From the Antipodes Islands to Timaru for endangered penguin

Matthew Littlewood 16:47, Feb 17 2020

An Antipode Islands-based penguin spotted in Timaru was most likely looking for its dinner on its rare visit, a Department of Conservation (DOC) spokesman says.

The endangered erect-crested penguin, spotted by Stuff photographer John Bisset, near Timaru port's breakwater at the weekend, could be one of a few making its way to South Canterbury shores as they begin to moult.

DOC technical advisor Bruce McKinlay said while the erect-crested penguin breeds on the remote Bounty and Antipodes Islands, it was "not uncommon to find individual birds moulting on the east coast of the South Island most summers".

"As a top predator the penguin was most likely looking for fish," McKinlay said.

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A Rare Greenshank Is Spotted in Russia

It is the first time in more than four decades that researchers have had an opportunity to study the endangered shorebirds.

By Karen Weintraub

Aug. 31, 2019

One of the few things known about the Nordmann’s greenshank is that it is one of the most endangered shorebirds on earth. No one had studied the bird in depth since 1976, and its nesting habitat remained a mystery.

But this summer, an American graduate student and Russian ornithologists spotted a pair of Nordmann’s greenshanks in a larch forest near a coastal bog in far eastern Russia. They shot video of one in a nest, measured and photographed four eggs and tagged seven adult birds, a few which have been spotted again as they migrated south across Asia.

“The moment of discovery — it was pure joy,” said Philipp Maleko, a graduate student at the University of Florida, who tracked the birds for nearly two months this summer, wading through the bog and forest to spot the nest. In addition to fighting off hordes of mosquitoes, the research team traveled with an armed guard to ward off bears and wolves.

Their research marked the first in-depth investigation in decades of the Nordmann’s greenshank (Tringa guttifer), a pigeon-size bird named for a 19th-century Finnish biologist and parasitologist.

The population of Nordmann’s greenshanks has been crashing in recent decades, as a result of hunting and wetland reclamation in coastal Asia. No more than 2,000 of the birds, also called the spotted greenshank, are believed to be left in the wild, said Jonathan Slaght, the Russia and Northeast Asia coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society, which helped lead the research effort.

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Rarity finders: Great Spotted Cuckoo on the Isle of Wight

16/05/2019

I'm a keen birder and photographer living in Ventnor, on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, and regularly bird the environs of the village in the hope of bumping into something unusual. On 21 March I decided to take one of my regular walks along the seawall from Ventnor to Bonchurch. It was a dull afternoon so I decided not to take my camera with me, instead opting just for binoculars (something I later regretted). The sea defence wall is backed by chalk cliffs with scrub, including brambles and various interesting plants.

While walking I was aware of a largish bird hopping in and out of a patch of brambles to my left. It was quite close, so gave me a good view through the 'bins', allowing me to note the plumage. With a long tail, spotted upperparts, slight crest and creamy throat fading to white underparts, it was a really striking-looking bird. It stayed for a few minutes, then flew off around the corner to the east.

I didn't stay around but turned back quickly to the car to consult my Collins Bird Guide, which confirmed that I'd seen a Great Spotted Cuckoo. That afternoon I posted the sighting on our local birding website. This brought about a reaction from some local birders who I (mistakenly) failed to tell of my find! Being a relatively novice birder by their standards, I was not at the time aware of the significance of this rarity. I didn't realise that it was the only one in the country at the time − and only the second-ever sighting on the Isle of Wight.

By next morning the word was out. From 6 am onwards there was a flurry of lenses, binoculars and telescopes making their way along the seawall, constituting a mega twitch for the island. Fortunately, the bird was still around and in fact it remained into April, feeding on Brown-tail Moth caterpillars. And in the latter days of its stay, it started moving up the cliff face to feed on the caterpillars of an Isle of Wight speciality − Glanville Fritillary. A change of menu, I guess!

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Endangered glossy ibises sighted for the first time in NW China

12:11, 08-May-2019

With shiny wings showing metallic green, bronze and violet colors, the glossy ibis is a nomadic wading bird that travels across the Sahara Desert. It favors marshes near lakes and rivers, where it can find larval insects for food. An amateur photographer, He Yu, captured them in the wetland park on the Hanjiang River.

