Feeding Birds

Hollywood FinchTwo American Crows arrived at my feeder yesterday morning. They looked enormous, black against the white snow, towering over the Dark-eyed Juncos that vied with them for the sunflower seeds that had splashed to the ground. The one let out a few caws and soon both flew off.

The birds at my feeder this cold winter season have been fairly consistent: House Finch, the males turning more red through the winter; Goldfinch in their little yellow tuxedos; Black-capped Chickadee, ready to perch on my head while I refill the feeder; White-breasted Nuthatch peering head-down from a neighboring tree; Tufted Titmouse, their wide eyes in a constant state of alarm; White-throated Sparrows showing off their striped helmets; from time to time a splash of red that is the Cardinal; and a few Mourning Doves, like loaves of bread on a limb, waiting their turn to forage on the ground.  I spend a lot of time with my binoculars watching them come and go. They become, in my mind, my birds. We agree the feeder should be full when the sun comes up. We agree the cat should watch from the safety of the window. We agree they are beautiful.

Female House Finch with ConjunctivitisPerhaps the most common bird at the feeder is the House Finch, which is found throughout the United States. It is a native of western North American. House Finch were illegally caged and brought to the East Coast as pets. They called them “Hollywood Finch”(a much better name than House Finch!). In the 1940s, wanting to avoid prosecution, pet stores released the birds. And from there, they have spread.  They could be considered invasive, though they belong on the continent.

It was while watching my birds one morning that I noticed a male House Finch with a clouded over eye. My heart sank. I took down the feeder even before looking up what might be wrong. Avian conjunctivitis is a disease that has spread on the East Coast in recent years. Infected birds become blind. Unable to find food, they die. I watched as the finch at my feeder dove in for a sunflower seed, then returned its good eye to vigilance. It needed that one eye for both seeing and to look out for a hungry Cooper’s Hawk that might rush through. Living with one eye clearly challenged the bird.

For a while, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology was tracking cases of the disease, which seems isolated to the House Finch. Funding dried up and the project shelved, but the disease clearly continues. Later that day, the DEC sent out an email reminding people to clean their bird feeders. Last year at this time, Redpolls had been dying from diseases, often spread at feeders. Feeders need to be cleaned every two weeks in a 10 percent bleach solution. It’s an odd feeling to be helping the birds and at once helping to spread illness. To feed or not?

Male House Finch with conjunctivitisA House Finch or two sick—does it matter? Yes and no. Yes, in that one sick bird can infect others. No in that it’s not a species that is endangered or even threatened. Still, from looking at the past, I know of those once-abundant species that are now extinct, like the Passenger Pigeon or the Carolina Parakeet.  Could the House Finch become extinct? Who knows.

For now, my job is to keep the feeder full, and clean.

Mute Swans

This winter the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) of New York State announced that they were going to eliminate the 2,200 Mute Swans living in the State by 2025. I have a visceral reaction to any killing—spiders wander my house unharmed—but it’s not just because I’m a goofy animal lover that I don’t like this plan. Making decisions about what is best for the environment—are we really so good at that?

Here are the reasons why the DEC has decided on this move—which has caused an outcry throughout the state, the country and even the world. A friend from Australia sent a link to a story in their papers about this plan, making us Yanks out to be pretty cruel!

Swans are not native to New York State.  There are a lot of species not native to the States. If we have to start eliminating non native species I’d like to suggest something abundant like the European Starling, not the Swan, which is estimated to be one half of one percent of the waterfowl in the state.

Swans eat the submerged aquatic vegetation that other waterfowl also eat. The two other Swans sometimes—though rarely—seen in the State are the Tundra and  Trumpeter. They hardly overlap in geography, the Tundra and Trumpeter to the north and the Mute mostly on Long Island. There are a lot of studies on SAV, which is indeed scarcer than it should be. But one idea might be to eliminate the invasive water chestnut, which clogs bays and makes it harder for SAV to thrive. Rather than kill off a few thousand swans, pull up some plants. No doubt this would be a more expensive and complicated solution. But it troubles me that we’ve gone for the quickest, easiest solution here.

Swans are aggressive to other animals and humans. This is the most ridiculous reason. All animals can be aggressive. But we don’t expect birds to be aggressive because largely we stay away from their hidden nests. But Swans are big and beautiful and people do incredibly stupid things like take photographs of their infants walking toward a bird twice the size of the child. A public education program could start to help with this problem. Mute Swans are not sweet. They are not pets. They are enormous birds that can be enormously aggressive. They need space.

