Sleepless Birding

Thanks to a touch of insomnia, I happened to be awake for the start of the dawn chorus on Sunday morning. So, of course, I listened and kept notes until I finally fell asleep. It is not something I would recommend, but it was an interesting exercise while it lasted. It was pretty clear that the local birds wake up and start singing in waves.

Robins started singing around 4 am: first a few, and then a chorus swelling to what sounded like dozens. For a long time, robins were the only birds that appeared to be singing. About an hour later, the first cardinals and grackles joined them. Again, there was a period in which I could only hear these three species.

The next wave of sound came from some blue jays, a couple mourning doves, and a single fish crow. Shortly after I heard a white-throated sparrow and also noticed house sparrows for the first time. Now it may well be that these had been vocalizing all along; house sparrow "songs" are pretty nondescript and blend into the background easily. In due time I heard chimney swifts and tufted titmice add their voices to the chorus.

The last birds to vocalize before I finally got back to sleep were a few black-capped chickadees, a yellow-rumped warbler, a few red-winged blackbirds, and a gray catbird.

A few absent voices surprised me. First, while siskins appear to have departed, we still have plenty of house finches and goldfinches visiting our feeders. Yet I heard none of either local finch species. Second, two species with territories on the adjacent street – mockingbird and song sparrow – were curiously missing from the chorus. With all of these absent species I have to think that either the species is not awake and singing that early (rather odd) or that their songs simply does not carry far enough for me to hear them (still odd, but perhaps more plausible).

I was also a bit disappointed not to hear any other migrant warblers or thrushes, especially given the veery in the yard the previous night, but their absence was not surprising.

List the Red Knot

An op-ed in today's Home News Tribune argues for a quick listing of the Red Knot (Calidris canutus rufa) under the Endangered Species Act.

Quick and emphatic action is needed, none more so than the immediate federal listing of the red knot as an endangered species. Regretably and unbelievably, that hasn't happened, despite overwhelming evidence that the red knot might otherwise disappear from this side of North America.

What are federal officials waiting for? Washington's listing would deliver the urgently needed protections and resources required to help the red knot recover and survive. Anything less invites disaster, is careless, unthinking and backward science.

A big part of the answer resides in the antiquated and stingy policies of the Bush administration. Though the Endangered Species Act was a bipartisan initiative, created in 1973 under President Richard Nixon, the Bush White House removed all funding for its implementation, neutering the law for a full eight years. What resulted isn't surprising: today there exists a logjam of troubled species that desperately need federal aid and attention.

Unfortunately there are currently 252 candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species List – a massive backlog by any measure. These are all species that the Interior Department has acknowledged are in need of assistance but has not listed due to lack of funds. So the Red Knot will continue to wait in line for the near future.

Spring Flowers: What's Blooming Now

Last week's (relative) heat wave was all the encouragement needed to make trees leaf out and flowers bloom. As a result there has been an explosion of color in my neighborhood, even among some flowers I would not have expected to be out quite this early. I am including a few images below that I took over the last few days. The overcast skies helped a bit since the bright colors were not as blown out as they might otherwise have been on sunny days.

First, a rhododendron:

Next, an iris:

Third, a dogwood flower:

Finally, here are some blossoms on a cherry tree in Donaldson Park:

Unfortunately I missed getting photographs when the white-flowered Yoshino cherries bloomed a week or two ago.

I have not been birding as much as I perhaps should be given the season, but I am still seeing migrants. (Once one becomes attuned to their appearance and sounds, it is hard not to notice their passage.) Within the last week, the first Chimney Swifts and Yellow Warblers have arrived. Yesterday, my observations in Donaldson Park included a Solitary Sandpiper and Baltimore Orioles. It is amazing how a bird as bright as an oriole can be so difficult to spot when it is singing from the top of a tree. The Canada Geese and Killdeer already have their first rounds of babies.

Top 10 Favorite Wetland Sites

Wetlands are rightly valued for their high levels of biodiversity. In U.S. conservation politics they may perhaps be a bit overrepresented in comparison to other habitat types due to their attractiveness for waterfowl hunting. However, this is hardly their only function. In addition to supplying year-round habitat for numerous resident and migratory birds, wetlands work to improve water quality and protect human settlements from flooding, at least in areas where wetlands are still intact.

