We have been fortunate to have several bird studies going on currently and the past year. Birds are such fascinating creatures and come in all colors and sizes. We are active with some tern and plover monitoring during the summer, but also have some invasive and grassland bird studies going on from Kansas to North Dakota.
This past year our first significant siting of a pileated was in Richardson County on the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska Indian Reservation. In the same year, in 2021, a Pileated Woodpecker was photographed along the Big Nemaha River at Kinter’s Ford WMA in southwestern Richardson Co 15 May, (John Carlini, Shari Schwartz, eBird.org) and in 2022, nearby and also in the Big Nemaha River drainage, and in adjacent southeastern Pawnee Co., the first county record for that county (Joel Jorgensen, T. J. Walker, eBird.org).
Pileated Woodpeckers appear to have expanded into Nebraska by moving up different river corridors in the south and east in the Nebraska Missouri River Valley (Robbins and Easterla 1992) and tributaries of the Kansas River in Kansas for the Little and Big Blue River drainages.
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One of the most memorable bird observations in nature (or what we didn’t see) I have experienced in my lifetime is when we were north of Berlin, Germany in August of 2019. Our family was on vacation and we were touring the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, in Oranienburg, Germany, formerly used from 1936 until April 1945.
Sachsenhausen was a labor camp outfitted with a gas chamber, sleeping quarters and a medical experimentation area. It is estimated over 30,000 souls died in Sachsenhausen from malnutrition, disease, excessive beatings, medical experiments, poor living conditions, and execution.
Needless to say a lot of bad things went on there. On the day our family toured Sachsenhausen, we observed absolutely no recorded bird life across the multi-acre facility in a 2-3 hour period (as I am always looking). I can think of no other place I have been on planet earth that I did not remember seeing some form of bird life. The trees and surrounding habitat was good, and to this day, I have no logical explanation for complete absence. It is as if the atrocities and their impact are still in play.
It is hard not to mention the Museum of Natural History we also visited on that same trip, when we were in Vienna, Austria. By far, the most impressive natural history museum I have seen in my lifetime. Their botanical gardens were impressive too.
While birds remain visible everywhere, people are actually seeing far fewer of them than just 50 years ago, according to a recent study in the Journal Science. It estimates that North America is home to nearly three billion fewer birds today compared to 1970—that’s more than 1 in 4 birds that have disappeared from the landscape in a mere half a century. This was a noble attempt to estimate avian losses in the Western Hemisphere. This includes common birds like thrushes, orioles, juncos and even swallows.
The study also showed that birds that breed in at-risk habitats such as grasslands and the Arctic regions are declining drastically. Grasslands in particular posted the biggest losses, with more than 700 million breeding individuals lost across 31 species since 1970, a more than 50 percent decline.
According to the World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Report 2022, we are living through climate and biodiversity crises; these are not separate from each other but are two sides of the same issue. Land-use change is still the most important driver of biodiversity loss. And unless we limit warming to 1.5°C, climate change is likely to become the dominant cause of biodiversity loss in the coming decades. The good news may be some smart and caring people might come to the forefront.
Freedom is never free and nothing worthwhile ever happens fast. This country has so much to be thankful for; current and past military personnel, a functional power grid and a God who has put us in the best country in the world. But most of our daily focus is always on the negatives; and then do nothing.
Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on all of God’ blessing and look at life in a meaningful and positive way. Maybe it’s time to treat each other and the land we live on better than we have in the past.
Michael P. Gutzmer, PhD is principal and owner of New Century Environmental LLC and provides environmental consulting services in the Great Plains. Nd and endangered species and pollution problems. Please email me at mgutzmer@newcenturyenvironmental.com.
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November 27, 2022
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Bird presence or absence reflects how we treat land - Columbus Telegram
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