Material Information

Title:
With the Wild Things: Winter Birds
Creator:
Dr. Jerry Jackson
Place of Publication:
Ft. Myers, Florida
Publisher:
Whitaker Center in the College of Arts and Sciences, Florida Gulf Coast University
Language:
English
Physical Description:
4 podcasts, approximately 1 minute each in length

Subjects

Subjects / Keywords:
Birds
Winter birds

Notes

Scope and Content:
Source: Winter Birds 1 Length of Segment: 00:01:16 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. Mid-winter in South Florida is for the birds, and no, I'm not merely referring to the snow birds: the human migrants that join us each year and thus avoid the snow and ice of northern winters. I'm referring to the feathered variety. While South Florida has long been known as a place to see beautiful birds, often in spectacular concentrations, there's a time component to this show and the time is now. South Florida has distinct wet and dry seasons. The wet season we know all too well extends from May to November, bringing summer lightning, mosquitoes, and hurricanes. The dry season, from November through April, brings more sunshine and lowered water levels in canals, swamps, and lakes. As water levels recede, fish and other aquatic animals become more and more concentrated, making it easier for predators such as alligators, otters, and herons and egrets, kingfishers, cormorants, anhingas, ospreys, and bald eagles to catch a meal. This is the time of year these animals fatten up. The concentrated food supplies created by an annual cycle of lowered water levels in winter mean healthy wildlife and the possibility of a very successful breeding season. ( English,English,English,English )
Scope and Content:
Source: Winter Birds 2 Length of Segment: 00:01:17 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. In 2002, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published an economic analysis of birding in the United States. Nearly 50 million Americans watch birds and nearly two-and-a-half million Floridians call themselves 'birders'. Indeed, many came here because of the splendor of Florida's natural environment. Birding has become big business. Binoculars, field guides, and cameras are just the beginning. Add in bird feeders, bird houses, and travel to birding hot-spots such as Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, and Everglades National Park and the annual total is nearly 32 billion dollars. It's no wonder that in the last decade, communities across America have begun hosting annual birding festivals that offer local field trips, lectures, vendors selling binoculars, field guides, and other birding items. This Saturday and Sunday is the Second Annual Southwest Florida Birding Festival at Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve on the road to Marco Island near Naples. Join the fun. There will be activities for kids each day, field trips each morning, and special programs each afternoon. On the internet check rookerybay.org.
Scope and Content:
Source: Winter Birds 3 Length of Segment: 00:01:18 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. In the late1800s, bird-watching was done without field guides, usually without binoculars, and often with a shotgun. Good field guides didn't appear until 1934. It was the custom to go birding after Christmas dinner and this meant going out with friends and guns and to see who could shoot the most birds. 'If it flies, it dies' was the order of the day. But times were changing; there was also a conservation movement afoot. On Christmas Day in 1900, Frank Chapman took friends on an alternative bird count; an effort to see how many kinds of bids they could count in a single day without shooting them. The results were widely publicized and Christmas bird-counts boosted the popularity of bird-watching, now called 'birding'. Today, birding is a billion dollar business and local communities are learning of its economic potential. This weekend, Southwest Florida joins the ranks of communities hosting a birding festival. The Second Annual Southwest Florida Birding Festival will be hosted by Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve on the road to Marco Island near Naples. Join the fun. Find out what birding is all about. On the internet, check rookerybay.org.
Scope and Content:
Source: Winter Birds 4 Length of Segment: 00:01:11 Hi, I'm Dr. Jerry Jackson, out with the wild things. Until 1934, there were no good field guides that provided illustrations and identification information for the more than 750 kinds of birds known from North America. Then Roger Tory Peterson, an artist by training and a birder by avocation, published a field guide that revolutionized bird-watching. Peterson had long maintained that he could identify birds at a distance with a pair of binoculars. He'd accumulated notes on characteristics that allowed such identification and put those notes to work in his art, using arrows to point out the key identifying features of each species, and he patented his Peterson System of Identification. A Field Guide to the Birds of Eastern North America has gone through five editions, sold millions of copies, and spawned a series that now includes dozens of field guides to the natural world. Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide to the Birds and a new guide by David Allen Sibley have made best-seller lists, demonstrating the interests of the American public in exploring the world around them and adding to the American economy.

Record Information

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Resource Identifier:
FI00900184

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