The great egret makes for exciting sighting

A great egret forages for food. Note the dark black legs that make identification easy.
A white great blue heron would have yellow legs. (Bill Danielson)

By Bill Danielson Special To The Times Union
Published: 12:00 a.m., Sunday, October 10, 2010

During the school year, I am trapped inside during the most productive birding hours of the day. As the days get shorter and shorter, there is less of a chance for me to do any birding at all. Mornings don't offer much, but autumn afternoons can sometimes produce some good sightings and tend to keep my eyes peeled for anything interesting while I'm in the car.

For instance, consider my drive home last week. I had made it all the way back to the Watervliet Reservoir without much interesting to report, when all of a sudden I saw something quite exciting. I saw a ghostly figure standing among the withering water chestnuts. It was a great egret and it was a great sighting!

Anyone familiar with the great blue heron (Ardea herodias) will immediately notice a similarity between herons and egrets. In fact, the great blue heron has a rare all-white form that looks almost identical to a great egret, except for one important difference. Great blue herons have yellow legs, whereas great egrets have black legs. Since the bird I saw had black legs, I knew this was an egret on walkabout.

The great egret has had a long and interesting history with its scientific name. Twenty-five years ago, the great egret was known as Casmerodius albus. "Casmerodius" was a combination of the Greek word "kasis," meaning "brother or sister" (a relative), and the Greek word "herodios," or "heron." The word "albus" is simply Latin for "white." Translated, the name would be something like, "the white brother of the herons."

According to the Dictionary of American Bird Names, by Ernest A. Chohate, a German ornithologist by the name of Constantin Gloger may have intended the genus name to be "Cosmerodius" with an "o." There is a Greek word "kosmos," one of the meanings of which is "decoration." Had this been the actual root of the name, the translation would be something like, "the white, decorated heron." Given the opulence of the egret's feathers during the breeding season, it is not too hard to imagine that this may have been the true intention of Gloger.

Today, the great egret's scientific name is Ardea albus. The word "ardea" is Latin for "heron," so the translation of the newest name is simply "the white heron." This name also suggests that the great egret is a close relative of its very similar cousin, the great blue heron.

Great egrets, like the other species in the heron family, are bedecked in glorious nuptial plumage in the height of the breeding season. So fantastically gorgeous are these delicate, lacy feathers that they were once highly prized as decorations for hats and clothing. The millinery had a catastrophic impact on bird populations, because the feathers could only be harvested by killing breeding birds.

The great egret seems to be a species born with wanderlust. Its breeding range extends from the Gulf of Mexico up the basin of the Mississippi River to Michigan. There is then a very thin arm that hugs the coast of the eastern United States as far north as Long Island. Clearly, the great egret is a bird dependent upon water for its living.

While the breeding range of the great egret is rather narrowly confined, the range over which it can be found is immense. Draw a line from the middle of Texas, up to the Great Lakes, and then east to Nova Scotia. Non-breeding birds, it seems, like to explore.

Late summer and early autumn seem to be the times when these rather exotic-looking nomads turn up in the strangest places, and I was happy to see that one had found its way so close to my home. Anyone who travels by train from Albany to New York is likely to see increasing numbers of these birds as the train moves south. The Hudson is a natural conduit for the movements of such coastal birds.

Keep your eyes peeled for great blue herons, great egrets and any other interesting birds in the next couple of weeks. As soon as temperatures fall and we have our first frost, most of these birds will probably clear out, but you never know.

Sometimes stubborn adults or inexperienced immature birds will stay far longer than seems wise.

Cold weather won't really chase them away until ice starts to prevent them from hunting, and in the meantime they can offer exciting sightings for any birders desperate for a glimpse of nature on the way home from work.

Bill Danielson is a freelance writer living in Altamont. Send your questions about the natural world to him at billd@speakingofnature.com.

http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/The-great-egret-makes-for-exciting-sighting-695916.php

Dracula fish, bald bird among strange new species

Handout picture from the University of Melbourne via the Wildlife Conservation Society shows the "bald" Bulbul bird discovered in Laos' Savannakhet province. Dracula fish, a bald songbird and a seven-metre (23 feet) tall carnivorous plant are among several unusual new species found in the Greater Mekong region last year, researchers said Wednesday.
(AFP/Univ. of Melbourne via WCS/Iain Woxvold)

Wed Oct 6, 2:34 am ET

BANGKOK (AFP) – Dracula fish, a bald songbird and a seven-metre (23 feet) tall carnivorous plant are among several unusual new species found in the Greater Mekong region last year, researchers said Wednesday.

