Fox Sparrow

Before the snow's arrival yesterday, I walked through Rutgers Gardens. I started out by walking through the ornamental conifers to see if anything unusual was hanging around them. There was very little activity, so I moved on. My impression is that there are not a lot of seed cones on them, so winter finches there are probably unlikely.

From there I walked through Helyar Woods. There were quite a lot of trees down in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. A lot of trails were blocked by fallen trees, especially the trails close to the lake, which are blocked in multiple places.

There was some bird activity in the woods, but the best birding was in the meadow that is across Route 1 from Sears. One of the first birds I heard there was a Winter Wren; I would see another one further out in the meadow. There were a lot of White-throated Sparrows around, and then a Fox Sparrow popped up and perched on top of a multiflora rose tangle. That made it my 221st bird species in Middlesex County and my 195th in the county for the year. I saw three Fox Sparrows in all, one of which was singing, including the one in the photograph above. Other birds in the meadow included Golden-crowned Kinglets, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and a Hermit Thrush (also a county year bird).

On a sad note, there was a dead Cooper's Hawk near the bamboo forest. From the plumage and size, I would say that it was an adult female. The cause of death was not visibly obvious, but the location suggests an auto collision.

Best Photos from 2012

Every year for the past few years I have compiled my best photos into a set. Here is a collage of my best from 2012, which you can also see as a set on Flickr. I think my favorite is this photo of an American Redstart that I took in September.

Loose Feathers #373

Blue-winged teal in flight at Sand Lake NWR / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding

• Christmas Bird Counts are underway, including the Bronx-Winchester count, which has been running since 1924.
• Razorbills are appearing in Florida in unusual numbers.
• Montana may send 80 female sage grouse to North Dakota to bolster their declining population, which was hit hard by West Nile Virus 
• The Wood Stork population on the whole has been increasing, but the storks at Corkscrew Swamp have been forced to look elsewhere to nest.

Nature and science blogging

• Laelaps: New Zealand’s Long-Lost Giant Raptor
• Culturing Science: A Natural History of Mistletoe
• Iowa Voice: Ruddy Turnstone
• Anything Larus: Hammond Kumlien's Returns
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: What Do Lizard Tails Have In Common With Toilet Paper?

Environment and biodiversity

• An endangered fin whale died after it washed ashore at Breezy Point in New York City.
• Lisa Jackson resigned after four years as EPA administrator. During her time in office, the EPA raised restrictions on emissions from vehicles and power plants and ruled that greenhouse gases can be regulated as pollutants. However, action on climate change lags far behind what is needed.
• Last week, the EPA issued new regulations on emissions from industrial boilers, cement kilns, and incinerators.
• Here is a list (with photos) of the top species discoveries of 2012.
• Some fishermen in Oregon are using discarded Christmas trees to improve habitat for Coho Salmon.
• Eric Prokopi admitted smuggling numerous fossils into the US after they had been collected illegally.
• A new map of biogeography has been published.

Loose Feathers #372

Blue-winged Teal / Photo by Barbara Wheeler Photography, USFWS Volunteer

Birds and birding

• The Marbled Murrelet population has fallen by almost a third over the past decade.
• Birds such as Lesser Scaup may contribute to the spread of eelgrass, a species important for coastal ecosystem restoration.
• A widely-circulated video purporting to show a "golden eagle" snatching a toddler was a hoax created by film students in Montreal.
• Peacock mating calls draw in females from far away, so they may function as a way for males to attract additional mates.
• Here are some suggestions for how to enter Christmas Bird Count data into eBird. 
• A few weeks ago I linked to a story about a dead carrier pigeon found in a chimney in London. It appears that the code has been cracked.
• A study suggests how climate change will affect birds in boreal forest ecosystems.
• Habitat degradation due to construction of new housing developments is as bad or worse for birds than climate change according to PRBO research.
• A vagrant American Pipit (called Buff-Bellied Pipit by the BBC) is exciting twitchers in England.
• The US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to shift Wood Storks from endangered to threatened to reflect progress in their conservation.
• SM Energy Company is paying a $22,500 fine for bird deaths at its drilling locations in the Great Plains.
• An interview explores the uncertain prospects for the Amur Falcon, which is currently threatened by market hunting.

Nature and science blogging

• Sibley Guides: Posture and shape distinguishes male and female Dark-eyed Juncos
• The Skeptical Moth: The Poodle Moth and the Problem of Cryptozoology
• The Birdist: Other Kinds of Bird Photography?

Environment and biodiversity

• Scientists are circulating an online petition asking the Chicago Field Museum not to gut its budget for research, as it currently plans to do.
• Over 156,000 gallons of oil have been recovered from the Kill Van Kull after an oil spill there last Friday. The spill occurred near an island designated as a sanctuary for nesting waterbirds.
• An Australian study founds that mistletoe, long regarded as a malignant parasite, plays a key role in maintaining biodiversity within woodland ecosystems.
• The BBC debunks the myth that people are never more than 6 feet from a rat and estimates Britain's rat population in the process.
• A pygmy right whale, long thought extinct, was discovered when it washed ashore.
• Here is an awesome photo of Mount Everest.

