VOLUME 32, NUMBER 5 FEBRUARY 2001

WARIOTO AT A GLANCE
REGULAR MEETING: Thursday, February 1, 7:30 p.m., room 102, McCord Building, APSU.
PROGRAM: "Birds of the Galapagos Islands" by Polly Rooker, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
HOSPITALITY: Post-meeting refreshments will be provided by the Clarksville Academy Key Club.
BOARD MEETING: Thursday, February 1, 7:00 p.m., room 214, McCord Science Bldg., APSU.
FIELD TRIP: February 3, "Sandhill Crane Day" at Birchwood School and Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge near Cleveland, TN. Meet by 6:00 a.m. in the K-Mart east (Madison St. & Bypass) parking lot near Wendy's. More info. below.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE by Sally Schiller

In November I wrote about the pending birth of the first cloned individual of an endangered species, a guar. (According to the Associated Press the guar was born 1-8-01 but died of common dysentery two days later.) I then posed the question: How do assisted reproduction technologies fit in with more traditional methods for protecting rare, threatened, or endangered species? Conservationists generally agree that preserving habitat is the best method of maintaining biological diversity since such in situ protection of species usually maintains the integrity of community interactions and, in the best cases, whole ecosystems. Habitat preservation on the ecosystem level is the goal of most conservation organizations and is the main mode of operation of such groups as The Nature Conservancy.

Conservationist also recognize that for many species the amount of the required habitat remaining is too small or hazards such as pollutants or hunting pressures are present. For these species natural recovery of a sustainable population size is unlikely. So, while whole ecosystems preservation is clearly the ideal, failing this, preservation of at least a population can be attempted. Though at times controversial, bringing individuals into captivity for what is referred to as ex situ protection, followed by carefully managed captive breeding, has proven successful for some species such as the California Condor and the Black Footed Ferret. The ultimate goal of ex situ protection is to stabilize the population and reestablish self-sustaining, non-captive populations once (and IF) the habitat is recovered. Two major efforts in captive breeding programs are to produce as many viable offspring as possible and to maintain as much genetic diversity in the population as possible. (Whenever only a very small number of individuals survive to repopulate an ecosystem, the resulting population will have decreased genetic diversity and thus a decreased ability to adapt to changing conditions in the environment.)

To maximize the reproductive efficiency of these captive populations assisted reproduction techniques, which were developed largely to enhance reproduction in agricultural animals and humans, are often employed. These techniques include artificial insemination, inducing multiple ovulations with hormones, in vitro fertilization, embryo transfer, surrogate motherhood, and now cloning. Obviously cloning of any species is still considered experimental. Cloning has too low a success rate to be considered a routine method of rescuing endangered species from the brink of extinction. Nevertheless, it is one more tool that will be, and in my opinion should be, used increasingly to slow the loss of biological diversity. What do you think? And what about cloning extinct species??! More on that later.

Sources of Information for November's and February's President's Message

-Lanza RP, Dresser, BL, Damiani P. Cloning Noah's Ark. Scientific American. November 2000.
-Wildt DE, Rall WF, Critser JK, Monfort SL, Seal US. Genome Resources Banks: Living collections for biodiversity conservation. Bioscience. November 1997.
-Bryant PJ. Biodiversity and Conservation: A Hypertext Book for a course in Conservation Biology at University of CA, Irvine. http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/~sustain/bio65/
-Graham F. Return of the Condor. Audubon. January/February 2000.

Electronic Communications

If you have an email address and would like to receive chapter information by email please let me know at slschil@attglobal.net. I will happily add your name to the growing Warioto Audubon Chapter email distribution list!

Remember chapter information and newsletters can also be viewed on the internet at: www.apsu.edu/schillers/Audubon/Warioto_Chapter.htm

Publicity

Colleen White has been doing a very good job with publicity for the program meetings and field trips. This involves getting information to local media in time for printing and distribution of program fliers to places such as the library, museum, and bookstores. I would like to thank Colleen for her efforts past, present, and future. If you would like to extend our current publicity efforts, please email (slschil@attglobal.net) or call me (387-4071) and I will send you a copy of the program flier each month to share with friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, or students you may know.

