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Great Egret / Photo by Rosie Walunas (USFWS)
Birds and birding news
- Despite 20 years of conservation and protection of old-growth forests, the Northern Spotted Owl continues to decline 2.9% per year throughout the Pacific Northwest. The cause of the continuing decline is unclear; government biologists are considering whether to reduce the number of Barred Owls.
- A new study shows that lice camouflage themselves to match the color of a bird's feathers. Dark-colored lice live on dark-colored birds, and light-colored lice live on light-colored birds. This makes it difficult for a bird to see the lice and pick them off during preening.
- Two environmentalists argue for changes to make the Altamont wind farm less deadly to birds.
- A new study estimates that Alberta's tar sands facilities, particularly tailings ponds, have killed about 2,000 birds annually over the past 14 years.
- Declines among some European migratory birds may be due to years to drought in sub-Saharan Africa. In sufficient rainfall would make it difficult for the birds to find food in the weeks before their migratory flights.
- World penguin populations continue to decline due to overfishing, climate change, oil pollution, and other factors.
- A British study found that starlings need very few clues from neighboring birds to create vast roosting flocks in winter.
- Opponents of a trash transfer facility near LaGuardia Airport in New York claim that the site will attract birds and endanger aircraft.
- A Swainson's Hawk repeatedly attacked a mail carrier in a Calgary neighborhood, so members of the neighborhood will be picking up their mail at the mail office until the hawk migrates. The hawk probably saw the carrier as a threat to its young.
- Longport Bridge beach in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, hosts a nesting colony of almost 3,000 Black Skimmers.
- Seattle plans to protect part of a park as a heron sanctuary.
- Not Exactly Rocket Science: Male bowerbirds create forced perspective illusions that only females see
- Punctuated Equilibrium: Dead birds do tell tales
- Biological Ramblings: Least Sandpiper from Egg to Adult
- birdspot: Sep 9
- View from the Cape: Empids at Higbee's
- An internal report created by BP found eight mistakes by BP and its contractors that led to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill. However, the report concluded that the design of the well was sound. BP's contractors – Halliburton and Transocean – denounced the report for not admitting design flaws. One interesting admission is that, prior to the explosion, oil was flowing from the well up the riser pipe at a rate between 86,400 and 100,800 barrels a day.
- Here is part 2 of a comparison of the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills, as told by a wildlife rehabilitator who worked at both. (Part 1 was linked in last week's Loose Feathers.)
- A USGS study found that the Potomac River has twice as much sub-aquatic vegetation as it did in 1990, and the area covered by native sub-aquatic vegetation has increased by a factor of ten over the same period. Sub-aquatic vegetation is crucial to a river's health because it filters pollutants and provides shelter for aquatic animals. Combined with improvements to the Blue Plains sewage plant, this means that the Potomac's water is cleaner than it has been in years.
- The tar sands mining operations in Alberta, Canada, are serving as a model for other areas that want to develop unconventional petroleum reserves as conventional oil sources become more scarce. Unconventional sources such as tar sands, shale oil, and extra heavy crude tend to be more difficult to extract and refine, and they release more carbon when burned.
- Nancy Pelosi and Edward Markey were in Canada this week to meet with supporters of oil sands mining and environmental groups there. The U.S. government will need to decide whether to permit a pipeline from Alberta to Texas to carry oil from the province.
- Organisms engage in mimicry for many reasons, including predation and defense from predation.
- The Dragonfly Woman: Migratory Dragonfly Species – Less Common Species
