Posts
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| Iiwi / Photo by Dan Clark/USFWS |
- Hurricanes pick up and move birds hundreds or thousands of miles out of their normal ranges, and birders go out to look for displaced birds as hurricanes pass. For example, a Trindade Petrel was found near Raleigh during Hurricane Florence. The article includes several other examples from this storm.
- This year's Winter Finch Forecast predicts irruption years for many boreal species.
- A radar study estimates that 4 billion birds cross from Canada through the U.S. in the fall and 2.6 billion return there in the spring.
- The Saltmarsh Sparrow population has been declining about 9% per year since the 1990s and may become extinct if sea level rise wipes out enough of the salt marshes where they breed.
- Helmeted Hornbills are threatened by poaching since their casques are valued for carving into luxury goods. The forests where they live are also threatened by logging and other industries.
- Some conservationists are experimenting with using seabirds with tracking devices to monitor illegal fishing operations.
- A woman writes about taking up birding in the aftermath of a miscarriage.
- In the evening, Seattle's crows gather in staging areas to fly to their nocturnal roosts.
- Audubon notes the rise of internet cartoons like False Knees with birds as their main characters.
- A research project is using video to test what birds see prior to window strikes.
- A recently-discovered species, the Willard's Sooty Boubou, may already be endangered due to pressure from agricultural development. Two authors of that study discuss the conservation challenges facing mid-elevation species.
- Planting trees in pastures can help forest birds by connecting otherwise fragmented forest habitats.
- The BirdReturns incentive program is providing usable habitat for migratory shorebirds in California's Central Valley.
- Conservationists released captive-bred White-rumped Vultures to boost declining vulture populations.
- Avian Hybrids: Are yellow-rumped warbler hybrids more susceptible to parasite infections?
- Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Yellow Warbler With An Injured Eye
- Stokes Birding Blog: Prime Time For Hawk Migration watching is now! Here's How!
- 10,000 Birds: The Juniper Titmouse Nesting Project
- The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: The 10 Best Things About Birding
- Cicada Mania: Coffee and Cicadas
- Feathered Photography: Chipping Sparrow Takeoff Series
- Bird Ecology Study Group: Grey-headed Fish-eagle caught a Yellow Bittern
- The Bradford Pear was introduced as a street tree for the suburbs in the 1950s and has since escaped cultivation and turned into an invasive weed.
- Scientists have traced most illegal ivory trade to three major export cartels.
- Some endangered species have populations so small that they could fit inside a subway car.
- The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary runs a hatchery at the Fairmont Water Works to restore freshwater mussel populations around the watershed.
- It is important to respect Native American rights and culture while visiting public lands (especially in the West).
- Microplastics can be eaten by aquatic insects (like mosquito larvae) and passed up the food chain, where they accumulate in predators like fish and birds.
- An aerial survey recorded 605 animal sightings in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
- A new study documents nocturnal pollination of food crops by moths.
- Ecologists are searching for ways to stop the spread of invasive Phragmites.
- The destruction from Hurricane Florence includes the flooding of toxic sites such as hog farm waste lagoons, coal ash dumps, and potentially Superfund sites.
- One solution to sea level rise and stronger storms is to reform the National Flood Insurance Program to make it easier for owners of flood-prone homes to move to higher, safer locations.
- California and New Mexico are suing to block the Trump administration's rollback of regulations of methane emissions at drilling sites.
- The oldest nuclear energy plant in New Jersey closed this week. The plant had become too expensive to operate and had leaks of radioactive material in recent years.
