West Auckland rats kill native kōkako chicks in Waitākere Ranges

13 Mar, 2020 4:46pm

By: Ben Leahy

West Auckland's latest clutch of precious kōkako chicks have fallen prey to rats after rodent numbers soared to record levels in the Waitākere Ranges.

Rat numbers exploded across New Zealand last year as residents in the Auckland suburb of Titirangi complained of huge "cat sized" rats brazenly scurrying through the centre of town.

Pest catchers also reported booming business as the rats ran riot across the city after feasting on food generated by a so-called mega-mast in which native trees fruited heavily.

Now conservationists say endangered kōkako chicks have paid the price with rats and other rodents reportedly destroying all the chicks and eggs in nests under observation at Forest & Bird's Ark in the Park conservation site in the Waitākere Ranges.

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Great Indian Bustard Eggs Being Collected to Kick-Start Captive Breeding

The critically endangered bird is down to just 160-odd individuals, most of them surviving in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan.

26/JUN/2019

The great Indian bustard has been in deep trouble for a while. Once found across India’s grasslands and dry landscapes, the critically endangered bird is now down to just 160-odd individuals, most of them surviving in the Thar Desert in Rajasthan state.

Even in this last stronghold, survival is hard. Agricultural fields and a growing network of power lines and wind turbines have taken over their habitats, while predators like dogs destroy the eggs that the ostrich-like birds painstakingly lay down. In a last ditch effort, wildlife researchers along with the forest department have started a hunt for the birds’ eggs in Rajasthan to begin the process of captive breeding. On June 20, they managed to collect two bustard eggs from the wild.

“A beginning has been made and I hope we are able to save the bird,” Arindam Tomar, the state’s chief wildlife warden, told Mongabay.

The Wildlife Institute of India, Rajasthan forest department and India’s environment ministry have entered into an agreement to build two captive breeding facilities for the great Indian bustards (Ardeotis nigriceps). The main, bigger facility is being constructed in the village of Sorsan in southeast Rajasthan, while a second, smaller facility is being built in Jaisalmer, in the west, close to where many of the wild birds breed.

The buildings will take a year or two to come up, Tomar said, but the hunt for eggs is on because the teams “did not want to miss this year’s breeding season.”

“That was the urgency of doing it,” he said. “There are only 150 great Indian bustards surviving in the wild, so every day is precious. We don’t have any captive population of great Indian bustards at all, we don’t have them in any zoos or anywhere else.”

Mongabay contacted two experts from the Wildlife Institute of India involved in the project; one declined to comment and the other did not respond.

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Eggs rescued from RAF airbases as ‘pilot project’ to save endangered curlew takes flight

Published by surfbirds on June 24, 2019 courtesy of surfbirds archive, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust

Under normal circumstances, the eggs from nests near military runways have to be destroyed under an individual licence to protect flight safety.

Instead, these eggs were transported to WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire to be hand-reared and released into the Severn Vale. It’s hoped the new curlews will help to recover the fragile population in the area.

Curlew numbers in the UK have declined by 60% over the past 30 years. While numbers are slightly healthier in the uplands of northern England and Scotland, in southern England, Wales and Ireland, only hundreds of pairs remain.

Nigel Jarrett, Head of Conservation Breeding at WWT, says It’s an exciting opportunity for everyone involved. On one hand, curlews at East Anglian air bases pose a potential risk to aviation but on the other hand they have the potential to help their struggling cousins in the South West.Unfortunately time is not on our side but by babysitting these chicks until they can fly, we can help encourage a new generation of British curlews in the lowlands.

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Military base curlew eggs collected for headstarting

01/06/2019

Dozens of Eurasian Curlew eggs have been saved from RAF airfields as part of the first-ever joint effort between the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Natural England to boost the species' numbers in parts of lowland Britain.

Under normal circumstances, the eggs from nests near military runways would have been destroyed under an individual licence to protect flight safety.

Instead, the eggs were transported to Slimbridge WWT, Gloucestershire, to be hand-reared and released into the Severn Vale. It's hoped they will help to recover the fragile population in the area.

