Category: Birds and Birding

Bird Phenology Program

Consistent with another of my volunteer gigs (with Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic), I seem to have positioned myself as a wetware information transcriber. A couple of months ago I started working about an hour a week as a data entry volunteer for the North American Bird Phenology Program, based out of Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

Phenology is the study of comings and goings in the natural world—what day of the year the swallows return to Capistrano, the lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, that sort of thing. Decade-to-decade trends in a particular location can provide additional evidence to researchers studying climate patterns, among other things.

There are a number of phenology programs active under the umbrella of the USA National Phenology Network. One of the broadest-scoped citizen science initiatives was organized in 1881 by Wells W. Cooke, and was later expanded by C. Hart Merriam of the newly-formed American Ornithologists’ Union. For 90 years, up to 3,000 field researchers submitted data on the arrivals and departures of migratory birds in North America, in sort of an ornithological Mass Observation Project. Data was collected on 2×5-inch slips; when the project was wound down in 1970 (as other means of collecting similar data evolved), the records base comprised 6 million of them. In 2003, Sam Droege began efforts to safeguard and digitize the slips.

Many of the records are on a GPO-issued form, designated 3-801 or Bi-801; this form was redesigned a couple of times to collect different data. But many more are simply hand-written slips in a particularly compact shorthand that identifies the species (often simply by a three-digit AOU number), the location and observer, and the dates that the bird was first seen in the course of the year; seen again; seen commonly; and last seen during the breeding or migration season.

As you would expect, the transcription of this data from scanned document images into a web form is not an automatable process. Enter the volunteer scribes. It takes me 30 seconds or more to copy out a card—up to several minutes if I have to puzzle out a location name (Google Maps is my BFF) written in faded fountain pen ink in a cursive handwriting style more suited to wedding invitations. The data collection protocol also provides for observer’s notes on whether the bird breeds in the area, is a winter resident, and assessment of abundance (one point on the scale is the quaintly labelled “tolerably common”)—all that, along with any other notes made by the observer, is to be transcribed into fixed fields or free text. Each observer seems to have a different approach to spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. The opportunity for transcription errors is therefore high, so each card is copied into the database twice, then compared.

There’s lots more to be done: the number of digitized cards only numbers in the few hundred thousands, so if you’re into birds or just have some spare cycles, I would encourage you to sign up for the program. You can request to transcribe cards only for a particular location or a particular species, or you can do what I do and just pull cards at random. I’ve copied slips filed from tiny, obscure places like Hadlyme, Connecticut and Rhoma, Texas; I’ve worked with a card prepared by A. W. Schorger, author of the definitive book on the Passenger Pigeon. No particular knowledge of birds is required; in fact, the procedures we follow call for a literal transcription of the record, no interpretation or corrections allowed. So even if I “know” that the common name of a bird has been changed in the past hundred years, my instructions are to copy what the observer wrote, and to let the researchers clean up the data later.

And that turns out to be a learning experience for me, too. Before I started transcribing, I wasn’t aware that Purple Martin (Progne subis) and Eastern Phoebe (Sayronis phoebe) once had simpler names in common use (Martin, Phoebe). And I had never heard of Holboell’s Grebe, which we know now as Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena).

Droege and his team have already begun to draft papers from the data, especially looking at patterns of Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) migrations. The San Francisco-area ABC affiliate put together a rather fine story on the program.

Poetic license

In the first chapter of the The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender, a quite fine novel, this passage stopped me:

My father usually agreed with [my mother’s] requests, because stamped in his two-footed stance and jaw was the word Provider, and he loved her the way a bird-watcher’s heart leaps when he hears the call of the roseate spoonbill, a fluffy pink wader, calling its lilting coo-coo from the mangroves. Check, says the bird-watcher. Sure, said my father, tapping a handful of mail against her back. (p. 5)

Now Ajaia ajaja is indeed a spectacular bird to see, and she’s got the habitat right, but waders as a rule don’t have much of a voice. But (thought I), since I hadn’t heard the birds I saw in Florida some years ago, maybe the spoonbill does have a pleasant coo. Not so, says Roger Peterson (eastern North America field guide, 5/e): “VOICE: About nesting colony, a low grunting croak.” David Sibley adds, “Also a fairly rapid, dry, rasping, rrek-ek-ek-ek-ek-ek, much lower, faster than ibises.” The one available audio sample from the Macaulay Library confirms.

Shade-grown coffee: state of play

The Birding Community E-Bulletin points to two reports: first, a recent summary by Robert Rice of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center on the supply of and market for the SMBC’s branded Bird Friendly® Coffee. It’s interesting that nearly 40% comes from Peru; Mexico and Guatemala are other major producers. On the demand side, nearly 350,000 pounds were consumed in 2008 (the last period for which full-year figures are available), divided almost evenly between Japan and the United States.

Amid the clutter of labelling and badging at the turn of the decade, the SMBC established criteria for coffee agriculture specifically designed to protect bird life, and chose to protect them with a mark. These criteria go beyond relatively simple organic certification. Rice’s precis:

… the coffee is:

  • Certified organic
  • Certified shade-grown (according to SMBC criteria developed in 1997 and based on scientific fieldwork)

Criteria include: a minimum canopy height of 12 meters; a species list of at least 10 trees in addition to the major or “backbone” species; at least 40% foliage density; and three strata or layers of vegetation that provide structural diversity. Criteria apply to the coffee production area itself, and industry and certification specialists consider them to be the strictest shade standards in the world.

