Tag: CitizenScience

Calling all birders for Global Big Day

On By Beckie GaskillIn Birding, Natural resources, WildlifeLeave a comment
A chickadee visited my bird feeder this morning

With being home more during this pandemic, one of my activities I use to fill time is watching birds. There are quite a few LBBs, as my mom would have called them (little brown birds) around our apartment building, so before the last couple of snowfalls, I put out a feeder for them. They quickly found that a new restaurant opened in the neighborhood, and they frequent the feeder all day long. They are fun to watch, even if a little messy, and I have swept seeds off of the downstairs neighbor’s concrete slab in front of his door several times. Luckily, he is a super nice guy and does not seem to mind.

Being an outdoor reporter has a lot of perks, as I have said many times. One of those perks is that you get to learn about all the cool things that are going on with various groups related to the outdoors. One of those things I just found out about in an email I received from eBird. It is called Global Big Day.

Global Big Day is May 9, 2020 this year. The idea is to get birders from around the world to report their sightings wherever they are. Of course, many people are not going out like they normally would, but eBird does not ask for anything more than 5-10 minutes of looking around right where you are, if you are not comfortable venturing out. I am sure thousands of people will venture, out, however, as birding is largely a solitary undertaking, or it can be. Either way, to me, it gives a person something to do, with a great learning opportunity attached to it.

There are two cell phone apps that will make the day much easier. One of those is the eBird app and the other a bird ID app called Merlin Bird ID. Both can be found in your App Store. I downloaded both of them and lost the next half hour of my life. They are really cool apps. The first time you use either, it will ask to be allowed to view your location, and then download bird packs based on that. The Merlin app gave me the Midwest pack and the eBird app the Wisconsin pack. For those who would rather not use a their cell for whatever reason, sightings can be recorded on the eBird.org website also. But the app makes it super easy to submit a checklist in the field.

A checklist is simply a list of the birds that you see and hear. When you first log onto the eBird app, unless you are good with scientific names of birds (and I, for one, am not), go into the settings and change the names to common names. Now you’re all set to go out and start logging sightings!

One of the coolest things about Merlin is it can help you ID birds that you have no idea about. First you start off with identifying a bird by size. From there, you choose what colors the bird is. The app will populate a list of birds for you. It includes several full color pictures for each bird as well as audio of the bird’s calls and songs. From there, you can go back to the eBird app and log your sighting.

In the eBird app, if you think you know what a bird it, you can choose it from the list, then hit the “Merlin” button. That will bring you to the Merlin ID app and you can go through the same procedure, if you are not sure what bird you are looking at or hearing. Then you log how many you saw. You can also add notes, which I did in my short survey today. I added the chickadees and sparrows were at the bird feeder and the robins were in the yard.

For those who are out somewhere, or even walking their own property, you can record a track to see where you went and what you saw. The whole thing is really cool if you are into wildlife and are looking for something to do while you are at home, or even in the field. It can be done while hiking, fishing (I imagine fly fishing a stream and logging birds at the same time would be a great day), biking or any other activity. Just remember you will need cell phone reception, which can be sketchy in some areas, especially in northern Wisconsin.

I would recommend doing a checklist or two before May 9, just to get used to the platform. If you are like me, you will start looking up a few birds and, like I said, all of a sudden half an hour will have gone by. But I have certainly spent more time in less productive ways.

On May 9, each birder can complete a checklist, or several checklists. The idea is to get as many birders as possible to report their sightings all in one day. Last year over 35,000 birders is 174 countries recorded over 92,000 checklists in the 24-hours of Global Big Day, which runs from midnight to midnight. The goal for 2020 is to surpass 100,000 checklists.

It is easy to get involved. Go to ebird.org and set up a free and quick account. Download the apps, and you are ready to go. All you have to do is get out and look around, really. I think it will be a fun way to spend some time. Of course, birders can, and do, complete checklists all the time, but Global Big Day gives everyone a chance to be part of a global team, looking for bird populations. This information can be used to determine any changes in population numbers and ranges of different species.

On the Global Big Day page of the eBird website, birders can check in throughout the Big Day and find out what other birders across the globe are finding in their birding adventures throughout the day, too. We’ve got a couple weeks to get used to the platform and to make some discoveries on our own. Then join the global team on May 9, if you get a chance, and log whatever you find. I have found myself not busy that day, so I know I’ll be checking the birds out in my neighborhood at least.

Batty about bats

On By Beckie GaskillIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Photo credit Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources

It seems like it’s always “National Something Day,” with most everything getting its turn in the lime light. For me, some of those days are more fun than others, and some I like to point out more than others.