"I always take pictures along the river, and I captured three black birds here. I asked other people whether those birds are crested ibises, and why they have black feathers. I posted the pictures online, and experts confirmed that it is the first time the glossy ibises were found in Hanzhong," said He.

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Majestic raptor is an unusual local guest

APRIL 25 2019 - 11:33AM

Roger Thomas

The white-bellied sea-eagle is a rare visitor to Ballarat, so a sighting of one over Wendouree at Easter was a surprise. The bird was soaring high above the Ballarat North Water Treatment Plant in Gillies Street.

Sea-eagles are large birds, almost as large as wedge-tailed eagles. The recent bird was at first assumed to be a wedge-tail, but its shape and posture were slightly different. Its wings were held in a deeper V-shape than those of a wedge-tailed eagle, and its tail was shorter.

Our sea-eagle hunts for waterbirds, fish and rabbits, which it catches in its talons. These talons operate by ligaments that can lock in place, ensuring that prey cannot wriggle free once gripped.

Over the years, the sea-eagle has been seen at all of our region's larger waters, such as Lakes Wendouree, Learmonth and Burrumbeet, and various reservoirs and other places. However, it has never taken up residence anywhere here, nor can it be reliably found anywhere in the district.

Most sightings are occasional and irregular, although there are times when it appears to be a short-tern resident at Lake Burrumbeet. This is usually in the summer/autumn period.

European carp are probably its main prey there.

The recent Wendouree bird may be from the Werribee area, where a small population exists. Immature eagles can travel long distances, so a flight from Werribee to Burrumbeet would be no effort for a sea-eagle seeking potential new waters.

Although the handsome white, grey and black adult sea-eagles have been seen locally, most sightings here are of the browner immature birds. Breeding does not occur until the birds are about six years old.

Breeding adults do not move widely, although home ranges of pairs may be up to 100 square kilometres.

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Bird from Himalayas sighted at Yercaud

STAFF REPORTER

SALEM , APRIL 03, 2019 23:50 IST

UPDATED: APRIL 03, 2019 23:50 IST

A rare bird from the Himalayas, Tickell’s Thrush that belongs to Thrush family Turdiadae, was recorded for the first time in the district here recently.

R. Venkatraman, a birder, spotted and photographed the bird while it was foraging among the leaf litter. He said that while waiting to photograph Emerald Dove, he saw a babbler-like bird foraging on the ground and initially overlooked it as a Puff-throated Babbler. On getting a closer look, the bird looked different.

“Before I could click a picture, it went into the darker thickets,” he said and added that after patiently waiting for one-and-a-half hours in the same place, the bird came out and he took the picture.

S.V. Ganeshwar of Salem Ornithological Foundation said that Tickell’s Thrush is named after Col. Samuel Richard Tickell, a British ornithologist, who worked in India and Burma. The birds migrate from Himalayas to peninsular India during winter season.

As per eBird database, there were only nine previous records of Tickell’s Thrush in Tamil Nadu and none from Salem. The sighting in Yercaud is the first for the district as well as the Eastern Ghats of Tamil Nadu, he added.

Source

This Tri-City woman made an unusual find at Hood Park

BY PAUL KRUPIN SPECIAL TO THE HERALD

 JANUARY 13, 2019 02:30 PM,

UPDATED JANUARY 14, 2019 09:04 AM

Elke Davis may be relatively new to bird watching, but she earned another set of wings this month.

She went bird watching at Hood Park on Jan. 4 and made quite the find for a birder.

She saw a Eurasian wigeon — a red-headed duck that breeds in the northernmost parts of Europe and Asia. It migrates to southern Asia and Africa and is a rare winter visitor to the United States on the mid-Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

 “It was about noon on a gray cloudy day,” she said. “I scanned the water with my binoculars and there he was.”

Imagine that. A red-headed duck from Russia surrounded by a bunch of American wigeons in Kennewick.

It was not Davis’ first time spotting an unusual bird.

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Australia's first tufted duck sighting creates a 'mega-twitch' at sewage pond

Bird-watchers flock to Werribee treatment plant, near Melbourne, to see Eurasia native

Calla Wahlquist

Tue 15 Jan 2019 06.46 GMTLast modified on Tue 15 Jan 2019 06.48 GMT

The Werribee sewage ponds are one of the most popular bird-watching locations in Australia. On a good day, says Birdlife Australia’s Sean Dooley, you may see as many as five or six other cars there.

