On Throw Back Thursday:
Some birds have scientific names that repeat themselves.
Read about this odd bird’s odd name in this vintage article from July 2010: Double Names
(photo from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original)
On Independence Day the bald eagle, our national bird, is front and center in many of our celebrations.
What are the national birds of other countries? Here are just a few.
Canada: Canada Jay formerly called the Gray Jay until 2018.
Though it’s awaiting official approval, Canadians voted in 2016 to make the Canada jay (Perisoreus canadensis) their national bird. Canada jays are found in Minnesota, too, where Jessica Botzan photographed this one.
United Kingdom: Robin, or the European Robin
The European robin (Erithacus rubecula) is a small bird that’s especially loved in Britain because he’s relatively unafraid of people. The robin is known to hop next to gardeners as they dig the soil so he can look for newly exposed insects.
Finland: Whooper Swan, Laulujoutsen in Finnish
Pronounced “hooper,” the whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus) ranges from Iceland to the Kamchatka peninsula. Larger than our tundra swan, it’s a majestic bird that breeds in Finland and northern Eurasia.
Mexico, Afghanistan, Albania, Germany (unofficial) and Scotland (unofficial): Golden Eagle
The golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) is a powerful bird of prey that can bring down a deer with his talons. His range extends across the northern hemisphere, including North and Central America and Eurasia. His majestic power makes him a potent symbol for many countries.
(photo credits:
bald eagle by Dana Nesiti, Eagles of Hays PA on Facebook
gray jay by Jessica Botzan
European robin and whooper swan from Wikimedia Commons; click in the images to see the originals
golden eagle by Michael Lanzone)
14 May 2017
Early this month I wrote about the decline of nighthawks, swifts and swallows and the parallel decline of their food supply, flying insects. Why are insects declining? In a comment Gene suggested that, in addition to insecticides, herbicides play a role. Here’s why that makes sense.
I’m a city person so farm practices are somewhat mysterious to me. Nonetheless, in the last 20 years I’ve noticed a change in how the fields look in the spring. They used to green up with the rest of the landscape but now most of them are brown and as empty as parking lots like the one shown above. There are no birds here, no swallows wheeling overhead.
The fields look different because herbicides are used to control the weeds. There are different poisons for different crops — for instance one for soybeans, another for corn — and the crops are engineered so they can grow in the presence of specific poisons.
Herbicides are a very labor saving device. When applied in the fall they keep the fields weed free all winter right up to spring planting. Consequently, the fields don’t have to be tilled (that’s why they look like parking lots). The absence of plants means there are no insects, another benefit for the crop.
As the growing season begins you can tell where herbicide has been used because there’s a stark mechanical line between treated fields and the neighboring untreated landscape.
Here’s a field where there are birds.
Yes, those plants are weeds. They will probably be treated with herbicide soon and the field will turn from green to yellow as they die.
Because of herbicides and insecticides, large scale farming takes less work. Millions of acres of U.S. farmland are truly empty now. No plants. No insects. No birds here.
p.s. As I say, I’m a city person and don’t know much about farming so if I’ve got it wrong please leave a comment to correct me. … To which Dave C left this comment:
“Those fields are sprayed in the springtime and will be planted with corn and or soybeans.
These crops are called” Roundup ready crops” (as in Montsanto’s Round up that everyone buys to kill weeds around home).”
(photos by Kate St. John)
3 May 2017
Common nighthawks are my “Spark Bird,” the species that turned me into a birder.
Nighthawks are due back in Pittsburgh soon but their population has declined precipitously in this century. Fifteen years ago I used to see flocks of 20 to 30 nighthawks swooping over our neighborhood ballpark. Now I’m lucky to see just one.
This week I learned that chimney swifts and bank swallows are declining, too. Most of it happened in this century. Trouble everywhere. And so I wonder: Do these species share a trait that’s causing their mutual decline?
Is it a problem with their nesting sites? The answer is mixed.
