Audubon 2016 Summer

BUILDING ROBOTIC BIRDS | SAVING CALIFORNIA’S SALTON SEA | TESTING BIRD-SAFE GLASS
S U MME R 2 01 6
You Looking
For Me?
An expedition deep
inside Equatorial Guinea’s
caldera of lost birds
Meet the
Black-necked
Wattle-eye
FLOCK TOGETHER
g
URGENT CARE
PHOTOGRAP H BY CAM I L L A CE R E A
These fledgling robins were fed 15 minutes

ago, and they’re already squawking for
more apples and berries. Nicole Casta-
neda is at the ready. Several days a week
she volunteers at the Sharon Audubon
Center in Connecticut, where she spends
eight hours zipping between the begging
mouths of orphaned or injured baby birds
dropped off by locals. Castaneda serves
up customized meals—mouse bits for a
Barred Owl, wet dog food and mealworms
for newborn titmice—feeding the neediest
patients roughly 40 times a day. Thanks
to Castaneda and 25 other volunteers, the
makeshift nursery, which runs dawn to
dusk, seven days a week, is “flourishing,”
says Sunny Bettley, the center’s wildlife
rehab specialist. Hundreds of birds come
through each spring and summer; as of
mid-June the center had tallied 280 so far
for 2016. The ultimate aim is to release
healthy youngsters. “Once they’re like,
‘I don’t need you anymore,’ ” Castaneda
says, “that’s really what we’re going for.”
For the volunteers, it’s inevitably a bitter-
sweet parting. —Purbita Saha
FLOCK TOGETHER
g ist, he has a particular affinity for con-
F LI G H T P L A N dors, which clean up the remains left
PH OTO GR AP H BY DAW N K IS H by hunters and predators. “They have
unique personalities,” he says. “Each
Last year Chris Parish’s crew captured is an individual.” The species almost
70 or so California Condors in Arizona. blinked out three decades ago due to
Parish, condor project director for the habitat loss, hunting, DDT contamina-
Peregrine Fund, is testing the enormous tion, and, above all, lead poisoning.
scavengers for lead poisoning; they risk Today there are 410 in all, up from 23
ingesting deadly amounts of the heavy in 1982. Up to 80 percent of hunters in
metal from remnants of ammunition in Arizona have volunteered to stop using
carcasses they feed on. Twenty of the lead ammunition or to remove lead
captured birds, including this female, bullets from carcasses, thanks in part
received chelation therapy, and all were to Parish’s work raising awareness of
ultimately released back into remote the condor’s plight. Condors aren’t yet
Arizona wilderness, where Parish has out of danger, but Parish is dedicated
helped to successfully reestablish a to giving them the best shot possible
population. A hunter and conservation- at survival. —J.C.
CONTENTS Summer 2016, Volume 118, Number 4
20
Frontiers Land of the Lost Birds
An expedition experiences hardship and hope as it
records the birdlife of a remote and untrammeled
caldera on the central African island of Bioko.
By Alisa Opar/Photography by Tristan Spinski
30 36
Above: Jacob
Cooper searches
for birds on Bioko.
Cover: A
Black-necked
Wattle-eye,
photographed at
the Moka Wildlife
Center on Bioko
Island, Equatorial
Guinea.
Photo by Tristan
Spinski.
Innovation Rise of the Avianoids Dispatch Sea Change

Scientists are creating a new generation of “bird An 11th-hour plan offers hope, not of a reprieve but
bots” that fly, and even look, like the real thing. of a long-term rescue, for California’s Salton Sea.
By Lina Zeldovich/Photography by Mike Fernandez By Tyler Hayden/Photography by Peter Bohler
6AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

WHAT WE WERE THINKING
Birds (and People)

10 Audubon View
of a Feather
David Yarnold on revising water-use In our new Flock Together series, you'll read inspiring
rules in the West, for birds and people. stories about birds and the people who care about them.
OPPOSIITE, TOP: TRISTAN SPINSKI (2). BOTTOM, FROM LEFT: MIKE FERNANDEZ; PETER BOHLER. THIS PAGE LEFT, FROM TOP: PETER MCBRIDE; DAILY OVERVIEW/SATELLITE IMAGES; MARVIN DEMBINSKY/PHOTO ASSOCIATES/ALAMY
11 Inbox BY MARK JANNOT
W hen we came up with the three such stories, which we’ve We want to
idea for a series of photo- served up as this issue’s visual greet- hear your
driven stories that capture the vast ing. I think the mix does a nice job stories about
12 Field Notes range of inspiring ways that people’s of representing what we’re trying people and
Collaboration trumps conflict at passion for birds comes to life, we to get at with Flock Together. We their glori-
Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife knew we’d struck gold. What better meet Dalaikhan Itale, a hunter in ously unique
Refuge; voters in Florida deliver a nexus could there be to train our the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, interactions
resounding victory to the Everglades; photographers’ lenses upon than the whose weapon is Golden Eagles, with the birds
in a low-tech setting, scientists look intersection of birds and the people which he began training when they love.
to crack the code on bird-safe glass; who care about them? That, after he was 13; Nicole Castaneda, a
beating back yet another challenge all, is the place where the Audubon dedicated volunteer feeding berries
to the Grand Canyon. Society and our members are most to American Robin fledglings at
at home. On an oddly pragmatic the Sharon Audubon Center in
level, we were also looking to create Connecticut; and Chris Parish,
something that would entice us to whose Arizona-based crew captured
be happy: More frequently than 70 California Condors last year, ul-
we’d like here at Audubon, we find timately treating 20 of them for lead
ourselves drawn to stories that reflect poisoning before releasing them.
our world in all of its darker shadings That, in fact, is the beautiful, nearly
(climate change, habitat destruction, subliminal moment that unites
greed-driven despoliation). I make these three hugely varied tales: the
no apologies for that, but I also rec- release of the birds back to the wild,
44 Field Guide ognize that gazing with no reprieve and the fostering of their ability
Birding What to do when your into the darkness is a recipe for to survive and thrive there. If this
bird guide just isn't getting it done. demoralization and defeat, and there series of single shots has whet your
Travel This year, see boreal birds are certainly just as many or more appetite for more, I beseech you to
where they spend their summers. positive stories in and around our head to audubon.org/flock-together
Photography Some basics on world as there are distressing ones. to see full galleries for each of these
boat-based bird photography. Our “Flock Together” series, which stories, plus many more that you
made its debut last issue and which haven’t seen in the magazine.
52 Illustrated Aviary we’ve just launched big online, is one And if you know of other great
An artist maps out a stunning image of way of ensuring that we highlight tales of people and their gloriously
a long-distance migrator, the Red Knot. those stories, that we spend enough unique interactions with the birds
By Claire Brewster time in the light. they love, we want to hear about
If you’ve paged through the them. Just shoot us a note (and a
magazine from the front cover to photo, if possible) to flocktogether@
arrive at these words, you’ve already audubon.org. Help us keep the
experienced tantalizing tastes of inspiration coming.
SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 7

Audubon
Board of Directors CEO & President Content Marketing
David B. Ford David Yarnold Mark Jannot Jose Carbonell
Chair of the Board Executive Staff Vice President, Content Vice President,
David Hartwell Editorial Chief Marketing Officer
Jose Carbonell
Vice-Chair Jerry Goodbody Lynne Hoppe
Chief Marketing Officer
David Roux Managing Editor Integrated Marketing
Mary Beth Henson
Vice-Chair Rene Ebersole Director
Chief Financial Officer
Margaret Walker Features Editor Tebello Marumo
Anne Lieberman Senior Integrated
Vice-Chair Chief Development Officer Alisa Opar
Joseph H. Ellis Articles Editor Marketing Manager
Susan Lunden Avery Cullinan
Secretary Martha Harbison
Chief Operating Officer Integrated Marketing
Susan Bell Network Content Editor
David O'Neill Coordinator
Assistant Secretary Molly Bennet
Senior Vice President,
Terry L. Root Associate Editor Communications
Conservation
Assistant Secretary Purbita Saha Porter Mason
David Ringer
Jane Alexander Assistant Editor Director, Digital Strategy
Chief Network Officer Liz Bergstrom Agatha Szczepaniak
Karim Al-Khafaji
Vice-Presidents Climate Content Manager Senior Manager,
Peter A. Alpert
Matthew Anderson Jonathan Carey Media Relations
Leigh Altadonna
John Beavers Erica A. Langston Elizabeth Sorrell
A. Cary Brown
Erin Crotty Editorial Fellows Senior Manager,
Coleman P. Burke
Mike Daulton Sabrina Imbler Social Media
Michele Crist
Eric Draper Xander Zellner Claudio Ciprian
George Golumbeski Reporters Manager, Digital Analytics
Kevin Duffy
Jeff Goodby Kenn Kaufman and Production
Gail Gatton
James C. Greenwood Field Editor Nicolas Gonzalez
Heather Hahn
William Heck Frank Graham Jr. Media Relations Associate
Alison Holloran
Joy Hester Melissa Groo Preet Desai
Stewart Hudson
Stephanie Little Jane Braxton Little Digital Communications
Mark Jannot
Alexis Maybank Susan McGrath Associate
Marshall Johnson
Hector E. Morales, Jr. T. Edward Nickens
Kim Keller
Ajay Shah David Allen Sibley
Brett Kincaid
Hugh Simmons Scott Weidensaul
Stephen W. Kress Ted Williams
Jack Stewart
Marian Langan Barry Yeoman
Phil Swan
Gary Langham Contributing Editors
Stephen Tan
Brigid McCormack
Lili Taylor Art
Douglas Meffert
Art Wang Kevin Fisher
Peg Olsen
Creative Director
Molly Pederson
Sabine Meyer
Sonia Perillo Photography Director
Kevin Pierson Kristina Deckert
Sharon Richardson Graphic Designer
Andrew Roos Mike Fernandez
Rebeccah Sanders Video/Art Production Editor
Lorraine Sciarra Camilla Cerea
Stanley Senner Photo Editor/Photographer
Chandra Taylor Smith Lia Bocchiaro
Brian Trusty Photo Researcher
Peter Vincent Manufacturing
Nils Warnock Felicia Pardo
Julie Weinstein Content Production Manager
James Woods
Digital
Donal O'Brien Chair John Mahoney
Glenn Olson Digital Director
Customer service: 844-428-3826 or [email protected]. The observations and opinions expressed in Audubon magazine are those of the respective authors and
should not be interpreted as representing the official views of the National Audubon Society. Volume 118, Number 4, Summer 2016. Audubon, ISSN 0097-7136, the magazine
of the National Audubon Society, will be published six times in 2016 (January, March, May, Summer, Fall, Winter). Editorial offices: 225 Varick Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY,
10014; 212-979-3000. Audubon does not accept unsolicited artwork or manuscripts and is not responsible for their return. Reprint permissions: audubonmagazine@audubon.
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Audubon magazine is printed using vegetable-content ink on 100 percent recycled paper (90 percent post-consumer content), excluding covers (10 percent) and inserts.

Yesterday, Janet and Mark added a gift to
Audubon to their will.
Today, they know that one day it will help
ensure a bright future for birds.
It’s easy to name Audubon as a beneficiary of a retirement account, life

insurance policy, or other financial account. These gifts:
• Cost you nothing now
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Request your FREE GUIDE today and leave a gift that will live on
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Or download the guide at: www.audubon.org/legacy. To name Audubon as a
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Contact Shari Kolding today at (512) 236-9076.

225 Varick Street, 7th Floor,
Or [email protected]. New York, NY 10014
AUDUBON VIEW
canals to grow our food and fiber,

and we need it in our rivers to sus-
tain the natural world around us.
But hope is drying up for the
Southwestern Willow Flycatcher.
Listed as endangered, this bird and
dozens more that rely on water in
the West, like the Yellow-billed
Audubon is Cuckoo, Eared Grebe, and White-
standing up faced Ibis, are in grave danger
Dry Run for balanced
water plan-
across the region. Without action,
global populations of birds like the
As water-sharing rules across the arid, drought-plagued ning and Yuma Ridgway’s Rail could disap-
West are revised, Audubon is working to make sure the dedicated pear. Our health and our econo-
plan protects and restores bird and wildlife habitat. federal fund- mies are at stake, too.
ing for water There are encouraging signs.
BY DAVID YARNOLD, CEO/PRESIDENT conservation. As water-sharing rules are revised
to meet the needs of people across
the West, Audubon policy leaders
and science experts are engag-
ing with water users and decision
makers to find new solutions
that protect and restore bird and
wildlife habitat at the Salton Sea
and in the Colorado River Delta.
Collaborating with a range of
ivers, lakes, and wetlands are disappearing at an alarming g partners in government and phi-
R rate across the West, where years of drought are cementing the idea
that dry is normal and that we have to find new ways to manage our water
PA RC H E D
This spot, 50
lanthropy, Audubon is standing
up for balanced water planning
resources. A century of intensive water development has already taken a miles south of the and dedicated federal funding for
toll, and birds have generally lost ground in a rigid water management U.S.–Mexico bor- water conservation. With your
framework that does not take them into account. But the Colorado der, was once part help we can expand our reach to
River and its tributaries, as well as saline lakes like the Salton Sea, are of the Colorado watersheds across the arid West.
key breeding and stopover areas for millions of birds. River Delta wet- Visit www.audubon.org/
People who steward the West’s scarce water resources are now planning lands, which have westernwater today and call on
for how we live with less water, and making historic changes to longstanding been effectively members of Congress to help birds
rules. They know it makes no sense to trade one crisis for another. We need eliminated by survive by supporting water conser-
water in our faucets so our cities continue to thrive, we need it in irrigation upriver dams. vation programs and incentives.
FROM TOP: CAMILLA CEREA/AUDUBON; PETER MCBRIDE

