June-July 2006 Avocet Newsletter Tampa Audubon Society

8/9/2019 June-July 2006 Avocet Newsletter Tampa Audubon Society

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Volume XVII, Issue 3 June/July 2006

Tampa Audubon

The publication of the Avocet is funded in part through a grant from TECO Foundation

www.TampaAudubon.org

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Board Members ..................... 2

Message from the President ...... 3

Field Trips & Programs ........ 4 & 5

Announcements ..................... 6

News Article ......................... 8

An Exclusive Tour of the ManateeViewing Center ..................... 8

Spoonbill Sierra Club Meeting ... 10

Spoonbill Study ............... 11&12

ARC at the Park news ........ 13

Membership Application .......... 15

Birding News

Photo credit: Sabina Espinet - Female Cardinal - Tampa

New! TAS Photo Gallery

Do you have an interesting bird photo

you would like to share? Send us your

amateur or professional photos by e-

mail to [email protected]

and we will do our best to post them in

the new Photo Gallery section of our

website and also in the Avocet, space permitting.

Don’t forget to include your name,

the type of bird (if known) and

where it was photographed.

Weekly Bluebird Report By Mary Miller

It was another great bluebird week! There were new nests, new

eggs, and new fledglings. Four of the boxes have second nests in

them already. We have 27 eggs, 19 chicks, and 44 fledglings (15

BB, 17 CC, 12 TM).

I took my car out again today and my husband made a sign (BLUE-

BIRD MONITOR, AUDUBON SOCIETY) that I displayed in my

front and back windows. The rangers had asked me to do that. My

daughter, Jana, is going to make me a more official looking sign and

laminate it, which will be better.

One of the cyclists stopped to ask me if I was the “fruit fly lady.” I

was very happy to be a bluebird lady instead!


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Tampa Audubon Society2006 - 2007 Board Members

OFFICERS:President- Stanley Kroh

Immediate Past President- Ann Paul

1st Vice President- Karl Stevens

2nd Vice President- vacantTreasurer- Stanley Kroh

Recording Secretary- Chris Duffy-Waldman

Corresponding Secretary- Michael Turrisi

DIRECTORS:Joe Bailey (2005-2007)

Mike Donahaue (2005-2007)

Sabina Espinet Todd (2005-2007)

John Costin (2006-2008)

Rob Heath (2006-2008)Christine Malzone (2006-2008)

COMMITTEES & PROGRAMS:

ARC at the Park- Andrea College

Audubon Adventures- Ann Paul & Andrea College

Conservation Committee Co-Chair- Tom Ries

Conservation Committee Co-Chair- Dave Sumpter

Field Trip Committee Co-Chair- JoAnne Hartzler

Field Trip Committee Co-Chair- Mary Keith

Avocet Editor- Sabina- Espinet-ToddPublicity/PR- Mike Donahue

E-Mail Directory- Karl Stevens

Membership Development- vacantFund Raising- vacantWeb Site- Sabina Espinet-Todd

Regional Conservation Committee Representative-Andrea College

Christmas Bird Count- Dave Bowman

Special Events/Tabling Events- vacant

Endowment- vacantPrograms- Ann Paul

Do you know where on Tampayou can find this display?The first person to email

[email protected] the right answer wins aTampa Audubon baseball cap! The caps are now available atthe ARC for $18.00 and are goingquickly, don’t be the only onewithout one!

TAS Display Contest!











Now we know why the caged bird diagrams explanatory clauses By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published April 27, 2006

WASHINGTON - Grade-school grammar students should put away their excuses. Scientists say even a bird brain can grasp one of grammar’s early concepts.

Researchers trained starlings to differentiate between a regular birdsong “sentence” and one that was embedded

with a warbled clause, according to research published in the journal Nature.

This “recursive grammar” is what linguists have long believed separated man from beast.

