Posts
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| Wild Turkey / Photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS |
- This winter's Snowy Owl irruption will give scientists a chance to study the birds by trapping them and attaching transmitters. Previous irruptions resulted in a more accurate population estimate, among other findings.
- At toxic lakes from mines and industrial sites, monitoring and hazing is necessary to prevent birds from dying in the toxic waste.
- In addition to their harmful effects on insects, neonicotinoids can make it harder for migrating songbirds to navigate.
- Great Reed Warblers breed in slightly different habitats depending on their age; older birds breed in wetlands with deeper water while younger birds prefer shallower areas.
- Unfortunately non-white birders face hostility from racists, but the birding community can help.
- Loss of waterbird diversity is greater in places where government is unstable or less effective. In other words, it is not enough to create regulations or wildlife preserves; the rules have to be enforced.
- Wisdom, the world's oldest known wild breeding bird, returned to Midway Atoll and laid an egg. This Laysan Albatross is estimated to be 67 years old.
- A Red-tailed Hawk died in Prospect Park earlier this month after eating a poisoned rat. The poison may have been put out by the parks department. Rat poison is one of the major threats facing urban raptors (and also urban mammals).
- Birds learn from each other's disgust, which makes bright colors more effective as a deterrent for insects.
- A study explored how pairs of birds coordinate their duets. (I am not sure why the page shows a House Finch instead of the species from the study.)
- The Tambopata Macaw Project, which works to conserve parrots in southeastern Peru, is raising funds to improve the survival of Scarlet Macaw chicks by placing them with wild foster parents.
- Vermont Center for Ecostudies: The Red Crossbill Enigma
- Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: A Brief But Aggressive Encounter Between Pied-Billed Grebes
- VDGIF Blog: Second Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas Wraps Up Season Two
- Anything Larus: Advanced Rectrices in 2nd Cycle Lesser Black-backed Gulls
- Bird Ecology Study Group: An unusual set of rictal bristles in Pied Fantail
- Bug Eric: Insects in the News
- Cross-Check: We Have Souls, and So Do Crows
- Corvid Research: It’s a wonderful raven’s life
- awkward botany: Weeds and Winter Interest
- The tax bill passed earlier this week with a provision opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Proponents minimize the footprint and potential harms of doing this, but comparison to sites in the same region shows that the effects will be more widespread.
- There is still time for activists to fight the administration and oil companies to prevent drilling.
- The idea of preserved lands as a public good appears to be at risk.
- The bill also raised taxes on US companies that operate in Puerto Rico, which is still recovering from Hurricane Maria. Since the electric grid is still not repaired, people rely on generators, with harmful effects for public health.
- Air pollution has a disproportionate impact on poor and minority communities.
- A bat colony in Houston was displaced by Hurricane Harvey.
- If expansion of the border wall is funded, construction will probably begin at Santa Ana NWR.
- In addition to killing ash trees, Emerald Ash Borer infestations change the invertebrate populations on the forest floor.
