| CARVIEW |
There were no new casualties on the 23rd or 24th, but I found this Clay-colored Sparrow in the east patio.
Some features of this bird are a bit ambiguous to discern it from Chipping Sparrow. Both my own and Scott Loss’s first impressions were Clay-colored Sparrow, and consultation of at least 3 field guides supports that conclusion… more or less. If you disagree and can demonstrate this to be a Chipping Sparrow, please leave a comment with your thoughts.
Since the 9 September MacGillivray’s Warbler, I’ve found no casualties at the Noble Research Center in surveys 10–20 September. I did not make it to campus to check yesterday (9/21). This morning (9/22) there was a Northern Waterthrush in the middle of the south portico entrance.
Friends realize how much I love waterthrushes in general, affectionately and affectatiously referring to Louisiana as the Pinnacle of Avian Evolution. That makes Northern the Penultimate Pinnacle in my book. These are wonderful creatures, and this one deserved better than being snuffed out at a stupid window in the middle of Oklahoma.
Window collision monitoring, sad as it is, can also reveal some potentially important records. Just yesterday, for example, a Sora collided with the Noble Research Center here on campus, at a spot with nothing remotely resembling “Sora habitat” in the vicinity. Truly extralimital records can also be revealed that would otherwise go unnoticed. Such was the case today when I encountered a MacGillivray’s Warbler –– western counterpart of the Mourning Warbler –– at the northeast alcove (the identical spot where a Painted Bunting met its end last week). This is 10 years almost to the day that I had a putative MacGillivray’s Warbler briefly “trapped” at the main north entrance and, presumably, able to continue its journey south from our campus.
MacGillivray’s is rarely reported in Oklahoma; only in the most western parts of out Panhandle (a 6–7-hour drive from here) would they be expected on migration, and then still quite rarely.
Therefore, I’m quite cautious about calling a ‘confusing fall warbler’ a MacGillivray’s when the far-more-often-reported Mourning can resemble one so closely. In fact, my initial assumption was that I had found a Mourning Warbler.
The whitish-gray throat and fairly conspicuous broken eyerings on the bird, however, led me to collect the bird to examine it a bit more closely.
To me, some of the subtle plumage aspects used to separate females of the two species were a bit beyond my ken. The relative length of undertail coverts to rectrices suggested MacGillivray’s. The eyering might have two rows of tiny feathers instead of one, suggesting MacGillivray’s. But I found these interpretations a bit subjective. MacGillivray’s is supposed to be a bit smaller, however, and that was something I should be able to assess objectively. I leaned on two structural aspects to lay my nickel down on the identification as MacGillivray’s. First, individuals < 11g are a lot more likely to be MacGillivray’s than Mourning, with the latter species often exceeding 13g. This bird was 10.6g. Next, a difference between wing chord and tail length <10mm suggests MacGillivray’s while >11mm suggests Mourning (Lanyon and Bull 1967). This bird came in at 7mm.
The Yellow Warbler from Sep 4 was not found again on Sep 5, but the Painted Bunting carcass has persisted through at least Sep 8.
On 7 Sep, our graduate students were enjoying a tailgate party for the OSU/Arkansas football game on the lawn south of the Noble Research Center and norther of Edmon Low Library. At approximately 10:45 am, someone noticed a Sora skulking around among some bushes. Closer inspection of the bird caused it to flush and collide with the south portico of the NRC. The students collected the now-stunned bird and delivered it to the OSU Veterinary Hospital for care. On 8 Sep, I found two Sora feathers near the spot of collision. I recorded this as a Sora *found alive*. (Edit 25 September 2024: Word from the Vet Hospital is that the Sora succumbed to its injuries. I have modified my records to list this bird as “found dead”.)
After Hatch-Year male Yellow Warbler at the northwest alcove this morning.
The hummingbird from 8/21 was reduced to bones and feathers by 8/22, courtesy of the local ants. I found no new casualties during surveys on August 22, 23, 26, 27, or 28. On my next survey, September 3rd, I found this Painted Bunting at the northeast alcove. The bird had been ant-scavenged, and very likely collided on 2 or 1 September. I can’t quite narrow down age and sex: I think I see a molt limit at the border of replaced lesser coverts and original greater and primary coverts, suggesting a second year bird. Whether it was SY male or female, however, I’d prefer not to speculate without a closer examination.
