The greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) is a long-legged bird in the cuckoo family, Cuculidae, from the Aridoamerica region in the Southwestern United States and Mexico. The scientific name means "Californian earth-cuckoo". Along with the lesser roadrunner, it is one of two species in the genus Geococcyx. This roadrunner is also known as the chaparral cock, ground cuckoo, and snake killer.


Greater roadrunner fossils dating from the Holocene and Pleistocene have been found in California, New Mexico,  Texas, Arizona, and the Mexican state of Nuevo León. The oldest known fossil comes from a cave in New Mexico, estimated at an age of 33,500 years. In the La Brea Tar Pits, fragments from 25 greater roadrunner fossils have been found. Several other fossils are also known from Santa Barbara and Kern counties, as well as Northern Mexico.
Prehistoric remains indicate that up until 8,000 years ago, the greater roadrunner was found in sparse forests rather than scrubby deserts; only later did it adapt to arid environments. Due to this, along with human transformation of the landscape, it has recently started to move northeast of its normal distribution. Sparse forests can be found in these parts, in an environment similar to the prehistoric North American Southwest.


The greater roadrunner is found in the Aridoamerica ecoregion, within the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. It can be seen regularly in the US states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Oklahoma, and less frequently in Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri, as well as the Mexican states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, Jalisco, Coahuila, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Querétaro, México, Puebla, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and San Luis Potosí. The species is not migratory.
The greater roadrunner can be found from 60 m (200 ft) below sea level to 2,300 m (7,500 ft) (rarely up to 3,000 m (9,800 ft)). It occupies arid and semiarid scrubland, with scattered vegetation (typically less than 50% cover) with a height of less than 2–3 m (6 ft 7 in – 9 ft 10 in).


Bar-shouldered doves are usually found in thick vegetation where water is present, damp gullies, forests and gorges, mangroves, plantations, swamps, eucalyptus woodlands, tropical and sub-tropical scrubs and river margins. They can be found in both inland and coastal regions. The bar-shouldered dove is found throughout the east coast from southern New South Wales (with increasing numbers in the Blue Mountains and Illawarra regions), north to Cape York Peninsula and west to the Pilbara region (about Onslow, Western Australia). They have been observed with increasing frequency in southern Australia (specifically north-western Victoria) but may have been displaced in other natural locations by introduced species. They have also been observed in the Torres Strait and are also found in other countries of the South Pacific region, such as Papua New Guinea.


The peaceful dove (Geopelia placida) is a pigeon native to Australia and New Guinea. The peaceful dove is closely related to the zebra dove of south-east Asia and the barred dove of eastern Indonesia. Until recently, the three were classed as a single species, Geopelia striata, known as peaceful dove or zebra dove.


The birds are small and slender with a long, narrow tail. The upperparts are brownish-grey with black-and-white barring. The underparts are pinkish with black bars on the sides of the neck, breast and belly. The face is blue-grey with bare blue skin around the eyes. There are white tips to the tail feathers. Juveniles are duller and paler than the adults. They can also have brown feathers. Zebra doves are 20–23 centimetres in length with a wingspan of 24–26 cm.
Their call is a series of soft, staccato cooing notes. In Thailand and Indonesia, the birds are popular as pets because of their calls and cooing competitions are held to find the bird with the best voice. In Indonesia this bird is called perkutut. In the Philippines they are known as batobatong katigbe ("pebbled katigbe") and kurokutok; in Malaysia this bird is called merbuk, onomatopoeic to their calls. They are also known as tukmo in Filipino, a name also given to the spotted dove (Spilopelia chinensis) and other wild doves.


The native range of the species extends from Southern Thailand, Tenasserim, Peninsular Malaysia, and Singapore to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java. It may also be native to Borneo, Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, and the Philippine islands.
The zebra dove is popular in captivity and many populations have appeared outside its native range due to birds escaping or being deliberately released. It can now be found in central Thailand, Laos, Borneo, Sulawesi, Hawaii (introduced in 1922), Tahiti (1950), New Caledonia, the Seychelles, the Chagos Archipelago (1960), Mauritius (before 1768), Réunion, and Saint Helena.
It inhabits scrub, farmland, and open country in lowland areas and is commonly seen in parks and gardens. Trapping for the cagebird industry has led to them becoming rare in parts of Indonesia but in most parts of its range it is common. Zebra doves are among the most abundant birds in some places such as Hawaii and the Seychelles.


The breeding habitats of these birds are marshes and other wet areas with dense low vegetation, and may also be found in other areas with dense shrub. However, these birds are less common in dry areas. Females appear to prefer males with larger masks. Common yellowthroats nest in low areas of the vegetation, laying 3–5 eggs in a cup-shaped nest. Both parents feed the young.
Northern races are nocturnal migrants, wintering in the southern parts of the breeding range, Central America and the West Indies. Southern forms are largely resident. This species is a very rare vagrant to western Europe.
These birds feed on insects, which are usually captured in dense vegetation, but sometimes caught in midair.
The common yellowthroat's song is a loud twichety twichety twichety twich. Its call is a soft jip.


Geranium lucidum, commonly known as shining cranesbill or (in North America) shining geranium or shiny geranium, is a herbaceous annual plant of the genus Geranium. It is native to Europe, western Asia and North Africa. It has been introduced to North America as a garden plant and in places, particularly the Pacific Northwest, has become naturalised and is viewed as an invasive species and noxious weed.


Geranium maculatum, the wild geranium, spotted geranium, or wood geranium, is a perennial plant native to woodland in eastern North America, from southern Manitoba and southwestern Quebec south to Alabama and Georgia and west to Oklahoma and South Dakota.


It is probably introduced in England and Wales, where it is fairly common. Elsewhere, it can be found in the southern Alps, the Pyrenees and the Caucasus.


The white-tailed hawk can be found anywhere from coastal Texas and the Rio Grande Valley to central Argentina, as well as many Caribbean islands of the Lesser Antilles, and Trinidad and Tobago. For habitat it prefers open or semi-open regions up to 2,000 ft (c. 600 m) ASL, with few trees to hinder its flight. It is not a migratory bird, though some populations may make regional movements when food is scarce. It likes to perch on bushes, trees, telephone poles or even stand around on the ground, as well as to soar. Generally, it prefers arid habitat and rarely occurs in very rainy locales.
Though it will disappear from unsuitable locations after habitat fragmentation, it has a wide range and is not considered to be a globally threatened species by the IUCN.
Its preferred hunting technique is to hover and observe the surroundings for signs of potential prey, gliding to another place when nothing is found. The diet of the white-tailed hawk varies with its environment. Rabbits make up the majority of the hawk's diet in southern Texas, while lizards of 12 in (30 cm) in length and more are the preferred prey in the Dutch West Indies. Other animals such as cotton rats, snakes, frogs, arthropods (especially grasshoppers, cicadas and beetles), and smallish birds such as passerines or quails are also eaten; it will snatch chickens when no other source of food is available. In the open cerrado of Brazil, mixed-species feeding flocks will react to a white-tailed hawk with almost as much alarm as they do when seeing such dedicated predators of birds as the aplomado falcon. The white-tailed hawk is also known to feed on carrion and to gather with other birds at brushfires to catch small animals fleeing the flames. In the tropics, white-tailed hawks rank amongst the main predators of the small monkeys known as marmosets.
Breeding pairs of white-tailed hawks build nests out of freshly broken twigs, often of thorny plants, 5–15 ft (1.5–5 m) or more above the ground on top of a tree or yucca, preferably one growing in an elevated location giving good visibility from the nest. The nest's interior is cushioned it with dried grasses and other fine materials; green twigs of mesquite or other aromatic plants are often placed in the nest too, perhaps to deter parasites. Like many Accipitridae, white-tailed hawks do not like to abandon a nest site, and nests built up over the years can thus reach sizes of up to three feet (1 m) across. The eggs are white, often lightly spotted with brown or lavender; between one and three (usually two) are laid per clutch. When approached on the nest, the adults will get airborne and observe the intruder from above, unlike related hawks, which usually wait much longer to flush and then launch a determined attack.


Geum rivale is widespread in Europe, particularly in the northern and central parts. It is found throughout the British Isles, the Faroes, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Baltic States, and much of Central Europe (up to elevations of 2400 m in the Alps and 2,100 in the Carpathians).
It is absent from the Pannonian Basin and western France; on the Italian Peninsula it is found in scattered locations in the northern and central Apennines, while on the Iberian Peninsula it is restricted between 1000 and 2200 m in the Cantabrians, Pyrenees, the Iberian and Central Systems, and the mountains of Sierra Nevada and Sierra de Cazorla in the south.
It is found in the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula (in Bulgaria its altitudinal range is 1200–2100 m), the Caucasus, northern Anatolia and northwestern Iran. It is also native to northern Ukraine and the central and northern parts of European Russia, Western Siberia up to the Sayan–Angara region in the east, as well as to parts of Central Asia (the Dzungaria and the Tarbagatai areas and Tian Shan).
Geum rivale is also native to a broad region in Canada and the United States.


The collared pratincole is a bird of open country, and is often seen near water in the evening, hawking for insects. It is found in the warmer parts of Europe, southwest Asia and Africa. It is migratory, wintering in tropical Africa, and is rare north of the breeding range.


It is native to temperate regions of North Africa, Europe and parts of Western Asia.


It is found in North Africa, within Macaronesia, Canary Islands, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia and Morocco. Within Western Asia it is found in the Caucasus, Georgia, Cyprus, Egypt (in the Sinai), Lebanon, Syria and Turkey. In eastern Europe, it is found within Ukraine. In middle Europe, it is in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and Slovakia. In northern Europe, in Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and United Kingdom. In south-eastern Europe, within Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Slovenia.
Also in southwestern Europe, it is found in France, Portugal and Spain.


