MONARCH WATCH ANNOUNCES BRING BACK THE MONARCHS CAMPAIGN

“In real estate it’s location, location, location and for monarchs and other wildlife it’s habitat, habitat, habitat”, said Chip Taylor, Director of Monarch Watch. Monarch Watch, started in 1992 as an outreach program dedicated to engaging the public in studies of monarchs, is now concentrating its efforts on monarch conservation. “We have a lot of habitat in this country but we are losing it at a rapid pace. Development is consuming 6,000 acres a day, a loss of 2.2 million acres per year. Further, the overuse of herbicides along roadsides and elsewhere is turning diverse areas that support monarchs, pollinators, and other wildlife into grass-filled landscapes that support few species. The adoption of genetically modified soybeans and corn have further reduced monarch habitat. If these trends continue, monarchs are certain to decline, threatening the very existence of their magnificent migration”, said Taylor.

To address these changes and restore habitats for monarchs, pollinators, and other wildlife, Monarch Watch is initiating a nationwide landscape restoration program called “Bring Back The Monarchs”. The goals of this program are to restore 19 milkweed species, used by monarch caterpillars as food, to their native ranges throughout the United States and to encourage the planting of nectar-producing native flowers that support adult monarchs and other pollinators.

This program is an outgrowth of the Monarch Waystation Program started by Monarch Watch in 2005. There are now over 4,000 certified Monarch Waystations – mostly habitats created in home gardens, schoolyards, parks, and commercial landscaping. “While these sites contribute to monarch conservation, it is clear that to save the monarch migration we need to do more,” Taylor said. “ We need to think on a bigger scale and we need to think ahead, to anticipate how things are going to change as a result of population growth, development, changes in agriculture, and most of all, changes in the climate,” said Taylor.

According to Taylor we need a comprehensive plan on how to manage the fragmented edges and marginal areas created by development and agriculture since it is these edges that support monarchs, many of our pollinators, and the many forms of wildlife that are sustained by the seeds, fruits, nuts, berries, and foliage that result from pollination. “In effect,” Taylor argues, “we need a new conservation ethic, one dealing with edges and marginal areas that addresses the changes of the recent past and anticipates those of the future.”

New study shows flamingos add natural color to their feathers to look good and attract mates

Flamingos apply natural make-up to their feathers to stand out and attract mates, according to a new study by Juan Amat, from the Estación Biológica de Doňana in Seville, Spain, and colleagues. Their research is the first to demonstrate that birds transfer the color pigments (carotenoids) from the secretions of their uropygial gland for cosmetic reasons. The uropygial or preen gland is found in the majority of birds and is situated near the base of the tail. The study is published online in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, a Springer journal.

There is evidence that the color of feathers may change due to abrasion, photochemical change and staining, either accidental or deliberate. Some bird species modify the color of their feathers by deliberately applying substances that are either produced by the birds themselves or from external sources. Among the substances produced by birds are the secretions of the uropygial gland, which may be pigmented orange, red or yellow.

Amat and team studied seasonal variations in plumage color in relation to courtship activity of the greater flamingo Phoenicopterus roseus in Spain. They then looked for the pigments that may tinge the plumage both in the secretions of the uropygial gland and on the surface of feathers. They also observed whether the birds displayed a specific behavior to acquire and maintain the coloration of their feathers. Lastly, they compared the timing of cosmetic coloration with annual reproductive patterns - egg-laying specifically.

They found that the plumage of flamingos was more colorful during periods in which the birds were displaying in groups and faded during the rest of the year. This fading occurred shortly after the birds started to breed. They also found evidence that the birds transferred carotenoids from their uropygial gland to their feathers by rubbing their head on their neck, breast and back feathers. Because rubbing behavior was much more frequent during periods when the birds were displaying in groups and the color of the feathers faded after egg hatching, the authors believe that the primary function of cosmetic coloration in flamingos may be related to mate choice.

They conclude: "Our findings in flamingos have important implications for the theories of sexual selection and signaling, highlighting the key role of the manipulation of plumage color by the birds themselves to improve signal efficacy."

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Reference
1. Amat JA et al (2010). Greater flamingos Phoenicopterus roseus use uropygial secretions as make-up. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology; DOI: 10.1007/s00265-010-1068-z

World will miss 2010 target to stem biodiversity loss, experts say

The world will miss its agreed target to stem biodiversity loss by next year, according to experts convening in Cape Town for a landmark conference devoted to biodiversity science.

The goal was agreed at the 6th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in April 2003. Some 123 world ministers committed to "achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the local, national and regional levels, as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth."

"We will certainly miss the target for reducing the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 and therefore also miss the 2015 environmental targets within the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to improve health and livelihoods for the world's poorest and most vulnerable people," says Georgina Mace of Imperial College, London, and Vice-Chair of the international DIVERSITAS program, which is convening its 2nd Open Science Conference Oct. 13-16 with 600 experts from around the world.

"It is hard to image a more important priority than protecting the ecosystem services underpinned by biodiversity," says Prof. Mace. "Biodiversity is fundamental to humans having food, fuel, clean water and a habitable climate."

"Yet changes to ecosystems and losses of biodiversity have continued to accelerate. Since 1992, even the most conservative estimates agree that an area of tropical rainforest greater than the size of California has been converted mostly for food and fuel. Species extinction rates are at least 100 times those in pre-human times and are expected to continue to increase."

However, she adds, "the situation is not hopeless. There are many steps available that would help but we cannot dawdle. Meaningful action should have started years ago. The next best time is now."

