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By Claudia Reed INDEX-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Posted: Monday, June, 2007 If At least 28 varieties missing from local count and you find a northern pintail duck with its dramatic black and white markings swimming in a local pond take a good look and enjoy its soft whistle. You may not meet the little bird again. According to a recently-released report by the Audubon Society, the pintail is one of at least three California birds that appear on the brink of extinction. Two others are the horned lark and the loggerhead shrike. Sightings of all three have declined by up to 75 and 96 percent since 1967. At least 25 more California birds are in some degree of decline as a result of habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and pollution. Dozens of others are missing from the bird count across the nation.
Winston Hickox, former Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and Audubon California board member warns that global warming is a growing threat "to these common birds that are already under stress from loss of habitat, invasive species and the use of chemicals in the environment."
But there's still hope, according to Graham Chisholm, director of conservation with Audubon California. "Down but not out, is how I would describe these birds," he said. "In areas where we can keep and restore habitat, populations are healthy."
For those fortunate enough to see it, the northern pintail has a bright, white streak curving up the side of its brown head, and black and white stripes highlighting its gray body. It's the most distressed of the California birds with declines in sightings between 85 and 96 percent.
The horned lark, a small bird with a white chest, brown wings, yellow "beard" and black markings that seem to form a collar and mask, has managed to survive severe winters for thousands of years, but is having trouble getting past the damage done by modern humans. Declines in sightings range between 75 and 85 percent. Its repeated soft twitter may soon be missing from the surround soundscape.
The loggerhead shrike, which makes it home in short grass, isolated trees or shrubs and especially pastureland, is a small grey songbird with a white chin and black mask. With a sighting decline between 46 and 76 percent, its short trills and "bzeek, bzeek" alarm call may also go silent in the near future. Among the other California birds in decline are five varieties of sparrows (lark, chipping, black-throated, white-crowned, and sage) with sightings down 20 to 81 percent; and two varieties of finch (purple and house) with sightings down 41 to 67 percent.
Other well-known local birds in distress include the Western sandpiper (down 74 percent), the "yellow-bellied" sapsucker (down 54 percent), the mountain chickadee (down 46 to 65 percent), the killdeer (down 54 to 59 percent), the cedar waxwing (down 54 percent), the varied thrush (down 51 percent), the Western meadowlark (down 54 to 60 percent), Bullock's oriole (down 55 percent), and the evening grosbeak (down 59 to 96 percent).
"Those of us who live in urban and suburban areas can help slow this alarming decline in our birds by ... planting native trees and plants ... in our yards, parks, schools and churches" urged Garry George, executive director of Audubon Los Angeles.
Audubon's Common Birds in Decline list combines an analysis of sightings from the century-old Christmas count and the results of the annual Breeding Bird Survey conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. |