Cheyenne Audubon celebrates 50 years

[Information about free field trips and registering for dinner, deadline May 5, is below.]

Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society board members in 1974 included (standing, L to R) Vice President Ray Licata, Robert Larson, Bill Edwards and (seated, L to R) President John Cornelison and Treasurer Jean Cooper. Not pictured: Secretary Channing Corbin, Vernon Safford, Field Trip Chair Florence Spring and Bird Count Chair May Hanesworth.

Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society celebrates 50^th anniversary May 11

By Barb Gorges

            This year, Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society (Cheyenne Audubon for short) celebrates its 50^th anniversary. Mark, my husband, and I have been lucky to be a part of its history for the last 35 years.

            There was a bird club in Cheyenne long before the National Audubon Society granted the chapter charter in 1974. May Hanesworth was compiling Christmas Bird Counts as early as the 1950s when the Audubon presence was the statewide Wyoming Audubon chapter headquartered in Casper.

            May, in her late eighties, was still compiling bird count results when Mark and I joined about 1989-90. She asked me to type up her handwritten lists and submit them to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, which I still do.

            At the 1989-90 Christmas Bird Count tally party, held in May’s apartment, and the following spring, we met other longtime chapter members including John Cornelison—first chapter president, George and Yoshi Cardon, Jane and Bob Dorn, Beth Easton, Bill Edwards, Jodi Gostas, Carol and Jim Hecker, Fred Lebsack, J.O. and Lou Reed, Nola Shafer, Nels Sostrum and Virginia Wheeler.

            In one of those small world moments, 10 years ago Mark and I met Merrill Jensen, a founding member of Cheyenne Audubon. At the time we met him, he was the director of the Jensen-Olson (no relation) Arboretum on the beach outside Juneau, Alaska. We’d just discovered that he had graduated from Cheyenne East High School in 1974 when he identified a Harlequin duck flying by and mentioned he’d recently finished four years on the local Audubon chapter board.

            I asked if he’d been active with the Cheyenne birdwatchers and yes, he had, starting as a child attending meetings at May’s house up until he left Cheyenne after high school. Later, I discovered he was in a photo in an old news clipping.

            For 50 years, Cheyenne Audubon has not missed a Christmas Bird Count or a Big Day spring bird count (join us this year May 18, details at https://cheyenneaudubon.org/).

            For at least the last 35 years, we’ve brought in guest speakers for free lectures open to the public on a variety of bird and wildlife related topics, from science and advocacy to birdwatching travelogues.

            We organized monthly field trips mostly around Cheyenne and southeastern Wyoming.

            We sponsor the Audubon award for the school district science fair, partner with the state museum’s Family Days and Laramie County Library’s education programs.

            We have a grant program that is funding bluebird nest boxes and that teachers use to get bird study in the classroom.

            We’ve offered beginning birdwatching classes through Laramie County Community College and the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens.

            We advocate for birds, such as becoming an interested party for the Roundhouse wind farm on the city’s Belvoir Ranch.

            We clean up trash on a portion of the Cheyenne Greenway and have plans for a bird blind memorializing our founding chapter president at Kiwanis Park.

            We’ve put on 10 Habitat Hero workshops in partnership with Master Gardeners and other volunteers, and curate a demonstration garden at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens.

            We sponsor two Wyoming Important Bird Areas, Lions Park and Wyoming Hereford Ranch.

            We work with the Laramie County Conservation District on their native plant program and habitat projects.

            Sometimes, we just sit back and talk about the birds we are seeing as another spring migration gets underway.

            And we think about how we can share our love and concern for birds with more people.

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Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society 50^th Anniversary Celebration

Saturday, May 11

Dinner registration deadline May 5

$38 per ticket, inclusive: https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/cheyenne50th/cheyenne-high-plains-audubon-society-50th-anniversary-dinner, or go to https://cheyenneaudubon.org/.

Field Trips May 11

Free and open to the public. Please contact Grant Frost to sign up for updates and meet up details, frostgrant2@gmail.com or 307-343-2024.

8 a.m. – Grassland Birds

Noon – Wyoming Hereford Ranch

Dinner May 11

Laramie County Community College, Center for Conferences and Institutes

5 p.m. – Social Hour, games, silent auction, pictures from the past.

