Together with Jane Stylianou, I’d like to announce that we’re now offering guided birding tours in the Republic of Cyprus. See below for details…

Cyprus Birding Guides

We are a pair of keen birders in Cyprus, who freelance as birdwatching tour guides. We are both experienced birders, and one or both of us goes out almost every weekend throughout the year. Any of the major birdwatching hot-spots in the Republic of Cyprus: we’re happy to take you there, show you bird species you’ve never seen before, and tell you a little about the lives and behaviors of the birds.

All for €200+transportation for a half-day or €350+transportation for a full 8-hour day for up to 3 people (other possibilities available upon request).

Black-winged Stilt, at Oroklini (J. Stylianou)

Via BirdLife Malta, here’s a short video on illegal hunting of migratory birds over Malta. Warning: it’s not particularly romantic.

Want to help? Sign the petition against illegal hunting…

There’s an interesting and informative post on some of Cyprus’ other winged residents on Mahallas: The Bats of Cyprus:

Despite the current protected status of bats in Cyprus, as in the whole of the EU, the old misconceptions and attitudes toward them are still held strongly by some Cypriots. Bats are being shot for fun, their habitats are being destroyed by pollution and development and the wider public is still ignorant about our very precious natural heritage.

Go check it out, including the links at the bottom of their post.

The Conservation Maven asks Can animal rights activists and conservationists find common ground? This article takes the neutral stance, giving a couple of alternative viewpoints and not taking much of a position. That’s all well and good for reaching a broad audience, but let’s be honest – animal rights is in no way compatible with conservation biology. Audubon Magazine also recognizes that there is a conflict with few points of agreement, in this article on the conflict between feral cat management advocates and wildlife issues.

It’s not that they don’t care about conserving wildlife; animal rights activists are just focused on the rights of the individual when it comes to animals. Even at the expense of the ecosystem. In the case of deer and cats, animal rights activists care more about the individual of those species, at the expense of a host of other plants and animals in those ecosystems. It might feel passionate and heartfelt on the parts of animal rights activists, but it is irresponsible wildlife management.

Take their preferred solution to these problems, for instance: neutering or sterilizing these problem animals. It sounds nice, except it doesn’t work.

Tracking the migration of Eleonora's falcon

The four tracked Eleonora’s Falcons started their migratory journey from Greece to Africa in mid October. The following map, which is regularly updated, shows the migratory routes of the 4 birds. They all started their journey from the island of Andros and travel towards their wintering areas, in South Africa and Madagascar.

Click on the image for more, and follow the routes of each bird more closely.

CORRECTION: Due to a mistranslation on my part, it turns out that the Cyprus Hunters association is not trying to regulate themselves, but are instead simply lamenting that they cannot shoot as many as they used to. Apparently even the association’s leadership thinks that it is perfectly okay to continue devastating the birds’ numbers. This just goes to illustrate how irresponsible Κυνήγι Κύπρος actually is, and it’s deplorable.

Τζίκλα / Song Thrush (Credit: Tony Hamblin, RSPB)

The Cyprus hunters’ association (Κυνήγι Κύπρος) has an update on their webpage reminding their members to limit the numbers of Song Thrush they shoot. It’s in Greek if you care to follow the link. I’ll translate the main point though:

Even though the old-time hunters will resent not shooting 50-60 τσίχλες (Song Thrush), they should limit themselves to between one and ten thrush. These birds are no longer as numerous as they once were, and continued hunting at the old levels would cause irreparable damage to the species’ population.

This quote is from Mark Cocker’s book Birders: Tales of a Tribe. The book as a whole is a bit of a journal of personal experiences, and largely I found the it unremarkable, but this passage captures the spirit of birdwatching fairly well. No, not that passive watch-the-birdfeeder thing that most people do, but the active pursuit of seeking and knowing the uncommon birds in their natural habitats.

Birding was simply a case of carefree foraging through the fields and woods around our house. Its pleasures were threefold. There was the essential joy of escape, which is so fundamental to my own birding and so enduring it’s one reason I question the frequent claim people make that they watch birds because alternative branches of natural history are more limited. Birding was for me a bid for freedom. Prior to setting off each evening I can recall that the change of dress from school uniform to my old clothes felt like shedding a more restricted identity for the unlimited spaces of the Derbyshire countryside.

The second great source of happiness was a chance to go hunting. As a child my favorite forms of play were always war games, creeping around bushes with a plastic gun or stick and trying to outwit an enemy by sneaking up behind him. I’m convinced that birding at the age of twelve was a way of continuing the pleasures of an eight-year-old without appearing too ridiculous. The principle applies even thirty years later. Birding involves exactly those physical military skills of seeing and not being seen. For me this explains why so many male birders dress in paramilitary fashion — it’s a subconscious expression of the boyhood soldier present in us all.

The third great pleasure was the amateur sleuthing and mental challenge involved in putting names to birds I saw. In this activity I had two basic props, a pair of cheap binoculars borrowed from my brother and my copy of The Observer’s Book of Birds.

Attenborough and Sagan speaking pure poetry…

Martin Hellicar from Birdlife Cyprus just sent me the final trapping report for Cyprus 2009. It’s absolutely horrible. I know that BirdLife Cyprus toes the line in their criticism of the Cyprus and British governments, because they have to work with those governments, but I’m free to be a little bit more blunt in my criticism…

And from my point of view, I find it hard to read the report’s conclusions without concluding myself that the Cypriot and British governments knowingly overlook this trapping. Despite the fact that it (the trapping and sale of ambelopoulia) is illegal, and despite the fact that it is the responsibility of hired government officials to enforce these laws. I.e., the government is willfully not fulfilling their responsibilities to their own laws. And I call that corruption.

A major part of the problem (for the report) is that the British government does not release their enforcement records easily – perhaps they’re trying to hide the fact that penalties are almost non-existent. The greatest fine imposed by the British SBA courts for 2009 for instance was €735 – barely more than one day’s profit from trapping for a limesticker, and less for a mist-netter. The Brits need to do more.

But at least the British government releases its enforcement records at all. The Cypriot government doesn’t. I can’t imagine what the reason could be. But we do know that one man caught with hundreds of killed songbirds in his refrigerator in September of 2009 was arrested when someone reported him. The arrest and fine (if there was one) was apparently enough to get him to skip making limesticks for one whole day. While the Brits need to do more, the Cypriots need to stop doing nothing.

Absolutely none of these enforcement activities tackle the source of the problem – the demand for ambelopoulia at restaurants. Restaurants know that they can get away with it too, despite it being illegal. Despite the fact that BirdLife Cyprus knows pretty damn well which restaurants are serving this illegal snack.

And the ‘Friends of the Limestick’ is a particularly “funny” group. In any other country in the world could you imagine a group proud of its association with crime? Only in Cyprus perhaps.

Here are the conclusions from the report:

Here on my small corner of the interwebs, I occasionally still have climate change contrarians leave comments. I’m tired of it. But I do want to put up a single blog post on one crucial part of this topic to point to whenever someone claims that the work of Michael Mann et al. is somehow part of a conspiracy. Here it is.

Figure 6.10b (IPCC4, WG1)