The Wild Suburbanite

Tubenose

2010-09-06T16:17:00.004-04:00

Back in July I heard though the grapevine that a friend of mine from the Georgia Sea Turtle Center was attempting to rehabilitate a injured bird that washed up on shore that day. She sent a moderately pixelated picture taken with her cell phone of a gray and white bird with a bill that superficially resembled a gull, and asked what species I thought it was. On closer inspection, I noticed a slight protrusion at the base of the bill that narrowed it down to a group of birds known as the "tubenoses," and the length of the bill led me to believe it was a type of shearwater. After consulting my handy-dandy field guide, I came to the conclusion it was most likely a Great Shearwater.

The tubenose group includes not only shearwaters, but also albatrosses and petrels. All three of these groups are in the order Procellariiformes, which is derived from the Latin word procella, meaning "a strong wind or storm." This is most likely a reference to seeing these birds frequently in storms on the open ocean. The nerdy name for the tubes are naricorns, and their primary function is a matter of debate.

Some believe the tubes primary function is to help these wandering sea-farers detect their fishy prey, and it is believed that tubenoses scan the sea breezes by zig-zagging upwind toward the source of an odor. Their extraordinary sense of smell may also help tubenoses find other individuals, breeding areas, and nest sites. Whereas most birds do not have well-developed olfactory senses because a large schnoz tends to be detrimental to a bird's aerodynamic properties, the tubenoses are one notable exception.

Tubenoses also have large salt gland housed above their bills. These glands remove salt from the blood of the tubenoses, and excretes them out of the naricorns, enabling tubenoses drink saltwater right out of the ocean without succumbing to dehydration. The length of the tubes may have evolved as a way to direct this salty liquid away from the bird's eyes.

The function of the tubes is most likely a combination of things, but whatever the case, the ability of the birds to spend almost their entire lives on the open ocean is remarkable. In fact, the wing shape and proportions allows most tubenoses to simply glide on the updrafts created by waves without having to flap their wings at all. But what about sleeping? Many tubenoses can lock their wings in place and snooze in mid-flight. The only time these birds touch land is during the nesting season where they seek out remote islands and gather in large numbers to build their nests and raise their 1 egg per clutch.

Unfortunately, this bird passed while I was on my way over to see it. But as far as the population is concerned, Great Shearwater numbers are high, and are listed as a species of least concern according to the IUCN. However, this does not mean that this species is not experiencing its own set of problems. Every year, Tristan islanders arrive on Nightingale Island to harvest this species in the thousands, and there has been no study on the sustainability of this practice. Also, feral cats on the Faulkland Islands may pose a threat to this species as well.

Although this individual died, it did inspire me to learn some more about this unique group of birds, and for that, I am thankful.

Order Aves?

2010-08-29T23:43:00.002-04:00

So there we were, in the city of Jacksonville on an overcast day. Our mission was to explore the MOSH, or the Museum of Science and History, and then attend a Jacksonville Suns minor league baseball game - all the ingredients to having a good day.

The MOSH had several great exhibits including a native plants garden, which contained a pond with the largest alligator snapping turtle, named Tonca, I have ever seen. But, by far, the most interesting exhibit was their reptile and amphibian exhibit.

I knew something was different when I first walked in, and in the midst of your standard snakes, lizards, and turtles, there was a Blue Jay in a cage. My first thought was that this bird must be some sort of rescue animal, and that the museum was acting pro bono on the behalf of this feathered creature. On closer investigation, the sign for the Blue Jay exhibit did not seem to differ from that of all the critters on display, and on even closer investigation I notcied that right after the scientific name of the the Blue Jay, Cyanositta cristata, were the words "Order: Aves"

Now wait just a minute. I know that it is a class Aves, and that a Blue Jay is considered to be in the "song bird" order Passeriformes. And, what is also pretty interesting, is that they belong to the crow family - Corvidae. "Order: Aves" must be a mistake; a typo.

Unless...

Unless this small reptile exhibit has accepted what many ornithologists have been saying the past few years. Birds are reptiles. In fact, the first heading in the Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior's section on the origin of birds is entitled "Birds are Reptiles." As I made my way around the rest of the exhibits, my suspicion was confirmed with several large signs describing the various orders of reptiles in which birds were included. A side note was made on the bird sign which simply read, "formerly Class Aves."

It was nice to see an interpretive exhibit in which informs the public to a new way of looking at reptile taxonomy. However, not much was presented on why this change in the classic way we look at reptile taxonomy was made. To really understand that we have to know something about the history of scientific classification itself.

It all started in 1753 with Carl Linnaeus, who came up with the brilliant idea of classifying every living thing into groups. These groups start out wide in scope, and get more and more selective until each living thing is assigned an individual Latin scientific name. You know, King Philip Came Over For Great Spaghetti - Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species.

When these groups were first formed, living things got lumped together based on morphological characteristics. For example, Carl Linnaeus noticed that snakes, lizards, turtles, crocodilians, frogs, salamanders, and the like all crept around on the ground in a way that unnerved him a little bit. All these life forms were creepy and crawly, and back then, that was enough to lump them all together under the zoological study of herpetology. Herpeton is Greek for creeping thing. All birds flew, so they were all grouped together under the study of Ornithology. Ornithos meaning "birds" - makes sense.

