Your Weekly Birds: The Songs, The Cuteness … And A Bonus!

Mourning Warbler

Geothlypis philadelphia

Also Known As

Reinita Enlutada (Spanish)
Chipe Llorón (Spanish)

About

Though relatively common over much of its range, the Mourning Warbler is secretive and notoriously hard to observe. These birds mostly stay close to the ground in dense thickets and brush where they forage and nest. Outside of the breeding season, Mourning Warblers are also fairly quiet and can easily go unnoticed. As a result, very little is known of this bird’s life history outside of the breeding season. In fact, there are sizable gaps in our understanding of its breeding biology as well — for instance, no researchers have documented the courtship behavior of this species.

However, one thing we do know is that these birds are fairly particular about their habitat requirements. Mourning Warblers are reliant on thick, brushy second-growth forest, the result of big ecological disturbances, such as fire or major storms, that kill numerous trees and open up gaps in the canopy. Following such a disturbance, habitat becomes acceptable after about two or three years. After another seven or eight years, the forest will have grown back enough that Mourning Warblers will no longer use it. This means that breeding areas for this species are constantly shifting, as one forest regrows and a new opening is (hopefully) created elsewhere. Sometimes referred to as a “fugitive species,” Mourning Warbler populations are frequently “on the run,” fleeing the regenerating forest and searching for another suitable opening.

Fortunately, these birds are not terribly picky about exactly what kind of disturbance creates this ideal habitat. Drought, disease, insect outbreaks, and especially fire are natural disturbances that this species probably relied on historically. In the current day, large forest fires are far less common, but for the Mourning Warblers, human activities seem to work just as well. These birds are commonly found in old clearcuts, abandoned agricultural areas, along logging roads, and even mining and oil well sites. While these heavily disturbed areas do not benefit most species, the Mourning Warbler makes it work. (snip-see MORE here)

The Government’s Fight Against Gender-Affirming Care Just Escalated

NYU Langone Hospitals in New York City has received a grand jury subpoena for patient medical records, hinting at a federal criminal investigation.

This story was originally reported by Orion Rummler of The 19th. Meet Orion and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

The federal government is escalating efforts to seek private medical data for children undergoing gender-affirming care, as at least one hospital faces the first known criminal probe of its kind.

Last week, NYU Langone Hospitals in New York City received a grand jury subpoena for information about young patients who received gender-affirming care at their facilities anytime in the past six years.

A grand jury subpoena indicates that a federal criminal investigation is underway. This would be a first in regards to gender-affirming care.

The subpoena came from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Texas, part of the Justice Department. The office is also seeking the names of hospital employees involved in providing gender-affirming care. The government has previously sought medical records of transgender kids from other states, and so have Texas officials, but not like this.

Parents of trans youth under the age of 18 who have received care at NYU Langone got a notification from the hospital alerting them to the grand jury subpoena. According to that notification and to the hospital’s public statement, NYU Langone is one of several institutions that received a subpoena May 7. The hospital said it is still evaluating how it will respond to it.

New York law prevents the disclosure of medical records related to gender-affirming care and abortion except in limited circumstances and broadly prohibits law enforcement from cooperating with investigations into gender-affirming care. This sets up a potential legal fight over the subpoena.

Several legal battles are currently playing out in response to other attempts from the government to obtain trans kids’ medical records.

Eleven families just filed a class-action lawsuit to block the Justice Department from obtaining confidential information about young trans patients seeking gender-affirming care. The agency sent more than 20 subpoenas last summer to doctors and clinics involved in providing such care, with the intent to investigate “healthcare fraud, false statements, and more.” Both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have sought to investigate gender-affirming care as medical fraud.

Multiple judges halted these DOJ subpoenas in their tracks, after hospitals fought back. A federal judge in Massachusetts called the agency’s investigations into gender-affirming care “motivated only by bad faith.” A judge in Colorado, who blocked a similar subpoena, said patient medical records must be protected from “improper disclosure.”

Separately, a federal judge this month temporarily blocked the FTC from investigating two medical groups that support gender-affirming care for transgender people. Those groups, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and the Endocrine Society, were served civil investigative demands for years of internal records and financial information. Both groups sued.

