Friday, June 27, 2014

Loose Feathers #449

Great Crested Flycatcher / Photo by Ken Sturm (USFWS).
Birds and birding news
  • The USFWS will permit the Shiloh IV Wind Project to kill up to five eagles (mainly Golden Eagles) over the next five years without penalty. The permit requires that the energy company fix 133 utility poles to reduce electrocutions of birds of prey. Since the energy company should be fixing its utility poles anyway, this does not seem like much of a bargain, but it depends on how many birds the turbines kill.
  • Some Arctic birds are breeding up to a week earlier in response to earlier snow melt.
  • A Tufted Puffin was sighted off Machias Seal Island; this is the first sighting of one on the Atlantic coast since the 1830s.
  • The Black Rail, like other birds that nest in high salt marshes, is threatened by sea level rise.
  • Conservationists found a large population of rare Sarus Cranes in Myanmar.
Science and nature blogging
Environment and biodiversity