Perils for Shorebirds

Mongabay has an interesting interview with Sarah Lehnen, a shorebird ecologist on the troubles facing migratory shorebirds (and migratory birds in general).

But what makes the conservation of migrating shorebirds particularly difficult is that they don't heed human-created international boundaries.

"One of the species I’ve worked with most, the pectoral sandpiper, breeds in the arctic of Canada and spends its non-breeding season in Argentina so there are a lot of jurisdictions crossed in a given year with a gauntlet of obstacles to overcome," Lehnen says, who has studied the pectoral sandpiper in the Mississippi River alluvial valley.

According to Lehnen, conservation initiatives to truly need to involve the cooperation of each country the bird stops in. To complicate problems even more, every country has different issues to tackle in order to protect birds.

"In the U.S., approximately 50 percent of natural wetlands have been filled or drained and the U.S. continues to lose 24,000 acres (about 35 square miles) of natural wetlands per year. During fall migration, hunters in Barbados use semi-automatic weapons to hunt shorebirds as they move through, with as many as 30-45,000 shorebirds shot each year. In Argentina, solid waste dumped on beaches near Rio Grande and oil exploration using explosive charges in San Sebastian Bay threaten to destroy principal wintering habitat for shorebirds," Lehnen says illustrating just how complex conserving migratory birds has become.

Due to this complexity, ornithologists at times have difficulty determining which issues are most important in order to aid a particular, or many, migrating bird species. Changes in migration patterns also make it difficult to know whether a population is, in fact, declining or simply holding steady.

"Fewer birds being observed at a migratory stopover site could be caused by a population decline of that species or by birds shortening the length of time they spend at that site, or by birds shifting to different sites," Lehnen says.

Go read.

Shivering through a Christmas Bird Count

On Saturday, I joined Patrick and his friend Mike for a day of counting birds as part of the Long Branch Christmas Bird Count. Long Branch is one of the oldest CBCs in New Jersey, with the compiled data spanning 75 years. A handful of species have been recorded in every year of the count's history. Some, like the Bobwhite, have become scarce in recent years, while others, like the Bald Eagle, have flourished. Last year, Patrick became the compiler and took over a small area near Allaire State Park.

The Long Branch CBC encompasses some coastal areas that are well-known as rarity magnets. One of them, Wreck Pond, maintained that reputation with a possible Pacific Loon during Saturday's count. The area around Allaire, by contrast, has fewer unusual birds with more opportunity for watching common songbirds.

The three of us started our route at the restored village in Allaire State Park. The trail into the village had good numbers of sparrows, including a Field Sparrow and a Fox Sparrow, the latter of which I missed. We also spotted a Gray Catbird and a flock of Cedar Waxwings. A stream running through the village held a handful of Mallards and Hooded Mergansers. I found a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in some conifers that I was checking for an owl. Following trails around the perimeter of the village proved fruitless, however; even a known Great Horned Owl roost site was empty.

At our second stop, a restricted area, we had an immediate identification conundrum: a Northern Mockingbird with no tail. How it lost its tail is unclear; it continues to act like a mockingbird, but at a size more fitting for a junco. Another oddity was a tree that held at least seven Northern Flickers. I have never seen so many flickers together at once before, unless perhaps on some crazy migration days in Cape May. The site had plenty of waterfowl if you judge solely by the 600 Canada Geese we recorded there. Most standing water was frozen, so the only other waterbirds were some Black Ducks and Hooded Mergansers, as well as a handful of white domesticated Mallards. The site proved productive for raptors, however. We saw an adult Bald Eagle, and as we were watching it, an adult Cooper's Hawk flew past. A little later, we saw two Red-tailed Hawks in the same field. These open fields and wooded edges are clearly good hunting grounds.

Returning to the state park, we walked a different set of trails but found largely the same birds. In fact we found hardly any birds at all outside of one or two small patches of activity. Patrick did his best to summon a Barred Owl but got no response. The only new species was a single Golden-crowned Kinglet.

After lunch, we walked around a wildlife management area near the Manasquan River. Few waterfowl were present, possibly due to the presence of waterfowl hunters. What we did find was an active foraging flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers joined by a few birds of other species. A small flock of Cedar Waxwings briefly joined them. One of the waxwings had an orange-tipped tail, a variation that may result from an individual bird's diet. The brushy edge of the entrance road also held another Gray Catbird, our second and the third for the count as a whole.

So far we had seen no Dark-eyed Juncos. A stop at the state park's campground changed that with a single flock of at least 40 juncos. A subsequent visit to a roadside lake produced a few more ducks, including a hybrid Mallard X Black Duck. One more stop produced a person building a screech owl nestbox, but no birds.

At that point we decided to pack it in. Even though there was some daylight left, the activity at each stop had been declining as winds picked up and temperatures dropped. Patrick and I went outside the count area to check for some alcids and other seabirds at Manasquan Inlet. There were no alcids to be seen, but we enjoyed the sight of Northern Gannets venturing so close to shore that they almost flew over the beach. There were a few Long-tailed Ducks and a couple Red-breasted Mergansers at the mouth of the inlet, and a Purple Sandpiper huddled against the rocks of the jetty. Beyond that, very few birds were visible. The wind was fierce, and we had to be careful that Patrick's scope did not end up somewhere in the North Atlantic.

