Nuthatches at Cheesequake

Yesterday morning I took my first bird walk at Cheesequake State Park in a few months. According to the park's website, the park reached its goal for this winter's hunting season of 100 white-tailed deer killed, so there will not be any more hunting at the park this winter. The park chose to introduce a hunting season to control the deer population, which had substantially reduced the amount and biodiversity of the understory in the park's wooded areas. How effective it will be remains to be seen, but I hope it will have some positive effects and begin the process of restoring some breeding bird diversity to the park.

Speaking of the park's breeding birds, one of the most prominent species during yesterday's walk was the White-breasted Nuthatch. There were numerous nuthatches along the trails, and many of them were very vocal, almost as if they felt spring's onset and were claiming their territories. Quite a few nuthatches were concentrated around the feeders at the nature center. It was there that I had a chance to photograph some of them at close range.

Early Invertebrate

This has been an unusual winter in several ways, not least of which has been the persistently warm weather. A cold snap has rarely lasted longer than a day or two, and the first snow of the winter did not arrive until last weekend. One consequence of this is that the normal spring processes are running ahead of schedule. Daffodils have been sprouting over the past few weeks. Yesterday afternoon, it was warm enough for a slug to be out and active.

Loose Feathers #327

Snowy Owl at Siletz Bay NWR in Oregon / Photo by Roy W. Lowe (USFWS)

Birds and birding news

• A pair of endangered Short-tailed Albatrosses has produced a chick for the second year in a row at Midway. 
• Songbirds that prey on caterpillars focus their hunting on certain types of trees, like cherry trees, that are most nutritious for the caterpillars.
• A new study finds that Archaeopteryx had black wing feathers.
• The RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch is happening this weekend, January 28-29. If you live in the U.K. (or will be visiting), please contribute to this citizen science project. Here is a gallery of some birds featured in the count.
• Starlings have a contradictory image: they are often unwelcome at birdfeeders (and are invasive in North America), but people are thrilled to see their massive murmurations near roosting sites.
• Scientists have found new concentration and breeding areas for the threatened Japanese Murrelet.
• A Blackbird is not a black bird when it has a case of leucism.
• Jason Berry set a new big year record for Washington, DC, with 218 species in 2011.

Nature blogging

• Laelaps: New Jersey’s Turnpike Croc
• Compound Eye: Real-life SpiderMan: Thomas Shahan
• Observations: Jumping Spiders Use Blurry Vision to Catch Quick Prey with Precision [Video]
• BESG: Brahminy Kite altercation with House Crow
• Outside My Window: Winter Trees: White Oak
• Round Robin: Sharpen Your Skills and Help Train Merlin™
• The Birdist: Are Birds Dislocated By Global Warming "Countable"?
• 10,000 Birds: Birding On The Cheap: Rio Grande Valley
• Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds: Winter Tour Part II: Ocean Shores Cripplers and Even Snowy Owls Need To Vomit
• The Freiday Bird Blog: Rare and Hurt and, What Do Birds Mean to You?
• Nemesis Bird: Townsend’s Warbler in PA!
• On the road: eBirding Honduras

Environment and biodiversity

• The USDA issued an updated Plant Hardiness Zone Map. This new map reflects warming due to climate change.
• Barack Obama addressed 8 environmental issues in the State of the Union address; all were energy-related and none addressed wildlife conservation directly.
• Mountain yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra Nevada may be classed as endangered since their population has fallen 90% due to the spread of a chytrid fungus.
• A rainforest survey in southern Suriname found 46 new species and 1,300 species overall. The overall species total included 215 species of birds. The newly-discovered species included one new frog, eight new freshwater fish, and many insects. Here is a gallery of some of the new species.
• A British woman crossed Antarctica on skis.
• During early stages of BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration pressured government scientists to underestimate the flow rate from the broken wellhead.
• A federal judge ruled that Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig, was not responsible for some civil compensatory claims but would have to pay fines and punitive damages.
• The biggest trees in the world are already on the decline and face further challenges from climate change.
• Despite greater environmental awareness and regulations, 87 species of marine mammals have been eaten in 114 countries over the past two decades. In fact, consumption of meat from marine mammals has been on the rise since the 1970s.
• Restored wetlands are rarely as good as original wetlands at harboring biodiversity and sequestering carbon. This finding supports the need to protect original wetlands wherever possible.
• The Obama administration issued a new forest management plan that it says will rely to a greater extent on science and collaboration with outside conservation groups.

