This is a shelduck video.
Today, again to the nature reserve.
A white stork sitting on the nest all the time; probably on eggs.
In a tree opposite the reserve, a ring-necked parakeet.
A buzzard flying between the forest trees.
Great spotted woodpecker and green woodpecker sounds.
In the meadow: six shelducks, oystercatchers, northern lapwings, black-tailed godwits, Egyptian geese, grey lagged geese. And a hare.
Moorhens and great crested grebes in the castle pond.
This video from the USA is called ExxonMobil and the Iraq War.
By Joe Kay:
As gas prices and oil profits soar, Bush promotes giveaways to corporations
30 April 2008
US President George W. Bush used a White House press conference Tuesday to trot out his familiar litany of right-wing proposals, ostensibly intended to address rising gas prices and the growing economic crisis facing millions of Americans.
The proposals are all designed in one way or another to increase the power of the oil companies, even as these conglomerates have begun posting record profits for the first quarter of 2008. Bush proposed opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling, increasing incentives to companies for refinery construction, and blocking new regulations and emissions targets for domestic energy producers.
Bush sidestepped questions on his administration’s position on a limited proposal, advanced by Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate John McCain, for a summer moratorium on the federal gas tax.
See also here.
The Iraq Oil Bonanza: Estimating Future Profits: here.
This is a colossal squid video.
From AFP news agency:
Colossal squid specimen is relative minnow
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
WELLINGTON: The biggest squid ever caught – which is 10 metres long and boasts a fearsome beak and razor-sharp hooks – may be small compared to others still lurking in the depths, experts in New Zealand said today.
The colossal squid has begun a two-day thaw at The Museum of New Zealand in Wellington before it is examined in more detail on Wednesday by an international team of scientists.
It weighs 495 kg, has eyes the size of dinner plates and is estimated at up to 10 metres long.
Eyes the size of dinner plates
But that may be relatively small, scientists said after initial examination, suggesting other colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) under the chilly Antarctic waters might grow much larger.
On a museum blog following the progress of the thaw, Chris Paulin – who is projects manager at the museum, which is also known as Te Papa Tongarewa – said Tuesday that the beak of the colossal squid has been exposed as the flesh defrosts.
The size of the lower beak, used to chop prey into bite sized pieces, is around 43 to 45 mm long. However, colossal squid lower beaks previously found in the stomachs of sperm whales have been as long as 49 mm.
Extrapolating the relationship between the length of the beak and body size from another smaller specimen being examined suggests the species could grow much bigger, Paulin said.
“Can we assume that this species reaches three quarters of a tonne in weight?” he asked.
“Gelatinous blob with seriously evil arms”
One of the scientists leading the examination, Auckland University of Technology squid expert Steve O’Shea, said it was difficult to say how much bigger the monster squid could grow.
“What we know from that one measurement is that the beak of this animal from the stomachs of sperm whales are considerably larger,” O’Shea told Radio New Zealand. “We make the leap to say that the colossal squid grows considerably larger than the 495 kg one we are currently defrosting.”
O’Shea has previously described the colossal squid, which has razor-sharp swivelling hooks at the end of its tentacles, as “a nasty aggressive sort of squid… a gelatinous blob with seriously evil arms on it.”
If the new specimen was cut into squid rings, they would be size of tractor tyres, and would taste of ammonia.
The specimen was caught as it ate an Antarctic toothfish hooked on a fishing boat’s long line in Antarctic waters in February last year (See, Colossal squid dwarfs giants, Cosmos Online). After being snap frozen, it was given to the museum, which has since been deliberating over the best way to defrost, examine and display it.
Tanked up
Suggestions such as using a giant microwave to defrost it were discarded, and on Monday the squid was placed in a tank filled with cold salty water to ensure it defrosts slowly without decomposing. The squid is so large that there was a risk the outside flesh would start to rot before the inside had thawed.
Defrosting is due to finish Wednesday when scientists will learn as much as they can before the squid is preserved in formalin to go on show in a massive tank at the museum later this year.
Watch the thawing progress live via webcams on the museum’s website.
See video here.
Colossal Squid Dissection Reveals Toothfish Diet: here.
Update August 2008: here. And here.
Protect The Colossal Squid: here.
Scientists See Squid Attack Squid: here.
Discovery Animals: Giant Squid: How Do You Film One? Here.
Giant Squid Eye (in a jar!): here.
