Altho the following is a link to UK information, it will give you a look at some of the birds that turn up in our Wicklow garden during the winter feeding time... and some sad declines, I'm afraid. The ones we wait for especially are the Blackcap and the Long-tailed Tit. The latter looks like a tiny Christmas-tree ornament. They travel in talkative little flocks and are a delight to watch. The Blackcaps love apples...

http://www.bto.org/home/gbfs.htm

OY! DONNA!

What about that Wagtail sp.??

Another good one, Carol P. Keep 'em coming!

   Well I care Bobbie. Maybe when you come to town you can sing a few bars!   bguitar

You will be pleased to hear that there are no "bars" - just a constant crex-crex... crex-crex... and on and on and on and...

What a cool name "Corncrake".

Farmers are integral to the survival of the corncrake. The department pays them not to cut their grass until the end of its nesting season. “It is working,� says Gordon. “That is what has kept us in it the last 15 years; that is why they haven’t disappeared completely.� Farmers receive €100 per acre not to cut their grass until August 1st and €150 per acre not to cut it until September 1st; they also receive €20 per acre to cut their grass from the centre of a field outwards rather than starting at the edge and working inwards

Hope this helps!

Thanks Bobbie

Maybe the Irish Times piece elaborates on this cutting from the inside-out... but anyway... it was discovered that by cutting from the inside, the corncrakes and their chicks would move to the outer edges of the fields and thus escape the machines. Cutting from the outside meant that they all congregated in the centre of the field. In the days when scythes were used, there was little problem. Modern machinery and earlier cuttings contributed to the corncrake's downturn.

(Sidebar: If anyone cares, I do a passable imitation of the male's crex-crex call...)

This makes such sad reading... but... at last it is getting the international coverage it deserves. I think I have read (I am always saying that...) that Malta has, and is, experiencing a downturn in tourist numbers specifically because of this. Hit 'em in the pocket... that usually works. What I should do - and I will - is see if I can find a site/address for posting letters of complaint to Maltese officials. A worldwide outcry is needed.

Donna, thanks for keeping this on the agenda.

The cost of keeping tigers alive in the wild is about $80m (£50m) per year, say conservationists - but only about $50m (£30m) per year is being pledged. The figures come from a new assessment that suggests targeting efforts in 42 selected breeding sites.

Building tiger populations in these sites would enable other areas to be re-populated later, the researchers report in the journal PLoS Biology.

About 3,500 tigers remain in the wild, with only about 1,000 breeding females.

Although conservation programmes are operating in some countries, notably India, the tiger has virtually disappeared from vast tracts of Asia where it used to live...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11304611

[For many Irish people the call of the corncrake meant the arrival of summer, but the bird has almost disappeared from the island. There’s a battle to prevent the decline, but it could go either way, writes GORDON DEEGAN]

One of Ireland's rarest birds is the Corncrake. Once common, it is now found in only a few places, mostly the western seaboard. With almost a mythic status, it looks for all the world like a little brown chicken (it is classed with Crakes and Rails). When it flies, it looks like a wind-up toy - and how it migrates on those tiny wings is an amazement. Here's a piece about its conservation from "The Irish Times", along with another link to pix/species info from BirdWatch Ireland.


For many Irish people the call of the corncrake meant the arrival of summer, but the bird has almost disappeared from the island. There’s a battle to prevent the decline, but it could go either way, writes GORDON DEEGAN 


AT 12.20AM on a summer night on a dirt track overlooking Blacksod Bay, on the Erris Peninsula in northwest Mayo, two men stand silently, rotating 360 degrees with their hands cupped behind their ears. The first goes clockwise, the second anticlockwise. One of the men, Tim Gordon, a contractor with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, comes to a sudden stop and quietly tells his companion, Denis Strong: “I can hear five, maybe six of them.� Welcome to the front line in the battle to save the corncrake from national extinction.

The corncrakes they can hear make up almost 5 per cent of the country’s entire population of calling males, and Gordon admits in the darkness that the future of the bird in Ireland “is on a knife edge�. Known to locals as the Corncrake Man, he is one of a small number of field workers that the State has employed this year to carrying out a census of the bird as part of a new €200,000 corncrake conservation programme...

Irish Times link:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/0911/1224278603689.html

Photo link:
http://www.birdwatchireland.ie/Default.aspx?tabid=311

White Wagtail Motacilla alba - polyphyletic or paraphyletic
Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba yarrellii
Black-backed Wagtail Motacilla (alba) lugens
Japanese Wagtail Motacilla grandis
White-browed Wagtail Motacilla maderaspatensis
Mekong Wagtail Motacilla samveasnae
African Pied Wagtail Motacilla aguimp
Citrine Wagtail Motacilla citreola - possibly paraphyletic
Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava
Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava flava - paraphyletic
Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
Cape Wagtail Motacilla capensis
Madagascar Wagtail Motacilla flaviventris
Mountain Wagtail Motacilla clara
The Mekong Wagtail was described as new to science only in 2001.

YUP! 

YUP what?!?!

[Species in taxonomic order]

Not Grey? Not Pied? Not Yellow?

That leaves us with White or Citrine? Which I would not know if they... you know... (ask Donna!)

OK, Smart Girl! You asked for this!

Species in taxonomic order

White Wagtail Motacilla alba - polyphyletic or paraphyletic
Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba yarrellii
Black-backed Wagtail Motacilla (alba) lugens
Japanese Wagtail Motacilla grandis
White-browed Wagtail Motacilla maderaspatensis
Mekong Wagtail Motacilla samveasnae
African Pied Wagtail Motacilla aguimp
Citrine Wagtail Motacilla citreola - possibly paraphyletic
Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava
Yellow Wagtail Motacilla flava flava - paraphyletic
Grey Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
Cape Wagtail Motacilla capensis
Madagascar Wagtail Motacilla flaviventris
Mountain Wagtail Motacilla clara
The Mekong Wagtail was described as new to science only in 2001.

Who knew?!!   

This wonderful waterway almost always "gives" me a Belted Kingfisher. What other treasures are hidden along its banks? I have often taken visitors on one of the boats that leave from the likes of Fairport, and they love the adventure. Use 'em or lose 'em, my friends! (I still find it impossible to imagine that the canal was dug by hand.)

Not Grey? Not Pied? Not Yellow?

That leaves us with White or Citrine? Which I would not know if they... you know... (ask Donna!)

WHAT ARE YOU LIKE????

Not Grey? Not Pied? Not Yellow?

That leaves us with White or Citrine? Which I would not know if they... you know... (ask Donna!)

Althooooo... do some of these babies have sub-races???

Not Grey? Not Pied? Not Yellow?

That leaves us with White or Citrine? Which I would not know if they... you know... (ask Donna!)

EEEEEEEE-uuuuuuuu to the 3 feet! Great big ICK!