This week in birds - #64

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

The American Bird Conservancy's Bird of the Week this week is the highly endangered Ochre-fronted Antpitta, a bird endemic to the cloud forests of northern Peru. This plump, long-legged bird is less than five inches long, with an olive-brown back and black-streaked white underparts. Males have the ochre-buff forehead that gives this species its name.

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Swallows are known for their preference for living and nesting close to human habitations. A group of researchers studying them has come up with the theory that the birds developed this habit as a way of protecting their nests from nest parasitizing birds like Cuckoos that do not like to be close to humans. 

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A beautiful striped bat discovered in South Sudan in Africa has been identified as an entirely new genus.

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We have a new Secretary of the Interior. Sally Jewell was confirmed by the Senate by a 87-11 vote this week.

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Most penguins are affected negatively by global climate change, but scientists have discovered one colony of Adelie Penguins that may actually benefit from the warming climate.

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In an average year, there are 250 oil pipeline accidents. The resulting spills have caused billions of dollars of property damage and cleanup costs. 

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Migrant species of birds, known as vagrants, that enter a new environment are often aided by the presence of nature reserves, scientists in the UK have found. Undoubtedly, it is true here, also.

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Eastern Bluebirds living in Bermuda are considered by some to be a subspecies called the Bermuda Bluebird. They've long been considered a native bird, but, in fact, they only came to the island some 400 years ago.

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Is clean air important? Well, statistics show that seven million people died as a result of air pollution in 2010. Over a third of those deaths occurred in China.

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The American Bird Conservancy lists ten ways that you can assist migrating and breeding birds this spring. Number one is to keep your cat indoors.

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Tens of thousands of gallons of radioactive water leaked from a large underground storage pool at the crippled nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan, and thousands more gallons could seep out before the faulty pool can be emptied, the plant’s operator said.

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In February, scores of seabirds were injured and hundreds more killed by a sticky pollutant in the water along the south coast of England. Now it is happening again. More than thirty Guillemots have been rescued so far.

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Around the backyard:

Project FeederWatch wrapped up for the season last week. My final reporting days were March 30-31. But there is still plenty of activity around the feeders this week, still primarily Pine Siskins. Following the front that came through in the middle of the week, most of the American Goldfinches have disappeared. I've seen only two or three at the feeders yesterday and again today. The siskins though show no signs so far of wanting to move on.

In other finch news, there have been two pairs of beautiful House Finches hanging around the feeders this week. They are always welcome visitors.
 

Wordless Wednesday: Cutie pie!

The Crossley ID Guide: Raptors by Richard Crossley, Jerry Liguori, and Brian Sullivan: A review

Roger Tory Peterson revolutionized birding in the 1930s with his innovative way of presenting images of birds in field guides. His drawings showed the birds in stylized poses that emphasized their most noticeable markings which helped to identify them. Arrows pointed to those marks, and texts named them to help even the most novice birders find identifying field marks and "name that bird." Peterson was godfather to generations of birders and was one of the prime movers in popularizing the hobby.

Since that time, most authors of bird guides have followed in Peterson's footsteps, using some variation of his methods. It was time for a new revolution. Enter Richard Crossley.

Crossley's ID guides, not field guides because they are not really meant to be taken into the field, utilize a radically different method of looking at and identifying birds. Crossley uses photographs of the birds, doing what birds do - perching, flying, eating, preening, catching prey, and, in the case of water birds, occasionally swimming. He takes multiple pictures of a bird species in differing poses and places those pictures against a background of a naturalistic setting for the bird. The effect is that we see the bird as it would appear in real life in its natural habitat. It is a brilliant innovation in the depiction of birds for identification.

His first guide using this method was The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds, which I reviewed here.  Now he and his two co-authors add this new book which specifically deals with North American raptors.

The raptors, from the lowly vultures to the majestic eagles, are presented in all their beauty and uniqueness. In most instances, there are multiple pages of beautiful photographs of each species. The Red-tailed Hawk, for example, which has a daunting number of color phases and variations, has ten pages of photographs devoted to it.

Many raptors are maddeningly difficult to differentiate. Looking at them from the ground as they fly overhead, they can all appear to be big brown birds, or, sometimes, big brown blurs. Among the most difficult can be the Accipiters. The Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper's Hawk, and Northern Goshawk, where they appear together, can mostly be told apart on the wing by their size or the shape of the tail. But all things are relative. And confusing. In the case of these hawks, the authors have included pages of photographs of the birds side by side, again in naturalistic settings, so that the eye can more easily discern the differences. The same method is used for other similar and confusing species. Some such pages have tests for the reader to compare the pictures and try his/her eye at identifying the birds. Answers to the tests are presented in the back of the book

Though the emphasis is on the visual effect of the beautiful photographs in the book, the text is also comprehensive and extremely helpful, containing a wealth of information about each individual species, much more than one would find in a typical field guide. The range maps, as well, are clear and beautifully depicted, and must have been somewhat of a challenge with many species expanding their ranges in response to climate change. The Swallow-tailed Kite, for example, until recent years was very rarely seen in my area of Southeast Texas. Now it is fairly common in summer and has already appeared over my yard this spring. The range map in the book shows it just to the east of my area. The same could be said of the Harris's Hawk which appears increasingly here in summer and seems to be expanding its range from the west. The range map shows it just west and south of me.

