Saw Mill River Audubon – Page 2 – Connecting People and Nature Since 1953

Listening to Nature

SMRA June 24, 2022

Many years ago, I had the privilege of birding with Ted Parker, perhaps the single greatest field biologist ever to specialize in the birds of the American tropics. How talented was Ted at finding and identifying birds? During his much-too-short life, major universities and environmental organizations would send him—alone—into some untracked section of steamy Brazilian rainforest or forbidding Colombian mountain scrub. Weeks later he’d re-emerge, knowing exactly what birds lived there…including many species never before identified by science.

Ted’s secret: Listening. Wherever he went, before he’d even raise his binoculars, he’d stop and focus on every song and call he could hear. He was so good at it that he could recognize and ID as many as 4000 species by sound alone, most instantly.

More about Ted Parker

That’s astounding, but how did it help Ted find so many species that were new to science? Because, of course, it allowed him to recognize when he didn’t know a song or call. And if he didn’t know a bird, likely no scientist did, either.

The chorus in a rainforest can be a cacophony, much of it made by the most common birds in the area. I asked Ted how he managed to hear the frequently quiet and reclusive rare and undiscovered species. He thought for a moment and then said, “Here’s how: I’ve learned to listen beyond the familiar, loud ones. Once I do that, it’s like those songs disappear, and then I can hear everything else that’s out there.”

He grinned at me. “Try it! It’s such a fun challenge.”

We all have our own definitions of fun, and for many years I was too intimidated to even try birding by ear. (After all, I’m no Ted Parker.) But in the past few years I’ve started to follow his lead.

Listen to a Carolina Wren.

And you know what? He was right! Birding by ear is fun. Even more importantly, it can bring you into far closer contact with with the activities of birds and other creatures, with the whole natural world, than using your eyes alone. To me, there’s something deeply moving, even beautiful, about the experience.

As Anne Swaim, SMRA’s Executive Director, says, “Tuning into the ever-changing soundscape of birds arounds us is a connection to the progression of seasons and the health of habitats. We can know when and where we are by the sounds of birds.”

That’s it exactly. When I step out of the car at Croton Point Park these days and start to listen, I immediately feel grounded both in the place and the season. Right away I hear Robins singing, Mockingbirds mocking, Song Sparrows announcing their presence seemingly from every bush and mullein stalk. All of them are proclaiming their territories, which in this season likely contain nests with eggs or young.

Once you’ve come to know those familiar sounds, though, you start to hear others. What’s that throaty chirping? The Purple Martins that live in those gourd-shaped “condos” near the park’s front gate. That hoarse, high-pitched scream? One of the Red-tailed Hawks that have been raising their young here. That odd, tinkly song (it almost sounds computerized) that rings out over the grassland hill? That’s a male Bobolink—one of the park’s special birds, here because the old landfill was turned into a grassland—defending its territory.

Listen to a Bobolink

I could go on like this forever, but I won’t. My point is that once you hear the calls, you can find the source: Iridescent Purple Martins swooping around, a young Red-tail still begging Mama for food, the strange and gorgeous Bobolink engaging in its fluttering display flight over the grasses. Soon you recognize sound, sight, and behavior, and that allows you to start to know both the bird and the place where the bird lives.

But it gets even better. Because, just like Ted Parker, you start to hear things you don’t know, and that’s where the extra fun begins. Just recently, my familiarity with local bird songs and calls allowed me to find two species that were new to me in the park. And I began to understand the thrill Ted must have felt when he first heard—and then tracked and saw—something new.

The first time was a few weeks ago. I was up in the woods and lawns beside the model-airplane field. Baltimore Orioles, Cardinals, and ever-present American Robins were raising their usual ruckus, but then I heard something unfamiliar.

It was a loud, repetitive song that sounded like “Free Beer! Free Beer!” (That pleasing offer is how it’s often transcribed.) I knew from its tone that it was likely a flycatcher…but because I’m familiar with the calls of the park’s nesting Great Crested Flycatchers and other common species, I guessed this was something I hadn’t heard here before.

Soon enough, I caught a glimpse of the bird and figured out that it must be an Alder Flycatcher. I was nervous about this ID (flycatchers are hard!) and grateful for confirmation by some more experienced “birders by ear” who happened to be nearby. But even if I’d never been sure of my ID, it was a thrill hearing and then seeing such a special, unusual bird nearly in my own backyard.

Listen to an Alder Flycatcher.

Then, more recently, I was walking in the park near sunset when I heard a loud, harsh call coming from the phragmites marsh on its east side. Again, I noticed the sound among many others because I hadn’t heard it there before…and this time, a little bit of research let me know I was listening to a Green Heron.

I didn’t even see the bird, but I didn’t care. How cool to learn that this colorful, frequently shy little heron can call Croton Point Park home!

There are phone apps to help you identify what you’re seeing and hearing, just as there are apps for everything else. Merlin, perhaps the most famous, recently debuted a Sound ID feature, and it’s pretty impressive. Just turn on the microphone, hold up your phone, and watch the bird names appear: American Robin, Yellow Warbler, Northern Mockingbird, etc.

[Learn more about the free Merlin bird ID app.]

But there’s a risk in relying too heavily on sound apps. First of all, they can be flamboyantly wrong. Just a few days ago at Croton Point, Merlin listened to the same singing bird and alternately identified it as a Chipping Sparrow (a regular nesting species in the park) and as a Worm-eating Warbler, which would be a real rarity.

(Spoiler: It was a Chipping Sparrow.)

But inaccuracy isn’t the most important reason to use apps sparingly. To me, they miss the point, since the minute you’re using an app, you’re just staring at your phone again, letting it do the listening and thinking for you.

To my mind, that defeats the central purpose of getting out in nature, in looking and listening and—if you’re inclined to—trying to learn what it is you’re seeing and hearing. The point isn’t just about identifying things, but feeling closer to the world they and we live in. To take the opportunity to leave technology behind, just for a little while, and just be where you are. As the saying goes: Only connect—and that means with your environment, too.

I hope to see you out on the trails someday soon. I’ll be the guy with his binoculars around his neck, the one gazing into space, head a little cocked as he listens intently to something even though he’s not even wearing Air Pods.

Maybe you’ll look a little like that, too, and we can listen to nature together.

Birding/ SMRA

They Were Here First

SMRA May 1, 2022

My friend Keith lives in Bedford, on property that’s been in his family for generations. Over the years, he’s seen turkeys, coyotes, foxes, and of course a million deer. But when he went outside one night recently and spotted a large, hulking shadow behind his house, he thought his eyes must be playing tricks on him. Experience told him that nothing in his neighborhood could be that big.

But then he turned on his phone’s flashlight and found out that you can’t always trust experience. The shadow resolved into a large Black Bear, the first he’d ever seen there. It lumbered away at once, leaving unanswered the question of whose heart was beating faster.

Keith is far from the only Westchester County resident to encounter a bear so close to home. In just the past year, reports of wandering Black Bears have come in from Chappaqua, New Castle, Armonk, and other nearby towns.

