A Cold Spell and Thoughts on Invasive Species

Last week, my wife and I had decided to rent a car over the weekend to ... well ... get some shopping done (oh, great) but to also get away from Ann Arbor and see some other landscape for a change (oh, great!!).
Then on Friday, the weather forecast announced that a strong Arctic front was about to sweep across South-Eastern Michigan over the weekend with strong winds and extremely low temperatures. Or, as David Sing from the local birders email-forum put it very nicely: "Winter is flexing her muscles this weekend, and trust me, she's been working out".

We still rented a car and the Arctic front came with force. Here's today's weather (temperatures in degrees Centigrade) and it wasn't much different over the weekend, except that the wind was much stronger:


Shopping on Saturday was as fundamentally exciting as it always is, but at least we were sheltered from the snow storm outside. I had hoped for a few Snowy Owls on the parking lots of the malls we went to but no such luck.

Sunday then was great. It was still very cold and stormy but no snow and sometimes the sun was even out. We therefore decided to drive the 2 hours to Pelee National Park because a) I love the place b) I was curious what it would be like in winter and c) with two beaches to choose from, there was always an opportunity to shelter from the wind and still walk along the lake shore.

I'll get a full report online as soon as I have the pictures digitalized. Meanwhile, here are some thoughts on so-called Invasive Species and once I get started, the connection between this aspect and the current temperatures will be obvious:

Quite a few expression in language are highly deceptive regarding the severeness of their content.
The classic example is that soldiers don't die or get killed, all they do is fall. Well, unless I read in the news that a soldier fell, got up again, rubbed his knees and went home, I don't think that term is appropriate and I don't really want to read it in that particular context.
Or - as Charlie Moores recently pointed out - the Oil Spill. Unless that relates to some ship's cook accidentally discarding a gallon of old palm-oil from his deep fryer into the sea, it doesn't really describe the carnage and catastrophic long-term dimension of such an incident very well.

Another expression that describes a class of ecological catastrophes and that is decisively misleading is "Invasive Species".
According to wikipedia, an invasive species is defined as "a species ... that was introduced (usually by man) to a non-native ecosystem, where it became harmful to the natural environment or to human health."

So far so good, but now to the definition of "Invasion" (again from wikipedia):
"An Invasion is a military action of soldiers entering a foreign land".

And that's the interesting part of it. An invasion is not defined as "tossing some soldiers against their will into a foreign and hostile land without a chance of bringing them back home to see if and how they survive or not".
But that's what has been done with birds we call "Invasive Species".

Here's a short story of the introduction of the European Starling Sturnus vulgaris to North America:
The introduction of the Starling was motivated by a want of a certain Society to introduce all species to North America that are mentioned in the works of Shakespeare. This was really stupid. That silly Society should have followed Poe instead and prevented the extermination of Ravens from much of the Eastern U.S. back then, but no - it had to be Shakespeare.
So on a gloomy April day (and I hope the weather was foul, too) in the year of 1890, a total of 80 birds were released in New York's Central Park. Another 80 were released the following year and this formed the core population that comprises the ancestry of all 200 Million Starlings living in North America today. There had been very promising introduction attempts before that were ecologically extremely successful (meaning the birds did not spread) but sadly these early victories for nature conservation did not lead to common sense. An interesting account of the early years (until 1928) can be found here.

What do Starlings have to do with the cold weather and Point Pelee?

Very simple: after we entered the Park and drove towards the information centre, we found many birds sitting on the freshly sanded parts of the road. These were Northern Cardinals, White-throated & American Tress Sparrows and Starlings.
The Starlings were in an awful condition! While the Sparrows and Cardinals quickly flew off at the sight of the approaching car, the Starlings were mostly sitting in the middle of the road, some already lying on the ground, too weak and exhausted by the cold to move at all. Many had already been run over by cars and when I stopped right beside one and looked down upon it, I could just feel the bird's comprehension of inevitable death and panic. A few Starlings had managed to find themselves a more sheltered position under some grass bundles at the edge of the road but still these were equally distressed at not knowing where to migrate to on this strange and unfamiliar continent.

Frankly, I would think that those Starlings seeking shelter from the wind under bundles of grass would have been clearly more than upset if they knew they were now actually supposed to reside in this kind of area and weather (these are night-time temperatures in degrees Centigrade):



And I am sure those Starlings on the road had a very clear idea that they either weren't meant to be there at all or that indeed life really sucked and was treating them unkind.
And they certainly were not happy about having to compete with Northern Cardinals and White-throated Sparrows!