Musk lorikeets are found in eastern New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
They are an uncommon nomad in woodlands and drier forests in south-east mainland, mainly west of Great Dividing Range, and in Tasmania.
Musk lorikeets have been sighted and are recent common visitors to fruit trees in the Punchbowl Area, near Launceston, Northern Tasmania. Favourite foods seem to include apricots, apples, bottlebrush flowers & nectar, as well as seeds and nectar from Grevillea spp.


Musk lorikeets are one of the few animals with the plasticity to survive and thrive in rapid urbanization. Over the past 30 years, flocks of musk lorikeets have been adopting Australia's cities, such as Melbourne and Sydney.
The partial reason for musk lorikeets' move to, and success in, urban areas is the planting of various nectar-producing plants throughout the city. They have evolved to consume nectar as a part of their major food source and can be found foraging in the blooming canopies of eucalyptus forests.
Unlike their natural habitat, the city plants are regularly maintained and so they have become a more reliable food source. Because the nectar plants tend to be most dense in the outer urban areas, most of the population prefers the outer urban areas, which allows for more feeding and roosting opportunities, rather than the inner ones. Although, there have been sightings of these lorikeets in the inner city regions but in reduced numbers; most likely from reduced vegetation.
The only Australian nectarivore to not have a preference between the inner city and outer urban zones is the rainbow lorikeet. Both the rainbow lorikeet and the musk lorikeet are nectarivores, which means that their niches overlap and that they must compete against one another for the limited amount of resources available. The growth and resources of the rainbow lorikeet population may limit the growth of the musk lorikeet population, and coupled with the growing urbanization, the musk lorikeet may have more competitive pressures for resources.


Appias drusilla, the Florida white or tropical white, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. It is found in tropical America from Brazil north to southern peninsular Florida and the Florida Keys and Antilles. It frequently visits coastal Texas and is a rare stray to Nebraska and Colorado. The habitat consists of tropical lowland evergreen or semideciduous forests.
The wingspan is 53–77 mm (2.1–3.0 in). Males are solid white on both the upper and lower surfaces of the wings except for a narrow edging of black along the forewing costal margin. The female has two forms: the dry-season form is all white and the wet-season form has black along the forewing costal margin and a yellow-orange upper hindwing. The dry-season form is on wing from October to April and the wet-season form from May to September. They feed on flower nectar from a variety of weeds and garden plants including Lantana and Eupatorium.
The larvae feed on Brassicaceae species, including Drypetes lateriflora and Capparis flexuosa in Florida. They are shade loving and feed during the night and on cloudy days.


Formerly in the genus Clemmys, the wood turtle is now a member of the genus Glyptemys, a classification that the wood turtle shares with only the bog turtle. It and the bog turtle have a similar genetic makeup, which is marginally different from that of the spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata), the only current member of the genus Clemmys. The wood turtle has undergone extensive scientific name changes by various scientists over the course of its history. Today, there are several prominent common names for the wood turtle, including sculptured tortoise, red-legged tortoise, and redleg.
Although no subspecies are recognized, there are morphological differences in wood turtles between areas. Individuals found in the west of its geographic range (areas like the Great Lakes and the Midwest United States) have a paler complexion on the inside of the legs and underside of the neck than ones found in the east (places including the Appalachian Mountains, New York, and Pennsylvania). Genetic analysis has also revealed that southern populations have less genetic diversity than the northern; however, both exhibit a fair amount of diversity considering the decline in numbers that have occurred during previous ice ages.


The wood turtle is found in most New England states, Nova Scotia, west to Michigan, northern Indiana and Minnesota, and south to Virginia. Overall, the distribution is disjunct with populations often being small and isolated.  Roughly 30% of its total population is in Canada.  It prefers slow-moving streams containing a sandy bottom and heavily vegetated banks. The soft bottoms and muddy shores of these streams are ideal for overwintering. Also, the areas bordering the streams (usually with open canopies ) are used for nesting. Spring to summer is spent in open areas including forests, fields, bogs, wet meadows, and beaver ponds. The rest of the year is spent in the aforementioned waterways.
The densities of wood turtle populations have also been studied. In the northern portion of its range (Quebec and other areas of Canada), populations are fairly dilute, containing an average of 0.44 individuals per 1 hectare (2.5 acres), while in the south, over the same area, the densities varied largely from 6 to 90 turtles. In addition to this, it has been found that colonies often have more females than males.
In the western portion of its range, wood turtles are more aquatic. In the east, wood turtles are decidedly more terrestrial, especially during the summer. During this time, they can be found in wooded areas with wide open canopies. However, even here, they are never far from water and will enter it every few days.


In the past, wood turtle populations were forced south by extending glaciers. Remains from the Rancholabrean period (300,000 to 11,000 years ago) have been found in states such as Georgia and Tennessee, both of which are well south of their current range. After the receding of the ice, wood turtle colonies were able to re-inhabit their customary northern range (areas like New Brunswick and Nova Scotia).


The rufous grasshopper is usually found in open land, particularly terrain such as meadows, pastures, and forest edges that feature tall grass. More specifically, it can often be found in chalk grassland. It has been found on southern slopes of the Alps up to approximately 8100 feet. It prefers warm environments of moisture levels ranging from dry to moist. Very common locations include regions of Europe, including Germany, Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom. In fact, it can be found across almost all of Europe and Asia, ranging from France to parts of Siberia and from Scandinavia to northern Germany.
These adept climbers prefer to avoid remaining on the ground, and instead perch on plants in sunny, elevated areas. As such they tend to live near herbaceous, taller plants and only by short plants infrequently. One situation that illustrates this preference well was the outbreak of the myxomatosis virus in rabbits in Britain in the 1950s. The rabbit population became severely depleted. As rabbits have the effect of cropping grass short to eat it, this decrease in the population led to less cropped grass. Some wildlife, such as the large blue butterfly, suffered immensely because of their dependence on short grass, but other organisms, like the rufous grasshopper, prospered because the lack of rabbits led to an increase in long grass.
Predators includes bats such as the greater mouse-eared bat.


United States: (Arkansas • Colorado • Iowa • Idaho • Illinois • Indiana • Kansas • Kentucky • Maine • Michigan • Minnesota • Missouri • Montana • Nebraska • North Dakota • New Mexico • Ohio • South Dakota • Texas • U.S. Virgin Islands • Utah • Wisconsin • Wyoming)
Canada: (Manitoba)


This gecko was first scientifically described by André Marie Constant Duméril and Gabriel Bibron in 1836 using a few specimens sent to Paris by Auguste Plée from Martinique. They also were able to examine numerous specimens collected in Cuba by the anarchist polymath Ramón de la Sagra, who had arrived in Paris from that island the previous year with many objects of natural history.
Gonatodes albogularis is the type species for the genus Gonatodes, because when Leopold Fitzinger defined the genus in 1843 he included three species in it: G. gravenhorstii, G. laevis and G. albogularis, because the first two names were nomina nuda, G. albogularis remains the only valid name for a type species by monotypy.


The nominate subspecies is known from the Lesser Antilles, northern Colombia (Valle del Cauca, Chocó, La Guajira), Venezuela (Barinas and elsewhere). The first specimens were supposedly collected on Martinique in the early 19th century, but the species has never been recovered from that island again. There are some records from Trinidad and Tobago, but as of 2018 it is believed that these are in error and based on misidentifications with G. vittatus, which is an extremely common species in that country. The syntypes of the nominate form have also been said to have been collected on Cuba, but the nominate form is also thought to be introduced to the island.
In the Lesser Antilles it is found on Aruba and Curaçao. Hummelinck proposed that this distribution is not natural and that the species is introduced on these islands. On Curaçao it is particularly common in the central portion of the island around the old plantations of Daniël and Siberië.
The populations in Venezuela are found in the ecoregions of: the islands of the coast of the mainland, the coastal strip of the mainland, the lowlands around Lake Maracaibo, the Cordillera de Mérida, the Serranía del Perijá, the hills of Lara and Falcón and the Orinoco Delta. It is absent from the central Llanos (plains), the Amazon rainforest in the south, and the Guyana Shield in the east, which together correspond to the vast majority of the territory of the country.
In the United States, G. albogularis is most prominent in Florida. With a tropical-like climate, non-native species are able to survive, and this lizard is no exception. It is most likely that the yellow-headed gecko migrated from the Key West into other parts of Florida. The first documented sighting was reported in 1934, but research suggests that they have been in Florida since 1929.
Gonatodes albogularis bodinii
This taxon was first collected on Monje Grande del Sur, Venezuela, in the early 1960s. It appears to be endemic to the Los Monjes Archipelago and found on both Monje Grande del Sur and Monje Grande del Norte.
Gonatodes albogularis fuscus
G. albogularis fuscus was first collected in Nicaragua, likely at the port town of El Rama, although as of 1988 the holotype is missing. It is also distributed in Panama, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Cuba, including Cayo Santa María, and western Colombia.
This taxon was first collected around Miami, Florida, in 1934, and is thought to have spread from the Florida Keys, although the first specimen was only collected there in 1939. It may have been transported from the Keys to other areas in southern Florida in the early 20th century, but it seems to have naturally died out throughout the Florida mainland or never truly established breeding populations there. The last specimen was collected in Key West in 1989, and the last sighting of the species was in Key West in 1995. Monitoring for the creature by gecko specialist herpetologists from 1995 to 2005 throughout southern Florida failed to provide any evidence that the species remained extant in the region.
Gonatodes albogularis notatus
This taxon was probably first collected in the city of Aquin, Haiti, although in 1988 Schartz and Henderson gave a long list of different type localities throughout Haiti for the single specimen. It is found on the islands of Jamaica, Grand Cayman Island, Îlet à Cabrit (part of the Guadeloupe archipelago of France) and Hispaniola. It has been recorded at altitudes from sea level to 3,000 feet (910 m).
On Hispaniola it is primarily found in coastal areas and is restricted to the west of Haiti, it had not been recorded from eastern Haiti or anywhere in the Dominican Republic as of 1980. It is widespread on the Tiburon Peninsula of Haiti and occurring on the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac and the northern shore of the Gulf of Gonâve northwards to the city of Gonaïves, including the Ile de la Gonâve.
Unknown
The species also occur in Mexico (Chiapas, Veracruz), Guatemala and Honduras, but it is unclear to which subspecies these populations belong. It has been stated to be found in Belize, but it has never actually been recorded in that country. The population on Cuba has also been said to represent the nominate subspecies which is generally from northern South America, as well as fuscus from southern Central America, although notatus is found on the surrounding Caribbean islands, and the species has also been said to be introduced to the nation.


