DR is contributing to conservation.

Birdwatching is a growing hobby

http://www.rspb.org.uk/.

from this source:

http://news.yahoo.com/saving-dominican-forest-elusive-songbird-165741784.html..

Saving Dominican forest and an elusive songbird
By BEN FOX | Associated Press – Tue, May 29, 2012...
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SAN FRANCISCO DE MACORIS, Dominican Republic (AP) — An elusive songbird that wings its way each year from austere mountaintops of the northeastern U.S. to the steamy forests of the Caribbean has inspired the creation of what conservationists hope will be a new model for nature reserves in a country that has long struggled with deforestation.

The reserve is taking shape in a lushly overgrown former cattle ranch measuring about 1,000 acres, at the edge of a deep green forest in the Dominican Republic's rugged northeast. Conservation-minded Dominican and U.S. investors have acquired the plot as a pilot project, hoping to protect what they say is a global biodiversity hotspot that's home to dozens of threatened species.

Tentatively known as the Reserva Privada Zorzal, the government sees the reserve as a potential example, showing that such land can be put to better uses than burning down the trees to convert it to pasture, a typical approach in this Caribbean country with only about 40 percent of its forest cover left. Neighboring Haiti, which shares the island of Hispaniola, has virtually none of its forest standing.

Jesus Moreno, a Dominican businessman whose family is partially funding the reserve, says the portion of the property where most of the trees have already been removed is well-suited to low-intensity, organic agriculture. He plans to grow macadamia trees and cacao, the raw material in chocolate, while allowing the forest to regenerate, in perpetuity, on three-fourths of the holding. The country's environment minister is scheduled to inaugurate the reserve project on June 5.

"I am not trying to make this into a big business and make a lot of money," said Moreno, whose family's ventures also include a nursery that grows macadamia trees and the country's only factory processing the nuts. "We are trying to create a model and break the cycle of destruction."

The concept of setting aside private land for conservation in land trusts or easements is an old one, long in use in the U.S. and elsewhere, but still rare in the Dominican Republic, a largely poor country.

Some private landowners have set aside tracts for ecotourism and nature reserves, and the government has designated more than 130 public reserves. But much of the country's forests face threats from development, agriculture and illegal timber harvesting, carving what remains into ever smaller chunks that leave species isolated and vulnerable.

In practice, the government reserves usually provide protection to endangered species in name only, said Sesar Rodriguez, the executive director of the Dominican Environmental Consortium.

Among those species at risk is the zorzal migratorio, known in English as the Bicknell's thrush. The palm-size, brownish songbird mostly comes out at dusk or dawn and, like many birds, heads south in the winter. It divides its time between the Caribbean islands and mountaintop forests in the northeastern U.S. and southern Canada that generally rise above 3,000 feet.

The bird is considered vulnerable, with an estimated fewer than 100,000 in the wild, because it occupies a narrow range of habitat that's under pressure on both sides of its migratory route, said Chris Rimmer, an ornithologist at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies who is an expert on the Bicknell's thrush and helped establish the reserve. Threats to the species in the U.S. include air pollution and loss of the conifer forest habitat from development and climate change.

It's not a high-profile species likely to spur public passions, and some bird species in the Dominican Republic are under a more dire threat, Rimmer readily acknowledges. But he and others are nonetheless devoted to the Bicknell's thrush, what he calls an "enigmatic" bird.

"It's much bigger than just this one little migratory songbird," Rimmer said. "If we protect it we automatically protect all the other elements of the flora and fauna, many of which are themselves under siege."

The Cordillera Septentrional range, a mist-shrouded cloud forest that shimmers an emerald green in the distance from the former pasture acquired for the reserve, is also considered habitat for vulnerable species such as the Hispaniolan parrot and mammals such as the Hispaniolan solenodon, a nocturnal burrower that resembles a possum with a long snout.

Rimmer, for one, has spent countless hours studying the Bicknell's thrush in the granite mountains of New England and the dense forests of the Dominican Republic, listening for its nasal, swirling call. "It's kind of ethereal, I guess, kind of mysterious," he said of the sound.

He and other researchers noticed that as the Dominican Republic was losing forest, female Bicknell's were being crowded out of their prime habitat by the larger males, depriving them of food they need for the journey back to North America.

He began working with the Dominican Environmental Consortium and others to find a way to expand two areas designated as protected by the government — the Loma Quita Espuela, which Moreno's father helped found, and the Guaconejo reserves.

This loose-knit group eventually found land owned by the family of an elderly doctor that was just a few miles west of the Loma Quita Espuela reserve, prime habitat for the thrush and near the country's cacao-growing center of San Pedro Macoris, a combination of factors that seemed perfect for a blend of profit and preservation, said Charles Kerchner, an American working as a project manager for the consortium. Part of the land was still an active cattle ranch, the rest already in various stages of regrowth and some had been left untouched for so long that it had become fairly healthy secondary growth forest - not virgin, by any means, but not bad.

Most of the money for Reserva Privada Zorzal came from the Eddy Foundation of Willsboro, New York, and Moreno's family, which previously owned a controlling stake in the Helados Bon chain of ice cream stores in the Dominican Republic and neighboring Haiti, Kerchner said.

Danneris Santana, a vice minister in the natural resources ministry, said about a dozen new private reserves are in process of getting approval under regulations that were updated last year. Moreno and others involved in the zorzal project say several landowners in the vicinity of their site are close to adopting similar plans.

"While it's great that we are doing (the Zorzal reserve), it's an isolated project and we need others to protect their land as well," Kerchner said.