Other new finds among the 145 new species include a frog that sounds like a cricket and a "sucker fish", which uses its body to stick to rocks in fast flowing waters to move upstream, according to conservation group WWF.

With fangs at the front of each jaw, the "dracula minnow" is one of the more bizarre new species found in 2009 in the Mekong River region, which comprises Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China's Yunnan Province.

Discovered in a small stream in Myanmar, it is largely translucent and measures up to 1.7 centimetres long.

It is not yet known whether the species is endemic to a single ecosystem within Myanmar, or spread throughout the region as a whole.

Other bizarre discoveries include the Bare-Faced Bulbul bird, which is bereft of feathers on the face and side of the head and has pale blue skin on the rear of the head and around the eyes. It lives in sparse forest on limestone karsts in central Laos.

Among newly recorded plants, the Nepenthes bokorensis plant, found in southern Cambodia, has a climbing length of up to seven metres, with pitchers that trap ants and other insects for food.

"The rate of discovery in the Mekong is almost without equal globally," WWF regional conservation director Stuart Chapman told AFP.

"That's attributed to the enormous geographical and climatic range within the region, going from high altitude to dense tropical forests through to some of the richest freshwater in the world," he said.

"Undoubtedly this region is one of the richest in terms of its biodiversity, but it's also one of the most threatened."

The Greater Mekong region is home to some of the planet's most endangered wild species including tiger, Asian elephant, Mekong dolphin and Mekong giant catfish, said the World Wide Fund For Nature.

WWF has warned the Mekong giant catfish -- one of the world's biggest freshwater fish -- could be driven to extinction if plans to build hydropower dams on Southeast Asia's longest river go ahead, blocking spawning grounds.

"We need to keep one of the treasure troves of the world properly conserved," said Chapman.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101006/wl_asia_afp/wildlifeenvironmentseasiamekong
(Submitted by Richie West)

Rare sighting draws birdwatchers to Provincetown

By Jason Kolnos / Cape Cod Times
Wednesday, September 29, 2010

PROVINCETOWN — There’s a red-headed vagrant with a big mouth and colorful outfit turning heads in town these days. And it’s not an outlandish Commercial Street performer.

A stately sandhill crane has been spotted foraging for a good meal around a soccer field near Route 6 and the airport a few times over the past week or so.

The long-legged crane with a distinctive crimson forehead and white cheeks has area bird enthusiasts flocking to the Cape’s tip for a gander at the species not seen too often around these parts.

"It is a strikingly good-looking bird," said Joseph F. Cavanaugh III, a Mashpee attorney and bird enthusiast who photographed the crane Sunday morning.

Online bird-sighting message boards have been buzzing with posts about the crane, with some folks even organizing carpool excursions to go see it.

"They are real crowd-pleasers," said local bird expert E. Vernon Laux, a naturalist for the Linda Loring Nature Foundation on Nantucket and a Times columnist.

Adult sandhill cranes are big birds — standing about three feet tall and having a wing span of around six feet. Large, grey and rusty-orange colored feathers are hallmarks of their plumage.

The sandhill crane’s prolonged appearance in Provincetown is rare for the Outer Cape, but sightings of the species in the region have increased over the past five years, Laux said.

There have been reports of a few sandhill cranes spending the winter in places such as Cummaquid and Wareham.

To read the rest of this story, go to www.capecodonline.com

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20100929cape_air_founder_reduces_role/

Bird Notes – sighting of whiskered black tern

Sep 30 2010 by Andrew Forgrave, Daily Post

There are three species of marsh tern in Europe, including white-winged, black and whiskered.

None breed in the UK however. Black terns are by far the more numerous, especially on their south-westerly autumn passage.

In juvenile plumage all three species are very similar. But close scrutiny of some images taken of a bird thought to be a black tern at Inner Marsh Farm RSPB, Wirral, actually revealed a young whiskered tern.

A great record for the area!

A common quail was also seen at the same site, giving a very rare opportunity to see a species almost always “heard only”, due to its habit of preferring vast crop fields and scurrying away if disturbed, rather than flying.

A blast of northerly air brought in a grey phalarope (Llydandroed Llwyd) to Conwy RSPB.

This remained until September 27 at least, feeding around the margins of the southern lagoon.