Gonepteryx rhamni (known as the common brimstone) is a butterfly of the family Pieridae. It lives throughout the Palearctic zone and is commonly found across Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Across much of its range, it is the only species of its genus, and is therefore simply known locally as the brimstone. It's wing span size is 60 - 74 mm.
The brimstone relies on two species of buckthorn plants as host plants for its larvae; this influences its geographic range and distribution, as these plants are commonly found in wetlands. The adult brimstone travels to woodland areas to spend seven months overwintering. In spring when their host plants have developed, they return to the wetlands to breed and lay eggs. Both the larval and adult forms of the common brimstone have protective coloration and behaviour that decreases their chances of being recognised and subsequently preyed upon.
The adult common brimstone has sexual dimorphism in its wing coloration: males have yellow wings and iridescence while females have greenish-white wings and are not iridescent. This iridescence is affected by environmental factors.


Gopher tortoises are herbivore scavengers and opportunistic grazers. Thus, their diets contains over 300 species of plants, with the dominant plants within their environment likely making up the bulk of their diet. They consume a very wide range of plants, but mainly eat broad-leaved grass, regular grass, wiregrass, and terrestrial legumes. They also eat mushrooms, and fruits such as gopher apple, pawpaw, blackberries, and saw palmetto berries. In addition, gopher tortoises eat flowers from the genera Cnidoscolus (nettles), Tillandsia (Spanish and ball moss), Richardia, and Dyschoriste. Juvenile tortoises tend to eat more legumes, which are higher in protein, and fewer grasses and tough, fibrous plants than mature tortoises. As gopher tortoises usually get water from the food they eat, they usually only drink standing water in times of extreme drought.


Sexual reproduction involves courtship rituals. During the mating season between April and November, females lay their eggs in the open; about 1–25 eggs incubate underground for 100 days. The sex of the eggs is determined by the temperature where they are incubated in a nest laid below sand. If the sand is over 30 degrees Celsius, it's a female and if below 30 degrees Celsius, the egg is a male. Incubation period can last from 80 to 90 days in Florida and 110 days in South Carolina.
Gopher tortoises may mate from February through September, with a peak throughout May and June. Females may lay clutches of 3–14 eggs, depending on body size, in a sandy mound very close to the entrance of their burrow.
Ninety percent of clutches may be destroyed by predators such as armadillos, raccoons, foxes, skunks, and alligators before the eggs hatch, and less than 6% of eggs are expected to grow into tortoises that live one year or more after hatching. As the tortoises age, they have fewer natural predators. Egg predation rates are unchanged regardless of whether nests are close to or remain far from burrows. Additionally, a denser soil composition may affect hatchlings' ability to emerge due to the hatchlings' apparent inability to dig themselves out of the nest.


Since July 7, 1987, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has listed Gopherus polyphemus as "Threatened" wherever the tortoises are found west of the Mobile and Tombigbee Rivers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Its status is listed as "Under Review" in Florida and in other locations. On November 9, 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed rulemaking to include the eastern population of Gopherus polyphemus in the List of Threatened Wildlife. G. polyphemus appears on the IUCN Red List as a "Vulnerable" species; however, it has not been assessed for the purposes of this list since 1996. In July 2011, the USFWS determined that listing the eastern population of the tortoise as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act is warranted, however, it is precluded from doing so at this time due to higher priority actions and a lack of sufficient funds to commence proposed rule development. In the interim period of time the USFWS will place the eastern population of the tortoise on its candidate species list until sufficient funding is available to initiate a proposed listing rule. In 2018, the IUCN Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group recommended a re-assessment and re-classification of all six Gopherus species This reclassification would move G. polyphemus from Vulnerable (VU) to Endangered (EN). NatureServe considers the species to be Vulnerable.
The Conservation Clinic at the University of Florida's Levin College of Law describes five main threats to the tortoise population, which are: (1) habitat loss through human development, (2) habitat loss through poor supervision, (3) human desire to use it as a pet or eat it as meat (see human predation), (4) relocation causing population disruption, and (5) disease caused by relocation.
In Mississippi, along State Route 63, chain link fences were built to prevent gopher tortoise mortality from traffic. These fences, made from heavy gauge wire for durability, are three feet high and are buried one foot below the surface. The fences have "turnarounds" at either end, which are angled fences that redirect tortoises back into the area from which they come. As of 2003, no roadside gopher tortoise deaths had been reported along Route 63 since the construction of the fences.
On July 27, 2016, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issued a warning to residents and visitors to the state not to paint the shell of a Gopher Tortoise, as the paint can hinder their ability to absorb vitamins they need from the sun, cause respiratory problems, allow toxic chemicals into the bloodstream, and other harmful effects. The Commission has also stated that it is illegal to do so otherwise.
Head-start and release programs have been shown to be effective methods of combating Gopher Tortoise population decline. At the Yuchi Wildlife Management Area in Burke County, Georgia, during 2014 and 2015 145 tortoises were released and tracked. Survivorship was variable throughout the study but site fidelity remained high. Since tortoises were staying in the same area after release it could be a viable method of population recovery. Release strategy and predator mitigation are essential to it's success.


In 1987, human urbanization and various human activities in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama caused dramatic declines in the tortoise population, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed them as "endangered." Even though the population declined in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, they were not yet listed as threatened at the time.  However, in recent years, habitat loss is increasing as southern states continue to experience human population growth, and expand on highway road construction. The southeast has had a 20% increase in human population between 1990 and 2000.
One of the most suitable habitats for gopher tortoise is the longleaf pine ecosystem, which provides suitable well-drained and sandy soils for tortoises to inhabit. Longleaf pine forests include abundant low herbaceous plant growth and open canopy/space for tortoise's eggs to incubate. Since European settlement, longleaf pine decreased in area by an estimated of 96%, which has contributed to an 80% decrease in population densities of gopher tortoise. This means that there is only 4% of longleaf pine remaining.
Over its range in the southeast, there are still four large core areas that provide the opportunity to protect large areas of tortoise habitat, as well the biological diversity of the coastal plain. They are (from west to east) De Soto National Forest, Eglin Air Force Base, Apalachicola National Forest, and Okefenokee Swamp in Florida. These areas offer an opportunity to restore forest stands and land areas containing populations of native vertebrate animals threatened by habitat fragmentation. Restoring the natural causal factors of fire, especially, and flooding would also assist in restoring the plant and animal communities.
Gopher tortoises could potentially lose 700 acres (2.8 km²) of their habitats if Florida's population doubles. Due to land development and human activity, 7,000,000 acres (28,000 km²) of land, which is the size of Vermont, will be developed. 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km²) of agricultural lands and 2,700,000 acres (11,000 km²) of unused land will be developed. This will cause more competition for water resources between animals and humans. The low reproductive rate of the tortoise makes it more vulnerable to declines in longleaf ecosystem and extinction.


The Malayan night heron has been found in India, Sri Lanka, Brunei, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan. It is a vagrant in Christmas Island and Palau. Its range size is estimated at 1,240,000 km². This bird occurs in forests, streams, and marshes.


The black-collared starling (Gracupica nigricollis) is a species of starling in the family Sturnidae. Its plumage is black and white, with a black collar. It is found in southern China and most of mainland Southeast Asia, and has been introduced to Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. Its habitats include grassland, dry forest and human settlements. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has assessed it as being of least concern.


This species is found in southern China from Fujian to Yunnan, and south to Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. An individual recorded in Brunei may be an escaped captive or a vagrant. It has been introduced to Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. This starling lives in grassland, dry forest, cultivated areas and human settlements, mostly occurring at low elevations, but also up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft).


It a species native to the mountains of southern Virginia, the western Carolinas, and northern Georgia.


The Rhododendron leafhopper emerges from late spring and dies in November
(timeline includes: May, June, July, August, September, October and November).


G. italicum is distributed across the Western Palearctic and occurs in the entire Mediterranean area, with the northern limit of distribution fluctuating strongly. In recent decades, the northern border in western and central Europe has expanded strongly to the north, so that the species now occurs as far as the North Sea and Baltic Sea (Jutland and southern Finland). In Germany, the type occurs everywhere with exception of the northwest and is not rare regionally. In Austria, it is widespread, but only locally frequent. The insects populate open to half-shady areas in dry to more humid habitats. The subspecies G. i. sardiniensis occurs only in Sardinia.


Grapsus grapsus is found along the Pacific coast of Mexico, Central America, and South America (as far south as northern Peru), and on nearby islands, including the Galápagos Islands. It is also found along the Atlantic coast of South America, but is replaced in the eastern Atlantic Ocean (Ascension Island and West Africa) by its congener Grapsus adscensionis.


