ABA Blog

Mercury Poisoning and its Effects on Birds

John Beetham of DC Birding Blog, whose curation of noteworthy bird notes every week is among the very best of any subject on the web, draws attention to a recent study that offers a great deal of insight into one of the more insidious and quiet killers of wild birds in North America, mercury poisoning.

photo by nebirdsplus via flickr

We're well aware of mercury's effects as a neurotoxin on human populations such that stringent restrictions are placed on its disposal, but methylmercury has been documented in several bird species as well and while we don't know the extent of how it manifests in birds, we do know that it can impact learning and memory (much as it does in humans). This means that birds affected by mercury in their environment can have difficulty memorizing and retaining songs, among other things.

That study Beetham elaborates on was one authored by Sheila Scoville and Oksana Lane and published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology concerning the analysis of the tissues of a young Saltmarsh Sparrow, particularly the bird's brain, which suggested disturbing things about the omnipresence of mercury in many ecosystems.

From John's post:

Based on feather samples taken from adult birds at the study site, it can be inferred that this fledgling's mother had high exposure to mercury at the time that she laid her eggs. This is analogous to in utero exposure in humans. In humans, in utero exposure can lead to brain abnormalities like Minamata Disease. This fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow showed abnormalities in its cerebellum that would have similar effects on motor control and coordination. Birds with these sorts of defects would have trouble recognizing and escaping danger, thus making them more susceptible to predation and accidental deaths.

While this fledgling Saltmarsh Sparrow is only one data point, the findings have disturbing implications. Since mercury levels among adult birds were so high, many other young Saltmarsh Sparrows are presumably exposed to mercury at the time of egg formation. We cannot know how many of them have brain abnormalities like the one documented in this study, but it seems safe to assume that the problem is widespread.

It's hard to know precisely what to do about this issue. Chief among contributing factors are coal-burning power plants, which are the single greatest source of methylmercury in the environment. In addition to climate concerns, it seems critical that we shift away from coal as an energy source to reduce the amount of mercury entering these ecosystems for the sake of those birds, and other wildlife, that are clearly feeling the stress.

The full paper is available here.

Get Your BOY Stickers and New Items in the Shop

Our new membership drive last month was a huge success, with 178 brand new members joining the ABA during that 2 week period. Welcome to those of you who signed up and thanks so much to those of you who continue to support the ABA through your continued membership. 

If you missed the stickers in the Jan/Feb issue of Birding that featured the Common Nighthawk Bird of the Year cover, and we know that some of you did, we want to make sure you get them. There's no better way to make yourself known as an ABA member out in the field.

So if you're missing the BOY nighthawk sticker please drop an email to Liz Gordon at lgordon AT aba.org and she will get you set up.

Also in ABA related paraphernalia, we have some new items in the ABA Shop that may interest members or future members (please join!). ABA patches are now on sale, with the new circular logo that we debuted in sticker form earlier this year. Also you can get ABA logo'd luggage tags for the traveling birder.

Of course, the ABA shop is your place for ABA apparel, jewelry, pins, binocular straps, and various other doo-dads that any birder would want. Come check it out!

Listing Central: Attu Bonanza!

There are few places in North America as storied to birders as Attu, that speck of land closer to Asia than mainland Alaska that has been the first point of contact for an incredible number of Asian strays, many of which are first records for the ABA Area.

In recent years Attu has been increasingly difficult to access, but #ABArare guru John Puschock has been leading trips there - accessing the island by boat - for awhile. And even though there are fewer birders visiting, the birds are still coming in bunches.

John has been writing dispatches for Lister's Corner, the blog arm of Listing Central, over the last few days chronicling the birds he's found. We already mentioned the White-throated Needletail here, but on May 31st he hit a bonanza of classic Attuvian magnitude.

At this point, we were starting to get giddy, and we were about to get even more giddy. Moving down onto Alexei, Isaac flushed a Wood Sandpiper from a pond. It flew to the other side, just out of view from the rest of the group. The plan was to walk around to the other side for a view, but there was a distraction we had to deal with first – a neighboring pond held two Smew. As we were admiring them, Isaac radioed that he just flushed another male Siberian Rubythroat. To give you some idea of how things were going, everyone ignored that bird.

It's an epic read, and a fascinating series that allows those of us who love to live vicariously through birders in amazing places seeing amazing things.

 

photo by Jess Findlay / Jess Findlay Photography

 

That exciting post is here. But keep coming back to Lister's Corner to keep up on how the tour is going.

Arctic Terns Taking the Long Way

via DC Birding Blog

photo from wikipedia

The epic planet-spanning migration of Arctic Terns is among the most famous of all bird species. Wile they seemed to lose the title of "longest migratory route" to the Sooty Shearwater - whose 40,000 mile trek around the Pacific was documented in 2006 - for a time, a recent study looks to hand that title back to the bird that for many is the textbook example of avian endurance.