That was before the tufted duck arrived.

 “I counted when I left, there were 35 cars of birders,” Dooley said, adding: “It was a mega-twitch.”

“It’s the biggest twitching event I have witnessed first-hand in Australia — it felt like I was in England,” he said.

The cause of all this fuss is a rather unassuming-looking black duck with white flanks and bright yellow eyes. It was spotted and identified by some visiting American twichers on 2 January as a male tufted duck, Aythya fuligula, a species of diving duck native to northern Eurasia but not uncommonly found in coastal areas in North America.

It is the first time the species has been sighted in Australia.

The visiting twitchers alerted the locals, who shared the find on social media.

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Flock party for rare bird

January 14, 2019 by Louis Sahagun

Hundreds of hard-core birders from across the nation have been flocking to South Los Angeles this week, hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare avian that wandered in from Siberia and inexplicably chose to hunker down within a hedge just south of the 10 Freeway.

The foreign visitor—or "vagrant," as bird-watchers say—became an instant celebrity five days ago, when a sharp-eyed librarian in Jefferson Park identified it as a red-flanked bluetail.

Ever since then, fans toting binoculars have crowded onto the grounds of UCLA's William Andrews Clark Memorial Library to marvel at the so-called megatick—a species so rare that most birders may never get the opportunity to "tick" it off their life's list of hoped-for sightings in the U.S.

Friday morning, scores of bird-lovers streamed through the library's gates and began a frenzied search for the avian superstar.

It didn't take long for Jeff Bray, 40, of Irvine to spot the treasure he was hunting for: a brownish ball of feathers roughly the size of a computer mouse who sported a white eye ring, orange sides and a bright blue tail.

"I saw it for a few seconds," Bray said with a smile. "It looked like a bird hopping around in the bushes. Very cool."

This is the first recorded instance of a red-flanked bluetail on California's mainland, said Kimball Garrett, manager of the ornithology collection at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. It is believed to be the bird's eighth documented visit to the North American continent.

The bluetail's native habitat ranges from coniferous forests in northern Asia, west through Russia to Finland. It typically winters in southeast Asia.

No other extremely rare bird, some say, has made this much commotion since an odd duck known as a Baikal teal blew into the Rocky Mountain village of Kittredge, Colo., in 1993 and planted itself outside the picture window of Bear Creek Tavern.

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Why the arrival of this bird on the North Wales coast is causing excitement

Birdwatchers have gathered to try to catch a glimpse of the rare visitor

By

Jez Hemming

18:07, 8 JAN 2019

UPDATED21:38, 8 JAN 2019

A rare bird with a wintering population of about 400 has been spotted by sharp-eyed watchers on the Denbighshire coast.

There are only between 19 and 44 pairs of black redstarts to be found breeding in the UK and approximately 400 wintering birds between October and March.

The bird, which was spotted near Rhyl harbour on Tuesday, was formerly considered a member of the thrush family but has since been classified as an Old World flycatcher.

Keen ornithologists made the trip to see the unusual find, which likes to winter in coastal regions.

Amanda Fiddler said she made the trip with Warrington's New Cut Heritage Trail Bird Club, after seeing news of the bird on social media.

She said: "I've only ever seen one before, and I saw on Facebook it was here. It's out on the twitchers' network now."

Around half a dozen birdwatchers managed to get down to Rhyl's harbourside to see the bird, including Terry Egan, also from the Warrington club.

He said: "It's nice to see one, and especially when you see it within a few minutes of arriving."

The black redstart is a robin-sized bird with black, grey, red, orange and white plumage and, despite its limited numbers, can be found in various parts of the UK all year round.

According to the RSPB, it is on the red list of birds of conservation concern, and is also a Schedule 1 species according to the Wildlife and Countryside Act. This means "it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly disturb at, on or near an 'active' nest".

They typically forage for insects, spiders, worms, berries and seeds and tend to look for mainly urban areas like Greater London, Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Ipswich when breeding.

Some pairs have been spotted at cliff sites, power stations and coastal areas between Suffolk and Dorset.

