Loose Feathers #576

Ring-necked Pheasant / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A new study doubles the estimated number of bird species by using an evolutionary species concept instead of a biological one. The paper is available to read at PLoS ONE. The results emphasize the need to protect distinct populations beyond what are currently accepted as species.
• Birds are reaching their summer breeding grounds about one day earlier for each degree the Earth warms. 
• A bird's shape can change with the seasons, particularly as it engages in displays leading into the breeding season.
• Adélie Penguins have special adaptations to allow them to live in the harsh cold and saline environments on and around Antarctica.
• This PDF has tips for identifying gulls of the North American Pacific coast.
• Some of the owls from Project SNOWstorm have started returning data from the past year as they migrate back into cellular range.
• A Snowy Owl was recently found at Island Beach State Park in New Jersey; visitors are asked to stay on marked trails and not walk through dunes (which is good practice generally).
• Willets may soon become two species. 
• Hundreds of Red-winged Blackbirds died mysteriously in South Jersey.

Science and nature blogging

• Living Alongside Wildlife: The Animals That Went Extinct in 2016
• Snapshots of Nature: Gulls
• mocosocoBirds: Rock Wren continues in Somerset Co. – Dec. 27, 2016 
• Beetles In The Bush: Cicindela scutellaris rugata (the “wrinkled festive tiger beetle”)
• Inkfish: Why Giant Salamanders Make Great Dads

Environment and biodiversity

• President Obama this week named two new national monuments, Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada. Coverage of the monuments has emphasized conservative opposition, but the same politicians complaining about overreach use parks and monuments to market their states. There may be a few more monument designations on the way.
• The Obama administration's record on endangered species has been mixed; while many species have been delisted (a mark of successful conservation programs) and some backlog has been cleared, new rules have made it harder to nominate species for protection.
• The National Whistleblower Center is launching a website to help people report wildlife crime, which often goes unreported or underinvestigated.
• The deaths of four bears in Pennsylvania were probably caused by eating toxic berries from an English Yew, a nonnative ornamental shrub.

Loose Feathers #575

Barred Owl / Photo by Andy French/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• The American Ornithologists’ Union and the Cooper Ornithological Society have merged to become the American Ornithological Society. The society promotes the study of ornithology and maintains the official checklists for North and South America.
• For a long time, ornithologists assumed that Northern Saw-whet Owls were non-migratory.
• The seabird breeding colony at Seahorse Key in Florida mysteriously disappeared two years ago.
• The team managing the rediscovered Night Parrot population is trying to protect the parrots from predation around water sources.
• A woman doing a photographic big year in Washington has photographed 285 of the state's 346 species.
• The true test of citizen science data (such as eBird checklists) is whether it is suitable for a given purpose. 
• Christmas Bird Counts started last weekend, with a soggy count in Washington, DC, among the first.
• Paleontologists have found a seabird-like fossil from the Cretaceous in the Canadian Arctic.
• A wet summer drove down the number of Blue Tits.
• Northern breeding birds, especially ones that migrate a long distance, are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
• The Rufous-headed Robin is rarely observed but may be more widespread than currently known.
• Up to 300 Red-winged Blackbirds were killed in southwestern New Jersey last week.

Science and nature blogging

• Extinction Countdown: The Worst and Best Wildlife Conservation Stories of 2016
• 10,000 Birds: The Bird With Four Sexes
• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Canada x Snow Goose Hybrid – Its Parentage Had Bewildered Me
• Backyard and Beyond: Gotham Unwatered
• Snapshots of Nature: It's Been a While... 

Environment and biodiversity

• Obama designated parts of the continental shelf in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans off-limits to fossil fuel drilling or exploration.
• Because of unusually warm temperatures around Churchill, Manitoba, the polar bears are wandering around without any snow or sea ice for hunting seals.
• It looks like the Trump administration will attack estimates of the social cost of carbon as part of its climate regulation rollback (even though recent research suggests that the Obama administration's estimates are too low).
• The Union of Concerned Scientists is concerned about Trump's choice to lead the Interior Department, Ryan Zinke.
• State and local governments may need to take more initiative on environmental issues with an actively anti-environmental administration. 
• Here is an informative article on how dams are selected for removal and what happens once they are gone.
• The Delaware River Basin Conservation Act created a federal program to oversee habitat restoration projects throughout the Delaware River watershed. 
• In the past week, a deer and a bear have received obituaries from the New York Times.

