another book on sale; exotics, population, etc.

[Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>]

Hi Carolinabirders,

The Spectator (Triangle arts&entertainment weekly) has a column this week
by a woman who's just started birding. Entertaining reading. Wonder if she
knows about us?

Heard the song of a Chesnut-sided Warbler in the Duke Gardens this
morning. Didn't get a visual; sometimes Yellow Warblers, maybe even
redstarts, can sound awfully similar. Wish I could've crossed paths with
Jim and his Grey-cheeked Thrush, but they probably preceded me by an hour
or three...

Relented and went back to buy that half-price copy of "Chickadees, Tits,
Nuthatches and Treecreepers" from the Gothic Bookstore in Duke's Bryan
Center. Found they also had on sale a few copies of "The Hummingbird
Garden", by Mathew Tekulsky. At only $4 a copy, had to buy one, even
though he recommends a disturbing number of non-native plant species. Two
copies left, two days left in their sale, for anyone else with four bucks
burning a hole in their wallet!

Speaking of exotic species...

On Wed, 8 May 2002, Greg wrote:
>
> I don't think ... that an Eastern
> Bluebird would nest among the letters of a Wal-Mart sign if the way were
> made clear by the eradication of all House Sparrows.  I doubt that a Hairy
> Woodpecker would take up residence in the back of a traffic light, if E.
> Starlings weren't already there.

Actually, I'm inclined to disagree at least partially. I photographed a
pair of Great Crested Flycatchers nesting in the back of a streetlamp on
Islamorada a few years ago (which had been misidentified as La Sagra's,
which is why I photographed them). House and Carolina Wrens will nest just
about anywhere; and NC used to have breeding Bewick's Wrens, might they
come back if the exotics were gone? Bird that excavate their own cavities-
woodpeckers, chickadees, etc. - won't expand so much, but I think we might
be surprised by what other cavity-nesting species would do if the
Starlings and House Sparrows were gone.

Doves are a different issue, but I've heard that Mourning Doves have
declined at feeders in some parts of Texas as Eurasian Collared-Doves and
White-wings increased. We used to have sky-darkening flocks of Passenger
Pigeons around here; might the Mournings reach such proportions with less
competition?

> Perhaps, and I think probably, with the constant ship and plane traffic
> around the world today, if those birds (the starling, sparrow, and dove)
> WEREN'T introduced a hundred or so years ago, they would have made it here
> on their own by now.

Now that's another issue. I don't think the European birds would have made
it; it took several attempts to establish them, remember. But the Brown-
headed Cowbirds we were discussing recently show that a bird doesn't have
to be from the other side of an ocean to be a nonnative, anthropogenically
spread menace to indigenous species. Most of this country's non-native
dragonfly species (my Ph.D. research topic) hail from Latin America, and
most of them colonized under their own power, but not until humans had
altered the habitat enough to create ecological space for them. If we
didn't have House Sparrows, Starlings, and Rock Doves in our urban
landscapes, might we have other invaders instead? Ones that spread north
from Latin America rather than west from European colonies? If
Brown-headed Cowbirds had somehow been prevented from spreading east and
plaguing our forest species, might Bronzed or Shiny Cowbirds have done so
in their stead and been just as big a problem?

On Wed, 8 May 2002, Harrold, Eric S wrote:
>
> How can we expect to have early successional grassland species and other
> habitat specialists if we continually consume rare and vanishing habitats
> for the sake of housing subdivisions, roadways, and economic "obesity"?
(snip)
> Until we address population growth, we will only be treating symptoms of the
> disease.

The issue here in this country is not really population *growth*. It's
more the economic obesity Eric mentions. We all want to live someplace
crime-free, with 20 acres of beautiful woods and streams out back, but
with lots of roads so we can reach our jobs, stores, schools, etc. easily.
And many of us want to eat meat, and fresh seafood now and then, and to
drive massive vehicles because we've been brainwashed into thinking
they're safer (they aren't, really). And we all want lush green lawns
where our kids can run around barefoot, and we want feeders and pretty
shrubs that will attract the Cardinals and Cedar Waxwings out where we can
watch them from the kitchen window. And while some of us would approve of
landscaping with native plants instead of foreigners, well, it just seems
like too much trouble, and there's such good stuff on TV, and it takes
longer and costs us more to get developers and landscapers to work with
native species. And so the habitat where specialists like Grasshopper
Sparrows and Wood Thrushes can successfully breed gets smaller all the
time to make room.

On Wed, 8 May 2002, Melvin Hochhalter wrote:
>
> I really would like to hear (read) some thoughtful discussion on what we can
> do besides bashing that would help.

The main thing is education. We can all laugh here in our electronic ivory
tower, but thousands of people out there happily feed and house Starlings
and House Sparrows without the slightest idea that they're from another
country, introduced to make this continent seem more English (in the
Starling's case at least). I walk past folks feeding feral ducks in the
Duke Gardens every morning, including a new clutch of ducklings that
hatched last week, increasing the population. And even on this very
listserv, there are folks who are very defensive of their right to grow
Ligustrum (Privet), Mahonia (Oregon Grape), Mimosa, White Mulberry,
Bamboo, Chinese Wisteria, and other weeds, regardless of how many native
species disappear down the line because of it, or how much of our tax
money is being spent to eradicate those same species from wildlife
preserves over and over again as they repeatedly recolonize them from our
yards.

On the other hand, if everybody stopped spending money buying these
misbegotten pests, and instead started removing them, we might see a
greater variety of birds, butterflies, wildflowers, etc. And maybe even
pay less in taxes. But it's not going to happen until *everybody* - not
just this listserv, but all our friends, relatives, neighbors, etc. -
knows the facts. So we have to go out and tell people these things.

Stopping people from developing ever more habitat is probably too much to
hope for, at least for the next decade or two. But a goal we could achieve
sooner is getting people to develop and live on their land in ways more in
tune with the native ecosystem. Build around the trees, rather than
through them. Let weeds and shrubs grow tall, instead of mowing them into
a golf-course-like substrate. Landscape with American plants instead of
European and Asian ones. Let leaf litter and sticks pile deep and build
rich soil instead of raking them away. In fire-prone ecosystems, light
controlled fires instead of suppressing wild ones. In floodplains, either
don't build at all, or build on stilts, or just build cheaply so
rebuilding every 10-25 years is affordable.

Do all that, and maybe we'll find our yards populated with nesting
warblers and thrushes and tanagers, instead of (or in addition to) towhees
and cardinals and mockingbirds, not to mention starlings and cowbirds and
House Sparrows.

On Wed, 8 May 2002, Brian Murphy wrote:
>
> Many conservative "people" do work for conservation - http://www.rep.org/

Hey, that's not bad! A Republican website that opposes oil drilling in the
Arctic NWR, recognizes that Global Warming is a real problem, thinks
roadless areas should stay that way, opposes "takings" legislation
(which would make protecting the environment pretty much impossible)...
One of their essays ascribes warblers as having a minimum value of $5.2
billion per year... Why aren't these guys in charge of the whole
Republican party? I'd vote for them! I'm going to send this website to all
my Republican family members right now!

Good birding,

Josh


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

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