Rosemary Drisdelle's Blog

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

A recent scientific paper details the results of a study that looked at twenty-five people with diagnosed Morgellons disease. The results are fascinating.

An unfortunate minority of people suffer from a group of symptoms including itching, and a sensation of something crawling on or under the skin; a belief in fibres or filaments that come out through the skin; a belief in a chronic parasitic infestation; and chronic skin lesions. These people are often passed off as delusional and encouraged to seek psychiatric help. To make matters worse, many do exhibit symptoms of emotional disturbance.

For those who think there may be more to it, a recent paper in the Journal of Medical Case Reports is a must-read (Harvey, Bransfield, Mercer et al). The researchers chose a study group of twenty-five people who fit their case definition of Morgellons, collected data on symptoms, and ran a battery of medical tests to see if they could find common abnormalities to help pinpoint the cause of the disease. They conclude that Morgellons is probably a “chronic infectious process.”

Abnormal findings in the study group included (among other things):

• Low blood pressure
• High resting pulse
• A decrease in NK (natural killer) cells, cells of the immune system
• Increased fasting insulin levels
• Increased TNF-alpha (tumor necrosis factor-alpha), which plays a role in inflammation
• Increased C-reactive protein, a protein that increases in inflammation

The researchers also noted a high level of certain autoimmune conditions. Patients with psychiatric diagnoses had been normal prior to developing physical symptoms of Morgellons, and the onset of symptoms frequently followed exposure to conditions of low sanitation.

These findings, the authors note, point to “a skin phenomenon, an immune deficiency state and a chronic inflammatory process.”

That should make a lot of people think (and Morgellons sufferers rejoice that someone is finally taking them seriously), but there are still a lot of questions to be answered:

• If Morgellons is an infection, what sort of infectious agent causes it?
• Which came first, the infection or the immune deficiency?
• What’s the relationship between delusional parasitosis (or delusions of parasitosis) and Morgellons?
• If exposure to unsanitary conditions is a risk factor, why isn’t there an epidemic of Morgellons in the Third World? Or is there?
• Is there any connection between the “hygiene hypothesis” and the rise of Morgellons in the industrialized world?

I hope these authors, and others, follow up with more research on Morgellons.

“Morgellons Disease; Illuminating an Undefined Illness: a Case Series.” Harvey, William T., Robert C. Bransfield, Dana E Mercer et al. Journal of Medical Case Reports 2009, 3:8243 (Open access at BioMed Central)

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

It’s long been suspected that various flukes play a role in the development of cancers in people who harbor the parasites. Schistosoma haematobium, Clonorchis sinensis, and Opisthorchis viverrini have all been implicated. Charlatans have capitalized on the association claiming that flukes are the cause of all cancers and offering treatment—a myth with barely a grain of truth: parasites account for a very small percentage of cancers (Parkin, 3030), and we are only beginning to learn how they might do it. A paper published in PLoS Pathogens (Smout, Laha, Mulvenna et al) reports on the detection of carcinogenic protein secreted by O. viverrini.

Millions of people in Southeast Asia, notably in Thailand and Laos harbor O. viverrini in the bile ducts of the liver, acquired from raw fish in the diet. A surprising number of those infected eventually develop liver cancer—theoretically the result of a combination of inflammation, dietary nitrosamines (found in foods that contain nitrates or nitrites), and a mitogen (something secreted by the fluke that causes cell division). Smout and colleagues think that they have found the mitogen.

Opisthorchis viverrini secretes a protein called granulin, which is then found both on and in the cells of the bile duct around the parasite. A similar protein found in humans is associated with cell division and the spread of cancer cells in a number of aggressive human cancers. Similarly, the granulin from the fluke causes cell proliferation, making it more likely that a tumor will form in the bile duct. The authors speculate that this cell proliferation might benefit the parasite either by providing it with additional food, or by helping to heal the damage feeding does to the bile duct.

The authors suggest that it might be possible to develop a vaccine to the granulin produced by O. viverrini to reduce the health impact of the parasite in areas where it is prevalent. Perhaps this discovery will lead to similar findings for other flukes associated with cancer.

“A Granulin-Like Growth Factor Secreted by the Carcinogenic Liver Fluke, Opisthorchis viverrini, Promotes Proliferation of Host Cells.” (2009) Smout MJ, Laha T, Mulvenna J, Sripa B, Suttiprapa S, et al. PLoS Pathogens 5(10): e1000611. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1000611

“The Global Health Burden of Infection-associated Cancers in the Year 2002.” (2006) Parkin, Donald Maxwell. International Journal of Cancer: 118, 3030–3044

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Strongyloides stercoralis infestation is apparently very common in the aboriginal communities of Australia’s Northern Territory: in some communities 30 – 40 percent of residents may have the parasite. The local Health Department reportedly has a bad attitude toward dealing with S. stercoralis, claiming:

• People need not be treated unless they have symptoms (and therefore no testing is required in people with no symptoms).
• Hand washing, washing of vegetables and other foods, and excluding dogs from human dwellings is sufficient to control spread.
• The parasite will disappear as the socioeconomic situation in affected communities improves, those currently infected die, and contamination in the environment eases.

All of that sounds good, but it’s an approach that likely won’t work for a number of reasons:

• As many as half of infected people have no symptoms. Unfortunately, while they remain infected they are at risk of serious disease if their immune systems stop controlling the infection. (Among other things, malnutrition can compromise the immune response, and malnutrition is more common in communities with low socioeconomic status.)
• Chronically infected, asymptomatic people can continue to contaminate the environment with the parasite for many years. (Infections can last forty years or more).
• Washing hands and food is fine, but most infections occur when bare skin contacts contaminated soil – when people go barefoot or sit on the ground.
• Dogs pass on the parasite in their feces – keeping them out of houses will not prevent infected dogs from defecating outside and contaminating the soil.
• Preventing transmission of the parasite means good sanitation with a sanitary sewage system – and people who never resort to relieving themselves outside. This is as difficult to achieve as getting everyone to wear shoes all the time. Meanwhile infected dogs and other animals will continue to contaminate the soil.
• The parasite has a life cycle stage where adults reproduce in the soil, keeping the environment contaminated indefinitely.

It would be very difficult to eradicate S. stercoralis in an area where it is so well established that a third of the residents have it. An integrated approach would certainly be needed including screening and treatment of infected people and domestic animals, a sanitary sewage treatment system, cleanup of known contaminated areas, public education, and ongoing surveillance over a number of years.

Further Reading

Doctors Concerned Over Killer Parasite. Bolton, Katrina. ABC News. Oct 10, 2009.

Foundations of Parasitology 6^th Ed. Roberts, Larry S. and John Janovy Jr. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Gnathostomiasis is not for the squeamish. A recent report (Herman, Wall, Tulleken et al, 2009) describes a man with an immature Gnathostoma spinigerum larva that traveled from his groin up across his rib cage, around (or through) to his back after a possible detour down his right leg, over his shoulder and up his neck. After wandering about inside his face, the larva exited through the skin below his nose. Awful as this sounds, it wasn’t the larva’s behavior that was unusual, it was the fact that the man got it in Botswana. This is a parasite of Southeast Asia and Japan. Only a handful of human cases have been reported in Africa since 1994—in Zambia and Tanzania.

Has G. spinigerum spread to Africa, and if so, how did it do so? The adult worms live in the stomachs of carnivores and are usually acquired—by both carnivores and people—by eating raw fish, or other raw animal flesh. Many animals are paratenic hosts including… birds.

Nothing moves about the planet as famously as birds. Jonathan Elphick’s Atlas of Bird Migration (Firefly Books, 2007) confirms that some birds, notably birds of prey do migrate through Southeast Asia to the region of Africa that includes Tanzania, Zambia, and Botswana. And birds of prey eat fish, invertebrates, and small mammals. It makes sense that a migratory bird might bring G. spinigerum to southern Africa, fall prey to a carnivore there and start up a focus of the parasite. It has probably happened multiple times, but sporadically, and not often enough to establish the parasite permanently—or perhaps it is permanently established. If human cases in Africa increase, we will know.

This raises the question of why we don’t see sporadic cases in other regions that receive migrating birds from Southest Asia and Japan. One must remember that we are only likely to see human cases where people habitually eat raw fish and other animal flesh.

Read the Report of Recent Cases Acquired in Botswana:

"Gnathostomisasis Acquired by British Tourists in Botswana." Herman, Joanna S., Emma C. Wall, Christoffer van Tulleken et al. Emerging Infectious Diseases 2009; 15(4): 594-597.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

A recent scientific paper titled “The Origin of Malignant Malaria” (see full reference below) sheds light on how one of the worst parasites to infect humans evolved. Reports in the media paraphrase the paper as saying that Plasmodium falciparum transferred from chimpanzees to humans between 5000 and 10,000 years ago, and speculate on why the parasite causes such serious disease. The authors of the paper, however, make no conclusions about either of these things.

Stephen M, Rich and others conclude that the parasite P. falciparum evolved from the closely related chimpanzee parasite P. reichenowi relatively recently, and that the transfer happened only once. Both conclusions are supported by the fact that P. reichenowi has considerable genetic diversity while P. falciparum has very little (indicating that the chimpanzee species has been evolving much longer).

On the subject of when the transfer occurred, the authors comment that “considerable time, …many tens or hundreds of thousands of years, may have elapsed” (p. 4 of 6). They discuss the previous work of others, which indicates P. falciparum expanded and began causing serious widespread disease after the introduction of agriculture—perhaps between 5000 and 10,000 years ago. Its increased success was probably due to a combination of factors including deforestation, climate change, and the development of malaria-carrying mosquitoes that preferred human blood. It’s not clear whether P. falciparum caused serious disease before the expansion, or whether it underwent a genetic change that favored success and spread as well.

Read the paper by Rich, Leendertz, Xu, and others:

“The Origin of Malignant Malaria.” Rich, Stephen. M., Fabian H. Leendertz, Guang Xu et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS early edition). July 13, 2009.

Recent Blog Posts:

The Origin of Plasmodium falciparum. Where Did Malignant Malaria Come From?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In his book Who Gave Pinta to the Santa Maria (Norton, 1997) tropical disease specialist Robert Desowitz wrote that study of the DNA of Plasmodium falciparum proved the malaria parasite had leapt from birds to humans (p.61 – 2). I thought this a fascinating discovery, and one that answered several questions for me: Why does P. falciparum look so different from the three other species of Plasmodium that infect humans? And why is P. falciparum so much more dangerous than the other species?

That a bird parasite looks different from a monkey parasite is not too surprising. And because we are very different from birds, their Plasmodium sp. might have to co-evolve with humans for a long time before it became less dangerous to us.

I should, perhaps, have been more skeptical—it’s a big leap from a bird to a human, and its less likely P. falciparum in the wrong host—the human—would spread from person to person with such efficiency.

Now, twelve years later, we’re told that, based on genetic studies, P. falciparum came from chimpanzees, and it did so relatively recently—perhaps 5000 to 10000 years ago. Is that short time span an explanation for the severity of malignant malaria, infection with P. falciparum? Not necessarily. Scholars like Christopher Wills and Paul W. Ewald write that disease causing organisms only become less deadly (virulent) if that makes it easier for them to get from one person to another. In the case of P. falciparum, there’s another possibility: the parasite may have become more virulent when humans settled down in permanent settlements because the parasite spread faster among relative crowds when its victims were sicker and less able to ward off hungry mosquitoes.

I wonder, though, why the same thing didn’t happen with the other three Plasmodium spp. of humans?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

When we think about Christmas, the first bird that comes to mind is usually the Christmas turkey. But think deeper and you’ll realize that there are lots of other birds in our Christmas traditions.

Christmas decorations often incorporate little birds: birds cling to the branches of Christmas trees, accent wreaths and adorn Christmas cards. Birds with red colour, like Eurasian Robins and Northern Cardinals are especially common, but we also see turkeys and geese and, of course, the perennial partridge in a pear tree. Doves appear regularly as well because these birds, like Christmas, are associated with peace.

Turkeys aren’t the only bird that can be eaten for Christmas dinner. Geese are traditional too, and partridges have long been a popular game bird. Pheasant pie might be on the menu as well. All of the birds in The Twelve Days of Christmas can be eaten, including the “calling birds” which was originally colley birds or black birds. (Remember “four and twenty black birds baked in a pie” from your childhood nursery rhymes?) Maybe the reason for all the partridges, turtle doves, hens, calling birds, golden rings (ring necked pheasants, geese, and swans was so that there would be plenty of food for a feast, with entertainment provided by ladies dancing, lords a-leaping, pipers piping, and drummers drumming. Just a thought…

Once, there was a tradition of going out at Christmas and shooting as many birds as you could—it was a competition. Today, that tradition has been replaced, at least in the Americas, by the “Christmas Bird Count,” a nicer endeavor that helps us keep track of whether bird species are flourishing or failing… and no harm is done to the birds.

Other Content about Christmas Birds

Seven Swans A-Swimming

Decorate a Christmas Tree for Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Many people enjoy feeding wild birds and the hobby is increasing. Some assume that we are helping wild birds to survive by providing them with a reliable source of food; others acknowledge that birds know where to find food on their own and we are really only feeding them for our own enjoyment. Whether they really need the food or not, the millions of dollars worth of birdseed and other foods put out every year must be having some effect. Now scientists are asking what the effect is.

Not surprisingly, studies have turned up both positive and negative effects. Among the negative impacts:

• Abundant food at the beginning of the breeding season can induce birds to breed earlier than normal. Unfortunately, chicks may need different food than their parents (seed versus insects), so early chicks may hatch before there is enough food for them to survive.
• Because birdfeeders bring many birds to the same place to feed, they can help spread infectious diseases that kill birds.
• In some bird species, an abundance of food can result in a shift in the male : female ratio.

Positive effects of feeding include:

• Early nesting and good nutrition increase the chances that birds will produce a second clutch of eggs in the same season.
• More eggs are laid, and eggs tend to be larger and of better quality.

We don’t necessarily need to stop feeding birds, but we do need to know more about both the direct and indirect effects of this activity.

For more information, see

“Food for thought: supplementary feeding as a driver of ecological change in avian populations.” GN Robb, RA McDonald, DE Chamberlain, and S Bearhop. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 6 (2008): 476-84.

Related content about feeding birds:

Garden Plants that Attract Birds

Spring Gardening for Birders

Squirrels and Bird Feeders

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bird watchers love to have birds visiting their yards and possibly even nesting there. Putting out a bird feeder is the simplest way to attract a few birds but you can attract many more by landscaping from a bird’s point of view. Some birds don’t come to feeders but will visit a yard where there are other food sources. Some like to bathe in dust or fresh water. All birds need places to nest, roost, perch, shelter from a storm, or hide from enemies.

Even a modest yard can include some or all of these features and still be a lovely space for people as well. The article How to Attract Wild Birds to Your Yard provides a general overview of the topic, while the links below lead to more specific articles. Remember to consider which birds, plants, and habitats are typical of your area and design your bird friendly yard accordingly.

Garden Birds and Transition Zones

Garden Plants that Attract Birds

Spring Gardening for Birders

Creating Shelter for Birds

Hang a Nesting Box for Birds

What is a Winter Roosting Box

Install a Birdbath to Entice Birds

Create Natural Nesting Sites

Build a Dust Bath for Birds

Squirrels and Birdfeeders

Make Your own Suet Feeder

Please comment on this topic. How do you make your yard more bird friendly?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Recently, a Burrowing Owl turned up in Chicago, far from its natural range and clearly lost. After it was spotted and reported by a birdwatcher, other birders gathered to see the rare bird—rare in Chicago, that is. Before long, a Cooper’s Hawk spotted the owl and killed it. A debate immediately arose as to whether bird enthusiasts actually caused the death of this unfortunate bird.

Comments from those who felt birders were responsible included:

• People disturbing an already stressed bird added extra stress and caused it to use valuable energy reserves.
• Flushing the owl repeatedly to get a look at it made it visible to the raptor.
• A bird already frightened by people might not react effectively when attacked by a hawk.
• Birders put their own interests before that of the bird.

Comments to the contrary included:

• The owl was lost and already exhausted from its ordeal (probably a storm that blew it off course). It was probably doomed anyway.
• A Cooper’s Hawk is a keen hunter and doesn’t need help spotting a vulnerable bird.
• Bird watching, a growing hobby, is one of the main forces behind conservation of birds in the world today. When a rare bird turns up, the event fuels that interest and ultimately helps all birds.

Though I didn’t see this mentioned, I would add that hunting raptors have their troubles too. They hunt birds and small animals and rely heavily on weak, vulnerable, careless birds for food, catching very few of the birds they go after. The death of the owl contributed to the life of the hawk. All was not lost.

My own opinion is that, regardless of the rarity, interest, or condition of the owl, or the eventual outcome, it’s not okay to deliberately disturb a wild animal. Not once; certainly not repeatedly. Ethical bird watching means enjoying the birds without affecting them.

What do you think?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Working online webcams in October watch penguins and seals on the island of South Georgia, nesting penguins in Antarctica, and bird feeders in the United States, New Zealand, and England:

Gentoo Penguins at GARS O’Higgins—This German Antarctic Receiving Station webcam has watched a Gentoo Penguin breeding colony for years. Penguins began arriving in mid-September and they can be seen hanging around the station, but as of October 10, they were not yet nesting. Cameras provide several views and the pictures refresh every 15-30 minutes.

Seals and penguins on South Georgia—penguins, as well as fur and elephant seals are the focus two web cams on South Georgia in the southern Atlantic. There should be good viewing here from October to March. Seals are on the beach now. The pictures refresh about every three minutes.

Feeder birds in New York, United States—a web cam in the garden at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, supported by Wild Birds Unlimited, shows common feeder birds in that area, with a picture that refreshes every five seconds. Follow the link to “Common Feeder Cam Birds” for help with identification.

Feeder birds in New Zealand—the Baggins Little Valley Webcam shows some great views of New Zealand birds. The picture updates every minute. The camera is online somewhat sporadically but it’s still worth a visit.

Feeder birds in England—a variety of feeders in England’s Lake District attract birds at the Ghyll Head Education Centre. These camers are live and viewers can change the picture, zooming in on particular feeders. Badgers and foxes are also sometimes seen.

Do you have your own bird feeder? You can make your own suet mix.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

A visitor to the birds page emailed me wondering about something she’d observed in her domestic birds (a duck and three chickens): when they walk, the foot that is lifted off the ground tends to curl up and then straighten out again as its replaced on the ground. Why does this happen? Neither my internet research nor my reference books provided a straightforward answer, but from other information I found, I came up with several possible explanations:

Chicks hatch with their toes curled up and straightening the toes is a problem for some young birds. Perhaps the toes naturally revert to the curled position whenever the claw is relaxed, (like human fingers when we’re relaxing or sleeping).

Chickens, and some ducks, roost in trees in the wild, and their claws are designed to grip the branch and keep them safely in the tree even while they’re asleep. Perhaps the closed claw is a reflexive response whenever the toes aren’t spread to walk on a flat surface.

Another thought is that curling up the foot would help conserve heat in cold weather, but this would only be important in cold climates and seasons.

Does anyone else have an explanation? Comment below.

When Birds Attack Windows

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The following web cams were all working and worth a visit on September 15, 2008. Remember to adjust for time differences and watch at the right time of day!

The Lost Gardens of Heligan Birdfeeder cam (England): This cam, operated by eco-watch, shows three views of bird feeding stations. Camera one is the most rewarding during the day, but the cameras operate round the clock, so watch for foxes and badgers on camera three at night. The pictures refresh every ten seconds. Scroll down on the site to see pictures of common birds at the feeder.

Grey Seals on The Isle of May in the Firth of Forth, Scotland: A web cam of the Scottish Seabird Centre, this camera show multitudes of nesting seabirds in spring and summer but fall brings grey seals to the beaches to pup and breed. The camera, which refreshes every five to ten seconds shows various views of the rugged and beautiful island, including lots of the beach (no seals yet on Sept 15).

Barn Owls in Texas: Courtesy of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, watch live streaming video of a family of Barn Owls roosting in a box. Six owlets occupy the box with their parents and information on the site indicates they will start to fly soon. The parents, meanwhile, bring food to the box and viewers can watch the owlets feeding.

The Great Alaskan Red Squirrel Cam: Two cameras aimed at red squirrel feeding stations show squirrels and other wildlife. The pictures refresh about every two minutes. Visit the blog for some great squirrel pictures.

Seabirds in Alaska—Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology: This camera, hosted by the Pratt Museum in Kachemak Bay, Alaska, shows live streaming video of the multitude of seabirds on Gull Island. Practice your seabird identification skills: kittiwakes, murres, gulls, cormorants, puffins, and guillemots all visit the island (thought they may not all be there now).

Bird Feeders and Red Squirrels

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

It’s still summer, but many bird species have finished breeding and molting, and are moving south to their winter ranges. Birds that have nested farther south will have arrived first and bred earlier, so they’ll be the first to go—areas they vacate will then receive waves of migrants passing through from further north. Bird watchers along coastlines see many shorebirds at this time of year

Birds tend to wait for good weather and wind that blows in the right direction, then many individuals will depart at once, arriving at their next stop in a wave. When you notice there are many birds about, there are likely to be migrants among them that you don’t see at other times of the year, and flocks may contain mixed species. Along major flyways, you may see dozens of species in a single day of bird watching.

Many bird species migrate at night, and spend days feeding and resting. Thus, there can be relatively few birds about one day, and many the next. If they’ve come a long way or encountered harsh conditions, they’re likely to stay around for a few days, replacing lost fat stores and waiting for the right weather conditions to move on again. Keep an eye on bird feeders, berry bushes, and other places where birds feed. You may see something unusual.

Articles on Bird Migration:

Why Do Birds Migrate?

Birds Know When to Migrate

Dangers for Migrating Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

For a little while, I thought that biofuels—fuels like ethanol made from corn, were at least part of the solution to dwindling fossil fuel reserves and a steadily rising cost of oil. Wouldn’t it be great if we could grow renewable fuel? I guess I should have known better. It looks like we’d need another planet just to grow the stuff in order to make that work.

Now, crops that were previously grown for food are grown for biofuel or replaced with biofuel crops, tens of thousands of acres of wetlands are slated to go under the plow in Africa to grow sugar cane, farmers in the US are growing corn on land previously set aside for conservation, deforestation in South America continues at an alarming rate, Indonesia is being replanted with palms, and on it goes. Birds and other wildlife, already huge victims of our gluttonous energy consumption, are losing more habitat, food prices are rising, people will starve.

We can’t continue using food for fuel, and we can’t continue destroying the Earth. Clearly, the rush to biofuel production has to be reined in. I’ve read about grasses that can provide both biofuel and prairie habitat, and biofuel-producing algae that can be grown in vats. Perhaps we should be focusing on the technology needed to bring these into production—but, lest we make the same mistakes again, that focus also needs to look at the probable unintended consequences. Is there any hope for biofuels?

Related content:

Birds and Windmills

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The National Zoo’s Monitoring and Assessment of Biodiversity Program in Gabon studies species diversity as part of an attempt to bring resource development and extraction more in line with environmental responsibility. A group of scientists including Brian Schmidt, a research ornithologist with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, was investigating species diversity in the Gamba Complex when they discovered a new species of forest robin.

Seven years later, after comparing the bird with the four other known forest robin species and subjecting samples to DNA analysis, they have published a report of their find confirming a new species. The Olive-backed Forest Robin (Stiphrornis pyrrholaemus) is small but brightly coloured, with the males in particular having a bright orange throat and breast. It inhabits lowland forest where there is a lot of undergrowth. The bird forages on or near the ground and is more often heard than seen.

Intriguingly, the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris holds a specimen of this species that was collected in 1953. It’s a juvenile, misidentified at the time as Stiphrornis xanthogaster, another forest robin species that does occur in Gabon.

The Report by Schmidt and Colleagues:

“A new species of African Forest Robin from Gabon (Passeriformes: Muscicapidae: Stiphrornis).” Schmidt, Brian K., Jeffrey T. Foster, George R. Angehr, et al. Zootaxa 1850: 27–42 (2008)

Other New Bird Species Discovered Recently:

The Nonggang Babbler

The Bugun Liocichla

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Every year, we watch a particular ant colony that bulges up in the same place in a front flower bed. Mourning doves scratch at it and eat the ants, then the ants make repairs and the mound grows larger. One day in August (this year it was Aug 9), thousands of ants with wings swarm out of the colony and fly away. For a few hours, the air is thick with them—insect eating birds must have a heyday—then it’s all over. A few wingless ants remain.

This year, on Aug 10, our neighborhood family of crows arrived and positioned themselves in the trees while several flew down to a sparsely vegetated rocky slope, squatted, and half spread their wings, shuffling in patches of dried leaves and low-growing mosses. Afterward, I checked where they’d been and found, as I expected, multitudes of ants. The crows were anting.

I’ve never noticed crows anting in my yard before, but this year there does seem to be an unusual multitude of ants. In August, the crows are finished breeding and they’re looking a bit scruffy – molting. I can’t help but wonder if that irritates their skin and makes them visit the ants for a little relief. I don’t think anyone really knows why having ants crawling in the feathers should be soothing, but it is one possible explanation for a curious bird behavior.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

It seems impossible that there could still be bird species on Earth that no one has ever noticed, but for the second time in less than two years, ornithologists have described a new species of babbler: Stachyris nongangensis, the Nonggang Babbler (Liocichla bugunorum, the Bugun Liocichla, was described in India in 2006).

The Nonggang Babbler lives in southern China near the Vietnamese border, spending most of its time foraging for food on the ground. A small dark bird, it escaped notice until ornithologists did a bird survey in the Nonggang Natural Reserve. Zhou Fang and Jiang Aiwu first noticed the babbler four years ago and have been studying it ever since, working to prove that the species is new to science. Their description was published in April: Zhou Fang and Jiang Aiwu (2008) A New Species of Babbler (Timaliidae: Stachyris) from the Sino-Vietnamese Border Region of China. The Auk 125(2): 420–424.

Predictably, a bird that’s just now being noticed is neither numerous nor widespread. Conservation—particularly habitat protection—will be an issue immediately, and ornithologists want to find out whether the species’ range spreads outside the Nonggang Natural Reserve into other parts of China and even Vietnam. So far, the bird has not been found outside the park’s borders.

See pictures of the Nonggang Babbler at Oriental Bird Images

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Nest webcams usually show empty nests at this time of year, but there are still some captivating—even addictive—cams to choose from.

Northern Gannets: Bass Rock in the UK hosts a breeding colony of more than 150,000 Northern Gannets (Morus bassanus). In August, chicks are large but they haven’t fledged. Maintained by the Scottish Seabird Centre, a cam shows both close up and panoramic views. The picture refreshes every five to ten seconds. Viewers also see shags, guillemots, razorbills, puffins, and other seabirds.

African Birds: A National Geographic WildCam shows the shores of a lake in Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana, Africa. This camera scans the lakeshore for birds and animals while flocks of smaller birds pass overhead and the air is filled birdsong and the sounds of insects. The live streaming video follows animals as they move about, and even zooms in on birds perched in the trees.

Carolina Wren: Four eggs hatched on July 28 in Glenham, New York. This Cornell Lab of Ornithology webcam, hosted by falconsandfriends.com, will show an empty nest by the middle of the month, so watch early. Be sure to view the hatching video in “Video Highlights.”

Eurasian Spoonbills:The breeding season is over but the spoonbills are still around. The cam, by Vogelbescherming, Nederland, almost always shows seabirds of various species, but not always spoonbills. The recorded videos at this site are excellent as well.

Birds of Brazil: Go birding in Brazil. Ustream.tv has a live camera aimed at a very active feeding station. Two nice features of this site are a live chat in a window right next to the video, and the option to open the video in a popup.

The European Kingfisher cam in the July webcams is still an entertaining choice as well.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Just over a year ago, national Audubon released results of long-term surveys that indicated many common North American birds are in decline – some, such as the Northern Bobwhite by as much as 80%. Now the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has similar news about woodland birds in the UK. Their breeding bird survey, done annually since 1994, shows a number of species have lost about half of their population while one, the Willow Tit, has declined by more than three quarters.

The RSPB says it’s not a case of habitat loss, but points out that woodland characteristics in the UK have changed due to forestry management and an increase in deer populations. It seems the woodland doesn’t support as many birds as it did before. Some of the declining species are migrants who leave the UK to winter elsewhere. Dangers that they encounter while migrating and conditions in their winter ranges may account for some of the loss as well.

It’s discouraging that so many bird species are declining around the world. The RSPB points out, however, that their data indicates some species are doing well: stonechats, nuthatches, buzzards, and Grasshopper Warblers are showing increased populations and ranges.

Read the details at RSPB News

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

We’ve all heard of talking parrots, and mockingbirds that call using the signature song of another species, but how many of us have awakened to the sound of a blackbird pretending to be an ambulance siren? This week, a British couple who live near a UK hospital made the news when they reported a blackbird that visits their garden every morning and sounds off like an incoming emergency. The bird’s call is apparently so loud, and so accurate, that it’s hard to distinguish from the real thing. It can also mimic a wolf-whistle, a car alarm, and a cell phone.

Most of the birds that can copy human speech, or exactly mimic the call of a different species, belong to the passerines, a large group of birds with highly developed vocal structures that includes the songbirds. Mockingbirds, crows, mynas, lyrebirds, bowerbirds, and blackbirds are all passerines. Parrots and toucans are not.

Bowerbirds mimic other birds, various animals, and even mechanical noises; mockingbirds earn their name from their habit of repeating the calls of other birds; lyrebirds can copy birdcalls, wing beats, beak noises, frogs, and mechanical sounds; parrots have intrigued us most with their apparent understanding of human speech.

Why do birds do this? Are they just having fun? Scientists believe that some mimicry in birds is to impress the opposite sex and thereby earn a mate—but they are not sure. While I can imagine that a wailing blackbird would get quite annoying after a while, I think it’s fascinating. I’d love to hear that blackbird.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Forty-one years ago, someone in Britain banded a Razorbill chick (Alca torda). In the summer of 2008, that same bird turned up, still alive and still breeding on Bardsey Island in Britain. The British Trust for Ornithology found the old Razorbill during a survey of the island. This bird has had an amazingly long life, considering that most of its species don’t live past fifteen years, and is the oldest Razorbill ever recorded in Britain.

The Razorbill belongs to the Auk family (along with puffins, auklets, and other seabirds). The birds use their wings for both flying and swimming, and are accomplished divers. Spending virtually their entire lives at sea, Razorbills and other auks breed on rugged offshore islands, feeding on continental shelves.

Finds like this one give us an idea of just how long a bird in the wild can survive—and we’d never know about them without banding. When banded birds turn up again, we learn a lot—not just how long they survive, but what habitats they frequent, how far they range, where they migrate to etc. Recoveries like this ancient Razorbill are particularly exciting—and it’s surprising to think that this one successful and fortunate bird has spent more than four decades at sea.

Read the full account in the Telegraph

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Many birds have already left the nest, but some species still have eggs or young. From June’s webcams, Osprey and Wood Storks remain in the nest, but they'll fledge soon. Here are more cams for July.

Purple Martin: New York Wild aims a webcam at a Purple Martin colony (Progne subis) on Lake Ontario near Rochester, New York. This is a repeat: last month we watched a female Purple Martin lay eggs and incubate them. Now both parents bring food to the nestlings. This camera switches from live streaming video inside the nest to a live view of the colony.

Eastern Bluebird: Camstreams Easy Streaming hosts live streaming video of a bluebird (Sialia sialis) nest in Charlotte, North Carolina. Four chicks hatched on June 29. The camera looks down while hungry chicks turn open mouths straight up. The picture is slightly fuzzy but you can still see a lot.

Eastern Phoebe: This live camera is hosted by Warner Nature Center. The well-focused camera (refreshes every 20 seconds) looks down on a nest holding five eggs of the Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe), located in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. Incubation started June 20.

Chimney Swift: Falcons and Friends is behind this video of a Chimney Swift nest (Chaetura pelagica) in Glenham, New York. A female has been sitting on four eggs since June 19. The camera (picture refreshes every 20 seconds) looks horizonatlly at a fragile looking construction of slender twigs glued to a wall.

European Kingfisher: This camera hosted by Vogelbescherming, Nederland shows live streaming video of the favorite perch of a European Kingfisher—Ijsvogel—Alcedo atthis. If the bird’s not there, watch any of the videos listed on the right. If you can read it (Dutch?) there’s a lengthy log below.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

House Martins migrate north from equatorial Africa each spring to breed in Britain, but in 2008 it seems many of the birds didn’t return. It may be that bad weather in southern Europe killed House Martins en route, but the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) is worried that people may also be destroying nests. To get a better picture of the problem, the BTO is asking everyone to learn to live with their House Martins, and to participate in a survey. Using the data collected when people report that they have nesting House Martins, scientists will create a House Martin Map, which will later be incorporated into the national Bird Atlas.

House Martins nest under eaves of houses, building nests out of mud and lining them with feathers. They will often use the same nest year after year, making only minor repairs, and sometimes many nests are built side by side creating a nesting colony. Pairs raise two broods of chicks in an average nesting season.

It is illegal to disturb a House Martin nest during the breeding season. Nonetheless, some homeowners object to the bird droppings and pieces of eggshell that accumulate under the nests and knock them down, heedless of growing chicks inside. The destruction of an unoccupied nest hurts the birds as well, as it will take 10 to 18 days to rebuild.

If you have House Martins nesting under your eaves, leave them alone! Visit the BTO website to learn how to enjoy your tenants, and participate in the survey.

Related Content:

Purple Martins, Colony Nesters

Birding Ethics

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In the lead up to Israel’s 60th birthday, people were busy collecting votes to choose a national bird. According to news reports, ordinary people, schoolchildren, the military, even Israelis living abroad had their say. A panel of poets, politicians and academics accounted for 25% of the result, while the remaining 75% of votes came from the people of Israel. 155,000 people voted, and 35% of them chose the Hoopoe, Upupa epops.

The Hoopoe (Duchifat in Hebrew) is a striking cinnamon colored bird with black and white striped wings and tail, and a crest of bright feathers on top of its head. It lives in Israel year round, and appears in the folklore of the region, both features that made it a good candidate. It is already the namesake of a commando unit in the Israeli military.

The effort to choose a national bird was a project of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and, in part, an attempt to bring conservation issues into the public eye. The Hoopoe competed against nine other shortlisted species: bulbul, a falcon species, Griffon Vulture, Spur-winged Lapwing, honey-sucker, warbler, White-breasted Kingfisher, Barn Owl, and goldfinch.

Now that Israel has a national bird, there are plans to designate official birds of the country’s cities as well.

Read more about the Hoopoe.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

For the wild bird enthusiast and collector of bird identification books, there’s a new field guide, authored by Ted Floyd, editor of Birding Magazine. More than five hundred pages long, the Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America has attractive and useful features:

• General information about birds and birding
• Short essays providing general information about groups of similar birds
• Descriptions of more than seven hundred North American bird species, most with colour maps showing ranges
• Two thousand colour photographs of North American bird species
• Almost six hundred digital (MP3 file) birdsongs on a DVD, with a printed key and accompanying images
• A glossary of terms from ornithology
• A birding checklist
• Two indexes: a quick index and a detailed one.

Twenty-first century North America is home to a growing number of people interested in birds, and technology provides them with birding resources like never before. It’s easy to see that, with its basic information about birds and birding and its clever use of the highly portable MP3 player, Ted Floyds book is well aimed at this group. Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America is available in bookstores now.

Other innovative products for birders:

Carson Bandit Monocular

Palm Pilot for Birders

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bird webcams are getting better and better. All of the webcams below should provide good viewing in June. Also check “Webcams to Watch in May 2008” – at the beginning of June, the Peregrine Falcons, Bald Eagles, and Barn Owls were still worth watching.

Osprey: Two webcams look in on osprey nests in the United States.

The Connecticut Audubon Osprey Camera is aimed at a nest with four young chicks. An adult bird is usually at the nest as well. Click on “Live View” to refresh the picture.

The Kentucky Environmental Education Projects (KEEP) has a webcam watching an Osprey nest with three chicks. These chicks are a little older than the ones in the Connecticut nest. Reload or refresh to update the picture (every 12 seconds). The site also has video clips and photo galleries that are worth looking at.

Atlantic Puffins: The Burrow Web Cam on Craigleith Island (Scottish Seabird Centre) watches the entrance to an Atlantic Puffin Burrow. On June 2, this webcam was not updating but the site promises that the problem will soon be fixed.

Wood Storks: This web cam is operated by Storchennest.de in Vetschau, Germany. The stork pair started with six eggs. Only four eggs hatched, then two chicks died of unknown causes on May 25. Two chicks remain in the nest and seem to be doing well. This cam provides a great picture.

Purple Martins: New York Wild watches a Purple Martin colony on Lake Ontario near Rochester, N.Y. Two cams are located inside nest gourds while one watches the activity outside. There are no eggs yet, but the birds are adding nesting material. Follow the link for streaming video.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I’ve written about wind farms and birds in the past because of the potential that windmills have to kill birds. In general both environmentalists and people interested in bird conservation support wind energy because it doesn’t pollute and is renewable; however, when wind turbines are built in places where large numbers of birds fly through, they can be a problem.

The most famous example is Altamont Pass in California, an enormous wind farm that kills many raptors every year. Audubon Texas thinks that a wind development proposed for Kenedy County in coastal Texas has the potential to be as bad or worse, because it is directly in the path of literally millions of migratory birds as they travel north and return south each year. Audubon points out that there has been insufficient study of sites like this one to accurately judge whether it will be a significant threat to birds.

It’s discouraging that developers fail to take birds into account when choosing a location for windmills. While research and good environmental studies can help us avoid repeating Altamont Pass elsewhere, wind development that threatens bird species already in decline can ruin wind energy’s clean and green image. Lets’ hope it doesn’t happen.

Read the Audubon resolution and additional information about the proposed development in Kenedy County, Texas.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Perhaps you’ve wondered where the shore birds you see along the coast spend the rest of their time, and what routes they take to get there. If you live along the eastern coast of North America you can learn about the migration routes of a number of familiar shorebirds by visiting the website of the Goldenrod Foundation.

Follow the link that says “Click Here to See Shorebird Migration Routes”, and you’ll be treated to a list of fifteen different eastern shorebirds, all of which either nest at Plymouth Beach, Massachusetts, or stop there on migration. Try the Red Knot: the globe fills the screen and a white silhouette of a bird traces the Red Knot’s migration route north from Argentina to the Arctic and back by a different route. The species stops at Plymouth Beach on its journey south. The Piping Plover, which nests at Plymouth Beach, spends the winter in various locations in Florida, along the Gulf Coast, and on Caribbean islands – delightfully illustrated by the animated migration route created by the Goldenrod Foundation.

These animated maps don’t give an accurate account of the migrations of entire bird populations—just the ones that stop at Plymouth Beach. Other populations of the same species may nest and winter in other locations. Still, the maps are interesting and fun as long as you keep this in mind.

Other fascinating birding activities on the internet:

Bird Cinema

Track a Short-eared Owl

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Short-eared Owl is widespread globally, and ranges throughout North America except in the very far north. In spite of this, Asio flammeus is a species of Special Concern in Canada, and one that we don’t know enough about. To learn more, scientists have placed a satellite transmitter on a female Short-eared owl in order to track her movements. Anyone can watch by visiting the map at Bird Studies Canada.

The owl was tagged in Southern Ontario, where she spent the winter. In early spring, she flew to Michigan, but soon headed north into Quebec. Based on what we know of the species, she may migrate more than 1600 kilometres (1000 miles) to reach her nesting site. Short-eared Owls live in open habitat such as prairies, marshes, grasslands, tundra, and sand dunes. They begin nesting from March through late June--like Burrowing Owls, Short-eared Owls nest on the ground.

On May 13, the owl was in Quebec, near the eastern shore of James Bay. It remains to be seen whether she will continue moving north in the days to come. You can see her entire flight path by updating the map (click on “Previous Month”, or “Previous Two Months,” and then “Update Map.”) and watch her progress by checking back regularly.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Many birds nest in May in the Northern Hemisphere, so it’s a good time for webcams. Here are five that provided great viewing on May 7, 2008:

Peregrine Falcons (Hamilton Community Peregrine Project):

A pair of Peregrine Falcons, dubbed Madame X and Surge, are nesting on the Sheraton Hamilton Hotel in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Both birds are banded and some of their history is known (the information on the page is worth reading). Monitors have been watching them since early March and the webcam, which refreshes every ten seconds, provides a clear view of the scrape. The first egg hatched on May 6.

Bald Eagles (Xcel Energy): This streaming video webcam looks straight down into a Bald Eagle nest in Platteville Colorado, US. There are three nestlings (two is the norm) and it’s easy to see them moving about as the adults come and go.

Great Blue Heron (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Kids in the Nest, and Olympia Systems): My personal favorite from April’s webcams, this streaming video cam is superb. The three chicks are active and growing fast.

Barn Owls (Wirral’s Barn Owl Webcam): This site provides four views of a Barn Owl nest in Wirral Country Park, UK. The pictures refresh every five minutes. (Hint: the four cam views open in separate windows so you can have them all open at once to see the present scene from all perspectives.) For past views, click the “Diary of a Barn Owl” link.

A Birdfeeder in Oklahoma (Pat’s Backyard Bird Cam): Watch feeder birds in Oklahoma City. There are two cameras which refresh every 15 – 20 seconds and at certain times of day there’s lots of activity. Click on the “Bird Visitors” link for pictures of birds you’re likely to see.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Many waterbirds migrate north from Africa and Southern Asia each spring to breed. In the fall, they make the return trip. During each migration, they rely on wetlands along the route to provide them with resting, feeding, and roosting sites. Sadly, these wetlands are disappearing as humans drain them, pollute them, or build on them. The fact that migratory birds must pass through a number of countries makes conservation of this dwindling habitat difficult—it requires international cooperation.

The Wings Over Wetlands Project (WOW) is an attempt to address this difficulty. WOW is an international partnership of conservation organizations and governments designed to help countries get the information they need, and then work cooperatively to conserve important wetlands (and with them, the world’s waterbirds). The area covered by WOW includes Africa, Europe, much of Asia, Greenland, and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

The WOW project has just launched its website, a site designed to provide information about the project, critical wetlands, and the birds involved. In the future, the site will link to tools such as the ‘Critical Sites Network Tool,’ which will link wetlands with the bird species that use them to help conservation groups determine the importance of specific wetlands.

Related Content:

Vacation With Cranes in Hungary

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In a recent article in the New York Times, (Did Your Shopping List Kill a Songbird? Opinion, Mar 30, 2008) Bridget Stutchbury discusses the impact of extensive pesticide use in Central and South America on migratory birds. It seems that birds returning to the south for the winter are dying in vast numbers from pesticide poisoning. Many of the pesticides that are being used in large quantities in the south have been banned or restricted in the north due to their toxicity.

People in North America and Europe are increasingly aware of threats to bird species, whether it be chemicals, destruction of wetlands or other habitat, wind farm development, fishing practices, even feral cats. Concern and conservation have become more intense since National Audubon revealed that many common North American birds are in precipitous decline.

It’s ironic, then, that even as we become more aware at home, we fuel the decline of birds in the south with our hunger for imported produce. Those pesticides we’re not using are being used to produce our food anyway—they’re just being used somewhere else. To help the birds and our own health, Stutchbury suggests that we should avoid buying the following produce from Central and South America if it has not been organically grown: coffee, bananas, melons, strawberries, green beans, bell peppers, and tomatoes.

Bridget Stutchbury is the author of Silence of the Songbirds (Harper Collins, 2007).

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Every day we hear about bird species in decline and new threats to birds around the world. In 2007 BirdLife International launched BirdLife Species Champions, a project to save the world’s critically endangered birds—all 189 of them. Now, BirdLife brings us the Rare Birds Yearbook, a book about the 189 threatened species and some of the efforts that are being made to save them from extinction.

The Rare Birds Yearbook is mostly about the birds themselves: species names, ranges, populations, threats, past conservation attempts and actions for the future. There are photographs and illustrations of the birds to complement the data. However, the yearbook also makes interesting reading because it contains articles about species with interesting backgrounds, some of the conservation projects already underway, and the people involved.

Birds face numerous threats: habitat destruction by industry and development; recreational incursions into wilderness; introduced predators such as cats, rats, and snakes; fishing practices; egg collecting; hunting; extreme weather; and global warming to name a few. This list makes it clear that humans bear much of the responsibility for the dwindling birds of the world.

Some humans are working hard to help our beleaguered birds, and publications like the Rare Birds Yearbook not only provide education but also directly help the effort: for every purchase, £4 goes to support BirdLife Species Champions. Find out more about the book from BirdLife International.

Birds on List of 189 Critically Endangered Species:

Kakapo, Strigops habroptila

Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Campephilus principalis

California Condor, Gymnogyps californianus

Cozumel Thrasher, Toxostoma guttatum

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

More and more people are setting up webcams so bird watchers can watch birds in the nest and at busy birdfeeders. Here are five webcams that were all working when I checked them on April 8, 2008, and worth looking at (Remember to account for time differences when you want to watch!).

Lake Washington Eagle Cam (WildWatchCams): A Bald Eagle is sitting on this enormous nest of twigs and branches. The picture refreshes every ten seconds so it’s interesting to watch. The only difficulty is that the bird is usually sitting partly hidden behind the trunk of a tree.

Blackwater Refuge Live Osprey Cam: I don’t think osprey are actually nesting on this platform yet but they are coming and going. The nest is in Cambridge, Maryland.

Burrowing Owl Cam (WildWatchCams): The Burrowing Owls seem to spend most of their time outside near the burrow entrance, though they are not very active. The picture updates every ten seconds.

Great Blue Heron Cam (Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Kids in the Nest, and Olympia Systems): The heron is sitting. This is a streaming cam - you can see the bird moving around and watch its feathers being ruffled by the breeze.

Wildlife Focus Web Cam in the Forest (The World Land Trust): Set in Buenaventura Reserve, Ecuador, this is recorded streaming video. On April 8 the video showed many beautiful hummingbirds drinking from a water dish.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Canada’s 1.3 billion acres of boreal forest stretches all the way across the country and includes forests, wetlands, and northern tundra. It’s home to many species of plants and animals that rely on it for everything, and is the home and/or breeding range of literally hundreds of species of birds. Warblers and many other songbirds, shorebirds, ducks, geese, swans and countless other species nest and raise young there every year.

People use Canada’s boreal forest as well—and most don’t use it sustainably. Millions of acres are destroyed each year for lumber harvest, mining, hydroelectric projects, and gas and oil exploration. Only a tiny 8% of this vital ecosystem is protected, while almost a third is earmarked for development. Eight percent is not nearly enough if we want the species that rely on the boreal to survive.

SaveOurBorealBirds.org, a group of at least 17 environmental and bird conservation groups from both North and South America, is asking for everyone’s help to save the boreal forest. You can read more about the boreal forest ecosystem and the many birds that depend on it at their website, and sign the petition (directed at Canadian government) to protect the ecosystem before it’s too late.

Related content:

Common Birds are Declining

What is a Ramsar Wetland?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

For the past few days, I’ve observed a pair of nuthatches showing considerable interest in one of my nesting boxes. I’m delighted: I hung the box in the fall of 2006, and to my knowledge no bird has given it a passing glance, let alone looked inside, until now. I’m also worried: we have red squirrels and they have certainly checked out the box, travelling through the tree at regular intervals. I’ve read, however, that nuthatches have ways of dealing with squirrels , so I’ll wait to see what happens.

The interest shown by the nuthatches does seem to confirm some nesting box wisdom. First, a nesting box may need to weather a bit and become part of the landscape before birds will use it. Second, attention to design and location pays off. Third, a nesting box may well attract a bird species it wasn’t originally meant for (I was aiming for chickadees). And finally, by the time spring is officially here, nesting boxes should be ready outside, even if the temperature is still below zero and there’s snow in the forecast.

Interested in encouraging birds to nest on your property? Here are some articles that might be of interest:

Create Natural Nesting Sites

Build Mourning Dove Nest Baskets

Hang a Bluebird Nesting Box

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Have you ever seen a bird living in the wild that obviously doesn’t belong? Seeing Mynahs in the trees in Florida or peacocks strolling around in California is a reminder that birds raised in captivity can escape and survive in new places, at least for a while. In the worst case scenario, escaped cage birds do well in the wild in new places, establishing a breeding population and becoming invasive threats to native species.

In colonial times, people sometimes deliberately released cage birds in new places: this is how European Starlings and House Sparrows came to thrive in North America in such great numbers—displacing native birds from territory, food supplies, and nesting sites. Other birds, such as mynahs and peafowl may have escaped from captivity by accident or been deliberately released by owners who no longer wanted them. Then there are the popular pet birds like parrots and canaries that sometimes escape and usually perish.

Today we know it’s rarely a good idea environmentally to deliberately introduce a species where it doesn’t belong. In the case of a pet bird, it’s abusive to the animal as well, since we can never be certain that the bird will be able to find food, endure the climate, and evade unfamiliar predators. Bird owners should always be extra vigilant to ensure that birds don’t ever escape from cages and enclosures.

Two rules to follow: never remove a bird from its native habitat, and never release a bird into the wild where it doesn’t belong. Simple.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

A new field guide to the birds of Chile was published in 2003, including 473 species known to live in the country or visit there (Birds of Chile: Princeton Field Guides. Alvaro Jaramillo. Princeton University Press, 2003).

One reason that Chile is home to so many bird species is its wide variety of habitats: sea coasts, offshore islands, mountains, desert, forest etc. There is not just a wide range in elevation in Chilean environments; the long thin shape of the country means a wide range in latitude as well. It means hundreds of different bird species suited to many different ecosystems—cotingas in the north, pelicans along the coast, and albatrosses offshore.

I’ll be visiting some of these ecosystems and I hope to see a lot of birds I never seen before. You can see some of the possibilities in another birder’s photoset. Check out the collection of silhouettes of a Giant Hummingbird. Hummingbirds are one of the things you have to visit South America to really see: a few species migrate into North America each summer, and although these are much appreciated, the vast majority of beautiful hummingbird species remain in the south throughout the year.

Another fascinating South American species is the Burrowing Parrot, seen in another photoset by the same birder. These birds, once extremely numerous in Patagonia are becoming increasingly rare and may be threatened with extinction if population decreases continue.

Here’s to seeing lots of Chilean birds. Enjoy the Birds page on Suite101 while I’m away.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Malta is an important location for migrating birds, visited by species from dozens of European countries. This is important because, despite its membership in the European Union, Malta breaks EU laws every year by allowing hunters to take migratory birds in the spring.

Spring is a particularly damaging time to hunt birds because they are on their way to their breeding territory. A bird that is hunted in spring has no opportunity to reproduce that year; a bird that is taken in the fall may well leave offspring who will reproduce in later years. Each year, there is an outcry against spring hunting in Malta—but the hunting continues.

Now the fight is heating up. The European Commission has announced that it will take Malta to the European Court of Justice to force an end to the spring hunt. Meanwhile, though the vast majority of Maltese are thought to fully support an end to the hunt, a small minority are willing to go to surprising lengths to illustrate their opposition: in the past vandals have destroyed trees at nature reserves, and now three cars belonging to BirdLife Malta volunteers have been torched and destroyed.

The mindset of these criminals is beyond me. I couldn’t shoot a bird, let alone shoot one illegally, or set fire someone’s car because they say I can’t shoot one. It looks like pure selfishness is way ahead of common sense here. It’s scary to think these individuals have firearms as well as fire.

What do you think of the situation in Malta? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Technology is wonderful: it makes it possible for me to take a vacation while readers continue to read articles on the Birds page—and new things to read will continue to appear. From now until mid-March, I’ll be trying to catch glimpses—and maybe photos—of some South American birds. I know that lots of North American birds fly south to spend winters in South America, but the continent also has many birds of its own. Other travelers have posted collections of South American bird photos for us all to enjoy and I’ll be happy to do even half as well with my camera.

Argentina, of course, has penguins, but I probably won’t get far enough south to see any—another trip perhaps. Other possibilities include hummingbirds, toucans, skuas, unfamiliar raptors, petrels, parrots, ibises, rheas and many others. Any of these would be wonderful to see living in the wild.

Whenever I travel and see unfamiliar birds, I’m reminded that my local birds only seem ordinary to me because I’m so used to them—while people visiting my part of the world must find them interesting and exotic. Blue Jays, Downey Woodpeckers, Yellow-shafted Flickers, and even Chickadees are all beautiful birds. Wherever you are, enjoy the birds while I’m away.

Where have you travelled that you particularly enjoyed the birds? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Last May a new video game appeared: “Snapshot Adventures: Secret of Bird Island.” A game of mystery and photographic skill, it allows players to move through a graphic world tracking down a missing bird photographer while practicing their own bird photography. A refreshing departure from the violent themes of many video games, it still offers lots of challenges to the video gamer.

"Snapshot Adventures: Secret of Bird Island" was developed using the knowledge and expertise of ornithologists at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Now it’s in the running for the Audience Award given by the Independent Game Festival.

Those who have already played the game and loved it can vote for it on the Independent Game Festival website. If you haven’t played it yet, you can try it for free at Large Animal Games, and then vote for it if you agree that it’s one of the best video games come out in a while—which is likely if you’re a bird lover. But be careful, once you try it, you may get hooked on creating and photographing your own birds… and get lost on Bird Island forever with all the other birders.

Have you played "Snapshot Adventures: Secret of Bird Island?" What did you think? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

For pictures and videos of wild birds, the web site to visit is Bird Cinema, and for pet birds, it might just be AvianVideos.com. This new website does have some wild bird content (check out the “Weird Bird of Paradise” in the Eco-Tourism Category), but is mainly devoted to pet birds. It already has lots of content featuring parrots flying, talking, playing, bathing and being cuddled.

AvianVideos.com is well organized, with links to collections of videos on popular species of pet birds: eclectus parrots, loris and lorikeets, canaries and finches, toucans and many more (I didn’t see a category for mynahs or crows). Once the site has more videos posted in the various categories, it will be an excellent source of information for anyone thinking of purchasing a pet bird and wondering which species is the right one for them.

Meanwhile, there are still lots to watch and they’re addictive. You don’t have to be a member to watch the videos or make comments, but if you have your own to add, sign up for an account and begin sharing. You can even embed favorites in your own blog if you want to.

What do you think of AvianVideos.com? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In the past few years, I’ve seen a total of one Common Redpoll at my birdfeeders, and one Pine Siskin. This year, a whole flock of Common Redpolls made an appearance in January and they remain in the neighborhood, visiting both birdfeeders regularly, winging through the skies in a shifting mass that is constantly reorganizing itself, and sitting in the evergreens like Christmas decorations that never got put away. On one occasion I watched a Sharp-shinned Hawk plunge into their midst, but he caught nothing.

At about the same time, a flock of Pine Siskins arrived. At first, they were accompanied by a small number of American Goldfinches and even seemed to mix with the redpolls a bit, but when last seen, the siskins were foraging alone.

Add to this a flock of Pine Grosbeaks enjoying the rosehips at the corner day after day, and a report of White-winged Crossbills from another local bird watcher, and we have evidence of a winter finch irruption: winter finches have moved into eastern Canada from central regions where seed crops last fall were reportedly poor. Is it a superflight? The results of the Christmas Bird Count may tell us.

It’s sad to think we probably won’t have so much fun with the winter finches next year, but I’m enjoying them while it lasts—and wishing I could lure those White-winged Crossbills to my own feeders!

Are you seeing unusual numbers of winter finches in your area (or perhaps an unusual lack of them)? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

During the winter months, I notice that birds are most abundant at my feeders when the snow is deep or the weather especially cold. This is because it’s harder for birds to find food at these times – at other times, the birds are off finding natural food sources. Backyard feeders are accessible sources of good food for birds that are struggling with winter conditions.

I sometimes hear people saying that you shouldn’t feed birds because it makes them too reliant on handouts, and incapable of fending for themselves. Once you start feeding, some say, you can’t stop because the birds will starve. We also hear that feeding discourages birds from migrating.

Experts tell us that none of these things are entirely true. Even when they visit feeders, birds get the majority of their food from natural sources; if the feeder unavoidably goes empty, they’ll turn to other feeders and to natural sources, just like they would in the wild; a dwindling food supply isn’t generally the cue that triggers bird migration.

So go ahead and feed the birds: it will help them survive the cold days and nights of winter. They’ll also benefit from a roosting box, a brush pile, or other shelter.

Read about feeder maintenance and cleaning.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I used to wonder why the amount of potting soil in a house plant pot seems to decrease as times goes by. If you leave a plant in the same pot for years, you’ll notice that it eventually appears to have no soil any more – how can that be?

The confusion comes from the fact that we tend to think of soil—or dirt—as being a mixture of ground and powdered rocks, the results of millennia of erosion. Sand, gravel, and clay are all words for various textures of broken up rock, and they don’t tend to disappear. Soil, however, is something different.

Soil, and particularly potting soil, is mostly the remains of plants that have partially, but not completely, decomposed. A list of ingredients for potting soil might contain peat moss, shredded hardwood bark mulch, composted plant material, perlite (a volcanic glass), and sand. Only the last two ingredients come from rocks and they account for very little of the total mass of potting soil. The rest is organic and it breaks down over time.

Of course, potting soil for indoor house plants is usually sterile because people don’t want insects, earthworms, and other soil dwellers living in their plant pots. This will significantly slow down decomposition of organic material in the soil—and also make it considerably less interesting.

Read about living things in natural soil:

Living Things in Soil

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In the article What is an Ecosystem, I mention the idea of equilibrium: in theory, ecosystems remain the same for long periods of time because the amount of energy being added by the sun compensates for the energy lost in the lives and deaths of living things. Everything in the ecosystem depends on everything else and all needs are met.

There must be considerable change allowed, however—quite a bit of elasticity—because there are significant natural fluctuations in climate that don’t bring down ecosystems. An unusually cool summer would be a good example (less energy being added). Some plants won’t do as well at cooler temperatures, therefore some other species don’t have as much food and they don’t do as well either. Some species that don’t normally do well in cooler years thrive briefly because the competition is less. But as long as the cool weather doesn’t continue year after year, the normal balance returns.

This is greatly oversimplified of course, but it does suggest that something quite significant has to happen to destroy an ecosystem: the loss of a keystone species perhaps, extreme destruction of habitat, or a long-lasting change in weather patterns.

It’s discouraging to think that humans are causing all three of these things simultaneously in ecosystems all over the world. By the time we learn not to do it, what will be left?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Inermicapsifer madagascariensis. It’s the most beautiful scientific name I’ve ever come across. I’ve no idea what the genus name means, but clearly the species name indicates a relationship to Madagascar. Inermicapsifer madagascariensis (can you say it?) is a parasitic tapeworm, but one we needn’t worry about too much. Then there’s Diphyllobothrium latum, a more common tapeworm. For this one I understand the genus name: di means two, phyllo means leaf-like (like phyllo pastry), and bothria are grooves, so the name means “two grooves on a leaf-like structure”—the worm’s scolex, or head. Obviously I would find scientific names a lot more interesting if I were fluent in Latin and Greek.

The idea behind scientific, or Latin, names is that everyone everywhere can refer to species by exactly the same name, no matter what language they speak. Of course the system isn’t perfect. Diphyllobothrium latum has been called Taenia lata, Bothriocephalus latus, Dibothriocephalus latus, Bothriocephalus taenioides, and Dibothriocephalus minor. It’s no exception: many species have left a similar trail of names behind them. Even today, a scientific name can change if scientists determine that a species has been placed in the wrong group. It’s unavoidable.

Nevertheless, the system is useful once you understand how it works—the scientific name, if you know it, is often the fastest way to get information about a species from the scientific literature. And if you use them often enough, Latin names don’t sound so odd. You may even find them beautiful—like Inermicapsifer madagascariensis.

Other topics in biology:

Theories of How Life Began

How Fluoride Works on Teeth

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Biodomes are enclosed environments where scientists have created a specific environment that does not usually exist at that particular place. They populate it with plants and animals that are comfortable there, and provide the required temperature, humidity, light levels etc. on an ongoing basis. Ideally, a biodome works as a complete ecosystem, sustaining itself.

The Montreal Biodome is an example of a climate controlled enclosed ecosystem that successfully recreates four specific environments. The visitor gets to actually visit the different environments and see many plants and animals that live there (except in the case of the polar world, where one just looks in, through glass). What makes it so convincing is the sheer size of the place: there’s actually room for tropical birds to fly, for sloths to climb high into the towering trees, for whole schools of marine fish to come close to the glass and then disappear in the distant depths.

The freedom that the animals have to move around in natural surroundings—surroundings that people are moving through as well—and the size of the biodome, are also what set it apart from zoos and wildlife parks, and make it more educational. It’s well worth the price of admission: I’ll happily go again on my next visit to Montreal. And one day I’d love to visit the Eden Project, and even bigger series of biodomes in southwest England.

Read more in Biology at Suite101

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Taser, or its simpler form the stun gun, is heralded as a non-lethal way to control a dangerous or potentially violent person, a space-age weapon that incapacitates for a brief period of time and leaves no wound. People do die after being shot with Tasers, however, and two fatalities within one week in Canada in the fall of 2007 had many Canadians wondering about the safety of these weapons.

The safety of a Taser is governed by the effects of the electrical shock that it delivers to the human body – it’s basically designed to confuse the brain and nothing more. The biological basis of this is fascinating and well understood. What goes wrong in some instances, however, is not understood, and it’s an area that’s extremely difficult to study: investigators won’t find many people with heart conditions or other medical problems who are willing to take hits from Tasers for the benefit of science. Autopsies of those who do die often don’t yield black and white results.

The Taser debate is an ethical minefield—suspending their use until more is known may well result in more deaths by traditional firearms, while continued use without sufficient knowledge is also unacceptable to many people. At the very least, no one should regard a Taser as a non-lethal weapon.

Do you think we should stop using Tasers until we know more? Start a Discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Many of us think we’re doing a good thing when we buy farmed fish (and up to a third of fish sold for human consumption today is farmed)—we think we’re taking the pressure off wild fish stocks. There are objections, however, to fish farming, and they’re disturbing enough to make any environmentally conscious person wonder if we should be eating fish at all:

• Organic waste (fish wastes and excess food) from open net fish farms pollute the water locally, depleting water of oxygen and creating a dead zone under and near the farm.
• Chemicals used to treat fish diseases are released into the surrounding water, killing wild species.
• Farmed fish, often not native to the area they’re being farmed in, frequently escape into the wild.
• Crowded fish in open net farms are susceptible to diseases and sea lice, and pass them on to wild fish.
• Farmed fish are fed with wild fish—there are more wild fish consumed than farmed fish produced.

Recent data from British Columbia, Canada seems to confirm that farmed salmon are wiping out wild salmon by infesting them with sea lice. It’s time to re-evaluate fish farming.

Read about the sea louse issue in Sea Lice and Salmon

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Trying to comprehend how life began is a bit like trying to imagine what’s on the other side of the edge of the universe. How can there be an edge? It’s hard to grasp that living things are a complex and marvelous product of chemical reactions. How can it be just chemistry?

Two personal revelations stand out for me. One was aided by a microscope, the other, a book. Through the microscope, I saw a ciliated respiratory epithelial cell—one of the cells that line our respiratory system like a field of little automatic brooms, sweeping debris and mucus up and out of the lungs—still busily sweeping in salty solution hours after leaving the body of the person who built it. In the book, I read that scientists believe that mitochondria—the tiny energy producing organelles inside cells—were once organisms themselves that got taken in by larger cells and didn’t die.

Astonishing! Our cells are individual life forms that can live without us as long as their needs are met, and even they have other life forms—or the descendants of other life forms—inside them, allowing them to function. We are built of innumerable individuals that function together to make an organism. It gets even stranger: DNA, the molecule directing all the functions of a cell is made up of elements that have come together through chemical reactions that have little to do with life—but resulted in life. It is, indeed, stranger and more marvelous than fiction.

See Theories of How Life Began for current scientific thought on how those chemical reactions first happened.

Also in Biology.Suite101.com:

How Fluoride Works on Teeth

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Fluoride has been added to drinking water since the late 1940s because of evidence that communities with a higher level of natural fluoride in their water supply had a lower incidence of dental cavities (see How Fluoride Works on Teeth). Soon, most North Americans were drinking fluoridated water and some European countries adopted the practice as well. Oral products with added fluoride became the norm… and the incidence of cavities went down. People drinking well water without fluoride were advised to give children fluoride drops while their teeth were still developing.

I’ve long suspected that the whole fluoridated water thing is a bit of a lie: if ingested fluoride only affects developing teeth, what’s the point in giving it to millions of adults? If direct contact with erupted teeth has the best effect, why not just use toothpaste with fluoride and leave it at that? Others were much more outspoken one way or the other, verging, it seemed, on fanatical, but now even respected experts are speaking up about the lack of effectiveness and possible health hazards of a steady diet of fluoride.

I’m now convinced that fluoride in water is a bad idea, and I’m on the fence about other fluoridated products. Toothpaste? Maybe. Fluoride treatments at the dentist? Maybe. Mouthwash and table salt? No.

What do you think? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Finally—California has banned lead bullets in condor territory: lead ammunition lying around the countryside and washing into rivers and ponds has been killing birds for decades, a shameful byproduct of the hunting enthusiast, who leaves some ammunition behind when he or she misses the target, and more in the remains of abandoned dead animals. It’s no surprise that lead kills birds and other animals—we’ve known that for quite a while. It contaminates our soil and water as well.

Recently, it’s come to light that condors are at particular risk because they are scavengers who are attracted to kills left lying in the woods. While feeding on the carrion, they ingest lead ammunition. Then they die. Condors are endangered birds, having gone extinct in the wild and only recently been reintroduced from captive breeding programs. We cannot afford to lose them this way.

The mystery is, why has it taken so long to ban lead bullets, and why does the legislation, even now, only cover territory where condors range or are likely to range in California? California’s bill AB 821 is good legislation—a good beginning—but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. There are alternatives to lead ammunition available to hunters. It’s time every hunter started using them.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

From time to time, a bird strays a long way out of the normal range and habitat of its species. In 2006, we heard about a Western Reef Heron from Africa in eastern Canada and the northeastern US. This fall, millions were intrigued by a Green-breasted Mango hummingbird in Wisconsin (from Central and South America). Now, there’s an Inca Dove in Minnesota.

The Inca Dove (Columbina inca) is a small dove—adults are only 16 – 21cm long (6 – 8in). Like many of the doves, it does well in human communities; its numbers are increasing and its range expanding—but not all the way to the Great Lakes region. The species lives in warm dry regions in the southwestern US and Central America. Even in these warm regions, the birds are known to roost close together for warmth. This little Inca Dove is not likely to do well so far north.

The Green-breasted Mango was taken into captivity when it showed no signs of heading south with the arrival of cooler weather. It now resides in a zoo outside Chicago. The fate of the Inca Dove in Minnesota remains to be seen.

Read the news story about the Inca Dove in Minnesota:

"Odd Bird Spotted Along North Shore." Harlow, Tim. StarTribune.com Nov 14, 2007

Should birds that stray into areas where they can't survive be captured? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Galveston County Daily News reports that the trial of Jim Stephens is set to begin. Reports of Stephen’s arrest surfaced a year ago after he allegedly shot a cat that was stalking birds at San Luis Pass.

According to the report, the case hinges on whether the cat was a pet or a feral: it seems there’s no problem with cruelty to feral cats, but if the cat was a pet (bridge workers were feeding it), then Stephens faces a possible 2 year jail term and a hefty fine.

I realize we have to work with the law as it’s written, but I can’t help feeling that something is missing here: I would have thought we’d be asking “is it okay to shoot cats in a populated area?,” “how much of a threat was the cat to federally protected birds?,” and “is it okay to shoot cats at all?” Whether the cat was a pet seems irrelevant.

Let’s be clear – I don’t condone the use the firearms in populated areas, and I don’t think picking off individual feral cats will solve the “feral cat problem.” I understand why Stephens did it—if he did it—and sympathize with him, but I can’t agree that the ends justified the means.

Any attempt to eradicate feral cats now is a case of closing the barn door after the horses (or cats) have left. It can only be accomplished (and I doubt that it ever will be) through years of effort, huge expense, and a consensus on the problem that we don't currently enjoy. I wish this unfortunate event had ignited more constructive debate and less character assassination and nit picking.

Read the newspaper article: "Bird Watcher's Cat-shooting Trial to Begin."

What's your opinion? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Conservation groups are breathing a sigh of relief as Lake Natron Resources, the company proposing to build a soda ash plant at Lake Natron in Tanzania, is ordered to put its plans on hold, at least for now. The reprieve seems to be due to an inadequate environmental assessment, which makes vague statements about the possible effects on the Lesser Flamingo, and possibly to strong opposition to the plan. The company, a partnership between TATA Chemicals (based in India), and the Government of Tanzania, must now go back to the drawing board and do a better job of assessing the probable environmental impact of the development. They must also consider other sites for the plant that would not be so vulnerable.

Lake Natron is a designated Ramsar site and, as such, is protected under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. The Lesser Flamingo is designated “near threatened” on the IUCN Red List, and 75% of the birds breed at this one location – Lake Natron is not a site to be destroyed lightly. Numerous birding and environmental groups have vigorously protested the development proposal.

The current breathing space is not the end of the story – Lake Natron Resources may persist in its plan to build a plant at Lake Natron. Until the plan is dropped for good, the lake and all of its species are threatened. Bird Life International is still urging us all to “Think Pink” to save the Lesser Flamingo.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In July, I wrote about a proposal to build a soda ash plant on the shores of Lake Natron in Tanzania. Though such a plant might be a lucrative industrial project, it might also mean extinction in Africa for the Lesser Flamingo. Three quarters of the world population of the birds breed at this one site in East Africa and the species is already listed as near threatened on the IUCN Red List.

A soda ash plant is likely to have a devastating effect on the birds for several reasons:

• It will change the chemical composition of the water. Lake Natron’s highly alkaline water supports the growth of cyanobacteria, a food source for the birds that they filter out with their beaks.
• Development by the lake and changing water composition will probably attract new predators to the area – species the nesting flamingoes don’t have to contend with now.
• The disturbance caused by commercial, and possibly residential, construction, followed by plant operations will disrupt the quiet and seclusion of a site that has remained remote from such disturbance.

Sadly, the government of Tanzania and TATA Chemicals seem determined to go ahead. BirdLife International is asking us all to pitch in in the fight to convince them otherwise. Individuals are encouraged to write to the Tanzania Minister of the Environment and voice our opposition to the plan on environmental grounds. Addresses and FAX numbers are provided by BirdLife. If you’re thinking pink, act soon: time is running out for Lesser Flamingos

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Environmental calamities like floods, severe storms, droughts etc. can have an impact on bird populations. What about fires? Our first thought is probably that birds can just fly away and go somewhere where there isn’t any fire. That’s true in a lot of cases, but there are times when a fire can be devastating to birds: when they’re breeding and when they have very limited habitat are two obvious examples—in the summer of 2007, forest fires in the Canary Islands could have been the end of the threatened Blue Chaffinch on Gran Canaria.

Fortunately, by October, birds in the northern hemisphere have finished breeding and the young have fledged so the fires in southern California probably haven’t hurt birds in that way—some migrating birds may have discovered that a familiar stopover was unavailable. I’m not sure whether the areas affected have included any scarce habitat for threatened birds.

