My Sandy Experience

Hurricane Sandy / Image credit: NASA GOES Project

Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey around 8 pm on October 29. Up until that point, things had been going as well as could be expected, with a lot of rain and wind, but not much damage. Around the time Sandy made landfall, trouble started with the electricity. First the lights started flickering, and then there were two or three momentary power drops — the lights would go off, my desk fan (to cool my laptop) would stop, and I'd lose my internet connection. Each time, the power was restored after about a minute. Then around 8:30 pm, the power went off for good. It was off until about 6 pm last night. A lot of nearby towns are still without power.

The good news is that I survived the storm with no injuries. So did my parents and sisters and everyone else I know that I've been able to contact so far. My house is still intact, and the water never got cut off. It also isn't 90°F, so life without electricity was a lot more bearable. I am so glad that the stove and hot water heater are both powered by natural gas and not electricity. There was surprisingly little flooding for a storm of this magnitude, at least in Central New Jersey. Low-lying areas were wet, and a few roads were flooded, but the main roads seemed to be open. The flooding was nothing like that during Irene and Floyd.

While there was little flooding, the wind was ferocious on October 29. It was the worst wind storm I can remember. Many trees and branches are down. I saw at least one car with a Silver Maple on top of it. Bradford Pears were massacred. One Gingko had its top ripped off and tossed on the ground beside it. Other trees took power lines with them, and some crashed through houses. Many trees in my birding patch were uprooted. The Norway Maples along the back fence of my yard lost a lot of limbs, including a big one that crushed the fence.

I feel very lucky because this could easily have been a lot worse, and there are still a lot of people that have no power or water or even homes in some cases.

I did a little bit of post-hurricane birding on Tuesday morning, once I had an idea of what the storm had caused. There was nothing rare at Donaldson Park, my one stop. The Chipping Sparrows I had seen on October 28 were still there, though reduced in number. There were hundreds of gulls, including 119 Laughing Gulls. These are almost certainly storm-blown birds since they rarely visit the site except during unusual weather patterns. I also saw a Peregrine Falcon and a Northern Harrier. The latter might be a storm-displaced bird, though it is hard to be certain. I have only seen one other harrier at the site as far as I can remember, and that was several years ago. The Peregrine, of course, is a local breeder.

Loose Feathers #364

Merlin / USFWS Photo

Birds and birding

• The leading bird in the effort to restore the European population of the Northern Bald Ibis was killed by a poacher in Italy. Last year, 15 of 37 migrating ibises were shot, and illegal hunting remains challenge for the project in the future.
• Despite some high-profile conservation successes, bird extinctions worldwide have increased over the past half-century. Habitat loss is the leading cause, along with invasive species.
• A possible fossil flamingo nest has been found in Spain.
• A new report from the American Bird Conservancy ranks the conservation status of all bird species and subspecies within the United States and dependent territories.
• Crows are capable of transmitting prion-caused diseases through their feces, even though they are not affected by the microbes. 
• Conservation groups are calling for changes to a wind farm in western Maryland to reduce bird and bat deaths.
• A poison used for prairie dog control could harm endangered Burrowing Owls.
• A new atlas identifies 3,000 sites worldwide that have conservation significance for seabirds. The purpose is to help governments and NGOs focus their conservation efforts.
• A new population of Royal Cinclodes was found in Peru; the finding is significant because there may only be 250 individuals of the species in the world.
• India is trying to stop the decline of its House Sparrow population, which is disappearing from cities.
• The vocal learning capability characteristic of songbirds and humans has now been found in mice as well.
• Here are some photos from a bird banding (a.k.a. ringing) operation at Spurn Point in the UK.
• This fabulous photo of Emperor Penguins won the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Nature blogging

• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Smarter than the average crow, or just equipped with a face for fishing?
• Anything Larus: Another Cinnamon Ring-billed
• 10,000 Birds: Migration is Dangerous
• BHL: Hispanic Heritage Month: What is a Cordillera?
• Laelaps: The Family That Nests Together, Rests Together
• Earbirding: What Gulls Say
• Outside My Window: Mile-A-Minute
• The Smaller Majority: Life-saving beetles
• Compound Eye: Thrifty Thursday: Preying, Praying, Whatever. It’s a Mantis.
• Bug Eric: Wasp Wednesday: The "Horse Guard"
• Tetrapod Zoology: Giant petrels, snow petrels, fulmars and kin (petrels part VI)
• Learn Outdoor Photography: Leucistic Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Big Sit at Morgan Mudflats

This is the annual Big Sit weekend, and yesterday I participated in the Big Sit at Morgan Mudflats in South Amboy, led by Rick Wright and sponsored by the Montclair Bird Club. Unlike big days, which can cover as large an area as a birder chooses, a big sit is a stationary count. Only species seen or heard from within a 17-foot circle may be counted towards the big sit total. Site selection and circle placement are the keys to a successful big sit; good sites should have a mix of habitat types visible from the count circle. At Morgan Mudflats, the habitats include bay, beach, saltmarsh, deciduous forest, and successional areas. Not all of these are easily visible from a count circle on the beach, but at the very least, they provide an opportunity for fly-by sightings.

