A high school student in Oregon has used a Pekin duck as her senior project. Megan Plankenhorn raised the bird from hatching to study the effects of imprinting. The duck, Lily, now regards Megan as her parent. Read more in the full article Just ducky: Student imprints with Pekin duck for science project… and forever on The Worldlink.
California is looking to livestock as a means of saving raptors and other birds from wind turbines. Sheep will be used to keep grass levels in the fields surrounding the turbines low enough to drive out ground squirrels. The squirrels are a food source for eagles, hawks and owls. Read more about the project, which will be tested over the next 18 months at Vasco Caves Regional Preserve in the article Sheep may save birds from turbines at the Contra Costa Times.
A German Shepherd in Edinburgh discovered two lost Mallard ducklings in some undergrowth. Much to the amazement of his owner and the local SPCA, Duke picked up the helpless birds in his mouth and brought them to the safety of his blanket, where he proceeded to give them a tongue bath. You can read the whole story Good shepherd plucks lucky ducks to safety with his jaws at the Edinburgh Evening News.
Extra testosterone makes the dark-eyed junco songbird sing more sweetly, fly farther, and mate more often. They make more chicks and don’t even have to take care of them. Sounds like the good life, but then they die young.
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Critically endangered and famously testy flightless birds, cassowaries, are running amok through the back yards and suburban streets of north Queensland in search of food. Decimation of fruit trees in the area from storm Larry has forced the birds to seek food outside of the tropical forest where they live.
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Why shouldn’t wedding guests throw rice at newly married couples? “Don’t do it for the birds, do it for the inlaws.” Read about this urban myth in the Snopes.com article Against the Grain.
Mink are blamed for decimating a colony of seabirds on the Western Isles of Scotland. A colony of 200 pairs of adult terns are struggling to raise just 5 or 6 chicks this season, where normally the group would have at least 100 surviving hatchlings. The mink prey on other native species, including voles. The mink are believed to have been brought to the island from the US to stock fur farms, but were set free as the demand for fur dropped. Read the full story Mink ‘run amok’ in bird colonies on the BBC.
An international research team will try to reconstruct the habitat of the extinct dodo bird during an upcoming expedition to Mauritius. The team wants to determine the cause of the dodo’s habitat destruction and ultimate extinction.
The team also hopes to find complete skeletons of adult and young dodo birds. In October 2005 researchers in the southeast of Mauritius found a large burial site with bones of dodos and other domestic animals.
The team will depart the Netherlands on Friday, 2 June and returns on Monday, 3 July. The team is maintaining a weblog of their adventures, which is available at www.dodo-expeditie.nl (in Dutch).
“The Indian government has taken the crucial first step in reversing the plunge to extinction of three vulture species, by ordering a halt to the production and sale of the veterinary drug diclofenac within three months.” Read the full story India bans production and sale of vulture death drug at BirdLife International.
“Biologists alarmed by an explosion of cormorants plan to slaughter 7,200 of the birds in Ohio, including most of the booming colony on an island in the state’s largest reservoir.” Read the full story Wildlife officials fight aquatic birds.
