Avian flu has decimated the marine creatures on the country’s Pacific coastline and scientists fear it could be jumping from mammal to mammal
Late on the afternoon of Nov. 18, Kathy Marche, birding in Stephenville, came across a very colorful bird unfamiliar to her. She took photos but had to wait until she got home to look up the identification.
The virus was first reported among brown skua on Bird Island, off South Georgia. Since then, researchers and observers have reported mass deaths of elephant seals, as well as increased deaths of fur seals, kelp gulls and brown skua at several other sites. Researchers warn of one of ‘largest ecological disasters of modern times’ if the highly contagious disease reaches penguin colonies.
Flycatchers, swallows and warblers are among the species “in a mass die-off across New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and farther north into Nebraska.
Pushed north by global heating, birds like the European bee-eater seen in Norfolk likely to become established visitors
Scientists examining the devastating impact plastics are having on the world's oceans have identified seabirds with more than 250 man made objects lodged in their stomachs.
Rising sea temperatures may mean prey swimming in deeper water out of reach of guillemots, razorbills, puffins and kittiwakes
Climate change could be just another challenge for the gray-cheeked thrush and other distinct species.
‘Catastrophic breeding event’ leads to demands for a marine protected area to be set up in East Antarctica
It started when Jamie Brandon posted a picture of cattle egret in a field with cows at Great Barasway. When the dust cleared a whopping nine cattle egrets had been discovered making it the largest influx of cattle egrets in Newfoundland in living memory.
Look down into the waters of the Venice canals today and there is a surprising sight – not just a clear view of the sandy bed, but shoals of tiny fish, scuttling crabs and multi-coloured plant-life.
“Last year we got several reports from tourists and scientists that they saw around six walruses dead here on the west side of Svalbard. Unfortunately, we couldn’t sample them as the dead walruses drifted away by the time we got to the place. But it’s not normal to get so many reported dead walruses in such a small area," said Christian Lydersen, senior scientist at the Norwegian Polar Institute. Now samples (collected by a Station Manager in July 2023) have tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Two swans are stuck in the ice at Mundy Pond in St. John’s this morning.
City officials were made aware of the situation through calls to 311 and by a pedestrian walking around the pond who flagged down a passing city
Reports are coming in about hundreds of dead birds from Hammerfest in the west to Murmansk in the east. A zone with a radius of five kilometers is closed and guards are in place round-the-clock.
The rarest bird sighted in 2018 was the purple gallinule on the Waterford River in St. John’s. There have been more than a dozen recorded sightings in the past, typically on a ship or in a random back garden only to be seen briefly and never again. This bird was different. It was present for about six weeks from mid-May and into June.
As 2018 comes to a close it is time to look back at the birding year in Newfoundland. According to my calculations 272 species of birds were observed on the island of Newfoundland in 2018. This grand total is on par with recent years.
The native range of the Steller’s sea eagle is typically China, Japan and Korea and the east coast of Russia. While some have flown as far east as western Alaska, none have ever been known to appear near the Atlantic Ocean.
An observer reports unusual sightings of Sabine's gulls, including juveniles, outside their typical migration period, suggesting a potential new breeding colony near Nome.
Cows at two Texas dairy farms have contracted bird flu, marking the first known instance of the disease in livestock, amidst recovery from devastating wildfires.
A rough legged hawk got a second lease on life when a Gambell woman and her mother happened upon the injured bird while riding their ATV, coming to its aid and then sending it to a bird sanctuary in Anchorage, where the animal will be nursed to health to be released back into the wild.
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