Loose Feathers #700

Great Black-backed Gull / Photo by Amanda Boyd/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A major wreck of Tufted Puffins on Alaska's St. Paul Island in 2016 was probably caused by starvation and ultimately by climate change, which is changing the availability of prey.
• Black Rails are among the most vulnerable birds in the U.S. and also one of the least understood. Much of their remaining population is in the Southeast and is extremely vulnerable to climate change.
• Saltmarsh Sparrows are in a similar situation and need protection from the Endangered Species Act, but the US Fish and Wildlife Service put off making a decision for another four years.
• The recent sale of Dodo fossils at auction sparked an essay on how fragmentary our knowledge of that extinct species is.
• Birds wipe their bills for multiple reasons, including cleaning and sharpening them.
• Seabird nesting colonies rebounded once rats were removed from Lundy.
• The Wake Island Rail was wiped out during World War II.
• A habitat management plan for the rare Black-throated Finch was approved even though it does not do much for the finch, which is threatened by a mining project.
• A new birder writes about using eBird during the Global Big Day at the beginning of May.

Science and nature blogging

• ABA Blog: Birding for a Cause: Breeding Bird Atlases Need Your Help this Summer
• feathers and thoughts: Pareudiastes – some thoughts about the Puna’e and its mysterious congeners
• Coyote Gulch: The continental United States recently finished its soggiest 12 months in 124 years of modern recordkeeping — @NASA #ActOnClimate
• Extinction Countdown: What Losing One Million Species Means for the Planet--and Humanity  
• Chicago Ornithological Society: Dan's Feathursday Feature: Ovenbird
• mocosocoBirds: Mourning and Kentucky Warblers – May 30, 2019
• Urban Hawks: Warbling Vireo Nest II 
• Ontario Birds and Herps: Brown Pelican at Jordan harbour, Niagara Region  
• iNaturalist.org Blog: The Elusive Colombian Weasel - Observation of the Week, 12/9/18

Conservation and biodiversity

• Species are disappearing at a rapid rate, but we do not hear about most extinctions as they happen, which makes the biodiversity crisis seem less severe than it is. 
• Balloon releases are terrible for the environment, especially for marine creatures that mistake them for food.
• Striped maples, a characteristic tree of northern hardwood forests, can change from male to female and back depending on conditions.

Climate change and environmental politics

• Climate change is uncovering the bodies of dead hikers on Mount Everest and may make the ascent more difficult in the future as its snowpack and glaciers continue to melt.
• A concerning trend is the rise of extinction denialism, usually working in parallel with climate change denialism. 
• Even though Trump administration officials seem to understand that climate change is real, they have been doing all they can to suppress any use of climate science. 
• One example of that is their farcical attempt to rebrand natural gas as "freedom gas."
• Two proposed natural gas pipelines in Virginia have run into legal trouble because of shortcuts the companies used (with the cooperation of regulators) to get their pipelines approved. 
• The Interior Department postponed a plan to lease lands near Chaco Canyon for fossil fuel drilling.
• States in the Colorado River's watershed recently agreed to a new framework for dividing the river's water, but a new round of negotiations may be more contentious.
• A former government employee says that he was pressured by the Trump administration to approve development plans no matter the environmental consequences. 
• The towns of Brigantine, Avalon, and Stone Harbor in New Jersey are banning plastic bags as of this weekend.

Loose Feathers #699

Turkey and Black Vultures / photo by me

Birds and birding news

• Many birds fly long distances over water during migration; some of them never make it to shore and fall prey to sharks.
• As the Salton Sea's water level decreases and its salinity increases, the lake is losing much of its bird life. 
• A fishing moratorium around Robben Island in South Africa showed how human activities affect penguins.
• Wading birds are nesting in the Everglades in the highest numbers since the 1940s.
• A new study identifies fishing hotspots where seabirds may be in danger.
• Bald Eagle chicks in a transmission tower nest in Neshanic Station were banded and given health checks.
• Captive-bred Crested Ibises were released into the wild in South Korea for the first time in decades. 
• Tests on captive birds suggest that ravens are affected by the moods of other ravens.

Science and nature blogging

• Avian Hybrids: Genomic analyses point to speciation with gene flow in the Northern Saw-whet Owl
• Bird Ecology Study Group: Black-thighed Falconet – juveniles/family
• Snapshots of Nature: Small Owl in the Big City 
• 10,000 Birds: Twenty-Four Hours of Awesome Part Three: Sweet, Sweet Sage
• Bug Eric: World Bee Day....A Little "Bee"hind 
• ABA Blog: How to Know the Birds: No. 8, Why Do Carolina Wrens Sound So Loud?
• Birding New Jersey: Not a Mystery Bird — Unless….
• Backyard and Beyond: A.C. Bent & Co. on Raptors
• Natural Newstead: A ‘wave’ of flames
• Dan Tallman’s Bird Blog: MacGillivray’s Warbler

Conservation and biodiversity

• Invasive earthworms are changing the ecology of the boreal forest, in ways that might affect climate change. 
• A new study emphasizes the harm that the proposed Pebble Mine would cause to salmon in the Nushagak watershed; salmon use the entire watershed and spawn in different locations from year to year depending on the conditions.
• A study of feral cats on New Zealand's Ponui Island found that they eat mostly rodents but also many native birds.
• The biodiversity of coral reefs is fueled partly by small fish that live very short lives.
• Harvester ants demolish spider webs to free trapped coworkers.
• Native plants can recover on their own when invasive plants are thoroughly removed. 
• Oil does not clog baleen, but plastic does.

