Disturbing Nesting Birds While Cleaning Beaches

Beach Oil at Pensacola / US Air Force Photo

Drew Wheelan of the American Birding Association has been covering the potential threats that nesting birds face from both the oil spill and the people sent out to clean it up. In some cases he has documented cases of endangered bird nests being destroyed. Major media outlets are starting to pay more attention to the problem. Yesterday National Geographic had a story on bird nests getting trampled.

Each morning local conservation groups share information with BP's cleanup supervisors about where nesting colonies exist, as well as cautions about not trampling, driving through, or otherwise encroaching on these areas.

But even with precautions in place, there have been instances of cleanup crews disturbing nesting colonies, noted Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society's Louisiana Coastal Initiative....

Even a temporary flush—when the parents are frightened off but return soon after—can be disastrous.

Without a parent's belly to cool an egg, the embryo will literally get cooked in the Gulf Coast heat. Likewise, predators such as seagulls may swoop in to snag an unprotected egg or chick.

Increased foot and vehicle traffic have also harmed bird parents and chicks.

Losing even one parent will doom a nest, Hoggard said, since it takes two to raise a chick: one to keep the egg cool and safe and another to search for food.

New, handmade signs on the national seashore's main road implore drivers to watch out for skittering baby birds. Even so, at least one chick was run over on Thursday, according to Adrianna Hirtler, a public information officer for the park.

Birds are the most noticeable victims, but the problem extends to other organisms as well, such as ghost crabs and mollusks that burrow into the sand.

Milkweed Menagerie at Rutgers Gardens

When I see a stand of milkweed plants, I always stop to see what insects might be using them. When I stopped at a group of Common Milkweed plants (Asclepias syriaca) at Rutgers Gardens, I found the first Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) that I have seen this summer. I only saw a couple adults, but I expect there will be more soon. Monarch caterpillars are among the few insects able to eat the leaves of milkweed plants; the toxins in the leaves makes the adults distasteful and gives them their bright orange color.

In addition to the Monarchs, I saw another expected species, the Red Milkweed Beetles (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus). I have written about these in previous posts. As with Monarchs, the bright red coloration advertises the beetles' distastefulness to potential predators. Sharing space on the flower cluster with the beetles were Ailanthus Webworm Moths (Atteva punctella), the narrow orange and white insects in the photos above and below. These may look like caterpillars, but they are adults, and the adults often nectar at flowers. Its caterpillars feed mainly on tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima), an invasive species, but the moth itself is native. They must have fed on some other plant prior to the introduction of Ailanthus.

On the same clump of flowers there was one other insect that initially evaded my attention. However, my camera did catch it, and it is in the photo above. (If you cannot find it, click through and look for the note.) I think this is a Tarnished Plant Bug (Lygus lineolaris), a very common true bug. These feed on the leaves and flowers of many plant varieties.

Relief Well Getting Close

According to the latest reports, BP's relief well drill is getting very close to the pipe of the leaking well. However, it is still uncertain how long it will take to bore through the pipe and plug it.

The first of two relief wells is within striking distance of the Macondo, about 15ft (4.5m) away from the pipe and 600ft or so (200m) above the reservoir, after weeks of drilling. The second, ordered by the Obama administration as a safety back-up, is some weeks behind....

The most important thing is establishing a clear connection with the Macondo so they can begin pumping in the heavy drilling mud according to Mark Proegler, a BP spokesman. A nick risks starting a new small leak or possibly even a collapse of a section of the pipe given that it was damaged in the explosion in ways still not fully understood.

Those challenges are still some days away as BP continues to find the optimal point to break into the well, a process known as ranging. "We have many days ahead of us of ranging runs," said Proegler. The process involves lowering a device down the relief well that bounces electromagnetic waves through the rock to try to measure the distance to the metal pipe of the Macondo, a target barely seven inches (18mm) in diameter.

There are still a few things that could go wrong when the drill bit meets the pipe.

The intercept could be complicated if it turns out that the oil is flowing around the pipe, between the pipe and the cement of the well bore.

Engineers also have to be spot-on in their calculations as to how much drilling mud – or pressure – to exert on the well to choke it off. A vessel containing 44,000 gallons of mud is on standby.

The mud must be viscous enough to flow down the pipe but also dense enough to slow down the oil bubbling up from below.

