Bird banding

It's been a long time coming but I finally have my federal master bird bander permit. Bird banding, or "ringing" as it is known in Europe, involves placing some unique identifier on a bird's leg. People have been banding birds for about four centuries, most typically using metal bands and lengths of chord or string. Recapture of banded birds can provide valuable information about the life history and movements of birds. Along with collecting, bird banding was a central activity in the history of ornithology and it continues to be a major research tool in ornithology today.

Systematic and organized bird banding began in the United States about a century ago and today banding is regulated by the United States Geological Survey's Bird Banding Laboratory. Permission to band birds for individuals is obtained through a master bird banding permit. Application for the master banding permit is a lengthy process and applicants must demonstrate a legitimate scientific and/or educational reason to band birds. Bird banding can be focused on a particular species or done more generally to provide long term distribution and abundance data of local avifauna. Numerous anatomical measurements and other data are recorded for each bird to obtain, among other things, data on plumage and morphological variation, age structure and sex ratio. Once a scientific purpose has been established for a banding program an applicant's training and ability to identify, capture and handle birds is assessed. All applicants are required to provide references from master bander permit holders in order to assess the applicants credentials as a bird bander. Typically most master banding permit holders spent some time as a subpermitee under a master permit holder. If applicants request permission to capture birds with mist nets or collect blood samples additional authorization for these somewhat delicate and difficult practices is required. Currently there are about 2,000 master bander permit holders in the United States and most are from universities and governmental conservation and research agencies. Holding a master banding permit is therefore a great privilege and responsibility and for me an important part of my growth as an ornithologist.

The latest bird banding program at Cincinnati Museum Center (CMC) began this past weekend at Cincinnati Country Day School (CCDS) with CCDS faculty member and CMC adjunct curator Francisco Borrero (see photo above of Francisco removing a bird from a mist net). We had two upper school students show up on a very cold Sunday morning to put up a mist net near a bird feeder on school grounds. So, what was the first bird to be caught under the auspices of my hard won USGS master banding permit? It was a male House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), band number 2291-69601 (see photo left). House sparrows are an abundant species in urban and suburban settings. They are not native to North America but instead introduced from Europe. The first bird recorded in my banding records is not the most exotic of species but a neat little bird none-the-less. Other birds banded on my first official outing as a master bander included blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata), Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) and the Eastern Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor, see photo below).

Students seemed to enjoy the chance to handle wild birds (see photo right) and were a big help on processing the birds and recording data. Hopefully bird banding on the campus of CCDS will attract more participation among the CCDS upper and middle school student body. Data gained through bird banding can serve as an excellent introduction to field-based science and we hope students will take full advantage of opportunities at CCDS and CMC and participate in bird banding and other field biology programs. Who knows? Maybe some of the students learning how to catch, measure and band birds in this program will themselves be holders of master banding permits someday?

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Darwin Day Celebration and Evolution Sunday

Next month marks the 199th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth. Darwin (and coincidentally Abraham Lincoln) was born on February 12, 1809 and since 1994 universities, museums and other public institutions have marked the date with various events to commemorate the career of one of the greatest scientific minds in history. This day has been dubbed Darwin Day and is celebrated around the world with events that recognize Darwin's contributions to our understanding of the natural world. Lectures, museum exhibits, nature hikes, public discussion forums and other activities are planned this year at places like Case Western Reserve University, University of Pennsylvania Museum, The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, and The North Carolina Botanical Garden. Next year will be a major milestone marking the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species and major events are planned at museums, universities and research centers around the globe.

To coincide with Darwin Day a group of concerned Christian clergy started Evolution Sunday in 2006. Evolution Sunday grew out of an effort lead by Butler University dean Michael Zimmerman to bring together Christian clergy to combat the misrepresentation of both science and religious faith in the evolution/creationism debate. The result was the Clergy Letter Project, a statement affirming that there is no fundamental conflict between the science of evolution and the acceptance of the Christian faith. To date over 11,000 Christian leaders have signed on to the Clergy Letter Project including theologians from colleges, universities and seminaries the Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana tri-state area, including Xavier University, Lexington Theological Seminary, Centre College and the Earlham School of Religion. During Evolution Sunday congregations around the country take the time to discuss what evolutionary biology means to their faith. This open dialog between science and religious faith is exactly what is needed in the evolution/creationism debate and the participation of the scientific community in these events is critical. As Darwin Day and Evolution Sunday approach I'll try to add more posts about Darwin, creationism and the impact of evolution on society at large.

