State College Bird Club ZOOM Meeting
January 31, 2024


Presiding: Doug Wentzel

Recording: Peggy Wagoner Saporito

Attendance:40

Meeting Format: Zoom

Treasurer’s report:(Karen Kottlowski):

SCBC balance in the checking account is $4588.00 and savings account is $5576.55. Karen thanked those who started off the new year by sending their membership dues. Dues are accepted any time and information can be found on our website.

Announcements/Other Activities

This month’s listserv conversations included the grebe fall out during a snowstorm in mid-January and subsequent discussion about bird movement/migration, a discussion on Zick Dough, a mixture of nutritious ingredients for backyard birds, and other interesting topics related to birds and nature without the distractions presented in social media. To sign up, if you aren’t already, see our website.
 
The Project Feeder Watch activity and related training sessions at Penn State Arboretum, coordinated by Margaret Brittingham, was initially planned to begin in January but will be postponed until next fall/winter.

This year’s Birding Cup will take place May 3-4.

Centered Outdoors is sponsoring a full moon hike at Rhoneymede on Feb 24, which would also be a good time to listen for great horned owls.

The Great Backyard Bird Count will take place on February 16-19 and is a good excuse to sign up for eBird, if you aren’t on it already.

Work continues on the access area to the Duck Pond with completion expected in June.

A committee (Deb Escalet, Susan Braun and Peggy Wagoner) is developing a process for distributing funds that are now generated annually from the SCBC Endowment managed by Centre Foundation. These funds will be used to support bird conservation activities. The committee will present a plan to the Board in February for approval. The first funds that SCBC will receive from this endowment should be available in March or April. More information will follow at our next regular SCBC meeting.

Doug Mason, SCBC Board member and Sierra Club, Moshannon Group, Chair, briefly discussed an upcoming meeting sponsored by Nittany Valley Environmental Coalition on March 15, 7 pm at Unitarian Universalist Church on Waupelani Drive.  The coalition hopes to gather all Central PA environmental leaders representing at least 18 local groups for discussions and possible avenues of collaboration. He is hoping that several members of SCBC can attend. More details will be shared soon.

Greg Grove updated us on the Rutters truck stop proposal adjacent to Old Crow wetland. This issue has been going on for six years and Smithfield township will not give Rutters any more extensions, with plans required by June 2024. In addition to the detriment a truck stop would cause to the wetland, plans for traffic flow are also dubious, which hopefully could provide an additional reason for the truck stop proposal to be scuttled.

Joanna Taylor, Bluebird Society of PA, Centre Co. coordinator, gave us a brief summary of human monitored Bluebird Box results from the 2023 nesting season and reminded us about the do’s and don’ts related to nest box maintenance and monitoring. As compared to 2022, more nest boxes were monitored and more chicks were fledged in 2023. Desirable species, tree swallow and chickadee fledging from bluebird nestboxes were also higher in 2023. However, undesirable species, house wren and house sparrow fledging were higher as well. These two species are particularly detrimental to bluebirds, chickadees and other cavity nesters. They puncture eggs and kill nestlings ejecting them from the nest. House wrens are a particular concern because wren number in association with bluebird boxes has increased in PA. If you see a wren jamming sticks (nest building) in a box, it means the box is too close to trees, shrub lines, or woods edge. Discourage wrens by removing or closing the box prior to egg laying. We are now at the beginning of Bluebird nesting season. Clean out and repair nest boxes immediately. For more information check https://www.sialis.org/.

Joanna also alerted us to local events at which Bluebird Society of PA will have information including Millbrook Marsh, April 21, 1-5pm and Bald Eagle State Park, May 18, 12-4pm. The Bluebird Society of PA Annual Conference will be April 19 and 20. Joanna also requested that anyone in Centre county who is monitoring bluebird boxes contact her if they have not already done so.

Bird Club Field Trips: (Susan Smith VP of Field Trips)

The spring field trips are now listed on our website.   The first to Bald Eagle State Park will occur on April 7. Other birding opportunities include weekly walks through April and the first half of May at Spring Creek Park, sponsored by Millbrook Marsh and led by SCBC members each Tuesday and Migration Morning at Shaver’s Creek each Wednesday.

Notable Bird Sightings: Greg Grove’s Summary

(Dec 14, 2023 - Jan 31, 2024; Centre and its contiguous counties)

Perhaps the most noteworthy occurrence was the fall out of waterfowl on January 16 perpetrated by the snow/ice storm and bitterly cold temperatures that presumably pushed these birds from lakes to the north of us that were rapidly freezing. Horned grebes, the most prevalent species along with a number of ruddy ducks were grounded in our area by the storm. Many were rescued and released on lakes with open water where they were able to take flight to resume their exodus. There were 21 species of ducks recorded in January which is a large number compared to typical January records. With the mild fall and availability of open water they remained in the area until the cold weather hit. Other unusual sightings included a surf scoter on the Duck Pond (an unusual location for this species) and great egrets during the first half of January at Bald Eagle State Park.

