Woodland birds

I know the answer to the question in the headline, but almost no one will believe me. The drastic decline in the quail (Coturnix coturnix) population throughout the South has been a passionate concern of mine for many years. The tragic and drastic decline in quail and other field-bird populations is the result of the massive and widespread spraying of herbicides by agriculture and forestry industries. I am as sure of this as I am that night follows day. There is a curious and almost hostile resistance to this assertion. I have written many letters to various groups and agencies that assume an authoritative role in such problems, but my efforts are always met with an almost hostile indifference. More specifically, I believe that Quail Unlimited and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Deptartment are more a part of the problem than the solution. To my knowledge, they have no experimental data to support their position that herbicides have no significant effect on field-bird populations. I have suggested that Quail Unlimited spray their Quail Demonstration Project acreages with herbicide and see what happens, but they declined.

Fifteen bird species in India remain critically endangered and three bird species that were in the 'least concern' category, so far, face greater danger than before, as per the recently-released International Union of Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) red list. The avian species that fall under the critically endangered category include migratory and non-migratory birds found in wetlands, grasslands, forests as well as scavengers. "The Himalayan Quail and Pink-headed Duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllacea) are practically extinct although they are listed as critically endangered," said Atul Sathe, manager-communications of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). In the latest list, two birds - the River Lapwing (Vanellus duvaucelii) and River Tern - that were listed as species of least concern have been registered as near threatened. A third bird, the long-tailed duck, which has been sighted in India on a few occasions, has moved from 'least concern' to 'vulnerable' on the red list, Sathe added.

Rusty blackbirds (Euphagus carolinus) nest in the far, far north, all the way to the tree line. They build large nests in trees alongside beaver ponds, muskeg swamps, and other watery habitats. In the winter, the birds flock in bottomland wetland forests in the southeast, sometimes mingling with larger flocks of grackles and red-winged blackbirds, but sometimes keeping to themselves. Unfortunately, this species appears to be in free-fall. The available data show a 90% decline since the 1960s. The cause of these plummeting numbers is not fully understood. Changes in the availability of forests on either the summer or winter grounds could be part of the explanation. Northern forests are being increasingly logged and disturbed, and climate change is drying them out and causing more frequent fire. Acid rain and mercury are also significant problems in the north. Here in the south, hardwood forests are cleared for agriculture, housing, and pine plantations. But neither of these habitat trends seems severe enough to account for the decline. Some as yet unknown form of contamination or disease might be involved. Or the decline might be rooted in the supply of the rusty blackbirds’ favorite foods, grasshoppers and other insects.

The Mauritian dodo is the iconic emblem for both island conservation and extinction, sadly one of the birds lost from the Mascarene archipelago. One might often wonder how this strange bird could have originally been descended from a pigeon, but in Samoa we find the tooth-billed pigeon (Didunculus strigirostris), otherwise known as the little dodo, or locally the Manumea. This strange pigeon is the only member of its Genus (a measure of evolutionary uniqueness), and is also the national bird of Samoa. Sadly, like the dodo, this species is on the fast-track to extinction. Mean numbers have crashed from thousands in the 1980s to only rare sightings today. Extinction of island birds is still continuing today. The fledgling Samoan Conservation Society is working with island conservation scientists from New Zealand and elsewhere to survey populations and establish a conservation programme, including captive-breeding, as part of wider work on the conservation of all Samoan birds. With backing and support the team are confident that extinction of the Manumea can be averted.

Conservationists have urged the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, to use the money newly available from the EU's common agricultural policy to step up protection measures. Since 2003, there has been a 13% decline in the population of farmland birds. In the five years to the end of 2012, the decline was 8% overall. The decline has slowed, according to the Wild Bird Indicator statistics released by the government on Thursday, and some species are in better health than they were in the 1970s when data began to be comprehensively collected. However, conservationists are concerned that the drop in numbers is continuing, with a halving of farmland bird numbers in the past 40 years. Woodland birds are down 17%.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed Endangered Species Act protection today for the yellow-billed cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus), following a 2011 agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity to speed protection decisions for 757 imperiled species nationwide. “The decline of the cuckoo across the West is a symbol of the tragic decline of our rivers,” said Noah Greenwald, the Center’s endangered species director. “With just a little more care, we can restore those rivers — not just for cuckoos and hundreds of other animals and plants, but for people too.” Once common from the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle to the mouth of the Colorado River, today it can be found in only a handful of locations: portions of the Sacramento and Kern Rivers in California, the Colorado, Verde and San Pedro rivers in Arizona, the Gila and Rio Grande rivers in New Mexico and scattered locations in Colorado, Nevada and Utah. “The petition to protect yellow-billed cuckoos was the first I ever worked on, back in 1998,” said Greenwald. “I had no idea then that getting protection for this severely imperiled songbird would take 15 years, but I’m glad it finally has a great chance of recovering.”

The plain-pouched hornbill, or Aceros Subruficollis, is one of dozens of species in the hornbill family. Hornbills are typically found in various tropical and subtropical forests in Africa and Asia, but they are an icon for this Southeast Asian nation of 29 million people. The plain-pouched hornbill, which is similar in size to a medium-sized eagle, plays a key role in the ecosystem by dispersing the seeds of various forest fruits. Their decline in the Belum-Temengor forest reserve is similar to their steep falloff in Myanmar. The bird was relatively common and abundant in Myanmar, but there have been no recent recorded sightings, and it appears to have undergone a rapid decline in at least one area in the country. The Malaysian Nature Society has been monitoring seasonal migration movements since 2004, logging a maximum count of 3,261 plain-pouched hornbills in Belum-Temengor. Subsequent counts have been much lower, numbering fewer than 1,000 birds.

The manumea bird (Didunculus strigirostris), which is endemic to Samoa and its national bird, is feared near extinction after a 10-day survey of the Savai’i uplands by a group of scientists resulted in just one sighting. An ornithologist, Rebecca Stirnemann, says she was hoping the manumea, a close relative of the dodo, would be abundant there - with the largely untouched cloud forest acting as a last refuge for the endangered species. But she says the manumea population is much smaller than what was anticipated. She says because of a lack of research as to what could be causing the population’s rapid decline, it is hard to know what can be done. “The manumea, we still know very little about. In fact we don’t even know if the nests are on the ground or high up a tree. So we have no biological information on their breeding, which makes it quite difficult to say well what’s eating it, why are we not seeing any chicks, why are numbers declining? Is it because there’s no food, there’s been a lot of habitat loss, but then it could be invasive species.” Rebecca Stirnemann says they are now doing a survey to find out how many manumea are left in Samoa by targeting areas where local people have reported seeing them.

Just two pairs attempted to nest this year in England, but both failed. At one of these sites the RSPB was working with the landowner to ensure the nest was protected. Sadly, the eggs never hatched. No new hen harriers this season means that the hen harrier (Circus cyaneus) is one the brink of extinction in England. The news of the nest failure follows the publication in May of the State of Nature report which showed that 60 per cent of those wildlife species which are monitored are declining across the UK. In 2011, the Government published ‘Biodiversity 2020’ (the revised England Biodiversity Strategy). In this strategy the Government made a clear commitment that there should be no extinction of an English wild species at the hands of man. This mirrors an international commitment under the Convention of Biological Diversity. Martin Harper, the RSPB’s conservation director, added: “With no birds nesting successfully this year, the hen harrier is clearly on the brink of extinction in England. We are eager to hear proposals from DEFRA about how the hen harrier can be restored to its rightful place on the English uplands.”