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Probably my favorite story of the extinction of a species is the Stephens Island Wren. Stephen's Island is a tiny uninhabited island off of New Zealand until a lighthouse was built there in the 1894, and a single lighthouse keeper and his cat, Tibbles, lived there. A few months after the lighthouse opens, the lighthouse keeper, David Lyall, sound a small, flightless, bird that Tibbles had caught and killed. It was unlike any bird he had seen before, so he sent it to a scientist friend to look at. The scientist determines that it is a new species, and sends it off to London to be examined and a lithograph to be drawn. Meanwhile, Tibbles keeps on killing more of these little birds - 15 in total. A few months later, Tibbles stops bringing the birds home, and that's the end of that.
No one ever saw the bird alive in the wild. There were probably more than just the 11 that Tibbles nabbed, but Tibbles and his friends have been breeding, and by then there are lots of feral cats running around the island that probably ate up the other few wrens. Before cats came to the island, there were no predators, and the birds had evolved to loose the ability to fly, and took up more of the niche that mice or small rodents would have filled. Living without predators probably also meant they had lost their fear of potential predators. What a sad fate for a tiny creature - to die of being too trusting and having became too slow and comfortable in their prelapsairan secluded life.
When I went with Josh Stein on a trip to the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology for an appointment with someone in the orinthology department for some research on dalmatian pelicans, I asked if they had a specimen of the Stephen's Island Wren. The idea of seeing something so rare that there were only ever 15 specimens ever felt exciting. After opening a few drawers of tanengers, the ornitholgist remember that the bird had recently been moved to another draw, but he couldn't remember exactly where. Not wanting to be a pest, I dropped it.
This photo is of the specimen in a New Zealand museum:
So the short version is that i came into posession of a parakeet this weekend that died the next day.
in the living years:
RIP, Josh. The long version is that Eric's brother, Josh, found a parakeet sitting under his parked car in Greenpoint. He called Eric, who was with me, to have me come pick the bird up, because he knew I happened to have a spare bird cage (a decorative antique one - a birthday gift from Eric). It was assumed that the parakeet escaped from the apartment building on his block, and he and his grilfriend Laura planned on putting up "found pet" signs in the builing.
I was thrilled. I took the lil fella home and fed him some of Amy's hamster's food, which he hungrily ate and some water. At night, I put a blanket over his cage to put him to sleep. In the morning, I woke him up, and he adorably had groggy sleepy eyes he kept half-closing. Even though I knew I might have to return him to his rightful owner, I named him Josh after the man who found him. I was in love.
The day was spent out at Coney Island, and when I returned in the evening, Josh was face-down in the cage, competely still.
Insert Monty Python dead parrot joke here.
There was an exciting article on tuesday's science section about researchers finding new dodo remains, as well as more information on how the dodo might have lived before it became extict sometime in the mid 1600's. Boy, was I excited about this. I've really had dodos on the mind recently. A few weeks ago, I was riding with Amy and Micky along the bike path near the south street seaport on an ill-fated plan to visit Govenor's Island, and I was thinknig about dodos, since I had just gotten a new book about excinct birds that morning. Then, all of a sudden, I see this tiny resturant called The Dodo.
Clearly, this is going to be my favorite resturant EVER. Dodo Cafe
Anyway, in the NY Times article, it mentions how dodos are part of the pigeon family, and how their closest relative was the solitaire bird, which is also excinct and lived on a nearby island.
I had never heard about the solitaire bird before. a little internet research led me to some information about the closest living relative of the dodo and the soliatire was the Nicobar pigeon:
That bird is fantastic!!!!
As summer has rolled around, I'm not the only one to feel the itch to get out of the city for a day trip on the weekends. Amy, Micky, Paul, and Eric agreed to join me on a birding trip to the Jamaica Bay wildlife refuge in Queens. I think I was most thrilled about the sweet bastketball jersey that Paul was sporting with his cutoff jeans shorts. He was going on a date later that night, and I really wanted him to wear that outfit to impress the lady.
Jamacia Bay is all the way past JFK airport, in the middle of the bay between JFK and the Rockaways. It's a huge refuge and apparently one of the big spots in New York state for shore birds. Paul and Eric were very worried about the sign that advised to watch for ticks. I warned them that ticks smell fear. Also wusses.One of the first things we saw was an osprey nest on a man-made pole specifially for osprey nests. I recognised these poles from the Felix Neck refuge in Martha's Vineyard, though I don't think I ever actually saw any ospreys at their nests there. But at this best, there were two adults flyign to and from the nest, and as we saw through our binoculars, at least two little baby ospreys. It was pretty far inthe distance, and even with the binoculars, it was hard to see, but the telltale white marks on the head were visible. Paul wasn't convinced that it was realyl an osprey, and suggested it was instead a loon after conferring the guide book.
