Research

Using Radar to predict Bird Migration

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1447 NEXRAD dome with clouds
Creative Commons License photo credit: kbaird

In my dissertation, I take some time to talk about the use and adoption of recently-available technologies (specifically digital cameras to take pictures of birds, nexrad radar to predict migration and the Internet to share bird sightings) by birders. I call the products of these technologies (so, the digital pictures, radar images & postings) “digital objects” that mingle with us (thanks to the recent proliferation of Smart Phones, for example) in more and more places. This movement to digital objects promises to change (and already has) how birding is done.

I enjoy the interpretation of New Jersey radar images that David La Puma does at Woodcreeper during the spring and fall migration. It was his website that really got me thinking about how birders might use these images in their practice. David recently posted that this work is, at best, interpretive after (it appears) some birders on the New Jersey birding listserv suggested that his forecasts were imperfect.

This back-and-forth neatly illustrates my concerns with the forecasts. As I write in the dissertation, field birders try hard to predict the unpredictable nature of birds. In my work, this meant that many field birders that I chatted with often spoke about winds from the north and cold-fronts associated with migrating birds. In this regard, birding connects the humans doing it to the world beyond the simple presence / absence of a bird. In short, its a kind of ecological knowledge. But it’s not perfect. And birders can go out and see nothing, or go out expecting nothing and stumble into some migratory bird biodiversity bonanza. The unexpected nature of the activity, birders reported to me, was part of the appeal of birding.

I, however, write:

Access to these radar images subtly re-frames the field birding experience. Now that birds’ presence can be predicted, there can be less motivation to go out birding on a morning that the radar shows has had little migration activity. While radar is not a discrete enough tool, if you will, to identify the species of birds that are migrating, it is one step towards removing the unexpected. Radar’s use as a prediction tool is an attempt to domesticate—bring further under human control—part of the act of watching birds. Figure 5, the radar image posted at Point Pelee [National Park, located in Southern Ontario and a migratory hotspot], is [hand]-titled “Image of the BIRDS”. That emphasis on birds (underlined and in caps) gives the impression that somehow these images are offering an objective truth about migrating birds.

And this is where the New Jersey birders appear to have got confused. As David writes in the post, “you begin to understand that predicting birding conditions based on weather and radar is both an art AND a science (with art trumping science under conditions where the predictive properties of weather or radar decline).”

I would further David’s caution about the interpretive nature of nexrad images by encouraging birders, if they are interested in using this tool, to learn to make interpretations of the imagery themselves. Again, from my diss:

While interpreting radar images is not beyond the ability of any birder with an interest, it requires cultivating something of an expertise in reading these radar images to discern just what is being seen. Thus, birders unfamiliar with these details can turn to websites, like Woodcreeper, to get that forecast. This moves the responsibility of interpretation elsewhere, erasing what is involved—cognitively, technically—with making the forecast. This recognition of interpretation and technological limitations can foreground that these images are not a new vision of BIRDS but a mediated version of the more-than-human, filtered through microwaves, antennae, websites and our own judgement about what is out there. While rendering something that previously was mostly invisible to us, it cannot provide, as promised, a whole version, or perfect vision, of the phenomena.

And that’s the kicker. Often it is understood that these technologies give us access to a better truth (i.e. Nexrad will tell me if there are birds present or absent, better than my own experience). The truth, however, is something different. While birders, prior to the deployment of Nexrad radar, couldn’t “see” migratory birds on the move, it isn’t the whole picture. The danger here, and here’s where I get somewhat philosophical, is what gets lost if we decide not to go birding on a particular day or we begin to ignore our first-hand experience of what predicts a “whizzer day” for birding.

Warblers, migration, birding & ethics

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Black-throated Blue Warbler male 2-20100916
Creative Commons License photo credit: kenschneiderusa

In my dissertation, I write a bit about the ethical alignments that underpin birders’ behaviours (I asked birders what rules, if any, they followed while birding). Along a continuum from human-centred (anthropocentric) to nature-centred (biocentric), the birders I spoke with shared “rules” that ran from one end to the other. Here’s an example of a human-centred perspective shared by a birder:

I don’t want to try and get too close, but I will approach one quietly and sort of let the bird—their instinct for self-preservation, you know, rule that. If you make too much noise, it’s just going to fly away. But I don’t want to disturb the bird. I want to get a good look at it but beyond that some move away.

