Macaulay Library Team

Celebrating our students: Nicola Love

Celebrating our students: Nicola Love
By Macaulay Library Team
Undergraduate Nicola Love studied how Blue Jays respond to alarm calls of titmice. In her senior honors thesis, she demonstrated that Blue Jays react to Titmice alarm calls and reduce their feeding when they hear Titmice calling to warn of predators. But Blue Jays respond more strongly to alarm calls from other Blue Jays. Additionally,…
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Celebrating our students: Joseph Welklin

Celebrating our students: Joseph Welklin
By Macaulay Library Team
This week we are celebrating our Cornell University undergraduates, graduates, and postdocs who work with us to explore scientific questions related to the behavior, ecology, and evolution of birds. Graduate student, Joseph Welklin, studies how the social environment influences Red-backed Fairy-wren plumage coloration. Young males molt into distinct black and red plumage at the start…
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Smooth dance moves confirm new Bird-of-Paradise species

Smooth dance moves confirm new Bird-of-Paradise species
By Macaulay Library Team
Newly publicized audiovisuals support full species status for one of the dancing birds-of-paradise in New Guinea. This new species, called the Vogelkop Superb Bird-of-Paradise, is found only in the island’s far-western Bird’s Head, or Vogelkop, region. In a new paper published in the journal PeerJ, scientists “show and tell” half-a-dozen ways this form is distinct from…
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Join the Macaulay Team: Collections Development Manager position

Join the Macaulay Team: Collections Development Manager position
By Macaulay Library Team
The Macaulay Library is growing exponentially. Help us build partnerships with a global community contributing sounds, photos, and video to the archive and join our team as a Collections Development Manager. For more information, and to apply, visit the full job description. The position will be posted until filled. Specific duties include: Strategically grow the…
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Female birds sing!

Female birds sing!
By Macaulay Library Team
Did you know that female birds sing? They do! Females sing in 64% of birds species in which the male sings, but numbers grow as more are observed and reported. Often, it is monomorphic species– where males and females look the same– where female song is unreported, or assumed to be the male. Macaulay Library…
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Black-throated Tody-Tyrant

Courtship display and nesting behavior of Black-throated Tody-Tyrants
By Macaulay Library Team
Male Black-throated Tody-Tyrants hover back and forth in front of a female while making a “loud, whirring sound most likely produced by his rapid wing beats.” The courtship display and nesting behavior of these birds was described by Jenna McCullough and Gustavo Londoño in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology in 2017. http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1676/16-122.1 #mlresearch #mlvideo  
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1956: Our first scientific publication to cite the use of archived recordings

1956: Our first scientific publication to cite the use of archived recordings
By Macaulay Library Team
#tbt to the first scientific publication to cite the use of our archived recordings in 1956: Dilger, William C. “Hostile behavior and reproductive isolating mechanisms in the avian genera Catharus and Hylocichla.” The Auk 73.3 (1956): 313-353. William C. Dilger played calls of several species of thrushes and used models of birds to document aggressive responses…
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Eastern Meadowlark

Videos used to track head movements
By Macaulay Library Team
Videos of animals in the wild are available in the Macaulay Library. Sometimes, it’s just a 3 minute video of a bird perched on a branch looking at its surroundings: RESEARCH GOLD! Researchers from Purdue University used videos from Macaulay to track head movement of 29 bird species, including this Eastern Meadowlark. They learned that…
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Gray-fronted Honeyeater

Your photo could be featured in a scientific publication
By Macaulay Library Team
Photos submitted by users through eBird to Macaulay Library are helping illustrate scientific publications. This Gray-fronted Honeyeater by Tom Johnson/ (ML 37354101) was featured in a recent publication on the evolution of body shape and ecology of honeyeaters. #mlresearch #mluse #mlphoto http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/690008
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