Pityriasis Rosea Versus Ring Worm

Casu Asturias: the ghosts of the pines

Japanese Molested In Train Grouped

Are we in Scotland or in Asturias?

Although it seems that we are in the Scottish Highlands at the time of the MacDougall clan and that will suddenly appear behind the hills, we really are in the center of Asturies , a few kilometers from Uvieo.

This huge mass with walls two feet wide is the Tower of Peñerúes , and is in the town of El Campu in Morcín council. With its 17 meters height, this former defensive structure is one of the most important medieval monuments in the province.

Being under the remains of the tower, when daylight was giving way to the shadows of the night, their appearance became more and more impressive and did not take much imagination to be hit right in the twelfth century, when soldiers and gentlemen in these mountains fighting to defend the passage of the south.

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Each year there are less

Yesterday we visited the west of Asturias to see passed the reproduction of the shags and get an idea of \u200b\u200bwhen we would have to begin fieldwork. As usual always makes the big difference between the different partners, while some already had chickens, others had not yet performed the start. In the colony of Gavioteiro, Gilberto Jardón 've seen a couple with large chickens a week ago while others were much more delayed.



In one of the cliffs near the colony of A Force, a couple had finished nest building but had not yet performed the start. Interestingly, the female is the one that had the most developed bun was ringed with metal and could read most of the digits and surprisingly it was one of the copies older who have controlled no less than 11 years.

What most caught our attention and our main concern is the significant decrease in the number of breeding pairs. Although still have to wait to make some progress on the season for couples to start playing later, the perception is that the decline is being very sharp and very fast. For example, in this cliff where our female ringed last year raised 4 couples and this is just one.

dominant male defending the nest even though they have not made the start

colony in Castries, Dams things were not much better as one of the nests we had controlled for more than 10 years has disappeared and the total number of partners has declined.

Accidental death in fishing gear is driving this species to extinction at a rapid pace and although we have reported this problem several times, with images and data, administration officials could act to prevent it, look for other side and do nothing. At the last inspection performed beaches appeared a week ago 2 dead adult crested after swallowing a hook. Although the Ministry was advised to remain with his policy of "nonintervention" total for four black big birds, that matters. Remember that this species is found in the Red Book of birds of Spain in the category of Endangered and are included in the regional list of endangered species and has a current management plan is not being fulfilled all.

If you invest the money that is being used in the shameful campaign of killings of large cormorant shag protect the situation would be very different. Recall that the Ministry of Environment is obliged under a law passed themselves from " Establish and implement effective measures to direct protection of the species
eliminating or reducing risk factors that may threaten the survival of the colonies . "In the age of 10 recently completed term of this Management Plan has not done anything, everything has remained a dead letter . It just has a name: Malpractice .

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A castle in the moonlight

Tudela Castle at dusk . Sirio is seen on the tower

On Saturday
Moon came to Earth more than ever in the past 20 years. Due to the eccentricity of the lunar orbit, our satellite is not always the same distance from Earth, passing over the year at times of maximum distance (apogee ) and others of closest approach (perigee ). For in addition to the annual variation with a period of approximately two decades, the moon gets closer to normal. This phenomenon is often called colloquially "giant moon" and it's spectacular, both for the apparent size of the moon (the moon evidently not grow or decline) and its luminosity.

Saturday was the day, but as is usual in Asturias, but it was clouding clear dawned gradually and eventually we had to settle for seeing the moon appear briefly through the clouds. Sunday changed the landscape and the sky completely clean endured until late at night, so little before dark I went to Picu Castiellu near Olloniego where he intended to take some pictures of the ruined castle of Tudela, a I had discovered recently, and I wanted to visit at night.

Orion the castle

After the sun even spent two hours until the moon rose over the horizon. Then came I could not resist him some pictures of Orion that was strategically placed on the remains of the castle. When the moon appeared and could not see because the light intensity of eclipasaría it completely.

At approximately 21:30 the moon rose over the horizon and even the full moon was last night still seemed huge and very bright. Within minutes the darkness disappeared and could see perfectly the silhouettes of trees and surrounding mountains

castle silhouette in the light of the moon

NOTE: Tudela castle was built on the remains of a pre-Roman fort in the ninth century during the reign of Ordoño I. Alfonso III was rebuilt due to the strategic importance of which was Nalón Valley defense and control the passage between Asturias and Leon. King Juan I of Castile ordered its demolition in the year 1383 being up only part of one wall. If you want to enlarge the pictures do click on them.

Currently, despite having been declared a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1965 the ruins of the castle is falling apart , because it seems there is no money to keep it. While both are still wasting huge amounts of money in monumental works of dubious taste for mayors and politicians go on the photo.

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Can you help us amphibians to predict earthquakes?

