Cambium Research File
Picking a Bird
Let me know which bird (include the number if using the research file) you would like to work with no later than Wednesday July 9. Your bird can be one you pick yourself (from a previous connection or interest, or from research or from a walk about; think about using the TASAs as you do a walk about. Keep a notebook with you to write the TASAs down.). Or you can pick a bird from the research file. If you are picking from the research file please send me a list of at least two choices that interest you. I will confirm one with you quickly. It is okay if multiple people choose the same focal point. But I will ensure that we don’t have a majority all writing on the same focal point.
Use this research as a leaping off point. You are not writing historical or scientific plaques. See what stories or voices your imagination conjures up based on the information you learn. It may be the voice of the bird or a person/animal in relation to the bird or even a character the bird inspires. If this bird were a person what kind of person would they be? Can facts connected to a specific phenomenon translate into traits a character might have or dramatic action.
Let me know which bird (include the number if using the research file) you would like to work with no later than Wednesday July 9. Your bird can be one you pick yourself (from a previous connection or interest, or from research or from a walk about; think about using the TASAs as you do a walk about. Keep a notebook with you to write the TASAs down.). Or you can pick a bird from the research file. If you are picking from the research file please send me a list of at least two choices that interest you. I will confirm one with you quickly. It is okay if multiple people choose the same focal point. But I will ensure that we don’t have a majority all writing on the same focal point.
Use this research as a leaping off point. You are not writing historical or scientific plaques. See what stories or voices your imagination conjures up based on the information you learn. It may be the voice of the bird or a person/animal in relation to the bird or even a character the bird inspires. If this bird were a person what kind of person would they be? Can facts connected to a specific phenomenon translate into traits a character might have or dramatic action.
Here is an example of using a creative focal point:
- Example: A tree that has fungus growing on it, has become a vessel that supports another life. If the tree were a person what kind of person supports another life at a cost to themselves? Are they willing or unwilling? If they were unwilling one might write a play like Hedda Gabler. If they were willing maybe a play like Saint Joan. This is an intentionally broad example.
- Example: It is widely believed that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet as a response to the death of his son Hamnet. The spellings of Hamlet/Hamnet were interchangeable in Elizabethan England. Shakespeare did not write a play about a boy dying of illness in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Instead he wrote a story about a Danish Prince exacting revenge for the death of his father. As Maggie O’Farrell explores in her wonderful novel Hamnet and Judith, Shakespeare uses Hamnet as inspiration and writes a play with different specifics, but the same essence; the exploration of death and grief. Shakespeare probably played the Ghost/Old Hamlet in the original performances. So on stage Shakespeare was doing what a parent would naturally wish when a child dies, to take their place; or to defy death and still converse with the deceased. In Hamlet Shakespeare may be wishing that he, the father, died instead of the son. It is the natural order of things, the son should outlive the father, the opposite of what had just happened in the Shakespeare family. Shakespeare may also be imagining Hamnet if he had grown up, taking his wit and intellect he had as a boy and imaging what he could have become as a man. So Shakespeare took the essence or main idea of his son’s death and his own grief and found a dramatic equivalent for it.
Order of Sharing Drafts
Spend the latter half of this week working on a rough first draft. Everyone should send a draft to me to no later than Monday July 14th at 10:00 AM. You can send me a draft much earlier than Monday.
Half the unit will share their first draft at our second meeting and the other half at our third meeting. People will share in the order that I receive the drafts. I think this will work out an order organically of people who take more time and those who get a draft done quicker.
If you are sharing in the third meeting you can continue working your draft during the second week, perhaps incorporating what you learned from the first five sharings. You can then send me a newer draft closer to the third meeting.
You can always continue to work on your monodrama right up to the sharing, even though you have already sent me a draft. You can also send me multiple drafts in a week, to get feedback or questions answered. If you continue to work right up to the meeting, be sure to email me your most recent draft at the start of the meeting.
Keep in mind if you send me something on Monday July 14th you will probably be sharing on the third week.
But if everyone waits until the 14th to send me something, the first six will be still be sharing that evening.
Everyone will share a new draft at our final meeting.
Some people prefer hearing someone else read their work, so they can take notes and listen. If you prefer this at any point, you can let me know when you send me your draft. I will ask another member of the group to read for you.
Throughout the unit I will be able to offer better notes to you when you share if you send me a draft at least a day in advance of sharing.
Tracking Your Drafts
Keep all your drafts. You can always go back to a previous draft if it works better for you. Playwriting does not move in one direction. I suggest saving each draft in the following format:
Title-Author-v1
Title-Author-v2
A Monodrama
A monodrama is different from a monologue, because a monodrama a complete dramatic work unto itself. A monologue is part of a larger dramatic work.
