VOLUNTEER FEATURE

BOARD PRESIDENT AND SOLAR BUILDING FRIEND CINDY LONG

V During the past few years, Dove Tales featured updates on the progress of our solar building renovation. The updates were courtesy of your Friends of PVNC President Cindy Long! Cindy's articles were detailed because she was the driving force behind the project. From securing grants and finding donors to painting both inside and out, Cindy was involved in all aspects of the renovation. Cindy's dedication towards the project was truly amazing! Without her steadfast help, the solar building would probably still be in disrepair. Because of her dedication, she was honored on June 3rd during the solar building rededication with a plaque called "Cindy's Long View", named for the view out of the new solar building windows.

Cindy's father was a military man. Because of his career, she grew up on the road, living throughout the U.S. and overseas. During her travels she met her husband John. They got married and moved first to Glenside, then Chalfont and finally settling in Doylestown. Cindy discovered Peace Valley Nature Center in 1989 and loved it so much that she decided to take the teacher /naturalist training course. After taking the teacher/naturalist course, Cindy found that raising three boys was consuming more time than expected, so she decided to take a hiatus from teaching.

In 1995, Cindy joined the Board of the Friends of PVCN. During her six year term she was instrumental in raising funds for the Friends portion of the multi-funded building expansion that greatly increased the size of our facility. During the waning years of her board term, she started teaching again. Her favorite class was the award winning Clean Stream program. One of her best memories was the day when one of her students claimed to have found a huge snapping turtle in the stream. Suspecting that she may be falling for a joke, Cindy reluctantly went to check it out. Upon arrival at the spot, she was dumbfounded by the sight of a massive snapping turtle wedged between two rocks! Cindy ordered a hasty retreat and the students gladly scrambled ashore!

After a couple of years off the board, Cindy returned and became the key player involved with the solar building renovation project, especially when she became President of the Friends of PVNC in February of 2005. Despite being busy as the Friends President, she has found time to explore her favorite hobby, primitive skills. Cindy and John attended the Tom Brown Wilderness Survival School in New Jersey where they learned skills in tracking, wild edibles, and primitive camping.

If you see Cindy on the trail or at a PVNC function, please thank her for all she has done for Peace Valley Nature Center!


A BIRD'S EYE VIEW

Everyone has heard about a bird's eyesight. How can eagles spot prey while soaring a mile up? How can owls see in the dark? How do hummingbirds notice a small red flower while in flight? Is all this hearsay, or is their eyesight that much better than humans? Let's see if we can find out, without boring you to tears.

The eyes of a bird are similar to ours: they have a cornea, lens, iris and a retina. But their eyes are very large relative to their skulls. Human eyes account for only about 2% of the mass of the head, while birds average about 15%. There is no room left for a bird to rotate their eyes, therefore, most bird's eyes are fixed in their sockets, and they must turn their head or use reflexive movements of the neck to align their field of view.

Most birds have monocular vision, because their eyes are located on the side of the head. Each eye sees a different image (that must really be weird), and together can process information in a field of view close to 300° or more. This enables them to see danger quickly, and why we can't sneak up on birds during our bird walks. The downside to monocular vision is poor depth perception and bad judging distance, reasons why a speeding car will run over a bird in the road.

Other birds have binocular vision, like humans, with eyes far to the front. This enables both eyes to focus on the same thing. These birds have as much as a 180° in-focus field of view, most of it binocular, while humans barely manage 140°. If you look straight ahead and hold your arms out to the side, you can't see your hands. But a bird could (if they had hands).

So, you say, humans can see the same as birds with binocular vision, and better than birds with monocular vision. Well, no, because of some special anatomical traits of bird's eyes.

The retina is basically composed of rods and cones. Rod cells are light sensitive cells. The denser the rods, the more light can be absorbed, and the better to see at night. Nocturnal birds such as owls and nightjars average 750,000 rods per square millimeter (mm2) or more, while humans only have about 150,000 mm2. They also have a larger pupil size, which allows more light into the eye. Finally, there is a structure called the "tapetum lucidum" which acts like a mirror, reflecting light which has entered the eye back into the eye again. This is also what gives the ghostly eyeshine to whippoorwills.