Once the idea of evolution came around, scientist started agreeing that living things should be classified based on their evolutionary relatedness to one another, or their phylogeny. This also brought about the idea of only grouping organisms together if they shared one common ancestor. The groups are called clades, and the graphical depiction of these clades are called cladograms. But it was not until recently that humans have developed the technological capacity to actually look at a living things' DNA and compare it to other living things. This allows scientists to quantify the difference of one organism to the next or even compare entire groups of organisms. Basically, instead of grouping organisms together based on how they look, we can now compare groups of organisms based on how genetically related they are to each other. Neat.

Now when we look at reptiles and amphibians, we see that they are very different from one another and should be viewed as being in two different classes - Class Amphibia and Class Reptilia. But just as our current understanding of cladistics allowed us to separate reptiles and amphibians, it has also allowed us to include a group of organisms once thought to be independent of class Reptilia - the birds.

And, if we look at an even finer scale (click on the image for a closer view), we see that birds and crocodiles seem to have shared a common ancestor in the Triassic pried between 208 and 245 million years ago, and that snakes and lizards branched off from the crocodilians even later in the Carboniferous period between 286 to 365 million years ago.

(Thanks to Science Encyclopedia for allowing other folks to use their images)

Briefly, based on the latest information we have, if we consider crocodiles to be reptiles, then we have to consider birds to be reptiles. And not only should we consider birds to be reptiles, we should also consider them dinosaurs since they appear to be the only surviving member of the group. Crazy.

But that's the cool thing about science. Nothing is set in stone, and this whole idea of classifying organisms into neat little groups is, in a sense, just a way to wrap our minds around the immense diversity of life. There is still much debate as to where to draw these lines, and I doubt that ornithologists and herpetologists will ever join hands, sing "kumbaya," and consider themselves to be one and the same. And we have not even touched upon the question of what would all the orders of birds become if Aves truly becomes its own order instead of a class. Maybe, just to keep things simple (or would this just make things more confusing) we could consider Aves a class within a class. For more info about that, check out Animal Diversity Web's short essay on the subject.

I think a truer understanding of it all is that the diversity of life exists on a spectrum of varying degrees of differences and similarities, and it is all a matter of perspective. Look at things too closely, and you place yourself in the extreme splitter category where the slightest difference between groups is grounds for a new level of classification. Look at things in too broad a perspective as an extreme lumper, and all the diversity of life becomes one big group, which is not useful at all.

There is a metaphor for life somewhere in there...

Anhinga

Wilson's Plover

Least Tern

The 'Glades

2010-02-19T10:25:00.001-05:00

I could not believe that I was seeing mangroves! I had only seen these strangely adapted trees on TV, but now I was seeing whole islands of them was we cruised by on a tour boat through a small section of Big Cypress National Preserve. Our main goal was to look for manatees and dolphins, but my main goal was just to experience the Everglades (and to do a little bird watching).

The reason for this weekend vacation was to visit my sister who works for North Carolina Outward Bound, which is an organization that offers outdoor adventure courses to the public. Basically, she goes out for up to 28 days at a time with clients and lives on flotilla of canoes. When she is not "on course" she lives "on base," which is a small community of quaint beach-house like buildings only accessible by canoe.

Now you may be wondering why North Carolina Outward Bound has a base camp in South Florida, but just like many migratory birds, the North Carolina Outward Bound Company migrates south for the winter and returns to North Carolina to run programs in the summer. Not a bad gig. As my final semester in graduate school gears up, I would be lying if I said I was not just a little bit jealous.

Back on the tour boat, we pass by one of these island of mangroves close enough to see that the roots are covered with thousands of tiny shells. These living creatures are a testament to the key role mangroves play in the Everglades environment. For without the mangroves, these creatures would have no place to live. What I am looking at are mangrove barnacles, tiny creatures in the phylum Arthropoda, the same phylum as all the insects. Although this is not what many tourists have come to see, I find myself amazed at the adaptive ability of these tiny creatures.

When they are born, barnacle larvae are planktonic, meaning they are free-floating, drifting with the tides. As they become mature, they cement their heads to a suitable surface, like mangrove roots, and begin encasing themselves in a calcium carbonate shell. Location is imperative to the survival of an individual barnacle! If the barnacle decides to cement his head at too high an altitude where the high tide only sometimes reaches, then she will dry up and die. (Barnacles need to breath oxygen dissolved in water, just like fish.) But, if she decides to glue her head to a place that is constantly submerged, then she has to compete with other creatures trying to make a living in shallow water, not to mention increased exposure to predators. Luckily, barnacles have adapted to live in what is known as the intertidal zone, or space between high tide and low tide.

But how can these little creatures who stay in one spot their entire adult lives be able to spend roughly have their day out of water when they require water to breathe? The answer lies in their shell. Not only is their shell built in such a way as to deflect wave energy as the tides move up and down, but also, their shell acts as water storage for when they exposed to air. As the water retreats during low tide, barnacles close up their shell and hold enough water in there to breathe until the tide returns. Thus, these little guys are able to persist in an environment that is underwater have the day, and exposed to the atmosphere half the day. In this constantly changing environment, most creatures, including us humans, would perish.

Plus, since their heads are cemented to mangrove roots, they have to reach out of their shells and grab food with their legs. And if you are grabbing food with you legs, and your head is stuck to a mangrove root, where do you put the food you just grabbed? That's right, in your butt! Ha!

Oh and check out this YouTube video for the more intimate aspects of barnacle natural history.

That's probably more than anyone wants to know about barnacles. Barnacles are cool.

