BirdLife is reporting that the U.K.’s Tristan Albatross population is being hit by predatory mice that were introduced to the island where they live. Gough Island is the only home of the Tristan Albatross as well as the Gough Bunting. Both species are hurting from the killer mice which prey on both species’ chicks. Read the whole article here.
Favorite line: It’s alright if you act like a turd, ‘cuz I like birds.
Today BirdLife International reported a large number of dead migratory birds found near the water treatment plant in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. Locals found 27 Lesser Spotted Eagles and over 30 White Storks dead around the ponds.
We visited these ponds in October 2007. This area of the Sinai Peninsula is a major stopover spot for migratory birds, and during the fall thousands of White Storks pass through this part of Egypt during their journey south.
We saw hundreds of storks flying towards the ponds from the mountains. As we walked around the ponds looking for other birds we noticed a lot of dead storks. Our Egyptian taxi driver, who accompanied us on our walk around the ponds (as ordered by the local police), was very interested in the dead storks and thought we should be, too. He made sure to point out each stork corpse to us so we wouldn’t miss seeing any. Nice. Anyway, it did seem like there were a lot of dead storks but we assumed they died of exhaustion from their long journey and did not consider anything was amiss. I don’t think we saw anywhere near 30 and we didn’t see any other dead species, either.
Read the whole BirdLife story here and check out Arthur’s Sharm sewage ponds mini-trip report here.
This video was taken at L’etang de Beaumont in France in August 2008. The lake is in the Loire Valley and one of the best birding spots in the region. We took this video from a hide by the lake. The muskrat is swimming along when it appears to hit something. A moment later a Little Grebe surfaces.
If you click on the video you can watch a hi-res version on YouTube.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has an article about dead bird art on its blog today. Check it out. The first example (the painting) is kind of interesting, but I think the photos are creepy.
A Snowy Owl was spotted on Texel last Saturday and is still being seen on the Wadden island. The young female owl has been spotted on the polder ‘Eijerland’.
Since the first sighting on Saturday, hundreds of birders have visited Texel hoping to see the rare bird. Snowy Owls normally live on Greenland, in northern Scandinavia and Siberia.
It is unknown how or why the young female bird is so far out of her range. Experts say there is plenty of prey for the bird to survive on the island, should she stay.
This video was taken at L’etang de Beaumont in France in August 2008. The lake is in the Loire Valley and one of the best birding spots in the region. We took this video from a hide by the lake. The Little Grebe looks to be stretching its wings but it did this for several minutes, so maybe it was trying to dry them off? It looked it was pretending to be a sailboat.
If you click on the video you can watch a hi-res version on YouTube.
The latest bird news out of Australia is of a python snacking on a Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. Pic not too graphic this time, luckily.
Today I caught up on our [now defunct – ed. Mar 2012] photo life list and added the six latest new birds we saw during our Loire Valley trip in August [redacted] and during the last couple of weeks we’ve been here in Deerfield [redacted]. Unfortunately most of these photos are pretty bad. However, I also added new photos of some old birds, which were firsts for France – including this respectable photo of a Little Grebe.
For more bird photos, check out
Doves that have ‘affairs’ with different species of dove don’t have to worry about their posterity. Dutch Biologiest Paula den Hartog showed that descendants of two different species of dove had no special health issues and were able to reproduce. Den Hartog presented her research last Thursday at the University of Leiden.
Descendants of two different animal species are frequently infertile or they die while an embryo. Examples of this are the mule, a cross between a horse and a donkey, which is infertile; offspring between goats and sheep usually die before birth.
Den Hartog discovered that offspring from two different species of dove have a different call than either parent species. Because of their exotic voice they attract mates and are able to reproduce.
