Expressions add life to photos

Last month I had fun with a photo of an eagle on facebook. The eagle had his talons in the air and a certain expression on his face, so I asked people to caption the photo. The captions people submitted were all clever and funny. I love a good sense of humor. I am especially grateful when people get inspiration from wildlife and nature.

Good photos are meant to be thought-provoking. Sometimes birds and wildlife are so expressive they make it easy to get a reaction. Take the eagle, or the owl posted here. I love these guys for the way they show me they are full of life and on a mission here on this earth. Wildlife, whether it’s birds, fish or mammals, are busy building homes, raising families and teaching their young. And while some may say we humans anthropomorphize them by giving them our thoughts, I like to think we are trying to understand them and through that, we build empathy for the creatures around us. In some ways, it’s them teaching us.

These creatures need all the empathy we can muster. Their habitats are disappearing and their populations are dwindling. The more humans can connect with them and their expressions, the more likely we are to think twice about tearing out trees or filling in wetlands that are vital to these creatures. In that vein, I’d love to see your thoughts about this young burrowing owl in Cape Coral. They are on the imperiled species list, but a population of them has learned to live around the library. ball fields and even on some lands cleared for development. Post your captions in the comments below or on Facebook.

Devastating Report Shows 3 Billion Birds Lost Since 1970

I couldn’t let the weekend pass without writing about a report published in the journal Science and highlighted by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology showing that we have lost 3 billion birds in North America, that’s one-quarter of the breeding bird population since 1970. I have followed what has been happening with the shore bird population, but the numbers were still shocking. In the story covered by NPR, the estimates of shore bird losses reach about one-third.

According to the NPR story there was hope before the study was published that the net loss of birds in North America wouldn’t be as bad as it was. Ken Rosenberg, a leading conservation scientist, thought that some rebounding populations would offset some of the losses he knew about. Researchers, such as Rosenberg, collected data from long-running surveys conducted with the help of volunteer bird spotters, such as the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, the longest-running bird research project by volunteer birders.

What the counts show is that more than 90% of the loss can be attributed to just a dozen bird families, including sparrows, warblers, blackbirds and finches, according to the NPR report.

Common birds with decreasing populations include one of my favorites, the red-winged blackbird, that my father-in-law described as proof of God’s hand on earth. Grassland birds have suffered a 53% decrease in their numbers, and more than a third of the shorebird population has been lost, according to the NPR report.

The researchers cite a variety of potential causes for these devastating losses including habitat degradation, urbanization and the use of toxic pesticides. I have given several presentations on the threats to shorebirds and noted that the biggest threat here in Florida and all along the east coast, is the loss of habitat and the predators and activity that loss brings. To see photographs of some of the shorebirds affected, visit my exhibit, Florida Feathers: Birds in Peril, in the Environmental Hall at the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature.