Free Republic

Big Wind hides evidence of turbine bird kills and gets rewarded. Here is how they do it. In 1984 the California Energy Commission .. the primary environmental issue alluded to was the extreme hazard that wind turbines posed to raptors. ... Since the early 1980s, the industry has known there is no way its propeller-style turbines could ever be safe for raptors. With exposed blade tips spinning in open space at speeds up to 200 mph, it was impossible. Wind developers also knew they would have a public relations nightmare if people ever learned how many eagles are actually being...

There is something fishy about this swarm of birds Is Big Brother Vladimir Putin watching us from above? We've seen the Russian president shirtless on a horse, calmly stroking a leopard and flooring a Judo black belt. Has Russia's king of masculine poses found a way to get a swarm of flying birds to soar into a formation of his face?

Attracted to Genesis by Magnets and a Bird Book by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D. * Evidence for Creation God used magnets, a bird book, and some precious Christian teachers to draw me to appreciate and rely upon the origins history taught in Genesis. My journey of learning about creation and my Creator budded and blossomed in my teen years,1 but providential seed-planting and germination came earlier—in kindergarten, with magnets, and in second grade, when I received my first bird book. Magnets in Kindergarten As a small child, my parents taught me that God made everything, including me. However,...

A new phenomenon is sweeping across Sparta as more and more students come forward claiming to have encountered the flightless Dodo bird. Caught somewhere between a pigeon and a dove with its gray feathers and unmistakable yellow scowl, the Dodo bird stood at an intimidating one meter tall back in the 17th century when it became extinct--barely a century after its discovery. The Dodo bird was not known for its impact on this planet while it lived, but, rather, remains a point of contention and activism because of its death. The extinction of this bird has been overwhelmingly attributed to...

Any time there's an oil spill on the water, the media are filled with photos and videos of crude-soaked birds. The coverage is the cue for the self-appointed environmentalist defenders of wildlife to wring their hands and furrow their brows.

Clint Eastwood To Make Film about Capt. Sully Sullenberger By Stephen Pope / Published: Jun 04, 2015 Warner Bros. Pictures announced on Tuesday that the life story of Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger is coming to the big screen in a yet-to-be named motion picture that will be directed by none other than Clint Eastwood. The film will be adapted from Sully's book, "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters," co-written with Jeffery Zaslow.

Jeff Gerth and Sam Biddle explore an important sidebar both to the affair of the Hillary Clinton homebrew email server and to the Benghazi scandal: “Private emails reveal ex-Clinton aide’s secret spy network.” Long story short: enter Sid Blumenthal, one of the most unsavory characters of the Clinton era. Enter Sid Blumenthal along with Tyler Drumheller and Cody Shearer, that is. Mark Hemingway reviews the triumvirate in “Meet the men behind Hillary Clinton’s private ‘spy network’” Ed Morrissey finds NBC’s Chuck Todd commenting regarding Blumenthal that “nothing regarding Blumenthal surprises me,” but Blumenthal enters the story from left field. Gerth...

Seeing fewer quail on your hunting lease? Maybe it's time you stop pointing the finger at coyotes, raccoons and fire ants and place the blame on your murderous herd of white-tailed deer. Believe it or not, researchers have discovered deer will raid the happy homes of ground-nesting birds and enjoy a nice breakfast of eggs or fledglings. Pam Pietz, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center in North Dakota, set up miniature video cameras that ran 24 hours a day to document the fate of grassland songbird nests, according to the USGS. She was...

'Amateur photographer Martin Le-May, from Essex, has recorded the extraordinary image of a weasel riding on the back of a green woodpecker as it flies through the air. The photograph was taken at Hornchurch Country Park in east London on Monday afternoon. Speaking to BBC News, Mr Le-May said he had managed to capture the moment while he was out walking with his wife Ann.'

A solar-power project set to open next month in Nevada has fried 130 birds during tests and will soon join another solar farm in California in avian incineration. If as many birds being burned by solar power farms built in the U.S. were to wash up on our beaches soaked in crude oil from a leaking offshore well, the outrage would be deafening. But as with the wind turbines that now cover acre upon acre of former "pristine" countryside, what amount to avian Cuisinarts slicing and dicing everything that flies, including endangered species, only the crickets are chirping. House Minority...

For centuries, it has now been revealed, the Swedish had given birds some names that now could be considered offensive to certain groups. One species, for instance, was called "gypsy bird," whereas another was named "negro." The insult "caffer," which was used by white against blacks in South Africa, also resembled a Swedish bird species called "kaffer." There were other offensive bird names in Sweden, such as "Hottentot" — apparently inspired by the name of the language of an indigenous southwest African tribe called Khoikhoi, yet also a derogatory term for that tribe.