In winter, you will find them in coastal areas of Ireland, Wales, England and the east of Scotland.

Source

Birders flocking to Goderich yard for look at ultra-rare hummingbird

KATHLEEN SMITH, GODERICH SIGNAL STAR

Updated: November 22, 2018

GODERICH — As many as 100 bird enthusiasts from across North America are crowding into a backyard here this week to get a glimpse of a rare hummingbird that’s never before been seen in Ontario.

The tiny Calliope hummingbird is home to the coastal areas of Oregon and California — but one has made Linda Johnston’s backyard its temporary home, and its presence has created a stir among the passionate subculture of birders.

They have been flocking to the Goderich woman’s property since word of the Calliope’s arrival in Huron County started spreading — the crowd becoming so large that Johnston has permitted access to her backyard, but only from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily and only until Nov. 25.

What brought the tiny bird to Goderich remains a mystery, but the Calliope is feeding, roosting and spending all of its time in a small area of Johnston’s backyard that includes a feeder.

When it arrived, Johnston told a friend who is a birdwatcher and photographer. Photos of the tiny bird were put on Facebook along with a plea that it be identified. The Calliope was eventually identified, but by that time social media was buzzing over its Ontario visit.

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Rare North American gull makes itself at home in Weymouth

15th November

By Katie Williams

A rare bird has been making itself at home in Weymouth - thousands of miles away from its usual habitat.

A Franklin's Gull, which breeds in northern USA and Canada, has joined flocks of other gulls at Swannery car park next to Radipole Lake to the delight of many birdwatchers in the area.

It arrived in Weymouth on Monday and has been spotted around different areas of the borough.

Daniel Bartlett, of RSPB Radipole Lake, said: "The bird was probably caught up in last weeks stormy weather, and may well have been blown here across the Atlantic. It seems to spend its days out in Weymouth Bay looking for food, and has been seen as far out as Portland Bill.

"Birdwatchers have responded to its arrival, and have been gathering around the RSPB Discovery Centre every afternoon hoping to see the bird. Gulls are often seen in large numbers at the lake during winter afternoons. They come to wash the salt water out of their feathers, before heading off to sea again at dusk, and so the cycle continues."

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Rare migrating hoopoe spotted at wildlife reserve

16th November

Press Association 2018

A rare hoopoe bird has been spotted in Angus after it was blown off course on its autumn migration.

Birdwatchers have been flocking to the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Montrose Basin Wildlife Reserve since the bird arrived last week.

Hoopoes do not breed in the UK but they can be blown off course during spring and autumn migrations between southern Europe and Africa.

The exotic looking bird, which has black and white wings, a curved beak and a distinctive crest, has been seen at various locations around the Basin over the past week and appears to be doing well.

A Scottish Wildlife Trust spokesman said on Friday: “It has been seen several times today and is feeding and seems quite happy.

“It has attracted a lot of visitors but it seems to be getting on undisturbed.

“Hoopoes are unlikely to over-winter in the UK so it should find its way back on course and head back south.”

Nine hoopoes have been spotted in Scotland so far this year and on average between five and 20 of the birds are recorded north of the border annually.

Hoopoes were considered sacred in ancient Egypt and decorative carvings of the birds have been seen in tombs and temples.

Source  

Rare visitor from Antarctica spotted

Sarah Lagan

Published May 29, 2018 at 8:00 am (Updated May 29, 2018 at 7:30 am)

A photographer has captured a photo of a rare visitor to the island — a bird that flew more than 6,500 miles from the Antarctic.

Fisherman Kevin Winter photographed the south polar skua which he said was “feeding aggressively around the boat without fear”.

Skuas are the size of large gulls and feed by chasing migrating shearwaters and other birds and forcing them to regurgitate their food.

Mr Winter suggested that as there were no shearwaters around, the skua, from the South Shetland Islands off Antarctica, was hungry.

South polar skuas are rarely spotted in Bermuda and the sighting was particularly unusual as the bird was tagged on its leg. Mr Winter posted his find on eBird, a database for bird sightings. Andrew Dobson, president of the Bermuda Audubon Society, saw the photos and contacted seabird researchers in a bid to find out who tagged the bird.

