I and my wife finished our three week cruise of the west coast of Africa by visiting the Portuguese island nation of Cape Verde off west of Senegal and finally disembarking onto one of the Canary Islands, a Spanish protectorate, west of Morocco. The Canary Islands are a semi-tropical vacation haven for residents of Europe, comparable to Hawaii for U.S. residents. Like many island nations, it has birds similar to those of the closest mainland, but also has a few endemic species, having been on the island long enough to diversify into a new species or at least a subspecies, like the Blue Chaffinch and Berthelot's Pipit. Islands such as these and the Galapagos, Seychelles, Phillipines, and the Caribbean are terrific examples of the working of evolution as they have many endemic species. (Endemic refers to plants and animals that are found nowhere else.)           The Canary Islands were named after a large breed of dogs which had been on the island since Roman times. In  the 1800's they were bred specifically for dog fighting. People even refer to this breed as a Pit Bull on steroids.  The Presa Canario dog variety became notorious in San Francisco in 2001 when two of these dogs mauled and killed a woman. The owners of the dog were arrested and convicted for the killing.
           The Canary, a greenish-yellow finch with brown streaks, was in turn named after the islands. Canaries were first domesticated in the 1600s and selected for their colors and singing ability. Years ago, singing canaries were popular. A radio show in the 1940's featured dozens of canaries singing along with classical records. There was even a canary song training record you could use to teach your canary to sing- see http://www.cas.sc.edu/mcks/Exhibitions/petsInAmerica/canarytrainingrecord.htm . 

This popularity led unscrupulous pet shop owners to inject both male and female canaries with testosterone, the male hormone that induces singing (and other courtship behavior). After a few weeks, however, the canary's owner became disappointed at the bird's cessation of singing as the hormone wore off.
          Canaries were for years kept in cages in coal mines. Since birds are more sensitive to increasing levels of methane and carbon monoxide gases, the gases would kill them before the miners were affected. Hence the saying "canary in a coal mine" came to mean an early warning system.          Canaries, easy to keep in captivity, have been extensively used in research to study the development of new neurons in the adult brain, and also for understanding how songbirds encode and produce song. Canaries have served as model species for discovering how the vertebrate brain learns, consolidates memories, and recalls produces coordinated motor movements.
            There are seven Canary Islands, and 80% of their income comes from the 9.2 million tourists who come each year. Obviously, tourist facilities and crowds have impacted the native attractions and have reduced bird habitats, but on one island, some of the natives still speak the native language of Silbo, which consists entirely of whistles; seems appropriate for the Canary Islands.

You may recall the book and TV mini-series, Roots, written by Alex Haley. The phrase "kalamby bongo" was common in his family and the clue to his past as the words refer to a flowing river in the Mandinka language of the native tribes of Gambia. Natives still speak Mandinka today although the official language is English, Gambia being a British colony for many years. Properly called "The Gambia", the country is long and thin, surrounded by Senegal on three sides and the ocean on the west. It is on the edge of the tropical zone and, being bisected by the Gambia River, has a lot of wetlands.
             My wife and I hired an excellent bird guide in the capitol Banjul. He  was trained and certified by the national park authorities and really knew his stuff. After an hour's ride in the back of an open jeep through the chaos that is typical of third world countries - open air markets lining severely potholed streets, goats, chickens and vultures wandering among vehicles, diesel buses being repaired along the roadside, open fires polluting the air, and trash everywhere, we arrived at an oasis of nature. The Abuka Nature Preserve is a serious attempt at preserving some natural environment, but to say the place needs maintenance is an understatement. The birdlife was spectacular, though. I couldn't watch birds, look them up in my field guide and write them down nearly fast enough. We stood in one spot for maybe 15 minutes and I tallied perhaps 15 species, ten of which were life birds - Fork-tailed Drongo, Senegal Thicknee, Pied Hornbill, Gray headed Bristlebill, Senegal Coucal, Ahanta Francolin, and Violet Turaco, were some. We were simultaneously distracted by monkeys, lizards, and spectacular butterflies.
               After eating lunch at a place that resembled a kid's large treehouse and hoping that whatever African infestation that might have been in the meal was thoroughly cooked, we walked off into a savannah. By this time it was beastly hot and we were walking on narrow raised paths between tomato, potato, and eggplant fields, all watered by hand as there was no irrigation system. So aside from the slightly treacherous walking we had to be aware of ten foot deep open wells everywhere. For birdwatchers who have a habit of looking up rather than down, these wells were a real hazard.
          Ecotourism has the potential of saving both Gambia and the next country we visited, Senegal. Accosted by sellers of hand carved African wood sculptures which could well have been crafted in China and children begging in the streets, we alternated between feeling annoyed and sorry. Both countries have interesting natural resources but seem to lean toward selling junk to tourists. I have no idea how to change this except to do our part by spending money on ecotourism rather than a carving of a rhinocerous, few of which exist anymore.
            After Gambia, we visited Senegal and the Cape Verde Islands. Tomorrow we land in the Canary Islands and then head back home to Chico. Six thousand miles by sea in 18 days.