Loose Feathers #371

Fledgling Horned Lark / Credit: WCS

Birds and birding

• Gateway National Recreation Area, which contains several prominent birding spots, is going to be slow to recover from Sandy. Many locations within Gateway are still closed and may remain so for some time. The West and East Ponds at Jamaica Bay were both breached, with the result that they have become saltwater rather than freshwater ponds.
• Since corvids often raid each other's food caches, Eurasian Jays keep quiet when they hide their food to avoid detection.
• The "funerals" held by Western Scrub Jays may serve as warnings to other scrub jays that a predator may be in the area.
• Here is a list of the ten most recent extinctions or extirpations from Canada. Two birds are on the list but survive (for now) within the United States.
• The Farm Bill working its way through Congress changes conservation provisions in ways that may hurt bird populations.
• Frigatebirds have returned to breed on Ascension Island now that feral cats have been removed.
• A rehabilitated Northern Saw-whet Owl was released this week in Central Park.
• The Guardian has a gallery of British urban winter birdlife.
• Raptor killings continue in England, this time a hen harrier that was part of a conservation project.

Nature and science blogging

• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Massive bug hunt reveals 25,000 arthropod species in a Manhattan-sized forest
• Bug Eric: Wasp Wednesday: Pseudomalus auratus
• The Smaller Majority: Mantidflies
• Ecobirder: Karner Blue Butterfly
• Outside My Window: Birds On Ice: Dovekie
• March of the Fossil Penguins: A Fine Fossil Flipper
• Anything Larus: More Intermediate Thayer's/Kumlien's and a 2nd Cycle Thayer's

Environment and biodiversity

• Seven states are suing the EPA for not regulating the greenhouse gas pollution produced by fracking.
• Montana has closed wolf hunts in the areas immediately north of Yellowstone National Park in response to the killing of multiple radio-collared wolves just outside the park's boundaries. One of the dead wolves, 832F, was well known to tourists as well as scientists.
• Florida is holding a python-hunting contest to help control the state's population of these invasive snakes.
• A geologist found the first fossil evidence for dire wolves in Nevada.
• Up to 4% of trees in the Western Amazon died off as a result of a mega-drought in 2010.
• A fossil lizard has been named Obamadon in honor of the president.

Loose Feathers #370

Rough-legged Hawk / US Forest Service

Birds and birding

• Banders are tracking the widely-distributed but elusive Northern Saw-whet Owl. This fall, 39 saw-whets are being equipped with radio transmitters to track their movements in greater detail.
• Early snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains is causing flowers to bloom before the birds and insects that depend on them arrive or emerge.
• Black Guillemots that breed on the northern coast of Alaska feed their young with cod they catch under sea ice. With the rapid retreat of sea ice, how they adapt to the new conditions may be an early indicator of how other species will fare.
• Great Bowerbirds use forced perspective to make their bowers seem more spacious.
• Fourteen young Whooping Cranes were released in Louisiana.
• One way to help birds is to do less raking and allow insects to flourish in the leaf litter.
• Sandy Hook, a popular birding spot in New Jersey, may remain closed through next summer due to damage from Hurricane Sandy. Among other things, the storm disrupted the sewage system and may have churned up unexploded ordnance.
• The UK's wild bird population fell by 1.9% in 2011, with the largest losses among the most specialized birds.
• House Sparrows sometimes line their nests with cigarette butts to discourage parasitic mites.

Nature blogging

• Not Exactly Rocket Science: The catfish that strands itself to kill pigeons
• Extinction Countdown: Survey of Critically Endangered Pygmy Sloths Finds Just 79 Animals Remain
• Round Robin: With Digitization Complete, Hear 7 of the Coolest Natural Sounds in Our Archive

Environment and biodiversity

• Despite strict pollution controls, London has had trouble ridding itself of ground-level ozone because the particulate filters they use disrupt the ozone cycle.
• Wildfires in the western United States are fueled in part by an invasive species called cheatgrass, which dries out faster than native grasses.
• A fungus that causes ash dieback is spreading rapidly though Britain after the British government failed to prevent its importation of infected timber. There are now 300 known infection sites.
• A new skipper species, Troyus turneri, was discovered in Jamaica.
• Atlanta may become the first major US city to run out of water. Its main reservoir is at a three-year low due to successive droughts.
• A modelling study shows that the use of chemical dispersants had little effect on how much oil reached the surface during BP's spill in the Gulf of Mexico. 
• Small patches of native plants can improve the pollination rate on large farms.
• Despite an early-November snowstorm, the Northeast had its second-driest November since 1895. The driest was in 1917.
• Hawk moths have two olfactory channels — one that looks for the preferred nectar sources and another that looks for acceptable secondary nectar sources.
• As the Earth warms, the Arctic is becoming greener with less ice cover.

