Wild white storks hatch in UK for first time in hundreds of years

Birds born in one of three nests at Knepp estate in West Sussex as part of breeding project

White stork chicks have hatched in the wild in the UK for the first time in centuries.

Eggs in one of three nests at the Knepp estate in West Sussex have hatched, the White Stork Project announced.

Observers watched as the parents incubated the nest of five eggs in an oak tree. They were seen removing eggshells from the nest and regurgitating food for the chicks.

It came after the same pair of white storks unsuccessfully tried to breed at Knepp last year. Lucy Groves, project officer for the White Stork Project, said it was the first time in hundreds of years that wild white stork chicks have hatched in the UK.

She said: “After waiting 33 days for these eggs to hatch it was extremely exciting to see signs that the first egg had hatched on 6 May. The parents have been working hard and are doing a fantastic job, especially after their failed attempt last year.

White storks at a nest where the first chicks hatched. The project aims to restore a population of at least 50 breeding pairs by 2030. Photograph: Brad Albrecht/PA

“It is incredible to have the first white stork chicks hatch in the wild for hundreds of years here at Knepp.

“These are early days for the chicks, and we will be monitoring them closely, but we have great hopes for them. 

This is just one step towards establishing this species in the south of England. It may be a small step, but it is an exciting one.

“This stunning species has really captured people’s imagination and it has been great following the sightings of birds from the project during the period of lockdown and hearing about the joy and hope they have brought to people.”

The project aims to restore a population of at least 50 breeding pairs of white storks in southern England by 2030.

Isabella Tree, who co-owns Knepp with Charlie Burrell, said: “When I hear that clattering sound now, coming from the tops of our oak trees where they’re currently nesting at Knepp, it feels like a sound from the middle ages has come back to life.

“We watch them walking through the long grass on their long legs, kicking up insects and deftly catching them in their long beaks as they go. There’s no other bird that does that in the UK. It’s walking back into a niche that has been empty for centuries.”

(Source: The Guardian)

The great bird search

My mother remembers five separate deaths: tumor, disappearance, mauled by neighborhood animal, injury, and a fly-away. I remember four different colors; together we recall three names. We had these birds over six years—I think. Much of my childhood is foggy and uncertain. It’s shrouded, or sometimes replaced, by stories I’ve told myself and others. I’m concerned about why I can’t remember our birds clearly. How many did we have? I adored them; they were our bright things in a dark house.

A scene that I remember: My piano teacher sitting in a green chair, bald and patient. I’m sitting beside him on a piano bench, grinning because I have a secret. I pull out Bach. I pull out Duvernoy’s “School of Mechanism.” My piano teacher asks me what else I have in my bag. When I laugh, I look like a beaver; three index cards could fit between my front teeth. I reach to the bottom and pull out a cardboard box. A weight shifts around as I open the flaps. I place Nippy, a bright-blue parakeet, onto the piano. I’m excited for him to sing when I play my scales. Instead he poops quietly on the Steinway.

Nippy’s wings were clipped when we got him. Perhaps I thought I could encourage him to fly—I was five—so I threw him up in the air and he smacked into the ceiling. He crumbled down onto the bed, then wobbled back to life. Nippy was so beautiful; I didn’t know what to do with him. I stuffed him into my shirt, in drawers and shoes; I ran after him through the house and my father brushed him off surfaces. Nippy learned three words, then developed a tumor from stress and died in my hand. I thought life and death would always be like this—violent, morbid, pretty.

A SELECTION OF THE AUTHOR’S CHILDHOOD BIRDS.

Once, my father dreamed he was in the neighbor’s yard, trying to reason with Nippy to come home. He was in his sleep clothes and the snow was melting. My blue bird scuttled away from his reach. My father spoke insistently to him, telling him that it was getting late and that his food and toys were next door. My father retells this often.

After Nippy, I don’t remember. I consult my parents’ photographs. Most of them are out of focus. We had a bad camera; I overzealously positioned the lens too close to the small birds. The blurriness makes it difficult to distinguish whether the plumage is light yellow, white, or light blue, all of which signify distinct birds in my memory. After careful consideration, I think these photographs are three different birds.

A. This one is sitting on a banker lamp, reading the “news.” I would tape various paper “books covers” on the lamp for the bird to “read,” though it chewed on the paper instead. This bird looks mostly white.

