Posts
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| Violet-green Swallow / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS |
- Red-shafted and Yellow-shafted Flickers are extremely similar genetically, but new techniques show some small genetic differences that may account for their differences in plumage.
- Scientists used genetic data to identify which mating grounds were most important for allowing genetic exchange among different sage grouse populations.
- Robotic taxidermied birds (clothed in the feathers of road-killed sage grouse) are helping scientists study sage grouse mating behavior, including how grouse choose mates.
- Encouraging raptors by installing perches and nest boxes or platforms can reduce the activity of rodents.
- Atlantic Puffins are in decline, and reductions in their food supply thanks to rising ocean temperatures is a major cause.
- Climate change is also blamed for the die-off of hundreds of thousands of Cassin's Auklets in the Pacific Ocean during a warm spell from 2013-2015.
- A survey across Botswana found that many birds of prey and vultures are in decline, some by as much as 80%.
- While Herring Gulls appear common, their numbers in Great Britain declined by more than half from 1970 to 2002 — and surveys have not been updated since then.
- A lot of other seabirds like terns and kittiwakes are not doing well either.
- Birds with blood parasites lag behind other migrating birds.
- Farmland birds are among the most threatened birds worldwide.
- Vermont Center for Ecostudies: VCE Study Predicts Prime Habitat for Bicknell's Thrush
- The Prairie Ecologist: Seeing Through the Eyes of Your Camera
- Bird Ecology Study Group: Wing Flicking: Pygmy Wren-babbler
- awkward botany: Eating Weeds: Lambsquarters
- Natural Newstead: From multicolor to boodang!
- The Digiscoper: Henslow's Sparrows!
- Linda Murdock Photography: A Black-crowned Night Heron
- There are 3.4 million acres of primary forests left in Europe, mostly scattered in small tracts that still provide important habitat for some wildlife species. Most have some sort of protection, but more than half lack protection from logging.
- A program to save Northern Quolls by moving them to toad-free islands made the quolls lose their fear of predators like Dingos.
- Of the 200,000 protected areas around the world, around one-third no longer adequately protect the plants and animals they were created to sustain, primarily because of human pressure.
- Here is an interview with a scientist who studies krill, an important part of the marine food web.
- Environmental groups are urging the Murphy administration to set as low of a cap as possible on carbon emissions when New Jersey finally rejoins the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in 2020.
- Paved surfaces contribute significantly to flooding downstream, as happened in the Ellicott City flood.
- In Appalachian, tap water is often unsafe to drink because of contamination from coal mining and other industries.
- The butterfly Mimeresia neavei generates its blue coloration via simple structures in its wing scales.
- A study finds that butterflies benefit from controlled burns.
- Many wetlands on the West Coast will not be able to migrate inland as the sea rises.
