New official statistics on the UK’s wild bird population show no significant changes to the pattern of the last 37 years.

The government’s indicators cover breeding seabird and woodland bird populations and wintering wetland birds, and assesses progress against the government’s Public Service Agreement target for breeding farmland birds in England.

The all-species indicator shows that, on average, the population index of 116 breeding bird species in the UK has remained broadly stable throughout the period since 1970, except for four new woodland species which have declined significantly in recent years.

The indicator for farmland birds in the UK is about 55 per cent of its 1970 value but has remained fairly stable since the early 1990s. The farmland bird index gives a similar picture of relative stability following decline. There is no evidence yet of any reverse in the decline.

The woodland bird indicator for the UK is about 20 per cent lower than in the early 1970s. The most severe decline took place in the late 1980s/early 1990s, with the indicator broadly stable in recent years.

The indicator of breeding seabird species in the UK is 30 per cent higher than in 1970. Populations peaked in the late 1980s, since when there is evidence of a small decline.

Changes in seabird population may not yet fully reflect the low breeding success rates of some species during recent years because seabirds reach maturity slowly and are long-lived.

The UK wintering wetland birds indicator rose by nearly 80 per cent between 1975/76 and 2001/02, but there are signs of a decline in more recent years.

These indicators, which are included in the government’s Sustainable Development Strategy indicators, show changes in the breeding and wintering populations of common native bird species.

Bird populations are considered to be a good indicator of the broad state of wildlife and countryside because they occupy a wide range of habitats and are high in the food chain.

Perched atop a tree branch draped between two walls in a small flight room, a red-tailed hawk at the Lake Erie Nature and Science Center stared intensely into the eyes of the few humans standing in the room.

Although just a few feet separated the predatory bird from the humans, the 1-year-old bird did not attack — its razor-sharp beak and needle-like talons were not a threat.

That’s because this animal — believed to once have been kept as a pet — was too familiar with humans.

Back in August, the bird came to the center weighing a bit more than 2 pounds. It had been found on a street in Cleveland with plastic ties around its ankles and its flight feathers cut. It was dehydrated and emaciated, and animal welfare workers said it was obvious that someone tried to keep the hawk as a pet — illegal in Ohio under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

“Putting plastic ties on an animal to use as a leash is a pretty horrible thing to do especially to a natural predator like a red-tailed hawk,” wildlife rehabilitation coordinator Megan Tadiello said. “You can never fully replicate what is in the wild. There are instructs a bird of prey has to learn just by being in the wild that cannot be duplicated in captivity.”

Still, Tadiello took the first step toward reversing the animal’s dependence on humans for food and sparking its natural predatory instincts Thursday when the bird was released into an outdoor flight cage at the Bay Village educational center.

This comes after weeks of extensive rehabilitation to hydrate and nourish the underweight bird as well as several procedures where the cut, damaged flight feathers were pulled to encourage the growth of healthy feathers.

“It’s so hard to say comfortably how long this will take. This is a bird that has never been in the wild, but we’re not giving up on it,” Tadiello said. “All we do know is that a hawk that cannot hunt for food will not bode well in the wild.”

After spending weeks in the small outdoor cage at the science center, the hawk will be released to the Medina Raptor Center, where it will be released into a larger flight cage and introduced to the thrill of hunting live rats.

In the meantime, the animal will learn further not to trust humans.

“We will not harm the animal or give it the same poor care it received, but we will limit our time with it,” Tadiello said. “It doesn’t even have a name. You name pets, and a red-tailed hawk is not a pet. It is a wild animal and it’s time we returned it to the wild.”

The Ohio Division of Wildlife is investigating to determine who had the hawk. Offenders can be fined up to $500 and possibly face six months in jail.

Volunteers with Pacific Wildlife Care report that they have found a permanent home for a visually impaired golden eagle they have been rehabilitating for several months.

Zoo to You, a conservation educational organization based in Paso Robles, will pick up the bird today.

It will be used in the group’s educational outreach programs, said Kelly Vandenheuvel, who has been caring for the eagle at her Cayucos ranch.