I found no evidence of casualties 9–15 August or on 20 August. Today, however, there was a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird at the main north entrance. It looks to be AHY.
New analyses of data on #BirdWindowCollisions in the USA suggest that mortality of wild birds is higher than generally appreciated. Specifically, the estimate of 1 billion birds killed annually in the US which is often considered a high-end value is very likely an underestimate.
First, Klem et al. (2024) reported in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology on their efforts to examine rates at which 1) birds collide with windows without leaving evidence of the collision and 2) those birds that collide without evidence ultimately die from injuries they sustain. They report low- and high-range estimates of mortality in that paper, with the minimum killed annually in the US at 1.28 billion and maximum as high as 5.19 billion.
Next, Kornreich et al. 2024 writing in PLOS One analyzed rehabilitation outcomes for birds that had collided with windows but survived long enough to be delivered for care to a wildlife hospital. Their analysis suggested that about 60% of victims ultimately die in treatment or euthanasia, with body mass correlating with outcome: larger birds are more likely to survive the experience (see attached Fig. 1). Overall, their work suggests as well that bird-window collision mortality “far exceeds” 1 billion in the USA each year.
In June I quietly began some official Noble Research Center collision monitoring on the campus of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. This is the same building at which I had done near daily monitoring 2009–2019 that is the primary subject for this blog.
The hiatus was important for several reasons, among them a deadly global pandemic, the construction of a giant, new building on a lot adjacent to the NRC that was formerly parking lot with small shade trees, and the fact that in 2023 two facades of the NRC were treated with Feather Friendly window markings as part of a research project to examine the efficacy of the markings in reducing collisions.
Now we’re back on campus every day, our official data collection for the specific efficacy analysis has concluded, and my office has been relocated to that same giant, new building. It’s a fine time to get going again.
My official start date was June 3rd, 2024. I conducted 26 surveys without finding a single casualty until the 27th revealed the female Painted Bunting pictured here. She died at the main north entrance on August 3rd or 4th; I found her on August 5th. The carcass remained through August 6th but was gone August 7th. That’s at least a three-day window before removal: 4–6 Aug.
Because the ants had already gotten to the bird before I found it, I did not examine it closely. The photos reveal something interesting, however: the bird appears to have molted its outer rectrices, with at least one of them beginning regrowth. I need to do some more reading to see how unusual this might be in the context of the typical pattern for Painted Bunting which is to begin molt after arriving at a staging area in the Monsoon region of Arizona and the states of Sonora and Sinaloa in Mexico.
Yellow arrows (above left) indicate facades treated with Feather Friendly window markers at the Noble Research Center.
It was way back in 1993 that I first got involved –– quite by accident –– in monitoring for window-killed birds. Since then, it’s been a fairly continuous thread in my research life and conservation advocacy. Here at OKState in Stillwater, I began a monitoring program in 2009 to document window-killed birds at a single building on our campus. I kept those near-daily searches going for ten years; that’s the primary content of this blog.
Along the way, this work has been buoyed, expanded, improved, and supported through another fortuitous accident: the recruitment to our faculty of a truly global leader in research into bird-window collisions, Scott Loss. As Scott built his lab he attracted a group of some of the best young scholars with whom it’s been my privilege to interact. These include Corey Riding, Georgia Riggs, Jared Elmore, Sirena Lao, Chrissy Barton, Riley Lawson, and probably a few more I’m forgetting. (Sorry about that.)
It’s Jared and Riley who are probably most relevant to this update. Through Jared, Scott and I were able to make contact with a guy on our campus who both (1) loves birds and (2) has access to some of the University’s deepest pockets. That led us to a wonderful opportunity to fund installations of some Feather Friendly products on a few of our most deadly facades and create a position for a grad student –– Riley –– to study the efficacy of those window retrofits. Yesterday, we had an impromptu ceremony in which we accompanied Riley as he installed interpretive signage describing our work on the building that was the subject of this blog, the Noble Research Center. (Thanks to Clay Billman for his help with preparing the signs!)
