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Steller's Eiders / Photo by Laura L. Whitehouse (USFWS)Bird and birding news
- The Obama administration plans to rewrite the Bush administration's Spotted Owl recovery plan and not defend it against lawsuits filed by environmental groups.
- The NY Times has an interview with a woman who studies penguins in Argentina. The penguins are threatened by the decline of South Atlantic fisheries since they have to travel farther to find food during the breeding season.
- The Fish and Wildlife Service may restrict some subsistence hunting of waterfowl to protect Steller's Eiders, which are sometimes shot along with the Brant and White-fronted Geese that Inupiat prefer.
- The RSPB is challenging London birders to photograph birds within a five-minute walk of a Tube station. The contest is open until May 31.
- The Spanish Imperial Eagle population has increased from 38 to 253 pairs in the last thirty years.
- Here is a video of a turtle grabbing a pigeon and dragging it underwater.
- Planting some types of flowering trees may attract birds to drink nectar or feed on insects.
- Forests along Old Mine Road have been designated as an Important Bird Area on the basis of its population of breeding warblers.
- Field of View: 21 wintering Whooping Cranes die; numbers drop for first time since 2001
- Hawk Owl's Nest: My first regional editor experience
- Birdfreak: The Future of Birding and Conservation: Predictions and Wishful Thinking
- Tetrapod Zoology: Passerine birds fight dirty, a la Velociraptor
- Round Robin: Let’s Go Birding!… At Night… Blindfolded
- Many Bush administration environmental policies are quickly getting overturned on the basis of documents and policy proposals drafted by the EPA's career employees before Obama was elected.
- Concrete manufacturers are experimenting with new materials to reduce concrete's environmental impact.
- Florida's plan to buy U.S. Sugar's Everglades properties has been cut in half due to the state's budget crisis.
- An eruption of Alaska's Mount Redoubt (or associated earthquakes) could cause oil storage tanks on the Drift River to release their contents.
- The National Audubon Society and Natural Resources Defense Council created a map to show energy companies the public lands where they would be most likely to try to block energy development. The implication is that they would not try to fight development elsewhere.
