More Eugene birdwatching

This picture of a ruby-crowned kinglet with his crown showing is available at: http://buildyourownbirdhouseplans.com/images/rubycrownedkinglet1.jpg

I have been searching for inspiration for my next "big" blog post but I seem to be out of ideas...or something. What I do have is a plethora of random thoughts about subjects varying from how to make jean potholders for my niece's play kitchen to salmon. Birds are always in there too and work has started in the garden at work so my brain is pretty full of garden "stuff." My garden, despite all of my efforts, is mostly in my head. I write down the lists of things to do and places to ask for donations from and still they float around in my head. Well, some version of them does.

So, I sit at my computer and think about what I want to write about. I went birdwatching in Eugene, Oregon again last weekend. The adventure leading up to the birdwatching "event" was almost as great as actually getting to birdwatch. While trying to find the first stop on our list my companion and I were quite lost in conversation and ended up passing the turn by several miles, at which point we were enticed forward by state park and Fall Creek Dam (reservoirs can be great birding sites) signs. Alas, the Fall Creek Reservoir is nothing like the reservoirs from Southern Oregon and anything other than boat-type recreation would have been futile. Thus, we turned around and eventually found the site that we had planned on visiting first. This site is part of the Willamette Valley Birding Trail Guide but I am not sure why. Jasper Meadow is, for all intents and purposes, a playground with a small wetlands (which I do appreciate them preserving), surrounded by a new cookie cutter subdivision and a lovely carved sign of a chickadee that says something to the effect of "birding spot." There were many children there and not many birds. The best thing about this location was the playground (I am a sucker for a good playground). It was the most bizarre and wonderful playground I've been to in quite some time. I played for a bit and then we moved on to the next location on our list, the Walterville Pond. This 70-acre pond is a reservoir maintained by Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB). The number of ruby-crowned kinglets making their territories and breeding intention known was phenomenal. I literally don't think I've ever seen so many ruby-crowns being territorial in one place! There were also many, many violet-green swallows and my first barn swallows of the season (hurray!). Probably the birds that I enjoyed the most on this day were the double-crested cormorants. The majority of the double-crested cormorants at this site were first-year juveniles and they were being incredibly amusing. Jostling for space on a stump, swimming around and "yelling" at each other.

And so...by way of randomly typing about whatever thread of thought I was able to capture I have an idea for my next "big" blog. Stay tuned.

ethno-ornithology Sunday: family tradition

So, I did an incredible amount of birdwatching, well compared to normal, in the last week. I headed to the Willamette Valley, a la Eugene, Oregon, for a four day bird adventure. Saturday I bird watched for several hours at a place called Delta Ponds, a wetlands restoration area not far off of Delta Hwy. The birding was fabulous, including a great-blue heron rookery. This only surprised me because I've never seen such an urban rookery location. Quite exciting (if not a tad disturbing because on a scientific level this can have so many reasons). There were a good 30 species of songbirds and waterfowl at this location (maybe not the most impressive number but I was quite happy with it). One of my two serious interests in regards to birds and research are urbanization and birds and recreation and birds. I am always delighted to see birds in areas as urban as Delta Ponds, but in the back of my mind I have to remember that these birds often represent the bottlenecking of species diversity. These birds could some day be the reminder of what once was.

March 20th was a bit less urban birding at Meadowlark Prairie, one of my favorite places to run/bike/etc when I lived in Eugene as the bike path from the apartment I lived in lead(s) right to/through the prairie. True to its name there were many western meadowlarks singing. There were several more species of birds than at Delta Ponds and hundreds more individuals (of course the migrating flocks of cacklers helped boost that number!). The flock of long-billed dowitchers made that expedition for me, along with the diversity of waterfowl. Here in the Rogue Basin we have waterfowl, but NOTHING as spectacular as the Klamath Basin or the Willamette Valley.

