My latest West Coast Beat Writer post is up at 10000 Birds. Please head on over and read about what has been happening with Burrowing Owls over the last 40 years and then help me out by signing our petition and joining our cause to Save the Burrowing Owl on Facebook.
Female Downy Woodpecker photos by Larry Jordan
Last weekend I was building some new bluebird houses in my garage when I heard a Downy call as she flew into a nearby oak tree. My car was parked next to the garage (as I was using the garage space to build the birdhouses) so I stopped working, scurried over to the car and got out my digiscoping setup. It was a bright, sunny day and I was able to get some good photos of her.
Spoon-billed Sandpiper Chick photo by John O’Sullivan, RSPB
BirdLife’s work to save two key resting and feeding sites in China, used by one of the world’s oddest and most appealing waterbirds is to receive support from Disney’s Friends for Change initiative. The project, ’Saving Spoony’s Chinese Wetlands ’ will receive at least $25,000. But if children around the world decide to give it their vote, that support could rise to $50,000, or even $100,000.
Spoony- the Spoon-billed Sandpiper- is one of the rarest birds in the world. It gets its name from its spoon-shaped beak, which it uses to pick up food from the mud left uncovered when the tide goes out. Every year it flies over 9,000 km from the Arctic tundra in Russia, where it nests, to the tropics of southern Asia, where it spends the winter. Then, in spring, it flies all the way back again.
Fewer and fewer Spoon-billed Sandpipers make it back to breed each year, and unless we act quickly, this tough and determined little bird could soon be gone for ever. There may be as few as 400 left, down from 2,000 just 10 years ago. You can read the rest of BirdLife International’s story and then go vote for Spoony! Here is a cool video of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper calling just to seal the deal. Now GO VOTE!
Wilson’s Snipe Sitting On A Post photos by Larry Jordan
According to Wikipedia, a snipe hunt is “a form of wild-goose chase that is also known as a fool’s errand, a type of practical joke that involves experienced people making fun of credulous newcomers by giving them an impossible or imaginary task. The origin of the term is a practical joke where inexperienced campers are told about a bird or animal called the snipe as well as a usually preposterous method of catching it, such as running around the woods carrying a bag or making strange noises such as banging rocks together. Incidentally, the snipe (a family of shorebirds) is difficult to catch for experienced hunters, so much so that the word “sniper” is derived from it to refer to anyone skilled enough to shoot one.” [continue reading…]
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