Spring, spring, spring is here ... warblers' announcement!

For those who respect and admire nature and feel passion for being in contact with it, there is a special time called Spring!  Further, if you consider yourself one of those guys who spend hours in the forests, wetlands, prairies, and urban areas looking for those charismatic organisms with brightly colored plumages and unique regal songs called birds, then Spring has an extra-especial meaning for you.  It is amazing and well-recognized the change that our ecosystems, e.g., forests and lakes, have from season to season, but particularly from Winter to Spring.

For a bird watcher, the onset of Spring means not only the gradually increasing rise in temperature and sunny hours, but to appreciate the amazing ecological process of bird migration.  Yes! Spring, Spring, Spring time is here and that means that millions of birds will be returning to northern latitudes (e.g., Ohio) after spending from 6 to 8 months traveling and/or wintering in more friendly environments in the tropics (e.g., Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and/or South America).  During the next two months countless number of birds will be either temporarily stopping by or staying in habitats of Ohio for the breeding season.  But, instead of spending time in explaining the incredible process of bird reproduction or migration, today I want to point out a simple ecological fact that is sheer illustrative for birders of the Spring arrival.

During the past two weeks there have been returning some birds such as ducks, geese, shorebirds, cranes, hawks, egrets, kingfishers, swallows, swifts, and blackbirds which undoubtedly announce that Spring is here.  From all birds, there is a special group of small (4.5 to 7.5 inches long), light (7 to 25 gr in weight) diverse (37 species occur with regularity in Ohio), colorful (mostly yellow, but combined with a diverse hues of white, black, blue, green, red, and/or gray) migratory birds that unmistakably signal the Spring onset to birders: warblers or wood warblers. 

 These birds belong to the family Parulidae that is native to the American Continent, has 116 species, and are iconic signals for birders that it’s time to be efficient in everything you do to go out and spend time at your favorite birding spots to witness the arrival of these mostly insectivorous yellow song birds. 

 Warblers are nor the first migratory birds coming back to Oxford or Ohio (e.g., ducks), nor are the most conspicuous birds in the forest (e.g., raptors), but they do arrive irrespective of the forest have completely leaved out or is lushly green to start setting up territories for the forthcoming breeding season. 

Next time that you go out to the field, your garden, park, school, Zoo, or walking down street, pay attention to bird songs or bird movements in the vegetation and see if you can detect a small yellowish bird that looks like a “warbler”.  Even more and just out of curiosity, if you are in the field and see a group of people holding binoculars and observing to some vague spot in the woods, ask them about if they have seen any warbler.  You will be amazed and intrigued by their answers, try it out!

  It is fascinating how some small birds can systematically announce the onset of a new season and a Spring day!

Note: Warblers' pictures were taken from internet (the Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

Poetry or penis fencing which way should I go today?

Today, I feel like a fish out of the water and sitting in the desert or, being less dramatic, perhaps like a single  black bean trying nervously to camouflage in a box of kiwis,  ….. just reading, staring and trying to organize a couple of ideas about what to comment on the “Field Day in Curacao: Poems by Erin Sams”.  I must be honest and say that poetry is not part of me.  Perhaps, in my entire life I have read and enjoyed a few poems by Pablo Neruda (Chile), Gabriela Mistral (Chile), or Octavio Paz (Mexico) and that is it!  I feel bad on making comments on something that I do not know or lack knowledge of, but I will do my best in the following brief sentences.

1.       I can perceive how sensitive and watchful Erin is as a person and her tact to mix those feelings with her experiences in the field.  The transmission of emotions to a reader is a critical step in poetry which drives me to believe that she is doing a good job.

2.       She presents her “world or perception” of different temporal stages of a day with very few orchestrated words mixing subtleness and commonly used words in addition to a few subliminal emotional messages.

3.       What I did not get, perhaps just a personal bias, is whether these poems are concatenated or standing alone.

4.       In short, I think she did a god job presenting her sensitiveness in brief words and with her own style.  From the poetry point of view, I reserve my right of saying more about it due to the limitation of my poetic skills and knowledge.

