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.

A large number of bird die-offs

Thousands of female penguins are being stranded along the coast of South America because of water pollution and fishing, research shows. A new study of Megellanic penguins, which breed in Patagonia in southern Argentina, explains for the first time why so many become stuck on beaches hundreds of miles further north.  Researchers found the man-made threats encountered as the

Wayward Murre

The so-called 'warm blob' of water in the North Pacific has brought unusual plankton, which lack the nutrients wild salmon and other marine animals count on.