Owl saves exotic parakeets

New York state has enlisted the help of Hootie, a battery-powered owl, to deal with its monk parakeets problem. While the birds look beautiful, they have taken to building nests at the top of utility poles in Queens and Brooklyn. This is a major problem, as when the nests get wet they can explode. So it seems Hootie is a much more humane way of getting rid of the birds! One worker said: “These birds don’t go easy. They hover right around you, and if they have eggs in the nest, they’ll attack you." Hootie has been doing the business, though...when his batteries aren't run down!

Wedding wings

Manchester United player Wes Brown has some unusual wedding plans for his big day at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire later this year. Turns out he's arranged for a barn owl to deliver the rings!

According to this story in The Sun, the trained bird will then perch on the best man's arm.

Apparently this kind of thing is all the rage but I'd be worried about the bird flying off, poking someone's eye out or landing on the bride's head by mistake. It seems like an incident just waiting to happen, doesn't it? I can see the headlines now... 

Bits and bobs about birds

Here's a few newsy items that haven't made our print edition this week, but are nonetheless interesting -- and birdy:

• While the south-east of Australia endures the worst drought in living memory, there appears to be a bird boom in the Australian desert -- helped in part by recent wet season rains. If you want to know what a birdwatching trip to the outback is like, check out this website -- the photographs are stunning.

• Valentine's Day might be over (you did remember, didn't you?), but you can still take advantage of the World Owl Trust's special offer: "adopt" two owls for the price of one. There's a range of owls available, including barn owls and Ural owls. What a hoot!

• A sea eagle has been spotted in England for the first time in 200 years. The nine-month old female bird is one of 15 birds that were released in Fife, Scotland, last year as part of a major reintroduction programme.

• National Geographic has published an interesting article entitled Where Are All the Migratory Birds Going? which suggests that fewer birds are returning to their breeding grounds every year because of poisoning by pesticides, habitat loss resulting from destructive agriculture and other human pressures. The article has quite an American bias, but it's still alarming to find out that in the Americas alone "more than half of all migrating bird species have dwindled in number in the past 40 years".