MEETING:
Wednesday, May 22.
Meet at 7:00 PM in the Bean Museum Auditorium on the BYU Campus.
The meeting this next time will be an opening at the Bean Museum
followed by an evening bird walk at the BYU Botany Pond, lead by Dennis
Shirley.
We will focus on migrating warblers. We expect the walk to take 45 minutes.
FIELD TRIPS:
Saturday, June 1st
100 Species Big Day
6:00 A.M. at the DWR Office in Springville
Plan on a full day, until we get 100 species
Saturday, June 15th
Uintas
5:00 A.M. at the Provo Temple or
7:00 A.M. at Provo Falls
Full Day - Dress in layers
Bring a lunch, water, and snacks
The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
by Dennis Shirley
Last night, I couldn't sleep. So I got up and left the
house three hours before sun-up and drove northeast 'till it began to get light.
At gray dawn, I watched a lek of sage grouse strut and pop. I had wondered if
they would still be there. Then, being near a reservoir, I decided to check it
out for water birds. I was surprised to find no waterfowl to speak of, only an
hundred or so western grebes. That got me thinking, since just a couple of weeks
ago the place was teeming with ducks. I believe I had counted thirteen species
in short order, many in large rafts of several hundred.
As the morning progressed, and I traveled back across the width of
the state, I repeated this survey process at seven large reservoirs and all the
small farm ponds, water treatment plants, and streams I could find. I was amazed
at how much things had changed in a short time. I did end up seeing ten species
of ducks, but what was interesting was the dearth of numbers. I tallied a total
of only two ring-neck ducks, two lesser scaup, two red-breasted mergansers, and
nine common mergansers, along with the usual nesting resident ducks. Notably
absent were canvasbacks, wigeon, and goldeneyes.
I've heard it said "the more things change, the more they stay the
same." This is certainly true of the mixture of our state's bird
life throughout the year. Each year the biological clock strikes a certain time
and the birds respond. Come ----- or high water (and in Utah this year, it's low
water), things change, seasons change, and yet many things remain the same. Like
the swallows of Capistrano, we can predict with some certainty when winter
visitors leave, migrants go through, and summer breeders arrive. Just in the
last week or so, groups of broad-tailed hummingbirds hit the feeders and waves
of nuptial plumaged yellow-rumped warblers and yellow warblers arrived. Just
yesterday, I heard singing male warbling vireos in my neighborhood for the first
time this year. Yellow-breasted chats were absent in Goshen Canyon on Tuesday
when I specifically went looking for them. On Thursday, there were seven
territorial males in one small stretch.
It really perks my sense of wonder at how orderly and precise birds
follow the same patterns year after year. As we compile more and more personal
records, it will be fun to compare dates of first and last appearance of
seasonal species and , at the same time, add to our understanding of these
amazing creatures.