It took University of California at San Diego psychology researcher Tim Gentner a month and about 15,000training attempts, with food as a reward, to get the birds to recognize this grammatical structure in their own bird language. What they learned may shake up the field of linguistics.

While many animals can roar, sing, grunt or otherwise make noise, linguists have contended for years that thekey to distinguishing language skills goes back to our elementary school teachers and basic grammar.

Recursive grammar - inserting an explanatory clause like this one into a sentence - is something that humans

can recognize, but not animals, researchers figured.

Two years ago, a top research team tried to get tamarin monkeys to recognize such phrasing, but they failed.

It was seen as upholding famed linguist Noam Chomsky’s theory that recursive grammar is uniquely human andkey to the facility to acquire language.

But after training, nine out of Gentner’s 11 songbirds picked out the birdsong with inserted warbling or rattling bird phrases about 90 percent of the time. Two continued to flunk grammar.

“We were dumbfounded that they could do as well as they did,” Gentner said. “It’s clear that they can do it.”

Gentner trained the birds using three buttons hanging from the wall.

When the bird pecked the button it would play different versions of birdsongs that Gentner generated, somewith inserted clauses and some without. If the song followed a certain pattern, birds were supposed to hit the button again with their beaks; if it followed a different pattern they were supposed to do nothing. If the birdsrecognized the correct pattern, they were rewarded with food.

Gentner said he was so unprepared for the starlings’ successful learning that he hadn’t bothered to record thesongs the starlings sang in response.

“They might have been singing them back,” Gentner said.

To put the starlings’ grammar skills in perspective, Gentner said they don’t match up to either of his sons, ages 2and 9 months.

Marc Hauser, director of Harvard University’s Cognitive Evolution Laboratory, who conducted the tamarinmonkey experiment said Gentner’s study was important and exciting, showing that “some of the cognitivesources that we deploy may be shared with other animals.”

¬© Copyright 2002-2006, St. Petersburg Times



An Exclusive Tour of the Manatee Viewing CenterBy Stanley Kroh, President

On Saturday, April 29, Tampa Audubon hosted a field trip to the Tampa Electric’s Manatee Viewing

Center in Apollo Beach. The center was closed for the season, so we had exclusive access to the facility. We

had a beautiful, unusually cool morning to enjoy nature.

We started out on the Tidal Flat Walkway, a 900-foot boardwalk through mangroves that terminates witha great view of the Apollo Beach embayment. We didn’t expect to see any manatees this late in the season, but

lo and behold, we saw a lone manatee feeding on sea grass. We also saw several white ibis, a great blue heron,

a great egret, horseshoe crabs, needle fish and some very large tarpon “rolling” in the discharge canal of Big

Bend Station. The highlight was a reddish egret that was fishing in that thrilling way reddish egrets do.

We next hiked through the natural lands south of the Manatee Viewing center. Very few people are al-

lowed access to this area, which is home to some of the last remaining saltern habitat on Tampa Bay. Salterns

are coastal areas that receive tidal flushing only at extreme high tide events. Without this regular flushing, they

develop extremely high salinity levels- too high for most plant life. In spite of their barren appearance, they are

actually quite biologically productive and provide critical habitat for many species. Our bird sightings were lim-

ited to a Wilson’s plover, some unidentified flickers and an osprey, but the lack of birdlife was more than made

up by the beautiful scenery. This area is home to some interesting plant life like Christmas berry, dead man’s

fingers, saltwort and stunted mangrove trees that look like natural bonsai. We also saw some exceptionally old,

weathered stumps (probably red cedar or long leaf pine) that were beautiful.

We left this area, feeling privileged to have seen an area that few will be allowed to experience.

I hope you’ll take advantage of future Tampa Audubon Field Trip offerings- you never know what you’ll see!



Come Join Our Learning Gate Community Garden Project!

Help 400 K-8th grade students of this school learn more about:

• gardening & global sustainability

• nutrition

• water conservation

• protection of species

• ecology & environmental preservation

by supporting the Seed-to-Soup Program and Organic Garden!

