Wildlife Rescue (505) 344-2500

Rare Bird Alert (505) 323-9323

Bat in Trouble? Call before you intervene. (505) 281-1133 or (505) 281-1515

PRESIDENT

Beth Hurst-Waitz 804 Guadalupe Circle NW 87114-1710 home 898-8514 work 243-7029 fax 242-7343

VICE PRESIDENT and OUTREACH PROGRAMS

Donna Thatcher 1128 Girard Blvd. NE 87106 phone 255-1546

SECRETARY

Dianne Cress 256 Zena Lona NE 87123 work 841-2586 home 298-0085

CONSERVATION CHAIRPERSON

Jeffrey Myers 2208 Rozinante Ct. NW 87104 work 998-1502 home 843-8114

MEMBERSHIP CHAIRPERSON (for change of address only)

Ed Dover 1421 San Carlos SW 87104-1040 phone 242-5427

PROGRAM CHAIRPERSON/PUBLICITY

Patrice Franklin 726-33 Tramway Vista Drive NE 87122 phone 856-7443

TREASURER

Ronald Waitz 804 Guadalupe Circle NW 87114 phone 898-8514

AUDUBON ADVENTURES CHAIRPERSON

Cindy Clark 2147 Black Willow Dr. NE 87122

home 822-1467 work 332-4737

INFORMATION for the FEDERAL JUNIOR DUCK STAMP CONTEST

Joanne Roll Bosque del Apache NWR (505) 835-1828

FIELD TRIP CHAIRPEOPLE

Sei Tokuda 3008 Marble Avenue NE 87106 phone 266-2480

NEW MEXICO COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE/PARTNERS IN FLIGHT REP

Jonalyn Yancey 860 State Road 344, Edgewood, NM 87015 work 884-6807 home 286-2949

EDITOR, BURROWING OWL

Browning Coke 609 Graceland Drive SE 87108 phone 256-9130 email bcokenm@aol.com

Other

New Mexico Office David Henderson, Randall Davey Audubon Center P.O. Box 9314 Santa Fe, NM 87504 (505) 983-4609

Bosque del Apache NWR (505) 835-1828

US Fish and Wildlife Service 500 Gold Avenue, SW Albuquerque, NM 87102

Regional Director (505) 766-2321

Refuges and Wildlife (505) 766-2036

Habitat Conservation (505) 766-2914

Sandia Ranger District US Forest Service

Clifford Dils, District Ranger11776 Highway 337 Tijeras, NM 87059 (505) 281-3304

New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Villagra Building P.O. Box 25112 Santa Fe, NM 87503-0001 (505) 827-6681

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The Burrowing Owl Newsletter is published six times a year. Subscription is free to Central New Mexico Audubon Society members, $12 to nonmembers. CNMAS, P.O. Box 30002, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87190-0002

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Important Bird Areas

Habitat loss is the leading cause of the declines of many bird populations in the United States and around the world. The Important Bird Areas Program is a coordinated worldwide response &emdash; a comprehensive effort to identify and protect essential habitats for birds. Important Bird Areas are sites where significant populations or an exceptional diversity of birds occurs. These sites include public and private lands, and may be protected or unprotected. IBAs are selected using standardized criteria. Once designated, IBAs become targets of focused conservation strategies, ranging from willing-seller land acquisition and conservation easements to working with land owners and managers to maintain high-quality habitat.

National Audubon Society established the first state IBA Program in the United States in 1995 in Pennsylvania, and the second in 1996 in New York. Other IBA Programs are underway in California, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Audubon works in partnership with other conservation groups&emdash;including the American Bird Conservancy, which is leading the effort to identify nationally and globally important sites &emdash; and as a member of the Partners In Flight coalition.

Audubon encourages all interested birders and volunteers to participate in the IBA Program.Throughout the Central New Mexico Audubon region are numerous areas worth considering and CNMAS members can help identify these sites. Some spots that come to mind are Isleta Marsh and the Petroglyphs area, but now is the time to let us know about your favorite park, meadow or trail where birds live permanently or which are frequented by migratory birds. Please send your suggestion to CNMAS, P.O. Box 30002, Albuquerque,NM 87190-0002.