We've known for a very long time that Arctic Terns breed in the high latitudes of the Arctic in the northern hemisphere summer before traveling to the other pole to spent the southern hemisphere summer foraging in the productive waters around Antarctica, but a team of researchers tagging breeding Arctic Terns with geolocators (what else, after all?) in the Netherlands has shown in the journal Ardea, that there's much more to that oversimplified route.

The tracked terns spent on average 273 ± 7 days away from The Netherlands, and visited known staging areas in the North Atlantic and the Benguela Current, on both the outward and return journey. Similar tracks were observed in the terns from Greenland.

However, hereafter the terns from The Netherlands moved to a previously unknown staging area in the central Indian Ocean, between 20–40°N and 65–100°E, and spent most of the non-breeding season in the Southern Ocean between 35–150°E. One bird migrated as far as New Zealand.

Eventually, all five birds spent the Austral summer in Wilkes Land, Antarctica, before flying back to the breeding colonies with a small detour to the same North Atlantic staging area they visited on their southward migration. The total travel distance in the course of the non-breeding period was ~90,000 ± 2000 km, which substantially exceeds previous estimates for this species.

For the non-metric among us, 90,000 km is on the order of 56,000 miles. Truly remarkable.

The full study, including a remarkable map showing the journey of these geolocated birds, is available online here.

 

ABA Blog in Review: May 2013

It's always sort of bittersweet when May comes to a close. The bulk of migration is over, the heat of summer is upon us, and it's humbling to think that it won't be too much longer before the inevitable return of birds heading the other direction. But we can pause in June for Breeding Bird Surveys and hunts for wayward vagrants and maybe a short break from birding before it's time to ready our constitution for the mudflats and mosquitos of late summer. But that's not too soon, of course.

While we're looking forward to summer, here's a very brief look back at the month that was at the ABA Blog. Just in case you missed anything.

Guest writers in our Open Mic feature included Woody Bracey's report of a record breaking Big Year in the logistically challenging Bahamas, Rick Simpson's incredible attempt to draw attention to the plight of the worlds shorebirds by seeing as many of them as possible though his WaderQuest initiative, and the fantastic first-hand account by Brian Quindlen of the first youth team to take top prize at the World Series of Birding.

As always, if you have something you'd like to say to our readership, please contact me at blog AT aba.org. We'd love to give you a platform.

Austin Smith, 16, Ben Bussmann, 18, and Nathaniel Sharp, 17, of the World Series of Birding Champion B.B. Kingfishers scan the trees in Stokes State Forest (photo by Brian Quindlen).

Have you checked out Birder's Marketplace yet?

Events Coordinator George Armistead announced the return of the ABA Convention, to be held in Texas in April of next year. You'll be hearing more about that in the not to distant future, but for now save the date.

Lynn Barber comes every closer to the 200 species mark in her county Big Year, finding sparrows and warblers along the way.

President Jeff Gordon is finally ready to talk about the "New ABA". Are you?

Robert Mortenson introduces the 2013 Bird of the Year Multimedia Art Contest in his own idiosyncratic way.

Photo guru Bill Schmocker shared his experiences in video-recording, placing natural perches near his feeding station, and enjoying some local Ruddy Ducks.

We welcomed Drew Weber to the fold, and he kicked things off with a discussion of tech innovations in birding.

And yours truly broke down some of the more interesting bird taxonomy reports up for a vote from the AOU Check-list Committee.

Several #ABArare birds were seen this month, including Flame-colored Tanager in Texas, Plain-capped Starthroat and Slate-throated Redstart in Arizona, Common Ringed Plover in Massachusetts, two Little Egrets in Newfoundland, Black-faced Grassquit in Florida, a provincial first Purple Sandpiper in Alberta, and Green Sandpiper and Tundra Bean-Goose in Alaska.

As always, if you're a member of the ABA, THANK YOU for your support. It is because of members like you that we are able to do all that we do and we appreciate it. If you're not a member yet, please consider joining! We'd love you have you.

Thanks for reading!

LAST DAY to get $10 off a New ABA Membership!

TODAY is the last day to get a NEW ABA membership at a special discounted rate! So if you've been on the fence about joining or sharing the gift of an ABA membership with someone who you think would benefit, you've only got a few more hours to take advantage of this great offer.

We're really excited to bring you the benefits of ABA membership as we offer new opportunities for birders and expand existing ABA initiatives, but we can't do it without YOU!

If you're already a member, thanks so much for your support. Please consider sharing this offer with a fellow birder who might appreciate it.

