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In responding to Suzie’s post defending wildlife rehabilitation I began to think again about the areas in which animal rights and animal welfare overlap with the field of conservation, and the ways in which they don’t. Animal rights is concerned with preventing the suffering or even use of animals by humans.
More than 150 bird species are known to have become extinct over the past 500 years, and many more are estimated to have been driven to extinction before they became known to science. The Gray Crowned-Crane is a new addition to the list of the world’s Endangered species, creeping up a category from Vulnerable.
Surrounded by native plants and at the edge of the woods, her feeders were always hotspots for interesting migratory and wintering species. On this particular day, I wanted to see one species and one species only: the Purple Finch. I never expected another opportunity to see a Purple Finch in 2021. The birds connect us!
The Crested Pigeon will breed at any time of year if the conditions are right. The Crested Pigeon family remained in the tree away from danger for quite some time with both parents present.
Must be a joke, right? Instead of going on about zip lines and other modern, adventure tourism attractions, the birding crowd talks about taking photos of Resplendent Quetzals , seeing dozens of hummingbird species, and the seemingly odd absence of raptors in Costa Rica but nope, we don’t really talk about extinction.
The Gulf of Cadiz, from Cadiz itself, right along the coasts of Huelva and the Algarve to Cape St Vincent in Portugal, is a favourite hunting ground of mine and the operators willing to take you out have been on the increase in recent years. Wilson’s Storm Petrel Oceanodroma oceani cus seems to be everyone’s target species.
The obvious choice was the Mallard , that plucky familiar northern hemisphere species that is the father of the even more familiar domesticated duck. In fact, as the species was quickly identified as as creating hybrids with Grey Ducks, the opinion was by the 1920s that the species shouldn’t be released further.
But now, it’s time to go for many species. They breed early and now it’s time to move out into the Atlantic. It’s only with the return of the low pressure systems in October that the Balearic Shearwaters come back and get ready to make the most of the winter and early spring productivity to breed.
The boreal forest belt that runs from Scandinavia right across to the Pacific and beyond holds some resilient bird species, which are able to survive the harsh and dark winters. I am familiar with the western end… Source
There is a thing parents know very well – how important it is to choose the right name for a child. Birders normally care about species and make species lists, how do families fit into those? Adding more species brings a lot of excitement, as long as you bird your own country or a continent. Families perhaps?
The Black-winged Cuckooshrike is breeding in several Shanghai locations – I suspect that some trees near the Nanhui hotel might be another one, given the vigorous singing of this bird. The Amur Paradise Flycatcher is another speciesbreeding in Shanghai. Yellow-rumped Flycatchers are breeding in the same park.
Adult Audouin’s Gulls now passing show heavily abraded plumage after breeding I covered the main species in my 23rd June article “When the sea becomes a desert”. If I really want to see these elegant gulls, then I can always drive up to the Atlantic coast and the estuary of the Guadalquivir River where they breed.
The wonderful family Meropidae contains 27 dazzling species, of which Africa is endowed with no less than 20 species, the balance occurring across Asia and with one as far afield as Australia. We have both resident and migratory species, and this post will briefly discuss each of the 20 species of African bee-eaters.
Despite our near constant doom-and-gloom prognostications we still manage to see wood-warblers, though most of April is spent looking at the several species that are early arrivals, mostly species that winter in the southeastern United States and therefore can get back to we northeasterns rather quickly.
The muted colors of Blackburnians, Black-throated Greens, and Blackpolls fit right in with the dull greens and golden highlights of the early fall vegetation. This being an uncommon species in upstate New York, I appreciate having an abundance of Cliff Swallows to look at. Birds Can Fly Right Over Costa Rica.
It won’t be long before they have all set off on their northward migration to breed, but for now they are feeding up. The stations have a firebreak along the fence-line and there is a higher area of ground right against the fence and it is still flooded on both sides of the fence.
Seeing as Plumb Beach is a known stopover area for large numbers of shorebirds, a known breeding area for a variety of saltmarsh species, including Clapper Rails , and habitat for a wide variety of mammals, reptiles, insects, and other bird species, this is a long overdue move. Signs like the one above went up late last week.
I’ve been fortunate to see two Penguin species in the wild (African and Galapagos) and have dreamed of seeing more–maybe even all!–especially The goal of Around the World For Penguins is simple: Describe the 18 species of penguin and their breeding grounds “from the perspective of a traveller.”
Just yesterday I learned that the Barn Owl ( Tyto alba ) is the only breeding bird found in New York that has been documented nesting in every month of the year. This bit of trivia was given in an article in my local bird club’s monthly newsletter about the ongoing breeding bird atlas in New York State.
Still, again with the help of the guides from Alpinebirding , we managed to get to the right places to see birds. Pallas’s Gull also breeds at Qinghai Lake, though the numbers are sadly much reduced: “The numbers breeding at L Qinghai, China, has apparently fallen from > 87,000 in 1970s to c.
and 180 bird species ( Ferruginous Duck , Black Woodpecker ; Icterine , Eastern Olivaceous and Barred Warblers ) recorded so far. I made this tour myself several days ago (late July), and will report mostly on the species I actually found, as well as some mammals. It is a spacious floodplain between the River Danube and the levee, 2.1
The island’s largest salt lake, Akrotiri, is not a great draw for waders, but the range of large, shallow saline pools on its east side, along Lady’s Mile, were in perfect condition to attract a wide variety of species. These ruffs still had a 1,000 or more miles to fly to reach their northern breeding grounds.
