Grouse moors actually protect rare birds, study shows

Sarah Knapton, science editor 7 AUGUST 2017 • 12:01AM

Grouse moors owners have hit back at claims that shoots harm wildlife by commissioning a report showing rare birds are thriving on their land.

Last week Chris Packham called for an end to grouse shooting labelling the sport ‘moorland vandalism’ and criticised gamekeepers for killing hen harriers - Britain’s rarest bird of prey - to prevent them from eating chicks.

The RSPB also claims that intensive land management practices, such as burning and drainage of peatlands, tracks and the use of veterinary medicines and killing of mountain hares to reduce the incidence of disease in grouse, harm wildlife.

But a new study commissioned by a dozen grouse moors, and undertaken by Newcastle and Durham Universities which surveyed 18 moorland estates across England and Scotland between April and June this year, found some birds were flourishing.

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Flying home to Balrampur: Sanctuaries play host to rare birds

TOI

Mon,08 May 2017

LUCKNOW: It is good news for bird lovers. A recent report shows that one of the state's lesser known sanctuaries played host to a large number of the rarest birds of the world.Suheldev Wildlife Sanctuary in Balrampur district has emerged as a dark horse. It was found to be home to around 300 bird species in the first ever avifaunal study in the area. 

Avifaunal means the study of birds and their environment. In this case, the results have been exemplary. The period of the study was 2014-15.A rare raptor and a native to South Africa, the Amur Falcon visited the sanctuary every year from 2014 to 2016 at the onset of winter While the study itself recorded its presence in 2014-15 as a first-of-its-kind event, in 2016, officials at the sanctuary confirmed that the rare bird visited.The Amur Falcon usually flies to Nagaland, and is also found in Bangalore.Of the 300 species spotted, more than 150 were rare birds, says the study team from Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), funded by the forest department.As many as 26 of these are near-threatened species. 

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Bird last recorded in 19th century observed over Malta

Saturday, April 2, 2016, 11:07

With spring bird migration starting in March, a number of scarce species were observed stopping over Malta, including a species last recorded in the 19th century, Birdlife Malta said today.

The strong southern winds are likely to have brought these vagrants – birds which disperse from their usual range through accidental migratory movements.

The first surprise for bird watchers was a cream-coloured courser (Nankina), a very scarce irregular semi-desert bird, last seen in 2009. The courser spent two weeks within the safety of the airport area, a suitable bare, flat habitat for its ground-running behaviour. The species breeds in the North African and Middle Eastern regions, rarely venturing into Europe.

A southern great grey shrike (Kaċċamendula Prima) was the second rare bird spotted at Ta’ Ċenċ cliffs. Southern Grey Shrike is a vagrant species in the Maltese islands.

Another rarity this spring is a Richard’s Pipit (Bilblun Prim), which stopped over along the Southern coast of Malta. This species is rarely seen in Malta, as it originates from Siberia, Mongolia and parts of China. Past records for this bird had always been during autumn, but never in spring.

The most unexpected vagrant however was a White-crowned Black Wheatear (Kuda Rasha Bajda) which stayed over at Majjistral Park. This was only the second record ever for Malta, as the species was locally last confirmed in 1872 as a shot specimen. There are only a handful of records of this species in Europe. It is normally found in in the Sahara desert and Arabia.

The peak of spring migration in Malta is expected in April, although many birds are already passing through

A Seebohm’s Wheatear, a subspecies of the more common Northern Wheatear (Kuda) was the last rarity to be recorded this month. This is the first time it has been observed in Malta.

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Birdspotters in frenzy after extremely rare Hudsonian Whimbrel SPOTTED in Britain

AN extremely rare bird which has only been seen a handful of times in the UK has caused mass excitement after being spotted flying on the south coast.

PUBLISHED: 10:42, Fri, Jun 12, 2015 | UPDATED: 16:33, Fri, Jun 12, 2015

Matt Eade/Solent NewsMore than 1,000 bird watchers gathered to catch a glimpse of the rare bird

More than 1,000 bird watchers have travelled to Pagham Harbour near Chichester, West Sussex, in the last four days to catch a glimpse of the Hudsonian Whimbrel.

It is thought to be the only bird of its kind in the UK and only 10 others have been seen in this country since 1950.

The bird is so rare because it is native of North America and is hardly ever seen in Britain.

Tim Webb, communications officer for the RSBP said: "It is definitely confirmed that it is here and is still here.

"On these shores this is about the eleventh one in our recorded history, which goes back to about the 1950s.

"This Hudsonian Whimbrel is the only one in the UK right now to our knowledge.

"It is incredibly unusual and rare for this species to be seen in this country.

"We do have Whimbrel in this country but not this type."

