It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Australian news reporter gets attacked by aggressive magpie before going live on-air
The black and white Australian magpies have been known to attack people who come close to their nesting grounds around the suburban areas
Channel Nine news reporter Brett McLeod was attacked by a magpie on Monday just as he was about to deliver his live bulletin. The Nine Network reporter was preparing to go on air outside Victoria's Parliament House when an aggressive magpie swooped at his face.
Despite the tussle with the much-despised Australian bird, McLeod quickly regained his composure and delivered his piece.
This is not the first time new reporters from the same channel have been attacked by a magpie. In 2018, reporter Mark Santomartino was attacked in Melbourne park and was left with blood dripping down his face. Another reporter, Josh Bristow, had to run away after a bird aimed at his ear.
The black and white Australian magpies have been known to attack people who come close to their nesting grounds around the suburban areas. Some even say they like to steal glittery treasures. However, they are not related and are different from magpies found in Europe.
This is what Australians call the "swooping season" which is usually around springtime when magpie fledglings hatch. Australians are given warnings every year as soon as magpie swooping season has arrived. They have a dedicated website that features tracking locations and incidents of swooping attacks.
To avoid such attacks, locals are urged to wear sunglasses when stepping out. People have learned to adapt to the swooping season by wearing protective headgear or having an umbrella at hand while hanging around parks and other open spaces to protect themselves from unprovoked attacks.
Sunday, April 28, 2024
B.C. photographer captures snapshot of rare 'ghost bird' magpie
CBC Fri, April 26, 2024 a Clinton, B.C. photographer Amanda Nelson found herself in the right place at the right time when she captured a photo of what she believes is a leucistic magpie. (Submitted by Amanda Nelson - image credit)
Amanda Nelson says she found herself in the right place at the right time to capture a photo of a rare sight.
While visiting a friend, the photographer took a snapshot of what she believes is a leucistic magpie, often referred to as a ghost bird. Nelson, who lives in the Clinton area in B.C.'s Interior, said the bird had been living on her friend's property.
With white-coloured chests and grey wings, leucistic magpies stand out from their black-billed brethren.
"I've actually never seen one of these birds before. I've seen photos, but this is my first time actually seeing one in person," Nelson told CBC's Daybreak Kamloops with Shelley Joyce.
"I was so excited to get my camera and have it ready, but I wasn't prepared for it to take off like it did, so I only got two photos, but those two photos turned out so I was very excited."
Nancy Flood, an ornithologist and president of the Kamloops Naturalist Club, said leucistic magpies aren't to be confused with albino magpies.
"It's not an albino because it's not totally white and it doesn't have pink eyes," she said.
"Albinism, just like in people, is caused by a genetic mutation and it's really bad news for the birds. It causes blindness and causes their feathers to be weak, and they don't last very long … Although [leucism is] very rare, it's much more common than albinism."
Flood said leucistic birds are more common in larger cities because there are all kinds of contaminants in urban areas that can cause genetic mutations and damage melanin cells.
With white-coloured chests and grey wings, leucistic magpies lack the pigmentation of regular magpies, allowing them to stand out in comparison.
With white-coloured chests and grey wings, leucistic magpies stand out from their black-billed brethren. (Submitted by Amanda Nelson)
In 2015, Bird Studies Canada, the country's national bird conservation organization, named Edmonton, Alta., Canada's magpie capital due to its growing population.
In some cases, Flood said leucism can have advantages for male birds.
"Sometimes in birds, there's this thing called the 'rare male effect,' where if birds look unusual, for some reason, they're 'sexier' to the ladies," she said.
Nelson said her interest in photography started in her youth. She only recently got back to the hobby a couple of years ago. She also has a love for birds. It amazes her to watch them, she said.
"I never thought I'd see one," she said of the leucistic magpie.
"You never really expect to find something like this. A lot of the time, patience pays off, but sometimes [you've] got to be in the right place at the right time."
Thursday, January 02, 2020
Watch this
Australian magpie perfectly mimic the sound of emergency sirens
The astounding video was taken in Newcastle, New South Wales by Gregory Andrews, who posted it to Facebook on Dec. 26. The bird's impression is spot on, but the sad context of the bushfires — the reason the bird has heard enough sirens to mimic them perfectly — turns what would normally be a cool and lighthearted video into something unsettling, somber, and practically dystopian.
According to bird expert Kenn Kaufman, the bird in the video is an Australian magpie, which Kaufman says is an amazing vocalist, "known for its loud, clear, 'caroling' whistles." The species is important to note, since lyrebirds are also prevalent in Australia and skilled in the art of mimicry.
