Posts
Black-bellied Plover / USFWSBird and birding news
- When mobbing predators, Siberian Jays use over a dozen different scolding calls to communicate the type of predator and seriousness of the threat.
- Sub-Saharan birds in Africa may have trouble finding new habitats if they are forced to move by climate change. The problem is that Africa's landscape contains such a variety of habitats.
- Male Anna's Hummingbirds dive at a rate of 400 body lengths per second during their mating displays.
- Red Knots found plenty of horseshoe crab eggs to eat in Delaware this May.
- Maryland's DNR plans to continue with its Mute Swan eradication program. There are currently about 500 swans left, compared with a peak population of 4,000 ten years ago. Control measures include both oiling eggs and killing adult swans.
- Scotland has lost a fifth of its seabird population over the past decade. Arctic Skuas and Black-legged Kittiwakes were hit especially hard.
- This week the NTSB held a hearing on how to keep birds away from airplanes. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian's investigators used the Field Museum's collection of 2,700 Canada Goose study skins to match the goose remains from Flight 1549 to a wild population.
- In Lithuania, some people eat crows as a delicacy or an aphrodisiac.
- Scotland's oldest sea eagle pair has been breeding since 1986 and recently had their 33rd chick banded.
- Thanks to conservation programs, the Lear's Macaw is more stable than it used to be. The population now stands at about 1,000 birds.
- Tetrapod Zoology: Birds Come First - oh no they don't!
- Tetrapod Zoology: The 'Birds Come First' hypothesis of dinosaur evolution
- Art News Blog: A Guide to North American Birds by Matt Sesow
- Hasty Brook: Seven Seconds With a Black and White Warbler
- Snail's Tales: Young robins motionless
- Great Auk or Greatest Auk: Belmont Birds
- A wind farm in Texas is using radar to shut down wind turbines when large numbers of birds pass through on migration. During the peak of fall migration, birds pass through at a rate of 4,000 per hour.
- A study of towns in Brazil found that cutting down Amazon rainforest led to short term profits only.
- A scientist found a new species of silk moth in Arizona.