Hazards to aviation. This is perhaps the real reason the swans are being eliminated and I wish everyone were honest about this. BASH (Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard)  is a major expense for the industry (though I like that the language makes is sound like birds collide with planes—as if they don’t belong in the sky—rather than planes hitting birds, like cars run over deer). “Planes hit birds all the time,” writes financial journalist Eric Uhlfelder in the New York Times. US Airways Flight 1549, which made its celebrated landing in the Hudson River struck Canada Geese, and in the past 23 years hitting birds has forced one plane a day to land prematurely. I’m going to guess that not all flights were as lucky as Flight 1549, piloted by Captain Sullenberger. The number of premature landings is an extraordinary figure, and for the safety of all—birds hit and people in those planes—something we should do something about. But we can’t kill every bird in the sky (though we do kill off about 25,000 Canada geese a year). A more inventive solution must be found. Avian radar? 

Here’s what I want to say: Let’s not first reach for a gun; let’s be more imaginative about how we can live together on this small planet.

If you want to agitate, Senate Bill S6589 supported by Tony Avella is asking for a two year moratorium on the slaughter until more evidence can be offered to kill of the Swans.

Morning on the River

Juvenile Bald EagleFall migration is underway. Lots of intriguing birds will pass through—although less brightly colored and less tuneful than in spring. What I hope for here in the Hudson Valley is the chance of seeing shorebirds. A few have been appearing—last weekend Black Bellied Plovers at Greig Farm. So as I headed onto the river this Sunday morning I had high hopes for what might be flying or floating through.

The weather report claimed rain and the sky over the Catskills loomed gray, but electric. I stroked to the Western shore of the river and wove through the water chestnut mat. A Spotted Sandpiper bobbed about and a dozen Great Blue Herons posed in the shallow water.

I pushed south, then back across the river to round the southern end of Cruger Island. There, like a giant loaf of bread, sat an immature Bald Eagle. It watched me as I floated nearer, then it took off to land at the top of a snag. There, it flared its wings, resplendent in the morning sun. In the sandy shallows of South Cruger Island a Lesser Yellowlegs tagged its way along the waterline, ignoring me in my pink boat. It wandered near my bow, then continued on its Yellowlegs way.

Lesser YellowlegsThe South Tivoli Bay is a wide open expanse, now clogged with water chestnut. The tide was heading out, so I pushed against the current to enter the bay. There, a half dozen Wood Ducks squatted on a log, then took off, crying like babies. In the distance I spied a white bird. A few weeks earlier I had found two juvenile Little Blue Herons on the bay. I stroked forward wondering if the birds were still around. One was. It poked about near my boat, caught a fish (lousy picture taken with a point and shoot as my good camera went for a swim). I floated and watched as I had a few weeks before, the bird insouciant. Soon, I turned to leave and to my left, a white bird flew toward me. “That’s a strange looking gull,” I thought. So strange it was another Little Blue. It landed near its pal and the two wandered off into the brown-green spatterdock.

I was feeling pretty cheerful about all of this, and the sun echoed that cheer by parting a few of the clouds in the sky. Things were now heading toward a fully beautiful day. I spied a kayak heading toward me, the paddler awkward in his boat, the paddles rising too high. “Susan?” I heard.

Logan paddling with his bikeIt was Logan, one of my wonderful students, who always has an adventure afoot. His odd stroke was because he had a bike wedged into his kayak. This is a kid who has biked across the country and plans to travel the world to bike, make bikes, fix bikes. He was heading south to pick up a sail boat he intends to live on this year.

“Can we talk about senior project sometime?” he asked.  Senior project is a year-long event for Bard seniors, and it brings out the best and worst in our students.

“Sure,” I said.

“When?” he asked.

“This seems a good time,” I said, and we rafted up. Work follows me onto the river, I thought, but this was certainly the best senior project meeting location I could think of. While Logan told me about his plans to look at homelessness and issues of sustainability in terms of housing I watched a snail work its way over his kayak.

I listened and gave advice as only one can in a kayak and told him to go and start writing. We soon waved goodbye and I took my own advice and headed home to write.

Little Blue

Mature Little Blue--seen in KansasI was birding the South Tivoli Bay with my friend, the biologist and ornithologist, Bruce Robertson. Birding with Bruce added another dimension to birding as he is filled with excellent bird information, which he gleefully transmits as we walk through the woods. He was describing shifts in gender roles for the Spotted Sandpiper, which we had just seen bobbing along the muddy edges of the bay. The females fight for territory, and to win the males. Once she lays her eggs, she leaves them for the male to incubate and to raise the young.

