This week in birds - #82

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Photograph by Nick Athanas, courtesy of ABC. 

The pretty little Sincora Antwren has been designated Bird of the Week by the American Bird Conservancy. This bird is endemic to the state of Bahia in Brazil. It lives in upland shrublands on the slopes of stream valleys, high plateaus, or exposed ridges. It is considered to be near threatened, although the true status of its population is little known. Its range is quite small and loss of habitat is the greatest threat to its continued survival.

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Turbines at wind farms are known to have killed at least 67 Bald and Golden Eagles in the last five years, but the number is likely to be quite a bit higher than that, according to a new scientific study by government biologists.

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The California State Senate has approved a bill that would ban the use of lead ammunition in hunting in the state. If the bill becomes law, it will go a long way toward helping to protect such birds as the endangered California Condor, many of which have died from lead poisoning by ingesting lead bullets in carcasses left in the field by hunters. 

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Ugly animals need protection, too, and the people of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society devote themselves to seeing that these less charismatic animals receive the help they need. They recently held a contest to pick the ugliest animal in the world. It was really no surprise that the winner was the blobfish.

 Blobfish image from Greenpeace.

Not a colorful bird or a cuddly mammal, but the grumpy-looking, gelatinous blobfish needs a little love, too. 

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Big-brained birds like corvids and parrots are able to cope with stress better than their smaller-brained relatives.

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Ducks Unlimited Canada has announced the purchase of more than 6,000 acres of grassland in Alberta which will be preserved and protected for wildlife habitat. 

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Vultures often have a serious image problem in many parts of the world, but a nature conservancy group in South Africa is working to improve that image with education about the important role that these rather amazing birds play in the ecosystem. 

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And vultures in Africa need all the defenders they can find. In nearby Namibia where elephant and rhino poaching is rampant, the poachers often put out poison for the vultures so that they will not give away their location. Hundreds of the birds have been killed.

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A study of bear hair collected on both sides of a 50 mile stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway that cuts through Banff National Park in Montana, proves what the researchers had suspected and hoped: wildlife underpasses and bridges are helping enough bears move safely back and forth across the highway to keep the populations healthy.

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A new species of snail that is translucent has been discovered to be living in the deepest cave in Croatia, the Lukina Jama-Trojama system.

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When we think of bird migration, we generally think of long-distance flights, but one species of endangered goose, the Orinoco Goose, does all of its migrating within the Amazon basin.

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Two years ago in September 2011, a gray wolf from Oregon made news by wandering into California, the first confirmed sighting there since 1937. Since then the wolf, a young male designated as OR-7, has wandered back and forth between the two states, but now he appears to have settled down back in his state of origin.

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The boreal forests of Canada are extremely important habitat to very many of the continent's birds, as well as many other animals. And like forests all over the world, they are under attack by encroaching humans. A new study by a scientific panel in Canada recommends that at least fifty percent of the remaining forest should be preserved and protected for wildlife habitat. 

  

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Around the backyard:

Things are still rather quiet here. The numbers of White-winged Doves are way down from what they were in spring and most of summer.  Instead of ten to twenty, I now see just one or two around the yard most days.

Hummingbird migration continues. Most of the birds I've seen passing through this week have been juvenile males.

And the molting continues. The birds that show up at the feeders these days look really scraggly.

Soon we should be seeing more of the fall migrants coming through and, slowly, activity in the yard and especially around the feeders will pick up once again.

Happy birding!