The Montana Field Guide, a helpful online compendium provided by the state government, lists seven species. Three of those — the Black-chinned , Calliope , and Rufous Hummingbirds — breed in the Missoula area. I examine the species accounts in detail, searching for clues. It breeds into Alaska.
Species formerly referred to as P. One recent study found that this species was sister to P. perdix , and also that race przewalskii (sometimes subsumed within suschkini , but generally paler) was basal to other taxa included within the present species. barbata , but present name has priority. I blame this on covid-19.
And much of that time is spend loafing around the breeding colonies trying to pair off and engaging in silly-looking behaviours referred to as dancing by scientists. It can take over a year to raise a chick for the larger species, and even species that can fit their entire breeding cycle into one year tend not to breed in consecutive years.
Africa has more than its fair share of storks, with 8 of the world’s 19 species gracing the continent. Storks are typically viewed as wetland species and whilst some storks are restricted to aquatic habitats, others are not. This is another wetland species that nests in sometimes huge colonies atop trees bordering rivers and lakes.
Right now, though, we can watch and listen and enjoy. What I enjoy–almost more than any other moment of my birding year–is that special spring day when White-Crowned Sparrows deign to visit my humble home en route to their boreal breeding grounds.
For mankind to snatch away a species’ very existence is wrong on so many levels that I can’t begin to explain them. However, despite our best efforts to wipe them off the face of the earth, some of the more vulnerable species have managed to hang on. this speciesbreeds. this speciesbreeds.
Niagara Falls State Park, right above the cataracts, is where I used to bike to on May days to see dozens of fantastic chestnut Bay-breasted Warblers whispering from the canopy, American Redstarts and Tennessee Warblers and Nashville Warblers filling the woods with song. One of the common species of middle elevation habitats in Costa Rica.
You can’t say the same about migration: you can’t say that every book about birds is necessarily about migration, for the simple reason that only about 4,000 bird species migrate (with some 1,800 of those traveling long distances). (Well, purely physical attributes play a part, too: they’re pretty good looking.).
The story of the White-winged Guan , in some ways resembles the re-discovery of some species thought to be extinct. The decades of storage in a museum came after it was regarded as an extinct species. This flock is composed of about 54 birds including nine breeding pair. A species, wiped off the earth, never to exist again.
The males can compete with Painted Buntings for their neon colors, and the females, like those of that related species, have their own subtle beauty. (It’s It is always a species they have dreamed of seeing for years.). And breeding season allows me to notice certain details that I might miss during the rest of the year.
It’s a bang-up breeding year for super-endangered birds! The species, which migrates from the Russian Arctic to Southeast Asia, is down to about 200 breeding pairs in the wild, due to habitat loss and poaching. For the past several years, getting the birds to breed has been an exercise in futility.
They got the message right. For example, the White-headed Duck is nowadays a rarity in Europe (okay, excluding Spain, I know… that Spain …), but until some 50 years ago, it used to breed in Serbia. The hide overlooking the breeding colony of Red-footed Falcons. More or less, a proper picnic site. And so did I.
Of course Africa could not to be left out of the pink weekend so I have researched all African species whose official or alternative names include the word “pink”. Great White Pelicans showing the pink flush of breeding plumage. Another not very pink species is the Pink-footed Puffback. Pink-throated Twinspot.
In its natural old-world range, the House Sparrow offers an interesting identification challenge and has vagrant potential since it is a polytypic species with a highly complex taxonomy. The genus Passer has several well-recognized and recognizable species in Europe, and still holds several enigmas.
With about 110 recorded species, the Kozara becomes truly magical place when the Danube swells and reclaims what is rightfully his. Hence, I had the be equally grumpy to explain to them that I had an equal right to be there (equal right? armed with binoculars only?), Kozara backwaters. All dabbling ducks can dive, but rarely do.
The species that manage to colonize these islands evolve in competition with relatively few other species, developing survival strategies based on interdependence, co-evolution, and mutualism rather than adapting to deal with a broad range of predators and competitors. A species, wiped off the earth, never to exist again.
Black-faced Cuckoo-shrikes – Coracina novaehollandiae are a common bird species around our home in Broome, Western Australia. It appears as if they just need to lie their wings correctly to be comfortable and it is never quite right when they first land.
Look at the facts, lay your emotions aside and listen to reason—exactly the same reasoning that’s been so persuasive in convincing me that hunting cranes is the right thing to do. There was a lot of hunting for Bald Eagles—it is traditionally a game species. In my home state, Bald Eagles are breeding in 35 Ohio counties.
Tucked away at the extreme eastern end of the Mediterranean, Cyprus is regarded politically as part of Europe, but when it comes to birds it’s very much Middle Eastern in flavour, with a number of species that are hard or even impossible to find in Europe, plus a trio of endemics. It was strange to hear it here in Cyprus.
In the morning, still sleepy, we enter the jungle, where a sounder of Indian Boars (a long-maned subspecies Sus scrofa cristatus ) is watching us, standing among the first trees, right next to the road. Birds included common species such as Black Drongos , Jungle Babblers and a Hoopoe. One White-eyed Buzzard has turned its back to us.
Apparently, the species name rutila means “red, golden red, reddish yellow”, which sounds a bit like a contradiction in itself. It is well known that chicks of this morph immediately start having an identity crisis when combining the knowledge of their species name with the information gathered from a look in the mirror.
A New York City Parks Department contractor just wiped out a breeding population of sparrows in tons of trouble already, on land owned by the parks department that was supposed to be protected as “Forever Wild.” This species is in too much trouble to throw away a breeding ground. Another is in the works. .
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