BirdNote Daily

Smaller than a pigeon — but fierce enough to knock one from the air — are the powerful, compact falcons known as Merlins. Climate change is pushing ranges of many birds farther north, but more and more Merlins have been nesting farther south, in towns and cities across the northern United States. Merlins will take over old crow nests, especially in conifer trees, in parks, cemeteries, and neighborhoods.

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In the center of Oakland, California, is Lake Merritt. People row in it, picnic and jog around it, and it's a place of respite within the city. And it hosts waterbirds such as ducks, geese, egrets, pelicans, cormorants, and coots. A beautifully illustrated field guide by Alex Harris, The Birds of Lake Merritt, describes the birds found around the waters of Lake Merritt, its history since the Ohlone peoples have populated it, all the way till today.

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Collecting data on wild birds is crucial for their conservation. But it requires huge amounts of effort. One way to help streamline the process is with gizmos called autonomous recording units, or ARUs. For days or months, these recording devices eavesdrop on the environment around them, including the songs and calls of the local birds. Identifying the songs picked up on recordings can be almost as time-consuming as in-person field work, but new AI tools are quickly making it easier to analyze the audio.

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We're used to birds migrating north to south and south to north. But the Ancient Murrelet migrates east to west and back across the North Pacific. These plump seabirds nest in colonies in old-growth forests, in burrows and rock crevices. But where do they go in winter? After breeding, many Ancient Murrelets migrate westward. Around November, they end up in the Yellow Sea or the Sea of Japan. Two months after that, they head back, reaching British Columbia in March, and the cycle begins anew.

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In the Departamento de Maldonado of Uruguay, lives a biologist, Nicolás Marchand, who has been working with ranchers to make conservation and sustainability compatible with raising cattle in grasslands. A kind of approach that makes sure pastures for livestock also help host birds like the Buff-breasted Sandpiper, which spend their winters here. He wants to keep enhancing connections with ranchers, restoring pastures, and creating management practices that benefit wintering shorebirds — all to avoid losing more of these crucial ecosystems.

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To help backyard birds through the winter, do less. Leave the leaves or rake them under plantings. The tasty insects and spiders underneath will be food for the towhee and this Song Sparrow. Don’t deadhead. Pine Siskins and goldfinches love to snack on dead flowerheads. Make an insect hotel out of natural objects, flower pots, or other “found” items to create hidey holes for insects. They will become food for wrens and other birds.

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The Acorn Woodpecker is found in parts of the western US. It chips small recesses out of trees to fit the acorns it will harvest throughout the fall. A family of Acorn Woodpeckers may use this storage tree, or granary, for generations. Some of them hold as many as 50,000 acorns. So does the Acorn Woodpecker just kick back and munch acorns all winter? Nope! In the weeks after a fresh acorn is lodged in a hole, it dries and shrinks. So Acorn Woodpeckers spend much of the winter shuttling acorns from one hole to another, finding just the right fit.

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In the October sunlight, a Lincoln's Sparrow – like this one – sings energetically from a hedgerow. Soon a Fox Sparrow chimes in. Both nested in Alaska last summer but will spend the winter farther south. The Snow Geese are moving, too. A massive movement of birds takes place in the fall. The exodus of summer visitors to the tropics has given way to a surge from the north. And predators can't be far behind.

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Names are conventions, right? But some names contain something special: a bird! For example, the name Paloma comes from the colloquial name in Spanish for the common pigeon, but as a human name it often refers to doves. Or Garzón, my last name, is derived from Garza, or Heron, in Spanish.

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Chris Allieri started the NYC Plover Project in spring 2021, after seeing people and dogs disturb plover nests at a popular beach. He realized how vulnerable the birds are to having their nesting areas disturbed. Chris contacted the National Park Service, and together they set up volunteer training. Today the Plover Project  has a volunteer force of about 75 people who educate beachgoers about plover nesting areas and sharing the beach with the birds.

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