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In a Rut

Posted in Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, Natural History, Olympic National Park, United States, Washington with tags , , , , , on August 9, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

Sometimes the birds just don’t want to cooperate. Sure, I could hear many but I couldn’t see a damn thing. Down the slope of Hurricane Ridge I was squinting across, only six trees were likely candidates for a Olive-sided Flycatcher I could hear pipping away, but no tapered silhouette materialized. American Pipits spirited about overhead and in open alpine meadows directly in front of us, apparently invisible. Don’t get me wrong here, I love wildflowers, but I was begging to lose steam talking about them. Something alive and lacking roots was in order for variety’s sake.

Those snow patches were in an oddly exposed southern face….No, not snow, Mountain Goats!

There’s a million and one stories about introduced species, intentional or otherwise, the vast majority are not positive. How Mountain Goats got to the Olympic Peninsula isn’t a mystery, a few sportsmen got it in their heads in 1920s that they could do with some more things to hunt in the Olympics. Apparently Black-tailed Deer and the largest subspecies of Elk in North America, the Roosevelt Elk (Cervus canadensis roosevelti), weren’t enough.

In a place that designated a National Park, a Biosphere Reserve, and a World Heritage Site partially because of marked floral endemism, (and notable endemic fauna) you might guess why a significant introduced goat population is be a problem. (Ok, ok, they are actually goat-antelopes but who’s counting?) The point is they trample, munch, and wallow in all those gaudy, endemic, fragile plants I was half complaining about earlier, (I also incessantly have to remind my fellow mammals to not trample them so I can’t really blame the goats too much).

The goats have been a point of contention for a long time. The park service initially tried to remove the over 1000 strong population by live capture during the 1980s. This was dangerous, eventually deemed impractical at best, taking care of 521 animals. Between some hunting outside the park and the removals, the population dropped back to a somewhat reasonable number. In 1997 there was a push to shoot the remainder but public opinion apparently shut that idea down.

So then this guy hiking in the Olympics in 2010 got gored by a male Mountain Goat in rut. He died. People got upset (understandably) and there’s a lawsuit pending. Knowing full well that mountain goats are aggressive and potentially dangerous, it’s still easy to want to get closer and we hiked on intent on better views.

We’d been watched the group of seven goats, three of them adorable yearlings, when the largest and closest animal, dashed inexplicably closer to where we stood on the trail.  While rushing away in terror I also noticed he was shedding his winter wool coat quite rapidly, tufts wafting off as he sprinted.  I thought of the warm blankets the people of the Olympic Peninsula would have traded for with tribes from near the goats’ native range in the Cascades. Then I noticed the man running in our direction and realized why the goats were running.

I’ve never had a ranger at park tell me to throw rocks at a wild animal until this year. Much less have I ever seen a ranger running full-tilt down a trail shooting a paintball gun at Mountain Goats. They’d gotten much too close to the trail, following about all the wonderful annual foliage in the subalpine swale just below us.  Deterring animals from living in areas where high numbers of people visit is the temporary solution.

I don’t envy the National Park service, trying to appease animals rights interests by not killing the goats but being asked to do so by concerned hikers (and likely a few botanists). Sure these animals shouldn’t be there, but they are always enjoyable to see. And quite honestly I didn’t mind seeing rangers shoot hot pink paintballs at seven caterwauling goats. It was possibly the funniest thing I’ve seen all summer (however let’s pray next summer consists of something better).

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Happy World Oceans Day!

Posted in Current Events, Environmentalism with tags , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2012 by Brendan McGarry

Happy World Oceans Day!  Hope everyone takes a second to think about the beautiful oceans on this planet we live on.  I’ve never been a big swimmer, but I sure as hell cherish the ocean.  Here are a few photos that came to mind when I thought about today.

We all know things aren’t what they used to be out on the open oceans.  The world is mostly water.  It takes care of us.  Let’s take care of it.

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Last Glimpses of a Lost Imperial

Posted in Birds, Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, Mexico, Natural History, Science on October 29, 2011 by Brendan McGarry

Infrequently do I come across a video, a piece of writing, or a photograph that I deem worthy of sharing.  Reiteration isn’t something I think I can escape creatively by avoiding such props, I just don’t find it worth my time or very thought provoking.  Every so often however, I come upon something that is too good to pass up.  In the Auk (the journal of the American Ornithologists Union) this October, a paper was published concluding what most already knew, the Imperial Woodpecker is probably extinct.  But more importantly it also provided restored footage, the only images known, of this species.  This video is more than just another youtube clip, it’s a last documentation, a last glimpse of a bird that probably winked out thirty years before I was born.

