For the Birds: Human-caused Bird Extinctions

Tuesday 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 http://ww2.earthday.net/ to find out about Earth Day activities in your local area.

In the last column, I wrote about sources of bird mortality. 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). 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 become 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 birds species, 1200 are currently in danger of extinction.

The majority of these extinctions occurred on oceanic islands. Many of these islands are small so population sizes are never very high. Many birds on oceanic islands become flightless over time and are therefore not able to escape from human hunters. Finally, birds on oceanic islands with few predators are often fearless in the presence of humans or introduced predators.

The Dodo provides an instructive case study for the extinction of island bird species. This species belongs to the order of birds that includes the pigeons and doves. The Dodo was flightless and most individuals were about three feet tall, weighing more than 40 pounds. They were found only on the island of Mauritius, an island off the coast of Madagascar. Dodos were fruit eaters in the Mauritian forests.

Dodos were certainly extinct by 1681, only 174 years after Europeans first became aware of them. Their demise began with the colonization of Mauritius by Dutch settlers around 1600. Although Dodos would have been easy for humans to kill, journals of Mauritian visitors indicate that the meat of Dodos had an unpleasant flavor and was quite tough. Humans hunted other birds, like the Red Rail, for food. The dramatic decline of the Dodos was rather caused by the cats, pigs and monkeys (Crab-eating Macaques) that the Dutch settlers brought with them. These introduced animals took the eggs or nestlings from the Dodo nests on the ground. By cutting forests and hence reducing Dodo habitat, humans accelerated the extinction of the Dodo.

Mauritius and nearby islands were home for 27 species of birds found uniquely on those islands. Today, 24 of those species are extinct. Such is the footprint of human settlement.

Hawaii is notable for a remarkable suite of birds called Hawaiian honeycreepers, found only in Hawaii. Related to our finches, the honeycreepers have not fared well with human development of the Hawaiian Islands. In the past 200 years, ten of the 31 species have been driven to extinction and several others are endangered.

Understanding the causes of extinctions is sometimes difficult. In New Zealand, 25 species of flightless birds called moas existed until about 300 years ago. We know that Maoris colonized New Zealand about 650 years ago and certainly ate moas and their eggs. However, the New Zealand climate has been changing over the past thousand years, reducing the grasslands the moas favored at the expense of expanding forests. How much of the blame for the extinction of the moas should be pinned on humans? We don’t know for sure.

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 because of deforestation and the killing of birds for use in ladies’ hats and for protection of fruit crops.

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.

[originally published on April 21, 2008]

Birds and Cat Mortality

As Earth Day approaches, I want to focus on the negative impacts that humans are having on our bird populations. Under the auspices of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 836 species of native North American birds are protected. Of those species, 78 are on the Endangered Species List and 14 more are listed as Threatened. Another 144 are listed as a Bird of Conservation Concern. Collectively, nearly a quarter of our bird species appear to be declining. The situation is probably even worse than we realize because we have very poor population data on many less common birds that are not currently listed as species of concern.

Some birds perish because of natural causes (for example, weather, predation by birds of prey, mammals or snakes, starvation, disease). But an awful lot of bird mortality can be attributed to human activities.

Without a doubt, the most significant impact humans are having on bird populations (and other flora and fauna as well) stems from habitat destruction or degradation. This habitat alteration has complex effects for migratory birds that require particular habitats for wintering, for stop-overs during migration and for nesting. It is hard to precisely gauge the impacts of habitat destruction on our bird populations. But added to deaths from natural causes, habitat alteration may be pushing some birds over the brink to local or even global extinction.

We have better measures of bird mortality from some human-related sources. Collisions of birds with buildings, mostly from flying into windows, claim nearly a billion birds a year. Collisions with cell phone and television/radio towers are responsible for five to 50 million avian deaths a year. Collisions with high tension power lines results in over 100 million bird deaths annually in the United States. Collisions with cars kill 60 million birds a year.

Over-use of pesticides can result in dramatic localized kills of birds. One recent estimate claimed that 72 million birds each year perish from exposure to pesticides. This estimate is surely low because pesticides may act slowly in a bird, resulting in death at a distance from a pesticide hot spot. Pesticides may cause neurological problems for birds, leading to death from starvation.

Cats are a potent source of mortality for birds. They have had devastating effects on some oceanic islands, leading to the extinction of some birds. In North America, we really do not have a good handle on the magnitude of the effects of cats on our birds. A recent study in Wisconsin demonstrated that domestic cats in the countryside kill 39 million birds in that state each year.

