Our Birds

Woman:
Oh, gosh. Okay, you can stay there.
Narrator:
Birds can connect us. In North America and Latin America.
Woman:
Oh, my god! That was so incredible!
Narrator:
People have connected to save these small migratory birds.
Man:
We have to work as a team.
Narrator:
They are “Our Birds.” And they face a perilous future.
Craig Thompson:
The clock is ticking.
Announcer:
Major funding for “Our Birds” is provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring
safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods, and
life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the
Web. And the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh
and Minneapolis. A veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians
throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small
companion animals. Additional funding is provided by the Paul E. Stry Foundation of
La Crosse, Wisconsin
hemisphere and migrate in fall and spring, back and forth, to their home in the
southern forests. Their numbers are falling, and they face enormous perils, north and
south. People are working to save them, working to save “Our Birds.”
Woman:
Look at that!
Woman:
Wow!
Woman:
That is amazing to me.
Craig Thompson:
They take the leaves back and they culture fungus on them. Then they eat the fungus.
Narrator:
Change is not always easy to see.
Woman:
Oh, he’s eating it.
Man:
See how he mushes it up and eats it.
Narrator:
These birds watchers.
Woman:
Look at that, going back and forth.
Narrator:
All from Wisconsin.
Man:
A lineated woodpecker.
Narrator:
Are on an adventure through the jungles and beaches, and other wild places of Costa
Rica. And in the process, they are creating change, creating a new model for bird
conservation that could be imitated worldwide. It’s a model pioneered by this man,
Craig Thompson. He’s an ardent birder.
Craig Thompson:
Oh, yeah, it’s just, what are we gonna see next? So you just get so jazzed, and you go,
“Ahh!” He’s backing up. He’s backing up!
Woman:
Oh, he’s turning. He’s moving!
Narrator:
Thompson works as a regional land program supervisor.
Craig Thompson:
Oh, my gosh, it’s a Swainson’s Thrush.
Narrator:
For the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. This is his beat, the Mississippi
River side of the state.
Woman:
I got him!
Craig Thompson:
You got him?
Narrator:
He knows birds and conservation. And he’s traveled the world in his time off putting
the two together in a new way.
Craig Thompson:
We’re calling it conservation birding trips. What we do, is provide trips basically at
cost. So we’re offering bargain basement prices, but the catch is that every birder,
every participant that goes on these trips has to donate $500 per person to a nonprofit conservation organization. And of course, the primary emphasis of that is to
save habitat, to save wintering habitat specifically, for those birds that migrate from
Wisconsin down to Latin America.
Narrator:
Wintering habitat. Home base, really, for these tiny birds for most of the year.
Man:
It’s a Philadelphia Vireo.
Narrator:
And different neotrops need different habitat. Red-eyed Vireos prefer living up in the
canopy of the rainforest. It’s watery coastal mango forest for the Prothonotary
Warbler. Weedy areas at the edges of agricultural fields for the Indigo Bunting. The
Eastern Phoebe likes to hang by rivers and streams. Places that are also valuable and
vulnerable.
Craig Thompson:
The clock is ticking. The population of Latin America is expected to increase by 100
million to 360 million over the next 40 years. That’s a lot more people in a very finite
land mass. They need clothes. They need food. They need shelter. And they’re going
to want all the things that we have in terms of lifestyle, televisions, washers, dryers,
refrigerators. The clock is ticking and we really have a very limited window to try to
protect these remaining big blocks of forest, so we can hang onto the birds that breed
up in the States and then winter down here. Every acre that’s protected makes an
enormous difference.
Narrator:
Fall, by a small pond on the outskirts of Madison. Wisconsin conservationist Charlie
Luthin is on the lookout for the last of the small fall migrants, the neotrops, as
overhead the big migrants move through.
Charlie Luthin:
They came back from the brink. There were times when the Canada Goose was rare in
Wisconsin, but now they’re abundant, because of the protective measures.
Narrator:
Birds are a big concern for Luthin and the non-profit organization he works for. He’s
the executive director of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. It’s a 2,500-
member organization with a budget of more than a million dollars, and a singular
mission.
Charlie Luthin:
We raise money to
Charlie Luthin:
So, for every acre of Central America, it’s much more valuable than an acre of North
America, because it’s holding more birds at a higher concentration.
Narrator:
These migrating birds pour on the miles. That backyard Baltimore Oriole can log up to
3,000, one way. The U.S. first third is probably the easiest part of their incredibly
demanding journey.
Craig Thompson:
Now they actually migrate over the Gulf of Mexico nonstop for 500 miles. That’s going
to take a Baltimore Oriole probably 18 hours. If it hits a head wind, 24 hours. It’s going
to land on the Yucatan Peninsula, exhausted, emaciated. It’s got to be able to eat right
away if it wants to be able to continue its journey another 700, 800, 900 or 1,000
miles south to its wintering grounds, either in Costa Rica or Panama. We have to make
sure that they have quality habitat when they actually arrive on their wintering
grounds. It doesn’t matter how many of them we grow up in Wisconsin if there isn’t a
place for them to winter down here, we’re just growing more birds that are going to
come down here, drift around and die.
