White Ibis stand up to be counted and you can help on Sunday 7 February 2010

There is a state-wide community survey of the Ibis underway today and NSW North Coast residents can help by keeping their eyes open.

National Parks & Wildlife information:

The Australian white ibis, Threskionis molucca, is a highly visible native water bird in New South Wales.

What do they look like?

• Like all ibises, the Australian white ibis has a large, curved beak designed for probing.
• Their heads and necks are featherless and black, except for horizontal lines on the back of the head that vary in colour from pale pink to red.
• Their bodies in contrast are mainly white, apart from black tips to the longest flight feathers, black lacelike wing feathers and highly visible bare patches under the wings and on the breast that also vary in colour from pale pink to red.
• The legs are reddish brown to black in colour.
• Prior to the 1970s, the Australian white ibis did not breed in the Sydney region but followed the non-permanent waters of inland lakes and rivers, due to the extensive droughts and changes in water regime they have sought refuge in the coastal wetlands. Ibises have adapted well to the constant water and food supply available in urban environments and they are now a common site in our parklands where they feed on invertebrates (beetles etc) and crustaceans (yabbies etc).

How many are there? Help us find out!

The National Parks and Wildlife Service is trying to get a better understanding of the distribution and abundance of Australian white ibis at a statewide level. This will help us to develop conservation practices for these birds. One of the questions we are attempting to answer is how many of these birds are actually in New South Wales?

Since 2003, we have been running community ibis surveys. The surveys have taken place on a single day in summer. We have asked members of the public to tell us about their ibis sightings in Sydney over the day. Information from community members will help us to understand and manage these distinctive birds.

The next survey is on Sunday 7 February 2010, and you're invited to participate! If you see any white ibis on this day, anywhere in NSW, please let us know.

We need to know how many birds you have seen, along with the location and time of day. Some birds may have coloured bands on their legs or coloured wing tags, as shown in the pictures. Please provide as many details as possible about the colour of the bands or tags and their location on the bird.

To send the information to us, you can:

• Use our online sighting form; or
• Phone the Environment Line: 1300 361 967 Mon-Fri only.

Anti-climate change reading list for those nights you can't get to sleep because of the heat/intense cold/severe storm/sea surge/flooding/worry about the drought

Having a browse across the blogosphere I found EliRabbett asking about world wide web links your grandmother warned you about.
Here are just a few of the sites mentioned by his readers as either lukewarm on the issue of anthropomorphic global warming or committed to an anti-science stand on climate change:

The Lavosier Group
Junkscience.com
Still Waiting for Greenhouse (A Lukewarm View from Tasmania)
Global Warming
Cato Institute
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Greenhouse Warming: Fact, Hypothesis, or Myth?
Greening Earth Society
CO2 science. org
The National Centre for Public Policy Research
The Australian Environment Foundation
Institute of Public Affairs
Icecap
CO₂ and the "Greenhouse Effect" Doom
Science is Broken
International Climate Science Coalition
Bob Carter's webpage
Climate Police
Climate Audit
Australian Climate Science Coalition
The Marshal Institute
WattsUpWithThat?
Climate Observations
Joe Bastardi's European Blog
Denial Depot
CO2 and You

My contribution is to add the AgMates Community blog which gives house room to supporters of The Climate Sceptics Party and of course any party website which hosts the opinions of the Rt Hon. Tony Abbott would qualify.
Feel free to add to this list at your leisure!

Neutroodle green search engine is launched this month

Neutroodle has launched itself this month as a search engine with a green philosophy.
It is not the first or only Internet search engine which is advertising itself as green.
This is what this search engine promises:

Organisations should take responsibility for the entire impact of their online presence, including the energy used at the consumer end.......

Measure - each month independent climate change experts, CO2Stats, measure the impact of our website on the environment. They calculate the electricity used by all of the computers that view our website, the networks that transfer information around the world and the servers which host our data.

Manage - we take responsibility for the carbon emissions generated to produce all of this electricity as it represents the total footprint of our presence on the internet. CO2Stats determine the best way to offset this footprint, currently through the purchase of renewable energy certificates, effectively the entire process from end to end is powered by renewable energy.

Minimise - Having conducted a comprehensive analysis of our carbon footprint we then look for ways to reduce our emissions profile, not only will this help reduce emissions but it will save us money too.....

Iraq Inquiry damned in twenty sentences

AA Gill at The Times Online captures that moment when the British Iraq Inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot dropped its pants and flashed its flaws:

"Lord, I thought, he's finally gone and done it. He's left parochial politics and gone into intergalactic diplomacy and had a severe facelift. The skin was drawn tight, the mouth tugged into a morticised grin. It wasn't a good look.

Fear is nature's cosmetic surgeon. It had grabbed Tony Blair by the back of the neck, pulled and twisted.......

We were looking at a man who was looking at what he thought might just be his own personal Nuremberg trial.

Then Sir Roderic Lyne, one of the interrogating panel, stumbled into his warm-up question. Couched in the avuncular curlicues of academic politeness and mumbled deference, he propped himself up on the pillows of sub-clauses and caveats and something astonishing happened.

Across the table, like a CGI trick, a coup de théâtre: Blair's old face reappeared, emerging relaxed and confident, the eyebrows arched. It was the familiar mug the protesters outside in the rain were wearing as masks. The angst let go. Ladies and gentleman, fear has left the building.

He knew this wasn't going to be a war crimes tribunal: this wasn't even truth and reconciliation. This was the wine committee of his club, the senior common room of a honeycoloured college. He was on top of this. He was all over this......

The hours slid by and Blair grew more confident, flicking the pages of his notes, uncannily finding the date, the mot-juste he needed. The questions became woollier and thinner. Blair allowed himself the occasional smirk of disdain as he did keepy-uppies with the simpler lobs."