A recent article by Victoria Sims and her colleagues published in the journal Diversity and Distributions addresses the impact of cats on birds in urban areas in Britain. Only about 3% of cats in Britain remain indoors at all times.

Controversy reigns in Britain about the impact of cats on bird populations. One study claimed that cats account for a third of the deaths of local bird populations. On the other hand, skeptics argue that no conclusive studies have been done to demonstrate significant impacts of cat predation other than on oceanic islands.

When conducting a predator-prey study, an ecologist often begins by documenting the relationship between predator numbers and prey numbers. One expects to see a negative relationship: when predators are scare, prey density should be high; when predators are abundant, few prey will be found. In the field, such relationships between a cat predator and prey abundance have been found for lions, tigers and lynx. Domestic cats are a bit more complicated because they get some of their nutrition from the cat food that their owners provide.

In the Sims study, bird population numbers were obtained from Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) squares (each 1 km on a side) chosen randomly from across Britain. They focused their attention on 30 squares within urban areas. Within each of these urban BBS squares, they censused cats by door-to-door or telephone surveys.

The ornithologists found a positive relationship between the number of cats and the numbers of individual birds (the more cats, the more birds). This result suggests that cats are not having a significant predatory effect on birds. However, the authors claim that cats may have a strong impact in all of their study squares. The lowest cat density in a BBS square was 132 cats. One might expect to see higher bird densities in an urban study square with no cats. So, this study has shone some light on the controversy of the importance of cat predation on birds but is far from the last word.

[originally published on April 7, 2008]

For the Birds – Maine Butterfly Survey; Short-stopped Migrations

Maine Butterfly Survey

The Maine Butterfly Survey, a five-year project to map the distribution and abundance of the butterflies and skippers of Maine, will kick off its second year this spring. This project relies heavily on volunteers. The first year yielded nearly 1000 records (specimens or photographs). The identification of the specimens is currently being confirmed by Reggie Webster, an expert in butterfly taxonomy.

Two volunteers photographed Pipevine Swallowtails in late September. These two records represent the first records of the species since 1907.

As the Volunteer Coordinator for the project, I would like to encourage you to participate in the project. All participants are asked to attend a training workshop. Each workshop participant will be given equipment, a handbook and voucher forms. The next workshop will be held on Saturday, May 3 at Colby College in Waterville. The workshop will begin at 9:30 and conclude around 2:30. Lunch will be provided. If you are interesting in attending the workshop, please email me to reserve a spot. Enrollment is limited.

The Scientific Method

Science provides us with one of the most powerful ways of understanding our world. The scientific method begins with observation of a pattern and then the creation of one or more hypotheses to explain the pattern. The next step is the collection of either experimental data or observations to try to disprove the hypotheses. If one hypothesis is not disproved, we accept it as tentatively true. A careful scientist will test the hypothesis with different experiments or observation. If the hypothesis still stands, she feels more confident of the hypothesis.
It’s easy to create hypotheses but it takes time and effort to test them. An untested hypothesis has no scientific validity. Nevertheless, a number of untested hypotheses to explain aspects of nature are treated as being true.

A recently published paper in the journal Behavioural Ecology tested an old explanation of why many butterflies and moths have circular patterns on their wings that look like the eyes of a vertebrate. Over 150 years ago, the suggestion was made that these eyespots mimic the eyes of the predators of the enemies of the butterflies and hence offer the butterflies some protection.

That explanation is quite plausible and in fact is a commonly cited example in animal behavior texts. But until now, it had never been tested. The researchers from Cambridge University crafted artificial moths out of paper and drew different kinds of markings on the models (bars, squares, eyespots, no markings). A small mealworm was attached to each moth model to tempt Blue Tits, Great Tits and House Sparrows.

The researchers found that artificial moths with eyespots were attacked as frequently as moths with bars or squares. The scientists found that more boldly marked moths, regardless of he shape of the markings, were avoided to a greater degree than lightly marked moths. Thus, the old explanation has been tested and found wanting. Predators avoid moths and butterflies with eyespots because they are conspicuous, not because they mimic a predator’s eyes.

Let’s continue this thread with some of my own research. Over the past decade, the concept of short-stopping has been applied to irruptive birds like northern finches and Red-breasted Nuthatches. The claim is that birds like Evening Grosbeaks and Purple Finches do not migrate as far south as they did 30 years ago because of the great increase in bird feeding over those 30 years. Thus, the hypothesis goes, Purple Finches use to need to migrate to North Carolina to find food in the winter but now can take advantage of the many sunflower seeds that New Englanders put out for the birds.

Like the eyespot hypothesis above, this short-stopping hypothesis seems like a reasonable one but was offered without a scientific effort to disprove it.

