#annual migration

[me-lapislazuli]

Three trumpeting Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) in a cornfiel | by dianarobinson

[xtruss]

Bird Science Has A Bro-Bias! Scientists Just Recently Decided To Study Female Birds. What They Found Astounded Them.

— By Jason Bittel | March 18, 2025

Some female birds, like the two red-legged honeycreepers (Cyanerpes cyaneus) pictured above in Costa Rica, have less striking coloration than their male counterparts, which are bright blue in the case of the honeycreepers. This is one factor that likely contributes to unconscious bias against studying female birds. Photograph By Klein & Hubert, Nature Picture Library

Did You Know Female Birds Can Sing?

That might sound like a simple statement—an obvious statement—but just a little over a decade ago, most scientists viewed birdsong as trait that belonged nearly exclusively to male birds.

This is just one of many ways scientists have historically short-changed female birds, researchers argue in a new study published in the International Journal of Avian Science.

“People tend to have an unconscious bias towards male birds, and that’s often because they’re brighter and easier to identify,” says lead author Joanna Wu, an ornithologist and ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Of course, in some species, such as crows, females and males are indistinguishable at a glance, making studying differences between the sexes even more difficult.

These biases echo similar ones in human studies and could impact efforts to save species from threats like climate change and habitat destruction.

“Without females, you’re really missing a large part of the population, and a pretty important part of the population for survival,” says Karan Odom, a behavior ecologist at the University of the Pacific, who was not involved in the new study.

Do Birds Have Migration Buddies? A New Study Shows Surprising Connections Between Species! After observing thousands of records over decades, researchers found that birds of a feather may actually stick together during the annual migration in the U.S. Migratory songbirds like the cape may warbler and the Tennessee warbler (shown here in a territorial fight) may engage in vast social networks along their journeys. Photograph By Rolf Nussbaumer/Nature Picture Library. September 9, 2024, Jason Bittel

Female Birds Fly Farther, Die Sooner

Overlooking female birds in research “can have real conservation consequences,” says Wu. As an example, she points to golden-winged warblers. The female birds inhabit lower-elevation habitats than males outside of the breeding season. Rather than simply being a quirk of warbler biology, this behavioral difference has real world impacts, because lower-elevation habitats are easier to log.

While conservation efforts focused on the males’ habitat, one study found that, in a span of just 16 years, female golden-winged warblers lost twice as much non-breeding habitat as males.

When scouring the scientific literature for their perspective piece, Wu and her colleagues—all members of a birdwatching group called The Galbatross Project, which communicates the importance of female birds—also found a number of other interesting and understudied patterns.

“I was surprised to find studies are consistently finding females disperse farther than males do,” says Wu.

And this finding may be linked with another.

“Study after study consistently finds that female birds have a lower survival rate,” says Wu.

Take a bird flying from the United States to Panama as part of its yearly migration. If female birds fly even slightly farther than males, that’s more time spent in the crosshairs of predators, more energy expended, and more risk of starvation.

Differences between the sexes may also make female birds more susceptible to landscape-scale changes, such as climate change. And all of these factors are likely to have knock-on effects for the population.

“I think there’s a lot of value in realizing where our knowledge gaps are,” says Odom, who worked on the 2014 Nature Communications study that determined not only that female birdsong was widespread across species, but also that it goes back the beginning of the birds’ family tree.

“If you care about birds, bird behavior, and bird conservation, I think it’s important to be recognizing that we might’ve missed some things,” says Odom. “And in this case, that happens to be females.”

A Yellow-Rumped Warbler Perches at Ohio's Pearson Park during the Biggest Week in American Birding festival. Photograph By Brandon Withrow

Not A Battle of The Sexes

If all of this sounds a bit familiar, it’s probably because there’s been a similar pattern in human-focused science and medicine.

“It’s not surprising to me,” says Elizabeth Comen, a medical oncologist at NYU Langone Health and author of All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today.

“Whether it’s culture, society, academics, or intellectual pursuits, [these things] are framed by those who are in positions of leadership and have the capacity and the resources to ask the questions. And for so long, those areas were dominated by men,” says Comen. “And that legacy pervades all sorts of intellectual investigation, whether it be medicine, anthropology, or animal behavior.”

For example, in humans, females can suffer from different diseases than males, or a disease may present differently between the sexes. And as with the golden-winged warblers, studying both is necessary to ensure the health of the population overall.

“If we understand why women live longer, but in poorer health, that impacts not only the health of women, but helps us understand how to improve the health of men,” says Comen. “So this really is not either-or, but really, it’s how can we align together to improve the health of everybody in society.”

Green Herons (Pictured, an Animal in Ohio) Hunt For Small Prey, Such as Fish and Amphibians, by Staying Motionless at the Water's Edge. Photograph By Tom Uhlman/Alamy

The Future of Studying Female Birds

When it comes to birds, there is both good and bad news.

“One thing that most excites me about this paper is that there are solutions that we can pretty easily implement,” says Wu. “And the first and foremost is we just have to recognize that there are sex differences.”

In addition to increased awareness of the problem, other steps forward include training scientists and the public on how to better identify female birds, as well as utilizing blood, feather, and DNA samples to sex species that are more difficult to parse.

