SNIPPETS
Welcome to West London Birding ‘Snippets’
Here you will find news from both our commercial and scientific projects (providing that they are not confidential!), interesting scientific papers, and environmental news stories we like from the sublime to the ridiculous.
November 2019 – First Common Gull of our Central London Royal Parks waterbird monitoring project ringed The Round Pond, Kensington Gardens, London. Click image to enlarge.
Swifts numbers have declined across the UK by 53% between 1995 and 2016. By incorporating a Swift brick in all new houses we can save these beautiful birds. Legislate that all UK house builders shall install Swift bricks in all new-build homes, and give incentives for retrofitting nest boxes on older properties. Please sign the petition at https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/save-our-swifts?bucket=&source=twitter-share-button&utm_campaign=&utm_source=twitter&share=e80f9b72-296f-4333-bdaa-36ce25eb70bd
Endangered Yellow-eyed Penguin named as bird of the year in New Zealand. There were more votes cast for it than there are actual yellow-eyed peenguins left in the wild. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/402986/bird-of-the-year-2019-hoiho-takes-the-winning-title
November 2019 – 13 more Coot fitted with colour-rings in St. James’s Park. London this morning. Also ringed were a Mallard and Black-headed Gull.
November 2019 – We have just heard that one of the Sand Martins chicks we ringed in 2017 was controlled (recaptured away from the place it was ringed) this summer at the Sand Martin colony at Rutland Water. This is the first returning bird to the UK, that we know of, from our Sand Martin project.
November 2019 – Sanderling that winter in West Africa have lower annual survival rates than those that winter in Europe or South Africa. Reneerkens J, Versluijs TSL, PiersmaT, et al. Low fitness at low latitudes: Wintering in the tropics increases migratory delays and mortality rates in an Arctic breeding shorebird. J Anim Ecol. 2019;00:1–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13118
October 2019 – Migrating Russian eagles run up huge data roaming charges. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50180781