ABA Blog

Sponsor Shout-Out: Nikon Sports Optics

If you've visited the ABA Blog's homepage in the last couple months you've no doubt seen the big Nikon ad occupying the spot directly below the masthead. We've been proud to host Nikon as a sponsor for the blog over these last few months, and their support has been invaluable for the ABA and for the ABA Blog.

So thanks, Nikon, for your help and your support of the ABA and the broader birding community.

 

Pesticides Found to be the Leading Cause of Grassland Bird Mortality

It's no secrect that grassland birds have seen significant hits in their populations over the last few decades. Species like Eastern Meadowlark, Horned Lark, and Northern Bobwhite have been especially affected, and long-term population indeces like the Christmas Bird Count and eBird show emperically what anyone who has been birding for a while knows intuitively, grassland birds are getting harder to find.

Because grasslands are one of the most imperiled ecosystems on the continent, the leading culprit for these declines has always been habitat loss, but a recent study published in PLOS ONE suggests that widespread use of pesticides has the greatest impact on the mortaily of ground-nesting songbirds.

Savannah Sparrow, one of the species whose populations have declined due to pesticide use, photo by Nate Swick

From the American Bird Conservancy press release on the study:

The researchers focused on the extent to which lethal pesticides, such as organophosphate and carbamate insecticides, are responsible for the decline in grassland bird populations.  The study found that lethal pesticides were nearly four times more likely to be associated with population declines than the next most likely contributor, changes in cropped pasture – an important component of habitat loss associated with agricultural lands.

The publication says that “…..large quantities of products of very high toxicity to birds have been used for decades despite evidence that poisonings were frequent even when products were applied according to label directions.” The authors argue that only a small proportion of total cropland needs to be treated with a dangerous pesticide to affect overall bird population trends. The production of alfalfa stands out for its strikingly high chemical load, constituting the third highest lethal risk of any crop based on toxic insecticide use. Pesticide drift from croplands is also affecting birds that favor the adjoining grasslands.

We've long known that use of pesticides has a determental effect on grassland bird populations, but the finding that this is the single most significant factor on their declines is shocking and concerning. Granted, the pesticides looked at in the study are those that are used less frequently now, but the American Bird Conservancy reports that a not yet released toxological analysis will show that the newer generation of pesticides are just as troubling. 

While those chemicals shown to be so harmful to birds are currently under review by the US Environmental Protection Agency, one hopes this will encourage them to move a little faster on the newer stuff.  The birds, it seems, are counting on it. 

Could the Passenger Pigeon be brought back?

In death, the Passenger Pigeon resonates in the memories of North American birders in a way it seemingly never did in life. In the century before its famous extinction in 1914, the bird was a symbol of the immense promise of the American continent, a landmass with natural resources seemingly beyond measure. Now, it's a symbol of all that we lost in a headlong rush towards modernization that left few prisoners. But what if we could right that wrong and bring back the Passenger Pigeon? And what would that mean not only for an ecosystem that has changed immeasurably in a century without them, but for endangered species management in an age where extinction no longer means forever. 

In a fascinating article published recently in Wired magazine, Kelly Servick explores the work of a young scientist looking to decipher the Passenger Pigeon's genes and, maybe, just maybe, bring them back to life:

Using next-generation sequencing, scientists identified the passenger pigeon’s closest living relative: Patagioenas fasciata, the ubiquitous band-tailed pigeon of the American west. This was an important step. The short, mangled DNA fragments from the museums’ passenger pigeons don’t overlap enough for a computer to reassemble them, but the modern band-tailed pigeon genome could serve as a scaffold. Mapping passenger pigeon fragments onto the band-tailed sequence would suggest their original order.

It's a remarkable story, one that raises a ton of ethical and biological questions. I absolutely encourage you to check it out.

Buy Binoculars from Eagle Optics, Join the ABA

Our good friends at Eagle Optics are once again offering a fantastic deal for those interested in purchasing a new pair of binoculars.  With the purchase of one of a select list of binoculars at a variety of price points, you can get an ABA membership - usually $45 - for the low price of $15.  This special price is available for new members or for current members looking to renew.

If you're reading this blog, you likely don't need to be reminded of the benefits of an ABA membership.  You know about Birding magazine, Listing Central, Birding News, and particularly the new Birder's Guide series.  If you're not yet a member, perhaps this is just the impetus to join.

Taking advantage of this special offer requires a couple additional steps compared to last time.  Fortunately, EO's Nina Cheney is all over it, with a post at the Eagle Optics Blog explaining what you need to do to get your discounted membership. 

With our ever expanding online offerings, and the exciting new Birder's Guide series coming very soon, there's no better time to join the ABA.  We'd love to have you!

Remix Birdsong, Win Stuff

Do you hear music in birdsong?  Real music?

