Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #3 - Mammals and More

How are you doing with your birds?

Since I last posted, I've noticed American robins and collared doves (which were around earlier in the winter, I just didn't notice them the days I was looking around the yard). Yellow-headed Blackbirds are back in force, just flying by our house to get to the wetter areas. They are so colorful. It's too bad they're not found in Indiana, as with their black and yellow coloring they are perfect for Purdue.

We've been seeing baby Great Horned Owls in the yard. One morning Desert Boy was waiting for me outside. When I came out the door, he pointed up at the roof, and said, "Look, Mom."

I looked up and saw two baby owls on the roof, one with a mouse in its mouth. So cool.

Yellow-rumped Warblers and Yellow Warblers are hanging out. Due to all the snow up high, I'm hearing a lot of Pine Siskins still. And we found a dead Cedar Waxwing on the grass, not sure what happened. The ants are eating it now.
Anyway, keep recording your birds.

And here's Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #3:


What mammals, amphibians, and fish live in or visit your backyard?

It might be hard to see the mammals, but perhaps you can find sign of them. Rabbit pellets? Raccoons knocking over garbage cans? Gopher holes? Mouse droppings in the garage?

Are you hearing any spring peepers? This is a great time of year to listen for frogs.

Unless you have a pond or stream in your backyard, it might be difficult to get anything from this class of organisms. But hey, once in awhile it's nice to have an easy category!

Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #3 - Mammals and More

How are you doing with your birds?

Since I last posted, I've noticed American robins and collared doves (which were around earlier in the winter, I just didn't notice them the days I was looking around the yard). A new bird for the year is the Yellow-headed Blackbird. They are so colorful. It's too bad they're not found in Indiana, as with their black and yellow coloring they are perfect for Purdue.

If you need help identifying birds, there are several great websites, including the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Anyway, keep recording your birds. Your list should grow substantially over the next few weeks!

And here's Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #3:
What mammals, amphibians, and fish live in or visit your backyard?

It might be hard to see the mammals, but perhaps you can find sign of them. Rabbit pellets? Raccoons knocking over garbage cans? Gopher holes? Mouse droppings in the garage?

Are you hearing any spring peepers? This is a great time of year to listen for frogs.

Unless you have a pond or stream in your backyard, it might be difficult to get anything from this class of organisms. But hey, once in awhile it's nice to have an easy category!

My Backyard Birds-Part 1

So what birds have seen in your backyard?

I hope you're keeping a list, because this is just the beginning of some fun bird watching, and over the next couple of months our lists are going to grow considerably (hence the Part 1 of this blog post title).

Is this one of the birds you've seen?
Turkey vultures are found all across the U.S., with year-round habitat in the southern part up through the Midwest, and summer habitat everywhere else. We see them in this area primarily in the spring and fall, although from time to time in the summer we also spot them. With the turbulent spring weather we've been having, they've been having a grand old time soaring in the wind. Turkey vultures might be considered good clean-up birds--they take care of those messes like road kill for us. (Kingdom: Animalia; Phylum: Chordata; Class: Aves; Order: Falconiformes; Family: Cathartidae; Cathartes aura).

I've been hearing lots of the sweet calls of the Western Meadowlark (Animalia; Chordata; Aves; Passeriformes; Passeridae; Sturnella neglecta). They're one of the earlier birds to breed in the spring time, and they are very common around the ranch calling for a mate from fence posts and the top of sagebush. The Eastern Meadowlark is found in the eastern U.S., with hybrids in the middle of the country.

Killdeer have been hopping around. Henry really likes to chase them, but despite that, every year they return to near our yard. Killdeer (Animalia; Chordata; Aves; Charadiiformes; Charadriidae; Charadius vociferus) have an appropriate species name. Vociferus is Latin for loud, and killdeer run around and fly saying what sounds like "kill deer, kill deer." They are known for pretending to have a broken wing and dragging their wing on the ground to distract predators from their nests on the ground. They're found all over North America.

Yesterday I heard sandhill cranes. My husband calls these flying pterodactyls, as they are so big and seem so prehistoric. Sandhill cranes (Animalia; Chordata; Aves; Gruiformes; Gruidae; Grus canadensis) are found in much of North America. Sandhill cranes remind me of family visits to a game preserve to see great displays. (The link has some fantastic photos my sister-in-law took. As you can see from the lack of photos in this post, photographing birds is not my forte.)