Lessons from the garden will be incorporated throughout our

curriculum, and the garden will eventually contribute toward a

healthy lunch program at the school. We want our organic

garden to be a model for all Tampa Bay area schools, showing

kids how to grow and enjoy healthy organic food which is good for our bodies and the Earth.

You can help!

• Volunteer to work in the garden. We especially need parents committed to the success of the garden.Go to www.seedtosoup.org and sign up to volunteer.

• Donate supplies or funds for purchasing items such as wheelbarrows, spades, shovels, composters, a

laptop computer/printer, a circular saw, a wood chipper, grading rakes, spring rakes, hoes, organic plants,

seeds, etc.

• Help us locate corporate/business/family sponsors who can contribute. They will be recognized with

a sign posted at the school garden all year thanking them for their contribution, as well as thank you notes

or a thank you poster from the children.

Please contact Dawn Hunt (www.seedtosoup.org) or Suzanne Sarwatka (949-0621) for more information.



Sierra Club Meeting Presents Ways to Help Roseate Spoonbills and Fight“Roseate Pointe” Development

Roseate Spoonbills:

Rob Heath will give a presentation about Florida

Audubon’s Roseate Spoonbill Banding Project at the

monthly South Hillsborough Sierra Club meeting,Thursday June 1, 7:00 p.m., at Camp Bayou Outdoor

Learning Center, 4202 24th St. SE, Ruskin. The

meeting is open to the public.

The spectacular Roseate Spoonbill is a large, bright

pink wading bird with a flat, spoon-shaped bill. Audubon’s

project will not only monitor spoonbill population

dynamics, it will also measure the success of Everglades

restoration efforts. One question scientists hope to answer

is whether Roseate Spoonbills are moving from Florida Bay in the Everglades to Tampa Bay.

Sierra Club’s June meeting provides a timely opportunity to learn how the public can participate in this impor-

tant project. “This year’s spoonbill fledglings will be about to start leaving the colony, and we need to get the

word out so people will report sightings,” says Rob Heath. Mr. Heath’s powerpoint presentation will provide

information about the beautiful and fascinating Roseate Spoonbills and Florida Audubon’s banding project.

“Roseate Pointe”:

After the program about Roseate Spoonbills, the group will discuss Sierra Club’s opposition to a proposed

development called “Roseate Pointe” on the Little Manatee River. The developer is proposing a change to

the County’s Comprehensive Plan that would double the density allowed on a point where the river meets the

Ruskin Inlet, in the Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve. The site is zoned for 82 homes, but the developer wants

to build 165 units. Sierra Club maintains the increased density would intolerably impact the site’s extensive,

pristine wetlands, as well as the surrounding mangrove islands of the Cockroach Bay State Buffer Preserve, and

the river itself, which is designated an “Outstanding Florida Water” by the state.

Sierra Club is encouraging the public to attend two public hearings on this proposal on June 12, 5:30 p.m.,

18th floor of County Center; and on August 9, 6:00 p.m., 2nd floor of County Center, 601 E. Kennedy Blvd., in

downtown Tampa.

For more information, call Mariella Smith, 645-4218 or Beverly Griffiths, 741-3054.



A Mystery in PinkFlorida Audubon asks for help in fourth year of roseate spoonbill study

Audubon of Florida’s Tavernier Science Center and Florida Coastal Island Sanctuaries are banding rose-ate spoonbill chicks in Florida Bay and Tampa Bay in order to learn more about this mysterious wading bird.Scientists rely on the general public reporting sightings of these banded spoonbills to provide what could beground-breaking discoveries.

For the fourth year in a row, the Audubon Society of Florida is asking outdoor enthusiasts across theSoutheast to think pink. The population of one of Florida’s most striking, rarest, and unusual birds, the roseatespoonbill, is growing in numbers in Tampa Bay while sharply declining in Florida Bay, and researchers want toknow why.