In 1999, I published a paper that tested this hypothesis. Specifically, I examined the irruptions of Common Redpolls. Purple Finches, Evening Grosbeaks, Pine Siskins, White-winged Crossbills and Pine Grosbeaks from eastern North America. I also examined Downy Woodpeckers, two species that do not migrate, as controls for my methodology. I divided the period from 1970 to 1990 into five-year intervals. Using Christmas Bird Count data, I found that irruptions of Evening Grosbeaks and Purple Finches extended further south in the earlier time periods. However, if irruptive birds are staying further north in more recent years, one would expect a corresponding increase in these irruptive birds in northern areas. I did not find such a pattern of increase and therefore my analysis failed to support the short-stopping hypothesis.

[Originally published on March 8, 2008]

For the Birds – American Robin movements; Bird records

American Robins

A large influx of American Robins has occurred in Maine in the past couple of weeks. Some observers report flocks of 75 birds. The arrival of robins is often taken to be a sign of spring but don’t be fooled. These robins are almost certainly birds from the north that have been pushed south by lack of food. If you see a bunch of robins, take a close look at them. Some of them will likely have the dark back of the Newfoundland race of American Robins.

Most birds are remarkably tolerant of cold weather as long as they have sufficient food to support their increased metabolic demands in the winter. Common Redpolls can winter as in latitudes as high as 70 º N as long as they can find enough seeds. When seed production is low, they are forced to move south and we get to enjoy seeing these delightful sprites. Similarly, American Robins can tough out the winter in the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland as long as sufficient fruit is available. When the fruit is depleted, the robins have no choice but to move south in search of food.

Owls

The heavy snowpack, and more importantly, the ice layers in the snow pack pose a huge challenge to our larger owls that depend on rodents and other small mammals for food. A number of birders have observed Barred Owls in the daytime in the past couple of months. Their daytime activity is almost surely a sign of the owls’ difficulty in finding food. The scarcity of available food makes it necessary for owls to forage both during the day and night.

At our feeding station in South China, we were treated to the presence of a Northern Saw-whet Owl. It was perching on a feeder pole, no doubt waiting for a vole or shrew to come out of snowpack to feed on some of the seeds that had fallen from the bird feeders.

Records

We certainly haven’t lacked for snow across the state this winter. Northern Aroostook County has been hit quite hard. As of this writing, Caribou has had 137 inches of snow this winter, 59 inches above normal, and is on a pace to set a new yearly snowfall record. With records on my mind, I thought a consideration of some bird records might be of interest.

The largest living bird is the Ostrich, a flightless bird that tips the scales at 345 pounds and reaches a height of nine feet. But that pride of place is unwarranted. The heaviest birds we know of were the elephant birds found in Madagascar until they went extinct around 1600. Those birds topped out at 1000 pounds. Their eggs had a two-gallon capacity and were in fact used as buckets by the Malagasy people. The tallest bird was one of 24 species of flightless moas found in New Zealand. Those were all exterminated by the year 1500. Dinornis means terrible bird, not a very fitting name for a leaf-eater.

How about the largest bird capable of power flight? That record belongs to the Great Bustard, a Eurasian grassland bird. Individuals may weigh as much as 46 pounds. However, the fossil record has even larger birds that we believe could fly under their own power. Four species of vulture-like birds called teratorns are known from North and South America, first appearing about 25 million years ago. The largest, Argentavis magnificens, had a wingspan of 26 feet. See the photograph at: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1301/699750340_e5d88a64a1.jpg
At the other end of the spectrum, the smallest bird is the Bee Hummingbird found in Cuba. An adult weights only 1.6 grams, half the weight of a penny. Check out the picture of a Bee Hummingbird perched on a pencil eraser:
http://www.avianweb.com/images/birds/hummingbirds/bee.jpg

Humans are fascinated by speed records. For birds, the fastest speed ever measured was achieved by a Peregrine Falcon. The bird was in a stoop, making its body aerodynamically smooth and thus able to knife through the air with a minimum of friction. That diving bird was clocked at 117 mph!

It is appropriate that the speed record for flapping flight is held by a swift. The White-throated Needle-tailed Swift can achieve a speed of 107 mph. Red-breasted Mergansers are no slouches, though. These birds have been timed at 100 mph in level flight.

The birds that have the heaviest flight muscles relative to their body weight are the hummingbirds. That fact is not surprising because hummingbirds generate lots of power (upward lift and forward thrust) on the upstroke as well as the downstroke.

[Originally published on February 23, 2008]

For the Birds – Highlights of Maine Christmas Bird Counts – III

This column is the last of three reviewing the highlights of some of the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts for the 2007/2008 season. The six counts covered today span the breadth of our state.

