As temperatures rise, desert birds need more water to cool off at the same time as deserts are becoming drier, setting some species up for a severe crash, if not extinction, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley.
A historic and species-saving effort was celebrated Tuesday morning in Imperial Beach. Seven federally endangered light-footed ridgway’s rails were released by teams at Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge who have been working to reverse the bird's declining population.
Surf Beach will stay open to the public during snowy plover nesting season next year, regardless of the number of trespass violations.
The City of Lompoc made the announcement on Thursday.
Desert birds help pollinate flowers and disperse seeds, control insect outbreaks, and keep rodent populations in check. They also fill the silence with the sound of their calls.
As UC Berkeley ecologist Steven Beissinger puts it: “A desert without birds is half empty. A desert without birds is a quiet place.”
The San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory encourages photographers to capture the beauty of birds.
The proposed extermination of hordes of house mice on the Farallon Islands would protect a fast-diminishing population of rare sea birds by halting rampant, unnatural predation by owls, a study released Monday concludes.
Can fake tortoise shells teach predators to stop devouring soft-shelled juveniles?
One of the best predictors of bird migrations and pending winter weather is to track sandhill cranes, both their numbers and routes. A check this week shows the birds are right on schedule with the first arrivals at Woodbridge Ecological Reserve near Lodi, where the Department of Fish and Wildlife is offering weekend tours to see them. In the next three weeks, some 5,000 are expected in this region.
John W. Laundré Laundré is in the biology department at Western Oregon University. He has studied cougars, wolves and coyotes in the U.S. and is the author of "Phantoms of the Prairie: Return of Cougars to the Midwest."
For serious birders who regularly observe birds in the wild, ignoring climate change isn't possible. We have been seeing and documenting the effects of a warming climate since at least the 1950s.
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-commentary-birder-effects-climate-day.amp
