Category Archives: Birds

Scottish spaceport near protected areas approved despite local opposition

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Project close to bird sanctuaries in Outer Hebrides gets go-ahead after no objections from Scotland’s environment agencies

Plans to build a spaceport on the small Hebridean island of North Uist, close to heavily protected bird sanctuaries, have been given the green light despite significant local opposition.

The proposed spaceport at Scolpaig Farm, on the north-west coast of the island in the Outer Hebrides, will host up to 10 launches a year, firing small sub-orbital rockets out over the Atlantic.

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Scientists battle to save Guam kingfisher after snakes introduced

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A species almost wiped out by tree snakes is being returned to the wild and, eventually, to its Pacific island home

As arks go, the shipping container that has been placed inside Sedgwick County Zoo, in Wichita, Kansas, looks an unlikely vehicle for saving species.

Nevertheless, work there is expected to play a key role in undoing one of the world’s worst conservation disasters: the accidental introduction of brown tree snakes to the Pacific island of Guam. The snakes’ arrival, at the end of the second world war, eventually wiped out huge numbers of indigenous birds, mammals, and lizards including the Guam kingfisher, the Guam rail, and the Guam flycatcher.

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Avian flu may have killed millions of birds globally as outbreak ravages South America

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Virus has spread around the world, with 200,000 wild birds dead in Peru alone and concerns Australia could be next

Millions of wild birds may have died from bird flu globally in the latest outbreak, researchers have said, as the viral disease ravages South America, with 200,000 deaths recorded in Peru alone.

The highly infectious variant of H5N1, which gained momentum in the winter of 2021, caused Europe’s worst bird flu outbreak before spreading globally. The disease reached South America in November 2022, and has now been reported on every continent except Oceania and Antarctica.

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Crows and magpies using anti-bird spikes to build nests, researchers find

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Dutch study identifies several examples of corvids’ ‘amazing’ ability to adapt to the urban environment

Birds have never shied away from turning human rubbish into nesting materials, but even experts in the field have raised an eyebrow at the latest handiwork to emerge from urban crows and magpies.

Nests recovered from trees in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium were found to be constructed almost entirely from strips of long metal spikes that are often attached to buildings to deter birds from setting up home on the structures.

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Tory MPs back mandatory swift bricks in all new homes to help declining birds

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Calls grow for legislation requiring developers to include hollow bricks for endangered nesting species

Conservative MPs are joining calls for a new law to guarantee swift bricks in every new home to help the rapidly declining bird and other endangered roof-nesting species.

Pressure is growing to amend the levelling up bill so that developers are required to include a hollow brick for nesting birds in all new housing, with MPs to debate the issue in parliament on 10 July.

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Dancing Capercaillie bird makes a tentative comeback in Scotland

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Exclusive: Ecologists say there are early signs that the population is recovering in remote forests

It is a discotheque for Britain’s biggest type of grouse. Before dawn, male capercaillie will begin their courtship rituals, their black tail feathers erect and fanning out, chests puffed out, their heads thrust high into the cold spring air.

Their dancefloors are forest clearings in the Highlands which echo the males’ wheezing, popping and clattering mating calls. Often perched in surrounding pine trees, hens will carefully watch as their potential mates compete to win their affection.

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Tanya Plibersek approves habitat clearing in Darwin despite risk to endangered bird

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Environment minister says redesign would ‘avoid most adverse impacts’ on Gouldian finch, while critics point to Australia’s ‘terrible record on extinctions’

The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, has approved habitat clearing for a defence housing development in Darwin despite acknowledging there is a significant risk for what has been described as one of Australia’s most beautiful endangered birds.

Plibersek had been asked last year to reconsider the development in savanna woodlands at Lee Point after more than 100 endangered Gouldian finches were spotted in bushland marked for imminent clearing.

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Exotic bee-eater returns to UK for second summer in a row

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European birds nest in Norfolk much to the delight of twitchers – but environmentalists warn it’s a clear sign of climate change

With plumage cherry red, ultramarine, turquoise and yellow, usually found streaking like multicoloured darts across the skies of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Spain, they present as an epitome of tropical glamour.

British birdwatchers are aflutter to have found European bee-eaters swooping and burrowing in a disused quarry in Norfolk for the second summer in a row.

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Man who ran over bird’s nest drives across Texas to save only intact egg

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Roadrunner hatchling named Miles was driven 660 miles in total before dying at wildlife rescue center several days later

A man was clearing land in the west Texas city of Odessa when he realized he had made a horrible mistake: he ran over a bird’s nest and smashed the eggs inside.

But one egg remained in tact, and he went to extraordinary lengths to try to save it in a saga that has captured national US media attention.

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Activists take Canada’s environment minister to court in fight to save northern spotted owl

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Advocacy group says continued destruction of critical habitat leaves it no choice but to take legal action against Steven Guilbeault

Environmental groups in Canada are taking legal action against the country’s environment minister, arguing his delay in protecting old growth forest is harming the critically endangered northern spotted owl.

In February, Steven Guilbeault said he would recommend an emergency order after determining the species was facing “imminent threats” to its survival.