This is only the third record for the reserve.ŠThe adult bird has probably flown in from Iceland or the high Arctic and will be heading to winter on the seas off West Africa.

It is bizarre to think that such a small dainty wader can spend the whole winter out on the ocean, then return north in the spring to breed again.

Up to seven Lapland buntings were seen on the Great Orme last week and over 50 were at Hen Borth west of Cemlyn.

Nationally, this has been one of the best autumns for the species.

Elsewhere, two absolute “megas” turned up this week in the form of an alder flycatcher on Blakeney Point, Norfolk, and a superb northern parula found on Tiree, Argyll.

Both are cracking American vagrants.

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/farming-north-wales/farming-news/2010/09/30/bird-notes-sighting-of-whiskered-black-tern-55578-27369541/

Dark Steller's sea eagle solves 100 year debate

Monday, 27 September 2010
By Ella Davies
Earth News reporter

A giant bird living in Germany has settled debate over the existence of a huge, dark species of sea eagle.

For over a century, experts questioned whether two Steller's sea eagle species exist: one with white feathers and a darker one.

But a dark, captive Steller's sea eagle in a Berlin zoo, the only living bird of its kind, has solved the mystery.

Born to white feathered parents, the dark Steller's sea eagle confirms they are two variants of the same species.

The Steller's sea eagle (Haliaeetus pelagicus) is the heaviest of all eagles, and it usually has brown and white plumage, sporting white feathers along the wings, legs and tail.

However, a different, dark form of the Steller's sea eagle was first described as a separate species (H. niger) in 1887. It had brown feathers all over except for a white tail.

Ornithologists suspected this darker Steller's sea eagle bred in Korea.

But few authenticated records exist, leading many to presume its extinction.

The last known dark Steller's sea eagle sighted in the wild was in 1968, and no dark specimen has been held in captivity since the start of the 20th Century.

Since these sightings, debate has continued as to whether the dark Steller's sea eagle is a separate species, subspecies or just a colour variant of the usual bird.

Most interested experts believe the latter, but no proof existed.

That was until the appearance of a dark Steller's sea eagle in Tierpark zoo, Berlin.

It wasn't until the Steller's sea eagle moulted into its adult plumage that the Tierpark's Curator of Birds, Dr Martin Kaiser, realised what a rarity it was.

"It's really a surprise if you suddenly have a bird which was considered extinct and not observed for about half a century neither in the wild nor in captivity," says Dr Kaiser.

The eagle moulted into its adult plumage this year with only a white tail, making it the only known living bird of its kind.

The rare female was the product of artificial insemination at a falconry in Bavaria, Germany.

It arrived at Berlin's Tierpark in 2001 after being foster-reared by two American bald eagles at Nuremburg Zoo.

Crucially, its actual parents were wild birds, caught in Russia in the 1980s and both displayed the familiar white shoulder, leg and rump feathers.

"Both the parents of the dark female in Tierpark Berlin show the normal coloured plumage with white shoulders and rump," says Dr Kaiser.

"This is the evidence that it is a colour phase only... [For the female to] be a subspecies the parents must be also dark coloured."

As the offspring of two white-marked birds, the Tierpark's female provides the first evidence that the dark plumage is not species specific, and that the dark eagles do not exist as a species in their own right.

The fact that the parents came from Russia also proves that dark forms of the eagle are not restricted to Korea.

Dr Kaiser's findings are published in the Journal of Ornithology.

The Steller's sea eagle is one of the world's largest eagles and certainly the heaviest weighing up to 9kg.

Competition for the top title comes from the Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) of South-East Asia; the martial eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus) of Africa and the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja), of North and South America.

There are approximately 5,000 Steller's sea eagles in the wild, predominantly found in north-eastern Asia, breeding around the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia.

The giant birds make their nests along Russia's Pacific coast close to their preferred salmon feeding grounds.

Their distinctive large yellow bills are perfect for ripping flesh and stealing food from other eagles.

The IUCN list of endangered animals describes the sea eagles as vulnerable with a declining population under threat from habitat destruction and over-fishing.

Each winter many migrate to the Japanese islands of Hokkaido where they are known as O-Washi, and protected as a species of national importance.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9036000/9036698.stm
(Submitted by Chad Arment)

Alaotra grebe declared extinct and 12.5% of bird species declared endangered

May 2010. The latest assessment of the extinction threat facing the world's birds states shows the total number of bird species facing global extinction now stands at 1240 species (around an eighth of the world's 10027 bird species). This is a rise of 21 from last year's assessment.




