Loose Feathers #323

Tundra Swans / Photo by D. Montgomery (USFWS)

News about birds and birding

• California may list the Black-backed Woodpecker as a threatened species. While the species is not endangered on a continental level, it is rare in that state, and its habitat is subject to intensive logging.
• Biologists are studying the Red Knots that winter along the Gulf Coast to assess whether that population is stable.
• Here is a map of this winter's Snowy Owl irruption, via eBird and BirdsEye.
• Scientists are studying hybridization patterns between Gambel's and Elegant Quail.
• The Bureau of Land Management is proposing to create wind development zones to reduce impacts of wind energy on birds and bats.

Nature blogging

• 10,000 Birds: Rufous Hummingbirds – The Accidental Tourists
• bootstrap analysis: updated: plotting a christmas bird count circle
• Bug Girl's Blog: Roaches and Woodpecker Conservation
• A Blog Around the Clock: The wonderful quail…and what Sen.Coburn should learn about it.
• The Scicurious Brain: Cocaine and the sexual habits of quail, or, why does NIH fund what it does?
• Flickr Blog: Thomas Shahan’s Spiders in National Geographic 
• PetaPixel: Magical Photos of Insects Shot Using Ordinary Household Objects

News about the environment and biodiversity

• When a gray wolf wandered from Oregon into California this week, it became the first wolf recorded in California since 1924. The wolf's movements are being tracked with a radio collar.
• Since gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s, elk and coyote populations have declined, while aspen, willow, and cottonwood trees have bounced back. The beaver population has also increased.
• The Delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers has been healthier this year thanks to above-average rainfall.
• A new study argues that beavers shaped much of North America's landscape.
• Newly-released satellite imagery shows the development of tar sands mining in Alberta, Canada.
• Like adult butterflies, caterpillars also engage in mimicry to appear similar to species with chemical defenses.
• A federal judge has blocked California's low-carbon fuel law, which was intended to help the state meet its goals for greenhouse gas reductions.
• Madrid has created a new six-mile-long park to rejuvenate a stretch of the Manzanares River and reconnect city neighborhoods that had been cut off from each other by a freeway. The project included digging tunnels to bury the freeway.
• Bunker fuel spilled into San Francisco Bay during the Cosco Busan accident in 2007 was particularly toxic to the bay's herring population, which is important for seabirds and other marine predators.