$500M+ a Year Spent to Feed Birds in the US

With bone chilling temperatures forecast for the beginning of next week, birds will be looking for lots of food to keep their internal furnaces stoked. If you didn’t know, one of the ways that birds keep warm is by eating more food when the thermometer drops. If you are one of those people that are helping the birds make it through the winter with a bird feeder, then you are taking part in an increasingly popular winter activity.

If you take part in bird feeding, then you are among more than 1.5 million people in Missouri who enjoy this activity. Although birds benefit from easy access to birdseed, humans are the primary beneficiaries of the recreational activity. The opportunity to view birds at close range provides hours of entertainment just outside your home. Believe it or not, people in the United States spend more than $500 million each year to feed birds. However, to get the most for your money, you need to know what types of food birds like. If you buy the pre-packaged seed, many times you are wasting your money on many types of cereal grains such as milo, wheat and oats, all of which rate fairly low to a hungry bird. Generally, packages of birdseed mix are put together to attract people more than birds. Rather than buying mixes, you may want to spend your money more efficiently by buying bulk amounts of certain seeds.

By Jeff Berti, Trenton Republican-Times

Read more: Warmer Birds - More Food

Kingfisher Named Bird of the Year 2009

The kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) is the favorite bird of many people, who call it the “Flying Jewel.” The bird earned this nickname because of its multicolored, shiny feathers. In contrast to its rust-brown belly and white throat, the upper feathers—depending on how light falls on them—dazzle the eyes with hues of azure blue and emerald green, including a turquoise strip along the back.

From the beak to the tip of the tail, the bird measures 16 cm long. Its short legs and tail feathers make it appear a bit clumsy, but its flight is so swift that predators present no danger. Present estimates of breeding pairs range from 5,000 to 8,000 in Germany alone. In the vicinity of Hamburg, the estimated kingfisher population consists of 35–40 breeding pairs.

The kingfisher is a loner during the winter months and does not tolerate others of its kind in its territory. But this changes during breeding season when the male calls the female. This leads to negotiations with possible mates—lengthy flights of pursuit, flat across the water and high above the trees, coupled with many freshly caught fish as offerings to the female.

The pair has a month-long encounter. Most of these pairings are monogamous, but occasionally not. However, the male will take care of both his families then! This is quite a feat, considering the birds breed three times a year, and sometimes four.

On average, up to 70 percent of all adult kingfisher die, as do 80 percent of the new hatchlings, according to NABU (German Nature Conservation Association). Kingfishers are non-migratory in Germany and only leave their territory if the waters freeze over. If the frosts last too long, the birds will perish.

This is the second time since1973 that NABU and the Landesbund für Vogelschutz (LBV) (The Society for the Protection of Birds) has selected the kingfisher as Bird of the Year—this time for 2009. The bird represents the living rivers and meadows that make up its territory.

NABU has begun a huge, federally sanctioned and funded project to let the Havel River return to its natural course and do away with the many dikes and gradations. The project will permit the river to once again meander in a natural pattern through meadows, ponds, and flood plains. The area is hopefully set to become a paradise for animals and humans and, of course, for the Flying Jewels.

By Heike Soleinsky, Epoch Times Staff

Read more: Epoch Times

This Christmas - Connect with Nature

Christmas is a time for giving, and a time for family. What a great opportunity to start a family tradition of giving back to the earth and instilling the values of sustainable living to your children, friends and community. Start an annual, earth-friendly Christmas family tradition! It will also get you outdoors for a few hours to build an appetite for the big dinner.

Annual Christmas Day Bird Count - take your binoculars, a field guide to local birds, a small pad or journal for each participant and walk a course through your neighborhood, local park or countryside. Try to identify and count every bird you see, and make a note of it in your journal. At the end of the hike, list the species seen and number of birds per species. There's always a surprising discovery, and the activity highlights the presence and value of our feathered friends. Compare the results from former years and you'll become experts on your local bird population and migration habits. This is a great family activity because even the youngest eyes are just as good at spotting the birds and contributing to the event. For more information, see our page Annual Bird Count

Family nature hike - a peaceful walk through nature on Christmas day will be remembered and valued more than the score of the football game.

Nature restoration activity - planting a small tree together symbolizes the value of nature and offsets the 'taking' of the Christmas tree. An hour spent cleaning up or enhancing a natural area also enriches the giver and acknowledges nature as the source of our well-being.Decorate a tree for the birds - place seed bells, suet, pine cones with peanut butter and seed trays on any tree in your yard, preferably a tree in the open where cats can be seen easily by the birds. To attract a wide variety of birds, use varied seed types such as black oil sunflower seed, wild bird mixed seed and nyger seed bells. This is a great activity for kids, and offers an important food source for birds during the winter.

