Loose Feathers #509

Osprey hovering / Photo by Ron Holmes/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Adapting to an aquatic lifestyle required changes in penguin brains, especially for processing sensory information.
• Conservation of endangered African Penguins has been hampered by disagreement over whether current management practices are working.
• A hydroelectric project in India could destroy important wintering habitat for the Black-necked Crane.
• Researchers continue trying to find a way for Golden Eagles and wind turbines to coexist. 
• Tropical birds raise fewer young, but their young are more likely to survive. 
• 25 million birds per year are killed around the Mediterranean despite laws against the killings. 108,000 birds are killed per year on Malta alone.
• New Caledonian Crows show limited evidence of social learning.
• The decline of Old World Vultures has led to other ecological problems, such as a rabies outbreak in India.
• Ospreys are characteristic birds of summer, especially in coastal areas.
• Male bluebirds alter songs to be louder and lower-pitched so they can be heard over increased background noise.

Science and nature blogging

• Moroccan Birds: Peculiar predation behaviour: Eleonora's Falcons keep their prey alive 
• Extinction Countdown: $1 Million More a Year Could Save Kiwi Birds from Extinction 
• The Prairie Ecologist: Saving Pollinators One Thistle at a Time 
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey: Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
• March of the Fossil Penguins: Ancient Penguin Brains from Antarctica
• Skeptical Science: You can’t rush the oceans (why CO2 emission rates matter)
• STOKES BIRDING BLOG: Common Nighthawk Migration Happening Now - Tips for Seeing Them!  
• Gouldiae's Blog: In Support of Urban Trees
• The Freiday Bird Blog: Fri-D: Drilling Down to an I.D.

Environment and biodiversity

• Ash trees in the Emerald Ash Borer's native range produce compounds that discourage the beetles from attacking healthy trees.
• Melting of sea ice in the Arctic has forced thousands of walruses ashore near Alaska in an unusual mass stranding event.
• In addition, there have been a series of unexplained whale deaths in the Gulf of Alaska.
• Damage from Hurricane Katrina lingers in the marshes around New Orleans ten years later. 
• California may have the worst drought, but other western states have drought trouble too.
• Urban areas have an average summer temperature 1.9°C higher than surrounding the rural areas; areas with less than 35% impervious surfaces had less severe warming effects.

Loose Feathers #508

Roseate Tern / Photo by Kirk Rogers/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Studies using a spectrophotometer have shown that bird plumages include subtle gradations of color and ultraviolet that are invisible to the human eye. Among other findings, 92% of birds that appear to have the same plumage for both sexes are actually dimorphic, and Yellow-breasted Chats have a mix of yellow and ultraviolet on their breasts.
• A study found that hummingbirds drink nectar by pumping with their tongues rather than by capillary action.
• A tracking study of Shags found that females had a harder time than males foraging in windy conditions.
• The National Zoo has tagged three more adult Black-crowned Night-Herons with satellite transmitters as part of its ongoing migration study.
• An endangered Philippine Eagle that had been rescued was shot dead two months after release. 
• Aroclor 1268, a toxic chemical, has been discovered in Least Terns outside of a Superfund site in Georgia.
• The Farne Islands are celebrating their 90% anniversary as a sanctuary for seabirds.
• Here are ten bird species that have survived thanks to zoos.
• The USFWS is asking for volunteers to identify whether photographs have seabirds in them.

Science and nature blogging

• The City Birder: An Old Shorebird in Brooklyn 
• Anything Larus: Crème de la Crème - My Favorite 20 Gulls
• Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort: Update on 2015 Rescued Captive-Reared & Released
• The Prairie Ecologist: Killer Thistles
• Greg Gard: Bathing Plover - New Jersey  
• The Freiday Bird Blog: Fri-D: Thoughts on Silent Empids

 Environment and biodiversity

• Hillary Clinton has come out against oil drilling in the Arctic.
• Trail cameras recorded wolf pups in northern California. Prior to wolf OR7's visit to the state in 2011, no wolf had been recorded in California since 1924.
• Some scientists may have found a way to immunize bats against white-nose syndrome.
• A worldwide survey of non-native plants found that there are 13,168 species that are not native to places where they currently grow and that North America has the highest number of non-native species.
• Activists call for increasing the share of wind and solar power in New Jersey's next Energy Master Plan. 
• Progress has been slow on improving management of the newly-created San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.
• So many coastal towns have been building sea walls that now 14% of the U.S. coastline is covered in concrete.

Loose Feathers #507

Arctic Tern / Photo by Kirk Rogers/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A federal judge ruled that the USFWS was wrong to issue 30-year take permits to wind energy companies without conducting an environmental assessment and against the advice of its own scientists.
• A conservation project has boosted the breeding success of endangered Spoon-billed Sandpipers in Russia.
• An endangered Night Parrot was captured and tagged with a tracking device.
• A drone in Australia recorded a Wedge-tailed Eagle attacking and knocking it to the ground.
• Meanwhile other Australian birds are starting to disappear.
• Wildlife rescue provides a tangible means of helping wildlife, even if it does not address larger problems, as in the case of Common Swifts.
• Genetic analysis supports elevating the Cape Parrot to full species status.
• Songbirds change altitude during nighttime migratory flights.
• Golden Eagles in eastern North America have a leapfrog migration, with northernmost eagles wintering farthest south. 
• For Snowy Plovers, gravel provides better camouflage than sand at nesting sites. 
• An alternative to lethal control of Canada Geese is to play their alarm calls.
• As grouse hunting season began in the United Kingdom, another dead Hen Harrier was confirmed to have died from gunshot wounds.
• A phylogenetic study found that the Helmeted Woodpecker should be in genus Celeus rather than Dryocopus and that its resemblance to Dryocopus woodpeckers was likely a result of mimicry.
• Here are some fantastic photos of life in an urban Peregrine Falcon nest in Chicago.
• Boaters have taken over islands built for bird nesting in Maryland.

Science and nature blogging

• Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds.: The Human Birdwatcher Project Presents: The Democratization of Birding
• 10,000 Birds: The Andean Gull
• ABA Blog: How to Text Out a Bird
• The Birdist: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Patch
• Birding Dude: Shorebirding at Jamaica Bay 2015 -- A Season of Frustration 
• The Speckled Hatchback: Post #32 - A bit of Biology - What is a nictitating membrane?  
• Anything Larus: August Ross's Gull in Southern Quebec
• Backyard and Beyond: Gather Ye Terns While You May

Environment and biodiversity

• Whales are bouncing back from devastating losses due to the whaling industry.
• One reason for the intense fires in the Pacific Northwest is that lichen is among the fastest-burning organisms.
• Walruses in the Arctic may run out of sea ice again this year.
• Australia sets a goal of reducing emissions 26-28% from 2005 level by 2030. This falls short of what is needed to reduce the impacts of climate change.
• TransCanada expects the Obama administration to reject the Keystone XL pipeline.
• The EPA accidentally spilled 3 million gallons of contaminated water into the Animas River in Colorado when it was investigating some former mines. Here are 9 things to know about the spill.

Loose Feathers #506

Golden-cheeked Warbler / USFWS Photo

Birds and birding news

• EBird will update its taxonomy on Monday; mobile users need to submit any pending checklists before then. 
• Military and real estate interests want the Golden-cheeked Warbler's endangered species protections removed.
• Two new species of lice were discovered on Swainson's Warblers in Arkansas.
• California is urging campers to clean up after themselves to protect endangered Marbled Murrelets from nest predation by corvids.
• A northward shift in the Equatorial Undercurrent has helped the endangered Galápagos Penguin population.
• A photography contest of a rare Siberian Crane was cancelled in Taiwan because of fears the contest would disturb the crane. 
• Black Skimmers are among the stranger bird species.

Science and nature blogging

• World Shorebirds Day: Registration for the Global Shorebird Counting 2015 is open
• ABA Blog: Birding Aboard “SeaBC” Has Sailors Reporting Unusual Birds
• Arthropod Ecology: Curiosity, passion and science: On the natural history of an Arctic pseudoscorpion 
• 10,000 Birds: What’s in a Name: MacGillivray’s Warbler
• Birding New Jersey!: Reading Like a Positivist
• Alien Plantation: What is going on with invasive knapweed? OR How I spent my PhD 
• The City Birder: Shorebirding 101
• DeSmogBlog: Key Greenhouse Gas Study May Have "Systematically Understated" Methane Leaks, New Research Shows
• Mark Avery: A better year for Hen Harriers in England - not a good year 
• robertscribbler: Worst Flood in 200 Years — 1.2 Million People Displaced by Rising Waters in India

Environment and biodiversity

• The Obama administration unveiled its climate change plan this week, and it was stronger than expected. Here is how to measure whether it is successful.
• Climate change may be driving worrisome wildfire trends in the western U.S. 
• Geoengineering might be able to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but it is unlikely to solve the problem of ocean acidification.
• A study of scavenging found that almost 80 vertebrate species scavenge carcasses around the world.
• Idaho backed down from its plan to kill wolves in a federal wilderness area.
• Monarch butterflies may not be as badly off as it seems since counts in their wintering grounds in Mexico do not account for the entire population. Seven new articles look at alternate indicators of population trends.
• Invasive snakehead fish continue to spread in the Potomac watershed and have now been found upstream from Great Falls.
• The latest potential threat to North American salamanders is a fungus spread through the pet trade.
• Bumblebees prefer to collect pollen on windy days. 
• People should be allowed (even encouraged) to try alternatives to lawns.
• A bottlenose dolphin was spotted in South River, New Jersey, an inland freshwater waterway. Rescuers hoped to coax it back to Raritan Bay. 
• Connecticut is mapping its turtle populations with the help of citizen science. 
• New Jersey is home to 22 snake species.