Condor Chick News! The Cathedral Lead Fledge and How about THE LIFE OF THE SKIES?.

Great news and links sent in by way of Karen Anne Kolling, --
THE CONDOR CHICK SURVIVED THE FIRE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXiVszDf5_o

http://www.ventanaws.org/species_condors/bigsurfire2008.htm



News from Wildlife rehabilitator, Bobby Horvath, concerning the 2008 Cathedral Fledge who was found to be suffering from lead poisoning with the resulting neuropathy affecting one foot and leg---

Donna,
Leadfoot is still here and most likely not releasable . Besides his foot problem, which has corrected with time, he has a wing issue undetectable by x ray but just the same he isn't fully flighted yet. We creance him in a field nearby and he struggles to stay in the air still. Unless something changes he'll be unreleasable unfortunately.
Bobby
And all from a tiny speck of lead no bigger than a period at the end of a sentence... D.B.


R. of Illinois sends in a book review excerpt for a book that sounds downright fascinating---

Birder of Paradise

By ROBERT SULLIVAN

THE LIFE OF THE SKIES

By Jonathan Rosen.

Illustrated. 324 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $24.

As goes bird-watching, one of America’s fastest growing forms of outdoor recreation, so go the bird-watching books. Once, Roger Tory Peterson’s “Field Guide to the Birds” and a pair of binoculars were all you needed. Then came “The Sibley Guide to Birds,” with drawings that made things a little easier for the not-so-eagle-eyed. Now, Jonathan Rosen has written the birding book for the birder who ponders philosophy and theology while quietly sitting by a pond at dusk. If Peterson and Sibley provided checklists — birding as scratching off answers on multiple-choice tests — then “The Life of the Skies” is the essay question, the question being: Does bird-watching offer a bird-watcher an avenue toward greater meaning, like prayer or yoga? For his part, Rosen, a novelist and the author of “The Talmud and the Internet,” has a lot of faith in it as a meditative act. “I can’t think of any activity that more fully captures what it means to be human in the modern world than watching birds,”...

As for Rosen’s own style of bird-watching, he is not a “lister,” one of those scorekeeping diehards who bolt from the room when somebody says “chestnut-sided warbler.” He is a guy who runs home to look at a Robert Frost poem, or a story by Baal Shem Tov, whose presence you can feel in Rosen’s birding: it is a down-to-earth mystical practice, a balm to mere academic pursuits. Birding has offered him a view on parenting, assuaged his grief over the death of his father, and given him sheer adventure. “Life of the Skies” begins and almost ends on a shaggy-dog bird tale, his own search for the ivory-billed woodpecker. Once thought extinct thanks to the cutting of old-growth swamp, the ivory-bill appears in William Faulkner’s short story “The Bear,” where it is referred to as the Lord-to-God bird. For Faulkner, the clattering of the bird is the banging of man in the dark swamp of life, the grasp for meaning in the quag. Birds “seem to possess something that transcends happiness or sadness — they simply are,” Rosen says. “Birding gives me a little of that. " ...

NYC AUDUBON MEMBERS MAY REMEMBER REVIEWER ROBERT SULLIVAN'S TALK sponsored by the organization on his book, RATS!

donegal browne

Central Park Turkey Alert! Plus Scruffy Cardinals and Hummingbirds in Hurricanes

Photograph by Robert Schmunk of http://bloomingdalevillage.blogspot.com/

Hedda Gobler of Morningside Park

As many of you know from Katherine Herzog's note about him not long ago, a new young turkey has appeared in Central Park.

No, not Hedda up there, she's been around for years in Morningside Park waiting for a mate to show up, but she gives you a general idea about the coloration of a wild turkey as I don't have a photo of the one in Central Park.

Our new turkey, possibly a Tom which is very exciting because so far our resident Wild Turkeys have been hens, is dangerously tame as we also learned from Kat's note.

And now what we dreaded has happened.

I got calls from Stella Hamilton and Kat Herzog today. Both longtime hawk watchers and guardians of wild creatures, and both fit to be tied, that the young Tom was suddenly missing his entire tail and great patches of his breast feathers. Or as Kat put it her special way, "He looked like he'd been run over by a lawn mower."