The mutualism between the barnacle and the mangrove is just one of many that exists in the 'Glades, and although barnacles are by no mean endangered, the habitat they live in is. On top of the multitudes of invasive exotic plants and animals that are encroaching, the Everglades are shrinking, and this is in large part to land-use changes that have resulted in decreased flow of freshwater from the surrounding area. In fact, the Everglades is less that 1/3 it's original size, and a plan to increase water flow to the Evergaldes has been put on hold.

Luckily, there is an organized group of concerned citizens advocating the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program in the face of such setback. On their website you can view the plan, and they have a bunch of ways for you to get involved. So get out there and save the barnacles! (and the millions of other species that call the Everglades their home)

Bear Creek Reservoir

2010-02-02T16:50:00.003-05:00

Since we knew that the rest of the weekend was going to be cold and miserable, Sarah and I decided to make a quick trip up to Bear Creek Reservoir to do a little birding. We did not see a whole lot, but we did get a brief look at a red-breasted merganser, which is not too common, and some ruddy ducks, which are downright funny looking. I tried to get a digiscoped shot of the merganser, but the lighting was poor, and I would always take the shot a fraction of a second too late just in time to snap a picture of nothing but water as the bird dove underwater to chase a hapless fish. Oh well - you can't win them all.

Anyways, this was a good chance to warm up a little before I started leading the bird walks for the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society, and it was also fun to generate a list to post on eBird. For those you who don't know, eBird is a citizen science program developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and is quickly becoming one of the largest databases on bird diversity ever generated. For me, it represents a fantastic union of the interests of scientists and citizens. It epitomizes my general belief that people will not care about conservation unless they can become a part of the process; science must be relevant. eBird allows a diverse group of people, in part, to be directly responsible for bird conservation by inputing data into an online database that ornithologists can use to monitor changes in bird species frequency and abundance - pretty cool.

I know not all species can afford this luxury, but it is still unfortunate that only one taxa of organisms has such a large backing of both a large University and citizens. Georgia did develop a herpetafauna (reptiles and amphibian) atlas, but I was not able to find out much about it, and as far as I know, there is nothing like an eBird for herpetafauna. There is FrogWatch USA that appears similar to eBird, but there is no way for a person to directly input data online. Just looking online now, there are many citizen science opportunities designed for short term projects throughout the United States. So, if anyone knows of an online database system similar to eBird, but for other species, or just cool citizen science programs in general, please let me know!

For some reason, I have not been utilizing eBird as much as I could be. I believe it to be a combination of laziness, and the fact that I do not derive much enjoyment from sitting in front of a computer inputing data (especially after my first shrike field season!) Somehow, making this fun hobby of mine into a somewhat detail-oriented scientific endeavor takes some of the enjoyment out of it. In addition, I know many ornithologists take data gathered by non-experts with a grain of salt, and I think they should be cautious as to what conclusions citizen data can yield. But these are lame excuses. I also believe that some of it is shortsightedness on my part, with myself thinking that one eBird report will not make a difference in bird conservation. But isn't this the way of thinking I am trying to dissuade people from using? Not contributing to things like eBird when I have the chance makes me a hypocrite to my own personal cause, whether I can rationalize my way out of it or not. No, one eBird report will not make a difference, but the total combined effort between citizens and scientists is awe-inspiring if you really think about it. I know that citizen science is a major tool for conservation, and with that in the back of my head I generated this not super thrilling, but equally important list that will help a little bit in the conservation of a group of critters that I cannot imagine a world without.

Location: Bear Creek Reservoir
Observation date: 1/29/10
Number of species: 23

Canada Goose - Branta canadensis 15
Red-breasted Merganser - Mergus serrator 1
Ruddy Duck - Oxyura jamaicensis 9
Pied-billed Grebe - Podilymbus podiceps 8
Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias 2
Black Vulture - Coragyps atratus 2
Turkey Vulture - Cathartes aura 20
American Coot - Fulica americana 30
Red-headed Woodpecker - Melanerpes erythrocephalus 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker - Melanerpes carolinus 1
Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens 1
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted) - Colaptes auratus [auratus Group] 1
Pileated Woodpecker - Dryocopus pileatus 1
Blue Jay - Cyanocitta cristata 1
American Crow - Corvus brachyrhynchos 12
Carolina Chickadee - Poecile carolinensis 3
Tufted Titmouse - Baeolophus bicolor 3
Eastern Bluebird - Sialia sialis 3
Northern Mockingbird - Mimus polyglottos 3
Song Sparrow - Melospiza melodia 1
White-throated Sparrow - Zonotrichia albicollis 2
Northern Cardinal - Cardinalis cardinalis 4
Red-winged Blackbird - Agelaius phoeniceus 5

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

Squirrel Hunt '10

2010-01-29T15:55:00.008-05:00

The tradition of Eastern gray squirrel hunting, like most hunting traditions, most likely arose out of necessity. Also, it seems, it arose out of frustration. According an Appalachian history blog I stumbled upon, two men camped in Dickenson County, VA to hunt big game, but had no luck so they went after squirrels. They mockingly named the area "Squirrel Camp," a name which it is still referred to this day.

In these modern times, hunting for sustenance has largely been replaced for hunting for a trophy such as antlers. Additionally, not hunting out of necessity has help lead to the rise of the ethical sportsman. The ethical sportsman sees hunting as a way to connect and as a to establish a relationship with the land. The ethical sportsman is not hunting just for food. Indeed, if one is hunting to fulfill such a basic need as survival, one would probably, in this desperate state, resort to tactics we could not consider ethical. For me, the main qualifier of an ethical sportsman is a sincere attempt to understand and respect the interconnected wilderness where he hunts. The ethical sportsman researches his prey, and by doing so, sees the beauty in the animal. The ethical sportsman is essentially an amateur biologist, exploring and questioning what he sees around him.

