To some, the sound de-leet de-leet, de-leet de-leet is a persistent command to hit Ctrl-Z .
But to bird expert Bill Rogers, the cadence coming from the wooded canopy really means "Here I am. Where are you?"
Rogers and a handful of scientists and nature enthusiasts spent Saturday on the trail at Landsford Canal State Park conducting the Katawba Valley Land Trust's annual spring bird count.
Rogers and a handful of scientists and nature enthusiasts spent Saturday on the trail at Landsford Canal State Park conducting the Katawba Valley Land Trust's annual spring bird count.
- RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER
The trust is a nonprofit organization tasked with protecting the Catawba River Valley through conservation and education.
Not even 50 yards from the parking lot, the group stopped in the woods and craned their necks to decipher the phrases and tunes in the chorus above
.
A small bird flitted from tree top to tree top then disappeared.
"It was a bay-breasted warbler," said Rogers, a Winthrop University biology professor.
"How does he do it?" his wife, Janice Chism, a professor of biology and anthropology at Winthrop, responded. "It was small, it was dark and it flew."
Rogers and his bird-counting entourage scribbled bird names, tallied their numbers, and checked what they saw through binoculars against color photographs in a field guide.
"It's an excuse to get outdoors and get away from the noise of the city," said Bob Olson, a chemical engineer from Rock Hill.
In a day, Rogers said, the group might count as many as 60 species. More than providing a sojourn from the city, the counts serve a scientific purpose, helping scientists understand the planet, including the effects of "increased urbanization and global climate change," Rogers said.
The trust encourages anyone curious about birds to join their efforts.
With "more eyes out there, we're beginning to put together a picture of the changes we thought were going on but we can actually document them."
The numbers they collect this year will combine with numbers from other years, creating a pattern that will help shape the narrative about changes in the climate and habitats worldwide.
Many of the birds that pass through the area "we borrow them for half a year, and they go down to central and South America and they face habitat destruction," Rogers said.
Tagging is another way to track bird migration. Rogers knows of a tagged osprey that hatched near Great Falls. It flew down to Venezuela for five years and then returned home, which is typical of the species. But tagging presents some problems. It's expensive and it may make birds more vulnerable to predators, he said.
The river, park ranger Al James said, is a great place to see what species are flying through. The Catawba is a "migration corridor. It's an animal highway," he said.
Hearing a sound, James described a bird call to Rogers: "It was more like a bell sound, then goes teeter, teeter, teeter."
Sometimes he would pull out his iPhone and play a bird call through an app for identifying birds.
"Birding by ear is a definite advantage," said Olson, who's been birding for 30 years, but feels most adept at visual identification.
The expertise of recognizing a bird's color, pattern, size, behavior and call comes over time, like any other skill, Rogers said.
"As an animal behaviorist, I'm always curious about how the brain works. With enough practice, your brain gets faster and faster at putting the relevant details together," he said.
Even while driving along Interstate 77, he said. That's when his family tells him keep his eyes on the road.
His ears train on bird calls no matter where he is, but they aren't a distraction, he said.
"To me it's the soundtrack partly of my life."
Not even 50 yards from the parking lot, the group stopped in the woods and craned their necks to decipher the phrases and tunes in the chorus above
.
A small bird flitted from tree top to tree top then disappeared.
"It was a bay-breasted warbler," said Rogers, a Winthrop University biology professor.
"How does he do it?" his wife, Janice Chism, a professor of biology and anthropology at Winthrop, responded. "It was small, it was dark and it flew."
Rogers and his bird-counting entourage scribbled bird names, tallied their numbers, and checked what they saw through binoculars against color photographs in a field guide.
"It's an excuse to get outdoors and get away from the noise of the city," said Bob Olson, a chemical engineer from Rock Hill.
In a day, Rogers said, the group might count as many as 60 species. More than providing a sojourn from the city, the counts serve a scientific purpose, helping scientists understand the planet, including the effects of "increased urbanization and global climate change," Rogers said.
The trust encourages anyone curious about birds to join their efforts.
With "more eyes out there, we're beginning to put together a picture of the changes we thought were going on but we can actually document them."
The numbers they collect this year will combine with numbers from other years, creating a pattern that will help shape the narrative about changes in the climate and habitats worldwide.
Many of the birds that pass through the area "we borrow them for half a year, and they go down to central and South America and they face habitat destruction," Rogers said.
Tagging is another way to track bird migration. Rogers knows of a tagged osprey that hatched near Great Falls. It flew down to Venezuela for five years and then returned home, which is typical of the species. But tagging presents some problems. It's expensive and it may make birds more vulnerable to predators, he said.
The river, park ranger Al James said, is a great place to see what species are flying through. The Catawba is a "migration corridor. It's an animal highway," he said.
Hearing a sound, James described a bird call to Rogers: "It was more like a bell sound, then goes teeter, teeter, teeter."
Sometimes he would pull out his iPhone and play a bird call through an app for identifying birds.
"Birding by ear is a definite advantage," said Olson, who's been birding for 30 years, but feels most adept at visual identification.
The expertise of recognizing a bird's color, pattern, size, behavior and call comes over time, like any other skill, Rogers said.
"As an animal behaviorist, I'm always curious about how the brain works. With enough practice, your brain gets faster and faster at putting the relevant details together," he said.
Even while driving along Interstate 77, he said. That's when his family tells him keep his eyes on the road.
His ears train on bird calls no matter where he is, but they aren't a distraction, he said.
"To me it's the soundtrack partly of my life."
Read more: http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/05/01/3029922/by-song-and-by-feather.html#ixzz1LBoPqZxe