Narrator:
And they are.
Craig Thompson:
The Wood Thrush is going down. Kentucky Warblers are going down. Even our
Baltimore Oriole, that species is declining at 1.3% per year.
Narrator:
How to stop that decline when the habitat here is disappearing.
Craig Thompson:
We have never sent money to Latin America, despite the fact that more than half of
our birds are entirely dependent on the these forests that you see around us.
Narrator:
We do, however, send money to Canada. We have for years. Wisconsin hunters buy
water fowl stamps. Those monies buy habitat north, across the border.
Craig Thompson:
Upwards of $100,000 to $200,000 a year that has been applied to protecting breeding
habitats for water fowl in Canada. That’s been going on for the last couple of decades.
You know, the hunters understood the notion of conservation very early. If they want
to keep hunting ducks, there has to be not only breeding habitat for them, but
wintering habitat for them.
Narrator:
Thompson believes it’s time for birders to step up to the plate.
Man:
Everybody on it?
Narrator:
These folks have. Monies raised by these conservation birders have saved more than
2,000 acres of land south of the border for migratory songbirds.
Man:
How’s everybody feeling? Everybody all right?
Narrator:
And in 2009, Thompson helped bring in another partner to purchase land. A big one,
the state of Wisconsin.
Craig Thompson:
I’m very proud to say, for the first time in history, the Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources has actually donated a substantial amount of funding to help
protect the wintering habitat in Latin America for our migratory birds. It’s never
happened before. Ground breaking in terms of the department’s participation.
Narrator:
The state of Wisconsin donated $20,000 to save wintering habitat here. Note that
Wisconsin’s donation to save Wisconsin’s birds didn’t require tax dollars.
Craig Thompson:
It’s not tax dollars that are being used. It was a wonderful donation called the Bell
Family Foundation. It’s money that’s actually been donated to the agency. We made a
conscious decision to apply those funds to help purchase the Cerro Osa property.
Narrator:
The Cerro Osa.
Craig Thompson:
Two-thirds of this property is primary forest. It’s the good stuff. Never been cut.
Thousand-year-old trees.
Narrator:
Here’s a look. In the foreground is Cerro Osa, a 1,500-acre property, forested and
wild. In the background, past the hills, is the southern tip of Corcovado, Costa Rica’s
largest national park, 100,000 acres. The goal is to create a corridor of protected land,
from Corcovado, including the Cerro Osa property, and extending to the southern tip
of the Osa Peninsula. This peninsula, the Osa Peninsula, is a very rare place.
Craig Thompson:
It is literally one of the most biodiverse places on the planet. It’s this big chunk of land
that sticks into the Pacific. It’s covered with forest. And one of the reasons this
peninsula is so significant is not only because it has all kinds of species, many of which
are found nowhere else in the world, but because there are still big blocks of forest
here, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of forest, essentially in tact.
Narrator:
It’s a mecca for thousands of birds, including our migrants.
Charlie Luthin:
We have 240 species of breeding birds in Wisconsin. Of those, at least 54 species, so
25% of our Wisconsin birds are spending the winter in a very, very tiny piece of real
estate, the Osa peninsula of Costa Rica. If we can save a portion of the Osa Peninsula,
we’ll be able to protect a lot of our Wisconsin birds.
Craig Thompson:
There are all kinds of species that breed in Wisconsin that depend on these big blocks
of forest, Swainson’s Thrush, Kentucky Warbler, Wood Thrush, Olive-sided Flycatcher.
They’re dependent on these forests. If the forests aren’t there, what happens from
the practical standpoint is they’re pushed into secondary habitats, and a lot just don’t
make it.
Orioles and Ocelots – Costa Rica
Narrator:
They need a large intact forest. They aren’t alone. The forests of the Osa Peninsula are
still wild enough, still big enough to support five different species of wild cats.
Ricardo Moreno:
They hunt in a huge home range. Sometimes around 100 square kilometers, 400
square kilometers, and sometimes more than 1,000 square kilometers.
Narrator:
Ricardo Moreno is a Costa Rican researcher who knows his forests.
Ricardo Moreno:
It’s the garlic tree, the ajo tree. It’s one of the biggest around.
Narrator:
And his felines.
Ricardo Moreno:
They will have different sounds, and one of those is like– (imitates a roar)
Narrator:
And the connections between these so-called large cats, the jaguarundi, the ocelot,
the puma, the margay and the jaguar, these wild cats of the Osa, and Wisconsin
warblers.
Ricardo Moreno:
The connection between the jaguars and the birds of Wisconsin is pretty big. Jaguars
are a keystone species and umbrella species. If we can protect the range, the huge
home range of the jaguar, we can protect all the animals inside, the birds and the
other species can come and be safe.
Narrator:
Moreno and his research partner, Aida Bustamante, have pioneered a multi-year
study of wild cat population dynamics and habitat needs.
