For possible changes, please check the field trips website page: www.wmrs.edu/birds/2002_field_trips.htm or contact Field Trips Chair Chris Howard at 873-7422.

CALENDAR

Saturday, September 14th - Fall Shorebird Migration - Join Mike Prather to see Owens Lake dust mitigation project ponds, and to see the birds use them. Meet at 8:00AM at the Diaz Lake parking lot 3 miles south of Lone Pine. Bring a lunch, binoculars, scope, hat, sunscreen etc. Prepare to be out until early afternoon. Call Mike at 876-5807 for more info.

Saturday, November 2nd - Adopt-a-Highway clean-up. Meet at Tom's Place for breakfast (if you'd like to) at 8, clean-up at 9. Call John & Ros Gorham for more info: 938-2023.

Saturday, December 7nd - Crowley Reservoir Loons, Ducks, and Bald Eagles with Jon Dunn - Reservations are required for this always popular trip. Call Chris at 873-7422 for reservations, trip info, and meeting time and location.

Christmas Bird Counts: All skill levels are encouraged to participate in the annual Christmas Bird Counts. Theyre a great way to become more familiar with wintering birds and meet new people:

Saturday, December 14th - Bishop Christmas Bird Count - Chris Howard 873-7422

Saturday, December 14th - Lone Pine Christmas Bird Count - Mike Prather 876-5807

The date of the Death Valley CBC will be announced later.

BIRDS IN THE CLASSROOM

Spring Classroom Visits and Field Trips

Once again, spring brought warmer weather, birds returning from warmer southern climes, and the Birds in the Schools program with Audubon volunteers.

We kicked off the season with a field trip to the Sewer Ponds with the Den 2 Cub Scouts and families. Larry Nahm, Jerry Zatorski, Bill Mitchel, and Sara Steck birdwatched with the enthusiastic scouts, and a Sandhill Crane was seen by all.

Then in late April, Sara took the 18- bird slide show to all of the seven third grade classrooms and two Kindergarten classes, one of which was taught in Spanish. It was interesting that at first the 5 and 6 year olds were much more interested in the slide projector, which seemed to be unknown to many of them, than the images of the birds! All of the children were very interested in the birds and had MANY stories of their own to tell.

In May we had 6 field trips to various locations with the third grade classes: Baker Creek, the City Park, behind the schools, and near Dixon Lane. Rosy Beach coordinated showing the teachers how to train children in use of the binoculars provided by Audubon. The students were in groups no larger than 5 with each volunteer, and each student had a pair of Audubon binoculars to use. We had many Audubon members volunteering their mornings to help: Chris Howard, Jerry Zatorski, Larry Nahm, Bill Mitchel, Derrick Vocelka, Debby Parker, James Wilson, Sara Steck, and Troy Kelly. We saw an amazing number of birds, and the students were very enthusiastic. We got a lot of thank you cards with beautiful drawings of birds and wonderful notes, some saying that they would continue birding with family members in the future.

The program was very successful, and hopefully we will have many more birders among us! We look forward to another year of third graders next spring.
Sara Steck

IT'S A WILD LIFE

by Joy Fatooh
BLM Biologist

The Other Story of Arthur the Bear

I dont blame people for being mad, Tim Taylor says. They were acting on what they heard, and they only heard one side of the story.

Tim and his colleagues with the state Department of Fish and Game, Bruce Kinney and Eric Wang, are speaking reluctantly. They dont want to offend anyone, nor stir up dust thats started to settle. But the stories I tell here are from the perspective of wildlife professionals the side that hasnt been told.

Fish and Game manages wildlife populations and preserves habitat. The care of sick or injured individuals isnt among their usual responsibilities, unless they become a public safety threat as may happen when bears get used to people. Scene: Mammoth Lakes, resort town growing on a wooded mountainside.

