TO STRETCH THEIR WINGS AND FLY
by Carol Casey

To safely hold a living bird in one's hand may not seem like an exalted goal. To be able to identify a Red-Eyed Vireo calling outside one’s apartment window might seem like an insignificant talent. But those who have held a tiny bird and have observed animals in their natural state will be the ones who speak for the natural world and the importance of protecting it from destruction.

Donald A. Munson, Joseph H. McLain Professor of Environmental Studies, director of the environmental studies program, and biology professor, thinks there should be more people with those capabilities. In his new honors course Birds of the Chesapeake, he’s doing something about it.

Over his 24-year career at Washington College, Munson has scooped up tiny parasites that frequent polluted waters. He’s covered blackboards with the words “zooplankton” and “algae.” While messing around in boats, he’s netted frightening-looking creatures from the briny deep. Then, last year, he heeded an urge to take a new direction, to get out into the fields and look closely at other life forms. Being a professor, he decided to take a few students with him.

As a result, this fall he and four environmental studies honors students have shared birding adventures all over the Delmarva Peninsula as part of their course. “Dr. Munson has brought us to places I think few Washington College students have ever been,” says sophomore Vanessa A. Makarewicz. One of those places is a bird banding operation in nearby Queen Anne’s County. To get there, the class piles into Munson’s car and heads south on Rt. 213. A few turns later, they enter a property marked “Private” and travel on lanes barely distinguishable from the meadows and hills they’re carved out of. At the end of one, Munson parks the car and he and the students head for a tiny white outbuilding where bird bander James Gruber and his graduate student assistant greet them. Tied around their waists are white mesh bags that occasionally flop and wiggle.

Gruber is one of only a few thousand people in the country authorized by the U.S. Geological Survey Bird Banding Laboratory to band birds. He’s a busy man, having captured, identified, measured, weighed and released more than 300 birds the day before the class’s visit. Fall is especially hectic because birds are flocking and migrating.

Gruber sits down at a long bench and reaches into a wriggling pouch. “Hermit Thrush,” he calls out, holding a bright-eyed bird cradled in the palm of his hand. “HY—hatching year.” He quickly points out the identifying marks to the class: “Rusty tail. Warm brown back. Dark spots on the breast.” He blows three times on the bird’s underside, “Zero,” he says and explains that by blowing the feathers, he exposes the skin to find deposits of fat. “Yellow, like chicken fat,” he says. Then Gruber measures the wings and sets the bird down in a red, cylindrical Pringles potato chip can sitting on a scale. After calling out the weight, he tips the cylinder toward the open side of the building and pops off the top. The bird flies to freedom. The whole process takes about 34 seconds per bird.

Gruber and other banders around the country send the information they gather to the Patuxent National Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, MD. The Center uses the information to study where birds live and migrate, their behavior and social structure, how long they live, how successfully they reproduce and whether or not the population is growing. Using banding information, for instance, the Center has determined that the Arctic Tern makes an annual round trip flight of 25,000 miles, the longest migration flight of any living species, and that one banded hummingbird lived 12 years, very unusual in the dangerous life of a songbird.

On this second and final bird banding trip, the class follows Gruber as he gathers banded birds from the “mist nets” they’ve been caught in. At the last net, he shows senior John Wetzel the proper way to hold a Carolina Chickadee. Wetzel’s expression as he wraps his hand around the tiny black-capped bird is equal parts incredulity and awe. Then he opens his hand and smiles as his chickadee takes wing.

Munson designed Birds of the Chesapeake so that students could experience birding rather than study birds clinically.

“I didn’t want this to be your standard course in ornithology,” he says. After the first two classes covering the birds’ origins and taxonomy, Munson says, “we got to the real meat of the course, going in the field, identifying the birds, keeping field journals and getting to where the birds live.”

