PARADISE LOST: BIRDS PUSHED TO THE BRINK Migrating birds ‘out of sync’ and hungry
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The remarkable migration of the black swift
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Trouble in Arizona’s Sky Islands
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The turkey vulture as meteorologist
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Plight of the last spotted owls
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Bird counts at the dying Salton Sea
Every summer and early fall, Mary Larson Bishop begins scanning the skies over her Sierra Foothills home outside Fresno, California. Bishop, who’s 85, keeps track of when the big dark-brown birds with bright red heads wheel and glide in air currents overhead, patiently awaiting their fellows before turning their russet beaks south for their migration to Central America.
It’s a key factor used by Bishop and hundreds of generations before her to gauge preparations for the coming winter months in their central California coastal homeland. She learned about turkey vultures and other pieces of the puzzle of her homeland’s natural cycles from her stepfather, Ed Bracisco, one of the last of the old-time Jolon Indians.”When the turkey vultures leave early and the oak trees have loads of acorns, you know you need to batten down the hatches,” said Bishop, a member of the Xolon Salinan Tribe and the mother of this reporter.