Animals
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Binoculars

Robin seen in the dead of winter in Bethel, Alaska

Charles Enoch
kyuk.org
Fri, 19 Dec 2014 19:28 UTC
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© Kevin MorganA robin spotted in Bethel December 17th.
A rare winter robin has been spotted in Bethel and it has folks wondering what exactly it means. Locals and a biologist say they think it has to do with climate change.

Bethel resident Myron Angstman spotted and videotaped a robin outside his window on Wednesday(12/17). He says that's not the only unusual thing he saw. Angstman says his wife looked out through the kitchen window and saw a red squirrel hanging out with the robin.

"And the red squirrel bounded into the feeder and chased the robin out and the robin came and landed in a tree by the kitchen window. So then we got a good look at it and we got some pictures," said Angstman.

Angstman says the robin was eating bird seed because the bugs it would normally feed on are nowhere to be found in the winter. He adds that in his 40-years of living in Bethel, he's never seen a robin in the middle of December.

"It's always really spring before they get here. They don't show up in the end of winter at all. It's usually May sometime, usually late May I think, but it's usually pretty warm out when you see your first robin," said Angstman.
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Camcorder

Film maker exposes US factory farms using a drone

April McCarthy
PreventDisease.com
Wed, 24 Dec 2014 18:59 UTC
Speciesism: The Movie
© Wikimedia CommonSpeciesism: The Movie
Speciesism: The Movie is an award-winning and controversial new documentary that takes viewers on a sometimes funny, sometimes frightening adventure across North America, exposing the biggest secrets about modern factory farms, and asking the biggest philosophical questions about the belief that our species is more important than the rest. You'll never look at animals the same way again. Especially humans.

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Binoculars

12 endangered vultures rescued after fleeing severe cold in Nepal, Bhutan and India


The Daily Star (Bangladesh)
Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:44 UTC
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Twelve critically endangered Himalayan Griffon vultures have been rescued after they fell on the ground in several areas of Panchagarh.

Officials of Rajshahi and Dinajpur forest departments and Panchagarh district administration rescued the rare vulture species from Mirgarh, Malipara, Station Road, bus terminal areas of the district.

Tapan Kumar Dey, conservator (Wildlife) of the forest department, said the vultures had flown from Nepal, Bhutan and Himachal of India.
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Question

Two rare sea turtles found on UK's shores 5,000 miles from home


The Telegraph, UK
Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:11 UTC
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© Wildlife Trust
One of two Kemp’s ridley turtles found in Cumbria and Merseyside, 5,000 miles from their home in the Gulf of Mexico.
Critically-endangered Kemp's ridley turtles were found in Cumbria and Merseyside, 5,000 miles from their home

Two rare sea turtles have washed ashore on beaches in the North West, some 5,000 miles from their home in the Gulf of Mexico.

The critically-endangered Kemp's ridley turtles were found in Cumbria and Merseyside, and it is feared that more could yet appear.

Rod Penrose, a Marine mammal expert, said that they could have been "cold-stunned" by a drop in ocean temperatures in the US, which would leave them unable to feed or swim against strong currents.

Rob Archer, who was walking with his girlfriend on Saturday when he found one of the turtles on Sefton Beach, near Formby, told the Liverpool Echo: "At first I thought it was a crab.

"It seemed in a stupor as if there wasn't much life left in it.
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Attention

Girl 'plays dead' to survive brutal black bear attack in Florida

Jill Reilly
Daily Mail, UK
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 19:40 UTC
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She was out walking her dog at 6pm when the bear suddenly appeared and tackled her. Pictured: Investigators at the scene of the attack
A 15-year-old girl who suffered horrific injuries after being attacked by a bear only survived because she remembered to 'play dead.'

Leah Reeder, 15, sustained deep bites and gouges to her legs, back, neck and face, after the attack on Sunday in Eastpoint, Franklin County, on Florida's panhandle.

She was out walking her dog at 6pm when the bear suddenly appeared and tackled her.

'I was listening to music and I heard my dog start barking. It was like a black blur,' she told Apalach Times from her hospital bed.

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Question

500 crows found dead in Indian village

Gurbax Puri, Anirudh Gupta
The Tribune (India)
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 17:54 UTC
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Nearly 500 crows have been found dead in the past four days at Baghiari village near Tarn Taran, which is close to a bird sanctuary at Sarai Amanat Khan. With bird flu causing deaths of geese at Sukhna Lake in Chandigarh, senior officials of the Animal Husbandry Department have responded quickly to take preventive measures in the area. The district administration is also on alert.

