The Zen Birdfeeder

Project FeederWatch Starts Today!

Just a reminder that Project FeederWatch starts today, November 14.  Log onto the project website for details.  It's fun - it's easy - it's for the birds!

My first PFW report and summary of my own past years' activity will be posted later this week.

Have fun counting the birds!

Wind Turbine vs. Vulture. Guess Who Loses.

We hear about the danger wind turbines present to birds.  Here is a shocking video documenting such dangers.

As an alternative energy source, we have to find a way to make them safer for birds of all sizes, as well as bats.

Swainson's Thrush is our Newest Yard Bird

A migratory visit by a Swainson's Thrush gave us our 86th species to be viewed in or from our yard.  It's our first new yard bird since a Red-bellied Woodpecker visited the feeders on New Years Day this year.

I saw it first yesterday tucked in the rosa rugosa bush, but I had only a front view of it.  Based on what I saw yesterday, I thought it was a Hermit Thrush, but was reluctant to consider it identified.

But today, I got a better look at it and saw that it lacked any warm reddish coloration, and especially that it lacked a reddish tail.  There was also no tail pumping, a characteristic of the Hermit Thrush.  I thought perhaps it was a Swainson's Thrush, and with the help of fellow bird enthusiasts on Facebook and Twitter, we confirmed it.

The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State describes the Swainson's Thrush as "New York's second-rarest breeding thrush, ranking behind only Bicknell's Thrush."  Breeding within the state occurs more in coniferous, high elevation habitats such as the  Adirondacks and Catskills.  It even looks like there has been "Probable" breeding in our area of Saratoga County. 

Between the first atlas (1980-85) and the second atlas (2000-05), the "total number of blocks in which Swainson's Thrush was recorded dropped 16 percent".  Species Account Authors James D. Lowe and Ralf S. Hames posit that one might look at air pollution and acid deposition as contributing to the decline in breeding in New York state.

Swainson's are common breeders in the boreal forest, with an estimated 60% of the species breeding in the North American boreal, according to The Boreal Songbird Initiative (BSI) site.  They note that fall migration of eastern populations is mostly along the Atlantic coast.  The Swainson's winter range includes Mexico, central America, and northern South America.  BSI states that the Swainson's Thrush "is vulnerable to habitat loss and degradation in its winter range as well as significant mortality from collisions with towers on migration." 

The Swainson's has been identified as a bird species that overwinters in or migrates through shade-grown coffee plantations in Latin America.  Take a moment to read more about how your choice of morning coffee can impact birds like the Swainson's Thrush.

Fall and spring migration are ideal times to add to a yard list.  And even though bird activity is slow and fall migration is nearing its end, I still got to see a great bird and add it to our yard list! 

Citation: New York State Breeding Bird Atlas 2000 [Internet]. 2000 - 2005. Release 1.0. Albany (New York): New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. [updated 2007 Jun 11; cited 2009 Oct 13].

Birds by the Numbers

50,000    estimated pairs of Bald Eagles in lower 48 before population decimated by
hunting, habitat loss and DDT use

417    pairs of Bald Eagles in the lower 48 in the year 1963

1967    year the Bald Eagle was listed on the federal Endangered Species List

1972    year DDT use was banned

10,000    pairs of Bald Eagles now nesting in lower 48

Source: US Fish & Wildlife Service
Bald Eagle photo from WBU Inc. Image Library

Act for Songbirds

Spreading the word for the American Bird Conservancy.

A bill has been introduced in the Senate and a companion bill in the House, to reauthorize the existing Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act at significantly higher levels. By sending a message to your Senators and Representative, you can ensure that both bills pass for the benefit of birds.

Each spring, some five billion birds of 500 different species make their spectacular migration from their winter habitats in Latin America to breed in North America. These birds face many threats, in particular the continuing loss of habitat across the hemisphere.  Many of these birds are experiencing significant population declines.

The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act is the only source of federal funding dedicated specifically to bird conservation throughout the Americas. It is an extremely effective matching grants program that coordinates and funds the conservation of neotropical migratory birds and their habitats in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. It has a proven track record of reversing habitat loss and degradation, and of advancing innovative management and habitat restoration strategies.

