Re: [cayugabirds-l] Fields being mowed.

[Dave Nutter]

Specifically about local grassland birds v hay-cutting: 
You may have heard of or met Reuben Stoltzfus, an avid and expert birder who 
lives in Ovid. He’s Amish and he doesn’t post on Cayugabirds-L, but he does 
have ways to read it (Reuben, I hope I don’t misrepresent you or make you 
uncomfortable by writing this!). While he makes his living as a roofer, not 
directly as a farmer, he does own some farmland, some of which is leased out 
and some for his family, who keep a few horses for local transportation and a 
dairy cow or two. He once described to me his difficult decision-making process 
of when and where to cut for hay or to prevent weeds from seeding. He observed 
birds (Grasshopper Sparrows and Bobolinks, as I recall) to determine as exactly 
as possible where they were nesting and how far along they were. And he both 
delayed cutting and left some small areas standing that still had active nests. 

I’m sure that Reuben’s passion, knowledge, and relatively small scale helped 
make this possible, but I wonder to what degree this could be scaled up. Could 
birders survey fields to tell willing farmers what birds were nesting where for 
how long, allowing some cutting to proceed while other cutting was delayed or 
in small areas omitted for the birds’ sake? I would prioritize the species in 
the most trouble, such as Bobolinks, certain sparrows, and (should we be so 
lucky) Upland Sandpipers, but be more willing to sacrifice abundant Red-winged 
Blackbirds. 

That may sound cruel, but decisions are made all the time in agriculture as to 
who may live and who will die. On the scale of my yard and garden, I try to be 
aware of which plants I pull up and which I allow to grow for food (for humans 
for birds or for insects), for beauty, or for native diversity. I try hard to 
keep out mammals who would eat my food, but those I catch within the 
triple-fenced garden are lucky to get out alive. Sometimes the agricultural 
decision (by others) is to label as “weeds” all broad-leafed plants which are 
not genetically engineered, regardless of whether they are invasive exotics or 
they are native plants necessary to the life cycle of native animals, such as 
Milkweeds for Monarchs, when using Round-up herbicide. Or it’s a decision to 
label as “pests” all insects (maybe even all arthropods?) including the wasps 
and other predatory insects which help keep other insects in check, when using 
broad-spectrum pesticides in a widespread yet standard manner. Some 
insecticides genetically engineered into crops can kill insects when the 
insects harmlessly gather pollen. Some insecticides, called neonicatinamides, 
applied to seeds before they are planted will kill insects that eat any of the 
grown plant, and that insecticide can also pollute the groundwater. Tilling 
deliberately kills plants. Applying chemical fertilizers can lead to run-off 
which causes algal blooms that de-oxygenate water bodies and kill all aerobic 
animals. It’s incredible the breadth and depth of killing by agriculture. And 
without insects, a whole lot of birds are in trouble. 

Some general thoughts: 
We all depend on agriculture (I assume that, despite the wide readership of 
CayugaBirds-L, there are no complete hunter-gatherers subscribed). Agriculture 
is the diversion of natural biological systems toward human purposes. 
Agriculture therefore subtracts from natural ecosystems, and from populations 
of wild plants and animals. To the extent Agriculture has encroached (and the 
percentage of potentially arable land which is already in agriculture is very 
high), native species that previously had sustainable populations no longer 
have access to extensive intact ecosystems like where they evolved. And we are 
all, to a greater or lesser extent, responsible. 

What can we do? My approach is to try to live lightly.
* Buy only what you need, and use it as thoroughly as you can. Compost the 
inedible stuff and use the compost to grow new food. A lot of food in the US is 
wasted, 40% is the number I’ve seen, although I’m not sure what was counted. 
Although I feed birds, I don’t have pets, so what I consider necessary is low. 
* Live low on the food chain: eat lots of plants. In general, eating farmed 
animals has about an order of magnitude greater environmental impact, because 
the farmed animal must eat so much farmed plant matter in order to grow and 
sustain itself before we eat it. When eating meat, I prefer poultry, which is 
far more efficient than beef, and I eat local small scale pork, which I also 
think has a lower impact than beef. Am I perfect? Far from it; I love cheese.
* Buy organic to avoid poisoning the environment. Or at least get food grown 
with Integrated Pest Management (IPU), which chooses the least environmentally 
destructive method to use in the most targeted way to address only the pest 
problems which are actually found to exist, as opposed to wholesale 
applications regardless of whether or not there was any 

[cayugabirds-l] Exciting Adirondack Opportunities for Big Atlas Weekend

[Matthew Medler]

Hi All,

If you're interested in participating in the upcoming Big Atlas Weekend,
and you also like to travel to the Adirondacks each summer to enjoy that
region's specialty breeders, we have a couple of exciting trip ideas to
share!

