Loose Feathers #543

Sharp-tailed Grouse / Photo by Rick Bohn (USFWS)

Birds and birding news

• Genetic research shows that the Sapayoa, a suboscine passerine from Neotropical rainforests, has its closest relatives in Africa and Asia.
• An Irish birder argues that bird records committees should not be in the business of deleting old records without good reason. 
• Penguins do not have the densest contour feathers among birds, but they do have incredibly dense plumules, which provide insulation under the contour feathers. 
• Migratory shorebirds that use beaches need some protection from dogs, especially off-leach dogs.
• Genetic research found that the Pygmy Bushtit is closely related to the other long-tailed tits in the genus Aegithalos.
• A nest cam in Pennsylvania recorded a Bald Eagle feeding a dead cat to its chicks (another reason to keep cats indoors).
• A Swainson's Warbler showed up in Central Park yesterday.
• Small, solar-powered tags are allowing closer tracking of migratory songbirds like Tree Swallows.
• Evolution of beak shape for birds of prey is constrained by the shape of the skull. 
• This year, 37 Kakapo chicks survived, making it their most successful breeding year in 20 years.
• Forsythe NWR, one of New Jersey's prime birding locations, is undergoing repair work that will close parts of the wildlife drive over the coming year.

Science and nature blogging

• Urban Hawks: Swainson's Warbler
• 10,000 Birds: Heermann’s Gull – A Mexican Beauty
• Extinction Countdown: Black-Throated Finch Extinct in New South Wales
• South Jersey Butterfly B/Log: Leaving Sites Undesignated
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher – nesting and calls
• robertscribbler: Climate Change Drives Half a Billion People to Suffer Hunger, Water Shortages as Droughts and Heatwaves Wreck Crops Across the Globe

Environment and biodiversity

• NOAA's latest (unpublished) data suggests a much faster sea level rise (ten feet by 2050) than previously reported.
• India is in the midst of its worst drought in decades, which seems to be linked to climate change.
• A presentation from 2006 shows how Volkswagen planned to evade US emissions regulations.
• This week marked the thirtieth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Most wildlife has been harmed by radiation, but camera traps show that the exclusion zone is full of wildlife, including some rare mammals. 
• Small urban nature preserves can harbor significant biodiversity, particularly on the invertebrate level.

Loose Feathers #542

Pied-billed Grebe / Photo: Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Conservationists hope that an increase in ecotourism will help protect bird habitats in Colombia. 
• Climate change is shifting the ranges of many bird species and encouraging them to migrate shorter distances in the winter.
• The recent bird festival at Malheur NWR drew birders from across the country.
• Fossil evidence suggests that the birds that survived the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous did so because they could eat seeds.
• Scientists have identified a gene that influences beak size in Darwin's finches.
• Louisiana is trying to rebuild its barrier islands as a buffer against storms and climate change, and the restored islands are providing new habitat for coastal birds.
• A search is under way for breeding Black-capped Petrels in Dominica.

Science and nature blogging

• Coffee & Conservation: Rainforest Alliance impacts report, Part 2
• Ibycter: Cheapskate Tuesday 29: Alligator Lizards with the A720 IS
• 10,000 Birds: Coral bleaching along Broome’s coast  
• Dan Tallman’s Bird Blog: Stalking the Wild Ephemerals
• ABA Blog: Dictionary of Scientific Bird Names an Online Searchable Database
• Your Great Outdoors: The 8 Most Difficult Birds to Spot During Bird-a-thon

Environment and biodiversity

• Atmospheric carbon dioxide recently passed 409 ppm for the first time, and it seems likely that it will surpass 500 ppm before the end of the century.
• It is common to view labor and environmentalism as competing interests, but the same forces making the environment worse are also working against labor.
• Island Foxes have a surprisingly low level of genetic diversity. One subspecies, the San Nicolas Island Fox, has the lowest genetic diversity ever recorded.
• Scientists have discovered a new 600-mile coral reef at the mouth of the Amazon River.
• Climate change action will not by itself stop the public health problems caused by smog in developing countries unless the problems are explicitly tied together.
• While hunting is generally more efficient for deer control, some suburban communities have turned to birth control to limit their deer populations.
• Here are some tips for photographing wildflowers.

Loose Feathers #541

Mountain Bluebird / Photo: Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• This week the Washington Post reported that birders are creepy. Here is one birder's response.
• The Yellow-eyed Penguin is the only penguin that breeds in a forest habitat, and its population is in decline.
• The Southwestern Willow Flycatcher could have its Endangered Species Act protections removed because of a challenge to its status as a subspecies.  
• Construction of a wind farm in Scotland led to an 80% drop in the region's European Golden-Plover population.  
• The experimental population of Whooping Cranes in Louisiana hatched a wild chick in the state for the first time in decades.
• A designated ORV corridor will be used at Cape Hatteras for the first time this spring. The idea is to allow vehicle access to the point while protecting shorebird breeding areas.
• Red-capped and Golden-crowned Manakins developed 'superfast' wing muscles for courtship displays.
• The US Army Corps of Engineers began killing Double-crested Cormorants at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon despite the legal setback for a similar program in South Carolina last week.
• Interest rose in the Harney County Migratory Bird Festival following the armed occupation at Malheur NWR. Many events associated with the festival sold out early.
• Here are the ten worst wind energy projects for killing birds.
• Falconers find the Eurasian Sparrowhawk among the hardest birds to train.