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Land and Conservation Fund Conference

TOn Saturday, June 19, there will be a LWCF Conference at the Albuquerque Hilton Hotel from 9a.m to 4p.m. followed on Sunday, June 20, with conference field trips.

This should be a very informative conference and easily attended by members in the Albuquerque area. In order to better appreciate the importance of this conference you should know something about LCFW.

Congress established the Land and Water Conservation Fund in 1964 to provide for purchase of public lands to meet Americans' needs for open space and outdoor recreation. This money was to be spent via Congressional appropriations but has annually been rebudgeted to other projects.

• Every year $900 million from offshore oil and gas drilling is deposited in the LWCF to acquire public wild areas such as national parks and urban green spaces.
• Over the last 15 years Congress has diverted more than $11 billion of LWCF away from wilderness and urban space purchases because of budget deficits.

Even though last year only $328 million went to land purchases, over the past thirty five years LWCF money has bought more than five million acres of land and water resources, made over $3.2 billion in matching funds available to states, and developed more than 37,000 parks and recreation projects.

LWCF is critical to expanding and preserving the national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and public lands owned by the American public. Big Sur in California, Denali National Park in Alaska&emdash;to name just two spectacular nature areas&emdash;and thousands of local parks have benefited from LWCF purchases.

If President Clinton's Land Legacy Initiative is funded, the Land and Water Conservation Fund will be fully funded for the first time. With that in our future, it is imporant to begin thinking about how New Mexico could benefit from this newly available money. The conference will be an opportunity for people to discuss these issues.

All five New Mexico chapters as well as two State Audubon representatives attended the April New Mexico Audubon Council in Sevilleta. Together they outlined the Council's future role, identifying four key areas of focus:

• Habitat Projects (e.g. Palomas Marsh in Mesilla Valley)
• Legislative Activities (e.g. Herp Bill)
• Birding Projects (Important Bird Areas, Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR, NM Hummingbird Connection, NM Birding Trail)
• Most importantly the Council will be working harder to support New Mexico's five chapters&emdash; which is a new role.

Frogwatch USA was established in February 1999 to help researchers track populations of frogs and toads.  It is modeled after the Frogwatch Ontario program.  Volunteers across the United States collect data on their local amphibian populations by choosing and periodically monitoring a wetland site for calling frogs and toads.

To participate in Frogwatch, you will need to:

•  Learn to identify your local frog and toad species by their mating calls.
• Visit your site regularly and stay for 10-15 minutes each visit.  Two visits per week is ideal, but even a few times per year may provide us with useful information.  Visits are made at least one-half hour after sundown.
• Collect information, during your visits, on frog calls and on local weather conditions.
• Enter your data online, or mail in your data sheets.

If you are interested in volunteering you can find  FrogWatch USA information including: lists of amphibian species in New Mexico; frog call identification training; materials lists; and data sheets you will need to participate in the study, on their web site at: http://www.mp2-pwrc.usgs.gov/FrogWatch/frogwatch.htm

Thursday, June 17, 7:00 p.m. Potluck Dinner and Poorwill Fieldtrip:CNMAS' First and Last Tenacity Award . We are honoring Louise Waldron and her efforts to preserve Tres Pistoles Canyon. Our gracious hosts, Don and Adair Peterson, welcome us to their home, only steps away from Tres Pistoles Canyon (Three Gun Spring for you gringos) where we will look for Poorwill after dinner. This promises to be a wonderful get-together on a warm New Mexico evening at a most beautiful location.