Loose Feathers #574

Wisdom, the Laysan Albatross / Photo credit: Kristina McOmber/Kupu Conservation Leadership Program & USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A new study nearly doubled the estimate for the number of bird species in the world from 10,000 to 18,000, based on changes in species concepts.
• Many Snow Geese died in Montana’s Berkeley Pit, but the fate of the rest of the flock is unknown.
• The Obama administration finalized a rule allowing wind farms 30-year permits to kill thousands of Bald and Golden Eagles as long as they take some precautions to reduce incidental deaths.
• Estimates of bird mortality caused by windows (and probably other types of collisions) may be too low because many carcasses are removed by scavengers.
• A study of corvoids (crows and allies) showed that the shape of a bird's wings is influenced by where it lives. Birds from the tropics tend to have short, rounded wings for navigating forest interiors, while birds from higher latitudes tend to have long, pointed wings for flying longer distances.
• Winter is a time to appreciate small birds like wrens that are present year-round.
• A seabird research program in the 1960s may have been cover for a biological weapons testing program.
• A leucistic Anna's Hummingbird has maintained its territory in a California garden, to the delight of thousands of birders.
• Climate change has produced unexpected shifts in bird populations.
• The world's oldest known seabird, a Laysan Albatross, laid an egg at age 66.

Science and nature blogging

• Artful Amoeba: Jaw on the Floor: Entire Chunk of Feathered Dinosaur Discovered in Amber
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: The Mysterious Brown Creeper
• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: American Coot Being Chased For Its Food
• Extinction Countdown: Giraffe's "Silent Extinction" Finally Earns Some Noise
• Wild About Ants: Ant Mimics: Nymphs of Texas Bow-legged Bug 
• Pioneer Birding: Trinidad - Audouin's Gull!
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Grey Heron – feeding juveniles 
• Bug Eric: ID Tip: Seven-spotted or Nine-spotted Lady Beetle?

Environment and biodiversity

• Fishery managers are looking for technological solutions to fight against invasive lionfish in the southeastern U.S.
• The federal government is creating a 40,000-square-mile protected area, the Frank R. Lautenberg Deep Sea Coral Protection Area, to protect marine life off the New Jersey coast.
• The EPA finally admitted that fracking contaminates drinking water, a reversal of the position it took last year under political duress.
• Interior Secretary Sally Jewell urged scientists to fight against scientific misinformation during the Trump administration.
• The first offshore wind farm in the U.S., the Block Island wind farm off Rhode Island, started operation this week. While concerns remain about wind energy's effects on wildlife, significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions will depend on a greater reliance on wind energy.
• Climate change is already causing local extinctions as organisms are forced to shift their ranges.
• The Pinelands Commission in New Jersey is now considering two pipelines that would affect the Pinelands area.

Loose Feathers #573

Pied-billed Grebes / Photo by Jim Hudgins/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Ringed Kingfishers have gone from being a rarity north of the Rio Grande to being residents in southern and central Texas. 
• Birds migrating across the Great Lakes increase altitude at dawn and head for the nearest shore, according to a study using weather radar. The study emphasizes the importance of maintaining shoreline habitat.
• The endangered Greater Adjutant Stork population in India is rebounding thanks to an ongoing education campaign.
• The feathered tail of a young theropod dinosaur was found preserved in amber. 
• Fort Bragg hosts the second largest population of Red-cockaded Woodpeckers after Apalachicola National Forest, and several other southeastern military bases also host breeding populations.
• Several thousand Snow Geese died in Montana after a storm forced them to land in the toxic waters of a former open pit mine. Similar incidents have happened there before.
• The decision to nominate the Gray Jay as Canada's national bird has been controversial.