At 22-24in long, this bird was nearly as long as a Common Raven, living among giant pines in rugged, treacherous mountains of Northern and Central Mexico.  A woodpecker this size of a raven is hard to imagine.  Because of typical human evils, that’s all we get to do, imagine.  Followers of Wingtrip know that I am a staunch supporter of museum collections and skins exist of these birds, but they do nothing to impress the passion of a live bird, knowing it in the vibrancy of animation.  You can measure, observe, pry details from the preservation but it doesn’t bring the bird back.

Out of human remorse, Imperial Woodpeckers are left as critically endangered on inventories by international conservation groups like Birdlife International and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature .  This is not a listing born of any information or real hope that these birds are still out there.  The 2010 expedition to the Sierra Madre Occidental of Northern Mexico (specifically Durango), where the film was made by dentist and amateur Ornithologist William L. Rhein gave little hope that any of these giants still exist.

Devastating logging practices long ago dealt with sizable stands of old growth pines in these mountains.  Even inaccessible stands, left alone in the onslaught of the 1940s-50s, are now being cleared to grow opium poppies or marijuana.  Birds of their size needed many acres (26 square Km) to sustain a pair, which simply don’t exist anymore.  Paired with massive habitat loss, these birds were considered useful in folk medicine, the nestlings a delicacy by the native peoples of the mountainous regions of Northern Mexico, and finally a pest to valuable timer needing extermination.   The last known bird was a recently shot individual in 1956, the same year this video was filmed.

Watch a female, her crest of curled feathers wobbling as she sidles up a tree.  The great flash of white on black of the flying bird.  This should be strong warning to my generation that we should not leave even less natural wonder for our children than our grandparents and parents did for us.

I’ll be thinking of the dead and the living this weekend, an appropriate thing to dwell on.

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Unseasonable Seasons

Posted in Birding, Birds, California, Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, Migration, Science, Sierra Nevadas with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 24, 2011 by Brendan McGarry

When the mercury dips, people who have the option head inside. It’s fairly obvious other animals don’t have that choice quite so readily available to them. Sure, I’d be happy to share my room with a menagerie of critters in a snow storm, but I have an inkling the Steller’s Jays and Northern Goshawks wouldn’t get along so well. Communicating my willingness to share a warm room would be difficult enough, let alone trying to keep the peace.

Birds can be hard hit by bad weather. Many are well equipped for extremes, more adept at staying alive in a bad storm than you or I. A Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) lives its winter on the edge of existence. To not give up the ghost, they have to constantly forage, literally right from dawn to dusk. To save time, they stop where they end up at night and huddle in a group to survive the night.

There are plenty of wonderful examples of adaptation but what happens when those behaviors aren’t flexible enough?

I haven’t forgotten we are moving ahead from Winter, but maybe you have noticed that in much of the US, we’ve had a rocky start to what people who eat food call the growing season. A little over two weeks ago here in the Sierras, the first arrivals of Wilson’s and MacGillivray’s Warblers and the typical representatives of flummoxing Empidonax flycatchers appeared. It appeared that they were in full tilt arrival and passage just as the low pressure system decided to started lobbing moisture our way.

Can you imagine a fellow running a marathon, expecting to cross the finish line to warmth and platters heaped with gluttonous portions of chocolate cake, instead finding freezing weather and hardtack? That’s how I think it might have felt to be a Wilson’s Warbler last week.

Even at 4000 feet, the Northern Sierras had snow. What exactly, does a bird who leaves here in the fall, largely to avoid nasty weather, do? Having taken a stroll to see, swaddled in garb that would have simultaneously kept the entire Shackleton Expedition warm, I can tell you one thing – they don’t bother singing.

Male birds are so hopped up on testosterone this time of year and their sole purpose is the make sure they have the best territory. The best assurance of continuous ownership is to sing incessantly. That takes care of most competitors looking to secede your land – the rest you can chase off flaunting your fitness with bright, fresh plumage, and possibly superior bulk. When birds aren’t singing at the usual times or at all, one can presume they’re otherwise occupied. Besides eating and mating, singing is the only thing a typical male songbird should be doing this time of year.

A side note: even dainty, florid warblers will occasionally resort to physical aggression when a border cannot be properly established. I watched a rival MacGillivray’s Warblers (Oporornistolmiei), chase each other over a half an hour period until they finally started making colliding. Looking exhausted, their struggle culminated in a Manzanita; wrestling with splayed wings and clacking bills. The victor flew out and immediately started singing – the loser crept out, bedraggled, retreating to what I presume was inferior scrub. Resolved.

I don’t have an answer as to what these birds are doing besides trying to hold on. When birds get desperate for food or water, either during migration or a cold snap they’ll show up out of their normal habitat and make use of unusual food sources. Here, they likely arrived with low fat reserves and found little to eat – I can’t imagine insects do much better in freezing weather but maybe that’s conjecture. Food was still around, (how do you think the Kinglets survive?), but I have no doubt there was less of it.

