The Leaflet, January - February 2004

On Veteran’s Day I happened to look out my front window at the bird feeders and was stunned to see a hummingbird, the first I had seen there in a month. It was immediately apparent that this was no lingering ruby-throat. It has rusty sides and a small triangle of orange colored feathers on the throat. It had to be a Rufous or Allen’s female, according to my Sibley’s Guide. I had seen one last winter in western Monroe County and had left a feeder up late every year in hopes one might visit, and it did!

After the initial excitement of having such an interesting visitor, some doubts set in. What was this west coast bird doing here? How would it survive the freezing nights to come? Should it be captured and brought inside? If it had a screwed up compass, is it better that it not survive and reproduce? Could it find its way back west in the spring if it did survive?

I have decided to let nature take its course and so far, the hummer is doing fine. They do nest at high altitudes and into Alaska and tolerate colder temperatures than ruby-throats. Hummingbirds can go into torpor at night to save energy by lowering their body temperature and slowing their metabolism. I will cheat a little by keeping the feeder stocked and unfrozen, but the bird is on its own otherwise and I’ll hope for the best.

The bird in the wrong place is not the fault of any human action, but many unusual events in nature are. At this time of year, it’s helpful to take stock and make some resolutions to make the world a better place for the living things that share it with us.

Here are some suggestions: reuse the wrapping paper and ribbons, recycle the cans and bottles from your parties, use nice reusable cups and plates and table coverings, give gifts that last, recycle batteries or try rechargeables, save some crumbs and scraps for the birds, set out your Christmas tree for a festive windbreak for the birds and compost it in the spring, don’t use tinsel, make suet cakes, donate to Wild Care so injured animals can be rehabilitated and released, don’t buy a pet as a gift unless it’s expected, keep your cat inside and enjoy her company, neuter your pet, plan a garden, find out where to buy some nice native plants for your yard, weatherproof your home to reduce energy costs, turn the thermostat down and wear a warm sweater, try not to use ice melters on your sidewalk, shovel snow for a neighbor who can’t, keep your car in good working condition and recycle the oil if you change it yourself, walk or bike when running short errands, pick up litter on your hike, and on and on. I’m sure you can think of many more. If you would like to share your resolutions, send them to the Leaflet.

Above all, get outside and spend time with family and friends enjoying our wonderful natural surroundings. Happy New Year!

In October I attended a conference for environmental education in Alaska, “Thinking Globally, While Acting Culturally,” and thought SAS members might be interested in what wildlife can be seen around Anchorage.

Day 1: Travel and Arrival

Traveled to Alaska by Northwest by way of Minneapolis. Uneventful, but that last five hours is long. There is a four hour time difference and they are on daylight savings time, so sunset was similar to Indiana. I found a fellow conference attendee I recognized and we shared a cab ride to the Hotel Captain Cook. It was very elegant, with a doorman wearing a top hat.

Day 2: Coastal Tour

Field trip to Seward for the Kenai coastal experience and learning about partnerships. We started at the Public Lands Visitor Center in Anchorage, which is shared by the state parks, Forest Service, National Parks, National Forests, and other agencies. There was a relief map of the state and animal mounts representing the various regions, so this was a good overview of what we would see throughout the week. The first bird of the trip, Black-billed Magpie, was outside the building when we left.

Traveling on by bus, we stopped at Portage Glacier, which was once visible from a visitor center, but has retreated out of sight. It was raining hard, but some of us wanted to get out and walk anyway. Others watched a video. A few American Tree Sparrows chirped in the shrubs. Along the road we saw Dall's Sheep, a white type of mountain sheep high on the cliffs. The scenery was spectacular in the Chugach Mopuntains, with a few aspen and birch trees still showing gold and yellow leaves and the lower vegetation all colors of red, brown, and rust. Further along the Seward Scenic Highway, we passed more glaciers and stopped for a walk to the Exit Glacier, connected to the Harding Icefield. It was still raining, but we walked a trail to cross a silt-laden glacial river to its source and peer into the blue crevasses of the glacial ice. Trumpeter Swans floated in the lakes.

Onward, to the Alaska Sea Life Center to see fish, sea lions, sea otters, and seals inside the center and out. An exhibit of sea birds was interesting, because you can watch the puffins, harlequin ducks, and murres dive for food. The center was built with some of the Exxon money given to the state after the Valdez disaster. Mew Gulls, Northwestern Crows, Glaucous-winged Gulls, and Black-legged Kittiwakes were common. A few Leach’s Storm-petrels flitted over the water. There were many Double-crested and Pelagic Cormorants, but I couldn’t find a Red-faced. A very dark Fox Sparrow was singing outside the center. On the way back to Anchorage, we saw Belugas in Turnagain Arm. Explorer Captain Cook named the Arm, when he had to turn around when the water got too shallow to continue upstream.

