Similar to the Sierra Club's partnership with sports figures that highlights the Gulf disaster, First Lady Michelle Obama teamed with baseball stars this week to talk about her "Let's Move" initiative to combat childhood obesity through activity. It's a campaign the Sierra Club is proud to be a part of and it's one element of the Club's larger commitment to getting kids outside. It's an attempt to promote not just healthy kids but healthy parks and outdoor areas for future generations.

The Club is taking part in several partnerships to get its message across. The Club is part of the Outdoor Alliance for Kids (OAK), a multi-sector coalition with a basic objective of getting families and children outside together. The Alliance is pushing for enabling legislation at the national and local levels, such as America's Great Outdoors Initiative.

Organizations such as Outdoor Nation and Natural Leaders Network have also been instrumental allies. Sierra Club partnered with the recent Outdoor Nation Youth Festival and Summit to convene more than 500 young delegates from all 50 states -- of which over 40 were Sierra Club-sponsored youth.

The Club is also focused on inner city youth who are in a particular disadvantage when it comes to outdoor access to nature. The Inner City Outings (ICO) program organizes more than 800 outings involving about 14,000 kids. Click here to access the Club's brochure and detailed summary of the 50 ICO’s that are led by volunteers across the country.

In addition to promoting the outdoors, the first lady's campaign urges healthy eating for our youth. The Sierra Club has that front covered as well. Watch our video series featuring green cooking expert Annie Somerville. And take a look at this gallery of the unhealthy kids meals at restaurant chains. The calories and sodium data will shock you.

The pond at the library. Photo by Jon Jay.

Pond scum.

I never thought I’d admire it. But watching a tiny creek that flows outside Wawona’s library turn into a seasonal pond has given me an appreciation for its merits. The pond’s not large—about the size of a classroom. And it’s not deep either—at its peak you could wade through it and not get wet above the knees. But within its borders, it contains a world of wonder and beauty, a complete habitat whose changes are both incremental and constant.

If you leave the library and look to your left, you can see the plant-filled water sitting in a tiny valley just below the parking lot. It looks like an insignificant indentation filled with snowmelt, a blip on the screen compared to Yosemite’s overwhelming grandeur. On my own, I don’t know that I would have wandered over. But for my daughter and her friends, it’s a place of pilgrimage—no walk to the library is complete without a visit.


Thanks to Stuart at the Pond Life blog for the rest of the photos.

That’s how I learned that in early spring, if you look very, very closely, you can find viscous sacs hanging from the branches and leaves that lie submerged in the water. These glutinous bags, too big and slimy for anything to eat, are known as frogspawn.

When one of my daughter’s friends gingerly picked one up, I could see that its mucous-like membrane was full of tiny little dark spheres of life. By placing it ever so carefully back where she’d found it, we left the embryos to grow until they were large enough to attach themselves to weeds growing in the water. Then they lived on pond scum—also known as algae and, according to some scientists the fuel of the future.

For now, what the algae are fueling is the growth of tadpoles into Pacific tree frogs. At first their little fishlike bodies were so small we could barely find them in the water. But now their heads are huge in comparison to their tails making them easy to see.

Their moms, however, are almost impossible to spot. In a lesson from nature that I would do well to heed, some mother frogs stay close to their offspring making sure they are protected, but never enabling them. Because unlike me, they understand at a primordial level that, after their children leave protective custody, they will have to make their own way in the world.



Luckily their parents have blessed them with an extraordinary ability to fit in. Full grown, Pacific tree frogs can not only change their skin color from brown to green and back again, they can also change their patterned markings. So perfect is their camouflage, I doubt I could find one on my own. But my daughter’s friend Rachel has perfected the gift of what I call “nature sight.”

Gazing at the same water as the rest of us, it took only the tiniest fraction of a movement for her to reach down into the algae. When her hand emerged, she held a full grown former frogspawn that was colored exactly like the pond scum it was lying in—as exquisite and perfect a creature as I have ever seen. Making me think that “pond scum” and “frogspawn” are not the nasty epithets people believe, but rather words to be met with a wry, knowing smile and the words, “Thank you for the compliment.”

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Last May, while hiking in Yosemite National Park, long-time Los Angeles resident Jamie Simons turned to her husband and said, "I want to live here." Today she and her family have made the move to live for one year in Wawona, where her daughter attends the one-room schoolhouse, Jamie writes, her husband longs for noise, fast food, people, and the city.

With the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continuing to occupy my thoughts this week, I wasn’t feeling too inspired to write a bird posting and, in fact, I missed my Wednesday timeslot for the week. A couple of things changed my mind over the last day or so though.

First, a colleague reminded me that Saturday (May 8) is International Migratory Bird Day, a day on which we’re all supposed to celebrate and revel in the amazing phenomenon that is bird migration, but which this year has a sad twist to it, given the massive threats to migrating and breeding birds posed by the oil spill in the Gulf.