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Reintroduction of endangered vulture in Spain paused over planned windfarm

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Conservationists say plan to increase bearded vulture numbers in north-east would be ‘severely compromised’

Conservationists in Spain are calling for a “profound debate” on how best to balance the protection of wildlife with renewable energy demands after efforts to reintroduce endangered bearded vultures to an eastern area of the country had to be paused because of the threat posed by a huge new windfarm.

The bearded vulture – known in Spanish as the quebrantahuesos, or bone-breaker, because of the way it drops bones from a great height so they shatter and yield their marrow – was common across the country until the 20th century, when it was poisoned and hunted to the brink of extinction.

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Intensive farming is biggest cause of bird decline in Europe, study says

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Use of pesticides and fertilisers identified as most significant factor behind loss of 550 million birds from skies

The use of pesticides and fertilisers in intensive agriculture is the biggest cause of the dwindling number of birds in the UK and the rest of Europe, scientists have said.

Compared with a generation ago, 550 million fewer birds fly over the continent, with their decline well documented. But until now the relative importance of various pressures on bird populations was not known.

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Australia’s coronation gift to King Charles is $10,000 donation for WA endangered parrot

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PM says he is pleased to contribute to Friends of the Western Ground Parrot as the king ‘has long championed conservation’

Australia is gifting King Charles III a donation to Friends of the Western Ground Parrot to mark his coronation.

The government has pledged $10,000 to help conserve the critically endangered “shy and rarely seen” species in honour of the monarch, on behalf of the people of Australia.

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Australia poorly prepared for deadly avian flu that kills millions of wild birds, experts warn

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Conservationists call for national response plan for possible arrival of HPAI H5, which so far has affected 300 species worldwide

Conservationists have warned Australia is poorly prepared for the potential arrival of a deadly form of avian influenza that has killed millions of birds and thousands of mammals overseas.

When HPAI H5 (high pathogenicity avian influenza of subtype H5) arrived in South America late last year it killed more than 60,000 seabirds and 3,500 sea lions within weeks in Peru alone.

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Farne Islands to remain closed after three new cases of bird flu detected

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National Trust rangers brace for second year of mass deaths on islands off Northumberland coast

A group of islands that make up one of the UK’s most important bird sanctuaries are to remain closed after new cases of avian flu were detected.

The disease devastated the seabird population of the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, last year and National Trust rangers expect thousands more deaths this year.

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Avian flu outbreak in the Gambia threatens birds on East Atlantic Flyway

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Hundreds of dead birds found in past three weeks as conservationists call for international funding to help stop the disease spreading on migration routes

An outbreak of avian influenza in seabirds in the Gambia could affect vast numbers of birds migrating along the East Atlantic Flyway, unless international funding is secured, warn conservationists.

Teams from the West African Bird Study Association (Wabsa), the Gambia’s Department of Parks and Wildlife Management, and UK-based NGO Conservation Without Borders have buried hundreds of dead birds over the past three weeks, including some ringed birds from Europe.

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Sparrows still most spotted bird in UK gardens but population is declining

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Number of house sparrows spotted has dropped by nearly 60% since 1979, according to RSPB annual survey

House sparrows are the most spotted bird in UK gardens for the 20th year in a row, according to new data. This comes despite the decline of the bird’s population, with nearly 22 million house sparrows lost from the country since 1966.

Roughly 1.5 million house sparrows were spotted in gardens between 27 and 29 January this year, according to people who took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, the garden wildlife survey conducted by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

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Birds of a feather cast asunder by Brexit

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New rules require Britain’s rare canaries to be tested for five diseases before they can travel between UK and EU

Cute fluffy yellow plumes may be synonymous with Easter, but bird hobbyists have warned that a rare canary species bred for centuries in Britain may become a thing of the past because of Brexit.

Access to the birds, particularly in the Netherlands and Belgium where canary and budgie breeding is also popular, has been lethally impeded by new rules. Each bird now has to be tested and certified for five diseases before it can travel between the UK and the EU.

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Farne Islands shut to visitors over fears of new avian flu outbreak

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Rangers work to avoid repeat of last year’s devastating losses in breeding seabird colonies on the islands off the Northumberland coast

The Farne Islands will not open to visitors this spring in anticipation of bird flu once again ravaging breeding seabird colonies, after an “unprecedented” spate of deaths last year.

The rocky outcrop of islands off the coast of Northumberland has been looked after by the National Trust since 1925 and there are no previous records of so many endangered seabirds dying at once. More than 6,000 carcasses were picked up last year, which is believed to be the tip of the iceberg compared with how many birds would have died in total.

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World’s biggest single eradication operation aims to remove mice from island

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Invasive house mice threaten endangered seabirds and wildlife on Marion Island in Indian Ocean

Non-native house mice are to be removed from Marion Island in the southern Indian Ocean to protect the wandering albatross and other endangered seabirds, in the world’s largest eradication programme of its kind.

Mice accidentally introduced on to the remote island by 19th-century seal hunters have thrived in warmer and drier conditions over the past 30 years, devastating the island’s invertebrates and plants, and then devouring the chicks and even adults of ground- and burrow-nesting seabirds.

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