The DIVERSITAS conference, to be opened by UN Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UNEP, will call for new more science-based targets.

"A great deal of awareness-raising is still much needed with respect to the planetary threat posed by the loss of so many species. The focus of biodiversity science today, though, is evolving from describing problems to policy relevant problem solving," says Stanford University Prof. Hal Mooney, DIVERSITAS Chair.

"Experts are rising to the immense challenge, developing interdisciplinary, science-based solutions to the crisis while building new mechanisms to accelerate progress. Biodiversity scientists are becoming more engaged in policy debates."

Five roundtables between top science and policy specialists are scheduled on key issues such as efforts to create a science-based global biodiversity observing system (GEO-BON) to improve both coverage and consistency in observations at ground level and via remote sensing.

Says DIVERSITAS vice-chair Prof. Robert Scholes, who heads both GEO-BON and the local organization of the Cape Town conference: "GEO-BON will help give us a comprehensive baseline against which scientists can track biodiversity trends and evaluate the status of everything from genes to ecosystem services. The lack of such information became acutely apparent during preparation of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, and in formulating the CBD's 2010 targets."

Others, meanwhile, are creating an international mechanism to unify the voice of the biodiversity science community to better inform policy making, its function akin to that of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In Nairobi Oct. 5-9, environment ministers from countries the world over will consider the creation of such a body, called IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services), which would require UN General Assembly approval.

Interdisciplinary work underway to address key issue areas also include:

• How to demonstrate and quantify the economic costs and impacts on human welfare globally and locally due to biodiversity loss and ecosystems degradation (being conducted under the TEEB Initiative);
• How to understand, manage and conserve ecosystem services including, for example, the creation of economic incentives to prevent habitat destruction;
• How to share the benefits from the use of genetic resources fairly and equitably; and
• How to improve research institutions and the international stewardship of biodiversity.

Silent crisis: freshwater species "the most threatened on Earth"

Massive mismanagement and growing human needs for water are causing freshwater ecosystems to collapse, making freshwater species the most threatened on Earth with extinction rates 4 to 6 times higher than their terrestrial and marine cousins, according to conference experts.

Klement Tockner of the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, Berlin, says that while freshwater ecosystems cover only 0.8% of the earth's surface, they contain roughly 10% of all animals, including more than 35% of all vertebrates.

"There is clear and growing scientific evidence that we are on the verge of a major freshwater biodiversity crisis," says Prof. Tockner. "However, few are aware of the catastrophic decline in freshwater biodiversity at both local and global scale. Threats to freshwater biodiversity have now grown to a global scale."

The human implications of this trend are "immense," he adds, because freshwater species in rivers, lakes, ground waters, and wetlands provide a diverse array of vital natural services - more than any other ecosystem type.

The problem puts billions of people at risk as biodiversity loss affects water purification, disease regulation, subsistence agriculture and fishing. Some experts predict that by 2025 not a single Chinese river will reach the sea except during floods with tremendous effects for coastal fisheries in China.

Prof. Tockner says freshwater ecosystems and their species also absorb and bury about 7% of the carbon humans add annually to the atmosphere.

"Although small in area, these freshwater aquatic systems can affect regional carbon balances," he says.

"Freshwater ecosystems will be the first victims of both climate change and rising demands on water supplies. And the pace of extinctions is quickening - especially in hot spot areas around the Mediterranean, in Central America, China and throughout Southeast Asia."

"Despite their pivotal ecological and economic importance, freshwater ecosystems have not been of primary concern in policy making," adds Prof. Tockner. "Only recently did the European Union take the initiative to improve this situation through the EC Biodiversity Strategy. And in the U.S., recent Supreme Court decisions have made wetlands and small streams more vulnerable to loss."

Prof. Tockner, with colleague Charles Vörösmarty of the City University of New York, will present research at one of 25 conference symposia and invite fellow scientists to help formulate clear government policy recommendations and future research priorities.

Other conference presentations will cover issues ranging from biology to economics and international law, with emphasis on the positive benefits of conservation.

Showcased topics include:

• Assessments of the ecological and economic risks of the rising global trade in wildlife, many of which carry potentially harmful diseases. The USA alone imported almost 1.5 billion live animals between 2000 and 2006, experts say, with inadequate regard to the risks involved;
• The release next year of a report by the UN Convention on Biodiversity called the Global Biodiversity Outlook, to include a major focus on catastrophic biodiversity "tipping points," which complicate predictions. Such thresholds, if breached, will make global change impacts difficult to control, and slow and expensive to reverse.
• Biodiversity and carbon: How biodiversity loss impacts rates of natural carbon sequestration and carbon cycling on land and in the ocean. Efforts are underway to understand how levels of biodiversity correspond to atmospheric carbon levels throughout Earth's history in order to better predict the impact of biodiversity on today's rising carbon dioxide concentrations. Other scientists will warn that bioenergy and artificial carbon sequestration projects should be preceded by greater understanding of the environmental pressures these will create.

With respect to biodiversity and human health, scientist Peter Daszak of the US-based Wildlife Trust, says the emergence of new human diseases from wildlife such as HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and H5N1 avian influenza is a significant threat not just to public health and conservation but also the global economy.

Such deadly diseases impede wildlife conservation as pressure builds to eradicate reservoir populations and cause disruption to agriculture and trade, tourism and other key economies.

"The single outbreak of SARS cost US $30-50 billion and a truly pandemic H5N1 avian flu outbreak would cost an estimated US$300-800 billion," says Dr. Daszak.