This ID guide, like Crossley's earlier works, are ideal tools for the birder to use to familiarize him/herself with the shape and appearance of these fascinating raptors before going birding. Returning from a birding trip, they can be used again to review one's notes and confirm identifications. They are, in short, an essential addition to birding literature and may, in time, have the same kind of impact as the revered Peterson.

(A free advance copy of this soon-to-be published book was provided to me by the publisher for the purposes of this review. The opinions expressed are entirely my own.)

This week in birds - #63

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

Our smallest (and cutest) woodpecker is the Downy Woodpecker. It is easy to tell the sexes apart. The female, seen here, is all black and white.

The male, like all of our native male woodpeckers, has a red mark on his head. Both males and females love to visit suet feeders.

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The big news in the environment this week was the rupture in Arkansas of a pipeline carrying tar sands crude oil from Canada. The leak spilled more than 200,000 gallons of the smelly, sticky stuff into the suburban neighborhood of Mayflower. The accident was a reminder of just what can happen when such pipelines rupture and cast further doubt on the wisdom of completing the Keystone XL pipeline which would carry similar crude oil through very sensitive water sources throughout the Midwest.

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It is well known that mated pairs of cranes of all species "dance" as part of their courtship ritual. It is an activity that has been imitated by humans as far back as the Stone Age in their dancing. Sometimes, though, young, unmated cranes will dance also. Scientists are attempting to understand what triggers such behavior. It seems likely that it is merely a kind of play in which the birds engage.  

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We've had spring here in Southeast Texas since just about mid-February, but the season is just beginning to arrive in places like Illinois.

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The subjects of pure scientific research can sometimes come in for ridicule from those who don't understand the value of such study. For example, reading that some scientist is studying duck genitalia might lend itself for inclusion in some late-night comedian's routine. In fact, there are serious reasons for such study and one of the scientists involved in it took time this week to explain what could be learned from such scientific research.

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We were lucky enough to get two inches of rain this week, but the long term forecast is for continued drought here and throughout the central and western part of the country.

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When you think of flamingos, the first place that comes to mind is probably not Mumbai, India, but, in fact, each year from January to May, both Greater and Lesser Flamingos flock to the mud flats around the busy city.

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A pair of Ospreys had built a nest on a crane in the Port of San Francisco and Port workers removed and destroyed the nest. That is a big no-no. You are not allowed to mess with the nests of raptors during nesting season, under the provisions of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The Port's action is being investigated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

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Dragonflies may appear to be delicate creatures but they are really deadly predators with something like a 95% success rate in capturing their prey, much higher than most other predators.

This dragonfly visited my garden last December.

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Global warming will affect breeding birds of the Arctic in various ways. Some birds may actually benefit from its effects, but it is likely that more will be negatively affected.

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Anyone who has read any of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series of books about England's war against Napoleon would not be surprised by this story: One of Napoleon's generals, Pierre Dejean, was a naturalist and a great collector of beetles who sometimes collected the insects even in the midst of battles. Two Canadian scientists have now undertaken to update his extensive records and catalogs of his collections. Stephen Maturin would be proud!

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Around the backyard:

I haven't seen or heard any Rufous Hummingbirds for a few days now and I think that my winter visitors must have finally moved on. Yesterday, however, I was surprised and delighted to observe a male Black-chinned Hummingbird at one of my feeders in the middle of the afternoon. It's not often that I see his kind in my yard.

Today, there was another male Ruby-throated Hummingbird in the yard. I have yet to see a female this spring.

Wordless Wednesday: Common Gallinule

Two new visitors

"Chik-a-purrrreeer-chik" sang the bird in my oak tree this morning. No doubt about his identity! The White-eyed Vireo was back in town and announcing his presence, while hidden among the green leaves. Soon, I heard an answering call from a neighbor's yard, so it wasn't just my  vireo who had arrived. Evidently, he had brought his gang with him.

This afternoon, while driving south on S.H. 249 in Tomball, I looked up to see another familiar shape. The bird on the utility wire had a very long tail. No doubt about his identity either - the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is here.

Vireos and Scissor-tails - it really must be spring!

Still here

I've had the sense recently that our winter birds seem to be staying with us longer this year than in the past. So, to check my memory, I looked back at my previous years' records on eBird to see what they showed. As often happens, I found that my memory was somewhat faulty.

My records show that my latest sighting of American Goldfinches in my yard was on April 9, 2011, so the fact that I still have some in my yard here at the first of April is not that unusual. But there do seem to be more of the birds that are making the transition to their spring feathers in my yard. Usually, we only see them in their gray-green winter clothes, but this year bright yellow and black birds are common in the yard.

This male American Goldfinch, in my yard over the weekend,  has changed about halfway into his spring clothes.

My latest yard sighting of Pine Siskins was on April 27, 2011, so they could potentially still be hanging around for another month.

The siskins are still the most numerous bird species in my yard and at my feeders as they were for most of the winter.

Now, I only have one year's previous experience with Rufous Hummingbirds, but last year, my first year to host the birds during the winter, they were last seen in my yard on March 27. So, already, they have stayed longer than their previous record and they are now outnumbered daily by the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds passing through. And still they linger.

There are plenty of blossoms for the birds to sip from now, but this little guy still likes to visit the feeder throughout the day.

On the other hand, our winter warblers do seem to have fled my yard and my Red-breasted Nuthatches are long gone, though other birders in the area have reported them throughout March. The season is definitely in transition. Who will be next to show up?