From lights-out programs to organized working groups to the Federal Bird Safe Buildings Act, action on preventing bird-window collisions has never been more advanced. It’s wild to look back on my career and see everything happening now when, back in the 1990s, most of what we were doing was trying to convince our colleagues that this was a problem far more serious than we realized. We know there’s still a long way to go but we’re headed in the right direction. We can tackle bird-window collisions – that work begins one pane, one facade, one building at a time.
There was a Gray Catbird at the south entrance today.
There was a Lincoln’s Sparrow at the main north entrance today.
The two House Wrens I found this morning (one at the main north entrance and one in the northwestern alcove) were the 3rd and 4th casualties since August. I had only found 3 prior to August 2019.
August 2009–July 2019: 3 House Wrens
August 2019–October 2019: 4 House Wrens
This AHY male Common Yellowthroat got no farther than the main north entrance of the Noble Research Center today.
No casualties.
A sad sign of autumn in Stillwater, Oklahoma: I found the first window-killed Lincoln’s Sparrow of the fall. I did not check yesterday (Sep. 28) but that’s probably when this collision occurred.
Today there was a House Wren in the southeastern alcove and an immature Ruby-throated Hummingbird at the main north entrance.
Birds on the move captured on Nexrad radar tell an important story on the evening of Sep. 23 to the morning of Sep. 24. First, watch migration blow up after local sunrise in the eastern US, and progress to the west.
As the night wore on, storms began to flare up in Oklahoma. Here in Stillwater those storms hit between 1:30 and 2:00 am on Sep. 24. As the storms expand, migration stalls: Birds put down to avoid the storms and for people on the ground, that’s a fallout.
Was there evidence of this fallout on the ground?
Well, there was a bonus Canada Warbler in that troublesome northeastern alcove of the Food and Agricultural Products Center. (This was in addition to a Mourning Warbler and a Wilson’s Warbler I found there on Sep. 21.)
There was a big flight of Nashville Warbler in Stillwater, too. Twelve were reported from Couch Park. I found one in the southwestern alcove and a Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the northeastern alcove.
This morning there was a House Wren at the main north entrance and a Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the southwestern alcove.
Yet another Mourning Warbler today. This one was in the southwestern alcove. I don’t know if it had been chasing this grasshopper and they both died at the window, but it sure did look unusual to find these two together.
Proof that even 10 years of monitoring cannot make us immune to surprises, today I found a new species for the study: an AHY male Prothonotary Warbler at the main north entrance of the Noble Research Center. This is the 68th species recorded as a victim there since August 2009.
There was a big flight of Yellow Warblers this week, culminating in tow individuals –– one trapped and one dead –– at the Noble Research Center. The collision victim was in a weird spot at the southwestern corner.
The 40th casualty of 2019 indicates another unusually deadly year at the Noble Research Center on the campus of Oklahoma State University here in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. The fact that we’ve hit that benchmark in early September is especially disheartening. This hummingbird at the main north entrance earned the sad distinction of being number 40.
We lost another Mourning Warbler overnight, this one in the southwest alcove. Note the broken lower mandible on this poor victim.
To clarify, it was indeed 4 September that this Ruby-throated Hummingbird met its end beneath the south portico.
There was a Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the northwestern alcove and a stunned and trapped Painted Bunting at the south entrance. The Painted Bunting was able to perch on its own and all signs this morning would indicate it recovered and moved on.
I found another Mourning Warbler today, this one at the main north entrance.
Tough morning with three casualties at the Noble Research Center: there was a Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the southwestern alcove and flanking Wilson’s and Yellow warblers at the main north entrance.
I found an immature Mourning Dove at the northwestern alcove this morning.
There was a male Yellow Warbler at the southwestern alcove today.
As storms rolled through overnight, I assumed I might find a casualty this morning. There were two: a completely rain-soaked female Indigo Bunting in the southwestern alcove and a completely dry and fluffy Mourning Warbler at the south entrance under the rain protection provided by the portico’s overhanging roof. The latter was an AHY male with fat = 3.
I found another Painted Bunting this morning, this time in the southwestern alcove. This one looked to be a second-year female with a still-evident brood patch.
I did not do a survey yesterday (14th), but this Painted Bunting at the main north entrance looked as if it had been in place since at least yesterday morning. Nonetheless, it will be recorded as a casualty of the 15th.
Bird-Window Collisions at OK State