Disapproving rabbit not quite so disapproving

The ever-effervescent Bird Chick (Sharon Stiteler) writes, "Even the most disapproving of rabbits approve of your book!"

Happy readers

I love that there are some kids who love my book! Well, Jane Hatzinger, in this photo, isn't my sixth grade student anymore, but she once was, and even without my power to grade her tests and papers hanging over her, she still was willing to pose with my book! And nowadays she's introducing birds to her own sixth grade students.I think of all the nice reviews and kind words a select but lovely cadre of people have sent about my book, my most treasured are from this young man, Blaize, who introduced me to his fellow fourth graders at a school assembly this year as "the author of the BEST book ever written." He was written about in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, archived here.
I'm collecting photos of people willing to hold my book up and smile or give it a thumbs up. There's no advertising budget whatsoever for trying to get the word out, so I'm scrambling for ideas. It would be sort of cool to actually make a little income from the book, but my real interest, as it was in writing the book in the first place, is making people aware of all the ways that human activities harm birds so we can be more mindful, and take the little actions that aren't too big of a hardship for each of us but can cumulatively make a huge difference for the chickadees, falcons, prairie chickens, warblers, eagles (including Stephen Jr), and other avian friends among us.

Hawk Ridge Sparrows

I love Lincoln's Sparrows! And there were so many adult white-striped White-throated Sparrows at Hawk Ridge yesterday that we heard a surprising number of songs. It was too busy with people for me to get really close to the feeding station, so I didn't get any great photos, but considering how few Lincoln's Sparrow photos I had before yesterday, I'm very satisfied with the day.

Just another day at Hawk Ridge

I got to serve as "emergency auxiliary backup hawk count interpreter" yesterday at Hawk Ridge, and it was a splendid day. The hawks were flying high, probably wanting to get the heck out of here before today's rain started falling, so few dropped down to the banding station, but of the six birds that did get trapped, one was a Northern Goshawk and one a Peregrine Falcon of the northern tundrius subspecies.

Julie O'Connor was adorable showing that bird off! She spends her summers showing thousands of Duluthians and visitors the downtown Peregrine family for the "Peregrine Watch!" program. When you spend as much time as Julie does watching tiny nestlings day after day, seeing them looking up and down at the big world when they first toddle to the edge of the nest box, then start flapping their wings and sometimes running along the ledge in a most ungainly manner, you can't help but get emotionally invested. It's heart-stopping when they make their first awkward flights--not so much the being in the air as the landing. And then voila! They're hunting downtown, then disappearing for long stretches--and suddenly it's hawk migration time and one baby who grew up way far north on the tundra comes down to Hawk Ridge and who but Julie gets to hold it and show it off for the crowd? Her joy was contagious.

I got to stand next to the counters, Karl and Nick. I was in mid-sentence talking to the crowd when Karl called out a Boreal Chickadee! It was calling, and what a thrill to hear--they sound like a Black-capped Chickadee with a terminal disease, with a wheezy "chickadee" that sounds like it's their last gasp.

Karl also pointed out a flock of geese winging by which I would have just ticked off as mostly Canadas with one lone Snow Goose. But noooooooooo-- Karl's sharp, experienced eyes caught the short necks and tiny stub bills on the darker geese. These were Cackling Geese and one Ross's Goose!

A family of Sandhill Cranes flew by, too, along with lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers tsking like annoyed math teachers and a couple of Palm Warblers tsking like annoyed music teachers.

We didn't notice any hummingbirds. The seed on the rocks attracted LOTS of White-throated Sparrows, with many more adults than have been there recently, and also at least one White-crowned Sparrow and one Lincoln's Sparrow. I took photos with my digiscoping camera which I'll post later.

Julie shows off the goshawk and then it's released.

In the blink of an eye

Photon had a jolly time, but stayed in the shade.

Nick (who graciously let me take over his responsibilities for the day as he counted)

Karl

The pièce de résistance

Cubbies make the playoffs!

The Cubs made the playoffs!!!!!

I had a dream that the Cubs made the series, playing the Red Sox. The Cubs won even as the Red Sox made a splendid showing. I could feel my grandpa's joy somewhere out there. And the earth continued to revolve in its orbit and the sun did not fall from the sky.

Then I woke up.

My Cubbies

Tickbirds make The Onion

Rhino, Tickbird Stuck In Dead-End Symbiotic Relationship

POLOKWANE, SOUTH AFRICA—"We just go through the motions and there's hardly any communication. I get on top and take the parasites off while he just lays there," the tickbird said.

C'mon over to Hawk Ridge!

I get to play emergency auxiliary backup count interpreter at Hawk Ridge tomorrow. There are still plenty of Broad-wings passing through (today the count was nearly 3500!) and tomorrow's winds are going to be perfect--light from the west. So come on over and enjoy the spectacle! And say hi!

Of mangos and Iraq

I took this photo in Costa Rica with a group of Wisconsin birders in 2002. I bet a lot of those same birders have gone to Beloit in the past week or so, to see that same species. There's a real thrill when a bird turns up in an unexpected out-of-range place. It's partly the delight of surprise--a mango in Wisconsin?! And it's a mystery. What prompts a tropical bird to suddenly wander so far from home? How could it suddenly appear in Wisconsin when it hadn't been reported once anywhere else after it left the tropics? Such an unexpected vagrant gives us a feeling of a genuine miracle, right there in Beloit.

The news passes like electricity through the birding community. Everyone naturally wants to see it--by definition, birders want to experience birds first hand, and to see such a rarity so easily--well, who wouldn't want to go?! Of course, there's a much greater feeling of accomplishment for a birder to be the one who discovers a rarity himself or herself, but chasing someone else's discovery provides the exact same boost to one's state checklist and for many in this case, lifelist. And there's a genuinely sad feeling of being left behind when everyone else rushes off to see a rare bird when we can't join in the fun.

So for a birder to bring up the subject of squandering natural resources in the face of so much joy and fun is...well, what kind of person would do that? A spoilsport? A crank? A supercilious preacher? The boring grownup squelching the fun of the partying kids? Al Gore vs. George W. Bush? Holier-than-thou? One comment on a previous blog entry said people like this, "like to stereotype listers as insensitive people who do not care about habitat or other concerns with birds. I prefer to not to judge listers and its not any of my business what they do with their hard earn money or how they should spend it." Of course, that same post stereotyped ardent conservationists. We've developed an "us vs. them" mentality within our own small ranks as birders.

I've been watching Ken Burns's series The War this week. During that war, Americans were all making major sacrifices--giving up many kinds of food, limiting their driving, saving cans and fat and other products to recycle for the war effort. At that time of privation, if people chased a rare bird they would be shunned by their community, especially if they made a huge, exultant thing of it. America was emerging from the Great Depression when the war started, so maybe it didn't feel like people were giving up very much when so recently they hadn't had many of those things anyway. And there certainly was an atmosphere of giving up things for a noble purpose, as they were being bombarded with news every day that friends and neighbors and brothers and sons had been wounded or killed. And because everyone sacrificed and felt that unified purpose, we decisively won that war, defeating both the Nazis and the Japanese Empire, in less than five years. Imagine that.

Right now most of us Americans and virtually all of us American birders are no longer used to privation. Even as we hear news of friends and neighbors and, for some of us, brothers and sisters and sons and daughters dying in the current war, we are so accustomed to the high levels of consumption that have become a hallmark of America that there is a genuine and heartfelt cry of outrage when people suggest that we stop and think about how much we are consuming. It's especially ironic because as even prominent supporters of the war have now admitted, we are only engaged in this war because of the limited supplies of the very natural resource that we're squandering.

Imagining the natural resources being burned up in every flight taking our men and women to Iraq makes the travels of a few dozen birders to Beloit, Wisconsin, seem pretty paltry. But I wonder--during World War II, the almost universal national will was to support our soldiers in every way possible. Saving bacon grease. Rationing fabric and food items. And saving gas.