There is no doubting the necessity to act against the effects of so-called "invasive species" as they are doing a lot of damage (to say the least) where ever man was dumb-witted enough to release them. If it makes sense and might lead to success, I am certainly not opposed even to rather violent measures that include the killing of large populations of introduced birds (or other introduced animals and plants for that matter).
But what I strongly oppose is the dislike that these animals are met with by many conservationists or birdwatchers.
They never wanted to be introduced to other continents and certainly never meant to invade anything but their proper wintering grounds. Many don't even seem to like it very much where they are now. They don't deliberately compete with native species. There certainly is nothing "invasive" or aggressive in their character that makes these species prone to taking over foreign lands and drive away other (native) species. It just seems too easy and unfair to name these birds "invasive", suggesting the ecological damage they do is part of their nature and their own fault when really it is all our fault!

And if we have to act against them, even kill them, it should always be with pity for the individual and an apology on our lips because we are punishing them for our mistakes!

Individual Recognition

The most astonishing break-throughs in the science of "Enjoying everything that has to do with birds" were achieved through marking birds.
Well, digiscoping came close, but it didn't quite have the same impact on our birding, yet.
Genetics and the new approach to the species concept?
Give me a break! As if we birders wouldn't have found another convenient way of increasing this planet's bird species to get a longer life list without the help of genetics anyway.
No, even if some will disagree, it was the marking of birds that has opened a whole new world of understanding to us birders through unravelling migration routes and vagrancy patterns and getting us great records of passerine vagrants through trapping.

As soon as a bird is marked, we are told, it becomes recognizable as an individual, obtains a life history through moving around a fair bit and allowing humans to get a close look or even catch it once in a while and it is thus far more interesting a bird than the average unmarked monotonous blob in the flock.

Frankly, I'd like to get the birds' opinion on that.

"Darn, I am marked, I am individually recognizable now! No more visiting my neighbouring pair's female because she can now recognize I am not her husband and, hell, so can my own wife, too!"

See? Whoever tells you the marking of birds has no significant impact on bird populations is plainly lying or naive. It surely affects population genetics and inhibits free gene flow amongst neighbours, that's for sure.
And how would you feel if you were told you are only recognizable as an individual after a bird left some bird markings on you?
Not nice.

But to us birders, marked birds are great.
Marked?
Yes, I avoided the proper term for it because this is not all that simple. Why? Well, apparently, bird marking really got started around 1776 (even though wikipedia or the USGS will tell you a different story). There are no historical records to support my hypothesis, but why else would the Americans and the British have different terms for it if it wasn't for - yes - being individually recognizable as a nation?
In the UK, a bird is ringed whereas it is banded in North America. The Germans refer to this process also as "ringing" ("beringen" - to put a ring on something), so it is 2:1 and I'll stick to that term.
It is quite interesting that all of the English web sources above seem to neglect the efforts and pioneering work of the "Vogelwarte Rossitten" (Bird Observatory Rossitten) which was the first to test the method the Danish teacher H. C. C. Mortensen had established in 1899, with large scale ringing starting as early as 1903. Only if one specifically searches for Rossitten a few sources can be located, for example here and especially here, on the Biological Station's home page which of course now has adopted a different name with it being located in today's Russia. And why do you think those traps everyone is using are called Heligoland Traps after a German island out in the North Sea? Well, at least the South Africans got it right.
Oh, I have dwelt enough now through the old and dusty realms of history, back to some first-hand up-to-date birding!

Searching for ringed birds can be great fun. You know, it is really difficult to find a single Lesser White-fronted Goose amongst a flock of several Thousand Greater White-fronted Geese. In fact, I have never managed to find one, just once an isolated flock of around 10 Lessers which probably belonged to the reintroduction programme and were thus really Lesser Exciting Geese, especially as they were closely attached to a Brant. So imagine spending years and years on the Baltic coast going through all these Greaters with nothing to report out of the ordinary.
Oh, again, not nice.
And this is when bird ringing joins this chain of random thoughts: if you fail again on finding a Lesser, what the heck, look there, a ringed Greater, and isn't that contribution to science much more important than some stupid vagrant bird? And isn't it nice that we can distract from our own identification deficits by emphasizing we found a ringed bird?