Since squirrels do not make good trophies, I propose that, for the most part, it takes an ethical sportsman to hunt this noble rodent. (Really, I think that the previous paragraph was a way to justify why I went Eastern gray squirrel hunting up in the North Georgia mountains. At least it helps me feel better.)

Also, it's pretty dang fun! My buddy has a Parnell's Carolina cur, which is a breed of dog from the mountains of North Carolina that has squirrel hunting in his blood, and I have never seen a dog with more energy than ol' Blaze. Even when this dog is asleep you can see him experiencing REM in which his large eyes search back and forth underneath his eyelids, and periodically his body tenses up as he lets out a low growl at the undoubtedly terrified imaginary rodent.

The basic strategy is simple. Let Blaze loose (equipped with a radio collar in case you have trouble relocating him) within a legal hunting area, such as a national forest, and when you hear him talking, hurry to that tree and look for a squirrel. Unfortunately, the day I went, the weather was poor, the squirrels weren't moving, there was some bad alignment of the planets, and we saw no squirrels. Blaze treed a couple times, and I know that his nose was not lying. I blame our poor human senses to the inability to find our prey, and I know it pissed Blaze off.

I know that some folks will laugh at our inability to find this common creature that populates most neighborhoods and college campuses is unnervingly large numbers, and I laugh with them, but have they ever tried it? It's not as easy as it sounds. Trekking up and down steep hillsides trying to keep up with Blaze was exhausting, but it was a fun experience, and I hope to do it again.

Plus, I got to see Hutch's Museum of Natural History, which is what I have decided to call his impressive display of specimens including a wood duck, fox squirrels, and a woodcock in his small, smokey apartment.

He also owns a variety of beautifully handcrafted handmade turkey calls, one of which is engraved with a Red-cockaded Woodpecker. This type of call is a wing bone call. The larger bone of the call is the humerus of a turkey hen, and the smaller bone is made from the ulna. There are different variations, and one of Hutch's wing bone calls actually uses a deer antler as partial replacement for the humerus. Another replacement could be the hollowed out brass tube from a shotgun shell.

The other calls include a box call and a friction call. The box call is a wooden box with a pivoting lid on top. When the wood of the lid rubs against the rest of the box, it produces the noise of a hen. The friction call, which may be the most common, consists of a round pad made from slate, aluminum, or even glass where one rubs it with a "striker." Each of these calls are used to imitate a hen for the purpose of luring in a gobbler (male turkey) within range.

All in all it was a great weekend trip, and probably the last hunting trip I make until Turkey season, so those of you who think my blog is becoming too redneck can rest assured that I will be returning to birding posts soon enough.

View from the tree stand

2010-01-24T23:08:00.003-05:00

It all happened so fast...sort of.

I had been sitting in the deer stand for two and a half hours, and I had already seen a fawn and two yearling "spike" bucks, which are young bucks with only two small spikes for antlers. They were certainly fun to watch and one of the spike bucks got so close that, if I were inclined, I could have dramatically lept from my tree stand, jumped on his back, and ridden him back to the house. But I decided against that.

There is a big controversy surrounding spike bucks. Some believe that yearlings with spikes are genetically inferior compared to yearlings with three or more total antler points, and if this is the case, then it may be argued that these bucks should be culled in order to prevent them from passing on their genes to the rest of the herd. However, a study conducted on wild bucks in South Texas indicates that bucks having spikes their first year may be more a result of environmental conditions than genetic conditions, and, if allowed to mature, spike bucks can have just as high quality antlers as higher point yearlings. In fact, in another study, the majority of yearlings in the study area were spike bucks one year. Thus, if a manager adopts an aggressive spike culling policy, they could wipe out many individuals that could have been high quality deer given another year or two to mature.

But I digress...as a steady drizzle started, a doe came splashing though the bottomland hardwood forest. I was able to field identify her as a doe based on longer nose and larger size compared to a fawn. This is an important distinction so late in the season as the fawns are getting older and have lost their identifiable speckled coat (great for non-mobile fawns) for a more solid-color adult coat better at camouflaging today's deer on the go. She was by herself, so if she had given birth to fawns the past breeding season, they were now independent. Since she was in such a hurry, I decided to wait a while to see if a buck was following her in hot pursuit.

So I waited, and waited, and waited until the doe walked within 10 yards of my stand and then about 35 yards out opposite the direction in which she came. It was becoming apparent that I was not going to see a buck and that this doe, a beautiful looking whitetail, may be my only chance, and that's when the adrenaline started flowing. I knew I could not take the shot free handed in my excited state, and I knew that if I hesitated too much longer, she might smell me and take off. So I quickly knelt on the floor of the homemade stand, propped my left shoulder on wooden board I had been sitting on, propped my rifle on the board that made up one of the walls of the stand, and took the shot. She stumbled for about 3 seconds, then laid still.

It was one of the strangest feelings I have felt, and as I write, my fingers begin to tremble with memory. I imagine it is close to the feeling a cowboy out in Wyoming bar explained to me. He traveled with the herd, and told my friend and I stories of individual cows like someone may tell you funny stories of their domestic pets or young children. He loved his cows, and his fond recollection was a testament to this. After one particular story that made him laugh uncontrollably, his demeanor grew solemn. He said, "But they're gone now. That is why I am in town: to sell these cows." He loved his cows, but he knew he was raising them to their death so that he can make a living that literally satisfies the appetites of others. I don't think anyone, especially myself, has such a connection to the origins of their food.

