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The other day, Minneapolis, Minnesota passed a feral cat ordinance. So I put together a “carnival” (of sorts) of Feral Cat Ordinances and Issues that samples current events across the US. From the Star Tribune : Feral cats win a round at Minneapolis City Hall. This got me wondering what other cities were doing.
This is what we need for birds, whose rights as government-protected species are violated every day by free-roaming cats. Thanks to groups like Alley Cat Allies, outdoor and feral cats have become above the law. Outdoor/feral cat people are bullies who prey on people unable to fight back, just as their cats do with birds.
In Australia we definitely have our fair share of invasive species and the main problem is that we are such a huge land mass with such a small population. The population of Australia is concentrated mainly around the city areas along the coast and many invasive species have been able to spread with ease.
Agonizing quandaries concerning invasive species are well-known to wildlife biologists. Still, with the help of various sources, the authors have a try: Ninety million cats live in 46 million American homes; There are 100 million feral cats that live outside and eat mostly wildlife, and 50 million owned cats (i.e.,
We can, of course, count wild, native, species. We can count vagrant species that made it to the area we are in under their own power. We can count introduced species that have met the criteria of the “Bird Police” for the area to which they are introduced. There are lots of birds we can’t count.
Two Feral Pigeons. Three Feral Pigeons. One more Feral Pigeon. One Feral Pigeon. There were several incidents involving poisoned Peregrines in that area, so the police and the SVS / BirdLife Switzerland started to investigate the case, assisted by the group of conservationists from Serbia ( the news in German ).
But, as with so many other species, these birds have been left to do their own whistle blowing. West Indian Whistling Ducks are the largest of the eight different whistling duck species. Here is a short clip featuring a small group of birds from a roadside pan in central Jamaica… www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lOnwtuiBMM
The colorful Purple Swamphen ( Porphyrio porphyrio ) lives in wetlands from Portugal and Senegal all the way east to New Zealand and the Samoan Islands, and a feral population is now well established in Florida. Here’s a quick overview of the six potential “Purple Swamphen” species: European or Western Swamphen.
Gordon, president of the ABA, an Introduction, Species Accounts, Acknowledgements, Image Credits, a Checklist of the Birds of the state, and a Species Index. Species Accounts in both titles are arranged loosely in ABA Checklist order, with some flipping around of order within each family.
Back in 2009, Tai Haku sent us a fascinating post exploring a question that ecologists worldwide grapple with: can the translocation of rare species into niches left empty by extinction be successful or justified? It is extinct. Sadly though the Clappers have been nowhere near as successful as our next candidate.
Does the word define a species within country terms, regional terms etc? Is the term defined at the sub-species or full species level in terms of classification? The species must be listed as a separate, full species by both of the most widely used ornithological bird lists, Sibley/Monroe and Clements.
What’s even more frustrating is when animal rights people learn of plans to cull nonnative species. Taking risks with any of these removals of “alien” species renders the whole operation pointless…it only takes two (2) to start the cycle all over again. on a daily basis, both legally and otherwise.
Mum, Dad, I’m sorry I described my childhood as feral. This time it is the Old World that has misnamed a group of birds, or in fact several groups. Once upon a time, when I started birding, this great family included a wide range of species collectively known as the robins and chats. They remain little know.
There was one odd reprint in 2018, when the Subalpine Warbler was split into the Eastern and Western species, but the changes in the guide weren’t sufficient to call it a 3rd edition, so it remained the updated reprint of the 2nd edition. I haven’t noticed changes in the few descriptions of harder to ID species that I compared.
Readers with a pornographic mindset will enjoy the following information about the Dusky Moorhen: “Simultaneously promiscuous, forming breeding groups of 2–7 apparently unrelated birds; individuals sometimes switch groups between seasons. Within group, all males copulate with all females.” ” (HBW).
It can’t have escaped your notice lately that the blog has been overrun with articles about North America’s pseudo-warblers (or wood warblers, as some people, apparently unaware the name is taken by a proper European species, call them), and, even worse, no small amount of poetry. And they are always a pleasure to see.
In front of us, the river is two miles wide… and it is paved with birds: smaller groups of Greater White-fronted and Greylag Geese , numerous Mute Swans and Mallards , plus Eurasian Teals , Gadwalls , Common Pochards , a few Ferruginous and Tufted Ducks , Common Goldeneyes and several Smews. A goose hunt sounds like a WWII battle.
However, the species sometimes referred to as the Barbary Duck appears very much out of place just about everywhere else. Feral Muscovy Ducks seem to attract many of those epithets. Not only are the individual ducks hard to look at, but in groups, the feral populations create the same messes other masses of waterfowl do.
More than 50 years ago, the Hawaiian Goose (Nene) was one of the first birds listed under the Endangered Species Act, part of the inaugural “ Class of 1967 ”. Under the Endangered Species Act, any listing, uplisting, downlisting, or removal from a list requires a formal “rulemaking” process.