Rice states that growers see a 5 to 10 cent per pound premium for meeting BFC standards, in addition to any price bump for being organic.

Unfortunately, as Ezra Fieser reports, that price differential has narrowed over the past few years from a 30-40% markon mid-decade to about 20% now. This trend is driving farmers back to conventional agricultural methods. According to the Center for Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education, costs to the organic grower run 15% higher (certification fees, losses to pests), while yields are 40% lower. As my old B school teacher liked to say, “Sell below cost, and in the long run, you’re out of business.”

There’s a snag

Saved to my to-read folder: a new special report is available from the American Bird Conservancy: Landowner Stories in Bird Conservation: Managing for Cavity-Nesting Birds in Ponderosa Pine Forests. Birds of particular conservation concern include Flammulated Owl (Otus flammeolus), Lewis’s Woodpecker (Melanerpes lewis), and White-headed Woodpecker (Picoides albolarvatus).

Some links: 35

The occasion of Nature‘s publication of 15 Evolutionary Gems, synopses of recent research from its pages that deepens our understanding of the process of evolution, prompted some pruning and dusting of my bookmark files. So here let us take note of

The papers summarized in the Nature document examine evidence collected by field observation, at the molecular level in the lab, and from the fossil record. Of particular note to “no transitional forms” deniers is the discussion of newly-described specimens found in China.

In the 1980s, deposits from the early Cretaceous period (about 125 million years ago) in the Liaoning Province in northern China vindicated these speculations in the most dramatic fashion, with discoveries of primitive birds in abundance — alongside dinosaurs with feathers, and feather-like plumage. Starting with the discovery of the small theropod Sinosauropteryx by Pei-ji Chen from China’s Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology and his colleagues, a variety of feather-clad forms have been found. Many of these feathered dinosaurs could not possibly have flown, showing that feathers first evolved for reasons other than flight, possibly for sexual display or thermal insulation, for instance. In 2008, Fucheng Zhang and his colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing announced the bizarre creature Epidexipteryx, a small dinosaur clad in downy plumage, and sporting four long plumes from its tail. Palaeontologists are now beginning to think that their speculations weren’t nearly wild enough, and that feathers were indeed quite common in dinosaurs.

The discovery of feathered dinosaurs not only vindicated the idea of transitional forms, but also showed that evolution has a way of coming up with a dazzling variety of solutions when we had no idea that there were even problems. Flight could have been no more than an additional opportunity that presented itself to creatures already clothed in feathers.

Upcoming: 14

The editors of Nature put in a good word for the Christmas Bird Count as an exemplar of citizen science.

Volunteer science is a win–win situation for all concerned. Scientists get to take on projects that would not be feasible for even the largest research group, while helping to increase the public’s understanding of, and support for, science.

But let’s not forget the Great Backyard Bird Count, which takes place in the more focused time period of Presidents’ Day weekend, and about which I posted last year. This year the looking and counting happens February 13 through 16.

Murky waters

The Economist sends a correspondent to look at wildlife in China, specifically birds. It’s not altogether a pretty sight.

The press of several hundred million people along the coast threatens marine organisms at risk from river discharges, heavy metals and pesticides from farmed shrimp ponds, oil spills, antifouling paint on boats and other chemical contaminants. Brian Morton, an expert on China’s seashore ecology recently retired from the University of Hong Kong, points out that only one-tenth of Chinese sewage is treated, leading to eutrophication and algal blooms in the East China Sea and Yellow Sea. In addition, several tens of thousands of seabirds are reckoned to be killed every year by an entangling mass of flotsam—fishing gear, grocery bags and the like. “As a biologist,” says Mr Morton, “I know that ecosystems can be restored. Still, the waters of China are virtually beyond redemption.”

Some links: 32

Hugh Powell explains how cannon nets work and what can go wrong with them in “Twinkling the Whimbrels.”

Cannon netting consists of firing three projectiles over a flock of birds, trailing a single net that traps the birds underneath. Setting up the cannons is a daylong process that involves digging three separate metal tubes into the ground about 15 or so feet apart and stuffing them with a long, metal projectile, each of which will carry one section of the long nylon net.

When the tubes are dug in and properly aimed, we hook each cannon into an electrical system and place black powder at the base of the cannons. Then we string a set of wires back to a control box strategically placed a couple of hundred feet away in a well-hidden vantage point. After all of that is in place, we dig a trench to conceal the net and cover it with seaweed and other detritus. Then it’s a matter of hiding and waiting for the birds to arrive. Just imagine Wile E. Coyote trying to catch Roadrunner with a big contraption triggered by TNT in the old Looney Tunes cartoons.

5-second rule

As reported by Irby Lovette for Living Bird, research by Tomohiro Kuwae et al. provides evidence that Western Sandpipers (Calidris mauri) take a substantial portion of their diet from the biofilm that forms on tidal mudflats. Studying birds during spring migration in the Fraser River estuary in British Columbia, the authors back up their findings with high-speed video and analysis of stomach contents. In addition to the known diet of these beach foragers—macroinvertebrates such as polychaetes, molluscs, crustaceans, and insects—the gooey millimeter-thin layer of “microbes, organic detritus, and sediment in a mucilaginous matrix of extracellular polymeric substances together with non-carbohydate components secreted by microphytobenthos and benthic bacteria” provides up to 50% of the bird’s energy requirements, according to Kuwae and fellow scientists. They also cite previous research that the bill and tongue structure of the Dunlin (Calidris alpina) would also be suitable for biofilm grazing.