CNN Guest Pelican

Interesting video from CNN featuring live animals and a veterinarian discussing effects of oil on wildlife.

Confession: I've always thought that pelicans were odd looking, but after watching this one I think I'm in love.

In other parts of the blogosphere, Jay Holcomb, executive director for International Bird Rescue Research Center, responds to controversy surrounding the washing of oiled birds. I'm relieved to hear that the person with decades of experience with birds affected by oil spills still believes we should wash them in order to give them the potential for a long productive life.

Platalea ajaja: Roseate Spoonbill

The roseate spoonbill is one of the birds that stands to be affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. A large wading bird, part of it's range is the east coast of Texas and part of Florida.


Its distinguishing features can be found in its name: light-to-deep pink feathering on body and wings, and that long, spatulate bill.

I had dinner the other night with a former colleague. He lives in New Orleans and before his current employment he worked for an oil company.

He believes that the spill is this bad because of either a failure of imagination or a lack of will on the part of BP. According to my friend, technology exists that would have either prevented the explosion in the first place -OR- allowed them to cap the well more quickly. Apparently these technologies are in use in other parts of the world... in other words, they're neither new nor experimental.

Huh. That's food for thought.

More food for thought: It's impossible to keep birds away from the oil once it's in the water. When healthy, birds are difficult to catch, and they're committed to their habitats. Greg Butcher, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society, said, "Prevention is key with oil. Once it is spilled there is little we can do. Once the leak has stopped and the clean-up has progressed, we can think about restoring the lost bird populations."

Still more food for thought: I'm a fan of the idea of washing oiled birds, but maybe I'm too soft-hearted. According to one scientist, Less Than 1% of Oil-Soaked Birds Survive. Because damage caused by ingesting oil causes a slow, painful death, this scientist recommends euthanizing oiled birds rather than cleaning them.

Doodled from this photo.

Black-headed Grosbeak, day 2...

... or, further proof that I am not a watercolorist.


Despite my ineptitude, you get the idea. When I'm gazing at the feeder full of sparrows and the occasional house finch, this big(ger) dash of orange and black makes me sit up and take notice.

Pheucticus melanocephalus: Black-headed Grosbeak, day 1

Last week I saw an immature male black-headed grosbeak at one of the feeders. Today it was an adult male. He seemed generally unconcerned about much, which might have eventually become a problem as we had a hawk visit the yard today for a snack (here's hoping he picked up a sparrow instead of any of the finches).

Their bills are finchy - big, seed-eating bills. About the size of a starling, black-headed grosbeaks belong to the same family as northern cardinals. They summer in our neck of the woods


This is the initial doodle - look for color tomorrow.

Doodled from this photo.

Birdchick and the AP Get It.

I hate what's going on in the gulf. Even more than that, I hate that there's absolutely nothing I can do about it.

I hate it when I read that the BP CEO "wants his life back." (Right. I'll bet the families of those 11 rig workers would like their lives back.) Sorry, buddy, but I'd rather like it if you didn't get your life back... not for a long, long time.

I'm not the only one, thankfully. Here's a link to an excellent post by Birdchick. Go read the whole post. Here are a couple of highlights:

"... we need to stay on task and hold those responsible for this apparently unstoppable mess accountable for their actions–specifically, not having a plan in place to stop a spill of this magnitude should it ever happen."

Photo by Charlie Riedel/The Associated Press

"... Enough of everyone giving carefully worded and not so carefully worded statements of dismay and apologies without taking responsibility. I want President Obama to channel some Samuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a Plane in dealing with BP. I want an immediately assembled “think tank” of the world’s underwater engineering experts, wildlife experts, middle school and high school science fair winners and the entire staff of MythBusters to pitch ideas on how to stop the leak."

A giant amen to that.

Here's a link to another powerful post, this one about the "anthropomorphic empathy" generated by the sight of a living bird covered in oil, on the Lens blog of The New York Times.

Wrong on so many levels...

Photo: Office of LA Gov. Bobby Jindal and Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness

It's a cat-eat-bird, bird-eat-bird or person-eat-bird world out there, but it should not ever be a humanity-oils-bird-until-bird-suffocates-or-drowns world, or a humanity-leaves-lead-around-so-birds-can-swallow-it-and-die-a-slow-painful-death-by-poison world.

What the hell is the matter with us?

New Yard Sign

I wonder if the neighborhood cats are smart enough to differentiate between sparrows and finches... probably too much to hope for...

Right now, though, the sparrows at the feeders outnumber the finches by a measure of about five to one, so if there is any cat-on-bird action, its likely the victim will be a sparrow.

Lest you think I'm a horrible person for promoting cat-on-bird violence, let me say this: it's best not to get sentimental about sparrows, at least not house sparrows (the ones that visit my feeders). House sparrows aren't endemic to this part of the world (and when I say "part of the world" I mean this continent), but they thrive because they're highly adaptive to human environments. They're not covered by the migratory bird treaty. They're mean little buggers. If you put food out for finches, grosbeaks, flickers, nuthatches, juncos, etc., the sparrows will take full advantage. And if Ghost the neighborhood cat happened to snack on one, there would be five more to take its place.