Morgan Mudflats after Sandy

On October 29, Hurricane Sandy pushed a storm surge that reached at least 13 feet at Sandy Hook into Raritan Bay. When it reached South Amboy, it was still high enough to lift boats onto the North Jersey Coast Line tracks and wedge other boats into the Cheesequake Creek drawbridge. I was curious to see how Sandy had affected Morgan Mudflats, a local birding hotspot, when I arrived there yesterday. The damage was not as bad as I expected. There were trees down, a lot of vegetation washed away, and extra trash washed up on the beach. It will be interesting to see how the habitat recovers and how it affects birding at the site.

Yesterday there were not a lot of birds around. Brant are back, in large numbers. The highlight was a Bald Eagle that flew past and perched near the railroad tracks. A few other waterfowl were around: American Black Ducks, Bufflehead, Red-breasted Mergansers, and Hooded Mergansers.

The beach at Morgan Mudflats has always been a little grungy, but there was a lot of extra trash left after Sandy. Most of the wrack line was covered in plastic bottles, and there was larger trash like boards and plastic crates. A beach cleanup here probably is not a priority for South Amboy or Sayreville, but it may be worth doing since the beach is frequently used by birders, fishermen, and other people.

The other sort of damage was to vegetation. A prominent holly grove was substantially reduced when several trees fell. These trees were a favorite perching spot for egrets, night herons, and other birds. For example, these egrets were sitting in the grove.

I am not sure if this eastern red cedar had stood somewhere along the beach or if it originated somewhere else and floated in with the storm surge or a subsequent tide.

This wetland was not previously visible from the beach but is now thanks to vegetation being knocked down. I think the vegetation that blocked the view had been mostly Phragmites, so I imagine it will grow back fairly quickly.

This is the hill between the beach and the cul-de-sac. It had been a mixture of trees, shrubs, and other vegetation with a trail going through it, most of which has been swept aside. There also seems to be a fair amount of erosion along the railroad right-of-way.

The linens on this tree may or may not have been put there by Sandy.

The trail through the woods from the cul-de-sac is mostly intact, aside from a few fallen trees.

Gulls at the Edison Boat Basin

Yesterday morning I made a couple stops at Middlesex County locations. The first was Morgan Mudflats, which I will have more about in a subsequent post. The second was Edison Boat Basin. A lot of times I stop there when there are very few gulls around, but yesterday morning there were thousands. I suspect the activity on top of the Edgeboro Landfill had something to do with that. A work crew was moving trash around, which attracted thousands of gulls that swirled in the air above the landfill. Another thousand or so were sitting on the river or loafing on the boat ramp.

The best bird was a Glaucous Gull that flew past the boat basin and then joined some Herring Gulls circling over Kin-Buc (a closed landfill on the Edison side of the river). I would have preferred to see it on the ground at close range, but it was fun to watch a white-winged gull in flight. It looked impressively white — closer to an egret than a first-year Herring Gull on the waterbird scale of whiteness. (In fact, when I spotted a large white bird flying past, I raised my binoculars expecting to see an egret.) At first it looked all white, from wingtip to wingtip, but when it turned, I could see some grayish streaking on its back and wing coverts. There was no sign of any dark marking on its wingtips. It looked larger and bulkier than the Herring Gulls it joined.

Speaking of Herring Gulls, here is a second or third-year bird that perched on one of the boat ramp docks. Herring Gulls were the most numerous of the gulls that I could identify yesterday.

Ring-billed Gulls were also present at the boat ramp.

Loose Feathers #369

Chestnut-collared Longspur / WCS Photo

Birds and birding

• Birds in areas that are brightly lit by artificial lights are able to forage longer into the evening, which may be an advantage for overwintering birds. (Of course, artificial lights have well-known detriments for birds in the process of migrating.)
• A student at Berkeley replicated bird surveys that were done a century ago and turned up similar numbers of species.
• Injuries to swans' hips may be more common than thought and probably result from landing on hard surfaces.
• A dead carrier pigeon from World War I was found in a British chimney. It had a coded message attached to one leg, which has proven resistant to interpretation.
• A rat eradication program is continuing on South Georgia Island to rid the island of invasive rats that threaten the island's breeding birds.
• The American Bird Conservancy wants Congress to ban five species of constrictor snakes from importation. The release of constrictor snakes in Florida is having significant effects on its native wildlife.
• The Manumea still exists in Samoa but faces threats from habitat destruction and hunting.

Nature blogging

• Anything Larus: First Thayer's of the Fall and More LBBGs - 2012
• As Many Exceptions As Rules: As A Bird - It's No Turkey
• 10,000 Birds: Close Encounter With A Northern Saw-whet Owl

Environment and biodiversity

• Sea levels are rising 60% faster than the IPCC predicted. Along with temperature data, this suggests that climate change is likely to be worse than the consensus forecasts. Here are some interactive maps showing what portions of major metropolitan areas could flood under several sea level forecasts. Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice melted over an area larger than the continental United States in 2012 and set a record 20% lower than the previous record.
• A newly-approved natural gas pipeline will go through the New York portion of Gateway National Recreation Area, particularly Jacob Riis Park and Floyd Bennett Field.
• Recent studies suggest that the animals and especially plants of US urban areas are homogenizing, to the extent that there are now large differences between the fauna and flora of cities and the surrounding rural areas. (I am not sure why they chose to put a Blue Tit on the Empire State Building, though.)
• Eastern wolves (formely Canis lupus lycaon) are now considered a separate species from gray wolves.
• Also in wolf news, hunting caused the deaths of seven tagged research wolves from Yellowstone. The deaths of those wolves pose a significant setback for the research program.

