Saturday, March 29, 2008
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Birds, Birdwatching, Ambergris Caye, Belize
Bubba Birding Buddy
Bubbas not that smart , I know where to find a Roadside Hawk
Bubba
The Bubba Birdwatching Philosophy
For Elbert birdwatching is another way to relate to life. He says it's a different, more graceful path that makes living enjoyable and its problems easier to solve.
I find my entertainment by not limiting by observations to birds alone but including birdwatchers. Elbert calls it Bubba style. Watching birdwatchers has revealed more to me about human behavior than birding techniques. I've resolved the greatest discovery of the human will be that a human being can alter its life by altering its attitude. Elbert said, "One of the cardinal rules of 'Bubba Birdwatching' should be that judging others takes a great deal of energy and, without exception, pulls you away from where you want to be." I think he doesn't understand. Being a birddog is probably an advantage for me. In my search for 'Birding Truth' I have discovered many opinions-and if they don't fall in line with my belief I try not to dismiss it or if I find fault in it I try to see a positive side. For
example, 'The Aggressive Compulsive Lister', I admire them for how seriously they can take themselves. In my adventures I've run into quite a few with this birding malady, a personality that seems to polarize 'Bubba Birdwatching'. They go about recording details, listing and counting as if they were in a birdwatching emergency. In some ways this strategy epitomizes the essential message of 'Bubba style'. It is as if someone prescribed to them birdwatching as an anti-anxiety medicine and their medication is out of adjustment.
The human trait of being in a hurry to relax has always confused me. The aggressive compulsive birder wants to see that bird now! So they can get onto the next one and the next, then hurry back to the lodge to write them down on the 'life list'. Elbert said, "almost every opinion has some merit, especially if we are looking for merit, rather than looking for errors, and I should try to help them with their birding enjoyment by showing them value in 'Bubba Birdwatching'."
There are three excellent reasons for becoming a Bubba Birder. First, when you are aggressive you put yourself and everyone around you in an uncomfortable birding mood. Second, birding aggressively is extremely stressful. Your blood pressure goes up, your grip on the binoculars tightens, your eyes are strained and your thoughts are spinning out of control. Finally, you end up wasting time in getting to where you want to be emotionally.
Bubba Birdwatching is done to relax. When I ask birders, what does it mean to relax? Most will answer in a way that suggests that relaxing is something you plan to do later - you will do it on vacation, in a hammock, when you retire or when you get through birdwatching. The obvious implication is the rest of your time should be spent nervous, agitated, rushed and frenzied. This is not the 'Bubba way'. It's useful to think of relaxation as a quality of heart that you can access anytime rather than something reserved for a later time. it's helpful to remember that relaxed people can still be birdwatching super achievers. When I'm feeling uptight, for example, I don't even try to write. But when I feel relaxed, my writing flows quickly and easily.
Being a Bubba Birder involves training yourself to respond differently to the dramas of birdwatching. It comes in part from reminding yourself over and over again that you have a choice in how you respond. For instance, upon seeing a new and unusual bird one can run crashing through the jungle trying to focus the binoculars, looking for a pencil, and looking it up in Peterson's all at the same time or be a true Bubba and simply whisper, "Wow, did you see that?" ......this plateau is achievable. You can learn to relate to your thinking as well as your circumstances in a new birding awareness. With practice, making these choices will translate into your becoming a true Bubba Birder.
A Word from Bubba
How To Change The World
In Three Easy Steps
By Bubba
It is said that when a human stands on the rim of the
I’ve heard them say, ’we just seem so damn tiny.’
Likewise, the challenge that afflicts Ambergris Caye can seem overwhelming in scope and scale. When problems are as big as overfishing, Pollution and coastal overdevelopment, it’s easy to think that there’s no way one person can do anything to bring about positive change. But just as the trek to the
Awareness, Legislation and Enforcement are the blue print for positive change. My big rock to chip at is Awareness!
