Common Nighthawk / Photo by uxud
My laptop is still being repaired, but I have all the material I need, so it's back to a full edition this week.
Bird and birding news
- The Point Reyes Bird Observatory predicts major shifts in California's bird populations by the year 2070 due to climate change. PRBO has placed maps of future bird distributions, vegetation, and climate on its website.
- The whistling of pigeons' wings acts as an alarm call. The wings give slightly different whistles when a bird takes flight normally and when it flees from a predator. Flocks react more strongly to the latter.
- New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection opposes wind farms on the Delaware Bay because the turbines could harm natural resources. The proposed turbines would be sited close to several major migration stopover sites and potentially lie in the path of birds flying across the bay.
- Conservationists are working to restore the Andean Condor population in Colombia. Currently there are about 150 condors in the wild in Colombia, supported by annual releases of captive-bred birds. U.S. zoos have underwritten most of the costs of the reintroduction program, which is coordinated by the San Diego Zoo.
- A new colony of Sooty Albatrosses on King George Island is the southernmost recorded albatross colony.
- It seems that New York's birds don't approve of Bloomberg's quest for a third term.
- Birds continue to be killed by drivers on the beach at Astoria, Oregon.
- Search and Serendipity: Sandwich Tern is two species, study suggests
- Birdchaser: New Words for Old Birds: Barred Owl
- eBird News: eBird Is for Every Birder
- Bug Girl's Blog: Raptor Lesson Plans!
- National Parks Traveler: Audubon Touts Birding in a Dozen National Parks
- Mike's Birding and Digiscoping Blog: The Barred Owl
- Human greenhouse gas emissions have caused the highest average temperatures in the Arctic in 2,000 years. The study also found that the long-term cooling trend was a result of the earth wobbling on its axis, and that the cooling trend would have continued without human interference.
- Australia just had its warmest recorded winter.
- BP is drawing protests for mining tar sand (bitumen) in Alberta, in contrast to its green advertising campaign. Extracting oil from bitumen is environmentally destructive.
- Animals do not seem to be faring better inside Kenya's conservation parks than outside them. Sensitive animal species have declined by about 40% over the past 30 years in both places.
- Amazon deforestation is on pace to fall by 30% this year. The reduction may be due to increased enforcement or falling commodity prices.
- Proposed wind farms in the Pacific Northwest are having difficulty getting approved when planners want to put them in Spotted Owl or Marbled Murrelet habitat.
- A Loggerhead sea turtle washed up on the beach at Port Monmouth, on Raritan Bay in New Jersey.
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