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Common Moorhen / Photo by Lee Karney (USFWS)News and links about birds, birding, and the environment
- The US Fish and Wildlife Service has released a draft recovery plan (pdf) for the ivory-billed woodpecker. The plan would spend close to $28 million over five years with a focus on population surveys, monitoring potential habitat, and management of existing habitat to meet the woodpecker's needs. The draft is open for comments until October 22, 2007.
During courtship, crested auklets rub each other with a scent that discourages parasites.- Pigeon dung is being considered as a factor in the Minnesota bridge collapse.
- A comment in Environmental Science and Technology praises the work of citizen science, especially Audubon's Christmas Bird Counts.
- The Basra Reed-Warbler has been found in Israel. It is the only record of the species outside of Iraq.
- A California condor died of lead poisoning.
- A farmer in New Zealand used a massive fuel bomb to kill a flock of starlings that he feared would eat his fruit. Many birds were left injured but not killed.
The sighting of nine orange-bellied parrots, an extremely rare bird, in southern Australia has led to hopes that a recently-built wind farm did not disturb their migration.- Numbers of house sparrows are declining in the U.K. because of a loss of private gardens to intense development.
- Bush issued an executive order to expand hunting opportunities on public lands.
- Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ-3) argues for federal grants for invasive species control in National Wildlife Refuges. (Saxton's district includes the Forsythe Refuge's Barnegat Division.)
- A red-tailed hawk crashed through a screen onto a porch; the homeowner attributed the incident to an attempt to eat his cat, which was in the porch at the time.
- A new wind turbine design allows turbine blades to be lowered in bad weather when birds fly at a lower altitude.
- The U.N.'s climate change official believes that two-thirds of emissions cuts before 2030 must come from developing nations.
- The Bush administration has a proposed a new rule that expands mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachians. This type of mining practice causes deforestation and threatens vulnerable species such as cerulean warblers.
- bootstrap analysis: cornell strong-arm tactics?
- Coffee and Conservation: Quick look at differing shade criteria
- Trevor's Birding: Bird Word: Month List
- Birdchaser: Birds 2 Help