We are at war right this moment. We aren't quite doing the math in this war the way we did in that war or in Korea or Vietnam. After a battle, the military once reported to the news the number of casualties. Now we hear the numbers of the soldiers who died but not unless we search hard can we unearth the numbers of the soldiers who have lost limbs, eyes, chunks of brain. We have a dangerously reduced perception of the sacrifices our soldiers are making. And instead of sacrificing together to win a noble cause, indeed, as if to underline the fact that at root, this war is for no noble cause at all, we're being encouraged to keep shopping, keep consuming, keep burning up the natural resources that our men and women's blood is being spilled for.

I'm not going to go into the issues of environmental degradation that directly affect birds as well as humans when we extract oil, when we transport it (sign up for a Google News Alert for oil spills if you don't think they're happening almost every day), when we refine it, and finally when we burn it, contributing to pollution and global warming. We feel we are entitled to burn as much as we can afford. Burn, baby, burn. Our consumption of oil is somehow so rooted to our national identity that, ironically, for the most part the people who most support this war are the ones who most conspicuously squander oil. The very people who most stridently want to dictate what individual Americans can do in our own bedrooms whine about being preached to when it comes to conserving the one natural resource at the heart of this ugly, ever-lasting war and at the root of the global warming that will, unchecked, destroy our coastal cities, wipe out species that we treasure, and change the course of world history.

I don't care if you chase the mango. It's a lovely bird, and as out-of-place in Wisconsin as an environmentalist is at a Hummer dealership. But the America I'm seeing in The War was not a place where people got shouted down for even mentioning the idea of sacrifice for a larger purpose and the greater good. If we want this war to end the way that one did with the good guys triumphing, maybe we should start acting like the good guys again.

Stephen Colbert, A loon is not a duck!

Oh, dear. Tonight Stephen Colbert was expressing concern about the fact that the Canadian dollar is worth more than the American dollar right now, and he pulled out a Canadian dollar coin, criticizing the "duck" on the face. He apparently needs more bird information than simply instructions on how to explain about the birds and the bees to that young eagle who is his adopted son. Stephen may be gutly, eneagled, good, and not just a true American hero--he IS America. But he's no ornithologist.

By the way, his book, which isn't even out yet, I Am America (and So Can You) is #85 on Amazon, a full FOUR orders of magnitude better selling than mine. I sure wish he'd mention my book on his show and give it the famous "Colbert bump."

And Stephen, if you're reading this, loons are even funnier than ducks. You should know that.

And, (posted on Thursday,) I now see that Stephen's book is up to #55 on Amazon. Apparently it's enjoying the not-so-famous "Erickson bump." So come on, Stephen--reciprocate!

Raging Hormones

I just came across this piece that I wrote in March, 2001.

As I write this, two hormonally-charged Pileated Woodpeckers are chiseling away at the box elder outside my window. They work in a frenzy, hacking away as woodchips fly like welders' sparks. A few weeks ago, these birds were spending their entire days feeding, far apart, but raging hormones have turned their lives completely upside down.

When I was in high school, some congressman or senator said women would never make suitable presidents because of "raging hormones." We feminists pooh-poohed him, believing firmly that both sexes were equally qualified to be president, little realizing just how much impact raging hormones could have on a presidency, and that perhaps one sex really was at a disadvantage hormonally. How could we have predicted that the last president of the 20th century would be impeached because of "raging hormones"? At the time I didn't have a clue what raging hormones even were. As a teenager, my mood swings were not hormonal--when I was gloomy or angry or euphoric, I knew it was because the situation called for gloom or anger or euphoria. When I was in love, the boy was absolutely perfect and deserving--hormones were certainly not involved. I never appreciated that component of teenage emotions until I became a junior high teacher, and hard evidence of biochemically-induced emotional upheavals was everywhere.

Like my end-of-winter Pileated Woodpeckers, my life was turned completely around in my late 20s when suddenly I needed a baby to make my life complete. The urge was so powerful I could feel my pupils dilate when I gazed at any infant. And I use the word gazed advisedly--I couldn't simply look at a baby. Thanks to those pesky hormones, inarticulate cry babies with poopy diapers who literally didn't know a hawk from a handsaw suddenly held a fascination nothing but short of a Pileated Woodpecker could have distracted me from. Hormones even performed a miracle on my body that not even the most hormonal pileated mother experiences--suddenly this domestically-impaired woman was producing nutritious milk without even a recipe! Even after I stopped doing that, hormones sustained my interest in the babies long enough for them to grow into hormonally-charged teenagers themselves, interesting and nice enough to maintain my affection even as my own hormones ebb.

Pileated Woodpeckers don't share our single, life-long hormonal cycle. Their hormones surge and ebb annually. During winter when hormones are at low tide, a Pileated confronted with a nestling would feel nothing more than detached curiosity. As hormones build during late winter and spring, suddenly it focuses all its attention on mate, nest, eggs, and nestlings. But mere weeks after it was consumed with baby care, the tide goes out and it forgets all about children for another year.

Up until recently, my hormones have done an admirable job of preparing me for the natural stages of my life, but now that I'm in my 40s, those hormones are mutinying. Rather than simply petering out, they're suddenly bursting into hair production. Not into useful hair--say, helping me to grow thick and luscious eyelashes, or giving me a mane like Andie McDowell's. No, the hairs my hormones have decided to cultivate are on my chin. Never more than two or three, and I can't see them without a magnifying mirror, but heavens! At no point in any human's life is there ever a need for chin hairs, and certainly not for a middle-aged woman! This is one matter in which birds are way ahead of us humans. You'll never see an aging pileated or chickadee, or any other bird, staring into a magnifying mirror through bifocals, tweezers in hand, uprooting tiny hairs before they become noticeable. But even in the matter of chin hairs, that senator I so despised in the 60s had it backwards. We women may get hairs growing out of our chins, but men have it even worse. When they reach their forties, their unwanted hairs start sprouting from their noses and ears! Why couldn't humans get the same annual hormonal surges pileateds do, throwing ourselves into woodworking projects for a few weeks, dealing full time with children for a couple of months, and then taking off for parts unknown the rest of the year, never draining our physical and emotional energy on nose or chin hairs? With all these raging hormones floating about sprouting hairs and destroying presidencies, maybe Americans really did make the right choice in the last election when they gave their final vote… to nobody.

Don't flush prescription medicines!

Help make sure the fish herons eat aren't contaminated with hormones or other drugs!

Here's something I should have included in my 101 Ways to Help Birds: Dispose of unused prescription meds properly. When we flush them down the toilet or wash them down the drain, they don't break down via the normal sewage treatment processes, so they work their way into natural (or increasingly unnatural)waters. Here in Duluth, our Western Lake Superior Sanitary District is hosting a free drop off, and providing information about the proper ways to dispose of old medicines. Today's Duluth News Tribune has the story. It notes:

Studies have shown surprisingly high levels of some drugs pass through sewage treatment plants and into waterways, where they also have been found in fish...

To dispose of medications at other times [than the free drop-off time], officials suggest rendering the drugs unusable, such as mixing them with a small amount of water, then wrapping them tightly and throwing them in the trash.

For more information, go to www.pca. state.mn.us/oea/hhw/phar maceuticals.cfm.

Runoff blamed for deformed frogs

Associated Press article from today:

Runoff Blamed for Jump in Deformed Frogs

WASHINGTON (AP) — The growing number of deformed frogs in recent years is caused at least partly by runoff from farming and ranching, new research indicates.

Nitrogen and phosphorous in the runoff fuel a cycle that results in a parasitic infection of tadpoles, resulting in loss of legs, extra legs or other deformities, according to researchers led by Pieter Johnson of the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Their findings are being published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...

Oh, my gosh! Mike McDowell holding my book!