Domestic birds, of course, need rescue when fires threaten. They can’t fly away like wild species can, and it’s harder to find alternate accommodations for them than it is for people and more common pets. News reports from the San Diego area indicate that domestic birds are finding shelter with various organizations equipped to take them.

On the other hand, some birds need forest fires in order to survive. For example, Kirtland’s Warbler breeds only in immature jack pine forests, which renew themselves through regular forest fires. Other birds benefit from the insects that flourish in an area of forest that has burned.

In the midst of all the turmoil, it’s nice to think that a fire can ultimately have some benefits, even though they’re not obvious to us at the time.

Other Environmental Threats to Birds

El Nino, El Coyote, and the Birds

Birds and Pesticides

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Last year, 2006, was a bumper year for seed production in Britain, and birds that rely on nuts and seeds for food had lots to eat. Unfortunately, research has shown that trees tend to follow a pattern of seed production: a very good year every fourth or fifth year, followed by a bad year. This suggests that the 2007 crop will be quite small and, indeed, it appears that this prediction is already coming true. Beech and oak trees in Britain have produced few seeds this year.

The British Trust for Ornithology reports that research has also shown that when nut and seed eating birds can’t find enough food in the wild, they tend to visit garden bird feeders more frequently, so it’s fair to say that those who like to feed the birds should see more birds than usual over the coming months, and it might be a good idea to stock up on bird seed for the feeder. Jays, siskins, Coal Tits, nuthatches, and woodpeckers are all likely to be affected by the shortage of natural food.

Recent Topics on the Birds Page at Suite101:

Bird Identification Tips

Alcyon—Bird of Peace and Calm

Blue Chaffinch—Fringilla teydea

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

There are almost 10,000 species of birds alive on Earth today—the Clements Checklist lists them all. This great accomplishment of the late James F. Clement began in the 1970s with the first edition of his checklist, followed over the years by four more editions. The work, of course, can never be finished because new species are discovered, others are lost, and still others get reclassified. Today, DNA research is revealing more and more information that results in bird families being rearranged. As soon as an edition of the checklist is published, it begins to go out of date.

James Clements passed away in 2005 while he was still working on the 6th edition of The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology has finished and published the volume in 2007, and made a commitment to keep the Clements Checklist updated in the future. The new edition lists the birds and their ranges, and includes tables, maps, and space for notes. A website will publish updates as they become available. The book can be purchased from the Cornell Laboratory website.

Other Recent Books of Interest to Birders:

Waterbirds Around the World

Birder's Conservation Handbook by Jeffrey Wells

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

BirdLife International reports that the population of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Eurynorhynchus pygmeus, has dropped by 70% in just a few years, leaving only between 200 and 300 pairs of birds. The reasons are all too familiar: coastal development has taken the wetlands that they rely on for food while migrating, and predators in their breeding grounds are making it impossible to successfully nest and raise young. With so few birds left, the world may lose this species.

Spoon-billed Sandpipers spend their winters in South and South-east Asia, and migrate along the Pacific coast to breeding grounds in the coastal arctic tundra of Russia. Along the way, they stop to feed and rest in wetlands that were once abundant. Today these wetlands are being reclaimed for building, and turned into shrimp farms and salt pans. The birds can’t find enough to eat as they migrate, and those that do return safely to the northern breeding grounds each year face predation by dogs and foxes.

Groups like BirdLife International are working to save the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, but it may be a case of too little too late – it’s not likely we’re going to get those lost wetlands back any time soon.

Recovery efforts for other species:

Don't Disturb the Piping Plover

Kakapo Recovery

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

About a year ago, I wrote about birds and type E botulism, an often fatal disease caused by a bacterial toxin. Type E botulism has been of particular concern in the Great Lakes in recent years and scientists have been trying to figure out why. Mussels, bacteria, and fish are part of the answer: introduced mussels filter the water depleting it of oxygen; anaerobic Clostridium bacteria grow, producing the toxin; introduced fish eat the mussels ingesting the toxin; and birds eat the fish, get botulism and die by the hundreds. It seems there’s another piece to the puzzle, however; which fits in between the mussels and the bacteria in the scenario above.

A report in the Associated Press turns the spotlight on cladophora, a type of algae. Cladophora thrives on phosphorus and sunlight: too much phosphorus, often originating from fertilizers, detergents, and other human pollution, allows cladophora to proliferate to unnatural amounts near the surface where there’s lots of light. Mussels filtering the water make it clear deeper down, letting in sunlight and allowing cladophora to grow there too. The algae deplete the water of oxygen, allowing Clostridium to grow, and once again, the toxin is produced.

Sadly, it all comes back to us: humans have introduced alien species and polluted the water, making wreckage of an ecosystem, and native species are suffering. Some face extinction. And we probably can’t undo it.

Related content:

Lead Poisoning in Birds

Birds and Pesticides

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

A few species of hummingbird migrate north into North America to breed during the summer. Typically, they go east or west and then stay on that side of the continent. In fact the only species that usually spends its summers in eastern North America is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, a familiar sight at hummingbird feeders all the way up to southern Quebec. By October, most of them have headed south to spend the winter in warmer climates.

Sometimes, however, a hummingbird gets lost and goes the wrong way, which explains why a Green-breasted Mango hummingbird is still visiting feeders in Wisconsin in October. This species rarely migrates north of Mexico and has only been recorded previously in North Carolina and Texas. This bird should be far to the south: it is definitely lost.

The colorful Green-breasted Mango hummingbird is a delight to see, especially for those who are used to seeing only Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. The Green-breasted Mango is, as the name suggests, green, with a reddish purple tail. Females have a white breast with a dark central stripe. The bill is long and curves downward at the tip.

What will the lost hummingbird’s fate be? If it migrates south as the weather gets colder, it will probably be okay, but if its sense of place is so off that it doesn’t instinctively do that, it will surely perish. Wisconsin is no place for a hummingbird to spend the winter.

More about hummingbirds:

Hummingbirds are Migrating

Facts About Hummingbirds

New Hummingbird Species Discovered

Watch a video of a Black-chinned Hummingbird on Bird Cinema

Have you ever seen a rae species of hummingbird at your feeder? Start a discussion and tell us about it.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The story of the Recurve-billed Bushbird, Clytoctantes alixi, can’t help but remind one of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Clytoctantes alixi was once apparently fairly common, but the species declined due to habitat loss and wasn’t seen for more than forty years. It was feared extinct until some birds were sighted in Venezuela in 2004. More birds have been seen since then and they are turning up in more and more locations—at least in northern Venezuela and northern Columbia, the species survives and appears to be doing fairly well, even in disturbed habitat.

The Recurve-billed Bushbird has an intriguing name and a charming appearance —and the two things go hand in hand. The bill of this species curves up toward the tip, giving the appearance of a pleased smile. The birds are not really smiling of course: the beak is designed for delving in twigs and bamboo stems for insects.

If the Recurve-billed Bushbird can turn up alive after forty years, why can’t the Ivory-billed Woodpecker? The jury’s still out on the woodpecker, but it’s ominous that three years of intensive searching have failed to turn up any definitive evidence, while the same period of time has conclusively proven the existence of the Recurve-billed Bushbird and revealed its presence in more locations.

Related or similar content:

Saving the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

The Cozumel Thrasher - T. guttatum

Kirtland’s Warbler

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has published a 274 page document that maps out a recovery plan for the Western Snowy Plover. Federally listed as endangered in 1993, the bird’s fortunes have not improved, and only about 1900 birds remain in the Pacific Coast population.

The "Recovery Plan for the Pacific Coast Population of the Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus)" identifies the key factors responsible for the bird’s decline. Not surprisingly, humans factor significantly. We have dredged beaches and altered watercourses, build structures right on the beach, introduced non-native plants and animals, flocked to West Coast beaches in increasing numbers during the bird’s breeding season, and disturbed breeding and nesting birds in countless ways.

In order to save the Western Snowy Plover, we have to protect its habitat. The birds must have undisturbed beaches where they can safely nest and rear their young, and they must have safe places to spend the winter months. Recognizing that protection of the winter habitat is as vital as protecting nests, the recovery plan proposes international cooperation – many of the birds spend winters in Mexico. The plan also addresses the need to monitor the population, continue to study the bird to learn more about it, and educate the public.

Read the Recovery Plan for the Pacific Coast Population of the Western Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus nivosus) on the Fish and Wildlife Service website.

Related articles:

The Piping Plover faces threats very similar to those of the Western Snowy Plover

The Action Plan for the Blue Chaffinch deals with many of the same issues.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

We’ve all heard dire predictions of the sea level rising if global warming continues at its present pace. Communities at sea level, low lying islands, and coastal flood plains and river deltas could all disappear beneath the waves. The implications for humans are serious, but there will also be very significant losses for plant and animal species. Shore birds are certain to face severe challenges in finding feeding grounds and nesting sites.

In North America, the Piping Plover has been identified as one of the birds that could face heavy losses. Already endangered, this bird nests on Atlantic beaches above the high tide mark, and in prairie salt flats. In recent years, human disturbance on beaches where the plovers nest nearly wiped them out, but efforts to protect nesting sites have had considerable positive effect. If sea level rise now destroys the nesting sites, that will all have been for naught.

A recent study published in the Journal of Ornithology has brought attention to the fact that, for unknown reasons, sea level is rising faster in northern Australia than in other parts of the world. The study finds that up to 66 species of birds could be threatened in the next three decades if the sea floods wetlands, grasslands, and rainforests. Scientists Stephen Garnett and Eric Valentine predict a rush of salt water into fresh water wetlands, destroying mangroves and other highly productive ecosystems. The effect on birds that rely on these systems will be catastrophic.

Recent topics on Birds.Suite101.com:

Action Plan for Species Recovery

What is a Ramsar Wetland?

Birds and Pesticides

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bicknell’s Thrush, a songbird that spends its summers in northeastern North America, is a declining species—a subject of conservation efforts in Canada and the United States. Unfortunately, although these efforts have increased the species’ chances of survival, destruction of its winter habitat is still a significant cause of decline.

Bicknell’s Thrush winters in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. On these islands, the high wet forests that the birds frequent are being rapidly cleared. It’s clear that conservation in the north is ultimately a waste of time and resources unless the winter habitat is also protected.

A dispute over plans by New York’s Whiteface Mountain Ski Area to clear mountain terrain for ski trails resulted in many New Yorkers learning about the plight of the bird. The end result was an agreement not to disturb sensitive high altitude forest habitat until after the breeding season, ongoing conservation efforts in support of Bicknell’s Thrush, and a partnership to financially support conservation groups in the Caribbean in protecting winter habitat for the species. Participating organizations included Adirondack Park Agency, Audubon New York, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Adirondack Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, among others.

If this effort to conserve the winter habitat of Bicknell's thrush is effective, it may mark a turning point in the bird's fortunes.

Related content:

Bicknell’s Thrush

Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Surprisingly, it seems that in many bird populations there are more male than female birds, and the smaller the population is, the higher the percentage of males. These are the conclusions, recently published in Ibis, of Dr. Paul Donald, a scientist with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

It’s more than a mere curiosity—these conclusions have significant implications for both research and conservation of bird species:

• Many population surveys focus on male birds—because they are often more vocal and easier to see and identify—and simply count the number of males and multiply by two. This means that many surveys overestimate the total population of a species.
• A greater number of females would be better for species conservation because one male can mate with a number of females (in those species of birds that don’t form exclusive pairs); while the number of offspring a female can produce is limited.
• Female birds are evidently not living as long as males are. They presumably face more threats during migration and dispersion, and are vulnerable to predators while nesting. Dr. Donald suspects that introduced predators, such as feral and roaming cats, play an increased role in predation of females, especially in more threatened species.

If Dr. Donald is right, some of the world’s threatened birds may be much closer to extinction than we believe—conservation work will have to take his conclusions seriously if it is to be effective.

Read the RSPB news item about Dr. Paul Donald’s conclusions: “A Girl for Every Boy?”

Recent articles in Birds at Suite 101:

Build Mourning Dove Nest Baskets

Blue Chaffinch - Fringilla teydea

The Cozumel Thrasher - T. guttatum

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The last winter bird atlas of the United Kingdom was created twenty years ago, and the most recent survey atlas on breeding birds in the United Kingdom is now fifteen years old. On Nov 1, 2007, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) will launch a four year project to survey both winter and breeding populations of more than 250 birds in the United Kingdom. An ambitious project, Bird Atlas 2007-11 will provide information about how bird populations and distribution have changed since the last surveys were done, and where conservation efforts are needed today.

The BTO is hoping for public participation on two fronts: sponsorship is needed to help fund the atlas, and birdwatchers are needed to gather data. Individuals, companies, and organizations are all urged to donate or even sponsor a particular bird—from £2000 to £10,000 is needed for each species. £180,000 has already been pledged. Bird-watchers, meanwhile can volunteer to help survey a particular area, or just report data on the birds they see while they are out bird-watching anywhere.

To cover all of the United Kingdom, the BTO will partner with BirdWatch Ireland and the Scottish Ornithologists’ Club. Find out more about Bird Atlas 2007-11 at the British Trust for Ornithology.

Other ornithology projects that bird-watchers can take part in:

Citizen Scientists Pigeon Watch (world wide)

Cornell Celebrates Urban Birds (U.S.)

The second South African Bird Atlas project

Garden Birds in London, England

The Christmas Bird Count (the Americas)

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I recently had an email from a reader wondering why the debates over what to do about feral cats talk about eradication versus trap, neuter, release (TNR) but never seem to include discussion of trap, neuter, secure, or TNS, programs. In TNS, feral cats are caught, neutered, given necessary veterinary care, and then placed in a compound from which they cannot escape. The idea intrigued me and I had to admit I wasn’t familiar with any TNS programs.

Trap neuter secure seems like a good compromise between those who argue that feral cats have a right to live, and those that have zero tolerance for feral cats because of they kill many birds and other animals. But is anyone doing it? If you Google “trap, neuter, secure feral cats,” you get about 44,000 hits, all apparently about trap, neuter release programs. There isn’t any information there about TNS.

I can imagine that arguments against TNS would include that it is prohibitively expensive and that it doesn’t prevent the “bath tub effect.” (Proponents of TNR argue that when all the feral cats are removed from an area, it quickly becomes recolonized by cats from outside the area and the population soon rises to its former level—like flooding an empty bathtub that is surrounded by rising water.) Trap, neuter, secure would require long term commitment from community volunteers and ongoing funding.

Does anyone know of a TNS program for feral cats? Please start a discussion and tell us about it.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In the 1980s, California Condors were extinct in the wild, but a small population survived in captivity. In 1992, their return to the wild began with the release of two birds fledged in a captive breeding program. Over the years their number increased slowly with repeated releases, and nesting attempts were greeted with great excitement by those who had worked hard to restore the species. But, between 2001 and 2005, only one of 13 nests in Southern California produced a healthy fledgling.

Young California Condors die when they ingest lead shot that hunters have left in carrion, resulting in lead poisoning. They die when they swallow pieces of broken glass, and small pieces of metal and plastic—the things that have been left strewn across just about every landscape on Earth, things which our consumer culture seems to be producing in constantly increasing quantities. The problem is that adult condors feed bone fragments to chicks to provide calcium, and they frequently mistake small hard objects that they find near a carcass for small pieces of bone.

It boggles the mind to contemplate the cleanup effort required to make even remote wilderness habitat safe for California Condors and other species if just a bottle cap is a threat. Can we not only clean up what’s out there, but also get rid of lead bullets, and convince everyone that sets foot in the woods that they can’t leave so much as a plastic button behind? This will take a sea change in attitude and it can’t come fast enough.

Do you think we can successfully tackle this problem to save the California Condor? Start a discussion.

Related content:

Albatrosses also suffer heavy losses from ingested garbage.

Greater Shearwaters and other seabirds ingest pieces of plastic.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Ivory-billed Woodpecker was thought to be extinct until 2004, when one was apparently spotted in central Arkansas. Since that time, investigators have gathered more credible sightings, a piece of disputed video footage, and sound recordings of calls, while a large team of ornithologists and volunteers have repeatedly combed the woods in both Arkansas and Florida. Conclusive, indisputable evidence—clear unambiguous photographs or video, feathers, or egg fragments—is lacking. Nonetheless, the US Fish and Wildlife Service believe that the bird is out there and they’re intent on launching a recovery effort to save it from extinction.

The entire cost of the recovery is estimated at almost 28 million dollars, ending in 2075—presumably with the Ivory-billed Woodpecker thriving in sustainable numbers by that time. The FWS admits, however, that the recovery potential for the species, even if it does still exist, is low. The "Draft Recovery Plan for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker" is available on the internet and anyone can make comments on it until Oct 22, 2007.

It seems a little crazy to be launching a recovery plan for a bird we can’t even prove exists. On the other hand, without the recovery plan, the bird’s presumed extinction will surely become a self-fulfilled prophesy. Luckily, we can all be thankful that any plan to save the dwindling habitat of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker will also protect the habitat of countless other species, so it can’t be entirely in vain. I’d love to see this bird turn up alive.

BirdLife International has included the Ivory-billed Woodpecker on its list of 189 critically endangered birds to be saved from extinction.

The Bermuda Petrel was believed extinct by 1921—until one collided with a lighthouse in 1935.

What do you think of the FWS's proposal to spend more than 27 million dollars to save a bird that many believe is already extinct? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

If you’ve ever looked closely at pigeons in the city, you know that they come in an astonishing variety of different colors. This is a bit unusual in birds: most birds of the same sex in a species look alike: most House Sparrows look the same; most adult European Starlings are indistinguishable from one another. Why do feral pigeons vary so much?

Scientists are studying feral pigeons (descendants of Rock Pigeons, or Rock Doves that were domesticated) to find out why the colour variations, introduced through breeding by humans, persist in birds that have returned to the wild, and what colour variations individual pigeons prefer in a mate. They’re enlisting the help of citizen scientists to gather data from all over the world.

If you like pigeons and have some in your neighborhood, you can join the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Pigeon Watch. You’ll learn how to recognize the various “colour morphs,” how to identify a courting pair, and lots of other interesting things about pigeons, and the data you gather will be used in a scientific study. To learn more, visit the website for Pigeon Watch.

Read more about pigeons:

Columbidae - Doves and Pigeons

The Mysterious Extinct Dodo Bird

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

When the days start to get longer in the spring we look forward to the return of migratory birds that have spent the winter in warmer climes. When they arrive in their breeding ranges, their priority is to find a good nest site. Many of us hope that nest site will be in our own backyard habitat—cavity nesting birds like bird houses, robins will nest on ledges and shelves, and birds of prey will nest on raised platforms.

It’s a good idea to build (or buy), and install those nesting boxes, ledges, and platforms in the fall, before winter sets in, because many birds are busy nesting long before we think it’s warm enough to spend a lot of time outside. A nest box installed in the autumn will be ready and waiting for occupants (and you won’t have to struggle through snow or freeze fingers to install them in late winter). Boxes will also be a bit weathered by spring and any odors of glue, paint, and other substances that might deter the birds will have dissipated.

The fall is also the perfect time to clean out any birdhouses that have already been occupied so they’ll be ready again in the spring, and if you have roosting boxes to provide shelter to birds that stay all winter, make sure they’re clean and in position long before the first bitter winter wind blows through the treetops.

Related content:

Hang a Nesting Box for Birds

How to Make a Winter Roosting Box

Creat Natural Nesting Sites

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In the wake of the devastating collapse of the Interstate 35 W bridge in Minneapolis, a number of news items have mentioned damage to the bridge structures caused by pigeon droppings. The chemistry behind the claims is this: pigeon droppings and the droppings of other birds are an acid mixture with a high nitrogen content in the form of ammonia, a molecule formed from nitrogen and hydrogen. (The nitrogen content is the same thing that makes bird droppings, or guano, popular as an agricultural fertilizer). When pigeon droppings dry out on steel girders the product is a salt—a chemical compound formed when a base, in this case ammonia, reacts with an acid. We all know what happens when water, salt, and steel interact—rust.

Pigeons and some other birds are well known for their preference for bridges as roosting and nesting sites. Those responsible for bridge maintenance have long sought a means to keep the birds from congregating there, with varying degrees of success. Apparently, bird droppings were noted as an issue of concern on the girders of the Minneapolis bridge in the past, but how significant is this? It would take a long time for pigeon droppings to undermine a bridge to the extent that it would collapse. It defies belief that a bridge receiving any degree of competent regular maintenance would collapse for this reason alone. No doubt investigators will eventually establish the cause of this tragedy. I’m willing to bet it wasn’t pigeons.

Read about ways that birds can be pests:

The Trouble With Pest Birds

Quelea quelea – African Pest Bird

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

At the British Birdwatching Fair, Aug 17 – 19, 2007, BirdLife International introduced "Preventing Extinctions: Saving the World's Critically Endangered Birds", plans to save 189 critically endangered bird species from extinction. The Cozumel Thrasher, Toxostoma guttatum, is one of them. Rarely seen since Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, and never seen again after Hurricane Roxanne in 1995, the bird may still be living on the island in low numbers. Ironically, just hours after the fair wound up, the massive category five Hurricane Dean threatened Cozumel—but missed.

Had Hurricane Dean hit Cozumel directly as a category five hurricane, the survival of the Cozumel Thrasher would have been even more in doubt, but past assessments of the bird’s situation question whether severe hurricanes are sufficient to explain the species' decline. The first measures planned for conservation are a careful survey to establish whether the Cozumel Thrasher is still there, along with discussions with local people to try to identify other possible threats.

Other possibly extinct birds, such as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker are on the list of birds targeted for conservation by BirdLife International. It will be fascinating to see whether this project helps to definitively establish the presence or absence of these very rare birds.

Read about all the critically endangered bird species that BirdLife International hopes to save at the Critically Endangered Bird List.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The British Birdwatching fair, held August 17 – 19, 2007, was the launch of a new initiative by BirdLife International. The theme for the meeting was “Preventing Extinctions: Saving the World’s Critically Endangered Birds,’ and the main topics of discussion were 189 species of birds listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Starting now, BirdLife is seeking both funding and participants to help prevent the loss of these species.

For the 189 species, BirdLife has already identified present threats—things like habitat destruction, hunting, and the effects of human activities like long line fishing—and measures that can be taken to protect the birds. Species Guardians, the people who are best positioned to take the necessary action, will be supported by Species Champions, the people, companies, and organizations who step up to the plate and provide needed funding. Four flagship species already have their guardians, while their champion is the Bird Fair itself. The four flagship species are the Bengal Florican, Djibouti Francolin, Restinga Antwren, and Belding’s Yellowthroat.

For more about BirdLife’s plan, information on how you can help, and a complete list of the critically endangered bird species, visit the BirdLife International web site.

Other Conservation Initiatives:

Recovery Plan for Hawaiian Birds

Kakapo Recovery

Toronto's Bird Friendly Guidelines

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

North Americans are used to seeing huge flocks of European Starlings (Sturnus vlgaris) doing acrobatics in the sky—their ability to swoop and turn together with marvelous precision can be breathtaking (watch a video on Bird Cinema). We shouldn’t really be seeing them however: they were introduced to North America in 1890 and have done so well here that they are one of our most common birds. In fact, they are often regarded as pests, especially when they nest in dryer vents or other cavities in houses, and when they compete with native birds, such as Northern Flickers, for nesting sites. That’s why it’s hard for North Americans to grasp the idea that these birds are now a species of high conservation concern in England.

Thirty years ago, there were three times as many Common Starlings in England as there are today. Common Starlings in the UK have apparently been having a hard time finding enough food—agricultural chemicals and intensive farming have reduced populations of the insects that Common Starlings eat. Nesting sites are scarce and roaming cats take many young birds during the nesting season.

Efforts are being made to reverse the decline of the Common Starling in England, but we don’t have to worry about the species in a worldwide sense. The global population is stable. If the UK population drops too low, we can always send some from North America back to where their ancestors came from!

Cats are a problem for birds in many places:

Feral Cats Kill Birds

Cats, Birds, and Ascension Island

Read about another “pest” bird.

Quelea quelea - African Pest Bird

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Cats kill birds—both roaming domestic cats and feral cats, regardless of whether they are well fed or not. Just about everyone can agree on that point. From there, however, disagreement multiplies until fur and feathers are flying, both literally and figuratively. How many birds do cats kill? How many feral cats are there? Do cats just take old and infirm birds or do they endanger bird populations? Do trap, neuter, release programs reduce the numbers of feral cats? Do feral cat eradication programs reduce the number of feral cats? Are feral cats a part of nature? Should we interfere? On the surface, these questions don’t sound complicated, but step into a community where cat lovers and bird lovers have squared off and you will find the issues are anything but simple.

In Cape May, New Jersey, there is an unusually poignant situation. The area is a renowned birding location, and a breeding site of the endangered Piping Plover. It is also home to many cat lovers, and the site of feral cat colonies that are part of trap, neuter, release programs. People have worked long and hard to protect the breeding sites of Piping Plovers, a shorebird that is showing signs of recovery. Other people have worked long and hard to improve the lives of feral cats and control their numbers in Cape May. But endangered ground nesting shorebirds and feral cat colonies are incompatible—it’s just crazy to think that that makes sense. It may actually be illegal—federal law requires Cape May to protect the Piping Plover.

They’re trying to solve it peacefully in Cape May. The city, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the New Jersey Audubon Society, Cape May’s animal control department and various advocacy groups are involved, and they appear to be talking rather than fighting. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. For this year, the worst damage is done—Piping Plovers have nested and will soon be heading south to their winter range, where they will face a whole new set of dangers and threats.

More about Piping Plovers:

Facts About Piping Plovers

More about feral cats and birds:

The Feral Cats and Birds Debate

Cats, Birds, and Ascension Island

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Scientists have attached satellite tracking devices to Northern Bald Ibis to discover where they spend the winter. They’ve put satellite devices on Bar-tailed Godwits, tracking their movements and proving that the birds are champion migrators. Now Dr. Dee Boersma and other scientists at the University of Washington are hoping to find out a lot about how the Magellanic penguin gets back to its breeding grounds in late August, September, and October.

Magellanic penguins breed in southern Argentina, Islas Malvinas, and the Falklands. When it’s winter in the Southern hemisphere, they migrate north. Their migration route back to the breeding colony is something of a mystery, but it can be a dangerous journey. These days, Magellanic Penguins are competing with fishing fleets for food, getting caught in fishing nets, and getting covered with oil from unknown sources. Scientists want to find out where the oil is coming from if they can, and map out the migration route so that they can make it safer and protect the food supply of the birds.

Healthy penguins that have gotten their feathers oiled and were subsequently cleaned up by people will be the ones chosen to carry tracking devices. Once they’re released back into the wild later this month, you’ll able to watch their progress on a tracking map at the Penguin Studies web site.

Articles about penguins:

Penguins and Oil in South America

How do Penguins Keep Warm?

North Pole Penguin

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Mark your calendar: Sept 2, 2007 is Duck Day, the day of the Great British Duck Race. On Duck Day, organizers hope to release at least 165,000 rubber ducks on the Thames and raise £500,000 for British charities. At the same time, they hope to break a Guinness World Record: the current record is held by the Singapore Duck Race, whose race included 123,500 ducks in 2001.

The Great British Duck Race is environmentally friendly: all materials will be recyclable and all of the rubber ducks will be retrieved from the Thames.

The ducks will be placed in a holding pen at noon and released an hour and a half later. They will then have to navigate a course on the Thames that is at least a kilometer long. The first duck to cross the finish line wins £10,000 for its adopter; the next twenty-nine to finish also win prizes.

You can adopt a duck online at the Great British Duck Race home page (as far as I can tell, anyone, anywhere, can adopt a duck). Adoption costs £2 for each duck - you can select a charity from the lengthy list of registered charities on the site and make an extra donation if you wish.

The Great British Duck race looks like great fun and a great way to raise money for charities. May the best duck win.

Interesting topics on the birds topic at Suite101:

Hoatzin – Beautiful Stinkbird

Facts About Chimney Swifts

Birds and Pesticides

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

If you’ve ever wished for an online guide to European birds, Avibirds is the answer. The information here covers more than 550 European birds and is extremely comprehensive—each species has a page describing its physical appearance, habitat and range, with an illustration and links to similar species. Linked pages cover migration patterns (sometimes with a range map), breeding and feeding, current conservation status, and relevant literature, if any. The information given is far more detailed than that found in an average handbook of European birds.

Avibirds won’t help you identify an unknown bird—there’s no way to search for characteristics or even groups—though the links to similar species may be very helpful in narrowing down an identification. (If you’re trying to identify a European or British bird using characteristics, habitat etc., try the Online Identification Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe, then visit Avibird to find out all about the bird.) There’s also no way to search on Avibird for a bird’s scientific name, though the scientific name and the bird’s name in five other languages are given on the physical description page.

The guide to birds of Suriname is also a rare gem. The content is basically the same though it is shorter and contained on a single page. This guide is not compete yet, but already contains many bird species. Naturally, it contains many migratory birds familiar to birders in North America.

… and for the birder who enjoys a memory test, there is a “games” link that takes you to an amusing matching game – matching birds of course.

Avibird is clearly still growing – already a valuable reference site, it’s sure to get even better as more content is added. This is a good site to bookmark and keep an eye on.

Content about other great birding web sites:

Bird Cinema

The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bird Cinema, a web site full of bird videos and pictures, was launched in May 2007. Its purpose is to create a place for a community of bird photography enthusiasts, and to be educational, informative and fun. Still young but already bursting with great content, this site is terrific.

Both bird pictures and videos have channels, so you can look for things in a category of interest to you: seabirds, song birds, shore birds, birds from the Middle East and lots more. I watched a Meadowlark singing, an Allen’s Hummingbird visiting red flowers, and two Waved Albatrosses dancing. All these videos were fascinating. In the pictures section, there are some amazing pictures too: an Osprey catching a large fish, a kingfisher with a fish in its beak, a pair of Dark-eyed Juncos against a snowy backdrop and many many more.

You don’t have to become a member in order to view the videos and pictures on Bird Cinema, but membership is free—and it allows you to participate in forums and in groups of friends and to post your own photos. If you’re a bird photographer at all, you’ll want to sign up.

I’m going to be visiting Bird Cinema regularly. Maybe you will too, but be careful—I think it’s going to be addictive. Here’s the link to Bird Cinema. Enjoy.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Kirtland’s Warbler, Dendroica kirtlandii, nests only in jack pine stands where the trees are young, ideally about 5 metres tall—hence the common name Jack Pine Warbler. Deforestation and control of forest fires have resulted in the slow disappearance of young jack pine stands—and the slow disappearance of the warbler.

Efforts to restore ideal jack pine habitat for Kirtland’s Warbler have been ongoing since the 1950s, and Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ontario all have potential habitat; however, since the 1940s the Jack Pine Warbler has only been known to nest in central Michigan. The bird’s numbers are increasing, however, and in 2007, Kirtland’s Warblers nests were confirmed in central Wisconsin.

Conservation efforts have worked well for Kirtland’s Warbler and the species is now designated “near threatened” on the IUCN Red List—a huge improvement. Nests in Wisconsin and northern Michigan are also a very positive sign that the bird is recovering from near extinction.

Read more about Kirtland’s Warbler.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Belum-Temengor Forest Complex is an extensive and inaccessible area of forest in Malaysia—perfect for hornbill species that require large tracts of forests with abundant wild fruit. The Belum-Temengor part of the forest complex is the only place in Malaysia where all ten hornbill species of the region can be found.

Female hornbills seal themselves inside nest cavities in trees to incubate and raise young, while males bring food—the invisibility of nests makes it difficult to locate them, especially in difficult terrain. Although Bar-throated Wreathed Hornbills, Aceros undulatus, were known to be present in the Temengor, no nest has ever been seen. Now, during the breeding season of 2007, a male has been observed bringing food to the small opening of a sealed nest cavity.

A large area of the Belum Forest Reserve has been set aside and designated State park, however the Temengor area is being logged. The Malaysian Nature Society is lobbying for protection of this important hornbill habitat.

Read more about hornbills in the Temengor

Other recent bird discoveries:

New Hummingbird Species Discovered

A New Species – the Bugun Liocichla

New Bird Subspecies in Columbia

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Great Bustards were once common birds in England but, big enough to be good to eat and beautiful enough to look good stuffed and mounted, they soon fell prey to overenthusiastic hunters. By the mid-eighteen hundreds, they had all been shot.

In 1998, Britain’s Great Bustard Group began to investigate whether the birds could be reintroduced to the country, and in 2004 they began releasing captive birds. The birds come from Russia, where eggs are removed from nests that are sure to fail because of their location. When the salvaged eggs hatch, young are reared in captivity and then released, in this case into appropriate habitat on Salisbury Plain in England.

This year, a female Great Bustard mated and laid eggs—the first great Bustard eggs to be laid in England in 175 years. The nest failed because the eggs were infertile; however, the Great Bustard Group is delighted anyway—it means that natural and successful breeding of England’s Great Bustard’s is probably imminent. Next year, there should be more.

Read more about Great Bustards:

Great Bustard - Otis tarda

Sources:

Great Bustard Group

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Project Puffin, begun by the National Audubon Society in 1973, has restored Atlantic Puffins to Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge and established an active breeding colony there containing hundreds of Atlantic Puffins. Terns have also returned to the refuge now that gull control measures have made it possible for them to breed successfully.

Seal Island is closed to the public because the island was formerly used as a bombing range and live ordinance remains in the area. Now, however, anyone can view breeding puffins and terns on live web cams installed on the island. Visit the web cams May through September, when breeding birds are present.

Read more about Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge and Atlantic Puffins:

Seal Island and Seabirds

Places to See Atlantic Puffins

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Lots of urban landscapes are visited by huge flocks of migratory geese—some flocks will stay all year round where the climate is kind and there’s food available. The birds become a problem in places where their droppings make a terrible mess on lawns and some birds become territorial and aggressive towards people. Unless some effort is made to control them, year-round flocks tend to breed and grow continually larger—and continually more troublesome. These characteristics make geese in parks and on shorefront properties unpopular with some people, to say the least.

According to Martin Hof, in the Netherlands, it doesn’t have to be that way. People just don’t understand geese. Hof talks to geese, calms them, understands their family structure and emotional responses, and often saves them from being culled. Hof tells us that feeding geese teaches them to interact with people, which they wouldn’t normally do. Geese that hiss are simply stressed. They experience emotional trauma at the loss of family members and can suffer from loneliness.

Hof tells park officials how to keep the size of flocks under control, and finds new homes for geese that are unwanted. He’s gained notoriety as the “the Goose Whisperer,” and he’s popular with everyone, both geese and people. Read more about Martin Hof at International Herald Tribune (iht.com): “Move over Robert Redford: Here Comes the Goose Whisperer.”

Other content about pest birds:

Pest Bird Control

Quelea quelea—African Pest Bird

Quelea Bird—African Bird Pest

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

On June 26 2007, KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco aired a short report on Altamont Pass, an enormous California wind farm known to kill as many as 1300 birds of prey every year. The TV story, “Fatal Attraction: Birds and Wind Turbines” is part of a series on environment, science, and nature. It gives some history on Altamont Pass, and discusses want is being done, and what else might be done, to reduce the numbers of birds killed by the whirling blades of wind turbines at Altamont Pass.

“Fatal Attraction: Birds and Wind Turbines” is posted, in its entirety, on the internet. For a clear explanation (and visible proof) of the danger that wind turbines in the wrong place pose to birds, I highly recommend this short video.

Many thanks to Charlie Foster from KQED Public Broadcasting for bringing “Fatal Attraction: Birds and Wind Turbines” to my attention.

Read more about wind farms and birds:

Wind Farms and Birds

Birds and Windmills

Bird Unfriendly Wind Farms

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Lesser Flamingoes are the smallest and most numerous of the five flamingo species, with an estimated world population of about two million birds. Though this sounds like a healthy population, the species is classified as "near threatened" on the IUCN Red List. This is probably partly due to the fact that 75% of the birds breed at one site in East Africa—Lake Natron in Tanzania.