Thanks to these bipartisan bills in the Senate and House, funding could be dramatically increased from the current authorized level of $6 million to $20 million. All grants made by this Act must be matched by other funds at a ratio of 3:1, meaning every one tax-payer dollar from the Act leverages three from private sources. Overall, the program could result in some $60 million in additional funding for bird conservation!

You can make a difference! Join me by using the American Bird Conservancy's automated action center to quickly and easily send a message first to your Senators, then to your Representative, asking them to support these bills.

This is the one simple thing every bird lover can do for birds.

2009 Adirondack Loon Census Coming July 18

Common Loon by Nina Schoch (used with permission)

New York visitors and residents can dedicate an hour to help Common Loons in the Adirondacks by exploring their favorite lake looking for loons as part of the Annual Loon Census on Saturday, July 18, 2009, from 8-9am.

This annual loon census is a citizen-science project that estimates the current status of the breeding loon population in New York's Adirondack Park. The results provide important information about the current status and trends in New York’s summer loon population, especially the breeding population in and around the Adirondack Park.  This effort is coordinated with similar counts conducted throughout the northeast, which helps scientists better estimate loon populations on a regional scale.

All observers are requested to contact the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation to sign up for a Census lake to prevent duplicate observations.  If you will be observing the same lake you surveyed in 2008, please confirm this before July 6th.

A list of assigned lakes will be posted to the Adirondack Loon Census website and will be updated regularly throughout July. Please check the website to find out which lakes have already been assigned (please note - if a lake was surveyed in 2008, it is marked "assigned"). If a lake is not already assigned, it is available for you to survey.

Sign up for a Census lake by contacting adkloon@wcs.org (or leave a message at 518- 891-8872 x107). They'll need your name, e-mail or phone number as well as the name of the lake you want to survey including the Township and County where the pond is located.

Census forms will be sent by e-mail and mail to all observers who sign up for a lake by July 6th.  2009 Census forms are also available for downloading at the census website.

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STRANDED LOON RESCUED IN GREENE COUNTY NY

Here's an excerpt from a recent post on Rich Guthrie's Birding blog:

"It happens quite often.  A loon or duck may be flying over a road or paved parking area and mistake it for a stream or pond.  Expecting a soft landing, they come down to rest or find a meal.  Unfortunately, they find the hard surface of asphalt and no fish to find.  Ducks can simply fly off and try again later.  Loons can’t.

Read the rest of Rich Guthrie's post about a Common Loon rescued near Saugerties NY in mid-June 2009.

Return to the Garden - June Update

Back on May 7, I shared my Return to the Garden after a nearly 5-year hiatus.  As promised, here's an update.

The tomatoes and peppers arrived from Burpee late in May.  I'm glad I resisted the temptation to plant them right away because we had a frost on the evening of May 31.  A couple days later, I laid black plastic in the 2nd bed to help the soil warm and just put the plants in a few days ago.  And yesterday, my backordered pop-up net arrived.  It fits right over the 3'x3' raised bed to protect the plants from the bunnies.  IT IS SO COOL!  It even works over the tomato support stakes!

With all the rain we've had, I didn't want to miss capturing it so in the middle of a soaking rain, I linked my second rain barrel to the first. Together, they catch the rain off the hobby greenhouse and I now have about 1-3/4 barrels of rainwater for watering indoor and outdoor plants.

Yesterday's dinner was a wonderful mesclun mix salad with grilled chicken, our first harvest from the garden (the lettuce, not the chicken!). 

Looks like the shallots, onions, and garlic are doing well too.  The cilantro and basil have been slow to germinate and I just planted another square of lettuce.  I'll plant more in the remaining space in the tomato/pepper bed.

I replaced my window boxes this year with ones from Gardeners Supply that have built-in water reservoirs.  I went for a pastel variety of dahlia, verbena, geranium, and portulaca.  The Tiger Swallowtail loves the verbena and dahlia, but I haven't seen it on the butterfly feeder yet.

It is so nice now to spend time out on the deck when we have a free moment!

