Euro Birdwatch 2010

This is a video from the film Travelling Birds.

The Dutch ornithology organization BirdLife in the Netherlands reports about Euro Birdwatch 2010 in the Netherlands.

Among the rare species counted today were 18 Lapland buntings, 13 red kites, 1 Cetti’s warbler, 1 cuckoo. Also, in the interior, 28 dunlin, a species normally only seen along the coast.

The top ten of species during the migration of this day:

1. Starling 50.196
2. Lapwing 33.353
3. Song thrush 18.982
4. Black-headed gull 17.582
5. Chaffinch 15.504
6. Meadow pipit 9.989
7. Barn swallow 6.471
8. Gray lag goose 5.968
9. Golden plover 4.383
10. Wood pigeon 3.689

A more complete report for the Netherlands on 2 October 2011 is here.

December 2010: Ninety nine per cent of West Country farms are now home to [barn] swallows. That’s the finding of this year’s RSPB run Volunteer & Farmer Alliance (V&FA), a unique survey that twins keen birdwatchers with landowners to find out more about birds on the region’s farms: here.

Black kites are a raptor variety that lives on multiple continents, and like several other varieties of bird (including the crafty bowerbirds), they’re avid decorators. For whatever reason, these black kites are terribly fond of white plastic, and the birds use these bits of our refuse to decorate their nests. Scientists who studied these birds in Spain report in Science this week that there is a meaning—and a strict honesty—to the decoration scheme: here.