Christmas Bird Count Week
Well folks, we did it. All we needed was 34 new observations and we went above and beyond and added 61. This project is now officially on record the year with the most observations, comfortably sitting at 1,086. Let's see how many more we can add with the chaos of Christmas and New Year's.
I'm nominating myself for the Observation of the Week because we need to discuss a very serious issue. It deals with raptors in the West and that's literally what this project is about. This past Sunday was the Christmas Bird Count for Union County, Oregon. I had the task of counting birds throughout the town of Union. We did about three quarters of our route before I saw a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk sitting in someone's yard. When I attempted pictures, he ran away, and it was obvious there was something seriously wrong with his wing. We captured him easily and we rushed to Pendleton in awful winter weather to get him to the raptor rescue. We stayed until we figured out what was wrong with Carl (yes, I named him). It was actually what I had feared from the start. A bullet, presumably from a .22, blasted off the top half of Carl's right scapula muscle and without the support of the bone, it caused the coracoid to twist and tear pectoral ligaments. That's why his wing looked fine upon examination, because it wasn't the wing preventing him from flying but the shoulder. When we pushed back his feathers along his shoulder, we could see the gash the bullet made and the expose bone. The rehab had very little choice but to put him down. The scapula and surrounding muscle are not exactly something you can live without, even if he stayed at the rehab as an education bird. It was truly a heartbreaking moment for me.
As much as I'm furious at the person who shot Carl, I think the blame equally goes to the Oregon Fish and Wildlife. Raptors all over the West are being shot by people. The best loop in the Grand Ronde Valley for raptors normally sees at least one raptor shot by someone every winter. A friend of mine in Idaho drove down a road this summer that had five raptors shot and killed there, two of which were Ferruginous Hawks. The wildlife rehab in Pendleton exists primarily because that many raptors are shot. Why isn't the ODFW not taking cases like this more seriously? Even though we reported Carl's story to them, they likely won't even send a guy over to investigate the recovery scene. They've already proven to me that they don't care of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
In my senior year of high school, I watched a Say's Phoebe build her nest and lay her eggs when I arrived at the sports complex for baseball practice. Kids threatened to destroy the nest, just for the sheer fun of it. I explained it was illegal and I even reported them to the school for thinking about it. Graduation came and my last check on the nest showed three eggs, about 3-5 days from hatching. I came back a week later with a friend and the nest was gone. Not just destroyed but gone. Whoever did it, not only removed the nest but used cleaner as well to remove the dirt that would've inevitably get stuck on the light or the wall of the building. A teenage wouldn't go through the effort to clean the area as well, they'd just destroy it and be on with their lives. That means only one person could've done it: the janitor, aka my baseball coach. I got in touch with the wildlife crime division with Oregon State Police (since ODFW can only investigate, not enforce the law) and the officer on the end of the line, literally told me "All we can do is tell him it's illegal."
As we all know, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act has been a hot topic of debate over the past couple years with how previous administrations have handled it, but I say, what good does it do if law enforcement won't even enforce the law in the first place? I have too many stories of illegal activities against birds to make me believe the cops really care about the law. They have the mentality of, "it's just a bird". So, I believe change starts by promotion. Let everyone know birders like us won't step down to these horrible and illegal acts. In the case of Carl, even if a good decent investigation were to take place, I don't we'd find the culprit, unless a neighbor rats them out. We have no bullet to match up with a gun, but the culprit most likely committed two crimes: one for shooting Carl, two for using a firearm within city limits. What if that bullet missed Carl and hit a kid playing in their front yard? Carl may not find justice, but hopefully if we can spread the word, we can have less incidents like this.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/103340390
We only have a week and a half left of this project, let's see how many observations we can squeeze in in that timeframe. We still need Gyrfalcon and Snowy Owl, so please someone find one. I wish you all the best of luck as always.
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