INBOX
An education. An art exhibit. An

intimate revelation. A once-in-a-
lifetime moment caught by people
I’ll never meet, never get to ask
my thousand questions to. Thank
you all. I wish I could say that
in person. I love the photos that
show the birds in relationships,
whether friends or foe. We are all
in relationships—with them, with
each other.
sharyn wolf
my father loved desert scenes

and all kinds of wildlife, and he
was an amazing photographer.
Today is the third anniversary of
his passing, but I’m reminded of
Color-Blind “When Mr. Stotts Met Mr. Hoots” [May-June] is one of my him by Blake Shaw’s photo of the
favorite articles to date! At the YWCA we are on a mission to eliminate Turkey Vultures. He would have
racism and empower women, and we want to hear more stories like this. loved it.
Racist attitudes and assumptions can prevent people of color from con- The exposure in the photo of the
tributing to the causes we all love to give to, like birds and conservation. ravens, managing fine detail in both
Aren’t we afraid of thoughts like,“Black people don’t fly birds”? That’s the black feathers and the white
the craziest statement I’ve ever heard, but I imagine someone has also “There is snow, is also no small feat. Very well
said, “Black people don’t hike ... Mexicans don’t swim ... Asians don’t go great diversi- done! Beautiful work by all.
camping.” And because of those assumptions, how many curious inner- ty within fal- holly bates
city kids don’t get to experience the wilderness or understand how their conry around
actions can affect the natural environment? How many wonderful little the world. they are all wonderful, but
souls are out there wanting to save all the birds or hug all the trees or We all have my favorite is Colleen Gara’s
pet all the salamanders—but they’re missing out because we assumed something in Ravens. I have a lot of crows in
they wouldn’t want to just because of their skin color? Absurd. Thank common: a and near my neighborhood that
you, Audubon, for sharing this story. —Kristi Kozubal love for birds trust me enough to come right up
of prey.” to my dog and me and even walk
with us part of the way on our
great article. i’ve been a of birds of prey. More power to walks, which makes this bird one
licensed falconer for over 50 years you, Rodney. May you continue to of my favorites. But that photo
now and have seen many changes in inspire kids and adults from around is absolutely amazing in its own
that time. There is a great diversity the world so they can feel what we right. Very beautiful and so touch-
within falconry around the world. do in the presence of these majestic ing. Love it!
We all have something in common: birds of prey. krissa
a love for birds of prey. In the last 20 micheal pociecha
years I’ve seen a great many women Different Perspective
joining the art, too. There is preju- Free at Last if you’re going to use a tripod
dice in every walk of life, but I think as a member of audubon who anyway, an apochromatic refrac-
the majority of us want to get along enjoys the outstanding photogra- tor telescope with FPL-53 glass
with everyone, no matter where phy and content of the magazine: will give you images as crisp as an
they’re from or who they are. I have KUDOS! No more ads! I’ve overpriced Kowa [Field Guide:
even had episodes of prejudice with discontinued subscriptions to orga- Photography/Gear]. You can
Audubon members against falconry, nizations that trashed quality and get a decent one used for a few
I think because they may not have content for advertising. In a world hundred bucks. It will help to
understood what falconry is and moving away from print media, the get a used gimbal head for the
how we love the birds. I personally magazine is a guiding light. To view tripod for the heavier scope, but
have done a lot of rescue work with it again and again without electric- it beats this price list, and puts
injured birds of prey, healing and ity is inspiring. Thank you! the hobby within reach of many
conditioning them with falconry sue roberts more people. The problem with
techniques so that they will have sheridan, wy Audubon, I think, is it’s simply not
the best chance possible of surviving Send letters to inclusive enough in its thinking to
when released back to the wild. I Photo Finish audubon bring lower-income folks along to
have done many talks at schools [re: 2016 audubon photography magazine@ the cause.
and events about the importance Awards.] Astonishing. Splendid. audubon.org. mike frye

FIELD NOTES
$4.8 million grant from the state
of Oregon to improve bird habitat
on private pastureland and remove
invasive fish from the refuge’s wa-
terways. The death made headlines;
the grant, unsurprisingly, did not.
About half of the new funds will
go toward maintaining flood irriga-
tion. Unlike massive sprinklers, these
systems spread spring snowmelt into
a thin layer over hay fields, creating
what looks like an expansive grass-
pierced mirror. Invertebrates flourish,
COLLABORATION offering up a feast for migrating
cranes and curlews. When the water
evaporates, fresh grass explodes,
Common Ground providing cover for nesting birds.
Once chicks fledge, hay is gathered
The armed occupiers who took over Oregon’s Malheur for winter feed, and throughout late
National Wildlife Refuge depicted a landscape locked in summer and fall, cattle forage on a
conflict. In reality, it’s anything but. second round of growth.
The rest of the money will go
BY EMMA MARRIS toward combating common carp.
The invasive bottom-feeders have
taken over Malheur Lake, which
historically supported hundreds of
thousands of migratory birds. Carp
uproot aquatic plants (called tules),
devour invertebrates, and muddy the
“It is ironic water, which has led to a shocking
that they drop in Malheur’s birdlife. Over
Itional
n january a group of armed
men took control of Malheur Na-
Wildlife Refuge in the high
solutions that allow both birds and
beef to thrive. “It is ironic that they
picked Malheur,” says partnership
picked
Malheur. In
four decades the number of ducks
and geese hatched at Malheur has
dropped tenfold and migratory birds
a landscape
desert of southeast Oregon. For 41 member Bob Sallinger, conservation that is very have declined up to 90 percent.
days they occupied its headquarters, director at Portland Audubon. “In a conflicted, it In early April, soon after U.S.
looting electronics, overflowing landscape that is very conflicted, it is is a place of Fish and Wildlife Service fish
the septic system, bulldozing over a place of collaboration.” collaboration.” biologist Linda Beck regained
Native American artifacts—all told, Gary Marshall, a rancher who access to the refuge, she toured the
doing $6 million worth of dam- grazes cattle on the refuge, was eight-inch-deep lake by airboat. She
age—and deploying armed guards among the first to sign on when the made a butt-rattling loop around an
to patrol the 300 square miles of High Desert Partnership formed in artificial island built for Caspian
sagebrush meadows and river valleys 2005. He was tired of seeing land- Terns and cut the motor. The
where 320 bird species occur. High use conflicts play out in faraway chocolate-milk-colored water was
among their demands was for the courts. “We have intelligent people flat and silent, the lone bird a gull
feds to turn over control of Malheur right here,” he says. The group’s first flying overhead. “In summer there
to surrounding Harney County. In effort was to create a 15-year Com- are pods of carp by the thousands,”
a Facebook video, Ammon Bundy, prehensive Conservation Plan for Beck says. “You look over the water
one of the group’s leaders, explained, the refuge. People fought. But they and see them gulping for air.” This
“We’re doing this so the people can also listened. Everyone agreed on summer she’ll attack the fish on
have their land and their resources the final plan, under which grazing multiple fronts: permit recreational
back where they belong.” permits are issued every five years and commercial fishing and herd
Locals, however, had little instead of annually, and cattle are carp with traps and screens into areas
interest in their help. That’s because kept in higher pasture into the sum- g where they can be easily culled.
Malheur doesn’t exemplify the classic mer to allow the chicks of Sandhill JOINT VENTURE Back in 1908, when refuge
hard-drawn battle lines in the West, Cranes, Bobolinks, and other birds Clockwise, from champion William L. Finley visit-
but exactly the opposite—a growing to hatch in the wet meadows. top left: rancher ed the lake, he saw a maze of plants
trend of joint rancher-conservationist Since then the group has Gary Marshall; bursting with ducks, geese, grebes,
initiatives. Over the past decade a launched restoration projects on gate to the refuge; pelicans, gulls, and herons: a “vast
group called the High Desert Part- more than 100,000 acres of forests fish biologist extent of green tules—acres, square
nership has brought together people and wetlands. Hours before one of Linda Beck; a miles of birds.” With the help
from more than 30 organizations, the occupiers was shot and killed Canada Goose on of the High Desert Partnership,
including ranchers, refuge biologists, in a standoff with police, the group a haystack outside multitudes of birds will occupy the
and greens, who are working to find received news that it had won a the refuge. refuge once again.
12AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY FELIX SOCKWELL

P H OTOGRAPHY BY J O HN CLA R K SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 13
FIELD NOTES
LEGISLATION
A Victory for
Florida’s Everglades
A new act ensures 20 years of funding to restore
the imperiled River of Grass.
BY HANNAH WATERS
D eliveries to the everglades

are unpredictable. Its inflows
of water change with the weather
private-land programs, equipment,
infrastructure, and salaries.
So Amendment 1’s supporters
and money for restoration with looked for a way to guarantee
the whims of state legislators. To money for the new restoration
protect both people and wildlife, projects that voters had overwhelm-
it desperately needs both. After ingly supported. The solution?
decades of development, the Ev- Legacy Florida, a bill introduced
erglades has been reduced to half at the end of 2015. It commits
its original size, diminishing its 25 percent of Amendment 1
capacity to absorb heavy rainfall revenues (or at least $200 million
and prevent flooding that imperils annually) to Everglades resto-
communities and habitat. ration until 2035. In committee,
Two years ago Floridians lawmakers added further funding
had finally had enough. More to conserve freshwater springs
than four million residents—75 and Lake Apopka, which boasts
percent of voters—backed a both more bird species and more
ballot initiative to amend the pollution than any Florida lake. In
state constitution. Amendment 1 April, Governor Rick Scott signed
committed one-third of revenues the bill into law.
from an existing real estate tax This year Legacy Florida
to buying and restoring land for money will clean water from
conservation purposes, including polluted Lake Okeechobee and
protecting the Everglades. It was treat agricultural runoff flowing
a heartening victory for Florida’s into the lake. Audubon Flori-
Audubon chapters, which led the da, which pushed to get the act
get-out-the-vote effort. passed, wants to see future funds
Except, when the 2015–2016 deliver that water straight to the
state legislative session opened, Everglades. “It’s really urgent
the conservation funding didn’t that we get fresh water down into
add up. According to a lawsuit Everglades National Park,” says
filed by environmental groups last executive director Eric Draper.
spring, more than $237 million “The birds that we’ve worked to
of the $740 million set aside by protect down there need those
Amendment 1 paid for existing freshwater wetlands.”
14AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 DAILY OVERVIEW | SATELLITE IMAGES (C) 2016, DIGITALGLOBE, INC.
The Climate
Watchers
In 2014 Audu-
bon’s climate
models revealed
that the ranges of
Western, Moun-
tain, and Eastern
Bluebirds might
be disrupted by
climate change.
This year marks
the start of a pilot
program to test
those predictions
in the field. The
new citizen sci-
ence effort, called
Climate Watch,
tapped volun-
teers from one
Audubon center
and 19 chapters
in 10 states to
count bluebirds
during weeks-
long intervals in
January and June.
“Hard data, real
numbers, on what
sort of effect cli-
mate has on one
particular creature
will be invaluable,”
says Mark Del-
wiche, a Climate
Watch participant
and president of
the Snake River
Audubon Society
in Idaho. The
next phase of the
program, which
includes addi-
tional species and
locations, begins
in 2017.
—Liz Bergstrom
g
S I D E W I N D ER
At the mouth of
the Shark River,
an incoming
tide from the
Gulf of Mexico
mixes with
tannin-stained
estuary water.

FIELD NOTES
g FATA L
ATTRACTION
The imprint of a
Mourning Dove is the
dramatic residue of a
lethal encounter.
GREEN DESIGN
How to Test Bird-Safe Glass

At a research center in Pennsylvania, birds decide whether
glass passes muster—and then fly away unharmed.
BY ERICA CIRINO
So far, nine
types of glass
o a bird on the wing, a pane of glass isn’t just a window
T to the world: It is the world. A reflection of trees, shrubs,
and sky make the view seem like an extension of its habitat.
and several
products,
such as
stickers and
The illusion can be deadly. Every year in the United States, film, have
an estimated 365 million to 988 million birds die from earned the
collisions with glass. It’s a design flaw birds themselves are “bird-friendly”
now helping to correct. stamp.
The Powdermill Avian Research Center in rural Rector,
Pennsylvania, runs the only bird-safe-glass testing tunnel in
the country. Manufacturers that add visible stripes, dots (a.k.a.
fritting), or other patterns to glass send products there to be
appraised by birds captured on the property. The tunnel itself
isn’t all that flashy: It’s a 25-foot-long wooden box, based on a
design by ornithologist Martin Rössler, that sits on a swivel so
that it can be aligned with the sun. But it’s effective. Birds fly
toward one of two windows at the end of the tunnel before
being caught by a net and released unharmed.
Each season, during spring and fall migration, researchers
test up to 30 new prototypes. The American Bird Conservancy
certifies those that pass as “bird-friendly”—a stamp of avian
approval that nine types of glass and several products, such as
Tunnel Vision
stickers and films, have so far earned. Architects have already 1 A researcher selects a songbird (col-
incorporated them into buildings, including at Vassar College lected and banded on-site) and records
and the Philadelphia Zoo. Homeowners have been a tougher its measurements, the date and time,
sell. But as Lucas DeGroote, avian research coordinator at and weather conditions. The bird is then
pushed through a sleeve installed in the
Powdermill, observes, “People are often surprised by how front of the tunnel, where it sits in the
attractive yet effective these products can be.” researcher’s hand to get its bearings.
16AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 I LLU STRATI O N BY LAU RE NT C I LLU FFO

Tracking
the Fallen
On May 21 Ryma
Benayed was
walking to a
subway entrance
near New
York’s Central
Park when she
spotted 14 Cedar
Waxwings lying
yellow-belly-up
by a building.
She logged onto
D-Bird.org,
a dead-bird
database created
by New York City
Audubon, and
submitted the
date, time, and
location. With
that, the birds
became a point
on a map—one
that could help
identify hotspots
for bird collisions
around the city
and, eventually,
ways to prevent
them. “This is an
issue that almost
every state and
local chapter has
to deal with,” says
Darren Klein,
program and
advocacy man-
ager at New York
City Audubon.
This spring Klein
adapted D-Bird
for use by Audu-
bon Minnesota,
Audubon Texas,
and the Atlanta
Audubon Society.
—Becca Cudmore
2The released bird flies toward two 3 A light flashes as the bird hits the net, 4 A door at the end of the tunnel opens
glass panes—one regular glass, the other helping researchers identify the bird’s posi- so the bird can escape. If it hasn’t flown
the treated glass being tested. A mist net tion when they review its flight. Its chosen to the end within 30 seconds, or if it hov-
in front of the glass prevents a collision. path is a measure of the treated pane’s ers in front of the panes before alighting
Angled mirrors intensify the reflection on bird-friendliness. A product is "effective" if on the net, the flight isn’t counted. Birds
the panes, making the cloud-and-sky back- at least 70 percent of birds veer from it; 85 are used just once, though each proto-
ground behind the glass look like an exit. percent means "highly effective." type is put through at least 80 trials.
P H OTO BY RO B ERT M C CAW SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 17

FIELD NOTES
RELAPSE
M ore than a century ago
President Theodore Roosevelt
rounding the canyon to keep ura-
nium mining from threatening the
Attack on a created Grand Canyon National
Monument, calling the vast chasm
purity of their water. Advocates are
pushing President Barack Obama
National Treasure “the one great sight which every
American should see.”
to create the Greater Grand Can-
yon Heritage National Monument
Fifty years ago the U.S. government tried Today the iconic landmark has and permanently put an end to new
to strip the Grand Canyon of its grandeur. national park status, and the pro- mining claims in the locale.
tected area has expanded to encom- This isn’t the first time the
Now, new forces threaten it again. pass the entire 277-mile formation. Grand Canyon has faced the threat
BY BOB WYSS But for Arizona’s indigenous tribes, of development, and it certainly
such as the Havasupai and Navajo, won’t be the last. The breathtaking
that’s not enough. They’re seeking layers of sandstone, shale, and lime-
to protect 1.7 million acres sur- stone that draw millions of visitors
A Brief 1890 1906 1908 1919 1922 1966

History of Conflicts erupt Congress creates President Theo- President Wood- The Colorado David Brower and
Human as individuals the Grand Canyon dore Roosevelt row Wilson signs River Compact the Sierra Club
Intervention and corporations Game Preserve places more than the Grand Canyon allows states in launch the “Grand
BY JONATHAN attempt to control to protect area 800,000 acres of National Park Act, the Colorado River Canyon Battle
CAREY the growing tour- wildlife like mule the 6-million-year- officially outlawing Basin to allocate Ads,” and by the
ism industry at the deer, which are old canyon under private develop- and divide water following year,
Grand Canyon. overhunted. federal protection, ment within the rights. plans for two fed-
declaring it a na- monument. eral dam projects
tional monument. collapse.
18AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 MA RK K LE TT A ND BY RO N WOL F E

to the park each year also hide rich just outside the park’s boundaries courts. But a new national mon-
veins of uranium and other precious had uranium concentrations in ex- ument would make the ban more
minerals. In 2007 ore prices soared cess of federal drinking water stan- bulletproof, and so seven tribes
and four previously closed mines dards. The National Park Service, have united with environmental-
were reopened. With three of the in turn, says it’s concerned by the ists and a U.S. representative from
mines still operating in the canyon’s lack of monitoring for groundwater Arizona to support it.
watershed, area communities fear contamination by the industry. “We’re seeing a legacy of indus-
that their scant resources are slowly Four years ago the Interior try benefiting at the expense of the
being poisoned. Department banned new urani- canyon,” says Anne Moriah Tapp,
The mining companies contend um mining on 1 million federal the energy program director of the Ghosts of
that any possible contamination acres over a two-decade span. Grand Canyon Trust. “There is a lot Canyon Past
would never reach the park. But in The National Mining Association of risk at stake in one of the greatest Fifty years ago
2010 the U.S. Geological Survey appealed that order; the case is resources in the world.” It’s now up environmentalists
found that 15 springs and five wells still making its way through the to another president to save it. were fighting
another threat to
the Grand Canyon.
In the January-
February 1966
Audubon, journalist
Richard C. Bradley
investigated two
hydroelectric
dams proposed for
the Colorado River.
In “Ruin for the
Grand Canyon?,”
Bradley wrote of
the government’s
brazen plan for
“stilling the music
of the great river.”
The Lower Granite
Gorge Dam would
have flooded parts
of the national
park, while the
Marble Gorge
Dam would have
flooded a stretch
of unprotected
canyon.
Until then,
g TRULY GRAND the Bureau of
Five images of the canyon shot over Reclamation’s
more than a century. In the photo at plan to exploit a
left, Buffalo Bill Cody toasts the view loophole in the
with a party of visitors in 1893. Grand Canyon Act
of 1919 had gone
largely unnoticed.
But Bradley’s cover
1975 1980 2003 2009 2012 2016 story inspired a
Congress passes National Park The first California More than 8,000 President Barack Representative nationwide move-
the Grand Canyon Service officials Condor to fledge uranium claims Obama issues a Raúl Grijalva ment. Just months
Enlargement Act conclude that 94 in the wild since are made on pub- 20-year morato- (D-AZ), backed by later the govern-
to expand and percent of the 1982 leaves its lic lands near the rium on uranium Native American ment abandoned
protect the scenic park qualifies as nest in the park—a park, compared mining in the mil- tribes, introduces both projects,
values of the area, wilderness, “where small victory in the with no more than lion acres of public a bill to turn the conceding, as
doubling the size man should be a intensive recovery a thousand in prior land surrounding park's surrounding Bradley observed,
of the park. visitor who does effort. years. Grand Canyon acres into a “our national parks
not remain.” National Park. national monument. are not for sale.”

LAND OF THE
FRONTIERS
LOST BIRDS
Nobody knows
precisely how
many bird
species occur in
Equatorial Guinea.
To find out, a
crew of American
scientists is
surveying the
most remote
reaches of the
underexplored
African nation,
documenting
the birdlife even
as rampant
development
threatens it.
BY ALISA OPAR
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
TRISTAN SPINSKI
g
ONWARD, UPWARD
Members of the
Biodiversity Initiative on
an expedition in Bioko,
Equatorial Guinea. To
their left lie the pirate-
plagued waters of the
Gulf of Guinea. To
the right looms their
ultimate destination: a
7,400-foot-high caldera.
N
o sign marks the start of the trail
to one of the last unspoiled habitats in all
of Africa. I wouldn’t see it anyway. I’m
crammed into an 11-passenger van carry-
ing 13 people and a heap of backpacks as it navigates
to that unmarked spot in a scientific reserve that
sprawls across the southern end of Bioko, a moun-
tainous tropical island 20 miles off the west coast of
central Africa. A sweaty forearm is smashed against
my sweaty shoulder. Three knees dig into my back
through the thin seat. I’m not complaining—the
porters behind me will lug our expedition’s gear
for two days over 18 rugged miles into the Gran
Caldera de Luba, a rainforest-blanketed volcanic
crater whose 7,400-foot-high walls create a natural
sanctuary for a dazzling array of wildlife. The few
dozen people who make the arduous journey each
year come mostly to survey monkeys. Our group is
venturing into this primeval realm to document its
far-lesser-known inhabitants, especially birds.
If we’re really, really lucky, I’m told, we’ll spot
the near-mythical Grey-necked Picathartes, a bird
whose global population might number as few as
3,500 individuals. If we’re insanely lucky, we’ll dis-
cover a new species. g up 4,000 feet in elevation gain. Equatoguineans, it
Just outside Ureca, the only village on Bioko’s south HEART OF THE seems, don’t believe in switchbacks. At our midway
coast, our driver stops on the brand-new road that bi- CALDERA break, Luke L. Powell, 34, a conservation ecologist
sects the 200-square-mile Gran Caldera de Luba Sci- The sheer walls of the at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, barely
entific Reserve. Sandal-clad porters scramble out, heft caldera (below) create seems winded; he’d popped a caffeine pill. Jacob C.
overstuffed backpacks, and disappear into the forest. a haven for wildlife, Cooper, 24, a University of Kansas master’s student
The rest of us—me, four scientists, an Equatoguinean protecting birds and who recently modeled the range and distribution of
college student, and a photographer—slip on daypacks mammals from hunting nearly every hummingbird species in the world, has
and follow two guides on a zigzagging eight-mile route and deforestation. binoculars to his eyes and is calling out bird species.
through dense forest and along black-sand beach to Years of bird work in I can’t follow a word. (He’s speaking fast. In Latin.)
Moraka, a field camp where a half-dozen volunteers the Amazon taught Next to me, cursing his smoking habit, is Jared Wolfe,
monitor primates and nesting sea turtles each winter, Luke Powell (opposite) 35, a research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service
and where we’ll crash tonight. The forest trail is dot- to carry a machete in who studies the effects of climate change on birds.
ted with spent shotgun shells from bushmeat poachers tropical forests and to His fiancée (and the group’s mammal expert), Kristin
who hunt monkeys, small antelope called duikers, and put his binoculars on Brzeski, 32, a conservation geneticist who studies coy-
large birds such as Black-casqued Hornbills. Hunting a rope harness, which otes at Princeton University, is doing yogic stretches.
is illegal in protected areas like this, but there’s scant reduces bounce when It’s the crew’s first trip to the caldera, and Brz-
manpower to enforce the bans. To get where hunters navigating rough terrain. eski’s first year with the Biodiversity Initiative. The
don’t go, a guide tells me, you need to suffer. guys founded the group in 2013 to explore the un-
I understand what he means the next day as we derstudied birdlife in Equatorial Guinea, a country
gasp up the crater’s flank. The only sign of humans that is home to precisely zero professional orni-
is the root-tangled trail leading 10 grueling miles thologists. So far their annual expeditions on Bioko
and the sliver of mainland between Cameroon and
Gabon have added 11 names to the country’s avian
list of roughly 400 species. They expect to turn up
dozens more. They also aim to help boost conser-
vation in this rapidly changing country, where oil
riches are fueling booming development.
At last we crest the ridge, then drop down the
vertiginous inner wall, grasping poles driven into the
ground. At the bottom lies our last obstacle: the Ole
River. The water traces an old lava flow, shooting
out of the crater in a dramatic 75-foot waterfall and
tumbling down to the ocean far below. It’s January,
height of the dry season, so we boulder-hop across
the thigh-high water to Hormigas Camp. From
April through October, when there’s more than 30
feet of rain, the river swells immensely, blocking
human access for most of the rainy season.
We use the last hour of sunlight to search for the
22 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 MA P BY MI K E RE AG A N

legendary picathartes. Wolfe machetes a path to the This crew is waters and colonize new shores. Bioko, however, was
waterfall, and six of us squeeze onto a dining-table– familiar with part of the mainland until 12,000 years ago, when ris-
size basalt outcrop, peering through binoculars across the hardships of ing sea levels cut off what had been a peninsula. It’s
the 40-foot-wide abyss to the sheer rock wall beyond, fieldwork. They’ve an ark whose residents have evolved completely iso-
where a primatologist saw the birds nesting last March. picked hundreds lated from their counterparts on the mainland. Today
“How do their young fledge?” marvels Wolfe. of ticks off each at least two of the island’s birds—Fernando Po Batis
“Faith?” Powell says. other, nursed one and Fernando Po Speirops—are found only here, and
The picathartes is largely a mystery. The bird is another through some of its three dozen or so avian subspecies may
slender and gray with a vermilion cap, and walks in injuries and well be unique species worthy of protection.
near-silence, hunting insects in the forests of Equato- ferocious bouts of Despite its allure, the country’s birdlife remains
rial Guinea, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Gabon. When vomiting and diar- remarkably understudied. Ornithologists had barely
it does vocalize, it makes an un-birdy hiss, cough, or rhea. They’ve sub- begun systematic surveys when Equatorial Guinea
“yap of a Pekinese,” as one observer described it. We sisted on rodent achieved independence from Spain in 1968. Tur-
hear grumpily squawking African Grey Parrots and gravy and rice. moil ensued—school closures, infrastructure decay,
chattering red colobus monkeys. Nothing pica-esque. economic collapse, and a 1979 coup d’état that put
For eight days we’ll explore this primordial place. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo in power—halt-
Brzeski will deploy an army of motion-activated cam- ing ecological research for two decades. The 1990s
era traps to document elusive wildlife. The crew will saw greater political stability, and researchers began
travel deep into the crater in search of birds, and be the returning. Oil companies came then, too, after vast
first people to band in the caldera in a quarter-century. offshore reserves were discovered. This past April
Such promise of discovery eases the disappointment President Obiang was reelected to his sixth seven-year
of not seeing the picathartes tonight. “That would’ve term, besting six opponents with an eyebrow-raising
been too easy,” says Powell. “We’ve got all week.” 94 percent of the vote. His reign secured, he’s pushing
E
on with his petrodollar-fueled plans to massively ex-
quatorial guinea is the kind of place pand infrastructure. Most ambitious is Oyala, the new
biologists go gaga over. Its mainland jungles capital rising out of the rainforest on the mainland;
boast rare animals like picathartes, chimpan- unlike Malabo, the current capital, which is on Bioko,
zees, elephants, and gorillas. Bioko is even it’s safe from seaborne coup attempts, like one in 2009.
more intriguing. Islands aren’t usually flush with pri- Now, with oil production waning, Obiang is looking
mates or forest birds, which are unlikely to cross open to build up other industries, including ecotourism.
24 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

Currently, a visitor’s best, perhaps only, bet for get- g Rain Man. Jared is a molt expert—he can age birds
ting into this wilderness is through the Bioko Biodi- BIRD IN THE HAND by their feathers. And Luke has great general bird
versity Protection Program, the country’s oldest con- From far left: Amancio knowledge. They’re inherently going to be able to
servation organization. When American conservation Motove Etingüe bands document more species.
biologist Gail Hearn first visited in 1990, Bioko’s a Forest Robin in the “The bottom line,” Cronin continues, “is the more
monkeys blew her away, leading her to establish the caldera; Maximiliano we can understand what’s there, the more leverage we
BBPP in 1998. Now a joint venture of Drexel Uni- Fero, whose students at have to protect it.” Time is short, and not just because
versity in Philadelphia and the National University of the national university, of development. Climate models forecast that tem-
Equatorial Guinea, it’s one of the few green groups including Motove, have peratures will rise drastically in Africa. “Everything is
here. It studies the island’s biodiversity, and its long- taken courses that the getting mixed up, and we really don’t know what the
term research documents bushmeat consumption and Biodiversity Initiative ecological impacts will be,” Smith says. “The more
tracks primates and marine turtles in the Luba Crater teaches each January at people pushing for conservation, the better.”
Scientific Reserve. The camps we inhabit during our the Moka Wildlife Center; It was Cooper who first mentioned going to
expedition, the trails we follow, the guides and porters a dead leaf collected in the Equatorial Guinea. Three years ago, when he was an
we hire, the entry permit, are all thanks to the BBPP. caldera; Asunción Ripeu undergraduate at Louisiana State University study-
Nobody took up birds with the same dedication. Toraó banded a sunbird ing ornithology and Powell was a grad student there,
The most extensive avian investigation to date took during this year’s tutorial. they pitched in for two weeks on an American Red-
place on Bioko and the mainland over 100 days from start project near Jamaica’s remote Cockpit Country.
1989 to 1992. UCLA tropical-forest bird expert Tom Although it was Cooper’s first visit, while out birding
Smith sampled the caldera’s flank on another expedi- he’d count many more birds than Powell, who’d done
tion, in June 1996; drenched conditions made it im- Yellow Warbler research there. Cooper had crammed
possible to enter the crater itself. The efforts that fol- before the trip, memorizing species and their songs,
lowed were sporadic, aside from one ongoing project: and studied in-country at night. “This guy’s legit,”
Since 2011 the BBPP has regularly netted birds at the Powell recalls thinking. One evening, looking over the
Moka Wildlife Center, the country’s only field station. unspoiled habitat, the two mused about bird surveys in
That haphazard history makes the Biodiversity other little-known places. Cooper, who manages the
Initiative’s plan to return annually incredibly valuable, eBird checklist for Central Africa, approving entries
says Drew Cronin, a BBPP primatologist who over- to the online avian database, mentioned that Equato-
sees the group’s bird surveys. “We don’t have nearly rial Guinea had zero entries. Back home, Powell’s re-
the expertise they do,” he says. “Jacob is like a bird search confirmed the paucity of avian information and

