Loose Feathers #342

Snowy Egret / Photo by Gregg Aronson/USFWS

News about birds and birding

• If you have not seen them already, it is really worth checking out David Sibley's ongoing series of posts on bird song identification. There are three posts so far: Learning to Listen to Bird Songs, Pitch, and bird song identification, and Tempo, and bird song identification.
• Birds that have more than one color morph evolve new species faster than those that only have one color morph.
• The Peruvian government does not have a clear answer as to why 877 dolphins and over 1,500 seabirds have turned up dead on its shores since February. The dolphins may have been killed by a virus, and the seabirds may have starved due to a lack of anchovies offshore. The affected seabirds are mostly Brown Pelicans and Blue-footed Boobies.
• Researchers set up camera traps around penguin colonies in Antarctica to record aspects of penguin behavior that usually go unseen by humans due to the extreme cold.
• A birdwatcher in Los Angeles intervened to keep an active raven nest from being destroyed during a construction project.
• Two of the tagged Common Cuckoos completed their return journeys to the U.K. this week, which makes them the first cuckoos to have their annual migration fully mapped.
• Female Brown-headed Cowbirds seem to be attracted to more modest courtship displays rather than more flamboyant ones.
• A Bald Eagle that had been shot, poisoned, and hit by a car in a Philadelphia suburb has made enough of a recovery to be released. The eagle was released at Ridley Creek State Park.
• Biologists are moving endangered Nene away from an airport on Kauai to avoid collisions with airplanes. About 300 Nene will be moved to Maui and Hawaii.

Nature blogging

• On the road:  Seasonal variation in Central American Sedge Wren songs?
• The Birder's Library: Review: Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird
• Dinosaur Tracking: Media Blows Hot Air About Dinosaur Flatulence

Environment and biodiversity

• The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica is more vulnerable to melting than climate scientists had previously thought. Warm currents in the Weddell Sea threaten to melt the ice shelf from below.
• A new study examines how female pirate bugs adapt to the costs of traumatic insemination. Some will lay more eggs than other females to make up for their shorter lifespan.
• Biologists in Guam are trying to fight the invasive Brown Tree Snake in Guam by dropping dead mice laced with acetaminophen, which reduces pain and fever in humans but is deadly to snakes. Officials are also trying to prevent the snakes from leaving the island and establishing themselves elsewhere by inspecting all luggage of air travelers with snake-sniffing dogs.
• Lakes in the High Peaks area of the Adirondack Mountains are frozen in winter for a shorter period than they were 32 years ago. The five lakes in question are frozen for 7-21 fewer days each winter. The biggest change was at the most pristine lake, Wolf Lake.

Reforming the USDA's Wildlife Services

Bobcat at Tule Lake NWR / USFWS Photo

Last week I linked to some important investigative reporting from the Sacramento Bee on the practices of the USDA's Wildlife Services program, which is responsible for controlling wildlife that affects agriculture. On Monday, the Sacramento Bee followed up with an article on suggestions for reforming Wildlife Services. There are some who argue that the agency cannot be reformed and should be abolished altogether. Under that view, the agency is too closely tied to agricultural interests, which provide much of the agency's funding, to move beyond the lethal control and inhumane practices that have characterized much of its history. Other approaches include banning specific practices, such as the use of explosive cyanide capsules and leg-hold traps.

One idea is to change the agency's focus from controlling native wildlife to controlling invasive species.

"We believe that current science does not support much of Wildlife Services' lethal control of native mammals, that it is wasteful and often counterproductive," Mares, the society president, wrote in a letter to the agency in March.

"Perhaps the primary emphasis … should be to control invasive, exotic species, a rapidly worsening threat to rare native species and ecosystems," Mares suggested in the letter.

Although Wildlife Services does some work to control nonnative species – such as wild pigs and nutria – Deputy Administrator William Clay would like to do more. "Invasive species have been recognized as a national problem for many years," he wrote in a letter back to Mares, "and was a focus of the symposium we sponsored in 2007 … to inaugurate our new invasive species research building.

"Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the National Invasive Species Council … resources have not emerged," Clay added. "Thus we usually work on a small scale in response to specific complaints. We would welcome additional ideas for financial support."

This could be a more useful role for the Wildlife Services program, though I would not want to see the inhumane and wasteful practices of predator control transferred to invasive species control. Another idea is better education for field agents:

Recently, Niemeyer traveled to Washington, D.C., to share his concerns with agency managers. Asked what he would do if he were in charge, Niemeyer replied with a long email calling for better training and education in wildlife management, ethics and the humane treatment of animals.

"I would phase in college-trained wildlife personnel," he wrote. "Many (trappers) have a basic high school education … and only district supervisors like myself receive some specialized training while trappers were seldom considered."

He also called for less killing and more transparency....

He said employees in the West could learn from colleagues back East. "The eastern program is much more advanced," Niemeyer said. "They are dealing with disease surveillance, feral animals, including wild pigs and urban wildlife problems: rodents, deer, beaver, skunks, opossums, raccoons, etc., and give me the appearance that they are much more grounded in dealing with the everyday public in urban and farming communities.

"In contrast, I see the western program still hung up, primarily, with killing predators like foxes, coyotes, wolves, bears and mountain lions, not so much because these animals are problems but because they exist and are macho to kill and the 'western culture' encourages and demands Wildlife Services be funded and continue to focus on these species," Niemeyer said.

"I would downgrade predator control in the West to a corrective program and phase out the preventative program of thinning out coyote populations in the event that they might kill livestock in the future," Niemeyer added.

This sounds interesting and could point towards a positive role, as long as the inhumane control methods were ended or scaled back and fewer nontarget species were being affected. Nonlethal control methods are already being implemented with some success. One or more of the ideas included in the latest SacBee article could be a way towards better wildlife management. What is clear is that Wildlife Services should not be allowed to continue with what it has been doing.

Gray Catbird

This Gray Catbird was foraging under the bird feeders yesterday morning.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Most readers have probably heard the expression, "leaves of three, let it be," which warns of the itchy rash that usually results from touching poison ivy. This is a reasonable precaution to take if you are unsure of a plant's identity, especially since reactions to poison ivy exposure can be extremely unpleasant. However, not all three-leaved plants are necessarily toxic. Some are worth looking at more closely.

One such plant is the Jack-in-the-pulpit, which blooms for a short time in mid-spring. The plant sprouts one or two stalks, each with three leaflets. These may be large or small; the plant shown above was particularly large. It may sprout an additional stalk that bears the flower. The flower, which gives the plant its name, is a bit unusual in its structure. Instead of petals, the jack-in-the-pulpit has a spathe that curves up and over to protect the inner parts of the flower. This forms the "pulpit." Instead of stamens and a pistil, it has a spadix that sits inside space protected by the spathe and bears the plant's reproductive organs. This is the "Jack."

The pulpit is usually green, but it may have striping or mottling. This one, from the plant shown at top, has gorgeous purple striping.

This pulpit, from a different plant, has dark and light green striping.

Jack-in-the-pulpits are blooming right in New Jersey, so look for these unique plants while they are still in flower. Look for them in wet woods or swampy areas. I photographed the plants shown in this post at Heathcote Meadows Preserve last Saturday.

Canada Mayflower

Also known as wild lily-of-the-valley, Canada Mayflower shares its genus, Maianthemum, with False Solomon's Seal and several other plants that also bear racemes of tiny white flowers. Canada Mayflower grows close to the ground, often in dense colonies. I photographed this flower yesterday afternoon at Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve.