Puffin swims by tour boat

Puffins are one of the oddest, most charming and hardest to see birds to see in the United States, but it’s getting easier. The birds spend almost all their time on the ocean, but for a few months they nest on three islands off Maine during the summer. Most of the action is about five hours’ drive Down East from Maine’s southern border. Eastern Egg Rock, by far the easiest island to see if you’re a human just an hour from Portland, now has enough puffins that it’s worth the trip.

Puffins once lived on six islands off Maine, but were nearly wiped out by people eating them and wearing their feathers. By 1901 there was only one pair on Matinicus Rock. Protection brought them back hundreds to the upper islands.  Since puffins return to the island where they hatched to breed, it seemed unlikely they would ever reclaim their old territory. But biologist Stephen Kress had the idea to transplant chicks from Newfoundland, where they were still all over the place, to Eastern Egg Rock. No one was sure what mechanism they used to find their way home or when it kicked in–was it when they hatched or when they swam out to sea?

Kress and the National Audubon Society started moving chicks in 1973 in what became Project Puffin.  The first adult came back started in 1977 and their numbers have climbed steadily to 148 nesting pairs as of 2014. That’s an all-time high, but it comes after an alarming dip for a couple years when higher water temperatures cut their food supply and nesting success dramatically.

Courtesy of Project Puffin newsletter

I’ve wanted to see a puffin in the United States, but didn’t really think I had much of a chance. When I went to book a cottage near Boothbay Harbor, even the guy who owned it and stood to make money off my visit tried to talk me into going further up north. “It is about a 5 hour trip from Boothbay Harbor, but it is so worth it.  You land on the island and get to go in blinds to [photographically] shoot the puffins,” he told me.  “The tours out of Boothbay will get you near to some puffins in flight but that’s about it.”

If I were travelling alone on a puffin safari, fine, I’d make the trek to Machias Seal Island, which Audubon calls the “grandaddy of the puffin islands,” and get to see puffins from a blind. That’s if could swing a reservation. And if a dinghy from the boat would be allowed to land, which it often can’t in the rough seas. But I was travelling with a reluctant birding husband, a toddler and two beagles. The best choice for us all was Cap’n Fish’s puffin cruise, despite a name that is embarrassing to say. They even let you buy a $10 ticket for your dog–which is a huge deal because it means we don’t have to leave one adult behind or chance leaving the beagles alone in a strange hotel (lest Huckleberry should cry.)

In preparation for the trip I read my three-year-old daughter Ginger the kid’s book Project Puffin over and over. She was so excited to see them. On the way out she started fussing and we figured she was a little seasick. Then she mercifully fell asleep.

We got to the island there were plenty of birds to see. Puffins, terns, guillemots swarmed the island. They swam in the water near the boat. They hopped up and down on the rocks, where each pair took care of one chick, hidden away in a burrow. I tried to wake Ginger up, but she wouldn’t have it. A puffin fly just a few feet over out boat, where Pete Salmansohn, the education coordinator for Project Puffin, told us about the colony’s history. When seabirds were first protected, gulls took over these islands. Part of the project was to remove the gulls to make way for puffins. And terns. Ginger would have been delighted; he’s the co-author of her puffin book. At any rate, we saw plenty of puffins doing all kinds of puffin things: flying, flying with fish, swimming, hopping, hanging out together. We circled the island twice and got a good long look.

Ginger woke up as we neared the harbor. She thought we were just getting to the puffin island, then started crying when she realized she missed them. Salmansohn consoled her with puffin keychain. I asked him why Project Puffin doesn’t start reclaiming more of the old puffin islands (Western Egg Rock, Large Green Island) He must get asked that a lot. Puffins were never really in danger of extinction because there are so many of them in Canada and Europe, he said. Terns, now there’s a bird in trouble.

Yeah, I don’t think Project Tern will ever really catch on. Does that mean that the whole Project Puffin was just something to give Americans our cute and charming puffins back and make us feel good about fixing a past wrong? A symbolic win for the green team? And I’m just a typical American, excited about the cartoonish puffin while the serious tern is boring people to death? Well, maybe.