Loose Feathers #368

Birds and birding

• New fossil footprints suggest that the giant extinct Diatryma was a herbivore rather than a carnivore. The footprints lacked any sign of the large talons that are typical of predatory birds.
• Several studies have shown that birds change their songs in response to the ambient noise in urban areas. In many cases, the birds adjust their pitch upward. A recent study found that Vermilion Flycatchers in urban areas sing longer songs than their rural counterparts.
• Among wild Orange-fronted Conures, each individual has their own contact call. Each bird responds more readily when other birds mimic their individual contact calls, so such mimicry can serve as a conversation starter.
• Emperor Penguins rest on sea ice during foraging trips at sea.
• Early bird ancestors most likely had trouble with powered flight, but their wings were useful for gliding from tree to tree.

Nature and science blogging

• Wild New Jersey: New Jersey Moths: Buck Hunting (Buck Moths That Is)
• Flickr Blog: Frost-touched leaves
• The Scicurious Brain: Nematode Lovin’: Nematocin
• 10,000 Birds: American Crows Mobbing A Great Horned Owl 
• Sibley Guides: Can you find the Cackling Goose? 
• Birding Is Fun!: Odd Black Skimmer Behavior

Environment and biodiversity

• Worldwide greenhouse gas emissions hit a record high in 2011.
• Anyone 27 or younger has never experienced a colder-than-average month.
• Here are some things that Obama can do about climate change even without Congress's cooperation.
• Marco Rubio indulges in some anti-science pandering on the subject of the age of the Earth. His pander is in line with recent conservative trends, which include installing climate change denialists on the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology.
• A USDA Wildlife Services employee posted a series of photos to Facebook depicting wildlife cruelty. The incident has led to renewed calls for reforming the federal agency.
• Conservationists have rebuilt the population of Snake River Sockeye to 2500 fish in 20 years through a captive breeding project.
• Norway wants to cull its wolf population further, even though it has at most a few dozen wolves.

How Soon Can Refuges Recover from Sandy?

Damage at Forsythe NWR / USFWS Photo

The Washington Post covers some of the damage that Sandy wrought at national wildlife refuges in the Mid-Atlantic region:

The wreckage at Forsythe and other Northeast coastal refuges was yet another testament to the destructive power of Sandy, the superstorm that ripped up the New Jersey shore and flooded Manhattan. And it drew attention to the costly plans being considered by the federal agency to protect wildlife refuges from the impact of climate change and sea-level rise.

Sandy’s winds rammed a dirt and gravel dike at Forsythe with seawater, causing it to burst. Bay salt water rushed into a shallow freshwater pond created for birds such as the American black duck and Atlantic brant. The usual foot of water in which the birds dip their heads got saltier, rose to five feet and washed out vegetation, so the birds could no longer reach underwater seeds or pick bugs from leaves.

Dozens of refuges between Maine and Virginia were pummeled. Four were damaged severely, including Forsythe, where about 130 boats in the Atlantic City area were blown into marshes, Kahan said.

At Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia, part of the public beach and two parking lots were washed away on Assateague Island. At Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware, a 1,500-foot breach in a dune sent salt water from the Delaware Bay into a freshwater pond where waterfowl eat, nest and give birth, and flooded homes on an island near the refuge. And at the Long Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex in New York, fallen trees blocked the entrance.

Sandy created sea surge powerful enough to reshape portions of the coasts of North Carolina, Delaware and Maryland, and Virginia’s portion of the Delmarva Peninsula, which includes Chincoteague, said the U.S. Geological Survey.

Thirty-five of the region’s 72 refuges were closed after the storm. Six million people per year — many from the District, Virginia and Maryland — visit the refuges, which cover 535,000 acres, and managers acted to protect visitors from “widow-makers,” damaged trees that crash down after storms, a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman said.

Forsythe still has not reopened. In addition to the busted dike and ruined pond, the wrecked boats appear to be leaking fuel, Kahan said.

White-throated Sparrows in Autumn

White-throated Sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis) breed in northern forests and migrate south to the eastern and southern United States during the fall. In New Jersey, they stay through the winter, often in large flocks. I usually hear White-throated Sparrows before I see them. They call constantly to each other and kick up leaves with their feet to uncover food. Even though they are so noisy, it can be hard to see them under shrubs and thick tangles of branches.

I took all of these photos in my backyard over the past few days. There have been at least six, maybe more, hanging around. The challenge with photographing them is to catch them when they hop onto an exposed perch where they might only sit for a few second before going back down into the fallen leaves.

