American Goldfinch

By in Behavior, Species Accounts

The choir has been replaced by a quartet. On my regular walk through the neighborhood and along Messalonskee Stream in Waterville, the avian music has diminished. In June and early July, at least 30 voices were in the morning chorus. Now, the songs of American Robins, Northern Cardinals, Song Sparrows and American Goldfinches are the only regular tunes on offer.

Of course, the reason for the reduction in song is that most of our nesting flycatchers and songbirds have finished nesting now. The Tree Swallow or Red-eyed Vireo you see now may be a migrant from the north, temporarily replacing our post-breeding birds that have already departed on their southward migration.

But one of the species now singing in full throat is just getting started with nesting. American Goldfinches will nest into early September.

Male goldfinches in their breeding plumage are well known by all.  However, the more drab, olive-colored female is sometimes confusing.  In the winter, both sexes wear a rather somber plumage.

The American Goldfinch is a member of the finch family, the Fringillidae.  Other finches like the House Finch, Evening Grosbeak and Pine Siskin do not undergo a complete body molt in the spring.  Not so the goldfinch.  These birds molt all of their body feathers, retaining only the wing and tail feathers.  Males are transformed from a muted olive color to the beautiful yellow and black of the breeding season.  I am sure you have enjoyed watching the transformation of goldfinches in the spring.  First, a little yellow appears, gradually replacing all of the duller feathers. David Sibley has prepared a wonderful animation to show the molting process in goldfinches: http://www.sibleyguides.com/2012/05/the-annual-plumage-cycle-of-a-male-american-goldfinch/#comments

Why do goldfinches begin nesting so late in the season? Some ornithologists think their spring molt may be the explanation.  Molting is an energetically expensive activity.  Replacing all of the body feathers is much costlier than replacing only some of the feathers.

The many yellow feathers a male American Goldfinch produces in the spring are colored by carotenoid pigments. These pigments cannot be produced by the bird but rather must be acquired from plants. The seeds that goldfinches feed on provide the carotenoids needed. It has to be an energetically expensive proposition to assimilate all of those carotenoids to transform a male’s appearance.

American Goldfinches may need some time in the early summer to recover from the demands of the molt process.

Other ornithologists have noted that American Goldfinch nesting seems to be closely tied to the flowering of thistle plants.  Courtship usually begins about the time that thistle flowers appear.  By the time the eggs have hatched, thistle seeds are available for the parents to feed themselves and their young.

During courtship, look for a couple of flight displays that are distinctly different from the normal undulating flight of a goldfinch.  One type is called Butterfly Flight.  A male will fly with steady, slow wing beats, maintaining a constant height above the ground.  The male circles over a prospective nesting area, singing its rambling, warbling song.  The displaying male is frequently joined by other males, all circling over a nesting area and singing.  Quite a display to see.

Later in the breeding season, the Moth Flight can be seen.  A male uses rapid wing beats to hover for a short period of time.  This display is seen just before mating.  Sometimes, a female will perform the Moth Flight.

Although goldfinches are regulars at bird feeders, learning some of their calls will allow you to detect goldfinches flying overhead. A characteristic flight call can be rendered as per-chi-co-ree or potato chip.

 Goldfinches also have a characteristic, whiny note, which serves as an alarm call.  The scientific name of the goldfinch is Spinus tristis; tristis means sad and refers to this whiny call.

White-throated Sparrow Morphs

By in Behavior, Morphology, Reproduction

The importance of nature versus nurture pervades psychology and biology. Do humans or other animals behave the way they do because of conscious, learned choice or because behaviors are encoded in their genes?

In flycatchers, we know their calls are innate; an Eastern Phoebe male does not need a tutor to learn how to sing “Fee-bee”. Sparrows, wrens and other songbirds must be taught their songs. Without a tutor like their father or other singing males, a young bird will never learn to sing a “proper” song and will have no luck attracting a mate.

The role of nature versus nurture is not always so clear.  As a case in point, we can consider the White-throated Sparrow. This species is a common breeding bird in the North Woods. The cadence of its beautiful song can be captured by the mnemonic, “Poor Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody.