B. This bird seems yellowish and haggard, almost insect-like.

C. This one is the same color as my shirt, which is a light blue. I vaguely remember this one “begging” at the table, which would involve it sitting on my mother’s shoulder, then quickly descending down her arm to grab something off the plate.

A friend reminds me that outdoor birds used to get trapped in my family’s basement. Usually they were starlings. I would hear them banging in the vents. Once, an injured one clunked around for so long that my father took a broom to it and flattened it into the cement. My kid friends thought we were so brutal. They rumored my family to be living in ruins, sucking on rocks and committing strange crimes.

Other kids wondered why I didn’t eat Lunchables or watch television, or why I wasn’t allowed to go to the mall or sleepovers. That my parents are from another country felt insufficient, so I tried different explanations: My parents used to be circus performers! My mother is a butterfly scientist! We just moved to this country! 

Someone follows us with a knife! We are fluent in Esperanto! I am a spy! My childhood memories are a mix of fraudulence and exaggerations, tall tales I told as a kind of protection, which can make my memory-detective work tricky. My mythology of myself gradually became who I presented by default. I gave myself over to stories, leaving behind the facts, like my birds.

According to old diary entries, my other parakeets were named Pecky and Penelope. With names, I can begin to picture them dimensionally, place them in time. Pecky was definitely the white parakeet and Penelope was light blue. Penelope liked mirrors and doorknobs. Pecky liked to be pet on the neck. She would puff up and cock her head to the three o’clock position. I’d wiggle my finger below the beak, “under the chin” for her, and she’d close one eye. 

Beneath the feathers she was shrunken and bony like someone very old. When we spritzed her with a spray bottle, she became slender like a lizard. The other, nameless, yellow one I still can’t imagine. All I know is that it was our last bird.

Perhaps the key to remembering the yellow bird is finding its name. I look through a list online. Popular names include Coco, Baby, Largo, Dunly, and Stephen King. Popular unisex names are Whisper, Touche, and Megabyte. I scroll through various websites expecting something in me to light up like a metal detector. I message a childhood friend who used to ride her bike over. She confirms only what I already know.

I mention my search to my therapist and he tells me about the parrots of Telegraph Hill. How a woman had let go of her cherry-headed conures in the nineties and now they’ve taken over an area of San Francisco. I remember that I’ve seen those parrots before in real life. I visualize the vibrant parrots in a tree along the sidewalk; I get a jolt of a feeling similar to loss. And through that memory, I remember something else. I remember how I had also seen my yellow parakeet high up in a tree, through the back door of my parents’ house that my father left open, then never seeing it again.

After that, it feels as if I always knew. It’s funny, trying to remember an epiphany. I can write down what led to it—what my therapist said and how it unlocked something in me. But there is also an atmosphere to it, like a fog that pulses to show a walking path, or the settling of sediment that reveals a missing locket at the bottom of a pond. There is something mystical and frothy about the non-epiphany part of an epiphany. I remember it, but not exactly.

When I was hurt, I changed my stories to show it. I was certain my father took a broom to the starling in the basement, but when I ask my mother, she doesn’t remember it. Maybe it was another thing I made up. Or maybe it was true in another way. With language, my pain became malleable—I could control it and change it. It’s a common child’s game that isn’t fun as an adult. It’s the opposite of an epiphany: the veil evaporates and I already know what’s there. I just wish it weren’t.

Not long ago I started to tell the truth. Old habits fell away slowly and stubbornly. I said what was true even if it was dull or embarrassing. Sometimes I would look at something like a sidewalk or a leaf and feel immense gratitude. A big-bellied robin belting in the yard would fill me with awe.

Nippy, Pecky, Penelope, Henry. This last name falls into place at a random moment, as I look up from a chair. I remember all their songs clearly. You could hear them inside the house from the driveway. They would sing on my mother’s shoulder while she cooked. They would sing while we ate, along with the classical music on the radio, when I did homework. They would tuck one foot into their feathers and sing a little lullaby to themselves. They would land on my head and sing with their entire bodies, like alarms, as I walked through the house. They would hide behind the books and sing. They would sing along to thunder. Sometimes, they would sing at night.

(Source: The Paris Review)

Coronavirus: Outcry as Spanish beach sprayed with bleach

Authorities in a Spanish coastal resort have apologised after spraying a beach with bleach in an attempt to protect children from coronavirus.