I found some old communications (anecdotal briefs in scientific journals) circa the 1920s, suggesting that birds might re-migrate to lower or more southerly clines when arriving early to poor weather. A communication isn’t researched, statistically proved information. After all, how does one truly study unpredictable disruptions? Still this made decent amount of sense – if it’s too cold to live, leave again till it’s better. In the Sierras, I assume that higher areas where the snow won’t melt till August won’t have successfully breeding birds this year.

Birds, feasibly along with most extant species, have taken considerable time sleuthing seasonal patterns and do a pretty good job knowing when to migrate, breed, molt, etc. Unpredictable weather creates considerable stress. In high alpine areas of Southeastern Arizona, Red-faced Warblers have been documented to simply abandon nest with the advent of late snow (at a rate of 64%!). From a temporal standpoint, that’s adaptive – a pair could die trying to nest in bad conditions. But is this maladaptive in the long term? Climate change, as most educated people should know by now (but probably don’t), isn’t just about simple warming; the seasonal predictability of weather patterns are going the way of a Jackson Pollock painting. The instinct to abandon nests when snow comes late is great in the present. But if you and that hunky warbler hubby of yours keep leaving when things get a little crazy, there’ll be less and less Red-faced Warblers for demented birders to see.

Early arrival is strongly selected for in migrating birds – the earlier you get there, the better chance you have at laying claim to better land. Birds have always run the risk of late snow or bad weather, that’s nothing new. So far as I can tell, no one knows the entire story of what happens to birds when even their best efforts to time their arrival are continually foiled. For all I know many generations of birds in the Sierras have seen this kind of event before. I doubt it was overly disastrous. Really, all I wanted to say was that I felt awfully sorry for those Wilson’s Warblers in the creek behind my bunkhouse (as I sat inside, roasting with a hot toddy and a good book).

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KL, Kuala Lumpur, Selamat Datang

Posted in Birding, Birds, Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, Malaysia, Museums, Natural History, Science, Southeast Asia on March 2, 2011 by Brendan McGarry

As the self-aggrandized old hand of the Southeast Asian urban landscape, you’ll peer about joyfully bewildered. You aren’t enveloped by partially peeled cement walls and blackened exhaust. Writhing, verdant walls of vegetation veil cyclone fences and railings. The scene outside the window of your cab is not metropolitan.

I was snatched away from my dreamy chlorophyll bath when we rounded a corner, facing a snarling highway of sluggish traffic. With the precipitation, it could have been Seattle, except the familiarity of my shirt with my back was one step away from gene-splicing, even with the AC full tilt. Kuala Lumpur, is surprisingly green (in the sense of trees), some comforts persist, but you’ll still get drenched in the sweat and rain you’d expect in tropical Asia. I’m a fan of KL.

Malaysia, specifically the area now called Peninsular or West Malaysia, has done well fiscally. I had inklings based on the expansive greenbelts and ornate buildings, but I didn’t know as much of the story till I visited the wonderful Muzium Negara, the National Museum. After all, I needed to fill the stunning void my public high school education left me with concerning Southeast Asian history, (to be fair, I blame standardized curriculum not teachers). The region, under various powers, has been on the trading route between the East and the West as long as they’ve been trading. Monsoonal winds are efficient means of pushing a ship across oceans and Malaysia often became a stopover for traders waiting for favorable breezes. With massive forests, spices, and tin, the land had much to offer and was mentioned in writing as far away as Greece and as early as the beginning of the 15th century, obviously on the trading route long before that. Ever since the 2nd century, the Chinese has visited the West coast of the region.

The Kingdom of Melaka, founded in the early 15th century, a soon to be Muslim sultanate, held sway over many resources that the West found covetous. In turn the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British invaded and had their way with the Tin and spices they were after. Through various deals and typical colonial dishonesty, the British found themselves in control of a modern Malaysia. Eventually they created a governed area out of the Peninsular region (which was never one country), and land snatches they made from a flailing Brunei and Sulu (a Sultanate you’ve probably never heard of) in Northern Borneo. I’d recently been wondering how Northern Borneo was Malaysian and now I knew. By 1957 a massive front of multicultural self-awareness had built throughout the states and without too much fuss, Malaysia found independence. The history of this area is absurdly fascinating, I can’t wait to learn more.

Human history puts natural history into perspective (which is why I spend time on it). Malaysia seems to me the most progressive country I’ve visited when it comes to many things, including the environment. They’ve been around the block, seen what can happen when a greedy hand is at the wheel. In all appearances though, the consensus that what’s left is pretty sacred. Thanks to people like me who visit to see nature (on planes, automobiles, using disposable plastics), there is an easily distinguished fiscal reason for preservation. As much as I may agree with other arguments for the necessity of biodiversity, this is a little less esoteric to the general public.