It is believed this particular Hudsonian Whimbrel got lost and with the help of jet streams ended up in the UK as this country is not a usual flight path for it.

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Rare white peacocks star attraction at Elizabethan hall in Shropshire

PUBLISHED: April 7, 2015 05:56 LAST UPDATED: April 7, 2015 10:02

Plantagenet and York were seen at a new moat aviary, set in the 15th century grass moat at Upton Cressett Hall and Gardens near Bridgnorth.

The rare male birds have their own home, to protect them from falling “fowl” of a nearby fox that has killed several of the aviary’s birds, which also features rare chickens and India Blue Peacocks.

The chickens have all been supplied by the Gobbett Rare Fowl Farm near Burwarton but the white peacocks were sourced from Yorkshire for the property’s owner William Cash, by his wife Lady Laura.

Mr Cash said now the two new additions had settled in they were hoping to start their own white peacock family. “

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Could shooting save endangered wildlife?

The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust say introducing game shoots to the island could help protect rare birds from extinction.

Experts say a focus on intensive farming threatens biodiversity and a managed system of game shooting could help.

But there are concerns regular shoots just wouldn't be practical.

"Jersey is very very small so it would be difficult to organise large scale hunts safely and there's not many places in Jersey that are far enough away from a public road or a public place where people with shot guns can in large numbers be shooting.

Saying that people do shoot safely and I'm not aware of any shot gun accidents for a long long time, so it is not out of the question and if it would encourage better management of the countryside it might well be a way forward." – JOHN PINEL, PRINCIPAL ECOLOGIST

Experts say by shooting game birds like pheasants and Grouse, songbirds like the Thrush could thrive.

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Rare bird alert: Owls are returning to NH

Sightings are coming in across the state

UPDATED 12:00 AM EDT Mar 11, 2015

ASHLAND, N.H. —"WHO COOKS FOR YOU, WHO?"

That was the familiar question I heard being hooted in the night air near Ashland, this week.

"WHO?"

As I walked my dog for the final time of the day, I knew I was hearing the inimitable barred owl, who has been away for the winter. It was another true sign of spring.

Sightings or voices of owls that breed in New Hampshire were being heard across the state this past week including eastern screech owls in Hollis, Nashua, and Rye; northern saw-whet owls in Merrimack and Hancock, barred owls in Ashland and Orford, and several great horned owls from multiple locations.

Owls are busy courting and starting to nest during this time of the year. All of those owls breed in the Granite State.

The sightings were part of New Hampshire Audubon's Rare Bird Alert for Monday, March 9.

A juvenile red-headed woodpecker was discovered near the public boat launch at Adams Point in Durham in November and was last reported on March 8.

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Drake's Island developer threatens to 'invest money elsewhere' if council blocks plan over egrets

By Plymouth Herald | Posted: January 08, 2015

THE developer behind proposals for a luxury hotel on Drake’s Island has threatened to abandon the project, accusing council officers of holding the scheme to ransom over a collection of rare birds.

The Herald reported previously that a colony of little egrets which live on the island could scupper the application, which is recommended for refusal ahead of a planning meeting next week.

Rotolok Holdings’ plan to convert the listed buildings on the island into a 43-bedroom hotel, bar, restaurant, spa, gym and swimming pool has encountered resistance from wildlife and conservation groups who are worried about the birds’ natural habitat in the island’s trees.

Rotolok’s Aidan McCauley said: “I am staggered that after years of close working with council officers they are choosing to ignore the evidence that is before them and turn our proposed investment away.

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The winged wonders that bring a splash of colour

This year saw rare birds, insects and butterflies fly in from the Continent, but could 2015 prove even more memorable? Liam Creedon reports.

This has proved to be an exciting year for the UK’s army of nature lovers.

Several species of exotic birds bred here for the first time in decades and very rare migrant butterflies appeared unannounced across the east coast.

Wave after wave of scarce and unusual wildlife winged in from the Continent and the presence of these glamorous and unexpected arrivals has been undeniably exciting, but their arrival also suggests that a warming climate means that the shape and make-up of British wildlife may never look quite the same again.

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Rare bird alert: Spotted sandpiper sightings reported

DANVILLE, N.H. —Over 20 spotted sandpipers were reported at Long Pond in Danville on Tuesday and recorded as part of New Hampshire Audubon's Rare Bird Alert for this week.

A snowy owl was reported at Star Island, one of the Isles of Shoals on Sunday and Monday.

Two little gulls were seen with 25 Bonaparte's gulls at Bicentennial Park in Hampton on Sunday.

Six roseate terns and a whimbrel were seen in Hampton Harbor on Tuesday.