Through the miracle of the internet, I am posting this blog from a cruise ship sailing off the coast of West Africa between Senegal and the Cape Verde Islands, two ports on our trip.
For ten years I have been lecturing on cruise ships about the environment, ecology, flora and fauna, including, of course, birds, of various places around the world.  It has been a real education for me to see, up close, different environments of the globe. Besides traveling, I enjoy sharing information with the passengers who attend my lectures and meeting people from around the world. Having been on several cruise lines, I have learned to choose the ones with the smaller ships that make these "enrichment" lectures a major draw. Large cruise lines tend to be floating resorts where bingo, water volleyball, visits to the spa for pedicures, and shopping are the attractions, not a presentation on the ecology of the Atlantic Ocean.
       What surprises most people on their first cruise or two is how empty the ocean seems. No whales, no seabirds, no other ships is typical for the average day at sea unless the ship is close to shore, like the cruise ships that sail around the Caribbean. When I crossed the Atlantic in 2008 from Barbados to Malaga, Spain, I saw maybe six ships and as many birds in seven days at sea. Not until the Straits of Gibraltar did I see any life away from the ship I was on. Although 99% of all life on earth lives in the oceans, most of the ocean is a biological desert. And when you consider that 70% of the world is covered by ocean you begin to realize how desolate it is out there and how shipwrecked sailors can go a month or more before being rescued.
     Traveling nearly 6000 miles in two weeks, we are going from 33 degrees south of the equator to about 33 degrees north. So the lands we visit range from desert to tropics to grassland to savannah and the bird life varies a lot. A few countries, like Kenya and Tanzania on the east coast of Africa, understand the economic value of ecotourism and make efforts to encourage it. On the coast of West Africa, ecotourism is much less developed. Namibia is coming along but Gambia and Senegal are struggling, and it shows. We spent a day on tropical San Tome, an island country off the coast of Gabon, and went on a bird walk. The guide spoke English but didn't know the birds. His assistant knew the birds but only spoke Portuguese and had a local bird book which is probably the worst bird guide I have ever seen. That, and tropical rain squalls made for tough birding. San Tome and its sister island, Principe, have many endemic species, including the largest sunbird and the smallest ibis in the world, but we didn't spot them. We did see the endemic Paradise Flycatcher, San Tome White Eye, and Brush Sparrow and others. The next few days we visit Gambia, Senegal, Cape Verde and the Canary Islands.

