Loose Feathers #738

Mallard / my photo

Birds and birding news

• Three native honeycreeper species on Kauai are starting to sound like each other because their populations have declined so much. The loss of distinctive songs could make it harder for them to find mates and worsen their chances for survival.
• A recent article describes three new tapaculo species from Peru.
• Industrial krill fishing off the Antarctic Peninsula makes life harder for penguins. 
• The Saltmarsh Sparrow is the only bird species unique to East Coast saltmarshes, and its survival is threatened because sea level rise is steadily turning the high marsh where it nests into low marsh.
• Black-throated Blue Warblers are migrating about five days earlier than they did in the 1960s.
• Raptors that eat from higher levels of the food web accumulate more mercury in their bodies. 
• Sea lions in Chile suddenly started preying on the largest breeding colony of Black-necked Swans, raising questions about whether this would affect the swans' population and if the predation could be stopped.
• Harriet Tubman used bird calls (especially Barred Owl) as a signal to people she was helping to escape from slavery.
• A new report on the state of India's birds found that 50% of species had declined over the past two decades and 79% had declined within the past five years.
• Toxic chemicals can build up in the bodies of seabirds that have eaten plastic.
• The US Fish and Wildlife Service is attempting to eradicate house mice from the South Farallon Islands to protect a breeding colony of Ashy Storm-Petrels.
• A viral story about a poodle being carried off by a hawk is probably false. 
• Electrocution has become one of the top threats to Bald Eagles and other raptor species in New Jersey.

Science and nature blogging

• Avian Hybrids: Ecological speciation in the saltmarshes
• Nemesis Bird: The Snowy Owl's Supper, a Pellet Mini-Mystery by Tim Healy 
• Feathered Photography: Peregrine Falcon Circling Prey
• The Prairie Ecologist: Another Example of the Value of Thistles 
• Cool Green Science: Reducing the Speed Limit Won’t Make Roads Safer for Wildlife
• The Freiday Bird Blog: Threats to NJ Birds: The Upshot
• Backyard and Beyond: Oaks to Caterpillars to Birds
• On The Wing Photography: Male Red-winged Blackbirds Are Displaying On Territory
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey: Ospreys Continue to Thrive in New Jersey
• Arachnofiles: Arachnews: February 24, 2020
• Birds Korea Blog: Opinion: New Airports and Climate Change  
• Colin Purrington: Spotted lanternfly control tips

Biodiversity and conservation

• Conservationists are worried about the potential for extinctions if a chytrid fungus spreads among the many salamander species in Appalachia.
• Bolivia and Paraguay are developing a joint conservation plan for wild guanacos.
• Delaware has a plan to remove or modify the ten remaining dams on its section of Brandywine Creek to restore fish migration. 
• The number of Monarchs that winter in California remained critically low for the second straight year.
• Planting native plants can help reverse insect declines.

Climate change and environmental politics

• The Supreme Court heard arguments this week over whether the Atlantic Coast Pipeline could cross the Appalachian Trail without Congressional approval. (The land is within a national forest, but the trail is administered by the National Park Service.) The case could set a precedent for trails elsewhere in the country.
• Meanwhile, a pipeline developer cancelled plans to build a natural gas pipeline through the Catskill Mountains, and a proposed tar sands mining development in Alberta collapsed because investors were concerned it might not be profitable. The cancellation of the latter project saved thousands of acres of boreal forest.
• Unusually warm summers in coastal Alaska caused major changes in the distribution of marine life. 
• Climate change is also making shellfish toxic for indigenous Alaskans.
• The EPA is asking the public (including polluters) which regulations to get rid of.
• The Trump administration abruptly shut down a study of potential storm surge solutions for New York Harbor and Raritan Bay. Environmentalists opposed the centerpiece of the study, a six-mile barrier across the mouth of the bay because it would concentrate pollutants and sediment in the estuary and possibly harm marine life.
• This year California's new groundwater regulations will begin to go into effect. Wells will still be allowed, but pumping will be limited to sustainable levels.
• This winter is on track to being one of the least snowy winters in New Jersey on record. 
• A fire burned through part of Worthington State Forest in the Delaware Water Gap this week.