The gist of the problem is a high density of bears, Tim, a wildlife biologist, tells me. Bruce, Tims boss, says theyve been told as many as 30 live within town limits, and he himself counted eight that make the golf course their home.

They like to bed in the culverts, Tim says, and go out at night to forage and they do eat garbage. My professional opinion is its garbage that makes it possible for that many big, wide-ranging critters to exist in such close proximity. As the population went up it was hard for Fish and Game to respond to all the calls: Theres a bear under my porch and it wont leave. So the Police Department under an agreement with us was trained in a hazing technique to move them out, combined with aversive conditioning loud noises, flashes, rubber bullets, pepper spray trying to make them avoid people.

The town hired former hunter and trapper Steve Searles to spearhead the program. Meanwhile, Bruce says, Theres been significant improvement in type and placement of dumpsters and weve all witnessed dumpsters left open or overfilled. And there are quite a few rumors of residents leaving food out for the bears. Mammoth PD tries to counter all this and the level of problems has decreased.

Tim sums up the range of attitudes: Some people see bears as warm fuzzy creatures that dont get enough love. Some see them as a nuisance and shoot them with a pellet gun when they get into the garbage, and then there are those who are ambivalent or couldnt care less.

Last October Searles noticed an adult male limping. He saw what looked like a bullet hole in the right hind leg. Concerned, he asked a local vet to provide a tranquilizer and a police officer to bring a dart gun. Illegally, Tim says. They werent trained or authorized. It didnt work. The officer darted the bear, it didnt go down, they darted it again, it didnt go down, and then with a bear running around with two darts in its butt they felt compelled to call Fish and Game for help.

Game warden Eric Wangs phone rang the following day. At 10:00 I got the call, at 10:30 I met with Searles, and at 12:00 I called Bruce. To Wang, the darting attempt was cause for grave concern. You need the right drug, the right dose, the hobbles and eye mask. Especially during bear hunting season: if it runs off a hunter could end up ingesting the drug. You need the anti-drugs. And say youre successful, it drops and its drugged then what? The vet wasnt even requested to be on the scene!

Searles said the bear fled through a residential area, climbed a fence and went to its preferred den, a culvert under the golf course. It hadnt acted aggressively, and he planned to keep it under observation. We talked with our folks in Sacramento, including our wildlife vets, Bruce says, and concluded it was not a public safety situation and the bear was not in such a state of injury that it needed to be euthanized. The recommendation was to leave the animal in its familiar location and see if it recovers. Bears have a great capacity for healing, he explains, especially during their inactive winter; whereas a bear taken in for treatment would likely get too accustomed to humans and have to be kept captive forever.

Eric, Bruce and Tim tried several times to see it, but each time Searles told them he couldnt find it just now. The fact that it couldnt be located showed that it was moving and surviving, Bruce says. After a week Eric finally saw the bear, which was indeed limping but promptly climbed 60 feet up a tree.

But Searles felt convinced that the bear, which hed named Arthur, needed help, and local news media began accusing Fish and Game of subjecting Arthur to unnecessary suffering by failing to respond. Searles asked the Humane Society to send a veterinarian. Bruce says, The information that it was moving, foraging and seeking water was not reported to the Humane Society. They were told the bear was suffering, had lost weight, was holed up in its den and apparently dying, with an extremely strong smell as if from a serious infection.

Our Sacramento office told us theyd agreed to have the Humane Society vet come over and look, and asked us to be there. We went to meet them and were told the vet was not available. We looked for the bear ourselves and could not find it in the culvert it was reported to be in. Given the information that it was mobile and foraging, the Humane Society agreed the bears best opportunity to remain in the wild was to be left alone and the visit was cancelled.

I talked to Tim and Eric and said, We need to make every effort to go out and keep observing this bear. We got there the next day and told the police chief we were going out to look. He said, I thought you were here for the meeting at 9:00! The vet had flown in, not knowing his visit was cancelled. Searles, the media and a representative of a Tahoe-based bear advocacy group were there too.

