It seems like lately, every time I glance at a screen or opened a newspaper (okay, let’s be realistic, the newspapers were on screens too), there’s some kind of interesting bird-related content. Maybe migration has seeped into the cultural zeitgeist and turned everyone a little bird-crazy. To wit:

Thousands of pigeons (or Rock Doves, if you’re ticking them on a list) with tiny lights attached to their legs swarmed the skies over Brooklyn, NY, as part of an art project that is now getting some backlash. (Pigeon photo above by Corey)

Get ready for an onslaught of hype for the Angry Birds movie, which has its U.S. release this Friday; thus far, the reviews are mixed.

Novelist and famous birder Jonathan Franzen competed on Jeopardy! this week; he didn’t win, but he rocked the Birds of a Feather category, and earned $10,000 for the American Bird Conservancy.

Last but not least, everyone’s favorite satirical fake-news site, The Onion, is jumping on the bird bandwagon with a recent article declaiming the high rate of bird-on-bird sexual harassment, complete with a “Hey baby, check out my plumage” photo of a really intimidating-looking Brown-headed Cowbird.

 

Written by Meredith Mann
The lowly Red-winged Blackbirds in suburban New York triggered Meredith Mann's interest in birds. Five years later, she's explored some of the the USA's coolest hotspots, from Plum Island in Massachusetts to the Magic Hedge in Chicago to the deserts of Fallon, Nevada. She recently migrated from the Windy City (where she proudly served as a Chicago Bird Collision Monitor, rescuing migrants from skyscrapers and sidewalks) to Philadelphia, where she plans to find new editing and writing gigs; keep up her cool-finds chronicle, Blog5B; and discover which cheesesteak really is the best. And she will accept any and all invitations to bird Cape May, NJ.