The biggest threat to puffins now may be climate change. As Mother Jones reported last year, the water temperature has been rising so much in the Gulf of Maine, the puffling’s favorite fishes (hake and herring) aren’t around. There isn’t enough plankton to feed the fish that feed the pufflings. In 2013 one-third of nest burrows went unoccupied and only about 10% of chicks survived long enough to fledge, or leave the nest, on Machias Seal Island. But in 2014 puffin numbers turned around: 85% occupancy and 75% success in fledging.

The water temperature rise may have been a fluke. Maybe. We hope so. Because, if not, there’s no easy fix. Transplanting an entire colony of elusive seabirds will seem easy compared with lowering the temperature of the ocean by a few degrees. So get out there and see those cute puffins while you can.

Puffins hop near their nest holes, where their pufflings are hiding, waiting for delivery of fish and to grow up.

Puffins and terns fly over their nests on Eastern Egg Rock.

Allan D. Cruickshank Wildlife Sanctuary on Eastern Egg Rock

Cap’n Fish’s boat cruise out of Boothbay Harbor lets you buy a $10 ticket for your dog.

I was so delighted to find a pond where the rules were mainly about keeping dogs on leashes (and, fussily, how you have to pay if you want to take professional pictures there). I credited some kind of Southern conservatism that bucked unnecessary rules and interference with family fun. We had a fine time feeding the mallard, Peking and muskovy ducks. As usual there were Canada geese, but not an overwhelming number. The ground wasn’t covered in droppings or anything.

The place is delightful. It’s just a small pond in a residential part of Buckhead. The concierge at our hotel didn’t know of any toddler playgrounds in the area, but this space turned out to be pretty and fun.

But then when I went to look up the place, it turns out the Peach Tree Heights Neighbors just got together and decided they had too much goose poop and so would start spending a lot of money to evict the geese and will start sending out patrols to stop moms from feeding the ducks with their kids. Frown. The patrols will tell people that feeding the geese is costing the neighbors thousands of dollars. Sigh.

They plan on telling parents who happen to amble by with their kids the USDA has confirmed that the pond has “too many” geese. I’m sure that’s a great way to intimidate moms into doing what you want, but I’m not sure it’s really helping them understand the situation. That’s like arguing you should have a nose job because the cosmetic surgeon said it would look great. The USDA’s Wildlife Services unit is an infamous juggernaut of animal-killing that recommends its own killing and relocation services to anybody in the country with an animal problem. They kill about 5 million wild animals a year.

They’ll also throw out there the usual canard: that this is all for the health of the birds. This issue is 100% about people thinking goose poop is yucky. If the concern were about bread being bad for the goose’s diet, you could just suggest better foods (dog food, actual duck feed, grain or some fruits or veggies).

To its credit, the Peachtree Heights East group isn’t starting off with a mass gassing. They’ll do a little egg addling and plan to “relocate” many of their birds, despite the overwhelming evidence that this is a short-term solution at best and that they are unlikely to find anybody willing to take them.

The association cites rising costs of dredging (even though they only seem to have done it once in 2001) and $50,000 of sod in 2011. Seems to me it’s hard to pin 100% of the sod cost on Canada geese, which they claim are pulling up too many grass roots.  (Well, maybe people aren’t feeding the enough.)

Much cheaper options:

The pond already has tons of signs  and rules about off-leash dogs and is set to get more about how duck-feeding is an unnatural scourge. Meanwhile, the association is considering spending $1,500 to $4,000 to hire dogs to chase the geese away. I don’t want to sound too radical here, but wouldn’t the park be more enjoyable for everyone if they just let dogs go off leash?

If the Canada goose is the only species you want to get rid of (and if you’ve got a place called “Duck Pond,” I’d hope that was the case), just ask people not to feed that particular species. You don’t have to be an ornithologist to tell the difference between a mallard and a Canada goose. Just ask people not to feed the Canadian geese. Not that complicated.

