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| Greater Sage-Grouse / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS |
Birds and birding news
- The Trump administration plans to remove protections from the Greater Sage-Grouse and reduce its protected habitat by over 80% to make way for more fossil fuel production.
- Location data from GPS-tagged Razorbills showed the speed and direction of currents in the Irish Sea when the birds rested on the water.
- The establishment of a new breeding colony for Chinese Crested Terns in South Korea may help stabilize the population of this highly-endangered species.
- Predation of female Swift Parrots by introduced sugar gliders has led to a situation where males fight over the remaining females and reduce overall nesting success.
- A new study found that beak and feather disease is spreading among wild parrot populations because of the pet trade.
- Some Darwin's finches have developed a taste for human junk food, and it seems to be changing their beak sizes.
- A vagrant Great Black Hawk is still being seen in Maine.
- Market hunting and conversion of prairie wetlands to agriculture caused many shorebird populations to crash at the end of the 19th century, and now only two species are still hunted.
Science and nature blogging
- Vermont Center for Ecostudies: A Field Guide to December 2018
- Edge Effects: Outswimming Extinction in the Great Lakes
- Bird Ecology Study Group: Birds and their bathing behaviour
- Birds Korea Blog: Green-winged Teal, Siheung, December 3
- Pioneer Birding: MA - the Baer's Pochard in Longmeadow
- The Rattling Crow: Watching Waxwings
- ornithologi: Differentiating Adult and Juvenile Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus)
- Avithera: Pelican feeding chick
Conservation and biodiversity
- More and more research points to large declines in insect populations.
- Small bits of plastic, coming mainly from single-use plastics, are hurting the survival of baby sea turtles, which mistake them for food.
- A new study suggests that 8-30% of unstudied plants may be at risk of extinction; plants, especially ones in hard-to-reach locations, tend to get less attention from conservationists.
- The venom of the brown tree snake, which decimated Guam's native wildlife when it was introduced to the island, is not as unique as previously thought.
- The population of Monarchs wintering in California is down 86% from last year.
- The USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab has a photographic project that seeks to interest the public in bee conservation. You can see their close-up bee photos on their Flickr page.
Climate change and environmental politics
- The climate report that the Trump administration released over Thanksgiving weekend details how no US region is safe from climate change.
- One bit of good news on the climate change front is that the US is using less coal than any year since 1979. However, global carbon emissions hit an all-time high in 2018 even with the drop in US coal use.
- A new study links the mass extinction at the end of the Permian to sudden warming.
- Last year Congress approved oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the Trump administration is doing everything it can to speed up the approval process despite threats to the Arctic ecosystem and animals that live there. Teshekpuk Lake, home to many breeding birds, could be next.
- It looks likely that the National Butterfly Center will soon be bulldozed to make way for the border wall.
- A judge blocked plans to end protections for the endangered Red Wolf.