Birds that have been around all winter that I mustn't forget include:
(If you are following the classification scheme, you know that these are all Animalia; Chordata; Aves; so I will just omit that part.)

Red-shafted flicker (Piciformes; Picidae; Colaptes auratus), that likes to make holes in trees and our house;
Black-billed magpie (Passeriformes; Corvidae; Pica pica), with its super long tail and black-and-white distinctive coloring;
Common raven (Passieriformes; Corvidae; Corvus corax), the ubiquitous bird around the ranch
European starling (Passeriformes; Sturnidae; Sturnus vulgaris), the annoying invader from Europe.
Dark-eyed junco (Passeriformes; Passeridae; Junco hyemalis), with its distinctive outer white tail feathers.

And now we have snow again, so it might be a day or two before the bird sightings pick up. I hope you're seeing some interesting birds in your yard!

Figuring out Where Things Belong a.k.a. Classification

As we're doing the biodiversity surveys of our backyards, something to keep in mind is how does everything fit together?

There are several ways to think about that, but today we'll concentrate on classification. In other words, how is everything related to everything else?

Good old Aristotle, that Greek philosopher from a LONG time ago, laid the roots (pun intended) for modern day scientific classification, including using the terms 'Genus' and 'Species.'

Then a long (but not LONG) time ago, a dude named Linnaeus put most everything was put into either the plant or animal kingdom. That was fairly simple.

"Hey, organism, do you move?"

"Yes, then you must be an animal."

But of course there are always a few organisms that don't quite fit the mold (pun intended), so over the decades, classification schemes changed, with some lumping and some splitting. I won't go into details. If you want the details, click here.

Today, we're left with the modern version of classification. First, a diagram from a K-12 school that I really like for its simplicity:

So we still have plants and animals, but we also have fungi, bacterium, and protoctista. Note that sometimes the Protoctista are called Protista and that the Bacterium are also called Monera

In the middle of the star is the way we do the organization:
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

You probably had to memorize these for ninth grade science. What words did you use to remember the acronym: KPCOFGS?

You probably didn't have access to this cool website, which suggests acronyms for you to use.
For example, would you use:

1. Kids Playing Chicken on Freeways Get Smashed
2. King Phil Cleans Octopi For Gene Simmons
3. Keep Paying Casey Off For Gun Sales

You can leave your answer in the comments. Or perhaps you have a better one.

So this is how it works. Everything fits into a kingdom. Then each kingdom has several phyla (the plural of phylum; yes, those years of Latin in high school did actually teach me something!).
The phyla contain classes, and so on.


The diagram above shows how a leopard is classified. It is a member of the Kingdom Animalia (it does move!), Phylum Chordata (it has a backbone), Class Mammalia (air breathing vertebrate animals with hair, 3 ear bones, and working mammary glands in females), Order Carnivoa (placental mammals and meat eaters), Family Felidae (the cats), Genus Panthera, and Species pardus.

No other animal but the leopard is known as Panthera pardus. (Typically the Genus and species names are italicized. Genus is capitalized, species is not. And plural of genus is genera. (Latin was a more complicated language than English.))

Here's another view of how the kingdoms fit together:


Does anyone else find it slightly unnerving that humans (and all animals) are more related to fungi than plants?

If you're read this far, give yourself a pat on the back. I'll leave you with a little picture. Have a good day. Where ever you fit into it!

Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #2

Do you have your trees figured out? Even if you don't have them all named, you can assign Tree1, Tree2, Tree3, etc. to the ones you don't know and keep working on figuring them out.

While you're enjoying the trees, it's time to start Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #2:

WHAT BIRDS DO YOU SEE IN YOUR YARD?

We're in migratory bird season, which means that there are a lot of birds making their way from the warmer southern climes to their breeding grounds up north.

In fact, I noticed lots of snow birds on the road this week. Snow birds=RVs that spend the winter in the south and the summer in the north. People have already learned a lot from birds! (Sorry, I couldn't help digressing.)

One thing you might want to do as you write down the birds you see (and yes, I strongly recommend writing them down in a dedicated biodiversity journal) is to note when you first saw them in 2011. Then you can compare that with another year (assuming you'll keep doing this!) and see if the birds are coming earlier or later or not at all. These records can actually prove to be quite important. Ornithology, the study of birds, is heavily reliant upon amateur observations, and many databases are comprised primarily of sightings from citizen scientists.