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Another successful trip to Taiwan

We had a great time in Taiwan this year and now that I'm back and the holidays are over and it's a new year I can sit back and reflect and think about the next trip! To the right is the poster advertising Bailey and my talks. Really I can't thank the Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute, Director Tang and Ornithology Department Head Yao Cheng-te enough for their support during this trip. Also, Professor Lee Ya-fu and the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan hosted me for another talk in the Biology department and I thank them for that opportunity. In addition to seeing and photographing lots of great birds my colleagues and I built some really exciting plans for future collaborations. Taiwan is not only a fantastic place for the mountains, forests and birds but also because of the people. "Xie-xie nin" to all my colleagues in Taiwan who make my time there so enjoyable and productive.

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National Academy of Science and evolution

In the USA the most prominent and influential of scientific organizations is arguably the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The Academy began in 1863 and the original act of congress creating the Academy was signed by president Abraham Lincoln. The charter members included some of the greatest American scientists of the day including the Harvard geologist and zoologist Louis Agassiz. Membership in the NAS is by election and being voted a member of the Academy remains among the highest honors bestowed on an American scientist.

So, what does the single most prestigious, prominent and influential scientific organization in America have to say on the evolution/creationism debate? Today the NAS released a press statement showing unequivocal support for evolution and decidedly against any notion of creationism or intelligent design as a valid scientific endeavor. NAS president Ralph Cicerone said, "The study of evolution remains one of the most active, robust and useful fields in science". NAS published a new book, Science, Evolution and Creationism, for the general public, especially science educators, school boards and policy makers, dealing with the evolution/creationism debate (the pdf version is available online for free) and tomorrow there will be a live webcast on the topic of evolution/creationism. To quote the NAS book, "Biological evolution is the central organizing principle in modern biology". So if there was any question in one's mind as to the consensus on biological evolution look no further than the most prestigious scientific organization in America, the National Academy of Sciences.

see also news on this story at the ABC News.com Science and Society blog.

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Mountain barriers

Mountains are important engines of evolutionary change. A mountain range can present a formidable barrier to movements of animals and divide populations, preventing them from exchanging genes with one another. The division of a single population into two by the gradual introduction of some geographic barrier, like the uplift of a mountain chain, is known as a vicariant event. Vicariance is an important process in evolutionary change and is responsible for much of the biological diversity we see today.

Taiwan has, by all appearances, an excellent example of a vicariant event dividing a single ancestral population into two separate species. The bulbuls are widespread Old-World family of birds (Pycnonotidae). Taiwan has several members of this avian group including the Chinese Bulbul (Pycnonotus sinensis), a widespread bulbul in East Asia, found both on the island of Taiwan and in Mainland China (see photo left). The Chinese Bulbul's name in Mandarin Chinese is "Bai Tou Wang" which means "white headed old man" after the characteristic white patch on the back of the head. This bird is abundant at low elevations throughout Western and Northern Taiwan where it is considered a crop pest. Farmers often leave fine nets up around their fields that snare these birds in flight and they are left to die hanging tangled in the mesh of the net. A little cruel, yes, but this practice is tolerated largely due to the fact that prohibitions against netting wild birds can be difficult to enforce due to a variety of reasons. Also, the netting occurs in agricultural areas where most of the birds killed in these nets belong to very widespread and common species.

There is also another very similar bulbul is found on Taiwan. This is one of the 16 endemic avian species found on Taiwan, the Taiwan or Styan's Bulbul (Pycnonotus taivanus), found on the east side of the Taiwan Central Mountain Range. This bulbul is very similar to the Chinese Bulbul with a notable exception being the lack of white on the back of the head (see photo right). Because these two species occur on either side of the Taiwan Central Mountain Range they appear to be a classic example of speciation due to a vicariant event, in this case the uplift of Central Taiwan. Different species divided by mountain ranges, bodies of water or other geographic features is a common occurrence among birds and in Taiwan we can see this on a relatively small scale.

