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.