The female eagle was found near Santa Margarita Lake. It had flown into something hard enough to detach its retina and cause brain damage.

That eagle is one of three the group has been rehabilitating since August. One has already been released, and another is scheduled for release in several weeks, pending a veterinarian’s approval.

Since a story about the eagles appeared in The Tribune on Oct. 12, the wildlife rehabilitation group has received $1,200 in donations to help feed the eagles, Vandenheuvel said. It costs as much as $15 a day to purchase the mice and rats that each eagle eats.

“We spent more on raptor food this year than we ever have before in previous years,” she said, “so these donations will help to pay for some of that expense.”

As if regaining her bearings, a rehabilitated bald eagle stood by the White River on Thursday and uncertainly flapped her wings.

After a few minutes, she glided gracefully across the river and perched in a treetop, as the group of people who saved her life applauded.

An area fishing guide found the injured eagle about three weeks ago near the White Hole Resort in Fairview and called the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

AGFC wildlife officers were led to the eagle by a resort employee and took the eagle to Dr. Rob Conner of All Creatures Veterinary Hospital.

“She was very, very sick,” Conner said.

The majestic eagle had a puncture wound in her chest, likely the result of diving for fish in the river and becoming impaled on a stick, Conner said. He cleaned the tissue and removed some feathers around the area, allowing it to heal. The eagle also was given antibiotics, sometimes tucked into her chosen food of small, dead trout donated by the AGFC fish hatchery.

Each day, Conner put fish on the end of a stick, wiggling it before her sharp, curved beak. A picky eater, she dropped ones on the floor that didn’t appeal to her. She quickly swallowed whole the ones that did. Her diet consisted of about 10 small trout a day.

Conner tried to keep human contact to a minimum so she would remain wild and not get used to people, he said. The only place large enough to house the eagle was in a large horse stall in one of the animal hospital’s barns, fitted with a large tree branch.

To help with recovery, Conner allowed the eagle to fly back and forth inside the barn. Although she seemed grateful to her caregivers while she was sick, as she healed, she seemed to become angry at being cooped up in the barn, Conner said.

“She’s ready to go,” Conner said on Wednesday, the day before her release.

Although the animal hospital often takes care of owls, hawks and other wild animals that are found injured, it’s not often Conner is able to rehabilitate an eagle.

“It’s a treat for me,” Conner said. “How many people get to work on an eagle?”

When the eagle was found, AGFC wildlife officers called the state’s eagle rehabilitator at Little Rock Zoo, asking that Conner be allowed to rehabilitate the injured eagle.

“The eagle was going to die if Doc Conner had not rehabilitated it,” said Doug Small, AGFC wildlife officer. The animal hospital rehabilitated the eagle at no charge for the AGFC.

A bald eagle is a protected animal and it is illegal to capture or keep one, Small said. Eagle feathers also are illegal to keep, except for those who have proper American Indian tribal paperwork and use the feathers for religious purposes, according to the National Fish and Wildlife Service. Those who see an injured or dead eagle should immediately call the AGFC and should not touch the bird, Small said.

Usually, when AGFC wildlife officers are informed of a found eagle, the bird is dead, Small said. All dead eagles are sent to the National Fish and Wildlife Service, where an autopsy is conducted to determine how the bird died, Small said.

Once the eagle was fully recovered, AGFC collected data by measuring her. She weighed about 16 pounds and her wingspan stretched 6 feet, 3 inches. They also measured her chest, beak and talons.

As she became stronger, so did the urge to be back in the wild. It was apparent to her caregivers she was ready to go back home, but stormy weather earlier in the week prohibited her release.

“If I see her fly down the river, that’ll be a million bucks,” Conner said.

“I’m glad she’s all right.”

THURSDAY November 1 will see the start of the biggest ever bird survey to hit the UK.

The British Trust for Ornithology is mobilising an army of 50,000 birdwatchers to undertake a stock-take of the UK’s birds with the aim of understanding how recent changes to our climate and habitats are affecting Britain’s birds.

