I’ve been here in The Lung for almost 20 years now. The time has flown. Nature is still as mysterious as ever. I take such joy in simple things like the return of the many species of flycatchers that come back year after year. I say “simple” like an arrogant human, but it’s not simple at all. Every spring is different. So far the constants are the paper wasps, flycatchers, robins and bluebirds, and kestrels. There are species I don’t see anymore that I used to take for granted – the
Heyo. Happy Sunday. I was thinking about the bobolink and I wondered if more than poison, it was habitat loss that was causing their declines. Not because I wanted to be right, but because I'm finding that habitat loss is more and more the culprit to declining species of all kinds. Turns out I was right, tho. They are actually a grassland species, and they're main threat is land converted for wheat production. Going to throw the armyworm back on here cause it makes sense that this would be an entire ecological process. The more farmers destroy the land, the less bobolinks, the more armyworms. Food chains gone amok - it's a positive feedback loop.
I was thinking about Leslie Marmon Silko and her parrots being attacked by the owl, and her cursing the bulldozers. It's happening everywhere. In North Carolina, they are rapidly building new housing and it's destroying their wetlands. It's causing the Venus fly trap populations to decline rapidly - it may cause them to go extinct in the wild. It sucks because people who go out and collect wild plants for income, can't collect anymore and they get fined big time. Even indigenous folks can't go out and collect medicinal plants because of the declining numbers. They keep blaming over-harvesting, but it really is only because the land is quickly disappearing. Don't even get me started on ginseng.
There were a couple things I said that I wanted to correct:
1) I retracted my views of flooding, but I was right. It's both that the aquifer isn't getting replenished, and there will be flooding. It's because the climate change will intensify storms, but the raising temps will cause quicker evaporation.
2) I said that they "should let the earth do what it does", but then I watched a documentary on the prairies, and there were some Prairie Indigenous folks who reminded me that they did burning to keep prairie lands grassy. Also having bison do the same thing - they are a keystone species for the grasslands.
3) I keep saying "native" when I know it should be "Indigenous Americans" or "American Indian", or even better their nation. That's my bad. That new info that I have and it takes a minute for my brain to switch gears. I know which nations who lived on/were affiliated with the land I'm on, but there's several so that's why I haven't been referring to a specific nation.
I'm working on having better/correct info before I talk, but everything feels so urgent. That's probably the ADHD.
Hello I'm back. Do you know about the concept of succession? Maybe you learned about it in your soil composition class? Anyway. It's about the armyworm.
So there are invasive species of armyworm, but there is a native north American armyworm. They are found east of the rocky mountains - overlapping farmland in the Midwest. Here's the irony. You know how the Midwest was glaciated, yeah? So what happened is that glacier melted and turned in to a giant lake, and the residual remnants of that giant lake are now the great lakes. The things is, like all things geological, lakes are temporary features in the landscape. Central Illinois was an uninhabitable swamp because it was a lake going in to succession - which is the process of land turning back in to forest as more and more plants grow in and around them. The first plants of succession are small, like violets and dandelions. Then you get tall grasses, etc etc. All of this requires animals, of all kinds, to eat these plants to recycle nutrients back through the soil, via poop and death. Armyworms, I'm assuming, serve the purpose of eating the same type of plants that people are cropping - which in turn puts nutrients back in the soil and helps make room for the next line of succession species.
I was wrong when I was worrying about there being too much water in central Illinois. We are sitting on a very large fresh water aquifer - and we are depleting it to give residents and farmland water. In the meantime we are monocropping and not allowing the land to recover or do what it wants to do. It's going to create a dust bowl in the place that is essential for food production. And the rising temperatures are only going to exacerbate the problem because water evaporates in heat so much quicker. That's why the land is sinking.
Anyway, not all invasive species are threatening, like dandelions. You are a non-threatening invasive species. Maybe your mantle can be made out of north American lepidoptera moths.
If you play Tarrytown or The Cap or Peekskill bw May and September make sure you bring the bins and head over to Croton Point Park major meadow restoration on the landfill plenty of breeding bobolink (a few grasshopper sparrow as well and last year dickcissel too) I remember you calling out a great blue heron from stage when you played the Clearwater Festival there many years back. You’re luck to be up in the Northeast Kingdom.
"All the summer's day, listen to his lay: Bobolink! Bobolink! Splink-splank-splay!" from my piano recital piece circa ~1978 C.W.Krogmann -Zephyrs from Melodyland. Thank you for the ear worm!
Excellent post! I started photographing birds a little over a year ago, and they are such amazing creatures. I have never seen a bobolink but keeping my fingers crossed to see at least one someday.
Love this! We have bobos and meadowlarks on 100 acres in Northumberland County, couple hours from Toronto. The larks are back. No bobos yet. I feel like they come a little later. Love those guys! Waiting for my kestrels. Killers!
I'm definitely going to read these articles, but I just wanted to say that some of the most important works for conservation were not produced by scientists. John Muir, Margory Stoneman Douglass, even Jane Goodall, were not trained in the sciences. They just had a love for nature and were able to communicate it's usefulness. I'm sure there were more people who are like this that I just can't think of right now. Even the campaign to create the NPS was mostly done through photography, and Muir contributed through his books. Art & writing have been just as influential in conservation as anything from academia. Just saying that cause I want you to know you are doing the things 🐦🦆🦅🦉💚🤎 just in case you don't recognize it (and if you do then even better!).
Btw, have you ever considered participating in 'citizen science'? Cornell leads a wonderful study that asks people from all over the country to engage in bird-counts. You might really enjoy that?