"[The magpie] does a fair amount of mimicry, although not as much as the lyrebirds," Kaufman told Mashable. "Many of its usual calls have a ringing, whistling quality somewhat like an emergency-vehicle siren, so it's not much of a stretch for the bird to appropriate that sound and mimic the actual sirens."
Human noise pollution is taking its toll on the iconic Australian magpie, affecting the songbirds' ability to forage for food, communicate and respond to alarm calls—but smart birds are less affected than others.
That's according to new research published today in Global Change Biology, which found loud man-made noises are leaving magpies at a disadvantage.
Lead author of the study, Ph.D. candidate Grace Blackburn from The University of Western Australia's School of Biological Sciences, said man-made noise was altering the everyday lives of magpies, but those with better cognitive performance were better able to deal with this noise.
"We found that loud anthropogenic, or human-generated, noise of above 50 decibels decreased the amount of time magpies spent looking for food, and their foraging efficiency," Blackburn said.
"We also saw that when it's noisy, magpies don't sing or vocalize as much as they do when it's quieter, which can affect how they communicate and interact with each other."
The study found that when there's loud man-made noise, magpies may not hear or respond appropriately to important alarm calls from their groupmates, which helped keep them safe from predators.
"Interestingly, we saw that smarter birds, defined as those that performed better in our cognitive tests, seemed to be more able to maintain their normal response to alarm calls, even when man-made noise was present," Blackburn said.
The researchers used cognitive testing, behavioral observations and playback experiments in their work.
"Until recently, studies looking at the impacts of human noise pollution on wildlife had focused primarily on population-level consequences for species, rather than individual-level impacts," Blackburn said.
"We wanted to investigate not only how human noise affected magpies but whether cognition could help individuals to respond to and cope with this noise."
Blackburn said as human populations grow and expand, understanding the role of cognition in helping magpies to deal with these environmental changes such as man-made noise, could provide important clues to help protect not only this species, but all affected wildlife.
More information: Grace Blackburn et al, Cognition mediates response to anthropogenic noise in wild Western Australian magpies (Gmynorhina tibicen dorsalis), Global Change Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.16975
IMAGE: ARTIST’S IMPRESSION OF THE FEARSOME THAPUNNGAKA SHAWI.view more
CREDIT: ADOBE STOCK.
Australia’s largest flying reptile has been uncovered, a pterosaur with an estimated seven-metre wingspan that soared like a dragon above the ancient, vast inland sea once covering much of outback Queensland.
University of Queensland PhD candidate Tim Richards, from the Dinosaur Lab in UQ’s School of Biological Sciences, led a research team that analysed a fossil of the creature’s jaw, discovered on Wanamara Country, near Richmond in North West Queensland.
“It’s the closest thing we have to a real life dragon,” Mr Richards said.
“The new pterosaur, which we named Thapunngaka shawi, would have been a fearsome beast, with a spear-like mouth and a wingspan around seven metres.
“It was essentially just a skull with a long neck, bolted on a pair of long wings.
“This thing would have been quite savage.
“It would have cast a great shadow over some quivering little dinosaur that wouldn’t have heard it until it was too late.”
Mr Richards said the skull alone would have been just over one metre long, containing around 40 teeth, perfectly suited to grasping the many fishes known to inhabit Queensland’s no-longer-existent Eromanga Sea.
“It’s tempting to think it may have swooped like a magpie during mating season, making your local magpie swoop look pretty trivial – no amount of zip ties would have saved you.
“Though, to be clear, it was nothing like a bird, or even a bat – Pterosaurs were a successful and diverse group of reptiles – the very first back-boned animals to take a stab at powered flight.”
The new species belonged to a group of pterosaurs known as anhanguerians, which inhabited every continent during the latter part of the Age of Dinosaurs.
CAPTION
Hypothetical outline of Thapunngaka shawi with a 7 m wingspan, alongside a wedge-tailed eagle (2.5 m wingspan) and a hang-glider (10 m ‘wingspan’).
CREDIT
Tim Richards
Being perfectly adapted to powered flight, pterosaurs had thin-walled and relatively hollow bones.
Given these adaptations their fossilised remains are rare and often poorly preserved.
“It’s quite amazing fossils of these animals exist at all,” Mr Richards said.
“By world standards, the Australian pterosaur record is poor, but the discovery of Thapunngaka contributes greatly to our understanding of Australian pterosaur diversity.”
It is only the third species of anhanguerian pterosaur known from Australia, with all three species hailing from western Queensland.
Dr Steve Salisbury, co-author on the paper and Mr Richard’s PhD supervisor, said what was particularly striking about this new species of anhanguerian was the massive size of the bony crest on its lower jaw, which it presumably had on the upper jaw as well.