With the beginning of March meteorological spring has finally arrived, but biological spring, by which I mean the official beginning to birdsong, migration, and the considerations of creating the next generation, is already well underway across much of the continent. Living the southeast as I do, the dawn chorus has really ramped up in the last few days. Pine Warblers, my personal spring alarm, have just begun to sing out from the loblolly boughs with a vengeance. Tis the season for birders to really begin to pay attention to birdsong everywhere.

Studio 360, a public radio show produced by WYNC of New York, is offering an opportunity for those birders with a creative ear towards singing birds.  To signify the completion of Cornell Lab of Ornithology's long project to digitize the entire Macauley Library of natural sounds - a remarkable 150,000 items - not to mention the beginning of spring, Studio 360 is holding contest for those who can use and manipulate that library of sounds into something new. You have 13 species to choose from among some of the most iconic voices in North America. From the sweet descending notes of the Canyon Wren to the haunting Common Loon.  Rules are as follows:

• Create an original composition.
• You can use as many (or as few) of the bird songs as you’d like — you must incorporate at least one.
• Feel free to write your own tracks, and to manipulate the birds songs however you'd like.
• Submit as many remixes as you'd like.

More information is available at the Studio 360 site. The deadline is March 17 at 11:59 PM.

Gunnison Sage-Grouse Needs You!

When the Gunnison Sage-Grouse was formally described in 2000 - by researchers associated primarily with Western State Colorado University - it was the first new species described in continental North America since the 19th Century, a remarkable occurance in a landmass so populous and well-mapped.  It had been overlooked for quite some time, in part due to its similarity to the larger and more widely distributed Greater Sage-Grouse and in part due to the fact that there are just not that many individuals of this species around.

While they historically could be found in proper habitat throughout the four corners regions, the range of the Gunnison Sage-Grouse now consists solely of tiny disparate pockets of sageland in southwestern Colorado and eastern Utah.  These are unfortunately the same pockets overgrazed by ranchers, sucked dry by argirculture, and marked for development of fossil fuel infrastructure by energy interests eager to take advantage of a boom in the nation's domestic capacity. In the past those species caught at the crossroads of environment and industry have not fared too well, but federal protection under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act has been a critical distinction of those which have managed to endure. Unfortunately, Gunnison Sage-Grouse, despite nearly a decade of trying and at least two near misses, has not yet been granted this distinction. 

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is now accepting public comments on the latest attempt to list Gunnison Sage-Grouse through this Tuesday, March 12.  We urge you to do so, and information on how to make your voice heard is here. 

Our friends at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology are all over this topic.  Director John Fitzpatrick penned an editorial in the New York Times here, and offered more thoughts on Cornell's Round Robin blog. 

Fitzpatrick writes that we are now "entering our last possible period in which emergency actions could save this species.".  So please do your small part to encourage the USFWS to finally do the right thing to officer critical protections to one of North America's most fascinating bird species. 

We overlooked the Gunnison Sage-Grouse for more than a century.  Let's not let it quietly slip away from our own backyard.

Tiny Technologies and Big Discoveries

Via Birdwatching Field of View

Did you know male and female Burrowing Owls winter in different places? photo from Wikipedia

Occasionally it's hard to wrap one's mind around how far technology has come in such a short time.  When we have these discussions about playback and eBird it's easy to forget how new even the whole "internet" thing is.  In many ways we're still feeling all this stuff out and there's bound to be some friction as we adjust to a new set of social and cultural mores in the birding community and in our non-birding lives. 

But technology is also an amazing thing.  We have the ability to communicate anytime and from nearly any place, for better or for worse.  We carry around computers in our pockets with more power than the NASA mainframes that sent Apollo 11 to the moon.   And we are able to create geolocaters so small that they can be attached to the back of a migratory bird with little to no effect on that individual. 

That last one has enabled some pretty spectacular results in the last couple years, in species that previously were not considered big enough to handle a such a sophisticated piece of technology.  The most famous in the last year may be the discovery of the wintering grounds of the Black Swift, the last breeding bird in North America for which that place where it spent the majority of the year was still unknown.  We mentioned that paper here at the ABA Blog, but there have been a multitude of species for which researchers have made cool breaktroughs, and those birds are highlighted in a great post at Birdwatching magazine's Field of View blog.

From Snow Buntings to Gray Catbirds to Northern Wheatears, each fascinating in its own way.  Check it out.

From Kiptopeke to Google

There may be no technological innovation of the last decade so beloved by birders as Google Maps. We use it to find birds, to find habitats, to direct people to birds and habitats, to get directions from one hotspot to another, and on and on and on.  Without it, birding itself would likely be a much less convenient endeavor. Google is as scrupulous as companies go, and doesn't do anything without a darn good reason, but free and complete GoogleMaps may be the closest thing to corporate benevolence since that one time Starbuck's gave away free coffee.  

There are lots of birders on Google, but how many birders are actually in Google?

