Posts
 |
| Bald Eagle carrying prey / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS |
- The armed occupation at Malheur NWR continued for a second week, with escalations including tearing down a fence and rifling through (and mocking) the belongings of Malheur employees. The ABA explains why the issue is important for birders and suggests ways birders can help. Giving in to the occupiers' demands would have bad results for rare birds and other wildlife and lead to exclusion of most of the public from public lands. While Malheur had a reputation for working collaboratively with ranchers that used or bordered its property, the occupation is part of a trend of threats against federal employees through the west.
- The Bald Eagle population in New Jersey grew to 161 pairs in 2015, a small increase from 156 in 2014, and raised at least 200 chicks. See the full report here.
- In other eagle news, a development in Bergen County will set aside land as a conservation easement to avoid disturbing a Bald Eagle nest.
- A writer argues for the Black-crowned Night-Heron as the animal most symbolic of Chicago.
- Emus and cassowaries from Australia would not fill the ecological niche left by extinct moas in New Zealand.
- Female birds may stop singing to prevent nest predation according to a study of Superb Fairywrens.
- The breeding population of Mediterranean Gulls at a site in northeast Spain is not made up of the same individuals that winter nearby.
- The Ivory Gull in Duluth shows a liking for fresh salmon provided by local birders.
- The centenary of the Migratory Bird Treaty represents progress for bird conservation, but birds still face threats from humans.
- Killing gulls is illegal under the Migratory Bird Treaty, as Dave Winfield once found out.
- An unusual mass stranding of seabirds is flooding Alaskan rescue centers with Common Murres.
- Immature Savannah Sparrows are more likely than adults to migrate in unfavorable weather conditions.
- Birding New Jersey!: Malheur and the Plumers
- The Rattling Crow: Ten cool Northern Fulmar facts
- Ask an Entomologist: What Is That Bug? Thank a Taxonomist!
- The Prairie Ecologist: Hubbard Fellowship Blog – LeConte’s Bonanza
- Outside My Window: What El Niño means for the Galápagos
- Bird Treatment and Learning Center: More Common Murres than we've ever seen
- Ohio Birds and Biodiversity: Downy woodpecker just keeps going and going
- Avian Images: Red-winged Blackbird
- Bird Canada: Finches, Owls and Ptarmigans - birding Alberta in Winter
- birdworthy: Entering the Bird Void
- The US began restricting the importation of salamanders to prevent the spread of a fungal disease through the pet trade.
- Old Bridge Waterfront Park along Raritan Bay in New Jersey was contaminated by lead slag left over from National Lead's Dutch Boy paints.
- The US issued rules to protect Northern Long-eared Bats that are threatened by white-nose syndrome, but the final version is weaker than the rules originally proposed.
- Here is some advice on how to photograph a plant if you want other people to identify it.
- New Jersey's DEP refuses to release the autopsy results of a dolphin that was stranded in South River on the grounds that it would violate its medical privacy.
- US wildlife officials rejected protections for the Alexander Archipelago Wolf and its habitat in Alaska.