UK Eurasian Curlew numbers have declined by 60 per cent over the past 30 years and it is now considered the biggest bird conservation priority in the country. While numbers are slightly healthier in the uplands of northern England and Scotland, only hundreds of pairs remain in southern England, Wales and Ireland, where declines have been particularly marked.

Nigel Jarrett, Head of Conservation Breeding at WWT, said: "It's an exciting opportunity for everyone involved. On one hand, curlews at East Anglian air bases pose a potential risk to aviation, but on the other hand they have the potential to help their struggling cousins in the South-West.

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Crocodiles and birds were 'prehistoric bedfellows'

February 28, 2019

Romanian palaeontologist Matyas Vremir and a team of researchers found that the fossilized eggs discovered in 2011 belonged to two bird species as well as two reptile species, the ancestors of modern crocodiles and geckos

Crocodiles and birds may not seem the most obvious bedfellows, but scientists now say a prehistoric fossil find in Romania suggests that at one time the two species may have shared nests.

In 2011 Romanian palaeontologist Matyas Vremir found fossilised eggs and eggshell fragments dating back roughly 68 million years on a river bank in the Oarda de Jos area of central Romania.

Some two million years later, land-based dinosaurs were wiped out by a cataclysmic event, probably an asteroid strike that may have also triggered massive volcanic activity.

Vremir analysed the find with an international team of researchers who found that the eggs belonged to two bird species as well as two reptile species, the ancestors of modern crocodiles and geckos.

The team published its conclusions this month in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, saying the fossil find was "unique in the vertebrate fossil record and represents the earliest record of disparate animals sharing the same nesting area".

The authors say that the presence of the two reptile species "perhaps suggests that these animals were not only tolerated, but were perhaps not perceived as a threat to enantiornithine eggs or nestlings," referring to one of the prehistoric bird species.

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Plastics reach remote pristine environments, scientists say

Birds’ eggs in High Arctic contain chemical additives used in plastics

Ian Sample Science editor

Sun 17 Feb 2019 22.00 GMT

Scientists have warned about the impact of plastic pollution in the most pristine corners of the world after discovering chemical additives in birds’ eggs in the High Arctic.

Eggs laid by northern fulmars on Prince Leopold Island in the Canadian Arctic tested positive for hormone-disrupting phthalates, a family of chemicals that are added to plastics to keep them flexible. It is the first time the additives have been found in Arctic birds’ eggs.

The contaminants are thought to have leached from plastic debris that the birds ingested while hunting for fish, squid and shrimp in the Lancaster Sound at the entrance to the Northwest Passage. The birds spend most of their lives feeding at sea, returning to their nests only to breed.

Northern fulmars have an oily fluid in their stomachs, which they projectile-vomit at invaders that threaten their nests. Scientists believe the phthalates found their way into the fluid, and from there passed into the bloodstream and the eggs that females were producing.

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Dinosaurs put all colored birds' eggs in one basket, evolutionarily speaking

Date:  October 31, 2018

Source:  Yale University

A new study says the colors found in modern birds' eggs did not evolve independently, as previously thought, but evolved instead from dinosaurs.

According to researchers at Yale, the American Museum of Natural History, and the University of Bonn, birds inherited their egg color from non-avian dinosaur ancestors that laid eggs in fully or partially open nests. The researchers' findings appear Oct. 31 in the online edition of the journal Nature.

"This completely changes our understanding of how egg colors evolved," said the study's lead author, Yale paleontologist Jasmina Wiemann. "For two centuries, ornithologists assumed that egg color appeared in modern birds' eggs multiple times, independently."

The egg colors of birds reflect characteristic preferences in nesting environments and brooding behaviors. Modern birds use only two pigments, red and blue, to create all of the various egg colors, spots, and speckles.

Wiemann and her colleagues analyzed 18 fossil dinosaur eggshell samples from around the world, using non-destructive laser microspectroscopy to test for the presence of the two eggshell pigments. They found them in eggshells belonging to Eumaniraptoran dinosaurs, which include small, carnivorous dinosaurs such as Velociraptor.

