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From Nature, “ Discovery of species-wide tool use in the Hawaiian crow “: Only a handful of bird species are known to use foraging tools in the wild. In a related story, a recent study notes that Kauai, an Island of Hawaii, have lost a lot of birds due to climate change.
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.
While I often tease Corey about how many albatrosses we have down here in New Zealand, the fact is that the United States has three species of Albatross that breed within its boundaries, albeit one of them only very rarely, and visit the western shores of North America. One of the two species found on Tern Island is the Laysan Albatross.
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.
They are, I think, the most numerous species of seabird in the tropical Pacific I haven’t done a post on yet. Their name in Hawaiian is ewa ewa, literally “cacophony”, and another name for the species is wideawake tern, which is how they’ll leave you at first. If not, then certainly the loudest.
In the popular imagination, Hawaii is a tropical paradise. (No, Currently extinct in the wild , the species is the subject of an intensive breeding program in captivity, and hopes are high to release some birds back into their native Hawaiian habitat later this year. No, not a magical place— you’re thinking of Tahiti, Agent Coulson.)
New studies find that: when birds migrate from the Arctic to South America, fragments of mosses, fungi, and other “diaspores” hitch a ride (and a similar phenomenon may have spread acacia trees from Hawaii to an island in the Indian Ocean); caterpillars which feed on many different types of plants are more attractive meals for birds than caterpillars (..)
The idea of Lost Animals was conceived after the publication of Extinct Birds (2001), a 400-page, four-pound book on 75 extinct species. Lost Birds looks at photographic representations of 28 species, 21 of which are birds. Some document one of the last views of the species, others are of the last representative of the species.
Scientists might find it more challenging to seek out evidence of which bird species, particularly non-Arctic, island-bound species, are NOT preyed upon by birds. Conservation American Bird Conservancy cats Hawaii petrels' At the risk of sounding insensitive, duh. That would be news.
Going birding in Hawaii? The official bird list is well over 900 species and literally hundreds of fantastic tropical birds are accessible but when to go? According to eBird bar charts, most of the resident species are also seen at other times of the year. Check it out! How about Thailand? There might be some good recent gen.
One such tricky bird is the Bristle-thighed Curlew , a species that complicates the matter by looking suspiciously like the common or garden Whimbrel. You can encounter them from Hawaii across to French Polynesia and Fiji. It’s also fun to think about the massive disparity between the winter and summer range of the species.
One of the less well remembered awful things that happened in the Second World War (a six year period of history filled with an uncountable number of awful things) is that war’s direct role in the extinction of two species of rail. The loss of these two species was, in fact, no aberration, except in how late the extinctions were.
To try to manage the invasive Brown Tree Snake on Guam, which has forced many of Guam’s bird species to extinction and as a way to try to keep the snakes from Hawaii. This article is fascinating.
As of mid-November 2021, the Collaborative had submitted more than 4,200 checklists (up from 1,700 in 2018) and has observed 691 species in the United States (up from 618). Thus, there are now seven states with 200+ observed species. The state with the largest increase was Arizona , with 139 species added.
The species replaces the widespread, almost pan-tropical, Bridled Tern in the western Pacific Ocean. It does occur in Hawaii, which is where I saw it, but everyone knows birding in Hawaii doesn’t count.
Its genus name refers to supposed similarities between it and the African mousebirds , and its species name refers to waxwings. Here’s the only known video footage of that species: Kauai Oo. Hawaii Oo ( Moho nobilis ), depicted by John Gerrard Keulemans in 1893. Spellman et al. Christopher Taylor has more.
The most dominant tern species on Tern Island is the Sooty Tern. This species nests on the edges of the larger colonies and was much quieter. The largest species of noddy is the ground nesting Brown Noddy. This species doesn’t breed on Tern Island itself, but does sometimes turn up there. Click to enbiggen.
Fish and Wildlife Service has taken two dozen critically endangered Millerbirds Acrocephalus familiaris from their home island of Nihoa in the northwestern Hawaii and moved them to Laysan about 650 miles to the north. More on Millerbirds can be found on the BirdLife International Species Factsheet. Good luck, Millerbirds !
For the most part the Black-footed Albatross is an all-American bird, with 97% of their population breeding in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (in the District of Hawaii), and a few others breeding in islands owned by Mexico and Japan. I was lucky to work with the species on Tern Island in French Frigate Shoals.
This incredibly widespread species ranges around the Northern Hemisphere (and much of the Southern as well), and is found in locations as disparate as the Arctic tundra, Hawaii, Cuba, and the Galapagos – as well as many places in between.
Wedge-tailed Shearwaters The commonest of the two shearwater species you can find on the island, this species has burrows all over the place. They are also one of the more vocal species on the island, braying like lost souls under the house we lived in. You can see more shots of Christmas Shearwaters here. These guys get around!
Found in all fifty states except for Hawaii, the robin is also the state bird of not just Connecticut, but Michigan and Wisconsin as well. In fact, they are one of the few avian species that can survive on classic American lawns, perhaps explaining why their range is so large.
This particular example of flexibility comes from Tern Island, in French Frigate Shoals to the north of Hawaii. Although the islands are a cramped home to 18 species of seabird, the dominant and most charismatic of these are the two species of albatross, the Black-footed and Laysan Albatrosses.