It is only natural that in this age of specialization, we have lost this connection to our source of nutrition. Even those of us who don't eat meat, like I did for 5 years, most likely consume genetically modified plants laced with chemicals, and planted in monoculture field devoid of native flora and fauna. But in that moment, I truly knew where at least a portion of my life sustaining nutrition was coming from in its purist, most organic form.

Some people have the stupid idea that killing a deer "makes you more of man" as if killing an animal proves mankind's ability and right to dominate all other life on the planet because our opposable thumbs have created tools that can blast away anything that stands in our way. I can truthfully say I have no idea where this notion comes from. It is true that killing that doe was exciting, but it was also extremely humbling, and as I drug the 105-pound deer through the soggy hardwood forest, I had never had more love and respect for my food and the environment that sustains it.

Bachman's Sparrow netting

2010-01-09T11:15:00.005-05:00

I’ve been meaning to write about my experience with netting Bachman’s Sparrows as part of a long term research program developed at Tall Timbers Research Station for some time, but as the field season wound down, the data analysis season wound up. Now, as the threat of snow looms over horrified Georgians, I long for those humid summer days in the field.

On the morning before I left Tall Timbers for the season I had the opportunity to tag along for mist netting as I have never seen before. The morning was unseasonably cool (and by cool I mean only mid 80s) as we bounced along the Redland dirt roads in an ATV, golf cart, and truck hybrid known as “the gator.” When we arrived at our predetermined destination, we cut off the gas and pumped up some Bachman’s Sparrow jams in the hopes of tricking a jealous male into responding. After a couple of unsuccessful tries, we finally heard the wispy call of an angry male responding to our playback.

That is when we sprang into action. Since I had never done this before I obediently awaited my orders. Luckily, those were to “stay put for now.” I watched as my friends assembled two 20ft mist nets in less than 30secs in front of the singing bird. Then they ran a big circle wide enough not to scare the bird, and slowly started to approach our undeniably confused feathered friend from behind. To escape a threat, Bachman’s Sparrows will leap up, fly just above the understory in a longleaf pine forest, and fall back down. In a long leaf pine forest, most of the plant diversity is found within 4ft of the ground, and in places that have not been recently burned. This can be like wading though a prickly, shrubby ocean. This is especially hard for ill-adapted humans, but great cover for a highly evolved Bachman’s Sparrow. Despite this, the crew was successful many times in rounding up these often heard, rarely seen gems.

I have trouble with identifying sparrows. Most sparrows in Georgia are here in the winter and do not sing, making identification by sound practically impossible. This combined with the fact that most of the time I only seem to get a 1/8 of a second chance to look at one before it lifts it’s middle feather up in the air and shouts “screw you!” makes sparrows especially frustrating to me and many other birders.

But this opportunity to see a Bachman’s Sparrow up close redeemed the sparrow clan in my eyes. In one feather I could see an earth tone rainbow of colors impossible to perceive though binoculars or a scope. This is certainly the reason why sparrows are able to hide themselves so well from predators and well-intended birders alike. Golden amber fades into yellow, fades into steel blue, and fades into white all within less than half a square inch of space.

Before, I appreciated these birds for their rarity. They are rare because long leaf pine forests are rare. They evolved with burning forests, and when people suppressed forest fires, their habitat declined. But now, with managed forests like those around Tall Timbers research station, they luckily have a place to live.

Now, after I have seen one in the hand, I appreciate them for their beauty. It’s the type of beauty that I imagine would make more people become advocates for Long Leaf restoration, but that’s the idealist in me talking, not the rationalist.

Alabama hunting trip

2009-12-30T16:36:00.000-05:00

On a chilly overcast afternoon I climbed a metal latter extending about 25 feet up an oak tree to a padded camouflaged seat. I slung my bolt action Remington rifle off my back and lower a padded metal bar across my chest. The tree stand on private land in the transition zone between the Alabamian upland Piedmont and the east gulf coastal plain provided me a commanding view of an elongated food plot with a field of planted loblolly pines to my left, and a relatively young hardwood forest to my right. I was covered, virtually, head to toe with with high tech, real tree, HD, hardwoods camouflage, and I suspect that once I made it my goal to sit as still as possible, whitetail deer would not be able see me. However, I came across an article published by the Quality Deer Management Association that indicates that all this high tech cammo may be all for naught if treated with UV enhancing dyes used to make garments slightly brighter to the human eye in the hopes of more sales. Deer lack UV filters that we humans have which allow them to see the tail end of the UV spectrum. Therefore, my new cammo pants could literally appear to be glowing to a vigilant whitetail. Interesting, but I didn't know this at the time, so there I sat as still as possible.

Before I left for this trip, it was mentioned to me by a friend of mine who just returned from his first hunting trip that deer hunting was "boring until you hear leaves rustling, but then you realize that it's a squirrel, then it's boring again." Having been hunting a few times before this current trip, I could not disagree more. After I nestled into my perch, the woods were quite. This was most likely the result of me scaring everything off by my boisterous tromping up to the stand which sounded like the Macy's day parade compared to the noise that evolved prey animals make while conducting their daily business of trying to find food without being food. But soon the soft fluttering of wings altered me to the presence of unknown avian critters. Soft knocking against wood told me that woodpeckers were out looking for breakfast. And a piercing squeal told me that Northern Flickers were the ones looking to grub out. Later, a Red-shouldered Hawk lit in a hickory next to my stand. A 2-year old Wild Turkey quietly crept onto the plot fed for a moment and moved back into cover. I even saw a older looking doe, but a fawn was still with her, so I watched the mother take her time browsing on the plot while the hyperactive kid bounced around.