We’ll start with the Misery Township Count, held on December 30. This count in the vicinity of The Forks south of Jackman has significantly colder weather than most of the other counts in the state. The species number and bird abundance for this circle are usually quite low but the potential for boreal species is high. This year’s count yielded 18 species. Highlights were three Bald Eagles, a Northern Goshawk, two Gray Jays, 75 Pine Grosbeaks and 30 Common Redpolls.
The remoteness of this count is indicated by the fact that a single Rock Pigeon was found. Also, the five American Crows were outnumbered by the 17 Common Ravens.

The most common species was Black-capped Chickadee with 124 birds found. No Boreal Chickadees were counted this year.

The Biddeford-Kennebunkport Count, held on December 29, produced a list of 79 species. Two Wood Ducks were the most unusual waterfowl among the 15 species of ducks and geese found. Northern Gannets put on a good show with 20 birds counted. Both cormorants were found, eight Great Cormorants and a single Double-crested.

Four species of diurnal raptors were counted with an American Kestrel being the most unusual for this time of year. Thirty-five Sanderlings were found on the beaches in the count circle and 39 Purple Sandpipers were on rocky headlands.

The alcid diversity was excellent with four species tallied: two Dovekies, a Thick-billed Murre, three Razorbills and three Black Guillemots.

Barred and Great Horned owls were detected this year. A northern flavor was imparted by the seven Northern Shrikes, three Bohemian Waxwings, and 22 Snow Buntings. Eight finch species were found with the three Red Crossbills, two White-winged Crossbills and three Evening Grosbeaks being particularly notable. Lingering birds from the summer included a Winter Wren, nine Eastern Bluebirds and a Brown-headed Cowbird.

The Monhegan Island count on January 3 yielded 46 species. Highlights included a Peregrine Falcon, a Dovekie, a Northern Shrike, three Carolina Wrens, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, a Fox Sparrow, a Rusty Blackbird and five Common Grackles.

The three counters found 11 Iceland Gulls and a Glaucous Gull to go along with the four Ring-billed Gulls, 80 Herring Gulls, five Great Black-backed Gulls and 54 Black-legged Kittiwakes.

Moving downeast, the Machias-Jonesport count on December 30 resulted in a final tally of 51 species. Four species of dabbling gulls were found. The nine Northern Pintails and single Green-winged Teal were excellent finds among the expected Mallards and American Black Ducks. Sixteen species of waterfowl were found in all. A single Barrow’s Goldeneye was a nice find.

Two Double-crested Cormorants lingered and none of our usual winter species, the Great Cormorant, were noted. The only birds of prey were 13 Bald Eagles and a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

A Tufted Titmouse was a good sighting as this species continues to expand into the middle third of our state. A Yellow-shafted Flicker was awfully late for this species; most depart the state by November.

Finch abundance was modest with only four species found: 46 Pine Grosbeaks, four Common Redpolls, three Pine Siskins and a lone American Goldfinch.

The final two counts, the Orono-Old Town count (December 15) and the Bangor-Bucksport count (December 29), are interesting to compare because of their proximity. These two counts yielded 49 and 50 species, respectively.

The Penobscot River is a good place for Barrow’s Goldeneyes in Maine. Orono counters found 25 to go along with 25 Common Goldeneyes. The Bangor counters found three Buffleheads, an unusual inland sighting for the winter in Maine.

Orono had five species of birds of prey including a Rough-legged Hawk and an American Kestrel. Bangor had three hawk species.

Bangor had an excellent sighting of a Red-bellied Woodpecker. Hairy Woodpeckers were more common than Downy Woodpeckers on both counts.

Two Northern Shrikes were found in Orono and three in Bangor. Tufted Titmice showed well with 32 in Bangor and 17 in Orono. Both counts had one Northern Mockingbird.

Orono had a fine count of 638 Bohemian Waxwings but that was dwarfed by the 2,016 Bohemians found in Bangor. A Common Grackle in Orono was late.

Pine Grosbeaks were the most numerous northern finch although both counts also had Purple Finches, Common Redpolls and Evening Grosbeaks.

[Originally published on February 9, 2008]

For the Birds – Highlights of Maine Christmas Bird Counts – II

This column is the second of three reviewing the highlights of some of the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts for the 2007/2008 count. We’ll examine three coastal counts in today’s column. I’ll cover them from south to north.

