Loose Feathers #295

Blue-footed Boobies / Photo credit Etai Adam

Birds and birding news

• The Galápagos Conservation Trust declared today Blue-footed Booby Day. The birds are named for their bright blue feet, which play a key role in their courtship dances. Learn more about these birds here or at the Blue-footed Booby Day website.
• EBird released its new data entry form out of beta. The new data entry method allows users to submit checklists with fewer steps and encourages users to add details, such as descriptions for a rare bird or breeding codes. I have been using the new data entry system for a few weeks now, and once I got used to the single-column format, I found it much easy than the old method.
• New York City's Department of Environmental Protection has made arrangements to ship geese killed during this culls to food banks in Pennsylvania. The city is culling Canada Geese around the its airports to reduce the risk of collisions between birds and airplanes.
• Scientists are studying migratory songbirds in the Arctic to learn how climate change is affecting their use of traditional food sources and their breeding patterns.
• A new study argues for saving old trees to protect the nest holes for the birds and mammals that use them.
• Research suggests that Tree Swallows with the highest level of stress hormones have the most breeding success.
• Bald Eagles and unusual weather patterns decimated the Double-crested Cormorant and Caspian Tern colonies at the mouth of the Columbia River this spring.

Birds in the blogosphere

• Holywell Birding: A Rare Thing...
• New York Daily Photo: Close Encounter of the New York Kind
• Biodiversity Heritage Library: Book of the Week: An Experiment in Illustrations
• BESG: Eurasian Tree Sparrows feeding in the rain
• March of the Fossil Penguins: Structural Color in the Little Blue Penguin
• Earbirding: The “Western” Flycatcher Problem
• The Daily Wing: An Ode to Warblers
• Audubon Guides: How Santa Cruz Got Its Fox Back
• BirdWatching Field of View: Checklist math: How four Yellow-rumped Warblers equal one Butter-butt
• 10,000 Birds: Are Birds Really Dinosaurs?
• Tetrapod Zoology: Giant owls vs solenodons
• Birding Dude: Queens Semipalmated Sandpiper was banded in French Guiana

Environment and biodiversity

• According to a recent survey, two-thirds of New York City's rooftops are suitable for solar panels; together they have enough area to meet about half of the city's electricity needs during periods of peak demands. The survey is based on data gathered by a plane equipped with Lidar that made passes over the city last year to measure the size, shape, and amount of sunlight on its rooftops. The data is available at a CUNY website.
• This year the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is forecast to be the largest ever due to flooding in the Midwest. In addition to causing destruction upstream, the floodwaters are carrying more nutrients than usual.
• The U.S. Senate voted to end subsidies for corn ethanol but the measure has yet to pass the House.
• The White House has decide to mock a cheap website on the endangered Desert Tortoise as a symbol of government waste. More here.
• Here is an example of people using the invasive weed mugwort as a remedy.
• The Dragonfly Woman: What is a June Bug?