Ohio Raptor Die-Off Attributed to West Nile Virus

Based on the finding of active virus in 2 hawks (species not identified) and 2 of 5 Great Horned Owls examined by the National Wildlife Health Center, this news release from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources attributes the July and August die-off of raptors to the West Nile Virus. The ODNR estimates that WNV affected several thousand hawks, owls, and other raptors in Ohio, and was the presumed cause of death of hundreds of individuals.

Is West Nile Virus A Sexually Transmitted Disease?

That seems to be the implication of this unusual case from Colorado, but the hypothesis is based on pretty shaky evidence.

Apple Orchards, Birds, and Retirees Don’t Mix

A short news story on West Virginia Public Radio yesterday afternoon decried the loss of the State’s apple orchards due to urban/suburban development. If memory serves me correctly, the announcer cited a 20 percent decline in acreage in the past 10 years, especially in the Eastern Panhandle, the two easternmost counties of which are actually part of the Washington-Baltimore Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area.

That news was immediately followed by the announcement of a new Web site developed and maintained by the State of West Virginia to lure retirees to the Mountain State. Did the incongruousness of these two messages not impress itself upon the producers?

Apple orchards are moderately important agricultural habitats for birds, although you could argue that, because of the heavy application of pesticides, they may actually represent reproductive sinks (i.e., adult breeding birds of some species are attrac
d to orchards for nesting but ultimately produce few if any young; thus, apple orchards can probably be viewed as ecological traps, exporting far fewer birds than they import).

Victims, Vectors, and Viruses

This article on West Nile Virus, published under the above title in the October 2002 issue of Winging It (the newsletter of the American Birding Association), does quite a nice job of summarizing the ecological links between WNV in birds and humans.

Birds and Bombs

For 85 years, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act has afforded much-needed Federal protections to the Nation's migratory birds without detrimental impact on military readiness. During this period, U.S. soldiers engaged in World Wars I and II, the Korean and Viet Nam conflicts, the Gulf War, and numerous other engagements without being hampered by the restrictions of the MBTA. Now, the Bush administration has concluded that the MBTA "seriously hamper[s] military training and bombing exercises," as reported in the Washington Post:

Bird Nests and Bomb Ranges
Hill Nears Pact to Exempt Pentagon from Law Protecting Species
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 23, 2002; Page A09

House and Senate negotiators have tentatively agreed to exempt the Defense Department from an international law designed to protect more than 850 species of migratory birds, in response to Bush administration complaints that such treaties seriously hamper military training and bombing exercises.

The decision, disclosed yesterday by lawmakers and environmental groups, could effectively allow the incidental bombing of habitats of hundreds of thousands of migratory birds, including a number of endangered species, that fly over 25 million acres of
military-controlled land.

The administration earlier this year sought exemptions from numerous environmental laws dealing with endangered species, marine mammals, migratory birds, clean air and hazardous waste cleanup. The restrictions, officials said, were impeding military readiness and training in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Critics, including environmental groups, some governors and state attorneys general, said the administration was using the terrorist attacks as an excuse to undermine important environmental protections.

As a compromise, Senate and House conferees drafted a version of the fiscal 2003 defense authorization bill granting the military an exemption from the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which sets forth U.S. obligations under four treaties to protect birds and guide conservation management with the governments of Canada, Mexico, Japan and Russia. While the exemption would be permanent, the Defense Department would be given a year to identify ways to minimize the adverse impact of military training activities on migratory birds.

Some lawmakers and environmentalists said Congress was bowing to administration pressure to undermine the nation's oldest conservation law. "Exempting our military from the MBTA drops a bomb domestically and internationally as it endangers our wildlife heritage and compromises our international treaty obligations," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, which oversees the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

But the conference report draft says the proposed military exemption is "entirely consistent with the underlying terms of all treaty obligations of the United States."

Raymond F. DuBois, deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, said the exemption was made necessary last April after a federal judge halted bombing exercises on Farallon de Medinilla, a western Pacific island where migratory birds were being killed.

"Solely a military training range for the past 26 years, FDM provides vital training for frontline units involved in Operation Enduring Freedom," DuBois said. "The provision has no effect on our obligation to assess the environmental impact of our actions or our obligation under the Endangered Species Act not to jeopardize endangered species."

Environmental groups including Audubon, the Sierra Club, the American Bird Conservancy and the Endangered Species Coalition, said in a joint statement: "Our existing laws already provide for the achievement of military readiness while maintaining environmental protections."

Senate Armed Services Committee aides cautioned yesterday that lawmakers were still working on portions of the conference report and the final version may change. Moreover, congressional leaders have yet to decide whether to seek final action on the defense authorization bill when Congress returns for a postelection session.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Chickenhawks

Uncharacteristically, Lynn Sislo of Poet and Peasant has posted an article on birds. In a brief note entitled “A Notable Bird,” she links to two sites on the Cooper's Hawk, which she correctly characterizes as “an often maligned species.” Ironically and unfortunately, both of the linked articles refer to the provincial-and-now-archaic alternative name of “chicken hawk,” a pejorative (and ecologically innacurate) name once applied to any of the North American hawks.