Zahara de los Atunes, near Cadiz, used tractors to spray more than 2km (1.2 miles) of beach with a bleach solution a day before Spain allowed children out of lockdown for the first time.

Environmentalists say the move caused "brutal damage" to the local ecosystem.

Spain has been badly affected by the coronavirus, with 23,800 deaths.

It recently announced a four-phase plan to lift its stringent lockdown measures and return to a "new normality" by the end of June.

The beach and dunes at Zahara de los Atunes are breeding sites for protected birds. Getty Images

María Dolores Iglesias, who heads an environmental volunteer group in the Cadiz region, said she had visited the beach at Zahara de los Atunes and seen the damage for herself.

She said the bleach "killed everything on the ground, nothing is seen, not even insects".

The beach and its dunes are protected breeding and nesting places for migratory birds and Ms Iglesias said she had seen at least one nest with eggs destroyed by the tractors.

"Bleach is used as a very powerful disinfectant, it is logical that it be used to disinfect streets and asphalt, but here the damage has been brutal," she told Spanish media.

"They have devastated the dune spaces and gone against all the rules. It has been an aberration what they have done, also taking into account that the virus lives in people not on the beach. It is crazy."

Ms Iglesias said that because of the lockdown, wildlife had been thriving on the beach.

"The beach has its own way of cleaning itself, it was not necessary," she said.

"They do not think that this is a living ecosystem, but a lot of land."

Local official Agustín Conejo admitted it was "a wrong move".

"I admit that it was a mistake, it was done with the best intention," he said.

Mr Conejo said they had wanted to protect children who were coming to see the sea after six weeks in confinement.

The Andalusian regional government is now considering fining the local authority for its action, El Pais newspaper reports.

Greenpeace in Spain drew a comparison with controversial statements by US President Donald Trump, who suggested that injecting patients with disinfectant might help treat coronavirus.

Fumigar con lejía playas en plena época de cría de aves o de desarrollo de la red de invertebrados que sustentarán la pesca costera y destrozar el valor turístico del litoral, no es una de las ideas de Trump. Está ocurriendo en Zahara de los Atunes 👇https://t.co/afCFLg1sVG

— Greenpeace España (@greenpeace_esp) April 27, 2020

"Fumigating beaches in the middle of the breeding season for birds or the development of the invertebrate network that will support coastal fishing... is not one of Trump's ideas. It is happening in Zahara de los Atunes," it tweeted.

(Source: BBC)

Hawaiian birds are losing their songs

Three species of honeycreeper now sing much more similar songs, as their populations decline.

The sounds of Kauai’s forests are changing. Thirty years ago, David Kuhn could hear a dawn chorus and identify the many different birds that lived on the Hawaiian island. But more recently, Kuhn, a wildlife recordist based on Kauai, began noticing that not only are the forests becoming quieter, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell the remaining birds apart by their songs.

Investigating further, in 2014 he recorded a native honeycreeper, an akekee, singing the songs of other endangered honeycreeper species. “That confirmed my confusion up to that point,” Kuhn says. “I thought, what the heck, these guys are starting to sound alike.”

Kuhn’s discovery prompted research into the plight of three of Kauai’s six remaining honeycreeper species: the anianiau, the Kauai amakihi, and the akekee. His hunch was correct—the three species now sing much more similar songs, with less complex vocal signals, due to the decreasing size of their populations, especially among mature birds that pass on song repertoires to younger offspring. To researchers’ knowledge, it’s the first time this type of behavior among endangered birds has been recorded, says Kristina Paxton, lead author of a paper on honeycreepers published last year in the journal Royal Society Open Science, and a postdoctoral researcher in the department of biology at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

DAI MAR TAMARACK / SHUTTERSTOCK

There is far more at stake than the loss of beautiful songs. Birdsong plays an important role in mate attraction and selection, communication about food resources and predators, and the selection of breeding territories. The disappearance of songs can reduce the ability of bird populations to reproduce and survive, making life even more precarious for endangered forest birds like those on Kauai.

The songs are culturally transmitted—learned from parents and other birds in the environment where young birds are maturing. But if young birds don’t hear songs, they won’t learn them, and the lack of repertoire could create problems when it’s time to find a partner and reproduce. “I don’t think we often think about these behaviors that are also really critical to the survival of the species, and how the loss of those could also be a compounding effect of population loss,” Paxton says.

