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Baltimore Oriole

6/29/2015

by Alex Forsythe

Baltimore Orioles, with their bright plumage and beautiful song, are favorites among backyard birders. John James Audubon studied and wrote about the Oriole extensively. He wrote: "Much might the traveller find to occupy his mind, and lead him into speculations regarding the past, the present, and the future, were he not attracted by the clear mellow notes, that issue from the woods, and gratified by the sight of the brilliant Oriole now before you."

Gene Stratton-Porter greatly admired Orioles. In "Homing with the Birds" she wrote: "The oriole, spilling notes of molten sweetness, as it shot like a ray of detached sunshine to its nest in the chestnut tree across the road was mine." She also studied Orioles extensively, particularly the architecture of their nests. Orioles typically build a nest in the shape of a hanging pouch with solid walls, but Gene documented at least one Oriole, possibly two or more, that framed a window in its nest. "It is impossible for this oriole to build this window without knowing for what purpose she intended using it; in fact, it required thought to plan and construct it. She has to remember the confinement and inconvenience of former nests, and determine that in the future she would obviate these difficulties. So remembering the past and providing for the future, in this nest she built a window. She was in advance of her time... How this bird must have enjoyed sitting with her head out of the window while she brooded, thus having light and air and seeing any danger to be avoided! ...[D]ifferent birds of the same species have different degrees of mentality and different characteristics,...very much like humanity after all."

The state bird of Maryland, the Baltimore Oriole was named for royalty. It was given its name in honor of Lord Baltimore, founder of Maryland, due to its coloration. The colors of the Oriole match the colors of Lord Baltimore's coat of arms.

Males do not turn that bright orange color until the fall of their second year. Females get better with age, turning deeper orange each passing year. Birders can easily confuse an older female with a young male.

Not surprisingly, everyone wants to attract Baltimore Orioles to their yards. The best way to attract Orioles is through their stomachs. I set out fresh orange slices, but I also use grape jelly. I have found that it is best to use the least expensive jelly you can find and be consistent. If you switch to an expensive jelly, the birds don't like to go back to the cheap stuff! It also helps to plant native fruit trees in your yard, preferably plants that bear dark-colored fruit at different seasons. I have several mulberry, raspberry, blackberry, chokecherry, and other native fruit-producing plants in my yard, so the Orioles tend to ignore the feeders once the fruits begin to ripen. Still I provide fresh oranges, jelly and clean water just in case they need an easy snack.

I have a nesting pair in my yard every year, but I don't tend to get a large flock of them at once. Prepare to be envious and watch this video of several Baltimore Orioles dining on this person's deck (skip to the 3:30 mark and be dazzled!): Wild Bird House : Orioles Everywhere Spring 2013 Baltimore Orioles & Female Orchard Oriole

Conservation Success Story: The Peregrine Fund

6/15/2015

by Alexandra Forsythe

The Peregrine Falcon is the fastest animal in the world, capable of traveling up to 200 mph in a “stoop” or dive. Their primary food source is birds, and they have been documented preying on over 450 species of birds in North America, including Sandhill Cranes, White-throated Swifts and hummingbirds. As fast as Peregrines are, however, they could not escape the deadly impact of humans.

Like the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon was dramatically affected by the pesticide DDT. By 1965 no Peregrines were known to be nesting east of the Mississippi, and less than 40 pairs were nesting west of the Mississippi by 1975.

Unwilling to sit idly by and watch these magnificent birds of prey go extinct in the U.S., Dr. Tom Cade created the Peregrine Fund, a captive breeding program to reintroduce Peregrines. Getting the Peregrine Fund started was not easy!

I had the honor of interviewing Mr. Cade about his work with the Peregrine Fund. This is what he had to say about the early days of the Fund:

“The main problem was to find the money necessary to do the captive breeding and the release of falcons back into outdoor environments. In 1967 I joined the faculty of Cornell University as a professor of zoology. One of the conditions of my hiring was that the university would build a breeding facility for falcons. It took the university four years to find the money to build the facility for $150,000, but we finally got started in December of 1970. Being an academic scientist all of my experience in raising money for research had relied on obtaining grants from organizations such as the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and the National Institutes for Health, and I thought I could support the falcon program that way. It never occurred to me in the beginning that I would need to establish a nonprofit organization called The Peregrine Fund. For the first four years I did receive support from NSF, but it was little more than enough to provide salaries for a couple of assistants, and it became clear that what we were trying to accomplish was too applied to attract much support from the scientific community. Then the Laboratory of Ornithology, with which the falcon program and facility were associated at Cornell, began receiving unsolicited contributions from the general public to support the falcon work. That gave me the idea to seek this source of funding actively, and I went to the university’s Development Office for advice and help. They agreed to help but advised that I would have to abide by their priorities for asking major donors for support. To make a long story short, the arrangement never worked, because every time I wanted to approach a potential donor, the Development Office had a higher priority for that person. One of the private breeders who cooperated with me in keeping and breeding birds of prey suggested that we form our own nonprofit corporation independent of the university to support our mutual interests in breeding and releasing Peregrine Falcons; that was done in 1975. Soon we were receiving funds from various conservation organizations, foundations, many private donors, and both federal and state agencies involved in endangered species work. It turned out to be the smartest thing I ever did, but I can’t claim much credit for dreaming it up. Plato, or someone back in his time, said that ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’”

Needless to say, the Peregrine Fund was a huge success and serves as a model of conservation. Thanks to the Fund’s efforts, by 1999 there were over 1650 breeding pairs in the U.S. and the Peregrine was removed from the endangered species list. Mr. Cade was present at the bittersweet moment when his first brood of fledglings that were hatched in the wild flew away. I asked him what he felt at that moment. He said, “This was a great time in the peregrine recovery program. I will never forget climbing up into the nest tower at Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge near Atlantic City with my colleague, Jim weaver, and banding the four nestlings. Looking out over the expanse of the Brigantine marshes, I realized that we had surmounted the last hurdle...”

