Wow!

Bird Thought to Be Extinct for 150 Years Is Rediscovered

By Alisa Opar
09/26/2011

Storm petrels are nicknamed “Jesus birds” for their habit of seemingly walking on water. Now, the New Zealand storm petrel shares another trait with the biblical figure: It has risen from the dead. Thought to be extinct for 150 years, new evidence proves that the bird is alive.

Researchers compared DNA from birds caught in New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf to tissue fragments of the "extinct" species housed in British and French museums. The samples from the 150-year-old skins matched blood samples from living birds.

"We found they were one and the same, and these birds are a distinct species of storm-petrel [Oceanites maorianus]," says Bruce Robertson, a University of Otago zoology lecturer who published the findings in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution with co-authors Brent Stephenson of Eco-Vista and Sharyn Goldstien of Canterbury University.

“Since 2003, researchers had largely accepted that the bird was the NZ storm-petrel, but until we had taxonomic certainty, the conservation effort to protect the bird was paralysed,” says Robertson. “There was always going to be this controversy because no one knew exactly what the museum skins were.”

The black-and-white petrel was rediscovered by birdwatchers Ian Saville and Brent Stephenson, near the Mercury Islands in the Hauraki Gulf in 2003.

"It was a complete fluke," Saville told Auckland Now. "We'd seen heaps and heaps of the common storm petrels, the white-faced storm petrels, and then I just saw this little black and white thing. It raced toward the boat, did a quick circle, raced off again and that was it."

Since then, observers have seen the birds in flocks of up to 30 individuals in the gulf from October to April. Yet the birds remain largely a mystery. Their breeding grounds remain unknown, despite failed efforts to follow them to their nests using radio telemetry. And it’s thought that the birds are merely summer-breeding visitors to the Hauraki Gulf, migrating elsewhere for the rest of the year, though no one knows where they go.

“Hopefully now the NZ Storm-Petrel will be given a conservation priority that would be given to a nationally endangered species,” says Robertson. “This will help us to fund further study of the bird, such as where it breeds.”

Finding the breeding grounds would not only help to determine the population size, it would also enable conservationists to protect the site and the elusive birds.

For more on the New Zealand storm petrel, visit birdlife.org.

Grey Sky. Black Birds.

This hurts my heart...

Birds Are Changing Their Tune

Because of noise pollution, some birds are forced to sing at higher frequencies making them less attractive. Read more HERE.

Baby birds!

A link to an amazing gallery of pictures of baby birds.

ALERT! SAVE OAKVILLE'S NATURAL HERITAGE SYSTEM

Special thanks to Diane B. for sending this my way. PLEASE READ!!

ALERT! ALERT! ..... SAVE OAKVILLE'S NATURAL HERITAGE SYSTEM

The first public meeting for the Town of Oakville Transportation Master Plan Review will be held at Oakville Town Hall on September 14, 2011 at 6.30 pm. Please attend this meeting and tell our Town Council and Mayor Burton to CHANGE this plan as it is the first step to the destruction of our Natural Heritage System.

This transportation plan reveals the massive infrastructure maze of new roads, bridges, sewers, and huge expressway (before 2031) that will be imposed upon Oakville's Natural Heritage System. Large parts of the eco-passages, linkages, buffer zones and core areas of forest and wet lands including critical habitat of endangered , rare and threatened species, is being given over to become road allowance. Where roads are placed, nature dies and development follows! Clear cutting more roads and bridges through Lion Valley Park, The majestic forests and valley lands of the North l6 Mile Creek and the Glenorchy Conservation Area must be stopped.

The Natural Heritage System, including The Glenorchy Conservation Area was promised to the people of Oakville as a refuge for nature, to save the fragile biodiversity of Oakville's remaining nature lands.

Only about 30% of the traffic on these new roads will originate in Oakville. The rest is being built with lots of your tax dollars for cross GTA/Regional traffic diversion, directly through our nature land reserve.

Please write to Regional Chair Gary Carr gary.carr@halton.ca. Mayor Burton Mayor@Oakville your Councillors and our MPP Kevin Flynn KFlynn.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org (who fought hard to help us reserve these lands ) and tell them we need our forests and our song birds.

Oakville does not need a third bridge and road corridor dissecting the majestic forests only 500 meters north of the latest new bridge addition at l6 Mile Creek at Dundas. We don't need an expressway clear cut through Glenorchy at Fourth Line through the l6 Mile Creek. Bull dozers must not gouge through our valley forests and destroy the habitat of our most fragile species and this sanctuary for our remaining wildlife! The l6 Mile Creek Valley (ANSI) and Glenorchy Conservation Area is the heart of the NHS and must not be the place for road development.

Please write to all your political representatives. Please view www.oakvillegreen.org click issues and contact President(at)oakvillegreen.org and http://fog-friendsofglenorchy.blogspot.com/ and onwingedthoughts.blogspot.com wingedthoughts with a note of support.

Please help save Oakville`s Natural Heritage System once again.

Diane Burton Dianeburton(at)eol.ca
Friends of Glenorchy: Director Oakvillegreen

Someone's getting his big boy feathers!

Our first Grosbeak in quite a few days!

Someone's getting his big boy feathers!

Our first Grosbeak in quite a few days!