Posts
 |
| Trumpeter Swans on Seedskadee NWR / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS |
- Vultures perform critical services in processing carcasses, but many vulture species are threatened or endangered.
- A paper arguing against listing the Coastal California Gnatcatcher is undermined by numerous conflicts-of-interest.
- Vultures contort their wings to make the greatest use of thermals and updrafts.
- Japan is protecting four wetland sites for endangered birds such as the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.
- Project SNOWstorm relies on data collected decades ago by bird banders.
- Colombia has begun a reintroduction program for Andean Condors.
- The population of the Southern Giant Petrel has declined in the past two decades.
- Protecting the birds of South America's Atlantic forest requires protecting both mature and secondary forests as well as corridors between them.
- Birds use mistletoe as food and as a place to nest.
- Here are five photos of Harlequin Ducks.
- The new Star Wars movie has birds in it.
- Extinction Countdown: Resplendent Quetzal, Sacred Bird of Maya and Aztecs, Faces Extinction Risk
- Bird Ecology Study Group: Juvenile Ferruginous Flycatcher Casting A Pellet
- Mark Avery: Wicken Fen harriers
- Greg Gard: Marbled Godwit - San Diego, CA
- The City Birder: Brooklyn Christmas Bird Count Overview
- biotope: Wallcreeper action at Chateau des Baux
- deSciphered: Climate change increases polar bear predation on bird nests
- Fotoportmann: Painted Bunting: Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY
- Charismatic Minifauna: Reindeer Bot Flies Are Not Particularly Festive
- The eastern half of the U.S. is unusually warm this week largely due to El Niño, though climate change may amplify its effect.
- The US Fish and Wildlife Service is evaluating the Blue Calamintha Bee and the Rusty-patched Bumblebee for protection under the Endangered Species Act. Hopefully they can avoid the fate of the Franklin's Bumblebee, which became extinct during the five years (and counting) it took to process its petition for listing.
- Many bee species are declining as land is converted for biofuel production.
- New Jersey finished its controversial annual bear hunt last week; missing from that article and most other bear hunt coverage is input from ecologists without obvious conflicts-of-interest (all quotes come from political appointees, hunters, or animal rights activists).
- Hundreds of Joshua trees were cut down to build a solar farm.
- A photo of a wolf pack that circulated on social media this week is accompanied by a description with incorrect claims about wolf pack dynamics.
- A solar power tower in the Atacama raises the potential for solar power generation in Chile but has financial problems.
- The US Congress easily passed a ban on microbeads (unusual for an environmental issue).
- Nineteenth-century landscape architects saw nature parks as a way to build a sense of community.
- Americans are more willing to support offshore drilling in other places than off their own coasts.