6 p.m. – Dinner buffet – Land and Sea with Vegetarian Option

7 p.m. – Door Prize Drawing

–Centerpieces by Cheyenne florist Vally Gollogly

–Binoculars donated by Maven Outdoor Equipment Company, Lander, Wyoming

–Rocky Mountain National Park guided birdwatching trip donated by Birding Man Adventures owner Ryan Dibala

And “A Short Chapter History” – Barb Gorges

7:15 – From the Grass Up – Chris Madson, retired, award-winning editor of Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Wyoming Wildlife magazine, will look at several folks important in the early Audubon Society such as George Bird Grinnell, T. Gilbert Pearson and Frank Bond, people that got Audubon started by sheer force of will.

Dawn Chorus

A western meadowlark sings from its perch on a fencepost. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Birds sing in springtime Dawn Chorus

Published April 12, 2024, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            In preparing a talk about bird song for the March meeting of Cheyenne Audubon, I focused on about 30 birds that I think have distinct songs, or in some cases, when they aren’t too melodic, bird sounds.

            My theme was the “Dawn Chorus,” a spring phenomenon in which birds are awake early, singing to indicate where their breeding and nesting territory is while simultaneously advertising for a mate (most singers are male). Just how early this chorus gets started can be assessed if you sleep with your window open. Robins start chirruping about 4 a.m.

            There are a lot of songbirds I can’t match a song to. These would be the migrants coming through Cheyenne. It seems the warblers we see save their voices for breeding territories farther north—same with the many flycatchers. A whole page of flycatchers in my field guide look nearly identical but are supposed to be identified by song. That doesn’t happen here, except for the western wood-pewee, which perches on our powerline to take a break before swooping out in another loop to intercept a flying insect.

            Some landscapes are incomplete without their characteristic bird sounds. Anywhere in Cheyenne by Crow Creek, I have a chance of hearing the staccato chattering of a belted kingfisher, summer or winter, or the complex song of a song sparrow. Catching the sweet notes of a yellow warbler, also fond of stream- and lake-side vegetation, is more likely in summer in the mountains.

            A bird with a distinct call that I forgot to add to my presentation I heard the next day, the killdeer. It says its name—or rather, it was named for what it seems to say. You must be on the prairie, or very near, to hear one.

            The western meadowlark is another ground-nesting prairie bird with a very loud, distinctive sound. When it sings, it likes to be out in the open, on a fence or bit of taller vegetation. The quality of sound makes it feel like I’m in a prairie “room,” just me and the bird—and the one replying in the distance.

            If you want to know what a western meadowlark (or any North American bird) sounds like, try the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website, AllAboutBirds.org. I think it is most instructive to hear birdsong while looking at the singer, or better yet, hearing it in the field, in the habitat the bird is at home in.

            Two of my favorite birdsongs are heard in the mountains in early summer, although I also catch them in my backyard in May. One is the dark-eyed junco, a bird that spends the winter under our sunflower seed feeder picking up scraps. By late spring it begins to, well, twitter. It’s a very little, but distinctive sound, and they take it with them to the mountains where they nest.

            The white-crowned sparrow may briefly visit with the juncos under our feeders in May before heading for mountains. They are easily identifiable sparrows with a pattern of bold black and white stripes on their heads.

            A few years ago, Cornell added bird song to its bird ID phone app called Merlin. It’s free. You let Merlin hear what you are hearing, and it produces a list of one or more birds it can hear. If there’s more than one bird singing, you can go back and hear a recording of one of the species so that you can distinguish it from the others.

            On any given day, walking a neighborhood in Cheyenne, especially one with older trees, you can hear what I call the background birds. Year-round, there are European starlings, American crows, Eurasian collared-doves, house sparrows, house finches, maybe blue jays and northern flickers. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a dollop of American goldfinches. We didn’t see one all winter, but by the last week in March, every day we were hosting eight hungry “wild canaries,” plus an occasional lesser goldfinch.

            Back East, where there is more vegetation for birds to hide in, identifying birds by sound is important. Birders also use “pishing.” This is a way to call to the birds, “pishhh, pishhh, pishhh,” so that the most curious, or the most defensive, birds come out to see what’s going on. A friend lent me a copy of Pete Dunne’s “The Art of Pishing: How to Attract Birds by Mimicking Their Calls,” complete with CD. Pishing is not always appropriate, such as around threatened or endangered species or when birds of prey are nearby, or in excess.

