On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 11:28 AM, Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Bill, This is somewhat anecdotal but when I was regularly visiting Japan a few years ago a Japanese birder friend of mine and I would drive around farm country north and east of Tokyo looking for shorebirds. In a sea of visually uniform rice and lotus paddies he would know specifically where to look for birds. Finally, I asked what it was about the particular paddies that had concentrations of birds and was told that they were the ones where organic farming was practiced. -- Cheers, Bill Hull Cincinnati, OH, USA http://www.mangoverde.com/ > 2) Some have sought to excuse eradication of shores for shorebirds along > Lake Erie by citing the attractiveness of pooled rainwater in > agricultural fields near the Lake, at least during the spring migration > (in fall, of course, these fields are usually covered with crops). My > observations of spring shorebirds in these locations is that they > readily stop here briefly, for lack of anything else, but don't spend > much time feeding. Does anyone know of good published studies of the > effects of agricultural chemicals on food production for migrant > shorebirds? I don't imagine these birds stay long enough to suffer much > from the chemicals, but they may not be finding much to eat, either. ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]