And it’s not just Westchester, but across New York, the Northeast, and much of North America. Just recently in California, for example, a Lake Tahoe family, having been bothered for months by mysterious “snoring” noises inside their house, finally discovered the cause: a mother bear and her four yearling cubs who’d spent the winter snoozing in the basement!

If it seems like bears are popping up—or ambling around—nearly everywhere these days, that’s because they are. Black Bear populations have grown significantly in recent decades across North America, and experts estimate that as many as 900,000 bears inhabit the United States and Canada. In many areas, there are now three or four times as many bears as there were just forty years ago…and while nearly a million chipmunks or squirrels might be able to stay hidden, the same isn’t true for creatures that can stand six feet tall and reach 600 or more pounds in weight.

Why are there so many more bears today? The answer reveals a rare environmental success story involving—as so many such stories do—us humans changing the way we act to the benefit of the creatures we share the land with.

Before Europeans arrived, the Northeastern landscape was largely forested. Indigenous people cleared trees only modestly, and both their villages and cultivation were designed to avoid making major changes in the environment. They and Black Bears, which relied on undisturbed woodlands, were able to coexist.

The colonists, however, clearcut the forests both for lumber and to make room for dairy and other farms. By the mid-19^th century only about a quarter of the Northeast’s original forest cover remained, and populations of bears, deer, and countless other species were vanishing along with the trees. If these circumstances had continued, the Black Bear would likely have become extinct across large parts of its range.

bears-with-bird-feeders-Joel-Rhymer-1-free-to-use

Fortunately, things changed just in time. With the building of the railroads and the availability of seemingly unlimited fertile land in the Midwest and beyond, vast swathes of Northeastern farmland were abandoned. Over the decades, these fields and pastures were gradually reclaimed by forest, and populations of Black Bears and other animals rebounded as well.

Humans also took a more active role to protect the species. For centuries, Black Bears were freely shot for their meat, fat, and fur, and because they were considered a nuisance or danger. Starting in the early 20^th century, though, a series of laws were passed to regulate bear hunting in New York, and most other states as well.

Today, the combination of healthy bear numbers and the building of new houses and condos in previously forested land has made human-bear interactions inevitable. Also inevitable: That when they do happen, we’ll all hear about it on the local news and social media.

Even with the rising number of encounters, the number of bear attacks on humans remains extremely low. But they do occur: Since 1900, roughly one person has been attacked by a Black Bear somewhere in the United States each year, with a death resulting about every other year. Those numbers are both likely to rise. So, despite the low risk, given that bears’ size and strength, and the fact that females with cubs can be notoriously testy, it’s best to know what to do if you come face-to-face with one.

Most importantly, be alert and use your common sense. Try to spot a bear when you’re still a healthy distance away—and then don’t run towards it waving your camera because you want to post a great pic on Instagram. If one does seem interested or aggressive, don’t run away, either: Stand your ground, make yourself seem bigger by waving your arms, and make a lot of noise. The bear is extremely likely to depart as fast as it can in the other direction.

For a deeper dive, here’s a useful rundown from the Humane Society:

But all the good advice on earth goes out the window if, like Keith, you simply step out your own back door and find a bear standing there. It’s far better to try to avoid this heart-thumping experience entirely, which you can do with a little smart planning.

Nearly all wandering Black Bears fall into one of two categories: young, newly independent individuals looking for territories of their own and adult males on the hunt for mates. Since neither mates nor territory are likely to exist in your backyard, the bears will want to pass through as quickly as possible—unless, of course, you invite them to stay for dinner.

To a bear, birdseed and suet in feeders, poorly maintained compost bins, haphazardly covered garbage cans, and the aromas and food scraps from a barbecue grill all have the appeal of an all-night diner to a hungry traveler. So it’s best to take a few precautions and make sure your diner is closed to any bears that may wander through.

I think it’s a very hopeful sign for the future that Black Bears and other predators (including Coywolves, Bobcats, and Red Foxes) are surviving—and even thriving—in this crowded region. But, like every wild creature in the world we’ve made, bears depend on us to understand what they need and what they don’t. Through our actions, we’ll decide if our two species will continue to coexist peacefully, or if we’ll again drive these magnificent creatures off the land they inhabited long before we got here.

by Joseph Wallace
Copyright © 2022

Birding/ SMRA

Dance of the Timberdoodle

SMRA March 28, 2022

It’s the beginning of courtship season for the birds around here. The signs are everywhere: in the Mourning Dove’s puffed-up strut, the way Common Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds seem to inflate themselves as they emit their raucous calls, the flood of birdsong we hear each dawn.

Among some exotic species—Birds of Paradise, Peacocks, cranes, and others—courtship rituals can be so dazzling that birders journey halfway around the world to see them. Most of our local birds’ displays, on the other hand, are comparatively subdued.

Most, that is, but not all. There is one memorable performance taking place right now nearly in our backyards: the sky dance of the male American Woodcock. Yet most people, including many who love birds, not only miss this show, but don’t even know it’s taking place. That’s because the birds dance only at and after dusk and for just a few brief weeks each spring.

Their courtship rituals aren’t the only memorable thing about Woodcocks. From their appearance to the way they move, everything about them is odd, ungainly, and appealing. This even includes the folk names they’ve acquired over the years: Timberdoodle, Bogsucker, Big-eye, Mudbat, and Night Partridge, among others.

Inhabiting the eastern half of the United States, Woodcocks are actually sandpipers, though you’ll almost never see one on a beach or mudflat. They have have vivid russet-and-brown plumage with crosswise black stripes across the top of the head like a balding man’s combover. They’re shaped roughly like a football…except a football doesn’t come equipped with a long, straight bill.

The bill’s resemblance to a straw most likely gave rise to the name “Bogsucker,” but the birds actually use it to probe the ground for earthworms (their favorite food) and other invertebrates. The end of the bill is flexible and comes equipped with sensitive nerve endings and rough edges, ideal adaptations for locating and snagging unseen prey.

Another part of the Woodcock’s hunting technique is especially odd and endearing. You may see one walking with an odd, stop-and-go stride, rocking back and forth and occasionally stomping a foot. What it’s doing is striking the ground and then listening for the sound of worms fleeing the vibrations. This form of sonar helps the bird strike accurately with its well-equipped bill. [View this Woodcock walk in the video below.]

Everything about the Woodcock is offbeat. But nothing can match the spectacle of the males’ courtship displays, the evening “sky dances” a lucky observer can listen to—and sometimes even watch—in this season.

Local parks and almost any area that features untended clearings—grassy roadsides, unmowed fields and pastures, openings within a forest—can make an acceptable staging ground for amorous Woodcocks. Here, as the light begins to fade, a male will begin his performance by making a far-carrying call, a loud, nasal “PEENT!” The best way to find a displaying male is to listen for and locate this call.

