Birds are a hugely varied and fascinating part of our world's ecosystem, from common sparrows to parrots to eagles to cranes to weird muppet-looking birds like the potoo. In this talk, I'll showcase a few of my favorite birds and their interesting qualities, and discuss some ways we can help make the world a better place for our feathered friends.
4. Generally, a bird:
○ Has a beak
○ Reproduces by laying hard-shelled eggs
○ Has feathers
○ Is warm-blooded and has a spine
○ Has a four-chambered heart
○ Has pretty light bones
5. Things some birds do, but not all:
○ Talk
○ Use tools
○ Fly
○ Pass on knowledge across generations
○ Migrate
11. Facts about the nightjar
○ Might be a cryptid - an old myth says they suck the
milk from goats
○ So good at hiding that some species have only been
seen literally once
○ Some of them can hibernate for weeks or months
○ Fancy wings
○ A close relative is the potoo
15. Facts about pigeons
○ Technically city-dwelling wild pigeons are called
"feral pigeons"
○ Domesticated bird species, which means they are
actually pretty good pets
○ Have served honorably in past wars, e.g., the
highly-decorated Cher Ami
16. More facts about pigeons
○ They're some of the more intelligent birds
○ There are so many kinds of pigeons I could
probably do a whole talk on just pigeons
○ While we consider city pigeons overabundant,
passenger pigeons went extinct after being v
numerous
○ Many species of pigeon are extinct in the wild
19. Facts about parrotlets
○ The smallest new world parrot species
○ They form life-long pair bonds with mates and do
the same with people in captivity sometimes
○ Parrots of any size (parrotlets included) have v
powerful beaks and are not to be messed with
○ They can potentially live 20-30 years
○ They think glasses are a jungle gym
22. What is birding?
○ Birding, or birdwatching, is going out and looking
for birds for fun!
○ Birders try and view interesting birds, and/or
identify them by sound, since types of birds have
unique calls
○ There are many organizations dedicated to helping
people appreciate birds in their community by
birding
23. Birding resources
In Chicago: chicagobirder.org
American Birding Association: aba.org
The Audubon Society: audubon.org/birding
You'll probably want a field guide for IDing birds and
some binoculars!
25. Bird conservation matters
The biggest threats to bird populations are often
generated by human populations.
○ Hunting, pre-Migratory Bird Treaty Act
○ Unsupervised outdoor cats
○ Window collisions
○ Congress
26. What you can do!
○ Go to audubon.org/takeaction
○ Find a local wildlife rescue to volunteer with
○ Keep any outdoor pets supervised
○ If you want a pet bird, consider adopting!
○ Help efforts to lobby for bird-safe windows in new
buildings
○ Get involved in birding to learn more about birds!
We tend to associate flying with birds, but there are plenty of ground-based birds such as ostriches, emu, kakapos, etc.
and there are also non-bird animals that fly, such as bats!
For example, here we have the bee hummingbird, one of the smallest birds in the world—only a couple inches, the size of maybe your pinky finger
And then there's the common ostrich, that's like seven feet tall and extremely heavy
Ruppel's vulture is perhaps the highest-flying bird, at 37,100 ft above sea level
The kakapo is the only species of flightless parrot in the world and uses its wings for balance and to break its fall when jumping from trees.
So, uh, basically they're a suspect for being chupacabras
Vaurie's nightjar is one particular species only recorded once, in China, in the 1920s.
The kind of city pigeons we are used to are descendants of domesticated pigeons, mostly ones brought by colonists in the 17th century
Passenger pigeons were a native pigeon species, but were hunted to extinction, and the last one died in captivity in 1914.
Cher Ami saved over 200 men during her service to the US Army signal corps in France during WWII!
An ornithologist, Alexander wilson, once estimated a flock of passenger pigeons at more than two BILLION birds before their decline
In fact, 59 species of pigeons and doves (19%) are threatened with extinction today; most of these are tropical and island-dwelling
Most of this is due to habitat loss and the fact that they lost some predator avoidance behaviors due to isolation
The soccorro dove is extinct in the wild, for example
Image from beakybirds.tumblr.com, a good blog
Some people just use the naked eye; other people bring binoculars or telescopes
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act put an end to some really egregious levels of hunting in the USA; apparently once people realized they weren't beholden to any royalty saying when and where they could legally hunt they started figuring out ways to kill an entire lake of ducks at once
In addition to bird enthusiasts, some hunters supported conservation efforts, because unchecked hunting leads to, well, nothing to hunt.
I love cats; I have a cat named Pigeon, in fact. However, outdoor cats have caused the extinction of 33 species and threatened several more, such as the piping plover.
Window collisions are also a huge risk to birds since they're not great at determining where windows are; you can help in your own home by doing things to break up the reflective properties of your window so that it doesn't look like the outdoors
You can also try and encourage new construction to design in ways and use materials that reduce window collisions.
Adoption is always great for animals, and there are many birds that need good homes because they weren't what their original families expected! But they can be very friendly and loving with people who take good care of them.
Chicago Bird Collision Monitors has also been encouraging high-glass buildings to turn down their lights at night during migration season to reduce bird strikes
Nearish here, you can check out the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary and the Clark Street Beach Bird Sanctuary! (also lakecookaudubon.org for local Audubon action!)