He argues that disease emergence and spread can be predicted based on human environmental and demographic changes that underlie the emergence of these diseases.

"Such studies may ultimately allow us to identify the likely region of origin of the next zoonosis and provide strategies to prevent disease emergence and spread."

The conference will conclude with a major plenary, chaired by leading expert Lijbert Brussaard, of Wageningen University, The Netherlands, on ways to reconcile the competing Millennium Development Goals of protecting biodiversity, reducing world hunger and alleviating poverty.

"Ecosystem services are difficult to value, which has led to policy neglect and the irreversible loss of species vital to a well-functioning environment," says Anne Larigauderie, Executive Director of DIVERSITAS.

"It's important for experts to simply exchange the results of their latest research, but the goal of this conference is to collect insights of practical use to policy makers, and to demonstrate the social benefits of investment in species conservation," she says.

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DIVERSITAS 2nd Open Science Conference
"Understanding connections, adapting to change"

Cape Town International Convention Centre, South Africa
13-16 October, 2009

Birds could signal mass extinction

The first detailed measurements of current extinction rates for a specific region have shown that birds are the best group to use to track the losses. The study also reveals Britain may be losing species over ten times faster than records suggest, and the speed of loss is probably increasing: the losses from England alone may exceed one species every two weeks.

The study, by Oxford University researchers, shows that many types of obscure organism in Britain are going extinct at the same rate as the birds – evidence supporting fears of a global mass extinction. A report of the research is published in an upcoming issue of the journal Biological Conservation as countries prepare to meet in Japan 18-29 October to discuss biodiversity conservation targets.

‘Biodiversity loss is arguably much more serious and more permanent than climate change,’ said Clive Hambler of Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, lead author of the research. ‘But it's impossible to know if policy targets to reduce the loss are being met without accurate measures of extinction rates. Until now, we had only crude estimates for a very few types of organism. Now we've got evidence that many groups of living things – lichens, bugs, moths, fish, plants and so on - are going extinct at a very similar rate to the birds.’

Using Britain’s uniquely detailed natural history records, the researchers found that 1-5% of the region’s species in many groups were lost since 1800, with higher losses in the Twentieth Century compared to the Nineteenth. Using further data from the USA and across the whole globe, the researchers show that the patterns of extinction in Britain are likely to be typical of those found on land and freshwater elsewhere.

Mr Hambler said: ‘The birds are beautiful creatures, but they are also diverse, and many of them are specialised to particular habitats. This makes them sensitive to changes in their environment – such as loss of mature trees, or the drying out of swampy ground, or coastal development. And what makes them really special for monitoring extinction is that they are also exceptionally easy to study, anywhere in the world – so we can detect declines in their populations long before we notice losses of the more obscure things like slime moulds or mosses. It’s no coincidence they can signal environmental change.’

‘The underlying reason for the similarity of extinction rates in birds and the other living things is that habitat loss affects them in the same way. Our work supports the use of birds to indicate extinction rates in Britain, the USA and globally, and they should now be tried in places such as tropical forests where the bulk of other species will never be recorded.’

‘The recorded extinctions in any region are just the tip of the iceberg, because there are not enough observers,’ said Mr Hambler. For example, in March this year the British government's advisory body, Natural England, reported about 500 species lost from England since 1800. ‘The losses reported by Natural England are under 0.5% per century, from England’s 55,000 species,’ notes Mr Hambler. ‘Our research suggests that the actual losses could be over ten times this number, with about one species going extinct in England every fortnight.’

Natural England also reported species losses in England had apparently declined in recent decades, but the Oxford study suggests that this is not the case. Hambler and colleagues found there are about 1000 endangered species on the brink of extinction in Britain – indeed many of these may already be extinct.

‘People tend to be hesitant in declaring extinction, which leads to problems assessing the current rate,’ said Mr Hambler. ‘Many ancient and important habitats in Britain are threatened today because of human activity and population growth – whether it’s an increase in water use, growing use of wood fuel, or the growth of urban sprawl. Despite conservationists' efforts it's very likely extinction rates will continue to rise in Britain and globally for many years. These losses will impact on human welfare, and I’d say conservation needs a profile and resources even bigger than climate change.’

Alongside studies of birds, the researchers believe that recording rates of habitat loss will provide a good, simple measure of some elements of biodiversity loss.

Mr Hambler said: ‘This work strengthens the claim that the world is suffering a mass extinction. We can now be much more confident that across the planet the less conspicuous and less well-known species are going extinct at a similar high rate to that already witnessed in birds, fish and amphibians.’

Source: University of Oxford press release: http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2010/101005.html

Bee Pastures: Floral Havens Where Pollinators Can Prosper

Beautiful wildflowers, perhaps as alluring to bees as they are to people, might someday be planted in “bee pastures.” These floral havens would be created to help propagate larger generations of healthy, hard-working bees.

Pesticide-free bee pastures can be “simple to establish and—at perhaps only a half-acre each—easy to tend,” says entomologist James H. Cane. He’s with the Agricultural Research Service’s Pollinating Insects Biology, Management, and Systematics Research Unit in Logan, Utah, about 80 miles north of Salt Lake City.

Cane has conducted bee-pasture-related experiments for about 4 years, working both in a research greenhouse and at outdoor sites in Utah and California. He says species of pastured pollinators could include, for example, the blue orchard bee, Osmia lignaria. This gentle bee helps with pollination tasks handled mainly by the nation’s premier pollinator, the European honey bee, Apis mellifera.