In the spring and fall, White-throats frequently visit our feeders and some even overwinter. Observing White-throats at your feeder will confirm that there are two distinct morphs. Some have white stripes alternating with black stripes on the top to the head while others have tan and black stripes.

Tan or white stripes have nothing to do with the sex or age of the bird. Instead, the striping pattern is determined by a single gene that comes in two variants. One causes tan striping and one causes white striping.

This gene is adjacent to several other genes that are inherited together (a supergene). These linked genes influence different behaviors as we shall see.

Here’s a cool bit of information. White-striped females mate only with tan-striped males and tan-striped females mate only with white-striped males.

We have nature and nurture interacting here. A white-striped female is impelled by her genes to only be attracted to tan-striped males, a point for nature. However, the choice of the tan-striped male she will pair with is her choice, a point for nurture.

Elaine Tuttle and colleagues have been studying White-throated Sparrows in this regard for over 20 years. Of 1,116 pairs, only 18 pairs were white-white or tan-tan pairings.

So, why do females choose a mate with different striping colors? It all comes down to the supergene, the linked genes adjacent to the gene that determines head stripe color.

White-striped males are genetically coded to be aggressive, a behavior that can deter nest predators. However, they do spend a lot of time away from the nest, looking to cheat on their mate. They provide little parental care.

Tan-striped males are much less aggressive than white-striped males. They rarely try to cheat on their partner. Tan-stripers contribute significant parental care.

Tan-striped females are the least aggressive of all White-throated Sparrows. They are excellent foragers.

Female white-stripers are similar in aggressiveness to male tan-striped birds and are less efficient at finding food for their young that their tan-striped counterparts.

A successful White-throated Sparrow pair requires enough aggressive behavior to protect a nest and adequate foraging skill to meet the demands of hungry nestlings.

In a white-striped male x tan-striped female pairing, the male provides the aggression (with a fair amount of cheating on his mate) and the female does most of the parental care.

In a tan-striped male x white-striped female pairing, equality reigns. Both contribute creditable efforts at finding food for their young and both are mildly aggressive to deter predators.

A white x white pair would be very aggressive but inadequate at provisioning their young. A tan x tan pair would provide abundantly for their nestlings but would be too timid in nest protection.

Both morphs are maintained because the two pair types have equal lifetime reproductive success. They arrive at that success by splitting the parental duties in different ways, behaviors that are encoded in their genes.

A Summer Miscellany

By in Behavior, Taxonomy

I have a few miscellaneous topics in this post. The first concerns woodpeckers with a sweet tooth. I received two emails recently from bird observers whose hummingbird feeders are being dominated by Hairy Woodpeckers and Downy Woodpeckers. The hummingbirds don’t have a chance against these larger birds.

Woodpeckers, orioles and bees will often take advantage of the sugar water we put out to attract hummingbirds. I have several suggestions to deter woodpeckers and orioles from a hummingbird feeder.

Use a hummingbird feeder with no perches. A hummingbird can hover in front of a flower or hummingbird feeder and drink its fill of nectar or sugar water. Other birds must be perched to lap up the sugar water.

Some hummingbird feeders come with bee guards, small inserts that surround the feeding ports. These bee guards will discourage woodpeckers as well but pose no obstacle to the thin bill and long tongue of a hummingbird.

Sometimes, woodpeckers and orioles will perch on the wire or string that supports the hummingbird feeder. You can easily make a baffle with an old CD or DVD. Drill a small hole in the center and thread the supporting wire or strong through the CD. Raise the CD to an appropriate height and then wrap some tape or string just below the CD to keep it in place.

One final suggestion is to put out multiple hummingbird feeders.

 Around the first of July, lots of birders look for the annual Check-list Supplement from the American Ornithological Society’s Committee on Classification and Nomenclature of North and Middle American Birds. This committee, the NACC, is responsible for maintaining the official checklist of the birds of North America and Middle America.

