A new report out today from the International Boreal Conservation Campaign and the Canadian Boreal Initiative demonstrates vividly why Canada’s 150 year-old mining laws are putting birds, wildlife, and people at risk. It’s hard to believe but virtually all of the Boreal is still open for anyone to stake a mineral claim and arrive at the site with backhoes and chainsaws to start cutting trees, building roads, and digging into the ground. And they don’t have to ask anyone’s permission first—not the landowner’s, not the First Nation’s communities that live nearby or hunt and fish there, and certainly not the birds, caribou, and other wildlife. In fact, this so-called “Free Entry System” has allowed a whopping 10% of the Canadian Boreal to have already been staked for mineral claims! The report shows maps of the claims across the Boreal and includes an overlay with the range of Caribou—a species that is highly sensitive to disturbance. So sensitive is the Woodland Caribou that it has disappeared from a vast portion of the already disturbed southern range which once extended into northern New York and New England. Sadly, the Woodland Caribou is now listed as Threatened across most of its Canadian range.
I start thinking about birds that might be similarly at risk from this Free-Entry free-for-all. Large portions of some southern Boreal breeders like Canada Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, and Evening Grosbeak clearly overlap with major mineral claim areas and compare the map of mineral claims with a limited range species like the Short-billed Dowitcher!
You can see these maps for yourself and read more detail about the report here.

And, as always, if you are moved to action, sign up for the Save Our Boreal Birds petition at www.saveourborealbirds.org and get more people to sign by sending it out to listserves, bloggers, newsletters, and websites!

They only made one mistake. After a winter spent perhaps in a wetland in
Texas or Florida or Missouri; after a journey of thousands of aching miles; after surviving thunderstorms and blazing sun and blinding snowstorms in their struggle to find the clear shrub-lined pond that they imagined raising their young.

After all that, 750 exhausted birds flying over northeastern Alberta finally spotted an unfrozen lake. Under better light they might have noticed the slight purple sheen on parts of it. But instead they saw a refuge that would give them at least a few hours of rest and maybe a chance for some replenishing food.

As they landed on the poison lake of oil and waste from Syncrude’s tar sands mining operation it may have only taken a few seconds for the birds to realize that something was not right. A few flew up quickly and continued north, their bodies stained with dark oily residue but 500 of them found themselves stuck in the oily lethal mire. They struggled, became coated further with oil, slowly sank further until they were gone.

Five hundred birds made one mistake and died last week on a single tailings pond in
Alberta’s tar sands.

What is especially troubling is that Syncrude was going to keep the deaths secret just as the fact that these tailings ponds and the others scattered through the Alberta tar sands have been killing birds for thirty years has been kept from the public. A whistleblower, apparently sickened by the sight, leaked the news and for the first time in thirty years the animals that died didn’t do so silently. You can read some of the news reports about the incident here and here.

Of course, the hundreds or thousands of birds killed every year at Alberta tar sands tailings ponds is just the tip of the iceberg of the impacts that the fast-paced development will have on birds. Hundreds of thousands of acres will be strip-mined and millions of acres criss-crossed with a spider’s web of pipelines and road. These changes will mean millions fewer birds—including birds like Canada Warbler which was just added to Canada’s list of threatened birds and Rusty Blackbird which has declined by more than 90% over the last 40 years.

How will we feel knowing that the gas in our car came from these same Alberta tar sands? How will we feel knowing that the oil traced the migratory routes of these same birds via pipelines extending from Chicago and Denver and Houston and Galveston to the Albert a tar sands?

At the very least we ought to know what the real trade-offs are. Oil companies and government should not hide the facts about the true costs of Alberta tar sands development. How many skeletons lie at the bottom of those oily lakes?

Recently there has been a lot of discussion of global warming impacts on the Boreal and what we need to do to slow these impacts. But a story that came out a few weeks ago really brought home the issue and the urgency to act for me, perhaps in part because it happened in a place I have visited myself.