More than 100 birds have been injured during testing of a new solar power farm. Biologists say 130 birds caught fire mid-air while entering an area of concentrated solar energy created by the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project near Tonopah, Nevada. Experts believe the birds may have been attracted by the glow of the farm’s tower, but the project’s owners, SolarReserve, say they have found a way to reduce the fatalities. The solar project is close to being completion and is set to go launch next month. Thousands of mirrors focus sunlight onto one central tower to melt salt...

On Sunday in St. Peter's Square, balloons were released as a gesture of peace instead of the traditional symbol of flying doves. This comes one year after an attack by a seagull and a crow on the symbolic birds ignited protests by animal protection groups. Ever since Pope John Paul II started the tradition of releasing doves on the last Sunday of January every year, children have been at a window of the papal studio overlooking the square with the pope, setting free a pair of doves for world peace, according to the Associated Press. In 2014, the act of...

Raising doves and pigeons is a deadly pursuit in ISIS-controlled Iraq. The popular hobby is in the sights of extremist Islamist fighters, who this week rounded up 15 boys and young men in the eastern province of Diyala for pursuing a pastime now deemed un-Islamic. Three have already been executed. The recent crackdown on bird breeders stems from ISIS' need for new fighters to battle the Iraqi and Syrian governments, as well as residents' growing desperation, according to the security official. Suspicion of bird-breeders stems from the fact they tend to feed their animals at the same time devout Muslims...

You know how that guy at the karaoke bar singing Journey's "Don't Stop Believin' " sounds a little off after he's had a few drinks? The same goes for buzzed birds, according to a team led by researchers from Oregon Health & Science University. For a study published in PLoS ONE, scientists found that when they got some unsuspecting zebra finches drunk, the birds slurred their songs. The findings could help scientists study the neural processes underlying birdsong - and shed light on human speech. While many scientists want to understand alcohol's effects on such a complex system as speech,...

Credit: Brian D. Peer (Phys.org)—Ornithologists Brian Peer and Robert Motz, with Western Illinois University, found themselves with a unique opportunity a couple of years ago—to study a gynandromorphy in its native environment for an extended period of time. They have written a paper describing what they observed and have had it published in The Wilson Journal of Ornithology. The observations made by the pair of researchers represent the most extensive study of a bilateral gynandromorph bird in the wild to date. Gynandromorphy is a condition where an organism unnaturally possesses both male and female traits. Examples have been observed in...

Birds Inspire Flight Sensor Inventions by Brian Thomas, M.S. * The Wright brothers studied wing structures of seabirds before building their first airplane, and the first helicopter is said to have been inspired by dragonfly flight. Today, inventors continue this tradition, focusing on bio-inspired flight sensors. A series of telling admissions in a recent summary of state-of-the-art research leave no doubt about the origins of flight-ready sensors. Gusts of wind tend to blow small, man-made flying machines called Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) off course—or knock them out of the sky altogether. But insects and birds fare much better. What keeps...

US scientists say tracking data shows that five golden-winged warblers "evacuated" their nesting site one day before the April 2014 tornado outbreak. Geolocators showed the birds left the Appalachians and flew 700km (400 miles) south to the Gulf of Mexico. The next day, devastating storms swept across the south and central US. Writing in the journal Current Biology, ecologists suggest these birds - and others - may sense such extreme events with their keen low-frequency hearing. Remarkably, the warblers had completed their seasonal migration just days earlier, settling down to nest after a 5,000km (3,100 mile) journey from Colombia. Dr...

I live in the Florida panhandle. I have a couple of bird feeders in my yard and I keep them filled. For the last few weeks, I haven't had to add any food. It dawned on me that there are no birds in my yard anymore. I used to have many cardinals along with jays, doves, woodpeckers and all the little ones I am not smart enough to identify. I thought it was just me, but I had dinner with two of my neighbors the other night and they brought up the subject asking where the birds have gone. Have...

Police defuse a bird bomb in northern Afghanistan For the first time Afghan police discover and defused a bomb which was planted in a bird’s body in northern Faryab province. Faryab is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, which is located in the north of the country bordering neighboring Turkmenistan. According to local police, the suspicious bird was flying over a police check point on Faryab- Jawzjan high way in Shereen Tagab distract, when police start tracking it. “The bird which also had a GPS on the top of his head was used by unknown sources possibly Taliban against...