My Peculiar Reading Habits

One of the nice things about retirement is that it leaves with you more spare time to pursue your interests. One of my interests, beyond birds, is reading. Though still not a prolific reader, by any means, I’ve found the time to read more books in the past year than in any other 12-month period of recent memory. So now, without further ado, brief synopses of the books I’ve read in 2008:

Arnett, Ross H., Jr. 1993. American insects: a handbook of the insects of America north of Mexico. 1st edition. The Sandhill Crane Press, Gainesville, Florida. 850 pp. (This isn’t the kind of book you sit down and read through from cover to cover, but I’ve found it to be an invaluable reference. If you decide to buy this book, make sure you purchase the 1st edition, not the 2nd edition linked to above, as the usefulness of the book has been severely compromised in the 2nd edition.)

Berendt, John. 2006. The city of falling angels. Penguin Books, New York, New York. 432 pp. (Mystery and intrigue in the historic city of canals, Venice.)

Delatte, Carolyn E. (with forward by Christoph Irmscher). 2008. Lucy Audubon: a biography. Revised edition. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 248 pp. (The little-known story of the woman who supported John James and his family through many trials and tribulations, and helped bring his dream to fruition.)

Kurlansky, Mark. 1998. Cod: a biography of the fish that changed the world. Penguin Books, New York, New York. 304 pp. (It turns out that the history of this fish is inextricably intertwined with that of salt.)

Kurlansky, Mark. 2003. Salt: a world history. Penguin Books, New York, New York. 498 pp. (An exhaustive, if somewhat repetitive, history of this mineral and its influence on world cultures.)

Larkin, Emma. 2004. Finding George Orwell in Burma. Penguin Books, New York, New York. 304 pp. (A unique and frightening insight into what it’s like to live in the world’s most repressive country, where “Orwell’s words . . . continue to resonate.”)

Myers, Robert C. 2003. Lost on the lakes: shipwrecks of Berrien County, Michigan. Andrews University Press, Berrien Springs, Michigan. 277 pp. (An excellent local history of a nautical nature.)

Schroeder, Lucinda Delaney. 2006. A hunt for justice: the true story of a woman undercover wildlife agent. The Lyons Press, Guilford, Connecticut. 270 pp. (Not great literature, but a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at a wildlife sting operation in arctic Alaska.)

Steinberg, Michael K. 2008. Stalking the ghost bird: the elusive Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Louisiana. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 173 pp. (Steinberg—a self-proclaimed ‘true-believer’—summarizes the results of a series of interviews with individuals from various walks of life, all of whom claim to have had personal encounters with the IBWO or otherwise believe that it continues to exist in the swamps of Louisiana. Believers will love it, while skeptics will scoff at the lack of scholarship.)

Weidensaul, Scott. 2007. Of a feather: a brief history of American birding. Harcourt. Harcourt, New York, New York. 368 pp. (An engaging and wide-ranging survey of the growth of American birding, from John James Audubon to Roger Tory Peterson and on into the 21st century.)

Bear-ly Tolerable Situation

Charlie Vandergaw, a 70-year-old retired teacher, has been befriending bears (both black and grizzly) on his remote homestead north of Anchorage, Alaska. Now, authorities with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game—who claim that Vandergaw has caused reckless endangerment of the public through a food-conditioning program that has attracted two dozen bears to his property—are considering bringing charges against him. Vandergraw prides himself on being smarter than Timothy Treadwell—who, along with his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, was famously devoured by one of the Grizzly Bears they had sought to ‘befriend’—and “in better control of his situation.” Only time will tell.

Bald Eagle as a Backyard Bird

Having lived in coastal Alaska for 17 years of my adult life, I was accustomed to seeing Bald Eagles, and lots of them. But I never really expected to see one in Berrien County, Michigan, and certainly not in my own yard, but that's exactly what happened this morning.

Stepping out the front door this morning at 8:00 AM for my morning bird walk, I had an adult Bald Eagle fly directly over our house—on Crescent Lake in Buchanan Township—in flapping flight at fairly low elevation headed in a southerly direction. What a way to start the day!

And later, at about 10:00 AM, as I was mulching leaves in the backyard, I spotted a large, dark bird perched in a tree on the north shore of the lake. Viewing it through binoculars, it proved to be an adult Bald Eagle, presumably the same bird. I judge it to be a 4th-year bird based on the amount of dark smudging on the side of the head, especially the traces of a dark eye-line. The bird remained perched there for about 45 minutes before it disappeared.

Acknowledgment: The above photograph is used courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Digital Image Library.

Christmas Bird Counts of Berrien County: 1961-2007

With the Christmas Season looming on the horizon (yes, it’s true) I thought it would be fun, and hopefully instructional, to provide a quick overview of Christmas Bird Counts (CBCs) in Berrien County. So here goes . . .

