We’re rounding the corner into fall, and birders are already hearing the calls of migrant birds as they pass overhead at night. Here’s Lab researcher Lewis Grove’s first post in our series covering the exciting fall migration season: August has a reputation for being a slow month for woodland birding. The dawn chorus has dried [...]
Songbirds like this Northern Mockingbird are one of only three groups of birds that can do vocal learning. . On Friday in Philadelphia, Dr. Colleen McLinn started her day learning about how birds learn their songs, and hearing new discoveries about the parts of their brains they use to do it. Here’s Colleen: I spent [...]
The Lab’s director, John Fitzpatrick, spent Thursday afternoon learning about a new concept in conservation, and how it might be applied to ensure that the endangered Kirtland’s Warbler remains a part of our world into the future. Here’s Fitz: One of the most moving symposia on the meeting’s first day was an afternoon session on [...]
Here’s Lab research associate Dr. Caren Cooper with a report from Thursday’s session at the American Ornithologists’ Union meeting in Philadelphia. On Thursday afternoon I went to a session titled Anthropogenic Structures, which is how ornithologists refer to birds hitting things that people have built. Millions of birds die each year in collisions with communication [...]
Quick—which family? (Take David Winkler’s ornithology class to find out.) . It’s August: time for another annual meeting of the American Ornithologists’ Union. Just like last year in Portland, hundreds of ornithologists are pouring in for three days of concentrated science—this time to the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. This year, we’ll be posting updates [...]
Does the ingenuity of corvids—crows, ravens, and their relatives—have any limits? Just this week came the news that New Caledonian crows can use three different tools in a row to get a complex task done. Now we learn that the Rook, a European corvid, is savvy enough to displace water using stones. If that sounds [...]
