Category Archives: Books & Events

Parrot Confidential

Bird Behavior, Books & Events

Blue and Gold Macaw (photo Courtesy of Joe Brunette/©2013 THIRTEEN Productions LLC)

No one knows for sure how many parrots are kept as pets in the U.S. — maybe 10-40 million — but we’re about to learn one thing: Thousands of them lose their homes each year and thousands more desperately need to leave their current situation.

On Wednesday November 13, PBS NATURE will premiere Parrot Confidential, the story of these intelligent, social, still-wild birds and their plight when a home with humans doesn’t work out.

Most parrots have successful relationships with their owners.  This is the untold story of the failures.  Jamie McLeod of Santa Barbara Bird Sanctuary explains, “People will say, ‘I want a bird that talks, that’s quiet, and that doesn’t bite.’  And that species has not yet been discovered.”  As a result, she says, “People typically keep parrots 2-4 years. The birds live 80 years.  Crunch those numbers out and there’s a lot of unwanted parrots out there.”

There are many reasons why a parrot-human relationship sours despite everyone’s best intentions.  The birds are highly social and demand lots of interaction and stimulation; in the wild they would never be alone.  Parrots take several years to become sexually mature and when they do they choose a mate.  In the absence of their own species they choose a member of the household, sometimes treating the rest of the family with aggression.  Changes in the human and pet family structure can trigger a parrot upset: the death of a loved one or addition of a new family member.  Some birds cope with stress by screaming, plucking and biting.

Unfortunately when a parrot needs a new home there aren’t enough shelters.  Some birds are emotionally scarred and go out for adoption over and over again.  The stories are sad but there are bright spots in the show to warm your heart:

  • There are dedicated parrot owners who love their birds and work to find what’s best for them.
  • The rescuers are real heroes.  Some have saved hundreds of parrots.
  • Some rescued parrots find a soul-mate of their own species at the shelter.
  • Because scarlet macaws are endangered in the wild, the ARA Project breeds rescued macaws in Costa Rica and releases their offspring to the forest.

I shed a few tears for the parrots, but partly for joy at the scarlet macaws flying free in Costa Rica.

Don’t miss Parrot Confidential on PBS NATURE, November 13 at 8:00pm EST.  In Pittsburgh watch it on WQED.

 

(photo of blue-and-gold macaw courtesy Joe Brunette/©2013 THIRTEEN Productions LLC)

p.s. See the comments for a discussion of parrot longevity.

Update on November 21:  Watch the entire show online at the Parrot Confidential website.

Messing With Our Clocks

Books & Events

Human biological clock (image from Wikimedia Commons)

Tonight we turn the clocks back and gain an hour of sleep.

The rest of nature will stay in the same time zone and on the same circadian rhythm it’s been using for a long time.  Our bodies will too.  They aren’t going to jog an hour just because we told them to.

This graphic from Wikimedia Commons looks complicated but it shows why this is going to happen.  Our bodies have a circadian rhythm that triggers on daylight.

Click on the image to see the original graphic — and larger print — showing our circadian rhythm at the equinox.  Since we have only 10.5 hours of daylight right now in Pittsburgh, the top of the graph is probably compressed.  Sunrise today is 7:51am (where the graphic says 6:00). Sunset today is 18:15 (where the graphic says 18:00).

But tomorrow morning we will be magically transported to the Rio de Janiero time zone.

Until my circadian rhythm adjusts I’m not going to be myself.

 

(image by Yassine Mrabet from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)

Ready For Halloween

Books & Events, Mammals

Badger (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

The American badger is ready for Halloween.  He always wears a mask.

This nocturnal member of the weasel family isn’t found in Pennsylvania but occurs from western Ohio to the California coast.  He makes a living by digging for small burrowing animals, especially mice, squirrels and prairie dogs so his favorite places are grasslands where the soil is easy to dig and his prey is abundant.  That’s a habitat rarely found in Pennsylvania.

American badgers are nature’s backhoes but they work at night and are usually alone.  This makes them hard to watch and census.  Even so, we can guess they’ve declined or are missing from areas where prairie dogs have been eradicated.

For a 24 minute window on the badger’s life, watch this 1970 video from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom which filmed them during the day.  I must say it brought back memories to see Marlin Perkins again.