Second, I was watching a morning news program at the gym today about the oil disaster, and the reporter wrapped up her broadcast with the “good news” that only two oiled birds have been recovered so far, and that one of them, a Brown Pelican, was soon going to be released back into its “natural habitat.” Now, apart from the fact that an oil-soaked Gulf is hardly a “natural” habitat, the story (which I’m sure is being repeated in many news outlets) simply ignores the ongoing and devastating problems facing birds and wildlife in and around the Gulf. For most of the media today, if a point can’t be captured in a simple sound bite or with a piece of video, they’ll just ignore the deep and subtle issues involved and focus on the “good” (or at least, simple) news.

Fortunately, there are lots of other news outlets and conservation organizations that are keeping the focus on the threats to birds and other wildlife during the time of year when they’re most vulnerable. None of it is easy reading for anyone who cares about our planet and its wildlife, but it should be essential reading for all of us.

As I mentioned last week, and as the New York Times points out, measuring the extent of this disaster isn’t just a matter of counting oiled birds scooped out of the Gulf. We’re talking about an entire ecosystem and food chain under unprecedented threats, from the eggs of blue crabs to the unpredictable effects of oil and fumes on migrating or breeding dolphins and whales. The blog of the journal Science reiterates why the timing of this is just so awful, including one I hadn’t thought of: The start of hurricane season is less than a month away.

Several conservation organizations that focus on birds and birding have great web resources, including links to updated blogs and Twitter feeds about recovery efforts and information about the spill, including the American Bird Conservancy and the American Birding Association.

And some of our broader conservation colleagues, like those at the National Audubon Society, have web pages dedicated to the spill, along with press releases about which bird species are at risk and how the oil is slowly encroaching on the crucial bird areas of the region.

Field of View, the blog of Birder’s World magazine, contributes this map of Important Bird Areas threatened by the oil, as well as suggestions for what we can all do, and links to other resources for information on the spill.

Douglas Brinkley, the author of the brilliant recent biography, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, wrote an article today about Roosevelt’s visits to some of the very islands now threatened by the spill. It’s particularly apt and poignant today because it was an understanding of how fragile that ecosystem is that led Roosevelt to create the National Wildlife Refuge system, a system that has done so much to help protect our country’s birds but which is defenseless against man-made disasters like this one.

Finally, out on the front lines of rescuing and rehabilitating the birds and other wildlife affected by the spill is a large network of groups that do just that -- they are on-call every day for large spills like this, as well as for smaller spills that don’t make the news. The Oiled Wildlife Care Network has a blog about the ongoing efforts and challenges involved with the rescue efforts, as does the International Bird Rescue Research Center. The work these groups do is essential to saving the lives of wildlife every day, and we should all think about volunteering for or supporting our local wildlife-rescue group, even when they’re not in the news.

So, no, despite the TV news reports, all is not fine for the birds of the Gulf region and their “natural habitat.” I’ve been a bit guilty of feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing, and not wanting to think (or write) about it. But when you read about just how devastating this whole thing will be, and all of the amazing efforts of the Sierra Club and other organizations to help minimize the damage, you realize that we shouldn’t (and can’t) tune this out. Otherwise, the talking heads and sound bites on TV will prevail, and we’ll learn nothing at all from this latest disaster.

Oh, and don’t forget to get outside this weekend and try and enjoy some migrating birds. It’s good for the soul and might help recharge us all for what looks to be a long and difficult recovery.

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Birding Phil started birding in Cape May, N.J. and Central Park in New York City more than 10 years ago. Since then, his birding adventures (with his wife, Mimi Calter) have included trips to Alaska, Belize, and mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, along with a bunch of other hotspots in the continental U.S., including Florida, Texas, and Arizona). Phil was included in Chris Santella's book "Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations," in which Phil talked about Pt. Reyes, CA. Birdwatchers -- head on over and join the Birdwatchers group on Trails.

You're going to have to trust me on this one. You've never seen photos like this before -- close-ups of insects covered in water droplets. You've got to check these out.

If you like insects, if you like photography, you'll be fascinated by these photos.

Just do it!

(Thanks for the tip, Drain.)

The waterfall toad in Venezuela -- a creature the size of a postage stamp -- can't hop more than a few inches, which should make it easy bait for predators.

To adapt, however, it developed feet with opposable "fingers" that enable it to escape harm in an amazing way: From its perch high above the rainforest floor, it hurls itself headlong into the air and grabs onto a branch on the way down, sometimes hanging on by one leg.

This is just one of the fascinating critters featured in Life, the Discovery Channel's follow-up to its wildly popular Planet Earth series.

The Sierra Club and Discovery Channel are teaming up to host a series of WildLIFE house parties around the country so folks can learn about these amazing creatures. We also want them to learn about how climate change threatens and wildlife and their habitat, and ask the Obama administration to take action to protect them.

Sign up to host a WildLIFE party by March 10 and we'll send you a free 40-minute sneak-peek DVD of the Life series to screen and talk about with your guests

Narrated by Oprah Winfrey, Life marvels at how our planet's wildlife have adapted in stunning and amazing ways. However, the growing threat of climate change is too big of a challenge for them to face on their own; we now need to help them survive.