            If there’s no dawn chorus to be heard when you open your windows this spring, think about what you can plant to set the stage for the future.

Friendly Florida birds

Two white ibises patrol a hotel patio in Key West, Florida, recently. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Friendly Florida birds make best memories

Published March 8, 2024, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            My husband Mark acts as our travel agent, arranging plane tickets, hotels and birding routes.

            Last month we went to Florida to visit his brother, and Mark used it as an opportunity for us to bird more of the Everglades, plus Key West and the Dry Tortugas. Maybe add flamingoes and brown noddies to our life lists.

            No new birds this trip, though. My world (we once went to Costa Rica) life list is stuck at 690 species.

             The next best thing when visiting Florida is to see all the large wading birds. We did see a flash of pink, a roseate spoonbill, but missed many of the others: snowy egret, reddish egret, green heron, the two night-herons, glossy ibis, limpkin, wood stork.

            We drove to the very south end of Everglades National Park our first day, to what was once the town of Flamingo, and saw no flamingoes.

            But my first ever crocodile was sunning itself on the dock at the marina at the Everglades visitor center. Alongside that dock was a herd of manatees. You wouldn’t have known to look unless you noticed the manatee jam (like a Yellowstone bear jam with everyone stopped to look). The water was so turbid, all we could see was their nostrils coming up for air so briefly I couldn’t even point them out to someone else.

            At stops along the way we did get some of the waders: little blue heron, cattle egret, the spoonbill, white ibis. At one mucky beach Mark identified black-bellied plover, semipalmated plover, willet, dunlin and western sandpiper.

            Almost every time on this trip a large bird flew overhead, it turned out to be a turkey vulture, sometimes a black vulture.

            Our second day, we navigated Highway 1 across the Florida Keys. A bike trail is marked alongside the entire 100 miles of the “Overseas Highway.”

            One of the birding stops along the way Mark discovered through eBird.org was the end of Blimp Road on Cudjoe Key. The road also leads to a military installation where a blimp with border surveillance cameras is tethered. It wasn’t very birdy there, but we were visited by a small flock of ruddy turnstones. These are the almost tame shorebirds that enchanted me on our first trip to Florida 10 years ago. Six of them still greet me every time I open my laptop.

Dry Tortugas National Park: the part closed off during seabird nesting season. Photo by Barb Gorges.

            Another flock scuttled around us the next day while we ate our sack lunches by the beach at Dry Tortugas National Park. The centerpiece there is the enormous hexagonal brick fort that encompasses most of Garden Key. At one time it protected a population of nearly 2,000 people supporting its mission to defend our country.

Fort Jefferson, Dry Tortugas National Park. Photo by Barb Gorges.

            But Mark and I were more interested in the birds: brown pelicans, sandwich and royal terns and more shorebirds. A neighboring key was a rookery, swarming with mostly magnificent frigate birds. Some of the males were inflating their red balloon-like throat pouches. No brown noddies, though according to eBird, two days later someone did report many. Not our day. But who could stay unhappy on a tropical island on a sunny day, surrounded by shallow water in all the shades of turquoise?

            Five hours is a long time to sit on a ferry so we chatted with some of the other 175 passengers, including a woman who grew up in Cheyenne. Across from her was a family from Laramie.

Red Junglefowl rooster, Key West. Photo by Barb Gorges.

            Mark saved us a full day on Key West for checking out birding hotspots, but they weren’t very hot. Migration hadn’t started yet. But I did make the acquaintance of a rooster in the parking lot of the park downtown. I think he would have jumped right in our rental car. Technically, these chickens are red junglefowl, escapees from domestication.

Young Great Blue Heron on the pier on Key West. Photo by Barb Gorges.

            We also met a young great blue heron standing on the railing on the pier, waiting for the fisherman 10 feet away to drop anything fishy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the entire extent of a great blue heron’s legs before. They are long.

            My other favorite birds on Key West were the white ibis patrolling the hotel grounds. You see small flocks of them all over coastal Florida using their long, skinny orange bills to pick invertebrate critters out of lawns.

            There were three that had morning patio patrol, picking up after people eating breakfast out there, even though the hotel had laced much of the opening between the half wall and patio roof with clear fishing line to try to discourage birds.

