Posts
Northern Gannet / USFWS Photo
Birds and birding news
- A birder in Montana found a leucistic Barred Owl. The owl is almost all white with only a few brown feathers, but its shape is still recognizable.
- A bird photographer photographed an Osprey catching and carrying away a Blue Crab; he believes that it is the first recorded observation of an Osprey taking one as prey.
- A man in Massachusetts persuaded his condo association not to use Avitrol to control pigeons.
- NPR interviewed Donald and Lilian Stokes on their new field guide and on birding in general.
- Three-quarters of the Barn Owls in Britain use manmade nestboxes because their traditional nesting sites have disappeared.
- A new study found that male Barn Owls consider larger dark spots attractive on female owls, but the reverse does not appear to be true.
- Researchers in Australia have found a new species of ground parrot, Pezoporus flaviventris, in Western Australia. It was separated from other ground parrots on the basis of a genetic study.
- According to new research, Common Cuckoos can vary the appearance of their eggs to match other bird species, but they cannot match the local variation in the eggs of Reed Warblers.
- Ohio is trying to reduce the number of cormorants within its borders.
- Another 350 birds died in one of Syncrude's oil tailings ponds shortly after the company was sentenced for an earlier incident in which 1,600 waterbirds were killed.
- Hummingbirds fight interference from wind by continually readjusting the angle of their wings while they hover.
- A scientist created a simple rubber device that can mimic sounds made by Zebra Finches.
- Not Exactly Rocket Science: How birds see magnetic fields – an interview with Klaus Schulten and How birds see magnetic fields – an interview with Thorsten Ritz
- The Hawk Owl's Nest: Bathroom Bird ID Quiz
- Earbirding: Do Violet-green Swallows Sing?
- IBRRC: Public's help still needed to locate injured gulls
- Notes from soggy bottom: eBird visualizations: Eurasian Collared-Dove explosion
- Birding Dude: Vagrant Fork-tailed Flycatcher in Connecticut
- Dave Hubble's ecology spot: Bird song vs urban noise
- A section of the Gulf of Mexico was closed to shrimping after a shrimper found tar balls in his net.
- Recently released emails from the Commerce Department show that government scientists were uncertain how much oil was leaking out of BP's well.
- The presidential spill commission reported that the government and BP were unprepared for an oil spill of the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon blowout. In addition, BP made risky decisions while drilling the well to save time.
- The US Fish and Wildlife Service designated 187,000 square miles of critical habitat for polar bears in Alaska. Most of the designated area is sea ice.It includes some areas where oil and gas companies want to drill; future drilling projects will need to be weighed against polar bears' needs.
- NPR explores the history and environmental condition of New Jersey's Passaic River.
- A new book argues that temperate and boreal rainforests store more carbon per acre than tropical rainforests.
- An unprecedented fire in the Alaskan tundra may be related to climate change. It was the most destructive fire in the area for at least 5,000 years.
- Carbon emissions in 2009 were higher than expected – just below the record-setting emissions of 2008 despite a major recession.