Caption: European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris), the most abundant species recorded on Berrien County CBCs. Image is from the Introduced Species Summary Project at Columbia University.

The history of the CBC in Berrien County spans a 47-year period, 1961-2007. Over those 47 years, 157 counts were conducted at 4 locations: Berrien Springs (47 counts: 1961-2007), Coloma (36: 1972-2007), New Buffalo (29: 1969-1975 & 1986-2007), and Niles (45: 1961-1978 & 1981-2007). That effort resulted in 10,588 encounters (i.e., an encounter entails the detection of one species, regardless of the number of individuals, on one CBC) with 1,539,691 individuals of a nominal 183 species; on average, that equates to 9,807 inviduals of 67 species/count/year. One hundred fifty-nine species were recorded at Berrien Springs, 139 at New Buffalo, and 131 each at Coloma and Niles.

Evenness of Distribution: One hundred and twelve species (61 percent) were recorded at all four CBC sites, 17 (9 percent) at three, 17 at two, and 36 (20 percent) at just one.

Yearly Regularity: Thirty-three species (18 percent) were recorded in each of the 47 years, 27 (15 percent) in just one year; the median regularity was 22 years, or 47 percent.

Frequency of Occurrence: Fourteen species (8 percent) were recorded on all 157 counts, 27 (15 percent) on just one count; the median frequency was 32 counts, or 20 percent.

The Big Twelve: The following species are ranked in decreasing order of abundance based on a combination of three criteria: (a) total number recorded; (b) mean count when detected, and (c) median count when detected. The values for each of these criteria are presented as percentages relative to the highest-ranking species in each category (European Starling;i.e., the median count for Northern Cardinal was 9.2 percent that of the starling). Ranks (overall and for individual critera) are in curly brackets. Each of the species listed below ranked in the top 10 in at least one of the three abundance criteria:

European Starling {1} — (a) 100{1} [n=372,201] — (b) 100{1} [Mean=2,373.9] — (c) 100{1} [Median=1,213]

House Sparrow {2}: (a) 47.2{2} — (b) 47.2{2} — (c) 75.0{2}

Dark-eyed Junco {3}: (a) 32.2{3} — (b) 32.2{3} - (c) 53.5{3}

American Tree Sparrow {4}: (a) 16.5{6} — (b) 16.5{7} — (c) 28.2{4}

Canada Goose {6}: (a) 16.0{8} — (b) 20.4{5} — (c) 24.8{5}

Ring-billed Gull {7}: (a) 21.2{4} — (b) 23.4{4} — (c) 15.1{13}

Mallard {7.7}: (a) 16.3{7} — (b) 16.3{8} — (c) 24.0{8}

Herring Gull {8.7}: (a) 16.8{5} — (b) 17.2{6} — (c) 13.5{15}

Mourning Dove {8.7}: (a) 14.3{9} — (b) 14.4{10} — (c) 24.2{7}

House Finch {10.3}: (a) 8.5{13} — (b) 13.8{12} — (c) 24.4{6}

Rock Pigeon {10.3}: (a) 12.7{11} — (b) 15.6{9} — (c) 15.5{11}

American Crow {10}: (a) 13.8{10} — (b) 13.8{11} — (c) 20.1{9}

Northern Cardinal {11.7}: (a) 9.2{12} — (b) 9.2{13} — (c) 17.4{10}

Notable High Counts: Of the 94 species detected 30 or more times, 10 had high counts that exceeded the median by a factor of 50 or more. Information provided for each species includes the high count (the site and year of the high count); and the factor by which the high count exceeded the median:

Common Merganser 1,224 (Berrien Springs, 1972); 84x

Red-breasted Merganser: 1,524 (Berrien Springs, 2003); 254x

Ring-necked Pheasant: 429 (Berrien Springs, 1973); 54x

American Coot: 2,175 (Coloma, 1994); 272x

American Robin: 1,366 (Berrien Springs, 2004); 137x

Red-winged Blackbird: 235 (New Buffalo 2001); 59x

Common Grackle: 3,120 (Berrien Springs, 1984); 1,040x

Brown-headed Cowbird: 818 (Berrien Springs, 1982); 136x

Lapland Longspur: 4,141 (New Buffalo, 1973); 1,035x

Common Redpoll: 1,300 (Berrien Springs, 1969); 52x

Acknowledgment: This overview was compiled with the aid of the CBC database.