After several “PEENTS”, the bird will suddenly vault into the air and fly upwards at an astonishing speed. It’s breathtaking to watch one hurtle as much as 300 feet into the darkening sky, looking like an unlit firework or punted football. As the bird ascends, it makes wild twittering sound, which is not song but results from air rushing through specially adapted feathers on the bird’s wings.

At the crest of its ascent, a male Woodcock may hover or fly in a tight circle for several seconds. Then it will spiral or zigzag back to the ground, this time accompanying itself with musical chirps. The goal is to land beside an interested female, but regardless the Woodcock can continue its energetic ritual for an hour or more—or even, on moonlit nights, all night long.

Except in the dancing season, Woodcocks can be extremely difficult to find. They migrate at night, sleep during the day, and nest on the ground, usually in young forests where few humans or other large animals are likely to disturb them.

The best time of year to encounter one—or even a displaying ground full of them—is right now. To me, it’s always worth a special trip (and even a delayed dinner) for the opportunity to witness the magical nighttime dance of the Timberdoodle.

By Joseph Wallace

Bluejay-northern-cardinals-at-feeder-800-Sally-Robertson-CC

Birding/ SMRA

Doorway to a Better World

SMRA March 12, 2022

As a nature writer, I’ve spent much of my life traveling the U.S. and beyond. Almost always, my goal has been to visit the world’s remaining untouched forests, deserts, and mountains, and then tell others about what survives there, the threats they face, and our critical responsibility to preserve what’s left.

It’s been a fulfilling and fortunate career. And it all began with a tinfoil baking pan!

Black-capped Chickadee

The spring I turned fifteen, I decided that I wanted to set up a bird feeder in our postage-stamp backyard in Midwood, Brooklyn. I can’t quite recall where I got the idea, but my family couldn’t have been surprised. I’d been mad about nature since I was little, always pushing my parents to take me to the American Museum of Natural History or the Bronx Zoo and reading every book I could find on exotic travel and adventure.

But this was different than books or museums. This was real.

Almost immediately, I hit my first roadblock: We didn’t own a birdfeeder, and I was too broke to buy one. An intensive hunt through the house for a good substitute (my mom’s jewelry box? perhaps not) eventually turned up a solution: One of the 9×13 tinfoil pans I found in a kitchen cabinet.

I don’t remember asking permission to take it. I imagine I realized, correctly, that by the time I’d punched holes in its sides, strung it with rope, hung it from the magnolia tree in our yard, and filled it with birdseed, no one would want to serve a pot roast in it.

I have to admit that I didn’t expect it to attract much beyond pigeons, starlings, House Sparrows—typical city birds. After all, our backyard was not only tiny but placed right in the middle of one of the biggest cities on earth. Even if migrating birds did fly overhead, how on earth were they ever going to spot one little tinfoil pan far below?

For the first few days, it seemed like I’d been right to keep my expectations low. The feeder was deserted when I headed off to school and untouched when I got home in the afternoon. I decided that I might as well have dug a pit in the lawn to try to catch a tiger.

Then one day I gave a cursory glance out the back window and saw two hefty Mourning Doves lounging comfortably in the feeder as they dined. (This dove habit forced me to repeatedly push the dented bottom of the pan back into shape.) Next came a small flock of White-throated Sparrows eating the seed the doves had scattered on the grass, and soon cardinals, juncos, Song Sparrows, and others were also regular visitors.

White-throated Sparrows

But what most amazed me then—and still astounds me today—was how many insect-eating birds visited our yard that spring without even going near the feeder. My final list included nine species of warblers (including Black-throated Blue, Parula, and Wilson’s), Hermit, Wood, and Olive-backed (now known as Swainson’s) Thrushes, Brown Thrasher, Rufous-sided Towhee, and several others.

It seemed miraculous that these birds, looking down as they flew over, had spotted the birds gathered at the feeder. And then, knowing it was a safe place to rest and search for insects to eat, they chose to descend—into my yard!—and stay a few hours or overnight before heading north once again.

My yard list

Far more than any book, TV show, or museum, my encounters with those tiny travelers taught me an enduring lesson about the world: That everything in it is connected. Looking out my back window, I understood for the first time that a vast river of birds flows across our skies every spring and fall. It’s made up of billions of birds that depend on oases along the way to survive, oases as small as a patch of green in the midst of a giant urban sprawl.

I learned something else that spring. I understood that I had a role to play in making sure that river always flowed. I had to share what I’d learned, to work to preserve not only those fragile, precious migrating birds, but their whole vulnerable world that existed far beyond my backyard.

A female Northern Cardinal, Blue Jay, and male Northern Cardinal at a feeder

I’d been wondering why my memories of that long-ago spring have returned so vividly in recent months, and I think I’ve figured it out: Because in recent years feeding the birds has become an increasingly controversial topic.

Perhaps inevitably, the anti-feeder voices have risen in response to a surge in enthusiasm for birdfeeders, and birds overall, in the wake of pandemic lockdowns. Seeking something new to focus on while stuck at home, millions of people across the world set up feeders and started paying attention to what showed up there.

The objections take a variety of shapes. Some people worry that feeders won’t be kept clean, which can actually spread disease among visiting birds. (Click here for instructions on how to keep your feeder safe for them.) But other objections are on more philosophical grounds, based on the principle that “we need to let nature fend for itself” and stop “interfering.”

I understand stand such feelings, but I’m sure it’s clear that I take a more nuanced view. A feeder that supports little more than those invasive pests, House Sparrows, is doing more harm than good. But I believe that a carefully maintained winter feeder stocked with seeds that will attract native songbirds (like safflower, appealing to native species but not to most invasive ones) may be crucial to the future of the planet.

Photo: https://www.thisoldhouse.com/yards/21016361/how-to-build-a-bird-feeder

Crucial? How can that be? I think the answer comes from my own experience, my belief that feeders can open the same door to nature for today’s young people—actually, people of any age—that they opened for me. In fact, I believe they have to. I have a loud voice, but however much I write, talk, or agitate, endangered habitats and their inhabitant will never survive unless countless others connect with the wider world around them, just as I did decades ago.

My communities today (both live and online) are filled with people who already understand what needs to be done to protect both local birds and the world’s dwindling wild places. We must plant native gardens to attract pollinators, join—or start—groups to work with and lobby local officials, give financial support to organizations that do the same on an international scale, and so much more.

But our knowledge and commitment had to come from somewhere, and that is just as true in our increasingly urbanized world today. What about those who don’t yet understand the challenges ahead? Who don’t have spacious yards to fill with pollinator plants? Who aren’t fortunate enough to have the funds to support environmental organizations, or the time and access to learn more about what needs to be done?

Photo: https://www.pbs.org/parents/crafts-and-experiments/how-to-make-a-plastic-bottle-birdfeeder

Finding new ways to overcome these challenges, to educate and involve those who may be hard to reach, is essential. In the meantime, though, there’s one thing most people already do have: A windowsill or a nearby patch of green—however small—where they can place a birdfeeder…and then watch some of nature’s wonders come to them. This simple interaction might just spur them to fight the important battles to come, as it did for me.

