Search

The article presents the historical journey of an ornithological collection that includes taxidermized birds, primarily from the late 19th century, and artworks created by Manfred Reichel. It underscores the importance of these specimens and illustrations in understanding the study of birds in Switzerland.

Won Pyong-Oh (1929-2020) and his ornithological research played a significant role in the emergence of South Korean ornithology and nature conservation, which previous scholarship has attributed to US scientific aid and the resulting interactions that occurred in the 1960s. Focusing on his family’s scientific activities—including the work of his father Won Hong Gu (1888-1970) and his eldest brother Won Pyung Hooi’s (1911-1995)—from the colonial period to the 1960s, this paper argues the crucial role played by transwar interactions between the Won family and Japanese biologists in Won Pyong-Oh’s ornithological turn. In particular, it traces the Won family’s natural history collection activities as what I call “science as a family affair,” that is, a division of scientific labor between senior and younger family members as a principal investigator and an assistant/collector. By tracing these activities within the family as well as their continued engagements with Japanese biologists, this paper will reveal that Won Pyong-Oh’s ornithological research and conservationist work developed in the wider context of the reconstruction of Asian ornithological and conservationist networks in the 1960s.

Summary: Feather bacterial load affects key avian life-history traits such as plumage condition, innate immunity, and reproductive success. Investigating the interplay between life-history traits and feather microbial load is critical for understanding mechanisms of host-microbiome interactions. We hypothesize that spatiotemporal variation associated with migration and molting, body size affecting colonizable body surface area, and preening intensity could shape feather bacterial load. Integrating 16S rDNA-qPCR and flow cytometry, we examined total and viable bacterial loads in the feathers of 316 individuals of 24 Palearctic passerine species. We found that viable bacterial load in feathers was lower in larger species and higher in residents compared to migrants. In contrast, total bacterial load was not explained by any of the life-history traits but varied considerably among species, sampling sites, and years. By pinpointing main drivers of bacterial loads on avian body surfaces, we identify key mechanisms shaping host-microbiome interactions and open alternative research directions.

The vocal activity and detectability of tropical birds are subject to high levels of temporal heterogeneity, but quantifying patterns of diel and day-to-day variation in complex systems is challenging with traditional point count methods. As a result, research concerning stochastic temporal effects on tropical bird assemblages is limited, typically offering only broad conclusions, such as that overall activity is highest in the first few hours of the morning and some species are active at different times of the day. Passive acoustic monitoring introduces several advantages for studying temporal variation, particularly by enabling simultaneous and continuous data collection across adjacent sites. Here, we employed autonomous recording units to quantify temporal variation in bird vocal activity and observed species richness at an Amazonian reserve in Madre de Dios, Peru, a region featuring some of Earth's richest, most complex bird assemblages. We manually annotated 18 dawn hour recordings, collected simultaneously from three separate days at the same six sites, which represent various microhabitats and bird community compositions. We documented significant and consistent temporal variation in avian vocal activity levels and observed species richness within the dawn hour and across days. We found that temporal effects were stronger for vocal activity than for observed species richness and that vocal activity patterns over the course of the dawn hour varied between species. Our results indicate that overlooked temporal variation in Amazonian soundscapes may obfuscate the results of surveys that do not sufficiently account for temporal variables with simultaneous monitoring. While manual analysis of large volumes of soundscape data remains challenging, such data should be collected to supplement traditional surveys whenever possible. Rapid advances in the automated processing of acoustic data could lead to more efficient methods for reducing temporal bias and improving the calibration and accuracy of tropical bird surveys.

