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Young American Kestrel / Photo by Steve Hillebrand (USFWS)
Birds and birding news
- A flock of 10 Whooping Cranes will be reintroduced to Louisiana this month. The birds will initially be placed in an open holding pen covering 1.5 acres in the White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area. Another group will be placed there in October. Whooping Cranes last inhabited Louisiana in the 1940s, when there was a flock of about 15.
- While that represents progress for the recovery of the species, another Whooping Crane was found dead in Alabama. The US Fish and Wildlife Service is offering a reward for information about the crane's death. Three Whooping Cranes were shot in Georgia in December.
- The length of a Great Bustard's "beard" reflects its age, weight, and fitness for breeding.
- Birds within the fallout area of the Chernobyl reactor have 5% smaller brains than others of their species as a result of the area's background radiation.
- The range of Gray Jays is shrinking in response to a warmer climate. One problem is that winters are becoming too warm to keep the jays' hoarded food fresh.
- Ravens living in large groups of juveniles have higher levels of stress hormones than ones living in adult pairs.
- The American Bird Conservancy argues that the Interior Department's wind energy guidelines are insufficient to prevent more bird deaths at wind farms.
- The NRCS started a voluntary program with the goal of conserving 56 million acres to protect Sage Grouse breeding areas.
- The disappearance of some birds in New Zealand about 100 years has caused the plant species they used to pollinate to struggle.
- Officials killed 1,676 Canada Geese around New York City to keep them from hitting airplanes taking off and landing at the city's airports. That figure represents 89% of the geese around JFK and La Guardia.
- A study of chicken embryos argues for the "frame shift" hypothesis for the evolution of bird limbs. This hypothesis holds that the digits of a bird's wing correspond to different digits than their positions would indicate.
- A survey of wintering Bald Eagles in Massachusetts found 102 individuals, a new record for the state.
- About 7,000 Mallards died in South Dakota, probably as a result of eating moldy grain from a nearby feedlot. Wildlife officials were concerned about the local Bald Eagle population since they had been seen eating some of the dead Mallards.
- 10,000 Birds: Good Gully: A Birder’s Oddity
- Laelaps: The Dodo is Dead, Long Live the Dodo
- Not Exactly Rocket Science: Staying out of the arms race, or when evolution goes “meh”
- John Rakestraw: Thayer's and Herring Gulls
- BirdFellow: A Lost Art?: Writing Descriptions of Rare Birds
- ABA Blog: The New Normal
- Pixiq: Exotic and Colorful Birds in Ethiopia
- Residents in Louisiana still show lingering symptoms from their exposure to crude oil and dispersant chemicals during the oil spill. This could have long-term health effects in the future.
- Here is an essay on the discovery of extinction as a natural phenomenon. The discovery of extinction prepared the ground for the discovery of evolution by natural selection.
- Two extremely small frogs were discovered on Sri Lanka.
- This year, Arctic sea ice was at its lowest January extent on record.
- A rare Pacific gray whale was spotted off the coast of Oregon.
- Camera traps in upstate New York recorded more species in suburban and urban forests than in wild ones.
- A warmer climate might push wolverines out of the contiguous U.S. and restrict their range to Canada and Alaska.
