Yesterday, I received an e-mail from Birdlife, which was nice. So I read it, and it turns out that it wasn't.
For those that haven't recieved it or don't know what it's about, here it is, verbatim.
Dear Bird Blogger,Although many of us will not have heard of the Alaotra Grebe, it's extinction is symbolic not just because it is a bird. Because it is a bird, it produces headline news and is treated with more significance but in the time that it has taken for this bird species to have been eradicated there have been hundreds if not thousands of other lifeforms that are gone. Extinct. For ever. Extinction is a bit like pregnancy, you cannot be a bit pregnant, nor can you be a bit extinct. For the Alaotra Grebe, that's it. And we did it. Shame on you.
Today we announced that Alaotra Grebe is officially extinct on the Red List.
The Dodo is the undoubted ‘celebrity’ among extinct species with its depiction in books, cartoons and the well-used expression ‘Dead as a Dodo’. Less well known about the Dodo is that it heads up a group of single island flightless birds that became extinct either at the hands of man, or by the introduction of predators that came along with the arrival of people to their islands. More than 130 species of birds have become extinct since AD 1500, mostly because of human actions...
When BirdLife publicises news of threat or extinction the first question posed by the media will be: “Why should we care?”
We're asking you to tell us why species matter. Do you care?
Please encourage your website visitors to leave comments on this page:http://www.birdlife.org/community/2010/05/alaotra-grebe-extinction-do-you-care/
To read the full story, click here: http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2010/05/red-list-for-birds-2010.html
Thank you for your support.
Nick Askew
I'm still a bit old fashioned when it comes to identification. I want to look in a book to find out what something is. This means that I have lots of books about identification of birds (not that it means that I get it right of course) and when it comes to moths and butterflies the same applies. The two moths that I proffered yesterday were not in my book, so I had to go to my percieved second option and ask someone else. I could have done what Jonathon claims to have done and go to the UK Moths website and look through the pictures of all the species until I found the right one, and then wouldn't have bothered y'all with my little request. The thing is that it never actually occured to me! Not for one minute did I think that there may have been a valuable resource online that could help. Not in a book, see. So for those that are still interested...
Image 1 was a Bee Moth Aphomia sociella and it is common. Bee Moths are sexually dimorphic, and this was a female. They are, of course, common.
Image 2 was a Light Brown Apple Moth Epiphyas postvittana. UK Moths says the following about it...
This originally Australian species was probably accidentally introduced into Cornwall in the 1930's and since then has spread quickly northwards, and is now regular in many parts, and very common in some areas [of course - Ed.].So there.
A pest species in Australian orchards, it is one of the most catholic polyphages in Britain, and should be considered as a possibility when identifying larvae off any plant.
It flies in two generations between May and October.
It seems like it's still winter here....
Drake Pintail on the Thames this week. Winter bird.
Gadwall flying around the Wandle yesterday. Winter birds.
Loads of Starlings heading over to the Wandsworth Bridge roost last night? Winter birds.
All I need now is a dubious gull to turn up on the foreshore and I shall have no options left to me but to write to my MP. It just isn't good enough.
Not you - I know what you are doing here (kind of).
No, the question is directed at a bird.
Specifically this bird that was seen in the patch today.
whatammagonnado?
Stick it on the blog, obviously.
Last year on this blog (I can say that because I've been spinning this tedium out for everyone for an age) during the late summer I stated that this was a moth free zone as many of my peers were filling the birdless days by finding moths and butterflies and things. That didn't half make for some pretty repetitive postings. I recant. This post will contain a picture of a bug. Why the change I hear you ask. Why not I say. They often stay still long enough to get a rubbish photo of and I have a book now, so I can now mis-identify moths and butterflies as readily as I do Gulls. Hurrah!
So here we go, the first in an occasional and quite possibly very short series of posts on moths...
The other night that Jamie Oliver was on the telly. It was a new programme where he goes round different places drenching food in copious amounts of olive oil while having staged mock-matey chats to locals. Pukka, innit? Anyhow, while he was drenching something else with olive oil (al fresco) in Venice I could hear a Chaffinch singing in the background. So far, so inane. However, the Chaffinch song was markedly different from the song we hear in the UK and my interest rose a little....
When I wur a lad dear reader, I was given a little aide memoire about how to recognise a Chaffinch song. Imagine a fast bowler approaching the wicket to bowl. Curtly Ambrose will do. As he approaches the wicket, the frequency of his footfall will increase as he approaches and delivers his 90mph Yorker. The Chaffinch song is likened to this footfall. Listen out next time – works a treat.
Now, as you may know, birdsong can vary from region to region and I find that the ones I notice the most are Chaffinch and Wren – probably because they are quite structured bursts of song and that’s why it was pretty easy to notice the difference. The Italian Chaffinch song started as ours does but there is a slight but noticable pause before the final flourish. My meandering point is that the children of Italy cannot have the same aide memoire because the song is different. Oh, and they don’t play cricket.
I suppose that it could be compared to a footballer taking an illegal penalty. Jogging up, pausing to put the keeper in one direction, and placing the ball in the opposite corner, scoring the goal without sanction. Which some might think is apposite for an Italian striker.
Whilst watching some gull behaviour on the Thames foreshore and listening to my returned Blackcap yesterday, my eye (well eyes actually) was/were drawn to a Coot. Not everyone will be drawn to a Coot going about its business and I generally try to resist, but as this one was sitting down I thought I'd pay a bit more attention. Not only was it sitting down but it was pretending that it was on a nest. I'll insert the picture here for illustrative purposes.
Eventually I have Blackcap on the year list. I thought I was going to have to write a meandering threnody to a lost passerine as they seem to have arrived everywhere else, but no - yesterday brought a Blackcap singing in the trees in the Hurlingham Club which with the Swifts last week brings me to a nice round 60 for the year. What dominated my time in the patch yesterday was a Sparrowhawk that was also in the trees in the Hurlingham Club. With a slight nod to Dave Lewis, here is a picture of said bird.
I’ve just finished a book about Peregrines. You may have heard of it, it is called On The Wing by Alan Tennant. I don’t know why (and I’ve tried to work it out) but I found it incredibly hard going. The subject matter (two blokes following tagged Peregrines in a beat up Cessna) was interesting but I just couldn’t get on with the style of the writing, and for once it was a relief when the book was finished. The author can write and as I will show below has no problem connecting with nature and describing it with some merit, but the whole I found bitty. As I paid full whack for it though I felt that I should finish the damned thing. The Glasgow Herald is quoted on the cover as saying that it is an 'Ornithologist’s On The Road'. Why? Because it was hurried? Because the author bumbled about and around the subject? Becuase there are two blokes in it? Because the follow up (The Dharma Falcons perhaps) was absolute drivel? I don’t know.
The previous post on here was regarding Swifts and their return, and I found a passage in the book that evoked similar feelings when the author talks about cranes.
Instead, I’d yearned to live out there on the vital, scary edge of the lives they led. Lives larger, older, more vital than those of the people I know, and during years when the northers [sic] held off past when the leaves had changed, and the sandhills were slow in coming I worried. But then, on some ordinary sunny day I’d hear what no one else heard – a faint, musical bugle drifting down 2,000 feet. Looking up, I’d pick out ten or twelve gray specks dotted against the blue and feel my heart clench, and soar, and make me yearn not just to go with the cranes but to be one.
