English

The initial residue deposit of imidacloprid on grape berries following treatment of Confidor 200 SL at the recommended and double the recommended dose of 80 and 160 g a.i. ha−1 were 0.74 and 1.26 mg kg−1, respectively. Residues remained in the fruits up to 60 days but at a low level of 0.056 and 0.108 mg kg−1.

When I was a wee lad, flocks of these noisy yellow finches routinely filled my yard. Through the ’80s and early ’90s, they cost me a fortune in sunflower seeds. Even though they were avian vacuum cleaners at my feeder, I cherished them for their gregarious cheerfulness. Originally, this was a western bird. It was abundant in the Columbia River Basin in the 1830s, where it was originally studied by early scientists. The first record of a Maine sighting was in 1890. Until the 1900s, it was not known to be nesting anywhere east of the Great Lakes. In 1926, the first confirmed breeder in New England was discovered in Vermont. The next nesting pair in Vermont wasn’t noted until 1953. Soon thereafter, it was an abundant feeder bird across northern New England, with populations peaking in the early 1970s. It’s been downhill ever since. The evening grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinus) uses its big bill to open big seeds. It’s strong enough to crack a cherry pit. However, growing babies need protein, so nestlings are routinely fed grubs and larvae. One theory for the decline is that the population rose and fell with the spruce budworm. There are several other northern forest species whose numbers also increased when the budworm and its larvae furnished abundant food.

Five species of wildlife with declining populations have been added to New Jersey’s endangered list, and nine species have been added to the threatened list, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced. The newly-endangered are three species of birds - the black rail Laterallus jamaicensis, the golden-winged warbler Vermivora chrysoptera and the red knot Calidris canutus; the gray petaltail Tachopteryx thoreyi, a species of dragonfly; and the Indiana bat, which is listed as federally endangered. The newly-threatened are three species of birds - the American kestrel, the cattle egret and the horned lark; and six dragonfly species.

For some strange reason, since the old beaver families ran out of the food they enjoyed and moved on, our skies have appeared less occupied with winged insect eaters. Before that we saw every single species of swallows, except the purple martin Progne subis. These included the barn Hirundo Rustica, which nested in our old buildings, the tree Tachycineta bicolor, that used our birdhouses to raise their young, and the cliff Petrochelidon pyrrhonota, who built their jug-like nests under our barn eves. The rough-winged Stelgidopteryx serripennis and bank swallows Riparia riparia flew up from the Ashuelot River and over our pond to fill up on insects. The large flocks of swallows were accompanied by chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica) that nested each summer in one of the flues in our house chimney. (While eating our meals in the kitchen, we could hear them chatter.) There were other insect eaters, too, that appeared for a good feed at the pond. Larger flycatchers such as: Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe), kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), eastern pewee (Contopus virens), and olive-sided (Contopus cooperi), as well as each of the five species of Empidonax flycatchers. These quite small species are somewhat difficult to separate one from the other, unless one hears them “speak.” Their voices can be differentiated, one from the other. In late years, all of these species, including whip-poorwills (Caprimulgus vociferus), (goatsuckers) have, or nearly have, disappeared from our fields, woods, and dooryard. The change happened gradually, from one year to another, but by now, has become definitely noticeable. Truth to tell, I should not have been surprised to read the cover story in NH Audubon's Spring Issue, 2012, of “Afield” headlined: “Empty Skies: The Decline of Aerial Insectivores,” written by Dr. Pamela Hunt, bird conservation biologist of the organization. My surprise came from seeing in black and white, what had become selfevident in the past few years here at the farm.

Farmland birds such as grey partridge Perdix perdix, tree sparrow Passer montanus, yellowhammer Emberiza citrinella, reed bunting Emberiza schoeniclus and corn bunting Miliaria calandra have declined by 70 per cent since 1970. This is despite the introduction of agri-environment schemes which pay farmers to put in a range of wildlife-friendly measures on their holdings. Modern farms have far fewer insects and weeds than they did four decades ago as a result of increased use of herbicides and pesticides. Farmers could be paid for feeding starving birds during the winter months under a new initiative. “Time is running out for many farmland birds and we need action right now,” said Peter Thompson, Farmland Biodiversity Advisor with the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT). “Farmland birds are a species in decline so anything to help reverse that trend is to be welcomed,” said an RSPB spokesman.

There have been two editions of the Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland, one in the early 1970s and another in the early 1990s; now a third will be published next year. Ireland's breeding birds have been subject to detailed annual surveys only since 1998, and not all species are covered, so the new atlas will be very important for the Republic: the clearest indication yet of how its avifauna has fared over the past 40 years. And the preliminary results do not all make happy reading. They show in particular that the birds which might be thought archetypal inhabitants of Ireland's wild west – the waders of the lowland bogs and upland moors such as snipe Gallinago gallinago, lapwing Vanellus vanellus, redshank Tringa totanus and curlew Numenius arquata – are in serious trouble. Since the last atlas, they have declined, respectively, by 11, 32, 40 and 65 per cent. These figures refer to distribution: the percentage of 10km grid squares on the map where the birds are found. The percentage loss of abundance, of the actual numbers of birds, will be very much greater. Indeed, the curlew in Ireland is in such headlong decline that it may soon go extinct. The greatest loss of all in the past 20 years, however, is that of the bird which once symbolised agricultural Ireland more than any other: the corncrake.