revealed that Equatoguineans speak Spanish, which Another night a says, the habitat is lacking, or the primates could be
he speaks fluently. “I was like, well, shit, we have to go.” millions-strong keeping the bird numbers down. A discussion ensues
He recruited Wolfe, an LSU grad student and army of ants about comparing the primate-rich caldera to a topo-
the founder of the Louisiana Bird Observatory, swarms the graphically similar area with rampant poaching. It’s
where Cooper volunteered. “He’s a great ornitholo- ground behind the fifth potential research project I’ve heard about
gist,” Powell says of Wolfe. “And I needed more sup- the kitchen since breakfast, and banding hasn’t even begun.
port than Jacob, who was just so green.” benches during That afternoon we set up 20 39-foot-long mist
The trio self-funded the first trip to the tune of dinner. In a flash nets suspended between saplings the guides had
$4,000. They’ve since raised roughly $15,000 a year the guides douse expertly macheted. Two more nets go near the
through a National Geographic grant, private dona- the area with picathartes ledge.
tions, and a Kickstarter campaign—enough to keep gas and light a The nets open at first light. Wolfe fumbles the
coming back. “There’s so much to discover, practically match. The huge first capture, a Forest Robin that escapes into the
everywhere you look,” says Wolfe. swoosh and wall trees. “Jared is one of the best banders in the U.S.,”
From the patio of the BBPP office in Malabo, of flame send us says Brzeski, “but he needs his coffee.”
Cooper spotted Ethiopian Swallows zipping about. A scrambling back Cooper helps untangle birds; once the nets are
new species recorded for Bioko, hiding in plain sight. in giddy terror. clear, he’ll conduct an audiovisual survey, counting far
O
more birds than the nets snag. He places the captives
ur first morning at hormigas in cotton bags and delivers them to the banding sta-
(“ants,” in Spanish) we swig instant cof- tion. Motove, the novice, removes a Forest Robin from
fee and devour rice and Spam that the a bag. Under Wolfe’s patient guidance, he attaches a
cook, Apolonio, reheats on the fire. The numbered aluminum leg band, calls out species name,
conversation revolves around vivid dreams induced age, sex, wing and tail length, molt condition, and fat
by malaria meds. That, and hyraxes. The rabbit-size, presence, which Brzeski records; over time, recaptures
nocturnal mammals have an earsplitting territorial reveal critical information about the survival of bird
call that begins as insistent shrieks and grows to a populations. Next, Powell collects blood and a feather
desperate pitch. They scream for hours. for an avian malaria study and genetic analysis. Any
Powell breaks in. It’s time to split into two bags with guano smears will go to a researcher in the
groups and go birding. United Kingdom, who will determine the birds’ diets.
“Yes,” Wolfe agrees. “I’ll take Jacob.” Cooper may use some of this data for his Ph.D.
“No way,” says Powell. “We’ll flip for him.” project on mountain-dwelling birds in Cameroon
They know Cooper will tally the most birds. Wolfe and Equatorial Guinea, comparing the birds’ genetics
grumbles good-naturedly when he loses the toss. He, and songs. Differences could indicate that a subspe-
Brzeski, and guide Cirilo head north. I go south with cies has diverged into a distinct species.
Powell, Cooper, and Amancio Motove Etingüe, a stu- Motove processes a bird every 20 minutes or so.
dent at the National University of Equatorial Guinea. Wolfe watches carefully for signs of stress—yawning
Our guide, Miguel, is from Ureca. He strolls noise- beak, drooping head or eyelids—ready to intervene if
lessly, hands behind him, pausing to point out duikers necessary. It never is. I ask Wolfe how long one bird
bounding through tangled undergrowth and monkeys takes him. “Maybe a minute or two?” Later, when
in treetops. He stops me from stepping on bratwurst- dark clouds gather and a few fat raindrops fall, Wolfe
size turds of drills, highly endangered primates we jumps in so they can release the birds before it pours.
haven’t seen yet. We mark the spot for Brzeski. I time him: 58 seconds flat.
We move slowly, looking, listening. Cooper, audio Around 11 a.m., as banding is wrapping up, Wolfe
recorder running, notes a heated exchange between goes to check the picathartes nets. An hour later he’s
two Chestnut Wattle-eyes, plump, flycatcher-like g back. “Guys, I think I heard it!” Finding empty nets,
birds. African Grey Parrots, abundant on Bioko but BIRDS OF BIOKO he scrambled below the waterfall, where he flushed
dwindling nearly everywhere else due to the pet trade Clockwise, from top something in the thick vegetation and heard a cough-
and deforestation, gab in the canopy. A Hadada Ibis right: Green Twinspot, a ing noise. He’s sure it was a pica. As we pack up that
floats overhead. Somewhere a Chocolate-backed ground-feeding bird; the afternoon to go to North Camp for three days, Pow-
Kingfisher calls mournfully; the best regional guide- Olive Sunbird resembles ell laments moving four miles from the caldera’s only
book says it occurs only at far lower elevations. We a hummingbird, but it known nesting site. Brzeski sets up a video camera on
step over a column of vicious driver ants that may perches, rather than the ledge. Don’t get your hopes up, she tells me. At
have attracted the insectivorous Velvet-mantled hovers, when consuming that distance, any animal across the 40-foot expanse
Drongo, whose unmistakable grating electronic nectar; the shy Forest will likely be an unidentifiable blur.
A
sound cuts through the ubiquitous chups and whistles Robin is more often
of the Little Greenbul. heard than seen; the mile out of camp, i’m sorely missing
An unfamiliar song sends Cooper and Powell white spots and red the porters. And chiding myself for not
searching for the vocalist. It’s reddish, with a short eye indicate that this adding weights to my training hikes.
bill: a Rufous Flycatcher-Thrush. Grey-headed Negrita I forget my discomfort when we see the
Cooper shakes his head. “It sounds really weird.” is an adult; this Green monkey skeleton. Brzeski and Wolfe are flabbergasted.
“Different subspecies?” Twinspot’s bright-red They were here yesterday on their Cooper-less hike; it
Cooper shrugs. “It could just be an alternate song facial feathers identify it wasn’t. Maybe they somehow missed it. Or perhaps
I’m not familiar with. I need to do more research.” as a male; the Mountain it died yesterday afternoon and driver ants picked it
In all, the two teams detect about three dozen spe- Sawwing, a member of clean overnight. It’s unsettlingly plausible. The tiny
cies. “It’s not very birdy,” says Powell. Maybe, Wolfe the swallow family. carnivores are known for stripping prey to the bone.

Cooper has wandered away from the macabre g Dozens of saucer-size orb weavers with hairy red legs
scene. He’s eyeing the canopy, recorder held aloft. BANDING TOGETHER and bulky black bodies hang overhead; each spider's
“What the . . .” he mutters, then whistles: whew whew Above, from left: Kristin web stretches 10 feet or more between trees, swelling
whew whew whoo whoo. Listening for birds is some- Brzeski, Luke Powell, and shifting like a kite in the wind. Monkey troops
thing he can’t shut off. On his second date with his Jared Wolfe, and berate us every 15 minutes or so. We keep moving,
now-wife, she was baffled when he suddenly grabbed Amancio Motove Etingüe until we hear deep woofs. Drills! Hunting has wiped
her and, instead of kissing her, said, “Do you hear that?” band birds and record out these baboon-like monkeys from nearly all but
then ran off to find a hooting Great Horned Owl. biological information at the island’s most remote southern reaches. We’ve
Now he calls to the photographer: “Tristan. Camera. North Camp, deep in the been looking for them for days. Now five are in a tree
Now.” The command pulls everyone but Brzeski away caldera. Even on sunny 20 feet from us. It’s exhilarating. And intimidating.
from the skeleton to look for the mystery bird. days, headlamps help to The alpha male—apparent from his vibrant red and
We pish and vie for a look at the bird darting more closely examine violet genitals—must weigh 60 pounds. They watch
about. Finally, Wolfe locks onto it with his binoculars. the temporary captives. us for several minutes, then nonchalantly move away.
“Okay, I think it’s a longbill,” he says. Opposite: Jacob Cooper At North Camp, Apolonio is preparing our Spam-
“A longbill?” Cooper is incredulous. “It sounds wrong.” will use data collected and-pasta dinner over the stone-ring fire pit. We claim
“Well, gray head, yellow eye, longish bill, yellow during the expedition for level-ish places to pitch tents, and bathe in the stream
body.” his Ph.D. studies at the at the edge of camp. “This is so plush,” Wolfe says.
“That perfectly describes a Yellow Longbill,” University of Chicago. This crew is familiar with the hardships of field-
Cooper agrees. “On the mainland it goes tick tick tick and the Field Museum. work. They’ve picked hundreds of ticks off each other,
tick tick tick.” nursed one another through injuries and ferocious
“Does that song jibe?” asks Wolfe. bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. They’ve subsisted
“No,” says Cooper, again whistling whew whew on rodent gravy and rice made by Wolfe (trail name
whew whew whoo whoo. The tiny bird replies. “I have “Cook-y”). On their first Equatorial Guinea expedi-
never heard that before.” tion, before the road was completed, the guys hiked
He’ll review the recording later, and possibly add from Ureca to the Moka field station. They immedi-
Bioko’s Yellow Longbill to the list of caldera birds ately ditched their banding plans. The blackflies and
that warrant investigation as distinct species. mosquitoes were relentless. It poured nonstop, trans-
Our surroundings grow increasingly wild. “It’s like forming the rugged hunting trail into a miserable mud
the Land of the Lost,” says Cooper. The limbs of moss- slick. Cooper started out sick, then became violently
covered trees drip with vines and orchids. We wade ill from an allergic reaction to the duct tape he’d used
through towering grasses. Ominous black millipedes to cover painful blisters on his feet. Powell and Wolfe
and cheery fuzzy caterpillars inch along super-size split his 50-pound load. By day three they were nearly
ferns. Butterflies in a kaleidoscope of colors flit about. out of food and so thirsty they drank iodine-treated

puddles. “We were disgusting, exhausted, delirious,” We move slowly, seen firsthand. While out with two INDEFOR-AP
says Wolfe. “It felt like we reached Moka just in time.” looking, listening. employees, touring a protected area on the mainland,
Our trip hasn’t been entirely without mishaps. Cooper, audio they came across “huge dudes with huge muscles rip-
Powell and Cooper suffer stomach cramps after recorder running, ping boards with chainsaws in the middle of the for-
drinking water from a former diesel container. A notes a heated ex- est,” as Wolfe recalls it. The operation had obviously
deadly Jameson’s mamba slithers into the kitchen one change between been running for some time. The supervisor spouted
evening and rears up, but doesn’t strike. The Hormi- two Chestnut veiled threats, then tried bribes, before finally agreeing
gas toilet—a tarp-covered pit—is home to snakes, Wattle-eyes, to shut down. The feds confiscated five chainsaws, and
bats, spiders, and swarms of bees. Nearly everyone plump, flycatch- the company was ultimately fined, says Wolfe.
experiences some combination of bee stings at the er-like birds. This year the Biodiversity Initiative provided two
latrine, caterpillar rashes, and ant bites; Cooper gets African Grey field techs with gear and training to band birds in two
the worst of it when ants invade his tent one night Parrots, abundant 100-hectare plots outside Oyala—one logged, the
through an imperfectly closed zipper. Another night on Bioko but other untouched. The project lays the groundwork
a millions-strong army of ants swarms the ground be- dwindling nearly for a long-term study on how disturbance affects
hind the kitchen benches during dinner. In a flash the everywhere else birds and mammals.
guides douse the area with gas and light a match. The due to the pet A $50,000 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant
huge swoosh and wall of flame send us scrambling trade and defor- the Biodiversity Initiative has applied for would go
back in giddy terror. Cirilo assures us the ants won’t estation, gab in toward expanding operations next year, training more
cross the fire line. We’re safe, he says. the canopy. students and federal scientists. Having locals collect
O
data year-round will expand the knowledge of the
ver the next two days, brzeski sets country’s avifauna, and the presence of surveyors in
up camera traps and everyone else settles protected areas would help deter illegal activities, as
into banding. Motove handles birds they witnessed during the logging run-in.
with greater confidence, from petite Boots on the ground are vital, says the BBPP’s
hummingbird-like Olive Sunbirds to a hearty Grey- Gonder. At Moraka, the sea turtle camp, poachers stay
headed Negrita, a black finch whose red irises indi- away when volunteers are present. When they leave,
cate it’s an adult male. He cuts his processing time hunters move in, evidenced by the shotgun shells.
in half. “It’s like one pop quiz after another,” he says. Continued on page 50
Before traveling to the caldera, the team conducted
a two-day session on banding and mammal surveys for
16 students from the national university. It’s the third
year they’ve taught the course, where they met Motove
last year. “There aren’t a lot of people here who study
ecology, forestry, or biology,” says Maximiliano Fero, a
botanist and the research chair at the university, and the
person who issues biological sample export permits for
the Biodiversity Initiative. “Little by little it’s growing,
but that’s why collaborations with international part-
ners like the Biodiversity Initiative are so desirable.”
On paper, a quarter of Equatorial Guinea is
protected, but poaching and illicit logging are
rampant. The country’s protected-areas agency,
INDEFOR-AP, is motivated to do biological sur-
veys and crack down on illegal activity, the BBPP’S
Cronin says, “but they have a shoestring budget
and little political support.”
Bushmeat is a major conservation threat. It’s a
staple here, sold at a huge Malabo market and road-
side stands. The BBPP has tracked bushmeat sales, a
proxy for hunting levels, for nearly two decades. Last
year Cronin and colleagues reported that from 1997
to 2010, Malabo market surveyors counted more than
35,000 monkeys (illegal to kill since 2007), nearly
59,000 duikers, some 81,000 rodents, and more than
4,100 birds, including Black-casqued Hornbills, Great
Blue Turacos, and Palm-nut Vultures. Sales have in-
creased over time, tracking economic prosperity.
Deforestation is the other main danger to wildlife.
“The rate of deforestation in Equatorial Guinea is at an
all-time high,” says Katy Gonder, the BBPP’s director.
That’s largely due to clearing land for Oyala, the new
capital, though logging occurs in reserves throughout
the country, as Biodiversity Initiative members have

g BUILT TO FLY
Made from 30-inch carbon
fiber sticks, wires, sensors,
microchips, and Mylar wings,
Robo Raven technology can
run on solar power.
I N N OVAT I O N
RISE OF THE
AV I A N O I D S
Airborne robots that look and behave like real live birds are
not only superior to today’s drones. They are a sign of a future in
which machines will seamlessly blend with nature to gather secret
intelligence, protect our crops, and maybe even deliver the mail.
BY LINA ZELDOVICH
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE FERNANDEZ
L
uke roberts, a 26-year- oratories around the world, are far superior to the
old musician with an tiny, energy-hogging flying gizmos of today. They
ash-blond Mohawk and a have a host of uses: gathering intelligence; delivering
scruffy chin, sits at a table packages to hard-to-reach places; doing aerial sur-
littered with wires, spare veillance—for example, tracking the spread of for-
parts, and half-assembled est fires, which in 2015 cost the federal government
robots. Behind him stands $2 billion to control. When they’re built to resemble
a red and black human- raptors, they can keep pest birds in check around air-
sized bot with four-foot- ports, farmlands, and landfills. In 2011, in just five
long arms and a gray com- states (California, Michigan, New York, Oregon,
R O B O R AV E N
puter screen for a face. This and Washington), birds damaged $189 million
is the University of Maryland’s Robotics Center, Size 0.6 pounds; about worth of blueberries, cherries, honeycrisp apples, and
in College Park, a 35-minute drive from Washing- a 47-inch wingspan wine grapes. At landfills, birds interfere with daily
ton, D.C., and where Roberts completed his mas- Purpose Gathering informa- operations, and their droppings contain pathogens
ter’s degree. Here students’ mechanical creations tion and intelligence; carrying dangerous to humans and livestock. When birds get
learn to walk, crawl, and even fly. out search-and-rescue mis- sucked into airplane engines, they can cause crashes.
Unlike some of the other hulking bots stand- sions; monitoring farm fields Bird robots promise to overcome such problems—
ing about the room, Roberts’s consists of just a few Accomplished Flapping saving both money and human lives.
carbon fiber sticks about 30 inches long, a whir flight; adept maneuvering
S
of wires and sensors, and microchips. It weighs (steep climbs, sharp dives, ince the time of leonardo da vinci,
roughly half a pound. “The skeleton holds all the fast turns); measuring its who sketched and even possibly tested a
electronics,” he explains, pointing at the flight own flight vitals; partially flapping-winged glider, people have been
controller, which translates the human pilot’s com- recharging in flight trying—and failing—to make a birdlike
mands into the computer code that activates the Future goals Self-adjusting aerial machine. There have been major hurdles to
wings’ gears, along with other vital parts. “This is to wind and turbulence; overcome. The biggest among them: weight. En-
the battery, and this is the brain.” fully recharging in flight gines that could generate sufficient lift and com-
Using rubber bands to tie on the wings made of puters capable of matching birds’ brains’ ability
Mylar (the material used to make the thin film in to process large amounts of sensory info were too
helium balloons), he demonstrates how to quickly heavy to fly. Re-creating birds’ wings, which consist
assemble the bot. Suddenly a creature takes shape, of dozens of bones and muscles, called for moving
looking like a cross between a dragonfly and a parts that could be both tiny and lightweight but
pterodactyl. Holding it in his outstretched hand also durable enough to withstand hours of flight.
the way a medieval hunter displays a falcon, he Today it’s possible to overcome these challenges
pushes a button on his remote control box and using tiny electronics and computer processors, as
the “bird,” named Robo Raven, starts flapping well as 3D printing for building intricate mechani-
its wings. After examining it closely to make sure cal parts from various composite materials. Roberts’s
nothing is loose, Roberts deems it ready for a test adviser, Satyandra K. Gupta, who was a professor of
flight. Then he removes the wings and packs it up mechanical engineering at the University of Mary-
for transport to the airfield. land for more than 17 years (he recently accepted a
In the morning, Roberts arrives at the field, new job at the University of Southern California in
reassembles Robo Raven, and launches it into the Los Angeles), says that the technological advances
air. It flies off quietly, with only the gentle sound in this last decade were a boon to building winged
of flapping wings. The gadget looks so real that bots. “A lot of motors and microcontrollers and all
local hawks have attacked and destroyed different other miniature [electronics] are now available,”
versions of it more than once. Unlike all other hu- says Gupta. “These things were too bulky before to
man-built aerial machinery—the bulky, noisy metal create a flying prototype.”
monstrosities incongruent with nature—it blends That doesn’t mean building bird robots is easy.
into the landscape like a living, breathing thing. No Gupta, a stout man with a touch of gray at his tem-
existing manmade flying machinery comes close to ples, who has been fascinated with birds since his
achieving this feat. Helicopters maneuver well, but childhood in Mathura, near New Delhi, can’t count
they’re inefficient because they burn fuel to gener- how many Robo Ravens crashed to the ground dur-
ate lift and propulsion. Planes are better on energy Unlike all other ing the three and a half years his students worked on
use because they create lift with their wings, though human-built aerial the bot. From the outset, the team designed it to use
they are less maneuverable. Rockets have the pitfalls machinery—the its two wings independently—like real birds do. To
of both, plus they take off with deafening blasts. bulky, noisy metal achieve that, the team powers each wing by a sepa-
Modern micro air vehicles, better known as monstrosities incon- rate motor. “It’s like having two muscles,” Roberts
drones, inherited the same problems as helicopters gruent with nature— says. “You can flap each wing at a different angle or
and planes. Powered by propellers, certain kinds it blends into the at a different frequency.”
can use a lot of energy and stay airborne for only landscape like a liv- Gupta and his students see Robo Ravens being
a short time—rarely more than 30 minutes. They ing, breathing thing. used for information gathering as well as for search-
don’t handle turbulence well; a gust of wind can No existing man- and-rescue operations. The bots could, for instance,
send them tumbling. made flying machin- stealthily circle a spot where enemy troops are hiding.
Winged robots, like Robo Raven and several ery comes close to Or they could hover over a hard-to-reach area, look-
other so-called “bird bots” being developed at lab- achieving this feat. ing for lost hikers or mountain climbers—and do so

g PILOT- READY age changing flight conditions, like wind, which
Luke Roberts (left) displays Robo Raven V in the should further improve its stability. “[Birds] take
Robotics Realization Lab at the University of Maryland. advantage of different things that happen,” he says.
Satyandra K. Gupta, who led the development team, “They end up dipping down and coming back up
gets ready to launch Robo Raven III, which is capable of and hovering a little bit. And then occasionally
partially recharging in flight. they do some flapping.”
The ability to recharge in flight is unique and
much more cheaply than a helicopter search. very valuable for intelligence gathering—to be use-
Bird bots still occasionally wreck, especially as ful, bots must stay airborne for long periods of time.
scientists, always looking to improve their models, “The advantage of using the energy-harvesting
ROBIRD
test the limits of what bots can do. “Unlike with technology, like solar, is being able to use these plat-
building a ground vehicle, where if something gets Size 1.6 pounds; about forms indefinitely,” says Hugh Bruck, a University
loose, it will just come to a stop,” Gupta says. “In this a 40-inch wingspan of Maryland professor of mechanical engineering,
case, if something goes slightly wrong, it crashes.” Purpose Keeping birds who works with Gupta’s students. Adding solar
Joining Roberts’s early morning test flight, the away from crops, landfills, cells required a redesign, because they increased the
professor and two other students, John Gerdes and airports, harbors, and oil stiffness of the wings, affecting the Mylar’s natural
Alex Holness, along with intern Vishal Gupta, un- and gas fields flexibility, which is needed for flapping. Still, it was
load multiple generations of flying machines onto Accomplished All of the worth the effort. And while the bot can’t yet fly on
the dewy grass field owned by the College of Ag- above solar power alone, the team is looking at high-effi-
riculture, which allows them to fly their bird bots Future goals Becoming ciency cells, hoping to eventually remove the cur-
on the condition that Robo Ravens stay out of the more autonomous; spotting rent lithium batteries entirely.
vegetable gardens. obstacles; avoiding trees
BOTTOM: CLEAR FLIGHT SOLUTIONS
O
Each bird in the five-generation collection has ther scientists are finding inspi-
its own unique features. Robo Raven II carries ration in birds’ perching and grasping
sensors that monitor its ascent, descent, and wing talents. Justin Thomas, a Ph.D. stu-
speed. Raven III can partially recharge in flight, dent at the University of Pennsylvania’s
thanks to its solar batteries—little dark squares GRASP Lab, studies aerial robotics, including the
glued to its Mylar wings. Generation IV flies on ability to seize objects at high speed. In 2011 his lab
autopilot. Roberts’s baby, Robo Raven V, has self- devised an experiment in which a trio of quadcop-
adjusting features—like real birds do—to man- ters built a small structure from Lego-like blocks.

The quadcopters were programmed to find the g BI RD 2 .0
blocks on the lab’s floor, pick them up, fly them over John Gerdes, a mechanical-engineering student at
to the construction spot a few feet away, and place the University of Maryland, flies the Robo Raven base
them on top of one another, forming a small tower. model. With each subsequent generation, the designers
The blocks had retro-reflective markers detectable added unique new features.
by cameras, which served as the machines’ eyes (ex-
cept they were placed not on the quadcopters but seizing its targets. That allows it to grab a parcel at
around the room to minimize flying weight). The 7 miles per hour, which in human terms is exactly like
building algorithm was coded into the quadcopters’ trying to nab an object while riding a roller coaster.
“brains.” The drones accomplished the task, but The clawing bot doesn’t need a person to steer it.
C L AW I N G B OT
Thomas noticed that they spent too much time po- Instead, a camera, still remote to minimize weight,
sitioning themselves to pick up the blocks. “They Size Almost 1.5 pounds; supplies the target’s location, and the bot buzzes over
would have to hover over the object, descend, hover 21-inch wingspan, from and snatches it autonomously. The price tag was
there for a bit, grab the object, ascend,” he says— propeller tip to propeller tip higher, though, because the team bought a pre-built
which was so slow that sometimes their batteries Purpose Tracking forest quadcopter for about $3,500 and then outfitted it
died before they finished. fires; sampling chemical with talon-like grippers for an additional $100. Still,
In contrast, a Bald Eagle, caught on video spills on water; placing due to the nature of its task—grabbing an object at a
snatching a fish out of the water, was so quick it sensors; possibly picking known location—the bot was pretty successful.
became the model for Thomas’s gripper invention. up and delivering parcels Thomas sees many practical applications for
“The eagle could do it so fast, so elegantly, and just Accomplished Snatching his clawed creature, from law enforcement to envi-
so magnificently,” Thomas says, that it inspired his packages at 7 miles per ronmental uses. For example, the bot could plunge
clawing robot design. hour—in human terms like into a burning forest and quickly place tempera-
Grabbing things at high speed—for example, grabbing an object while ture sensors or smoke detectors that tell firefighters
trying to snatch a roadside package leaning out the riding a roller coaster where the blaze is heading. In the case of oil spills,
window of a speeding car—is hard because you need Future goals Creating au- it could reach affected areas faster than most boats
to align your hand with the object without losing tonomous solutions with on- and swoop down to gather samples for oil spread
momentum, and then clutch quickly. But birds of board sensing and processing assessments. A clawed bot may not be able to fly
BOTTOM: SCOTT SPITZER
prey evolved a way to do so: During the capture mo- inside a tornado, but it could use its talons to perch
ment, they swing their legs backward so their claws on a tree near the storm’s path, supplying impor-
move slower in relation to their prey. Thomas and tant information to meteorologists. And it could
his team borrowed that trick. They built a quadcop- serve as the police’s eyes and ears in shootouts or
ter with raptor-like legs, which it sweeps back when terrorist attacks. Equipped with microphones and

cameras, clawed bots could be inconspicuously po- berry plantations. At the Twente landfill, Robirds
sitioned on trees or buildings and stream informa- reduced pest crows by as much as 70 percent and
tion about the criminals’ movements. gulls by roughly 95 percent. So many clients want
To do all this, the bot would have to carry a cam- to hire Robird that Nijenhuis is increasing his fleet.
era onboard, avoid obstacles, and make its own de- “We’re in the middle of building 10 new ones,” he
cisions based on the situation—like identifying the says excitedly. “We’re going to go over 20 opera-
best spot to swoop down to place a sensor. Thomas’s tional falcons.”
invention hasn’t done this yet, partially due to limi-
tations of weight and computational power. But as he bird models and applications
computer processors grow ever smaller and more
powerful, he says, so will the bots’ brains.
obots are being built not only to g

T are quite diverse, but there’s one thing
the scientists agree on—how difficult it
is to model a bird’s flight. For example,
the birds’ wing movements are so complex that so
R move like real birds but also to resemble

them. For instance, “Robird,” designed
as a thesis project by an enterprising
graduate student, Nico Nijenhuis, in the Nether-
lands, is an exact replica of a Peregrine Falcon. In
I NSP EC T I O N
Alex Holness, a Ph.D.
student in the Mechanical
Engineering Department at
the University of Maryland,
far modern science hasn’t been able to precisely
describe them using formulas and mathematical
equations, according to David Lentink, a mechan-
ical engineer who leads a bio-inspired engineer-
ing design lab at Stanford University in California.
2011 Nijenhuis, then 25 and working as a part- makes final adjustments to That’s the big reason it takes so many trials, errors,
time chauffeur while studying applied physics at the tail of Robo Raven V, and crashes to build a bird. Lentink is working to
the Technical University of Twente, teamed up with which has self-adjusting solve this problem. Using various mechanisms that
three bird enthusiasts who had devised Robird’s features to manage wind. he has developed to watch and measure the forces
early prototype. The bot looked more like an air- that birds generate with their wings as they fly, he
plane with flapping wings than an actual bird, but hopes to understand how the animals achieve lift
Nijenhuis quickly recognized that it had practi- and propulsion, change their speed and direction,
cal potential, such as bird pest control and aerial and adjust to wind gusts. He wants to fill in the
surveillance. “I said, ‘This is so cool,’ ” he remem- gaps in understanding to help builders design bet-
bers. “I see so many opportunities. We should start ter bots. Once the math is pinned down, he says,
working towards a commercially viable product.” constructing small, safe, agile, and long-lasting
But there were some major design matters to re- flying machines would become much easier.
solve. First, to be a convincing menace, the bot had And he predicts that it will happen within the
to look and move exactly like a falcon. If it was built next 10 to 20 years, ushering in an era in which
too light, it would get tossed around in the wind, lifelike aerial robots will routinely help humans
which wouldn’t look realistic. If it was too heavy, it accomplish tasks in dangerous or hard-to-reach
wouldn’t fly at all. To preserve its looks, the electron- places. Some million-dollar questions: Will they
ics had to be hidden in the bot’s shell, which posed ever be able to coexist with us in cities? Will they
another problem, because the carbon fiber obstructs be able to deliver packages to consumers or pre-
GPS and other signals. Fortunately, Nijenhuis scription meds to the elderly, coasting through tur-
found a 3D-printing company that could build bulence, which often exists around big buildings,
the shell from composite materials—in this case, and avoiding trees, birds, and other bots, without
nylon mixed with glass fiber particles—which gave falling on people’s heads?
him the needed low-weight flexibility and strength Lentink believes that’s the future. Current avian
without suppressing the signals. The falcon’s head models may be unsafe for flying in crowded spaces,
was fashioned from the real bird’s and 3D-printed, but once engineers perfect them and bots soar as
too. “We took pictures of live falcons and translated skillfully as birds, collisions will become less frequent.
them into computer drawings, and it has become “No one worries about birds crashing, and billions
the actual head of our model,” he says. of birds fly every day!” he says. What’s more, he
At the same time, his team worked on perfectly maintains, we will learn to use flying robots just like
mimicking the falcon’s wing movements, so com- we learned to use trains, planes, and automobiles—
plex that no amount of math could describe them despite the fact that early models of these inven-
precisely. Resorting to trial and error, they watched tions were prone to accidents. Urban planners of the
dozens of Robirds smash on the ground during the future—like those before them—could pattern cit-
three years it took to master the model. “It’s so in- The bots could, for ies to accommodate the innovations that redesign
credibly difficult to create a perfect bird,” Nijenhuis instance, stealthily the way we live. For example, by designating air cor-
says. He remembers, after months of trying to find circle a spot where ridors for robots to fly.
the right balance between lift and drag, how thrill- enemy troops are Asked whether we will one day receive Ama-
ing it was when it finally worked. “You throw the hiding. Or they could zon packages dropped off on our doorsteps by fly-
bird into the air and it flies, and it flies really well, hover over a hard-to- ing machines, Lentink answers with a definitive
and it does everything you want it do,” he says. “It reach area, looking “Yes.” But not just any robots, he adds. “Bird-size
brings you close to tears!” for lost hikers or robots—yes!” A
Nijenhuis’s company, Clear Flight Solutions, mountain climb-
now uses a fleet of 12 hand-painted Peregrine Fal- ers—and do so much Lina Zeldovich is an award-winning journalist who
cons and two Bald Eagles to serve several clients. more cheaply than has written for Newsweek, The Atlantic, Nautilus,
The bots shoo starlings and crows away from blue- a helicopter search. The Boston Globe, and Scientific American.

g
UNLIKELY PARADISE
Double-crested Cormorants
flock to a dead tree on the
eastern shore of the Salton
Sea, while American White
Pelicans and other birds
wade near the beach.
Even as the lake shrinks and
grows saltier, it supports
millions of birds representing
hundreds of species.
DISPATCH
SEA C H A N G E
For decades Southern California’s Salton Sea has teetered on the edge
of ecological disaster. Now this critical bird habitat may finally be saved.
By TYLER HAYDEN | Photography by PETER BOHLER
he people who live around the salton rely on what is essentially a huge ag sump. Burrow-
T Sea, a 350-square-mile saltwater lake in

