Archive for March, 2011
Ash Canyon Hummingbirds: No More?
Posted by: | CommentsC’mon, birders, we really can’t let this happen. Cochise County needs to understand how much money natural history tourism brings in each year.
From: Mary Jo Ballator
Potential Closure of Ash Canyon B&B Feeding Station
Dear Birders,
Due to a neighborhood dispute regarding public access over a private road easement, there is a very real possibility that I may have to close my property to birders after nine years of continuous operation with no complaints or opposition.
The opposition has continued to escalate, however, and I am now asking for help from the extended birding community, both with e-mailing letters of support and attendance at the upcoming hearing on April 12 at 10:00 a.m. in Bisbee, Arizona. I have been advised to get as many people as possible to show up at the hearing and to speak on behalf of keeping this bird feeding station open. If you wish to see this place continue, *now* is the critical time to act.
I am hopeful that an overwhelming show of support from the birding community will go a long way toward convincing the Board of Supervisors that my feeding station is a community resource that serves many people even beyond the birding community and helps to generate a sustainable economic base for Cochise County, as well as serving the birds of these Sky Islands and beyond.
Please email 2mjb@mindspring.com if you require additional information, or if you can help.
Letters (via e-mail) should contain a reference to Ash Canyon B&B and my parcel number 104-21-022, and should be written by Friday April 1, as they need time to be compiled and submitted to the decision makers well in advance of the meeting. Please send me a copy, because some previous letters of support evidently got lost in the ether. Send e-mail to Mr. Keith Dennis, kdennis@cochise.az.gov with a CC to me, 2mjb@mindspring.com.
Attend the Board of Supervisors meeting and sign up to speak at the meeting. Get there a few minutes early so you can fill out a form to speak, briefly, at the meeting.
Board of Supervisors Meeting time/location:
Tuesday, April 12, 10:00 a.m.
1415 Melody Lane
Board of Supervisor Room, Building G
Bisbee, AZ 85603
Thank you for your continued support and consideration.
Sincerely,
Mary Jo
Mary Jo Ballator, Host
Ash Canyon Bed & Breakfast
5255 E. Spring Road
Hereford, AZ 85615
520-378-0773
http://AshCanyonBandB.com
Crane Noise
Posted by: | CommentsThere’s nothing like the sound of Sandhill Cranes coming off the roost on a March morning. Click on the photo to hear a tiny portion of the flock at the Alda Bridge yesterday morning.
The Eagle Goose
Posted by: | CommentsSnow Geese are taken pretty much for granted across most of the continent nowadays, but the dark morph of Lesser Snow Goose remains a Midwestern specialty.
It’s only relatively recently that these handsome white-headed birds were recognized as conspecific with their snowy brethren; my first field guide still listed them as a separate species (which betrays not my age so much as the vintage of my first bird book).
The “lump” came in 1973, and with it one of those delightful onomastic mixups that bird taxonomy is so prone too. Priority required that the scientific name of the newly enlarged species be Chen caerulescens. Thus, all Snow Geese, including those populations that do not have a dark morph, now bear the name originally assigned the dusky birds, a name that means, well, “blue goose.”
It would be no more nonsensical, and even more amusing, had we adopted another of the old common names of the dark morph, “Eagle Goose,” which describes the adult’s bright white head. Maybe I’ll propose it to the AOU….
Spring Sounds
Posted by: | CommentsClick here and turn up the volume if you want to hear the sounds of spring in Buffalo County, Nebraska.
Can you identify that sweet thin warbled song? It’s one most of us don’t get to hear very often.
The Platte River at Fort Kearny.
Slag Heap of History? Not Quite
Posted by: | CommentsA couple of days ago I asked about the disposition of the engraved plates used in the preparation of two books by L.J.P. Vieillot. Thanks to Clare Flemming, the Brooke Dolan Archivist at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, we have an answer.
This is from the Archive’s website:
Collection 69. AUDEBERT, JEAN BAPTISTE, 1759-1800. Copper plates of birds 1800-02. 11 items.These engraved copper plates were used to print illustrations for Histoire Naturelle et Generale des Colibris, Oiseaux-Mouches, Jacamars et Peomerops, by J. B. Audebert and L. P. Vieillot, Paris, 1802. Prince Maximillian [von] Wied, when he stopped in New Harmony in 1832, noted that William Maclure had there, the plates of all of Audebert and Vieillot’s ornithological work. These plates apparently came to the Academy with Maclure’s library in 1835. The disposition of the rest of the collection of plates is unknown. In his introduction to volume I of this work the publisher gives credit to Audebert as the artist….
