The Yellowthroat
Voice of the
Oconee Rivers Audubon Society
March 2000
Vol. 10 No. 3
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Upcoming Meetings
At the ENSAT building at Sandy Creek Nature Center at 7:00 p.m. Dr. John Pickering, associate professor, Institute of Ecology
at UGA will speak on the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) which is
an inventory of all life forms in the Great Smoky Mountain National
Park. This is an international collaboration to understand, conserve and
use biodiversity. For more information, Dr. Pickering has a website at
To get to the Nature Center Nominating Committee Sought:
Birdwalks and
Note: Field trips are open to everyone and people at all levels of birding experience are encouraged to attend. The walks are generally at an easy pace although waterproof footwear and rain gear are advisable. March 11: Trip to the Savannah Wildlife Refuge and Tybee Island. (previously scheduled for March 4). Final arrangements will be made at the next meeting (March 2) and people who have already signed up will be contacted about the change. There should be plenty of water, shore, and land birds seen on this trip. We’ll meet at the Bi-Lo at S. Milledge and 441 at 6:15 a.m. Please call David Galewski at 543-1988 for information.
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April 15: Cook’s Trail clean-up and bird walk in celebration of Earth Day 2000, meet at 8 a.m. at the Allen House at the entrance to Sandy Creek Nature Center (across from the ENSAT building. April 29: Sandy Creek Nature Center, meet at 7:30 a.m. at the Allen House. May 13: Botanical Garden. Two walks will be led by our members. A regular walk starts at 7:30 a.m. and a special walk for beginners at 8:00 a.m. These walks are in conjunction with an all day festival of the birds, part of the celebration of International Migratory Bird Day, sponsored by the State Botanical Garden. May 20: International Migratory Bird Day bird walk at Memorial Park and Zoo Day, meet at 8:00 a.m. at the front gate for the bird walk. As usual, we will have a booth in the afternoon at Zoo Day. Come see us at the Otter pen. April 22: The Third Annual Upper Oconee River Rendezvous will
be held at the Sandy Creek Nature Center beginning at 9:00 a.m. Oconee
Rivers Audubon is again a co-sponsor of this event and volunteers make
this event happen. Please mark your calendars for the day of the event
and, if you can, get involved with the planning. River Rendezvous documents
a day in the life of our watershed. It is intended to: INCREASE public
involvement in water quality issues by training volunteers in stream monitoring
and clean?up activities; COLLECT water quality information to share with
citizens and government officials working to protect Georgia's rivers and
streams; and, CELEBRATE our communities' commitment to the environment.
Call Beth Fraser at 546-9008 for more information.
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Published monthly by the
Officers President
Chairs Conservation
Submit sightings or articles by calling the Editor
Articles, artwork, notices, and sighting reports welcomed. The deadline for submissions is the 15th of each month. All articles and artwork or copyrighted, and all rights are reserved by the authors. Opinions expressed in articles are those of the respective authors, and do not necessarily reflect the official views of Oconee Rivers Audubon Society. http://www.audubon.org/chapter/ga/oconee Oconee Rivers Audubon Society |
¨¨ Sightings¨¨ Norman Giles listed the following birds sight 2/3 at Lake Chapman: 17 Ruddy Ducks, 7 Pied-billed Grebe, 1 Hooded Merganser, 2 Mallards, 4 Ring-billed Gulls, 2 Great Blue Herons. At his suet feeder this winter: Chickadees, Titmouse, Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, Carolina Wren, Gold Finch, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Pine Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Hermit Thrush. The one outstanding species seen at the GOS meetings in Eufaula, AL last weekend was a male Vermillian Flycatcher. There were also a number of ducks. Roy Major has seen at least one couple of Cardinals, Blue Jays, doves, one flock of gold finches (whose feathers are pretty dull this time of year), found a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker dead along the side of the road— presumably hit by a car— and the next day saw around 50 Robins in the back yard and a pair of Tufted Titmice on the deck. He also reports that a variety of field sparrows seems to have displaced the House Finches during the ice storm weeks at the feeders. Roy’s Killdeer seems to be getting more courage— he’s claiming the yard in addition to the garden! Nature's Outpost Highlights of the
ORAS M.L. King, Jr. Field Trip by Bill O'Grady The highlight of the trip, however, was our encounter with the Henslow's sparrow at Paulk's Pasture. Following David's instructions, we formed a line and began to wade through the tall grasses until birds began popping up. As we closed in on the sparrow we formed a circle around our target. Becoming desperate, the Henslow's decided to make a break for freedom, at which point David vaulted into the air (Michael Jordan would have been so proud), waved his arm and screamed "No!" forcing the bird to change course and land on a nearby log where everyone got a great look at this fabulous bird. |
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Each year, hundreds of Georgia students compete to win top honors. This year’s contest is co-sponsored by the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forest Resources, Ducks Unlimited, and Five Points Deli of Athens. The contest judging will be held in Athens in April, where First, Second, Third and Honorable Mention will be selected from four age categories: K-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12. A Georgia Best of Show will also be selected. The Georgia Best of Show winner will receive a VIP tour to one of the 10 National Wildlife Refuges in Georgia. The Georgia Best of Show entry will also be sent to Washington, D.C. to compete for the national First, Second, and Third Place prize. The national First Place entry will be used as the Federal Junior Duck Stamp. The national winning artist will receive $2,500 and a trip to Washington, D.C. Georgia’s Junior Duck Stamp