1. Let’s start with a wonderful story on the critical migration route of the majestic (and severely threatened) Whooping Crane: As Nebraska photographer Michael Forsberg shot thousands of photos of Sandhill Cranes, he would occasionally see migrating Whooping Cranes mixed in with the large flocks of sandhills. Alabaster white in contrast to the dusky sandhills and taller by a foot, the Whooping Cranes popped from the scene as if they were beacons. To see one “changes you,” Forsberg says. “At least it changed me.” In the years after he published On Ancient Wings, his 2004 book on Sandhill Cranes, Forsberg received encouragement from a lot of people, from crane experts to his dad, to shoot a second book—on Whooping Cranes. A second book on cranes would be as daunting and time-consuming as the first, he knew, and for a long time he was on the fence. Then one day he sat in a photography blind on the Platte River, surrounded by thousands of migrating Sandhill Cranes gabbling in the pre-dawn dark. (via All About Birds)

2. When sardines and anchovies disappear – new study tells a very sad story: Despite ongoing conservation efforts, fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs of critically endangered African penguins remain. The penguins perished by the thousands for a simple, agonizing reason: a lack of food. In two key colonies off the coast of South Africa, the vast majority of the breeding birds probably starved to death over an eight-year period because of a collapse of their food supplies, according to a study published Thursday. (via The Washington Post)

By Hap Ellis, Crested Caracara - Celery Fields, Sarasota, FL.

3. On a happier note, Wisdom is back!: One of the world’s most famous birds has returned to her nesting site. Wisdom, the 75-year-old albatross is known as theworld’s oldest breeding bird. Earlier this month, she returned to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the central Pacific Ocean for the 2025-2026 nesting season.Laysal albatrosses like Wisdom (or mōlī in Hawaiian) return to the same nesting site every year. Once they reach the wildlife refuge on the northwestern edge of the Hawaiian Archipelago, the birds will reunite with their mates. If all goes well, they will lay a single egg and stay on the atoll to nest.According to the United States Department of Fish and Wildlife, her arrival this year is slightly earlier than in previous years. Her mate from last year has also not been spotted yet. (via Popular Science)

4. This recently discovered bird in Brazil has one trait that has ornithologists worried: Rotund, ground-dwelling and unafraid of humans to its own peril, the famed dodo bird became an icon of extinction when it disappeared from the island of Mauritius, and from Earth, in the 17th century, soon after Dutch settlers first encountered the bird. Now Brazilian ornithologists say that they have discovered an analog of the dodo in the remote Amazon: the slaty-masked tinamou, a chickenlike bird that exhibits a total lack of fear toward people. The researchers are looking to the dodo’s demise to prevent the tinamou from suffering a similar fate. (via The New York Times)

5. Kestrels keeping the peace for Michigan cherry farmers: If you’re lucky enough to enjoy a warm slice of cherry pie this holiday, you should probably thank this bird. It’s an American kestrel, the smallest falcon in North America, which is roughly the size of a blue jay. And in some parts of Michigan — the nation’s tart cherry capital — this bird helps farmers produce cherries. Kestrels are predators, and they prey on insects, rodents, and other birds, many of which eat cherries. So when cherry farmers have kestrel nest boxes in their orchards, they see fewer cherry-eating birds, such as robins and grackles, as one 2018 study revealed. (via Vox)

6. What it takes – in St. Paul, MN, if they really want to reduce bird collisions: After years of delay and a lengthy public hearing last week, St. Paul is preparing to adopt its new city regulations. There are two big changes the city should make: a pioneering bird-safe glass ordinance and loosening height restrictions in the downtown area. Together, these changes offer a needed compromise between environmental protection and urban development for St. Paul. The problem is well-known: Birds are prone to flying into reflective windows, particularly during long migrations. The Mississippi River is one of the continent’s great flyways, where the river valley provides an avian highway for hundreds of species twice a year, around half of all the birds on the continent. This makes any building with reflective windows along the river valley a death trap, and it’s long past time that cities started using bird-safe glass to prevent this obvious problem. (via MinnPost)

By Hap Ellis, (Young) Bald Eagle - Longboat Key, FL.

7. More on bird-friendly laws across the country from the Library of Congress, for those interested: As the month of November ends, so does the annual fall migration season for birds in North America. Although the actual impact is difficult to measure, a 2005 study published by the U.S. Forest Service estimates that 500 million to 1 billion birds die annually from human-driven causes, with a significant number of those coming from collisions with buildings. The American Bird Conservancy that up to one-third of bird species in the U.S. are affected by collisions. Even the most conservative estimates place the number of collisions in the hundreds of millions. The most significant contributor to bird collisions is glass. (via Library of Congress Blogs)

8. NPR’s take on a good story we covered last week but worth a look: A group in Western Washington state has developed a novel gauge for their forest conservation work — thousands of audio recordings of native birds. Adrian Wolf knows birds. He once studied a threatened species called the streaked horned lark for over 10 years. Adrian Wolf is not studying just one bird, not anymore. He manages forests in western Washington state. He is stewardship director for the Great Peninsula Conservancy, and he relies on bird sounds to measure his work. He thinks of it like the birds are leaving reviews. (via National Public Radio)

