Lure of Shorebirds

How can it be September?

Where did May go? Summer is not summer without the arctic, but somehow June too has vanished. How did a simple feature from Photoshop appear in my life and not only that- it became a eraser of time. The Time Tool. T3

Many years ago Edward L. Chalif, beloved by nearly all who knew him, took advantage (in a GOOD WAY) of a young boy whose parents needed some time away from his curious mind. I was dropped off at Chilmark Community Center in August of 1960. My brother was too, but due to the vanishing tool of time, duly noted above, he disappears in this story.

There were other people in the car with us also, but they are now gone. Prothonotary Warbler did not vanish. But this short story is about two shorebirds. Too large to be called sandpipers by most people these birds left an indelible impression still fresh 51 years later.

In those days, no one knew Martha's Vineyard was exclusive. We just thought it was a long ferry ride to run on the deck of The Islander. the fact that we could throw food to gulls just made it Awesome. Oops, awesome, that word did not exist in 1960.

In those days, you could begin a hike on the great south beach, and just go. One or more of the large ponds might need to be crossed with care as the drainage to the ocean could be really full and roaring. In those days, one could jump on a one speed bike and cruise for birds from Chilmark to Edgartown and back. Most of those longer bike rides came in later summers with my friend Peter. That damn time tool is at it again. Some how the period from August of 1960 to September of 1970 wants to be remembered as one huge summer.

A bad pair of binoculars was fine, too heavy or too light anything helped. 7x40 or 7x32 seemed to be quite common models and of course we only had one REAL field guide- Peterson's. Apologies Richard and Don, but when you went to a book store and asked about birds....

My binoculars were handed down from my grandfather in Missouri. Remnants of WW I. Compared to most anything of this new fangled age, they were horrible. But the invasion of products from Japan was limited to transistor radios. What's that you say? ... damn T3 again.

From Edgartown you turned south to Katama along the way various small roads most all dirt would leave the main narrow pavement. Barely 2 real lanes went all the way south until the tall dunes were the final barrier to the Atlantic. We stopped to check the ocean and the bay side, but at 8 I had seen these things, scurrying along the waves picking and picking. They were nothing special.

Piling back into the car, we passed through a thin and small woodland before emerging on a field nearby. There my dull trance was broken in the softer, late afternoon.

In a field filled with golden light, were brown flocks of birds. They were shorebirds. Not sandpipers. They looked to be in the army- determined and hurrying to eat in these fields.

Those binoculars from World War I must have been set aside. Someone had to lend me a better pair - Bausch & Lomb or perhaps a good bit of German glass. I'll never know. Because I have been talking to people about that moment ever since, it is clear and powerful- golden and green. With one brown bird and one tan one, and Eddie's voice.

Tan. Upland Sandpipers are the epitome of elegance and grace. Perhaps dancers or gymnasts of the shorebird world.

Brown. Whimbrels are the farmers- tougher than they look , but when you shake their hand you know it. So maybe steelworker of the shorebirds. They exude strength.

So in my eyes on that day long ago, how did a tan bird and a brown bird so powerfully capture my attention?

Within one binocular fields view at least one Whimbrel strode alongside one Uppie. Perhaps as close as 3 feet apart but on what seemed for that moment a parallel track, subtle differences did show through. The leg color, the head shape and color, but mostly and shockingly was the shape of the two species bills.

One short and straight- one longer and decurved. Decurved. I didn't even know the word! One yellowish with a dark tip, the other primarily dark. The head streaks on the Whimbrel and the big gentle eye of the Uppie.

Here were two birds - two species- doing about the same thing in the same location but with two very different bills to gather food with. As a young birder, this was a very important moment in my life. I could not understand why those bills were so distinctly different. I looked and asked "why?" The question burned into my brain so that I remember that moment of deep questioning, stunned in a manner which is unanswerable.

No Time tool can erase these moments.

Shorebirds -Where?

I have fingers of a klutz at times. I think it is getting worse but maybe not. But I have been asked twice today to help with -where to go for Shorebirds.