Namibia, with the second least dense human population (after Mongolia), sits on the southwest side of Africa, just above South Africa. I have been fortunate enough to visit this country twice in the last 14 months and of course took some time to birdwatch. Nambia is not particularly known for its bird life although it has 630 bird species, and biologically and geologically it is fascinating. The Namib desert, on the coast, gets 1/8 of an inch of rain a year and has the highest sand dunes in the world, reaching to 1000 feet. Caper plants grow wild in the desert, which is inhabited by lizards that store water in their tail, beetles that collect dew on their butt at night to drink in the morning, and a transparent gecko that lives under the sand. There is also a cucumber-like plant which produces a chemical that is an effective sunblock. The cosmetic firm Body Shop wanted to buy the rights to harvest this plant, but the natives have so many other uses for it, including food, that they would not sell. The "skeleton coast" shoreline is littered with the bones of Cape Seals and whales that washed ashore, their bodies providing food for jackals and hyenas. There are five major habitats in Namibia, but the Nabib desert along the coast is the only one I had the opportunity to spend time in.
          Even though there is a miniscule amount of rainfall on the coast, about 1/5 of an inch a year, there is a delta formed by the encroaching ocean. The cold Benguela ocean current produces an upwelling of nutrients that provides the base of the food chain for many animals, and Cape Fur Seals and birds are abundant. The Walvis Bay Lagoon is home and wintering grounds for thousands of shorebirds, pelicans, waterfowl, and most spectacularly, the Greater Flamingo. Flamingos were everywhere, feeding on the abundant planktonic life. Around the flamingos were shorebirds, feeding on the organisms the flamingos stirred up. Cape Teal and Cape Shovelers also participated in the activity. Many species of shorebirds were present, mostly those which migrated south from Europe and North Africa. They were mostly in winter plumage, making identification more challenging, but we saw Greenshank, Little Stint, Chestnut -collared Plover, White-faced Plover, European Avocets, and the Ruff. Hundreds of Black-necked Grebes were flocked together and thousands of terns and gulls of various species were swarming like flies.
         Speaking of flies, small flies covered many of the beaches, blanketed our car windows, and filled the car when the windows were foolishly opened. I appreciated the fact that they were not biting flies but served as a major part of the food chain. The flies feed on washed up plankton and other organic matter and in turn are eaten by lizards, beetles, and many many shorebirds, no doubt the birds' reason for wintering here.
            Namibia is the only country in the world that has environmental protection in its constitution. It's a long way from being a shining example of conservation and ecotourism, but it's on the right track, especially compared to other African countries. It's safe, clean, and the various races and nationalities get along pretty well. By the way, Namibia means "land of open spaces."

Having been in Chico nearly 40 years, I have observed many changes in the avifauna - the kinds and numbers of birds. There has been a lot of development, increase in traffic, and all the other things an increased population brings. What has this done to the birds? I have some ideas.

When native vegetation such as oaks, sycamores, poplars, berry-bearing shrubs, flowers, and etc. are replaced by a subdivision, this clearly impacts birds. Titmice, woodpeckers, sparrows and others disappear, at least for awhile. But the typical subdivision replaces the native vegetation with redwoods, pistachios, bottle brush, zinnias, and crepe myrtles. Most birds don't care too much about the species of trees, shrubs, or flowers, but they do care about the structure. So replacing a native sycamore with a fruitless mulberry is really not a big deal to them. Growing a redwood in place of a digger pine is just fine and may even be an improvement. Orioles will just as likely nest in an exotic raywood ash as they would in a native box elder, all other things being equal. And if a field of grasses and star thistle is replaced by a golf course with water and trees, the result will be more birds of different kinds. So what's the big deal?

Well, there are lots of birds in decline in California as a result. (See http://ca.audubon.org/birds/birds-in-decline.php.) Horned Larks, for instance, have declined 84% since 1967 due to a disappearance of grasslands, Lark Sparrows by 68% and Loggerhead Shrikes by 76% for the same reason. The classic grassland bird of the west, the Western Meadowlark, has been reduced by 54%. House Finches, Mockingbirds, House Sparrows, Crows, and European Starlings, on the other hand, have increased. We are exchanging native, sensitive species for a generic set of birds that are happy cohabiting with humans. It's like eliminating most car brands and settling for Ford F150's, Toyota Corollas, and Honda Accords as the only vehicles for everyday transportation. They would work, so why not? How about limiting restaurant choices to Taco Bell, Denny's, and Red Lobster? They are all fine, but isn't variety more interesting? By the end of the century, we likely will have many fewer bird species. Maybe Scrub Jays, crows, and starlings will be our only backyard visitors, along with remaining insect species like ants and cockroaches. Not only is variety more interesting, but more species create a more stable habitat.

We can all do our part, though, to turn things around. You can create a wildlife friendly backyard garden to attract birds by planting appropriately. See http://www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife/create.cfm?CFID=21033087&CFTOKEN=f18f9baa6655d0fa-CFE549AC-5056-A868-A0E78E72CBBF111F  for detailed information.