It was the story of the gutsy mother polar bear that showed up with two cubs in tow in the tiny isolated Northwest Territory community of Deline some 500 kilometers south of where polar bears have ever been seen. The story is even more wrenching when the experts tell us that she had probably begun wandering in search of food last fall because of late sea ice formation as a result of global warming. She may have traveled for months, nursing her cubs while her own body slowly broke down from starvation

This is just one of the real stories that rise above hyperbole to capture the horror of the vast changes we will see if we don’t act. Policy makers in Canada from the national to the provincial level have, it seems given the various new initiatives being announced almost daily, grasped the importance of lowering carbon emissions. Sadly though, few government leaders still understand the true significance of protecting our remaining intact forests as part of this equation.

Canada’s Boreal Forest, one of the largest intact forest and wetland ecosystems left on earth, and recently recognized by the National Academy of Sciences as one of the earth’s key ‘tipping point’ climate systems, perfectly illustrates why scientists know forest protection is so important.

Canada’s Boreal is the breeding ground for billions of birds and some of the world’s largest populations of caribou, wolves, bear, and many other wildlife species. Its 1.5 million lakes and ponds hold much of the world’s clean, fresh, unfrozen water providing habitat for fish and wildlife and a source of water for Canada’s peoples. And it is the ancestral home and the provider of practical and spiritual sustenance for hundreds of First Nations communities.

But, scientists have discovered this forest’s other treasure: huge amounts of carbon have accumulated in its soils, peatland, and permafrost. The Boreal safely locks away almost twice as much carbon per acre as tropical forests. If left intact, this ultimate carbon storage system keeps an estimated 186 billion tons of carbon from going into the atmosphere, equivalent to 27 years worth of the world’s carbon emissions in 2003 from the burning of fossil fuels

Not only is it essential to increase the odds of keeping as much of the carbon “in the bank” by establishing protected areas as carbon “sanctuaries” but without the Boreal’s vast, intact forest and wetland habitats, plants and animals will have no place to move to as their ranges shift. Without such areas, many plants and animals will face decreased numbers and higher risks of extinction.

If we are going tackle the problem of global warming, we must fight both carbon emissions from industrial activity and recognize forest’s values beyond just their trees, by protecting intact, globally-important carbon-rich treasures like Canada’s Boreal Forest.

******************************

ABC’s “Nature’s Edge” show focused on bird conservation and Boreal birds.

It is in two segments and can be viewed at any time at the links below.:

Where Have All the Birds Gone?

Destruction of northern forests is jeopardizing bird species worldwide.
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4750830

Saving Our Boreal Birds

New book, “Birder’s Conservation Handbook,” tells you how you can help.
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=4750904

One topic that never seems to grow old among birders is the subject of poorly-named or misnamed birds. If you go on a bird club outing with at least five people and happen to see a Red-bellied Woodpecker, I can guarantee that at least one person is going to say, “I don’t know why they call that bird a Red-bellied Woodpecker. I’ve seen hundreds of them over the years, and I’ve never seen any red on the belly.” And then there is the case of the Ring-necked Duck. I think that some birders are contractually obligated every time they see one of these birds to say, “They should really call that bird the Ring-BILLED Duck, not the Ring-NECKED Duck. Both the male and the female have a big white ring around their bills. Has anybody ever actually seen the ring on a Ring-neck?”

Although I understand birders’ complaints about these two bird names, these species are not actually misnamed, they’re just named for difficult-to-see field marks that were much more obvious to ornithologists who examined the species in the hand. The bird names that really frustrate me are those that are based on habitats or places where the given species rarely, or at best, infrequently, occurs. Two such names that come to mind right away are Prairie Warbler and Philadelphia Vireo. Prairie Warbler is found primarily in the eastern United States, with only a limited portion of its range occurring in the prairie regions of the central U.S. And, despite its name, Prairie Warbler does not breed in grasslands, instead favoring early successional habitats. Philadelphia Vireo, meanwhile, breeds overwhelmingly in Canada’s Boreal Forest region, and winters in southern Central America. At most, a few vireos might pass through Philadelphia briefly on both spring and fall migration, although the species is an uncommon migrant in the East during springtime and undoubtedly only a tiny fraction of the entire population ever stops in the Philadelphia area. I realize that the species is named after the city because it was discovered there, but I personally spend more time in Philadelphia each year than your average Philadelphia Vireo, and I only visit two days a year. If I had a say, I’d like to see this bird given a new common name that reflects the species’ heavy reliance on the Boreal Forest.