Many animals exhibit contrast between their dorsal coloration and their ventral coloration. If selection acts differently on dorsal versus ventral coloration, ancestral covariance between these traits should break down, eventually leading to independent modules of trait evolution. Here, we compare the evolution of feather color across body regions for a clade of Australasian songbirds (Meliphagoidea). We find evidence for three modules of covarying color regions. Among these modules, ventral feathers evolve with high lability, evolving at three times the rate of dorsal plumage and 20 times the rate of flight feathers. While both dorsal plumage and ventral plumage are darker in areas with more precipitation and vegetation, we find that dorsal plumage is twice as similar to colors in satellite photos of background substrates. Overall, differential selection on ventral and dorsal colors likely maintains these as distinct modules over evolutionary timescales—a novel explanation for dorsoventral contrast in pigmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, with the effects of climate change and the information revolution, nature is viewed as especially newsworthy. However, news about nature has a deeper history. An important precedent was Buffon's popular ornithological project (1770s–80s). In its wake, the kingdom of France experienced an avalanche of newspaper reports on birds and public displays of reportedly exotic and rare birds found by amateurs. Though initially a top-down endeavor of knowledge production, Buffon's project incited a burgeoning reading public to transform themselves from passive recipients of data about the natural world into active amateur scientists producing, perhaps for the first time, a network of actors who crowd-sourced knowledge about a natural species that was at once ubiquitous and in continuous motion. Compassing the global universe of birds was both an effect of, and a captivating metaphor for, the acceleration of social mobility and transnational networking in late eighteenth-century France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

D'Arcy Thompson (1860–1948) is most remembered for his influential book On Growth and Form (1917), which looked to maths to explain why biological creatures take the shapes that they take. In January 1917, a few months before this book was released, Thompson had a letter to the editor published in Nature titled 'Stability in Flight'. Using this paper, and the response to it, as a basis, this article will investigate Thompson's relationship with mathematics, uncovering his ideas on an ideological hierarchy of subjects, where mathematics informs biology, but the reverse case is not true. It will also explore the ideas of flight Thompson discusses in the article, from the aeronautical physics paper which inspired Thompson, to the ideas on modern ornithology which agree with his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1906, the Mikado pheasant, an endemic bird of Taiwan, was discovered as a new species by a British collector. As the creation of this new species was based solely on the examination of tail feathers, it generated excitement among ornithologists and aviculturists, sparking a series of expeditions to collect complete specimens. By following the trajectory of these endeavors and subsequent attempts to reclassify, propagate, and protect the bird, this article explores the power and performativity of scientific naming in both global and colonial contexts. The act of writing and publishing a species description is performative in that it creates a new species by assigning a scientific name that allows it to gain recognition within the scientific community and beyond. It also served to create and maintain the ornithological community--the idealized virtual community of ornithologists, bird collectors, and aviculturists. The history of the Mikado pheasant is part of a larger scientific effort to establish the comprehensive knowledge of the family Phasianidae, which motivated aspiring Japanese ornithologists to exert their acquired knowledge over the avifauna of the Japanese empire. These processes interacted during a time when zoological nomenclature was becoming accessible to non-Western zoologists. The discovery of the Mikado pheasant was the result of a colonial enterprise involving the British and Japanese empires, which converged on the interior of Taiwan and involved the Indigenous people who had settled in the mountain regions. The enduring legacy of the Mikado pheasant's naming still resonates today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Avian blood analysis is crucial for understanding the health of birds. Currently, avian blood cells are often counted manually in microscopic images, which is time-consuming, expensive, and prone to errors. In this article, we present a novel deep learning approach to automate the quantification of different types of avian red and white blood cells in whole slide images of avian blood smears. Our approach supports ornithologists in terms of hematological data acquisition, accelerates avian blood analysis, and achieves high accuracy in counting different types of avian blood cells. Avian blood analysis is a fundamental method for investigating a wide range of topics concerning individual birds and populations of birds. Determining precise blood cell counts helps researchers gain insights into the health condition of birds. For example, the ratio of heterophils to lymphocytes (H/L ratio) is a well-established index for comparing relative stress load. However, such measurements are currently often obtained manually by human experts. In this article, we present a novel approach to automatically quantify avian red and white blood cells in whole slide images. Our approach is based on two deep neural network models. The first model determines image regions that are suitable for counting blood cells, and the second model is an instance segmentation model that detects the cells in the determined image regions. The region selection model achieves up to 97.3% in terms of F1 score (i.e., the harmonic mean of precision and recall), and the instance segmentation model achieves up to 90.7% in terms of mean average precision. Our approach helps ornithologists acquire hematological data from avian blood smears more precisely and efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the success of the Romande ornithology training program for the 2022-2023 cohort, emphasizing its popularity and the quality of projects undertaken. Topics include diverse initiatives aimed at bird conservation, such as habitat restoration, community engagement, and educational outreach, with participants commended for their remarkable contributions.

