Category Archives: Birds

‘A very special place’: Lundy’s future secure for another 50 years

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Lease extended on island off Devon – a haven for wildlife and seekers of the quiet life

The future of an island off the Devon coast that has been transformed from the haunt of pirates and chancers into a haven for wildlife and seekers of the quiet life has been secured for another half century.

A fresh 50-year agreement between the charities that own and run Lundy is being signed that will offer protection for the flora and fauna (and the hardy humans) who live on the weather-battered hunk of granite in the Bristol Channel.

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US and Canada have lost three billion birds since 1970

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More than one in four birds have been lost across diverse groups and habitats, in what researchers describe as a ‘wake-up call’

The US and Canada have lost more than one in four birds – a total of three billion – since 1970, culminating in what scientists who published a new study are calling a “widespread ecological crisis”.

Researchers observed a 29% decline in bird populations across diverse groups and habitats – from songbirds such as meadowlarks to long-distance migratory birds such as swallows and backyard birds like sparrows.

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Cyclist dies after crashing while under attack by swooping magpie

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Seventy-six-year-old suffered head injuries when he veered off a bike path and hit a fence post in Wollongong

A man has died of head injuries after he was startled by a magpie and crashed his bicycle in Wollongong.

The 76-year-old was riding a pushbike on an off-road path alongside Nicholson Park at Woonona on Sunday morning when he veered off to avoid a swooping magpie, witnesses reported.

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Swooping magpie shot by Sydney council after ‘particularly aggressive’ attacks

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Hills Shire council said it had received 40 complaints over three years about the magpie, and several people had been injured

A local council in Sydney’s north west has said a decision to shoot dead a “particularly aggressive magpie” that had allegedly swooped and injured people for years was “not taken lightly”.

The Hills Shire council had received 40 complaints over the past three years, with confirmed injuries, including people sent to hospital as a result of being swooped by the magpie on Old Windsor Road in Bella Vista.

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Fossils of largest parrot ever recorded found in New Zealand

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Giant bird estimated to have weighed about 7kg has been named Heracles inexpectatus

Fossils of the largest parrot ever recorded have been found in New Zealand. Estimated to have weighed about 7kg (1.1st), it would have been more than twice as heavy as the kākāpo, previously the largest known parrot.

Palaeontologists have named the new species Heracles inexpectatus to reflect its unusual size and strength and the unexpected nature of the discovery.

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Hungry herons and the great otter comeback: the wildlife of canals

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A guide to species you might spot on Britain’s urban waterways

Canals are often seen as a kind of second-class version of a river. Perhaps that goes back to their industrial history, but from a wildlife point of view canals and rivers are more or less interchangeable.

Visit a city canal on a fine, sunny day in spring or summer, and you’ll see plenty of dragonflies and damselflies on the wing. Some, such as the red-eyed damselfly, banded demoiselle and scarce chaser, have a special preference for the slow-flowing water of a canal, sometimes perching on waterlilies in the sunshine.

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Don’t stare too long: why our feral, polluted canals are so beguiling

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An urban waterway is more than just a short cut through the city – it’s a testament to the power of nature over neglect

The roar of the road is receding with each step down and with it the light is changing; it is dancing, mirrored and then dappled in the ripples of the water. One layer down and the city has become an entirely different place.

I, like many, am using the canal as a quiet cut-through. It smells different down here; there’s the dankness of the water, for sure, but there’s a wealth of green filtering the fumes from above. And the soundscape changes – song birds, the curious grunt of a bank of geese eyeing me and the dog warily, the lap of the water’s edge and the groan of metal sidings that are there to repair the bridge.

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Fossil of 99m-year-old bird with unusually long toes found

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Ancient bird’s foot is so distinctive palaeontologists declare it a new species

The fossilised remains of a bizarre, ancient bird that had middle toes longer than its lower legs have been found in a lump of amber from Myanmar.

The elongated toe resembles those seen on lemurs and tree-climbing lizards, and suggests an unusual lifestyle for some of the earliest birds that lived alongside the dinosaurs, researchers said.