The first-ever Big Atlas Weekend
 will be held
next weekend, June 25-27, and offers a variety of ways to participate and
be eligible to win exciting prizes from the Cornell Lab's Bird Academy.
Some of the goals of the Big Atlas Weekend are to: encourage visits to
priority blocks that are currently unvisited; increase coverage in priority
blocks with only a few hours of coverage; and highlight the importance of
nocturnal visits to priority blocks.

The Moose River Plains in Hamilton County offer outstanding boreal birding
opportunities for species like Boreal Chickadee, Canada Jay, Black-backed
Woodpecker, Swainson's Thrush, and more. The Moose River Plains are also
home to several priority atlas blocks that are completely unvisited or have
just a few hours of effort after Atlas Year 1. There are over 100 primitive
campsites in the area, so if you enjoy camping and birding, this is a great
place to go. Note that these campsites are all available on a first-come
first-served basis. There is also lodging available in nearby Inlet and Old
Forge.

The DEC website has detailed information about the Moose River Plains here:
https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/53596.html

There are two unvisited priority blocks accessible from the main Limekiln
Lake-Cedar River Road (a.k.a. the Moose River Plains Road) that traverses
the area: Wakely Mountain CE 
 and Mount Tom CE . This road
also passes through the Snowy Mountain NW
 priority block, which is in
need of additional diurnal effort (and nocturnal effort).

The popular Ferd's Bog birding hotspot is located a short distance from the
Moose River Plains. Ferd's Bog is not located in a priority block, but if
you're spending the weekend in the area, it's always worth a visit!

The Nature Conservancy's Spring Pond Bog Preserve

is
one of the crown jewels of the Adirondacks. It is one of the last
strongholds of Spruce Grouse in New York State, and it also hosts other
special boreal breeding species like Boreal Chickadee, Black-backed
Woodpecker, Canada Jay, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, and Palm Warbler.
Special permission is required to visit the preserve. To request a guest
pass, please email adironda...@tnc.org. Due to COVID-19 office closures,
TNC's response may be delayed, so be sure to contact them as far in advance
as possible.

A good portion of the Spring Pond Bog Preserve lies within the
unvisited Derrick
NW  priority block. If you plan
a trip to the preserve for atlasing and birding purposes, please be sure to
pay careful attention to block boundaries and strive to create either
stationary counts or short traveling checklists to make sure that all
observations from a checklist fall within a single atlas block.

Spring Pond Bog is located a bit north of the Village of Tupper Lake, which
offers restaurants and a few lodging options. The village is also located
in the Tupper Lake NW  priority
block, so if you spend any time there, be sure to submit some checklists
and keep an eye out for opportunities to confirm common species.

There are also two major DEC campgrounds in the Spring Pond Bog / Tupper
Lake area: Rollins Pond  and Fish
Creek Pond . These two
campgrounds both require reservations through the Reserve America website.
The Rollins Pond campground is located in the Derrick CE
 priority block, so a weekend of
camping at Rollins Pond and birding at Rollins Pond and Spring Pond Bog
could yield excellent birding and a great contribution to atlas efforts!

If you have any questions about Big Atlas Weekend, or if you make plans to
visit either of the areas that we've highlighted above, please email us at
nybba3.north...@gmail.com.

Good birding,
Matt Medler, Jeff Bolsinger, and Tom Wheeler
Atlas Regional Co-coordinators for Northern New York

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[cayugabirds-l] White-crowned Sparrow

[Kevin J. Cummings]

Hi all,

I was surprised to hear what I believed was a White-crowned Sparrow singing 
this morning here in Dryden, and I’m currently looking at one foraging under my 
feeders. There were many here this spring (I would see up to 10 or so at a 
time), but I haven’t seen one since early May.

Kevin 


Sent from my iPhone
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Please submit your observations to eBird:
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