Ben Raymond of the Australian Antarctic Division forwarded the enquiry to French researcher Yan Ropert-Coudert who passed the query on to colleagues in Europe.

Dr Hans-Ulrich Peter, head of the Polar and Bird Ecology Group at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany, replied the bird had been tagged by his researchers.

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Rare Sighting: Egyptian Nightjar Bird Finds a Home on Israeli Kibbutz

The disappearing Dead Sea has provided this rare bird species not seen in the region since 1947 with new nesting grounds

Nir Hasson

 Feb 09, 2018 11:30 PM

In 2014, rangers from the Israel Nature and Parks Authority arrested a number of foreign workers at Kibbutz Beit Ha’arava, just north of the Dead Sea in the West Bank, on suspicions of illegal hunting. When the rangers reenacted the alleged crimes with the suspects, the kibbutz’s security coordinator told Erez Bruchi, one of the rangers, that the night before he had hit a bird with his car.

The dead animal was still stuck in the car’s grill and the security coordinator sent Bruchi a picture, which he sent out to birdwatchers for help. The identification turned out to be a big surprise. A number of birdwatchers raised the possibility that the bird was an Egyptian nightjar (Caprimulgus aegyptius), which is crepuscular – most active around nightfall and dawn. It feeds on insects and nests on the ground.

The last time an Egyptian nightjar was seen nesting in what is now Israel or the West Bank was 1947; since then it has occasionally been spotted in the far south in the Arava region and the resort city of Eilat.

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The Great Bittern Reveals Itself To Mumbai After 79 Years

Nov 29, 2017, 16:24 IST | Ranjeet Jadhav

Last Spotted In Vile Parle In 1939, Migratory Bird Makes Itself Cozy In Vasai Birding Hotspot

The Great Bittern is a wading, partially migratory bird that is distributed in the Indian subcontinent, Europe, Asia and Africa. While its population stands at around three lakh, the species, experts said, hadn't been seen making pit stops to the city. However, on November 26, birder Akshay Shinde, happened to accidentally spot it during a birding trip with other wildlife enthusiasts. "We were at a birding hotspot called Madhuban in Vasai, when I saw two large birds fly parallel to us. The adult bird kept flying in a straight direction, while the juvenile took a halt. That's when I took pictur­es of the bird," said the zoology graduate, who is currently pursuing his MSc in wildlife from Bhartiya Vidyapeeth Bhavan's College.

Shinde got in touch with bird expert and wildlife photographer Monga, who confirmed it was a Great Bittern. "I also posted the pictures on several birding groups to verify the same. The bird was last spotted 79 years ago," he said.

Monga said, "More sightings of rare bird species in the city, indicates that there are habitats in the region that are pristine enough to support migratory birds."

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Beeley struggles to cope as thousands flock to see rare dusky thrush

By jilldcfc  |  Posted: December 12, 2016

The village of Beeley has been struggling to cope with a huge influx of birdwatchers who have flocked to Derbyshire in their thousands to see a rare dusky thrush.

The arrival of the bird – more usually seen in China or Japan in winter - has sparked huge excitement in the birdwatching community across the UK and abroad.

More than 2,000 people have visited the village in the past week – around 1,000 last weekend - bringing business to the area's pubs, cafes and B&Bs, but the volume of people has caused parking problems.

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Eyebrowed thrush - rare sighting sparks twitcher stampede to Northumberland

Student Ross Moore spotted it first and when he posted pictures of it online birdwatchers flocked to the region

Student Ross Moore took a walk around a Northumberland beauty spot – and sparked a birding stampede.

Ross, who has just taken up wildlife photography, was walking around Bolam Lake Country Park on Friday afternoon with his parents when he photographed a bird perched in a nearby hawthorn tree.

His father Andrew trained his binoculars on the tree and concluded that it was a bird he had never seen before.

When they returned to the family home in Prudhoe, they identified it as an eyebrowed thrush, which breeds in Siberia and migrates for the winter to south East Asia.

Once Ross posted his pictures online, it sparked an internet surge from birders across the country.

“Everything went into meltdown, and it started to sink in about what I had stumbled across,,” said Ross.

It turned out to be the first eyebrowed thrush to be seen in Northumberland and only the 24th to be recorded in the UK, with the last bird accessible to spotters being back in 1995.



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