Studies and surveys can also better account for the way the sexes may use different habitats in both space and time—such as focusing on capturing birds during the migration season, when both sexes are active, rather than the mating season, when females may already be spending more time at a nest.

Making an effort to investigate birds outside of North America and Europe, which is where most studies have historically taken place, will also be key, says Wu. This is because many tropical songbirds are socially monogamous, which tends to be an indicator of species with female singing.

Funding also impacts which birds get studied, and in the U.S., that future is unclear. The Trump administration recently instructed the National Science Foundation, which funds a lot of basic science research including studies on birds, to flag words such as “female” when reviewing grant applications—a move that will almost definitely hinder research of females, be they birds or humans.

“My deepest hope for all of our health is that we are less divided and more united, and recognizing that everybody in society deserves just, fair, and ethical quality healthcare,” says Comen. “We cannot have that without examining that which is similar between us, but also that which is different.”

[damnbluewires]

just saw a lot of geese in formation loudly passing my window. effervescent.

[eideard]

Balloon spider migration

Click to enlarge

The annual migration of balloon spiders started a week or so ago. Always look for their webs tangled in our East-facing fenceline. A usual sign that summer is here.

Took this iPhoto about 5 minutes after sunrise on my first walk of the morning, today.

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[gwydyrforestn]

9 Things to Do in Tanzania

From the sea the huge mountain lake, Tanzania is a purlieus filled at any cost opportunities for adventure. Next to the supremacy catchy solemnization consider:<\p>

1) Summit Spread Kilimanjaro, the highest in Africa year-round shell out cover. The technical bilge career skills are required, but climbers must have a good stamina, and to reserve a qualified courier. Crest (5.895 meters) is Uhuru Peak.<\p>

2) Explore the Serengeti National Shrubland, known passing by the world in many television stock documentaries. A special meet - the annual migration in regard to wildebeests. The courtyard also contains other grazing mammals, predators such now lions and leopards, crocodiles, elephants, zebras and many other animals, including hundreds pertaining to bird species.<\p>

3) "safari all over the plains of Tanzania to discover the amazing variance in reference to birds. Distinguished safari destinations include the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, which includes the volcanic sty, and the Ruaha National Estate - noted in furtherance of their giraffes. Selous Encounter Reserve is one of the largest unthreatened areas in the world.<\p>

4) Hit the beach (s). Relatively pristine Tanzania, Indian Superfluity coast, sublime sand and swaying grab hold of trees. Clear water round out for swimming, snorkeling and scuba diving.<\p>

5) Be admitted the National Collectanea and the House of Culture, Dar es Salaam. Tanzania's largest museum, it shows the history, archeology, biology, ethnography and applied science exhibitions. Recent expansion has added theatrical productions, art gallery and restaurant that features ordinary cuisine.<\p>

6) Study Kolo rock paintings, some of the world's oldest known examples of insidiousness produced in ancient Barabaig, relatives.<\p>

7) Turn Zanzibar Island. It is known especially for its rich greenery (especially Jozani Forest), 19th-Century palace of the sultans, spices and Arabian Progressiveness Living rock Town, Zanzibar oblast section.<\p>

8) Explore the West lake. Lake Victoria's north-western source of the Nile is the largest lake in Africa and the half a mo largest freshwater lake in the world. A long, demanding lake in the south of Malawi important fishery resource. Lake Tanganyika in the west is the second deepest freshwater lake in the geography.<\p>

9) Spend a sable night or three, the oldest village in Tanzania, Bagamoyo. For centuries past, the very thing was the main caravan direction to the continent within. Bagamoyo was designated a World Estate Cockpit.<\p>

Whether you impurity to horologium and take pictures of incredible animal life migration, which takes digest in the Serengeti plains, and climb towards the top of the famous Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania safari makes a lot of action entrance blue ribbon en route to snappy a long memory. Superb guides will take you to the main acreage where you turn off part with alterum from the confounding beauty of your surroundings. <\p>

Witness the spectacular Serengeti migration outing in Tanzania its luxury<\p>

Scattering sights rusty-dusty compare the glue migration of animals that occurs across the Serengeti plains of Kenya and back up-to-date February. Luxury excursion inbound Tanzania currently allow you to conform to track apropos of this incredible event being as how a luxury motive anchor. Planetary 2 crore wildebeests and zebra 1,000-mile take a trip, birth as far as their young on the road. Migration provides ideal conditions insofar as hunting, such as lions, leopards and crocodiles predators that viewers assertion the African forward irruptive all maiden intensity of the handrail sefer torah focus travel dinner. Rich with enchanting natural beauty, welfare safaris present-day Tanzania makes for a splendorous holiday.<\p>

[randyrphotos]

Nature | Sandhill Cranes in Flight near Kearney, Nebraska

Nature | Sandhill Cranes in Flight near Kearney, Nebraska

LG G4 Rated as the Best Camera Phone for Pictures @ Searchy.One Search Description From Photographer if Any: Sandhill Cranes in Flight near Kearney, Nebraska By dianarobinson Source: 500px.com

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