Life lists can change because of NACC decisions. Recently, many birders lost a life bird as Thayer’s Gull was lumped with Iceland Gull but gained a species when the Winter Wren was split into the eastern Winter Wren and western Pacific Wren.

The 2018 update doesn’t have any lumps or splits affecting the Maine avifauna. One common name change has relevance for Maine. The official common name of the Gray Jay is switched back to Canada Jay.  This decision is unusual because the committee usually will not change a common name unless a split or lump is involved.

The decision to revert to Canada Jay appears to be influenced by a movement in Canada to designate the Canada Jay as the national bird of that country.

Many of the taxonomic changes in the current update are based on DNA comparisons that lend insight into how closely related different species are.

The Hairy Woodpecker and Downy Woodpecker are now placed in the genus Dryobates, if you want to update your field guide.

Prior to the new checklist supplement, five North American sparrows were classified in the genus Ammodramus. Now, only the Grasshopper Sparrow remains in that genus. Nelson’s Sparrow, Salt Marsh Sparrow, LeConte’s Sparrow and Seaside Sparrow are now moved into the genus Ammospiza.

The Hydrobatidae, the family of the storm-petrels, is split into two families. The Hydrobatidae now includes species that nest in the northern hemisphere so our Leach’s Storm Petrel, a breeder in Maine, remains in the family. A new family the Oceanitidae, contains storm-petrels that nest in the southern hemisphere. This family contains Wilson’s Storm-Petrel, an abundant summer visitor to our pelagic waters.

The Supplement is available at: http://americanornithologypubs.org/doi/full/10.1642/AUK-18-62.1

A record of a singing Chuck-will’s-Widow in Blue Hill for the past three weeks is remarkable. Another was heard in Wells on July 1. Perhaps we will be able to add this species to the list of species that have expanded into Maine in the past 40 years. This list includes Turkey Vulture, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse, Carolina Wren, Northern Mockingbird, Blue-winged Warbler and House Finch.

Trade-offs – Precocial versus Altricial Development

By in Reproduction

The concept of trade-offs pervades the world. Weighing costs against benefits or risk against reward is a useful model for human behavior and indeed for the behavior of all organisms.

Let’s start with an investment comparison. Suppose you have a tidy sum of money you want to invest. One option is to purchase treasury bills. You are virtually guaranteed to get your initial investment back when the t-bill matures but the interest you earn will be modest. The low risk is a big plus, the low return not so much.

At the other extreme, you might invest your money in a venture capital deal. Here the risk is high (you could lose all of your money) but there is the possibility of a huge return on your investment. Here we have high risk but possibly high reward.

Of course, a mixed investment plan might be the most prudent of all. The addition of some investments with only moderate risk but the chance of moderate returns can balance out a portfolio.

These investment strategies can serve as a metaphor for nesting behavior in birds. All of our songbirds as well as a number of other birds in diverse families have altricial reproduction. The young are born naked and blind. They are unable to produce enough heat to keep themselves warm. Of course, they are defenseless against a nest predator like a hawk, snake or even red squirrel.

The process of raising young until they can fledge requires 10-13 days of incubation (usually by the female) and then feeding the rapidly growing nestlings for another 10-13 days.

The adults are sanitation engineers as well. Many nestling predators detect their prey by odor so it is paramount to get rid of smelly wastes that might attract predators. Chicks of altricial birds produce a membrane around their poop to form what is called a fecal sac. One of the parents takes the fecal sacs away from the nest and drops them elsewhere. Keep an eye out for robins, Song Sparrows and other backyard birds carrying their fecal sacs.

Remarkably, a nestling goes from a helpless chick to a fledged bird in less than two weeks.

Mom and Dad will usually accompany the fledged young for a while so the parents’ work is not done when the chicks leave the nest.   If a nest fails due to weather, predators or parasites, birds with altricial development have plenty of time to attempt a replacement brood.

The other extreme in breeding type is termed precocial development, and is seen in ducks, loons, grouse, quail, shorebirds and others. Mom lays eggs that are rich in yolk, the pre-packaged nutrition for the development embryos. As a result, precocial chicks hatch out fully feathered with their eyes open. These chicks can walk soon after hatching and are soon feeding themselves.  Incubation periods are longer than seen in altricial birds. A typical precocial clutch will need to be incubated for 21 days.

