"Waka, waka."

The acorn woodpecker is best known for its chortle, which may have inspired Woody the Woodpecker's iconic laugh.

But many California residents say there's nothing funny about the hundreds of holes these birds leave outside of homes and businesses while storing acorns for the winter.

In early 2009, two housing associations in the retirement community of Rossmoor found themselves at the heart of a national scandal after obtaining a depredation permit to shoot the winged vandals, according to the Los Angeles Times.

But researchers on the Hastings Natural History Reserve in Carmel Valley don't see acorn woodpeckers as pests. For more than 40 years, biologists here have studied the ecological soap operas underlying acorn woodpecker social groups to learn why animals choose to cooperate in some situations and not in others.

"Understanding the choices that birds face and quantifying those decisions has been an integral part of our work," said Eric Walters, a researcher with Cornell University's Laboratory of Ornithology.

But acorn woodpeckers are valuable to ecology beyond these social curiosities. Oak woodlands throughout California are dwindling, even in protected areas, and biologists don't know why. These oak woodlands are home to a wide array of birds, ants, deer and other forest critters. But acorn woodpeckers are one of the oak's most codependent attachés and they may be the warning flare for what's to come, Walters said.

"Acorn woodpeckers are the flagship species of oak woodlands," he said. "Without oaks we would be without acorn woodpeckers and many of the 1,500 species that oak woodlands support."

The Hastings Reserve, part of the University of California Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and California's Natural Reserve system, sits an hour's drive east of Monterey, past yellow cattle-grazing pastures and high-end vineyards. Since 1937, this 2500-acre island of minimally disturbed land has attracted biologists from across the world studying native Californian plant and animal species.
Its star has been the acorn woodpecker. This clown of the bird world wears a jaunty red cap and black eyepatches, and it has a nervous energy obvious from fifty yards away. It monomaniacally lives to pursue acorns, which it hoards in obsessively maintained holes bored into tree bark.

Acorn woodpeckers reside in colonies of up to seven males and three females that breed simultaneously. Several "helper" males and females assist these "breeders" in a variety of tasks, including acorn storage, territory defense and chick care. While helpers can breed, they don't.

Biologists have long been enthralled with how such scandalous societies keep from falling apart. Researchers at the Hastings Reserve have found that acorn woodpeckers walk a fine line between individual and family living, Walters said.

Male breeders are almost always related, either brother or father-son teams. The same is true for female breeders. Family rivalry abounds. Males jostle and peck each other over mating opportunities, and females cavalierly toss their sister's eggs from nests to crack on the ground or even gobble them up, Walters said. But, like many social species, acorn woodpeckers prefer to cooperate with relatives rather than with strangers.

"One of the interesting findings is the trade-off between selfish behavior and helping kin," Walters said. "Joint-nesting females both kill their relatives by egg tossing but feed their kin's offspring once the eggs are laid."

Helper birds are part of the happy family too--usually offspring from previous years. If they're lucky, helpers will find a nearby group with an opening for breeders of a particular sex, but such vacancies are few and far between. Many helpers opt to stick it out with mom and dad for five or more years, Walters said, rather than chance it alone in a tough world. This patience often pays off. Like British royalty, helpers may inherit territories from deceased parents, he said.

But future heirs may find these oak territories lacking--oaks by-and-large aren't doing so well in California. In many cases, young trees haven't replaced dying old ones as fast as they should, Walters said. Biologists thought this "regeneration" problem was the result of cattle grazing. In places like the Hastings Reserve, however, which hasn't seen a cow for decades, oaks haven't made a triumphant return.

"As we address the conservation conundrum regarding the lack of regeneration in valley and blue oaks, pressure increases to find a solution before many of the majestic old growth oaks that dot our landscape are gone forever," Walters said.

Researchers at Hasting are keeping a watchful eye on acorn woodpeckers because their populations and behavior shine a spotlight on oak successes and failures.

"As we race to find a conservation solution, we continue to learn more about the reliance of acorn woodpeckers on the oak woodland and the role they play for other cavity-nesting species found within oak woodlands," he said.

Some Acorn woodpeckers living in Arizona, for instance, differ drastically from their California cohorts. They migrate in the winter and don't form social groups. While they munch on acorns, they don't store them in big granaries like in California, Walters said.