Of course, finding a ringed bird isn't all that simple either. Usually, goose identification happens along two strata: If you look at a flock feeding on a farm field, it will be one level of brown backs, as if someone had spilled a huge cup of coffee with cream over the field, or maybe chocolate pudding. That's the first stratum, let's call it the back-level. You can actually identify quite a few of the Anser species by the colouration of their backs alone but it is the harder of the two levels. Then, above that brown and smooth mass which is the lower stratum, towers the higher stratum which is the few necks and heads poking out of the back-level here and there to check for Sea Eagles. That, the almond sliver level above the chocolate pudding on the farm field, is the important level to check because the best ID characters of Anser geese are on the head. And the rings? Well, they are on the lower neck which means they are somewhat in between those levels and can really only be seen on birds that stand a bit isolated around the main flock, sort of the pudding drops that got spilled when the whole flock came down onto the field.
Here are a few pictures to demonstrate what I mean.
That - below - is the usually back-level of Greater White-fronted Geese.


Well, sometimes, a little danger helps, as can be seen below or here:


And here, at the edge of the flock, a ringed bird. Exciting!!


As you can see, even when the head reaches the almond sliver level, the ring isn't all that obvious.
In the middle of the flock, therefore, this posture below would be a major blow to understanding the migration route of the species: no data! The geese to the left and right by the way are Tundra Bean Geese.


It is rather obvious from the pictures how finding a ringed bird along the Baltic works: you're out there in a barren open landscape in winter, it is either cold and wet or cold and very much so, thank you, you're fully exposed to the wind and the birds are far far away.
Sometimes, the US are referred to as the "Country with unlimited possibilities". I think its inhabitants have simply managed to make themselves at home rather comfortably, which even extends to the way they bird.
This - below - is how reading a ring on a goose works around Ann Arbor.


Hey, it's different. Not quite as exciting maybe, but still not bad, eh?
Well, frankly I have not yet reported that goose that's been hanging 'round Gallup Park all winter. It just doesn't seem that interesting, but I bet I later find out no one has ever reported it for that reason and that it indeed holds some sort of totally unexpected world record, like the longest living ringed bird or something.
As a matter of fact, I have had two exciting ring readings here already. Last November there was a report of two Cackling Geese just south of Ann Arbor amongst a group of around 1.000 Canadas which I went to see. Upon getting there, I found that quite a few of the geese seemed somewhat smaller and had a more delicate bill than the remainder and I was wondering how I was to find the Cackling Geese amongst this apparent cline. Well of course, once I got to them, they were completely obvious but I was still very intrigued by the size variation within the Canadas.
Back home, I searched the Internet for further information and found a few very interesting pages, like this one by Sibley.
Possibly I had seen three different forms of Canadas on the pond south of Ann Arbor:
two Cackling Geese of the form hutchinsii (nice pics of a different bird here and here), the big local birds maxima and - yes - the slightly smaller and more delicate ones which I thought might have been the form interior. Luckily I had found two ringed birds amongst those smaller ones which I reported.
I was more than anxious to find out if I was right and finally, after only a few days, I got the following answers from Sarah Hagey of the Canadian Ministry of Natural Resources:

"Dear Jochen:
Thank you for reporting the neck collared Canada Goose. Approximately 7000-8000 Canada Geese are banded annually in northern Ontario and James Bay to enable wildlife agencies to track movements, estimate survival, monitor harvest and plan for sustainable populations of geese. The banding is supported by the states and provinces of the Mississippi and Atlantic Flyway Councils and the federal governments of the US and Canada . Reports such as yours are important to the success of the program.

The details of the birds that you reported are as follows:
7YF1 was banded as an adult female on July 26, 1997 on Akimiski Island , James Bay , Nunavut in the degree block 5310 8120. The federal band number is 0908-09945
J0X0 was banded as an adult female on July 16, 2001, twenty-one miles southeast of Lake River , James Bay , Ontario in the degree block 5400 8220. The federal band number is 0968-12970."

Yes!! Right, they were interior birds! So all of a sudden, those close-to-downtown-on-a-pond-in-an-industrial-area-boring birds turned into a flock from the far North, they really were wild and exciting birds that had travelled thousands of kilometres and seen and experienced more of North America than I have.

