Dead birds found in passenger’s baggage from China at Virginia airport

Agriculture officials have incinerated a box of dead birds that a traveler from China tried to bring into the U.S.

Officials say the birds were discovered in the passenger’s luggage at Washington Dulles International Airport last month.

When officials intercepted the package, the passenger said it was cat food. There’s still no word on what kind of birds they were.

They were tiny, about 2.5 to 3.5 inches in length. Bird imports from China are prohibited because of potential exposure to avian influenza.

Continued

Mitigation techniques fall short of preventing electrocution of golden eagles on power poles

January 24, 2018, Wiley

Despite efforts to retrofit power poles and to build new poles to avian-friendly standards, electrocution remains a substantial cause of death for the golden eagle. The global conservation problem results in an estimated 504 eagles electrocuted annually in North America alone. A new Journal of Wildlife Management article examines the risk factors and mitigation techniques from literature published from 1940-2016 and provides new strategies by region to target high-risk poles that could substantially reduce the mortalities.

The authors note eight electrocution risk factors, with pole configuration as the most frequently identified. Age was the second most frequently identified risk factor, with juvenile eagles electrocuted at approximately twice the rate of subadults or adults.

Read more at: 

US Announces Plans to Protect Rare Colorado, Utah Birds

By DAN ELLIOTT, ASSOCIATED PRESS

DENVER — Aug 12, 2016, 4:55 PM ET

Federal land managers announced long-awaited plans to protect the rare Gunnison sage grouse, a bird found only in Colorado and Utah.

The Bureau of Land Management released a nearly 1,000-page document late Thursday proposing restrictions on energy development, roads and grazing.

The proposals include closing or limiting the use of some areas during the birds' mating season, from mid-March to Mid-May, and during harsh winter weather. That could affect exploration for oil and gas, among other activities.

Other proposals include limits on the size of rights of way for utility lines and pipelines. Release of the plans opens a 90-day period for public comment. Final rules are expected next year.

Only about 5,000 Gunnison sage grouse remain in southwestern Colorado and southeastern Utah. The bird was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 2014. About 2,200 square miles in the two states are considered critical habitat.

Threatened status is less serious than endangered, which means a species is on the verge of extinction now and requires tighter restrictions.

The Gunnison grouse is related to the greater sage grouse, which is found across 11 Western states. Federal wildlife managers decided in September not to protect the greater sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act, but conservation restrictions are planned on public lands.

Continued 

BIRD IS THE WORD IN SAUGUS

Soheil Zendeh heads out after siting the rare Smith’s Longspur bird at the Wheelabrator’s Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary in Saugus on Wednesday.  

SAUGUS — Over thirty devoted bird watchers braved Wednesday morning’s frigid temperatures to seek out the uncommon Smith’s Longspur at Wheelabrator’s Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary.

The Smith’s Longspur is a rare species that typically only winters in the center of the United States and breeds along the Arctic shore.

“This is a rare opportunity to see this bird – the Smith’s Longspur – in the state of Massachusetts and fortunately, this bird has been very cooperative for our visitors,” saidGeoff Wilson, sanctuary manager for Wheelabrator’s Bear Creek Wildlife Sanctuary.

“I’ve been birding for 38 years and it’s a rare opportunity to see something like this,” saidFred Bouchard of Belmont. “For many of us it (could be) the only chance to see it at all. I feel grateful for the chance to see it here.”

Wilson said the bird has been in the general area for approximately a month but nobody had been able to get a good look at it until birders identified it on a walk this past weekend.

Each year the group of bird watchers participates in a Christmas count in the weeks surrounding Christmas. The group counts each type of bird they come across. This year, they saw a very rare Swainson’s Hawk, said Soheil Zendeh, who organizes the events.

“It took a while to figure out what it was,” said Zendeh.

Zendeh said the hawk is a midwestern bird that travels to South Africa. The bird watchers took photos and sent them to someone they knew could identify the bird.

“When I saw the photos later that night I nearly fell over,” he said.

The group organized a special walk to attempt to see the Swainson’s Hawk the next day. Though the group could not find the hawk, they came across several other interesting species, he said.