It’s not many mornings a bird gives me a clear, eye-to-eye look, bringing a new definition to “bird watching.”  

25 years of Bird Banter

Long-tailed Duck, Delaware River, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, photo by Scott Keys, courtesy of National Audubon Society, Audubon Photography Awards 2021.

Columnist looks back at first Bird Banter installment for the WTE circa 1999

Published Feb. 16, 2024, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

In this, the very first Bird Banter column I wrote for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle 25 years ago this month (see below), you can see how much change there has been.

Back in 1999, once a week the WTE ran a four-page Outdoors section. It was the Outdoors editor, Bill Gruber, who invited me to write a monthly column.

The oldsquaw duck highlighted became the long-tailed duck in 2000. When I checked a few weeks ago on eBird for the birds seen at the reservoir at the Rawhide power plant, the latest report of another long-tailed duck was just days before: Jan. 6.

Of the people I mention, Ron Ryder died back in 2016 at the age of 88. Gloria Lawrence and her husband moved out of state years ago as did Dave Felley and his family.

Technological advances have replaced the birding hotline with a Google Group called WyoBirds. And now it’s better to email me than to call me—you can attach photos to your email of birds you are trying to identify.

The Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society still meets at Lions Park for field trips, but in the parking lot between the Children’s Village and the big picnic shelter and usually not until 8 a.m.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is still held over Presidents’ Day weekend. Find out how to participate this year at https://www.birdcount.org/.

Birding the Colorado coast

Thursday, February 18, 1999, Wyoming Tribune Eagle, Outdoors section, page C3

There is a section of the Golden Guides’ “Birds of North America” I never expected to use unless I became wealthy enough to take ocean cruises. 

The section on sea ducks lists species spending winters along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and summers on the shores of Hudson’s Bay. Perhaps by the time I’m old and retired, I thought, I’ll have the funds to travel there.

Then I went on a field trip 20 miles south of Cheyenne a couple of winters ago and saw my first oldsquaw. This is a sea duck that spends summers on the North American tundra and winters far out in the ocean. But it also has a habit of hanging out on large inland lakes.

Our nearest large lake is the reservoir at the Rawhide power plant just off Interstate 25, not far into Colorado. The water remains open at about 65 degrees all winter, unless the plant must go offline temporarily, said Ron Ryder, Colorado State University wildlife professor emeritus. Ryder has been studying the ecology of the reservoir for 14 years.

The oldsquaw sighting was somewhat unusual and hasn’t been repeated yet this season. However, a red-necked grebe, another coastal-wintering waterfowl species was spotted. Birder Gloria Lawrence says the oldsquaw is a visitor nine out of 10 years on the North Platte River and Gray Rocks Reservoir, probably because these waters are farther north and closer to the duck’s normal range. 

To look for sea ducks, you may accompany Ron and the Cheyenne High Plains Audubon Society to Rawhide Reservoir on Saturday, February 20 [1999]. The trip is free and open to the public. The group will meet at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens in Lions Park by 7 a.m. Call Dave Felley at … for details.

Ron will be able to take us behind the locked gates, but if you miss the field trip, you can still scope out the bird action from the public observation area. Take I-25 south to Exit 288 (Buckeye) and head toward the mountains for about three miles. You’ll need a spotting scope or strong binoculars to appreciate the diverse bird life.

To find out about or to report unusual bird sightings in Wyoming, call the toll-free hotline maintained by the Murie Audubon Society in Casper: … (the last four digits spell “bird”).

When I checked recently, Gloria had listed canvasback, dipper and northern shrike. Last month the hotline had Eurasian wigeon, Lapland longspur and glaucous gull sightings. Many of the birds listed are in the Casper area, but the hotline serves the whole state.

For those of us who like birding best at our kitchen windows, don’t forget the Second Annual Great Backyard Bird Count sponsored by Bird Source, a joint venture between National Audubon and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It is scheduled for this weekend, Feb. 19-21 [1999]. Just observe the species occurring in your yard or neighborhood for half an hour or so, and then go on-line to report. You may want to explore the website in advance; last year’s data is an interesting snapshot of where birds were wintering. The address:….

            If you aren’t online, you may call me at…and leave your name, phone number and species list. I’ll pass the information on.

Backyard birds & how to feed them

Join me in Cheyenne for my talk!