Colossal and giant squid both have eyes that can measure 27cm (11in) across – much bigger than any fish. Scientists found that huge eyes offer no advantages in the murky ocean depths other than making it easier to spot enormous shapes – such as sperm whales: here.
Nautiloids: here.
This Greenpeace video is about the discovery of a new sponge species in the Bering Sea.
From Greenpeace:
Aaptos kanuux, New Species of Sponge Discovered
April 28, 2008
It may look slimy and slightly alien, but this newly discovered species of sponge is an ambassador for undiscovered critters living in the nooks and crannies of our magnificent planet. Damaging human activities, like bottom trawling in the oceans, are decimating ecosystems and wiping out creatures before we even know they exist.
The new sponge species, Aaptos kanuux, is named for the Aleut word for “heart” and was discovered in the deep underwater canyons of the Bering Sea. It was named by Greenpeace campaigner George Pletnikoff and St. George Eco-Office Director Andrew Malavansky, to emphasize that the canyons represent the heart of the Bering Sea. The sponge was collected by Kenneth Lowyck of Greenpeace Canada with a Deep Worker submarine at a depth of 700 feet in Pribilof Canyon. This is the first record of the genus for the Bering Sea.
Greenpeace journeyed to the Bering Sea in 2007 to document previously unexplored canyon habitats in hopes of strengthening the case to protect these important areas. Half of the fourteen species of corals and two-thirds of the twenty species of sponge we collected were previously unknown to live in the Bering Sea. These findings underscore the unique nature of these canyons, as well as how little is known about the deep sea in general.
With these new discoveries and documented evidence of habitat damage due to bottom trawling in these sensitive areas, Greenpeace is pushing forward with efforts to establish marine reserves in the Bering Sea. Of the 900,000 square miles of ocean managed by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, almost none is protected from all fishing.
This is a video of a speckled wood butterfly.
Today, to the nature reserve.
The white storks are still on their nest.
The grey herons in the forest as well.
Sounds of buzzard, green woodpecker.
On the eastern meadow: five hares, northern lapwings, a shelduck.
Several butterflies, including small white.
Green-veined white. And two speckled wood, Pararge aegeria, in courtship flight.
On the castle pond: coots and great crested grebes. On the log in the water where sometimes, the turtle used to be, there a now two grey lagged geese.
This video is called The refugee crisis in Iraq.
From Dutch NOS TV:
90% of the Iraqi refugees in Syria do not want to go back. Many of them say that that would mean direct personal danger to them, others think that the general situation is not safe enough to return. There are about 2 million Iraqis in Syria.
Former Head of Iraqi Anti-Corruption Agency Now an Undocumented Immigrant: here.
This is a video from Istanbul, Turkey, about the May Day demonstration of 2007.
From Labornet in Turkey:
Turkey/Istanbul – Even the May Day posters of Freedom Solidarity Party are banned!
April 29, 2008
The posters and banners prepared by the socialist Freedom and Solidarity party were banned by the governor of Istanbul. The posters wrote, “To stop the Friend of the Rich, Enemy of the Poor (governing) JDP, All Out at May Day”
The governor has not allowed the May Day celebrations to take place in its traditional place, the Taksim Square, citing security concerns. Yet, only last night soccer hooligans were allowed to demonstrate at the same square without any government intervention. Taksim square has become the contested ground between the government and the May Day celebration organizers. In 1977, the largest ever May Day celebration at the square was attacked by a combination of US snipers and their collaborating Turkish security forces from the surrounding buildings killing more than 30 people and injuring hundreds. The ITT owned Intercontinental hotel had officially closed to allow only the US citizen snipers to take positions in the hotel prior to the massive celebration that year. Only few years prior, the owner of the Intercontinental Hotel, ITT had been involved in toppling the Allende regime in Chile to bring a brutal fascist military dictatorship. Except for the banned years after the fascist Turkish military coup, organizers have insisted and tried to celebrate the event in this most central place in Istanbul, while the government has attacked all attempts.
In a statement the President of The Freedom Solidarity Party Istanbul branch said, “Istanbul Governor Muammer Güler is not only against May Day, he is also preventing us from criticizing the government”.
The statement continued, “For years, the Taksim square is being used for many different social events from national soccer celebrations to ‘police weeks’; from new year celebrations to ‘Tulip festivals’. The square is only closed to the workers and the laborers. The governer said yesterday that there is no security at the square and Taksim is not an appropriate location for the celebrations. He indicated that if we celebrated there he will have the police attack us.”
