Future of National Parks

The Department of the Interior outlined a plan to improve National Parks in preparation for the system's 100th anniversary. Some documents are available on the Interior website, with the Report to the President and a fact sheet in pdf files. The plan foresees a 10-year budget of $100 million in federal money and $3 billion raised from private donations.

The Post reports that the plan includes improvements to two Washington-area parks, the National Mall and the C&O Canal.

The heavily-used Mall and its monuments, which bear many signs of time and wear, could be made an international example of "excellence in park design, maintenance, and visitor services," the report said.

The idea, Kempthorne said today at the Department of the Interior, is that "any landscape architect, any horticulturist from anywhere in the world, when they come here they will see the standard of excellence . . . We have not yet achieved it, but we will."

The Mall presents special problems because of the sheer number of people who visit it every day throughout the year. There is a bit of a winter lull, but even on the coldest days, one can still find plenty of people using it. In summer it can be crowded beyond belief. In that context, it is hard to keep the grounds and facilities looking good.

The canal park, which stretches 184.5 miles along the Potomac River from Georgetown to Cumberland, Md., could at last see repairs to the 2.7 mile gap in the towpath at Big Slackwater, just below Williamsport, the report suggested.

The towpath, with its gravel surface and canopy of trees, is a haven for joggers, hikers, campers and cyclists. The gap, at a spot where the river has washed away sections of the towpath, has existed since the 1970s, according to John Noel, the park's partnerships coordinator.

It has forced park users to take a hazardous, six-mile detour along narrow country roads before rejoining the towpath. Thirty four people have been injured on the detour over the last five years Noel said. He said the gap repair would cost about $15 million.

The gap is in miles 85 to 87. That stretch of canal has been left uncovered in the annual midwinter bird survey because of the washout.

I and the Bird #50

I and the Bird #50 is now up at A Blog Around the Clock.

Bird Links

A few items from around the internet...

Birdchick found an Australian site offering a cat bib to prevent outdoors cats from killing birds. I think that cats would find a way to defeat this device. At any rate, they would be highly insulted at the indignity.

A group in Colorado is seeking support to stop expansion of an Army site in Pinon Canyon. The site is rich in natural history and cultural artifacts, which would be threatened by military maneuvers. (via Coturnix)

Grist has compiled a useful page for anyone involved in climate change arguments: How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic. It has a long list of common objections, along with answers and links to more resources. One of the hardest parts of arguing about climate change is that the forms of denial mutate freely into various mutually contradictory forms, along the lines of "global warming isn't real and fixing it would be too expensive."

Tim Lambert writes that recent Rachel Carson smears and pro-DDT rhetoric have their origin in a tobacco lobby astroturf group. (Update: Eli Rabett makes a similar point.)

The bald eagles nesting in Philadelphia failed. The cause may be a nest predator or storms in early April. (background)

Light Through Trees

Grasshopper Sparrow in the Grasslands

Yesterday I visited a couple of grassland sites in central New Jersey with my sister and parents. The two tracts are both managed by New Jersey Audubon, which has been monitoring the status of grassland bird species in New Jersey and working to preserve and improve habitat in an area that has undergone rapid changes to its landscape over the past decade.

Negri-Nepote Tract

The two sites are the Negri-Nepote Native Grassland Preserve and the Griggstown Native Grassland Preserve, both in Somerset County. Negri-Nepote consists of about 100 acres of open fields surrounded by hedgerows and a small wooded tract. The grasslands preserve near Griggstown is larger (roughly 700 acres total) and has more varied habitat. In addition to the open fields, there are woodland areas and extensive hedgerows.

As we walked around the fields at Negri-Nepote, I could hear a faint, high-pitched buzz that sounded like an insect but more like a bird. Finally, near the end of the walk, we spotted the source - a grasshopper sparrow perched in the open on a short stalk. For several minutes we watched the sparrow as it repeatedly looked around and then tilted its head back to sing. Grasshopper sparrows are in the genus Ammodramus, whose members inhabit open habitats and share buzzy songs as their most notable characteristic.

Confused Trail Marker

The grasshopper sparrow was a life bird for all of us. My sister picked up another two life birds, a willow flycatcher at Negri-Nepote and a blue grosbeak at the Griggstown Grasslands. Other grassland specialists, such as bobolinks, did not make an appearance even though they had been seen there recently.

Griggstown Grasslands

In addition to the life birds, we saw a variety of other birds characteristic of a meadow / scrub habitat. There were singing field sparrows, prairie warblers, yellow warblers, common yellowthroats, and indigo buntings at both sites. A small pond at Negri-Nepote had several killdeer and a greater yellowlegs.

Loose Feathers #100

Cape May Warbler / Photo by Steve Maslowski (USFWS)

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment.

• BirdLife International recently updated its Red List of threatened species. It found that 1,221 species are threatened with extinction. Another 812 are considered to be near-threatened. That means that a fifth of the world's bird species require conservation action. Fact sheets on all 10,000 species are available here.
  
• A group of palaeontologists has challenged the claim that fibers preserved on a fossil Sinosauropteryx represent early feathers. [Full article (pdf)]
• Mispillion Harbor in Delaware has a new nature center. The center focuses on the ecology of the Delaware estuary, particularly shorebirds and horseshoe crabs. Also in Delaware, a total of six piping plover pairs are nesting at Cape Henlopen.
  
