November 2009. The first bittern of the season was seen flying over WWT London Wetland Centre on 16 October, earlier than ever. It has now settled amongst the reeds. The bird has been arriving earlier and earlier in the year since it first appeared in 2002. It is not known why this pattern of early arrival seems to be emerging, but speculation at the centre points to weather patterns and winds on the continent, where this individual is believed to come from. The London Wetland Centre in Barnes is one of a very few locations in London to see a bittern, and certainly the closest the bird gets to the City centre.
Excellent predator
Keen birdwatchers at the centre have seen the bird several times in the Wildside of the reserve where it is likely to stay until February or March. Expectation is high for one or two more bitterns to fly into the centre, as there were three visiting the centre in 2008. Bitterns usually take a few weeks to find their winter feeding spot, but once they do they remain in their territory through the winter. The birds are excellent predators, feeding mostly on perch, but also prey on roach, frogs, eels and small birds. Known as shy creatures, they are excellent camouflage artists concealing themselves from larger predators and humans.
“The centre has been attracting high numbers of wintering birds in the past few weeks, and the bittern always brings excitement to the reserve because it is such a rare bird in the UK. Nationally significant duck numbers have already been reached, with hundreds of gadwall and shoveller seen on the main lake,” said Adam Salmon, Reserve Manager. “Other highlights include good counts of arriving redwing and Cetti’s warblers. There are still chiffchaff and blackcap around, some of which may over-winter, siskin and lesser redpoll are feeding now through the birch trees.”
Visitors can take in all the sights of the autumn migrations on self-guided tours through the site, or book a Wildlife Walk for Members tour on 7 November and 5 December. An introductory birdwatching course is being held on 10 January.
Not long ago, this blog blogged about a big pike who tried to eat a big zander, causing both fish to die.
Today, in the museum, another big pike. It is now exhibited in the entrance hall, with a big carp bream which it had tried to eat in Peizermade in Drenthe province, still stuck inside its mouth.
Scientists discover new deep sea life off NZ coast
Wed, 4 Nov 2009
A deep-sea marine biodiversity survey of seamounts on the Chatham Rise has produced a bounty of new species.
The finds were made by National Institute of Water Atmospheric Research (Niwa) research vessel Tangaroa, on 18-day voyage in July along the Chatham Rise.
The rise stretches for 1000km from near the South Island eastward.
The finds include a coral genus Narella and nicknamed “Rasta” because of its long white dreadlock-like branches; a tiny squat lobster measuring 1cm across; and some specimens of sea urchin which are commonly known as Tam O’Shanters due to their similarity to the Scottish hat.
“There are three new corals that we are confident are new species from the area,” said scientist Di Tracey. …
Three surveys of the Graveyard region since 2001 have revealed high levels of biodiversity, and many undescribed species.
They include benthic macroinvertebrates — animals without backbones that are larger than millimetre long — such as corals, sponges, seastars, snails, lobsters, clams, and marine worms.
The first survey alone showed 15 percent of the species collected were unknown in the New Zealand region, plus 14 species new to science. Six new species of lace coral were discovered in the second survey in 2006.
Seamounts can be ecologically valuable as hotspots of biodiversity and economically valuable and they are often the target of commercial fishing.
But the Chatham Rise — where the fishing industry wiped out the commercial viability of the orange roughy through overfishing — is also being targeted by miners eyeing its multi-billion dollar phosphate resources.
Widespread Energy and its parent company Widespread Portfolios applied in August 2007 for a prospecting licence over a 3048 square kilometre area of the rise.
It hoped that 100 million tonnes of phosphorite (rock phosphate) valued at more than $50 billion can be scraped off the seabed.
And an Auckland company Chatham Phosphate Ltd has applied for another 71,750sq km around the Widespread prospect.
In a small pond, about 30 by 30 meter, in the early morning scores of cormorants are fishing together. Hunting together increases chances of success. It is known just comparatively recently that cormorants fish together; it was seen for the first time in the Naardermeer.
Meanwhile, great egrets have discovered this special spectacle as well. Sometimes, on the banks of the pond, about 20 egrets stand waiting patiently until the cormorants have driven the fish so far that they almost literally swim into the eager waiting egrets’ bills. On the other hand, the great egrets drive the fish which they do not catch, back to the cormorants’ bills. Let us say: a win-win case.
During the twentieth century, this fish species also became extinct in much of the Netherlands because of pollution.
Recently, a professional fisherman in Flevoland province caught five adults. The biggest of those fish was 60 centimeter. So, for the burbot, though on the Dutch red list, there still may be some hope.
Ichthyologists from Brazil have described a new species of Australoheros cichlid from southern Brazil.
Felipe Ottoni and Morevy Cheffe name the new species from small tributaries of the upper das Antas River (part of the Jacuí River drainage) Australoheros taura in the latest issue of the journal Spixiana.
A 150-kilogram Queensland grouper washed ashore on Townsville Strand in Queensland on Wednesday had swallowed a green turtle whole before it died, experts say.
DPI veterinary pathologist Dr Ian Anderson found the dead 40-centimetre turtle inside the 2.2 metre long groper following an autopsy on the giant fish this week.
Groupers are classed as “top level” predators, and are known to eat spiny lobsters, fish, small sharks, turtles and stingrays.
Queensland’s biggest recorded grouper measured more than three metres long and weighed 288 kilograms.
Dr Anderson said when he arrived at Townsville Strand on Wednesday the fish was lying on its side in shallow water and in obvious distress.
“It died a short time later and we have taken a number of samples for further analysis,” he said.
“I do not believe the grouper’s final meal of a juvenile green turtle actually killed the fish and there were no external injuries.”
“But the lining of the stomach was red and inflamed so I’m waiting on bacteriology tests to find out the cause of death which should be finalised by next week.”
VIDEOS: Kayakers get a rare sawfish sighting in Everglades National Park
* By ERIC STAATS
* Posted October 13, 2009 at 3:55 p.m.
NAPLES — A Lehigh Acres kayaker got an eyeful during a Labor Day weekend kayaking trip to Everglades National Park — and got it all on camera.
Don McCumber, 55, and his girlfriend, Brenda Anderson, were heading back to Everglades City on the tail end of a 30-mile trip through the Ten Thousand Islands when they stopped off at Rabbit Key.
As they waded in the shallows, the two spotted a trio of eagle rays — McCumber says one large female and two smaller males — gliding through the water. The largest was as wide as McCumber’s outstretched arms, maybe 6 or 7 feet, he said.
McCumber grabbed his video camera and started recording. And then it happened: “A sawfish!” McCumber is heard to yell on the video, almost 15 minutes of which McCumber posted to YouTube.
The sawfish, an endangered species, cruised back and forth along the shoreline, as the more frequently seen eagle rays chased each other at McCumber’s and Anderson’s feet.
“It’s still an exciting thing to see something that large flying through the water,” McCumber later recounted about seeing the eagle rays. “But the sawfish, aw geez, I was thrilled. What an amazing thing to see.”
McCumber, who has kayaked in Southwest Florida waters for the past 20 years, had almost given up on ever seeing a sawfish, he said.
Only the threat of an afternoon rainstorm and miles yet to paddle to get to Everglades City could pull McCumber away from the scene.
“I reluctantly shut off the camera and off we went,” he said.
Palynomorphs from a sediment core reveal a sudden remarkably warm Antarctica during the middle Miocene: here.
Antarctic expedition studies survival strategies of Weddell seals: here.
Video footage, shot by the Oceana marine group, of the aquatic wildlife resident on the Sahara seamounts - an underwater mountain range near the Canary Islands: here.