As concerns for the suggestive title of “Penis Fencing” by Michael Sitvarin, I wish I had read this article before preparing my class for BMZ115 in Fall 2009 on the topic 6 “Sex and the C-fern” ….. Mike’s perspective had opened my mind of other ideas about how to present this topic to my class and his advice on being careful when “googleing” penis fencing would have kept me out of trouble and embarrassment.  A few comments on the article would be:

1.       The article is well biologically argumented without going in detail and uses a few analogies and short passages with a nice tinge of his “personal smart sarcasm”. 

2.       It seems totally directed to people with some level of education in biology or ecology to understand the hold idea.  Although he does a good job in explaining most topics in simple words, there is a considerable number of concepts and processes that he makes reference in the text.

3.       To increase the reader attention, I would mix his pictures (perhaps adding a couple more depending on the paragraph) throughout the text to make it more convincing and appealing to the reader.

4.       Although I enjoyed reading it, this article seems is a little too long. But, it will depend where he is planning in publishing it.  As concerns for me, I have no idea of any suitable magazine for it.

5.       I think that Mike is another person that can clearly convey his personality and way of thinking when he writes, and gives seminars as well!.

Learning or just visiting?: a commentary on the effectiveness of informal environmental education activities

Today, one day after the Spring break 2011 is over, I want to write on the importance of communicating scientific information and educating people through nonformal educational activities (i.e., activities that do not form part of a formal class or classroom educational program) related to environmental education actions.

We have heard through several mass media, our peers, colleagues, friends, neighbors, and coworkers that environmental education activities are important actions in informing and educating people in several aspects with the end of engaging them into a more friendly behavior, attitude, and knowledge towards the environment, flora, and fauna and their interrelationships.  Additionally, we know and heard every passing day about the rapidly increasing concerns on our environment problems (e.g., pollution, climate change) and biodiversity conservation (e.g., loss of habitats and species). 

We have also heard that there are diverse financial sources for funding (perhaps not big enough!) such type of actions in favor of increasing the awareness in and actively engaging the society into hands-on actions.  We have visited Zoos, Aquaria, Centers for Environmental Education, State parks, Museums, and the like providing materials, conveying information, and motivating people to engage into local activities in favor of the environment or biodiversity. 

My academic and personal point for today’s topic is, how many of these activities are being assessed in their level of success?  Are they really meeting their goals set a priori?  I do not want to create a false image on nonformal environmental education activities are not worth at all, but to hit another specific nail on its head.  If over the last three decades informal environmental education activities have been increasing in number and frequency, and getting more economical support from the government, private agencies, donors, stakeholders, and volunteers, why we don’t add a little piece more to this puzzle to make it more complete , more effective and real?  This tiny piece that I am trying to reach is the evaluation process.  There are several techniques, depending on the audience and preestablished goals that we can use to assess how well our environmental education efforts are meeting our planned goals.  Starting with simple predesigned surveys and interviews, we can have some evidence on the effectiveness of our efforts in educating and changing attitudes and behaviors. 

A few days ago, I read a scientific paper by Barney et al. 2005 (Journal of Environmental Education 36:41-55) where they developed a study on how nonformal environmental education activities can be assessed in their success and further provide evidence on which direction to go after the first evaluation.  In other words, it shows how we can estimate our success in our environmental activities, get feedback towards the “primary” concerns are and allow us to redirect our efforts towards them.  By using a “megafauna” example (a charismatic species of dolphin) they illustrate a case study and induced me to go to check one popular place with informal environmental education activities during my Spring break;  The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum! 

My surprise started and went through the roof when looking at the facilities, top quality educational material, qualified people, animals and plants, and number of volunteers participating into it.  In addition to the amazing Natural Museum, displays, aviaries, bird and reptile shows, etc that work continuously during the year, it was hard to believe not to have found a systematic way to assess the effectiveness of this “incredible educational natural center”. 

Although people in charge of activities of this Museum do run some quick evaluations in a few activities, most of them are not being assessed.  From now on, every time I visit an environmental educational center, I will be more interested and active in asking about their ways of assessing the effectiveness of their goals and exchange ideas about how to do it … and not just eating, and taking pictures and walking along!