Somehow we managed to spend a whole day birding without seeing any House Sparrows despite visiting some places that seemed likely to have them.

As the day drew to a close we headed for the CBC's roundup in Spring Lake. Patrick provided some pizza and shade-grown coffee for dinner to those participants who attended. As of Saturday night, the CBC had recorded 106 with a possible Pacific Loon. A few other species could get added as more checklists are submitted. So ended my Christmas Bird Count season. As with the Raritan Estuary CBC, this count was a lot of fun even if we did not tally any truly rare species in our section.

Bird Counts

Yesterday I participated in the Long Branch Christmas Bird Count with Patrick, who became the count's compiler last year. I had a fun time despite the bitter cold and blustery winds. I will have more on that in a subsequent post.

Meanwhile, the CBCs in Delaware are reporting some interesting numbers.

Back in the early winters of 1987 and 1988, a group of Delaware birdwatchers counted every bird species they saw over a three-week period.

The most spectacular finding though, was a species they didn't see: snow geese -- not one.

Fast forward to December 2008 and early January 2009.

The count for snow geese: 348,581.

Last year's count at Cape Henlopen had 145 species, an impressive total for a winter count in the mid-Atlantic.

First Birds of the New Year

Dropped Balls

Each January 1, I try to note the first bird I see or here. When I first got up I heard a bit of chattering that was not quite identifiable. So I saw my first bird of the year when I walked out the door – a Mourning Dove sitting in a tree.

I walked to my local park to see what birds were around. I was hoping I might see a Common Yellowthroat that I had spotted in the waning light of New Year's Eve. However, it did not emerge from the shrubbery, even with a bit of pishing and chipping by me.

Walking along the river, I saw most of the usual birds – hundreds of Canada Geese, dozens of Mallards, and a few Common Mergansers. Two Great Cormorants were sitting in the usual spot. At the park's frozen pond, I came upon a large flock of gulls. As I was sorting through and counting the common species, I saw the bird pictured below.

One bird is clearly not a Ring-billed, Herring, or Great Blacked Gull, the most common gulls in my area. At first it looked so large to me, I thought it might be a Glaucous Gull. However, some of the details do not fit: the legs are too rosy, the bill is short and all-dark, and the forehead is a bit steeper. So in the end I concluded that this must be an Iceland Gull. It is only the second time I have ever seen one; the last time I saw one was last January, on the very same pond.

The photo was shot through my binoculars. I was able to correct my identification in part because I stopped to make a quick sketch of the bird and note some critical details that my photographic method did not pick up so well. The sketch above might not look like an Iceland Gull (in fact it looks like a crow wearing bathroom slippers), but it gets the job done.

My last new bird for the walk was a Peregrine Falcon, perched high on top of a radio tower.

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Blog Note: Last night I had to switch commenting systems because Haloscan, the commenting system I used for several years, was getting turned shut down as of January 2. Service with the new system, Echo, may be bumpy at first. I will make changes as necessary.

Loose Feathers #219

Sleeping Whimbrel / Photo by Ingrid Taylar

Bird and birding news

• The US Fish and Wildlife Service is objecting to a 180-foot cell phone tower in Duluth, Minnesota, because of possible hazards to migratory birds. Over 25,000 birds per day pass the site during peak migration periods.
  
• Scientists are testing new tracking tags on macaroni penguins at the Leicestershire Zoo. If the test is successful, the tags will be used to track penguins in Antarctica. 
• Some gulls in Gloucester Harbor have appeared oiled, but the source of the oil is still unknown. Fish oil from herring boats is one possibility.
  
• Sixty birds turned up dead at Oyster Bay in California due to wildlife hazing at Oakland airport. Some of the wounded birds are being treated at IBRRC.
  
• The oldest known captive mallard recently died at the age of 22.
• This was a bad year for Common Cuckoos.
  
• Flying in goose-like V formations could be one way for airplanes to reduce their fuel use and carbon footprint.
• Here is a profile of eagle rehabilitators in western Pennsylvania.
  

Birds in the blogosphere

• Conservation Maven: Conceding extinction: a look at rare birds
  
• Prairie Ice: BBC on a new band for penguins
  
• burdr: Hawk Stuck In Train Plow For Over 1000 Miles
  

Environment and biodiversity

• Sainsbury, a British wine retailer, is switching to all natural corks to preserve important cork oak forest habitat for the Iberian lynx and other threatened species.
• A land purchase added 27 acres to the Great Swamp NWR in New Jersey. The wooded tract was formerly a private hunting lodge.
• A new management plan may prevent the killing of endangered Mexican gray wolves for livestock depredation.
• A new website called Climate Wizard makes large amounts of climate data accessible to the public.
• The French Constitutional Council struck down the country's proposed carbon tax because it contained too many loopholes.
• RealClimate compares climate predictions from 10 and 20 years ago against subsequent climate data and finds that the models hold up quite well.
  

Happy new year to everyone!