THE RED BIRD

A red bird has been attacking the mirror on my car for months.  He stands and gazes into the mirror and sees only himself.  This guy pecks at his picture in a frantic attempt to convince his other self how great he is and all the while pooping all over my car.  No matter how frantically he kisses the mirror his image keeps coming back and just will not leave.

His love for himself knows no bounds as he continues to visit the mirror for hours on end.  And when he is not kissing himself on the glass he is off on a nearby structure singing his praises at the top of his lungs telling the world what a wonderful red bird he is.

Will all this self adulation convince the powers that be to elect Red Bird KING?

ZIKA REVISITED

During the past year there have been numerous news  reports about the spread of the Zika virus through South America, Central America, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico  . This disease is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito  Over the last year scientists have observed a strong correlation between this disease and a spike in children born with a birth defect called microcephaly.  Brazil has been particularly hard hit, but the disease is spreading fast and has reached much of the warmer parts of the Americas.  These mosquitos can breed in a tiny amount of standing water and the slums of Brazil and other countries are the perfect locations for this epidemic.  Many of these "shanty towns " do not have sewer systems or  good sources of clean drinking water.  Rain that falls, collects in  puddles and abandoned trash like plastic cups.  The mosquitos have a perfect habitat for their life-cycle that only takes a few days. In the United States cases of Zika have been reported in many areas of the country,  so far all have resulted from  travel to Brazil or other areas where the disease is prevalent.

Why should we care?  Recent evidence suggests that the babies carried by pregnant women  are at extreme risk of acquiring the virus.  This pathogen apparently has the effect of creating the retardation/birth defect we call Microcephaly where the head and the brain are much smaller than normal.  Many babies have been born in Brazil and other parts of the Americas with this condition.

There is NO quick fix.  No cure or treatment. No vaccine. There is not even a reliable test for this disease. It may take years to bring this pathogen under control. At this point experts indicate that controlling the mosquito is the best way forward.  However, recent information indicates that the virus can not only pass from mother to child but also between sexual partners as well which is a first for a mosquito borne disease.  Adult who become infected with Zeka can come down with the neurological condition called Guillain-Barre syndrome This means this disease can spread without mosquitos, which makes it a threat to the human population world wide.

The  prospect of millions of babies being born with microcephaly or other birth defects as a result of a Zika infection, has sent shock waves throughout the medical community.,  Our government has requested 1.9 Billion dollars to deal with  this disease and women who are pregnant are being cautioned not to visit areas in the "Zika Zone".

It is still too early to predict what will happen, but the potential economic ramifications  of this disease could be devastating.  Any person going to see the Olympics in Brazil  in the Summer of 2016, will have to factor into their thinking  that there is a real possibility of contracting Zika.  Are people willing to take the risk of getting sick and potentially destroying an unborn child? Already the Brazilian government has panicked and is using its military to spray insecticides and do other things to try to get rid of the mosquitos---these efforts may ultimately  do more harm than good.  The economy of Brazil is already in trouble  and this epidemic is not going to help.

On a human level this is a tragedy   A Time magazine photo of a young Brazilian couple with their microcephaly child, was  heart wrenching.  As this disease continues to spread, millions of couples across the planet will make the difficult choice of postponing  having a child or accept the risk of  bringing a child into this world who faces an early death or at best a life full of problems.

The recent Zeka funding bill passed by the House of Representatives is a disgrace.  It is wholly inadequate in the face of this terrible threat.  The radicals who run the House are going to live to regret their stupid behavior.  Many of these members of Congress represent areas in the south where the disease will hit first because they have the most mosquitos and  it has the potential to do the most damage. When young mothers begin having retarded children because of their incompetence their lack of foresight will come back to haunt them.

FEATHERED DINOSAURS ARE LIVING IN YOUR YARD

FEATHERED DINOSAURS ARE LIVING IN YOUR YARD


Every Spring we are serenaded by mourning doves, cardinals, robins, mockingbirds, wrens  and other song birds as they prepare for the spring mating season.  Humans get an emotional boost when birds begin singing in the early Spring  because they know the weather will get warmer; and the vegetation will start to grow and everything will begin to green-up.

Recent fossil discoveries in China have found that not all of the dinosaurs died out in the big meteor strike about 65 million years ago.  Modern birds are descended from a flying feathered dinosaur that some how survived the disaster. Why did they survive when so many other species became extinct within a very short time?  Being small, mobile and warm blooded probably helped.

Bird song is interpreted by us as a pleasant experience, but for birds it is part of a threat display that is anything but pleasant.  If you translated a robin's song into English you probably could not print it or say it on TV. The male robin who arrives on site first uses his beautiful song to create a "wall" between himself and other male robins in the area.  Unlike humans who create actual walls, fences and hedges to separate themselves from their neighbors, the robin's wall is invisible. If you doubt this just watch the birds for awhile as they chase each other back and forth  until they agree on the boundary. Once the territory boundaries  are  defined the female robin will join her mate and they will get down to business.

