A Cattle Egret after being cleaned and released / US Coast Guard photo
Birds and birding news
- Over 60% of the world's penguin species are threatened or endangered. In most cases their population declines have been caused by overfishing, which depletes penguins' food supply. At least one species in Africa has suffered from oil spills.
- Mountain-dwelling birds are at a higher risk of extinction due to climate change if they occupy a narrow range of altitude.
- An appeals court upheld the critical habitat designation for Mexican Spotted Owls.
- Two pairs of endangered Least Bell's Vireos are nesting in a California development's habitat restoration area.
- A wind farm in Ontario has killed 602 birds and 1,270 bats. Nature Canada argues that the deaths could have been avoided in the turbines were not built in an Important Bird Area.
- A biologist in Washington has been studying the effects of wind farms on birds. She finds that the mortality rate is generally low, but raptors are at a particularly high risk. She estimates that wind farms in Washington and Oregon kill about 6,500 birds and 3,000 bats per year.
- Cliff Swallows in California appear to have abandoned Capistrano for a country club.
- NatureInstruct has a new website for identifying birds. Its name somehow sounds familiar.
- Falcon chicks discovered in Queens have been relocated to a nest on the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
- WorldWaders: Hunting in Myanmar is probably the main cause of the decline of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper
- Great Auk or Greatest Auk: Triumph and Almost-Triumph and Not-Triumph and Dog Ticks
- Today in NJ Birding History: Atlantic City Bird Names
- NeuroKüz: The neuroscience of birdsong
- WildBird on the Fly: Two Audubon groups cited among worst charities
- burdr: Birdwatcher Finds Poachers While Birdwatching
- Government scientists have revised their estimate of the oil spill's size. They now think that 20,000 to 40,000 barrels, and possibly as high as 50,000 barrels, have been spilling per day from the broken riser pipe.
- Living the Scientific Life: Oiled SeaBirds: To Kill Or Not To Kill? What Is The Ethical Thing To Do?
- IBRRC: Post release survival of oil affected sea birds
- Bridget Stutchbury writes about the dangers the oil spill poses to migratory birds, particularly shorebirds.
- A journalist dove into the oil spill to see how the slick looked underwater.
- Here is video of a low-altitude flyover of the spill site.
- The Drinking Bird: The Oil Conservancy
- Daily Dead Birds tracks how many animals have died from the oil spill based on US Fish and Wildlife Service reports.
- Some oiled birds are being released on the Atlantic coast of Florida after being cleaned.
Environment and biodiversity
- Insects can develop resistance to pesticides, so it is more effective to find other ways to control insect pests in your garden. Currently there are over 1,000 insect/insecticide resistance combinations.
- Alaska is using Tasers for controlling wildlife in dangerous situations. Wildlife officials argue that a Taser would be less harmful than a gun or tranquilizer.
- This week, a court convicted eight people for the Bhopal link but sentenced each to only two years in prison.
- A humpback whale washed up on a beach in New York.
- Wear Calvin Klein cologne if you want to be stalked by jaguars.
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