It’s one thing for birders to be frustrated by bad bird names, but can you imagine how a poorly-named bird must feel? At best, having an inappropriate name given to you must be an annoyance, and at worst, it could even lead to an identity crisis. To gain more insight into this topic, I’ve actually arranged for some quotes from two Boreal-breeding warblers with decidedly non-Boreal names—Nashville Warbler and Connecticut Warbler. First, here are the thoughts from a Nashville Warbler:

“Sure, my official name is Nashville Warbler, but nobody that I know actually calls me that. All of my friends call me Ontario Warbler. I was born and raised here in the Boreal Forest of western Ontario, which is where my parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents, etc. all lived. In fact, it’s hard to go more than a few hundred yards in these parts without bumping into another Ontario Warbler. I guess the same goes for much of the province, as my mate has been bragging recently about how there are more of us than any other bird in Ontario—15 million individuals! That’s great, I guess, although sometimes it can make it a little harder to find insects to feed the kids.

Nashville? Nope, never been there. We have some relatives from Québec who often stop there on migration—they go to the Grand Ole Opry and all that—and they say it’s nice. The way I see it, if you’re in western Ontario in early September like I am, and you have a choice of making a major detour to Nashville so that you can say you’ve been there, or just heading directly to the tropics, what are you going to do? Southern Mexico, here I come!”

The Nashville Warbler seems a bit better adjusted about his name situation than our second guest, the Connecticut Warbler:

“Connecticut? Where the $#@%$! is Connecticut? And what makes you think that I’d want to go there? The casinos and shopping malls? I prefer places that are a little less crowded, like spruce-tamarack bogs in central Manitoba. So if you want to call me anything, call me Manitoba Warbler. Or maybe just Boreal Warbler. After all, if you want to see me or one of my kind during the summertime, you better bring some bug spray and head to the Boreal, because that’s where 91% of us are. And don’t even give me that line about how we’re seen every fall in Connecticut. How many sightings are there? Five?!? Ten?!? The only “Connecticut” Warblers that I know that have ever been to that little state are my crazy Uncle Gord, his mate Emma, and their offspring. I think there must be some sort of genetic defect on that side of the family. So that explains about ten birds. What about the other 1,199,990 of us who don’t ever set foot there? Connecticut Warbler my cloaca!”

In next week’s entry, we’ll talk with a Palm Warbler who has legally changed her name to Peatlands Warbler.

St. Louis was colder than I expected. Of course, most of the eastern
U.S. was colder than normal the day I happened to be there, last Friday, April 11^th. I was visiting in order to give a presentation for St. Louis Audubon’s annual meeting that night but I was fortunate to have some time for birding beforehand. The St. Louis Audubon president, Torrey Berger and treasurer, David Rogles—both excellent birders and ardent conservationists—spent the morning and early afternoon showing me around.

It was windy and raw and the great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers were running fast and high but we saw some great birds and I learned much about the kinds of conservation work going on in the area. Tens of millions of dollars are required here to restore some of the habitat along this great river system that was lost over the 200 years since Louis and Clark started here on their grand expedition to explore the western U.S. I couldn’t help but think of the contrast with Canada’s great river system, the Mackenzie, the longest remaining virtually undammed river system in the Northern Hemisphere.

In the area known as “The Confluence” where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers join north of St. Louis, we birded an incredible area called the Riverlands that the Army Corp of Engineers is working with partners including St. Louis Audubon to restore. There were great clouds of hundreds of White Pelicans (20,000+ breed in the Boreal), perhaps a dozen dainty Bonaparte’s Gulls (95% breed in Boreal), a few Horned Grebes and Bufflehead (both with more than 75% in Boreal), and Northern Shovelers everywhere (36% in Boreal). Despite the wind we found a few migrating landbirds as well including a handful (4-5) of Rusty Blackbirds (85% in Boreal), Ruby-crowned Kinglets (68% in Boreal), Yellow-rumped Warblers (63% in Boreal), and Brown Creepers (15% in Boreal).

Later that night at the St. Louis Audubon annual meeting I got to see how this amazing all-volunteer group is putting conservation into action. The group had raised $20,000 for a bird conservation project in southern Mexico where many of our Boreal birds spend the winter, had put up another $20,000 for bird habitat restoration work at the Riverlands project near St. Louis, and had presented 60 programs to classrooms totaling 3,000 kids in the area.

And now this particular evening St. Louis Audubon and organizer extraordinaire
Mitch Leachman, had transformed the room where the annual meeting and dinner was being held into a Boreal Bird haven. There were posters providing background and education about Boreal birds and the issues they face and photos showing familiar Boreal birds that winter or migrate through St. Louis with opportunities for people to “adopt” a Boreal bird to raise funds for their conservation.

Thank you St. Louis Audubon!

If you would like to help Boreal birds yourself, sign the Save Our Boreal Birds petition at www.saveourborealbirds.org AND even if you have already signed it, send it along to family and friends and to listserves so we can have over 10,000 signatures by International Migratory Bird Day in May.

On Friday, April 18th at 8:30 PM Eastern time, Maine Public Television’s Maine Watch with Jennifer Rooks will be airing a segment on how to “buy for birds” that should include discussions of Boreal birds and products that are good and bad for Boreal birds. I was able to take Jennifer out birding last week to see some Boreal birds and then we went to a grocery store to look at products that impact birds. After the 18th the show should be available for free downloading and podcasting at: http://www.mpbn.net/mainewatch/index.html

The avian parade to the Boreal is well under way! After a long cold winter here in the Albany area, local birders have recently been enjoying the almost-daily appearance of new spring migrants. And while some of the new arrivals are local breeders, many of them are birds on their way to the Boreal—Fox Sparrow, Ring-necked Duck, Green-winged Teal, American Wigeon, Rusty Blackbird, Wilson’s Snipe, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker are all recently spotted species that rely on the Boreal for more than half of their breeding. These birds are the early stars in a spring-long procession to the Boreal that will soon pick up steam with the appearance of Yellow-rumped Warblers and will culminate in the arrival of countless warblers, thrushes, and other songbirds in May. For many birders, the incredible abundance and diversity of birds that epitomizes spring migration is the high point of the year. And yet, I find that after the last migrants have left our region, they also largely disappear from our consciousness. We might not even know where they are headed, let alone what threats they might face there, or what actions we might be able to take to ensure that the amazing spectacle of spring migration continues for generations to come.

This spring, I encourage birders to take a little extra time to learn more about our beloved Boreal migrants. After seeing one of your favorite warblers, visit our Boreal Bird Guide to learn more about it, including how much it depends on the Boreal. And, I urge all birders to help protect Boreal bird populations for future generations by signing the Save Our Boreal Birds petition. This important petition, supported by Ontario Nature, Nature Canada, Boreal Songbird Initiative, and many other partners, calls on the Canadian government to enact the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework and protect 50% of the Canadian Boreal. North America’s Boreal Forest region is an incredibly important place for birds, hosting billions of breeding individuals from over 300 species. This mostly pristine region, however, is increasingly under threat from industrial development. While only 8% of Canada’s Boreal Forest has received permanent protection, 30% has already been allocated for development. The oil and gas industry, mining, forestry, and hydroelectric development all represent serious threats to the integrity of the Boreal Forest and the bird populations that depend upon the region.

A number of Boreal birds are considered at conservation risk, the most well-known being the endangered Whooping Crane. The time to save the Boreal, and save our Boreal birds, is now. Elsewhere in North America, in places like the Great Plains and the southeastern U.S., conservation efforts focus on trying to protect small remnants of original habitat and the reduced bird populations tied to them. The Boreal Forest, however, represents our last great conservation opportunity—a chance to protect a large, relatively intact ecosystem that supports large numbers of birds and other wildlife. Conserving the Boreal Forest now is our last chance to get it right the first time, before irreversible damage is done. And, increasingly, there are warning signs from Boreal birds that there is trouble in the Boreal. Of the 20 “Common Birds in Decline” that National Audubon Society profiled last summer, seven of them—Evening Grosbeak, Northern Pintail, Greater Scaup, Boreal Chickadee, Common Tern, American Bittern, and Ruffed Grouse—depend on the Boreal for at least 45% of their breeding. All of these species, meanwhile, have shown population declines of more than 50% in the past four decades. A review of Canadian Breeding Bird Survey data shows an additional 13 boreal-reliant species with significant declines in Canada during the same time period. These latter species include Rusty Blackbird, which has declined more than any other North American bird in the last 40 years, and Olive-sided Flycatcher, which is the latest bird to be designated as Threatened in Canada. The time to Save Our Boreal Birds is now!

