Loose Feathers #111

Royal Terns / Photo by Donna Dewhurst (USFWS)

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment

• Many apex bird species like osprey and brown pelican have returned to thrive in New Jersey's Barnegat Bay in recent decades. Yet the bay is one of the most threatened estuaries in the U.S., thanks mainly to runoff from traffic and suburban lawns.
  
• The Highlands Bridge, which crosses the Navesink and Shrewsbury Rivers, is one of the worst in New Jersey and is due for replacement. A local coaliton wants the state DOT to do a full Environmental Impact Statement to assess the effects of demolition and reconstruction on the important estuary and Sandy Hook.
• Australia's superb fairy-wren is one of the 10 percent of bird species that engage in cooperative breeding. Nestlings in pairs with helpers get more food than in pairs without help, but the biggest beneficiary is the mother, for whom reproduction becomes less costly.
  
• The government's draft recovery plan for the northern spotted owl failed peer-review by the Society for Conservation Biology and American Ornithologists' Union. The plan would name barred owls as a greater threat than logging and reduce designated critical habitat.
  
• Peru has a new flycatcher species, Cnipodectes superrufus. The species dwells in dense thorny bamboo thickets in southeastern Peru and southwestern Brazil. A specimen was taken in 1990 but not identified as a new species until the present.
• The Bengal Florican will be the first bird to benefit from BirdLife International's Species Champions program, which matches threatened species with conservation plans funded through private donors.
• Fewer birds from Siberia and Greenland are visiting the U.K. during winter because climate change has reduced their need to migrate.
  
• A national bird survey in New Zealand established that the ranges of many birds are shrinking, to the point that some are no longer found where they used to be common. (That said, morepork has to be one of the funniest bird names.)
• New Caledonian crows have used multiple tools in experiments; this suggests the use of analogical reasoning, usually found only in higher primates.
  
• The exclusion zone around Chernobyl is not the wildlife haven that some have claimed. Areas of higher radiation have lower population density and biodiversity.
  
• Birds may learn to fly more easily through latent memories inherited from previous generations. (Full paper at PLoS Computational Biology)
  
• Shorebirds are now moving through the Blue Ridge region (and inland spots).
• New research warns that extensive use of biofuels may lead to greater warming than fossil fuels, when the full production cycle is taken into consideration.
  

Birds in the blogosphere

• Fieldmarking: Corvids make and use weapons!
• Birds, Bats, and Beyond: Red-tail meets mockingbird
• Mike's Birding & Digiscoping Blog: Need
• Prairie Ice: More penguins
• Tails of Birding: The Differences among the Woodpeckers
  

Carnivals and newsletters

• Friday Ark #152
  
• Oekologie #8
• Tangled Bank #86
• National Wildlife Magazine Aug/Sep 2007
  
• Birds in the News #95
  

Red Knot Troubles

BirdLife International has a good summary of recent problems with red knot conservation. Some of the issues they list are familiar:

Although the causes of the population crash are not yet fully understood, the dramatic decline is mainly attributed to the low availability of horseshoe crab eggs in Delaware Bay, USA, a key stopover site for Red Knot Calidris canutus rufa. The lack of eggs has been attributed to an elevated harvest of adult crabs for bait in the conch and eel fishing industries. Studies show that Red Knot individuals with lower body weight at departure in Delaware Bay have lower survival than heavier birds.

Even if crab exploitation ceases immediately, scientist predict it would take years before the horseshoe crab population recovers to its former level. Other possible contributing factors in the decline include the loss of critical habitats, contamination and the spread of non-controlled tourism activities at their wintering and migration areas.

And one I had not read about:

In April, 312 dead Red Knot Calidris canutus rufa were discovered by a park guard at Playa La Coronilla in northern Uruguay and the same day over 1,000 birds were found dead at a second site nearby. Of the events Joaquín Aldabe, IBA coordinator at Aves Uruguay (BirdLife in Uruguay) commented: "It seems possible that harmful algal blooms could be related to it, although additional studies are required in order to fully understand this unexpected event."

Aves Uruguay, in connection with other national and international organisations, is already working in the area to establish the possible causes of the casualties and the role of Uruguay as stopover for the species.

