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| Ring-necked Pheasant / Photo by Mike Guyant (USFWS) |
- Exurban residences affect bird populatioms up to 200 meters away. Human-sensitive species such as Hermit Thrush were 26% less likely to live within 200 meters of a residence than in surrounding forest. Likewise, human-adapted species like Blue Jay were 36% more common around residences.
- The NY Times has a nice article on recent develops in owl research.
- The Center for Birds of Prey in South Carolina treats over 500 birds a year.
- Sand and gravel mining companies in Nebraska have partnered with the federal government to protect Piping Plovers and Least Terns around their mines.
- Two dozen guillemots have been released in England after being cleaned.
- When a bird is singing, some of its neurons are focused on the sound being produced while others are thinking about the next few sounds.
- Many White Storks have stopped migrating from Europe to Africa for the winter and now stay in Europe year-round.
- Six captive-bred Blue-throated Macaws will be released in Bolivia to bolster the endangered wild population.
- A new paper proposes that hummingbirds create two vortices rather than one with their wingstrokes.
- Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds.: Gull Worshippers: The Cult of Larophilia
- BirdWatching Field of View: 10 huge discoveries uncovered with small geolocators
- 10,000 Birds: Whooping Crane Ancestry
- The Smaller Majority: African Tuesday: Heelwalkers
- All Things Birds Blog: Departure Time for Many Wintering Waterfowl
- Extinction Countdown: Tragedy in New Zealand: Dozens of Critically Endangered Birds Dead, Cause Unknown
- New research highlights the agricultural importance of wild pollinators, which are in steep decline for a variety of reasons. Wild pollinators are twice as effective as honey bees at pollinating crops and are better at providing cross pollination. A second study estimates that half of the native bee species in the U.S. went extinct during the 20th century.
- Shell will not drill in the Arctic in 2013 due to continuing problems with its drill ships.
- While numerous politicians continue to deny the existence of climate change, the US Navy is forging ahead with plans to address climate change, from switching to renewable fuels to adapting to changed ocean conditions.
- Highlands, New Jersey, is considering a plan to raise its downtown to cope with storms and rising sea levels.
- Low-lying areas along the East Coast are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of subsidence, and climate change is already costing residents of those areas a lot of money.
- A study by Oceana found widespread mislabeling of seafood, with over one third of the fish sampled bearing the wrong label. Most fish labeled "white tuna" are actually escolar, a fish that can cause uncontrolled diarrhea.
- Earlier this week a sensationalized photo of a sea lamprey caught in New Jersey made the rounds. Less well publicized was the news that the sea lamprey genome has been sequenced.
- In Puerto Rice, the coquí, a tiny tree frog, is becoming emblematic of the need to address climate change. Coquí species are threatened by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, whose spread is aided by climate change, and three coquí species have already gone extinct.
