Loose Feathers #305

Whimbrel with a transmitter / Photo by Barry Truitt, The Nature Conservancy

Birds and birding news

• Yesterday evening, I received a press release saying that one of the Whimbrels enrolled in the migration tracking program at The Center for Conservation Biology flew through the most severe area of Hurricane Irene (i.e., the northeastern quadrant). This Whimbrel, named Chinquapin, was trapped and fitted with a transmitter in May 2010 and has since made successful migrations north to the Northwest Territories, south to Suriname, and north to its breeding grounds again. Chinquapin is one of several Whimbrels fitted with transmitters; one of them is shown above.
• The Peregrine Fund is sending three California Condors to Arizona for release into the wild at Vermillion Cliffs National Monument.
• A project called Ghosts of Gone Birds is bringing together artists to commemorate extinct birds and raise money for conservation programs.
• The RSPB is concerned that new oil exploration in UK waters poses significant risks for seabird breeding colonies.
• When they are inactive, juvenile King Penguins allow their body temperatures to drop to save energy.
• The Iowa legislature overturned a decision by the state's Natural Resources Commission and decided to allow the use of lead ammunition for dove hunting. Lead ammunition that remains in the environment can contribute to cumulative lead poisoning for animals that ingest it.
• Seaside Aquaculture, Inc., was convicted of killing migratory birds (pdf) to protect their fish stocks.
• ScotRail and the Scottish Wildlife Trust are setting up observation areas within Montrose railway station so that birders can watch waterbirds in the tidal basin next to the station.
• An effort is underway to remove all rats from Palmyra Atoll, an important breeding area for Sooty Tern, Black Noddy, Brown Noddy, White Tern, Red-tailed Tropicbird, and White-tailed Tropicbird. Several other seabirds may resume breeding there if the threat of rat predation is removed.

Nature blogging

• Coffee and Conservation: Know your coffee birds: Hispaniola’s Palm-Tanagers
• 10,000 Birds: The Raven
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Ostriches sleep like platypuses (and look wide awake when they do)
• Round Robin: What color is this bird? (Help make bird ID smarter)
• ABA Blog: Big Year for Kirtland's Warbler
• WorldWaders: News just in from Yangkou, China
• Nature Observances: Laughing Gull – a study
• Fotoportmann: Eurasian Kingfisher
• Northwest Dragonflier: Don’t Fear the Dragonfly
• Mountain Beltway: The Mineral, VA earthquake of August 23, 2011

Environment and biodiversity

• This week marked the start of a two-week sit-in protest at the White House against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which will bring oil from tar sand mines in Alberta south to Texas for further refining. Participants in the protest object to the climate impacts of tar sands oil and deforestation in the boreal forest.
• DNA barcoding has identified 34 species and 17 subspecies within the satyrine butterfly genus Calisto in the Caribbean. The species evolved 4-8 million years ago to occupy specific niches within each Caribbean island where it occurs.
• A new titi monkey species was discovered in the Brazilian Amazon. 
• A recently-discovered mammal fossil is the earliest known example of a placental mammal. The small, shrew-like animal, Juramaia sinensis, lived 160 million years ago, which pushes back the date for the evolutionary split between placental mammals and marsupials.
• The USGS estimate that there is 84 trillion feet of recoverable natural gas in the Marcellus Shale – a figure substantially lower than the number reported by the U.S. Energy Department (410 trillion cubic feet).
• A mass emergence of pine white butterflies (Neophasia menapia) occurs every 30-40 years near Burns, Oregon.
• To date, scientists have discovered and named 1.3 million species, but this is far less than the total number of species that inhabit the earth. A recent paper estimates the total number of species as 8.7 million, plus or minus 1.3 million. Some critics of the study believe that total biodiversity is much greater than that.