The Bath-Phippsburg-Georgetown Count, held on December 15, produced a list of 87 species. The number and diversity of birds associated with water were outstanding. Sixteen species of waterfowl were present. The 1,110 American Black Ducks was an impressive total. Other notable high counts were 792 Common Eiders, 160 Black Scoters, 368 Bufflehead, 28 Barrow’s Goldeneyes and 101 Hooded Mergansers.

Loons were found in good quantity: 79 Common Loons and 19 Red-throated Loons. The grebe family was represented by 49 Horned Grebes and 84 Red-necked Grebes.

Twenty Bald Eagles and 10 Red-tailed Hawks were found along with two Sharp-shinned Hawks, a Rough-legged Hawk and a Merlin.

Fifteen Dunlin and 34 Sanderlings were nice accompaniments to the 223 Purple Sandpipers. An unexpected shorebird was the singleton American Woodcock.

South of Cobscook Bay, Black-legged Kittiwakes tend to be found offshore at this time of year. With a bit of effort, kittiwakes can be seen from shore with a spotting scope. The Bath counters found 27 this year. An excellent sighting was a single Pomarine Jaeger, typically a pelagic species in Maine. In addition to the 28 Black Guillemots, six Razorbills added to the alcid diversity on this count.

Open countryside and coastal beaches attract a characteristic suite of ground-dwelling land birds. The Bath counters scored a grand slam with these species, finding 28 Horned Larks, one American Pipit, 113 Snow Buntings and one Lapland Longspur.

Lingering landbirds included a Northern Flicker, a Carolina Wren, a Hermit Thrush, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, three Red-winged Blackbirds, three Common Grackles and a Brown-headed Cowbird.

Irruptive species included six Bohemian Waxwings, 114 Pine Grosbeaks, three White-winged Crossbills and 27 Common Redpolls.

The Pemaquid-Damariscotta count, held on December 29, yielded a count of 55 species. Common Eider with 810 individuals was the most common duck found on the count. A single Harlequin Duck was a good find as was the single Barrow’s Goldeneye. A total of 97 Common Loons was tallied but no Red-throated Loons this time.

Six Bald Eagles were the only birds of prey on this winter’s count. Four species of gulls were found with the 657 Herring Gulls being the most abundant by far. The only alcids this year were six Black Guillemots and two Razorbills.

A Belted Kingfisher was a good find at this time of year. A Northern Flicker was the only other land bird that was lingering beyond the normal departure date for the species.

Irruptive species included a Northern Shrike and seven Bohemian Waxwings .

The finch diversity was outstanding with seven species counted, including 14 Pine Grosbeaks, one Purple Finch, a Common Redpoll, 12 Pine Siskins, 8 American Goldfinches and a fine count of 19 Evening Grosbeaks. A Red Crossbill was seen in the area just after the count.

The Schoodic count, held on January 3, produced a list of 46 species. Ten species of waterfowl were counted. The most abundant ducks were Common Eiders (305) and Buffleheads (309). A total of 24 Common Loons was found. Grebe numbers were modest with only 10 Horned Grebes and five Red-necked Grebes this year. Five Great Cormorants were recorded.

Only two raptors species were found this year. The raptors seen were eight Bald Eagles and two Northern Goshawks. Excellent quality if not quantity.

Purple Sandpipers, a wintering species in Maine on rocky shores, are notoriously patchy in their distribution. This year, Schoodic counters found only nine of these shorebirds.

Five species of gulls were found, highlighted by excellent counts of Iceland Gulls (six) and Glaucous Gulls (eight).

The Schoodic peninsula is dominated by coniferous forest. One would expect that Red-breasted Nuthatches, which prefer coniferous forest, would outnumber White-breasted Nuthatches, a species more associated with deciduous forest. That expectation was met with 12 red-breasts and 3 white-breasts tallied.

Tufted Titmice and Northern Cardinals have been expanding their ranges northward over the past 30 years. The downeast coast is at the frontier of this expansion. Schoodic counters found four Tufted Titmice and five Northern Cardinals.

Other notable records this year included a single Lapland Longspur and 124 Pine Grosbeaks.

[Originally published on January 26, 2008]

For the Birds – Highlights of Maine Christmas Bird Counts – I

We are in the middle of the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count. As usual, the next columns will discuss the results of this important winter bird census in the United States, Canada and beyond. Until then, I thought it might be fun to think about the colorful language that has been used over the years to describe species of birds in North America.

Bluebill, baldpate, log-cock, high-hole, rain crow. These are all common names for different birds that are found in Maine. The common names used in different parts of the North America are being collected by an avian etymologist, Waldo McAtee. So far McAtee has found over half a million of these common names for our 800 species of birds.

