Necropsy also revealed sepsis and anemia from bleeding gastric ulcers in her ventriculus, most likely as chronic complication from the virus. Although she also had brodifacoum, an anticoagulant rodenticide, in her system it was not high enough to cause bleeding, so was not felt to be primary cause of death. Lead levels were not high, nor were there any other pathogenic viruses present.

Location: NYC
Eyes open, aware and blinking, looking around often. Chirped a lot when I removed it from my chest and onto the ground. Made sure he could flap his wings, body perfectly normal. Breathing normally and perfectly alert, balanced well on me as I walked around to find someplace away from humans and their dogs.

Edited to add: I am in the World Trade Center area, so it’s very tightly run by the park organization and everything is considered suspicious? I’m going to talk to the wildlife/composting/horticulture people about this, because of course security could give two fucks. Just learned about the stickers from the comments. I want to put them up, I’ll talk to somebody first because they treat everything in this area like a security breach attempt

I spotted this bird recently and was intrigued by its unusual coloration. It appears to be a sunbird, but the irregular patches of black, white, pale yellow, and iridescent blue caught my attention.

I'm curious whether this is normal plumage variation, possibly related to moulting or age, or whether it could be something like leucism or another pigmentation anomaly.

Would love to hear what people familiar with sunbird plumage think!

Location: Pune, Maharashtra, India

Google Pixel 10 Pro ƒ/2.81/13217.906 mmISO103, Using Pro Res Zoom

Im from Brazil, São Paulo and theres a lot of Picazuro Pigeon around but im not sure If his one of them. Could you guys help me?? (I already contacted the wildlife service)

hi hi! basically the title, this guy was hopping about my yard this evening totally alert but unable to fly away. ive placed him in a box and put it in a dark place and gave him some water, but im not sure what else to do for him while i wait for rehab to open. wanted to post here because almost all of the advice i saw was for birds with visible injuries, which this guy lacks, at least that my untrained eye can see. should i just leave him be until i can get him to the professionals?

eta: central texas

The first 4 photos are from today. The last 2 are from 14/8/26. I had originally assumed that he was just molting into his adult plumage, but my understanding is that this generally would be done by now and there'd definitely at least be noticeable change.

He lives in an aviary in a local zoo. I'm almost certain it's the same individual, and the only other cardinal there is his mate.

Any idea what would cause this?

After its discovery in 1897, the teardrop white-eye (Rukia ruki) was long believed to inhabit a microscopic range. Within the Western Pacific, endemic to Micronesia. Within Micronesia to the Caroline Islands. Within the Carolines, to Chuuk Atoll. Within Chuuk, only the Faichuk island group. And within that group, it was known only from the island of Tol, from the summit of its tallest mountain: Winipot.

Dominating the upper canopy of Mount Winipot is the endemic Chuuk poison tree (Semecarpus kraemeri). It produces a highly toxic sap that causes severe allergic contact dermatitis and painful blistering in humans. Historically, this toxic tree shielded Winipot’s native forests from fire and axe — offering sanctuary to the teardrop white-eye.

Unlike most of its white-eye cousins in the Zosterops genus — which are small, yellowish, and difficult to tell apart — the teardrop white-eye is noticeably larger, has sombre olive-brown plumage, and features bright orange legs. Beneath its eyes, it has distinct white feather crescents that look like permanent teardrops.

In the 1980s, surveys estimated that 382 teardrop white-eyes lived on Tol. They also found tiny, restricted populations of the species across a few neighbouring islands. But “restricted” is the key word here: 93 on Polle, 32 on Paata, and just 19 on Onei. Those same surveys estimated that the white-eye’s total known range was only about one square kilometre, or less than a third the size of Central Park. 

More recent surveys on neighbouring islands have either turned up empty or been impossible to undertake due to local opposition and other difficulties. We cannot say whether the teardrop white-eye exists anywhere outside of Tol today. 

There is some hope, however, for the species. A recent birding expedition, undertaken in June 2026, saw at least seven white-eyes creeping along vines and branches in the old-growth forest below Mount Winipot. 

Read the teardrop white-eye’s full story here!

I've been studying the use of the pileus, or Liberty Cap, as an icon in the French and American Revolutions and I'm trying to figure out when it became red. While all French usage is red some early American usage has the caps as gold or white.

However, Linnaeus assigned the name picus pileatus before both Revolutions in 1759. Is there any way to find out if the red color was a factor in him choosing this name?

Hopefully the images capture this well. I noticed a mourning dove at the feeder with this growth on the beak. Initially thought it was dried fruit stuck to its beak but it was eating the feed with no change in the shape. Is this bad news or a deformation?

Hello everyone I hope you all are having good day.

We recently developed a platform that primarily identifies the 85 bird species automatically. The case study was done in Nepal. The 85 chosen birds’ species was chosen based on taxonomy covering all orders and going through their conservation status. The recent calamity and climate change played vital role on making this contribution and hopefully plays a good role bird awareness and crucial step for bird conservation.

Features:

You can upload or capture bird image. The system will display top 3 predicted species along with model score which is important for fine grained classification. Model score implies how confident the model on predicting species. It generates heatmap showcasing the model focus on part of bird that contributed to a suggestion.

