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