Even more surprising was the decision in February of the federal and Alberta governments to charge Syncrude, a large tar-sands processor, with offences under environmental and bird-protection laws for the deaths of 500 ducks in one of the company's tailing ponds last April.

ECONOMIST: Stephen Harper looks to Washington, not Alberta

No-till, practised more in America than in Britain, means growing crops without ploughing fields, and leads to many-fold increases in bird population and a range of other environmental benefits.

ECONOMIST: What the birds and bees say

This notion that women's natural role as homemakers and mothers gave them a responsibility to act as nature's housekeepers led many socially conservative women to take up environmental activism, campaigning to protect the nation's bird population, which was being decimated by the feather trade, and promoting conservation education in their children's schools.

CNN: When helping Earth was women's work

In December a team from the Brazilian Environmental Institute (IBAMA) tried in vain to find the bird in the Curaca region, some 600 km (370 miles) north of Salvador de Bahia.

BBC: Brazil hunts for unique lost bird

But broadcasting bird song meshes with the concept of crime prevention through environmental design, he says, in which cities might improve lighting or play cheerful music in public spaces.

WSJ: A California City Is Into Tweeting��Chirping, Actually��in a Big Way