Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard - Hardcover

Strassmann, Joan E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593329929 ISBN 13: 9780593329924

Verlag: TarcherPerigee, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

A one-of-a-kind guide to birding locally that encourages readers to slow down and notice the spectacular birds all around them.

Many birders travel far and wide to popular birding destinations to catch sight of rare or “exotic” birds. In Slow Birding, evolutionary biologist Joan E. Strassmann introduces readers to the joys of birding right where they are.
 
In this inspiring guide to the art of slow birding, Strassmann tells colorful stories of the most common birds to be found in the United States—birds we often see but might not have considered deeply before. For example, northern cardinals thrive in the city, where they are free from predators. White brows on a male white-throated sparrow indicate that he is likely to be a philanderer. This essential guide to the fascinating world of common, everyday birds features:

detailed portraits of individual bird species and the scientists who have discovered and observed them

advice and guidance on what to look for when slow birding, so that you can uncover clues to the reasons behind specific bird behaviors

bird-focused activities that will open your eyes more to the fascinating world of birds

    Slow Birding is the perfect guide for the birder looking to appreciate the beauty of the birds right in their own backyard, observing keenly how their behaviors change from day to day and season to season.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Joan Strassmann has been a slow birder all her life. She is an award-winning teacher of animal behavior, first at Rice University in Houston and then at Washington University in St. Louis, where she is Charles Rebstock professor of biology. She has written more than two hundred scientific articles on behavior, ecology, and evolution of social organisms. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the Animal Behavior Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has held a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives with her husband in St. Louis, Missouri.

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Home

Home. A shelter with beds for all, a place to cook, eat, tell stories, do homework, store our clothes and books, hang our art, and use a bathroom. How can these simple ingredients have such an emotional tie on us? I think it is because home is embedded in the environment. Sounds are a profound part of that environment, especially natural ones. So I might say that birdsong defines home.

I'm likely to wake to the formal notes of Northern Cardinals, the policing cries of Blue Jays, the intense notes of Northern Flickers, or the chatter of House Sparrows. I slowly got to know the other birds of my home, the whistles of a passing flock of Cedar Waxwings, the hoarse voice of the Fish Crows nesting down the block, the clear repetition of a Carolina Wren, and the clicking sounds of a Cooper's Hawk. And there are others. Many others.

If you know the birdsong that defines your home, you can never lose it. If home becomes song, then no landlord can push you out. You can maintain the feeling of home. Though it might not include a bed, it will be somewhere you can revisit.

My home is in St. Louis, the city that opened the West and sold furs from the North to traders headed south to New Orleans down the Mississippi, from where they would be shipped to Europe. It is a city that has been important since Native Americans built the mounds across the river in Cahokia and also all through what would become northern St. Louis more than a thousand years ago. I like to say that St. Louis became big before America became selfish. This means we have a wonderful zoo, great museums, and state parks that have no entry fees.

My home is more precisely in an independent city adjoining St. Louis proper, called University City, founded as a planned city by the publisher, insecticide salesman, and shyster/visionary Edward G. Lewis. Lewis wanted to move his magazine publishing to a choice spot and had to buy the adjoining eighty-five acres to do so. He bought the land in 1902 and incorporated the city on September 4, 1906, with himself as mayor. His idea for the city was that it would follow the natural hills and valleys of the land, with minimal fill. The neighborhood to the north of us, University Heights, has curving streets and variably sized lots that fulfill that dream. Our street is in an area called West Portland Place and is a simple grid of streets, though the hills mostly remain.

In 1871 the eastern section of our street was named after the natal city of my father, Berlin. But in 1918 it lost that name because of strong sentiments against the Germans. The name of a military general, Pershing, was deemed more suitable. The efforts in 2014 to bring back Berlin as the street name failed.

Our house was built in 1921 of solid brick, three structural rows coated inside with plaster on a lot that's 50 by 135 feet. The clay that our bricks were fired from was dug locally, probably from within three miles of the house, perhaps from pits in Dogtown. The thick walls help our home stay warm in winter and cool in summer. It has giant radiators because it was built soon after the 1918 flu epidemic. Some then thought that keeping windows open was good for health, and the radiators had to keep up.