Northern map turtles inhabit an area from south Quebec and Ontario to northern Vermont where it lives in the St. Lawrence River drainage basin. Its range extends west through the Great Lakes and into southern Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota, west of the Appalachians, south to Kansas and northwestern Georgia. It also occurs in the Susquehanna River system in Pennsylvania and Maryland and the Delaware River. Also, a small European population occurs in the Czech Republic, which was formed from escaped or released turtles and their descendants. In the Czech Republic, this turtle is considered an alien species, but is threatened together with Czech native turtles, other reptiles and amphibians by a large population of another invasive turtle, Trachemys scripta elegans.


Collecting, keeping, and selling of northern map turtles is prohibited by Animals in Captivity regulations in nine states. It is considered endangered in Kansas, Kentucky, and Maryland.


This species is endemic to the United States. It can be found in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, Tennessee and Kentucky. G. o. sabinensis exists only in the Sabine River of Louisiana and Texas. Both G. o. ouachitensis and G. o. sabinensis are freshwater riverine turtles. The G. o. ouachitensis is rarely seen on land unless it is nesting season or it is basking.


The false map turtle lives in large streams of the Missouri and Mississippi River systems, ranging from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, through the Dakotas southward to southwestern Alabama, southern and western Mississippi, and Louisiana. The false map turtle also lives in several other river systems of Southwest Louisiana and East Texas.


Grayia spinosa is widely distributed across the Western United States and is native in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. It grows in valleys and at foothills from 500 to 2400 m, on dry, alkaline or scarcely alkaline soils, in sagebrush, shadscale, or creosote bush communities.


Grindelia ciliata (syn. Grindelia papposa, Haplopappus ciliatus, and Prionopsis ciliata) is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae known by the common names Spanish gold, goldenweed, and waxed goldenweed.
Grindelia ciliata is native to sections of the central United States, primarily the Great Plains from Iowa and Nebraska south to Texas and New Mexico. There are also isolated populations in Arizona and apparently naturalized populations in California, Maryland, Michigan, and the Mississippi Valley.
Grindelia ciliata grows in prairies and grasslands, and in disturbed areas such as roadsides and along railroad tracks.
Grindelia ciliata is an annual or biennial shrub sometimes as much as 150 cm (5 feet) tall, its upper stem branching. It is hairless. The leaves are alternately arranged, up to 8 cm (3.2 inches) long, their spiny-toothed blades longer than wide. The top of the stem is occupied by an inflorescence of several flower heads, their hemispheric bases up to 2.5 centimeters (one inch) wide and lined with many small, green phyllaries with curving tips. Each flower head may have up to 30 narrow, pointed yellow ray florets between 1 and 2 centimeters (0.4-0.8 inches) long, surrounding a center of yellow disc florets. The fruit is a brown achene about a centimeter (0.4 inches) long including its long pappus of bristles.


At one time, the range for the whooping crane extended throughout midwestern North America, as well as southwards to Mexico.  By the mid-20th century, the muskeg of the taiga in Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta and Northwest Territories, Canada, and the surrounding area had become the last remnant of the former nesting habitat of the Whooping Crane Summer Range. However, with the recent Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership Reintroduction Project, whooping cranes nested naturally for the first time in 100 years in the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin, United States, and these have subsequently expanded their summer range in Wisconsin and surrounding states, while reintroduced experimental non-migratory populations have nested in Florida and Louisiana.
Whooping cranes nest on the ground, usually on a raised area in a marsh. The female lays 1 or 2 eggs, usually in late-April to mid-May. The blotchy, olive-coloured eggs average 2½ inches in breadth and 4 inches in length (60 by 100 mm), and weigh about 6.7 ounces (190 g). The incubation period is 29–31 days. Both parents brood the young, although the female is more likely to directly tend to the young. Usually no more than one young bird survives in a season. The parents often feed the young for 6–8 months after birth and the terminus of the offspring-parent relationship occurs after about 1 year.
Breeding populations winter along the Gulf coast of Texas, United States, near Rockport on the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge and along Sunset Lake in Portland, Matagorda Island, Isla San Jose, and portions of the Lamar Peninsula and Welder Point, which is on the east side of San Antonio Bay.
The Salt Plains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma is a major migratory stopover for the crane population hosting over 75% of the species annually.
As many as nine whooping cranes were observed at various times on Granger Lake in Central TX in the 2011/2012 winter season. Drought conditions in 2011 exposed much of the lake bed, creating ample feeding grounds for these cranes just as they were taking their autumn migration through Texas.


Whooping cranes are believed to have been naturally rare, and major population declines caused by habitat destruction and overhunting led them to them become critically endangered. Even with hunting bans, illegal hunting has continued in spite of potential substantial financial penalties and possible prison time. The population went from an estimated 10,000+ birds before the settling of Europeans on the continent to 1,300-1,400 birds by 1870. By 1938 there were just 15 adults in a single migratory flock, plus about thirteen additional birds living in a non-migratory population in Louisiana, but the latter were scattered by a 1940 hurricane that killed half of them, while the survivors never again reproduced in the wild.
In the early 1960s, Robert Porter Allen, an ornithologist with the National Audubon Society, appeared as a guest challenger on the network television show To Tell The Truth, which gave the Conservation movement some opportunity to update the public on their efforts to save the whooping crane from extinction. His initial efforts focused on public education, particularly among farmers and hunters.  Beginning in 1961, the Whooping Crane Conservation Association (WCCA), was established to improve the status of the whooping cranes. This non-profit organization functioned largely by influencing federal, state and provincial political decisions and educating the general public about the critical status of the bird. The whooping crane was declared endangered in 1967.
Allen had begun an effort at captive breeding with a female crane named 'Josephine', the sole survivor of the Louisiana population, injured and taken into captivity in 1940, and two successive injured birds from the migratory population, 'Pete' and 'Crip', at the Audubon Zoo and the Aransas refuge.  Josephine and Crip produced the first whooping crane born in captivity in 1950, but this chick only lived four days, and though decades of further efforts produced more than 50 eggs before Josephine's death in 1965, only four chicks survived to adulthood and none of them bred.  At the same time, the wild population was not thriving.  In spite of the efforts of conservationists, hunting bans and educational programs, the aging wild population would gain only 10 birds in the first 25 years of monitoring, with entire years passing without a single new juvenile joining those that returned to the Texas wintering grounds.  This led to a renewed tension between those who favored efforts to preserve the wild population and others seeing a captive breeding program as the only hope for whooping crane survival, even though it must depend on individuals withdrawn from the extremely-vulnerable wild population.
Identification of the location of the summer breeding grounds of the whooping cranes at Wood Buffalo National Park in 1954 allowed more detailed study of their reproductive habits in the wild, and led to the observation that while many breeding pairs laid two eggs, rearing efforts seemed to favor a single chick, and both chicks would almost never survive to fledge. It was concluded that the removal of a single egg from a two-egg clutch should still leave a single hatchling most likely to survive, while providing an individual for captive breeding. Such removals in alternating years showed no decline in the reproductive success of the wild cranes. The withdrawn eggs were transferred to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where approaches for hatching and rearing crane chicks in captivity had already been optimized using the more-numerous sandhill cranes. Initial challenges getting the resultant birds to reproduce, even using artificial insemination approaches, would give impetus to the first, unsuccessful attempt at reintroduction, by swapping whooping crane eggs into the nests of the more numerous sandhill cranes as a way to establish a backup population.
In 1976, with the wild population numbering only 60 birds and having increased at an average of only one bird per year over the past decades, ornithologist George W. Archibald, co-founder of the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin, began working with 'Tex', a female whooping crane hatched at the San Antonio Zoo in 1967 to Crip and his new mate, the wild-captured 'Rosie', to get her to lay a fertile egg through artificial insemination. Archibald pioneered several techniques to rear cranes in captivity, including the use of crane costumes by human handlers. Archibald spent three years with Tex, acting as a male crane – walking, calling, dancing – to shift her into reproductive condition. As Archibald recounted the tale on The Tonight Show in 1982, he stunned the audience and host Johnny Carson with the sad end of the story – the death of Tex shortly after the hatching of her one and only chick, named 'Gee Whiz'. Gee Whiz was successfully raised and mated with female whooping cranes.  The techniques pioneered at Patuxent, the International Crane Foundation and a program at the Calgary Zoo would give rise to a robust multi-institutional captive breeding program that would supply the cranes used in several additional captive breeding and reintroduction programs.  A single male crane, 'Canus', rescued in 1964 as an injured wild chick and taken to Patuxent in 1966, would by the time of his 2003 death be the sire, grandsire or great-grandsire of 186 captive-bred whooping cranes. In 2017, the decision was made for the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center to end its 51-year effort to breed and train whooping cranes for release, due to changing priorities and in the face of budget cuts by the Trump administration. Their flock of 75 birds was moved in 2018 to join captive breeding programs at zoos or private foundations, including the Calgary Zoo, the International Crane Foundation, the Audubon Species Survival Center in Louisiana, and other sites in Florida, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. This relocation is expected to negatively impact the reproductive success of the captive cranes, at least in the short term, and concerns were raised over its impact on the reintroduction efforts for which the Patuxent program had been providing birds.
Meanwhile, the wild crane population began a steady increase, such that in 2007 the Canadian Wildlife Service counted 266 birds at Wood Buffalo National Park, with 73 mating pairs that produced 80 chicks, 39 of which completed the fall migration, while a United States Fish and Wildlife Service count in early 2017 estimated that 505 whooping cranes, including 49 juveniles, had arrived at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge that season.  As of 2020, there were a estimated 677 birds living in the wild, in the remnant original migratory population as well as three reintroduced populations, while 177 birds were at the time held in captivity at 17 institutions in Canada and the United States, putting the total current population at over 800.
The wild cranes winter in marshy areas along the Gulf Coast in and surrounding the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. An environmental group, The Aransas Project, has sued the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), maintaining that the agency violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to ensure adequate water supplies for the birds' range. The group attributes the deaths of nearly two dozen whooping cranes in the winter of 2008 and 2009 to inadequate flows from the San Antonio and Guadalupe rivers.  In March 2013 during continuing drought conditions, a federal court ordered TCEQ to develop a habitat protection plan for the crane and to cease issuing permits for waters from the San Antonio and Guadalupe rivers. A judge amended the ruling to allow TCEQ to continue issuing permits necessary to protect the public's health and safety. An appeals court eventually granted a stay in the order during the appeals process.  The Guadalupe-Blanco and San Antonio river authorities joined TCEQ in the lawsuit, warning that restricting the use of their waters would have serious effects on the cities of New Braunfels and San Marcos as well as major industrial users along the coast.  To address the potential of future crowding that may result from the increasing migratory population, in 2012 and following years, purchases of small plots of land and acquisition of conservation easements covering larger areas has led to the protection of tens of thousands of additional acres of potential coastal habitat near the Aransas reserve.  A large purchase of over 17,000 acres in 2014 was paid for with $35 million made available from the settlement over the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and an additional $15 million raised by a Texas parks non-profit.
Concerns have been raised over the effects of climate change on the migratory cycle of the surviving wild population.  The cranes arrive on their nesting grounds in April and May to breed and begin their nesting. When young whooping cranes are ready to leave the nest, they depart in September and follow the migratory trail through Texas.


