Loose Feathers #771

Northern Harrier / Photo: Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• A Bar-tailed Godwit flew 7,500 miles from Alaska to New Zealand in 11 days in a non-stop flight. 
• Avian botulism killed 40,000 birds in the past month at Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, a migratory staging area where the wetlands are currently too dry to accommodate so many birds.
  
• Birds with large eyes suffer more from light pollution because their vision is adapted to dark forest interiors.
• Light pollution also causes many migrating birds to crash into buildings in cities like Chicago, which is amending its building codes to reduce bird collisions. Possible solutions include turning off unnecessary lights and altering glass to make it more visible to birds.
  
• Here is a guide to helping injured birds.
• An ecologist writes about the experience of recording dead and stunned birds around university buildings.
  
• Cassia Crossbills have one of the smallest ranges among North American birds, and at least a third of their habitat was burned by wildfire this year. This could cause a crash in the crossbill population.
  
• The Center for Biological Diversity is suing the Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat and create a recovery plan for the threatened 'I'iwi.
  
• Amy Cooper apparently made two false 911 calls about Christian Cooper in the Central Park bias incident.
  
• A Western Screech-Owl landed briefly in a helicopter fighting wildfires.
• Genetic analysis showed that a Bearded Vulture that spent the summer in the UK hatched in the French Alps last year.
• This is somewhat old news, but the Fish and Wildlife Service now requires duck stamps to show hunting imagery.
• High water levels and a lack of volunteers made protecting Piping Plovers in the Great Lakes region more difficult this year.
• Neotropical suboscine songbirds are drab-looking but have distinctive feeding specializations.
  

Science and nature blogging

• 10,000 Birds: The ABA Area and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
  
• Feathered Photography: Bushtit Nest Design And Construction
• Backyard and Beyond: Long-distance Flier
• Urban Hawks: Marsh Wren 
• Finch Research Network: Irruption Alert: Remarkable Finch Records in the American South
• iNaturalist's Blog: We passed 300,000 species observed on iNaturalist!! 
• On The Wing Photography: Barbed Wire Death Trap – Western Meadowlark
  

Biodiversity and conservation

• Climate change is turning Central Asian steppes into desert, and there was a similar change 34 million years ago.
• The smalltail shark population has dropped by 90% since the 1980s, going from being one of the most common shark species in Brazil to being critically endangered. Their decline has been driven by overfishing, in which many young sharks end up as bycatch.
• Governments are not protecting enough land and ocean to stop the biodiversity crisis. The Convention on Biological Diversity recommends protecting 17% of land area and 10% of the oceans.
• A North Atlantic Right Whale, a critically endangered species, was tangled in fishing gear off the New Jersey coast. Abandoned fishing gear is one of the biggest contributors to plastic in the ocean.
  

Climate change and environmental politics

• The Earth just had its hottest September on record, and 2020 has the potential to break or tie the record for hottest year set in 2016. This extraordinary heat comes in spite of La Niña, which usually produces cooler ocean temperatures around the tropics. In addition, Arctic sea ice reached its second-lowest extent this September.
  
• Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett refused to answer questions on climate change (or even acknowledge that it is real) on the grounds that it is too controversial.
• Despite bragging about cleaning up Superfund sites, the Trump administration has cut funding for the program and reversed climate change policies.
• Sudden intensification of hurricanes shortly before landfall has been linked to ocean heat waves.
• Some Republicans are realizing that they need to do something (or at least look like they are doing something) about climate change. It remains to be seen if this realization will lead to concrete action.
• The Border Patrol tear gassed Native American protests on Indigenous Peoples Day as they protested militarization of the border, which divides the homelands of several tribes.