The difficulty with common names is that confusion may arise over the particular species in question. For instance, the colloquial name of log-cock for the Pileated Woodpecker could reasonably be used to describe a Ruffed Grouse.

Biologists avoid the uncertainty of common names by using the standardized scientific name which consists of a genus name and a species name. However, most birdwatchers don’t care to commit lots of Latin names to memory.

Fortunately, the Checklist Committee of the American Ornithologists’ Union published a list of standard common names in 1957. The checklist is periodically revised to reflect increasing knowledge of bird classification. The common names used in field guides are the standardized common names. Use of these names rather than colloquial names reduces confusion. It is also a lot easier to say you saw three Blue Jays rather than three Cyanocitta cristata!

Some common names are descriptive and easily understood. For instance, woodpecker is a highly appropriate name for those birds which probe dead wood for insects. Flycatcher is another straightforward descriptive name. Other names are more obscure but interesting in terms of their word origin. I will discuss some of the less obvious common names of North American birds in the rest of today’s column.

Cormorants are often seen along the major rivers and on larger lakes in our region. Cormorant comes from two Latin words: corvus , meaning crow and marinus, meaning marine. So, cormorant is another way of saying sea-crow. Cormorants have little in common with crows besides their black plumage but the derivation of the word is charming.

Loon is an interesting term that is thought to derive from the Shetland word loom or the Icelandic word lomr. Both words mean lame and aptly describe the awkward walking of loons on land. The feet of loons are located near the rear of the body for efficient swimming but ungainly walking.

Hooded and Common Mergansers are frequently seen on larger bodies of water in our area. Merganser comes from two Latin words: mergus, meaning diver and anser, meaning goose. A perfectly apt description of these birds. One that is less appropriate is Bufflehead, a small diving duck that often is found with mergansers. Bufflehead is supposedly derived from buffalohead. It takes a little imagination to see the similarity of the heads of Buffleheads and buffaloes!

Falcon comes from the Latin falx, meaning sickle. The powerful bill of a falcon certainly bears a functional similarity to a sickle.

Gull comes from the Latin gula, meaning throat. Just like a person who is gullible, a gull will swallow anything!

Color may be the basis of the common name of birds. The Northern Cardinal is named for the high church official who wears a bright red robe. The Northern Oriole’s name comes from the Middle Latin oriolus or the Latin aureolus, meaning golden.

The Eastern Kingbird is so named because of the small patch of red feathers on the top of its head that the male exposes when it is excited. The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is a much smaller bird but males have the same type of red crown as the kingbird.

We often say that birds chirp. This trait has given rise to at least two common names. The American Pipit, a bird that breeds on Mt. Katahdin and may be found in our state in agricultural fields in the spring and fall, has a name derived from the Latin pipo, meaning to chirp. The Swedish word siska means a chirper and gives us the common name for the Pine Siskin.

Finally some common names are based on the calls or songs of birds. Good examples of this type of common name are chickadee, whip-poor-will, cuckoo, curlew and towhee. The doleful call of the Mourning Dove gives this bird its name.

[Originally published on January 12, 2008]

For the Birds – Etymologies of Common Names of Birds

We are in the middle of the National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count. As usual, the next columns will discuss the results of this important winter bird census in the United States, Canada and beyond. Until then, I thought it might be fun to think about the colorful language that has been used over the years to describe species of birds in North America.

Bluebill, baldpate, log-cock, high-hole, rain crow. These are all common names for different birds that are found in Maine. The common names used in different parts of the North America are being collected by an avian etymologist, Waldo McAtee. So far McAtee has found over half a million of these common names for our 800 species of birds.

The difficulty with common names is that confusion may arise over the particular species in question. For instance, the colloquial name of log-cock for the Pileated Woodpecker could reasonably be used to describe a Ruffed Grouse.

Biologists avoid the uncertainty of common names by using the standardized scientific name which consists of a genus name and a species name. However, most birdwatchers don’t care to commit lots of Latin names to memory.

Fortunately, the Checklist Committee of the American Ornithologists’ Union published a list of standard common names in 1957. The checklist is periodically revised to reflect increasing knowledge of bird classification. The common names used in field guides are the standardized common names. Use of these names rather than colloquial names reduces confusion. It is also a lot easier to say you saw three Blue Jays rather than three Cyanocitta cristata!

Some common names are descriptive and easily understood. For instance, woodpecker is a highly appropriate name for those birds which probe dead wood for insects. Flycatcher is another straightforward descriptive name. Other names are more obscure but interesting in terms of their word origin. I will discuss some of the less obvious common names of North American birds in the rest of today’s column.

