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Quarantine and social distancing are teaching us creative ways to interact with each other and the world at large. One way to stay connected with the natural world (and take a much needed break from screens) is to head to your window to watch the goings on of your neighborhood and visiting birds.

There are a surprisingly large number of bird species that can be observed right from your living room, depending on the vegetation in your backyard, alley or street. Birds will naturally congregate around food and shelter, and what you have outside your window will shape your local bird scene.

Tips on spotting birds:

• Instead of darting your eyes around to try and find birds, sit still and focus your attention on one spot. Slowly, you’ll notice little bits of movement in your periphery — these might be leaves and branches moving in the wind, but they are often small birds moving about on bushes and in tree branches.
• Return to your window at different times of day. Birds have different daily routines, just like us. When it’s not breeding season, crows, for instance, commute daily to converge and sleep in the protected vegetation that alerts them of predators. In the fall and winter, you can see them in huge numbers flying home to roost in Bothell.
• Listen! Some birds are louder than others (I’m looking at you Steller’s Jay), and it can be useful to “look” by focusing on the different calls you hear. It’s much easier to spot a hummingbird by hearing it and then looking for the tiny bird up in the branches.

Tools to help you on your bird journey:

• The Cornell Lab is a fantastic online resource with pictures, bird calls, and a great instant ID tool to help you figure out what your mystery species might be.
• Keep a copy of a field guide, like the Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, handy. It has detailed illustrations and is a favorite of some birders.
• For this level of birding, a pair of binoculars can be helpful, but is not necessary. Avoid looking like a peeping tom by pointing them away from your neighbor’s windows!

While observing these species, keep a bird journal! Record numbers and behaviors. Try to see if you can identify individuals by any physical differences and behavior and location patterns you might see — it’s a way of meeting neighbors that you may not already know. What behaviors are you seeing? Are birds calling to warn others of a potential predator, returning to nests with food or rubbing their beaks on fence posts?

Invite your friends to bird with you (virtually) so you can compare notes and help each other out with identification.

Lastly, when we are ready to rejoin society, take these new skills out to the field. The UW Center for Urban Horticulture’s Union Bay Natural Area and the Washington Park Arboretum are fantastic places to observe birds and reap the benefits of time spent in nature.

Below are common and easy to identify birds that are known in the Pacific Northwest. Try to spot them and learn their calls.

Birds to find in urban and suburban areas:

Black-capped Chickadees

John Meyer/UW

Crows
Dark-eyed Juncos
European Starlings
Finches
Golden-crowned Kinglets
Hummingbirds
Northern Flickers
Robins
Song and House Sparrows
Spotted Towhees
Steller’s and Scrub Jays
Warblers
Marsh and Pacific Wrens

Birds to find near or on the water:

John Meyer/UW

Bald eagles
Canada geese
Cormorants
Great Blue herons
Gulls
Mallard Ducks
Mergansers
Red-winged blackbirds
Sandpipers
Scaup

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Kaija Klauder/University of Washington

In many parts of the world, there is an imbalance in the food chain.

Without top predators such as wolves and grizzly bears, smaller meat-eating animals like coyotes and foxes or grazers such as deer and elk can balloon in population, unchecked. This can initiate more deer-vehicle collisions, scavenging by urban coyotes and other unnatural human-animal interactions.

University of Washington researchers have discovered that large predators play a key yet unexpected role in keeping smaller predators and deer in check. Their “fatal attraction” theory finds that smaller predators are drawn to the kill sites of large predators by the promise of leftover scraps, but the scavengers may be killed themselves if their larger kin return for seconds.

The study, published March 18 in the journal Ecology Letters, is the first to examine carnivore killing and scavenging activities in relation to each other across dozens of landscapes around the world. Patterns that emerged from their analysis could be used to make important management decisions about large carnivores worldwide, the authors said.

“I hope this paper will spur researchers to think more holistically about these killing and scavenging interactions, because currently we’re not really getting a full understanding of how carnivore communities function by examining them separately,” said senior author Laura Prugh, a wildlife ecologist and associate professor in the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

Large carnivores such as cougars, wolves and grizzly bears have disappeared from many regions, allowing some smaller carnivores — coyotes, foxes and bobcats, for example — to increase in population. The absence of large carnivores, especially on the East Coast, also has ignited populations of deer and other prey, creating an imbalance in many areas.

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⚠️ IMPORTANT
Bratman and the authors stress that the current circumstances due to Coronavirus demand that we follow social distancing and other critical precautionary instructions from public health officials – including when spending time outdoors.

Ah, the great outdoors. That intoxicating piney scent of an evergreen forest, the salty seawater glow on your skin after a swim, the parade of puffy clouds marching overhead while stretched out in a flowery meadow—being outside makes us happy and puts us at ease. An emerging body of research says just that, and UW’s Nature and Health is working to further understand the connections between nature and human health and well-being.

But what if we need a dose of nature’s calming effect and we can’t get to that old-growth forest or Puget Sound shoreline? Amidst the Coronavirus pandemic where all of us are pent-up inside, are there other ways to reap the benefits of Mother Nature’s soothing ways?

Even small doses of the outdoors, like being in our backyard or a neighborhood park, can help. Scientists like UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences’ Greg Bratman are finding evidence that access to greenspaces even in our urban environments can have a tremendous impact on mental wellbeing.

