Birds in the news ...

SHE'S ONE OLD MAMA! A Laysan albatross named Wisdom, who lives on the Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean and is at least 62 years old (like someone else I know, who will defintely NOT be giving birth again) had another baby Sunday morning! Read about it here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2013/02/05/technology-oldest-bird-albatross-wisdom.html.

Although this isn't Wisdom, here are some photos of Laysan Albatrosses courtesy the US Fish and Wildlife Service's National Digital Library, all Public Domain photos that I often rely on. (Much more practical than flying to Midway to snap a few shots up close.)

Photo by David Patte

By Michael Lusk

 

Mother albatross with chick. Photo by Chris Swenson.

 

You can also read about the albatross of Midway Island and plastic contamination on this blog's February 2012 post: http://gabriolabirdblog.blogspot.ca/2012/01/birds-and-plastic-dont-mix-either.html

GOOD NEWS FROM CORNELL
Want to watch more birds up close? Maybe some you don't usually see? The Cornell Lab has just created a great new BirdCam site that allows you to do that. Click here: http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/

RED-FLANKED BLUETAIL STILL IN NEW WESTMINSTER!
As of three days ago, at least, the rare Red-flanked Bluetail, an Old World flycatcher from the Bering Sea region, was still being seen in Queen's Park in New Westminster.

The American Birding Association website says, "Things are getting crazy in British Columbia" in reference to the sightings of this bird in addition to the Citrine Wagtail seen a while ago in Comox and Bramblings in several parts of the province. Their site has several photos of the Bluetail: http://blog.aba.org/2013/01/abarare-red-flanked-bluetail-british-columbia.html. One person I spoke to in New West worried about what will happen to the bird in the spring if there is no other bird to mate with. Will it mate with another species? Will it just live out its life in solitude? Good questions? Any ideas out there?