Month: February 2016

This is a water shrew video.

Translated from the Dutch Mammal Society:

Feb 20, 2016 – The nature reserve Onlanden in the province of Groningen changed from one moment to the next one from peaty meadows to a swamp area. This had a great influence on the small mammals living there. …

The common vole disappeared almost entirely from the Onlanden and was even hardly found in the remaining grasslands. Probably the area mainly in winter become too wet for this species. Also the field vole decreased in numbers, but seemed like it could survive in the wild, wet parts of the Onlanden. The water shrew, which used to be virtually missing in the Onlanden, strongly increased in numbers to locally very high densities, and expanded its habitat in the new situation.

The common shrew, which before the refurbishment was found in high densities in the Onlanden…

This video is about bottlenose dolphins in the the Bay of Biscay.

From Deutsche Welle in Germany:

Bottlenose dolphins in Baltic waters?!

19.02.2016

A pair of bottlenose dolphins have been cruising the Baltic Sea recently. They’re not native to those waters, and must have come in from the North Atlantic. They’ve now developed a fondness for bow-wake cruising.

What scuba divers would be used to seeing in the waters of the Flensburg Fjord – in the westernmost part of the Baltic Sea near the northern German town of Flensburg on the Danish border – can be summed up in two very short words: Not much. But over the past couple of months, divers and boaters have been astonished to find themselves accompanied on occasion by a couple of playful bottlenose dolphins.

On Thursday this week (18.02.2016), a kayaker and a diver spent some quality time with “Selfie”…

Last week, Seattle, Washington became the latest addition to the list of cities filing lawsuits against multinational corporation Monsanto, joining San Diego, San Jose, Oakland and Berkeley in California, along with Spokane, Washington. These efforts, led by San Diego-based law firm Gomez Trial Attorneys, aim to extract tens of millions of dollars from the agrochemical company for knowingly promoting the severely hazardous line of polychlorinated biphenyls, more commonly known as PCBs.  www.globalresearch.ca

GR:  Hooray!!  It’s about time.  It always strikes me as a disgrace that our government regulators can’t do their jobs and we have to use other resources to resolve problems.  Monsanto and the other major chemical companies have no concern for the damage they do to all animals including humans.  Please share this news, and add updates to the comments.  Thank you.  Garry

This video from Britain says about itself:

Robin Bird on The Fence

Filmed in November 2015

Video Produced by Paul Dinning – Wildlife in Cornwall

Related articles

• Rare Pacific diver in Cornwall
• Birds counted on Dutch sandbank
• Dutch garden butterfly count results
• (Ambos)ele

GR:  Experience has taught me that most governments represent business interests dominated by desire for short-term profits and growth-at-all-costs.  When individuals take public office, their new power over the wealth of the people elevates them to the society of investors and developers. Rather than becoming advisers that help the wealthy control their avarice, they become students and tools of the wealthy.  Whatever original thoughts they had about stability and sustainability fade away. There are exceptions, but they are rare and fleeting.

The only solution is heavy public participation and opposition to development proposals.  Without overwhelming threats from large numbers of people, individuals in governments will be most strongly influenced by their new society—the rich and ambitious.  Activism is the answer.

The following is by Doug Draper.

“The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority – a government body created by the Province of Ontario decades ago and stacked with board members appointed…

WASHINGTON/CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) – Scientists have for the first time detected gravitational waves, ripples in space and time hypothesized by Albert Einstein a century ago, in a landmark discovery announced on Thursday that opens a new window for studying the cosmos.

The researchers said they detected gravitational waves coming from two distant black holes – extraordinarily dense objects whose existence also was foreseen by Einstein – that orbited one another, spiraled inward and smashed together. They said the waves were the product of a collision between two black holes roughly 30 times the mass of the Sun, located 1.3 billion light years from Earth.

Continue reading:  Einstein’s gravitational waves detected in scientific milestone

This video from Britain says about itself:

Turnstones – Turnstone Birds at St Ives Harbour in Cornwall

Filmed in January 2016

Video Produced by Paul Dinning – Wildlife in Cornwall

Related articles

• Rare Pacific diver in Cornwall
• Birds counted on Dutch sandbank
• Dutch garden butterfly count results
• (Ambos)ele

“Two new studies reveal how altering the composition of trees in forests is influencing not only the carbon cycle, but air surface temperatures to a significant degree as well. The results highlight how human-made changes to forests hold more severe consequences than previously believed. Worldwide, reforested areas are increasingly prominent; for example, in Europe, 85% of forests were managed by humans as of 2010. Strong favoritism of foresters to plant more commercially valuable trees — such as Scot pines, Norway spruce and beech — has resulted in reforestation of 633,000 square kilometers of conifers at the expense of broadleaved forests, which decreased by 436,000 square kilometers since 1850.”  www.sciencedaily.com

GR:  Another look at this story.

This video, recorded in Hawaii, says about itself:

[New born albatross] Kialoa gets fed, KauaiLaysan Albatross Cam, 28 January, 2016

A clip showing the first feeding on cam, in daylight!

It takes some maneuvering, but [father] Ikaika and Kialoa eventually figure it out. The gooey substance Ikaika coughs up is dense, nutritious stomach oil that will help Kialoa grow rapidly.

Related articles

• Big News! Hawaii’s Big Island Moves Closer To Being GMO-Free!
• Young Laysan albatross growing up, video
• Bird webcams in North America
• Young Laysan albatross webcam update
• Massive debris pile reveals risk of huge tsunamis in Hawaii
• Pesticides in Paradise: Hawaii’s Spike in Birth Defects Puts Focus on GM Crops
• How did the chicken cross the sea?
• Hawaii Is the Latest Battleground Over Genetically Modified Crops

This time last year there was a flock of 40 Egyptian geese gracing the fields off Market Lane which stayed for several weeks. I went out this week to check if any had returned this year. The tail end of Hurricane Henry was doing a good job of keeping all the bird life very quiet even the usual crows and gulls that seem to revel in the strong winds were missing. Having failed to find a single goose I took part of the West Hethersett Loop down towards the Great Melton Reservoir all I heard or saw were a moorhen a couple of mallards and a blue tit. Fair to say not a productive patch walk. I stopped to scan some of the fields and was rewarded first by a small group of pheasants and then what looked like 3 grey geese. As I watched they launched from the…