Jan. 16, 7:00 p.m. – Cheyenne Audubon Program: Backyard Birds and How to Feed Them, with Barb Gorges

                Cheyenne Audubon invites the public for a free talk by Barb Gorges, author of “Cheyenne Birds by the Month,” about “Backyard Birds and How to Feed Them,” Jan. 16, 7 p.m., in the Cottonwood Room at the Laramie County Library, 2200 Pioneer Ave.

                Bring your favorite feeder to the meeting to show—and tell the brand name or where the pattern is from to make it. Do you have a bird bath heating system? Tell us about that, too.

                Barb will review how to identify birds that visit Cheyenne feeders and discuss what kinds of food they are looking for.

For more information about this and other Audubon activities, please see www.CheyenneAudubon.org.

Jan. 20 – Field trip: Birdwatching with Cheyenne Audubon at the Tie City trailhead bird feeders, Medicine Bow National Forest

                Join Cheyenne Audubon members on a free field trip Jan. 20 to the Tie City trailhead in the Medicine Bow National Forest.

Participants will leave from the Lions Park parking lot south of the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens’ Children’s Village at 9 a.m. for the 40-mile drive to the trailhead. Carpooling may be available. Return expected about 1 p.m.

Watch the bird feeders at the warming hut close to the trailhead to look for pine grosbeaks, red crossbills, Steller’s jays, woodpeckers and nuthatches. Bring water and dress for the weather.

Please contact Grant Frost, 307-343-2024, to register so as to be notified of any changes in plans.

For more information about Cheyenne Audubon, see https://cheyenneaudubon.org/.

Christmas Bird Count comparison, 1956 and 2023

Black-billed magpies are always out and about no matter the weather on the day of the Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count, including this bird photographed during the latest count Dec. 16, 2023. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Latest Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count looks a bit different from 1956’s

Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Jan. 5, 2024.

By Barb Gorges

            Recently, Bob Dorn shared the results of the Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count from the December 1955-January 1956 count season, the 56th CBC (overall).

            It’s interesting to compare the differences over 68 years:

–Then, the 7.5-mile-diameter count circle was centered on the KFBC radio station when it was on East Lincolnway, where Channel 5 is now, Dave Montgomery told me. Now it’s the Capitol.

–Then, the percentage of open country was higher. Laramie County had only 60,000 people, today 100,000.

–The Cheyenne Audubon Club became the Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society in 1974.

–Married women now get to use their own first names. I first met Mrs. Robert Hanesworth, May, in 1989, when she was the Cheyenne count compiler.

            Lt. Col. Charles H. Snyder could have been with F.E. Warren Air Force Base, giving count participants access to that part of the count circle. Today we have retired Colonel Charles Seniawski birding the base for us.

            Seven bird names have changed:

–Some Canada geese are now cackling geese.

–Marsh hawk is now northern harrier.

–Red-shafted and yellow-shafted flickers are now northern flicker.

–American magpie is now black-billed magpie.

–Gray shrike is now northern shrike.

–Common starling is now European starling.

–The white-winged, Oregon and pink-sided juncos were combined with other juncos as the dark-eyed junco.

            Participation has changed, too. We had 24 people help this time compared to only 7 in 1956. So naturally we traveled more hours and more miles by foot and vehicle. And back in the 50s, apparently the hours put into watching bird feeders weren’t separated.

            For our Dec. 16 count we had similar weather, not too windy, no snow, but warmer, 50s instead of 40s.

            As for the birds themselves, we counted more species, more geese, crows and starlings. Interestingly, we reported a greater variety of ducks, hawks and falcons, too.

            But it’s been a long time since we’ve seen evening grosbeaks. This may be the result of the decline in their population overall.

            This year’s highlights were the northern goshawk in Western Hills seen during count week (CW), the three days before and after count day, and the lone snow goose at Lions Park.

Audubon Field Notes – 56th CBC

Published by the National Audubon Society in Collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

56th Christmas Bird Count

Vol. 10, No.2

two dollars per copy 

April 1956

436. Cheyenne, Wyo. (7 ½-mile radius centering from radio station KFBC on east edge of town; city parks and cemeteries 30%, open prairie, deciduous & evergreen trees 20%, prairie roadside 10%, open meadows, reservoirs and creek bottoms 40%).