Spend the latter half of this week working on a rough first draft. Everyone should send a draft to me to no later than Monday July 14th at 10:00 AM. You can send me a draft much earlier than Monday.
Half the unit will share their first draft at our second meeting and the other half at our third meeting. People will share in the order that I receive the drafts. I think this will work out an order organically of people who take more time and those who get a draft done quicker.
If you are sharing in the third meeting you can continue working your draft during the second week, perhaps incorporating what you learned from the first five sharings. You can then send me a newer draft closer to the third meeting.
You can always continue to work on your monodrama right up to the sharing, even though you have already sent me a draft. You can also send me multiple drafts in a week, to get feedback or questions answered. If you continue to work right up to the meeting, be sure to email me your most recent draft at the start of the meeting.
Keep in mind if you send me something on Monday July 14th you will probably be sharing on the third week.
But if everyone waits until the 14th to send me something, the first six will be still be sharing that evening.
Everyone will share a new draft at our final meeting.
Some people prefer hearing someone else read their work, so they can take notes and listen. If you prefer this at any point, you can let me know when you send me your draft. I will ask another member of the group to read for you.
Throughout the unit I will be able to offer better notes to you when you share if you send me a draft at least a day in advance of sharing.
Tracking Your Drafts
Keep all your drafts. You can always go back to a previous draft if it works better for you. Playwriting does not move in one direction. I suggest saving each draft in the following format:
Title-Author-v1
Title-Author-v2
A Monodrama
A monodrama is different from a monologue, because a monodrama a complete dramatic work unto itself. A monologue is part of a larger dramatic work.
The Research File
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1. Killdeer
CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE The Killdeer’s broken-wing act leads predators away from a nest, but doesn’t keep cows or horses from stepping on eggs. To guard against large hoofed animals, the Killdeer uses a quite different display, fluffing itself up, displaying its tail over its head, and running at the beast to attempt to make it change its path. Killdeer get their name from the shrill, wailing kill-deer call they give so often. Eighteenth-century naturalists also noticed how noisy Killdeer are, giving them names such as the Chattering Plover and the Noisy Plover. 2. Migrating Birds Use Quantum Effects to Navigate CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE Migrating birds use celestial cues to navigate, much as sailors of yore used the sun and stars to guide them. But unlike humans, birds also detect the magnetic field generated by Earth’s molten core and use it to determine their position and direction. Despite more than 50 years of research into magnetoreception in birds, scientists have been unable to work out exactly how they use this information to stay on course. Recently we and others have made inroads into this enduring mystery. Our experimental evidence suggests something extraordinary: a bird’s compass relies on subtle, fundamentally quantum effects in short-lived molecular fragments, known as radical pairs, formed photochemically in its eyes. That is, the creatures appear to be able to “see” Earth’s magnetic field lines and use that information to chart a course between their breeding and wintering grounds. 3. East Atlantic Flyway CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE The East Atlantic Flyway (EAF) extends from the Arctic to the southern tip of the African Atlantic coastline. Every year millions of waterbirds migrate from their breeding grounds as far north as the Siberian tundra to their non-breeding (wintering) sites in Western and Southern Africa, making use of stopover wetland sites along the coastline. The Wadden Sea World Heritage site is at the heart of the EAF and is used as a breeding, wintering and stopover site. Other key sites along the EAF, which support a large percentage of the flyway populations, are the Banc d'Arguin in Mauritania and the Bijagós Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau. The flyway also supports numerous waterbird species that breed in Africa, many of which are also migratory, moving along Africa’s Atlantic coastline. Key breeding sites include the Saloum Delta and Djoudj National Parks in Senegal. 4. London Ontario’s Downtown Peregrin Falcon CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE A 15-year-old peregrine falcon that soared above London’s downtown for years has died at an area wildlife refuge. The Salthaven Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Centre, which cares for and rehabilitates sick or injured wildlife, had rescued the falcon, called Thunder, after it was found with a fractured wing on the roof of Citi Plaza in August. Despite the efforts of the London-area organization and the Ontario Veterinary College, which performed surgery on the bird, the falcon didn’t recover, leading to the decision to euthanize the animal. “We’re saddened by the fact that it didn’t work for her,” said Salthaven’s founder Brian Salt. “We had the best of the best working on her . . . It just, unfortunately, didn’t work.” Salt said one of the main issues slowing Thunder’s recovery was her age. At 15, she was already past the average lifespan of peregrine falcons, which is usually 13 years. The fractures, which they believe likely happened during a “territorial struggle” with another falcon, didn’t allow Thunder to fly, Salt