Link: https://birdnepal.com/

Hi everyone,

I reached out to the moderators before posting, and I appreciate them allowing me to share this with the community.

I created the Bird Watcher’s Journal because I wanted bird enthusiasts to have a practical and enjoyable way to preserve their observations—not simply check a bird off a list, but remember the sighting, long after, where they saw it, when they saw it, and what made that encounter special.

I also do hope that this journal finds its way into families with avid birdwatchers, as well as those who are just beginning to discover birdwatching as an exciting hobby and pastime—something parents, grandparents, children, and loved ones can enjoy and perhaps share precious moments together.

This journal has been carefully put together by me, and includes dedicated space for recording bird sightings, geographic location, dates, weather, temperature, and bird details, along with room for notes and a dotted-grid area where you can sketch the bird you observed. I’ve tried to make the interior clean, readable, user friendly and easy to use outdoors or while referring notes at home.

I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from all people of any age, who know and love birds. If this journal can make birdwatching a little more enjoyable and exciting, while also contributing toward something universally good, then I feel it has accomplished what I intended.

The universal good I mentioned is that there is also a charitable purpose behind this project. I intend to dedicate 15% of my earnings from my books to helping neglected and disadvantaged children, with the percentage increasing as book sales grow. This mission is personally important to me, and I hope that as JD Books grows, I’ll be able to make a meaningful difference in the lives of children who need support.

The link is: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BRDHSBKN 

Thank you for allowing me to share this journal with you.

— Jacob
JD Books

African Red-Billed Spurfowl may look like a plump, ground-hugging chicken, but it is a surprisingly bold survivor of dry savannas and scrubby woodlands. With a bright red bill and herringbone sweater, they forage obsessively like their domesticated doppelgangers, scratching through leaf litter and soil for insects, seeds, bulbs, anything the bush floor offers.

Spurfowl males carry the nominative spurs, sharp backward-pointing claws, weapons used in territorial combat. When two males meet at a disputed boundary the encounter escalates with a speed and intensity, startling in a bird most people would barely notice. These fights are serious, sustained, and occasionally injurious, not unlike those of their fowl cousins.

The female lays up to ten eggs in a shallow scrape hidden among grass or bushes, then incubates them alone for about three weeks. When chicks hatch, they are able to walk and feed themselves within hours. The mother stays close, brooding them at night and guiding them to food, while the male may linger nearby and occasionally help with protection.

Spurfowl are fiercely terrestrial and possess a stubborn refusal to fly. If a cheetah or a safari vehicle approaches, they won’t take to the sky. Instead, they drop their heads and sprint through the thorny brush, quickly out of sight. African Red-Billed Spurfowl may seem diminutive, but you can bet on their survival.

Birdman of Africa gamersdad.substack.com Photo by Andrew Steinmann ©2026

No AI content, all human generated text and images

Hello!

Wondering if anyone can tell me what this wing flapping/chirping behaviour means?

Before I was putting peanuts out in a feeder for them, I’d just toss a few handfuls in the yard. If there were no peanuts in the yard, sometimes they’d come perch and do this behaviour almost as if asking for food?

Since having the feeder I’m noticing them doing it a lot more when other jays are around feeding at the same time.

Edit: Punctuation

Earlier today I heard a hawk so I pulled up the Merlin app to see what it was cause I have no idea what hawks live around here (Illinois), and it said it was a red-tailed hawk. But when I listened through the examples of different calls, what I was hearing sounded exactly like the app’s example for a display call (a few chirps and then a classic call), and there were two hawks when I looked up. They were kind of circling around, it was hard to see exactly what they were doing cause there was trees in the way. But why would they be doing what sounds like courting in the fall? Is there another purpose for that call?

Right now, if you search anything related to the purple martin, you will see one fun fact repeated. "The purple martin is North Americas largest swallow". You may see slight variations, "the largest swallow that breeds in North American" "the largest swallow in the US and Canada".

In its first paragraph Wikipedia says "It is the largest swallow in North America."

Encyclopedia Britannia says "The purple martin (Progne subis) is the largest North American swallow." On its page about swallows in general. In its purple martin page it says "It is the largest of the American swallows, measuring about 20 cm (8 inches) in length"

Purple Martin conservation association describes them as the "largest member of the swallow family in North America"

EBird says "Large, dark swallow. Distinctive north of Mexico, where it is the largest swallow" clearly implying that elsewhere, it is not the largest swallow

The Audubon society describes it as "our" (meaning America's) largest swallow. Similarly large species in their taxa, such as the raven are simply described as "the" largest, not "our" largest.

All this would reasonably lead a person (me) to believe that in North America, the purple Martin is the largest swallow, but elsewhere, there must be a larger swallow, right? So I did some additional research and found that this isn't the case, the purple martin is the largest swallow in the world. So what exactly is going on?

Why is this fact repeated so frequently and why don't we just say it's the largest swallow??? Is there some bigger secret swallow they are not telling us about? Did this big swallow go extinct? Did some other larger species used to be considered swallows before a taxa shift, and the fact never updated? As far as I can tell the second largest swallow, the mosque swallow, barely has a size overlap with the purple martin so it's not like we can't tell which is bigger.

I am aware my interest in swallows is probably excessive (and autistic) so no need to tell me that.