Slow down, dammit!

Yesterday when I took Photon for our late afternoon walk down to the marsh and back, we came upon yet another dead bird. So far since I moved here, I've picked up one freshly-dead chickadee and found, smashed, one Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Mourning Dove, and American Robin on this stretch alone, and crows are so common in my neck of the woods that I bet most birds are picked up by them before I find them. Now this--my poor Yellow-throated Vireo, who was usually singing when we walked past the spot where the stream hits the marsh. These little birds weigh only 17-18 grams (just over half an ounce), and drivers seem so oblivious here that I bet the one who killed this bird didn't even notice.

The speed limit on Ellis Hollow Road is 45 miles per hour, which is way too fast for a narrow, winding, hilly road with lots of houses and apartments along it, some quite close to the road, and no sidewalks and, in most places, no shoulder. And the road slices through quality habitat--forested wetlands. Because it's so hilly, a bird taking off from mid- or upper-canopy on one side of the road can be at windshield height at the other.

Right now the estimate is that cars kill 60 million birds a year, and based on my little sample, over five months on a single quarter-mile stretch (1/2 a "lane-mile") of what adds up to 8 million lane-miles of highway in the U.S., I would bet cars kill even more than that. When I picked up this poor Yellow-throated Vireo, in the prime of his life, a bird that flew all the way down to Central or South America and returned at least once, and probably at least twice, and who was in the middle of a nesting season, I was shaking with sorrow and outrage. I mean, this is a bird I knew--one who was singing every time I walked past, from the same spot. I watched him and his mate in a couple of quick but romantic chases a few weeks ago. Nest-building can begin within hours of pair formation in this species, so I'd bet, based on my observations, that this male was busy feeding nestlings by now. If the female can't raise them all herself, she doesn't get another shot--renesting is extremely rare in Yellow-throated Vireos.

Everyone is griping about the cost of gasoline now, but it's as if Americans have a complete disconnect between how much they pay at the pump and how fast they drive. Slowing down measurably improves mileage--even on highways, most cars would do their best mileage-wise going in the lower 40s, and efficiency drops really fast above 60. (That's why Richard Nixon, of all people, lowered the speed limit to 55 on interstate highways during the oil crisis of the 70s.) My car's optimum speed seems to be 42 miles per hour--that's when I average better than 60 mpg. But some of the cars on Ellis Hollow exceed the limit by at least 10 mph--essentially going 55 on a residential street! When we drive fast, we put birds at risk plus we squander natural resources which hurts us and birds both. As #60 of my 101 Ways to Help Birds says, "Drive at the slowest speed that is safe, courteous, and convenient."

But that "courteous" is the sticking point. I'm getting sick and tired of cars barreling up behind me and flashing their lights when I'm already at or close to the speed limit, expecting me to speed up to accommodate them. Is it any fairer for the slow drivers to have to accommodate the fast ones than the reverse? In America, bullies prevail and then get royally pissed if the meek grow the least bit insistent about doing things our way. Well, I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.

Indiana Jones and the Willow Ptarmigan

Did anyone else notice the Willow Ptarmigan singing in the background in the new Indiana Jones movie? Russ and I went on an "interstate date," both seeing the new movie tonight, me at 7:45 pm EDT and he at 6:45 pm CDT. We talked on our cell phones while we were buying tickets, and he called me the moment the credits ended at his movie--at the exact same time the credits ended for me! He of course didn't notice the ptarmigan, but I certainly did--but it was near enough to the beginning (I think just at the start of the "Amazon" [filmed in Hawaii])that I don't remember exactly when. So if anyone did notice and remembers exactly where the ptarmigan calls were, please post a comment!

Spring Dawn at Ellis Hollow

On May 14, while I was packing up to leave for Chicago and Duluth, I made a recording of the dawn chorus from my balcony. It's 52 minutes long, starting out very softly and slowly building. It is 30.2 MB, so don't download unless you have a fast connection or a LOT of time. It sounds best when you turn the bass down low.

I'm going to eventually make a list of all the species you can hear on this, but if you notice something I'm likely to miss, post a comment.

Name that Peregrine Chick!

Here's a fun, and worthwhile, contest, as described by Debbie Waters, the Education Director at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory:

There was a great article in the local news section of Thursday's Duluth News Tribune about our Name the Peregrine Falcon Chick auction.

There's still time left to bid! The auction ends at 6:50 Saturday evening. To bid, go to www.ebay.com and search under "name peregrine falcon".

This is the PERFECT gift for the bird lover that has everything (else)!

We've had a lot of lookers on the Ebay page, but so far just one bid.

Thank you to that bidder! You are helping to support one of our most popular public programs--one that we offer as a free public service in our community. "Free" means that we need funding from outside sources in order to provide this valuable programming.

What does the winner get?
1. The naming right for one of the peregrine chicks/eyasses. This name will be recorded along with the band numbers in the Midwest Peregrine Society database.

2. A professional photo of 'your' eyas taken at the banding. Because they aren't traditionally 'cute' at that age, we will also attempt to get a professional 'suitable for framing' photo of your chick after it develops its beautiful juvenile plumage. We can't guarantee that the bird will provide us with that opportunity, but we'll do our best!

3. A day with the Peregrine Watch Naturalists watching the family and touring some of the other Peregrine Falcon nest sites in the area.

