THE WORLD'S FIRST 'BIRD-FRIENDLY' SPORTS STADIUM

The new arena: Photo courtesy of Kenny Yoo (Milwaukee  Bucks) 

 A NEW sports stadium in the USA has been hailed as the first of its kind that is 'bird-friendly'.

The Fiserv Forum in Wisconsin - home to the Milwakee Bucks basketball team - has been built using a type of non-reflective glass that reduces the prospect of  bird collisions.

Up to 1 billion birds are believed to die annually after colliding with glass in the United States.

Scientists reckon  that this total probably  accounts for 5 to 10 percent of North Amerca’s  birds and contributes to ongoing declines in their populations.

Says the American Bird Conservancy: "Addressing collisions is vitally important, not only because of the inherent value of birds, but also because they  reduce pest populations, pollinate plants, disperse seeds and captivate tens of millions of Americans with their beauty and fascinating behaviour."

ABC's collisions campaign manager  Bryan Lenz comments: "“The Milwaukee Bucks' decision to build the world's first bird-friendly arena speaks volumes about the ownership's character, concern for the environment and desire to be a part of a green community.

“The Bucks stepped up for birds in a way that no sports franchise ever has. 

"Hopefully the team's message, that designing with birds in mind is an achievable goal, will become a model for arenas, stadiums, and all other buildings for years to come.”

The American robin is Wisconsin's state bird and a member of the thrush family. 
                                                      

American robin - Milwaukee's state bird

Species such as wood thrush and Swainson's  thrush, are frequent victims of glass collisions.

Conventional  reflective and see-through glass and lighting disorients birds during their nocturnal spring and autumn  migrations.

 “When glass or other glass-like materials are employed in venue design, it is vital to balance insulation and reflectivity to create an ideal environment both inside and out, both for people and for local wildlife,” says Heather Stewart of  Populous, the architectural design firm involved.

 “We are proud to hear that other sports venues are looking toward Fiserv Forum as the new standard for bird-friendly design around the globe.”
.
The initiative has delighted the president of the ABC,Michael Parr who comments: “So many sports teams use animals and birds as mascots; this approach just makes perfect sense for them.

“Surely no sports teams want to kill wild birds at their facilities?

"The Bucks are showing the way. I am betting some good karma will head their way for this and coming seasons!”


More at:

https://abcbirds.org
https://birdcitywisconsin.org
https://populous.com/fiservforum

IS THIS THE 'CARTHORSE' OF THE BUNTING WORLD?

                                                               

Corn bunting - 'demeanour of  self-satisfied content'

GIVEN the bird's rapid decline, Edward Grey - Viscount Grey of Falloden - would doubtless now be kinder about the corn bunting, but he could scarcely have been harsher than in this account  which is included in his best-selling book, The Charm of Birds, which was published in several editions between the 20th Century's two world wars.

It is not altogether kind to write much or tell the whole truth about the corn bunting - his person or his song.

The tendency of buntings is to be robust rather than slender, but the corn bunting is the carthorse amongst them all.
                                                          

Grudging affection - Grey of Falloden

He has the habit, too, of sometimes taking a short flight with legs hanging down as if it were too much trouble to tuck them up neatly in flight like other birds. 

This adds an impression of slovenly disposition to clumsiness of body.

Though the largest of our four common buntings, this bird is the least beautiful in plumage. The male is content to be as dull as his mate who, in turn, is duller than other females of this tribe.

(“Dull” is used comparatively. The nature of feathers is such that, if considered closely, even the bird of dullest plumage is beautiful.)

Corn buntings must have been pleased when the abomination of wire took the place of green hedges or honest posts and rails  made on the country estate.

I can even imagine that corn buntings like barbed wire.

On wire, then, by preference,  the corn bunting will perch and grind out the noise that is his song and to which there is neither melody nor pleasant pattern.

On the Hampshire and Wiltshire downs, where there are plenty of telegraph wires and where wire fences are sadly on the increase, it  is impossible to in mid-summer to miss the corn bunting and his “song”, He thrusts himself upon our notice.

