Posts
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| Northern Pintail / Photo by K. Chelius/USFWS |
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