Thankfully, just then a parks service ranger walked up to us with a giant scope and tripod, and asked, "looking at the ospreys?" He told us that the ospreys were rebounding in population from a few decades ago, and they nested here for a while on their trek up and down the Altantic coast. For some reason, I had thought ospreys were a little more rare, and felt slightly disappointed to know they weren't such a big deal to see.
We saw several sandpipers, which I was unable to idenify, as well as a seagull which gave me some confusion. It looked like a little gull or a bonaparte's gull becuase of its black beak and black feet, but mostly white body. I ended up decided that it was an immature Laughing gull, but to be honest, I'm not erally sure. I couldn't get all its features to match up to any of the images in my guide book, but since gulls look different at different times of year and at different ages, it's hard to tell. I need a better guide.
Paul on the hunt for ospreys, looking fly in his jersey:
I was pleased to see some american oystercatchers, black skimmers, a great blue heron, snowy egrets, gret egrets, and cormorants. I was especially happy to get a good look at some glossy ibises. We left tick-free and satisfied. Paul was abel to make it home in time to change for his date.
Driving with Eric on I-95 somewherein the middle of Connecticut, I saw a bald eagle nest in a cell phone tower on the side of the highway. Bald eagles build the biggest, messiest nests, so they're easy to identify. What was really exciting was that I could see an eagle flyign up to the nest. Bald eagles are fairly common again around here, but I haven't actually seen one in the wild since I was 13 on a family vacation to Yellowstone.
Bald eagle nest:
James Audubon's Bald Eagle print:
New York Historical Society is running an exhibit of James Audubon's original watercolors that were the templates for the lithographs prints that are in his Birds of North America. I went on a guided tour of the exhibit, which at the time I thought was fabulously informative. So much so that when my parents came to visit from Boston the next week, I took them there to show them the exhibit. It was then I discovered that almost everything the guide had told on the tour was exactly what was written on the information cards on the walls. What a rip!
Audubon did two versions of the Bald Eagle - he decided he didn't like the first one enough, so he made a new one. The two were hanging side by side, and you could see the difference adn superiority of the second painting. The eagle is in the same pose and the same size in both, but in the orginal, he is killing a Canadian Goose with his talons, but the dead fish he kills in the second painting is far more gory and gross. Which is why he chose it.
I learned that there is only one eagle that makes the piercing call that is used as stock "eagle" sounds in television and movies. I wish I could remember which eagle is was.....
I went with Joshua David Stein on Audubon sponsored trip to Sandy Hook, NJ to watch for shore birds and harbor seals. I was pretty excited to see what kind of crowd was going, and though I was definitely right in suspecting some real weirdos, I didn't realize how OLD the average age would be. Old people love bird watching. The guide, Joe, was a real character, a rather blustering middle aged guy whose didactic assault of information was pretty agressive.
As one can imagine, Josh proved to be the least popular member of the excursion. He kept asking obnoxiously mocking questions and loudly yelling wrong answers when the guide asked questions. Despite his unpopularity with the seniors, I am very pleased at how enthusiastic Josh is to undertake the various natural history adventures I have invited him to. He is becoming a real ally in these investigations.
This was my first time birding with a real guide, and I was totally impressed by how quickly he could identify a bird, even in flight or in a far distance. One of the most impressive identifications was of the Fish Crow.
Fish Crows:
The Fish Crow is slightly smaller than the American Crow, and it is very difficult to tell them apart from appearance alone. However, the Fish Crow has a slightly different call. Whereas the American Crow calls "ka-KAW" with the "KAW" going up, the Fish Crow's calls is more like "awh AWH". Fish Crows are generally only found near the coastline of New England to Texas.
Our guide explained that technically, the Fish Crow has 11 wingbeats per minute, while the American Crow has 10. Joe said he knew a guy who claimed to be able to differentiate the species by wingbeat counting, though Joe scoffed that this was practically impossible and didn't believe the guy.
The Cornell Ornithology website has a page about Fish and American Crow differenatiation that is helpful:
Fish Crows
The trip was a success, and a total of 25 birds were sighted. I was particularly excited to see some of the sea ducks that were just passing through for a few weeks each years, such as the long-tailed ducks and surf scoters.
Long tailed duck:
Surf Scoter:
I have several favorite birds. My most favorite is the black-crowned night heron.
This little fella lives in most part of the U.S. except the Rocky Mountains. He lives near ponds and lakes, and eats all sort of bugs and minnows. He's got a snazzy black cap and a red eye. What a handsome guy!
The black crown-ed night heron was probably the first bird that I was able it identify that I had never seen or heard of before. I saw one flying overhead, and grabbed my bird guide. It looked to me like some sort of black and white heron, but I wasn't sure if such a thing existed. Sure enough, it does. I felt so happy to have identified my first bird all by myself. I happened to be on the phone with Micky Hervitz, and I started excitedly talking about how I saw a night heron. Incidentally, I had completely lost my voice the night before from a lot of trying to talk over loud music, and he couldn't understand a word I said.
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