This species is found in the northern parts of Europe and across the Palearctic to Siberia. Formerly the species was spread as far west as Ireland, but about 200 years ago, it became extinct there. However, it has since started to return to Ireland naturally and there are now plans to help it return to Ireland on a greater scale. The common crane is an uncommon breeder in southern Europe, smaller numbers breeding in Greece, former-Yugoslavia, Romania, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. Larger breeding populations can be found in Scandinavia, especially Finland and Sweden. The heart of the breeding population for the species is in Russia, however, where possibly up to 100,000 cranes of this species can be found seasonally. It is distributed as a breeder from Ukraine to the Chukchi Peninsula in Russia. The breeding population extends as far south as Manchuria but almost the entire Asian breeding population is restricted to Russia. Approximately 48-50 breeding pairs exist in the UK, with population centres in Somerset and Norfolk. In May 2021, ecologists in Ireland got excited and optimistic that a pair of common cranes, which have arrived in the midlands, will become the first to breed there in over 300 years.
The species is a long distance migrant predominantly wintering in northern Africa. Autumn migration is from August to October in the breeding areas, but from late October to early December at the wintering sites. Spring migration starts in February at wintering sites up to early March, but from March through May at the breeding areas. Migration phenology of common cranes is changing due to climate change.  Important staging areas occur anywhere from Sweden, The Netherlands and Germany to China (with a large one around the Caspian Sea) and many thousand cranes can be seen in one day in the Autumn. Some birds winter in southern Europe, including Portugal, Spain and France. Most eastern common cranes winter in the river valleys of Sudan, Ethiopia, Tunisia and Eritrea with smaller numbers in Turkey, northern Israel, Iraq and parts of Iran. The third major wintering region is in the northern half of Indian subcontinent, including Pakistan. Minimal wintering also occurs in Burma, Vietnam and Thailand. Lastly, they winter in eastern China, where they are often the most common crane (outnumbering black-necked cranes ten-to-one). Migrating flocks fly in a "V" formation.
It is a rare visitor to Japan and Korea, mostly blown over from the Chinese wintering population, and is a rare vagrant to western North America, where birds are occasionally seen with flocks of migrating sandhill cranes.


The guira cuckoo (Guira guira) is a gregarious bird found widely in open and semi-open habitats of northeastern, eastern and southern Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and northeastern Argentina. It is the only species placed in the genus Guira.


Gymnandrosoma punctidiscanum, the dotted ecdytolopha moth, is a moth of the family Tortricidae. It is found in North America, where it has been recorded from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Quebec, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
The wingspan is about 20 mm. Adults are on wing from March to November, with most records from May to August.
The larvae feed on Robinia species.


The Kentucky coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus) is a tree in the subfamily Caesalpinioideae of the legume family Fabaceae, native to the Midwest, Upper South, Appalachia, and small pockets of New York in the United States and Ontario in Canada. The seed may be roasted and used as a substitute for coffee beans; however, unroasted pods and seeds are toxic. The wood from the tree is used by cabinetmakers and carpenters. It is planted as a street tree.
From 1976 to 1994, the Kentucky coffeetree was the state tree of Kentucky, after which the tulip poplar was returned to that designation.


The Kentucky coffeetree is considered a rare tree species. "Rare species are those that are so uncommon that they should be monitored to determine whether their populations are becoming threatened." It is widely distributed, but rare.
The tree's native range is limited, occurring from Southern Ontario, Canada and in the United States from Kentucky (where it was first encountered by Europeans) and Connecticut in the east, to Kansas, eastern Nebraska, and southeastern South Dakota in the west, to southern Wisconsin and Michigan in the north, and to northern Louisiana in the south. It is planted as an urban shade tree across the United States and eastern Canada, including California. It has a disjunct population in Central New York.
This tree usually occurs as widely dispersed individuals or small colonial groups with interconnected root systems. This tree is found in floodplains and river valleys but is also sometimes seen on rocky hillsides and limestone woods. In the northeastern part of its range, seemingly natural groves of this tree are actually associated with known prehistoric village sites. In some parts of its range, this tree may be used as an indicator of the presence of limestone or of calcareous soils.
The Kentucky coffeetree is considered an example of evolutionary anachronism. The tough, leathery seed pods are too difficult for many animals to chew through (in addition to being poisonous) and they are too heavy for either wind or water dispersal. It is thus believed that the tree would have been browsed upon by now-extinct mammalian megafauna, which ate the pods and nicked the seeds with their large teeth, aiding in germination. This behavior is seen among African elephants eating Fabaceae relatives in Africa. Because of this, its prehistoric range may have been much larger than it has been in historical times. Today, in the wild, it only grows well in wetlands, and it is thought that only in such wet conditions can the seed pods rot away to allow germination in the absence of large herbivores.


At the time of human settlement of the Americas, the California condor was widespread across North America; condor bones from the late Pleistocene have been found at the Cutler Fossil Site in southern Florida. However, at the end of the last glacial period came the extinction of the megafauna that led to a subsequent reduction in range and population. Five hundred years ago, the California condor roamed across the American Southwest and West Coast. Faunal remains of condors have been found documented in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. The Lewis and Clark Expedition of the early 19th century reported on their sighting and shooting of California condors near the mouth of the Columbia River.
In the 1970s, there were two Condor Observation Sites established in the Santa Clara Valley to host hopeful birders interested in the endangered species: one about 15 miles north of Fillmore, California, near the Sespe Wildlife Area of Los Padres National Forest, and one atop Mount Pinos, "accessible from a dirt road off the highway in from Gorman."


In 1988, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service began a reintroduction experiment involving the release of captive Andean condors into the wild in California. Only females were released, to eliminate the possibility of accidentally introducing a South American species into the United States. The experiment was a success, and all the Andean condors were recaptured and re-released in South America. California condors were released in 1991 and 1992 in California at (Big Sur, Pinnacles National Park and Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge) and in 1996 at the Vermilion Cliffs release site in Arizona near the Grand Canyon. The Fish and Wildlife Service designated the Arizona condors as an experimental, nonessential animal so they would not affect land regulations or development as ranchers were concerned they could be charged with an offense if any birds were injured on their property after the release. Though the birth rate remains low in the wild, their numbers are increasing steadily through regular releases of captive-reared adolescents.


A crowdsourcing project called Condor Watch (CW) was started on April 14, 2014, and ended in 2020. Hosted by the web portal Zooniverse, volunteers were asked to examine motion-capture images of California condors associated with release sites managed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and Ventana Wildlife Society. The tasks on the website included identifying tagged condors and marking the distance to feeding sources such as animal carcasses. Biologists can then use this data to deduce which birds are at risk of lead poisoning.
Condor Watch enabled volunteers, or citizen scientists, to participate in active research. The project had up 175,000 images to view and assess far more than the team could hope to view on their own. Lead scientist Myra Finkelstein believes volunteering is fun because it allows enthusiasts to track the "biographies" of individual condors. Citizen science has long been used in ornithology, for instance in the Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count, which began in 1900 and the breeding bird survey which began in 1966. McCaffrey (2005) believes this approach not only directly benefits ongoing projects, but will also help train aspiring ornithologists.