Commentators have long struggled to make sense of the role that ravens play in the story of Elijah, questioning why these predatory birds with a reputation for cruelty would be recruited to share their food during a time of scarcity. This essay takes up the reception history of biblical ravens, considering how various interpreters have drawn upon observational knowledge of ravens to explain the mysterious role ravens play in the feeding of Elijah in 1 Kings 17 and Noah's commission of the raven in the wake of the flood in Genesis 8. The essay both recalls and reenacts this interpretive tradition by assembling together pieces of this reception history together with the work of modern ornithologists on the corvus corax to provide some insights for how we might understand the particular significance of ravens in the care and feeding of Elijah. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional ecological knowledge is a system of knowledge that reflects the adaptation of human populations to their environment. The objective of this study was to accomplish a knowledge survey of the Arara indigenous on the birds of natural occurrence in their territory, and the understanding that these indigenous people have about the diversity of birds and their interrelationships, according to their common characteristics and ecological connections. The studies were carried out with indigenous people of the Arara ethnic group, residents of the Arara's Big Bend of Xingu Indigenous Land, in the State of Pará, Brazil, in the Amazon rainforest. As a method for collecting the data was used open and semi-structured interviews. The basis of this approach encompasses a socio-affective construction of knowledge. This method aligns with the Indigenous worldview, respects and upholds its relational significance, transcribes lived and presented cultural experiences with a rich use of metaphors, stories, and symbols, with sound and visual features and landscapes as an experience of living space, exploring the environmental, mythical and spiritual dimensions of indigenous peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) or local ecological knowledge (LEK) has only recently gained traction as "legitimate" science in Western academic discourse. Such approaches to inclusivity continue to face institutional, sociocultural, and equity barriers to being fully accepted in academic discourse in comparison to Western-based frameworks. Postcolonial studies have attempted to rectify this Western-domination in characterizing diverse forms of bird--human relationships. However, the integration of multiple cosmologies (worldviews) and ontologies (realities) in research or management creates challenges that we discuss. We elucidate commonalities and antithetical positions between Western-derived bird knowledge and management with that of TEK or LEK in both local and global contexts. We combine ecological/ornithological studies with key terms, theories, and methods from the social sciences to integrate the approaches and facilitate understanding. For example, we follow a "theory synthesis" approach in this conceptual paper to question epistemological and ontological assumptions of bird knowledge and how we acquire it to question, "how do we move from a decolonial approach (discussions and acknowledgement) to decolonization (action)?" This paper is a product of ongoing discourse among global researchers of an academic ethno-ornithology research lab based in the United Kingdom, who partner with global collaborators. The 3 case studies draw from ongoing research in Southeast Asia, South America, and decolonializing policy efforts in New Zealand. We analyzed these case studies using a postcolonial theoretical lens to provide insights into how Western scientists can embrace TEK and LEK and actively work to decolonize ethno-ornithology and ornithology in theory and practice. Further, we discuss perceived core tenets to equity and inclusion in community-based TEK and LEK conservation projects from the Global South. Diversity, equity, inclusivity, and justice in bird--human relations and knowledge were identified as targets for systemic change within the academic institutions of Western scientists. By recognizing, discussing, and embracing non-Western cosmologies and ontologies, non-Indigenous scientists can help influence the decolonization of ethno-ornithology, ornithology, and bird--human relations through respectful, participatory, equitable, culturally considerate, and "non-extractive" community-based initiatives in partnership with local groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are many impediments to conserving threatened birds. Some can be overcome through concerted action across multiple species while others require species-specific research and intensive management. We assess the feasibility of managing 202 threats identified in the Action Plan for Australian Birds across 217 Australian threatened bird taxa against five metrics – financial, technical, temporal, political and social. A higher percentage of all threats to all taxa was assessed as having low or very low financial (43%), technical (32%) or temporal (29%) feasibility than political (9%) or social feasibility (7%). The feasibility of managing the most difficult threat to a taxon was low or very low for 52% of the threats identified. Within Australia, the main impediments to addressing most threats are technical and financial, indicating that research and funding should be domestic conservation priorities. Addressing threats linked to habitat destruction/degradation, climate change, invasive species and pollution is limited by the long timescales required to alleviate them, emphasising the urgency of commencing action. Outside Australia, social and political constraints are the main impediments to Australian conservation managers influencing action on habitat loss, species over-exploitation and climate change, but there are also technical, financial and temporal impediments to reducing threats from pollution, invasive species and climate change. Advocacy is therefore also important for addressing threats facing birds outside Australia. Our study provides a platform upon which to build more explicit and efficient management of threatened birds, prioritise efforts in research, funding and advocacy and contribute to reducing losses from Australia's avifauna. Feasibility analysis can identify the principal constraints on taxon recovery and help shape funding threat-based or species-specific priorities. In Australia, financial and technical deficits are the principal constraints on threat mitigation, emphasising the need for funding and research. Outside Australia, social and political issues are the major problem, requiring diplomacy to effect change. Many threats also face temporal constraints, highlighting the need for sustained funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Sexual selection can directly contribute to reproductive isolation and is an important mechanism that can lead to speciation. Lek-mating is one of the most extreme forms of sexual selection, but surprisingly does not seem to preclude occasional hybridization in nature. However, hybridization among lekking species may still be trivial if selection against offspring with intermediate phenotypes prohibits introgression. Here we investigate this further by sequencing the genomes of nearly all bird-of-paradise (Paradisaeidae) species and 10 museum specimens of putative hybrid origin. We find that intergeneric hybridization indeed still takes place despite extreme differentiation in form, plumage, and behavior. In parallel, the genomes of contemporary species contain widespread signatures of past introgression, demonstrating that hybridization has repeatedly resulted in shared genetic variation despite strong sexual isolation. Our study raises important questions about extrinsic factors that modulate hybridization probability and the evolutionary consequences of introgressive hybridization between lekking species.

