University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: May 6, 2004

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor

Chris Hollister is a bird-man. A lifelong wildlife enthusiast, the UB librarian has spent the past four years slogging through the fields and wetlands of Grand Island and Niagara Falls laden with binoculars, maps and field guides, one ear cocked for the mating song of a Loggerhead Shrike, the other for the chirp of Bufflehead fledglings.

And it's all on your behalf.

Chris Hollister's then 10-year-old daughter,Jessica, sits in the nest of a bald eagle, which obviously has been acclimated to humans, in the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge in Orleans County.
PHOTO: CHRIS HOLLISTER

Although a student of many species, Hollister is a self-taught amateur ornithologist. He is one of hundreds of volunteers who have assisted the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation since 2000 in its four-year quest to update its database of breeding birds across the state. The results will be published within the next year or two in "New York State Breeding Bird Atlas 2000-04."

The atlas will include a distributional map for each species that depicts as accurately as possible its true breeding range in the state. The results are relevant to ecologists, conservation biologists, economists, health officials and ornithological field researchers, both professional and amateur.

Born and raised in Buffalo and its close environs, the brown-crested Hollister says his parents imparted to him a love of all things wild—traits he has passed on to his young daughters, Jessica and Kayla.

Hollister points out that, like the proverbial canary in the cave, changes in the bird population can warn us of toxic chemicals and other pollutants, global warming and the effects of commercial and residential development.

"Their presence or absence tells us about the quality of wetlands and other bird habitats and the status of the air and water supply," he says. They also can mark the progression of bird-borne diseases like avian flu, and serve as harbingers of good or bad news elsewhere in the ecosystem.

An information literacy librarian in the Arts and Sciences Libraries, Hollister became interested in the Breeding Bird Atlas after reading about it in "Nature Watch," a Buffalo News column by Gerry Rising, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus at UB.

Data collection for such surveys is conducted using a sampling process established by the North American Ornithological Atlas Committee, wherein one survey area is designated within each of the United States Geological Survey's five-square-mile quadrangles that encompass the entire state.

Hollister selected several contiguous quadrangles in the Grand Island-Niagara Falls area with which he is familiar and began to note the number, activities and habitats of wild birds within those boundaries, particularly water birds that migrate to the area to breed and fledge their young before heading home to, say, the Yukon.

"It can be a difficult and frustrating job," he says. "There are 900 different bird species in North America, so the job requires a lot of discipline and accuracy. We identify the birds by noting a host of characteristics—for instance, beak shape, subtle colorations, the type of tale, crest, wing shape and the color of the underwing.

"Then, to distinguish among look-a-like birds, we consider what we might expect to find in the region where the bird is spotted.

"There are very specific criteria accepted as evidence that birds are breeding, too," Hollister says. "We look for singing males (it is the males you hear singing, by the way, to attract females), or a male and female together, nesting sites or the presence of fledglings."

The information collected will provide baseline data against which future changes in the status and distribution of New York's breeding birds can be measured. It will determine the location of rare species, identify significant habitats and develop a factual database to assist environmental planners in making wise decisions about resource use in New York State.

"It also will be used by conservationists who approach legislators to ask for the establishment of protected bird areas," Hollister says.

One of the most important and happy spottings he has made during this survey is of the common egret. He found a nest on Grand Island in 2001, the first reported in many years. The last one seen around here, Hollister says, was found in Niagara Falls about nine years ago, "but kids threw rocks at it, destroying the nest along with its eggs." Either the egrets have forgiven us or their collective memory has expired.

He sited a rare black swan in the wild, too, which he describes as "unbelievably beautiful" with its orange-red bill and bright red eyes. The black swan, common to New Zealand and Australia, is not a migratory species, so Hollister says it must have escaped from a zoo or private collection.

If you saw the stunning French film "Winged Migration," or have some inexplicable itch to be a bird spotter, novice bird spotters can rely on a variety of field guides, including "Sibley's Desktop Reference Book."

Hollister recommends the original "Peterson's Guide to Birds of North America," however. It is, he says, one of the most important books of the 20th century. Its drawings are better than photos, he says, because they depict what a birds looks like in different seasons with different plumage, making it easier to make an accurate identification.

Western New York offers a host of bird-spotting opportunities. Hollister recommends the Alabama Swamp and the Iroquois Wildlife Refuge for birds of all kinds, Tifft Farms Nature Preserve during the spring months for migrating birds and the Niagara River corridor during the winter months.

The corridor officially is recognized as the winter destination for waterfowl that most Western New Yorkers won't see otherwise, Hollister says, including the occasional rare and endangered harlequin duck, as well as sea ducks—not your average pond-and-steam duck, but stocky, short-necked diving birds that eat small fish and hang out in Black Rock taverns.

"During the winter, you also can spot more different species of gulls in the Niagara corridor than anyplace else in the world," Hollister says. "There are at least 19 varieties, although you need a spotting scope to tell them apart. They come from as far away as California in the west and Iceland in the east."

Why the Niagara River?

"The fish get all ground up in the turbines of the hydroelectric plants," Hollister says, "and the surface of the river surface is covered with food. A gull couldn't ask for more. Once they get here, no more effort is required. They just hang out on the floe ice, dip into the river and swallow."