End-of-Season News Note2016–17 Project FeederWatch

Thank you for another successful FeederWatch season! See inside this letter to read about eye

disease and blackbird populations and to see win-ning BirdSpotter entries. As we begin to analyze the data from our 30th season, you can see initial

results online in the Explore Data section of our website. Look for more details in Winter Bird Highlights, published in October.

Time to renew

Please take a moment to renew your participation for next season. With each

additional year in the project, your counts become more valuable to researchers study-

ing the distribution and abundance of feeder birds. Thank you for your continued support. Please renew your FeederWatch

membership today by following the in-structions on the back page of this letter.

Why renew so early?Renewing now will allow us to save paper on future reminders and will help us better plan for the upcoming season. FeederWatch is supported almost entirely by you, the participants, and renewing early helps us keep our expenses low and make the most of your financial support

Save paper—skip the kitAll renewing participants receive a kit with a calendar and Winter Bird Highlights unless you choose the option to save paper and skip the kit.

If you would like to forego the kit:

� Please select the “Save paper” op-tion on the enclosed coupon or in our online store.

� Please write down your ID number (printed near your address on the renewal coupon) and save it.

� Please note that next season starts on November 11.

� Please maintain your electronic newsletter subscription to get the latest updates and remind-ers. You probably will receive no other communication from Project FeederWatch. If you think the newsletter may not be reaching you, sub-scribe by clicking the “Sign up for eNews” link in the top-right corner of our home page (there’s no risk of double subscrib-ing) or learn more about the newsletter on our website: feederwatch.org/about/enews-archive. Note that spam blockers may prevent you from receiving this newsletter. Set your spam filter to all w email from feederwatch@cornell.edu.

Submit your counts

April 8 marked the last day to count birds for the 2016–17

FeederWatch season. If you have al-ready submitted your counts, thank you! If you still have counts to report, please submit your data today.

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Watching for eye disease in American Goldfin hes

FeederWatch featured in Living Bird magazine.To celebrate FeederWatch’s 30th season, Living Bird magazine published an overview of the history of Project FeederWatch in the winter issue. All FeederWatch participants are given access to the digital version of the the Cornell Lab’s Living Bird magazine. Be sure to read about many of the things scientists have learned from your data.

Last season a number of you wrote to tell us you were seeing an increase in eye disease in Ameri-

can Goldfinche . To see if there has been a significantchange, we are now collecting data on eye disease in this species again. FeederWatch collected data on the disease in American Goldfinches for ma y years and then stopped because the occurence was minimal. Researchers plan to compare current reports with those collected in the past to see if the prevalence of the dis-ease in American Goldfinches has inc eased.

In the special FeederWatch section of the winter issue of Living Bird magazine (see box), you can read a comprehensive history of House Finch eye disease research, including new findings that indicate thebacteria is evolving, demonstrating the potential path

Common Grackles and other blackbirds showing up at fewer feeders

We like to hear about species that are doing well according to FeederWatch data, but sometimes it

is important for us to check the downward trends and see which species might be doing poorly. An unfortu-nate but consistent trend over the past several decades is the slow and steady decline in reports of Common Grack-les over much of their range. We don’t know the cause of the decline, but the trend can be seen clearly in Feeder-Watch data, as well as in data from other counting effortssuch as the North American Breeding Bird Survey. The 2014 State of the Birds Report lists grackles as a “common bird in steep decline,” which means that although the de-cline may be steep, it may not be obvious because grackles are still a relatively common species. Being able to detect long-term changes in the populations of common birds illustrates just how important your counts are. Other black-birds, such as Rusty Black-birds and Brewer’s Black-birds, are in steep decline as well, and the cause remains a puzzle. The next time you see a flock of blackbi ds overrun-

of infectious diseases in humans. You can read the eye disease article on the Cornell Lab’s All About Birds website at allaboutbirds.org/house-finch-eye-dis-ease-outbreak-then-understanding/.

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Like several other species of blackbirds in North America, reports of Common Grackles have shown a slow and steady decline over the past several decades. This graph shows the proportion of sites that reported Common Grackles in the “Central” FeederWatch region each season.

Decline of Common Grackle reports in the Central Region

FeederWatch season

ning your feeder, keep in mind that they aren’t thriv-ing as they used to, and you might be doing them some good by helping researchers monitor their population sizes, as well as by providing a source of food during their seasonal movements.

Susan Szesz

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BirdSpotter contest expanded for 30th anniversary

This season’s BirdSpotter contest took on new life. We added new photo categories and gave FeederWatchers a chance to

win prizes by sharing stories about their FeederWatch experi-ences (see box below). Wild Birds Unlimited sponsored this season’s contest and provided gift cards to all the winners. Win-ners also received goodies from the Cornell Lab.

