Posts
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| Rufous Hummingbird / Photo by Roy W. Lowe (USFWS) |
- Mating for life appears to reduce stress levels in Greylag Geese, particularly during fights, when males who have a partner nearby have lower heart rates than males without a partner.
- Hungarian officials recently seized a shipment of illegally-killed songbirds that was probably headed for restaurants in northern Italy. The birds included Eurasian Skylarks, Calandra Larks, Red-throated Pipits, Bluethroats, European Goldfinches, Fieldfares, Mistle Thrushes, Reed Buntings, and White Wagtails.
- Thirteen endangered Spoon-billed Sandpipers arrived in the U.K. to serve as a base population for a captive breeding program. Conservationists hope to use captive breeding to supplement the declining wild population.
- Thanks to a nestling monitoring program, 20 Scarlet Macaw fledglings took flight this year in Guatemala. Conservationists check nests and remove and hand-rear weak chicks to improve their chances for survival.
- The American Bird Conservancy has published a booklet on designing buildings to prevent bird kills.
- A scientist writes about studying Elegant Quail in Mexico.
- Central Park launched a website about eight penguin chicks being reared at the Central Park Zoo. The site includes video of the chicks.
- Maniraptora: Bird-friendly California vineyards may have fewer pests
- 10,000 Birds: Why do birds living near Chernobyl have smaller brains?
- The Birdist: Birds at Large: The Big Bang Theory
- The Brownstone Birding Blog: Keys To Proper Misidentification Of Birds
- Bird Light Wind: SF Bird Encounters – The Mural; The Making of a Mural (part 1); Part 2; Part 3
- Birding Is Fun!: Bird Hygiene
- Snail's Tales: Jaws of a different kind
- BugBlog: How to get a snail to go aaaaah!
- Bug Eric: Wasp Wednesday: Anacrabro ocellatus
- Pixiq: Animal Group Portraits
- The Freiday Bird Blog: Birds and Habitat: Cox Hall Creek WMA
- Exploration for oil and natural gas in the Arctic assists predators and scavengers while hurting ground-nesting birds. The link has a gallery of some of the winners and losers.
- Despite what some politicians say, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative has been a success so far.
- The Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission is reducing the allowable catch of menhaden by 37%. Menhaden is used for such things as livestock feed, fertilizer, pet food, and fish oil, but is also an important prey species for many species of larger fish, seabirds, and marine mammals.
- Scientists studying fossil moths from 47 million years ago found that some of them had brightly-colored wing patterns, which suggests that they were active during the day.
- Camera traps found five wild cat species, including one that is critically endangered, in a Sumatran forest that is threatened by logging.
- An oil well off the coast of Brazil is leaking oil. Chevron claims to have the spill under control.
- TransCanada is exploring alternative routes for the Keystone XL pipeline that would avoid an environmentally sensitive region of Nebraska. One option is to reverse the flow of the existing Seaway Crude Pipeline, which has not been used much in recent years.
- A new study considers the ways in which New York state might be affected by climate change. Among other things, the Finger Lakes region will become hospitable to vineyards, while coastal communities will be susceptible to rising sea levels.
- Spiders.us is a new website for spider identification.