This paper is a description of a bird vocalisation dataset containing electronic recordings of birds in Uganda. The data was collected from 7 locations namely Bwindi impenetrable forest, Kibale forest national park, Matheniko game reserve, Moroto district, Kidepo National Park, Lake Mburo National Park and Murchison Falls National Park. The data was collected between May and June 2023. All together there are 570 recordings from 212 unique species amounting to more than 4 hours of audio. This represents a significant addition to the publicly available electronically recorded vocalisations for birds in Africa. The research was funded by Google Africa Research Collabs for the project entitled, “BASIS: Broad Avian Species Surveillance with Intelligent Sensing”

Summary: The ecosystem services framework is essential for biodiversity conservation, emphasizing the role of nature in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). This study offers a global view on vulture-associated ecosystem services and their SDG contributions, based on insights from 206 experts. The findings reveal global consensus on the importance of vultures in regulation and maintenance services, such as waste recycling and disease control. Cultural services attributed to vultures are moderate and vary regionally. Provisioning services are consistently rated low across all regions. Experts’ views on vultures' key ecosystem roles are often biased toward well-known services and may not align with all scientific evidence. The study emphasizes vultures’ role in achieving SDGs, particularly impacting life on land and health, and calls for reevaluating their contribution to sustainable practices. It stresses the need to customize conservation to regional values and perceptions, recognizing vultures’ critical role in ecological balance, public health, and sustainable development.

Abstract Urbanization has far‐reaching consequences on birds, and knowledge of the impacts on taxonomic and functional diversity is necessary to make cities as compatible as possible for species. Avian diversity in parks in urban centers has been investigated multiple times, but rarely so in long‐term studies due to lacking data. The Tiergarten in Berlin is a large‐scale park in the city center of great value for people and many species including birds. We compiled bird species lists since 1850 and from monitoring in 2022 in one dataset to investigate how bird communities and guilds have changed over time and how these alterations were influenced by the eventful history of the park's vegetation conditions. Long‐term changes in species assemblages were analyzed with an ordination analysis, and changes in guild presence and functional richness were discussed with regard to landscape transitions. A gradual development of species assemblages yet only small changes in guild composition since 1850 was detected, whereas the 1950 community stands out with a drop in species richness and replacement of forest species with an open land community, which reflects the deforestation of the park during World War II. Consideration of habitat, lifestyle, trophic, and migration guilds revealed no sign of functional homogenization over the last 172 years (1850–2022). Despite the high frequentation of the park by humans it still allows for a high bird diversity due to the Tiergarten's sheer size and heterogeneity of vegetation and habitats. We recommend that the park is maintained and managed accordingly to preserve this condition and advise other urban parks to strive for these beneficial features.