In most bird species the female builds a nest while  the male stands guard. Each kind of bird has its own technique in nest building. The behavior is instinctive, meaning the steps followed are programed into the bird's tiny brain. The choice of  location, materials used and the procedures followed are all set in this animal's DNA. As remarkable as it may seem robins, cardinals and Baltimore orioles will make a nest exactly like the one they were born in, even without ever having seen one. The oriole weaves a bag-like nest that hangs from a branch that must weather rain, heat and wind as it holds mother and young for more than a month. And she does this with a beak and two feet. I challenge any human who has seen such a nest to create one with just your fingers---you can not do it.

Once the chicks hatch, typically both parents carry food to the nest.  Why do they go to all this work to care for their offspring? Love? To make sure their children grow up to be good productive citizens in bird society?  Not really. If you look in a nest you will see baby birds open their mouths in anticipation of food. A scientist once placed  a test-tube painted with the same color as the birds mouth in a nest.  The result---the parents filled the test-tube with worms. When the baby opens its brightly colored mouth this is a signal "Mom,  go get food".  If it is cold, wet or the babies do not feel well they will not open their beaks and the parents stop bringing food---result is death to the young.  This Spring was cold and wet; and when I monitored some bluebird boxes, I discovered several young bluebirds dead in the boxes. Absent a signal, their parents had simply stopped feeding them.

The flying dinosaurs  living in our landscapes are beautiful, fascinating creatures that have managed to survive for millions of years.  They certainly brighten our lives with their songs, their wide variety of colors and their fascinating behavior.  If you do not have these creatures visiting your yard on a regular basis, adding native shrubs and trees  to the landscape will provide the habitat they look for each Spring as they prepare to keep their species going.

GREEN CONCRETE AND WALLPAPER PLANTS

   

GREEN CONCRETE AND WALLPAPER PLANTS

As the human population skyrockets and human civilization creeps over planet Earth we are seeing the natural environment we have  inherited, being destroyed.  If you look at our cities from the air  they resemble large tumors as they grow out from a central core, consuming everything they encounter. Native landscapes are eaten up and replaced with buildings, green concrete and wallpaper plants. 


We are surrounded by green concrete. It is found in our parks, playgrounds, in people's yards; around schools, corporate headquarters and college campuses throughout America. It encircles our homes in small towns, rural areas and the big cities. We pay to have it "installed"; spend MILLIONS of dollars for toys to keep it in its place; and use MILLIONS of gallons of oil and natural gas products to maintain it. We Americans raise more than 40 million acres of the stuff every year. It is the biggest crop in the country.

Wallpaper plants include mostly alien, exotic vegetation imported from Asia, Europe, Africa or South America.  The nursery industry prefers these plants because they are easy to maintain and provide much of their income. Since wallpaper plants are not native to North America they often do not do well and require frequent replacement.

The pastoral landscape Americans seem to love is an alien, sterile place. Have you ever tried eating the grass in your yard? Right , it tastes awful. Guess what, nothing eats it, unless you import sheep or cows. Oh, I take that back---Canada Geese love it and you can find lots of poop as evidence. The only thing more sterile than the American lawn is bare concrete or blacktop. 

Maintaining this foreign landscape damages the environment and is dangerous to the health of our children and ourselves. If a weed or bug appears we spray it. We add fertilizer to make it greener. We water it when it gets dry in summer  and complain when we have to mow it.  The fertilizers and sprays pollute our waterways; the fumes from the mowers create air pollution; the fuels and chemicals used for maintenance are mostly derived from fossil fuels; the noise is annoying and damaging to our hearing; watering lawns is a waste of precious water; turf absorbs very little runoff from rain storms; and worst of all, almost nothing can use it as a home.

If you insist on a green lawn, why not just "plant" green astro-turf?---it stays green, needs no water or fertilizer and you never have to mow it. Just look at the money you will save.

However if you want to improve your environment, then I suggest you look at your landscape and eliminate some of your lawn and wallpaper plants. Replace them with native wildflowers, grasses, trees and shrubs. The changes will amaze you. Butterflies, bees, birds, mammals and other creatures will be attracted to your territory because they prefer natives.  To start, educate yourself and  visit your local store that carries landscaping materials.  Also there are many native plant sales this time of year. The Manada Conservancy and the Brandywine Conservancy provide native plants to the public.

Join the native plant movement. The planet will thank you.

