Along with many long-distance migrant passerine species in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway, the migratory Brown Shrike Lanius cristatus superciliosus has been sharply declining throughout its breeding range. Its breeding range in Japan shrank by 90.9% between the 1910s and 2010s. In contrast, the closely related but resident Bull-headed Shrike L. bucephalus bucephalus has been gradually declining but is still a common resident in Japan. To better understand the drastic decline of Brown Shrike, we compared the pairing success during three consecutive breeding seasons of these two species. About 60–70% of Brown Shrike males were unpaired, which was much higher than the percentage of unpaired male Bull-headed Shrike (c.0–20%). Brown Shrike males arriving later did not pair because the population’s sex proportion is heavily biased toward males. One of the factors of male-biased population of Brown Shrike may be female-biased mortality in wintering sites, or on the migratory journey, and tracking studies will be required to test this.

An inductor in standard CMOS process having an inductance of 52 nH and a quality factor of 1.5 at frequency equal to 80 Mhz was fabricated. The polymer passivation layer of the standard CMOS inductor was etched out. The silicon substrate under the inductor, having a thickness of 280 μm was also etched out by deep reactive ion etching (DRIE). Ferrite material ZnFe2O4 and amorphous material Fe4.7Co70.3Si15B10 was then sputtered on top of the inductor sequentially. The same sputtering procedure was also performed into the bottom of the inductor. The result is an inductor that is sandwiched by multiple ferromagnetic layers. The inductance of the new ferromagnetic inductor has increased by 15% from 52 nH to 60 nH. The quality factor has also increased by 20% from 1.5 to 1.8.