“Experimental evidence has revealed that there are often psychological benefits from even short amounts of nature contact,” says Bratman, an expert on the human health benefits associated with spending time in nature. “50-minute walks have been shown to be associated with significant impacts on psychological well-being and cognitive function for some people, and other studies indicate that even shorter amounts of time may provide benefits as well. Other recent work has found that 120 minutes of nature contact a week is associated with improved self-reported good health and well-being.”

If far away wild places are not an option right now, think about what’s close. Perhaps a stroll through the Washington Park Arboretum or Union Bay Natural Area, or stick even closer to home by going for a walk around the block. Heck, how about just communing with your backyard garden or houseplants?

“Horticultural therapy has demonstrated that interaction with plants can have impacts on well-being, even when taking place indoors,” says Bratman. “Views of nature from windows have also been shown to restore attention and help school students, for example, recover from stressors and perform better on cognitive tests.” Even a brief interaction with nature provides an opportunity for “micro-restorative activity.”

So, give it a try. Take a break from the Groundhog Day we’re all experiencing, step outside, and breathe in that healing dose of nature. And when you’re back from your walk, feeling like you still need more, bring it into your living room with some of our favorite animal and nature cams!

Animal Cams

• Harbor Seal Cam, Seattle Aquarium
• Sea Otter Cam, Seattle Aquarium
• Puffin Burrow Cam, Seal Island, Maine
• Bald Eagle Cam, White Rock BC
• Koala Cam, San Diego Zoo
• Brown Bear Cam, Katmai National Park
• Swordfish tracker, off the East Coast

Nature Cams

• UW Quad Cherry Blossoms, University of Washington campus
• Kelp Forest Cam, Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Ocean Waves Cam, San Diego
• Hurricane Ridge Cam, Olympic National Park
• Redwood Forest River Cam, Redwood National Park
• Kauai Beach Cam, Kauai
• Farallon Islands Cam, Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary

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Yaamini Venkataraman/University of Washington

As oceans absorb more carbon dioxide, they are becoming increasingly acidic and shifting the delicate balance that supports marine life. How species will cope with ocean acidification and the other consequences of global climate change is still very much unknown and could have sweeping consequences.

Researchers from the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences have discovered that ocean acidification impacts the ability of some oysters to pass down “memories” of environmental trauma to their offspring.

The two papers were published in December in Ecological Applications and the Journal of Shellfish Research.

“Warming and acidifying oceans negatively influence many marine species. However, some species that live in extreme environments, such as the intertidal, may be more resilient than others to these changes,” said Laura Spencer, one of the two lead authors and a graduate student in aquatic and fishery sciences. “Some species may even be able to pass on memories of harsh conditions to their offspring, making them more capable of surviving in similarly harsh environments.”

Researchers studied two species of ecologically and commercially valuable oysters found throughout Puget Sound: the Olympia oyster and the Pacific oyster. Although oyster larvae are sensitive to acidifying oceans, adult oysters commonly occur in intertidal areas and estuaries where they must endure constantly fluctuating water conditions.

“The conditions one generation of Pacific oysters experience can affect how their children perform,” said lead author Yaamini Venkataraman, a graduate student in aquatic and fishery sciences. “Even if oysters are not in stressful conditions when they reproduce, their previous stressful experiences can impact their offspring.”

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Researchers at the University of Washington share their expertise on artificial intelligence and data science in “The Age of A.I.,” an online documentary produced and released this winter by YouTube. The series narrated by Robert Downey Jr. looks at how AI could affect everything from health care to the search for extraterrestrial life.

The seventh episode, titled “Saving the World One Algorithm at a Time,” features the UW-based Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. After looking at elephant poaching and new plant-based foods, the segment looks at how seismologists are collecting and processing data to warn of incoming earthquakes along the Cascadia subduction zone (the earthquake segment begins here).

Harold Tobin, director of the PNSN and a professor of Earth and space sciences, strolls through downtown Seattle and discusses the challenges and prospects for long-term earthquake prediction. Paul Bodin, research professor of Earth and space sciences, describes how the UW system identifies shaking generated by seismic events, and Doug Gibbons, a field engineer and lab coordinator with the PNSN, shows off a seismic monitoring station near the Space Needle.

The series can be streamed free with advertisements, or ad-free for YouTube subscribers. Earlier episodes have been viewed millions of times.

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Togabi/Wikimedia Commons

The next time you eat sashimi, nigiri or other forms of raw fish, consider doing a quick check for worms.

A new study led by the University of Washington finds dramatic increases in the abundance of a worm that can be transmitted to humans who eat raw or undercooked seafood. Its 283-fold increase in abundance since the 1970s could have implications for the health of humans and marine mammals, which both can inadvertently eat the worm.

Thousands of papers have looked at the abundance of this parasitic worm, known as Anisakis or “herring worm,” in particular places and at particular times. But this is the first study to combine the results of those papers to investigate how the global abundance of these worms has changed through time. The findings were published March 19 in the journal Global Change Biology.

“This study harnesses the power of many studies together to show a global picture of change over a nearly four-decade period,” said corresponding author Chelsea Wood, an assistant professor in the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “It’s interesting because it shows how risks to both humans and marine mammals are changing over time. That’s important to know from a public health standpoint, and for understanding what’s going on with marine mammal populations that aren’t thriving.”

Despite their name, herring worms can be found in a variety of marine fish and squid species. When people eat live herring worms, the parasite can invade the intestinal wall and cause symptoms that mimic those of food poisoning, such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. In most cases, the worm dies after a few days and the symptoms disappear. This disease, called anisakiasis or anisakidosis, is rarely diagnosed because most people assume they merely suffered a bad case of food poisoning, Wood explained.

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