We wanted to make this small piece of St. Louis as wild as possible. First we dug a small pond, with a deep end of three feet and a shallow end where the toads could easily hop out. We surrounded it with slabs of native limestone and put a row of limestone boulders to curve across the back, separating a wild meadow from our vegetable garden. We planted the slope in front and the curb strip with little bluestem and other grasses, with asters, echinacea, and other prairie plants.

On one side in front we planted blueberry bushes. I imagined children going to Flynn Park Elementary two blocks away plucking a blueberry or two to suck on, though the blueberries ripen long before school opens in fall. Or they might pick a brown-eyed Susan for their teacher. In the fall our little hill turns purple with asters. American Goldfinches hang from drying flower heads picking out the seeds.

There is a patio in back where we eat in the summer at a metal table my sister handed down to me. It is shaded by a native dogwood that an American Robin nested in last year. Under it is bloodroot, columbine, and wild ginger. To the west is that small pond we dug, now inhabited by goldfish, toads, dragonflies, and other animals. Once a Great Egret and a Little Blue Heron visited it, and I have a photograph to prove it. Around the pond are cattails, irises, blazing stars, and ever more rudbeckia. In the summer Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and American Goldfinches flit through the plants. In the winter Northern Cardinals show red against the bare branches, and the American Goldfinches have lost their brilliant color.

The heart of the backyard is my vegetable garden. I grow mostly leaves and herbs, along with tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, beans, squash, and okra. The squash is mostly for the blossoms, which I stuff, dip in batter, and sizzle in olive oil. The leaves include mustard greens, collard greens, kale, arugula, and lettuces. Herbs are rosemary, sage, lots of basil, parsley, oregano, thyme, tarragon, and cilantro. Mint is kept in the front because it is too aggressive and would take over the garden the way the lemon balm is doing. I also have garlic, both for the heads and for the sprouts.

On this summer day, the House Wrens are going in and out of the nest box my husband, David Queller, gave me for my birthday in May. It is mounted in the backyard on a concrete post with a hook on top left over from a clothesline, whose other end once attached to a similar hook coming out of the garage. The male wren sat on the electric wire running just above the nest box to our house. He trilled away, clearly unhappy that I was picking pole beans only feet from his nest.

A Carolina Wren sings from the ridgeline of our neighbors' garage, maybe twenty feet from this nest box. These neighbors, Jay and Pam, are good friends. We have both House Wrens and Carolina Wrens in our backyard. I have seen them scuffle in the elderberry on the edge of our patio. But Carolina Wrens choose more open places than boxes for their nests.

Starlings nest under the eaves of the home Holly and Curtis bought a couple of years ago just to the west of us. From the thick layer of white droppings outside, I guess that nest was successful. Also, right after they fledged I often heard the dry buzz of begging juvenile starlings.

Every day there is something going on with the birds at home. There is the day the Northern Flickers urge their babies out of the nest with repeated long calls. There is the day the same flickers fail to chase the starlings out of the hollow across the street and have to find another down the block. There is the ongoing tension between Carolina Wrens and House Wrens. Does it matter that one migrates and the other does not?

In winter we have Dark-eyed Juncos and White-throated Sparrows with their mournful song. I saw them at home for the last time this year on April 8. They had been here since October 24. The White-throated Sparrows were here for longer. I last saw them on May 15 at nearby Heman Park. I first saw them at home on October 24.

We put out feeders of sunflower seeds, peanuts, and suet in the winter. The sunflower seeds that fall to the ground attract these three species. The suet brings in the Downy Woodpeckers and the Northern Flickers, when the European Starlings are not in the way.

I've talked about some of the birds in our small yard. I looked at what I have logged on eBird and saw I have logged seventy-three species right in my own garden.

Keeping a journal of the birds at home helps. Here is a section of mine.

April 18, 2020: The...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: TarcherPerigee
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593329929
• ISBN 13: 9780593329924
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Tarcher; https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/search/tarcher?page=1&q=TARCHER; ; Attn: Andrea T Sheridan 1745 BROADWAY; New York; NY; 10019; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: eucomply OÜ; hello@eucompliancepartner.com; ; Pärnu mnt 139b-14; Tallinn; 11317; Estland