See, those rings really are a great addendum to our birding!
And here finally and to finish this post, there is a bit of the interesting scientific side as well, enjoy! Those Cackling were probably from the South of Baffin Island, and we know (parts of) Baffin Island:
cheers and thanks, Clare!

Wheeler in the Sky

When you suddenly find something large turning like a wheel in the sky (OK, I admittedly had to stretch this a bit but this is a pretty good live version, so it was worth it), what do you do as a birder?
First, get your geographic bearings right and ask yourself where you are.
If it's Europe, consult the Forsman guide.
If you're in North America, grab your copy of the Wheeler guide.
If you're anywhere else, well, the thing might best be called a "seagull".

When I woke up this morning, I found myself once again in downtown Ann Arbor, which is Eastern North America. With no time for birding but an urge to put something useful on the blog, I therefore have descended like a pack of vultures onto a book review of the Wheeler guide, so Forsman just about got away through pure luck.

So here it is now, the book I am intending to discuss today. Raptors of Eastern North America by Brian K. Wheeler.

When I read a book review, there are basically two things I want to know or expect to learn:
A) What is the book about, what is its content and which aspects are being dealt with.
B) Is it good.

As before, this review might be a bit long and the description of the book's content a bit boring, but I feel that this information really should be part of a review. If you disagree, just scroll down to the judgemental section and skip the words about its content.
If not, here goes...

First, some words about its content:

The book covers the 26 species of Raptors found east of the Mississippi. Raptors here is not meant as a description of a taxonomic union because the author is also incorporating the two species of New World Vultures, which does make sense despite its rendering the book polyphyletic. He actually addresses the apparent polyphyly of the North American raptor species in his introduction to the New World Vultures, so he cleared out of that corner quite all right.
And now we also know a cool word with many "Y"s for our next round of Scrabble which adds meaning to the otherwise quite useless last few sentences.

In his introductory chapters, Wheeler gives basic hints as on how to identify raptors (most importantly: enjoy), describes the format for the Species Accounts, explains the concept behind the plates and captions and provides a few words on the range maps.
What follows is one of the more important aspects of the book as it goes beyond raptors: he provides extensive glossaries on the anatomy of raptors (birds), a "flying and perching displays glossary" (did you know what a "pothook" is or have heard of the wail-pluck display?) and also on general aspects ranging from albinism to wing chord.
Very important when dealing with raptors is a preferably profound knowledge on their moult and ageing and here, too we can find very useful and simple-to-understand (good, because I still struggle with my comprehension of moult) information. What I also found quite good is his description of the different perching and flying attitudes which are accompanied by nice photos (I'll talk about those later). Sadly, he did not include the "I'm gonna poop or maybe just turn around" perching attitude, but it's OK, we all know that one anyway.

Now, finally, we get to the species accounts! considering the book has a total of roughly 450 pages for 26 species, you'll have guessed by now that the species accounts are extensive.
And they really are.
Wheeler provides information on the following aspects:
Ages, Molt/Moult, Subspecies (listing also those found outside the East), Colour Morphs, Species/Adult/Subadult/Juvenile Traits, Habitat, Habits, Feeding, Flight, Voice, Status and Distribution, Nesting, Conservation, Similar Species and Other Names, so there's quite a few chapters to scan through.
Most extensively covered are the Colour morphs, Traits, and the Status and Distribution sections as seems most appropriate for a book that's primarily aimed at being used as a guide to identification.
Each species account is accompanied by a very detailed map showing its distribution in the Eastern part of North America for each subspecies (on some maps, several subspecies are combined) and a series of photos showing the plumage of all the major age classes or subspecies/colour morphs for both perched birds and birds in flight.
The captions to each photo highlight the traits shown (be it species identification or certain age traits) and also mention the month in which the picture was taken, but - a bit sadly - not the location. The latter lapse is not all that important however as the author always mentions the subspecies depicted.
The number of photos per species (4 per page) varies according to the variation in the species plumage and ranges from 7 (Black Vulture) to an incredible 82 (Red-tailed Hawk). I don't think I have ever seen a book with so many pictures of a single species!
The book ends with an extensive bibliography (and an index, of course).

Man, this has been a long text. I think I'll just include a picture of a raptor here before moving on to the real review, the ruling on the book's quality. To continue on the vulture theme, here's another TV from May 2005, this one captured on film at Point Pelee.