 

 

(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original.  Video from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom Season 8 Episode 108, Released 01/01/70)

Before Columbus’ Day

Books & Events, Musings & News
Statue of Christopher Columbus by Frank Vittor, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh PA (photo by Piotrus via Wikimedia Commons)
Christopher Columbus monument, Schenley Park, Pittsburgh (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

14 October 2013

When I learned American history in grade school, Christopher Columbus’ arrival on October 12, 1492 was Day One.  So little was said of the people and habitat that preceded his landing that it seemed nothing happened until he got here.  I learned that North America was an empty wilderness, barely inhabited.  By the time the English settlers arrived it was indeed empty, but it wasn’t like that before the first Columbus Day.

My perception of the western hemisphere changed forever when I read 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann (Knopf, 2005).  Examining scientific, historical and archaeological evidence, Mann describes what the continents were like before European infectious disease unwittingly changed everything in less than 200 years.  For example…

In 1491 the human population in the Americas was greater than that of Europe, the Central Mexican Plateau the most densely populated place on earth.  Unfortunately American Indians had no immunity to European diseases. Once the flame was lit their contact with each other and with escaped pigs from the Spanish expeditions fanned the plagues across the continents over and over again.  In the 150 years between First Contact (the first Columbus Day) and the first English settlers, 95% of the American Indian population died.

This emptied the hemisphere of its keystone species — humans.  Without the agricultural and hunting pressure of 100 million people the forest grew and other species took over.  For instance, Mann explains that passenger pigeons and bison were not numerous when American Indians ruled the continent but their populations exploded in the sudden the absence of humans.  Wow!

Sometimes while hiking I find a trace in the forest of a former homestead — a row of stones that bordered a field, an apple tree engulfed by weeds, a Norway spruce alone in the woods.  Nature took over the site but I can see the past because someone told me what to look for.  The settlers who arrived in the 1600’s found the continental equivalent of old field succession but no one was there to explain it.

Mann’s book gave me a window on the world before Columbus Day.  If you haven’t read 1491 I highly recommend it.

(statue of Christopher Columbus by Frank Vittor, erected by the Sons of Columbus in Schenley Park, Pittsburgh, in 1958. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the caption to see the original)

RADical Day — Free Admission to the National Aviary – Oct 6

Books & Events

Regional Asset District Logo

RADical Days, an annual event now in its 12th year, is sponsored by the Allegheny Regional Asset District (RAD) and its funded assets to thank the public for the sales tax funds that support the region’s parks, libraries, sports and civic facilities and programs, and arts and culture organizations.

Visit the National Aviary on October 6th from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. for no cost to all!

Duck Watching Downtown

Books & Events

Two ducks on the Allegheny River, mallard and giant rubber ducky (photo by Kate St. John)

Last night I went duck watching in Downtown Pittsburgh.

It’s easy to identify the large duck. Look closely and you’ll see he has company, a mallard in the foreground.

Rubber ducky is huge!  Here he’s about to go under the Ft. Duquesne Bridge.

Giant rubber ducky about to go under the Ft. Duquesne Bridge, Pittsburgh, 27 Sep 2013 (photo by Kate St. John)

Read more about the rubber duck and see photos and videos of his debut at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, KDKA and Pittsburgh Magazine.

See him for yourself on the Allegheny River near the Point.  He’ll be watching Downtown until (approximately) October 20.

 

(photos by Kate St. John)

Giant Bird Coming To Pittsburgh

Books & Events

Florentijn Hofman's Giant Rubber Duck in Syndey Harbor (photo courtesy of Florentijn Hofman's Rubber Duck Project)

Pittsburgh bird watchers!  In case you haven’t heard, the largest duck on the planet is migrating to our three rivers on September 27.

Last seen in Hong Kong Harbor, Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck is making his very first visit to the United States and has chosen to land in Pittsburgh thanks to the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s International Festival of Firsts.

Rumor has it he will begin his U.S. voyage on the Ohio River near the West End Bridge, swimming upstream to roost on the Allegheny River near the Roberto Clemente Bridge (a.k.a. the Sixth Street Bridge) — but check here at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust website for last minute details.

As you can imagine his movements are constrained by his height, reputed to be 50 feet tall.  (There is some disagreement on this.  Some media outlets say he’s only 40 feet tall.  We’ll have to ask the American Ornithologists’ Union for a ruling on this.)

Don’t miss this opportunity to add this species to your Life List!

