Environment Minister helps to save threatened farmland bird

ENVIRONMENT Minister Richard Benyon has received a conservation award for helping to save a threatened farmland bird.

The grey partridge, whose numbers have been declining for the past fifty years, requires an insect-rich habitat to raise chicks.

After giving 1,000 acres of his Englefield Estate in Berkshire to help the bird, Mr Benyon’s efforts have been successful as the numbers of grey partridges on the Englefield estate have increased from two to 31 pairs.

And the Englefield estate’s team have been awarded with the Cotswold Grey Partridge Trophy by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT) for their efforts to save the rapidly declining bird.

The grey partridge has declined in recent years, with numbers dropping from more than one million pairs in the 1950s to less than 50,000. GWCT claims a range of year-round habitats such as insect-rich areas for chicks and cover for winter is essential for saving the birds.

Continued

flightless birds

http://www.weather.com/news/science/nine-amazing-flightless-birds-20130621

6 endangered falcons raised in Idaho released in Texas

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas -- Six endangered falcons have been released in South Texas in an effort to help save the species.

The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports the young aplomado falcons on Tuesday settled in at Mustang Island.

Biologist Brian Mutch with The Peregrine Fund placed the month-old raptors into their nest on a hack site on the island near Corpus Christi. Mutch says the falcons are just about ready to fledge. The birds will be closely monitored as they learn to adapt to their environment.

Continued

Bay Area Thrushes Nest Together, Winter Together, and Face Change Together

June 18, 2013 — Swainson' s Thrushes, from a local population near Bolinas, CA, spend their winters together in Mexico, according to a new tracking study released by Point Blue Conservation Science, (Point Blue, formerly PRBO). This result is important because it shows how the conservation of habitat for these local populations in California is tightly linked with climate and habitat changes in Mexico, where these birds spend their winters, 1,600 miles away.

The Swainson's Thrush is one of the most melodic of all the songbirds, and can be heard singing now by hikers, walkers, and cyclists enjoying trails near streams throughout the bay area.

Using tiny tags to track a bird's location, biologists from Point Blue have pinpointed the wintering locations of Swainson's Thrushes, tracking them from study areas in Marin County to their wintering homes in central Mexico. Published this week in the journal The Auk, the study illustrates the linkages between nesting and breeding locations of migratory birds. Swainson's Thrushes have lost 95% of available nesting habitat along streams and rivers throughout California. They have also almost completely disappeared from the Sierra, and projections on Point Blue's "Where Will the Birds be" interactive website (choose bird distribution, then riparian, then Swainson's Thrush) illustrates that the Swainson 's Thrush will occur in fewer places in California, given climate change.

Continued

Bad kitty breaks into wildlife facility, kills rare parrots

Orange-bellied parrots are among the world's most critically endangered birds, with fewer than 50 individuals still in existence in the forests of Australia. Although conservationists have been working tirelessly to boost their numbers through captive breeding programs, their progress was hindered recently by the taboo wanderings of one very naughty kitty.

According to wildlife officials, the unauthorized feline managed to breach the premises of a secured breeding center in Tasmania last month. Once inside, the bad cat then actually entered the parrots' enclosure through a small hole and began to terrorize the extremely rare birds.

In the resulting panic, two parrots died -- no small number considering just how few of these animals remain.

The bird-killing culprit may have remained a mystery if it weren't for the cat's poor planning. As it turns out, squeezing into the parrot's enclosure was easier than getting out; staff members actually discovered the problem pet two days later, still hiding inside with the birds.

Environment Minister Brian Wightman broke the news to the Australian Parliament yesterday, as reported by The Mercury.

More

Songbirds Turn On and Tune Up

June 26, 2013 — Bullfinches learn from human teachers to sing melodies accurately, according to a new study by the late Nicolai Jürgen and researchers from the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. Their analysis of human melody singing in bullfinches gives insights into the songbirds' brain processes.

The work is published online in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.

Eurasian bullfinch

Music performance is considered to be one of the most complex and demanding cognitive challenges that the human mind can undertake. Melody singing requires precise timing of several organized actions as well as accurate control of different pitches and durations of consecutive notes. The songs of free-living bullfinches are soft and contain syllables that are similar to the whistled notes of human melodies. Teaching birds to imitate human melodies was a popular hobby in the 18th and 19th centuries and the bullfinch was the favorite species.

Using historical data recorded for 15 bullfinches, hand-raised by Jürgen Nicolai between 1967-1975, the researchers studied whether the bullfinches memorized and recalled the note sequence of the melodies in smaller subunits, as humans do, (in chunks or 'modules') or in their entirety, as a linear chain, which is much simpler. The researchers also analyzed the accuracy of the bullfinch's choices and how a bird continues to sing after the human partner pauses. They focused on whether the bird chooses the right note sequence at the right time -- so-called alternate singing.

Read on

Birds under threat

FIJI'S native endemic birds remain under threat from introduced species, particularly the invasive mongoose.

According to the State of Birds Report 2013, published by NatureFiji-MareqetiViti (NFMV), Fiji is the only country in the world, as far as the organisation knows, which has two species of introduced mongoose.

These species go by their scientific names Herpestes javanicus and H.fuscus.

The mongooses not only pose a threat to the country's native endangered birds, but also reptiles and native frogs.

"Introduced predators are one of the major contributors of species extinctions on islands.

They also pose a threat to economic development, human health and food security," the report stated.

As a result of this, birds such as the Jungle Fowl (Toaniveikau), the Banded Rail (Bici) and the Purple Swamphen (Teri) can no longer be found on Viti Levu or Vanua Levu because of the introduction of the mongoose.

"Fiji's birds evolved in the islands without any mammalian predators, so it's not surprising that when introduced, these have had a devastating impact.

"There are a few forest and hence biodiversity-rich islands such as Taveuni, Kadavu, Gau, Ovalau and Koro that retain sizeable areas of biodiversity-rich forest without the mongoose.

Preventing mongooses from spreading to these islands is of the highest priority."

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=238031