Feather-Munching Bacteria Damage Wild Bird Plumage

A new study in The Auk: Ornithological Advances links feather-degrading bacteria to damaged plumage on wild birds for the first time, offering new insights into how birds’ ecology and behavior might affect their exposure to these little-studied microbes. Scientists know surprisingly little about the diverse community of microbes that lives on bird feathers. A few of these […]

Strong Effects of Climate Change on Common Bird Populations

Scientists have shown for the first time that common bird populations are responding to climate change in a similar pronounced way in both Europe and the USA. An international team of researchers led by Durham University, UK, found that populations of bird species expected to do well due to climate change had substantially outperformed those […]

Bird Language

All language, human and otherwise, revolves around turning meaningless sounds into something more. It’s widely accepted that many non-human animals use what’s called referential communication — specific sounds mean specific things to the receiver. Beyond that, there are two kinds of syntax that make speech more complicated, but also more useful: phonological and compositional. Humans have […]

14,000 Abandoned Wind Turbines Litter the USA

The towering symbols of a fading religion, over 14,000 wind turbines, abandoned, rusting, slowly decaying. When it is time to clean up after a failed idea, no green environmentalists are to be found. Wind was free, natural, harnessing Earth’s bounty for the benefit of all mankind, sounded like a good idea. Wind turbines, like solar […]

Where does your power come from?

Take Permit Ruling Favors Local Wind Farm Project

A U.S. District Court judge ruled a federal agency was within its rights when it issued a take permit to a proposed Champaign County wind farm that critics said could harm an endangered bat. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued an incidental take permit to the Buckeye Wind Project in 2013, allowing the wind […]

Another Kill Permit Issued to Wind Energy

Last month a California wind turbine operator wanting to build a facility in the Mojave Desert became the received legal permission to kill an endangered species — in that company’s case, a California condor. Now, another wind company has gotten similar permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: in this case, allowing the company […]

There’s a place for birds and wind

I am bothered by an ongoing controversy between bird lovers and energy developers that is taking place on the shores of Lake Erie near Port Clinton. As most people who have any connection to the outdoors surely know, that part of the Ohio north coast is an internationally known bird migration area. It takes in […]