Day 3: Kenai Fjords by Boat

Another bus ride down the Seward Highway and more looks at some of the glaciers. We saw dead salmon, which were almost done spawning. Back at Seward, we boarded the Kenai Fjords tour boat for a wildlife tour. The trip takes two hours, but I wish it had been longer. After lunch onboard, I spent all of my time out on the deck in the wind watching for birds and other animals. We saw Harlequin Ducks, Stellar’s Sea Lions, Sea Otters, Harbor Seals, Mountain Goats, many Bald Eagles, and more glaciers. There were several Fork-tailed Stormñpetrels and a Marbled Murrelet. It was hard to see a lot of the birds because the boat slowed down only for a few spots to look at the bigger wildlife. The puffins and other alcids that nest in the area had already moved out to sea for the winter. The rain stopped and the fog lifted, giving us good views of the mountains. There was more time at the Sea Life Center, which I spent on the back deck with my spotting scope watching sea otters snack on crabs.

Day 4: Biking Along the Coast

That afternoon, I rented a bike and rode on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. On the eight mile route, I saw ten moose and got a good look at the local vegetation. The shore varies in height due to the 1964 earthquake, which dropped some sections 30 feet. Mudflats exposed when the tide is low are dangerous sediments from the glaciers, and people have died after sinking in them. I looked hard for Boreal Chickadee, but saw only dozens of Black-capped Chickadees. There were several Red Squirrels and a Porcupine in the woods. A lagoon along the trail was a good place for waterfowl and they changed each day. On other short walks, I found Savannah Sparrow and Common Redpoll.

Later that night, I watched a film about the re-enactment of the Harriman Expedition. The original expedition took place in 1900 and was sponsored by a wealthy railroad tycoon. He gathered scientists and artists to travel with him to explore Alaska by boat. John Muir, John Burroughs, and Curtis, a photographer of Native Americans, where among his group. The re-enactment was also comprised of scientists and artists, who compared their observations with the original work done a century earlier. It was very well done and interesting.

Day 5: Anchorage Museum

At lunchtime, I walked to the Anchorage museum of Art and History, where the T. rex, Sue was featured. There were wonderful displays of native tools, clothing, kayaks, and homes and lots of outstanding artwork with Alaska subjects.

Day 6: Local Birds

The Saturday speaker had a more serious subject, the contamination of the artic food chain by persistent organic pollutants. These compounds are found in arctic people’s blood at levels eight times higher than blood levels of people near the Great Lakes. This was discovered when researchers, concerned about fish advisories in the Great Lakes, looked for a population that had not been exposed to use as a control group. These chemicals, which bioaccumulate, threaten the traditional food sources and culture of the northern people.

A local Audubon member invited us to watch the feeders at her house and we hoped to see a Boreal Chickadee that they had often seen. We were surprised to see a Wilson’s Warbler working through the shrubbery.

Later in the day, I had the chance to ride to the Eagle River Nature Center and look for birds along the trails. Some trails were closed due to bear activity. After checking lots of chickadees, I finally found a Boreal. There were also Gray Jays, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, and Red-Breasted Nuthatches here. The Iditarod Trail passes through this park.

Day 7: Denali

I had a final free day and had arranged to rent a car and drive to Denali with a friend I had met at the conference. We left early and headed north under cloudless skies. We stopped often and took pictures as Denali or Mt. McKinley is more easily seen from the highways approaching the park than from within the park. We saw dog teams in training pulling four-wheelers, frosty trees, tundra, lakes, a couple of moose, and a small brown butterfly. We saw small flocks of Snow Buntings and a Blue Grouse fly across the highway. At the Headquarters of the park we watched Boreal Chickadees pick under the eaves for spiders and bugs. Unfortunately, we did not see caribou or ptarmigan in the park as others had, but it was a wonderful wild place. A Golden Eagle soared over the colorful tundra and a herd of Dall's Sheep dozed in the sun. A pair of Pine Grosbeaks gave us a close look along one of the trails.

Day 8: Travel Home

Returned to the airport for the long flight home. There is so much to see in this huge state, I feel I only got a glimpse. I counted 47 species and no Starlings or House Sparrows. The only Rock Pigeons were in Seward.

In October, SAS held our semi-annual birdfeeder cleaning. Thank you to BLOOMINGTON HARDWARE and Vickie Temple for all their help ñ not only providing the location but announcing it in their advertising and donating a bird feeder for a drawing, Thank you to INDIANA CARPET & UPHOLSTERY CLEANING and Chris Freeman for providing the pressure washing for the feeders.

Thank you to P.J. Pulliam for doing the pressure washing and to all the other volunteers who braved the weather to help with this project. We appreciate all the people who brought their feeders so local birds could have clean, healthy feeders this winter. The funds raised support education and conservation projects of SAS.

There are many areas throughout much of southern Indiana where you can go and with a little luck (and a pair of binoculars or spotting scope) stand a better than average chance of seeing Bald Eagles in the wild. But that was not always the case. A mere 20 years ago, there were no Bald Eagles in the state except for an occasional sighting of a lost migrant.

The last known native eagles in Indiana produced young in 1897. For nearly a hundred years after that no nests could be found anywhere in the state. But all that has now changed thanks to a Bald Eagle reintroduction program at Monroe Reservoir that brought 73 eaglets from Wisconsin and Alaska to rebuild Indiana’s population. Yet another record was set in Indiana in 2003 when Bald Eagle nest sites numbered 45 (including 7 new ones) and 63 chicks were produced.

