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tea and birds; Ernest's flycatcher;



Howdy folks,

On Mon, 6 Jan 2003, Ernest Snavely wrote:
>
> Yesterday, 05, at the flying field a Great Crested Flycatcher perched
> briefly on the mower shed.  The weather was clear, chilly, and a steady low
> wind.  I thought it a little early for this bird.

I think it might be WAY early for this bird! They do winter in Florida,
but not too often further north; Loris, SC is just south of the NC state
line. This bird might be worth investigating further. The Ash-throated
Flycatcher I found about a year ago at Alligator River NWR had been
reported about a week before that as a Great Crested. Brown-crested turns
up wintering in Florida occasionally. Ash-throated is listed as
"Hypothetical" on the official SC bird list, and Brown-crested not at all:
http://www.carolinabirdclub.org/NewFiles/SC_Official_List_090102.pdf

Ernest, if you see it again, photographs might be in order... Look for it
around patches of Greenbrier (Smilax sp.) or other sources of berries.

On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Ward Linda wrote:
>
> Also, along the same stretch (the route to the Outer BAnks, just south
> of Coinjock) we've sighted a barred owk perched on a power line beside
> the road; it was seen around 4:00 pm. on two occasions within the
> past week---this is the first time in 25 yrs. of birding i've ever seen
> an owl on a power line.

I've never seen a Barred do it, but on the Ocracoke CBC, three of us drove
by a large silouette on a power line well after sunset. I'd bet money that
it was a Barn Owl, which would have been a state bird for me, but it was
gone by the time we turned the car around for a better look... Out in the
southwestern US, where trees are harder to come by, owls will actually
*nest* on powerlines!
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/GHOW.jpg

I've looked into the tea-bird relationship a bit, and not found much. I
did find one page attesting to the conservation efforts of UniLever, the
company that produces Lipton tea. Hard to say how much is sincere, and how
much is corporate "greenwashing":
http://www.unilever.com/environmentsociety/casestudies
				/biodiversity/India_biodiversity
(sorry, it was too long a URL to fit on a single line)

For another too-long URL, and more on the relationship of birds to exotic
species, Peter Vankevich (Ocracoke CBC coordinator) sent me a Washington
Post story about NPS efforts to protect Xantus' Murrelets and rare island
salamanders and lizards from rats, and one well-meaning but misguided
flake who decided he'd rather have the rats:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/
	wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A11004-2003Jan4&notFound=true

Closer to home, the birdbath had its first (detected) customers today in
the last several weeks: a male Northern Cardinal and a White-throated
Sparrow. I originally built my brush pile months ago to provide cover near
the bird bath and encourage shyer birds to come in for water; in light of
the sparrow's visit, I guess it's working! Then stopped for an errand on
Ninth Street, saw a flock of Rock Doves flush in a suspicious manner, and
sure enough, a Sharp-shinned Hawk flapped by moments later, passing over
Elmo's. And then parked on Circuit Drive on West Campus and had lots of
birds in my favorite on-campus swampy patch, including a Hairy Woodpecker
among several other species.

Good birding,

Josh


Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.)

jsr6@duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/