Bad Year for Great Egrets

It has been three months since my last message and a summer unusually filled with travel. How the time goes!

Normally some egrets would still be scouring the grass for grasshoppers, and from past experience, we would have expected this to continue till mid-October. Not so this year, but the news are good.

Despite the impossibly hot summer and a much greater number of birds in the rookery, which included, in order of abundance, the cattle egrets, great egrets, little-blue herons, ibises, snowy egrets, and night herons, we rescued only about 60 distressed fledglings, compared to several hundreds in previous years. The large majority of the birds who needed our help this year were the great egrets, whereas in previous years these were the cattle egrets. Though there were about 10 times as many cattle egrets in the rookery as there were great egrets, we found only one cattle egret who needed rescuing. We did also rescue a couple of little-blue herons and one night heron. The rest were all great egrets.

Why this change? Normally, the great egrets arrive here first, around Valentine's Day. They were about a week early this year. In addition, they abbreviated their courtship and immediately set about mending their nests and laying their eggs. The cattle egrets and others would normally have come in April, when the great-egret chicks were about to hatch. Usually it is a quite festive atmosphere, almost as if the new arrivals come to celebrate the hatchlings. This year, though, the second crew of birds arrived about a month earlier than usual and just as urgently went about the business of nesting. By mid-August, i.e. about two months earlier than in previous years, all the birds and their juveniles were gone -- mostly south, some flying as far as Brazil and Argentina. We did suspect from their behavior that trouble might be coming to the Gulf.

While attending a wedding this weekend, we could not help but marvel at how much a bride's veil and train resemble a snowy egret's courtship plumage. True: being hopeless birders, we are unusually well disposed to notice how much our culture is influenced by the customs of other animals, and our language too, but this is rather fun.

Did you know, for example, that the word "congruence", i.e. to come together, to agree, has its root in "Grus", the genus name for many cranes, including the Sandhills (Grus canadensis). What is more congruent than a flight of cranes?

Bird Rescue and Human Health

So far this season, we have rescued about 20 great egrets, whereas in previous years, we only found about 2-5 who needed help. One of the main reasons for this increase is that, all around the areas surrounding Dallas, rookeries are being destroyed to make way for condos. To make matters worse, the UTSW rookery lost at least 5 large cedar elms to strong wind storms in the last year. Consequently, the birds are roosting nearer to each other and to the ground, and the crowding and greater proximity to predators are probably contributing to their injuries.

Today, we rescued the first two cattle-egret fledglings. There are about 10 times as many cattle egrets in the rookery as there are great egrets. So we expect the next few weeks to be busy ones. In summer 2006, we rescued about 200 birds: mostly cattle egrets. The number might well double this year if the heat and dryness continue.

Several of you have suggested that we should try to publicize the bird's lot in local papers so as to recruit others to help us. I have not done this because currently, on paper at least, our group numbers 15. With this many on board, if everybody were to give the birds even half an hour per week, the work per person should become trivial.

Also, success is what begets success.

During the last two weeks, we often made two trips a day to Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. We do this because we see the birds as neighbors in trouble and are convinced that our well being is linked to theirs. We do not expect everyone to share this view. Whatever reason moved you to help the birds, please remember it.

Currently, we need the following:

1. People who will collect a bird or two one day per week and bring them to us. As it happens, we are winding up making at least one trip per day to the rehabilitation center. So the price of gas is not an issue. We can administer first aid, feed the birds, and keep them warm until we are ready for an afternoon trip.
2. One or two volunteers who will make a tour of the rookery on Saturdays or Sundays.

In case some of you are concerned about infections, I would like, once and for all, to dispell the notion that the egrets are contagious. Despite our almost daily contact with the rookery, our six pet parrots at home are all bright and bossy. The only consistent problems we have seen with the egrets are:

• Infections of the tongue and throat with small leech-like flukes; this is almost universal.
• Broken limbs.
• Stab wounds.
• Occasional infections of wounds with the larvae of flies.
• Mites in their feathers; we see this in about 1 in 10 birds.

Yes, the birds' droppings are unsanitary, but it goes without saying that one should avoid any animal's droppings. Do not enter the woods. Collect those fledglings who are in trouble: typically the birds who are either standing still or stumbling, on the perimeter of the rookery. The best way to do this is to pick up the birds with gloved hands (protects from mites) and place them directly into a box that is lined with paper towels. Contact 'birdintrouble", and we will do the rest.

Valentine's Day

As I have noted to some of you, the egrets are usually in the UTSW rookery by February 14th. A short while ago I counted 130 individuals, all great egrets.

They came early this year. They began arriving on the afternoon of Wednesday February 6th, shortly after the last major rains. One individual glided by around 4 p.m. A while later, Chalo noticed an egret, perhaps the same one, in an entirely independent sighting.