To learn more about the Save Our Boreal Birds campaign and sign the petition to the Canadian government, visit the Save Our Boreal Birds campaign web site at: www.saveourborealbirds.org. And, pass the link along to a friend!

After eagerly awaiting the arrival of my copy of the “Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario 2001-2005” for a few weeks, I was excited to find it sitting on my doorstep yesterday afternoon. From the stunning cover photograph of Prairie Warbler to the extensive content inside, the book quickly proved that it was well worth the wait. In fact, I think this new Ontario Atlas is the finest breeding bird atlas that I have ever seen.

Rather than providing an extensive review of the entire Atlas, however, I’m going to instead focus on it from a Boreal perspective. It goes without saying that this work is a “must have” for anybody interested in Ontario ornithology, but I also think that the Atlas is an invaluable book for all who are interested in Boreal birds. On the most fundamental level, the Atlas is a tremendous resource in answering the question, “What birds are Boreal birds?” I think most birders could quickly name several Boreal species, such as Boreal Chickadee, Gray Jay, Spruce Grouse, Black-backed Woodpecker, and Cape May Warbler, but how many of us would think of Red-eyed Vireo or Chipping Sparrow as being Boreal birds? And yet, in a table ranking the ten most common species for each of Ontario’s five Atlas regions, both Chipping Sparrow and Red-eyed Vireo are in the Top 10 list for the Northern Shield, one of two Atlas regions (together with the Hudson Bay Lowlands) found within Ontario’s Boreal Forest Region. Likewise, a table showing the species with the highest probability of being observed in each of the five Atlas regions lists a single woodpecker for the Northern Shield region. That woodpecker, perhaps surprisingly to many, is not Black-backed Woodpecker, but rather Northern Flicker. The lesson is that the term “Boreal bird” includes both species that are largely restricted to the Boreal Forest Region and more common, widespread species that include the Boreal Forest within their extensive breeding ranges.

These lists in the introductory pages of the Atlas provide interesting food for thought, but the real heart of the book is the individual species accounts. Each written account contains sections on Distribution and Population Status, Breeding Biology, and Abundance in Ontario. In addition, the species accounts contain different combinations of Breeding Evidence maps and Relative Abundance maps depending on the given species. The abundance maps in particular are excellent resources for learning not only where a species is found, but also where that species is found in large numbers. Yellow-rumped Warbler is a widespread breeder throughout much of Ontario, and the largest maps in its account are of Southern Ontario, where its range is expanding southward. But, a small abundance map for the entire province puts this southern breeding in perspective, visually illustrating how common the species is in different regions of Ontario. This species is most abundant in the Boreal Forest of northwestern Ontario, where Atlasers detected 15-24 Yellow-rumps per 25 survey points, as compared to 0-3 birds for the same number of survey points in the southern part of the province.

Another useful tool in the species accounts is the Probability of Observation bar chart, which shows the likelihood that a species was detected in a surveyed block in each of the five different Atlas regions. The case of the Bay-breasted Warbler provides a nice example of the utility of these charts. The Breeding Evidence maps show clusters of Bay-breasted records in the Southern Shield of Southern Ontario, which lies south of the Boreal Forest Region, and then scattered records throughout the Northern Shield, which is in the Boreal Forest Region. From a visual standpoint, a reader might think that the species is about equally common in the Northern and Southern Shields, but this appearance reflects not the species’ true abundance, but rather the fact that the Southern Shield received much better Atlas coverage than the Northern Shield. A quick look at the Probability of Observation chart, however, clearly shows that Bay-breasted Warbler is much more common in the Northern Shield—it had a 53% probability of being observed in blocks in this area, and only a 14% chance of being detected in Southern Shield blocks. Cross-referencing the Relative Abundance map confirms that Bay-breasted hotspots are found across Ontario’s Northern Shield.