The Australian magpie is found in the Trans-Fly region of southern New Guinea, between the Oriomo River and  Muli Strait, and across most of Australia, bar the tip of Cape York, the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts, and the southwest of Tasmania. Birds taken mainly from Tasmania and Victoria were introduced into New Zealand by local Acclimatisation Societies of Otago and Canterbury in the 1860s, with the Wellington Acclimatisation Society releasing 260 birds in 1874. White-backed forms are spread on both the North and eastern South Island, while black-backed forms are found in the Hawke's Bay region. Magpies were introduced into New Zealand to control agricultural pests, and were therefore a protected species until 1951. They are thought to affect native New Zealand bird populations such as the tui and kereru, sometimes raiding nests for eggs and nestlings, although studies by Waikato University have cast doubt on this, and much blame on the magpie as a predator in the past has been anecdotal only. Introductions also occurred in the Solomon Islands and Sri Lanka, although the species has failed to become established. It has become established in western Taveuni in Fiji, however.
The Australian magpie prefers open areas such as grassland, fields and residential areas such as parks, gardens, golf courses, and streets, with scattered trees or forest nearby. Birds nest and shelter in trees but forage mainly on the ground in these open areas. It has also been recorded in mature pine plantations; birds only occupy rainforest and wet sclerophyll forest in the vicinity of cleared areas. In general, evidence suggests the range and population of the Australian magpie has increased with land-clearing, although local declines in Queensland due to a 1902 drought, and in Tasmania in the 1930s have been noted; the cause for the latter is unclear but rabbit baiting, pine tree removal, and spread of the masked lapwing (Vanellus miles) have been implicated.


The bearded vulture is sparsely distributed across a vast range. It occurs in mountainous regions in the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Arabian Peninsula, the Caucasus region, the Zagros Mountains, the Alborz, the Koh-i-Baba in Bamyan, Afghanistan, the Altai Mountains, the Himalayas, Ladakh in northern India, and western and central China. In Africa, it lives in the Atlas Mountains, the Ethiopian Highlands and south from Sudan to northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, central Kenya, and northern Tanzania. An isolated population inhabits the Drakensberg in South Africa. In Israel it is locally extinct as a breeder since 1981, but young birds have been reported in 2000, 2004, and 2016. The species is extinct in Romania, the last specimens from the Carpathians being shot in 1927. However, unconfirmed sightings of the bearded vulture happened in the 2000s, and in 2016 a specimen from a restoration project in France also flew over the country before returning to the Alps.
This species is almost entirely associated with mountains and monadnocks with plentiful cliffs, crags, precipices, canyons, and gorges. They are often found near alpine pastures and meadows, montane grassland and heath, steep-sided, rocky wadis, high steppe, and are occasional around forests. They seem to prefer desolate, lightly-populated areas where predators that provide many bones, such as wolves and golden eagles, have healthy populations.
In Ethiopia, it is now common at garbage dumps tips on the outskirts of small villages and towns. Although it occasionally descends to 300–600 m (980–1,970 ft), the bearded vulture is rare below an elevation of 1,000 m (3,300 ft) and normally resides above 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in some parts of its range. It typically lives around or above the tree line which are often near the tops of the mountains, at up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in Europe, 4,500 m (14,800 ft) in Africa and 5,000 m (16,000 ft) in central Asia. In southern Armenia they have been found to breed below 1,000 m (3,300 ft) if cliff availability permits. It has even have been observed living at elevations of 7,500 m (24,600 ft) in the Himalayas and been observed flying at a height of 24,000 ft (7,300 m).
During the 1970s and 1980s the population of the bearded vulture in southern Africa declined. However, their distribution remained constant. The bearded vulture population occupies the highlands of Lesotho, Free State, Eastern Cape, Maloti Mountains, and Drakensberg mountains in KwaZulu-Natal. Adult bearded vultures utilize areas with higher altitudes, with steep slopes and sharp points and within areas that are situated closer to their nesting sites. Adult bearded vultures are more likely to fly below 200 m (660 ft) over Lesotho. Along the Drakensberg Escarpment from the area of Golden Gate Highlands National Park south into the northern part of the Eastern Cape there was the greatest densities of bearded vultures.
Abundance of the bearded vulture is shown for eight regions within the species' range in southern Africa, where the total population is estimated as being 408 adult birds and 224 young birds of all age classes therefore giving an estimate of about 632 birds.
Though a rare visitor, bearded vultures occasionally travel to parts of the United Kingdom, with the first confirmed sighting taking place in 2016 in Wales and the Westcountry. A series of sightings took place in 2020, when an individual bird was sighted separately over the Channel Island of Alderney after migrating north through France, then in the Peak District, Derbyshire, Cambridgeshire, and Lincolnshire. The bird, nicknamed 'Vigo' by Tim Birch of the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, is believed to have originated from the reintroduced population in the Alps.


The bearded vulture is one of the most endangered European bird species as over the last century its abundance and breeding range have drastically declined. It naturally occurs at low densities, with anywhere from a dozen to 500 pairs now being found in each mountain range in Eurasia where the species breeds. The species is most common in Ethiopia, where an estimated 1,400 to 2,200 are believed to breed. Relatively large, healthy numbers seem to occur in some parts of the Himalayas as well. It was largely wiped out in Europe and, by the beginning of the 20th century, the only substantial population was in the Spanish and French Pyrenees. Since then, it has been successfully reintroduced to the Swiss and Italian Alps, from where they have spread into France. They have also declined somewhat in parts of Asia and Africa, though less severely than in Europe.
Many raptor species were shielded from anthropogenic influences in previously underdeveloped areas therefore they are greatly impacted as the human population rises and infrastructure increases in underdeveloped areas. The increase in human population and infrastructure results in the declines of the bearded vulture populations today. The increase of infrastructure includes the building of houses, roads, and power lines. A major issue with infrastructure and bird species populations is collision with power lines. The declines of the bearded vulture populations have been documented throughout their range resulting from a decrease in habitat space, fatal collisions with energy infrastructure, reduced food availability, poisons left out for carnivores and direct persecution in the form of Trophy Hunting.
This species is currently listed as near threatened by the IUCN Red List last accessed on 1 October 2016, the population continues to decline as the distribution ranges of this species continues to decline due to human development.


The white-backed vulture occurs from Senegal, Gambia and Mali in the west, throughout the Sahel region to Ethiopia and Somalia in the east, through East Africa into Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa in the south. It is the most widespread and common vulture in Africa with an estimated range of 24,300,000 km² (9,400,000 sq mi), but has undergone rapid population declines in recent years.


In Italy, the species managed to survive only in the island of Sardinia, but a few attempts at reintroducing the griffon in the peninsula have been recently made, too. As a result, several specimens have been spotted again in August 2006 on the Gran Sasso massif (central Italy). Populations in Italy are thought to be undergoing a vigorous increase, thanks to reintroduction schemes in neighbouring countries taking effect, and a ban on hunting the species.
In Croatia, a colony of griffon vultures can be found near the town of Beli on the island of Cres. There they breed at lower elevations, with some nests just 10 m (33 ft) above sea level. Therefore, contact with people is common. The population makes frequent incursions in the Slovenian territory, especially in the mountain Stol above Kobarid. The bird is protected in an area called Kuntrep on the Croatian island of Krk
In the British Isles, the first record of a griffon vulture occurred in 1843 in Cork. More recently, in 2000 a vulture took up residence on the Channel Island of Guernsey.
In Cyprus, there is an unsustainable colony of fewer than 30 birds (2016) at Episkopi, in the south of the island.
In Israel and the occupied territories, colonies of griffon vultures can be found in northern Israel and in the Golan Heights, where a large colony breeds in the Carmel Mountains, the Negev desert and especially at Gamla, where reintroduction projects are being carried out at breeding centres in the Carmel and Negev.
In Greece, there are nearly 1000 birds. The majority of griffon vulture population in Greece resides in Crete, which hosts the largest insular population of the species in the world. On Crete they can be found in most mountainous areas, sometimes in groups of up to 20.
Griffon vultures have been reintroduced successfully into the Massif Central in France; about 500 are now found there. Griffon vultures are regularly spotted over the Millau bridge, and since 2015 also in the Cantal Mountains.
In Belgium and the Netherlands, around 100 birds were present in the summer of 2007. These were vagrants from the Pyrenees population (see below).
In Germany, the species died out in the mid-18th century. Some 200 vagrant birds, probably from the Pyrenees, were sighted in 2006, and several dozen of the vagrants sighted in Belgium the following year crossed into Germany in search for food. There are plans to reintroduce the species in the Alps. In September 2008, pieces of a griffon vulture bone, about 35,000 years old, were excavated from Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany, which are believed to form a flute.
In Serbia, there are around 60–65 pairs of griffon vultures in the western parts of the country, around Zlatar mountain and also 35 birds in the canyon of the Trešnjica river. They are under legal protection from hunting.
In Switzerland, there is a population of several dozen birds.
In Austria, there is a remnant population around Salzburg Zoo, and vagrants from the Balkans are often seen.
In Spain and France, in 2008, there were 25,000 birds, from a low of a few thousand around 1980. Spain has the biggest colony of Griffon vultures in all Europe. It is located at Hoces del Río Duratón Natural Park (Province of Segovia).
In Portugal a few hundred pairs of griffons nest, but their distribution is strongly asymmetric. The main areas of reproduction are located in the northeast (Douro International), which is home to more than half of the Portuguese population. Though permanently resident in the interior of the country, the griffon vulture often ventures west when the breeding season is over and can occasionally reach the Tagus Estuary and Cape St. Vincent.
The Pyrenees population has apparently been affected by an EC ruling that due to danger of BSE transmission, no carcasses must be left on the fields for the time being. This has critically lowered food availability, and consequently, carrying capacity. Although the griffon vulture does not normally attack larger living prey, there are reports of Spanish griffon vultures killing weak, young or unhealthy living animals as they do not find enough carrion to eat. In May 2013, a 52-year-old woman who was hiking in the Pyrenees and had fallen off a cliff to her death was eaten by griffon vultures before rescue workers were able to recover her body, leaving only her clothes and a few of her bones. Due to her being the first human to be documented being eaten by griffon vultures, the story brought worldwide attention to the griffon vulture problems in Southern Europe.
In Armenia there are 46-54 pairs according to last estimation of population; the trend demonstrates slight increasing.
In Russia, nests on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus.
The main cause of the rapid decline in the griffon vulture population is the consumption of poisoned baits set out by people. Wildlife conservation efforts have attempted to increase awareness of the lethal consequences of using illegally poisoned baits through education about the issue.