From what I have read, BP has basically one chance to stop the flow once they puncture the well pipe. This procedure should work, and it has worked for other wells, but the spill could get worse if it is not done correctly.

Juniper Hairstreak

Hairstreak butterflies can be difficult to identify, but this particular hairstreak is unusual among local hairstreak species in having green as a base color instead of bluish gray. This is a Juniper Hairstreak, or rather its eastern subspecies, Olive Juniper Hairstreak (Callophrys gryneus gryneus). The larvae of this species feed on Eastern Red Cedar, a common tree in this area.

A Few More Moths

This week, I was finally able to identify a couple moths that I had captured and photographed two weeks ago. Both of them are micromoths. As you might guess from the name, many micromoths are tiny. There are also a lot of micromoth species, and many are very plainly patterned, so they can be difficult to identify.

In the case of the first moth species, I reached a few false identifications that did not seem quite right before I finally settled on what I think is the correct one. I think this is Glyphidocera septentrionella, which as far as I can tell does not have a common English name. Glyphidocera is among the Gelechioidea, a superfamily of tiny moths with varied habits.

The second moth took me a very long time to get any identification ideas at all. As it turned out, this moth is among the Pyraloidea, another large and diverse superfamily. This is a Broad-banded Eulogia Moth (Eulogia ochrifrontella). The dark band turned out to be quite distinctive, but it required wading through many records to find a good match.

The last one is becoming very familiar to me, as it appears to be very common in this area. This is not a micromoth but a small Noctuid, a Common Idia (Idia aemula).The top view shows its distinctive markings much better.

Loose Feathers #245

Roseate Spoonbill - Grand Isle, Louisiana / Photo by kris krüg (kk+)

Birds and birding news

• Conservationists have successfully bred three species of endangered Old World vultures in captivity, raising hopes that the vultures might be saved from extinction. 
• Watching attractively plumaged males perform courtship displays improves female Houbara Bustards' fertility and leads to healthier chicks.
• Studies of Zebra Finches are showing that vocal muscles are more important for song production than air pressure.
• Female Hihi, a rare New Zealand bird, survive inbreeding more easily than males do.
• Though they are flightless, ostriches use their wings and feathers to stop or change direction rapidly. This suggests a way in which flightless therapod dinosaurs may have used their feathers.
• Endangered Masked Bobwhites will get assistance through the federal economic stimulus program, which will pay for some habitat restoration projects.
• WNYC's Radiolab covers habitat management for Kirtland's Warblers. Radiolab's coverage has some problems, but I am posting the link for anyone who is interested. (Thanks to Nick Lund for sending the link.)
• The Ojai Raptor Center helps rescue and rehabilitate raptors  year-round in Ventura County, California.
• Pollinators include many types of animals other than honey bees, such as hummingbirds, native bumblebees, flies, moths, and beetles.

Birds in the blogosphere

• The Loom: What, If Anything, Is Big Bird?
• burdr: Leucistic Pileated Woodpecker
• Living the Scientific Life: Distressed Ravens Show That Consolation Is For The Birds, Too 
• The Drinking Bird: ABA Shake-up 
• 10,000 Birds: MLB Bird Logos
• Bird Canada: Tufted Finches?
• Teach me about birdwatching!: Birds on hats

Oil Spill

• The federal government plans to pay some farmers around the gulf region to flood parts of their fields during the fall migration season. The idea is to give southbound migratory birds an alternative stopover habitat so that they will be less likely to require coastal wetlands contaminated by oil.
• Oil has been found beneath the shells of post-larval blue crabs in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Boreal Songbird Initiative has a report on Oil Spill and Birds – Part II.
• Cornell's Round Robin blog has had a series of posts on the oil spill, including Wilson's Plovers and the effects of oil on mangroves.
• Some of the cleaned Brown Pelicans are being released in Georgia because Hurricane Alex made releases in Texas too difficult.
• Where to put the waste left over from the oil spill clean-up is a major dilemma.

