Category: Birds
Sage Grouse, Sagebrush and Science
They appear like ghosts before light: small groups of plump birds standing amongst the sagebrush. They puff up, tail feathers erect, chest extended. Large air sacs are inflated on their breasts, making a distinct plop.
I’m on the spring display grounds of the greater sage grouse, one of the arid West’s most iconic birds. Each spring males gather on these grounds, known as leks, to impress females with their display.
You have to get up early in the morning and sit motionless in the high desert. But you’ll be rewarded in the soft light of dawn, as sage grouse begin their show. It’s not unusual 15 males vying for the attention of female grouse on a lek, a site that grouse use year after year. (I’ve seen more than 50 on a lek at The Nature Conservancy’s Crooked Creek Preserve).
It’s one of the world’s most memorable wildlife spectacles. But finding it has grown increasingly difficult, as sage grouse continue to decline across their range.
Why are sage grouse on the decline? And is there anything we can do about it?
Everyday Nature: Cartoonish Coot Chicks
Most baby birds, cute though they may be, are not exactly colorful. This makes good evolutionary sense: Baby birds, unable to fly, make easy meals for predators.
They thus must blend into their surroundings. A drake mallard or canvasback is a colorful, striking water bird, but baby ducks are nondescript. They disappear into the marshy reeds, making it harder for a hungry raccoon or mink to find them.
Not so the American coot.
Adult coots are fairly drab birds. But their babies? They look like they were designed by a deranged tattoo artist.
The front half of the coot’s body is covered in orange-tipped plumes, giving them a jarring appearance. We’re not used to seeing baby birds covered bright feathers. While this orange fades rather quickly—in about six days—it still leaves them conspicuous when they are at the most vulnerable stage of their lives.
This coloration makes them more susceptible to predation. What advantage would such feathers possibly confer?
Boucher’s Birding Blog: Mamba Meets Bushbaby
Sometimes when you go birding, you can’t help but see other animals – elephants, army ants, beautiful butterflies.
Occasionally, if you get out early (as birders always do), you can get to a park before the crowds and you might see something really special (and, in this case, gruesome).
In January, we traveled to Ghana for some superb birding. Our visit included the famous canopy walkway at the Kakum National Park near the Ivory Coast. The seven bridges strung high up in the trees usually teem with visitors who have no appreciation of the amazing birdlife.
They might notice the monkeys, but for most, the canopy walkway is just a low-tech amusement ride. They shriek as they bounce from one platform to the next on the narrow, swaying wooden planks.
We arrived very early, our guide having arranged for the park to admit us before the regular opening hour. We were the first visitors on the path that climbs to the walkway.
It was barely light as we tramped up the steep hill, trying not to trip over hidden roots and rocks. As we reached a turn, we heard a ruckus near the trail – about head height — and we all peered into the tangle of vines and branches. We had the surprise of our lives.
Science at Emiquon: Restoring a “Wetland of Dreams”
The airboat whirs over the shallow wetland, as huge flocks of coots, ducks, herons and other birds flush before me.
It’s the kind of scene that could entice one to wax rhapsodic on the beauties of untrammeled nature.
Except this isn’t. Not quite.
Just six years ago, this expansive wetland was cornfields and a cattle feedlot.
It’s now Emiquon Preserve, a 6,600-acre project on the Illinois River that is one of the largest floodplain restoration projects in the Midwest.
How do you go from cornfield to wildlife paradise?
The easy answer is to invoke Field of Dreams: Build it, and they will come.
The hard answer: Research, and lots of it. Behind Emiquon’s incredible conservation success is an extensive science program.
Each March, the University of Illinois at Springfield’s Therkilsden Field Station at Emiquon—the preserve’s flagship research center—convenes a gathering of researchers to share results from their studies.
While it may look like the wetland is nature primeval, it is this research that is restoring what once was known as the “inland fishing capital of North America.”
Kareiva: Marine Pollution and a World of Waste
I was just revising the “marine chapter” for a textbook I have coauthored, and looking at reviews from professors who had taught a conservation course using our first edition. We were criticized for making marine conservation too much about fishing and marine protected areas, while neglecting ocean pollution as a big deal, and probably the greatest threat to our oceans.
It turns out these critics were right.
For much of human history the ocean has been viewed as a place to dispose of waste where it would be so diluted that it does no harm. We now know better.
Dead zones, floating mats of plastics, and toxic chemical residues in marine fish tissue are striking evidence that human waste and by-products could be every bit as much of a threat to our oceans as over-fishing.
Dead zones now affect more than 400 systems, and cover vast areas of the ocean — more than 475,000 square kilometers. Plastic debris in the oceans is now so common it is hard to find a beach without washed up plastics. This plastic is much more than a matter of aesthetics; all sea turtles, 45% of marine mammals, and 21% of seabird species are harmed by plastic.
The sheer volume of human waste products and the fact that most people live along coasts means that there will be no simple, single measure that can address marine pollution.
