This week's news of birds and the environment:
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A wind farm that is proposed for the Gulf of Mexico near South Padre Island would have 300 offshore wind turbines with blades of 280-feet breadth each. This is a major concern for conservationists because the area is so vital to birds migrating to and from South America. As well as marring an iconic Texas landscape, the blades could pose a major hazard to wildlife, especially the migrating birds, some of which are endangered species. The Army Corps of Engineers is studying how it should evaluate the plan and whether or not it should be permitted to proceed.
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Did you hear about the brouhaha over Meatless Mondays? The USDA published an internal memo to employees suggesting that they could reduce their carbon footprint by having meatless meals on one day a week - Meatless Mondays. That's because meat takes a lot of carbon to produce. Well, farmers and ranchers who raise meat got all upset about the idea that people might not eat meat one day a week and they yelled at the USDA for proposing it, so can you guess what happened? That's right - the USDA retracted the recommendation. Little did they know that they would then get a firestorm of complaints from the other side of the issue, from people who accuse the agency of being captives of meat producers. Wonder where people would get that idea? Leaving off meat one day a week might reduce our carbon footprint and also improve our health. It seems like a totally sensible idea. Maybe an even better idea would be seven days a week without meat.
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California Condors continue their slow climb back from the edge of extinction. This year there are at least three wild-hatched chicks in the Arizona-Utah population of the birds.
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A Brown Booby, a tropical seabird, showed up inland in New Jersey this week. It was the first of the birds ever sighted in the state away from the coast.
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Energy-related U.S. carbon emissions were lower in the first three months of 2012 than they have been in any year since 1992. This is attributed to the very mild winter which most of the country experienced.
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The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) in England is encouraging farmers to use wildlife-friendly practices in their operations. They have operated an experimental farm using those practices for twelve years and have been able to show that yields have increased and so has the population of birds on the property.
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University of Washington researchers have discovered bowhead whales singing almost continuously off the coast of Greenland for a period of five winter months. This has encouraged researchers to believe that the critically endangered whale population may be rebounding.
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Common Cuckoos have a bag of tricks to help them fool their bird victims whose nests they parasitize. One of their tricks is to develop different color morphs to try to keep other birds from recognizing them so easily.
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At yet another wind energy project off the coast of Maryland, restrictions are being put in place to try to protect migratory birds and bats.
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Scientists in Argentina recently attached a small video camera to the back of an Imperial Cormorant and captured footage of the bird diving 150 feet down through the water to catch fish for its meal.
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Kaid Benfield of the National Resource Defense Council wrote an interesting article this week touting the many benefits of urban trees and urging that more be planted.
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Around the backyard:
As well as a population explosion of Downy Woodpeckers, my yard has also experienced a population explosion of House Finches this summer. This is a most welcome development as there have been some summers in which I've hardly seen or heard the birds at all in my yard.
The birds seem to travel in family groups and I typically see four or five of them at a time. They favor my front yard feeder, possibly because it gets less traffic than the backyard system. It's just a joy to see them and to hear their happy songs around the yard.
I've seen very few Woodpeckers in my yard this year. Last year the Golden-Fronted Woodpecker parked himself at the hummingbird feeder all summer.
ReplyDeleteLove to hear Red House Finches sing.
The finches have such a musical song and they are a delight to have around, Steph.
DeleteI'm sad because we used to have regular visits from downy woodpeckers, as well as red-bellied. Now our tree is gone, even though there's still one lone pine tree left, I feel we're not going to see nearly as many birds, including woodpeckers :-(
ReplyDeleteThe bird population changes as the habitat changes, for sure. I used to see Red-headed Woodpeckers and Northern Flickers here, but no more. Perhaps other species will move in to fill the niche left by the Downies and Red-bellieds.
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