Loose Feathers #600

American Bittern / Photo by Krista Lundgren/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Birders are encouraged to report the vocalizations of female birds to eBird (preferably with recordings) to support the Female Bird Song Project.
• Male and female songbirds do not have enough differences in their syringeal muscles to account for differences in male and female songs.
• Studies of Hermit Thrush songs have found differences based on geography: Hermit Thrushes in the East sing a wider range of frequencies at the start of their songs, while ones in the West sing a longer opening sustained note.
• Ruddy Turnstones migrating along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway are arriving at their breeding grounds a day earlier than in the past.
• A large extinct species of megapode, Progura gallinacea, was among several evaluated in a recent review of megapode taxonomy.
• At least five states have citizen science programs that ask mail carriers to count game species, such as quail or rabbits, along their delivery routes.
• A birder was followed by Black Vultures after he went near a carcass they had been scavenging. 
• Piping Plovers are nesting at Island Beach State Park.
• Late-nesting birds and bees face a greater threat of habitat damage by the time they nest.
• The reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial will be drained because 80 ducks died from a parasite present in its waters.
• A slideshow shows Bald Eagles  scavenging at the docks in Dutch Harbor, Alaska.

Science and nature blogging

• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Female Red-winged Blackbirds – Frequency in Misidentification
• The Rattling Crow: Stock dove driving
• awkward botany: Summer of Weeds: Henbit and Purple Deadnettle
• Endangered New Jersey: And in New Jersey Bobcat News...
• The Afternoon Birder: The Shot That Nearly Cost Me My Camera  
• Living Alongside Wildlife: Comic Strip: Cottonmouth Myth and Facts

Environment and biodiversity

• Urban heat islands are already deadly during summer heat waves, and they are likely to get worse because of climate change.
• Secretary Zinke recommended reducing the size of Bears Ears National Monument (presumably to just a handful of archaeological sites) after a full review of recent national monument designations is complete.
• The designation of Bears Ears as a national monument accomplishes one of the main goals of the Antiquities Act: protection of archaeological resources from looting and vandalism.
• Some of the monuments under threat have productive fossil beds. 
• Revocation of national monument designations could also endanger migrations along America's unique wildlife corridors.
• A Canadian climate change study had to be postponed because of hazardous sea ice conditions caused by climate change.
• Fossil beetles found in the La Brea Tar Pits show that California has had a mostly stable climate for the past 50,000 years. 
• The Trump administration cancelled a rule intended to reduce the number of whales and sea turtles tangled in fishing nets.
• A new barrier system should prevent the 1D landfill in Kearny from leaching pollutants into the Passaic River in the Meadowlands.
• American Shad have returned to New Jersey's Musconetcong River after removal of the Hughesville Dam. More dam removals are likely to open more of the watershed to migratory fish.
• The New York Botanical Garden is producing a checklist of plants in New York City.