Wind-power does almost nothing to cut emissions of CO2 because its output is so unpredictable. This makes its fossil-fuel backup highly inefficient and tends to offset the savings as it makes.
New Labour's ‘Renewables Obligations' subsidy schemes do not oblige electricity suppliers to measure cuts in CO2 emissions. If anyone tried, the game would be up.
While our critics simply ignore this argument, it recently received a welcome boost. VoS News found on the internet a presentation by a senior manager at Elsam, Western Denmark's biggest electricity generator. Made at a Copenhagen energy conference in May, it lists what it calls ‘challenges' for the Danish energy system. Two of these translate as follows:

• The forced development of wind turbines in Denmark raises the demand for subsidy in øre/kWh;
• The increased development of wind turbines does not reduce Danish CO2 emissions.

The argument is simple. Denmark, unable to absorb most of its wind output, exports over 80 per cent of it. By definition, this does not cut Danish emissions. Much of it goes to Scandinavian suppliers (with six per cent losses en route) to replace genuinely clean hydro power or Swedish nuclear. So it doesn't cut emissions there either.
Whilst Danish wind-power generators are heavily subsidised, buyers from other countries pay the going rate and sometimes even charge for taking it. Buying electricity at giveaway prices allows generators to turn their hydro off, save water - and wait for the wind to drop so that they can sell the hydro at better prices.     To Denmark, even.
It's high time to scotch the myth that 20 per cent of Danish electricity consumption comes from wind power. It doesn't. West Denmark generates the equivalent of about 20 per cent of its consumption from wind power - and tries to find someone else, somewhere else, to buy it.

Above the familiar line of soaring pelicans.  At right a loner crosses Crissey Field toward the Golden Gate Bridge beyond.  Even in the high winds, these great fliers seems to move almost effortlessly.

Note the missing wing feather in lone bird to the left.  Below is yearling bird: all dark face, light belley.  Pelicans are usually three before they reach breeding age so it makes sense the non-breeding immatures owuld leave to come north, making in easier for parents and chicks to find enough food in the less fishy waters of So Cal and Mexico.

ON SHORE

Snoozing male Mallard in eclipse plumage, didn't even move his head as we walked by.  The sun was warm, his shallow water even warmer.  What Winnie-the-Pooh would call a hummy kind of an afternoon.

Not headless, just heedless.  Night-Heron, Day-Snoozer.

And for now, Adios.  I'm off to Ecuador for motmot, cotinga, a zillion tanagers and a couple toucans.  With luck a questzal and perchance a few antwren.

Birds are in big trouble in North America. A recent study found 127 species of neotropical migratory birds are in decline. How badly? The Black-chinned Sparrow population has fallen 89 per cent over the past 40 years, the Cerulean Warbler is down 83 per cent, and Sprague's Pipit population has declined by 81 per cent.

So drastically have overall migratory bird populations fallen that one scientist who compared weather satellite images over time, found that migrating bird flocks were 50 per cent smaller than they were several years ago.

Last week in Washington, Congress began hearings into the crisis and there were calls on the government to boost funding to the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act. Since 2002, the visionary piece of legislation has awarded more than $25-million in grants (leveraging $116-million in matching funds) to projects mostly outside the U.S. that are aimed at protecting birds in North, South and Central America.

But in Canada, the plight of migratory birds remains off the political radar.

Indeed, while the U.S. government is searching for answers and looking at increased funding for projects that protect migratory birds, we are going the other way.

Last year the Canadian Wildlife Service had its service budget frozen and the Migratory Bird Program, which monitors the health of bird populations, was cut by 40 per cent.

Environment Canada's budget allocation for protecting and conserving biodiversity is dropping from $126-million this year, to $118-million next year and $116-million by 2009-10.

Forget about the birds, we seem to be saying, they can fly away and take care of themselves.

But migrating has become increasingly perilous for neotropical birds, which breed in Canada and the U.S. in the summer, and winter in the south, mostly in just five countries: Mexico, Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.

The American Bird Conservancy says the greatest threat to neotropical migrants is habitat destruction, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean, where Mexico has only 50 per cent of its forests left, Dominican Republic, 29 per cent, and Haiti, 3 per cent.

But there are problems in the north as well.

"Many bird species, such as the Bay-breasted Warbler and Olive-sided Flycatcher, migrate to the boreal forest in Canada, where timber, mining, and drilling operations are spreading at a rapid pace. Logging is often allowed during nesting season, and as a result many bird nests are destroyed each year," stated the American Bird Conservancy in a report last week.

In B.C. at the moment the provincial government is promoting port expansion on the Fraser Delta, the most important staging area for migratory birds on the West Coast. The development will put at risk mud flats used by five million birds annually, including threatened species such as the Long-billed Curlew and the Pink-footed Shearwater.

And on the north coast, a massive wind farm that would be built in the middle of an important Pacific flyway, in Hecate Strait, is being extolled as a "green" solution to growing energy needs.

Across the prairies, the spread of massive monoculture operations, a growing number of which are aimed at producing biofuel crops, has wiped out an untold number of birds.

Canadian cities bristle with well-lit buildings, communication towers and power lines that have been blamed, in the U.S., for causing millions of bird deaths annually.

More than 90 per cent of the bird species in Canada are migratory, which means we have a responsibility to other nations to make sure the northern end of the neotropical migratory bird network is properly managed.

Paralyzing the Canadian Wildlife Service with budget cuts is not helping, nor is allowing the destruction of important staging areas.

The federal government needs to look at the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act as a model for similar legislation in Canada.

And authorities need to move decisively to protect key habitat areas.

Everyone loves the sound of singing birds. But few politicians seem to hear in those lilting tunes the cry for help that is being raised.

Mark Hume

The Globe and Mail

14 July 2008

NEIL REYNOLDS
reynolds.globe@gmail.com
July 11, 2008

OTTAWA -- Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain travelled to Oregon in mid-May to deliver the definitive climate change speech of his campaign. He spoke in Portland, at the U.S. headquarters of Vestas Wind Systems AS, a Danish company that markets wind turbines around the world. He started on a self-deprecating note. "Today is a kind of test run for this company," he said. "They've got wind technicians here, wind studies and all these wind turbines. But there's no wind. So now I know why they asked me to come and give a speech."

It was perhaps his most perceptive statement of the day. Five sentences later, Mr. McCain made perhaps his least perceptive. "Wind," he said, "is a predictable source of energy."

Really? Define predictable. Wind turbines operate occasionally with remarkable efficiency at 100 per cent capacity. More often, they operate with 20 per cent capacity. Once in a while, they operate with subzero capacity - taking electricity from the grid to keep themselves running until they get hit again by a restless wind.

British energy consultant Hugh Sharman, based in Denmark, documented wind power's capacity for subzero performance in a report published by Civil Engineering magazine in 2005. With more wind power per capita than any other country, Denmark (population 5.4 million) is the world's showroom nation for this highly fashionable form of renewable energy.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion (who used Earth Day to champion wind power this year) and legendary U.S. oilman T. Boone Pickens (who called this week for massive U.S. investment in wind power) illustrate the widespread popularity of wind power.

Although the United States and Germany generate more wind power in absolute terms, Denmark boasts the world's greatest "wind density" - wind power per capita. With 19 per cent of its electricity now generated by more than 6,000 wind turbines, Denmark produces 80 times as much wind power per capita as Britain.