And if they don’t happen to have a feeder? No problem at all. Any old tinfoil tray—or a plastic bottle!—will do.

By Joseph Wallace
Copyright © 2022

Birding/ SMRA

The Eagle’s Lesson

SMRA January 20, 2022

I spotted six Bald Eagles during a walk in Croton Point Park last week: Two riding ice floes out in the Hudson River, three adults scattered around the park, and a perched immature that—for a few exciting moments—I thought might even be a rare Golden Eagle.

Six Bald Eagles in a single morning at that park is a lot, but not a lot. In this season, it’s a rare visit that doesn’t turn up at least one or two. (My wife and I once counted 17 in a single day!)

Bald eagle in flight at George’s Island. Photo: Steve Rappaport

In fact, Bald Eagles have become so much part of our regular lives around here—and nearly everywhere in the North America where there’s plenty of water and fish nearby—that we almost expect to see them. Despite their grandeur, we may even begin to take them for granted.

It wasn’t always this way. In fact, twenty years ago Bald Eagles were a rare sight, and not that much further back they were on the brink of disappearing entirely. Even though the species is thriving now, I think we need to keep the story of the eagle’s brush with extinction vivid in our minds. As we head into an increasingly perilous future for our wildlife and ourselves alike, it still has important things to teach us.

Bald eagle nestlings. Photo: NY Department of Environmental Conservation.

Oddly for a bird chosen (in 1782) as the national symbol, the Bald Eagle was viewed with suspicion, if not loathing, by European colonists as soon as they arrived on the continent. (Many Native American tribes, on the other hand, revered the bird. Except for a small number of eagles killed for their feathers, which were used in ceremonies, the birds and their nesting sites were strictly protected.)

Despite eating mainly fish, eagles—along with wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, Golden Eagles, and a variety of smaller predators—were slaughtered for killing livestock. Not that an accurate understanding of the bird’s diet protected it: In coastal communities it was wrongly blamed for harming commercial and sport fisheries, and slaughtered for that, too.

A group of seven Fort Seward soldiers holding up bald eagle carcasses. An estimated 128,000 eagles were killed between 1917 and 1953 for a bounty of fifty cents to two dollars, circa 1920. Source: https://www.sheldonmuseum.org/vignette/chilkat-bald-eagle-preserve/

The Bald Eagle’s reputation was so bad that Alaska actually paid a bounty for every eagle carcass turned in between 1917 and 1959. Why did state officials finally rescind the reward? Not because of environmental enlightenment, but because Alaska was about to become the 49^th state. Someone realized that paying residents to kill the symbol of the nation you were about to join wasn’t a good look.

Bald eagles counted on Christmas Bird Counts from 1900 to 2000. Source and population activity: https://journeynorth.org/tm/eagle/Population.html

As if this sort of persecution wasn’t enough, a slew of other factors also helped send the Bald Eagle hurtling towards extinction. One was habitat destruction. It’s hard to imagine now, but much of the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and other regions were virtually clear-cut by the early 19^th century, as native woodlands were converted to farmland. Bald Eagles, deprived of their nesting grounds, were among the many species driven away by this deforestation. (Even deer were rare in the Northeast in those days!)

Then there was the rise of industrialization throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries, and the water pollution that progress inevitably brings. Every new mill and factory, every mile of waterside railroad track laid, led to increasingly tainted lakes and rivers. Over the course of decades, that meant fewer fish, less food, and ever-declining eagle populations.

And, of course, there was the mushrooming human population’s insatiable need for food, including seafood. Salmon and trout in the rivers, Atlantic Menhaden and many other species in coastal waters—as these fisheries declined, then crashed by the early 20^th century, the Bald Eagle was left without the prey it had evolved over eons to hunt.

All of these factors were dire enough on their own. But what truly sent the Bald Eagle (and such other topline predators as Golden Eagles, Ospreys, and Brown Pelicans) to the precipice were pesticides, especially the notorious DDT.

DDT’s story is a frighteningly familiar one, but it bears retelling. Like other pesticides, it wasn’t meant to harm birds, merely to help keep crops “healthy.” What this supposed “do no harm” approach resolutely ignored (despite urgent warnings from Rachel Carson and other early environmentalists) was one simple fact: DDT and other pesticides didn’t stay where you sprayed them, or affect only the species you meant to kill.

The message finally got through when Carson’s groundbreaking book Silent Spring was published in 1962. At last the public understood that DDT sprayed on fields ended up in soil, lakes, rivers, and—most devastatingly of all—in animals, where it remained and accumulated. Every time a Bald Eagle ate a fish, it would get walloped by a far larger amount of DDT than even the pesticide’s creators had ever imagined.

Eggs with weak shells, resulting from biological magnification and the use of DDT as a pesticide. Source and more info: https://www.biologycorner.com/2020/03/25/biological-magnification/

The cumulative impact of DDT poisoning on Bald Eagles was devastating. Along with sickening the eagles, it interfered with the birds’ ability to process calcium, causing the females to lay eggs with thin shells. Eagles following the age-old practice of sitting on their eggs would rise to find only a crushed mess remaining.

The most efficient way to destroy a species is to prevent it from breeding successfully. Even long-lived birds like eagles, which can survive for 20 years in the wild, aren’t fertile forever. Once you’ve knocked out an entire generation’s ability to raise its young, where is the next generation going to come from?

And that’s what nearly happened because of DDT and other factors. By 1963, there were a mere 417 nesting pairs of Bald Eagles across the entire lower 48 states. Like such extinct species as the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina Parakeet, the eagle and many other species nearly vanished without anyone noticing until too late.

The Bald Eagle population estimate for the Lower 48 states has risen fourfold since 2009, thanks to population recovery and new eBird estimation methods. Photo by Randy Walker/Macaulay Library, graphic by Jillian Ditner. More here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/new-bald-eagle-population-estimate-usfws/

Thanks to Rachel Carson and a burgeoning environmentalist movement, that didn’t happen this time. Once DDT’s effects on eagles, pelicans, and other species became common knowledge, the public’s outcry was loud and immediate. In the face of a cascade of bad publicity, the government responded forcefully. DDT was banned across the U.S. in 1972, and in 1973 the Bald Eagle was one of the first birds placed on the strong, new Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The eagle’s response to this reprieve was slow at first, but over the years its population rebound has accelerated to resemble a freight train. As of 2020, scientists put the overall eagle population in the Lower 48 at an astonishing 316,700 birds, including more than 71,000 nesting pairs. (Saying that you spotted six eagles on a morning’s walk sounds a little less impressive when you realize that you’ve seen just .000019% of the bird’s population.)

Bald Eagle nest with young, New York state. Photo: www.stevesachsphotography.com

All in all, the Bald Eagle represents one of the greatest environmental success stories of the 20^th century. And its success, along with that of pelicans, Ospreys, and other DDT-afflicted birds, is worth celebrating. It proves that through smarts, dedication, hard work, and raised voices, we humans can make a positive difference in the world around us…and even reverse the grievous mistakes we make along the way.

