WindStar Wildlife Garden Weekly
Connecting People
To Nature Through
Education July 22, 2007
Official
Publication of WindStar Wildlife
Institute
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July 22 Is A Special Day To
Me
MY GRANDFATHERS didn't make it this far.
But, I did and I'm relieved. I never thought I would
make it to 65 years of age. Credit is given to modern
medicine and especially the wonderful physicians and nursing
staff at the world famous Mayo Clinic. Today, I will
celebrate, like nearly every other day, by sitting at my
computer listening to the music of Mantovani and his orchestra
and looking out my office windows to the world of
nature. What better gift could I give myself! As
one ages, the natural things in life become more important to
you. Plus, I also am blessed to have a wonderful wife
and family in Iowa and Texas. Thank you God!
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Thwack On Head Restores Peace
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By Michael
Burke
 WE SAT on the front
porch chatting idly, watching the nearby Nanticoke
River drift by. Conversation touched on the war in
Iraq and other troubles haunting the world.
The day was bright, but the
talk had an ominous undertone. We were interrupted
by a loud "thwack" followed a few moments later by
a second and then a third. After a brief pause, we
heard it again. The sound was coming from high up
a tree near the end of the driveway.
A Pileated Woodpecker
(Dryocopus pileatus)
(photographed here by Warren Green, courtesy of
Cornell Lab of Ornithology)was
looking for
dinner.
Pileateds are
crow-size birds, 17 inches from beak to tail. They
love carpenter ants and will excavate large
rectangular holes in trees in search of the
insects. These big woodpeckers use their long
necks for leverage as they rear back and let go
with a powerful thwack each time their chisel-like
bill is sent hammering into a
tree.
When the bird has opened a
cavity, it will probe the hole with its tongue,
extracting ants or other insects in a remarkably
efficient fashion. The tongues of woodpeckers are
extraordinary. They are barbed at the end and
sticky, both effective adaptations for catching
insect prey.
Their tongues
can...Read
On
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Strangers Waiting To Be
Discovered
Brants (black), gulls on sandbar by
Phillip Colla
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By Michael
Burke
THEY WERE in a sheltered
cove, just yards away from the Atlantic. There were six
of them, bobbing in the late afternoon sunshine, looking
remarkably like the younger brothers of the ubiquitous
Canada Goose.
We had come to
Chincoteague for a quick overnight vacation. I had
expected to see a host of familiar wading birds. These
Brants were a delightful
surprise.
Brants (Branta
bernicla) are smaller (about the size of a
Mallard Duck) than Canada Geese and have a delicate
white necklace instead of the wide white chin strap of
their relatives. But with a black head and neck, brown
back and white rump, Brants look enough like Canada
Geese to make their relationship unmistakable. With
their shorter necks, smaller beaks and different throat
patch, brants also have enough distinguishing
characteristics to make them fairly easy to identify in
the field.
In the 1930s, a massive
die-off of eelgrass, the Brant's main food, decimated
the species. The birds have made a modest comeback and
are now... Read On
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He appears like he is looking directly
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disgusted with the onset of colder weather in this
reproduction of the photograph by Michael L. Smith.
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Find more nature products in
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Wildlife Photo of the
Week
Eastern Bluebird by
Diane Porter
"About the time we
first hear the robin's ringing welcome to spring we may
listen for the bluebird's more gentle greeting. No
bird's song is more associated with the return of spring
than the bluebird's--nor is there a bird's note more
expressive of the passing season than the bluebird's
autumn call of far-away, far-away."--Frank M. Chapman,
Birdlife,
1897
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Case of the Missing Honey
Bees
Honey Bee gathers pollen
from a
flower
By Heather
Smith
WHEN the honeybees
disappeared this winter, the thought of losing such a
fuzzy and adorable animal inspired dismay.
The fact that bees might also be useful
drove us to despair. The first official reports of
"colony collapse disorder" began to surface in October
of 2006; seven months later, USDA officials were calling
CCD "the biggest general threat to our food supply," and
newspaper columnists nervously joked about the impending
"bloody wars not for oil or land or God but over
asparagus and avocados."
Experts
pointed to the $14.6 billion worth of free labor
honeybees provide every year, pollinating our crops.
With a full quarter of them AWOL, presumed dead, who
would make sweet love to the $1.6 billion California
almond harvest? More precisely, who would help the
almond harvest make sweet love to
itself?
Few people realized that the
honeybee apocalypse was already over. We may continue to
associate them with...Read On
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Cars and Wildlife Are On
Collision Course
Hundreds of wildlife are killed
annually on similar 3-mile stretch of
highway
By Colleen Kottke
WAUPUN, WI -The primal urge of
nature dictates why animals cross a roadway.
Wildlife advocates at the Horicon
National Wildlife Refuge just want to help them get to
the other side safely. Each year, hundreds of animals
and birds are killed while trying to cross the
three-mile stretch of Highway 49 bisecting the northern
portion of the Horicon Marsh. Motorists
traveling the concrete corridor connecting Highways 41
and 151 are greeted at the entrance of the marsh by a
roadkill tote board, proclaiming the latest wildlife
fatality total. This number can
fluctuate greatly each day, depending on the season and
movement of wildlife, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service biological technician Jon Krapfl, who travels
the highway daily, searching for the latest
victims...Read On
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Be sure and sign up for the American Wildlife Blog for the latest
commentary and please feel free to add comments of your
own. Have An EXCELLENT Day in your WILDLIFE
HABITAT!
Tom Patrick
President
Photo of Great Blue Heron and chicks by John
Karian
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10072 Vista
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Myersville, MD
21773
301-293-3351
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