PROGRAM NOTES, Sally Schiller

At our December Program Meeting Polly Rooker of TN Wildlife Resources Agency presented a program entitled Postcard from Costa Rica, the first of a two part travelogue. We had a great turnout. and everyone enjoyed Polly's slides and wit. We are looking forward to her second offering on February 1^st at 7:30 PM entitled: Birds of the Galapagos Islands. Here is a preview which Polly has submitted:

During the four and a half centuries since their discovery, the Galapagos Islands have had a rich and varied history. Buccaneers, whalers, fur seal hunters, scientists, military convicts, fishermen, farmers and homesteaders have all left their mark on the islands and their biota. As early as 1535 visitors to the islands commented on the extraordinary tameness of birds. In 1845 Charles Darwin also noted this lack of fear of humans: "One day.. a mocking thrush alighted on the edge of a pitcher, made of the shell of a tortoise, which I held in my hand, and began very quietly to sip the water; it allowed me to lift it from the ground whilst seated on the vessel. Turtle-doves were so tame, that they would often alight upon our hats and arms, so as that we could take them alive ... ." Today twenty-two of the islands twenty- nine resident land birds are endemic only to this location. There may be as many as three-quarters of a million seabirds present, including 30 percent of the world's blue-footed boobies, the world's largest red-rooted booby colony, and perhaps the largest concentration of masked boobies in the world.

Come, enjoy and learn about the Birds of the Galapagos Islands at our next Program Meeting on Thursday February 1^st, 7:30 PM in McCord Room 102!!

FIELD TRIP REPORT, Rebecca Houtman

The field trip for February will be the Ninth Annual Sandhill Crane Event at the beautiful TWRA Hiwassee Refuge!! This event is Saturday, February 3rd and is free to the public. Last year over six thousand visitors observed portions of the population of more than 35,000 Sandhill Cranes that passed by on their yearly migration. There will be speakers throughout the day along with related vendors at Birchwood school and van tours to the refuge. Speakers topics include:

"Proposed Introduction of a Migratory Population of Whooping Cranes to the Eastern Flyway" by Dr. Richard Urbanek, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
"The Evolution of Cherokee Indian Society" by Dr. Theda Perdue, professor of history, University of North Carolina
"Unicoi Turnpike, Historic and Prehistoric" by Dr. Brett Riggs
"Threats to the Area Mussels" by Richard Kirk, TWRA
"The Bobwhite Quail, an Imperiled Species?" by Dr. Ralph Dimmick
"Returning the American Chestnut Tree" by Dr. Hill Craddock
"The Smith Bend Campaign" by Randy Brown
A talk on the nearby Cherokee Memorial by Ken Dubke

Other interesting ongoings include "Ani-Kuwih" or Mulberry Dancers, a group of ten children aged 5-12, under the guidance of Myrtle Driver, the Tribal Cultural Traditionalist of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians. Personnel from the TWRA, Tennessee Aquarium, and members of the Tennessee Ornithological Society will be at the Hiwasse Refuge's newly constructed observation facility with telescopes to assist with viewing thousands of cranes, Bald and Golden Eagles and other wildlife.

We will carpooling to the event which is near Cleveland, TN. If you are going with us, meet near Wendy's in the Kmart "east" (Madison St. - 41A Bypass) parking lot at 6am, Saturday, February 3. We will return late that afternoon. Binoculars are a must,but a spotting scope is better. I am looking forward to seeing you there!!! If you have any questions, call me at 645-2389.

GREAT BACKYARD BIRD COUNT, Sally Schiller

This occurs February 16-19, 2001. You can get more information on the internet at: http://birdsource.cornell.edu/gbbc/toc_page.html

How do you participate?
1. Count birds in your backyard, local park, or other natural area on any or all of the four count days.
2. Watch the birds of a least 15 minutes on each day that you participate. A half-hour or more of watching is better. For each kind (species) of bird that you see, keep track of the highest number of individuals that you observe at any one time.
3. Submit your count via the internet at the above site, following the links to Fill out a Check List Form for Tennessee. All results are submitted via the internet and are combined with the Christmas Bird Count results. If you count for more than one day you will need to submit a form for each day that you count.

CONSERVATION LETTER by Joe Schiller

Well, the election is all settled except for the implications, and they will no doubt form the basis of most of whatever letters I will be contributing for the foreseeable future. I cannot say the election went the way I had hoped, but it is done and we all have to move on.