Loose Feathers #367

Merlin / Photo by Bill Thompson (USFWS)

Birds and birding

• A census of Island Scrub Jays on Santa Cruz Island in California documented fewer of these endemic jays than expected. With only 2,500 individuals, this is one of the rarest bird species in the U.S.
• A survey estimated that 22 million birds die from window strikes in Canada each year. The number is likely higher than that in the United States, which is more densely populated. For more about human-caused bird mortality, see this fact sheet (pdf) from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. David Sibley puts the same numbers into graphical form.
• Thousands of Lesser Flamingos have arrived at Tanzania's Lake Natron for their breeding season, which may be the largest breeding event since 2007. The habitat around Lake Natron is currently threatened by low water levels due to drought and proposed industrial development.
• The NY Times took a look at how hurricanes affect birds.
• Whooping Cranes are returning to Aransas NWR in eastern Texas to spend the winter. Meanwhile, there are lingering legal issues left over from the deaths of 23 cranes last winter. Environmental groups want the state to create a water management plan for the Guadelupe River that will provide adequate water for the refuge.
• A project is photographically documenting all 39 species of birds-of-paradise in their natural habitats. There are a few videos of bird-of-paradise courtship dances embedded in the article, and you can watch more here.
• A recent study found that New Caledonian Crows are able to infer hidden causes. 
• The National Post has an article on Canada's quest to collect and retire all of its $1,000 bills, which are mostly in the hands of criminal enterprises. The main reason I am linking that article is that the Canadian $1,000 bill has a lovely image of Pine Grosbeaks on it.
• A bee-eater found in Scotland is very rare for that area. Bohemian Waxwings are also irrupting into the UK this winter. Also in the UK, a new wetland reserve opened in the Trent Valley.

Nature blogging

• Birding Dude: Virginia's Warbler in Queens New York 
• ABA Blog: #ABArare - Calliope Hummingbird - Delaware
• Outside My Window: A Lasting Impression 
• Audubon Guides: Photo Essay: Get Down Low 
• Laelaps: Eocene Big Bird Not so Scary, After All 
• The Digiscoper: Man fined for putting volleyball court on Kirtland's warbler habitat
• The Birdist: The First American Birder?
• Extinction Countdown: Controversial Toronto Zoo Penguins Not Gay after All?
• The Rattling Crow: Carrion crows dunk their toast
• PetaPixel: Bird Found Wearing Lost Digital Camera Around Its Neck with Photos Intact
• DCist: Rock Creek Deer Won't Be Shot, At Least Not Yet

Environment and biodiversity

• BP and the Department of Justice have reached a legal settlement on criminal charges arising from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010. BP will pay $4.5 billion in fines for negligent operation of the drilling rig, lying about the volume of oil gushing from the well, and killing migratory birds. In addition, some managers face charges for the crew member deaths, and BP is still liable for Clean Water Act violations and various other civil claims. 
• Speaking of oil spills, over 378,000 gallons of diesel fuel spilled into the Arthur Kill as a result of Hurricane Sandy, about a quarter of which has been contained. Nine oiled birds have been found so far.
• A study of computer models for climate change found that the models with the best track record so far predict more extreme warming than other models. That suggests that climate change may actually be worse than expected. LiveScience lists five ways that climate change is affecting the Arctic.
• Because of the lack of sea ice in recent Arctic summers, walruses are spending more time in coastal areas instead of out on the sea ice, their normal habitat.
• Bats are highly vulnerable to climate change, at every phase of their life cycles.
• This month the government of Ecuador is dropping 22 tons of poisoned bait on the Galápagos Islands to eradicate invasive rats. Hawks and iguanas that might be vulnerable to the poison have been relocated for the time being.
• More alternatives to incandescent light bulbs are becoming available.
• A recent study found that bonobos catch yawns from other members of their social circle. Contagious yawning is a behavior documented only among some social animals, including some birds. I yawned while reading that article.
• Hikers and hunters are changing wildlife along the Appalachian Trail. In particular, black bears and bobcats are negatively affected, while raccoons and red foxes have benefited.
• Wolf hunts have spread to the Midwest, and 196 wolves have been killed in the past month in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Loose Feathers #366

Western Grebe and chicks / Photo by Dan Nelson (USFWS)

Birds and birding

• The short and long-term effects of Hurricane Sandy on bird populations are still being tallied. Some rare birds showed up in Philadelphia on the morning after the storm passed. Jennifer Hanson has been tracking the Post-Sandy status of birding sites in New Jersey over at Today in NJ Birding History.
• Tanzania is still considering building a soda ash plant at Lake Natron, the world's most important breeding site for Lesser Flamingos. A recent report suggests that Tanzania would gain more economically from promoting ecotourism at the site than from soda ash.
• French scientists have found two previously unknown colonies of Emperor Penguins that together account for about 6,000 chicks near Mertz Glacier in Antarctica. 
• Wildlife officials in Oregon are concerned that cormorants nesting at the mouth of the Columbia River are eating too many of the endangered fish that spawn in the river. The linked article tries to compare how predation by cormorants compares to other threats to juvenile fish.
• A Goffin's Cockatoo in captivity has been recorded using tools to reach food, even though this species does not use tools in the wild.
• Analysis of Microraptor fossils suggests that it was a nimble flier.
• Birds can become intoxicated from eating fermented berries.
• Just as North America is undergoing a winter finch irruption, British birders are enjoying an impressive movement of woodland birds to backyard feeders.
• One rare bird that has appeared in the UK is a Little Bunting.
• City birds use different techniques to escape cats than their rural counterparts do to escape raptors. It is not clear if this is sufficient to neutralize losses to household and feral cat predation.