Mothers will tend to the flightless brood after hatching. In many species, the father is an absentee parent.  But the time to fledging is much longer than in altricial birds. Ruffed Grouse chicks are not capable of flight for five weeks or more after hatching.

The tradeoff then is for parents to work extremely hard for a short period of time (altricial development) or invest less energy in tending the young on a daily basis have young which are at risk from predators for a long time because they take so long to fledge.

Some species show an intermediate strategy.  Hawks hatch with a coat of down and with vision (precocial traits) but require parental nourishment (an altricial trait).

 

Massive Spring Fallout in Quebec

By in Migration

With the arrival of Salt Marsh Sparrows and Nelson’s Sparrows, our spring migration is finished. These two species are the last or our migratory breeding birds to arrive in Maine.

I trust that you had the chance to enjoy the spring migration. A few days were very exciting with significant fall-outs of warblers, tanagers and thrushes.

Today, I will provide a second-hand report on what has to be one of the most mind-boggling birding experiences ever. Ian Davies and five colleagues collected the data reported here. My report is based on Ian’s field notes.

The setting is May 28, 2018 at the Tadoussac Bird Observatory (Observatoire d’Oiseaux de Tadoussac) in Quebec.  The location is on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, just northeast of the confluence of the Saguenay River with the St. Lawrence. The habitat here is a series of sand dunes, offering hence great visibility of arriving migrants.

The team of birders was excited about the possibilities of a good day for migration because southwest winds had blown through the night and dawn rain was expected. Throw in a habitat like the Tadoussac dunes that provide a refuge for exhausted migrants flying over the St. Lawrence River and you have all the ingredients for a fall-out.

Starting at daybreak and birding for almost 10 hours, the team recorded 108 species of birds. That is a nice total but breaking the century mark for species is not unusual during spring migration. Rather, it was the total number of migrants that was simply flabbergasting.

Buoyed by the weather conditions, the team was hoping for a great day of birding. Their first stop yielded no birds so the team decided to head for the Tadoussac dunes. Great choice!

Arriving at 5:45 AM, the team was excited by groups of 5-10 warblers. The showers let up around 6:30 AM and the warbler floodgates were opened. For the next nine hours, the birding team did their best to count a non-stop flight of warblers. Sometimes the birds darkened the sky from horizon to horizon. I can’t help but think of the sky-darkening clouds of Passenger Pigeons that John James Audubon described that took four days to pass.

To cut to the chase, the birding team counted over 721,000 warblers at Tadoussac! I’ve never experienced a fall-out to rival this one but even with less impressive fallouts, the birding is bewildering. There are so many birds – where do you look?

To the credit of the Tadoussoc birders, censuses of the birds were taken throughout the day. The protocol was to look through binoculars at a flight line of birds and count the number passing a vertical line each second. Then the binoculars were raised or lowered to a new flight line, attempting to account for all the birds flying past in a short interval.

From 7:15 AM until 8:03 AM, 84,600 warblers were counted. Another 73,500 were estimated between 9:49 and 10:38. Finally numbers started to diminish around 3 PM and only(!) 5,000 warblers were counted over the next 20 minutes when the birders called it a day.

The previous record for warblers in a day in this part of the world was around 200,000. The May 28 fallout blew the old record out of the water.

On top of the challenge of assessing the number of birds, determining the species composition posed an additional challenge. About 100,000 of the birds had to go as “unidentified warbler” but most were identified.

Here are the counts of the most abundant warblers of the 22 species sighted: 72,162 Tennessee Warblers, 50,513 American Redstarts, 108,243 Cape May Warblers, 108,000 Magnolia Warblers, 144,324 Bay-breasted Warblers (20% of the total warblers), 28,865 Blackburnian Warbler, 72,162 Yellow-rumped Warblers and 14,432 Canada Warblers.

