Birds – Worth A Dam

Birds of a Feather

heidi08 Beavers elsewhere, City Reports, Creative Solutions, Environmental, Friends of Martinez Beavers, New Species February 20, 2012

On the Fly – Birds of the Beaver Dam

Jeannine Gendar – Martinez Patch

The people at Worth A Dam, the group that has been advocating for the Alhambra Creek beavers since their 2006 arrival, have film of hooded mergansers at the beaver dam and great photos of other birds that are taking advantage of habitat improvements the beavers have made: kingfishers, cormorants, grebes, and egrets to name a few, and a couple of herons. Okay, technically egrets are herons, but I’m talking about green herons and black-crowned night-herons.

If you missed Jeannine’s beautiful ode to birds and beavers you should hop over to our friends at Patch and savor it. It’s a delightful reminder that the beavers have played a huge environmental and civic role in Martinez, and a good place to begin gathering your thoughts for their upcoming 5th anniversary!

Back at the beaver pond, songbirds too are finding their habitat improved. A 2008 study by the Wildlife Conservation Society found that where there are more beaver dams there are more songbirds. The dams and ponds recharge water tables and improve the health of streams. Taking out pondside trees, the beavers encourage low-growing plants; chewing willows and cottonwoods to the nubs, they stimulate new shoots on those trees. All of this creates cover for songbirds and nesting habitat for waterfowl.

Don’t you wish every the ‘Patch’ of EVERY city had a similar bird & beaver report? Hmm…we’ll work on that. For now THANK you Jeannine! This lovely article prompted two donations this morning from beaver supporters I haven’t even met! What an important look at our creeks through a new lens of feathers and fur!

Speaking of new friends, yesterday I interviewed FS hydrologist Suzanne Fouty of Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, and I will tell you that in addition being thoroughly delightful and dazzlingly brilliant she brought a lot of new words to the habitat conversation, including ‘cross-sectional’, ‘ungulate’, ‘buck and pole fencing’, and WOLVES.

You won’t want to miss this.

A Perfect Misunderstanding

heidi08 Educational, Environmental June 4, 2010

When I go outside to change the hummingbird feeder I am greeted by a perfect misunderstanding. Allow me to explain. While I’m reaching up to take down the feeder, the hummingbird flies towards me and hovers about. This is an observable fact, not subject to interpretation. It’s when we start to think about WHY he comes that we run into trouble.

In my human-centered, anthropomorphic brain, it appears that he is happy to see me and flying up with his bright colors to greet me and demonstrate his enthusiasm for my refilling the feeder. In my fantasy it appears that he likes me. A nice Disney image that leaves me feeling cheerful for an hour afterwards.

In his hummingbird brain, however, it appears that the big featherless monster is coming to take away his special container of bottomless, unblooming nectar. He flies at once to the scene to make a dramatic display and scare me away. He is certain his arrival is threatening. When I do something with the feeder and leave he feels he has done his job frightening me off his territory. He sits down at the feeder, satisfied with his menance and enjoys a well earned snack.

He feels victorious and I feel appreciated. We have a perfect misunderstanding.

I mention this because as I’ve been reading through trapping records I’ve been startled to see how trappers record observations of native americans. (Obviously some of them were worth sleeping with–and not only the females) but for the most part they were regarded as lazy and savage. How did they come to this startling treatise by observing the behavior of native people upon whose knowledge they very often depended? Easy.

“Natives took what they needed.”

Here they were in a land of plenty with fish-thick rivers and luscious trappable animals all around and they took only what they needed to feed and clothe their family and then spent the rest of their days talking or playing with their children. How else could it possibly be described other than “lazy?”

Mind you these trappers were men who traveled thousands of hard miles in pursuit of the very last beaver pelt, trailing horses piled high with bales of so many pelts that they used them as currency. These were men who ‘trapped out’ entire rivers, sometimes just so no one else would want it. Decimating the beaver population up one river and down the next, over and over, with more and more piles of pelts. They demanded that natives find them a passage over the mountains through the thickest snows (when the pelts were worth more) and when the natives told them it was not possible and unsafe, they called them lazy and fools. Then they would prowl around the camp until they found the one miscreant indian who promised HE could show them (for a price) and were stunned and betrayed when he eventually left them stranded in the snow-drenched sierras.

They called wisdom: cowardice and sufficiency: indolence and they did it all without the smallest trace of dramatic irony.

Just thought I’d mention it.

If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose,” the Walrus said,
“That they could get it clear?”
“I doubt it,” said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

Lewis Carrol

Photos from the gulf yesterday were beyond horrible, and Cheryl spent the day at IBRRC answering panicked phone calls from people who were wanting to know that there was some one there to take care of these birds. There is. They are. And they could use your help. These are pictures that hurt your heart to look at.

AP photographer: Charlie Riedel

Birds & their helpers need your Help!

heidi08 Environmental, New Species October 24, 2009

There’s a massive algae bloom off the Oregon and Washington coast. No one knows why, but it means that the oceans are covered with a thick foam. The foam washes away the protective oils on the water birds, leaving them without the ability to repel water and stay warm. Thousands of birds are washing up on shore, many dead or too weak to survive. The rescue center seen above had stepped boldly up to take care of scoters, grebes, loons, murres, and other shore birds from washington, but now is overwhelmed by its own birds as the effects of the bloom move south. They were overwhelmed and sent some birds north to a sister facility. Now they need help from California.

Enter IBRRC. (International Bird Rescue & Research Center). They are experts at dealing with these kinds of situations, but this is different. It’s like the effect of an oil spill without the oil.. They dispatched a volunteer friday night to go to Oregon and rent a truck that could bring some 200 birds back to their head quarters in suisun in animal carriers. They are starting with the loons which are the most time sensitive. In anticipation of the arrival they put out a massive volunteer call which is how I heard about it. Our own Cheryl Reynolds, will be there monday and probably many days after to help.

P. CHILTON/Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team

A red-throated Loon, covered in foam, lies in the sand near the Klipsan beach approach on the northern end of the Long Beach Peninsula. The bird was still alive when this photo was taken.

If you can help IBRRC or the Wildlife Center in Astoria, please do. The frontline folk have been struggling to keep up and IBRRC has only dealt with this kind of bloom once before. No one knows why it happens. Sometimes its entirely natural, and sometimes its triggered by the actions of man. What would a sea be like with no shore birds? Help if you can.