Be a Community Scientist

At Lions Park last December while on the Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count, Mark Gorges uses a scope to count geese resting around open water on Sloans Lake, Dennis Saville looks for hawks in the distance and Pete Sokolosky checks overhead for songbirds on tree branches. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Audubon Rockies’ Zach Hutchinson discusses community science

Published Nov. 4, 2022, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            Zach Hutchinson is Audubon Rockies’ community science coordinator. He is currently located in Casper, although he plans to relocate to Cheyenne as soon as local real estate prices are realistic.

            He spoke at Cheyenne Audubon’s October meeting about community science, which started out being called “citizen science.” The new name is more inclusive – you don’t have to be a U.S. citizen to participate – or be a college-educated scientist.

            Zach said community science contributed to Bird Migration Explorer, https://explorer.audubon.org/. I’ll have more about this new endeavor in a future column.

            Community science has also contributed data to the State of the Birds 2022 report, www.stateofthebirds.org/2022.

            Most groups of birds, including our grassland birds, are still losing population, while others increased during the last couple decades. For instance, waterfowl increased because they benefitted from concentrated efforts by sporting groups, although you don’t have to be a hunter to buy a Federal Duck Stamp to contribute.

            This year’s report highlights North American species that are at the “tipping point” which means, after having lost 50% or more of their population since 1970, the report said, “These 70 species are on a trajectory to lose another 50% of their remnant populations in the next 50 years if nothing changes.”

            Thirteen of those tipping point species occur in Wyoming regularly, either as residents or migrants, some considered common and others uncommon on this scale: abundant, common, uncommon, rare. I didn’t include the species that are rare in our state in this list of 13:

Greater Sage-Grouse

Western Grebe

Rufous Hummingbird

Mountain Plover

Long-billed Dowitcher

Lesser Yellowlegs

Red-headed Woodpecker

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Pinyon Jay

Evening Grosbeak

Black Rosy-Finch

Chestnut-collared Longspur

Bobolink

The primary causes of downward population trends are:

1. Habitat loss.

2. Cats (2.6 billion birds a year).

3. Windows, (624 million).

4. Vehicle collisions (214 million).

5. Industrial collisions, including wind turbines (64 million).

Zach went over the seven ways we can help birds:

1. Make windows safer day and night.

2. Keep cats indoors.

3. Reduce lawn, plant natives.

4. Avoid pesticides.

5. Drink shade-grown coffee.

6. Protect our planet from plastic (Think of waterbirds mistaking floating plastic for food.).

7. Watch birds, share what you see.

For more about each point, see www.birds.cornell.edu/home/seven-simple-actions-to-help-birds/.

“Watch birds, share what you see,” means taking part in community science. Zach said this is how we find out about population trends, range expansion, and if there are losses, we can see where in the life cycle it happens so that action can be focused.

You’ve probably heard me talk about www.eBird.org before. Birdwatchers submit lists of birds they’ve seen, anywhere and anytime, using smart phones or computers.

I can delve into the data on the website and discover 272 species have been observed at the Wyoming Hereford Ranch headquarters, 216 at Lions Park and 151 at the High Plains Grasslands Research Station where the Cheyenne Arboretum is located.

Zach Hutchinson releases a hummingbird. Photo courtesy of Zach Hutchinson.

The Christmas Bird Count is the most famous annual community science project, with this year’s being the 123^rd.

Two years ago, Zach said, 80,000 people took part, counted 2,355 species (world-wide), and travelled 500,000 miles on foot, by skis and by other means. Check https://cheyenneaudubon.org/  to find out about participating in the Cheyenne count in December.

The Great Backyard Bird Count, a snapshot of where birds are in late winter, celebrated its 24th anniversary last February. In 192 countries, 384,641 people participated and 7,099 species were counted on 359,479 checklists submitted. It’s held over Presidents’ Day weekend. 

Zach runs bird banding stations every summer and people sign up to help (https://rockies.audubon.org/). Birds are caught in fine “mist nets,” and then are measured and banded.

This year, 54 species were netted at Zach’s stations. Usually, 500 new birds are banded but this summer it was only 340, probably because the drought has affected breeding and recruitment, Zach said.

Audubon Rockies launched a new community science project last summer on the Yampa River in Colorado. People on commercial float trips, including Zach, counted birds: 55 species and 732 individual birds. Stopping for a few minutes in a calm eddy in otherwise inaccessible places to count birds will add richness to the tourists’ experiences and give science a new perspective.

There are other community science endeavors, such as iNaturalist, which is interested in plants as well as animals. Some have been very specific, such as The Lost Ladybug Project.

Bird banding provides data on demographics, productivity, recruitment (adding individuals to the population) and survival – when a bird previously banded is recaptured, or a band is recovered from a dead bird.

Consider becoming a community science participant in one or more ways.

Addendum: How could I forget Project FeederWatch? Go to feederwatch.org to sign up for reporting your backyard birds this winter. This year, Project FeederWatch tells me Mark and I have counted for 24 seasons.