said. The bird was also visibly in pain and would’ve suffered if released into the wild, he added. “The further a fracture is away from the heart, the longer it takes to heal and, in some cases, it won’t heal at all,” Salt said. “But in spite of all that, we thought we would take the chance, and it looked for a while like it was working.” Salt described Thunder as an “iconic bird in London” that mothered several broods of peregrine falcons at the top of the London City Centre in the city’s downtown. Her passing could lead to new offspring. “Thunder had not produced any offspring for a few years now,” he said. “It’s possible that her former mate will take on a new mate, and they will start reproducing again, so that’s the silver lining in the dark side of the storm.” Peregrine falcons were once considered an endangered species in North America after their population declined in great numbers due to pesticides. Thanks to conservation efforts, the species, however, has made a recovery over the last couple of decades but remains a species of special concern, Salt said. “The 2nd generation of Peregrine Falcons (raised on the Canada Trust Towers) are very aggressive and fighting each other for the nesting space. We have no feeder, but the Cardinals come every day.” – Colleen Thibaudeau 5. Owls: To Post or Not to Post? By Paul Nicholson CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE “In 2019, a Northern Hawk Owl was found in Schomberg, just north of Toronto. This was a rare species for the area. The sighting was posted online and hundreds of birders and bird photographers went to see the owl. Unfortunately, a handful of photographers over-crowded and disturbed the bird. A debate then raged about where or not owl sightings should be shared. Because of that experience and others like it, moderators of some online bird reporting platforms do not allow owl postings. One example is the Ontario Birds Alert forum on the Discord app. The OBA policy is that no owl locations will be posted. Birders were recently reminded that ‘Posts must adhere to the birds first policy. No owl posts or requests for locations of owls will be allowed on Ontario Birds Alert Discord.’ ” 6. Ontario’s Extinct Parrot Still Yields Lessons by Paul Nicholson CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE “It surprises many to learn that a parrot species likely inhabited Ontario. The Carolina Parakeet was a small, 33 cm long neotropical parrot with a dark green back, lighter green underparts, and a yellow head with a reddish-orange face. The preferred habitats of this extremely social bird were old growth forests and swamps. The earliest North American records of these birds date back to the 16th century, and the first scientific description of the species was in the mid-1700s with the publication of Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands by Mark Catesby, an English scientist. These birds were well known across the eastern U.S. As well as having created a beautiful portrait of the birds in the early 1800s, John James Audubon also created a written record of the species. In terms of the birds’ behaviors, he wrote “They are quite at ease on trees.” He also noted that “on the ground these birds walk slowly and awkwardly, as if their tail incommoded them.” “They are fond of sand in a surprising degree, and on that account are frequently seen to alight in flocks along the gravelly banks about the creeks and rivers.” Carolina Parakeets would nest and roost in hollow trees such as Sycamores, and holes that had been excavated by other birds. It was records of Samuel de Champlain that are the best evidence that some Carolina Parakeets made their way to Ontario. Champlain was in the Peterborough area in 1615. In their book Before Ontario: The Archaeology of a Province, authors Marit Munson and Susan Jamieson cite Champlain’s description of a bird that “had a beak like that of a parrot, and was the size of a hen. It was entirely yellow, except the head which was red, and the wings which were blue, and it flew at intervals like a partridge.” Although not a perfectly accurate description of an adult Carolina Parakeet, that bird is the leading candidate species. There is a specimen in the collections of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. It is sobering to read Audubon’s notes about what we would now refer to as the bird’s conservation status. “Our Parakeets are very rapidly diminishing in number; and in some districts, where twenty-five years ago they were plentiful, scarcely any are now to be seen.” He described the Carolina Parakeet’s shrinking range. Even by then, very few of the birds were to be found in the Lake Ontario area. Through the balance of the 1800s, there was a complete collapse of the bird’s population. It has been suggested that the two primary contributing factors for the extinction were habitat loss due to deforestation and hunting. It seemed altogether to easy to kill these birds. Audubon wrote “Parakeets are destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman approaches them with perfect ease, and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors rise, shriek, fly round about for a few minutes, and again alight on the very place of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten, or even twenty, are killed at every discharge. The living birds, as if conscious of the death of their companions, sweep over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition.” Interestingly, the last known Carolina Parakeet was a captive bird that lived in the Cincinnati Zoo, and it died in the very same cage that had been home to the last known Passenger Pigeon. Many people know about the extinctions of the Passenger Pigeon and the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the early 20th century, but the lesser known loss of the Carolina Parakeet is equally sobering. The results of an international study by Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and others were published in the journal Science in 2019. The study was widely reported on. In what was the first-ever comprehensive assessment of net changes to bird populations in the U.S. and Canada, an across-the-board loss of 2.9 billion breeding birds since 1970 was measured. This is a staggering 30% decline.” 