• Provided: Beer, wine, napkins, utensils, paper plates, hospitality.
• Bring: Drinks, hot/cold drink container, dish of your choice, folding chair, warm coat, and flashlight. 
• Directions: Take I-40 East to the Carnuel Exit (Exit 170) in Tijeras Canyon. Continue East on Rte 333 (Old Rte 66) crossing over I-40, to just past the 3-mile marker.Turn left into the Monticello subdivision (sign at entrance). Bear right up the hill. Near end of road, turn left on Alegre Street. Alegre deadends and you turn right onto Siempre Verde Street. Siempre Verde deadends at the front yard of Peterson's neighbor. Here the street becomes Tres Pistoles. Go to 19 Tres Pistoles, the last house on the left. Park anywhere in yard, but do not block the road.

Sunday, June 27 Chama Meet at 9 a.m. at the Elkhorn Lodge on the south end of Chama. Target birds are Bobolink, Lewis' Woodpecker, Cordilleran Flycatcher, Veery and Gulls. Call Sei at 266-2480 for details.

Saturday/Sunday, July 10-11 Las Vegas and Maxwell NWRs Meet at 7 a.m. at the Far North Shopping Center on the N.E. corner of Academy and San Mateo. This can be a day trip or overnight trip. Target birds are Lark Bunting, Vesper, Savannah and Grasshopper Sparrows, Eastern Kingbirds and Waterfowl. Call Sei at 266-2480 for details.

Saturday/Sunday August 14-15 Fort Sumner and Roswell Meet at 7 a.m. at the Far North Shopping Center on the N.E. corner of Academy and San Mateo. We will overnight in Roswell. Target birds are Red-headed Woodpecker, Blue Jay, Mississippi Kite and migrating shore birds. Call Sei at 266-2480 for details.

Thursdy Morning Birding Group

For information on weekly birding outings (every Thursday), call Julie Goodding at 255-9366. Meeting time and location as well as duration vary.

Uninjured Nestlings (naked or with pinfeathers)

Put it back! The mother has not abandoned it andwill not reject it because of human handling.

Can't find the nest? Make one! Punch drainage holes in a margarine tub and line it with tissue. Then nail it to a tree, out of the sun where you think the original nest might be. Watch for return of the parent bird, if no parent appears after several hours, follow transport procedures outlined below.

Uninjured Fledgling (fully featherd but not flying)

Young birds learning to fly often end up on the ground, but parents are probably nearby feeding it. Put the bird in protective shrubbery and keep dogs and cats out of the area.

Injured Nestlings or Fledglings

Call Wildlife Rescue (505) 344-2500.

Put the bird in a covered cardboard box (no holes, no water, no food) and place in a warm, dark, quiet place like a closet.

Any creature that has sustained an injury (or disease) will enter a "shock" state. The body shifts over to maintaining a basic metabolism&emdash; and the function of most organs temporarily shuts down. Eating or drinking anything might push the creature over the edge. Rehabilitators are trained to know when and what kind of food or water can be adminstered.

Find a quiet place where the creature isn't constantly startled by TV's, ringing phones, or the kids' favorite rock group. Garages are generally too chilly. Remember that the best thing you can offer until later rehabilitation is a totally warm, dark, quiet place in which the creature can sleep&emdash;it must overcome the extreme stress caused by the situation that injured it in the first place, as well as the trauma caused by you when you trapped, caught and "rescued" it. Once you have found a quiet,warm place&emdash; leave the box alone. Resist your desire to constantly check on it. This dark box reduces visual stimulus which reduces stress for the injured bird and peeking at it every few minutes will only increase stress.

We know members of the family corvidae are supposed to be smart, but computer games? Well, it seems that scientists at the University of Nebraska have trained six blue jays to peck at "virtual" moths on a computer screen. With each successful peck, the jay is rewarded with a piece of mealworm (wouldn't work for me).

The purpose of the experiment was not to bring the jays into the computer age, but rather to test the theory of "apostatic selection." This theory predicts that predators (to wit, the jays) will go after the most common varieties of prey (in this case, the video moth, not the hapless mealworm), and often overlook the rarer varieties. This may also explain the otherwise inexplicable success of fast food franchises.