2009 is marking a modest return to gardening and so far it's going okay.  I'll keep you posted!

Crown Point NY Banding Station Report 2009 Season

MASTER BANDER JOHN M.C. (Mike) PETERSON
PROVIDES THIS REPORT OF THE
2009 BANDING SEASON AT CROWN POINT NY

The spring banding station on the 360-acre grounds of the Crown Point State Historic Site opened for the 34th consecutive season of banding between 8-25 May.  Operated by the Crown Point Banding Association (CPBA), through an agreement with the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation (OPRHP), the station is located in thickets of hawthorn-juniper west of His Majesty's Fort.  The modest totals of 57 species and 457 individual birds were a slight improvement over May 2008 [51 sp., 384 birds], but below usual expectations.  Notable for their absence were Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warblers, with no major waves and just 20 banded. 

The 2009 Totals

• 1 Hairy Woodpecker
• 3 Northern Flicker
• 1 Pileated Woodpecker
• 10 "Traill's" Flycatcher
• 7 Least Flycatcher
• 1 Eastern Phoebe
• 7 Great Crested Flycatcher
• 1 Eastern Kingbird
• 2 Warbling Vireo
• 1 Red-eyed Vireo
• 32 Blue Jay
• 3 Tree Swallow
• 2 Barn Swallow
• 12 Black-capped Chickadee
• 8 House Wren
• 1 Winter Wren
• 2 Ruby-crowned Kinglet
• 6 Eastern Bluebird
• 3 Veery
• 1 Swainson's Thrush
• 7 Wood Thrush
• 15 American Robin
• 44 Gray Catbird
• 3 Brown Thrasher
• 12 Cedar Waxwing
• 1 Tennessee Warbler
• 4 Nashville Warbler
• 1 Northern Parula
• 18 Yellow Warbler
• 2 Chestnut-sided Warbler
• 9 Magnolia Warbler
• 2 Cape May Warbler
• 1 Black-throated Blue Warbler
• 20 Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler
• 2 Prairie Warbler
• 3 Blackpoll Warbler
• 2 Black-and-white Warbler
• 11 American Redstart
• 1 Ovenbird
• 4 Northern Waterthrush
• 38 Common Yellowthroat
• 3 Wilson's Warbler
• 3 Eastern Towhee
• 2 Chipping Sparrow
• 1 Field Sparrow
• 2 Savannah Sparrow
• 10 Song Sparrow
• 9 Lincoln's Sparrow
• 6 White-throated Sparrow
• 3 White-crowned Sparrow
• 5 Northern Cardinal
• 2 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
• 1 Indigo Bunting
• 3 Common Grackle
• 3 Brown-headed Cowbird
• 22 Baltimore Oriole
• 78 American Goldfinch

TOTAL:   457 individuals of 57 species

There were returns of 30 birds of a dozen species banded at Crown Point in previous years, the oldest a Black-capped Chickadee and a Baltimore Oriole, each now at least five years, 11 months old.  Warbler variety was a respectable 17 banded species (plus three others present), but short of the 23 species banded in 2007.  Boreal warblers included Tennessee, Cape May, Blackpoll, and Wilson's, while two Prairie Warblers were near the northern edge of their range.  A Pileated Woodpecker banded 17 May was the fifth netted since 1997, and three Eastern Towhees set a new station record. 

Immature Bald Eagles were seen on five days, with a low kettle of seven subadults and a nearby adult just overhead on 10 May.  A kettle of 22 Turkey Vultures also circled the forts on 21 May.  Other notable species seen or heard, but not banded, included Black-billed Cuckoo, Common Nighthawk, Northern Mockingbird, Blue-winged Warbler, and Orchard Oriole.  Even when the banding is slow, the birding is usually good at the tip of the peninsula.

Groups included Bolton, Minerva, Moriah, and Whitehall Central Schools, as well as an environmental science class from North Country Community College, but the number of students was down, with some expected classes unable to leave their school districts, due to budget constraints.  A program for adjudicated youth, who had visited the station for the past dozen years, was a similar victim of state budget cuts.  The number of individuals and families increased, however, bringing 200+ visitors to the station over the 18 days.