Every time an earthquake occurs, such as the recent Japan, we hear stories about animals that hours before the quake behaved oddly. Are many cases of dogs and cats that were nervous or irritable shortly before the tremors or birds fly away from areas where after these natural disasters occurred.

Most of these behaviors "predictive" of animals are often transmitted by word of mouth stories, but few studies have empirically demonstrated this ability of animals to anticipate changing their behavior earthquakes.

few months ago published an article in the Journal of Zoology, signed by Rachel Grant and Tim Hallyday, which showed a population of common toads (Bufo bufo ) who lived near the area of \u200b\u200bL 'Aquila in Italy, showed dramatic changes in reproductive behavior from 5 days prior to the occurrence the earthquake that struck central Italy in April 2009 .

Rachel Grant was studying the reproduction of frogs at Lake San Rufino, 75 km from the epicenter of the earthquake. Generally, in late March began Reproduction of this species. The number of males was increasing day by day until reaching the peaks of occurrence during the next full moon. The number of breeding pairs was also growing, becoming more frequent rainy days and high humidity. That year, all was normal until no apparent reason the number of toads present at spawning sites plummeted to 96% of the specimens disappeared from one day to another. This behavior was very strange because the common toads once they started playing remained active and in large numbers until all females had spawned. Five days

after the disappearance of frogs earthquake took place, and it was not until a few days when amphibians reappeared, though in smaller numbers than previous years. Some researchers had suggested that the animals were able to sense the P wave several minutes before an earthquake strikes, but in this case the frogs changed their behavior 5 days before, so that it seemed that that was the explanation. Posteriors studies seemed to indicate that the toads in the area of \u200b\u200bL'Aquila had been able to detect disturbances in the ionosphere that there had been a few days before, including the release of radon gas that had altered conductivity of the atmosphere by changing electric fields and currents. However, and as discussed these researchers, these hypotheses are difficult to test because we are not yet able, with all our technology to predict earthquakes in advance. References



Grant, R., & Halliday, T. (2010). Predicting the unpredictable; Evidence of pre-seismic anticipatory Behaviour in the common toad Journal of Zoology DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.2010.00700.x

Are Japanese Groping Real

nuclear demagogy

has already
almost a week since the earthquake in Japan and subsequent tsunami caused one of the greatest tragedies of recent years. The dead in the thousands and growing daily, the material damage is enormous and there are fears a cataclysm that will affect the entire global economy. But to complicate things and add more drama to this natural disaster, several nuclear power plants in that country have been severely damaged , and radioactivity levels have increased exponentially outside what has made the government forced to evacuate the population within a radius of 20 km around the power plant in Fukushima. And it appears that the worst has not yet arrived. Faced with this disaster

not yet know how will that proves beyond doubt that nuclear power is neither clean nor safe, we have begun to listen to the proponents of this type of energy trying to convince us how it was an isolated incident that no one expected an earthquake of this magnitude and I've even heard some that they say that this accident reinforces his thesis about the safety of these facilities, since neither a natural disaster of this magnitude has shot down the structure of the plant.

But apart from these statements, which in my view are as absurd as arguing whether the sulfuric acid poured over skin burning or not burning, so I keep calling the attention is still trying to convince us that nuclear energy is cheap, it is necessary above all that we are opposed to it are a few demagogues because while we oppose the nuclear facility in our country, we buy electricity to France from these plants. All these claims are quite simply a lie.

nuclear energy is cheap
Building a new nuclear plant involves an investment of 6000 million euros as it takes more than 20 years to amortize. Moreover the cost of waste management will cost to Spain more than 13,000 million euros in the future. This is partly because even the supporters of this energy does not want a pool of waste in our country, so we paid France 22 million euros annually for their management. Just for the central residues of Vandellos Spain France pays 65,000 euros a day .
But the most funny thing is that the waste was not left France, but simply have them for a while and then we return them . The situation is so bizarre, it has even been raised waste exchange between the English and French central . If it is dangerous to imagine that waste almancenar how dangerous it is to walk by moving from one place to another and then make the return trip. Therefore cost more to add to the price of nuclear Kw, not just pay for the storage but also for transport. And when dealing with this highly dangerous material transportation is much more expensive.
In a report published in the United States by Craig A. Severance , where he studied from a purely economic point of view the costs and benefits of installing a new nuclear plant results indicated that not only was cheaper but three times expensive than that currently produced.

nuclear but I do not want to buy electricity from its central France
This is one of the most widespread opinions and more repeat supporters of nuclear energy in Spain. And as we see now is strictly false. It is true that until recently I thought so, but I only have a few minutes of searching sufficient documentation to verify that this statement was not only false but the opposite is true.
And I have not asked for this one page of environmentalists and hairy, but the official statistics of the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade , namely the English Electricity Network reports.

