Thursday, October 28, 2010

migration mishap

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IMGP6479Now is the time of migration for many of the birds that nest along out coast. The shearwater [Puffinus tenuirostris] (more common knownly as the mutton birds) flies in from as far north as the Siberia, the Aleutian Islands and even the Californian coast. Unfortunately this year something happened and the beaches at Venus Bay are littered by hundreds of dead bird. Stormy weather probably isn’t to blame as most bird appear to have only recently died, a period of mild weather and calm seas and light sea fog. Presumably they died of exhaustion from their trip unable to summon the strength to continue to their nesting sites.

IMGP6480In 1798, Mathew Flinders recorded watching an almost continuous line for several hours of shearwater leaving the waters of northern Tasmanian and heading across bass straight on the start of their migration north.  He estimated that there were at least one hundred million birds within a single flock!

2 comments:

  1. hi there.
    i too noticed lots of dead mutton birds. i counted 67 near beach no.5

    i also noticed quite a lot of persistent contrails over the few days i was in the area too. on the 29th the day began clear blue and by midday almost every cloud formation i could see had originated from a 'chemtrail'

    have you seen this?
    http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=30E5999A927DCDDC

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  2. We do have flights from Tasmania passing directly overhead and flight from the Sale Airforce base, both of which leave "contrails" in the right weather conditions (cold still weather)

    I really doubt the "chemtrail" conspiracy has much truth it it at all BUT I do know there have some serious scientific suggestions (referred to a geoengineering)including those by James Lovelock, that putting sulphur back into jet fuel and/or releasing aluminium oxide and sulphur dioxide in the stratospheric could aid cloud formation and both increase albedo effect (reflecting sunlight) and providing the nucleus for rainfall droplets to form. I have not heard of any such experiments.

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