Seek and ye shall find! Mike McDowell, world class digiscoper and a man who cares deeply about the birds he photographs is holding my book!

This photo isn't real, but boy do I wish it were:

Wanted: Photos of YOU holding my book!

When I wrote 101 Ways to Help Birds, I envisioned it as my "Rachel Carson book." I was the exact same age when it came out as she was when Silent Spring came out, and I hoped it would be an excellent resource for everyone who cares about birds to see the myriad ways our human activities are currently hurting birds and what we each can do about it. So far the book hasn't been mentioned or reviewed in many birding magazines (Birding Business, Birder's World, and Cornell's BirdScope are important exceptions), and it's doing no better than the marketing departments of two big publishers who turned it down predicted. They thought birders just aren't interested in books about conservation.

But SOME people are! Please--if you have read my book and liked it, send me a photo of you holding it. And if you possibly can, send me photos of any "top guns" holding it. And if anyone can possibly get a photo of Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert or Dave Barry or Ewan McGregor or George Clooney or Bob Balaban or Oprah Winfrey or Chandler Robbins holding it, well, I'll die a happy woman.

Also, if you can get a photo of it in an out-of-the-way, independent bookstore, I'd love that. Like if it turned up in Garrison Keillor's bookstore in the Twin Cities, or in The Tattered Cover in Denver, for instance.

(Disclaimer: Scott Weidensaul has not read my book yet, though he was kind enough to pose holding it. I sure hope he won't regret it!)

GET THE LEAD OUT!

(Read the story in Salon: Condors Vs. the N.R.A.)

I attended the American Ornithologists' Union meeting in Santa Barbara in 2005, when an all-day symposium about California Condors was held. Researchers presented their studies finding conclusively that the precise chemical forms of lead found in lead-poisoned condor blood samples were the forms in bullets. There were an enormous number of papers and studies establishing that lead is the number one cause of mortality for condors, and that the situation is a genuine crisis for the species. The research was compelling.

Hunters have a long and honorable track record as conservationists. But they also have a long track record as obstructionists when their personal sport might be modified slightly to protect species. Lead shot for waterfowl hunting was banned in the US only after a long and bitter battle, even though that shot was not just poisoning Bald Eagles and other scavengers feeding on crippled ducks--it was poisoning the waterfowl resource itself when spent shot rained down on wetlands for ducks, geese and swans to pick up as grit. Hunter paranoia was at the forefront then (they kept claiming that banning lead shot for waterfowl hunting was the first step to banning hunting altogether), and it's at the forefront now.

I hope Arnold Schwartzenegger lives up to the reputation he's earned as a conservationist. I also wish more hunters would rise to the challenge of living up to their own reputation as conservationists. As the number of hunters steadily decreases, based on declining numbers of Duck Stamps sold each year, sportsmen will become an increasingly beleaguered minority. It will be increasingly difficult for them to defend their sport if they squander so much of their resources and reputation on fighting this kind of battle, in which ALL the scientific evidence is against them.

Two late hummingbirds!

They may not be Green-breasted Mangoes or even Rufous Hummingbirds, but right now I have TWO Ruby-throated Hummingbirds coming to my feeders! Keeping up feeders through September, October, and November does NOT entice hummingbirds to remain when they should migrate. But it does help baby Ruby-throats that fledged late or didn't have a chance to bulk up by the time they were supposed to leave, and it helps western hummingbirds that seem to be evolving to use a new wintering range in the southeastern US. I'll keep mine out (freshening the water every week, and more often when it's warm outside) until December.

Splendid day for Hawk Ridge Weekend

What a splendid day for Hawk Ridge Weekend! There were thousands of hawks seen at the Ridge, and during my early morning Park Point field trip, thousands of warblers. Most of the warblers were, of course, Yellow-rumps and Palms, but there were a smattering of others. We saw Magnolia, Nashville, Black-and-white, Orange-crowned, Bay-breasted/Blackpoll, and American Redstarts. I'll be leading another field trip there tomorrow at 7 am.

Mike Hendrickson's Lake Superior boat trip

Mike Hendrickson writes:

What a day! Nice warm temps with southwest winds. Our route was to head directly to Wisconsin Pt and bird around the Superior Entry. We then decided to head over to Gull Bluff and then head over to Lester River and then back to the dock.

Highlights:

- Juv. Parasitic Jaeger
- Adult Parasitic Jaeger
- Lesser Black-backed Gull in 2nd cycle Plumage
- Greater Black-backed Gull

All the Jaegers were in Wisconsin waters and we have to thank Tom Schultz of Wisconsin for calling me on my cell phone in getting me on the jaegers. We had terrific looks of the juv jaeger as it chased gulls and also had both of the jaegers resting on the lake.

Other birds:

-Peregrine Falcon
-Sanderlings
-Ruddy Turnstones
-Golden Plover
-Common Tern
-several Bonaparte's Gulls

Odd Sighting:

A medium size bat over Lake Superior when the closest land area was 4 miles away !!

Terrific day and 2-2 on finding jaegers on these Lake Superior Boat Trips. Next Trip is October 6th and I have 9 spots for those interested on going. The cost for the boat trip is $30 per birder.

If you're interested in going on the next boat trip, email Mike.

"Could have been seen" list

Mike McDowell, the world-class digiscoper, has started a new kind of list, his "could have seen, but travel dollars went to conservation instead" list.

I don't know if the sport of birding is ever going to reach a point where the majority of birders stop chasing. If it does, something will have been lost. I have many fond memories of going places searching out hotline birds--the joys of connecting with birding friends and seeing a new bird are pretty satisfying. But chasing rarities for our lists is energy intensive, and the loss of birds by automobiles is significant--something we as a group should not be contributing to. Four or five different birders called me the winter of 2004-05 after hitting a Great Gray Owl or Northern Hawk-Owl while driving around the Sax-Zim Bog. Ironically they'd killed one of the very birds they'd come north to see!

What is the correct answer to the chasing dilemma? There is none--we each have to examine our own heart and soul and figure out just how much our list means to us and just how much we want to see a Mango. No matter what, though, we need to be mindful of the costs of our hobby. Carpooling at least cuts in half or a third or fourth the energy-consumption-per-lifer costs. And whenever anyone starts a personal "could have seen, but travel dollars went to conservation instead" list, something surely will have been gained. I know I skipped chasing the Long-tailed Jaeger in western Minnesota a few weeks ago specifically because I didn't want to waste energy going out there without at least one other birder along. So now I'll take the gas money I saved and make a contribution to the American Bird Conservancy and I can start my own personal "could have seen, but travel dollars went to conservation instead list" with the Long-tailed Jaeger. I can't count the Mango on that list because right now I have too many obligations in Duluth to be able to chase it anyway.

In 101 Ways to Help Birds, I write:

63. Be mindful of your automobile use when birding

Birding is an automobile-intensive hobby. One of the greatest joys in birding is adding a new species to one’s lifelist. When a rare bird is found, birders share the word on internet listserves, telephone hotlines, and cellular phone text messages, and within minutes or hours of a discovery, other birders descend upon the site. When a rare hummingbird turned up in my own backyard in November, 2004, dozens of birders arrived within the first few days to add it to their city, county, state, and even life lists. Many of them came from the Twin Cities, over 150 miles away, and some came from even farther. And well over a thousand birders from all over the continent, and many from abroad, descended upon northern Minnesota during the owl invasion of 2004-05.

Chasing rarities does use valuable natural resources and contributes to declining air and water quality, increased traffic, and highway deaths of birds, but chasing is part of the essence of birding for many of us. Rather than casting blame on those who jump in their car at the first news of a rarity, or feeling guilty about our own chasing, it’s more productive to be mindful of the resources we use and the harms associated with those uses, and to thoughtfully reduce our negative impacts whenever possible.

