Summary: Thousands of eared grebes crash landed in Utah winding up on football fields, a Walmart parking lot and highways in Utah. At least 3000 live grebes were collected but a low estimate of 1500 grebes died on impact. You can listen to Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Kevin McGowen talk about it on NPR. An article about song sparrows and how taped predator calls affect them. An interesting article, but how often is a bird like a song sparrow going to be exposed to predator calls 24 hours a day, four days in a row by birders? A huge discussion was started on the American Birding Association's group page about birders and why the uniform appears to be ill fitting khaki pants, vests and floppy hats. Why is this our uniform? Why the vest? Remember the mystery hummingbird in Chicago (they one they tried to ID based on poop)? Well, they got a feather and they now know exactly what species it is based on DNA testing. Find out the id here (or listen to the podcast). A hooded crane has been reported in Tennessee. Now the question is if this bird is truly a vagrant from another country or an escapee from a private collection.