Starting in 1990, students and other visitors who release a bird each receive a certificate, and since the inception of the program a total of 1,186 certificates have been issued.  Polaroid photos of the student holding their bird prior to release have now been replaced by digital shots.  If a released bird returns in a subsequent year, or is encountered elsewhere, the person is notified, with 63 such student bird returns to date.  Adult visitors sometimes recall "their" bird, released as a child at Crown Point a decade or more ago.

Banders Mike Peterson & Gary Lee camped at the station and Gordon Howard commuted daily from Auger Lake.  Others who spent up to several nights at the station in order to help before dawn and until dusk included Tom Barber of Burlington, VT; Wendy Burkowski of Bolton Landing; Carolyn & Pierre Cyr and Woody Cyr of Warrensburg; Rob Corey & Jo-Anne MacKenzie and Brenna Corey of Baie d'Urfé, QC;  Melanie McCormack of West Chazy; and Susan French Peterson of Montréal, QC.  MaryAnne Allen & Cecelia Wojciukiewicz of Witherbee assisted on days with school groups.  We're especially grateful to those who helped transport various parts of the banding station from, and back to, Elizabethtown, Inlet, and New Jersey: MaryAnne & Mike Allen, Rudy Bobka, Malinda Chapman, Stan Corneille, Judy Heintz, Gordon Howard, Dan Lee, Gary Lee, and Bob Wei.  And countless visitors showed a ready willingness to grab a sport radio and check nets.

We also appreciate the publicity provided by Nancy Castillo's "My Day as a Crown Point Bird Banding Helper" on The Zen Birdfeeder blog, and by Nancy Wotton Scarzello's "Bird Banding in Crown Point" in The Hague Chronicle, both of which prompted new visitors to visit the station.

OPRHP management and staff from the Albany and Saratoga/Capital District offices paid site visits and met with representatives of CPBA and Historic Site personnel to view the banding area and discuss possible removal of invasive plants, especially Common Buckthorn.  Much of what was hawthorn-juniper-cedar thickets in 1976 is now open field or reforested with white pine and green ash.  We can't save the world, but we might be able to save an acre or so of thicket habitat for catbirds, thrashers, migrant warblers, and other brushy area birds. 

Special thanks go to Historic Site Manager Thomas Hughes, Jake Putnam, and the rest of the Crown Point staff for their continued cooperation and many kindnesses.  We greatly appreciate the interest in habitat maintenance of Ray Perry and Traynor Biasiolli at OPRHP in Albany, as well as that of Regional Director Alane Ball Chinian, Asst. Regional Director Bob Kuhn, and Natural Resource Steward Biologist Casey Holzworth of OPRHP in Saratoga Springs.

The small bronze Phrygian bust of "La Belle France" by Auguste Rodin had been removed for cleaning and waxing from the newly cleaned and restored Champlain Monument, in preparation for the 400th anniversary celebration.   But the new exhibit at the Historic Site museum is superb and highly recommended.

Since 1976, a total of 15,439 birds of 99 species (plus five subspecies or other forms) have been banded on the grounds of Crown Point State Historic Site, and we hope to return for our 35th year in 2010.

--Mike Peterson, Elizabethtown & Montréal

Acts of Green at Home

A couple weeks ago you may have noticed a new badge on my blog which says "It's Easy Being Green...Do Your Part".  I added this badge after recording my acts of green on the One Million Acts of Green website.  This website engages us as individuals with the concept that "when we all do one act, we act as one, and help the planet".

Here's a few Acts of Green I do at home:

I compost all non-meat food scraps in two compost bins.  I don't work it as hard as some die-hard composters do (turning, layering, etc.) but I do get rich compost over time.  In fact, I just emptied one bin to fill my raised bed vegetable garden.  Here's some information about composting.

In this green bin tucked under the stairs in my basement live hundreds of red wiggler worms.  I vermicompost!  Yes, worms eat my food scraps!

The worms will break down the food scraps and leave nutrient-rich castings which I will skim off to top dress my container and/or potted plants.  Read more about vermicomposting.