The photo contest Grand Prize went to Steven Liffmann ofSalem, New Hampshire. Steven’s photo of an Eastern Bluebird splish-splashing in a birdbath stole the hearts of BirdSpotter voters.

Thanks to everyone who submitted photos and voted for their favorites. We had 2,356 photos submitted to the contest

and nearly 10,000 voters! View the top three Grand Prize winners and the bi-weekly People’s Choice and Judges’ Choice win-ners at feederwatch.org/birdspotter2016.

Thanks also to all the FeederWatchers who shared their stories, tips, and memories through the prompt on the bird count summary page. We had 1,425 participants respond! See all the winning stories and photos on our blog at feederwatch.org/blog/.

We asked participants to share stories of unex-pected encounters and interesting bird behav-

iors for the “Did that really just happen?” BirdSpot-ter contest category. We received many unusual and fascinating stories, like the winner for this category:

It had been a cold week with several days not getting above freezing. We filled the water container for thebirds in the morning. When I got home midafternoon, the water had iced over. A Yellow-bellied Sapsucker was sitting on the frozen water chipping away at a hole in the ice. Various other birds were gathered around, including cardinals, finche , and juncos. When the sapsucker left, the others were able to get to the water for a drink.

—Mary Smith, Pretty Prairie, Kansas

Here are exerpts from a few more of the stories that came in for this category.

I watched a nuthatch take a sunflower seed f om one of the feeders and cache the seed in a crevice of my porch rail. The nuthatch hopped back to the feeder, got another seed, came back to the porch, and deposited that seed in the same crevice. I settled in, now intrigued to see just how many seeds the bird might cache.

Apparently I was not the only one who noticed. Just as the nuthatch hopped back to the feeder after cach-ing a fourth seed, a Tufted Titmouse flew to the ail-ing, grabbed a seed from the crevice, and flew off hile the nuthatch’s back was turned. It was like a choreo-graphed dance: seed after seed, the nuthatch made a deposit, turned, and flew back to the feeder; then thetitmouse flew in, made a withd awal, and flew o . Back and forth they went for almost a dozen trips, until at last the nuthatch paused and looked into the crevice. Then it went to the feeder, got a seed, and flew off intthe woods.

—Bob Vuxinic, Crossville, Tennessee

During an unusually cold winter with an abundance of snow and ice, a Mourning Dove was feeding in a round, wrought-iron, hanging planter that I converted to a feeder. A Song Sparrow hopped onto its back and started plucking out feathers near the dove’s neck before hopping into a nearby bush. The dove appeared startled but did not move from the feeder. The sparrow repeated the attack. This time the dove took off, and the Song Sparrow took over the feeder.

—Janet Anderson, Henrico, Virginia

Did that really just happen?

BirdSpotter 2016 Grand Prize winner: Eastern Bluebird by Steven Liffmann

Step 2. Send $18 ($15 for Lab members) annual fee

Step 1. Select a renewal option

Three easy steps for renewing your FeederWatch participation

Your early renewal helps us plan how many kits to print and saves us the cost of sending another reminder. We will transfer the savings into research and

project improvements.

� Receive a kit with a letter, Winter Bird Highlights, and a Bird-Watching Days calendar. The kit is sent in the fall.

� Save paper and skip the kit. With this option, we will send a message with a link to a PDF of Winter Bird Highlights in the fall to the email address printed on the renewal coupon. Please use the provided line on the coupon to correct your email address if needed. We recommend that you keep track of your ID number (printed above your address on the enclosed cou-pon) and maintain your eNews subscription (see electronic newsletter information on the front page of this letter).

Note: Renewing FeederWatchers do not receive the FeederWatch Handbook & Instructions or the Common Feeder Birds poster, so be sure to save them from your first kit.

� Over the Internet. Sign up using a credit card (VISA, Mastercard, DISCOVER, or American Express) over our secure server at feederwatch.org by clicking on the Join or Renew button on our home page. If you have a new name or address, please renew by mail and include your name or address change with your renewal to assure that you are not assigned a second ID number.

� By mail. Indicate your renewal option on the enclosed renewal coupon and return the coupon with your personal check or credit card information in the enclosed envelope.

� By phone. Call our membership office toll ee at 866-989-2473 to renew by phone.

Note: A tax-deductible contribution to FeederWatch above your $18 renewal fee will help fund bird research and conservation at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Thanks for your support!

Step 3. Renew by May 31