Posts
Birds and birding news
- The hawk that flew into the New York Times building in Manhattan has survived with no broken bones, but it has not resumed flying yet.
- According to a recent study, barred feathers play a role in courtship, not just in camouflage.
- Socially dominant Black Kites use the most white objects to line their nests as a warning signal to other kites.
- Conservation organizations finally persuaded the US Fish and Wildlife Service to remove Rusty Blackbirds and Mexican Crows from its standing depredation order that allows killing blackbirds, crows, and starlings to prevent threats to agriculture or health. Killing of these species will now require a separate permit. (Here is an example of the depredation order in action.)
- After autopsies, it is still unclear what caused the deaths of about 200 Brown Pelicans off Topsail Beach in North Carolina.
- Male Splendid Fairy-Wrens sing a special song type shortly after they hear butcherbird calls.
- Female Blue Tits are more fertile later in life if they mate with the right males early on.
- Wild bird populations in the U.K. continue to experience population decline, especially farmland birds, whose population is half what it was in 1970. Only seabirds are more numerous than they were 40 years ago.
- German police rescued an owl that appeared to be drunk.
- Colombian police caught a pigeon that was being used to smuggle drugs into a prison.
- The Drinking Bird: Little Larksong King
- Photo Feathers: Rosy-Finch Banding at Sandia Crest
- The Marvelous in Nature: Nest searching
- Urban Hawks: Varied Thrush
- View from the Cape: Follow the Titmouse Down the Prairie Dog Hole
- Library of Congress Blog: Watching Our Researchers Like a Hawk
- Tetrapod Zoology: A White-tailed eagle in southern England
- Nature Canada: Study Outlines Steps to Protect Declining North American Landbird Populations
Environment and biodiversity
- Prairie dog calls alert other prairie dogs to the type and appearance of approaching predators.
- A giant crayfish found in Tennessee proved to be a new species (Barbicambarus simmonsi).
- New images from NASA show how the four major global temperature records show consistent amounts of warming, even though they use different methods.
- Last summer, biologists found freshwater mussels in the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Trenton; the find included one species that had not been seen there for 50 years.
- A new paper argues that current methods overestimate how much carbon ecosystems can absorb because they underestimate how much carbon bodies of water release.