March 21st was a split day of birding at Alton Baker Park and Lane Community College. Alton Baker was the site of a most unusual sighting. A greater-white fronted snow goose hanging out with a snow goose-ish bird of some kind. It was a snow goose but with grayish primaries and a dark beak. It looked like a juvenile snow goose (which apparently keep their darkish feathers until January) but it is the wrong time of year to see a snow goose. My birding compatriot and I decided to call it a snow goose, with the understanding that it could be a mutt of some sort, I mean it was hanging out with a greater-white front. Maybe its parents were a snow goose/greater-white front coupling. Lane Community College is listed by ebird as a birding hotspot so it was a natural choice for an outing. While it didn't host the greatest number of species it did host a great number of individuals. It was also raining and as we all know rain can greatly alter the diversity of species encountered.

Speaking of ebird...I learned that Winter Wrens in the west have been split into a separate species, now known as the Pacific Wren. I guess I'm a bit out of the loop as this happened in August and I had no idea. Now is a good time to be getting back into graduate school and, hopefully, the bird world.

I also hiked Lower Table Rock on March 25th. It rained off and on so birding was not great, but I did see a random mixed flock of yellow-rumped warblers and golden-crowned kinglets. I also saw a flock of pine siskins. While the birding wasn't that great I did get plenty of time to ponder humans and our habit of loving things to the point of destroying them. I can't count the number of times I've seen people with their dogs on the Table Rocks, despite the numerous signs telling them dogs are not allowed. I saw teenagers tossing a football in the meadow atop Lower Table Rock once. On this trip I saw mountain bike tracks. I try so very hard to not dislike groups of people based on the behavior of a few, but my experience with mountain bikers actually extends to a variety of places and experiences. I understand that people feel they should be allowed anywhere they want. I also understand that they feel their sport is low impact. But, I have never seen a place that mountain bikers frequent (other than on-trail biking) that isn't being impacted, and often seriously. In Orange County they trespassed on property managed by The Nature Conservancy, despite the dangers it posed to the birds caught in our nets (and our prolific protests) and despite TNC personnel trying to educate the bikers about a sensitive species of lichen that grew on the rocks that they often biked on. So, I was surprised (but not really) to find tracks on the trail leading up Lower Table Rock. When I got to the top and saw the tracks riding off-trail randomly across the plateau I was once again struck by how selfish people are. Upper and Lower Table Rock vernal pools are the northern most range for the vernal pool fairy shrimp (the only place in Oregon they are found), a rare species of fairy shrimp also found in California. They are also home to an endemic (meaning found only in this place) species of flower, the dwarf woolly meadowfoam. These flowers are endangered, in big part to individuals going off trail and trampling them. I'm not sure how we can educate people about the importance of respecting nature. How can we teach them that just because people hiked off trail around the plateaus fifty years ago doesn't mean we can do it today. There are many, many more people using a space that can't grow to accommodate them. In order to not completely destroy these amazing places we have to use them carefully.

All of this brings me to my final bit. On March 26th I took my almost-three-year-old niece birdwatching. She and I first discussed it around the time of my trip to the Klamath Basin. We didn't see much, the rain and her storytelling (which I was happy for) likely had something to do with that, but the trip is one I am not likely to forget. I adore my nieces and nephews. I try to not force my interests on them but birds are an integral part of me, so...it filters into our interactions too. Anyway, I took my niece birdwatching. She told me all about these amazing flowers that bloom in the park and about the many species of purple birds that she saw and all about the species that I tried to see but they flew away too fast. She chattered on and on about her favorite bird (currently the American robin) and I sat, or piggy-backed, adoringly. She even brought her own binoculars (which she talked about for quite some time too). We sat in the rain, looked for birds and talked for well over an hour. My eight-month-old nephew also loves birds and I am quite certain that he and I will make a birdwatching excursion when he is old enough. So...to fit with the title theme...THIS is a family tradition that I can handle handing down. Loving and appreciating nature, life and things greater than ourselves witnessed through these amazing feathered beings.

