Subject: Gyr, yellowthroat....and starlings
Date: Jan 28 23:06:48 2001
From: Daniel Froehlich - dfroehli at u.washington.edu


Hi,
In response to Robin Conway's (final?) report to Tweeters, let me
introduce myself to ALL of you here and now, since I'm bound to meet
many of you in the field. In fact, I already have met several of
you, and I'm pleased to report that birders here seem no more or less
friendly than elsewhere, perhaps more shy about initiating
conversation but thankfully less pompous than some. I moved here in
the fall for grad school in zoology and love the area already. I'm
also enjoying all the tweeter posts, particularly the bird reports;
the issue discussions are interesting, too, though the rate of
posting, higher than all 10 or 12 other lists I'm on COMBINED, does
clog the mailbox! So let me contribute to the clogging.

Yesterday, I visited Discovery Park for the first time to explore;
saw lots of typical winter residents including 350 Clarkless Western
Grebes. Also met a fellow at the locks who has lived up the street
since 1925.

Then I went to find the Snohomish Gyr. As the bird apparently
perches reliably over lunch according to previous postings, I decided
to go a little later, hoping it might get hungry and I might watch it
in flight. When I got to the pullout, around 3pm, just beyond the
Darlington Farm entrance on the Snohomish-Monroe Highway (just South
of Snohomish and the Pilchuck R. bridge), the magnificent bird was
perched on the near dead tree affording excellent views. Is this a
female? Does anyone have experience with sexing Gyrs in the field?
Is it known whether the Washington birds tend to be of one sex or the
other? The two specimens in the Burke collection, both from WA in
the 50's, are females (and much darker than the Snohomish bird).

In any case, after just 5-10 minutes, the falcon became restless,
lightened its load, and suddenly slipped off its branch, gliding
swiftly down to ground level and skimming like a skuller's oars over
the field toward the river. With just a wingflick, it slipped over
the berm, putting up three knock-kneed ducks (wigeon?), then wheeled
up over the far bank, utterly surprising a flock of 150 or so Wigeon
grazing like sheep. The bird must have snagged one, for it did not
reappear during the 45 minutes I waited. The operation, with its
surgical precision, took no more than 30 seconds and required no more
than 5 wingbeats.

After talking to a couple of birders who'd also watched (one of whom
photographed the perched bird earlier), I noticed an unconventional
winter chip coming from the reedbed in the ditch by the side of the
pullout. It turned out to be a COMMON YELLOWTHROAT, apparently a
second year male, with what appeared to be just a couple of black
feathers around the mouth. I was a bit surprised, though mostly I've
lived in areas in the US where COYEs do occur in winter. I've
checked sources I have readily accessible and found no references to
winter yellowthroats. Wahl and Paulsen don't indicate any winter
occurrences, Gene Hunn's book gives no records for CBCs in the 70's
or 80's, and the museum collection includes yellowthroats only from
the second half of April through the middle of October. Are winter
records of COYE in WA truly as scarce as this suggests? Is there a
good source compiling seasonal species records over the year for
counties or the state as a whole? I'm familiar with the state
breeding atlas; I'm wondering about migration and winter.

On the starling issue, I'd like to join the chorus warning against
intolerance and disrespect (almost like ancient Greek drama).
Righteousness and sarcasm don't tend to win support.

Aren't we discussing two different arguments? One is about the
ETHICS of killing birds generally ; the other is about wildlife
management and the EFFICACY of starling control. Of course, certain
positions on one of these issues may dictate your position on the
other. But I think it can be useful to think of them separately.

If you condemn starling control because you oppose killing of all
birds/animals/sentient beings/life, the position against starling
control is rigorous but inflexible. I feel there are many more
fruitful and effective battles to be fought--cats, hunting,
communications towers, windows, cars, pollution, rehab, and, if
quality of life also counts, industrial beef and poultry production,
or human poverty, misery, and exploitation for that matter--than
simply judging an individual who kills starlings in the backyard.
The targets are more elusive, the emotion more difficult to focus,
but the payback in terms of life saved or improved, the currency of
such a position by definition, much greater over the long run. Under
such an approach, as one of the postings pointed out, there can be no
species favoritism: every starling life equals any other bird's
life, every cowbird life equals any Kirtland's Warblers life.