Rick's count ran from 8 am to 3 pm. I was there along with Patrick and Anthony, my Middlesex Merlins teammates, for the morning portion of the count. Brant were back at the mudflats, and they were joined by several flocks of Green-winged Teal. Other waterfowl included seven Wood Ducks and a Black Scoter, the latter a new county bird for me. The raptor flight was highlighted by Bald Eagles — two while I was there and eight overall. Yellow-rumped Warblers and House Finches were constantly passing through the brush behind us. Occasionally they were joined by other species like Eastern Phoebe, American Pipits (which ran in and out of the Seaside Goldenrod), Savannah Sparrow, and Pine Siskins (which perched on the Phragmites heads to eat the seeds).

See Rick's full report at the Big Sit homepage.

Loose Feathers #363

White-tailed kite/ Photo by Brian Hansen (USFWS)

Birds and birding

• A wind tunnel study of Anna's Hummingbirds showed that flying backward is as efficient as flying forward for them. The hummingbirds were able to fly in reverse at up to 10 mph.
• The book Extinct Boids covers birds both real (but extinct) and imagined and was produced in response to an upcoming exhibit in London, "Ghosts of Gone Birds," which will benefit BirdLife International. Here is a gallery of images from the book.
• Lead poisoning from gun ammunition was the cause of death for up to 10% of dead waterbirds found in the UK between 1971 and 2010.
• Wildlife officials in Virginia are removing Bald Eagle nests from Norfolk Botanical Gardens to keep the eagles away from Norfolk's airport.
• A Common Cuckoo, a rare vagrant to the US, is being seen near Santa Cruz in California.
• Here is a profile of one of the scientists working on the Whimbrel banding project that has revealed much about their migration patterns.

Nature blogging

•  Audubon Guides: Did You Know? Bird Migration
• Laelaps: Fossil Untangles Horseshoe Crab Mystery
• Not Exactly Rocket Science: Beauty in the right eye of the beholder – finch chooses better mates with its right eye
• 10,000 Birds: Why Are Red-breasted Nuthatches Irrupting?
• The Digiscoper: A Sparrow Study
• The ABA Blog: Negate the Noise
• Extinction Countdown: Dung from Critically Endangered Kakapo Parrots Could Save Endangered Plant 
• The Scorpion and the Frog: It Feels Good When You Sing a Song (In Fall)

Environment and biodiversity

• Climate change is getting harder to deny, but that does not stop opponents of action to reduce and mitigate it. Meanwhile, the American West is getting hotter and drier, which will mean more and larger fires. Lakes will likely have more algal blooms, depending on their fish and zooplankton populations. Despite this, climate change was almost entirely absent from Wednesday night's presidential debate on domestic policy, although green energy was mentioned.
• One of the major climate-related uncertainties is what will happen to the water supply on the Indian subcontinent, which depends on the glaciers and snowpack in the Himalayas.
• One upside of a dry summer is that autumn foliage may be more brilliant than usual, especially in the Northeast.
• A pocket of cloud forest in Peru may contain several mammal species that are new to science, as well as other rare species.
• The border wall along the US-Mexican border is changing the movement patterns of many mammals that formerly could cross between the two countries. The changes are due both to the presence of the wall itself and the cleared areas and patrols around it.
• While experimenting with control methods for boll weevils, scientists found a pheromone that attracts milkweed stem weevils. The scientists think the unexpected result may help with conservation of rare milkweeds and Monarch butterflies.
• Conservation of the ajolote, a type of Mexican salamander, may depend on cleaning up the waterways it depends on, which are fouled by fertilizers and other contaminants from farming.

Blog Comments Note

I have been using Haloscan, which morphed into Echo and JS-Kit, for my blog's commenting system almost as long as this blog has existed. In 2005, Haloscan offered a better user interface than Blogger's comments, both for commenters (who did not need to register for an account anywhere to comment) and for blog owners (who could easily moderate comments to filter out spam). That advantage eroded over the years, but the system remained good enough to leave in place. As of today, October 1, that system has been discontinued. I will try to switch to a replacement — most likely Blogger's (much improved) native comments or Disqus — as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you would like to comment on a post or say hello, you can contact me via Twitter (@dendroica) or email me at empidonax AT gmail DOT com.