Birds of Spring, and a new camera

A couple of weeks ago we, a local VT Audubon group, met in the evening to watch a Woodcock's mating dance. It was close to 8 PM and dusk was descending fast over the large bumpy field of faded grass, when we heard the first peenting. We moved closer to the source of the sound and stood in a half circle listening and waiting. The peenting continued at regular intervals sometimes closer, sometimes farther away indicating that the bird was walking about.

After several minutes of peenting the bird finally took to the air. It went up fast and high -  a member of the group indicated the flight pattern by the zig-zag motions of his hand. It was too dark by then for me, but we all heard the fluttering song of his wings. I had made a recording a couple of years ago. (If you use the Chrome Browser the sound starts right off and the browser lacks an on-off feature.)

When you listen carefully you'll hear the following sequence: the thin nasal  buzzy "peent" call preceded by a barely audible "tuko" sound, the twittering made by the wings during sharp turns, and the vocal chirping during aerial flight which becomes louder as the bird descends. The last part of the descent is silent. Then a soft fluttering of the wings as the bird lands.

I also took some photos of the bird on the ground, rotating in place while peenting. 

During the last week of April spring had arrived and migration had started. On a recent walk I saw and heard a couple of Blue Gray Gnatcatchers calling to each other across the trail. 

 The male sports a uni brow which gives it that fierce look.

Also present were Palm Warblers and Myrtles (Eastern Yellow-Rumps)

A pair of Blacks and White Warblers were flitting through the trees, One of them was a male, the other probably an immature bird or a female.

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The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is considered a migrant in VT, but I have also seen it here during a Christmas Bird Count. This the first one since last summer. 

The new camera
After reading Lillian Stokes enthusiastic review of the Canon Powershot SX50SH I had to have it, because its telephoto lens could zoom out from my current 400mm to 1200 mm, a feat that for my Nikon D300 would cost me thousands of dollars, and anyway would be way too heavy to carry. So I sold my Powershot S95 and bought this camera instead. I found out, though, to utilize this power I have to spend hours of practice. At such high power magnification with resulting small field of vision it's impossible to keep track of small birds on their foraging trips through the trees. So for that I went back to my large Nikon. 

Maybe I will yet the hang of it, anticipate, move faster... The camera works great for stationary birds, like the juvenile Red-throated Loon below which showed up on a sheltered bay of the CT River, or the Great Blue Heron about the snag his breakfast, or the Eastern Towhee below or the White-throated Sparrow.

 Have you noticed when the waiter brings the plates with food to the table, the diners' eyes pop out  just like this? 

Eastern Towhees were present in large numbers. This one was at Montague Sandplains WMR where, at dusk, I saw a whole flock of around 30 to 40 birds flying overhead east to southwest

The backyard is teeming with White-throated Sparrows. I have been scattering black oil sunflower seeds on the grass to avoid having them all at once sitting gobbled up by grey squirrels.

 This White-throated sparrow has unusual bright yellow alula feathers at the shoulders, which I haven't seen on any of the illustrations in my guide books. Alula feathers are often hidden; it's probably a variation, not a hybrid. 



Happy Birding!

How Google saved my life

White Storks used to be a common sight in the little village in Germany where I grew up. Their return to their old nests each year heralded the true onset of spring - and a new beginning since for us kids any sighting meant a new life was about to be born somewhere in the neighborhood. Gradually over the years sightings of storks became less and less common as the moors and wetlands were being drained to make room for agriculture.

There's only one pair now, and to be sure they stayed, the villager erected a stable platform for their nest.

On a trip to Spain though I discovered where our storks had stopped and stayed on their return from their wintering grounds in North Africa. Almost every high building or church spire in the city of  Caceres on the river Tajo had one or more of their massive nests and in the surroundings were plenty of ponds and wetlands to supply their favorite prey, frogs.

Storks near Caceres, Spain

A new beginning was what I was looking for too. I am apologizing that for the past several months I have neglected visiting and leaving comments on my favorite birding blogs. I have been dealing with a critical health issue, and so, in this post, I am not going to write about birds, but about how a Google search saved my life.

