This week in birds - #25

News from the world of birds and the environment this week:

(Photo courtesy of ABC.)

The Bermuda Petrel, commonly called Cahow after the sound that it makes, is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. The bird is Bermuda's only endemic breeding species but was long thought to be extinct. In recent years, small populations of the bird have been found and conservationists are trying to protect it and encourage a comeback. It is still seriously endangered.

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We know that the White-winged Dove is on the move, expanding its range right across the country. It was only a few years ago that the first of these doves appeared in my yard. Now they are the dominant doves here, having displaced the previous immigrants, the Eurasian Collared-dove. Now comes word that the White-winged has made it all the way to New Jersey!  

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Here's an oddment from the science news of the week: Nine turtle pairs died while copulating and their fossilized remains have now been discovered in Germany. It's the first known case of mating pairs dying in the act, being fossilized and then recovered. Scientists speculate that these turtles were going about their business in safe waters but while they were joined together they drifted into a toxic area of the lake and were killed.

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Chinstrap Penguins are losing population in a warming world. The penguins depend on krill as their main source of nourishment and the krill are dying in warming waters. Less krill means fewer penguins.

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In related penguin news, the four-foot-tall Emperor Penguin depends on the ice shelf around the continent of Antarctica as its habitat. As the planet warms and the ice melts, scientists are predicting a drastic decline in the population of these big penguins.

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A species which had been thought for 133 years to be extinct has been rediscovered. The Kandyan dwarf toad has been found to be alive and well and living in Sri Lanka.

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It's news when Kiwis fly and this week some of these normally flightless birds took to the air - with an assist from a military helicopter - as they were moved to a new habitat on the coast of New Zealand.

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Carbon that is currently trapped in the Arctic tundra could be released, scientists say, by the growth of new trees in the warming area. This is of concern because it could further exacerbate global warming.

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A study of Swamp Sparrows shows that baby sparrows prefer the songs which they can hear the clearest and adopt those into their own personal playlist. Thus, outside noises from human activities can obscure some sounds and thus affect the songs that the birds learn.

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Coyotes have recolonized the Northeast displacing the red fox in many areas. The red fox is a voracious predator of the white-footed mouse which is a carrier of the ticks which produce Lyme disease. Coyotes prey on the mice, too, but not to the extent of the foxes. When the foxes disappear from an area, the mouse population expands and the cases of Lyme disease increase. These are the findings of a new study about the increasing number of Lyme disease cases in the Northeast, and thus does a change in the habitat of an area produce sometimes unexpected results.

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Did you ever wonder how Brown-headed Cowbird chicks learn to be cowbirds? After all, they are raised by foster parents, so why don't they imitate the sparrows or warblers who have nourished them?  Blogger Kate St. John has an observation about that and about the male cowbirds calling their now fully-fledged chicks to follow them.

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Around the backyard:

Well, it's been a bit of a lost week for me. I've been laid low by a respiratory infection and unable to get out and about very much at all. I did finally get outside today to fill my bird feeders which had been empty for many days. Poor birds! Fortunately, there's no shortage of wild food for them.

Hardly had I gotten the seeds and suet and pressed seedcakes into their appropriate feeders before the dominant Northern Mockingbird was on top of the feeder pole proclaiming that this is his territory!  Some of the other birds may have other ideas though.

While I was out filling the feeders, I was delighted to hear the song of the little Brown-headed Nuthatch in my neighbor's pine trees. It's not a song that I hear in my yard every day anymore and it always makes me happy when I do.