Loose Feathers #678

Wood Ducks / Photo by James Roane / USFWS

Birds and birding news

• The Christmas Bird Count is still happening for another week and a half. See here to find one near you.
• Captive breeding has been proposed as a solution to Indonesia's declining songbird populations, but conservationists worry that it would end up being exploited by wildlife traffickers.
• The critically endangered Philippine Eagle persists despite a multitude of threats.
• A Stresemann's Bristlefront was photographed in Brazil, showing that the highly endangered species still exists.
• Captive-bred Madagascar Pochards were released into a lake in northern Madagascar in an attempt to rebuild their wild population.

Science and nature blogging

• Chicago Ornithological Society: Identifying a Cackling Goose is Far from a Trivial Pursuit
• Wanstead Birder: Top ten bird images from 2018
• mocosocoBirds: The 83rd Boonton Christmas Bird Count Report – 2018 
• 10,000 Birds: The 2018 Queens County Christmas Bird Count  
• Snapshots of Nature: Long Island in Winter
• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Rough-legged Hawk Photographed On Christmas Eve Day 2013 
• The Fairywren Project: Preliminary Transect Results 
• Living Alongside Wildlife: California Waters: Salamanders In The Cracks -- Guest Post 
• Birding New Jersey: The Advent Bird 
• Backyard and Beyond: To Bee Or Not To Bee
• New Jersey Audubon: 2018 Cape May Hawkwatch – 53,495 Raptors & More!!
• Gwen C. Katz: Birdmas Carols  
• Freshwater Interdisciplinary Research and Engagement Lab: Getting to know the Twitter game #DamOrNot (post 1/2)
• Jacqueline Windh: Birding in Mexico

Conservation and biodiversity

• Observations of Gray Wolves in northern Minnesota show that wolves have a more varied diet than expected and forage for berries and fish.
• Red-backed Salamanders play a key role in eastern forest ecosystems.
• Conservation groups want the US Fish and Wildlife Service to determine whether the Shasta Salamander deserves endangered protections before the Shasta Dam is enlarged.
• In Australia, Christmas comes with the emergence of Christmas beetles. 
• The Harenna Forest in Ethiopia — home to wild coffee, the Nyala, and Ethiopian Wolves — is under pressure from logging and other extractive industries.
• Surveys of Rock Creek tributaries show that ten families of aquatic insects have disappeared from the watershed in the last decade and have found evidence sewage leaks.

Climate change and environmental politics

• Dealing with climate change will require both rapid mitigation (eliminating fossil fuel use by 2050) and serious attempts at adaptation. 
• During the shutdown, some volunteers are helping keep national parks functioning, but there is greater potential for vandalism or accidental emergencies.
• While the Trump administration has been ineffective at best on many fronts, one place where it has been very effective is undoing decades of environmental regulations.
• Companies that have been blocked by local opposition from using West Coast ports to export fossil fuels keep seeking workarounds at other levels of government.
• Here is a series of graphics showing how each US state generates electricity.
• CNN has a gallery showing what the US-Mexico border actually looks like, from west to east.
• The best response to China's restrictions on plastic recycling would be to reduce plastic use as much as possible.

Loose Feathers #677

Sedge Wren / Photo by Alex Galt/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• As the Arctic warms, the rate of nest predation there has tripled, making the Arctic less sage for ground-nesting birds like shorebirds.
• A rare Great Black Hawk has persisted in Maine through two snow storms and was recorded on the local CBC. 
• Speaking of Christmas Bird Counts, here is how to find and sign up for one in your area.
• Last weekend, Christmas Bird Counts in the Mid-Atlantic region were pretty soggy.
• Christmas Bird Counts are worth doing even if searches for rare birds turn out to be futile.
• A new paper reports genetic and behavioral evidence for a distinct cardinal population in the Southwest.
• Drones with thermal-imaging cameras can be used to detect nightjar nests.
• Wildlife trafficking is one of the major threats to wild Scarlet Macaws. 
• A German organization that presented itself as a zoo for conservation seems to be involved in trafficking of very rare parrots.
• Seed-eating birds are shifting their breeding season earlier with climate change, just like insect-eating birds.
• A study considered the display flights of Broad-tailed Hummingbirds. 
• Willow Tits are more likely to survive the winter if they join a flock.
• In Patagonia, 23 dead Andean Condors turned out to be poisoned. 
• The genomes for European Robins and European Turtle-Doves were sequenced for the first time.