By the end of the term, Munson and his class will have spent six Saturdays, two weekday mornings and one evening learning about birds in the field. They will have hiked trails in Kent County, listened in the night for “Whoo-whoo cooks for you?” and watched for the silent silhouette of a low-flying owl, traveled the breadth and width of the Delmarva Peninsula in search of the elusive ibis. To the class’s delight, Munson invites fellow birders to share these field experiences. In addition to seeing Gruber in action, the group has spent time birding with Munson’s friend and fellow birder, wildlife illustrator John W. “Bud” Taylor. Taylor happily accepted Munson’s invitation to join the group. “It always excites me to meet other people who follow birds and ornithology, particularly young people,” he says. The fledgling birders enjoyed having him around. “Mr. Taylor is such an great addition to our group,” says Makarewicz. “Being a professional wildlife artist, he brings another dimension to our field studies.” His book, Birds of the Chesapeake Bay (The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1992) is one of the primary textbooks for the course.

Taylor strongly supports Munson’s birding course at Washington College. “The more young people get interested in birds and nature, the more they will appreciate the natural world and protect the environment,” says Taylor. Munson’s course has succeeded well in achieving those goals, opening students’ eyes and minds to the world around them. Alison Dorosz, a junior, says that despite having no experience with bird watching before this course, “now, everywhere I go, I pay attention to all sorts of birds I have never noticed.” Wetzel adds, “I’m glad to be able to appreciate and understand how birds work and their incredible diversity.”

The class agrees that a birding course is an excellent addition to the environmental studies curriculum. “I’ve never considered myself a birder, but I’ve always been interested in birds in the same way as any other life form that I don’t quite understand,” says Wetzel, “but I feel that the study of birds has been overlooked. There are no other courses that come close to studying birds.” Senior Jessica Prockup says, “I have never learned about birds before; they always seem to be forgotten.”
Munson enjoys the course as much as the students do. An avid duck hunter, one evening in class Munson stops a slide presentation at a picture of two Black Ducks resting on the edge of a marsh. “Smartest ducks there are,” he says appreciatively. Clicking to the next slide, he shakes his head. “These ducks, Ruddy Ducks, are not so smart.” His students smile and they write. Who knew that ducks could be smarter or dumber?

The course, however, isn’t just a walk across an open field looking at birds. Its official title is “Biodiversity and Natural History of Birds of the Chesapeake Watershed,” and Munson’s goals for the class are evident from his syllabus. The class must study birds from ecological and environmental perspectives that include their roles in the Chesapeake Bay region and globally. Students must look at birds as bio-indicators of human disturbance and learn to appreciate the importance of avian conservation. In his instructions on term papers, Munson makes certain the group will look beyond the birds they see every day, admonishing them, “No papers on Canada geese!”

The class is up to the challenge. “I knew that this course wasn’t going to be easy,” says Makarewicz, “but I opted to take it because my ultimate goal was to look up in the sky and say, ‘Oh, a Red-tailed Hawk!’” Dorosz says, “The material we’ve covered has sometimes been hard, but I’ve learned so much.”

From the field trips to the classes, everyone involved in the birding course has enjoyed the experience. Trying to describe her favorite part of Birds of the Chesapeake, Prockup says, “My favorite part? Everything. I love this class, more than any other class I have taken.” Makarewicz says, “Dr. Munson’s enthusiasm and love for birds gets the whole class excited. The first time I held a bird in the palm of my hand, I could not believe it.”

As for Munson, he’s glad to be offering the course he’d been thinking about for so long. “I have had a great time in this course,” he says. “The students were excited. I was excited. We’ve had fun creating this course together.”



Carol Casey is the media relations associate in the College Relations Office.

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PHOTOS:

#1 - top: A tufted titmouse gives students the eye

#2 - illustration: Nature illustrator John W. Taylor's book, Birds of the Chesapeake Bay, from which this painting of Common Yellowthroats is taken, is required reading for Munson's students. Taylor occasionally joins the class.

#3 - man holding bird: After gently retrieving a tufted titmouse from a mist net, bird bander Jim Gruber demonstrates the proper technique for safely holding its legs. Mist nets of fine nylon are stretched along the edges of fields to capture birds for banding and identification.

#4 - bottom right: A class of four with frequent field trips is quintessential Washington College. Professor Don Munson poses with his students Alison Dorosz, Jessica Prockup, Vanessa Makarewicz, and John Wetzel.