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Winter Citizen Science. You can help track climate change impact at Street Prophets [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-11-04
Welcome to the Street Prophets Coffee Hour, the place where politics meets up with religion, science, art, nature, and life. Come in, have a cuppa and a cookie (or three!) and join us. Street Prophets is an open thread. All topics are welcome.
It’s November 4, 2023. My grandson turns 20 today. (How did that happen?)
And Project Feederwatch has begun. It’s a way to contribute to the understanding of effects of climate change on bird populations and distribution. As the climate warms, for instance, the range of the red-bellied woodpecker has moved significantly northward. Personally, I’ve seen my counts of goldfinches go from 60+ at a time to 2 or 3. The bits of data collected by people like you and me are part of the permanent record of climate and birds.
I’ve counted birds for Cornell University’s ornithology lab for a very long time. You don’t have to be a birding expert to participate. You need paper and pen, or another way to record your counts. You need a way to enter data on the website, although if you’re truly old-school (and how are you reading this?) you can send it in by snail mail. Inexpensive binoculars are helpful. So is a bird guide, if you get birds you don’t recognize.
But—for the yearly sign-up fee of $18, you can receive a poster of common feeder birds in your area, and a bird-themed calendar. I’ve opted out of both, to save paper and because I already have a good bird guide and I get more calendars in the mail than one person (or ten people) can possibly use.
It isn’t even a big time commitment. Fifteen minutes on two consecutive days is minimum, but if you can’t do two days, can you do one day for a bit longer? In years past, I’ve given over hours to counting, parking my car where I could see the feeders scattered over the half acre that’s my back yard. Now, with “indifferent” health, I have all feeders clustered on the deck railing, about 20 instead of the 50 I had two decades ago, and I can count through the French doors, sitting comfortably in the kitchen. My 20 year old heated birdbath, clamped to the deck railing, is still working, and that helps bring birds in, too.
If you’re a photographer, this is an opportunity! Need ideas for getting photos that are dramatic, with the appearance of being in nature? Just ask. Meanwhile, here are some feeder pictures from previous years.
Red-bellied woodpecker, and you can see the flush of red on the underside. This is a male because the red on its head is continuous.
White-breasted nuthatch. It’s rare that I get the red-breasted ones.
Mockingbird. They aren’t here for the seeds. They prefer an apple or raisins, but they will come for the water, too.
Blue jay
Northern cardinal
Downy woodpecker. If you get these, spend some time learning to distinguish them from hairy woodpeckers.
The dreaded starling!
Pine siskin. I used to get these in large numbers. Now I see one or two every few years.
Junco. My mother called these snow birds as they only show up here in winter.
Another winter visitor is the Harris’ sparrow, our biggest sparrow.
Yellow-shafted flicker (see the gold under the wings). Female because there’s no mustache.
Tufted titmouse
American goldfinch, only not so gold in the winter.
Black-capped chickadee. Trusting little birds.
A murmur of starlings, just in case you didn’t know how these are taking over.
The thread is now open.
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