Eco Hvar

April Bird Watch, 2016

Steve Jones from Dol continues his study of the island's birds. Anyone who is seeing or hearing anything of interest in the bird world is invited to contact him at: Ova e-mail adresa je zaštićena od spambota. Potrebno je omogućiti JavaScript da je vidite.

Wheatear Wheatear Photo: Steve Jones

April 8th 2016: As no doubt most have heard, the Nightingale is singing most of the time now.

I saw another new bird for me - Corn Bunting, once again picked up by its call, as one I wasn't familiar with. It has been in for a couple of weeks but I hadn't been close enough to see it.

Corn Bunting. Photo Steve Jones

Went up to Sv Nikola earlier in the week to see what was about, and very disappointing on the bird front. A solitary Kestrel, a Wheatear and a couple of Chaffinches singing but not seen.

Sveti Nikola, the island's highest point. Photo: Vivian Grisogono
10th April 2016: Just got back from a 90 minute wander ............... heard two Cuckoos - so another arrival - and one Hoopoe calling, although saw neither.
Cuckoo, April 28th 2016. Photo: Steve Jones

Also to be added is Linnet - I thought I had been seeing/hearing them for a while, but needed more confirmation, and I managed to get my telescope on one this morning.

14th April 2016: I have been going to appointments in Jelsa all week. I was a little bit early today and went for a stroll - thought I heard Bee-Eaters, wasn't 100% but am pretty confident so you want to keep your eyes peeled. Heard a Cuckoo in Dol yesterday .... still not seen a Swift which is a surprise to me, I suspect they might be making appearances in the UK anytime now.

15th April 2016:  Just came back from Jelsa and had a definite sighting of Bee-Eaters so my hearing was good yesterday.

Bee-eaters. Photo: Steve Jones

Eco Hvar comment: I also saw the bee-eaters in a little flock above one of Jelsa's back roads a couple of days ago. They seem to have arrived right on cue, to judge by past years. Many are having to find new homes, as a large nesting place just opposite the Bagi petrol station on the main road was dug up a couple of years ago, exposing their warren of nesting holes as pitiful relics of the past.

Bee-eaters nesting holes exposed to predators and the elements, April 2015. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

Bee-eaters' nesting holes ruthlessly exposed to predators and the elements, April 2015. Photo: Vivian Grisogono 

21st April 2016: As I barely visit a town for any period of time I am still not hearing/seeing any Swifts. Are they in in Jelsa now? I was in Split yesterday and they are everywhere, I thought I heard one in Stari Grad this morning, maybe they are just arriving. Interesting, as they would only be arriving just about now in UK, For some reason I assumed things would be earlier here.

Eco Hvar comment: Yes, the swifts have arrived in Jelsa, and just today they were extremely busy renovating their nesting places under the eaves of the buildings on the main square. A diligent and co-operative crowd!

Swifts preparing their nests on Jelsa's square, 21st April 2016. Photo Vivian Grisogono

22nd April 2016. Picked up the Nightjar "churring" last night so another recent arrival.

23rd April 2016. Another long awaited  .................. Vuga/Golden Oriole I hear calling this morning and it certainly wasn't yesterday.

Sunday 24th April.2016: Went out for 90 mins or so early this morning, wondering if the low cloud, mist and rain would have any influence on things. It was very quiet, even the singing had gone quiet apart from the dawn chorus - who can blame them?

Keep hearing Cuckoo, but long distances away and not lucky enough to have seen one here. I still wonder what their host bird would be if they breed.

Anyway, as I was driving along the airport road I chanced upon a Woodchat Shrike, all over in a few seconds. I had seen one here on Hvar a couple of years ago on holiday albeit elsewhere on the island.

Woodchat shrike (c.2013). Photo: Steve Jones

Also saw a good number of Swifts in Stari Grad - so interestingly it wouldn’t be much different to UK arrivals.

Eco Hvar: Saturday and Sunday, 23rd and 24th April 2016 have been very rainy, with some thunder and a lot of low-lying clouds. The birds seem to lie low during the heaviest rains, and then emerge in full song as soon as calm is restored. It's quite a contrast to the previous period of hot sunny weather, but welcome refreshment for gardens and fields - also for dust-covered cars.

Rain clouds hanging heavy over Pitve Church. Photo: Vivian Grisogono

© Steve Jones 2016

For more of Steve's beautiful nature pictures, see his personal pages: Bird Pictures on Hvar 2017, and Butterflies of Hvar 

Srodni sadržaj (po oznakama)

na vrh članka
Nalazite se ovdje: Home Okoliš Novosti iz prirode April Bird Watch, 2016

Eco Environment News feeds

  • How winter makes recycling harder with 40% jump in contamination

    New data reveals an extra 5,000 tonnes of waste is sent to landfill or incineration from November to March

    Plastic bottles are reviled for polluting the oceans, leaching chemicalsinto drinks and being a source of microplastics in the human body.