• Maryland's Board of Public Works stopped a planned housing development on Kent Island due to concerns about the 1350-home project's impact on wetlands and the Chesapeake Bay.
• Peregrine falcons have hatched chicks on top of the Throgs Neck Bridge in New York City. Currently there are 16 pairs of peregrines raising chicks in the city.
• Cormorant control is on the agenda in Toronto and northeastern Michigan.
  
• Least terns are suffering a sharp decline in Florida's Tampa region. Conservationists are asking businesses to provide gravel roofs for nesting.
  
• An oil spill in England is threatening the lives of many birds, including a pair of avocets, a species which rarely breeds in northeastern England.
  
• Here are 10 ways to attract birds to your yard.
  

Birds in the blogosphere.

• The final results for invertebrates on the Blogger Bioblitz are available. Other taxa are on the way.
• See my roundup of coverage of the Rock Creek Park Bioblitz.
• 10,000 Birds: Bicknell's v. Gray-cheeked
• Big Spring Birds: Pizza and Free Beer
• Some more big day posts: The City Birding Challenge (City Birder), Central New Mexico Birdathon (It's a bird thing...), plus results from a DC Big Day
  
• Flatbush Gardener: Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants
• Gulf Coast Bird Observatory: Another aspect to the "border fence"
• milkriverblog: bird quiz
• The Nemesis Bird: 10 Ways to See More Birds
• Drawing the Motmot: Any Art in a Storm
• Birds Etcetera: Avian Dissenter (birds are perceptive!)
  

Blog carnivals and news links.

• Friday Ark #140
• Tangled Bank #80
  
• Birds in the News #84
  

Blocking Bills to Honor Rachel Carson

Sunday is Rachel Carson's 100th birthday, and in honor of the occasion, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) planned to introduce a resolution to commemorate Carson and her work. However, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has threatened to block the legislation. His office trotted out the familiar claim that Carson caused millions of deaths.

In a statement on his Web site yesterday, Coburn (R) confirmed that he is holding up the bill. In the statement, he blames Carson for using "junk science" to turn public opinion against chemicals, including DDT, that could prevent the spread of insect-borne diseases such as malaria, which is spread by mosquitoes.

Coburn, whose Web site says he is a doctor specializing in family medicine, obstetrics and allergies, said in the statement that 1 million to 2 million people die of malaria every year.

"Carson was the author of the now-debunked 'The Silent Spring,' " Coburn's statement reads. "This book was the catalyst in the deadly worldwide stigmatization against insecticides, especially DDT."

Coburn is also blocking a bill that would name a post office after Carson in her hometown.

DDT is not banned. Or, rather, it is banned only for agricultural uses, and only in countries that choose to ban it for such purposes. As I noted previously on this blog, use of indoor DDT spraying for malaria control has been approved by the WHO, with USAID following suit. DDT fell out of favor as an anti-malaria pesticide primarily because of reduced effectiveness, and not because of the agricultural ban. In fact, the reduced effectiveness of DDT for malaria control may be related to the massive amounts of the chemical used for agriculture. Rachel Carson herself warned against the development of resistance in malaria mosquitos:

These are important problems and must be met. No responsible person contends that insect-borne disease should be ignored. The question that has now urgently presented itself is whether it is either wise or responsible to attack the problem by methods that are rapidly making it worse. The world has heard much of the triumphant war against disease through the control of insect vectors of infection, but it has heard little of the other side of the story - the defeats, the short-lived triumphs that now strongly support the alarming view that the insect enemy has been made actually stronger by our efforts. Even worse, we may have destroyed our very means of fighting.

A distinguished Canadian entomologist, Dr A. W. A. Brown, was engaged by the World Health Organization to make a comprehensive survey of the resistance problem. In the resulting monograph, published in 1958, Dr Brown has this to say: Barely a decade after the introduction of the potent synthetic insecticides in public health programmes, the main technical problem is the development of resistance to them by the insects they formerly controlled. In publishing his monograph, the World Health Organization warned that the vigorous offensive now being pursued against arthropod-borne diseases such as malaria, typhus fever, and plague risks a serious setback unless this new problem can be rapidly mastered. [quoted here]

Rachel Carson should not be blamed for deaths from malaria.

The agricultural ban on DDT was implemented for good reason. As noted above, mosquitos developed resistance to DDT when they were exposed to sublethal doses through massive agricultural spraying. As a result, banning agricultural use may help keep DDT as a viable option for malaria control. In the United States, agricultural use led to severe declines in several species of birds, which suffered reproductive failures because of DDT and its by-products. DDT is also not as safe for humans as some make it out to be. It has been shown to affect the nervous system and reproductive functions, and has raised liver cancer rates in other mammals. Despite the thirty-year-old ban, DDT and its by-products persist in the environment, in birds, in the food supply, and in human breast milk.

Perhaps Coburn should take a turn at the DDT Ban Myth Bingo.

Deltoid, The World's Fair, and Gristmill have more.

Rock Creek Park Bioblitz on the Blogs

Here is some coverage of last weekend's bioblitz at Rock Creek Park.

Cyndy at FieldMarking reports on the findings of her herp survey team. Her post includes photographs of a spotted salamander and a lovely slime mold. See also her post on the identification challenges posed by many of the specimens and the technology used to record them.