Why, then, does Denmark export almost all of its wind power - at a revenue loss? Why, then, does Denmark still operate all of its conventional coal-fired power plants? In a phrase, Mr. Sharman says, the reason is Denmark's "wildly fluctuating wind power."

It turns out that Denmark's vast array of turbines often produce minimal electricity when demand is high, maximum electricity when demand is low. Basing his analysis on data from a single year (2002), Mr. Sharman reported that wind power produced less than 1 per cent of the country's electricity supply on 54 different days. On one of these 54 days, the wind turbines took more power from the grid than they produced. (Wind turbines consume considerable electricity whether winds are blowing or not blowing.)

British author and energy analyst Tony Lodge makes the same point in a report by the Centre for Policy Studies, a London think tank. "Not a single conventional power plant has been closed in the period that Danish wind farms have been developed," he says. "Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants have had to be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity and to provide backup."

Mr. Lodge says it is not practical to turn coal-fired plants off and on as winds rise and fall - because ramping them up consumes more fuel (and emits more carbon dioxide) than running them at a constant rate. Thus Denmark relies almost exclusively on coal-fired plants for its own consumption and exports its wind power at whatever off-peak price it can get.

Only 3.3 per cent of Denmark's wind power gets "accepted" on the grid for domestic consumption. In 2003, Denmark exported 84 per cent of its wind-generated electricity at money-losing rates. And CO{-2}? In 2006, Denmark produced 36 per cent more carbon emissions than the year before.

Denmark has provided generous subsidies for wind power developments since the 1970s and now has a sophisticated wind-dependent industry that - think Vestas - flogs subsidized turbines to naive U.S. presidential candidates. The industry's reliance on subsidies has apparently not lessened in the past 30 years. Mr. Lodge says Danish consumers paid $517-million (U.S.) in wind power subsidies in the first six months of 2007 alone.

Messrs. McCain, Dion and Pickens notwithstanding, winds do not blow predictably. Without an energy storage battery the size of Mount Everest, most wind-powered electricity will be wasted and will almost certainly increase a country's carbon emissions - albeit inadvertently. When your power plant operates at only 20 per cent capacity (or less), you have to build four or five times as many plants as you need. For reliable backup, you still need either coal, gas or nuclear power - all of which are cheaper than wind.

The conclusion seems self-evident. Apparently it isn't. Fortunately, you can test wind power for yourself. Go outside on a hot and humid day. Feel the breeze. Or don't.

The swallows over the laKe were busy and numerous, five species.

The New Yorkers cleverly left for Bandon where the temps will be about thirty degrees lower, and the smaller birds were largely in their shaded rest spots by mid-day.

Canada Goose, Mallard, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, California Quail with young, Turkey Vulture, Bald Eagle, Red-tailed Hawk, Osprey, Ring-billed Gull, Killdeer, Band-tailed Pigeon, Mourning Dove, Acorn Woodpecker, Red-breasted Sapsucker, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Vaux's Swift, Western Kingbird, Western Wood-Pewee, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Warbling Vireo, Scrub-jay, Steller's Jay, American Crow, Raven, Cliff Swallow, Violet-green Swallow, Tree Swallow, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Barn Swallow, European Starling, American Robin, American Dipper (2), Spotted Towhee, Macgillivray's Warbler, Black-headed Grosbeak, Brewer's Blackbird with young, Red-winged Blackbird, Bullock's Oriole with young, House Finch, Lesser Goldfinch, House Sparrow.

These Brown Pelicans were photographed by my daughter, Julie Talcott-Fuller.  They look just like the pelcians I saw today off the beach at Brookings, Oregon.  Except my pelicans did not have the Golden Gate Bridge behind them.  My new-old pelicans had only fog and mist and low-lying ocean swells.  In the first line there were eight young birds, in the second only seven.  They are such a familiar sight.  One I witnessed nearly every day for over twenty years, May through December in San Francisco's outer Richmond District.  But here they were new again.  I had never seen a Brown Pelican in Oregon before.  Oregon lifer #208.

Even when I have seen them a hundfred times off the Oregon Coast...and I will should I live long enough, the easy coasting flight, the long beak leading a body that seems too dense to float in the air, the typical line of birds, one just off the first bird's tail and so on to the end of the line...it will always be a thrill for I shall never forget how rare they were along the Pacific shorelines before we humans stopped using DDT in America.

There were other seabirds as well: Surf Scoters, Barn Swalloows along the sand, Willets. A Double-crested Cormorant.  Numerous Western Gulls in a dizzying array of plumages.  And far out over the waves a line of black over white footballs moving forward on stubby pointed wings, three Common Murre.

Not all the songs were from the goldfinches.  Spotted Towhees fizzed.  One male even went into the treetops near the singing Nashville Warblers.  They're proving quite hard to photograph.  I did capture a mediocre shot of the other warbler in the area.  The ground-hugging MacGillivray's which responded almost immediatley when I pished softly.

And if that's a crummy picture, look at my Tanager of the morning.  Here's NOT looking at you, kid!

I'm starting to really like Western Wood-Pewees, despite their drab plumage and wheezy sneezy little whistle.  They pose.  You may have seen the pics of the brooding female.  Today one insisted on fly-catching overhead.  Calling repeatedly between aerial forays.

Of course the camera automatically focused on the leaf canopy background, not on the small gray speck in front of it.

SUMMER BLOOMERS

The only trees blooming around Ashland now are late dogwoods and towering catalpas, a native of the southeast that loves the deep soil of the Rogue Valley floor.  In the forest there are numerous bushes and wildflowers in bloom.  Here the bachelor's buttons and sweetpeas have naturalized, as have mock orange that send their gentle hyacinth-like fragrance into the dusty air.  Competes currently with the smoke blowing in from all those forest fires in northern California.  Here is one cluster of the sweetpeas that proliferate:

Location:     Glenview Drive--Ashland
Observation date:     7/3/08
Number of species:     10

Mallard     2 (in the swimming resevoir)
Turkey Vulture     1
Western Wood-Pewee     3
American Robin     2 (nested in this area earlier in the year)
Nashville Warbler     5
MacGillivray's Warbler     2
Western Tanager     2
Spotted Towhee     4
Black-headed Grosbeak     1
Lesser Goldfinch     15
----- 

Location:     243 Granite Street, Ashland
Observation date:     7/2/08
Number of species:     12

Band-tailed Pigeon     1
Mourning Dove     3
Downy Woodpecker     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Western Wood-Pewee     1
Steller's Jay     5
Western Scrub-Jay     2
Black-capped Chickadee     2
American Robin     1
Spotted Towhee     2
Black-headed Grosbeak     5
Lesser Goldfinch     6

While he was feeding on the new thistle feeder, his apparent mate was over at the platform, performing her simplest dive: Olympic seed-bobbing.

And there were the usual suspects, at their usual posts:

But then a less regular customer stopped by.  First there was a starter bite of dogwood, then the sweatpea blossom salad, followed by the main course which required a bit of a reach, as you might say.

Deer me.  Note the double squirrel baffle needed to doubly baffle the squirrels.  Their event: Olympic pole leaping.  From flat-footed stance, jumping straight up at least three feet, grabbing the slippery pole and then doing a half-gainer onto the feeder's roof. Six points of difficulty.  Let me see you try that.

