Loose Feathers #770

Black-throated Blue Warbler / my photo

Birds and birding news

• The USFWS will list the Black Rail as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. This species has been declining rapidly, particularly on the Atlantic coast. Unfortunately the Trump administration has stripped many of the protections for threatened species, so it remains to be seen how much good listing will do.
• The recent mass bird deaths in the Southwest show how a convergence of unusual events can lead to population declines and possibly extinctions.
• A new radar-based study shows the importance of migratory stopover habitat.
• Last Friday, between 1,000 and 1,500 migrating birds died after colliding with skyscrapers in Center City Philadelphia. Deaths like this can be avoided by shutting off lights on nights with heavy migration.
  

Science and nature blogging

• Feathered Photography: Red-breasted Nuthatch Foraging For Seeds On Douglas Fir Cones
• Shorebird Science: Counting phalaropes in Argentina: overcoming challenges and learning about dispersal
• Cool Green Science: Deformed Beaks: What We Know About An Alarming Bird Disease 
• How Beasties Behave: Introducing the burying beetle
• Vermont Center for Ecostudies: Field Guide to October 2020 
  

Biodiversity and conservation

• Every October features an online celebration of spiders and other arachnids. To follow along, see @arachtober or #arachtober on Twitter, or the Arachtober group on Flickr.
• Letting forests grow back naturally may be more effective for fighting climate change than tree-planting programs (and would probably be more beneficial to wildlife).
• DNA evidence suggests that Asian Giant Hornets have been introduced more than once.
  

Climate change and environmental politics

• Even as the effects of climate change are becoming harder to deny, Exxon plans to increase fossil fuel production, which will cause its greenhouse gas emissions to rise 17% by 2025. The fact the Exxon is able to do this shows the need for governments to take on oil and gas companies more directly.
• The August Complex wildfire has burned over 1 million acres, which make it the first gigafire.
• Fires are also burning through the Brazilian Pantanal and destroying indigenous territories.
• Environmental groups are trying to get public lands regulatory changes overturned on the grounds that the head of BLM was appointed illegally.
• The presidential campaign so far shows that Democrats are still too defensive about fighting climate change instead of making the full economic and existential case.
• Climate change is merging problems that used to be treated separately into one giant crisis.
  
• Canada plans to ban certain single-use plastics to reduce the problem of plastic waste. Only 10% of plastic has ever been recycled, and even plastic collected for recycling often ends up incinerated or buried in a landfill.
• The Trump administration's plans to expand oil drilling off the Atlantic Coast was opposed to every coastal state, and recently the permits for seismic blasts expired. So for now the drilling plan appears dead.