Farming gamebirds

In early spring, the nine acres of pens at Wyoming Game and Fish’s Downar Bird Farm hold only 1485 breeding ring-necked pheasants. By summer there will be 18,000 birds. Photo by Barb Gorges.

WGFD bird farm pheasants recruit hunters; sage grouse farming appeases developers

Published April 9, 2022, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            It’s a matter of degrees when you are in charge of raising thousands of ring-necked pheasants.

            Ben Milner, bird farm coordinator for Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Downar Bird Farm near Yoder, is also scrupulous about cleanliness, especially with the storm clouds of avian flu gathering on the eastern horizon.

            Grant Frost, field trip chair for the Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society, arranged for Ben to give us a tour in mid-March, before the eggs start rolling in. Before we could enter the facility, we had to step onto a soapy mat and squelch around a bit to kill any germs. Inside it looked clean enough to perform surgery.

            Each year, 18,000 pheasants are produced here, and another 16,000 at Game and Fish’s bird farm in Sheridan. Sheridan started in 1938 and Downar in 1963.

            Each fall, Ben holds back 135 roosters and 1350 hens for breeding while the rest are released for hunting. The breeders make their home in nine acres of enormous pens secured against predators.

            When the spring breeding season kicks in, each hen would normally stop laying after filling a nest with 12 to 15 eggs. But because employees go out every day to collect eggs, and hens have access to nutritious food, each averages 40-50.

Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s Ben Milner, bird farm coordinator, explains how the Downar Bird Farm incubator will hold 6,700 ring-necked pheasant eggs until they need to be moved to the hatcher. Photo by Barb Gorges.

The eggs are sorted, cleaned and stored in racks sized for pheasant eggs, smaller than chicken eggs, at 55 degrees which suspends development of the embryos. When there are 6,700 eggs, they move to the giant incubator and 99.7 degrees. The racks tip every 1 to 3 hours to imitate the hen turning the eggs in her nest, keeping the embryos from sticking to the shells.

After 19 days, the eggs are placed in the hatcher, in chick-sized trays where they can hatch. After that, chicks move into brooder houses where heaters set at 100 degrees substitute for brooding hens. They are soon pecking at waterers and feed.

After two weeks the chicks are allowed to walk in and out of small outside pens, and then eventually into the larger pens. These pens are so large that they are farmed. The crop is kochia—an invasive weed in everyone’s garden, but it provides good cover and food in addition to the purchased feed.

The old brood stock is released in May at Springer and Table Mountain Wildlife Habitat Management Areas as well as several walk-in areas.

Wyoming has not allowed raising exotic or native game animals privately, except exotic birds. At Downar, Game and Fish settled on ring-necked pheasants, natives of Asian jungles. Private bird farms order eggs and raise pheasants and other exotic gamebird species. Very few escape and reproduce because they are hunted by sportspeople and predatory animals.

Why does Game and Fish continue to produce an artificial population of pheasants, basically for put and take hunting? Ben sees pheasants as a way to introduce hunting to kids and adults, including women who have traditionally made up a small percentage of hunters. Game and Fish sponsors three kids-only hunt days each season on the Springer WHMA and four in November at Glendo State Park to help recruit the next generation.

Historically, it was hunters who raised funds through licenses and tags and lobbied for wildlife so that it wouldn’t be extirpated by other interests such as farming, ranching, mining and energy extraction. So, thank those early hunters when you enjoy watching Wyoming wildlife.

Unfortunately, a few developers, alarmed by decreasing populations, think the bird farm method will make up for the loss of sage grouse habitat due to development. I’m discouraged that somehow influential people were able to convince the Wyoming legislature that this could be done by a private company.

Legislation gave Diamond Wings Upland Game Birds five years to give it a try, but this session they had to ask for and received another five, despite a large turnout against.

It turns out raising sage grouse is not like raising chickens—or pheasants.

First, there are no captive flocks to gather eggs from. Diamond Wings is allowed to steal up to 250 eggs per year from hens in the wild. So much for calling this captive “breeding.” Sage grouse hens do not lay more eggs when they lose them, like the pheasants do. Plus, sage grouse chicks apparently need more instruction from the hens to succeed, unlike the pheasants.

Studies in Utah and Colorado concluded that captive breeding is not a viable way to increase sage grouse populations. Wildlife biologists say protecting sagebrush habitat is best. And what’s good for sage grouse is good for other sagebrush-dependent wildlife.

People from many areas of expertise agreed on a Wyoming sage grouse management plan back in 2015 to keep them from being listed as threatened or endangered, avoiding a host of public land use restrictions.

For an update on sage grouse, please join Cheyenne Audubon April 19, 7 p.m., in the Cottonwood Room, Laramie County Library, 2200 Pioneer Ave. A Zoom link will be available at www.CheyenneAudubon.org close to the date.