Posts
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| Spotted Sandpiper / Credit: Amanda Boyd/USFWS |
- The boreal forest in North America provides necessary breeding habitat for over 300 species of birds, but remains under threat from industrial development. A new report proposes preserving half of the boreal forest to keep bird populations from crashing.
- This week was bird week at the New York Times. Here were a few particularly interesting articles: Why Do You Watch Birds? (on watching birds from the Empire State Building); In Prospect Park, Dog Owners and Bird Watchers Fight for Space; and Complaints About Pigeons, Mapped.
- A tree-cutting crew in Oakland started tearing limbs off a tree and feeding them into a wood chipper because the Black-crowned Night Herons nesting in the trees were defecating on mail trucks. Fortunately neighbors intervened to stop the destruction and at least some chicks were rescued. The workers claimed not to know the nests were in the tree, but that seems implausible.
- Using eBird data, scientists found that more species of small birds than thought use different routes in fall and spring to take advantage of prevailing winds for migration.
- Scientists are still trying to estimate how many birds died as a result of BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster. A new study that takes currents and likelihood of detection into account puts the number at 800,000.
- Woodpeckers have shock-absorbing layers within their beaks.
- Here is an explanation for how birds survive rough weather.
- Fledglings are especially vulnerable to environmental dangers.
- Here is an account of the courtship performances of Common Snipe.
- Not Exactly Rocket Science: Man-Made Electromagnetic Noise Disrupts a Bird’s Compass
- Anything Larus: 2nd Cycle Type Ring-billed Paired with Adult Female
- ABA Blog: On Spring and the Warbler Obsession
- The City Birder: In Search of Chuck (will's-widow)
- The Birdist: Grading Bird-themed Minor League Baseball Teams
- Extinction Countdown: Solar-Powered Transmitters Reveal Secrets of Endangered ‘Little Devil’ Seabirds
- A federal climate report finds that the U.S. is already being affected by climate change.
- When dams are no longer used for hydroelectric generation or other tasks, they ought to be torn down to mitigate their environmental harm.
- Emerald Ash Borers were probably in North America about 10 years before they were detected.
- A research team at Jockey Hollow in Morristown is monitoring bee colonies to determine if the relationship between bees and the plants they pollinate might be disrupted by climate change.
- Newly invasive vines (black swallow-wort & pale swallow-wort) are spreading in New York's natural areas, especially in areas with limestone bedrock.