Jan. 2, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Clear; temp. 31 degrees to 46 degrees; wind W, 15-35 m.p.h.; no snow. Seven observers in 3 parties. Total party-hour, 56 (6 on foot, 50 by car); total party-miles, 148 (8 on foot, 140 by car).

Canada Goose 12

Mallard 20

Rough-legged Hawk 5

Golden Eagle 1

Marsh Hawk 1

Red-shafted Flicker 13

Hairy Woodpecker 1

Downy Woodpecker 1

Horned Lark 2029 (4 Northern)

American Magpie 25

American Robin 3

Bohemian Waxwing 2

Gray Shrike 1

Common Starling 98

House Sparrow 138

Evening Grosbeak 25

House Finch 4

Pine Grosbeak 4

Pine Siskin 2

White-winged Junco 1

Oregon Junco 86 (pink-sided 84)

American Tree Sparrow 18

Lapland Longspur 22

Total, 23 species (2 additional subsp.), about 2512 individuals. (Observed in area count period: American Goldeneye, Ring-necked Pheasant, Mountain Chickadee, Mockingbird, Townsend’s Solitaire, Common Redpoll, Slate-colored Junco).

Charles Brown, Mrs. Charles Brown, Mr. & Mrs. Robert Hanesworth, Wilhelmina Miller, Lt. Col. and Mrs. Charles H. Snyder (compiler) (Cheyenne Audubon Club).

Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count – 124^th CBC

Dec. 16, 2023

24 participants

Feeder watch time: 11 hours, 36 minutes

Walking: 12 hours, 25 minutes, 19.56 miles

Driving: 4 hours 19 minutes, 87.3 miles

Compiler: Grant Frost

Cackling Goose 183

Canada Goose 1686

Snow Goose 1

Mallard 207

Northern Shoveler 18

Green-winged Teal 3

Lesser Scaup CW

Common Goldeneye 2

Rock Dove (pigeon) 479

Eurasian Collared-Dove 107

Mourning Dove 3

Ring-billed Gull CW

Golden Eagle 1

Northern Harrier 9

Sharp-shinned Hawk CW

Cooper’s Hawk 1

American Goshawk CW

Bald Eagle 2

Red-tailed Hawk 6

Rough-legged Hawk CW

Ferruginous Hawk 1

Eastern Screech-Owl CW

Great Horned Owl 1

Belted Kingfisher 2

Downy Woodpecker 3

Hairy Woodpecker 1

Northern Flicker 21

American Kestrel 2

Merlin 2

Northern Shrike 1

Blue Jay 2

Black-billed Magpie 84

American Crow 108

Common Raven 12

Black-capped Chickadee 1

Mountain Chickadee 9

Horned Lark 270

White-breasted Nuthatch 1

Red-breasted Nuthatch 2

Brown Creeper 1

Winter Wren 1

European Starling 221

Townsend’s Solitaire 5

American Robin 2

House Sparrow 205

House Finch 63

Pine Siskin 1

American Goldfinch 9

American Tree Sparrow 13

Chipping Sparrow 1

Dark-eyed Junco 61

White-crowned Sparrow 6

Song Sparrow 2

Red-winged Blackbird 50

Book signing: Barnes & Noble Dec. 9, noon – 3 p.m.

  Come see me at Barnes and Noble Saturday, Dec. 9, noon til 3 p.m. I’ll be signing copies of my books, “Cheyenne Birds by the Month” and “Cheyenne Garden Gossip,” and talking about birds and gardening with anyone who stops by.

If you haven’t been to the new store yet, 5116 Frontier Mall Drive (the old Natural Grocers location), this is your excuse!

Flyway councils protect migrants

Charley Harper puzzle titled, “Mystery of the Missing Migrants.”

Biologist attends meeting of flyway council protecting migratory birds

Published Dec. 8, 2023, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            Do you know what North American flyway you live in? I was born in the Atlantic, grew up in the Mississippi, live in the Central and visit my granddaughter in the Pacific.

            Birds don’t usually change flyways like that, but they can be blown off-course. And some prefer to migrate east-west, like harlequin ducks. They winter off the Pacific coast, from Alaska down to Oregon, and head east, inland, to breed, including in northwestern Wyoming.

