Transcript of audio, notes on the audio, photos, and additional information follow below.
All Web addresses mentioned were functional as of 4-30-15.
TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO
From the Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean, this is
Virginia Water Radio for the week of May 4, 2015.
SOUND – 4 SEC - NEW RIVER AND BIRD AT
RADFORD, OCTOBER 2013
This week, we consider how a recent visit to the
New River in Radford, Va., reaffirms the expression, “Life is what happens when
you’re planning something else”—in this case, bird and river life! Have a listen for about 20 seconds, and see
if you can guess two very different bird species that caught a the eye of a nature
photographer along the river on April 29, 2015.
And here’s a hint: like its baseball-playing namesakes, the first
species wears bright orange; and for the second species, you don’t have to go
to a sandy coastline to spot it.
SOUNDS - 20 sec - Baltimore Oriole and Spotted
Sandpiper excerpts, from Stokes
Field Guide to Bird Songs-Eastern Region CD set, by Lang Elliott with Donald and Lillian Stokes
If you guessed the Baltimore Oriole, followed by the Spotted
Sandpiper, you’re amazingly right! Bob Abraham
of Christiansburg, Va., an accomplished nature photographer and regular visitor
to the New River, said it was “nothing short of spectacular” for him to get
excellent looks of a pair of orioles,
a Spotted Sandpiper, and a third
species, a Solitary Sandpiper—all in one day.
But river time increases one’s chances of such unplanned spectacles. For example, while Baltimore Orioles are more
typically heard or seen in backyards and town parks, areas along rivers and
streams—called riparian areas—often
provide the tall trees, open spaces, and insect prey that these birds need. As for sandpipers, several North American species
winter along the Atlantic coast but spend their summers around freshwaters,
including Virginia freshwaters in the case of the Spotted Sandpiper. Also, various sandpiper species, like the
Solitary Sandpiper, pass through Virginia during spring and fall migrations, and
rivers can provide safe spaces for resting stopovers.
Like many birds, many people also flock to rivers, for lots of reasons, including the lure
of the resident or transient wildlife that might be there. As sharp-eyed Mr. Abraham said, “the fun is,
you never know what you’ll see!” You can see his oriole and sandpiper
photos online at virginiawaterradio.org.
Thanks to Lang Elliott for permission to use this week’s sounds, from
the Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs;
and special thanks to Bob Abraham for letting us in on his spectacular bird day
along the New River.
For other water sounds and music, and for more Virginia
water information, visit our Web site at virginiawaterradio.org, or call us at
(540) 231-5463. From the Virginia Water
Resources Research Center in Blacksburg, I’m Alan Raflo, thanking you for
listening, and wishing you health, wisdom, and good water.
AUDIO NOTES AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The sounds of the Baltimore Oriole and Spotted Sandpiper
were taken from the Stokes Field
Guide to Bird Songs-Eastern Region CD set, by Lang Elliott with Donald and
Lillian Stokes (Time Warner Audio Books, copyright 1997), used with permission
of Lang Elliott, whose work is available online at http://www.langelliott.com/ and the “Music of Nature” Web site, http://www.musicofnature.org/.
Thanks to Bob Abraham for sharing his photos and comments
from his visit to the New River in Radford on April 29, 2015.
Thanks to Carola Haas and Sarah Karpanty, both of the
Virginia Tech Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, for their help with
the content of this episode.
PHOTOS
Baltimore Orioles (top two photos), Spotted Sandpiper (next
two photos down), and Solitary Sandpiper in front of a Spotted Sandpiper
(bottom photo), all along the New River in Bisset Park, Radford, Va., April 29,
2015. Photos courtesy of Robert Abraham.
MORE INFORMATION ON
ORIOLES AND SANDPIPERS
The Oxford
Dictionary and Thesaurus-American Edition (1996), traces the word “oriole”
back to Oriolus, the name for a genus
of Old World birds with brightly colored plumage, with that word tracing back
to the Latin word “aureus,” for “golden.”
A Guide to Field
Identification of Birds of North America, by Chandler S. Robbins et al. (2001; p. 302), describes orioles as “colorful arboreal icterids, quite different
in habits, appearance, habitat preference, and nest structure from their
ground-feeding relatives” (that is, others in Family Icteridae, the scientific family
classification of blackbirds, orioles, grackles, meadowlarks, and similar
species]. This guide (pp. 302-305) lists
nine oriole species in North America, with one “rare” and one introduced from
Central America; two occur in Virginia: the Baltimore Oriole and the Orchard
Oriole. Just as their name’s origin
suggest, all are very colorful!
