“This is a tape player, but we’ve got CD players, we’ve got it on mp3s,” says Andreas Pitsillides, who oversees crime operations at the Dhekelia military base on Cyprus’ southeastern coast.

Pitsillides says the recordings were seized from poachers, who play them to lure the birds into nets, more than a hundred at a time.

“The poachers remove the birds, they kill it, they remove the feathers, and then they sell them by the dozen,” Pitsillides says.

Pitsillides says a dozen blackcaps went for more than $80 last year. They’re sold to restaurants, boiled, and eaten as a delicacy called ambelopoulia.

For perhaps millions of songbirds migrating between Europe and North Africa, the illegal bird trapping here in Cyprus is the bitter end to a journey already fraught with peril, from severe weather, predation and fatigue to degraded and disappearing habitat.

Just last year, Pitsillides and his team confiscated a heap of trapping equipment, including 600 giant nets, 13 shotguns, and more than two miles of loudspeaker cables.

A few miles from the parking lot, police officer Panikos Mihael takes a visitor to a trapping site, where acacia trees have been planted to attract blackcaps. Mihael is usually on traffic duty. But when birds are migrating, he’s part of an all-hands-on-deck anti-poaching detail.

Mihael and his team hike out here in the middle of the night to sneak up on the poachers.

“They may see us either through spotters or if we make some noise because usually they work in groups,” Mihael says.

There’s no typical poacher, he adds. He’s seen men, women, kids, even the elderly. Forty-three people were arrested last year, each facing up to three years in jail and a $100,000 fine, yet the problem persists.

“Whatever you do, it’s never enough. I don’t think it’s a problem that can be solved very easily,” Mihael says.

Not long ago, it looked like the problem was being solved. Back in the 1990s, an estimated 10 million birds were trapped and killed here each year, according to the NGO Birdlife Cyprus.

That number fell to around one million a year in the early 2000s, when Cyprus was trying to join the European Union, which bans bird trapping.

“There was a real political pressure, and that’s where we saw the real sea change,” says Martin Hellicar, campaigns manager for Birdlife Cyprus. He says the pressure didn’t last.

“Cyprus is now in the European Union, so there’s been a relaxation.”

Hellicar estimates catch numbers climbed back to more than two million birds in 2010.

The nets aren’t the only culprit. Some poachers use another illegal tool called limesticks — twigs coated with sticky sap.

“If a bird gets caught on a limestick, it struggles, it often ends up hanging upside down, and the only relief comes when the trapper comes along and slits its throat,” Hellicar says.

But others see limesticks as an important part of Cypriot culture.

“This tradition from my father and grandfather,” says Tavro Nufidu runs a shooting club in southeastern Cyprus.

Nufidu says the limestick tradition dates back centuries, and he’s teaching his four boys how to hunt with limesticks. He figures he catches between 500 and 600 blackcaps in a season.

Limestick supporters also dispute charges that it’s cruel.

“The bird doesn’t stay on the limestick for hours and suffer – not more than three, four minutes,” says Antonis Kakoulis, president of the Cyprus Hunting Federation. “The trapper is there to catch it immediately.”

Kakoulis also dismisses concerns that limesticks kill millions of birds a year.

“When we hear this, we laugh.”

Kakoulis does condemn blackcap netting. But he says people should be allowed to use a few dozen limesticks on their own property.

However, conservationists argue against both methods. They also worry that it’s not just blackcaps that are dying. More than 100 types of birds get caught in the traps; sometimes non-blackcaps can amount to two thirds of the catch. And while the overall blackcap population is still healthy, some of the other casualties are members of endangered species.

That’s part of the reason delegates to a recent conference on illegal bird killing held in Cyprus voted to support a zero-tolerance approach. Boris Barov, a conservation manager with Birdlife Europe, says that means a wider crackdown.

“The most important thing they should do is to actually close down all those restaurants which serve illegally trapped birds and their owners fined,” Barov says. “That will be the only way to reduce the demand.”

That’s a tall order. Enforcement of anti-poaching laws can get people upset.

It’s the Mediterranean mentality, says Pantelis Hadjigerou, Cyprus’s Director of Game and Fauna. The guy who used to have this position was killed by a bomb in 1999. So Hadjigerou proceeds cautiously. Still, he says his agency is very active.

“We have taken in the last few years more than a thousand cases to court,” Hadjigerou says.