Google streetview, the ambitious attempt by Google to provide panoramic views of every street in the world, fairly regularly captures regular people going about their lives.  In fact, there is no shortage of websites and top 10 lists dedicated to sharing the oddest activity the Google Car - a small, white vehicle with a spherical 360 degree camera mounted to the roof - has captured as it makes its global rounds. And this past fall, at the ABA rally in Virginia, that included me.

Before the rally participants had begun to arrive I walked over to the Kiptopeke hawkwatch tower to spend a little time before the event officially kicked off. There I met Steve Kolbe, Kiptopeke Hawkwatcher, and we wiled away a couple hours watching hawks pass over and talking birds. You know, like we all do.

I first noticed the bizarre car as it tried to drive down a wide dirt trail. It's hard to miss with the aforementioned rooftop camera and the words "Google Maps" emblazoned across the side. We then watched as it turned through down the side road up into the parking lot, circled around once, and headed back out to parts unknown. 

I didn't think much of it until Steve emailed me this photo.

That's me on the right, Steve on the left, recorded for internet posterity. You can find up in actuality here.

Has anyone else been captured by Google while birding?

 

ABA Blog in Review: February 2013

 

I missed last month's roundup because I was out of the country and unable to get to the internet, but that's only a small setback as we're back into it for February.  It was the shortest month, but still one of the best we've had here at the ABA Blog. 

There was some big news this week, however, as the ABA Blog collected its 1,000,000th pageview.  We've been live for just over two years now and we're really surprised and happy at how well this thing has taken off.   That's largely thanks to all the great contributions and discussions we've been able to have here, so thanks to all of you for that.

As is the fashion in these end of the month posts, here's a quick collection of the things you may have missed had you popped in here and there, all in one place for your convenience.

First things first though, the January/February issue of Birding went to press and out to the members this week, and we saw a lot of supplemental content here at the blog including a three part photo quiz discussion, more on the issue's cover including Jeff Gordon's interview with Bird of the Year artist Andrew Guttenberg, a great conversation about young birder clubs, new information on Song Sparrow vocalizations, and Ted Floyd's explanation of why we publish what we publish.

Big Year guru Lynn Barber transitions from her record-breaking South Dakota year to a Big Year on a smaller scale, but puts that on hold to do a bit of traveling. 

Birding editor Ted Floyd welcomes - well, maybe not quite welcomes - the arrival of the Purple Swamphen to the ABA checklist, for better or for worse. 

President Jeff Gordon is heading to the Point Reyes Bird Festival.  Will you be there?

Ann Nightingale considers British Columbia's controversial plan to cull Barred Owls, and attempts to use Google to identify birds with mixed success. 

Winging It editor Michael Retter asks what you'd count and what you wouldn't.

Bill Schmocker urges everyone to get their windows ready for high quality feeder photography, and shares a few images from the recent ABA Albuquerque rally. 

We hosted some amazing guests posts this month as well, including Catherine Hamilton's insightful piece on a potential new field mark for differentiating peeps and stints. 

Robert Baumander shared his story of becoming a birder by participating in a Big Year. 

David Wimpfeimer memorializes Central Park's birding matriarch Starr Saphir, who died this month.

And Chris McCreedy makes a case for eliminating playback from our birding repertoire. 

#ABArare saw less than brisk business this month, but notable birds include a first Northern Lapwing in Georgia and a Crimson-collared Grosbeak in Texas. 

If you enjoy the blog but you haven't yet joined the ABA, please consider doing so!  It's your membership that helps to make this site possible. 

Thanks again for your patronage and we'll see you next month!

Listing Central Highlights

It's been just over a month since the launch of the ABA's Listing Central, the online equivalent to the old Big Day and List Report, and we couldn't be happier with the results.  So far 832 ABA members have signed up, 645 of which have entered their ABA-Area life lists on the site.  Perhaps more impressively, 6,906 state life lists have been entered on the site, along with a remarkable 10,329 county life lists.  

But we still need more lists!  If you haven't yet entered your numbers you can do so at any time.  And if you're having trouble with the new system, drop us a line at listing AT aba.org and we'd be happy to get you situated. 

But it's also important to realize that Listing Central is so much more than just a listing site.  The forum is hopping with lots of great discussion and the ABA's Lister's Corner blog has lots of great content based around all sort of Big Years and Big Days.  Take, for instance, Greg Neise's latest on his epic 28 hour, 1300 mile cannonball run to nab Boreal Owl near Duluth, Minnesota.  

 

Yeah, he got it. photo by Greg Neise

And there's more, like the initiation of Ali Iyoob's North Carolina Big Year, and Drew Wheelan's attempt to take on tiny Rhode Island.  But it's not all big twitching.  You can also join Adam Sell as he attempts a Big Patch Year at Chicago's North Beach Park.  People list in all different ways and on all different scales, and Lister's Corner is the ABA blog to fill that need.

There's a lot going on at Listing Central.  Don't miss it!