Year of the Bird celebrates Migratory Bird Treaty Act

This Painted Bunting was Jack Rogers’ Audubon Photography Awards entry in 2015. Photo courtesy National Audubon Society.

Year of the Bird celebrates 100th anniversary of Migratory Bird Treaty Act

By Barb Gorges

This is the Year of the Bird. It’s been declared by four august organizations: the National Audubon Society, the National Geographic Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology and BirdLife International. A hundred other organizations have joined them.

My husband Mark and I have been members for years of the first three, and I’m on the email list for the fourth so I’ve heard the message four times since the first of the year.

The Year of the Bird celebrates the 100^th anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act that protects birds. Read the act at https://www.fws.gov/birds/policies-and-regulations/laws-legislations/migratory-bird-treaty-act.php (remember “take” is a euphemism for “kill”).

The Year of the Bird is also about advocating for birds. Today you can go to the National Geographic website, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/year-of-the-bird/, and sign the Year of the Bird pledge. You’ll receive monthly instructions for simple actions you can take on behalf of birds. The official Year of the Bird website, www.birdyourworld.org, will take you to the National Geographic page, and the other sponsors’ websites will get you there as well.

You may not be aware of National Geographic’s bird credentials. When the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America came out in the 1980s, it was a must-have sensation. You can find the latest edition at local bookstores and online.

The National Audubon Society, http://www.audubon.org/yearofthebird, is your portal to these articles so far: How Birds Bind Us, The History and Evolution of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, The United States of Birding and Audubon’s Birds and Climate Change Report. My favorite–Why Do Birds Matter? – quotes dozens of well-known authors and ornithologists.

BirdLife International, http://www.birdlife.org/worldwide/news/flyway, offers ways to think about birds. When you see your next robin, think about where it’s been, what it’s flown over. Think about the people in other countries who may have seen the bird too. Think about the work being done to protect its migratory flyways.

On the other hand, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology begins the year addressing bird appreciation. At one of their websites, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/6-resolutions-to-help-you-birdyourworld-in-2018/, Hugh Powell recommends getting a decent pair of affordable binoculars after reading this guide on how to shop for them, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/six-steps-to-choosing-a-pair-of-binoculars-youll-love/.

Powell also recommends CLO’s free Merlin Bird ID app to get to know your local birds better (or see http://www.AllAboutBirds.org). Then you can keep daily bird lists through CLO’s free eBird program, including photos and sound recordings.

While you watch birds from your kitchen window, drink bird-friendly, shade-grown coffee. There’s an in-depth article at https://www.allaboutbirds.org.

Or play CLO’s new Bird Song Hero game to help you learn how to match what you hear with the visual spectrograph, https://academy.allaboutbirds.org.

Finally, Powell suggests “pay it forward”—take someone birding and join a bird club or Audubon chapter (locally, I’d recommend my chapter, https://cheyenneaudubon.wordpress.com/).

Here in Wyoming our lone U.S. Representative, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, has attempted to take the teeth out of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act with H.R. 4239. She thinks protecting birds should not come at the expense of business.

Earlier threats to birds caused conservationist Aldo Leopold to write in his 1949 book, A Sand County Almanack, “We face the question whether a still higher ‘standard of living’ is worth its cost in things natural, wild, and free. For us of the minority, the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasqueflower is a right as inalienable as free speech.”

I would say that people who appreciate birds are not a minority. And many of us agree with biologist and biodiversity definer Thomas Lovejoy, “If you take care of birds, you take care of most of the environmental problems in the world.”

If it is too cold for you to appreciate the birds while outside, check out National Geographic’s January issue with photos by Joel Sartore. More of his bird photos for National Geographic’s Photo Ark project, studio portraits of the world’s animals, will be in a book coming out this spring written by Noah Strycker, “Birds of the Photo Ark.” Strycker will be speaking in Cheyenne May 14.

Now go to www.BirdYourWorld.org and take the pledge and find out each month what simple action you can take on behalf of birds.

Addendum: Because the paragraph about Liz Cheney was omitted from the column when it was published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, I submitted a letter to the editor that was published four days later:

Migratory Bird Treaty Act under attack

Dear Editor,

2018 is the 100^th anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The U.S., along with co-signers Mexico, Canada, Japan and Russia, agree to protect birds that cross our borders and theirs.

A hundred years ago there was a battle between conservationists and industrialists and the birds won. Industry is now held accountable for “incidental take” – birds killed unintentionally during the course of business. That has included birds hooked by long-line ocean fishing, birds attracted to oily evaporation ponds in oil and gas fields and birds hit by wind turbines.

These kinds of hazards can add up and make a population-threatening dent. Instead, the MBTA has forced industries to pay fines or come up with ingenious solutions that save a lot of birds.

However, Wyoming’s Congresswoman Liz Cheney is backing U.S. House Resolution 4239 which would remove the requirement to take responsibility for incidental take. Here we are, 100 years later, fighting the battle again.

If you would like to speak up for the birds, please call Cheney’s office, 202-225-2311. The polite person who answers the phone only wants to know your name, address and your opinion, so they know which column to check, anti-bird, or pro-bird and the MBTA.