Ethno-ornithology Sunday: birdwatchers

I started this last Friday to have it posted Sunday. Then we had a HUGE storm (wind gusts at one hilltop weather station recorded at 70mph) come through and I was without power for a good 50+ hours.

Frog-o-rama

Image from the Northern Pacific Treefrog USGS fact sheet

I have never been much of a frog person. I mean, I like them, like what they do in the ecosystems they are found in, but they've never topped my "favorite animals"

chart. Being that it is almost spring and their circadian clocks are telling them it's time to make themselves known I've been giving them more notice than usual. Tonight, as I have for the last several nights, I listened to the chorus of frogs "singing" all around my home. Tonight they seem to have reached a more frantic, urgent rhythm. Their little croaks giving the night a different kind of pulse than it usually has. I drink in the sound, allow it to seep into my skin, my bones, my veins, until I can feel the rhythm playing out in my own being. If I were a frog I'm sure I'd be aroused by all of these boisterous males proclaiming their sexual prowess and genetic superiority. Sometimes, like the undulation of the ocean, their volume decreases until it is almost silent. Then their voices raise, in volume and in number until they are virtually shouting for attention and by force of sheer numbers their cacophony crashes around me, wave after wave of glorious little frogs "songs."

This, of course, makes me think of birds. Even males that procure a territory before they procure a mate sing of their own sexiness in order to attract a mate. In all honesty there are many, many ways that birds actually attract their mates but right now, be

cause of the frog song I'm thinking of male birds and their boisterous, glorious singing. One lonely marsh wren has the same affect on me as the scads of Northern Pacific treefrogs that are out singing right now. The wrens get to really singing and I feel like their song is all that matters, because in that moment it is all that matters. These little birds that sing, and sing, and sing, at risk of being discovered and consumed desperate to attract a mate. Marsh wrens, among many other species, create new songs in a constant effort to "one up" their neighbors. I rather enjoy walking along areas that have several wren territories in a row and listening to the increasing complexity of their songs. And that is just at the frequencies and decibles that I can hear, I'm sure that if I could hear like their intended audience I'd be even more exhilarated. Or I'd think they were unexciting and move on to find a more suitable male.

Bird songs, of course, make me think of birdwatchers. What self-respecting birder doesn't know at least a handful of songs with which to identify the birds they can hear but not see. More specifically, I am thinking about the waste we create in our continuing efforts to learn to identify birds or to add one (or 100) new birds to our life lists (which I don't keep and don't quite understand keeping). Books, cds, computer programs, binoculars, scopes, bird feeders and an ever expanding array of technological gadgets. I recently learned about applications, BirdJam being one of them that seems fairly popular (at least when I did my online search), for ipods and iphones that help identify birds. Mark at "Birds in Your Backyard" talks about tech-savvy birders and the inroads that technology is making into the birding world. While I understand the appeal of technology in birding (how many times would I have really appreciated a recording of a bird call when out birding) I just can't support increasing the amount of disposable, breakable and toxic material goods being produced, used and disposed of in this country every day. Now, that isn't to say that there aren't advantages to having technology in the field, home or office. And it isn't to say that there aren't ways of making technology less harmful (borrowing cds from the library or buying bird guides as mp3's to forgo shipping and packaging for example). I just think that it is our responsibility, as consumers of nature, as "collectors" of birds, to protect them and the land that they (and we) depend on. If the ultimate goal is to know more birds, by sight and by ear, than anyone else. If the goal of finding birds is to outcompete, out ID, out do every other birder/birding competitor how much better are we than the people that raced against each other and time to kill ivory-billed woodpeckers for their collections/collectors. We may not be directly killing them, but maybe slowly killing them through habitat destruction, introduction of invasive species, nesting disturbance and by polluting their homes is worse. Maybe we too are loving birds to death. To extinction. To finality. Maybe it is time to get back to basics. To live, and bird, simply. To realize that if our presence in an area is threatening a species…maybe we don't need to add them to our life lists. I know for me, birding is best done with (at most) a pair of binoculars, a bird book and my own curiosity. Oh, and sometimes a little help from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology All About Birds guide when I have a bird song stuck in my head that I can't seem to identify.

