Dispatches from The Academy of Bird Sciences

Color charts of undifferentiated (top) and specialized (bottom) plumage of different warbler species from Charles Keeler's Evolution of the colors of North American land birds (1893).

By Andy Corbley -Jan 27, 2026

A study run by Michigan State University in the state’s upper peninsula has discovered that encouraging American kestrels to nest in cherry orchards also reduces the presence of food-borne illnesses that can be passed via the fruit to consumers.

By keeping rodents—but particularly small, fruit-eating birds out of the orchards, kestrels were found to be an effective means of pest control.

“Kestrels are not very expensive to bring into orchards, but they work pretty well,” said Olivia Smith, lead study author and assistant professor of horticulture at Michigan State University. “And people just like kestrels a lot, so I think it’s an attractive strategy.”

The hypothesis of Smith and her colleagues was that by keeping fruit-eating birds away, fewer avian pathogens would reach the shelves of the grocery store. This proved largely correct, as kestrel-guarded orchards showed an 81% decrease in instances of crop damage, including missing fruit and fruit with bite marks, and a 66% decrease in bird droppings on the fruit trees.

“I’ve noticed a difference having the kestrels around, hovering over the spring crops,” Brad Thatcher, a farmer based in Washington state who has housed kestrels in the fruit and vegetable areas on April Joy Farm for over 13 years, told Inside Climate News. “There’s very little fecal damage from small songbirds at that time of year versus the fall.”

There are no shortage of problems for cherry and fruit farmers these days, from wild weather swings to labor shortages. Perching birds are just one more issue to deal with, and they’re quite the issue, causing some $85 million in losses every year among major growing states like Michigan and California.

Growers attempt to prevent the fruit loss in a variety of ways, including chemical repellents, lethal shooting, trapping, hanging nets over their trees, visual and auditory scare tactics, and even deforesting the area surrounding the orchard.

Not only were the kestrels found to be more effective at keeping the birds away, but the detectable levels of Campylobacter, the most common foodborne pathogen spread by bird feces, were lower on branches in orchards with kestrel nest boxes (0.97% compared to around 10%).

it's subtitled "A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching," an inaccurately voyeuristic title, because the glimpse is at Themselves.

two unemployed brothers (one an unemployed videographer, one nonspecifically unemployed who has a ferocious new interest in birds) decide: firstly, they are now birders. secondly, to start their birding adventure in a maximalist way by doing A For-Real Big Year.

what's a Big Year? they don't know, they just heard of it now. oh, what's that? they're going and seeing the greatest number of birds from Jan 1 to Dec 31 in the lower 48 by way of their shitass van. they also have about my own exact knowledge of birds, which is: there are bald eagles, great blue herons, crows, and a lot of small brown birds which are all called "sparrows."

a youtube comment correctly remarks that it's like watching oldschool skating videos, where you got maybe 480p of the finally-stomped kickflip down the stairwell, but the joy isn't in that, it's of the camera following the guy as he jumps into the bushes with three cheering friends. they are uniquely new to birding AND uniquely good at cinematography.

the documentary works because These Guys Love Birds. they love birds so much. they are signing up to rare-bird-sighting email lists. they are taking hour-long detours to find a kind of grackle that they later learn lives in every single gas station dumpster they've passed. they're interviewing just about everyone they come across, from award-winning birders to a guy walking down a freeway. they have an instinct for jon bois style stupid-but-emotional bits—they are calling every defunct bird hotline in old birding guides to see if any of them can give them a tip about a local bird; or to see if any of them are still connected at all. they are making fun of quails.

this all works WELL. it is beautiful wildlife cinematography cut with handheld camcorder-quality ski bum video. it is what documentary is for.

the ohio legislature recently added a measure to the budget bill (House Bill 96) which requires public libraries to move any materials related to gender or sexual orientation to areas not visible to those under 18. obviously, this will protect nobody and will only do harm. Governor DeWine has the ability to line item veto this harmful, expensive, and stigmatizing measure and it would only take a minute or two to reach out and (respectfully) make your position known.

