Camouflaged bird sparks owl hunt at Chatsworth

Popular Peak District photographer Villager Jim has captured the owl’s art of camouflage in this fantastic picture.
As masters of disguise, the owl can only just be spotted waiting for their prey in the early hours at Chatsworth but they could not escape Villager Jim. The creatures used a wall, a tree and a barn doorway as cover.

Villager Jim said the owls are getting used to him now so they don’t fly away.

http://www.matlockmercury.co.uk/news/local/camouflaged-bird-sparks-owl-hunt-at-chatsworth-1-6874098

Takahe birds to be released into wild

Published: 11:11AM Saturday October 04, 2014 Source: ONE News

The endangered Takahe bird are due to be released into the wild for the first time on the Auckland mainland today.

The 10 Takahe come from the Te Anau recovery programme were due to be released at Tawharanui Regional Park at 1pm.

The Department of Conservation says Tawharanui Regional Park has been chosen for the flightless bird as it's an open sanctuary with 580 hectares of predator-free parkland.

There are only 260 takahe in the world and 58 breeding pairs in New Zealand.

http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/takahe-birds-released-into-wild-6098126

Vacationing couple spots rare albino hummingbird in Ogunquit

OGUNQUIT—Like many people this summer, Heather and Gary Ross decided to vacation in Ogunquit. Unlike others, however, the California couple had quite an unusual wildlife experience while visiting the seaside town.

While sitting on the lawn of the Beachmere Inn on the afternoon of Sept. 24, they observed what appears to be an albino hummingbird.

Photo courtesy of Heather and Gary Ross

“We had gone to breakfast and came back,” Heather Ross said. “We were sitting in the grassy area in the afternoon. I’ve always been a fan of hummingbirds. Gary said ‘look at that’ and pointed out a white hummingbird.”

Heather Ross quickly snapped some pictures with the camera she had on her.

“We were watching it,” she said. “It was stunningly beautiful.”

The Ross’ uploaded the photos, Heather said, and when they looked at the pictures saw that the bird had red eyes.

“Gary said it was an albino,” Heather Ross said.

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Ospreys fill up on fish at Clifton Lakes in Warwickshire

3 October 2014 Last updated at 11:31 BST

Ospreys - a protected bird of prey usually found in Scotland - have been in Warwickshire for the past two weeks, en route to their winter home in Africa.

The fish-eaters have temporarily settled near Clifton Lakes in Rugby, where BBC Midlands Today's David Gregory-Kumar spoke to the owner of the angling ponds, John Daleman.

Source

Big Garden Birdwatch 2015 is on its way

Posted on: 04 Oct 2014

The RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch takes place again on Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 January 2015, and online registration is now open for the survey.

Since it started in 1979, the world's biggest wildlife survey has provided a lot of imporant information about the changes in numbers of garden birds in winter, and helped to alert conservationists to declines in species such as House Sparrows, Greenfinch and Starling.

The number of people taking part has grown every year, and now around half a million participants get involved, making it the world’s biggest garden wildlife survey. To take part, people are asked to spend just one hour at any time over the event weekend noting the highest number of each bird seen in their gardens or local outside space. They then have to submit their results to the RSPB before 13 February, either online atwww.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch or in the post.

This year, participants are being asked once more to log some of the other animals they see in their gardens to help build an overall picture of how important our gardens are for wildlife. Participants don’t have to see and count these other species during their Big Garden Birdwatch hour, just fill in the form to tell the RSPB whether they see them regularly or have ever seen them in their gardens, at any time of year. The RSPB shares this information with other conservation organisations to enable them to understand more about the threats facing wildlife, so that people can help their wild visitors thrive.

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Federal judge shoots down lawsuit to end owl, bird shootings near New York City airports to protect planes

Judge John Gleeson ruled that the feds and the Port Authority were carrying out the bird-hazard reduction plan within legal limits. The lawsuit was filed by a Colorado-based advocacy group last year following the fatal shootings of three snowy white owls.

BY JOHN MARZULLI 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS 

Friday, October 3, 2014, 7:44 PM

A federal judge has shot down a lawsuit that sought to stop the killing of snowy white owls and migratory birds near New York City airports so they would not pose a threat to aviation.

Friends of Animals, a Colorado-based advocacy group, filed the suit last year in Brooklyn Federal Court in response to the fatal shootings of three snowy white owls at Kennedy Airport.

Judge John Gleeson ruled that the feds and the Port Authority were carrying out the bird-hazard reduction plan within legal limits, but expressed hope that they could “find the tools to diminish the danger to planes without killing so many birds.”

Jennifer Barnes, a lawyer for Friends of Animals, said she was disappointed and would explore options pertaining to whether the ruling could be appealed.

It was disclosed during the litigation that nearly 9,000 birds of various species were killed at city airports in 2012 to prevent them from being sucked into jetliners’ engines — a situation that can bring down a plane. A bird strike was blamed for the engine failure that forced hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger to land a U.S. Airways jet in the Hudson River in 2009.

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Fort Hays freshman discovers rare prehistoric bird skeleton

HAYS, Kansas — Hours digging in the August sun rewarded Kris Super, a Wichita freshman at Fort Hays State University, with a remarkable discovery — more than half a skeleton of an 85 million-year old bird.

Super and a few of his paleontology friends spent their last weekend before school “in the chalk” looking for fossils near Castle Rock, in Gove County, west of Hays. Late one afternoon, Super noticed some small bones wedged in rock.

“I was able to free a medium-sized slab of rock containing the bones,” said Super.

At first, Super said, the fossils looked like a “scrappy fish.” But after further study in his dorm room later that night, he thought it might be a bird instead. “I noticed a raised edge along the side of one of the bones that told me it used to be hollow,” said Super.

That same night, he emailed Dr. Laura Wilson, curator of paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History and an assistant professor of geosciences at FHSU. They met the next morning, on Super’s first day of college.

It turns out he found the remains of a toothed flying bird called Ichthyornis from the Mesozoic Era– about 252 million to 66 million years ago. Ichthyornis is Greek for “fish-bird” and is named that way due to its fish-like vertebrae.

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