We invite beginners of all ages to our introductory walks on the first Saturday of each month. The walks begin at 9am and meet in the parking lot near the Monolith structure at the South end of the Sheraton Hotel. Binoculars and field guides will be available to loan. Call Roberta Winchell, 530-945-8342, for more information.
Tag Archives | birds
A Burning Question Beyond a Bird’s-eye View
Osprey Adult Shading Young
Something’s wrong, and the birds can’t figure it out. Day to day and year to year, it’s hotter. The birds go about their daily lives as they always have, and their days are too few, their minds too scripted, to even see that there’s a change. But they pant more. Vigor wanes, and they sing less. Rather than snuggling down to warm their eggs and chirp gently to the young inside, they stand over the eggs to shade them. Nestlings die from dehydration and heat exhaustion.
And then the fires hit. Most nestlings had already fledged this year, so at least for the mobile songbirds, and probably for most of the quail, turkeys, grouse, and roadrunners, too, escape was possible—a little by foot, and a lot by flight. Of course not all survived the firestorms, but Shasta Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation reported a single avian burn victim, a Great-horned Owl with scalded feet.
Where did they fly? People who lost their homes might be able to tell you: wherever they could. But housing grows short. Even where humane values are diligently exercised there is upheaval. And birds are not particularly humane. They are birds, after all, not people.
Even with their best quail-like fellowship, they must crowd into smaller areas where there is still water to drink and vegetation to support the insects they feed on. But not all those places are seasonally ready to support them. The berries may not have ripened, and the fall salmon are not yet decaying along the riverbanks. Disease spreads more readily.
Then comes the smoke. Most birds don’t live that long, so they may be protected from longer-term ailments like lung cancer. But like children they breathe quickly, so are probably more prone to asthma and bronchial infections, and may suffer similarly with reduced lung, heart, and brain functions.
People try to cope. We don N95 masks, or pretend we’re too rugged or bully to need them. Homeowners negotiate with insurance companies. The Chamber of Commerce and the EDC advertise business relief loans.
The feathered things cope more primitively. They fly. They cannot make complex plans, or contemplate next year, or the likelihood of more heat, or the reality that their homes and livelihoods are gone up in smoke, leaving skeletons of trees and dead ash on the ground that once sustained them; or consider the years and generations following, and how the hundreds of thousands of acres burned and the millions more wilting in heat and drought will change resources for food or housing or the animal joy of singing.
Birds don’t have the capacity to grasp or modify the underlying conditions that cause suffering—to address resources with a deliberate eye to health, wildlife, a sustainable economy, climate change, and general well-being. They can’t discern the world beyond their own visceral and short-term needs. The burning question is, can we?
Local Weekday Bird Walk at Turtle Bay Arboretum
Meet trip leader Sally NeSmith, 831-535-2888, at the Carl & Leah McConnell gate at 8 am. From North Market Street, turn onto Arboretum Drive and veer right into the parking lot. This large natural area is accessible by a paved trail. Habitats include views of the Sacramento River, oak woodlands and open grassland. We will see Common Merganser, White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-shouldered Hawk, Spotted and California Towhees, Western Bluebird, and returning winter resident White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows. As always, unusual species are probable.
Manzanita Lake Bird Walk
Located at the North Entrance to Lassen Volcanic National Park, Manzanita Lake is circumnavigated by a trail offering varied habitats: willow marshes, red fir forests, chaparral, and, of course, open water. We should see: migrating warblers, Pied-billed Grebe, Spotted Sandpiper, Red-breasted Nuthatch, American Dipper, Vaux’s Swift, Red-breasted Sapsucker and high elevation species such as White-headed Woodpecker and Steller’s Jay. Meet our trip leader, Steve Royce, at the Kutras Lake parking area at 8:00 am. Eastern Shasta County folks may wish to join us at the Park Museum parking lot at 9:00 am.
Redding’s Miracle of the Swallows
Cliff Swallow photo courtesy David Bogener
Late July, and you may see no more of Cliff Swallows than their orange rumps, heading south.
For a couple of months they have eddied around North State bridges like summer snowflakes. But now nesting is done. Roomfuls of flying insects have been caught and turned into feathers and warm heartbeats. Winter remains distant, so young birds and vagrant souls may roam with no sense of urgency.
But the flocks will tend south, to the clime that history tells them is home. For cliff swallows this is deep into South America, a 6000 mile flight to where they may be seen hawking insects over Argentinian grasslands.
Throughout most of North America, these are the swallows that build their gourd-shaped nests of mud, cemented under eaves, sills, and bridges. In Redding, they have long colonized the old Monolith at Turtle Bay. With recent developments, house sparrows have taken over those nests, and the swallows have moved to both the Sundial and Highway 44 bridges.
Architecture like the Sundial Bridge is a boon to cliff swallows. The bridge provides the ceilings and cornices where the birds can construct their nests beyond reach of terrestrial predators. The shoreline provides mud that the swallows can carry, one beakload at a time, to form their crèches. The river also hosts its salmon-fest of insects, which the swirling clouds of swallows catch in flight to feed their young.
Similar conditions made them and the Mission of San Juan Capistrano famous a century ago through the legend created by Fr. O’Sullivan, and recorded in his book Capistrano Nights:
One day, while walking through town, Father O’Sullivan saw a shopkeeper, broomstick in hand, knocking down the conically shaped mud swallow nests that were under the eaves of his shop. The birds were darting back and forth through the air squealing over the destruction of their homes.
“What in the world are you doing?” O’Sullivan asked.
“Why, these dirty birds are a nuisance and I am getting rid of them!” the shopkeeper responded.
“But where can they go?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” he replied, slashing away with his pole. “But they’ve no business here, destroying my property.”
Father O’Sullivan then said, “Come on swallows, I’ll give you shelter. Come to the Mission. There’s room enough there for all.”
The very next morning, Father O’Sullivan discovered the swallows busy building their nests outside Father Junípero Serra’s Church.
Since then, generations of tourists have marveled at the annual “Miracle of the Swallows.” Indeed, when 1990’s renovation cleaned out the nests and chased the swallows off, Capistrano undertook substantial efforts to coax the birds back.
Here in the North State our development has created our own “Miracle of the Swallows.” Their nesting success allows the hope that we will see them swirling here again each spring!