Most folks think of an ocean area, and that is not wrong. But there are a few places so exceptional that they are not to be missed. My favorite places to watch and film shorebirds in the interior include: Cheyenne Bottoms and Quivera National Wildlife Refuge both in Kansas near Great Bend; Souris and DesLacs in North Dakota, Bowdoin NWR and Freezeout Lake in Montana.

East Coastal areas must involve Texas: Bolivar Peninsula, Anhuac NWR, Osa Bay, Maine: Popham Beach and Biddeford pool, Massachussetts: Plum Island, and South Beach; in New Jersey: Brigantine NWR, and several areas near Cape May or Stone Harbor, Jamaica Bay in New York, Bombay Hook and the Rehoboth Beach area in Delaware, Indian Inlet, Assateague and Chincoteague in Coastal Maryland/ Virginia, Pea Island NWR North Carolina, St. Marks NWR in the Panhandle of Florida for the east Coast.

On the West coast, Washington, Oregon and California have a large number of exceptional shorebird areas. My favorites are Dungeness spit, Gray's Harbor; Bandon, Oregon and in California: Point Reyes, Monterrey Bay area, and Salton Sea.

There are hundreds and possibly thousands of other areas where Shorebirds can congregate, but these are ones that stand out for one reason or another in my mind after 50 years of birding.

Films, television and birders...

My jaw is still open and although my mustache partially covers the opening, I hope mosquitoes are not planning to take advantage of this situation.

As the executive walked away after momentarily stunning me with his total ignorance, I was still unable to respond with witty nor pithy nor eloquent quips.

"Birders don't watch TV", he spat out, turned and walked away.

That was all it took to disable me. And this comment from a major network is still the prevalent attitude among television executives and their advertisers. Oh, I have also been told we are cheap.

What is next? We don't buy gasoline or cars, food is simply an afterthought and shoes are never found on our feet? How is it in 2011 birders and birding is such a morass of craziness and misconceptions?

I think we all see that the misconceptions regarding birders are astonishing and persist to this day. How to clear them up is of major importance to any development in birding circles as many of the things we do and hope to accomplish in terms of conservation, depend to one degree of another on corporate support.

I guess that in spite of the fact that I have purchased more than 7 cars during my 50 years of birding and driven all of them over 200,000 miles, raised 3 children and I think we had and have beds, cooking pots, computers, cell phones and magazines, oh yes- Televisions….The fact that I have a large library of books, paintings on the wall, photo libraries, video equipment, furniture, carpets and refrigerators seem to be facts lost on advertisers.

I have been told that I tend to see things differently.

But the point is not how I see things. The point is how we are seen collectively, we being birders.

Granted, Birders have been slow to adopt video or purchase DVD's. I'd love to see figures of birders purchasing Blu-ray and High Definition equipment, because the resolution of nature is so outstanding. I foresee this as a major growth area in birding circles and devices.

Back to television, I know many birders are frustrated with the lack of educational programming, let alone birds on cable and don't even talk to me about the Networks! The fact that the ending of CBS Sunday Morning always ends with a few moments in nature reveals the truth.

There are huge segments of the nation who love to see natural history -including birds.

The fact that CBS refuses to pay anyone for the footage is debilitating to development of any industry or segment in a society which values little more than money.

I think birders love baseball, football, basketball and I'd bet that even a few of you actually watch soap operas or even Oprah. Overall, I suspect any accurate survey would reflect that we are full time, normal participants in American Society….. Ok how about our spouses, children and significant others? Maybe, they are "normal".

Our passion runs a bit differently it is true. Warm furry- MegaFauna, is the rule broadcasters live by. We find this good stuff too. But come on, we'd like to have a few more specials on megapodes of Australia or the Spinetails in South America. Ok, We'd settle for Warblers, or even, ahem, Greater Prairie Chickens. Feathers Rule!

Did you Love Opposable Chums, want to see more of Hummingbirds and revel in Life of Birds? How about March of the Penguins or Winged Migration, weren't they each special and of course, bird-centered films?