September 27 in Pittsburgh.  Be there!

 

(photo of the Rubber Duck in Hong Kong harbor courtesy of Florentijn Hofman’s Rubber Duck Project. Click on the duck to watch a video of him in Hong Kong)

Resident or Migratory?

Books & Events, Water and Shore

Flock of Canada geese on pond in Ottawa, Canada (photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Normally we don’t pay much attention to the immigration status of Canada geese but it’s going to be an important distinction in Pennsylvania when early Canada goose hunting season opens today.

It seems hard to believe but the subspecies Branta canadensis maxima (Giant Canada Goose) was nearly extinct in 1900 due to overhunting and habitat change.  Many states conducted reintroduction programs to help the geese along.  Here in Pennsylvania the birds so did well that there are nearly 280,000 resident maxima Canada geese, almost double the management goal of 150,000.

How do you determine the citizenship status of a Canada goose?   By time of year and location.  Only Pennsylvania residents are here in September.  Migratory geese won’t be leaving Canada until the lakes begin to freeze in October and even then the South James Bay population visits the northwest corner of the state (Lake Erie to Pymatuning) and the Atlantic population stays well east of the Appalachians and south of I-80.  In most of Pennsylvania, Canada geese are residents.

Why don’t our resident geese migrate?

Geese travel in family groups which collect at staging areas to join larger flocks.  The young geese learn the migratory paths from their parents.  If their parents don’t migrate the whole family stays put.  The reintroduced geese had no one to teach them to migrate so they and their descendants live here year round.

The resident geese know our habits and will gather in the no-hunt zones this month.  You may see more of them on our city rivers and in county parks in the days ahead.

Meanwhile, remember that fall is here and with it comes hunting season.  Wear blaze orange, especially if you visit State Gamelands where it’s required even if you’re not hunting.

 

(photo of Canada geese in Ottawa, Ontario from Wikimedia Commons.  These geese are migratory.  Click on the image to see the original)

Earthflight Begins Sept. 4

Books & Events

Snow geese migrate through Monument Valley, Utah (photo courtesy of John Downer Productions, PBS Nature, WNET)

Next month the six-part BBC series Earthflight will come to PBS Nature starting September 4.

The series by John Downer Productions follows birds in flight on six continents using camera techniques and close ups reminiscent of the 2001 film Winged Migration.

I previewed the “North America” segment and like Earthflight better, not only because the camera technology has improved and miniaturized, but because Downer’s producers let the birds lead us to natural phenomena from the birds’ perspective.  Brown pelicans over Baja California show us the amazing water dance of “devil” stingrays.  Great egrets in South Carolina reveal where dolphins purposely beach themselves to herd fish.

The series took four years to produce, in part because key birds in the film were imprinted from birth on humans and raised to be comfortable with cameras, ultralights and microlights.  John Downer himself became an accidental “mother” to a duck whose egg he was delivering to a cameraman. The egg hatched in transit and the duckling immediately assumed Downer was its mother. She followed him everywhere for almost a year.  “It was a total commitment,” Downer said, “but one that rewarded me with one of the best moments of my life as it flew alongside me in a parascender.”

The episodes are packed with birds and wonders:

  • North America, Sept 4, stars snow geese, bald eagles, brown pelicans, whales and the “devil” rays.
  • Africa, Sept 11, follows vultures, cape gannets, flamingos and the great migrations of wildebeest and sardines (chaos in the ocean; a sky full of diving gannets).
  • Europe, Sept 18, features white storks, cranes, sand martins (watch them drink and bathe while flying), and — bonus for Peregrine Fans — 20 million starlings trying to out-fly the peregrines in Rome.
  • South America, Sept 25, follows condors, swifts, hummingbirds and scarlet macaws.  See the Nazca lines with the birds.
  • Asia and Australia, Oct 2, stars demoiselle cranes, bar-headed geese (at 27,000 feet over the Himalayas), pigeons, rainbow lorikeets and Japanese cranes dancing in the snow.
  • Flying High, Oct 9, shows how the series was made, the birds who starred in the show, and unexpected mishaps including the time when the camera crew lost snow geese (temporarily) in Brooklyn, NY.

Watch Earthflight on PBS Nature beginning September 4 at 8:00pm EDT.  In Pittsburgh it’s on WQED.

 

(photo courtesy of John Downer Productions, PBS Nature, WNET)