Loose Feathers #737

Blue Jay / Photo by J. Meyers/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A study of Black-throated Blue Warblers using data from bird banding stations found that they have been migrating about one day earlier per decade over the past fifty years.
• A model suggests that birds migrated during glacial periods and that patterns of migration changed with the climate.
• The replacement with grass or soil surfaces with artificial turf or concrete in urban parks contributes to the decline of sparrows.
• A genetic study of island-dwelling birds from 110 archipelagos confirmed key predictions of island biogeography. 
• Restoration of habitat for the Northern Bobwhite in Maryland also helps the Chesapeake Bay watershed by reducing agricultural runoff.
• An experiment found that North Island Robins have long-term memories. 
• Conservationists are pushing for protection of the Bengal Florican so that it can be a flagship species for riparian grasslands in South and Southeast Asia.
• A frozen bird that emerged from the permafrost in Siberia turned out to be a Horned Lark from 46,000 years ago.

Science and nature blogging

• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino's Life in the Meadowlands: The Eagle Has Returned But for How Long?
• Avian Hybrids: Choosing between Cerrado and Chaco: Which corridor connected the Andean and Atlantic forest populations of the Buff-browed Foliage Gleaner? 
• Arachnofiles: Arachnews: February 17, 2020
• Backyard and Beyond: I’m Easy Lichen Sunday Morning…
• Linda Murdock Photography: Great Blue Herons are Ready for Spring

Biodiversity and conservation

• Pangolins have been suggested as potential sources of the recent coronavirus outbreak since they are so highly trafficked. In addition to trafficking, habitat destruction contributes to the spread of disease from wildlife to humans by pushing wildlife into smaller patches of habitat and bringing them into closer contact with people and their pets and livestock. The epidemic and its likely origin should also not be an excuse for bigotry.
• A heat wave in New Zealand cooked thousands of mussels to death. 
• Ethical wildlife photography requires minimizing harm to wildlife and honesty about how photos were taken. 
• A DNA barcoding study found that there may be more bat species in the Philippines than thought. As a consequence some bat species may be more endangered than they are currently classified.
• Road salt is harmful to amphibians when it washes into nearby wetlands.
• A population of hybrid poison frogs is the result of natural interbreeding rather than trafficking.
• Reintroduction of beavers in England has caused some local problems but overall has benefits for both people and wildlife. 
• Freshwater insects and plants have improved since hitting lows in the 1970s.

Climate change and environmental politics

• Winters have been warming faster than summers (much like colder places are warming faster than hotter places) and warmer winters have a host of cascading effects, from reducing the snowpack in the West to increasing the number of disease-carrying and invasive insects in the East.
• The Trump administration's weakening of federal protections for waterways will have the worst effects in states without strong local protections. The rule also has the potential to undo progress in the Chesapeake region, where some states have made more of an effort than others to clean up the watershed.
• The Trump administration is pushing ahead with weakening standards for mercury emissions despite opposition from the electric industry. Coal companies want the rollback, however.
• A new study suggests that methane emissions from fossil fuel operations are much higher than previous estimates.
• Because of the prevailing winds, coal-fired power plants in the Midwest contribute to air pollution on the East Coast, and the EPA seems disinclined to take action.
• Indigenous activists have been fighting the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline across their territory in British Columbia. 
• Climate change has been rising as a priority for voters, but there is still a large divide between Republican and Democratic voters on the issue.
• Here is a primer on why single-use plastics are a problem and how to reduce their usage. 
• A federal study is assessing pollution from the Diamond Alkali Superfund site to inform cleanup of the site and the Passaic River.

