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A Really Inspirational Bird Day




HI . . .

I observed International Migratory Bird Day today (12 May 2001) 
pretty much the way I do most days--by running mist nets to sample 
the bird life here at Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural 
History--but the assortment of birds I caught had a special impact.

As I walked the net lanes, I spent a lot of time doing something 
International Migratory Bird Day is supposed to make us do--think 
about these birds we claim as our own but that we share with people 
in other states, other counties, even other continents. With each 
bird I caught, I was moved by its beauty and the story it could tell 
if only it could talk.

Appropriately for International Migratory Bird Day, nearly every bird 
I banded was a Neotropical migrant--a bird that hatched out somewhere 
in the U.S. or Canada but has probably spent more months of of its 
life in a country where the language is not English, but Spanish or 
Portuguese. I could only speculate about exactly where these birds 
have been since last fall, but perhaps the adult male Magnolia 
Warbler in full breeding plumage had wintered in Costa Rica and the 
the Red-eyed Vireo  had journeyed from whatever rain forests still 
stand in the Amazon River basin. Then there was the female Northern 
Parula that had been back from Nicaragua long enough to nest locally 
and develop a brood patch . . . the Louisiana Waterthrush that had 
walked streams in Panama like the one that flows from Hilton Pond  . 
. . the female Indigo Bunting that ate seeds and winter insects in 
Mexican scrub. . . the Gray Catbird that flew across the Caribbean 
from the West Indies . . . and the second-year Summer Tanager male 
that spent the last several months in Brazil molting into brilliant 
red plumage tinged with a few yellow feathers that belied its age.

Each of these birds has made its arduous round trip at least once, 
and each has survived potential dangers on both ends of the migratory 
path--from habitat destruction to communications towers, from feral 
cats to pesticide spray. How ever do they do it?

I think too often we take our avian friends for granted, so I'm 
especially grateful I could have these birds in the hand today as I 
pondered the life of each. Pardon my waxing poetic, but for me this 
was an especially inspirational International Migratory Bird Day, and 
I hope yours was, too.


Happy birding,

BILL
-- 

BILL HILTON JR., "The Piedmont Naturalist"
Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History
1432 DeVinney Road, York, South Carolina 29745 USA
hilton@hiltonpond.org, (803) 684-5852, eFax: (503) 218-0845

Please visit our web sites at http://www.hiltonpond.org and
http://www.rubythroat.org

"Never trust a person too lazy to get up for sunrise or too busy to
watch the sunset."					BHjr.