Bird Atlas 2007-11 is a four-year project covering the whole of Britain and Ireland during the winter and breeding season. It aims to check the numbers and distributions of over 250 species, including the 40 red-listed and 121 amber-listed Species of Conservation Concern.

It is hoped that the results will set the agenda for bird conservation in the next two decades, helping to answer questions such as:

• Is barn owl conservation working?

• Have willow tit and hawfinch become extinct in some counties and regions?

• Are birds spreading further north as a result of climate warming?

• Where are the remaining breeding concentrations of turtle doves and nightingales?

Dawn Balmer, the Bird Atlas coordinator said: “The aim is to cover every 10km square in the UK, and BirdWatch Ireland will be organising the same sort of survey in Ireland.

“We are delighted with the enthusiasm birdwatchers have shown for the Atlas. There is a real sense of concern about how birds are coping with changes to our climate and their habitats.”

The tiny Kaua’i creeper, a rare four-inch-tall bird, is still trying to get on the endangered species list as its numbers have dwindled to 1,500 worldwide.

The Kaua’i creeper, also called the ‘akikiki, is threatened by habitat loss, avian disease and nonnative mammals. It’s found only on Kaua’i, and it has been listed as a top candidate for the endangered species list since 1994, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Getting on the endangered species list would provide more money for scientists to study the warbler-like bird and implement recovery plans.

“Money is our main limiting factor in all of this,” said Dave Leonard, a biologist for the state Division of Forestry and Wildlife.

The Kaua’i creeper is limited to about 14 square miles on the eastern part of the Alaka’i Swamp. Diseases such as avian pox and malaria have hit the Kaua’i creeper hard because it has not evolved ways to resist them, Leonard said.

The new University of Oklahoma Press biography of George Miksch Sutton, Norman’s favorite birdman, mentions the help he got from the Cleveland County Bird Club.

It’s now the Cleveland County Audubon Society, but this column is about the earlier days.

In the early 1960s the State Highway Department (now Transportation Department) was about to let a contract to reroute State Highway 9 going east from Norman. Highway 9 was an extension of Alameda Avenue then, and its path would take it right into the lake the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was going to build — Lake Thunderbird.

For several years we would call the new stretch of road New Nine.

State engineers liked a path south of the university and apparently it was pretty well along with the planning before the Bird Club heard about it. Members learned the proposed paving would go right through Oliver’s Woods, a wildlife refuge belonging to OU.

The Woods was said to be the only land for miles around that was just the way nature laid it out. Neither farmer’s plow nor woodsman’s ax had altered its pristine presence.

The Bird Club had no more than 100 members, but they were fighters. They made their objections known in no uncertain terms.

The odds were long against them at first with plans already approved by both state and local officials. The Bird Club began a program to change the odds and made remarkable progress. Much of their support came from teachers and students who had used the Woods in their studies.

I believe the club’s president may have been Lovie Whitaker, wife of an OU journalism professor. At least she was a leading debater. Grace Ray, another journalism prof, used to bring fire-eating press releases to The Transcript.

Stories went out to newspapers all over the state and editors who had never heard of Oliver’s Woods before became among its strongest supporters.

The Bird Club eventually got enough backing to let New Nine touch only the northern tip of Oliver’s Woods.

The Bird Club, even after it became the local Audubon Society, did not limit its campaigns to Cleveland County or even the United States. A few years after the Oliver’s Woods debate Whitaker learned that the Quetzal bird, considered the most beautiful bird in the hemisphere, was in danger of extermination.

There was probably not one of those birds closer to Norman than southern Mexico, but that didn’t keep the society from taking action. Cloud forests the bird needed were being destroyed.

The Society passed a resolution and developed a plan of action that aroused the interest of ornithologists everywhere.

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE - After almost disappearing from the American scene, the bald eagle’s comeback is complete, thanks in part to the Defense Department.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and other officials made the announcement on Thursday at a ceremonial event held at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington.