I take a less rigorous position, one that concedes that killing,
painful as it is, happens on my behalf, that, in fact, I "play God"
all the time, determining who will live and who will die through all
kinds of insidious ways, not just through the windows in my house,
driving in a car, or using electricity and phones, but more
pervasively in co-opting habitat for my shelter, food and material
productions, habitat that could support entirely other denizens. The
niche you occupy is an opportunity cost for a myriad other souls:
that's life. This position introduces the possibility of wildlife
management. I see it as a way of saying: ok, our society makes
decisions all the time that have huge effects, that are, in fact,
complete determinants of the presence or absence, abundance and
distribution of all other organisms, without ever considering the
impact on them. Through wildlife management we can attempt to
introduce cause and effect considerations into this process.

Someone questioned the ecological difference between plant and animal
control (the difference in sentience is clear): I'm not convinced.
>* With many invasive plant species, there is still some hope of control
>by killing them--whether pulling them up, smothering them, or
>herbiciding them.
For introduced plants that are successful invaders such control is
still temporary and often very costly. Similar, temporary, regional
results are obtained by cowbird control in Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas,
and Puerto Rico, most probably the single most important reason that
Kirtland's Warbler, Black-capped Vireo, Golden-cheeked Warbler, and
Yellow-shouldered Blackbird, respectively, have not yet been added to
our list of extinct species (though introduced fire ants may soon
make short work of GCWA and BCVI).

Just a few other thoughts: The South American Cactoblastis moth,
introduced into Australia after Opuntia cactuses had covered vast
regions of the moth, effectively reduced the occurrence of the cactus
to small tracts. The similarly inspired introduction of Mongoose in
Hawaii to control rodents has been a well-documented dismal failure,
as the mongoose preferred the slower native birds like the nene. The
introduction of a mixture of insects to North America to control
Lythrum, purple loosestrife, a well-known garden escape and destroyer
of vast wet habitats in the East, is in its early stages, but appears
to be targeting loosestrife specifically. Several avian diseases are
fairly genus or species specific. What if a starling-specific
Plasmodium were discovered/developed that effectively dispatched only
starlings with starling malaria? An animal rights position would
oppose its introduction....

The article featured in Ian Paulsen's interesting post addressing the
Iceland/Kumlien's/Thayer's Gull relationships would not be possible
without extensive specimens to track and document subtle plumage
changes. Further, our knowledge about bird identification for
species, populations, ages and sexes, depends on bird collections.
Of the new field guides, how many prefer the new Kaufmann guide over
the new Sibley guide for in-the-field id? We recognize that
photographs and field observations are invaluable for learning and
passing on information, but nothing surpasses the certainty of study
skins for id guide illustrators.

I served as MAPS coordinator for the past two years (MAPS is
Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship, a standardized
breeding season banding program that collects and analyzes data from
over 500 banding stations and 250 contributors around North America
to determine the proximate causes for population changes among about
100 North American landbird species). Station operators occasionally
indicated that they killed cowbirds or starlings they caught
(legally). For a banding program in which you're trying to assess
the causes for changes in population sizes and relate them to habitat
variables, that's a bad idea. If populations are declining as a
result of the prevalence of habitats in which cowbirds are favored,
then killing cowbirds could boost the breeding success of the
monitored birds. Artificially high populations might be the result,
leading to the erroneous conclusion that habitat actually good for
cowbirds is also good for other birds.

I am discouraged when birders pounce on fellow animal lovers when
they could direct that energy against much more worthy problems that
really will make a difference in the loss of birds. It's harder to
focus the emotion and justifiable righteousness (but is it always
justified?) at more difficult targets than fellow
birders/conservationists. My suggestion is to train all cats to hunt
only house sparrows and starlings. THAT might actually make a dent
and conservationists and cat colony keepers would all be tugging on
the same rope.

Daniel Froehlich
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Daniel Froehlich
Burke Museum
U. of Washington
Box 353010
Seattle, WA 98105-3010
Cell 206-595-2305
W 206-685-3866
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