Kat having seen Vivian Sokol, one of our local wildlife rehabilitators in the park, took off to find her and brought her back to look at Tom. As there were no wounds as might have occurred with an interaction with a raccoon or a dog, Vivian indeed surmised that Tom had been grabbed by humans causing the feather loss. And that Tom was now even more vulnerable to humans and dogs as he would not be able to fly up into a safe tree without his tail feathers.

Vivian did not attempt to catch Tom, she's older, lives in a Manhattan apartment without turkey accommodations, and as he wasn't bleeding, decided against protective custody.

I've emailed Bobby and Cathy Horvath as they do have more space out on Long Island, reporting Tom's condition, for their take on the situation.

In the meantime, do try and keep an eye on Trusting Tom as much as you can until he is less vulnerable. He is often seen around the Maintenance Meadow, Azalea Pond, and other woody areas. There have already been numerous episodes where birders have had to intervene to help poor Trusting Tom avoid injury and abuse.

One good thing, though Tom can't retreat to trees any longer he still has a spur on each leg, albeit small at his age, to fight with, if he is sorely pressed. It might not save him altogether but his previous attacker might think twice before grabbing him again.

Got a few minutes? Track down Trusting Tom, and do a little Turkey sitting.


This is how we expect a Cardinal to look, right? But Sally of TN has some in her area that she's a little worried about.

Dear Donna,

Since you are such an observant birder maybe you have seen what I have this fall. I have two very scruffy cardinals coming with the group. I have assumed they are young but they are not begging like some are. They seem to be stuck in a horrible half-molted stage. Their chests and tails are bright red, but head and back buffy brownish like the females. Young male cardinals? But why so scruffy? I have adult male and at least two females. The juveniles won't molt again until next year, will they? I really don't know much about plumage changes in songbirds, except the goldfinches I observe going dusky in the fall each year.

Just curious. I don't remember having these scruffy guys last year. I hope it isn't a disease of some kind, but they seem otherwise active and healthy.

And where DO hummingbirds hide in tornadoes and hurricanes? Mine have fortunately survived the recent hurricane-force winds from inland Ike that have incapacitated Louisville since Sunday.

Sally



Right before I left Wisconsin I saw a scruffy young male exactly as I think you're describing so it is the season for it. I've noticed them before. Yes, bright red tail and head with disaster in between. Part of it, at least in the Wisconsin model is that the feathers look streaky and washed out in the brown sections on the wings and back. Then add a bit of brownish red that doesn't look much better bleeding through and toss in the fact that many of these young males have molting raggedy head crests and they look downright grotty. The bird I saw was begging, to no avail I might add. His father was not about to give in as it was high time he was weaned. Your two had no doubt already learned their lesson on the weaning issue.

In my experience these birds are just fine. It seems in the case of young male Cardinals that you aren't allowed a graceful transition molt between your juvenile feathers and looking like Dad without a very awkward stage. Rather like the acne of some teenage humans as they transition into adults. Looking grotty for awhile is just part of the process. And it's always the males. I'm assuming as the juvenile feathers of young females are much closer to their brown mothers that the transition period goes largely unnoticed.

But then again being female perhaps their preening and hygiene is better. (For the humor challenged that was a joke.)


What do hummingbirds do during hurricanes? Sally it's a really good question and no one seems to have a definitive answer. My first thought was that because they couldn't get out and forage in a hurricane, they must go into torpor, the depressed basal metabolism state where their temperature goes down a good thirty degrees to save calories, and perhaps wedge themselves in somewhere so they don't blow away.

I didn't say they were completely sensible thoughts just first thoughts.

Hummers are such incredible light weights, many weigh no more than a nickel, torpor makes them unconscious which didn't seem optimum in a hurricane, and I wasn't at all sure that they could just go into torpor without the necessary drop in air temperature anyway so that scenario just wouldn't do.

So I started digging around. Though I never found someone who'd done a study and could give The Answer, there were some clues. It was observed down on the coasts that between storms some hummingbirds, though fewer than originally seemed in residence, whipped out and fed like crazy. No torpor then, as there wouldn't have been enough temperature change in the air for them to suddenly come out of it.

