Decline of the cuckoo in Britain

This 2009 video is called Under Threat: A wake up call for Britain’s cuckoo population.

From The Independent in Britain:

Where have all the cuckoos gone?

One of our favourite birds may be in terminal decline. Simon Birch investigates

Published: 29 March 2007

If you’re planning a trip to the countryside over the coming weeks and are hoping to hear the first cuckoo of spring, be prepared to be disappointed.

The bad news is that the bird whose evocative call has traditionally heralded the end of winter, and that has inspired poets and composers for generations, is rapidly disappearing from Britain’s hedgerows and woodlands.

What growing numbers of birdwatchers have increasingly suspected has been confirmed in figures released by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), which show that cuckoo numbers have plummeted by almost 60 per cent over the past 30 years.

“I’ve been monitoring the arrival of cuckoos back from their African wintering grounds at the Aylesbury sewage treatment works in Buckinghamshire for almost 40 years,” says BTO researcher David Glue.

“But two years ago was the first year, that I didn’t see or hear a cuckoo at that site and the same thing happened last year. It’s very sad that we’re losing one of our most charismatic birds.”

Graham Madge from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is equally concerned. “We have been alarmed for some time about the cuckoo’s fall in numbers over the last three decades,” he says.

“For such a familiar bird to be in so much trouble is extremely worrying.” Indeed, such is the crisis in cuckoo numbers that it’s expected that the cuckoo will soon be added to the Red List, a register of the UK’s most threatened breeding birds.

So just what’s causing cuckoo numbers to nosedive so alarmingly? “While there’s no easy explanation as to what’s going on, the cuckoo’s decline is symptomatic of the difficulties that many other birds now face in the UK,” says Glue.

One possible factor is the decline of the cuckoo’s key host species. The cuckoo is, of course, known as the bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and gets them to raise the young.

Although 50 different species of bird are known to have been targeted by cuckoos for this enforced foster-parenting, just three species, the dunnock, meadow pipit and reed warbler, make up over 80 per cent of all foster parents.

However, the numbers of meadow pipits, which in nest in moorland and heaths, have fallen by 40 per cent over the past 30 years.

Similarly, dunnocks, which nest in woodland and rural gardens, are down by 40 per cent.

Cuckoo eggs puzzle ‘cracked’: here.

Related articles

• Going Cuckoo!
• Birdwatch: The first migrants are already making their epic treks
• How much is Britain prepared to pay to protect its wildlife? | Patrick Barkham
• Avian world in frames
• Beijing Cuckoo Project Shifts Up A Gear
• Welsh cuckoo flies to Chad in Africa
• Chris the Cuckoo flies 60,000 miles
• Cuckoos flying back from Africa to Britain
• Some respite for the UK’s birds
• British cuckoos’ Sahara spring migration

Cartoon on Bush´s spying on the US peace movement

Another cartoon by Mikhaela from the USA, on George W. Bush´s domestic spying on the movement against the Iraq war.

See also here.

Poor people, debts, and the credit card industry in the USA. New cartoon

Poor people, debts, and the credit card industry in the USA, are the subject of this new cartoon by Mikhaela.

The rich richer than ever in the USA: here; and here.

And in Britain: here.

Rich countries, poor countries, and design: here.

Raccoon webcam

This is a video of a raccoon stealing a floormat.

There is a raccoon webcam in the zoo in Gelsenkirchen in Germany.

UPDATE February 2008: that webcam page is not working any more.

US NWF raccoon Ranger Rick: here.

September 2012. Furry, agile, intelligent and voracious: the raccoon is far from being a cuddly toy, which is what many people like to think when they buy one as a pet. According to a study, its expansion across Spain and other parts of Europe is spreading infectious and parasitic diseases like rabies, putting the health of native species and people at risk: here.

Related articles

• Raccoon Trivia
• Emerging virus in raccoons may provide cancer clues
• Watch: Raccoon fit for the circus
• Raccoon roundup in Madrid region turns ruthless
• Urban guerrillas > Raccoons stalk Reno and Sparks at night.

Australia: cave dwelling animals hinder Rio Tinto mining profits

Reuters reports:

SYDNEY – A blind spider-like animal has stopped development of a multi-billion-dollar iron ore mine in Australia after an environmental body rejected the project for fear the tiny cave-dweller would become extinct.

Western Australia’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) rejected the proposal by Robe River, a unit of mining giant Rio Tinto, to develop the iron ore mine near Pannawonica in the Pilbara region after the company unearthed troglobites, which measure just 4 millimeters (0.16 in) in length.