I cannot think of one point in which the corn bunting is not inferior. Even the egg is less remarkable than are those of buntings generally.

Yet, at last, in spite of the inferior of the corn bunting, of which the bird itself is so completely unconscious - for its whole dismeanour is that of self-satisfied content - one gets a sort of humorous affection for it.

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 WHAT THE RSPB SAYS

The UK population of corn buntings fell by 89 per cent between 1970 and 2003. This is mainly because fewer seed and insect food sources are available to them on farmland. 
Also, because corn buntings are a late nesting species, their nests can be destroyed during harvesting or cutting.

Key points

• Ensure the farm provides nesting habitat, summer food and winter food
• Boost insect food using buffer strips, conservation headlands or other low-input crop options
• Provide seed food, especially cereal grain, through the winter with over-wintered stubbles or seed-rich wild bird cover crops

Corn buntings nest on the ground in cereal fields, set-aside, grass field margins or unimproved grassland. They start nesting late in the spring, usually June or July, and can have flightless chicks in August.

Lots of seeds throughout the year

Adults feed mainly on seeds, especially cereal grain. Places where they can find seeds include rotational set-aside, harvested root crops, winter stubbles, newly-sown crops, weeds in the crop margins, areas of spilt grain or places where cereals are fed to outdoor cattle. They are becoming extinct in some pastoral areas of the UK.

Insects and spiders to feed to chicks in the spring and summer  

Corn buntings take insects from crops, set-aside, grassland and field margins to feed their chicks. Breeding success relates directly to the availability of insect food

How to help

On arable land

• Only use pesticides when the infestation exceeds the economic threshold. Try to avoid using broad-spectrum insecticides after 15 March. These remove beneficial insects and spiders which move into the crops in the spring. The loss of this food source is particularly damaging to corn buntings. 
• Adopt conservation headlands. Avoid spraying the outer six metres of cereal fields with insecticides or herbicides targeted at broad-leaved weeds. This enables beneficial insects and chick food for corn buntings to survive. You can get agronomic advice from the Game Conservancy Trust. 
• Spray and cultivate stubbles as late as possible. This provides important winter feeding habitat. Seed-rich wild bird cover crops are very important on farms where overwinter stubbles are not a viable option. Cereals are an essential component of wild bird cover crops in areas with corn buntings.
• Create grass margins around arable fields to increase food availability close to the nesting habitat. Include species such as cocksfoot in the seed mix to create a tussocky sward. After the margins are established, cut in the autumn only once every three years. Avoid cutting all margins in the same year. Corn buntings are more likely to use margins that have no boundary feature or just a post and wire fence. 
• Use beetle banks in fields greater than 0.2 square kilometres to provide nesting cover for corn buntings and over-wintering habitat for beneficial insects. Beetle banks are two metre grass strips through the middle of arable fields. Such fields can be managed as one unit, as the headland is still cropped. 

On grassland

• Introduce arable fodder crops or create small plots of wild bird cover to provide a seed-rich habitat in pastoral areas. Maize is probably not of value to corn buntings unless it is undersown with a seed-bearing crop. Undersown cereal crops will provide seed food through the winter. The lack of cultivation in the autumn as well as restrictions on herbicide use will produce an abundant supply of insects. 
• Fence off margins of up to six metres around improved grassland and leave these unfertilised, uncut and ungrazed. Graze or cut in September every two to three years. Select margins which are adjacent to short thick hedges or post and wire fences

Read more at: 

https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/conservation/conservation-and-sustainability/farming/advice/helping-species/corn-bunting/#YksjUxm4tEWqfxE6.99

* Photo of corn bunting: RSPB

 

MIST-NETTING: HOW MUCH OF AN INJURY HAZARD DOES IT POSE TO WILD BIRDS?

  

 Setting up a mistnet (photo: Júlio Reis via Wikimedia Commons)

TO what extent are wild birds stressed when they are trapped in mist-nets prior to ringing or other scientific research?