Because some of the best birding locations in the country happen to be along rutted, rocky dirt roads, some birders prefer to drive in heavy duty SUVs rather than smaller vehicles that get better gas mileage. My car’s hybrid engine not only saves a lot of gas but shuts off the gas engine when I stop, making it wonderfully quiet for hearing birds. The car’s low clearance does make it a poor choice in a few circumstances, but considering how much money I save on fuel and how much I saved on car costs in the first place, I don’t mind renting when I truly need something bigger. In most cases, it’s more economical to buy a small car for day-to-day use, and rent an SUV for those occasions when its size and ruggedness would be genuinely useful.

For day-to-day birding, choosing a nearby place and exploring its nooks and crannies on foot can be even more satisfying than combing country roads and birding from the car. I “adopted” a park within walking distance of our apartment when we lived in Madison, Wisconsin, and tried to bird there every morning before work during spring migration and at least weekly throughout the rest of the year. By exploring a single place like this, I was able to discover a few rarities to share with my fellow birders, learned many subtle things about the behavior and habitat needs of various birds, and was even able to start recognizing individual birds by song and appearance. When we moved from Madison, I left with my “Picnic Point” list at 200 species.

While we lived in Madison, I rode the bus to work in winter and during bad weather. One bus stop was near a part of Lake Monona where the local power company’s warm water discharge kept the lake open all winter. I liked to catch an early bus to work, get a transfer and hop off at that spot, check out the ducks (and sometimes a Snowy Owl) in the area, and then take the next bus the rest of the way to work. Of course, many of the best birding areas aren’t serviced by public transportation, but when one is, why not take advantage of it?

On fine days in the warmer seasons, I rode my bicycle to work. Madison had a wonderful bike path system, and by giving myself enough time, I could enjoy lots of birds to and from work.

But on weekends, I loved going birding farther afield. Some birders treasure being alone to enjoy their field time. But if you don’t mind birding with others, and especially if you enjoy it, you improve your birding-miles-per-gallon factor by carpooling. And having at least one extra set of eyes significantly raises the number of species you see, especially on the road between stops. When a rare bird is found some distance from your town or city, carpooling will both save gas and make the excursion more enjoyable.

Other tips for reducing fuel needs while birding:

• Keep your car in tune, your oil and air filters clean, and your tires properly inflated. If your car has a faulty oxygen sensor, your gas mileage may improve as much as 40 percent when you get it repaired according to EPA figures. Using oil other than your auto manufacturer’s recommended grade can lower your fuel efficiency.
• Never carry unneeded items, especially heavy ones, in your trunk or backseat. According to EPA figures, an extra 100 pounds of cargo in the trunk reduces a typical car's fuel economy by 1-2 percent.
• Use cruise control and overdrive when appropriate.
• Aggressive driving (speeding, rapid acceleration and braking) can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and 5 percent around town, according to EPA figures. After stopping for a good bird on a roadside, take off gently unless you need to merge in traffic.
• According to the EPA, a roof rack or carrier provides additional cargo space and may allow you to meet your needs with a smaller car. However, a loaded roof rack can decrease your fuel economy by 5 percent or more. Reduce aerodynamic drag and improve your fuel economy by placing items inside the trunk whenever possible.

By conscientiously doing what you can to minimize your driving and maximize your fuel economy, you can enjoy chasing rarities without squandering more natural resources than necessary.

Interesting birds-in-the-movies commentary

Probably every single birding blogger is linking to Graham Chisholm's review of 3:10 to Yuma in the Washington Post. Chisholm, Audubon California's director of conservation, knows his bird sounds from around the world, and justifiably criticizes movie makers for their sloppiness in putting impossible birds or bird sounds in movies.

Hollywood's general neglect of birds can be downright jarring. We birders are enjoying the movie as much as everyone else in the theater, and then something happens.

Take the movie "Ever After." While reveling in Drew Barrymore's alfresco lunch with the queen of France, we suddenly hear the cry of a . . . North American alder flycatcher? Brad Pitt might as well have flashed his Hanes boxers beneath a Trojan tunic.

But he does note an important exception:

Sound editors for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" asked Cornell's Macaulay Library at the Lab of Ornithology to help track down authentic sounds of the chiffchaff, burrowing owl, European robin, song thrush, common nightingale and rook.

Tragically, Chisholm himself doesn't realize, or the Harry Potter producers didn't realize, that Burrowing Owls are not found outside the Americas. Their close relative, the Little Owl, may sound like them, but I haven't spent time in Europe to know. For a while the Nature Conservancy's Harry Potter webpage was saying that Ron's owl Pigwidgeon was a Little Owl, but the drawing in the Scholastic version of the books clearly shows an owl with feather tufts on its head, so I'm presuming Pig is a Scops Owl. (My Owls of Harry Potter page is here.)

White-crowned Sparrows

The top White-crowned Sparrow hatched this year. The one with white stripes is an adult. They both look like they're wearing lipstick.

Sharp-shinned Hawk eye color

When I was at Hawk Ridge on Wednesday, the banding station sent four Sharpies to the main overlook at once so we could compare immature and adult plumages and see how eye color changes over time. First, here's an immature. Notice how yellow his eyes are, and the vertical streaking on the breast.
The next birds are all adults, with horizontal, rustier streaking. Over time, the eyes get orange and then red. The progression isn't a precise year-by-year evolution, but as birds mature, the eyes get redder.


This bird appears to be the oldest and so the most attractive to the opposite sex.
Quite a few species show changes in plumage and/or eye color as birds age. Mockingbirds and Brown Thrashers acquire new songs throughout their lives, and the more songs a male sings, the older and more experienced he appears, making him increasingly desirable for females. These clues about age give birds of the opposite sex a better picture of just how old, and thus experienced, an individual is. In nature, the more mature a bird is, the more attractive it is to the opposite sex, because maturity = experience = greater likelihood of successfully nesting and rearing young.

Fire ants killing Black-capped Vireos in Texas

Read this from Science Daily.

Wow! Scott Weidensaul holding my book!!!

Oh, wow. I've now heard Scott Weidensaul three times--and every time he's been fabulous. I bought his new book, and started it last night. So far it's been a great overview of the very early history of birding.

The ever-effervescent Bird Chick took this photo. Don't take it as an endorsement of my book by Scott--he hasn't had a chance to check out the book yet, and who knows if he'll actually like it? But what a thrill to see him holding it!

Hawk Ridge Day

I'm going to be up at Hawk Ridge with an Elderhostel group much of today. It'll be raining this morning a bit, but is supposed to be clearing out. Winds today are W and WNW--best case scenario! If you're up at the Ridge today, say hi!

I'll be up there until about 2 or 2:30. Then I'm cutting out and heading down to the Twin Cities for the Audubon Minnesota event to hear Scott Weidensaul. I can't wait!

International Crane Foundation photos

See my whole International Crane Foundation photo gallery here.

Devastation at High Island

Sue Levy, a former Duluth birder who now lives in Texas, asked me and other bloggers to share this important news:

Dear Friends,

Last Wednesday we woke to discover that we suddenly, from outta nowhere, had a tropical depression just south of Galveston Island that was due to become a tropical storm and make landfall within less than 24 hours. By about midnight, (Erev Rosh Ha- Shanah for some of us) it was Hurricane Humberto, which made landfall at High Island, devastating the precious bird sanctuaries which are famous as a spot for a different sort of landfall - for the trans-Gulf neo-tropical migrants who arrive each Spring, tired and hungry, to what has been a perfect habitat for them. If you're not a birder, you should know that the Upper Texas Coast is a world-class destination for both birds and birders and is a vital link in the migratory path for hundreds of species in both Spring and Fall. The High Island sanctuaries are about seventy miles northeast of Houston. between Galveston and Port Arthur.

