My Best Photos of 2013

I have not been uploading my own photos on this blog as much as I used to, but I am still photographing birds, insects, plants, and other things. The best place to follow my photos are my Flickr account and my Twitter account. (I usually tweet links to my Flickr photos.) Here is a selection of my best photo from each month of 2013.

1. Snowflakes on broomsedge, 2. Ring-billed Gull, 3. Snowy pines, 4. Spring Beauty, 5. Pink Lady's Slipper, 6. Periodical Cicada, 7. Isabella Tiger Moth, 8. American toad, 9. Merlin, 10. Yellow-collared Scape Moth, 11. Turkey Vulture in flight, 12. Fish Crow

Loose Feathers #424

Razorbill photographed by Bill Thompson/USFWS

Birds and birding

• More and more land is being taken out of the Conservation Reserve Program in the U.S. due to budget cuts and high grain prices, with bad results for birds and insects.
• A mystery illness is killing Bald Eagles in Utah. Samples are being analyzed for toxins and pathogens, but no cause is known so far.
• Prior to the breeding season, Bridled Terns eat a diverse diet, but once the eggs are laid, they restrict their foraging to waters close to their breeding colony and eat mainly crustaceans and black-spotted goatfish.
• At Cape Denison in Antarctica, the arrival of an iceberg has made it more difficult for the breeding Adélie Penguins to forage.

Science and nature blogging

• Backyard and Beyond: Xmas with the Owls
• Outside My Window: I Am Not Starving
• Cicada Mania: Photos of Cicadas from Australia
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Sex and the Birds: 10. Dunnock’s mixed bag of breeding systems
• ABA Blog: The 2013 Snowy Owl Invasion: It’s getting crazier by the minute
• 10,000 Birds: It Ain’t Over ’til the Fat Thrush Sings
• LepScience: Grasshoppers of Florida
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Bird Cheaters Target Teams, But Teamwork Beats Cheats

Environment and biodiversity

• A key problem with reducing greenhouse gases is how to assign responsibility for emissions attributable to consumerism, particularly when goods are traded across international borders.
• Venezuelan scientists are trying to save the Orinoco crocodile; this reptile's population plunged over the course of the 20th century.
• Restoring grassland habitat and increasing milkweed availability will be key to rebuilding the Monarch population.
• Most of the dolphin deaths on the east coast this year are attributable to morbillivirus, but two dolphin die-offs in the Gulf of Mexico may be related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, in addition to other environmental factors.
• The New York Times has a video of ants that can flow like a liquid or float as a mass on top of water.
• The hemlock wooly adelgid has now been discovered in a third Pennsylvania forest.
• The Franciscan manzanita recently received its critical habitat designation.
• The Delaware & Raritan Canal Commission rejected the DEP's plan to clearcut trees on Bull's Island in New Jersey.

Loose Feathers #423

Northern Harrier / Photo credit: Doug Racine/USFWS

Birds and birding

• Snowy Owls have migrated into the northeastern U.S. in large numbers this fall. You can use this eBird tool to get a sense of the scale of the irruption.
• Bird deaths at Ivanpah were down to 11 from 52 in October. Two of the birds from November had signs of scorching, an injury likely caused by the method Ivanpah uses to generate solar energy.
• Cooperative breeders are better at repelling brood parasites like cuckoos, but their cooperative breeding systems also make them better parents for the chicks of brood parasites.
• Fossil evidence suggests that the kiwi evolved in Australia and that its closest living relative is the emu.
• Acrobatic displays like those of Golden-collared Manakins do not use as much energy as one might expect.
• Woodpeckers may be able to slow the spread of the emerald ash borer.
• An Emperor Penguin colony found in 2012 may have as many as 15,000 penguins.
• New estimates suggest that the Giant Moa weighed about 14% less than generally thought.
• Researchers measured the population densities for four species of hornbills in northeastern India.
• The Bar-tailed Godwit should be able to adapt its migration timing to climate change.