It was agreed theyd try to assess the bears condition, tranquilizing it only if necessary. The bear was in a culvert. Searles hazed it out; it went into an adjacent culvert. He threw golf balls until it emerged and returned to the first culvert. He put a log across the end of the other culvert, lobbed more balls and the bear came out, flipped the log away with a paw and went back into Culvert Two. Fish and Game, by phone with their vets, decided darting wasnt warranted, although the Humane Society vet said hed like a closer look. He understood the reasons not to dart as well, Eric says. He realized it was not some scraggly-looking animal about to drop dead.

Fish and Game decided to continue to leave it as undisturbed as possible, given all the publicity. Then we got blasted tough by the media, Eric says quietly. Tim explains, Thats when Searles stepped in front of the camera and made a plea: Lets help this suffering bear, and Bruce said its not going to happen. The Tahoe Bear League lady said Youre kidding and started a huge e-mail campaign to the governor, and it became a state-wide issue.

Within a few days Fish and Game decided the limp wasnt improving and the bear had little chance of resting undisturbed, given the number of people visiting the golf course to try to see it also creating a public safety concern.

A Fish and Game vet, equipment and drugs came from Sacramento. Mammoth PD assisted and the golf course loaned a golf cart as gurney. They found, darted and transported Arthur, with the vet monitoring its respiration and the media taunting, Hey, you sure you got the right bear?

Bruce says, There was no external evidence of a wound, no fluid indicating an infection. Only the vet by articulating the leg could detect an injury.

They were all looking for some kind of hole, Eric says. Nothing was there! Meanwhile the media had been saying the bear was helpless and was being attacked by other bears. Tim adds, The first thing Arthur did after waking up in the bear trap was to take a big dump and it was full of garbage: a plastic bag, paper, a tube sock! So he had definitely fed on garbage within a few days.

We took him to our Wildlife Investigations Lab in Sacramento and our vets and the U.C. Davis vets went to work. X-rays revealed a degenerative bone condition, and three small lead pellets that may or may not have caused the bone problem. Arthur weighed 309 pounds and was in good health other than having limited use of his right leg.

The bear was made comfortable with a balanced diet, antibiotics and pain medication. As he began to recover, Tim says, he showed some aggressive behavior toward the caretakers. Because of that and because he was a garbage-dependent bear he was not a good candidate for return to Mammoth Lakes or release into the wild. Meanwhile national media had picked up the story and there was a flurry of bear rallies. The cry was Save Arthur, Save Arthur! until we caught him, and then it was Free Arthur, Free Arthur!

Arthur now lives at a retirement home for movie animals. A lawsuit against Fish and Game has been dropped, as have charges against Searles for the darting incident. Bruce says, Its unfortunate this bears ended up in a captive situation versus trying to survive in the wild. Is there anything at the end that shows us we should change our policy? Id venture that nothing could have been done to change his condition in the field.

Wild bears lead a rough life even those who never pay for a meal of garbage by taking a load of birdshot. The old ones are battle-scarred survivors of fights and close calls. The concern for medical attention we share with domestic pets isnt necessarily best applied to wildlife. Often the best thing we can do for a wild animal is to leave it alone and let it survive on its own terms.

Our professional concern is for not only the wild animal, but for its ability to remain a wild animal.

THE QUEST FOR INYO'S GRAY VIREO (Vireo vicinoir)
By Chris Howard, Rosie Beach, and Jon Dunn

It all began in 1891 when the A. K. Fisher expedition found and documented Gray Vireos in the Grapevine Mountains, east of Death Valley, on the border of Nye County, NV and Inyo County, CA. The state border generally runs down the crest of the Grapevines. Unfortunately, the expedition didnt specify if the vireos were found on the Inyo side or the Nye side. The Grapevine Mountains are, to this date, the only known breeding location of Gray Vireo in Inyo County. And, they are very rarely found in migration, so to see this bird, means a trip to its breeding ground.