Together we can build a passionate and involved birding community.

Thank you, and good birding!

Magee Marsh, Ohio, on CBS Sunday Morning

The Biggest Week in American Birding was featured prominently in a story on this morning's CBS Sunday Morning program, featuring interviews with Kim Kaufman, Richard Crossley, and J. Drew Lanham, among others. It's a really nicely done take on what makes birding so rewarding for so many of us.

In case you missed it, the piece is available on the CBS website and embedded below.

It's great to see so many familiar faces throughout! Congrats to everybody involved!

Knot B95 returns to Delaware in its Third Decade

Via a DC Birding Blog

We don't often think of birds as individuals - even those who watch feeders closely can have a hard time distinguishing between our regular visitors from season to season. Those who band and monitor shorebirds, however, have an advantage in that individual birds, bearing recognizable markers on their legs, can be followed. In fact that's the whole point, providing a birder with the necessary optics and knowledge can decipher the code and get the information where it needs to go.

And when it all works the way it's supposed to, some incredible narratives emerge.

 

photo by Patricia M. González

Take, for instance, the story of B95, a not outwardly notable Red Knot among thousands that famously stop over on Delaware Bay to load up on horseshoe crab eggs before departing to the tundra as they have for millennia. Except that because of the slip of plastic on the birds leg, we know that B95 has been visiting this stretch of shoreline for at least 20 years, making him the oldest Red Knot known, and a front-runner for oldest shorebird.

 

That's amazing enough, but in B95's lifetime it has flown approximately 20,000 miles a year - from Argentina to the Canadian tundra and back - for at least 20 years, putting an estimated 400,000 miles on those wings so far.

And remember, he was initially banded as an adult so this is likely a conservative estimate.

In any case, B95 was spotted this week having survived yet another year in transit:

"The news that B95 was seen in Delaware is a joy," said Charles Duncan, director of shorebird recovery for the Manomet Center for Conservation, in Massachusetts. "So many people have learned about shorebird conservation through this iconic little hero."

It's a fascinating look at shorebird migration through a indomitable character.

An Illinois Big Day Record at Listing Central

Last week, on an absolutely perfect spring day, the Illinois Big Day Record was broken by a team that consisted of not one, but two ABA staff members. Web Developer Greg Neise, Birder's Guide editor Michael Retter, and a team consisting of Adam Sell, Jeff Skretny, Bob Hughes, and Larry Krutulis racked up an impressive 191 species for the day.

The IL Big Day Champs, having just broken the record with daylight to spare

 

For those interested in the planning, the madness, and the non-stop bird-finding of a record-breaking Big Day, you could do no better than Greg's thrilling travelogue currently posted at the ABA's Listers' Corner blog, the social media arm of Listing Central.

For 4 years Jeff Skrentny and I have been working on an Illinois Big Day route that might beat the (then) standing one-day total of 184 species set on May 17, 1997. We tried west-to-east. South-to-north. North-to-south. The Illinois River valley. Our first attempt went so badly, that by 6pm, our team found itself drowning sorrows in beer and whiskey at an outdoor café on the Fox River. Our next two attempts got into the 150s and 160s, but there’s a huge canyon between that and the rarefied air of the 170s. Last year in June, we tried a new route starting in the far NW corner of our state on the Mississippi River, and finishing south of Peoria…

Great success! This route had some spunk … and an amazing array of breeding birds. Our tally of 163 blew the previous June record out of the water by a clean 20 species—and I knew that with some modification, this route would take the gold. We just needed the right day, and a little magic.

This is, in a way, sort of a soft launch of the newest aspect of the online Big Day and List Report - re-christened Listing Central, the Big Day module in which birders can enter the high points of their own Big Day attempts, record-breaking or not. Those accounts usually took up the first third of the old printed magazine, now they'll be available online in perpetuity in a format that makes them a amazing resource for anyone planning their own run at a record.

But I get ahead of myself. The official announcement for that is imminent.

For the time being, head over to Listers' Corner to congratulate Greg, Michael, and crew, or maybe look at their intel to help plan that attempt to dethrone them.

Records are made to be broken, after all.

The ABA at Kachemek Bay

Jeff and Liz were up in Homer, Alaska, this past week for the Kachemek Bay Shorebird Festival, where Jeff gave the keynote address. The event is, by all account, a huge event for the Alaska birding and conservation community, and is the sold-out crowds are any indication, one of the top events on the continent.

The local media was out in force, giving the festival lots of great coverage, and our own Jeff Gordon graced the small screen with an interview with KTUU-Anchorage. You can see it here.

Great to see the ABA getting some publicity while on the road. And congratuations to Liz Gordon, who picked up her 600th ABA bird in Aleutian Tern while up there!