Flickr user Odephoto has photos from the bioblitz here and here.

NWF's Arctic Promise blog describes hunting for insects along the creek.

Eastern Screech Owl
Photo by Mark Christmas / ©2007 National Geographic

The organizers of the bioblitz were liveblogging during the event. If you did not catch the posts, you can find them all here. A special highlight is a photograph of an eastern screech owl that we found on the second shift. The photo is reproduced above. As of the last post, the species count was at 666.

I wrote my own post on the search for nocturnal birds and my warbler watching the next morning. I also have a second post specifically about the owl prowl published on the DC Audubon website.

See also the coverage in the Washington Post. That article focuses on the educational aspects of the event.

Border Control and Wildlife

Recent debates over the problem of illegal immigration along the southern border have raised concerns for the future of many refuges and conservation areas along the border.

These are some of the natural wonders in the Rio Grande Valley that Brown and other wildlife enthusiasts fear could be spoiled by the fences and adjacent roads the U.S. government plans to erect along the Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants and smugglers.

Environmentalists have spent decades acquiring and preserving 90,000 riverfront acres of Texas scrub and forest and protecting their wildlife. Now they fear the hundreds of miles of border fences will undo their work and kill some land animals by cutting them off from the Rio Grande, the only source of fresh water.

A fence could also prevent the ocelots and other animals from swimming across the water to mate with partners on the other side.

These are not idle concerns:

While the Department of Homeland Security said it has not made any final decisions on where the fence will go, meetings this week with the Border Patrol have wildlife officials convinced that some of the 70 miles planned for the Rio Grande Valley will be erected on the string of wildlife refuges along the border.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said environmental concerns will be taken into account in the final decisions. But Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has used his authority to waive environmental regulations for security reasons in other states, and Knocke said he would do so in the Rio Grande Valley if necessary.

Erecting a fence through wildlife refuges may be economically unwise. Ecotourism is a major part of the local economy in southern Texas because the region hosts a mix of species that is unique within the United States. Most serious North American listers will make a trip to the region if they have the opportunity, and that means money for local businesses. Over the last few decades, the federal government has spent tens of millions of dollars restoring wetlands and other riverine habitats along the Rio Grande Valley. All that work would be undone if a wide swath were bulldozed through the refuges and a wall erected to block access to the river.

Of course, a border fence is not the only threat to wildlife and habitats that results from the illegal immigration problem. The current situation, in which migrants pass through unguarded portions of the border results in trash being left in conservation areas and habitat being trampled by foot or by vehicle. One could make an argument that stopping the flow of immigrants through those areas would help to conserve certain habitats and the animals that live there. However, it seems unlikely to me that such gains would outweigh the potential destruction of riverine habitats and blockage of land migration routes.

Olive-sided Flycatcher at the Arboretum

This afternoon I visited the Arboretum to see if there were any new migrants there. I took a leisurely walk through the Azalea Garden trails. Like yesterday at Rock Creek, there were many Swainson's thrushes on the ground, including a few that were singing. On the south slope, I found a gray-cheeked thrush. All corners of the hill were well-stocked with yellow-billed cuckoos. The south side had a nice mix of warblers, including several black-throated blue warblers, redstarts, and northern parulas. One Canada warbler was singing from low in the underbrush. The same trail had a trio of grungy-looking white-throated sparrows. They must have missed their flight north.

The highlight of my walk was an olive-sided flycatcher. It was perched at the top of the tall snag at the parking lot across from the columns.

The meadow around the columns has been left unmowed this spring. Last year several mown trails crossed through the middle of the field, but this year the only trails are around the edges. So far the longer grass has been attractive enough to keep a bobolink singing there for several weeks.

SPECIES SEEN: 46

Ring-billed Gull
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Chimney Swift
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Acadian Flycatcher
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Carolina Wren
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Brown Thrasher
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Tufted Titmouse
Blue Jay
American Crow
European Starling
House Sparrow
Warbling Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
American Goldfinch
Northern Parula
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Canada Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
Bobolink
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole

Rock Creek Park Bioblitz

For the first shift, the fifteen volunteers who registered multiplied into between forty and fifty participants when the shift started. For that shift we checked four locations, and confirmed barred owl at two, screech owl at one, woodcock at one, and nighthawk at one. In the second shift, we found 2-3 additional barred owls and one additional screech owl. In neither shift were we successful in rousing a great horned owl, despite efforts at several stops.

The basic method for finding owls involves playing recordings of the species being sought and waiting for a response. For great horned owls, the recordings include a distressed rabbit, which has a disturbing sound. Barred owls make the most varied set of responses, which include screams, barks, cackling laughter, and other weird noises. The barred owl at the last stop started its response with a wail. (Under most circumstances, searching for owls by night in Rock Creek Park requires special permission from the Park Service, which is only available to people or groups conducting legitimate research.)

After napping for a couple hours at the Nature Center, I woke up to the sound of birds singing. Red-eyed vireos, wood thrushes, robins, and some blackpoll warblers were all in full song when I headed out for some early morning birding. As I walked down to the Maintenance Yard, I saw a veery and heard many Swainson's thrushes, which seemed to be almost as common as robins last night and this morning.