The next day, their numbers had grown to 20 around lunchtime and 34 by afternoon. We went to the memorial garden area to greet them and found them already displaying their mating feathers and curtsying gracefully to each other.

By Saturday (February 9th) there were 64 birds, and some pairs were already refurbishing their nests and bringing twigs to each other.

This is a wonderfully happy time for the egrets, who are at their most festive and beautiful. I highly recommend a visit to the memorial garden area.

When you do go to the rookery, would you please take along a paper or plastic bag and remove a bit of the trash (mostly pastic bags, and some cans and plastic bottles) scattered around the rookery perimeter? The picked-up trash can be thrown into one the garbage cans at the parking-garage entrances.

I have been meaning to organize a cleaning crew before the birds' arrival. I had also planned to write our news more frequently. Alas, too little time. Still, even without a formal cleaning party, if we share a common intent, we can make the junk vanish in no time.

People are not permitted to wander into the woods once the nesting birds are on site, but a clean-up of the perimeter is fine. Should a friendly interested party or police officer ask what you are doing, tell them that you are with the "Heron and Egret Society."

For those of you who are new to our group, welcome!

Now, I have come to expect to find birds in everything, but The Wordsworth Dictionary of Proverbs  recently surprised even me with its wealth of bird lore. Here are some tidbits I discovered under "St. Valentine".

- On St. Valentine, all the birds of the air in couples do join.

- For this was on seynt Valentynes day, whan every foul cometh ther to chese his make. (1380)

- When you hear the birds call for their mates, ask if it be Saint Valentine, their coupling day. (1621)

- To-morrow is Saint Valentine's Day, when every bird chooses her mate. (1828)

Here's the kicker:

- "There is an old proverb that 'Birds of a feather upon St. Valentine's Day will meet altogether.'" (1673)

As indeed they should! I bet you've probably only heard the botched version.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Fourteen Birds in Trouble

Yesterday, Chalo and Valerie rescued 14 egrets who were desperately in need of help.  The birds ranged in age from about two-weeks old to nearly adult size (probably more than 6-weeks old). About half of them, the larger ones, had broken limbs.  Today we rescued 5 more.

Since the heat and pollution are not letting up, the presence of very young birds now can only mean that things are about to get worse before they get better.

We put out several troughs of water around the rookery, and the birds are using them. We saw one healthy bird actually sitting in the water, cooling off, yesterday afternoon. If the water in any of the troughs looks dirty, please replace it with clean water from the faucet by the side of the faculty parking lot. We will leave a bucket there for the Society's use.

Please, please, everyone, try to make a rescue trip around the rookery at least one day per week, no later than 4:00 p.m., and around lunchtime if possible.

Bring along gloves and a box lined with paper towels, and park your car (if you're in one) by the Memorial Garden. If you send an e-mail message before noon to "birdintrouble" to let us know your intentions, we can try to coordinate your trip with anyone else who has volunteered to do the rescues. They work better if pairs of people run them.

Also, if you find that you absolutely cannot deliver the birds to the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center on a particular day, let us know at "birdintrouble", and we will figure out some way to get them to Hutchins at 4:00 p.m.

The campus police know about us and have not been quizzing us as much this year as in the past, but if they should stop you and ask what you are doing, tell them that you are with the Heron and Egret Society and that you are rescuing distressed birds and plan to take them to the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center.

They are generally satisfied knowing this.

In 2006, the last birds left in mid-September. One more month to go...

Home Stretch?

Might we be nearing the proverbial home stretch?

So far today, there is just one rescue: a young cattle egret from Val who is not yet able to fly, had an awful case of the flukes, but will probably be all right.


Yesterday, there were just the usual eccentrics flying into the wrong places. One of them gave Diane a bit of a worry but turned up on top of a car and perfectly fine. I suspect these birds are beginning to watch out for us.... It is such joy to see them lift off!


On Tuesday, Claudia sighted a bird with a broken wing, but despite his handicap he was too slippery for her. There were several reports of cats skulking about the rookery. Since no one has yet seen a cat carrying a bird in his mouth or even staring at a bird, the evidence remains circumstancial and their activities a mystery.


On Monday, there were no rescues, probably because of Ruth's vigilence during the weekend, when she rescued one weak fledging, witnessed one death, and removed a number of carcasses from the grassy areas.

Claudia put up several posters in the parking garages alerting people how to handle finding a distressed bird. She has been diligently caring for the koi pond near the memorial but will be away until Monday. While she is gone, let us keep an eye of the water and make sure it stays clean.


Eveline, at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, gave me an entire set of wonderful photos of the egrets and the rookery area constructed for them at the Center. Everybody looks quite bright, happy, spiky-headed, and comical. I am keeping an album. Feel to stop by for some smiles.