Lake Natron is a seemingly inhospitable site: a caustic lake, it is rendered highly alkaline by volcanic ash from Africa’s Great Rift Valley. Hot springs also make the water very hot at times. Lake Natron supports little life, but a few species thrive there: Lesser Flamingoes visit the lake to feed on the blue-green algae that thrive in the water, and to breed on the muddy shore.

The breeding season of Lesser Flamingoes is easily disrupted—they are sensitive to changes in water levels and water chemistry, and human disturbance. The disruption of breeding in 75% of the global population of Lesser Flamingoes would inevitably have a devastating effect on this already "near-threatened" species.

Recently, Lake Natron has attracted industrial interest: Lake Natron Resources Ltd. wants to build a soda ash extraction plant that would pump 530 cubic meters of water out of the lake every hour to extract sodium carbonate. A thermal power facility may also be built. The results of an environmental assessment are anxiously awaited.

Related content:

Birds Need the Salton Sea

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Boreal Songbird Initiative scientist and author, Jeffrey Wells, has gathered all the current information on the hundred most at-risk birds in North America, and arranged it all in a single book. Available in the fall of 2007, Birder’s Conservation Handbook: 100 North American Birds at Risk, is aimed at birders, scientists, and conservationists—those that have a strong interest in trying to save North American bird species from extinction. Following on National Audubon’s data showing that common North American birds have declined sharply in the last forty years, Wells’ book couldn’t be timelier.

For individual bird species, Wells gives general information such as status and range, and what the threats are. There are distribution maps and illustrations, as well as information on what actions need to be taken to conserve the species. Wells doesn’t leave it at that however: he takes a look at the bigger picture—what the state of North American birds tells us about the health of our environment, what major environmental issues are affecting birds, what is being done so far, and who is doing it.

Birder’s Conservation Handbook: 100 North American Birds at Risk can be ordered in advance from Amazon.com.

Related content:

Common Birds are Declining

Waterbirds Around the World: A New Book Provides an Overview of the World's Waterbirds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In 1997, the first South African Bird Atlas Project, SABAP 1, was published. SABAP 1 was the culmination of research that collected data on the distribution of birds in South Africa. Ten years later, the organizations involved are interested in finding out how bird populations have changed and how birds are responding to environmental change and other pressures. A third atlas, SABAP 3 is planned for 2017.

A project such as the South African Bird Atlas project requires widespread collection of data and the participation of many individuals. Like the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology , the project embraces the help of citizen scientists in gathering the data—interested participants are being sought as the project gets underway. If you live in South Africa and would like to be a part of SABAP 2, you should contact the organizers as soon as possible.

Visit the South African Bird Atlas Project 2 website for more information, and register online.

Find out about other bird projects that use citizen scientists:

Cornell Celebrates Urban Birds

eBird and eBird Canada

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The United States Government has announced that the Bald Eagle, nearly extinct in the 1960s, has recovered sufficiently to be removed from the Endangered Species List. The species was listed as endangered in 1967—since that time, it’s been illegal to hunt or disturb the birds in any way. In addition, the pesticide DDT, responsible for causing abnormally thin egg shells in birds of prey, was banned.

The Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds (Christopher Perrins ed., Firefly Books, 2003) offers the following facts about the bald Eagle:

• In the 1600s, there may have been up to 500,000 Bald Eagles in North America.
• Numbers of Bald Eagles fell due to human persecution, habitat loss, and pesticide use.
• DDT was banned in 1972.
• By 1995 there was a significant increase in Bald Eagle numbers.
• In 2003, there were an estimated 100,000 Bald Eagles in North America.

The return of the Bald Eagle is a great conservation accomplishment. It’s encouraging to know that we’ve apparently managed to save the Bald Eagle, but sobering to think that while one bird was recovering, many more went into decline—at least 12% of the bird species described in the IUCN Red List are threatened.

Read about other endangered birds:

Endangered California Condor

Kakapo Recovery

Endangered Piping Plovers

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

These days we seem to hear a lot more about declining and endangered bird species than we do about pest birds, which makes recent reports from Africa about the dreaded quelea bird all the more intriguing. Quelea birds, Quelea quelea, are one of the African weaverbirds. They travel in huge flocks, and in years when rainfall is good and cereal crops do well, they are voracious crop pests, visiting fields in flocks of millions of birds and decimating entire crops.

Some areas of Africa are braced for a 2007 Quelea outbreak when cereal crops are ripe and the weather turns dry. When threatened by a plague of quelea birds, farmers spray with quelatox, a poison that is highly toxic to birds (in North America, the same poison is sold under the name fenthion, and is used as an aerial spray against mosquitoes—usually in concentrations too low to kill birds). Millions of quelea birds are killed every year but they rebound and return.

Intensive farming in Africa has evidently encouraged an increase in quelea birds, while poison applications doubtless kill a lot of other birds as well as beneficial insects and possibly other species. Threatened farmers need a different approach, such as deterrence, encouraging biodiversity in both plants and animals, and treating Quelea birds as a resource rather than a problem. What eats them? Can their feathers, nests, eggs etc. be used? We have to stop dousing our environment and our food crops with toxins.

What do you think we should do about pest birds?

Read more about the Red-billed Quelea:

Quelea quelea - African Pest Bird

Sources:

“Zimbabwe: Quelea Birds Spotted” Chinhoyi. The Herald, June 26, 2007: allAfrica.com

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

From May through September, Greater Shearwaters are seen off the eastern coast of North America, having migrated thousands of kilometres from their breeding grounds in the southern mid-Atlantic. They forage in coastal waters and on continental shelves all summer, putting on lots of weight so that they can complete the return journey to the Southern Hemisphere in the fall.

Sometimes the trip doesn’t go well and large numbers of the birds die along the migration route. Scientists aren’t sure why, but it probably often has to do with an inadequate food supply. With a migration route that keeps them traveling for months, Greater Shearwaters rely heavily on established foraging grounds. If there are not enough prey species at the foraging grounds—fish, crustaceans, and squid—some birds will die of starvation while on migration.

A die-off of Greater Shearwaters in mid-June 2007 resulted in thousands of dead and dying birds washing up on beaches in Florida and Georgia. Investigators suspect that starvation was the cause, although they routinely check for other things, such as mercury poisoning, and infectious agents such as bird flu.

With more than six million pairs of Greater Shearwaters breeding in the South Atlantic, a die-off of this magnitude is not likely to have much impact on the species as a whole, but it raises the question of what will happen if the predicted complete collapse of the fisheries comes to pass.

Read more about Greater Shearwaters:

Greater Shearwater – Seabird

Sources:

Meenan, Kyle. “Dead Migratory Birds Washing Ashore.” First Coast News 6/21/2007.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Great River Birding Trail is a project of National Audubon—a collection of great birding sites along the Mississippi River that aims to provide information to birders who live in or visit communities on the river, and to increase awareness of the need to protect habitats that birds and other wildlife need.

The web site currently provides detailed information about selected sites in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Very user-friendly, the site provides three levels of maps. The first level allows you to select the state of particular interest to you. Clicking on a state brings you to a second level of map showing all the counties near the Mississippi River in the state. Click on a county and you’ll see a map of the county, with green buttons showing Great River Birding Trail sites.

Each site on the county map has a link to the relevant information about it:

• directions for finding it
• when you can visit
• fees to expect, if any
• site description
• cultural and historical significance
• significance to birders

While still incomplete, National Audubon’s Great River Birding Trail web site is sure to evolve into a great tool to get to know the birds of the Mississippi. Planning a trip that involves some bird watching in that area is going to be so much easier.

Visit the Audubon Great River Birding Trail web site.

Read about other great birding places:

Hoffman and Swinburne – Bird Isles

Where to See an Albatross

Vacation With Cranes in Hungary

Places to See Atlantic Puffins

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Authors of a paper published in the May 17 issue of Nature report that seven species of North American birds suffered significant population declines since West Nile Virus appeared in 1999. The paper, titled “West Nile Virus Emergence and Large-Scale Declines of North American Bird Populations,” details a study that used 26 years of data from the Breeding Bird Survey to follow the populations of twenty bird species. The focus of the research was to determine whether bird populations declined after 1999 and whether any observed decline could be attributed to bird mortality due to West Nile Virus.

Some of the twenty bird species studied were predicted to suffer a moderate to high impact from West Nile Virus infection, while others were predicted to be minimally affected, based on the known mortality of the disease in these species (some species of birds suffer serious illness while others seem to tolerate the infection well). Predictions were correct for six of the seven impacted species: American Crow (the most seriously affected with a 45% decline), Blue Jay, Tufted Titmouse, American Robin, House Wren, and Chickadee. For the seventh species, the Eastern Bluebird, no prediction had been made because the seriousness of West Nile Virus infection in this species was unknown.

Most of the bird populations have not recovered—only the House Wren and Blue Jay have regained their former populations from lows in 2003 and 2004 respectively. It seems that West Nile Virus is doing even more damage to birds than it is to humans, and it’s part of the reason so many North American birds are in decline.

Read the article:

LaDeau, S. L., A. M. Kilpatrick and P. P. Marra. “West Nile Virus Emergence and Large-Scale Declines of North American Bird Populations,” Nature doi:10.1038/nature05829

Related articles:

West Nile and Birds

West Nile Virus Neurological Threat

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

New York City Audubon has placed a web cam on an island in New York Harbor where cranes are nesting. Part of the Harbor Herons Project, the Crane Cam lets people watch nesting herons closely without disturbing the birds. New York City Audubon hopes that people will be interested in learning more about these threatened birds and in helping to protect them. Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Glossy Ibis, and Black-crowned Night Herons all nest on islands in New York Harbor.

The best times to watch the Crane Cam are early morning and evening, as the birds forage for food in nearby wetlands during the day.

Read more about New York’s bird islands:

Hoffman and Swunburne - Bird Isles

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

National Audubon keeps track of bird populations with annual surveys such as the Christmas Bird Count and the Breeding Bird Survey, in which serious birders and volunteers do careful counts of bird species. Having done it for forty years now, Audubon can make statements we can trust about the state of bird populations—and it isn’t good. Many species are in serious decline, and the twenty species in the worst circumstances have all lost more than half of their numbers in the last four decades.

National Audubon identifies loss of forests, climate change, industrial construction, intensive farming, and suburban sprawl as being significant contributing factors in the decline of North American birds. Here are the twenty surveyed species that Audubon lists as most affected:

Northern Bobwhite (a decline of 82%)

Northern Pintail

Greater Scaup

Boreal Chickadee

Eastern Meadowlark

Common Tern

Loggerhead Shrike

Field Sparrow

Grasshopper Sparrow (in the middle with a decline of 65%)

Snow Bunting

Black-throated Sparrow

Lark Sparrow

Common Grackle

American Bittern

Rufous Hummingbird

Whip-poor-will

Horned Lark

Little Blue Heron

Ruffed Grouse (a decline of 54%)

On a happier note, it’s not yet too late for these familiar and cherished species. National Audubon has some suggestions for what we can all do to help them.

Sources:

National Audubon. Common Birds in Decline

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Every few years an outbreak of salmonella enteritis strikes bird populations. It’s happening now, in the spring of 2007, on the west coast of North America. Birds are dying by the hundreds in British Columbia, Canada, and in Washington State, USA.

Salmonellosis usually strikes when birds are stressed, and the current outbreak may be due to a cold wet spring—it’s thought that the bacteria is spreading quickly due to contamination of birdfeeders where many birds come for food. Anyone who feeds birds in the affected areas is being asked to take down their birdfeeders until the outbreak is over, or to disinfect feeders daily to avoid spreading the disease to more birds.

In the summer months, there is usually plenty of food available in the environment and birds don’t really need to rely on birdfeeders. When the birds disperse to look for food elsewhere, those already infected will be less likely to pass on the bacteria to other birds.

Read about salmonellosis in birds and how to avoid spreading it with a contaminated feeder:

Salmonella Infectionin Birds

Sources:

Lavoie, Judith. “There's deadly bacteria lurking in your bird feeder.” Vancouver Sun,Sunday, June 03, 2007

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Bird feeding precautions urged to stem bird disease.”

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Malaria, caused by the blood parasite Plasmodium spp., infects nearly 500 million people in the world today—nearly one and a half million people live in parts of the world where malaria is endemic. Millions die every year.

Of the four species of Plasmodium that infect humans, P. falciparum is the most dangerous, causing so called malignant tertian, or falciparum, malaria. Those who read blood films looking for malaria parasites know that this species is different—the classic banana shaped gametocytes of P. falciparum are unlike anything seen with the other plasmodia that cause malaria in humans.

It has been proposed that, while the other three species probably made the leap to humans from other primates, P. falciparum may have come from birds—and this may explain why the disease is so much more virulent than other forms of human malaria. The human immune system would presumably be somewhat equipped to deal with a primate parasite, whereas an avian one would be much more foreign to it.

Molecular and other studies confirm that P. falciparum is most closely related to P. gallinaceum and P. lophurae, plasmodia of birds. Thus, though we don’t know for sure, scientific evidence suggests that we may have birds to thank for “the greatest killer of humanity in tropical zones of the world today” (Roberts and Janovy, p. 148).

Read more about malaria:

What is Malaria?

Malaria in Birds

Sources:

Desowitz, Robert S. The Malaria Capers. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1991.

Roberts, Larry S. and John Janovy Jr. Foundations of Parasitology 6th Ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

We’ve all heard expressions like “when the cock crows,” and “cock of the walk,” not to mention "who killed cock robin?" - most of us know that when referring to birds, particularly game birds, the male is the cock and the female is the hen. These are perfectly good words that have been around for a long time. It seems, however, that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has put a filter on its web site that won’t allow the word cock when referring to a male bird—because the word has another meaning that some people find offensive.

My Gage Canadian Dictionary gives me six uses of cock as a noun:

• A male bird.
• A tap to control the flow of a liquid or gas.
• Part of a gun.
• A leader (informal).
• An upward tilt (as in the cock of an ear, nose, hat etc.).
• A little pile of hay

It doesn’t mention the offensive use of the word (which, I suppose makes it a little out of date).

My Collins Cobuild Dictionary, on the other hand (which gives the common uses of words rather than their strict meaning), does include the offensive use of cock—but only as the third most common use after:

• A male chicken / rooster.
• A male bird.

Language changes; words go out of use, new words appear, and people find new uses for common words, but do we really have to discard words just because we’re embarrassed by their alternate—often slang—meanings? How far are we going to let this go? Do we have to find a new name for a little pile of hay, and that particlar part of a gun? Will we also be obliged to rename the Bearded Tit, the Blue-Footed Booby, and the Hairy Woodpecker?

I think filtering out the word cock on a birding web site is completely ridiculous. What do you think? http://birds.suite101.com/post.cfm

Other things for you to think about:

British Columbia Spotted Owls

Ivory-billed Woodpeckers

Name That Bird

Sources:

Dodds de Wolf, Gaelan, Robert J. Gregg, Barbara P. Harris et al. Gage Canadian Dictionary. Vancouver: Gage Educational Publishing, 1997.

Hartley, Clodagh. “Feathers fly over 4-letter ban.” The Sun: Monday June 4, 2007.

Sinclair, John ed. Collins Cobuild English Dictionary. London: Harper Collins, 1999.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

World Ocean Day began in 1992 at the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It is a day to raise awareness of the importance of the planet’s oceans to the species that live both in the ocean and on land. Ocean covers 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, and all life is connected to it.

Today, our oceans are threatened by many things, including global warming, pollution, destruction of the ocean floor, and depletion of marine species. These things all have a ripple effect that eventually reaches places remote from ocean coastlines. World Ocean Day increases understanding of how important it is to protect the ocean and to try to reverse much of the damage we have done, before it is too late.

Millions of birds, belonging to at least 300 species, spend their lives at sea. Things that threaten the ocean often threaten them much more directly than they do other species. Many sea birds are struggling, confronted with lack of food, habitat loss, toxins in their food supply, and physical dangers from fishers and debris adrift on the water. At the end of May, 2007, BirdLife South Africa released a report that estimates about 34,000 seabirds are killed in the Benguela Current Large Marine Ecosystem alone each year—victims of long line fishing.

On June 8, 2007, groups and organizations around the world will host events to educate us about the oceans and to engage people in discussion and conservation. For more information, visit the World Ocean Day web site.

Read about some sea birds and their issues:

Endangered Albatross

Hurricanes and Bermuda Petrels

Penguin Species in Happy Feet

Cats, Birds, and Ascension Island

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bird-banders in New York caught a small bird that they couldn’t identify in a mist net. They took pictures and let the bird go. A little while later, they caught it again, and this time they took a couple of tail feathers before letting the bird go. Subsequently, researchers at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology identified the bird using DNA analysis, wrote an article about it, and invited birders everywhere to take on the challenge of making their own identification.

They give us a couple of clues—the bird is a warbler, it was caught in New York, and they hint that it’s a hybrid. The best known warbler hybrids are “Brewster’s Warbler,” and “Lawrence’s Warbler,” both, I believe, the result of interbreeding between a Blue-winged Warbler and a Golden-winged Warbler. This bird is neither of those.

You can read the whole story and see pictures of the bird at the links below—and you can also get the answer if you give up in despair or think you’ve figured it out. I can give you one more clue: I was pretty sure one parent was a Canada Warbler, but I was wrong. So you can rule that out.

Read the brief account of the capture and identification.

Read the article by Irby Lovette and David Bonter.

See pictures of the bird.

You can click to get the answer under the brief account or the pictures. Let us know how you did.

Other topics in birds:

Indigenous Crossbill for Scotland

A New Species - the Bugun Liocichla

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Setting up a web cam to watch birds in the nest has become very popular, and at this time of year, there’s lots of web cam viewing to be enjoyed on various internet sites. Here’s a short list of webcams to get you started:

Common Swift

A skilled flyer that nests in tree cavities or caves.

Peregrine Falcon

A rare raptor found almost anywhere in the world that nests on cliffs and, not uncommonly, on ledges of tall buildings.

White Storks

A large wading bird that breeds in Europe, Asia, and Africa in trees, on buidings or on specially built platforms.

Wood Duck

A duck that nests in nest boxes in the eastern and northwestern United States, and a few parts of southern Canada.

Other spring and summer birding activities:

Be a citizen scientist birdwatcher for the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology

See Harbor Herons in New York

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In 2004, visitors to Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas believed that they saw an Ivory-billed Woodpecker—sometimes called the Lord God Bird—a large elegant woodpecker believed to be extinct. The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology believed the reports were credible, and subsequently launched a careful search for the elusive bird in the region. Despite many people searching and a video tape believed to show the bird, there is no firm evidence yet that the species does, in fact, still exist.

Most recently, a birder by the name of Rich Guthrie saw a bird he believes was an Ivory-billed Woodpecker on April 17, 2007, in the same area—the Big Woods along the White River in Arkansas. An experienced nature and birding guide, and a volunteer in the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s search, Guthrie is a credible witness. Again, however, there’s no photograph to back him up.

The search is now on in Florida as well, where a region of undisturbed river habitat may provide a refuge for Ivory-billed Woodpeckers. This year’s efforts have yielded 13 sightings and numerous recordings of double knocks and “kent” calls characteristic of the ivory-billed. Unfortunately solid proof eludes these searchers as well. No one can get a clear, indisputable photograph of a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Do you think the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is out there and it's just a matter of time till we prove it? Add a comment to the discussion.

Other topics in Birds

New Hummingbird Species Discovered

The Glace Bay Western Reef Heron

Bicknell's Thrush

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bird watching might not be an obvious activity for visitors to New York, but here’s a unique outing you should take in if you’ve got the time--whether you're living or visiting there. Audubon New York hosts a harbor tour on Saturday and Sunday evenings from June 2 to August 12. On board is a naturalist guide, knowledgeable about the history and ecology of the harbor—important factors in understanding why the harbor islands have become home to thousands of birds in the last few decades.

Birds weren’t always so numerous here, but New York City Audubon has been monitoring the herons for more than twenty years in a study called the Harbor Herons Project. Their mandate is to both study the herons and protect the precious bird habitat on the islands. The Sunset Eco-cruises have been a natural extension of that project. The eco-tour takes you close enough to the islands to get great views of the birds: Black-crowned Night-herons, cormorants, terns, egrets, gulls, and Glossy Ibis, to name a few. For about an hour and a half you can enjoy the water, birds, a New York sunset, and the sights and sounds of the city on the shore.

In 2007, from June 2 to August 12, New York City Audubon’s Sunset Eco-cruise leaves Pier 17 of South Street Seaport, Manhattan, on Saturday and Sunday evenings at 7:00 PM. Wine and snacks can be purchased on the tour; tickets are $25 for adults and $10 for children. Audubon NY indicates that you should book in advance by calling New York Water Taxi at 212-742-1969 or visiting their web site (although you can purchase tickets for other routes and tours on the web site, I could not find how to book for the Sunset Eco-cruise when I visited).

Read more about New York Harbor Islands and the birds that live on them:

Hoffman and Swinburne – Bird Isles

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

British Columbia is the only Canadian province with Spotted Owls, and even there, they are doing so poorly that there are only about 25 birds left. The problem is habitat loss—Spotted Owls live only in old growth forest, and logging companies in both the United States and Canada have been allowed to harvest so much of this timber that little remains.

A scientific advisory team—the Spotted Owl Population Enhancement Team—made up of scientists from the United States and Canada has been studying the plight of the Spotted Owl in British Columbia. They have recommended that all the remaining Spotted Owls be captured and bred in captivity to increase the population for reintroduction later.

Captive rearing programs for birds threatened with extinction have worked with other species. The California Condor was saved from extinction by captive rearing and then reintroduced to both California and Mexico. The population of wild Whooping Cranes has been increased with captive rearing, as has the population of the Piping Plover. These three birds, however, had suitable habitat to live in when released. If British Columbia doesn’t move immediately to protect old growth forest, any attempt to reintroduce Spotted Owls there will be futile.

What do you think British Columbia should do about the threat to the Spotted Owl? Join the Discussion.

Sources:

Hume, Mark. “B.C.'s spotted owl near extinction.” Globeandmail.com May 17, 2007

Johnson, Gene. “Scientists Advise Capturing Spotted Owls.” Comcast.news May 17, 2007

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Biodiversity—the vast and wildly varying array of living species on Earth—is dwindling. Scientists tell us that extinctions are happening at a faster rate than at any time in recorded history, and every day we hear of another threatened species. The IUCN Red List tells us that one fifth of mammals are threatened with extinction, one third of amphibians and reptiles, and at least 12% of birds. Species are dependant on each other—when one disappears there is an immediate effect on others, including humans. We need to do something.

International Biodiversity Day is a day to celebrate the diversity of life on Earth, to put a spotlight on what is happening to Earth’s biodiversity, and to make commitments for change to halt the downward spiral we are in. For bird watchers, there is a lot to think about: birds are a mirror of ecological loss because the places that are important for them are typically areas of great biodiversity. When birds decline, it’s a sign of a decline in biodiversity in general.

On May 22, think about the things that birders and bird organizations can for birds and for biodiversity:

• Promote research to find out how birds are doing and what factors are causing declines in threatened species.
• Lobby government to include issues of biodiversity in policy decisions.
• Work to protect populations of threatened species.
• Work to protect the habitat of birds—habitat for diverse other species is protected at the same time.
• Educate other people about the importance of protecting birds and conserving biodiversity in general.
• Collaborate with other groups—groups in different geographic locations can pool resources and protect migratory birds in all parts of their range.

Do you have a special activity for International Biodiversity Day? Tell us about it in the Discussion area.

Read about other special days for birders:

Earth Day – April 22

Migratory Bird Day

Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival

National Wildlife Week in Canada

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In March, 2007 Toronto released a document titled “Bird-friendly Development Guidelines.” The city is trying to reduce the number of migratory birds that die each year when they slam into buildings—an estimated 1 million birds annually.

The guidelines are contained in a lengthy document that describes the problem of bird collisions with buildings and the need for a solution, and then moves on to detailed, abundantly illustrated examples of structures that are not so lethal to birds. There’s a strong focus on window design, and the careful use of glass—birds collide with glass because it reflects a clear passage back at them, or because it is simply transparent and therefore invisible. Toronto now advocates the use of awnings, patterned glass, grills and louvers, plastic film, artwork, and other things on windows that make glass more visible to birds.

A second focus of the guidelines is lighting and the need to reduce light pollution to both save birds and save energy—light spilling out of windows at night is a problem for migratory birds that use the moon and stars for guidance. Toronto isn’t advocating a dark city at night, but the guidelines do contain recommendations for light fixtures that direct light at the ground rather than the sky, and people are encouraged to turn off unnecessary lighting and close drapes and blinds.

Kudos to Toronto! The “Bird-friendly Development Guidelines” contain a wealth of information that will be useful for everyone from apartment dwellers and homeowners to large scale developers—and hopefully they’ll save many birds. Even better, anyone can access the Bird-friendly Development Guidelines as a PDF document on the internet.

Read about these and other dangers for migrating birds:

Migrating Birds and Buildings

Birds and Windmills

Chernobyl Birds Endure Radiation

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Gorgeted Puffleg, Eriocnemis isabellae, lives in the Serrania del Pinche Mountains of Columbia, in a small area of montane forest. Scientists surveying the area for new species saw the hummingbird in 2005 and were able to get pictures for identification. Now it’s confirmed: the bird is a new species of puffleg (hummingbirds with white tufts of feathers at the top of the legs). The formal description and species designation of the Gorgeted Puffleg will be published in the scientific journal Ornitologica Neotropical in May, 2007.

Because Eriocnemis isabellae has such a small range, it is already considered a threatened species. The land is under threat from traditional slash and burn agriculture and also from coca growers who feed the demand for cocaine. Conservation organizations are pushing for the establishment of a nature reserve.

Read more about hummingbirds:

Hummingbirds are Migrating

Facts About Hummingbirds

Hummingbird Nests

Sources:

The Hummingbird Conservancy. “Stunning New Hummingbird Species Needs Immediate Protection.”

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

iWin’s “Snapshot Adventure: Secret of Bird Island” video game takes the great features of video games—impressive graphics, problem solving, a demand for hand-eye coordination, and a good mystery—and leaves out the violence so typical of many games. Appropriate for all ages, it’s going to appeal to lots of people: children, birders, and gamers.

Take a mystery—a missing grandfather famous for his excellent bird photography—and throw in a journal full of clues, a mixed cyberspace terrain full of interesting characters and colorful birds, some unique perks like magic bird seed, and the ability to create your own birds, and you have great entertainment—you, the player, are a chip off the old block, capable of excellent bird photography. You’re searching for your grandfather and enjoying the birds while you search. Along the way, you’re taking pictures of birds. As your photography skills improve, some of your shots may be good enough for publication; some of them may even be new species recently released into the virtual landscape. Will you find your grandfather and take your place beside him as a gifted bird photographer?

iWin’s collaboration with the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology during game development means that there are lots of real opportunities for learning in “Secret of Bird Island.” There are already a few reviews on the iWin site—all very positive. If you try the game, let us know what you think of it by posting to the Birds discussion area.

Other tempting products for birders:

Carson Bandit Monocular

Palm Pilot for Bird Watchers

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In March, I wrote about Garden Birdwatch, a project in England organized by the British Trust for Ornithology: residents of London, England, are being asked to gather data on garden birds to determine how the birds are using urban green spaces. Now the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology is doing something similar in the United States.

“Celebrate Urban Birds” is a project to gather data on how fifteen easily recognizable species of birds are using trees, gardens and other green spaces in US urban areas. People are being asked to register and spend ten minutes or more watching birds and collecting data on which birds they see.

Officially, 2007 “Celebrate Urban Birds” coincides with International Migratory Bird Day, but US residents can participate any time. Find out more, register, and download a kit for data collection from the Cornell celebration website—you can continue to celebrate urban birds and send in data throughout the summer and fall. If you do, you’ll be a citizen scientist.

Read about ways to make your own urban green space more bird friendly:

Garden Birds and Transition Zones

Garden Plants That Attract Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Amazingly, scientists have been successful in recovering proteins from fossils of a Tyrannosaurus rex that died in Hell Creek, Montana, 68 million years ago. The protein is collagen, a connective tissue found in bone, and because the fossils were buried under rock, the protein has not been compromised by bacteria or water.

Comparison of the molecular structure of the T. rex protein with proteins from animals alive today found the best match was with chicken collagen. The hypothesis that birds evolved from chickens, formerly based on similar bone structure, now has strong scientific evidence to back it up.

Now that we know that proteins can sometimes be recovered from very ancient fossils, paleontologists will be looking for fossils in certain ideal places—places isolated from water and bacterial contamination. Fossils buried in sand or preserved in sandstone are good candidates. Perhaps it won’t be long before more such fossils provide overwhelming evidence that dinosaurs are still with us—at our bird feeders.

If you’re keen to read the April 2007 articles published in Science, here are the citations:

Analyses of Soft Tissue from Tyrannosaurus rex Suggest the Presence of Protein, by Mary Higby Schweitzer, Zhiyong Suo, Recep Avci, John M. Asara, Mark A. Allen, Fernando Teran Arce & John R. Horner. Science 316:277-280 (13 April 2007).

Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry, by John M. Asara, Mary H. Schweitzer, Lisa M. Freimark, Matthew Phillips & Lewis C. Cantley. Science 316:280-285 (13 April 2007).

Other blog posts and articles on bird paleontology:

World of the Dodo Birds Revealed

Dromornis – Thunderbird

How Did Birds Learn to Fly?

Sources:

Living the Scientific Life. Tyrannosaurus rex Protein Reveals Dinosaurs' Closest Relative: Birds

April 13, 2007

Schmid, Randolph. T. rex Proteins Most Resemble Birds. presstelegram.com April 12, 2007.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD) is officially the second Saturday in May, although some communities will observe the event on a different day, depending on what’s most appropriate for their area. On IMBD, we focus on the amazing and fascinating annual migration of birds, and the challenges they face in their journeys each year. International Migratory Bird Day is about celebrating birds, learning about birds, conserving birds, and protecting bird habitat.

In 2007, the theme of IMBD is “Birds in a Changing Climate.” How is climate change affecting bird migration? The activities of many organized gatherings will focus on the question of climate change now and in the future, and what can be done to protect bird species threatened by climate change. While IMBD is coordinated in the United States by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the US Fish and Wildlife’s Division of Migratory Bird Management, both members of Partners in Flight, many smaller organizations, educational institutions, clubs, and other groups will create their own events to observe the day.

You can get information about 2007 events at the following websites:

International Migratory Bird Day 2007

US Fish and Wildlife Service: International Migratory Bird Day

Read some interesting facts about migrating birds:

Migratory Bird Day (IMBD)

Read about hazards for migrating birds:

Migrating Birds and Buildings

Birds and Windmills

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Small marine algae, also known as microalgae or phytoplankton, live in the top sunlit layer of seawater. Important in the ocean ecosystem, and a source of food for many marine animals, they are also known for causing toxic shellfish and seafood poisoning, otherwise known as red tide. These organisms produce some of the most dangerous toxins known. Pseudo-nitzschia spp., marine diatoms, produce the neurotoxin domoic acid.

Red tide is the result of algal bloom—the multiplication of phytoplankton to more than a million organisms per liter of seawater. When a phytoplankton such as Pseudo-nitzschia blooms, fish and shellfish that feed on the algae accumulate toxin in their tissues. These animals are unharmed, but mammals and birds that feed on them in turn are poisoned.

Domoic acid is a neurotoxin—it affects the brain, causing seizures, memory loss, and often death. Every year, algal blooms produce domoic acid off the California coast and kill birds. The 2007 season is turning out to be particularly deadly as birds, whales, sea lions, and dolphins wash up, dead or dying, on California beaches. Brown pelicans, listed as endangered, are of particular concern.

Articles about the 2007 red tide in California:

Hammill, Ryan and Cindy Carcamo. “Toxin Kills Birds, Sea Lions.” ocregister 2007: Apr 26.

International Bird Rescue Research Center. “Crisis Off Our Coast.”

Sources:

Northwest Fisheries Science Center: Harmful Algal Blooms Program.

Read about other threats to water birds:

Type E Botulism and Birds

Lead Poisoning in Birds

Aspergillis and Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In early April, we heard that a pair of California Condors had laid an egg in Mexico—the first in seventy years. A pair of adult birds raised in captivity and later released, laid their first egg in an abandoned eagle’s nest. Though the happy event came later than scientists predicted, the egg has hatched, producing a healthy, history-making chick.

For the last two months, both parents have jointly tending their egg. Now they will share the responsibility of feeding the chick, a task that will go on for about a year. Chicks remain in the nest for two months, and don’t begin flying until five or six months. They remain with their parents for two years and are not fully mature until they are about six years old.

Here’s a photo of a very young California Condor chick.

Read more about California Condors.

Source:

The Associated Press. "California Condor Hatches in Mexico for the First Time in Decades."

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The 2007 Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival focuses on climate change. Framed by Earth Day on April 22 and International Biodiversity Day on May 22, the 6th annual CEBF offers a multitude of activities for schools and the public. There will be nature walks and bird-watching excursions, presentations, articles to read, educational materials to use, art and photography exhibits, even new postal stamps featuring Caribbean endemic birds.

The Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds organizes the festival, with help from BirdLife International, to raise awareness of the issues facing Caribbean birds. In keeping with International Polar Year and International Migratory Bird Day (2007 theme: Birds in a Changing Climate), this year’s Caribbean Endemic Bird Festival is broadly focused on issues surrounding the changing climate in the region. Topics such as habitats and habitat loss, watershed protection, impact of invasive species, biodiversity, and pollution are all explored.

Last year, over 20,000 people in eleven countries participated in CEBF activities. This year the event promises to be even bigger. If you live in the region, or will be visiting during this time, visit the SCSCB website for festival details and contact information.

Other annual birding events and activities:

The Christmas Bird Count

National Wildlife Week in Canada

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Earth Day, April 22, is an international celebration and day of environmental awareness. Today, leave your car in the yard and take public transit, switch to environmentally friendly products, plant a tree, design a garden for birds, resolve to recycle more, install a water-saving shower head, go on a picnic, or do whatever nurtures the environment and our planet Earth. Around the globe, 500 million people will be thinking and doing the same things.

Earth Day in its present incarnation began in 1970, the brainchild of U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson. Nelson was concerned that the environment was not a significant issue in U. S. politics and created Earth Day to change that. It was a success with Americans from the beginning and has grown to international proportions. Today, with our growing environmental concerns, Earth Day is bigger than ever.

Of course, April 22, 1970 was not the first time anyone celebrated Earth and the abundance of a healthy ecosystem. From prehistoric times, people have acknowledged that Earth sustains all life. Typically, the special day has been the vernal equinox, or spring solstice, the day in March when the hours of daylight equal the hours of darkness and spring returns to the Northern hemisphere.

Whichever day you celebrate Earth, think about what you can do, not just that day but every day, to help the environment and sustain the planet.

Earth Day activities for birdwatchers:

Spring Gardening for Birds

Install a Birdbath to Entice Birds

Garden Birds and Transition Zones

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

By the middle of April, spring is well underway in some places, with bulbs and shrubs blooming and birds nesting and feeding chicks. In other places where winter is slow to leave, a few tough birds may be nesting, but most are just starting to select nesting sites. Some are yet to arrive from their winter ranges. Still, nesting boxes, shelves and platforms should be in place by now if you hope to have them occupied this year.

Turning your garden into a welcoming and attractive place for birds is a many pronged project, and depends on what you have to work with in the first place. Some bird lovers have lots of land with trees, shrubs, water and open spaces; others just have a few window boxes. Most people can do something to attract a few birds.