Over 300 new wildlife films are produced each year, many are entered in film festivals like the International Wildlife Film Festival. Because distribution rights are not included with these entries many never are seen again, no matter how good they are, unless you live in Missoula, Montana. There over 10,000 people flock to the films each spring.

Among my small group of producers, music videos of birds are becoming more popular and several of us have won awards or recognition for this work.

The use of Birding "video" never took off when some of the earlier "pioneers" put out some good work (eg- Large Gulls of North America) in spite of the fact that video is more like being there than anything else.

And not one major television show is currently on any cable channel or network that is dedicated to birders in this country. From a professional perspective, the show with James Curry is not on the dial and is very low end production.

When "All Bird TV" was cancelled in 1999 featuring Ken Dial of University of Montana, it was NOT cancelled due to lack of interest? It was the the third highest rated show on Animal Planet at the time. Ken and the crews were becoming better and better at what we were doing. So- No. Unfortunately the series was cancelled due to financial squabbles among the producers and Discovery. Seems chopped motorcycles are the new rage.

At Birdman Productions, we continue to accumulate footage of many species while we work on conservation shows, and plug along with a series being requested by PBS. So far we have not one corporate sponsor -this in spite of awards for the pilot show for cinematography, editing and inclusion as an official selection in 3 Film Festivals.

I remain a total optimist, because wherever we have gone, or shown our films, birders respond. Our audience surveys reflect the care we put into our productions. We know that at some point, birders will begin to get it. It being the power behind the images evening terms of superior use for identification. After all, if a "picture says a thousand words", then how rich is the information contained in a moving picture at 1080p with 7.1 surround sound?

Our films on conservation have also struck chords in birding audiences and we strive to provide important information along with beautiful images and clean sound.

Films are also a part of our heritage as birders. How many out there can still recall going to Audubon Screen Tours. Long ago I recall meeting Roger Tory Peterson, Olin S. Pettingell and Karl Maslowski. I was young and impressionable but never understood until years later how big the impression really had been.

Television and video are the new stages of evolutionary growth in birding. Soon enough, some form of these will replace the field guide as we know it. I'll be ready to help this leap occur.

Timothy R. Barksdale

Birdman Productions,

Choteau, MT & Prairie Village, KS

First Thanksgiving

Hi Fellow Eaters!

Well, I mean eaters in the Good sense. :)

Balance is a good thing to cultivate -especially looking at the next few weeks ahead. The National months of winter fattening- from Thanksgiving to New Years, we Americans really do enjoy our meals. But it hasn't always been this way.

For the prairie chicken film, I am struck by the images of our ancestors. There are so many tall and lean people. I mean LEAN. I'm heading to museums soon gathering historical photos for the film so you are likely to see some of them here- coming up.

When many of our ancestors first touched the soils of North America, they had most often completed a voyage of many days. If you read the book Mayflower, the conditions were confined and rather horrid, especially compared to the last trans-Atlantic flight I took. Well maybe not... But, at least my last flight from Italy lasted only 10 hours. No one got sea sick.

For 17th or 18th century boat travelers, food was often old, spoiled or bug infested. So imagine having taken this crossing on a small, crowded boat with - no modern plumbing- and you have been there for about a month. Not so pleasant is it?

Suddenly, and Thankfully, you are on dry land in a world filled with game but you are from a culture which has realistically, already left the hunter-gather model generations before. You and your shipmates are now learning skills you have never used - and your lives depend upon it.

Native Americans greet you and treat you well. Perhaps pitying the fools (as Mr T says.) But somewhere nearing the end of a long summer, when the rocky soils of New England did bear fruit for at least those who were in tune with the land, and the rhythms of the seasons, a meal of gratitude was planned. Probably by the Native Americans. Those Puritans were pretty austere, traditional folks and I kinda doubt they just decided to have a feast.

But the Native Americans had spent around eight hundred generations cultivating and harvesting the the land. They knew quohogs and heath hen, multitudes of fish including Atlantic Salmon, deer, elk moose, grouse and turkey. Simultaneously, we know that a variety of squash, corn, beans, nuts quinoa, sunflower and many other adapted herbs and even medicinal plants abounded naturally or were specifically cultivated. I suspect that for the culture our ancestors found, there was a pretty good life going on, but we really came loaded with baggage. In the psychological sense...