“Sandpipers” is the common name for the scientific family
classification
Scolopacidae, which includes the species named sandpipers along with godwits, curlews, phalaropes, woodcock, snipe, dowitchers, and
many small shorebirds collectively called “peeps”. Birds in this family typically feature a long bill used use
to find invertebrate prey in mud, sand, or other substrates. A
Guide to Field Identification of Birds of North America (p. 109) describes
the family as a “large and varied group of shore and wading
birds, some upland, some freshwater; most seen along ocean shores [during]
migration”; and (pp. 116-134) lists 57 species, but this
includes several that are rare, transient only, and at least “probably
extinct.” Life in the Chesapeake Bay, by Alice Jane Lippson and Robert L. Lippson
(2006, p. 308) lists 13 species in the sandpiper family that
are “common” or “abundant” in or around Bay waters during at least one of the
year’s four seasons. The Virginia
Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ Fish and Wildlife Information Service,”
online at http://vafwis.org/fwis/?Title=VaFWIS+Species+Information+By+Name&vUT=Visitor, gives 16 sandpiper species documented from
Virginia, ranging from common seasonally to very rare migrants.
SOURCES
Used for Audio
Cornell University
Lab of Ornithology, “All About Birds,” online at http://www.allaboutbirds.org; and “Birds of North America Online,” online
at http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna (subscription required for the latter).
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ (VDGIF),
“Fish and Wildlife Information Service” Web page (Species Information Reports
for “oriole” and “sandpiper”), online at http://vafwis.org/fwis/?Title=VaFWIS+Species+Information+By+Name&vUT=Visitor.
A Guide to Field
Identification of Birds of North America, by Chandler S. Robbins et al., St. Martin’s Press, New York,
2001.
Life in the Chesapeake Bay, by Alice Jane Lippson and Robert L.
Lippson, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2006.
For More Information
about Birds in Virginia
The Virginia Society of Ornithology is a non-profit
organization dedicated to the study, conservation, and enjoyment of birds in
the Commonwealth. The Society’s Web site
is www.virginiabirds.net.
E-bird Web site
at http://ebird.org/content/ebird/, maintained by the Cornell Lab and
the Audubon Society. Here you can find
locations of species observations made by contributors, and you can sign up to
contribute your own observations.
For More Information
about Rivers and River Basins (Watersheds) in Virginia
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Surf Your Watershed,”
online at http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/locate/index.cfm.
U.S. Geological Survey, “Water Resources of Virginia,”
online at http://va.water.usgs.gov/. This is the home page for the U.S. Geological
Survey’s Virginia Water Science Center.
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, “Virginia’s Major Watersheds,” online at http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/soil_and_water/wsheds.shtml.
Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, “Virginia’s Major Watersheds,” online at http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/soil_and_water/wsheds.shtml.
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, “Watershed
Roundtables,” online at http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/WaterQualityInformationTMDLs/WatershedRoundtables.aspx. This site provides access to online
information about watershed groups in Virginia’s major river basins.
Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, “Virginia
Rivers and Stream,” online at http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/waterbodies/display.asp?id=163.
RELATED VIRGINIA WATER RADIO EPISODES
For previous episodes on birds, please see the “Birds”
category at the Index link above (http://www.virginiawaterradio.org/p/index.html).
For previous episodes on the New River or other Virginia
rivers or bodies of water, please see the “Rivers, Streams, and Other Surface
Water” category.
SOLS INFORMATION FOR
VIRGINIA TEACHERS
This episode may help with the following Virginia’s 2010
Science Standards of Learning (SOLs):
Grades K-6 Earth Resources Theme
4.9 (Va. natural resources)
Grades K-6 Life Processes Theme
3.4 (adaptations)
Grades K-6 Living Systems Theme
3.6 (aquatic ecosystems)
6.7 (Va. watersheds, water bodies, and wetlands)
Life Science Course
LS.9 (adaptations for particular ecosystems)
Earth Science Course
ES.8 (freshwater resources, including groundwater, and
influences by geologic processes and the activities of humans)
Biology
Course
BIO.8 (dynamic equilibria [and interactions] within populations, communities,
and ecosystems; including analysis of the flora, fauna, and microorganisms of
Virginia ecosystems)