BLM land is particularly important for conservation of the Greater Sage-Grouse and other sageland species. NPS also manages a diverse set of lands ( i.e., from the Arctic to the Everglades to the Mojave Desert to the Rocky Mountains ) that are used by many species of birds. Only FWS has the primary goal of conservation.
A species, wiped off the earth, never to exist again. We have so altered the earth – pumping pollution, moving species around, destroying ecosystems – that many species, dependent upon ecological niches or simply unprepared for an onslaught of unfamiliar organisms with which they did not evolve, have no chance.
Last week I introduced the Great Frigatebird , one of five species of man-o-war bird. I got rather carried away showing all the plumages you can see around a breeding colony, which means I had to split my post on the species into two. Male coming into land at nest. Frigatebirds are masters of life on the wing.
They covered so much water so quickly, so effortlessly, I understood how they could wander from Hawaii to Costa Rica, make steady constant progress over countless kilometers of waves and deep blue water. A world birder who has seen literally thousands of species, Pirjo had hoped to connect with this small striking gull.
Critically, NWRs preserve habitat and wildlife, often for endangered species. Kilauea Point NWR (Hawaii): 1,148,000; $34.3 Of course, the study does not purport to rank refuges based on visitation-based economic output, as that is just one metric. Forsythe NWR (New Jersey): 306,000; $6.0 million; 50 jobs. million; 104 jobs.
New Zealand has one of the direst records of extinction is modern times, second on really to Hawaii in terms of bird species lost. The initial solution was translocation, but there were a limited amount of islands on which you could place species without mammals being a problem, and they were only very small islands.
As of mid-October 2018, the Collaborative had submitted more than 1,700 checklists and observed 618 species in the United States. The heat map is revealing: Unsurprisingly for a site founded and run by two New Yorkers (one of whom literally wrote the book on birding New York), the Empire State boasts the highest number of species (316).
He analogized the change to adding Hawaii to the ABA Area, which is puzzling since that modest change was preceded by years of debate, a membership referendum (in 2012), and a formal vote (in 2016). Some species have taxonomy that is in flux while others are stable. There are surely costs to change.
In any case, the species does come north into U.S. Ringer Galapagos Shearwater ( Puffinus subalaris ) is split from the very widespread Audubon’s Shearwater complex ( Puffinus lherminieri ), which likely contains other cryptic species. waters every year after breeding.
So while we are dealing with Hawaii and all, let’s change how one rule is applied! Let’s stop treating restorations of native species (be they condors, Aplomado Falcons , or whatever) in the same way as we treat introductions of exotics. The rules of the game, and what you can and cannot count, are the domain of the ABA.
Take Hawaii, for example. Fearing that a natural disaster, introduced species, or disease could wipe this fragile population out, the U.S. Further, fitting the birds with bands and radio transmitters, as well as monitoring them in the field , has greatly expanded scientific understanding about the species and its behavior.
It was back in July of 2009 , the day that I saw more species of tern than any other day of my life, and I have no pictures of my first Thalasseus sandvicensis because I had managed to forget my digiscoping adapter that day. Until recently I had only ever seen a single Sandwich Tern. Sandwich Tern !
Here they second only to the kiwi (which are a family as opposed to a single species), and that is because the people here decided for some reason to name themselves after these flightless blind and rather elusive ground birds. (I I guess New Zealanders really like flightless birds.) Sirocco than Kakapo being handfed.
One thing that unites those three is that they’re spectacular species I’ve had multiple chances of seeing and so far missed. I’ve only been to Hawaii once and can’t really complain about not having seen Maui Parrotbill or Crested Honeycreeper , but both look really special.
Fluttering Shearwater ( Puffinus gavia ) Flesh-footed Shearwater ( Puffinus carneipes ) Buller’s Shearwater ( Puffinus bulleri ) Along with these three were Two further species, also both familiar to North American birders, Sooty Shearwaters and Short-tailed Shearwaters. It is also restricted as a breeder to the north of North Island.
In Hawaii I stood on a beach as albatrosses fledged and Tiger Sharks prowled for the less successful ones. You may not get the species counts that the race delivers, but you’ll have memories burned into your skull. In the Bahamas I swam in a pod of feeding dolphins. In Belize I cruised above reefs few people had ever seen.
For example, the Profile Page (mine is below) displayed state-level checklist information as a map with darker shades indicating more species observed and lighter shades indicating fewer. Alaska, however, is a tiny fraction of its relative size and is relegated to tiny space beneath California, next to Hawaii. Those differences matter.
There are are presently thought to be five species of kiwi with a possible sixth extinct species, all of which have suffered varying degrees of range contraction since the arrival of humans. Both these tours are for the Little Spotted Kiwi , the smallest species and one now one mainly confined to offshore islands.
I saw two Pitta species at Hongbenghe, both among the slightly less glamourous among the pitta family: The Blue-naped Pitta … … and the closely related Rusty-naped Pitta. It seems that this is another species for which the standard phrase of scientists anywhere, “more research needed”, applies.
Osborn, a passionate field biologist who participates to the core of her being three re-introduction projects aimed at saving three very different, endangered species: Peregrine Falcon, Hawaiian Crow (‘Alala)*, and California Condor. Sophie Osborn’s stories are personal and inspiring, but this is more than a personal memoir.
Ridgway himself had 23 species, 10 subspecies, and two genera of birds named for him, including Ridgway’s Hawk.) Henshaw, a personal friend as well as colleague who spent years studying the birds of Hawaii and who was known even then for his enthusiastic shooting and collecting practices.
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