A research team exposed Java Sparrows to English and Chinese translations of two well-known Japanese novels. The birds correctly identified the English recording 75 percent of the time.
read more | digg story
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.”
read more | digg story
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.
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.
Unusually warm winter weather is helping spread the deadly salmonelosis virus among songbirds in Michigan and Wisconsin. Read the whole story on the WLUC-TV website, including tips from experts on what to do if you find a dead bird.