I had become aware of some problems with my memory, such as blocking on names and words, and had started feeling insecure on walks. I was falling frequently without clear cause, falling on trails, on side walks, into a pond, and in an airport.There was no rhyme or reason to these falls, no stumbling or tripping that I was aware of, and fortunately no serious injuries other than bruises. My walking had turned into a choppy gait when tired and hurrying. My husband remarked on it and demonstrated to me what looked like a Parkinsonian gait.  But I knew it wasn't Parkinson's, since there was no rigidity or joint stiffness. It was also puzzling that these problems appeared only intermittently, days or weeks at a time.

The pattern didn't fit any of the common neurological diseases. My memory problems made me worry, of course, about Alzheimer's disease (AD). My dad had died of it, and I was afraid I was heading in the same direction. As a physician I had taken care of plenty of patients with advanced AD and was horrified of facing that same future, an existence devoid of any joy: the patients never smiled, laughed or showed any pleasure, only occasionally displayed anxiety or anger. It was as if a cataract was blocking their mental access to the world and finally obscured it totally, like this:

I saw a neurologist who however couldn't find anything abnormal and referred me for baseline neuropsychological testing. But it turned out to be more than a baseline. The tests looked like child's play with colorful disks, pictures, cards, photos...but the report, after several hours of testing, and the test results being abstracted into numbers and the scores compared to standard data, showed I was no longer as smart as I once was. The neuropsychologist reassured me however that the test results did not point to AD.

I had done extensive reading on neurological diseases such as Parkinson's, AD and multiple sclerosis and had found none that matched what I was experiencing. So I finally entered my symptoms into Google search and I think putting "frequent falls" first was the tip-off in that a new disease popped up: Adult Onset Hydrocephalus and specifically Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (NPH).  Everything fit: my many falls, my instability when traversing rough terrain, my memory problems and lastly, which I actually hadn't considered a problem yet, urinary urgency (or the sprint to the BR when observing my dogs relieving themselves before bed time).

The tragedy is that the disease, although rare, is treatable but most of the time is not diagnosed. Many patients, bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound in nursing homes because of inability to walk, dementia and bladder incontinence, may actually be suffering from NPH. Dr. Harold O Conn, a former Yale hepatologist (liver specialist), eloquently recounts his own many-years-long journey as a misdiagnosed Parkinson's patient until a new neurologist came up with the correct diagnosis. He was cured with the placement of a shunt to drain off excess fluid from his brain, and since then has been devoting his remaining years to NPH research.

The CBS program 60 Minutes devoted a segment to this disease which then served as a wake-up call to many patients, their families and to physicians.

Along with the triad of symptoms - problems with gait, memory, and bladder control - diagnosis depends on showing enlarged fluid-filled lateral ventricles on CT scan or MRI. An MRI of my brain was initially read as normal. However I also happened to have had an MRI in 2003 for an unrelated problem, and a comparison between the two showed that in the current one the ventricles were significantly larger. I was so lucky to have come up with a diagnosis so early in the course of this  disease, which so infrequent, is often missed.

The next steps went pretty fast. I was referred to neurosurgery, had some more testing, and a couple of weeks later was admitted for placement of a shunt which drains the excess fluid from my brain through a thin tube under my skin to my abdominal cavity where it is being reabsorbed into the blood stream.  The symptoms related to my walking resolved within a couple of days; my memory may take a little longer. I am sure of one thing though: a Google search averted a catastrophe and gave me my normal life back!

I am looking forward to go birding again this spring, venture off trail without fear of falling. At 6 AM a couple of mornings ago I heard a Woodcock's twittering wing beats overhead and another one peenting from the wetland across the road. Shortly after, as the sky lightened, a Robin started singing. All day a Tufted Titmouse has been calling loudly advertising his availability as a mate. Last night we heard the first spring peepers in the swamp next to our house. The snow has melted and spring is here!

Cheers and happy birding!

The three deadliest threats to our native birds

An icy wind is whipping the tall pines behind our house. Thick snow shrouds everything living. And yet for birds the greatest threats to survival are not the arctic temperatures or lack of food, but man-made barriers.

Wind farms have been touted as one of the most important sources of green energy that may help save our planet from climate change, but are they also giant "bird blenders"?

Modern turbine towers can reach a height of 270 feet with rotors as wide as a football field.

Klondike wind farm in Oregon

Wind energy suffers from one great disadvantage: the best sites are far from the dense population centers of the Northeast and mid Atlantic states where it's needed most.

Setting up wind farms on the continental shelf along the North Atlantic coast would be one solution.  (See below Cape Wind)

When starting my Google search on wind farms the first study I ran across was about an off-shore wind farm in the Baltic sea published in Biology Letters in 2005. Danish researchers did a radar study, covering the first year of operation, of migrating geese and Eiders negotiating their way through the forest of wind turbines.

Black lines indicate migrating waterbird flocks, red dots the wind turbines

They found that the birds kept a safe distance from the turbines and were flying almost exclusively down the center of the corridors, giving the turbines wider berth at night than during the day.  At first I felt reassured but that didn't last very long.

Next I looked at a study of the notorious wind farm on the Altamont Pass in California, one of the largest  in the US. It was built before anyone studied its effects on air-borne wildlife such as birds and bats.

Because of its mountain-top location  it was having a devastating effect on raptor populations, esp. Bald Eagles, Red-tailed Hawks and Burrowing Owls, by generating a warm updraft that would sweep the birds right into the path of the turbine blades, slicing them in half or decapitating them.

Altamont Pass --- Aerial photo: Ian Kluft

This wind farm supplies enough electricity to power a city the size of San Francisco

According to one study as many at 1300 raptors die each year in collision with Altamont's 5400 turbines. Worse yet, it's built next to the world's densest nesting area for Golden Eagles.  This and much more is contained in this fascinating 12 min video by KQED Quest.

Since then much work has been done to mitigate the impact. In particularly one turbine, that stood on a hill by itself and was responsible for much of the slaughter, was dismantled. Turbine design has been altered so that the birds now tend to fly above the height of the turbines, though some experts say more studies are needed.

A British study of onshore wind farms found that most birds are not harmed during the operation of the turbines. There was a significant decline of bird population however during the construction phase, probably due to interference with nesting. Most migrating birds fly at an altitude of 150 to 600 meters, that is, above the height of the average modern wind turbine (about 100 meters).

Design of wind turbines has had a greater impact though on bat mortality. A study found that whereas the diameter of the turbine rotors did not affect migrating birds or bats, tower height though had a significant impact on bat mortality: the greater the height the greater the bat mortality, suggesting that migrating bats fly at lower altitudes than nocturnally migrating birds and that the newer larger turbines are reaching into that air space.

Construction of the first off-shore wind farm, Cape Wind, is scheduled to start this year in Nantucket Sound between Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and island of Nantucket. See white cross on map below.There was much controversy  about the economical benefits vs the detrimental impact on scenic beauty for property owners along the shore and yachtsmen on the sound. Little is known about  Cape Wind's effect on sea duck activity, especially on the most numerous species Long-tailed Ducks.

Window strikes are a different matter. Toronto is a deadly city for migrating birds. It's the first tall glass barrier birds face when coming south from the northern wilderness. FLAP - Fatal Light Awareness Program - a volunteer organization in Toronto - has been working diligently toward making windows safe for birds.

The owner of the most lethal building, Cadillac Fairview,(see above), was sued under the Environmental Protection Act.  Its mirror-like windows were responsible for the collision death or injury of more than 800 birds between March and Dec 2010. The owner was acquitted but only after covering the windows with a special anti-reflective film.

This puts Toronto building owners on notice that they may be held liable for killing birds. Because of the different political climate in the US this avenue would probably not be successful here, but not all is lost. There is one organisation that promotes innovative and  interesting building designs, the American Bird Conservancy. See image gallery.