Paxton gathered sound files spanning 40 years from the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as well as her own recordings and those from Kuhn and Justin Hite, another of the paper’s authors, to analyze the acoustic characteristics of honeycreeper songs over time, such as how long they lasted, how many syllables (very brief repeated song elements) they contained, frequency changes, and note range. Beginning in the early 2000s and through to 2017, the songs’ variety and complexity significantly decreased. Not only are the three honeycreepers singing the same songs, but the songs contain fewer syllables, fewer notes within those syllables, and fewer frequency changes.

Paxton’s experience in the Kauai forest echoes Kuhn’s. She has spent 20 minutes following male anianiaus and akekees without hearing a single song. She believes that is because they have no reason to sing out a predator warning or a mating call if there’s no one around to hear. “If your territories are so far apart, and there’s so few birds, why vocalize out to the birds around you?” she says.

Six of the seven birds native to Kauai’s forests are in a state of precipitous decline. Twenty-five years of population data show dramatic decreases among honeycreepers—57 percent for the anianiau, 91 percent for the Kauai amakihi, and 98 percent for the akekee in their home ranges between 2000 and 2012 alone. The birds have been pushed to small forested areas; the akekee and akikiki (another endangered honeycreeper) are now only found in very small ranges in remote areas of the Alakai Plateau, spanning the central to northwest region of the island.

The losses are linked to a variety of factors, including climate change, invasive flora, and non-native animals, including introduced birds, some of which were imported in the early 20th century to replace endangered native species, thus hastening further decreases. “There was a really large decline in birds, and people decided to bring in their favorite birds from Europe and other places to be able to hear a morning chorus,” Paxton says.

Non-native birds also brought avian malaria. Once mosquitoes were accidentally introduced, malaria was vectored to native bird species, which have not developed the resistance that non-native birds have. Their one defense was to move to forests in higher elevations where it was too cool for mosquitoes to survive. But even that is no longer a secure redoubt—the warming climate means mosquitoes and diseases are surviving there, too.

An interesting result of Paxton’s honeycreeper research is that it documents the loss of both population and cultural diversity—the different socially learned behaviors unique to different animal groups—says Alison Greggor, a postdoctoral research associate at San Diego Zoo Global’s Institute for Conservation Research, who wasn’t involved in the study. The research “shows that there are fewer distinct families reproducing” because the young “would learn their songs from their parents,” she says.

The loss of cultural diversity can impact a species’ chances of survival, which is particularly important in the face of climate change, says Adolfo Cordero-Rivera, a professor of ecology at the University of Vigo in Spain, who coined the term ethodiversity for animal populations to encompass the diversity of behaviors that are culturally transmitted, originate genetically, or are learned individually. “We don’t know how the environment will change in the future, and which kind of behaviors will be useful when the environment changes.”

At the moment, the survival of the Kauai honeycreepers and other highly endangered birds may depend on captive breeding programs. But cultural behaviors, like songs and foraging skills, haven’t yet been incorporated into many of those programs, Greggor says. “The behavior of animals in conservation breeding facilities before they’re being introduced into the wild is something that is gaining more attention,” she says. “Previously, people would put animals out and then maybe come back six months later and say, ‘Oh, there are this many still alive.’”

But that approach may be changing. A captive breeding program for the akekee and akikiki at San Diego Zoo Global’s Keauhou Bird Conservation Center uses recorded Kauai soundscapes as part of their prerelease training.

In other programs, mature birds are used to train young birds in cultural behaviors before they’re released into the wild, providing parental rearing instead of the usual hand rearing by humans. The benefits are important, Greggor says, because many birds have a critical period when they learn vocalizations and need to hear and see a tutor to learn and make the connection between sound and behavior.

Some birds need that training very early. Greggor points to evidence that some bird species begin learning even before they’ve hatched. “As soon as their ears start developing, they’re listening for the sounds that are going on around their nest,” she says. “Right after that they can already discriminate between what they’ve been exposed to and what they haven’t been.”

This shows that the natural diversity of birdsong is culturally learned, instead of innate, she says, which is also supported by other recent research.