Creating good backyard bird habitat may involve adding plants to feed and shelter birds and to provide nesting sites, adding a bird bath or water feature, building a dust bath, hanging a nesting box, or designing a feeding station. Check the Birds topic on Suite101 for articles on some of these projects. Here are a few to start with:

Spring Gardening for Birders

Hummingbirds are Migrating

Creating Shelter for Birds

Hang a Nesting Box for Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

National Geographic has a reputation for offering high quality innovative products for nature lovers; with National Geographic Handheld Birds, they’ve done it again. The birder who has one of these can go out for a day of North American birding with a personal digital assistant (PDA) containing a searchable electronic database.

The database includes more than 1600 pictures of birds and hundreds of species range maps. Based on the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America, the content provides excellent information on birds and has unique features for easy species identification, including recorded bird calls. It is also designed to coordinate with eBird, the citizen scientist bird database created by Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

You can purchase National Geographic Handheld Birds as a software card, provided you own a compatible PDA, or as a PDA with the software already installed. If you’re interested, visit the National Geographic Online Store, and if you buy one, please let us know what you think of it by posting to the discussion area.

Read about other products fpr birders:

Carson Bandit Monocular

Waterbirds Around the World

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Committee on Fisheries met in Rome at the beginning of March 2007. During this meeting, the committee discussed the plight of seabirds, particularly albatrosses and petrels, that are killed in large numbers when they become entangled in nets, swallow baited longline fishing hooks and drown, and collide with fishing equipment. Longline and trawl fisheries are particularly noted for seabird bycatch.

The committee supported the development of best-practice guidelines for fisheries everywhere that will reduce the number of seabird deaths due to fishing. The plan is to have a consultation process between member states leading to National Plans of Action—a combination of mandatory and voluntary changes in the fisheries should lead to fewer seabird deaths.

Fishing practices that are likely to be implemented include avoiding discarding fish waste overboard while fishing, making sure baited lines quickly sink out of reach of seabirds, attaching bird-scaring streamers to the sterns of boats, and fishing at night. It’s a step in the right direction, but it remains to be seen whether the process will move fast enough and be effective.

Endangered Albatross explains how albatrosses are killed by longline fishing.

See also:

Saving the Albatross

Hurricanes and Bermuda Petrels

Source:

BirdLife South Africa. "Seabirds Make the Agenda at U.N. Fisheries Meeting."

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

April 10 is the birthday of Jack Miner, a noted founder of the conservation movement in Canada. National Wildlife Week is the week surrounding his birthday each year—this year it is April 8 to 14. The theme of National Wildlife Week in 2007 is “Canada’s North,” and we are all invited to learn more about this important environment that few of us ever visit.

The north is home to many unique species of plants and animals, and is the breeding and molting ground for millions of migratory birds. The North also faces some of the most extreme effects of environmental pollution and climate change. Industry and development are encroaching on northern ecosystems as well. Over the next few decades, research and environmental protection will be vitally important in the Earth’s Polar Regions.

You can read more about National Wildlife Week at the Canadian Wildlife Federation website.

Articles about birds in the North:

Teshekpuk Lake Threatened

Wild Canadian Whooping Cranes Hatch 76 Chicks in 2006

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Writing in The Independent, Kathy Marks has neatly summed up the present knowledge of the lead fiasco in Esperance, Australia. Thousands of tons of lead carbonate pellets have moved through Esperance; they are mined inland and then shipped out through the port. Lead dust emissions are monitored, but Marks reports that sudden increases have not been reported. Lead now contaminates the harbour, water supplies, people, birds, and other living things.

Thousands of birds died in December 2006 but we only recently learned that lead killed them. Four months after the fact, the people of Esperance are finally hearing what the birds were trying to tell them--the scope of the exposure and remaining environmental contamination is such that there are sure to be health consequences for both people and wildlife far into the future.

We’ve known for a long time that lead is a toxic heavy metal. The effects of lead poisoning in birds are also well documented. How is it that the Port of Esperance could be so careless, and why did it take so long to figure out what was going on?

Read previous blog posts on the bird deaths in Esperance, Australia:

January 13, 2006: Dead Birds in Esperance

March 17, 2007: Lead Killing Birds in Esperance

Read “Birds fell out of the sky as a whole town was poisoned by lead dust.” by Kathy Marks (The Independent, 05 Apr 2007)

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

About five years ago, California Condors were reintroduced to Mexico. The birds were born in a captive breeding program created to save the species from extinction and reintroduce it to the wild. California Condors had been extinct in Mexico for decades.

Now the captive-reared birds have matured and one pair has produced an egg, thought to be the first egg in Mexico since sometime in the 1930s. If all goes well and a healthy chick arrives, the Mexican population will have started to grow on its own. The chick will join a worldwide population of about 135 California Condors living in the wild.

So far, scientists think the egg is healthy and they eagerly await the arrival of the chick. They expect it to happen very soon, probably around April 11 to 16.

Source:

Ayres, Chris. “Scientists wait at rare bird’s nest for that condor moment.” TimesOnline April 4, 2007

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bar-tailed godwits spend their winters in New Zealand or Australia, and their summers in Alaska—it’s a long trip each spring and fall. Scientists have implanted satellite transmitters in some of the birds, hoping to learn how they migrate. Now some of the first results are in.

Bar-tailed Godwits feed heavily before migration so that they have enough body fat and energy to make the trip. Then they can fly for incredible distances. Some stop in Papua New Guinea, the Phillipines, and Micronesia, but two birds, and probably whole flocks, have made a trip of more than 10,000 kiometres non-stop to the Yellow Sea, by Korea. The transmitters showed that the birds traveled at an amazing average of 56 km hour and reached altitudes of 2 km! Not surprisingly, these birds beat all records for bird migration so far.

View a map of the migration route.

Articles about bird migration:

Migrating Birds and Buildings

Hummingbirds are Migrating

International Migratory Bird Day

Sources:

The Australian. "Birds Set Endurance Record." March 29, 2007. “Scoop” Independent News. "Satellite–tracking the Flight of the Godwit " March 28, 2007.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Art Gallery of Peel has gathered together all of its works of art depicting birds, as well as photographs from the archives, to create an exhibit that is sure to delight bird watchers. “For the Birds” includes paintings, sculpture, photography, and prints depicting birds in various ways. Featured artists include James Fenwick, Paul Fournier, Will Ogilvie, Victor Tinkl, and Mary Wrinch.

Visitors can view the collection in the Harry Gustafsson Permanent Collection Gallery from March 29 to June 17, 2007. The Art Gallery of Peel, is located at 9 Wellington St. E., Brampton, Ontario (Phone: 905-791-4055).

If you go, let us know! Tell us about the exhibition in the Birds Discussions

Recent articles on the Birds page:

Giving a Chick at Easter

Hummingbird Nests

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Have you heard of eBird? The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society started eBird in 2002. The site is an electronic database of birding observations that records where species of birds are seen, when they are seen there, and how many of each species there were. A vast long-term database holding records of bird sightings throughout North and Central America allows birdwatchers and scientists to see how birds migrate, where they are found at different times of year, whether their populations and distributions are changing etc.

Serious birders can and do contribute to eBird. A birdwatcher who spends time outside looking for birds can keep his or her own record of sighting in a personal account, and can also contribute the data to the larger database. Editors and filters are in place to ensure that only verifiable data gets included in the main database because the intention is that this data be acceptable for scientific study. Birdwatchers with bird sighting records are encouraged to take part! In 2006, more than 4 million bird sightings were recorded in eBird. eBird Canada came online in October 2006 and by March 2007 the site was receiving about 30,000 checklists every month.

Even if you aren’t so serious a birdwatcher that you can contribute data to eBird, you can access the data already entered in the database. Search for your favorite bird and see maps of its distribution and how that changes over months or years. Learn its relative abundance at different times of year, and how many people reported seeing it in a specified area. It’s a great way to learn about North American birds.

Recent articles on Birds.suite101:

Facts About Hummingbirds

Kakapo Recovery

Bicknell's Thrush

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Waterbirds Around the World, published in 2007 by Stationery Office, is a compilation of works by conservation scientists who attended the Waterbirds Around the World Conference in Edinburgh in 2004. These distinguished scientists are concerned with the plight of the world’s waterbirds: the state of their migratory routes, the disappearance of the wetlands and coastal areas they depend on, the effects of climate change, the spread of disease, the threats posed by human activities, and everything else that impacts the birds’ lives. The papers in Waterbirds Around the World discuss what is known about waterbirds, what has been done to help conserve them, and what needs to be done in the future.

Waterbirds Around the World was released on March 12, 2007 and stands as one of the most up to date reference books on the status of the World’s Waterbirds. The book is available online at TSO Online Bookshop.

Some endangered waterbirds:

Endangered Albatross

Hurricanes and Bermuda Petrels

Endangered Piping Plovers

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Sumatran Ground-cuckoo, often simply called the Sumatran Cuckoo (Carpococcyx viridis) is believed to be extremely rare. The bird is listed as critically endangered in the IUCN Red List - the estimated population in Sumatra, the only known habitat of the cuckoo, is between 50 and 249 birds. The Sumatran Ground-cuckoo may not be as rare as we think, however – this bird is so elusive that it’s been definitively identified less than a dozen times. Most recently, a bird was photographed in 1997, and in 2006 a camera trap caught a good image of a Sumatran Cuckoo as it went past the lens. Now, a bird accidentally caught in a hunters trap has provided the first recording of the cuckoo’s distinctive call.

The recording of the cuckoo’s call is treasured by conservationists because now people will be able to identify the elusive bird’s presence by its call even if they don’t see it. The information can be used to generate more accurate information about the population and range of Sumatran Ground-cuckoos, and to identify critical habitat for the bird.

Want to hear the call of the Sumatran Ground-cuckoo?

Source:

Birdlife South Africa. “Cuckoo Calls Forth.”

Articles on other birds listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List:

Kakapo Recovery

Endangered Albatross (two species are listed as critical: the Amsterdam Albatross and the Chatham Albatross)

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Plover species in England - Lapwings and Golden Plovers - have faced a decrease in their food supply in recent years. Farmers have ploughed or otherwise altered the pastures where these birds prefer to feed in winter. Where are the plovers feeding now, and have their numbers suffered?

Surveys of plover populations in the past have counted birds in coastal estuaries and wetlands, and more recently at inland wetland locations. Results show that more plovers are wintering along the East coast of England and they also suggest that both Lapwings and Golden Plovers are in decline. However, because the surveys have only counted birds in specific locations, it isn’t clear what’s actually happening. An apparent increase in the late 80s and 90s may have been due to more birds wintering in the survey area, while the current apparent decline, though consistent with surveys in other countries, may be partly due to weather conditions.

This is a good illustration of the ways in which confounding factors – things that affect results that aren’t obvious, or that we can’t control – can make it difficult to study the lives and fortunes of birds and get accurate information. In the winter of 2006/07, the British Trust for Onithology (BTO) attempted another survey that counted birds in more locations and may answer some of the questions. Results are still to come.

Read more about BTOs survey.

Articles about another struggling plover species:

Endangered Piping Plovers

Facts About Piping Plovers

Don’t Disturb the Piping Plover

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Birds and Other Feathered Friends is the topic of the EBSQ Self-Representing Artists March Nibblefest contest on EBay. Nibblefest runs from March 20 to 27, and allows self-representing artists to offer a piece of their original artwork for consideration and for sale. Bids start at 99 cents. It’s an interesting and fun way to pick up original artwork at very low prices – or just enjoy browsing.

Fifty pieces of art depicting birds (birds or other feathered friends, that is) are displayed in the gallery . The subjects range from folk art chickens to gothic ravens and even flying monsters and winged octopuses. Take a look.

What's your favorite piece? Tell us in the discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) wants to know about the birdlife in the gardens of London’s residents. Researchers are gathering data from backyard bird watchers about which birds and how many birds are visiting, whether birds rely on bird feeders for food in winter, whether they go elsewhere in summer, and whether bird populations are changing in the same ways as in other areas.

What’s happening in UK gardens is important because this space represents about double the area of all UK nature reserves combined. The BTO has been collecting data on UK gardens since 1995, but they need more London backyard bird watchers to participate. If you live in London and enjoy watching and feeding the birds in your garden, you can take part in the survey.

Read the BTO press release and find out how to join the Garden BirdWatch.

Other bird surveys:

The Christmas Bird Count

The Thanksgiving Bird Count

Bird Bands Tell Stories

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Three months after birds in Esperance Australia started dying in the thousands, scientists may have the answer to the mystery of the deaths. Toxic levels of lead have been found in some of the recently killed birds, leading to speculation that some lead may be contaminating the environment from the shipments of lead carbonate that regularly pass through the port.

An estimated 4000 birds died in Esperance in December 2006, and early January 2007, and smaller numbers have continued to succumb since - to what seemed like an invisible enemy. Now that a possible cause has been determined, people are naturally asking how the birds got the lead, and whether it’s likely that people and other species have also been affected. The investigation is ongoing.

Read about Lead Poisoning in Birds

Related content:

Dead Birds in Esperance

Source:

The Age. “Lead poisoning blamed for birds' deaths.” March 12, 2007

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Is-Simar Nature Reserve in Malta was a parking lot, a play ground, and a dumping site in 1992 when BirdLife Malta began working to restore bird habitat and return the area to its natural state. Workers removed non-native trees and replaced them with native species, excavated to restore former wetlands, cleaned up the site and fenced it, and eventually built a visitor’s center. Today the reserve is used as an educational site for school classes and is open to the public.

Birds have returned to Is-Simar. Two pairs of Little Bittern bred there in 1997 and have returned since. Reed Warblers, Moorhen and other species are also nesting there regularly. Recently, a pair of Little Grebe was observed nesting at the reserve – a first for Malta. Projects like this prove that we can still regain much of what we’ve lost if the will is there to restore bird habitat.

Other projects to restore or protect bird habitat:

Recovery Plan for Hawaiian Birds

Cats, Birds, and Ascension Island

Don't Disturb the Piping Plover

Sources:

BirdLife International. “New Breeding Species for Malta.” 02/03/2006

BirdLife Malta. “Is-Simar Nature Reserve.” 30/10/2006

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

March 16 and 17, 2007, mark the annual Rivers and Wildlife Celebration at Audubon’s Rowe Sancturay near Kearney, Nebraska. For those who can get to the sanctuary, it’s a chance to view, and hear, hundreds of thousands of migrating Sandhill Cranes. They can also join field trips and listen to presentations. A wonderful opportunity.

Not everyone can get to Kearney, Nebraska in March of course, so thankfully, National Geographic Magazine has set up a live Sandhill Crane web cam at the site that we all can watch and listen to. The best viewing times are from 6 o’clock to 7:30 morning and evening (Central Standard Time). The webcam will be active until April 15, 2007. Enjoy.

Read more about Sandhill Cranes.

Read more about attending the Rivers and Wildlife Celebration in Nebraska.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Marlborough Express in New Zealand reports that the Orange-fronted Parakeet is recovering from near-extinction on a couple of offshore islands that are predator free. Specifically, the islands are free of rats and stoats, introduced species that have virtually wiped out the birds on the mainland.

This reminds me of the ongoing discussions here on the Birds page about feral cats. Feral cat eradications on many islands have restored safe environments for sea birds while endangered species such as the Kakapo have been relocated to islands to protect them from introduced predators on larger land masses where eradication isn’t possible.

Conversely, the introduction of feral cats, rats, and stoats to islands has been disastrous for bird species there. The Dodo bird is the most famous example of an island bird wiped out when new predators arrived. There are many others. I hope we’ve learned our lesson, and that, in the future, we’ll be able to keep cats, rats, stoats, and other predators off islands so that they remain safe havens for birds and other native species.

Feral cats on Birds at Suite101:

Feral Cats Kill Birds

Cats, Birds, and Ascension Island

The Feral Cats and Birds Debate

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In December of 2006, Nature Canada joined with other conservation groups and filed a lawsuit against the Canadian Minister of the Environment for failing to protect the Piping Plover. The issue surrounded the identification of critical habitat for this endangered species, an essential step in implementing the Canadian Species at Risk Act. Though critical habitat had been identified in the United States, the Canadian government had not followed suit in its recovery strategy – without identification of critical habitat in Canada, it was impossible to protect the birds.

In February of this year, the Canadian government surprised Nature Canada and the other groups involved by promising to immediately identify critical habitat for Piping Plovers, integrate the information in the Canadian recovery strategy for Piping Plovers, and revisit recovery plans for 50 other endangered species. The move was a victory not only for the species involved, but for the Species at Risk Act itself. Nature Canada is now waiting and hoping that the federal Environment Ministry follows through on its pledge.

Related content:

Lawsuit for Piping Plovers

Endangered Piping Plovers

Facts About Piping Plovers

Don’t Disturb the Piping Plover

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is apparently launching a new recovery project for White-tailed Eagles in Scotland. The group proposes to release more than 100 White-tailed Eagles along Scotland’s east coast over the next five years.

The White-tailed Eagle is a large bird of prey with a wingspan of over two meters. It lives in rocky coastal areas feeding mainly on fish and other birds. Once common in the British Isles, these beautiful raptors were hunted to extinction by early in the 20th century.

Reintroduced to Western Scotland between 1975 and 1998, the birds have established a self-sustaining population there, and have caused a significant increase in tourism in that area. Critics of the current reintroduction plan fear that White-tailed eagles will take lambs from eastern Scotland’s farms and put added stress on threatened bird species.

More about White-tailed Eagles:

The White-tailed Eagle Returns

Other Projects by the RSPB:

Endangered Albatross

Cats, Birds, and Ascension Island

Sources for this article:

Sea Eagle Project: Possible East Coast Translocation: Scottish Natural Heritage

RSPB

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bird banding has been used for many years to help gather information about the ranges of different species of birds, where they are in different seasons, what their life spans are, and other information that would otherwise remain a mystery to us. Sometimes, recovery of a banded bird yields big surprises.

Green-tailed Towhee

In June of 2006, a Green-tailed Towhee was caught and banded in Thunder Cape, Canada. The bird was far out of its normal range—it should have been in the southwestern United States! This was only the sixth official sighting of a Green-tailed Towhee in Canada.

Then in January of 2007, a Green-tailed Towhee was observed in southwest Minnesota. The band on the bird’s leg confirmed that it was the same bird that had been banded in Canada. Though it’s not known whether the towhee has continued south, eventually to return to its normal range, the Minnesota sighting at least confirmed that it was moving in the right direction.

Source:

Bird Studies Canada. Lost Green-tailed Towhee Searching for Home?

European Starling

In December of 2006, a resident of Britain found that a European Starling had come down the chimney. A band on the bird’s leg revealed that this particular starling had flown from Ventes Ragas, Lithuania, a distance of 1686 km. It had doubtless come from the continent seeking warmer weather in the British Isles. Recoveries like this reveal that even among bird species that are present in a locality all year round, there may be individuals that have migrated great distances.

Source:

British Trust for Ornithology. What Came Down Your Chimney this Christmas?

Related Content:

What is Bird Banding?

A Christmas Idea for Birders

Glace Bay Western Reef Heron

Facts About Piping Plovers

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I’m off enjoying the birds of Southeast Asia and other scenic delights, but while I’m gone, spring is approaching, birds are migrating, and articles are appearing on the Birds page. It will soon be time to make sure your bird nesting boxes are ready for occupation, and to find a few interesting nest web cams to watch. I’ll link to a few shortly.

Meanwhile, feel free to post to discussions or send me email – I’ll reply in early March.

Read recent articles:

Kakapo, Flightless Parrots

Newcastle Virus and Amazon Parrots

Bird Unfriendly Wind Farms

Pet Birds and Toxic Foods

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Piping Plovers nest and raise their young on Atlantic beaches in Canada and the United States from South Carolina north to Newfoundland, and on salt flats in the prairies. They begin nesting in the more southern locations by late March and in the north by late April. If the first nest fails, second attempts to nest can extend the breeding season well into August.

Nesting Piping Plovers, and their eggs and young, are vulnerable to predators, beach traffic, human disturbance and flooding. Humans and the results of thier activities pose the greatest threat. If you frequent coastal beaches or prairie habitat where Piping Plovers breed, find out how to be sure you don’t disturb them.

Articles about Piping Plovers:

Endangered Piping Plovers

Facts About Piping Plovers

Don't Disturb the Piping Plover

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The kakapo is a unique flightless parrot native to New Zealand. The species came so near to extinction that only 21 adult females were left. All of the world’s known Kakapo now live on protected islands where their numbers are slowly increasing. They breed successfully in years when the Rimu tree produces abundant fruit, an event that only occurs every two to five years.

The year 2002 was a good year for the Rimu tree and for the kakapo on Whenua Hou Island. Twenty-four kakapo chicks joined the species. Will 2007 be another good year? Kakapo breeding begins in December. You can check the Kakapo Recovery Programme website for updates on the 2007 breeding season.

Read about kakapo:

Kakapo, Flightless Parrots

Sources:

Perrins, Christopher ed. Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. New York: Firefly Books, 2003.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In preparation for my trip to Southeast Asia (for which I had to pack everything I needed in a backpack), I purchased a Carson Bandit Monocular. This little monocular weighs just 80 grams (3.2 ounces) – you hardly know it’s there. It fits comfortably in one hand with the fingers and thumb wrapped around it like a loose fist.

The first and second fingers rest on a lever focus – the first lever focus on a monocular according to Carson. The arrangement makes it possible to hold the monocular steady and focus easily with just one hand, leaving the other hand free.

The Carson Bandit Monocular has 8X magnification and an objective lens diameter of 25mm. The optics are good and the field of view at 1000m is 131m (393ft/1000yds) – good for birding. I think I found a good traveling substitute for my binoculars, which are just too big and heavy to take when I’m backpacking.

You can see the Carson Bandit Monocular at http://www.carson-optical.com/CarsonOp.swf

Related content:

Why Do We Watch Birds

Best Places to Watch Birds

Birding Ethics

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In these days of species extinction and recovery programs for threatened bird species, reports of mass bird poisonings for pest control make a strange counterpoint. The deaths of thousands of birds in Nevada last December were attributed to an approved eradication effort: a dairy was using poisoned grain to get rid of nuisance starlings that were visiting and contaminating a feed lot. Pigeons and house sparrows are also often the focus of bird eradication or exclusion efforts.

On the one hand, these birds are all introduced species in North America. Apart from being nuisances in human communities, they compete with native bird species for food and habitat. On the other hand, many people would argue that mass poisonings of birds and various other killing methods are inhumane. Many pest control experts advise that removing whatever is attracting the birds, and practicing humane exclusion methods is a better approach.

Pest bird control is an issue sure to spark heated debate. Two things are indisputable: countless people, especially children, are very entertained by watching and feeding pigeons; and a large flock of starlings in synchronized flight is a breathtaking show.

What do you think we should do about pest birds? Join the discussion.

Related content:

Controlling Birds in Buildings

Flicker vs. Starling

Redvented Bulbul Invasion

Bird Poisonings in Regina

Dead Birds in Esperance

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Today will be my last day at the keyboard for a few weeks: I am taking a vacation. This doesn’t mean there won’t be anything new at the Suite101 Birds topic—new articles and blog entries will continue to appear and I hope you will vote in the poll and post to discussions. I’ll be interested to see what as gone on when I get back on March 5!

Meanwhile, I look forward to stunning scenery, gorgeous sunsets and fabulous birds in Southeast Asia. I’ll try not to drop my digital camera in the Mekong…

Read some recent articles:

Pet Birds and Toxic Foods

Cats, Birds, and Ascension Island

Penguin Species in Happy Feet

Facts About Piping Plovers

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

A devastating weather system in Florida that gave rise to killer tornadoes caused 20 human fatalities and wiped out 17 out of 18 Whooping Cranes from Operation Migration’s Class of 2006. The young cranes, which arrived in Florida from wisconsin in December following ultra light aircraft, were being held in a pen in the final weeks before they were to be released to explore their new environment. After the storm passed, 17 dead birds were retrieved from the pen.

It’s not known what killed the birds, but Operation Migration organizers speculate that it may have been a storm surge or a lightning strike. It’s also not known how the 18th bird ended up outside the pen unharmed, but his survival is a precious piece of good news amidst terrible loss. This bird has done it his way in the past: he separated from the rest at the end of the migration and was not retrieved for several days. Operation Migration and all its supporters must face the fact that a whole year’s work has been lost with the exception of the single surviving bird.

I followed the migration of the Class of 2006 here on Suite101. You can read the relevant posts and related articles here:

Oct 4, 2006: Whooping Cranes are Migrating

Oct 12, 2006: Inside a Whooping Crane Migration

Oct 18, 2006: News About Operation Migration

Oct 28, 2006: Update on Whooping Crane Migration

Nov 17, 2006: Whooping Crane Update

Dec 20, 2006: Whooping Cranes Arrive in Florida

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (BC SPCA) tells us that pet birds should be given foods from five food groups: grains/cereals/seeds, vegetables, fruits, protein, and dairy. The grains, cereals and seeds (preferably whole grains) should account for about half of the total diet, while fresh vegetables account for most of the rest. Fruits; foods high in protein such as eggs, chicken, and cooked beans; and dairy products are important but only small amounts are required.

The BC SPCA recommends that we feed our pet birds whole fresh foods that we prepare daily; however, they acknowledge that commercially packaged foods can be used. You should, of course, discuss your bird’s diet with your veterinarian to be sure all its dietary needs are provided for.

There are some things that pet birds should never eat because they are poisonous. Numerous house plants can cause problems as well as some common food items that we don’t suspect. While these things are usually poisonous for people as well, we’d have to consume a much larger amount because of our larger size—for a bird, very small quantities of a toxic substance can be lethal. Read my recent article on foods toxic to birds to learn about a few of the things you should never give your bird.

Pet Birds and Toxic Foods

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

January in Nova Scotia is a cold month, often marked by freezing temperatures for days on end, snowstorms, freezing rain, or a little of each. Here, we’re just starting to think about the arrival of spring and whether our bird houses are ready—we’ll think about it until at least the first of March. Elsewhere, however, birds are already nesting.

Wading birds are nesting in Florida; Great Horned Owls are nesting in the northeastern US; Black-crowned Night Herons may be thinking about nesting near San Francisco; nesting season for Bald Eagles has started on the shores of Lake Erie, and for Peregrine Falcons in North Carolina. The flightless Nene of Hawaii are nesting now too—a little late this season.

When it’s still winter outside, it’s encouraging to think that birds are already nesting—somewhere. Are any birds nesting in your area?

Start a discussion

Related content:

Hang a Nesting Box for Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Last week, the Joint Meeting of the Tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations took place in Japan. The threat posed to tuna stocks by over fishing and illegal fishing was on the agenda, and for BirdLife International, so was the connected threat to albatrosses. Long line fishing takes too many tuna and other fish, too much bycatch, and drags albatrosses under until they drown. The delegates at the meeting know there’s a problem.

In December, 2006, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission passed new regulations with respect to long line fishing and bird bycatch, but these measures will be phased in over years and not fully in force until 2010. Nineteen endangered species of albatross will have suffered considerable additional losses by then. If the five commissions attending the meeting were to work together, it would make a big difference to both albatrosses and fish stocks.

Read more about the albatross:

What is an Albatross

Endangered Albatross

Saving the Albatross

Sources:

BirdLife South Africa. "Don't Can Albatrosses, Warns BirdLife at Global Tuna Summit." Jan 24, 2007

BirdLife International. "Pacific Seabird Mitigation Measures 'A Step in the Right Direction.' " Dec 21, 2006

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

One explanation has it that the ancestors of today’s birds were theropods, carnivorous dinosaurs that chased their prey on two feet. These dinosaurs were apparently feathered but the feathers weren’t used for flight—they were probably to keep the animals warm in cold weather and cool when the temperature went up. Eventually, a combination of light weight (hollow bones), feathers, and running speed aided the evolution of flight.

Recent fossil evidence, however, supports a different theory—the theory that the first fliers were more like flying squirrels. Dinosaurs that climbed to heights in trees or on cliffs might have evolved an ability to glide to protect them if they fell. Fossils show that feathered dinosaurs had long feathers on their back legs as well as on their front limbs. Such an arrangement wouldn’t have worked well for an animal running on the ground.

Some birds, of course, have come full circle. Birds like the Dodo and the Kakapo migrated to islands where they had no predators and subsequently lost the ability to fly. For the Dodo it was a fatal loss; the fate of the Kakapo remains to be seen.

Related content:

The Mysterious Extinct Dodo Bird

World of the Dodo Bird Revealed

Dromornis, Thunderbird

Sources:

Press, Deborah. Reptiles to Robins. Zoogoer: 34(3) 2005.

mongabay.com Birds Evolved From Gliding Four-legged Dinosaurs. Sept 22, 2006. (rewritten from a University of Calgary press release).

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Salton Sea was created in 1905 when spring flooding breached an intake canal in Arizona, releasing water from the Colorado River into the Salton Sink. The resulting lake covered 500 square miles. People stocked the lake with fish and pile worms and, once the water supply from the Colorado was cut off again, water levels were maintained by runoff. With no outflow, the Salton Sea has become progressively saltier and levels of toxic chemicals and pesticides have risen. Now, California is drawing water from the lake to supply water thirsty communities, especially San Diego. The Salton Sea is shrinking.

In spite of the lake’s problems, pile worms continue to do well, feeding off decaying organic material and algae. They, and the remaining fish, draw more than 400 species of birds every year. In 2005, National Geographic called it “one of the most important migratory bird habitats in the US, if not the world” (Bourne, Joel K. Salton Sea. February 2005).

But the Salton Sea is dying. Shrinking water levels, high salinity, and high levels of toxins threaten the whole ecosystem. California is working toward a restoration plan, but will it be too little, too late?

Read what Audubon says about the Salton Sea.

Other critical bird habitat and recovery efforts:

Teshekpuk Lake Threatened

Recovery Plan for Hawaiian Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Indian festival of Makar Sankranti begins on January 14 each year, the day when the sun begins its northward journey, the days start to get longer, and spring seems imminent. The movement of the sun is particularly celebrated by kite flying – thousands of brightly coloured kites fill the skies and symbolize the sun during Makar Sankranti.

The kite flying activity includes kite battles, particularly between male kite flyers, the objective being to cut your opponent’s kite out of the sky. To aid in the fight, kite strings, or manjas, are deliberately sharp and strong – originally made with string, glue and ground glass but increasingly made of sharp and almost unbreakable nylon.

The dark side of the manja is that it cuts things other than kite strings – fingers and other body parts of kite flyers and spectators, and legs, wings and bodies of birds that are unlucky enough to fly into the slender threads. Hundreds of birds die each year from lacerations or amputations caused by manjas. Concern for the hapless birds is growing and, in many places, vets stand by to provide first aid to injured birds, while kite flyers are encouraged to stick to open areas where there are few trees and therefore fewer birds.

Sources:

Suryanarayan, Deepa. "Birds Lose Battle in the Skies." DNA: Jan 12, 2007.

Pareek, Sushil. "Kite Flyers' Festivities Cause Fatal Injuries to Birds on Makar Sankranti." DailyIndia.com: Jan 15, 2007.

Best Breezes. "Makar Sankranti: Indian Festival Begins January 14, 2006." Dec 29, 2005.

Related articles:

Migrating Birds and Buildings

Birds and Windmills

Dead Birds in Esperance

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Piping Plover is listed as endangered in some areas and threatened in others. Since the late 1980s, conservation efforts in both Canada and the United States (the two countries where Piping Plovers breed) have achieved a modest recovery in Piping Plover populations. Recovery projects have focused on protecting the bird’s nests - less is known, however, about how Piping Plovers fare in winter.

Piping Plovers spend the winter in the south – on Atlantic and Gulf seacoasts from South Carolina all the way to Mexico, and on Caribbean Islands. Though the vulnerability of eggs and chicks is not an issue during the winter, Piping Plovers still face threats from predators and from humans using and developing the shoreline. Scientists are trying to find out more about what happens to Piping Plovers in the winter.

Read more about Piping Plovers in these articles:

Endangered Piping Plovers

Facts About Piping Plovers

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Bird lovers in Esperance, Australia used to enjoy watching birds attracted to gardens by bird feeders or sprinklers. People aren’t watching birds in Esperance now, however: all the birds, it seems, are dead. Reports of dead birds began in early December when residents began finding dead or dying birds on the ground. Estimates of the numbers lost climbed quickly, and it’s now thought that thousands of birds have died – Yellow-throated Miners, Wattle birds, Honeyeaters, seagulls, crows, pigeons, and hawks.

No one knows what’s killing birds in Esperance. Possible culprits include infectious disease, some kind of insect, a plant toxin, a chemical spill, pesticides, or water or air pollution. Tests so far don’t suggest infectious disease, but no toxin has been identified either. The birds affected have different food sources, which adds to the mystery. Hopefully the answer will be discovered soon.

Sources:

O'Brien, Amanda. "Mystery as Thousands of Birds Fall From Sky." The Australian News: 10/01/2007

Quinton Sarah. "Birds Falling From the Sky." The Esperance Express: 28/12/2006

Update on this story March, 2007

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The stretch of water between South Monomoy Island and South Beach in Chatham, Massachusetts has been gradually filling with sand, making boating in the area more difficult. On Thanksgiving Day, 2006, however, a storm delivered enough sand to the narrowing gap to close it. It is now possible for people to walk to the former island, a national wildlife refuge managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The refuge is the breeding ground for thousands of Common Terns, a small number of endangered Roseate Terns, and threatened Piping Plovers. More than 280 other species of birds are seen in the refuge, many of them migratory waterfowl. The US Fish and Wildlife Service already keeps an eye out for predators, but their job will be much more difficult now: the sand connection will provide a land bridge for coyotes, skunks, opossums, foxes, feral cats and other animals that prey on nesting birds.

It’s tempting to wonder whether fencing is an option. I suppose a coyote might just swim around, but would a skunk or a feral cat do that?

Content about feral cats and birds:

Cats and Birds

Feral Cats Kill Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Rockhopper Penguins, are in such precipitous decline that some experts consider them globally threatened. In the Falkland Islands, where hundreds of thousands of Rockhopper Penguins breed each year, the population has dropped by 30 percent in five years. This is a large drop, but the picture becomes even darker when you realize that the population is thought to have dropped by over 80 percent since the 1930s. Are we going to lose the charming and fascinating Rockhopper Penguin? (Lovelace, the colorful oracle penguin in the movie Happy Feet, is a Rockhopper Penguin.)

Scientists aren’t entirely sure what’s causing the decline of the Rockhopper Penguin, but it is probably a combination of factors:

• warmer waters and a resulting decrease in available food
• large scale commercial fishing in waters where the penguins must also find food
• "red tides" caused by toxic algal blooms

Related content:

A Gentoo Penguin’s Life Cycle

How Do Penguins Keep Warm?

Penguin Webcam

Sources:

Johnston, Ian. “Unhappy Feat: Biologists Baffled as Millions of Penguins Vanish.” The Scotsman Dec 23, 2006

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In early December, the Norwich Evening News reported that a supermarket in Great Yarmouth, UK intended to kill two House Sparrows that had gotten into the store and made themselves at home in the roof. Despite stating that the food in the store was safe, the store justified its decision to use lethal methods with the claim that the two sparrows represented a threat to human health. Humane methods to trap the birds apparently failed.

House Sparrows are listed as a threatened species in the UK and a license was required before a lethal method could be used. Despite opposition, however, the store went ahead. On Dec 21, East Coast Live reported that the sparrows had been shot.

Situations like this one generate a great deal of controversy: many people feel that killing birds to remove them from buildings should be an absolute last resort. The controversy becomes even more heated when the bird species is threatened.

Interestingly, the response to this particular dilemma would probably be quite different in North America. The House Sparrow was introduced to North America in the 1800s and is now found throughout the continent (except in the far north) and in Central America and the Caribbean. Though populations are declining in North America, the bird is still abundant. It’s considered a pest by many: its depredations include nests blocking gutters and drainage pipes and damaging machinery, droppings posing a health risk to humans, and competition for nesting sites threatening native birds.

