Loose Feathers #630

Bald Eagle / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A long-running monitoring project is helping answer questions about the population status and migrations of the wide-ranging Snow Bunting.
• The NY Times has a good essay on the politics of chasing (and publicizing) owls and comes down on the side of more openness.
• More than half of the Ventura Christmas Bird Count covers areas burned by the Thomas Fire, so this year's count will provide data on how birds respond to wildfires.
• Christmas Bird Counts also went on as usual at several sites in Puerto Rico.
• Iridescent feathers, like those on grackles or starlings, seem to have evolved very early, as some were recently discovered on a fossil dinosaur.
• Birds are helping to restore the habitats around the Elwha River by dropping seeds carried from elsewhere on the Olympic Peninsula.
• Japanese Bush-Warblers living in Hawaii show signs of genetic drift since their introduction in the early 20th century. Read more about the study here.
• Analysis of bird song recordings may be a way to detect shifts in the timing of bird migration and breeding seasons.
• Rare native birds have flourished at an urban park in Wellington, New Zealand, since invasive predators like rats and stoats were trapped and fenced out. (Invasive predators are a major threat to New Zealand's unique wildlife.)
• Logging after wildfires hurts California Spotted Owls by reducing the number of snags they prefer.
• Red-capped Robin-Chats can imitate the songs of 40 other bird species.

Science and nature blogging

• Citizen Science Salon: Female Songbirds: The Latest Underrepresented Voices in Science
• Birding Beijing 北京观鸟: 2017: A Turning Point For China’s Biodiversity?  
• Vermont Center for Ecostudies: The Migratory Bird Treaty Act and bird conservation
• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Standing Up For Nature Is Fighting For Our Lives
• 10,000 Birds: Five Things To Do When It Is Too Cold To Bird
• ABA Blog: THE TOP 10: Craziest ABA Vagrants of 2017 
• Avian Hybrids: Hybridization as the Engine of Adaptive Radiation
• Avithera: Bird bands and flags 
• Birding New Jersey: A “New” Iiwi?
• wadertales: Waders are long-lived birds!
• Backyard and Beyond: Owling
• The Prairie Ecologist: Why Would Bison Have Done That??
• ornithologi: North America’s Zonotrichia in Winter: A Plate of Basic and Immature Plumages
• Stokes Birding Blog: Scaup, Lesser or Greater? Tricky ID 
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Purple Heron – feeding behaviour, eel
• Feathered Photography: Northern Harrier Throwing Up A ….. Pellet?
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: It’s Not Too Early to Plan Your Backyard Wildlife Garden

Environment and biodiversity

• Scientists have linked the mass mortality of Saiga antelopes in 2015 to infection from a normally harmless bacterium made more dangerous by extreme heat and humidity.
• A methane spike appears to be tied to increased production of oil and gas through fracking.
• Rapid warming in Alaska is disturbing and may be behind some of the extreme weather in the continental US. 
• Nine of the twelve members of the National Park Service's advisory panel resigned in protest after Ryan Zinke refused to meet with them for a year. 
• Ryan Zinke could do irreparable damage to the Interior Department and the lands it protects.
• Cape Town is close to running out of water after several years of severe drought. Climate change will make events like this more likely, both there and elsewhere.
• New studies are measuring how climate change affects freshwater lakes and streams.
• DC's mayor pledged to commit $4.7 million to developing Kingman and Heritage Islands for environmental education and recreation.
• Voles are among the many creatures that find a blanket of snow a hospitable shelter from extreme cold.