Ricardo Moreno:
This is one of our best places. We like it a lot.
Narrator:
To study these secretive creatures, they’ve set up one of the largest camera trap
survey grids in the world. More than 100 square kilometers large, across the Osa
Peninsula.
Ricardo Moreno:
Hopefully, we get some wild cats. Cross your fingers. Wow, this is a margay.
Narrator:
Margays can spend their entire lives up here in these trees, just like a bird, and never
touch down.
Ricardo Moreno:
We can identify the individual with the spot patterns, because every single animal has
different spot patterns.
Narrator:
And like our birds, many of these wild cats are under pressure.
Ricardo Moreno:
We know between 2008 and 2009, nine jaguars were killed. And it’s a lot. A lot of
jaguars killed.
Jo Garret:
Moreno explains, one of these conservation concerns in a PowerPoint for Thompson’s
conservation birding group.
Ricardo Moreno:
People still trade the skins here in the Osa Peninsula. That is horrible. Look at this. This
is an ocelot fur coat in Italy, in the black market in Italy. How many ocelot that people
need to make one fur coat like this? Give me one number. Sixteen? 20? Okay, people
need at least 30 ocelots to make one fur coat like this. Most of them have destroyed
our cameras, or stole our cameras. If we don’t do something really, really hard and
really good with the locale people, we have a forest without jaguars. And I cannot
imagine something like this.
Narrator:
The solution was in
Ricardo Moreno:
If you know where one jaguar is walking around, and you come with us and put the
camera, and if the jaguar cross in front of the camera and we get a picture, we pay to
you. And all the poachers are like, wow, hmm. Okay, it’s easy. You need to talk with
your friends, the other poachers around, because if one of your friends stole the
camera, or broke, you don’t have the money.
Narrator:
Save the camera. Save money. Save the wild cats, and save our birds.
Ricardo Moreno:
Everything in the wildlife and in the forests have a connection. Everything. We cannot
see, like jaguars on this side, birds on this side. All that fauna are together. If we can
keep the forests like this, I think it’s magic. It’s going to continue coming back, go to
North America, and come to the Neotropics.
People are the Key – Costa Rica
Ricardo Moreno:
The local people are the key of the conservation around this area. If we don’t change
the mind of the people here, we don’t do anything very, very good.
Narrator:
Juan Felice Mendoza Suarez is one of the those local people. His family goes back
generations in the Osa.
Juan Felice Mendoza Suarez (translated from Spanish):
This is a Cedro Bateo. It grows to be a very large tree. But in the forest, we have
already planted 700, 800 of these.
Adrian Forsyth:
So, anyways, it’s an experiment to try.
Kory Kramer:
Okay.
Adrian Forsyth:
And it’ll be dirt cheap, which is what we like. We like dirt cheap, right?
Narrator:
Forsyth is one of the world’s top conservationists, a tropical scientist, he’s not a
birder. He’s a dung beetle specialist.
Adrian Forsyth:
You know, I’m really a bug person by nature. I think that’s because of my extreme
myopia. I like to look at little close-up things. I like nothing better than to just sit on a
log watching an army ant swarm going by.
Narrator:
And maybe that explains his start small, think big approach to conservation. On this
day, he’s showing Kory Kramer, the supervisor of the Cerro Osa, a new process for
preserving bamboo, that could grow into a lucrative local business using local and dirt
cheap materials.
Adrian Forsyth:
If you make guava leaf tea, you get this stuff that looks like Coca-Cola. I made a bunch
last night on the stove.
Narrator:
Forsyth has also come up with a dirt cheap and very innovative research model for
restoring damaged forest land on the Cerro Osa. It’s funded through contributions
from various Wisconsin businesses, including Neenah Paper.
Craig Thompson:
They are contributing $60,000 over three years to help reforest areas that have lost
their original forest cover. The funds go directly into raising seedlings, and providing
funds for those people who are planting those trees.
Narrator:
The funds for this replanting project are routed through the Natural Resources
Foundation of Wisconsin. And the project includes some unexpected co-collaborators.
Charlie Luthin:
I figured when you have to replant a rainforest, you’ve got to plant 140 different
species of trees.
Narrator:
Not so.
Charlie Luthin:
In fact, if you plant the species that attract the animals, they will recreate a rainforest.
They eat the fruits. They eat the nuts. They walk through the woods and they poop.
They leave the seeds on the ground. It’s as simple as that. Birds fly over head. They
drop seeds when they poop. Bats fly in. They may have some seeds attached to their
fur. Or something like a parrot, or a fruit-eating bird, may eat the fruit part and drop
the seed. So you get your native animals to come in and do the work for you, if you
attract them in. It’s a brilliant idea.
Narrator:
They’re concentrating on 30 species of trees, with attractive seeds and fruits. Kramer
shows Thompson’s conservation birding group the tree farm.
