DECEMBER MEETING:
Wednesday, December 17th.
Meet at 7:00 PM in the Bean Museum Auditorium on the BYU Campus.
Merrill Webb will talk to us about the Christmas Bird Count. After which we will
be quizzed on our winter bird identification skills in preparation for the CBC
on the 20th.
Reed's Ramblings
December MIGRATION
by Reed Stone
Every winter we birders are the recipients of birds in migration. Birds that
breed in the northern climes give us a treat by migrating through or stopping
over to build up food reserves in order to continue their flight. As we study
migration and its reasons we find it interesting, complex and to some even
compelling.
Not all species migrate from north to south. Some birds migrate east to west,
and some west to east. Some species in warmer climates migrate not at all. Some
migrate from alpine regions to lower valleys where the environment is less
harsh.
Twice each year as spring thaw takes place migrant birds begin their journey to
their nesting "grounds", then again as summer begins to fade away they leave the
nesting and rearing locations for more favorable conditions.
Some of the reasons for migration are quite obvious. Some are mysterious and
some we don’t understand. Among the most obvious is genetics. Available food has
to be ranked near the top of the priorities. The availability of food is
effected by temperature. When the temperature lowers insects and plant foods
slow down their production making it anywhere from difficult to impossible to
find enough food for survival. The length of the daylight delivers a double
whammy. Reduced daylight time, not only reduces growing time for food production
it also reduces the time available for feeding.
Around 90% of the species in North America move south for the winter. Some, such
as the American robin just a few hundred miles while the lesser golden-plover
covers thousands, traveling almost pole to pole. Now for some interesting
observations. The Blue Grouse in our nearby mountains seem to go against logic.
They breed and rear their young in lower areas in deciduous woodlands and open
areas where they feed on insects and berries. When winter comes on they move to
higher elevations, somewhere around 1,000 ft. higher. At this higher elevation,
in the conifer forests, they feed almost exclusively on pine needles. By
contrast the Sedge Warbler is a non-stop migrant. Before its migratory flight of
about four days, and almost 2,000 miles, it will build up almost double its
weight in preparation for the long haul. Some of our feathered friends migrate
in ways we tend to give little thought. One might be the Swifts. They leave
their summer breeding grounds going south. They feed and rest, or sleep, on the
wing and are capable of flying by day and night. This migration is constantly in
motion for about 3/4ths of the year. They return to their breeding grounds, most
likely, having never stopped to rest. Generally ducks migrate in a north-south
pattern. The White-winged Scoter is the maverick. This species migrates
east-west. They breed in north-west Canada and migrate to the east coast to
winter. This may explain why we get a few visitors in Utah. Cranes and some
hawks, the soaring kind, have a unique and energy saving way to migrate. As they
fly along they seek out and sense rising air currents called thermals. When they
feel these rising currents they circle on them and rise, sometimes thousands of
feet. They will then leave it and sail to the next one, rise with it and repeat
the process till the cool of the day renders thermals continuing unprofitable at
which time they settle down to feed and rest up for the next day. I have just
touched the surface of some of the interesting and strange, to us, things about
bird migrations. Maybe I will probe into it more next time.
***** Rib tickler from the Reader’s Digest. Late one night a burglar broke into
a house. He froze when he heard a loud voice say, "Jesus is watching!" Silence
returned to the house, so the burglar crept forward. "Jesus is watching!" the
voice boomed again. The robber stopped dead in his tracks and frantically looked
all around. He spotted a parrot in a cage. "Was that you?" asked the burglar.
"Yes," answered the parrot The criminal sighed in relief and asked, "What’s your
name?. "Clarence," said the bird. "That’s a dumb name for a parrot," sneered the
burglar. "What idiot named you Clarence?" "The same idiot who named that
Rotweiler Jesus."
Parkway Trail Marks
by Robin Tuck
There I am, walking up the Provo River Trail, looking around for birds, and I
see the trail mark again. I have seen these marks so many times that they
disappear off my radar, but this time, I wonder about them again.
As I walk, I see a single triangle painted in the center of the trail. A short
distance away, I see two triangles painted on the walkway, then three, and then
four. Then as I walk further, it goes back to a single triangle. And so the
pattern repeats; one triangle, two triangles, three triangles, four triangles,
then back to one triangle.
On another trail, I found dots painted. As I walked and found the dots, they
seemed to change in a strange pattern that didn’t make sense. Coming back the
other way, and looking at them reversed, they began to make sense, but only
because I have old computer programming experience; the dots were a binary code.
Wow, I thought, hardly anybody will recognize a binary code and fewer will know
what it means. Binary? Wow!
In 2002, when I was walking the urban trails in Utah County for a personal
project, I pushed a measuring wheel, and often passed these symbols painted on
the parkway trails, so I measured the distance between them, and could not
decide if they were spaced 100 yards apart or 100 meters apart.
Needing some shoes, I stopped at a local runner’s store and spoke with the
clerks about the trail marks. It turned out that the marks were painted by the
store owner, apparently with county permission, as part of a runner’s club
project. The triangle markings won out over the dots meaning that we should
begin to see more of the triangles on paved trails all across Utah.
‘Hawk’ Harper, the triangle painter told me they are painted 100 yards apart. So
if you see two triangles painted on the path, and continue on and find a single
triangle, you will have walked 100 yards. If you start at three triangles and
walk until you find three triangles again, you will have walked 400 yards, or a
quarter mile. If you find the three triangles four times, you will have walked
1600 yards, or a mile. Hawk and the runners club painted these markings to help
them know how far and how fast they were running.
As a birder, I am not particularly interested in how fast I cover a mile, but I
am very interested about where I am. Should I see a rare bird along a marked
trail, I can now more easily report my exact location on the trail in a way that
will make it easier for other birders to find it. All I have to remember is that
the triangles are 100 yards apart, that the triangles repeat every quarter mile
and that four sets of repeating triangles is a mile.
I want to thank ‘Hawk’ and the other runners for doing this. After all, you have
to admire a guy who is called ‘Hawk’ by his friends.
Upcoming Field Trip
Where should UCB go for its next "Big Trip?" Here are some possibilities within
a long day's drive:
·Northern California including a Monterrey Bay pelagic trip
·Southeastern Arizona
·Rio Grande River Valley, Texas (about a day and a half)
·Davis Mountains and Big Bend, Texas
·The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone
·Other?
In our next meeting, we will ask for your suggestions. Or you can email them to
Ned Hill at ned_hill@byu.edu