Solving Puzzles with Citizen Science: Snowy Owls Edition

Posted: December 24, 2011 | Author: Sara | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

This post is officially subtitled: “Citizen Science is Cool: I Used It To Find a Snowy Owl and You Can, Too!”

If you have not heard of citizen science, imagine a big puzzle. It represents everything that is known about a concept or species:

Through methodical observation and research, scientists are able to piece together most of the picture of story. For example, from decades of observation and research, we have put together a pretty complete story about about Snowy Owls:

They are one of the world’s largest and heaviest owls with a wingspan of around 4.5 feet (think the span of the keyboard on an upright piano) and about 5 pounds (think of a 5lb bag of flour)
Males are almost entirely white; females are heavily speckled.
They prefer open grassland habitat in the tundra.
Their main diet consists of lemmings, but also eats rodents, rabbits, birds and fish.
… And so on!

Yes, we do know a lot! However, the picture is not complete:

For example: Scientists have a hard time tracking Snowy Owl population sizes because their habitat (the Arctic) is so remote. Scientists are not rich, magical people and do not have the money (nor the means) to travel and record every single individual in the expanse of Arctic where it resides. Up until recently, scientists did not even have any way to track Snowy Owls deviating south from their wintery home range. That is, until databases like eBird came along — where normal, everyday people can submit sightings which help scientists put the bigger picture together!

YOU may have the missing piece!

Only with YOUR piece, can we understand the whole!

Photo: Floyd Davidson

Understanding our natural world requires immense amounts of data collection — an amount that cannot be collected by scientists alone.Luckily, some sciences — particularly the natural sciences — can have their knowledge base contributed to by ordinary citizens. Contributing to citizen science projects is like helping to put a big, magnificent puzzle together. The more people participate, the more detailed and complete the picture becomes!

eBird (developed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the brain of all bird science in the USA) is a citizen science database to which you can submit your observations of birds. You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to submit everything you see in case there’s something you can’t identify. Just make a list of things you know, count them up, and submit your notes using a simple online form. All of our observations put together can help scientists answer big questions like how a bird’s population or range changes over time. These changes will become increasingly important to track as our climate changes. This information is useful for scientists writing papers, but is mostly hugely helpful for conservation efforts — everything from restitching local ecosystems to demanding legislation that protects and preserves our land, air, and water (on which we ALL depend, not just birds).

One of the coolest things about eBird is that the data is accessible to the public. If you ever have a species you want to see, go to eBird to check out the data — click on “view and explore data”, enter your location, and type in the species you want to see.

Here’s eBird’s collection of Snowy Owl sightings across North America, submitted by citizens just like you:

How does it compare to a current range map? (Once possible impact of citizen science: range maps could be changed according to the data that comes in.)

Now, here’s a screen shot of a search for Snowy Owls in Southeast Michigan — there are a bunch of observations clustered around a marina Lake St. Clair:

It’s about 35 minute drive away from my house… wouldn’t be fun to spend an afternoon trying to find it?

Oh yeah, if you want to go birding based on ebird sightings, here’s a tip — you can click on some of the tags to get more info (and sometimes comments). I was curious about what people had to say about these snowy sightings, so did some digging around.

Here was one comment about the Snowy Owl in the marina:

Miles McNally: “Sitting on the roof of a house right next to Roy’s Boat Marina.” (link)

Helpful for me if I want to try and find it.

Here are some other comments about other Snowy Owls sightings around the Great Lakes:

“Owl was being bombarded by approx 25 American Crows.” - Josh Bouman, Sarnia, Ontario (link) (That’s not supposed to be amusing! Mobbing may very possibly injure, kill, or otherwise affect reproductive success of the bird being attacked.) Be careful when you’re looking for these birds (especially when you’re trying to take pictures of them); flushing these big, white birds of prey can increase their chances of being mobbed.

This one is interesting! A possible sighting in downtown Detroit:

“I have to post this even though I’m not sure of the date. I was leaving work at the Free Press Plant on the Detroit River just downstream from downtown Detroit. I stopped at light at Fort St and saw something up the street at the next light Lafayette that I thought was a sea gull. Now this was in the middle of the winter and very dark out. When the light changed I drove up Rosa Parks and the bird had landed on the top of a sign in the median…As I approached it flew to the flat roof of a small warehouse on the S/E corner…I am posting this because it was the oddest sighting I have ever had…Though I’ve seen owls from time to time in the dark up near the Au Sable, this remains (I wrote this 11 27 2010) the only owl I’ve been able to ID…This must of made it down this way during an irruption and it will go down as my rarest sighting probably for sometime!” - Spencer Vanderhoof, Detroit, Michigan (link)

Here’s an interesting (and nearly lethal) encounter with a Snowy from the West side of the state:

“Incredible and extremely unexpected! I was so focused on the rocks down by the water in search of Purple Sandpipers that I didn’t see anything else. Suddenly this massive Owl appeared from a crack in the rocks beside the cement directly in front of me. He lunged at my face, but then quickly turned and headed towards the south pier. He was on the south pier when I left. I was glad to finally get the bird in Ottawa County, but thankful to still be alive!” - Zachary DeBruine, Ottawa County, Michigan (link)

According to eBird’s recent article on Snowy Owls (“Got Snowies?“), the appearance of so many owls might indicate a food shortage in the typical parts of their range. While that may be the case in some ways, the situation may be more complicated than we think — some research suggests that there may actually be a booming population of rodent life that has caused Arctic raptor populations to also increase, leading to overcrowding that has driven inexperienced youngsters further South. But we don’t know for sure.

Why is this happening? How far South will they go? Keep your eye on ebird to find out! And obviously… keep submitting your own data. SOme interesting discoveries may come out of it.