We understand there is no easy way to reverse the tide of environmental degradation, but we also understand that given a simple choice between eco-friendly and environmentally damaging practices, the vast majority will choose to do what’s best for the
Ambergris Caye in its remote and forgotten corner has been exempt in the past from the consequences the rest of the world has been paying for its mismanagement of development and the environment but that’s about to change with paradise discovered.
What, you may ask, has this to do with Birds? The Birds environment and the environment we live in, are the same environment. Efforts for either are parallel. Standing on a soapbox and shaking your finger to the sky in this age will get you ignored but entertain and you message will be remembered Pointing out the beauty and creating awareness of its care and maintenance to the masses who read the newspaper may be just one birddogs effort, but with every person I successfully effect to smile, the situation improves incrementally,
And suddenly we don’t seem so tiny anymore.
Male Firgrate on Halfmoon Caye
Holfmoon Caye Rookery
Customer parking only
Customer parking only is a sign my neighbors put up on the property next to me. I laughed at my ridiculous neighbors and this preposterous sign in the coconut grove of my island paradise because of the remoteness of our homes with no roads, no shops and no cars but laughed only until they cut down the trees, replaced the beach with cement, dredged a channel and cut the mangroves to bulldoze a road through. It was no longer funny when my favorite birds became scarce and parking in the proper areas became a real issue.
The world is changing. Not news! Your right. From our vantage point on Ambergris Caye we islanders have watched the outside world change for a long time, but now our world on Ambergris is changing and you know what is said about change, you can change with it, or die!
Ernest Hemingway wrote,” I know a good country when I see one, plenty of birds! A land ages quickly once we inhabit. The natives live in harmony with it, but the developer destroys. The land gets tired of being exploited and wears out quickly. The land was made to be as we found it.”
We can restore Ambergris by planting and landscaping for sustainability of its natural habitat.
Part of our islands attraction is the natural environment we get to enjoy by living here and the islands inevitable development has, and is progressing to crowd out our natural environment but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.
The islands development and living in a natural environment with its avifauna are not mutually exclusive. We can change the developing landscape of the island to accommodate avifauna and in doing so create an environment also pleasing to ourselves.
Successful landscaping begins with dirt, the first ingredient in our islands aviary, before and after the bulldozers. Saving the first few inches of sandy loam top in a corner of your lot will be a treasure of fertile starter soil for your new plants after development.
You’ve heard the expression,’ Old as Dirt’, Paleopathologist kinda guys say, the age of
Valuable fresh water falls from the sky for free and is held in place to be used by flora and fauna on barrier islands by a layer of clay like substance at the level of the sea underground. This delicate clay divider of salt from fresh is created by the up and down churning action of tidal pressures underground very much like the action of making butter from milk. With the fresh water sitting atop the salt below, shallow depressions in the ground become fresh water ponds easily and provide drinking water for the birds as well as cheap irrigation sources for the fauna. The third ingredient would be food producing plants. Replanting the correct plants after the developers clearing can create positive sources of food for birds. Knowing what plants provide necessities is easy. The Tropical Almond Tree terminalia catappa seems to be the fastest growing tree I’ve ever experienced and its peach like fruit attracts flocks of Parakeets to my yard. The Zericote tree‘s orange blossoms and fruit attract hummingbirds and Oriole. This tree is also easy to start, its one of those plants like the gumbo-limbo that you can just stick its log wood in the ground, water and it sprouts. The hibiscus flowers are a source of more than one food and the insects they attract are more valuable to birds than nectar. The cocoa-plum tree, chrysobalanus-icaco does very well in this loamy soil and produces a pinkish-white marshmallow like fruit that attracts Chachalaka and Trogan.
Bubba and I visited The Belize Botanic Gardens and found it to be a rich source of positive examples of how thoughtful planting attracts rare avifauna. http://www.belizebotanic.org/ has information as to which plants survive where and what food is provided for whom. The Belize Botanic Gardens group cultivates, promotes, researches and enables the research of tropical flora and its conservation with an emphasis on Belizean native species and their habitats.
We learned all the variety of life on earth is called biodiversity and the health of plant biodiversity is directly related to our birds well being. Bubba feels there is no difference between our birds well being and Human well being.
Yellow-Throated Warbler
fat one
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