This fungus can be found growing singly to scattered in or near coniferous woodland in autumn, often on rotten wood. It is also commonly found on packed ground, such as beside country roads, or in campgrounds. Associated conifers include Picea glauca, Picea mariana, Picea sitchensis, Pinus contorta, Pinus banksiana, Pinus monticola, Abies balsamea, Abies grandis, Pseudotsuga menziesii, Tsuga heterophylla, Larix occidentalis, Thuja plicata, as well as the deciduous tree species Populus balsamifera, Populus tremuloides, Acer macrophyllum, Alnus species, and Betula papyrifera.
Gyromitra infula is widely distributed throughout boreal, montane and coastal forests in North America. The North American range extends north to Canada and south to Mexico. It has also been reported from South America, Europe, and Asia.


Habrodais grunus, the golden hairstreak, is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. It is found in North America in southern Arizona, Oregon, California and Mexico. The habitat consists of oak woodland, canyons and mountain ridges.
The wingspan is 25–32 mm. It has a short tail on the hindwing. The upperside of the males is dark brown with a yellow tinge in the cell area of the forewing. Females are less dark. The underside is yellow brown with a narrow, dark postmarginal line. The hindwings have thin gold crescents at the margin, the last two of which are iridescent. Adults are on wing from June to September in one generation per year. They feed on moisture from various sources and possibly also feed on aphid honeydew or other exudates.
The larvae feed on the young leaves of Chrysolepis chrysophylla, Quercus chrysolepis, Quercus vaccinifolia and Lithocarpus densiflorus.


Preferring rocky shores, the sooty oystercatcher is endemic to Australia. There are an estimated 11,500 individuals, 4000 of the nominate race and 7500 of the northern race. It is common around the Tasmanian coastline and Bass Strait islands. However it is declared Rare in South Australia and Queensland, Near Threatened in Victoria and Endangered in New South Wales.


The African oystercatcher is native to the mainland coasts and offshore islands of Southern Africa sometimes occurring as a vagrant in Angola and Mozambique. Its breeding range extends from Lüderitz, Namibia to Mazeppa Bay, Eastern Cape, South Africa. There are estimated to be over 6,000 adult birds in total.
Typically sedentary African oystercatchers rarely leave their territories, which include a nesting site and feeding grounds. These will usually be located on or near rocky shores where they can feed.


As of December 2017 the global IUCN assessment of the African oystercatcher's status is "Least Concern". The population trend seems to be upward as the local community becomes more involved in adopting conservation measures. In South Africa, the species has also been downlisted to Least Concern. A long-term program by the South African Ringing Scheme is tracking the dispersal of ringed birds to keep conservation assessments in South Africa and Namibia up to date.


The American oystercatcher is found on the Atlantic coast of North America from New England to northern Florida, where it is also found on the Gulf coast,  the Caribbean, and south to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. It is found also in the Pacific coast of California, Mexico, Central America, Peru, and Chile.  In the 19th century they became locally extinct in the northeast of the United States due to market hunting and egg collecting. After receiving protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, their range extended northward to re-occupy historical habitat in New England.
During the breeding season, these birds are found along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and from Massachusetts south to Argentina and Chile. In winter, they are found in flocks along the coast from central New Jersey to the Gulf of Mexico.


Haematopus unicolor is endemic to New Zealand. The species has likely remained endemic due to its sedentary lifestyle and lack of migration, keeping all populations within the same island habitat. They are often seen in pairs on the coast all around New Zealand. Their distribution around New Zealand is around most of the North, South and Stewart Islands coastlines and some offshore islands with the exception of outlying islands off the west coast. While they occur in lower densities on the western coastlines they are concentrated in these areas; Northland, Coromandel Peninsula, Bay of Plenty, Greater Wellington, Nelson/Marlborough and Fiordland.
Their preferred habitat is a wide range of coastal habitat types varying depending on activity and habitat available. Haematopus unicolor is generally never found more than 30 km from the coast. Breeding and nesting occurs on sandy coasts, usually far from muddy harbours. Individuals have been known to congregate in short grassed paddocks and sometimes forage in pastures after rain however will generally remain around the coastal beaches, estuaries and shorelines. They prefer sandy coastal areas and avoid gravel beaches and boulder strewn areas. They nest on the shore between rocks or on sand dunes by making a scrape out of the sand or shingle, sometimes lined with some seaweed.


Hakea sericea was first formally described by Heinrich Adolph Schrader and Johann Christoph Wendland in 1797 and published the description in Sertum Hannoveranum.  The genus Hakea is named after Baron von Hake, patron of botany in the 18th century. Sericea meaning silky, referring to the tiny hairs on young growth.


The Southern Africa   naturalist Carl Linnaeus included the woodland kingfisher with the binomial name Alcedo senegalensis in the twelfth edition of his System Natureul which was published in 1766. Linnaeus based his formal description on "Le Grand Martin-Pescher du Sénégal" that the French naturalist Mathurin Jacques Brisson had described and illustrated in 1760. The current genus Halcyon was introduced by the English naturalist and artist William John Swainson in 1821, with the woodland kingfisher as the type species.
Three subspecies are recognised:
H. s. fuscopileus Reichenow, 1906 – Sierra Leone to south Nigeria and south to DR Congo and north Angola
H. s. senegalensis (Linnaeus, 1766) – Senegal and Gambia to Ethiopia and north Tanzania
H. s. cyanoleuca (Vieillot, 1818) – south Angola and west Tanzania to South Africa


The white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla) is a very large species of sea eagle widely distributed across temperate Eurasia. Like all eagles, it is a member of the family Accipitridae (or accipitrids) which includes other diurnal raptors such as hawks, kites, and harriers. One of up to eleven members in the genus Haliaeetus, which are commonly called sea eagles, it is also referred to as the white-tailed sea-eagle. Sometimes, it is known as the ern or erne (depending on spelling by sources), gray sea eagle and Eurasian sea eagle.
While found across a very wide range, today breeding as far west as Greenland and Iceland across to as far east as Hokkaido, Japan, they are often scarce and very spottily distributed as a nesting species, mainly due to human activities. These have included habitat alterations and destruction of wetlands, about a hundred years of systematic persecution by humans (from the early 1800s to around World War II) followed by inadvertent poisonings and epidemics of nesting failures due to various manmade chemical pesticides and organic compounds, which have threatened eagles since roughly the 1950s and continue to be a potential concern. Due to this, the white-tailed eagle was considered endangered or extinct in several countries. However, some populations have recovered well due to some governmental protections and dedicated conservationists and naturalists protecting habitats and nesting sites and partially regulating poaching and pesticide usage, as well as careful reintroductions into parts of their former range.
White-tailed eagles usually live most of the year near large bodies of open water, including coastal saltwater areas and inland freshwater lakes, wetlands, bogs and rivers. It requires old-growth trees or ample sea cliffs for nesting, and an abundant food supply of fish and birds (largely water birds) amongst nearly any other available prey.  Both a powerful apex predator and an opportunistic scavenger, it is considered a close cousin of the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), which occupies a similar niche in North America.


This eagle breeds in northern Europe and northern Asia. Their range extends to as far west as southern Greenland (prevented from breeding further north due to the short summers), northern and western Iceland, and the reintroduced populations in some areas of England (re-established in 2019), Ireland and Scotland, particularly conserved coastal spots. In mainland Europe the range is expanding, with birds breeding in coastal and western Norway (broadly), northern and southwestern Finland, eastern Sweden, broadly in Denmark, islands of the Baltic Sea, western Austria, northeastern Germany, northern and eastern Poland, the Czech Republic, much of the east Baltic countries, the non-montane areas of Ukraine, eastern Slovenia, central and southern Hungary (and adjacent northeastern Croatia), very sporadically in Greece, the Danube sections of Romania and Bulgaria to the Black Sea and western and eastern Moldova. The bird returned to the Netherlands in 2006 and in 2020 the number of breeding pairs had increased to 20. In Asia Minor, it only remains as a breeder in very sparse and small pockets of Turkey and Georgia, taken as a region there is likely to be fewer than 30 breeding pairs in this region. In the Middle East, the white-tailed eagle may still be found breeding only along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran and southwestern Turkmenistan. Discontinuously, they are found as residents in Kazakhstan where they live in a long strip of the southern part of the country starting at the Aral Sea and the northwestern portion (but not, as far as is known, breeding in the Kazakh part of the Caspian Sea coast). The only country in which the white-tailed eagle is found over a continuous and extremely large area is Russia. The species is found very broadly everywhere in Russia from European Russia in the west to the Bering Sea in the east, only being fully absent as a nester as far as is known from the high Arctic regions and a section bordering westernmost Kazakhstan, although it breeds to south of this in the Russian coastal part of the Caspian Sea. Their northern limits occur in Russia to the Ob river to 70 degrees north at the mouth of the Yenisei River and on the Gyda and Yamal Peninsulas, to the Kolyma, Indigirka and Lena rivers to above 72 degrees north, even to 75 degrees north on the Taymyr Peninsula. They are said to be common around the White Sea, reportedly even the most abundant bird of prey locally and found both on coasts and inland lakes, although breeding rates are low due to the frigid weather. From Russia, breeding populations spill somewhat into northernmost Mongolia, extreme northwestern China and northern North Korea. The white-tailed eagle also breeds on Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands and Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan.


