Thinking Citizen Blog — Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, Eastern Kingbirds, SGARs — Good News And Bad News
Thinking Citizen Blog: Wednesday is Climate Change, the Environment, and Sustainability Day
Today’s Topic: Bald Eagles, Peregrine Falcons, Eastern Kingbirds, SGARs — good news and bad news
Have you seen a bald eagle or peregrine falcon in your neighborhood lately? Keep your eye out. It’s a real possibility. More and more so. Today, excerpts from an article in the Boston Globe by Pulitzer Prize winner Stan Grossfeld chronicling the return of the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon. Plus some AI results.
That’s the good news.
A distressing finding from this morning’s research — bird feeders could attract rats which are then poisoned with SGARs (second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides) which when eaten by an eagle, kills the eagle. So are bird feeders a threat to eagles? Balancing the need to control the rat population and the need to preserve our magic birds is a real challenge.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“THE MAJESTIC BALD EAGLE IS THRIVING AGAIN TO THE DELIGHT OF MASSACHUSETTS BIRDERS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS ALIKE” (Stan Grosssfeld)
1. “It’s over in a flash and a splash. K/Z, a male bald eage, swoops down from the heavens, his razor-sharp talons dip just below the water’s surface, and seizes a fish.”
2. “Then, without stopping, he zooms off to the next a quarter mile away. What was once a white sucker (who’s the sucker now?) is soon to be dinner for three baby eaglets.”
3. “The comeback of the bald eagle in Massachusetts since DDT decimated them in the mid-20th century has been impressive. In 1967 they were listed as endangered. Now they are thriving. By 2023 there were 90 pairs of bald eagles identified in the state, according to MassWildlife.”
AND CHECK OUT THESE THREE PEREGRINE FALCON CHICKS IN A WOBURN QUARRY
1. AI review: “Peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus) are now regularly seen in Massachusetts, with populations that exceed historical highs. They nest in a variety of locations, including cliffs, buildings, and bridges.”
2. “Peregrine falcsons have returned to five of their 14 historical nesting sites, including Mount Tom, Mount Sugarloaf, Farley Cliffs, Monument Mountain, and Pettibone Falls. They also next on quarry cliffs in Holyoke, West Roxbury, Saugus, Peabody, and Swampscott.”
3. The photo above was “made with a 800 mm telephoto lens. Photographers and birdeers converged at a safe distance in a parking lot to observe the family.”
NB: “Peregrine falcons were completely gone from the entire Eastern United States in 1966; by 2023 there were at least 44 nesting pairs in Massachusetts.” (Grossfeld)
RODENT PESTICIDES KILL THE FLYING SYMBOLS OF OUR NATION AND MUCH SMALLER KAMIKAZE EASTERN KINGBIRDS HARASS THEM (photo below)
1. SGARs (second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides) tragically killed K/Z’s mate, dubbed “M/K.” SGARs prevent blood from clotting.
2. One of their two chicks was killed by SGARs. The other was struck by a car.
3. The mother “died a slow, horrible death coughing up blood, despite the best efforts of the New England Wildlife Centers.”
NB: “Her death prompted an Arlington vigil, and outpouring of love, and a call to reduce rodenticides. It’s sad that eagles, the best rate killers, are killed by ingeting poisons from eating contaminated rodents. Since 2021,Tufts Wildlife Clinic alone has diagnosed four bald eagles as having died due to anticoagulant rodenticide toxicosis.”
“Experts say it’s not just raptors that are getting poisoned. It’s owls and coyotes, raccoons, foxes, bobcats, and companion animals. A bill to require pest-control companies to file digital reports documenting that they are using second generation anticoagulants died in the state legislature last year. The federal government banned the retail sale of SGARs in 2015, but they are legally licensed by pest-control professionals in Massachusetts, according to Mass Audubon. These powerful poisons, placed in the now-familiar black boxes outside homes and businesses are ingested by rodents, which then become easy prey for other creatures. Striking a balance between the need to reduce rat popullations and protect wildlife has been difficult.”
“Save Arlington Wildlife is urging residents to remove their bird feeders through mid-November.
They cites studies that say rat burrows are significantly more likely to be found near properties that have bird feeders.”
FOOTNOTE — black box rodenticides (SGAR)
Rodenticides are killing animals way up the food chain
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
A LINK TO THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED BY THEME:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENT BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned in the last week related to climate change or the environment.
Or the coolest, most important thing you learned in your life related to climate change that the rest of us may have missed. Your favorite chart or table perhaps…
This is your chance to make some one’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
