Lyle Bingham, Author at Wild About Utah

September 10, 2009November 25, 2020

Bugging Marbled Godwits

Marbled Godwit on the shore, Courtesy US FWS, Lee Karney, Photographer — Marbled Godwit on the shore
Photo by Lee Karney
Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

In the name of curiosity and hunger, man has tracked the migrations of animals for centuries. The first record of the use of leg bands to track birds is from 1595 when one of Henry IV’s Peregrine Falcons was lost in France. It showed up 24 hours later in Malta, about 1400 miles away. John James Audubon tied silver cords to a brood of phoebes and identified two nestlings that returned the next year. In 1899, Hans Mortensen added identification numbers and his return address to the plain leg bands and modern bird banding was born.

In the United States, anyone who finds a bird band is encouraged to report it to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland. Banding provides us with limited information, however. There is no data about the bird’s life between the time of banding and its recapture or death.

But recent miniaturization of satellite transmitters used to track larger animals is now proving valuable in bird research. In 2006, Bridget Olsen of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and Adrian Farmer of the US Geological Survey started placing tiny satellite transmitters on the backs of Marbled Godwits, a hefty sandpiper that rests at the refuge during its migration. The Marbled Godwit is in decline throughout its range. This large shorebird was chosen by scientists from Mexico, the United States and Canada as the focus for an international shorebird conservation effort.
The solar-powered transmitters periodically record the bird’s GPS location. The transmission is picked up via satellite and returned to the researchers. Comparing two transmissions indicates travel time and speed.

Olsen and Farmer work with wildlife officers across North America to track the Marbled Godwits from their wintering grounds in Baja California, through their migration to nesting grounds in the Great Plains, Alaska and Canada.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy US Fish & Wildlife Service, National Digital Library

http://www.fws.gov/digitalmedia/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/natdiglib&CISOPTR=4348&CISOBOX=1&REC=1

Text: Lyle Bingham, Linda Kervin, Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon

Additional Reading:

Go Godwits Resources: http://www.fort.usgs.gov/Resources/GoGodwits/

Frequently Asked Questions: Tracking Marbled Godwits by Satellite: http://www.fort.usgs.gov/Resources/GoGodwits/faq.asp#Q1
Conservation Plan for the Marbled Godwit: http://www.fort.usgs.gov/Products/Publications/pub_abstract.asp?PubID=21601

Marbled Godwit, Limosa fedoa, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Migratory Bird Research, https://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i2490id.html

Effects of Management Practices on Grassland Birds: Marbled Godwit, USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center, http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/resource/literatr/grasbird/mago/mago.htm

Marbled Godwit, Utah Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Conservation Data Center,
http://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=limofedo

Satellites Used to Track Bird Movement and Preserve Species, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, USGS Newsroom, June 12, 2006, http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1521

Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, Brigham City, UT – Research Page,
http://www.fws.gov/bearriver/research.html

June 18, 2009November 25, 2020

Avian Cyrano de Bergerac- long-billed Curlew

Long-billed Curlew Lee Karney, US Fish & Wildlife Service — Long-billed Curlew
Lee Karney, US Fish & Wildlife Service

Long-billed Curlew in Flight Cresent Lake NWR, US Fish & Wildlife Service — Long-billed Curlew in Flight
Cresent Lake NWR, US Fish & Wildlife Service

The Cyrano de Bergerac of the bird world is the long-billed curlew. Its bill is 9 inches long and curves downward at the tip. This 19-inch bird is the largest shorebird of North America. The long-billed curlew is cinnamon brown above and buff brown below. It is similar in size to a marbled godwit, but the bill of the godwit is shorter and turns up.

Like Cyrano, the long-billed curlew is shy. They arrive in Utah in mid-March, seeking open fields and grasslands away from trees, posts, power poles or any other perches of use to predators. They can been seen walking through fields, probing with their bill for worms, insects, spiders and even berries.