This is what I enjoy most about my few hunting experiences. I love getting out in the woods at a time when it seems most folks are either sleeping or indoors by a heater. I love seeing the woods with its vulnerable trees with branches that exhibit the juxtaposition of chaos and order in a display of fractal geometry that inspired Pollock. I love sitting so quietly that rapid, sporadic, wing beats of a Carolina Wren are the loudest sound in the woods, and when he flips fallen leaves in search of meal, the sound becomes defining. I love being invisible to the gray squirrels that bound from tree trunk to tree trunk frantically searching for hidden nuts and seeds in a ritual that goes unnoticed by most. Boring indeed! This is what I love, and if an old buck or doe happens walk by my cross hairs, I will thank God for the opportunity to put meat in the freezer and take the shot; I haven't done so yet.

Lost nests

2009-06-15T19:05:00.003-04:00

I returned from Tall timbers Research Station to check up on some Athens area shrikes to find two shrike nests we have been monitoring on the ground with no sign of eggs or young.

One site had no sign of shrikes at all, but at the other site, just as I was about to leave thinking those birds were gone too, I saw a shrike light on telephone wire where I have seen the adults hunt. I quickly got out my spotting scope to see if it was the adult bird I had tagged for the purpose of monitoring its movements, but was happy to see that it was one of the juveniles from the adult pair's previous clutch.

No doubt this bird was one of the two that I have seen begging for food from the adults in some of my previous visits to this spot. When I left for Tall Timbers last week, this bird was not hunting for itself and relied on the good graces of it's parents for nourishment to keep it alive, but now it was actively hunting on it's own, snatching grasshoppers out of the air; curiously eyeballing deft barn swallows as they swooped in to investigate the tiny raptor.

I watched this hatch-year bird for an hour in the hopes that it's parents or sibling would join him/her, but to no avail. Since their second nests failed, did the adults disperse to another location? What about the juvenile? Did he relocate as well?

I'd like to think that is all that happened; the birds just moved to greener pastures, but the pessimist in me tells me they are dead. This, realistically, could be the case. This would mean that this lone juvenile is the survivor.

Part of me wants me to trap this juvenile, put a radio tag on him, and see where it goes. Will it stay in this area since the parents are gone? I mean, at least one successful brood was raised in this habitat.

As I watched the once incapable and now lonely bird hunt, I think that I will opt to not harass him. What if he injures himself in the trap? What if the color bands I put on him attracts a predator? What if his band get tangled in a mess of thorns? It hasn't happened to any birds I have banded to my knowledge, but what if it happens to him? I started to think of a million things that could go wrong and soon I became overwhelmed.

At that point I could never think of touching that bird. I began to think that just by watching him he might erupt in a burst of flames and it would, of course, be my fault.

No, I will not mess with this bird, but I will come back to see if he's still around knowing that some time soon, I will arrive at the site and he will be gone. Then, I will silence the pessimist and imagine this bird raising a next generation of shrikes.
Shrike nest with eggs

Same nest abandoned (bottle cap for scale)
I didn't get a picture of the juvenile bird... but here's some nestlings from Tall Timbers!

Shrike Radio tagging

2009-06-09T18:41:00.007-04:00

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Things have been pretty busy. I have officially begun my field season and I have not had a spare moment.

As I write, the sun is beginning to set here at Tall Timbers Research station. The purpose of my trip down here is to track previously radio tagged birds that inhabit these beautiful Longleaf pine forests in order to see how much open pine habitat Loggerhead Shrikes need.

My other study site is in the rural areas surrounding Athens, GA. I have radio tagged birds there as well and am driving back and forth between Tall Timbers and Athens every other week to track birds.

With the help of Hutch, a Tall Timbers summer intern. We are starting to get enough data at Tall Timbers to really start to see how much space these birds need. Similarly, with the help of Brady, Bobby, Lindsay, Brent, and Kathryn (all of which are volunteers) we have gathered similar data for the Athens area.

Already, we are starting to see some interesting results. For instance, all the pairs we are monitoring around Athens, are provisioning 2 or less juveniles, while on Tall Timbers, all pairs with young have 4 or 5 juveniles that they are tending to. While the sample size is still small, this will be something worth exploring later on.

More information can be found by following this link to the latest Tall Timbers e-news bird notes:

http://www.talltimbers.org/ttnews/news.cfm?news_id=121

What is the reason for this? Do the pine "barrens" truly offer better quality habitat than agricultural fields? Hopefully, when all is said and done, we will have an idea....
Radio tagged bird in Athens

Impaled Carolina Wren

Radio tagged shrike on the Wade Tract

Cammo-clad Shrike ninja, aka Hutch

Stable Isotopes and Shrikes

2009-02-19T22:47:00.005-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Some new developments have come up in my research. What started out as a peripheral interest to my project is quickly taking more precedent.

Stable isotope analysis is an ever-changing and ever-growing technique that combines basic ecological concepts with relatively simple chemistry. Before I completely confuse whoever may read this, you may want to check out this site (http://www.uga.edu/~sisbl/stable.html) for a brief introduction to what stable isotope analysis is all about.