Cormorants are often seen along the major rivers and on larger lakes in our region. Cormorant comes from two Latin words: corvus , meaning crow and marinus, meaning marine. So, cormorant is another way of saying sea-crow. Cormorants have little in common with crows besides their black plumage but the derivation of the word is charming.

Loon is an interesting term that is thought to derive from the Shetland word loom or the Icelandic word lomr. Both words mean lame and aptly describe the awkward walking of loons on land. The feet of loons are located near the rear of the body for efficient swimming but ungainly walking.

Hooded and Common Mergansers are frequently seen on larger bodies of water in our area. Merganser comes from two Latin words: mergus, meaning diver and anser, meaning goose. A perfectly apt description of these birds. One that is less appropriate is Bufflehead, a small diving duck that often is found with mergansers. Bufflehead is supposedly derived from buffalohead. It takes a little imagination to see the similarity of the heads of Buffleheads and buffaloes!

Falcon comes from the Latin falx, meaning sickle. The powerful bill of a falcon certainly bears a functional similarity to a sickle.

Gull comes from the Latin gula, meaning throat. Just like a person who is gullible, a gull will swallow anything!

Color may be the basis of the common name of birds. The Northern Cardinal is named for the high church official who wears a bright red robe. The Northern Oriole’s name comes from the Middle Latin oriolus or the Latin aureolus, meaning golden.

The Eastern Kingbird is so named because of the small patch of red feathers on the top of its head that the male exposes when it is excited. The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is a much smaller bird but males have the same type of red crown as the kingbird.

We often say that birds chirp. This trait has given rise to at least two common names. The American Pipit, a bird that breeds on Mt. Katahdin and may be found in our state in agricultural fields in the spring and fall, has a name derived from the Latin pipo, meaning to chirp. The Swedish word siska means a chirper and gives us the common name for the Pine Siskin.

Finally some common names are based on the calls or songs of birds. Good examples of this type of common name are chickadee, whip-poor-will, cuckoo, curlew and towhee. The doleful call of the Mourning Dove gives this bird its name.

[Originally published on December 29, 2007]

For the Birds – Cyberbirding

It has been a while since I wrote about resources for birders and ornithologists on the internet. Today’s column will cover several innovations in cyberbirding. The Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology (hereafter, CLO) figures prominently in all of these resources.

The CLO has long been a depository for sound and video recordings of birds and other animals. Now that these files can be saved in digital format, they are easily shared with researchers and interested people.

The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the CLO boasts the largest collection of sound recordings of animals in the world. Some of these sound recordings have associated video. The entire collection of recordings is currently being digitized. Currently over 65,000 sound clips and 18,000 video recording are available as streaming files for free.

The sound files can be played using the free application RealPlayer. Better yet, a free tool called RavenViewer can be downloaded. This tool works within QuickTime. RavenViewer not only allows you to play the sound recordings but to visualize the recordings in real time. A wave form of the sound scrolls across the screen showing the loud and soft portions of the file. Even more useful is the spectrogram that shows the frequencies of each part of the sound.
The sound and video recordings provide a great opportunity for learning. I searched for American Robin and found that 431 recordings are in the Macaulay Library, and nearly all have been uploaded for users to hear.

The focus of the on-line recordings is on North American species, mainly birds, although many recordings made outside of North America are available. To visit the Macaulay Library, go to: http://www.animalbehaviorarchive.org/

eBird

The CLO is maintaining a nationwide digital system for sharing birding observations. After a field trip, contributors simply visit eBird at http://ebird.org/ and enter the numbers of individuals of each species of bird they saw on a field trip along with the location. These records become part of a database that can be searched by anyone. Imagine you will be on a trip to Cleveland in April and want to know what birds you might be able to see. A quick search of the eBird database will give you tons of records of birds that other birds have seen in that area in the spring.

eBird keeps track of all the records you have added to the database and will keeps a lifelist for you. You can enter data taken from trips years ago. All of those records are valuable.

The eBird software knows when you have made an unusual sighting and will prompt you to make sure that other possible identifications have been eliminated. Rare bird sightings are tagged as such and can be sent to birders who like to keep abreast of local rarities.

The easiest way to keep track of these rarities is to use the eBird gadget (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/Google_Gadget.html). This is a tool that you load to a personalized iGoogle page (go to http://www.google.com/ig to set up the page). The eBird gadget will search the state of your choice for recent rarities. In looking at the eBird gadget list in my iGoogle page, I see that recent rarities in Maine are Eastern Screech Owl, Orange-crowned Warbler and Black-headed Gull. Directions and a map for the location of each sighting are provided.