Kory Kramer:
These are all wild nutmeg. They call it fruita dorado here, like golden fruit. It opens
up and it has a bright red aril, and that’s what toucans, monkeys and other animals
eat. They’ll grab that seed. You know how toucans eat, right? They flip it up and they
swallow it. They eat that and then they regurgitate that seed. They don’t stay in one
place, obviously. They’ll fly somewhere and then they’ll spit that seed out.
Narrator:
So from these select trees, a complete rainforest can emerge. Those who plant those
trees, like Suarez, are critical to that effort.
Juan Felice Mendoza Suarez (translated from Spanish):
I like working in the forest. To me, working in the Cerro Osa is like my passion. To
know that a tree I am planting will someday have a Lapa bird or some other bird
arrive, or some little animal will eat from what I am planting. That is the best part for
me.
Adrian Forsyth:
Now, people are starting to see the forests as a resource that can create jobs for local
people that are based on living with the forest rather than being against the forest.
Narrator:
Given time and helped by this innovative planting project, rainforests will grow to
resemble these. But Friends of the Osa is also supporting innovative alternatives to
harvesting trees here.
Adrian Forsyth:
If you tell farmers they can’t go and cut a 500-year-old tree to build a barn, you have
to provide some alternative to them.
Narrator:
This is an alternative. Bamboo.
Alfredo Quintero (translated from Spanish):
I like bamboo very much.
Narrator:
Alfredo Quintero has a doctoral degree in agronomy. He’s worked and studied abroad,
but made the decision to return to his father’s farm, here in the Osa.
Alfredo Quintero (translated from Spanish):
Bamboo is a very good plant. When someone needs to construct something there is
no need to cut down the forest, cut down anything, only bamboo.
Narrator:
Quintero has planted species that are non-invasive and can be viewed here in his
demonstration garden.
Adrian Forsyth:
They grow in a clump and you can manage them, just the way you manage an orange
tree. It doesn’t take off into the forest and become a pest. But you know, it provides
great framing timber for making lightweight, super strong structures.
Narrator:
Bamboo is strong enough to serve as scaffolding.
Adrian Forsyth:
There’s a business in providing green, sustainably managed materials. You get usable,
terrifically strong bamboo in five years, versus waiting 500 years for a rainforest tree
to finally mature.
Narrator:
Quintero’s goal, supported by Friends of the Osa, is to get local farmers to see
bamboo as a sustainable, sometimes superior substitute for wood from the forest.
Alfredo Quintero (translated from Spanish):
Our idea is to have a certain number of hectares planted in the peninsula. The
farmers can sell their bamboo and have income for their families.
Golden-winged Warblers
Narrator:
This scientist hopes to provide farmers with a new crop, a new source of income that
will also save the forest and our birds. Thousands of miles north, in Wisconsin’s Vilas
County, another researcher, Amber Roth, is searching for ways to save our birds with
a different kind of forest.
Amber Roth:
This is an aspen clear-cut that is about seven years old. We have a Golden-winged
Warbler nest right in front of me.
Narrator:
Here’s the important takeaway from what Roth just said. It’s the tie between this
young scrubby aspen forest that grows up after a clear-cut, and this Golden-winged
Warbler nest. The nest was abandoned because of predators, but that fact that a
Golden-winged nested here says that this type of forest is ideal for this sort of bird.
Amber Roth:
He’s got a nest that he needs to get back to.
Narrator:
But Golden-wings are in trouble. Their numbers are in serious decline. The birds face a
triple whammy. Their annual migrations are ordeal enough.
Amber Roth:
It’s thousands of miles, potentially, that they’re traveling. It’s a long ways on those
little wings.
Narrator:
Once in their winter
Man:
A Golden-winged Warbler!
Man:
Golden-winged Warbler.
Man:
Okay, go above the light, and to the right of the light.
Man:
You got him!
Man:
Golden-winged Warbler.
Man:
Wow.
Amber Roth:
There he goes.
Narrator:
While back on their summer breeding grounds, these low shrublands, perfect for
hiding a ground-based nest are disappearing. Research is critical. And Wisconsin is a
critical place.
Adrian Forsyth:
Wisconsin is known as the epicenter for Golden-winged Warbler breeding.
Amber Roth:
These guys like young shrublands.
Narrator:
And Golden-wings aren’t the only ones.
Woman:
I have a male Chestnut-sided Warbler.
Narrator:
There are many birds that prefer this kind of place.
Amber Roth:
We have got a Black-and-white Warbler. This attracts birds that like a dense shrub
layer. This is a Mourning Warbler. Because they have a lot of cover for their nests.
Okay, there you go, dear.
Narrator:
This landscape is valuable for these birds. It may also be increasingly valuable for us.
That intersection is the focus of her research.
Amber Roth:
We’re part of a big cellulosic ethanol project with a variety of researchers who are
really interested in what the future potential is for using aspen and grasslands for
potential sources for cellulosic ethanol.
Narrator:
Fill ‘er up. With aspen.
Amber Roth:
You can make ethanol from any kind of plant material. That’s what we’re trying to
look for, is sort of a win-win scenario between our economic needs and the needs of
wildlife. You know, is there a way that we can help our fuel prices, and can we also
create better habitat for wildlife at the same time?
