Industry Gets a Pass on Accidental Bird Deaths – The Allegheny Front
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Crows have long been associated with creepiness. After all, a group of them is called a "murder." But maybe the birds have gotten a bad rap — maybe their most unsettling quality is really just how smart they are.
To get some insight into crows and perhaps set the record straight, Short Wave spoke with Kaeli Swift, a lecturer at the University of Washington who wrote her doctoral thesis on crow behavior. She cites three examples of crow smarts.
North American Birds Are Shrinking, Likely a Result of the Warming Climate | Audubon
Every year, David Willard, collections manager emeritus at the Field Museum, measures the lifeless bodies of birds that die from building collisions in Chicago. Since 1978, this has been his routine every spring and fall, when millions of migrating birds pass through the city to reach their seasonal homes. All told, he’s gathered some 70,000 avian individuals from 52 species.
In a study published today in Ecology Letters, researchers from the University of Michigan and the Field Museum put to use Willard’s 40 years of data and found that North American migratory birds have been shrinking throughout the decades, likely a result of the warming climate. As their bodies have gotten smaller, most of the species have also developed longer wings.
report – pennlive.com
A recently released report conducted by scientists working for the Audubon Society suggests that Pennsylvania’s state bird is at-risk of leaving the state, due to climate change.
The report, which looks at what would happen if or when the earth’s climate would warm another 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees or 3 degrees in the summer and winter, analyzes the increased heat’s impact on birds. It predicts that the Ruffed Grouse will search for a cooler climate, as the bird is known to thrive in cooler weather, even severe winters.
The Ruffled Grouse in the story looks like he is having a bad day. Or maybe a bad century. Climate change sucks. You would think they might want to do something about it, says the boy with the big jacked up truck who likes burning things.
Why Birds Hit Windows—and How You Can Help Prevent It | All About Birds
There are two main types of window collisions: daytime and nighttime. In daylight, birds crash into windows because they see reflections of vegetation or see through the glass to potted plants or vegetation on the other side. At night, nocturnal migrants (including most songbirds) crash because they fly into lighted windows. Some of these nighttime collisions are due to chance, but much more often the nocturnal migrants are lured to their deaths by the lights. For reasons not entirely understood, lights divert nocturnal migrants from their original path, especially in low-ceiling or foggy conditions. In the lighted area, they mill about, sometimes colliding with one another or the lighted structure. The Fatal Light Awareness Program, based in Toronto, Canada, has much more about this problem.
There’s one additional reason: birds sometimes see their reflection in a window and attack it. This happens most frequently in the spring when territoriality is high. Although it can be annoying to the homeowner, it’s seldom a threat to the bird’s survival. Most of the remedies suggested below for window strikes will also help solve the problem of a bird attacking its reflection.