This battle was a pledged cause of the Brooklyn Bird Club team in last May 's birdathon.The club raised 3800.00 dollars .
http://www.calvertongrasslands.org/
The latest information of interesting birding events , conservation issues,Brooklyn Bird club happenings,members requests,you name it......
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Loon deaths in Long Island
More on loons, both Common and Red-throated found dead on eastern end of Long Island beaches
see the link
http://www.easthamptonstar.com/dnn/Home/News/DeathofLoons/tabid/7353/Default.aspx
see the link
http://www.easthamptonstar.com/dnn/Home/News/DeathofLoons/tabid/7353/Default.aspx
Friday, December 5, 2008
Boreal Birds conservation predictament
Received from email Boreal songbirds initiative:
Hello,
Didn’t know if you’ve seen this yet, but a new report has come out saying millions of birds, particularly migratory birds, will be killed by tar sands development in Canada. It’s already in close to 50 papers and is becoming quite a big deal. Here’s an article from CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/02/edm-birds-oilsands-report.html
Report page with link to report:
http://www.borealbirds.org/birdstarsands.shtml
I’ve attached two images in case you were thinking about mentioning it in your blog. There’s also a video on YouTube talking about the huge impact the tar sands has on birds, mostly from an interview with Dr. Jeff Wells:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W847iqudLM
If your blog is in HTML you can embed the video into your blog by copying/pasting the code where it says “embed” to the right of the video.
Feel free to call if you have any questions (number below) - hope you find it interesting!
David
_________________________________
David Childs
Online Communications Campaigner
Boreal Songbird Initiative
206.956.9040 (main)
206.905.4801 (direct line)
davidc@borealbirds.org
Sign up for our updates!
http://www.borealbirds.org/signup.shtml
Hello,
Didn’t know if you’ve seen this yet, but a new report has come out saying millions of birds, particularly migratory birds, will be killed by tar sands development in Canada. It’s already in close to 50 papers and is becoming quite a big deal. Here’s an article from CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/02/edm-birds-oilsands-report.html
Report page with link to report:
http://www.borealbirds.org/birdstarsands.shtml
I’ve attached two images in case you were thinking about mentioning it in your blog. There’s also a video on YouTube talking about the huge impact the tar sands has on birds, mostly from an interview with Dr. Jeff Wells:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W847iqudLM
If your blog is in HTML you can embed the video into your blog by copying/pasting the code where it says “embed” to the right of the video.
Feel free to call if you have any questions (number below) - hope you find it interesting!
David
_________________________________
David Childs
Online Communications Campaigner
Boreal Songbird Initiative
206.956.9040 (main)
206.905.4801 (direct line)
davidc@borealbirds.org
Sign up for our updates!
http://www.borealbirds.org/signup.shtml
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Mercury rising in NY State Bald Eagles
This news piece is from the Nature Conservancy website
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/science/art26434.html
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/science/art26434.html
Sunday, November 30, 2008
A new city parks blog
I found this sent to me by the Trust for Public Land
Its a very resourceful blog about urban spaces
http://cityparksblog.org/
Its a very resourceful blog about urban spaces
http://cityparksblog.org/
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Window Kills
One of my club members corresponded to me regarding bird window kills:
Hello Peter,
I'm very disturbed by the dead birds I've found that have crashed into bridges between buildings during migration season (I think I've written to people about this earlier this fall). I found a dead hermit thrush below the bridge connecting the new annex at my school (Midwood H.S. on Bedford Ave), and a junco at MetroTech. Is there some way we could get those stickers of birds from maybe the Audubon Society to put up in these places (Long Island College Hospital also has a bridge, and the Atlantic center Mall where I once found a dead goldfinch). Can we contact Marty Markowitz and the Brooklyn Paper for support in putting up these stickers before next spring migration?
Thank you!
Please check out this link for more information on how you can help:
http://www.nycaudubon.org/NYCASBirdWatch/TabDefault.asp
Hello Peter,
I'm very disturbed by the dead birds I've found that have crashed into bridges between buildings during migration season (I think I've written to people about this earlier this fall). I found a dead hermit thrush below the bridge connecting the new annex at my school (Midwood H.S. on Bedford Ave), and a junco at MetroTech. Is there some way we could get those stickers of birds from maybe the Audubon Society to put up in these places (Long Island College Hospital also has a bridge, and the Atlantic center Mall where I once found a dead goldfinch). Can we contact Marty Markowitz and the Brooklyn Paper for support in putting up these stickers before next spring migration?
