ThinkingAfield.org

Introduction to wildlife photography

Saturday, April 23
8 a.m. to noon
Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery Visitor Center
34270 County Road 652 in Mattawan (Van Buren County)

Get your feet wet with capturing wild critters on camera. Designed for those with little or no experience in wildlife photography, this class will introduce photography basics, equipment requirements, how to photograph wildlife, and managing and editing photographs.

Cost is $10. For ages 16 and older. Participation is limited to 25. Read more

April 15, 2022 – About 82% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, and that number is growing. People are drawn from near and far to cities for jobs, restaurants and entertainment. They also enjoy green spaces within a bustling cityscape. Parks, forests and tree-lined streets provide respite and recreation, places to pause and ponder. Trees in urban areas also benefit residents by lowering cooling costs and improving mental health outcomes.

Several U.S. cities, shown in yellow, may be hotspots for tree mortality from the invasive emerald ash borer beetle. The map also shows other locations in the insect’s path over the next 30 years. Dark blue areas have lower risk, while lighter blue and green areas may experience greater risks and costs. (Source: Hudgins et al. 2022 Figure 2d)

“Frequent travel to and from cities means that trees in urban areas have high rates of exposure to invasive species like the emerald ash borer,” said Frank Koch, a USDA Forest Service research ecologist and co-author of a new study about the impacts of invasive insects on urban trees.

The emerald ash borer is a wood-boring beetle native to Asia. First discovered in the U.S. in 2002, the beetle was brought here accidentally – likely on a wooden pallet filled with imported goods like toasters or electronics. The emerald ash borer is now found in 35 states and Canada and has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees. Read more

Hunters encouraged to share harvest results via online survey

Though Michigan’s 2021 deer hunting seasons ended in late January 2022, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources is continuing to accept feedback from hunters about their experiences. Hunter harvest surveys have been sent to a random sample of the state’s deer hunters. In addition, hunters can take a brief online survey. Final harvest survey results will be presented later this summer.

Initial data from Michigan’s 2021 deer hunting seasons – including chronic wasting disease testing results and deer license sales information – was presented at Thursday’s meeting of the Michigan Natural Resources Commission in Lansing, with highlights shared below.

A shift in CWD testing

The DNR has finalized its 2021 surveillance efforts for chronic wasting disease, ultimately testing just over 7,200 deer. The more targeted testing goals are part of the department’s new region-by-region strategy aimed at detecting new outbreaks rather than revisiting known ones.

“We want to thank hunters for their cooperation in helping us meet our CWD surveillance goals,” said DNR Director Dan Eichinger. “Strategic testing for chronic wasting disease is of primary importance for the department, and we couldn’t meet these goals without the committed assistance of deer hunters.”

Eichinger also praised the work of deer processors, taxidermists and local businesses that help collect samples for testing, and other key partners who provide necessary assistance to the department.

In all, 25 CWD-positive deer were confirmed in 2021. Three cases of CWD were detected in Isabella County, which represents a new county where the disease has been found. (Since Michigan’s first confirmation of a CWD-positive wild deer in 2015, CWD has been detected in white-tailed deer in Clinton, Dickinson, Eaton, Gratiot, Ingham, Ionia, Jackson, Kent and Montcalm counties.) Read more

Learning and remembering bird songs can be a difficult aspect of spring birding activities, but now there is the ultimate bird identification app for your cellphone – the free Merlin Bird ID app that now has sound identification. Just hold your phone facing the mic in the direction of the song in question; press record, and Merlin will help you identify which bird is singing in real time. It’s like having a birding ID wizard in your pocket! And that’s not all; Merlin provides an impressive list of state-of-the-art help for birders in the field – and the Merlin app is FREE!

Merlin, named after the small falcon, is a bird guide that provides color photos of each bird species, sound recordings, range maps, and quick identification aid for all levels of birders to help you learn about the birds you encounter. In fact, you can also take a photo of a bird, or use one in from your camera’s photo file, and Merlin’s Photo ID will provide possible matches. Photo ID works completely off-line, so you can identify birds in the photos you take wherever you are birding. Even if you travel beyond our borders, Merlin provides global bird identification options.

You know Merlin is developed with the highest standards because it comes directly from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and you can learn all about all the impressive Merlin options at Merlin Bird ID – Free, instant bird identification help and guide for thousands of birds – Identify the birds you see (allaboutbirds.org)

To learn more about extraordinary activities related to preparing for and undertaking migration, Audubon recently tracked down some information to answer some of the most frequently asked questions about migrating birds. Obviously, birds have super-skills far beyond human abilities: They depart on time without the use of a calendar or watch, and they navigate long distances without a smartphone or map. They fly for days with few, if any, rest stops. Their bodies undergo remarkable changes so they are in top shape to undergo long migration flights.