According to radar maps there was barely any migration along the east coast last night. The overcast skies in the early night must have discouraged migrants. Despite the lack of movement overnight, it was one of the best warbler mornings I have ever had. The only comparable morning that comes to mind is a walk along Cockpit Point Road in Virginia last spring. I saw and heard about eighteen species of warblers in and around the Maintenance Yard in the course of about three hours.

When I first arrived at the Yard, I was alone with the birds. I quickly saw a scarlet tanager near the entrance, heard a Baltimore oriole, and then saw yellow, chestnut-sided, hooded, ovenbird, and redstart near the ravine. A female Cape May warbler foraged for a few minutes in one of the locust trees. As other birders slowly trickled into the Yard, more warblers appeared - magnolia, Canada, blackburnian, black-throated blue, black-throated green, bay-breasted, and northern parula. About an hour after I saw the female Cape May, a male appeared in the same tree and gave great looks to all of the assembled birders. A Louisiana waterthrush sang a few times from the bottom of the ravine, and a prairie warbler perched and sang in the meadow behind us. Of all those birds, the chestnut-sided, magnolia, and black-throated blue warblers seemed to be present in the greatest numbers, and the female blackburnian kept reappearing at the edge of the vines.

Once the warbler action slowed, I made my way back to the Nature Center so that I could catch the bus to go home. The last bird was a gray-cheeked thrush on the trail leading back to the horse center. It stood out from the numerous Swainson's thrushes because of its gray face with no eye-ring. It was a great way to close out the morning.

BIRD SPECIES: 58

Red-shouldered Hawk
American Woodcock
Mourning Dove
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Eastern Screech-Owl
Barred Owl
Common Nighthawk
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Acadian Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher
House Wren
Gray Catbird
Eastern Bluebird
Veery
Gray-cheeked Thrush
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
European Starling
White-eyed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Northern Parula
Yellow Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Cape May Warbler
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Prairie Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Ovenbird
Louisiana Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Hooded Warbler
Canada Warbler
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Loose Feathers #99

Rock Pigeon / Photo by Peter Vankevich

News and links about birds, birding, and the environment

• Ornithologists in Colombia have discovered a new hummingbird species, the gorgeted puffleg.
• A study has linked species diversity in urban parks to residents' psychological well-being.
  
• Grist has an interview with James Hansen.
• The West Nile Virus has reduced the populations of several species of local songbirds, including American crows, black-capped and Carolina chickadees, and American robins.
• A year ago, South Korea completed a wall around the Saemangeum wetlands as part of a land reclamation project. Saemangeum is a large tidal estuary in the Yellow Sea. It is used by globally significant numbers of many species of shorebirds on their migrations between the southern hemisphere and breeding grounds in eastern Asia. As a result of the closure, many birds are likely to starve or not complete their migration in condition to breed. Two species - spoon-billed sandpiper and Nordmann’s greenshank - could become extinct since their remaining populations are small and depend heavily on tidal mudflats around the Yellow Sea.
• A scientific advisory board has recommended capturing half of the remaining northern spotted owls in British Columbia to start a captive breeding program. Only 16-25 birds remain in the province. The species has declined in British Columbia because of habitat fragmentation from logging.
  
• Laser remote sensing can predict bird diversity in a given location based upon habitat diversity. The system works by measuring the heights of vegetation; areas with a more complex vertical structure tend to host more bird species.
• North Carolina Audubon will manage three tracts of grassland and scrub habitat for birds along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
• A wind farm project in Kansas is raising some concerns about possible effects on the nesting of greater and lesser prairie chickens.
  
• Here are some ideas for keeping yellow jackets out of hummingbird feeders.
• This week from the "people who don't like birds" files, we have complaints about vultures and cliff swallows.
  
• A bill has been introduced in the House to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from further oil and gas development. Ask your Congressional representative to support it here.
  

Birds in the blogosphere

• Last weekend was prime time for big days, including the World Series of Birding. Several bloggers participated in birdathons and wrote about them: FieldNotes, Birdchaser, Hawk Owl's Nest, Somewhere in NJ, SPQR (Part II and Part III), Bill of the Birds (Part II), Audubon Ohio's 2007 Birdathon, Trumbullbirder
  
• It's time for bird nesting! And that means bird nest blogging: The Birder Advantage (lovely dark and deep), Song Sparrows feeding Cowbird fledgling (Greensboro Birds), Northern Cardinal Nest, Cutesy Baby Bird Photos (Swampblog), St. John Babies (Urban Hawks)
  
• Tails of Birding: What's in a Name?
• Thomasburg Walks: Garlic Mustard
• BES Group: Cattle Egret: A potential urban scavenger?
• The Shore Bird Project has resumed monitoring shorebirds along the Delaware Bay.
• 10,000 Birds: Protect the Boreal
• Birds Etcetera: Counting Goatsuckers

Blog carnivals and news roundups

• Friday Ark #139
  
• I and the Bird #49
• Oekologie #5
  
• Birds in the News #83
  

I and the Bird #49

I and the Bird #49 is now available at Via Negativa.

West Nile Virus Hurting Local Bird Species

A new study reports that several local bird species have declined since the West Nile Virus was introduced in 1998. The study included the American crow, an obvious candidate given news coverage of the disease. Other species affected by the virus include Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, blue jay, American robin, and eastern bluebird. (Oddly enough, fish crows do not seem to enter into the coverage, even though the other local corvids have been affected.)