In breeding season the male repeatedly flies high, then glides downward, calling all the while.
[Kevin Colver, Songs of Yellowstone #9 Long-billed Curlew]

Like other shorebirds, their nest is just a shallow scrape on the ground, lightly lined with grass. Typically 4 eggs are laid. Both sexes incubate the eggs for about 2 weeks. The down covered young hatch with their eyes open and feed themselves. Two to three weeks after the chicks hatch, the female departs. Dad stays with his chicks until after they fledge when they are about 35 days old. Soon thereafter curlews flock up to migrate south. In mid July, they fly to California or Mexico, where they frequent coastal mudflats eating crabs and other aquatic life.

The long-billed curlew was once much more common. Market hunting in the 19th century and habitat loss more recently have reduced their numbers, but they persist in parts of Utah.

Thanks to Kevin Colver for the use of his recording.

To view pictures visit the Wildaboututah link on upr.org

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy Fish and Wildlife Service Online Digital Media Library

http://www.fws.gov/digitalmedia/

Audio: Dr. Kevin Colver, www.wildsanctuary.com & https://wildstore.wildsanctuary.com/collections/special-collections

Text: Lyle Bingham, Bridgerland Audubon Society
Additional Reading:

Washington State Birdweb:
http://birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=157

Long-billed curlew Numenius americanus, USGS Migratory Bird Research – Patuxent Wildlife Research Center,
https://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i2640id.html

Long-billed Curlew Satellite Tracking
https://ibo.boisestate.edu/curlewtracking/locations/

Prairie Birds: Fragile Splendor in the Great Plains, Paul A. Johnsgard, 2001, University Press of Kansas, http://www.amazon.com/Prairie-Birds-Fragile-Splendor-Plains/dp/0700610677

Long-billed Curlew Mating flight (Video),
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-cNA6IBG8

November 4, 2008January 30, 2021

Burrowing Owls

click to view the Burrowing Owl, Courtesy Bridgerland Audubon Society, Lyle Bingham, Photographer — Burrowing Owl Near the Great Salt Lake
Courtesy Bridgerland Audubon Society
Lyle Bingham, Photographer

This is Dick Hurren from the Bridgerland Audubon Society.

During a recent field trip sponsored by our group, we saw two small burrowing owls with long legs and round faces, standing by their burrow, near the road, on a large stone.

A car stopped close by and the owls disappeared under the ground. Not wanting to disturb them, we stayed in our car to watch the pair. A few minutes later, after the other car left, one of the owls was back on the stone surveying the area and the other reappeared soon thereafter.

Burrowing owls are one of the less commonly seen of the 14 owl species found in Utah. With many former grasslands and prairies, the preferred habitat of these owls, now cities and cultivated farms, these protected birds have tried to adapt.

As their preferred habitats disappear, they may take up residence in cemetaries, golf courses, airports, on the edges of farms or in deserts. But their numbers are declining precipitously.
Most inhabit holes built by other animals. Occasionally, however, they burrow their own holes. For both nesting and off-season living, their preferred holes are bare of vegetation with a nearby mound. They stand on the mound mornings and evenings and hunt primarily nocturnally. Burrowing owls are often common near prairie dog towns and love to take over old prairie dog holes for their own. Where natural burrows are sparse and in winter, they may resort to using dry culverts under roads.

In spring, burrowing owls migrate north from the southerwestern states, that is Texas, New Mexico, Southern California, and Arizona. As well as parts of Mexico and from as far south as Honduras. Some travel as far north as Canada to nest. Most burrowing owls fly back south by the end of September, with the last leaving in October.

Weighing less than 6 ounces, this long-legged owl stands just 8 inches tall. The female incubates from 3 to 11 eggs while the male ferries in food to her for that 30-day period.

Their diet is diverse, a smorgasbord of invertibrates such as scorpions, grasshoppers, beetles, moths and worms as well as vertibrates like kangaroo rats, mice, frogs, snakes and lizards.

Both parents tend to the young until they fledge, at 40 to 45 days. In the burrow, the young can make a buzzy rattle-snake-like sound. This helps deter animals and humans from reaching in the hole to disburb them.

Land owners find that providing space for burrows or by building artificial burrows gives them, that is the landowners, the benefit of a voratious preditor of insects and rodents.

We can enjoy burrowing owls, and help reduce their declining numbers, when we preserve open spaces, restrict free-roaming dogs and cats, and restrict using pesticides that kill owls and the insects and small animals they eat.

