Bird Researchers Blowing Our Minds

It's a commonly heard fact at many bird programs: most bird species have a lousy sense of smell. Check out great horned owls--their favorite food is skunk!

Well, according to this article in Science Daily...we may have to rethink that!

The sense of smell might indeed be as important to birds as it is to fish or even mammals. This is the main conclusion of a study by Silke Steiger (Max Planck Institute for Ornithology) and her colleagues. The sense of smell in birds was, until quite recently, thought to be poorly developed.

Recent behavioural studies have shown that some bird species use their sense of smell to navigate, forage or even to distinguish individuals. Silke Steiger and her colleagues chose a genetic approach for their study. Their research focused on the olfactory receptor (OR) genes, which are expressed in sensory neurons within the olfactory epithelium, and constitute the molecular basis of the sense of smell. The total number of OR genes in a genome may reflect how many different scents an animal can detect or distinguish. In birds such genetic studies were previously restricted to the chicken, hitherto the only bird for which the full genomic sequence is known.

The implication of this finding is that different ecological niches may have shaped the OR gene repertoire sizes in birds, as has been suggested for mammals. The high number of OR genes in the kiwi could be explained by this bird’s unusual ecological niche. Unique among birds, the nostrils of the night-active kiwi are at the tip of the bill. When kiwis probe the forest floor in search of food, they are guided by smell rather than sight. Indeed the snuffling, nocturnal kiwis are sometimes considered to be New Zealand’s equivalent of a hedgehog!

You can read the rest of the story here.

Hummer Shtuff

I'm so proud, Non Birding Bill had a submission accepted over at Cute Overload.

A DC Birding Blog has some interesting observations on the reports of birders not seeing as many hummingbirds this summer. Meanwhile, Mr. Neil's yard seems to be experiencing more hummingbirds than usual. There are two feeders out this year and both get regular traffic. There are at least four separate hummers, two males and two females. One male in particular goes right into display mode when a female shows up.

They're totally digging the sundae feeder. Above, a female ruby-throated hummingbird is sipping from the feeder.

Even as she approached she could barely keep her tongue contained, here's a closer view:

Birds n the Bees--You're doin' it weird

Thanks, Jed, for sending this my way, it's from National Geographic, so it's gotta be true, but here is a story about using bees to keep crows away from a threatened tern colony:

After years of being attacked by crows, a colony of seabirds nesting in Tokyo is getting an unlikely ally: the tiny honeybee. Conservationists hope bees will repel the crows, based on the insects' tendency to attack anything dark-colored that approaches their hives.

This year beehives from rural areas were relocated to the top of a large water-treatment facility near Tokyo's international airport, where as many as 4,000 birds known as little terns nest after a long migration from Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea.

Although they are not endangered internationally, little terns are listed as "vulnerable" in Japan's Red Data Book of threatened species.

That's because the terns' nesting sites in the country are being destroyed by construction work and other human activities, so the birds are considered potentially at risk in the future.

The terns near the airport have long been victims of Tokyo's crows.

In a single prolonged attack five years ago, about 60 crows picked off roughly 300 eggs and 160 young birds, and fewer terns have come to the nesting site since then.

"The young can't defend themselves against the crows, so we tried to find ways to protect them at the nesting site," said Naoya Masuda, a member of the nonprofit Little Tern Project.

"One thing we tried was putting netting in the trees and stringing up fishing lines, but nothing worked."

Then a suggestion from a city water-bureau employee led the tern group to the Ginza Bee Project.

"We spoke to an expert and learned that honeybees in the wild have the natural response of attacking a black object that comes near to their hive," Takayasu said.

"There have been tests with black and white balloons, and the bees always attack the black balloon."

It is believed that the bees' reaction is linked to the color of bears' fur. The insects apparently attack dark-colored creatures to protect their hives from plunder.

"We noticed that the bees swarmed around crows that were taking offerings from white plates left on the outdoor altar of a shrine in Ginza," Takayasu added.

"After a while the crows stopped coming back, so we thought it was worth trying at the terns' nesting site."

Between July and November of last year, two hives were placed on the roof of the Morigasaki Water Reclamation Plant to protect the birds once they arrived in April, and another hive was added this May.

Around 20,000 honeybees currently patrol the terns' nests, according to Masuda of the Little Tern Project, who added that the two creatures are getting on "like good neighbors."

"It is not 100 percent foolproof yet, because the area is quite large, and there do seem to have been fewer birds here this year so far," he said.

"But we are hopeful that it will prove effective over the long term."

Pyro Pigeon Nest?

From blog reader Malorie:

"I have been reading your blog for a while now, and I came across something today in which I thought you might be interested. There are a series of caves in Kuna, Idaho called Kuna Caves (not very creative name, I know), and I went to explore there today.

