Loose Feathers #782

Bald Eagles / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• Some of the owls banded by Project SNOW are starting to return data logged over the summer as they come back into transmission range.
  
• Controlling invasive grasses could help California's declining Greater Sage-Grouse population rebound.
• This summer a pair of Red-shouldered Hawks nested in a publicly-visible spot along the Klingle Valley Trail in DC.
• EBird suggests some birding challenges for 2021.
  

Science and nature blogging

• The Freiday Bird Blog: Twenty-four Ways to tell Sharp-shinned Hawks and Cooper's Hawks Apart
• Net Results: Banded Black-crowned Night-heron
• mocosocoBirds: The 85th Boonton Christmas Bird Count Report – 2020
• daveblinder: 85th Boonton Area Christmas Bird Count – Boonton Twp Division
  
• 10,000 Birds: Our Best Birds of 2020 
• Avian Ecologist: Best Birds of 2020
• On The Wing Photography: 2020 Photographic Year In Review 
• Wanstead Birder: 2020 - The year in review
• Coffee & Conservation: Know Your Coffee Birds: Red Siskin 
• Dakota Birder: A Big(gish?) South Dakota Year (262 species)
• The life of an Irish birder: The Siberian Chiffchaff in Ireland
• Backyard and Beyond: The Flying Zoo 
  

Biodiversity and conservation

• Some restaurants are following the example of cat cafes but using wild animals instead, which will exacerbate the wildlife trade and potentially drive some animals to extinction in the wild.
• Mongabay proposes its list of the top 15 species discoveries in 2020.
• The Guardian reviews some of the 503 species named by British scientists in 2020.
• Illegal deforestation is still on the rise in South America, and the harm falls primarily on Indigenous communities.
• A dead humpback whale washed ashore at Barnegat Light State Park in New Jersey.
  

Climate change and environmental politics

• The Trump administration is rushing to sell oil drilling leases in Arctic NWR, but so far there is little demand from fossil fuel companies. So Alaska's state development corporation might buy the leases instead.
• New international rules will make it harder for wealthy countries to dump their plastic waste on developing countries.
• Scientific American lists the top climate stories of 2020, when climate-fueled droughts, fires, and storms became increasingly visible.
• The removal of four dams along the Klamath River would be the largest dam removal in American history and open 400 miles of migratory salmon habitat.