Loose Feathers #736

Great Horned Owl / Photo by Bill Moses/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• This weekend is the Great Backyard Bird Count. Here is an explanation of how to participate.
• New genetic evidence suggests that Northwestern and American Crows were split by the last ice age but have been merging through interbreeding since then. This raises the question of whether they should be considered separate species.
• Chinstrap Penguins are in decline, much like Adelie Penguins but unlike Gentoo Penguins, and the decline seems to be linked to climate change. 
• The Trump administration plans to expand the killing of cormorants when they come into conflict with the aquaculture and fishing industries and delegate the authority to decide whether culling is appropriate to state governments. 
• The Blue-bearded Helmetcrest is a rare hummingbird whose range is mostly within the territory of the indigenous Kogi people in Colombia.
• Birders in Wisconsin have been seeing a leucistic Pileated Woodpecker along the Milwaukee River.
• A project in Borneo is building nest boxes for Rhinoceros Hornbills.
• A New York birder and photographer was deported to Yemen last month.

Science and nature blogging

• The Freiday Bird Blog: Threats to NJ Birds: the Next Three Dishonorable Mentions
• MaghrebOrnitho: Northern Bald Ibis in Morocco since 1900: Analysis of ecological requirements
• Feathered Photography: Pied-billed Grebe With A Crayfish (or whatever you wanna call it) For Dinner
• Bug Eric: Avoiding Despair in the Age of the “Insect Apocalypse”
• Avian Hybrids: The variable beak of the finch: How hybridization increases variation in beak morphology
• Sibley Guides: The head shape of Herring Gulls seems to change seasonally
• Arachnofiles: Arachnews: February 10, 2020 
• Seabirding: Expedition Diablotin May 2019 - by Brian Patteson

Biodiversity and conservation

• An area of Sri Lanka that had been off-limits because of civil war turned out to be a haven for reptiles and amphibians, including at least 84 species.
• Recovery and survival of the longleaf pine in the Southeast will depend on generations of private landowners being willing to plant and maintain stands of it. Longleaf pine forests are home to a high level of biodiversity, including Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.
• The disappearance of frogs due to Bd. seems to be reducing the number of snakes that used to feed on them. 
• Grizzly bear death rates are rising, mainly because of the roads and railroads that slice through the territory. 
• Many wildlife in addition to bears are threatened because of roads that intersect their migration or dispersal paths.
• The Tongass and Chugach National Forests provide breeding habitat that produces 48 million salmon per year. 
• Government agencies are trying to reduce the number of invasive carp in the Mississippi watershed. Carp were introduced to North America in the 1960s and 1970s.
• Pangolins may be an intermediate host for the coronavirus, which originated in bats. Pangolins are one of the most highly-trafficked animals and are often found in animal markets like the one in Wuhan.

Climate change and environmental politics

• Oil released in the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010 covered a much larger area than estimated at the time because some of the oil was not visible on satellite imagery. Safety regulations intended to prevent a similar disaster have since been removed by the Trump administration.
• The Trump administration's changes to enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act would eliminate the fines that BP received for killing birds with the Deepwater Horizon spill.
• Last month was the hottest January on record worldwide, and this month looks likely to continue that trend.
• Officials in Alberta have no idea how to clean up the toxic tailings ponds that result from tar sands mining. Meanwhile, the ponds are a death trap for waterbirds and contribute to air and groundwater pollution.
• A climate change plan for South Florida involves building miles of massive sea walls and tidal barriers.
• The person running the Bureau of Land Management has devoted his life to privatizing public land, even if that means collaborating with dangerous conspiracy theorists.
• Border wall construction is blasting through Native American burial grounds and other sites of historical and ecological importance.