There was a report of a possible Forster's tern seen with common terns in Portsmouth Harbor on Aug. 1.

An immature white ibis was discovered at Awcomin Marsh in Rye on July 11, and was last reported on July 29 but may still be present.

It has also been cited in reports from several different marshes in Rye along Route 1A south of Rye Harbor.

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UK group uses drones to monitor rare birds

Remotely piloted craft helps conservation society observe breeding patterns without causing much disturbance

LONDON — Military technology used to track down insurgents in Afghanistan has been adopted by Britain’s biggest nature conservation charity to protect some of the country’s rarest birds.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is using a remotely controlled drone to spy on the nests of endangered breeds and monitor the progress of reintroduced species, as the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) becomes increasingly common outside combat zones.

The RSPB drone was created by Mr Nigel Butcher, the charity’s answer to James Bond’s gadget inventor Q, at its new Centre for Conservation Science in Sandy, Bedfordshire.

“A lot of our stuff filters down from military use,” Mr Butcher said. “We built the ’copter about a year ago and have added bits and pieces to it since, like radio tracking, thermal imaging and wide-angle cameras.”

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Predator fence work begins

Posted: Tuesday, May 6, 2014 12:30 am

The Garden Island 

LIHUE — The Department of Land and Natural Resources is beginning a project to protect rare birds and their native forest habitat in Kauai’s Hono O Na Pali Natural Area Reserve.

The natural area reserve stretches from sea level along the picturesque Na Pali coast up to the Alaka‘i plateau in the Hanalei and Waimea districts.

The reserve protects native forest watersheds, as well as 48 species of endangered plants, and six endangered bird species. 

Hikers may experience these mist-shrouded forests by hiking on the Alaka‘i Swamp trail boardwalk. Many of the plants and bird species seen along the trail only exist on Kauai. 

The project includes control of invasive weeds like Himalayan ginger and Australian Tree Ferns, non-native animal removal, and monitoring unique rare plants and animals.

A 3.3-mile fence from Pihea to Kilohana will exclude feral goats and pigs from 2,290 acres of high elevation forests.

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Painted Stork nesting sighted at Kumarakom

Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram

Bird watchers here are elated as rare and exotic water fowls are selecting Kumarakom as their nesting destination.

The latest of the sighting was that of Painted Stork, which has been sighted for the first time nesting in Kerala.

The study conducted by Shiby Moses, naturalist at Kumarakom Bird Sanctuary, has identified nesting of these exotic birds at the sanctuary area.

Further study by N. Unnikrishnan, secretary, Kottayam Nature Society, has uncovered three nests in the area. According to B. Sreekumar, president of the society, more nesting places are believed to be inside the sanctuary since Painted Storks nest colonially on trees.

These large, colourful birds stand nearly one meter tall. Their distinctive pink tertial feathers give them their name. Painted Storks, listed in the Red List prepared by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), were usually sighted in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, but not in Kerala, Dr. Sreekumar said.

The sighting shows that these large wading birds, though widely distributed in the plains of Asia, are now expanding to new areas.

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Work starts to protect rare little terns at Gronant

Work is under way to protect one of the UK's rarest seabirds.

Little terns breed on a shingle beach in north Wales, they return each April from Africa to nest at the Gronant dunes on the Dee estuary but there is a warning the birds are threatened by climate change.

A five-year EU partnership aims to make sure the bird has a long-term recovery in Wales.

Beach visitors, in particular, are being urged to give the birds space.

The RSPB says other UK little tern colonies - on the Tees and in Lincolnshire - have already been lost because of changes to the UK coastline, and predictions of increased coastal flooding and sea level rises could spell further disaster for these elegant tiny seabirds.

Colin Wells, site manager for the RSPB on the Dee Estuary Reserve has helped erect and maintain a predator exclusion fence, and monitor breeding numbers at Gronant.

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RARE BIRDS: Resurrecting the New Zealand Jesus Bird

Posted by James Russell of University of Auckland on March 12, 2014

The ‘Jesus bird’ is the unique name given to storm petrels, small seabirds of the family Hydrobatidae, for their characteristic ability to ‘walk’ on water. Storm petrels are remarkable creatures. With a body-weight about the same as a house sparrow, these seabirds can live for up to 30 years, and feed in the remote pelagic ocean hundreds of kilometres from land on planktonic crustaceans, only coming to land to nest.

The New Zealand storm petrel (Fregetta maorianus) was first taxonomically described in the 19th century from specimens at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris and then presumed extinct since 1895 with no further collections. That was until bird watchers re-sighted the bird in2003 and began an intensive monitoring campaign to try and locate the surviving breeding colony. Ten years later scientists last month have successfully discovered the breeding colony on Hauturu-O-Toi (Little Barrier Island) after tracking adult birds back to their colony, and once the adults had left locating one of many tiny eggs in a tiny nesting crevice in the cliff face.