Science and nature blogging

• The Last Word On Nothing: Looking at Lichen in 2018
• Avithera: Long distance traveller with interesting back story. 
• Urban Hawks: Two Buteos, Red-shouldered Hawk and Red-tailed Hawk
• 10,000 Birds: Shifting Baselines and Sneaky Jays  
• Project SNOWstorm: Out on the Prairies
• Birds, Birds, Birds and More: Reflection on Birding – 2018
• Steve Happ Photography: Tasmanian Endemics 

Conservation and biodiversity

• The development of much of Canada's boreal forest for logging and oil mining has devastated caribou herds.
• Biologists have turned to captive rearing to boost the population of endangered Miami Blue butterflies.
• Hurricane Maria killed around 30 million trees in Puerto Rico, and scientists are studying how the island's forests will change in response. 
• Here are some examples of plants newly discovered this year.
• A citizen science project is documenting wild foxes in Vienna.

Climate change and environmental politics

• The Trump administration is speeding ahead with preparations for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and expects to start selling leases next year. At least one million acres will become available for development.
• A new international agreement created a rulebook for implementing the Paris agreement on climate change.
• A Trump voter who works at the National Butterfly Center is upset that Trump will destroy the refuge to build his wall.
• This year was the third-warmest year on record in the Gulf of Maine, with widespread effects on marine life.
• Canada still refuses to require environmental assessments for in-situ oil mining projects.
• Climate change, particularly sea-level rise, would disrupt Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, according to internal documents.

Loose Feathers #676

Northern Hawk Owl / Photo by Lisa Hupp/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Christmas Bird Counts start this weekend. Here is a guide to submitting CBC data to eBird. Here is a look at trends in CBC results.
• Changing winds due to climate change may make fall migration more difficult but spring migration easier.
• A dam in Thailand caused the local bird population to collapse because of deforestation connected to the dam-building project. 
• Important habitat for Swift Parrots could also be destroyed by dam that would support a fish farm and golf course.
• Facial recognition technology can be trained to recognize at least some individual birds.
• Hummingbird gardens around Mexico City are home to a program to monitor the 17 hummingbird species that live in the city.
• A site in California tracks how often individual hummingbirds visit feeders with RFID technology.
• In Southeast Asia, gamebirds are disappearing outside protected areas. 
• A community reserve for the rare Bugun Liocichla is becoming a model for protecting birds while benefiting nearby communities.
• A new study suggests how birds and dinosaurs evolved iridescent feathers. 
• Satellite trackers are helping scientists monitor the health of Bearded and Cape Vulture populations in South Africa. 
• Meanwhile, the vulture population in Nepal are slowly increasing after years of decline with the help of captive breeding.
• European birds that specialize in mountain habitats have been declining since 2000.

Science and nature blogging

• 10,000 Birds: A Birder Reads a Scientific Paper
• ABA Blog: Open Mic: A Better and Simpler Way to Record Bird Sounds with Smartphones
• Vermont Center for Ecostudies: Study Reveals Striking Decline of Vermont's Bumble Bees  
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Java Sparrow – juvenile to adult transition
• Kent Dragonflies: My Top 5 Odonata Photos of 2018  
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: Eagle Watching Time Is Now!
• Cool Green Science: Snow Birds: 10 Birds to Look for in Winter  
• Avian Hybrids: How many hybrid bird species are there?
• Feathered Photography: Loggerhead Shrike Courtship Feeding Behavior

Conservation and biodiversity

• Native bees in North America have an important role in pollinating plants. They also may be more susceptible to pesticides than honey bees.
• In urban areas, male túngara frogs sing louder and more complex songs since they are safer from their natural predators.
• Denmark is looking for a way to get people and wolves to coexist.
• The network of protected areas in Europe is insufficient to stop the decline of butterfly species. 
• At least one coyote has already crossed a wildlife bridge under construction to provide a safer way for wildlife to cross I-90 in the Cascades.
• A forest that is home to 500-year-old blackgum trees is slowly being killed by saltwater intrusion in southern New Jersey. 
• There is a newly-named species of giant salamander in the southeastern US.