Some year ago, the issue was raised by naturalist-author Richard Mabey after a Siberian blue robin - the first record for Europe - had  been trapped in a mist-net on October 27, 1975, on Sark in the Channel Islands.

He noted: "It was 4,000 miles off track, tired, hungry, terrified and hung up by its feet for God knows how many hours.

"I am bothered by the attitudes towards birds of supposed bird lovers who desire to trap birds at the moment of their greatest exhaustion and insecurity,  then to process them as if they were so many pieces of baggage. 

"It seems to me inexcusably degrading to both birds and handlers when the outcome is likely to be nothing more than another species on the British list."

He widened his concern with a reference to birders destroy who were reported to have "destroyed a clutch of bearded tits by chucking a piece of concrete into a reedbed to try to flush a bittern".

In its latest review of the potential hazard of mist-netting, the BTO  says: "Any effect of capturing wild birds on their individual welfare, or that of their wider populations, is an important ethical consideration.

"It also has significant implications for the integrity of the data collected as biases may be introduced if capture and handling bring about changes in behaviour or survival.

"Ultimately, the benefit of the information accrued when capturing wild birds for study needs to outweigh the potential risk to individuals that are caught."

The report continues: "While the potential effect of fitting rings or other devices to birds has been assessed  through a series of  studies, the direct effects of the capture methods themselves have received less attention.

"We undertook an assessment of the impacts of mist-netting for birds as part of the British and Irish Ringing Scheme.

"Overall mortality rates were low with most fatalities reported to have occurred before individuals had been extracted from the nets.

"We will use the results from this study to help to refine guidelines for those trapping and handling wild birds and to identify additional opportunities to secure information that could be used better to understand risk factors and associated mortality."

The BTO says the results were published in an edition of the open access journal, Ecology & Evolution, and shared with operators of other European ringing schemes to help ensure they have the widest benefit.


See also:  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mist_net

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.4032
          
http://www.socsercq.sark.gg/siberianbluerobin.html

https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/nabb/v007n01/p0002-p0014.pdf

ILLEGAL BIRD TRAPPING: THE FIGHT GOES ON

All smiles after these songbirds were saved and released on Cyprus - other birds were not so lucky


SIGNIFICANT progress has been made in the campaign to halt illegal bird-trapping in Southern Europe. Here the chief executive of the Campaign Against Bird Slaughter, Alexander Heyd, provides an autumn update.

Spain - end of bird trapping in sight
At the end of October and in early November, a CABS team conducted a 10-day mission in Eastern Spain. Around Valencia, 7 poachers were convicted by the police as a direct result of our field investigations. A total of 4 huge slack nets, 14 mist nets, 400 limesticks and a handful of small live traps were secured. All used to target wintering thrushes. The number of active traps continues to decline significantly. Just a few years ago we would typically record 1,500 trapping sites, this year we recorded about 50. We secretly hoped it could be even less! So, in the next few years we will have to do some Spanish missions to catch the very last trapper!

Cyprus - lack of support from authorities
Our Bird Protection Camp in Cyprus was the longest campaign of the season and continued  until November 11. During this time, we  found 2,207 limesticks and 39 nets and, together with wardens from the Game Fund convicted 12 poachers. The Cypriot police have completely ceased their support for our actions, and there was little else to expect from the hunt-friendly government. In the area of military bases, the British police, however, are quite cooperative. Although the figures so far indicate a slight decrease in bird trapping, we are often unable to control all the trapping sites due to the lack of police support and probably will not find and secure as many trapping sites as we used to. The situation in Cyprus is definitely precarious for bird protection in Europe!

Malta - Increase in illegal bird catching
In mid-October our third (Malta) autumn camp started on Malta and Gozo. While August/September we focused on the illegal trapping of wading birds and mid/late September we monitored bird of prey poaching, our teams are currently working on the fight against the illegal finch trapping. After the European Court of Justice finally banned finch trapping back in June, the old-fashioned traditionalists in Malta are now illegally trapping species such as linnets, chaffinches, siskins and serins. There are far more illegal sites than we had feared: In just the last two weeks alone we have reported more than 50 active sites with huge clap nets to the police, at least 18 people were convicted and over 100 live birds seized - which were being used as caged decoys to lure others of their kind into the trappers nets. 