California bluebell (Phacelia campanularia). (D1845-1)

Today, millions of bees are needed, every year, to pollinate orchards and fields. Planting pastures for native blue orchard bees, for instance, could help meet that need. Cane estimates that, under good conditions, blue orchard bee populations could “increase by as much as four- to fivefold a year” in a well-designed, well-managed bee pasture.

Cane gives this brief explanation of how the pasture idea would work: Blue orchard bees would be taken out of a bee manager’s winter storage and brought to the pasture, where they would emerge from their cocoons, mate, and, if female, lay eggs, before dying.

The following year, some of the new generation of bees that developed from those eggs would be brought to commercial almond orchards to pollinate the trees’ cream-white blooms. But most of that generation would be returned to their parents’ pasture to produce yet another, hopefully larger, generation.

Ideally, this cycle would continue year after year, with each year’s new generation larger than the one it replaced.

Baby blue eyes (Nemophila menziesii). (D1846-1)

Best Bets for a Bountiful Bee Pasture

In their experiments, Cane and colleagues have studied wildflowers that might be ideal for planting at bee pastures in California. In particular, the team was interested in early-flowering annuals that could help bolster populations of blue orchard bees needed for pollinating California’s vast almond orchards. The research resulted in a first-ever list of five top-choice, bee-friendly wildflowers for tomorrow’s bee pastures in almond-growing regions.

These native California plants are: Chinese houses (Collinsia heterophylla), California five-spot (Nemophila maculata), baby blue eyes (N. menziesii), lacy or tansy phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia), and California bluebell (P. campanularia).

Though blue orchard bees gathered nectar and pollen from all of these species—a key requirement for wildflowers on the list—the bees’ obvious favorite was the bright-pink blossoms of the Chinese houses plants.

Lacy (or tansy) phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia). (D1847-1)

Wildflower species had to have more attributes than merely appealing to bees, however. Cane’s team made sure that each of the select species flourishes in the same climate and soil as that of almond orchards, and that the wildflowers bloom at about the same time of year as those trees.

These features help make it feasible and practical for bee managers who are busy fulfilling a commercial almond pollination contract to—at the same time—manage a bee pasture.

The wildflowers also met other criteria: They are rich in pollen and nectar and are reasonably easy to grow. And their seed is commercially available.

There was yet more that the researchers determined before deciding that the wildflowers were pasture-perfect. For example, the scientists either newly determined or confirmed the amount of pollen and nectar produced by the plants, and they noted the timing and duration of the bloom. They estimated how many flowers were produced per acre, then calculated the “carrying capacity” of each species, that is, the number of blue orchard bees that these plants could nourish.

Blue orchard bee on a California five-spot flower (Nemophila maculata). (D1842-1)

Cane estimates that every 10 square yards of pasture that is planted with a mix of these five attractive flowers could provide enough pollen and nectar to support 400 mother bees. In turn, these pastured parents could produce enough progeny to—the following year—pollinate 3 acres of almond trees.

Two bee businesses in California are already using the findings to propagate more bees, Cane notes. He collaborated in the research with support scientist Glen Trostle at Logan; former Logan technician Stephanie Miller; AgPollen LLC colleague Steve Peterson, and others. ARS and the Modesto-based Almond Board of California funded the studies.

Cane notes that the bee-pasturing approach could perhaps be developed for other regions where other tree crops that blue orchard bees pollinate are grown, such as the cherry, apple, or pear orchards of the Pacific Northwest.

Entomologist James Cane examines wildflowers in a Logan, Utah, test plot. (D1044-1)

Bee pasturing isn’t a new idea. But the studies by Cane and his collaborators are likely the most extensive to date.

For the foreseeable future, bees will remain in great demand. And the bee pastures that Cane proposes are in perfect harmony with the pollination needs of almond blossoms and wildflowers alike.

“Bee pasturing,” he says, “is an efficient, practical, environmentally friendly, and economically sound way for bee managers to produce successive generations of healthy young bees.”—By Marcia Wood, Agricultural Research Service Information Staff.

This research is part of Crop Production, an ARS national program (#305) described at www.nps.ars.usda.gov.

James H. Cane is in the USDA-ARS Pollinating Insects Biology, Management, and Systematics Research Unit, 5310 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322; (435) 797-3879.

"Bee Pastures: Floral Havens Where Pollinators Can Prosper" was published in the August 2010 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

THE BIRDING COMMUNITY E-BULLETIN: October 2010

This Birding Community E-bulletin is being distributed to active and concerned birders, those dedicated to the joys of birding and the protection of birds and their habitats.

This issue is sponsored by NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC and the wonderful bird and birding books they make available:
www.shopng.com/birdbooks

You can access an archive of past E-bulletins on the website of the National Wildlife Refuge Association (NWRA):
www.refugenet.org/birding/birding5.html

RARITY FOCUS

On 5 September, Larry Manfredi found a calling Cuban Pewee at Long Pine Key in Everglades National Park, Miami-Dade County, Florida. Larry reported that the bird had a distinctive call, which is what immediately drew his attention to it. Although the bird initially flew away, it was soon relocated nearby, close to the area's nature trail.

This species is a resident in the northern Bahamas and in Cuba. If you are unfamiliar with the species, for more information you might check the National Geographic Guide (fifth edition, page 294-295).

This bird represents the third fully documented record for the U.S. The previous two records were both from Boca Raton, Florida, in the early spring of 1995 and the fall of 1999, respectively. There are also two previous one-day sightings, one from Key Largo in 2001 and another report from many years ago at the Dry Tortugas, neither of which were fully documented.

