Birds

How do birds navigate? When they face north, their brains do something incredible. – Big Think

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How do birds navigate? When they face north, their brains do something incredible. – Big Think

One thing led to another, and in 1965, Keeton — then a professor of biology at Cornell University — was strapping magnets to pigeons. Because previous studies had shown that some animals align their bodies to magnetic fields, Keeton hypothesized that this was important for navigation. He was correct. The polarized pigeons were clumsy navigators at best. Smarter faster: the Big Think newsletter Subscribe for counterintuitive, surprising, and impactful stories delivered to your inbox every Thursday Fields marked with an * are required

Over the next several decades, researchers investigated how migratory birds detect magnetic fields. In general, most scientists rejected the idea that birds hid a compass under their wings. That, of course, would be silly. The compass, or rather a magnetically sensitive protein, was hidden in the birds’ eyes and brain.

At first glance, that seems to be the end of the story: Birds navigate by magnetic fields, and they have a special protein that allows them to detect magnetic fields. However, one question lingers: How do the birds translate a magnetic field into direction? This is what the scientists behind the recent study hoped the streaked shearwater chick could answer.

Why the Passenger Pigeon Went Extinct | Audubon

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Why the Passenger Pigeon Went Extinct | Audubon

In May 1850, a 20-year-old Potawatomi tribal leader named Simon Pokagon was camping at the headwaters of Michigan’s Manistee River during trapping season when a far-off gurgling sound startled him. It seemed as if “an army of horses laden with sleigh bells was advancing through the deep forests towards me,” he later wrote. “As I listened more intently, I concluded that instead of the tramping of horses it was distant thunder; and yet the morning was clear, calm, and beautiful.” The mysterious sound came “nearer and nearer,” until Pokagon deduced its source: “While I gazed in wonder and astonishment, I beheld moving toward me in an unbroken front millions of pigeons, the first I had seen that season.”

These were passenger pigeons, Ectopistes migratorius, at the time the most abundant bird in North America and possibly the world. Throughout the 19th century, witnesses had described similar sightings of pigeon migrations: how they took hours to pass over a single spot, darkening the firmament and rendering normal conversation inaudible. Pokagon remembered how sometimes a traveling flock, arriving at a deep valley, would “pour its living mass” hundreds of feet into a downward plunge. “I have stood by the grandest waterfall of America,” he wrote, “yet never have my astonishment, wonder, and admiration been so stirred as when I have witnessed these birds drop from their course like meteors from heaven.”

USDA confirms HPAI in two additional states, increase in surveillance

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USDA confirms HPAI in two additional states, increase in surveillance

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in birds in two additional states — a flock of commercial broiler chickens in Fulton County, Kentucky, and a backyard flock of mixed species birds in Fauquier County, Virginia.

Last week, the first case was confirmed in a commercial turkey flock in Dubois County, Indiana. This was the first confirmed case of HPAI in commercial poultry in the United States since 2020.

NY lawmakers propose bill limiting artificial light at night

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NY lawmakers propose bill limiting artificial light at night

Two state lawmakers on Thursday introduced legislation meant to limit outdoor lighting at night in order to better protect migrating birds.

The measure backed by Manhattan Sen. Brad Hoylman and Albany Assemblywoman Pat Fahy would require most non-essential outdoor lighting be turned off by 11 p.m., be motion activated or covered by an external shield.

The bill is meant to prevent birds who travel at night from becoming disoriented by bright nighttime lights and striking buildings

“Buildings don’t have to be bird killers,” Hoylman said. “On just one night this autumn, building workers found over 200 migratory birds dead at the base of two buildings in Manhattan. While Albany enacted legislation in 2014 to reduce excess light from state-owned buildings to help prevent migratory bird collisions, we must build on this success and reduce the impacts of artificial light throughout the state."

In New York City alone, it's estimated 90,000 to 230,000 birds are killed every year by striking buildings.