Where to Go See Wild Animals in the US

Where to See Weird Birds

Narcisse snakes / Photo courtesy of Steve McCullough, stevemccullough.ca

How far would you drive or fly out of your way to see a bunch of snakes? In a roundup of the best travel possibilities for 2013, Lonely Planet editors picked the best 10 spots to see snakes around the world.
The Narcisse snake dens of Manitoba is their top pick. You may have seen this amazing spectacle on nature programs: in May tens of thousands of red-sided garter snakes wake from hibernation, slither out of dens and mate in a writhing ball. This a destination snake spot, definitely not something you’ll pass on a roadtrip since it’s a couple hours north of Winnepeg.  But after the trek, it’s kind of tame. You can see these tiny snakes, often kept as pets, from the safety and convenience of a viewing platform.
Most of the other spots on Lonely Planet’s list are far more exotic cultural experiences, like a Hindu festival with cobras in India (though NPR says snake charmers are considered cruel and are fading fast from the scene), a temple for snakes in Benin, west Africa, and a snake pagoda in Myanmar.  A few are snake spots in name only, like the serpent mounds in Ohio, a mythical snake in Australia (but inexplicably, the list lacks Loch Ness, home to the planet’s favorite crpytozoological serpent).

While the list makes a fun read and may inspire some dreamy vacations, it could do with a few more natural locations, like the one they include in the Panatal, Brazil or Isla Pájaros in Costa Rica’s Palo Verde National Park, which has the largest concentration of boa constrictors.

To find spectacular snakes in the wilds of the U.S., head to Everglades National Park, which is the epicenter of the explosion of abandoned pythons not lucky enough to make it into one of the sanctuaries. They have so many, the state of Florida started a hunting season. If you go during a cold snap, you might find them stunned and sleepy.

Many of the big hot, dry parks out west have rattlesnakes, if that’s what you’re into. Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah notes that you may see them on  “Under-the-Rim Trail, Riggs Springs Loop, and the Fairyland Loop.”

For the United States, I would add a few good options for families and thrill seekers:

Snake Sanctuaries take in nonreleasable wildlife and forsaken pets, are a way to see snakes more intimately than a zoo and with less guilt about their captivity. Just as there are places that take in the wolves, big cats and monkeys some idiot thought would make an attention-getting pet, sanctuaries have sprung up to take in the unfortunate snakes that you might have once seen on some attention-seeker’s shoulders. Midgard Serpents Reptile Rescue & Sanctuary in North Carolina, the Colorado Reptile Humane Society, Forgotten Friend Reptile Sanctuary,  Indiana Turtle Care, Inc., or VA Reptile Rescue. 

Lonely Planet wisely left out a couple of the most cruel and unseemly snake events, like the 3,000 year old Italian Cocullo Snake Festival, for which local non-poisonous snakes are rounded up and de-fanged and all of those Texas rattlesnake round-ups, which go down pretty much as you’d think.

But there are a few peculiarities of American culture that could have made the snake list. If you’re going to cultural attractions in India, you might be interested in a popular U.S. tourist destination that features snakes: South of the Border, the cheesy, ever-expanding roadside stop along Route 95. Better known for giant animal  statues, the place also has a real reptile house with an African black mamba.

And while you’re down south, maybe check out some Pentecostal snake-handling pastors. Now, I have no idea which is the most exciting or easiest to access as an outsider, but I’d love for Lonely Planet to find out by visiting La Follette, TN, or  Greenville, NC. If you’re going to see an incomprehensible religious spectacle that uses snakes as props, wouldn’t one in the U.S. be even scarier than those in India?

Lonely Planet mentions that this is the Chinese Year of the Snake, so I’d like more details about snake-themed festivities in Beijing for the New Year in February. But this is an excellent primer on where to see snakes.

More snake stories

Where to see Turtles or Weird Animals

A lone barnacle goose  (Branta leucopsis), who apparently took a wrong right turn from Greenland and ended up in Brooklyn, is charming lots of birders. But his fans don’t include the flock of Canada geese he’s glommed onto; they hiss and flap their wings at him.

Dozens of birders tried to get a glimpse or picture of the smallish, striped goose. I overheard chatter about him making their life list. He cruised between the peninsula and illicit duck-feeding area in the southwest corner of the lake.

I’m just assuming here it’s a young male–as so many wandering pioneers of many species are.

Yesterday he lost himself in the flock of Canada geese. Today he was by himself, then with a swan, then back with the flock. Though, in just twenty minutes I saw two birds try to drive him off. I don’t know if it was territorial or about the hierarchy within the group, but so far he doesn’t seem to be making friends.

He’s much smaller and prettier than the big Canadians. He has a teeny bill but eats the same leaves, roots and seeds that the lumbering Canadiennes do.