A troglobite is an animal that lives entirely in the dark parts of caves. It has adapted to life in total darkness and may have no eyes or pigmentation, using feelers to explore its way through the dark.

Troglobites are unable to live outside their pitch-dark world because they would die from ultraviolet light. Even short exposures to sunlight can be fatal.

“Extensive research and sampling conducted by the proponent has identified a number of new species of troglobitic fauna,” EPA chairman Wally Cox said on Thursday.

An EPA report into the project found 11 species of troglobites in the area and said mining would extinguish at least five of them.

The EPA judged that a proposed mining exclusion zone at the site would be inadequate to protect the tiny animal or aboriginal heritage in the area.

Madagascar threatened by Rio Tinto mining: here.

Fossil human ancestors of South Africa

This video is called Australopithecus Afarensis.

Today, there was a visit to the natural history museum by a delegation from the Transvaal Museum in South Africa, for contacts especially on palaeontology.

The delegation included computer database specialist Klaas Manamela, working at the museum since 1997.

And director and palaeontologist Dr Francis Thackeray, who lectured (in English, after introductory sentences in Afrikaans) on ‘Mrs Ples and our distant relatives on the African continent’.

Mrs Ples is the nickname of an ancient hominid fossil, discovered in 1947 in Sterkfontein in the Transvaal region of South Africa.

Both parts of the nickname are outdated now, as the fossil was nicknamed Mrs because it was first thought to be female, and now it is thought to be male.

And ‘Ples’ stood for Plesianthropus, the original scientific name; while the fossil is now considered to belong to the species Australopithecus africanus.

In 1871, in a book called “The Descent of Man“, Charles Darwin had suggested “our early progenitors lived on the African continent”.

He thought so, as the closest relatives of humans, chimpanzees and gorillas, lived in Africa.

In the twentieth century, Darwin would be proved correct by discoveries in South Africa, later also in other countries like Kenya.

The Mrs Ples skull was discovered after explosions by gold mining dynamite, which had damaged it.

It had a volume of about 485 cc, not really bigger than a chimpanzee.

Until 1994, there was Apartheid rule in South Africa.

That meant less international scientific contacts.

Also, it was illegal to teach evolution in schools, because of creationist Christian influence on the government.

In 1994, a poll found out only about 5% of South Africans knew about ancient hominid fossils like Mrs Ples.

The museum wrote to the new President, Nelson Mandela, and the situation improved.

There used to be palaeontology only at two museums in South Africa, Transvaal Museum and in Cape Town.

Now, there are more museums, including at Sterkfontein.

That an Australopithecus skeleton, found in August 1947, and the Mrs Ples skull, found in April 1947, closely together at Sterkfontein, are part of one body, was only discovered in 2002.

Previously, it had been thought the skull was adult, while the body was subadult.

However, later research proved the skull was also subadult.

This fossil is more complete than “Lucy”, of the related, older species Australopithecus afarensis.

Sterkfontein, and places close to it like Kromdraai and Swartkrans, are rich in fossils, including of hominids.

A find from the 1990s is Little Foot from Sterkfontein, which according to Dr Thackeray might be an Australopithecus afarensis.

In Kromdraai, remains were found of Australopithecus robustus, and of Homo habilis.

Also of wildebeest, hartebeest, zebra, and predators like the sabre toothed cat Dinofelis.

Hominid stone tools of the Olduwan type were found there, maybe for scavenging dead antelope.

In Swartkrans, remains were found of Australopithecus robustus, and of Homo ergaster.

At other places, one can also find fossils of the extinct baboon Parapapio.

And many fossil rodents, often with more now extinct species, like the mole rat Bathyergus hendeyi from Langebaanweg, as the places get older.

I asked a question on recent discoveries on Homo rudolfensis being more ape like than thought previously.

Dr Thackeray replied that Homo rudolfensis was complex, an example of how individuals are often difficult to pigeonhole into separate species.

See also here.

Olduvai gorge in Tanzania: here.

Tool-wielding chimps provide a glimpse of early human behavior: here.

Hominids and running: here.

Charles Darwin’s The Descent of Man: here.

Over 1,500 comments on this blog. Picasso

This video is called Guernica Iraq.

“”Guernica” was painted by Picasso in 1937. It depicts the senseless massacre by the Nazi Luftwaffe in the Basque city of Guernica, Spain. The attack was ordered at the behest of fascist Spanish General, Francisco Franco, during the Spanish Civil War. Guernica was a non-military target, the innocent people of the town were attacked in an attempt to psychologically break the will of those who opposed Franco’s fascistic nationalist pursuit.