The wintering range is less well understood for the white-tailed eagle given the extreme reductions and fluctuations of northern breeding populations over the last few centuries, so that the delineation of regular wintering areas versus areas of mere vagrancy is difficult to ascertain. It is known that a small number winter on Etang de Lindre of Lorraine, France as well as an area on the border of France to Germany around Strasbourg, with vagrants to elsewhere in France, as well as to Spain, Portugal and Malta. A well-defined wintering population may occur in much of the Netherlands, even with infrequent modern breeding in the northern coastal areas. A non-breeding population is known in western Germany from North Rhine-Westphalia to Bonn, as well as far northern Germany into southwestern Denmark. Other established wintering areas are known in Europe in west-central Italy, northern Austria, fairly broadly in southern Slovakia and northern Hungary and a few protected pockets of Southeast Europe apart from the portions in the north and east where they still breed. Intermittent forms of vagrancy and migration (most from eagles that breed in or disperse from Russia) are known to occur in several areas of Turkey, the Levant countries, Azerbaijan and Iran down to even the Persian Gulf, albeit seldom is the species to be found commonly or reliably anywhere in these regions. Further east, rare wintering areas are known in a few small, scarce pockets of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan. It is a very rare winter visitor to India, namely the extreme northwest and along the border of Nepal to Bhutan and extreme northern Bangladesh. Scattered pockets of wintering birds are known to occur too in central and southern China, into northeastern Myanmar, and more broadly and regularly in much of Northeast China. Good numbers winter too in much of South Korea and Japan down to as far as Honshu. White-tailed eagles dispersing from their breeding grounds or natal sites in the Russian Far East are known to occasionally disperse across the Bering Sea to North America in several parts of the Aleutian Islands, the Pribilof Islands and some of mainland coastal Alaska down to Kodiak Island. Some white-tailed eagles even bred in Alaska on Attu Island in the late 1970s to the early 1980s (until 1984 when the last attempts were recorded) but it was not clear whether young were ever successfully fledged.


White-tailed eagles may be found in varied habitat but usually are closely associated with water and generally occurs in lowland areas. Although mainly a lowland species, the species is known to live at elevations of 1,500 to 2,300 m (4,900 to 7,500 ft) so long as there is water access in some parts of Central Asia and Siberia. In coastal areas, the species may range from high sea cliffs down to low-lying islands and archipelagos. Especially in winter, many white-tailed eagles often frequent low coastal spots, estuaries and coastal marshes. Several studies have supported that coastal areas are preferred when available during winter. In many areas, white-tailed eagles can seem to switch freely between usually cliff habitat and wooded spots for nesting sites and the center of their home range habitat. In some areas, such as Japan, this species may occur in regions with intensive human fishing activity and they may become unusually partially habituated to this human presence. Inland, white-tailed eagles usually require secluded woods, forested areas or groups of trees with tall mature trees and access to freshwater wetlands such as lakes, river systems, marshes or extensive, low-disturbance farmland. In the alluvial wetlands of Croatia, 95% of nests were found within 4 km (2.5 mi) of deep freshwater. In some areas, white-tailed eagles readily visit commercial fish farms, carp ponds and similar areas with easily accessible food but they will usually avoid areas where human disturbances (especially noisy varieties such as construction, water sporting and heavy boating activities and hunting) commonly occur. However, forestry activity and resulting lessened numbers of tall mature trees and large tree stands in Estonia was found to affect breeding white-tailed eagles less so than it seemed to affect breeding black storks (Ciconia nigra). On the other hand, from studying wintering white-tailed eagles in partially or heavily disturbed wetlands in parts of the Netherlands shows that such areas cannot support the eagles for any long-term period and may only be visited for a day or two by individual eagles. Conversely, reviews of the rapidly increasing Danish population have found that when well-protected, they may regularly forage in habitats near significant humans populations, even in the outskirts of cities, and they can also successfully breed in such locations.


The white-tailed eagle may be considered a rather inconsistent and partial migrant. The species seldom migrates in the western part of its range, with eagles even breeding as far north as Greenland, Iceland and coastal Norway not moving at all for winter, but for some southward juvenile movements following dispersal. Juveniles overall are more migratory and dispersive and leave natal areas sooner, which is by August–September in northwestern Europe and return later, by March/April, than adults do. Few Norwegian juveniles, per banding studies, were recorded to travel any considerable distance. Extreme cases include one that was found 720 km (450 mi) south of its nest near Karlstad, Sweden, another set of four color-marked first-year juveniles were also recorded to turn up in southern Sweden but one was found down to the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands and it is likely that trickling down numbers of Norwegian post-dispersal juveniles have gone onto form much of the known Dutch white-tailed eagle population. In contrast, young from Finland and Sweden tend to distribute to the southwesterly direction to the shores of the Baltic Sea. One from Finland was recovered 520 km (320 mi) west in northern Norway and another was found as far south as Bulgaria. In more southerly areas, winter movements are drawn-out and irregular, with most mature pairs probably never leaving their nesting haunts year-around. Those that breed on inland waterways may migrate to sea coast. German juveniles usually do not travel far, with most recorded to travel less than 50 km (31 mi) from their nests and a majority staying near the Baltic coast. However, some eagles that hatched from nests in Germany have been found as far south as in Italy, 1,030 km (640 mi) away to the southeast, or to Gironde, France, 1,520 km (940 mi) to the southwest. In several parts of Russia, quite unlike many European populations, the white-tailed eagle seems to be largely migratory. In the far east, the species appear to take different migratory routes in fall and spring, traveling from north-central Kamchatka thru the Kurile islands to Hokkaido in fall, while in spring these eagles travel north through Sakhalin and the Okhotsk Coast. In the White Sea area, southward moments begin in September with most white-tailed eagles being gone by November but in mild winters some adults may remain behind. Some white-tailed eagles from the White Sea were found well over 2,000 km (1,200 mi) away to the west, in countries such as Hungary and Italy. Return spring migration to the White Sea is by February–March. During winter, whether long-distance migrants or short-distance dispersers, white-tailed eagles tend to become gregarious, especially younger juvenile birds. Many such groups can contain up to 10 and, in areas near large breeding populations such as in Norway, at least 30–40 individuals. Wintering congregations at the Baltic coast and on the River Elbe from 37 winters show that arrivals begin in November, with numbers peaking in January and then declining during March and early April. Although juveniles usually return to their natal area some apparently overshoot these areas, such as those returning to Romania or on the Black Sea which have been recorded 330 km (210 mi) north of their natal site and 510 km (320 mi) northeast of their natal site.


Individual white-tailed eagles tend to be remarkably consistent on egg-laying times from year to year, seemingly regardless of surrounding weather conditions. Egg laying does vary of course by latitude. Historic breeders from Israel and Iran (where they still usually breed) were reported to lay eggs in January, while in Greece and the lower Volga river it is during February, in Germany mostly during March and in the subarctic of Lapland, Finland and northern Russia, to as late as late April to early May. White-tailed eagles in Scotland seem to have average egg laying about three weeks later, late March to early April, than those in coastal Norway. Even near Arctic in Finland, eggs were found as early as 5 March despite ranging often to as late as May. Younger pairs may nest later on average than older ones. In white-tailed eagles, many (perhaps a majority) of clutches consist of two eggs, especially in Irish and Scottish nests, with three egg clutches being considered uncommon to rare there. Four egg clutches have been recorded on the Isle of Skye, as well as in at least Poland, Romania and Norway. Clutch size in Scotland averages 1.56, while in Norway it is 2.16. The eggs are a broad oval shape and dull white in colour, sometimes with a glossy sheen and are usually unmarked but for occasional yellowish stain. Fresh egg weigh from 120 to 148 g (4.2 to 5.2 oz), with an average of approximately 135 g (4.8 oz) for the first egg and 124 g (4.4 oz) for the second. If replacement clutch is laid, usually a single egg is laid which may weigh as little as 112 g (4.0 oz). Average egg dimension seem to keep in accordance with the female body size, smallest mean size known were from Turkey where the average dimensions were 71.8 mm × 56.2 mm (2.83 in × 2.21 in) to the largest in three surveys from Greenland, where they were 78 mm × 59.3 mm (3.07 in × 2.33 in). In 54 eggs from Scotland they ranged from 67.5 to 84.2 mm (2.66 to 3.31 in), averaging 75.8 mm (2.98 in), in height by 53.4 to 64 mm (2.10 to 2.52 in), averaging 58.7 mm (2.31 in), in width. In comparison, 90 eggs from mainland Europe ranged from 66 to 88.2 mm (2.60 to 3.47 in), averaging 73.4 mm (2.89 in), by 54 to 63.5 mm (2.13 to 2.50 in), averaging 57.6 mm (2.27 in). Eggs may be compromised quickly by frost and snow in relatively early clutches. Incubation starts as soon as the first egg is laid. In the species, a 2–3 day interval between the first and second egg being laid (as well as hatching) is recorded. The female does up to 80–90% of incubation and all known nighttime incubating. However, in Norway, the male of a pair could contribute up to about 27% of incubation to daylight hours. There may be as many as 11 changes of the incubating individual within a day. The longest period recorded the clutch was unguarded was 20 minutes, although one pair perched nearby the nest without incubating for 48 minutes. The clutches in Norway left alone only 2–4% of the time. In some cases female may do all the incubation alone, however. When the female is off the nest, she sometimes kills prey and returns with a full crop, but prey capture during incubation is often up to the male. Late into incubation, shift changes decreases and the female will sit tight and will crouch down at the approach of a human rather than leave the nest. Calling and displaying are reduced during incubation, but occasionally both may leave the clutch and display still. The time range for incubation can vary from 34 to 46 days, but usually are between 38 and 42 days. A calculated mean time range for incubation of 38.3 days.