And yet, untold numbers of birds continue to die in Cyprus every year.

It isn’t migration season now, so the trees and fields of southeastern Cyprus are mostly quiet. But what happens with bird trapping here might determine whether that silence becomes permanent.

(Photo: Richard Fleming)

“Very early on weekend mornings, men start arriving on motorbikes, and on busses, or just walking, and most of them are carrying a wicker bird cage. By seven o’clock in the morning, there are 80 birdcages hanging here, and the birds are singing up a storm”.

So where is this unusual dawn chorus?

The answer is Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City, which was formerly known as Saigon. It’s an economic hub, with a busy stock exchange, and a bustling waterfront but there’s a place in Ho Chi Minh City where the locals can go to get away from it all.

Richard Fleming sent us this audio postcard:

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If you want to play text the word “GeoQuiz” to 69866. (regular rates apply)

Bar-tailed Godwit (image: US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Today’s Geo Quiz is for the birds. The Great Backyard Bird Count gets under way this weekend. Thousands of people across the US and Canada plan to pitch in. The idea is to report on what’s on view in your backyard wherever that may be. The data helps produce online maps showing which species are on the move, and where others are flocking.

Take the Common Redpoll. This bird occasionally shows up at backyard feeders across the northern US but its main habitat is the wide band of northern forest that spans Canada.

That forest extends from Newfoundland and Labrador all the way to the far northern Yukon. So what’s the name of this Canadian forest that lies mostly above 50 degrees north?

The answer is Canada’s boreal or “northern” forest. It spans the country from the Yukon Territory to Newfoundland and Labrador. It’s also habitat to hundreds of bird species including the Common Redpole,  one of the many species that is expected to show up in this weekend’s Great Backyard Bird Count.  Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with Miyoko Chu of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who explains why counting birds such as the Common Redpole and the Bar-tailed Godwit (pictured)  is important to scientists.

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Great Backyard Bird Count

eBird

Cornell Lab of Ornithology YouTube channel

Scarlet Tanager (Image: US Fish and Wildlife Service)

There’s coffee from local roasters, coffee stamped organic, coffee stamped fair trade, even coffee stamped with something called “Whole Planet Foundation Supplier Alliance for Microcredit.”

Now add one more specialty label to the conscientious coffee list: Bird-Friendly coffee.

Robert Rice, a scientist with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, says researchers have documented steep declines in many migratory bird species in recent years. And while there are a number of reasons for that, Rice says habitat destruction on coffee farms is a big one.

On a recent day, Rice was marketing what the Smithsonian center calls its bird-friendly coffee certification program at a crowded natural products convention in Boston. Rice sat beside a big picture of a Baltimore oriole sitting atop a tree.

“The concept really grabs people when they understand it and get it,” Rice says.

“The concept” is about preserving bird habitat. Rice says the declines in songbird populations happened at the same time much of the coffee lands in central America were undergoing a change from traditional farms, in which coffee is grown under a lush canopy of shade trees, to high-yield varieties that grow in full sun.

“The differences are quite drastic,” Rice says. “Even though sun coffee is quite green, it’s actually in terms of diversity, it’s very much of a green desert”.

In other words, these new coffee plantations are bad news for birds. And even fair trade or organic standards don’t say anything about habitat preservation.

That’s why the Smithsonian developed its standards–to encourage coffee farmers to keep their shade trees.

Earning the Smithsonians’ trademarked “Bird-friendly” label isn’t easy. Among other things, coffee farms must have a minimum number of native tree species and even a certain density of leaf volume. They also have to be organic. In exchange, the farms earn a premium price for their beans.

But the Smithsonian program isn’t the only shade-grown coffee game in town. You might’ve seen a little green frog on some coffee containers. That’s the seal of approval of the rainforest alliance.

Alex Morgan of the Rainforest Alliance’s US & Canada sustainable agriculture program says the organization’s certification program is a comprehensive set of standards on social, environmental, and economic principles. The Alliance’s standards are broader than the Smithsonian’s but not quite as rigorous when it comes to shade trees.

Another difference is that farms don’t have to meet those shade standards up front.

The rainforest alliance strategy, Morgan says, is more about helping coffee farmers move in the right direction.

“When you’re dealing with coffee farms that may not have means to comply in year or two, then you have to be practical within the realities of what people can do on a farm,” Morgan says.

So which approach preserves more bird habitat?