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City-dwelling blue tits may lay bigger eggs because of what they eat

October 2, 2018, BioMed Central

Blue tit eggs that were laid in urban parkland were 5% larger than eggs laid in a nearby forest, which could be due to differences in the amount of calcium available to birds in urban and forest environments, a study published in Frontiers in Zoology has found.

Researchers at University of Lodz investigated the difference in blue tit egg size and how many eggs were laid per clutch in an urban parkland and a forest environment ten kilometres apart. They found that in the urban environment, tits laid bigger but fewer eggs, while tits in the forest laid smaller and rounder, but more eggs.

Professor Jerzy Banbura, corresponding author of the study, said: "There is a certain difference in egg volume that you would expect from a trade-off with clutch size, which means there are either bigger eggs but fewer eggs in a clutch, or a greater number of smaller eggs, depending on the resources available to the birds. However, what is surprising about our findings is that the difference in egg volumes between the urban and forest sites went beyond the difference we expected from that trade off."

The researchers also found that eggs laid in the forest were more spherical than eggs laid in the urban environment. Just like egg and clutch size, this may be due to limited amounts of calcium; more spherical eggs have a stronger structure than less round eggs, but need a smaller amount of calcium.

Professor Banbura, said: "Poor availability of calcium in the forest environment we studied- for example due to smaller numbers of shelled snails—may have created a pressure of natural selection towards producing smaller eggs, more spherical eggs, so that the limited calcium was used more economically. The larger eggs and smaller clutch sizes in urban areas may reflect the greater availability of calcium in this environment."

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Vulture chicks and rare bird eggs seized at Heathrow airport

Man arrested and bailed after discovery of 19 eggs from South African birds of prey

Press Association

Fri 29 Jun 2018 13.44 BSTLast modified on Fri 29 Jun 2018 17.05 BST

Two vulture chicks and more than a dozen eggs containing rare and endangered species have been seized at Heathrow airport.

Border Force officers confiscated 19 eggs, two of which had hatched, from a man who had arrived on a flight from South Africa.

While the exact species have not yet been identified, the eggs, which had been concealed in a body belt, were from South African birds of prey including vultures, eagles, hawks and kites, the Home Office said.

Border Force specialist officers identified that the eggs were protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. The chicks and eggs were being cared for at a specialist facility, the Home Office said.

The man, 56, was arrested and bailed pending further inquiries. The investigation has been passed to the National Crime Agency.

Source  

Conservationists urge birdwatchers to look out for ‘special birds’ after rare eggs hatch in Fenland

Harry Rutter

harry.rutter@archant.co.uk

26 May, 2018 - 08:02

Fifteen rare eggs rescued from muddy Fenland farmland earlier this year in an operation dubbed Project Godwit were hatched by wildlife specialists at Welney.

Rebecca Lee, principal species conservation officer at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), said: “Conditions were so bad that we were concerned that they might not survive.

“A number of the eggs that we did manage to collect were in such bad condition that they resembled muddy potatoes. Thankfully, the majority of these eggs have shown signs of life and many have hatched successfully despite our reservations.”

Ms Lee said: “Flooding forced our ground-nesting birds off important nesting areas and they have been laying their eggs on nearby farmland where mud is widespread and tall crops can hide potential predators.

 “Thankfully we have been able to work together with the landowners in the area to avoid the worst outcome.”

A total of 32 eggs were collected from farmland as part of ‘Project Godwit’- a partnership between WWT and RSPB, which aims to restore the UK breeding population.

The Nene and Ouse Washes in the Fens are the two main breeding sites for black-tailed godwits in the UK.

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Stone-curlew eggs stolen

17/05/2018

Suffolk police are appealing for information following the theft of four Eurasian Stone-curlew eggs from Cavenham Heath NNR in Suffolk. Offenders took the eggs from the nesting site at some point between 4 and 9 May.

The species was almost lost as a breeding bird in Britain, with numbers declining from around 2,000 pairs in the 1920s to just 168 pairs in 1991. A successful recovery programme in the east of England has increased this number to 400 pairs. However, Eurasian Stone-curlew remains Amber listed as a Bird of Conservation Concern in the UK.