Brescia - 46 poachers caught
During the four-week operation in Brescia (Sept. 27 to Oct. 28), we oversaw the arrest of 46 poachers, 392 bow traps (123 in house searches), 109 nets (including 46 in house searches) and 279 snap traps were seized. In addition, 11 shotguns, around 170 live decoys and about 2,100 frozen songbirds were also confiscated. A total of 52 CABS members from Italy, Spain, Germany, Great Britain and the USA were deployed in the northern Italian province. As in previous years, the significant decline in poaching continues. While the use of bow and snap traps are clearly on the decline, nets remain a clear problem.

Grim plight for this pied flycatcher

In many places, especially in Cyprus, Sardinia and Malta, the bird trappers continue to target migrant birds and/or hunt for wintering songbirds. Therefore, we will continue our anti-poaching operations in the coming weeks. However, in many parts of Italy and Spain, bird poaching is now coming to an end for seasonal reasons.

Photographs: Courtesy of Campaign against Bird Slaughter

FORMER HOME OF SIR PETER SCOTT ON MARKET

The old lighthouse incorporates a studio where Scott  painted

THE former home of acclaimed ornithologist and artist Sir Peter Scott has come on the market.

It is a Grade II Listed  lighthouse, built in 1826, that stands on a bank where the River Nene meets The Wash on the Cambridgeshire - Lincolnshire border 12 miles north of Wisbech.

Sir Peter painted skeins of geese and duck while he lived there in the 1930s.

In 2010, the four-bedroom property was bought for £435,000 by Doug and Sue Hilton but they have decided to sell up and move to Wales. 

Previous owners have included  Anglian Water and Commander David Joel who had known Scott since the 1940s when they had corresponded over two Egyptian geese the
commander had donated to London Zoo. 

The lighthouse and its 1.7 acres of grounds (with ponds) are on the books of the Kings Lynn branch of Fine and Country estate agents. The asking price is £600,000.

* Photos courtesy of Fine and Country

BIRDWATCHERS WHO FELL ON THE BATTLEFIELD

THE extract below is  from the e-book No More The Song of  The Nightingale.



GROWING up in Scotland at the start of the twentieth century, close pals Arthur Landsborough Thomson, Arthur Davidson and Lewis Ramsay were ardent birdwatchers.

All three lived in Aberdeen, and Thomson and Davidson both attended the Grammar School, while Ramsay met up with them on holiday when he returned from Merchiston School in Edinburgh.

 As boys they explored, on foot or cycle, the wildlife-rich countryside of the Ythan Estuary and Royal Deeside.

Thomson went on to become an undergraduate at the University of Aberdeen where he established Britain’s first co-ordinated bird-ringing scheme.

Davidson and Ramsay were only too keen to become involved, and, on May 8, 1909, the first birds to be ringed by the trio were six young lapwings at the Sands of Forvie in Aberdeenshire, plus a starling at Inverurie by an older associate, Thomas Tait.

Herring gulls became of particular interest, and the teenagers would use their acetylene cycle-lamps to dazzle and trap them.

One bird ringed on October 3, 1910, was caught, on May 20 the following year, by a farmer working in a turnip field on the Orkney island of Burray. The incident was deemed sufficiently newsworthy to be reported in the Aberdeen Free Press in its edition of May 26, 1911.

When war broke out on July 28, 1914, Davidson and Ramsey were 24 while Thomson was only 23.

According to Alan Knox who, much later, wrote an article about the trio for the journal British Birds, they had had six other friends who studied wildlife in and around Aberdeen.

Of the nine who signed up to fight for King and Country in 1914, only Thomson was to survive the war.

There must have been hundreds more similar instances all over Europe - on both sides of the conflict - of friends who grew up together and who had watched and recorded birds and their behaviour.Tragically, many never returned from the battlefield.

In some cemeteries, Germans and Allied soldiers rest close together, united again in death as they might have been in life had it not been for the dislocation caused by the war.

Among those that fell are doubtless hundreds of scientists, spare-time naturalists and literary or artistic figures who had been forced on to opposing sides, thence to have had their plans and careers - and all too often their lives - destroyed by the conflict.

How cruel the irony that those who fought and fell were in an environment which, in peacetime, would have provided the very habitats for them to pursue their enjoyment of birdwatching.

Remembered here are 21 of these gallant soldiers. All apart from one were officers. Some were members of the peerage, and one had served in a front-bench role in government.

It is a reflection of what was then a far more hierarchical and class-divided society that, unfairly, the lives off those lower on the social ladder have, with few exceptions, gone unrecorded.

Several of those listed must have been men of significant financial means because, before the war, they had participated in wide-ranging voyages of exploration and discovery.

The list includes the writer, Edward Thomas, who was commemorated by his friend and fellow-poet, William “W.H.” Davies, in this extract from Killed In Action (Edward Thomas): 

“Happy the man whose home is still
In Nature's green and peaceful ways;
To wake and hear the birds so loud,
That scream for joy to see the sun
Is shouldering past a sullen cloud.
But thou, my friend, art lying dead:
War, with its hell-born childishness,
Has claimed thy life, with many more:
The man that loved this England well,
And never left it once before.”

The sad toll of fallen birdwatchers also includes:

Sydney Edward Brock
George Wyman Bury
Hugh Vaughn Charlton
John MacFarlan Charlton
Eric B. Dunlop
John ‘Jack’ Dighton Grafton-Wignall
Leonard Gray
Herbert Hastings Harington
Auberon Thomas Herbert
Boyd Horsbrugh
Wyndham Knatchbull-Hugessen
Gerald Legge
Alfred Stanley Marsh
Francis Algernon Monckton
Henry Edward Otto Murray-Dixon
George Stout
Philip Edward Thomas
C.H.T Whitehead
Richard Bowen Woosnam

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PROPOSED SHETLANDS WINDFARM COULD PUT BREEDING SEASON SQUEEZE ON RARE SPECIES

Red-throated diver - species at risk. Photo: RSPB

THE future looks uncertain for the breeding populations of red-throated divers and whimbrel in The Shetlands.

Onshore windfarm developer Viking Energy say a proposed habitat management plan will enhance prospects for both species, but RSPB Scotland believes a scheme for installation of 103 turbines will put them at risk.

The project, which has been given the planning go-ahead, is a joint venture by electricity giants SSE and Shetland Charitable Trust.

Last month, Viking announced its intention to increase the  maximum tip height from 145m to 155m with a corresponding increase in the turbine hub height from 90m to 95m.

Artist's impression of how the turbines will look. Image: Viking Energy

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'YOU HAVE TO BE A BLIND OPTIMIST TO WORK IN NATURE CONSERVATION'

Conservationist and bird expert Stuart Butchart has been in demand  this autumn for his authoritative commentary on latest bird extinction data and on an eccentric beluga whale that  wandered into the River Thames. The former Lincolnshire man has pursued a successful international career  despite being seriously injured,some years ago, when he was shot during a holiday in Guatemala. Below is a report of the presentation given by Dr Butchart when he was guest speaker at  a meeting of Lincolnshire Bird Club

The  life-changing experience for Dr Stuart Butchart  came on New Year's Day in 2001.

"As I was  birdwatching in a nature reserve  with a girlfriend, we  were confronted by four  bandits,"he said."We turned to run, but I was shot in the back."

The bullet  penetrated his rucksack and caused irreversible damage to his spinal nerve.

As the 28-year-old lay on the ground, in shock and unable to move, one of the thugs stole everything of value, including his watch and a ring from  his thumb.