He also informed me of some interesting survival rate differences based on nesting sites. “At first when falcons started nesting on buildings, and particularly on bridges, it appeared that fledging success was quite a bit less than for young fledged from cliffs. On bridges quite a few young fell into the water below when they first tried to fly and drowned, but some made it out of the water. But the Peregrines have persisted in moving into urban and industrial landscapes to nest on manmade structures in a spectacular way, so that the fatalities may simply look worse than they really are in terms of population maintenance and growth.”

During his work, Mr. Cade noticed an oddity that remains a mystery. “Falcons that breed successfully in captivity lay eggs that average smaller than the eggs collected from wild birds. However, this is not an inherited trait, as the young birds that are released into the wild and become breeders lay eggs of normal size. Something about captivity reduces egg size, but we do not know what it is.”

The Peregrine Fund has expanded their focus beyond that of the Peregrine Falcon.

“The Peregrine Fund now works on a worldwide scale on many kinds of projects to do with birds of prey, so naturally there are many projects I would like to see done.” One goal is to have at least one trained raptor biologist in every country to monitor populations. Another project is the California Condor. “We have been trying to reintroduce captive-bred condors into northern Arizona and southern Utah for the past 15 years but are unable to establish a self-sustaining population because of lead poisoning from bullet fragments and bird shot in the carcasses they eat. It is easy to breed condors in captivity, relatively easy to get them re-established as independent, free-flying birds in the wild, but no condors have survived long enough to produce more than one or two young before they die of lead poisoning. We desperately need some kind of a national PR campaign to convince the shooting public to stop using lead bullets and lead shot in their ammunition. Ideally this problem should be taken care of by state and federal regulations, but political idealism is hard to come by these days.”

His advice to anyone interested in starting up a conservation program: “Start small with a well defined goal that you are totally committed to, and come hell or high water you will succeed.”

Wherein is chronicled the history of the many homes of Gene Stratton-Porter

6/8/2015

By Curt Burnette

A few folks live in only one or two houses their entire lives. Many people live in several houses during their lifetime. Others live in numerous homes—moving from place to place or up-sizing or down-sizing as the needs of their lives dictate. Some are able to own more than one home at a time. We all have some sort of “home history.”

Gene Stratton-Porter’s home history began at the Hopewell Farm, outside of Lagro in Wabash County. Her parent’s house on their farm was her childhood home. But when she was 11 years old, because of her mother’s illness, the family moved into the city of Wabash to live in the home of her sister Anastasia. Her mother died a few months later, so her father moved his family into a rented home in that city. When Anastasia died a few years later, he moved them back into her home, and then out again when Anastasia’s husband re-married. When Gene married Charles Porter they moved into his family home in Decatur. The Porters lived there about 2 years until they decided to move to Geneva in 1888 where they purchased a small yellow cottage. They lived in it for almost 8 years.

The regional oil boom of the early 1890s brought good fortune to the Porters when oil wells were drilled on the farm they owned a few miles west of town. The revenues from these wells provided the Porters with enough money to design and build a wonderful new home in Geneva—the Limberlost Cabin. The Porters lived in the Cabin for 18 years. Gene began a book writing career here that made her rich and famous. When she decided to move away from Geneva, she used her wealth to purchase 120 acres of land and design and build a second, larger version of the Limberlost Cabin outside Rome City on Sylvan Lake in northern Indiana, where she had vacationed in past summers and had met Charles. She purchased a small cottage nearby which she lived in part of the time while Limberlost Cabin (North), as Gene designated her new lake home, was being built. Within a couple of years of the completion of the lake home, she designed another home that was built in Fort Wayne, which was probably more of a winter residence, while the lake home was for summer. When Gene began going to California for the winter, she sold the Fort Wayne house.

In 1920 Gene decided to move to California permanently. She had already purchased a home in Los Angeles for her winter stays. But when she decided to live there year-round, she began the process of designing and building again—only this time it was to be two houses! She had a weekend home built on Catalina Island (off the coast of L. A.) which she began using in June of 1924. She also had a huge castle-like mansion under construction in Bel-Air, which she expected to move into by mid-December of that year. But fate had other plans for Gene Stratton-Porter—she was killed in an automobile accident in Los Angeles on Dec. 6, 1924. The Bel-Air mansion she never lived in would be the last entry in her home history.

Baltimore Oriole

Conservation Success Story: The Peregrine Fund

Wherein is chronicled the history of the many homes of Gene Stratton-Porter

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