West Nile Virus arrived from Uganda in 1998 and subsequently has been spread by mosquitos. It was first detected in New York City and slowly spread across the country from there, as far as the Pacific coast. While the disease has received a high profile from several early fatal human cases, its primary effects have been among bird populations. The study used data from the Breeding Bird Survey to measure populations before and after the virus was detected. From the Post:

After bottoming out in 2003 and 2004, house wrens and blue jays returned to their pre-West Nile levels in 2005, though it remains unclear whether they have developed immunity and whether those recoveries will last. Other species remain significantly down in numbers relative to what scientists would expect to be seeing had West Nile not arrived, based on trends over more than 25 years.

In the Northeast, for example, chickadees have dropped by 53 percent and the Eastern bluebird is down 44 percent. In Maryland, American robins took an especially large hit, with the virus apparently responsible for a 32 percent population reduction.

Whether these populations will bounce back, and how long it will take them to do so, remains to be seen. I think that they will, mainly because these are resilient species that have adapted well to the various other challenges that humans have thrown at them over the years. It may be a question of building immunity to the new disease and then rebuilding the population. However, the authors of the study, and the author of an accompanying commentary, raised the possibility of wider effects than just declines in these few species.

"The declines we see are probably a signal of a more serious ecosystem challenge that is having much broader effects than we're currently able to detect," LaDeau said....

For example, crows are important scavengers, clearing away roadkill and keeping competing pests at bay. And their penchant for eating other birds' young suppresses a wide range of other avian species.

"American crows are often considered a nuisance, but when the crows go, do we get more rats?" LaDeau asked. "What other scavengers come in, and what happens to the bird populations that are regulated in part by crows?"

The authors also raised the possibility of other diseases coming to the continent by a similar route - either by an insect or an exotic bird. When we think of introduced species harming to native birds, we have a tendency to focus on other birds, like starlings, or invasive plants, like garlic mustard or kudzu. It makes sense since we can see them. As it turns out, invasives that we cannot have caused a great deal of harm in a very short period.

Abstract from Nature:

• Shannon L. LaDeau, A. Marm Kilpatrick, and Peter P. Marra, "West Nile virus emergence and large-scale declines of North American bird populations."

Related posts:

• Dead Crow
  
• West Nile in the DC Area
• Crow Decline

(crossposted)

Chronic Wasting Disease

A testing program in West Virginia has detected three white-tailed deer with chronic wasting disease. The three deer were in a containment area for disease monitoring in Hampshire County. Chronic wasting disease was first found in West Virginia in 2005.

CWD is a neurological disease caused by a mutant protein called a prion. It is in the same family as mad cow disease, scrapie, which affects sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which attacks humans.

The prion riddles the brains of deer and elk with microscopic lesions. When the animals become infected, they stagger, slobber and show little fear of humans. They gradually lose the ability to care for themselves.

The first case was detected in Colorado in 1967 and spread east, reaching Wisconsin in 2002. It baffled biologists when it jumped the Mississippi River and infected deer in Illinois. Then two years ago, CWD was detected first in upstate New York and then West Virginia....

Maryland, which has a population of about 265,000 deer, tests hundreds of bucks and does every hunting season, with biologists and veterinarians taking brain stem samples at taxidermy shops. Officials also have taken steps to eliminate captive deer herds, since penned, domesticated animals are considered one of the primary entry points and spreaders of the disease.

For more on chronic wasting disease, see the fact sheets from the USGS and USDA, as well as its Wikipedia entry.

Introducing the Gorgeted Puffleg

Two ornithologists have announced the discovery of a new species of hummingbird, the Gorgeted Puffleg (Eriocnemis isabellae). Alexander Cortés-Diago and Luis Alfonso Ortega found the pufflegs in the Serrania del Pinche, a mountain range in south-west Colombia. The new hummingbird appears to be endemic to the Serrania del Pinche's cloud forests.

“We were essentially following a hunch,” said Alexander Cortés-Diago of The Hummingbird Conservancy (Colombia) and co-discoverer of Gorgeted Puffleg. “We had heard that a new species of plant had been discovered in the region in 1994. This discovery and the isolation of the Serrania led us to believe there could also be new species of vertebrates.”

“Though we expected to find new species of amphibians and new ranges for birds, the discovery of a new hummingbird was completely unexpected.”

The highly distinct new species is characterised by an enlarged, bicoloured iridescent throat patch (hence ‘Gorgeted’) in males and white tufts above the legs which are characteristic of ‘Puffleg’ hummingbirds.

Cortés and Ortega suspect that other new species may be present in the same area. They are working through their respective organizations - the Hummingbird Conservancy and Fundación Ecohabitat - to protect the cloud forest. One proposal is designation as an Important Bird Area.

Gorgeted Puffleg / Photo by Alexander Cortés

(crossposted)

Bombay Hook

On Saturday I toured Bombay Hook and Delaware Bayshore with DC Audubon. Bombay Hook NWR is one of the very best birding spots within about a two-hour drive of Washington, D.C. Its 16,000 acres present a variety of habitats, each of which brims with birds. We had a small group of seven people that included two visitors from New Mexico.