Mercury Poisoning Is Harming Songbirds

Wood Thrush / USFWS Photo

A new study by scientists at the Biodiversity Research Institute confirms that songbirds suffer harmful effects from ingesting methylmercury, one of the toxic chemicals produced by burning coal for energy. Despite some moves towards cleaner energy sources, coal is still the principal fuel for producing electricity through much of the Midwest and Northeast. The emissions from power plants include methylmercury in addition to carbon dioxide and other chemicals; the methylmercury is absorbed by tree leaves or falls to the ground in rainstorms and subsequently enters the food web.

The new study found dangerously high levels of mercury in several Northeastern bird species, including rusty blackbirds, saltmarsh sparrows and wood thrushes. Previous studies have shown mercury’s effects on loons and other fish-eating waterfowl, as well as bald eagles, panthers and otters. In one study, zebra finches lost the ability to hit high notes in mating songs when mercury levels rose, affecting reproduction.

“We’re seeing many other species in a much larger landscape of harm from mercury,” said the principal author, David C. Evers, who is the institute’s executive director. He called the Environmental Protection Agency’s new mercury standards, adopted last month and scheduled to take effect over the next four years, “an excellent step forward in reducing and minimizing the impact on ecosystems and improving ecological health, and therefore our own health.”

And the results of mercury poisoning were quite severe, even at fairly low levels of contamination.

Songbirds with blood mercury levels of just 0.7 parts per million generally showed a 10 percent reduction in the rate at which eggs successfully hatched. As mercury increases, reproduction decreases. At mercury levels of greater than 1.7 parts per million, the ability of eggs to hatch is reduced by more than 30 percent, according to the study.

Over all, birds in contaminated sites were found to be three times as likely to abandon their nests or exhibit abnormal incubation or feeding behavior. In some nests, the chicks seemed to have been affected most; they vocalized less and did not beg as aggressively to be fed.

Such consequences mimic the effects of mercury on humans whose primary contact with the toxin is through the consumption of fish. The contamination can be passed to children in the womb or while they are nursing, damaging their nervous systems and impairing their ability to learn.

The authors found similar effects in bats that they tested. Perhaps the new mercury regulations will reduce some of these problems over the next decade or two.

Birds on Stamps

If you are looking for bird-related stamps, there are some new stamps depicting birds of prey from the US Postal Service. Here is what the USPS has to say about them, from the product page:

The U.S. Postal Service® salutes five kings of the sky with the Birds of Prey stamps: the northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), osprey (Pandion haliaetus), and northern harrier (Circus cyaneus).

These powerful birds are depicted in colorful portraits and shown from the neck up. The artwork appears against a plain, white background.

Birds of prey, also known as raptors, thrive in diverse habitats and live on every continent except Antarctica. The roughly 500 species of raptors include birds that hunt by day, such as falcons, eagles, and harriers, and birds that hunt by night — the owls. They share several common characteristics; birds of prey are carnivorous and use their powerful talons to capture prey. Their exceptionally keen eyesight allows them to see small objects in detail, even from a great distance. As predators high on the food chain, raptors play an important role in maintaining the balance of nature.

Illustrator Robert Giusti worked with art director Howard E. Paine on this issuance. Giusti painted the original designs in acrylic on canvas board. The "Birds of Prey" stamps are being issued in self-adhesive sheets of 20 at an 85-cent denomination, which is the price for single-piece retail First-Class Mail weighing more than two ounces and up to and including three ounces.

I doubt I would have use for a sheet of these since I rarely send letters that heavy, but if you do, these are some stamps to use. Other wildlife-related stamps currently available include the 65-cent Baltimore Checkerspot stamps and the first-class Save Vanishing Species stamps featuring an Amur Tiger.

On the Snowy Owl Invasion

Snowy Owls have migrated south in impressive numbers this winter. Unlike some irruptions, which affect one part of the continent but not others, this year's Snowy Owl irruption has been observed across North America. Even Hawaii recorded a Snowy Owl, a first state record (which was promptly shot by airport officials). The New York Times reports on the scale of the Snowy Owl irruption:

The irruption started in late fall and is expected to end by March or April. In few places are people as excited as in Kansas and Missouri, where snowy owls are exceedingly rare. Ninety have shown up in Kansas this winter and 40 in Missouri. Until this year, the highest number counted in Missouri had been eight.

“It’s a massive movement,” said Mark Robbins, the ornithology collection manager at the University of Kansas.

When five of the birds took up residency at Smithville Lake, near Kansas City, Mo., it created an “owl jam,” Mr. Robbins said. Thousands of people have driven there to see them, he said, and hundreds of owl seekers have shown up at Clinton Lake near Lawrence, Kan....

Geoff LeBaron, director of the Audubon Society’s Christmas bird count, said that it was hard to estimate how many snowy owls flew south in this irruption because the latest data has not been tallied, but that the overall number was probably a few thousand. Despite the surge, the society says, snowy owls are thought to have been in decline since 1945.