In the last century, the term "chicken hawk" evolved into a second meaning (i.e., an advocate of an aggressive policy on foreign relations, being especially applied to one who advocates military intervention but who has himself never served on active military duty).

Ben Tripp has published a Bird Lover’s Guide to Chickenhawks, and the New Hampshire Gazette maintains The Chickenhawk Database. And finally, but by no means least, be sure to check out The Chickenhawk Boogie by Pat Dawson, which was posted by the New Hampshire Gazette on 10/12/02.

Sun-Bathed Owl

Late last Friday afternoon (October 18), I was zooming down Route 9 in Jefferson County, West Virginia, along with the usual host of daily commuters, anxious to return home after a 4-day business trip. Rounding the big curve at Bardane, my eyes caught sight of a huge, vulture-sized bird with the jizz of an owl perched on a roadside utility line. I quickly made a U-turn at the next available opportunity and drove to a point where I could safely view the bird at close range. As expected, it was a Great Horned Owl. What it was doing abroad in full daylight, I have no idea. At 5:50 PM, the sun was setting low in a cloudless sky, bathing the owl in subdued sunlight. In the five minutes that I had the owl under observation, a lone Northern Mockingbird approached it a couple of times but did not seriously harass the owl. The owl seemed to be “nonchalantly” inspecting traffic. Yesterday (October 23)--the first I had travelled Route 9 since the 18th--I was amazed to again see a Great Horned Owl (presumably the same bird) perched on a roadside utility line at Bardane in full daylight at 5:40 PM. Two things about these observations strike me as odd: (1) the presence of the bird in an exposed situation in broad daylight, and (2) it’s use of a roadside utility line as a perch. Could this be a young and naive bird, perhaps, or, alternatively, a bird that is sick or injured?

Droppings

Droppings, a cleverly-named bird blog by Jack Siler, has been lurking on the Birding for the 21st Century home page for some time without my recognizing it for what it is. Scroll down the page to see the most recent entries, which are made at infrequent intervals.

Windmills and Raptors on Collision Course in West Virginia

Mention windmills, and most people conjure up an image of the picturesque windmills that dot the landscape of Holland. But soon, West Virginia will sprout it's very own brand of windmill; no fewer than 44 of them will be aligned along a six-mile ridge atop Backbone Mountain in Tucker County. Wind turbines are touted as an environmentally friendly energy source. But they also have a nasty habit of chewing up raptors that collide with the blades that rotate at a rate of 17 revolutions per minute. Only time will reveal the cumulative impacts of this massive wind farm on the raptors that migrate along the Allegheny Front of West Virginia.

BirdChat Chatter

BirdChat is the grandaddy of bird listservs, having been launched sometime in 1994. To view my varied contributions (117 total) to BirdChat over the years, just click here.

The Small Amount of Bass

On Saturday, October 5, 2002, the Martinsburg (W. Va.) Journal for carried a story about EPA Admininstrater Christine Todd Whitman’s visit to Harpers Ferry, where she met with fifth-graders from the C. W. Shipley Elementary School to talk about water quality:

Whitman signed a few autographs before checking in with another small group waiting at the water’s edge with the results of their water temperature test.

‘The water temperature down here is 76. The small amount of bass will be happy, but not trout,’ James Cook, 10, told Whitman with authority in his voice. ‘It has to be 60 or below for the trout to be happy.’

Whitman chuckled and nodded approval.

What was it, exactly, that caused Whitman to chuckle? Did James really say “small amount of bass” when he should have said “smallmouth bass?” Was she chuckling at James’s nonsensical remark? Is that the point the Journal was making? If so, why would the Journal publicly embarass a 10-year-old by putting this quote in bold print?

The water temperature down here is 76. The small amount of bass will be happy, but not the trout. It has to be 60 or below for the trout to be happy.

--James Cook, 10

But what if James correctly said “smallmouth bass?” I would have to think that any 10-year-old making a presentation in front of a public official of Whitman’s stature would have been well-coached by his or her teacher. If that was the case, then Whitman probably “nodded approval” at James’s accurate understanding of the effects of water temperature on different species of fish. This scenario, of course, presumes that the staff writer made a mistake--hearing and reporting “small amount of bass” instead of “smallmouth bass”--and that the Journal’s copy editor didn’t catch the mistake.

I don’t know which of these interpretations is correct, but in either case, it wasn’t a particularly well-written story on the part of the Journal.