I catch rain water into water barrels and use it to water my outdoor plants.  The rains last week have already filled my barrel.  I have a second barrel that I can link to this one and double my capacity.  The cinder blocks place it up high, perfect for filling my Haws watering cans!  Read more about water-wise gardening.

Contrary to Kermit the Frog's song, it IS easy to be green.  And being green is good for the birds! Take another Act of Green today and make sure it's counted toward the One Million Acts of Green.

My Return to the Garden

Since we opened our Wild Birds Unlimited shop in August 2003, my gardening activities have been essentially eliminated. It's amazing how much time a retail store demands.  I used to grow vegetables, annuals, and perennials, all started from seed in a nice 8' x 12' hobby greenhouse. The greenhouse was all decked out with a heating mat for seed starting, grow light, and propane-fired mini-stove as a heat source.

Creeping Phlox 2007

Blue Flax 2007


My inactive greenhouse :(

I was a square-foot vegetable gardener, with nine 4' x 4' beds carefully planned out each year to produce mostly tomatoes and sweet red peppers, but also lettuce, onions, garlic, shallots, beans, cilantro, and more.  Those nine beds are now over grown and weed-filled.

I added perennials to my yard every year and provided bursts of color with annuals in containers all around the deck and in window boxes.  Every fall, I'd plant hundreds of spring-blooming bulbs, mostly daffodils, but also crocus (for that super early bloom), grape hyacinth, squill and more.

Grape Hyacinth 

But I haven't done much (anything?) in years other than buying some annuals and putting them in the window boxes but I wanted to ease myself back into gardening. And I knew I needed to take it slow and not dream bigger than I had time to accomplish it.

I started last fall, getting over 300 bulbs in the ground. I've already enjoyed the low-growing iris I planted and the narcissus mix is still blooming now. I think I've lost some of the others to chipmunks and voles because the tulips and allium have failed to show up.

Iris planted fall 2008

I also wanted to start a small vegetable garden.  Key word: SMALL.  Since I was comfortable with the square foot gardening concept, I went in that direction.  I started fresh with 2 new black plastic 3' x 3' raised beds from Gardeners Supply Company, and I placed them at the end of the yard, rather than further away in the lower yard as in years passed.

I got on the Gardeners Supply website and used their Kitchen Garden Planting tool to produce a planting map for my 2 new beds.  I used to do this on graph paper, but this online tool made it easier.  With it, I planned my garden of peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, onions, garlic, basil, and cilantro.

I bought the seeds for lettuce, spinach, basil and cilantro, and onion and garlic sets at a local garden center.  I also picked up some (unplanned for) shallots.  My brother-in-law will be a grateful recipient of the shallot harvest. 

Then I ordered pepper and tomato plants from Burpee.  I wanted to grow peppers that would mature to sweet red in our shorter growing season, and I had hoped to get grape tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, and tomatoes for salsa. But I had to make some compromises since Burpee only sells plants in groups of 3 (too many for the variety I wanted) so I ended up with one of their "collections".  Those plants will arrive later this month for planting in late May (I'm in zone 4 and our last frost date is May 31).

I prepared the beds by digging down about one foot into our sandy sandy soil.  It is barely "soil" but almost pure sand, so I removed the sand and backfilled the boxes with 2-3" layers each of compost, manure, peat, and vermiculite.  They look gorgeous!

Before

Home compost

After

I will install a drip irrigation system from the system that used to water my old raised beds.  I haven't gotten around to that yet, but didn't want that to stop me from getting some frost-hardy seeds into the ground.

Drip irrigation parts

So yesterday I planted the mesclun mix and spinach as well as the onion, garlic, and shallot sets.  I used slats from an old plastic mini-blind to label the squares.  And since I have 2-3 cottontails in the yard, I also put a pop-up net over the entire bed.

First to be planted


Plant labels from old mini-blinds

Keeping the bunnies out

I'm looking forward to the arrival of my tomato and pepper plants in 2 or 3 weeks and will have to resist the temptation to plant them if they arrive early. After all, it is zone 4 here and I am still running the pellet stove to warm the house during the day!

Check back for periodic updates on my Return to the Garden.