Sign up to host a house party today, invite your guests to a sneak-peek of Life, the sequel to the Planet Earth series, and learn how you can take action to help protect critical habitats from the threat of climate change.

Inspired by the film, house party hosts and their guests will write letters to the Obama administration to take action to protect wildlife and their habitat from climate change.

Once you sign up, you'll receive materials that include the DVD, a step-by-step guide for how to hold a party, a fact sheet to share with guests, talking points for your letter-writing, and more.

Sign up now to host a house party and help protect our planet's most vulnerable species from climate change.

I'm not really much a birder -- OK, I'm not a birder at all. And I wouldn't exactly call myself a photographer, either. But as someone who gets out and about on hikes and bicycle rides, I can't help but notice birds, and I do occasionally manage to get a picture. Looking through my Flickr photos, I find robins, ravens, turkey vultures, herons, egrets, various hawks and, of course, pelicans -- all common sights around the Bay Area.

This shot from a couple of weeks ago, though, may be my favorite. Usually, I see pods of brown pelicans flying in formation in the Golden Gate. Lately, they've been less numerous -- they seem to have followed the sea lions who decamped from Pier 39 in search of better fishing grounds. But on this day, I did see a brown pelican perching on the fishing pier at Fort Baker, not far from the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. I zoomed in as much as I could with my point-and-shoot and slowly approached while taking pictures. When the pelican abandoned his perch and took off, I held down the shutter button for multiple exposures -- not really sure whether the bird was even still in frame.

When I got home, the one shot where the pelican was mostly in frame was had a terrible exposure, but with a little tweaking I was able to adjust it until I had this image. I desaturated the image to highlight the contrast in the bird's feathers. What really struck me was how long and powerful the wing looked when captured like this.

This is why I try to have at least a small camera with me whenever I head out on a hike, ride, or ramble.

Last Saturday, more than 10,000 people from across Florida gathered at more than 83 beaches to protest offshore drilling. These rousing events drew impressive turnout, despite chilly weather and rain, and were part of a state-wide effort called Hands Across the Sand. That effort was organized to protest attempts by Big Oil to drill in state waters (a mere 3-10 miles from the coast). The events could not have come at a more critical time, however, as Florida's waters are threatened both from federal and state efforts. It was inspirational to see people from all walks of life and political affiliations, citizens, and businesses stand together to protect their livelihoods and their economy. A few alligators, dolphins, and mermaids even showed up at several events!

The Sierra Club's Florida Chapter played an integral role in many of the events. Below are several photos that came out of the day.

This post was originally published on the Lay of the Land blog.

Someone sent me this video to check out, and I have to admit that I had very mixed feelings when I watched it. On one hand, I like the idea that there's a nice connection going on between a human and a wild animal -- like swimming with dolphins, you know? She isn't feeding it, after all, and it approaches her, not the other way 'round.

On the other hand, it seems a little dangerous. And... I don't know, maybe it's best to observe wildlife from a distance, especially when you're in a remote place.

What do you think, Trailheads?

Pacific Tree Frog. Photo courtesy Phil Eager.

OK, so this cute little Pacific Tree Frog isn’t a bird, but we saw it while out birding, so that counts, right? We were birding at Point Reyes on Sunday, trying to avoid the Super Bowl hype for a long as possible, when Mimi saw the little frog hopping in the wet.

We often hear these frogs but this was the first one we’d ever seen, and it’s amazing how well it blends in when it stops. According to the park rangers we spoke with, there were frogs all over the place during the winter rain storms, and they had to drive extra carefully along the entrance road to avoid hitting all of the frogs in the road! Even without the frog sighting, it was a lovely day with lots of good birds and other wildlife (including Tule Elk, a local specialty, and just a bit larger than the Pacific Tree Frog!). It definitely felt like an early spring day rather than early February.

In the spirit of general wildlife exploration and enjoyment, not just birds, I thought I’d point out a few photo and video highlights that I’ve come across on the web lately.

In the category of interesting non-avian sightings, a Coyote has been seen periodically in Central Park in the middle of Manhattan over the last couple of weeks. The Coyote hasn’t yet been captured (he or she is apparently laying low during the winter storms), but Bruce Yolton captured some amazing photos of the visitor crossing, and frolicking, on a frozen pond. Coyotes show up occasionally in Manhattan, and it’s always a bit of a mystery as to how they get there (or at least which bridge they take!).

Not nearly as out of place but still pretty neat is the Photo of the Week from US Fish and Wildlife Service Northeast Region’s Flickr stream: a Short-eared Owl sitting on a classic National Widlife Refuge sign in New Jersey. The Short-eared Owl is one of the highlights of some of the marshes along the Delaware Bay that are protected by the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, so maybe this owl was just showing its appreciation for the help. A cool photo, and I had no idea that the USFWS even had a Flickr account.

[Update: as Marcy points out in her comment below, as luck would have it, the photo was taken down by USFWS, so you'll just need to take my word for how cute it was. Their Flickr stream is still active, and there are some other interesting photos in there if you want to check them out. As a consolation prize, how about a Great Horned Owl?]