But that’s just part of the eagle’s lesson. Its story also teaches us that, in a world beset by environmental threats large and small, we’re going to need all our smarts and dedication, every bit of hard work we can spare, and ever-louder voices. That’s the only way we’re going to keep the next Bald Eagle—or even this one—thriving through the rest of this century and beyond.

by Joseph Wallace

PS to learn more about Bald Eagles and other raptors in the Hudson Valley, join in on Teatown’s EagleFest coming up the first weekend in February! EagleFest includes both online and outside events: www.teatown.org/events/eaglefest/

Birding/ SMRA

A Fascination of Sparrows

SMRA December 21, 2021

A what of what?

I can just hear your snorts of disbelief: How can I possibly associate the word “fascination” with those drab little representatives of the bird world? And I get it: Given the chance to convince a skeptic of the joys of birding, would I choose to introduce them to a sparrow instead of a majestic Bald Eagle, a gorgeous white Great Egret, a gaudy Baltimore Oriole, or even a familiar but colorful Blue Jay?

No, I probably wouldn’t. And for many, many years after I first started paying attention to birds, I also shrugged sparrows off as merely species to glance at before moving on to something more interesting.

These days, though? When I’m with someone else who wants to learn more about the natural world, it isn’t long before I start describing why I think sparrows are fascinating. That, in fact, they’re some of our coolest birds.

How can that be? Here are a few ways:

Lark Sparrow. From www.allaboutbirds.org.

THEIR BEAUTY IS SUBTLE

Beauty?! I may have lost you already. We all tend to think of sparrows as merely “little brown jobs,” and it’s undeniable that their color palette is limited.

But if every bird were as gaudy as a Peacock or a Scarlet Tanager, we’d soon expect nothing less. (Not every gorgeous flower has to be a sunflower or prize rose.) The truth is that many sparrows are strikingly marked. For example: In breeding season, the familiar White-throated Sparrow has its bright white throat, lemon-yellow spots between its beak and its eyes, a black-and-white striped head, and rufous wings. The Lark Sparrow has a harlequin pattern of red, white, and black on its head and face. And the Fox Sparrow is a mass of reddish-brown—a colorful bird by any standard.

Many other sparrows are far from plain, and even the less vivid species often boast complex patterns of spots and streaks. They’re always worth a closer look.

THEY’RE EVERYWHERE

Even a casual nature lover knows that sparrows are always around us: In these parts, Song Sparrows sing in our yards all year long, White-throats hop among the winter weeds, and other species make more occasional appearances. (By the way, the ubiquitous House Sparrows that mob our feeders, take over nests meant for other birds, and generally make a nuisance of themselves aren’t even closely related to our sparrows. They’re destructive pests introduced from the Old World, so don’t tar our sparrows with the House Sparrow brush.)

Though we know that native sparrows are a permanent fixture of our backyards, we don’t always realize that they’re in everyone’s backyard in this hemisphere. Sparrows occupy nearly every ecosystem from above tree line on the highest mountains (American Tree Sparrows) to the edge of the sea (Seaside Sparrows, naturally), and from the Arctic tundra of northern Alaska (Golden-crowned Sparrows) to the island of Tierra del Fuego south of continental South America (Rufous-collared Sparrow). These little birds are astonishingly adaptable, setting up camp anywhere there’s food to be found.

Song sparrow. From www.allaboutbirds.org.
Listen to Song sparrows here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Song_Sparrow/sounds

THEY’RE COMPLICATED

Did you know that every Song Sparrow on earth sings a different song? It’s true, and it’s very, very unusual in the bird world. Most birds follow a relatively simple process as they learn to sing: They study their parents’ songs in the weeks after hatching, just as they model other behaviors that will soon allow them to go off on their own.

Young Song Sparrows, however, are tutored not only by their parents but by neighboring birds, and they don’t just learn when they’re young, but for a whole year or two. That means that while every individual sings a mix of notes, trills, and buzzes, each one develops its own unique mix. As if that isn’t creative enough, one bird might sing 20 different songs and invent up to 1000 variations on its basic theme.

No one has yet figured out why Song Sparrows do this while other birds don’t. I think that maybe they just enjoy it.

The elusive LeConte’s Sparrow, December 2, 2021, Croton Point Park. Photo: Charlie Roberto

THEY CHOOSE US

As long as we don’t disturb them, one thing connects a Great Blue Heron stalking in the shallows, a Red-tailed Hawk perched regally on a branch, and an American Robin singing in a treetop: They don’t pay any attention to us. Meanwhile, other, shyer species may take a single glance at us and fly off or hide in dense underbrush.

But there are certain sparrows that don’t follow this either/or rule. Instead, they do both: One moment they may decide to stay hidden among long grasses or underbrush, remaining invisible for hours to every eager birder searching for them. And then, with no warning at all, they’ll pop up, casual and unafraid, to give a chosen onlooker a clear view.

LeConte’s Sparrow paparazzi on Croton Point grasslands, December 8, 2021. Photo: Anne Swaim.

These little sparrows have attracted birders from near and far, many of whom have spent fruitless hours on end (days, even) searching for them. If you’re very lucky, though, a LeConte’s will suddenly pop into view, glowing orange in the sun, watching you with as much interest as you’re watching it. (“Why do you care about me so much?”) After a little while, it’ll disappear back into the grasses again…and though you’ll know it’s still there, you won’t catch another glimpse of it.

Perhaps it’s because I was one of the lucky pursuers (average LeConte Search Time for my two sightings: three minutes), but I think any bird that decides when it wants to be seen and when it doesn’t is worthy of our admiration and curiosity.

So, have I convinced all the skeptics out there yet?

Maybe not, but in writing this essay I think I convinced myself. I still love the show-off birds, but for that unbeatable combination of subtlety, adaptability, creativity, and agency, I’ll take sparrows.

by Joseph Wallace

Birding/ SMRA

How to Hunt: A Hawk’s Eye View

SMRA November 8, 2021

The first thing I noticed was the hawk, a small Red-tail perched on the back of a bench in Croton Point Park. It’s so unusual to spot one close-up at eye level that I stopped for a closer look.

The second thing I noticed was that the bird was paying no attention to me. Instead, it was twisting its head around to peer up into a leafy oak nearby. As I watched it flew up into the tree and began to clamber around in the branches, awkwardly flapping its wings for balance, looking back and forth with its piercing dark eyes.

Red-tailed Hawk. Croton Point Park. Photo: Bonnie Coe.

It took me a minute to figure out what the hawk was doing: It was hunting a young squirrel. For the next fifteen minutes, and in complete silence, the two of them played a deadly game of hide and seek, the squirrel trying to keep branches or the trunk between them, the hawk lumbering around after it.

The hunt was still underway when I had to leave, so I’ll never know who prevailed. Having watched the silent contest, though, I wanted to learn more. How many different hunting techniques do birds of prey employ?