Morgan says bird-loving coffee drinkers shouldn’t sweat the difference. Choose coffee certified by his rainforest alliance or the Smithsonian, he says. But Morgan adds that it’s important not to pit any of the certifications out there against one another.

“Because when you add up what is certified you’re really talking about less than 10 percent of the coffee supply,” Morgan says.

“What we should all be doing, is really looking at, how can we get the rest of that coffee supply under the umbrella of one or numerous of those certification programs.”

Bottom line, observers say, look for substance behind any claims.

Take for instance the term “shade grown.” There are bags of coffee on the shelves with that claim, but without any certification.

That doesn’t sit well with Julie Craves, an ornithologist at the University of Michigan who runs a website analyzing coffee certification programs.

Craves says “Shade coffee” means more than just having a shade tree.

“Shade coffee is that there is habitat,” Craves says.

“So I don’t think they’re trying to be purposely deceptive, but unless it’s verified by a third party, under some scientific standards, I don’t think it means very much.”

Whatever the standard–Rainforest Alliance, Smithsonian Bird Center or something else – if you want to buy truly bird -friendlier coffee, you’re likely to pay a premium.

But if you don’t, ornithologist Julie craves says, it’s the birds that pay the price.

“I have a little thing I tell people,” Craves says. “There is no such thing as cheap coffee.”

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- Bird call sound files courtesy of the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.-

• How consumers affect migratory birds

Poisoned sea eagle (Photo: Liu Meng Rong, Zhang Yong & Liu Hai Yong)

Like most of Beijing, the streets surrounding the grounds of the city’s ancient Temple of Heaven are choked with raging traffic. It’s hard to imagine that nature still has any place in this throbbing metropolis.

But head into the park, and the urban hum fades away first to quiet music and strolling crowds, and then to an even deeper quiet amid red temple buildings and precisely spaced evergreens. This is one of the largest remaining green spaces in Beijing… and one of the few places where you might still catch a glimpse of large birds like owls.

“Sometimes we can find the owls resting over there.”

Bao Weidong comes to a halt beneath a tall pine and peers through the branches with his binoculars. Bao is a zoology professor at Beijing Forestry University. He often comes to the temple grounds in search of long-eared owls – owls with two tufts of pointy feathers atop their heads.

“Several years ago we found nine birds at this tree.” “Nine long-eared owls in that tree?” “Yes, but now it’s empty. Yeah, it’s empty.”

Owls at the Temple of Heaven (Photo: Bao Weidong)

He says the number of owls is declining across Beijing. Back in 2004, Bao counted about 60 owls at three sites in the city. Today, he thinks there might be 25. The biggest problem, Bao says, is the loss of habitat. The city keeps expanding into what was once farmland. And the owls can’t find food.

“If the land is used or cultivated for crops or farmland, there are some small mammals: the rodents. So the food resources disappeared, then the owls disappeared.”

In a sterile white room across town from the Temple of Heaven, a large bird with an intimidating beak and feathers the color of milk chocolate squawks at a couple of humans wearing surgical masks. This is the Beijing Raptor Rescue Center. And the bird is a cinereous vulture…with badly injured feet.

“The city is a very, very dangerous place for these birds.”

Kati Loeffler with a patient (Photo: IFAW)

Beijing happens to lie on quite an important migration route for raptors and many other species of birds. The big buildings mostly are causes of injury: birds flying into glass, that kind of thing.”

The Center cares for up to 350 injured raptors a year. There are owls, hawks, buzzards, falcons, merlins, eagles and vultures. Some stay for months… make a full recovery and can be released. Others have to be euthanized.

Loeffler says today’s patient… the big vulture… is in pretty bad shape.

“Oh, baby, I know. I know, sweet pea… The lesions on his toes look very serious. He’s losing all of his nails together with actually the last joint. So we need to figure out what’s going on here. A vulture can’t survive in the wild without its claws.”

Loeffler isn’t sure what’s wrong with this bird. It might be an infectious disease. Another threat raptors face in this city is residents who capture the birds as pets and clip their wings. But many raptor enthusiasts prefer to capture the birds in photographs.

In their small apartment, Beijing residents Liu Meng Rong and Zhang Yong unzip their camera cases and show off the gear they use to photograph wild birds. As the city grows, the distance they’ve gotta go to find raptors keeps growing too.

“Birds of prey usually live where there aren’t many people. You won’t find them in densely populated areas.”