It then occurred to me that perhaps such severe inclement weather, reduction of photoperiod, added to the down drop in barometric pressure might cue another interesting metabolic response of hummingbirds, hyperphagia--gluttonous eating. And not only do they eat like mad, but they put on a special form of yellow fat, stored specifically in the neck and the areas of the torso around the legs, that makes it possible for them to fly long distances without having to forage every few minutes to keep themselves alive.

Also we do know that many birds will fly before a storm. They know it is coming and get out of Dodge in front of it. So perhaps those hummers who were fat enough when they got the warning in whatever way birds get it that a hurricane was coming, had left before the storm arrived. The others stuck it out, went into hyperphagia or just plain gluttony while the getting was good, stored up some calories, perhaps yellow fat isn't totally necessary as they aren't doing a full migration, and got out during the lulls.

Sorry, Sally, that's the best I can do at the moment but I have whipped off a few emails to various people who may know more in hope they can give us a few more clues that might help unravel the mystery. Keep your fingers crossed.

Though one of the great things about digging around is that you never know what nifty bit of research has surfaced lately that you don't know about. I like this one.

People with hummingbird feeders hanging outside a window or patio door would now and again notice that if the feeder wasn't up and ready come Spring that sometimes a hummingbird would hover outside the glass and stare inside as if to say, "Okay where's the red juice?" And these people wondered if those birds peering in at them might have been customers at the feeder the previous year and had come back and really were looking for the feeder.

Typically they were laughed at for being so gullible as to believe that would happen. Come on, a hummingbird is going to show up a full year later, recognize the place, recognize you, and stare at you so you'll put the feeder back up like it was last year.

Eventually a bander took up the challenge, and indeed hummingbirds absolutely do return to the same feeders year after year.

Donegal Browne

Balto, Prairie Wolves, and Wolves in Alaska

The statue of Balto in Central Park

And in case you've forgotten any part of Balto's story, here is what The Central Park website has to say about him and his statue.


"The glowing bronze of this statue on a rock outcropping near the East Drive at 67th Street reflects the loving pats of countless children and adults who recall the story of a heroic dog. In January 1925, the city of Nome, Alaska experienced an outbreak of diphtheria. At that time, Nome had a population of 1,429 people and there was only enough antitoxin serum in distant Anchorage to treat about 300 people exposed to the disease. A train line did run over 325 miles from Anchorage to Nenana, the station closest to Nome, but Nome was icebound seven months out of the year. Alaska’s two open-cockpit planes were not safe in the frigid and windy weather.


A relay of mushers and their dog-sled teams was the only way to deliver the fur-wrapped twenty-pound package of serum to the ailing community 674 miles from Nenana. The route followed the old Iditarod Trail used by mail drivers from Anchorage to Nome (now the route of the dog-sled championships). The 20 teams of over 200 dogs covered the frozen terrain at about six miles per hour, in blizzard conditions with temperatures of 50 degrees below zero. An international audience listened over their radios and read in their newspapers of the race to Nome. The last musher, Gunnar Kasson, and his team lead by Balto, a black and white Alaskan malamute, raced over the frozen tundra in only five days and seven hours – a world record time. Within days after the arrival of the serum, the epidemic, which had claimed five lives, was over.


Gunnar Kasson later described the incredible trip to reporters: "I couldn't see the trail. Many times I couldn't even see my dogs, so blinding was the gale. I gave Balto, my lead dog, his head and trusted him. He never once faltered. It was Balto who led the way. The credit is his." Balto survived the journey, and toured the United States with the rest of the dog team. On December 17, 1925, 10 months after his arrival in Nome, Balto was present as this bronze statue was unveiled in Central Park. Balto died in 1933 in Cleveland, Ohio, where his stuffed body is on display at Cleveland’s Natural History Museum.



Private donations collected under the auspices of the Municipal Arts Society paid most of the cost of this sculpture. Brooklyn-born sculptor Frederick George Richard Roth (1872-1944) received the commission for the statue, which was awarded the 1925 Speyer Prize by the National Academy of Design.

A low-relief plaque shows the dogsled team braving the blizzard and bears an inscription dedicating the statue to all of the sled dogs that helped save lives of so many people. From the moment of its unveiling, the sculpture has been a favorite of young park visitors, many of whom come from far and wide to sit astride the dog hero celebrated in several books as well as in Steven Spielberg’s animated film, Balto (1995).


