I met Dr. Eduardo Corona at a recent University of Texas Urban Bird Project presentation in San Antonio, Texas. Corona shared his work on “Birds and their biocultural role in Mesoamerica.” Dr. Corona is an archeologist and researcher at the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (INAH) in Mexico and a distinguished member of Mexico’s […]
Tag: Swallows
‘You can’t control what beavers do or how they do it!’ Could rewilding help England fight droughts?
In the midst of the UK’s worst drought in living memory, a host of unfamiliar experiences assault our senses in a Devon valley. Before us is a field of lush green grass. To one side is a bush of blackberries swollen huge by perfect growing conditions. Squelch, squelch go our feet through the grass. There’s […]
Mass die-off of birds in south-western US ’caused by starvation’
The mass die-off of thousands of songbirds in south-western US was caused by long-term starvation, made worse by unseasonably cold weather probably linked to the climate crisis, scientists have said. Flycatchers, swallows and warblers were among the migratory birds “falling out of the sky” in September, with carcasses found in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona […]
POLL: Should Anti-Bird Netting be banned to protect wildlife?
North Norfolk District Council has bowed to pressure to remove some anti-bird netting from cliffs. The netting was meant to deter sand martins from returning to their nesting grounds on the Bacton cliffs of the Norfolk coast. But it was a hazard that could potentially injure or kill birds and other animals. The government wanted […]
Two days too late
I arrived for a short family visit in Israel yesterday afternoon. This morning, completely knackered after yesterday exhausting day of travel, I did the obvious thing – I went in the early morning to Ma’agan Michael to see the putative Asian House Martin – potentially the first for WP. Since it was found by Barak, […]
‘Decimated’: Germany’s birds disappear as insect abundance plummets 76%
A new study in PLOS ONE reveals a 76 percent reduction in Germany’s flying insect biomass over the past 27 years while another reports the country’s bird abundance has declined 15 percent in just over a decade. While the causes behind the insect decline haven’t yet been conclusively studied, the PLOS ONE study suggests agricultural […]
Climate change driving birds to migrate early, research reveals
Migrating birds are responding to the effects of climate change by arriving at their breeding grounds earlier as global temperatures rise, research has found. The University of Edinburgh study, which looked at hundreds of species across five continents, found that birds are reaching their summer breeding grounds on average about one day earlier per degree […]
Tree Swallows
Tree swallows spend most of their day flying in pursuit of small aerial insects, gliding swiftly through the air and twisting and turning artistically as their blue feathers flash in the sunlight. This haiku written in 1818 by Issa, one of Japan’s foremost poets, recognizes the aerial exploits of swallow-kind: Gliding through the cloudburst so […]