This week in birds - #80

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Images of the extinct Passenger Pigeon.

There has been a lot of talk and a lot written both in the scientific journals and in the mainstream media this summer about the possibility of "de-extinction," i.e., recreating species of animals that have gone extinct. One of the prime candidates for such a project would be the beautiful Passenger Pigeon, extinct now for almost a century. What a wonderful thing it would be to see these marvelous creatures that once blackened the skies of North America with their vast flocks alive and in the air again. But what about the morality of the situation? Would it be right to bring back an animal which might only go extinct a second time? The debate among scientists rages. The knowledge and the technique for accomplishing such a thing seem to be available, but should they be employed in such a project?  

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The big news in the environment this week was the massive Rim Fire that threatens Yosemite National Park in California. Such fires are exacerbated by continuing drought. The giant sequoias of Yosemite, though, have outlived all kinds of threats in their long lives and it is likely that they will survive this one also. 

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Soon the Whooping Cranes will be making their way south once again. Scientific research has shown that when young birds follow the migration-wise older birds they are able to migrate much more successfully. To which I say, "Duh!"

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Migration is much on the mind of birders as well as birds these days. Modern technology, in the form of "Birdar," is being employed to help track the fliers. The "Nemesis Bird" blog has a feature about it.

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The first gray wolf recorded in Kentucky in 150 years was shot by a hunter who claimed that he thought it was a coyote, an animal which can be legally hunted in the state. Stupidity abounds.

In a related note, Wisconsin had its first managed wolf hunt last fall and 117 animals were killed. The hunt had been presented as a way to reduce tensions and increase tolerance for the animals in wolf country. A recently released survey by the University of Wisconsin indicates that, if that was the goal, it wasn't achieved.

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The prolonged drought has produced ideal conditions for the spread of avian botulism in the Tule Lake Refuge in Oregon. Thousands of ducks that are molting and unable to fly out of the area have died from the disease.

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In New Jersey, a man has been arrested and charged with killing or attempting to kill Red-tailed Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks, Cooper's Hawks, and Sharp-shinned Hawks, all of which are, of course, protected species. As I said, stupidity abounds, and, if the charges are proved, I trust he will get the maximum penalty available.

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Lest it seem that I have nothing but sad news to report this week, here's a feel-good story: A young fledgling Red-tailed Hawk that was hit by a car in Philadelphia earlier this year was nursed back to health at a wildlife rehab center and this week was successfully released into the wild, proving that not all humans are without merit in their relations with wild things. 

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National Geographic tells the amazing story of how a mammal virus evolved into an avian virus.

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Geologists have recently discovered that there is a massive canyon under a Greenland ice sheet. It is being compared in size and scale to the Grand Canyon. 

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The White Storks of Poland are a major tourist attraction in the town of Zwykowo. They outnumber the human residents of the town, who are attempting to improve the habitat for the storks which nest on the roofs of houses. The residents consider them good luck - and they are, for they bring extra income from tourists to the area.

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Velvet ants are fascinating critters. They look like big ants but they really aren't. They are, in fact, parasitic wasps. 

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Scientific American has a blog post about another interesting wasp, the cicada killer wasp. The cicada killer, as its name suggests, hunts and kills those much larger insects. I saw one in action in my yard a couple of years ago and it was mesmerizing. (Incidentally, I did a post about cicadas on my "The Nature of Things" blog earlier this week.)  

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Around the backyard:

Fall migration is well under way and I am almost certain that I have a Rufous Hummingbird in my backyard, but so far I've only had fleeting glimpses as the bird chases some of the Ruby-throats around. I hope to get it in my binocular sights for a closer look or maybe even catch it with my camera to confirm my suspicion. 

The Chimney Swifts are still here. I see seven to ten of the little birds barreling around the skies over my yard in late afternoons. If you are interested in Chimney Swifts, you might like to participate in the Citizen Science project "A Swift Night Out" on the weekend of September 6, 7, and 8. Just click on the link for details.

And the molt continues. Most of my backyard birds are looking really raggedy just now. Earlier this week, I saw a bald-headed Blue Jay, not an attractive sight! But in a few more weeks, all the raggediness will be forgotten and they will all be sleek and beautiful again.

