Loose Feathers #396

Pine Siskin / Photo by Mark Stewart (USFWS)

Birds and birding

• The Dorset Wildlife Trust is trying to make birders and bird photographers aware that using recorded bird songs to lure birds may harm birds during the breeding season.
• Gill nets used by the fishing industry kill at least 400,000 seabirds every year, with another 160,000 being killed by longline fishing. Seabirds like gannets and petrels get caught in the nets and drown.
• Up to half of all birds species are threatened by climate change according to analysis by the IUCN. The study was published in PLoS ONE.
• Scientists have discovered 15 new species of birds in the Brazilian Amazon.
• Conservationists are reintroducing the Scarlet Macaw to parts of southern Mexico where it has been extinct for 70 years.
• Rat poison used at marijuana farms is killing not just Northern Spotted Owls, but also rare Pacific Fishers.
• Magellanic Penguins worldwide eat up to 2 million tons of seafood per year.
• The Syrian population of Northern Bald Ibises may be down to a single bird.
• A new smartphone app is designed to spread awareness of potential threats to birds from development.
• Archaeopteryx may have had dark and light patterned feathers, including light colored flight feathers that were dark at the tips.

Science and nature blogging

• Not Exactly Rocket Science: On the Origin of Really Shiny Species
• The Smaller Majority: Only in America
• Arthropod Ecology: Update: spiders STILL don’t bite
• Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds: Americanish Oystercatchers: Hybrids vs. Frazari
• Bug Girl's Blog: The Mad Hatterpillar
• The Prairie Ecologist: Difficult Decisions – Growing Season Fires and Other Prairie Management Choices
• The Hidden Desert: How Did the Joshua Tree Get its Name?
• Tetrapod Zoology: My local magpie family: four weeks of observation, 265 photos, and how good are the results?

Environment and biodiversity

• A toxic waste spill in northern Alberta is killing plants and destroying boreal forest habitat.
• This is on top of the other ways in which energy development threatens the boreal forest, such as the Mackenzie River watershed. 
• In South America, the Trans-Ecuador pipeline spilled 11,000 barrels of oil into the Coca and Napo Rivers, and the oil is drifting downstream towards Yasuni National Park, one of the world's most biodiverse regions.
• The US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to remove endangered species protection for all Gray Wolves in the Lower 48 (except for the Mexican Gray Wolf).
• An unknown wolf pack was recorded on a camera trap in Banff National Park.
• The Obama administration has repeatedly delayed environmental regulations even as it vows to take the initiative on climate change.
• Global carbon emissions hit a record high in 2012 thanks to growing industrialization in Asia.
• In Great Britain, more than a third of honey bee hives did not survive the winter.
• However, the same island had some positive pollinator news, with the continuing reintroduction of short-haired bumble bees.