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I got out with my son in law, got coffee and just rode around. Grandson is at National Guard annual training through this month so it's quiet around here. Even when he is asleep there is a subliminal rumble present LOL, and you miss it when he goes out the door.The ponds were all quiet today, nothing but sunning Red-eared Sliders, Trachemys s. elegant. Believe it or not these are the same turtles they used to sell in dime stores, with the little tank and a plastic palm tree. Last week they were just peeking out of the water, today...

-and stop the wackobirds when we still had the chance! YouTube   Daily Caller

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HoaC3iRx44 http://newsbusters.org/node/8175 Maher: You could have went to New Hampshire and killed two birds with one stone. Kerry: Or, I could have gone to 1600 Pennsylvania and killed the real bird with one stone.

Thanks to a mild winter, swarms of turkey vultures have made themselves at home in Shelby, N.C., but town residents are wary of their neighbors. While the birds normally pass through the city while migrating south for the winter, the vultures have been sticking around this year, swarming lawns and making residents nervous. "We are just not getting cold enough to push them along," Kristen Duren, an intern with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension, the state agriculture service, told ABC's Charlotte, N.C. affiliate WSOC-TV. "What used to be five to 10 birds is going up to 150 birds."

Lights left on during a foggy night last year at a West Virginia wind farm are thought to be behind the grizzly deaths of nearly 500 songbirds. It was the third time it happened -- and each time, the federal government looked the other way. ... “The playing field is not leveled,” American Bird Conservancy spokesman Bill Johns ... All they do now is go, ‘Whoops, my bad’ and it’s forgiven.” ... The wind sector has had an exemption from prosecution under two of America’s oldest wildlife-protection laws: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Eagle Protection Act. A violation...

The government is effectively subsidizing the killing of federally protected birds, according to a report which highlights a wide range of subsidies given to the wind industry. “If Congress extends the PTC, federal taxpayers will, in effect, be subsidizing the killing of federally protected birds,” writes Robert Bryce, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the report’s author. “Despite numerous violations, the Obama administration — like the Bush administration before it — has unofficially exempted the wind industry from prosecution under the Eagle Protection and Migratory Bird Treaty Acts,” Bryce continues. “By exempting the wind industry from prosecution under the...

WARWICK, R.I. -- A year-long dispute has landed two neighbors in court. At issue: Willy's the cockatoo's salty language. In court documents, Kathleen Melker of 55 Harris Ave. asserts she was within earshot of Willy, her neighbor's pet, when he repeatedly called her "whore." The incident, she says, punctuated an acrimonious relationship with Lynne Taylor of 51 Harris Ave. that she says included Taylor pelting rocks over the fence and threats to capture Melker's cat and "drown it in the Bay." No charges have been filed.

<p>BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — What began as bizarre bird behavior has turned into something out of a horror film for threatened whales in Argentina, where seagulls have learned that pecking at the whales' backs can get them a regular seafood dinner.</p>

Pet kitties and their wild feral relatives kill a shocking 500 million birds and over 3 billion other animals according to new studies, prompting a leading Washington-based bird protection group to demand that local governments order their dog catchers to snag cats too. One disturbing new study is based on evidence from "KittyCams" strapped on to 60 outdoor pet cats in Athens, Ga. The results: They each averaged 2.1 "kills" a week. Just 13 percent were birds, the rest voles, lizards, chipmunks, frogs and small snakes. Based on the joint University of Georgia-National Geographic study of pet cats and another...

A lack of transparency by top Obama administration officials has prompted an environmental group to sue the Interior Department to determine whether wind power projects are killing large numbers of bats and birds. The American Bird Conservancy (ABC) filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia accusing the government of intentionally withholding the information and refusing to comply with requests for certain documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). “It’s ridiculous that Americans have to sue in order to find out what their government is saying to wind companies about our wildlife,” ......

To keep the big America's Cup contest afloat, San Francisco has agreed to spend $150,000 to study whether the racing boats - and their towering sails - will scare birds on the bay. The study, which will be conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey, is part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by a group that included former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin. "It's not that we're trying to head-shrink the birds," said Mike Lynes of the Golden Gate Audubon Society. "But when they take off because they are frightened, they expend energy, and that can affect their...