Happy birding. Remember to keep those birdbaths cleaned and filled with water and if you feed the hummingbirds, clean and refill your feeders frequently. The late summer heat spoils the sugar water pretty quickly. 

Gardening for the Birds by George Adams: A review

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you are interested in creating a habitat garden, a garden that fits seamlessly into your local environment and is welcoming to local wildlife, this is a book that can help you achieve your goal. George Adams' emphasis is upon attracting birds to the garden, but, in fact, his gardening method will also attract butterflies, bees, and other pollinators, small reptiles and amphibians, as well as avian visitors. It will be a place that is welcoming to them all and that is much more interesting for any humans that spend time in it.

One of the most popular hobbies in the country is feeding birds. An entire multi-million dollar industry has grown up around supplying feeders and feed to the hobbyists, but putting up a bird feeder in your yard is not necessarily the best way to attract birds or to attract a wide range of species. You might wind up with nothing but House Sparrows, which is not what most people who want to watch birds in their yards are aiming for.

A better approach is to actually put in the effort to create the kind of habitat that the birds are looking for. The author advises us to look at our yards from a bird's eye view. When we do that, we can begin to see that a bird-friendly landscape is what they are seeking. They want plants that are familiar to them, plants that provide food, shelter, and a place to raise their young. And, of course, they want a source of clean, fresh water.

In his introduction to his book, George Adams writes:

To attract birds to your garden, the backbone of your landscaping plan should be local native plants. By putting in native plants and using an organic, sustainable approach to gardening, you establish a balanced ecosystem in your yard. A greater variety of birds and butterflies will visit and linger, insect pests will be kept under control by insect-eating birds (reducing the need for harmful insecticides), and the wonder of nature will be part of your everyday living environment.

That is a succinct summary of the philosophy behind this book and the philosophy behind habitat gardening in general. It is one that I subscribe to and try to put in practice in my garden.

Adams explains that when you use native plants, plants with which birds and other wildlife are familiar, you will be mimicking their natural ecosystems. In doing so, you will provide birds with food, water, shelter, and nesting places, so that, instead of simply visiting and passing through, they will linger. They will call your garden home and you will have the bonus of observing them, up close and personal.

This book provides helpful calendars which list native plants from each region of the country. The calendars show the light needs of the plants, which animals make use of them and which months they will bloom, as well as other useful information. There are calendars for hummingbird and butterfly flowers, wildflowers, and for seasonal fruiting.

The author shows how to develop your landscape plan, according to the properties of your own particular region. He shows that even small garden spaces can create friendly habitats for birds. He also discusses some of the problems which may arise - things like nuisance birds such as House Sparrows and European Starlings, cats, and the unwelcome guests like rats and mice that bird feeders can sometimes attract.

Finally, there is a substantial plant directory, covering more than one hundred pages, which lists native plants from all sections of the country and their needs, as well as some of the birds they may attract. And there is a cross reference directory with profiles of the individual bird species, featuring wonderful pictures, which gives information about their preferred habitat and their behavior and, most importantly, what plants you can plant to attract them. 

This book, in short, gives a helpful but not overwhelming amount of detail regarding the horticulture of the plants and the garden design strategies. It features wonderful pictures of plants and birds that should be useful to both the birding and non-birding gardener. And the charts are well-organized and easy to understand. It is a book that provides a primer for anyone who is interested in creating a bird-friendly habitat in their yard. It should find a place on the bookshelves of gardeners and birders alike. And, yes, they are quite often the same people.

(A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher for the purposes of this review. No other compensation was given and the opinions here are entirely my own.)

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Does this sound like a book you would like to have? Well, this may be your lucky day. The publisher is offering a chance to win a free book as well as a framed pen-and-ink bird illustration done by the author. Just click on the link and enter. All it takes is an email address. Good luck!


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Wordless Wednesday: Pied-billed Grebe

This week in birds - #79

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Violet-crowned Hummingbird photo by Greg Homel, courtesy of ABC.