Climate change and environmental politics

• Carbon offsets are not working as claimed: the gains are either quickly reversed or never materialize in the first place.
• Flooding along the Mississippi has revived a proposal for a pumping project that would damage wetlands used by migratory birds. 
• The EPA is canceling the registrations for a dozen neonicotinoid pesticides due to the harm they cause to bees. The decision was part of a legal settlement.
• John Delaney, a Democratic candidate for president, proposes to address climate change with a carbon tax and a carbon capture program. Jay Inslee still has the most detailed climate change plan among the Democratic candidates.
• Floods in Cumbria in 2009 and 2015 were the worst in over 500 years.
• A proposal for a natural gas compressor station in Massachusetts did not include complete pollution data. 
• A recent House hearing showed that climate change denialism extends to the biodiversity crisis as well.
• One proposal for reducing greenhouse gas emissions includes shorter workweeks.
• Plant hardiness zones are creeping northward with climate change.

Loose Feathers #698

Upland Sandpiper / Photo by Jennifer Strickland/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• New Jersey Audubon's World Series of Birding was last Saturday. See the final standings here. My team, the Middlesex Merlins, finished with 119 species, a little below our usual numbers.
• A reporter from The Guardian followed the Meadowlands Marsh Hawks around Bergen County during the World Series of Birding.
• Hawaiian Crows have built a nest in the wild for the first time in decades. 
• Three captive-bred Florida Grasshopper Sparrows were released into the wild this week. The subspecies is one of the most endangered land birds in the U.S.
• Many American cities are home to colonies of feral parrots, descended from birds that escaped captivity. 
• Chicago is the deadliest American city for birds because of a combination glass-covered buildings and location on a major migratory flyway.
• Organic farming benefits birds that nest in agricultural areas, especially insectivores like swallows. 
• Bridge work in Oradell was delayed due to nesting Black-crowned Night-Herons, which are currently featured in a lawsuit by the construction company.
• This week was the start of Climate Watch, a citizen science project to monitor how birds react to climate change.

Science and nature blogging

• Avian Hybrids: East or West? Different populations of Red-necked Phalaropes use distinct migration routes
• Ornithologi: Published in the Journal of Raptor Research: Dietary Plasticity in a Specialist Predator, the Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus): New Insights into Diet During Brood Rearing  
• robertscribbler: Perturbed Earth: Why is Heat-Trapping Methane on the Rise?
• 10,000 Birds: The Golden-cheeked Warbler and Conservation Banks
• Philly Bird Nerd: World Series of Birding - 2019
• ABA Blog: Happening NOW: Wilson’s Plovers Winging North
• awkward botany: Drought Tolerant Plants: Ice Plants
• feathers and thoughts: Jurassic Bird – Alcmonavis poeschli Rauhut, Tischlinger & Foth
• Laura's Birding Blog: Distressing News for Birders with High Frequency Hearing Loss

Conservation and biodiversity

• Some species may be in greater danger of extinction than we realize because of their long generation times.
• Grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region have to travel farther from home to find adequate food, and their mortality rate is increasing.

Climate change and environmental politics

• After unsuccessful attempts to build walls through the National Butterfly Center and Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, the Trump administration now has its eyes on Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge for wall construction projects.
• In 2017, Trump appointees pushed the USFWS to delist or not list 30 vulnerable species and wanted the same to be done in 2018.
• Scientists found 414 million plastic pieces on a remote island chain in the Pacific. The islands are lightly populated, so most of the plastic probably washed in from the ocean.
• Timber certification is no guarantee that it was logged sustainably, or even legally.
• The EPA's inspector general says the agency should take back $124,000 of Scott Pruitt's excessive expenses.
• Phil Murphy appointed a new member to the Pinelands Commission to replace one of Chris Christie's nominees, who had been appointed to push through pipeline projects.