It is appropriate to consider what President Clinton accomplished during his administration as a standard against which to compare the incipient Bush administration. President Clinton leaves the country with the strongest clean air standards, several new and impressive national Parks and Monuments, greater restrictions on logging of our dwindling supply of old growth forests, a ban on logging altogether on 60 million acres of roadless public lands, a strengthened commitment to the conservation of migratory bird species, and a renewed commitment to the restoration of the everglades, to name just a few.

Many of the conservative, pro-business interests that supported the candidacy of President Bush are outraged at some of the measures the Clinton administration has passed in its waning days and have vowed to try to undo them. That should be hard, unless members of environmental organizations such as Audubon fail to voice their support for these policies and for further progress in the same direction. You can bet the National Audubon Society will continue to work for these policies, but it will be more critical than ever for members at the grass roots to voice their concerns to their elected representatives.

A good start would be to question the nomination of such anti-environmental candidates as Gail Norton for Interior Department. Ms. Norton has spent virtually her entire adult career, part of it with the notorious Mountain States Legal Foundation of James Watt, working to limit the ability of the federal government to regulate and protect the lands under its jurisdiction. Ms Norton has consistently taken positions that indicate she views these lands as resources that should be primarily for the use of agricultural, mining, and energy interests instead of a natural heritage to be protected and enjoyed by all Americans. One cornerstone of the Bush energy policy is the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve on the North Slope of Alaska to oil exploration and development. This precious wildlife reserve has no parallel in the US and will be under the jurisdiction of Ms Norton.

Christmas Bird Count Tabulated Results.   Article Follows.

CHRISTMAS BIRD COUNT RESULTS, Steve Hamilton

Joe Allen has already given an analysis of the 2000 Warioto Christmas Bird Count in the January 11 edition of the Leaf-Chronicle. I will not reprint the article here, but I will offer my own brief summary of the December 16 count. On the following page you will find the results of our count and other regional counts. I got the Hickory-Priest and Nashville results off the Bird Source CBC web page <http://www.birdsource.org/cbc/index.html>. I received the other count results directly from the compilers. In Joe's article he failed to mention that Debbie Hamilton compiled our count as she has for several years now. Carl Mowery compiled the LBL count, Jan Shaw the Nashville count, and Chris Sloan the Hickory-Priest count. Owing to some unavoidable difficulties relating to participation, the Little River Audubon chapter was unable to conduct a count. Due to their own scheduling difficulties, there was no Cross Creek NWR count either. Next year, Warioto members should try to help with one or both counts of these counts. Debbie and I participated in the Cross Creeks count a few years ago and had a great day. It is really quite "wild" and offers a great variety of habitats compared with our count area, which continues to become increasingly developed. Hopkinsville offers much more of the Pennyroyal Karst Plains of which we have little in our count circle. I have noticed that they always have Horned Larks, shrikes and several hawks in abundance.

Our count results were low in total numbers of birds, but not so in species. The 72 species recorded is above average (69.67) for the 30 years of Warioto CBCs, but is down considerably from our last year's near record 78 species. The highest species total was 82 in 1975! Of course, the big factor this year was the weather. It rained nearly all day. Whenever it did stop raining, it remained gray and overcast. As you birders know, this makes the spotting of field marks, especially color, much more difficult. Nonetheless, we had a spirited group of 13 observers in the field and another 10 watching feeders.

Some birds that were most notably absent in my opinion were the Cooper's Hawks (never numerous), Common Snipes, owls of any species, Red-headed Woodpeckers, Loggerheaded Shrikes, and Common Grackles. Normally a few Red-breasted Nuthatches are counted each year, but we saw none this year. Still, they were absent from many counts in the South this year. This is one of the species that occurs more commonly in the South during irruptive years. This also happens with some finches (e.g., Red Crossbills, Purple Finches, Pine Siskins). Perhaps we are in one of the non-irruption years.

We did get a report of one Purple Finch and three Pine Siskins. While Purple Finches continue to make appearances on most of our counts, their numbers are considerable lower than they were before 1991. In 1990 and before counting 50 to 100 individuals was normal. This drop, as most of you know, corresponds to the arrival in the mid-80's of the House Finch. We had not reported Pine Siskins since 1997 and before that 1993 (They also showed up during "count week" in Nashville). They tend to occur sporadically here as they do on other counts in the region.

