Dendroica: Loose Feathers #701

Friday, June 07, 2019

Great Blue Heron / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

The large nesting colonies of Tricolored Blackbirds need protection if the species is going to survive, but changes in agriculture in California make that increasingly difficult.
Red Knots and other shorebirds that migrate through Delaware Bay are still struggling because of low horseshoe crab egg densities.
Still on the subject of Red Knots, here is an interview with the writer who translated The Narrow Edge into Spanish.
A new report catalogues threats to New Zealand's seabirds, from invasive predators to plastic pollution.
For a long time, Ireland was notable for its lack of woodpeckers, but in the last decade, Great Spotted Woodpeckers made it across the Irish Sea and started breeding in County Wicklow.
When African Penguins work to corral fish, they attract the attention of other seabirds, like petrels and shearwaters.
A new study suggests that hummingbirds learn their songs and flight displays.
Changing water levels at Lake Hodges near San Diego are destroying nesting habitat for Western and Clark's Grebes.
A California Condor may have hatched in Zion National Park.
The deceased Great Black Hawk that traveled to Maine will be stuffed and put on display at the Maine State Museum, and a statue of it will be placed in the park where it tried to spend the winter.
Finally, baby bird season is upon us; here is what to do if you find a chick out of its nest.

Science and nature blogging

Conservation and biodiversity

Genetically unique organisms like solenodons should be a conservation priority.
Focusing too much attention on one species like the Monarch risks ignoring the great diversity of other insects, many of which also need help.
An unusually high number of gray whales have washed up dead on the West Coast this year.
Many birders are aware that migrating birds can be seen on weather radar; flying insects also sometimes appear.
Topsail and Bald Head Islands off North Carolina are having unusually productive sea turtle nesting seasons.
The U.S. is attempting the same culling tactics on coyotes as it used to extirpate wolves, but extirpating wolves made room for the coyotes.
A scientific panel found numerous flaws in a proposal to delist wolves in the Lower 48.

Climate change and environmental politics

The climate change lawsuit will go before an appeals court panel this week to determine if the suit can move forward.
People eat and breathe in thousands of particles of microplastic each year.
Henderson Island, a remote island in the Pacific, is covered in plastic.
This spring Alaska has been exceptionally warm, and the heat is undermining infrastructure and hurting wildlife.
Climate change is hurting communities in Greenland as well.
The Trump administration wants to increase hunting in national wildlife refuges. Another proposal would require hunting imagery on duck stamps, which help fund conservation.
As the need to decarbonize becomes more dire, some states are imposing harsher penalties for protesting fossil fuel pipelines.
Climate change will increase the cost of maintaining state parks, which serve even more people than national parks.
Finland's new government wants to make the country carbon-neutral by 2035.
Meanwhile, Germany plans to close all of its coal-fired power plants by 2038.
DC plans to build a bridge to connect the National Arboretum to Kenilworth Park.
The Murphy administration denied permits for a proposed pipeline that would run under Raritan Bay. New York had made a similar decision last week.

Dendroica