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Please Don’t Kidnap Baby Birds

By on April 11, 2016 in BirdWords

Handling baby birds is appealing, but this killdeer would probably be better off left with its parents. More often than not, “A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand.”

Killdeer Chick

Spring is in the air, and soon, if not already, the birds will be paired up, laying their eggs and raising their babies.

The birds most of us are familiar with have Altricial babies. That means when they hatch they are helpless, naked, and blind. This is the Nestling stage. The parents will work very hard during this time to provide food for them. Within a couple of weeks they will have feathers and will be exercising their muscles by flapping their wings very rapidly.

The next stage is called Fledgling. At this stage, the young will drop to the ground and run around, getting more exercise and hiding where they can. They are only in this state for about a week, waiting for their wing and tail feathers to grow a little longer, which will enable them to fly up and travel with their parents to find food and learn the art of survival. The parents recognize the cries of each individual baby and continue to feed them.

While the fledglings are on the ground they get preyed on by cats, dogs and picked up by humans who think they are orphaned and need help. Most of the time, as long as pets are controlled, they don’t need to be “rescued.”

The other type of baby bird is called Precocial. When these birds hatch and dry off, they are ready to follow their parents and start foraging for food on the ground right away. Precocials include quail, pheasants, turkeys, killdeer, and water birds that are here in our area. The baby killdeer in this area seem especially susceptible to being picked up because humans mistakenly think they are orphaned. They’re small, fluffy, and are known to hatch in open areas like parks, where they come into contact with people more often than the other Precocial birds. The baby killdeer and their parents wander from spot to spot, eating whatever insects they can find. When they are threatened, the parents have a particular sound that tells the babies to hunker down and be quiet. The only way you can see them is if you accidentally flush them out. If that happens, just quickly leave the area. If left alone, the parents will signal the All Clear and everyone will start walking around again, ready to eat their fill of whatever insects are out there.

We all have the best of intentions when we see an animal in danger. However, before we intervene, it’s always best to make sure that the bird is really in need of help. Fledgling birds usually need to be left alone so that they can continue to be in the care of their parents. Infant Precocial birds have the best chance of survival if allowed to continue to be raised by their parents.

Keep your cats and dogs indoors or restrained, and try watching at a distance for about a half hour to see if the parents are around. You will find that many of these youngsters are OK just where you left them. If not, please call Shasta Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation at 530-365-9453 and get advice on the situation before you physically intervene.

Thanks to author Karlene Stoker of Shasta Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation.  To volunteer with Shasta Wildlife call 347-3630

Robins Grace our Days

By on February 27, 2016 in BirdWords
American Robin

American Robin

John James Audubon reports that when at the age of eighteen he emigrated from France to the New World, “The first land-bird seen by me, when I stepped upon the rugged shores of Labrador, was the Robin, and its joyful notes were the first that saluted my ear… I could scarcely refrain from shedding tears when I heard the song of the Thrush, sent there as if to reconcile me to…the barren aspect of all around.”

While the age of birdsong eliciting tears has largely been buried by hastier technologies, Audubon’s raw experience is something most of us can still find in our own backyards and parks. Reported to be the second most numerous land bird living in North America today, the robin remains a soulful beauty, so common as to be almost overlooked.

As Audubon noted, the robin is a thrush, a family that includes bluebirds and several speckle-breasted singers of deep forests. More than any other thrushes the robin has accommodated human civilization. It thrives wherever there is moist earth, trees and shrubs, and a supply of fruit, berries, and insects. From those places it seems to greet us vigorously. Its song, often the first in the morning and the last at night, is not the haunting flute of its thrush cousins but rather a lengthy and cheerful burbling punctuated with lively chirps. Nor does the robin confine itself to woodsy shadows. Most of us see it out in the open, pulling worms from a rain-wet lawn, or gracing the day from a skyward perch.

Robins range over most of the continent, wintering across the US and well into Mexico, and extending their nesting range high into Canadian forests. Redding often hosts large flocks in winter. Sometimes thousands of them will roost together high in cottonwood trees along the river, joining in avian lullabies at dusk—a treat for Turtle Bay visitors. As spring comes, the winter migrants will fan back northward. The flocks disappear. The locals pair up.