*When you click on the All About Birds link you will be directed to their page about brown creepers. This is because these little guys have a delightfully melodious song that "plagued" me about two springs ago. I'd walk around singing the song in my head trying to pair it with the birds that I knew would be here. Then, one day when the song was filling the air around me, I saw a brown creeper in one of the ponderosa pines near my house. I immediately ran up to the house, logged onto All About Birds, looked up the brown creeper and discovered that this often shy and seemingly quiet nuthatch-like (the reason I had skimmed over them originally) birds, are really quite wonderful singers.

Acceptance!

I have been accepted to the M.S. Environmental Education program at Southern Oregon University. I have accepted an offer for a graduate assistantship position as the Educational Outreach assistant at the Siskiyou Environmental Eduction Center. This comes with a monthly stipend (in exchange for 10 hours of work/week) and an 80% tuition waiver. I already have thesis ideas...we'll see what they get narrowed down to!

Superfund Sites

For my geology class we are discussing the Love Canal. While doing research for my part of the group discussion (describing and defending the actions for the Niagara Falls Education Board once people started coming forward about the toxic puddles their kids were playing in) I came across a page that lists the top 100 companies and agencies, based on the number of sites they are attributed to, that are responsible for superfund sites. If you are interested in this stuff you should look at it. I was both disturbing and wicked interesting.

Klamath Basin

This weekend I went to the Klamath Basin. It was a birthday celebration that happened to coincide with the Winter Wings Festival. I attended the festival last year but came to the conclusion that I am not really a bird festival kind of person. Now, maybe it was the setting, the timing or the place I'm at in my life. Maybe it is because bird festivals seem so serious and the word festival makes me think of playing, celebrating and festivities. You know, carnivals, face painting and the like. Who knows. Anyway, this year I didn't have the money to take any classes or go on any field trips. My intention was just to bird.

The Klamath Basin is an area of Oregon with an interesting and often tumultuous history. So, I may have gone just to bird but I didn't just pay attention to the birds. I contemplated the people that lived there thousands of years ago, when Petroglyph Point was just an island in Tule Lake. I contemplated the people that came into the Basin and drained the lakes, the farmers that live there and lastly the large numbers of people that come to the basin for Winter Wings every year. Birding festivals are part of ethno-ornithology that I find particularly fascinating. Bird watching in general is a really interesting aspect of people and birds.

My first day in the basin I hung out at the Veteran's Memorial Park. While there I encountered throngs of Northern coots, domestic duck variations, gray-lag geese and a Chinese goose (both are domestic varieties of geese). As usual there were a plethora of gulls and so I was able to practice my gull identification. There were ring-billed gulls, California gulls and two glaucous-winged juveniles (I overheard some birders with scopes say there were adults out in the middle of the lake). Additionally there were several buffleheads, common goldeneyes, common mergansers and lesser scaup. I also saw my first winter flock of bushtits, which was happy and odd as I encountered them commonly in the Willamette Valley and always expect to here. There were the usual suspects too, European starlings, American robins, mountain chickadees and gold-crowned kinglets. There were only four or five other birders at the park that day, I'm sure the cold had driven most everyone inside.