Loose Feathers #697

Willet / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Tomorrow is New Jersey Audubon's World Series of Birding, an annual big day competition that is now in its 36th year. Once again I will be competing with the Middlesex Merlins as we try to break our previous record in Middlesex County. If you would like to make a donation to NJ Audubon in our team's name, here is our team page.
• Among the birds we will be looking for are the colorful wood warblers.
• Penguin poop feeds communities of plants and invertebrates in Antarctica. 
• Adding UV lights to power lines could help cranes avoid hitting them.
• The flightless Aldabra Rail is the second flightless rail to evolve on the island of Aldabra; an earlier flightless species there had been wiped out when the island was inundated.
• Bird flocks can move together if birds within the flock follow the neighbors by identical rules. Jackdaws are an exception because pairs stick together within the flock. 
• A rare American Flamingo has lingered in St Marks NWR since last October, shortly after Hurricane Michael's landfall.
• Birds evolved flightlessness multiple times, but each time they used a similar genetic basis to do it.
• An interview with a sound editor for Game of Thrones discusses how bird sounds get picked for movies and television.

Science and nature blogging

• Shorebirder: YELLOW RAIL in CT - May 9, 2019
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: Old Boots, Books and Binoculars 
• Vermont Center for Ecostudies: Field Guide to May 2019
• The Prairie Ecologist: Trade-offs in Prescribed Fire: Safety vs. Objectives
• The Metropolitan Field Guide: The Metropolitan Field Guide Diary of an Urban Wild Garden: The Small Carpenter Bee 
• Dakota Birder: Solved! One of life’s 3 big mysteries
• Wanstead Birder: Local birding, but not as you know it …. 
• Feathered Photography: A Weird Experience With A Coyote On Antelope Island
• Avian Hybrids: The head of the finch: A small genetic region controls colour morphs in the Gouldian Finch
• Backyard and Beyond: Skinks  
• Mia McPherson's On The Wing Photography: Cliff Swallow Surfing A Phragmites “Wave”

Conservation and biodiversity

• A new report details how rapidly humans are changing ecosystems, with losses of 20% of biodiversity in most land habitats in the past century. That figure is mostly without climate change, so we can expect many more extinctions in the next century.
• Japanese Knotweed is one of the most difficult invasive species to control, both in North America and in Europe.
• Sea level rise is starting to kill coastal forests via saltwater intrusion, which may benefit some coastal and shrubland species. 
• Scientists found baldcypress trees over 2,000 years old in a swamp in North Carolina.
• A new pitviper species was described from India.
• A brown bear was seen in Portugal for the first time since the 19th century. 
• Since the removal of the San Clemente Dam on the Carmel River in California, steelhead trout have slowly made their way back up the river to spawn there again.

Climate change and environmental politics

• So far only two of the many Democratic candidates for president have detailed climate change plans.
• Ireland became the second country to declare a climate emergency in the wake of the Extinction Rebellion protests, but the resolution is largely symbolic.
• The last reactor at Three Mile Island is shutting down. 
• If New Jersey gets around to passing its single-use plastic ban, the bill may include a ban on paper bags as well.

Loose Feathers #696

Green-winged Teal / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A Bald Eagle in Glacier National Park died of lead poisoning, mostly likely from consuming lead ammunition. 
• Audubon has some suggested exercises for preventing warbler neck. 
• A new population of endangered Blue-eyed Ground-doves was discovered in Brazil.
• A new paper looked at the cellular level to find why birds generally live longer than mammals.
• Songbirds like Zebra Finches are able to learn social cues.
• A Red-shouldered Hawk in South Carolina was observed catching and eating a ghost crab.
• Feral and outdoor cats remain one of the biggest killers of birds.

Science and nature blogging

• ABA Blog: Happening NOW: Delaware Bay Shorebirds Provide a Study in Local Status & Distribution
• AOS News Blog: Singing Above the Urban Ruckus, If You’re a Mockingbird
• Bug Eric: Borids Are Not Bor-ing
• Ontario Birds and Herps: Hermit Warbler and other Ontario rarities
• Feathered Photography: Are Predator Control Practices Used On Antelope Island Coyotes? 

Conservation and biodiversity

• Since Araguaian River Dolphins were discovered in 2014, researchers have been documenting their vocalizations.
• Over the winter, NPS introduced 13 new wolves to Isle Royale National Park and collared 20 moose with tracking devices to learn more about how the wolves affect them.
• Common Dolphins are dying at a record pace this year, and many of them have injuries that seem to be caused by being trapped in fishing nets.
• A drone helped rediscover an endangered plant in the Kalalau Valley on Kaua'i. The plant is probably pollinated by endemic honeycreepers.
• "Plant blindness" is an impediment to conservation, and here are some ways to address it.
• The forests of Cambodia's Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary are disappearing through a series of clearcuts and agricultural concessions.
• An off-leash dog killed a Guadalupe Fur Seal pup at Point Reyes National Seashore.
• Parts of Appalachia will have a 17-year cicada emergence this summer.
• Another mangrove in Myanmar is being cleared to make way for aquaculture shrimp. 
• Invasive Spotted Lanternflies are vulnerable to two native fungi. 

Climate change and environmental politics

• The Trump administration weakened offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
• The American Burying Beetle will be downlisted from endangered to threatened to allow more oil and gas drilling in Oklahoma.
• Serious flooding in eastern Canada raised questions about how to address threats from climate change.