Cornell's Louisiana Report

Check out this blog entry from Round Robin, Cornell Lab of Ornithology's blog.  They have photos of the many birds found on the coast--some unspoiled by oil, and others painfully affected.  Please do read their report and do look at the photos--they have photos of healthy birds as birds affected by the oil.  If you are not familiar with some of the species and you haven't seen a skimmer before or sandwich terns, the photos capture the graceful beauty as well as the sad reality of oil that the birds must face.

Olivia Bouler aka Awesomesauce

So as news of BP's shadiness continues as more oiled birds and other wildlife are found and BP is wasting money on their web image instead of investing it in the Gulf spill oil cleanup, we get news of one tremendous girl:  Olivia Bouler--fighting the stereotype of kids only being interested in the indoors and video games with her mighty box of crayons and artistic talent: Olivia Bouler who is 11 years old has raised $60,000 by sending her sketches and paintings of birds to people who donate to organizations helping protect the Gulf Coast from the massive oil slick.

"It's very time consuming," said Bouler, "but everything's for the birds."

The fifth-grader will send an illustration to those who donate to The Audubon Society, The Sierra Club, The Weeks Bay Foundation, The Mobile Bay Estuary Program or The National Wildlife Fund.   Due to high demand, the limit is 500 sketches.

Word of Olivia's dedication and selfless act has taken the internet by storm and she's been on CNN, had a Facebook fan page and has partnered up with Yahoo.

Here's another awesome quote from Bouler, “I’m no James Audubon, but I can draw.”

Psst, Olivia, your drawings are more accurate than Audubon--trust me. Here's Audubon's great blue heron:

And now here is Bouler's great blue heron:

Bouler's heron is in a natural position!  Looks good to me!  So, support our young birding friend, fan her on Facebook, donate money in her name and please, no one buy her a birding vest--let's spare her that.

That is a kid grabbing life by horns and channeling her talents to help with tragedy.  Go, Olivia, I hope I get the honor of meeting you one day.

Random Western Meadowlark & A Little W00ting!

Just a random western meadowlark because I have a ton of photos of this colorful bird and nice cleanser from some of the BP news.

Non Birding Bill and I are off to rehearsal this morning for Play on Birds--come join us on one of these two Sunday performances for great laughs and a great cause!  We will rehearse hard today...and hopefully not kill each other (as we have no director to act as intermediary) and if we survive today we are looking forward to tonight's Nerdy Event of the Season aka W00tstock--I think going to the Guthrie Theatre tonight will be like going to Cheers--everyone there is going to know everyone's name.  So many friends have tickets to this gathering of great musicians and nerdy writers and one cool ass Mythbuster.  Hans, one of my helpers at the hive asked when the show was close to selling out, "I wonder who is going to buy the last ticket?"

A week later I received an email from bird banding buddy Minnesota Bird Nerd, "Ha! Guess who bought the very last ticket to W00tstock today?  Me!"

Looking forward to seeing friends and nerding out.

Play on Birds!

Hey--Non Birding Bill and I are performing!  We wrote a show several years ago called Play on Birds.  It's a bunch of sketches that lovingly pokes fun at birds, bird watching and bird feeding.  We've performed it for the Minnesota Fringe Festival and even at a few bird festivals around the country.  Some of the sketches include:

What Birders Think They Look Like

What Birders Actually Look Like

Bird and Chain (Birding With Your Non Birding Spouse)

Birds With Dirty Names

And we've added some new stuff! Even Non Birders seem to enjoy this.  One of my all time favorite quotes about the show was from audience member Dale who said, "I only came to this because you two are my friends.  I thought it was going to be a load of crap, but I laughed my ass off!"

I'm gonna channel some of my frustration with the gulf spill and 10% of our profits will be donated to International Bird Rescue and Research Center and also make it the Birds and Beers for this month.

We're only performing it twice at the Bryant Lake Bowl--you can order dinner and have a drink during the show!  I highly recommend the mock duck rolls.  If you haven't been to the Bryant Lake Bowl before, it's awesome--a theater, bar, restaurant and bowling ally all in one.  You can have a drink, watch a show, eat some food and then bowl a game!

Performance Dates:

June 13, 201o.  The doors open at 6pm and the show starts at 7pm (and runs about an hour).

June 20, 2010. The doors open at 6pm and the show starts at 7pm (and runs about an hour).

