During this Christmas Season, I am seeing advertisements for “smart” bird feeders. These devices send pictures of the birds at a feeder directly to someone’s “smart” phone. Sounds cool–right? However, I cannot help but think about how dangerous this “smart” technology exposure might be for birds who come for birdseed. I trust that in their infinite intelligence, they will not go near them!
If you would like to see birds in the wild, I can recommend the YouTube stream? videos? site? whatever it is called . . . where a friend of mine shares the activity of his backyard bird feeders. It is called WNC Bird & Butterfly Buffet .
And if you are interested in reading more about environmental stresses that harm the birds (and indeed, every living creature), you might want to check out this Newsletter by the Cellular Phone Task Force. It discusses the plight of the wild kiwikiu released into the Nakula Natural Area Reserve, on the southern slope of Haleakalā volcano in Hawaii. Kiwikiu, a species of honeycreepers found only on Maui, are critically endangered. They are small, weighing less than an ounce. The birds released were fitted with transmitters for tracking in 2019. One bird, WILD7, removed his transmitter on November 8, 2019 and he was last observed, doing well, on November 12, 2019. Another fortunate bird, WILD1, succeeded in disabling his transmitter the day after his release, and he was observed, doing well, with the harness still attached to his legs, on November 24, 2019. WILD1 eventually removed the harness as well and was observed again, doing well, on July 23, 2021, or 632 days after his release into the forest reserve. You will have to read the Newsletter to find out what happened to the rest of the kiwikiu that were released. I cannot bear to relate the results here.
Cane Creek Asparagus & Company CSA 