Nature blogging

• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Fairy wrens teach secret passwords to their unborn chicks to tell them apart from cuckoo impostors
• Outside My Window: Since 1600
• Birding Is Fun!: Audubon Birds App Update
• Sibley Guides: My trick to finding Rusty Blackbirds
• Extinction Countdown: Last 500 Ethiopian Wolves Endangered by Lack of Genetic Diversity

Environment and biodiversity

• President Obama's re-election this week means that his EPA will be able to proceed with regulations on greenhouse gas emissions if it chooses. However, what the administration will be able to accomplish on this front will be limited by Congressional opposition and the administration's embrace of an "all of the above" energy policy.
• Hurricane Sandy has entered the climate change conversation; whether it will spur significant action remains to be seen.
• One thing that may result from Sandy is the erection of barriers to protect New York Harbor from storm surges. There are various proposals floating around; one is to ring Manhattan and Brooklyn with artificial wetlands that would serve as parks most of the time but absorb some of the energy of storm surges that enter the harbor. Floodgates are another option.
• Monsoon failures may become more common in India thanks to climate change.
• Deforestation can be detected from space via a NASA satellite. Recent data shows extensive deforestation in South American and West Africa.
• A 2001-2002 drought in the Rocky Mountains made the mountain pine beetle infestation much worse.
• An extremely rare whale, the spade-toothed beaked whale, was found beached in New Zealand. It was the first time the species was recorded as a complete specimen, and it was only identified by DNA testing.

Brigantine after Sandy

It looks unlikely that birders will be driving around the wildlife drive at Brigantine in the near future.

Those cormorants are swimming through what used to by the road along the south dike. Other parts of the road are eroded as well.

It looks like the refuge will be closed indefinitely, but the status will be updated on the Forsythe NWR website.

Update: Some aerial views of the south dike:

All photos are courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Loose Feathers #365

A new avian family tree / Credit: University of Sheffield

Birds and birding

• What happens to birds in a hurricane? Some birds' habitat is destroyed or reshaped. Others try to hunker down in sheltered areas or get swept up in the storm's winds and carried to far-off locations. (via Nick) The ABA Blog reports on unusual bird sightings in Sandy's wake (part 1; part 2; part 3). Despite record flooding, the Wild Turkey at Battery Park survived the storm.
• Seabirds are among the most threatened birds. Conserving them requires a variety of strategies, from clearing islands of invasive predators to improving fishing techniques to make them less deadly to birds.
• A new study maps the evolutionary position of almost all of the world's 10,000 bird species based on their genetics.
• Much remains to be discovered about the critically endangered Northern Bald Ibis, and basic details of its life history have only recently come to light.
• Five British ornithologists met while being held in a German PoW camp during World War II and later went on to lead conservation efforts.

Nature blogging

• Extinction Countdown: 9 New Tree-Loving and Endangered Tarantula Species Discovered in Brazil
• Anything Larus: Primary Molt in an Adult Ring-billed
• The Birdist: Can you ID Selasphorus hummingbirds by call note?
• Net Results: Our online seed guide
• The Wilderness Alternative: Rediscovery of Sillem’s Mountain Finch
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: ‘Bird mimic’ dinosaur hints that wings evolved for show not flight
• Compound Eye: 13 Horrifying Ways To Die (Arthropod Edition)

Environment and biodiversity

• Hurricane Sandy dominated the news for the past week as it made its way from the Caribbean to Canada via New Jersey and killed dozens of people and set numerous weather records in the process. The obvious questions (from an environmental perspective) are how much climate change influenced the storm and whether a warmer climate will mean more storms like this in the future. Here is a roundup of articles on that subject. In light of climate change, does it make sense to rebuild the shore as it was, or should more allowance be made for rising sea levels? The storm stirred up all sorts of contaminants. 
• The last dam on the Elwha River is slowly draining as part of the Elwha restoration project. The goal is to restore the river to its natural, undammed state.
• Despite an active conservation program, axolotls have struggled to survive in the wild.

My Sandy Experience

Hurricane Sandy / Image credit: NASA GOES Project

Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey around 8 pm on October 29. Up until that point, things had been going as well as could be expected, with a lot of rain and wind, but not much damage. Around the time Sandy made landfall, trouble started with the electricity. First the lights started flickering, and then there were two or three momentary power drops — the lights would go off, my desk fan (to cool my laptop) would stop, and I'd lose my internet connection. Each time, the power was restored after about a minute. Then around 8:30 pm, the power went off for good. It was off until about 6 pm last night. A lot of nearby towns are still without power.

