|
|
Birds and Alberta's oil sands, a Christmas Bird Count for kids, and a photo gallery of rare-bird sightingsBirding Briefs -- December 2010
Published: October 22, 2010
The gull to watch for this winter
IVORY SIGHTINGS INCREASE: According to eBird, Ivory Gulls had been recorded in the lower 48 states and southern Canada in only 28 winters between 1900 and 1999. Since 2006, however, the bird has been reported every winter — and in increasing numbers. The adult pictured here was walking the shore near Provincetown, Massachusetts, in mid-January 2010. The gull was one of a record-breaking eight found last winter. The influx, eBird suggests, could signal “more widespread environmental problems in the Arctic” due to the changing climate. |
2,200 miles northwest of the Gulf, birds drown in oil
An article in the September issue of The Wilson Journal of Ornithology reminds us that the Gulf of Mexico is not the only place where the search for crude oil is killing birds.
The boreal forest of northeastern Alberta, Canada — breeding grounds for 22 million to 170 million birds and a globally important flyway for huge numbers of ducks, geese, cranes, and shorebirds — is another.
For more than 100 feet beneath it lie the oil sands, a mixture of sand, clay, silt, and water containing a semi-solid form of crude oil known as bitumen. Recent record-high world oil prices have made it profitable to extract the crude on a grand scale, either by means of steam-assisted drilling or through vast open-pit mines that leave the land dotted with broad tailings ponds brimming with a thick, toxic soup of residual hydrocarbons, brine, silts, clays, and metals.
Tailings ponds in the 54,000-square-mile Athabasca deposit, located between Edmonton and Wood Buffalo National Park, home of the last remaining wild migratory flock of endangered Whooping Cranes, attract many migrants. Birds of 43 species have died after landing in them, and in April 2008, 1,606 waterfowl were found dead in a pond maintained by the mining colossus Syncrude Canada Ltd.
Self-reported data from the industry indicate a mortality rate due to tailings-pond exposure of only 65 birds per year, write researchers Kevin P. Timoney and Robert A. Ronconi, yet the true death rate is certainly much greater.
“Scientific data indicate an annual mortality in the range of 458 to 5,029 birds,” they conclude. But even this estimate — which includes no single mortality events, no nighttime observations, and no counts made between November and April, when natural water bodies freeze over but the tailings ponds remain open — represents only “an unknown fraction of true mortality,” they say.
|
A Christmas count just for kids
Two weeks after adults in Sonoma Valley, California, finish tallying the results of the upcoming 111th Christmas Bird Count, a second count will take place — one specially organized for birdwatchers between the ages of 8 and 15.
The half-day event, called the CBC 4 Kids, was pioneered by CBC compilers Tom Rusert and Darren Peterie. “The objective,” says Rusert, “is to have fun and potentially create a hometown team of birders and conservationists for the future while encouraging families to enjoy and respect nature together.”
Last year, seven teams (34 participants), using a standardized local bird list and guided by experienced adult birders, counted 51 species. The 2011 event will take place January 15. Details are at sonomabirding.org.
|
Same sandpiper, different routes
The Sharp-tailed Sandpiper breeds in Siberia and winters primarily in Australia. Juveniles, but rarely any adults, turn up in western Alaska each fall. Explaining why has long been a mystery — until now.
An article in Arctic describes how juveniles stop in Alaska before making a possible nonstop trans-Pacific flight. Adults, meanwhile, take a more direct route through Asia to Australia. The shorebird is only the second known bird species in which adults and juveniles use different migration routes.
|
 Click to enlarge
|
|
See great photos of birds, get birdwatching tips, learn about birding events, and more!
|