I consider this to be more of a human-centred perspective because the birder leaves it up to the bird to decide when the birder approaches too closely. While consideration is given to the bird, the need to get a good look (appears to be) king. I write in the dissertation:

In this case, the birder is leaving it to the bird to make the decision that [the birder] is too close—by flying away. This perspective, for example, ignores the energy required for the bird to fly away and the possible negative result on the ability for the bird to survive. This is a particularly important consideration during migration when birds are expending huge amounts of energy and time to feed and refuel. Nowhere in that practice [of birding] is there any form of self-control on the part of the birder.

My own perspective about this is clear: we as birders ought to be acting with the best interests of birds in mind. If this means not getting a good look, then so be it.

Intriguingly, as I was skimming my birding blog feeds I came across this post, Warblers in Bryant Park, on the birding blog 10,000 Birds. I’ve been impressed in the kind of attention the authors of this blog have made to bird conservation. Yet, as I read this post about warblers in New York City’s Bryant Park, I couldn’t help but examine and question the underlying ethical motivations.

In short, the post described something of a warbler migration fallout in the (very urban) park. The birds were seemingly unaware of their surroundings; unaware enough that the post’s author was able to take some stunning photographs using a 100mm macro lens. “Each and every picture here is of a wild bird,” writes the post’s author, “free to go about its business.” Responses to the post were, for the majority, positive, with the exception of this one which took the birds’ perspective into mind:

Whats lost here is that these birds are exhausted, so exhausted in fact that they will risk being out with people/predators mid-day to feed and rest.

While yes the pictures are beautiful, you have to wonder if any of those birds have what it takes to migrate and return next year to breed.

Kinda makes it bittersweet.

Bittersweet indeed. Any birder knows how difficult it can be to approach a bird: that’s why we have binoculars, to collapse the space between each other. Those birds that are “easy” to approach are those accustomed to human contact (e.g. a bird that lives in urban settings, like a Pigeon) or stressed enough that our presence is the least of their concern (e.g. think about a Killdeer feigning a broken wing to distract from young).

While these were wild, migrating warblers, I think the notion that they were “free to go about [their] business” is a bit misguided. These weren’t urban birds, so it is safe to make the assumption that their behaviour, seemingly unconcerned to the foot traffic around them, was caused by something else. During migration, when they are expending large amounts of energy on flight1, birds are stressed for food and more willing to take risks to get it. While they do have the ability to fly away, the warblers are feeding in this urban plaza precisely because they’re hungry and they are limited where they can find food. The warblers likely have very little choice in selecting Bryant Park, and disturbances can impact their ability to fuel up.

Now it is clear that the author of the post wasn’t the only human around, and the warblers were busy feeding with all this activity going on. You could say that it wasn’t a big deal to add another human to the mix—especially one that with an interest in and appreciation for the birds. This, however, is an example of that human-centred ethic I mentioned seeing in some birders. I’m not arguing that there was a better thing to do in this situation, but I am suggesting there were other courses of action that could have been taken. Like being aware, as in the case of the commenter above, of the bird’s motivations behind being so conspicuous.

The challenge I face when looking at a situation such as this one is an awareness of the larger rhetoric of birding: generally speaking, birders see the activity as a way to re-connect to the natural world, through birds. But, it’s a reconnection that is often on a birder’s own terms. And that’s the challenge of birding, in my opinion. As migratory bird populations continue to decrease, will the underlying ethics that motivate birders’ “rules” change to meet the needs of birds?

  1. Blackpoll Warblers, for example, undertake a 72 hour, 3,500 km trans-oceanic flight from the East cost of North America to their wintering grounds in South America. [↩]

The walk, the White-throat and the chance encounter in birding

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While out with the dogs and Heather this morning, I heard a bird song that was different than the “regular” bird noises I hear while I’m out and about. I had a similar experience of hearing an unusual call last month. Upon hearing that call, off I went traipsing across a park with a dog in tow, scanning bare limbs for movement. I found the bird at the top of a tree and, not surprisingly, it wasn’t some vagrant or rarity, rather it was a European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) obviously trying out a song from its repertoire.

The same kind of experience happened again this morning: out with the dogs, chatting with Heather, paying attention to what Griff was doing at the end of his leash and out of the periphery of my consciousness, my mind flips into action: there is something out of the ordinary calling “out there”. Now, having had the Starling experience in the last month, and having people and dogs to draw my attention, I made a mental note of its auditory presence but then moved on.

Off our mixed Canid and Hominid foraging flock moved to get a cup shade-grown of coffee and a teabiscuit (I say foraging flock because Ollie and Griff managed to convince us that we should offer them some crumbs). We returned home following our same path and in the same spot on our out-bound leg, the song snapped into consciousness. And it was something out of the ordinary. Just like my gut told at the time that the bird I heard last month was a Starling, my gut told me that this wasn’t.

Birding: sport or conservation?

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This post is one part of a two-parter that I’m writing in response to a paper on the sport of birding that was published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues.

Feb. 15, 2010
Creative Commons License photo credit: auburnxc

Instead of protest, culture jamming, confrontation, and direct action the environmental sporting practices of traveling the state by automobile and competitively searching for vast numbers of birds is what the World Series of Birding constructs as environmentalist. Driving in search of birds in polluted New Jersey is, in this formulation, a great way to protect birds. (p.214)

This is how author Spencer Schaffner, writing in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, condemns the World Series of Birding as more sport than a form of environmental conservation. In this paper, Schaffner links birding to toxic waste writing that “birders often seek out polluted environmental niches” (p. 212) and rather than confronting the tension of our culture’s creation of the waste, the sport acts to hide or ignore it. Given my research, I don’t agree outright that birders actively seek out polluted areas and this is where I’m less impressed with the paper.

Birding and bird conservation

Returning, however, to this idea that birding is not the same as bird conservation, Schaffner writes:

The brand of environmentalism promoted by mainstream environmental organizations is made in ways palatable, conservative, and legitimate through a relationship with the accepted sport practice of birding. Unlike the growing environmental movement to end global warming, for instance, which threatens to radically change entrenched aspects of industrial capitalism, protecting wild birds has only involved relatively undisruptive changes such as the establishment of trade and hunting laws, small-scale nature preserves, and pesticide regulation. (p. 212)

And this is what I want to discuss in this post: I have yet to see a cogent reply from the birding community to address this critique. In fact, its an argument that could be made from my own work: when asking birders what kind of rules they follow when out watching birds, I was amazed at the human-centred (avoid trespassing on private property, follow the rules of the road when birding in a car) or instrumental (don’t drop trash) nature of the responses. True, there were thoughtful multicentric-centred responses, but when birds were mentioned in most birder’s ethical approach to birding, it is often along the lines of this participant’s response:

I don’t want to try and get too close, but I will approach one quietly and sort of let the bird – their instinct for self-preservation, you know, rule that. If you make too much noise, it’s just going to fly away.  But I don’t want to disturb the bird.  I want to get a good look at it but beyond that some move away.

Getting that good look is still at the heart of the activity with little self-regulation or questioning about what might be in the best interest for the bird. In this case, the birder is leaving it to the bird to make the decision that he’s too close—by flying away. While this may not be the practice of everyone, I have seen enough similar behaviour to this (which I call “birders behaving badly”) that I know its not an isolated practice.

Birding as sport or birding as conservation

Which returns us to the larger question that Schaffner raises: is birding an act of leisure (sport) or is it an act of conservation? And if it is more than leisure, how does the birding community address critiques that birding is an activity that does little more than promoting the status quo—appearances as an activity that appears to be doing little to address larger environmental concerns or, as I suggest, the personal well-being of birds watched?

I know that birders feel when they participate in citizen science programs (such as the Christmas Bird Count) that they are participating in the monitoring and conservation of bird populations. I know that birders feel that when they join a group (such as Field Naturalists) that purchases and protects habitat for birds that they are participating in habitat conservation. What is enough?

It is clear that people don’t like to hear that what they are currently doing isn’t enough—we all like to feel like we’re competent and illuminated. It is also clear that bird populations are continuing to decrease. We know this, ironically, through bird population monitoring. What I think articles like Schaffner’s raise is that uncomfortable feeling, an inner psychological state of angst, that what we do in the name of birds, on the whole, isn’t enough. There are at least two responses: dismiss these claims outright (as I heard from birders as the paper was published) or reflect on the larger claims of the paper and make an effort to do a bit more.

And in my research, I’ve heard from birders who are starting to make connections between their larger lives and the act of birding. Take this conversation, for example:

Gavan: Would you say that, or do you have any examples of times where you have made – whether you have made behavioural changes or even purchasing changes based on the lives of birds?

Male: Absolutely.

Gavan: Can you explain to me maybe some of those things?

Male: I read Bridget Stuchbury’s book [Silence Of The Songbirds].