Take a look at the list, photos and videos from this remarkable day at: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S46116491

MOTUS and Tracking Bird Migration

By in Migration, Software

Miniaturization is one of the wonders of our technology. As a case in point, consider the ENIAC, the first supercomputer that was switched on in 1945. It occupied 1,800 square feet and weighed 25 tons! It could perform 5,000 instructions per second, astounding for its time.

Now consider an iPhone. The device that fits in the palm of your hand can perform billions of instructions per second. It would take about 10 million ENIACs to equal the power of an iPhone.

This trend to miniaturization holds great promise for ornithological research. In today’s column, I want to report on an exciting new technology that I believe will revolutionize our understanding of bird migration.

Thanks to Christmas Bird Counts, eBird records and records from more local birding organizations, we have a good handle on where our migratory breeding birds nest, when they migrate and where they spend the winter. However, our knowledge is very coarse. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks nest broadly across the northern tier of the U.S. as far west as Minnesota and into Canada. We know they winter in Central America and northern South America. But where do Maine nesting birds spend the winter? Where do Minnesota birds spend the winter?

One way to answer these questions is to band birds. Birds are captured and fitted with a numbered aluminum band. If the banded bird is recaptured on its wintering grounds, we learn a little about the movements of the bird.

Unfortunately, this technique is inherently inefficient for long-distance migrants. Banding stations are scattered irregularly across the U.S. and Canada and the number of banding stations in Central America and South America is limited. The odds of recapturing a banded bird after a migration is slim. Bird-banding is a much more effective tracking technique for non-migratory resident birds.

An improvement is the development of radio-transmitters. These devices are placed on birds with a harness or glued to the feathers. Each device emits a unique radio-frequency. Using an antenna, observers can detect the frequency of a bird with a transmitter. These transmitters are relatively large so are only suitable for larger birds like birds of prey or waterfowl. The range of detection is limited as well.  Plus, observers have to cycle through all the frequencies used by their transmitters to listen for particular birds. Having done such a project with American Black Duck movements 30 years ago, I know how laborious the process is.

Satellite transmitters allow tracking over longer distances. However, they are also large and quite expensive.

And now the new developments. Improved radio-transmitters are now being produced that are small enough to be put on any bird and even large dragonflies! The transmitter emits a radio signal with a unique frequency, just as before. However, detection stations now can be set up to “listen” for any signal. The stations cycle through all the available frequencies and download records of any bird that passes over.

This new technology is the cornerstone of a new research effort called Motus (https://motus.org). Motus is Latin for movement. The idea is that a network of researchers will set up one or more Motus receivers at strategically placed areas to detect the migratory movements of birds with affixed radio-transmitters.

Ideally, we will be able to set up “fences” of Motus stations in an east-west direction, spaced close enough to capture any migrant with a transmitter as it moves south or north.

Smaller models are limited by battery size so they have to be programmed to emit radio signals less frequently or we must accept a useful life of less than a year. Expect miniaturization to continue and this shortcoming to be rectified in the future.

This technology will also be useful for tracking the movements of birds while they are nesting or while they are spending time on their wintering grounds. Exciting stuff!

Birdcast and Bird Migration

By in Migration

Although the spring migration in Maine actually is underway by early February, spring migration continues until the end of May through the Pine Tree State. Warblers, thrushes, cuckoos, flycatchers and other migratory species stream through Maine. Some breed here and others will continue north.

Each species has its own migratory schedule, timed to ensure arrival when its favored food is available. Warblers, vireos, tanagers and cuckoos glean caterpillars from the leaves of deciduous trees. Arrival before leaf-out would be a recipe for starvation.  Similarly, flycatchers, swifts and night-hawks have to delay their arrival until flying insects are on the wing to provide their meals. It is no wonder that most of our migratory birds arrive in May. Species that can arrive earlier have broad diets and can subsist on seeds or residual berries. Such species include Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles and Song Sparrows.

You can see the spring arrival schedule of Maine migratory breeding birds at: https://hobbes.colby.edu/arrival/

How does a bird know when to migrate? Each individual has an internal clock that is responsive to changes in the lengths of the day. When the days on the wintering grounds get longer than a critical time (or shorter than a critical time if the birds are wintering south of the equator), a bird’s internal clock induces the bird to start getting ready for the northward migration.