What should we do when birds make themselves comfortable inside buildings? Start a discussion!

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In August of 2006, Newcastle disease turned up in a Homing Pigeon in Italy. The outbreak was contained and only one bird died. In Bulgaria, an outbreak killed 151 birds in November 2006 – 101 died from the disease and the remaining 50 were destroyed to prevent the virus from spreading. This was the fifth report of the disease in Bulgaria since August of 2005. In October, an infected partridge in Scotland prompted officials to create a 3km protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone around the farm where the bird was ill and cull 14,000 other birds to prevent spread. The UK had previous outbreaks in 1984, 1997, and 2005.

These events demonstrate both the sporadic nature of the disease and its lethal nature: it appears from time to time, often without an obvious source, and often kills a high percentage of birds that it infects. When the virus appears in a large poultry operation, thousands of birds are destroyed in an effort to stop the virus from spreading further.

Read my article on Newcastle Disease

Other content about domestic poultry:

Poultry Slaughter Law Suit

Chickens Against Battery Cages

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Wild turkeys used to be common in southern Wisconsin; however, by the late 1800’s they were completely gone – hunting, land clearing, and disease had killed every last one. In the years that followed, a number of small efforts at reintroduction of wild turkeys failed to establish a self-supporting population.

In 1976, a well-planned restoration attempt began, which involved the release of wild turkeys brought from other states. Over the next nine years hundreds of wild turkeys were released in the southern two thirds of the state. This time, it worked – it worked so well that, by 2000, there were more than 200,000 wild turkeys in Wisconsin.

With a healthy population of wild turkeys thriving in Wisconsin, the state began to allow hunting in the 1980s, and in 2006, the fall hunt took almost 12,000 wild turkeys. In the spring, hunters can take only bearded male turkeys; in the fall, any turkey is fair game. Though hunting’s not to everyone’s taste, this is a case where hunting has actually benefited the species: revenues for the restoration program came from, among other things, hunting licenses.

Sources:

Lee, Jim. “Fall Turkey Harvest Nets Nearly 12,000 Birds”. Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers

Wild Turkey Ecology and Management in Wisconsin. “History of Wild Turkeys in Wisconsin.”

Related content:

Wild Turkey, Christmas Turkey

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

We’ve seen moths drinking from the eyes of ungulates like deer and antelope, but we’ve never seen them settled on the neck of a sleeping bird and sucking fluid through a long proboscis anchored inside the birds eyelids. Scientists Roland Hilgartner (German Primate Centre in Göttingen, Germany), and Mamisolo Raoilison Hilgartner (University of Antananarivo in Madagascar), have observed moths in Madagascar doing just that.

The moths, apparently seeking the salt content of birds’ tears, insert their proboscis through the sleeping bird’s eyelids and draw out the liquid. The bird, meanwhile, slumbers on undisturbed. Hopefully this theft does not adversely affect the birds too much, though its effect remains to be studied. Read the full account by Debora MacKenzie and see pictures at NewScientist.com

Other bird parasites:

Birds, Ticks, and Lyme Disease

Birds and Trichomonas gallinae

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

At GARS O’Higgins research station in Antarctica, Gentoo Penguins breed and nest in November. Chicks are born in early December, usually two to each breeding pair. In a good year, both chicks survive. Web cams at GARS O’Higgins allow us to be unobtrusive onlookers of this fascinating breeding colony.

Gentoo Penguin chicks are charming little balls of grey fluff, tucked up close to the belly of a parent bird. For more than a month, the parent pair took turns sitting on the nest and keeping the eggs warm. Then the eggs hatched and, from time to time, we caught a tantalizing glimpse of a little wing, a tiny beak, or a fragment of egg shell. By Christmas, growing chicks remain closely guarded and tended by a parent, but now, more than a week after the little birds hatched, the parent bird is usually standing. Unless the parent has its back to the web cams at GARS O’Higgins, there is almost always a great picture of two thriving chicks.

Check out the web cams at GARS O’Higgins

Related content:

A Gentoo Penguin’s Life Cycle

How do Penguins Keep Warm?

Penguin Web Cam

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

There is a platform feeder with two “hoppers” on my back deck that I keep filled during the winter months. I often fill one hopper with black sunflower seed and the other with a mixed wild bird food. This fall I noticed a strange new phenomenon – little piles of seed were appearing, about a teaspoon each in volume, lined up along the top of the deck railing. At first, I had no idea who or what was doing this, but squirrels were my prime suspect.

Before too long I observed the culprit. A large black crow landed on the railing and looked around like a shoplifter about to snatch an object. A sideways step at a time, the crow sidled up to the feeder, continually checking that the coast was clear (is he worried about me or the chickadees?). When he was close enough, he quickly picked up a beakful of seed, and then hopped away along the rail before depositing his loot in, yes, a little pile. Again, he checked whether he’d been detected, looking as innocent as a crow can look, then devoured the choicest tidbits from his haul before repeating the process all over again.

I know the crow likes the sunflower seed, but he seems a bit pickier about the mixed seed. I’ve never seen crows eating from my feeders before, though I’ve seen them checking to see what’s there – on the whole they seem to prefer scavenging from garbage bins and miscellaneous litter. Nothing, however, would surprise me when it comes to crows.

Bill Bennett, who grew up in Michigan, generously shares his boyhood experiences with a pet crow in Ralph, an Unforgettable Pet Crow. Thanks Bill, for this great story.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Yesterday, the captive reared Whooping Crane chicks from the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin completed their migration to Florida. For 76 days they have been en route, learning their migration path from human pilots dressed in crane costumes and flying ultra light aircraft. The trip was an unusually long one as unfavorable weather kept them grounded 54 of the migration days. We’ve been following their progress here and in the Operation Migration Field Journal.

Now the birds are finished their education. They’ll spend the winter months in Florida, then migrate north again on their own, their numbers swelling the ranks of the Eastern Migratory Population. This year, two chicks hatched in Necedah were the first chicks hatched and raised in the wild by previously released birds. One of these chicks died, but the other migrated south to Florida successfully – one day captive rearing may no longer be necessary in order for the flock to flourish and increase.

Visit the Operation Migration Field Journal for an account of the season’s work, great pictures, links to pictures and videos, information about other years and fund raising information.

Previous posts about Operation Migration and the first chicks hatched in the wild:

Inside a Whooping Crane Migration

News About Operation Migration

Update on Whooping Crane Migration

Whooping Crane and Penguin Update

Two Whooping Crane Chicks Born in the Wild Make History in Wisconsin

Whooping Crane Chicks Thrive and a Rare Bird Turns Up in Nova Scotia

Update on the Whooping Crane Chicks and Glace Bay Western Reef Heron

The First Family Whooping Crane Chicks are Flying

Wisconsin Cranes and Hurricanes

Birds in Wisconsin: Art, Whoopers

Whooping Crane Family on the Move

Historic Whooping Crane Migration

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The annual Christmas Bird Count, organized by the National Audubon Society, is underway across North, Central, and parts of South America, Pacific islands, the Caribbean, and Bermuda. If you live in or near a count circle, you may see people out counting birds in your neighborhood anytime between December 14 and January 5. Volunteers who participate in the Christmas Bird Count are ordinary citizens: backyard birdwatchers, serious birders, conservationists, ornithologists and any one else who is keen to get out and count birds for a day in December or January.

The results of the Christmas Bird Count are used to monitor bird movements and populations from year to year. Last year, participants counted about 62 million birds, and provided valuable information about the ways in which the severe hurricanes of 2005 affected the distribution of birds in the southern United States.

For information on how to get involved with future counts, visit the Audubon website.

Read more about the Christmas Bird Count:

The Christmas Bird Count

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

We’ve been keeping an eye on the Gentoo Penguins nesting at GARS O’Higgins in Antarctica since early November. Web cams there that refresh the picture every 15 to 30 minutes have provided many excellent shots of Gentoos sitting on their circular nests of small rocks, and the occasional shot of a penguin adjusting the two mottled grey eggs nestled in the depression. When the penguins weren’t doing much, it was fascinating to look at the Antarctic scenery, particularly the icebergs moving about offshore.

The long-awaited day has arrived – the penguin in the close up web cam has at least one hatchling tucked safely in the warm hollow of the nest. When the parent bird stands up, you can catch a glimpse of a fluffy little grey body and a small wing. The views of the penguin chicks are certain to get better in the coming days. Bookmark the web cams and check them frequently!

Previous blogs about the web cams:

Penguin Webcam

Whooping Crane and Penguin Update

Related content:

A Gentoo Penguin's Life Cycle

How do Penguins Keep Warm?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

W601 is one of a pair of Whooping Cranes chicks that hatched in the wild this last spring in Wisconsin – the first Whooping Cranes to hatch in the wild there in over 100 years. The parents of W601 are cranes that were released from the captive reared birds of Operation Migration, a program that is attempting to reestablish a population of Whooping Cranes in eastern North America by hatching them in captivity and teaching them to migrate using ultra light aircraft.

On Dec 09, this “First Family” completed migration, arriving in Chassahowitzka, Florida. Making history again, W601 is the first second generation Whooping Crane of the Eastern Migratory Population to migrate successfully at the end of the breeding season. The chick remains with its parents, who have moved on to Pasco County, where they will probably spend the winter.

As is often the case, the other chick, W602, did not survive to migrate.

Other content about the First Family:

Two Whooping Crane Chicks Born in the Wild Make History in Wisconsin

The First Family Whooping Crane Fledglings are Flying

Whooping Crane Family on the Move

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Nineteen of the 21 species of albatross are threatened with extinction, two of them critically. Faster than ever before, they race toward oblivion because of the dreadful mortality caused by long line fishing: the birds are caught and drowned on the baited hooks of lines cast for tuna, swordfish and, in the southern oceans, Patagonian toothfish.

The Friends of Television Trust for the Environment (TVE) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) have produced a video, “Race to Save the Albatross,” featuring Prince Charles as an outspoken supporter of the cause. Albatross deaths can be greatly reduced, they say, if fishing boats would take simple precautions: use weighted long lines to sink the hooks faster, set the lines at night when albatrosses are not about, and fix streamers to the back of the boat to frighten birds away.

With albatross deaths estimated at as high as 100,000 each year, there is no time to lose. The world’s fishers have to change their fishing habits now.

You can view a clip of “Race to Save the Albatross” at TVE’s Earth Report, or purchase a copy from TVE.

Related content:

What is an Albatross

Endangered Albatross

Sources:

Prince Charles pledges support to save the albatross from extinction.

Race to Save the Albatross

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Nature Canada has joined forces with a number of other conservation groups and filed suit against Rona Ambrose, Canadian Minister of the Environment, in an ongoing effort to save the Piping Plover. The suit claims that Environment Canada has not implemented the Canadian Species at Risk Act: the act is designed to protect the critical habitat needed by endangered species – but can only be enforced if that critical habitat is identified.

In the case of the Piping Plover, critical habitat has not been identified in Canada though it has been identified in the United States. Piping Plovers nest on coastal beaches in Eastern Canada and on prairie salt flats – failure to provide legal protection for these breeding sites continues to threaten a species that is making a slow recovery from near extinction.

Read the full press release on the Nature Canada website.

Related content:

The Endangered Piping Plover

Saving More Piping Plovers in Saskatchewan

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

On August 18, Maine birder Lysle Brinker saw and identified a Western Reef Heron in Kittery Point. This bird is widely believed to be the same Western Reef Heron (a native of Africa and the Middle East) that had drawn birders to Glace Bay, Cape Breton in Canada earlier in the summer. In Kittery, Maine, it had the same magnetic effect.

The Wild Bird Center of Yarmouth, Maine, got involved with providing information to visiting birders, and also thought to do a survey of visitors to try to estimate the economic impact that the bird had on Kittery. They asked visitors where they had traveled from, how long they stayed, how much money they spent in Kittery (and where they spent it) and other questions.

People came from almost every state, including Alaska, and many Canadian provinces, to see the heron. A report on the study, “The Economic Impact of the Western Reef Heron (Egretta gularis) on the Town of Kittery. Maine in August of 2006”, by Jeanette Lovitch and Derek Lovitch, gives the estimated total spent in just nine days at more than $9300.00. Given that this total is based on spending in Kittery alone, the authors predict that tens of thousands were spent in Maine and New Hampshire during the heron’s visit.

Read this interesting report, including survey questions

About the Western Reef Heron

The Glace Bay Western Reef Heron

Related content

A Rare Bird Turns up in Nova Scotia

A Western Reef Heron is Seen in New Hampshire

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Whooping Cranes of Wisconsin continue to migrate south to their winter range in Florida. As of November 25, 12 remained in Wisconsin and 18 had arrived in Florida – all the rest are somewhere in between. The First Family, including the only Whooping Crane of this flock hatched in the wild, W601, was still in Indiana.

As of today, November 28, the captive reared class of 2006 and their ultra light leaders are in Cumberland County, Tennessee, where the winds have grounded them for the past six days. They are waiting for calm conditions before they can continue over a ridge that blocks their path.

Sadly, we now know that the twin chick of the First Family is dead. Its remains were discovered on November 23 in the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge near where it was last seen alive. This chick was separated from its twin and parents on September 12, and may have been killed by a predator that same day.

Read previous updates on the migration:

Nov 23 - Whooping Crane Family on the Move

Nov 17 - Whooping Crane and Penguin Update

Oct 28 - Update on Whooping Crane Migration

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In November, the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) added the Common Kestrel to its Nest Record Scheme Concern List (NRS) – it seems that Common Kestrels in the United Kingdom used to commonly rear four or five chicks in a brood, but now often rear only three. It’s bad news for a species that has recently had to deal with habitat loss. The birds were in decline from the 1970s through the 1990s, and were already on the “Amber” list of the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) but seemed to be doing better in recent years. They nest in holes or on ledges and typically hunt for small mammals and birds in open country, frequenting roadside and railway verges.

Common kestrels are the only kestrels found in the UK, but they are also found in Continental Europe, Asia, and Africa. The American Kestrel, the only kestrel of North America, is doing well.

Read the Press Release from BTO

Related content:

What is a Kestrel?

Birds Glossary

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

After the wild Whooping Cranes of Wood Buffalo and the captive reared Whooping Crane chicks of Operation Migration in Wisconsin had all left their summer territory and headed south for the winter, the First Family remained in Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, foraging in the snow. The First Family, two adults and one chick – one of twins that were the first Whooping Cranes born in the wild in eastern North America in over a hundred years – seemed in no hurry to leave their range in the refuge where they had spent the summer.

But leave they did, finally, on November 18, roosting with a large group of Whooping and Sandhill Cranes at nearby West Rynearson Pool, then leaving again on the first leg of their migration. By the evening of November 19, they were in Indiana. Watch here, or read the Operation Migration Field Journal for further reports of their progress.

The fate of the second chick, which disappeared in early September, remains a mystery, but it is encouraging to see that the folks at Operation Migration have not written the chick off: the Nov 21st Field Journal Entry describes the eastern migratory population as having “1 or 2 wild-hatched chicks.” Presumably the missing chick might have flown to join some of the other released Whooping Cranes in the area.

Operation Migration still needs support for their team of ultra light aircraft pilots and ground crew leading the captive reared cranes on their first migration to Florida. Click the link at the Field Journal titled “We Need Your Help” if you can sponsor a mile or part of a mile. It’s a different kind of air mile - one that can’t help but make you feel great.

Check up on migrating captive reared Whooping Cranes

Whooping Crane and Penguin Update

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

If you live in the United Kingdom or Continental Europe, or if you ever go bird watching there, you might find Surfbirds.com’s Online Identification Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe very useful. The guide has a quick way of narrowing down bird identification using four simple questions, as well as ways to search by broad criteria such as habitat and type of bird. You can also search for, or by, common names and scientific names. Visit the galleries - the pictures are excellent.

The guide allows you to search only for British birds, and a link on the page: “Surfbirds Where to go Birding in Britain,” allows you to search for good bird watching sites near your location. This is sure to be a great resource for birders in Britain.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Whooping Cranes

On November 17, 2006, the captive reared Whooping Cranes from the Necedah Refuge in Wisconsin are in Indiana. They’ve had many grounded days due to poor weather, but look up! They are flying today. The Field Journal reports that their destination today is Muscatatuck, IN, and that, if all goes well, anyone up early enough in Muscatatuck tomorrow can watch their departure (that’s if they do stop in Muscatatuck and tomorrow is a fly day.) Check the Field Journal for details.

The wild Whooping Cranes of Wood Buffalo, Alberta, and Aransas, Texas, are arriving in Aransas gradually. Two hundred and eight cranes have already arrived, including 39 chicks (six pairs of twins!) – a record number of chicks and they are not all there yet. Meanwhile, the wild First Family from Necedah, now with just one chick, has not yet begun migration. There is a recent picture of them in the Field Journal, foraging in snow.

Read about Whooping Cranes and the First Family, and view pictures:

Wild Canadian Whooping Cranes Hatch 76 Chicks in 2006

Whooping Crane Chicks Born in the Wild Make History in Wisconsin

Operation Migration Photo Journal

Gentoo Penguins

Five web cams are now functional at GARS O’Higgins in Antarctica. (The one that remains off line now shows a stunning picture of the surrounding landscape.) The penguins sitting on nests remain stoic and patient through all weather. Little changes from day to day at the moment, but the first eggs should hatch late in the first week of December or early in the second week. Then it will get much more interesting.

We know that the male and female penguins take turns sitting on the nest but even in the close-up picture I can’t tell who’s who. Can you? Join the discussion.

Read about Gentoo penguins and the GARS O’Higgins web cams.

A Gentoo Penguin’s Life Cycle

Penguin Webcam

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Factory chickens are often crowded together in small cages where they can’t spread their wings – one building may house more than 100,000 chickens. Lack of exercise and constant egg production make the chickens weak and calcium deficient so that their legs won’t hold them up. They have their beaks cut off. They are continually given antibiotics to increase egg laying and control diseases. They never see daylight. After close to a year of this horrific existence, they are inhumanely slaughtered without any attempt to ease their terror and pain.

The group Compassion in World Farming (CIFW) is campaigning not only to keep a European ban on battery cages scheduled to come into force in 2012, but also to end the use of enriched battery cages which are not much better. The group favors alternative methods such as loose flocks kept in large barns with perches available, or free range flocks of chickens.

A computer games technology student named Pete Wilmshurst has created a video for CIFW that’s catching on around the world. It looks like it’s going to raise the profile of this animal rights issue almost overnight. Have you ever seen a chicken playing a guitar and singing? Visit Keep the Ban on Battery Cages. You’ll love it – and maybe you’ll consider buying free range eggs if you don’t do so already.

PS: As of the end of December, 2006, the video appears to be unavailable. The link above takes you to the campaign page...

For information about the lives of factory chickens in battery cages, visit these sites:

CIFW

all-creatures.org

Related content:

Poultry Slaughter Law Suit

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

On November 12, 2006, The Galveston County Daily News reported on the arrest of Jim Stevenson, president of the Galveston Ornithological Society. Stevenson is accused of shooting cats and animal cruelty.

Stevenson is caught in the middle of an ethical debate that has probably raged in every part of the Western world – birds versus cats. Cats are ubiquitous in human communities, many of them treasured and pampered with a warm house to sleep in and plenty of food provided. Most of them go outdoors and roam free. Cat lovers energetically defend their beloved pets.

However, because domestic cats have escaped or been abandoned, there are also millions of feral cats that live and multiply in the wild. All cats kill birds, but the damage that feral cats in particular do to bird populations cannot be overstated. Feral cats kill millions of birds. Everywhere. Every day. Bird lovers want something done about the carnage.

The area where Stevenson allegedly shot cats is habitat for threatened and endangered birds. The cats in the area are feral, but are apparently fed by workers at a nearby toll bridge, and there is a suggestion that the cat that was injured on the day that Stevenson was arrested was pregnant. Clearly, if nothing changed, the situation was grim for birds in the area.

We can imagine the frustration of knowing that cats have gone wild because of the carelessness of people, that they continue to multiply and kill countless birds and other wildlife, including endangered species, and that municipalities have no control over the problem. We can’t, however, condone individuals taking matters into their own hands and causing needless suffering to animals and danger to other people.

Read the news story by Scott E. Williams.

What’s to be done? Join the discussion.

Articles about other ways that humans indirectly cause bird deaths:

Teshekpuk Lake Threatened

Migrating Birds and Buildings

Birds and Windmills

Endangered Piping Plovers

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Gentoo Penguins begin nesting at GARS O’Higgins research station in late October. This research station maintains a group of webcams that provide a delightful window into the lives of these captivating birds. Click here to be taken to the page where you can select your favorite view of the nesting penguins:

• Penguin cam 1 renews its picture every fifteen minutes. It provides two pictures of the colony – one fairly close up and a wide angle shot from farther away. You will see a lineup of nesting penguins on the concrete base of the antenna as well as other nests on the bare ground around the antenna. Penguins that are not sitting on nests are seen here and there throughout the colony.The wide angle picture is a good perspective from which to keep track of the receding snow banks. If you click on “picture details” to the left of the shot, you will get an interesting annotated picture that identifies other features of the station.
• Penguin cam 2, like cam 1, renews its picture every 15 minutes and has two views. One is a close-up picture of a nesting Gentoo penguin, with a second nest just behind. The wide angle shot steps back to include at least five nests, though some of them are right at the edge of the picture and the whole nest can’t always be seen. Remember that these pictures show what’s happening right now! This cam will be irresistible once the eggs hatch.
• Station cams 1 and 2 can be seen on the same page (the bottom link). These pictures of the station itself, with the penguin colony at the edge, show a seascape that changes daily. The weather is usually clear and the beautiful icebergs that come and go in the background are quite fascinating. A human can sometimes be seen quite close to the penguins – presumably one of the scientists manning the research station.

Enjoy the webcams, and if you’re reading this after the Gentoo Penguin nesting season is over, drop back in October when the next season is starting: Gentoo Penguins come back to the same place year after year. Hopefully webcams do too!

Join a discussion about the Gentoo webcams

More about Gentoo Penguins

A Gentoo Penguin’s Life Cycle

Related content

How do Penguins Keep Warm?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Oology is the study of eggs, a useful pastime if we are trying to learn about birds but a potential problem if the eggs are being removed from the nest. Egg collecting has been a popular hobby for centuries. Egg collectors get great pleasure from the challenge of acquiring eggs – both finding the nest and getting to it – and displaying their collections. It’s true that bird’s eggs can be very beautiful and many are quite distinctive.

Unfortunately, things can get out of hand with oology and egg collecting, as when the collector takes all of the eggs in the nest, or many collectors go after eggs of a species that is dwindling in numbers. Even disturbing the nest can make adult birds desert their eggs or reveal nest locations to predators. Egg collecting is so detrimental to threatened birds, in fact, that collecting and possessing wild birds’ eggs has been forbidden in many places (it has been illegal in the US since about 1918).

A recent discovery, in Britain, of a collection of between 5,000 and 10,000 wild bird eggs gives us an idea of the impact that a single avid bird collector can have on bird populations. Collecting wild birds’ eggs has been illegal there since 1954. Read the story at the link below.

Sources:

Largest Haul of Wild Birds Eggs

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Have you heard of the Thanksgiving bird count? It’s a similar idea to the Christmas bird count but on a smaller scale. Volunteers choose a circle 15 feet in diameter, and for one hour on Thanksgiving Day they take a careful tally of every bird that flies into or through it. Circles are often chosen with a bird feeder or other bird attraction in the center and the bird counter can stay inside watching from a window if it’s cold outside. Alternatively, you can choose a circle in a wilderness location, at the beach, or anywhere you want. Every bird is counted just once, even if it leaves the circle and returns.

The Thanksgiving bird counting tradition was apparently begun in the 60s, in Virginia, by Dr. Ernest Edwards and the Lynchburg Bird Club. It has remained an annual event and spread throughout the entire United States including Alaska and Hawaii. If you’re interested in participating in the count, download a form , choose your circle and set aside one hour on Thanksgiving day.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Loons, gulls, grebes, and other fish-eating water birds are dying by the dozens in Lake Ontario. Clostridium botulinum Type E toxin is killing them. The birds probably ingest the toxin in fish: the fish either have the toxin in their tissues, or have themselves ingested something that contains the toxin. An affected bird loses the use of its feet and wings.

The toxin is produced by an anerobic (living without oxygen) bacterium, Clostridium botulinum – an organism that is always present in the environment of the Great Lakes region but which only flares up sporadically to poison fish-eating wild birds. Surveillance sweeps of sick or dead birds and other wildlife are done annually to try to keep track of outbreaks of the disease. While it’s hard on populations of water birds, and this year’s outbreak is worse than usual, it also poses a grave risk to humans who consume birds, fish, or other wildlife suffering from the toxin.

For more information on Type E Botulism in the Great Lakes region, read my article:

Type E Botulism and Birds

Related content:

Carrots and Botulism

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Operation Migration Whooping Cranes are now in Illinois having crossed from Wisconsin on Oct 24. Wind, rain, and turbulence keep them grounded many a day, and the human pilots leading them south must contend with engine trouble and early morning frost on the wings – all the same, a look at the comparison graph for other years shows that this year’s migration is not doing too badly. No doubt they’ll arrive in Florida before the middle of December as usual.

There are some wonderful videos of Whooping Cranes at National Geographic News, including great video footage of the first day of the migration and commentary by Joe Duff, one of the pilots and also co-founder of the program. Another of the pilots, Chris Gullikson, is also shown. Don't miss these great shots of Whooping Cranes and the ultra light aircraft in the air and on the ground.

Previous blog posts about the migration:

October 4, 2006 Whooping Cranes are Migrating

October 12, 2006 Inside a Whooping Crane Migration

October 18, 2006 News About Operation Migration

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Saturday, Oct 28 is Feed the Birds Day in the UK. Organized by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Feed the Birds Day coincides with the day the clocks are turned back an hour – a sure sign that the days are getting shorter and cold weather is coming. On Oct 28, bird enthusiasts in the UK can participate in special activities happening near them: nature walks, presentations, hands-on activities like making birdfeeders or examining owl pellets, question periods and other things. And they can make an extra effort to feed the wild birds at home.

Wherever you are on Saturday, mark Feed the Birds Day by putting out a special treat for the birds in your backyard.

Find out more about Feed the Birds Day on the RSPB website.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Northern Bald Ibis, or Waldrapp, is a critically endangered bird: once common in Europe, hunting wiped the species out there several hundred years ago. They have survived in Africa and the Middle East but there may be fewer than 1000 of the birds left alive today in the wild. Two wild flocks are known: one spends summers in Syria and the other is a non-migratory flock living in Morocco. Until now, no one knew where the Syrian birds went when they left Syria to migrate south for the winter each year.

In 2006, a cooperative group including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Government of Syria, and Birdlife Middle East teamed up to track the migration of the Syrian flock by tagging them with satellite transmitters. Three tagged birds have now been tracked to a remote location in Ethiopia. If they stay in this location for the winter, we will know where conservation efforts are urgently required to keep them safe until they migrate north again.

It looks as though bird tagging with satellite transmitters may be coming into its own as a tool for species conservation.

Source: Northern Bald Ibis in Syria (RSPB)

Related content:

White-faced Ibis

Thoth

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

High atop the Andes, in a patch of undisturbed Andean cloud forest, researchers have found another bird that has never been described before. The identification of the Yellow and Red-crowned Yariguíes Brush-finch (Altapetes latinuchus yariguíerum) was published in the Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. The name Yariguíes refers to an indigenous tribe that used to live in the area.

The Yellow and Red-crowned Yariguíes Brush-finch, or Yariguíes Brush-finch has a bright yellow breast, a black back and a striking red crown. A closely related brush-finch, the Yellow-breasted Brush-finch has a lighter back and white markings on the wings that the new sub-species lacks.

The bird appears to be relatively rare and restricted to high elevations in the Andes. Because of its limited habitat and the threat of habitat loss, it is already considered “near threatened.” Fortunately, the recent designation of the Cerulean Warbler Bird Reserve within its range should help.

Other recently described birds:

Indigenous Crossbill for Scotland

A New Species: The Bugun Liocichla

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

What is El Coyote? Read my article “El Niño, El Coyote, and the Birds.” It seems that this strange phenomenon didn’t just hit the seabirds and marine life of California: its effects were felt further north as well. Cassin’s Auklet chicks in colonies off the west coast of Canada died in the millions in 2005 because the adults could not find food. Fortunately, 2006 was a better year.

Scientists are still studying the events of the last two years and the picture is becoming clearer. It isn’t that the normal upwelling of cold ocean water from the depths isn’t occurring; it’s that it is arriving later than usual – too late for species that rely on it for food during the breeding season.

The phenomenon may originate even further north in the Gulf of Alaska, where weather and currents affect the jet stream and the California Current, the force behind the coastal upwelling. Records show that it’s happened before. Whether or not the events of the last few years are a result of global warming, likely to return year after year, remains to be seen. If they are, it’s bad news for Cassin’s Auklets

Source: Schwing, Franklin B.; Bond, Nicholas A.; Bograd, Steven J.; Mitchell, Todd; Alexander, Michael A.; Mantua, Nathan. “Delayed coastal upwelling along the U.S. West Coast in 2005: A historical perspective.” Geophys. Res. Lett., Vol. 33, No. 22, 07 October 2006.

Other blog entries about El Coyote:

El Coyote?

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Operation Migration Whooping Cranes are en route to Florida. They’re not moving very fast, being grounded on many days by bad weather, but in spite of delays, they’re on schedule. If you’re interested in keeping an eye on how they’re doing compared to other years, bookmark this graph.

Operation Migration is a nonprofit organization that relies on donations to fund the yearly migration for captive reared Whooping Crane chicks. This has been a tough year in the fundraising department, but three cheers for the enthusiastic efforts of students at Louisville Kentucky’s John F. Kennedy Montessori School, who wrote to Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil Corporation. Their letters to him, asking for funding and gas for the cranes, brought tears to my eyes. Will ExxonMobil rise to the challenge of helping save the Whooping Crane? You can see photos of the students and read the letters they sent to Mr. Tillerson. There’s great art work too.

Keep track of the day to day events of the migration on the Operation Migration Field Journal , or watch this blog for updates.

Recent post about the migration:

October 12, 2006 Inside a Whooping Crane Migration

October 4, 2006 Whooping Cranes are Migrating

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Wind turbines seem to be the current favorite means to generate clean renewable energy, but there is plenty of heated debate about just how great they are. Those who don’t like them complain that they’re noisy and ugly – and that they kill a lot of birds. The first two problems may be debatable, but there’s no doubt that wind turbines do kill birds. It’s surprising how many trusting birds fly near the tall structures only to die a sudden and violent death as the blades come around.

It seems, however, that some wind farms are much more lethal to birds than others - it’s all about location. When turbines are placed in migration flyways or in the hunting areas of bird species, they can take a terrible toll. If they’re placed in locations where birds are less likely to visit, they’re not such a problem. Perhaps, with proper environmental assessments, we can reach an acceptable compromise.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the United Kingdom is off to a good start: the society has just produced a map of the British Isles that identifies areas where wind farms could be particularly lethal to birds. According to the map, almost a third of the land area poses either low risk to birds or the risk is unknown. It will be interesting to see what wind farm developers do with this information.

Source: News.Scotsman.com, Oct 10, 2006

Read Birds and Windmills for more details about the problem of wind turbines and bird mortality.

Related content:

Windpower

Wind Power

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Where have the vultures of Asia gone? They started to disappear in the 1990’s with populations falling by as much as 30 percent per year. Today, 95 percent of them are gone. While vultures don’t have the reputation of being the nicest of birds, they are often referred to as a keystone species. Vultures help clear away dead animal carcasses, thereby limiting populations of other scavengers and preventing the spread of disease. Without vultures, populations of other species shift with significant consequences for the environment as a whole.

So what’s happened to the vultures? The answer is Diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat both humans and animals. The drug has been used in human medicine for a long time, but only recently made its way into veterinary medicine. Cheap and effective, it’s become a first line drug for livestock. There’s a problem, however – it causes kidney failure, and it causes it in birds at one tenth the dose that’s safe in mammals. When an animal is treated with Diclofenac and dies shortly afterwards, its remains lying out in the open, vultures that come to commence the cleanup receive a lethal dose.

Finally, in 2006, Asian countries have banned the use of Diclofenac, and veterinary medicine is switching to the much safer drug, Meloxicam. Removal of Diclofenac from the environment, and captive breeding programs, may save the Asian vultures that have come close to extinction. Only time will tell.

An excellent article on this issue can be found at Bird Life International

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Whooping Cranes raised in captivity in Necedah, Wisconsin, began their migration on October 5. They were lead to their first stopover, a brief flight of just four miles, by humans flying ultra light aircraft. The description of the first flight in the Operation Migration Journal (link below) makes it obvious that this is not a simple matter of a flock of birds lifting off with one intent.

The human leaders must get the young birds to follow, adjust their flight to gather in stragglers, and even return to the starting point to pick up birds that have decided not to venture into new territory. Passing strange features on land, like freeways and power lines, can disrupt the flock and weaker birds will tire and drop out. At the end of the day, they are all gathered up, crated and transported by road if necessary, and penned at the stopover point. It all makes you wonder what adult birds go through as they lead their offspring south for the first time.

Weather kept the Necedah cranes at stopover #1 until October 10, when they were able to continue to stopover #2 in South Juneau County - so they have not gone far but they are on their way. Keep track of this fascinating journey yourself, and learn about all the dangers and obstacles faced by birds and human leaders alike, in the Operation Migration Field Journal.

As of Oct 10, the First Family of Whooping Cranes in Wisconsin, now two parents and one chick, had not begun migration. No one has seen the second chick since Sept. 12.

Related content:

Dangers for Migrating Birds

Whooping Cranes are Migrating

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has just released a document, signed Sept 22, 2006, detailing a recovery plan for 21 Hawaiian birds. Most of the birds are listed as endangered, while one is a candidate for that listing and one is a bird species of special concern. Regardless of the official listings, there have not been confirmed sightings of ten of the endangered birds in more than ten years, while the species of concern, the Bishop’s `o`o, hasn’t been seen with certainty since 1904. It looks as if, for some of these birds, the recovery plan is too little, too late.

Habitat destruction, diseases and predators, and other threats specific to species such as loss of native plants are the things that are considered to be particularly significant threats to Hawaiian birds. The introduction of invasive plants and animals, and the diseases they have brought with them, have had a highly destructive effect on some bird species.

A species will be considered to have recovered when its numbers are large enough to maintain a viable population that has remained stable or increased for fifteen consecutive years. In addition, a suitable area of habitat will have been restored and all identified threats removed. Though some species may recover relatively quickly, if you want to know the outcome of the recovery plan, check back in about 30 years.

The 21 species covered by the plan are

• O`ahu `elepaio (Chasiempis sandwichensis ibidis)
• Maui nukupu`u (Hemignathus lucidus affinis)
• Kaua`i nukupu`u (Hemignathus lucidus hanapepe)
• `akiapola`au (Hemignathus munroi)
• Kaua’i `akialoa (Hemignathus procerus)
• Palila (Loxioides bailleui)
• Po`ouli (Melamprosops phaeosoma)
• Bishop’s `o`o (Moho bishopi)
• Kaua`i `o`o (Moho braccatus)
• Moloka`i Thrush (Myadestes lanaiensis rutha)
• Large Kaua`i Thrush (Myadestes myadestinus)
• Kaua`i Thrush (Myadestes palmeri)
• Kaua`i Creeper (Oreomystis bairdi)
• Hawaii Creeper (Oreomystis mana)
• Crested Honeycreeper (Palmeria dolei)
• Moloka`i Creeper (Paroreomyza flammea)
• O`ahu creeper (Paroreomyza maculata)
• Maui Parrotbill (Pseudonestor xanthophrys)
• `o`u (Psittirostra psittacea)
• Hawaii `akepa (Loxops coccineus coccineus)
• Maui `akepa (Loxops coccineus ochraceus)

Read the full recovery plan.