Come and laugh with fellow birders (and maybe a few non birders) and help raise money for the IBRRC.

15 Bird Species At Serious Risk Due To Gulf Spill

Cornell Lab of Ornithology has an AWESOME online resource of North American Bird information called Birds of North America Online.  Originally, this was a series of booklets written by the top experts in the field on a particular bird species.  You could purchase individual species booklets or the whole shebang for $1500. In the last few years, Cornell has put all of that info online and it's updated regularly.  To view it, you simply need a subscription ($42 per year or $5 per month for the entire set).  It's a valuable resource and perfect for anyone wanting the latest and most in depth info on a specific bird.

Today, Cornell announced that would open up profiles 15 bird species threatened by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  The open-access accounts are for the 10 species featured in the eBird Gulf Coast Oil Spill Tracker and five additional species:

Cornell said in a statement, "Our intent is to help anyone who’s looking for information about birds in harm’s way; who needs specific answers to questions about life history, population or conservation status, migration schedules, feeding or nesting behavior, etc.; and people who need a quick, comprehensive introduction to the scientific literature about a species."

A valuable and accurate resource indeed for researchers or the news media who might need some background info on some of the oiled birds being found. Even if you are not on the Gulf Coast, take a moment and glance through some of the species profiles.  The information compiled is amazing.

eBird Wants Oiled Bird Reports

My niece Nicole posted, "I know the oil spill should encourage me to be green, instead I feel defeated." That is exactly the way I feel about it.  Defeated.  But it can't end there.  If we accept defeat, we will be.

Being a birder, people helpfully send links and I see the news forwarded on from friends on Twitter and Facebook of oil covered birds and though I often don't click through--I know it's horrendous, I debate about adding them here or linking them on.  But as awful as the photos are, we need to stay on task and hold those responsible for this apparently unstoppable mess accountable for their actions--specifically, not having a plan in place to stop a spill of this magnitude should it ever happen.

I can't even tell what species of bird is in this photo taken by Charlie Riedel on the East Grand Terre Island in Louisiana.  Perhaps a gannet?

The spill needs to be tracked, not only by BP but by independent observers.  When you see BP doing things questionable things like hiring in workers when President Obama visited only to have the workers disappear when the President left, you get suspicious of their efforts.  BP is also brushing off clean up workers' complaints of nausea and respiratory ailments as "food poisoning."  Who knows what else might get swept under the rug?  Would they also under report the size of the spill and the amount of wildlife affected?  Now is the time to be vigilant.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology's eBird has now created a platform so birders on the Gulf Coast can report oiled or sick birds.  Though tragic and painful to watch, this is important work as we need to document species affected and where the spill is coming ashore.  If you live or are visiting potentially affected areas over the next several months, please consider submitting reports.

I just received a press release that Underwater World at the Mall of America is putting out a request for toothbrushes for sea turtles and marine mammals for cleaning--it's not just birds being affected out there.  This is the combined effort with the Louisiana Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Rescue Program and Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. Underwater world is also collecting towels and scrub brushes for the effort.  Please drop off donations no later than  June 13, 2010.

Wildlife is being killed and the wildlife that is "rescued" has a slim chance at surviving wildlife rehab and will only be released to an environment with still more oil polluting it.  Not only is this a dangerous environment for birds to forage for food and raise young, but no doubt the oil will deplete some of the food the birds (and other wildlife need).  But people are helping where they can because...what else can you do?  And even as I question whether or not an oiled bird or turtle should be rereleased, I know I would not leave a live and struggling bird alone on the beach, I would want to help.

If you would like to help with this effort with donations for birds, the International Bird Rescue and Research Center appears to be the best organization at mobilizing the various local wildlife rehabilitation centers to coordinate their efforts.

Here's a video explaining the process of cleaning birds produced by the Miami Herald and Steve Johnson of IBRRC:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQSubToXKDo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

One thing that people may not realize about these birds is that pelicans some other water birds regurgitate when nervous or stressed.  I learned the hard way when I banded pelicans, gulls and cormorants several years ago.  Anyone who works with this type of birds is doing stinky work.

I recall with the passing of the health care bill that Vice President Biden remarked it was a big "effing" deal.  If I would like to see any profanity from the higher office, it would be now.  Enough of everyone giving carefully worded and not so carefully worded statements of dismay and apologies without taking responsibility.  I want President Obama to channel some Samuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a Plane in dealing with BP.  I want an immediately assembled "think tank" of the world's underwater engineering experts, wildlife experts, middle school and high school science fair winners and the entire staff of MythBusters to pitch ideas on how to stop the leak.

