Loose Feathers #621

Tundra Swans / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• EBird announced that it will hide the locations for certain sensitive species from public output (though they will still appear in personal lists). 
• A new study shows that Passenger Pigeons had an unusual genome because of their extremely large population. 
• Scientists are still trying to find flocks of endangered Puerto Rican Parrots that disappeared during Hurricane Maria.
• Takahē numbers rose 13%, to 347 individuals and more than 100 breeding pairs.
• Some simple changes could greatly reduce the number of seabirds killed by longline fishing.
• Rehabilitation of oiled, sick, and injured birds has been an important part of saving Africans Penguins.
• A Snowy Owl was injured in Massachusetts after homeowners tried to chase it away.
• Feathers have their own scents that can be tracked by predators.
• Birds in California are nesting a week earlier than they did a century ago.
• An airplane landed in Florida with a Turkey Vulture stuck in its nose.

Science and nature blogging

• Project SNOWstorm: A New Season - and a Report from the Arctic 
• Nemesis Bird: Recap of the Long Island Corn Crake by Steve Brenner
• 10,000 Birds: The Case for Adding the U.S. Territories in the Caribbean to the ABA Area  
• Avian Ecologist: Comparison of Spectrogram Apps
• John Rakestraw: Taverner’s Cackling Goose vs. Ridgeway’s Cackling Goose
• The Rattling Crow: Allopreening moorhens
• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Adult White-crowned Sparrow Feeding on Rabbitbrush Seeds

Environment and biodiversity

• Carbon emissions rose after being flat for three straight years.
• At least 62 natural world heritage sites are already at risk from climate change.
• A new paper revises the taxonomy of European and Mediterranean wasps in the genus Polistes.
• While urban bat populations are not well-documented, bats seem to be thriving in cities like Washington, DC. 
• The Keystone XL pipeline faces one last regulatory hurdle for its route through Nebraska, and a decision is due soon. 
• This week an already-existing part of the Keystone XL pipeline spilled 210,000 gallons in South Dakota. 
• Natural forest regeneration seems to be better than restoration by humans.
• The seeds of some parasitic plants are spread by camel crickets.
• At low tide one can see cedar stumps left from when the Meadowlands was covered by Atlantic White Cedars.