Sergeant Brian Calver of Suffolk Constabulary commented: “These are a Schedule One bird, which receive a high level of protection, to include their nesting sites.

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Plymouth man charged with stealing rare birds' eggs

6 April 2018 at 1:00pm

A man has been charged with a number of offences against the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, in relation to the taking of and disturbing of protected birds, their nests and eggs.

Jason North aged 49 from Plymouth has been charged with 14 offences including the disturbance of protected birds at or near their nests and the taking of eggs.

These include rare species such as Golden Eagle and Osprey in Scotland.

Other offences relate to nest disturbance and the taking of eggs of rare Devon birds namely Hobby, Peregrine Falcon and Little-Ringed Plover from sites on Dartmoor, Devon.

The crimes are alleged to have taken place in Devon and Scotland during 2016.

Mr North is due before Plymouth Magistrates on 3 May.

Last updated Fri 6 Apr 2018

Source  

RSPB hits out over seagull eggs restaurant delicacy

By WMNDavidWells  |  Posted: September 05, 2016

​Bird conservationists have issued a warning over the latest food craze sweeping upmarket London restaurants – seagull eggs.

Seagulls might be a menace to anyone eating food on the seafront of Plymouth and a thorn in the side of tourists across the South West, but the tables are turned in the capital where diners cannot get enough of the delicacy.

Hundreds of thousands of seagull eggs are being sold to posh restaurants to feed hungry restaurant-goers – raising concerns for the RSPB and other bird lovers.

The eggs - which are harvested legally and not poached - are considered a delicacy among London's discerning diners.

The eggs, which can fetch up to £10 each, are taken from the nests of black-headed gulls.

Natural England issues licences for people to harvest the eggs from the birds, which are common along the south coastlines of Plymouth, Devon and Cornwall.

The organisation, which is the government's adviser for the natural environment, has disclosed that over a period of seven years it has issued licences allowing almost 500,000 eggs to be taken from black-headed gulls.

And according to a Freedom of Information request it approved the taking of nearly 33,000 eggs last year alone.

Although licenses are given out for those who harvest the eggs, the RSPB has said that there is a concern about the issue of people taking the eggs illegally. 

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Baby Birds Learn Calls From Their Mothers While Still In The Egg

By Pat Leonard

June 9, 2016

Rather like an expectant human mother playing Mozart to her unborn child, some mother fairywrens call softly to their eggs. Now, two recent studies conclude that two species of fairywrens can hear their mothers and even learn elements of her calls while still inside the egg.

Imitating their mother’s calls may ensure they are fed as nestlings, helping to distinguish them from the cuckoo nestlings that sometimes show up in nests. Retaining key elements of her call throughout their lives may also serve as a family “password” long after the young have grown and are raising chicks of their own.

Fairywrens are small Australian songbirds. Nine species occur on the continent where they can be common suburban birds, in places as familiar as chickadees are in the U.S. The males are often brilliantly colored in glittering blue or red, and the species’ unusual breeding habits have made their behavior a popular research topic for decades.

A series of experiments on Superb Fairywrens led by Diane Colombelli-Négrel and Sonia Kleindorfer of Australia’s Flinders University suggested the embryos were learning while still in the egg—contradicting a long-held view that embryos have limited learning abilities. Even among humans, it’s only been in the past few years that research has shown an unborn baby can begin to learn the sounds of speech when it is 30 weeks old.

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Proposed change to law on possession of wild bird eggs

By Gavin Stamp

Political reporter, BBC News

29 January 2016

The UK and Welsh governments are backing a change to the law on the possession of wild bird eggs.

They say anyone able to prove their eggs were taken from the wild before 1981 should not be prosecuted.

The law was changed in 2004 to require proof that eggs were taken before 1954 but this was ruled unlawful because of a lack of consultation.

Ministers say reinstating the so-called "pre-1981 defence" against liability would be a proportionate step.