Loose Feathers #735

Northern Pintail / Photo by K. Chelius/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Captive-bred Madagascar Pochards are already reproducing in the wild. The Madagascar Pochard is critically endangered, and its wild population was down to a few dozen individuals at an isolated lake. 
• Backyard feeding of Eastern Bluebirds appears to reduce the effect of parasitic flies on nestlings. 
• Birds that mimic other birds can sometimes be hard to tell from the real thing. 
• Like other scavengers, the Andean Condor is threatened by pesticides, including deliberate poisonings.
• A biologist at UCLA is studying how urban Dark-eyed Juncos compare with ones in mountains nearby. 
• The beaks of Darwin's finches and Hawaiian honeycreepers evolved along with the shape of their skulls.
• An experiment in the Dominican Republic showed that playback can help regenerate degraded forests by attracting birds that disperse seeds.
• The construction of a new airport north of Manilla threatens dozens of migratory waterbirds.

Science and nature blogging

• Vermont Center for Ecostudies: Field Guide to February 2020
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino's Life in the Meadowlands: The Best Field Guide
• Avian Hybrids: Genetic study uncovers viability selection in the Imperial Eagle 
• awkward botany: Ground Beetles as Weed Seed Predators 
• Arachnofiles: Arachnews: February 3, 2020 
• Backyard and Beyond: Homero Gómez González
• The Rattling Crow: Long-tailed tits hanging and feeding
• On The Wing Photography: An American Coot On Patrol 

Biodiversity and conservation

• Light pollution makes it harder for fireflies to find potential mates and may eventually drive some species to extinction.
• Bumblebees have declined by 46% in North America and 17% in Europe over the past fifty years, and climate change seems to be a major factor. 
• Planting trees is important for both climate change and quality of life in urban areas, but it is also important to take care of the ones we already have.
• A land flatworm from South American is invading Europe, and its spread is being tracked by citizen science.
• Old oak forests accumulate more nitrogen and carbon in their soil than recently-replanted ones. 
• South Africa is dealing with an invasive borer beetle that has potential to decimate urban trees.
• Chemicals released in storms and wildfires can linger in the waters of the Everglades for years afterwards. 
• Some butterflies can pass new scent preferences on to their offspring.
• Peru has pledged to create a new marine reserve around the Dorsal de Nasca, an underwater mountain range.
• Butterflies can sense the temperature with cells on their wings and also have structures to radiate excess heat. These adaptations are necessary since butterfly wings will only function within a certain temperature range.

Climate change and environmental politics

• The Trump administration announced plans to open contested parts of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments to mining and drilling.
• A second environmentalist who worked to protect Monarchs at the El Rosario sanctuary in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve has been murdered. Habitat for the butterflies is threatened by illegal logging.
• Early models of how carbon emissions might affect the climate are surprisingly accurate.
• London police want to expand the public nuisance law to restrict Extinction Rebellion protests. This is part of a trend of governments clamping down and spying on environmental activists rather than taking action on climate change.
• Contractors for the border wall are blasting through Monument Hill in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, part of a trail of destruction left by wall construction. 
• In many places, the border wall will need floodgates to be left open for months to prevent flood damage during monsoon season. 
• While a lot of campaign reporting has focused on whether platforms have a realistic chance of getting passed, a climate reporter argues that only the plans put forward by Sanders and Warren have a realistic chance of dealing with climate change.
• A road through grizzly bear habitat along the Canadian border is being reopened for the benefit of the border patrol. 
• The rate of sea level rise is increasing at 25 of the 32 measuring stations along the U.S. coastline. The highest rate is in Louisiana, where sea level rise is exacerbated by land subsidence.
• The Antarctic Peninsula set a new temperature record for continental Antarctica.
• Spain ended its subsidies for coal mining last year and eliminated most of its use of coal for electricity generation. The reforms were meant to comply with EU regulations.
• Japan, on the other, plans to build more coal-fired power plants, a result of the reaction against nuclear energy following the Fukushima disaster.
• Biodiversity hotspots that were considered refuges from climate change are going to be stressed by global heating.
• New Jersey had record warmth this January.