To discover what’s happening to Florida Bay and Tampa Bay spoonbills, as well as to learn more aboutthe basic biology of the roseate spoonbill, Audubon of Florida began banding spoonbill chicks in Tampa andFlorida Bay in 2003. Chicks are fitted with a colored band close to the bird’s body so that it can be seen whilethe bird is feeding in water. Birds banded in Tampa Bay wear red-colored bands, while birds from Florida Baywear black. The bands have a 2 digit alpha/numeric code unique to each bird that is read vertically and repeatedaround the band. It is hoped that by asking observers around the Southeastern United States and especiallyFlorida to identify individual birds once they have dispersed from their nesting grounds, researchers can deter-mine if spoonbills are leaving Florida Bay to take up residence at Tampa Bay.

Thanks to reports from spoonbill spotters since 2003, banded spoonbills from Tampa Bay have beensighted from as far south as Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge to as far north as coastal Georgia. Audubonof Florida hopes that public support and input will continue to grow this year, resulting in even more reports of spoonbill sightings across the southeast.

Roseate spoonbills were hunted to virtual extinction in the Tampa Bay area in the 1880s. It wasn’tuntil 1975 that seven pairs of spoonbills were found nesting again at Tampa Bay’s Alafia Bank Bird Sanctuary.Over the next 30 years, the nesting population in Tampa Bay grew slowly; now approximately 360 pairs nestin Tampa Bay and Pinellas County, which includes 320 nests at Audubon’s Richard T. Paul/Alafia Bank Bird

Sanctuary, where Audubon’s banding project is taking place.

While this year’s breeding season for the roseate spoonbill is only just beginning in Tampa Bay, rose-ate spoonbills in Florida Bay are nearing the end of theirs. Unfortunately for those spoonbills as in the 2003and 2004 breeding seasons, many of their nests have failed. According to Jerry Lorenz, director of Audubon’sTavernier Science Center, water management practices destroyed one colony of nests by flooding Florida Baywith water from the Everglades during the what should have been the winter drought dry-down. Another colonynumbering 78 pairs of spoonbills abandoned their nests due to continued disturbance from fishermen.

By banding spoonbill chicks in both Tampa and Florida Bay, Audubon hopes to answer questions notonly about the causes of success and failure of the populations in these areas, but also about the basic biologyof the roseate spoonbill. Public reports of banded spoonbills will help researchers learn at what age spoonbills

raise their first chicks, where the birds go when not breeding and even what roseate spoonbills look like at dif-ferent ages.

To report a banded roseate spoonbill, please contact Rob Heath or Ann Paul at (813) 623-6826 or viae-mail at [email protected] or [email protected]. Reports can also be completed online at www.audubonofflorida.org/science/spoonbills.htm. This project is supported by grants from the U.S. Geological Service,Everglades National Park, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund.

If you would like to read more on this subject, visit:http://www.audubonofflorida.org/who_tavernier_spoonbills.html



How you can help

Spoonbills have been banded in Florida using a combination of band

types. An aluminum band from the USGS Bird Banding Laboratory is

used on all banded birds. This band is aluminum (silver) in color and is

typically placed on the Tarsus (just above the feet) (see illustration). In

addition one or more colored bands may have been placed on the Tibia

(above what appears to be the ‘knee’) so that they may be observed when

the bird is foraging in shallow water. These colored bands may be either

colored aluminum with an alpha/numeric code, or plastic without an

alpha/numeric code. The code is read vertically, or read horizontally from

the bottom up, and is repeated around the band so that it may be read

from different directions.

For example:

3

4 is read as 34, likewise

A

K would likewise be read as AK.

