One of the most widespread birds of prey in the world, the Common Barn Owl Tyto alba has proven so successful at adapting to life alongside humans that even its very name reflects the symbiotic relationship that has been shared by farmers and this charismatic bird over the course of thousands of years. Common Barn […]
Tag: birdlife international
25,000 seabirds die in southern cone fisheries every year
The turbulent waters around the southern part of South America are some of the most productive in the world, with upwellings of nutrients that support a whole suite of species. Along the Patagonian Shelf to the east, around the southern tip of the continent at Cape Horn and up into the Humboldt Current to the […]
One to Watch – Iiwi on the decline?
With its unmistakable fiery red plumage, which was used to decorate the robes worn by Hawaiian royalty in ancient times, the Iiwi Depranis coccinea (pronounced ee-EE-vee), or Scarlet Honeycreeper, is tightly entwined with Hawaiian folklore. Endemic to the islands, it was once abundant in forests through-out the archipelago, but the accidental introduction of mosquitoes by […]
The Vanishing: Europe’s farmland birds
The Head of Conservation for BirdLife Europe & Central Asia explains how intensive agriculture has made farmland birds one of the most threatened bird groups in Europe. Once upon a time, they were all around us – sights and sounds as familiar as the dusky skies their flocks danced in or the wind whistling through […]
The tiny transmitters tracking birds from North to South America
The Motus Wildlife Tracking System is a pioneering programme of Bird Studies Canada (BSC, BirdLife Partner), in partnership with collaborating researchers and organisations. Motus (which means “movement” in Latin) utilises miniaturised radio transmitters weighing less than 0.3g, which can be unobtrusively fitted onto the backs of birds, including small passerines such as warblers. (Even smaller […]
Can we bring vultures back to Thailand?
It’s the most dramatic bird decline ever recorded – faster even than those that robbed our planet of the Passenger Pigeon Ectopistes migratorius or the Dodo Raphus cucullatus. Since the 1990s, a staggering 99% of the vulture population in Asia have disappeared – a drop from several million to just a few thousand. As a […]
Protecting the majestic seabirds of West Africa
Alcyon? It is, in fact, a legend borrowed from Greek mythology. Alcyon is a fabulous seabird, with plaintive song (often identified with the kingfisher, gull, petrel or swan), which is considered a good omen by Greeks and poets because according to legend it only builds its nest on a calm sea. We had hoped at […]
Threatened seabird successfully breeds using artificial nests for first time
The Japanese Murrelet Synthliboramphus wumizusume is a small seabird with an equally small range to match; it can be found only in warm current waters close to Japan. The birds’ breeding range is even smaller still, concentrated mainly on the ground of rock reefs or isolated islands from Kanto region and to the west, where […]