Southern California, are rather sensitive
about its reputation. Visit this onetime
tourist destination on a typical 100-degree after-
noon, and you might see Yellow-footed Gulls sail-
ing Owl nests dot miles of drainage canals, Brown
Pelicans gorge on large schools of hardy tilapia, and
American Avocets hunt tiny invertebrates like brine
shrimp that have hung on in the lake.
Yet life and death already mingle uncomfort-
ing past a deserted marina crusted in salt and over CALIFORNIA ably closely at the Salton Sea, and things are about
an upturned piano, a rusted crane, and a lifeless pit to get a whole lot worse—unless drastic measures
bull baking on a shoreline of fish bones and bar- Salton are finally taken. That’s because at the end of 2017,
nacle shells. Call it desolate or eerie, residents say, Sea the Colorado River water that has been sustain-
but do not call it an accident. San Diego ing the sea—which makes its way to the lake via
Given how it was created, it’s easy to see why the region’s irrigated farmland—will instead go to
people might describe California’s largest lake thirsty San Diego, due to a massive water-transfer
that way. It started forming in 1905 when floods Leipzig frets deal struck in 2003. Under legislation passed the
breached a levee on the Colorado River, sending a over what will same year, the state is legally required to create a
massive flow roaring downhill into a natural bowl, become of the master plan to preserve the Salton Sea.
the Salton Sink, some 230 feet below sea level. The birds if the If it doesn’t, experts say, the sea will shrink by
water gushed for 18 months before engineers final- lake is allowed 60 percent by 2030. Salinity will increase threefold,
ly fixed the breach. Other ancient lakes had filled to collapse. killing off every last fish and desiccating count-
the sink after other big floods, only to evaporate “Where would less acres of marsh and grasslands, leaving mil-
over millennia in the sweltering desert heat. So far lions of birds without food or nesting habitat. Dust
the sea has persisted, sustained—and poisoned—
the cormorants storms will pick up farm chemicals and pesticides
by irrigation water from booming farms in the go? Where from tens of thousands of acres of newly exposed
surrounding Imperial Valley, where today 500,000 would the lakebed, sending the powdered toxins swirling
acres of fields provide America with fruits, nuts, Caspian Terns through surrounding rural Southern California
hay, and two-thirds of its winter vegetables. go?” he asks. communities that are home to about 650,000 resi-
Just a half-century ago the Salton Sea sup- dents, many of them poor and Latino. Already the
ported a thriving economy. Enterprising develop- children in the region suffer some of the highest
ers built marinas and hotels along the shore, at- asthma rates in the state.
tracting tourists and sport fishermen, who reeled Now government agencies and local stakehold-
in orangemouth corvina and sargo stocked by the ers, including Audubon California, are racing to
state. Celebrities, including Frank Sinatra and devise a plan that will stave off a full-out environ-
Desi Arnaz, vacationed at the lake, and speedboat mental catastrophe. The good news is that, finally,
races drew crowds thousands strong. “It was like a at this late hour, after years of half-baked attempts
spring break party all the time,” says Louis Knight, to restore the vanishing ecosystem, it looks like
a 44-year veteran of the fire department at Bombay they just might succeed.
Beach, a town of roughly 300 people on the eastern
side of the lake. g ob miller is bouncing along the shore
But with no natural outlet and rapid evaporation,
the lake became more and more toxic as the concen-
tration of salt and nutrients from irrigation waters
increased. In the 1990s the desert oasis dream was
largely abandoned; nobody wants to sunbathe be-
G O I N G D RY
The Salton Sea has
persisted for more than
a century, sustained
largely by irrigation
B in his dusty white jeep when he hits the
brakes and snaps his binoculars to his
eyes. “Well, I’ll be dipped in hooey!” he
exclaims as he spots a small Rock Wren alighting
on nearby scrub brush. “That’s the first of the sea-
side algal blooms or amid the stench of rotting fish. water that drains from son.” It’s September, and Miller, a self-proclaimed
Skinny cats and off-road enthusiasts have replaced surrounding agricultural redneck tree hugger and former truck driver who
Bombay Beach’s water-skiers and beachgoers. In fields, like those in hosts regular birding trips around the lake, is driv-
Salton City, across the lake, a grid of streets with Calipatria (opposite). Bird ing past bubbling mud pits and hills of obsidian.
hopelessly romantic names like Honolulu and Sea guide Bob Miller (below) He proceeds to rattle off a dozen more bird species.
Mist is fitted with electricity and plumbing but re- worries about how birds Some 40 percent of endangered Yuma Ridgway’s
mains mostly undeveloped. Some of the few modest will fare amid coming Rails nest at the Salton Sea, and it’s a wintering
homes that were built on the water’s edge are now a water reductions. site for up to 30 percent of American White Peli-
football field inland. cans and, in some years, as many as 90 percent of
Even as the human crowds have diminished, the state’s wintering Eared Grebes. “There’s just so
millions of birds continue to flock to the Salton Sea, much here,” he says.
second only to the Texas Gulf Coast in terms of Miller has seen promise after promise to save
avian diversity and abundance in the Lower 48. It the Salton Sea die in the cradle, and he’s grown
might seem an unlikely key stopover site or breed- tired of government decision makers who won’t
ing grounds along the Pacific Flyway, particularly make decisions. “They study it. Nothing. And they
because the sea is now one-third more saline than study it. Nothing,” he says. “It’s going to get fixed,
the Pacific Ocean and periodically belches noxious or it’s going to be a nightmare.”
clouds of hydrogen sulfide that have, on occasion, Like Miller, Vic Leipzig, head of Audubon’s Sea
wafted as far as Los Angeles. But with the vast & Sage chapter in Orange County and a natural
majority of the West Coast’s wetlands now ruined, history instructor at Saddleback College in Mission
hundreds of avian species have little choice but to Viejo, California, has led Salton Sea birding tours
38 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 MA P BY MI K E RE AG A N

g DISAP PEARING AC T The Salton Sea has shrunk by about 10 percent in the past 15 years, to roughly 350 square miles. If no steps are taken to
preserve it, water transfers from the region to San Diego will speed up its disappearance, causing it to contract by 60 percent by 2030 and exposing ever-
more lakebed (top). Orangemouth corvina and sargo once stocked by the state have long since died off, leaving only tilapia for fishermen and birds.

g PARTY’S OVER A half-century ago the Salton Sea was a popular destination for speedboat racing, sport fishing, and sunbathing. Today the shores
and water are hardly inviting. Salt and nutrients from agricultural fields have created a toxic brew in a lagoon that once housed the Salton Sea Beach Marina
(top). Reminders of bygone days persist in the lake’s largest town, Salton City, population roughly 3,800, where boat channels have gone dry.

for decades. He, too, frets over what will become of AU D U B O N I N that if the state doesn’t develop a long-term plan by
the birds if the lake is allowed to collapse. “Where AC T I O N the deadline, the IID might cut off water deliveries
would the cormorants go? Where would the Caspian to San Diego entirely.
Terns go?” he asks. Some believe Mexico’s Laguna On Course “IID’s position is that you can’t just continue
Salada could play a bigger role in the Pacific Fly- BY XANDER ZELLNER to transfer water and leave a giant question mark
way. But Salada is an ephemeral water body, and it at the Salton Sea. You can’t just leave an environ-
is replenished only by very high tides or Colorado Conservation groups have mental ghetto,” says Kelley. He is under no illu-
River floods. Even when it has water, it is shallow. been vying unsuccessfully sions that the sea will be anything like the body of
Biologists, in all, say it would be an exceptionally for years to stop the slow- water it was when he was growing up in the town
poor substitute for the Salton Sea. “I know of no motion ecological disaster of Brawley, south of the lake. “It will necessarily
real alternative,” Leipzig says. at the Salton Sea, but that be smaller,” he says. “We’re just saying it has to be
Walking along a dried-out cove, Leipzig de- isn’t scaring Audubon sustainable.”
scribes how he has watched the lake shrink before California away now.
his eyes, and how the birds have suffered. There was “There’s just no way here is no shortage of ideas about
the mysterious die-off of 150,000 Eared Grebes in
1992. Then there are the periodic outbreaks of avian
botulism, a bacterial disease that can kill birds in
close quarters by the thousands. “The birds know
the sea is in trouble,” Leipzig says as he wipes sweat
that you can talk about
doing flyway-level bird
conservation in California
and not throw your
weight into finding a solu-
T how to fix the Salton Sea. Grander
schemes include a $9 billion restoration
project the state proposed in 2007, as well
as a perennial pitch to pump water from the Pacific
Ocean or the Sea of Cortez, which would also cost
from his forehead and scans the horizon for the last tion at the Salton Sea,” billions. The vast majority of plans, big and small,
of the lake’s flamingos, introduced decades ago by says Audubon California have been stymied by state-level gridlock, bureau-
the owners of a now-shuttered lakeside dance club Executive Director Brigid cratic infighting, budget constraints, and the record-
called Hell’s Kitchen. McCormack. “The chal- breaking drought. Since the water-transfer deal was
Leipzig doesn’t mince words when he lays lenges are daunting, but struck in 2003, only a few dozen acres of wetlands
blame for the grim reality in front of us on the Im- there hasn’t been a better have actually been rebuilt.
perial Valley–San Diego water deal—the largest time to make real prog- The current push for a solution, however, is un-
agricultural-to-urban water transfer in American ress than right now.” like anything seen before, says Andrea Jones, direc-
history. “It was one of the unwisest environmental With the sea facing tor of bird conservation for Audubon California.
decisions in recent history,” he declares. major water cutbacks There’s been more forward momentum in the past
In 2003 San Diego County struck a deal with starting in 2018, Audu- year than in the previous 12. In October, Governor
the Imperial Valley to buy water to support its bon California is working Jerry Brown signed a law that mandates the resto-
growing population of three million-plus. The closely with the state and ration of up to 12,000 acres of habitat by 2020. A
Imperial Irrigation District (IID) is entitled to other stakeholders on a patchwork of restoration projects is already break-
3.1 million acre-feet of Colorado River water a restoration plan to avoid ing ground. Last fall, for example, construction
year. The agency agreed to transfer increasing massive habitat loss and began on a 420-acre, $3.5 million project that will
proportions of its allotment to San Diego in ex- the ensuing public health transform Red Hill Bay, part of the Sonny Bono
change for billions of dollars that it would use to, crisis that would result Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge. This dried-
in part, make improvements to outdated irrigation from huge dust storms out landscape, where Ospreys nest in trees once
infrastructure in the valley. With the metropolis fed by exposed lakebed. rooted in two feet of water, is on its way to becom-
buying hundreds of thousands of acre-feet a year Audubon California is ing shorebird habitat again.
and Imperial Valley farms receiving a windfall to providing the state with Most important, by the end of the year, Governor
install drip irrigation and line canals, both sides detailed habitat mapping, Brown is widely expected to finally approve a long-
win. There’s the additional environmental benefit and raising awareness range management plan.
of boosting water efficiency—something that’s be- about the millions of Bruce Wilcox is the man charged with creating
come increasingly critical as the drought gripping birds that depend on the that unified blueprint—and wrangling money and
California extends into its fifth year. sea, including sandpipers cooperation from the many federal, state, and local
Yet there is an enormous downside to the deal: migrating between Alaska agencies working on the lake. A former IID envi-
The reduced agricultural runoff would mean di- and South America and ronmental manager with a reputation for getting
saster for the sea, which is fed almost entirely by threatened Snowy Plovers. things done, Wilcox was appointed last Septem-
that water. So the agreement called for “mitigation Without the sea, these ber to the newly created position of assistant sec-
water” from fallowed farmland to be added to the birds and many others retary for Salton Sea policy within the California
lake—with farmers receiving compensation for un- would struggle for survival. Natural Resources Agency. Wilcox says, “We have
planted acres—through 2017. After that the volume “Ultimately, the state what we need to get the ball rolling”: authority,
will go to San Diego instead. To address the prob- of California is going to knowledge of the lake, and relationships with the
lem, the state, a party to the Quantification Settle- need to make a substantial, people responsible for conserving it. Jones, Kelley,
ment Agreement, agreed to draft a master plan to sustained investment in and other stakeholders share his confidence that
preserve the Salton Sea. restoring the Salton Sea,” he’s up to the task.
That hasn’t happened yet. McCormack says. “Our The plan Wilcox puts forth will likely draw
If the state doesn’t step in very soon, the re- engagement now will help largely from the Salton Sea Restoration and Re-
verberations could be felt far beyond the Imperial ensure this is done right— newable Energy Initiative, a $3.15 billion proposal
Valley. Failure to act could put the whole transfer that critical bird habitat is released by the IID in 2015 that would kick-start
agreement in jeopardy and open the state to liti- protected, and the toxic shovel-ready pilot projects and new geothermal
gation. Already, Kevin Kelley, general manager of dust no longer threatens energy development along the lake’s shores. The
the irrigation district, has gone so far as to intimate local communities.” proposal would move the state closer to its goal of
42 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 To learn more about Audubon California’s efforts to help the Salton Sea, visit ca.audubon.org.
getting half of its electricity from renewable sourc- g and bulrushes grow thick in the water, and stands
es by 2030, and generate funds for restoration ef- WATERBIRD WORLD of willow and cottonwood on the nearby shore are
forts. In March an Australian company, Controlled Human vacationers may periodically flooded to mimic natural river cycles.
Thermal Resources, took the first steps toward gain- have abandoned the Farmer Al Kalin, whose family has grown alfalfa
ing approval for a 250-megawatt geothermal plant sea, but birds continue and sugar beets in the valley for three generations,
on the lake’s southern shore. to flock to the expansive worked on the marsh and has long believed that
Whatever framework is approved promises to aquatic habitat. Up to it’s these relatively small, inexpensive plots—rather
stand as one of the most significant restoration 30 percent of American than large-scale projects that would cost exponen-
projects in the country, says U.S. Fish and Wildlife White Pelicans winter tially more—that will best cover exposed lakebed.
biologist Chris Schoneman. here, and Double-crested “I’ve been preaching that for years,” he says.
Implementing the plan will cost billions of Cormorants breed here Wilcox says the paralysis that gripped bureau-
dollars over dozens of years, and where all of that in larger numbers than at cracies for so long could be blamed in part on the
cash will come from has yet to be hammered out. any other inland site. “silver bullet syndrome.” A lot of years were spent
Still, managers won’t be starting from scratch. trying to find the perfect solution, he says. “There
Some $80 million of the $7.5 billion state water isn’t one. It’s a very complex problem.” It’s an in-
bond California voters passed in 2014 is ear- escapable issue that touches everyone around the
marked for the Salton Sea, and in January, Gov- Wilcox says Salton Sea, Wilcox continues, whether they real-
ernor Brown proposed another $80 million in aid. the paralysis ize it or not.
In addition, President Obama’s 2017 budget, an- that gripped A September 2014 study published by the Pacific
nounced in February, included $3 million to build bureaucracies for Institute, an Oakland-based think tank focused
wetland habitat along the Alamo River, which so long could be on water policy, predicts a staggering financial toll
drains into the lake’s southern end. Wilcox says blamed in part on without intervention. Impacts to property values,
he’s working closely with federal agencies to iden- the “silver bullet public health, recreational revenue, and natural hab-
tify other funding streams, including the Natural syndrome.” A itats could cost the region as much as $70 billion
Resources Conservation Service. lot of years were over the next 30 years. “We should all care about
Glimmers of what’s likely to come already exist. not having a disaster at the sea,” Wilcox says. “We
spent trying to
On the southern shore sits a 640-acre marsh the should be above that kind of thing, frankly.”
IID created over the past seven years for endan-
find the perfect Forces of nature determined the fate of the
gered Ridgway’s and California Black Rails. The solution, he Salton Sea in its past iterations. This time, it’s up
area is divided into “cells” of varying sizes, some says. “There to us. a
up to tens of acres, where grebes and coots pad- isn’t one. It’s a
dle along, frequently diving in the four-foot-deep very complex Tyler Hayden wrote about last year’s Santa Barbara
water to snatch up the abundant crawfish. Cattails problem.” oil spill in the July-August 2015 issue.

FIELD
GUIDE
BIRDING What to do when your bird guide isn’t getting it done.
identifying a bird is like solving a mystery. Every gumshoe birder gathers clues from the subject’s
appearance. But what happens when those clues don’t materialize, or when they add up to a species that
defies logic? With no point of reference, judging size can be tough. Catch a bird in the wrong light and it
looks washed out. Even worse are oddballs that turn up with missing feathers or field marks painted on by
brushes with nature. To crack those cases, you’ll need to know both the environment and the nuances
between species—but also be ready to second-guess yourself. Follow the tips our experts gleaned from their
own hard-won experience. This is the universe testing your skills. You’ll become a better birder because of it.
2
Tips to
Build Your
ID IQ
The Audubon
Birds of North
America app lets
you narrow spe-
cies by size (look
under “Explore
Birds,” then “Ad-
vanced Search”).
But when size
is distorted, try
these other
options.
Wing Shape
Choices such as
tapered, pointed,
swept, and fin-
gered could help
lead you to the
correct species. A
P E RS PECTIVE By Nick Lund (The Birdist) of differing sizes stand next to each other, but that short-winged bird,
hardly ever happens because birds are jerks. So then for example, could
Size Can Be Deceiving what do you do? be a Northern
My advice is to pretend like you’re playing Pac- Bobwhite, a Vir-
In spring and fall, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs Man. In the video game, Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man ginia Rail, or even
are easy to spot along marshes and shorelines across look identical, except that Ms. Pac-Man wears a a Least Bittern.
the United States. What’s not as easy? ID-ing them. bow. You’ll need to find that bow—the feature that
CHUCK SEAMENS/AUDUBON PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
Both birds have a white eye ring, checkered backs, distinguishes each pair of lookalike birds. Locomotion
white bellies, and, of course, bright-yellow legs. The For the Greater Yellowlegs, it’s the head- to bill- What is the bird’s
only obvious difference is their size: The Greater is length ratio, which is larger than that of the Lesser flight pattern like?
greater and the Lesser is lesser. Yellowlegs. (Hey, I didn’t say it would be a cinch.) If it hovers, it may
There are quite a few examples of such puzzling The bill length also differs for Hairy and Downy be a humming-
pairs. Cooper’s Hawks and Hairy Woodpeck- Woodpeckers. Adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls have bird, a kestrel, or
ers both have avian “Mini-Me’s” (Sharp-shinned yellow legs, while adult Great Black-backed Gulls a White-tailed
Hawks and Downy Woodpeckers, respectively). wear shades of pink. Also focus on leg and bill color Kite. If it gets
There are greater and lesser versions of scaup, to separate the white herons. in formation, it
black-backed gulls, and prairie-chickens. White Once you learn to look for these features, you’ll be could be an ibis,
herons come in a bunch of sizes, too. able to size up most birds. The yellowlegs, however, a cormorant, or a
Identification can be a snap when two species might haunt you forever. European Starling.

Average Wingspan American Robin vs. Common Raven vs. Mute Swan vs. Experts share
Adults of related European Robin American Crow Tundra Swan other life-list les-
species, in inches 14 46 88 sons at audubon.
8 36 66 org/birding.
ILLUMINATION By Sharon Stiteler (Birdchick) Bottoms Up

The most com-
Lighting Changes Everything Silhouettes of birds mon profile of
can be diagnostic when you know the species well, dabbling ducks
but not when you’re just learning. For a bird’s every isn’t one you’ll find
field mark to be exposed, you’ll need perfect light- in a field guide.
ing. The best times for birding are an hour after dawn Luckily, you can
and an hour before dusk, when the daylight is at its learn to identify
MIDDLE, FROM LEFT: STEVE CREEK; DOUG MITCHELL; BRIAN SINGLETON. FAR RIGHT, FROM TOP: GA ROUSSEAU/ALAMY; MARVIN DEMBINSKY/PHOTO ASSOCIATES/ALAMY; CLIVE VARLACK. GRAPHICS: ALLABOUTBIRDS.ORG
richest and warmest, and the shadows under leaves them while they’re
and shimmering heat waves are absent. To make the feeding—simply
most of every minute, use an app like Sun Surveyor by getting to know
or Helios to track the sun’s position each day. their butts.
If you’re still having trouble seeing field marks,
you may need better optics. Even the low-priced Go-To Bins phase-correcting ($3,249) binoculars
birding models on the market today are far superior For a starter pair, coatings on the are worth every
to the bins you may have inherited from your grand- the Vortex Dia- Eagle Optics penny when it
father’s Army days. When testing them, don’t look mondback 4x42 Ranger ED 8x42 comes to clarity and
at objects in bright sunlight—aim at dark corners Roof Prism (above; ($400) offer supe- brightness. (Disclo-
or the undersides of tables. The best pairs will have $269) has great rior transmission. sure: Stiteler has a
coated glass, which gives you a brighter image no light-gathering abil- Swarovski’s EL sponsorship with Northern Pintail
matter how rough the lighting. ity. The dielectric, Range 8x42 W B Swarovski.) The four-inch
tail feathers on
the male are key:
They’re longer
than those of any
other dabbling
species.
Mallard
For the telltale
IDENTIFICATION By Kenn Kaufman Dirty birds. Once in Arizona, a friend phoned to say sign of a male
he’d found a flock of Harris’s Sparrows—the only North mallard, find two
Birds of a Different Feather American sparrows that have black faces. At the scene I black curls stick-
instead found White-crowned Sparrows that had been ing up like the
sometimes, even when you see a bird in perfect feeding on fallen olives. Discoloration like this happens ends of a well-
light, its feathers might not match its expected form. a lot. Hummingbirds may end up smeared with pollen. twirled mustache
But the occasional curveball is part of what makes Swans’ heads and necks are often tainted orange by .
birding fun. The only way to prepare is to learn minerals. And in one case, a Greater Yellowlegs covered
common species and not jump to any conclusions. in oil was identified as a Spotted Redshank. (Above
Remember, even birds can get weird. middle: a Black-chinned Hummingbird with pollen.)
Balding birds. A few missing feathers can utterly Leucistic or albino birds. As an obsessive 10-year-old
change your impression of a bird. On one birding boat birder, I learned about two oft-seen conditions that can
trip off the New Jersey coast, a bizarre bird flying low cause birds to lack their usual pigments. At the time, I’d Green-winged
over the waves grabbed my attention. With a small found a pure-white bird I was thrilled to ID as a Snow Teal
head and stubby tail, it had the entire crew guessing: Bunting. Sure, it seemed odd that this Arctic species Two gold patches
Was it a dark petrel or an odd shearwater? Could it should be hanging out in Kansas in July, but I couldn’t flash beneath
be a member of the auk family? After circling at a imagine what else it could be. After watching it for a the male’s tail.
distance, the mystery bird landed on the boat. It was a couple of days, I crossed Snow Bunting off my life list. (They’re visible
Mourning Dove that had lost its tail feathers. (Above Clearly I was looking at a pigment-free House Sparrow. when the bird is
left: a molting Northern Cardinal.) (Above right: a leucistic Eastern Screech-Owl.) upright, too.)

FIELD
GUIDE
TRAVEL Head to the north woods—the boreal birds are waiting.
Adirondack Park,
New York
Established: 1892
Bird Species: 200
Listen for the call of the
Common Loon in the
six-million-acre Ad-
irondack Park. See Gray
Jays, Mourning and
Canada Warblers, and,
with luck, even a Spruce
Grouse or Black-backed
Woodpecker. Hike
high peaks like Wakely
Mountain in pursuit
of the rare Bicknell’s
Thrush. On breaks, stop
at craft breweries or ride
for most of north america, the birds
of the boreal forest—the vast swath of
5 a bobsled in Lake Placid.
The Adirondack Birding
DESIGN PICS INC./NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE; SAM FRIED/AUDUBON PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS. ILLUSTRATION: DAVID ALLEN SIBLEY
Festival happens in June,
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: MICHAEL QUINTON/ MINDEN PICTURES/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE; BRETT MAURER/GETTY IMAGES;
spruce woods, bogs, and northern hard-
but guided warbler walks
woods stretching across the top of the occur all summer.
Trips to Boreal
continent—appear only fleetingly, if they’re Hotspots
seen at all. You might find a flock of Algonquin Provincial
Grail Bird Park, Ontario
Spruce Grouse
Common Redpolls feeding in a Minnesota Established: 1893
This elegant bird field in January or a Blackburnian Warbler Bird Species: 275
can seem hard perched in a Tennessee treetop in May. But Algonquin is a place
to find—not to find the “Big Four”
because it’s shy
those moments are elusive, and some boreal boreal birds: the Spruce
but because it’s birds never dip south. Take control of your Grouse, Black-backed
tame. Spruce destiny by heading north this summer to Woodpecker, Gray Jay,
Grouse may
see these species where they nest and breed. Moosehorn National and Boreal Chickadee. It
sit motionless Wildlife Refuge, Maine is also famous for weekly
as you walk by You might hear the call of a Common Established: 1973 “wolf howls” in August
just a few feet Loon or the drumming of a Black-backed Bird Species: 175 and for excellent hiking
away. Males Woodpecker. Venture beyond the well- A diverse landscape of and canoeing. A park
sometimes stand hills, shores, lakes, streams, map highlights water
along road edges
trodden boardwalks and pathways for a and bogs makes Moose- routes, easy day paddles,
at dawn, and glimpse of the rare Bicknell’s Thrush. And horn a magnet for birds, and places to camp.
hens with chicks while you’re traveling, there are plenty of including Spruce Grouse, The visitors’ center and
prowl dirt roads Boreal Chickadees, and nearby one-mile Spruce
and trails in
other activities and attractions to explore. Blackburnian Warblers.
midsummer. Paddle a kayak alongside beluga whales, Drive an hour south to
search for seabirds on a whale-watching the historic lighthouse at
tour, visit craft breweries and museums, or Quoddy Head State Park,
the country’s easternmost
even take a thrilling ride on a bobsled. You point—and a perfect look-
won’t be bored in the boreal. —Mel White out for scoping seabirds.

North American Birds For more summer
That Breed in the Boreal destinations, visit
Waterfowl species audubon.org/
Finch species 80% 63% 53% travel.
Warbler species
4
Bog Boardwalk Trail
provide an introduction
to the park’s rich wildlife
and history.
Insider
Tips
Wildlife Safety
As you’re traveling
in the North Coun-
Churchill, Manitoba try, always follow
Established: 1717 rules about dealing
Bird Species: 195 with bears, and
The town of Churchill, keep your distance
on the shore of Hud- from moose; they
son Bay, is the place to look docile, but
see polar bears in fall, IF YOU WA N T TO… they are extremely
but in summer, boreal aggressive when
birds are the big draw. Let Someone Else Write the Itinerary disturbed or
Forest meets tundra threatened.
here, providing habitat North Huron Birding Trail Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, or, as locals refer to it, “the U.P.,”
LEFT, FROM TOP: RICK & NORA BOWERS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; ALISON WRIGHT/AURORA PHOTOS. TOP RIGHT: JIM CUMMING/AUDUBON PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS
for Willow Ptarmigans, offers remarkable scenery and legendary birding. The new North Huron Birding Biting Bugs
Parasitic Jaegers, North- Trail highlights 30 of the best sites near the peninsula’s eastern tip. Boreal forest Big mammals may
ern Hawk Owls, Bo- zones here offer a wide variety of nesting birds: Northern Goshawks hunt the forget all the public-
hemian Waxwings, and est interior, Blackburnian Warblers sing from the spruce tops, and Yellow-bellied ity, but you’re far
more. Summer bonus: Flycatchers lurk in the bogs. Search for Sharp-tailed Grouse in the open areas, and more likely to
several thousand beluga Sedge Wrens, Le Conte’s Sparrows, or even the elusive Yellow Rail in the meadows. be bothered by
whales that gather in the At night, Common Loons serenade campers with their wild yodeling. Learn more at mosquitoes, flies,
Churchill River estuary. northhuronbirding.com, and explore other birding trails at audubon.org/travel.—K.K. and other pesky in-
sects. Be prepared
with long-sleeved
shirts, repellent,
and even a head
net.
Train Travel
Anchorage, Alaska Most people visit
Established: Circa 1914 Churchill by plane,
Bird Species: 250 but for a true ad-
Imagine seeing Rock venture, consider
Ptarmigans, Gray- the 48-hour rail
crowned Rosy-Finches, journey from Win-
and White-winged nipeg. The train
Crossbills on a morning departs Sunday
hike and dining on king and Tuesday
crab a few hours later. G EA R mornings.
Welcome to Anchorage,
which offers excellent Comfort Zone Camp in style with the Big Agnes Krumholtz UL2 mtnGLO Trip Prep
birding just minutes from ($650), a durable, two-person tent with LED lights and a Goal Zero solar panel, For more facts
downtown. Between bird fan, and battery. Then hit the trail for a full day of birding: The Thule Stir 20L Hiking and information
quests, fly in a helicopter Pack ($100) is comfortable, has quick-access pockets, and weighs only a pound. about boreal birds
over a glacier, tour the You’ll forget you’re carrying the super-compact Patagonia Alpine Houdini jacket and high-latitude
kennel of an Iditarod ($199)—until the wind picks up or it starts raining. The 18-ounce Yeti Rambler birding, visit the
“musher,” or visit the Bottle ($40) keeps coffee hot or water chilled all day. The fully loaded Boker Plus Boreal Songbird
Anchorage Museum. Tech-Tool Outdoor 7 ($73) features three blades, scissors, and an awl. Initiative’s website:
—M.W. borealbirds.org.

