Birder's World Field of View

Black Oystercatchers on the move

Scientists are learning a lot these days about the migration of the Black Oystercatcher, a shorebird found along the West Coast from the Aleutian Islands to Baja California. Birds with implanted satellite transmitters are being tracked from breeding areas in Alaska right now. The best part is that we can go along for the ride using Google Earth.

One bird has flown about 700 miles from Middleton Island in the Gulf of Alaska to the northern end of the Queen Charlotte Islands. Two departed southern Alaska's Chugach National Forest for southern British Columbia, a flight of about 1,000 miles. A few released near Juneau remain in the area, and others have flown south but are still in the Inside Passage.

The research will help scientists set habitat conservation priorities for sites oystercatchers use outside of the breeding season, says U.S. Geological Survey biologist Matthew Johnson. — M.M.

Birds on your desktop

We've just added seven beautiful new images to our desktop wallpaper collection. And I must say, it's quite a stunning group -- it was certainly hard for me to decide which one to try first. You can choose from a Northern Pintail, Roseate Spoonbill, Rufous Hummingbird, Virginia Rail, and more. The collection is constantly changing, so be sure to stop back every now and then to see the new additions.

The images come from our incredibly talented readers and forum members, and we're so happy to share their gorgeous photography with you.

So download your favorites, and please leave us a comment if there's a particular kind of bird you'd like to see featured on future wallpaper. We'd love to hear from you! -- J.E.

Green-breasted Mango

The dominant chatter Wednesday on the Wisconsin Birding List was of a Green-breasted Mango spotted at a rural home a few miles west of Beloit, Wisconsin. The large curve-billed hummingbird is a rare wanderer into southern Texas, according to Kenn Kaufman's Field Guide to Birds of North America. Before this week, it had never been recorded in Wisconsin. Its normal range is in Mexico and Central and South America.

  Mike Ramsden, a Beloit-area birder, was the first to identify the mango. He got a call from the owners of a home surrounded by farmland in extreme south-central Wisconsin. "They called me on Labor Day weekend,  asking if it was possible for a Rufous Hummingbird to be here," he said. Ramsden went to the home but did not see the bird. The couple enjoy backyard birding, and their hummingbird feeders attract many Ruby-throateds.

Ramsden returned a couple weeks later, saw the bird and knew right away that it wasn't a Rufous.  "I couldn't figure out what it was," he said, until he checked the Kaufman field guide and concluded that it could only be a Green-breasted Mango. He called Mark Korducki, who chairs the hotline committee for the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology.  Korducki posted the alert Tuesday.

I drove the 70 miles from the Birder's World offices Wednesday morning and met Ramsden and Korducki. After a 40 minute wait, the Green-breasted Mango made a very brief appearance at the feeder, then flew away.

By that time, about half a dozen birders were present, and more will likely be arriving in the next few days. The homeowners are graciously allowing visitors on their property. Details on the location can be found on the Wisconsin Birding List. -- E.M.

 

 

Nonstop to New Zealand

A Bar-tailed Godwit, one of seven godwits being followed by satellite that we reported on in our October issue, has flown nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand in one of the most astonishing bird migrations ever recorded. The female, dubbed E7 by scientists, flew about 7,200 miles from Alaska's Yukon Delta to the mouth of the Piako River on New Zealand's North Island. The journey lasted about eight days.

Researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey Alaska Science Center expected the transmitter batteries to die before the godwits began their fall migrations. But the power didn't give out on E7's device, and signals are still being received from four other birds still in Alaska.

Last spring, E7 flew 6,300 miles from New Zealand to China nonstop, settled in for a five-week layover, then continued on to Alaska — another 4,500-mile nonstop flight.

The bird left Alaska on August 29 and headed toward Hawaii, according to USGS. More than 440 miles north of Honolulu, she turned southwest and eventually passed about 12 miles east of the small Hawaiian island of Nihoa. She later appeared to fly directly over or slightly west of Fiji, continuing south toward New Zealand.

In the early afternoon of September 7, she passed just offshore of North Cape, New Zealand and then turned back southeast, making landfall in the late evening at the river mouth, eight miles east of where she had been captured seven months earlier.

Total miles flown on migration since March: 18,000.

BirdLife International points out the conservation challenges for such a far-flying species, noting that the tracked godwits have stopped in 11 countries. National Geographic notes that the number of godwits completely the flight has dropped "from around 155,000 in the mid-1990s to just 70,000 today."

You can keep tabs on the other godwits in the study with Google Earth here. — M.M.

Sound attraction

On early Sunday mornings, my small suburban backyard is very quiet, except, of course, for the birds. But on summer's last Sunday, there was a new noise: My neighbor installed a large, three-tiered water fountain near his patio. It filled the adjoining yards with the soothing sound of a deep-woods stream.

The noise was attracting a large contingent of the neighborhood gang of American Goldfinches and Northern Cardinals, so I set up my camera and tripod nearby. After only a few minutes, a Swainson's Thrush emerged from some deep shade and perched near the flowing water. They typically breed a little farther north than my Milwaukee home, so I assumed it was passing through.

Only a few moments later, a White-throated Sparrow hopped into the water-soaked lawn below the fountain and caught a bug. White-throated Sparrows also tend to breed farther north than my home, and head farther south for the winter. Regardless of where they spent their summer, the two birds are not among my backyard regulars, so it was a delight to see them, especially after spending only a few minutes looking through the viewfinder. 