Science and nature blogging

• WolfeNotes: D&R Canal Commission Rejects DEP Bull’s Islands Tree Cut Plan
• LepScience: The Smallest Butterflies Are Some of The Toughest! Dainty Sulphur (Nathalis iole)
• Tetrapod Zoology: A new living species of large mammal: hello, Tapirus kabomani!
• Myrmecos: How to identify the bullet ant, Paraponera clavata
• Flickr Blog: Bee portraits like you’ve never seen before
• Hidden New Jersey: Deck the Hook with boughs of holly
• Bug Eric: Eastern Cicada Killer
• Outside My Window: Success Through Nepotism
• All About Birds: How to Plan a Birding Day Trip With eBird Hotspot Explorer

Environment and biodiversity

• Europe will ban some types of deep-sea trawling, but not all of it.
• This November was the hottest November on record since 1880.
• Climate change is likely to be a major problem for the desert tortoise.
• A judge approved a settlement that will help fund cleanup of the lower Passaic River.

Loose Feathers #422

Northern Gannet / Credit: USFWS

Birds and birding

• This week the NY Daily News reported that the Port Authority was shooting Snowy Owls at NYC-area airports (particularly JFK airport). This caused a furor, an online petition was started, and by the end of the day, the agency announced that it would work with New York to capture and relocate Snowy Owls at JFK and La Guardia. The Port Authority also announced that it already had permission to relocate owls trapped at Newark airport in New Jersey. Boston's Logan airport has long employed wildlife specialists to relocate Snowy Owls rather than killing them, with the help of Massachusetts Audubon.
• The Center for Biological Diversity argues that the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo should be listed as endangered rather than threatened.
• A new regulation regarding wind energy development weakens existing protections for Bald and Golden Eagles.
• One problem with Amazon's drone delivery proposal is that the drones are likely to be attacked by raptors and other birds.
• A study found that Little Penguins can switch from their primary prey to alternate food sources, but their reproductive success falls if those alternate sources are not available.
• If a cuckoo fledges from a magpie nest as part of a mixed brood, the magpie parents are likely to stop feeding the baby cuckoo and focus on their own magpie fledglings.
• Eurasian Tree Sparrows can recognize eggs that are placed in their nest by other birds, but they do not always reject them.
• Chalk-browed Mockingbirds will attack Shiny Cowbirds that attempt to lay eggs in their nests. This does not stop the cowbirds from laying eggs, but it does stop them from destroying the mockingbirds' eggs.

Science and nature blogging

• The Birdist: Lapland Longspurs at the Washington Monument
• Bruce Mactavish: 300 Snowy Owls in Newfoundland Weekend - An Explanation
• ABA Blog: THE TOP 10: Most Awesome Bird Names in the World
• Myrmecos: Crazy ants, the New York Times, and the failure of Americans to support basic research
• 10,000 Birds: The North Wind Doth Blow
• Birding Dude: Ugh...Gulls!
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Sex and the Birds: 8. Splendid Fairy-wren, monogamous and promiscuous
• Anything Larus: Ross's Gull: Lake Red Rock
• Hidden New Jersey: The Red-headed Woodpecker goes industrial

Environment and biodiversity

• A Maine seafood company was caught overharvesting sea scallops off the coast of New Jersey.
• River otters are becoming common again in New Jersey but are still hard to spot.
• An extremely rare shrub in California will retain its endangered species protections despite a petition to remove its listing.
• Dolphin deaths have tapered off in New Jersey, but only because the dolphins (along with the deadly morbillivirus) have migrated south.
• The gray wolf known as OR-7 made a brief return to California.
• An employee of USDA Wildlife Services shot a Mexican wolf, a animal protected under the Endangered Species Act.
• At least 22 pilot whales died when they became stranded off the coast of the Florida Everglades last week. The fate of the rest of the pod is unclear.
• NJ Audubon is handing the Weis Ecology Center over to the state DEP. Under the current plan, it is likely that most of the buildings will be removed.
• Photographer Daniel Beltrá documented the Deepwater Horizon oil spill from the air.
• An Asian cockroach species that can tolerate cold and snow was discovered living in Manhattan, the first documented of this species in the United States. While it is currently unknown how the species came to be there, it is likely that it came in on one of the nonnative ornamental plantings for the High Line.
• Grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone may lose their endangered species protections.