Science and nature blogging

• Extinction Countdown: 13 Bird Species Declared Extinct
• The Rattling Crow: On Magpie marriages
• North Coast Diaries: Hearing is believing…
• Laura's Birding Blog: House Sparrows 
• Outside My Window: A Serrated Tongue 
• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Comparing Adult Ring-billed and California Gulls
• 10,000 Birds: Justified and Ancient
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: Ghost of the Meadowlands 
• ABA Blog: An Opportunity to Help ‘Elepaios in Hawaii

Environment and biodiversity

• Activists at Standing Rock won a victory this week when the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to conduct a full Environmental Impact Statement before granting an easement for the energy company to dig under the Missouri River. However, the fight is not over since the easement could still be granted.
• Trump's likely nominee for the EPA is Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who opposes Obama's Clean Power Plan and other environmental policies and borrowed language from industry lobbyists in attacking energy regulations. He also has a record of using his office to harass members of the Humane Society. This has alarmed EPA employees.
• This was the warmest autumn on record for the 48 contiguous US states. 
• Sea ice extent in November set record lows in both the Arctic and Antarctic.
• Pacific Fishers are being reintroduced to Mount Rainier National Park in Washington.
• A new report identifies places around the New York metropolitan area most at risk from sea level rise. Such areas include a lot of critical infrastructure.
• The "drain the swamp" rhetoric from the election (started by conservatives but echoed by liberals) sparked a response from biologists in the form of a #ReignTheSwamp hashtag highlighting wetland biodiversity.

Loose Feathers #572

American White Pelican / Photo by Krishna Prasad Kotti / USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A biologist who spent her life studying the unusual mating system of White-throated Sparrows died within a few months of publishing a major paper on the genetic mutation that underlies the sparrows' different color morphs. White-striped individuals almost always mate with tan-striped individuals, to the extent that the species seems to have four sexes.
• Sapsuckers seem to have the ability to tell which plant species will yield the most sap on a given day. 
• Conservationists want stronger protections for Black Rails, but it is challenging to get data on their population trends since Black Rails are hard for birders to find. (Unfortunately the author of that piece makes some odd comments about rails and why birders have trouble finding them.)
• Birders who do point counts for citizen science projects may find this discussion of point count methodology helpful.
• A Western Tanager that has been seen in New York's City Hall for the past week fits one of the two main patterns for rare birds in autumn on the east coast.
• The Connecticut State of the Birds report warns that Saltmarsh Sparrows are under threat of extinction because of sea level rise, and other coastal saltmarsh birds are not doing well, either. 
• Traffic noise in urban areas drowns out alarm calls given by songbirds, which may increase their risk of predation.
• Christmas Bird Count season will be coming soon. You can join a count here. A list of counts in New Jersey is here.
• Artificial water pools lined with concrete support birds and other wildlife in the Oregon desert.
• The recent Kaikōura earthquake in New Zealand may have crushed a rare seabird nesting colony.

Science and nature blogging

• Extinction Countdown: Another Arctic Species Losing Out as Sea Ice Declines: The Ivory Gull
• Outside My Window: What Good is a Collection?
• Shorebird Science: Shorebird Conservation in French Guiana 
• Birding the day away !!: Azorean Gull ~ Ad ~ Larus michahellis atlantis ~ Sao Miguel, Azores -Nov' 16
• robertscribbler: ‘Everything is Burning Around Us’ — You Just Can’t Normalize Gatlinburg’s Freakish Fall Firestorm
• DeSmogBlog: International Implications of Trudeau's Kinder Morgan Pipeline Approval
• Backyard and Beyond: Daily Raptor 

Environment and biodiversity

• EPA administrators made last minute changes to its report on fracking and water quality to downplay the risk of contaminating drinking water.
• This year's Atlantic hurricane season featured the most hurricanes since 2012 and the first category five hurricane since 2007. 
• Diving bell spiders are able to survive and hunt underwater. 
• Effective predator conservation needs to build cultural appreciation for them in addition to education about managing risk. 
• Climate change will affect some places more than others, so public policy should seek to address those places' needs. 
• Climate change should not be treated as an isolated problem since it affects so many other issues (including national security, the main subject of the linked essay).
• Here is a gallery of photos illustrating climate change.
• Scientists found fossils of ground beetles in Antarctica.
• Whether to remove invasive Eucalyptus trees from natural areas around the Bay Area is a matter of continuing controversy. 
• Camera traps are shedding light on the behavior of Madagascar's native carnivores.