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week this week is the Violet-crowned Hummingbird, the only North American hummingbird that does not have a colorful gorget.  The Violet-crowned Hummingbird is easily distinguished from all other North American hummingbirds by its pure white underparts, iridescent bluish-violet crown, and red bill with black tip. This is mostly a bird of Mexico and only occasionally wanders as far north as the United States. The bird is not considered threatened in Mexico, but it is vulnerable to human disturbance and habitat loss due to overgrazing and drought.

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Questions continue to be asked about the safety and efficacy of the Keystone XL pipeline and many of the questions are being raised by landowners whose land the pipeline would pass through. There continue to be concerns about the pollution of groundwater and aquifers that serve as drinking water for a large swath of the middle part of the country.

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Also, there are at least seven endangered species, including the Piping Plover and the Sprague's Pipit that would potentially be adversely impacted by the building of the Keystone pipeline.

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Penguin populations will generally fluctuate in coordination with the climate. A cooler climate means more penguins; warmer climates mean fewer of the birds.

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It is hummingbird migration season, a time when many western hummingbirds are known to wander into more easterly areas. This blog post features pictures of some of the birds that have been found in places where they would not normally be. 

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An extensive article on the eBird system and how it is changing birding appeared in The New York Times this week.

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Rising sea levels and shifting weather patterns that affect their prey are causing problems for Atlantic Puffins and Little Terns, making it more challenging for them to survive.

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The Atlas of North American Calling Insects is inviting members of the public to record insect sounds and send them in.

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Birds have a remarkable ability to calculate the rate of speed of a vehicle on the road and are able to flush from its path in time to avoid being hit. It's not foolproof, of course, and sometimes they do miscalculate, but for the most part, their system works very well indeed.

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Monarch butterflies continue to be scarce this summer following a one-two whammy of drought and an inclement winter.

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Six more dead dolphins have turned up on New Jersey beaches this week, continuing a pattern of unusual and generally unexplained deaths of the animals along the East Coast this summer. Authorities are still trying to definitively isolate the causes of the deaths.

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The Center for Disease Control reports that Lyme disease is much more  prevalent  than had previously been thought.

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Surprisingly, scientists have discovered that long-legged, long-necked flamingos and short-legged, short-necked grebes are probably each other's closest living relatives.

Wordless Wednesday: Female Northern Shoveler

Hummers galore!

The great hummingbird migration of fall 2013 seems to be well under way. The activity in my yard is fast and furious. I'm not sure how many hummers are here just at the moment, but I know there are more than three. There were three - one of them an adult male - chasing each other around in my backyard earlier while I could hear others chittering away as hummingbirds do in the background.

There are plenty of blossoms here for them to sip from, but I'm putting up my sugar water feeders again, too. I had taken all of them in except for one several weeks ago when it appeared that I only had the one adult female in my yard and she wasn't spending much time at the feeders. Now, in order to keep the peace and to make sure that everybody has a table to eat from, it's time to put them out again.

As far as I've been able to tell, so far all my visitors are Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, but it was around the last week in August last year when my first Rufous visitor showed up, so I will be keeping my eyes open for them over the next weeks. I will also be on the lookout for any other more exotic species that might be passing through. It is an exciting time to be a hummingbird watcher!

This week in birds - #78

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Photo of Great Green Macaw courtesy of ABC.

The Great Green Macaw is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week this week. It is the second-largest macaw in the world after the Hyacinth Macaw. Recently, the bird created quite a stir in Ecuador when 36 of them were sighted flying over the lush forest of the Canandé Reserve. It was the first time that such a large flock had been spotted there. The flock included more Great Green Macaws than were previously thought to exist in the country. This is an endangered species with approximately 3500 thought to exist in the wild. They are found from Honduras to Ecuador in small, fragmented populations.

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The big news in the world of Nature and science this week was the announcement of the discovery of a new species of mammal in the Andean Cloud Forest. The Olinguito is described as looking like a cross between a house cat and a teddy bear. It is the first new species of mammal to be discovered on the American continents in 35 years.

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Perhaps as a harbinger of things to come in Texas, the little town of Barnhart has recently run out of water because of a combination of the effects of the drought and the overuse of water for fracking. In a somewhat related story in The New York Times this week, many cities in the West are actually paying homeowners to rip out their water-guzzling lawns and employ more drought-friendly landscaping.

