The parents of the baby penguin stolen from a British zoo in December hatched a new chick last Tuesday. Kyala and Oscar’s chick has yet to be named and its sex is also still unknown. The Amazon World Zoo on the Isle of Wight installed surveillance cameras in the penguins’ pen for extra security. Read the story Penguins are parents once again at ABC News.
Klaartje is a “lesson hen”, brought to schools in the Dutch town of Leiden each year to teach children about the life of chickens. Unfortunately because of the transport moratorium on chickens and poultry products in the Netherlands, Klaartje won’t be teaching any lessons this season.
A North Island brown kiwi — an endangered bird — hatched at the zoo on Feb. 13 and was the second kiwi to hatch in the zoo’s 116-year history, zoo officials said. The National Zoo is one of just four zoos in the world to breed the flightless, nocturnal, burrowing birds outside of New Zealand.
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“A hard-core flock of about a dozen pigeons has returned to an underpass in this northwestern Ontario town, apparently undeterred by the $22,000 spent last year to keep them away.” Read the story Pigeons back in town, despite $22,000 spent in the Brandson Sun
Birdlife Finland launched a new website this week, www.etelasuomenmetsat.fi, designed to highlight the need to save the forests in the south of the country. The website, in Finnish, Swedish and English, features information on seventeen forests in southern Finland which are currently unprotected.
According to the website of BirdLife International:
“Birds such as Siberian Jay Perisoreus infaustus, Capercaille Tetrao urogallus, and the White-backed Woodpecker Dendrocopus leucotus, as well as hundreds of insects, plants and fungi have already become extinct or are rare in the region directly as a result of clear cutting and modern forestry methods that leave little room for wildlife or for visitors.”
About a hundred confiscated Mute Swans (cygnus olor), intended to be slaughtered, are in need of a new home in the Netherlands. The birds, which were being kept illegally, were confiscated at the end of 2004 from their owner in Utrecht. (more…)
Now that H5N1 has been found in the European Union, Dutch poultry farmers are advised to pen their birds as soon as possible.
“The sooner the better” said Jan Wolleswinkel, from the Dutch Organization for Poultry Farmers (NOP). The group is imposing a rule on the nation’s farmers to pen their birds.
The Netherlands interior minister has already called on farmers to shelter their birds away from possible contact with migratory birds from March 1.
A family of bald eagles has returned to their Llano County, Texas nest site. The group of three adult birds tend to a nest nine miles north of Llano on Texas Highway 29. The adult eagles, two females and one male, have been tending to the nest this season. One eaglet hatched in late January. Excellent photos and nest activity details are captured at Cottonwood Photography.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot a hunting companion during a quail hunt this weekend.
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“On Saturday BirdLife Malta has discovered the first breeding record of the Little Grebe (Blongun Zghir — Tachybaptus ruficollis) at Simar Nature Reserve.” Read Roberta Scerri’s story New Bird Breeding in Malta at di-ve.com.