Researchers think this gulf in social behavior stems from differences in oak diversity: Birds in New Mexico have two common species of oak to nab acorns from, while those in the Golden State often have up to five. More types of oaks means a more consistent supply of food. If valley oaks, for instance, run into trouble and can't produce enough acorns for hungry birds, blue oaks can pick up the slack.

Such off-years are par for the course in oak populations. Acorn crops ebb and flow in cycles. A season with slim pickings may be followed by a season of plenty, a so-called "mast" year.

Without a steady supply of acorns, acorn woodpecker societies on the Hastings Reserve drift toward anarchy. Helpers disappear from nests en masse, perhaps kicked to the curb by breeders trying to maintain control over shrinking hoards. In very bad years, acorn woodpeckers often abandon territories entirely, Walters said.

Biologists can only estimate the impacts of total oak collapse on acorn woodpeckers and their feathered friends. Researchers at Hastings modeled the disappearance of a single oak species--the coast live oak--from, in this case, sudden oak death and the resulting effects on a number of bird species. The simulated loss cut acorn woodpecker, Nutall's woodpecker and oak titmouse populations by more than half in the coast live oak range and between 4 and 10 percent statewide.

Natural populations don't give up their secrets easily--it takes patience and time to tease them out, especially for organisms with glacial lifespans like oaks. It can take years to unravel how humans are affecting certain ecosystems, Walters said. The acorn woodpecker study is so important, he said, because it has been around for so many years. Sites like the Hastings Reserve give ecologists a space to conduct such long-term investigations.

"By having Hastings protected and under the umbrella of UC Berkeley," Walters said, "the field site will be a place for researchers to come for years into the future."

[Caption: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary announced the annual Hamburg Area Christmas Bird Count tallied 19,145 birds representing 87 species, including a Eurasian collared dove, the first spotted during 45 years of counts.]

Reading, PA -  Every year, the local Christmas Bird Counts can be relied on to come up with a surprise or two.

Sometimes mild weather will keep some summer birds from migrating; other times invasion years bring us unusual birds from the far north.

For the 2009 count, Hamburg comes up the winner on the surprise front - with a vagrant bird from the South.

Arlene Koch and her crew discovered a Eurasian collared dove at a backyard feeder in Krumsville Dec. 27 for the first Hamburg count record of that species and the second Berks record.

Local bird watchers have been on the lookout for this dove for a number of years, as sightings and nestings have tracked steadily northward since the early 1980s.

The spread of this species follows the same pattern as many other exotic species, such as the European starling, that have escaped and populated wide areas of the United States.

According to "The Birds of Pennsylvania," Eurasian collared doves were brought in the early 1970s from the Netherlands to a pet shop in Nassau, Bahamas, and later to a bird propagator. Around 50 escaped and established themselves in the wild before arriving in Florida, nesting there in the early 1980s.

Since then, they have spread north, with the first Pennsylvania record in 1996 in Crawford County.

Hamburg also had a good variety of species compared to the other local counts, essentially because Bernville and Reading's counts were the blustery and cold weekend of Jan. 2 and 3, which kept the overall totals and numbers of species down.

Hamburg also had high counts of four merlins, six red-shouldered hawks, five wood ducks and four grey catbirds - a summer resident that occasionally will linger during mild winters.

The Reading Christmas Bird Count had five bald eagles, which I believe is a record. The breeding pair at Lake Ontelaunee resides here year-round.

Caption: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary announced the annual Hamburg Area Christmas Bird Count tallied 19,145 birds representing 87 species, including a Eurasian collared dove, the first spotted during 45 years of counts.

http://www.youtube.com/user/PennState#p/a/u/1/HSwoRCl1aUU   

Sandra Keller chases birds all over America, even to places where birders are as rarely seen as their subjects.

The Barrington, Camden County, woman once drove up to New Hampshire for a chance to glimpse a wayward African bird called a western reef heron.

In her travels across Commercial Township and other favorite birding spots, she has become sensitive to how strangers perceive her.

"Once I was looking at a barn owl in Salem County toward dusk. Because it was near the Salem nuclear power plants, the State Police showed up. I don't go to that road now," she said.

Last month, a Massachusetts man who said he was birdwatching was arrested after police decided he was behaving suspiciously.

Paul Peterson, 47, of Boston, was charged Jan. 5 with disorderly conduct, assault and resisting arrest after his binoculars drew the attention of neighbors near a Massachusetts marsh.

Peterson said he did nothing wrong and plans to fight the charges.