The Bald Eagle reintroduction program was made possible through the generous donations from thousands of Indiana taxpayers that use the state income check-off to contribute to our state’s Nongame Wildlife Fund.

While Bald Eagles will never be as common as robins in Indiana, sightings of these symbols of American freedom are becoming almost a daily occurrence in places like the White and Wabash Rivers, Monroe and Patoka Reservoirs. Recent Christmas Bird Counts at Monroe Reservoir have tallied as many as 35 eagles in one day.

Eagle watching hits its peak in Indiana during the winter months when resident birds as well as numerous migrants from the north are present around the open waters of the state. Having two hundred eagles present in the state during the winter months is not unheard of.

C-52, now 16 years old, will once again take center stage as the featured eagle at this year’s Eagle Day event at Patoka Reservoir on January 17. The day will start out at 8:00 a.m. with a car caravan to look for eagles in the wild on the reservoir. At 10 a.m. IDNR Wildlife Specialist Rex Watters will take you through the “hacking” process that brought eagles back to Indiana. At 11 a.m. visitors will spend some time with Maria and C-52. All that will be followed by another car caravan to find more eagles in the wild around Patoka Lake. The entire day costs just one dollar per person with people 16 and under free of charge.

Cinergy’s Cayuga Power Plant will host their annual Eagle Viewing Days on February 7 and 8 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Raptor presentations by the American Eagle Foundation will be held twice each day. The event is free but donations will be accepted that will go to the Indiana Nongame Wildlife Fund.

For those wanting even more (and when it comes to eagles, who doesn’t?) the largest eagle event in the state takes place the weekend of February 6, 7 and 8 at the Fourwinds Resort and Marina in the Fairfax Recreation Area on Lake Monroe. This three-day event starts off on Friday with live birds from Wild Care, Inc., an introduction to the largest reservoir in the state, a special address from John Goss, Director of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, an owl prowl, and a musical performance highlighting the history of folk music in this country by Jim Eagleman, Interpretive Naturalist at Brown County State Park.

Saturday’s programs include a beginner’s birding walk followed by an update on endangered species work in Indiana, with Dr. John Castrale, Scott Johnson, and Rex Watters. A special program “Just for The Kids” will finish off the morning. The afternoon will feature another program for the young and young at heart as well as bus tours to eagle viewing areas on the lake, videos on hawks and owls, and a special showing of Sony Pictures’ production of Winged Migration. The evening will bring you the feature program of the weekend presented by Crecelius, C-52, and her other two charges, Hawk and Owl, followed by a presentation on the large assortment of citizen science projects available for birders of all skill levels throughout the country.

Festivities continue Sunday morning with an advanced birding hike led by two of the top birdwatchers in the state. Drs. Jim and Susan Hengeveld, both biology professors at Indiana University, have recorded an amazing 237 species from their back yard on Lake Lemon in Brown County.

The weekend will finish up with a presentation by Zach Walker, Indiana’s new herpetologist, and Jarrett Manek and some of his slithering friends from Harrison-Crawford State Forest.

Twenty years ago, bald eagle events in Indiana could not have used props any more engaging than a few fuzzy photographs from too long ago and too far away. Today, thanks to the tremendous support from hundreds of individuals who donated time, expertise and dollars, not only can you find bald eagles in the wild with relative ease, if you’re in the right place at the right time, you may have one in the same room with you. It’s an experience that still send chills up the spines of those of us who have seen C-52 many, many times over the years.

But no one could sum up their experience with bald eagles better than Maria Abel-Crecelius did when she said, “C-52’s breath is like a grapefruit. His heartbeat is like a drum from the African bush. Standing next to him is the cleanest, sweetest happiness there is.”

It started with five years of work that began 18 years ago. The project involved hundreds of workers and thousands of hours. And it pays for itself over and over again with every sighting of a single adult perched on a snag on a river, just one bird soaring on thermals over a lake, or one little fuzzy head barely visible over the edge of a nest on a spring morning in Indiana.

Jeff Riegel is a naturalist, writer, and artist living in Bloomington, Indiana. You can contact him by e-mail at jkriegel@worldnet.att.net.

January 17, 2004

Patoka Reservoir, 8:00 a.m.
Patoka Lake Visitor’s Center
$1 per person, 16 and under free
For more information, contact the Visitor’s Center at (812) 685-2447.

February 7 - 8, 2004

Cayuga, Indiana, 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Cinergy Power Plant
Free admission, donations accepted
For directions to the plant or more information, contact their Eagle Viewing Day Hotline at (800) 832-3143.

February 6 - 8, 2004

Monroe Reservoir
Fourwinds Resort and Marina
$1 per person, 6 and under free
For more information, contact the Monroe Reservoir Property Office at (812) 837-9546.
For overnight accommodations, contact the Fourwinds Resort and Marina at (812) 824-BOAT (2628).