In my backyard, formerly a declining black walnut orchard, I have slowly removed the walnut trees and planted native blue and valley oaks. Now many of these trees are 20-30 feet tall. In the 20 years I have lived there, the bird diversity has probably tripled as I am seeing birds every year in my backyard that I have never seen before. Every spring is a new adventure. You can experience the same.

In the news recently was a study by China's Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology which found the first clear evidence of dinosaur coloration from a 125-million-year-old fossil called Sinosauropteryx, an orange bird-like dinosaur with white tail stripes. More and more fossils of birds and bird-like ancestors are being found which demonstrate a clear evolutionary link between dinosaurs and modern birds. Birds appear to be today's dinosaurs.
          Via my website, www.ornithology.com , I have been asked why one doesn't see many dead birds on the street, sidewalk, and around the house since birds are seemingly everywhere. Well, most birds are very light, thin-skinned, hollow-boned, with little fat. They are basically bags of protein and minerals and are decomposed quite quickly by flesh-eating beetles and bacteria. Birds are hit by cars as are raccoons and skunks, but a skunk will lie on the road for days until the vultures come along, but a bird will disappear quickly. Over eons of time, creatures have died in situations that led to their fossilization. Those corpses are covered by sediment and transformed into fossils over many years. But because birds decompose rapidly and because they float, they do not easily fossilize.
          The most famous bird fossil is Archeopteryx lithographica, (meaning "ancient wing") which was found in a Bavarian limestone quarry, limestone being used in lithography (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithography.) There have been several Archeopteryx fossils found but the one pictured here is the most complete and resides in the British Natural History Museum in London. The earliest bird ancestors lived 250 million years ago; Archeopteryx lived about 150 million years ago and is an excellent example of a transitional animal between reptiles (dinosaurs) and birds. It had teeth, a long bony tail, abdominal ribs, claws and several other reptilian features. But it had distinct, well-developed feathers and looked very birdlike. It also had characteristics that both birds and reptiles share today such as scales, and similar bones of the ear, jaw, and pelvis. It probably did not fly, but glided.

You may remember the old film, One Million Years BC, in which a pterodactyl carried off the scantily clad Raquel Welch. Recent studies have indicated that pterodactyls large enough to do that (some were the size of small airplanes) were just too big to fly. The smaller pterodactyls, some small enough to perch on your finger, probably could fly, but they were not the ancestors of birds.
          Like many scientific issues, it often takes many years to collect enough data to explain what we observe or what happened in the past and we will eventually determine the exact routes to bird evolution. Presently there are 10,000 known bird species; an estimated 130 of those have become extinct since 1500, an extinction rate of roughly one species every four years. But considering the changes in the environment, it is now estimated that 12% of living bird species will be extinct by the end of this century- that's 1200 in 100 years, or one species per month on average! The original dinosaurs went extinct of course, but without human help, and over a much longer period of time.

      The European Starling's scientific name is Sturnus vulgaris, which some think is very appropriate. It was first brought into the United States in the late 1800's, but most introductions failed.  But on March 16 1891, a wealthy New Yorker, Eugene Schieffelin, decided to import the starlings into New York City's Central Park where they thrived. Why starlings?  Schieffelin had a passion for the birds of Shakespeare and in Henry IV, Part 1, Hotspur wants to drive King Henry nuts by having a starling repeat the name of Hotspur's brother-in-law Mortimer, whom Henry refuses to ransom out of prisoner status. "Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but 'Mortimer,' " Hotspur says. Shakespeare actually mentions nearly 600 bird species in his plays, but the starling is the "star". Closely related to mynahs and mockingbirds the European Starling is quite an adept mimic and can mimic the songs of at least 20 other species.
     The starling began to breed almost immediately in Central Park. By 1950 starlings could be found all the way to California, north of Hudson Bay and south to Mexico. They arrived in Chico about 1942. Today their populations number over 200 million.
     Starlings are adaptable and will eat almost anything, including fruit, seeds, insects, worms, grubs, millipedes and spiders, and occasionally lizards, frogs and snails. They are usually seen foraging on open mown lawns, pastures etc.
     Male and female starlings look similar: glossy black with purplish and greenish iridescences on the head, back and breast.  Juveniles are grayish brown. Starlings molt their feathers in the fall at which time they become spotted as their new feathers have white tips. By spring, these tips wear away, and the bird is glossy and unspotted. It's an unusual act that scientists term "wear plumage." In the fall their beak is brownish black but as the wear plumage occurs, the pigment on the bill wears off and the beak turns a bright yellow. In flight you can easily recognize them with their almost right-triangle-shaped wings (see photo).  Their beaks are short, and can open strongly, differing from other birds with substantial muscles to close their beaks.  The strong opening beak is an adaptation for probing in the soil for insects and worms, pushing rocks and soil out of the way.
     Generally, the European Starling is a problem for other birds and especially to farmers. Starlings  damage crops and because they nest in cavities and are aggressive, they outcompete many native bird species and drive them from their nest sites. They can also become a major nuisance in cities. As an exotic species they are not protected by the migratory bird act, so they can be humanely dispatched. You will find them most often in the lower Bidwell Park and the developed areas of the upper park.
            I should mention here that I have written The Birds of Bidwell Park which will be published this spring so you'll be able to read more about our local birds and enjoy the illustrations created by my colleague and wife, Carol Burr.