Barb Gorges

Cheyenne

Two Christmas Bird Counts 80 miles apart compared

Not many birds on the high plains outside town for the Cheyenne, Wyoming, Christmas Bird Count when it is barely 10 degrees. Photo by Barb Gorges.

 

 

 

Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Jan. 14, 2018, “Two Christmas Bird Counts–80 miles apart–compared,

Also published at Wyoming Network News. 

By Barb Gorges

I took part in two different Christmas Bird Counts last month.

The Guernsey-Fort Laramie 7.5-mile diameter count circle is centered where U.S. Hwy. 26 crosses the line between Goshen and Platte counties, halfway between the towns. Guernsey’s population is 1,100, Fort Laramie’s is 230, while the Cheyenne count is centered on the Capitol amidst 60,000 people.

All of the species in the combined list below have been seen on previous CBCs in Cheyenne, except for the canyon wren.

Guernsey is 80 miles north of Cheyenne, but 1600 feet lower. Cheyenne’s few small reservoirs were nearly entirely frozen this year. However, within the other count circle are Guernsey Reservoir, on the North Platte, and part of Grayrocks Reservoir on the Laramie River There was more open water on the day of that count, Dec. 17, so you’ll see more ducks listed compared to Cheyenne’s, held Dec. 30.

The cliffs along the North Platte have juniper trees with berries, attracting lots of robins and solitaires. Cheyenne, on the other hand, has lots of residential vegetation and more bird feeders.

There were 16 people on the Cheyenne count, about 10 on the other. We take the same routes every year and statistical analysis of time and distance travelled smooths things out for scientists using our data.

Jane Dorn, the compiler for the Guernsey-Fort Laramie count, includes certain subspecies in her reports when possible. Of her 14 northern flickers, one was yellow-shafted (yellow wing-linings), like the flickers in eastern North America.

Dorn also sorts out dark-eyed juncos. Of the 33 on her count, eight were slate-colored (the junco of eastern North America), one was white-winged (range centered on the Black Hills) and three were Oregon. The other 21 were either difficult to see or hybrids—the reason there are no longer multiple species of juncos with dark eyes.

Dorn had four adult and two immature bald eagles. Those of us coming up from Cheyenne missed a chance for seeing them when we skipped Greyrocks Reservoir while delaying our trip two hours for black ice on I-25 to melt.

The weather for the Cheyenne count put a damper on the number of songbirds out in the morning when we have the most people participating. Dec. 30 was when everything was thickly covered in fluffy ice crystals. Serious birders shrugged off the 7-degree temperature and were rewarded with beauty. By lunch time, I was shrugging off layers to keep cool when the day’s high reached 56 degrees.

Cheyenne count compiler Greg Johnson noted raptors were well represented this year, with 10 species observed, the rough-legged hawk the most abundant with 13 seen, and the two merlins the most unusual.

Johnson said, “Three lingering red-winged blackbirds were visiting a feeder at the Wyoming Hereford Ranch. Otherwise, no unexpected or rare species were observed.”

Guernsey – Fort Laramie (Dec. 17, 2017) and Cheyenne (Dec. 30, 2017) Christmas Bird Count Comparison

Bold – species seen both counts

Regular – species seen Cheyenne only

Italic – species seen Guernsey – Fort Laramie only

G-FL   Chey.

6          —        Western Grebe

2877    1259    Canada Goose

2          —        Cackling Goose

67        76        Mallard

2          1          Common Goldeneye

45        —        Green-winged Teal

1          —        Bufflehead

285      —        Common Merganser

cw        —        Killdeer

6          1          Bald Eagle

cw       5          Northern Harrier

3          6          Red-tailed Hawk

—        1          Ferruginous Hawk

—        13        Rough-legged Hawk

1          1          Sharp-shinned Hawk

—        1          Cooper’s Hawk

1          —        Golden Eagle, Adult

6          3          American Kestrel

—        2          Merlin

1          1          Prairie Falcon

11        —        Wild Turkey

7          —        Ring-billed Gull

333      463      Rock Pigeon

159      83        Eurasian Collared-Dove

—        1          Great Horned Owl

1          —        Eastern Screech Owl

4          1          Belted Kingfisher

7          2          Downy Woodpecker

1          —        Hairy Woodpecker

14        5          Northern Flicker

2          —        Northern Shrike

1          4          Blue Jay

3          46        Black-billed Magpie

11        168      American Crow

2          32        Common Raven

12        37        Horned Lark

31        —        Black-capped Chickadee

3          3          Mountain Chickadee

2          1          White-breasted Nuthatch

7          7          Red-breasted Nuthatch

—        1          Pygmy Nuthatch

cw        —        Brown Creeper

1          —        Canyon Wren

58        6          Townsend’s Solitaire

144      5          American Robin

202      353      European Starling

—        35        Unidentified waxwing

7          —        Cedar Waxwing

8          —        American Tree Sparrow

3          —        Song Sparrow

33        30        Dark-eyed Junco

—        7          Unidentified blackbird

—        3          Red-winged Blackbird

27        40        House Finch

16        —        Pine Siskin

102      10        American Goldfinch

cw       139      House Sparrow

Cottonwood trees full of birds held our attention along a slough off the North Platte River on the Guernsey – Ft. Laramie, Wyoming, Christmas Bird Count. Photo by Barb Gorges.