Woman:
Here. There you go.
Narrator:
Logging is big business in Wisconsin. And one that has faced rocky times.
Amber Roth:
They’re very interested in new options, especially with the way prices are in the
timber industry. Cellulosic ethanol is a big, emerging industry that has a lot of
potential. When contractors come out and cut a site like this, there’s a bunch of
branches and twigs, and portions of the trees that aren’t used. It could be that they
use more of the forest when they cut. They lose the potential of using what we call
waste wood for cellulosic ethanol.
Narrator:
Can a new industry take wing?
Amber Roth:
This might be a juvenile Nashville Warbler.
Canopy Tower – Panama
Narrator:
Can we change the way we see this landscape, see this forest as a place that provides
fuel for us, jobs for the future, and sustenance for our birds? To see a new way. To
work with the forest instead of against it, in the north and in the south, and in the
process, protect our birds. Deep in the rainforest of Panama, Raul Arias, a
businessman, politician and a leading light in Panama’s conservation community, fell
in love.
Raul Arias:
I don’t know why, but I did fell in love with this structure. It was a radar when the Cold
War was at its height. The idea was to detect missiles coming from Cuba, or from the
Soviet Union, to attack the canal, an early warning type of thing.
Narrator:
It was an abandoned U.S. radar station overlooking the Panama Canal.
Raul Arias:
I knew it could become a great birding lodge. Here, you see canopy birds at eye level.
Narrator:
Now, it’s called Canopy Tower, and it’s one of the top birding sites in the world. It
helped spark an industry in eco-tourism in Panama.
Raul Arias:
There was no preced
Jose Rafael Soto:
The male is right next to her.
Narrator:
The forest around Canopy Tower and the Panama Canal is now a national park. When
the United States controlled the canal, for security reasons, there was no
development allowed. It was an inadvertent windfall that saved bird habitat, and is
critical for the smooth operation of the canal.
Raul Arias:
The forest here has not only aesthetic value for enjoyment and eco-tourism, but also
it protects the watershed of the canal. It’s vital for Panama’s economy, the Canal and
fresh water. It makes the watershed to be in good condition. If you have a good forest
in the winter, the rains come and they just wash into the ocean, into the sea.
Narrator:
An intact forest can provide the fuel for a canal, and shelter and food for our birds.
The fuel for that long journey north.
Window Strikes – Milwaukee
Narrator:
It’s a day in May, a bleak and blustery day in downtown Milwaukee.
Scott Diehl:
Whoa! Wind hazard!
Narrator:
It’s early morning, and Scott Diehl is on a search and rescue mission. Search and
rescue for small survivors like these. Diehl is the director of Wildlife Rehabilitation for
the Wisconsin Humane Society in Milwaukee.
Scott Diehl:
A lot of glass. I think the bird collision issue has been one that has not had much
awareness to date. And when these buildings were built, there wasn’t an awareness
about the magnitude of this problem. Reasonable estimates place the mortality
between 100 million and a billion native birds dying in North America each year in
window collisions.
Narrator:
They hit the glass and they die. It’s a phenomenon called window strikes. Hundreds of
millions of neotrops perish every year in North America. The problem is particularly
acute in Milwaukee, which is dead center in the Lake Michigan Flyway, a bird
migration highway, and oh, so different from the rainforests back home.
Scott Diehl:
What happens down in this urban canyon down here, downtown Milwaukee, is
there’s so much confusion. There’s so much glass, and so many reflective surfaces that
the birds really get confused. They land in this area and then it’s literally a gauntlet of
glass and steel and concrete that they just are not prepared to deal with.
Narrator:
And all these reflections and light in this gauntlet of glass can cause collisions.
Scott Diehl:
They hit the building for one of two reasons. Either they see the lights at night when
they’re migrating and they get confused by the lights. The other reason they collide is
daytime collisions, where it’s just reflections of the landscape on the glass.
Narrator:
Or the birds actually see through these windows to greenery beyond, and think
they’ve found a passageway.
Scott Diehl:
They have no concept of glass. And if you think about the jungle or the forest where
these birds live, it’s much like flying through the trees, where there are gaps, and so
on, and winding their way through the foliage. So when they see in one window and
out another, they think they can pass through there, you know, with deadly
consequences.
Narrator:
So, every morning during migration season, Diehl and a team of volunteers fan out
across the city. It’s search and rescue below big buildings with many windows. It’s
search and rescue to count the dead and save the injured. WIngs is the name of
Diehl’s rescue group. Wisconsin Night Guardians for songbirds.
Scott Diehl:
We’ve got a little bird up ahead here. I’m going to go up and see if I can snag the little
guy.
Narrator:
Just outside one of the city’s biggest skyscrapers, Diehl finds his first casualty, a bright
yellow warbler, lying still against the gray cement.
Scott Diehl:
It’s a Canada Warbler. Ah, poor little guy, or girl, as the case may be.
