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.