Starr Ranch, an Audubon California sanctuary in Southern California, is running a nifty webcam of a Barn Owl nest, and so far 3 owlets have hatched. There’s also audio, so you can hear the eerie chatter of the Barn Owls, and the chirping of the chicks, especially when a parent is nearby and tearing up a delicious rodent for their meal.

Finally, don’t forget the Great Backyard Bird Count this week. If you’re in one of the places that’s been hit with the winter storms, don’t despair. If you can dig yourself out enough to get outside and put up or refill your bird feeders, you might up end up with lots of birds this weekend.

Happy birding and happy counting!

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Birding Phil started birding in Cape May, N.J. and Central Park in New York City more than 10 years ago. Since then, his birding adventures (with his wife, Mimi Calter) have included trips to Alaska, Belize, and mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, along with a bunch of other hotspots in the continental U.S., including Florida, Texas, and Arizona). Phil was included in Chris Santella's book "Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations," in which Phil talked about Pt. Reyes, CA. Birdwatchers -- head on over and join the Birdwatchers group on Trails.

Geese at Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge, California.
Photo courtesy Phil Eager.

Sure, it might be the dead of winter where you are (or just really wet where I am) but that doesn't mean there aren't birding opportunities out there while we all wait for spring.

At this point in the birding year, migration hasn't really yet started. Most of the birds that are wintering here will stick around for a bit longer before heading north for the breeding season, so now is a great time to try and catch up with wintering waterfowl (ducks and geese) and raptors (hawks and owls), or the birds hanging out in your backyard. Gulls? Well, those are a topic for another blog posting (or two or three)!

Speaking of backyards, one fun event that’s coming up in February is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, a joint project of Cornell and Audubon. The GBBC is exactly what it sounds like: participants count birds in their backyards (or other local spots), making it a great activity even in cold or bad weather, letting you count and enjoy birds from comfort of your living room, especially if you have feeders up. It can also be a great family birding experience. The website has helpful regional checklists (handy even when not doing the count), and you can easily enter your sightings through the data entry forms on the site.

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I just stumbled on this amazing video and thought I'd share it with you (see below) for a little mid-week birding tickle. It's from the BBC show "Animal Camera," and features spectacular footage shot from two tiny cameras mounted on the back of a Golden Eagle in Scotland. It zips through forests and soars over mountainous terrain. Hold your stomach!

On a related topic, I was intrigued by this blog post from Cornell University about how new scientific information came to light when cameras were mounted on the back of a Black-browed Albatross.

Enjoy!

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Birding Phil started birding in Cape May, N.J. and Central Park in New York City more than 10 years ago. Since then, his birding adventures (with his wife, Mimi Calter) have included trips to Alaska, Belize, and mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, along with a bunch of other hotspots in the continental U.S., including Florida, Texas, and Arizona). Phil was included in Chris Santella's book "Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations," in which Phil talked about Pt. Reyes, CA. Birdwatchers -- head on over and join the Birdwatchers group on Trails.

Hope everyone’s holiday season and New Year’s were happy and birdy. We managed to do two Christmas Bird Counts this year – the Point Reyes event that we’ve done for the past six years, plus the Cape May count (which we only managed to pull off because the original date was snowed out). It was particularly fun to do counts on both coasts, in really great birding spots, to really appreciate all of the differences in bird distribution in the winter.

Speaking of the holidays, I’m guessing that a lot of us got a new iPhone or iPod Touch (or another electronic gizmo) as a gift, or a present to ourselves. Or maybe you have an iTunes gift certificate burning a hole in your pocket. If so, now is a great time to go shopping for one of the cool birding applications for your snazzy new device. Yes, there is indeed an app for that – lots of them.

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This is some amazing footage of a fox listening for -- then pouncing upon -- its prey through a thick blanket of snow. Check it out:

I like to give gifts that reflect my personality as well as the personality of the recipient. Now, I know that's not always possible. (It fact, it can be disastrous, even with some of my own family members!)  But as someone who loves wilderness and the creatures that inhabit it, I've found something that works well with most people I know.

I give them a wildlife refuge. Or a national park. Or a monument.

I do it through the Sierra Club's Wild Places campaign. You can, too, and Trails fans who do it before midnight on Sunday, December 13 will get a 15% discount (see secret code below), AND free shipping, AND a guarantee that your gift will arrive in time for Christmas.

Here's how it works: You choose the place you want to sponsor, whether it's the Great Smoky Mountains, Adirondack Park, the Arctic National Wildlife refuge -- there are ten places from which to choose. Then select your sponsorship level (they start at $20). All gifts come with a special personalized letter, certificate of sponsorship, photo and fact sheet of the wild place, and a plush wildlife animal or rucksack. To get a 15% discount, enter the code TRAILS (must be all capital letters) at checkout.

Your symbolic sponsorship supports all of the Sierra Club's efforts to protect America's wild lands and wildlife, keep our air and water clean, and solve global warming.

Just thought I'd pass that along. Give it a look-see. And if it saves you some shopping time, then you go play outside!

