Alternative energy and what it does to birds

Renewable energy, sounds great, right? And it can be, in some rare cases and often in theory, renewable energy is great for the environment. Sadly, more often than not, once the energy collectors are installed they cause more harm than good. To get my point across, let me tell you a story...

Imagine, you are driving along, on a winding backcountry, on a road trip with your family. The radio is playing and your two kids are asleep in the back seat. As you crest a hill, you see a massive wind farm spread over an entire valley. The turbines coat the hills and buttes for miles around. It seems almost peaceful, but that is quickly turning into a hostile battlefield. As you watch in horror, a flock of Canada Geese in the classic “V” formation coast toward a clumping of turbines. A stray goose, straggling behind the flock gets cut out of the air as a blade swipes past.

Later, you are driving through southern California, heading towards the coast. For the last hour, there have been several burning, bright lights on the horizon. As you get closer, you begin to realize what you’re seeing, the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility. A flock of small birds, possibly swallows, is hunting the insects nearby and they must have spotted an especially juicy cloud of grasshoppers and they fly straight into the beam of intense light. The flock never returns. The light set fire to the birds and incinerated them midflight, all because the light attracted insects.

Your family road trip has taken you all the way to the coast. Your family decides to camp in a sandy area near the beach. As you are hiking along a coastal trail, following a river as it winds down toward the ocean. As the ocean comes into view, you begin to see strange white bumps surface quickly before disappearing again. Is it a strange species of animal? No, it is the blades of a bottom-tethered tidal energy generator. You notice many types of birds swimming, flying, and eating fish around the generators. The generators attract fish because it serves as a source of protection and in turn, the birds follow the food. You watch the peaceful scene for almost an hour, marveling at the life in front of you.

Your road trip has now traveled overseas, as you are hiking through beautiful Poland, you begin to spot a light smoke signal in the distance. It is coming from a large wood-burning biomass power plant. All of the trees for miles around have been clear-cut and the mountains nearby have large machinery harvesting more wood every hour. As you watch in amazement at the destruction, a tree is felled sending a flock of birds high into the sky, never to return to this place.

You and your family are now back home, but your latest trip got you thinking. You've been doing research to see if the terrible events caused by alternative energy sources can be fixed. They can. Next time someone comes to you telling you about the horrors of coal-fired power plants, you can say "Well, coal-fired power plants are terrible for the environment, but at least they don't slice birds in half or set them on fire."

Followed by Crows

During a normal bluebird box check, I sadly spotted a dead American Crow by the side of the road. It had most likely been hit by a car. Across the street was a group of about four more American Crows, they watched me and my mom pick up the crow and move it under a pine tree. We were planning on taking it down to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, but we did not have any bags to put it in and the fact that there were already maggots, we decided to leave it, but move it out of the road. When arrived at our next set of boxes we realized that at least two of the crows had followed us. We continued to check our boxes, keeping an eye out behind us to see how long the crows would follow us. In the end, the crows followed us almost out onto the highway, but stopped in a large copse of trees and cawed after us. It will be interesting to go back next week and see if they follow us around again.

Box 12 - Mystery Box

This box was one of my favorites to check. At first, there were four very typical, very normal Western Bluebird eggs. It wasn't until the next week that it started to get weird. 

These are the eggs I found the second week.

These are NOT bluebird eggs, as they are much too large and the wrong color. A possibility that came up was Brown-headed Cowbirds, a species of bird that lays their eggs in other birds nests.

The brown, spotted egg is a Brown-headed Cowbird's egg in a Dickcissel nest. Picture belongs to MDC Discover Nature 

The eggs did not belong to Brown-headed Cowbirds either.

This is the bird, a couple of days after hatching

These are baby Bluebirds from one of my other boxes

As you can see, the mystery bird is definitely not a bluebird. I have actually had a couple of people comment that the bird looks like a piece of uncooked chicken!

The baby has started to grow some feathers 

With the baby getting older, the time for identification was getting shorter and shorter. 

This is the last time I saw the bird before it fledged

Sadly, we were not able to identify the bird before it fledged (left the nest) and at this writing, I still haven't identified it.  

Parrots on Mother's Day

On Mother's Day, my family took a hike to Carson Nature Center, as per request of my mom. Since we were in the area, we popped into the Barnes and Nobles and meet this lovely character and her owner. 

This is Emily, the rescued African Grey Parrot. 

Her owner, Bill, was very kind and let me hold her. I think she quite enjoyed it, as she refused to get off of my arm and cuddled my sweater. If you noticed in the picture, Emily has plucked off most of her belly and chest feathers. This is mostly due to stress, but there may be other causes, it varies bird to bird. The feathers will probably never grow back as she has repeatedly plucked them, again and again.

Thank you to Bill and Emily for letting me intrude on their peaceful Sunday afternoon!

Neighborhood Nestwatch -Year Two

Today was the second year in a row that Master Bander Meredith McBurney came to my house to band bird as part of Neighborhood Nestwatch. If you don't know what Neighborhood Nestwatch is, here is the official website. smithsonianneighborhoodnestwatch  We caught six birds this year, double the amount last year. Here's a rundown of what we caught, three House Finches, one Lesser Goldfinch, one Red-Breasted Nuthatch, and one Spotted Towhee.

This is our first bird of the morning, the Lesser Goldfinch.

Here is a male House Finch, being show around to some of the kids we invited over for the occasion. 

It was so much fun to have a Master Bander over at my house and to see her in action, in my own backyard. It will be fun to see if the birds we banded today stick around for a while or disappear without a trace.

Happy flying!

Hi there!!!

Hi!

My name is Cairn. Let me tell you a few things about me; I am 13, I want to be an ornithologist(someone who studies birds), I live in Colorado and I love birds.

I fell in love with birds when I was five years old. I was at a bird banding station with my homeschool group and became absolutely enthralled with birds.  I have gone to the banding station every year since. About two years ago, the woman who runs the banding station said I was finally old enough to volunteer.

While I was working at the station, I met a lovely lady who needed a couple of people to monitor bluebird boxes in a gated community.

So now I spend a lot of time with birds and this is my blog about my adventures.

I hope you all enjoy this blog!