Lawyers for oilsands giant Syncrude are scheduled to appear in court in Alberta on Monday to defend the company against charges laid in the deaths of 1,600 ducks in a northern Alberta tailings pond in April 2008.
The company has pleaded not guilty to charges under provincial and federal laws. Two months have been set aside [...]

An injured swan from Alberta will soon be flying across the Rocky Mountains to Vancouver to hook up with a potential new mate, but it's not clear what sort of matchup could come from the unusual avian blind date.
Fortunately for the injured swan, it won't have to work too hard to cross the mountains — [...]

EDMONTON — The tundra swan that's swimming in a small pool in Edmonton right now could soon find more paddling space off the B.C. coast.
Air Canada has offered a free flight to Vancouver for the swan, which is currently being cared for by the Wildlife Rehabilitation Society of Edmonton.
The swan arrived at the shelter in [...]

PHILADELPHIA – Officials at the Philadelphia Zoo say they’re happy that an AWOL avian has been found and is returning to its perch.
Zoo spokesman Bill Larson says a tropical bird that flew the coop two days ago was recaptured Saturday morning in the city’s Fairmount Park.
The juvenile Sun Conure (CON’-yer) disappeared Thursday during the [...]

Environmental groups are hailing what they call a landmark federal court ruling that will force Ottawa to protect habitat of the endangered sage grouse — a species that has been reduced to a few populations in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
“It’s a very big win,” said Cliff Wallis of the Alberta Wilderness Association, one in a [...]

Members at a Kingston golf club are getting in a flap over a birdie that has taken up residence in the club grounds.
When a bedraggled Walter the pigeon arrived at Coombe Wood Golf Club about five weeks ago, Phil Wright, long serving professional at the club, took a shine to him and nursed him [...]

DENVER – A parrot whose cries of alarm alerted his owner when a little girl choked on her breakfast has been honored as a hero.
Willie, a Quaker parrot, has been given the local Red Cross chapter’s Animal Lifesaver Award.
In November, Willie’s owner, Megan Howard, was baby-sitting for a toddler. Howard left the room and the [...]

TRENTON, New Jersey – Cries for help inside a house in New Jersey turned out to be nothing but a talkative cockatoo.
Neighbors called police Wednesday morning after hearing what they believed was a woman’s persistent cry of “Help me! Help me!” coming from a house. Officers arrived and when no one answered the door, they [...]

WASHINGTON – A small greenish bird that has been playing hide-and-seek with ornithologists on a remote Indonesian island since 1996 was declared a newly discovered species on Friday and promptly recommended for endangered lists.
The new species is called the Togian white-eye, or Zosterops somadikartai.
It was first spotted by Mochamad Indrawan of the University of Indonesia [...]

Feb. 13, 2008 — A fossil found in Wyoming has apparently resolved a long-standing question about when bats gained their radar-like ability to navigate and locate airborne insects at night. The answer: after they started flying.
The discovery revealed the most primitive bat known, from a previously unrecognized species that lived some 25.5 million years ago.
Its [...]