Fortunately, this individual bird was seen or heard through 27 September, most often near gate 3 by the Long Pine Key nature trail. To the delight of many visitors from near and far, the Cuban Pewee was readily found in the mornings, when it was most likely to be heard calling. By mid-morning it would usually be perched by the gate 3 area of the nature trail.

For photos and audio notes by Larry Manfredi, see here:
www.southfloridabirding.com/html/recent_rarities..htm


LEAD ISSUE SETBACK

Last month we reported on a multi-organizational attempt to get the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the use of lead in lead bullets, shot, and fishing sinkers because of the pernicious impact that lead has on wildlife:
www.refugenet.org/birding/SepSBC10.html#TOC09

The EPA's original approach was to consider polling the public for its reaction to the petition, a process which could have taken a couple months. Ultimately, however, the EPA dismissed the petition, claiming that the circumstances fell outside its jurisdiction under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Under this act, the EPA may regulate "chemical substances" under certain circumstances, but Congress had excluded any article the sale of which is subject to the tax imposed by section 4181 of the Internal Revenue Code. Still, section 4181 actually taxes firearms, shells, and cartridges, not bullets.

Apparently, the EPA is still considering how to handle the issue of lead fishing sinkers.

Appropriately, and especially with regard to fishing, The Wildlife Society and the American Fisheries Society have long recognized the toxicity of lead. Additionally, non-toxic shot has been required for all waterfowl hunting under federal and state law since 1991.

The organizations behind the petition are regrouping, and you can find further details here:
www.independent.com/news/2010/sep/28/epa-wont-bite-bullet/


IBA NEWS: MORE ON THE MBCC CONNECTION

In mid-September, the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission met to decide on how best to invest Migratory Bird Conservation Fund dollars for conservation. Duck Stamp monies currently account for a large proportion of the MBCF.

A dozen investments were made on Refuge lands; some small, some large, some simply good, and some very impressive. For full details on the actions of the MBCC, including a listing of the sites and acreage, see here:
http://vocuspr.vocus.com/vocuspr30/Newsroom/Query.aspx?SiteName=fws&Entity=PRAsset&SF_PRAsset_PRAssetID_EQ=111757&XSL=PressRelease&Cache=True

The funds used to acquire 12,473 acres totaled over $21 million.

Unknown to many people is the fact that at least nine of the 12 actions were for properties that have already ranked as Important Bird Areas (IBAs) in the U.S.!

For additional information about worldwide IBA programs, and those across the U.S., check the National Audubon Society's Important Bird Area program web site at:
www.audubon.org/bird/iba/


IMBD: OCTOBER IN THE CARIBBEAN

This month, Caribbean conservation leaders, researchers, and nature enthusiasts will join forces to promote public awareness surrounding the incredible phenomenon of fall migration. This celebration, lead by the Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (SCSCB), will be the third time that International Migratory Bird Day (IMBD) activities have coalesced in the Caribbean. The SCSCB, the largest organization devoted to wildlife conservation in the Caribbean, will coordinate month-long Caribbean-wide activities, most of which will take place on Saturday, 9 October. Many of the island celebrations will have a "Welcome Home Migrants" theme.

Although many migrant bird species will be highlighted on different islands, the Peregrine Falcon will serve as the flagship species throughout the Caribbean for this year's IMBD celebration.

You can get many more details here:
www.scscb.org/programs/program-imbd-2010.htm


BOOK NOTES: MEGA-PHOTOGRAPHIC FIELD GUIDE

Birders will eagerly welcome THE STOKES FIELD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA (Little Brown & Co, 2010). This comprehensive, all-inclusive new field guide from Donald and Lillian Stokes is brimming with 3,400 stunning photographs illustrating 854 species. This is unequivocally the most spectacular compendium of North American bird identification photographs ever assembled between two covers. With high-quality depictions of the essential plumages of virtually every species and subspecies currently on the American Birding Association (ABA) Checklist, this monumental new volume offers birders some of the most up-to-date information on field identification of North American birds currently available. The guide also contains many innovative text and layout features, and an accompanying CD with more than 600 sounds and songs of 150 common birds. Handsome, comfortably sized at 5.5 x 8.5 inches, and affordable - at less than $25 - this volume significantly resets the bar for North America field guides.
LATE NOTE: As we finished this month’s E-bulletin, we received the latest National Geographic entry in the world of books on birds and birding, Les Beletsky’s GLOBAL BIRDING. Its 320 pages invite the reader to pursue the birds of all the continents. Adventures and exploration abound. We will cover the volume more thoroughly with the November E-bulletin, but we will also offer copies in our usual National Geographic-sponsored quiz this month. (For details, see the quiz notice at end of this E-bulletin.)


SHORT-TAILED ALBATROSS KILLED IN LONGLINE FISHERY

A Short-tailed Albatross was killed as a result of being caught on a longline fishing hook from a cod boat in Alaskan waters last month. This is believed to be the first recorded death of one of these Endangered birds by a U.S. commercial fishing vessel since 1998.

The albatross which was killed in the Bering Sea wore a metal band identifying it as a seven-and-a half-year-old bird from Torishima Island, Japan, where the majority of the world’s Short-tailed Albatrosses breed.

The species, whose population once numbered in the millions, was devastated by commercial feather hunting at the turn of the last century. The birds were thought to be extinct after 1939 when a volcano erupted on Torishima Island, but a few young successfully survived at sea. The total population of this Endangered seabird is thought to currently number about 3,000 individuals.