FIELD
GUIDE
PHOTOGRAPHY
you know the photo you really want. Maybe it’s a
For a whole new perspective, try a float trip.
Common Loon navigating a remote lake in northern

Minnesota. Or an Atlantic Puffin perched on Eastern
Egg Rock, off the coast of Maine. Or a bunch of Rose-
ate Spoonbills feeding in a backwater of the Everglades.
The good news is that you can get that shot. The bad
news is that it won’t be waiting for you at the end of a
boardwalk. No, to get this photo, you’re going to need a
boat. While water-based photography is in many ways
similar to shooting on land, it does require extra precau-
tions. Here’s how to stay dry and hold steady.
SEL F -P ROP ELLED
Go for a Paddle
Grail Bird with a kayak or canoe, you can take your bird
Black-capped photography to places inaccessible by foot. Kay-
Petrel aks, which sit low in the water, can handle nearly
A fast flier of any aquatic environment—from ponds and lakes to
deepwater zones, offshore swells. Their shallow draft puts you at eye GE AR
the Black-capped level with birds. Chop or swells can make steadying a
Petrel is almost camera impossible, so choose your moments carefully: All Aboard The steady Necky Manitou 130R kayak
Wait for calm water, and then shoot handheld or use a (left; $1,500) has a large cockpit, ample storage, and a
TOP LEFT: MAC STONE. ILLUSTRATION: DAVID ALLEN SIBLEY
never seen from

land in North camera bag on the deck to support your lens. rudder for precise navigating. A canoe/kayak hybrid, the
America, except Canoes sit higher in the water, making them best Native Watercraft Ultimate 12 ($949) has great stabil-
during hurricanes. suited for lakes and swamps. There’s room for extra ity and an open design, making entry and camera set-up
But it occurs in equipment—perhaps a mid-telephoto lens—or even simple and safe. While on the water, keep your gear se-
good numbers a friend. Extra stability means you can set up a tripod cure and dry: Ultra-light and waterproof, Pelican’s 1525
over warm waters without it tipping. Be wary of sabotaging it yourself, Air Case ($225) stows a DSLR body and telephoto lens;
of the Gulf Stream. however: Use a double-headed kayak paddle, rather the waterproof zipper on Watershed's Ocoee dry duf-
To photograph than a canoe paddle, to avoid hitting your setup. fel ($105) locks out moisture better than roll-top clo-
it, join a pelagic Camouflaging your kayak or canoe typically doesn’t sures; and Vortex’s Media Storm Jacket (from $38) fits
birding trip off the fool birds, but too much movement will spook them. snugly to shield a DSLR lens hood from the elements.
Outer Banks of When paddling, keep the blades low to the water, and Protect yourself, too: The low-profile Stohlquist Spec-
North Carolina. try to glide as you near the birds. —Corinne Iozzio trum ($80) life jacket won’t impede your movements.

Status of Seabirds
Want land-based
47% decreasing
tips, too? Go to
25% stable
audubon.org/
17% increasing Total photography.
11% unknown species: 350
3
Rules of the Rookery Near-shore islands offer both relative safety to colonial nesting birds,
such as herons and Roseate Spoonbills, and unique opportunities for kayak- or canoe-borne
bird photographers. They also require particular care, since flushing birds off their nests leaves
eggs or nestlings vulnerable to predators and the elements. As you approach a rookery, re-
move your paddle from the water, and glide forward quietly. Stay at least 50 yards away. If
you seem to be disturbing any of the birds, back off. Never land on the island or get out of your Expert
boat. You’ll get the most interesting photos during the nest-building and chick-rearing stages. Tips
Gary Luhm It’s hard to get good shots on sunny days unless you shoot very early or late. Better to choose a
bright, overcast day, which will allow for even lighting on all sides of the island. Keep your shut- Clean Sweep
Kayak photogra- ter speed high, at least 1/500th of a second. If your camera has image stabilization or vibration Remove salt spray
pher Gary Luhm reduction, make sure they’re turned on. Last, stay into the early evening, when you can get when you’re back
tried for 10 years to some great flight shots of birds returning to roost for the night. —Melissa Groo on dry land. Use
record the court- a microfiber lens
ship ritual of the cloth and fluid to
Western Grebe. wipe the lens, and
Three years ago carefully swab the
he finally captured body (including
it on the Potholes inside the battery
Reservoir in compartment and
Washington State. under the pop-up
The birds carry out flash, if you have
an intricate dance one) with cotton
that culminates pads soaked in
in a quick-footed rubbing alcohol.
maneuver called
rushing. “It’s just Lighten Up
fabulous to watch,” Stepping down
he says. from a full-frame
camera quickly
reduces heft. Pho-
tographer Gary
Luhm sometimes
switches from a
Canon DSLR to
a cropped-frame
camera (in his
FROM TOP: GARY LUHM; FRANS LANTING; CONSTANCE MIER. SOURCE OF SEABIRD STATISTICS: IUCN
Connie case, a Sony

Mier POWER TR IP onto subjects as you follow them. Whenever a6300), which al-
possible, shoot with the sun behind you lows for a smaller,
On a remote lake Sail Into the Open to avoid blank silhouettes, and use waves, kayak-friendly lens
in the Everglades, clouds, or other compositional elements while still getting a
three miles from seabirds that feed on open water can to add some interest to what could easily good reach.
her canoe launch, be found from inshore waters to the edge become a fairly spare frame.
Connie Mier spent of the continental shelf, which extends a The best spot onboard is usually the Ditch the Anxiety
a morning shoot- few miles offshore in the Pacific and as far stern, where you’re closer to the water and As you’re getting
ing a rare flock of as 60 miles in the Atlantic. For photos of where crewmembers might toss chum to ready, consider 1)
30 wild American these birds, your best bet is booking a small attract birds like shearwaters, gulls, and how comfortable
Flamingos. It was charter or signing up for a pelagic birding albatrosses. No matter where you are in the you are in a boat
her first, and only, or whale-watching trip. boat, the spray means you’ll need extra pro- and 2) the value of
time photograph- Tripods are essentially useless on a pitch- tection, for you and your gear. Wrap your your camera gear.
ing the towering ing deck (and some captains actually forbid camera to shield it from corrosive saltwater, If the answers are
waders. “Standing them), so good handheld-shooting skills are and layer yourself in well-fitted, waterproof 1) not so much
straight up they a must. Check carefully for potential trip- clothing, including boots (no floppy hats and 2) really high,
looked five or six ping hazards, keep a wide stance, and steady or ponchos; they get in the way). Seasick- you run the risk of
feet tall,” she says. the camera with both hands. Shoot in burst ness can ruin a trip, so stave off nausea with turning an enjoy-
“They were huge mode with a fast shutter and the aperture a dose of motion-sickness meds (non- able outing into a
and beautiful.” wide open; most modern autofocus can lock drowsy!) and crackers. —C.I. high-stress trip.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA Continued from page 29
“We’ve seen a lot of international researchers and g The scientists exuberantly exchange high-fives,
organizations come and go,” says Gonder. “Equato- SOUTHERN LIVING everyone yammering as the red-capped bird hops
rial Guinea is a very challenging place to do conser- The beaches of southern comically across the screen. Powell asks, “What was
vation work. You have to have buy-in at all levels, Bioko are nesting grounds the time stamp?” Brzeski checks. The bird triggered
from local people to the highest echelons of govern- for four species of sea the camera 26 hours ago. “We’re going to try and
ment.” The BBPP has worked extensively with the turtle (above), whose catch it, right?” says Powell.
government to put in place conservation policies, to eggs and meat are a We have three hours of sunlight. Wolfe, visibly
create protected areas on Bioko, to help found an sought-after food source torn, goes with Brzeski to hit the other camera
environmental studies department at the university, for locals. Expedition traps. The rest of us—Powell, Cooper, Motove,
and to hire locals to do everything from conduct- members (opposite) walk photographer Tristan Spinski, and I—will try to
ing wildlife surveys to providing tourism support. to Moraka field camp on capture the elusive bird.
Gonder’s encouraged by the Biodiversity Initiative’s the first day of the trip Powell is in full leader mode, instructing Motove
drive to return every year, to collaborate, and to ex- to the caldera, spotting to set up two nets, one on either side of the 150-foot-
pand its reach. “Luke and his people seem very com- numerous birds, including high ceiba tree the picathartes strutted past. He puts
mitted,” she says, “and we need that here.” Western Reef-Herons the chances of catching it at 10 percent. “Well,” he re-
Powell says they’re in it for the long haul—but not and Pied Crows. considers after a moment, “make that seven percent.”
forever. “We want to become obsolete,” he says. “To Cooper shares that skepticism. He’s spent count-
train people here to do conservation science, and then less hours in Cameroonian forests searching for this
let them protect their own natural heritage.” bird. Once, at a newly built nest, he waited so long
O
he literally watched the mud dry. “We don’t stand a
n our penultimate day in the cal- chance, but we have to try,” he says.
dera, we leave North Camp for Hormi- Nets up, we huddle around Powell for final in-
gas. Brzeski and Wolfe stop at the cam- structions: We’re each to take a quadrant, face away
era traps along the trail to swap out used from the net, and keep still. Spinski will position
cards for blank ones; a Moraka volunteer will retrieve himself across from the tree, the best vantage point
them in April. They fall behind. Cooper is explaining for getting a shot. If a pica wanders into our quadrant,
his distrust of baboons and fear of snapping turtles we’re to let everyone know, then shoo it into the net.
when their screams jolt us to a stop. “Are they hurt?” “It probably won’t hurt you,” Powell says. “It’s about
asks Cooper. We can’t tell. We race back up the trail. one-third the size of a chicken.”
Brzeski and Wolfe meet us part way, she trium- I am certain that if the bird enters my quadrant,
phantly holding her digital camera in the air like a I will blow the capture. I want reinforcements. I ask
trophy, he shouting: “Picathartes! Picathartes!” how to alert everyone if I spot the bird.

“Whistle the Carolina Chickadee song,” says Kristin Brzeski Reed Warbler to the country list. Powell is organiz-
Cooper. “Nothing here sounds like it.” and Jared Wolfe ing the info Fero will need to issue export permits for
This suggestion is met with three blank stares. meet us part way, blood and feathers from the 780 birds the team cap-
The photographer, the Equatoguinean, and I have no she triumphantly tured throughout the monthlong expedition. Wolfe is
idea what a Carolina Chickadee sounds like. holding her doing laundry. Brzeski is on her computer, watching
Powell sighs. “Just shout, ‘Bird!’ ” digital camera camera trap footage. She lets out a joyful WHOOP!
We wade into the brush and take position. Cooper in the air like a A week ago, four hours after we left Hormigas for
starts the picathartes playback on his phone. It sounds trophy, he shout- North Camp, the waterfall camera recorded video of
like an inexperienced driver shifting gears. It could be ing: “Picathartes! a picathartes jumping off a log on the ledge and cross-
an alarm call, a territorial call, a mating call—it’s the Picathartes!” The ing the shelf. Wolfe is vindicated. “I am convinced I
only one he could find, and nobody knows what mes- scientists exuber- heard it,” he says after seeing the footage.
sage it’s sending the bird, assuming it’s even in earshot. antly exchange In May Brzeski receives the six camera traps left
The size of picathartes’ range is yet another unknown. high-fives, every- out for nearly three months. They recorded 13,000
The wait is, at turns, exciting, nerve-racking, and one yammering images. A menagerie parades across her screen:
tedious. At one point a crash nearby startles me and I as the red-capped monkeys, bushbabies, cat-like oyans, pangolins, por-
slip off my log. Probably just a rodent. bird hops comi- cupines, duikers. And on every camera, picathartes.
After 45 minutes, Powell calls it quits. “Man, cally across the Multiple birds were there, hidden, perhaps watching
it’s out here somewhere,” he says. “We gotta come screen. furtively as we tromped through the forest, fruitlessly
back.” Cooper pats him on the shoulder. They aren’t searching for them. For all we saw in the caldera, it
returning this year. Tomorrow we leave the caldera. seems we barely glimpsed the place. A
P
orters appear the next morning and Volume 118, Number 4, Summer 2016. Audubon, ISSN 0097-
take off with our packs. After a last round of 7136, the magazine of the National Audubon Society, will be
banding—nine birds, one a recapture—we published six times in 2016 (January, March, May, Summer, Fall,
follow, crossing the river, climbing up and Winter). Editorial and advertising offices: 225 Varick Street,
out of the crater. We spend the night at Moraka, the 7th Floor, New York, NY, 10014; 212-979-3000. Postmaster:
crashing waves barely dampening the hyrax cries. The Send address changes to National Audubon Society, P.O. Box
next day we retrace the path along the beach, each step 727, Neenah, WI, 54957-0727. Periodical preferred postage
drawing us closer to cold beer and fried chicken. The paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canadian
caldera rises in the distance, impossibly far away. GST Number is R127073195. Canada Post International Pub-
The scientists spread out at the Moka field station lications Mail (Canadian Distribution) Sales Agreement No.
the next morning. Cooper is birding; he adds the Great 190314. Printed in USA.

THE ILLUSTRATED AVIARY
Reimagining John James Audubon’s “Birds of America”

RED-BREASTED SANDPIPER (RED KNOT) BY CLAIRE BREWSTER
knife, pen, and tracing paper are Claire Brewster’s essential tools for craft-
BOTTOM (DETAIL): JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
ing her nature-inspired paper sculptures. This iteration of Audubon’s Red Knot
was cut from The Times Atlas of the World from the 1970s, given to her by a
friend. Brewster, 48, who lives in Central London, likes using maps in her art
because “you learn so much about the changes in the world from them,” she
says. The colors, patterns, and quality of the printing and paper add to their
appeal. What’s more, maps are symbolic of movement, which is particularly
apt for the Red Knot, a record holder for one of the longest yearly migrations See all of John
of any bird (nearly 19,000 miles to and from its Arctic breeding area to its James Audubon’s
South American wintering grounds in Tierra del Fuego). “Birds work well Birds of America
in my work because [they] have a freedom and a natural imperative to fly,” at audubon.org/
Brewster says, “some on long, arduous migrations, some not. Yet fly they must.” birds-of-america.

Free Audubon
Bird Guide App
821 birds at your fingertips
Visit audubon.org/apps
Snowy Owl. Photo: Gerard

Lacz/Getty Images
A Window into the World of Birds
Audubon and Explore.org have partnered to transport you through your screen
to the coast of Maine for live streaming from an osprey nest, puffin burrow, and
cormorant perch. Watching these and other live nature cams is a wonderful and
exciting way to remind us why we love and need to protect birds.
Tune in—you never know what you might see.

explore.org/birds
OSPREY. PHOTO: JIM VERHAGEN
BIRD CAMS
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The World’s Live Cam Network division of the Annenberg Foundation.

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BUILDING ROBOTIC BIRDS | SAVING CALIFORNIA’S SALTON SEA | TESTING BIRD-SAFE GLASS

These ﬂedgling robins were fed 15 minutes

Innovation Rise of the Avianoids Dispatch Sea Change

6AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

Birds (and People)

11 Inbox BY MARK JANNOT

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 7

8AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

It’s easy to name Audubon as a beneﬁciary of a retirement account, life

Contact Shari Kolding today at (512) 236-9076.

canals to grow our food and ﬁber,

FROM TOP: CAMILLA CEREA/AUDUBON; PETER MCBRIDE

10AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

An education. An art exhibit. An

my father loved desert scenes

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 11

12AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 ILLUSTRATION BY FELIX SOCKWELL

D eliveries to the everglades

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 15

How to Test Bird-Safe Glass

16AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 I LLU STRATI O N BY LAU RE NT C I LLU FFO

P H OTO BY RO B ERT M C CAW SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 17

A Brief 1890 1906 1908 1919 1922 1966

18AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 MA RK K LE TT A ND BY RO N WOL F E

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 19

22 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 MA P BY MI K E RE AG A N

24 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 25

26 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

28 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 29

32AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 33

34AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

obots are being built not only to g

R move like real birds but also to resemble

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 35

T Sea, a 350-square-mile saltwater lake in

38 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016 MA P BY MI K E RE AG A N

40 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 41

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 43

44 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

ILLUMINATION By Sharon Stiteler (Birdchick) Bottoms Up

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 45

46 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 47

Common Loon navigating a remote lake in northern

SEL F -P ROP ELLED

never seen from

48 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

Connie case, a Sony

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 49

50 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

SUMMER 2016 | AUDUBON 51

Reimagining John James Audubon’s “Birds of America”

52 AUDUBON | SUMMER 2016

Snowy Owl. Photo: Gerard

Tune in—you never know what you might see.