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Some people consider the larvae of butterflies, the caterpillars that munch certain plants, as pests to be exterminated. Those people, in my opinion, are very short-sighted and misguided. Rebecca in the Woods agrees with me.

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I've noted here before that Bald Eagles have made a remarkable recovery from the brink of extinction in this country. They are doing so well, in fact, that some states are considering removing them from their threatened species lists.

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A study of Ostrich necks has provided clues to the flexibility of some dinosaurs. The conclusion is that long-necked sauropods may not have been very flexible at all.

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For the first time since the 1960s, Hen Harriers, a relative of our own Northern Harriers, have failed to nest successfully in England and are considered to be on the brink of extinction there.

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And, in more bad news, twenty Andean Condors have been found dead in the mountain range between Chile and Argentina. Health authorities are attempting to ascertain the cause of death.

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The kingbird comes by its name honestly. It firmly believes it is the king of all it surveys. It does not hesitate to attack larger birds that it perceives as a threat. The ABA blog this week published a story with pictures of such an encounter between an Eastern Kingbird and a Prairie Falcon.

Eastern Kingbird photographed at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.

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The U.S. Navy has stepped up its efforts to better protect the little Burrowing Owls that make their home on the Navy's Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station in Orange County, California. At the same time, they have to be aware of the owls' potential for preying on a colony of Least Terns that lives there and they must balance protection of those birds as well. 

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The population of Ospreys in Scotland is increasing and now a few of the young Scottish birds are being sent to Spain to try to aid the declining population of the birds there.

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The world's largest owl is the Blakiston's Fish Owl which lives in the great primary forests of Russia's Far East. The owl is an indicator species for the health of its environment and the bird is now considered endangered and its numbers are decreasing.

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The Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., has hired a herd of eco-friendly goats to clean up its poison ivy and invasive species like kudzu. It's nice to hear that someone in Washington has a care and concern for the health of the environment!

Wordless Wednesday: Summer hummer

This week in birds - #77

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Akohekohe photographed by Luke Seitz, courtesy of ABC. 

The Crested Honeycreeper or, as it is known in Hawaiian, the Akohekohe, is the American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week. Like too many native Hawaiian birds, it is critically endangered and its numbers are thought to be declining. It lives in high elevation rainforests on the island of Maui. It is a brightly colored and boisterous bird whose raspy, guttural calls make it easy to locate. It feeds mostly on the nectar of native flowering trees but also takes insects. Its existence is threatened by deforestation and the introduction of exotic species to the island.

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Dolphins are dying at an alarming rate along the East Coast this summer. Nearly 120 corpses had washed up on shore through the first week in August. Scientists are scrambling to determine the cause of the high death rate. At least some of the animals have tested positive for a virus similar to measles.

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Meanwhile, in the estuaries around the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, manatees, pelicans, and dolphins have all been dying recently. It's believed that the cause is runoff of nitrogen from farming operations.

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The National Rifle Association is attacking conservation groups and zoos that are trying to save the critically endangered California Condor. One of the main culprits in the deaths of the big birds in the wild is the lead bullets they ingest when they eat carrion from animals killed by hunters and left to rot. The conservation groups and zoos have been leading a drive to have lead bullets banned. There are alternatives that are just as lethal but that would not poison carrion-eaters. But the NRA says, no, no, we have to have our lead bullets! Who wants to kill something with a synthetic bullet? (Like, it wouldn't be just as dead!)

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The Prairie Ecologist is declaring this bee week and is trying to encourage us all to think of landscapes as they appear to bees and other pollinators and to make those landscapes more pollinator-friendly.

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At Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan, some of the office buildings have "green" roofs and on those roofs, there is a corporate life for bees where new colonies pollinate the plants on the roofs and produce honey for the lucky tenants working below.

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The emerald ash borer is a scourge to forests but a boon to some birds that live in them, particularly woodpeckers like the Downy, Red-bellied, and Hairy, as well as other birds like nuthatches that glean from the bark of trees.