Is it a problem where they spend the winter? Do they all go to the same place? Not exactly.
Do they eat similar food? Yes! All of them eat flying insects!
There’s a common thread. Recent studies have shown that around the world invertebrates including insects have declined 45% in the last 40 years and in Germany insect biomass has declined 81% from 1989 to 2014. Though insect decline has happened across the spectrum, it’s not something that’s made headline news except for two species not eaten by these birds: monarch butterflies and honeybees.
With such a massive drop in flying insects it’s no wonder that the birds who eat them have declined. And there’s another interesting side effect. The fish that eat flying insects are declining as well. Discovered in the U.K. in 2003, this problem threatens the fly fishing industry.
A massive decline in flying insects and the birds and fish that eat them indicates we have a large and widespread problem. It’s something in the environment and my hunch is that it’s caused by us.
We humans are ignoring it at our peril.
Here are resources for learning more:
(drawing of common nighthawk by Bob Hines, US Fish and Wildlife, in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
So far so good. The three nestlings at the Cathedral of Learning are all well fed and growing. Every day we gain more confidence that they’ll thrive.
Meanwhile we’re still puzzled why their mother, Hope, killed and ate the first-hatching chick as well as two of her four chicks last year. We don’t know the answer but we have many theories. It reminds me of a famous quote from Flannery O’Connor in Habit of Being (p. 502):
“The Theories are worse than the Furies.”
So who are the Furies?
According to Wikipedia, the Erinyes [also called the Furies] are ancient Greek goddesses from the underworld. They hear complaints brought by mortals against the insolence of the young to the aged, of children to parents, of hosts to guests, and of householders or city councils to suppliants. They punish those crimes by hounding the culprits relentlessly and hitting them with brass-studded scourges. Their victims die in torment.
Their most famous gig was to torment Orestes for killing his mother Clytemnestra who had an affair and killed his father Agamemnon. Orestes avenged his father’s murder but created a really big mess (read more here). John Singer Sargent’s painting of Orestes Pursued by the Furies shows how awful the Furies can be.
The Theories can be relentless, too.
We have lots of theories about Hope but no data to confirm or disprove them. (Hope eats the evidence.) The only thing we know is that she has repeated the behavior two years in a row and it’s so abnormal that we can find only a handful of similar incidents in all the history of peregrine nest monitoring.
We don’t have an answer but we can make ourselves crazy.
The Theories are worse than the Furies!
(photo of Hope and chicks from the National Aviary falconcam at the University of Pittsburgh. Reproduction of John Singer Sargent’s “Orestes Pursued by the Furies” from Wikimedia Commons; click on the image to see the original)
There’s a birding hotspot at Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania that attracts some of the rarest birds in the state. It also attracts intrepid birders willing to make the one and a half mile hike from the parking lot … until now.
Gull Point is the eastern tip of a feather-shaped sand spit that arcs out to create Erie harbor. The tip is closed from April 1 to November 30 to protect wildlife from human intrusion. Now it’s even more protected. On March 10 Gull Point became an island.
Jerry McWilliams reported it on PABIRDS:
Date: Fri Mar 10 2017 9:39 pm
Hello Birders and Gull Point hikers.
With the high winds the last 24 hours or so, it has finally happened. Lake Erie cut a channel through Gull Point Trail to Thompson Bay about half way out to Gull Point on Presque Isle S.P., PA. Gull Point is now an island. The breach is about 30 to 40 feet across, and for now it is only about six inches deep. The lake level is predicted to continue rising into June or July, so the channel is likely to deepen especially following storms. Even after crossing the channel you still can’t access Gull Point Trail since the trail is washed away for the next 100 or so feet before it begins again. Because the honeysuckle and bayberry is so thick it is impossible to try to walk through to reach Gull Point Trail, so you need to walk along the brushline. Hip boots will be required for now to make it to the trail.
The sand always moves at Presque Isle but this breach was hastened by our exceptionally warm winter. Normally, ice on the lake prevents high waves during winter storms but there’s no ice this month so the waves crashed in. Who knew!