This band is read as ‘K4’

Should you observe a banded spoonbill, please note the following:

1. The color of the band(s), and if possible what leg(s) it is on.

2. If there is an alpha/numeric code, and the orientation of code (horizontal or vertical)

3. The location of the sighting (be as specific as possible, and please include the county)

4. Your background (biologist, birder, etc.) and how to contact you if you are willing to be contacted should

we need further information.

If you have an opportunity to photograph the bird and/or the habitat, this helps us to confirm the code if the

photograph is of exceptional quality, and/or to learn more about plumage changes and habitats used.

Please report any sightings to Audubon of Florida at the: Tavernier Science Center, 115 Indian Mound

Trail, Tavernier, FL (305) 852- 5318 or Coastal Islands Sanctuaries, 410 Ware Blvd, Suite 702, Tampa, FL

33619 (813) 623-6826. Sightings can also be reported online, as well as additional information on this project

at: www.audubonofflorida.org



On May 21st, 2006, we held another hugely

successful event. We received a grant from the

Southwest Florida water management district

to host the event. Once again Busch Gardens

participated, this time with a pink flamingo

which has a huge hit. We also had information

about wetlands, mosquito control, and Florida

friendly yards, and coastal clean-ups. It was adelight to see many of our visitors participate in

the scavenger hunt that required them to an-

swer several questions relating to the river and

its importance to the community. The answers

were all found throughout the facility and many

took the time to complete it. We received

numerous comments about how much they

learned from the experience. We had nearly

300 participants for this event and we willcontinue to offer the scavenger hunt to visitors

throughout the summer months.

www.TampaAudubon.org

ARC at the Park



The following have recently made generous contributions to Tampa Audubon.Thanks for continued support of our environmental education initiatives!

Marilyn BatchellorJ. Lee BeniceTimothy A. BonsackCatherine M. CasasThomas Casper

Peter ChengJoel P. ClevelandVal CugatMargaret CuttsAnn DebaldoBetty M. DumasMr. & Mrs. Frank DupuisDorothy EbersbachConstance D. FarnsworthMary M. FergusonMike Fite

Lorraine GenovarGerald E. GoebelSandra GrantColin & Deborah GrimesMarilyn Groff

Jon HaaschRhea HurwitzDaniel A. JonesJane M. KemererDoris J. KellyMary A. KeithRuss & Gail KruetzmanPatricia LewisMichael & Alicia Le VineClif LivingstonJerry R. Miller

Steven MlynarekJ. Rodgers PadgettGail B. ParsonsRich & Ann PaulRichard Rauscher

Lee & Linda ShearWilliam & Mary Ann SheppardPenny Jean StonerJames T. & Doris E. TaylorJerry & Joyce TauntMichael TurrisiRuth TroscianiecRichard S. ValentineLynn VeltWilliam H. Walters IIIBetty Wargo



TAMPA AUDUBON MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION

YES!I want to join the Tampa & National Audubon Societies at the special introductoryrate of $25 and save over 35% off regular dues!

Name: ____________________________________________________________________________________

Address: __________________________________________________________________________________

City: ______________________________________ State: ____________ ZIP Code: ____________________

Phone: __________________________ E-mail: ___________________________________________________

Please make your checks payable to: Tampa Audubon Society

Mail to:

Tampa Audubon Society

P.O. Box 320025Tampa, FL 33679

I would like to include an additional contribution of $________ to the Tampa Audubon Society.

Your membership supports vital conservation issues. As a member you will receive the bi-monthly Audubon

Magazine, the quarterly Florida Naturalist Magazine and the bi-monthly Avocet Newsletter.

National Audubon occasionally makes its membership list available to carefully selected organizations. To have

your name ommitted from this list, check here.

Tampa Audubon is Proud to Welcome Our Newest Members:

Jerry Troya

Tony Lavagnino

Dirk Meyn

Edwin S. Styron, III

Sharon Mc Rae

Michael Mc Rae

Rose C. Diaz

Documents

June-July 2006 Avocet Newsletter Tampa Audubon Society