Understanding the world from a bird's perspective 🐦 | Migration & Movement Ecology | MAVA-fellow @GlobalFlyway | guest @IBED_UvA | co-founder @BatumiRaptors
Sep 12, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
The rumours are confirmed: Andalusian govt will buy 7500ha of land from Veta la Palma. About half of this surface consists of artificial wetlands that were in danger of falling dry bc VlP is scaling back fish farming, posing a grave threat for (migrant) waterbirds. 1/6
Indeed, the VlP fish ponds -which are part of the Doñana Natural Park- can hold hundreds of thousands of waterbirds, esp. in the dry season, and even more so in drought years. By naturalising the ponds the govt hopes to aid threatened breeding birds like Marbled Duck and... 2/6
Mar 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Spent a good few minutes watching this picture-perfect #Godwit probing for food in the soaked soil of the Blaugerzen. Undoubtably sensing all kinds of information about the underground world.
Can't help worrying about its eyes when it plunges its face into that Juncus 🙈. 1/4
Further along the same field, a #Redshank -with very red shanks indeed- was foraging on little bugs on the water surface. I like how it ducks under grass leaves while making its way along the water edge. Handsome little waders. 2/4
Aug 23, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
It's hard to explain how much I hate this graph. You cannot make this comparison because these issues affect entirely diff species. Yet reputable science journalists and climate/sustainability scientists keep falling in this trap to downplay negative impacts of renewables ... 1/8
For perspective: cats often take inexperienced young of short-lived species, while turbines and power lines affect both adult and young of large, long-lived birds. If you convert 'nr of birds' to 'life years' lost, the differences are at least an order of magnitude smaller 2/8
Many #raptors migrate primarily by thermal #soaring. To do so they travel by day and avoid high mtns and open sea. This leads to spectacular raptor aggregations in overland #flyways. One of the world´s largest raptor flyways occurs along the eastern Black Sea coast in SW Georgia.
