Monthly Archives: April 2013

Washed Ashore Exhibit Opens in Bandon, OR

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A cool exhibit about sea life and the threat of ocean pollution opened on March 23 at the Harbortown Event Center in Bandon, Oregon, located at 324 Second St. SE in Old Town Bandon. The Washed Ashore exhibit is an internationally famous touring exhibit that has appeared at many venues in Oregon and California, including the Oregon Coast Aquarium, The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, Calif., The Living Coast Discovery Center in Chula Vista, Calif., and the Newport Visual Arts Center in Oregon.

Washed Ashore, an environmental education project, uses art and community involvement to communicate the dangers of marine debris to ocean life. Founded in 2010, Washed Ashore has collected more than eight tons of marine debris and is a founding member of the Oregon Marine Debris Team. In addition, Washed Ashore works closely with a number of organizations to address Japanese tsunami marine debris.

The Washed Ashore exhibit is comprised of fifteen giant sculptures of marine organisms built from scavenged marine debris, and is the only art show utilizing marine debris in the nation. Local volunteers put together each sculpture, some of which are up to fifteen feet long, in community workshops led by Angela Hasltine Pozzi.

Some of the sculptures featured in the exhibit are up to 15 feet tall.

Since local volunteers make this project possible, citizens of Coos County are invited to help put together the next pieces for the exhibit, which include sea horses, penguins, a shark, and an octopus. In addition, Washed Ashore is always accepting donations of marine debris, and they can be dropped off at Art 101 just south of town. For more information, contact Frank Rocco, Washed Ashore development director, 415-847-1239 or FrankRocco@WashedAshore.org.

The full article by Amy Moss Strong featured in the Bandon Western World can be found here

Wreck on the UK Coast

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In early April, an alarming number of dead birds washed up on the east coast of the UK – a large majority of the birds were puffins. It is the worst “wreck” of birds for over 50 years. Researchers have speculated that the event was caused by recent extreme weather. There have been no signs of pollution in the regions in which they were found. It is thought that the birds expended more energy on staying alive in the recent North Sea storms, making feeding impossible. To makes matters worse, the success of the breeding season for many of these birds (which is quickly approaching) could be impacted from this event. The majority of the deaths have already surfaced, but the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, alongside volunteers, will proceed to monitor said beaches in the upcoming spring and summer months.

For further reading visit:
The BBC News
Arbroath Herald

Landslide narrowly misses COASST beach on Whidbey Island

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Last Wednesday a large landslide took place on the western side of Whidbey Island (Washington State) near the Ledgewood community. Twenty properties were damaged during the event, but luckily no one was harmed. Smaller slides have happened in the area, but this one dropped enough earth to fill dozens of football stadiums, and even raised the beach about 9 meters (30 feet) above the earlier shoreline. The front of the slide is more than 304 meters (1,000 feet) long and extends some 91 meters (300 feet) into Puget Sound. Private beach surrounds the slide area. The COASST site, “Ledgewood Beach North” (in white) is just a few blocks away (slide shown in red):

Dead Bird ID Terminology

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One of the challenges of making the COASST Beached Birds Field Guides was avoiding much of the technical jargon found in other scientific resources. So where possible, we prefer “overlapping” to “scutellate” and “four webbed” to “totipalmate.” Those words can be fun to know, but they have no place in a guide for bringing clarity to bird identification.

With bird ID, there are a few terms that are necessary in order to be specific. The glossary in the COASST Field Guide helps with these, but we still field questions about some of the more obscure ones. Here is a closer look at some of the more challenging terms:

Puffin “stripe” or “smudge”

Unique to puffins and the closely related Rhinoceros Auklet, this is the subtly paler coloration on the leading edge of the wing. Sometimes this can look like the feathers are “worn away”, but it’s actually a plumage pattern.

Windows

White spots surrounded by dark, found on the outer wing feathers (primaries) of adult gulls (but not kittiwakes) are referred to as windows.

“Fingernails”

Many gull species have white tips to their primary feathers, which we call “fingernails.”

Speculum

When the secondary feathers are colored differently from the rest of the wing they are referred to as a speculum. Often these are iridescent. This term is commonly applied to ducks, for example this Northern Shoveler wing with a green speculum. Presence and coloration of the speculum can be the key to getting that waterfowl wing down to species.

Wing stripe

This is an area of contrast going through the middle of the wing, with darker or lighter color both before and after. In shorebirds, this is often a white “stripe.” Pigeons show a dark wing stripe.

Inner cut/outer cut primaries

Some birds have oddly shaped edges to their outer primary feathers. The leading edge of the feather may taper gradually towards the tip. This is called an outer cut feather. When the tapering is present on the trailing edge of the feather, it is called inner cut. This can be a good way to tell those cormorant wings from scoter wings!