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Sibley, Durham Rufous, birding economics, Yaupon Hollies, etc.



Hi Carolinabirders,

A lot of you buy your books from Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, etc. 
and pooh-pooh those of us who patronize the local independent bookstores. 
Well, the Regulator Bookstore on 9th street in Durham just gave you yet 
another reason to blow off the big corporations:

On Fri, 30 Mar 2001, Regulator Bookshop wrote:
>
> Saturday May 5, 1:00 p.m.
> DAVID ALLEN SIBLEY
> The author and illustrator of the phenomenal new Sibley Guide to Birds 
> (Knopf) will be here to talk about his book.

Let's see Amazon beat that! I joined the Regulator's discount buying 
club, and in addition to getting cheaper books than usual, I also get a 
regular e-mail notice of upcoming book signings and other events such as 
Sibley's visit. See y'all there!

A post on the Florida birding listserv led me to this web page:
http://www.epa.gov/watertrain/birds/3worth.html
In case anyone doubted that birders are a big part of the economy... 
Surprised that we in NC are being outspent by Virginia, though. And you 
SC birders better get out your wallets, you rank below *Arkansas*!
;--)

The female Rufous Hummingbird is still visiting the feeder at my place. I 
got a few photos of it back, not all were disastrous. Some might even be 
identifiable to genus. No Ruby-throats yet, but they're being reported 
all over the Texas and Florida listservs, along with warblers and vireos 
of all sorts, Indigo Buntings, and the rest. They're on the way!

On Mon, 26 Mar 2001, Stephen J. Perry wrote:
> 
> A Baltimore oriole came to a friends feeder in Durham on Sat a.m. 
> Other than that not a single migrant for me yet!

Not necessarily a migrant. Will Cook tells me that they used to be 
regularly tallied on the Raleigh CBC. Some folks have mentioned Solitary 
Vireo as a migrant, but they're here in winter too; the only way to be 
sure you're seeing a migrant SOVI is if you identify it to the subspecies 
that breeds in the mountains. The wintering birds belong to a different 
subspecies, that breeds in New England and thereabouts...

> In a posting last week, someone mentioned a brown-headed cowbird in 
> the context of migrants: I thought these were residents (Sibley). 
> I've had one hanging around my feeders for about a month now. Is this 
> unusual?

Brown-headed Cowbirds do migrate. Being here all year does not make them 
residents. The birds we see in winter head north to breed, while those we 
see in summer spend the winter further south. This appears to be a common 
syndrome among birds, and is probably true of several species around 
here, including the aforementioned oriole.

> Also, an amazing encounter with a flock of cedar waxwings on Duke 
> campus: 30 or so birds landed in a large evergreen bush to feast on 
> the red berries (I have no idea what type of bush, sorry) literally 5 
> feet from me.

This is a regular annual event which I've observed every year since I got 
here. It's great fun to observe. I recently learned why the Waxwings 
invade Duke at the end of the winter, even though the berries appear 
months beforehand. The plants they are denuding of berries are Yaupon 
Holly (Ilex vomitoria), a species native to the NC coastal plain. 
Apparently, the bright red berries are inedible when they first ripen. 
Somehow, after 2-3 freezes, the freezing and thawing renders them edible. 
Then the waxwings move in...

Good birding,

Josh


Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/