7. If the Canada Goose is the classic migrating species, why do I see so many through the winter? By Paul Nicholson CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE “Migration is often a high-risk activity for birds. The flight is energy intensive, and there are real risks associated with inclement weather, food scarcity, fatal collisions, and predation en route. There are plainly risks associated with staying put as well. Food security and winter weather are two of the greatest risks that birds overwintering in Ontario face. A subset of Canada Geese will accept the risks of staying in Ontario. There will be enough food through the winter to sustain a limited population, and if the weather is inclement for a sustained period of time, the birds still have the option of flying to the south side of the Great Lakes.” 8. Loons: Submarines or Airplanes CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE Loons are well equipped for their submarine maneuvers to catch fish. Unlike most birds, loons have solid bones that make them less buoyant and better at diving. They can quickly blow air out of their lungs and flatten their feathers to expel air within their plumage, so they can dive quickly and swim fast underwater. Once below the surface, the loon’s heart slows down to conserve oxygen. Loons are like airplanes in that they need a runway for takeoff. In the case of loons, they need from 30 yards up to a quarter-mile (depending on the wind) for flapping their wings and running across the top of the water in order to gain enough speed for lift-off. Migrating Common Loons occasionally land on wet highways or parking lots, mistaking them for rivers and lakes. They become stranded without a considerable amount of open water for a long takeoff. A loon may also get stranded on a pond that is too small. 9. The Galápagos Hawk CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE The Galápagos Hawk is another example of past evolutionary changes made visible. It’s the only raptor endemic to the Galápagos Islands, 600 miles away from the South American mainland. How it got there has been a mystery, since most raptors avoid flying over open water. But genetic evidence now shows the Galápagos Hawk is an evolutionary offshoot of the Swainson’s Hawk, a North American species that migrates in large flocks to southern South America. It’s now thought that the hawks’ ancestors were undertaking this same migration about 300,000 years ago, when a flock went off course, ended up in the Galápagos, and became the founding population of a new species. 10. Do parent and baby birds recognize each other’s songs or calls? CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE The Brown-headed Cowbird lays its eggs in the nests of other species. The host species does not seem to notice the difference between the calls of their own babies and that of the cowbird. Adults of species such as Barn Swallows never learn to recognize the calls of their own young. This pattern may have developed because the young birds become independent immediately after fledging or because they remain isolated in their family group until they are fully independent. In colonial species the situation is very different. Within a few days of hatching, adults learn to recognize the voices of their own chicks, and vice versa. Herring Gulls, for example, may accept tiny young into their nest for a short period after their own eggs have hatched. After two to three days, however, they will not allow strange young into their nesting area. 11. Exploding Arctic snow geese numbers stabilizing, but still high CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE In the 1970s and '80s, there were between two million and three million snow geese in central North America. Now there are about 15 million. Nesting colonies now are so large the birds are destroying their own habitat. "It's incredible," said the National Wildlife Research Centre's Paul Smith, who studies the birds on Nunavut's Southampton Island. "In the spring, when the ground is wet, they'll dig up what's called the rhizome of the grass, the starchy root. Once they've grazed the grass down to such a short level that it's not useful to them anymore, they dig up this starchy root. "They'll convert an area that was once covered in grass to exposed mud. When this mud is left exposed, the evaporation rate goes up and you get this salt crust on the top. Then it's very difficult for plants to recolonize those areas." 12. Canaries in Coalmines CLICK FOR FULL SOURCE While these tales of canaries in mines might seem to belong to a distant past, canaries were actually used in mines as late as 1996 when British legislation officially ordered miners to replace canaries with electronic carbon monoxide sensors. Miners themselves however regretted the loss of their canaries. “There is something about hearing them singing when you start work that lifts the spirits. There’s no doubt that collieries will be less colourful and quieter places without them.” While new equipment was considered safer by authorities, miners themselves pointed to the reliability of the canaries, arguing that “batteries can fail – canaries don’t”. |
Killdeer
Migrating Birds Use Quantum Effects to Navigate
East Atlantic Flyway
London Ontario’s Downtown Peregrin Falcon
Ontario's Extinct Parrot
Galápagos Hawk
Arctic Snow Geese
Canary in a Coalmine
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