Loose Feathers #661

Swainson's Hawk / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Adjusting for the time of day and year and extending the length of point counts can produce better estimates of boreal bird populations. The lead author of that study explains more here.
• A Palestinian ornithologist is trying improve knowledge of bird distribution in the West Bank and encourage bird watching among its residents, but the political situation makes those challenging.
• Tree Swallows nesting in farmland can still find their preferred prey but expend more energy foraging.
• Fiordland Penguins migrate thousands of kilometers from nesting areas in New Zealand to reach feeding areas after the breeding season.
• Color vision helps hawks find prey, and Harris's Hawks have particularly good color vision.
• Whimbrels were seen as a nuisance by blueberry growers in Atlantic Canada, but  scientists managed to convince them otherwise and get their help in tracking the migrating birds.
• Black-necked Cranes are threatened by feral dogs eating their eggs and chicks.
• Pacific Wrens do better along streams with healthy salmon populations.
• A man in Idaho maintains 331 bluebird boxes.

Science and nature blogging

• Gulls to the Horizon: The ones that that didn’t make it- IJmuiden breeding season 2018
• The Brownstone Birding Blog: Don't Trade Today's Birds For Yesterday's Birds
• 10,000 Birds: How to Bird by Car
• Ornithologi: Fall Migration Poster Series: Light Morph Adult Buteos 
• Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds.: Masked/Nazca Booby in Monterey Bay!
• Birding New Jersey: The Aromatic Oriole 
• earthstar: Seeing spots before my eyes

Conservation and biodiversity

• A staffer who worked on revoking national monument designations and opening areas for oil drilling is leaving the Trump administration to become a lobbyist for BP.
• Protecting quality habitat is key to saving the most species.
• A scientist found a population of stalked woolgrass — a plant not seen in New Jersey in 100 years — along the Delaware River in Warren County.
• A man was caught smuggling exotic millipedes and scorpions into New Jersey.

Climate change and public health

• The Trump administration's proposed rule on greenhouse gas emissions would be far worse for public health and the climate than the plan proposed by the Obama administration.
• Here is a good timeline of development of knowledge of the link between carbon emissions and global warming.