Loose Feathers #403

Ferruginous Hawk / USFWS Photo

Birds and birding

• A recent survey found 205 pairs of Bald Eagles along the James River in Virginia, the most ever documented there.
• Veeries cease singing their typical evening song if they hear owls calling to avoid giving away their location and being eaten.
• An oil spill at the Port of Brisbane has left pelicans covered in oil.
• National Geographic suggests some groups to support that are working to end the killing of songbirds in the Mediterranean.
• RSPB Scotland is trying to improve the bird habitat in a northern bog.

Science and nature blogging

• The Loom: Archaeopteryx’s Evolutionary Humiliation Continues
• Extinction Countdown: Rare Naked Ladies Crocus Infected with Even Rarer Smutty Fungus
• WWF Blog: Conserving Life Along the Yangtze
• The Rattling Crow: Sunbathing Carrion Crow
• PetaPixel: Intense Macro Photos of Ants Battling to the Death
• Splendour Awaits: An Elegant Moth
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: These Microscopic Balls Protect Insects From Their Own Waste
• Adventures in Mothland: National Moth Week
• The Birdist: I Love the Maryland Biodiversity Project
• Wildlife Promise: 7 Moths that Make Butterflies Look Boring
• Audubon Guides: Misunderstood Moths
• Anything Larus: Variation in Juvenile Ring-billed Gulls (Part 1)
• Earbirding: Common and Hoary Redpolls
• All About Birds Blog: The Legacy of Ted Parker
• The Freiday Bird Blog: Cape May Meadows: On Shorebirds, Molt, and the Lack of a Scope

Environment and biodiversity

• Spanish scientists have written suggestions about how to make photographs of insects more scientifically useful. (See a gallery of uploaded photos here.) The first link is based on a paper published in Zookeys.
• Carson, California, is trying to force Shell Oil to clean up contamination in a housing tract left over from the company's oil operations there. 
• Thailand is trying to clean up an oil spill from a pipeline near a popular tourist beach.
• Trees that have already been weakened by drought are more likely to die in wildfires than healthy trees.
• Lodgepole pines in the west are increasingly threatened by outbreaks of mountain pine beetles.
• The Maryland Biodiversity Project aims to document as many organisms as possible within the state. (via The Birdist)
• Despite the threat of storms amplified by climate change, New Jersey is going ahead with plans to build more developments on coastal piers.
• For the fourth straight year, July was among the top 10 hottest in New Jersey.
• A canoeist found an unmapped waterfall in Canada when he and his canoe suddenly plunged over it.
• The return of wolves to Yellowstone has helped grizzly bears, which now have more berries to eat.
• A woman in northern New Jersey photographed a bobcat eating a rabbit in her yard.