In Kepong, a train and a taxi outside Kuala Lumpur, is the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FIRM). This giant complex of recreational land, educational, and research facilities is a bit of a tourist draw, yet until we found the fantastic museum and coerced someone to let us in, it was difficult to say what exactly brought people here. Sure there was steamy tropical forest, which actually housed many new things for Nick, Ellen, and I. Yet the canopy walkway was closed (something mentioned after we’d paid admission), and the information booth just showed us a path to walk down. Surely people weren’t paying 10 ringgit just to prance about regenerating tropical jungles? We did see a Diard’s Trogon (Harpactes diardii), Spectacled Bulbuls (Pycnonotus erythropthalmos), and a Flying Lizard, all well worth it.

Yet I wanted to know more about this place, what sort of mad scientist experiments were going on in the pulp lab? Alas, by the time a sheepish young man appeared from his four hour lunch break to let us into a informative museum, we only had 15 minutes to eyeball the endless plaques on all forestry research before our Taxi was due. Ellen and I were massively disappointed because learning what Malaysia was doing with their forests was impetus for visiting. Equally frustrating was that I didn’t manage to corner any scientists to beat some interviews out of.

What I saw I couldn’t help admire, here was shameless, proud declarations of what the forest was being used for. I could see foresight and no shame in the use of a strong resource which could be managed sustainably. Growing up a city liberal, it is easy to form the opinion that cutting trees is an irretrievable sin, whilst reading your book, relaxing in a wooden recliner. People aren’t going anywhere just yet and while destruction is destruction, unless all people blink out, creating less invasive and smarter means of extraction and application are obvious.

Yet, Malaysia is the second largest producer of Palm Oil in the world. Palm Oil is the sinister product in so much we use and you don’t grow this bulbous, cancerous looking fruit by sprinkling seeds in the rainforest understory. For comparisons sake, Indonesia is the number one producer and the exhaust from their land clearing makes them the 4th worst producer of green house gasses behind the EU, the USA, and China.

A report from Wetlands International this year, suggests that between 2005 and 2010, almost 353,000 hectares of peat swamp forest were cleared in Malaysia. This is a painful third of the existing habitat, one of the most diverse in Borneo. To visualize one hectare, think of the footprint the entire Statue of Liberty takes up. Environmental integrity is hard won when there’s money to be had and a demanding and thirsty Western world guzzling your product as quickly as you can make more. Finger pointing doesn’t work here, US demand is this issue. All this makes me want to curl of up in the fetal position, but it is the reality of an aspiring environmental journalist.

As I strolled around the Lake Gardens back in Kuala Lumpur, I continued to mull over what it meant to have grand public parks in the middle of the city. This was a luxury born of elevated means, likely ill begotten resources. I found their expanse inviting and comfortable, but was this coming at a cost? (An alternative of course is being a place like Laos, which is still getting torn apart and the people get no kick back). Black-naped Orioles (Oriolus chinensis) chortled overhead. Long-tailed Macaques (Macaca fascicularis) did what any respectable troop does in proximity to humans, they dined lavishly, in hedonistic revels, on garbage. The pleasant report of the grand mosque sounded in the distance. I couldn’t help but feel as if people were being lulled into a false sense environmental security, with green space and government campaigns on sustainability. I worry about the same at home sometimes.

But the sun was shining, the Milky Storks (Mycteria cinerea) were clattering away, and Blue-throated Bee-eaters (Merops vividis) sped from their perches in search of Hymenoptera. It was nice to be somewhere with such evident pride in self and country, even if it was somewhat hypocritical at times. I passed people from all over the world, resident or otherwise, as I walked back to my grimy China Town guest house. Long-billed Crows (Corvus validus) drifted off to their roosts for the night, reminding me of crows in Seattle. I really like Malaysia.

I promise I’ll get off my soapbox next time but a guy’s gotta vent sometimes.  Next?  Borneo!!!

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Bukit Lawang Literally Means “The Door to the Hills”

Posted in Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, Indonesia, Natural History, Orangutan, Science, Southeast Asia, Sumatra on February 23, 2011 by Brendan McGarry

 

There are a lot of hills in Northern Sumatra. Some are functionally inaccessible and a few are just down a potholed highway from Medan. Being my first sojourn to the land of palm plantations, Orangutans, and horrible natural disasters, I settled for a realistic endeavor. Four hours of queezy, white knuckle driving, and my friends Nick, Ellen, and I had arrived in Bukit Lawang from Medan. Our driver had done his best to kill us, passing on blind corners through the palm stands, using the horn as if he believed it an essential component of locomotion. As a result of our relief, he was tipped excessively.

