My Little Chickadees?

I don't know for sure when I saw my first Black-capped Chickadee, but for sure knew them as a kid in the early 1980s when I started more actively keeping bird lists. I didn't see my first Carolina Chickadee until 1986, when I traveled out to visit a girlfriend in Georgia.

I've now lived about as much in the Carolina Chickadee range as I have in the realm of Black-capped Chickadees. Looking at the feeder out my window at work today in the rain, I have both species, and maybe some hybrids. Which species should I now consider "my" chickadee? After all these years, its hard to say. Maybe by now I'm bi-parid?

And then there's those Mountain Chickadees that I miss from my college days in Utah and my summers of bird surveys in Montana. Now that's another sharp chickadee!

Did your shopping list kill a songbird?

New York Times Op Ed piece here.

Outdoor Cats=Poachers

Hunters can appreciate how much of an impact free-roaming cats have on birds and other wildlife. Check out these posters from ReMaine Wild:

Long-tailed Ducks at Peace Valley

tiny icebergs
arctic visitors
floating on my lake

Morning Commute

Started off the morning with a Great Blue Heron and Fish Crows flying over my kids' preschool. On the drive into work, I pulled over to watch 27 Wild Turkeys in one field, including one Tom turkey displaying without attracting too much attention from all the hens around him (image:wikipedia).

At Peace Valley Park, most of the ducks and geese have moved north. Highlights were the lingering Common Loon, a couple Lesser Black-backed Gulls, and five Bonaparte's Gulls that flew the the length of the lake and kept going while I watched. The only ducks I saw on the lake where three Green-winged Teal. By the time I got to work I'd found 17 species, and got my Bird RDA within minutes of walking in the door and sitting at my desk overlooking my bird feeders.

Not a bad way to start my day. How was your commute this morning?

BIGBY Wood Ducks

(image:wikipedia)
This afternoon I took a short walk down to the creek behind my office and was able to find 3 Wood Duck, new for the BIGBY list. Very sharp looking two drakes and a hen. Takes me back to the first time I saw these birds as a kid, back in April 1982 at Eastmoreland Park in Portland, Oregon. They nest along the creek here at work, and have probably been back for a couple weeks, but I haven't had a chance to get down to the creek for awhile.

Birdchaser in the News

A few papers are starting to run the GBBC results news release, including the Environmental News Service. I also have a short write up of GBBC results on the official GBBC site here.

Blast from the Past: When Wrens Attack

April 2002

Dried leaves rustle as a Carolina Wren pursues a large brown spider across a dry creek bed. The spider, seeking an escape, darts out of the leaves. Half way across the stream channel, exposed in the open, the spider freezes momentarily. The wren is on it immediately, grabbing it in its beak and shaking it repeatedly until all of its legs have fallen off. Without legs, the spider lays helpless on the ground. The wren rises up above the arachnid and, using its dagger-like bill as a pile-driver, repeatedly attacks the spider’s head and thorax. After pulverizing the spider’s head, the wren picks up the remains, which appear larger than its own head, and quickly swallows it belly first. Immediately after consuming the spider, the bird disappears into a greenbrier tangle above the creek bed.

It isn't enough to say that wrens eat spiders. They hunt them, track them, and completely mangle them before wolfing them down. It may not be a scene from nature that we see every day--but only because maybe we aren't watching closely. After watching this spectacle, I can't help but see wrens in a completely different light. If they were as big as cats, we wouldn't let our kids anywhere near them! If they were as big as horses we'd have to hunt them all down, like we did with saber-toothed cats!

Its a very cool world out there, when wrens attack! (image:wikipedia)

Boyds n the Hood

Birds were really active on my street this morning. Where I only saw two birds and heard another a couple days ago in the wind, this morning I was able to find 20 different species--all on three blocks of row homes and small suburban lots. A Red-tailed Hawk sitting in a neighbor's tree was the highlight, I suppose. It for sure warmed my heart more than the pair of Brown-headed Cowbirds making mating motions on a powerline. Otherwise just the common local birds. By the end of my walk, I'd spotted 35 species, including the first Hairy Woodpecker I've seen in over a month.

But the coolest thing I saw today was probably the "wing-shivering" display of the Tufted Titmouse, where the female bird crouches down and flutters its wings while making an incessant series of high-pitched calls. She does this to get a mate to feed her, as part of the courtship before nesting. Yes, its springtime in titmouse land! image:wikipedia

Common Loon

In spite of being in lots of places that should have had Common Loons this year, I hadn't seen one yet in 2008 until my drive home from church on Sunday. A beautiful breeding plumaged bird floating 150 yards out on the lake at Peace Valley, it was too far away to really do much with, but great to see. I love how wide loon bodies are when they are sitting on the water. image:wikipeda

Easter Bird Legends

There are a couple Easter legends and stories involving birds. Unhappily, sparrows betrayed the location of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane by flying straight towards him, while swallows supposedly tried to lead his enemies away with irregular flights.