The internal clock induces a behavior called migratory restlessness, easily observed in migratory birds maintained in captivity. The bird is getting antsy to leave. A bird will also begin to feed voraciously to put on fat for the first leg of its migratory journey.

The weather can strongly affect bird migrations. Long-distance migrations are arduous enough without flying into a headwind. In the spring, good migratory flights are induced by periods of strong southerly winds to provide some tailwind for the migrants.

You can get a good idea of how many migrants you can expect to see in a particular morning by taking a look at a weather map.

High pressure systems (anticyclones in meteorology-speak)  have a clockwise rotation so southerly winds are found on the trailing edge of a high as it moves across our continent. Low pressure systems or cyclones rotate in a counter-clockwise manner so southerly winds are found on the leading edge.

The perfect time for migration is when a low pressure system is pushing against a high pressure system to the east. Both systems produce southerly winds at their intersection and, if you are lucky, the front where the two air systems meet will produce rain. Birds will migrate at night to take advantage of the southerly winds but will be forced to land by the rain. Voila – a fallout!  Birds can seem to be dripping from the trees at dawn under these conditions.

Hawk watchers are well aware of this phenomenon as well. As usual, spring hawk counts are conducted daily from Bradbury Mountain in Pownal. The best counts occur on days with southerly winds. When the wind is from the north, forget it.

NEXRAD weather radars can be used to monitor migrations. Migrating birds show up as blips on the radar screen. These blips were originally called angels before radar operators realized they were birds. A good website to delve into NEXRAD is: http://www.aos.wisc.edu/weather/wx_obs/Nexrad.html

eBird has developed a fantastic resource called Birdcast that incorporates eBird observations, NEXRAD images and weather forecasts to predict the magnitude of migration all across the United States and beyond. You should visit: http://birdcast.info/

I recommend starting with the link called A Primer for New Migration Forecast Tools. The maps are the most useful and fascinating aspect of this website. The prediction of migration intensity is made for every area of the country three hours after sundown and is updated every six hours.

Spotlight links and special interest links will keep you occupied for hours. What a resource!

Maine Breeding Bird Atlas

By in Bird Conservation, Conservation

Like most organisms, birds vary in abundance in space and time. To protect our wildlife and manage our natural resources, we have to have an accurate inventory. Preparing an atlas of distribution is an important tool for environmental managers.

An atlas establishes a baseline for gauging changes in the distribution and abundance of organisms. The Maine Department of Fish and Wildlife (MDIFW) has recently conducted atlas projects for dragonflies and damselflies, reptiles and amphibians, butterflies, and currently bumblebees. The MDIFW also spearheaded a breeding bird atlas for Maine based on field work between 1978 and 1983. It’s time for a new and more ambitious one.

The MDIFW recently kicked off the 2nd Maine Breeding Bird Atlas project. Under the direction of Dr. Adrienne Leppold, the new atlas will be a five-year project beginning this year. The project is a cooperative one with important partners in Maine Audubon, the Biodiversity Research Institute and the Maine Natural History Observatory. Hundreds of citizen scientists are needed as well.Here’s the way it works. The State has been gridded up into 706 quadrangles based on the U.S. Geological Survey 7.5-minute maps. In turn, each quadrangle is divided into six equal blocks, each 3 x 2.9 miles in area. the state has 4,082 blocks. MDIFW has identified 974 Priority Blocks, equally spread across the state, that will be sampled. The remaining blocks will be sampled as time and person-power permit.

Within each block, volunteers seek evidence of breeding. Three levels of evidence are acceptable. Possible Breeding is indicated by the presence of a singing bird or sighting of birds in suitable nesting habitat during the breeding season.

Probable Breeding is indicated by various behaviors including seven or more singing birds, a bird singing at the same site for at least seven days, courtship behavior or visiting a probable nest site.

