Death of an Ovenbird

Ovenbird
Originally uploaded by Laura Erickson

On May 13, I took Photon for a very short walk at 6:10 in the morning. We headed back to our apartment at 6:15, and there on the doorstep of my apartment building was a dead Ovenbird, still warm. It had apparently come down to earth after flying hundreds of miles overnight, was skulking about in the shrubs around the building, and the porch light or hall light bewildered it and it crashed into the glass door. I live in a large apartment complex. My apartment happens to be the one next to the office, which is why there’s an outside glass door at all—none of the entries to the other buildings, and neither of the other two entries to apartments in this building—are enclosed at all. I’d been thinking how lucky I am to be in one of the handful of apartments in the entire complex that has an enclosed entry—I don’t have to go outside, even momentarily, to get my mail or go down to the basement laundry. But that poor Ovenbird paid a heavy price for such a minor convenience.

When I was in Guatemala two years ago, I spent quite a bit of time with an Ovenbird. He or she had a winter territory near the conference center I was visiting. Whenever I could break away for a few minutes, there the bird would be. It was fun watching it go about its business, not focused on nesting or feeding young but on just living day to day. That bird had flown thousands of miles to get there—perhaps it, too, had come all the way from Minnesota, but it didn’t arrive in the comfort of an airplane but after millions of wingbeats, flying entirely on its own power. While I was there, the weather was beautiful, but there were other dangers for a little Ovenbird—snakes and large lizards that could snap it up in a single bite, army ants that could envelope it as it slept, and a host of other predators. And in the tropics, Ovenbirds are still vulnerable to windows—while I was there, an Ovenbird was found dead beneath a window.

For some mysterious reason, Ovenbirds are killed at windows and glass doors in disproportionate numbers—dozens of people over the years have told me that although they hear Ovenbirds on every summer walk through the woods, the only Ovenbirds they’ve ever seen were found dead under their windows. As I held this poor dead Ovenbird, still shrinking as the last vestiges of breath passed out of its air sacs, I could feel the tragedy of a bird, a fellow traveler on this planet coming so far, working so hard, to come to such a meaningless end so near to its destination. The irony and sadness cast a pallor on the rest of the day.

Gary Larson once drew a Far Side cartoon with the caption, “When birds hit the window of vulnerability.” He drew a huge brick building with just one tiny window and a bird hitting it with a big “Bonk!” He didn’t draw it carefully enough to be identifiable, but my guess is that bird would have had to be an Ovenbird.

The fact that I could be ironically detached enough from the tragedy of this Ovenbird death to think of a Far Side cartoon bespeaks just how removed from the individual lives of other species we can be. But John Donne’s masterful meditation on the connectedness between us humans is perhaps not as all-encompassing as it should be. No man is an island, entire of itself. And mankind is not an island either, entire of itself. Any being’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in the planet’s life; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

(Today's radio program transcript. You can here the program on my podcast page--click on the title and wait patiently till it loads.

Stop! Thief!

This sucks--I just noticed that someone ripped off great swaths of text from my Owls of Harry Potter for her own blog! I'm so tired of people stealing my best lines and stuff, but this is ridiculous, and it sounds like she has a commercial site, not just a personal one. I don't have a myspace page so I can't even email her. But she took the information from my Owls of Harry Potter page, and it looks like she may have also taken things from Karla Kinstler's pages.

Some amusingly grotesque...

Archimedes
Originally uploaded by Laura Erickson

...photos of Archimedes downing a mouse are posted today on Twin Beaks.

Not about birds, but too funny to resist

Today Is International Talk Like William Shatner Day!

Photon in a prairie-chicken blind

Photon
Originally uploaded by Laura Erickson

Most dogs wouldn't last 5 minutes in a prairie-chicken blind before they barked, whined, or otherwise became nuisances. But this little dog waited patiently the whole time I was there--and I lingered an hour longer than was required! But she's not a morning dog, as you can see. I came across this photo when I was posting my Greater Prairie-Chicken photos to my Flickr photostream last night.

101 Ways to Help Birds

This is rather shameless self-promoting, but I sure wish that, with the new State of the Birds report, people would take another look at 101 Ways to Help Birds. I cover removing unnecessary fencing (the #1 cause of mortality for female prairie-chickens!!) energy conservation and how all the methods of producing electricity cause serious harms to habitat, air and water quality, etc. [well, except solar]), suggestions for making windows safer for birds, what to do when you find a bird in trouble, the best ways to solve problems with birds, etc. I was covering a lot of these topics before others seemed to even notice them--there's a part about birds and airplanes, for example, and I was researching bird impacts with windows for years before the book came out in 2006. Anyway, it really is worth a read, whether you buy it, check it out from a library, stand in the aisle or sit in a chair and read it at your favorite bookstore, or read it piece by piece in Google Books. I put my heart and soul into it, and years of research and writing, and it would be lovely if it were selling better.

