birds and birding
Black-Necked Crane Designated Ladakh’s State Bird
The government of Ladakh has just declared the black-necked crane as the state bird of the union territory. The bird has important symbolic value for the Ladakhi people. According to news reports on September 1 in the Kashmir Observer and in Outlook India, the Lieutenant Governor of the Union Territory of Ladakh also declared the […]
Tristan Islanders Preserve Ocean Life
The Tristan Islanders, with the cooperation of colonial officials in the U.K., have set aside as a protected zone a vast swath of ocean waters around their islands to provide permanent protection for the unique species of birds and marine life that enrich this area of the South Atlantic Ocean. According to a thorough magazine […]
Ladakhis Cherish Cranes
The environment and conservation website Mongabay.com posted a news story last week on the threats that feral dogs are posing to the survival of black-necked cranes. The reporter, Athar Parvaiz, discusses the damage that wild dogs do to the crane eggs and the chicks in the nests, as well as to other wildlife in the […]
Batek Woman Enjoys Avian Companion
A fairly young Batek widow has found comfort from the loss of her husband by caring for a huge tropical forest bird, a wreathed hornbill. Several Malaysian newspapers, including the New Straits Times and The Star, published articles about the human/avian friendship last week. The 37-year-old Batek woman, named Umi, lost her husband a year […]
Selling Wild Geese
The manager of a store on a Saskatchewan Hutterite colony pleaded guilty recently to violating Canadian law by selling the meat from wild geese. The story was picked up by a news service in Prince Albert, a city located in the center of the province. David Tschetter admitted in a provincial court that he had […]
The Zapotec Treasure their Birds [journal article review]
The authors of a recent journal article found that what they call the “folk ornithological taxonomies” in two Zapotec mountain villages of Oaxaca demonstrate that the people in both communities are intimately familiar with their local birdlife. The three authors, G. Alcantara-Salinas, E.S. Hunn, and J. E. Rivera-Hernandez, catalog the birds they have seen and […]
Ohio Amish Birding
Birding has become a passion for many Amish people in Ohio, and not just the ones in Holmes County who are well-known (among birders) for their skills in the annual Christmas Bird Count. An article by Suzanne Fisher published early last week provided some new perspectives on their avocation. Many Amish families hire vans and […]
Kadar Involved in Hornbill Research
Research on the hornbills of the Vazhachal Forest in Kerala, reported 15 months ago, has been so successful that the program has recently been expanded, a credit to the Kadar employees who do much of the field work. According to an article in The Hindu last week, the hornbill monitoring program has been extended outside […]
Have a Peaceful Christmas Bird Count [magazine article review]
Enthusiasm for the Christmas Bird Count, a tradition among thousands of bird watchers throughout the Western Hemisphere, continues to grow among the Amish of eastern Ohio. Organized and run by the National Audubon Society, the annual ritual of counting birds by species has become a popular way to include nature in the holiday season. The […]
