Loose Feathers #788

Red-winged Blackbird / Photo by Courtney Celley/USFWS

Birds and birding news

• This weekend is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count. Everyone is invited to participate by watching birds for 15 minutes at home or elsewhere and then submitting their observations to eBird. See the link for details.
  
• The American Ornithological Society has released its first set of checklist proposals for 2021. You can read some analysis of them at the ABA website.
  
• Designing cities with birds in mind can benefit both birds and humans.
• Blakiston’s Fish-Owl is the world's largest owl and is threatened by climate change and logging.
• Climate change is reducing the food supply for Canada Jays in southern Ontario.
  
• Bolivia is investigating whether the recent deaths of 35 Andean Condors were a result of poisoning.
• BirdWatching has a list of ten bird species that are highly endangered.
• Willow Tits in Britain mainly live on brownfields, and breeding pairs use territories of around 17 acres.
  
• The world's oldest known bird, a Laysan Albatross named Wisdom, hatched a chick on February 1 at Midway Atoll NWR. Wisdom was first banded in 1956 and is over 70 years old.
• Starlings introduced to North America adapted quickly to local climates with a boost from genetic variations.
• A federal judge struck down the Trump administrations attempt to remove protections from vital sage-grouse habitat.
  

Science and nature blogging

• Pioneer Birding: ME - a REDWING in Portland!
• Urban Hawks: American Tree Sparrow Using eBird
• The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: Lost Birds Are Forever 
• Sibley Guides: Variation in Pine Siskins and the so-called "green morph"
• awkward botany: The Weeds in Your Bird Seed
• Dartford Waffler: Herring Gull from Russia 
• Laura's Birding Blog: Winter Feeding
• Backyard and Beyond: When Pine Siskins Attack
• Avian Hybrids: Unusually low genetic diversity in the Red-billed Tropicbird
• Balloon Juice: On The Road - Albatrossity - Winter in Flyover Country 4 
  

Biodiversity and conservation

• The extinctions of at least 21 birds and 7 mammals have been prevented since the Convention on Biological Diversity came into force in 1993.
• Feeding stations can be an efficient way to restore forests if the food is laced with the seeds that the animals disperse elsewhere with their poop. 
• Saltmarshes are disappearing as the sea rises, and there needs to be a strategy for letting them migrate inland.
  
• A new set of projects is trying to figure out why sawfish are disappearing in some places while thriving in others.
  
• In New Zealand, honey bees are the most numerous form of livestock, with a population of around 40 billion, while their effects on native pollinators receive little attention.
• Costa Rica includes protecting coastal wetlands as a core part of its response to climate change.
• Common pipistrelle bats in Europe are attracted to wind turbines, but so far the reason is unclear.
• Damage or destruction of ecosystems worsens human quality of life especially among the poorest people.
  
• Supawna Meadows NWR in New Jersey may be expanded with an extra 182 acres of marsh.
  

Climate change and environmental politics

• Social media companies have gotten better at removing misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 election but need to apply the same standards to misinformation about climate change.
• The Biden administration will need to decide what to do about the border wall. Recently the flood gates at the San Pedro River were found to be welded shut.
  
• A Republican congressman from Idaho suggested breaching four dams on the Lower Snake River as part of a program to restore salmon runs and boost ecotourism.
• Younger activists are using the term "intersectional environmentalism" in place of "environental justice," but the practical differences are unclear.
  
• Water affordability and quality is also a part of the environmental justice agenda.
• A glacier collapse in India started a landslide that broke a dam and caused flash flooding. Over 200 people were missing in its aftermath. The incident raises questions about the safety and sustainability of hydropower.
  
• The pandemic caused a drop in the demand for energy from coal, and that drop could be maintained if more coal plants are retired.
  
• Climate change is reducing yields from wild rice grown by the Ojibwe in Minnesota.
• Half of a wetland in Staten Island is going to be paved over for a shopping mall even though the wetland protected the nearby neighborhood from Sandy.
• The Trillion Trees Act would plant trees on public lands to absorb carbon emissions. The downsides are that the plantations would probably be monocultures and would be logged regularly which would reduce the benefit of carbon sequestration.