     Remember  the 50's musical "Singin' in the Rain" where Gene Kelly sings the title song while being pelted by raindrops? It is one thing to sing and dance in the rain with an umbrella and quite another to live in it as do birds. How do they do it?
            A storm comes in on a low pressure center; this makes it more difficult for birds to fly simply because the air is less dense. Rain, or even water vapor (humidity) takes up more space, resulting in even fewer air molecules. This is why birds perch before and during a storm - it takes a lot more energy to fly in rainy conditions and so they avoid doing it. They perch in a tree, in shrubs or wherever they can get some protection. One scientist observed songbirds on the ground and huddled under shelter during Hurricane Katrina. But they also sit on power poles and lines where they face the wind and reduce their resistance to it.
            Birds are waterproof. Their feathers, made of protein similar to our fingernails, have interlocking barbs to make them both flexible and water resistant. Feathers overlap one another like roofing tiles to make the bird both aerodynamic and water repellent.  Birds also have an oil gland at the base of their tail which they use to put a waterproof coating on their feathers. You may have seen a bird reach over its back as if it was scratching an itch on its tail; it is actually squeezing oil from the gland which it then spreads over the feathers. The outer feathers of birds protect the insulating feathers underneath, just if they were wearing a down jacket with a waterproof shell. Some birds, like egrets, have what is called "powder down", fine granules like talcum powder that are produced by the decomposition of special down feathers and repel water. And birds have a third eyelid, a translucent membrane, which allows them to face the rain with protected eyes. Birds also have a special mechanism in their legs, a tendon that causes the toes to curl when they perch, giving them a tight hold on a tree branch in the blustery wind.
            So birds do fairly well during a rainstorm, at least for a short time. But if the storm is particularly windy, rainy, or cold, or lasts for more than a few days, birds begin to show the effects. No one really knows how many birds die during a storm or series of storms. But mortality is certainly higher than usual. They fly into trees or windows, they get lost and wind up over the ocean or a large lake, their food sources are made more difficult to access at the same time they need more food to get warm, and they are more vulnerable to predators. So they hunker down and fly only when necessary.
            An old proverb says "When the goose honk high, fair weather; when the goose honks low, foul weather."