However, the two species do have a zone of contact in Southern Taiwan where their ranges overlap and they hybridize so their genetic isolation is incomplete. Taiwan and Chinese Bulbul seem to be a case of vicariance in action but recent work suggests that despite their differing appearance there are few genetic differences between these species. These birds are great subjects for future research and genetic comparisons of these species can potentially tell us much about how new species form.

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The Hilton it ain't...

Watching the Discovery Channel you may think of field biologists in far flung corners of the globe tracking down rare plants and animals in exotic locations. Not all field biology takes place in exotic, "wild" locales. Often the subjects of one's research are pretty ordinary suburban organisms like Grey Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) or House Sparrows (Passer domesticus), but, sometimes research does take you far afield into more adventurous settings.

But, what is often left out is just how dirty and difficult field work can be. This weekend's field expedition across Taiwan's south cross highway to the east side of the Taiwan Central Mountain Range was about as unglamorous as field work gets. We managed to find a tea plantation that allowed us to stay in the workers quarters on the cheap (see photo left). Normally during the height of the tea harvest there are 50 plus workers staying in this modest building. Luckily save for the farm manager and a couple workers we were the only people staying on the farm. The sleeping area consisted of a concrete floor and a raised platform where we all slept on moldy comforters. The kitchen doubled as a storage room/office and we ate instant noodles lunch and dinner with some pork or boiled cabbage on the side and bread for breakfast. I'll leave the bathroom undescribed to spare the reader the more graphic unpleasantries of fieldwork.

However, life aways has trade offs and spartan living conditions are balanced by seeing some great birds, getting some good data and enjoying some spectacular scenery (see me in photo right). Somehow the birds, the scenery and the camaraderie of one's colleagues stick in my mind a little more than the living conditions and this keeps me coming back to the beautiful mountains of Taiwan. Sleeping on hard surface or eating a steady diet of cabbage and instant noodles are sometimes worth it to see these fantastic views and incredible wildlife.

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Another shrike!

This trip seems to be the year of the shrike. In addition to the common species found on Taiwan during this time of year, the Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus) and the Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius schach), we found another member of the Lanius clan. The Bull-headed Shrike (Lanius bucephalus, see photo left) is a rare vagrant to the island of Taiwan. They are more commonly found wintering in mainland China after their breeding season in Manchuria, the Korean Peninsula and Japan. This was a lucky find. We ran across this lone male Bull-headed Shrike while surveying birds on the east side of the Taiwan Central Mountain Range on a tea plantation at about 4,900 feet elevation. These birding surveys are important as they document the movements and distribution of birds during different times of the year. Knowing about bird distributions and movements are critical in understanding different ecological and evolutionary processes in avian species and long term data can potentially tell us about the ecological effects of global climate change. Maybe Bull-headed Shrikes will be a more common sight in the future? Maybe not? We'll need lots of keen eyed birders to keep watch for these and other rare vagrants.

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Shrikes, killer songbirds

Most songbirds we encounter are mild-mannered little birds that eat seeds or small insects. Members of the shrike family (Laniidae) are exceptions to that rule. Shrikes prefer open habitat where they survey their surroundings from a high perch for passing prey items. Top of the menu are large insects, like grasshoppers, and often other vertebrates like lizards, mice or small birds. To kill vertebrate prey shrikes have a special adaptation, the tomial tooth, an extension of the upper mandible that shrikes use to dislocate the neck vertebrae of their prey. Falcons have evolved a very similar structure independently of shrikes and use it in much the same way to dispatch their prey. Shrikes are also famous for keeping larders of their prey for later. A shrike's larder consists of large insects and vertebrate prey impaled on thorny bushes and trees or in some areas on barbed wire fences.

We've seen many shrikes during this latest trip to Taiwan with two species making up all the sightings, the Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus, see photo above taken at the Aogou wetlands on Dec 10) and the Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius schach, see photo right taken near Yuanshan on Dec 8). There are only two species of shrike in all the Americas and neither of American species are found on the island of Taiwan. Eurasia and Africa are the strongholds for shrike diversity with most of of the 28 species in the genus Lanius occurring on these continents. Brown Shrikes are winter migrants but Long-tailed Shrikes can be seen all year on Taiwan. Lanius shrikes are common but still great birds to see on any trip to Taiwan.

