Upcoming Event: Annual bald eagle event set for Flagstaff

Posted in: Wildlife News

Feb 25, 2017

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.  -- Did you know that Arizona is visited by over 200 bald eagles during the winter?  To learn more about these amazing birds and to see live eagles, the public is invited to attend the Annual Bald Eagle Celebration on Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Willow Bend Environmental Educational Center at 703 E. Sawmill Road in Flagstaff.

Several programs will be offered during this year’s event, which is hosted by the Arizona Game and Fish Department and Willow Bend Environmental Education Center. The cost for the event is $5 per participant for each program or free for Willow Bend Members.

All programs, except field trip, will be held at Willow Bend. The day will also include an opportunity to see live bald eagles up close and a chance to talk with dedicated individuals from Liberty Wildlife Rehabilitation Foundation.

8-10 a.m. – “Early Birds” Field Trip: Join current and retired AZ Game and Fish wildlife biologists for an early morning field trip searching for bald eagles and local waterfowl around Lake Mary. Meet at 8 a.m. at AZ Game and Fish Office at 3500 Lake Mary Road. Personal transportation is required and carpooling is encouraged. The field trip will be cancelled if there is inclement weather.

10-11 a.m. – “Eaglets” Family Presentation: A family-focused interactive program especially designed for families with young children (ages 4-12 years old). Learn about and view live eagles.

11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. – “Fully Fledged” Community Presentation 1: Learn about the incredible bald eagle from an Arizona Game and Fish biologist and view live eagles up close. Presentation is open to all ages. (Please note this is the same presentation as the 1 p.m. session. Please only sign up for one presentation.)

1-2 p.m. – “Fully Fledged” Community Presentation 2: Learn about the incredible bald eagle from an Arizona Game and Fish biologist and view live eagles up close. Presentation is open to all ages.

“Educating people about wildlife, conservation and management is a goal for Willow Bend and Arizona Game and Fish,” Willow Bend Director Moran Henn said. “We are very excited to be partnering with Game and Fish and Liberty Wildlife again for this year’s event.”

Those going on the early bird field trip should remember to dress appropriately for weather conditions, and bring binoculars and bird field guidebooks. To register for one of the programs offered or for more information, visit www.willowbendcenter.org.

Action needed now to save the call of the curlew in southern England

Media release

      

Curlews could be lost as a breeding species from southern England within a generation without urgent action to save this charismatic but crisis-hit bird.  

The ‘Call of the Curlew’ conference today (February 2), which brings together conservationists, policy-makers, landowners and farmers, will hear how the much-loved bird’s fortunes can be reversed if we take action now.

The curlew’s UK population has almost halved since the mid-1990s, chiefly because of reduced breeding success, strongly linked to predation and the loss of suitable nesting habitat.

In the southern English lowlands, there are possibly only 200 pairs of breeding curlews left.

RSPB conservation officer Phil Sheldrake, who helped organise today’s conference, said: “We have turned around the fortunes of other birds such as cirl buntings and stone curlews in southern England, and we can do the same for the curlew.

“This is one of the largest single-species conferences we have held, the interest and enthusiasm shown has been incredible and if we can harness that it will be a giant step towards securing the call of the curlew for future generations to enjoy.”

Fellow organiser Mary Colwell, who last year walked 500 miles from the west coast of Ireland to Lincolnshire, to highlight the bird’s plight, said: “To lose the curlew from southern England would be to lose part of our heritage.

“This lovely bird and its evocative call are woven into the lives of people. We would be losing more than just another species – they are part of who we are.”

The curlew – properly the Eurasian curlew – is the UK’s largest wading bird and its evocative ‘curlee-curlee’ call is a signature sound of moors and marshes, particularly in the breeding season.

Geoff Hilton, the Wildlife and Wetlands Trust’s (WWT) head of conservation science, said: “The cry of the curlew has inspired generations of writers and musicians; it is one of those species that, like the crane and the eel, everyone can recognise and it immediately brings to mind wild wetland landscapes.”

In the lowland countryside, the loss of hay meadows and wet grassland has contributed to the curlew’s decline as a breeding species. Good nesting habitat in upland areas has also come under pressure, and overall the curlew’s breeding range in the UK has contracted by roughly 17 per cent in recent years.

The UK hosts roughly a quarter of the world’s breeding curlews and population decline here is having a greater impact than in any other country. The bird is classified as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the only near threatened species where the UK has a substantial part of the global breeding population.

Follow the story at: https://www.facebook.com/RSPBSW/

Ends

For further information, images, or to arrange an interview, please contact:

Chris Baker, RSPB Communications Officer, 01392 453299 / 07701 050010 or Mark Simpson, WWT Communications Officer, 01453 891138 / 07825 890590

Notes:

The ‘Call of the Curlew’ conference takes place at the WWT’s Slimbridge Wetland Centre on Thursday, February 2. Media organisations are invited to attend from 13.00 to 14.00 (or at other times by prior appointment) where conference delegates will be available for interview.

Organisations involved in organising the conference include Curlew Media, the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, the RSPB and the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. 

The curlew’s breeding population in Scotland declined by 55 per cent between 1995 and 2013, and in England by 32 per cent; trends cannot be calculated for Wales or Northern Ireland because the bird now occupies too few places. In the Republic of Ireland there are thought to be barely more than 120 breeding pairs.

Breeding Eurasian curlews should not be confused with wintering Eurasian curlews, where a major influx from Europe means large numbers can be seen in winter, on estuaries and salt marshes all round the UK and Ireland.  

The Eurasian curlew is one of eight curlew species. Of them, the Eskimo curlew may be extinct, there has not been a confirmed sighting for about 30 years; the slender-billed curlew is critically endangered and highly likely to become the first European bird to become extinct since the great auk in 1852. 

The similarly named stone curlew is an unrelated species.

For information about the RSPB’s Curlew Recovery Programme see: https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/conservation/conservation-projects/details/400395-curlew-recovery-programme

Chris Baker

Communications Officer

Tel: 01392 453299

Mobile: 07701 050010

South West Regional Office, 4th Floor (North Block), Broadwalk House, Southernhay West, Exeter, Devon, EX1 1TS

Researchers use weather radar to track migrating waterfowl, avian influenza

Date: January 18, 2017
Source: University of Delaware

University of Delaware researchers are part of an effort that will use weather radar to identify wetland hotspots used by waterfowl during the winter, which in turn can alert poultry growers about the potential risk of avian influenza to their farms.

UD is partnering with the University of California, Davis, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) on the research, which will study wetlands in the Central Valley of California during the winter.

The researchers are able to identify the birds' location based on their well synchronized take-off movements.

"In the case of waterfowl, they engage in feeding flights in the winter. They'll roost in the wetlands during the day and they fly out to agricultural fields -- primarily flooded rice fields in California -- at night. When they take off and fly into the radar, we get an instant snapshot of where they were on the ground. That's how we map their distributions," said Jeff Buler, assistant professor in UD's Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology.



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Researchers investigate decline in South Africa's forest-birds

Date: February 3, 2017 
Source: Stellenbosch University

 

Forest-dwelling bird species are disappearing from some of South Africa's indigenous forests, with forest birds in the Eastern Cape being the most affected.

A new study, published in Bird Conservation International recently, showed that the ranges of 28 of South Africa's 57 forest-dwelling bird species were declining, while those of 22 species were increasing and seven remained stable.

The findings are based on 25 years of citizen science data collected by the Southern African Bird Atlas Project. The data can be used to indicate the conservation status of a species, depending on its known range and how it is changing. The first survey took place from 1987 to 1992, and the second survey started in 2007 and is ongoing.

Researchers from Stellenbosch University (SU) and South Africa's Department of Environmental Affairs used data on 57 forest-dwelling species to investigate links between deforestation, species characteristics and range declines for these species over the last 20 years.



Continued

Penalty for Canaport songbird deaths will fund conservation efforts

Canaport LNG was fined $750,000 after thousands of birds died at Saint John terminal

By Julia Wright, CBC News Posted: Jan 20, 2017 10:46 AM AT Last Updated: Jan 20, 2017 1:09 PM AT 

The deaths of thousands of songbirds at the Canaport LNG terminal more than three years ago resulted in a $750,000 penalty against the company, and now some of that money will be used for migratory bird conservation, according to Nature NB executive director Vanessa Roy-McDougall. 

The non-profit, charitable organization working to protect New Brunswick's natural heritage will get $125,000 to help support groups and programs studying bird migration and conservation.

In September 2013, thousands of birds were drawn to a 10-to-15-metre gas flare during a period of fog and low cloud. Twenty-six species of migratory birds died, including four Canada warblers, a threatened species.

Canaport LNG pleaded guilty to federal charges under both the Migratory Birds Convention Act and the Species at Risk Act.

Hawk Watch funding

The funding will enhance the work of the Saint John Naturalists' Club's two bird migration monitoring programs, according to Roy-McDougall.

"Some of the money will go toward the Greenlaw Mountain Hawk Watch, which observes the hawks that migrate along the coast in the fall," she said. "In the spring, it will fund their project at the Point Lepreau Bird Observatory."

The project, which has been going on for 20 years, identifies the bird species that use the coast as a flyway in the spring.

"All of that information will be entered into a North American database that helps researchers look at the types of hawks that migrate, when they migrate, and the species," said Roy-McDougall.

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