Hunting Digital Plumes in the US and Beyond: Welcome California Scrub-Jay plus Nuttall's Woodpecker and Western Meadowlark

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Welcome California Scrub-Jay plus Nuttall's Woodpecker and Western Meadowlark

[California. March 2016]

It is indeed a special moment to be witness to the introduction of a brand new species into the ABA area; yet that is exactly the good fortune that has befallen collectively on all birders in 2016 with the historic splitting of Western Scrub-Jay into California Scrub-Jay and Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay (see article here).

It is not often that we see the making of taxonomic history right in front of our eyes; and thus in euphoric celebration of this glorious occasion, we profile the California Scrub-Jay -- a delightful corvid that was observed earlier this year together with some other species typical of the area:

California Scrub-Jay
Nuttall's Woodpecker
Icterids: Western Meadowlark, Brewer's Blackbird, Tricolored Blackbird and Red-winged Blackbird
Small songbirds: Audbon's Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet

We start by welcoming California Scrub-Jay as a new species to the US:

California Scrub-Jay is a bright blue jay with a black mask, a faint blue necklace and pale undersides.

California Scrub-Jay is primarily coastal (here observed at Los Pensaquitos, San Diego) and ranges from Baja California to Washington State.

Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay, on the other hand, is found in the interior West -- from Nevada to Texas:

Here seen at Tres Pistolas (New Mexico), it is a duller blue, with a duller mask and greyer undersides. The faint necklace is also largely absent. In addition to the plumage, differences also exist in vocalization and bill shape.

Next, Nutall's Woodpecker is a virtual endemic to the state of California:

Here seen at Ramona Grasslands, this small woodpecker favors oak habitat.

Over to Icterids, we start with Western Meadowlark:

Also seen at Ramona Grasslands, this beautiful songster is virtually indistinguishable from its Eastern namesake and best separated by vocalization and range.

Farther north, Brewer's Blackbird was observed in Coyote Valley:

More common is Red-winged Blackbird:

But, perhaps the most notable Icterid observed was Tricolored Blackbird:

A female observed in the same area -- this species is listed as "Endangered" and has suffered a catastrophic decline in numbers thanks to the twin evils of over-development and destructive agricultural practices.

On the small songbird front:

Audubon's Warbler was observed (at Los Pensaquitos) and Ruby-crowned Kinglet at Ramona Grasslands:

Splits and lumps are a fact of life for birders; yet each such event affords an opportunity to reacquaint and rediscover; and, the spectacular California Scrub-Jay is a prime example of a species that invites our attention to renew our relationship with what once was known to us simply as "Western Scrub-Jay".

2 comments:

Bob Pelkey said...: An interesting presentation of one of the updates by the AOU Checklist Committee, Hemant. It was interesting to read elsewhere that the "Western Scrub-Jay" was unlike the Florida Scrub-Jay with the former failing to breed in cooperative groups as does the Florida species. Nice "bonus" birds as well.; November 19, 2016 at 6:23 PM
Digital Plume Hunter said...: Indeed Bob -- the taxonomic landscape continues to evolve: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/goodbye-yellow-rump-will-we-see-a-return-to-myrtle-and-audubons-warblers/; November 20, 2016 at 9:15 PM

What is Plume Hunting?

Plume hunting was big business in the late 1800's. Unfortunately, the dark side to the beauty of plumes led to the slaughter of millions of birds so women could wear fancy hats (Read about Plume Hunting).

Thankfully, in this age of digitization, we can capture most anything we want -- books, music, video, etc. -- digitally. And, with the advent of digital photography at the turn of the millennium, we can once again hunt for plumes -- but digitally; with none of the accompanying destruction. This blog is dedicated to capturing the beauty of nature reflected through the incredible diversity of our avifauna.

Reproduced below is ecofeminist Celia Thaxter's, "Woman’s Heartlessness" (Boston 1886; reproduced from Google Books) which was published at the time when plumes were worth their weight in gold and many species of birds were fast headed toward extinction:

WOMAN’S HEARTLESSNESS
By Celia Laighton Thaxter

When the Audubon Society was first organized, it seemed a comparatively simple thing to awaken in the minds of all bird-wearing women a sense of what their “decoration” involved. We flattered ourselves that the tender and compassionate heart of woman would at once respond to the appeal for mercy, but after many months of effort we are obliged to acknowledge ourselves mistaken in our estimate of that universal compassion, that tender heart in which we believed. Not among the ignorant and uncultivated so much as the educated and enlightened do we find the indifference and hardness that baffles and perplexes us. Not always, heaven be praised! But too often,--I think I may say in two-thirds of the cases to which we appeal. One lady said to me, “I think there is a great deal of sentiment wasted on the birds. There are so many of them, they will never be missed any more than mosquitoes. I shall put birds on my new bonnet.” This was a fond and devoted mother, a cultivated and accomplished woman. It seemed a desperate case, indeed, but still I strove with it. “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?” she asked. “They will soon go out of fashion, and there will be an end of it.” That may be,” I replied, “but fashion next year may order them back again, and how many women will have human feeling enough to refuse to wear them? It was merely waste of breath, however, and she went her way, a charnel-house of beaks and claws and bones and feathers and glass eyes upon her fatuous head.