Some of the worst damage was done by a tornado that touched down in the midst of the storm. Please read Winnie Burkett's comments and view the pictures of the damage which speak for themselves. The recovery effort will have to be massive to bring these places back to a semblance of what they were before. I hope you will make a generous donation to the cost of this work and, if you are in the Houston area, volunteer for one of the workdays. Houston Audubon cannot possibly pay for all the work that will be needed. A huge effort will be necessary on the part of volunteers. You can make a difference. Please help us.

Best wishes to y'all,

Sue

• Condition of High Island Sanctuaries after Hurricane Humberto
• Houston Audubon Society

Whooping Crane Festival photos

I put all my photos from this year's Whooping Crane Festival on a gallery here. These are just some of the photos.

Hawk Ridge, or Waxwing City?

I took a walk up to Hawk Ridge today. Winds were from the southwest, so there weren't a whole lot of hawks, though I did watch a really cool battle between a Merlin and a Sharp-shinned Hawk along with several other sharpies, a few kestrels, a Bald Eagle, and a couple of Turkey Vultures seen during a couple of hours there. In addition to those, there were a bazillion Cedar Waxwings moseying through and stopping to eat berries. It's heartening to see so many immatures.

Awwwwww!

We humans aren't the only primates who enjoy birds. Read the story from the Daily Mail here.

Whooping Crane Festival

More photos coming--I've posted a few from this morning's spectacular flight at my Whooping Crane Photo Gallery.

This adult bird from a previous year flew over the Whooping Crane Festival at noon, giving everyone splendid views.

Whooping Crane Festival

Jane Duden and I headed out to Necedah National Wildlife Refuge first thing this morning, but it was way too windy for this year's cranes to fly. We spent some time talking to people with Operation Migration, and then we headed down to Baraboo to the International Crane Foundation. I got to spend time with a former student of mine who is now a scientist with ICF. And I got lots of photos of this captive breeding pair of Whooping Cranes.

Tomorrow I'll try to get photos of wild Whoopers at Necedah, and the weather is supposed to be perfect for some practice flights, but for now I'm really happy with the ones I got today. I posted just 6 of them for now, but will post more when I get home, all at my Whooping Crane Photo Gallery.

Crane Festival!

I have the weekend off. Jane Duden, the Whooping Crane reporter for Journey North, and I are headed down to the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin for this year's annual Whooping Crane Festival. I've been a speaker at this splendid event in past years, but this year I'm just goofing off and helping Jane get video and photos. With luck when I report back I'll be able to use a photo of a Whooping Crane instead of these Sandhill Cranes.

Nature's Perfect Bird

My backyard has a bluish cast right now--everywhere I turn there are Blue Jays. I love these birds for their sparkly eyes, perky little crest, sociable ways, devotion to family, and intelligence. This week Karl Bardon counted about 5000 in a single day at Hawk Ridge, but even as those were flying through, there are plenty around to enjoy.

When Blue Jays are flocking, they keep their crests down. Blue Jays use their crests as "body language." When a Blue Jay's crest is erect, the bird is signaling agitation, aggression, territoriality, or alarm. When its crest is down, the bird is signaling cooperation and that all is well in the world. I didn't get any photos today of my birds with their crests up--every time I saw it, a hawk was coursing through the neighborhood, and before I could focus the birds were all gone like a flash. It's one of the bonuses, and difficulties, of living right below Hawk Ridge. And by the way, you should stop by there. I went today for just a few minutes, and even when the wind was all wrong saw several Bald Eagles and Sharp-shinned Hawks, and one Osprey, Turkey Vulture, and Broad-winged Hawk. Debbie Waters was showing a male and a female Sharp-shinned Hawk in the hand at the main overlook, and released them so everyone could see them in flight, too. When visitors are up at the main overlook, birds caught at the banding station that aren't too agitated are sent to the overlook for everyone to enjoy. Our spectacular Broad-winged Hawk migration is entering its peak period now, but will be over in a few weeks. Red-tailed Hawk, Bald Eagle, and Goshawk migration will peak in October. But each peak period is an ephemeral phenomenon. Come on up and enjoy it soon!

Scott Weidensaul coming to the Twin Cities!

Next Wednesday, Scott Weidensaul will be in the Twin Cities speaking about his new book, Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding. I've heard Scott speak on a couple of occasions, and consider him THE best birding speaker in America. Really. He has a wonderful sense of humor and does spot-on bird imitations while providing more in-depth, fascinating information than anyone I know. The cool thing is how enjoyable he makes this in-depth information. And he's also the birding writer I consider best. He was even among three finalists for a Pulitzer Prize for his wonderful Living on the Wind.

He's speaking at Audubon Minnesota's first annual Donor Appreciation Event, Wednesday, September 19, 2007, at 6:00 PM in downtown Minneapolis. Details are at the Minnesota Environmental Partnership calendar. It's $40 for the event, which includes dinner as well. I just found out they still have some openings, so if you're free next Wednesday night, email Audubon Minnesota to make a reservation. I'm really looking forward to this, and hope to see you there.

And for an interesting discussion of Scott's book, check out Mike McDowell's blog post from Sunday.

White-throated Sparrows

I love this time of year, when the ground beneath my feeders is alive with White-throated Sparrows. They’re the chipmunks of the bird world—striped-headed, blending in with the ground, and feeding on the same seeds and bugs.

White-throated Sparrows are famous for their song, a clear, whistled “Old Sam Peabody” or “Oh, sweet Canada.” Even though the song is heard during migration, it’s sung much more frequently once they reach their breeding grounds, and is one of the defining characteristics of the north woods, at least in early summer. Right now, few birds are singing at all, and when one tries, the song just peters out.

The White-throated Sparrow is unique in one characteristic. The species has two different plumages—white-striped and tan-striped. At hatching, half of all males will be tan-striped and half of all females white-striped. So the species is not sexually dimorphic. Rather, the colors are like human hair color, with one fascinating difference. Brunette humans do not exclusively select blonds for mates, and blonds don’t exclusively select brunettes. But with White-throated Sparrows, over 96% of all pairs have one bird of each type. With White-throated Sparrows opposites attract, a phenomenon called negative assortative mating.

Obviously, birds do not have access to mirrors, so how do they know what type is the opposite, to know what to look for when seeking a mate? They don’t base their selection on appearance but on behavior. The chromosomal difference between the tan-striped and the white-striped individuals causes a behavioral difference. White-striped birds of both sexes are very aggressive and dominant, and tan-striped birds of both sexes are very nurturing. In particular, tan striped females are extraordinarily good parents, and white-striped males are extraordinarily good at obtaining and defending a quality territory. But white-striped individuals are all so aggressive that male and female white-striped birds bicker too much to form a pair bond. And tan-striped individuals are so unaggressive that two of them have problems obtaining a territory. In nature, they’re behaviorally disposed to select the opposite form.

Interestingly, in captive studies, females of either color prefer the less aggressive tan-striped males, and males of either color prefer the feistier white-striped females. Based on that, you’d think that most successful pairs in nature would have a white-striped female and a tan-striped male. But that combination is found only half as often as the opposite. Even though 50% of all babies of both sexes are each color, apparently white-striped males and tan-striped females survive better, probably because of the superior nurturing skills of the mothers and the superior territorial defenses of the fathers. And apparently white-striped males and tan-striped females both live longer in nature, perhaps because males win fights and females avoid fighting altogether.

Trying to keep it all straight makes my head swim, rather like the ground beneath my feeders right now, squirming with dozens, and some days hundreds, of White-throated Sparrows. These birds, as fascinating to think about as they are lovely to listen to and watch, make our backyards as entertaining as any movie or TV show. My cats can hardly tear themselves from my windows these days, and I’m often standing right there with them, filled with wonder and joy. White-throated Sparrows materialize wherever we toss sunflower seeds or white millet—the point where migration and miracles and magic converge.