4. Email updates concerning the development, activities and well-being of 'your' eyas during the summer of 2008.
5. Notification if your bird is relocated or seen at another location as an adult.
6. A one-year membership to Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory and all the perks that come with HRBO membership.
This is an exciting opportunity that we may not be able to offer again in the future, so we hope you will take advantage of what might be a “once in a lifetime” chance!

All's well that ends well

Children, no bickering. When you hurt your brother or sister, stop doing it, apologize, and, if necessary, make amends. And move on. No holding grudges or getting in some snide last word. THE END.

Cancer is evil

I've been very distracted for the last few weeks--my sister's had another setback with her cancer. It's an evil disease. She was in the hospital when I went through Chicago last Wednesday--they set up her portacatheter to administer pain meds instead of chemo now. Why oh why don't oncologists realize that those pain med patches just don't work after a person loses every ounce of body fat and much of their muscle? The oncologists don't do anything about it until they switch the patient to palliative care. Now at least she's out of pain. But why don't oncologists work with palliative care specialists so they can make pain manageable even as they're still trying to stop the cancer? It's not until they take them off chemo and other cancer treatments that they send them off to palliative care and pain relief. Does this really need to be an either/or situation?

I'll be visiting Mary tomorrow on my way back to Ithaca. The photo was taken last year at Elmhurst's Relay for Life. Mary's been very active in fundraising for the Cancer Society for many years now.

Fantastic birding festival

Oh, man--what a great festival I was at this weekend. The Chequamegon Bay Birding and Nature Festival in Ashland, Wisconsin, was filled with wonderful programs and wonderful birds. Migration's been stymied by the slow spring--a great many trees haven't even started leafing out yet. But people got grand looks at a lot of wonderful birds, including this poor Black-and-white Warbler that bonked into a window. He flew off, I hope safely, before I could get a look at the band numbers. What a cosmically handsome bird.

When I left Sunday afternoon, the species tally was closing in on 170--Ryan Brady is going to send me an update ASAP. Among the really rare species were Boreal Chickadee and Black-billed Magpie.

I stayed at the Inn at Timber Cove--a lovely bed & breakfast in Ashland. I was in a lovely cottage, where I'd love to have stayed a week or more. I highly recommend it. I'll post more photos of the festival and my splendid accommodations ASAP.

Cuckoo for cuckoos

This weekend I was one of the leaders on Cornell's Spring Field Ornithology class trip to New Jersey. I took this photo yesterday at Belleplain State Forest. Lots more photos to post. It would have been fun to be on one of the digiscoping or digital photography teams at the World Series of Birding. But the wonderful Birdchick was there--and her team won FIRST PLACE!!!

The Sapsuckers tied for second place in the overall Big Day, covering the state--they tallied 222 species! Some day I'm going to find myself a splendid spot and see how many species of birds I can photograph, just for the fun of it.

I had plenty of fun myself, with the class. Yesterday happened to be the 33rd anniversary of the day I saw my first warblers. That day I saw a Nashville and a Magnolia, which I missed yesterday. Both times I had Black-and-white and Black-throated Green. And yesterday I had a bunch more, including Prothonotary, Hooded, Kentucky, and Yellow-throated--what cool birds to mark such an anniversary with! The trick with leading a class is I didn't have much chance for photography. But I'll post more photos later.

Chickadee pipe dreams: for Lynne

I couldn't get this to work in the comments of the previous post, but here, from The Condor, are the original plans for a chickadee "artificial nest snag." The Lab's plans for the ones I got photos of used a larger pipe size only to make the nests comparable in diameter to a standard bird box for the purposes of a study they did. The smaller size from these plans should work just as well.

The Rest of the Story about Chickadee Eggs: for Carolyn

Chickadees are rather the Norwegian Bachelor Farmers of the bird world. They are very sociable--ya, sure, you betcha!--but they aren't comfortable getting TOO close to other chickadees. They maintain a rather large personal space, which is why they never sit side-by-side at your feeder. If one chickadee does approach another too closely, the dominant one between them will make a little gargle call which effectively shoos the other bird away like a discreet "ahem!"

The trick is, at least once a year a pair of chickadees must draw very close together indeed, or we'll never have baby chickadees. So chickadees sing, which revs them up hormonally so they can overcome their inhibitions and reserve to finally do what birds and bees and educated fleas do. During the song period, female chickadees get so revved up that they become like teenaged girls at a rock concert who throw their panties on stage--if a particular male chickadee is exceptionally tuneful, many or most of the chickadee families in his neighborhood will have at least a few babies who share his genes. Fortunately, father chickadees never demand paternity tests before raising their babies--they spend weeks feeding all the babies in their brood regardless of parentage.

It takes almost 2 weeks for chickadee eggs to hatch after the brood is complete. The young remain in the nest for another two full weeks, and remain with the parents for another month or so. By the time the young are on their own, there isn't enough time remaining in summer to raise another brood. But many things kill chickadees, so to maintain their numbers, broods contain an average of 6-8 eggs, and some have as many as 13!

If you think this is extreme, the even tinier Golden-crowned Kinglet's average brood normally contains 8 or 9 eggs. In both cases, the eggs are so tiny that they can be brooded in one layer. I love how the eggs are arranged in that chickadee nest!