Officials say birds struck Vice President Joe Biden's plane as it was landing Thursday night at Santa Barbara Airport in California. Nobody was injured. Maj. Michelle Lai of the U.S. Air Force 89th Airlift Wing Public Affairs Office says two to three birds hit the right side of Air Force Two.

Derrill Rockwell told police he grabbed his rifle, the .22-caliber he kept handy to kill rodents around the house, about 5 a.m. Oct. 5 and walked outside to confront it. The bird. Possibly, he told police, the same fowl he suspected of harassing his cats recently around his home near Orchard Mesa Cemetery. It was red, sitting at the top of a hill about 90 feet away from Rockwell. “His intent was to spook it away,” Deputy District Attorney Jason Conley told District Judge Richard Gurley on Friday. Rockwell shot once but said he didn’t see the bird fly away....

When it comes to fearless battlefield feats – there can be few to match that of the crab that amputated its own claw. Filmed on the remote Pacific island of Clipperton, the crustacean is initially part of a raiding party on the nest of a group of Boobie birds. However, he gets separated from his comrades and comes under a vicious attack. The angry birds relentlessly peck him and in the end badly injure one of his claws. But this is no defeat for the crab. Instead of feeling sorry for himself he courageously cuts off the limp limb and...

THE mass attack by seabirds on a coastal town that inspired Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The Birds may finally have been explained. Biologists have blamed toxic algae eaten by the birds for damaging their brains and making them so aggressive that they dived at people, buildings and moving cars in Capitola, California, in 1961. Hitchcock's film, released two years later, was inspired partly by the event and partly by a short story by Daphne du Maurier about an unexplained avian attack on a Cornish farm worker and his family. In the Californian incident, hundreds of normally unaggressive sooty shearwater gulls suddenly,...

Birds in central California are significantly larger than they were 25 to 40 years ago, and researchers believe it may be because they are bulking up in body weight to ride out severe storms related to global climate change. Over the last 25 years, a robin, for example, has increased about an eighth of an inch in wing length and about 0.2 ounces in mass, according to a paper published online in Global Change Biology. The findings fly in the face of assumptions based on an ecological benchmark known as Bergmann’s rule: Birds and mammals tend to be larger at...

One of seven oil companies charged with killing migratory birds during drilling operations in North Dakota has agreed to plead guilty and pay $12,000. Slawson Exploration Co. Inc., of Wichita, Kan., was charged under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act with for killing 12 birds that died after allegedly landing in oil waste pits in western North Dakota from May 6 through June 20. Under a plea agreement filed in federal court Monday, Slawson will pay $12,000 — or $1,000 per bird — to the nonprofit National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The maximum penalty for each misdemeanor charge under the Migratory...

You may have gotten wind of the seven North Dakota oil companies recently charged in federal court with the deaths of 28 migratory birds. The birds allegedly landed in oil waste pits in western North Dakota last spring; the maximum penalty for each charge under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is six months in prison and a $15,000 fine, the AP said. But did you know that wind-power companies are responsible for more than 400,000 bird deaths annually, and not one has faced a single charge? The Wall Street Journal knows it, opining yesterday that the prosecutions are “bird-brained,” especially...

Robots of a Feather... LIS/Swiss Federal Institute of Technology A rendering of flying robots in Switzerland; connecting lines indicate Wi-Fi links. Relying on algorithms created to render flocks of birds in computer graphics, engineers have created flying robots that travel in swarms.

Does San Francisco have a serious problem with birds flying into tall buildings? Was there a good reason the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a "bird-safe" building ordinance last month? I asked Supervisors David Chiu and John Avalos on Saturday why they supported the measure, at a mayoral candidates debate hosted by the West of Twin Peaks Central Council. Their answers were instructive. Chiu seemed put out that he had been asked such a trivial question. The board has spent about "40 seconds" on the measure, he assured me, less time than during Saturday's debate. Avalos answered that he knows...