The Wisconsin Chimney Swift Working Group held its first meeting yesterday, with 14 members from organizations around the state. Look for information to be posted on the WI Birding List about activities this year. If your bird club hosts a Swift Night Out event, please let us know about it so that we can help to promote it. Other projects (including swift nesting towers, "swift sits") will be announced in the coming weeks or months. If you have questions, please contact me. -- William P. Mueller Western Great Lakes Bird and Bat Observatory Project Coordinator, Milwaukee BIOME Project This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 414-698-9108

Wisconsin DNR bat researchers found this albino male Little brown bat hibernating last week in a cluster of about 30 other MYLU.  Two other albino MYLU were found hibernating in a different Wisconsin mine in 2010.

IMBD 2012

International Migratory Bird Day will celebrate its 20^th anniversary in 2012.  Created in 1993, the event is now hosted at over 500 sites throughout the Western Hemisphere, reaching hundreds of thousands of youth and adults.  As part of the 20^th anniversary celebrations, the annual bird conservation theme will focus on 20 ways people may help preserve birds every day.  The theme is highlighted in the 2012 art created by Rafael Lopez.  The lively piece reflects the joy, curiosity, and beauty of birds, while sharing the importance of community in bird conservation. Check out the final artwork and a very cool video of the actual t-shirt screen printing.

http://birdday.org/birdday/themes/2012-twenty-years-of-imbd

See a superb video of a goshawk in flight at this link. This has powerful implications beyond our fascination with flight. You may have seen many images of hawk silhouettes pasted on windows with the intent of dissuading birds from colliding with the glass. There is a lot of evidence that the space between such decals or silhouettes needs to be only about the width of a human hand. This video adds to that understanding; even a bird this size can fly through a small space.

Click on Image