The regular colony of purple martins has returned to the Nature Center for another summer of breeding. The wooded edge to the meadow was full of warblers - black-and-white, black-throated green, redstart, prothonotary, Louisiana waterthrush, and the ubiquitous yellow warblers and common yellowthroats. We heard their songs and chatter from every wooded or brushy patch in the refuge. Feeders at the Nature Center were attended by ruby-throated hummingbirds, my first of the year.

Fields along the initial stretch of auto tour yielded singing chipping and swamp sparrows, a blue grosbeak, and a ring-necked pheasant. A small wooded patch held yellow-rumped and blackpoll warblers, a yellow-billed cuckoo, a singing red-eyed vireo, a veery, and nesting brown thrashers. On the boardwalk trail we saw white-eyed vireos and western sandpipers, while listening to the distinctive songs of marsh wrens, seaside sparrows, and a clapper rail.

Shorebirds were rather sparse in the impoundments and mudflats close to the auto tour route. They seem to have followed the receding tide to feeding areas on the farther reaches of the refuge's mudflats. Still, we saw representatives of the refuge's regular May visitors - short-billed dowitchers, semipalmated plovers, black-bellied plovers, willets, and graceful black-necked stilts. After seeing dunlin in basic plumage several times this winter, it was fun change of pace to see them in their colorful alternate plumage.

Our next stop after the refuge was Port Mahon Road, which has a thin strip of beach bordering Delaware Bay. This is normally a good spot to find red knots since horseshoe crabs come ashore to lay eggs; unfortunately, on Saturday no knots were present. We did see sanderling, hundreds of ruddy turnstones, a least sandpiper, and a group of oystercatchers in flight. Pickering Beach had the same shorebirds and gulls as before, with the exception of a very late Bonaparte's gull. Like at Port Mahon Road, horseshoe crabs lined the water's edge.

View of Port Mahon Road

Tuckahoe State Park in Maryland was our next site. There we had good looks at Baltimore and orchard orioles, a blue-gray gnatcatcher, and our first green heron for the day (my first for the year). After the brief stop at Tuckahoe we headed back to Washington. While it was not a full-blown big day, we ended up seeing over 100 species anyway because the sites along our route were so productive.

BIRD SPECIES: 100

Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Green Heron
Black-crowned Night-Heron
Glossy Ibis
Mute Swan
Canada Goose
Mallard
American Black Duck
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Ring-necked Pheasant
Clapper Rail
American Oystercatcher
Black-necked Stilt
Black-bellied Plover
Semipalmated Plover
Killdeer
Short-billed Dowitcher
Greater Yellowlegs
Lesser Yellowlegs
Spotted Sandpiper
Willet
Ruddy Turnstone
Sanderling
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Ring-billed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
American Herring Gull
Bonaparte's Gull
Laughing Gull
Common Tern
Forster's Tern
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Acadian Flycatcher
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Purple Martin
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Marsh Wren
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Brown Thrasher
Eastern Bluebird
Veery
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Blue Jay
American Crow
European Starling
White-eyed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackpoll Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
American Redstart
Prothonotary Warbler
Louisiana Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Seaside Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Blue Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
Orchard Oriole
House Finch
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Loose Feathers #98

Long-billed Dowitcher / Photo by Tim Bowman (USFWS)

News and links on birds, birding, and the environment

• Two House Democrats are trying to include a provision in the defense appropriations bill to prevent the Navy from building a landing field near Pocosin Lakes NWR. You can encourage more Congressional representatives to oppose the landing field by contacting your representative.
• Gateway National Recreation Area, which includes Jamaica Bay, Sandy Hook, and other sites around New York Bay, was ranked the lowest among 28 national parks for natural resources. The low grades were mainly due to pollution and trash.
• Some farmers in Ontario clear cut their property to protest Species at Risk legislation. The legislation in question sets out policies for designating critical habitats.
  
• Sage grouse are helping to revive local economies in the West through ecotourism.
• An event in Oregon educated residents about bird life on the Pacific coast's rocky cliffs. The story on the event includes the detail that pelagic cormorants make their nests adhere to the cliffs with excrement. It gives the name of the event - "Bonding with Birds" - a new meaning.
• The Navy is trying to resolve conflicts with some California residents over its plover habitat management policies. Residents want more room for their dogs to run unleashed.
  
• Birder's World has a good summary of the issues involving birds and climate change.
• This weekend is World Migratory Bird Day.
  
• A study by NASA predicts an increase of 10 degrees in averages temperatures for the eastern United States by 2080. This is a higher estimate than previous predictions because the new study predicted fewer rainy days.
• Warmer temperatures are already causing confusion for migratory birds and other animals. Normally migratory animals may be more likely to migrate at the wrong time or not at all.
• Great Dismal Swamp, in Virginia, is holding its first birding festival this weekend.
  
• Apparently Cheney is not the only person who shoots other hunters in the face.
• This week A.Word.A.Day is bird-themed, beginning with stormy petrel: "2. One who brings trouble or whose appearance is a sign of coming trouble."