The good news is that I survived the storm with no injuries. So did my parents and sisters and everyone else I know that I've been able to contact so far. My house is still intact, and the water never got cut off. It also isn't 90°F, so life without electricity was a lot more bearable. I am so glad that the stove and hot water heater are both powered by natural gas and not electricity. There was surprisingly little flooding for a storm of this magnitude, at least in Central New Jersey. Low-lying areas were wet, and a few roads were flooded, but the main roads seemed to be open. The flooding was nothing like that during Irene and Floyd.

While there was little flooding, the wind was ferocious on October 29. It was the worst wind storm I can remember. Many trees and branches are down. I saw at least one car with a Silver Maple on top of it. Bradford Pears were massacred. One Gingko had its top ripped off and tossed on the ground beside it. Other trees took power lines with them, and some crashed through houses. Many trees in my birding patch were uprooted. The Norway Maples along the back fence of my yard lost a lot of limbs, including a big one that crushed the fence.

I feel very lucky because this could easily have been a lot worse, and there are still a lot of people that have no power or water or even homes in some cases.

I did a little bit of post-hurricane birding on Tuesday morning, once I had an idea of what the storm had caused. There was nothing rare at Donaldson Park, my one stop. The Chipping Sparrows I had seen on October 28 were still there, though reduced in number. There were hundreds of gulls, including 119 Laughing Gulls. These are almost certainly storm-blown birds since they rarely visit the site except during unusual weather patterns. I also saw a Peregrine Falcon and a Northern Harrier. The latter might be a storm-displaced bird, though it is hard to be certain. I have only seen one other harrier at the site as far as I can remember, and that was several years ago. The Peregrine, of course, is a local breeder.

Loose Feathers #364

Merlin / USFWS Photo

Birds and birding

• The leading bird in the effort to restore the European population of the Northern Bald Ibis was killed by a poacher in Italy. Last year, 15 of 37 migrating ibises were shot, and illegal hunting remains challenge for the project in the future.
• Despite some high-profile conservation successes, bird extinctions worldwide have increased over the past half-century. Habitat loss is the leading cause, along with invasive species.
• A possible fossil flamingo nest has been found in Spain.
• A new report from the American Bird Conservancy ranks the conservation status of all bird species and subspecies within the United States and dependent territories.
• Crows are capable of transmitting prion-caused diseases through their feces, even though they are not affected by the microbes. 
• Conservation groups are calling for changes to a wind farm in western Maryland to reduce bird and bat deaths.
• A poison used for prairie dog control could harm endangered Burrowing Owls.
• A new atlas identifies 3,000 sites worldwide that have conservation significance for seabirds. The purpose is to help governments and NGOs focus their conservation efforts.
• A new population of Royal Cinclodes was found in Peru; the finding is significant because there may only be 250 individuals of the species in the world.
• India is trying to stop the decline of its House Sparrow population, which is disappearing from cities.
• The vocal learning capability characteristic of songbirds and humans has now been found in mice as well.
• Here are some photos from a bird banding (a.k.a. ringing) operation at Spurn Point in the UK.
• This fabulous photo of Emperor Penguins won the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Nature blogging

• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Smarter than the average crow, or just equipped with a face for fishing?
• Anything Larus: Another Cinnamon Ring-billed
• 10,000 Birds: Migration is Dangerous
• BHL: Hispanic Heritage Month: What is a Cordillera?
• Laelaps: The Family That Nests Together, Rests Together
• Earbirding: What Gulls Say
• Outside My Window: Mile-A-Minute
• The Smaller Majority: Life-saving beetles
• Compound Eye: Thrifty Thursday: Preying, Praying, Whatever. It’s a Mantis.
• Bug Eric: Wasp Wednesday: The "Horse Guard"
• Tetrapod Zoology: Giant petrels, snow petrels, fulmars and kin (petrels part VI)
• Learn Outdoor Photography: Leucistic Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Big Sit at Morgan Mudflats

This is the annual Big Sit weekend, and yesterday I participated in the Big Sit at Morgan Mudflats in South Amboy, led by Rick Wright and sponsored by the Montclair Bird Club. Unlike big days, which can cover as large an area as a birder chooses, a big sit is a stationary count. Only species seen or heard from within a 17-foot circle may be counted towards the big sit total. Site selection and circle placement are the keys to a successful big sit; good sites should have a mix of habitat types visible from the count circle. At Morgan Mudflats, the habitats include bay, beach, saltmarsh, deciduous forest, and successional areas. Not all of these are easily visible from a count circle on the beach, but at the very least, they provide an opportunity for fly-by sightings.

Rick's count ran from 8 am to 3 pm. I was there along with Patrick and Anthony, my Middlesex Merlins teammates, for the morning portion of the count. Brant were back at the mudflats, and they were joined by several flocks of Green-winged Teal. Other waterfowl included seven Wood Ducks and a Black Scoter, the latter a new county bird for me. The raptor flight was highlighted by Bald Eagles — two while I was there and eight overall. Yellow-rumped Warblers and House Finches were constantly passing through the brush behind us. Occasionally they were joined by other species like Eastern Phoebe, American Pipits (which ran in and out of the Seaside Goldenrod), Savannah Sparrow, and Pine Siskins (which perched on the Phragmites heads to eat the seeds).

See Rick's full report at the Big Sit homepage.

