Loose Feathers #411

Varied Thrush / Photo by Roy W. Lowe (USFWS)

Birds and birding

• As the massive solar installation at Ivanpah starts to come online, more birds are getting killed around it. Some appear to have died from collisions, but others seem to have been burned by the intense solar flux created by the project's mirrors. This week Ivanpah synced to the grid for the first time.
• As Chaffinches colonized the Azores and Canary Islands, they lost the syntax that structures their songs on the European mainland.
• Cuckoo finches lay multiple eggs in the nests of their hosts to make it harder for their hosts (usually the African tawny-flanked prinia) to tell the eggs apart.
• A lot of eagle and videos turn out to be fakes, but this one of a Golden Eagle taking down a Sika Deer in Siberia seems to be the real thing.
• Wired has a gallery of birds-of-paradise courtship rituals.
• In Western Australia, Black Cockatoos are recolonizing replanted forests at former mining sites.
• Urban birds fare better in cold winters than rural birds since they are not as dependent on a single food source.
• Artificial light in urban areas causes Blackbirds to start their dawn song earlier in the morning.
• The British House Sparrow population seems to have stabilized since 2009.
• A judge dismissed the case against a New Jersey couple that was ticketed for feeding birds.
• Conservationists want to turn an airfield used by British bombers in World War II into a wildlife refuge.

Science and nature blogging

• South Jersey Butterfly B/Log: Kevin Karlson you need not be: the value of blurry photos
• Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens: Where are the Monarchs (in 2013) ?
• The Scicurious Brain: IgNobels 2013! The dung beetle and the stars
• Extinction Countdown: Banned Pesticide DDT Is Still Killing California Condors
• Outside My Window: Sleepy Oranges
• Laelaps: Fossil Crabs, Reefs Hint at the Future of Earth’s Sea 
• Flickr Blog: Mantis popularity 
• The Loom: Genetically Engineering the Wild

Environment and biodiversity

• Research at a reservoir site in Thailand showed that mammal diversity decreases rapidly after a forest is fragmented.
• As dolphins migrate south past the US Atlantic coast, the numbers of dead dolphins are likely to rise.
• Asiatic bittersweet looks pretty in autumn, but it is a noxious invasive.
• A rare Gray Comma butterfly was found in a preserve in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.
• The FAO estimates that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock could be reduced by 30% without major changes. The main sources of greenhouse gases associated with livestock are: "feed production and processing (45% of the total), outputs of greenhouse gases during digestion by cows (39%), and manure decomposition (10%)."
• The Nez Perce are fighting to prevent equipment bound for tar sands mining operations in Alberta from passing through their reservation.
• Some climate change deniers have been pushing the idea of a "global warming pause." This is based on cherry-picked data and misses the bigger picture.