Each spring and autumn, Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area comes alive with songbirds and raptors. Located on a major migration route on the eastern tip of Prince Edward County, this 560-hectare parcel of wilderness was established in 1978 to protect migratory bird habitat. The Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory operates a migration monitoring station within the NWA. It is one of 25 across the country that track three to five billion birds as they leave the boreal forest every fall on their way south to their non-breeding territories, and return to Canada the following spring.

These migration monitoring stations are the only real way to monitor these species' populations. Prince Edward Point NWA is one of 51 of Canada's best wildlife habitats.

Gilead Power, a privately owned renewable energy company, is proposing a wind farm of up to 13, 90-metre high turbines in Ostrander Point Crown Land block, directly west of the National Wildlife Area and in the heart of the Prince Edward County South Shore Important Bird Area. This project could destroy a significant amount of habitat within the Crown Land block based on the proponent's project description. Most significantly from the perspective of birds, it could disrupt migration patterns and create a permanent major physical threat to the tens of thousands of birds that migrate along the shoreline toward or away from the NWA. Remember that this NWA was created because of its significance for migratory birds.

Ironically this area is owned by the province and managed by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Ultimately it will be their decision if turbines are installed there and their responsibility to justify such a decision. However, if this project is allowed to go ahead it will mean that no place is sacred - no place too sensitive for these structures. Ostrander Point is public land, environmental land in the heart of a globally significant important bird area.

Industrial wind farms are not the only threat to the Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area. It has been 23 years since a management plan was written for this area. Implementation of the plan has stalled and revision is required. Many sections within the NWA are over-grown with exotic species, particularly Dog Strangling Vine, an aggressive alien vine that chokes out all competition. The NWA has virtually no resources to address these perennial and worsening issues.

Environment Canada is responsible for these protected areas. Yet the department lacks even basic funding to properly manage, let alone expand them or establish new ones. Also lacking is the political will of both the federal government and particularly the provincial government to say no to wind turbines where they clearly should not be allowed.

With a federal election looming in the not-so-distant future, now is the time to ask politicians and the candidates the hard questions about this important part of Canada's natural heritage. Is the provincial government willing to protect the integrity of migratory bird habitat and say no to the wind farm at Ostrander Point? Are our leaders in Ottawa ready to ante-up the required resources to get our national wildlife areas off life-support? Demand answers!

Published in Picton County Weekly News  June 30, 2008

We watched this female Wood-Pewee flyctach and give her wheezy sounding call on a sunny, torrid actually, hillside of scrubby trees and dense weeds.  It was just uphill from Milepost 10 on Dead Indian Memorial Road.  Mid-day with temps over 90 degrees.  No other birds were visible except for swallows who seem to relish the frantic action of over-heated insects just like the flycatchers.  After five minutes of watching her, she suddenly swooped down the hillside and went into her nest on a low branch about twelve feet from where we had been standing in the shade.  It was small tree and ther next was perhaps eight feet above the ground and just uphill from us.

Female--Sibley's GUIDE TO BIRD LIFE AND BEHAVIOR says only the female flycatcher has a brooding patch.  She builds the nest, lays the eggs (of course) and broods the eggs.  The male does hang around to help feed the nestlings and tend them after they become fledglings.  This nest is made of grass and lichens. 

It was the final moments of a morning's birding with Nany Kenyon from the Bay Area, Griggs Irving from Washington State and Sarah Paul, an Ashlander.  We had started the day on Tolman Creek where one of the Calliope Hummingbird males showed up, and posed and chased away an intruder, then posed some more.  Big show from our littlest American bird.  We had seen and heard Pewees on several stops during the morning, but this was a close view I never could have expected.

The Pewees breed here in mixed forests. They winter in South America and breed only in western North America, not below the Mexican border.

Here's Julie's picture of a Vesper Sparrow again.  When we stopped to scan Howard Prairie for a crane, we had a male serenading us from a fence post and then the nearest bush top.  We found no crane but there were plenty of White Pelicans, at least three dozen. It would take a survey by boat to confirm but it sure looked like we had an adult Eared Grebe with two oyoungsters in the northwest corner of Howard Prairie Lake.  They are not annual breeders there so it would be unusual if not rare.  We were looking at the lake via scope from Hyatt Prairie Road, at least half a mile.

SPEAKING OF NESTS

Youngsters of the Petrochelidon pyrrhonota persuasion.  Under the overhang of the roof on the toilet building next to the boat docks at Howard Prairie Resort.

Location:     Howard Prairie Circuit
Observation date:     6/29/08
Notes:     Heard and not seen: Lazuli, GTTowhee, Junco, Meadowlark, Yellow Warbler, Mtn Chickadee.  Nesting: Osprey, Cormorant.  Not sure of Eared Grebe but the profile of bird from half-mile in scope was apropos for only that species.  At north end of Howard Prairie Lake.
Number of species:     43

Canada Goose     250
Eared Grebe     3
American White Pelican     50
Double-crested Cormorant     45
Turkey Vulture     4
Osprey     3
Bald Eagle     1
Red-tailed Hawk     4
Ring-billed Gull     30
California Gull     8
Herring Gull     1
Western Gull     2
Mourning Dove     2
Acorn Woodpecker     4
Williamson's Sapsucker     1
Western Wood-Pewee     4
Ash-throated Flycatcher     2
Western Kingbird     2
Steller's Jay     2
Western Scrub-Jay     6
American Crow     1
Common Raven     1
Tree Swallow     15
Cliff Swallow     25
Barn Swallow     12
Mountain Chickadee     1
Red-breasted Nuthatch     1
Mountain Bluebird     1
American Robin     4
Nashville Warbler     2
Yellow Warbler     1
Yellow-rumped Warbler     1
MacGillivray's Warbler     1
Green-tailed Towhee     2
Spotted Towhee     6
Chipping Sparrow     1
Vesper Sparrow     5
Black-headed Grosbeak     2
Red-winged Blackbird     6
Western Meadowlark     1
Brewer's Blackbird     15
Bullock's Oriole     4
Lesser Goldfinch     2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)

Location:     Tolman Creek Road
Observation date:     6/29/08
Number of species:     11

Cooper's Hawk     1
Calliope Hummingbird     1
Red-breasted Sapsucker     1
Western Wood-Pewee     1
Steller's Jay     6
Western Scrub-Jay     1
American Robin     2
Nashville Warbler     5
Spotted Towhee     2
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     2
Black-headed Grosbeak     6

Near the cneter of this image is a blurred yellow figure with a gray, that's one of the Nashvilles.  There were several MacGillivray's but they're even more elusive and less likely to perch briefly in sunlight.  Nashvilles up high.  MacGillivray's low in shaded ravines.  That's the division of labor among the yellow-breasted, gray-headed warblers in the deciduous woods hereabouts.  And we do have many more Nashvilles than Nashville, that's for certain.

 Two Cassin;s Vireos responded to my pishing, but this was the best I could do with the camera.  No clear face shot on either one:

It'll be just as hot tomorrow morning, so I will have another chance.  In the evening it cools down and the birds come down into our garden to feed.  The Mourning Doves often the first to appear while the Spotted Towhee stays up in the woods and bounces his little ball, of that's what it sounds like.

John Cassin has not just a Vireo namesake but also a sparrow and finch, richly deserved.  He was a fine American ornithologist just before and after the US Civil War and wrote the first book dedicated to just the birds of the Pacific Coast region though he never visited,doing al lhis work at the nautral history museum in Philadelphia.