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Atrazine is a toxic pesticide that threatens wildlife and people across the country in some horrific ways -- it's found in our water supply and can cause endocrine disruption, birth defects, fertility problems and certain cancers. It also can have the effect of chemically castrating frogs and toads. Conservation organizations are leading a drive to get the EPA to ban use of the pesticide.

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Do fake television shows like the ones you typically see on the hyped "Shark Week" make it harder to gain protection for the real animals? Research indicates that it certainly doesn't help and such shows certainly do not educate their viewers.

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There is growing concern about the treatment of animals in places like Sea World, particularly of highly intelligent animals like orcas. Many feel that it is morally indefensible to keep these animals in such captivity.

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Climate change and deforestation are increasing the numbers of parasitic flies that prey on nestlings in Argentine forests.

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Mice and other small mammals can be carriers of Lyme disease through harboring the black-legged tick. The timber rattlesnake preys on these animals and thus is one means of helping to control the spread of that terrible disease. 

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Around the backyard:

My main job for the birds these days is to make sure that birdbaths and other water providers in the yard are kept cleaned and filled with fresh water. The birds crowd around the receptacles that provide water to them and, of course, birds poop and they preen and lose feathers there, particularly at this time of year when they are molting. All in all, the areas can become very messy very quickly and that is an invitation to disease. It's most important that we clean them and that we replenish the water on a regular basis. I do it in my yard and I hope you are doing in yours.

Stay cool, and enjoy your birds.

Happy birthday to me!

When I fired up the old laptop this morning and called on my friend, Google, this is what I saw.

Hmmm, I thought, some famous person has the same birthday as me. Then I ran my cursor over the doodle and read, "Happy Birthday, Dorothy!"

Wow! My friend Google remembered my birthday. I didn't know she/he/it cared. I guess it's true that Google really does know all my secrets. 

Will birthday greetings from the NSA be next?

Anyway, all of that is just to say that I'm taking a birthday break. Normal blogging will resume tomorrow...or whenever I recover from my celebration.  

Wordless Wednesday: Golden-fronted Woodpecker

This week in birds - #76

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

This Red-tailed Hawk (Krider's color variation) was photographed in Big Bend National Park last fall, but a bird of very similar coloration has been hunting over my yard all summer. Red-tailed Hawks have many color variations from very dark to very light, but the one thing that they will all have in common is that red tail which makes them perhaps one of the easiest of hawks to recognize. They are also one of the most widespread of hawk species on the North American continent and can be found virtually anywhere on the continent even among the high rise buildings of cities.

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Trees in drought-ridden parts of the country, including the part where I live, have had a tough time of it these last few dry years. We know that the drought makes them more susceptible to disease and insects. Now scientists have found that the drought-weakened trees are more susceptible to death by wildfire.

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This month's National Geographic had an article about the slaughter of songbirds on migration through the Mediterranean area. Now they have listed online several organizations that are trying to stop that slaughter and have suggested ways that we all can aid the effort.

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The Veery is a small thrush similar to the Wood Thrush and Hermit Thrush and the this smart bird knows who its enemies are. Like many birds, the Veery sings at twilight, but it will stop singing instantly if it hears an owl calling so that it does not give away its position to its mortal enemy.

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It is a sad and all too familiar story. An oil company despoils the land where it has operations and then pulls out, leaving a mess behind. It has happened again in a subdivision in Carson, California, where Shell Oil once operated. The land is contaminated with various toxic substances and an emergency has been declared while the city tries to force Shell to foot the bill for the clean-up.

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The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Scotland has a project under way to restore vast tracts of peat bogs in the country, thereby improving habitat for the birds that rely on such places.

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I find box turtles to be fascinating critters so I was interested to see this article about them in The New York Times today. The article points out that the Eastern Box Turtle can live up to 100 years in its shell and that they are highly territorial, generally spending their entire life in an area smaller than a football field. We had experience with one box turtle that we named Sam Box who lived in our yard for more than twenty years and probably long before that before we moved here. She disappeared a couple of years ago, but now another small turtle has taken her place. We assume he is her son and we named him Sammy.