At the end of my traipse (and sometimes crawl/clamber) I discovered something that I was really not expecting to see--a nestling in a nest made primarily of bits of firework. Instead of sticking with my assumption that it must be a phoenix as it is born of fire, I decided to contact the Snake River Birds of Prey center, and I also thought to send you some pictures in the event that you would like to see pictures of a baby bird kicking it in a cave. If you know what it is by these not-so-great photographs, I would love to know as all I have guiding me is limited knowledge and conjecture."

Well, Malorie, nestlings are a challenging for most people. But this bird using the bottle rockets for nesting material is a rock pigeon (the pigeons you see in cities). Pigeons and doves are in the Ugly Baby Hall Of Fame and if you didn't know birds, that might be something you expect to find in a cave. Pigeons started out nesting on cliffs before they nested on buildings, so a cave kind of makes sense...although the bottle rockets do not. But I find it best not to question a pigeon.

Thanks for the fun photo and for sharing this interesting find! I love the comparison to a phoenix!

Sharon Stiteler, Roving Ranger & Snapping Turtle Crossing Guard

Today, I had to do a "roving ranger" day for the National Parks Service at Coon Rapids Dam. Basically, we go out with a backpack full of brochures and ask people at random, "Hey, did you know you were in a National Park?" and politely and excitedly tell them about the trail system and various ways to enjoy the park. I also had my spotting scope in tow to show off the birds.

The Mississippi National Recreation and River Area that I work for as a park ranger is a unique park in that it is comprised of several smaller parks, and the NPS actually owns very little of the acreage. So, you could be in a county park or state park or city park along the Mississippi River and if you are in one of the 72 miles between the Crow River and the St. Croix River...you're in the National Park. Like I said, it's a unique park. I was out with fellow ranger Rebecca and right as we were leaving, I noticed a lump in the road.

It was a small snapping turtle...with some kind of weird lump on it's back. We couldn't tell what the lump was (it was definitely not a snail) and quite frankly, we didn't want to get too close or you get this:

Rebecca and I both have some experience with turtles, usually when you see one crossing a road, heading away from a lake, it's a female laying eggs. Although, it's a bit late for snappers in Minnesota, but a lot of bird species are two weeks behind this season, so why not turtles too? Now, if this is a female going to lay eggs, you really do not want to pick her up, whether she is s a snapper, Blanding's, map, or whatever type of turtle. Females have water stored inside that they will use to wet the ground to help dig the hole in which they will deposit their eggs. If you pick up a female crossing the road, she will usually squirt out the water and after you put her across the street, she will have to go back and collect more water.

It's best to try and get traffic to stop and hurry the turtle along...as much as one can hurry a turtle. This one kept snapping at us like crazy and turning around and following us. So, I held out a stick, she tried to bite it, and then started to chase the stick. I managed to kind of herd her along safely by dangling the stick and she got to the other side without her dropping any water. Meanwhile, my partner answered questions to passing cars, "Now, we're not just taunting the turtle. It's a snapping turtle, you really don't want to pick it up. We want to get her to the other side of the road safely. It's better that she bites the stick than the ranger's hand."

And excellent team effort.

Robber Bees

Do you ever have days where you feel like no one can make a mistake as big as you can, or quite so publicly, and taking several people down with you in the process? That you are perhaps the antithesis of tact? That perhaps the place for you to reside for the next month or so would be under a rock? I was having that kind of day earlier this week.

Then I got a somewhat panicked call from Lorraine. She said that there were several bees in the garage and they were going for the bee equipment and hive boxes. Could this be a swarm? If it was a swarm, was it from one of our hives or was it from a neighbor or even a passing truck? Was is something else? Did Lorraine have a camera?

Lorraine didn't have a camera to document this and she didn't see a large clump of bees that could mean a swarm but assured me a large quantity of bees was in the garage. I decided to head out regardless, I needed the company, someone needed to get photos, and even if it wasn't a swarm, something blogable was happening.

By the time I arrived, the amount of bees had diminished but it was still enough to make me want to put on a bee suit. Many bees were crowded on the windows and surrounding some old frames, but there was no telltale clump that would mean a swarm.

What we had were robber bees. In the above photo, are the old frames from the Kitty Hive that died out this winter--they were covered in bees. Lorraine had left the garage door open and a worker bee found them, went back to a hive, did a little dance that said to other workers, "Holy crap, there's a trashed hive with some frames with honey! We don't even have to gather nectar and convert it to honey, we can just take the honey! Watch me dance!"

And soon several thousand bees followed suit to the garage. We stood outside the garage to watch where they were coming from because we have the Olga and Kitty Hive in one area and Bickman and MimiKo in another area. The traffic flow appeared to head towards Kitty and Olga and my guess is that these are Kitty bees. Lorraine and I decided to head out to do some late afternoon bee inspections. Not the best idea, most of your foragers are back at the hive at that time and they are most likely to sting you, however, we were just going to check the tops of the hives and not dig too deep.