The short answer: A lot. It turns out that there are nearly as many hunting strategies as there are raptors, and some of them are pretty spectacular.

Here are a few:

Red-tailed Hawk in flight. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/id

Eyes in the Sky

When we see a hawk soaring in circles high overhead, we can easily imagine that it is searching for its next meal. In reality, though, hawks most often use this kind of soaring to get from place to place, stake out and defend territory, and court their mates.

Some hawks—mostly bigger, open-country species—do hunt while soaring high above. Red-tails, for example, feed on animals as large as rabbits, pheasants, and full-grown snakes, prey that is easily spotted from far above and that can be followed as the bird dives towards it. But most raptors (and often Red-tails themselves) rely on other approaches.

Northern Harrier hunting a grassland. Photo: Gary Zeng/Audubon Photography Awards

Close Inspection

While high soaring gets most of the attention, many hawks instead cruise low over the ground, sometimes just a few feet above a meadow or hilltop. Northern Harriers can sometimes be seen doing this at Croton Point as they hunt for the rodents and other small mammals they eat.

The disadvantage of this technique, of course, is that the prey animal is likely to spot the hawk sooner at close range. However, this is also an advantage for the hawk: Many small creatures’ only defense is to freeze in place, but that’s not so easy when a predator approaches within a few feet. A startled small bird or animal is likely to try to flee, calling attention to itself. Having flushed its prey, the hawk won’t have much distance to cover to gain its prize.

Sharp-shinned Hawk with sparrow. Photo: Rick Price/TrekNature

No Escape

One snowy morning a few years ago, I witnessed a breathtaking feat of hunting skill just outside my front door. I noticed that the birds in and around my feeder were completely still, a sure sign that there was a raptor nearby. Sure enough, a moment later a Sharp-shinned Hawk came winging in and perched on the low, snow-covered hedge that bordered the walk.

As I watched, the little hawk stuck its head down through the crust of snow to survey the branches below. Then it plunged downward, disappearing completely.

I held my breath. A moment later the Sharp-shin re-emerged at least ten feet away from where it had disappeared, shedding snow and clutching a sparrow in its talons. Somehow it had maneuvered at high speed through the tangled branches to grab its prey, which it now took to a higher branch and began to eat.

That’s the thing about the Sharp-shin and its larger relatives, including the Cooper’s Hawk and Northern Goshawk in North America: They’re astonishingly agile, designed to chase and capture birds through the forest canopy. The chase and capture I witnessed was just part of a day’s work for a Sharp-shin.

Merlin (L) and Peregrine (R)

Pure Power

Since they show up in the same places and hunt similar prey, most of us think that falcons and hawks must be closely related. But it turns out they’re not: While both groups belong to the class Aves (as do all birds), they split off just one classification level further down: Hawks to the order Accipitriformes, falcons the order Falconiformes. (Cats and seals, for example, are much more closely related to each other than are hawks and falcons.)

A close look reveals that the two groups of raptors also rely on very different hunting techniques. Unlike most hawks, falcons like the Peregrine and Merlin use their nearly unbelievable speed and great strength to pursue and catch the birds they target.

Peregrine pursuing a Rock Pigeon. See a video of this, via BBC, here: https://youtu.be/i6HkIywJuxI

I’ve witnessed a falcon pursuit, and it was a stunning sight. My wife and I were standing on a balcony overlooking New York City’s East River as a Peregrine took off from a windowsill high above us. As we watched, the bird stooped on a flock of pigeons flying on the other side of the river, folding its wings close to its body and allowing gravity, wind, and its own aerodynamic shape to increase its speed.

At its fastest, the Peregrine we watched may have reached 150 miles per hour—or even more—before slamming into the fleeing pigeons like a missile. Peregrines in mid-stoop have been known to exceed 200 mph, making them by far the fastest animal on earth, with the impact of their strike usually killing their target at once.

Red-shouldered Hawk watching from a perch. From https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-shouldered_Hawk/id

Sit and Wait

This may not be as spectacular a hunting technique as the Peregrine’s stoop and strike, but it’s certainly efficient. A hawk (such as Red-tailed or its close cousin, the Red-shouldered Hawk) will perch on a well-situated high branch with a clear view of an adjacent field or meadow. Then it will become part of the scenery, sitting still while gazing down with its sharp eyes until nearby squirrels, rabbits, or pheasants have simply forgotten it’s there.

Once a likely meal has wandered into view, the hawk will simply plunge from the tree, grab its unwary prey, and return to the branch to feed.

Crane Hawk. https://ebird.org/species/crahaw

Clambering

Have you noticed yet that none of the hunting strategies I’ve described so far match the one that led to this article: The Red-tailed Hawk hunting the squirrel through the branches of a leafy tree? That’s because most hawks never hunt this way.

In fact, I’ve found just a couple of species that regularly climb around trees in search of prey. One of them is the Crane Hawk, which is native from Mexico to Central and South America.

But there’s a crucial difference: Unlike Red-tails, Crane Hawks are ideally suited to capture their chosen prey, the reptiles and small birds and mammals that live in the trees where they hunt. They have unusually long legs, perfectly designed for reaching into and exploring knotholes, old woodpecker nest holes, and crevices. Remarkably, their legs are also double-jointed, bending both forward and back so the bird can reach every corner of their prey’s hiding place.

The Red-tail I watched, on the other hand, had none of these advantages. My guess is that it was a young hawk, and the next time it was hungry it did what its size, shape, and heritage demanded: It soared across the sky…or sat on an exposed branch and waited for its next meal to approach.

entomology_mumbo_jumbo_by_killskerry-d4cg7a2

Backyard Habitats/ SMRA

Tiny Creatures, Epic Journeys

SMRA October 13, 2021

On a recent visit to the South Carolina coast, my wife and I were walking through a grassy field on the path to our favorite beach. Before we even reached the sand, though, we saw something unexpected: Butterflies. Clouds of butterflies in, on, and around the flowering bushes behind the dunes.

A few were Monarchs in the midst of their annual migration from the northeastern U.S. to their threatened wintering grounds in Mexico. But nearly all were two other species: the orange-and-black Gulf Fritillary and the bright (almost lemony) yellow Cloudless Sulphur.

I soon learned that, like the Monarch, both of these butterflies migrate—though Florida, not of Mexico, is their destination. Seeing these three beautiful travelers awoke my imagination. I started to ask questions I’d barely ever thought about before.

Monarch Butterfly. www.butterfly-conservation.org

For example: How many other migratory butterflies are out there? How many other insects? Most of all, how much migration is going on without our even noticing?

The answer to all these questions is: Plenty. The truth is that we’re absolutely surrounded by tiny creatures who migrate, and some of them are undertaking annual journeys of astonishing length.

Painted Lady butterfly

One of the most spectacular migrations belongs to the Painted Lady, the familiar species whose caterpillars are sold in kits, allowing people to “grow” and release their own butterflies. In the wild, Painted Ladies—which live on every continent except Antarctica and South America—are intrepid travelers.

