Florida Gulf Coast University ornithologist Jerome A. Jackson states, “Even a cursory comparison of this figure with [photographs and illustrations of real Ivory-billed Woodpeckers] shows that the white on the wing of the bird is too extensive to be that of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.”
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Officials in Fort Worth, Texas tried laser lights, fog, cannon and firecrackers shot out of guns to scare the large grackle population away. The flocks are considered a public nuisance because they are loud and messy. Now the city has hired hawk Blackjack to scare off the birds that remain. Read the story Hawks recruited to fight downtown grackles in the Dallas Star-Telegram.
Two bald eagles began building a nest in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio in mid-January. Last year, Ohio recorded 136 eaglets from a record 125 nests. Read Bob Downing’s story Bald eagles have landed in park in the Akron Beacon Journal.
The spread of salmonellosis among back yard birds in Michigan has the state’s Department of Natural Resources asking citizens to stop filling bird feeders for two weeks. The department has asked residents to remove their backyard feeders and disinfect them with bleach. Read more Keith Gave’s story Birds dying up north; DNR needs your help on Mlive.
The number of resident birds in the natural area Buurserzand in the province Overijssel, the Netherlands, has strongly increased in the past years. The number of different species as well as individual breeding pairs has seen an increase.
According to the organization Natuurmonumenten, the increase in birds here is in large part due to the successful management of the area. In several parts of Buurserzand more water has become available for wildlife. Approximately 30 hectares of the former private holding Rietschot were added to the Buurserzand protected area in 2005 and since then the number of waterfowl species in the area has increased from six to ten. The number of individual birds has increased from 26 to 88.
There is nothing wrong with providing food to migrating birds who are temporarily residing in the lowlands, according to a press release from the Royal Belgian Group for the Protection of Birds on Thursday. If the right type of food is provided, it can even save the birds. Extra, human-provided fodder does not insure that the birds will stop their natural migration.
The group did, however, caution that overfeeding of birds should be avoided, because wild birds will seek a balance in food sources. Several studies have indicated that birds prefer to find their food naturally, if the circumstances are favorable. Providing food in the winter time temporarily improves the birds? food situation in time when finding food naturally is more difficult, for example when it is freezing or natural food sources are covered in snow. Seeking food naturally in these circumstances is more difficult for the birds and thus will save the animals energy if people provide them with food.
Source: Vogels voederen verstoort het migratie-evenwicht niet
After four years of protection, goose hunting is again legal in the northern Dutch province of Friesland. The government there has granted 1400 permits to hunt geese.
Each winter geese come to the Netherlands, some after a journey of thousands of kilometers, to spend the winter in the milder climate. According to the province, the hunt will protect agricultural lands from damage caused by the birds, although it will be allowed to shoot birds in flight as well as those residing in farmers? fields. Also according to the province, the birds who survive the hunt will learn which in which fields they should not land.
Source: Friesland als eindstation
Forty songbirds found dead in Vienna, Austria last month were killed after slamming into windows while flying under the influence of fermented, rotten berries. Read the AP story Birds die from flying ‘drunk’ into windows.
A 20-ton, 35-kilometer long oil spill off the coast of Estonia could kill up to 5,000 birds, according to environmentalists. The spill occurred on Saturday. By Wednesday more than 800 dead birds were found along the Estonian coast. Birds coated in oil have also been found on the southwest coast of Finland. Read more about the spill and about the dead birds on Yahoo! News.
The first Jerdon’s Courser bird was discovered in central India in about 1848. Sightings thereafter were sporadic and the bird was believed to be extinct since about the turn of the century. In a story more impressive than the current Ivory-Billed Woodpecker phenomenon in the United States, the Jerdon’s Courser was redisovered in Andhra Pradesh in 1986. (The Ivory-Billed was thought extinct for “only” 60 years). This February, the government in Andhra Pradesh will insure that a proposed canal project will avoid the only known habitat of this rare bird. Read the story Decision brings hope for India’s rarest bird at BirdLife International.
