Posts
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| Greater Sage-Grouse / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS |
Birds and birding news
- A prominent birder was accused of rape this week, and in response activists are pushing birding organizations to remove abusive members. Read the original account.
- A new (extinct) Cathartes vulture has been identified from fossils found in Cuba.
- A Redwing, a thrush species native to Europe, has been observed in Maine for the past few weeks. This is one of several Redwings in the Northeast this winter.
- Rare birds in Central Park continue to provoke controversy over whether to publicize rare birds, especially owls. Unfortunately media accounts tend emphasize the perspectives of some of the worst offenders; read the ABA Code of Birding Ethics for better guidance.
- The most recent Red List update classifies Andean Condors as vulnerable, with poisoning and habitat loss as key threats.
- A study of Eurasian Reed Warblers found that the birds have mental maps that allow them to navigate by magnetic fields, even into areas that have not visited before.
- Individual Yellow Warblers prefer the same habitat and climate types on both their breeding and wintering grounds.
- Birds are changing their wintering ranges faster than their breeding ranges in response to climate change.
- Five British birders were fined for traveling to Devon to see a vagrant Northern Mockingbird.
- Albatross deaths due to plastic are more common than thought, especially in the southern hemisphere.
- A birder writes in praise of sunflower hearts, which appeal to a variety of birds and leave less of a mess.
- The pandemic cancelled the annual survey of Whooping Cranes in Texas this year.
- A judge overturned a Trump administration policy that stripped protections from Greater Sage-Grouse habitat. In other sage grouse news, their Wyoming population was stable last year.
- There were 103 breeding pairs of Piping Plovers in New Jersey last year, which was a 10% reduction from the previous year.
Science and nature blogging
- Snapshots of Nature: Great Backyard Bird Count, The Weekend
- UC Weed Science: A Valentine's Day Blog Post: Weeds With Pretty Names (Re-Posted)
- On The Wing Photography: Winter American Coot Portraits
- BugTracks: Introducing Haplopeodes loprestii
Biodiversity and conservation
- The Fishing Cat is vulnerable to habitat loss, but a new conservation project is raising awareness and working to protect them.
- The discovery of an extinct spruce in Louisiana suggests that there may be more extinct plants than scientists know about and that plants are more vulnerable to climate change then currently predicted.
- Research on the invasive Spotted Lanternfly predicts a large potential range and possible host plants.
- The South Padre Island Convention Center has been home to over 3,500 sea turtles that were rescued from unusually cold waters this week. The turtles will be released once the water warms sufficiently.
Climate change and environmental politics
- Catastrophic power outages in Texas this week were initially blamed on wind energy (especially by politicians funded by fossil fuel companies) but were really caused by years of deregulation and climate change denial. This and the outages in California last summer are signs that energy providers need to adapt to weather extremes. Scenes like this may become the new normal.
- The Biden administration restored a rule that climate change should be included in environmental reviews.
- Construction on the border wall has stopped for now, but the Biden administration will need to decide what to do with the mess left behind, from damaged landscapes and habitats to desecrated Indigenous sites to ongoing lawsuits. Democrats should make it a priority to repeal the section of the REAL ID Act that allows DHS to waive environmental and other laws.
- US auto companies are finally committing to replacing gas-powered with electric vehicles within the next two decades.
- Carbon offsets may not be all that useful, especially if they discourage real reductions in carbon emissions.