Call: 614-466-3555 Email: governor.ohio.gov/contact

Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) observation by eleggua

plus, the black-collared barbet showed itself after only being heard for months! very striking birds:

with such fun calls, too:

Oh, to be a Laysan Albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis), blissfully having a happy Buddha meditative snooze on your nest, amongst millions of your feathery brethren like noisy flowers in a field, on one of the most remarkable islands on Earth.

(This is probably one of my favourite photos I've ever taken...especially since I caught another alby to the left mid-over-the-wing doggie scratch!)

The first seabird I ever worked with, held/handled, took care of, & released was a Laysan Albatross chick in Hawai'i, many moons ago.

Fifteen years later, my love for seabirds as strong as ever, I had the amazing opportunity to be among millions of these incredible pelagic birds in the largest albatross colony in the world, on the culturally, ecologically, & historically significant Midway Atoll...plus, to also see Wisdom, the oldest known wild bird, with my own eyes.

[To Bees or Not to Bees: Greater Honeyguides Sometimes Guide Humans to Animals Other Than Bees, but Likely Not as Punishment]

These are all four non-bee destinations - three snakes and a dead galago

TIL that shrikes kill their prey by suplexing them to death???

The Trump administration has issued an executive order aimed at dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services - the ONLY federal agency for America's libraries.

Using just 0.003% of the federal budget, the IMLS funds services at libraries across the country; services like Braille and talking books for the visually impaired, high-speed internet access, and early literacy programs.

Libraries are known for doing more with less, but even we can't work with nothing.

How You Can Help:

🔥 Call your congressperson!

Use the app of your choice or look 'em up here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

Pro tip: If your phone anxiety is high, call at night and leave a voicemail. You can even write yourself a script in advance and read it off. Heck, read them this post if you want to.

Phones a total no-go? The American Library Association has a form for you: https://oneclickpolitics.global.ssl.fastly.net/messages/edit?promo_id=23577

🔥Tell your friends!

Tell strangers, for that matter. People in line at the check out, your elderly neighbor, the mail carrier - no one is safe from your library advocacy. Libraries are for everyone and we need all the help we can get.

...Wait, why do we need this IMLS thing again?

The ALA says it best in their official statement and lists some ways libraries across the country use IMLS funding:

But if you want a really specific answer, here at LCPL we use IMLS funding to provide our amazing interlibrary loan service. If we can't purchase an item you request (out of print books, for example) this service lets us borrow it from another library and check it out to you.

IMLS also funds the statewide Indiana Digital Library and Evergreen Indiana, which gives patrons of smaller Indiana libraries access to collections just as large and varied as the big libraries' collections.

I work at a library. We do this thing where, every so often, we weed the collection. It hurts to see books go, but it's necessary to make sure there's room in the library for new materials.

I have seen so much support for the library in text, and I've seen folks pass around those beautiful "queer your library" flyers. Keep doing that. That's great. Nothing wrong with that. But you HAVE to turn your words into action. We MUST remember to actually go to our local organizations and libraries and actually, with our own fucking hands, interact with these materials we want to see more of.

My branch is medium-sized for a library, maybe a little small. We don't have as many materials as I'd like, but we have fundamentals. Tell me why, even with all the verbal support I've gotten from my local community for the library as a resource for our LGBT+ community, every single trans biography and a good chunk of our vaguely queer theory books were on the list. This isn't a scheme to take the books off the shelves, it isn't another bigoted American governmental push. The only thing we look at when we weed is how long it's been since the last time the item was checked out.

Three years.

No one in my community interacted in any meaningful way with the few books on trans life and history we physically had on the shelves for three fucking years.

I promise you the materials you want and need are there, but this isn't a horde. This isn't a static safety net. You have to use them. You MUST use them or, in the future, maybe in three years, they *won't* be there anymore.