“The death of more than 1,300 Red Knots in Uruguay is of particular concern given the low overall population size,” said Rob Clay, Conservation Manager of BirdLife’s Americas Secretariat. “This number represents over 6% of the [rufa] population, all of which winter in southern South America. The discovery underlines the need to better understand factors which may be affecting the species during migration and on its wintering grounds.”

If a substantial portion of the subspecies can die off so suddenly, the bird really needs protection.

Palmyra Cove

New Jersey Audubon is fighting a plan to dump dredge spoils in Palmyra Cove, a nature preserve near the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge. This email was sent to the JerseyBirds list:

Commissioner Jackson has called a public information session regarding the dredge spoil plan for Palmyra Cove Nature Park for this coming Monday, August 13th, at 10am at the Burlington County Bridge Commission's Offices (see address below). The meeting will likely be moved the the Palmyra Cove Nature Center because of the large crowds that the meeting is expected to draw. The commissioner has called the meeting to explain the need for Palmyra Cove to accept dredge material and to outline the plan for this project. There will be an opportunity for the public to ask questions. The most recent plan that I am aware of calls for use of 10 acres of the Park for dredge material. This plan requires that the 2 wetlands and existing vegetation near the site not be disturbed. Although this sounds like a good compromise in comparison with the original plan of 90 acres, we are not given any guarantee that ACE will return for the additional 80 acres.

There is a little more on the issue here and here. I do not have a strong opinion on the case since I do not have adequate knowledge of the context. If you do have an opinion on the case, Monday's meeting is a chance to express it; alternately, try writing to a state official or the Bridge Commission.

Burlington County Bridge Commission
1300 Route 73 North
P.O. Box 6
Palmyra, NJ 08065

Loose Feathers #110

Black-bellied Plover / Photo by Tim Bowman (USFWS)

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment

• A study of European birds confirmed that the bird protections set by the EU in 1979 have worked to increase bird populations.
• Government scientists in British Columbia have captured two northern spotted owls to start a captive breeding program.
• The Army is paying landowners near Fort Hood to preserve habitat for golden-cheeked warblers and black-capped vireos. The conservation program is motivated by fear that development nearby could make habitat on the base more critical, and therefore put it off-limits for training exercises. The Army recently reduced restricted habitat on the base from 66,000 acres to 10,000 acres.
• Limestone sinkholes on Oahu preserve the remains of Hawaii's extinct birds.
• Scientists plan to attach satellite transmitters to the backs of six Magellanic Penguins to track their movements to their breeding grounds. Part of the goal is to discover where the penguins encounter oil slicks. You can follow the penguins' progress at penguinstudies.org.
  
• New Jersey Audubon is concerned that beachgoers on Champagne Island (just north of the Wildwoods) may be disturbing a large colony of black skimmers. The island is unique on the Jersey shore for its lack of development.
  
• Land use policies in Peru have slowed the rate of rain forest deforestation.
• In Florida, foresters are using controlled burns to provide habitat for scrub-jays.
• Spain is burning fields to kill voles, whose population surged recently. No one seems sure of the cause of the high population this summer. (Perhaps a predator was reduced or a warmer winter killed fewer?)
• Research indicates that black carbon soot from the early Industrial Revolution hastened climate warming in the Arctic. Soot absorbs more energy from the Sun than white snow.
  

Birds (and some non-birds) in the blogosphere

• Born Again Bird Watcher: Birding Up!
• Greensboro Birds: Water: It’s for the birds
• Tails of Birding: The Hammering Life-style of Woodpeckers
  
• Mike's Birding & Digiscoping Blog: Shorebirds
• Fat Finch: The Ecology of Fear
• Stokes Birding Blog: Bee Grateful
• bootstrap analysis: lady of the flies
  

Carnivals and newsletters

• Friday Ark #151
• I and the Bird #55
  
• Birds in the News #94
  

I and the Bird #55

The latest I and the Bird is hosted by Birdfreak. Go visit I and the Bird #55 for the best of bird blogging in the past two weeks.

I and the Bird is a biweekly compilation of posts about birds and birding. Contributions are self-submitted. If you have a new blog or have not submitted to the carnival before, consider sending a link to the next host, Big Spring Birds.