The jays proved the scientists right. They tended to peck at the most common forms of computer moths present on the screen at any one time (which by the way changed over time so that the original rarer ones soon become the most common ones). But would you trust your scientific reputation to a blue jay on the take? On the other hand, what if the federal grant money included buying some fancy binoculars?

Perhaps the success of this experiment will inspire you to design one of your own. Mine's going to involve whether our yard birds can be "house-trained" to poop in our neighbor's trees.

The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has posted the updates for all the wildlife bills considered during the 1999 44th New Mexico Legislative session. You can review these summaries at: http://www.gmfsh.state.nm.us/PageMillTExt/Publication/legislation.html.

In recent decades, many land managers, conservationists and citizens have argued that parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds is a major threat to North American songbird populations and that cowbird parasitism is responsible for the range-wide population declines currently shown in a number of songbird species, particularly neotropical migrants. In response, various federal and local government non-game agencies have initiated programs to control cowbird numbers over the past 25 years. Now there are new studies that paint a more accurate picture of theimpact cowbirds are having on bird populations.

Impact of Cowbird Parasitism

• Cowbird populations are declining across the continent. Except for Florida and some local areas, the Breeding Bird Surveys show cowbirds declined about 1% per year between 1966-1996, dispelling the notion of the public, and even scientific community, that cowbirds are increasing.

• Rates of nest parasitism vary locally: when rates are high, parasitism may harm local populations of some species.

Examples :

•Black-capped Vireo and Golden-cheeked Warbler:

90% of nests parasitized in open canyon woodlands on Fort Hood, Texas (Eckrich et al.).

•Bell's Vireo and Yellow-breasted Chat:80-90% of nests parasitized in desert riparian habitat in the lower Colorado River valley (Averill et al.).

•Lazuli Buntings: 50% of nests parasitized in shrubland prairie habitat in western Montana (Greene and Muehter).

• Host species often renest and are able to make-up reproductive success lost to parasitism. There is often little net loss in host reproductive success over an entire breeding season. Hosts with short breeding periods and those that begin the season raising cowbirds may not have enough time to renest.

• Cowbird parasitism probably is not responsible for the continent-wide declines of many North American songbird species. Conservationists and the public tend to overestimate the significance of parasitism as a major cause of declining songbird populations.

• Rates of parasitism depend on the proximity of cowbird feeding sites to host breeding sites. Cowbirds search for hosts near woodland edges and feed in agricultural and residential spots like grazing yards, grain silos and home bird feeders. The closer such cowbird foraging areas are to host breeding habitats, the more likely hosts will suffer cowbird parasitism.

 

• Rates of parasitism sometimes correlate poorly with numbers of cowbirds counted in an area.

• Cowbird control can reduce rates of parasitism on a local scale:

Examples:

• Southwestern Willow Flycatcher: parasitized nests down from 64% in 1993 to 11% in 1996, and host nest success increased from 20% to 61% during same period (Enos et al.).

• Black-capped Vireo: parasitized nests reduced from 90% in 1987 to <25% in 1996, and host nest success increased from 3.0% to >40% during same period (Weinberg et al.)

 

Scientists now agree that although cowbirds may impact some songbird populations, habitat degradation as a result of agriculture, grazing and development is the real threat to songbirds &emdash;Summarized from the Audubon web site.

 

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Mud on Your House

It's not Capistrano, but the barn and cliff swallows have returned and are building their mud nests on our homes and structures. Did you know that it is a federal crime to disturb or destroy active swallow nests? Destroying active swallow nests without proper permits can result in a $5,000 fine or up to six months in jail. Active nests cannot be disturbed until the birds are finished raising their young and have abandoned the nest.

It is legal to remove nests in the early stage of nest construction, before the parents have laid eggs. If you have question about removing swallow nests, or if you need to report the illegal disturbance of swallow nests, contact the US Fish & Wildlife Service Law Enforcement Division at (505) 346-7828.top