Screen over windows

The Lights Out campaign by the Chicago Audubon Society means lights out in the upper stories of tall buildings during migration: 

"Tall buildings can save birds by extinguishing decorative lighting on the upper stories after 11 P.M. each evening and leaving lights off until daylight from August 20 to October 25. Birds migrate throughout these months. Tenants on the upper floors are encouraged to turn out lights or draw blinds after 11 P.M. These recommendations apply to all buildings of 40 or more stories, and to buildings of 20 or more stories that are isolated from other buildings."

Thirty American cities have joined FLAPS drive of turning lights off in tall buildings. Building owners in Manhattan started doing so in 2010 prompted by New York City Audubon.

Volunteer checking for dead birds in the morning. Ángel Franco/The New York Times

And for the home owner Bird Conservancy came up with translucent bird tape on windows that is easy to apply and doesn't appear to be too expensive.

Video about applying Bird Tape

Predatory Cats: I love cats, love their sleek gliding movements, admire their coiled spring-loaded body when ready to jump....... I used to own a rescue cat. He was in a crate at my vet's with printed sign "Last Day". I thought about it all day and waited to call until after closing. They answered their phone anyway, and so he ended up in my home. 

 I wanted to keep him indoors but it was next to impossible during the summer when I spent much of my life out on the deck. The cat would yowl behind the window in utter misery. The exhortation to keep cats indoors is easy to follow in city buildings without outside fire escapes, but almost impossible in the suburbs or country unless you confine yourself to four walls. So I let him out. When winter came I discovered that he was a real virtuoso in hunting and killing birds.  I stopped feeding them and did so for the next 14 years. But when he died I vowed to never adopt a cat again. 

Mortality by wind turbines or windows pales against mortality inflicted by cats.

Chart: Which kills more birds, cats or turbines? (Mother Jones)

In an article in the New York Times one scientist compared  house cats to gypsy moths and kudzu - they all cause major ecological disruption.

 Estimates of annual cat predation on US birds and mammals

It is estimated that cats kill between 1.4 and 3.7 billion (median 2.4 billion) birds a year with 69% of this mortality caused by un-owned cats. Un-owned cats kill about about 3 times the number of birds as owned cats.

Un-owned cats are those that have been abandoned by their owners, have escaped,  or are born as strays. The estimate of these cats range up to 70 million. A female cat produces about 2 litters a year with 4 to 6 kittens per litter. With these large numbers programs such as trap, neuter and release (video)  are ineffective. Many cats that are captured and brought to a shelter are in fact euthanized. 

Cats are an invasive species without natural predators. Where introduced they have wrought havoc on natural wildlife. They are easy to keep and easy to lose, since there are no leash laws, no license requirements, and no taxes on cat owners. Unlike dogs they can forage in the wild and sustain themselves on small mammals and birds. There is no opprobrium on owners who let their cats run wild,. and when they have kittens: who doesn't agree that kittens are cute!  Appealing to our emotions may be one of this species' evolutionary survival strategies. 

To save birds and other wildlife do we have to be ruthless in eliminating stray cats? This blogger is making a passionate argument for just trap and kill rather than trap, neuter and release, but that would be a losing battle, as a huge cat lovers grass-roots lobby would spring up instantly.

Do cats deserve greater protection than our native birds?

Protecting birds against their cats is left up to the cat owners. Here is what an individual can do to check their cat's predatory behavior: 

Put a neoprene Cat Bib (see video on website) on your cat, whenever the cat is outside.  It may look ridiculous, but please don't laugh! In a study it stopped cats 81% of the time from catching birds.

Or have your cat wear a colorful collar which makes the cat much more visible to birds though somewhat less effective than the bib. Here's a YouTube video.

Thus the three deadliest threats are wind farms, windows and wild cats, but cats are by many magnitudes the deadliest.  We as individuals can't do much about the first two, but must do something about the last, because there is no authority that will jump in and bear that responsibility for us.