Thank you!
Please check out this link for more information on how you can help:
http://www.nycaudubon.org/NYCASBirdWatch/TabDefault.asp
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Project feeder watch NY Times article
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/garden/27GARDEN.html?ref=garden
November 27, 2008
In the Garden
Fly Up and Be Counted!
By ANNE RAVER
THIS winter, while it is too cold to garden, I will be counting birds for Project FeederWatch, a survey run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in Ithaca, N.Y., and Bird Studies Canada, a nonprofit research group in Ontario. I am one of about 15,000 volunteers across the continent who will be keeping a record of the birds that show up at their backyard feeders from November to early April.
The collaboration between the two groups began about 20 years ago, when Erica Dunn, an ornithologist who started the Ontario Bird Feeder Survey in 1976, realized that a larger survey would be better able to track population and migration trends. She approached the Cornell Lab about starting a similar study in the United States, and their joint effort, called Project FeederWatch, enrolled 4,000 volunteers in 1987, its first year.
Over the years, volunteers have documented declines in various bird populations, as well as the invasion of exotic species and the devastating effect of West Nile virus on the American crow.
This is citizen science at its best.
“It’s like voting,” said Paul Schwarz, 69, a retired teacher in Scarsdale, N.Y., who became involved three years ago. “We just participated in something huge: we pulled the levers to make our one vote count,” he said, referring to the recent presidential election. In the same way, he said, he is happy to count finches, “to provide data for something larger that might be useful.”
Of course, counting finches is not as exciting as spotting a streak-backed oriole, as Connie Kogler, 48, did last December.
Mrs. Kogler and her husband, Al, who live in Loveland, Colo., have been Project FeederWatch participants for five years. So when Mr. Kogler, 51, saw the bird through their kitchen window and said, “Honey, there’s a funny-looking oriole out here,” Mrs. Kogler, who was late for work, didn’t think much of it. She snapped a few pictures and drove off to Wild Bird Unlimited, the store in Fort Collins where she is an education coordinator.
But when she sent the images of what she thought was a common Bullock’s oriole to a few friends on Cobirds, an e-mail list for Colorado birders, she received an immediate response suggesting that it might be a streak-backed oriole, never before seen in Colorado. Then a couple of “die-hard birders” on the list decided to see for themselves, Mrs. Kogler said, and “the next day, we had 80 people come through our kitchen.” (The Koglers, who have 11 children between them, love people.)
The streak-backed oriole, whose normal habitat is 100 miles south of the Mexican border, was recorded as a first-time visitor by the Colorado Field Ornithologists, a group that maintains the rare-bird records for the State of Colorado. And during the bird’s visit, which lasted nearly a month, more than 400 people passed through the Koglers’ kitchen, from as far away as Nebraska, Anchorage and Winnipeg.
Pedro, as the Koglers first called the oriole — and then Pedro-Maria, once they realized it was female — stayed through the end of the year, stocking up on mealworms. On Jan. 1, the Koglers watched Pedro-Maria eat 103 of them. The next day, she took off.
This oriole could be at the end of its journey, said David Bonter, the ornithologist who leads Project FeederWatch in the United States. “Chances are, there’s something wrong with its orientation mechanism, so its chances of finding its way back home and finding a mate aren’t good.”
On the other hand, he added, a bird like that “could be the seed that starts a new population.”
So good luck, Pedro-Maria.
Project FeederWatch carries on the tradition of surveys like the North American Breeding Bird Survey, set up in 1966 by the United States Geological Survey and the Canadian Wildlife Service, and the Christmas Bird Count, run by the National Audubon Society since 1900.
The participants in these programs are constantly adding to what we know about birds like the northern cardinal, the tufted titmouse, the Carolina wren and the red-bellied woodpecker, which are moving farther north, Mr. Bonter said.
“Back in the 1950s, the northern cardinal was rarely seen in New York,” he said. “But because winters are not as severe, it’s moved hundreds of miles. We now find it in northern Quebec.”
Volunteers have documented the decline of the evening grosbeak, once one of the most common species in the northern half of North America. In the last 15 years, Mr. Bonter said, its flocks have seen “more than a 50 percent decline.”