The first, and most basic concept that stable isotope analysis draws upon is that everything is interconnected in an ecosystem (and in a larger sense: the entire planet). One may think of a large web in which each strand is connected to adjacent strands. Remove or distort one of these strands, and the structural integrity of the whole web is effected. Moving on.

Every living thing has some atoms in common, i.e. every living thing incorporates carbon and nitrogen atoms into their living tissues. These atoms exist in different forms, called isotopes. What differentiates these forms of the same atom is not their function, but their weight. For example, most carbon has 6 neutrons, 6 protons, and 6 electrons. Since electrons do not contribute to the atomic weight of an atom, this typical carbon molecule can be said to have an atomic weight of the 6 protons plus the 6 neutrons, which sums to 12. But if you were to look up the atomic weight of a carbon atom in the periodic table, you would see that the listed atomic weight was 12.011. This is because carbon can exist as heavier and lighter isotopes. For example, there is one carbon isotope that consists of 7 neutrons, 6 protons, and 6 electrons, giving that atom the atomic weight of 13, but it still retains all the properties of a carbon atom. Therefore we call this isotope C13. The 12.011 atomic weight that you see in the periodic table is a function of the natural abundance of not just the 'normal' carbon with the atomic weight of 12, but also of all the carbon in the environment that exists in heavier (or lighter) isotopes. Whew.

Now, when any living thing (the predator) eats something else (the prey), the isotopes in the prey move up the food chain into that predators living tissue. The interesting thing is that the lighter isotopes are selected to run that predators various metabolic processes, while the heavier isotopes, like C13, remain sequestered in the predators living tissues. If this predator is consumed by something else, then these heavier isotopes bioaccumulate up the food chain. So if C13 concentrations increase as they move higher up in the food chain, then by analyzing this concentration of C13 of various organisms in an ecosystem, someone could see who was on top of the food chain, who was on the bottom, and any organism in between.

Lucky for us, there is a machine that can analyze these heavy isotopes! These measurements of the relative amount of heavy isotopes in an organisms living tissue are called isotopic signatures.

But wait! That's not all! Depending on how the plants photosynthesize in an ecosystem, the concentration of heavy isotopes, thus the isotopic signatures, differentiates. For example, marsh plants photosynthesize differently than most other plants (which is another topic for a another time). Thus all the organisms that use the mash will have a unique 'marsh' isotopic signature while organisms inland will have a different isotopic signature and so forth.

So what does this have to do with shrikes? Well, it may help answer the question on whether or not we have the endangered migratory subspecies L. l. migrans wintering here in Georgia. In Georgia, shrikes live in many habitats including agricultural fields, open pine forests, and even on the coast. If you were to collect a feather from a shrike that was grown in each of these ecosystems, you would presumably get different isotopic signatures for each habitat type. Now feathers are neat because they 'freeze' the isotopic signature of wherever that feather was grown. So if a feather was grown in an inland breeding ground, but then that bird moved and grew more feathers on a coastal wintering ground then those two feather types grown in different habitats should have different isotopic signatures. If you get two distinct isotopic signatures from two different feathers from ONE bird, then that bird must have migrated between its breeding and wintering grounds, i.e. there is a strong chance that this bird may be L. l. migrans!

This is just one application of stable isotope analysis in ecological research, but I figured I have bored you enough already (if you have managed to stay with me for this long).... So here are some pictures of Loggerhead Shrikes from my latest outing around Athens, GA! Special thanks to Vanessa and DeeAnne for helping on that frigid day!

Tall Timbers Research Station

2008-11-30T16:05:00.003-05:00

This past weekend I went down to Tall Timbers Resear ch Station to color band Loggerhead Shrikes to see if the bands will actually stay on the birds. Our worry is that these ferocious birds are ripping the bands off and spittin' them out. We hope that with continued surveillance at Tall Timbers, we can see if this suspicion is merely paranoia or not.

It was amazing to see these birds in the majestic Longleaf Pine Ecosystem, and knowing that this is the original shrike habitat adds a certain wildness to the whole experience. I think that wildness comes from the plethora of species diversity that surrounded me there, making it hard to focus only on shrikes. I wish I could spend a month there just running around looking for as many plants and wildlife as I could find and just observing. Superficially, that idea seems like a waste of time for me; a whole month I could spend doing school work, researching, or writing my thesis. But in the back of my mind, I know it's not.

How to band a shrike (don't try this a home)

2008-11-17T18:37:00.007-05:00

So I didn't do anything bird related last weekend... I know. It's shocking. So I thought I would describe how I catch Loggerhead Shrikes.

First, AND MOST IMPORTANT, we acquire all the appropriate permits. Trapping any wildlife without the appropriate permits and training is highly illegal. (Not to mention, harmful to the critter.)

Then, we drive around areas where there have been reports of folks seeing Loggerhead Shrikes, like agricultural areas in Laurens County, Georgia.

Once we see a shrike, we get the trap ready, drive slowly up to the shrike and set the trap on the ground.

The trap is a large cage with a smaller cage inside. The small cage has a white mouse inside for bait (Don't worry, the small cage prevents the shrike from touching the mouse). The door to the big cage is held open by a wire that is attached to a lever that the shrike lands on when it enters the big cage. Once the shrike hits the lever, the wire moves out from under the door and the shrike is trapped inside.

Once the Shrike is caught, we first place a metal US Fish and Wildlife Service band on its leg and sometime we place color bands on its leg in order to identify it later.

We 'process' the bird by taking measurements on bill, wing, and tail feather dimensions.