Another cool thing about getting into the habit of observing the birds in your yard is that you don't have to travel far, but some of the birds have come from or are heading thousands of miles away.

So leave a note--what birds are you seeing? And what birds have traveled/will travel the farthest?

My Backyard Trees

First off, what is a backyard?

For some people this is easy to define--it's the yard around their house. But what if you live in an apartment in the city on the twenty-eighth floor? If there's a nearby park, you can call that your backyard. Or your friend's yard out in the suburbs. Or the greater area. You can decide what to call your backyard for the Biodiversity Challenge.

So have you figured out what trees are in your yard? I was a little surprised when I listed mine: ash, elm, two different looking junipers, catalpa, apricot, peach, Lombardy poplar and white poplar. What surprised me? There are quite a few different species of ashes, elms, and junipers, and I'm not entirely sure what we have. I'm going to have to take a closer look.

That might not be the easiest right now, given that the trees have no leaves on them, but there are clues. Last year's leaves, the bark, the height, the shape, and more can be very helpful. Or I can just wait a few weeks!

Are the trees in your yard native? From a biodiversity standpoint, that's the best. Sadly, none of the trees in my yard are native. The only native trees around here at this elevation grow next to the creeks. If there isn't water, we don't have trees, we just have shrubs or grasses or other plants. I think it's very important to find out if species are native or not, so I encourage you as you make your list to put asterisks next to the species that are non-native.

Okay, I want to find out more about what's in your yard! Please leave a comment about the trees you find there, or what tree you would like to plant in your yard and why.

Backyard Biodiversity Challenge #1

Ready to explore what lives around you?

I hope so, because we're about to embark on the Backyard Biodiversity Challenge!

Together we can learn about the fantastic species that live close at hand.

I've just started doing some research about doing backyard biodiversity, and there are a variety of articles out there that I'm reading. There will be posts about biodiversity and how organisms are grouped, but I like to jump in with both feet, so here goes:

Challenge #1: What species of trees live in your yard?

Take a tour of your yard and write (or draw) what they are. If you have some that you don't know (I just realized we have an ornamental juniper that I'm not sure about), then see if you can find a tree i.d. book and figure it out. Maybe there's a neighbor who's good with trees, or a local cooperative extension agent that can help you. If all else fails, send me an email at desertsurvivorATlive.com, and I'll see if I can be of any help.

Our objective for the Backyard Biodiversity Challenge is to better appreciate what lives all around us.

Taking a little extra time to see what's so close to us will help us to see the wider world and the myriad of connections that make everything work.

So stop reading and head out into your yard!

Meeting E.O. Wilson

Most of the week while I was in New Orleans I wasn't seeing cool sights, but rather was in the Sheraton Hotel attending the George Wright Society biennial meeting. The George Wright Society focuses on preserving protected places, such as national parks.

There were countless great talks, and it was a bit overwhelming with about 16 concurrent sessions. I found out more about forest health issues, geographical information systems, hydrology, White Nose Syndrome, park management, and much more.

The highlight of the conference was when I was in a biodiversity session, and half-way through, Edward O. Wilson from Harvard University walked into the room. He listened to our discussion and had some very pertinent comments at the end. After the session ended, a bunch of us science geeks swarmed him like a rock star. I got his autograph and a photo of me standing next to him.


If you haven't heard of E.O. Wilson, here are a few things about him:

• He coauthored a paper about Island Biogeography that helps explains why there are fewer species on islands that are small and far away from the mainland
  
• He is an expert on ants, having started as a young child identifying them
• He has won two Pulitzer prizes, for On Human Nature (1979) and The Ants (1990)
• If he had to live his life over, he said he would focus on microbial biology
• He studied the social behavior of ants, which helped him found the field of sociobiology
• He found that if ants disappeared, so would humans
• He is a champion of learning about the biodiversity around us, and encourages people to go out and find what lives in their backyard.

I happened to have a flyer for our Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and ants) Bioblitz that I'm helping to organize, so I was sure to invite him to it. Yeah, the chances of him coming are less than one percent. But I'm an optimist! And just meeting him makes me want to go out and find what lives in my yard. So here's a heads up for the topic of some upcoming posts...