Additions to the ABA Checklist

The 19th published report of the ABA (i.e., American Birding Association) Checklist Committee (Pranty et al. 2008) adds 10 species to the list of birds documented from the ABA Checklist Area. With these additions, the ABA Checklist now stands at 957 accepted species. Details follow:

Graylag Goose (Anser anser): drill-ship in Atlantic Ocean 167 nautical miles off Newfoundland and Labrador; April 24-May 2, 2005 (Maybank 2005)

White-chinned Petrel (Procellaria aequinoctialis): 2 miles north of Rollover Pass, Galveston County, Texas; April 27, 1986

Townsend’s Shearwater (Puffinus auricularis): Del Mar, San Diego County, California; August 1, 2007 (Unitt et al. 2008)

Tristram’s Storm-Petrel (Oceanodroma tristrami): Southeast Farallon Island, California; April 22, 2006

Brown Hawk-Owl (Ninox scutulata): St. Paul Island, Pribilof Islands, Alaska; August 27-September 3, 2007 (Yerger and Mohlmann 2008)

Loggerhead Kingbird (Tyrannus caudifasciatus): Fort Zachary Taylor State Park, Key West, Florida; March 7-26, 2007

Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus): Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska; September 30, 2007 (Rosenburg and Lehman 2008)

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos): Saint-Fulgence, Quebec; November 11-17, 2006 (Auchu et al. 2007)

Common Myna (Acridotheres tristis): south Florida, where this exotic species—first noted in 1982—is now deemed established (Pranty 2008)

Yellow-browed Bunting (Emberiza chrysophrys): Gambell, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska; September 15, 2007 (Lehman 2008)

The Committee also announced that the 7th edition of the ABA Checklist is anticipated to be published in late 2008. This will be a welcome revision, as the 6th edition (published in 2002) has been out of print for two years.

Literature Cited:

Auchu, C., C. Girard, and G. Savard. 2007. First record of Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) in North America. North American Birds 61:10-12.

Maybank, B. 2005. Atlantic Provinces and St. Pierre et Miquelon [spring 2005 report]. North American Birds 59:396-399.

Pranty, B. 2008. Status and distribution of the Common Myna in Florida. North American Birds 61:658-665.

Pranty, B., J. L. Dunn, S. C. Heinl, A. W. Kratter, P. E. Lehman, M. W. Lockwood, B. Mactavish, and K. J. Zimmer. 2008. Annual report of the ABA Checklist Committee: 2007-2008. Birding 40:32-38.

Rosenberg, G. H., and P. E. Lehman. 2008. First North American record of Sedge Warbler (Acrocephalus schoenobaenus) at Gambell, Alaska. North American Birds 62:178-181.

Unitt, P., M. A. Faulkner, and C. Swanson. 2008. First record of Newell’s Shearwater from the mainland of North America. Western Birds in press.

Yerger, J. C., and J. D. Mohimann. In press. First North American record of Brown Hawk-Owl (Ninox scutulata) on St. Paul Island, Alaska. North American Birds 62:4-8.

Mitch Hewer photos

OK so I know we have featured Mitch Hewer before but get a load of these promotional shots for Mitch's new role in Britannia High. Not sure I'm keen on his new hair style but he's as hot as ever...




















See more pictures of Mitch Hewer and read his Digital Nation interview HERE at Gay Goss

Past post with pictures of (starkers!) Mitch Hewer HERE

Even more photos of Mitch HERE!

Other recent posts:

Precipitation Summary for October 2008

Daily precipitation was recorded on 24 of 31 days at our home on Crescent Lake, near Buchanan, Michigan, following CoCoRaHS (the Community Collatorative Rain, Hail, & Snow Network) protocols. Cumulative precipitation on the remaining 7 days (October 23-29) was determined from a multi-day report filed on October 29; days on which measurable moisture fell were inferred from precipitation maps.

Precipitation Summary: Measurable amounts of precipitation (i.e., ≥0.01 inches) in the form of rain or snow fell on 17 (55 percent) of 31 days, with a total accumulation (water equivalency) of 3.48 inches (0.11 inches/day, 0.20 inches/day with measureable precipitation). Precipation in the form of snow was recorded on 1 day (October 28th), with a total accumulation of approximately 1.0 inches and a liquid equivalent of 0.30 inches (as determined by a core measurement that was taken 24-hours later).

Comparisons: At CoCoRaHS stations elsewhere in Berrien and surrounding counties, measureable precipitation was recorded on 44.3 percent (360) of 813 reporting days, with values ranging from 34.7 percent (n=129) in St. Joseph County to 62.5 percent (n=40) in Cass County. Rainfall totals at 13 other CoCoRaHS stations in Berien and surrounding counties with 31 consecutive days (or equivalent) of measurements ranged from 3.11 to 3.99 (median 3.48).

Temperature, Relative Humidity, and Dew Point (at 7:00 AM): These readings were recorded on 25 days (October 1-22 and 29-31).

Temperature: High 58 (on 14th), Median 46, Low 30 (on 30th)

Relative Humidity: High 88 (on 8th), Median 79, Low 48 (on 29th)

Dew Point Temperature: High 53 (on 8th), Median 39, Low 19 (on 29th)