Location:     Upper Granite St.--Ashland
Observation date:     6/27/08
Number of species:     11

Turkey Vulture     1
Western Wood-Pewee     3
Pacific-slope Flycatcher     1
Cassin's Vireo     2
Steller's Jay     5
American Robin     4
Nashville Warbler     14
MacGillivray's Warbler     5
Western Tanager     6
Spotted Towhee     4
Black-headed Grosbeak     7

----------------
Location:     243 Granite Street, Ashland
Observation date:     6/25/08
Number of species:     16

Band-tailed Pigeon     1
Mourning Dove     3
Vaux's Swift     1
Anna's Hummingbird     1
Downy Woodpecker     1
Hairy Woodpecker     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Steller's Jay     4
Western Scrub-Jay     2
Tree Swallow     5
Black-capped Chickadee     1
American Robin     1
Western Tanager     1
Spotted Towhee     2
Black-headed Grosbeak     4
Lesser Goldfinch     2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)

This is the bird I hoped for without any real HOPE at this stop.Others have seen him, but not I:

It really is a male Williamson's Sapsucker and I got fine views through my binoculars.  It was a new Oregon bird for me, #207.  Made memorable not just because he was clearly seen, or that he chose the perfect moment to appear.  But that he stayed around long enough for me to get two crummy pics. Here's the best.  Then he moved off, and as I tried to follow him through the tall trees, a female, presumably his mate, flew right in front of me and landed thirty feet away.  My camera was on the car seat but she mercifully didn't rub it in. Three seconds and she was gone, with a couple of gurgling cries. 

It is easy to see how early naturalists thought the male and female were different species.  They have only shape and a little yellow on the belly in common.  He is mostly black with white bold wing and face marks, yellow on the belly.  She is basically brown with black back bars like a Gila Woodpecker or even Flicker.  Also a dark throat and yellow on lower belly.

Williamson's Sapsucker join's Townsend's Warbler as one of the birds first discovered by science from an Oregon specimen in the 19th century.

WILLIAMSON'S WHERE?

If you are driving Hyatt Prairie Road along the western shore of Hyatt Lake resevoir, watch for this sign.  It's for real.  It marks a small pull-out on the lakeshore. Has a tiny paved parking lot and a toilet, not abundant along this circuit. Unnamed but remarkable place to stop.  Almosy any visitor in warm weather will immediately notice the large dark birds perched on a tree about fifty feet from the lake's present edge. They are Double-crested Cormorants that have a nesting colony in this tree.  They are like large ornamental scultures, wings [partially open, emitting those guttural and gargling sounds.  Ornamental cormorants, arboreal "cormaments."

Besides the cormorants if you look north along the lakeshore you will spot another dead tree with the telltale tangle of sticks at the top.  That's a nest perennially used by Osprey.  Here is a really good Osprey picture taken at neighboring Howard Prairie Lake.  By my daughter, copyright, all rights reserved by Julia Talcott-Fuller [too bad she wasn;t present for the sapsucker]:

She took this picture earlier this spring as we stood on the boat docks at Howard Prairie resort. 

Meanwhile, back at the binocular-marked pull-out: a pair of Yellow-rumped Warblers, unseen calling Mountain Chickadees, American Robin, Brewer's Blackbird, a Flicker, and this guy came along the walkway, catching bugs:

 Spotted Sandpiper, a common nesting bird near lakes and streams in the Cascades.

Earlier in the morning at Milepost Ten on Dead Indian MEMORIAL Road I stopped, a narrow stream slips down a narrow gully right next to the road.  On the north-facing slope is a dense evergreen forest which has its secret thrushes and warblers, no doubt. Up in the bright sun, facing south, was this heat-seeking songster:

Green-tailed Towhee.  Pipilo cholrurus.  A migrant member of the Pipilo family and a summer breeder hereabouts.

At the Howard Prairie priaire, a lone Sandhill Crane:

Thisd adultbird was a quarter-mile out in this field full of summer wildflowers.  The crane stretched its neck to get a better view of the observing biped standing by the car.  The crane was, indeed, craning to watch me.  That rust color is from the crane rubbing iron-containing soil onto its feathers which are then stained by the iron compounds.  It is a breeding season behavior common among Sandhills.  LIjkely this is one-half of a breeding pair that has anest in some nearby, but more heavily weedy, meadow...unless they are nesting out here among the wildflowers.

Another bird I saw and h4eazrd at Howard Prairie: Vesper Sparrow which is at its western range limit here in the Cascades.  Again I defer to superior pics taken by my daughter in this area recently:

This psecies is found all across the northern US and southern Canada wherever grass grows tall and trees not at all.  A pale little bird and a fence post is a common perch, as it is for the Western Meadowlarks I saw in the grasslands downslope.

A good trip on the Howard Prairie loop: from Scrub-jays and oak to Steller's Jays and ponderosa.  And a sapsucker for keeps.  And here's my mammal picture for the day.  Pint-sized Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel up a tree over my presence.  I earlier missed shot at a Douglas squirrel on a Douglas-fir. I was too slow.  That David Douglas sure got around back in the 1820s, leaving namesakes all across the Pacific Coast biota.  He apparently took little notice of birds, collecting mostly plants and mamals for rich folks back in England.

 Location:     Howard Prairie Circuit
Observation date:     6/25/08
Number of species:     48

Canada Goose     300
Mallard     10
California Quail     4
American White Pelican     40
Double-crested Cormorant     12
Turkey Vulture     4
Osprey     2
Bald Eagle     1
Red-tailed Hawk     3
American Kestrel     1
Sandhill Crane     1
Spotted Sandpiper     6
Ring-billed Gull     50
Caspian Tern     2
Mourning Dove     1
Acorn Woodpecker     6
Williamson's Sapsucker     2
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Western Wood-Pewee     1
Western Kingbird     8

Olive-sided Flycatcher    1
Steller's Jay     4
Western Scrub-Jay     10
American Crow     2
Common Raven     4
Tree Swallow     8
Violet-green Swallow     4
Cliff Swallow     6
Barn Swallow     2
Mountain Chickadee     1
Bushtit     1
Red-breasted Nuthatch     3
American Robin     4
European Starling     10
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon's)     2
Western Tanager     3
Green-tailed Towhee     2
Spotted Towhee     3
Vesper Sparrow     8
Lark Sparrow     2
Savannah Sparrow     4
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     3
Black-headed Grosbeak     2
Lazuli Bunting     2
Western Meadowlark     4
Brewer's Blackbird     15
Brown-headed Cowbird     2
Bullock's Oriole     7
Lesser Goldfinch     8

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)

Q: How do we address the concerns about the location of the wind turbines and their impact on birds and other wildlife?

A: There are arguments that they do kill birds and they do kill birds. What we've got to do is map all of the wind options across the province and then we've got to choose our sites so that we don't endanger wildlife. If there are esthetic reasons, we've got to take that into account. If there are setbacks that are needed, we've got to take that into consideration. I think the big objection is the large numbers of turbines in one area. I would much rather see them distributed [more sparsely.] A farmer might have one and his neighbour might have one.

Gee, Thanks, Suzuki. You finally acknowledge a problem now that every significant migratory route and eight IBAs in SW Ontario have already been signed away forever to the wind industry??!