Over the past year, hospitals in states like New York, where gender-affirming care is legally protected, have come under pressure by the federal government to halt care for trans youth. For patients, that care has been spotty: earlier this year, NYU Langone halted gender-affirming care for young patients, citing “the current regulatory environment” as a key reason. More than 40 hospitals across the country have done the same, per STAT News.

Gender-affirming care for trans youth primarily refers to hormone therapy and puberty blockers used to treat gender dysphoria, which is a medical condition that can cause significant distress. Very few transgender youth seek and access surgeries. Restricting gender-affirming care is a top priority of the Trump administration, which has proposed regulations to greatly restrict the care for youth and stated its opposition to trans identity as a whole.

The Moon On Monday

Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano

Video Credit & Copyright: Daniel López (El Cielo de Canarias); Music: Piano della Moon (Dan Silva)

Explanation: These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens. What is moving is mostly the Earth, whose spin causes the Moon to slowly disappear behind Mount Teide, a volcano in the Canary Islands of Spain off the northwest coast of Africa. The people pictured are 16 kilometers away and many are facing the camera because they are watching the Sun rise behind the photographer. It is not a coincidence that a full moon sets just when the Sun rises because the Sun is always on the opposite side of the sky from a full moon. The featured video was made in 2018 during a full Milk Moon. The video is not time-lapse — this was really how fast the Moon was setting.

Tomorrow’s picture: stellar cluster

It’s A Bird’s Life

Yellow-breasted Chat

Icteria virens

Also Known As

Buscabreña (Spanish)
Reinita Grande (Spanish)
Chipe Parlanchín (Spanish)
Chipe Arriero (Spanish)

About

At first glance, the Yellow-breasted Chat seems to be a mishmash of many bird families: its larger size and stout bill resemble a Scarlet Tanager’s, while its skulking habits and complex vocalizations seem more like those of a thrasher or mockingbird. Taxonomically, this bird was considered an unusual wood warbler in the family Parulidae. However, in 2017, the American Ornithologists Union gave this bird its own family — Icteriidae — based on its unique physical and genetic features. It is considered to be related to the blackbirds and meadowlarks of the Western Hemisphere.

Among birders, the Yellow-breasted Chat is best-known for two features of its behavior: its habit of staying hidden at most times within the thickest vegetation available, and its loud, wild, weird song and flight display. In 1953, ornithologist Arthur Cleveland Bent described the Chat’s song as a “medley of strange sounds, musical and otherwise, catcalls, whistles, and various bird notes coming from points now here, now there in the bushes” — sounds which would “betray the presence of this furtive and elusive clown among birds.” The song is indeed a strange and wonderful mix of cackles, clucks, whistles, and hoots. Only males are known to sing, and they do so from deep inside the densest cover. A male chat may sometimes sound as if he’s laughing at the frustrated birders trying to locate him. (snip-MORE)

And thanks to MDavis for intro’ing this guy, who is great!

2 Cornell Bird Lab Cams

Enjoy!

These birds dance:

An Advertising Ban. Who’d ‘a’ Thunk It?

Found it here: https://homelessonthehighdesert.com/2026/05/01/fae-day-finding-flatulence-out/

Amsterdam’s Ban on Meat and Fossil Fuel Advertising Comes Into Effect

by Martina Igini Europe May 1st 20264 mins

Over 50 cities, mostly European, have either restricted or tabled motions to introduce formal limitations on the advertisement of polluting products and services. Some – including several Dutch municipalities, Stockholm, Edinburgh and Sydney – have banned them altogether.

A ban on advertising of fossil fuels and meat products in public spaces came into effect on Friday in Amsterdam, marking the first capital city in the world to introduce such a policy.

The city’s council passed a legally binding ban on ads for fossil fuels and meat products in a 27-17 vote in January. The ban spans high-carbon products and services like flights, petrol and diesel vehicles, gas heating contracts as well as meat products like fast-food burgers across all public spaces in the city, including on billdboards, public transport and in transit environments.