Yesterday, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar delivered a powerful keynote address at the UN Climate Change Conference being held in Copenhagen.  That speech, entitled "New Energy Future: The Role of Public Lands in Clean Energy Production and Carbon Capture," gave a clear message to the world just how much the Obama Administration has already accomplished moving us toward a cleaner energy economy and how we're going to finish getting there.  The Secretary made clear that our abundant lands are going to play a crucial role in that transition, both in terms of responsible renewable energy development as well as acting to naturally sequester carbon.

The speech was eloquent and meditative and deserves to be read in its entirety which can be viewed here.  Some representative highlights are excerpted below:

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During our Thanksgiving birding weekend with friends to Humboldt and Del Norte counties in northwest California, we saw a bunch of cool birds and some rare ones, the most unlikely one being a Crested Caracara, a large raptor of the Southwest which has an odd pattern of vagrancy along the California coast. However, in addition to searching out rarities, we were also paying more attention than usual to the common local birds we encountered during our trip.

 

Why, you might wonder, did we care whether we saw yet another Western Gull or Surf Scoter or American Robin when they’re all easily seen in San Francisco? The simple answer is that we’d never birded in that area before, so these were automatically new birds for our “county lists” for Humboldt and Del Norte Counties.

 

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On Wednesday, December 2, the Sierra Club partnered with a coalition of other environmental organizations to honor members of Congress who have championed efforts to protect our national forests' roadless areas.  In 2001, President Clinton issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which added protections to our country's remaining 58.5 million acres of roadless forests.  These ecologically rich areas serve as vital wildlife habitat, provide clean water, store large amounts of carbon, and offer exemplary recreational opportunities.

Photography copyrighted: John Hyde, Wild Things Photography

Despite President Bush's efforts to undermine the Roadless Rule, the majority of our country's remaining roadless forests remain protected, and thankfully President Obama and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack have made commitments to upholding and defending this landmark conservation policy.  Congressional leaders have been instrumental in the success of protecting our roadless forests and Wednesday gave us the opportunity to honor them for their efforts to build support for legislation that would more permanently protect these precious areas.  Receiving awards in person were Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA), Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Diana DeGette (D-CO), Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), and former Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY).

Although the majority of our country's roadless areas are currently protected, areas remain that are still at risk.  Idaho and Colorado submitted state-specific plans that greatly reduce the level of protections that their roadless areas receive, and the Tongass National Forest in Alaska is not protected under the national rule thanks to a temporary exemption that the Bush administration made in 2003.  As a result, there is still the need to weigh in with the Obama administration.

Take action and encourage them to uphold and defend the 2001 Roadless Rule to ensure protections of all our roadless forests, including the Tongass.

This article originally published the Lay of the Land blog.

Last week the Sierra Club, in conjunction with the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP), hosted a congressional reception in the Senate to present awards to two of our champions.  Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) and Senator John Kerry (D-MA) have taken leadership roles in addressing the ecological negative impacts of expansive and fiscally wasteful border walls.  The event also served to celebrate the culmination of a two-week photo exhibit of the borderlands and the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  The reception was a huge success and gave the environmental community and its coalition partners in the faith and human rights communities the chance to honor Dicks and Kerry and applaud them for their tireless efforts to advocate for a more responsible border policy that respects communities, wildlife, and the borderlands' unique natural resources.

Senator John Kerry (left) and Sierra Club Director of the Lands Protection Athan Manuel (right)

The reception capped off a two-week display of an amazing collection of photographs by the ILCP.  The photos, partially commissioned by the Sierra Club, were taken during an expedition last January across the entire border region, from Brownsville, TX to San Diego, CA.  The photographers spent three weeks traversing the borderlands and documenting the ecological and cultural values of the region as well as the devastation that the construction of the wall has left in its wake.  The stunning canvas prints that resulted from that trip have been on display in the Senate for the past two weeks to show our federal legislators a beautiful and wrenching portrait of the true effects of this irresponsible border policy.

Photo courtesy of the International League of Conservation Photographers

This article originally published on Lay of the Land.

 

Brant Geese, a popular sighting along the Atlantic coast during the winter bird count.
Photo by Phil Eager.

It’s just about time for the annual Christmas Bird Count organized by the National Audubon Society, a major event on the birding calendar, and one that I particularly look forward to each year. The count period this year runs from December 14 to January 5, and the concept is as simple as its name: counting birds during the holiday season. As the journal Nature wrote last year, the Christmas Bird Count has become the model for effective citizen science projects , and may be the longest-running such project in the world. It's also a fun social event, which allows you to make new friends and to see people you don't see all year.

 

We now look on the Christmas Bird Count as a good excuse to go birding in the winter and to take a break from all of the holiday craziness, but its origins are rooted in conservation. The first Christmas Bird Count was organized in 1900 by Frank Chapman and the young National Audubon Society as a kinder and gentler answer to the Christmas "side hunt,” a gruesome holiday tradition in which groups would compete to shoot the most birds in a given day.

 

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Photo of Brown Pelican by Phil Eager.