SNOW GEESE AND TUNDRA SWANS AT MIDDLE CREEK

SNOW GEESE AND TUNDRA SWANS AT MIDDLE CREEK

This year the Snow Geese began to show up at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area toward the end of February. They reached their peak number of 65,000 about the first of March. The 30 inch snowfall we had the last week of January kept the birds away until most of the snow melted.  They spend most of the winter in the wetlands of Maryland, Delaware and Virginia and do not visit Middle Creek until the fields are free of snow and they have an area for feeding.  They are attracted to this place by the 400 acre lake and the thousands of acres of farm fields in the surrounding areas.  Snow Geese travel in large flocks of several thousand, eat waste grain and  graze on the fresh green shoots of plants found in fields in early Spring. 

During the day they range over Lancaster, Berks, Dauphin and Lebanon Counties in search of suitable feeding sites, but usually return to the lake at night.  

The dark colored bird in the center of this photo is called a "Blue Goose" and is a dark gray variety of an adult Snow Goose. Most of the birds are white with black wingtips.

On March first I was watching this flock and they suddenly all took off in a cloud of moving white heading for the lake to roost for the night.

By the end of March the Snows are usually gone, heading to northern Canada and their summer nesting grounds.

The Tundra Swans travel and roost in small family flocks of a 100 or so and also are attracted to the area because of the open countryside. This year about 2000 swans were observed at Middle Creek.  They are all white with black bills, are larger that Snow Geese; and tend to scatter over the entire lake as they roost while the Snow Geese usually roost in larger more compact groups.

The swans have a flute-like call and listening to them sitting on the lake can be quite pleasant until the Snow Geese show up.  
The Snows have a loud raucous call that they use all the time, even at night as they jockey for space on the lake.

By the middle of March the Tundra Swans have moved on west to Montana and from there they head north to Alaska's north slope.
The tundra areas above the Arctic Circle  in northern Alaska are the nesting grounds for these beautiful swans.

Several years ago some of us had an opportunity to assist with a research project studying the swans.  The birds were attracted to an area with corn and a cannon net was fired to trap them. We were able to hold the birds while biologists examined them and took blood samples. Unlike most wild animals the swans were very calm, did not try to bite us or struggle to get away. They looked at us as if to say "Who the heck are you?".  The feathers on their neck and breast felt like silk and it was really cool to hold such a beautiful animal. Several of the female swans were fitted with devices that emitted signals giving scientists information about their migration route to Alaska.

Each year thousands of people visit Middle Creek to observe the huge flocks of geese, swans, ducks and other waterfowl that use this site as a stop on their migration route north. The best time of day to see Snow Geese is early in the morning at dawn or in the late afternoon into the evening  A lady I spoke with during my March 1st visit had discovered the place on the internet and had traveled all the way from Boston to see the birds. The best time of year to see the Snow Geese and Tundra Swans is from February first until March 15th, depending on the weather.  Once the  tour road through the property is opened on March first, visitors have more opportunities to see large flocks of Snow Geese and other wildlife. 

The Pennsylvania Game Commission owns Middle Creek and they provide up-to-date information about the area on their website at www.pgc.state.pa.us.   The Visitor Center opens February first each year and is available to visitors Tuesday through Saturday 8 to 4, Sunday 12 to 5 and closed on Mondays. The phone is 
(717) 733 -1512.

NOTE: There is a pair of Bald Eagles currently nesting along the lake at Middle Creek. At least one egg has hatched and the adults have been observed feeding young in the nest.  

WOOD FROGS---"POLAR BEARS" OF THE AMPHIBIAN WORLD

Monday morning March 6th  we awakened to the calling of Wood Frogs.  We had about one month of winter this year from the end of January to the beginning of March.  The 30+ inches of snow we had at the end of January was about all the real winter we had this year. Yes it stayed cold with temperatures in the single digits a couple of times, but in early March the temperatures shot from the 30's to the 70's in just a couple days  and that was the signal to these frogs that Spring is here.

The Wood Frog singing sounds more like barking and is quite loud.  We have 4 water areas and all of them were captured by these amphibians for their annual Spring mating ritual.

I first encountered these fascinating animals when we moved to Mt Gretna in the 1990's.  They hibernate during the cold of winter, but with the first warm days of March they suddenly appear in open water  areas like vernal pools and small ponds and begin to "sing".  I have seen them do this when there are still large pieces of ice in  the water.   The temperature remains at 32 degrees until the ice melts, so I do not know how they are able to stir up the energy to be jumping all over the place like they do.  They are cold-blooded, but something about their makeup allows them to function at very cold temperatures.

When we were in Alaska in 2003  we stayed at a bed and breakfast owned  by Judy Cooper.  She was a musher, had lots of dogs and lived on a large piece of land near Fairbanks in the central part of the state..  When i asked here about the wildlife in the area, she mentioned that she had a vernal pool in her woods and every year she had Wood Frogs appear and mate just as they do here  in PA.  Now the ground  in this part of Alaska is permafrost, so somehow these little guys can survive being frozen, wake up and mate every year.  No other reptile or amphibian can survive that far north, only Wood Frogs.