But here's my favorite about the crossbills, said to have tried to pry the nails from the hands of Jesus on the cross, and their red plumage derives from getting blood soaked in the process. image:wikipedia

The Legend of the Crossbill
by Julius Mosen
translated from the German by Longfellow

ON the cross the dying Saviour
Heavenward lifts his eyelids calm
Feels but scarcely feels a trembling
In his pierced and bleeding palm

And by all the world forsaken
Sees he how with zealous care
At the ruthless nail of iron
A little bird is striving there

Stained with blood and never tiring
With its beak it doth not cease
From the cross t would free the Saviour
Its Creator's Son release

And the Saviour speaks in mildness
Blest be thou of all the good
Bear as token of this moment
Marks of blood and holy rood

And that bird is called the crossbill
Covered all with blood so clear
In the groves of pine it singeth
Songs like legends strange to hear

Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Happy Easter, everyone!

BIGBY Fox Sparrow

A somewhat shortened morning walk today, with snow falling in huge flakes that disintegrated upon hitting the paved hike and bike path. Without a huge amount of time, I only went two miles, but checked out a side path I never take. Since it had a lot of multiflora rose bushes along the path, I hoped there might be a Fox Sparrow there, since they are moving through right now, and sure enough I was able to spot one--first flying away and then perched up for a good look.

image:wikipedia
Perhaps the most mysterious thing today were two flocks of 20+ Blue Jays all calling and hanging out together in the trees. I never did really figure out what was up with that!

Day List: 29 species (145% of Bird RDA)
2008 List: 287 species
BIGBY List: 60 species

BIGBY Rusty Blackbird

The wind was still blowing this morning, but the birds were much more active, and I ended up with 30 species on my walk--including the elusive Red-breasted Nuthatch that I see occasionally in my neighborhood, and a singing male Rusty Blackbird, which is new for my year list and my 2008 BIGBY list. I'm used to seeing this bird in its winter colors, so nice to see that glaring yellow eye against the glossy black breeding coat (image:Glen Tepke).

Birding in the Wind

Only thing harder than birding in the rain is birding in the wind. By 4:30 this afternoon I realized I'd only seen Canada Goose, Mute Swan, Mallard, Turkey Vulture and American Crow. A far cry from my Bird RDA! And the wind was gusting over 25 mph. For a split moment I thought about flicking in the whole Bird RDA streak (80 days and counting!). But then I came to my senses, got on my coat, and headed out for my walk. (image:wikipedia)

A block later, I'd only managed to hear a Song Sparrow (weakly singing in a bush), and seen a Northern Mockingbird drinking rainwater from someone's gutter and a lone Mourning Dove huddled on a powerline. Slow pickins!

By the time I got to the hike and bike path, I'd picked up a Carolina Chickadee, a calling House Sparrow, a field full of American Robins, and one flyby Rock Pigeon. You know its slow when your highlight after 20 minutes is a Rock Pigeon.

It was looking very grim, but I shouldn't have worried. My little feathered paisanos always come through in the end. By the time I got home, I'd wracked up 26 species (as compared to 28 yesterday in the rain). Luckiest sighting was probably the Sharp-shinned Hawk blowing through--I only happened to see it while double-checking a distant Turkey Vulture.

Day List: 27 species (135% of Bird RDA)

Cats Kill Over 1 Billion Birds Each Year in U.S.

Hopefully my last cat and bird post for awhile!

Some folks don't seem willing to accept the magnitude of the cat predation problem. While it is a bit tricky to come up with solid numbers of birds and other animals killed, we can make estimates based on a growing number of studies of cat predation.

The trick is to come up with a calculation based on:

a) The numbers of cats roaming the landscape
b) The number of birds killed by the average cat

There is no agreement about either of these two figures, so the trick is to try and come up with a fairly defensible number.

Here's one quick look at it.

Number of cats
Really there are three important numbers here, the number of pet cats, the number of those cats that are allowed outside, and the number of feral or stray cats. The first figure is the easiest to come close to. The American Veterinary Medical Association provides numbers of pet cats (and other animals)

They calculate that in 2007 there were 81,721,000 pet cats in the U.S.

Now you have to determine how many of those cats are allowed to roam outside and potentially kill birds. According to the $1,195 American Pet Products Manufacturers Association survey 43% of cat owners allow their pets to roam outside (as quoted by the Cat Fanciers Association).

If we accept these numbers (and they are probably the least controversial of all the numbers here), that gives us:

35.1 million outdoor pet cats in the U.S.

Now we have to add the number of feral and stray cats. This number is a lot squishier. We need better numbers here for sure. I haven't seen a good study on this, but the numbers published by feral cat advocacy groups seem to range between 60-100 million cats. In the absence of good numbers, for now it is probably safe to presume that there are as many feral and stray cats as there are owned cats. So lets say 81 million again.