Confirmed Breeding is indicated by such evidence as birds feeding young, birds carrying fecal sacs, distraction displays, nest building, and parents feeding fledged young. Obviously, Confirmed Breeding is the desirable level of evidenceAnyone with an interest in birds can contribute records to the atlas. Every record counts! Perhaps, you will have Eastern Phoebes nesting on your porch or see begging behavior by recently fledged Black-capped Chickadees at your feeder. You should report those records.

Volunteers are encouraged to adopt a block. A volunteer is expected to devote at least 20 hours of observations to surveying the block over the course of the breeding season. You are not expected to sample all of the 8.7 square miles of the block but need to sample all the different habitats in the block.

Doing atlas work is great fun and is a change of pace from typical birding. You focus on the behaviors of birds. Plus, 20 hours of birding spread out of two or three months is a modest commitment.

How do you sign up? Visit the Maine Breeding Bird Atlas website at https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/maine-bird-atlas/index.html

First, download and read the Volunteer Handbook. Once you are ready to adopt a block, go to the Explore & Adopt a Block link on the website. Navigate to your part of the state, find an unclaimed block and click.

You will be prompted for your name and other information. Once completed, the block will be marked with hatch marks and the block is yours.

If you would like to participate but don’t feel confident enough to adopt a block now, you may wish to go in the field with a volunteer who has agreed to serve as a mentor. Contact the Regional Coordinator for your area (listed in the Handbook) to see if any local block-owners are willing to mentorData entry will be through a special eBird portal (ebird.org/atlasme/home) although you can submit your data in written form.

MDIFW wants to have 2,000 volunteers in the project. Why not be one of them?

Earth Day, 2018

By in Bird Conservation

Next Sunday, April 22, is Earth Day.  I hope you will take the time to think about how you can make a difference in the protection and conservation of our planet’s organisms and resources.  Go to https://www.earthday.org/ to find out about Earth Day activities. This year a major push is to try to eliminate plastic pollution.

Many birds die because of direct human activities (for example, overhunting) or indirect effects of our use of the earth (for example, habitat destruction and pollution (including plastics)).  Today, we will consider birds that have been pushed over the brink to extinction because of human activities.  This sobering topic should make us all take Earth Day even more seriously.  Extinction is forever.

Over the past 500 years, over 140 species of birds have gone extinct.  With the exception of only about a dozen species, these birds were driven to extinction by human activities.  Of the roughly 11,000 existing bird species, 1200 are currently in danger of extinction.

The majority of these extinctions occurred on oceanic islands.  Many of these islands are small so bird population sizes are never very high.  Some birds on oceanic islands become flightless over time and are therefore unable to escape from human hunters or the pets humans bring to islands.   Birds on oceanic islands with few predators are often fearless in the presence of humans or introduced predators.

But bird extinctions don’t happen only on islands.  We have lost at least three species of North American birds in the past 200 years.  We can clearly point an accusing finger at ourselves for two of these extinctions.

The Passenger Pigeon was once the most abundant bird in North America, migrating in astoundingly large flocks.  They were colonial breeders, nesting sometimes in groups of 100,000 birds or more.  The pigeons were hunted commercially as a cheap food for slaves and the poor.  The pigeon population declined slowly from 1800 until 1870.  As a result of more sophisticated capture techniques, the Passenger Pigeon population plummeted over the next 20 years with the last major harvest taken in 1896.  These pigeons, once numbering in the billions, were hunted to extinction.

The Carolina Parakeet, the only parrot in eastern North America, went extinct in part because of deforestation and the killing of birds for use in ladies’ hats and for protection of fruit crops. Their range extended from Nebraska east to Ohio as the northern limit, extending as far south as Texas and Louisiana. Northern populations migrated to the southern U.S. in winter.

The last Carolina Parakeet died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918, just four years after the last Passenger Pigeon died at the same institution.

We know little about the extinction of the Labrador Duck.  In all likelihood, the Eskimo Curlew and Bachman’s Warbler are extinct as well, with humans having a significant role in their decline.

