I have now been out for two drives in a row during which I did NOT see a bald eagle. Until now, almost every drive I’ve been on this year had yielded at least one. But, there is always something: last night a big red tail and the other day the usual egrets and an urban vulture.
But I would have had very different, and interesting luck had I gone to the Twins game last night.
Continue reading Bird Pwns Moth, Crowd Cheers!!!
It has long been thought that there are linkages between certain viruses and the weather. The flu season is winter (in whichever hemisphere it happens to be winter in) for reasons having to do with the seasons. One early theory posited that the practices of East Asian farmers, as they tended their animals, caused waterfowl and swine and humans to share space closely enough that nasty new influenzas would emerge and spread around the world. Although that explanation for the annual seasonal flu has been dropped (if it ever really had wings… or hooves, or whatever) it is still possible that such a pattern could occur. One of the more likely places to look for this sort of thing is with bird flu, because there are large numbers of migratory birds that host the flu, and the interaction of wild and domestic birds is not an incredibly unlikely event.
Continue reading Outbreaks of H5N1 Bird Virus Infection in Wild Birds in time and space: Temperature matters (with cool video)
This is truly amazing. Of course, since this is the first such video, how do we know if this particular little guy is doing it right?
First video of the Marvelous Spatuletail Hummingbird’s amazing courtship display by Greg R. Homel, Natural Elements Productions and distributed by American Bird Conservancy, http://www.abcbirds.org. This rare humminbird inhabits the highlands of Peru.
Continue reading First Video of Marvelous Spatuletail Hummingbird’s Amazing Courtship
You know the drill: Someone claims to see a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) but then some wise-ass bird expert has to tell them that “Immature bald eagles are often mistaken for golden eagles. You saw a bald eagle, not a golden eagle.” Reminds me of the bird expert lady in The Birds (which we watched just the other day) … boy was she wrong!
Anyway, golden eagles have been traversing the state of Minnesota, and occasionally wintering here, for quite some time, and only recently are people really taking notice, counting them as real, and even starting to study them.
The scientific evidence is overwhelming and unequivocal, climate change is a stark reality. It is largely caused by human activities and it presents very serious global risks for people and biodiversity around the world and it demands an urgent global response. Human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are releasing rapidly increasing levels of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. This is causing the atmosphere to heat up. We do not have the luxury of standing by for years before the world gets round to making a serious attempt to cut its emissions. The next few years will be critical….
The last wild Fiji petral specimen collected, an albatross-like bird (as petrels tend to be) that spends much of its time over the open sea, was collected in 1855 fro Gau Island, Fiji.
It didn’t really go extinct, because in 1984 one was caught on Gua, photographed, and set free. Subsequently, possible Fiji petrel sightings have occurred now and then, mostly of disoriented or lost immature birds that showed up in one village or another.
So, as you can see, calling this bird truly extinct was never really appropriate, but it was listed as one of nearly 200 birds that may or may not have been extinct at any given moment, with a very small hope returning every now and then wiht a possible or confirmed sighting. But then scientists went out and got serious bout finding some Fiji petrels and assessing their status.
They did this by setting up a lure consisting of 10 kilogram blocks of fish guts mixed with concentrated fish oil. This substance can be smelled by a petrel from half way around the planet. Well, not really but from very far away. Sure enough, on day two of the experiment, a Fiji petrel showed up to inspect one of the blocks which was floating around int he water. Over the next eleven days eight different individuals were observed.
The story is reported here.
The loons have been strangely silent all weekend, and I have been singularly distracted from them, so it was not until this morning that I realized that the adults are gone.
Continue reading Silence of the Loons
Today’s falsehood is the idea that individual animals act for the benefit of their own species.
Continue reading Acting for the survival of the species (a falsehood)
BirdLife International is launching a global bid to try to confirm the continued existence of 47 species of bird that have not been seen for up to 184 years.
The list of potentially lost birds is a tantalising mix of species ranging from some inhabiting the least visited places on earth – such as remote islands and the western Himalayas – to those occurring in parts of Europe and the United States.
“The mention of species such as Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Jamaican Petrel, Hooded Seedeater, Himalayan Quail, and Pink-headed Duck will set scientists’ pulses racing. Some of these species haven’t been seen by any living person, but birdwatchers around the world still dream of rediscovering these long lost ghosts”, said Marco Lambertini, BirdLife International’s chief executive.
“History has shown us that we shouldn’t give up on species that are feared to have gone to their graves because some, such as Cebu Flowerpecker, have been rediscovered long after they were feared extinct, providing hope for the continued survival of other ‘long-lost’ species. Cebu Flowerpecker, of the Philippines, was only rediscovered at the eleventh hour just before the last remnants of its forest home were destroyed.”
“The extinction crisis is gathering momentum, but that’s no excuse for humanity to allow even more strands from the web of life to disappear, especially without giving them a final chance of life.”
The announcement of the quest to find lost species is being made at the launch of the 21st British Birdwatching Fair at Rutland Water. The event, which continues over the weekend, is expected to attract in excess of 20,000 birdwatchers from across the UK. Funds raised from this year’s event will go to the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme to help fund these searches.
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| Golden Eagle |
I hope I won’t disappoint you … this is not about John Ashcroft. It is about golden eagles (actually, maybe its about one golden eagle in particular).
Continue reading Let The Eagle Soar
When it comes to observing nature, it pays to pay attention, and it pays to stay in one place for a while. Coming to “The Lake” many spring, summer, and fall weekends (and now and then in the winter) and paying attention to the wildlife and other aspects of the natural environment allows me to see and experience things not otherwise possible.
Continue reading When the eagles are disturbed …
I had responded to the general in query “Where are you going to look for birds this weekend” by simply noting that we’d be going to “The Lake” (Minnesotan for a particular lake, the exact lake determined by context). But on the way up Amanda had the idea of going into Crane Meadow National Wildlife Refuge. This is a small refuge consisting of a swampy lake or two and the Platte River (no, not THAT Platte River), that is apparently famous for its cranes.
Continue reading Change of plans. We’ll be at Crane Meadows Looking for Cranes
For this final installation of How the Loon Terns, I’d like to very briefly address four different items of “common knowledge.”
And now, for another installment in our series: How The Loon Terns, an exercise in skeptical thinking using Loons as a waterbird touchstone. (In case you missed it, the previous installment was here.)
Continue reading The Lone Loon Fallacy
This is the continuation of a discussion of loons, skeptically viewed. I am not skeptical about loons themselves. I know they exist. In fact, I just spent the last half hour watching Mom and Dad loon (whom I cannot tell apart, by the way) feeding Junior I and Junior II (whom I also cannot tell apart) what I have determined to be mostly crayfish, but also the occasional minnow.
In this installment of How the Loon Terns we will look at breeding success.
Continue reading Lead Poisoning and Loons: A skeptical look