Update: here.
This is a video of a young Amazon river dolphin.
From the Daily Telegraph in England:
Rare Bolivian river dolphin is new species
By Paul Eccleston
Last Updated: 4:01pm BST 29/04/2008
A rare river dolphin has been officially classified as a new species.
The Bolivian river dolphin has been acknowledged as a separate species to the more widely-known Amazon River dolphin.
The formal announcement was made at a conservation workshop in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia.
The Bolivian dolphin (Inia boliviensis) was immediately adopted by the Bolivian government as a symbol of the country‘s conservation efforts.
The Bolivian species is smaller and a lighter grey in colour than the other species and has more teeth. It lives only in the Bolivian Amazon and is isolated from the other Amazon River dolphins, separated by a series of 18 rapids between Bolivia and Brazil.
The boto or Amazon pink river dolphin (Inia geoffrensis) lives exclusively in the freshwater river systems of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers. The largest of all river dolphins, botos vary from grey to pink and can even change colour, becoming pinker if very active.
Unusually for a dolphin, they have flexible necks and can turn their heads from side to side, weaving between the branches of flooded forests during the wet season.
Both species are hailed as important indicator species for the health of the entire river ecosystem, but are under serious threat from pollution and fisheries.
The adoption of the new species was welcomed by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) which warned of the threats facing endangered dolphins.
See also update here.
Cold empties Bolivian rivers of fish: here.
This video is called River Dolphins of South America.
Pink Amazon dolphins bouncing back after drought: here.
This is a BBC giant anteater video.
From Conservation International:
New species discovered in Brazil
Legless lizard and tiny woodpecker among new species
Arlington, Virginia (April 29, 2008) – Researchers discovered a legless lizard and a tiny woodpecker along with 12 other suspected new species in Brazil’s Cerrado, one of the world’s 34 biodiversity conservation hotspots.
The Cerrado’s wooded grassland once covered an area half the size of Europe, but is now being converted to cropland and ranchland at twice the rate of the neighboring Amazon rainforest, resulting in the loss of native vegetation and unique species.
An expedition comprising scientists from Conservation International (CI) and Brazilian universities found 14 species believed new to science – eight fish, three reptiles, one amphibian, one mammal, and one bird – in and around the Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station, a 716,000-hectare (1,769,274-acre) protected area that is the Cerrado’s second largest.
The lizard, of the Bachia genus, resembles a snake due to its lack of legs and pointed snout, which help it move across the predominantly sandy soil formed by the natural erosion of the escarpments of the Serra Geral. Other suspected new species include a dwarf woodpecker (genus Picumnus) and horned toad (genus Proceratophrys).
“It’s very exciting to find new species and data on the richness, abundance, and distribution of wildlife in one of the most extensive, complex, and unknown regions of the Cerrado,” said CI biologist Cristiano Nogueira, the expedition leader. “Protected areas such as the Ecological Station are home to some of the last remaining healthy ecosystems in a region increasingly threatened by urban growth and mechanized agriculture.”
The team also recorded several threatened species such as the hyacinth macaw, marsh deer, three-banded armadillo (tatu-bola), the Brazilian merganser, and the dwarf tinamou among more than 440 species of vertebrates documented during the 29-day field expedition.
Comprising 21 percent of Brazil, the Cerrado is the most extensive woodland-savanna in South America. Large mammals such as the giant anteater, giant armadillo, jaguar and maned wolf struggle to survive in the fast-changing habitat also know as Brazil’s breadbasket.
Photos are here.
Translated from Belgian daily De Morgen:
A farmer in the Brazilian Amazon region who had denounced illegal logging to the authorities, has been murdered. The farmer, Emival Barbosa Machado, was hit by three bullets in front of his home in Tucurui.
This video from Sweden is called Bird migration at Falsterbo 2005.
From BirdLife:
WOW! New website helps flyway project take off…
29-04-2008
The Wings Over Wetlands (WOW) Project has launched its new website. The pages give an insight into the largest international wetland and waterbird conservation initiative ever to take place in the African-Eurasian region.
WOW is fostering international collaboration along the African-Eurasian flyways, building capacity and demonstrating best practice in the conservation and wise-use of wetlands.
“Waterbird migrations are presently underway across much of Europe, as birds head back from Africa to their northern breeding grounds. The WOW project is helping to safeguard this amazing sight for future generations to enjoy”, said Dr Leon Bennun, Director of Science, Policy and Information at BirdLife International.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 