Posts
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| Coastal California Gnatcatcher / Photo by Marci Koski/USFWS |
- New York's Department of Environmental Conservation is working on a recovery plan to prevent Spruce Grouse from being extirpated in the state. One option being considered is to catch grouse in Ontario and release them in the Adirondacks.
- This spring, Pennsylvania had over 200 active Bald Eagle nests for the first time in decades. Two of those 203 nests are in the city of Philadelphia: one at Pennypack Park and the other at John Heinz NWR (a.k.a. Tinicum).
- Since male and female kittiwakes smell different from each other, it is possible that they use smell to find a good mate.
- Rufous-collared Sparrows have a great deal of local variation in their songs. There is so much variation that females are much more likely to respond to a local song dialect than a dialect from a bird that lives a few miles away.
- The Nemesis Bird: Sage Thrasher – Photo Study
- Bug Eric: Wasp Wednesday: European Paper Wasp
- Notes from Soggy Bottom: Downhome Breeding Birds Plus 5 Years
- The Birder's Report: Tree Swallows: The Aerial Acrobat of Cavity Nesters
- The Drinking Bird: Introducing the Birder Jargon Project
- 10,000 Birds: The Great Egret
- Gray wolves lost endangered species protection in Wyoming. The Interior Department is allowing the state to maintain a population of as few as 100 wolves and 10 breeding pairs; removing the wolves from the Endangered Species List is being done in exchange for Senator John Barasso lifting his hold on Daniel Ashe's appointment as head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The state is looking forward to expanded wolf hunting.
- The EPA issued stricter regulations of coal-burning plants to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide; the regulations are intended to reduce health problems and acid rain caused by the pollutants.
- Male moths find female moths by following the smell of their pheromones. Their best chance to find a pheromone trail is to fly across the wind.
- California is using a native wasp species to control the invasive light brown apple moths. The wasps lay their eggs on the moth's eggs; when the wasp larvae hatch, they kill the moth larvae.
- NOAA published disturbing maps that illustrate the average temperature rise over the past 40 years.
- An Exxon Mobil pipeline ruptured earlier this week and spilled oil into the Yellowstone River in Montana. The leak is downstream from Yellowstone National Park.
- The oil spill along the Yellowstone River may have been caused by unusually severe flooding along the river, which in turn may have been aggravated by climate change. In addition to damaging the pipe, the floods are hampering cleanup.
- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing more hunting in ten of its refuges, which are scattered across the United States.
- Some researchers argue that eating locally-grown foods, especially ones grown in urban community gardens, does not necessarily reduce carbon emissions.
- An ecologist found a species of bioluminescent mushroom not seen since 1840 in Brazil.
- Four new species of jewel beetles were discovered in Southeast Asia.