In 1990, a North Pacific Groundfish Observer Program was implemented on the domestic fishing fleet in Alaska to provide independent information on a variety of birds impacted by fishing, including Short-tailed Albatrosses. Since the program’s start, fisheries managers have developed mitigation strategies that have reduced the number of all albatrosses (including Laysan, Black-footed, and Short-tailed Albatrosses) killed by commercial fishing boats from over 1,000 in 1993 to fewer than 150 in 2004. These estimates are based only on the subset of boats with marine observers. Additional mortality has probably occurred on unobserved fishing boats throughout this species’ range during this time period.

This month, the Northern Pacific Fishery Management Council will consider reworking the observer program, a move that could significantly improve observer data, extending coverage to the commercial halibut fleet and to groundfish vessels less than sixty feet in length which are currently exempt from the need to carry observers.


TIP OF THE MONTH: AN INTER-AMERICAN BOOK CONNECTION

Last month we suggested that you share a bird book with someone locally:
www.refugenet.org/birding/SepSBC10.html#TOC12

This month we suggest that you share a field guide with someone elsewhere in the hemisphere.

One way to do this is to contribute a bird field guide to a locality somewhere in Latin America or the Caribbean with a bird-oriented counterpart through Birders’ Exchange, a project of the American Birding Association.

After you return from a birding trip to Mexico, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, or other location in Latin American or the Caribbean, consider recycling your field guide to that country that you may not use again. Birders' Exchange will then pass it along to a student, researcher, or teacher from that country or location, or at least to someone who can make good use of the guide. When you are ready to share a book, pack it up and send it to:
Birders’ Exchange
c/o ABA
4945 N 30th St, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO 80919

In the same spirit, a number of groups, including the Black Swamp Bird Observatory, the Sonoran Joint Venture, and Environment for the Americas have been cooperating to help put Kenn Kaufman's Spanish-language version of his North America field guide – Guia de campo a las aves de Norteamerica - into the hands of Spanish-speakers on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border.

Here's how you can help: Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO) has arranged to purchase the book at the deep discounted price of $12.00. You can donate the cost of a book (or books) and have a name plate inside the front cover placed there recognizing you as the donor. BSBO will then ship the books to the partner organization for their outreach programs. You can get more details about how to participate here:
www.bsbo.org/kenn_kaufman.htm


SPRAGUE’S PIPIT: IN ESA LIMBO

In mid-September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced the results of a 12-month finding on a petition to list the Sprague's Pipit as Endangered or Threatened and to designate critical habitat for the species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of 1973. After its review, the USFWS found that such a listing was warranted.

However, listing is "currently precluded by higher priority actions to amend the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants." Thus, the species has been added to an already long list of "candidate species."

Essentially, it’s “take a number and get in line.”

For the full USFWS announcement see here:
www.fws.gov/mountain-prairie/pressrel/10-61.htm


A PRIMER ON HOW TO PREPARE BIRD SKINS

The Beaty Biodiversity Museum (University of British Columbia) has launched an on-line series of instructions with lots of fine details on how to prepare bird study skins. This series also includes links for videos, PDFs, and related websites to provide additional information and techniques.

This museum site will provide helpful instructions for the staff of nature centers, small museums, and bird observatories desiring to make their own prepared skins (e.g., spread wings), either for their own use or for outreach purposes.

Initiated by Ildiko Szabo, an Honorary Assistant Curator, the project also reminds interested parties that it is essential that such centers or field stations have appropriate permits, or else are covered under some other existing permit, allowing them to possess wild bird parts covered by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Parties interested in skinning birds need to have these permits well before preparing any birds skins.

The bird prep site is up and running at:
www.beatymuseum.ubc.ca/projects.html

Later this fall, a forum will be added to the website site to enable people to ask questions and engage in ongoing dialogue.


USEFUL FARM-BILL GUIDE

Among useful publications recently released is a new 72-page guidebook to the 2008 Farm Bill and written primarily for land trusts and private landowners. It's a cooperative project authored by Aimee Weldon and coordinated among conservation NGOs, land trusts, the Intermountain West Joint Venture, the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI), and the Sustainable Ag Coalition. This publication can assist land trusts and landowners to better utilize the technical assistance and significant pots of money available from Farm Bill conservation programs. Bird conservationists should pay heed to this approach.

You can find the full publication here:
www.defenders.org/resources/publications/programs_and_policy/habitat_conservation/private_lands/living_lands/conserving_habitat_through_the_federal_farm_bill.pdf


LOOKING FOR COLOR BANDED SHOREBIRDS

Also in the category of helpful guides, the September issue of WHSR (Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve) News has a very useful and updated "birding for banded shorebirds" piece on gaining an understanding of those color bands that can sometimes be seen on migrating shorebirds anywhere in our hemisphere. Under the Pan American Shorebird Program (PASP), researchers use one (or two) specific flag color(s) to indicate the country where the bird was banded. The placement, sequence, and color of the accompanying bands are all described and explained in fine detail here:
www.whsrn.org/news/article/birding-banded-shorebirds-basics-updated


ONE RED KNOT'S RECORD-BREAKING FLIGHT

On the subject of hemispheric migrating shorebirds, we have an amazing story to share this month. This spring, shorebird researchers analyzed the year-long data recorded by the sunrise- and sunset-sensitive geolocators that had been attached to migrating Red Knots in New Jersey in May 2009.