"It just so freaked me out. It's a shame that it's caused me not to enjoy birdwatching as much," he said.

Peterson's first court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 22. Whether he is found guilty or not, birders said conflicts and misunderstandings are not uncommon, especially in congested New Jersey, where few natural areas are far from neighborhoods.

Don Freiday, director of birding programs at the New Jersey Audubon Society, said police have stopped to question him at least five times while he was birding.

"One of the most memorable was when I was along the north shore of Monmouth County. I had a birding scope on my gun stock and an officer mistook it for a real weapon," Freiday said.

After that experience, Freiday decided the convenience of the modified scope was not worth the dangers a similar mistaken assumption could pose, and he no longer uses it.

Not even the late Roger Tory Peterson, one of the world's most famous birders, was beyond reproach.

In 1942, Peterson was photographing goldfinches in Long Island, N.Y., when neighbors reported him to police as a suspicious character, according to Elizabeth J. Rosenthal's biography "Birdwatcher."

Fortunately for Peterson, the officer recognized him as a famous naturalist. But the biography noted that birders faced unique challenges during World War II.

"Because of their binoculars, birders were suspected of spying," Rosenthal wrote.

The modern birder is more likely to run afoul of homeland security.

Scott Shalaway, a newspaper columnist from Cameron, W.V., goes birding in Cape May every year on his family vacations in Sea Isle City and Avalon, and said he has run into problems in the past.

"I was birding on a public road near a power plant along the Ohio River. They have lots of natural areas near power plants. It's a birdy place," he said. "Within two minutes of getting out of the car, a security agent pulled up and quizzed me about why I was looking at the power plant. With my spotting scope and binoculars, I thought it seemed obvious what I was doing."

In New Jersey, parks and refuges are never far from residential neighborhoods.

"I think there will be more conflicts. It's important for birders to be sensitive to it," Shalaway said.

Once, police in Texas stopped Audubon's Freiday because he was too near an oil refinery, he said.

"Another time I was birding the Raritan Bay area near the Earle Naval Weapons Station shortly after 9-11. I was looking at ducks in the bay. This Navy patrol boat came storming over at high speed," Freiday said.

The sailors aboard the boat sized him up and must have decided he posed no threat to national security. They turned around and retreated.

Cindy Ahern, of Huntingdon Valley, Pa., spends weekends birding in Cape May and Cumberland counties. She said she got into an argument with a neighbor once when she tried to photograph a hawk in their yard.

In her experience, most people who live near public parks and refuges are accustomed to seeing birders. But reactions can vary when she goes off the beaten path.

"If they can't understand it, they'll question it," she said. "Looking at it from the outside, someone with no interest or knowledge will ask questions. They don't get it."

The American Birding Association promotes a birding code of ethics, which includes a healthy respect for private property. The Cape May Bird Observatory in Middle Township lectures birders not to train binoculars on homes or businesses.

Freiday said most of the neighbors he has encountered while birding are tolerant about the activity. Birding and other ecotourism is big business in New Jersey, generating more than $500 million each year in Cape May County alone according to a 2006 study.

"I think people probably by now can recognize a birder when they see one," he said.

In a warning to humans, eagles along the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway are showing scientists to what extent certain chemicals are polluting water, fish and small animals.

"They accumulate these contaminants in their system," said the National Park Service's Bill Route, who monitors and tests about 60 male-female eagle pairs from Apostle Island on Lake Superior south to where the St. Croix River enters the Mississippi River near Hastings. "If we can track those trends through time we can discover a good measure of human contaminants."

The Park Service, drawing on the bald eagle research, plans a workshop for teachers on how to involve students in such research. The Saturday workshop at the Crex Meadows Visitor Center in Grantsburg, Wis., will include information about the monitoring of eagles.

The workshop is the fourth in a series of six being held this school year. The workshops are intended to draw attention to the riverway as a learning laboratory through field work, observations, resource materials and lesson plan development.

The bald eagle workshop will include presentations by Route, who is director of the Park Service's Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network; Ted Gostomski, biologist and science writer for the network, and Rick Erickson, a science teacher at Bayfield High School in Wisconsin.

Scientists testing the eagles have found increasing evidence of two groups of flame retardants used in everything from textiles manufacturing to plastics in computer screens. Blood samples taken from young bald eagles also show retardants once manufactured by 3M that were discovered a few years ago in Washington County, Route said.