Heyo. Happy Sunday. I was thinking about the bobolink and I wondered if more than poison, it was habitat loss that was causing their declines. Not because I wanted to be right, but because I'm finding that habitat loss is more and more the culprit to declining species of all kinds. Turns out I was right, tho. They are actually a grassland species, and they're main threat is land converted for wheat production. Going to throw the armyworm back on here cause it makes sense that this would be an entire ecological process. The more farmers destroy the land, the less bobolinks, the more armyworms. Food chains gone amok - it's a positive feedback loop.
I was thinking about Leslie Marmon Silko and her parrots being attacked by the owl, and her cursing the bulldozers. It's happening everywhere. In North Carolina, they are rapidly building new housing and it's destroying their wetlands. It's causing the Venus fly trap populations to decline rapidly - it may cause them to go extinct in the wild. It sucks because people who go out and collect wild plants for income, can't collect anymore and they get fined big time. Even indigenous folks can't go out and collect medicinal plants because of the declining numbers. They keep blaming over-harvesting, but it really is only because the land is quickly disappearing. Don't even get me started on ginseng.
There were a couple things I said that I wanted to correct:
1) I retracted my views of flooding, but I was right. It's both that the aquifer isn't getting replenished, and there will be flooding. It's because the climate change will intensify storms, but the raising temps will cause quicker evaporation.
2) I said that they "should let the earth do what it does", but then I watched a documentary on the prairies, and there were some Prairie Indigenous folks who reminded me that they did burning to keep prairie lands grassy. Also having bison do the same thing - they are a keystone species for the grasslands.
3) I keep saying "native" when I know it should be "Indigenous Americans" or "American Indian", or even better their nation. That's my bad. That new info that I have and it takes a minute for my brain to switch gears. I know which nations who lived on/were affiliated with the land I'm on, but there's several so that's why I haven't been referring to a specific nation.
I'm working on having better/correct info before I talk, but everything feels so urgent. That's probably the ADHD.
I think that's all.
Hello I'm back. Do you know about the concept of succession? Maybe you learned about it in your soil composition class? Anyway. It's about the armyworm.
So there are invasive species of armyworm, but there is a native north American armyworm. They are found east of the rocky mountains - overlapping farmland in the Midwest. Here's the irony. You know how the Midwest was glaciated, yeah? So what happened is that glacier melted and turned in to a giant lake, and the residual remnants of that giant lake are now the great lakes. The things is, like all things geological, lakes are temporary features in the landscape. Central Illinois was an uninhabitable swamp because it was a lake going in to succession - which is the process of land turning back in to forest as more and more plants grow in and around them. The first plants of succession are small, like violets and dandelions. Then you get tall grasses, etc etc. All of this requires animals, of all kinds, to eat these plants to recycle nutrients back through the soil, via poop and death. Armyworms, I'm assuming, serve the purpose of eating the same type of plants that people are cropping - which in turn puts nutrients back in the soil and helps make room for the next line of succession species.
I was wrong when I was worrying about there being too much water in central Illinois. We are sitting on a very large fresh water aquifer - and we are depleting it to give residents and farmland water. In the meantime we are monocropping and not allowing the land to recover or do what it wants to do. It's going to create a dust bowl in the place that is essential for food production. And the rising temperatures are only going to exacerbate the problem because water evaporates in heat so much quicker. That's why the land is sinking.
Anyway, not all invasive species are threatening, like dandelions. You are a non-threatening invasive species. Maybe your mantle can be made out of north American lepidoptera moths.
Some good news! https://www.adventure-journal.com/2022/04/the-extinct-ivory-billed-woodpecker-not-extinct-after-all/
Love the birds!
If you play Tarrytown or The Cap or Peekskill bw May and September make sure you bring the bins and head over to Croton Point Park major meadow restoration on the landfill plenty of breeding bobolink (a few grasshopper sparrow as well and last year dickcissel too) I remember you calling out a great blue heron from stage when you played the Clearwater Festival there many years back. You’re luck to be up in the Northeast Kingdom.
my main goal in life is to own a little piece of land that i can give back to the native species. to be beloved of the wild.
Thanks for this dear Neko. I also loved the article on condors. Wish they had a live cam of their flights into the yonder.
Much love for the Armyworm Bird. Thank you for noticing for me. I deeply appreciate learning more about The Lung with every missive. <3
Neko, the real "trick" regarding conservation of Bobolinks (as well as other grassland bird species) is preserving large areas of grassland: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/eap.2548
"All the summer's day, listen to his lay: Bobolink! Bobolink! Splink-splank-splay!" from my piano recital piece circa ~1978 C.W.Krogmann -Zephyrs from Melodyland. Thank you for the ear worm!
Excellent post! I started photographing birds a little over a year ago, and they are such amazing creatures. I have never seen a bobolink but keeping my fingers crossed to see at least one someday.
Love this! We have bobos and meadowlarks on 100 acres in Northumberland County, couple hours from Toronto. The larks are back. No bobos yet. I feel like they come a little later. Love those guys! Waiting for my kestrels. Killers!
I'm definitely going to read these articles, but I just wanted to say that some of the most important works for conservation were not produced by scientists. John Muir, Margory Stoneman Douglass, even Jane Goodall, were not trained in the sciences. They just had a love for nature and were able to communicate it's usefulness. I'm sure there were more people who are like this that I just can't think of right now. Even the campaign to create the NPS was mostly done through photography, and Muir contributed through his books. Art & writing have been just as influential in conservation as anything from academia. Just saying that cause I want you to know you are doing the things 🐦🦆🦅🦉💚🤎 just in case you don't recognize it (and if you do then even better!).
Love your guts!
Another amazing post. Thank you, Neko.
Btw, have you ever considered participating in 'citizen science'? Cornell leads a wonderful study that asks people from all over the country to engage in bird-counts. You might really enjoy that?
Love the call of the bobolink, and so many other songbirds. More songbirds! Less chemicals!