Posts
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| Black Tern / Photo by Ken Sturm/USFWS |
- Seabirds like murres have struggled to breed in Alaska for last several years. Meanwhile emaciated dead seabirds are washing up on the beaches. The causes are unclear, but climate change, and particularly unusually warm ocean water, is suspected.
- Whooping Cranes reintroduced to the Midwest continue to migrate, but they sometimes winter far north of where they were taught to migrate.
- NYC Audubon and many volunteers continued to monitor the 9/11 Tribute in Light to protect migrating birds and gather evidence for how birds react to lights. Radar images show that the density of birds around the memorial is far greater than elsewhere in the area. Periodically shutting the lights off can reduce bird fatalities.
- A new study found that nestlings of different grassland bird species leave the nest at different times of day. The researchers monitored nests with mini video cameras.
- Indonesia gave in to the pet bird trade and rescinded protection for the White-rumped Shama, Straw-headed Bulbul and Javan Pied Starling.
- Mummified Adélie Penguins are a hint of past climatic changes that made breeding more difficult for the penguins.
- Young birds that help their parents raise siblings reproduce more successfully in the future.
- Bones of elephant birds from about 10,000 years ago show evidence of butchering and suggest that humans arrived in Madagascar much earlier than previously thought.
- Mercury pollution interferes with the ability of birds to migrate.
- A virus can cause parrots to lose their feathers.
- Captive flamingos follow their instinct to forage at night.
- The 285 bird species recorded in the New Jersey Meadowlands are a sign of how well the marshes have recovered from decades of pollution. The Meadowlands has a birding festival this weekend.
- Avian Hybrids: Mixing in the Marshes: King rail and clapper rail hybridize in Virginia
- 10,000 Birds: Leucistic thrush.
- Extinction Countdown: New Tree Species Discovered--and Declared Extinct
- awkward botany: Death by Crab Spider, part one
- The Monarch Joint Venture: Revised Handout - Raising Monarchs: Why or Why Not?
- Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay Portrait in the Stansbury Mountains
- Middleton Island, Gulf of Alaska: The Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) on Middleton Island in 2018
- Roy Dennis Wildlife Foundation: 33-year-old Golden Eagle – longest recorded ringed golden eagle in the world.
- Wetlands around the Great Salt Lake are important oases for wildlife but are unprotected by federal or state law and are threatened by development.
- A missing hiker in Oregon was probably killed by a cougar — the first known wild cougar attack in the state's history.
- There have been a lot of recent reports of cougars in Pennsylvania, but most are probably bobcats or house cats.
- Even a small amount of plastic can kill a sea turtle, and some sea turtles have been found with over 300 pieces in their digestive tracts.
- Beavers could have a role in restoring lost western wetlands and storing water for the future.
- Invasive spotted lanternflies have been found in Philadelphia, showing that the species continues to spread.
- Tidal wetlands are threatened by sea level rise, so management will be needed to allow them to migrate to higher elevations, especially in populated areas.
- Several years ago North Carolina banned state agencies from using climate science in disaster and development planning for coastal areas.
- Political appointees in the Interior Department have similarly blocked the department's agencies (like the National Park Service) from mentioning climate change in their long-term planning documents.
- Many hog farms and coal ash dumps lie in the path of Hurricane Florence and have potential to add environmental disasters to the natural disaster of the hurricane.
- Cape Town narrowly avoided running out of water, but the efforts to do so revealed societal fissures. The water crisis gave a hint of what politics will be like in the next few decades.