Among raptors, there have been eight reports of rough-legged hawks, sighting of golden eagles in Blair and Centre counties, a group of 13 northern harriers were reported at a communal roost in Mifflin County and some sightings of short-eared owls in Big Valley. Merlin reports are becoming so frequent in the region these last few years, that they almost don’t require mention. Six counties throughout the state have reported peregrine falcons.

An unusual grey flycatcher was seen in Mifflin County. With winters becoming milder, sightings of “half-hardy” birds, that typically winter in locations not too far south of us, have been recorded more frequently. During this past month these included Eastern phoebe, ruby-crowned kinglets (numerous on Christmas Bird Count tallies this year), a blue-gray gnatcatcher, catbirds, a brown thrasher as well as towhees and chipping sparrows that have lingered here longer than in previous years. There has been a slight up-tick of Northern shrikes observed recently as compared to previous year, especially around Black Moshannon and one loggerhead shrike in Mifflin County.

Red crossbills have been more prevalent due to a large white pine cone crop with one report of nesting activity during the first week of January; a nice way to kick off the third Breeding Bird Survey.

There have been some reports of Lapland longspurs, snow buntings, Eastern meadowlark, savannah sparrows and rusty blackbirds. Fox sparrows are beginning to appear in our region and there have been a few more reports of tree sparrows than in the last few years, but not in the numbers seen a decade or more ago. And finally, an unusual yellow warbler was reported in Mifflin County on January 8.

Speaker: Jasper Chao: “What We Can Learn from Nature’s Most Disgraced Birds: The Microbiomes of New World Vultures”

(This entire presentation can be viewed at:
https://psu.zoom.us/rec/share/laKZ76FiB-vcKGMEgkG2rYNDlwcZcMCJTDAsMQ_rmQJH2x_rKNkw6Vvlkcv3VF2X.HF7MkH4q66I-nNjS

Jasper, who grew up in southern CA, received his undergrad degree at UC Berkley and participated in a number of avian research projects around the country is now a Ph.D. student in the Penn State Medina lab studying the gut microbiomes of black (BV) and turkey vultures (TV).

He gave us a brief overview of the 23 species of vultures found throughout the world. All vultures are scavengers of carrion (obligate carnivores) but will also eat human food waste.  All are well adapted to soaring for long periods as they search for food and some, like TV, have a developed sense of smell. Vultures play an important role in the ecosystem. By scavenging carrion, they recycle nutrients and remove harmful pathogens and toxins associated with decomposition. Their highly acidic gut pH, compared to other species allows them to handle these pathogens. Unfortunately, half of the world’s species are endangered from threats such as poisoning and wind turbines.  When vulture populations are low, other scavengers such as crows, raven, hyenas and feral dogs increase. These other scavengers are not as effective at removing pathogens from the environment and especially mammalian scavengers serve as vectors for disease that can be passed to humans.

Jasper is hoping to understand the mechanism by which their gut biomes allow vultures to tolerate the pathogens and toxins they consume when eating carrion.

Previous studies have identified some of the types of bacteria found in vulture guts.  These include fusobacteria and clostridia which cause diseases and produce toxins including those which cause botulism but are apparently not harmful to vultures. Differences in the complement of bacteria have been found between BV and TV as well as differences in bacteria found within different regions of the gut within a single vulture species.

Jasper sampled gut microbiome from 4 different locations along the digestive systems of TV and BV collected from Texas and Florida. Using DNA extraction techniques, he obtained samples of bacterial DNA from the stomach and colon.  The complement of bacteria that he identified was similar to that of previous studies. And as in earlier studies, he detected differences in the bacterial biomes between BV and TV and some differences between stomach and colon within species.

Jasper has found that gut bacteria diversity is higher in BV as compared to TV. He theorizes that TVs with their sense of smell arrive at carcasses first when they are fresher. Not having a sense of smell, BVs often follow TVs to find their food and therefore arrive at the carcass later when a greater number of harmful pathogens and toxins are found on the carrion. Their greater gut diversity may allow BVs to handle this higher load of pathogens and toxins.

Determining the function that different types of bacteria play in the gut is another area of study. Jasper has determined that different types of bacteria can be grouped by their function. The next step is to identify bacterial species and understand the role that each plays in digestion, how bacteria interact with each other and their ability to produce compounds such as antibiotics or toxins.

By studying horizontal gene transfer (the transfer of DNA material among bacteria that occurs outside of sexual reproduction) Jasper hopes to track genome exchange among bacteria and how this relates to antibiotic or toxin production or resistance with the ultimate goal of relating this to public health.