We did dig deep into the queenless Olga hive to check her progress. We found queen cells on June 22 and we were checking the hive on July 8. The queen should emerge in 15 - 17 days after being laid. Hopefully, a queen will emerge by this weekend, kill off the other queen cell, go on a nuptial flight and replenish this hive. Maybe this queen cell was emerging on Tuesday? Note the little notch in the capping at the top? Fingers crossed for this queenless hive.

Kitty seemed well and contented. She's a little behind in production compared to the MimiKo and Bickman hives, but seems well on her way to filling the hive in time for winter.

The MimiKo hive was super calm for so late in the afternoon. We didn't use the smoker on her. Everyone was mellow while we checked honey supers that had been placed on top recently. I told Lorraine that this would be the perfect time to hand feed the bees.

So we took off our gloves and dabbed a tiny bit of honey on our hands and tried to find a taker for our sweet finger tips. Low and behold, we found a taker. Above is Lorraine, without a glove, hand feeding a honeybee. Here is a close up:

The little bee tongue reached right out for her sweet fingers. This was a truly amazing moment if you knew Lorraine before we stared the whole beekeeping operation--she was the most opposed to the idea from the beginning, I seem to recall her shouting several times "Bees are NOT in my job description!" And now she not only goes out to the hives and does maintenance, she's out at the hive during the busiest time, with minimal smoke, bare-handedly feeding worker bees. A testament to how chill the MimiKo bees are and how much Lorraine has mellowed out in regards to beekeeping.

We checked the Bickman hive, she's sorta friendly but not nearly as laid back as the MimiKo hive. Mr. Neil had called while I was in Utah and said that he put a honey super on her and I wasn't sure she was ready, but looking at her third brood box, she was totally full and ready--he was right to add the honey super. Above is a photo inside our Ross Round Comb Honey Super and none of the bees had started drawing out comb. There looked to be a couple of half hearted attempts, but Lorraine and I decided to take a frame from the super and replace it with a honey frame in the top brood box. We did this last year with Olga. Once the bees draw out honey on the frame, we put back in the honey super and they go up and continue the work. Since all of Bickman's frames were full, Lorraine and I had to take back a frame of honey and got to sample and eat it--now we were the robber bees! Truly, there is nothing in the world like taking a bite of honey comb fresh from the hive, it's warm, chewy and sweet.

We also switched out a frame with MimiKo and put in a honey super frame in Kitty so we can put those up in the honey supers. I'm not sure about Kitty, but I'm confident that we will get honey from MimiKo and Bickman by the end of the summer.

Lorraine and I went out to dinner and I was feeling better--working with bees eased the burn of my unfortunate mistake I had been brooding about for the last twenty-four hours. I've been traveling so much this summer that I have not been out at the hives nearly as much as last summer. Unless you have to do something big like search a colony for a failing queen, beekeeping can be a very soothing hobby. I periodically get emails from people contemplating beekeeping and they are not sure. I say that if you have ever remotely contemplated it--do it. Yes, there's work, but it's the most amazing thing.

Here is Lorraine's version of our day...including what honeybees might be journaling about.

Hummingbird Decline?

So, I had someone email me from a bird store in Kentucky asking if I had noticed a hummingbird shortage in Minnesota. "My Customers are coming into the store complaining that their are no hummingbirds this year, where most customers have had hundreds in previous years, now only have a couple. Have you seen a decline in hummingbirds within the last two years were you are at?"

I have not noticed a decline, but decided to do some googling on the subject. According to a Carolina Birds listserv in June of 2008, people are not seeing as many hummingbirds and are not sure why.

I found a blog called Divinebunbun and she too reports a general lack of hummers for the summer of 2008. She reports:

"Online "bird boards" in Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio, report the same scarcity this year. Hummingbirds appeared in Missouri as usual, around the 24th of April. But everyone's usual customers aren't coming to nectar feeders. Normal hummer activity is reported only in one remote rural area of Missouri. Nobody knows why. Speculation about the missing hummers ranges from: the Midwest's extended winter (although hummers can survive freezing temperatures); flooding (confusing the hummers as they migrated from Mexico); a natural, cyclic decline in the population; a sinister, pollution-related population decline; and, because there's plenty of flowers the hummers don't need nectar feeders."

I also found a link to the Stokes blog from 2007 when people were noticing a shortage of hummingbirds, but many are commenting this summer as well (it's worth checking the comments). What about you? Are you seeing a lack of ruby-throated hummingbirds in the East? Or any decline of hummingbird species in the West? Is this anecdotal? Or is something else going on? Is it hummingbird collapse disorder?

UPDATE: A DC Birding Blog had some interesting observations regarding the hummer reports on ebird.