Start a discussion about endangered Hawaiian birds.

Related articles:

Moloka Part 7 Journey into Nature

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In my last blog post, Whooping Cranes are Migrating, I wrote: “As the 2006 migration gets underway, the total count of Whooping Cranes in the world stands at 498.” How many will there be when the migrating flocks have completed their journey? We can well imagine that since the first birds migrated on Earth, there have been significant dangers associated with the trip: unexpected severe weather, attacks by predators, and the danger of individuals and inexperienced fledglings getting lost or separated. People, however, have made migration much more dangerous for birds.

On September 20, Newsday.com reported on the deaths of eight rare Hudsonian Godwits, electrocuted in New York as they made their way to South America for the winter. On the same day, Central Valley Business Times (CVBT) wrote about efforts in California to make migration past windmills safer for migrating birds. Meanwhile, bird enthusiasts and nature lovers lament the small feathered bodies of birds found beneath the reflective windows of homes and skyscrapers alike.

Sadly, this year will be no different for migrating birds: thousands won’t arrive safely in their winter range. Watch for my article on bird collisions with windows and how we may be able to avoid some of these deaths.

Start a discussion about migrating bird fatalities.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

It’s time for Whooping Cranes to head south for the winter. They don't fly together but leave the nesting grounds a few at a time, the adult birds leading their offspring on their first journey south. The birds from the wild Wood Buffalo flock spend the winter in Aransas, Texas, and some of them are already on the move – they’re being seen as far south as North Dakota already.

The young birds in the Wisconsin captive rearing program are scheduled to leave on October 5, weather permitting. They’ll be led, by humans dressed as cranes in ultra light aircraft, to a winter location in Florida. They and their leaders have been training for weeks.

The first family of Whooping Cranes – will be heading south too, at their own convenience. Sadly, it looks like just three of the family of four will be making the trip. The larger of the two fledglings became separated from the other three early in September and has not been seen since Sept 12. Its fate remains unknown.

As the 2006 migration gets underway, the total count of Whooping Cranes in the world stands at 498. If you live anywhere between northeast Alberta and Aransas, Texas, or between Wisconsin and Florida, keep your eyes on the sky on October – you might be lucky enough to see some Whooping Cranes pass overhead.

Keep up with the captive reared birds from Wisconsin - read the Operation Migration Field Journal. You can start a discussion about it on Suite101.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In 2005, we heard that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, feared extinct, had been seen in eastern Arkansas. In spite of a controversial video, annual searches, and sighting confirmation from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and other bird and wildlife specialists, no indisputable photographs or other definitive evidence has been collected. Some bird specialists and avid bird watchers are absolutely convinced that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker lives in the bottomland forests of eastern Arkansas while others are still saying “Show me the proof.”

Now we may be about to get proof from the swamps of Florida. An Auburn University research team believes that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker still lives in the Florida panhandle – in the swamp forest bordering the Choctawhatchee River. The team has seen the birds at least 15 times, recorded calls and knocks typical of the species, and found nesting holes and tree damage more consistent with Ivory-bills than any other woodpecker species. Again, there’s no photograph or feather yet to provide definitive proof, but let’s hope the final word is not too far away.

The team’s scholarly article, published by Avian Conservation and Ecology, can be read in its entirety on the internet:

Hill, G. E., D. J. Mennill, B. W. Rolek, T. L. Hicks, and K. A. Swiston. 2006. Evidence suggesting that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers (Campephilus principalis) exist in Florida. Avian Conservation and Ecology - Écologie et conservation des oiseaux 1(3): 2. [online] URL: http://www.ace-eco.org/vol1/iss3/art2/

Start a discussion about Ivory-billed Woodpeckers.

Birds glossary.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Just a few weeks ago, I wrote that the future of Teshekpuk Lake looked grim. An ecologically sensitive area protected from the ravages of oil drilling for decades, Teshekpuk Lake was about to be opened up to oil exploration and development. Thousands of birds, some of them endangered species, and many other plant and animal species were threatened. An oil lease sale was set for Sept 27, 2006.

Good news! In response to a suit brought by the Audubon Society, the Alaska Wilderness League, and others, Judge James K. Singleton Jr. ordered the lease sale be cancelled. The US District Court Judge found that the analysis of environmental impact was inadequate and did not satisfy legal requirements. His decision was issued on Sept 25. For now at least, the Teshekpuk Lake area is safe – pipelines and drilling pads will not be appearing there any time soon.

Read the Audubon press release.

Related posts:

The National Audubon Society is Trying to Save Teshekpuk Lake

Start a discussion about Teshekpuk Lake or other areas threatened by oil development.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Every summer cold water brought up from the depths of the Pacific by wind and ocean currents brings food to birds and other marine life along the coasts of the Americas. In El Niño years, the upwelling of cold water is less pronounced and some coastal life goes hungry – scientists have learned how to predict El Niño years and now have a better understanding of what causes them and what their effect will be on ecosystems and weather patterns.

The summers of 2005 and 2006 brought something different: no upwelling of cold water but no El Niño either. Without really understanding why the nutrients didn’t arrive, scientists can still see the impact on marine life. Species that rely on the annual arrival of abundant food are hard pressed and populations are dwindling. One seabird species particularly hard hit is the Cassin’s Auklet (family Alcidae), a relative of the puffin. Like Atlantic Puffins, Cassin’s Auklets nest in burrows on offshore islands and fish for food. When food runs short, nests are abandoned.

The name El Coyote may be catching on for the new phenomenon – a name that suggests a wily unpredictable trickster. For a closer look at El Niño and El Coyote, and their impact on birds, read El Niño, El Coyote, and the Birds.

Any comments on El Coyote? Start a Discussion.

Sources:

Emily Saarmanat. Rare ocean pattern leaves fish and birds hungry

Related articles:

Places to See Atlantic Puffins

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

When we see a group of birds, especially gulls, wheeling above the water in a particular spot and diving, we know they've found a school of fish but what we can't see is the drama unfolding under the surface of the water. Some fishers know from long experience that where the birds are is not where the big fish are - here's what's happening down below.

When large fish, the game fish that fishers are after, find a school of small fish (bait fish) to prey on, the game fish tend to circle around to keep the school together. Meanwhile, they take what they can by coming in from below. The crowded panicked bait fish move closer to the surface of the water to avoid the menace below them, eventually coming all the way to the top and spreading out under the surface in all directions. Though this may make it harder for the big fish to catch them, it exposes them to fishing birds in the air above.

Now the birds get in on the action, diving on and eating the small fish that are trying to escape the game fish. The game fish, meanwhile, finding it too hard to catch bait fish that are so dispersed, leave the feasting to the birds and go in search of other prey. The seasoned human fisher watching where the birds are feeding has to figure out which way the game fish are headed to take advantage of the clue. It's called "fishing the birds," or "working the birds."

The best time to fish the birds may be approaching in your area if gulls are staying close to shore in anticipation of winter weather. Even if you're not a fisher, try to figure out which way the game fish went. Future actions of fishing birds may prove you right or wrong.

Have you ever fished the birds? Start a discussion.

Sources:

Bacon, Capt. David. Work the Birds Working the Fish

Garrison, Ronnie. Fishing the Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Something strange is happening in a park in Regina, Saskatchewan. Someone is poisoning the birds, either maliciously or accidentally. Wascana Center is a large park in the city of Regina - about 930 ha of mixed use parkland including a waterfowl park of more than 200 ha. Mostly wetlands, the waterfowl park supports tens of thousands of birds - dozens of bird species.

In July of 2006, about 165 dead grackles were found in the Center near the waterfowl park. It was determined that they had died from pesticide poisoning - the chemical was carbofuran, a pesticide that is not used in Wascana Center. Three dogs also died. More recently, about 26 more dead grackles were found in another part of Wascana Center. This time the agent was strychnine, a deadly poison often used to kill rodents.

No one knows where the birds are getting the poison. Did they ingest it outside the park and then fly in before it took effect? Did someone deliberately feed carbofuran and strychnine to the grackles? Was it the same person on both occasions? It seems a strange coincidence that the victims were grackles on both occasions, and that both groups of birds died within the park boundaries - and deaths of three dogs also suggest that someone deliberately placed a dangerous pesticide in the park. While Wascana Center waits for answers, people using the park are warned to be very cautious, especially with children or dogs.

What's your theory? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

New Zealand is dealing with its second invasion of Red-vented Bulbuls. In 2005, two of the birds were identified in Auckland and biosecurity New Zealand has been chasing them ever since. Half a century ago, New Zealanders learned that persistence does pay off - some birds of the same species were released from a visiting ship and established themselves near Auckland. It took five years to eradicate them.

The bulbuls (Family Pycnonotidae) include 140 species, some of which may more correctly belong with the babblers. Bulbuls are not very big, ranging in length from 13 to 28 cm (5 to 11 in). They eat mainly fruit and other plant parts, and insects, and build cup-like nests of leaves and twigs, grasses, fungi and other materials in the forks of trees.

The Red-vented Bulbul is native to southern Asia. It is about the size of a starling, with a dark back, white breast, black crest, and a bright patch of red under its tail. Like others of its family it eats insects and fruit, and can make itself extremely unpopular in berry growing areas. In New Zealand, the fear is that the bulbuls would damage gardens and crops, and compete for food with native birds.

Red-vented bulbuls have long been popular cage birds, which explains why they turn up frequently outside their native range. Accidentally or illegally introduced to O'ahu and Fiji, the species is a pest in gardens and fruit growing areas, and threatens orchids by eating the buds. It is now recognized as an invasive species: loved in captivity, despised in the wild wherever it doesn't belong.

Sources:

Red-vented bulbul - Pycnonotus cafer.

Christopher Perrins Ed. Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. New York: Firefly, 2003.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

How big was the biggest bird you ever saw? It was probably an Ostrich, the largest bird on earth today. An average ostrich stands about eight feet tall and weighs close to 250 lb. Now imagine a bird about the same height - about eight feet, but twice the weight - over 500 lb - and with a large head and a powerful beak. This is Bullockornis, thunderbird.

Thunderbirds (Dromornithidae) were large flightless birds of Australia. You might expect that they would be related to Emus, the current flightless birds of Australia, but it's thought that the thunderbirds were actually more closely related to present day ducks and geese. All extinct, they died out by about 23,000 BC.

The fossil remains of Bullockornis and other thunderbirds have been turning up in fossil beds in Australia since the 1800s, but recent finds have been more complete and thus, more revealing. The October 2006 issue of Discover magazine (page 10) describes the largest of these finds as coming from a bird ten feet tall and weighing 1000 lb (Dromornis sp.).

It's hard to imagine a bird that big. It's worse when you consider that these extremely large birds were probably also carnivores. The image brings to mind the Thunderbird of Native American lore, for some tribes, a huge bird figure with a taste for human flesh. I think I could do without adding Bullockornis or Dromornis to my life list.

Additional sources consulted:

Wroe, Stephen. "The Bird from Hell?" Nature Australia Vol 26, 7:56-63

Thunder Birds - the Family Dromornithidae'

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In January 1995, astronomer Ramana Athreya was bird-watching in the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh, India when he saw a pair of unusual birds, birds that he recognized as liocichlas, or Asian Babblers, but which did not look quite like any liocichla he had ever seen before. Rare and elusive, they were not seen again until January of 2005.

Athreya had a tentative identification of Liocichla omeiensis, but he needed to get a closer look at the birds; he obtained permission to capture one in a mist net. Working with several others, he was finally successful in May of 2006. He examined the bird, took pictures of it, gathered up the feathers that had gotten caught in the net and released the unharmed liochicla back into the sanctuary.

Even if the bird had turned out to be Liocichla omeiensis it would have been a newsworthy discovery because that bird had never been found within 1000 kilometers of

Eaglenest. This bird, however, was something brand new - a liocichla that, based on its size, plumage and song, had never been seen before. A brand new species. He proposes the name Liocichla bugunorum: the Bugun Liocichla.

You can download the PDF of the scientific paper (with beautiful pictures) in which Athreya's discovery was reported: Athreya, R. "A New Species of Liocichla (Aves: Timaliidae) from Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh, India." Indian Birds Vol 2, No. 4 (July-August 2006).

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Guardian Unlimited (UK) reports that birds in England's Midlands and south-west, as well as Wales, are suffering an epidemic of a deadly parasitic infection. The parasite is Trichomonas gallinae, a single-celled protozoan related to Trichomonas vaginalis, the organism that causes human trichomoniasis. T. gallinae infests the oral cavity and crop of birds and in serious cases can spread to internal organs, particularly the liver and lungs. Some strains of the parasite are quite deadly, killing a high percentage of infected birds.

The birds that are dying in the UK are "garden birds"- finches and house sparrows. The parasite may in fact be spreading via bird feeders and bird baths, a fact that should prompt us to ponder our responsibilities as backyard birdwatchers. Could we be doing more harm than good at times? Watch for my upcoming article on Trichomonas gallinae, and how we can avoid spreading it to our garden birds.

You might also be interested in my article on Birding Ethics.

Read the article in the Guardian Unlimited

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I checked in on the wild Whooping Crane chicks in Wisconsin: the two chicks are not fledged yet, but they are ground effect flying, and should be reaching higher altitudes soon. The trainers at Operation Migration are preparing to colour band the chicks and equip them with radio collars: once they begin their migration south with their parents, the young birds will be carefully tracked. While they are being banded, they will also get a health checkup.

Wild Whooping Crane parents show their young the way south free of charge, but the task of leading the captive reared Whooping Crane chicks on their first migration south is accomplished with ultra light aircraft manned by pilots dressed as cranes. It's an expensive exercise that relies largely on donated funds. Operation Migration is appealing for donations: visit their site if you can sponsor a mile of migration.

If you're going to be in Wisconsin between now and November 12, 2006, and particularly if you're going to be in Wausau, Wisconsin, you should check out the 31st annual "Birds in Art" exhibit at the Leigh Yawkey Art Museum. The exhibit features birds in art from 15 different countries - paintings, of course, but also three dimensional works of art. The museum is located at 700 North Twelfth St., on the east side of Wausau. For more information, visit the

museum's website.

Previous blog entries chronicling the wild Whooping Crane Chicks:

Two Whooping Crane Chicks Born in the Wild Make History in Wisconsin

Whooping Crane Chicks Thrive and a Rare Bird Turns Up in Nova Scotia

Answering Questions About the Extinct Dodo Bird

Update on the Whooping Crane Chicks and Glace Bay Western Reef Heron

The First Family Whooping Crane Chicks are Flying

Wisconsin Cranes and Hurricanes

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

On Sept 6, 2006, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the US district court ruled that the US Department of Agriculture can be sued for their unsafe and inhumane policies on poultry slaughter.

In 1958, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act stipulated that animals could not be hung upside down and/or slaughtered while conscious - they have to be slaughtered in such a way that they do not feel pain. In the poultry slaughter house, however, things are different: for some reason turkeys, chickens, and other birds are excluded from humane slaughter requirements. It's not that the wording of the act excludes them (it doesn't mention any birds, but it does mention "other livestock"): it's that the act has been interpreted as excluding them. To this day, domestic birds are stunned with electricity, scalded to death while conscious and hung by their feet while conscious.

The poultry law suit alleges that current methods of poultry slaughter are not only inhumane, but also dangerous: they risk contaminating the poultry, destined for consumer's dinner tables, with organisms that cause human disease.

Your author does not eat poultry and this is one of the reasons why. Moreover, I can't imagine how it makes sense to anyone that a pig or a cow is deserving of humane treatment but a bird is not. I'll be watching this law suit and hoping to see some big changes in the way birds are treated in the poultry slaughter house (and after that, maybe we can do something about the way they're treated in the barn...).

Read more about the health risks of inhumane slaughter: Poultry Slaughter and Contamination

Related content:

Veal for the Food Police

What do you think of the attempt to enforce more humane poultry slaughter in the United States? Start a discussion.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The First Family of Whooping Cranes in Wisconsin, with two chicks raised in the wild (read this ongoing story in my previous blog entries, below), has been visiting the Whooping Cranes in the captive breeding program near their marsh. The visits result in some aggression between the two groups of birds, and some amusing peacemaking attempts by the humans on site. The wild chicks are about 80 days old, healthy and starting to fly short distances. One of them is already bigger than the adult female. Read the detailed account and enjoy recent pictures at the Operation Migration Field Journal.

Tropical Storm Florence is gathering strength in the Atlantic, and predictions suggest that it may intensify to hurricane strength and possibly threaten Bermuda by the weekend. Bermuda is the nesting site of the Bermuda Petrel, or Cahow, a critically endangered bird. In 2002, Hurricane Fabian destroyed Cahow nesting burrows on offshore islands, and washed away large portions of the islands. Fortunately, the birds were not present at the time and manmade burrows were quickly reconstructed before the petrels arrived to nest. Efforts have also been made to encourage Bermuda Petrels to nest higher up and on safer islands. In 2005, 71 pairs nested in Bermuda, an increase of 53 pairs since the early 1960s.

Many birds, particularly seabirds, nest on islands where there is less danger from predators. One of the best loved seabirds is the Atlantic Puffin, a charming and colorful bird that nests off North America, Greenland, Iceland, and Northern Europe. While the Atlantic Puffin is doing well, and the Bermuda Petrel appears to be making a comeback from near extinction, the Dodo Bird was not so lucky. Read my articles about Atlantic Puffins and Dodo Birds:

Places to See Atlantic Puffins

The Mysterious Extinct Dodo Bird

Previous blog entries chronicling the wild Whooping Crane Chicks:

Two Whooping Crane Chicks Born in the Wild Make History in Wisconsin

Whooping Crane Chicks Thrive and a Rare Bird Turns Up in Nova Scotia

Answering Questions About the Extinct Dodo Bird

Update on the Whooping Crane Chicks and Glace Bay Western Reef Heron

The First Family Whooping Crane Fledglings are Flying

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Today we all heard of the tragic death of Australian Steve Irwin, often referred to as the Crocodile Hunter. Ironically, his death didn't result from a clash with a crocodile, snake or venomous spider, the creatures he was so famous for fearlessly handling, but from a small stingray. The sharp barbed tip of the stingray's tail punctured Irwin's heart as he swam over it. Stingrays very rarely kill people: Irwin's death is only the second confirmed Australian death from a stingray barb.

Though Irwin was best known for his love of reptiles, he was a committed environmentalist and an advocate for all animal species, including birds. He was devoted to bringing wild animals to people - a project to educate people and help them to understand nature better. Who knows what he might have accomplished for nature and animal conservation if he had lived.

Steve Irwin and birds:

• The live animal shows at Irwin's Australia Zoo, in Beerwah, Queensland, often included a live bird show, in which untethered birds flew about above the crowd and returned to handlers scattered among the audience.
• Irwin wasn't afraid of very much, but the one animal he went on record as being terrified of was a bird. In an interview with TV Guide Online, he remarked that cockatoos were his "kryptonite," with "beaks... like bolt cutters." Apparently he was mauled by a Sulfur Crested Cockatoo when he was four - the bird attacked his nose.
• What is the Steve Irwin of the bird world? The Egyptian Plover walks into the open mouths of crocodiles to pick scraps of meat and parasites from between the reptile's teeth. The croc, grateful for the cleaning, allows the bird to exit unharmed. No doubt Steve Irwin would approve.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Do you love Christmas? If you're always open to new ideas for making Christmas a special time and you really know your local North or South American birds, consider joining in the Christmas Bird Count.

On page 22 of the September/October, 2006 issue of Audubon, there an article titled "Do Something!" It discusses the impending fate of Teshekpuk Lake and its surroundings, a unique and fragile environment in northern Alaska. Teshekpuk Lake lies just a few miles inland from the Arctic Ocean, between Smith Bay and Harrison Bay. It is surrounded by meadow, wetlands, and smaller freshwater lakes. The area is the molting ground for up to 60,000 geese each year, and also supports a variety of other bird species, including the rare Spectacled Eider and the Yellow-billed Loon, both threatened species. It's a vital area for other wildlife as well, and an important hunting and fishing area for native people.

In 1977, Teshekpuk Lake was identified as a special area in need of protection, and this was reiterated in 1998 when most of it was designated unavailable for oil and gas development. But those days are over: the US Bureau of Land Management is making the sensitive area of Teshekpuk available for oil exploration and development. If this goes ahead, the pristine landscape will soon be crisscrossed by roads and pipelines, and pockmarked by gravel pits and drilling pads.

Audubon is asking those who value wildlife and environment over a relatively small amount of oil to write to Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240, or your U. S. representative. For more information, visit www.audubon.org/campaign/teshekpuk.

I'm not a U.S. citizen, so I can't write my representative, but in my own small way, I can still "do something" - I can spread the word.

Related article:

Teshekpuk Lake Threatened

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Birders in New Hampshire are watching a Western Reef Heron, native to Africa and the Middle East. The heron was seen in Maine near Kittery Point on Aug 18, then in New Castle, New Hampshire the following day. It is still in the New Castle area today (Aug 30, 2006). Is this the same bird that thrilled birdwatchers in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia earlier in the summer? The Glace Bay bird was last seen in that location about Aug 8, and it was speculated that it might be a long time immigrant, migrating between northeastern Canada and the Caribbean annually. It seems likely that this is the same bird moving south as winter approaches. It will be fascinating to see whether it continues to catch the eye of birdwatchers to the south over the coming weeks.

You may want to spend a few moments with an interesting birdfeeder webcam in New Zealand called the Little Valley Webcam. It is not always running, but when it is, there is often a lot of activity. I've seen both Tuis and Wax Eyes at the feeder but never both birds together. The picture updates once a minute and sometimes you see the Tuis in one shot, then the Wax Eyes in the next, then the Tuis again and so on, as though they are happily taking turns. Indeed, the webmaster remarks that the Tuis ignore the Wax Eyes but chase away the larger Bellbirds (which I haven't seen). One minute seems like a long time when you are waiting, so I minimize the page while I'm doing something else, and check back every minute or so. If you see a Bellbird, start a discussion and let us know.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

On August 15, 2006, the Copenhagen Post reported that the 2006 breeding season has been a huge success for White-tailed Eagles. The birds had become extinct in Denmark by about 1900, and none returned until 1995. It's thought that the returning birds came from Germany and Sweden - this year, 24 eaglets join the growing population in Denmark.

White-tailed eagles are rare throughout their range and were extinct in the UK as well, becoming scarce there in the 1800s and disappearing completely in 1918. Here and elsewhere in Europe, the birds were deliberately targeted by people: they were blamed for taking livestock and fish, and renowned in folklore for powers of both good and evil. In 1975, reintroduction efforts began, bringing birds to the UK from Norway. A self-sustaining, though threatened, White-tailed Eagle population now thrives in western Scotland, closely guarded by the Scottish Natural Heritage.

Read about other birds that are making a comeback:

Endangered Piping Plovers

Red-billed Choughs Return to Cornwall England

Two Whooping Crane Chicks Born in the Wild Make History in Wisconsin

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Visit the Operation Migration Field Journal for a couple of pictures of the twin wild Whooping Crane chicks trying out their wings. We've been following these two famous chicks since July 20 - if you're interested in even earlier pictures, check out the ones posted on June 23 when the chicks had just hatched.

It must be really exciting for the human Operation Migration team, themselves teaching young fledglings to fly, to see the natural process proceeding close at hand. Against tremendous odds, the inexperienced Whooping Crane parents have successfully looked after twin chicks for about seven weeks. It's impossible not to be optimistic that the fledglings will migrate south safely with their parents while the captive reared chicks migrate with humans flying ultra light aircraft.

However, the mortality rate for wild chicks is discouragingly high. In 2005, only about half of the chicks born in the wild Wood Buffalo - Aransas flock arrived safely in Aransas for the winter. Adult birds are also lost every year so, unfortunately, even though 76 chicks were born in Wood Buffalo this year, the flock will probably not grow substantially. I hope the story of the First Family ends happily with all four birds arriving in Florida to join the flock. I'll keep you updated on their progress.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, we've been aware of what pesticides can do to birds. When Carson wrote her famous book, raptors like the Bald Eagle and the Osprey were in serious decline because of DDT, an insecticide that contaminated the birds' food supply and made their eggs thin and delicate. DDT was banned and the birds recovered.

But pesticides have not gone away - they are still used in vast quantities to kill insect pests, and they still kill beneficial insects, fish, and birds at great cost to the ecosystem.

They spread beyond farmer's fields and leach into rivers, lakes and streams, poisoning the fish and other aquatic life there. They run off into the ocean. In turn animals that feed on contaminated terrestrial and aquatic life are poisoned. Some pesticides are lethal to birds in very small amounts.

On August 3, 2006, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned liquid Carbofuran, a pesticide that has killed millions of birds, as well as fish, mammals and other animals. The total ban of liquid Carbofuran follows a previous ban of the dry form of the chemical, even more deadly to bird life.

This progressive action, a clear choice for environment over corporate profit, provides a twinkle of hope for the future of our natural world - just a twinkle, but it's worth having. Rachel Carson would be proud.

Related content:

Silent Spring: by Rachel Carson

Environmental health

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

On August 16, 2006, the Scotsman reported an important event in ornithological history - a Scottish bird, the Scottish Crossbill (Loxia scotica), has been declared a distinct species after more than a hundred years of debate. Some specialists thought the Scottish Crossbill, a member of the finch family, was a subspecies of the Common Crossbill, while others considered it to be a separate and distinct species present only in the United Kingdom.

Studies of the Scottish Crossbill's size and song were pivotal in establishing a consensus that it is indeed a distinct species. It lives in the Scottish Highlands and frequents Scots Pine forests - not surprisingly, it has a fondness for pine seeds. It's a large finch, about the size of a Red Crossbill, with a large head and heavy crossed bill. Males are red with dark wings and tail. The Scottish Crossbill has a distinct call - a Scottish accent.

The bad news is that the "new" species, the only bird species unique to the United Kingdom, is already endangered. No one really knows how many there are, but the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Scotland, estimates that the entire population includes between 300 and 1500 individuals.

Read the whole story in the Scotsman

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The Pennsylvania Game Commission has put together an excellent information page on avian influenza and the threat posed by wild birds (click "Avian Influenza" under "Quick Clicks" on the right). Their intent is not to spread panic, but to inform hunters of the facts with a straightforward question-and-answer approach. Anyone who has contact with wild birds for any reason would do well to read the information at this site.

If you have bird feeders, you should count yourself in this group, and for those of us who don't hunt, the most relevant question on the page is probably "Should I be worried about my birdfeeder?" The answer provided is a sensible balance between calm and caution: basically just be sure to wash your hands after handling a bird feeder (and before handling food or any item that goes in your mouth). We all do this anyway, right?

To revisit earlier posts on this topic, see my articles and blog entries:

Birds and Influenza

Avian Flu, North American Migratory Birds, and People

Avian Flu Spreads from Wild Birds but not H5N1

More on avian flu:

Avian Flu Pandemic

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

There is a brand new picture of the two Whooping Crane chicks I've been keeping an eye on, posted today, August 16, 2006. You can see it on the Operation Migration Field Journal. The journal also relates that the chicks are doing really well, moving about a lot with their parents and getting quite big - as we can see in the picture. Operation Migration staff expect the chicks to fledge soon, then they'll be learning how to fly in time for the fall migration. I hope the Field Journal is kept up so that we can enjoy the whole drama of the first season of these famous Whooping Cranes. If you're just catching up with this story now, read my previous articles and blog posts:

Two Whooping Crane Chicks Born in the Wild Make History in Wisconsin

Whooping Crane Chicks Thrive and a Rare Bird Turns Up in Nova Scotia

Answering Questions About the Extinct Dodo Bird

To check in on the Western Reef Heron that has been summering in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, the last published sighting that I can find was on August 8, just over a week ago. Blake Maybank, who has been chronicling the movements of the heron, speculates that the bird has headed for other shorelines. Birders along the Atlantic seaboard should keep a close eye on the water's edge: they might just have a visit from this exotic bird (and the rest of us would love to know if anyone else spots it!). Read previous reports on this interesting bird:

Two Whooping Crane Chicks Born in the Wild Make History in Wisconsin

The Glace Bay Western Reef Heron

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Have you read my article on Birds and Influenza?

Until now, the spread of avian influenza from wild bird to humans had not been documented - people catch bird flu from domestic birds, not wild ones. Still, there's been a lot of speculation about whether wild birds could spread the dangerous H5N1 avian flu around the globe and cause a human pandemic. A study published in the August issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases reports that antibodies to avian flu strains have been found in Iowa duck hunters, and Iowa Department of Natural Resources staff who have banded ducks.

The finding proves that the men have been exposed to the bird influenza virus, though none of them were ill. The virus strains are not the H5N1 strain; rather, the most significant antibodies found were directed at the H11N9 strain, a virus that is not adapted to humans.

The fact that avian influenza strains will pass from wild birds to humans is a significant one; however, it must be kept in mind that the men in the study had a great deal of close exposure to wild birds, and that the H11N9 influenza strain doesn't cause disease in humans. Exposure to H5N1 is still much more likely to come from domestic birds.

More on avian flu:

Avian Flu Pandemic

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Update on the first family of Whooping Cranes in Wisconsin: there is a new photograph of the 41-day-old twin wild chicks born in the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. They're looking great and growing fast. If you're interested in a different kind of adventure, you can sign on with Adventure Canada to travel part of the migration route of the Whooping Cranes from Wisconsin, south. The trip will take place in early October, 2006. Contact information is provided to the right of the chick photograph at the link above.

We're going all out to save the Whooping Crane from extinction, but a lot of other birds haven't been so lucky. The Dodo bird is probably the most famous extinct bird: none of us have ever seen one, but just about everyone knows what they looked like. For a bird that survived into relatively recent history, we know astonishingly little about it. It comes as a surprise to learn that a complete skeleton of a Dodo bird has never been found - until now. National Geographic reported in the August, 2006 (page 22) issue that an extensive fossil bed has been discovered in Mauritius, including the remains of about 20 Dodo birds. The bird remains, remains of other animals, and preserved plants, will provide a lot of information about what the ecosystem of Mauritius was like 3000 years ago. It should also tell us a lot we didn't know about the Dodo bird.

The fossil bed was discovered in the fall of 2005 by researchers from the Geological Survey of the Netherlands, Drs. Kenneth Rijsdijk and Frans Bunnik. Excavation of the site is in progress. Carl Zimmer wrote about this project in the New York Times in July, 2006.

Read my article on what we already know about the Dodo bird.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In June, I wrote about the endangered Piping Plover, and the efforts to protect its nesting sites on the Atlantic coast of North America. However, a significant number of Piping Plovers nest in the Prairies and this population, too, is in decline. The Bird Studies Canada website reported in late July that, in 2005, Piping Plover nests near Lake Diefenbaker were in grave danger of being flooded - an event that would be a serious blow to the species.

The Saskatchewan Watershed Authority stepped in and collected 264 eggs from nests threatened by the rising waters. They then incubated the eggs artificially and reared the hatchlings in captivity before releasing them into the wild. About 111 Piping Plover chicks survived.

Besides saving more than a hundred Piping Plover chicks that would probably not have hatched otherwise, the project provided more than a hundred dead chicks, which were frozen for later study. Recently, with support form the National Wildlife Research Centre, scientists began to study the dead chicks, hoping to learn more about Piping Plover biology. Their efforts will increase knowledge about the bird and help prepare for possible future captive rearing efforts.

Clearly, for endangered birds like Piping Plovers and Whooping Cranes, captive rearing efforts can make a significant difference.

Related content:

Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge Complex

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Update on the progress of the "First Family of Whooping Cranes" in Wisconsin: the area where the family of cranes is living is experiencing a period of heat and drought; however, both chicks continue to do well. This seems miraculous to me, considering that twin Whooping Crane hatchlings seldom both survive, and this pair has inexperienced parents raised in captivity. If you haven't been following this story, the twin cranes are the first Whooping Cranes born in the wild in the northeastern United States in more a century. The parents were hatched and raised in the Operation Migration Captive Breeding Program and released into the wild.

If you are interested in supporting the captive Whooping Crane Migration, in which ultra light aircraft will lead 2006 hatchlings on their first migration south, become a Milemaker for Operation Migration.

Bird-watchers in North America are excited about the confirmed sighting of a Western Reef Heron in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. The bird is native to Africa and has only been seen in North America a couple of times in the past.

This individual presumably got blown off course by a tropical storm and ended up amazingly far from home. It seems to have arrived in late June or early July, and was still being seen in the Glace Bay area as of July 31, fishing and feeding along the shore. Presumably it finds Canadian fish, crabs, and mollusks quite acceptable! The last picture at the link above shows off the bird's eye-catching yellow feet, and the way it curves its head and neck back in flight - a feature that distinguishes herons from cranes.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I've always been a bit reluctant to put a bird bath on my property because I worry that it might make the birds easy prey for neighborhood cats.

My home office has a door to the outside that opens into a shady wooded spinney - a cool quiet place even on a bustling summer day, and one of my favorite parts of the garden. This is where I hang a birdfeeder, right outside the office window, and a basket of wax begonias in summer.

There's a plastic deck chair out there as well, so I can sit outside to read or scribble writing notes. I've been less than a fan of the chair because its design creates a bowl in the seat that fills with water when it rains. Then leaves and other stuff fall in and if I'm not on top of it, a nasty brown organic soup develops. The chair is quite stained and rustic looking now.

We've had plenty of rain this week, but yesterday it wasn't raining and I opened the door to let some fresh air in. Soon, I heard a strange fluttering sound punctuated by little thumps. On investigation, I discovered a fastidious song sparrow having a bath in the bowl of my chair! He did a thorough job, ducking his head, dipping his breast, and combing water throughout his feathers with beak and claw. After a minute, he flew off, damp and happy, but throughout the day, I witnessed several more Song Sparrow visits to the bath. Song Sparrows nested on my property this year, and I suspect that the whole family is making use of my chair.

This morning I tipped the chair to dump the puddle, gave it a good scrub, and refilled it with fresh water. I guess I'd better buy a birdbath!

Do my poll on Avian influenzae on the Suite 101 Birds page from July 25 - Aug 08, 2006

Related articles:

Borders

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Have you been checking in on the two wild Whooping Crane chicks in Wisconsin? They were photographed on July 25, following one of the parent birds at the water's edge.

Residents of Cornwall, England are also celebrating the return of a bird - the Red-billed Chough (pronounced "chuff"), sometimes called the Cornish Chough. The Chough has not come so close to extinction as Whooping Cranes, but it completely disappeared from Cornwall half a century ago.

Choughs belong to the Crow family and the Red-billed Chough looks very like an American Crow, with bluish black glossy plumage. Its legs and beak, however, are a surprising coral red. Choughs nest in mountains and seaside cliffs - populations remain in Wales, Ireland, a few western islands in Britain, and in mountainous parts of Europe and Asia. Thier disappearance from Cornwall is blamed on a diminished food supply.

Choughs eat insects and insect larvae, which they dig out of the ground with their sharp beaks. In order to get enough to eat, they need open pastureland with short vegetation that they can reach through. To bring the birds back to Cornwall, farmers carefully grazed their animals along the cliff tops to keep the grass short, and waited. Now and then, a Chough drifted in from elsewhere...

A pair of wild Choughs successfully nested in Cornwall in 2002, and each year since, with anxious human guardians keeping an eye out for their safety, and hoping more would come. This year, Cornwall is celebrating the successful nesting of a second pair, and looking forward to a future flock of Cornish Choughs.

Have you ever tried to fold a paper crane? Read my article Japanese Cranes, Symbols of Peace and follow the link to good instructions for origami paper cranes.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The wild flock of Whooping Cranes that breeds in Wood Buffalo National Park (45,000 square kilometers of parkland on the border between Alberta and the Northwest Territories of Canada) migrate each spring from Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. At the end of 2005, this Western Whooping Crane flock included 220 wild birds.