The good news is that traces of the pesticide DDT, banned in 1972, continue to wane, he said. The pesticide was linked to a sharp population decline in bald eagles and peregrine falcons in the 1960s, he said.

Backyard Habitats Help Wild Birds Brave Winter

MARYSVILLE, Ohio, Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- During winter natural food supplies for wild birds are scarce. And in the coldest months of the year, precious energy is expended searching for food, instead of burning it for warmth. Bird watchers across the United States can create backyard habitats that offer shelter and feeding options while attracting a wider variety of wild bird species.

"Regardless of where you live, feeding birds during the winter can provide benefits to the birds," says John Robinson, chief ornithologist at Scotts. "For example, feeding birds in extreme northerly climates may increase the survival rates of some birds during unusually cold winters."

Wild bird feeding has a measurable benefit for birds in northern climates. Severe weather events cause nearly all natural food supplies to become unavailable particularly with extended periods of harsh cold, or when layers of snow or ice cover fruit, leaves, branches and the ground. Recent research discovered that winter survival rates of chickadees in the northern United States were highest in woodlands that had bird feeders versus those without feeders.

In warmer climes, backyard habitats and feeding are equally important. "Even if you live in the South, remember that many of the birds wintering in your yard must change into their breeding plumage, migrate back north in spring, find a mate, build a nest and lay eggs," continued Robinson. "All of these activities require considerable energy and in some instances may take place at a time of year when natural food supplies may be at the lowest. Your bird feeder may give the birds that added advantage they need to successfully migrate north, breed, and raise another brood of young."

A backyard habitat can be as simple as a

    * brush pile for shelter from the weather
    * fresh water source
    * bird feeder
    * and trees or shrubs to offer protection from predators


Because bird feeders provide an easy-to-locate or only source for food, fill it with quality seeds and blends containing oil rich ingredients like sunflower, peanuts, nyger or other high fat content wild bird foods such as suet for an energy source.

Creating a backyard haven is a welcome respite and source of enjoyment for both the wild birds and bird watchers alike.

My sister sent me these pics. They went to see the Manatees after the cold spell in Fla. The white on their heads is from the frostbite and is now dead skin. Poor babies. The one pic with 3 manatees is Mom, Dad and baby. They keep very close to stay warm.
The raptor pics are from a rescue that was traveling through. Beautiful Cara Cara and Falcon pic.

[This is great news Alison.........thank you..Bless the peregrines!]

Many thanks to everyone who signed the petition. The peregrines will still have their nest this year.

From the resident of Sussex Heights who originally raised the alarm:

Great news! After a lot of TV and press coverage the board have agreed that the birds can stay for at least the upcoming season. It gives us time to figure a way of doing the building work around the birds. It is all about health and safety they reckon. So the Brighton camera should be up and running for 2010. Thank you everyone who signed our petition and gave us your expert views.

This is great news Alison.........thank you..Bless the peregrines!

Ok, here's 2 pics...1 is Janet's bird and one from the Internet. They both look alike...so I can assume it's a Towhee.

[We took hundreds of photos of him!]

Oh sigh, I was hoping to be able to go to DC this past weekend to say "good bye" to Tai Shan!  When he was little I was home with an injury and spent many hours watching him on the cam!  When they finally allowed the public to see him, we went there.  We had tickets for a 20 minute viewing, but the weather was terrible, so very few people showed up.  They let us watch him for two hours!  We took hundreds of photos of him!

Hopefully there will be a new baby Panda at the National Zoo this year
Suzanne

Nice........can we see them?

What is that? At first I thought it was a pigeon.

Oh, Man!  I thought you were talking about the little Norwiegans that live under bridges!     Am I pitiful or what? 

Was just on Norfolk cam watching and on the right is a live chat. Well there is a TROLL and what a gutter mouth. Totally ruined everything. They had to stop the chat. Pretty pathetic. We had them on a few of our discussions also. I guess they are every where.

There were a few there yesterday too...thankfully they weren't too foul.  I can never understand what they get out of ruining someone else's fun...

Just to annoy...this time they just couldn't ignore....it got bad.

Was just on Norfolk cam watching and on the right is a live chat. Well there is a TROLL and what a gutter mouth. Totally ruined everything. They had to stop the chat. Pretty pathetic. We had them on a few of our discussions also. I guess they are every where.

I don't suppose they could put Kaver's old transmitter on them.

UM.......I don't think so!!