Not only is the Ontario Atlas a valuable tool for those interested in learning more about Boreal birds, it should also be an incredibly useful resource for bird conservationists working to protect these birds. For most Boreal species, even basic information about their populations is limited due to the largely remote nature of the Boreal Forest. Questions such as “What is the breeding range of this species?”, “How large is its population?”, and “Where is it most common?” do not necessarily have good answers in many cases. In addition to the maps described above, the Ontario Atlas also includes an appendix with population size estimates for Ontario birds; together, these resources make the birds of Ontario’s Boreal Forest the best-understood Boreal birds in North America. The Relative Abundance maps, for example, are an important first step in eliminating an “ornithological black hole,” which is a lack of bird abundance information across most of the Boreal Forest region. The Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) provides this sort of information for most of North America, but BBS coverage largely ends near the southern edge of the Boreal. For northern-breeding birds such as Fox Sparrow, this means that the BBS might have limited or no data for the species. In fact, the BBS Summer Distribution Map for Fox Sparrow for 1994 to 2003 does not even show the species breeding in Ontario. The Ontario Atlas account, meanwhile, shows this large sparrow breeding across the northern half of the province, with especially high numbers of individuals in the northern part of Ontario’s Boreal Forest Region. The Atlas also estimates the provincial population at 300,000 individuals, all occurring in the Boreal Forest Region.

The abundance maps in the new Ontario Atlas should serve as important tools as conservationists work to protect bird populations in the province. Without knowing where a species is common, it is very difficult to make informed conservation decisions to protect that species. Similarly, the population estimates provided by the Ontario Atlas will undoubtedly help bird conservationists to better assess conservation priorities, especially among Boreal birds. As an example, the Ontario Atlas provides a provincial population estimate of 6 million individuals for Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, which breeds across Canada from Yukon to Newfoundland, and also occurs in extreme northern areas of the eastern U.S. This estimate of 6 million Yellow-bellied Flycatchers just in Ontario equals the global population estimate for the species in the Partners in Flight North American Landbird Conservation Plan, which provides population estimates for all North American landbirds. While the Ontario population estimates are described as “rough ballpark figures,” they should still be helpful in reassessing the population sizes of northern species like Yellow-bellied Flycatcher.

The “Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario 2001-2005” is an outstanding achievement that is the fitting culmination of more than eight years of planning, field work, data analysis, mapping, and writing. I highly recommend it to anybody interested in Ontario ornithology or the birds of the Boreal Forest region.

The “Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario 2001-2005” can be ordered on-line at the Ontario Nature web site, or via phone at 1-416-444-8419 ext 230. If you are calling from the United States, you should use this number for ordering, rather than the toll-free number (1-800-440-2366) that is provided on the Atlas web site and the Ontario Nature web site.
—Matt Medler

National Public Radio will be doing a segment on birds today (Friday, March 28) from 2-3 PM Eastern time for which I will be talking about some bird conservation issues and opportunities along with some colleagues from around the U.S.

You can listen in via the web at:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/2008 03282

A new citizen science initiative focused on learning more about one of North America’s most rapidly declining birds, the Rusty Blackbird, is now online at eBird. We hope to be able to encourage all Rusty Blackbird observations to be submitted through this easy-to-use online system so we can understand more about the species migratory dynamics. Read Matt Medler’s Rusty Blackbird blog entry below for more information.

Don’t forget to sign the Save Our Boreal Birds petition if you haven’t already at:

www.saveourborealbirds.org

Jeff

P.S. Here is a note from Ray Brown about another upcoming event for anyone in the Boston area:

Our guest list for the Party for Bird Conservation is filling up fast and I want to urge all Massbirders who’d like to attend to RSVP to this address as soon as possible so that we can save a spot for you. The party will take place next Tuesday, April 1, from 6:30-8:30pm at the Hampshire House in Boston.

The party will benefit the Massachusetts Important Bird Areas program, and items for raffles and silent auction will include original bird art work by Barry Van Dusen, a raptor-banding day with Norman Smith from the Blue Hills Trailside Museum, tickets to a Red Sox game, and much more. Admission and scrumptious hot and cold hors d’oeuvres are free, and there’ll be a cash bar.