Table 1: Balance of trade in energy (taken from Progress Report REE 2010). Click to enlarge

According to these reports, as you can see in the above table, the English energy balance is clearly exporting GW 8490, and not only France but we owe our energy balance 1.387GW them is in our favor.

nuclear energy is safe and clean
These statements are a new lie, I do not think it takes to speak up after what is now happening. And I do not serve the claim that in this case it was extraordinary circumstances. It is also rare extraordianario and extremandamente you win the lottery primitive, but someone will get it. It was virtually impossible to break a settling pond of toxic material, but it happened in Aznalcoyar . And it was virtually impossible to produce an earthquake of magnitude 9, but it happened.

As for the supposed cleaning should be remembered that the waste problem is far from resolved. Until recent years the barrels of waste were pulling off our coasts and still remain 140,000 tonnes of this waste extremely dangerous in the pit against Galicia Atlantic. Currently
waste is being stored in pools as a temporary solution until you find a definitive solution, but this solution does not appear even though the EU, for example, is spending almost 5 times more money in your bar program VII Research Framework development projects that attempt to solve this problem that renewable energy development.

And finally, I would like to reflect on those who accuse us of demagoguery to which we oppose the use of nuclear power for energy production. Is there anything more demagogic support for nuclear energy and oppose installation of a waste bin if you draw close to home?

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Mortality puffin. Possible causes in the forest Snow

Puffin bordered on the beach Aguilar (Asturies)

almost 15 days are popping lots of puffin (Fratercula arctica ) bordered on Cantabrian beaches. The first sounded the alarm was Jesus Menendez, who found several examples in Cantabria. Since then the trickle of cadavers has been continuous and almost every day they appeared birds, both young and old. In

Initially it appeared that it was a death caused by a spillage of oil, maybe not great but if a sentinazo discharge caused by the illegal practice of tank cleaning performed many ships at sea. However, although some individuals showed traces of hydrocarbons in the digestive system, the vast majority were completely clean. Moreover, the fact that mortality affects only puffins and other species not alcid as auks and guillemots, which die en masse during episodes of contamination by oil, seemed to rule out that possibility.

In order
to conduct a more thorough exploration of the Asturian beaches last weekend several people toured the coast of Asturias noting the number of puffins bordered within an activity (Bird Coastal Inspection Riverside-ICAO) organized by the Iberian Group Seabirds . Porteriormente, birds found would be deposited in a collection points for Environment Nursery take them to the facilities of the Animal Health Laboratory Xove (Gijón) for analysis.

We do not have all the data but so far have found about 40 bodies recovered in Asturies. Keep in mind that this number is only a small fraction of the number of dead individuals, and that much of the dead birds do not reach the coast and many of those that do go unnoticed or are preyed on by foxes, dogs or other animals.

young Puffin Wing (left) and adult (right) dead on the beach of Santa Gadea. Photo: MF Pajuelo

first thing unveiled the first field analysis was that most adults were in the throes of change at the time of his death. As seen in previous fotografñia, these birds were moving the primaries so they were completely unable to fly, however the juveniles had not yet changed these pens.

Puffins are seabirds that spend the winter a few miles from the coast, usually in areas bordering the continental shelf and slope. These areas are very productive and there is feed mostly on plankton, which is then exchanged for fish when they arrive at their breeding colonies. During molting the puffins fly and do not need that rest on the surface of the water and only have to look for food dive.

Details puffin beak of a young (left) and adult (right) at Santa Gadea. Photo: MF Pajuelo

Although there will still be to analyze the bodies and see if there is any pathology that may have caused mass mortality in the species, it seems that has been treated for an episode of mortality caused by a lack of food associated with heavy storms a few weeks ago . These episodes of severe storms hinder the capture of food to seabirds, and even more if they are physically depleted as in this case, and may also produce changes in food availability. When you have the hang latest information on the blog.

Finally I would like to acknowledge the work of Manolo Pajuelo who coordinated the coastal inspection of the weekend and the work of all volunteers of Asturias and other provinces, who walked the beaches looking for puffins.

BTO Note on the mortality of puffins in the Bay of Biscay, several ringed in Britain

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After last week's snow clearing of beech trees completely covered in white dawn.

will not be the last snow of winter, but it is getting closer to spring.

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The cute trick for siblings born before their

Chicken Cuckoo just left the nest

Spring is approaching and within a few days will begin to hear the familiar call of the cuckoo (Cuculus canorus ) in our fields. The cuckoo is a species known worldwide for its particular form of reproduction, since they do not raise their chickens but lay their eggs in the nests of other insectivorous birds for them to care for them. This task is not simple and contrary to what might appear to require much effort to search for nests and monitoring appropriate partners of prospective adoptive parents. And of course the cuckoo females should ensure that they put their eggs at the right time, just before the start of incubation.