Loose Feathers #363

White-tailed kite/ Photo by Brian Hansen (USFWS)

Birds and birding

• A wind tunnel study of Anna's Hummingbirds showed that flying backward is as efficient as flying forward for them. The hummingbirds were able to fly in reverse at up to 10 mph.
• The book Extinct Boids covers birds both real (but extinct) and imagined and was produced in response to an upcoming exhibit in London, "Ghosts of Gone Birds," which will benefit BirdLife International. Here is a gallery of images from the book.
• Lead poisoning from gun ammunition was the cause of death for up to 10% of dead waterbirds found in the UK between 1971 and 2010.
• Wildlife officials in Virginia are removing Bald Eagle nests from Norfolk Botanical Gardens to keep the eagles away from Norfolk's airport.
• A Common Cuckoo, a rare vagrant to the US, is being seen near Santa Cruz in California.
• Here is a profile of one of the scientists working on the Whimbrel banding project that has revealed much about their migration patterns.

Nature blogging

•  Audubon Guides: Did You Know? Bird Migration
• Laelaps: Fossil Untangles Horseshoe Crab Mystery
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Beauty in the right eye of the beholder – finch chooses better mates with its right eye
• 10,000 Birds: Why Are Red-breasted Nuthatches Irrupting?
• The Digiscoper: A Sparrow Study
• The ABA Blog: Negate the Noise
• Extinction Countdown: Dung from Critically Endangered Kakapo Parrots Could Save Endangered Plant 
• The Scorpion and the Frog: It Feels Good When You Sing a Song (In Fall)

Environment and biodiversity

• Climate change is getting harder to deny, but that does not stop opponents of action to reduce and mitigate it. Meanwhile, the American West is getting hotter and drier, which will mean more and larger fires. Lakes will likely have more algal blooms, depending on their fish and zooplankton populations. Despite this, climate change was almost entirely absent from Wednesday night's presidential debate on domestic policy, although green energy was mentioned.
• One of the major climate-related uncertainties is what will happen to the water supply on the Indian subcontinent, which depends on the glaciers and snowpack in the Himalayas.
• One upside of a dry summer is that autumn foliage may be more brilliant than usual, especially in the Northeast.
• A pocket of cloud forest in Peru may contain several mammal species that are new to science, as well as other rare species.
• The border wall along the US-Mexican border is changing the movement patterns of many mammals that formerly could cross between the two countries. The changes are due both to the presence of the wall itself and the cleared areas and patrols around it.
• While experimenting with control methods for boll weevils, scientists found a pheromone that attracts milkweed stem weevils. The scientists think the unexpected result may help with conservation of rare milkweeds and Monarch butterflies.
• Conservation of the ajolote, a type of Mexican salamander, may depend on cleaning up the waterways it depends on, which are fouled by fertilizers and other contaminants from farming.

Blog Comments Note

I have been using Haloscan, which morphed into Echo and JS-Kit, for my blog's commenting system almost as long as this blog has existed. In 2005, Haloscan offered a better user interface than Blogger's comments, both for commenters (who did not need to register for an account anywhere to comment) and for blog owners (who could easily moderate comments to filter out spam). That advantage eroded over the years, but the system remained good enough to leave in place. As of today, October 1, that system has been discontinued. I will try to switch to a replacement — most likely Blogger's (much improved) native comments or Disqus — as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you would like to comment on a post or say hello, you can contact me via Twitter (@dendroica) or email me at empidonax AT gmail DOT com.

Sparrows on the Move

Recent cold fronts have pushed more sparrows into the area. Song Sparrows, like the one above, are present year-round, but in the last couple weeks, I have been seeing a lot more of them than usual. Some of that is probably post-breeding dispersal (yesterday I saw one that looked very young!), but migrants are surely part of the influx.

Yesterday I also saw my first White-throated Sparrows of the fall. I thought I had heard some calling (with their soft chip notes) once or twice before, but I had not gotten a visual confirmation.

Birds Through My Window

Outside my bedroom window there is a line of crabapple trees, and close by, there is an eastern red cedar. Both tree species are fruiting heavily right now, and birds are taking advantage of the bounty. Yesterday afternoon I noticed a lot of bird activity in those trees, so I took some time to photograph birds through my window.

First off, this European Starling seemed especially fond of the cedar berries. When I have seen birds eating berries from that tree in the past, they have mostly been House Finches, so the starling's interest came as a bit of a surprise. This individual is interesting for another reason as well. It shows feathers from two different plumage stages, juvenile (the brown patches on its head) and formative or first basic (the white-spotted body feathers).

House Sparrows were part of the crowd. How often do you get to look down at birds sitting in a tree?

Northern Cardinals were also present, though they seemed more interested in the feeders behind the house than the crabapple fruits.

Last but not least, this American Redstart was a bit of a surprise. I have been seeing them around, in the yard and further afield. This was something of a lucky shot, too, as I only had time to take two photos before it moved on, and the first was affected by motion blur. Unlike most of the other birds, redstarts are primarily insectivores, so it would have been drawn by whatever insects were in the trees rather than the fruits.