Summary: Colonization of urban areas by wild species is a widespread phenomenon investigated from various ecological and evolutionary perspectives, yet long-term population trends of organisms in urban areas remain understudied. To fill this knowledge gap, we used data from a large-scale breeding bird monitoring scheme and computed population trends in 48 urban bird species in urban and rural areas of a central European country, Czechia. In most species, trends were similar in both environments, indicating common drivers and/or connections between urban and rural populations. In species with significant trends, the positive trends prevailed, suggesting good performance of urbanized species. This may result from wildlife-friendly environmental changes in cities, such as the expansion of green areas and the maturing of woody vegetation. In respect to species traits, more positive trends were found in larger species than in smaller species in both habitats, likely due to the recovery of previously depleted populations.

Understanding variation of traits within and among species through time and across space is central to many questions in biology. Many resources assemble species-level trait data, but the data and metadata underlying those trait measurements are often not reported. Here, we introduce FuTRES (Functional Trait Resource for Environmental Studies; pronounced few-tress), an online datastore and community resource for individual-level trait reporting that utilizes a semantic framework. FuTRES already stores millions of trait measurements for paleobiological, zooarchaeological, and modern specimens, with a current focus on mammals. We compare dynamically derived extant mammal species' body size measurements in FuTRES with summary values from other compilations, highlighting potential issues with simply reporting a single mean estimate. We then show that individual-level data improve estimates of body mass-including uncertainty-for zooarchaeological specimens. FuTRES facilitates trait data integration and discoverability, accelerating new research agendas, especially scaling from intra- to interspecific trait variability.

Avian blood analysis is a fundamental method for investigating a wide range of topics concerning individual birds and populations of birds. Determining precise blood cell counts helps researchers gain insights into the health condition of birds. For example, the ratio of heterophils to lymphocytes (H/L ratio) is a well-established index for comparing relative stress load. However, such measurements are currently often obtained manually by human experts. In this article, we present a novel approach to automatically quantify avian red and white blood cells in whole slide images. Our approach is based on two deep neural network models. The first model determines image regions that are suitable for counting blood cells, and the second model is an instance segmentation model that detects the cells in the determined image regions. The region selection model achieves up to 97.3% in terms of F1 score (i.e., the harmonic mean of precision and recall), and the instance segmentation model achieves up to 90.7% in terms of mean average precision. Our approach helps ornithologists acquire hematological data from avian blood smears more precisely and efficiently.

We document from the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the first record of Microspingus cinereus (Bonaparte, 1850), which was observed in the municipality of Barra Mansa in October 2020. The species was originally documented in central Brazil, potentially linked to Cerrado habitats. However, recent observations from eBird and WikiAves databases indicate that M. cinereus has been spreading towards the southeast for several years. It has been considered Vulnerable for almost two decades due to the loss of grassland habitats. Our discovery expands the known geographic range of M. cinereus to eastern Brazil and may have importance for future biogeographic studies and the conservation of this species.

This research focuses on studying the avian populations in the floodplains of the Kara Yertis and Yertis River in the Pavlodar region, Kazakhstan. There are notable gaps in our understanding of the avifauna in these areas, highlighting the need for continued ornithological research. The primary goal is to address these limitations, with a focus on the Zaysan depression in the East Kazakhstan region and the Pavlodar region. Global climate change and anthropogenic impacts, such as hydroelectric power stations and reservoir construction, are identified as potential contributors to environmental changes in the region. One significant impact is the potential shift in the timing of spring nesting due to climate change, affecting different bird species in varying ways. To investigate these dynamics, field studies were conducted in May and June of 2023, covering seven sites along the Kara Yertis and Yertis River in the Pavlodar region. The study adhered to standardized protocols, taking into account the phenological aspects of bird life cycles. The density of bird species was estimated using route accounting on permanent inventory plots. The study identified a total of 127 bird species across 16 orders in the two model areas. This included species listed in the Red Book, highlighting the importance of conservation efforts. In the Irtysh River of the Pavlodar region with a high humidity level, compared with the Kara Yertis, there were fewer anthropogenic impacts and more bird species (103 species). This study shows that, taking into account climate change and anthropogenic impacts, it is necessary to constantly monitor this region and develop conservation and adaptation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Journal of Ornithology, formerly known as the Journal für Ornithologie, is the oldest ornithological periodical in the world. It was established in 1853 and has been published regularly since then, with a brief interruption during World War II. The journal has played a significant role in shaping modern ornithology and has maintained open-minded standards. Over the years, it has featured contributions from renowned ornithologists and covered a wide range of topics, including species definition, taxonomy, comparative morphology, behavior, and evolutionary biology. The journal has undergone changes in editorship and publication format, and it is currently moving towards becoming a fully Open Access journal. [Extracted from the article]