Ew

Think about all the times your parents served you food as a child and you didn't want to eat.  Think about the nastiest thing your parents could not get down your throat.  Now, follow this link and be grateful that you did not grow up in a great-crested flycatcher chick.

What To Do With Oiled Birds?

There's no way to avoid talking about the horrendous BP Oil Spill.  I don't want the blog to become all awful news on the oil spill all the time, but I can't ignore it either.  The oil spill has affected many people deeply--areas and birds and wildlife we love so much are in the path of this practically impossible to clean and lethal mess.  Not only am I disturbed by the images of injured birds and soiled coastal marshes, I'm also disturbed by my recent mindset--which is clinging to the fragile (if not foolish) hope in the form of Kevin Costner--does he really have a magical contraption to separate the water from the oil?  Could this really work?  He does have a lot to make up for from Waterworld. As I've been reading some of the reports on rescuing birds, I've seriously questioned if cleaning and treating them for oil ingestion is a good idea.  The goal with wildlife rehab is to get the bird back out in the wild.  But what kind of environment will we send the birds to?  There's more oil every day.  It's not like the birds are being cleaned and treated to come back to a somewhat better situation--it's only worse each day.

An article came in to my news feed this morning asking the question: Is it better overall to euthanize oiled birds? Here's a quote from the article"

"Spiegel Online talked with Silvia Gaus, a biologist at the Wattenmeer National Park along the North Sea in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.  "According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent," says Gaus.

Gaus' experience comes from the 2002 Prestige oil spill which killed 250,000 birds off the coasts of Spain, Portugal and France. Out of thousands of birds cleaned, only 600 survived long enough to be released back into the wild.   The median survival of the released birds was seven days."

Survival rate of less than 1%?  Median survival of released birds only seven days?  The birds spent all that time in rehab only to die about a week later?

We all want to feel useful in this situation and I think most of us feel a deep need to do something concrete to help.  Something beyond sending money or even our hair and pantyhose.  Right now the only thing concrete appears to be cleaning and treating oiled birds and wildlife.  But in the long run, are we really helping them when they are released to an environment that will only be coated with more oil?

Should You Remove A Cowbird Egg?

A question came in to my blog in the last few days and someone asked if she should pull a cowbird egg from a nest.  This is an interesting question. For people not familiar with brown-headed cowbirds, they are nest parasites.  A female cowbird will lay her egg in another bird's nest.  Often the adult bird raising the cowbird is half the size of the young cowbird.  Sometimes other nestlings will not survive and sometimes they will, depends on the species.  The cowbird can contribute to the decline of species on the brink, like Kirtland's warblers by having the adults "waste time" by raising a cowbird and not another Kirtland's warbler.

For years it was believed that cowbirds evolved this pattern because they followed herds of bison eating insects.  That nomadic lifestyle left little time for raising young.  As bison disappeared, cowbirds started following humans...who are rather sedentary and now a female cowbird who would lay 60 eggs in a summer over several miles is now laying those 60 eggs in one neighborhood.  Makes sense...that is until Alvaro stepped in.

Alvaro Jaramillo who wrote the book about blackbirds (literally, he wrote the book on blackbirds) has this theory:

“This cannot be true. If you look at the evolution of the cowbirds (the entire genus Molothrus) you will find that they most likely arose in South America where there are no bison. As well, the Shiny Cowbird and Brown-headed Cowbird appear (based on the phylogeny developed by studying variations in mitochondrial DNA sequence) to be the most recently derived species in the cowbird clan. Thus, by the time that the Brown-headed Cowbird arose as a species it was already part of a lineage of brood parasitic birds, it was not the first. Cowbirds were ‘pre-adapted’ to a nomadic lifestyle due to their brood parasitism, but this behavior did not evolve due to a ‘need’ to follow Bison.”

Arrrrrrrg!

Officially, the answer is that it is illegal to remove a brown-headed cowbird egg from a nest.  They are a native species and therefore protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty--unless you have a depredation permit from the federal government to remove them as in the case of Kirtland's warblers.

Do one remove it regardless of the legality?  Is removing one cowbird egg helping an overall bird population?  I've posted the same question on Facebook and people have opinions.  How about you?