Female: It’s a book at our Nature Club.

Male: Also, we are much more conscious of where a product comes from now. For example, we’re a little more sensitive about buying products in the winter that comes from South Americas. We worry about the practices.

I have even thought – I mean I haven’t acted on this, but I have thought of going up to the produce manager of the local supermarket and say “I’m not going to buy these asparagus from Peru because I don’t know what’s on it, for one, and I don’t know if there’s something on it, what impact that has had on something that I care about, birds.” So I have not done that, but it has crossed my mind, I should. I probably don’t do it because I’m generally not a confrontational and I just figure he’s going to look at me and say “what’s this jerk talking about anyway”.

It’s not a question of knowledge, it’s a question of action. And the risk of looking like a jerk.

Birding and the sewage lagoon

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This post is one part of a two-parter that I’m writing in response to a paper on the sport of birding that was published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues.

a swim anyone?
Creative Commons License photo credit: iBjorn

Earlier this year, Spencer Schaffner1, writing in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, published a paper titled “Environmental Sporting: Birding at Superfund Sites, Landfills, and Sewage Ponds”. On the whole, its an interesting read with points that I and my own research certainly agree with.

Schaffner’s overall argument in the paper focuses on the link between birding in polluted spaces and birding’s complicity with masking these toxic spaces. I find this argument challenging to agree wholeheartedly with.

My reasoning: birders look for birds in significant concentrations. Sewage lagoons (which, of the three polluted areas described in the paper, I have experience with) act to concentrate birds, hence their appearance as a place for birding. They’re sought out in spite of their shitty origins because they offer an opportunity to see many birds in one place. Are birder’s ignoring the risk to birds by visiting such sites?

These lagoons, with their increased nutrients from the effluent are a source of food for invertebrates, attract avian predators. What is worth questioning is if there are compounds that birds, attracted to the lagoons, could ingest and impact their ability to thrive. Research on this question conducted in sites around Ontario suggests that the answer is that it depends: yes, these places are sources of pollution but the birds appear not to ingest enough compounds to impact their overall health.

Significantly elevated concentrations of eight contaminants were determined in domestically raised mallards released at Hamilton Harbour CDF, Winona  SL, and  Big Creek Marsh. However, most of these concentrations, with the exception of PCBs and DDE, were  lower than concentrations found in other studies. All concentrations were below levels believed to have harmful effects on birds. (p.241)

Significant, however, in this paper was the finding the Big Creek Marsh was a source of contaminants as the study area would typically not be seen as a waste facility: it is part of a National Wildlife Area surrounded by a large cattail marsh complex. The results indicate that it is not just classically constructed “waste spaces” that pose health risks to avian populations. Culturally, and this is damning, we have impacted the whole environment in such a way that we can’t judge the health or toxicity of a location by its ecological role or appearance as natural—marshes and sewage lagoons can both be sinks of organic contaminants.

So, to critique the act of birding at sewage lagoons as ignorance to pollution which renders toxicity invisible is an argument made more difficult given the diffuse nature of pollution. I’m not sure that birders would identify a sewage lagoon as inherently “healthy” now that they visit and find birds there. The argument could be made that any outdoor activity that does not actively interrogate the source and persistence of environmental pollution is complicit with creation—and perhaps that is true. To single out birding, though, because in its practice birders visit sources, such as sewage lagoons, seems like a bit of a low blow.

I’m left wondering where the argument will get us (us being those that are interested in birds, the people that watch them, impacts of Western culture and the larger more-than-human world). I do agree that birders have a unique opportunity to engage with the conservation of bird species, populations and individuals and that, for the most part, these kinds of interventions are left for others to do on birders’ behalf. But that’s the subject of the second post.

  1. Hi Spencer! I know you have a Google Alert set up and I want you to know, independent of my critique here that I appreciate your scholarship in the birding sphere. I would love to chat sometime. [↩]

Mapping the locations mentioned by Ontario birders

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This post includes ruminations and ideas emerging as I analyze the data collected for my PhD dissertation focusing on the act of birding. It doesn’t represent a final thought or particular endpoint: these are ideas in progress. I would be interested in hearing your opinion of my ideas, too.

During my analysis, I kept track of all the places mentioned by birders during interviews. With the exception of ‘sewage lagoons’1 I’ve mapped the locations and the results are interesting2. Immediately apparent: with two exceptions (The highlighted locations of Fisherville and the Carden Alvar) all these places are on or within short distance of a Great Lake.

