Arkansas, USA woman jailed for $29 debt

Posted on August 30, 2016 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

Arkansas Mom Spends A Month In Prison Over $29 In Debt

30 August 2016

Read more here.

Homophobic American preacher arrested for child pornography

Posted on May 14, 2016 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

Anti-Gay Pastor Arrested For Child Porn

13 May 2016

An anti-gay pastor in Arkansas is in a lot of trouble. He has been arrested on 70 counts of child porn. Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Katie Halper, and Jimmy Dore, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

“Meet Dave Reynolds. He’s the recently fired pastor of the Cornerstone Bible Fellowship in Sherwood, Arkansas currently facing 70 counts of distributing, possessing or viewing child pornography.

He’s also vehemently antigay.

The 40-year-old pastor, who has preached that marriage is between a man and a woman and that all homosexual activity is a sin, was arrested this week after police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a social media account in Sherwood was storing pages and pages (and pages and pages) of images of kiddy porn.

The account allegedly belonged to Reynolds.

In March, Reynolds informed elders at Cornerstone Bible Fellowship that he was under investigation for child porn possession. When they asked if he had engaged in viewing the material, Reynolds told them he had “not knowingly done so.”

Read more here.

Blue-gray gnatcatcher nesting in Arkansas, USA

Posted on February 22, 2016 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

27 January 2016

A Blue-gray Gnatcatcher tends its nest in Arkansas. Both sexes cooperate in building the neat, open, cuplike nest, which takes up to two weeks to build. The nest is 2–3-inch wide and is held together and attached to a branch with spider webbing and decorated with lichen.

The nest’s high walls are built in flexible layers. The main structural layer is built of fibrous materials like plant stems, bark strips, and grasses, all held together by spiderweb or caterpillar silk. Inner layers become progressively finer, and the roughly 1.5-inch-wide cup is lined with plant down, paper, cocoons, hair, or feathers. The outside is covered with webbing or silk decorated with bits of lichen or bark flakes.

Pileated woodpecker feeds nestlings, video

Posted on February 17, 2016 by petrel41

This video from the USA says about itself:

27 January 2016

A Pileated Woodpecker feeds his two nestlings. These large, striking woodpeckers live in mature deciduous or mixed deciduous-coniferous woodlands. Nest cavities may take 3-6 weeks to construct and most of the excavation is done by the male. Cavity depth can range from 10-24 inches.

Video recorded by Timothy Barksdale in Arkansas.

Bird conservation news

Posted on November 2, 2014 by petrel41

This video from Arkansas in the USA is called Importance of Bird Conservation.

From daily The Guardian in Britain:

Common bird species such as sparrow and skylark facing decline in Europe

Some rarer birds have grown in number over last 30 years due to conservation efforts while some well known species have fallen

Azeen Ghorayshi

Sunday 2 November 2014 16.08 GMT

Bird populations across Europe have decreased by over 420 million in the past 30 years, according to a study that brings together the results of scientific surveys in 25 countries. While some rarer species have seen an increase in numbers due to concerted conservation efforts, more common species across Europe are facing a steep decline.

Some of the birds that have suffered the most alarming declines are the most well known species including the house sparrow which has fallen in number by 147m or 62%, the starling (53%) and skylark (46%).

The study looked at 144 species across Europe between 1980 and 2009. Dividing the species up into four groups, from extremely rare to most common, analysts found that a small number of common species declined by over 350 million –over 80% of the total population decline of birds in that time period overall. Rarer birds, in contrast, increased by over 21,000 in the same time period.

The results indicate that efforts at conserving rarer species seem to be having an impact but may be too narrow an approach, possibly at the expense of more common species.

“The focus up to this point has very much been on conserving rare species,” says the lead author, Richard Inger, from the University of Exeter. “That’s what it should be, in many ways, but the issue there is that if you’re not careful, you can spend all of your conservation dollars on just protecting the rare things. You can take your eye off the ball, if you will.”

Birds which increased over the course of the study include the blackcap (up 114%), common chiffchaff (up 76%) and wren (56%).

ExxonMobil oil kills Arkansas birds

Posted on April 3, 2013 by petrel41

An 'oiled' duck recovered near the Bell Slough State Wildlife Management Area in Mayflower, Ark., is rescued Monday, April 1, 2013 and prepared to be taken to HAWK Center, a wildlife rehabilitation group trying to save birds after a pipeline ruptured and dumped several thousands of barrels of oil Friday (AP Photo/Log Cabin Democrat, Courtney Spradlin)

From Associated Press:

Ducks Near Arkansas Oil Spill Found Dead After ExxonMobil Pipeline Rupture (PHOTO)

By JEANNIE NUSS

Posted: 04/01/2013 5:52 pm EDT | Updated: 04/02/2013 10:40 am EDT

MAYFLOWER, Ark. (AP) — The environmental impacts of an oil spill in central Arkansas began to come into focus Monday as officials said a couple of dead ducks and 10 live oily birds were found after an ExxonMobil Corp. pipeline ruptured last week.

“I’m an animal lover, a wildlife lover, as probably most of the people here are,” Faulkner County Judge Allen Dodson told reporters. “We don’t like to see that. No one does.”

Officials are urging people in Mayflower, a small city about 20 miles northwest of Little Rock, not to touch any injured or oiled animals as crews clean up Friday’s spill.

About 12,000 barrels of oil and water have been recovered since ExxonMobil’s Pegasus pipeline sprung a leak, spewing oil onto lawns and roadways and nearly fouling a nearby lake.

Dodson said he expects a few more oily birds to turn up in the coming days. …

Still, the air smells like oil, and area residents say it has for days.

“We live five miles out in the country and we’ve had the smell out there,” Karen Lewis, 54, said outside a local grocery store. Its parking lot, like much of this small city, is teeming with cleanup crews and their trucks.

Meanwhile, in the neighborhood where the pipeline burst, workers in yellow suits waded in an oil-soaked lawn Monday as they tried to clean up part of the area where the spill began.

The pipeline that ruptured dates back to the 1940s, according to ExxonMobil, and is part of the Pegasus pipeline that carries crude oil from the Midwest to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.

Exxon spokesman Charlie Engelmann said the oil is conventionally produced Canadian heavy crude.

“Crude oil is crude oil,” Dodson said. “None of it is real good to touch.”