One of the recaptured knots had flown nearly 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) in six days, a record-breaking distance for a non-stop flight by a Red Knot. It flew across the Amazon and the Atlantic Ocean between southern Brazil and North Carolina, shattering the previous known Red Knot record by nearly 700 miles. In the previous summer, that same Red Knot flew non-stop for eight days between Canada’s Hudson Bay and the Caribbean, a distance of 3,167 miles (5,100 kilometers).

These are just some the fascinating results published last month in the bulletin of the International Wader Study Group by a group of shorebird researchers from the United States, Canada, Argentina, Britain, and Australia. The lead author, Larry Niles, and his colleagues employed a relatively new technique - sunrise- and sunset-sensitive geolocators attached to the legs of Red Knots in New Jersey - to reveal details on the annual migration of this species. Red Knots can winter as far south as Tierra del Fuego, South America, and breed in the Arctic.

To see more on this amazing Red Knot, the geolocator technology applied, the researchers doing the work, and a migration map and photos, visit:
www.whsrn.org/alertsupdates/alert/20100920


BACK TO THE GULF: OIL STILL COMING ASHORE

And just to remind you, as of 19 September, the BP Macondo 252 gusher was finally capped and sealed, even though attendant issues remain.

Shortly after the "kill" announcement was made, oil was still coming ashore in the shallow waters closest to the wetlands and beaches in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. This was according to reports from federal teams using shovels and snorkeling gear to survey the coastline for submerged oil.

Even with the oil away from shore and out of view, it remains ready to impact fish and other marine creatures, just as it will be waiting to impact wintering bay ducks, grebes, and loons, among other bird species due to arrive on the Gulf coast for the winter.

We will continue to report on this important issue in future issues of the E-bulletin.


LOSS OF A FINE ARTIST: ROBERT V. CLEM

It is with sadness this month that we note the passing of the very talented bird artist, Robert Verity Clem. Bob Clem is perhaps best known for his magnificent shorebird paintings that appear in THE SHOREBIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA, edited by Gardner D. Stout and text by Peter Matthiessen and Ralph S. Palmer (Viking Press, 1967).

Though not widely published, Bob Clem’s bird paintings were exceptional in their detail, accuracy, and the dramatic settings in which he often portrayed his favorite subjects, especially raptors and shorebirds. There are some art critics who feel his work belongs on a par with that of Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Robert Bateman, and Lars Jonsson.

Bob passed away quietly on 17 September at his home in Chatham, Massachusetts, at age 76.


THIS MONTH’S QUIZ FOR A NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BIRD BOOK

To celebrate National Geographic’s connection with the E-bulletin, we have some fine National Geographic books to distribute to E-bulletin readers. Readers who choose to enter our quick-and-easy contest have the chance to win one of these books. Each quiz question will either relate to one of our news items for the previous month, or it will relate to some event or experience that is due to occur during the current month.

For more on the excellent NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC books, see:
www.shopng.com/birdbooks

There will undoubtedly be multiple readers who answer our monthly question correctly, so we will only be able to distribute five copies to readers whose names are picked at random from all those submitting correct answers. Because of shipping constraints, only folks residing in the U.S. or Canada are eligible.

The prize this month will be GLOBAL BIRDING, a book that we touch on above and that will the subject of a next month’s review. We will have five copies to distribute.

For more on this book, see here:
http://shop.nationalgeographic.com/ngs/browse/productDetail.jsp?productId=6200640

Question for this month:
If you see a Red Knot next month with an orange flag on its leg, in what country would it have been banded?

Please send us your answer (along with your ground mailing address) by 18 October to:
birdingebulletin1@verizon.net

Question for last month: When the Bald Eagle was removed from the list of Endangered Species under the Endangered Species Act, it was still protected under two federal laws. The first is the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. What is the second?

The answer: The Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 or - as amended the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

Last month’s winners were Laurel Barnhill (Swansea, SC), Debbie Beer (Springfield, PA), Brian J. Byrnes (Audubon, PA), Kathi Davis (Springfield, IL), and Roberta Roberts (Seattle, WA). Congratulations to these winners.

- - - - - - - - -
You can access past E-bulletins on the National Wildlife Refuge Association (NWRA) website:
www.refugenet.org/birding/birding5.html

If you wish to distribute all or parts of any of the monthly Birding Community E-bulletins, we simply request that you mention the source of any material used. (Include a URL for the E-bulletin archives, if possible.)

If you have any friends or co-workers who want to get onto the monthly E-bulletin mailing list, have them contact either:

Wayne R. Petersen, Director
Massachusetts Important Bird Areas (IBA) Program
Mass Audubon
718/259-2178
wpetersen@massaudubon.org
or
Paul J. Baicich
410/992-9736
paul.baicich@verizon.net

We never lend or sell our E-bulletin recipient list.

Climate change forcing a 'move it or lose it' approach to species conservation?

What does it take to save a species in the 21st century? The specter of climate change, with predicted losses to biodiversity as high as 35 percent, has some scientists and managers considering taking their conservation strategies on the road.

Managed relocation (MR) is literally the physical relocation of endangered or threatened species of plants and animals, by humans, to new, and foreign geographical climes. It addresses the concern that climate shifts may make many species' historical ranges environmentally inhospitable, and that the rapid speed of change and habitat fragmentation will prevent them from adapting to these new conditions or moving themselves. And while conservationists argue that the practice may not preserve some species, such as the polar bear, relocation is a hotly debated option for others' long-term survival.

Arizona State University environmental ethicist Ben Minteer and ecologist James P. Collins ask hard questions about the practice, also known as assisted colonization, assisted migration or assisted translocation, in their article "Move it or Lose it" published October 1 in the journal Ecological Applications.