The following morning (February 20, 2011), I headed toward the Tule Lake Auto Tour Route and Visitor Center and the northern/north-eastern area of the Lava Beds National Monument. It was snowing and overcast and I felt a terrible sadness as it seemed likely I would not have ideal birding conditions. At the visitor's center they have a feeding station. At the feeding station I saw house sparrows, European starlings, house finches, gold-crowned sparrows, red-winged blackbirds, California towhee, spotted towhee, dark-eyed junco of the Oregon and slate-colored (the slate-colored was a first for me!) varieties, California quail and a nesting great-horned owl! At the reclamation wetlands (a discovery marsh of sorts) there were most of the afore mentioned birds plus bufflehead, northern pintail, western meadowlark, red-breasted sapsuckers, American kestrel, red-tailed hawk, song sparrow, American robin, common goldeneye, coot ring-neck pheasant, greater white-front geese, cacklers and a juvenile bald eagle (three or four years old based on plumage). Along the auto tour route is where the REAL fun began. I saw my first ever rough-legged hawk (and then another six on top of that one)! Additionally, I saw tundra swan, northern shoveler, lesser scaup, ring-neck duck, greater white-fronts, cacklers, red-winged blackbird, common goldeneye, ruddy duck, heard black-billed magpie (delightful) and a canyon wren, saw house finch, brewer's blackbird, northern ravens, white-crowned sparrow, mourning and rock doves, pine siskin, lesser goldfinch, say's phoebe, a flock of at least 30 horned lark, ring-billed gull, Clark's grebe, common merganser, coot, canvasback, northern harrier, western meadowlark, prairie falcon, norther flicker, gadwall, snow geese by the hundreds, blue-winged teal, many bald eagles of varying ages, great-horned owls and a rock wren. Finally, I feel quite certain I saw some band-tailed pigeons. The sighting was brief and they have not been sighted often in the Klamath Basin (1-3 times in the last 25 years). Now, that doesn't mean they couldn't have been band-tails, but it does mean that it is unlikely. I'd like to believe they snuck in there topping off the awesomeness!

There were many more birders out on Sunday, all on the auto tour route and at the visitors center. The interesting thing about birders in situations like this is that they all flock to the areas where birds have been seen, particularly people that keep life lists. I understand life lists and wanting to see what there is to see, but I'd rather do it on my own (and my list is in my head, nothing formal, as the goal for me is just to see birds, any birds, and enjoy them). There is something amazing about watching scads of waterfowl with other people that are just as excited as I am. But...in the long run, I'd rather be there alone watching the birds. Silently paying homage to these feathered extra-ordinary beings. I find myself wondering if the other people birding there think about the folks that came before. If when they are at Captain Jack's Stronghold, looking for prairie falcons, they think about the Modoc and the events that unfolded there. How amazing that band of Modoc were, how well they knew their homeland, how tragic the outcome of that stand-off. When they are looking for nesting owls and golden eagles at Petroglyph Point do they stop to look at the petroglyphs? Do they wonder, like I do, what the symbols mean? Do they marvel at the tenacity of individuals to canoe all the way to the island and stand, in a canoe to carve these symbols into the rock? Can they appreciate the struggles of the salmon and sucker fish, sacred to the First Nations tribes of the area, to survive in an overly irrigated area (meaning in a river that is often too low, slow, polluted or warm)? We come together at these festivals to celebrate the wild awesomeness that birds are. These bits of nature that find us in even the most urban areas. That call to our souls, to our subconscious. That sing songs we recognize in the deep recesses of our brains. But do we think of how we are destroying their world? Do we think, as we celebrate, that this could be the last year we see them? That as we clear, fill, burn and develop we homogenize the beings that we pursue for their heterogeneity? I know I do, constantly. Even when I am shouting with glee about my first ever rough-legged hawk sighting.

Ethno-ornithology Sunday: Urban birds

So, urban birds as a topic can be approached from many angles but as the number of quasi-urban dwelling ravens that I encounter increases I find myself thinking more and more about urban birds and evolution and things of this nature. I mean, if nature typically selects for species that can survive the best in current conditions...what is happening to urban birds? Well, it seems logical that birds that shy from humans or are non-charismatic species that act conspicuously or aggressively will be selected AGAINST. Birds that perform well within cities, in monocultured agriculture fields, in suburbs and in early seral areas will continue to see population inclines while birds that depend on wild/natural/non-human affected areas, don't deal well with the toxins we proliferate and that are within reach of the feral and/or invasive predators that come along with urban expansion (and often follow the gravel roads into non-urban areas) will continue to see population declines.