Birds in the Blogosphere

• Terrierman: The Missing Birds of Rock Creek Park
• Daily Kos: Texas Wildlife Refuges Fast-Tracked for Border "Fence" (via)
  
• 10,000 Birds: What is a Night Heron?
• Birdchaser: megaloony
• Hawk Owl's Nest: World Series of Birding time!
• Betsy's Bird Journal: Huntley Meadows Bird Walk
• Birding (Times-Union): Finding the Lord God Bird (see also here)
• Coffee and Conservation: Top 5 Indicators of Sustainable Coffee
• Urban Hawks: An Eyas Sighting at the Cathedral
  

Carnivals and news round-ups

• Friday Ark #138
• Tangled Bank #79
  
• Carnival of the Cities
  
• Birds in the News #82
  
• News from the BirdLife Partnership, April 2007
  

Support the National Landscape Conservation System Act

The Bureau of Land Management controls over 264 million acres of public lands, the vast majority of which is west of the Mississippi. The lands are used for a variety of purposes: some for resource extraction, some for ranching, and some for recreation. About 26 million acres have been set aside for conservation under the National Landscape Conservation System, which was created by the BLM in 2000. The purpose of the NLCS is to preserve open space through its administration of National Conservation Areas, National Monuments, Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, Wild and Scenic Rivers, and National Historic and Scenic Trails.

The National Landscape Conservation System Act (H.R. 2016), if passed, will make the NLCS a permanent part of the Bureau of Land Management. Birders, in particular, should be interested in seeing support for the new conservation system. Public lands are home to many rare and declining species. Even putting aside the rarities, there is a great diversity of avifauna in the public lands system. (See for example, the bird lists from California or the raptor list from Snake River.) Supporting the NLCS helps ensure that these birds still have proper habitat in the future.

You can encourage Congress to approve this legislation by sending an email to your representative.

Rock Creek Park BioBlitz Next Weekend

Next weekend, May 18-19, Rock Creek Park will host a bioblitz. The National Geographic Society and the National Park Service are organizing the event. The Rock Creek Park BioBlitz is the first of ten bioblitzes that will be conducted at National Parks over the next decade in honor of the service's upcoming centennial.

A bioblitz aims to record as many living species as possible within a 24-hour period. The Rock Creek Park BioBlitz will run from noon on Friday to noon on Saturday to include both diurnal and nocturnal species. Teams of scientists and volunteers will spread out through the park to find and identify organisms. All specialties are needed; the bioblitz aims to document vertebrate and invertebrate animals, plants, fungi, and microbes.

This is the third recent bioblitz in the DC area. One bioblitz occurred last June in the Potomac Gorge and another was held in 1996 in Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Results are available at those links. In an urban park, such as Rock Creek or Kenilworth, a bioblitz highlights the tremendous diversity of life within our cities.

To participate in this year's count, please register here: http://www.ngbioblitz.org/. Participants may register on-site, but pre-registration helps the coordinators with event planning.

Wind Energy in Delaware

Delaware is entertaining a proposal to build a two-hundred-turbine wind farm off its Atlantic coast. One option would place the turbines 11.5 miles east of Rehobeth Beach; a second is for a farm 6.9 miles off Bethany Beach, closer to the Maryland border. Last year, state lawmakers had requested proposals for new power plants to meet growing demand. In turn, they received proposals for natural gas, coal, and wind energy.

The Post notes that the wind farm proposal has been framed differently than in other states:

In Delaware, though, industry analysts say the debate has been different. Instead of wind-farm-vs.-no-wind-farm, here the debate has been windmills, which would not produce the kinds of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change, versus fossil-fuel plants, which would.

"When you say, 'Would you rather have a wind farm or would you rather have a coal plant?,' I think having the choice makes people say, 'Gee, the wind farm really is the lesser of the evils,' " said Walt Musial, a wind-energy specialist at the U.S. government's National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

Since the Delaware Bay is a major stopping point for many bird species, including the rapidly declining red knot, there is legitimate concern about a wind farm's potential effects on migratory birds. However, there is reason to think that the risks may not be high. A Danish study indicates that offshore wind farms are not likely to cause a significant hazard to flying birds. Radar and infrared tracking showed that birds learned to fly around the turbines with minimal collisions. On that basis, the Delaware Audubon Society supports the project as a means to slow the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Learning Bird Songs

From April to June each year our parks and woodlands are filled with song as migrating birds return and breeding birds set up territories and look for mates. Songs and calls can be a valuable key for identification and add to our appreciation of birds. From time to time people ask me about ways to learn bird songs. Here are five suggestions.

1. Listen to the songs of birds you can identify

The best way to start with bird songs is to learn the songs of the common local species. For Washington, this means birds such as robins, cardinals, Carolina and house wrens, chickadees, titmice, and song sparrows. (In your own area, the common species may be different.) Doing this simply involves watching and listening during bird walks. Try to watch singing birds that you can identify by sight. As you learn songs, try to guess the identity of a singing bird before finding it with binoculars. Even if you are using resources listed below, your own observation and experience is still the key to learning songs.

2. Birding by Ear series

One difficulty of learning bird songs is that many sound similar to each other. As with visual identification, there are characteristic qualities that one can use to distinguish similar songs. The best resource that I have come across is the Birding by Ear series by Dick Walton and Robert Lawson. Birding by Ear and More Birding by Ear cover eastern and central birds; there is also a version for western birds.

3. Bird song CDs

The Birding by Ear CDs cover a limited selection of songs. More comprehensive guides are available in CD form, such as the Peterson and Stokes guides. (Those links cover eastern birds; Stokes and Peterson also have western versions.) Who Cooks for Poor Sam Peabody? covers 189 eastern and central species on a single CD. A difference between this and the others is that the narrator names the species after the sound plays so that it can be used for randomized self-quizzes.