Barnacle Goose migration map. They don’t go that far. From Planet of Birds.

The Canada geese migrate much further south than barnacle geese. The ones you see on the east coast may also start in Greenland, but on the northwest coast, and migrate all the way down to the Carolinas–more than 2,000 miles. The Barnacle goose, however, is from the southeast coast of Greenland and flies about half that distance to Northern Ireland or Scotland. (Each species has many migration routes, stopping points that sometimes become permanent, birds that have decided to just stay in one place, geese that escaped from captivity and all kinds of complications).

Canada goose migration map, courtesy of City Birder and NE Game and Park Commission

The RSPB says there are only about 370,000 barnacle geese in the world, including roughly 100,000 that winter in the northern UK from Greenland and northern Russia.

He seemed thoroughly uninterested in the food being thrown by park goers. Maybe he’ll catch on and stick around. Otherwise,  he’s got a long trip ahead, flying into hunting season.

Read about the Greenland goose’s appearance

Where to SEE WEIRD BIRDS (All the interesting birds: pelicans, puffins, prairie chickens, vultures, hummingbirds)

Barnacle Goose (Branta leucopsis)

The Barnacle Goose migrates among many countries in northern Europe, with its biggest territory in Greenland and lots of little outposts in the UK, Russia and on cold islands you’ve never heard off, stretching all the way to Russia, according to a map from the IUCN Red List.

How big of a deal is this?

Peter, who runs Brooklyn Bird Club, noted in an email to a yahoo group that it’s probably the first ever seen in Prospect Park.

But people have posted sightings on ebird as far south as NC. Out on Montauk, people had a rash of sightings of a solitary Barnacle in 2006 and 2007. In 2010 one showed up at the other end of New York City, in Pelham Bay Park.

So, it’s not the first Barnacle Goose to end up on the wrong side of the Atlantic, but it’s still a pretty big deal.

	Where to SEE MOOSE
	Where to SEE WEIRD BIRDS (All the interesting birds: pelicans, puffins, prairie chickens, vultures, hummingbirds)

Here’s a much better picture.

Crows got hit hard by West Nile Virus, but they are still putting on a noisy show on Cape Cod. Wayne Petersen, director of Mass Audubon‘s Important Bird Areas, says the Cape population is healthy and the birds regularly fly over to roost on Martha’s Vineyard.

I live in New York, where I hardly get to see crows anymore. One CDC study found that two-thirds of IL crows were wiped out by West Nile. On a recent trip to Cape Cod I found crows cawing on our roof (but never giving us the satisfaction of eating food we put out), picking at tidal flats beside gulls, hanging around a fish hatchery hoping for a miracle and, most interestingly, flying en masse at night as if to a massive roost that I couldn’t find.

We were staying in Sandwich, so I asked any likely outdoors person where the crows slept (not a quick way to make friends). I learned that about 100 spend the night at Crow Farm (which is a family name, no relation to the bird.) At dusk we’d go for a treat at Ice Cream Sandwich and regularly see dozens, maybe hundreds, flying  north–the opposite direction of Martha’s Vineyard.

Petersen says that doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t heading to the island. “Crows seldom go directly to the roost,” he says. Wiley crows like to keep their sleeping tree secret from humans, who are still allowed to shoot them almost without restriction in MA and across the country. “Small family groups coalesce into mega groups,” Petersen says. They make conspicuous noise, then fly off. As Jon Young wrote in What the Robin Knows, the last place you hear a bird at night is often not where they actually sleep. They are like bandits throwing off a police tail in a car chase–they attract attention, double back, then go silent.

If you watch over the water you can see crows flying from Falmouth at dusk to Martha’s Vineyard, then returning at first light. The Vineyard Gazette‘s Mark Alan Lovewell says birder Robert Culbert is studying their habits and watches them at the East Chop Lighthouse in late afternoon.

As the winter gets colder, the corvids migrate down from Canada and the roosts get bigger, peaking mid-winter. In South Boston crows have a wandering roost, that shows up in different places, from West Roxbury to Brooklyn, Petersen says. You can more reliably see them among the bright lights of Shopper’s World mall in Framingham.

The region’s most spectacular crow roost is in Hartford, sometimes on I-84 near Aetna (here’s directions to their campus, near exit 47).

