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Hummingfish and Swami-Swans
- To: carolinabirds <carolinabirds@duke.edu>
- Subject: Hummingfish and Swami-Swans
- From: Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>
- Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 16:52:16 -0400 (EDT)
- In-Reply-To: <01c12f83$a28dae60$f84674cc@default>
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Gary Phillips wrote:
>
> "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get
> better. It's not." (Dr. Seuss, "The Lorax")
Hi Carolinabirders,
Last Sunday the DNHS took a trip to Hemlock Bluffs. The birding was
average; Hairy Woodpecker probably the high point, a Northern Parula
singing. We spent most of the trip looking at fungi, which were abundant
and diverse; also some very young Five-Lined Skinks and Eastern Fence
Lizards, and an assortment of interesting plants and insects. Our
progress was so slow (as usual, for that group) that in over two hours
there, we never reached the parts with the Hemlocks!
One of my fellow grad students was very excited to find that the above-
cited book, "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss, was available in the visitor center
bookstore. She hails from Seattle, and apparently it's very hard to find
it out there, because the timber industry - afraid of the pro-tree
attitude that the book cultivates - has convinced most bookstores in the
region not to sell it. Now THAT's frightening. Remind me not to move to
the Pacific NW anytime soon...
On Monday, I accompanied my fiance to an interview for an internship at
the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill (she's now their new native plants
intern!). A multitude of female/immature Ruby-throated Hummingbirds
there, visiting feeders much more than flowers as far as I could tell.
Not so many leps, 5 or so skipper species and one big dark swallowtail,
but amazing numbers and variety of wasps and other pollinating insects.
In other tangentially bird-related news, I read from an on-line
conservation news service that the USF&WS is probably going to list the
Golden Sedge, Carex lutea, as endangered. The species was only discovered
a few years ago, and is known only from the North Carolina coast, eight
populations in the Cape Fear basin in Onslow and Pender counties. It
apparently grows mainly in and around pine savannahs, so the main bird
beneficiaries of its protection would be Bachman's Sparrow, maybe
Henslow's, and associated species. Red-cockaded Woodpecker, which also
likes pine savannahs, is already protected in its own right, of course.
Good birding,
Josh
Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)
jsr6@duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/