    They even cause problems with recycling. When plastic bottles are mixed with cardboard in recycling bins, in the wet winter months the sodden cardboard wraps around the plastic bottles and trays, causing havoc at recycling plants.

    Continue reading...

  • Almost 500 carbon capture lobbyists granted access to Cop29 climate summit

    More lobbyists for the controversial technology were present this year, despite debate about its viability

    At least 480 lobbyists working on carbon capture and storage (CCS) have been granted access to the UN climate summit, known as Cop29, the Guardian can reveal.

    That is five more CCS lobbyists than were present at last year’s climate talks, despite the overall number of participants shrinking significantly from about 85,000 to about 70,000.

    Continue reading...

  • The Observer view: the Cop summit is foundering, we need urgent action not more hot air

    The grim negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan, have shown the need for reform of the UN annual global climate talks

    ‘Global emissions continue to increase, carbon sinks are being degraded and we can no longer exclude the possibility of surpassing 2.9C of warming by 2100.” It is a bleak assessment of our planet’s future and could have been made by just about any environmental organisation on Earth.

    In fact, they are the views of an international group of climate experts that highlight, in sharp detail, the manifest failings of the UN’s annual Cop climate summits, whose 29th iteration is now being staged in Baku, Azerbaijan. These talks, they said last week, are no longer fit for purpose and need an urgent overhaul.

    Continue reading...

  • Red squirrels ‘to vanish from England’ unless vaccine against squirrelpox funded

    Conservation group warns species threatened by exploding populations of grey squirrels who carry lethal virus

    Red squirrels will soon disappear from England unless the government funds a vaccine against squirrelpox, one of the biggest groups set up to protect the species has warned.

    Conservationists say the English population of non-native grey squirrels has exploded this year, triggered by warmer winters which enable mating pairs to feed and breed all year round, and estimate that 70% are carrying squirrelpox, a virus which is lethal only to red squirrels.

    Continue reading...

  • Fears grow that Milei will withdraw Argentina from Paris climate accord

    Far-right president may announce country’s departure from agreement after meeting Donald Trump

    There is growing concern that Argentina’s far-right president, Javier Milei, is set to announce his country’s departure from the Paris climate accord.

    Earlier this week, negotiators from Milei’s government were ordered to leave the Cop29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, after just three days. Now, the Guardian understands that Milei is considering announcing a formal withdrawal from the agreement, and that a decision could be made after a formal meeting with Donald Trump.

    Continue reading...

  • Country diary: Turnstones and beet among the trolleys and bikes | Jennifer Jones

    Otterspool, Merseyside: This is land built on waste-tips and spoil, but wildlife is thriving. Perhaps one day the otters will return, too

    A chill autumn day and the turnstones were there. I knew they would be; they always are at Otterspool. With their tweed plumage, bright red legs and rattling, confiding chatter, they delight me every time. With their clockwork skittering and scattering, they are best seen at high tide, when they take refuge on the steep sandstone steps from the promenade down to the River Mersey. There is a pecking order, with each one choosing a different step. I want to know how step status is agreed.

    Otterspool, in south Liverpool, was once just that – the Otter’s Pool. The otters, the pool and the apostrophe are long gone (we live in hope that the former will return), but today the area attracts much life, both human and non-human. Emerging from an place of 1950s municipal waste tips and spoil from the construction of the first Mersey tunnel, Otterspool is now a green place resurgent.

    Continue reading...

  • How a fatal bear attack led an Italian commune to rally against rewilding

    Brown bears, introduced into Trentino province 20 years ago, have begun to clash with the local human population

    Franca Gherardini used to cherish the sublime views from her home in Caldes, a village surrounded by forests on the slopes of the Brenta Dolomites in northern Italy’s Trentino province.

    But now she tries to shut out the scene as much as possible, rolling down the window canopy in the morning to avoid looking towards the area where her son, Andrea Papi, 26, was killed by a bear.

    Continue reading...

  • Get away, grizzly: why scientists are chasing bears with drones

    Wildlife experts in US west have found small aircraft are ideal for protecting humans and livestock from predators

    The first time that Terry Vandenbos watched a bear run from a drone, on a spring day two years ago, he was chasing the animal himself. After he saw the grizzly cross a road near his property, the Montana rancher hopped on his all-terrain vehicle, planning to scare it away from his cattle if needed.