In 1940, Miller (of Grinnell and Miller) found and published a new record of Gray Vireo in the Grapevines, but only on the Nevada side.

In 1991 Tom and Jo Heindel, one hundred years after the A. K. Fisher expedition, thoroughly researched the literature, studied Gray Vireo life history, and analyzed topographic maps. Their 1991 expedition to finally find and document Gray Vireo in Inyo County was a success. They succeeded by finding one Gray Vireo in Inyo County, pinpointed the location on a map, and detailed their observations. Despite the rarity of this breeder in Inyo, they vowed never to make the trip again...the road was the worst they had ever driven. Nobody else had made the arduous trek to see the Gray Vireo since Tom and Jos 1991 observation until now.

On 28 June 2002, we left Bishop in the afternoon. It was dusk by the time we neared the Grapevines and our truck flushed 6 or so Common Poorwills up off the dirt road. Parts of the road required four-wheel-drive, and one particular section of steep loose cobbles was too much to attempt in darkness. We camped under the stars in the pinyons. At 6AM, we again tried low range to get up the impasse in the road. The deep, steep cobbles and large boulders and holes were too much for our Toyota 4X4. We were just spinning our wheels, so we packed a bunch of water and lunch, and hiked about 3.5 miles over very difficult, steep terrain, much of which was trail-less

The habitat of the Gray Vireo is dry, impoverished, scattered juniper trees with good shrub cover. When we neared the proper habitat, Jon played a tape every couple hundred yards hoping to gain a vireos interest. Nothing but curious Bewicks Wrens and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. Finally, as we approached the area where Tom and Jo documented Inyos first certain Gray Vireo eleven years ago, Jon heard one singing partial songs down-canyon. Eager to see the bird, we hurried toward the song, stopped and played the tape again, and then waited a few seconds in breathless silence. The tape was echoed almost note for note, cadence for cadence by a pair of Gray Vireos approaching us, small, inquisitive and lovely to behold. We stood in a clear space surrounded by four or five juniper trees thirty feet away. The pair flew from treetop to treetop completely encircling us and echoing the tape until we truly could not tell the difference between the tape and the real birds. When we first heard them, their song was slower and slightly lower pitched than the tape. But soon they mimicked the tape exactly.

This area is so remote, the last people down here could have very well been Tom and Jo eleven years ago. To date, the Grapevines hold the only known population of Gray Vireo in Inyo Countybut there surely must be more awaiting future explorers!

A LOCAL CHAUTAUQUA !

The first annual Mono Basin Bird Chautauqua was held June 21 (the beautiful Summer Solstice) through 23. This first event was professional in presentation, offered lots of variety, was richly educational and immensely successful. It was just a wonderful way for many people to celebrate birds in and around the Mono Basin.

Traditionally, a Chautauqua was popular in the early 1900s and was a traveling drama, oratory, musical or lecture event. To give you an idea of the the Mono Basin style, this years workshops included a variety of field sessions: birding by ear, bats (mammalian birds), mist netting and bird banding, songbird monitoring techniques, bird photography, birding for beginners and radio tracking. There were also fun activities for kids such as learning to build a birdhouse! Field trips included 3-4 hour birding trips to Upper Lee Vining Canyon, the June Lake Loop, around Mono County Park, up Lundy Canyon and even an all day extravaganza bird count on Saturday. Special events included a welcome reception at the Mono Inn on Friday night, lectures such as wildlife rescue and a music filled picnic at the Mono County Park. Evening presentations were Mono Lakes California Gulls by David Winkler and Peter Wrege on Friday, Bats by Joe Szewczak, Eastern Sierra Riparian Songbird Conservation Project by Sacha Heath and Warblers of the Eastern Sierra by Jon Dunn on Saturday. Mike Prather introduced the Eastern Sierra Bird Trail Map soon to be published and given away free!