One thing is certain: Once cultural behaviors are lost in a given species, they can take a long time to restore. Research analyzing the migration patterns of reintroduced bighorn sheep and moose found that it took several decades before they rediscovered the traditional routes that followed seasonally available food.

For Kauai’s honeycreepers and other native birds, recent research has identified a suite of approaches to stem their losses, including the introduction of genetically modified mosquitoes (a subject of some debate), preserving habitat, reforestation, predator control, and translocations.

But in the end, the captive-bred honeycreepers will need to learn the songs that will allow them to successfully repopulate their territories. “When we lose these songs, we’re losing part of what makes up the Hawaiian forest,” Paxton says.

(Source: The Atlantic)

India's bird population 'going down sharply'

Much of India's bird population has sharply declined in the past few decades, according to a major study.

The State of India's Birds report relied on the observations of more than 15,000 birdwatchers who helped assess the status of 867 birds.

It found the greatest decline in the numbers of eagles, vultures, warblers and migrating shorebirds.

But the population of peafowl, the national bird, has increased significantly.

Hunting and habitat loss are the two main reasons behind the decline. "Collision" with electricity lines, according to the study, is a "prime current threat" to birds.

The population of peafowl, the national bird, has increased significantly

The report, the first comprehensive study of its kind, made two assessments: the drop in bird population over the last 25 years, and over the last five years.

"In the long-term trend assessment, there was appropriate data available only for 261 species, of which 52% had declined [in numbers]. For current trends, there was data only for 146 species, of which [numbers of] nearly 80% were declining," said MD Madhusudan, co-founder of Nature Conservation Foundation.

It's based on more than 10 million observations, drawn from sightings and meticulous notes made by professional birdwatchers.

The data was then collated on eBird, a global crowdsourced database that has real-time data on the distribution and abundance of birds.

The population of the white-rumped vulture has gone down

The local sparrow population was found to be roughly stable across the country as a whole, although it has fallen in the major cities.

The population of migratory birds - both long distance and within the subcontinent - also showed a "steep decline".

The report says that since the 1990s, the numbers of several species of vultures, bustards and other specialist grassland birds have also drastically dropped.

Some species popular in the bird trade, such as the Green Munia, are at "dangerously low" numbers, the report says.

The local sparrow population has declined in the major cities

Meanwhile, the Jerdon's Courser, an endangered bird with "mysterious" breeding habits which was rediscovered in 1986 after a gap of 138 years, has not been seen since 2008.

But there's some good news as well: the Forest Owlet, another endangered bird that was rediscovered in 1997, is being reported from many more locations.

But the study cautions that its research is also a chronicle of "individual species", and not a report on the "overall health of India's birds, including those considered common and hence of little conservation concern".

It says that "abundance trends" are available only for "a handful of bird species" - and mostly for those that tend to be "larger, more obviously threatened and relatively charismatic".

"For the vast majority of Indian birds, lack of data has hindered a clear understanding of how they are faring. Such an understanding is vital for conservation science, management and policy."

Species that have suffered the highest declines

• White-rumped Vulture
• Richard's Pipit
• Indian Vulture
• Large-billed Leaf Warbler
• Pacific Golden Plover
• Curlew Sandpiper

Species whose numbers have increased

• Rosy Starling
• Feral Pigeon
• Glossy Ibis
• Plain Prinia
• Ashy Prinia
• Indian Peafowl

(Source: State of India's Birds report)

(Source: BBC)

An Adivasi community in Kerala has united to save the region’s dwindling hornbill population

A proposed hydroelectric dam, poaching and timber mafia threaten the bird population.

As you enter the Athirappilly-Vazhachal-Nelliyampathy forests in the southern Western Ghats, you’re welcomed with a heavy whooshing sound from the canopies of large trees. For a moment, you might mistake it for the sound of flying jets. This is the sound of the magnificent great hornbill, locally called Malamuzhakky, roughly translated to bird with a deep call that resonates in the mountains.

“There was a time when we poached them for meat and collected their eggs to add to herbal concoctions with questionable medicinal value. The practice ended completely in the past two decades and now we are undertaking the safekeeping of the birds and their nests,” said Senthil Kumar, a conservation activist hailing from the local tribal community, the Kadars.

“Our nine settlements of 174 families inside these forests had a dubious legacy as poachers and predators. But we are fast shrugging it off in our earnest bid to live in perfect harmony with nature and to safe keep these evergreen rainforests for future generations,” he said.

