Science

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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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  
Read more Courtship display and nesting behavior of Black-throated Tody-Tyrants
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…
Read more 1956: Our first scientific publication to cite the use of archived recordings
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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Crossbills of North America: Species and Red Crossbill Call Types 
By Team eBird
As one of the most striking differences in bird occurrence from year-to-year in many northern regions of the world, finch irruptions are often exciting events. Will this winter have Pine Grosbeaks and Bohemian Waxwings dripping from the local crabapples? Will crossbills be crunching away in the conifers? Ron Pittaway’s finch forecast is always a much-anticipated read for…
Read more Crossbills of North America: Species and Red Crossbill Call Types 

Decades of bird signals, songs digitized for scientific research – Science Nation
By Macaulay Library Team
The world’s largest scientific archive of animal signal recordings, the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds, is partnering with other institutions to co-curate and digitize an enormous archive of animal audio and video recordings from the library’s vaults. The analog material in the library’s collection at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology includes recordings of mainly birds,…
Read more Decades of bird signals, songs digitized for scientific research – Science Nation