In the winter you can find the northeast’s secondary crow species, the fish crow, in small numbers by fast food restaurants on the mainland side of the Sagamore Bridge, he says. Fish crows were only confirmed on Martha’s Vineyard recently, but maybe just because people didn’t distinguish them. They’re smaller and more nasal-sounding than American crows.

There’s no specific way to attract these charismatic and brilliant black birds. They turn up anywhere from low tide shores to plowed fields to fast food dumpsters. But they are so wary of people they won’t eat from feeders. If you see a big flock or roost, consider yourself lucky.

Read about Vancouver’s crow roost

SEE ANIMALS IN THE NORTHEAST (NY, NJ, MD, MA, ME, NH, VT, CT, RI, PA)

Where to SEE HAWKS, OWLS & OTHER RAPTORS

Gillibrand says she is pushing for the goose cull this summer because “according to recent news reports, LaGuardia and JFK airports saw increases in bird strikes of 28% and 53%, respectively, between 2009 and 2011.” Notice what’s weird here? Why is the government relying on news reports instead of their own data?

Unlike Sen. Gilibrand and her staff, I bothered to look up the FAA’s birdstrike numbers at JFK.

Bird Strikes at JFK

2008:  147, 2 involving Canada geese

2009: 165, 1 involving Canada geese. The mother of all birdstrikes, the “Miracle on the Hudson,” was from LGA.

2010: 220, 2 involving Canada geese

2011: 257, none involving Canada geese

2012: four, zero involving Canada geese

To put it in the terms Sen. Gilibrand uses, from 2009 to 2011, Canada Geese strikes at JFK have declined 100%.

The last Canada Goose strike at LaGuardia was in October, 2010, and seems to be just a dead goose at the airport since the type of aircraft is marked unknown. Neither of the two 2010 strikes at JFK were described as causing damage.

One reason the overall numbers are going up is that pilots didn’t report them before Captain Sully saved a plane full of people hit by geese. A 2000 report from the USDA (the agency that kills geese and wildlife they don’t like)  says airstrikes are wildly underreported. The study focused on JFK, where 87% of strikes went unreported.

After Capt. Sully, the USDA and NYC got together to kill all of the Canada geese at area parks every year. But, since it’s great geese habitat, they’ll have to do it eternally because more geese just keep moving in.

New Yorkers protested Gillibrand’s office Thursday. The argument: killing the local geese won’t really prevent airstrikes. (The ones that hit the “Miracle on the Hudson” plane was migrating from Canada.) And you can’t just kill off every goose around every airport. Canada geese aren’t even the ones that usually hit planes. A study of bird strikes at JFK found that 71% were caused by gulls and 10% by raptors.

So why target them? The campaign to get rid of Canada Geese has more to do with their guano being a nuisance on golf courses and park lawns than anything with airplanes. Long before they were linked to airstrikes, Canada Geese were targeted by the USDA for pooping on grass.

The wildlife refuge doesn’t want to kill the Canada Geese, which have recently hatched chicks, because they think their current program is working. Michael Gannon, an editor at the Queens Chronicle, did one of the most thorough examinations of the issue so far. Don Riepe, the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge guardian, who JFK’s bird hazard task force for 25 years, told him that they’ve already reduced air strikes through more thoughtful programs like habitat reduction.

Ken Paskar of Friends of LaGuardia Airport said he’s not worried about the wildlife refuge as much as a garbage transfer station planned for the end of LaGuardia’s runway. Also, he asks what Gillibrand is going to do with all the other birds on the Atlantic flyway that pass by New York’s massive airports?

Meanwhile, Goosewatch NYC has set up a network to document the goose roundups when the USDA comes to town this summer. Typically they wait till the geese are moulting and can’t fly, then round them up in a van at dawn and gas them. They want residents to call GooseWatch (567-694-6693 or 567-NY-GOOSE) when the USDA trucks show up, so that volunteers can come to the park to document the event, even if they can’t stop it.

In Defense of Animals has a petition against Gillibrand’s bill.

