Weird, Yet Awesome: Helmet Hummingbird Feeder

Hummingbirds are so fun to watch, with their colorful little wings that move so fast they’re a blur – but it can be hard to see them up close. One wacky new product allows you to see hummingbirds like you’ve never seen them before – an inch from your eyeballs.

From The Daily Mail:

A new helmet with a built-in bird feeder will allow wearers to get amazing face to face contact with nature.

The flighty birds hover in front of the wearer’s face for up to 30 seconds as they drink a sugar-water solution from between the eyes of the feeder mask.

The wearable hummingbird feeder is covered in images of red rhododendrons to further attract the birds and protects your eyes and face from being pecked.

Those who want to try out the gadget need to have patience. The mask is first placed over a can of paint for a few days to allow the birds to get used to it.

It’s one of those bizarre products that’s probably wholly unnecessary – but then again, doesn’t use up much more plastic than a regular hummingbird feeder and gets people in closer (MUCH closer!) contact with nature. And, that’s a good thing, right?

Link [The Daily Mail]

Species Thought Extinct Was Just Wearing a Mask

A species thought to be extinct for centuries was just wearing a mask all this time. Scientists have long assumed that the Masked Booby was a close cousin of the Tasman Booby, which had presumably been pushed out of its natural habitat by humans.

But the two species are one and the same. Researchers cleared up the confusion through DNA and fossil research.

From The National Geographic, via Treehugger:

The double-naming came about, Steeves said, “because paleontologists and biologists in recent decades did not communicate.” The fossil experts unknowingly compared ancient bones of female Tasman boobies to those of male “masked boobies.” Unaware that Tasman booby females are markedly smaller than males, the paleontologists assumed they were looking at two species.

The Masked/Tasman Booby is a large seabird that breeds on islands in tropical oceans, except in the eastern Atlantic. Not only is it not extinct, it ranks as “least concern” on the IUCN ratings. Considering how many species we lose every day, getting one back (sort of) is just a drop in the bucket, but it’s a hopeful story nonetheless.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Mystery of Chile’s Dead Birds and Fish

Why are so many of Chile’s birds and fish dying? Scientists are trying to determine what may have caused the deaths of hundreds of penguins, millions of sardines and 2,000 baby flamingos in recent months. Some speculate that global warming may be to blame.

From the Miami Herald:

The events started to unfold in March, when the remains of about 1,200 penguins were found on a remote beach in southern Chile. Then came the sardines — tons of them — dead and washed up on a nearby stretch of coastline. The stench forced nearby schools to close, and the army was called in to shovel piles of rotting fish off the sand.

Farther north, thousands of rare Andean flamingos abandoned their nests on a salt lake in the Atacama Desert. The eggs failed to hatch and, over a period of three months, all 2,000 chicks died. The extent of the damage was discovered in April, during an inspection.

No one knows for sure what caused these three apparently unrelated ecological tragedies, although there are many theories. Global warming has been blamed, as have overfishing, pollution and bacterial disease. In the north, ecologists have accused mining companies of fatally altering the flamingos’ habitat by draining the area of subterranean water.

While some fishing authorities believe the sardines died due to a rise in water temperatures, local fishermen suspect that trawlermen hauled a huge quantity of sardines from the ocean, and then dumped the ones they couldn’t carry back to shore.

The flamingo deaths are even more disturbing, especially as the Andean is the rarest species of flamingo in the world. Some ecologists disagree with placing blame on mining companies, since the summer that just ended was unusually dry and hot, causing the lakes to shrink and become more saline.

It’s clear that Chile needs to take action to protect its rich diversity of wildlife, but there’s only so much the government can do if global warming is the cause. The entire world is responsible for turning this thing around.

Link [Miami Herald]

Photo credit: The Guardian

Oops! ‘Extinct’ Bird Sold and Eaten

It may sound like a belated April Fool’s Day joke, but it’s not: a bird that was thought to be extinct was found in the Philippines, and promptly eaten. A crew was filming a documentary about the mind blowingly-exciting topic of bird trapping when it captured footage of “some random bird” that was trapped and then sold at the market for 20 cents.  They didn’t think much of it until they screened a cut for the World Bird Club… and found out that it was a Worcester’s Buttonquail.

The good news is, there are probably more where that one came from – but it’s ironic and funny that the name of the bird trapping documentary is ‘Bye-bye Birdie’.

Link [Zaproot] via [Treehugger]

Bye Bye, Birdie: Many Bird Populations in Decline

Many bird populations are in trouble, with Hawaiian birds among the most threatened, according to a new report. Some species are on the brink of extinction, including many ocean birds. The “State of the Birds” report noted that among 800 species of birds in the United States, 67 are in decline or threatened and another 184 are “species of conservation concern” because they have small distribution.

From CNN:

Hawaiian birds, particularly, are in crisis, the report said. More than one-third of all U.S. bird species are in Hawaii. However, 71 species have gone extinct since the islands were colonized about 300 A.D., and 10 more species have not been seen in the past 40 years, contributing to fears they, too, have died out.

Grassland and arid-land birds are showing the most rapid declines over the last four decades, while forest birds are also declining, the report said.

“Just as they were when Rachel Carson published ‘Silent Spring’ nearly 50 years ago, birds today are a bellwether of the health of land, water and ecosystems,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday in a statement on the report.

“From shorebirds in New England to warblers in Michigan to songbirds in Hawaii, we are seeing disturbing downward population trends that should set off environmental alarm bells. We must work together now to ensure we never hear the deafening silence in our forests, fields and backyards that Rachel Carson warned us about.”

