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RE: Cedar Waxwings; and salamanders



Hi C-birders,

Before I get to the birds, I was out with Tracy Feldman - one of my Duke
Natural History Society buddies - from about 11:30 PM to 1 AM last night
watching over a hundred SPotted Salamanders have their annual orgy! It
looks like it might be rainy again tonight, so anyone who has a fish-free
pond (especially one that seasonally dries up and re-fills) near them
might want to go check tonight... Actually, I wasn't writing about that,
but because we saw *no* larval Marbled Salamanders, which are usually
common around now. Some folks predicted that last summer and fall's
drought would cause them to have a bad year. Anyone who has seen these and
wants to reassure me, or looked for them and not seen any and wants to
commiserate, contact me off the list...

On to birds:

For anyone who's gone too long in seeing the Dreaded OUtdoor Cat Thread
and what it can do to a birding listserv, it's reared its ugly head on the
Maryland listserv at
http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/MDOS.html

Otherwise, things look pretty quiet on the other birding listservs. A pair
of Southern Lapwings reported near Gainesville, FL, which are probably
escapes, are about the only really out-of-the-ordinary birds in the
southeastern US, other than a few holdover vagrants from previous weeks
and months. And some sad news from out west, being reported in several
places: apparently the last wild-hatched California Condor - a bird which
was captured for captive breeding, and later was released along with
several younger captive-raised birds - has been shot and killed. A story
is on-line at
http://www.surfbirds.com/cgi-bin/editornews/print.pl?article=155
About as close as you can get to an extinction without the real thing...

On Fri, 21 Feb 2003, Popke, Jeff wrote:
>
> Regarding waxwing invasions, I can say that here on the East Carolina
> University campus, the waxwings have indeed descended.  Every year around
> this time, they seem to lose their fear of humans, flocking in great numbers
> abound campus buildings to devour the berries of various landscape shrubs.
> Although I'm not certain what accounts for this behavior, I presume it is to
> 'fuel-up' for their northward migration.

DUke's campus has an annual waxwing invasion, which for many years
confused me. The berries they were eating - mostly Yaupon Holly - were
ripe and available all winter, and the birds were around this area all
winter, yet the waxwings invaded each year in February or March, no
earlier. Then I learned last fall that the fruits of Yaupon Holly and some
other plants are not edible, even to birds, unless they have been frozen
and then thawed at least 2-3 times. So while the berries looked ripe to
us, they couldn't actually be eaten until much later, as the birds knew
all along.

Good birding,

Josh


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

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