Picasso captured an intense scene reflecting the deeply unjust suffering, agony and despair experienced by the people of Guernica. And in doing so he produced one of the most iconic, powerful and affecting pieces of anti-war artwork ever put to canvas. It is little surprise then that a reproduction of the painting, which hangs outside the entrance to the UN Security Council, was covered while Colin Powell was attempting to sell the Iraq War to the world.

The people of Iraq are suffering what amounts to the similar unjust brutality inflicted on the people of Guernica, except it’s practically on a daily basis. A more accurate comparison would be to imagine having the London Tube and Bus bombings everyday. And have them happen so often that they become a predictable daily occurrence and part of life.”

Recently, there was comment #1,500 on this blog since it started on Blogsome.

It was a question on Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, to which I have replied here.

Rare black-throated thrush in England

This is a Black-throated thrush video from Sweden.

From BigNews Network:

Rare India-destined bird found on Yorkshire coast

IANS Thursday 29th March, 2007

A rare bird that started life in Siberia and which should now be in India was instead the centre of attention on the Yorkshire coast this week among ornithologists and others.

Reports from Yorkshire say that the black-throated thrush had the twitchers all aflutter when it was discovered in a paddock off Hoddy Cows Lane, Buckton, near Flamborough Head, which is one of the most famous sites for the appearance of rare birds. …

Black-throated thrushes – whose scientific name is turdus ruficollis atrogularis – nest in central and northern regions of Russia’s Ural Mountains and across south-west Siberia.

They spend their winters in the Himalayan foothills of northern India.

It is thought this bird flew to Britain last autumn with flocks of other birds, including redwings and fieldfares, which regularly cross the North Sea in large numbers to escape the cold winters of Scandinavia and Russia.

Fieldfare photos: here.

USA, Pat Tillman’s family against Pentagon whitewash of ‘friendly fire’ death in Afghanistan

This 2016 video from the USA says about itself:

Psychic War Healing, Afghanistan Lies & Pat Tillman Truth with Torrey Grossman

Afghanistan and Iraq war lies are explored with fmr. ranger turned whistleblower Sgt. Torrey Grossman–who exposes the culture and economy of war and violence as the misguided killing machine it is. Pat Tillman’s death and rumors of assassination + the orchestrated code of silence around Tillman, and the struggle to unplug from the military matrix is explored. 9/11, the march to war, sectarian and local violence the US military upheld, and the struggle to transcend the spiritual damage of war is explored. Sharing personal psychic insights experienced during war, and his time spent with Seal Team Six–Grossman speaks freely in this uncensored Buzzsaw interview, hosted by Sean Stone.

By Tom Carter:

Pat Tillman’s family speaks out against latest whitewash of “friendly fire” killing in Afghanistan

“Human beings continue to be sacrificed on the altar of a dual military occupation”

29 March 2007

The family of Patrick Tillman, a victim of “friendly fire” in the war in Afghanistan, spoke out strongly against the US military’s latest efforts to gloss over as “missteps” what they described as “criminal negligence, professional misconduct, battlefield incompetence, concealment and destruction of evidence, deliberate deception, and conspiracy to deceive” in his death.

In a statement to the press on March 26, the family of the slain football star and US Army Ranger condemned the findings released on Monday of an 18-month probe conducted by the Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General into Pat Tillman’s April 2004 death.

Characterizing the findings of the military’s fifth investigation into the matter, the family said, “The truth is not what we received today. Once again, we are being used as props in a Pentagon public relations exercise.”

“We remain convinced,” they continued, “that the priority of the Pentagon was to prevent the public knowing that Pat was killed by the military’s highest priority shock infantry unit, and that he was killed by a combination of shoddy leadership and clear violations of the Rules of Engagement, as well as violations of the Law of Land Warfare.”

The family appealed to Congress to investigate Tillman’s case, as well as the cases of other soldiers killed by fratricide in Iraq [see also here] and Afghanistan.

“These cases will further establish a pattern—now well-known by the American public—of spin and deception by the Pentagon and the administration it serves,” Tillman’s family argued.

US soldiers against Iraq war: here.

Free speech in Afghanistan? Here.

New Mark Fiore animation on George W. Bush

This video from the USA is called Bush: Iraq War Helped the Economy.

There is a new Mark Fiore animation on the Internet; called Gone fishin’.

Its subject is George W. Bush and his political isolation, even from a growing number of politicians of his own Republican Party and conservative pundits, on his firings of attorneys and other subjects.

Bush administration’s untrue statements on the Iraq war: here.