            Wyoming is split between the Central and Pacific flyways, right down the Continental Divide, and although he lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming Game and Fish Department biologist Grant Frost represented Wyoming at a meeting of the Pacific Flyway Council last year. He shared his experience at the November Cheyenne Audubon meeting.

            The flyway councils are the people who gather all the data they can get their hands on, looking at academic studies as well as non-governmental and governmental wildlife data (including eBird more and more) in August or early September. There are also reports from Canada and Mexico and a second meeting in the spring.

The health of populations of migratory game birds like ducks, geese, mourning doves and sandhill cranes is considered. Non-migratory gamebirds like pheasants are not. Then the council conveys hunt limits for each species to the states which translate them into limits for hunting regulations that come out in fall.

            While the councils can tell each state the maximum number of a species that can be killed, the states can choose to be more conservative.

            The Pacific Flyway Council and the other councils were established in 1952. In 2006, the flyways established nongame bird technical committees. Grant was assigned to the one for the Pacific. He’s been a bird nerd for a long time, but the meeting gave him new perspectives on birds and bird management.

            With the Pacific Flyway extending from a corner of New Mexico on up to Alaska, there are a wide variety of concerns and cultural ways of relating to birds.

            For instance, Utah has a swan hunting season, but not Wyoming.

            Bald eagles were protected nationally in 1940, but back then Alaska offered a bounty on them because they were competing for salmon. Then Alaska became the 49th state in 1959 and began protecting bald eagles.

            Sometimes, managing one species to increase their population has the secondary effect of depleting another species of concern. Grant mentioned the population of common ravens, arguably one of the smartest birds, which has become more successful by adopting the habit of shopping for groceries/roadkill along the highways. But more ravens mean more of them finding and eating the eggs of species of concern like sage grouse and desert tortoises.

            Sometimes three species are involved: eagles fly over Caspian tern nesting colonies, causing the terns to flush. While their nests are unprotected, gulls gobble the eggs and young.

            Then there are the Indigenous people who have always hunted birds and collected eggs, especially in a tough environment like Alaska. Grant heard gull eggs are particularly prized. Bird pelts go into traditional crafts.

The 2023 Alaska Subsistence Spring/Summer Migratory Bird Harvest was April 2 through August 31, when eggs are most plentiful, and feathers are brightest. Thirty species are listed: waterfowl, waterbirds, shorebirds, seabirds, cranes and owls. Owls? They are big, but here in Wyoming they are not considered game. Perhaps in Alaska they are not considered food either but harvested for feathers.

Grant also sat on the raptor subcommittee which was addressing the number of peregrine falcons being taken by falconers. Who knew we’d finally have this problem when for years we thought peregrines might become extinct? Then there are the protected golden eagles, much more numerous than bald eagles, killing sheep. And there’s discussion about the effects of climate change.

Next year the Pacific Flyway Council will be meeting in Wyoming. The meeting Grant attended was in Juneau, Alaska.

There are new ways of studying migration every year and new knowledge gained from them, influencing the work of all the councils.  

Recently I checked out a new book from the Laramie County Library, “Flight Paths: How a Passionate and Quirky Group of Pioneering Scientists Solved the Mystery of Bird Migration,” by Rebecca Heisman. It’s not too technical for most readers, especially people who read my bird columns.

I noticed a bookplate inside said that the book was added to the library’s collection on the advice of a library patron. Thank you, whoever you are! I’ll try to return the book as soon as I can so someone else can read it!

Library book signing Nov. 25

I’ll be at the Local Author Celebration at the Laramie County Library Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. I’ll have copies of all three of my books for sale (cash, check or Zelle),:

— “Cheyenne Birds by the Month – 104 Species of Southeastern Wyoming’s Resident and Visiting Birds” – $23

–“Cheyenne Garden Gossip – Locals Share Secrets for High Plains Gardening Success” – $25

–“Quilt Care, Construction and Use Advice – How to Help Your Quilt Live to 100” – $10

–“Dear Book – The 1916-1920 Diary of Gertrude Oehler Witte” – orders, $23

Signing special: All prices include sales tax.

If you only have a credit card, pick up books at one of these Cheyenne locations and bring them by for signing: 307 Made, Barnes & Noble, Bonsai Books, Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, Cheyenne Depot Museum, Cheyenne Honey, Curt Gowdy State Park, the Hawthorn Tree, JAX, Riverbend Nursery, Sunshine Plant Company, Wyoming Game and Fish Department Headquarters, Wyoming State Museum.