Is it good?
Yes, it is good. It is possibly amongst the best books on the identification of a group of birds, at least one of the best I've come across.
It is very important however to clearly have in mind the group of people this book was designed for! This guide certainly requires an identification background or at least a basic knowledge on raptor identification. If you're still trying to figure out how to tell a Swainson's Hawk from a Red-tail, this guide might be exceedingly frustrating. The photos, as I have mentioned, are not grouped together but are attached to each species' account, making comparisons between different species or a quick glance at the most important general field marks very time consuming, if not impossible. For the basic identification of raptors, another guide co-written by Wheeler might be much better suited. I haven't gotten myself a copy of this book yet but had a quick look at it at a book store, and it seems much more user-friendly on a general species-ID level than the Wheeler guide.
The Wheeler guide however appears indispensable when e.g. confronted with identification problems like the separation of Krider's and light-morph Ferruginous Hawks or the subspecific identification of raptors (yes, yes, yes!). If these questions float your boat only half as well as mine, this is your book to get.
If now I am going to detail a few disadvantages of the guide or a few difficulties one has to cope with, this should therefore not deter anyone who's into raptors from purchasing it. Nevertheless, I'd like to mention them. Why? Because this is my blog and I want to.

This book is primarily aimed at being an identification guide, yet as such it is often difficult to use. As with gulls, one species of raptor is - when it comes to species ID - actually several species because its plumage differs with age and according to its morph or sometimes even (slightly) sex. Certain identification problems between two species for example only occur between certain age groups or with one single colour morph. It sometimes therefore appears that the identification criteria in the guide are scattered too much and can be found both in the "traits" section or in the section on similar species. That makes for difficult reading especially as one then has to switch between different species accounts as well. This problem mostly occurs with the Red-tailed Hawk, a species I have spent quite some time with reading about and watching out in the field. Especially concerning the Buteo-Hawks with their numerous colour morphs, a few charts highlighting the ID criteria for each problematic group (dark morph, pale morph etc.) or an extra chapter that only focuses on some of the problem cases would have been desirable.
Without this one is left with reading up a lot of the information, sometimes even copying some parts of the text with pen and paper and making up one's own identification article, using his descriptions to work out how exactly similar forms differ and on what part of the bird one should focus the attention when confronted with one of these problem cases out in the field.
And frankly, this is something I want to see spread out right before me when I open a field guide, not something I expect to do myself.

But I want to make clear that I regard this as a general problem with many, many identification books or articles, actually so much so that I have decided to write up an entry for this blog entirely devoted to this issue instead of misusing the poor Wheeler Guide to demonstrate why I am often left rather frustrated. All in all, this is one of the field guides that deals with the problem described above BEST, so this criticism is a little bit misplaced here. As I said, I'll write about it some more in an extra post.

And finally a word about the photos.
They are wonderful and stunning. It seems almost unbelievable that basically each colour morph or subspecies is not only depicted, nope, it is also shown on a crystal clear, razor sharp and just plain beautiful photo. And he isn't even taking digital images, which has facilitated especially flight shots of birds significantly. He is still working with the good old slide films.
I was only fractionally dissatisfied with the photos of Gyrfalcons because there is no photo that really shows the species in normal soaring flight with the wings fully extended (important for wing formula). But then this is a difficult species to capture with your camera anyway, so I really won't complain.

A short excursion into Politics

I know this is off-topic for a birding blog, but I am just confused by this.
I always thought that in a democracy, the "decider" is or rather are the people.

Or not?

Did I miss anything?

Here are some picks of Politicians debating tax issues - from both sides of the Atlantic, they're (almost) all the same anyway, which partially explains why they don't really value biodiversity.

Yeah, I know this was particularly inappropriate for a birding blog, there was no need to insult the birds.

Gaining Momentum

Apparently, after almost two months of blogging, the Bell Tower system is gaining momentum.


I like it and will continue blogging.
Apparently, I am also making some sort of impression on others. Some even say they like what I write but I think they just want to be nice. Nevertheless, I feel it is now the time to include some more links on my site, mostly other blogs I visit as often as possible and enjoy reading, without risking too much of an uproar in the blogging world.

OK, first up, there's "A DC Birding Blog". This site has a Cerulean Warbler as an emblem and the last post was about an "Arboretum Walk". That alone proves it: some of the best bird blogging!

