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Good News for South Georgia Island’s Pipit Population

10,000 Birds

A bird species battling an onslaught of invasive rats just got a glimpse of hope. That’s because these birds won’t breed when rats are around. And let’s face it, would you go to all the effort of breeding if there was a hefty chance that your newborn would just go down some invader’s gullet?).

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Grallards: New Zealand’s Next Extinction or Newest Species?

10,000 Birds

Unfortunately for the hunters these were already all extinct, and with the introduction of cats, rats, stoats and the like the only upland game bird, the New Zealand Quail , was fast on the way out too. Using ministerial connections he obtained 100 mallard eggs from the US and began to breed and distribute them. Or so it was assumed.

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Little Barrier Island and the New Zealand Storm-petrel

10,000 Birds

It was for many years the last place you’d find Stitchbirds anywhere in the world, and to this day it still has the largest population of this species and arguably the only stable and secure one. Black Petrels ( Procellaria parkinsoni ) only breed on two islands, of which Little Barrier is one.

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For the Birds: Midway Atoll Mouse Eradication and NEPA

10,000 Birds

The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are home to some of the largest assemblages of breeding seabirds in the United States. Invasive species , particularly rodents, have long been a problem on the Hawaiian archipelago. Midway, which was once a military facility, has long had mice and it once had rats, though they were eradicated in 1996.

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Leaping Foxes

10,000 Birds

We call it a “mouse gradation year” I was not able to find a catchy English term for “gradation year” – it’s what happens when a certain species showing population cycles reaches a peak year. If however you are a larger “mouse”-like rodent you are a rat. No “gophers” etc.

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Rare Birds: The Extraordinary Tale of the Bermuda Petrel and the Man Who Brought It Back from Extinction–A Review

10,000 Birds

The story of the cahow, a “Lazurus species” that was thought to be extinct for over 300 years and then discovered to be breeding on a tiny remote island in Bermuda, is part of modern birding legend. In 1951, there were 18 breeding pairs of cahows discovered on three tiny islands.

Birds 167
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Birding the Cyclades: My my, how can I resist you?

10,000 Birds

Nick finds a bird-shaped protrusion at the top of the rock – Black-eared Wheatear , not exactly a species I expect to observe from a boat deck. This shearwater is a Mediterranean endemic, breeding from Sardinia and Corsica to the Adriatic and the Aegean. The Sun already sets and I haven’t seen a new species in a while.

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