April 17, 2020 was Bat Appreciation Day. In Wisconsin, we think more about bats as they are darting above our heads when we are sitting around the campfire than at most other times of the year. However, with White Nose Syndrome being found in New York in 2007, and moving steadily west, we started to think about them in the winter time as well. Since the detection of the disease, it has been found in 33 states and 7 Canadian provinces.

White Nose Syndrome, WNS as it is knows, is a fungus that affects cave-dwelling bats while they hibernate. It is characterized by a white fuzzy appearance of a bats’ nose and wings. Bats affected by WNS are often seen flying around outside their hibernacula in the winter long before they should emerge. They often come out, looking for water. They usually seem disoriented and can be unable to fly. They quickly succumb to the extreme temperatures, or starve to death, as no food sources are available and the cold temperatures cause them to use up food store much more quickly.

The Wisconsin Bat Program recently reported that approximately 6.7 million bats have died due to this disease since it has been found in the United States. Thirteen species in all have been confirmed to have the disease nationwide with eight more carrying the fungus without exhibiting signs of the disease.

The program’s recent report stated there were over 200 hibernacula in Wisconsin including natural caves, mines, abandoned rail tunnels and old beer cellars. The 2019-2020 winter survey done on these hibernacula showed the disease was still widespread and, even worse, was still decimating bat populations. Every site surveyed this past year showed signs of the fungus, which grows well in these damp, cool conditions, as one would expect. While some sites had decreased to no bats at all, in others a 72-79 percent decline was seen.

According to Bat program lead and DNR ecologist Paul White, there were some bats, however, that were surviving with the disease. He felt the bats had learned to adapt somehow, possibly choosing hibernating sites that were colder and less hospitable to the WNS fungus. It was found that, in some places, year-over-year survival was increasing, even though WNS was still present in the bat community. This was good news!

So, why should we care? That is a common question some ask. Those of us who study the outdoors understand that everything from opossums to penguins are related. For others, those connections are not as obvious. So, what is the deal with bats anyway?

Bats eat insects. Most of us know that. They dive bomb around us, swooping through and snatching insects out of midair as we finish our late picnics or sit around the campfire in the summer. But the impact they have on agriculture is much, much bigger.

Bats, is has been estimated, save billions of dollars per year in pesticides and other control measures for those in the field of ag. One recent estimate I saw was as high as $53 billion per year. Even the most conservative estimates are in the billions of dollars. This total, wherever it falls, takes into account only the direct impact of bats, and does not take into account the downstream effects, if you will, of harm done to other wildlife, native plants, and even humans, when increased pesticides are needed to control a variety of insects on crops.

In the big scheme of things, then, these little bats are big business. This makes their plight important. Of the eight bat species in Wisconsin, all four of the cave-dwelling species, little brown bats, big brown bats, long-eared bats, and the Eastern Pipistrelle, are all listed as as threatened.

The good news is, there are many ways people can help. As many have heard multiple times, I am a citizen science geek. I love learning about anything outdoors. The Wisconsin Bat Program, and, at least in Wisconsin, your local county Land and Water Conservation Department, are great resources to help people learn more about how they can help bats.

Bat houses are fairly simple to make and erect. There are directions on how to accomplish this on the Wisconsin Bat Program website. This is actually a section of a larger citizen science website, so feel free to look around if you happen to visit there. There are many opportunities to monitor bats, too. Summer surveys are done around the state, in an attempt to see which bats are where and how populations are surviving and adapting.

I agree, it seems creepy at first – little mice with wings, as some people say. But if you can get out on a lake with an eco-locator that can capture the sounds of bats that we cannot hear with our “naked ear”, and later get to hear those sounds – it really can change your mind about them.

I remember Joel Knutson, a young man with a passion for bats, coming to talk to a Master Gardeners group a few years back. He brought audio of bats he had been out monitoring. It was really a cool experience to hear them darting through the trees, using their sonar to not run into anything at a dizzying pace. There was one recording where the sound went quickly dead for not even a second, and then picked up again. It did not take much for the group to interpret the fact the bat had been chasing an insect, and had caught it in midair, causing the brief pause in the action as it swallowed it’s prey. It was a really interesting discussion overall, but I think the audio really made it stick for all of us.

Bat Appreciation Day. On the surface, it might sound about as important as National Pickle Day (although at one point in history, I am very sure those were more important than as a burger side or a stir stick for a Bloody Mary). But, in reality, bats provide a much-needed service in the food web. I encourage everyone to hit the link for the Wisconsin Bat Program above and check it out with the whole family. Bats really are an interesting and important species.