Posts
American Bittern / Photo by Gary Kramer (USFWS)Bird and birding news
- A study of hand-reared jackdaws found that birds (or at least corvids) can read a person's gaze to find food.
- Some bright pigments, like a bluebird's blue, are produced by nanostructures that look like beer foam under a microscope. Both the beer foam (or soda foam) and the pigments are produced by phase separation.
- Airplane collisions with birds have increased 62% since the 1990s; the article does not explore reasons for the increase in bird strikes.
- A volunteer at Cambridge University's zoology museum rediscovered an egg collected by Charles Darwin during his famous voyage. The egg was laid by a tinamou. Said the volunteer: "It was an exhilarating experience. After working on the egg collections for 10 years this was a tremendous thing to happen."
- Galveston naturalists are still unsure how the habitat destruction caused by Hurricane Ike will affect this year's bird migration.
- A second California Condor was shot in California and is suffering from lead poisoning as a result.
- Common Cuckoos are likely to be put on the U.K.'s Red List of endangered birds.
- Florida has stopped trying to eradicate exotic Purple Swamphens. Even though biologists killed over 3,200 swamphens, 2,000-3,000 remain. (Video of a swamphen hunt.)
- Finally, the Delmarva Ornithological Society is holding a Bird-A-Thon in Delaware to purchase shorebird habitat on the Delaware Bay.
- Prairie Ice: Frankengrouse
- Towheeblog: Snow Grebe
- Fat Finch: Owl Identification
- WarblerWatch: Why is the diversity of wood-warblers greater in eastern than western USA forests?
- BES Group: Of growing nestlings and Coppersmith Barbets (part 8)
- Brooklyn Parrots: Wild Parrot Nest Removals at Green-Wood Cemetery
- While Arctic sea ice has a greater area than in 2008, most of it is very thin; only 10% has formed over more than two years, compared to 30%-40% during the 1980s. Even with the slight increase in area, Arctic sea ice now covers a much smaller area than it did 30 years ago.
- Commercial flame retardants are present in all U.S. coastal waterways, with the highest concentrations in the sediments and shellfish of the Hudson-Raritan Estuary. Anaheim Bay also had high concentrations in shellfish. These chemicals are known to cause developmental problems.
- The EPA has a list of its most wanted environmental fugitives. Sadly, there are no Exxon executives.
- The Gowanus Canal is slated to become a Superfund site.
