Loose Feathers #319

Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR / Photo by Marvin De Jong (USFWS)

Birds and birding news

• Extra-pair copulation gives male Great Tits a chance to have chicks with more females but comes with the cost of their mates copulating with other males. As a result, male tits that "cheat" do not have more offspring than those that do not "cheat."
• An endangered Hawaiian goose, the Nēnē, now has a population of 2,000 individuals, a substantial improvement over the situation 60 years ago, when only 20-30 individuals existed.
• Whooping Cranes wintering in Texas may have a hard time finding food this winter because the drought and lack of water flow from nearby rivers are making the marshes of Aransas NWR too brackish. The cranes are currently at the center of a lawsuit over water rights.
• The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is posting a new page from Audubon's The Birds of America each day.
• The NY Times profiled the Nuttall Ornithological Club, the oldest birding group in the U.S.
• A study shows that populations of British farmland birds continue to fall.
• Elegant Quail proved difficult for scientists to trap during a recent research expedition.

Nature blogging

• Maniraptora: The economics of tree swallow brood sex ratios
• 10,000 Birds: Digiscoping With An iPhone 4S
• The Birdist: Birding the north Mississippi Delta
• Laelaps: Paleontologists Uncover Wyoming’s Formidable Fossil Frogmouth
• Birding Is Fun!: What is Birding?
• Stokes Birding Blog: Photographing Birds in Flight, Tips
• Outside My Window: Winter Trees: White Ash
• The Dragonfly Woman: Sexing Giant Water Bugs
• Bug Eric: Spider Sunday: Spider Sex Ed
• The Nemesis Bird: Are we on the verge of a Snowy Owl irruption?
• The Rattling Crow: Great Tit nestlings respond adaptively to different antipredator alarm calls

Environment and biodiversity

• Vietnam is home to a newly-discovered species of ferret-badger.
• Several new species of butterflies from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula were identified from collection specimens by DNA barcoding.
• The USDA is releasing a scale insect in Hawaii as a biocontrol for invasive strawberry guava (Psidium cattleianum).
• Two conservation organizations have offered a $500 reward for anyone who photographs the South Florida rainbow snake (Farancia erytrogramma seminola), which is believed to be extinct.
• The Brown Argus butterfly is shifting its range in response to climate change.
• A doctoral student is studying biodiversity at three coffee farms.
• This fall and winter, Monarchs face a tough migration to Mexico because of historic drought conditions in Texas and adjacent states.
• Since wolves were introduced to Yellowstone in 1995-1996, scientists have been studying how environmental changes affect the population.