As I gather data for the film, I read about the alleged contracts between indentured servants and the "employers". The Smithsonian Institution states "the servants actually sought in their labor contracts to limit their having to eat heath hen to only two days a week instead of daily." I am eager to film a copy of one of these.

But what this does tell us about is a factor of abundance. The last Heath Hen walked into the scrub oak barrens near West Tisbury in March of 1932 and never was seen again. What had we done to eliminate a species once so incredibly abundant?

From the perspective of a lifetime, it is easy to see change. How simple it is to look back to the early history of our country- now only - reaching 400 years since that landing and the feast we still celebrate.

For the purposes of this blog- just be certain that the subspecies of the Greater Prairie Chicken known as the Heath Hen was a certain part of the first Thanksgiving and for our ancestors for decades after- until we wiped them out.

So this year- 2010, let's give thanks that we have not wiped out the entire population of many of our native species. Let's give thanks that even a few of our ancestors had foresight and wisdom enough to begin to preserve natural wonders. Then the animals that lived there. Be Thankful that so many of us are now waking up.

As we slice and serve our processed factory farm Turkey- Let's be Thankful that today there are millions of us who are genuinely concerned about the environment- which gives us life and sustains millions of birds, and all the life they too depend upon. We are going to find a way to achieve a better balance and respect for the earth -our Mother. Resolve to make 2011 a great year for Conservation.

NO L's in Conservation

I wrote this the other day and it is fast becoming one of my favorite sayings.

There are NO L's in Conservation.

For about 6 months in my public speaking, I've been emphasizing that:

Conserve

Conservative and

Conservation

Are Identical.

Yet there is a group of people who would have us believe that Conservation is Liberal.

Supporting the Environment is NOT A RADICAL LEFTIST PLOT.

I hope that is very very clear. This is science people.

Now anyone getting to this point in my writing is already deep in understanding this. But I see this as Conservative. I mean... come on. Conservation. This the underlying principle for life to exist.

So who would oppose it? Only those who deny basic scientific principles of Biology ( literally bios- Life, ology- speak or study). We breathe oxygen, and exhale carbon dioxide. So do gasoline engines.

I suppose that one could concede that life cycles have indeed been a part of the history of the earth. But to do so threatens the existence of all life. Those in denial of the changes to the living ecosystems of the earth are blind in pursuit of things I understand but no longer find as a personal priority.

For most of my life, I have been in love with birds and nature. I have had greater short term thrills, I've experienced greater temporary highs. But in 2011, I will celebrate 30 years of having adopted a life of sobriety. This has changed me in other less obvious ways to those locked into the superficial life.

I am a rock. Conservation is a hard place.

Figure it out.

There are NO L's in Conservation.

National Birding Stamp - part One

Folks,

It is time to make a change. Some folks advocate the annual purchase of a Duck Stamp. But this action, while providing for some wetland support, does nothing to really help much else.

I've been on record for many years as a supporter of a National Birding Stamp program and I think my argument is finally water tight.

This is a technical and lengthy discussion however so you'll have to come back to read about it.

Whale Slaughter in perspective- Part 1

Take a look in the mirror today.

It is October 29, 2010. I received an email which had begun in traveled through New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina, Portugal, Botswana, Britain, and appeared to finally be reaching the US.

While I am dismayed at the brutality of the scene, I have seen many deeply troubling scenes like this for years. I am a wildlife film maker.

I am asked to review films each year as a volunteer at one of several film festivals. I try to make time to do this as a free service. Various groups now have access to wonderful video cameras- light weight and high resolution and because of this- in our industry we see many troubling images from around the world.

If there is a single message I see and hear from deep inside myself as I peer into the mirror, it is simple but clear. There are too many humans on this planet and with the growth rates of our species, which we are seeing we will outstrip every available resource sometime in the next 100 years.