4. Online audio guides

Most online field guides include links to recordings of bird songs. Cornell's All About Birds and the Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter both have audio files. In addition, there are other online compilations of bird songs. Two of my favorites are NY State Bird Songs and North American Bird Sounds. An even better resource is Cornell's Macaulay Library, which has placed much of its sound and video catalog online. At that site you can listen to multiple recordings of any bird species that you want to learn in depth. The Owl Pages has recordings for most owl species.

5. Identification games

Some websites offer identification games that include song matching. Two examples are Virtual Birder's Spring Warbler Tune-up (eastern species) and Patuxent's Bird Quiz. Ecology Explorers has a basic Flash-based game that seems to be geared to western species. Multimedia CD-ROM field guides may also feature song quizzes as part of the software.

Posted as a contribution to the Group Writing Project. Mike and Trevor also posted contributions.

Back to Poplar Point

This morning I returned to Poplar Point with Rob Hilton to explore the area further. (Rob had kindly offered to show me some areas I missed last week.) It was a beautiful day to be out, if cool with winds increasing throughout the morning. When we arrived, field sparrows were singing in the meadow, and several willow flycatchers were calling. (I did not get a look at any of the willow flycatchers - not that it would have made much difference for identification purposes.) Yellow warblers and Baltimore orioles were plentiful, as they were last week. A few savannah sparrows were still present.

Savannah Sparrow / Photo by Donna Dewhurst (USFWS)

Further back, we encountered a northern waterthrush and a veery. (Both were firsts-of-the-year for me.) Rob spotted a wild turkey that I missed. As with the meadow, there were a lot of orioles and yellow warblers singing and flying back and forth across the paths. The nursery area appears to be catbird heaven as we saw and heard numerous gray catbirds mewing and singing. A few brown thrashers were skulking in the underbrush as well.

Unfortunately, the water birds from last week did not show themselves today. The Poplar Point wetlands area had a couple more northern waterthrushes. Once again, the grassy strips along Anacostia Drive had some bobolinks among the more common starlings and brown-headed cowbirds. One poked his head above the weeds to sing a few complex songs before flying off.

A stop at Kenilworth Park turned up a spotted sandpiper and soaring osprey and red-tailed hawks. An indigo bunting and warbling vireo sang for short stretches. Otherwise the park was pretty quiet.

BIRD SPECIES: 43

Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Canada Goose
Mallard
Turkey Vulture
Osprey
Red-tailed Hawk
Spotted Sandpiper
Ring-billed Gull
Great Black-backed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Chimney Swift
Willow Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Eastern Kingbird
Tree Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
House Wren
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Brown Thrasher
Veery
American Robin
Fish Crow
European Starling
Warbling Vireo
American Goldfinch
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Northern Waterthrush
Common Yellowthroat
Field Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
Bobolink
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole

Migrant Songbirds at the Arboretum

When I arrived at the Arboretum this morning I was greeted with the fullest chorus of song that I have experienced this spring. Granted, it was not the full dawn chorus, since the Arboretum does not open early enough for that, but it was an active one. Yellow-rumped warblers took the lead in the singing. Their cycling songs resounded throughout the Azalea Gardens and any other wooded spot.

Azaleas in full bloom

The Azalea Gardens and its associated trails held many migrant birds. I heard northern parula, worm-eating, black-throated blue, and black-throated green warblers. Ovenbirds and wood thrushes sang from several locations on the hill, but I never managed to catch sight of either. A black-and-white warbler, red-eyed and yellow-throated vireos, a scarlet tanager, and a Baltimore oriole deigned to make themselves visible. As I walked down the south side of Mt. Hamilton, I met other birders who drew my attention to a buzzy, ascending song. After listening for a while, I concurred with their identification of it as a cerulean warbler.

The full complement of tyrant flycatchers are back. I saw most of them around Fern Valley and its nearby meadows. Those meadows had some other interesting birds. Indigo buntings were present in good numbers. Deep in the lilac meadow there was a female blue grosbeak. I thought I could hear a male singing nearby, but never found him. A pleasant surprise was a bobolink singing from the top of a baldcypress next to the Capitol columns. While I was watching the bobolink, two orchard orioles whizzed by in the midst of a hormone-driven sparring match.

BIRD SPECIES: 57

Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Bald Eagle
Red-shouldered Hawk
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Chimney Swift
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Eastern Wood-Pewee
Acadian Flycatcher
Eastern Phoebe
Great Crested Flycatcher
Eastern Kingbird
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Barn Swallow
Carolina Wren
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
Brown Thrasher
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Blue Jay
American Crow
European Starling
Yellow-throated Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo
American Goldfinch
Northern Parula
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Cerulean Warbler
Black-and-white Warbler
Worm-eating Warbler
Ovenbird
Scarlet Tanager
Eastern Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Blue Grosbeak
Indigo Bunting
Bobolink
Red-winged Blackbird
Common Grackle
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
Orchard Oriole

Additional note: Last night I spotted a Louisiana waterthrush at the Indian Museum. The water level in the "wetlands" is down, so it would not surprise me to find some shorebirds passing through.