Climate change and environmental politics

• The Trump administration proposed a regulatory change that would remove Clean Water Act protections from ephemeral streams and wetlands that are not directly connected to major waterways. The EPA claims not to have data on how many streams and wetlands would be affected, but a presentation from the USGS shows that it would remove protection from at least 18% of streams and 51% of wetlands. The rule change could threaten wetlands that are important bird habitats.
• The Trump administration will allow seismic blasting off the Atlantic coast to search for oil and gas deposits. Seismic blasting is harmful to marine mammals, and offshore drilling off the Atlantic coast had been restricted by the Obama administration.
• A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows how the Interior Department under Ryan Zinke has systematically removed science from its policy-making process, especially in matter relating to climate change, wildlife conservation, or public health. 
• Failure to reduce emissions would lead to a climate akin to the Pliocene or Eocene in the 22nd century.
• While that sort of scenario might seem absurd, scientists are already seeing rapid warming in the Arctic. 
• A satellite measured methane emissions coming from thawing Arctic lakes for the first time, and so far the emissions seem to be lower than previously estimated.
• While scientists talk about the urgent need for action, the Trump administration used a climate summit to push fossil fuels.
• Warming will hit poorer neighborhoods hardest, partly because of disparities in their street tree canopy.
• Construction of a 30-foot border wall this winter would cut off access to 70% of the National Butterfly Center's property. As with other issues, Ryan Zinke ignored the advice of wildlife biologists regarding border wall construction.

Loose Feathers #675

Greater Sage-Grouse / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• The Trump administration plans to remove protections from the Greater Sage-Grouse and reduce its protected habitat by over 80% to make way for more fossil fuel production.
• Location data from GPS-tagged Razorbills showed the speed and direction of currents in the Irish Sea when the birds rested on the water.
• The establishment of a new breeding colony for Chinese Crested Terns in South Korea may help stabilize the population of this highly-endangered species.
• Predation of female Swift Parrots by introduced sugar gliders has led to a situation where males fight over the remaining females and reduce overall nesting success. 
• A new study found that beak and feather disease is spreading among wild parrot populations because of the pet trade. 
• Some Darwin's finches have developed a taste for human junk food, and it seems to be changing their beak sizes.
• A vagrant Great Black Hawk is still being seen in Maine. 
• Market hunting and conversion of prairie wetlands to agriculture caused many shorebird populations to crash at the end of the 19th century, and now only two species are still hunted.

Science and nature blogging

• Vermont Center for Ecostudies: A Field Guide to December 2018
• Edge Effects: Outswimming Extinction in the Great Lakes
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Birds and their bathing behaviour
• Birds Korea Blog: Green-winged Teal, Siheung, December 3
• Pioneer Birding: MA - the Baer's Pochard in Longmeadow
• The Rattling Crow: Watching Waxwings  
• ornithologi: Differentiating Adult and Juvenile Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus)
• Avithera: Pelican feeding chick

Conservation and biodiversity

• More and more research points to large declines in insect populations.
• Small bits of plastic, coming mainly from single-use plastics, are hurting the survival of baby sea turtles, which mistake them for food.
• A new study suggests that 8-30% of unstudied plants may be at risk of extinction; plants, especially ones in hard-to-reach locations, tend to get less attention from conservationists.
• The venom of the brown tree snake, which decimated Guam's native wildlife when it was introduced to the island, is not as unique as previously thought.
• The population of Monarchs wintering in California is down 86% from last year. 
• The USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab has a photographic project that seeks to interest the public in bee conservation. You can see their close-up bee photos on their Flickr page.

Climate change and environmental politics

• The climate report that the Trump administration released over Thanksgiving weekend details how no US region is safe from climate change.
• One bit of good news on the climate change front is that the US is using less coal than any year since 1979. However, global carbon emissions hit an all-time high in 2018 even with the drop in US coal use.
• A new study links the mass extinction at the end of the Permian to sudden warming.
• Last year Congress approved oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the Trump administration is doing everything it can to speed up the approval process despite threats to the Arctic ecosystem and animals that live there. Teshekpuk Lake, home to many breeding birds, could be next.
• It looks likely that the National Butterfly Center will soon be bulldozed to make way for the border wall.
• A judge blocked plans to end protections for the endangered Red Wolf.