I hadn’t given Medan a chance, but I trusted my gut (hemorrhaging from sewer stench), and got out as soon as possible. Distances in Sumatra are deceiving, and before arrival I had aspirations of visiting far flung corners I now realized were insurmountably distant for two weeks of travel. Acquaintances thus far spouted any manner of nonsense, one said Sumatra is easy to travel. Yet both unanimous and accurate, was that much of the island has been laid waste. The palm oil plantations march right up to the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park, where we’d be heading into the forest.

The river Bahorok flows through the middle of Bukit Lawang and while shimmeringly beautiful, flowing out of hills swathed in ancient forest, it has been the source of major disaster. Early in the morning on November 2, 2003, a flash flood stormed through town, killing 239 people and destroying practically everything. The source of all this? A major illegal logging operation, somewhere in the depths of the National Park, was likely the culprit, judging by the timber that came with the flood. Illegal logging is a huge threat to Sumatra and natural disaster is the morose MO here; consider the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. The people here are tough and excessively friendly still.

The morning after our arrival it was off on a jungle trek. Normally I’d shy away from something that attracts so many tourists (I’m no tourist), with little real interest in nature beyond gawking at big apes. Many simply show up to visit the Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, founded in 1973, which now is little more than a feeding platform for semi-wild Orangutans. However, this is one of the best ways to get out and see them (nearly 5000 inhabit the parkland), as well as Gibbons, various monkeys, and other wildlife. Birds took a sideline for my first great apes. We met our group (far larger than we wanted but it ended up being manageable), our guides, and set off through a diminutive rubber plantation before hitting forest.

Our guide, Omano, proved to be a great conduit of information. He was excited to be with people who were interested in nature, though he was initially taken aback by my monstrous pack, filled to the brim with the crap of a natural history peeping tom. Because Bukit Lawang draws so many visitors (even in wet season of February), guides start after high school and amass quite a bit of good information on the forest. Unfortunately they have little formal training in knowing the plants and wildlife beyond a few key species, something Omano attributed to the lack of necessity with people with only one thing on their minds. According to Omano, this place wasn’t spared from logging until 1970 when the World Wildlife Fund visited and recognized the habitat as a unique and vital piece of global biodiversity. The huge hardwoods we were struggling beneath wouldn’t likely be still standing if the government hadn’t been encouraged to set it aside. Even still, as evident in the 2004 flood, people find ways around protection.

Alright, I’ll admit it, the Orangutans most people see are not completely wild. The original Orangutan Project no longer exists but there are a great many individuals who still come the feeding platform by the river. This is the easiest way to see Orangs, but we wanted a bit more realistic experience. Before we knew it, there was a female only a few meters from us. She swung so close, passing over that the guides recoiled in horror screaming, “Watch out! Hot shower!” I was completely stunned by such a close encounter, just looking into the face of an animal not so distantly related to me.

Over the course of the sweaty hike, our group encountered six Orangutans. According to the guides, the single, huge male, was wild, along with at least one of the females. I remain skeptical, especially considering our adjacency to the rehabilitation center, but if our guides were spinning illusions, they did a good job with the big male particularly. A big ape of any origin is worthy of a respectful distance. The Lonely Planet’s Southeast Asia on a Shoestring cites that contact with the many visitors to the park has spread disease, raising infant mortality in the local population. While I am yet to see actual figures this is certainly feasible, and another good reason for space.

By lunch we’d also come upon fig tree lively with activity. Minutes earlier, Ellen had spotted a White-handed Gibbon far away, and before most of us could see it well, took a fantastic leap out of sight. At this towering Ficus, we found ourselves witness to a small family group, complete with a gushingly cute toddler and it’s older adolescent sibling. Their swinging about and obvious admiration for fruit, evident as they rapturously pushed handfuls of figs into awaiting maws. A smile never left my face. I’d always wanted to see a wild gibbon. Here I was, stinking of exertion, watching them go about their daily life undisturbed, high in the canopy. With the brachiation these lesser apes are so famous for, they slowly moved away.

The end of the hike to our camp (the basic package is to hike in and then float out in inner tubes), was a slog. The only other place I’ve been that was so humid was the Amazon, yet with the exertion of pulling myself up slippery tracks, I’d argue it was worse. The going was treacherous and never would have happened in the states without signing a release, saying we wouldn’t sue their pants off when we slipped in “hot shower” and smashed our skulls. Every few minutes we’d hear the yelp one issues when experiencing the downsides of gravity paired with the answer of our guides, doing pirouettes ahead of us: “All bagus (good)?”

I fared well on this hike but I had to remind myself to appreciate the fact that I was back in the jungle of Sumatra! A Rhinoceros or Tiger could pop out any minute (unlikely, both are highly endangered in Sumatra)! Birds I was frustratingly ignorant of, chortled overhead, and countless plants I will likely never know by name passed by. The beauty of any tropical forest is diversity and it takes a zenlike approach for me to not spasm in the guilt of biological ignorance.