From the species’ European breeding grounds (sometimes as far north as the Arctic Circle), for example, the butterflies head south on a breathtaking route across the Mediterranean Sea to the Sahara Desert and tropical Africa. This 9,000-mile roundtrip can involve six successive generations of butterflies, a kind of relay race where each generation somehow knows the leg it must travel before it breeds and passes the baton to the next.

Such a long, complex, and perilous journey would seem like an enormous hurdle to the species’ survival. Yet the Painted Lady is abundant over much of its range. Researchers in Israel, for example, estimated that one billion Ladies migrated across the country in just a couple of weeks in March 2019. (In certain spots, observers counted 25,000 or more butterflies passing by every hour!)

No one seems to know exactly how many different butterfly species migrate, though scientists have already identified hundreds of migratory species across the globe. They are joined by many beetles, grasshoppers, and other insects, some of which simply don’t seem big enough to take such long journeys.

Large Milkweed Bug

Take the Large Milkweed Bug, for example, which at about half an inch in length isn’t actually very large. Like the Monarch, it eats only milkweed. Since milkweed plants die back during northern winters, the cold-weather populations of Milkweed Bugs head to the southern U.S. and Mexico, where the plants thrive all year.

The insects that accrue the most impressive number of frequent-flyer miles, however, are the dragonflies. I was aware of dragonfly migration even as a child, when our yard in Cape Cod would be invaded late every August by large green-and-blue dragonflies. They were Green Darners, and for a few days they seemed to be everywhere. And then, in a flash, they were gone, heading south with the birds and Monarch Butterflies.

Wandering Glider (Globe Skimmer)

Another dragonfly makes perhaps the most epic journey of all insects: Pantala flavescens, found on every continent but Antarctica. Even its names celebrate its fame as a road warrior: It’s commonly called the Wandering Glider or Globe Skimmer, while the Latin Pantala means “All Wings.”

Here in North America, the Wandering Glider’s migration resembles the Large Milkweed Bug’s, a straightforward north-south movement down the continent. But the dragonfly’s quest on the other side of the Atlantic is something else again.

Over the course of multiple generations, populations of this tiny insect—it’s less than two inches long—make an 11,200-mile roundtrip trip from India all the way to East Africa and back again. To do so, individual dragonflies can travel nearly 4000 miles, crossing the Indian Ocean en route, which means flying hundreds of miles with no food, drink, or rest along the way. This is both the longest migration and the only transoceanic journey known among insects.

Entomology Mumbo-Jumbo by Killskerry

“Known among insects” is important here. Only in recent years have scientists come to realize how many insect species migrate, and (even more strikingly) how many individual insects do. A mind-boggling 2016 study published in Science, for example, estimated that 3.5 trillion insects migrate each year over southern England alone.

If that number is hard to comprehend (and of course it is), think of it the way mathematicians do: One million seconds passes in about 11.5 days, one billion in about 32 years, and one trillion in 32,000 years. So counting the insects flying over southern England, one bug per second, would take more than 100,000 years.

How about this: The average weight of an insect has been put at around 3 milligrams, or 1/10,000^th of an ounce. The study’s authors estimated the combined weight of all those insects flying over England at 3200 tons. That’s 6,400,000 pounds of what the authors call “invisibles,” all moving from place to place while most of us aren’t paying attention.

Such vast migrations must have a direct impact on ecosystems, repeatedly bringing in waves of predators and prey, pollinators and plant eaters, diversity and diseases to new ecosystems. Yet very few studies have even attempted to measure that impact, much less the effect that climate change and other alterations in the environment might be having on insect migration.

I’m eager to learn much more about this fascinating subject. For now, whenever I spot a Monarch or Wandering Glider making its way south in the fall, I’m reminded of the vast mysteries these tiny creatures conceal…and humbled by how much we have yet to learn about them, and about the world we all share.

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Backyard Habitats/ Birding/ SMRA

The Jungle Next Door

SMRA September 7, 2021

Wherever I’ve lived, I’ve always wanted to be someplace else.

Growing up in Midwood, Brooklyn, I dreamed constantly of exploring exotic lands. I remember imagining that my postage-stamp backyard was a jungle where I might at any moment come upon a snarling jaguar or agile monkey. Climbing our big magnolia tree and turning over rocks and flagstones, I felt like I got to know every bug that lived there and every bird that passed through.

I took more far-flung journeys in books: The Mysterious Island, The Lost World, any novel that took me to places like Mars and Middle Earth. I also devoured every nonfiction book of travel and adventure I could get my hands on. (Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals, describing his childhood roaming free on the island of Corfu, was a favorite.)

When I began my writing career, I finally had my chance. Focusing on nature and the environment, I suddenly had the resources to travel to the distant lands I’d long dreamed of. A few times each year, I got to wake up where the air smelled new and the light looked different, to see the creatures that inhabited the world’s deserts, rain forests, and tropical oceans.

I thought I’d be living like that forever. But then, of course, the world changed, and like everyone I found myself stuck close to home. Once again, as during my Brooklyn childhood, my horizons shrank mostly to the flowers, trees, and rocks in my yard.

And, just as I’d done then, I started to check out those flowers and trees and turn over those rocks.

The first place I explored was our new pollinator garden, which in this season is swarming with an astonishing variety of butterflies, bees, and other little creatures, most of which I’d never even known existed till now. (Thanks to the invaluable Seek smartphone app for my ability to put names to them.)

Golden Digger Wasp. US Fish & Wildlife Service.

Perhaps the most striking current inhabitants of the garden are the bees and wasps. (I never knew so many species lived around here!) The huge purple-black and black-and-orange wasps with ever-flickering wings are Great Black and Great Golden Digger Wasps. Smaller but just as vivid are the Blue-winged and Noble Scoliid Wasps, whose most distinctive markings are the bright orange-and-yellow patterns on their abdomens. Then there’s the one with perhaps the most descriptive name in waspdom: the Four-banded Stinkbug Hunter Wasp.

Four-banded Stink Bug Wasp.

Like the spectacular—and unnecessarily feared—Cicada Killer, all of these fascinating wasps are parasitic, stinging and paralyzing a variety of insect prey to feed their young. They’re all also unaggressive towards humans. I’ll be writing about them, and parasitism in general, in more detail soon.

Among the bees, the constant presence of honeybees shows that there must be hives nearby, though I don’t know where. Familiar Common Eastern Bumblebees bumble around, as do rotund and shiny Eastern Carpenter Bees. And I’m always on the lookout for rarer species like the Black-and-Gold and endangered Rusty-patched Bumble Bees. (These last two are typically found on grasslands or prairies, so are much less likely in my yard than in the restored grasslands of nearby Croton Point Park. But you never know if you don’t look.)

Rusty-Patched Bumblebee

And the caterpillars and butterflies! Of course we’ve had Monarchs around our butterfly weed and Black Swallowtail caterpillars on our fennel. What has especially intrigued me, however, are the less well-known species, ones I’d hardly ever noticed but now watch out for. They come with such evocative names as Summer Azure, Eastern Comma, Cloudless Sulfur, and the small, subtly beautiful Grey Hairstreak.