Today I checked the World Population clocks. There are several on line. 6,852,336,963 people needing food shelter and love. Too many of us see ourselves as needing to do anything we can to feed ourselves.

Folks, Friends, Family- It is Time to Wake up. From Inside ourselves to Around the World.

Our species has learned to domesticate our food sources because it created a steady supply. Still we continue to persecute Wild Animal Populations around the world in scenes like this or in others less obvious. I shuddered just as deeply when I read China was beginning to harvest Krill from Antarctica to feed to pigs. The image of a huge factory ship gobbling up tiny shrimp-like creatures and turning them into protein mush is not as sickening but is killing whales perhaps even more rapidly than this atrocity we are shown.

From Lowland Gorillas (used for Bush Meat) to the Genocide shown graphically below, in every - EVERY ECOSYSTEM we humans interact with by living there or visiting, we annihilate anything we choose, blindly believing that SOME MYTHICAL ABUNDANCE will somehow provide for us and wipe our sins away.

Meanwhile, we add 5-6 MILLION people to this planet every month. Entire world religions continue to not only turn a blind eye to this, but actively promote ignoring Birth Control and advise the Divine Sanctity of human life.

I am not an enlightened Master, but it seems we are missing something here.

By this day in 2013 (October 23rd) we humans will have passed 7 Billion of our kind on this planet. These are friends, neighbors and families of someone we know. They are potential Einsteins or Mother Teresas. But each one still has to be fed. Each one deserves to be educated and loved. And this is why you and I both need to look deeply into that mirror.

As we surge toward 8 Billion people on this planet at a rate of 5-6 Million new babies each month who will you deny? Old people are still dying, soldiers are being killed, whales are being slaughtered, birds and insects are going extinct.

The conundrum of our time is very simple. We live in a world becoming increasingly smaller each day. Because we are filling it with more humans each day.

We in the West push our religion on every other part and along with it our washing machines computers and every trapping of our "superior" society. Television and internet link us like never before so that a child born today in a slum of rural Alabama or urban Sao Paulo, Calcutta or Chicago or Lagos Nigeria- will watch the famous leap of Michael Jordan at least once in his life. He will be offered Nike shoes, Apple iPhones, Hundayi cars and wonder at the amazing technology and why he has a lack. Truth be told, there is plenty of money and food to provide a better life for that child. Truth be told, he or she will not have that unless many circumstances miraculously fall into place or we find the perfect society. Don't count on either.

Capitalism as practiced by the radical right in the US today will ignore this child while preaching the virtues of greed.

I know that the solution lies in halting the rate of population explosion of humans. I know that every human now is linked in ways we could never have imagined. I know this child will see the riches of a developed country and told by marketers they should want to be a consumer too.

I know each human deserves a good life.

But so does every living animal species. and I believe the wildlife is in a critical dangerous place world wide. More importantly I feel - I FEEL - deep inside we are going to push many species to the edge of extinction. I feel that if we ignore this too much longer, we will push things to far and the elimination and eventual extinction of our species will begin. Worse, I feel this will wipe out millions of innocent species along with us.

The improvement of life for each person can be accomplished... and we can save many species that are part of our rich, diverse, beautiful and wonderful world. I even believe we can get back to a better place for wildlife, a better balance. But we actually need to decrease the human population to about half of where we are today to do both.

Take a look in the mirror today. Love yourself, see the determination to help things get better, Love the world and resolve to do one thing to make it a better place each day. Resolve to do this with Grace and Compassion- tenderness and firmness. Be disciplined in your life and practice restraint along with resolve.

OVER 5 MILLION NEW HUMAN MOUTHS EACH MONTH. WHAT IS THE LARGEST CITY IN YOUR COUNTRY? OR PERHAPS MORE PRECISELY: WHAT CITY OF 5 MILLION WOULD YOU ADD THIS YEAR? WHERE WOULD YOU PUT IT AND WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND THE BEAUTIFUL NATIVE ANIMALS THAT USED TO BE THERE?

Take a look in the mirror today.