People came from all over the United States for this first annual event. You may want to mark your calendars for next years Chautauqua to be held on June 20 - 22, 2003. Watch the Mono Lake Committee web site or this newsletter for early registration information. See you there!
Kathy Duvall

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATORY BIRD DAY: 11 May 2002
By Tom and Jo Heindel

Again this years IMBD was outstanding and the best ever in a couple of categories. Twenty six birders began before dawn and continued through dusk covering the Owens Valley, White & Inyo Mountains, eastern Sierra canyons, Deep Springs, and Death Valley. The goal, as always, was to see how many different bird species and how many individual birds can be found in Inyo County on the second Saturday of May.

When 196 bird species were found on the 2000 IMBD the realization that 200 was a possibility raised the ante for this count. Inland counties, without an ocean boundary and the many species tied to that specialized habitat, are hard pressed to break 200 species in a day.

The statistics from this years count: 26 observers was fewer than in the past but they found 199 species, an all time record, totaling 11,252 birds (a record by almost a thousand birds). Of the 199 species 142 were neotropical migrants (5 fewer than the record) who spend the winter in Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean and were migrating north to breed in North America. This years most numerous species were Barn Swallow (609), Mourning Dove (473), and California Gull (339). Eight species were new to the count (Dunlin, Ruddy Ground-Dove, Lewiss Woodpecker, Williamsons Sapsucker, Northern Waterthrush, White-throated Sparrow, Dickcissel, and Red Crossbill) bringing the total species seen during IMBDs to 243. Eleven species were seen in larger numbers than ever recorded in the county before: Vauxs Swift (319), Calliope Hummingbird (10), Acorn Woodpecker (9), Hammonds Flycatcher (42), Gray Flycatcher (122), Dusky Flycatcher (79), Stellers Jay (78), Common Raven (310) Violet-green Swallow (241), Townsends Solitaire (32), and Cedar Waxwing (156).

The hale, hardy, and eventually exhausted observers were Jim Parker (north Bishop to Aspendell), Mike & Nancy Prather, Bob Hudson, and Judy Wickman (Lone Pine area), Bob & Barb Toth (Haiwee Reservoir, Sage and Cactus Flats and Dirty Socks), Bill Mitchel, Larry Nahm, Andrew and Leah Kirk (Independence area), Chris Howard and Rosie Beach (Deep Springs and White Mountains), John and Ros Gorham (south of Big Pine), James Wilson (McElvoy Canyon, Inyo Mtns), Debbie House (Buttermilk area), Steve Holland (Starlite area), Jack Ferrell (Rocking K area), Zach Smith and others from PRBO (Horseshow Meadow), Jo Heindel (Big Pine area to Glacier Lodge), and Tom Heindel, Vicki & Gerry Wolfe, and Michael Thornton (Death Valley National Park).

This is the 11th year this international count has been conducted and the sixth for Inyo County. This is a cooperative global effort to inventory birds during migration. Many species are in serious trouble because of habitat destruction in both their wintering and summering grounds so counts like this one help scientists determine the severity of the problem and which species are most heavily impacted. While the observers benefited from their discoveries and the camaraderie shared with those with the same goal, the birds benefited with another year of data collection by a dedicated group of committed citizens. If you are interesting in becoming a part of this endeavor call Jo Heindel (938-2764). Previous birding experience is necessary and there is plenty of time to get ready for next years effort to break 200 bird species.

BRAINY BIRD

Brilliant female crow goes from using to making tools

The New Caledonian Crow, native to the small island east of Australia, is one of only 3 bird species known to use tools - i.e., twigs to help them get at insects, according to a fairly recent book in my library. Of course, Jane Goodale first showed that chimpanzees used such tools, and it was interesting for me to learn that some birds used them also. What brought this on was reading a research report in the journal Science (9 August, 2002, p. 981) which described behavior in the New Caledonian Crow that does even chimps one better.