In a bit of good news for one species of seabird, it was announced today that the Brown Pelican is being removed from the endangered species list. The Brown Pelican was hit particularly hard in the 1970s and 1980s by its exposure to DDT (and teetered on the edge of extinction as a result), but even before then it was hunted for its feathers. Amazingly enough, the effort to save the Brown Pelican started under President Theodore Roosevelt, who established Pelican Island in Florida as the first refuge in what became the National Wildlife Refuge system. As Audubon California notes, the delisting is an encouraging development for the pelican, but it certainly doesn’t mean the species is in the clear: they face plenty of long-term challenges, including pollution, rising ocean levels, and the continued crashing of the fishing stocks in the Pacific. But it’s definitely progress.

Speaking of challenges, on the opposite end of the spectrum for seabird news were the disturbing and depressing stories in the media in the last few weeks about the albatross populations in the Pacific Ocean. You’ve probably heard about the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch (or patches, unfortunately), an accumulation of floating plastic and other garbage that spans an area the size of Texas. But you might not have thought about the impact all of that floating plastic has on seabirds that forage for food that lies close to the surface of the ocean. To a seabird, the floating pieces of plastic can look dangerously similar to its food sources.

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This month’s SIERRA magazine has a great discussion on eco-friendly coffee, in which coffee experts picked some of their favorite growers, distributors, and roasters around the world. The panel picked coffees that were “planet-positive” based on a number of factors, like social responsibility, organic growing techniques, and fair-trade practices.

 

So, sure, we all want to be well-caffeinated with eco-friendly coffee -- but what does that have to do with birds? Well, although the contributors to that article don’t mention it specifically, many of the coffees they picked (including from Taylor Maid Farms and Counter Culture Coffee) are shade-grown, which is an essential element to a coffee being “bird friendly.”

 

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You know it's a cardinal by sight. But would you recognize it by its song alone? Photo © by Motorrad67

If you’ve ever gone on a birding walk with a local expert, you might have been amazed (and jealous) about his or her ability to pick birds out that you can’t even see. Many good birders use their ears as much as their eyes, having spent years refining the art/skill of birding “by ear”, or the ability to find and identify birds by their song or their simpler call notes.

 

I’m the first to admit that I’m not at all good at birding by ear; my wife (who also has an uncanny knack for remembering song lyrics) is much better at it than I am. But I certainly appreciate how it helps and enhances your overall birding experience. And you don’t need to be like some of our friends who can stand outside at 4 a.m. during fall migration and identify the chip notes of warblers and thrushes flying overhead. Talk about jealousy!

 

I once read a great piece of advice about how to get better about birding by ear.

 

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Hermit Thrush -- doing okay so far!

Last week on my way to work in downtown San Francisco, I found a dead bird lying in the middle of the sidewalk. At first, I walked past it along with all of the other commuters, and then my mind clicked in and I had to go back and at least figure out what it was. Turned out to be a Hermit Thrush. Not having anything to put it in (and not wanting to walk around all day with a dead bird in my pocket!), I picked up the bird with a tissue, looked at it to confirm the ID, and then wrapped it up and put it in the nearest trash can. Although unsatisfying, that somehow seemed preferable to leaving the bird right in the middle of so many unknowing footsteps.

 

The thrush was most likely the victim of a collision with a downtown office building during its migration, which is a common and increasingly well-documented phenomenon during spring and fall migration. It often happens on foggy or cloudy nights during those periods, when birds can easily get disoriented, and it's particularly dangerous when large office buildings leave their lights on overnight, as that only increases the disorientation of the birds. The numbers can be alarming: In Toronto, it's estimated that 10,000 birds a year are killed in building collisions in their downtown area alone.

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This cluster of migrating Monarchs gathered on a tree branch in Santa Cruz, California.

If you’ve been out and about the last few weeks, whether birding or hiking or just wandering around your town, you might have noticed that birds are not the only winged creatures that are migrating at this time of year. The fall migration of Monarch butterflies is well under way, as Monarchs from across Canada and the United States head south to their wintering grounds. Other butterflies are definitely more noticeable as well, but Monarchs are the one species of butterfly that everyone notices and knows.

 

I’ve even seen migrating Monarchs and Swallowtails (another group of large, colorful butterflies) in downtown San Francisco, which is both inspiring and a bit nerve-wracking as they often fly low to the ground, zigzagging in between traffic.

 

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Photo of Marin Headlands' Rodeo Lagoon courtesy Phil Eager.

On Sunday, the day of the premiere of The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, we spent the day birding in the Marin Headlands, just north of San Francisco, neatly combining a couple of recent blog topics in one outing: some birding in the National Parks (the Marin Headlands are part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area) and some hawk watching on Hawk Hill in the headlands.

 

Even though the day was a bit slow in terms of raptor migration, it wasn’t foggy, which is one of the main hazards of fall birding along the Northern California coast. In fact, the afternoon turned out to be downright hot on top of Hawk Hill, with the temperatures reaching into the low 90s.