The flock does not migrate together; the birds leave at different times, something that lowers the risk of serious loss in the event of severe weather or any other threat along the migration route. Birds start leaving Texas in early spring, and begin arriving in the nesting grounds by the end of April. In 2006, three young Whooping Cranes did not make the trip, remaining in Aransas all summer. It's not known why they did not migrate, but it may be due to poor health or injury.

In the north, the breeding success of the flock is closely watched by the Canadian Wildlife Service. It's gone well, so far, in 2006. Drought, forest fires, cold temperatures and predators can all kill Whooping Crane chicks throughout the spring and summer months, but it seems the summer of 2006 has been favorable for success - in May, there were 62 nests, producing 76 chicks, and if all continues to go well, a considerably larger flock will return to Aransas in the fall.

A small non-migratory flock of Whooping Cranes continues to breed in the wild in central Florida, a new wild flock may soon become established in Wisconsin, and captive breeding programs also add an annual contingent to the number of Whooping Cranes alive today. From less than two dozen birds in the early 1940's, the total has grown to 479 Whooping Cranes at the beginning of the 2006 breeding season - not enough to take them off the endangered list, but an amazing improvement for a bird so nearly lost.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

If you've been following my recent articles on birds and West Nile fever, Lyme disease, and avian flu, you may be feeling a little discouraged about birds but, on the whole, it's pretty certain that humans have done more harm to birds over the years than vice versa. Anyway, it's time for some good news about birds...

On June 22, something wonderful happened in Wisconsin: a pair of Whooping Crane chicks hatched in the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. What made the chicks so special was that they were the first wild Whooping Cranes to hatch in the eastern United States in over a century. The Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds (Firefly Books, 2003, pg 202) states that the only wild self-sustaining flock of Whooping Cranes spends its summers in Canada. Perhaps there will soon be another in Wisconsin.

Sixty-five years ago, the days of the Whooping Crane were almost done. Only about twenty birds were left when belated conservation efforts miraculously pulled them back from the brink of extinction. Today, Whopping Cranes are raised in captivity and trained to fly using ultralight aircraft (humans dressed as cranes fly the aircraft and teach Whooping Crane chicks how to fly, even leading them on their first migration south).

The twin Whooping Cranes born in the wild to parents dubbed #211 and #217, have been watched over from a respectful distance by staff at Operation Migration, an organization that raises Whooping Cranes and releases them into the wild. These folks are the de facto grandparents of the two little chicks. You can read the daily journal for Operation Migration at http://www.operationmigration.org/Field_Journal.html (the journal covers the progress of the birds and chicks from the captive breeding program as well).

Although one chick frequently dies when twins hatch, both chicks of the famous "First Family" were doing well as of July 18.

Watch for more information on cranes in upcoming posts.

Related articles:

Bringing Whooping Cranes Back from Near Extinction

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I recently posted articles about the role that birds play in the spread of several human diseases: West Nile fever and Lyme disease. Before I leave the subject, I'll touch on birds and H5N1 avian influenza, a disease that has not affected humans in North America yet, and hopefully never will. At least it hasn't affected us in terms of people becoming ill with the virus, but it has put people and health agencies on alert, and it has instigated huge research projects on all aspects of avian flu and its potential to cause a pandemic.

It seems that just about every day brings some new news item about avian flu. It is stalking the Far East, killing a few people here, and a few people there, and sparking debates about whether it is passing from bird to human, or from human to human, the second possibility being an event we all dread. If it starts passing readily from one human to another, we'll have a pandemic on our hands.

Closer to home, we're looking for the virus. In June a gosling in Prince Edward Island died of a virus that turned out not to be the dreaded H5N1 avian flu virus. On July 10, the Boston Globe reported that Canada Geese in Maine were being tested for H5N1. There's a certain inevitability about it. Migratory birds carry influenza viruses from one country to another, from one continent to another. Will H5N1 come to North America with a bird or a human? Only time will tell. See my article on birds and avian flu.

More on avian flu:

Avian Flu Pandemic

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I've been thinking about the dark side of bird watching - birds and disease, and the risk of suffering a nasty illness carried by a bird. See my recent blog entries, Migrating Birds Spread Diseases, and Mosquito Control When Birds Bring West Nile Virus.

I can remember putting my hand into a recently vacated bird's nest as a child, and noticing a host of little bird mites crawling around on my hand and up my arm. I wasn't too impressed, but I brushed them off and went on my way. My mother firmly cautioned me not to interfere with bird's nests or pick up dead birds. At the time, I thought it was the "bugs" you could see that were the problem. Now I know it's the "bugs" you can't see - the ones that can make you sick - that you need to worry about.

Birds have lots of little parasites living beneath their immaculate feathers. Most of these bird parasites prefer birds: they may climb onto human skin, especially if they find themselves marooned in the nest, or if the host bird has died, but they generally don't stay. Before long, they wander off in search of a more suitable host. Some parasites are on the bird accidentally, just as bird parasites get on humans accidentally, and these ones will jump ship at the first opportunity.

That's how Lyme disease spreads with migrating birds: deer ticks climb onto birds for a blood meal and get a free ticket to the bird's next destination. The ticks don't prefer the bird, and they don't want to stay, so they soon drop off and settle in in a new location. They bring their own parasites with them. Watch for my upcoming article on birds and Lyme disease to learn more about a bird's role in the spread of Lyme.

Meanwhile, don't panic about birds and disease! The risk is small and a few common sense precautions will make it negligible. Don't handle dead birds or recently vacated nests with bare hands. Wear insect repellent when mosquitoes, ticks, and other biting pests are about, and pay attention to public health advisories and recommendations in your area.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Have you read my article West Nile and Birds on birds and their role in spreading West Nile virus in North America? Mosquitoes bite infected birds and catch the virus, then bite people and pass it on. When sentinel birds such as Crows and Blue Jays start dying off in an area, local health officials know that they should start looking out for West Nile virus. Some municipalities test dead birds for the virus, while others trap and test mosquitoes.

The public health response to the presence of West Nile usually involves alerting and educating the public, and some form of mosquito control. Often, the advisability of spraying an area with insecticides is debated, and the debate can get quite spirited. Some people are comfortable spraying with insecticides that are considered safe for people and wildlife, citing the number of cases of West Nile fever, West Nile encephalitis, and death that are sure to occur otherwise.

On the other side of the debate, however, strong arguments against spraying exist:

• There is mounting evidence that insecticides are not safe. They threaten human health and harm wildlife, including birds and beneficial insects that would otherwise prey on mosquitoes and their larvae.
• Spraying in urban areas is ineffective because it's impossible to properly spray inside buildings and other structures.
• Spraying doesn't kill all the mosquitoes. Those that survive may develop resistance to the chemical.
• People develop a false sense of security when their community has been sprayed, and become careless about protecting themselves from insect bites.
• The response is out of proportion to the risk: many more people die from influenza than from West Nile virus.

If the sentinel birds started dying in your municipality, what response would you support? Do my poll on the Birds page from July 7 to July 17, 2006.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Are you interested in encouraging more birds to visit your property? Read my recent articles, Creating Shelter for Birds and Hang a Nesting Box for Birds.

Just about any morning in spring and summer, I can look out my kitchen window and see American Robins running about in the back of the house, looking for worms and other goodies. Even five years ago, this would have been an entirely gratifying scene - I wouldn't have perceived a robin or any other bird as being any threat to me whatsoever. Well, times have changed. Now I know birds spread disease.

Suddenly, we are repeatedly getting the message that dangerous diseases are spreading from country to country, across oceans, and around the globe. Lyme disease used to be concentrated in the northeastern United States, then it began to spread. In the last few years it has come to Nova Scotia: birds brought it here. Suddenly it doesn't seem so wonderful that we live on a major bird migration route.

West Nile probably came to New York with a bird, then it began to spread. Birds flying hither and thither are spreading it to mosquitoes and mosquitoes are spreading it to people all over the continent. Surprisingly, my friend the American Robin may be the major culprit.

And then there's avian flu. Hardly a day goes by that we don't hear something about it in the news. The world is bracing for a flu pandemic; avian flu may be the virus that's going to cause it. Bird's are carrying the virus, spreading it to new birds, and maybe even bringing it to a duck pond near you. No one knows whether it will mutate into a flu strain that is easily passed from person to person. We all hope it won't.

One thing's for sure, the American Robins will continue to come to my yard and I'll just have to get used to wearing bug spray. I'd rather that, anyway, than do without the robins.

In my next few articles, I'll explore the parts that birds have to play in these three "new" diseases: Lyme disease, West Nile fever, and avian flu.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

While investigating the features of a nesting box that would be appealing to a Yellow-shafted Flicker, I discovered that there is a war going on between Northern Flickers and European Starlings. Apparently European Starlings like to nest in the same places, and they will shamelessly attack any Northern Flicker bold enough to try to claim a good nest site. The Flickers, apparently, have little stomach for the fight, and often clear off. The end result may be a decline in Flicker numbers due to a lack of nesting site availability.

Some bird enthusiasts take matters into their own hands in an effort to give the advantage back to the Flickers: they set up Starling traps and dispose of all the Starlings they catch. Of course, like water filling in where a bucket full has been removed, the Starlings just keep coming.

I know that European Starlings are an introduced species, and that they have been hugely successful in North America, to the detriment of our native bird species. They really shouldn't be here, and the Flickers have a right to prosper as well. I'd have an awfully hard time putting Starlings to death just the same.

I tell myself that it's really no different from the occasions each summer when ants try to take over the house and I'm forced to do them in by the hundreds. I'm sorry about it, but I accept the necessity of protecting my territory. Then there are the dandelions in my flower garden - another introduced species. I destroy them by the handful, and preferably before they set seed and produce offspring. The principle is the same - but I still don't think I could bring myself to kill a Starling.

Perhaps it's because birds are more like us - not really like us, but more so than an ant or a dandelion. I can look into the eyes of a bird, and feel its heart beating if I hold it in my hand. Like the Northern Flicker, I haven't the stomach for the fight.

What do you think of this? Vote in my poll from June 28 through July 5, or start a discussion under one of my articles.

Related articles:

Hang a Nesting Box for Birds

Creating Shelter for Birds

Sparrows and Starlings and Finches

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I've been thinking about different ways to provide bird shelter on a small property, and whether I could attract some birds to nesting boxes in the summer time. I've stumbled across something that I had completely forgotten about - the idea of providing a roosting box for birds in winter.

A roosting box is usually bigger than a nesting box because the idea is to make space for lots of birds to huddle together through cold winter nights and inclement weather. A building plan for a nesting box usually includes two other features that differentiate it from a nesting box. The first is that it contains perches or shelves at various heights for birds to sit on, and the second is that the entrance hole is closer to the bottom of the box (heat rises, so a hole near the top would allow warmth to escape).

I am wondering if you need to vary the plan according to the type of bird you expect to attract. In areas where Eastern Bluebirds are common, one might want to dispense with the perches and put the hole higher, as some accounts indicate that the Bluebirds ignore the perches and huddle together at the bottom of the box. We don't get Eastern Bluebirds here in Nova Scotia, so I'll have to investigate further before planning my own roosting box.

I'm also pondering whether I could design a box that would be a roosting box for smaller birds in winter and a nesting box for something larger, perhaps a Yellow Shafted Flicker, in summer. The design would have to include some way to remove the perches and move the hole to the top for summer use. Maybe a removable front panel would work. I'll report back here if I figure it out. (Link below)

Even if it didn't get used in summer, a roosting box for winter would be a welcome addition to the yard - and it would relieve some of the anxiety I feel when the weather is particularly fierce, and I'm thinking of the many small songbirds that frequent my feeders. It would be fun to watch and see if I could spot the birds going in and out.

If you have any comments on this, start a discussion under my recent article on providing shelter for birds.

Related articles:

How to Make a Winter Roosting Box

What is a Winter Roosting Box?

Creating Shelter for Birds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Do you have lots of good bird shelter in your yard? I'm lucky to have a green space next to my house - an undeveloped piece of land that's designated public parkland. It isn't set up as a park, but is just left alone, and it includes a long curving spinney of mixed evergreen and hardwood trees, a grassy meadow, and a gently sloping face of rock covered with lichens, mosses, and blueberry bushes.

The green space is a haven for birds, and the edge of the spinney lies about five feet from my home office window. This is where I have my main bird feeder, and a quiet shady path bordered by hostas and other shade loving plants. Around in the back, there is a tall thick spruce tree (the one pictured with my recent article Creating Shelter for Birds). The lower branches of this tree sweep right down to the ground, providing lots of shelter for birds at ground level. Small song birds continually pop in and out of the higher branches at all times of the year.

I'm certain that Finches, Juncos, Blue Jays, Downy Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, and Robins nest in my yard, or in the spinney, every year. This year, for the first time, I was blessed by a pair of Song Sparrows (he of the daily window attacks), and I'm hoping that the brush pile I casually created out of tree trimmings and plant cuttings has provided them a nesting spot that is safe from the numerous domestic cats in the neighborhood.

I could have done a more careful job on the brush pile: a proper brush pile has carefully arranged spaces around the bottom to serve as entrances for birds and other creatures. I just heaped it up with sticks lying in all directions - it probably works, but could be better. I can't take it apart now and start over for fear of disturbing some comfortable creature.

One thing I have never done is hang out nesting boxes, and I think I'll do some research to discover how to build a nest box for one of my common visitors. If I get it put up this fall, it will be ready when the birds are next spring. In my next article, I'll share some wisdom on providing the perfect nest box for your favorite bird.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Piping Plovers are still nesting on Atlantic beaches and on the salt flats in the prairies. Birds who were unsuccessful with a first nest are probably trying again now. My article Endangered Piping Plovers tells you how we can help them succeed.

It's been raining on the East Coast for several weeks. True, we've had a couple of nice days to break the monotony, but most days have been some variation of fog, heavy drizzle, rain, and thundering downpour. The lawns are very green, garden seeds rotting in the ground, and the forest fire index - well, why bother? What do the birds think of it all?

They don't seem to be too adversely affected. Even on the rainiest mornings, I wake to a constant chorus of birdsong. Small song birds are visiting my feeders in a steady stream, and yesterday I saw a Mourning Dove just sitting on a tree branch in the rain. She was looking damp, but not too unhappy. A dripping fan of maple leaves was slapping her on the back with each gust of wind. She was undeterred.

Birds seem to be able to put up with quite a lot of bad weather. Their feathers are waterproof, so that even though the outside of the bird may be wet, the feathers underneath are quite dry, and the bird can give itself a shake every now and again to get rid of any clinging drops. I know there are lots of places near my house where the Mourning Dove could have taken advantage of better shelter, so the weather can't be bothering her nearly as much as it is bugging me.

Bad weather can be a threat to birds, however: bitter cold in winter kills birds that haven't found good shelter for the night (I've often noticed little footprints in the winter snow - Mourning Doves again? - leading under our exterior steps, and I conclude that they are staying warm out of the wind, and close to the dryer vent). A heavy snow fall can also make it difficult for them to find food and shelter, and severe storms, like hurricanes, can carry them large distances away from their home territory. In my next article, I'll discuss some of the ways we can provide shelter for birds on our own backyard bird habitat.

Related articles:

Backyard Bird Habitat

Create a Winter Garden for Wildlife

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

If you like ducks, you'll enjoy my article on duck tolling; it seems that ducks often let their curiosity lead them into trouble. That's not the only duck behavior, however, that does: ducks have a stubborn determination that can get them killed as well. In the spring, it might help if every road near duck habitat had a duck crossing sign.

A friend told me an all too familiar story a few days ago. On her morning commute to work, she saw a mother duck crossing the highway with a whole brood of ducklings. This particular highway is a major route into the city, with four or five lanes in each direction in many places (and not a duck crossing sign in sight). Morning rush hour is no time to be leading your little ones across that road.

It was probably a Mallard Duck, by far the most common species of duck in this area. The mallard nests in grass or other low vegetation and the female lays an egg a day until she has about a dozen. She doesn't start incubating the clutch until she's finished laying, so they all hatch at about the same time. When the ducklings are ready to travel, the mother duck leads the brood on a long walk to whatever body of water she has chosen for the next stage of their upbringing. This charming but dangerous march results in ducks crossing paths, roads, parking lots, and even major highways.

Presumably mother Mallards aren't able to evaluate the overland route for traffic safety, and their determination to get to the right body of water often gets them killed. In some places, municipalities post duck crossing signs, and assist the ducks whenever possible, but a mother duck crossing a major route in morning traffic has little hope of making it alive, much less with all of her brood intact.

Nevertheless, my friend reported that an unlikely lull in the traffic seemed to do the trick - the brood made it across... directly into a construction site. Their fate from there remains unknown. We hope they're happily paddling a nearby lake now.

Fortunately, Mallard Ducks are plentiful and populations remain strong in spite of traffic fatalities. The story is different for the Piping Plover. Watch for my article on the efforts to save this shore bird, later this week.

Related article:

Duck Tracks

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In the spring, a walk on the beach is a popular weekend activity in Nova Scotia (in Nova Scotia, you are never too far from the coast). In fact, a walk on the beach is popular any time of year if you're dressed for it, but spring and fall are probably the best times because the weather is nice but the beach is not too crowded by sunbathers and sandcastles.

Unfortunately, our spring walk on the beach can be a disaster for Piping Plovers, which nest on a number of the beautiful sandy beaches along the Atlantic coast. These beaches are often signposted so that people know the Piping Plovers are there, but not everyone sees the signs, and not everyone takes appropriate care, even when they do see them.

Perhaps they don't believe that the endangered Piping Plover is there. I know they are there, but I've never seen one on the beach - both the adult bird and the sand coloured eggs blend in with the beach sand so perfectly that one could step on a nest without ever realizing. I've read that one way of identifying a Piping Plover is by the degree of difficulty you are having seeing it: if you can see it, in other words, it's probably not a Piping Plover.

About a tenth of the Piping Plovers left in the world nest in the Canadian Maritimes. The rest nest on Atlantic beaches in the United States, and on salt flats in both Canadian and American prairies. The nests are usually on the top third of the beach, above the high tide mark - exactly where we might walk if we were visiting the beach when the tide was high. And if we bring our dog for a run, that too could be deadly for the nest, or for newly hatched baby birds. So many dogs and their people love to go to the beach. No wonder the birds are declining.

View a slide show of the Piping Plover

More about Piping Plovers:

Endangered Piping Plovers

Facts about Piping Plovers

Don't Disturb the Piping Plover

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

When you have bird feeders, you often have squirrels too. The picture posted with my article Squirrels and Birdfeeders, shows a red squirrel visiting my platform feeder. For a while, we weren't sure if there was one squirrel or two, but now we know there were at least two, because the baby squirrels are here. They seem to chatter from dawn until disk.

It's the season for baby birds as well, and they seem to be everywhere. Yesterday, I saw my first fledgling Dark-eyed Junco of the year, looking more like a Song Sparrow than a Junco, but smaller. I haven't seen it since, but I saw two petite Mourning Doves on the long sloping grey rock behind the house, a favorite place for birds. An adult seemed to be deliberately harassing them, and I wondered why. My husband thought the older bird might be trying to teach them to stay alert.

The Blue Jays are back, after an absence - even when I don't see them, I can hear them calling from the trees. But is it the old adults or the young adults I'm seeing and hearing now? I hope the nesting was successful. Some birds are having a harder time finding good nesting sites and safely rearing their young than used to be the case. Piping Plovers are one example. Piping Plovers nest on beaches and have not been too successful competing for beach space with sun loving people. Their nesting sites and their numbers are declining and they are now endangered. Watch my upcoming articles for information about the efforts to save Piping Plovers.

My husband told me he'd seen another young bird on the golf course. He was looking for a lost ball near the bushes and saw the little bird sitting on a low branch and looking helpless only a couple of feet away. Above him, adult birds fussed and tried to distract him. It's a risky time for young birds just learning to fly - they are so vulnerable. If my husband had been a fox, it would have been all over for that little bird.

And speaking of foxes, they and birds, especially ducks, go back a long time. Next week, I'll write about curious ducks, and how they keep falling for tolling foxes.

Related Articles

Vanishing California Shorebirds

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

It seems we are often trying to modify the behavior of animals to make them fit into our world better. In my last blog entry, Spiders, Birds & Stabilimenta, and in my recent article, When Birds Attack Windows..., I explored the problem of having birds attacking windows, mirrors, and other shiny surfaces - really more of a problem for the bird than for the human. Another common "problem" for the backyard bird feeder is squirrels.

Yes, squirrels can go through a lot of bird seed, and these crafty, agile, determined seed thieves can defy all efforts to discourage them. It's endlessly entertaining to watch their acrobatics as they figure out how to get around your latest architectural squirrel deterrent. I once saw a fence post armed with four inch spikes situated beneath a hanging feeder. It seems the squirrels were leaping from this post to the feeder, so the bird enthusiast tried to make the top of the post prohibitively uninviting - it looked deadly to me, but it didn't even slow them down.

In Nova Scotia, we have red squirrels. There are always a few in the small patch of woods beside the house. They have a route that runs right along the back of our property - Hurricane Juan took out a few key trees a couple of years ago, but the squirrels simply leap the gap in heart stopping aerial acrobatics that are wonderful to watch. At other times, they cross the street via a telephone line as though it was a suspension bridge made just for them, and they casually cross my roof from the maple to the pine, which saves quite a bit of traveling time when you are in a hurry.

At this time of year, the young squirrels appear, chattering and squealing in the trees, chasing each around tree trunks and along impossibly slender branches. Their play must be great agility practice. They visit my feeders and leave little piles of sunflower seed husks beneath my barbeque stand.

You have probably figured out that I like squirrels - and I don't begrudge them the birdseed in return for the entertainment. I think, what with all the cats and traffic around here, they need all the help they can get. I realize though, that my squirrels are not much of a problem compared to the voracious hordes in some localities. In my next article, I'll explore the possibilities for saving some of your birdseed for the birds.

Related Articles

Garden Varmints

Problem Squirrels

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

What do spiders and humans have in common? Not a lot, you might think. Well, spiders and humans both construct invisible structures that birds blunder into, or through. With humans, it's windows (see my last blog entry Birds Attacking My Windows, and my article When Birds Attack Windows). With spiders, it's webs.

How do you stop a bird from flying through your web? It doesn't surprise me that the spiders may have solved the problem while humans are still grappling with it. It seems logical that birds, like humans, don't particularly enjoy being covered with clingy spider webbing, and spiders would see no advantage in having the web swept away by a big clumsy bird - especially if the spider happened to be sitting in the middle of the web at the time. So the answer lies in letting birds know where your web is located.

Some spiders, particularly the ones that like to sit in the middle of the web, build what's called a stabilimentum (one stabilimentum, two stabilimenta). It's a rather heavy zigzag pattern of silk at the center of the web, sometimes in an X shape, a T shape, or possibly just an I or a distinct patch. The theory is that at least one of the uses of this structure is to make the web visible to birds so that they don't fly through it. You can read a discussion of some of the other possible functions of the stabilimentum here

You can buy window decals that feature a spider's web with a bold stabilimentum in the center. Stuck on the inside or the outside of house windows, they are supposed to deter birds from crashing into, or attacking, the window. See my article When Birds Attack Windows for a photograph of one of these decals.

In the meantime, if you are out walking, keep your head up and watch out for the stabilimenta.

Related articles: Orb Weaving Spiders

Birds Glossary

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

I've been taking a close look at the American Crow in recent posts: The Intelligent American Crow, Amazing Crow Stories, and How to tell Crow from Raven. While I was walking my dog today, I came across a Crow family that seemed to be hanging around a particular area. As I got closer, I saw a mangled heap of black feathers in the middle of the pavement - probably this year's fledgling, not yet accustomed to the violence of automobiles. The rest of the family sat in nearby trees and cawed loudly as the dog and I passed. It seemed as though they were keeping watch over their fallen family member.

Last year, in July, I wrote in my bird journal: "It is the third day of the Vireo. The bird has been visiting us every morning at about 5:45... At first, I thought it was a demented Finch that hadn't long to live..." Actually, that wasn't quite true: at first I thought it was some malicious spirit out of a horror movie, come to destroy my sleep and my peace of mind. You see, someone, or something, was knocking on the window directly over the bed, waking me and my husband at a few minutes to six every morning. That window is a full three stories above the ground.

It takes a certain kind of wakeful sleep to spring up and get a look at whatever is thumping at your window, but we eventually managed to confirm that our visitor was a bird (but what kind of bird?). I got my first good look at it later in the day when it attacked the dining room window, one floor down and directly below the bedroom window. It was a Red-eyed Vireo.

We tried various tactics to discourage our feathered alarm clock, but finally gave up and learned to ignore him. Eventually, he went away. A few days ago, while sitting at my keyboard, I heard the familiar thump thump again - oh no! not the Vireo back to haunt us for another season! This time, however, the noise was coming from a ground floor window. Again, it took some sneaky surveillance to get a look at the visitor, but I finally did it. Surprise. A Song Sparrow has caught the bug.

Watch for my upcoming article on birds that attack windows to find out why they do it and how to stop them.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In my last article, The Intelligent American Crow, I highlighted some of the positive and interesting things about a common bird that many people dislike.

Common things are, well, common. When I see a black bird that looks like an American Crow, it's usually an American Crow, but when I'm really paying attention, about the only thing I could truly mistake for a Crow is a Raven. (I should probably point out that the name "Crow" is often used to refer to other species of Corvidae, but when I say "Crow" here, I mean the American Crow, pictured with my article.) I always have trouble distinguishing between Crows and Ravens. The last time I'm sure I saw a Raven was in the Nova Scotia countryside in late winter when I was looking for Bald Eagles.

Ravens are much less common than Crows, and they are seldom seen in cities, though a competent birder I know reported watching one walk across her front lawn in Halifax a few years ago. My map (Birds of North America by Kenn Kaufman, Houghton Mifflin, 2000) indicates that the normal range of Ravens includes all of Canada except the southern prairie provinces, Alaska, and the western regions of the United States including the mountains. In the rest of the US, they are rare at best.

One way that I can always tell the difference is by the sound of the bird's voice: a Raven's throaty croak sounds nothing like the "caw" of a crow. Even if I have not noticed the bird, one "cronk" tells me that I am in the presence of a Raven.

In Birding in Metro Halifax (Nimbus, 1996), Clarence Stevens describes some more distinctions between Ravens and Crows:

• Ravens are not seen in flocks.
• Ravens look ruffled at the throat when they are sitting.
• Ravens have wedge-shaped tails in flight: Crow's tails tend to be shorter and rather rounded.
• A Raven's bill is thicker than a Crow's bill.
• Ravens are bigger than Crows, although the sizes of a large Crow and a small Raven would be comparable.

Watch for my upcoming article where I relate some interesting and amusing Crow stories (American Crows and Carrion Crows).

Related articles:

Read a first-hand story of a pet crow: Ralph, an Unforgettable Pet Crow

An Alaskan Trip Fred Kane discusses Ravens on the second page of this article.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Have you had any interesting bird watching experiences lately? You might be interested in my recent article on Birding Ethics.

In my last blog post, I mentioned that I momentarily mistook an Osprey for a Crow (an American Crow). Around here, any large black bird is probably a crow. We have big flocks of them. During the day, we see them around in small groups - they patrol the streets, and are particularly busy on garbage day! Occasionally, one visits my platform feeder, though it never seems quite sure what it's doing there.

In the evening, at sunset, they get together: you can see them moving in a steady stream, like Sunday morning worshippers headed for church, all flying in roughly the same direction. You know they are congregating, somewhere, for the night.

I've not seen the congregation in spring, but I've seen it a few times in fall. There are a few trees that they seem to frequent, close to the water. They gather until every inch of every branch and twig is occupied, and the air is full of a rustling and fluttering, with the occasional caw. A few will fly up above the tree, then settle back. The overall effect is spooky in the dusk: a tree leafed out in huge black leaves, barely visible, and rustling like plastic bags on a clothesline.

In the morning, just before sunrise, we hear the crow chorus. They carry on for quite a while, and presumably head out as soon as it's light to begin their daily chores. A lot of people are annoyed by the dawn chorus of crows, but I enjoy it - it reminds me of the tree with the black leaves and sends a little shiver up my spine. This spring, it seemed to be coming from a shoreline location near the bus stop where I wait, but it was always too dark to see exactly where: by the time the sun is up, they are gone.

I've been told that the crows mass together for protection whenever an owl is about, but I think there's a little more to it than that. I've never seen an owl in the city, but the crows seem to gather regularly. I suppose it's good practice to take precautions, whether you see the enemy or not. Perhaps I'll see if I can find out more for an upcoming article on Crows.

Read a first-hand story of a pet crow: Ralph, an Unforgettable Pet Crow

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Today, I crossed the bridge over the Sackville River, walking against the flow of heavy afternoon traffic. Above the rush of water, vehicles, and pedestrians, a dark bird perched precariously at the swaying end of a thin branch, directly over the water. It had its back turned in my direction and didn't seem a bit concerned about all the human activity nearby. While I watched from across the street, a train roared past. The bird never flinched. I walked to the nearest traffic lights, crossed, and walked back. The bird was still there.

My first thought was "crow," but our crows tend to like something a little more solid to rest on - this bird was really bobbing and swaying. And this was a very big crow. Then it turned its head for a moment and I saw a flash of white. Definitely not a crow. What then? A bird of prey, probably, waiting for a fish. It turned its head again and I saw a black stripe across its white face. (Check the picture posted with my recent article on Birding Ethics.) "Fish hawk," I thought: "Osprey." And that's what it was.

A couple strolled past, watching the Osprey. They told me they'd seen the Osprey there many times over a period of several years, and that it always came back to the same branch. It must be a perfect branch for spotting fish in the river below and then plunging down upon them.

Ospreys tend to stay near the coast; a map of their range shows them all along the coastlines of Canada and the contiguous United States, as well as around the Great Lakes. In our area, they often build nests atop power line poles, where the lines march across forested areas. Some nests are located quite close to roads and are easily located. We see them in the summer when we are out on our bikes, or hiking in the woods, and as the young birds grow bigger, they watch us as much as we watch them.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Do you have hummingbirds in your area? Read my article on hummingbird feeders for information on an easy way to get them to come closer.

When I'm sitting on my front deck, in the shade of the honeysuckle vine, I am always alerted to the arrival of a hummingbird by the burrrrr of its wings. Then all I have to do is sit still and keep my eyes on the honeysuckle - if it's in bloom - or the hummingbird feeder, and I'm sure to see the tiny bird pause in mid-air to collect some nectar.

It's fascinating to watch a hummingbird, one minute holding still, the next darting away so quickly that I sometimes lose track of it and have to search to find it again. Years ago, while waiting for a ferry crossing on the West coast of Canada, I watched a number of hummingbirds coming to a feeder outside the ferry terminal. To get to it, they had to cross to the other side of a chain link fence; instead of going over the top of the fence they were flying through the fence between the links as if there was nothing there at all. Tiny as they are, it must still have required very precise flying but not one of them ever hesitated or turned away.

At the time, I wasn't paying very close attention to the birds' appearance and assumed they were the same species of hummingbirds I am used to seeing on the East coast - the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. My excuse is that I was too absorbed in their navigation through the fence. I now know that it is unlikely that they were Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, as that species doesn't normally occur on the West coast. They were probably Anna's Hummingbirds, which look like the Ruby-throated only if you are in a daze, as I obviously was! Now I wish I could go back and take a closer look.

In reality, relatively few hummingbirds venture so far north at all. There are over 300 species of hummingbirds, all of which are native to the New World (North and South America). Most of them never leave the tropics. The Rufous Hummingbird ventures the farthest north of all, migrating up the west coast into Northern British Columbia, and occasionally even into Alaska in the warmer months. Some locations in the Southwestern United States will regularly have nine species or more.

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

The best places to watch the birds are not always the easiest places to watch birds, and it would be hard to find an easier place than right outside your own window. For completely effortless bird watching - except for the work of turning your head - place birdfeeders strategically outside windows where you tend to spend a lot of time. My feeders are outside my office window and outside the window above the kitchen sink, two of my well-worn places. In the summer, I also put a hummingbird feeder on my front deck near my honeysuckle and often get a visit from a Ruby-throated Hummingbird if I sit quite still. (Read about hummingbird feeders in my article Hummingbirds are Migrating.)

If you've got the perfect window, but no perfect place to put the feeder outside, get one of the ones with suction cups that you can stick right on the windowpane. (Consider, though, where it will land if it falls!) Ideally, feeders will also be where you can reach them easily to fill them. If you get a lot of snow in winter, you won't want to be plunging through drifts to fill the feeder. Likewise, high in the branches of a tree is not too practical unless you have some easy way to lower the feeder.

The feeder outside my office has a couple of hooks; in winter, I usually hang a suet feeder and a tower with several seed compartments. I regularly use a songbird mix in two compartments, and niger seed in the third. In the spring, I take the suet in and hang a basket of wax begonias. And for a while, I switch to two seed compartments of niger seed in preparation for the crowds of Goldfinches and Purple Finches I know are coming.

Most days, there's enough activity at my feeders to keep me distracted. This morning the birds are arriving one by one: an American Starling with a startlingly yellow spring beak, a Dark-eyed Junco, a Black-capped Chickadee, and an American Goldfinch.

If you do like to work a little harder and venture away from home to look for some birds, read my article on Birding Ethics.

Do you have children that like to watch birds? Help them Make a Bird Feeder

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

In his book Birding in Metro Halifax (Nimbus, 1996), Clarence Stevens identifies the factors that produce a great location to watch birds, and consequently, the factors that make my location, Nova Scotia, "one of the best birding locations on the continent." Stevens' big four are:

Coastline - many birds only occur along the coast, and rare birds that are blown off course and/or lost over the ocean may come ashore.

Mixed woodland at the junction of hardwood forest and boreal forest - the birds of both of these forests intermingle here.

Location along a bird migratory flyway. Take a look at a map of North American flyways. (See my upcoming article on International Migratory Bird Day).

Large sheltered arms of the sea, such as Halifax Harbour, which keep the air temperature warmer in winter.

Stevens also points out that those rare lost birds will be attracted to plants that they recognize as sources of food, so if you grow exotic plants in your garden, you may become the unexpected host of an exotic bird (and if word gets out, a steady stream of bird enthusiasts).

Posted by Rosemary Drisdelle

Welcome to the Birds blog. Traffic is a bit slow at my birdfeeder this morning: the feeder is swinging gently in the breeze with only an occasional push from a landing or departing junco. The chickadees must be feeding somewhere else. It's not the best time of day to watch birds, I guess.

I began the Birds page by wondering, why so many people love to watch birds. It's a good question, and maybe the true answer is that there are lots of reasons for our fascination. It's amazing how excited I get when I see and identify a bird that I've never seen before. It's just as exciting to visit a new place and be surrounded by dozens of bird species I've never seen before. Then again, to be in a distant place, far from home turf, and see a bird that I frequently see at home is a surprise and a delight as well.

At home, there's an old familiarity that makes us think that the birds elsewhere are more beautiful than our own, but I often remind myself that my birds, the birds of Eastern Canada, are beautiful too - the brilliant blue jays, the rusty red of the robins' breasts, the lovely yellow goldfinches (my husband insists on calling them budgies), even the subtle browny-pink shades of the mourning doves are wonderful to see.

Another fascinating thing to ponder is bird migration: while we are waiting out the winter, our birds of summer are singing in the trees somewhere southerly and warm. Meanwhile, some of our winter birds are preparing to head north as soon as things heat up in spring. How many of us dream of following the birds to better weather? If we are not like birds, maybe we wish we were.

For my next article, I'll find out about International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD), which is coming up on May 13. You can check it out in the meantime at the IMBD website. Perhaps there is an IMBD event in your area.