Read about how GooseWatchNYC stopped the cull in Brooklyn’s premiere park

	Where to SEE MOOSE
	Where to SEE WEIRD BIRDS (All the interesting birds: pelicans, puffins, prairie chickens, vultures, hummingbirds)

Lanny Chambers, who runs hummingbirds.net says hummingbirders have been debating what’s going on with this freakishly early migration of ruby-throated hummingbirds and the consensus is that most of the birds are still sensibly waiting down south to be sure they don’t get caught in cold weather. In many other species it’s the young male pioneers that are always the ones wandering out early and far, hoping to get ahead. All of the manatees caught way up north in recent years, for example, have been males.

In hummingbird world, the males head north first to stake out a good territory. “I would be surprised if people were spotting females north of their normal ranges,” Chambers says. They have no reason to go early. They don’t have a regular mate or family structure; it’s every hummingbird for itself. The females “pick males that are the orneriest, nastiest” birds defending good territory, he says.

Another hummingbird tracker, Learner.org, has done a very cool animation of the migration data. Even though they employs school kids as citizen scientists–and so have a completely independent set of information–they show the same thing as hummingbird.net: a very early start to a migration, but the bulk of birds still hanging back in the south until it’s a sane time to head north.

Chambers says that some hummingbirds probably try to head north early every year, but storms stop them. They just go hide in the bushes. Hummingbirds are tougher than their delicate frames suggest, he says. “They can take a night or two of temperatures in the teens,” he says. “Twenty degrees isn’t a problem. They may be uncomfortable, but they’ll be okay.” Their main food isn’t flower nectar (or the Kool-Aid like drink people put out for them); it’s bugs.

Don’t take their early migration as a sign of global warming, the apocalypse or even of a hot summer. Hummingbirds spend the winter in Mexico and Central America, so they have no notion of what the weather is up here before they take off across the Gulf of Mexico. Studies show they go by hours of daylight, Chambers says.  “Ruby throated hummingbirds have been arriving on the gulf coast exactly when they always do,” he says. “This is a pattern that just doesn’t vary.”

Read about the hummingbirds that came early or never left at all

Check out hummingbird.net’s very cool advice on attracting hummingbirds and using feeders

Where to SEE WEIRD BIRDS (All the interesting birds: pelicans, puffins, prairie chickens, vultures, hummingbirds)

SEE ANIMALS IN THE NORTHEAST (NY, NJ, MD, MA, ME, NH, VT, CT, RI, PA)

Whooping Cranes at the their new home in AL

Weather, obscure FAA regulations and bird preference have conspired to make Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge the winter home to about a dozen endangered whooping cranes this year–and maybe for their lifetime. Nine whooping crane chicks–raised in Wisconsin by humans in bird costumes and led down south by an Operation Migration ultralight–ended up stopping near the refugeon January 5 to settle a dispute over FAA rules. Operation Migration got a waiver within a week, but then weather delayed the trip, a couple of the birds wanted to change direction. Eventually biologists gave up crated the birds and brought them to Wheeler, which a few other cranes had found three years ago.

Since they never made it to Chassahowitzka NWR in Florida they may think of Wheeler as their winter home. Joe Duff, one of Operation Migration’s co-founders, says that he suspects they’re go back and forth between Wisconsin and Alabama, but you can never tell. Whooping cranes (Grus americana) pair off about age 3, then mate at 5, usually in the male’s territory. The class started out with 10 birds, but now has five males and four females. Another four birds, including two raised in Wisconsin and released up there to learn to fly with adult birds, were already at the refuge.

Staying in Alabama throws off the plan to get the cranes to re-establish an old migration route down to Florida.  “Once we get past the short-lived self pity and look objectively at the situation, we see that it doesn’t matter much that we didn’t make it all the way to Florida. The birds will still migrate north. They may need a little assistance but they will still be a part of the population,” Duff wrote on the operation’s blog.

The only passengers on the Operation Migration ultralights.

But, it’s not the first time the cranes have messed up human plans to help them. Some birds just decide to stop over before Florida. And this year’s warmer weather seems to have really left them uninspired to make the long trip. More migrating whoopers wintered in Indiana than Florida. Two of the birds in the class of 2011 tried to revolt against their ultralight mother. They tried to turn the group north and nipped at the ultralight when the pilot tried to retake the lead of the formation.

Duff wanted to stress that the FAA wasn’t to blame for their delay or unexpected home. “They didn’t ground us, we grounded ourselves,” he said.