After about 2 weeks the frogs stop calling and return to the forest leaf litter where the spend most of the year feeding on creatures they find there.  I rarely see them except when mating season occurs.  In a week or two the gelatinous  masses  of eggs will explodes with hundreds of tadpoles that will develop legs and lungs  and join their parents in the forest ecosystem..  So we have  again enjoyed the announcement  of Spring by the barking  of our resident Wood Frogs.

THE ZIKA VIRUS----GOOD OR BAD FOR THE PLANET?

Recently there have been numerous news  reports about the spread of the Zika virus through Central and South America. This disease is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and its mild  rash-like symptoms have not drawn much attention until now.  Within the last year scientists have observed a strong correlation between this disease and a spike in children born with a birth defect called microcephaly.  Brazil has been particularly hard hit, but the disease is spreading fast and has reached much of the warmer parts of the Americas.  These mosquitos can breed in a tiny amount of standing water and the slums of Brazil and other countries are the perfect locations for this epidemic.  Many of these "shanty towns " do not have sewer systems or  good sources of clean drinking water.  Rain that falls, collects in  puddles and abandoned trash like plastic cups.  The mosquitos have a perfect habitat for their life-cycle that only takes a few days. In the United States cases of Zika have been reported recently in Florida, Texas and Hawaii, all the result of travel to Brazil or other areas where the disease is prevalent.

Why should we care?  Recent evidence suggests that the babies carried by pregnant women  are at extreme risk of acquiring the virus.  This pathogen apparently has the effect of creating the retardation/birth defect we call Microcephaly where the head and the brain are much smaller than normal.  More than 4000 babies have been born in Brazil with this condition.

In my opinion the biggest problem facing the world today is too many people fighting over our limited natural resources of clean fresh water, land, clean air, fertile soil and those needed to sustain our modern economy.  The wars in the Middle East and  the ensuing migration crisis are just the most recent reminders of what we as a species face on this piece of space dust we call Planet Earth.
Some are predicting that the human population could  double from 7.3 billion currently to as high as 15 Billion  in a hundred years.  The planet's resources can not  sustain that level of increase.

In the natural world the systems maintain a balance between resources and living creatures  by a process called  "Survival of the Fittest". We humans also have followed this difficult path for most of our existence.  However starting with the development of agriculture about 10,000 years ago we had a more stable food supply and villages and cities gave us more security.  The result was a marked increase in the number of humans on the planet. Now with the advent of modern medicine almost everyone survives.  People are just "not dying anymore".

As I see it the human species has a choice.  The intelligent way to proceed would be to institute birth control and family planning worldwide.  The UN, the United States and other countries have moved in that direction, but some cultures and religious  groups are resisting the effort.  No one wants to see the death rate rise, but if the countries of the world  do not take it upon themselves to solve this problem, than the natural systems will do it for them.  There are a lot of creatures "out there" that want to "eat us" and one of these days........

Here comes Zika. If this disease is as bad as it appears to be, it could have a real dampening effect on human population growth. The  prospect of millions of babies being born with microcephaly or other birth defects as a result of a Zika infection, has sent shock waves through the medical community worldwide,  Our government has requested more than a Billion $ to deal with  this disease and women who are pregnant are being cautioned not to visit areas in the "Zika Zone".

It is too early to predict what will happen in this situation, but the economic ramifications  of this disease could be devastating.  Any person going to see the Olympics in Brazil  in the Summer of 2016, will have to factor into their thinking  that there is a real possibility of contracting Zika.  Are people willing to take the risk of getting sick and potentially destroying an unborn child? Already the Brazilian government has panicked and is using its military to spray insecticide and do other things to  try to get rid of the mosquitos---this may do more harm than good.  The economy of Brazil is already in trouble  and this is not going to help.

On a human level this is a tragedy   The recent Time magazine photo, of a young Brazilian couple with their microcephaly child, was  heart wrenching.  As this disease continues to spread, millions of couples across the planet will face the difficult choice of postponing  having a child or face the risk of  bringing a child into this world who faces a life full of problems.

There is NO quick fix.  No cure or treatment. No vaccine. There is not even a reliable test for this disease. I believe it will take years to bring this pathogen under control. At this point experts indicate that vector (mosquito) control is the best way forward.  However, new information indicates that the virus can not only pass from mother to child but also between sexual partners as well.  If this proves to be true, then this disease can spread without mosquitos which makes it a threat to the human population world wide.

Through the long history of Planet Earth populations of living things have been controlled  by what we call limiting factors. Limiting factors include available food or water, a disaster like the dinosaurs suffered, a change in climate, invasion by a new species or a disease.

It is my view that we will shortly know if the Zika virus is going to be a limiting factor in the continued population growth of the  human species on Planet Earth.