Woodland birds

Vermont is famous for its natural and mesmerizing landscape that includes a big forest. Unfortunately, a recent report has revealed the decrement of the bird population there. ABC News reported a sharp decline of 14.2 percent in the bird population over the last 25 years in the Vermont forest. The latest study has unveiled this crucial fact. Several rare and common bird species exist in the said forest. Among them, some species solely depend on the flying insects and they form a major portion of the bird population.

Fewer birds appear to live in Vermont today than 25 years ago, according to recent research by the Vermont Center for Ecostudies. The most dramatic declines in bird populations were seen among those that live off flying insects, scientists say. Known as aerial insectivores, this diverse group of birds has declined 45 percent in Vermont, according to the study.

Habitat loss has pushed the critically endangered yellow-crested cockatoo (Cacatua Sulphurea), a native bird of Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara, toward the brink of extinction, as the number currently living in the wild continues to decline. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has listed the bird among 20 bird species that are on the brink of extinction, said Tri Endang, head of the Forest Ecosystem Control unit at the West Nusa Tenggara Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA). “The IUCN has listed the Yellow-Crested cockatoo as critically endangered.

“I am Assam’s State bird Deo hah. My current status is threatened. Please do not kill us, nor collect our ducklings or eggs” – reads a new campaign poster of wildlife NGO Aaranyak, starkly describing the current status of the State bird, the white-winged wood duck (Asarcornis scutulata). As the rhino continues to be the focus of wildlife conservation in the State, the numbers of the white-winged wood duck are dwindling slowly and silently with little or no attention coming from the State Government.

Many birders and bird-watchers in western and central Nebraska have noticed the unfortunate absence in recent years of a distinctive, entertaining and familiar bird species, the black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia). In the late 1990s, black-billed magpies were found over most of the state, except the extreme east and southeast. They occurred as far east as western Lancaster and Saunders counties during that time. In other areas, especially the west, magpies were fairly common and could be reliably seen with little effort. Since about 2000, black-billed magpies have declined sharply.

With its unmistakable fiery red plumage, which was used to decorate the robes worn by Hawaiian royalty in ancient times, the Iiwi Depranis coccinea (pronounced ee-EE-vee), or Scarlet Honeycreeper, is tightly entwined with Hawaiian folklore. Endemic to the islands, it was once abundant in forests through-out the archipelago, but now finds itself largely restricted to high-elevation forests on the islands of Hawaii, Maui and Kauai, where temperatures are too low for regular disease transmission.

Populations of several long-distance migratory songbirds in Eurasia are in peril, drastically illustrated by the recent range-wide population collapse in the Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola. There are signals of a strong decline also in the Rustic Bunting (Emberiza rustica), but no range-wide assessment of population trends in this superabundant and widespread bunting species has yet been undertaken. The conservation status of Rustic Bunting is ‘Least Concern’ on the global IUCN Red List, but it has recently been upgraded to ‘Vulnerable’ on the European Red List.

Birds are vanishing from indigenous forests, especially in the Eastern Cape, and mopane worms - a key part of life in Limpopo - are in significant decline. Separate academic studies have revealed the new threats to biodiversity caused by environmental changes and loss of habitat. A team from Stellenbosch University and the Department of Environmental Affairs, which analysed 25 years of citizen science data collected by the Southern African Bird Atlas Project, found that half the country's 57 forest-dwelling bird species are vanishing.

When a team of researchers travelled around Ghana to conduct a Grey Parrot (Psittacus erithacus) census, they encountered a very pronounced generation gap. “The older people we surveyed remember the Grey Parrot well”, says Stuart Marsden, Professor of Conservation Ecology at Manchester Metropolitan University, and one of the leaders of the study. “The species used to roost in large trees in their thousands. They remember them being common sights around the villages, as pests who would eat their fruit.