Joining IBA director Wayne Petersen at the event will be other notable birders and authors, including Dr. Jeffrey Wells , author of the new Birder’s Conservation Handbook; David Clapp, tour leader and former director of Mass Audub on’s South Shore Sanctuaries; and Mike O’Connor, author of the hot-selling Why Don’t Woodpeckers Get Headaches?.

Dress is casual; RSVP is required. Please see our website (talkinbirds.com) or Mass Audubon’s site (Massaudubon.org) for full details, including directions and parking. Closest T stops are Charles/MGH and Park Street.

Thanks and best wishes,
Ray

Ray Brown’s TALKIN’ BIRDS Sundays 9:30-10am 95.9FM South Shore, MA 1180AM Southern R.I. Live On-line: 959WATD.COM Listen anytime: talkinbirds.com

Today’s thoughts are from Matt Medler, BSI Science Coordinator.

As a group, blackbirds are among our best known and most noticeable birds. North America’s three grackle species are all large, loud birds that practically demand our attention with their strident calls and striking displays. And who among us is not familiar with Red-winged Blackbirds, with their striking plumage, repetitive song, and massive autumn flocks? Despite the conspicuous nature of most blackbirds, there is one species that is most notable for the fact that it is extremely inconspicuous—the Rusty Blackbird.

Rusty Blackbird
Credit: Jeff Nadler

Rusty Blackbird is such an obscure bird that until quite recently, few people realized that it underwent a greater decline in the last part of the 20^th century than any other species of North American bird, with numbers declining by as much as 98% since the 1960s. And, even now, ornithologists are uncertain about what has caused such a dramatic decline. Fortunately, however, there is now a group of bird conservationists specifically focused on Rusty Blackbirds, and they need your help in trying to better understand this bird.

The International Rusty Blackbird Technical Working Group was established in 2005 to create a year-round research program designed to better understand the basic ecology of the Rusty Blackbird, determine causes of the decline of the species, and develop conservation strategies for preventing further declines. The Group has already initiated intensive research projects on both the breeding grounds and wintering grounds of Rusty Blackbird, and is now interested in learning more about Rusty Blackbirds as they migrate north during the springtime.

Together with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, the Rusty Blackbird Working Group is calling on birdwatchers from across the species’ migratory path to go out and look for Rusty Blackbirds between April 1 and 7 and then report their results to the eBird database. In addition to reporting the number of blackbirds seen, observers will be asked to include information about the ratio of males to females, the behavior of the birds seen, and the habitat in which they are found. Complete details for this monitoring effort will be available at the eBird web site on Wednesday, March 26. If you are uncertain if you live in an area where Rusty Blackbirds can be found during migration, check out BSI’s detailed species account, which includes a map with spring and fall migration routes.

The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has an excellent web site devoted to the Rusty Blackbird, with information on the bird’s life history, a discussion of possible causes of declines, and a summary of research being conducted by members of the Working Group. For those interested in learning more about this poorly-known species, I highly recommend visiting the Smithsonian site.

Today’s thoughts are from Matt Medler, BSI Science Coordinator.

Dr. Jeff Wells will be appearing on two radio talk shows next week. Click for more info.

Here in the Albany area and across most of “upstate” New York, the American Robin is often thought of as the classic symbol of springtime—when robins arrive back in the area, it is a sure sign that spring is also on its way. The only problem with this is that American Robins are never completely gone from our area during the winter months. They might be a little harder to find, but they are still here, and usually in good numbers. In fact, each year on Albany-area Christmas Bird Counts, hundreds to thousands of American Robins are tallied by observers during late December and early January.

As a replacement for the official sign of spring here in the Northeast, I would like to instead nominate the Fox Sparrow. This large, colorful sparrow is absent from most of New York and northern New England during the dead of winter, but when the calendar changes to March, the first Fox Sparrows of the year appear like clockwork, albeit without the fanfare associated with American Robins or Red-winged Blackbirds. Sure enough, despite the miserable weather across much of the Northeast recently, Fox Sparrows were reported for the first time from central and eastern New York and southern Vermont during the first 10 days of March.