Finding ourselves again at the riverside, it was all we could do but tear off our clothes and fling ourselves into the torrent. A Water Monitor was nearby camp investigating the “leave no trace” ethic of previous visitors and several flashy Grey Wagtails (decidedly more yellow than grey) perched amid the flowing clear water. Simple adjacency to water that didn’t appear to be effluvia from a sewage treatment plant was highly refreshing.

Late afternoon arrival found us tired and capable of little else but the delicious relaxation after a good hike. Drinking tea and coffee sweetened with condensed milk and simple biscuits, we talked away the late afternoon and simply gazed at the vertical vegetation on either side of us. Until the next morning I didn’t fully grasp the scale of the land we’d descended until I tried to look at a bird far above, and found it still a spec in my binoculars. I could have stayed here and explored for ages; I decided that I will have to return again with better plans of venturing farther afield.

The rushing river, and suspicion someone had beaten me with rocks all night, woke me at an early hour. We’d been given rubber mats, the thinnest I’d ever seen, for sleeping. The soft Westerners of our trek weren’t fit for a night on the ground and none of us slept well. Luckily the stunning forest and ethereal river were still there and I hadn’t dreamed it all. Unfortunately the river was so loud with banks so steep, that birding around the river wasn’t all that possible. Sumatra came through still, a Tiger Shrike alighted nearby tearing at bright green katydid nearly the same size.

The rest of the day was a write off from an exploratory standpoint. I saw a few new birds during our tromping about; a Black-capped Kingfisher on the float back and a pair of eagles woefully backlit and still unidentified. The float was a riot, perilously skidding through white-water on truck inner-tubes tied together with thin gauge rope, pushed about by long sticks. Our packs were wrapped in large, optimistic plastic bags, and we were plopped down in the middle. We made it back, very wet but without incident.

I wanted to go back already.

I can see why people do these “tourist things” and ultimately, the impact seems fairly minimal compared to say, a 5 star resort. If anything there could be less contact with the Orangutans, however, staring into eyes with recognition much like my own, I know this experience will be a jolt of concern for a species on the brink.

A few more photos from the trek here.

The next few weeks are thus far undecided. Judging on my research, I’ll be headed to Bornean Malaysia. My backup plan is to work my way back through Peninsular Malaysia and into Thailand. I’ll know soon and already know that Sumatra is an amazing place and worth years of travel.

 

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Pak Thale and Spoon-billed Sandpipers

Posted in Birding, Birds, Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, Migration, Natural History, Pak Thale, Science, Southeast Asia, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Thailand on February 10, 2011 by Brendan McGarry

Sometimes I question my sanity. Here I was, halfway around the world, standing next to fields of salt. I wasn’t lost, I intended on arriving here at some point. But did I really need to come to Thailand to feel desiccated?

The answer in this case was almost essentially yes. If you are a birder, enjoy shorebirds (by enjoy shorebirds I mean you have a masochistic side), and want to seek out rare birds, the coast south of Bangkok isn’t a bad spot. Among a multitude of species that winter here is the famed Spoon-billed Sandpiper (Eurynorhynchus pygmeus). This is largely what we were after. We had rented scooters and here we were at the Pak Thale Salt Pans 30km from Phetchaburi.

I would love to weave a yarn about how we toiled for hours to see a Spoon-billed. Soiling ourselves with exertion and impromptu romps across the the salt pans. But we didn’t. We’d hardly walked an hour before suddenly there one was.

I was doing the shorebird photographers squat, my butt flirtatiously dusting itself with mud and paying little attention to anything beyond a Common Redshank. I might not have noticed if not for Ryan’s calm, constant tone (a good counterbalance to my fly off the handle gurgling): “There’s a Spoon-billed.” This was one of the rarest birds I’d ever see in my life, probably the only time I might ever see one again (in some ways a sad thing as much exciting). But then another one flew in. They were probably 100 feet away, lit perfectly, and I took 300 photos.

Seeing one was plenty but two was fantastic. People come specifically to see them here and leave only with a silhouette, 1 mile away, and with half feral salt pan dogs hanging from their ankles. To put the numbers in perspective, in Myanmar someone had 18 birds in one spot and this was the biggest collection of this diminutive but strange bird that’s been found in recent years, (in 2009, 63 individuals were recorded for the entire winter in Myanmar)

Spoon-billed Sandpipers breed in extreme Northern Russia. Mature birds apparently spread all about the coasts of Southeast Asia and somewhere down the line people figured out Pak Thale was a good spot to see them regularly. When I say they are critically endangered, I mean that they are probably hovering at around 1000 individuals for the entire world population and could wink out in 20 years or less. With a sedentary species, this is an optimistic number because steps can sometimes be taken to stop further decline (be it saving remaining habitat or creating a breeding program). Spoon-billeds migrate and spread over a great deal of land, most bits of their wintering and stopover habitat is being reclaimed for industry. The added facts that Spoon-billeds are very specialized in where they breed (lagoon spits with low vegetation) and probably never had huge numbers doesn’t help.