(This is the transcript of today's For the Birds radio program. Listen here. When you subscribe to the iTunes podcast, your iTunes will show the transcript on the lyrics page and include a photo of that day's bird. My podcasts are absolutely free.)

For more information about White-throated Sparrows, check out the Birds of North America entry, with details about their negative assortative mating and unique chromosomal situation. (By subscription, and worth every penny!) You can also read the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's All About Birds entry. This isn't quite as detailed but has a wealth of information and is free.

Oh, no! Alex the African Grey Parrot has died.

I met and ate dinner a couple of times with Irene Pepperberg at ornithological meetings. What a warm, intelligent, splendid woman she is. Her seminal research into avian intelligence and communication with her African Grey Parrot Alex is beyond compare.

I was heartbroken to read on her website today that Alex was found dead in his cage Friday, September 7. What a loss to science, and what a devastating loss to Dr. Pepperberg, personally as well as professionally. The official announcement will be made tomorrow after the cause of death is discovered.

Ellen Paul, Executive Director of the Ornithological Council, writes:

The Board of Directors extends its deepest sympathies to Irene Pepperberg on the sudden and tragic loss of her famous, brilliant research companion and beloved friend, Alex, who died suddenly at the age of 31 on 7 September 2007. Alex came into the life of Dr. Pepperberg, a longtime OC Board Member representing the Cooper Ornithological Society, from a pet shop in 1977 and quickly took over her life by teaching her all he knew about cognition and communication. Alex achieved fame on the little screen by upstaging Alan Alda in an episode of Scientific American Frontiers on PBS. The front page of the New York Times Science Times featured Alex in 1999. That same year, Dr. Pepperberg published The Alex Studies, a comprehensive review of her decades of learning about learning from Alex. Many other television appearances and newspaper articles followed. What Alex taught Dr. Pepperberg about cognition and communication has been applied to therapies to help children with learning disabilities.

Dr. Pepperberg continues her work with Alex's two avian companions, Griffin and Wart.

To help support this research, please consider making a donation in Alex's memory to

The Alex Foundation
c/o Dr. Irene Pepperberg
Department of Psychology/MS-062
415 South Street
Brandeis University
Waltham, MA 02454

Switchgrass Biofuel--sink or swim?

This month's Audubon has an article about prairie-grass biofuels: Brewing a Better Ethanol. Producing native grasses is obviously MUCH better for the environment than corn, which requires a lot of pesticides, fertilizers, and irrigation and provides zero habitat for virtually all wildlife except raccoons, blackbirds, and other species that eat corn--animals which farmers spend a lot of time and chemicals trying to eradicate.

But depending on how often and when they harvest switchgrass to produce ethanol, we could be providing deathtraps for native birds. Just like when we cut hay early, destroying nests and nestlings of Bobolinks, Eastern and Western Meadowlarks, Upland Sandpipers, Le Conte's Sparrows, and other grassland species, cutting crops for biofuels early could turn what appear to be splendid grasslands into ecological sinks. Karen Rowe, Nongame Migratory Bird Program Leader for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and a landowner in Arkansas Co. where she has 30 acres of restored native grasses wrote on the Arkansas listserv:

My concern about using prairie grass or encouraging the planting of switchgrass for biofuel is the timing of cutting/harvesting/haying. Financial profit is a heavy motivating factor, and if the grass is harvested for fuel before the end of the nesting period for grassland birds, these fields will become “sinks” for grassland nesting species. Will grassland farmers delay haying til the end of July to benefit birds and lose a profit – probably not.

It will all depend on the date of haying/cutting as to the benefits of grasslands as an ethanol fuel source.

Karen is looking into the number of harvests per year proposed for growing grass for biofuels, and will get back to us. Meanwhile, I discuss the timing of mowing grasslands for hay production and other purposes in 101 Ways to Help Birds in the chapter "Manage Land Wisely." Number 27 is "Cut hay and alfalfa as late in the breeding season as possible." That section reads:

One June morning I came upon a newly mowed hayfield in northern Wisconsin. Even though the machinery was gone, I could hear that it had been mowed before I saw it--a dozen crows and five ravens were scouring the ground and squabbling over food. What were they picking at in the rows of drying meadow grass and flowers? The mangled bodies of baby birds. This field had held nesting Savannah and Le Conte's Sparrows, Sedge Wrens, Eastern Meadowlarks, Bobolinks, Upland Sandpipers, and Northern Harriers. In much of North America, June is the month when most ground nests hold eggs or helpless nestlings. Unfortunately, it's also the month when young hay has the highest protein content.

Fortunately, beef cows and horses don't require the high amounts of protein that dairy cows do. And many people who own pastureland don't raise livestock at all--they have it cut for aesthetic purposes or simply to prevent it from becoming shrubland. Changing the haying schedule can be an inconvenience for the landowner, but that usually pales in the face of all the lost eggs and nestlings when haying happens in May, June, and even early July. Marge Gibson, founder of Raptor Education Group, Inc., writes, "Many years ago hay was cut only twice per year. The first cutting was about July fourth, but now with the cutting coming in late May or early June there is no way ground nesters can pull off a brood with success." The farmers know they see fewer Meadowlarks, Bobolinks, grassland sparrows and of course Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls, but often do not realize that they are the cause of the failure with early hay cutting.

How can you tell whether it's safe to cut hay or alfalfa? Meadowlarks often sit on exposed branches or even sing while holding insects in their mouths when they have nestlings. And Gibson notes, "When male Bobolinks are sitting on telephone lines or fence lines the female is still on eggs. The male will begin to make himself scarce once the young are hatched as he is doing most of the hunting for food as the female protects the young from predators. The young go from hatching to fledging in 10 to 14 days. Fledging means for Bobolinks that they leave the nest but still hide in the high grasses in the field until they are flying well which is in about 18 to 20 days. So when the male begins to be 'absent' for most of the day on the fence posts/ telephone lines you have about 20 days until you can cut the hay. Give them more if you can."

When a delay in hay cutting represents a significant hardship to a farmer because of time or financial constraints or because the high protein content of early hay is important for livestock, the farmer should cut early. But if farmers are aware of the presence of nesting birds, fewer pastures will be cut while vulnerable eggs and nestlings remain. Farmers with relatively small pastures can scythe their fields, but that's not feasible for most farmers. Before cutting early with heavy machinery, the farmer or a birder should try to scout the field first and flag nests so that they can be given a wide berth.

Recent Arkansas Ivory-bill News

Check this out.

We did it!

When you google "Laura Erickson blog" the first two links now go to my blog! Thanks so much for the clicks and links.

Ivory-bill Comments

Back in the 80s I called the National Audubon Society asking for support when I was first working on a cat leash law in Duluth. Their only response was that "cats kill individual birds, not populations--what hurts populations of birds is habitat." When Stanley Temple started amassing data that established that cats indeed affect whole populations of birds in Wisconsin, he was subjected to serious questioning by scientists. EVERY scientific study is, and rightly should be, exposed to careful scrutiny and additional studies, which prove or disprove the hypothesis. That's what science is all about.

But Stan was also subjected to personal attacks and even threats by non-scientists who felt personally affronted and aggrieved by the thought that if his studies' conclusions were generally accepted, these people might be expected to keep their own personal cats indoors. The subject of cats is fraught with controversy because so many people either love cats or hate them, and in this case the scientific study might have in the long run affected people's personal behavior, so there was a bizarre emotionalism connected to the very subject. This is exactly what has happened with the issue of global warming--people with a financial or personal stake in the issue are weighing in emotionally rather than looking carefully at the body of studies and supporting data.

For whatever reason, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker seems to have sparked a bizarre and profoundly unscientific emotionalism, too. Some top-notch birders and ornithologists who checked out areas where the 2004 reports had been made and didn't see or hear an Ivory-bill themselves spoke out about and/or published their results and opinions, which is the way science works. Some of them were heated in speaking out against the original reports, which is the way scientists, all too human, work. Some on the other side became heated in defending their study, again the way human scientists work. We're none of us perfect, or robots.