Camera traps are increasingly used to estimate the density of animals as well as their activity patterns. As camera traps allow monitoring of animals over long periods of time without disturbance, they are especially useful to observe changes in diurnal activity patterns over time. In ornithology, camera trapping is still in its infancy. To our knowledge, no study has yet investigated the activity pattern of a songbird over the full annual cycle. We used camera traps in the Rammert, a small mountainous forest area near Rottenburg in Southwest Germany to monitor the diurnal activity pattern of forest-dwelling Eurasian blackbirds (Turdus merula). As the activity level of animals is known to be affected by day light, we used double-anchoring transformation of day times to account for the variation in sunrise and sunset across the different seasons. By generating activity models, we investigated the pattern of blackbird activity during the four seasons of the year and compared the patterns of male and female birds, respectively. A significant difference between a unimodal activity pattern in spring and a bimodal pattern for the rest of the year was found which might be related to breeding and territorial behaviour in spring. Moreover, we observed that the activity pattern of males and females overlapped greatly but still showed some variation in the number and timing of density peaks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chewing lice (Phthiraptera, Ischnocera and Amblycera) are permanent ectoparasites of birds and primarly feed on the feathers and scales of birds. To detect the chewing lice species found on birds in Aras basin, Igdir, Türkiye, a total of 240 birds represented by 61 species belonging to 30 families in 13 orders were examined during the 2021 bird migration season. A total of 531 (186 females, 136 males and 209 nymphs) lice were collected from 75 individuals (31,25% of birds examined) of 26 species, 21 families and 10 orders. Thirty-one lice species (11 amblyceran and 20 ischnoceran species) in 22 genera were identified. Of these, 15 lice species were reported for the first time in Türkiye, namely Cuculiphilus fasciatus, Pseudomenopon qadrii, Philopterus sp., Ricinus serratus, Philopterus picae, Rostrinirmus buresi, Sturnidoecus sp., Philopterus excisus, Philopterus microsomaticus, Philopterus coarctatus, Brueelia fuscopleura, Sturnidoecus pastoris, Brueelia currucae, Penenirmus auritus and Strigiphilus tuleskovi. In addition, new host associations were reported for the lice species Kurodaia fulvofasciata, Degeeriella rufa and Myrsidea rustica. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a book review section from the journal Ibis, which provides information about the Alexander Library at the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology in Oxford, UK. The review section is organized and edited by Dr. Richard Sale, with contributions from various reviewers. The document includes reviews of specific books related to birdwatching and bird photography. Each book is briefly described, highlighting the main themes and perspectives presented by the authors. The reviews provide valuable insights into bird species found in Italy, Buckton, England, and Colombia, as well as practical advice for photographing garden birds. [Extracted from the article]