The U.S. Census Bureau classifies an area as urban if the population density is at least 1,000 people per square mile at the time of census. Thus, there can be a spectrum of areas that are classified as urban. One of my favorite things about Oregon is that some of our urban areas are still incredibly diverse and strive to balance population growth with the natural world around them. All too often though urban areas are a homogenized area void of many things natural, concrete and steel ecosystems as one group from Stanford wrote in 1988. In this short piece they mention some characteristics of city dwelling birds that I hadn't really thought about before. Namely that birds that live in cities have to be adapted to vocalizations that are either at a frequency or decibel that are high enough for potential mates and other members of their flock to hear. Urban areas create problems for migrating birds in a number of ways. For waterfowl cities are often a varitable waste land of concrete, glass and steel. Any water that may be available is often polluted (though mallards, great blue herons and some other wetland/water dwelling birds can be found in urban areas). For passerines cities create a maze of glass, light and noise pollution, toxins and a myriad of other problems that lead to confusion, disorientation and ultimately death. Birds that live in cities have adapted to foraging for the food that we throw out, on the bits of plant matter that make their way through cracks in sidewalks and in urban parks.

The second leading cause of population declines that lead to a species being listed as endangered or threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department is urbanization. The primary cause of federal listing as threatened or endangered is interactions with non-native species (Czech, et al. 2000). European starlings, house sparrows and house finches are all non-native/invasive species that often out compete native species and are found in urban areas, thus it can be surmised that there is overlap between urbanization and interaction with non-native species. In addition to non-native birds competing with native birds we also have feral cats, "outside" house cats too, that prey on birds. In fact, according to Czech, et al. of the 18 reasons that species become threatened or endangered at least eight of them are associated with urbanization (and all but two have to do with humans).

An Audubon study found that 45 of the at least 700 species of birds found in North America inhabit urban areas. Of these 44 are species of least concern and one is a species considered threatened or endangered. According to the study 20 of the 45 species have seen declines in numbers, and 23 of the 45 have seen increases in numbers, from 1966 through 2003. Of these species 10 can be also be found in natural aquatic/wetland ecosystems, 14 can be found in multiple natural areas, 15 in woodland areas, five in scrublands and one in grasslands. Homogenization of the natural world is a well documented effect of urbanization. Urban areas are homogeneic ecosystems that support growing numbers of non-native species. Biodiversity of bird species decreases as urban areas increase. In a study of "wooded streets" (streets with trees planted along the sidewalk) in Valencia, Spain Murgui found that these areas were home to only eight species in winter and 11 species in the breeding season, a mere 25% of the number of species found in urban parks (Murgui 2007). Based on the information above it can be surmised that the largest variety of species in urban areas will be found in urban parks. On a side note increasing numbers of urban community gardens helps increase avian biodiversity as does increased wildlife friendly landscaping. Despite these oasis of diversity non-native and human "friendly" species are on the incline while natives and non-aggressive species are being out-competed (populations are on the decline).

So, what can we do? We can develop landscape practices and plans that encourage native species at businesses, homes and public spaces. We can encourage community gardens and the development of green space. Finally, we can work at creating wildlife corridors, particularly through developing and managing natural areas such as city parks, so that non-edge dwelling species (species that will not happily inhabit areas at the edge of their habitat) can move from habitat patch to habitat patch. Additionally, we can spay and neuter cats and keep them indoors so that the feral cat populations won't decimate bird populations. Dimming city lights can help reduce confusion during migration, taking public transportation can reduce air and noise pollution, eat local, reduce, reuse, recycle, leave no trace when recreating outdoors, plant fruiting trees away from roadsides and be conscious of the things we do. Birds are amazingly diverse and many/most of us appreciate them for their diversity (life lists wouldn't be very interesting if there were only 45 ish species to watch). Urban sprawl may not be something we can completely halt but we can work at reducing the impact of urbanization on global avian populations.