Posts
Pelicans being released at Aransas NWR / USFWS Photo
Birds and birding news
- EBird has updated to include the entire Clements 6.4 taxonomy. This means that any species in the world can now be entered into eBird's database.
- Professional and amateur ornithologists answering questionnaires recorded 1,143 bird/plant interactions; of these, 539 were birds eating the fruit of nonnative plants. Birds are a crucial (if unintentional) vector for spreading the seeds of invasive and other nonnative species.
- Here is a British account of birding in Central Park and Rock Creek Park around the peak of spring migration.
- Burrowing Owls are colonizing the artificial burrows at the U.S. Army's Umatilla Chemical Depot in Washington. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hopes to establish at least 60 breeding pairs at the former depot by 2011.
- Birds in warmer climate tend to have larger bills, while birds in cooler climates tend to have smaller ones. This is probably because larger bills help to diffuse body heat through their surface area.
- When songbirds are learning their songs, their brains actively reinforce their memories while they are sleeping.
- Urban pigeons can carry harmful pathogens such as Chlamydophila psittaci and Campylobacter jejuni according to a study of pigeons in Madrid.
- Tens of thousands of people from around the world have been watching the final moments of one of the world's oldest ospreys on webcam. The osprey has appeared weak with little interest in eating or drinking.
- Britain's Nightingale population has dropped 90% in the last forty years.
- Attempts to restore the Great Indian Bustard to India's Karera bird sanctuary have foundered on mismanagement and local opposition.
- Net Results: Cats eat bird eggs
- Picus Blog: The inside of a legend
- Tails of Birding: Troglodytidae - Birds Who Creep into Holes, Part 1
- Round Robin: Louisiana report: Caring for Caspian Tern chicks (slideshow)
- Tetrapod Zoology: Death by toxic goose. Amazing waterfowl facts part II
- Coffee and Conservation: Coffee review: Birds, Bees, & Trees
- Rescued and cleaned Brown Pelicans are being released at Aransas NWR in Texas.
- Biologists are taking census of bird life in coastal Louisiana in the hope of having a baseline to compare with observations after the spill reaches shore.
- NOAA confirmed that BP's Deepwater Horizon well was the source of the giant undersea oil plumes detected by other scientists several weeks ago. More research is underway to assess the plumes' impacts on marine life.
- Drilling a successful relief well will be a difficult operation. In the East Timor Sea, it took four tries for the relief well to reach the original well shaft, with a total delay of 27 days.
- A new report found extremely high levels of multiple toxins in sperm whales. The whales had ingested cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, mercury, silver, and titanium.
- Photonaturalist has a free ebook on how to photograph dragonflies.
- Scientists found a fern that had been presumed extinct for 60 years on the island of Ascension.
- Many U.S. politicians oppose building a new pipeline to carry oil from Alberta's tar sands to refineries in Texas.
- Concord, Massachusetts, recently banned sales of bottled water.
- The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the federal government to declare Bluefin Tuna an endangered species.
- I and the Bird #128
- Scientia Pro Publica #33
- Carnival of the Blue #37
- The Moth and Me #12
- House of Herps #7