In 2009, there were 10,000 reported incidents of airplanes and birds colliding, the most famous of which resulted in the landing of a passenger jet in the Hudson River. Bird strikes, as they are called, are increasing because the skies are getting more crowded with airplanes. The birds most often involved in these collisions are large birds with large populations, like geese and gulls. Waterfowl (31%), gulls (25%), raptors (18%), and pigeons/doves (7%) represented 81% of the reported bird strikes causing damage to USA civil aircraft, 1990-2008. (Over 780 civil aircraft collisions with deer and 280 collisions with coyotes were reported.) (Data from www.birdstrike.org) . And bird strikes are increasing at a rate of 2% per year. If you think about where many airports are located - LAX, SFO, Newark, JFK, Miami, Salt Lake City, they are near water or marshes where there is not much human development and where birds congregate. The Sacramento International Airport has had more bird strikes (over 1300 in the last 20 years) than any other airport in the west and the sixth most in the country. Reason: it is located in the Pacific Flyway, a major migration path.
            But it's no reason to stop traveling by air. There have been fewer than 250 human fatalities due to bird strikes since official data began to be collected in 1912. The first reported bird strike was by Orville Wright in 1905 who chased a flock of birds with his plane and killed one with a wing. The first recorded bird strike fatality was reported in 1912 when aero-pioneer Cal Rodgers collided with a gull which became jammed in his aircraft control cables and he crashed.     
            The bird-plane collisions that result in serious damage are due to the bird hitting the airplane windshield or being sucked into the engine. Most collisions do not have serious outcomes, luckily. In September last year at the Tulsa, OK airport an American Eagle plane hit a flock of 100 pigeons on takeoff and returned to the airport uneventfully, where the parts of 34 pigeons were removed from the engines.
            I can relate my own experience here as I flew small airplanes for a few years. One day, taking off from Ranchero Airport in my Cessna 172, I all of a sudden saw a flock of magpies in front of me. The magpies crossed unharmed but just behind them, trying to be a member of the flock, was a parrot. Yes, a parrot. It hit the propeller and I saw feathers fly pass the windscreen. I landed an hour later and picked the badly injured but live parrot up and brought it to a friend for treatment; unfortunately it did not survive.
     The FAA and NTSB have been researching bird strikes for years and have developed lots of potential solutions to keep birds and airplanes separate and configure planes and engines to withstand strikes better. I hope there are better solutions than what was implemented at the Oakland Airport last month when five dozen pelicans, gulls, and cormorants were shot.

     Migratory birds travel pretty much the same path north and south each year from nesting to wintering grounds. Geographic features such as mountain ranges tend to funnel them along general routes called flyways. In North America these are: Pacific, Central, Mississippi, and Atlantic. Chico is in the Pacific Flyway, which extends from Alaska to Patagonia. Any particular bird species travels part of this route each year, following very much the same path and very close to the same time each year. Along the flyways in the fall, there are many rest stops where birds of many species gather, sometimes in the millions, to feed and regain their strength before continuing. When they reach their destinations, they remain for the winter, surviving until the time comes to move northward again.
    Every New Year's day, my wife and I and several friends visit the Gray Lodge Waterfowl Area which provides an amazing spectacle of hundreds of thousands of birds. Thousands of acres of wetlands provide a resting place for waterfowl, cranes, shorebirds, herons, egrets, and dozens of other species. It is a great place for the beginning birdwatcher as these large and often colorful birds are easy to identify. I have taken hundreds of groups on trips there over the years - college classes, Elderhostel groups, CARD excursions, school age children, etc. and they are all enthralled. Even if one isn't interested in birds, it's still a spectacular sight to see thousands of Snow Geese flutter down from the skies like snowflakes-hence the Snow Goose name.
     Just before the Gold Rush began, California's population was less than 100,000 and the Central Valley was a great wetland. Today the population of California is 37 million and the wetlands severely diminished. All these wintering birds now have access to a relatively small amount of habitat and with the population of California estimated to grow to 64 million by 2035, habitats will be further threatened. Fortunately, through the efforts of the state and federal refuge system, organizations and agencies like the Nature Conservancy, land trusts, Fish and Game Easements, California Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Audubon Society and conservation-minded land owners, habitats are being maintained and expanded.
     But it is not just in California that waterfowl are being threatened by the expanding human population. One third of the 234 waterfowl species in the world are threatened or endangered by humanity's quest for resources. Today humans number nearly seven billion and by 2050 will be ten billion! All these people require water and wetlands will undoubtedly be threatened. I can only hope that our legislators have the big picture in mind when they make decisions that affect wetlands and the waterfowl and other flora and fauna that depend on this and other habitats.
     You might want to learn more about waterfowl and wetlands by looking at the websites of Gray Lodge http://www.dfg.ca.gov/lands/wa/region2/graylodge/index.html ; Sacramento Wildlife Refuge Complex http://www.fws.gov/sacramentovalleyrefuges/r_sac.html; The Nature Conservancy http://www.nature.org/; Northern California Regional Land Trust http://www.landconservation.org/ ; Ducks Unlimited http://www.ducks.org/ and the Audubon Society http://www.audubon.org/.