Interesting sightings this year included six Northern Pintails and a Canvasback at "the zinc plant." Warioto has only recorded the pintail one other time, that in 1994. We have recorded Canvasbacks on the Warioto Audubon counts only in 1975 and 1992. Thanks to Mike Filson for helping with the count and finding these species. This year we had a record number of Bald Eagles (3). They have been reported on our counts only in 1983 (1), 1987 (1), 1994 (1) and 1998 (2). Happily, I expect this number to continue increasing on future counts.

I think the most notable aspects of this CBC was the low numbers of individuals of otherwise common species. Clearly the weather was the most important factor in depressing the numbers counted. Still, a couple of species occurred in large numbers. Debbie and I observed a large number of Cedar Waxwings in juniper trees near the heliport at Ft. Campbell. We also saw an extraordinary number of Yellow-rumped Warblers at on the "weedy" upper end of Lake Taal. Also, the second highest number of turkeys, 127, were seen this year. This was only exceed by the 143 seen on our 1996 CBC.

As usual, the Land Between The Lakes CBC produced the greatest number of species (96 + 1 count week). I found especially interesting in that count the Rufous Hummingbird (See the January issue of the Tennessee Conservationist for an article on hummers in our state.), Red-breasted Nuthatch, Lincoln's Sparrow (CW), Snow Bunting and Evening Grosbeak. The Hickory -Priest CBC was the only count to report snipe and LeConte's Sparrow (rarely seen). Nashville was the only count reported here that saw the Loggerhead Shrike this year. LBL, Hickory-Priest and Nashville each reported one Black-crowned Night Heron, an unusual sighting. The low number of Red-headed Woodpeckers was surprising. I hope this is an artifact of the weather.

I could expound more on the count as if I knew what I was talking about, but I'll spare you more of my "expert" analyses. I hope that next year brings better birding weather and the return of the Little River and Cross Creek counts. However, for now, I think I will start to dream about the May 12 spring bird count. ********************************************************************************************************************

THE 2000-2001 WARIOTO BOARD MEMBERS AND COMMITTEE CHAIRS

President:: Sally Schiller, 387-4071, slschil@attglobal.net 5^th V.P.-CEECS: Joe Schiller, 387-4071, schillerjoseph@netscape.net

1^st V.P.-Program Chair/Pres. Elect: OPEN Secretary: Amy Atkins, 648-5526

2^nd V.P.-Field Trips: Rebecca Houtman, 645-2389, rahoutman@aol.com Treasurer: Gloria Milliken, 358-2998

3^rd V.P.-Membership: Debbie Hamilton, 645-8092, hamiltond @clarksvilleacademy..com Hospitality Chair: Colleen White, (615) 307-9415, faxon@aol.com

4^th V.P.-Publications: Steve Hamilton, 645-8092 , hamiltonsw@apsu.edu

Board Members-At-Large: 1998-2001: Suva Bastin, 645-2849; Heather Hollis, 221-0718

1999-2002: Barry Podell, 648-1922; Barbara Wilbur, 647-4956

2000-2003: Randy Ellis, 551-8741; Jill Freethy, flame327@aol.com

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WARIOTO WARBLER NEWSLETTER is published at least nine times a year by Warioto Audubon Chapter, Clarksville, TN 37040. All National Audubon members in our area receive it, and nonmembers may subscribe to it at a subscription price of $4.00 per year. Checks should be made payable to Warioto Warbler Audubon Chapter. Please notify us of any CHANGE OF ADDRESS, as this Newsletter is sent by bulk mail and cannot be forwarded.

PRESIDENT: Sally Schiller, 2951 Chapel Hill Rd., Clarksville, TN 37040-8312

NEWSLETTER EDITOR: Steve Hamilton, 290 Ardmoor Dr., Clarksville, TN 37043 (645-8092)

MEMBERSHIP: Debbie Hamilton, 290 Ardmoor Dr., Clarksville, TN 37043 (645-8092)

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ARTICLES AND INFORMATION FOR THE MARCH NEWSLETTER ARE DUE FEBRUARY 16.

MAIL TO: STEVE HAMILTON, 290 ARDMOOR DR., CLARKSVILLE, TN 37043

WARIOTO AUDUBON SOCIETY

C/O STEVE HAMILTON, EDITOR

290 ARDMOOR DR.

CLARKSVILLE, TN 37043