For Wild About Utah I’m Dick Hurren.

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy Bridgerland Audubon Society, Lyle Bingham, Photographer, https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Voice Talent: Richard (Dick) Hurren, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/
Text: Lyle Bingham, Bridgerland Audubon Society https://bridgerlandaudubon.org/

Additional Reading:

Woodin, M.C., Skoruppa, M.K., and Hickman, G.C., 2007, Winter ecology of the Western Burrowing Owl (Athene
cunicularia hypugaea) in Southern Texas 1999–2004: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report
2007–5150, 33 p. http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2007/5150/
http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2007/5150/pdf/SIR2007-5150.pdf

Romin, Laura A. and Muck, James A., Utah Field Office Guidelines for Raptor Protection from Human and Land Use Disturbances, Utah, Laura A. Romin and James A. Muck, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Utah Field Office, May 1999,
https://fs.ogm.utah.gov/pub/MINES/Coal_Related/MiscPublications/USFWS_Raptor_Guide/RAPTORGUIDE.PDF

Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia), Factsheets, Hawkwatch International,
https://hawkwatch.org/learn/factsheets/item/827-burrowing-owl

Burrowing Owl, Utah Division of Natural Resources,
http://dwrcdc.nr.utah.gov/rsgis2/Search/Display.asp?FlNm=athecuni

Burrowing Owls, Burrowing Owl Preservation Society (California), https://burrowingowls.org/

Wright, Tony, A little owl makes a big journey, Wildlife Blog, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Utah Department of Natural Resources, https://wildlife.utah.gov/news/wildlife-blog/711-a-little-owl-makes-a-big-journey.html

September 2, 2008July 12, 2021

Magpies a.k.a. Holstein Pheasants

I knew a man who referred to those black and white, long-tailed birds as “Holstein Pheasants.”
He used to say, you can shoot pheasants, can’t you? Magpies are loved or hated. Few are without opinions when it comes to these protected, I remind you protected, birds.
In Asia, they are revered for good luck; while their relatives, the crows, are omens of bad luck.

The black-billed magpie of Utah is related to the yellow-billed magpies in California and more distantly to the European magpie and the Korean magpie.
They all have a similar general appearance, black and white with a long black tail.

Our Black-billed magpies mate for life and stay together until one dies. Then the other may find a new mate.

Their home-building skills will not produce awards for neatness on the outside. But are marvels of architecture.
Nests are collections of loose sticks, mud, bark and other available materials, often built on older nests. A hood of loose sticks covers the nest with multiple entrances.
And the inside is lined with soft grasses and other materials.

Once the nest is built, the female lays six or seven eggs. While she sets on the eggs, the male feeds her for up to 18 days. The parents feed their young about two months, even though the young fledge in about a month. Upon independence from their parents, the young flock with other young magpies.

Magpies can be seen harassing hawks, eagles and owls as they perch in trees.
But despite the begrudging landlords, owls and hawks often take up residence in old magpie nests.

Bold and gregarious, magpies are well adapted to man. They are the bane of back yard bird feeders, driving songbirds away and eating everything in sight.
I know at least one local birder, however, who enjoys magpies and attracts them with Cheetos and soft cat food, but on the other side of the house from her regular bird feeders.

Magpies are opportunists and nest raiders. They are despised by hunters because they clean out unprotected and abandoned nests.
And fruit growers fight them with netting, flags and pyrotechnics. But don’t hold that against them.
These Holsteins clean up roadkill, tent caterpillars, grasshoppers and many other things that we’d rather not see or smell.

For Wild About Utah, I’m Dick Hurren.

Credits:

Photos: Courtesy Bridgerland Audubon Society Image Files
Text: Lyle Bingham and Dick Hurren, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Additional Reading:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology: All About Birds, Black-Billed Magpie, http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Black-billed_Magpie_dtl.html, Accessed July 31, 2008

http://www.enature.com/flashcard/show_flash_card.asp?recordNumber=BD0032, Accessed July 31, 2008

http://www.birdweb.org/birdweb/bird_details.aspx?id=315, Accessed July 31, 2008

http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/magpies.htm, Accessed July 31, 2008