Audubon is trying to save the southern California segment of this bird population, which used to number in the tens of thousands but now is rare. It's the Tri-colored Black Bird.
To learn more, please go to Audubon's Page on this wonderful bird. And please pass this along to anyone whom you believe would help this campaign as well. This is a beautiful bird.
There were thousands of Tri-Color that over wintered , probably ten thousand in Santee Valley when I first moved to the San Diego Area in the 60's. Now you just do not see them anymore.
To learn more, please go to Audubon's Page on this wonderful bird. And please pass this along to anyone whom you believe would help this campaign as well. This is a beautiful bird.
There were thousands of Tri-Color that over wintered , probably ten thousand in Santee Valley when I first moved to the San Diego Area in the 60's. Now you just do not see them anymore.
How interesting. They only look like the redwings we have up here. There's seven sub-species in your area alone. I think.
ReplyDeleteDo you think it's pesticides?
Hi K, :) Thanks for the question.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the study by Audubon in the Central Valley, it is because the birds nest in the fields and the fledgelings get chopped up when the harvesters run the fields before the fledglings are really capable of flying well enough to save themselves. They are still in the nests or near them. The farmers in Central Valley have done a miraculous job to change that,and they even set aside a big area and replanted it with native cover for the birds in Central Valley.
So, what Audubon is doing is trying very hard to convince the farmers in Imperial Valley in the south to harvest crops just a few weeks later, as is now done in Central Valley, to allow the fledglings a chance to get their wings under them. It's a campaign. I hope it works.
Tri-Colored Black Birds have been in steep decline in Southern California since sometime in the 90's. Habitat destruction IS actually one cause, but the farm lands taking over the birds usual wildland breeding spaces is the biggest problem, and the harvest being too early for the fledgelings.
About the sub-species, 95% of Tri-color Black Birds live in California. We are almost all they have for space.