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Country diary: a house of God open to heaven and house martins

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Segenhoe, Bedfordshire: The birds are stacked in the air above a shallow trench, taking turns to skim insects from it

A flying congregation had assembled by the church gate. We approached on foot, coming on the coffin route, a straight path through fields along which pall bearers had once carried the dead from the nearby village of Ridgmont.

Mourners might have walked through this meadow after the hay had been cut, as we did, and looked down at the grass laid out in strips to dry where it fell. Did a passage from the Bible come to mind? “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall.”

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Food porn meets Hitchcock horror as seagull spies Maine chance

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Pepperdine professor photobombed by lobster mobster bird happy to see picture of roll reversal go viral

Alicia Jessop knew Friday was going to be memorable, but she didn’t realize it would be a day she would never forget.

Related: 'We live in a lobstocracy': Maine town is feeling the effects of climate change

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Freddy the parrot makes it back to zoo after being stolen, shot and bitten by snake

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The bird, Freddy Krueger, found his way back to Brazil zoo after thieves abducted him – the latest survival in his tumultuous life

An Amazonian parrot called Freddy Krueger has made headlines in Brazil after managing to find its way back to the zoo from which it was stolen while recovering from a four-year nightmare that saw it shot in a gun battle, abducted by armed thieves and bitten by a snake.

The turquoise-fronted Amazon parrot – whose Elm Street-inspired moniker stems from its bullet-disfigured face – was pilfered from a zoo in the southern city of Cascavel on the night of 16 April.

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Marker Wadden, the manmade Dutch archipelago where wild birds reign supreme

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A silted-up lake has been transformed into the latest addition to the map of the Netherlands – and an eco-haven teeming with wildlife

It takes about an hour on the ferry, across often choppy waters, to reach the newest bit of the Netherlands. For those sailing in from the port of Lelystad, the first sign of the Marker Wadden is a long finger of sand dunes designed to protect against flooding.

“You see the cormorants, the black birds?” asks the environmentalist Roel Posthoorn, pointing skywards.

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‘Decades of denial’: major report finds New Zealand’s environment is in serious trouble

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Nation known for its natural beauty is under pressure with extinctions, polluted rivers and blighted lakes

A report on the state of New Zealand’s environment has painted a bleak picture of catastrophic biodiversity loss, polluted waterways and the destructive rise of the dairy industry and urban sprawl.

Environment Aotearoa is the first major environmental report in four years, and was compiled using data from Statistics New Zealand and the environment ministry.

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‘A double-edged sword’: Mumbai pollution ‘perfect’ for flamingos

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The flamingo population of India’s largest city has tripled. Is it thanks to sewage boosting the blue-green algae they feed on?

There is an air of anxious excitement among the urban professionals and tourists on board our 24-seater motorboat as we enter Thane Creek.

A chorus of “oohs” and “aahs” breaks out as we spot the visions in pink we came to see – hundreds of flamingos listlessly bobbing in the murky green water – followed by the furious clicking of cameras.

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‘Beggars belief’: more endangered parrots exported from Australia

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Warren Entsch demands investigation after German convicted kidnapper boasts about new shipment

A government MP has said it “beggars belief” that more endangered Australian birds have been exported to a German organisation headed by a convicted kidnapper and extortionist, after a Guardian investigation revealed there had been multiple warnings that the birds could be sold to collectors at a huge profit.

Warren Entsch repeated calls for an independent investigation into how the Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots was able to receive hundreds of rare and endangered birds from Australia, after its founder, Martin Guth, used a social media post to say more endangered species had arrived at its facilities in January.

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Alarm after Christmas decorations found tied to New Zealand birds

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Animal welfare charity appeals for information after dozens of birds found dead or injured

Dozens of birds in New Zealand have been found dead or injured with Christmas decorations tied around them, prompting calls for anyone with information on who is behind the cruel attacks to come forward.

The Royal New Zealand Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) said a number of sparrows and pigeons have been reported with “decorative trinkets” tied to them in the capital, Wellington.

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Green-feathered immigrant surge prompts Greek parakeet count

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Fears for native biodiversity as climate ideal for propagation

The raucous squawking comes first. Then they are seen, banking and diving before they crash-land on trees.

If Greeks had been told, not long ago, that their skies would become the preserve of ring-necked parakeets, the response would have been one of incredulity.

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