Tag: wildlife
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A Year of Big Days: March
I woke up on March 28 at 4:30am, not initially planning on doing a yard Big Day that day. After the coffee kicked in during my morning reading I could hear a Great Horned Owl calling outside and my thoughts turned to the fact that I had planned to conduct one yard Big Day per…
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A Year of Big Days: January
I wasn’t sure when I woke up a little after 5am on Saturday, January 13 if it was going to happen. I came into 2024 planning a year of yard Big Days—one per month—in an effort to see how many species I could get in a year and how the numbers would change from month…
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2023: The Year in Birds
2023 was one hell of a year in many respects, both personally and professionally, but this post will only cover one aspect of that: birding. In the quest for both birds and outdoor experiences I made two significant trips, and managed to see (and photograph) a lot of new species. The Trips Volume-wise, most of…
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Pond Turtles Proposed for Federal Listing
Today, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the Northwestern Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) and Southwestern Pond Turtle (Actinemys pallida) as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act. At the time the agency initiated this listing process the two taxa were considered the same species, Western Pond Turtle, which is reflected in the…
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North Pacific Right Whale Critical Habitat to be Revised
On September 26, 2023 the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) announced a 12-month determination on a petition to revise the critical habitat designation for the North Pacific Right Whale (Eubalaena japonica) under the Endangered Species Act. The NMFS intends to revise critical habitat after receipt of a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity and…
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Wildlife Society Bulletin: California Condor Poisoned by Lead, Not Copper, When Both are Ingested
The September 2023 issue of The Wildlife Society’s Wildlife Society Bulletin contains a paper by Finkelstein et al. documenting the case of a California Condor that had ingested a lead fragment and copper bullet simultaneously. From the paper’s abstract: Lead poisoning from feeding on carcasses shot with lead-based ammunition is a well-known threat to wildlife.…
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Cuba – The End
Day 8 – Hasta la Victoria Siempre We assembled early on January 12 to board the bus for the long drive to Havana. As for prior driving days, we enjoyed getting to view a broad swath of the Cuban countryside. First, however, we had to get to the Cuban mainland and getting there required a…
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Cuba – Day 7 – Murciélagos de Discoteca
I woke up on January 11 feeling well-rested, which may have been because of the air conditioning and the plushest bed I’d slept in since home. That was a good thing because with this many consecutive days of non-stop birding I was getting a bit tired, yet feeling a bit rejuvenated by being close to…
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Anna’s Hummingbird on its Nest
On Monday, March 27 I was performing a general biological survey for a proposed project. Other than looking for raptor and corvid nests that may be reused in the future I was not actively performing a nesting bird survey as any project that might impact them was far into the future. Nevertheless, it was clear…
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Cuba – Day 6 – Por un Socialismo Próspero y Sostenible
Tuesday, January 10, was another driving day. Still, we looked for birds en route. Our first stop was at a nearby wetland. Driving a good distance east we had a restroom and fuel stop at Cienfuegos, stopping again at Jardín Botánico de Cienfuegos in a failed search for Gundlach’s Hawk. We then continued up the…