Anyways — now to the good part. I went to the marina and saw lots of things:

Rafts of hundreds (maybe thousands?) of flying ducks:

Lots of diving ducks — what I think are mostly Greater Scaup (because they don’t seem to have the rear-head bump):

And I saw the Snowy Owl, sitting on the roof of a lakeside condo like he owned the place:

Here are some zoomed/cropped pics:

Here, she (?) turned around…

… and took off into the neighborhood!

Thank you for the bit of beauty, majesty, and mystery, Miss Snowy Owl. Hope a dire situation didn’t bring you here. If only you actually were actually as magical as I like to think you are, and had the power to bring snow with you wherever you went! It’s been awfully snowless this winter so far…

Cheers to winter and all of its lovely creatures (whether they are thriving or hibernating in it)! Happy Holidays!

Belle Isle Herons

Posted: December 11, 2011 | Author: Sara | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Went to Belle Isle this morning — mostly for running off my dog’s energy and catching some December sunshine. There wasn’t a lot of noticeable bird activity other than lots of ducks and geese in the river and two Great Blue Herons fishing on the shore of one of the little inland ponds.

Some of the ducks — there were a few dozen Canvasbacks for sure, could have been some other mixed in there too:

A few of Roxie, my 4-year-old cattle dog companion, for good measure:

Oh — below are two stray dogs we saw on the way home (around Bagley and Trumbull — after coming back from Mexicantown). Poor things. I pulled over to see if they had collars on, but neither one did. They stopped and looked (eagerly? curiously?) at me when they saw me pull the car over, so they didn’t seem completely feral… Unfortunately, Roxie barked at them, and they went on their way. What a brat!

Should I report them to the no-kill group, Detroit Dog Rescue? I’ll probably send them a message and a photo with a note of the circumstances and location. The dogs didn’t look in too bad shape. In fact, one of them (the big, beige one) looked rather fat…

Okay, that’s it for today… time to get back to drafting personal statements (or at least reading about how to write them) for graduate school apps…

Homemade Bread Pudding

Posted: December 11, 2011 | Author: Sara | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Today was my graduation day… and to celebrate, I made bread pudding! I did so because I had a loaf of very chewy no-knead bread (it didn’t rise well because it’s wintertime, and the radiators in our old 1900′s apartment building aren’t always on) and the loaf was too hard to eat by itself. So… why not tear it up, bake it into a mixture of sugar, butter and eggs, and top off the final product with a tasty brandy sauce?!

It turned out pretty good! It’s based off of this recipe… some photos are below!

Step 1: Butter a pan! (I did an 8×8 inch pan, even though the recipe calls for 9×13.)

Step 2: Make the “batter” your bread will soak in while it bakes. Mix sugar, eggs, vanilla, and milk in a medium-sized mixing bowl:

Step 3: Pour this mixture over ~3 cups of chunks of bread. (In this case, it was a chewy, crusty homemade loaf of bread.)

The unbaked bread pudding should look like this:

(To be honest, I put more bread pieces in after I took this picture — the baking dish was stuffed with bread when I put it into the oven. I had to crack into another loaf to fill it in a bit more.)

Next, make the butter + brown sugar topping for your pre-baked pudding. This will add a sweet crust to the top of your pudding once it’s done:

(1/2 cup brown sugar + 1/2 stick butter…)

Drizzle this simple mixture on the top:

Now, pop it in the oven for 35-45 minutes, or until it gets nice, brown and crispy, and all the batter has baked through the bread.

While you wait, you can make bourbon sauce to lightly garnish it after it’s out of the oven.

If you don’t know already, this recipe is pretty butter-heavy: for the sauce, you have to put one stick of butter and one cup of sugar together in a small saucepan, and simmer…

… and then add a splash (1/4 cup) of brandy! But wait… what if you don’t have brandy?

I think it would taste fine without it — although the alcohol adds a little bit of a kick and definitely adds some complexity to the dessert sauce. I did have a little bit of cognac (which has been sitting in my cupboard for what seems like forever) so I just went ahead and used that. It came out just as delicious as the brandy sauce I made last time.

Okay! The bread pudding is ready when it is nice, brown, and crispy on the top, and the pudding along the edges of the baking dish are starting to… well… look like pudding.

Bread pudding isn’t supposed to look particularly elegant… its rich, crispy sweetness are what it’s all about. Here is the bread pudding after being pulled from the oven — nice and crispy!

Below is a little bit served in a bowl… drizzled with just a little bit of the sauce on top (you don’t need a lot). The chunks, which are nicely sized, are moist and sweet. The edges of each piece are chewy and crispy. This bread pudding is pretty rich, so just a few bites can feel satisfying. Its qualities make this dessert perfect for a cold, winter day… or even a holiday party. The total prep time was about 25 minutes, and the recipe isn’t very complicated at all. If you are a fan of bread pudding, go ahead and try it out… see how easy it is to make!

Hopefully I can find somebody to share it with so I don’t have to eat all of the bread pudding myself!

Happy December! Cheers to Winter Weather and Winter Food! Enjoy!

Recipe:

Ingredients

2 cups granulated sugar

5 large beaten eggs

2 cups milk

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 cups cubed Italian bread, allow to stale overnight in a bowl

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

1 cup chopped pecans

For the sauce:

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted

1 egg, beaten

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup brandy

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13 by 9 by 2-inch pan.

Mix together granulated sugar, eggs, and milk in a bowl; add vanilla. Pour over cubed bread and let sit for 10 minutes.

In another bowl, mix and crumble together brown sugar, butter, and pecans.

Pour bread mixture into prepared pan. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over the top and bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until set. Remove from oven.

For the sauce:

Mix together the granulated sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir together until the sugar is melted. Add the brandy, stirring well. Pour over bread pudding. Serve warm or cold.