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Whooping Cranes at Patokah River NWR / Photo by Steve Gifford (USFWS)
Birds and birding news
- A group of American birders recently found and photographed a Long-whiskered Owlet in Peru; the species was first discovered in 1976 and has only been seen a few times since then.
- White Ibises in Florida are subjected to very high levels of mercury pollution in the state's lakes and rivers, which means that they ingest a lot of mercury in their diet. During the breeding season, male ibises with especially high mercury levels tended to pair with other males rather than females. This may partly explain why ibis reproductive success has been falling in recent decades.
- A rare Brown Shrike has appeared in Humboldt County, California. This species normally breeds in Central Asia and migrates to Southeast Asia; this bird must have migrated in the wrong direction.
- A study estimates that there are 60 million feral cats in the U.S. and that these cats cause $17 billion worth of damage to the bird population. The cost of $30 per bird killed is based on the economic contributions of bird-related activities: birders spend $0.40 per bird observed, hunters spend $216 per bird shot, and bird rehabilitators spend $800 per bird treated and released.
- A utility company on Kauai paid fines for harming or killing 14 Newell's Shearwaters with its power lines at one location (a violation of the Endangered Species Act) and killing 18 birds with its power lines at another location (a Migratory Bird Treaty Act violation).
- Avian botulism has been killing birds along Lake Michigan this year, including large numbers of Horned and Red-necked Grebes.
- The personalities of Great Tits depend on the amount of stress hormones (glucocorticoids) in their bloodstream.
- Resident British birds struggled during last winter's harsh weather.
- A photographer found a frog riding the back of a Downy Woodpecker.
- Blue Marble: Seabirds Hopped Up on Summer
- Brewster's Linnet: Harry Day
- The Birder's Library: The Seasons of the Robin
- IBRRC: Every Bird Matters
- Nate Swick and David Ringer are trying to create a blogswarm to help get a bill passed to fund environmental restoration around the Gulf of Mexico. See here for their reasoning and here for how to participate. Even if you do not have a blog, you can still participate by contacting your Senators.
- The Delaware Bay is still recovering from an oil spill six years ago.
- The Obama administration decided to extend the drilling moratorium along the Atlantic coast and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.
- Mono Lake in California has bacteria that can survive by substituting arsenic for phosphorus since they have some way of coping with arsenic's toxic effects. See PZ Myers's and Ed Yong's commentaries on the arsenic-eating bacteria for antidotes to the media hype about the discovery. See also XKCD's interpretation of the media event.
- Methyl iodide was approved for use on California's strawberry crops despite concerns about its health effects.
- Some honey bees in Brooklyn produced red honey this year because the bees were drinking juice from a maraschino cherry factory.
- The Mojave Desert Blog has an essay on the rush to build large solar energy facilities in California's deserts.
- Too strict of a focus on conserving carbon-rich landscapes should not come at the cost of ignoring biodiversity. Many biodiversity hotspots occur in areas that are low in carbon storage.
- Climate change was linked to the deaths of 21,000 people in 2010, twice the number of deaths in 2009.
- The Center for Biological Diversity is calling for a boycott of bluefin tuna and the restaurants that serve it in the wake of the failure of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas to stop the overfishing of the species.
- 2010 is likely to be among the three warmest years on record, with some regions setting new temperature records. 2011 should be somewhat cooler.
- Meanwhile, more climate change negotiations began this week in Cancún.
- Reductions in biodiversity assist the spread of some diseases such as Lyme disease.
- Carnival of Evolution #30
- Festival of the Trees #54
- Circus of the Spineless #57
- I and the Bird #139
- Scientia Pro Publica #46
