Loose Feathers #571

Snow Bunting / Photo by Alex Galt/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• The wetlands of Louisiana are among the most reliable places to see Yellow Rails when they pass through during their autumn migration.
• Like male plumage, female cardinal plumage serves as a signal of their breeding fitness. 
• New research suggests that introducing Ruddy-headed Geese from the Falklands will not help Ruddy-headed Geese on the mainland because the two populations have not interbred for over a million years. 
• Archaeological evidence suggests that turkeys have been domesticated in the Americas for at least 1500 years.
• Threatened seabirds are beginning to recover on Macquarie Island now that invasive pests have been removed.
• Hawaiian honeycreepers are threatened by avian malaria, thanks in part to climate change.
• A new population of the critically endangered Regent Honeyeater has been discovered in Australia.
• Bird specimens in museums can be used to study how air pollution has changed over time.

Science and nature blogging

• ABA Blog: ABA Big Year Update: Three Past the Record
• 10,000 Birds: What’s In a Name: Mr. Crissal and the Red-butted Thrush
• Extinction Countdown: Thanksgiving Species Snapshot: Waigeo Brush-Turkey
• The Nature Conservancy of New Jersey Blog: Wildflowers of Cape Island Creek
• Cool Green Science: Turkeys Are What They Eat: Weird and Adaptable
• Warblers and rumors of warblers: Chat chat 
• robertscribbler: Climate Change Has Left Bolivia Crippled by Drought
• View from the Cape: Reflecting on the 'Elusive' Dickcissel 
• Bug Eric: Last Hurrah or New Normal?  
• Project SNOWstorm: A New Season - and a View from the Arctic

Environment and biodiversity

• Recent research shows that Peru’s Manu National Park hosts the greatest vertebrate biodiversity on Earth.
• The Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused shoreline erosion and the loss of coastal wetlands in the years since the disaster. Oil weakens the roots of plants that help hold shores and marshes together.
• The incoming Trump administration wants to end funding for NASA's earth science division, which studies climate change. 
• The new marine protected area near Antarctica was designed in part to protect fishing interests, so it may not be as effective as advertised.
• Road salt alters the sex ratios among frogs in nearby ponds by reducing the proportion of females by 10%.
• A number of Humpback Whale sightings have been reported in the Hudson River over the past week.
• A dead Humpback Whale was found tangled in a former fish farm in British Columbia. 
• The drought in New Jersey is uncovering the remains of former villages under the state's reservoirs.