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RARE BIRDS: Captive-bred Spoon-billed Sandpiper seen in winter quarters

Posted on: 11 Mar 2014

A hand-reared Spoon-billed Sandpiper from the WWT's reintroduction scheme in Russia has been seen in Thailand.

The bird was photographed last week by birder Peter Ericsson on wetlands at Pak Thale in Thailand and identified as bird ‘AA’, which was hand-reared and released in Chukotka, Russia, last summer, as part of an international effort to save the species from extinction.

Spoon-billed Sandpiper is one of the rarest birds in the world, and is consequently one of the most difficult to find once it leaves its breeding area for the winter months. This is only the secondtime an individual hand-reared bird has been identified in the wild by the unique code on its plastic leg flag, proving beyond doubt that this bird was AA. Last autumn there were three sightings of birds with white leg flags, indicating that they had been reared as part of the programme, but they were too distant for the codes to be read; however, a bird known as 'Lime 01' was also seen and identified.

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RARE BIRDS: Scaup: Rare ducks spotted at RSPB Conwy

A male and two female Scaups were seen on a lagoon near the Tal y Fan hide

The UK’s rarest ducks have been spotted at RSPB Conwy’s nature reserve.

Three of these Scaup ducks have been seen on a lagoon near the Tal y Fan hide at the Llandudno Junction site, off the A55.

An RSPB spokeswoman said: “There are three of them - a male and two females. It’s quite unusual to see them on an inland lake.

“They have been on a deeper lagoon but have now moved to a more shallow lagoon near the Tal y Fan hide which is quite full because of the heavy rainfall.”

The RSPB says that Scaup are diving ducks with a resemblance to tufted ducks. 

Only a handful breed in the UK every year, making them our rarest breeding duck.

Males have black heads, shoulder and breast, white flanks, grey back and a black tail, says the charity.

Females are brown, with characteristic white patches around the base of the bill.

In flight, they show white patches along the length of the trailing edge of the wing.

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/scaup-rare-ducks-spotted-rspb-6776987

RARE BIRDS: Killing of rare eagle shows we have an inbred, backward, hillbilly element

The killing of this and other rare birds might serve as a metaphor for a country which cares for nothing or nobody

Mar 07, 2014 11:00

BY PATFLANAGAN

The killing of this and other rare birds might serve as a metaphor for a country which cares for nothing or nobody

Dr Allen Mee holds the grim find

The Roman legions carried an eagle on their battle standards and the Americans have an eagle as their national emblem – here we shoot and poison them.

We have the country’s first Irish-bred white-tailed eagle in more than 100 years and some bastard blasts it from the sky with a shotgun.

What does it say about Ireland when there are morons who set out purposely to kill endangered species?

It says we have an inbred, backward, hillbilly element that would not be out of place in the darkest Louisiana swamps.

Many countries are so proud of their eagles they have them as their national emblems.

If we were to do that it would have to be a specimen riddled with bullet holes.

Environmentalists have dreamt for decades of bringing back our great birds of prey and managed to do so in recent years.

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RARE BIRDS: Greenpeace calls for Galilee Basin halt until threat to rare birds is assessed

Indian coal company Adani accused of ‘flouting environmental laws’ in its plans to clear habitat of black-throated finch

Helen Davidson

theguardian.com, Tuesday 4 March 2014 06.53 GMT

The federal environment minister, Greg Hunt, must demand a coal company halt plans to conduct seismic surveys in the Galilee Basin, Greenpeace has said, so the government can make an environmental assessment of “substantial threats” to an endangered species of finch.

Indian coal company Adani Mining Pty Ltd is planning on conducting the surveys at the site of its proposed Carmichael coalmine in the Galilee Basin, Queensland, and Greenpeace has accused Adani of “flouting environmental laws” by not referring the project to the federal government for assessment.

The surveys are likely to involve mass clearance of vegetation and trees in almost 4,000 hectares of black-throated finch habitat, Greenpeace said, and will have a “significant impact” on the species. The finch is listed as endangered under federal and state law.

It said the mining company was taking advantage of a grey area within the law which appears to have allowed Adani to make its own decision on whether or not its activities require reporting.

“If you’re going to undertake an activity of any kind that might have impact on endangered native species, you’re required to notify the federal Environmental Department … so that they can decide whether or not a full environmental assessment is needed,” Louise Matthiesson, Queensland campaigner for Greenpeace Australia Pacific, told Guardian Australia.

“Adani haven’t done that. They said they don’t think they’d need to because the activity won’t have a significant impact on the finch,” she said.

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