Coast birds

The saltmarsh sparrow (Ammodramus caudacutus) is disappearing from its home on the East Coast and could be headed for extinction, say scientists whose work could help protect the little birds. The sparrows, which weigh about half an ounce, live in coastal areas from Maine to Virginia during the breeding season and migrate farther south in the winter. Researchers with a group of universities have been tracking them for several years and reported this month that eight out of every 10 of the birds has disappeared in the past 15 years.

The saltmarsh sparrow (Ammodramus caudacutus) is disappearing from its home on the East Coast and could be headed for extinction in as little as 50 years, say scientists whose work could help protect the little birds. The sparrows, which weigh about half an ounce, live in coastal areas from Maine to Virginia during the breeding season and migrate farther south in the winter. Researchers with a group of universities have been tracking them for several years and reported this week that eight out of every 10 of the birds has disappeared in the past 15 years.

A billion birds have disappeared from North America since 1970, and a third of bird species across the continent are threatened with extinction, a new report says. The first State of North America's Birds report finds that of 1,154 bird species that live in and migrate among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, 432 are of "high concern" due to low or declining populations, shrinking ranges and threats.

Seabirds are currently recognised as one of the most threatened groups of birds, but in Europe one species is particularly at risk of extinction: the Critically Endangered Balearic Shearwater (Puffinus mauretanicus). Although its migration occurs along the highly populated Atlantic coast (including Portugal, France and southern Britain), this long-lived seabird has been notoriously difficult to study, especially since its breeding grounds on the Spanish Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean are often inaccessible.

Breeding birds in the Wadden Sea do not raise enough offspring to keep the population in a healthy condition. This is the conclusion of a review published today by the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat and the Joint Monitoring Breeding Bird Group (JMBB). The report conducted an analysis of the breeding success among birds in the Wadden Sea over the years 2009–2012. It found that especially typical Wadden Sea bird species, like the oystercatcher, the avocet and the arctic tern, were hardly able to raise any young. The black-headed gull, the lesser black-backed gull, the herring gull and the common tern also showed poor breeding results at many breeding sites across the Wadden Sea. These results apply to the international Wadden Sea, in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, but correspond to previous results from a long-term monitoring project in the Dutch Wadden Sea, which also showed that low breeding success was an important driver for the decline of most breeding bird species. “The number of birds of several species in the Wadden Sea has continuously declined over the past 20 years. A report published in June 2015 revealed that 15 out of 26 breeding bird species showed a negative trend. This does not mean that adult birds have a higher mortality rate. We now know that poor breeding success is the main factor that explains the decline,” says Gerold Lüerßen of the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat (CWSS), who coordinates the Trilateral Monitoring Migratory and Breeding Bird Group.

ONE of the many pleasures of living in the Yorkshire Dales area is the arrival of Europe’s largest wader bird, the curlew. This exotic-looking visitor is one of the most recognised birds in UK, found in upland and coastal habitats. The curlew’s most distinctive feature is the long down-curving bill (the first part of its Latin name ‘Numenius Arquata’ translates as crescent moon), that it uses to probe the ground for worms and insects. Before you see your first curlew of the season, you will probably hear their distinctive bleating call that gives the bird its common name. The Yorkshire Dales and surrounding areas is home to around 4,000 breeding pairs. This accounts for about six per cent of the total 68,000 pairs breeding in the UK each summer. It came as a shock then, to discover that the curlew has recently been identified as one of the UK’s most rapidly declining breeding bird species. The British Trust for Ornithology have launched a Curlew Appeal to identify the causes of these declines.

About 100 California brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) made an unusual appearance on the old wooden dock on the south side of Alameda Point near the U.S.S. Hornet on December 23. The visit provided a rare close-up view of this colorful and iconic bird, but also a reminder of their struggle to survive as a species. Only one of the pelicans could be identified as a one- or two-year-old. During the past four years, the breeding rate for California brown pelicans has been dismal. This recent trend has been directly attributable to the dwindling supply of sardines along the California coast, according to a brown pelican status report issued in October by the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. The sardine population has dropped so low that in April of 2015, the agency responsible for managing Pacific Coast fisheries banned commercial fishing of sardines until the end of June 2016. In May, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service urged the same agency to consider additional management measures to stave off a decline in northern anchovy, another important food source for pelicans and other marine life. Brown pelicans were removed from the federal endangered species list in 2009 with great fanfare after recovering from the devastating effects of the agricultural pesticide DDT on their eggs. But they no sooner recovered from chemical contamination than they fell victim to a plunge in food supply.