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Blog Birding #262
There may still be militants occupying Malheur’s headquarters, but the rest of the refuge is open, and Steven Shunk at Nature Travel Network thinks you should get out there.
It’s still a little frigid in the basin, and more snow will fall. Frenchglen and other remote outposts will be quiet for several more weeks, but don’t let the tranquility of the season keep you from visiting. Visit Malheur now and visit Malheur often. The locals are weary of this senseless fiasco, and they would welcome some sensitive, friendly faces. They need to be shown that people outside of Harney County really care about this rural community, which supports one of the gems of our nation’s natural and cultural heritages.
The Champions of the Flyway competition in southern Israel is once again raising money to help stop bird hunting and trapping in the Mediterranean, and even has a theme song this year thanks to Bill Thompson III at Bill of the Birds.
Men with shotguns used to line the Kittatinny Ridge in eastern Pennsylvania just to shoot the passing hawks in the fall. They’d shoot so many of these “vermin” that they’d pose proudly standing next to a pile of carcasses. It used to happen in Cape May, too, during fall migration. And elsewhere, I’m sure. Anywhere there were large concentrations of birds you’d have somebody there with guns, having themselves a good old time.
Those days are gone now, here in North America. But they still are alive and well in countries such as Cyprus, Greece, Malta, and even in France and Italy, where this repulsive tradition continues.
Project SNOWStorm continues to gather lots of fascinating things baout Snowy Owls, particularly as the birds return to the same places year after year. Scott Weidensaul has an update.
It’s always a little thrill when the cell phone vibrates and the text messages start coming in: “CTT Data Update: Unit #27236551 (Salisbury 4Y Male) has checked in.” And then another, and another, until we have the weekly report from our far-flung tribe.
The three amigos (well, two amigos and an amiga) were back together on Amherst Island this past week, and another snowy continues to flirt with airport trouble. Our easternmost owl likes the beach, and our westernmost is enjoying her big-sky horizons on the prairie. One is happily on ice.
Birding in the tropics is a treat for birders in the ABA Area’s mostly temperate climate. Neil Gilbert of OC Birding has some tips for those looking to travel south of the border.
I’ve wanted to bird south of the border for as long as I can remember; this dream’s conception I know not. Perhaps it was my young exposure to The Life of Birds, narrated by the ever-classy David Attenborough. Later, when I was perhaps twelve, I swooned over the Mexico chapter of Wild America. Fisher and Peterson, those two great gentlemen naturalists, wrote of guzzling Coca-Cola while chasing tropical butterflies and marveling over dozens of new bird species.
A neat write-up at the AOU-COS Blog on a new published study showing how corvids manipulate the ecosystems they live in.
Corvids store seeds in small caches spread across the landscape, a behavior called “scatter-hoarding.” Birds cache more seeds than they eventually eat, so some seeds sprout and scatter-hoarding becomes seed dispersal, helping trees colonize new areas. Many oaks and pines have specific adaptations to encourage dispersal by birds, producing large, nutritious seeds with protective chemicals that keep them from rotting, which encourages scatter-hoarding by eliminating the need for animals to eat the seeds immediately.
Join the American Birding Association at www.aba.org!
Source: http://blog.aba.org/2016/02/blog-birding-262.html