His girlfriend was able to escape and raise the alarm, and, after a terrible hour on his own, Stuart was carried by villagers to a clinic, thence to be flown to a Hospital in Houston, Texas,  where he was told the grim news - he would never walk again.

Stuart, an ex-pupil of the Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Horncastle, only touched briefly on the incident when he was guest speaker at a meeting of Lincolnshire Bird Club.

Instead he  focused on his  work at the Cambridge-based nature conservation organisation, BirdLife International where he is head of science.

The charity  focuses much of its work on seeking to ensure a future for some 200 critically endangered species that are on the brink of extinction - the likes of the hooded grebe, sociable lapwing, Puerto Rican nightjar  and New Zealand storm petrel - in the face of  climate change, human population increase and loss of habitat.

"You have to be a blind optimist to work in nature conservation,"he said. "It's a never-ending war, but you strive to win a few battle along the way."

Among species saved from extinction, at least for the time being, have been the black robin, the Mauritius parakeet, the Raratonga monarch and the Lear's macaw.

Stuart  revealed that his introduction to birdwatching came, aged six, when he was shown a spotted flycatcher by his grandfather, and  his growing interest was later encouraged by his school biology teacher, Robert Carr, who was a keen birdwatcher and took pupils on field trips.

He lamented that some native species, such as the turtle dove, which was common when he was a boy, had now declined in the UK  by 90 per cent - partly because of intensive agriculture and partly because many are shot for spot on their migration through Mediterranean countries.

Despite  being restricted to a wheelchair, Stuart still travels the world , sometimes to remote places in Africa and Asia, never allowing himself to be deterred by jungle, marshland, mountains or other wheelchair-hostile terrain.

As his illustrations revealed, he  has even snorkelled among whales in freezing waters off Norway!

However, his most remarkable wildlife experience came in  Rwanda when he encountered mountain gorillas.

"It was an incredibly moving experience," he said. "One was so fascinated by my wheelchair that she came up and touched both the wheel and one of my toes. It is something I will never forget."

OFFSHORE WINDFARM CONSTRUCTION NOISE PUTS WHALES, DOLPHINS AND PORPOISES AT RISK

Clean energy - but at what cost to marine life? (picture: Ann Williams)

                                  
A WARNING has been sounded on the hidden threat posed to whales and dolphins by the rush to construct more offshore wind farms

Marine life expert Tania Davey said piling activity on the seabed prior to installation of turbines created "huge amounts of noise" to the potential detriment of sea mammals, fish and invertebrates.

"These creatures are particularly sensitive to noise."  the Wildlife Trusts' Living Seas Sustainable Development Officer told the 2018 annual conference of the Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership.

Focusing on   harbour porpoises, she said they relied on their own echolocation to detect  prey and mates.

Excessive noise was  liable to cause deafness or other distress, possibly death - especially if it caused them to stop feeding.

Harbour porpoise (photo: Erik Christensen via Wikimedia Commons)

Emphasising the need for more research, Ms Davey noted that noise thresholds varied according to species.

They are all hearing at different frequencies - low for minke whales, high for harbour porpoises.

Dolphins have been recorded returned to sites as soon as three days after piling has been completed,  but it was not known if these are the same animals or new ones.

Of the next generation of offshore wind farms, she said these would be "humongous in scale - five times the size of the city of Hull, with a kilometre each between the individual turbines".
 
The speaker was not in favour of using 'pingers' to repel marine animals prior to piling because these devices would only be adding yet  more noise to the marine environment.
 
Instead, she favoured the practice adopted in German waters whereby 'bubble curtains' are required to contain noise within the immediate area of piling.
 
As yet, this is not a condition imposed on windfarm developments off the British coast.
 
"Germany is ahead of the UK," she said.
 
Ms Davey described her work as "fascinating and frustrating at the same time".
 
She acknowledged that the Government was committed to renewable sources of energy to help combat climate change, but she felt it was also imperative to safeguard the welfare of marine creatures.
  

Wind farm off the Yorkshire Coast at Spurn

***

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