Loose Feathers #456

Yellow-headed Blackbird / USFWS Photo

Birds and birding

• When the Russet-backed and Olive-backed subspecies of Swainson's Thrush hybridize, they may follow the route taken by one of their parents or take a more difficult intermediate route. 
• The US Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed Threatened status for the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo, with designated critical habitat covering 546,335 acres. The proposal in the Federal Register can be read here.
• A research team found a new population of endangered Grey-breasted Parakeets in Brazil.
• Ravens are the main users of artificial structures in sagebrush landscapes, to the detriment of sagebrush specialists.
• Little Penguin seem to forage in groups and possibly cooperate in finding prey. 
• In Africa, vultures are under threat from both poachers and farmers.
• Chimney Swifts are at home in urban areas, as long as they have chimneys for nesting.
• Focus groups of informed local residents may be a cost-effective means of doing biodiversity surveys.
• The US Fish and Wildlife Service is not allowing drone testing in Cape May until later in the fall because of the potential threat to migrating Piping Plovers and Red Knots.
• CNN has a gallery of excellent bird photos, mostly showing birds in flight.

Science and nature blogging

• All About Birds: Seven Ways of Looking at a Fairywren: Student Research in Australia
• Beetles In The Bush: A time of reckoning
• Laelaps: Planting the Cenozoic Garden
• Tetrapod Zoology: Blue tits: passerines seen from the peripheries (part II)
• 10,000 Birds: All about alcids: Extravagant divers of northern oceans
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Little Giant Whales Take 100 Gulps an Hour
• Charismatic Minifauna: The Secret Bataclysm: White Nose Syndrome and Extinction
• ABA Blog: Drought in California likely to Affect Migratory Birds
• Anything Larus: Great Black-backed Gulls: Cape May, New Jersey
• Nemesis Bird: Photo Essay: Iceland birds by Luke Musher
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Oriental Pied Hornbill Family

Environment and biodiversity

• Blue sharks use the North Atlantic as a nursery, and then males and females follow separate routes for most of the year.
• Ice discharge from Antarctica could raise sea levels as much as 37 centimeters this century.
• Ecologists are concerned about whether redwoods can withstand a warming climate.
• Basketball star Yao Ming has been actively campaigning to reduce the demand for ivory and shark fins.
• Here are nine things to know about poison ivy.
• The Hudson River School Trail includes vantage points that inspired many 19th-century paintings.
• Here are some ways that climate change might affect California.
• In case a drone crashing into Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring was not enough, here are some other ways that drones have affected visitors and wildlife in national parks.
• There are some positive signs for shark conservation after many years of decline.
• The Florida Leafwing and Bartram’s Scrub-Hairstreak, whose U.S. ranges are restricted to Florida, will be protected under the Endangered Species Act.