Round Robin

We’ve just launched a new online course about birds and behavior. Titled “Courtship and Rivalry in Birds,” it’s appropriate for all levels of interest and birdwatching expertise—anyone who’s ever seen a bird have an odd hop, wing-stretch, or squabble and wondered what it meant. The five-week course is taught on a rotating basis, and enrollment is open now for classes that begin November 11, 2009, and January 6, 2010.

The course covers territoriality, aggressive and courtship displays, and the fascinating field of sexual selection, all vividly illustrated with examples ranging from the familiar Red-winged Blackbird to New Guinea’s exotic birds-of-paradise.

The course takes students beyond book-based learning. It dissects the mercurial aspects of bird behavior with sound, video, interactive slideshows, simple online games, and conversations with scientists.

“You get the whole gamut—from birds you might see in your backyard to the most spectacular birds on the planet,” said course coauthor Kevin McGowan. “If you pay attention, there are a lot of things happening—you can look at small movements, see how movements are put together, and figure out what it all means”—all rendered beautifully onscreen with video from the Cornell Lab’s Macaulay Library.

Tuition is $295 for the five-week course. Cornell Lab members can enroll for $255 by calling 866-326-7635. Class sizes are small (15-35 students), so get your place early!

Last weekend our ace programmer, France Dewaghe, skipped out of Ithaca for Cape May to catch the tail-end of fall migration. Here at work, we had been thinking a lot about bird identification and the power of groups to hone in on IDs, even tricky ones. So when France came back with a memory card full of bird photos—in his spare time he’s also the reigning champ in the digital SLR category of the World Series of Birding—we thought we’d give you all a look at one of the most enduring of all ID problems.

Take a look at these two birds and leave us a comment about what you think they are. Are they the same species or different species? Different age or sex? What do you think they are, and what leads you to that conclusion? We’re interested in hearing from anyone out there, whether you’re an expert or just learning; whether you know the answer or just have a hunch.

Here are the images one by one, a little bigger. Both were taken October 25, 2009, at the hawk-watching platform in Cape May, New Jersey.

Exhibit A:

and Exhibit B:

Let us know if you like these bird quizzes and we’ll offer more from time to time (you can also check out the semi-regular Mystery Bird feature at GrrlScientist). And if you find all this bird ID confusing, check out our Inside Birding video series for easy-to-use tips on your technique.

(Images by France Dewaghe)

Birdsong fascinates scientists because it’s varied, beautiful, complicated—and because many birds learn songs in a way similar to how humans learn language. Studying the way young birds acquire their songs might allow us to solve problems with the way children develop language.

Much song research is done by watching young birds in captivity, but research just published today tackled the formidable task of following birds through field and forest. The approach gave the researchers a more realistic picture of how young birds behave. The scientists, led by grad student Chris Templeton of University of Washington, discovered that juvenile Song Sparrows are more interested in listening to two adult male Song Sparrows sing at each other than in listening to just one. That’s an exciting finding, because it suggests that the young birds don’t just mimic the sounds of a single adult. They listen to the way the two birds trade song phrases and types back and forth, perhaps learning the appropriate context for each phrase, or at least learning which song types are the most common in their neighborhood.

The researchers get extra points for effort. They set up experiments in a large, wild park in Seattle. Since they weren’t working with caged birds, they attached tiny radio-transmitters to 11 juvenile Song Sparrows so they could keep tabs on their whereabouts. In a series of experiments, speakers set up near each bird played the sound of either one adult Song Sparrow, two adult Song Sparrows singing at each other, or, as controls, the sounds of one or two Black-capped Chickadees. As the sounds played, the researchers kept close track of the young Song Sparrow’s actions. They found that the birds moved much closer to the speaker when it played two Song Sparrows than with any other recording. Their response to a single Song Sparrow wasn’t much different from their response to chickadee recordings—essentially mild curiosity rather than the keen interest they had in two birds conversing.

The research is only a few hours old, but it’s already appeared in a number of news outlets. Several of the stories tout the finding that young sparrows learn their songs, but what’s really exciting here is their interest in eavesdropping on an adult “conversation.” When people first started studying birdsong we thought of birds as tiny tape recorders that heard a song, then reproduced it as best it could. In the decades since then we’ve gradually seen how much learning and even improvising (in the case of mockingbirds, for example) goes on. Now it seems that even in their first few months of life, Song Sparrows are attuned not only to sound, but to social interactions that, as adults, they will have to navigate using their voices.

(Image: Song Sparrow by birdmandea via Birdshare; hear more Song Sparrows and see videos on All About Birds)

(Full disclosure: I knew Chris Templeton in grad school about 10 years ago, when he was a Master’s student working with chickadees. Way to go Chris!)

The cover story in Living Bird Summer 2009—now free online—offers up a tempting prospect for listers: Your trip in search of Mexico’s endemic Tufted Jay just might hold the key to the species’ survival. Or read Stephen J. Bodio’s article about how pigeons influenced Darwin’s thinking on evolution, and never look at pigeons the same way again. Next time you find yourself with some unexpected time on your hands, take inspiration from Chuck Graham. He spent an extra six days stranded on California’s Channel Islands with little more than a kayak and a bunch of Xantus’s Murrelets.

Those are just the features. David Wilcove turns his conservation spotlight on the world’s albatrosses, hit hard by collateral damage from industrial fishing and the world’s appetite for tuna. Pete Dunne takes a whimsical look at cats that might be birders, and John Schmitt sketches a pond boiling over with Violet-green Swallows.

Lab members should be receiving their Autumn 2009 copies of Living Bird any day now. I’ve said it before, but I’ll just mention again for new readers how important—and easy—it is to join the Lab (watch the video). We’re a nonprofit organization that gets less than 1% of our funding from Cornell University. Memberships are a major part of the funding that we depend upon to keep going. Thanks to everyone who supports us – and enjoy the new issue.

It was with sadness and appreciation we recently heard of the death, at the whopping age of 37, of a Golden Eagle named Ithaca. Jim Grier, now an emeritus professor at North Dakota State University, participated in the captive breeding of Ithaca and two eaglet siblings while he was a graduate student at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in 1972. The three birds were the first-ever Golden Eagles produced by artificial insemination, a technique then being explored to help captive breeding programs of endangered raptors. The work of Grier and his adviser, Tom Cade, later gave rise to the Peregrine Fund.

In late September, Ithaca succumbed to complications from West Nile virus, which he contracted in 2002. He had a long and distinguished life (by comparison, the oldest known wild Golden Eagle was 28 years old). Highlights included appearing on the Johnny Carson show in the late 1970s, as well as in presentations and live demonstrations to college students and others. Dr. Grier has posted an in memoriam Web page with more information and a series of excellent photos of Ithaca from his first hours to late in his life. It’s well worth a visit. Our sympathies go out to Grier and the rest of eagle Ithaca’s extended family.

(Image: Grier flying a still subadult-plumaged Ithaca in 1972. Courtesy James Grier.)