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| Lesser Scaup / Photo by Krista Lundgren/USFWS |
Birds and birding news
- An ornithologist points out reasons not to be excited by the Central Park Mandarin Duck, while Audubon suggests looking at some of the wild waterfowl instead.
- A warbler in Pennsylvania seems to be a hybrid of a Brewster's Warbler (itself a hybrid of Golden-winged and Blue-winged Warblers) and a Chestnut-sided Warbler.
- A new study found that birds are heading uphill in the Andes to cope with climate change, and this ascent is already reducing populations.
- Willow Warblers make one of the longest recorded migrations, from eastern Siberia to eastern Africa.
- In the last few decades the proportion of shorebird nests suffering predation in the Arctic has drastically increased.
- A center in British Columbia is captive-breeding Northern Spotted Owls to keep the species from disappearing from Canada.
- Dippers that experience less stress as nestlings sing more complex songs.
- A review paper finds little evidence for the idea that the size of a male House Sparrow's black bib serves as a sign of the bird's status.
- Birds are less disturbed by trails than by the people on them, so hikers should stay on the trail and not wander off.
- Evening Grosbeaks wander frequently and tend not to stay in one place for long.
Science and nature blogging
- 10,000 Birds: Parks and Public Lands Win at the Polls
- Stokes Birding Blog: White-headed Junco, Speckled Robin, what??? Leucistic Birds
- Science Snapshots: Growing Up Prairie: Cowbirds, Predators, and Baby Birds in Kansas Grasslands
- Feathered Photography: Some Of The Reasons I Despise Barbed Wire
- Birding New Jersey: Bohemian Chatterers
- Outside My Window: Evening Grosbeaks!
- Backyard and Beyond: Winter Wrens
- awkward botany: Attempts to Avenge the Acts of Cirsium arvense – A Biocontrol Story
- earthstar: The windhover
- Urban Hawks: Northern Saw-Whet Owl
- Anything Larus: 1st Cycle Kelp Gulls - First Impressions
- View From The Cape: A western visitor to the Jersey Shore
Conservation and biodiversity
- Data from around the world shows a worrisome decline in insect biomass, but so far it is unclear how many species are declining or whether all the declines have the same cause.
- One potential contributing factor is that heatwaves seem to make some beetles less fertile.
- Endangered, stingless Melipona bees from Mexico somehow established a second population in Cuba.
- Google searches suggest that public interest in conservation and climate change is rising.
Climate change and environmental politics
- This article explores ways that climate change might change Yellowstone National Park over the next several decades.
- Ryan Zinke is transforming the Interior Department into a tool of big business. It has been in such a rush to approve new leases for oil and gas drilling that it cannot keep up with potential conflicts between fossil fuel and grazing leases.
- Meanwhile, a company that wants to drill for oil in the Arctic is running into problems because of the lack of sea ice.
- Record-setting fires in California seem connected to the unusually hot and dry summer, a pattern becoming more common due to climate change.
- Despite Democratic victories in elections this month, it is hard to see a way forward for comprehensive climate legislation.
- Washington, DC, is working on climate legislation that would mandate a 50% emissions cut by 2032, and a local utility has been running misleading ads to undermine it.