    But the bear began sprinting away when he was still far from it, looking over its shoulder as it ran, and Vandenbos looked up too; overhead, a small drone was following the bear, its four propellers emitting a high-pitched whine as it sent the animal towards a nearby lake.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘It’s a national disgrace’: fury at sewage-filled Windermere over toxic algae and dead fish

    Campaigners blame United Utilities for blighting famous lake with raw effluent

    • United Utilities refuses to hand over data on sewage discharges into Windermere

    A short stroll from Beatrix Potter’s former farmhouse in the Lake District are the waters of Cunsey Beck, nestling in the breathtaking landscape that inspired the tales of childhood favourites Jeremy Fisher and Jemima Puddle-Duck.

    Campaigners say the once clear waters are regularly blighted by raw sewage from a nearby works. New figures obtained by the Observerreveal the Near Sawrey plant is alleged to have illegally discharged untreated sewage on 56 days from 2021 to 2023.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘We’ve become distrustful of each other’: Braiding Sweetgrass author Robin Wall Kimmerer on Trump, rural America and resistance

    Her last book sold 2m copies. Now the Native American ecologist is taking on capitalism. She talks about how the ‘gift economy’ could heal divisions across the US

    When the ecologist and writer Robin Wall Kimmerer is in a city for work and starts to feel disconnected from the natural world, she likes to do a breathing exercise. She inhales and thinks about how she is breathing in the breath of plants. And then she exhales, and she thinks about how her breath, in turn, gives plants life. “That is a super fundamental way to recognise our reciprocity in the living world; that we are not separate,” she tells me, speaking on a video call from her farm near Syracuse, in upstate New York.

    Once you begin to recognise yourself as symbiotically connected to plants, it might shift your views on politics, too. One of the great “delusions” of market capitalism, Kimmerer continues, is its notion of self-interest. Because how should you define the self? “If my self is the economic me, supposed to maximise my return on investment, that’s a very different notion than if my self is permeable, if it includes the trees whose oxygen I am breathing, and those birds, and the soil,” she says.

    Continue reading...

Novosti: Cybermed.hr

Novosti: Biologija.com

  • Mogu li i mikroorganizmi pomo?‡i u zaštiti Jadranskoga mora?

    Doba u kojem živimo obilježeno je sve bržim promjenama koje se name?‡u morskom okolišu, a gotovo za sve odgovorni su ljudi. Obalna zona Sredozemlja, pa tako i našeg Jadranskoga mora,  mjesto je na kojemu obitava više od polovice ukupnog stanovništva Mediterana te zbog toga ovo usko područje predstavlja i jedan od najugroženijih morskih okoliša.

  • O ciljevima održivog razvoja: Cilj 5. Rodna ravnopravnost

    U našem dijelu svijeta, koji zovemo zapadnim i smatramo razvijenim, prije samo 50 godina nisu sve žene imale pravo glasa na izborima, nisu imale jednak pristup obrazovanju, nisu mogle voditi države i nisu imale pristup visokim pozicijama u poslovnom svijetu.

  • O ciljevima održivog razvoja: Cilj 14. Oceani, mora i morski resursi

    Gotovo svi su upoznati s činjenicom kako oceani i mora prekrivaju više od 70 % površine Zemlje. Me?‘utim, nedovoljno je prepoznato kako su oceani, mora i obalna područja esencijalni dio Zemljinih ekosustava te kako o njima ovisi cijelo čovječanstvo, bilo na obali ili u dubokoj unutrašnjosti kontinenata! Zašto?

  • O ciljevima održivog razvoja: Cilj 12. Održiva proizvodnja i potrošnja

    Ovaj cilj održivog razvoja odnosi se na ostvarivanje održive proizvodnje i potrošnje u čemu trenutačno ne uspijevamo jer je ekološki otisak koji ostavljamo i dalje ve?‡i od resursa koje imamo na raspolaganju. Dakle, potrebno je promijeniti načine na koji proizvodimo hranu, smanjiti bacanje hrane, pove?‡ati udjele obnovljive izvore energije u ukupnoj proizvodnji energije, pravilno gospodariti otpadom tijekom čitavog njegovog životnog ciklusa kako bi, me?‘u ostalim što manje utjecali na zaga?‘enje zraka, vode i tla.

  • O ciljevima održivog razvoja: Cilj 9. Infrastruktura, industrija, inovacije

    Razvoj industrije i infrastrukture kao temelja za pove?‡anje životnog standarda za sve ljude, uz okolišno prihvatljiva rješenja te uključivanje novih tehnologija tema je cilja održivog razvoja koji se odnosi na okolišno prihvatljivu industrijalizaciju, kvalitetnu, pouzdanu, održivu i prilagodljivu infrastrukturu, a sve uz primjenu novih tehnologija, istraživanja i inovacija.

     

Copyright © 2024 Eco Hvar. Sva prava zadržana. Developed by Orion Informatika.