Having a swift around is a sure sign summer is coming, and I was amazed last week to wake up and to find the skies above our quarter of Oran filled with both Common Swift and Apus pallidus. They are tricky to tell apart, and tricky to take photos of – so my thanks to the people on birdforum.net who helped me out with identifying my terrible shots.
This Himantopus himantopus was looking for food in Neusiedler See, Austria. I’ve only ever seen them in that area, but apparently the species is doing OK.
I saw this Spinus barbatus on Carcass Island. The species seems to be alright and one of the few lucky ones which isn’t threatened.
This Thalasseus sandvicensis flew by a beach near Oran, Algeria. Many thanks to the good people of birdforum.net who always help with my queries!
Thalassarche melanophris lives circumpolar in the southern oceans. I saw these two and their colony on West Point Island in the Falklands.
The numbers of the black-browed mollymawk are decreasing, and the species is labelled Nearly Threatened. Longline fishing kills the birds as does trawl fishing, and of course plastic intake kills too.
On a recent walk through farmland near Oran, we came across this Lanius excubitor (probably ssp. algeriensis). Shrike taxonomy is a minefield.
The birds have a varied diet but eat mostly large beetles – which are in decline because of pesticides and habitat loss. Hence the birds suffer.
Here are a male and a female Copsychus saularis which I spotted some years ago in Ayutthaya in Thailand. The species is threatened by pet bird trade and habitat changes.
Thank you to the members of the Birdforum who helped with the ID.
