba.org and she will get you set up.

Also in ABA related paraphernalia, we have some new items in the ABA Shop that may interest members or future members (please join!). ABA patches are now on sale, with the new circular logo that we debuted in sticker form earlier this year. Also you can get ABA logo'd luggage tags for the traveling birder.

Of course, the ABA shop is your place for ABA apparel, jewelry, pins, binocular straps, and various other doo-dads that any birder would want. Come check it out!

Listing Central: Attu Bonanza!

There are few places in North America as storied to birders as Attu, that speck of land closer to Asia than mainland Alaska that has been the first point of contact for an incredible number of Asian strays, many of which are first records for the ABA Area.

In recent years Attu has been increasingly difficult to access, but #ABArare guru John Puschock has been leading trips there - accessing the island by boat - for awhile. And even though there are fewer birders visiting, the birds are still coming in bunches.

John has been writing dispatches for Lister's Corner, the blog arm of Listing Central, over the last few days chronicling the birds he's found. We already mentioned the White-throated Needletail here, but on May 31st he hit a bonanza of classic Attuvian magnitude.

At this point, we were starting to get giddy, and we were about to get even more giddy. Moving down onto Alexei, Isaac flushed a Wood Sandpiper from a pond. It flew to the other side, just out of view from the rest of the group. The plan was to walk around to the other side for a view, but there was a distraction we had to deal with first – a neighboring pond held two Smew. As we were admiring them, Isaac radioed that he just flushed another male Siberian Rubythroat. To give you some idea of how things were going, everyone ignored that bird.

It's an epic read, and a fascinating series that allows those of us who love to live vicariously through birders in amazing places seeing amazing things.

 

photo by Jess Findlay / Jess Findlay Photography

 

That exciting post is here. But keep coming back to Lister's Corner to keep up on how the tour is going.

Arctic Terns Taking the Long Way

via DC Birding Blog

photo from wikipedia

The epic planet-spanning migration of Arctic Terns is among the most famous of all bird species. Wile they seemed to lose the title of "longest migratory route" to the Sooty Shearwater - whose 40,000 mile trek around the Pacific was documented in 2006 - for a time, a recent study looks to hand that title back to the bird that for many is the textbook example of avian endurance.

We've known for a very long time that Arctic Terns breed in the high latitudes of the Arctic in the northern hemisphere summer before traveling to the other pole to spent the southern hemisphere summer foraging in the productive waters around Antarctica, but a team of researchers tagging breeding Arctic Terns with geolocators (what else, after all?) in the Netherlands has shown in the journal Ardea, that there's much more to that oversimplified route.

The tracked terns spent on average 273 ± 7 days away from The Netherlands, and visited known staging areas in the North Atlantic and the Benguela Current, on both the outward and return journey. Similar tracks were observed in the terns from Greenland.

However, hereafter the terns from The Netherlands moved to a previously unknown staging area in the central Indian Ocean, between 20–40°N and 65–100°E, and spent most of the non-breeding season in the Southern Ocean between 35–150°E. One bird migrated as far as New Zealand.

Eventually, all five birds spent the Austral summer in Wilkes Land, Antarctica, before flying back to the breeding colonies with a small detour to the same North Atlantic staging area they visited on their southward migration. The total travel distance in the course of the non-breeding period was ~90,000 ± 2000 km, which substantially exceeds previous estimates for this species.

For the non-metric among us, 90,000 km is on the order of 56,000 miles. Truly remarkable.

The full study, including a remarkable map showing the journey of these geolocated birds, is available online here.

 

ABA Blog in Review: May 2013

It's always sort of bittersweet when May comes to a close. The bulk of migration is over, the heat of summer is upon us, and it's humbling to think that it won't be too much longer before the inevitable return of birds heading the other direction. But we can pause in June for Breeding Bird Surveys and hunts for wayward vagrants and maybe a short break from birding before it's time to ready our constitution for the mudflats and mosquitos of late summer. But that's not too soon, of course.

While we're looking forward to summer, here's a very brief look back at the month that was at the ABA Blog. Just in case you missed anything.

Guest writers in our Open Mic feature included Woody Bracey's report of a record breaking Big Year in the logistically challenging Bahamas, Rick Simpson's incredible attempt to draw attention to the plight of the worlds shorebirds by seeing as many of them as possible though his WaderQuest initiative, and the fantastic first-hand account by Brian Quindlen of the first youth team to take top prize at the World Series of Birding.

As always, if you have something you'd like to say to our readership, please contact me at blog AT aba.org. We'd love to give you a platform.

Austin Smith, 16, Ben Bussmann, 18, and Nathaniel Sharp, 17, of the World Series of Birding Champion B.B. Kingfishers scan the trees in Stokes State Forest (photo by Brian Quindlen).

Have you checked out Birder's Marketplace yet?

Events Coordinator George Armistead announced the return of the ABA Convention, to be held in Texas in April of next year. You'll be hearing more about that in the not to distant future, but for now save the date.

Lynn Barber comes every closer to the 200 species mark in her county Big Year, finding sparrows and warblers along the way.

President Jeff Gordon is finally ready to talk about the "New ABA". Are you?

Robert Mortenson introduces the 2013 Bird of the Year Multimedia Art Contest in his own idiosyncratic way.

Photo guru Bill Schmocker shared his experiences in video-recording, placing natural perches near his feeding station, and enjoying some local Ruddy Ducks.

We welcomed Drew Weber to the fold, and he kicked things off with a discussion of tech innovations in birding.

And yours truly broke down some of the more interesting bird taxonomy reports up for a vote from the AOU Check-list Committee.

Several #ABArare birds were seen this month, including Flame-colored Tanager in Texas, Plain-capped Starthroat and Slate-throated Redstart in Arizona, Common Ringed Plover in Massachusetts, two Little Egrets in Newfoundland, Black-faced Grassquit in Florida, a provincial first Purple Sandpiper in Alberta, and Green Sandpiper and Tundra Bean-Goose in Alaska.

As always, if you're a member of the ABA, THANK YOU for your support. It is because of members like you that we are able to do all that we do and we appreciate it. If you're not a member yet, please consider joining! We'd love you have you.

Thanks for reading!

LAST DAY to get $10 off a New ABA Membership!

TODAY is the last day to get a NEW ABA membership at a special discounted rate! So if you've been on the fence about joining or sharing the gift of an ABA membership with someone who you think would benefit, you've only got a few more hours to take advantage of this great offer.

We're really excited to bring you the benefits of ABA membership as we offer new opportunities for birders and expand existing ABA initiatives, but we can't do it without YOU!

If you're already a member, thanks so much for your support. Please consider sharing this offer with a fellow birder who might appreciate it.

Together we can build a passionate and involved birding community.

Thank you, and good birding!

Magee Marsh, Ohio, on CBS Sunday Morning

The Biggest Week in American Birding was featured prominently in a story on this morning's CBS Sunday Morning program, featuring interviews with Kim Kaufman, Richard Crossley, and J. Drew Lanham, among others. It's a really nicely done take on what makes birding so rewarding for so many of us.

In case you missed it, the piece is available on the CBS website and embedded below.

It's great to see so many familiar faces throughout! Congrats to everybody involved!