There is far more data on the scope of this migration than in years past, thanks to a citizen science project based at Cornell called eBird, which is run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Audubon Society. Bird-watchers around the country call in sightings, which are plotted on a map that shows precisely where the birds are wintering.

“A lot of people who have never seen one before have rushed out and seen multiples,” said Marshall Iliff, an ornithologist at Cornell and the project’s leader. “And photographers are having a field day.”

Additional hot spots include the mouth of the Columbia River in Washington State, with 10 to 13 birds; 20 at Lake Andes National Wildlife Refuge in South Dakota, and 30 in Boundary Bay, near Vancouver in British Columbia.

The owls are even showing up in urban and suburban areas, along highways, on signs and fence posts, and in other places where people can more easily spot them. It has been a good snowy owl year at Logan Airport in Boston, too. Because the airfield looks like tundra, snowy owls tend to flock there, and they must be trapped and removed.

“We’ve removed 21 so far this year, and the average is six,” said Norman Smith, who works for the Massachusetts Audubon Society and traps the birds. The most ever trapped was 43 in 1986, Mr. Smith said, “but the year’s not over.”

To be more precise, birders do not "call in sightings" to eBird but enter sightings through web-based checklist forms on the eBird website. For more on the causes behind this year's Snowy Owl irruption, see this post by David Sibley. He gives a more clear account of what probably happened than The New York Times does.

I have only seen the one Snowy Owl (pictured) that was present at Merrill Creek Reservoir so far this winter. So this winter has not been quite as memorable for me as the winter of 2009, when I saw four Snowy Owls over the course of the winter, or the winter of 2010, when I saw two Snowy Owls at Parker River NWR in Massachusetts during the Superbowl of Birding.

Review: A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico

As birders we encounter a lot more than birds during the course of our birdwatching. These organisms are often interesting and beautiful in their own right, but knowledge about their life histories and how to identify them can be spread across many identification guides, some quite technical. A solution is now available for the southeastern coastline of the United States in the form of Noble S. Proctor and Patrick J. Lynch's A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico. This new book follows in the footsteps of the pair's A Field Guide to North Atlantic Wildlife from 2005. Unlike the habitat guides in the Peterson series, which focus on identifying ecosystem types from indicator species, Proctor and Lynch's guide will help identify prominent species within coastal ecosystems.

"Southeast coast" for this book is defined as the U.S. coastline from North Carolina to Texas-Mexico border. This includes beaches, brackish bays and salt marshes, and the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico to the edge of the continental shelf. Ecosystems there are influenced by offshore currents, principally the Gulf Loop Current and Gulf Stream. It is also shaped by the many streams and rivers that flow into the Atlantic and the Gulf. These build up barrier islands with sediments and nourish salt marshes with nutrients, which allow such diverse ecosystems to flourish. These estuaries are important conduits for annual migrations – for birds that stop to feed along the way and for saltwater fish that must swim upstream to spawn. Humans are also altering these ecosystems through climate change, pollution, overfishing, and building artificial reefs offshore.

Birds are are the most conspicuous creatures in coastal habitats, and they get extensive treatment in A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico. Coverage of birds is limited to raptors and waterbirds, and even within those boundaries, it is incomplete. Rails, for instance, are not included. The bird illustrations are generally useful and accurate. I was surprised, though, not to see a depiction of the pale southeastern form of the Red-shouldered Hawk. The depiction of an immature Black-crowned Night-Heron looks misshapen. Fish and sharks also receive extensive coverage, with an emphasis on commercially-important fish. Plants and marine invertebrates get compressed treatment. If you have an interest in botany or collect and identify seashells, you may want more specialized guides for those subjects. (I do not know which to recommend.) Other groups treated in the guide include aquatic reptiles (mainly sea turtles and crocodilians) and marine mammals. As part of their emphasis on conservation issues, the authors highlight the names of endangered and threatened species (according to the IUCN Red List) in red. It is particularly striking to see just how many species are threatened. In some cases whole pages of sharks, fish, or marine mammals are red.

Proctor and Lynch's A Field Guide to the Southeast Coast & Gulf of Mexico covers the most notable organisms of the southeastern coast and offshore areas of the U.S. It would serve as a useful field guide for casual visitors to southeastern beaches, anglers and scuba divers, or for birders looking for help identifying non-avian wildlife. However, it is not sufficient as a stand-alone bird guide, even for waterbirds. For complete coverage of birds, I would suggest turning to the recently-published 6th edition of the National Geographic guide or David Sibley's guide for eastern birds.

Trees in the Snow

Oddly enough, yesterday was the first snowfall here since the winter started a month ago. These trees stood together in Donaldson Park. The Greater White-fronted Goose was nowhere to be found.