The trail looked like this a year ago …
… but knee boots are not enough now!
Park management will assess the situation after the winter storms subside.
It’s humanly possible to reconnect Gull Point to the peninsula if you have enough money. But the sand will keep moving and it will breach again. Nature wins the battle every time.
Read more here at GoErie.com.
(map of Presque Isle State Park’s Gull Point embedded from Google Maps, plus a marked up screenshot of the same Google map)
Are you feeling exhausted this morning?
Well, it’s going to last about three days.
Last night we turned our clocks forward for Daylight Saving Time (DST). I’m no fan of changing the clocks and complain about it in the fall but, in fact, the worst physical effects occur in the spring.
Just like plants and animals we have internal clocks that cue on daylight, so artificially “moving” sunrise and sunset and losing an hour of sleep messes up our circadian rhythm. Studies have shown there are at least three bad effects: There’s an increase in heart attacks during the first three days of Daylight Saving Time. There are more road accidents on the first Monday (tomorrow). And many people have sleep problems until their circadian clocks reset.
Everyone is grouchy, even the kids.
What would it be like if we didn’t change the clocks? Arizona(*) and Hawaii stay on Standard Time and they aren’t suffering this morning … except for one thing. They’re annoyed by the time zone difference. Arizona’s clock is now three hours later than Pennsylvania’s, not two.
Don’t worry. We’ll all feel better by Friday. Meanwhile ….
Yawwwn! 😮
(clipart from clipart-library.com. Click on the image to see the original)
(*) The Navajo Nation within Arizona does use Daylight Saving Time.
On Throw Back Thursday:
Why can’t ostriches fly?
Answer: Because the dinosaurs went extinct.
Amazingly, this is true of emus, rheas, cassowaries, and the extinct moa, too.
Read how it happened in this vintage 2010 article: Why Don’t They Fly?
(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original)
When it comes to disasters it’s hard to beat the asteroid that hit Earth 66 million years ago and wiped out three-quarters of the plants and animals, including the dinosaurs.
The asteroid hit near the Yucatan and fried everything within 1,500 km (930 miles) — a huge area that includes Cuba, Florida, and a wide arc to Myrtle Beach, Nashville, Dallas and central Mexico. The impact left behind a huge crater called Chicxulub, half of which is underwater today.
Last year geologists pulled core samples from the crater’s underwater peaks and discovered an amazing thing. Life came back to the crater’s edge in only hundreds, not millions, of years.
The pioneering organisms were microscopic plankton, members of Thoracosphaera (spheres) and Braarudosphaera (dodecahedrons), whose tiny shells were found just above the devastation line. Here are examples of these tiny structures, so small that they can only be seen with an electron microscope.
Even though the ocean was toxic at the time, plankton recolonized it rapidly after Earth’s fifth mass extinction.
Oddly enough, this makes me hopeful.
Based on Earth’s current extinction rate of 1,000 times the normal background rate (predicted to become 10 times worse) scientists believe we’re at the start of the sixth mass extinction. I’ve already seen population declines in many of my favorite birds and I worry for the future of all plants and animals … and humans, too.
Life came back really fast after the last mass extinction. I hope it will do so again.
Read more here in Science News.
(painting of asteroid impact by Donald E. Davis in public domain, Thorascosphaere photo from Wikimedia Commons, Braarudosphaera bigelowii image linked from DodecaBeing blog. Click on the images to see the originals.)
p.s. The February 13&20, 2017 issue of The New Yorker has a great cartoon about the asteroid. Click here to see.
And now for something completely different. Here’s a fact I found surprising. Maybe you will, too.
Did you know that silver kills bacteria?
And even weirder: Did you know silver turns dead bacteria into zombies that kill more bacteria? Here’s how.
It sounds wonderful but silver isn’t useful in every situation. Read this Wikipedia article about the medical uses of silver before you use it.
Weird and wonderful.
(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original.)