As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... about out of place birds, rare vagrants and basically all things feathery and Fortean.
Because we live in strange times, there are more and more bird stories that come her way, so she has now moved onto the main CFZ bloggo with a new column with the same name as her afore-mentioned ones.... Pirate of the ocean blown off course
A magnificent frigatebird (
Fregata magnificens) – also known as the man o’war as well as the pirate of the ocean due to its aerial mobbing for food off other birds - has found itself in the care of Chester Zoo. It is believed that this tropical seabird was disorientated by hurricane activity and pushed towards Britain, where it was found exhausted at a farm in Whitchurch, Shropshire.
"It is an amazing find here in the UK," said Mike Jordan the zoo's curator of birds and mammals. And it is an incredible coincidence that the bird should find its way to us here in Chester Zoo which is a major force in bird conservation," he added.
He said it was ironic that some of its zoo keepers were on tropical islands helping with the breeding of threatened birds.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/4421568.stmSpring has sprung
The first osprey sighting for this year in the UK has heralded the arrival of spring. BTO migration blogs noted the arrival of one in Gloucestershire on 28th February, along with news of sand martins returning from wintering in sub-Saharan Africa, and – of course – the cuckoos that are heading back this way.
And according to Butterfly Conservation, January saw brimstone, red admiral, small tortoiseshell, peacock, comma and speckled wood.
http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/osprey2012.htmlBirdkillers are going unpunished – warns former RSPB investigator
According to a former RSPB investigator, birds of prey continued to be killed because Scottish landowners and the police undermine the laws that are meant to protect the birds. Dave Dick quit his job as head investigator for the RSPB in Scotland because he was “sick to the back teeth” of gamekeepers getting away with killing raptors. Based on his 25-year career (he quit in 2006) Mr Dick’s allegations include landowners committing perjury and police tipping off gamekeepers that they were about to pay a visit.
An act of 1981 allows six months in prison or a £5,000 fine for killing a wild bird, but 29 raptors were killed illegally in 2010 alone. Mr. Dick added that “the number of breeding pairs of golden eagles has dwindled to 442 while goshawks are down to 410.”
He said: “I am one of the few people who are willing to stick their heads above the parapet.
“When you try and explain it to people who haven’t been involved they think you’re exaggerating.”
The grouse shooting industry in Scotland alone is worth £240m a year and raptors often kill the game birds.
He has written a book which details how gamekeepers regularly escape prosecution for trapping, shooting or poisoning rare birds, and he claims that in one case a major landowner in the south-west of Scotland lied at the trial of a gamekeeper.
You can read more about this at:
http://www.deadlinenews.co.uk/2012/02/26/former-rspb-investigator-warns-bird-killers-are-going-unpunished/City raptors
Peregrine falcons are noted for being the fastest animal alive, reaching speeds of up to 200 mph when stooping on prey. It is also the most widespread bird of prey; its breeding range includes land from the Arctic tundra to the tropics. Therefore, it may not come as too much of a surprise to find one flying around Nottingham City Centre, and nesting on top of the Newton building. Back in the early 1990s, staff from Nottingham Trent University noticed the birds had taken up residence and in the last five years the site has been successfully used to raise 16 chicks. Whilst last year a webcam was launched to track the birds, this year it is back with improvements: footage is now in HD, there is a roving camera plus the static camera on the nest, plus the addition of a microphone and infrared vision.
Visit the live NTU Falcon webcamVisit the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust websitehttp://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/peregrine-falcons-in-nottingham-city-centre/id/4301The red kite (
Milvus milvus) became extinct in England in 1872, but since the late 1980s and early 1990s it has been reintroduced in various parts of the country. They were once known as scavengers that not only lived off carrion but were also partial to garbage and although King James II of Scotland, in the mid-15th Century, declared they should be “killed wherever possible”, they remained protected for the next 100 years as they kept the streets free of rotting food and carrion.
Shakespeare referred to them in A Winter’s Tale thus: “when the kite builds, look to your lesser linen”, a reference to their preference of stealing smaller items of washing hung out to dry in the nesting season.
In 1999 the Yorkshire Red Kite Project released red kites at Harewood House and it is to be hoped that another city, Leeds, will soon have raptors circling overhead.
http://www.harewood.org/whats-on/events/1/838http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/feb/22/redkites-harewood-redkiteproject-birds-reintroduction?newsfeed=truehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Kitehttp://www.yorkshireredkites.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=3Egg collector ASBO
According to the RSPB, Matthew Gonshaw – a serial egg collector From Bow, London – is the first person in England to receive an Asbo for crimes against nature. He was handed the order due to damage he has wreaked on rare birds by taking their eggs.
He was also jailed for six months in December after admitting stealing hundreds of rare birds’ eggs; it was his fourth prison stay for the same crime. His Asbo will last for the maximum 10 year term and bans him from travelling to Scotland during Feb 1 to August 31 (the breeding season). He is also banned from visiting all RSPB and Wildlife Trust land for the same ten-year period.
Mark Thomas, of the RSPB, who was in court to hear the announcement, said: "Matthew Gonshaw has become a serial menace to birds, targeting the eggs of some of our rarest birds, such as avocet, red kite and peregrine falcon. Over decades he has plundered hundreds of birds' nests for a selfish desire to add to his egg collection.
"We're delighted at today's announcement. If Gonshaw breaks the Asbo's terms then he could return to prison for up to five years. Already being the only man in England to be denied the joy of visiting our nature reserves, he must surely realise that it's now time to give it up and leave the birds alone."
The RSPB said that Gonshaw is currently serving his fourth prison sentence for egg collecting and currently holds the record in the UK for the person who has spent the most time in prison for these crimes.
Read on:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jk9--LzsrBO804ap5CaHZldIFNGg?docId=N0745081330111077643ANorth Yorkshire gets rare visitor
A rare bird for the area, a cirl bunting, was spotted by avid birdwatcher David Watkins and his wife at Runswick Bay on 22nd February. The bird, very similar to a yellowhammer, is usually found much further south, on the south Devon coastline. They are European migrant birds, but unfortunately are not very good flyers and this one probably got a lift onboard a boat.
There are just 862 breeding pairs recorded in Britain, but Chris Collett from the RSPB said that one appearing on the Yorkshire coast was not “beyond the realms of possibility”.
He added: “Occasionally birds do creep up in unlikely places, but there’s no way it would have come from the south west.
“If he’s seen one it’s probably a migrant bird. Because they’re very poor fliers, if it’s a migrant from Europe it’s probably come across ‘ship-assisted’, meaning it hitched a lift on a boat. It’s very unusual but not completely unheard of.”
http://www.whitbygazette.co.uk/news/environment/runswick_bay_rare_bird_sighting_1_4273816
The hunt for British Big Cats attracts far more newspaper column inches than any other cryptozoological subject.
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