Wesley the Owl is the Greatest Book of All Time

Hey friends! It's been a while, I know. But we're back and I have some vital reading for everyone. The sis (Eggie!) got me Wesley the Owl for Christmas and I just finished reading it (yeah, it's still Christmas). It's the story of Stacey O'Brien, an owl researcher in California, who raises Wesley, an unreleasable orphaned Barn Owl from birth. Wesley becomes her constant companion and she discovers a deeper intelligence to owls than even seasoned experts had previously seen. Seriously, folks...I laughed, cried, went AAWWWWWWWW pretty much every page of the book, and generally just LOVED it. I adore owls, but even if you don't, this story is so heartwarming and wonderful that one can't help but smile at Wesley's personality and owly antics. So please hasten to your nearest independent bookseller and find a copy of Wesley the Owl at your earliest convenience. Your heart will melt! MELT!

If a bird calls in the forest...

...and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a noise?

Well, yeah, but it's more complicated to prove than you might think.

Researchers are developing ways to record and identify bird calls so as to track bird populations in certain areas. In the past, a bird census was done by people who actually went out into the wilderness to count the birds in an area. Sometimes, it's difficult to rally a bunch of ornithologists to troop into the woods to count birds for hours, so they're attempting to count birds by recording their calls. At first, you think it'd be relatively simple: just stick a recorder in a tree for a while and then count all the bird calls. The problem, however, is that the tapes do not distinguish between calls and without a sight on the bird, it's not always clear to tell who made the call without in-depth analysis of the recorded sounds.

So, leave it to science to come up with an ingenious(ly complicated) way to count birds without actually being there. They've developed devices that can distinguish the calls of certain birds from the background symphony of flora and fauna. It's way too complicated for me to understand, so I'm not even going to try to explain it, but the result is that they can track bird populations more easily and much more efficiently. Right now each device can only distinguish one kind of call, but they hope to make a machine that can distinguish a bunch of different calls so they can count a lot of birds at once. As a neat side effect, this method is less obtrusive, so they might be able to record birds that could otherwise be spooked by a person walking around counting them.

Read about all of this scientific fantasticness over at Science Daily.

Stork Success

The Alsace-Lorraine region of France has been known for hundreds of years for several things: its cuisine (sauerkraut, sausage, flammekueche--YUM), its delicious wines in tall slender bottles, and its rooftop residents: the famous cigognes, or storks. Many a cottage and steeple can be seen adorned with large nests of fat sticks. It's said that if a stork nests on your roof, you will have great prosperity. By the early 80's, however, storks were all but absent from many Alsatian towns, mostly due to a tipping of the delicate balance they share with their human coinhabitants. Now, however, they have made a major comeback thanks to the efforts of Alsatians who did not want to see a major icon of their region disappear altogether. In fact, the storks are becoming so numerous that authorities are even having to remove a few nests so they don't tumble on the heads of unsuspecting citizens (or tourists...or Canadian journalists) Read about the fascinating saga of the Alsatian cigogne here. Have a nice glass of Gewurztraminer while you're at it.

View Evert-Jan's map

Taken in a place with no name (See more ph

Good tips for helping your backyard birds!

The coming of warm weather every spring not only awakens dormant plants and our urge to get outside, it also signals many birds to breed and raise young. Many birds nest in our own backyards and there is a good number of simple things we can do to help the parents and their fledglings have a successful season. A few highlights touched on in an article from The Thomaston Times, a newspaper out of GA (along with some of my own input shown in yellow):

1. Delay Mowing if you have big open spaces such as fields, grasslands, or pastures. Ground-nesting birds lose many eggs and chicks to mowing each year. A more in-depth article on when and how to mow these types of areas can be found here.
2. If you find a nestling on the ground, return it to its nest if you can. If you find a fledgling on the ground (a bird covered with baby feathers, a short stubby tail, and who is able to walk or hop), leave it, and the area, alone. Unless of course it is in obvious danger of cars, dogs, cats etc. Many fledglings are mistaken for nestlings. It is common for someone to see a baby bird on the ground and think that it needs help, but the bird's mother is almost always around, and is still feeding and teaching it what it needs to know to survive. Also, the idea of a bird abandoning its baby if it smells like human, is a myth. Birds have a terrible sense of smell, and would not likely abandon the baby after being touched by human hands. If the bird were to abandon it's young, more likely it would be because it feels threatened in the area.
3. Keep your cats inside, or at least confined to an area outside, so that they cannot hunt freely in your backyard.
4. Make your windows more bird-safe. Hang nets or screens to cushion impacts. Place bird feeders close to windows so that the birds cannot gain enough speed to harm themselves if they hit the window. The effectiveness of window decals is still debated, but I can say from personal use and observation, that after applying these decals to the windows that birds hit most often in my home, the number of window fatalities has gone drastically down. The decals are not COMPLETELY effective, but they do help alert the bird to the window's presence.
   