In the next two days we say gobs of shorebirds and most of them were new for me. Birds people see somewhat regularly back in the states, like Bar-tailed Godwits to a bird I’d only seen once, when I skipped class to drive to Ocean Shores, a Temminck’s Stint. Some, birders would leave their dearest loved one on their death bed to see, like a Spotted Redshank.

What I find hilarious in all this is that when people typically see these birds, no matter how fascinating, elegant, and darn right tough they are: they are in their basic plumage. Basic as in winter, as in non-breeding, as in duller than shit to the unappreciative eye. People go into debt to see certain shorebirds when they show up in the wrong place in bland form! If ornithologists wanted to choose a flagship group of birds to induce panicked public donations for conservation, I’m sorry, it wouldn’t be even the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

This is possibly why global warming awareness campaigns use a Polar Bear instead of a Red-necked Stint. Polar Bears are white all year round, have been swimming too much lately, and were in Coca-Cola commercials. Red-necked Stints just run off for half the year and chill on the beach in Thailand, Australia, or anywhere in between (take your pick). If you asked someone if they’d ever seen a Red-necked Stint on the street, you’d get an narrowing of eyes that people reserve for someone publicly soliciting sexual favors. If you asked them about Polar Bears, they’d happily tell you they saw them in a coke commercial in the 90s. To be clear I think it’s deplorable that the Coca-cola company, possibly a major contributor to global warming, has used this poor animal for ads.

But let’s face it, shorebirds are extraordinary. Bar-tailed Godwits are the record holders of the longest distance of sustained migration (between the Yellow Sea and New Zealand non-stops). Many shorebirds (or waders, if you are from anywhere else but ‘Merica) show reverse sexual dimorphism, meaning the female bird runs the show and often is the more colorful, striking plumage. They are little birds that may fly from Siberia to Australia and back again in a year. They deserve your admiration, even if you only know them as those little birds your screaming, naked, offspring chases after on the beach, or you avoid looking at in your bird book because they give you migraines.

What’s more, many are in solid decline. There are huge numbers of reasons. As I mentioned above, changes in the great land up North related to global warming have wrought problems for breeding birds. In the South things like shrimp farms and the ever spreading disease of beach side resorts hold responsibility. Pollution never helps, especially when many heavy industry is situated near significant estuaries, full of tidal mud flats shorebirds require for feeding at both ends and between. The challenges go on and on.

The bottom line for this post was that I came and conquered in Petchaburi Province. Another tick on the list right? Well, that got me the envy of many I know, but I think that’s about where it stops. I’d like people to think about these birds, their struggles of habitat loss at both ends of travel, and maybe do something about it. At least tell your screaming, naked, child as they let it all hang out in pursuit of a flock of startled Sanderlings.

And please, give some real coverage a look if you want more than my inanity on 10,00 birds!

(Quick travel update: I’ve seen 228 life birds so far on this trip, my person list for the trip is at 245.  Quite a few cool mammals, reptiles, and insects.  Internet access was limited and I visited another National Park, Kaen Krachan, between Pak Thale and this posting.  A general collection of the photos thus far here.  Next up? Sumatra!)

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Migration!

Posted in Bird Banding, Birds, Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, Migration, Natural History, Science, Seattle, United States, Washington on September 19, 2010 by Brendan McGarry
Migration happens once every year.  And then again maybe 6 months later.

Really it depends on an number of factors, but around here, starting in late July and extending through late September many birds are on the move away from their breeding grounds.  Some are merely altitudinal migrants, descending when the weather turns fowl in the mountains.  But a large number undertake a twice yearly journey that can span continents and oceans.  Raptors let thermals carry them much of the way, songbirds power through with the help of highways of wind, and seabirds harness the oceanic air streams.  A few of the many reasons birds are on the move is to avoid harsh weather and often more accurately  to take advantage of seasonal or episodic food sources that good weather brings, particularly in temperate clines.  There are migratory birds in every place on earth and the reasons, methods, and extremities are as diverse as the species that practice.

This phenomenon is inherently mystical, fascinating, and curious for humans.  After all, with the rare modern exceptions of hunter gatherers that follow seasonal food sources, we don’t migrate.  However, for millennia those of us in the Northern Hemisphere noticed when our vibrant sprouts begin to push up, we begin seeing swallows again; by the time the major harvests began, the field grew quiet once more.

Ancient Greeks believed absent swallows burrowed underground.