“Today, I am proud to announce the eagle has returned,” Kempthorne said. “Based on its dramatic recovery, it is my honor to announce the Department of the Interior’s decision to remove the American bald eagle from the endangered species list.”

Although Eglin’s bald eagle monitoring program isn’t as extensive as other base’s including the Army’s Fort Riley in Kansas and bases in San Diego, Eglin’s wildlife managers have taken measures to protect the species here.

Since 1993, Eglin wildlife managers have monitored three bald eagle nests which have produced 20 fledging occurrences on Air Force property here in Florida. They post signs near the shoreline areas where bald eagle nests are found to ensure military personnel are aware of the bird’s existence when conducting mission activity.

As a result of this effort, there have not been any negative impacts to the bald eagle, its habitat or to the military mission here. Eglin has enjoyed a joint effort between its wildlife managers, volunteers and state universities such as University of Florida graduate students who have assisted in research projects to learn more about the species. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have assisted in Eglin’s monitoring efforts by using fixed-wing aircraft to check nests for eggs/young. Eglin maintains and protects approximately 1,000 acres of undeveloped shoreline property where young eagles have fledged.

“We appreciate the contributions all of our partners have made with the eagle and the various other natural resources programs we have,” Steve Seiber, Eglin’s natural resources section chief, said. “This type of success is a true testament to how important our leadership feels about the conservation of our natural resources.”

Eglin wildlife managers are no strangers to managing endangered or threatened species. Eglin has 723 square miles of long-life pine forest that is the home to 11 federally-protected species of wildlife, including the Red-Cockaded woodpecker, the Flatwoods salamander and the Okaloosa darter.

The darter, which more than 90 percent of its habitat in the entire world is found on Eglin, is currently undergoing a status review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Eglin wildlife managers anticipate that the fish will be downlisted from endangered to threatened within a year, making it only the third fish to be downlisted in the U.S.

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, a one-year-old bald eagle flew gracefully toward the wild blue skies before about 350 people on Sauvie Island, some kneeling so those standing behind could witness its release.

The scene came a week after the bald eagle’s comeback took it off the U.S. endangered species list. There are about 10,000 pairs of bald eagles nationwide; Oregon is home to 500 pairs, according to the Audubon Society.

“We could’ve released it on the day of the removal (from the list), but we wanted to make sure the eagle was ready to go,” said Bob Sallinger, conservation director of the Audubon Society of Portland. He held the bird for about five minutes to let it get its bearings before soaring off.

Don Kruger, owner of Kruger’s Farm Market, where the eagle was released, was excited about the event at his farm’s first Thursday concert of the summer.

“It’s drama, but it’s not Disneyland,” Kruger said. “You never know what’s going to happen when it comes to animal life.”

A Scappoose resident found the eagle in her yard June 18 and called the Audubon Society to come get it. “There’s a large bird that’s the size of a German shepherd in my yard,” Sallinger recalled the woman saying.

When the 11-pound female bird arrived at the Audubon Society’s Wildlife Care Center in Portland, it couldn’t fly and suffered neurological symptoms from a toxin or an impact injury, Sallinger said. It spent 10 days in a hospital cage.

Sallinger said goodbye, and the eagle soared out of sight in a mere 30 seconds. Then the New Iberians band launched into “I Can See Clearly Now.”

UK — A SEABIRD so rare it had reportedly only ever been seen in Europe twice before, was discovered in Brean Down on June 29.

The Indian yellow-nosed albatross - one of only 73,000 left in the world - is classed as endangered by Bird Life International, the global organisation behind bird conservation, and had flown into town from the South Atlantic.

Bird enthusiast Hugh Harris alerted Secret World wildlife rescue in East Huntspill to the extraordinary discovery - after the bird landed at his home in Brean.

Hugh told the Weekly News that he found the bird, which has a wingspan of over two metres, looking exhausted as it walked around on his drive.

He said: “My wife and I couldn’t believe it when we saw it, at first we thought it was just a large seagull or falmer.

“I picked the bird up and was surprised at how light it was - we then took it to Secret World where we were told what it was, and were absolutely dumbstruck.”