:: Canada Rare Bird Alert: A Common Shelduck was found near Renews, Newfoundland, on April 2nd. Pending acceptance, this would be a first provincial record and potential first for the ABA area.
:: One of the UK’s most important bird of prey colonies is apparently being targeted in its core breeding area, after 16 raptors were found fatally poisoned in a small area of the Scottish Highlands; the bodies of 12 Red Kites and four buzzards were found near Inverness, in what ornithologists suspect is the largest mass poisoning of birds recorded in an effort. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is offering a £10,000 reward for information leading to a successful prosecution
:: It has taken researchers 10 years to create the first comprehensive map of hummingbird evolution over its 22-million-year history.
:: The Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP Canada) is looking for volunteers this spring to help rescue injured birds and collect dead ones on the streets of Ottawa.
:: Artist Todd McGrain’s “Lost Bird Project”, about extinct species, has landed at the Smithsonian Gardens in Washington, DC
:: A pair of White Storks have been seen nesting at the Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens near Great Yarmouth, in Norfolk, England. The last record of storks breeding in Britain was at Edinburgh, in 1416.
:: Houston Audubon volunteers have counted about 140 oiled birds from the Galveston Bay Oil Spill last month.
:: A new Anna’s Hummingbird livecam has been set up in British Columbia — you can learn more about the cam here
:: Two Hoosiers have started a grassroots campaign to change Indiana’s state bird, from the Northern Cardinal to the White-breasted Nuthatch
:: The US Army Corps of Engineers plans to kill birds at some Snake and Columbia River dams in Washington State to help protect juvenile salmon and steelhead; the plan will allow as many as 1,200 California Gulls, 650 Ring-Billed Gulls and 150 Double-Crested Cormorants to be killed.
Great posts in birding blogs this week:
:: From Len at Focused on Fauna (and a little flora): S. Padre Island Mar 30,31 and April 1 2014
:: From Jeremy at AZ Birdbrain: Catching Up
:: From Duncan at 10,000 Birds: Birding Borneo with Non Birders
:: From Wallace at Our Florida Journal: Springing Into Action!
:: From Mia at On the Wing Photography: Mountain Plovers – Technology today is amazing
:: From Kathleen at Birdworthy: Wings after Work
:: From Grant at The Birders Library: Win the New Sibley Guide