5. Refrain from using pesticides. This is a big one. Spraying chemicals on your lawn is a good way to harm your backyard birds. Also, do you want your kids and pets rolling around on chemically treated grass? Birds are excellent pest controllers, and if you have too many bugs, attract more birds! It is safe, all natural, effective, and fun to watch! :)
6. Plant vegetation that is native to your area. This is what your backyard birds have been accustomed to for hundreds of years. Also, allow some of it to overgrow, as this provides protection for young birds.
7. Install nest boxes! Just be sure that the nest box does not have a "doorstep" under the entrance hole. As cute as it may be, it is basically a place for hungry egg-and-chick-eating predators to sit while they feast.
8. Provide nesting material. Natural fibers, dried grass and non-chemically treated hair do well. Drape them places outside, or hang them in a suet basket for the birds to come and take.
9. Offer eggshells. Mother birds use a lot of their body's calcium producing eggs. Chicken eggshells are an excellent source of calcium, and here is how to do it! Rinse the eggshells of any yolk or white residue, and spread them on a baking sheet. Bake at 250 degrees for 20 minutes to kill any bacteria that could harm the birds. Lastly, crush the eggshells up, put them outside, and watch them disappear!
   
10. Offer mealworms. Mealworms are a great source of protein, and live mealworms have a high moisture content which will help keep the nestlings hydrated. When we aren't offering live mealworms, we offer the cooked-in-the-can mealworms, which have a more natural texture than dried mealworms. Bluebirds love them, yes, but so do many other insect-eating birds. The Robins nesting on our property will stuff their beak full of these nutritious little larvae.

Simple actions on your part can really help nesting birds, and by providing a safe haven for them, they will return year after year to raise future families.

Happy birdwatching!

An Ode to a Big Yellow Bird

The AP today had a fantastic story about every kid's favorite bird. Yes, I am talking about Big Bird of Sesame Street. He is not actually a bird, as I had previously believed (yester-I mean, when I was little), but a man named Caroll Spinney who works the larger-than-life feathery yellow costume from the inside. Spinney has been Big Bird (as well as Oscar the Grouch) for over 40 years now. The Big Bird costume is quite elaborate - orange pants with pink rings, giant foam feet, a feathery yellow midsection and wings, and a big noggin with a pointy beak. One thing I learned was that Spinney can't see out of the costume. He sees what's going on on the set and knows how to act by watching a tv strapped to his chest inside Big Bird's gut. The article details his years as Big Bird, his trials and triumphs as the most beloved television bird of all time, as well as more about the costume itself. Good reading, and I encourage everyone to learn more about this one-of-a-kind bird! There are also some tidbits about our favorite trash can dweller: did you know Oscar still boasts his original eyebrows? Read all about it here.

And don't forget to check out the video!


Image found here.

In Honor of Father's Day

I still have 15 minutes to post this!

For Father's Day, the Avian Daily would like to honor the male rhea, who takes care of building a nest, incubating the eggs, hatching them and then raising the young. The male rhea at the National Zoo is now doing just this. His four little babies hatched April 20 and he is now in full parenting mode. With the addition of the chicks, the total number of rheas at the zoo has climbed to 7.

Rheas are native to South America. Like their ostrich relatives, they cannot fly. In fact, they are often mistaken for ostriches due to their similar size. According to Science Daily, the rhea "is part of the family of birds known as ratites, which also includes the ostrich, emu, kiwi and cassowary."

For the full article on the new rheas at the National Zoo, and to see the cutest photo EVER of the little babies and their proud papa, click here.

Mass Balloon Releases Having Negative Impact on Marine Life

According to BBC News, The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) is concerned about marine life being harmed and killed by balloons that end up in the ocean, and washed up on shore from mass balloon releases. Turtles have died after eating the balloons, mistaking them for something tasty, while shorebirds have gotten entangled in balloon strings, rendering them immobile- and the problem is getting worse.

"In the last 10 years we have seen a 260% increase in the number of balloons we are finding on our beaches."

The balloon manufacturers are on the defense, making claims that there is no proof that latex balloons kill animals, and that the balloons are biodegradable. Latex balloons are biodegradable, but in the water this process can take a very long time. The MSC is trying to convince people that are planning a mass balloon release to try something different, maybe fill up the balloons with regular air instead of helium so they cannot travel so far. They are asking organizers to consider where the balloons that they release may end up, and what impact the release may have on wildlife.