Much will depend on the economic viability of the effort. Besides the macadamia and cacao, Kerchner said they are looking for other sustainable uses of the surrounding forest, such as honey production and high-end chocolate.

The Dominican Republic is already a producer of organic cacao in the fertile hills around San Francisco de Macoris and has a growing macadamia nut crop, but the country is not a significant global supplier of either commodity. Most of the world's cacao comes from Africa and Indonesia; Hawaii and Australia are the main producers of macadamia nuts.

The backers of the project expect to allow public access but the plans are not yet defined. The property is more than an hour's drive along a bone-jarring road from the nearest town.

"To be a sustainable business, we need to get value from this forest," Kerchner said.

end AP quote
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If its a rare bird its twitching.

Meanwhile i don,t like US originated words. If you are interested in rare birds they are highlighed in red in this list.

http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/checklist.jsp?region=do&list=howardmoore

S.

http://www.fatbirder.com/links/listing_and_racing/twitching.html.

TWITCHING AND ALL THAT JAZZ.

by Simon Nichols

What`s it all about, that`s what I keep asking me self

So said Michael Caine at the end of Alfie, A successful British film of the 1970’s, Many think he was talking about women, I think he was discussing the multi-faceted hobby that is Birding!

Birding! A name that originated in the US to describe, I think, the more energetic side of Birdwatching – It conjures up the image of people actually seeking out Birds and studying them, rather then the old sit back and wait attitude.

So, I hear you asking yourselves, where is this leading, I assume that as you are reading this you are probably a birder or at least vaguely interested in Birding. – So I will not bore you with what we do or why we do it. I am here, however to discuss the (in my opinion!) next stage up from Birding – that we call Twitching... I am now imagining the shrieks of horror coming from certain parts of the Birding Community and the click clack of keyboards as they write to the webmaster demanding the immediate removal of this filth! Like I said, this is my opinion and my reasoning, I don’t ask you to agree or disagree – just to enjoy the ride!

The Word Twitching also originated from the states – how or why I don`t know. But needless to say the name caught on and there are now more then 4000 active Twitchers in the UK alone with an estimated further 3000 who Twitch occasionally. So in one sentence you have Twitch, Twitcher, Twitching. Back to Alfie on this one – What`s it all about?

As a Twitcher you go twitching or go on a twitch, once you have been you have twitched if unsuccessful you will have dipped (*More about that later) – Confused? Pay attention – now for the science bit! – A Twitcher is essentially a Birder who actively seeks out the rare and scarce birds that get blown off course – thus appearing far out of their normal range. Distance is no object for the Fanatical Twitcher, nor it would seem is money or Time – for those of us who are governed by these rules a less sedate attitude is assumed.

My personal involvement in twitching happened around 1986, As a young Birder I did all the usual rounds, Saturdays and Sundays at the local Gravel pits interspersed with the occasional RSPB outing meant that birding was always fun – However I was always reading reports and listening to the few members of the Group who were into Twitching, I would be captivated as they would recount tales of Little Whimbrel , Varied Thrush etc – Birds I had not even heard of or seen pictures of, let alone seen in the flesh (or should I say feather). I was soon looking these birds up in field-guides and slowly learning more about them – hoping that one day I might be able to see them.

I finally plucked up enough courage to ask these real Birders if I would be able to tag along when they next went out - I must have annoyed them for ages before they eventually said Yes.

So it was sometime in 1986 that I was looking at my first real rarity – I say real as the bird in question was an American Wigeon at Tring Reservoirs on the Hertfordshire/Buckinghamshire borders, only 25 miles from my house. But to me it represented a break into the world of twitching. Many thanks must go, at this point, to Chris Ward and Phil Lymbry who steered me through those early years – not least because they chauffeured me about as I was too young to drive – cheers lads.) Since that day I have never looked Back – twitching to me is more then just chasing rare birds around the country; it`s also a chance to see a lot of places I wouldn`t normally think of going to, as well as the chance to see other birds that would normally require a special effort to see.

By way of explanation of the last statement – I made a trip, recently, to the Isle of Lewis (in the Western Isles) to twitch A Whites Thrush (A long time favourite bird of mine!) and although we saw the bird really well – it was the Trip itself that made it special – Watching Storm Petrels, Sooty Shearwaters and Great Skuas from the 3.5 hour crossing, Mealy Redpoll, Hebridean race of Song Thrush, and Wild Rock Doves and Greylags on Lewis, not to mention the Capercaillies and Crested Tits in the Highlands on the way back. So its not necessarily seeing the White`s Thrush that I will remember the most, but the people and the places. We stayed overnight in a youth hostel, enjoyed a few beers in the local hostelry and generally had a great time, all heightened by the fact we spent over 3 hours watching an amazing bird that I am unlikely to see again in my lifetime – in a place I may very well never visit - that is the real beauty of twitching.

Those sceptics who would have us all tarnished as uncaring, only-in-it-for-the-fix, maniacs have it all wrong. I have been in the enviable position of meeting many Twitchers/ birders over the years and they all care a great deal about birds, indeed many started just as I did – working local patches – before realising that they wanted more out of their hobby.

I want to conclude by saying that Twitching should be seen as an enhancement of birding. I like local birding as much now as I did 14 years ago but the need to work for a living limits the time I spend on my local patch if I still want to chase rarities – and, dear reader, I do!

I could have called this piece: Twitching – don`t knock it `til you`ve tried it. I`ll leave that as my end-piece of advice and respond to Alfie`s question – What is it all about? by answering, Twitching is all about having fun!

Simon Nichols