The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/birds/)
In a recent study published in “Science of the Total Environment,” scientists at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology and Zhejiang University found that the surface urban heat island effect had implications on bird diversity in China, causing them to migrate from urban to suburban areas in the 336 Chinese cities studied.
Humans, as Nature, abhor a void, and have plenty of enticing options to fill it with: hedonism, nihilism and capitalism all proffer tempting invitations to grab all you can while the getting’s good, free from the responsibility or consequences that come with a creator and an afterlife.
A recent study on social bird behavior has found that more sociality in birds may confer to reduced competition in interactions between and among bird species. The findings, published on March 1 in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B, utilized data from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
This year’s Great Backyard Bird Count, launched on Wednesday afternoon by the the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is encouraging people from around the world to birdwatch for at least 15 minutes this weekend.
Humans are not the only species experiencing a strong flu season right now.
A new study out of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology finds that these limited altitude residencies are due to interspecific competition where individuals of different species compete for the same resources. The study, published in Science, was conducted using eBird data from 4.4 million citizen science observations of 2,879 bird species around the world.
A Cornell course is providing a holistic perspective on ornithology by teaching students from outside fields to draw and understand birds.
For over 100 years, industrial activities inflicting harm to various bird species were regulated by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. In recent months, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps to overrule this legislation so that companies would no longer be held liable for unintentionally harming birds — which could potentially have harmful implications for the environment.
As a result, the best they can do is try to sustain themselves and hope they live to see another breeding season.
Correction appended.
Cornell Lab of Ornithology conservation scientist Dr. Ken Rosenberg led an international team of 12 scientists in an analysis of decades of data on bird population — and the conclusion is disturbing. In the last 50 years, one in four birds in North America has disappeared. Pesticide use and loss of habitat to farmland are some of the most significant contributors to the decline in bird populations, according to Rosenberg. Although scientists have known for a long time that certain bird species were threatened by human activities, this study reveals that these issues apply to birds of nearly all species. “Seeing this net loss of three billion birds was shocking,” Rosenberg said.