Francesco Veronesi/Flickr [Licensed under CC-BBY-SA-2.0]

As per the information available with Kerala Institute for Research Training and Development Studies of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Kadars are a “primitive tribe” from the forests of Palakkad and Thrissur districts of Kerala. In Malayalam, Kadar means forest dwellers. The tribe lives in small communities and used to practice a nomadic lifestyle and shifting cultivation, growing rice and millets. They also hunted birds, including hornbills, and small animals. There are only about 1,848 Kadars in Kerala now, as per the State Tribal Welfare Department. With their lives affected by modern amenities, the lifestyle of the Kadars has also changed with the times.

Forest land under threat

Around two years ago, the traditional Kadar village gatherings or gramasabhas had passed resolutions against the controversial Athirappilly hydroelectric project in their region. According to the environmental impact study by the Kerala State Electricity Board in 2002, the project was estimated to destroy the habitat of about 196 bird, 131 butterfly and 51 odonate species. The region’s animal population would be affected in addition to this.

What was significant about the resolution was its invoking of clauses of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, which ensures community forest rights for tribals. It was reportedly the first time that central legislation aimed at tribal welfare was invoked for forest protection.

As per clauses in the forest rights act, no government or private project can be implemented in a forest area without the approval of the tribal gramasabhas. The 23-metre high dam was expected to submerge 104 hectares of forest land, apart from causing irreparable damages to the livelihood concerns of the local community.

“Despite our best efforts, the 163-MW hydroelectric project is still under active consideration of Kerala State Electricity Board and if it gets implemented, the first casualty will be the region’s rich hornbill population,” warned Geetha Vazhachal, chieftain of the tribal community and the first woman in this position among tribal communities in Kerala.

According to conservationists, the unique low-elevation riparian forest of Athirappilly-Vazhachal-Nelliyampathy is the only location where you can find all four south Indian species of hornbills – the great Indian hornbill or Buceros bicornis, Malabar pied hornbill or Anthracoceros coronatus, Indian grey hornbill or Ocyceros birostris, and Malabar grey hornbill or Ocyceros griseus. Incidentally, the great hornbill is the state bird of Kerala.

“This forest region is the only available nesting location for the highly endangered Malabar pied hornbills in Kerala. They are endemic to low elevation forests in limited locations of South Asia,” said Sheik Hydar Hussain, a researcher on the region’s hornbill population.

All species of hornbills have an umbilical relationship with rain forests. Forests undisturbed by humans are crucial for their survival and with forests being impacted, the hornbill population has dwindled too across the entire subcontinent in recent years. The birds nest in the natural hollows of high-canopy trees and remain extremely sensitive to disturbances. Their long bills may prevent them from binocular vision, but their sharp eyes and good hearing alert them to the slightest movement on the forest floor.

Local youth step up

Among those credited for making Kadars the sentinels of the hornbills of the region is KH Amitha Bachan, a researcher and consultant to Kerala Forest Department and the World Wildlife Fund-India Ecological Monitoring Programme, and the organisation under his leadership, Western Ghats Hornbill Foundation.

In the last two decades, WGHF partnered with the Kerala Forest Department to get 72 Kadar youth involved in the task of hornbill habitat protection. The initiative, which began with the protection of 57 nests, has now expanded to safekeeping 114 nests.

The youth keep close vigil against poaching by helping the forest department prevent illegal felling of nesting trees and prevent other youth from their community from joining poaching rings. They strengthen the forest habitat by engaging in wildfire prevention and planting trees. They also ensure human interference is restricted in these regions during the nesting season, which normally begins in December.

The Athirapilly waterfall. Credit: KK Najeeb/Mongabay.

The WGHF, which started as a small group of hornbill lovers in 1999, has now turned into a success story in the implementation of community-based conservation programmes. The foundation has conducted several scientific studies and research on the movement, food habits and habitat peculiarities of hornbills. In the process of protecting the hornbill population, it has made large scale interventions in protecting the otherwise precarious rainforests and improving living standards of Kadar tribes.

“There is a significant increase in the hornbill population in the last two decades. The number of nests has increased because of the lack of poaching. In the process of safekeeping the hornbills, we have identified 23 different species of nesting trees of which 60% are found only in the Western Ghats. Thirty percent of them are endangered,” said Bachan.

