Forest to help save rare birds

A forest in Lancashire is helping to prevent a rare species of bird of prey from dying out in England.

Conservationists say the Forest of Bowland is the country's main breeding ground for the hen harrier, which is England's most threatened bird of prey.

According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), 25 chicks fledged from the forest this year.

The birds prey on grouse chicks and are often killed on shooting estates, which has contributed to their demise.

Earlier in the year hen harrier chicks nesting in the forest were fitted with tiny satellite and radio tags as part of a conservation project.

'Highly vulnerable'

Sir Martin Doughty of Natural England said the forest was vitally important in helping to stop the birds, which were protected under English and European law, from becoming extinct.

"If we lose the hen harrier in Bowland, we could lose it in England," he said.

"We must have a much larger and widespread population of this fantastic upland bird.

"Small populations of species can be highly vulnerable to chance events and we cannot literally have all our eggs in one basket."

This year, no harriers bred successfully on large areas of ideal habitat managed on grouse moors in the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors.

Another chance for breeding to take place in the Peak District was scuppered when two female birds disappeared.

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The painting is by Laura Tasheiko

As spotted owl's numbers keep falling, some fear it's doomed

Buffeted by years of logging and the invasion of a tougher owl, populations of the northern spotted owl are falling year after year, despite sweeping protections for the old-growth forests it inhabits. Now, genetic problems are adding to the reasons for worry. A just-released study found the remaining birds are so genetically similar, they are at risk of entering an "extinction vortex."

The northern spotted owl — an endangered icon that spurred a rescue effort so sweeping it brought old-growth logging to a virtual standstill in the Northwest — is now closer than ever to extinction.

Fourteen years after old-growth logging was banned on most federal lands to protect the owls, their numbers are falling year after year.

While there is disagreement over how bad it could get, some are contemplating the virtual disappearance of a bird elevated to sainthood by environmentalists and hung in effigy by loggers.

The situation is particularly bad in Washington, where the rate at which owls are found at nesting sites has fallen by nearly half since 1994. Scientists blame the decline largely on the invasion of a tougher owl and the loss of much habitat to decades of logging.

"It's not looking very good," said Eric Forsman, of the U.S. Forest Service, a pre-eminent spotted-owl scientist. "The populations seem to be gradually going downhill, and it's not clear if or when that's going to stop."

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Birds And Bats Sow Tropical Seeds

Scientists believe they may have found a way to regrow tropical forest on deforested lands. The plan would involve planting fast-growing, fruit-producing trees, like figs, in the formerly forested areas. These trees would attract birds and bats which would deposit seeds from nearby forests onto the ground below. The dropping of these seeds would, in effect, return native forest species to the deforested patch. Scientists will test the theory in Veracruz, Mexico to see if coaxing birds and bats back into the area will help restore the forest's biodiversity.

Restoring the rich diversity of trees that once characterized expansive tracts of tropical rainforest gets a helping hand from native birds and bats. Just how big a role these winged gardeners play is a question ecologists from the University of Illinois at Chicago and several Latin American universities are about to find out by setting up essentially a living laboratory in Mexico's gulf coast state of Veracruz.


Henry Howe, a noted authority in restoration ecology and a professor of biological sciences at UIC, will lead the multi-year test, funded initially by a five-year, $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Co-investigators include Christina Martinez-Garza, a biologist on the faculty of the Autonomous University of Morelos in Mexico, and a former doctoral student of Howe's at UIC; Martin Ricker, director of the biological station in Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz and a former UIC student; and Rodolfo Dirzo, the Bing Professor in environment science at Stanford University.

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See, who's my visitor today!

Today came this hornbill to visit us! Not seen here for a long time, he came to eat the fruits on my Banyan tree, which blossomed for the first time. Making huge noise they, three of them, spent a long time around here. This is the most resolution picture I could take. Please go into the wild fast, you are not safe here, especially with your noise you will easily be detected and captured. I may not be able to protect you.