We were able to come across a video report on the status of the population of common birds in North America. There's a sharp decline of 60% to 80% to these birds original numbers brought about the effects of huge factory farms and sprawling urban settlements.

Although their numbers are still by the millions, it won't be long before they stop appearing for their seasonal migration. More information about their population decline can be found after the jump.

Fellow QJ.NET writer Max F. maintains that birds have been gay for thousands of years. The rest of us here don't read "GayBird Watcher Weekly," so we're not aware of that theory.

But this next one seems to prove Max's point: over at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) in Slimbridge near Bristol, a pair of gay flamingos named Fernando and Carlos have adopted an abandoned chick, finally becoming parents after six long unfruitful years of being together.

Prior to this, the flamingos have been known for chasing other flamingos from their nests to take over their eggs. WWT spokeswoman Jane Waghorn said, "They were rather good at sitting on eggs and hatching them so last week, when a nest was abandoned, it seemed like a good idea to make them surrogate parents."

The two can actually feed the chick by producing milk in their throats.

The representative of the British conservation organization added that gay flamingos are actually not uncommon especially when there aren't enough females or they don't hit it off with them. "They will pair off with other males," Waghorn added.

Finally, the $86 million restoration of the San Dieguito Lagoon at Del Mar, California will begin this month after 15 years of planning, ironing out legal kinks, and bureaucracy.

The restoration will cover 440 acres and will permanently unplug the lagoon's outlet to the ocean that has been blocked by a wide berm of sand. With the lagoon's clogged mouth, algal bloom is spreading across the backwaters and could cause fish die-off.

The wetlands restoration project will also create new marshes, mud flats, and underwater habitats which had been filled in for tomato fields and an airfield.

Installing permanent tidal flushing and man-made basins in the San Dieguito Lagoon is expected to produce a thriving ecosystem for fish and endangered birds. The $86 million restoration will begin after the end of the current nesting season of endangered birds such as the snowy plover. It will take two to three years of digging to complete but all work will cease during nesting seasons. The construction will be closely monitored by scientists specializing in birds, plants, geology, archeology, and paleontology.

Lagoons are bodies of shallow salt water separated from sea by shallow or exposed sandbank, coral reefs, or similar features. Lagoons are important because many species of plants and wildlife feed and breed nowhere else. Lagoon systems are known to be habitats of up to  2,200 species, many of them listed as threatened or endangered.