 

Along with the expected hawks (including close views of Broad-winged, Sharp-shinned, and Cooper’s), our most interesting fly-by was actually a songbird, a Lapland Longspur, which was truly unexpected at that spot and in apparent migration. Wandering through other spots in the headlands, we searched patches of cypress trees for migrant songbirds, but the weather was actually too clear to trap any interesting strays (oftentimes, it’s the foggy weather that throws off the migration path of songbirds and which causes interesting things to show up). And there was a nice collection of shorebirds on the shores of Rodeo Lagoon, including Pectoral and Spotted Sandpipers. Wilson’s Snipe, and Long-billed Dowitchers.

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Photo of Tree Swallows courtesy Phil Eager.

For a good part of our vacation last week, the weather in Ocean City, New Jersey was impacted by a slow-moving storm that lurked off the Atlantic coast, bringing high tides, strong easterly winds, and off-and-on rain. Conditions like these aren't good for songbird or hawk migration, but they did give us a good excuse for birding off our back deck overlooking a large coastal salt marsh.

 

This gave us a front row seat on a migration phenomenon that doesn't get as much birding press as the warblers or the hawks, but is still fascinating in its own way: the fall migration of Tree Swallows to their wintering grounds of southern North America and Central America.

 

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"Brig" wildlife refuge with Atlantic City in the background. Photo courtesy Phil Eager.

With the cool cloudy weather on Tuesday morning not portending a good beach day, my wife and I headed north from our vacation spot in Ocean City, New Jersey to the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge (commonly referred to by its location, Brigantine or Brig). In pretty much any season, Brigantine and its eight mile loop road (and several walking trails) hosts a vast number of birds in its diverse habitat mix, whether it’s thousands of Snow Geese and Brant in the winter or masses of shorebirds during fall migration.

 

Brigantine is the next town up from Atlantic City, so one of the odd sights from the refuge is the lights and towers of the casinos looming just across the bay from acres of marshes. As impressive as the coastal habitat already is, a juxtaposition like this always helps remind you of just how important open spaces like this truly are, especially in a heavily populated region like the middle Atlantic coast.

 

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As we all deal with the end of summer and catch our collective breath before the onslaught of fall migration, I thought I’d change things up a bit this week and do a round-up of a few interesting stories from the media and other birding blogs that caught my eye over the last week or so, some of which tie into some earlier posts on this blog.

 

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s report on the demographics and economic impacts of birding, noting the fact that the low participation of minorities was a bleak note in an otherwise positive report about the popularity of birding and birdwatching in this country. Kenn Kaufman’s blog posting this week on “Living Colors: Diversity and the Future of Birding” does the topic much more justice than my passing mention, explaining why we should all care. Birding with Kenn and Kimberly (Kim is his wife) is always filled with great insights (and birding tips), and you should add it to your blog reading list if you haven’t already done so. And speaking of diversity, Kenn is also responsible for the only Spanish language field guide for North American birds, Guía de campo Kaufman a las aves de Norteamérica, which was quite the project to get approved and into print.

 

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Photo courtesy Sonny McCormick.

I've been getting a kick out of the pictures Sonny McCormick shares in the photo gallery on his profile.

Sonny lives in Cocoa, Florida, and his place backs up to 300 acres of gorgeous wildlands. He has a motion-triggered camera set up there, and has snagged shots of deer, boar -- and the little squirrel above.

I love two things about this picture: the "I'm so busted" expression on the squirrel's face, and the bird (is that a cardinal, Birding Phil?) on the tree below him.

Check out more of Sonny's wildlife photos on his profile page. And send him a friend request! He's an interesting guy -- a life-long hunter, angler, and camper who says he does so with ethics and respect for the land.

We're happy to have you in the Trails community, Sonny!

 

If you’re stuck inside in the heat of the summer, or just biding your time waiting for that next wave of south-bound migrants, there are lots of websites and online resources that can educate you or help you identify the latest inscrutable sparrow or shorebird that you’ve come across.

A survey of the available offerings would probably take us well into next summer, but I thought I’d throw out two noteworthy sites, one from an amazing birder and artist from today, and the other from one of the founding fathers of American ornithology.

If you’ve ever used David Sibley’s field guide A Sibley Guide to Birds (my personal favorite), or if you’re looking for a great online resource for bird information or to try and solve that tricky identification problem, be sure to check out the new online version of the Sibley guide recently launched on eNature. Like the original Sibley field guide, it has a wealth of information and amazing bird plates (all done by Sibley himself, unlike many other field guides), but it also includes bird songs.

(If you’re more of the paper reference type, or you need a field guide to take into the field with you, check out the discussion of field guides by David Lukas in SIERRA Magazine or in our Birdwatching forum here on Trails.)

On the other end of the spectrum is Audubon’s online library of the original plates from John James' Audubon’s Birds of America. The plates are, of course, what made Audubon famous, but his text is equally alluring. Audubon describes  the California Quail (or as he calls it the Californian Partridge) as “gentle or confident, so as to be in a great measure regardless of the approach of man.” Now, you just don’t get writing like that in bird guides anymore!

