Loose Feathers #646

Cinnamon Teal / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A science teacher argues for teaching ornithology (pdf) at the high school level in Birding. 
• Identifying warblers from below is difficult, but possible if you learn what to look for. 
• The use of tracking devices like geolocators allows scientists to track birds throughout the year and identify sites in need of conservation. 
• Elimination of invasive rats on South Georgia will make breeding easier for penguins and other birds that nest there.
• A new study suggests that Darwin's finches could have originated in either South American or the Caribbean.
• The last batch of Northern Bobwhite in New Jersey's reintroduction program were released earlier this year on a farm in Burlington County.
• A new study combining radar and citizen science data looks at how migratory birds compensate for bad weather.

Science and nature blogging

• Auk & Condor Updates: Where do birds molt their feathers? New research indicates molting grounds are discrete from breeding and wintering sites.
• Extinction Countdown: Amur Leopard Population Triples--to 103 
• awkward botany: The Creeping Charlies and Common Name Confusion
• The Brownstone Birding Blog: eBird Helps Draw Attention To Nature Preserves  
• Auk & Condor Updates: Wintering Warblers Choose Agriculture Over Forest
• 10,000 Birds: Endangered Species Act: Potential Downlisting for Hawaiian Goose (nene) 
• Avian Ecologist: Conservation Concern: Yellow Rails
• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Red-breasted Nuthatches and Their Nesting Cavities
• Bird Ecology Study Group: The male Copper-throated Sunbird
• The Prairie Ecologist: Toxic Bee-Killing Hitchhiker Beetles (I Know, Right?)
• mocosocoBirds: The White Red-tailed Hawk of Watnong Mountain – May. 4, 2018 

Environment and biodiversity

• The Trump administration killed a program that monitored greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane remotely.
• The wild Red Wolf population is down to 40 individuals and could be extinct within eight years. The population crash seems to be linked to North Carolina's legalization of Coyote hunting, which caused the (accidental or deliberate) deaths of many Red Wolves.
• Illegal shooting has held back recovery of the Mexican Gray Wolf population are well.
• Elsewhere, Gray Wolves are losing ground in Alaska because logging is decimating their old-growth habitat.
• Pharmaceutical companies are finally starting to use a synthetic test rather than horseshore crab blood to test for bacterial contamination (a use that contributed to the decline of horseshoe crabs on the US east coast and elsewhere).
• New Jersey rejected a proposal to expand a nearby golf course into the Caven Point section of Liberty State Park, where habitat was recently restored and trails opened to the public.