competition is a part of the Federal Junior Duck Stamp competition, authorized by the U.S. Congress in 1994. The purpose of the Junior Duck Stamp contest is to promote conservation of wetlands and waterfowl habitat through arts education. The Junior Duck Stamp is modeled after the Federal Duck Stamp, which has been sold since 1934 to raise money to protect wetlands and waterfowl habitat. All artwork must be a 9" by 12" horizontal image of North American ducks, geese, or swans. Entries must be submitted with an official entry form, and postmarked by March 15, 2000. Entries should be mailed to: Georgia Junior Duck Stamp Coordinators, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 247 South Milledge Avenue, Athens, Georgia 30605. Additional information about the contest and the official entry form is available on the web at www.fws.gov/r9dso/jds, or by calling (706) 613-9493. Federal Junior Duck Stamps may be purchased for $5 plus shipping and handling by calling (202) 208-4353. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish and wildlife and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 93?million?acre National Wildlife Refuge System comprised of more than 500 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands, and other special management areas. It also operates 66 national fish hatcheries, 64 fish and wildlife management offices, and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies. The Purple Martin by Page Luttrell Largest of the North American swallows, purple martins (Progne subis) are 7¼–8½ inches in length with wingspans of 15½-16¾ inches. The males are uniformly glossy blue-black (not purple) throughout, with moderately forked tails; they are the only dark-bellied swallow in the U.S. Females and immatures are grayish or brownish below with upperparts mixed blue and gray. Purple martins prefer open grassy river valleys, lakeshores, meadows about ponds, and coastal marshes. In the eastern U.S., people now provide most of the “martin” housing used by these swallows, and they are readily found on farmlands, suburban, and urban areas. Originally, they nested in cavities or woodpecker holes in trees along forest edges and riparian areas, and North American Indians enticed them with hanging gourds as people do now. By 1900, purple martins had adapted to human-made housing in the eastern U.S. In the mountain forests, deserts, and coastal areas of western North America, where the species is less common, it still nests in single pairs in woodpecker holes or natural cavities. Purple martins breed throughout most of eastern U.S. in suitable habitat; their distribution is patchy in the west, including coastal California and Oregon, the mountains of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. They are very sensitive to cold and therefore are limited by higher elevations.Martins appear in U.S. from their wintering grounds in South America in late January through April, males usually arriving before females. In the Athens area, they may appear as early as mid-February.
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Martins may nest singly in a gourd or cavity, in a line of hanging gourds, or in large apartment-house boxes on poles with 20 to 200 rooms. Their diet consists primarily of flying insects, taken on the wing. Both sexes participate in building nests in house or gourd, carrying grasses, leaves, twigs, feathers, mud, rags, paper, string, shreds of bark, even crayfish legs into the compartment, sometimes piling dirt to make a rim. The eggs are solid white, usually 4-5, laid between March and July.Incubation takes about 15 days, and young fledge in about 28 days.One brood per year is typical. Bulk departure for wintering grounds begins in July and August, extending into early fall. Once the young fledge and become independent, then old and young gather together in large roosts each night for a period before starting back to South America.Such roosts were once common in large shade trees in Georgia cities such as Atlanta and Athens. Thomas Burleigh, author of “Birds of Georgia”, reported seeing about 5,000 purple martins flocking together in six large water oaks in downtown Athens in early July, 1927. Currently, a large roost close to Athens can be found on a small island in Lake Murray, SC, in late July and early August, and it has been estimated to contain over 700,000 birds. European starling and house sparrows aggressively compete with martins for nesting cavities. Both are known to destroy or throw out martin eggs and young and actively chase off martins from their nests. Therefore, martin houses need protection from these competitors. For information on building and maintaining martin houses, see “Woodworking for Wildlife” by Carrol Henderson and “Purple Martin Book” by Donald and Lillian Stokes and Justin L. Brown.For further reading, see “The Birds of North America”, No. 287, by Charles R. Brown, and “The Audubon Society Encyclopedia of North American Birds” by John Terres. Action Needed To Save Stream Buffers: htm. Please donate 20 minutes of your time to let the Georgia Legislature and Governor know that you want better protection for our rivers and streams and that it will never be acceptable to cut protection for our waters in half. We need three quick contributions: three phone calls (House Rep., Senate, Governor), brief follow up note to each elected official you contact, and a return email to Martin Kearns at the Georgia River Network at :kearns@garivers.org, web site: www.garivers.org, if you are interested in additional actions to protect our rivers. Addresses: (Your Representatives's Name) (find your representative at www.vote-smart.org/multiple.phtml), State Capitol Building, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Phone: 1?800?282?5800. The Honorable Roy E. Barnes, State Capitol Building, Constituent Services Room 111, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, Phone: 404?656?1776 Fax: 404?657?7332 Georgia’s Important Bird Areas
As our world and state populations grow faster and
ever bigger, we will continue to see more homes and developments, businesses
and shopping malls, roads and industries. All of these are taking the habitats
for wildlife
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Oconee Audubon Society
P.O. Box 48132
Athens, Georgia 30604-8132