These journeys often defy our concepts of reality.  Discussions about the record holder long distant migrants shifted from the Arctic Tern (flying from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica), to the Bar-tailed Godwit (flying from the Alaska to New Zealand), to the Sooty Shearwater (Northern Hemisphere to Southern), and back again.  The Bar-tailed Godwit is held to be longest non-stop migrant  some flying about 7,000 miles in one go without any dilly dallying (they fly over water and cannot float!).  Sooty Shearwaters and Arctic Terns have both been recorded in distances exceeding 30,000 miles.  In 2006 Sooty Shearwaters broke the record for the longest distance animal migration at around 40,000 miles, making a figure 8 tour between North and South Pacific each migration.  2010 research results on Arctic Terns showed them travelings in excess of 40,000 miles in their year of travel.  (all this knowledge is a result of bird banding and lightweight radio tags).  Seabirds certainly make some of the most spectacular hauls and spend a lot of time preparing for it, allowing for around 50 percent of their body weight to store fat reserves.

Here in the Puget Sound, many of our migrants are songbirds bound for the Neotropics.  They are the reason people buy Shade Grown Coffee, because they winter in places in Mexico or Central America that produce coffee and would otherwise cut down forests to grow it.  Equally astounding is their travel, which may start as far as Alaska or Northern Canada or may be a bird that reared young in your backyard in Seattle, but will end in some instances as far South as Panama.  Not only that, but it is done largely at night!

Although it seems odd that diurnal, typically terrestrial species are flying high in the sky at night, there are some very logical admissions it allows for.  The normal predators, who would be almost impossible to avoid in high in the open during the day, are asleep.  Secondly, although birds fuel up before they leave, stops are necessary for food and water which they cannot do at night.  Finally, the most interesting part is that they are using the stars to navigate!  We long pondered how many birds were migrating at night until a technique using an instrument called an Emlen Funnel was invented in 1966 (follow the link to learn how it works).

Go out on a still night during migration and you can hear the calls of migrating songbirds.  In the city, even above the noise of urban life, they are audible.  Residing in the suburbs or away from busy roadways, one can hear hundreds, even thousands, of individuals representing dozens of species (with a bit of practice you can start to differentiate).  Some enthusiasts actually set up their own recording devices and use programs to sort and count what flew over each night.  Cornell Lab of Ornithology embarked on research doing exactly this, but on a larger scale along the Eastern Seaboard allowing for studies both on reasons for nocturnal flight calls and on population dynamics.

While these birds are on the move, they face many threats, not the least of which is the human influence.  Our massive buildings and lights confuse birds in nightly migration.  New York City’s light kill an estimated 10,000 birds a year.  We destroy habitat not only at both ends of travel, but demolish their stop overs along the way.  In short, these amazing travelers not only have the sheer obstacles of the elements, predators, and distance to come up against, but humans as well.  Research allows us to understand this phenomenon but it also helps us evaluate how we can alter our ways to benefit birds.

What brought this diatribe about?  This week, meteorologist and northwest weather expert Cliff Mass , posted a blog entry with fantastic Doppler Radar images showing birds nocturnally moving over the Puget Sound area.  There are a lot and they are moving south!

Migration is something we still don’t fully understand and this article is just the tip of the iceberg on this fascinating subject.  If you are interested in learning more I’d recommend Scott Weidensaul’s popular account,  Living On the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds.  We are luck to have some amazing technologies from sound recordings, radar imaging, and light weight radio tags to help us imagine an otherworldly behavior.

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Photoblast #5: New World Water

Posted in Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, Science on June 15, 2010 by Brendan McGarry

One of my favorite musicians, Mos Def, wrote a song about it (give it a listen).  Water is a basic necessity yet we seem to have a damned hard time keeping it clean and healthy.  Everyone needs it and recently there’s been a discussion of peak water.  One of the local radio stations in Seattle had water expert Peter Glieck on this morning discussing the bottling industry and public water and his new book “Bottled & Sold.” The National Geographic News Watch Blog ran an article earlier this month (in cohesion with a recent issue dedicated to the wonder molecule) about passing the point of cheap, easily accessible water for the world. (if you are at all tuned into international news you could probably have guessed this).  Something so simple shouldn’t become a financial burden yet there’s a distinct chance it will, even in more developed nations.  Although Wingtrip is about nature, people are integral and this isn’t a plea for other species, but for us as well.

Enjoy that water.  Relish it like this Great-tailed Grackle.  This water stuff, we live to it.

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Horrific Deepwater Impacts

Posted in Conservation, Current Events, Environmentalism, United States on June 14, 2010 by Brendan McGarry

Drew Wheelan has been doing an incredible job of covering the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill through blogging and video content managed by the American Birding Association.  If you ask me, this sort of reporting is more important than almost anything else out there.  Not only do I know I  can trust Drew, he’s not bogged down by impossible politics.  While I foresee a few posts from him in the future, I also know he’s got his hands full in the near future.  In the meantime I highly recommend viewing his videos, but be warned, some are very upsetting.

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