Alert observers may notice clear differences among different robins. All adults have yellow bills, and in some birds the white around the eye is striking. Their breast feathers may show a deep chestnut color, or brick red, or pale orange. Some birds will flash a glimpse of white at the corners of their tails. In general, female birds are paler, which serves well as they tend the nest. Other differences occur geographically. Robins are grouped into seven subspecies, but they interbreed, so their differences are not abrupt but rather blend from one to the other.

Females build the nest, mostly of grass and mud. She incubates 3-5 blue eggs for twelve to fourteen days. She will leave the eggs briefly to find food, but the male feeding his mate on the nest has been observed. Both parents care for the young through their fledging in another two weeks. Then the male may continue to look after the fledglings while the female, if weather and the insect supply permit, starts a second or even third nest.

Feral Cats Drive Songbird Decline

By on February 2, 2016 in BirdWords
Feral Cat Feeding Station

Feral Cat Feeding Station

Cats can be great pets, low maintenance purring machines. Unfortunately, they are also active and effective predators.

There are many ways for birds to die. Among the human causes in the US, window collisions may kill a billion birds a year. Cars kill a fraction as many, some 200 million. Pesticides, power line and cell tower collisions, wind turbines, hunting, and oil spills may kill another 200 million.

But the big killer in the US is cats. It is estimated that outdoor cats kill 2.4 billion birds a year in our country. With the exception of habitat loss, this number dwarfs all other current human-caused bird mortality combined.

Many of the studies are small, but they reveal a grim pattern. Cats kill nearly 50% of suburban songbird fledglings. Pet cats average one wildlife kill per fifty-six hours outdoors. They eat or abandon most of their kills at the kill site, not on the owner’s doorstep – belying many owners’ hopes that their pet is too domesticated to follow its instincts. A University of Nebraska study pins thirty-three bird extinctions on cat predation worldwide.

Feral cats number between 30 to 80 million in the US, according to World Animal Foundation estimates. If their kill rate equals that of pet cats, simple arithmetic indicates kills of small animals – birds, lizards, voles, etc. – of nearly 8 billion per year.

Despite being an invasive species, domestic cats are often maintained in the wild. Well-meaning people develop feeding stations that create unnaturally dense colonies. These colonies turn city parks and neighborhoods into native species kill zones, contributing hugely to the declines of American songbirds.

Further, these feral cat concentrations create sinks for the spread of disease and suffering, Feline leukemia and panleukopenia are highly contagious, disabling diseases of outdoor cats. FIV – the cat version of the AIDS virus – spreads mostly through saliva in cat-fight bites.

People, too, are at risk from cat-spread disease. Rabies is found in three times as many cats as dogs, possibly because of their greater involvement with wild animals and the lack of vaccination.

The toxoplasmosis parasite, famous for warnings to pregnant women against cleaning cat litter, can infect any warm-blooded being but only reproduces in cats. Over 70% of cats are expected to carry the parasite at some point in their lives, and they release hundreds of millions of oocytes that can deliver the disease for years through gardens and parks where they defecate. In people, our immune system usually prevents symptoms. But the parasite attacks the brain and is associated with deafness, eye lesions, and a wide range of behavior disorders including Alzheimer’s, autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia.

Some solutions to these bird kill and public health problems are easy. Pet owners who keep their cats indoors will protect both wildlife and their cats.

Feral cat problems are tougher to tackle. Trap-Neuter-Release programs have been shown to be ineffective. Neutered cats still kill birds and spread disease, and neutering efforts do not keep pace with the influx of new cats. A single breeding pair can produce 400,000 offspring over seven years.

US governments spend over $50 million a year to reduce the problems posed by feral and stray animals. In Redding, city land is being used to support feral cat colonies.

Christmas Bird Count: A Forty-Year Record of Citizen Science

By on November 7, 2015 in

Bill Oliver and Randy Bush will display intriguing trends gleaned from this long study of the populations of our wintering birds. Species that are increasing (some spectacularly) and others that are decreasing or maintaining their populations will be discussed. Bill and Randy hope the audience will share their experiences on these species trends.

Discover Birding at Turtle Bay

By on November 7, 2015 in

This Youth/Beginner walk will be structured as a mini Christmas Bird Count. We will start and stop at our regular times, 9-11am, but we will attempt to tally the number as well as the species of every bird we find. Come see what’s tucked away at Turtle Bay! Call Dan Greaney, 276-9693, with questions or for more information.