Holiday Beach/Big Creek
Point Pelee
Eastern Lake St. Clair
Greater Rondeau Area
Long Point Pennisula
Wolfe Island
Amherst Island
Chantry Island, ON
Clear Creek, ON

Where were you two years ago when there was still a chance to bring some sanity to this? I believe you were spending your time bad-mouthing us "NIMBYs" who were desperately trying to bring this issue to the forefront. Yup, Thanks for NOTHING! The damage has only just begun.

You've let big business take the reins of your "green crusade" and there's no saving these sensitive areas now. Do you think for one minute these slimeballs care about the environment or people? No, this is all about the $$$$

And the birding was far different from January, but just as worthy.  TWO LIFERS.  One I'd actually seen before but had not registered it as a new bird.  Duh.  That was Forster's Tern.  I first saw them in Oregon at the south end of Klamath Lake a month ago.  Because they're so abundant around San Francisco Bay, I never checked to see if I'd seen the Forster's in Oregon before. * So they are/were/will be Oregon # 205.  The top bird of the day for me: Black Tern.  Oregon #206.  And we didn't just catch a glimpse of these spiffy, delicate, small terns.  We saw them, heard them, ate lunch on a dock as they fished up and down, around and overhead.  There were dozens as they nest here in Shoalwater Bay Marsh on the western shore of Klamath Lake.

That pale dot in front of the reeds is a Black Tern speeding by, trust me.  Thanks to digital tech I took dozens of shots, none of which really show much.

This is a "BLACK TILT" not a Black-necked Stilt, simply one of the many swift, bouyant little terns turning, wings tilted, eyes almost always looking down at the water.  That's a useful field mark to help distinguish gulls and terns: the terns fly looking downward often.  The gulls usually fly with their beak and eyes forward, rarely pointed down at the water over which they are flying.

The Black Tern is a specialist of inland waters and marshes in flat country.  That has made their fate an unhappy one.  They're a shrinking population in the arid and grassy portions of northern North America, from California across southern Canada to Maine.  Marshes and potholes are favorite habitat for draining and development. The species in the Western Hemisphere winters from Panama southward.  In Eurasia Black Terns breed in Europe and eastward into Siberia, wintering mostly in Africa.

THE SETTING

This is a view west across Shoalwater Bay and its myriad tule-covered islands.  The snowy pinnacle on the horizon is Mt. McLoughlin, elevation 9495 feet. A not-too-recently active volcano, our local Mt. Fuji.  Expect some of that snow will still be up there in July. 

Here, at Klamath Lake just about 4200 feet, were Coots, Canvasbacks which breed, Clark's and Western Grebes, Pied-billed Grebes, White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, Mallards of course, a zillion Yellow-headed Blackbirds, a few Red-winged Blackbirds along the shoreline.  And the crusing terns, when the larger Forster's hove into view they would shriek and add their voice to the croaking and gurgling of the grebe families.  One Western Grebe sound Bill Hering and I heard frequently along Shoalwater Bay was very frog-like. 

MUSIC OR NOISE?

Here he sits, the voice of the Klamath.  Yes, this picture was taken miles to the south in California's Shasta Valley, but then the YH Blackbirds at Klamath must surely be near cousins.  They certaily share the vocal proclivities of their kind.  The cry of a constipated cow in distress?  A baboon with a bassoon outta tune?  Rusty doors coming unhinged?  It is almost indescribable the squeaky, metallic grating sound they can put forth.  And there were dozens, males flying up in showy displays above the tules.  Yellow tops bright in the sun, white wing patches like a piece of Mt. McLoughlin's snow.  Chasing, perching, nervous, near madness from testosterone poisoning.  The activity of spring.  Here's the best pic I got of them here:

And out in the Bay: loafing White Pelicans with their miniscule Double-crested Cormorant pals.  A suny day down at the old neighborhood log.  Do pelicans snore?

Notice the level of boat traffic and general crowding on this finger of the lake.  And all that urban sprawl on the far shore, and the helicopters, and the...boy was it quiet, except for the grebes, the blackbird cacophony and the wheezing Wood-peewees.

ABOVE:  Four of the many Canvasbacks we saw on the lake.  They breed in the marshes there.

Clark's Grebe trolling for some of the minnows we saw swarming in the warm shallows along the lake shore.  This bird did not seem to mind our nearness as long as we stayed on land, the grebe knew he could out-swim us.  Heck, he's faster than a minnow...

*Johann Forster was a leading German-born naturalist who went on the third British expedition to the Pacific, led by Caoptain Cook, in  1772.  Later--stillworking in England--he recognized his namesake bird, the Forster's Tern, in a shipment of bird specimens from Hudson's Bay outposts around the Hudson Bay in Canada. 

We weren't the only sharp-eyed predators along the Klamath Lake shoreline this day.  And this one was not appreciative or our mucking up his hunting.

Our most surprising encounter of the day: small groups of Cedar Waxwings.  I hadn't realized they were a breeding species around Klamath Lake.

Further up the slope of Eagle Ridge we saw a Townsend's Solitaire, above 4500 feet.  And both Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks with the smaller chasing the larger. And we failed to find a hoped-for Williamson's Sapsucker.  This rea is where the specimens were collected 160 years ago.  We did find a few Red-breasted Sapsuckers along the lakeshore.

HOWARD PRAIRIE LAKE

 Crane, Mountain Bluebird, Crane again.

Try our new spring colors, Howard Prairie.  Click in box above for full effect.

NOT EVERYTHING THAT FLIES HAS FEATHERS

Western tiger Swallowtail, Pterourus glaucus or Papilio rutulus.

LOCAL RESIDENTS, KLAMATH

Open ranger on the open range.  Moooooving verrry slowly in the shade...

This small garter snake joins the heron, grebe and terns as another admirer of the minnows along the shoreline.

Location:     Shoalwater/Eagle Ridge, Klamath Lake, Oregon
Observation date:     6/19/08
Notes:     Juvenile birds seen inc: nesting House Wren, Western Grebe, Bullock's Oriole, Red-winged Blackbirds.  Numerous species were calling, inc. flycatchers, icterids, Cassin's Finch, Warbling Vireos in a territorial frenzy, Western Grebes, both tern species, Song Sparrow, Robin, Grosbeak and Tanager.
Number of species:     51

Wood Duck     8
Mallard     10
Canvasback     22
Pied-billed Grebe     6
Western Grebe     150
Clark's Grebe     2
American White Pelican     15
Double-crested Cormorant     8
Great Blue Heron     1
Great Egret     1
Black-crowned Night-Heron     1
Turkey Vulture     4
Bald Eagle     1
Northern Harrier     1
Sharp-shinned Hawk     1
Cooper's Hawk     1
Red-tailed Hawk     1
American Coot     35
Ring-billed Gull     20
Black Tern     45
Forster's Tern     5
Mourning Dove     1
Red-breasted Sapsucker     4
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     2
Olive-sided Flycatcher     8
Western Wood-Pewee     24
Willow Flycatcher     2
Warbling Vireo     6
Steller's Jay     2
Black-billed Magpie     1
Tree Swallow     15
Cliff Swallow     2
House Wren     4
Townsend's Solitaire     1
American Robin     16
European Starling     6
Cedar Waxwing     16
Yellow Warbler     4
Western Tanager     3
Spotted Towhee     2
Song Sparrow     6
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     2
Black-headed Grosbeak     4
Lazuli Bunting     1
Red-winged Blackbird     12
Yellow-headed Blackbird     75
Brewer's Blackbird     10
Brown-headed Cowbird     14
Bullock's Oriole     20
Cassin's Finch     1
Lesser Goldfinch     6

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)

Some migratory songbirds figure out the best place to live by eavesdropping on the singing of others that successfully have had baby birds -- a communication and behavioral trait so strong that researchers playing recorded songs induced them to nest in places they otherwise would have avoided.