Fox Sparrow
Credit Glen Tepke

For many birders, the Fox Sparrow ranks among their favorite sparrows, and after seeing and hearing one, it is easy to understand why. The form seen here in the eastern U.S., known as the Red Fox Sparrow, has reddish upperparts and large rufous spots across the breast. This reddish coloration, together with the species’ large size, makes it easy to distinguish from the many other sometimes-indistinguishable sparrows. And, as an added bonus, Red Fox Sparrows have a beautiful song, described by David Sibley as the “richest and most melodious of all sparrows.”

I was fortunate to spend some time in the Boreal Forest of Québec last summer, and the loud, ringing songs of Fox Sparrows were one of the signature sounds of my trip. Many of the other common species seen and heard on the trip, such as Swainson’s Thrush, Hermit Thrush, Gray Jay, and White-throated Sparrow, breed in boreal areas of New York’s Adirondack region, and are familiar species to me. However, when I heard my first Fox Sparrow song and then located the big red sparrow belting it out from the top of a shrub, I knew that I was in a different place—I was really in the Boreal Forest region.

The Fox Sparrow species is currently defined as being made up of four different identifiable groups or forms—Red, Sooty, Slate-colored, and Thick-billed—that differ in coloration, structure, genetics, and song. Red Fox Sparrow is the most widespread group, breeding across much of Canada and Alaska, while the other groups have more restricted ranges in western North America. Overall, 58% of the entire Fox Sparrow population breeds in the Boreal, but the Red Fox Sparrow is heavily dependent on the region, with its breeding range almost perfectly matching a map of North America’s Boreal Forest region.

As much as I enjoy Fox Sparrows (and probably precisely because I enjoy them so much), I have to admit to being a bit frustrated by them. My frustration stems from the fact that in New York, the species only winters in the southeastern portion of the state (New York City and neighboring areas). So, despite the fact that other Boreal sparrow species like Dark-eyed Junco and White-throated Sparrow winter across much of New York, and the fact that Fox Sparrow is bigger than these two species and should therefore be better able to withstand cold upstate New York winters, observers across most of New York have to be content with seeing Fox Sparrows just on spring and fall migration. I’ve tried to come up with reasons why Fox Sparrows don’t winter farther north, and the best explanation that I can think of is that because they prefer to forage by double-scratching for invertebrates in leaf litter, they tend to winter farther south, where there is less likely to be snow cover. This explanation would be quite satisfactory except for the original point of this entry—Fox Sparrows are one of the very first songbirds to migrate north each “spring.” They actually move northward in New York in late winter, when there can still be plenty of snow on the ground. This means that earlier-migrating individuals are likely to arrive back on their Boreal breeding grounds some time in late March or early April. I have not been to the Boreal at this time, but I fully imagine that it is still a cold and snow-covered place in early April and beyond.

I’ve given up trying to understand the migratory behavior of Fox Sparrows, and am instead going to turn my attention to getting out in the field to see this species in the coming weeks. The Red Fox Sparrow winters in the southeastern U.S. and migrates northward through much of the eastern half of the country, so it is a bird that many people can see. While it sometimes appears at birdfeeders (or more accurately, under birdfeeders) during migration, this Boreal beauty is typically found on the ground in brushy areas, where it can often be located by its vigorous double-scratching feeding technique. Fox Sparrows can also be heard singing on migration, so be sure to take a listen to the song at the Boreal Bird Guide before going afield in search of one.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

BSI Senior Scientist Jeff Wells will be appearing on the “Sound Ecology” radio show on WMPG in Portland, ME on Wednesday, March 26, at 7:30 p.m. Jeff will be talking about his new book, “Birder’s Conservation Handbook,” as well as issues related to Boreal Forest conservation. For those who don’t live in the Portland listening area, WMPG has live streaming of its programs at its web site: www.wmpg.org

Later that same week, Jeff will be appearing at the 24th annual meeting of the Connecticut Ornithological Association (COA), in Middletown, CT. He will be speaking from 10:55 to 11:55 a.m. on Saturday, March 29. For more information about the COA meeting, visit www.ctbirding.org