Birds move north with climate change

Science Daily
March 5, 2009
Researchers at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) have documented that a variety of North American bird species are extending their breeding ranges to the north, adding to concerns about climate change, according to a study published by the journal Global Change Biology.

In a study published on the journal’s web site, the SUNY-ESF researchers state the change in the birds’ breeding ranges “provides compelling evidence that climate change is driving range shifts.”

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Hummingbird the size of bumblebee found in Ecuador

The results of an American Bird Conservancy-funded study of the distribution and nesting of the globally endangered Esmeraldas Woodstar have just been released by Fundación Jocotoco, with some encouraging news. This tiny hummingbird, barely bigger than a bumblebee, is endemic to the dry forests of the coastal mountains of central and northern Ecuador, where it has a tiny range and the lack of suitable habitat makes its distribution extremely fragmented.

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Fishermen work to keep birds off the hook

West Coast fishermen are voluntarily taking measures to stop the accidental killing of seabirds which can be snared on the hooks of long-line fishing boats. The Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association (FVOA), which represents longlining captains in the halibut and sablefish fisheries along the West Coast, has instructed its members to use streamer lines when longline fishing in Washington, Oregon, and California waters.

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Blue Mountain Wildlife's weekly report

Blue Mountain Wildife Raptor Rehabilitation Center report for this week begins:

"It was quiet this week until Saturday when a Northern Flicker and Ring-billed Gull were admitted to the Pendleton center. The flicker was mauled by cats. Its prognosis is guarded. The gull was intentionally hit by a car. Its injuries were not repairable without surgery and it was euthanized."

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Cody Butler and his tale of a red-tailed hawk

A red-tailed hawk crouching next to Toltec Mound Road in Lonoke County did not fly away when my grandson and his mother drove past. Cody Butler, an England Junior High School eighth-grader, had recently volunteered to photograph birds for the nearby Toltec Mound Archeological State Park, and he knew no healthy hawk would stay put like that. He asked his mother to stop the car while he ran back to investigate.

The bird appeared injured. Cody guessed it had collided with a power line or a car while diving after one of the rabbits he often sees along that stretch of road. As he approached, the hawk walked, hopped, fluttered across a ditch, through a fence and into the state park. It paused, as if to catch its breath, at the edge of a patch of scrub and brush.

Fortunately, Cody knew better than to try to rescue the bird himself.

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In a (No Ivy) League of his own

Portland Tribune story about Fred Nilsen's 30-year fight against ivy.

In a (No Ivy) League of his own
On the Town
By phil stanford
The Portland Tribune, Jun 26, 2008

This is for Fred Nilsen, who, for the better part of the past 30 years has fought gamely against what I take to be one of the greater menaces facing the city and surrounding countryside.
Lord only knows where we’d be now if he and other people like him at the parks bureau hadn’t been so vigilant.

Carpeted in a waxy green sea of vegetation, I suppose, where trees no longer dared to grow or birds to sing.

That’s what happens when the ivy takes control, you know, creeping through our yards and forests, devouring – my word, not Fred’s – all the good plants in its way.

Then it’s on its way up the trunks of once-proud trees, and out along their branches. Fred, a horticulturist, says it kills them by covering their apical meristems, causing them to weaken and fall of their own weight.

I say it strangles them to death, and it’s not a pretty sight to see as it proceeds from one tree to the next until pretty soon it has an entire forest in its grip.

And if you’re thinking I’m exaggerating even slightly, take a trip to Alabama or Georgia where another alien species, kudzu, introduced several decades ago as a ground cover to stop erosion, has taken over entire counties.

Stephen King would have trouble doing it justice.
• • •
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50 million birds are killed each year because of lighted communications towers

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that up to 50 million birds are killed each year because of lighted communications towers! Scientists have shown that -- especially during bad weather conditions -- migrating birds become disoriented and trapped by the halo of light surrounding towers that use steady-burning illumination. The birds circle endlessly until they either collide with the structure, each other, or simply fall dead from sheer exhaustion. In just one instance, more than 10,000 dead birds were found under a single communication tower in one night!
Simple steps can be taken to prevent these needless deaths, but for over ten years, the FCC (the government agency that licenses towers) has been dragging its feet in implementing them, despite repeated appeals by American Bird Conservancy, Audubon, and Defenders of Wildlife, as well as independent scientists, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and even a federal court order. With the annual bird spring migration nearly underway, please take action to help ABC push the FCC to take immediate action to prevent future migratory bird deaths at towers.