Officials said "clarifying" the law in England and Wales would have the effect of focusing resources on prosecuting those currently collecting and trading eggs rather than punishing people who have built up or inherited historical collections.

The move, it is hoped, will encourage those with collections of scientific value to hand them over to museums for research.

While the practice of collecting wild bird eggs is in decline, the two governments' joint consultation found that illegal activity was still going on and there was a need for legislation outlawing it - which first came into force in 1981 - to remain on the statute book.

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What does a hen do with her unfertilised eggs?

Saturday 14 March 2015

A hen does not know if her eggs are fertilised or not. In fact (much like a human) a rooster can be infertile, so a hen's eggs might not be fertilised even if she is in a flock with a rooster.

Many modern breeds and commercial hybrid hens will do nothing with their eggs other than lay them and walk away. Many have had the instinct to brood [sit on their eggs to hatch them] bred out of them over generations. In a modern egg production facility, you do not want a hen to "go broody". When hens are ready to raise chicks, they will stop laying eggs for that period and it's very hard to convince them to give up the idea.

This does not mean that no hens will brood eggs; many breeds still retain their instincts to mother. Silkies, for instance, are renowned for their desire to sit on eggs. Other breeds, such as Orpingtons, Brahmas, Cochins, Marans, Cornish, and others go broody quite regularly. When a hen that has broody instincts lays an egg, she is forming a 'clutch' of eggs. She does nothing to care for these eggs other than hide them in a secure place until she is ready to sit on them. She will continue to lay eggs in this clutch until she has 'enough', which is a number anywhere from seven to as high as 20-plus. Once there are 'enough' eggs, a hormonal switch will occur that will put her into what's best described as a broody trance. She will stop laying eggs and begin to sit on them instead.

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New research reveals that a species of bird 'paints' its own eggs with bacteria which protect the embryo

3 hours ago

A hoophoe Credit: JC BALLESTEROS

Researchers from the University of Granada and the Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) have found that hoophoes cover their eggs with a secretion produced by themselves, loaded with mutualistic bacteria, which is then retained by a specializad structure in the eggshell and which increases successful hatching. So far this sort of behaviour has only been detected in this species of birds, and it is a mechanism to protect their eggs from infections by pathogens.

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Hoopoes' eggs show their true colors

Date:

August 14, 2014

Source:

Springer Science+Business Media

Summary:

Preen gland secretion causes hoopoes’ eggs to change color, possibly giving signals about the robustness of the mother bird, researchers have found. Hoopoe females use cosmetics on their eggs - and the eggs gradually change color when they are incubated, from bluish-grey to a more saturated greenish-brown. This happens because secretion from the uropygial or preen gland – a substance birds use to preen and protect their feathers – is transfered from the female hoopoe’s gland to her eggs directly with the bill and by means of belly feathers.

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First 3D Flying-Reptile Eggs Discovered in China

By Tanya Lewis, Staff Writer | June 05, 2014 12:10pm ET

The first three-dimensionally preserved eggs of ancient winged reptiles that lived more than 100 million years ago have been unearthed in China.

Five intact eggs were found, along with dozens or more adult fossils, of a new type of pterosaur, a group of prehistoric winged reptiles that dominated the skies during the time of dinosaurs. These creatures included some of the largest flying animals that ever existed.

"We found a lot of pterosaur bones which belong to different individuals in the sites, with five eggs," said study researcher Xiaolin Wang, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropologyat the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

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Hungry polar bears robbing Arctic bird colonies

BY MARGARET MUNRO, POSTMEDIA NEWS FEBRUARY 4, 2014

There were more than 300 nests in the bird colony when the polar bear arrived.

When it meandered off with a belly full of eggs only 24 nests remained, say scientists who witnessed the “near total” destruction of nests on the bird colony off Baffin Island.

It was far from an isolated event, the team from Environment Canada and Carleton University reported Tuesday.

Hungry polar bears are becoming a bigger threat to seabirds in the Canadian Arctic than traditional nest robbers like foxes and gulls, the researchers say in a study that points to the “cascading ecological impacts” of climate change.

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