Dead or Alive

When I came across this Hummingbird Clearwing (Hemaris thysbe) at Rutgers Gardens yesterday, I thought it was just perched. This is not how I usually see clearwing moths – usually they are on the wing – but I figured that it was sunning itself on a cool morning. As I looked closer, and moved in close with my camera, the moth remained perfectly motionless. So I began to wonder if it was actually alive or if it had died in that position and was left clinging to the dried flower head. Since I did not want to disturb it if it actually was alive, I never got an answer to that question.

There was no such question about this female Sachem, which was flying from flower to flower and nectaring. Quite a lot of Sachems were active in the display garden.

Finally, here is a bit of waterlily eye candy.

Slaty Skimmer

A male Slaty Skimmer perched at Rutgers Gardens in New Brunswick, NJ.

Loose Feathers #254

Injured Osprey / Photo by James Philip O'Brien

Birds and birding news

• Con Edison is supporting NYC Audubon's "Lights Out" campaign to reduce fatalities of migrating birds around the city's skyscrapers. Artificial light disorients migrating birds and causes them either to crash into a building or circle it repeatedly to the point of exhaustion.
• Scientists are monitoring ptarmigans to track how the birds react to changing climate conditions.
• Penguin specialists have gathered in Boston to discuss how to protect vulnerable penguin species.
• Annual hawk watches have resumed at Cape May and Hawk Mountain.
• The most fragile eggshells (measured in terms of thickness) belonged to extinct moas. The birds would have needed special nesting techniques to prevent breakage during incubation.
• A new study suggests that the bright red coloration of male cardinals is less indicative of health in urban areas than in rural areas since carotenoid-rich foods are more easily available in urban areas, even for unhealthy birds.
• A census in Cambodia found that the country's vulture numbers rose in the last year. So far it is the only Asian country to see an increase in its endangered vulture population.
• Soras, more often heard than seen, are migrating to the winter grounds in the southern U.S. and Mexico.
• A company paid a fine for the deaths of 55 protected birds in its natural gas pits.
• Making a property more inviting to birds is a great way to control insects and unwanted weeds. One way to make a yard more attractive to birds is to plant native trees and shrubs that provide food and shelter.
• Here is a list of recommendations for keeping bird watching and photography respectful of wildlife and other people.

Birds in the blogosphere

• Sibley Guides: Birding and a warming Arctic
• Coffee and Conservation: Birds on coffee
• NYC Birding: The limitations of Structure
• A Scientific Nature: A Finch’s Ways to Find a Mate: 1) Peacock It Out, 1a) Meet as Many Friends as You Can
• Gothamist: Parrot Poachers Picking Off Brooklyn Birds

Oil spill

• Another oil rig exploded and burned in the Gulf of Mexico yesterday. All crew members were rescued, and there has not been a confirmed report of a spill, so far. (It took a few days for a spill to be confirmed in the case of Deepwater Horizon.) The company that owned the rig, Mariner Energy, and its parent company, Apache Energy, paid $745,000 in fines for safety violations in 2010 alone.
• BP plans to remove the failed blowout preventer from its Deepwater Horizon well by Sunday. After that, it will begin a bottom kill to seal the well permanently. The federal government wants to use the blowout preventer as evidence in the criminal and civil cases against the company.
• A wildlife rescuer with experience at both spill sites compares the BP oil spill with the Exxon Valdez spill.
• A fuel tanker ran aground in the Canadian Arctic in the Northwest Passage. So far no spill has been reported.

Environment and biodiversity

• The fight over mountaintop removal mining is shifting as large banks seek to reduce their involvement with companies that practice it and activists take their fight to the court system. A key question is whether the US EPA will limit valley fills to protect water supplies.
• A coal-fired power plant is being fined for exposing its workers to harmful levels of toxic radiation.
• California legislators decided not to impose a statewide ban on disposable plastic shopping bags.
• Runoff from deicing chemicals can leave urban streams toxic for aquatic life. The study authors call for the development of deicing methods that reduce cloride contamination.
• The US EPA declined o protect wildlife from the toxic effects of lead ammunition.
• A new study found that the oil sands project in Alberta is polluting local watersheds with toxic chemicals in levels that exceed Canadian safety standards. Chemicals are leeching from deforested sites around mines or falling as particulate air pollution. Heavy metals are known carcinogens in humans and also harm fish and aquatic wildlife.
• A warming climate likely reduced the number of horseshoe crabs at the end of the last Ice Age. Future climate change could have a similar effect, leading to problems for other wildlife that depend on horseshoe crabs and their eggs for food.