Birds of North America

This project was born nearly 20 years when the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia devised a way to assess the cumulative knowledge of all North American breeding birds. A specialist was found to write an account for each of the over 700 species covered. Each account is in a standard format with the same organization throughout (e.g.,, Distribution, Distinguishing Characteristics, Migration, Habitat, Sounds,). One of the most valuable aspects of each account is the extensive bibliography on each species at the end of the account.

The 720 volumes were initially issued in paper. The accounts are now in digital format as well. One advantage of the digital accounts is that they can be easily updated as new information arises. A second advantage is that users do not need twelve feet of shelf space to house the collection.

The digital version of Birds of North America is administered now through the CLO (http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna). A yearly subscription is only $40.

The CLO has recently made an abbreviated form of each account available for free. This resource is called All About Birds. It can be found at: http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/ You can find links on that page to basic identification skills, bird gear and attracting birds to your backyard.

[Originally published on December 15, 2007]

For the Birds – Gift Recommendations

The holiday gift season is upon us. Several people have asked me for gift recommendations for birders. I thought I might share some suggestions in today’s column.

All birders need a field guide and my favorite is the Sibley Guide to Birds. This guide covers all the birds recorded in North America and multiple illustrations are provided for most species. A downside of the Sibley Guide is its size, far too large to fit in a coat pocket for easy carrying in the field. To make a more portable guide, the Sibley Guide has been reconfigured into two smaller, pocket-size guides. One is for birds of eastern North America and one for the western part of our continent. The portable guides do not have all of the illustrations or text of the large Sibley Guide.

The Sibley Guides are not the only field guides to North American birds and I recommend that birders own several different field guides. Each will have information that others lack. The National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America has just been published in its fifth edition. This guide covers all the birds of North America but is much more smaller and portable than the original Sibley Guide.

People on your gift list who are just beginning to get into birding might appreciate a copy of the Peterson Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America. Roger Tory Peterson’s arrow system, in which critical field marks are indicated on his excellent illustrations, is helpful for beginning to intermediate birders.

Peterson, who passed away in 1996, was one of the most influential figures in bird identification in the 20th century. From 1984 until his death, he wrote a bird column in the Bird Watcher’s Digest. The best of those essays have been collected in a book called All Things Reconsidered: My Birding Adventures. The essays are great fun to read and the book is a real bargain.
Bernd Heinrich’s Ravens in Winter is a scientific detective story. Heinrich, a retired biology professor at the University of Vermont, owns a large tract of property in Maine near Mount Blue State Park where he has done much research over the years. The mystery concerns a Common Raven that discovered a moose carcass. Ravens depend on carcasses for much of their nutrition during the winter and this moose was a veritable bonanza. But instead of taking advantage of the food, the raven flew widely over the woods, calling vigorously. The raven was announcing the find to other ravens. The party was on! Heinrich could not understand why the original discoverer would be willing to share. Why was this raven an altruist? Wouldn’t it be better for the discoverer to keep the location of the carcass secret?

Ravens in Winter is a recounting of the blind alleys and fruitful avenues that Heinrich took to ultimately solve the mystery. The book is a fine recounting of the way that science is conducted.

Ravens are considered some of the most intelligent birds. In a subsequent book, Mind of the Raven, Heinrich explores the behavior of Common Ravens in Maine and beyond. He recounts many of his own experiments and observations, supplemented by summaries of the work of other raven researchers. The reader comes away with great appreciation for the intelligence of the “wolf-bird”.

For people who want an authoritative treatment of the field of ornithology, Ornithology by Frank Gill and Handbook of Bird Biology, written by a number of ornithologists at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, will fit the bill. The Handbook comes with a CD of bird vocalizations, discussed in the book.

I have four recommendations for DVD’s. Each is beautifully filmed and heart-warming in its own way. March of the Penguins describes the incredibly arduous reproduction of Emperor Penguins in Antarctica. The film clearly depicts the remarkable adaptations these penguins have to allow them to survive and reproduce in the deep Antarctic cold.

Winged Migration is a visual delight with a minimum of narration. Using ultralight aircraft, the videographers filmed cranes, geese and other birds in flight. Footage comes from a number of locations, from Antarctica to New York City to equatorial South America.

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill is a documentary of the relationship between Mark Bittner, a homeless musician in San Francisco, and a flock of released parrots. You will come to know many of the parrots. It is a love story in more ways than one.

Finally, consider giving David Attenborough’s Life of Birds DVD collection to a birding friend or family member. This set has ten hours of superb footage of all aspects of the biology of birds. Don’t miss the footage of the Superb Lyrebird that mimics a camera shutter and a chain saw!

[Originally published on December 1, 2007]