Another, mockingly, says, “Why don’t you try to save the little fishes in the sea?” and continues to walk the world with dozens of warblers’ wings making her headgear hideous. Not one in fifty is found willing to remove at once the birds from her head, even if, languidly, she does acquiesce in the assertion that it is a cruel sin against nature to destroy them. “When these are worn out I am willing to promise not to buy any more,” is what we hear, and we are thankful, indeed, for even so much grace; but alas! birds never “wear out.” And as their wearer does not carry a placard stating their history, that they were bought last year, or perhaps given to her, and she does not intend to buy any more, her economy goes on setting the bad example, or it may be her indolence is to blame, one is as fatal as the other. Occasionally, but too rarely, we meet with a fine spirit, the fire of whose generous impulse consumes at once all selfish considerations, who recognizes the importance of her own responsibility, and whose action is swift as her thought to pluck our the murderous sign, and go forth free of its dishonor. And how refreshing is the sight of the birdless bonnet! The face beneath, no matter how plain it may be, seems to possess a gentle charm. She might have had birds, this woman, for they are cheap and plentiful enough, heaven knows! But she has them not, therefore she must wear within things infinitely precious,--namely, good sense, good taste, good feeling. Heaven bless every woman who dares turn her back on Fashion and go about thus beautifully adorned!

In one of the most widely circulated newspapers the fashionable news from Paris begins: “Birds are worn more than ever.” Birds “are worn!” Pitiful phrase! Sentence of deadly significance! “Birds are worn,”—as if that were final, as if all women must follow one another like a flock of sheep over a wall, and forget reason, forget the human heart within, forget everything but the empty pride of being “in the fashion.” Ah me, my fire-flecked oriole, watching your airy cradle from the friendly swinging elm bough, go get yourself an inky coat. Your beauty makes you but a target for the accursed gun that shatters your lovely life, quenches your delicious voice, destroys your love, your bliss, your dutiful cares, your whole beautiful being, that your dead body may disfigure some woman’s head and call all eyes to gaze at her! But no,--that will not save you. Blackbirds are not safe, they “are worn.” Carrion crows “are worn,” unsavory scavengers though they be. No matter on what they may have fed,--they “are worn.” Soar, swift sea-swallow,--I would it could be millions of miles away from the haunts of men; to the uttermost parts of the earth and the ocean carry your grace, your slender loveliness of shape, your matchless delicacy of tint and tone of color, soft, wondrous like gray cloud and silvery snow,--fly! dear and beautiful creature; seek the centre of the storm, the heart of the Arctic cold, the winter blast, they are not so unkind as—woman’s vanity. Do I not see you every day, your mocking semblance writhing as if in agony round female heads,--still and stark, sharp wings and tail pointing in stiff distress to heaven, your dried and ghastly head and beak dragged down to point to the face below, as if saying, “She did it.” The albatross of the Ancient Mariner is not more dreadful. Yesterday I saw three of you on one hat! Three terns at once, a horrible confusion of death and dismay.

Does any woman imagine these withered corpses (cured with arsenic) which she loves to carry about, are beautiful? Not so; the birds lost their beauty with their lives. Today I saw a mat woven of warblers' heads, spiked all over its surface with sharp beaks, set up on a bonnet and borne aloft by its possessor in pride! Twenty murders on one! and the face beneath bland and satisfied, for are not "Birds to be worn more than ever?" Flit, sandpiper, from the sea's margin to some loneliness remote and safe from the noble race of man! No longer in the soft May twilight call from cove to cove along the shore in notes that seem to breathe the very spirit of tender joy, of happy love, of sweet content; tones that mingle so divinely with the warm waves' murmur, with the south wind's balm, and sound in music through the dusk, long after the last crimson flash of sunset has faded from the sky year after year you come back to make your nest in the place you know and love, but you shall not live your humble, blissful, dutiful life, you shall not guard your treasured home, nor rejoice when your little ones break the silence with their first cry to you for food. You shall not shelter and protect and care for them with the same divine instinct you share with human mothers. No, some woman wants your corpse to carry on her head. You shall die that vanity, that "Fashion" may live.

I fear we no longer deserve these golden gifts of God. I would the birds could all emigrate to some friendlier planet peopled by a nobler race than ours, where they might live their sweet lives unmolested, and be treated with the respect, the consideration, and the grateful love which are their due. For we have almost forfeited our right to the blessing of their presence.

But still we venture to hope for a better future, still the Audubon and other societies work with heart and soul, to protect and save them, and we trust yet to see the day when women, one and all, will look upon the wearing of birds in its proper light,--namely, as a sign of heartlessness and a mark of ignominy and reproach.

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Sunday, November 6, 2016

Welcome California Scrub-Jay plus Nuttall's Woodpecker and Western Meadowlark

2 comments:

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