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Another interesting read is the report released last week by the US Fish and Wildlife Service on Birding in the United States:  A Demographic and Economic Analysis. The accompanying press release highlights some of the key findings, including the fact that birders contributed $36 billion to the United States economy in 2006, with birders comprising 20% of the adult U.S. population (or 48 million people).  As with any report like this, there are matters of definition, and this report considers a birder to be anyone who had “either taken a trip one mile or more from home for the primary purpose of observing birds and/or closely observed or tried to identify birds around the home.” Definitely a broad definition, but reflective of the broad interest in birds in the country.

As broad as the definition may be, this survey and others like it consistently show that birders, as a group, are not very racially or ethnically diverse; minority participation rates continue to be very low, which is a difficult (hopefully not intractable) challenge to overcome if birding is going to be a mainstream activity for all segments of our population.

Until next week, good birding (and happy surfing)!

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Birding Phil started birding in Cape May, N.J. and Central Park in New York City more than 10 years ago. Since then, his birding adventures (with his wife, Mimi Calter) have included trips to Alaska, Belize, and mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, along with a bunch of other hotspots in the continental U.S., including Florida, Texas, and Arizona). Phil was included in Chris Santella's book "Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations," in which Phil talked about Pt. Reyes, CA. Birdwatchers -- head on over and join the Birdwatchers group on Trails.

The calendar may say that it's still solidly summer, but for many species of shorebirds it's already time for "fall" migration, following a fairly short breeding season in the Arctic. In fact, fall migration for shorebirds begins as early as June, and it's in full swing by July. It’s almost as if the last push of northbound migrating shorebirds passes the first wave of southbound fall migrants.

The shorebirds that show up in mid-summer are mostly adult birds that have left the juvenile birds behind to fend for themselves before they start their own southbound journey.

As Audubon’s Audublog noted, the first wave of south-bound shorebirds showed up in Northern California in late June, so by now we’re solidly in the middle of the migration. And shorebirds have started to show up on the East Coast and the Midwest as well, so now is a great time to start checking your favorite shorebird spots, especially after a cold front or a northerly wind shift.

When you do catch up with the shorebirds (and even if you can’t identify all of the “peeps” on your own!), think for a moment about the crazy-long journey these birds have, with only a short break in the Arctic for their breeding season. Many of the shorebirds that pass through our area will be heading to wintering grounds in Central and South America, although a number of them will also winter along the coasts in the southern half of the United States.

Of course, like other migrating birds, shorebirds don’t always follow a straight line, or the expected route, to get from Point A to Point B. The Nature Conservancy in Virginia has been tracking several Whimbrel (a medium-sized shorebird) this year on their trek from a stopover ground on the Atlantic coast to their expected breeding ground in eastern Canada, and one of those birds veered off dramatically from the expected Atlantic coast migratory route and appeared headed to the northwest Canada breeding grounds of the Pacific population of Whimbrel.  One of the tracked birds ended up in Alaska.

In Northern California, mid-summer brings another interesting phenomenon, with the post-breeding northward dispersal of a few coastal birds:  Brown Pelicans, Heermann's Gulls, and Elegant Terns. These species wander up the coast from Southern California and Mexico after their breeding season is done. It's not fall migration, per se, but the birds will hang around Northern California for a few months before heading back down south to their nesting grounds in September.

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Speaking of migration, a fascinating citizen science project that has been covered recently on CNN and in Wired is the North American Bird Phenology Program, which involves the scanning and transcription of six million (!) Migration Observer Cards from a ninety-year period. These cards were a way for scientists and other interested observers to keep track of bird sightings over the years, providing invaluable information and trend data in the decades before all of our high tech methods of tracking and record-keeping. It’s an amazing project that will really help scientists understand the longer term changes in bird distribution and migration.

Even if you’re not in Maryland where the actual scanning is taking place, you can sign up to help with the online transcription of the scanned-in cards (they’re handwritten, so the project needs help in transcribing them), and do your small part to help preserve this important natural history record.

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Birding Phil started birding in Cape May, N.J. and Central Park in New York City more than 10 years ago. Since then, his birding adventures (with his wife, Mimi Calter) have included trips to Alaska, Belize, and mainland Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, along with a bunch of other hotspots in the continental U.S., including Florida, Texas, and Arizona). Phil was included in Chris Santella's book "Fifty Places to Go Birding Before You Die: Birding Experts Share the World's Greatest Destinations," in which Phil talked about Pt. Reyes, CA. Birdwatchers -- head on over and join the Birdwatchers group on Trails.

 Rufous-capped Warbler. Photo by Dominic Sherony

Birders are well accustomed to the quizzical and sometimes blank looks they get from friends and family when describing their upcoming trips and destinations:  Minnesota in January to look for owls, a day on a fishing boat off the Northern California coast to look for seabirds, wandering across the tundra in Alaska looking for an elusive curlew.

You will definitely get that same look when mentioning the possibility of going to Arizona in the middle of the summer for birding, accompanied by the inevitable, "You want to go to Arizona, WHEN? Why?"

 
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If you love birds, there's a thread going in our Forums about favorite birdwatching books. Some great suggestions have been made, if I do say so myself.  I suggested  "Birding Babylon," written by Jonathan Trouern-Trend, a birder who made observations and blogged about birds while he was a soldier in Iraq.

Check out the conversation!