Thankfully, birds are given much stricter protection now. The year 2018 is happily the centennial of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, an agreement between the United States and Great Britain (acting on behalf of Canada) to grant federal protection to over 800 species of birds.

People may not kill, capture, relocate or sell any of the birds on the list. Nests, eggs and even feathers are protected as well. The treaty does not distinguish between living and dead birds. Possession of a feather is against the law.

You may wonder why the treaty is so draconian. What’s the harm in picking up a Blue Jay feather to put in your pencil jar on your desk?  The strict law prevents people from killing birds and then claiming they were found dead. This treaty has teeth!

Federal permits may be granted for taxidermy, scientific purposes, religious uses of Native American tribes or relocating problem birds but such permits are not easy to obtain.

Recent Listing Records

By in Birding and Birders

Let’s take a look back at the year 2017 in terms of bird listing accomplishments. In 2016, two birders shattered the old year list record for North America. John Weigel’s Big Year resulted in a list of 780 species, narrowly beating Olaf Danielson’s count of 778 species.

Those records were not broken in 2017 despite three impressive Big Years. Comparisons of North American Big Years is problematic now because the American Birding Association, the keeper of listing records for North America, redefined North America to include Hawaii. The decision is defensible on geopolitical grounds but makes little sense to me on biological grounds.  Nonetheless, birders attempting to break the North American Big Year record will need to plan a trip to Hawaii, like the three top Big Year birders in 2017.

Yves Morell found 813 species with an additional four rarities that will require confirmation by a state or provincial rare bird committee before they can be counted. Brothers Ruben and Victor Stoll also found 813 species but only have three provisional species.

For the truly obsessed, the World Big Year beckons. In 2015, Noah Strycker identified 6,042 species, birding in over 40 countries. Noah’s record obliterated the previous World Big Year record of 4,341 species. Noah’s record did not last long. The Dutch birder Arjan Dwarshuis listed 6,852 species in 2016, nearly two-thirds of all the birds in the world. I am not aware of any 2017 Big Years that threaten that record.

Closer to home, Josh Fecteau of Kennebunkport set a new Big Year record for Maine. His total of 317 species edged out the previous record of 314 species set by Doug Hitchcox.

Josh did not begin 2017 with the intention of doing a Big Year. Seeing Pink-footed Goose and Great Gray Owl in January provided the impetus to bird intensively for the rest of the winter and spring.

Every year brings a few rarities to Maine and those species can make or break a Big Year. Vermilion Flycatcher, Fieldfare, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, and Little Egret were among the rarest of the rare in 2017. Other unusual birds seen included Ross’ Goose, Red-billed Tropicbird, Black Vulture, King Rail, Connecticut Warbler, Yellow-throated Warbler, and Painted Bunting.

Josh reached the 250-species mark on May 18 and the 300-species mark on August 29. A Summer Tanager seen on November 1 is the species that broke the record. A Dovekie seen on New Year’s Eve was the 317th of Josh’s odyssey.

For most kinds of organisms, species diversity increases as one moves from the polar regions to the tropics. That pattern is evident by comparing Josh’s impressive Big Year total of 317 species to the current Big Day record, set in 2015 in Ecuador, of 431 species!

That Big Year record was set by a team of four international birders: Dušan Brinkhuizen, Tuomas Seimola, Rudy Gelis and Mitch Lysinger. The previous Big Day record was 354 species, conducted in Perú.

The Ecuadorian team felt that a Big Day in excess of 400 species was possible since Ecuador has over 1700 species of birds. The challenge is how to sample the many habitats with the mere 12 hours of daylight.

The strategy was to thoroughly bird the Amazonian forests along the eastern slope of the Andes beginning at midnight. At dusk, the plan was to hop on a plane to the shore and bird the coastal regions after dark.

October 8, 2015 was the day. By 4:49 the list stood at 16 species with the fabled dawn chorus yet to come. By 8:45, the list had 195 species and grew to 329 species by 2:00 PM. By the time the team reached the airport, they had 392 species, shattering the old record.

Surveying heron and seabird roosts on the coast and observing night-feeding shorebirds, the team added another 39 species. An amazing day.

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