Read more: How to have a 'green' Christmas, Eartheasy.com

Don't Feed Birds Steady Bread Diet

Be an angel, don’t feed birds - A steady bread diet can deform waterfowl wings

When Pat Phillips’ grandchildren were visiting for Christmas, she decided to take them out for one of Eugene’s favorite activities: walking around Alton Baker Park and tossing bread scraps to the resident ducks and geese.

They had just arrived at the park when her husband read a sign posted by the water’s edge.
“It was so sad,” Phillips said. “We had already thrown some bread crumbs, but we took the rest of the bread back to the car.”

The new sign in Alton Baker Park explains the prevalence of so-called “angel wing,” a condition marked by a deformed wing and spindly feathers that poke out at right angles. When a young bird eats calorie-dense, nutritionally poor foods — like bread — the growth of its feathers outpaces the development of its wing bones. Gravity pulls the heavy feathers down, and the growing bones twist outward, resulting in the twisted wing. Bandages and physical therapy can correct the condition in young birds, but it is incurable in adults, and affected birds lose the ability to fly.

By Shelby Martin
The Register-Guard

Read more: Be an angel, don’t feed birds - A steady bread diet can deform waterfowl wings

Where Are All the Acorns?

Scientists baffled by mysterious acorn shortage

(CNN) -- Up and down the East Coast, residents and naturalists alike have been scratching their heads this autumn over a simple question: Where are all the acorns?
Oak trees have shed their leaves, but the usual carpet of acorns is not crunching underfoot.
In far-flung pockets of northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other states, scientists have found no acorns whatsoever.

"I can't think of any other year like this," said Alonso Abugattas, director of the Long Branch Nature Center in Arlington, Virginia.

Louise Garris, who lives in the Oakcrest neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, first noticed the mysterious phenomenon early this fall when doing yardwork beneath a canopy of large oak trees.

"I have lived in the area my entire life and have never not seen any acorns!" she said. Garris checked with some local plant nurseries and they confirmed her observation.

The mystery has found its way to the Internet, where a "No acorns this year" discussion on Topix.com yielded more than 180 comments from people reporting acorn disappearances as far away as Connecticut and North Carolina.

"WHAT IS GOING ON?" posted a resident of Maplewood, New Jersey. "Now we are finding dead squirrels! SHOULD WE ALL BE CONCERNED?"

Not necessarily, naturalists say. Last year Garris reported a bumper crop of acorns, which scientists say may be one clue to this year's scarcity. Virginia extension agent Adam Downing said acorn production runs in cycles, so a lean year is normal after a year with a big crop.

"It fits with the physiology of seed reproduction. The trees are exhausted, energy wise, from last year," Downing said.

But even he is surprised at the complete absence of nuts in parts of Virginia.
"There are plenty of acorns in most of the state, but zero acorns in some pockets," he said.


Read more: Scientists baffled by mysterious acorn shortage

CNN.com's Brandon Griggs contributed to this story.

Is Hong Kong's Bird Flu Vaccine Failing?

Since 1997, when six people in Hong Kong died of avian influenza — the first confirmed human victims of the deadly virus — this southern Chinese city has been the front line in the fight against a potential global pandemic that scientists warn could ultimately kill millions. Unfortunately, the bird flu virus has proven a canny, and adaptable, enemy.

On Dec. 9, the Hong Kong government reported yet another outbreak of the virus at one of the city's largest poultry farms after 60 chickens were found dead. Putting the city on "serious alert" for further outbreaks, Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok announced a 21-day shutdown of the local poultry industry, suspending all live chicken imports from mainland China, which supplies about half its live wholesale markets, and culling 80,000 birds from farms near the outbreak's locus. York said Tuesday that there were no reports of humans sickened by the virus, and that the government had not yet determined whether the birds were infected with the potentially lethal H5N1 or a less virulent strain of influenza.

Read more: Is Hong Kong's Bird Flu Vaccine Failing?

By Peter Ritter / Hong Kong (Time Magazine)

Backyard Birders Do Citizen Science

Project FeederWatch lets birders participate in a citizenscience survey without leaving their back yards.

Run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N. Y., and Bird Studies Canada, a nonprofit research group in Ontario, the project involves about 15,000 volunteers across the continent who make lists of all the birds that show up at their backyard feeders from November to early April. The collaboration began about 20 years ago, when Erica Dunn, an ornithologist who started the Ontario Bird Feeder Survey in 1976, realized that a larger survey would be better able to track population and migration trends. She approached the Cornell Lab about starting a similar study in the United States, and their joint effort enrolled 4,000 volunteers in 1987, its first year.

Project FeederWatch is a great way to learn about birds, with the support of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and countless other birders, accessible by e-mail. A $ 15 fee includes instructions, a handbook about birds and bird feeding, a poster with color illustrations of common feeder birds, a calendar, data forms and return envelopes. Records can also be submitted online.
More information is at www.birds.cornell.edu/pfw.

Read more: Backyard birders do citizen science
BY ANNE RAVER NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE