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| Marbled Godwit / Photo: Tom Koerner/USFWS |
Birds and birding news
- My World Series of Birding team, the Middlesex Merlins, recorded 118 species in Middlesex County last Saturday. Here is the full list of results. The team that won the county-level competition was the Meadowlands Marsh Hawks, profiled in this article.
- A stormy night in Galveston produced 395 dead birds at a single building, including 90 Nashville Warblers and 60 Blackburnian Warblers. Collisions with structures are among the most common human-induced causes of bird deaths. Here are some ways to reduce window strikes.
- A photographer took a series of images of a fledgling Great Horned Owl climbing a tree in Minnesota.
- A program that subsidizes planting native grasses and shrubs instead of crops is crucial to sage grouse survival in Washington.
- First time in nearly 70 years, Western Snowy Plovers nesting on Los Angeles County beaches.
- A Common Redpoll banded in Ontario was found 2700 miles away in Alaska.
- Stronger hurricanes pose a threat to seabirds like the Sooty Tern.
- A British birder observed Common Blackbirds feeding newts to their fledgling.
- Hosting birders visiting to see prairie-chicken and grouse leks in the spring helps support farmers and ranchers (and gives an incentive to preserve native prairie).
- Great Tits choose neighbors with personalities similar to their own.
- NYC Audubon has a Birding by Subway guide.
Science and nature
- The Nature Conservancy Blog: Flying Squirrels and Other Surprises Discovered In North Jersey’s High Mountain Park Preserve
- The Brownstone Birding Blog: 5 Ways I've Been Taking Shortcuts While Birding
- Earthling Nature: Land snails on islands: fascinating diversity, worrying vulnerability
- The Meadowlands Nature Blog: Don Torino’s Life in the Meadowlands: A Reminder to Plant Milkeed In Every Yard!
- Backyard and Beyond: Audubon and Murals
- 10,000 Birds: Federal Public Lands: Pacific Seabirds
- Snapshots of Nature: Citizen Science is for the Birds
- Bird Ecology Study Group: Common Mynas in an unusual 4-birds fight
- Urban Hawks: Eastern Whip-Poor-Will
- Corner of the Cabinet: Toxorhynchites: the mosquitoes that hunt other mosquitoes
Environment and biodiversity
- It seems inevitable that Glacier National Park will lose all of its glaciers because of climate change; only 26 glaciers are left of the 150 that were documented in the 19th century.
- Climate change is already making agricultural workers sick, particularly with fatal kidney diseases.
- Amateur entomologists in Europe have documented an alarming loss of insects over the past three decades. Hoverflies have been hurt particularly badly.
- Alaska may be turning from a carbon sink into a carbon source as warmer temperatures keep the tundra from freezing until later in the fall.
- The EPA dismissed half of its scientific review board; the dismissed scientists are expected to be replaced by industry representatives.
- While some places are getting multi-million dollar projects to protect against sea level rise, poorer areas like some Atlantic City neighborhoods are not getting the same attention.
- The Dakota Access Pipeline still has no emergency response plan for a spill near the Missouri River crossing. That is a problem since the pipeline is already leaking oil before it is fully operational.
- The Interior Department announced a review of recent national monument designations; here is the full list of monuments being reviewed.
- State and Tribal Wildlife Grants are an important source of funding for wildlife conservation.
- Here is a key to urban ant species.
- A new law requires the use of native plants along New Jersey highways.
- If you live in Canada, you can participate in a Virtual BioBlitz on May 22.