Over millions of years of co-evolution, parasites and guests have struggled to win the battle. About trying to get their eggs are not recognized and the other trying to unmask the impostor and avoid deception. The cuckoos have been almost perfectly mimic the size and pigmentation of eggs parasitized species and for its part, the guests have increased their ability to identify and prevent fraud, attacking on sight cuckoos near its territory and ultimately left the nest, even with the full set if you have any doubt that a suspect is egg in it (Pozgayová et al, 2010). Always be less expensive to conduct a fantastic replacement to miss a breeding season feeding the son of a stranger.

But once the female cuckoo has an egg in the appropriate nest success is still not insured. You should now be the little cuckoo who has to fight for their survival. The parasite egg is incubated by adoptive parents until they hatch, and within minutes of being freed from the shell instinctively expel the contents of the nest. The newborn will support your feet on the bottom of the nest and bear eggs on their backs, and even other chicks of their adoptive parents and throw them out.

Movements expulsion of eggs and chicks from the nest (taken from Anderson et al, 2009)

This task can take over an hour and will cause a huge loss of energy which will recover quickly (Anderson et al, 2009). Anyway, this effort will be richly rewarded, because from that moment the little cuckoo is the owner and master of the nest, and their foster parents work tirelessly to provide all the food necesariohasta to complete its development.

But all this strategy is a small limitation. Ritualized behavior and innate expulsion of the contents of the nest only lasts a few hours after hatching so it is essential that the cute little their siblings born before or little after, as otherwise these would be too large to be expelled from the nest.

States

development of newly laid cuckoo eggs (above) and zebra finches recent positions (middle) and after 24 hours of incubation.

In a recent article by Tim Birkhead group , these researchers examined the degree of development of eggs of several species of cuckoo in the time of release and compared it to the state of development of eggs other species of birds (zebra finches, doves, etc) at different times of incubation.

The results were surprising, because it found that the parasitic bird species retained the egg for 24 hours in the oviduct Once formed, so at the time of commissioning stage of development was similar to eggs that had been incubated for a day or even longer. This incubation intracorporeal was achieved in part through these parasite species had an interval between egg laying and egg 48 hours, while non-parasitic species of passerine put an egg a day. This fantastic range allowed the eggs remain inside the mother at a temperature of 40 º C for an extra day so that the incubation period by the adoptive parents was reduced. References



Anderson MG, Moskát C, Ban M, Grim T, Cassey P, & Hauber ME (2009). Egg eviction impossible in Recoverable cost of virulence in chicks of a brood parasite. PloS one, 4 (11) PMID: 19907639

Birkhead TR, Hemming N, Spottiswoode CN, Mikula O, Moskát C, Ban M, & Schulze-Hagen K (2011). Internal incubation and early hatching in brood parasitic birds. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society, 278 (1708), 1019-24 PMID: 20880882

Pozgayova, M., Prochazka, P., Polacikova, L., & Honza, M. (2010). Closer inspection clutch - quick egg ejection: timing of host responses parasitic eggs Toward Behavioral Ecology, 22 (1), 46-51 DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arq163

I Dream Of Jeannie Lamps

The enigma of the rooks of Leon

The

rook (Corvus frugilegus ) is a corvid species very abundant in the northern and central Europe, with a total population could reach los14 million breeding pairs according to some authors. This apparent abundance contrasts with what happens in southern Europe, and specifically in the Mediterranean countries where this species is virtually absent. In the Iberian Peninsula appears only in the SE of Leon, where is located a small breeding population of about 2000 pairs.

Graja Distribution in Spain by the last breeding atlas

The origin of this population remains an enigma rooks because they are not heard from him until mid the last century, José Antonio Valverde discovered when the first settlements on the banks of Órbigo, where he counted 160 nests. This does not rule out the rook and was present for much longer no one had noticed. One of the most probable hypothesis to explain the presence of this species of corvid is concerned the last redoubt of a population that for centuries was more widely distrribuida. Perhaps after the last glaciation the rooks would have moved south in search of better climates and to withdraw the ice, a few couples had stayed here, leading to the current population.

truth is still not known with certainty the origin of this population and there are several ornithologists and scientists who are working to try to unravel the mystery. The Group Banding Iberian (GIA) for several years that is carrying out a project to study this species, on their website you can find information on it.

Last Saturday as we drove the car for the people of Villadangos del Páramo, we stopped to see one of the colonies of this population settled in a small grove of poplar trees at the edge of town . The birds had begun to repair the old nests and build new ones.

Unfortunately for the rooks, crows do not usually have such good press among the local population, as they often cut down the poplar during playback ruining the breed. I still remember the first time I saw a colony of this species, more than 20 years ago in the town of Leon Cembranos. There stood the largest colony of rooks at the time but it disappeared a few years later when the poplar on which it stood was cleared to clearcut.