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The crane! The crane!

Cranes are popular birds in the far east with an important place in Chinese, Korean and Japanese art and culture as symbols of peace and harmony, so when they show up unexpectedly in places where they aren't normally seen it can be a big deal. On December 7 during this year's trip to Taiwan, with University of Minnesota student Bailey McKay, we had the good fortune of seeing four wintering Red-crowned Cranes (Grus japonensis) in the agricultural fields around Jingshan. The sighting was easily made from the roadside with binoculars and a spotting scope gave excellent looks at this beautiful bird. A single adult plumage individual was in a grassy field along a river filled with Black-crowned Night Herons (Nycticorax nycticorax) and other waders. A short drive around the corner from this bird revealed three more individuals (2 in adult plumage and 1 in juvenile plumage, see photo left. I know it isn't the greatest photo but the birds were very far away.). This was a big surprise as it was only the third record for Red-crowned Crane in Taiwan and the first such sighting in four years. Prior to the last sighting four years ago there were no records of this species for over 60 years! All previous sightings were of solitary individuals making this year's sighting the largest known wintering population of Red-crowned Cranes in Taiwan to date.

Local birders were already on the scene when we arrived at this site. In Taiwan birding is a major pass time and a half a dozen birders with 2,000 dollar spotting scopes and a 600 mm lenses on a 10 mega pixel digital camera is not an unusual occurrence, particularly in the winter when there are many different vagrant and transient migratory birds. Typically the first person to spot a rare bird are on their cell phones and within the hour birders from around the island are packing their gear and on the way. Our presence at the crane site attracted a lot of attention even by non-birders and soon after our arrival a line of locals had formed waiting to catch a glimpse of the cranes through Bailey's spotting scope (see right photo). One never knows what will turn up in the winter in Taiwan! Taiwan is a great place for these rare vagrant migrants and a great place to meet many enthusiastic, friendly birders.

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Who ruled the Paleozoic seas? The Eurypterid did!

This is a 380 million year old sea scorpion or eurypterid (Eurypterus sp.) from New York state (left). It one of the thousands of specimens in the invertebrate paleontology collection at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Eurypterids were aquatic predators with paddle-like appendages and spiked claws used for catching prey. Their closest living relatives are the arachnids (spiders, harvestmen, mites and scorpions). Eurypterid fossils are found in Ohio and Kentucky and in many other locations in the Eastern United States and around the globe. Eurypterids are the state fossil of New York state and many fine specimens, like this one in the Cincinnati Museum Center collection, have been unearthed in that region.

Now, being only about 15-20 cm in length, this species may not be that imposing but other eurypterids grew to much larger size. Shown here is another eurypterid specimen in the Cincinnati Museum Center collection, Megalograptus ohioensis, collected in Ohio (right). This fossil dates to about 445 million years ago and consists only of the distal portion of the one of the claws or chelicerae, a little like a lobster claw or that of a modern terrestrial scorpion. This portion of the claw alone is about 2 cm wide and nearly 4 cm long. The spines on the claw likely used for grasping slippery prey items are clearly visible. This fragment obviously came form a much larger animal than the New York Eurypterus specimen, however, size variation in eurypterids doesn't stop here.

In a new paper by Simon Braddy, Markus Poschmann and Erik Tetlle available online in the journal Biology Letters the authors describe a new specimen of the eurypterid, Jaekelopterus rhenaniae. The fossil remains described in the Braddy et al. paper are from an animal nearly 2.5 m long, that's just over 8 feet in length. Not only is this is the largest eurypterid described to date it is the largest arthropod ever. The claws of J. rhenaniae alone were over 40 cm long and lined with long spines. The authors speculate that higher oxygen levels in the paleozoic seas may have contributed to the gigantic size of many arthropods during this time but a lack of large vertebrate predators like marine reptiles may have also been a factor as well because large eurypterids like these went extinct about the time we begin to see large marine reptiles in the fossil record.

Read more about this on NPR and listen to an interview with the authors of the study. Thanks to Brenda Hanke of Cincinnati Museum Center for help on this post.

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