Birdwatching

SURVEYS.....


Two surveys of the wintering grounds of SPOON BILLED SANDPIPER, starkly illustrade the extreme and growing pressures this critically endangerrd species faces.
The second annual servey on the coast of MYANMAR found one new wintering site, but numbers overall were less than in the previous year.


But in Vietnam, where more than 27 individuals were recorded in the mid 1990s; not a singel Spoon Billed Sandpiper was seen in January 2009. The Myanmar survey was carried out in mid January by an international team of scientists. In total, 63 birds were found by two teams, operating on the RAKHINE coast, and in the bay of Marataban.
The total of 48 birds in the bay of Martaban was similar to the 2008 figure, but at the island of Nan Thar near the Bangladeshi border, only 14 were recorded, compared to 35 in 2008.


A new site with at least one Spoon billed Sandpiper was found along the Rakhine coast. The survey indicates that the bay of Martaban, close to Yangon, may be the most important wintering site for the species in Myanmar. The 48 birds observed are a minimum, and probably well below the total number that winters in the estuary. The servey covered only 25-40% of suitable habitat, and the flocks of waders were difficult to approach. The surveys also took place during neap tides, wher someprime feeding areas dry out, resulting in considerable local movements within the bay.




Taking all this into consideration, the site may hold more than 100 Spoon Billed Sandpipers. However, its has no protected status at present, putting the site at risk from development. At both Martaban and Nan Thar island there was evidence of hunting and most of all trapping, which targets larger birds, but may also entangle and kill small waders.

The pressure of an increasing coastal population means that younger hunters may have begun to target smaller birds.
These surveys are increasing our knowledge of the wintering range of the species, and will anable us to propose coastal areas which need to be protected to ensure the survival of SPOON BILLED SANDPIPER....

IN NORTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST



Hunters kill estimated 500 million birds as they migrate through the Mediterranean each year, a significant proportion of which are shot or trapped in the countries of North Africa and the Middle East that border the Mediterranean.

Most are from species and populations that breed in Europe and winter in Africa and many of those killed are internationally threatened species or listed on Annex 1 of the European Union's Birds Directive.

However, hunting is an important socio economic activity in the region, particularly in rural areas, involving hundreds of thousands of people and hectares, and supporting a variety of groups and the interests of these groups must be consisered if conservation measures to address the plight of migratory birds are to succeed.

Management of bird hunting in the region is inadequate with often poor legal regulation and law enforcement, lack of resources and capacity among relevant government institutions and poor public and hunter awareness of the impact of hunting, a lack of regional agreement on action to better protect migratory birds, and past conflicts between hunters and conservationists.


GLADDLY ....YOUR OPINION ON THESE TWO QUESTIONS.

A What is your Opinion conserning the hunting on birds in its whole.?


B Find you justified hunting on birds?

REVEALS CLIMATE CHANGE IN ACTION.....




The northward and inland movement of North American birds, confirmed by thousands of citizen observations, has provided new and powerful evidence that climate change is having a serious impact on natural systems, according to a new report by Audubon.

The findings signal the need for dramatic policy changes to combat pervasive ecological disruption. Analyses of citizen gathered data from the past 40 years of Audubon's Christmas Bird Count reveal that 58% of the 305 widespread species that winter on the continent have shifted significantly north since 1968, some by hundreds of kilometres.

Movement was detected among species of every type, including more than 70% of highly adaptable forest and feeder birds. Only 38% of grasland species mirrored the trend, reflecting the constraints of their severely deplrted habitat and suggesting that they now face a double threat from the combined stresses of habitat loss and climate adaptation.
Population shits among individual species are common and can have many causes. However, Audubon scientists say the ongoing trend of movement by some 177 species closely correlated to long term winter temperature increases reveals an undenlable link to the changing climate.
Birds are showing us how the heavy hand of humanity is tipping the balance of nature and causing ecological disruption in ways we are just beginning to predict and comprehend.
Common sense dictates that we act now to curb the causes and impacts of global warming to the extent we can, and shape our policies to better cope with the disruptions we cannot avoid.


Movements across all species averaged approximately 56 kilometers during the period. However, it is the complete picture of widespread movement and the fallure of some species to move at all that illustrates the potential for problems.
Birds provide some of the best evidence for species's responses to climate change, through their population size, distribtion and timing of breeding and migration. There is now plenty of evidence that bird species are shifting their ranges northwards and higher altitudes, and that their timing of breeding and migration is shifting forwards in resonse to climate change....