“We found all sorts of other things including this bird (the Smith’s Longspur),” he said. “We knew it was something interesting but not what it was.

“This past Sunday we got a good view,” he said.

Photos of the bird were sent to Marshall Iliff, who Zendeh said is a “big bird” in the birding world. Iliff identified the bird to be a Smith’s Longspur.

Read on ...

Pathogen-carrying neotropical ticks ride migratory birds into US

Date: October 2, 2015

Source: American Society for Microbiology

Tick species not normally present in the United States are arriving here on migratory birds. Some of these ticks carry disease-causing Ricksettia species, and some of those species are exotic to the US. The research is published on October 2nd in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

In the study, the investigators examined thousands of migratory birds that had just arrived in the US, after having flown from Central or South America. Three percent of the birds carried exotic ticks. Based on the total number of migratory birds arriving in the US each spring--in the billions--the investigators estimated that more than 19 million exotic ticks are introduced into the US each spring, said Emily B. Cohen, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Migratory Bird Center, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Washington, DC.

Continued ...

Drone Video Captures Bruising Mid-Air Encounter With Eagle

Aug 11, 2015, 1:46 PM ET

By LOUISE DEWAST via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

An Australian drone user had an unexpected encounter with a feisty raptor when the drone he was piloting was hit by an eagle flying at full speed.

"It survived," Adam Lancaster said about his drone, "but I need $100 in parts to get it going again."

The Wedge-Tailed Eagle also survived the impact, according to Lancaster, who said she "hovered over to make sure we had learned our lesson."

Lancaster is a drone photographer and videographer based in Melbourne, training to become a certified drone operator.

"Eagle was fine -- she was massive, and used talons to 'punch' the drone out of the sky," Lancaster wrote on the video description he posted online.

Lancaster has urged other drone pilots to avoid sharing the airspace with birds of prey.

Continued and video ...

Bird song clue to human brain functions?

DURHAM, N.C., Sept. 18 (UPI) -- How birds learn songs and which brain circuits are used may have implications for diagnosing and treating human developmental disorders, U.S. scientists report.

Researchers at Duke University say they found the same circuitry in a bird's brain involved in vocal control also participates in auditory learning, raising the possibility vocal circuits in the human brain also help encode auditory experience important to speech and language learning.

"Birds learn their songs early in life by listening to and memorizing the song of their parent or other adult bird tutor, in a process similar to how humans learn to speak," Duke postdoctoral researcher Todd Roberts said. "They shape their vocalizations to match or copy the tutor's song."

A young male zebra finch, Roberts said, learns his song in two phases -- memorization and practice. Memorization can be quick but the bird may need to practice singing as many as 100,000 times in a 45-day period to accurately imitate the tutor's song.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/09/18/Bird-song-clue-to-human-brain-functions/UPI-58561348004813/#ixzz26v9mlHBY

US issues permits for albatross 'bycatch' - Bird group disappointed

Permits won't improve current situation
September 2012. On August 20, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued a permit under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) authorizing a limited number of seabirds to be killed or injured by Hawaiian swordfish vessels.

This action is the first permit ever issued under the MBTA - America's foremost law protecting migratory bird species - to regulate the "take" of migratory birds in the operation of an otherwise lawful commercial activity.

Black-footed and Laysan albatrosses killed by swordfish boats

Until now, only regulation under the Endangered Species Act had been used to prevent seabird deaths caused by commercial longline fishing, and then only in relation to the endangered Short-tailed Albatross. It has been well-known for decades that Hawaiian swordfish boats kill and injure Black-footed and Laysan albatrosses. The birds are attracted to and dive on baited hooks, becoming ensnared in lines or impaled by the hooks and dragged under the surface to be drowned. However, the MBTA had not historically been applied to this fishery because the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS - the federal agency that oversees the U.S. fishing fleet) had asserted that the areas where it operates, federal waters and on the high seas, lie outside the jurisdiction of the MBTA. But NMFS evidently reversed their position in 2011, when they decided to apply for this permit.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/albatross-bycatch-permits.html