Monday, September 29, 2008

Saving Beautiful Birds

If you are like me, on those occasions when you see cranes, you find yourself staring at them in a state where time seems to stand still. Cranes are among the planet's most stunning birds, with their beautiful plumage and elegant grace. They have been the subject of prehistoric cave paintings, revealing that they have enthralled humankind for thousands of years. The International Crane Foundation, located in Baraboo, Wisconsin, fittingly only a few miles from the place where Aldo Leopold worked on his environmental classic A Sand County Almanac, is working to save these beautiful birds.

George Archibald and Ron Sauey started the foundation in 1973 after they met at Cornell University. It is located in Baraboo because Sauey's family is from there and they offered the two space in a horse barn on their property for their work. Since then, the foundation has moved to a larger nearby 95 acre area.

The foundation's facility, the only place in the world where all 15 species of cranes found on Planet Earth can be seen, allows visitors a thrilling up close view of these magnificent birds.
The Crane Foundation is also home to some of the world's foremost crane experts. These are the people who, in the 35 years of the foundations existence have learned to breed cranes using techniques such as using crane puppets to feed chicks to prevent them from becoming too attached to humans. They have also learned that to use ultralight aircraft to show the young cranes the migration routes south. Amazing! This work is key to efforts to save the birds, which are found on every continent except South America and Antarctica, and are imperiled in many places.

Ron Sauey died suddenly in 1987, but his legacy lives on in the efforts of this wonderful foundation in Baraboo, working to save these beautiful birds and to educate people and governments around the world about them.

Thanks are in order to this dedicated bunch for their efforts.

More Information:



Now enjoy some beautiful photographs of these magnificent birds: 


Sandhill Crane (Grus Canadensis) Chick




Cranes Flying in the Blue Sky, Hokkaido, Japan




A Pair of Japanese or Red Crowned Cranes Engage in a Courtship Dance





Sandhill Crane in Flight, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, USA




Three Japanese Red-Crowned Cranes (Grus Japonensis) in Snowy Flight




Grey Crowned Crane, Kenya




Sandhill Crane Stands Amid the Tall Grass of a Marsh




Common Crane Group Dancing Before Sunrise, Hornborga Lake, Sweden, Europe




Four Blue Cranes Cross a Flooded Pan on the Edge of the Etosha National Park




Sandhill Cranes Flying over a Lake, Sacramento, California




Sandhill Cranes in Flight and Lenticular Cloud Formation over Mt. Shasta, California




Sandhill Crane Chick, Grus Canadensis, Florida, USA




Red Crowned Crane (Grus Japonensis) Courtship Dance, Hokkaido, Japan


at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Kingbird Highway Revisited

Lately I have been conducting encore readings of some books that I love, and with regard to birding, one that falls into this category is Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder by Kenn Kaufman. This book is a marvelous birding adventure, the story of a "Big Year" quest by a teenager following his heart. It is filled with birding stories and the people he meets along the way. Nowadays Kaufman could regale the online birding community for months on end with a blog filled with these stories. And as a harbinger of things to come, he says early on in the book, "My sole intention was to learn about birds, but on the way I also learned some things about the world."

The book hooked me in right away as in at the outset he talks about when going someplace new, the first thing he thinks about is the birds he could possibly see. I can very much relate to that. Kenn Kaufman is from my generation, indeed we are the same age, so I can also identify with that "Dharma bum wanderlust" that, combined with his love of birding, helped fuel his trip.

One aspect of the book that was fun for me was all of the old bird species names. I grew up in birding with the likes of the Myrtle Warbler, and the Eurasian Green Winged Teal. The mention of the Ipswich Sparrow really sent me careening back into the past. That was a bird name I hadn't heard in a very long time. I had to go back to my 1947 edition of the Peterson Field Guide to look it up (Note: it is now in with the Savannah Sparrow).






I also had been some of the places that he visited in the book. Southeastern Arizona was one, High Island, Texas was another, and birding the woods around the ferry dock in Anacortes, Washington while waiting to go to the San Juan Islands was another. We both took one look at the woods and apparently had the same thought. I love the San Juan Islands so it was fun to read about his experiences there.

My favorite passage in the book is from page 117:

"Everything had worked out all right, just as Rich Stallcup had insisted it would: everything would always work out if you just went forward boldly into every experience."

