hummingbird news

photo by Lee Karney

If you're watching them as I do all summer, in gardens (and less often at feeders), you may be interested in current research on hummers. Here are a few links to use to find more information: 

Hummingbird Monitoring Network
Western Hummingbird Partnership
Operation Rubythroat
Scott Weidensaul's hummingbird research

news: Chimney Swift Working Group - Wisconsin

The WI Chimney Swift Working Group had its first meeting, with 20+state agency, NGO, county, conservation organization, and other partners from around the state in March of this year. Our second meeting is planned for mid-July; if you represent a government unit, environmental organization, or bird club and would like to be involved, please contact me (contact info given below).

Many activities will be planned around the state this year focusing on swifts. For examples from nearby states (MN is very active) see info at these links: 
http://mn.audubon.org/chimney-swift-sit
http://mn.audubon.org/chimney-swift-conservation

William P. Mueller
Western Great Lakes Bird and Bat Observatory
WGLBBO online:
http://wglbbo.org/
Blog:http://futureofbirds.blogspot.com/
wpmueller1947@gmail.com
414-698-9108
Milwaukee, WI

Wood Thrush (and Song Thrush) news

(Photo by S. Maslowski)

If you share my interest in the Wood Thrush, read the excellent information linked here. Some additional fine online references can be found here and here.

(Ph: Wikim. Commons)

Similarly, Europe's Song Thrush  is faced with an array of threats and is experiencing a population decline - read about it here.

the latest news on the Red Knot

Red Knot by Dick Daniels - Wikimedia Commons

Read about the current situation for the Red Knot, a species facing a worrisome decline, at this link.

environmental ethics

Since there are so many ethical issues raised by contemporary environmental problems, it's useful to be able to gather or describe some information here on environmental ethics. A history of some aspects of this movement and its trends in academic circles can be found here.

See also:
Ron Epstein's excellent Env. Ethics page

Stanford Encyclopedia link to Env. Ethics

Center for Environmental Philosophy

working for species conservation

If you're interested in helping to make progress in species conservation, go the website of the Center for Biological Diversity, and sign on to one or more of their action programs (scroll down at  this link). CBD does some of the "heavy lifting" in biodiversity conservation, often tackling controversial topics. Learn more about their programs  at this page.

some general conservation info - late May 2012

If you've never made yourself aware of the Wildlands Project/Wildlands Network, try going to their website to learn more about a critical, emerging conservation initiative. To learn more about the need for "connectivity" in wildlife habitat, read an abstract of a paper that describes research on this topic here. Read more on this topic here.

Keep up-to-date on some conservation biology research at these links:
Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute
Edward Grey Institute

Summer Tanager by D. Sherony (Wikimedia Commons)

Society for Conservation Biology