Then I also once in a while check out "Birding is NOT a crime!!!!". They like birds, they listen to Iron Maiden, got a healthy sense of humour, ... they just don't write enough of the good stuff they're well capable of!!

Then there's the superior "Bootstrap Analysis", a really fine blog that puts the science into birding and blogging. Very nice reading, and the whole thing is happening around my current home patch of Ann Arbor / South-East Michigan!

And "The House and Other Arctic Musings" is great fun, too. It just adds to the global player feel to blogging when you can get the latest birding news from Australia and then quickly jump into the high Arctic for a few minutes.

The Norwegian site "Oygarden Birding" really captures the whole spirit and atmosphere of coastal birding in Norway, something I thoroughly enjoyed in the early 1990s during a couple of birding trips there. Sadly, the blog is currently documenting the disastrous oil "spill" (wreckage, carnage,...) .

And continuing on our Nordic theme, here's "blogbirder", a Swedish birding blog with loads of pictures and he's had quite a few of Redpolls recently which I am very fond of.

And finally (for now), "bogbumper" is not only a neat name for a blog, it is also a neat blog with some nice photography. Interestingly, as with most UK birding blogs, you shouldn't only go there to view pictures of British/European birds. Quite a few pics you'll see are of North American vagrants.

So, there you have it: enjoy (while I go back to work...)!


P.S.:
Look at this.

Ice and Light

Some snowflakes had come down the night after Ann Arbor had received its icy sprinkling and the next morning I was greeted by blue skies and a wealth of light.
After my prolonged lunch break the day before I was very tempted to stay at home and catch up with my excessively interesting computer work but finally succumbed to the begging and whinging of Nature to get outside and watch it shine.
So I eventually did, what can you do, the soft side of me.

I have mentioned in my previous post on the icy rain that it was remarkable how one suddenly noticed so many things as being extraordinary that were always missed or went unnoticed before. This was already obvious on my way through town towards the Arb.
Take this building for example.


What is so noteworthy about it?
Well, nothing of course, but have you noticed the shoes hanging off the power lines? Neither had I during all my walks to the Arb and back. Here they are cropped a bit :


Or this annoying branch that has always been blocking the sidewalk.
Suddenly not all that bad, this time, I shall think?


Well, the first sight of the Arb was more than promising, it was breath-taking. It hadn't been bad the day before without snow and a misty surroundings, as will be remembered:


But this time, it was just beyond anything:


Well, looking at the landscape with the sun in your back wasn't bad, but turning around and looking at the ice against the sun was not what one would call boring either:


The forests were almost deprived of birds (the creepy side to icy rain) but the trees just about managed to look good by themselves and without their usual avian decor.


I especially liked the sharp contrast of the black branches and the sparkling ice against the blue sky. Apparently I have always had a weakness for branches and my mom always told me that I would sit underneath a tree as a baby and just watch the leaves and branches for hours moving in the wind. It doesn't seem to have changed in the last 35 years because I still get the thrills out of sights like this one:


Even though bird numbers were low, with just a few species around like Northern Cardinals and American Robins, the local squirrels were putting on quite a show. There are three species of squirrels in addition to the vicious chipmunks at the Arb and it is great fun to watch them, I might write a bit about them at some point later. Meanwhile, here's a few picks:

Hey, man, where's the food!

Here below , the small tree on the left, that's Old Faithful, who faithfully kept all his branches.


There are quite a few American Robins still around, the most numerous species at the moment, and they just love to get a buzz feeding on the fermented berries. And as true gourmets, they surely enjoyed their chance to taste some selected berry sorbets.

The last few pictures are impressions from the Dow Prairie part of the Arb. There were still a few American Tree Sparrows around and to get an impression of how neat they can look under these circumstances, please visit the gallery of Andreas Kanon here. It is not possible to link to specific photos directly, so please go to his gallery, select "Sparrows" and then enjoy. Or just look through all of his pictures until you find the sparrow, you're likely to do so anyway...

Keeping an eye on Poe's "Tell-tale Heart"

I devoted some of my time recently to submerge further into the early writings of Edgar Allan Poe and discovered further proof of his connections to and profound knowledge of zoology, with a special emphasis on birds but also mammals.
Amongst a pile of old books and letters in the vaults of the library was this early draft of what was later to be acclaimed as one of his greatest, most haunting stories: The Tell-tale Heart.