Cones are color receptor cells, used for daylight vision. The denser the cone cells, the sharper the image. The human eye has about 200,000 cones per mm2. A bird can have up to 1 million cones per mm2. Plus, their cones are more evenly distributed across the back of a flatter eye, giving them a wider area that is in focus.

Besides having a denser structure, bird's cones contain colored oil droplets, something we mammals don't have. These act like a filter, or maybe even a prism, transmitting incoming light according to the various colors of the oil droplet. Bird's retinas have no blood vessels, which prevents light scattering and greater visual acuity.

Also, cones in humans consist of 3 types, those sensitive to red, green and blue light. This is trichromatic color vision. Birds have an extra cone, quadchromatic color vision, which expands the visible light spectrum, allowing birds to see into the ultraviolet, seeing color frequencies we can't. Birds look quite different to each other than the way we see them.

Unlike length or mass, color is not an inherent property of an object. It is the property of the nervous system of the animal, or bird, perceiving the color. Therefore, color perception can't be translated into human terms. Birds see colors that are not necessarily refinements to the colors that we see. They are hues unknown to any creature with trichromatic vision. We don't really know exactly how birds see, but based on comparative eye structure, we can only assume that they have a sharper image, they have a much wider field of view, can see more colors, and can translate vision into action much faster than humans.

I really wish I didn't need contacts or glasses.

Chuck Crunkleton leads our bird watching field trips and shares the Saturday morning bird walk duties with August Mirabella.


YOU CAN STILL HELP BRING BACK THE AMERICAN ELM

The arrival of Dutch Elm Disease from Europe decimated the American Elm and drastically changed the look of our cities, towns and villages, but you can help bring them back! The Friends of Peace Valley Nature Center have a limited supply of American Liberty Elms. These Elms are resistant to Dutch Elm Disease.

These special 6' trees cost $150 apiece (get them soon, we only have six left!). PVNC can also provide a highly recommended planting kit (stakes, wire, etc.) to protect the tree, for an additional $15. A limited supply of larger sized Elms is available. Call the Peace Valley Nature Center at 215-345-7860 to check on availability and price. August, September and October are the best months for planting the American Liberty Elm trees in the fall.

V Each Elm tree comes with a lifetime warranty against Dutch Elm disease from the Elm Research Institute in New Hampshire, where we get our baby American Liberty Elms. The American Liberty Elm is not available from commercial nurseries. The proceeds from this program are used to fund environmental education programs at the nature center. You too can help re-establish the American Elm!


"FEECYCLE" PROGRAM BENEFITS PVNC's INTERN COTTAGE

Did you know that the educational staff at Peace Valley Nature Center is aided by the services of a fall, spring, or summer intern (or two)? The program, headed up by our Director of Education, Gail Hill, sometimes houses these interns at our intern cottage. The cottage is beneficial to the program, as it allows students from other areas to come to work for Peace Valley for ten to twelve weeks, as well as truly giving its residents a feel for the sense of community that Peace Valley Nature Center is fortunate to have.

Recently, the intern cottage needed a new refrigerator, and Louise Lehman, the nature center's office manager, was able to obtain one through a unique internet program on a website called "Freecycle". This website allows registered users to post things that they want to get rid of, and then neighbors looking to obtain items can do a search in their area to see if anyone has the item and wants to be "freed" of it! This is a great way to recycle items, as well as free up space in our landfills, all while helping a friend or needy neighbor. Next time you have something you don't need anymore but could be used by someone else, consider posting it on "Freecycle"-plus, you never know when you'll be in need of something! The website is www.freecycle.org

I would like to thank the owner of the donated fridge, Barbara Schmitt, as well as Louise and her daughter, Julianne Wylie for their work on locating it. In addition, thanks go out to Peace Valley Park's maintenance crew for their help with moving the refrigerators. Happy shopping!

Spring intern Elizabeth Widmaier received a Master of Science in Environmental Education in May of 2005 from the Audubon Expedition Institute at Lesley University. She is currently seeking employment in the field of environmental education and enjoys kayaking, birding and working with children.


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