What is Leah doing these days?

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In addition to some gardening (and when Leah does gardening with her sister Marian, they are SERIOUS about it!), Leah is working on a variety of projects this summer. More below....


















Leah is working on her studio again. If you follow this blog, you may remember she and I and her brothers and nephews are restoring an old building on their family's farm. Last August, we poured a new foundation, then in September we moved the building to its new location, and raised the building 2 feet (that is, it is 2 feet taller than it once was). That's a lot easier to say than to do! Now we're removing old siding, preparing to put insulation in the roof and knee-wall, and removing other sections which will be replaced. If you'd like to see video from last summer of the building being moved, go to this link.

more alternative ornithological (and other) news

See updates from the Boreal Bird Initiative at this link - you'll find a lot of worthwhile reading, there.



NABCI, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, has published its summer newsletter; see a copy of it here.



Ecology and Society, the excellent online journal, has a recent issue - you'll find it linked here.



The Chicago Park District is now including bird-safe design in its building planning. See more about that.


The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has some bird-related news online here.

following an ethical path when bird-finding in the nesting season

Remembering that some species can be sensitive to playing tapes, please refrain from tape use when seeking rare, endangered or threatened bird species during the nesting season. While there is certainly a lot of disagreement about this topic, I highly recommend reading the WBCI Issues Committee ethics paper, found here. This paper may be re-done in the future, because there is always much discussion and re-thinking on ethical matters in birding. Some aspects of that paper will eventually be revisited. General rules can be provided, but not every situation is the same. You may be with a professionally-guided tour group, for example, and the leader might make use of the tape. If that is done in a judicious manner, it may be completely acceptable, and do no harm to nesting birds. On the other hand, a string of individuals visiting a site and each playing a recording may be confusing and disrupting to nesting birds. Why not "take the high road" on this? Protecting nesting birds is important for the future of the species, AND for future birders and birding opportunities as well. I always suggest thinking deeply about any valuable or important activity; you might be surprised by your conclusions!

bird conservation news, carbon footprints and travel, more ornithology notes

Bird Conservation News Items

There is news on the American Bird Conservancy BirdWire newsletter: links to news stories are here.

News from the Point Reyes Bird Observatory is here.

BirdLife International news stories are here.

You can subscribe to ABC's electronic newsletter here.

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Traveling Far?

If you're traveling a long distance this year, consider rail travel to reduce your carbon footprint. Although we don't have many high-speed rail lines in the US as yet, here's an example from HSR in Europe: a rail passenger in Spain on the Madrid-Barcelona line accounts for only one-sixth of the carbon emissions of an airplane passenger traveling the same distance. Regular rail travel via AMTRAK in this country still moves a lot of people at lower carbon emissions than air travel. There is admittedly some disagreement about this. Learn more about the carbon footprint of your mode of travel (and more) here at the Nature Conservancy calculator webpage.

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Research News from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center is available at this link. Other items from the SMBC are found here, and a scientific paper relating to one of this past winter's famous news stories is here.

conservation, environment & ornithology news

News from BirdLife International can be found at this link.

If you've never looked at it before, try the site of the Great Lakes Information Network, here -- lots of valuable information.

The United Nations Environment Programme website has some new features worth investigating. One interesting feature is the Atlas of Biodiversity, for example. Set up the world map in any one of several ways - to see the distribution of threatened bird species, click on making that feature the active layer.

A long list of pdf documents on birds and conservation is available at the online "Conservation Library" of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, here. An excellent resource!

Learn about the development of wind power in the Great Lakes: whether you're for it or against it, you can see presentations and an agenda from the recent conference of the Great Lakes Wind Collaborative at this link. I attended this conference - it was very worthwhile.

Learn about Great Lakes United, an international advocacy organization promoting stewardship of the Great Lakes, at their website.

information on lead and wildlife, wind power and bird populations

Two important items:

Please help move us forward in 2009 in the effort to eliminate lead in hunting ammunition and fishing tackle. Lead continues to be threat to birds and other wildlife. Read an excellent editorial here.

Secondly, look for information from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the coming weeks and months regarding wind power and assessing its effects on bird populations. Last evening I attended a presentation by Dr. Ken Rosenberg and Dr. Andrew Farnsworth, at a "Cornell on the Road" series. Along with a group of other ornithologists, they are meeting in southeastern Wisconsin over the next three days to discuss "State of the Art Technology for Predicting Broad-Scale Migration and Pinpointing Local Concentrations in Real Time". This meeting is intended to discuss the uses of acoustic monitoring, radar, other monitoring methods, weather data, correlations of radar with avian density and species identification, and how models can predict both movements and concentrations of birds. The meeting will produce a "draft consensus statement" with one stated goal being the planning of research that will help in quantifying risks to birds, among others - this information will be disseminated to the ornithological community and the public in the coming months.

favorite passerines: news, research, other items

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One of my favorite warbler species, Kentucky Warbler, is very uncommon in Wisconsin, and is listed as a Threatened species here. I seldom see this species because I rarely go to Wyalusing and the other better-known haunts of this bird. I tracked a singing male for nearly an hour in Baxter's Hollow, once - and then finally found him. I recall once finding one in fall in Buckhorn State Park, in Juneau County - that was unexpected - fall records are few and far between. Read about the Kentucky here, and about some research here. Then, this link takes you to the Wisconsin All-Bird Plan species account.

Another of my favorite warbler species, Yellow-breasted Chat, is probably not a warbler after all. Some genetic research indicates this species possibly has more affinities with tanagers and/or other groups, although it remains in the AOU Check-List (for now) under warblers.

See some online resources as follows: here. See a video of a singing Yellow-breasted Chat here.
A detailed range map is available here. A gallery of images from the Visual Resources for Ornithology website is here.