According to him, the river Chalakudy which flows through Athirapilly and Vazhachal is the lifeline for the bird population.

The tribal youngsters who work with the foundation have got training in monitoring and conserving the birds. They are also equipped to conduct scientific surveys and data collection. “Other than hornbill conservation, our focus is developing a system for long-term monitoring of the rainforest ecosystem. Channelising the traditional wisdom and efficiency of the Kadar youths, the foundation is now watching the changes in nesting of birds, changes in habitat and effects of deforestation. Through them, we are in the process of developing a long-term monitoring system to assess changes in the rainforest and that is crucial for future conservation activities,” says KT Anitha, who works with the foundation.

Who’s the predator?

According to the IUCN Red List, the great hornbill is evaluated as a “vulnerable” species while the Malabar pied hornbill is a “near threatened” one. The population of the Indian grey hornbill is stable and not decreasing. 

The Malabar grey hornbill is not globally threatened but it faces threats in the Western Ghats region, according to the WGHF. The two larger species, great hornbill and Malabar pied, are also placed under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife Protection Act, which affords the highest levels of protection.

Other than poaching, what had threatened hornbills in Athirappilly region was the powerful timber mafia that used to fell huge trees crucial for the survival of the birds. Now the tribal vigilantes are active against the mafia and no timber smuggling takes place in the forests.

While comparing with other rivers in Kerala, Chalakudy has the highest number of dams built as part of hydroelectrical projects. “The river has half a dozen dams and all of them are coming inside the Athirappilly-Vazhachal forests. Their construction and maintenance too had contributed immensely to the damages suffered already by the riparian ecosystem,” says SV Vinod, another conservationist.

“A healthy population of hornbills signifies a healthy ecosystem. So the hornbill conservation measures in the region are helping comprehensive protection of the environment of the Western Ghats stretch. Now the forest department and the foundation are also in the process of protecting and planting more trees of the seven species in which hornbills live,” said Bachan. 

The trees include Pali or Palaquium ellipticum, Elavu or Bombax ceiba, Thanni or Terminalia bellirica, Kalpayin or Dipterocarpus indicus, Kulavu or Kingiodendron pinnatum, Vellakil or Dysoxylum malabaricum, and Vellapayin or Vateria indica.

“Hornbills have no predators other than human beings. In the last two decades, the foundation has contributed enormously to make humans friendly with the bird and its natural habitat. The forest department has benefitted a lot through its intervention,” said S Muraleedharan, a retired divisional forest officer.

New threats

Because of the proximity to numerous plantations of tea, coffee and teak, the forest region is always under the threat of fire. In 2004, the forests had sustained severe devastation due to massive fires spread from plantations. Now the foundation and tribals work to avoid forest fires, most of which are human-made.

Hornbills at Athirapilly-Vazhachal. Credit: Rahana Habeeb/Mongabay

Displaced many times because of the construction of dams, Kadars have regularly faced the issues of habitat and livelihood destruction. They turned jobless and engaged in menial works in local shops and eateries near the Athirapilly waterfall, a major tourist destination in Kerala. Now, the conservation work ensures a fixed monthly income for the youth involved.

“What we are telling to the outer world is that no conservation would be possible without cooperation of the local community, especially the aborigines. Integrating their traditional wisdom with modern-day scientific approach would definitely yield results,” said Bachan, who hails from Kodungallur, a coastal town near Thrissur.

“In our process, we are treating the tribals as an inseparable part of the given ecosystem. They require equal attention along with animals, birds, trees and other constituents of the forest ecosystem. Economic support also crucial for tribals as that would ultimately turn them, protectors,” he said.

The hornbill guards are now trained in using cameras and operate GPS systems. They record the whole process of conservation. It is estimated that the region now has 184 hornbills and they are enjoying a safe habitat.

However, the recurring Kerala floods of the last two years had adverse effect on the hornbill population, with the floods washing away seven nests. “Climate change is firmly gripping our region too. It is posing a new threat to hornbills,” said Bachan.

(Source: Scroll)

Yikes! Fox and rodent battle is top wildlife photo

It looks like it ought to be the subject of a funny caption competition but this picture taken in China's Qilian Mountains is deadly serious.

The fox has surprised the marmot and a fight is about to begin that will result in the rodent being killed.

Not even the intervention of the marmot's mother can change the outcome.