The most frequent causes for the decline in bird populations cited in the report were agriculture, climate change, development and energy and invasive species. Sprawling urban development in cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix and intensified agricultural practices in grasslands have also had a significant negative impact on bird populations.

Some of the measures called for in the report to turn the problem around include increased monitoring of bird populations, stricter protection laws, sustainable fishing practices and increased education.

Large quantities of birds disappearing would spell very bad news for many species of animals and, eventually, us. Birds play such an important role in their respective ecosystems – if they die out, we risk exploding insect populations and other problems. We can’t afford to let this go on any longer.

Link [CNN]
Photo credit: Animal Pictures Archive

Black Sun of Denmark: Amazing Photos of Starling Formations

Image via Flickr user Gail Johnson

Sunset in Denmark is made even more beautiful during the spring and autumn seasons by the ‘aerial ballet’ of gigantic flocks of black starlings, which occurs when the birds leave their feeding places and take flight before settling in for the night. You can see it from the middle of March to early April, and from mid-September to mid-October, about an hour before sunset. For about 20 minutes, the flocks of starlings seem to join together as one being and create breathtaking formations in the sky.

Image via National Geographic

This stunning natural phenomenon doesn’t just take place in Denmark – the photo below was taken in Great Britain.

Image via Geograph.org.uk

Images via Earth Science Picture of the Day

I wouldn’t stand or park directly under the flock of starlings to watch its movements, though. This is what happens when you do:

Link [Visit Denmark]

Urban Birdhouse Inspired by Shoes Strung on Power Lines

Check out this cool green gear: urban birdhouses designed to imitate shoes thrown over power lines, providing a home for wildlife that’s been displaced by urban growth.  If we’re going to have stuff dangling from power lines, it might as well serve a good purpose, right?

Design Band calls it:

an urban birdhouse inspired by the uniquely American act
of throwing shoes over power lines (gangs use this to mark
their “turf”), Bird Turf proudly reclaims city space for natural
habitat by manipulating a distinctly cultural typology

Design Band is a collaborative effort between designers Emilie Baltz and Ben Bearsch.

Link [Design Band]

Peru Turning to Armed Guards to Protect Precious Bird Shit

You may have heard of Peak Oil, but how about Peak Guano? Guano, otherwise known as bird shit, was once so much in demand that wars were fought over it. After synthetic fertilizer was invented, the industry nearly went extinct – but as organic fertilizers come back into vogue, officials in Peru are finding themselves needing to protect it again.

From The New York Times:

The worldwide boom in commodities has come to this: Even guano, the bird dung that was the focus of an imperialist scramble on the high seas in the 19th century, is in strong demand once again.

“Before there was oil, there was guano, so of course we fought wars over it,” said Pablo Arriola, director of Proabonos, the state company that controls guano production, referring to conflicts like the Chincha Islands War, in which Peru prevented Spain from reasserting control over the guano islands. “Guano is a highly desirous enterprise.”

It is a minor miracle that any guano at all is available here today, reflecting a century-old effort hailed by biologists as a rare example of sustainable exploitation of a resource once so coveted that the United States authorized its citizens to take possession of islands or keys where guano was found.

Guano sells for $250 per ton, going up to $500 when it’s headed to countries like the U.S., France and Israel. While it’s highly prized as an organic fertilizer, it isn’t all rosy. The anchovies that the seabirds eat to produce the rich guano are being overfished, and the bird population is shrinking. Peru is working hard to protect the birds, going so far as to introduce lizards to hunt down ticks that infest the birds and posting armed guards to prevent fisherman from scaring them away. Where once 60 million seabirds flew overhead, there are now only about 4 million.

Peak Guano is coming, no doubt about it:

Uriel de la Torre, a biologist who specializes in conserving the guanay cormorant and other seabirds, said that unless some measure emerged to prevent overfishing, both the anchovetas and the seabirds here could die off by 2030.

“It would be an inglorious conclusion to something that has survived wars and man’s other follies,” Mr. de la Torre said. “But that is the scenario we are facing: the end of guano.”

Link [The New York Times] via [Treehugger]
Photo credit: Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Artist Benjamin Verdonck Literally Nesting in a Rotterdam Tower

File this under awesomely weird: artist Benjamin Verdonck has created a man-sized nest and perched it high above the city of Rotterdam, clinging to the side of the Rotterdam Weena Tower. He calls this art project ‘The Great Swallow’ and to give you an idea of just how weird it gets, there is indeed an egg in there. What’s in it or what the artist aims to do with it isn’t clear. The picture alone makes this afraid-of-heights girl want to cling to something solid for dear life.

Neatorama has it:

A nest is hanging high from the Rotterdam Weena Tower. Feathers fly around it. There’s a man in the nest. He nested there only four days ago. He stretches his arms out wide open, as if he wants to fly. But it also seems like he is trying to stay upright (losing his feathers). Some people even think that the man wants to embrace them.

If you’re wondering what the hell that nest is made out of, it’s apparently the crowns of twenty-three silver birches, one birch, one willow, two straw bales, one bucket of spit (um, what?), three bags of sand, twelve buckets of glue and nineteen cans of polyurethane foam. So, they collected enough spit to fill a bucket? Whoa.

Well, props to Benjamin Verdonck for getting a lot of people to think, “huh?”

You can see the YouTube video clip here.

Link [Neatorama] + [The Great Swallow]