Alaotra grebe from Madagascar
The publication of the 2010 IUCN Red List update for birds, by BirdLife International, has also confirmed the extinction of the Alaotra grebe, a type of small water bird previously confined to a tiny area of Madagascar. The grebe's demise brings the total number of bird species thought to have become extinct since 1600 to 132. This species declined rapidly after carnivorous fish were introduced to the lakes where it lived. This, along with the use of nylon gill-nets by fishermen - which caught and drowned birds - has driven this species into the abyss.

Some successes - Trend is downward
Dr Tim Stowe is the RSPB's International Director. Commenting on the current extinction crisis facing the world's birds, he said: "The confirmation of the extinction of yet another bird species is further evidence that we are not doing enough in the fight to protect the world's wildlife. Although there are some key successes, overall the trend is downward, bringing more species year on year to the brink of extinction and beyond."

25 species added to the Redlist
In total 25 species of bird have joined the list of those facing global extinction, while only three have dropped from the list because of an improvement in their status or a reduction in the threat they face. Just under half of the species were added to the list because they are newly-recognised species, such as two buntings from the UK Overseas Territory of Tristan da Cunha and a species of seabird recently described from the Azores. However, 13 species have joined the list because of a genuine deterioration in their conservation status.

Azores bullfinch numbers up

Among the good news in this report is the improvement in the status of the Azores bullfinch - a finch found only on the island of Sao Miguel in the Azores. The RSPB has worked alongside its BirdLife International partner in Portugal, SPEA, and others to turn around the fortunes of this species, which has been threatened by the encroachment of non-native plants into its native habitat. As a result of removing the threat, the threat status of the Azores bullfinch has been lowered from Critically Endangered to Endangered.

Dr Tim Stowe added: "This is a remarkable example of conservation action succeeding in turning the tide for a highly threatened species. Where there is commitment and financing we can save species. We have the knowledge and will, but there needs to be better funding globally to address the loss of species."

Alaotra grebe sightings
Alaotra Grebe was known only from Madagascar where it was known chiefly from Lake Alaotra. The species was probably incapable of prolonged flight, so in all likelihood never occurred very far from Lake Alaotra. There have been no direct observations since 12 were seen at Lake Alaotra in December 1982, and two in September 1985. Individuals with some characters of the species (probably hybrids with Little Grebe, or their descendents) were also seen on Lake Alaotra in 1986 and 1988, but by 1999 none were left. The most recent surveys in the region in 2009 by Conservation International and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust failed to find any grebes. It is now highly unlikely that any Alaotra Grebes survive.

Critically Endangered species
In total, three species have been uplisted to Critically Endangered (Zapata Rail Cyanolimnas cerverai, White-bellied Cinclodes Cinclodes palliatus, Black-winged Starling Sturnus melanopterus) and three have been downlisted from Critically Endangered to Endangered (Chatham Albatross Thalassarche eremita, Yellow-eared Parrot Ognorhynchus icterotis, Azores Bullfinch Pyrrhula murina), one has been reclassified from Critically Endangered to Not Recognised (Entre Rios Seedeater Sporophila zelichi) and one has been uplisted from Critically Endangered to Extinct (Alaotra Grebe Tachybaptus rufolavatus).

Redlist changes 2010

Other key changes to the 2010 IUCN Red List for birds facing global extinction include:

Corsican nuthatch and the recently-recognised Monteiro's storm-petrel -which is confined to the Azores - are added to the list of those birds facing extinction in Europe. Twenty-seven species of European bird are now recognised as facing global extinction.

Laysan albatross is removed from the list following an improved understanding about the bird's population. The Chatham albatross from New Zealand has also been downlisted from Critically Endangered to Vulnerable for the same reason.

The recent recognition of Inaccessible bunting and Nightingale bunting from the two islands sharing their names in the UK overseas territory of Tristan da Cunha brings the total number of bird species facing extinction within the UK Overseas Territories to 33.

The addition of the great knot and far eastern curlew (two species of migratory wading bird reliant on wetland habitats along the eastern seaboard of Asia) is a sign that the wetlands and the wildlife of this region are increasingly in trouble. The destruction of intertidal mudflats at Saemangeum, in South Korea, correlated to a reduction of one fifth of the world population of great knot, following the loss of one of the bird's most important migratory stop-over sites.

Photo credit: Chris Rose