The inscription commemorating Balto the Dog reads:

"Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dog that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice across treacherous waters through arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the winter of 1925. "


Endurance. Fidelity. Intelligence.


http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_your_park/historical_signs/hs_historical_sign.php?id=10771

Was Balto half wolf? His owner would only go so far as to say he was a mongrel.

This is the real Balto. Look at those eyes. They spark with focus. Look at the set of his head.

The dispute lingers on-- was Balto a wolf dog? Does every Husky have much closer wolf ancestors than the wolf ancestors of all dogs as some insist? Was it anti-wolf prejudice that kept the admission of what "mongrel" entailed to be made public? Would Balto have suddenly seemed untrustworthy in some eyes?

Or would what was done to wolves regularly and still seems to be yet again undertaken have become just too unpalatable with such an admission?

A Central Park birding update and wolf status report from longtime hawk watcher and blog contributor Katherine Herzog, got me to thinking ...

Dear Donna,

The area in Central Park called the Maintenance Meadow was amazing at 3:30pm on Saturday. Chats, Warblers, and our ever present young male Wild Turkey (I think it's a male because of a small wattle under his chin that's blue and red)!

The Turkey is becoming very used to human presence which is not a good thing this close to Thanksgiving. I really worry about him as some people are feeding him bird seed which makes him come within a few feet of them.

Some idiot let his Lab off the leash to attack the Turkey--who took to a high branch in a nearby tree. I had a few well-chosen words for the Lab owner. Humans are sometimes the most pathetic species on the planet.

And then there's Sarah Palin who has lobbied and won the right of "hunters" to shoot Wolves and Bears from small aircraft when the animals are unable to run and escape in deep snow.

You'd think dog owners and other animal rights people would be furious. Wolves after all are the ancestors of dogs! And she is even opposing the Bush Administration's call to put Polar Bears on the endangered species list because they might impede the more oil/gas exploration in wildlife reserves and federal lands.

Her main financier for this brutal and obscene killing is the infamous Safari Club International which goes to Africa to kill all sorts of highly endangered animals including elephants... which are lured to trust people who provide them with food and them shoot them at point blank range to transform these ancient, magnificent creatures into foot stools and umbrella stands. Despicable.

All the best,

Kat

Remember Cheryl Cavert's photo of Jay the Red-tail on the statues along the River? I asked Cheryl about the marvelous statues and just which creatures were being depicted under Jay's trusty talons. Wolves? Dogs?
She responded--

Following is some information off the http://www.natureworks.org/ website that tells a little about the bronze monuments along the Arkansas River in Tulsa."NatureWorks, Inc., located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is a nonprofit organization assisting in the development and conservation of wildlife preserves, wildlife habitats, and educational opportunities for adults and children on the values of sharing our homeland with wildlife.

NatureWorks holds a Wildlife Art Show and Sale annually, featuring many of the finest wildlife painters, sculptors, and carvers from all over the nation.Annually, the NatureWorks Monuments Program has made it possible for NatureWorks to donate a heroic sized, realistic bronze wildlife monument to the City of Tulsa."

The one Jay was on is "Prairie Wolves", sculpted by Jocelyn Lillpop Russell, 2006. About 18 total, most along the Arkansas River.
Cheryl

What? Prairie Wolves? Why don't I know about Prairie Wolves?

A quick look at definition.die.net before heading for the wildlife sites brought...

prairie wolf n : small wolf native to western North America [syn: brush wolf, Canis latrans]

Brush Wolf? It still doesn't ring a bell. It's off to Google!

BIRDS AND ALL NATURE

Vol. IV, No. 2, August, 1898A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER

I read that this small wolf was originally the main predator of Bison herds but as humans had now nearly driven the bison to extinction that this species had not only been severely reduced in population it had also been reduced to eating refuse and raiding farms.

I looked back at the copyright of Birds and All Nature, it was August, 1898

This animal with the beautiful name of Prairie Wolf, who now ate garbage instead of hunting Bison was commonly called coyote.

The 1898 article (link below) is well worth reading. Particularly for the story of the Prairie Wolf, yes, coyote, who had previously lost his companions to the farmer during raids of the farm but who then used the ocean to outwit the man and his hounds.

http://www.birdnature.com/aug1898/wolf.html

D. Browne