Pine Warbler / Photo by Frank Miles/USFWS
Birds and birding news
- Chinstrap and Adelie Penguin numbers have been falling since 1986 in response to a decline in the number of krill, their main food source. Krill have declined in response to warmer waters, less winter sea ice, and a rise in the number of seals and baleen whales, which also prey on krill.
- Male birds-of-paradise attract females with displays that involve waving their long plume feathers.
- Tawny-flanked Prinias evolved highly variable egg patterns to make it easier for them to recognize the eggs of African Cuckoo Finches, which lay their eggs in the nests of other birds.
- The American Bird Conservancy tested the safety of various brands of bird seed and found that all of the ones they sampled were free from toxins such as organophosphate and carbamate insecticides.
- Audubon is warning that residual oil from last year's massive spill is still a threat to birds returning to the Gulf Coast.
- Clark's Nutcracker is important for the propagation of both ponderosa pine and whitebark pine, the latter of which is threatened by invasive mountain pine beetles and blister rust.
- Mallard drakes with brighter bills are less likely to carry sexually transmitted diseases and sperm-damaging bacteria. This explains why females choose mates based on bill color.
- New genetic research shows that New Guinea's tiger-parrots represent an early independent branch of parrot evolution instead of being closely related to rosella-like parrots.
- The Osprey nest cam at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, NJ is now live online. The pair is still preparing their nest.
- Here is a photo study of the Painted Bunting currently visiting a yard in Absecon, NJ.
- The U.K. government is creating a DNA database of wild Peregrine Falcons to track whether their chicks are being stolen from the wild and sold by bird dealers.
- Dinosaur Tracking: Birds Inherited Strong Sense of Smell From Dinosaurs
- ABA Blog: Overcoming Expectation
- Coyote Crossing: Cats and windmills
- 10,000 Birds: Of Whiskey Jacks and Water Ouzels
- On the road: Nelson's Gull
- The Freiday Bird Blog: Spring in Belleplain, Weekend #2: Sunday, April 10 2011
- Last Friday's federal budget deal contained bad news for gray wolves. The compromise spending bill contained a rider removing the gray wolf in Rocky Mountains states from Endangered Species Act protection. It is the first known instance of Congress overriding the scientific determination of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service by legislation.
- Palaeontologists figured out a way to tell which dinosaurs were nocturnal and which were active during the day.
- The Dragonfly Woman found an interesting video on the mating display of Australian peacock spiders. You can see more photos of them in this Flickr set.
- A new report from the Center for Biological Diversity argues that the total wildlife deaths caused by last year's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico were higher than official estimates.
- Contrary to its supporters' claims, shale gas may be worse for the climate than coal since shale gas wells leak substantial amounts of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas.
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