Project FeederWatch volunteers have also recorded the appearance of a new species, the Eurasian collared dove, which is “like a mourning dove on steroids,” Mr. Bonter said. The bird came to the Americas through the pet trade in the early 1970s and escaped into the wild, he said; it has been observed in 39 states and British Columbia.
Scientists have no real explanation why the evening grosbeak is disappearing, and they can’t predict whether the collared dove will start to compete with native doves. But the more data they have, the closer they can come to drawing conclusions.
In the meantime, watching birds, and sharing the experience, is just plain joyful — and inevitably raises new questions.
One morning last February, Mrs. Kogler went to fill her feeders, when a chickadee perched in an ash tree caught her eye.
“I poured seed in my hand and sidled over with my arm stretched out,” she said. “That bird landed on my thumb, looked me right in the eye and did his little chick-a-dee-dee-dee thing,” she said, mimicking the bird’s call. “Then he pecked my thumb twice and flew over to the feeder."
Was he scolding her for being late, Mrs. Kogler wondered? “I felt he was expressing something,” she said, chuckling. “I was privileged to be chastised by a chickadee.”
Who knows, maybe he knows something we need to know.
November 27, 2008
In the Garden
Fly Up and Be Counted!
By ANNE RAVER
THIS winter, while it is too cold to garden, I will be counting birds for Project FeederWatch, a survey run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, in Ithaca, N.Y., and Bird Studies Canada, a nonprofit research group in Ontario. I am one of about 15,000 volunteers across the continent who will be keeping a record of the birds that show up at their backyard feeders from November to early April.
The collaboration between the two groups began about 20 years ago, when Erica Dunn, an ornithologist who started the Ontario Bird Feeder Survey in 1976, realized that a larger survey would be better able to track population and migration trends. She approached the Cornell Lab about starting a similar study in the United States, and their joint effort, called Project FeederWatch, enrolled 4,000 volunteers in 1987, its first year.
Over the years, volunteers have documented declines in various bird populations, as well as the invasion of exotic species and the devastating effect of West Nile virus on the American crow.
This is citizen science at its best.
“It’s like voting,” said Paul Schwarz, 69, a retired teacher in Scarsdale, N.Y., who became involved three years ago. “We just participated in something huge: we pulled the levers to make our one vote count,” he said, referring to the recent presidential election. In the same way, he said, he is happy to count finches, “to provide data for something larger that might be useful.”
Of course, counting finches is not as exciting as spotting a streak-backed oriole, as Connie Kogler, 48, did last December.
Mrs. Kogler and her husband, Al, who live in Loveland, Colo., have been Project FeederWatch participants for five years. So when Mr. Kogler, 51, saw the bird through their kitchen window and said, “Honey, there’s a funny-looking oriole out here,” Mrs. Kogler, who was late for work, didn’t think much of it. She snapped a few pictures and drove off to Wild Bird Unlimited, the store in Fort Collins where she is an education coordinator.
But when she sent the images of what she thought was a common Bullock’s oriole to a few friends on Cobirds, an e-mail list for Colorado birders, she received an immediate response suggesting that it might be a streak-backed oriole, never before seen in Colorado. Then a couple of “die-hard birders” on the list decided to see for themselves, Mrs. Kogler said, and “the next day, we had 80 people come through our kitchen.” (The Koglers, who have 11 children between them, love people.)
The streak-backed oriole, whose normal habitat is 100 miles south of the Mexican border, was recorded as a first-time visitor by the Colorado Field Ornithologists, a group that maintains the rare-bird records for the State of Colorado. And during the bird’s visit, which lasted nearly a month, more than 400 people passed through the Koglers’ kitchen, from as far away as Nebraska, Anchorage and Winnipeg.
Pedro, as the Koglers first called the oriole — and then Pedro-Maria, once they realized it was female — stayed through the end of the year, stocking up on mealworms. On Jan. 1, the Koglers watched Pedro-Maria eat 103 of them. The next day, she took off.
This oriole could be at the end of its journey, said David Bonter, the ornithologist who leads Project FeederWatch in the United States. “Chances are, there’s something wrong with its orientation mechanism, so its chances of finding its way back home and finding a mate aren’t good.”
On the other hand, he added, a bird like that “could be the seed that starts a new population.”
So good luck, Pedro-Maria.
Project FeederWatch carries on the tradition of surveys like the North American Breeding Bird Survey, set up in 1966 by the United States Geological Survey and the Canadian Wildlife Service, and the Christmas Bird Count, run by the National Audubon Society since 1900.