Narrator:
Research has shown that one out of every two window strikes leads to a fatality.
Often birds that may appear merely stunned have internal injuries that lead to their
demise.
Scott Diehl:
We’ve got a Nashville Warbler that was found dead down at U.S. Bank, north side of
Michigan, between Cass and Van Buren. This bird that weighs ten grams has flown to
Costa Rica or Panama to Wisconsin, across so many hazards. They’re at once amazing
in their capability flying those distances and traversing all those mountain ranges,
rivers and oceans, and yet, you know 1/16″ thick piece of glass is enough to stop them
permanently. Staggering, staggering. And we’re talking about dump trucks full of
these beautiful birds, just dying senselessly. And again, most of us aren’t even aware
of the issue. If something the size of a deer was laying dead outside these businesses
each morning, or ten or 20 of them, you can really believe that someone to take
notice.
Narrator:
Most are in the dark about this problem. The Wisconsin Humane Society is on a
mission to change that.
Scott Diehl:
It’s great to be able to treat that bird and hopefully rehabilitate it, get it out again, get
it released. But how much better is it to prevent this in the first place? To stop this
needless death and suffering for birds.
Narrator:
Rehabilitation is costly. And wildlife rehabilitators receive no public dollars. They exist
on private donations. So the volunteers not only collect birds, they also compile
information on the location of the window strikes. The hope is to persuade business
owners to take steps to cut down on collisions.
Scott Diehl:
We want to be able to go back to them and say, here’s what we found, and be able to
actually document the problem. It gives us a little bit of backup when we approach
these folks and ask them to help us save birds.
Narrator:
Cutting down on collisions needn’t be costly. In fact, it can save businesses money. A
voluntary program called “Lights Out Toronto” hits the off switch from 11pm to 6am
during fall and spring migrations.
Scott Diehl:
Those businesses saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and reduced their carbon
footprint.
Narrator:
Easy peel window treatments. Put them up during migration, then take them down,
on just the first two floors of buildings and homes can cut down enormously on death
and injuries from daytime collisions.
Jo Garrett:
Dead or alive?
Scott Diehl:
Alive! Fortunately, alive, which is wonderful.
Narrator:
The little warbler Diehl found is alive. Diehl bundles the bird into a simple paper bag.
It’s dark and safe. And the bird won’t injure herself if she flutters about and tries to
fly. And it’s off to the Humane Society.
Woman:
Window collisions, we’ll look for eye injuries, head injuries, blood coming from the
mouth. You can see this eye is a little bit swollen. It looks a little dehydrated, kind of
droopy-eyed. It’s not open all the way, like this one is. I’m just testing to see how they
bounce back into place. If they’re broken, they’ll droop down and they won’t pop back
into place like this one’s doing. He looks in good condition. I’m not feeling any breaks
in the wings.
Narrator:
After assessment, it’s time for a little rehydration and a warbler-sized amount of
medicine.
Scott Diehl:
I’m just going to put it on the seam of the bill. This helps with pain, and swelling, and
inflammation.
Narrator:
The same day as this rescue, Diehl drove to Doctors Park, north of Milwaukee, to
band–
Scott Diehl:
Okay, bud. Be careful.
Narrator:
And release four birds brought back to health after window strikes.
Scott Diehl:
So, just roll him over there, Elizabeth, and let me get a leg. Okay, ready to go. Be
careful there, kiddo. Don’t you hit any windows. Ah, success. Ha-ha! Wonderful. Oh, I
hope they do well. We gave them a second chance, anyway. There’s 10,000 windows
between here and where some of these guys want to be. So we’re hoping that people
will get involved and take action on their own homes and businesses to help these
little guys make it.
Forest Beach – Ozaukee County
Narrator:
The migrations of these tiny birds, traveling thousands of miles twice a year, is full of
peril.
Jose Rafael Soto:
Somebody who lived near my mother’s house had a Baltimore Oriole in a cage. It was
very sad for me to know that this bird traveled for miles and miles, to get down to
Panama and get trapped. I told him, you have to let it go, because it needs to go back
home. If you want to see him, put a feeder outside your house, and it will come to the
feeder. Then you will provide him with food, like you would with people who migrate.
You offer them water and food to keep going. Well, do it with the birds, too.
Narrator:
They need shelter and food, stopover habitat. And 30 miles north of Milwaukee,
they’re making some. Just outside of Port Washington, people had the vision to put
this old golf course to new use. From swing time to sing time. This 116-acre parcel was
purchased by the Ozaukee Washington Land Trust. Shawn Graff is the director.
Shawn Graff:
We purchased the site with the idea that it’s number one function here is for the
birds. Literally. As a matter of fact, we changed the name from Squires Country Club
to Forest Beach Migratory Preserve. This was a real opportunity. This was one of the
last remaining 100+ acre sites that was not developed on Lake Michigan.
Narrator:
This lake is a critical flyway for migrating birds. Birds need this lake and land along it.
Kim Grveles, conservation biologist for the Wisconsin Department of Natural
Resources, and one of the advisors to the Forest Beach project.
