Urban Eyes is a service combining CCTV networks and pigeons to provide an alternative view on the city. Users have to feed the pigeon with Urban Eyes bird seed. The special seed can be bought in a camera shop and contains RFID tags.
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Some harmless-looking birds on the Galapagos Islands off the coast of South America have developed a surprising technique for surviving the dry season: drinking the blood of other, larger birds. Watch the “vampire birds” in action.
At Germany’s Bremerhaven Zoo, male penguins have paired together and care for pebbles as if they are eggs. Zoo officials tried to get the gay penguins to mate with females brought in from Sweden, with no success. Read the story German zoo fails to make gay penguins straight at Expatica.
Nature organizations and volunteers conducted a survey of Bohemian Waxwings in the Netherlands on 4 and 5 February. Waxwings are not native to the Netherlands.
A total of 1745 birds were counted. The birds come from arctic forests and have typically been rare visitors to the Netherlands. According to Waarnerming.nl, a website where users can note birds and other animals they have spotted in the wild, it is the third time in four years that the number of Waxwings counted in the Netherlands has increased. This year, however, was the first time an organized count was conducted.
Most of the birds were counted in Gelderland, with 443 individuals counted in ten groups. Many birds were also noted in the provinces Zuid Holland, Noord Holland, Overijssel and Utrecht. In the other provinces a maximum of 4 groups per province was noted.
The Waxwings are presently concentrated in the middle of the country. At the beginning of January a great number of the birds were noted in the north of the country, but most of them have now disappeared. Therefore it is expected that the population is moving south, as it has also been noticed in past years.
The Waxwing lives in the forest in northern areas, but while overwintering in the Netherlands they prefer to roost in urban areas. The birds are not afraid of people, likely because in their breeding areas they normally don’t have contact with humans.
Because of their unexpected, invasive behavior, in earlier times they were considered to be bringers of misfortune, hence their Dutch name Pestvoge”, or plague bird.
In the German areas of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, the sea eagle population has gone from just four pairs thirty years ago to 68 pairs today. Lower pesticide use and rehabilitation of wetland environments are reasons for the remarkable comeback of this majestic bird.
The German sea eagles have spread to Denmark, which now plays host to at least 15 breeding pairs.
Dutch bird watchers have spotted young sea eagles hunting in the Netherlands in the winter months and hope to have breeding pairs residing in the area soon.
Sea eagles are nomadic for the first four years of their lives, seeking out new territory for when they are ready to settle down.
At least 863 birds have been killed from wetlands pollution or poisoning in India in about a month. In addition to almost 50 birds killed at Okhla Bird Sanctuary, birds in Assam, Gujarat, Uttaranchal and Delhi have been found dead from poisoning. Read the story Pollution killed 863 birds in a month across India in the Times of India.
Quite a fowl situation indeed. A retired nurse and insane-person frontwoman, Marian Morris, reportedly saved a chicken’s life by performing “mouth-to-beak” resuscitation on the bird.
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Early results from last weekend’s back yard bird count organized by the Belgian group Natuurweekend are in. The average number of birds counted in Flemish back yard feeders was 43.7, up from an average of 31 last year.
The higher number of birds counted this year does not necessarily mean that there are more birds in general in Flanders. A spokesperson for the group Natuurpunt noted that birds are more likely to be found at back yard feeders in times of extreme cold weather, which has been the case this winter.
This was the sixth year that the back yard bird count has taken place.
Last weekend 49 dead migratory birds were found at the Okhla Bird Sanctuary on the Yamuna River not far from Delhi, India. Forty of the birds were shovellers. The cause of death is not yet known; water contaminated with farm fertilizers is one possible culprit. Read Lalit Kumar’s story Mercury may have caused bird deaths in the Times of India.
“State biologists counted 244 eagles during an aerial survey of a 180-mile stretch of the river this month, compared with 117 eagles last year.” Read the story Bald eagle population rebounds in Lower Wisconsin River valley at ABC 7 Chicago.