Blog carnivals

• I and the Bird #133
• Festival of the Trees #51
• Carnival of Evolution #27
• Berry Go Round #31

I and the Bird #133

Welcome to the 133rd edition of I and the Bird! For new readers, this is the biweekly blog carnival devoted to birds and birdwatching. Blog authors can submit posts from their own blogs, and the host compiles and publishes the links. If you have not participated before, there are directions for doing so at the bottom of this post. On to the submissions...

Rare birds can be a huge attraction, especially if they are miles from where they would normally be found. Bob of Tales of the Nishiki tells the story of a successful twitch in The Best Tick of the Year.

Unfortunately rarity seeking does not always go quite as planned. Carrie of Great Auk or Greatest Auk explains why in American Dipper.

Fall migration is full swing in the northern hemisphere. Shorebirds have already made a major push south, and songbird numbers are building. The arrival of true migrant songbirds is usually preceded by a few weeks of post-breeding dispersal, as Nate of The Drinking Bird describes in Late summer, Mason Farm.

Corey of 10,000 Birds went with a few other birders to look for shorebirds; find out what they found in Birding Coastal Nassau County.

When birds depart the U.S. and Canada they usually end up somewhere in Central or South America. Jan Axel went looking for shorebirds around the Bay of Panama; you can read about it at Shorebirds close to home.

Birders in Costa Rica are eagerly awaiting the arrival of migrant songbirds. Costa Rica Living and Birding describes the experience of migrants arriving in Migrants are on their way back to Costa Rica.

Late summer creates some identification challenges as birds transition from one plumage to another or young birds appear in formative plumages. Greg Laden describes one such problem in We Walk Among Ducks in Wolves Clothing. And Wolves.

Sometimes it is fun just to watch bird behavior up close. Cindy of Dipper Ranch received a visit from a flock of vultures and had a chance to photograph them up close. She has the story and photographs in Vultures on the Barn.

Sara of i am the finch wench also received a surprise visitor. She has video of the encounter in Aviary Visitor.

Eric of making owls cool since 1986 describes a visit from hummingbirds in New Hummingbird Neighbors.

Dave Ingram got to watch some Surfbirds, which he writes about in Surfbird Surprise.

Larry of The Birder's Report watched and photographed some Common Mergansers Playing and Preening.

Alan of Birds 'N Such describes the large colony of swallows on Roanoke Island in The Purple Martins of Manns Harbor. The colony is significant enough that the local authorities have reduced the speed limit near it to avoid killing low-flying birds.

While on a birding tour, John of Kind of Curious observed roosting Roseate Spoonbills, among other things. Read more about it in Tour of the Matanzas River.

Susannah of Wanderin' Weeta has a whimsical post in Hard at work ...

Birds' encounters with humans do not always end well. Yojimbot of The Origin of Species found an Osprey with broken wings and tells the story with photographs in Take These Broken Wings. (Sadly the bird had to be euthanized.)

Michael of counting coots watched a gull pick up and swallow a red balloon. He has documented the case with a gull eats a balloon.

One of the pleasures of bird blogging is having the chance to connect with people who have similar interests. Occasionally we get the opportunity to meet them in person. Recently Dan of Nature Observances joined with other bloggers for a BwBTC Group Outing to Charlestown, Rhode Island.

Two weeks ago I joined Patrick of The Hawk Owl's Nest for some county birding. You can read about it in my post, Terns and Shorebirds along Raritan Bay.

Coming attractions

Grant McCreary of The Birder's Library will be hosting the next edition at his birding blog, Birds on the Brain. If you would like to participate, send your links to him at gmccreary AT gmail DOT com. Several opportunities for hosting the carnival are available in October and November; if you would like to host those or a future edition, you should ask Mike Bergin (mike AT 10000birds DOT com) for a hosting slot.

Angle-winged Katydid

I was surprised to find this katydid approach near my blacklight while I was photographing moths last week. I think this is a Lesser Angle-winged Katydid (Microcentrum retinerve). If not that, it might be the other eastern member of the genus, Greater Angle-winged Katydid. The easiest way to separate the two species is the color of the stridulatory field, which is not clearly visible in this photo. However, the shape of the pronotum and yellowish face seem to fit Lesser more than Greater.

There are a few other katydid species in the area in addition to this one. Each evening in the summer I hear the sharp zzt-zzt-zzt! of the Oblong-winged Katydid outside my window. We also have at least one species of Scudder's Bush Katydid (Scudderia sp.), which I have only found so far in nymphal form.