We wanted to update everyone on our ongoing pelican rescue efforts this summer. California Brown Pelicans have been pouring into International Bird Rescue’s Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Centers since the beginning of July, and even with joyful releases back into the wild, our aviaries are still packed with 256 Pelicans. When young Pelicans … Read more
In this week’s round-up: Starving California Brown Pelicans showing up inland as they hunt for food, Black-browed Albatrosses on the rebound in the Falklands, and the anti-aging mysteries of Brünnich’s Guillemots. [Black-browed Albatross photo by W. Ryan Holliday] —California Brown Pelicans venture inland in what appears to be an unprecedented occurrence — and International Bird … Read more
In this week’s round-up: Migratory duck populations hit record numbers, NatGeo announces winners in its inaugural/international bird photo contest, and Brown Pelicans suffer fish oil contamination en masse in Northern California. —A haunting shot of a Pelagic Cormorant fishing off the coast of Baja California wins National Geographic’s inaugural World Bird Photo Contest. “It’s strange … Read more
It’s a sight that one perhaps wishes to have never seen, and certainly never forgets: the carcass of a Laysan Albatross, its stomach filled with disposable lighters, chocolate wrappers, water bottle caps and other plastic debris amassed throughout the world’s oceans. “I had to laugh out loud to keep from crying,” Victoria Sloan Jordan, an … Read more
As summer kicks into gear on California beaches, record numbers of young, starving California Brown Pelicans are being reported by concerned beachgoers and threatening to overwhelm rescue centers up and down the coast. International Bird Rescue is one of the groups most significantly impacted. These fledgling birds, part of a thriving Pelican population that has rebounded in recent years, are … Read more
In this week’s round-up: sobering factoids on the Pacific Plastic Gyre, American White Pelicans on the rebound in North Dakota, Magellanic Penguins turn up on Ipanema Beach, and Congress passes a bill to help restore the Gulf, two years after the Deepwater Horizon disaster: —The volume of plastic debris in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre … Read more
A Tale of Rehabilitation Success for Caspian Tern Chick Rescued from Long Beach Fireworks Bird Tragedy Last week we received bittersweet news from our colleagues at Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach, California. They had received an injured Caspian Tern wearing a silver leg band. When we checked out the band number we … Read more
Watch video of Growing Pied-billed Grebe chicks Thank you for helping us be there for every bird that needs us. It takes an incredible amount of work to raise orphans like these. Your gifts mean a great deal to us, but even more to them. When you make your gift repeat monthly, you help us … Read more
A Caspian Tern, a sensitive seabird rescued after hundreds of Tern chicks were tragically hosed off of two barges and into the Long Beach Harbor for a Fourth of July fireworks display in 2006, went on to survive in the wild for six years. The Tern, one of 25 birds that survived to be rescued and rehabilitated by International Bird … Read more
Welcome to International Bird Rescue’s latest edition of Photographers in Focus, our tribute to the wildlife photographers who further inspire our passion for bird rehabilitation. In his 1922 memoir The Worst Journey in the World, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a survivor of the harrowing British Terra Nova Expedition, wrote of Antarctica’s icy brutality and eccentric wildlife in … Read more