| April 12, 2007 readers of the Seattle Times and PI:
Google
Four Seasons Grenada Dove Extinction
for more information on this crime against the creation by the Four Seasons Corporation
It’s not a Green Building
if it’s not swallow-friendly!
I’m very excited about the Green Building bill in the legislature, and I would be thrilled to see Green Building practices become the norm, as they should. But sometimes when people conceptualize “greeness”-- whether it involves buildings. recycling, working for a “clean” environment, sustainability, reducing pollution, or whatever--they forget about the critters.
The nesting strategy of some birds involves going towards humans and their buildings in an effort to avoid predators. Of these (Barn Owl, Wrens, Phoebees, Robins, House Finches, etc) perhaps the most committed are Swallows and Martins. For centuries Barn Swallows have solved their Crow problem by nesting near humans on their buildings, using a loud alarm call to draw out human assistance in nest-defense. But now that the human has morphed from a friendly-farmer-with-a-barn to a home-or-business-owner-with-a-powerhose, an age-old friendship is under threat of unraveling.
To be really green, building owners should never, EVER evict Barn Swallows, (or Cliff Swallows), should put out fresh mud for them especially in a dry spring, put up small nest platforms under eaves, and should also help their cousins the Violet Green Swallows by putting up state-of-the-art nest boxes (and gourds for Purple Martins if the building is near water).
- Ed Newbold—Wildlife Artist
August 23 2005Press Release to Western WA media
But Horses don’t count
The 2nd Annual YardBirdRace is a Horse Race!
With some recent athletic events emanating an escalating sense of boredom as they progress--for example the Tour de France & the Mariner’s whole season--it’s great to know that one event is building in exitement toward the finish line.
That is the 2nd Annual, 2005 Western Washington YardBirdRace. Contestants count birds that they see or reliably hear from their yard from the first minute to the last minute of 2005.
Overall Leaders--in Class W--only a species apart
Currently holding the overall lead by one species as of last reports, is CAROLYN EAGAN of Port Ludlow with a cool 88 species including Common Nighthawk and Common Tern (someone is going to have to do something about these names, as both birds are notably uncommon here). At 87 is Maxine Reid of Warm Beach, Snohomish County who has ticked off the iconic Trumpeter Swan as well as shorebirds like Lesser Yellowlegs and Sanderling. Meanwhile last year’s Thurston County winners ERIC & LAURA KRAIG were reporting 79, including Hutton’s Vireo and Great Horned Owl, as of June, and last year’s overall winner has yet to enter, so hold onto your hat, this race is too early to call with much of the fall migration still to come.
(There is no early registration requirement in the YardBirdRace, meaning that anyone can enter at any time, so no current leaders are safe from late entrants)
McWethy tops close King County race with
Marrazo/Hoffman well ahead in Seattle
Another tight race is brewing in King County, where GUY MCWETHY is holding the “yellow jersey,” with 62 species including a Northern Pygmy Owl, Bullock’s Oriole, Great Horned Owl and Red Crossbill. However, NANCY LANDER & BOB BENNETT, also from Renton, were at 57 when they last reported in early June with a Yellowthroat and a Black Throated Gray Warbler, so ditto for this race. GRACE OLLIVER is looking to easily repeat in Kirkland with 47 so far including a Great Horned Owl.
Jumping the queue in the all-important Seattle Class Residential were JEANNE MARRAZO & JO HOFFMAN, who rocketed into first place when they reported last weekend with 52 species including American Kestrel and Crimson Fronted Parakeet (these are the naturalizing Seward Park Parakeets which hail from the northwestern Andes, and were judged legal to count by the YBR). Next closest is last year’s class Residential class winner DON MCVAY who at 41 is looking good for a win on upper Queen Anne with Snow Goose and Olive Sided Flycatcher. BOBBY & CURT PEARSON, who have both Grosbeaks and a Purple Finch, are just one behind and looking for a productive fall migration. SHARON BAKER is at 51 in Class W (Waterview) but would have 53 if Orca and Dall Porpoise had been eligible as honorary birds.
Snohomish, Skagit, Pierce
TAYLER & LIZ BROOKS, last years winners, are again leading in Class Residential Snohomish County with a Sandhill Crane, among many others, while Kurt Ranta already had 47 way back in June to hold the Skagit Co. lead from “downtown” Mt.Vernon. DAWN BAILEY again leads in Eatonville with 46 species that include a White Pelican and a Northern Pygmy Owl.
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As the Seattle Parks Dept tries to hush-and-hurry it’s Vegetation Management Plan (VMP) through the bureaucratic hoops, some are becoming aware that the plan will bring a frenzy of tree cutting to the inner sanctum of the old-growth forest at Seward Park. The designation of certain trees as “hazard trees” might befuddle the casual observer. For example, one is a straight-growing approximately 200 year-old Doug Fir in the middle of the forest with an evidently healthy and very large crown (see photo at left, above). Parks personnel have no idea and no way of predicting whether the removal of such a tree might actually increase the danger of other trees and branches falling on hikers, as large trees are known to depend on each other for protection from the wind.
Seattle Wildlife Artist Ed Newbold has been aware of the Parks Dept. aggressive tree-cutting practices and unwillingness to listen to citizen reaction for some time now. (A previous press release of Ed’s cited the cutting of a Mt.Baker Big Leaf Maple that neighbors had specifically requested be protected or at least reduced to a habitat snag. What the Parks Dept. calls a habitat snag btw, and what others call a habitat snag, are two different things).
While Newbold sees nothing but genuine and good motives on the part of the individuals involved, he believes the program involves bureaucratic money-spending whose main reason-for-being has become the spending of that already-allocated money. After the passage of Pro Parks, the Dept. hired three full-time tree-cutting crews. With the hiring of these crews came an incentive to give them work and keep them busy so they could be retained in the budget from year to year. This means the Park Dept. must turn a deaf ear to citizen reaction and keep the trees and snags coming.
Ed also believes that the hazard to hikers is not well addressed by this program. After all, where are the signs that might let people know that there is a danger in ever walking in an old growth forest—and particularly on very windy days and perhaps especially after moss-laden branches have been soaked with rain? The Parks Dept. appears to have no interest in putting up informative warning signs, only keeping its tree-cutting crews going at full steam.
Citizens point out that mature, dead and dying trees are the most valuable trees in a forest for wildlife. For example, the stately and colorful Pileated Woodpecker, a Seward Park resident, forages insects in the rotten parts of dead trees. Another Seward Park nester, the Brown Creeper, nests under the bark of mostly only big and old Firs and other trees. The Bullock’s Oriole and other neotropical migrant songbirds heavily utilize Cottonwood and Madrona trees, among the many targets of the Park Dept.’s chainsaws.
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Barn Swallow -Ed Newbold .JPG)