Science and nature blogging

• ABA Blog: 2016 AOU Check-list Proposals, Part 2
• Coffee & Conservation: Update on proposed new Rainforest Alliance standard
• South Jersey Butterfly B/Log: Photo Forum: A Duskywings Challenge
• Extinction Countdown: 6 Reasons We Should Still Worry About Tigers
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Birds on Islands Are Losing the Ability to Fly  
• The Naturalist's Notebook: Migrating Songbird Fallout On Machias Seal Island (Guest Post By Lighthouse Keeper Ralph Eldridge)
• Endangered New Jersey: The Great Falls Today 
• Behind the Stone Walls: Invasive and Native Plants on Duke Farms
• The Migratory Connectivity Project: A ghost of the eastern marshes  
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Camouflage of a Large-tailed Nightjar chick

Environment and biodiversity

• The USFWS denied protection under the Endangered Species Act for Pacific Fishers in the Pacific Northwest. 
• The Chesapeake Bay's blue crab population grew by 35% last year due to favorable weather conditions. 
• If the recent study about a faster sea level rise is correct, it could make current infrastructure projects like the California Water Fix obsolete very quickly.
• Snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is higher than last year (87% vs. 5% of normal), but it will not be enough to end California's drought.
• Recent coral bleaching events may signal a climate tipping point for marine life.
• A new tree of life shows that bacterial diversity outpaces all other life forms.
• Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth came out 10 years ago this year. Here is an analysis of how well its predictions hold up.
• Ortho announced that it would phase out neonicotinoids.
• During beach cleanups last year, 71% of the 332,000 trash items collected were made of plastic. See the full report here (pdf).
• Grid-based schemes could improve butterfly monitoring as part of citizen science projects.

Loose Feathers #540

Golden Eagle / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• The tropical Americas may be on the verge of a new wave of extinctions.
• When beaches are replenished, tidal invertebrates are buried and take longer than thought to recover, which could affect the beach-nesting shorebirds that eat them.
• Here are suggestions for how to prevent wasps from nesting in a bird box.
• A new marine preserve will help the Galapagos Penguins.
• Over 30 Bohemian Waxwings were killed after the flock hit a glass corridor in Ottawa. 
• The population of Red-crowned Parrots living in US cities may rival that in its native range in Mexico.
• Despite having differently structured brains, corvids show similar cognitive abilities as primates.
• A federal judge in South Carolina stopped a program that killed 25,000 Double-crested Cormorants in 2014 and 2015.

Science and nature blogging

• Herp Blog: How To Find An Amphibian Road Crossing
• South Jersey Butterfly B/Log: Northbound Ladies?
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Why Small Birds Opt For Urban Living
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: As Spring Arrives a Reminder to Keep Up On Our Birding Ethics
• Laelaps: Getting to the Root of How Earth’s Massive Coal Seams Formed
• Extinction Countdown: Bat-Killing Fungus Spreads from Coast to Coast
• 10,000 Birds: The mother of all large white-headed gulls: The European Herring Gull 

Environment and biodiversity

• Honduras is the deadliest country for environmentalists, with 101 murders of environmental activists between 2010 and 2014.
• Last week, a study predicted that Antarctic ice sheets would collapse faster than current estimates; Greenland's glaciers are more stable, but they also may melt faster than expected.
• It is possible that China's carbon dioxide emissions have peaked.
• NOAA issued a new rule to protect small forage fish like saury and sand lance. 
• Controversy continues over a plan to log Europe's oldest forest, the Białowieza Forest in Poland and Belarus. 
• After a warm winter, Arctic sea ice has reached a new record low.
• The BLM approved a controversial solar development on public land, even though its economic future is in doubt.
• Wildlife rescues have increased in Australia since the government allowed more clearcutting.
• The commercial bumblebee industry may have spread Nosema to wild populations.
• Native bees like bumble bees are vital; here are some ways to help them.
• A portion of the Keystone pipeline was shut down following an oil leak in South Dakota.
• New York is considering installing tidal gates at the mouth of Jamaica Bay.
• The Trout Lily Project is looking for observations of blooming trout lilies.

Loose Feathers #539

Yellow-headed Blackbirds / Photo by K. Theule/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• The AOU has released a third batch of checklist proposals. This batch includes a substantial reorganization of the AOU checklist based on recent genetic research.
• Bird populations are shifting in response to climate change in both North America and Europe.
• The American Bird Conservancy is suing the New York park system over the continued presence of feral cat colonies near the nesting grounds for endangered Piping Plovers on Jones Beach.
• Plumage can get its colors from either structure or pigment.
• Broadbills have been filmed while creating sounds with their wings.
• Oystercatchers are among the easiest shorebirds to identify.
• The time of breeding for Ruffs is linked to the availability of grass for cover.
• There are many web cams showing events in Bald Eagle nests.
• A new paper explains the mating dynamics of White-throated Sparrows.

Science and nature blogging

• The Nature of Cities: A Threatened Old Forest Tells a Story Relevant to Every Urban Forest
• Skeptical Science: Why is 2016 smashing heat records?
• TwoHawksNYC: Hawk House Hunters: Urban Nest Edition 
• CitizenSci: Logging Your Local Woodland for Citizen Science: No Axe Required!
• Inkfish: These Birds Learn to Recognize Humans They Hate
• Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds.: HBP Presents: Hybrid Theory Revisited

Environment and biodiversity

• A new study of historical sea levels concludes that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could collapse much faster than models predict.
• Latin American environmentalists are routinely subjected to harassment and assassination.
• Fracking is likely to blame for unusual earthquakes in western Canada.
• Natural predators are helping to control invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs.
• A side effect of removing the dams from the Elwha River is that the sediment that previously was trapped behind the dams has now formed a new beach at the mouth of the river.
• Genetically engineered American Chestnut trees have been slow to arrive due to difficulties getting the new trees to produce roots.
• Packrat nests hold a record of the plants that used to grow at a site.
• A tribe in Montana plans to recreate a bison herd with bison from Canada.
• A citizen science project is looking for observations of trout lilies.