Loose Feathers #595

Marbled Godwit / Photo: Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• My World Series of Birding team, the Middlesex Merlins, recorded 118 species in Middlesex County last Saturday. Here is the full list of results. The team that won the county-level competition was the Meadowlands Marsh Hawks, profiled in this article.
• A stormy night in Galveston produced 395 dead birds at a single building, including 90 Nashville Warblers and 60 Blackburnian Warblers. Collisions with structures are among the most common human-induced causes of bird deaths. Here are some ways to reduce window strikes.
• A photographer took a series of images of a fledgling Great Horned Owl climbing a tree in Minnesota.
• A program that subsidizes planting native grasses and shrubs instead of crops is crucial to sage grouse survival in Washington.
• First time in nearly 70 years, Western Snowy Plovers nesting on Los Angeles County beaches.
• A Common Redpoll banded in Ontario was found 2700 miles away in Alaska.
• Stronger hurricanes pose a threat to seabirds like the Sooty Tern.
• A British birder observed Common Blackbirds feeding newts to their fledgling.
• Hosting birders visiting to see prairie-chicken and grouse leks in the spring helps support farmers and ranchers (and gives an incentive to preserve native prairie).
• Great Tits choose neighbors with personalities similar to their own.
• NYC Audubon has a Birding by Subway guide.

Science and nature

• The Nature Conservancy Blog: Flying Squirrels and Other Surprises Discovered In North Jersey’s High Mountain Park Preserve
• The Brownstone Birding Blog: 5 Ways I've Been Taking Shortcuts While Birding  
• Earthling Nature: Land snails on islands: fascinating diversity, worrying vulnerability
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: A Reminder to Plant Milkeed In Every Yard!
• Backyard and Beyond: Audubon and Murals
• 10,000 Birds: Federal Public Lands: Pacific Seabirds
• Snapshots of Nature: Citizen Science is for the Birds
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Common Mynas in an unusual 4-birds fight
• Urban Hawks: Eastern Whip-Poor-Will  
• Corner of the Cabinet: Toxorhynchites: the mosquitoes that hunt other mosquitoes

Environment and biodiversity

• It seems inevitable that Glacier National Park will lose all of its glaciers because of climate change; only 26 glaciers are left of the 150 that were documented in the 19th century.
• Climate change is already making agricultural workers sick, particularly with fatal kidney diseases.
• Amateur entomologists in Europe have documented an alarming loss of insects over the past three decades. Hoverflies have been hurt particularly badly.
• Alaska may be turning from a carbon sink into a carbon source as warmer temperatures keep the tundra from freezing until later in the fall.
• The EPA dismissed half of its scientific review board; the dismissed scientists are expected to be replaced by industry representatives.
• While some places are getting multi-million dollar projects to protect against sea level rise, poorer areas like some Atlantic City neighborhoods are not getting the same attention.
• The Dakota Access Pipeline still has no emergency response plan for a spill near the Missouri River crossing. That is a problem since the pipeline is already leaking oil before it is fully operational.
• The Interior Department announced a review of recent national monument designations; here is the full list of monuments being reviewed.
• State and Tribal Wildlife Grants are an important source of funding for wildlife conservation. 
• Here is a key to urban ant species. 
• A new law requires the use of native plants along New Jersey highways.
• If you live in Canada, you can participate in a Virtual BioBlitz on May 22.