I have taken the freedom of copying the relevant passages here word by word:

"It is impossible to say how first entered the idea my brain; but once conceived it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old chipmunk. It had never wronged me. It had never given me insult. For its acorns I had no desire. I think it was its eye! yes it was this! Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my mind to take the life of the old rodent, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever."

As cute as your old average chipmunk may look, there are some amongst the leaves on the forest floor that do affect us with their stare, like this one I came across while wandering through the wilderness of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore early last November, and it is thus easily perceived why Poe ventured upon rendering this side of the chipmunk immortal.


Surely due to the pressure of selling more copies of his works to make a living, he later changed the subject of "the Tell-tale Heart" from a chipmunk to an old man.
A more interesting change however was an increasingly precise description of the old man's eye and the reference to a vulture's eye of a cold pale blue:

"One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture - a pale blue eye, with a film over it."

This comparison sent me on a wild journey towards the discovery of Poe's unexpected yet extensive knowledge on Neotropical birds.

Which vulture, I asked myself, shows a pale blue eye?

The first step towards the solution of this enigma was to refer to my photographic library in which I quickly found a picture I took of your average North American vulture, the Turkey Vulture (taken close to Ann Arbor in May 2005) which nowadays is the most common of North America's raptors and was surely comparatively common in the days of Poe.



Upon close inspection, I discovered that this vulture's eye certainly had no affiliation whatsoever to the colour of blue.
The same was soon found to be the case for Black Vulture, another bird likely to have been studied by the young and ambitious birder Poe, and even the California Condor.

I was thus at first left clueless in regard of the species Poe is referring to and - having his English roots in mind - turned the focus of my investigation to the Old World Vultures.
Amongst these species however, I equally failed in finding a species whose eye colour resembles the cold pale blue Poe is describing so vividly. It was only the Bearded Vulture that shows - as an adult - a pale eye that in some individuals may resemble a cold pale blue, but seems to lean towards a pale yellowish colour in most birds examined.
Furthermore, during his time in England from 1815 until his return to Richmond, Virginia in 1820, Poe is not known to have travelled to the mountainous regions of southern Europe in pursuit of Bearded Vultures and it is highly unlikely that during this time he had the opportunity to study a vagrant bird in the surroundings of London.

Having thus again utterly failed in identifying Poe's vulture, I turned my attention to the New World Vultures again, more precisely the purely Neotropical species as yet unexamined within my inquiry.
Here I quickly succeeded to my great astonishment and surprise, and the species now clearly identified as the vulture embedded in literature by Poe's "Tell-tale Heart" is no other than the King Vulture of South and Central America.
At first I was completely amazed by this unexpected discovery as Poe is not known to have ever travelled to the realms of this impressive beast. But then, gradually, a deep comprehension dawned upon me:
My discovery of Poe's vulture description referring to the King Vulture may indeed seem to add a significant piece to the puzzle regarding our understanding of the mysterious "Painted Vulture" described by William Bartram in the 1770s from Florida, not very long before Poe started his early work on the "Tell-tale Heart".
Bartram's "Painted Vulture", initially thought to represent a population of King Vultures in Florida or an unknown and now extinct species closely related to it, is nowadays generally considered to be attributable to the Crested Caracara. A quick inspection of the Caracara's eye colour however shows that it does not resemble Poe's pale blue, making it unlikely Poe was referring to this species.
If thus Poe is unlikely to ever have visited South or Central America to get acquainted with the eye colouration of the King Vulture, yet refers to this species in one of his tales, he might have come across a King Vulture on one of his travels through the South-East of the United States, supporting the identification of Bartram's "Painted Vulture" as a King Vulture.

Finally, a quick word on chipmunks: one day in the summer of 1988, during my year as a high-school exchange student, I was watching ducks on the shores of Lake Ontario's Presqu'Ile Park when I felt something touching my feet. Upon looking down I noticed that a tiny chipmunk had walked through the grass and was now standing on my left foot, looking up to me in a state of surprise before it made a quick retreat into the grass.
Back then I thought this was a wonderful and indeed cute event to have a wild and shy animal come up to you and stand on your shoes.
How wrong I was is only clear to me now after reading the early draft of Poe's Tell-tale Heart. The little bugger was probably trying to sneak up and tie my shoelaces together and then watch me fall over into the lake at my next attempt at taking a step forward.

Chipmunks, I tell you, the Evil Eye.