Yes, it’s a treat to watch a thousand or so snow geese blanket the fields in the Conway-Fir Island area. Yes, it’s a photographic opportunity. And yes, the sight can turn drivers’ brains to mush.
That’s the only explanation I can offer to explain the man who, after parking his car partly on the road (in a no-parking, skinny-shoulder situation on a two-lane road), rolled down his window and sat on the door so that he could take a photograph.
It’s a good thing that the drivers who had to maneuver between his posterior and oncoming traffic had more adept brains.
Avian tally. A birder who keeps track of birds in her city tallied up the 2017 sightings: 187 species within Edmonds! In November, birders spotted a rare great egret at the marsh and waterfront and a gray-crowned rosy-finch at the waterfront. During the year, there have been fewer than five records of the finch. Also seen were hard to find Eurasian wigeons and white-throated sparrow, as well as several unusual common redpolls.
Good hunting. Birders took advantage of the holidays and decent weather for winter birding outings. Pre-dawn owling on Camano Island turned up six great horned owls. A Cathcart resident looked outside to see a speck circling far away. The experienced birder went outside with binoculars and, even at distance, identified it as a golden eagle in the vicinity of the base of the north end of Lord Hill
The Skagit Flats in winter is a draw for birdwatchers as well as birds: a merlin perched behind the Edison Grill, a kestrel near the intersection of Samish Island Road and Scott Road, a prairie falcon perched in the Eagle Tree 200 yards west of the bridge over the Samish River on Bayview-Edison Road.
Four snow buntings showed up along Eide Road (Stanwood), feeding along the edges of the frozen ponds in the north part of the island near the highway. And a black phoebe was sighted at Wylie Slough along the canal, near Fir Island.
Now it’s your turn to go birding.
Lower stress. It’s not necessary to go far from home to enjoy birding benefits. People living in neighborhoods with more birds, shrubs and trees around homes are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and stress, according to a study by the British Trust for Ornithology and others.
Researchers concluded, after studying three neighborhoods and talking with 270 people representing various socio-demographic factors, that lower levels of stress were associated with the number of birds seen in the afternoon. They did not find a relationship between a specific species and the lower levels of stress.
What the feathers say. Scientists have studied horned larks in museum collections from Rust Belt cities dating back about 135 years. Around the start of the 20th century, the larks’ feathers were stained dark gray by the soot in the atmosphere, which allowed researchers to trace the amount of black carbon in the air over time.
A paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows by tracing the carbon on more than 1,000 birds, we can tell the effects of environmental policy on air pollution. At the turn of the 20th century, cities like Chicago and Pittsburgh looked similar to Beijing and Delhi today.
By comparing older birds with newer birds, the older larks were dirtier, the newer birds cleaner. Scientists concluded that the changes reflected the successful efforts to address the smoke pollution.
An ongoing survey by University of California-Berkeley researchers of state birds and comparison with data from 75-100 years ago shows that several species are breeding 5 to 12 days earlier to avoid warming temperatures since the early 1900s. It’s unknown whether that cooler window for breeding could become too short for some species if the average temperatures continue to rise.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or songandword@rockisland.com.
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