"That's nature," says Yongqing Bao, whose striking image has earned him the top prize in the 2019 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

The shot also meant Yongqing got to share the award for the best picture in the mammal behaviour category.

Persistence pays when you are a wildlife photographer, and Yongqing had to stake out an alpine meadow on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau for several hours to be in position to catch the action.

The fox had lain very still, hoping to trap a passing marmot unawares. It worked a treat. In one of the more gruesome frames on Yongqing's camera, the fox has the young rodent's head in its mouth.

Roz Kidman Cox was the chair of judges. "The WPY competition has behaviour entries like no other. The world's top photographers in the field of animal behaviour always enter, and I have to say this image is one of the best I've ever seen," she told BBC News.

This year's junior grand prize winner is Cruz Erdmann for his night-time image of a bigfin reef squid in the Lembeh Strait off North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Cruz had entered in the 11-14 years category.

Getting a clear shot of the iridescent cephalopod takes a good deal of technical prowess. "You have to be careful not to stir up the silt when you dive or you'll get a lot of backscatter from the strobe light. I wasn't kicking with my legs so that's why the photo seems very clear," he said.

WPY, as it's often called, is one of the most prestigious competitions of its type in world photography.

Started in 1964, the competition is now organised by London's Natural History Museum.

An exhibition of the best images opens at the South Kensington institution on Friday. Next year's competition starts taking entries from Monday.

Scroll down for some of the other category winners.

Land of the eagle by Audun Rikardsen, Norway

Winner 2019, Behaviour: Birds. 

This shot took Audun three years to achieve. He'd carefully placed an old tree branch in a position where the golden eagles would come into land. A camera and flash would trigger as soon as a bird set down.

Audun recalled: "They became so used to the flash going off, it didn't seem to bother them. I think they like having their picture taken." Crows would do it as well, but that wasn't quite the picture the Norwegian photographer was after.

The huddle by Stefan Christmann, Germany

Winner 2019, Wildlife Photographer of the Year Portfolio Award.

The toughest of the tough. More than 5,000 emperor penguins gather together in their classic huddle formation to beat the wind and late winter cold on the sea-ice in front of the Ekström Ice Shelf in East Antarctica. These are male birds incubating eggs at their feet. The females have gone to sea to forage.

The rat pack by Charlie Hamilton James, UK

Winner 2019, Urban Wildlife. Charlie was on an assignment for National Geographic, to photograph the rats of the world. This group he found in the Wall Street district of Manhattan, New York.

The rodents were living under a grill that surrounded the base of a tree. At night they'd run over to the rubbish bins outside a hotel to feed. Charlie set up his camera and fired the shutter with a remote trigger from a couple of metres away.

"There were probably 30 rats living under the grate. They became so used to me over three days that one of them came and stood on my foot," Charlie said.

The architectural army by Daniel Kronauer, USA

Winner 2019, Behaviour: Invertebrates. These army ants in Costa Rica don't build a nest in the earth or in an old tree. Instead, they construct it out of their own bodies, hanging from branches in interlocking chains. Inside, are passageways and chambers where they protect their queen and nurture their young.

"Pretty much every day they disassemble this structure; it just melts away and they carry the larvae across the rainforest, setting up a new bivouac maybe 150m away," Daniel said. "It's beautiful. I thought this nest looked like a crown or a cathedral."

Snow exposure by Max Waugh, USA

Winner 2019, Black and White. No WPY is complete without a good "whiteout" image. This one of a bison was captured in Yellowstone National Park. The bison wants to get at the buried grasses and sedges and so makes a hole by brushing its face from side to side.

"I'd been in situations like this before where I'd played around with slower shutter speeds," said Max. "I think that's part of what makes this a good picture - the snow is blurred. I just waited until the bison lifted its head and fired off a few shots.”

Snow-plateau nomads by Shangzhen Fan, China

Winner 2019, Animals in Their Environment.

A small herd of male chiru are seen crossing a snow-covered slope in the Kumukuli Desert of China's Altun Shan National Nature Reserve. These  antelope live at altitudes up 5,500m where temperatures can fall to -40C. "They like to get to the patches of bare sand because that's where it is warmest," says Shangzhen. The photographer took this image from a kilometre away. In the same sequence, he saw two bears moving across a ridge.

(Source: BBC)