Take something as specific as cigarette butts — over 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded annually, and researchers have observed a 96-hour mortality effect (measured as LC-50) in larval topsmelt (a Pacific ocean silverside) at a dilution of one cigarette butt per liter of water. Latte-drinking enthusiasts in my hometown of Seattle have given rise to elevated caffeine concentrations in Puget Sound, which are known to cause chemical stress in mussels and other marine invertebrates.
So what are we to do?
Why Grassland Birds are Poor Indicators of Prairie Quality
Let me start by saying that I’m a big fan of birds.
I really enjoyed working on my graduate research, which focused on grassland birds and their vulnerability to prairie fragmentation.
I also think birds are generally pretty and interesting.
However, the truth is that prairie birds make up only a tiny percentage of the species in prairies (most of which are invertebrates, followed by plants).
Still, grassland birds are often held up as indicators of whether or not a prairie – or a prairie landscape – is “healthy” or “high quality.”
A common refrain in prairie conservation goes something like this; “If we have our full complement of grassland birds in this prairie and/or landscape, it’s a good bet that all the other species are also doing well.”
Unfortunately, while prairie birds are relatively easy to study and monitor, they may not do a good job of reflecting how the rest of the prairie is doing. Let’s look at some of the most important attributes of prairies and some of their major threats – and consider how well birds correlate with them.
Is Your Kitty Cat a Destructive Killer?
Does the loss of bird populations begin with a meow?
When most conservationists think about the biggest human-caused threats to native birds, they list things like oil spills, habitat destruction, invasive species, climate change, collisions with windows, pesticides and wind turbines.
But those threats, serious as they are, pale in comparison to what may be the number one killer of wild birds: Cats.
That’s right. Your beloved Tabby could be a wildlife destroying machine, a genuine conservation threat.
That’s what researchers suggest in a recent paper published in the journal Nature Communications. They found that free-ranging cats killed between 1.4–3.7 billion birds and 6.9–20.7 billion mammals annually.
That research has been widely publicized by birders, and widely ignored by everyone else. Especially cat lovers.
Researchers Scott R. Loss and Peter Marra of the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center and Tom Will of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Division of Migratory Birds suggest that feral cats (those not owned by someone) kill the majority of birds. But still, a simple way to save the local fauna is to keep your Siamese or Manx indoors, or on a leash.
Notes from Silver Creek: Natural Born Scientists
It was a normal Sunday for us. Mid-morning, we walked down to the creek to throw some rocks in the water and look for critters.
My boys were standing on the bridge, throwing stones, and I walked down the road to get them a few more rocks. My five year old, Ben, said to me, “Mom, don’t go over there.”
I asked why and he said, “Because there is a bird asleep in that tree.”
I looked up and sure enough, a nighthawk was sound asleep on one of the horizontal branches. I asked Ben how he knew it was there and he looked at me like I was not the smartest person in the world and said, “Because there’s a bunch of bird poop on the ground there.”
Watching my boys grow up on The Nature Conservancy’s Silver Creek Preserve in south-central Idaho–where I work as manager–I am amazed on a daily basis how much they notice.
They know exactly where to find big spiders (“where there are lots of bugs, Mom”), the big black beetles (walking across the dry spots along the road, of course), the ladybugs (on that pokey green plant) and the frogs (where the banks hang over the water).
They have learned habitats simply by looking for the bugs and critters that live there. Long before formal training, they have keen observational skills and know what questions to ask.
They are, in essence, highly effective little scientists.
Citizen Science: Great Backyard Bird Count
Want to help bird conservation?
This weekend, just grab a notebook, a field guide and binoculars if you have them. Head out to a local park or look outside your window. And start counting birds.
The Great Backyard Bird Count, held from February 15-18, is one of the largest citizen science initiatives in the United States (and this year, it’s gone global).
A joint project of the National Audubon Society and Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) invites everyone from new bird watchers to serious life listers to submit the birds they’ve spotted.
Participants can record sightings for as few as 15 minutes.
Just record the birds you spot, follow the GBBC’s bird counting rules and submit your list.
Your own bird sightings may not seem that important to science. But taken as a whole, the GBBC represents a substantial data set: Last year, more than 100,000 checklists were submitted, recording more than 17.4 million individual bird observations.
How do these observations help scientists?
Authors
What is Cool Green Science?
Editors’ Choice
Matt Miller: Big Fish: Return of the Alligator gar
Alligator gars were persecuted and eliminated for crimes they didn't commit. A new conservation effort is bringing them back.
Mark Spalding: Marine Protected Areas: Tokens or Treasures?'
The creation of huge marine protected areas is being celebrated by conservationists around the world. But are they enough?
Sophie Parker: What Desert Plants Can Teach Us About Climate Change
Desert plants thrive in the hottest, driest places on earth. Do they have something to teach us about climate change?
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- ‘Let’s Get Back to Ecology’: A New Interview with Peter Kareiva http://t.co/w2jgDx6e7P
- RT @biodv: Want to discuss the future of biodiversity? Read and comment on our interview with Peter Kareiva http://t.co/NoQXTIVbCl
Blogroll: Conservation and Science
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