This suggests that songbirds have more complex communication abilities than had previously been understood, researchers say, and that these "social cues" can be as or more important than the physical environment of a site.

Click here for the full article.

Father provides

Mother arrives with a meal.

Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Group discusses the Ministry of the Environment's manipulation of the Wolfe Island Project.   

Lake Ontario Waterkeeper fulfills its mission by educating the public about Lake Ontario and the Great Lakes Basin and by conducting research and public education activities on behalf of the watershed. Our goal is to restore and protect Lake Ontario's natural resources, as well as contribute to its aesthetic, social recreational and economic values.

Canadian Hydro Developers have been given the go-ahead to build 86 turbines on 7 square miles of sensitive important bird area...with no proper environmental assessment required.     

Minister Gerretsen was taken off the case due to potential conflict of interest and the decision was given to Peter Fonseca, Minister of Tourism.   Three days later Mr. Fonseca rubber stamped the deal.

Listen to Radio Interview Here

Note in the second and third picture there is a yellowish and roundish shape sticking up above the edge of the nest, now with its tops knocked off.  That shape is the head of one of the nearly fledged young'uns. 

GARDEN BIRDS:  A pair of Lesser Goldfinches have returned to our feeders in the past few days.  Perhaps they have raised their first clutch of the season, so nw mom and ada are going out to eat...before the next round of egg-laying begins.  The little guys join the roster ofbirds that are daily regulars in this season: Mourning Doves, Black-headed Grosbeaks (including the one-year old male pictures below with about half his adult plumage but a still-white belly), both jays, Spotted Towhee, Flicker, Downy.  In the area but at the feeders: Robin and Tanager.  The Band-tailed Pigeon is another recent regular. Haven't seen the female Mallard for few days.  Mammal note: my wife saw the first newly-born fawn of the season, about five houses down Granite Street from our house.

The first-year male Black-headed Grosbeak who comes regularly to the feeders in our garden. Note the pale belly with just a hint of the yellow keel stripe, and an orange notch at the back of the black skull cap.  Got that full-sized, industrial strength beak of the species, however.

The female, starting to look a little scruffy as she hardly has time to preen, too busy with nest and nestlings.

Swallow Tornado

A recent picture of swarming Cliff Swallows when Dick Ashford and I approached their nesting site, an underpass along I-5 near Mount Ashland.  Perhaps their nests have been disturbed in the past by highway workers or simply passers-by.  They did not attack but were very suspicious unlike some swallow colonies that seem almost tame. 

During the summer no bird is more abundant along I-5 from Sacramento to Ashland than the Cliff Swallow.  Nearly every bridge has its colony of nesting birds.

 There was also a busy oriole nest not far from the dog park's parking lot.  The top had been ripped off the orioles' sack nest and three nearly grown juvenile oriole sat upright in their convertible nest, mouths open when either parent arrived with food.  Here's my best photogtraphic effort:

You can barely make out the nest shape behind the oak leavess.  What you can't see is that the orioles harvested magnetic audio tape to use as part of the material woven into this nest.  Bushtits will often do the same thing in their woven nests.

In this shot you can make out the roundish shape of the woven nest.  in this nest were three soon-to-fledge young.

This bird was given its name by the British ornithologist, William Swainson who has own namesake birds.  It was named in 1827 for William Bullock, Senior and Junior.  Both were naturalists who explored Mexico in the early 19th Century.  T^he elder Bullock setting up a museum of curios that pre-dated the Biritish Museum of Natural History. The first specimens of Bullock's Oriole to reach Britain came from Mexico.

Check out this bird, and the species is?

 TREE SWALLOW.  This is a newly fledged bird along Ashland creek, we saw it on our Rogue Valley Audubon walk this morning.  That dark collar is the true mark of a juvenile Tree Swallow. Next spring this bird will have a clear white chest if it survives the rigors of a fall migration.

This is the kind of day it was as a visiting birder and I made our way up Mount Ashland. The air was crisp, dry already though snow still lies in the deeper shade of high elevation ravines.  The birds and plants are just beginning the warm season. Insect populations are rising with the temperatures.  New leaves show no signs of drought or being chewed on.  Male birds are still singing for patriotism and empire.  The only breezes are warm air rushing up from the deep valleys to replace the colder air of the mountain.  There s a feeling of expectation and impending, waiting and arriving.  And the looming pyramidal peak of Mount Shasta poked through the lowly cloud cover of moisture that will; be a memory.

Look very carefully and you will see the faint, ghostly white of snow-crowned Shasta above the layer of gray clouds.  

Before Mounta Ashland, the highest peak of the Siskiyous, we'd stopped in to see my poet Calliope Hummingbird on Tolan Creek Road.  He was not having a good morning.  Female woes.  Specifically, this female:

This female Anna's was intruding on the Calliope's "own" willow thicket.  TRhge tiny male Calliope would buzz up and down the willow trying to spot the intruding female Anna's.  We could tel lhe was looking for something but had no idea what.  Suddenly he darted into the one willow, buzzing like a JUne bug caught in a Venetian blind.  Then we realized there was a second bird.  Buzzing back at him. They helicoptered up and down beak to beak. You stab me, I'll stab you, face off time.  When they broke apart she would settle onto a willow branch and that's when I got my picture, between violent-sounding showdowns.

SIX THOUSAND FEET UP

Female Mountain Bluebird in evergreens downhill from main paved parking lot at Mount Ashland Ski Resort.  We also saw Cassin's Finch, Pine Siskin, Chipping Sparrow there.  Another group of birders had a female Calliope Hummingbird nearby.

This is a male Lazuli Bunting atop a pine, happened to have been on Tolan Creek Road but wre sawwe and heard them all the way up to 6500 feet on the unforested areas of Mount Ashland.  This was a Townsend's Solitaire.  Trust me, the song was long and unmistakable.

Tis was taken on Thursday.  Saturdya we got sa close-up fly over at the ski resort but no chance ot take another, better picture.

Spring is late above 6000 feet this year but this lone flower is already in bloom:

 Elk's lip, Caltha leptodepala.  Also called marsh marigold because it grows along the streams carrying snowmelt down toward the valleys. 

Up on Tolman Creek Road at a more modest elevation the thimbleberries were in bloom:

Blossoms are about two inches across, the leave sup to eight inches in width, fuzzy but not barbed.

