Pretty Birds

Essay by Kip Hansen — 7 July 2024

Warning:  This is about birds.  If you are only interested in the Climate Wars, you might just go on to something else here at WUWT.  I do mention that these two species of birds are not threatened by climate change.

It has long been the case that humans have sought after pretty birds – for their physical beauty, their songs, their feathers, or their eggs.  We have made them into pets, museum displays, clothing, and hats as well as breeding some birds for profit (aviculture) and others, poultry, for both food and eggs.   

The prettier the birds are the more we have killed them or imprisoned them.  Some species have been lucky – they can be captive bred relatively easily, like canaries and parakeets and many smaller parrots, thus wild populations have been spared. Others won’t breed in captivity.  Some are protected under national and international law, some aren’t.

The Painted Bunting  is truly beautiful and much sought after, as a “sighting”, among bird watchers.  I don’t get them at my bird feeder as I am too far north.  I do get a close cousin, rarely, the Indigo Bunting which are startlingly blue, the color of the Painted’s head.   

Unfortunately, “Painted Buntings are not “easy” breeders, but a compatible pair that does reproduce will usually be quite consistent.  Males are absolutely intolerant of each other – fights between free-living individuals occasionally result in fatalities. … A large, well-planted aviary situated in a quiet location is common to all successful breeders, and a steady supply of live or canned insects is necessary if the young are to be reared successfully.”  They are protected and not legal to capture or sell as pets in the United States.

The magnificent Painted Bunting is the subject of a news story:  Gorgeous and Elusive, Painted Buntings Are Flitting Across Texas –More painted buntings flock to Texas than any other state—but these jewel-toned beauties are increasingly at risk.  The piece appears in the Texas Monthly (access available by entering any email address).

This is a pretty bird – and a song bird with a pleasant sound [more here]. And, like pretty parrots and canaries, they are captured (in Latin America) and sold in the local and international pet trade.  That is the price of beauty. 

The story, authored by Amy Weaver Dorning, is a long narrative journalism piece about  “secret mission” into the Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area  [LLELA] with a research group from the University of North Texas [UNT], under the direction of Jim Bednarz, a professor of biology and an avian ecologist.   Dorning accompanied a group of students on one of their many trips in the LLELA to capture, band, and measure Painted Buntings as part of ongoing multi-year  research project on the birds.   The university’s report on the project mentions, in passing, that the Buntings “been experiencing a population decline over the past several decades.”

The Dorning article is well-worth reading if you are interested in birds and how research on them might be done:  capturing, banding and attaching nano-transmitters to track them.  Characteristics of nesting areas are recorded and compared to nest-free areas.

What about the “population decline”?  Don’t know – no data from   UNT, but there is data from the IUCN Red List people: 

Least Concern:  Population Trend, Stable; Number of Mature Individuals, 14 million. Although previously listed as Near Threatened, the most current assessment (2018) upgraded the species to Least Concern with the following justification:

“Justification

This species has an extremely large range, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the range size criterion ….. The population size is extremely large, and hence does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population size criterion ….. The population trend appears to be stable, and hence the species does not approach the thresholds for Vulnerable under the population trend criterion …. Therefore, it is now assessed as Least Concern.” [https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22723957/131475071#assessment-information, Assessment Information in detail”

No fault falls on Dorning for stating:  “…painted bunting is now listed by the American Bird Conservancy [ABC] as a species of concern”.  [I wasn’t able to confirm that listing at the ABC site – kh]  Dorning may have heard or read that somewhere.  But, the IUCN Red List is considered authoritative on these matters and considers the population stable, not declining (though it may well be declining in Texas at the LLELA).  But there is hardly any excuse for her parroting:  “Painted buntings may need all the good PR they can get, especially as climate change poses a growing threat. In late May, tornadoes and accompanying storms in North Texas wreaked havoc at the Lewisville research site.”   Tornadoes and storms are weather, not climate change, as we know, and as Dorning should know. Not even the climate-change- enthusiastic IUCN Red List thinks Painted Buntings are threatened by climate change.    Oddly, she contradicts herself quoting two of the project leaders: “But there are bright spots. Gage says that the birds who lost nests have already most likely started new ones, and Bednarz points out that the extra rain means that there will be a bigger insect population this summer, which translates to more food for the birds, stronger embryos, and more bugs to feed their nestlings. “It’ll all come back,” he says. “Sometimes disruption can be good.”   Kudos for that at least.

While we are covering bird stories by Amy Weaver Dorning, we can find the same little fault creeping in to her other fairly recent bird/birding story:  “Kestrels Are Disappearing. Here’s Where to See These “Small but Fierce” Falcons in Texas”.   Kestrels are one of my favorite raptors – the Merlin taking first place.   Both of these small raptors are about 9 to 12 in (20 to 30 cm) measured head to tail, a little larger than robin but smaller than a crow.  The Kestrel is colorful and often seen perched on telephone wires, wagging its tail up and down (not sideways). 

“American Kestrels eat mostly insects and other invertebrates, as well as small rodents and birds. Common foods include grasshoppers, cicadas, beetles, and dragonflies; scorpions and spiders; butterflies and moths; voles, mice, shrews, bats, and small songbirds. American Kestrels also sometimes eat small snakes, lizards, and frogs. And some people have reported seeing American Kestrels take larger prey, including red squirrels and Northern Flickers.” [ source ]

Dorning again spoils a well-written piece about birds with a silly claim (as in the headline above):  “But this petite raptor is also experiencing an alarming population decline across the continent, for reasons scientists haven’t been able to figure out.”

Not according to the IUCN Red List:

On the other hand, Cornell Lab of Ornithology does say they are declining, again based on the “the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Partners in Flight estimates the global breeding population at 9.2 million and rates them 10 out of 20 on the Continental Concern Score, indicating a species of relatively low conservation concern.” [ source ] 

I have mentioned before that “counting birds” is a difficult and rather un-scientific enterprise – but not from lack of trying – there is just no easy and dependable way of counting birds, unless, like penguins, they regularly return to the same locations, en masse, year after year (even counting penguins is hard, they can be tricky and sometimes just move to another site). 

Bottom Lines:

Birds are interesting even when not especially pretty.  There are probably fewer of them now than when North America began to be colonized by Europeans in the 16^th century – simply because we humans have caused a lot of land use change.

Most birds are doing just fine — particularly when people quit killing them, as we did (and still do, illegally) with most of the raptors. 

There are, of course, always winners and losers according to the laws of nature. Reference: Spotted Owls vs. Barred Owls.

Absolute bottom line:  Leave the birds alone and keep your pet cats indoors (or at least confined to your own property).

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Author’s Comment:

I like birds.  Really.

Last week I witnessed 15 or so “little brown birds” (sparrows, finches, etc) mobbing a corn snake in my yard.  If the birds had been bigger (crows, ravens, back birds) it would have been reminiscent of The Birds.  I like snakes too, so I shooed the birds away long enough for the corn snake to make its way safely into the underbrush. On corn snakes, the Wiki and Herpetology sites will tell you the range of the corn snake only  extends to the north as far as New Jersey.  This is not true, I have found them quite common in farmyards all the way up north along the Mohawk River (Erie Canal) at the southern edge of the Adirondack Mountains in New York State.

I know that many readers don’t like the idea of keeping their cats inside  but they are pets and are better off when you do so.  Give them an outdoor pen if you like, fenced in all around and on top.

Thanks for reading.

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