The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are the primary drivers of global warming as they trap heat in the atmosphere and raise Earth’s surface temperature. The meat industry is also responsible for a huge portion of global greenhouse gas emissions, and for nearly 60% of the food sector’s emissions. The global livestock industry alone is one of the world’s highest emitting sectors, estimated to be responsible for between 14-18% of total human-made greenhouse gas emissions.

“Advertising doesn’t just sell products; it grants social licence, shaping what we see as normal and acceptable,” said Andrea Mancuso, Community & Grants Manager at Creatives for Climate. Ahead of the vote in January, Creatives for Climate and local campaign group Reclame Fossielvrij (Fossil Free Advertising) coordinated an open letter backed by more than 100 creatives and industry leaders urging Amsterdam’s council members to fulfill its 2020 commitment to ban fossil fuels and meat ads in the city.

“Promoting fossil fuels directly undermines climate action and locks in behaviour we know must change. By becoming the first capital to legally ban fossil fuel and meat advertising, Amsterdam is drawing a clear line; and setting a global standard,” said Mancuso. (snip-MORE)

David Cross FED UP With Bill Maher’s BS

This is an important clip that exposes the fallacies that Maher and the right push about trans people and the democrats supporting the LGBTQ+ and progressive causes such as equality of religions and government working for the people. Maher tried to push the idea that kids become trans only due to being pushed into it by adults, but when corrected with facts and examples he has no retort except to make more debunked claims. The idea that simply buying a child the clothing they want is somehow making them transition. Every study indicates that cultural issues that republicans try to use against democrats make no difference to how people vote. Only die hard haters who were already going to vote republican care about the woke cultural issues supported by progressives. Yet many Democratic candidates run from even tepid support for protecting minorities due to the made up idea of courting the center that doesn’t exist in any large size now. People leaning right are not going to vote democrat who is republican lite when they can have the real full republican but any votes that are gathered by turning on the LGBTQ+ / Trans / minority communities are countered by the loss in left / progessive votes. Maher talks about how girls who were tomboys in the past would be “forced” today to become trans. Emma talks about how she was a tomgirl who wanted to wear boys clothing and was allowed to do so but no one tried to suggest she needed to change her gender. He mistakes allowing a kid to express themselves is some how forcing them to be trans. I love how completely supportive of trans people / trans children and up on the facts / reality the people on the show are. Hugs

A Little Science On Tuesday

Hiding in Plain Sight – An undescribed sea star species

Copy-pasted from the blog; see more there!

Some Majority Report clips about politics, bigotry, craziness.

Your Saturday Morning Birds Post

From Cornell Lab Bird Cams:

From American Bird Conservancy:

Three-wattled Bellbird

Procnias tricarunculatus

Also Known As

Campanero Tricarunculado (Spanish)
Pájaro Campana Centroamericano (Spanish)

About

The Three-wattled Bellbird, like other Central and South American bellbirds in the Cotinga family, is a natural history paradox. Breeding males perch on exposed branches and sing one of the loudest songs of any bird, impossible to ignore and audible from more than half a mile away. However, despite this extremely conspicuous breeding season behavior, females and nonbreeding males are notoriously difficult to observe, foraging in the higher levels of the canopy and remaining remarkably silent. As a result, this species has been subject to fascinating and in-depth studies of its song and courtship behavior, but some of the most basic aspects of its natural history are unknown. For instance, only two nests have been recorded, one in 1975 and one in 2012, and no eggs or young have been documented.

But biologists have learned a great deal from studying the Three-wattled Bellbird’s song. The bellbirds belong to a group of perching birds known as the suboscines, which also includes tyrant flycatchers like the Western Kingbird and antbirds, such as the Marsh Antwren. While the “true” songbirds (or oscines) are famous for their song-learning abilities, suboscine songs are classically considered to be completely innate, with no learning taking place. However, the Three-wattled Bellbird shares an important feature with birds that learn their songs: dialects. Birds from Nicaragua sound noticeably different from Costa Rican birds in the Cordillera de Talamanca and the Cordillera de Tilarán, which each host populations with distinct songs. (snip-MORE)