 This is what the habitat looks like on Toman Creek Road:

Tolman Creek Road
Observation date:     6/14/08
Number of species:     13

Red-tailed Hawk     1
Mourning Dove     4
Anna's Hummingbird     1
Calliope Hummingbird     1
Pacific-slope Flycatcher     1
Western Scrub-Jay     1
Common Raven     1
Nashville Warbler     2
MacGillivray's Warbler     1
Western Tanager     4
Spotted Towhee     3
Chipping Sparrow     1
Black-headed Grosbeak     4
Location:     Mount Ashland
Observation date:     6/14/08
Number of species:     27

Mountain Quail     4
Turkey Vulture     1
Red-breasted Sapsucker     1
Olive-sided Flycatcher     5
Western Wood-Pewee     1
Dusky Flycatcher     1
Steller's Jay     2
Common Raven     2
Mountain Chickadee     10
Red-breasted Nuthatch     6
Mountain Bluebird     2
Townsend's Solitaire     2
Hermit Thrush     6
American Robin     2
Nashville Warbler     2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon's)     6
Hermit Warbler     1
Wilson's Warbler     1
Western Tanager     4
Green-tailed Towhee     6
Chipping Sparrow     2
Lincoln's Sparrow     1
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     15
Black-headed Grosbeak     4
Lazuli Bunting     8
Cassin's Finch     4
Pine Siskin     6

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou)

Location:     Bear Valley Greenway--Ashland
Observation date:     6/15/08
Notes:     Kingbird was chasing RT Hawk far above the valley.  Juvenile birds included three Orioles in nest near dog park, one on perch along Ashland Creek.  Also juvenile Tree Swallows & Downy Woodpecker.
Number of species:     35

Wood Duck     4
California Quail     1
Great Blue Heron     1
Turkey Vulture     1
Osprey     1
Red-tailed Hawk     2
American Kestrel     1
Rock Pigeon     3
Mourning Dove     6
Anna's Hummingbird     1
Acorn Woodpecker     1
Downy Woodpecker     1
Northern Flicker (Red-shafted)     1
Western Wood-Pewee     3
Western Kingbird     1
Western Scrub-Jay     4
American Crow     1
Common Raven     2
Tree Swallow     12
Barn Swallow     30
Black-capped Chickadee     4
American Robin     2
European Starling     10
Yellow Warbler     1
Yellow-breasted Chat     2
Spotted Towhee     6
Song Sparrow     4
Black-headed Grosbeak     8
Red-winged Blackbird     20
Brewer's Blackbird     16
Brown-headed Cowbird     4
Bullock's Oriole     8
House Finch     3
Lesser Goldfinch     25
House Sparrow     6

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Siskiyou

Okay, so the Mountain Bluebird is NOT a fine singer like many thrushes.  But these were the best pictures I got sall day.  And they all show the same bird, but the angle, the sunlight, the position of the bird all affect the blueness which physics insists is just a matter of refrac tio or reflection or maybe just wishful thinking.  Here is the tree where Ithink this male's mate is on the eggs, not far from the Mount Ashland Ski Resort:

Songsters

You gotta take my word for it: that little blur was a singing Townsend's Solitaire.  You might call it the "Robin of the Siskiyous" except that there were real Robins all around as well.  The American Robin is one of oure most ubiquitous birds.  Found at elevations from zero to several thousand feet up.  Anyway, the Solitaire's Robin-like song was loud and clear and truly musical in the thrush family tradition.

 This picture was taken near the picnic grounds toilets west of the ski resort pakring lots.

The other finely-voiced thrush on Mount Ashland today was the Hermit Thrush, heard but not seen as usual. This is a picture of a wintering Hermit Thrush far to the south in California where they are not as secretive as they are here on their breeding grounds. photo by May Woon.

I was birding today with Gwenyth Ragosin, a veteran of southwestern Oregon birding, as she was scouting for a field trip she is co-leading on Saturday.  We dipped on our #1 target: Whigte-headed Woodpecker.  But the Green-tailed Towhee is high on the target list and we had several males singing.  Lazuli Bunting were obvious at Colestein Road.  At Bull Gap about 5500-feet we found our first Cassin's Finches, RB Sapsucker, Dusky Flycatcher, nesting  Mountain XChjickadees and a number of interesting mountain species.  That's where we first heard singing Hermit Thrushes.

The cold wet spring has the breeding season about 6000 feet at least two weeks later than usual.

THE DAY? THE VIEWS?

Left to right: Shasta, Pilot Rock, Shasta again with HIlt Valley in foreground.

This is not any particularly wondrous view, it's a tree where an Olive-sided Flycatcher repeteadly perched and I repeatedly failed to get his picture.

Location:     Mount Ashland
Observation date:     6/12/08
Number of species:     31

Mountain Quail     3
Turkey Vulture     1
Red-breasted Sapsucker     1
Hairy Woodpecker     1
Olive-sided Flycatcher     5
Western Wood-Pewee     1
Willow Flycatcher     1
Dusky Flycatcher     1
Steller's Jay     2
Common Raven     3
Mountain Chickadee     8
Red-breasted Nuthatch     1
Mountain Bluebird     1
Townsend's Solitaire     1
Hermit Thrush     10
American Robin     3
Orange-crowned Warbler     1
Nashville Warbler     2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon's)     3
Western Tanager     2
Green-tailed Towhee     6
Spotted Towhee     1
Chipping Sparrow     12
Fox Sparrow     2
Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)     15
Black-headed Grosbeak     3
Lazuli Bunting     4
Purple Finch     2
Cassin's Finch     6
Pine Siskin     6
Lesser Goldfinch     2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org/Klamath-Si

The worst problem is not that the amount of energy to be generated is being massively overstated or that it would cost about twice as much as the power we are using today. It is not the impact on migratory birds in an internationally designated important bird area. Or the persistent unanswered questions about health, species at risk and emergency preparedness.

The real problem has to do with accountability. The lack of it.

The tale begins when the company started to make secret deals with landowners and pursue closed-door negotiations with the municipal council, two of whose members later declared they had "optioned" their land to the company and therefore were in its pay.

When the final vote on the municipal bylaw was taken in November 2006, two days after municipal elections but before the new council took office, the two councillors from Wolfe Island remembered they were in a conflict of interest (as presumably they had been throughout the negotiation with the company) and decided not to vote. The motion was carried by the votes of the remaining two councillors from Howe Island, which will have none of the 86 400-foot-tall wind turbines and half of the amenities agreement. No fuss, no mess. Politics at its best.

Fast-forward to 2007. The municipal rezoning is being considered by the Ontario Municipal Board. Who do we find at a corporate hoedown, enjoying the company of the firm that donated at least $1,500 to his re-election campaign? Why, that would be Gerretsen. Again, this could be just a coincidence.

And as minister of municipal affairs, Gerretsen delivered the goods for the company, signing all the requisite documents and amendments to the Official Plan. But the final stroke had not yet been made, as approval lies with the minister of environment.

No role for Gerretsen there, except that he changed his job just in time. Now he could continue to work on the company's behalf, if not necessarily at its behest, and let the blasting begin. Except, sadly, he got caught in a "perceived" conflict of interest, which he inexplicably did not perceive himself, and the premier had to step in and bench him.

I take no joy from Gerretsen's comeuppance. This shouldn't have been about him anyway. It should have been about implementing all our laws and procedures, not just those that support his pet project, and representing all the citizens, not just those who, like his reelection campaign, took money from the company.

Gerretsen fell off the accountability ferry when he started looking at some of his citizens as opponents rather than people to whom he was responsible, and when he threw in his lot with industry at the expense of ordinary people.

As pointed out in the Whig-Standard's editorial "Gerretsen's gaffe" (May 31), perhaps the saddest aspect of this affair is that it took a group of concerned citizens to give a lesson in civics to a provincial minister. It really should be the other way around, shouldn't it?

Leslie Kaduck

The Whig Standard:   http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1066246

This fine western American forest bird was first discovered for science by Thomas Say.  He was naturalist on the Long Expedition to the Rockies in 1819-20.  He wrote the first description of the species, naming it Columnba fasciata. The expedition was camped near Castle Rock, Colorado, when Say shot this bird. 

According to BNA our coastal pigeon supbspecies is darker and larger than the interior subsoecies found in the southwestern deserts with a range that extends down into Central America.  Altogether the Band-tailed Pigeon's eight subspecies are spread from Alaska south to South America, though never along the Atlantic Coast.

The BT Pigeon is still hunted in six states of the US, Mexico and countries south of there.  Oregon and California allow some hunting still.  Washington and Nevada do not.  BT has protection in Canada.  The population trend in the US is negative according to BNA.  Though the bird does adapt to farms and towns (and my garden), they continue to diminish in numbers.  Little is known about what is causing the decline in BT Pigeons.  Here's the conclusion of BNA, essentially we humans are just not paying attention.

"Lack of management efforts stem from inadequate funding at state and regionwide levels. Management plans exist (coastal) or are being developed (U.S. interior); not a high priority, and activist groups have not championed the species. If sufficient and consistent funding is provided, research and management programs can proceed..."

So I 'm doing my little bit to keep at least one of these large pigeons well-fed.  No hunting in my garden.  They eat principally grain seeds, fruit, acorns, pine nuts, and inflorescences of trees and shrubs.  But apparently nobody's really studied them in detail, and they are still persecuted for stealing grain or fruit in some agricultural areas if they gather in large numbers.  The BT feeds its young on regurgitated crop milk. 

If they are like their cousin, the Passenger Pigeon, they may need a certain population density to thrive.  Early reports on the BT indicated they were colonial nesters.  There is no current evidence that this is true.  Another little mystery about this large bird.

Studies found males tend the nest from mid-morning to mid-afternoon.  Then the female takes over.  That would indicate BeeTee is a she.  She's arrived so far in early afternoon.  Apparently she has not or cannot communicate about our feeder with her mate.

Here in Oregon the BT Pigeon is found only along the damp coastal third of the state, mostly in the Coastal Rnage though some are found in the western foothills of the Cascades. Primiarly they nest in Douglas-fir here in Oregon.  That means from elevations of 3000 on up. They're migratory in this part of their range, leaving in October, returning in March.

AUSTRALIA'S biggest wind farm in north-west Tasmania has become a "black hole" for endangered wedge-tailed eagles.

The 62-tower Woolnorth farm has killed up to 18 of the island's endangered subspecies of the wedge-tail in its giant rotor blades.

Despite their acute vision, the eagles are failing to pick out turbine blades with tips that can rotate at 300 kmh, according to Eric Woehler, chairman of Birds Tasmania.

"Eagles evolved in a landscape without wind farms," Dr Woehler said. "They just don't see the blades. The researchers there are finding that they are dying not only in the downsweep, but in the upsweep of the blades."

Woolnorth's owners say 11 of the birds have died, but Dr Woehler said Birds Tasmania believed up to 18 may have been fatally injured by the rotors, which are at their most dangerous in specific north- east wind conditions.

"It's killing eagles that were resident and drawing more in from the surrounding areas, so it will continue to be a black hole for these birds," Dr Woehler said.

There are an estimated 1500 Tasmanian wedge-tails, which are a larger bird than their mainland cousin.

Other threats they face in the state include shooting, poisoning and overhead line strikes.

The wind farm is operated by Roaring 40s, a partnership of Hydro Tasmania and China Light and Power.

Dr Woehler said observers at the site watched for eagles and could halt specific rotors when the birds were nearby.

"But since last year when the final stage of the farm was commissioned there have been an additional three deaths," Dr Woehler said.

The public relations manager for Roaring 40s, Josh Bradshaw, said the company was continuing to work closely with the State Government and Birds Tasmania to investigate further measures to reduce the risk of avian collision.

"There have been no recent incidents involving wedge-tailed eagles at the Woolnorth wind farms," Mr Bradshaw said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/green-power-is-black-hole-for-rare-eagles/2008/01/02/1198949900016.html

When hawks and other living flyers

Set foot on swampy fields for feeding

Tis a marvelous sight that glows the eyes

As mark of platonic appreciation

Where muddy waters used to fill

The air with constant foul-smelling vapors

And gift the neighboring men and women

With malaria and ailments and more

And leave no space that’s fertile enough

For crops and edible greens

And there vehicles run agog

When torrents bring oceanic floods

No more is this worthy of anyone’s esteem

Than to ignore it for its fecal state

Melons and fruits and rice now abound

In this once noxious forbidden land

No more is Hope rekindled the better

Than on the marshes of Candaba

Fly! Fly! Beloved Eagle to the peasant’s nest!

And laud him with your hymns of joy

For his victorious heartwarming travails on swamps

Indeed make him a true human champion.

[Writ. 06 June 1988, Proj. 8, Quezon City, M.Manila]

There are over seventy acres of mountain meadow near the Willow Witt ranch house and barns.  The owners are carefully restoring these to a more natural state after decades of heavy grazing. While the owners still raise livestock and vegetables, they're committed to protecting the fragile mountain habitat they now steward. 

Another blooming wildflower covered some of the south-facing slopes with little or broken shade:  the common camas, a former favored source of food for northwestern Native Americans who ate the bulbs.  It is a lily, Camassia quamash.

Willows are being returned to the edges of fast-flowing spring-fed branches that move down the meadows and eventually become part of the headwaters of Bear Creek.  Birds of those damp meadows include Wilson's Snipe--we heard one still winnowing in June. Also, Brewer's and Red-winged Blackbirds, Song Sparrows and Tree Swallows hawking insects overhead.

This male Red-winged was photographed by Grace Ruth far to the south.  But those flashing epaulets and the clear tones of a full spring song are familiar to birders and hikers all over this nation. 

Away from the springs are some dryer open grasslands. Here Vesper Sparrows were singing from fenceposts, only to dive back into the grass when somebody looked at them.  Up at the feeders around the ranch house, activity was intense.  Two Evening Grosbeaks did not stick around for the photo shoot.  But:

Purple Finches.

Pine Siskins, always eager to be part of the crowd.  And as fearless as the ones that came into our garden over the winter. Up at Willow Witt's elevation these guys are breeding up in the evergreens.

The male Black-headed Grosbeak was wary when I was around, two Purple Finches on the right.  They have many similarities but are in different families, Cardinalidae for the BHG and Fringillidae for the finches and siskins.  Most willing to be photographed: a male Tree Swallow perched on a post near the nest-box being used by his mate and him.  So there I was eating fresh goat-cheese on baguette and taking pictures of a Tree Swallow in bright noon-day sunshine.  His glossy back came in various reflected shades fromgun-metal black to purple to deep ocean blue.

All that grace and beauty, AND he eats mosquitoes.  What more could you ask from a small bird?  Swooping and swift flight perhaps?  Check.  Rugged character able to withstand late winter freezes?  Check. These birds begin returning in February!  Willingness to accept the charity of a cozy nest box just a few yards from the kitchen window?  Check. Glorious singing voice?  Errr, nah, sounds like a bunch of quarreling trolls.  Buzzing and fussing and gurgling of murky waters.  Oh well, even a fine creature like this can't have everything.