The agency was just investigating the complaint of a former worker. In 2008 the agency started enforcing rules that ultralight pilots couldn’t be paid. After a complain last summer, the group and FAA agreed that they met the requirements because flying is a small part of the work done by the bird trainers. Plus, the rule was meant to protect the public from dodgy carnival rides; the only passengers on the ultralights are stuffed animals from Disney (a sponsor). But a new complaint from the same former worker left the FAA wondering. So, Operation Migration stopped their work until they got everything cleared up.

The group got a temporary waiver and hopes to work out a permanent one.

Wheeler has a viewing area and lots of other migratory birds. (Including sandhill cranes, which could be a problem since hunters are allowed to shoot the gray sandhill cranes but not the white whoopers.)

In recent years Texas and Louisiana tangled over where a new, non-migratory population would live; the birds just moved to Louisiana. But the birds themselves (along with the migration specialists) may have just made Alabama is a new site to see them.

Check out the 16th Annual Whooping Crane Festival in Texas this coming weekend

Help Out Operation Migration

The history of hunters shooting whooping cranes

Where to SEE WEIRD BIRDS (All the interesting birds: pelicans, puffins, prairie chickens, vultures, hummingbirds)

Operation Migration likes to keep the public involved–as long as they don’t bother the birds. This year they found a new spot for birders to see the crew take off in Piatt County, IL. Here’s how the blog describes it: “The new flyover viewing site is on 1000N about 500 yards east of where it intersects with 300E.Directions: South on #32 from the town of Cisco; turn left/east onto 950N; at the ‘T’ in the road turn left/north onto 300 East, then turn right/east onto 1000 north. After about 500 yards there is a little rise in the road that will offer a bit of an elevated view.”

Courtesy of Journey North, which tracks all kinds of migrations

Toronto Photo courtesy of Michael Gil

The city of Toronto is trying to brush off the title “Raccoon Capital of the World” that the PBS show Nature bestowed on it this week. I called the See Toronto 800-number and asked where animal tourists could see raccoons. The Toronto travel expert tried to dissuade me that they even have any. They clearly have seen the documentary “Raccoon Nation,” and don’t want to be known as some kind of planetary dumpster that draws masked nighttime scavengers.

“Actually we don’t have a raccoon infestation,” the operator tells me quickly. “I’ve lived in Toronto all my life but I’ve never seen a raccoon.”

Oh, they’ve seen the stories. The  documentary premiered on Canadian TV last year and highlights the York University research tracking urban raccoons, which shows they live 150 per square km–50 times the density of rural raccoons. Researchers found that, like human city dwellers, urban raccoons just get used to living in a smaller space and don’t stray outside it, even if there are green pastures nearby. They’re like Manhattanites with a mental barrier that keeps them from the attractions of Brooklyn and the suburbs.

Sadly, there is no official raccoon census to gauge whether Toronto deserves the title or just happened to get it because they have raccoon scientists. If you’ve ever walked in Central Park’s north woods at dusk you will be amazed how many raccoons just pop out of the trees.

Toronto doesn’t seem to like the attention. Search the tourism site and you’ll find no mention of raccoons. I asked the guide about the show and the title. “People like to use a lot of misnomers,” he says. I ask where I can see them when I come to Toronto. “Probably the suburbs.”

The documentary points out that Kassel, Germany, is the raccoon capital of Europe. They don’t mention that they are sometimes called “Nazi raccoons” because they were released with permission of Hitler pal Hermann Göring, who figured he could improve on the genetic diversity of German wildlife and make the forest more fun for hunters. Japan imported them as cute pets in the 70s. Guess how that worked out. They’re now turning ancient temples into dens. Russia also has a runaway raccoon population.

Toronto has some competition as the raccoon capital. Florida’s Hugh Taylor Birch State Park in Ft. Lauderdale had a documented population of 238 raccoons per km. Well, it did before people caught and moved them–though the park still notes that it’s a good place to see them. Out Walking the Dog has estimated the raccoon population of central Manhattan’s parks is north of 400. Odds are, someplace in the world has a greater density of raccoons than Toronto. If they want to shirk their title, they should try figuring out what that place is.

Where to SEE ODD LITTLE ANIMALS Coait, Prairie Dog, Otter, kangaroo, skunk, porcupine, salamander, snake, squid, pretty much anything rare

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