“Cool,” I said. I love it when nature confounds what is expected (and in the process confounds the biologists as well).

We walked in silence for a while, until we reached what is known as Buttock’s Island. It’s a sweet promontory with long views both north and south. The bay was choked with water chestnut, which covered the surface of the bay. Water chestnut is a beautiful plant, but it doesn’t belong here and has taken over the quieter parts of the Hudson. Except for pulling it out, no one has figured out how to contain it. I’ve mostly thought about water chestnut as hogging oxygen in the water, pushing out fish life. But as I scanned for shorebirds, I realized that their habitat was also being invaded by the water chestnut.

Paddling South toward Magdalen Island The South Tivoli Bay is isolated from the Hudson River by the train tracks, which slice off its western border. Three underpasses allow water to come and go. I scanned the edge of the bay, near the northern underpass where birds like to congregate in the deeper, moving water.  Immediately I spied a white dot picking through the water chestnut, barely visible through the heat haze of the morning sun off of the water.

“Not a Great Egret,” I said doing a little dance. That meant it was either a Snowy Egret, or a juvenile Little Blue Heron (a juvenile little blue is little white). Both were exciting birds for this area. A Little Blue appeared on Wappinger’s Lake this summer, but in the past in Dutchess County there were four sightings in the 60s, eight in the 70s, thirteen in the 80s, and three in the 90s. Where I had seen Little Blues in the past was Florida and Kansas.

We put up our scopes, but the distance and the haze left us guessing.  Bruce pulled out his iphone, and looked at photos of Little Blues and Snowys. He handed me his little screen with the photos, which I glanced at. What I saw there, in Technicolor detail, had little to do with the shimmering white thing in the distance. Bruce went back and forth, offering his ideas on what it could be then decided: Little Blue. It seemed a good guess, but to me was still in guess-land. I wanted to have more evidence.

The next morning at 5:15, I drove my kayak to the Tivoli launch and set out for the South Bay. I make it sound like I was on a determined quest. I was and I wasn’t—I had no real hope of seeing the bird or getting close enough to take a photograph. But I had to try.

I stroked past Magdalen Island and the entrance to the North Tivoli Bay, and continued another half mile south flanking Cruger Island. A mature eagle, its white head gleaming in the early morning sun, sat on an exposed branch, preening. An immature—perhaps one of the two fledglings from this year—let out its eagle yell and flew overhead. Cruger Island is one site where eagles have come to nest in recent years. There isn’t a paddle where I don’t see at least one.

Least Sandpiper working the shorelineAt the end of the island, I curved in around a rock outcropping toward the narrow passage between Cruger and South Cruger. It’s a quiet cove, and a great place to loiter for turtles, birds and humans. A few Canada Geese paddled the waters.  A Least Sandpiper worked the shoreline, exposed at low tide. Spatterdock stood tall in the shallow water, looking a bit worn by this time in the season. I pulled up my binoculars to watch the Least (can we change that name! this bird is small but it isn’t least anything) working its way along the shoreline. Binoculars focus the eyes, yet I still sensed something moving in my peripheral vision. I lowered my binoculars, to realize that my kayak was gliding in slow motion straight toward the white wading bird. It was not more than thirty feet from my bow.

My hands were shaking as I fumbled for the camera, wedged into a dry bag between my legs. I pulled it to my eye and snapped the first few pictures. Once I was sure I had something to work with I put the camera down and picked up my binoculars. Yellow legs. No other markings that led me to be sure of my bird. The Snowy and the juvenile Little Blue are maddeningly similar.

And then I decided that the ID mattered less than simply being there, enjoying this beautiful bird that was clearly not afraid of a woman in her pink kayak. We loitered there together, the bird busy wading thigh deep in the water foraging near the shoreline.  It moved with precision, and a certain nonchalance. From the spatterdock a second bird emerged, and the two worked together, wandering over toward the geese to find more food.

Juvenile LIttle Blue HeronI soon felt the need to head home and into my work day. I had dozens of photos and a sense of calm and I was calling them Little Blues. The birds, however, were not done with me. They flew over, and landed in front of me, emerging from the spatterdock once again to entertain me. But soon enough they wandered into the tall plants and vanished. I thought how if I had arrived at this moment, I never would have seen my Little Blue Herons.