Shall we try again for a noon meeting on Wednesday or Thursday? There was no response last time. As the birds prepare to leave and while they are away, there is much we can do to make their visit easier next year on them and ourselves. Also, this would be an excellent chance for us to get acquainted with each other.


Two of us could not attend the last meeting. Also, the Society has grown 30%!

Conversation With Grounds Maintenance Supervisor

The official position of the university about the rookery, based on advice that a representative of Texas Parks and Wildlife gave them after the last upheaval about the tennis courts, is to "let nature take its course" and not intervene.

The university sees the deaths of the birds as "nature's way of correcting itself" and reducing their number to one the rookery can support. They do not try to help the birds in any way because they feel it is impossible to know whether helping the birds in one instance might not cause greater suffering in another. For example, providing water to the birds might reduce dying from dehydration only to cause the birds to starve later from lack of food.

Interestingly, they have been supplying water to the rookery area. Though the university holds this position of non-interference, as private individuals and an organization independent of the university, it is perfectly within our rights to help the birds. Our work and that of the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center have been noted. There will be no interference with our efforts. Physical Plant will not remove the troughs of water that we have put out for the birds.

The rookery appears to be a source of sadness to some. It has more birds than it can support, they say, and the trees are dying because the volume of bird droppings is so great that the acidification of the soil is damaging to the trees.

Our idea of constructing a holding pen near the rookery elicited considerable talk about approval of structures by committees, bringing up the issue at meetings, etc.  So much for just a few stakes in the ground and bit of fencing.  Better not pursue this.

The Physical Plant's treatment of the grounds is actually quite careful. For the fireants, they broadcast a bait twice a year with a slow-acting insecticide. Otherwise, they don't broadcast insecticides or herbicides. They actually go to the trouble of doing spot treatments with herbicides, and they don't treat the grounds for grubs. They do broadcast fertilizers.

The hands off policy of Texas Parks and Wildlife is a necessary one. If the University cannot touch the rookery even to improve it, then there can be no excuse for putting up any more buildings, or constructing ball courts, culverts, etc. This is an entirely unambiguous policy. It is a good policy that protects the place as a sanctuary, and we must be careful to do nothing to change it. Unfortunately, this also means that:

(1) the damage already done cannot be undone,

(2) the university cannot help us.

As independent organizations, The Heron and Egret Society and the Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center can help the birds. About the best the university can do is not interfere with us. They are already doing this. They are leaving the troughs alone.

The holding pen should probably never have been brought up. It is easy to guess what the answer will be, given current policy. We must make sure that everything we do is reasonable. It makes no sense to ask for permission. In fact, Texas Parks and Wildlife said exactly this  (unoficially, of course).

The birds are suffering from a combination of things: the extreme heat, crowding due to the destruction in recent years of several nearby rookeries, insufficient rain to dilute away the droppings and maintain a reasonable soil pH, the previous destruction of a large part of this rookery and, along with this, the rerouting of streams and sources of water previously available to the birds.

Virtually all of this is the result of human interference. It is easier to destroy than to build. We should build however little we can and help out our neighbors.

For now, here is the way we are playing it.  We will keep the university informed about what we are doing. I think the idea of this should always be, not to request permission, but to inform.

I would appreciate more input.

Rescue Schedule

I am pleased to welcome three new members of the Heron and Egret Society: Susan, Jessica, and Chris.

Though nearly everyone is complaining about rain these days, I, for one, am not, because the egrets are faring better this year. This is not to say that they do not need rescuing. Their problem this year is not lack of water but exposure to cold and assorted injuries. Therefore we must change what we do for the birds.

We are picking up an average of about 10 distressed chicks per week. They usually benefit from being placed on a heating pad ASAP. Some of the chicks have injuries that look as though they are being pecked by some of the adult birds as they wind up in the wrong nests.

We still need committments for touring the rookery and travel to Rogers Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (RWRC). Currently:

• Claudia and Kelly are signed up for touring on Mondays.
  
• Valery tours and delivers whenever she can but is committed to Tuesdays.
  
• Chalo and I tour and deliver whenever we can but are committed to Wednesdays.
  
• Heather tours and delivers during the weekend days.
  

We need more people, particularly for delivering the birds to RWRC. These deliveries are understandably difficult, since it sometimes takes over 30 min to get to Hutchins. However, the visit to RWRC is usually well worth the trip because of the wonderfully expressive birds and great work being done there.

We will be away from 6-16 July. Yes, we do hope that the rains and cool weather will continue to help out the birds. Please do all in your power to keep checking on them while we are gone. Feel free to contact each other to coordinate rookery tours and trips to RWRC.