Picathartidae Perfection

What bizarre looking birds! Family Picathartidae are large passerines with broad tails, bare heads, large bills, and long, muscular legs. Both members of Picathartidae (White and Grey-necked Picathartes) reside in Western Africa in undisturbed, lowland rainforests. However, they seem to be expanding their range to more disturbed habitats, such as second growth forests and farmland. They build mud nests on rock faces as well as cliff and cave roofs, which is highly unusual for a rainforest- dwelling species. They are sedentary (residents, do not migrate) and breed during the wet season, when mud and food is most available. Their diet consists largely of forest floor invertebrates, such as earthworms, centipedes, beetles, ants, grasshoppers, and termites. They will also take small vertebrates such as frogs and lizards. Both species are listed as vulnerable, as they have a very small range, small population size (estimated at 10,000 adults), and live in areas now experiencing deforestation and habitat fragmentation. Breeding success is very low, as cannibalism and infanticide are highly prevalent and usually only two eggs are laid. They are also susceptible to predation by raptors and primates (of our variety as well). Fortunately, the caged bird trade is nearly obsolete due to respect and awareness from locals and high demand for conservation from ecotourism dollars. ECO-TOURISM WORKS : )

Join us this Tuesday, February 18th in 223 Natural Resources for an awesome presentation by Dr. Rasmussen about discovering new species! Food will be provided : )

The two species to the left are the Camiguin Hawk-Owl and Cebu Hawk-Owl of the Philippines, which she described in 2012.

Fun Fact- these are the only two species of owls in the entire world that have blue eyes!

Birds of the Southern Ocean

 Black-browed Albatross chick                                       Chinstrap Penguins on an iceberg


Do you love Penguins? Albatrosses? All the other badasses of the bird world?
Come check out Dr. Owen's presentation this Tuesday, January 28th at 7 pm in 223 Natural Resources!
How do Albatrosses spend almost all of their time on the wing?
How do penguins endure freezing cold and dive hundreds of meters for their food?
How could anything be this cute? And what does a Black-browed Albatross chick think about for months when it is left alone at its nest?

First Meeting of the Semester!

For the First meeting of the Spring Semester we will be meeting for a few minutes in Room 223 of NR and then heading out to do some Owling. Hopefully we will have better luck then last time. E-board has been looking around and last night some members successfully  called in an Eastern Screech Owl within minutes.



Remember, we still have a ton of shirts that people have not claimed. If you have ordered a shirt, please come to the meeting tonight or contact us to set up a meeting time.

We have some really cool events coming up including Cross Country Skiing/Tubing at Burchfield Park (Feb 1st), Owling in the Soo (Feb 7-9th), and Florida for Spring Break. If you are interested in any of these events and cannot make it to a meeting, please contact any board members for more information.

Birds you didn't know existed

Hey everyone! In an attempt for you to get more out of this blog, I'm going to do a weekly post about a really cool bird of the world that you (hopefully) have never heard of! This will also force me to go to the library more often. Our first bird is the Blue Vanga (Cyanolanius madagascarinus). They are common and widespread on Madagascar. These beauties are the only member of the family Vangidae that can be found outside of Madagascar; Blue Vangas also inhabit Comoro Island, and are considered subspecies. Little is known about their movements or mating behavior. They prefer deciduous dry forest on Madagascar's west coast and evergreen humid forest in the east. They can be found at all elevations and woodlands on Comoro. They are insectivorous, and commonly eat beetles and caterpillars, spiders on Comoro, and occasionally will feed on berries and foliage. They have been observed feeding in small flocks of Blue Vangas as well as larger mixed flocks of passerines (primarily other Vangas). Suprisingly, only four members of Vangidae are threatened and none have gone extinct since 1600, even though Madagascar is heavily deforested.

They are highly acrobatic, and can often be found feeding upside down!


Please let me know if this guy is still too well known and I'll try to find a more obscure bird next week : ) There's about 10,000 more to choose from.
Check the calendar for all MSU Birding Club events. Meetings held every Tuesday in room 223 (ROOM CHANGE THIS SEMESTER) of the Natural Resources building. Hope to see you there!

Snowy Owl Invasion

Well, we're a bit late to be breaking news but THE SNOWIES ARE IN MICHIGAN! Lots of 'em.
Here are some great articles about why this is going on. In a nutshell: Snowies eat lemmings. Too few lemmings drives them south in search of food, as does competition if there are too many.

http://mag.audubon.org/articles/birds/notes-snowy-owl-invasion

 http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/gotsnowies2013/

http://muskegonbirdblog.blogspot.com/
- lots of recent sightings over there. Lots of other great birds too!

We're headed to Bellevue this weekend for Sandhill Crane Counts. Meeting outside Natural Resources at 1:30 pm. and we'll be back around 5:30.
Also headed to Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. Meeting 9 am outside NR.

Let's try this again... Duck Watch!

Duck Watch this Sunday! We'll meet at 3:30 pm behind Natural Resources and carpool to Lake Lansing South. Hope you can make it! We're not likely to see any Harlequins, but they sure are gorgeous ducks! Dress warm!