Editors at two very prestigious publishing houses wanted to publish it, but in both cases the marketing departments nixed the project saying no one wants to buy books about conservation. I'd love to prove the marketing departments wrong, but so far apparently they were right.

I made Anderson Cooper's blog on CNN!

It's about chickadee brains and neuron regeneration. Check it out!

Check out Twin Beaks

Much as I love blogging, more and more I find myself thinking of how to post information as a bird might do, so I'm putting more and more information on Twin Beaks and less and less here. Some of it's funny (or not--humor is always subjective), but a lot of it is important conservation information. I'm trying very hard to make that website accessible and fun for birders of all levels, but always with a strong conservation message.

State of the Birds

I am SO proud to work at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The teamwork that went into this report was truly inspiring, and I'm very proud of the Lab's part in it. This report, and the video, are splendid. Please check it out.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today released the first ever comprehensive report on bird populations in the United States, showing that nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline due to habitat loss, invasive species, and other threats.

At the same time, the report highlights examples, including many species of waterfowl, where habitat restoration and conservation have reversed previous declines, offering hope that it is not too late to take action to save declining populations.

“Just as they were when Rachel Carson published Silent Spring nearly 50 years ago, birds today are a bellwether of the health of land, water and ecosystems,” Salazar said. “From shorebirds in New England to warblers in Michigan to songbirds in Hawaii, we are seeing disturbing downward population trends that should set off environmental alarm bells. We must work together now to ensure we never hear the deafening silence in our forests, fields and backyards that Rachel Carson warned us about.”

The report, The U.S. State of the Birds, synthesizes data from three long-running bird censuses conducted by thousands of citizen scientists and professional biologists.

In particular, it calls attention to the crisis in Hawaii, where more birds are in danger of extinction than anywhere else in the United States. In addition, the report indicates a 40 percent decline in grassland birds over the past 40 years, a 30 percent decline in birds of aridlands, and high concern for many coastal shorebirds. Furthermore, 39 percent of species dependent on U.S. oceans have declined.

However, the report also reveals convincing evidence that birds can respond quickly and positively to conservation action. The data show dramatic increases in many wetland birds such as pelicans, herons, egrets, osprey, and ducks, a testament to numerous cooperative conservation partnerships that have resulted in protection, enhancement and management of more than 30 million wetland acres.

“These results emphasize that investment in wetlands conservation has paid huge dividends,” said Kenneth Rosenberg, director of Conservation Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Now we need to invest similarly in other neglected habitats where birds are undergoing the steepest declines.”

“Habitats such as those in Hawaii are on the verge of losing entire suites of unique bird species,” said Dr. David Pashley, American Bird Conservancy’s Vice President for Conservation Programs. “In addition to habitat loss, birds also face many other man-made threats such as pesticides, predation by cats, and collisions with windows, towers and buildings. By solving these challenges we can preserve a growing economic engine – the popular pastime of birdwatching that involves millions of Americans – and improve our quality of life.”

“While some bird species are holding their own, many once common species are declining sharply in population. Habitat availability and quality is the key to hea

Surveys conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey, including the annual Breeding Bird Survey, combined with data gathered through volunteer citizen science program such as the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count, show once abundant birds such as the northern bobwhite and marbled murrelet are declining significantly. The possibility of extinction also remains a cold reality for many endangered birds.

“Citizen science plays a critical role in monitoring and understanding the threats to these birds and their habitats, and only citizen involvement can help address them,” said National Audubon Society’s Bird Conservation Director, Greg Butcher. “Conservation action can only make a real difference when concerned people support the kind of vital habitat restoration and protection measures this report explores.”

Birds are beautiful, as well as economically important and a priceless part of America's natural heritage. Birds are also highly sensitive to environmental pollution and climate change, maki

The United States is home to a tremendous diversity of native birds, with more than 800 species inhabiting terrestrial, coastal, and ocean habitats, including Hawaii. Among these species, 67 are Federally-listed as endangered or threatened. In addition, more than 184 species are designated as species of conservation concern due to a small distribution, high-level of threats, or declining populations.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service coordinated creation of the new report as part of the U.S. North American Bird Conservation Initiative, which includes partners from American Bird Conservancy, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Klamath Bird Observatory, National Audubon Society, The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Read all about it, and even download a cool PDF of the whole report, at www.stateofthebirds.org.