We age and sex the bird and then we try to get a sense of its nutritional condition by looking at its fat between its furcula (fused clavicle), which is also know as the 'wishbone.'

Next we weigh the bird.

Then we let it go!

So why do we put the bird through all this torture? Well, this information is sent to a larger database at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, and with this data we can begin to understand the population dynamics of this species. Considering their species is declining and we don't know why, this is valuable information.

Panola State Park Banding

2008-11-11T21:25:00.005-05:00

Here's the list of birds seen and banded plus a few pictures from banding at Panola State Park last Saturday, Nov. 8th.

This is the kind of diversity you can only find in native grasslands! Once this site is managed for invasives we'll get even more!

Location: Panola Mountain SP
Observation date: 11/8/08
Number of species: 38

Canada Goose 8
Great Blue Heron 1
Black Vulture 40
Turkey Vulture 15
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Mourning Dove 50
Red-bellied Woodpecker 2
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
Pileated Woodpecker 2
Eastern Phoebe 2 banded one bird
Blue Jay 7
American Crow 12
Carolina Chickadee 3
Carolina Wren 2 banded one
House Wren 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 2
Eastern Bluebird 10
American Robin 75
Northern Mockingbird 3 captured 2
Brown Thrasher 1
European Starling 40
Eastern Towhee 2
Chipping Sparrow 15 banded 2
Field Sparrow 10 banded 6
Vesper Sparrow 1
Savannah Sparrow 15 banded 7
Song Sparrow 70 banded 23, captured 5 others
Swamp Sparrow 50 banded 27, captured 1 other
White-throated Sparrow 15 banded one
White-crowned Sparrow 1 banded one hatch year bird
Dark-eyed Junco 3
Northern Cardinal 2
Red-winged Blackbird 100
Eastern Meadowlark 15
Brown-headed Cowbird 120
American Goldfinch 25 banded one hatch year female

Swamp Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Where shrikes lived before barbed wire

2008-11-10T20:38:00.009-05:00

This past weekend a group of volunteers from across Georgia came together to work with DNR biologists and managers to participate in collecting native grass seeds to redistribute in areas where the native vegetation has been replaced by exotic, invasive plants. Restoration efforts, likes the one this weekend at Panola Mountain State Park and Sprewell Bluff State Park, epitomize the type of conservation efforts that are so desperately needed if we wish to conserve the biodiversity our state has been blessed with. This is where the real work gets done. Not in the ivory towers of academia, not behind a desk, but out in the field. Well... I take that back, (even though all of us would like to spend all our time in the great outdoors.) If not for the work of researchers and planners, the on-the-ground work would never materialize. (Being a grad student, I should know better than to criticize the ivory towers I spend my typical day in, but that is neither here nor there.)

When I was growing up, trees were trees, grass was grass, birds were birds, etc. I had an appreciation of the wild things around me, but I had no idea of the historical landscape of our state. I did not know which species were native versus which were exotic. The only exotic, invasive species I remember anyone talking about when I was growing up was Kudzu, but I always thought it looked kind of neat. So it came as a big shock in my undergrad schooling, to learn that most of our native warm-season grasses were being out competed by exotic cool-season grasses. I was amazed to learn that Georgia's ecosystems were largely fire-dependent, and that years of fire suppression and development have severely reduced and fragmented our native landscape. As the habitat diminished, so did the species who called these places home.

The loss of native grasslands in Georgia has largely gone unnoticed, but it is an ecosystem that is vital to a myriad of species which forms the trophic base for the surrounding ecosystems. The abundant plant diversity gives rise to abundant invertebrate, rodent, and avian diversity , which, in turn, facilitates herpetafauna and carnivore diversity, and so on. But these places are almost gone. While habitat loss is the easily recognized culprit, fire suppression is just as guilty. As the landscape goes through succession, certain grasses get crowded out, some grasses remain, and pine forests emerge. If fire suppression continues, hardwoods will eventually out compete the pines. As the canopy closes up, the remaining grasses go away. While big, beautiful hardwood forests are valuable, so are all the other stages of forest succession; stages which are maintained by fire. Entire communities have evolved within this framework.

It took a long time to destroy this habitat and it will take a long time restore it. Additionally, it will take some pretty drastic measures bring it back. Woody vegetation is removed manually and by herbicides. Exotic grass is just about impossible to control manually, so more chemicals are used combined with a prescription of fire. The ground becomes scorched, but out of the ashes, and on top of the bare mineral soil, native grass arises. Long lost habitat is restored.

A lot of people ask me where did Loggerhead Shrikes live before pastureland and barbed wire fences. This is the answer.

My dad collecting yellow Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) at Panola Mountain State Park

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustus) habitat where we collected seeds at Sprewell Bluff State Park

At Sprewell Bluff State Park the fall colors were phenomenal as is exemplified by this tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera)

Greetings!

2008-10-26T22:26:00.000-04:00

The Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus) is an amazing bird that is experiencing population decline throughout it's range and we are not sure why. Here in Georgia, a team consisting of researchers, state wildlife officials, bird conservation experts, and myself hope to explore, understand, and conserve this ecologically valuable, yet dwindling species and its habitat. This project is part of a much larger effort to preserve biodiversity in order to maintain the ecological services that we all depend on. As a grad student, my adventure has just begun.

Even though the focus of this blog will consists of updates and personal thoughts on my research, my hope is to get folks interested in the project and to develop and maintain an open dialog of not just my project, but of any relevant conservation work going on in the Southeast; from university research to environmental education to personal wildlife observations.