“We try to go to the outskirts of Beijing 3 or 4 days each week to observe wild animals and birds, and to get closer to nature.”

Photographer Liu Meng Rong (Photo: Liu Meng Rong, Zhang Yong & Liu Hai Yong)

But recently, Liu and Zhang had to do more than just observe. They spotted a sea eagle lying on its side on a frozen lake. They captured the bird, and drove it to the Rescue Center. Liu cradled the bird in her lap during the ride.

“Birds of prey typically have very intense eyes. But this one didn’t. You could see the call for help in its eyes. I was afraid it would struggle because it’s a fierce bird. That would have been dangerous because we were driving on the highway. So I talked to the bird: ‘Please be quiet,’ I said. ‘We’re determined to save you, to take you to the sky and let you fly again.”

Turned out the eagle had been poisoned. Kati Loeffler at the Raptor Center says it was probably an all-too common accident.

“Farmers in these rural areas, they’ll cast out poisoned seed for ducks to kill ducks and sell them. But then what happens is that raptors also eat the poisoned birds and themselves succumb to it.”

The story of this particular bird has a happy ending. After two weeks, the poisoned eagle was released into the hills outside Beijing, and it did fly again. It’s an increasingly rare story for Beijing’s raptors. Loeffler says that as Beijing booms, she sees no effort being made to carve out space for these birds. Back at the Temple of Heaven, the falling number of long-eared owls certainly doesn’t bode well. But as he scans the park for even one feathery resident, zoologist Bao Weidong remains hopeful.

“This environment is very good. Probably the owls will come back again.”

Ari: For The World, I’m Ari Daniel Shapiro, Beijing.

• See more photos of the birds
• Beijing Raptor Rescue Center

For the latest newsy pod, Carol Hills and Clark Boyd from the Big Show help me pick our top five language-related stories from the past month:

5. Some birds develop distinct dialects based on the decibel levels of their habitats. Dialect here is a term of art. It does not mean that birds living in say, North Carolina chirp the avian version of “y’all.” No, it means that over time, some bird species can change the frequency, pitch and volume of their song according to their sonic environment. The latest study, of the white-crowned sparrow (pictured) shows that urban noise appears to have a profound impact on birdsong.

There is a BBC story from a few years ago suggesting that cows pick up on regional human accents. But, alas, the story may have been largely bogus.

4. A British translation firm is offering to provide local interpreters to companies doing business in Glasgow. Proof that there are many, many variations of English, even on one medium-sized island. This service may be more useful at football match or a betting shop than in a boardroom: I can’t imagine that white-collar Glaswegians use terms like moroculous, laldy and maw during working hours. But it is true that Glasgow English is a massive challenge, especially for non-native English speakers. As is Newcastle, Liverpool and Swansea English.

3.The French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for reforms in how foreign languages are taught in schools. Surpringly, France lags behind many other developed countries when it comes to bilingualism and foreign language learning, as discussed in a couple of earlier posts and podcasts. Now, doubtless spurred by The World in Words’ efforts to give this matter an airing, the French government is vowing to act. The proposed reforms haven’t been decided upon yet, but they seem likely to favor oral skills over grammar. Some European language-learning groups however, are skeptical that the reforms will help much.

2. Chinese expats are doing battle over which script U.S. schools should use to teach Chinese. Schools have two options — traditional characters, favored in Taiwan and Hong Kong, or simplified characters, used in mainland China. Where there is a large expat Taiwanese community, as there is in certain parts of Los Angeles, schools are more likely to use traditional characters. But that’s changing, as more Chinese communites outside of China (eg in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia) switch to simplified characters. And all that trade that the U.S. does with mainland China means that it makes a lot of sense to learn the script in use there. However, proponents of traditional characters aren’t giving up without a fight, sometimes perhaps to the detriment of the kids trying to learn the language.

1. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is going linguistically global. This is the organization that oversees and sets certain rules for domain names. ICANN is now allowing non Latin script urls. It’s something Latin script-writers think of as a mere technicality. But if you’re not used to writing Latin script, it’s a major pain to have to. So this should make the internet accessible to even more people around the world. And who knows, the Georgian script on the banner of this blog may one day end up as part of a domain name. (I took the photo. It’s of a billboard above a highway in central Georgia. The messages, courtesy of the government, are patriotic slogans. Someone told me exactly what the words mean, but…sorry, I’ve forgotten.)

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