After a rough night, I woke up at dawn to the sound of a robin singing.Last night was bad. The coronavirus pandemic sweeping the world dominated every corner of the news, with every headline more horrifying than the last: Rates of infection doubling. Schools, restaurants, offices closing. Major events cancelled. Unemployment rising. Mandatory lockdowns enforced. […]
Tag: spring migration
Spring is for the Birds and Birders!
As days get longer and temperatures begin to climb, birds and birders are anxiously waiting for that annual bliss that comes with the change in seasons. Yes—you know what I am talking about: Spring Migration. While some species are already on the move, we’re waiting for that burst of northward movement from the bulk of […]
From Baby Beggar To Brash Adult Mockingbird
A couple of weeks go I was rushing from place to place on a frantic search for warblers. Now the peak of spring migration has passed and we are entering the nesting season. This past Saturday I was down at the shore intending to look for shorebirds. Instead, I found myself sitting on a tree […]
Imperiled Red Knot Proposed for Listing as Threatened by Wildlife Agency
American Bird Conservancy (ABC), one of the nation’s leading bird conservation groups, today welcomed the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to formally propose an Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing of ‘threatened’ for the highly imperiled rufa Red Knot, a shorebird which flies more than 9,300 miles from south to north every […]
Massive Bird Slaughter Around the Mediterranean – Shocking Photos
Each year, millions of songbirds are killed for food, for profit or just for the joy of shooting something, as they move from their winter grounds in Africa to their summer breeding territories in Europe. In Egypt, hundreds of miles of nets cover the entire coastline, catching almost every bird that makes its way to […]
Revised Critical Habitat for the Pacific Coast Western Snowy Plover
The Pacific Coast population of the Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius nivosus nivosus) is federally listed under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 as threatened. They are a Bird Species of Special Concern in California and were listed as endangered under the Washington Department of Game Policy No. 402 in 1981, and as threatened by the […]
Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City Kuwait
Sabah Al Ahmad Sea City is a massive project underway in the south of Kuwait very close to the Saudi Arabian border. It is the first of it’s kind in Kuwait and has even been featured as a documentary on BBC. I visit the project a number of times each month to survey the birds […]
Al Abraq Al-Khabari – a western oasis in Kuwait
Spring migration in Kuwait is in full force and migrants are literally everywhere – foraging, resting and passing by overhead. Al Abraq is a very small dot of green in a vast expanse of open desert in the far west of Kuwait. It is a working oasis and an absolute magnet for migratory birds that […]