Ok, it is seriously ridiculous how much I enjoy my new job. I know, technically, I’m not doing a lot of useful work yet, and when I start having some solo responsibility I may have some freak-out moments–BUT, at this point, it is all good. (I have billed an hour or two this week, so I am not completely useless.) Mostly it is that the people there are really, really nice and helpful and want me to know how to do everything and have no interest in playing sink or swim (with their practice, of course). I spent about 11 hours there again today, which is the only down side–but the time flies.
No Y today, though! I had my gym bag, which stupidly did not contain shoes. Grr. But that’s ok, I need to put some more podcasts in my player. Also, I know that it is not going to hurt me to skip a day or two. I have been thinking about my fitness challenge–in the past, I have tracked my weight and measurements and that has worked out really well, but I’m going to make a change. I’m just going to forget about that, because it shouldn’t matter. I should go to spinning class, and learn how to use the machines, and be active because it is the right thing to do to stay healthy. With that in mind, I’m just going to go and have fun playing at the Y and trying new things out. I will probably track any strength training and/or distances, but that’s because of the progression of the activity and that is fun to see. Hopefully the by-product will be that I can wear a few of my clothes I’ve outgrown before it gets too warm to wear them–but if not, I will have had fun doing it.
Anywho, I went to the Audubon meeting last night at the natural history museum downtown, and it was interesting. The talk was about shorebirds, and the speaker was a biologist from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. The hilarious thing was that the talk was about surveys of NC Colonial Nesting Shorebirds, and for the very first part of the talk, I was thinking, “What historic colonial sites are these birds associated with?” I am SO glad that I didn’t follow the No Stupid Questions Rule, because a few minutes into the talk I realized that colonial did not refer to the colonial era, but to the fact that the birds nest in colonies. This supports my hate of marine shorebirds–their tricksy way with adjectives.
(Ok, so I don’t hate all marine shorebirds. In fact, there is nothing quite as cute as baby shorebirds that are camouflaged to look like sand and pebbles on the beach, especially on their little bendy, reedy legs. Then they grow up to all look alike and fly around out of my binoculars’ range and be impossible for me to identify–either that or every time I go to the coast, I discover new species.)
What I found most interesting is the use of man-made habitats for these birds’ nesting areas. Most of the time, human’s little developing, buildy ways are responsible for gobbling up other species’ habitats with abandon–habitat destruction and degradation is responsible for the loss of many species. And this is pretty much true. But some species use humans and their buildy ways to their advantage–which isn’t all that surprising, since it isn’t as if non-humans are pawns to be acted upon with absolutely no reaction or adaptation.
Some of the colonial nesting shorebirds nest directly on the sand or gravel at beaches, and you can probably imagine why this is a problem for human-bird interaction and sustainability. What I found really interesting is that dredge islands that the Army Corps has made from dredging the inlets are being used as productive nesting areas for these birds. In fact, something like 20 of these islands are being managed for this purpose. They make good habitat because they are remote from people and most mammalian predators, plus they provide a LOT of space for the birds. Because these birds are colonial nesters, they nest in really large groups and have evolved to need large numbers for safety and survival of their young. Colonial animals just don’t thrive without large numbers of their own kind–which is a problem when their populations fall dramatically.
Besides these dredge islands, Least Terns have taken to nesting on the gravel roofs of department and grocery stores. One of the largest populations of these birds surveyed by the group recently was on the top of the Food Lion in a coastal town. Makes sense for the birds! The problem is that the roofing industry is apparently moving away from this technique (some kind of hurricane liability issue?), and store managers aren’t fond of the birds up there (and their, um, related poo issues). This will likely be a huge problem, since in states like Florida and South Carolina, these birds nest no where else but on gravel roofs. They don’t have a natural area to return to if this happens.
And on that depressing note, I have to go make my lunch and go to bed. But, wouldn’t it be really cool to get to climb up on top of a Food Lion and find a bunch of birds and their nests? Where do I sign up?