In recent decades, several explanations for vagrancy of North Asian bird species in Europe have been suggested. The explanations can typically be divided into two, non‐exclusive groups. Some cite weather factors as the primary cause of vagrancy, whereas others hypothesize an internal defect behind the phenomenon. In addition, some authors also suggest climate‐driven range expansion following breeding population increase as a contributing factor. In recent years, studies have been published that have provided clear evidence for the origin of vagrant birds, as well as the reasons for their vagrancy. Here we summarize current knowledge and conclude that weather, habitat use, feeding habit, breeding success and climate change are important factors that affect the vagrancy of birds, together with the number of observers playing an important role in contributing data. In the future, advances in technology such as the development of tracking systems and the extensive use of stable isotopes will make it possible to explain the causes of vagrancy more precisely, so further research in this area of ornithology is essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Foco (Interdisciplinary Studies Journal) is the property of Revista Foco and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The publication of updated works on the distribution, breeding and conservation status of Italian birds has stimulated an analysis of the factors that have so far guided the research. This was done through a bibliometric analysis of one of the largest scientific databases on the web. Two publication metrics were used, the total number of papers and the h-index. They express the quantity and the quality of research efforts through their impact on the scientific community. 791 articles concerning the 270 species reported in the Italian Atlas of Breeding Birds were selected and analysed by univariate statistics and negative binomial GLMs. Eight multilevel factors (origin of species, breeding phenology, main occupied habitat, population trends, degree of threat, national interest relative to population management, functional grouping and geographic range size) were used as potential predictors of species publication metrics. These 791 papers attracted 20,982 citations and had an overall h-index of 48. The publication years ranged from 1975 to 2023 with a significant increase in slope through time. The Barn Swallow leads the top ten of both publication metrics followed by the Lesser Kestrel and the Golden Eagle in the case of number of papers, while the Red-backed Shrike, and again the Lesser Kestrel follow the Barn Swallow in the first places of the h-index top ten. Main habitat, functional grouping and geographic range size are modelled as significant factors predicting a change in publication metrics, instead, the other five factors do not predict a significant change in both response variables. The lack of focus on research on species in numerical decline, threatened, or of national interest for population management reveals a main gap in Italian ornithological research. Another one is the skewed distribution of studies, with a not negligible 17% of breeding species that have never been the subject of a paper. These weaknesses are likely due to the low presence of ornithologists in local/national environmental and wildlife management bodies and to the uneven distribution of research groups among the Italian regions. Increasing the number of professional ornithologists and including them in local authorities and regional administrations is the best strategy to grow the levels of research and protection of Italian birds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Août a été marqué par l'arrivée inattendue de plusieurs groupes de Cormorans pygmées Microcarbo pygmaeus en Suisse romande, qui se sont établis durablement aux Grangettes VD, à Verbois GE et à Chavornay VD. À l'aube du 9 août, une troupe de 11 individus a été découverte au repos à l'embouchure du Mujon, à Yverdon-les-Bains VD, puis 13 ont été vus sur le Rhône de Verbois GE. Le lendemain, 10 individus étaient à Chavornay. La première observation sur le Léman, d'un individu isolé aux Grangettes, a eu lieu une semaine plus tard, le 16 août et, le même jour, un autre a été vu au Chablais de Cudrefin VD. Dès ce moment, les Cormorans pygmées sont devenus de plus en plus nombreux à l'extrémité orientale du Léman, leur nombre culminant à 13 individus dès le 17 septembre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swiss Rarities Committee (Swiss RC) is an independent organisation whose main goal is to ensure a sufficient documentation of unusual ornithological observations in Switzerland such that they can be used in scientific literature and research. The committee is a member of the Association of European Records and Rarities Committees, AERC, and follows the AERC's guidelines. The Swiss RC also evaluates the taxonomy and systematics applied for the birds of Switzerland and recommends that from 2024 onwards, the « IOC World Bird List » be followed instead of the « HBW and BirdLife Taxonomic Checklist ». In line with developments on other ornitho portals, the Swiss Ornithological Institute will adopt this recommendation and implement it accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While bird populations are declining, the factors associated with this decline are unclear. Based on laboratory experiments, air pollution has long been recognized as a factor causing oxidative stress and adversely affecting bird health. Recently, studies employing an epidemiological approach have reported significant declines in avian populations in Central Europe and the United States due to air pollution, and ozone in particular. We advocate that urgent actions are needed to mitigate these effects, which threaten biodiversity and environmental health, and propose a series of measures which can enlighten the path toward mitigating air pollution effects on avian populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We document from the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the first record of Microspingus cinereus (Bonaparte, 1850), which was observed in the municipality of Barra Mansa in October 2020. The species was originally documented in central Brazil, potentially linked to Cerrado habitats. However, recent observations from eBird and WikiAves databases indicate that M. cinereus has been spreading towards the southeast for several years. It has been considered Vulnerable for almost two decades due to the loss of grassland habitats. Our discovery expands the known geographic range of M. cinereus to eastern Brazil and may have importance for future biogeographic studies and the conservation of this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Worldwide, migratory phenology and movement of many bird species is shifting in response to anthropogenic climate and habitat changes. However, due to variation among species and a shortage of analyses, changes in waterfowl migration, particularly in the fall, are not well understood. Fall migration phenology and movement patterns dictate waterfowl hunting success and satisfaction, with cascading implications on economies and support for habitat management and securement. Using 60 years of band recovery data for waterfowl banded in the Canadian Prairie Pothole Region (PPR), we evaluated whether fall migration timing and/or distribution changed in Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), Northern Pintail (A. acuta), and Blue-winged Teal (Spatula discors) between 1960 and 2019. We found that in the Midcontinent Flyways, Mallards and Bluewinged Teal migrated faster in more recent time periods, whereas Northern Pintail began fall migration earlier. In the Pacific Flyway, Mallards began fall migration earlier. Both Mallards and Northern Pintails showed evidence of short-stopping in the Midcontinent Flyways. Indeed, the Mallard and Northern Pintail distribution of band recovery data shifted 180 and 226 km north, respectively, from 1960 to 2019. Conversely, Bluewinged Teal recovery distributions were consistent across years. Mallards and Northern Pintails also exhibited an increased proportion of band recoveries in the Pacific Flyway in recent decades. We provide clear evidence that the timing and routes of fall migration have shifted over the past 6 decades, but these phenological and spatial shifts differ among species. We suggest that using community-science data collected by hunters themselves to explain one of the group's major concerns (changes in duck abundance at traditional hunting grounds), within the environmental lens of climate change, may help lead to further engagement and two-way dialogue to support effective waterfowl management for these culturally and ecologically important species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information regarding the past occurrence in the Făgăra Mountains of four species of Galliformes (Lagopus muta, Lagopus lagopus, Lyrurus tetrix and Alectoris grae++++++++++++++ca), as it results from the ornithological literature review, is shown in this paper. It was concluded that Lagopus muta and Lyrurus tetrix surely lived in the area, from where recently disappeared, mainly due to the human pressure, while the status of the species Lagopus lagopus and Alectoris graeca still remains uncertain. While it can be considered as a history of the ornithological researches in the area, principally, the work was created as a useful tool for those interested to start projects to restore bird species that have disappeared from the Făgăra Mountains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Only a small number of avian species inhabit salty environments. To understand how they adapted, we examined the evolution of kidney sizes, supraorbital salt glands (SSGs), and the utilization of salty habitats across 230 species spanning 25 avian orders. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that SSGs, large kidneys, and thriving in salty habitats emerged convergently in birds. Transition rate analysis reveals that species possessing SSGs and large kidneys tended to move from low-to high-salinity environments, while others moved in the opposite direction. However, habitat salinity also influenced kidney evolution; lineages residing in high-salinity environments tended to develop larger kidneys than those in low-salinity environments. Our findings suggest that SSGs and large kidneys may have evolved through adaptation to high salinity. Overall, habitat conditions and physiological traits influenced avian adaptation to salty environments in a reciprocal manner. These results shed the new light on the evolutionary mechanisms underlying functional diversity in birds.