Birder's World readers know the attracting power of water. Lillian and Donald Stokes offered excellent suggestions on how to best use it to attract birds to your yard in our August 2006 issue.--E.M.

Where have all the birds gone?

My little urban backyard was teeming with House Finches, Northern Cardinals, grackles, and chickadees this summer. And then, without any warning, poof. Gone. Even the abundant House Sparrows vanished into thin air. It was like some mysterious bird-sucking vortex hovered over my yard and whisked all the birds away overnight. But of course, that's not what happened.

Did the birds finally get tired of my ridiculously adorable dog stalking them while they perched on the fence? Or did our neighbor's fat orange tabby cat scare them off? (Sure, I love kitties, but please, please keep them indoors.) Could be. When birds sense a predator on their turf, they will split. Last spring, the songbirds disappeared when a pair of Cooper's Hawks took up residence in a nearby tree. But once the hawks left their territory, the regular birds returned.

Another possibility is that they found a better food source elsewhere. I didn't have feeders out this summer, but plenty of birds hung around to scavenge for insects and stray seeds in my garden. Earlier in the summer, chickadees chattered to each other in the neighbor's big box elder, hunting for bugs. Grackles pecked at the front lawn, and robins tugged at the biggest worms I'd ever seen. But food doesn't stick around forever. If there's a better meal the next block over, the birds will find it. It's like knowing which of your friends' moms made the best meals and always trying to stick around long enough to get invited over to dinner. Birds know that trick, too, only they don't wait for an invitation.

But what about folks who seem to have the perfect bird habitats? They put out feeders, birdbaths or misters, don't have predator issues, and have loads of appropriate vegetation and shelter. What's happening when their resident birds disappear? Well, sometimes it's simply that birds move around. Populations fluctuate, and as much as we'd love to always have goldfinches or cardinals in our yards, it's unrealistic to expect them to stay put all year long.

Condors, cranes, blackbirds, and other birds in the news

One of the hats I wear around here is News Hound, and boy, there's been a lot of to catch up on lately, particularly about threatened and endangered species:

• The number of bird species considered threatened on the worldwide Red List rose from 1,210 last year to 1,221 now. In all, BirdLife International changed the threat assessments for 81 species. Some improved, some got worse, and in many cases, taxonomic revisions required additions or subtractions to the list. Of note in North America, Sooty Grouse, which was recently split from Dusky Grouse, is listed as Least Concern. Rusty Blackbird, however, was downgraded from Least Concern to Vulnerable due to a population decline that "has been rapid during the past decade." And Hawaii's Po'ouli is now listed as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct). The last known individual died in 2004.
• What will Arnold do? That's the question after the California Senate passed a bill last week already approved by the Assembly that bans lead bullets in areas where California Condors occur. The giant birds eat carrion, including game animals shot with lead bullets, and lead, of course, is toxic. Conservationists have pushed for a ban for years. I'm told that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has until October 14 to sign or veto the measure.
• The 237 Whooping Cranes that flew north last spring produced 84 chicks in Wood Buffalo National Park earlier this summer, but only 40 survived the season. Biologist Brian Johns hopes that 35 will make it back to Texas. In the Lone Star State, a developer's interest in 100 acres of crane habitat came to light last month, but some who initially hoped to stop him have changed their tune. Meanwhile, the next class of Wisconsin Whoopers is being trained to follow ultralight planes. Operation Migration's Joe Duff has set a target departure date of October 10.
• Our October cover story reported on the first nesting of Kirtland's Warblers in Wisconsin. Now, the Michigan DNR has released this year's census of singing males, which shows a total of 1,697 birds, an increase of more than 200 over last year.
— M.M.

Goodbye, Alex

We were saddened this weekend to learn that Alex, the African Gray Parrot owned by Brandeis University researcher Irene Pepperberg, has died. You see, Alex was no ordinary parrot. Over three decades of research with Alex, Pepperberg showed that parrots are capable of more than mindless mimicry.

Founding editor Eldon Greij profiled Alex in his "Those Amazing Birds" column in December 2003.

"Alex doesn’t simply repeat words as other talking parrots do; he makes choices," Greij wrote. "For example, if he is presented with a tray holding six different objects, each one a different color, and asked to identify the object that is green, he will correctly do so — he will say, 'Key.' Conversely, if he is asked what color the key is, he will respond, 'Green.' Alex isn’t perfect, but he answers correctly about 80 percent of the time.

Eskimo Curlew chatter

An article in our October issue has people talking.

Wisconsin birder Randy Hoffman describes a sighting of an Eskimo Curlew in Nova Scotia last September.  The article sparked a discussion on our BirdersWorld.com Forum. Commentators include Blake Maybank, editor of Nova Scotia Birds, who questions the sighting, and Hoffman, who defends it. Take a look at the story and let us know what you think. And you can take our highly unscientific poll below.

Did Randy Hoffman see an Eskimo Curlew?
	Yes, absolutely!
	No way. It's extinct.
	I don't know.
pollcode.com free polls

To learn more about Hoffman, see Laura Erickson's blog. She knows him and has birded with him. She calls him "a genuinely great birder." — M.M.