How do birds prepare their bodies for flight? Migrating is a major physical challenge for birds. To get ready, some birds can make huge changes in their bodies in a matter of days. Birds rely on fat to fuel migration flights, in contrast to humans who burn a lot of carbohydrates and sugars during exercise. Some birds double their body weight before migration by gorging on insects, berries, earthworms, or mollusks. Others increase the size of their flight muscles, charge up their metabolism, and even grow or shrink digestive organs to increase or lose weight.

For example, during a study of Gray Catbirds, University of Rhode Island physiologist and ecologist Kristen DeMoranville found catbirds’ flight muscles were larger during migration. And while the birds wintered in the tropics, their hearts were reduced in size; but they gained fat, perhaps in anticipation for the spring migration season.

Biologists like DeMoranville are working to understand what genes and proteins are responsible for such body-morphing abilities, using information from human medical research as a starting point. The results could signal which foods are crucial for birds’ migratory flights, which in turn could help conservationists identify and protect the most important sources for nutrition for various birds.

How do birds know when to migrate? Varied cues help birds decide when to start their migrations, explained University of South Carolina ornithologist Nathan Senner, including day length, temperature, rainfall, food availability, and body condition. Birds may also pay attention to social cues to decide when it’s time to leave wintering areas. Read more

Attracting hummingbirds is relatively simple, just provide sugar-water nectar in a feeder, so the real question becomes which feeder suits your interests best.

Duncraft’s Ultimate Oriole Feeder provides ample perches for orioles to feed on their 3 favorite feeder foods – grape jelly, sliced oranges, and sugar-water nectar.

Some of the most popular spring and summer birds that visit our yards and feeding stations – Baltimore Orioles, Bullock’s Orioles, Orchard Orioles, and the migratory hummingbirds that winter in Mexico and Central America are beginning to arrive in southern states. Although they may not make it to your yard for a few more weeks, sometime in the next month the migratory species of orioles and hummingbirds will arrive for you to enjoy and appreciate for days or weeks or months ahead – they should linger longer if you entice them with favorite foods.

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the orioles found in the Southwest, including Scott’s Orioles, Hooded Orioles, and non-migratory Altamira Orioles. We have about a dozen species of hummingbirds in the United States. The most wide-spread and best known is the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, which is usually the only hummer found in the eastern half of the Lower 48 States and southeast Canada. Other species include Anna’s Hummingbird, Allen’s, Rufous, Broad-tailed, Calliope, Black-chinned, Costa’s and Buff-bellied Hummingbirds. Rarer species found along the borderlands from Arizona to Texas include Broad-billed, Rivoli’s, and Lucifer Hummingbirds.

The Sweetest Foods

You probably already know it’s relatively easy to attract these beautiful avian gems. For hummingbirds, the simplest and foremost option is to provide sugar-water nectar, and a flower garden with red, orange, and yellow tubular-shaped flowers is attractive too. Orioles have 3 food options: sliced orange halves, grape jelly, and sugar-water nectar. All orioles and hummingbirds eat plenty of small insects and spiders, and orioles eat lots of insect larvae – caterpillars. These live foods are available among your landscaping, on the leaves of trees, shrubs, and flowering plants.

For hummingbirds, simply mix a 1-to-4 sugar-to-water ratio to make hummingbird nectar – 1 part white sugar to 4 parts water. This sugar to water mixture best approximates the sugar levels in the nectar produced in red tube-shaped flowers. Many people prefer to buy pre-mixed nectar that you can simply pour into a in a hummingbird feeder, and other pre-mixed hummingbird nectars require adding water, often a 1-to-4 mix too. Read more

Opposition to the Biden administration’s ongoing negotiations with an extreme environmental and animal-rights organization concerning hunting, fishing and trapping on National Wildlife Refuges continues to grow as 33 members of Congress have joined the chorus of 41 national sportsmen’s organizations.

The Congressional Western Caucus just submitted a letter to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams expressing concern over President Biden’s “commitment – or potential lack thereof – to ensuring access on our nation’s wildlife refuges for hunters, fishers, and sportsmen and women.”

The letter further states dismay at the decision to negotiate possible settlement options with the Center for Biological Diversity, whose sue-and-settle tactics are well documented and counterproductive to conservation.

“Shockingly, rather than defending the 2020 Rule in court, FWS initiated settlement discussions with this litigious special interest group, whose long track record of filing frivolous lawsuits has done nothing to further effective conservation efforts across the country … We are deeply concerned by these settlement discussions and the fact that the Administration has chosen not to publicly declare their intent to defend the expansion of access to our nation’s wildlife refuges,” wrote the lawmakers. “It is hard to imagine any settlement would not involve the loss of hunting opportunities … We are especially concerned that the settlement may invoke policies set during the Obama Administration banning the use of traditional ammo and tackle on all refuge lands. This is unacceptable.” Read more