9. Pick on someone your own size!! Orcas messing with birds – especially little guys like the Rhinoceros Auklet?: Nobody is safe from Orcas. The “wolves of the sea” have been spottedsucking the livers out of sharks,launching seals into orbit, and even sinking boats. The latest animals to feel the wrath of the ocean’s most persistent menace are seabirds in Washington. While they were doing fieldwork in November, researchers with the Orca Behavior Institute and the Center for Whale Research spotted Bigg’s orcas stalking seabirds in the Puget Sound, as they reported in an announcement. “Members of the T36s and T137s along with T99B were going after common loons and surf scoters in Murden Cove off Bainbridge Island,” they explained. “You can see in this still image from the drone footage how shallow the water was: the trio of whales on the right is kicking up mud with their flukes! On the left, one whale has broken away from the group to sneak up on an unsuspecting group of birds.” However, the orcas were not trying to actually eat the birds. Researchers believe the behavior was a way to practice hunting skills, or a form of play. (via The Inertia)

10. One in 30,000 – a paean to leucistic birds (and check out the Acorn Woodpecker): For several years in my garden, one of the harbingers of spring would be the arrival of the white-headed girl. This bird was a female house sparrow, normal except for her bright white cap. She stood out: field guides describe these birds’ caps as “drab,” meaning grayish-brown. Not white. So the first time I saw her, I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. That became clear about a month later on a trip to the Sierras. As the sun was setting, the trip leader spotted two red-tailed hawks perched on top of a distant barn. At first glance, they didn’t look like a pair—one’s head seemed encircled by a saintly halo. A look through a spotting scope and a word from the trip leader clarified that the bird was leucistic. (via Bay Nature)

By Hap Ellis, Loggerhead Shrike - Celery Fields, Sarasota, FL.

11. What it takes – to get to the color “ultrablack” – (hint: help from the Magnificent Riflebird): The color “ultrablack” – defined as reflecting less than 0.5% of the light that hits it – has a variety of uses, including in cameras, solar panels and telescopes, but it’s difficult to produce and can appear less black when viewed at an angle. Now, a Cornell lab has devised a simple method for making the elusive color. Taking cues from nature – in particular the striking black of the magnificent riflebird – researchers in the Responsive Apparel Design (RAD) Lab, in the College of Human Ecology (CHE), dyed a white merino wool knit fabric with polydopamine, followed by etching of the material in a plasma chamber to create nanofibrils – spiky nanoscale growths. (via Cornell Chronicle)

12. Easy does it: Last winter my twin sister Gilia Angell and I (both age 51) and our mother Noel Angell (age 79) took our birding friend Gordon Orians (age 93) birding in the Skagit River delta of Washington State, where we live. We designed the day to bird by car and visit places with minimal walking distance for birding access, and with documented placement of benches for sitting. Among the four of us, our past birding adventures have ranged far and wide, from across North America to South America and Africa. Orians, who in 1999 received a lifetime achievement award for ornithological research from the Cooper Ornithological Society, has traveled the world to study birds. Two decades ago he, my mother, and sister traveled on a birding trip to Tanzania and saw Kori Bustards on the Serengeti. (via All About Birds)

13. Avian flu update from LA – one step back: L.A. County health officials are asking residents to take precautions after a handful of wild birds tested positive for avian influenza, also known as H5 bird flu. It comes about a year after an outbreak hit the state. The health department says the five birds, mostly gulls, were found across L.A. County in November. A majority were along the coast in Manhattan Beach, Malibu, San Pedro and Palos Verdes. Another was found in Van Nuys. While risk to the public is low, bird flu can cause problems in the agriculture industry. Multiple outbreaks in poultry and dairy farms affected workers’ health and led to astatewide emergency in 2024. Pets can also catch it — cats in particular have gottenvery sick. (via LAist)

By Hap Ellis, Black Skimmer - Longboat Key, FL.

14. Podcast – with Scott Taylor, evolutionary biologist and Director of the CU Boulder Mountain Research Station: It’s a stressful day at the office. You want to get away from work. The sounds of notifications, meeting alerts, and Zoom calls ring through your ears. You step outside for your lunch break. No matter where you are in the world, you’re likely to hear the same thing:the sounds of birds. They’re everywhere, after all. Despite their constant presence in our lives and our world, there’s still a lot left to understand about our clawed compatriots. What if we could learn more about them with a bit of intentional observation? And in watching birds, maybe learn something about ourselves? We sit down with University of Colorado Boulder professor Scott Taylor to talk about his new podcast,“Okay, But… Birds, (via WAMU NPR)

15. Finally, a fun piece by renowned wildlife photographer, Tim Laman, on backyard birds up (very) close and in super slow-motion: Over the years we’ve traveled far abroad on wildlife photography assignments to document some of the world’s most exotic birds—spending days perched 100 feet high in a tree blind in the New Guinea rainforest canopy to photograph birds-of-paradise, and sweating it out in the Indonesian jungle to film hornbills. One day back at home in Massachusetts, we had a curious thought: What could we reveal if we trained our state-of-the-art digital cameras on the beloved titmice, chickadees, and woodpeckers in our backyard? That idea hatched into a new web series with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and sponsored by Wild Birds Unlimited. (via All About Birds)

* BTW, looking for a Christmas gift? Tim Laman co-authored Birds of Paradise with Edwin Scholes – giving us a spectacular look at these extraordinary birds, one of which is the Magnificent Riflebird mentioned above in #11

Bird Videos of the Week

Video by KFUR News, “Rare bird spotted in Sterling”.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Big Red.

Cornell Live Bird Cam - Ontario Feeder

Go Birding!!