So what does this tell us of the practice of birding in Ontario? Well, it tells us that birds are found where there is habitat as most of these locations are marshes, woodlots or other (relatively) undisturbed or protected natural areas and birders go to look for them in these places. That’s to be expected, isn’t it? It falls within conventional wisdom, certainly.


View Locations mentioned by Ontario birders in a larger map

There are, however, protected habitats that birds could be found throughout the province. So why such a focus on these near-lake habitats? Clearly, the Great Lakes are playing a role in the kind of birding that takes place in Ontario: they act as a concentrator. In the spring, migratory songbirds “fallout” in these remnant habitats (Point Pelee as a spring hotspot for songbirds, Beamer Point for raptor migration) and the lakes act as a barrier against which birds fly during fall migration (Cranberry Marsh, High Park, Hawk Cliff).

Interestingly, it really emphasizes that conventional birding practice focuses on migratory birds. And more specifically for Ontario, migratory birds as they move to and from the shore of a Great Lake, in part, because these places are most reliable for finding birds.

Two notable outliers: First, Fisherville. This region has hosted a winter population of Long-eared Owls. And people love Owls. Second, Carden Alvar. A unique habitat, with many rare or unusual bird species that cannot be found elsewhere in Ontario found here (the Loggerhead Shrike, for example). So this points out two allied practices: birders travel to find unusual birds (hence, the Carden Alvar’s emergence as a location) and birding practice changes in the winter (thus appears Fisherville).

Some thoughts about that. In winter, time is more diffuse and the birds are less predictable–irruptions occur in a (sort-of) pattern over years rather than in a regular seasonal pattern like spring and fall migration. Birds that appear in the winter are here primarily looking for food rather than being on the move to nesting / wintering grounds. In my experience, you know that Snowy Owls will be, say, near Arthur, but they’re diffuse enough that they can be hard to find.

So, the places that concentrate these winter birds (Fisherville, Amhurst Island) emerge as birding locations.

  1. Because I collected them as a generic category and don’t have location information [↩]
  2. Oh and the yellow thumbtacks indicate where I conducted the majority of interviews [↩]

A way to say thanks

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I’m writing this in the car in between two interviews that I’m conducting this sunny Sunday morning. What I’ve been struck with as I’ve been busy with interviews this Spring and Fall is just how generous people have been with their time and personal space–I’m visiting people in their homes as a part of my work right now. What is difficult is that I’m not going to get a way to individually thank all my participants in my dissertation (that would break the rules of anonymous research). So while I do thank people effusivley at the end of an interview, I feel like I need to figure out some way of thanking these people again.

Rondeau Research

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So I’m well passed the halfway mark for my tenure conducting birder research here at Rondeau Provincial Park. I’ve got sixteen interviews in the hopper and could get a couple more before I leave on Saturday. While the birding hasn’t been stellar (it’s been “thin” as someone today described it), I’m really pleased with the number of interviews I’ve managed to conduct. Before I left, I had the magical number of fourteen in my head. If I reached that, then I would consider my time here a success. I reached fourteen yesterday, about three days ahead of time. The other great thing about my time here is that everyone (birders, that it) is quite interested that I would be researching them and many are interested in participating. Everyone I’ve interviewed has been generous with their time and answering my litany of questions. So. Even though I have two more days left, the work here already feels like a success.

(I’m about to be) Deep in the heart of Texas

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Without making this post into a reminiscence about my youth and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, I am off to Austin, Texas tomorrow with my supervisor (Dr. Leesa Fawcett) to assist with a research project on animal minds. We’re going to be interviewing Dr. Merlin Tuttle, founder of Bat Conservation International (a non-profit whose mission you should be able to deduce from its name), among other bat researchers and bat enthusiasts in the Austin area.

As far as travelling in Texas, I’ve only been to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. So, I get to have a bit of an adventure, too. Austin is supposed to be a great place to visit, so I’m pleased that its the first real place that I’ll have a chance to explore in Texas1. Leesa and I have congruent interests in so far as what counts as fun, so with the little free time we have, we’re going to be busy exploring the natural history of the area. I posted a question on MetaFilter, and I’ve got some good leads on places to check out.

I’m going to schlep my camera equipment, so I hope I get some interesting opportunities for photographs–who knows, of bats perhaps!

  1. the fact that its supposed to be in the high twenties / low thirties will help, too [↩]