Stress on native species is just one of the unknowns that come into play with translocation of species. There also remains the more critical question of how to evaluate such management decisions, according to Minteer, an associate professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences and researcher in the Center for Biology and Society, and Collins, a Virginia G. Ullman Professor of Natural History and the Environment in ASU's School of Life Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

"New approaches to conservation, such as MR mean the need for a new 'ecological ethics' geared toward problem-solving in ecological research and policy," says Minteer. "Beyond asking 'should' we do it, there's the more pragmatic ethical question: what separates a 'good' from a 'bad' MR activity?" In a time of rapid global change, Collins says that "ecologists and biodiversity managers will have to think hard about not only what management actions are possible, but also which ones are acceptable ethically."

Such discussion is as critical as the technical and scientific questions of relocation: the "can we do it and how we do it," the authors state.

Minteer points out that while moving species around is nothing new, the climate change rationale for doing so is. "Looking past creating parks and shielding species from bullets, bulldozers and oil spills in favor of the anticipatory relocation for conservation purposes strikes many as different, in terms of motive and perhaps the extent of the consequences."

Minteer and Collins's call to reassess conservation goals in the face of climate change is timely. While the practice has no guarantees of success, managed relocation of species is already being put into practice. The Florida torreya tree is an example, along with the proposed relocation of the Quino Checkerspot butterfly and the Iberian lynx.

Collins says that the real scientific concern with species relocation – voiced by prominent skeptics – is that crossing evolutionary boundaries via managed relocation will produce a number of negative ecological and genetic consequences for species and systems on the receiving end.

How to leap the ethical gulf separating decisions about which species should be moved and "saved" is also critical to the debate. Though some argue that human activity has already played an active role in shifting species and that some populations are "naturally" undergoing range shifts without assistance due to climate change in response to human pressures as well as natural ones.

However, as Minteer points out, "There is also the more philosophical objection to the fact that 'we' are doing this, rather than the populations themselves, and that this is therefore another example of human arrogance toward wild species and the environment more generally."

Does the shift to focus on relocation strategies mean that more traditional routes to preserve species, such as species migration corridors that connect forest patches, will become anachronistic?

"Traditional philosophy and policy of conserving species will likely change to reflect a more anticipatory and interventionist mode of thinking," Minteer says. "What this spells for conventional norms of ecological preservation is that they may have to give way to a more dynamic and 'novel systems' model rather than historical ones."

In other words, the "metabolism" of conservation will have to speed up to keep in step with climate change, Minteer believes.

Some believe that the distraction from the use of traditional protected areas and historical systems models, will also, once managed relocation is legitimized, open the floodgates and that people will start moving species willy nilly around the landscape. "I think that fear is exaggerated, though the precedent that would be set for ecological policy by formally adopting MR, even as a last resort, is indeed a significant issue," says Minteer.

"How to formulate new approaches to ecological research and management landscapes in an era of rapid and global environmental change raises original and difficult ethical questions about how to save species and protect landscapes," Collins states. "We can improve the decisions we make by using more collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to such problem-solving and decision-making."

Source: Arizona State University press release

Why Do Autumn Leaves Bother to Turn Red?

Soils may dictate the array of fall colors as much as the trees rooted in them, according to a forest survey out of North Carolina.

By taking careful stock and laboratory analyses of the autumn foliage of sweetgum and red maple trees along transects from floodplains to ridge-tops in a nature preserve in Charlotte, N.C., former University of North Carolina at Charlotte graduate student Emily M. Habinck found that in places where the soil was relatively low in nitrogen and other essential elements, trees produced more red pigments known as anthocyanins.

Habinck's discovery supports a 2003 hypothesis put forward to explain why trees bother to make red pigments, by plant physiologist William Hoch of Montana State University, Bozeman. Hoch found that if he genetically blocked anthocyanin production in red-leafed plants, their leaves were unusually vulnerable to fall sunlight, and so sent less nutrients to the plant roots for winter storage.

For trees living in nutrient-poor soils, then, it makes sense to produce more anthocyanins, which protect the leaves longer, so as much nutrient as possible can be recovered from leaves before winter sets in. It is, after all, the process of recovering of nutrients from leaves which turns leaves from green to yellow, orange and sometimes anthocyanin-red.

The trees Habinck studied appear to be acting in accordance with Hoch's hypothesis. "It makes sense that anthocyanin production would have a function, because it requires energy expenditure," said Habinck. Put in economic terms, anthocyanins are an investment made by stressed trees in situations where they stand to gain from the extra recovery of nutrients from leaves. It's not about the showy color, but about survival.

"The rainbow of color we see in the fall is not just for our personal human enjoyment -- rather, it is the trees going on about their lives and trying to survive," said Habinck's advisor, Martha C. Eppes, a soil scientist and assistant professor of Earth sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Eppes will present the research at the Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, Monday, 29 October, in Denver, CO.

The reason the soil-leaf color connection wasn't made long ago is partly because Hoch's hypothesis was needed to put it into perspective. It also might be that many plant researchers were missing the forest for the trees.

"I think that most of the work has been done by biologists looking at production of anthocyanins in trees themselves," said Eppes. They hadn't stepped back and looked at patterns of tree color.

Eppes wants to follow up Habinck's study with a wider analysis of satellite data showing tree color which can be compared to geological maps of the types of soils over large portions of land.

source: Geological Society of America press release: http://www.geosociety.org/news/pr/07-57.htm.