The small group was a good counterpart to the large, convivial ABA Safari group of 98 birders. That’s a lot, and the organizers of the safari did an excellent job of creating an environment that offered small group birding during the day and a birders party every night. Wait, let’s backtrack a bit.
Having said that, we expect wind mills to increase in number, and the specific birds that are killed by them may be a particularly sensitive group (i.e. Also, in relatively natural, or wild, lands in much of the US the feral cat population will be limited by a healthy wild predator population. Cats are not the same thing as windmills.
There were three profound questions my birding group discussed while we birded Trinidad and Tobago, back in December 2012: (1) How many Bananaquits could fit on a banana? (2) The guide covers 477 species, an expansion of 35 from the second edition, which was published in 1991. The first two questions were never definitely answered.
In 2012, I reviewed The Jewel Hunter , an absorbing narrative in which author Chris Goodie travelled throughout Asia, Africa, and Australasia to observe and photograph every Pitta species in the world. Hummingbird species, on the other hand, number in the hundreds. Jonas D’Abronzo.
Everywhere I have hiked around the city there have been single women, couples, groups of hikers and very little rubbish is dropped. I am proud to say that I have managed to see over 60 species of birds in my 6 weeks in Busan and that is a lot more than I had expected. Toilets are well located in parks and cheerful!
During the early 1990s, rumours surrounding the occurrence of a few Egyptian Geese in far north-western Germany emerged, the result of an increasing and spreading Dutch feral population. What an odd situation, seeing a small group of Egyptian Geese plowing through the snow of a Dutch meadow. Just a peculiarity. This was great!
Every March, hope springs anew that I’ll cross paths with one of these feral fluffballs, but as April ends, so do another year’s delirious dreams. Driving along ice-choked inlets off Lake Ontario, admiring Mute Swans and scaup species, my commitment to nail this nemesis never wavered. Enjoy the details and proof here.
There are now multiple sites where people can contribute data on window strikes and bird deaths, including NYC Audubon’s dBird , FLAP’s Global Collision Bird Mapper , iNaturalist, and, on a social media level, the Facebook group Dead Birds 4 Science , run by the indefatigable Heidi Trudell.
The lack of people does not mean we have any less extinct or threatened bird species than other countries. European settlement in Australia has been the cause of the decline of a variety of bird species and if not directly, then indirectly by the introduction of other species that have been the cause of their decline.
” Most shrugged and said very few US falconers fly owls because they’re slow and some species you can only hunt at night, that wouldn’t be much fun to watch. All apprentice falconers are allowed only 1 of 2 species: American Kestrel or Red-tailed Hawk. As Tracey Ullman said at the end of her show, “Go home!
Sure, they’re beautiful and powerful, a reminder of the feral freedom of the skies. The number of plates per species varies, which makes a lot of sense. Liguori give a succinct “Overview” and “Plumage” description for each group (accipitor, buteo, etc.) I confess, I don’t always love hawks.
Dirt hawking is a form of falconry that involves hunting rabbits and other small game with Harris Hawks (other hawk species also qualify). One of the primary reasons that these hawks make such excellent falconry birds is because they are one of only two raptor species (the other is the Galapagos Hawk ) that hunt cooperatively.
As we wandered along the trail we soon encountered family groups of both White-winged Fairywrens and Variegated Fairywrens. There was evidence of the mussels that would be a source of food for many species in the receding water line. Feral pigs. Orange Chat. Australian Pelicans soaring in the thermals. Turtle shell.
The lake was filled with families of Dusky Moorhens and Purple Swamphens (or Pukeko as we call them in New Zealand), all tending small groups of black chicks. The other common duck species is the Hardhead , a local species of diving duck, but the rarest species (of which I saw only one) is the Musk Duck.
Basically, this species is so dimwitted, it doesn’t know how to survive. Because, Pink Pigeons are not capable of doing the tasks required to create and bring up children of the species. Don’t these birds care about propagating their species? What happened to Thelma and Louise? I know, that’s harsh.
At a recent Queens County Bird Club meeting, hawk expert Josh Haas illustrated his presentation on migrating hawk identification with videos of hawk species on a split screen, so we could see the differences between, let’s say, a flying Red-tailed Hawk and a flying Broad-winged Hawk. And video resources. I am a big silhouette fan.
I am certainly not complaining though, as a repetitive working routine that will lead to around 500 species a year is better than the working routine I had in the late 2000′s, where seeing more than 250 species a year would have been extraordinary. See more than 500 species. Feral Pigeon Columba livia f.
What is your favorite bird species? I enjoy all the birds really, from a feral pigeon in the train station to the most endangered and restrictive birds in my country, but I think the seedeater group is my favorite! Amazing group for me. What is your name… Source
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