Posts
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| Bald Eagle / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS |
- There have been a number of articles published on birding while practicing social distancing. Here is one on backyard birding. Birding festivals are being replaced with online programs. Closures and travel restrictions are something we will be dealing with for a long while.
- A program to turn marginal cropland on Maryland's Eastern Shore into habitat for Northern Bobwhites can also help reduce runoff into the Chesapeake Bay. Bobwhites have declined sharply in the Mid-Atlantic region due primarily to loss of habitat.
- Biologists in Arizona found a Bald Eagle nest in the arms of a saguaro cactus. The last record of such a nesting site was in 1937.
- An unusual nightjar specimen known as Vaurie’s Nightjar is probably a subspecies of European Nightjar.
- Some seabirds have a cooperative foraging strategy in which they repeatedly fly in parallel arcs to find the best areas for feeding.
- Sandhill Cranes stop over in wetlands created as part of a public works project on Washington's Columbia Plateau.
- Unfortunately scaring birds away from a toxic waste pond is an essential job.
- Corvid Research: A tale of two crows: northwestern vs. American
- The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino's Life in the Meadowlands: Our Favorite Birds
- Avian Hybrids: The peculiar genomes of Falcons
- In Defense of Plants: Meet the Ocotillo
- The Urban Nature Enthusiast: Raven Therapy
- On The Wing Photography: Thermoregulating Turkey Vulture Close Up
- Arachnofiles: Arachnews: April 13, 2020
- The Museum of the Earth has a virtual exhibit on bee evolution and diversity.
- Entomology Today published a two-part series on macro photography of insects. Here is part 1 and part 2.
- Monarch caterpillars and pupae are stressed when handled by humans, but adult Monarchs do not appear to be as stressed.
- Ecologists are trying to figure out how much recreation activity is too much for wildlife to survive.
- Destruction of koala habitat actually increased in New South Wales and Queensland after the koala was listed as vulnerable in 2012.
- Freshwater mussels are having an increasing number of mass die-offs. The causes are unclear, but they are part of a long-term decline across many species.
- Logging threatens woodland caribou since the young forest that takes its place attracts moose and wolves.
- Plant diversity is declining in European forests, and less common plants are disappearing.
- One of the easiest ways to support conservation at a small scale is to plant native plants, which support insects, birds, and other wildlife.
- There are a few iNaturalist projects specifically for observations during the COVID-19 shutdowns, including the COVID-19 Quarantine Blitz and Socially Distant Bioblitz.
- The EPA is gaming the cost-benefit analysis of air pollution rules to allow coal plants to release more mercury.
- The Trump administration's campaign to scale back environmental regulations is likely to undo years of work to clean up places like the Chesapeake Bay.
- The drought in the Southwest is already as bad as any in the last 1,200 years according to new research. The only megadrought that was worse occurred in the 16th century. Without climate change, there might still be a drought, but it would not be nearly as bad.
- A severe and prolonged drought is devastating Anjouan in the Comoros islands.
- In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic that is plaguing other regions, parts of eastern Africa are dealing with unusually large swarms of locusts. The swarms were triggered by an extreme weather pattern last year that has been linked to climate change.
- This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and the results of the spill were under-reported and worse than anticipated.