Summary: The shifts of bird song frequencies in urbanized areas provide a unique system to understand avian acoustic responses to urbanization. Using passive acoustic monitoring and automatic bird sound recognition technology, we explored the frequency variations of six common urban bird species and their associations with habitat structures. Our results demonstrated that bird song frequencies in urban areas were significantly higher than those in peri-urban and rural areas. Anthropogenic noise and habitat structure were identified as crucial factors shaping the acoustic space for birds. We found that noise, urbanization, and open understory spaces are factors contributing to the increase in the dominant frequency of bird sounds. However, habitat variables such as vegetation density and tree height can potentially slow down this upward trend. These findings offer essential insights into the behavioral response of birds in a variety of urban forest habitats, with implications for urban ecosystem management and habitat restoration.

Summary: Urbanization alters avian communities, generally lowering the number of species and contemporaneously increasing their functional relatedness, leading to biotic homogenization. Urbanization can also negatively affect the phylogenetic diversity of species assemblages, potentially decreasing their evolutionary distinctiveness. We compare species assemblages in a gradient of building density in seventeen European cities to test whether the evolutionary distinctiveness of communities is shaped by the degree of urbanization. We found a significant decline in the evolutionary uniqueness of avian communities in highly dense urban areas, compared to low and medium-dense areas. Overall, communities from dense city centers supported one million years of evolutionary history less than communities from low-dense urban areas. Such evolutionary homogenization was due to a filtering process of the most evolutionarily unique birds. Metrics related to evolutionary uniqueness have to play a role when assessing the effects of urbanization and can be used to identify local conservation priorities.