Kim Grveles:
They migrate at night, and they fly all night. Many flocks will find themselves out over
Lake Michigan when dawn hits. They can’t put down in the water, so they must find
habitat quickly, because they could easily get picked off by a hawk that’s also
migrating at that time of the year.
Narrator:
They need protection and they need food.
Kim Grveles:
When they arrive at a stopover site, oftentimes their energy stores have been
depleted and they are voraciously hungry. They’re actively foraging and feeding, and
moving around in the trees and shrubs, and grabbing what insects they can find.
Narrator:
Birds touch down and bulk up all along Lake Michigan. Biologists describe the quality
of the landing spots this way.
Kim Grveles:
The Grveles escape, the convenience store, and the full service hotel. Well, a Grveles
escape is a place that will save the bird’s life when it’s migrating. It’s going to be a very
nominal habitat, such as a hedgerow in a box store, or even the railing of a ship on
Lake Michigan. It gives the bird a place to put down and rest.
Narrator:
Next up, the convenience store. Kind of what’s here now.
Kim Grveles:
A convenience store would be the next best thing for a bird. It may not replace all the
energy that the bird has spent, but it will give it some replacement. A full service hotel
would be a large landscape with a mosaic of different habitat types. That would give
them everything they need to build up their energy stores for a long fight.
Shawn Graff:
Different species need different habitats. We’re hoping to have woods. We’re going to
have grassland. We’ll have savannah. We’ll have shrubland, all different types of areas
for different species to have their best shot at surviving that journey that they take
along the flyway. We’re told by some of our experts that this is the first time that
they’ve heard of a preserve that’s being developed specifically for migratory stopover
habitat. They haven’t heard of one in Wisconsin, or anywhere in the country. This is
one of those projects where a lot of people thought, you know, you’re crazy, buying
this golf course and trying to turn it into preserve. They thought I had gone cuckoo.
It’s really a pleasure and rewarding that we’re making it happen.
Habitat Created, Habitat Found
Narrator:
Habitat, created. Habitat, found. On the other side of the state, Craig Thompson is
birding in his home town of La Crosse.
Craig Thompson:
It’s a little warbler called a Tennessee Warbler. That’s it, right there. (imitates
warbler’s song) It’s got this accelerating staccato call. That bird just spent the winter,
probably in Costa Rica, and is headed to boreal Canada to breed. This is a species that
we’ll only hear during migration.
Narrator:
The sharper-eyed among you may have noticed the headstones behind Thompson.
Yes, that’s right, he’s birding in a cemetery. And here’s the story. Cemeteries have a
role to play in international conservation efforts for migrating birds. This one is called
Oak Grove, and it’s not way out in the suburbs. Nope, it’s nearly downtown.
Craig Thompson:
We’re almost smack in the middle of the city of La Crosse. It’s a town of 50,000. It’s
highly urbanized. It’s busy, busy, busy.
Narrator:
Take a look at the city of La Crosse, and it’s easy to see how places like cemeteries can
provide a little pocket of green, a kind of avian pit stop for the birds. Oak Grove joins
up with the La Crosse marsh on one end, making for 80 acres in the heart of the city.
It’s inadvertent, but terrific bird habitat. The soundtrack tells the story.
Craig Thompson:
I hear a ball game going on behind us, or some kind of baseball practice. I can hear car
traffic and vehicles over on Lang Drive. At the same time, we’re hearing American
Redstarts, a Yellow Warbler way off in the distance, a Baltimore Oriole, Chipping
Sparrows, and the works. So it’s this mishmosh of all kinds of nature and urban
environment that come together.
Narrator:
Okay, they don’t mind the city. But what draws them here? Let’s go back to that
overview of La Crosse. It’s a river town, built on the banks of the Mississippi. Think
Interstate for migrating birds.
Craig Thompson:
It’s a monstrous river, in fact the largest river in the United States that gets
tremendous traffic, both from people and from wildlife, particularly migratory birds.
You get millions of birds, literally, that funnel up the Mississippi, especially to the bird
that’s just migrated up, and they’re exhausted and they’re really hungry. They drop
down and they have to find something to eat. If they drop in a bed of gravel with a
couple of mums poking out of it, that’s not a good habitat for them.
Narrator:
This place wasn’t landscaped for birds. It was landscaped for aesthetics. What resulted
is a pretty, peaceful place that is also, happily, an avian smorgasbord. Which is great,
because different birds have different dining demands.
Craig Thompson:
This is perfect. There are young trees. There are old trees. There are shrubs down
near the ground level that the thrushes and the towhees will hop around in. So,
you’ve got birds that are scattered throughout that entire zone, from ground layer up
to canopy. They’re everywhere. The birds just love it. There’s an oriole singing above
us right now. As habitats continue to shrink worldwide, these kinds of places are going
to provide safe refuge for birds, ultimately, if they’re done right. So to have this series
of habitats that are linked in some way, along their entire migratory pathway is vital
for the conservation of all species that migrate back and forth.