But like the cats-and-birds issue, this one sparked a shockingly emotional response from non-scientists. Most--maybe close to all--of us when we first heard the news releases in April, 2005, were not just delighted--we were elated. Those of us who had for decades looked longingly at pictures of Ivory-bills in our field guides had been heartbroken as we came to accept that such a beautiful and charismatic species could truly be extinct. The news of a credible birder actually having seen one was thrilling beyond measure.

As with all rare sightings, this sighting was seriously scrutinized. And, because the species was more than just "rare"--it had been considered extinct--the scrutiny of the sighting and the birders making it was justifiably more intense and public than most bird reports ever are subjected to.

But in this case, the scrutiny went far beyond scientific skepticism to emotional and personal attacks. When a handful of credible birders and ornithologists first questioned the reports, some people not only instantly took sides but went off the deep end into bizarrely unfair personal attacks. Naturally, the most vociferous of these weren't ornithologists or top-notch birders. They were like those children who, when first told there's no Santa Claus when they desperately want to believe, get furious with their parents for having tricked them in the first place. In this case, though, the Ivory-bill isn't a fictional character made up out of whole cloth. And Tim Gallagher wasn't a parent lying to his children about Santa Claus. He's a credible birder whose own experienced and trained eyes told him he'd seen an Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

Every birder who has ever reported a rarity to a good state committee knows the cruelly impartial way that a good committee operates. For example, last autumn I reported seeing a Kirtland's Warbler in Florida. The state committee has asked me for additional information, and that was the last I heard--they very well may reject the sighting. Meanwhile, the Kirtland's Warbler recovery team did accept the sighting. I KNOW I saw a Kirtland's Warbler--I'm familiar with the species, which I'd seen in Michigan on two earlier occasions, and I'm very familiar with every species which could be confused with Kirtland's Warbler. But autumn sightings are extremely rare, the species is critically endangered, and my sighting was justifiably scrutinized.

What does it mean if the sighting is accepted? Nothing more than that the state committee includes an October, 2006 sighting at Lake Kissimmee State Park in its official ornithological records. If in subsequent years, other birders report the species at that location, the park may ultimately be considered a migration stopover spot, which may have implications for habitat management in the park. (I saw it in excellent scrub habitat.) If no one ever sees it there again, it was just a fluke.

If the sighting is not accepted, that does not imply that I didn't actually see the bird. It does mean that the data I provided--a sight record with no photographic or sound recording support--wasn't enough to merit inclusion in the official ornithological records of the state.

When lifelists are personal, as mine is, it's not a big thing. Our lists can bear scrutiny or not, as we prefer. When my own lifelist reached 200 or so, I went back and scrutinized it myself--in my inexperience when I first started birding, I included a Red-necked Grebe in winter plumage that, even though I probably saw it, I was no longer CERTAIN about, so I dropped it and waited to see it again before I put it back on my list. Right now my Minnesota list includes one Mississippi Kite from Duluth that I reported in 1986. That sighting was rejected by the MOURC. If the vote had been unanimous, I'd have not included it on my personal list, accepting that maybe I didn't know what I was looking at. But the vote wasn't unanimous, and Kim Eckert, whose identification skills are among the finest in the state, voted for inclusion, so I decided to keep the sighting. I know what my eyes saw. But the very fact that most committee votes on reports are not unanimous makes it clear that sight records, and even photographic records, are to a certain extent more subjective than we'd like to believe.

The truth is that eyes CAN be wrong. I bet more than one of us has made a daily list of fall warblers that had at least one of them misidentified. I bet more than one of us has taken a quick look at that woodpecker and checked off Downy or Hairy for the day without carefully scrutinizing the bill-length/head-size ratio or the outer tail feather pattern. We're none of us perfect, which is why we need records committees in the first place. I put Kirtland's Warbler on my Florida list because I saw enough of the bird to be completely satisfied--100%, not even just 99%. I love warblers, and so I spend a LOT of time studying them in the field and in books, and my level of experience with them gives me an added sense of certainty.

But my own eyes and judgment can be terribly suspect when it comes to gulls and shorebirds. If a committee rejects a report of mine with these birds, there's no way I'll include it in my own personal lists, because I don't trust my judgment when it comes to them.

If I were contributing my state list to any Florida list compilation, or to the ABA, my Kirtland's Warbler would NOT be allowed if the state committee ultimately rejects it. And that's precisely the point where the sport of birding crashes into the science of ornithology.

The point of competitive listing is to get as many species on our lists as possible. The point of record-keeping in ornithology is to ensure that the official state checklist is based entirely on credible data. Most of us, most of the time, manage to negotiate the difficult waters where the two disciplines meet. But a few people get emotionally overwrought about it. They whine, criticize state committees, and hold lasting grudges when a sighting of theirs is rejected. And they apparently get overwrought when a bird is reported that they personally don't believe was sighted. Is it because someone has added it to a list and they know they'll never be able to? Is it somehow conjuring that sense of betrayal they felt when they found out the truth about Santa Claus, even though the Ivory-bill is not the stuff of myth, but is or definitely was a living, breathing species? It's hard to say why anyone is taking this so personally, and ridiculing our birding colleagues and calling then names. But that's the point where skepticism ends and emotionalism begins.

Charley!

Back when I had a full-time job, our son Joe told us he needed a car and was looking for an affordable used Prius. We priced them, and they sure don't lose value very fast compared to most cars. Meanwhile, I was about to pass the 100,000 mile mark on our 2004 Prius. It's been a great car, averaging just over 5o miles per gallon and hasn't required a speck of work, but northern winters are hard on cars. We figured it would probably last a lot longer in Orlando than it would up here. So we offered to sell him our car for not very much money and we'd be the ones who bought the new one.

That was before I was unemployed, but we decided if we cut back on expenses we could still probably swing it, now that Katie's done with college. And our new car arrived on Friday. She's beautiful. Her name is Charley, after John Steinbeck's dog--we'll have our own "Travels with Charley" experiences. But to save money and natural resources, I'm not going to do any quick trips in her--I'll walk or bike to the post office, grocery store, or anywhere else within 2 miles. I'd bike up to Hawk Ridge if Seven Bridges Road was open--it's not as steep riding up from that direction as it is going up the hill on Glenwood Street. But I should even be able to do that within a few weeks if I work at it. Charley is not going to be allowed to go over the speed limit, and I'll do my very best to always live up to what I recommend in my book, "drive at the slowest speed that is safe, courteous, and convenient." And I've decided I'm not going to take her on any bird-chasing adventures unless I'm carpooling with at least one other birder.

She's been on two trips now--to Brimson for a program I did as part of their Petrell Hall Centennial celebration on Saturday, and to Port Wing to see Russ's mom and go to the town's annual Fall Festival on Sunday. We're averging about 54 mpg so far. And she seems to have great bird karma. My first bird while riding in her was an adult Bald Eagle. So far I've also seen Osprey, Broad-winged Hawk, Turkey Vulture, Ruffed Grouse, Common Raven, Gray Jay, Blue Jay, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and American Goldfinch. And that's without specifically taking her birding yet!

New cars are like a new year--filled with promise about the lovely adventures ahead. And like the resolutions we make at the new year, I'm hoping I can keep my resolutions with Charley. And I'm hoping that even with trips like the one I'll be making to New Mexico next month, I'll be able to cut back on enough extraneous driving to keep the odometer from hitting six digits for at least five or six years instead of three. Charley looks like a great car, and I'm hoping to keep her for a long, long time.

Really worth a read

No matter what you think about Al Gore, this is an important read. It would be lovely to think that the press will never again be able to distort and skewer a candidate for sport like that, but things don't look hopeful.