"The reasons for the birds' deaths could be the use of pesticide in fields, contaminated water or the cold wave. However, we have sent the carcasses of birds to Regional Diagnostic Laboratory in Jalandhar to know the exact cause of the deaths," said Dr Raminder Monga, Deputy Director, Animal Husbandry Department. He added that it would take six days to know the reason for such a high bird mortality," said Dr Monga. Deputy Commissioner Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal met officials of various departments and constituted response teams. Amarinder Singh Tiwana, a PCS officer, has been made the point person to coordinate with all teams. Dhaliwal urged people in the area to stay alert and do not panic.
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Info

Seals may use 'natural GPS'

Peter Rejcek
Live Science
Sun, 21 Dec 2014 15:42 UTC
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© Wikimedia Commons/changehaliWeddell seals underwater
While hunting, Weddell seals have biological adaptations that allow them to dive deep, as much as of hundreds of meters, but also an uncanny ability to find the breathing holes they need on the surface of the ice. Now, researchers supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) believe they have figured out they do it: by using the Earth's magnetic field as a natural GPS.

"This animal, we think, may be highly evolved with an ability to navigate using magnetic sense in order to find ice holes some distance apart and get back to them safely," explained Randall Davis of the Department of Marine Biology at Texas A&M University.

If the hypothesis turns out to be true, it would represent the first evidence of such a trait in a marine mammal.

Highlights of the research have been captured on video in underwater images and in interviews by myself and Ralph Maestas, of the "Antarctic Sun" newspaper, which is published by the U.S. Antarctic Program (USAP). (NSF manages the USAP, which coordinates all U.S. research on the southernmost continent.)


Comment: See also:

Animal Magnetism: How the magnetic field influences animal navigation

Seal found 20 miles inland near St Helens, UK

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Binoculars

Wrong place, wrong time: European robin turns up thousands of miles away in China

Stuart Winter
Daily Express, UK
Sun, 21 Dec 2014 14:51 UTC
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© GettyPhotographers were awestruck by the sighting of a European robin in the Temple of Heaven
Appearances on greetings cards, wrapping paper and festive tree baubles are one thing but the notion of a cheery redbreast preening in front of hundreds of assembled cameras does sound a little incongruous.

Take a peek at this week's photo and while the robin looks very much like your common-orgarden favourite, the way it was pictured in all its flame-toned glory has become the talk of the birdwatching world.

However this delightful individual has been holding court in Beijing's Temple of Heaven Park, creating the kind of scenes reminiscent of a rarity arrival on the Isles of Scilly or the north Norfolk coast.

How this robin arrived in the Chinese capital thousands of miles from its European home is open to conjecture. There is increasing evidence that small populations of migratory birds often take a "left-hand turn" and fly in the reverse direction in autumn as a survival technique against a possible disaster on their normal wintering ranges.

Comment: See also: Rare bird from Mongolia turns up in Wakefield, UK

Wrong time, wrong place: Rare bird found in Barrie, Canada

As well as these articles (which could have some relevance as to possible explanations for these odd migrations): Animal Magnetism: How the magnetic field influences animal navigation

Earth's magnetic field is weakening 10 times faster now

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Question

Seal found 20 miles inland near St Helens, UK

Emily Gosden
The Telegraph, UK
Mon, 22 Dec 2014 21:00 UTC
Image
© Liverpool Echo
Seal washed up in a field in Newton-le-Willows near Warrington, Cheshire
A seal had to be rescued from a field more than 20 miles inland - after apparently getting "very, very lost".

The seal, which was discovered in Newton-le-Willows, near St Helens in Merseyside on Monday morning, was likely to have swum up to 50 miles away from its home before clambering into the fenced-off field from a nearby brook, experts said.

It was found in a "distressed" state by a dog-walker at about 9.45am, sparking a rescue operation involving the emergency services and the RSPCA as police warned locals to stay away from the "potentially dangerous" animal.

The creature, believed to be a juvenile male grey seal, was eventually coaxed into a trailer using mackerel as bait and taken to a wildlife centre for checks.

Farm owner Gary Watkinson, who owns the field where the seal was found, said: "We woke up this morning and found a seal in our field, which is quite unusual to say the least.
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Eye 2

Over 100 live snakes released on Vietnam highway


tuoitrenews.vn
Sun, 21 Dec 2014 20:40 UTC
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Over 100 snakes of different kinds crawled along a national highway in southern Dong Nai Province, throwing locals into panic on Saturday afternoon.

Around 4.40pm, locals who travelled and live in a neighborhood in the province's Thong Nhat District along the National Highway No. 1 were petrified at the ghastly sight of over 100 snakes crawling across the highway.

Witnesses said they earlier saw three men, who resembled Buddhist monks with shaved heads in yellow outfits, getting down from a seven-seat car with three green sacks.

The men unpacked the sacks as if they were pouring out the contents.
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