See more about my books at https://yuccaroadpress.com/.

Bird strikes and bird movements interest UW students

A fledgling sage thrasher wears a radio tag that tracks its movements. The antenna appears as a thin, very long tailfeather. Photo courtesy of Emily Schertzer, University of Wyoming.

Bird strikes and bird movements interest University of Wyoming students

Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Nov. 3, 2023.

By Barb Gorges

            Cheyenne Audubon’s October meeting attendees heard from two University of Wyoming students about their bird studies, and about WYOBIRD, the Wyoming Bird Initiative for Resilience and Diversity.

            Katie Shabron is an undergraduate who is already involved in bird studies, measuring the number of birds killed by colliding with windows on campus. Window collisions are the second worst human-caused hazard for birds in the U.S.—the first is loose cats.

            This fall there was a terrible slaughter of migrating songbirds in one day caused by the perfect reflection of sky by the all-glass façade of the giant McCormick convention center on the edge of Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago. It’s been a hazard for years.

            On the UW campus, trees and building facades have been mapped and a phone app made available to students allows them to record instances of dead birds as well as no dead birds.

            Katie said the first year’s data didn’t pick up many dead birds, creating more questions such as, are campus building layout and design not conducive to bird strikes? Are birds hitting windows but fluttering away and dying elsewhere?

            Katie said the most effective defense against window strikes, if it’s too late to install the special glass, is sheets of tiny dots that stick to the outside of windows. They are only visible from outside. Turning out lights at night, which UW does, and especially on tall buildings in big cities, reduces strikes, too.

            PhD candidate Emily Shertzer is focused on tracking birds across their full annual cycle as she studies the effect of gas field development on birds near Pinedale.

Traditionally, bird studies have taken place during breeding season, when birds are returning to their breeding grounds and sticking around their nests. That was partly due to the tracking methods available, like banding.

            Emily bands birds with the traditional metal leg band with the unique number that can be looked up through the national Bird Banding Laboratory if the bird is recaptured. Her birds also have three colored bands in unique combinations so that they can be identified by sight, without having to capture them.

            Radio telemetry has been around for a while for large animals, but now that radio tags can be small enough for birds to wear, it’s possible to track the bird’s location every 30 seconds. It’s much easier to figure out what kills birds on the breeding grounds where fledgling mortality is high.

            Through the MOTUS system of stationary antenna towers being set up around the world by different entities, a bird’s more extensive travels can be tracked as they fly by and ping an antenna. Each passing bird can be identified and the owner of the tracking device on it is notified.

            Emily has set up a similar, but small system to track her study birds around their breeding territory after she finds a nest of a Brewer’s sparrow, sage sparrow or sage thrasher. Being able to track the young birds means she can find them quickly if they die and discover the reason such as hail or other bad weather or predators. If birds can make it past the fledgling stage and all the predators and accidents waiting to happen, they might live seven or eight years.

            The condition of the parent birds predicts the condition of the young and their ability to survive those early days. Apparently, human development within their breeding area does negatively affect fledgling survival.

            Do these attached radio devices make a bird more likely to die? No, they don’t seem to. The tags have to be less than 3% of the bird’s weight.

            Emily’s subjects are migratory birds and their routes can be traced by equipping them with geolocators. These don’t send signals but instead, they record light levels, showing the timing of sunrise and sunset where the bird is. Turns out this is a way to tell the bird’s migratory route and where it spends the winter. But you have to recapture that bird when it returns in the spring to get the data. Good thing males are fairly faithful to their breeding site.

            Finding out where birds die is a step towards improving conditions. Emily cited the example of two populations of one songbird species that breed hundreds of miles apart in southeastern U.S. One population was doing well, the other was rapidly declining. A study showed the population doing well had spent the winter spread out in Central and northern South America. The declining group all spent the winter together in a comparatively small area where their habitat was rapidly being destroyed.

            We need lots more ornithologists studying birds to understand their many characteristics and behaviors. UW’s WYOBIRD program gives students more field experience and builds interest in bird studies. Check out the opportunities for involvement and support, https://wyobird.org/.

                Emily is also looking for funding for her continuing studies. Contact her at eshertze@uwyo.edu.