I love that thought.

I think the spirit of the book and its author is summarized by this marvelous passage from page 62:

"I was free and aimed in the direction I had chosen. Like a leaf floating in a creek, I might be stalled briefly in a backwater eddy, but eventually the flow would pick me up and sweep me on downstream - toward my destination."

There is an excellent self-empowerment book called Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What! that has an appropriate thought worth pondering:

"You will never realize your best destiny through the avoidance of fear. Rather, you will realize it through the exercise of courage, which means taking whatever action is most liberating to the soul, even when you are afraid....If you do nothing more than choose what feels most "shackles off" to you moment by moment, you will fulfill your best destiny."

I think Kenn Kaufman embodies that spirit in this book and more power to him for that.




Boreal Owl
Photo Credit: USF&WS



************

Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding (Kaufman Field Guides)

Birders can memorize hundreds of details and still not be able to identify birds if they don’t really understand what’s in front of them.Today birders have access to almost too much information, and their attempts to identify birds can be drowned out by excess detail. The all-new Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding takes a different approach, clarifying the basics and providing a framework for learning about each group. Overall principles of identification are explained in clear language, and ten chapters on specific groups of birds show how these principles can be applied in practice.






at 1 comment:
Labels: , ,

Monday, September 8, 2008

Birds in Art Exhibition


There is a noteworthy art exhibition, running from now through Nov. 9, 2008, that celebrates the great beauty and diversity of birds. Since its inception in 1976, this exhibition, entitled Birds in Art, has earned a reputation as one of the world's most premiere wildlife art shows. It has become the flagship show for the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin.

This year the works of 112 artists from 14 countries including Japan, Sweden, South Africa, and France are represented in the show. Along with the art, the museum also features talks, events, and interactive activities for children.

With at least 1000 entries by more than 600 artists, competition is fierce. The art selection process, conducted by a national panel of judges spans several months.

The diversity of art is impressive, ranging from watercolors to oils to intricate drawings, and sculptures of brass, marble and wood. Says exhibiting sculptor, Don Rambadt, "What's so exciting about this show is getting like minded folks from all over the world together in one place, and realizing how everyone has such different interpretations of the same topic."

The artists have depicted courting cranes and iridescent songbirds, psychedelic loons, and elegant eagles, not to mention exotic birds from faraway places, such as Australian painter Debbie Sullivan's portrayal of the world's smallest penguin species, the Fairy Penguin. The depth of emotion attached to this exhibit by the artists is revealed by a quote from the museum's curator, Andy McGivern - "Artists really look at it as a high point in their career."

More Information:

Birds in Art Exhibiton
Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum

Museum Location: 700 North 12th Street, Wausau, Wisconsin.
Hours: Tues., Wed., Fri. 9 am to 4 pm; Thurs. 9 am to 7:30 pm; Sat. and Sun. noon to 5 pm.
Contact Information: (715) 845-7010, http://www.lywam.org/
at No comments:
Labels: ,

Monday, September 1, 2008

Locating Rare Birds Using eBird

It can be interesting and exciting for a birder to know about the locations of rare birds in their area or in an area they will soon be visiting. the terrific website, eBird (link in sidebar at left) has developed a couple of mechanisms, both focused around Google based resources linked up to the eBird database, for locating rare birds and they are today's topic.

First is a Google map based system labeled Jack Siler's eBird Rarity Map on the website home page. Clicking this link takes you to a Google based map with all of the little "pins" that indicate a rare bird sighting in North America. If you see a sighting in an area that interests you, you can mouseover the pin and see the species name. Then you can click on the sighting and get more details (shown in the image above - a Gray tailed Tattler).
A second mechanism for locating rare birds is a "Rare Birds Google Gadget" that you download and install. This software allows the rare bird sightings of your choosing to be downloaded to your Desktop. Pretty cool!

In the old days there were Birding Hotlines to get information on bird sightings, and now with the advent of the Internet and listservs, you can find out about rare bird sightings from all over North America easily and in a very timely manner. We have come a long way in this arena and it is marvelous development for birders!




at 1 comment:
Labels: ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Featured Post

Citizen Scientist - Reporting Leg Flags

My brother was recently in Florida and had occasion to photograph a shorebird in winter plumage that he could not immediately identify. Whil...