Narrator:
And every bit of green, of the right kind, can help. Thompson takes us to his backyard.
Craig Thompson:
This yard is less than two-tenths of an acre, and we’ve got it crammed wall-to-wall
with flowers and flowering shrubs and trees.
Narrator:
Neighbors may see a pretty yard. Migrating neotrops will see an avian diner full of
bugs, full of food.
Craig Thompson:
This is all basically native plants. These are species called Culver’s Root, Bergamot,
Rigid Stem Goldenrod, New England Aster, and a host of other things that are all
planted to benefit bugs. So when this is blossoming, when it’s at the peak of
phenology blossom-wise, in midsummer, this place is a nectar factory.
Narrator:
It’s a food factory underfoot, too. Check out the lawn.
Craig Thompson:
What I want to point out here is that this is just filled with weeds. We’ve got clover,
and we’ve got chickweed, and we’ve got plantain, and we’ve got dandelions. I don’t
make an effort to get rid of any of them. The reason I don’t is because monotypic,
dense turfgrass is a biological desert. It doesn’t provide a lot of habitat for anything.
You want to provide plants that bugs feed on. Then those in turn feed bigger bugs.
Those in turn feed birds. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish here. The Siskens and
the Goldfinches come in and eat the dandelions. The Chipping Sparrows will eat these
dandelion heads. Anybody can plant their yard to make it worthwhile for wildlife. It’s
really easy. It’s fun. It takes a little bit of time to see it come into maturity, but it’s
incredibly satisfying. And to see the birds respond when they come in, jackpot.
Mission accomplished.
Narrator:
And as if on cue, minutes later, we hit the jackpot.
Craig Thompson:
I just heard the “chip” back here. It won’t be coming into these, we’re too close, but,
there it is! Here it comes into the humming bird feeder. This is so cool. Here’s a bird
that just spent the winter in Central America. Somehow, in a miraculous flight, made
it all the way across the Gulf of Mexico. This is a bird that weighs less than a dime. It
flew nonstop across the Gulf of Mexico and somehow flew all the way up through
every conceivable hazard to get to our backyard. Now it’s feeding here and nesting
here.
Narrator:
Of course, this is all backyard for the birds. The wintering grounds. The summer
nesting territory. And the flyways that stretch between. Saved, created, added to, by
the efforts of governments and organizations. But most often, by the push of
individuals.
Adrian Forsyth:
We need committed, passionate individuals.
Man:
Good morning.
Craig Thompson:
Hi, nice to see you again. One individual can make so much difference.
Narrator:
In Panama, monies donated by the birders of Thompson’s conservation birding trip
paid for three years of operating expenses, including mist nets, and collection bags,
and materials to collect data, for a bird banding station run by researcher Chelina
Batista and her volunteer crew.
Chelina Batista:
This is a station, which is monitoring overwinter, station for migratory birds. Because
we are interested to know what happened with the bird that came from the USA, and
they spend their winter here.
Narrator:
From deep in the rainforest from Central America … To a park in downtown
Milwaukee, Tim Vargo, research director of the Urban Ecology Center, oversees
another crew of volunteers.
Tim Vargo:
The value is tremendous. The work that our volunteers are doing are published in
peer review journals.
Man:
13.5 grams.
Tim Vargo:
They are doing real science.
Narrator:
Miles apart, working together.
Chelina Batista:
If we can save that bird coming from North America, we are saving also, our bird. Or if
we save the bird here, we can save the bird there.
Woman:
Oh, you pretty thing. Look at you!
Narrator:
Birds can connect us.
Woman:
This is so cool.
Raul Arias:
It’s just one planet.
Jo Garrett:
The birds know it.
Woman:
Hey, sweet thing, how are ya? If you’re happy, I’m happy. Oh, my god! That was so
incredible!
Tim Vargo:
Carijean, you haven’t let a bird go in a while, do you want to do this one?
Narrator:
Volunteer Carijean Buhk.
Carijean Buhk:
You are holding a bird that might have started in Mexico, Panama, or somewhere else,
and we’re just a tiny part of its life. You realize that you’re part of something really
big, and yet really small at the same time. You can go now.
Woman:
There he goes!
Narrator:
These small travelers.
Scott Diehl:
It’s a Canada Warbler.
Narrator:
Sky jewels, seldom seen.
Woman:
This might be a juvenile Nashville Warbler.
Narrator:
Reminds us of the sky we share, their song speaks to our connection.
Jose Rafael Soto:
We have to work as a team. We have to look at this as not just as two separate
countries, but one land, one big piece of land for the birds.
Announcer:
Major funding for “Our Birds” was provided by the people of Alliant Energy, who bring
safe, reliable and environmentally friendly energy to keep homes, neighborhoods, and
life in Wisconsin running smoothly. Alliant Energy, offering energy saving ideas on the
Web. And the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee, Oshkosh
and Minneapolis. A veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians
throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small
companion animals. Additional funding is provided by the Paul E. Stry Foundation of
La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.