• Vanity Fair-- The Media: Going after Gore
  

My new theory about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker

Why do the Ivory-billed Woodpeckers give only a handful of people a glimpse, never long enough to photograph? They apparently invented an invisibility cloak long before J.K.Rowling created the concept for Harry Potter. Once in a while they've been caught without it on, but the moment they sense a birder is about, on it goes!

Is an invisibility cloak possible? Researchers are working on it.

King Lear of the Insect World

Howl, howl, howl, howl!

When I was in high school, I fell in love with William Shakespeare's plays. I got to see James Earl Jones perform as Othello in 1967 when I was a sophomore--he had me sobbing at the end, and I so treasured the experience that I kept the Playbill, which I still have. When Star Wars came out, something about Darth Vader was driving me nuts, and finally it came to me and I blurted out, "It's Othello!!" Russ elbowed me and shushed me, but I waited through the credits just to make sure. The credits said Darth Vader had been played by David Prowse, and so the moment we got back to our apartment I pulled out my program to PROVE that David Prowse played Othello. But he didn't!!! I was so bummed out, so certain that I'd recognized that voice, but months later Parade magazine had an article about James Earl Jones and how he'd done the voice work for Darth Vader--David Prowse had been the actor under the famous suit and mask. James Earl Jones didn't ask for a screen credit on the first theatrical release, but the situation was corrected later. Anyway, I was vindicated!

What has to be one of the greatest Shakespeare productions for the theater EVER is happening right now. Ian McKellen, one of my favorite actors in the universe, is playing King Lear, in what is my absolute favorite play of all. The play will be in New York at the end of the month, and in Minneapolis from October 5-14. If I weren't unemployed, I really would have figured out how to get to London to see it, or New York. In Minneapolis, all the tickets were sold out before they even went on sale to the general public, since the Guthrie gave first crack to their members. My sweet husband tried getting me a ticket on eBay for our anniversary, but when he looked they were charging a thousand dollars for two tickets. That might be in someone's ballpark, but not in mine.

So I'm obviously not going to get to see this play--I'll have to imagine it all. But I have a pretty good imagination. When I saw the above photo of that little bee, shaking his tiny fist at the universe like Lear raging on the heath, I felt encouraged. Sure, he's no Ian McKellen. But he's as naked as Lear on the heath, that bare, forked creature who doesn't even need words to carry a sting. I may not see the play, but I'd be a fool to ignore the real life dramas all around me in the natural world.

But speaking of the natural world, my favorite lines in King Lear pretty much sum up why I'm happy to spend my life working to protect little birds:

That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly:
The knave turns fool that runs away;
The fool, no knave, perdy.

Hooray for all the Red-eyed Vireos!

I can't get over how many Red-eyed Vireos I've seen this late summer/early autumn. I took a walk with my dog Photon up Seven Bridges Road last week (sadly, the very last bridge on each end is being replaced, so for the duration you can't take that route to Hawk Ridge). It was a lovely walk, and everywhere we looked there was another Red-eyed Vireo. I think they must be pigging out on grasshoppers because I saw them on the ground and in low branches in open areas where there were a lot of hoppers. And when I was counting at Hawk Ridge on Friday, a couple spent the day feeding around the main overlook, two were singing (with a Mourning Warbler joining in a couple of times!), and several moseyed through. What excellent company!

Roger Tory Peterson once estimated that at the time, Red-eyed Vireos were the most abundant songbirds in North America. Now they don't have as much suitable habitat--they're heavily parasitized by cowbirds in forest fragments, and a lot of what used to be quality forest is now developed. But they're doing pretty well despite their problems.

Almost two decades ago, when my daughter Katie was five and I was a licensed bird rehabber, a woman up the shore somewhere dropped off four baby Red-eyed Vireos at my house the Thursday before the Fourth of July Weekend. She told me she was "teaching my kids how to raise baby birds," but "I know they always die--I didn't want them to see that part and we're having company this weekend."

She'd been feeding the babies nothing but canned dog food, and not cleaning up after them. Each of the little babies was totally caked in dried feces and dog food--one of them had enough dried stuff around its mouth that it couldn't even beg. It took hours to get them cleaned up enough to detect feathers at all. I could only identify them because of the distinctive vireo beak.

The poor things had literally been entombed in all that dried crap, so their growth was stunted. I knew that at this point they really didn't have a chance, but did my best to at least ensure they'd die comfortably. Except the one who was in such a weak state to begin with, who died within a few hours of arriving, the others grew and preened and seemed to at least feel pretty good, but they were clearly deformed--their bills full size but their heads and bodies were pitifully stunted.

I don't think I've ever been so angry at someone in my life. What on earth did she think she was teaching her kids?? That baby birds only live for a matter of days? That they should eat canned dog food? That they're filthy? Did they have a clue that parent birds, or foster parents in an emergency, must provide them with a balanced diet high in protein and Vitamin D-3, keep them clean, and when they're ready to jump out of the nest, lots of space for excercizing and learning about the big world. She'd had these little birds for over a week, and acted like every day they survived was an amazing triumph even as each day she drove another nail into their coffins. The confidential way she told me she was bringing them to me so her own children wouldn't have to watch them die made me even angrier. No, she was leaving it to MY children to watch them die.

That summer, Katie wrote a little book about the right way to take care of baby birds, and why it's illegal, and should be illegal, for untrained people to even try. She brought it to kindergarten that fall. Meanwhile, those poor babies are buried under our lilac bush.

Anyway, it's lovely to see healthy vireos this fall, birds raised by their natural parents and apparently doing splendidly.

Of Kirtland's Warblers and Eskimo Curlews

Oh, wow--yesterday the new issue of Birder's World came in the mail, and it's a great one! The cover story is about the three Kirtland's Warbler pairs with active nests in Wisconsin last year. When I first heard the news, I was thrilled, and seeing such a vivid photo makes it even more exciting and joyful for me. An inside photo shows a singing male from behind, with leg bands clearly visible--he had been banded not in Michigan but on his wintering grounds in the Bahamas in November, 2003, and was seen again there in 2004. This is even more exciting news!

Then there is another article, "Another Grail Bird Spotted" by Randy Hoffman. On September 24, 2006, in Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, Randy was hiking with his wife when he came upon what he's certain is an Eskimo Curlew! As a top-notch birder, past president of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology, natural-areas management specialist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, author of Wisconsin's Natural Communities (University of Wisconsin Press, 2002) and author of several bird/habitat relationship articles regarding the state's breeding birds, Randy has huge recreational birding and professional ornithological credentials. He knows how difficult and controversial this kind of sighting is, and notes:

Scientists consider sightings of extremely rare species to be only hypotheses that require rigorous examination. My observation is scientifically weak evidence that the Eskimo Curlew exists, but when combined with a long list of other reports (the sightings are listed at the bottom of the article), it forms a hypothesis that the species is not extinct. Only true scientific endeavor can reject or accept the hypothesis.

Nonetheless, in good conscience in the fall of 2006, I took a pen and carefully made a check on my life list by the Eskimo Curlew. Hope does remain for the species. My observation has motivated me to press for continued investigations. I encourage searches, especially extensive work in Labrador in August and September, to gather more conclusive evidence of the long-sought bird's continued existence.

I happen to know Randy Hoffman. When I lived in Madison, Wisconsin, I birded a couple of times with him--as a matter of fact, he showed me my lifer Barred Owl and my first Wisconsin Yellow-crowned Night-Heron on May 7, 1978, at one of his favorite spots in Columbia County. I loved being out in the field with him--he knew every sound and detected not just movement but found that perched Barred Owl amid the shadows even though the bird didn't blink an eye. He was also pretty unassuming and friendly for a genuinely great birder. So I'm glad he saw the bird, and I sure hope that someone is inspired to get out there with a camera and find again this magnificent ghost. Meanwhile, Randy's article in Birder's World is well worth reading. Heck, the whole magazine is!