So that's 81.7 million + 35.1 million = 116.8 million outdoor cats

More realistic might be a range of 95.1 to 135.1 million (based on possible feral range). But for simplicity and for arguments sake, lets just stick with 116.8 million cats for now.

How many birds killed by cats?
Here's where it gets trickier, but here are some good options--

According to a study in Michigan by Lepczyk et al, outdoor pet cats across an urban to rural gradient killed an average of .683 birds each week during the breeding season.

IF you can extrapolate that across the full year, that would be an average of 35.5 birds killed by each cat/each year. IF you can use that figure for all outdoor cats, you get a calculation of 4.1 billion birds killed each year.

But maybe cats don't kill birds at the same rate all year long, or at the same rate everywhere that they do in Michigan. But, for example, if we presume that cats everywhere ONLY kill birds during a 22 week breeding season (and we know THAT isn't true!), that would still be 1.76 billion birds killed per year.

Another study in San Diego (Crooks and Soule 1999 cited here) found each cat to kill an average of 15 birds per year (and 41 other small animals). IF you multiply this number by the number of outdoor cats you get 1.75 billion birds killed per year. And that's just in the U.S. and doesn't take into account our migratory birds killed by cats in Canada or Latin America.

You can play this game all day, based on numbers from various studies. The cat advocates will try to cast doubt on these predation rates, but there are arguments to be made that real average predation rates may be higher (these are mostly studies of owned cats which may hunt less, owners may not be seeing all birds killed by their cats and consumed or left elsewhere, etc.).

So what's the number? A calculation of 1.7 billion birds based on either the San Diego study or the MI study seems reasonable. A more conservative statement might be "at least 1 billion birds a year and quite probably higher". That's what I generally say. That would still be an order of magnitude higher than many people will want to accept. But it seems to be a conservative calculation. You can read what the cat advocates think in a series of articles here

From my perspective, the cat advocate positions linked here seem to make many more unwarranted assumptions than these quick calculations based on the best available science. Cat predation of birds in the U.S. seems to be on the magnitude of a billion birds a year, rather than any lower numbers reported elsewhere.

Birdchaser post at IATB #71

I and the Bird (IATB) #71 is up at The House and other Arctic Musings. Host Clare Kines is one of my favorite online blogging buddies, and one of our Great Backyard Bird Count regional reviewers. Thanks to the Internet, has something else to do in the Winter besides search for Common Ravens in the Nunavut darkness. Spring is coming, Clare. Enjoy!

Cat People Win, Birds Lose

This week a property management company in Virginia caved into pressure from Alley Cat Allies, and will allow over 200 feral cats to remain on their property (story here). That means there will be hundreds, or more likely thousands, of birds and other small animals killed by cats in their community over the next year.

Alley Cat Allies essentially has a rigid bottom line--no euthanized stray cats. I can understand and mostly support that. But will they also accept the bottom line of bird and wildlife experts that birds and wildlife killed by free ranging cats is unacceptable?

There is a way to satisfy both the bird and cat lovers--trap, neuter, and restrain stray and feral cats in fenced sanctuaries where they pose minimal risk to birds and other wildlife. Of course that will take raising money to create cat sanctuaries. But I'm sure if the bird and cat people worked together on this, we could create a place for unadoptable stray cats in every community, and protect the birds and wildlife that are otherwise threatened by cat predation.

Whatcha say Alley Cat Allies? You ready for a real solution? A win-win solution? One that protects both cats and birds?

Naked Birding in the Rain

OK, not birding without clothes, but stripped of binoculars. Since it was raining this morning, I just put on the rain coat and went for my three mile walk without binoculars. I find this a fun and refreshing way to get my Bird RDA sometimes--making me pay attention to the bird sounds around me, rather than just getting lost in my own internal music soundtrack and monologue. Without binoculars I still managed to see or hear 28 species. Best bird was a Field Sparrow on the side of the path--a bird I've only seen on my morning walk a couple times.

Birdchaser in Mexico, by proxy

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to this conference in Mexico, but I was a co-presenter of a paper on birds and bird knowledge among the Ch'orti' Maya of Eastern Guatemala:

Los pájaros y el prognóstico en la vida diaria de los Ch'orti' Maya de Guatemala (Birds and Prognostication in the Daily Life of the Ch'orti' Maya of Guatemala). Paper presented at the XVIII Coloquio Internacional LAILA/ALILA, March 10-14, San Cristobal, Chiapas, Mexico. Co-presented with Kerry Hull.

Hope to get back down for more field work in Guatemala this summer!

BIGBY Wild Turkey

It had to happen eventually. Today a co-worker called me over to watch a Wild Turkey feeding just outside the window under one of our feeders. There are at least a dozen of these birds running around the 160 acres here, but I hadn't run into them yet since starting the 2008 BIBGY. I'll take a 10 minute break for a Wild Turkey any day!