Gray Hairstreak

The Hairstreak, one of my favorites, has evolved a brilliant defensive technique: It can wiggle tiny “tails” on the backs of its wings independent from the wings themselves. Why is this brilliant? Because predators, mistaking the wiggling tails for the Hairstreak’s antenna, attack the back of the butterfly’s wings instead of its head, giving it a much better chance to escape.

All this is richness enough, and I haven’t even mentioned the moths (I recently found a gorgeous Delicate Cycnia resting under a winterberry leaf), the gaudy Milkweed beetles, or the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds sipping nectar and American Goldfinches checking out the coneflower seeds. Taken together, the abundance and diversity of life on our Brooklyn-sized postage stamp is astonishing.

Delicate Cycnia. Photo: John Rinker. Maryland Biodiversity Project.

I will never lose my desire to travel. When the world finally and truly reopens, I know I’ll be out seeking new light, new air, new birdsong. But I will also never again forget what I knew as a child and was forced to re-learn this year.

There is a jungle out there. To see it, you just have to take the time to look.

Backyard Habitats/ Birding/ SMRA

It’s All in the Name

SMRA August 3, 2021

For the past couple of weeks, a hummingbird has been visiting our blooming pollinator garden. We’ve loved watching it buzz around from flower to flower, and we’re happy to know that our garden is helping supply it with the food it will need for its long southbound journey this fall.

It’s a member of the one hummingbird species that we’re likely to see around here: a Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Watching it, I’ve been reminded again of the problem with the species’ name: The bird in our garden is a female, and female Ruby-throats don’t have ruby throats. (Theirs are a dirty white.)

I could probably write an entire essay on species named after a feature found only in the male (and speculate on the fact that nearly every bird species was named by a man), but the Ruby-throat made me think of something else.

Our bird names are not only inaccurate, they’re boring.

I don’t mean the Latin scientific names, which experts use to make sure they’re clearly identifying the bird they’re talking about. Those are essential, with Latin (no one’s first language) serving as a kind of lingua franca worldwide.

I mean the English common names, which are merely handy ways for laypeople (and scientists, when they’re not working) to talk about a bird without sounding pretentious. (You’d be much more likely to say, “I saw a robin,” or even “an American Robin,” than try to impress your friends with, “I observed a Turdus migratorius.”)

And however much English has become “the world’s language” (too much, in my opinion), it is not the only language used to name birds. My field guide to the birds of Belize, for example, points out that Ramphastos sulfuratus, the Keel-billed Toucan in English, is called the Belizean Bill Bird in Belizean Kriol, the Selepan in the Mayan language spoken by the nation’s Q’eqchi’ communities, and the Pun by the Mopan Maya people.

Keel-billed Toucan. Photo Joe Wallace

So, since neither science nor the world demands it, why choose such a bland name as “Keel-billed” to describe this spectacular toucan? The answer, of course, is that the common name is most often designed to help us identify a species, to point us towards the feature that will allow us to go “aha!” and check it off our list.

This is a fine idea, but the truth is that birds’ common names often fail at even this modest endeavor. Too often, they’re both dull and unhelpful.

Take our example, the Keel-billed Toucan. I’ve never learned what a “keeled” bill looks like, much less how to spot one when the bird is perched in a tree a hundred feet up. And I probably never will, mostly because I don’t have to: This gaudy bird boasts at least four other more distinctive features, most spectacularly its enormous rainbow bill, which is unlike any other large toucan’s.

So why not borrow from the Kriol and call it the Many-colored Bill Bird instead? Or the Rainbow-schnozzed or Red-butted Bigbill? (Okay, those last two might be too much to ask.)

Why not? My guess is because scientists think that such names wouldn’t be dignified enough for the genus Ramphastos, which includes all the large toucans. (The makers of Froot Loops cereal might disagree.) Instead we get not only the Keel-billed Toucan but its close relatives the Channel-billed (I defy you to spot the “channel” in the field); Yellow-throated (that’s fine…except that many other Ramphastos toucans have yellow throats as well); and Citron-throated (um, “citron” is basically another word for yellow.)

Sadly, toucans are far from alone in being given names that are both dull and unhelpful. To find an example closer to home, take a look at the Red-bellied Woodpecker. Then take another look and try to spot its red belly. Or, rather, don’t bother: I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’d prefer to identify this common species by its barred back, red cap and nape, buffy face and breast, and distinctive, throaty call. (By the way, the reddish belly does exist, but is rarely noticeable.)

Black-capped Chickadee. Photo: www.allaboutbirds.org

And then there’s the Black-capped Chickadee. While this species does boast a prominent black cap, so does the Carolina Chickadee (which overlaps with the Black-cap in part of their ranges) and a couple of other chickadee species. It’s not a very distinguishing characteristic.

I could go on, but I won’t. And, to be fair, some of our species have been given more vivid names. The Northern Catbird is named after its meowing call, the Bald Eagle is a livelier name than “White-headed,” and the Scarlet Tanager’s moniker seems to capture that species’ vibrancy pretty well. But such examples are too few and far between.

The most frustrating thing about all this is that it’s not even necessary! There’s no rule dictating what kind of common name ornithologists must choose. And with one family of birds at least, they have allowed their most poetic impulses to run free. That family is Trochilidae, the hummingbirds, the same one that contains our own (blandly and incompletely named) Ruby-throated.

I don’t know why hummingbirds have been treated differently. Perhaps they’re simply too beautiful to saddle with something dull. For whatever reason, most aren’t even called “hummingbird.” Instead, even a quick look through the plates of my Ecuador bird guide reveals such glories as the Crowned Woodnymph, Spangled Coquette, Blue-chinned Sapphire, White-vented Plumeleteer, Green-tailed Trainbearer, Empress Brilliant, Tourmaline Sunangel, Violet-tailed Sylph, and Amethyst Woodstar.

Tufted Coquette. Photo: ebird.org

Brilliants! Coquettes! Woodnymphs! Don’t those names make you want to drop everything and go chasing after the birds themselves? They do me. And they don’t even include what may be my favorite bird name of all, a hummingbird named by someone who must have been head over heels for the species and its whole remarkable family.

The Shining Sunbeam.

Shining Sunbeam. Photo: surfbirds.com

Looking at the picture of the Shining Sunbeam in my Ecuador guide, I’m struck by the fact that it isn’t even the most spectacular of hummers. (Take a glance at the Crimson Topaz or Rainbow Starfrontlet for ones that can make your jaw drop.) The name is also completely unhelpful as an ID tool; if you’re searching for a sunbeam come to life, what features do you look for?

But who cares? By giving hummingbirds such glorious names, scientists have made “helpfulness” secondary to something far more important: Reminding us that birds are themselves glorious, and that getting to share the planet with them is a gift worth celebrating.

Look, such names tell us. Look closely. Aren’t they beautiful, like sunbeams?

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