Despite their ecological and economic functions, wetlands are constantly under threat. New developments may fragment or burden wetlands with additional pollution. Rising sea levels and land subsidence eat away at coastal sites. Meanwhile, nitrates from fertilizer runoff change the species composition. In recent decades, state and federal governments have slowed the loss of wetlands, but many remain vulnerable.

To celebrate the role of wetlands and raise awareness of the many problems, the EPA has declared May to be American Wetlands Month. So what is a wetland?

Wetlands are the vital link between land and water, where the flow of water, the cycling of nutrients, and the energy of the sun meet to produce highly productive ecosystems with unique plant and animal life. Wetlands may not be wet year-round. In fact, some of the most important wetlands are seasonally dry transition zones. They are among the most valuable, but often least understood, wetland resources.

To celebrate this month, I am creating a wetlands top ten list. These are simply my ten favorite wetland sites out of the places I have visited. As such, they will no doubt leave out vast swaths of the country (and the world), so I invite readers to list their own favorites either in comments or on their own blogs.

Wetlands Top Ten

1. Great Swamp (NJ)
   
2. Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens (DC)
   
3. Hughes Hollow (MD)
   
4. South Cape May Meadows (NJ)
   
5. Cumberland Salt Marshes (NJ)
   
6. Blackwater NWR (MD)
   
7. Bombay Hook NWR (DE)
   
8. Trenton Marsh (NJ)
   
9. Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge (NY)
   
10. Bolinas Lagoon (CA)
    

Loose Feathers #185

Black-throated Blue Warbler / Uploaded to Flickr by Geomaticsman

Bird and birding news

• At least some bird species can dance in time with music. Film analysis of a sulphur-crested cockatoo and an African grey parrot show that they adjust their movements to match a musical tempo, even with songs they have not heard before.
  
• Larger groups of house sparrows are better than small groups or individuals at solving problems. The reason appears to be that the larger groups have more diversity of skills.
• The European Union is now allowing farmers to leave dead animals in the fields to feed vultures. The practice had been banned during the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, with devastating effects on vultures.
• A stray dog killed 50 wedge-tailed shearwaters at the Nature Conservancy's Mo'omomi Beach Preserve in Hawaii. Shearwaters are easy prey during nesting season due to their difficulty walking.
• Poachers steal birds from endangered Hispaniola parrots' nests during the breeding season to supply the pet industry.
  
• A federal court invalidated a drilling plan on BLM property in New Mexico due to insufficient attention to the plan's impact on wildlife habitat, particularly for Aplomado Falcons.
  
• In DC, there is a robin nest outside the White House briefing room.
  

Birds in the blogosphere

• Prairie Ice: Grouse Comparison
• Search and Serendipity: Shorebirdonia
• BES Group: Role of the camera in birdwatching
• Urban Hawks: Worm-eating Warbler
• Rock Paper Lizard: Birding in Dogland: Yellow-rumped Warblers.
  

Environment and biodiversity news

• Logging operations in Washington state won an exemption from the Endangered Species Act by agreeing to protect fish; however, there has been substantial noncompliance with the rules.
• Overfertilization of grasslands is causing loss of plant diversity due to increased competition for light.
• New satellite imagery shows further destabilization of the Wilkins Ice Shelf. New icebergs are breaking away in the area vacated by a collapsed ice bridge.
• Kenya's Masai Mara is losing many of its wild grazing animals. The ungulates are having difficulty adjusting to the growing human population.
• Canada and the United Kingdom both plan to stop building conventional coal plants.
• A new study predicts severe water shortfalls along the Colorado River even under conservative climate change estimates. One problem is that current rations were set during the wettest decades of the past 1,200 years.
• Rare fishless lakes in Maine have greater biodiversity among invertebrates and amphibians. Many species only occur in lakes where there is no predation from fish.
  
• There is talk of introducing a "clean coal" plant to New Jersey.
  
• The Drinking Bird: More on global warming, biodiversity and perception
• The Island of Doubt: Cumulative carbon emissions: A new way to "frame" the climate challenge
• RealClimate: Hit the Brakes Hard
  

Carnivals and newsletters

• Festival of the Trees #35
  
• I and the Bird #99
  
• Birds in the News #169
• BirdLife News-byte #9