Loose Feathers #421

Black Duck (by Scott Nielsen/USFWS)

Birds and birding

• As most North American birders know by now, there is a major flight of Snowy Owls to the East Coast this winter. One of the more impressive results, in addition to the 138 Snowy Owls found in Newfoundland, is that Snowy Owls have even made it to Bermuda. Multiple Snowy Owls have been seen at Sandy Hook.
• The outbreak of conjunctivitis among House Finches provided new data on how a disease becomes an epidemic.
• The real "game changers" in the world of birding field guides are not to be found among printed guides but in mobile field guide apps.
• Hummingbirds can switch easily from burning glucose to burning fructose to make their metabolism as efficient as possible.
• Peahens focus their attention on the lower parts of a peacock's display train.
• The expansion of a reserve in Ecuador will protect the rare El Oro Parakeet and other birds.
• The fleshy red badge on the head of the Pūkeko (the New Zealand subspecies of Purple Swamphen) advertises its fitness, particularly its physical dominance.
• Hummingbirds can survive in the low-oxygen conditions at high altitude because their hemoglobins have high oxygen-binding properties.
• A sea eagle in Australia picked up a motion-sensitive camera and flew off with it while the camera kept filming.
• A team of scientists is attempting to reintroduce the critically endangered Northern  Bald Ibis to Europe.
• It is hard to establish exactly why the Orange-bellied Parrot is so rare.

Science and nature blogging

• 10,000 Birds: Do Snowy Owls really belong in genus Bubo?
• Outside My Window: The Battle Is On
• Nemesis Bird: Things That Look Like Snowy Owls
• View from the Cape: Snowy Owls in the Cape May area 
• Birding Dude: Enjoy Those Snowy Owls But Don't Forget Birding Ethics
• Kymry: Fork-tailed Flycatcher in Hadlyme, Connecticut
• Beetles In The Bush: Party on a pin oak
• Jessecology: Please stop with the Lyme tick nurseries
• Anything Larus: 1st, 2nd and 3rd Cycle Thayer's: Last Day of November
• The Freiday Bird Blog: Tundra Swan: Too Cool Not to Share!
• Earbirding: The Seven Basic Tone Qualities 
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Little Egrets in combat 
• The Rattling Crow: Blackbird alarm calls 

Environment and biodiversity

• US border policy is a human and environmental disaster.
• The New Jersey Pinelands are threatened by an invasion of southern pine beetles. Thanks to warmer winters, the beetles are now able to survive farther north than they previously could.
• A bill proposed in the Senate would gut the Endangered Species Act more radically than even some proposals during the Bush administration. Luckily it is unlikely to go anywhere in this Congress, but it may become a constant threat in the future.
• A new report argues that the recent IPCC report underestimates future sea level rise from climate change.
• The Obama administration gave approval to a pipeline that would carry light oil from Illinois to Alberta for mixing with tar sands crude.
• Dozens of pilot whales beached this week in Florida's Everglades National Park.
• New fossils suggest that Hymenoptera (wasps, bees, and ants) evolved from ancestors similar to Megaloptera (dobsonflies) and Raphidioptera (snakeflies).
• Witch hazel is one of the few shrubs that blooms in the fall.
• Here is a gallery of some of the many forms of camouflage insects use.
• Geologists believe that there are freshwater aquifers buried deep under the seabed of continental shelves, one of the largest reserves being off the Atlantic coast of North America.