Birding Notes from the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia

Yesterday morning (Saturday, October 5, 2002) at Altona Marsh, Jefferson County, proved productive for birders--I encountered six of them: Diana and Gary Cummins and four friends (including a couple visiting from New Mexico). The following list includes 37 species seen at Altona Marsh, plus an additional 15 species seen in Berkeley County (B) or elsewhere in Jefferson County (J). Highlights include an immature Double-crested Cormorant on the Shenandoah River, an impressive dawn flight of Tree Swallows (with numbers probably greatly underestimated), a fallout of 9 Swamp Sparrows at Altona Marsh (where none were seen last weekend), good numbers of Red-winged Blackbirds, and an absence of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (coincident with a drastic decline in nectar-producing flowers).

Double-crested Cormorant 1(J)
Great Blue Heron 3(J)
Green Heron 1(B)
Canada Goose 67(B) 14(J)
Mallard 5(B)
Turkey Vulture 3(B) 3(J)
Cooper’s Hawk 1
American Kestrel 1
Northern Bobwhite 1
Killdeer 8(B) 5(J)
Lesser Yellowlegs 1(J)
unidentified “peeps” 7(B)
Mourning Dove 6
Rock Dove (B,J)
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
Great Horned Owl 1
Chimney Swift (B)
Red-bellied Woopecker 4
Downy Woodpecker 2
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 3
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
Blue Jay 11
American Crow 4
Fish Crow (B)
Tree Swallow 605
Tufted Titmouse 3
Carolina Chickadee 6
White-breasted Nuthatch 3
Carolina Wren 8
Eastern Bluebird 5
American Robin 37
Gray Catbird 5
Northern Mockingbird 8
Brown Thrasher 1
European Starling 117
Cedar Waxwing 15
Magnolia Warbler 1
Black-throated Green Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 2
Northern Cardinal 11
Eastern Towhee 1
Song Sparow 22
Swamp Sparrow 9
Brown-headed Cowbird 10
Red-winged Blackbird 180
Common Grackle (B)
House Finch (B)
American Goldfinch 38
House Sparrow (B,J)

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Fall Departure Dates

Intrigued by recent discussions on the WV-Bird and other bird listservs about the influence of artificial nectar sources (i.e., hummingbird feeders) on fall migration of hummingbirds, I decided to pull together some real data on Ruby-throated Hummingbird fall departure dates. To that end, I extracted reported late fall dates for West Virginia and the greater Appalachian Region from the seasonal reports published in the journals Redstart and North American Birds (and its predecessors) for the period 1949-2000. I located 52 fall departure dates (from 33 different years) for which the exact day was reported. Reported dates ranged from September 17 to November 8. The median reported departure date was October 7 (in other words, half of the reported departure dates were before, and half after, October 7). Fewer than 10 percent of reported last departure dates fall after October 24; the five extreme dates are:

November 8 (1961): Marmet, Kanawha County, WV; “extremely late”
October 27 (1997): Hamilton County, TN
October 27 (1964): Lexington, VA
October 27 (1949): Morgantown, Monongalia County, WV; “still visiting flowers in garden”
October 25 (1997): Shady Valley, TN

So how does this tie in with hummingbird feeders? Hummingbirds are highly evolved to feed on the nectar of flowering plants. I propose that fall departure of hummingbirds is more closely linked to changes in the availability of natural sources of nectar than it is to either decreased photoperiods or air temperatures. In our region, nectar sources probably peak in late summer/early fall (mid- to late September). After that, the availability of nectar starts to gradually wane. There is some threshold of nectar availability below which it is no longer economical for a hummingbird to remain in an area. At that point, a bird has two choices: (1) remain in the area and gradually starve, or (2) seek out other, more abundant, sources of nectar. Fifty-two years worth of field data indicate that, under natural conditions, very few Ruby-throated Hummingbirds linger in West Virginia and the Appalachian Region past October 24.

Despite what the experts say, I am not convinced that artificial feeders do not entice some Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to linger in our area beyond their “normal” departure dates. Why take a chance? My recommendation would be to not, under normal circumstances, leave hummingbird feeders up past mid-October. If you still have a few hummingbirds lingering about at time, then gradually decrease the amount of nectar (i.e., stimulate natural conditions). If the hummingbirds are smart, they will journey southward in searth of more abundance amd dependable nectar sources (plus milder climates). If not, then we can reason that they were simply not meant to contribute further to the gene pool. Who was it that said, “Nature is a cruel mistress” (is that a real quote or something I made up?).

Avian Vaccine for West Nile Virus Shows Promise

The first round of trials conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colorado, has produced encouraging results. In lab tests, American Crows inoculated with the recombinant DNA vaccine showed a 60% increase in survival rates over unvaccinated birds. The vaccine could prove especially valuable in protecting the many species of endangered and threatened species now being held in captive rearing facilities for eventual release to the wild as part of restoration efforts. This research is being funded by the American Bird Conservancy in partnership with the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and other conservation groups. Learn more about it in this press release from the American Bird Conservancy and in this post from the West Nile Virus listserv.