Environment and biodiversity

• A prehistoric giant sperm whale named Leviathan melvillei was recently discovered in Peru. It measured 43-59 feet in length and probably hunted medium-sized baleen whales. One science blogger has questioned whether Leviathan is a valid genus name for this species.
• One naturalists suggests that it is easier to care about species that have common names rather than just Latinized scientific ones.
• Controversy is brewing over whether to build an oil pipeline to transport tar sands oil from Alberta to refineries in Texas.
• Public health data shows that an average 4,267 Londoners die prematurely each year from air pollution.
• The U.K.'s Woodland Trust suggests planting more urban trees to improve quality of life. Trees reduce temperatures in the summer, improve air quality, and absorb some rainfall that could otherwise cause flooding or water pollution problems.
• New York City has begun a project to reduce the amount of nitrogen flowing into Jamaica Bay.
• Here is a gallery of fabulous photos taken by European Space Agency and NASA satellites in June. (Make sure to see #9 and #18.)

Carnivals

• Festival of the Trees #49
• Carnival of Evolution #25
• Berry Go Round #29
• Circus of the Spineless #52

Chemical Changes and the Environment in the Gulf of Mexico

The Destruction of the Gulf / Photo by kris krüg (kk+)

In yesterday's post, I referenced some of the health and environmental concerns surrounding the heavy use of dispersants to break up the oil slick as oil pours from the broken riser. Today the EPA finally issued its own judgment about the safety of the chemicals that BP is using, and it appears that their research is incomplete.

The first round of government tests of the chemical dispersants that are being used to break up the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico found that they aren't overly damaging to shrimp and small fish, but more tests are needed to determine what happens when they're mixed with oil.

The Environmental Protection Agency also said Wednesday that tests on eight chemical dispersants found that they don't damage the body's glands and hormones in ways that can harm development or reproductive, immune and neurological systems.

The EPA also said that BP had reduced the amount of chemical dispersants it was using by almost as much as the government ordered it to do in May. The EPA and the Coast Guard on May 26 told BP to reduce dispersant use by 75 percent from peak use. BP reduced it by 68 percent over the next month.

Further:

The EPA said that Corexit 9500 and another dispersant, JD-2000, were generally less toxic to small fish, and JD-2000 and SAF-RON GOLD were least toxic to mysid shrimp, small crustaceans found in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

The next round of tests will examine the toxicity of the oil spewing from BP's broken well and a combination of the oil and each of the eight dispersants.

The data from the first round of tests, Anastas said, show the dispersants degrade in "weeks to months," while oil can remain for years....

Much remains unknown about the effects of the chemicals on living things, including people who work with them, and on the environment.

Still, Anastas said, "the data is telling us that these are not posing the same types of hazard as the terrible hazards we're seeing in the oil."

So BP will continue using heavy amounts of Corexit and other dispersants, but in a volume somewhat reduced from their peak dispersant use in May. The EPA's report, while somewhat reassuring, leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I expect that we will be learning more about how beneficial or harmful these dispersants are as the environmental disaster progresses. To that extent the gulf is in the midst of a frightening science experiment that no one really wanted to perform.

One harmful chemical change that we know is happening is caused not by dispersants but by methane, which is mixed with the oil gushing from the well.

Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted "dead zones" where fish and other marine life cannot survive.

In two separate research voyages, independent scientists have detected what were described as "astonishingly high" levels of methane, or natural gas, bubbling from the well site, setting off a chain of reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water. In some cases, methane concentrations are 100,000 times normal levels.

Other scientists as well as sport fishermen are reporting unusual movements of fish, shrimp, crab and other marine life, including increased shark sightings closer to the Alabama coast.

Larry Crowder, a marine biologist at Duke University, said there were already signs that fish were being driven from their habitat.

The trouble with methane is what it triggers:

Joye said her preliminary findings suggested the high volume of methane coming out of the well could upset the ocean food chain. Such high concentrations, it is feared, would trigger the growth of microbes, which break up the methane, but also gobble up oxygen needed by marine life to survive, driving out other living things.

Joye said the methane was settling in a 200-metre layer of the water column, between depths of 1,000 to 1,300 metres in concentrations that were already threatening oxygen levels.

"That water can go completely anoxic [extremely low oxygen] and that is a pretty serious situation for any oxygen-requiring organism. We haven't seen zero-oxygen water but there is certainly enough gas in the water to draw oxygen down to zero," she said.

This is pretty disturbing, as many larger organisms depend on dissolved oxygen in the water to survive. The hypoxia may account for some of the kills of marine organisms (especially fish) that have not been connected directly to petroleum poisoning. Either way, it is disturbing and promises to amplify the usual seasonal dead zones at the mouth of the Mississippi River.