“These crests probably played a role in the flight dynamics of these creatures, and hopefully future research will deliver more definitive answers,” Dr Salisbury said.
The fossil was found in a quarry just northwest of Richmond in June 2011 by Len Shaw, a local fossicker who has been ‘scratching around’ in the area for decades.
CAPTION
Hypothetical outlines of Australian pterosaurs showing relative wingspan sizes. 1.8 m human for scale.
CREDIT
Tim Richards.
CAPTION
Reconstruction of the skull of Thapunngaka shawi (KKF494). From Richards et al. (2021)
CREDIT
Tim Richards
The name of the new species honours the First Nations peoples of the Richmond area where the fossil was found, incorporating words from the now-extinct language of the Wanamara Nation.
“The genus name, Thapunngaka, incorporates thapun [ta-boon] and ngaka [nga-ga], the Wanamara words for ‘spear’ and ‘mouth’, respectively,” Dr Salisbury said.
“The species name, shawi, honours the fossil’s discoverer Len Shaw, so the name means ‘Shaw’s spear mouth’.”
The fossil of Thapunngaka shawi is on display at Kronosaurus Korner in Richmond.
The research has been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
A new species of crested pterosaur (pterodactyloidea, anhangueridae) from the lower cretaceous (upper Albian) of Richmond, North West Queensland, Australia
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
8-Aug-2021
Friday, December 03, 2021
FARMERS
Oregon officials ask public help to find killers of 8 wolves
Officials in Oregon are asking for public assistance to locate the person or persons responsible for poisoning eight wolves in the eastern part of the state earlier this year.
The Oregon State Police has been investigating the killing of all five members of the Catherine Pack in Union County, plus three other wolves from other packs, the agency said in a news release Thursday.
“To my knowledge this is the first wolf pack to be killed by poison in Oregon,” said Capt. Stephanie Bigman of the OSP in Salem. “To my knowledge there are no suspects. All investigative leads have been exhausted and that is why we are reaching out to the public for assistance.”
Wolf advocates were stunned by the news.
“This is horrific,” said Sristi Kamal of Defenders of Wildlife in Portland. “This is quite clearly an intentional and repeat offense.”
Oregon has only about 170 wolves within its borders, and the loss of eight “is so egregious,” Kamal said.
“The poisoning of the Catherine wolf pack is tragic and disgusting” said Sophia Ressler, a staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “No wolf should have to suffer such a fate. Awful events like this show how much more work is needed for us to coexist with these vitally important animals."
A group of conservation and animal protection groups late Thursday said they were offering a combined $26,000 in rewards for information leading to a conviction in the poisonings. The rewards were offered by the Center for Biological Diversity, Cascadia Wildlands, Defenders of Wildlife, The Humane Society of the United States, Northeast Oregon Ecosystems, Oregon Wild, Predator Defense and WildEarth Guardians.
Wolves once ranged most of the U.S. but were wiped out in most places by the 1930s under government-sponsored poisoning and trapping campaigns.
More than 2,000 wolves occupy six states in the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest after animals from Canada were reintroduced in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park starting in 1995.
However, wolves remain absent across most of their historical range. Wildlife advocates argue that continued protections are needed so they can continue to expand in California, Colorado, Oregon and other states.
The Fish and Wildlife Division of the Oregon State Police was alerted on Feb. 9 that a collared wolf from the Catherine Pack was possibly deceased.
Troopers responded and located five deceased wolves, three males, and two females. The wolves were located southeast of Mount Harris, within Union County. Investigators also found a dead magpie in the vicinity of the dead wolves, the agency said.
The animals were sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service forensics lab in Ashland to determine the cause of death.
On March 11, State Police were told a mortality signal from an additional wolf collar had been received in the same general location. Searchers found a deceased female wolf, a skunk, and a magpie all very close to the scene. The female wolf was determined to be a member of the Keating Pack.
In April, the federal lab released findings consistent with poisoning as the cause of death for all six wolves, the skunk, and two magpies.
In addition, two more collared wolves were found deceased in Union County after the initial incidents. In April, a deceased adult male wolf from the Five Points Pack was located west of Elgin, and in July a young female wolf from the Clark Creek Pack was located northeast of La Grande, the county seat.
Toxicology reports confirmed the presence of differing types of poison in both those wolves, the OSP said.
In a Canadian first, the Magpie River in Quebec has now been legally declared a person.
Also known as Muteshekau-shipu in the Innu language, the river has been granted legal personhood through resolutions by the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the Minganie Regional County Municipality.
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