Like his mother, this turtle has a kibble habit. He comes to the back porch every day for his fix. His shell shows several areas of damage. Obviously, it is a tough world out there for box turtles.

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Here's another example of how restoring a vital part of an ecosystem can have unforeseen consequences. The return of gray wolves to Yellowstone has impacted the hoofed residents of the park as expected, but the decrease in that population has been fortuitous for grizzly bears. There are now more berries left for the bears to eat which helps immensely with adding the fat they need to get through the winter.

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An oil spill in the port of Brisbane, Australia, has left pelicans covered in the sticky stuff. It is expected that the spill will take at least a week to clean up.

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Bald Eagles are doing very, very well in this country. The banning of the use of DDT and the protection of the Endangered Species Act has given them a new lease on life and they have flown with it. A recent survey of the birds along the James River in Virginia found more than 200 pairs there, the most that had been seen in the area since 1930.

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We tend to think of moths as sort of the ugly stepsister of the Lepidoptera clan, while the Cinderella butterflies get all of our attention and love. But here are seven beautiful and interesting moths that might make you change your mind.

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New Jersey is not all concrete. It is after all called the Garden State. It also has wild areas and some of those wild areas have bobcats! A woman in northern New Jersey was about to let her cat outside earlier this week when she noticed a large cat in her front yard. Turned out it was a bobcat and he was having his breakfast of rabbit. The woman took pictures to document her sighting.

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Around the backyard:

House Finch

I've been enjoying the presence of melodious House Finches in my yard this summer. They haven't always been a presence here. For years I would grumble when I heard others in the area bragging about their House Finches. The birds almost never showed up in my yard and when they did, they were just passing through. That has changed in the last couple of years. They have finally become a regular and dependable presence here, and, now, as I work in my garden or have a refreshing cold beverage on my patio, I am able to enjoy that lovely song. And as an added bonus I can annoy others with my bragging about my House Finches!

The Warbler Guide by Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle: A review

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wood warblers are sometimes referred to as the rock stars of the bird world, and they certainly do draw vast and enthusiastic crowds of birders when they are in migration. And even as devoted followers of loud rock concerts might suffer from damage to their hearing, warbler fans often suffer from a common malady. It is known as "warbler neck." It comes from standing long periods under a large tree, looking straight up into its leafy canopy, trying to see a tiny bird perhaps 5.5 inches long and weighing maybe 1/3 of an ounce. For that is where most of these particular rock stars are routinely found and seeing them is not easy.

If you are able to actually see one and get a good look at it in spring and you have a moderately good field guide nearby, you will probably be able to identify it, because warblers in springtime are at their most colorful and most distinctive. If you encounter that same bird in autumn when it has shed its breeding colors and taken on the dull cloak of winter, you might not recognize it at all.

Well, Tom Stephenson and Scott Whittle are out to help you with that. They have put together a very useful book to aid the serious warbler fan in identifying the object of his or her devotion. Their guide to identification covers not just the markings of the birds but how to age and sex warblers on the wing and, especially, because their song is one of their main identifying features, how to listen to warbler songs and how to identify their "chip" and flight calls.

There are some 56 species of warbler that spend at least part of the year - usually spring and summer - on the North American continent and this big book features more than 1000 color pictures of them. These photos cover all color phases of the birds and show them in various poses. There are even visual "quick finders" included which show the birds side by side from different angles, including that angle of looking at the underparts of the bird when you are standing under that tree and looking straight up. Detailed species accounts show multiple views with diagnostic points emphasized and direct comparison of the plumage and songs of similar species.

The book uses sonograms to teach a new system of song identification that makes it easier to understand and hear differences between similar species, and, since this is the age of technology, there are interactive companion apps for iPhone and iPad.

In addition to all that, there are field exercises, flight shots, general identification strategies, and even quizzes to help you familiarize yourself with warblers and have a better shot at actually being able to identify that tiny scrap of feathers when you see it moving quickly from limb to limb in the field.

It is an impressive book that certainly will find a space on the bookshelf of many serious birders.

(A free copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher for the purposes of this review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own and were not compensated in any other manner.)


View all my reviews

Cross-posted at The Nature of Things.