The participants in these programs are constantly adding to what we know about birds like the northern cardinal, the tufted titmouse, the Carolina wren and the red-bellied woodpecker, which are moving farther north, Mr. Bonter said.
“Back in the 1950s, the northern cardinal was rarely seen in New York,” he said. “But because winters are not as severe, it’s moved hundreds of miles. We now find it in northern Quebec.”
Volunteers have documented the decline of the evening grosbeak, once one of the most common species in the northern half of North America. In the last 15 years, Mr. Bonter said, its flocks have seen “more than a 50 percent decline.”
Project FeederWatch volunteers have also recorded the appearance of a new species, the Eurasian collared dove, which is “like a mourning dove on steroids,” Mr. Bonter said. The bird came to the Americas through the pet trade in the early 1970s and escaped into the wild, he said; it has been observed in 39 states and British Columbia.
Scientists have no real explanation why the evening grosbeak is disappearing, and they can’t predict whether the collared dove will start to compete with native doves. But the more data they have, the closer they can come to drawing conclusions.
In the meantime, watching birds, and sharing the experience, is just plain joyful — and inevitably raises new questions.
One morning last February, Mrs. Kogler went to fill her feeders, when a chickadee perched in an ash tree caught her eye.
“I poured seed in my hand and sidled over with my arm stretched out,” she said. “That bird landed on my thumb, looked me right in the eye and did his little chick-a-dee-dee-dee thing,” she said, mimicking the bird’s call. “Then he pecked my thumb twice and flew over to the feeder."
Was he scolding her for being late, Mrs. Kogler wondered? “I felt he was expressing something,” she said, chuckling. “I was privileged to be chastised by a chickadee.”
Who knows, maybe he knows something we need to know.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Young Birders sponsorship Program
here is the information for sponsoring the NYS Young Birders if any adult is interested
Club:http://www.nysyoungbirders.org/MembershipFormPartner.pdf
The main website is here:http://www.nysyoungbirders.org
Club:http://www.nysyoungbirders.org/MembershipFormPartner.pdf
The main website is here:http://www.nysyoungbirders.org
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
BBC member Tom Stephenson 10/28 lecture
Club member Tom Stephenson is presenting a lecture slide show for the NYC Linnaean Society on October 28th at the American Museum of natural History 7:30 PM .Its a very interesting view of the Asian nation of Bhutan and its birds and nature.
http://linnaeannewyork.org/programs.html
the venue:
American Museum of Natural History, in the Lindner Theater; please enter at West 77th St. between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue
7:30 p.m
the topic:
Bhutan: Birding the last Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom
Nestled in the Eastern Himalayas, and virtually untouched by the technologies and industries that have shaped the rest of the world, Bhutan remains a unique and pristine refuge for birds and birders. No where else in the world can you drive for days and days through uninterrupted primary forests protecting some of the world’s most beautiful bird species. This is a country where the first roads were built in the 1960’s, TV still is not a common fixture, and the King’s focus is on Gross National Happiness!
Come see Ibisbill, Rufous-necked Hornbill, the brilliant Fire-tailed Myzornis, Golden Babbler, and the spectacular Satyr Tragopan along with Green-tailed Sunbirds and Pygmy Wren Babblers. And we won’t leave out stunning shots of prayer wheels, temples, Dzongs, the rare golden langur; and, of course, the Himalayas.
http://linnaeannewyork.org/programs.html
the venue:
American Museum of Natural History, in the Lindner Theater; please enter at West 77th St. between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue
7:30 p.m
the topic:
Bhutan: Birding the last Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom
Nestled in the Eastern Himalayas, and virtually untouched by the technologies and industries that have shaped the rest of the world, Bhutan remains a unique and pristine refuge for birds and birders. No where else in the world can you drive for days and days through uninterrupted primary forests protecting some of the world’s most beautiful bird species. This is a country where the first roads were built in the 1960’s, TV still is not a common fixture, and the King’s focus is on Gross National Happiness!
Come see Ibisbill, Rufous-necked Hornbill, the brilliant Fire-tailed Myzornis, Golden Babbler, and the spectacular Satyr Tragopan along with Green-tailed Sunbirds and Pygmy Wren Babblers. And we won’t leave out stunning shots of prayer wheels, temples, Dzongs, the rare golden langur; and, of course, the Himalayas.
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