About Us..
Rio Grande Delta Audubon is dedicated to conservation of our native habitat for the protection of birds, other wildlife, and for the enhancement and appreciation of our environment.

Officers & Board
Lee Zieger, President
Greg Vail, Vice President
Mary Jean Garcia, Secretary
Hugo & Magda Rodriguez, Treasurer
Dorothy Greaney
George Garcia
Margaret Etchinson

Copyright©Rio Grande Delta Chapter,Brownsville Texas
All rights reserved (but feel free to copy it, post it, quote it, think about it and forward on to others).

Newsletter Editor:
Lee Zieger
956-831-4653

Event: RGDA Potluck & Get together
Date: Monday, September 4th, 2006
Time: 6:30 p.m.
Place: Lee & Alma Zieger's at 12 Laguna Madre,Laguna Vista. Click and see a printable map for directions. Also, you can click and see The House.
Potluck will be preceded by a short meeting with a progress report on the Taumilipas Crow Sanctuary.
Bring a dish of choice,enough to serve 6-8 people.Beverages will be provided or you can bring your own favorite. Hope to see you there for great food and a good time.
Dress casual and bring a pair of Binoculars for a spectacular view of the bay,and maybe some good Birding views. A scope will be available too. Bird photos on the wall, photo book on Mexico, Cd Victoria, Cd Monte, Gomez Farias, and El Cielo, and live birds to experience.You can also enjoy "Fireworks over the Bay".
Tamaulipas Crow Sanctuary Proposal
Come help us make a conservation impact on Brownsville to remember. Your comments and support are a necessary part of this project.
Watch our web site www.riograndedeltaaudubon.org for updates on this project.

Summer heat can take its toll on birds. Combine that situation with drought, and you've got a dangerous and deadly combination. Birds are particularly affected because they are small and have a greater surface area to weight and a higher body temperature than humans," said Juan Carlos Atienza, a biologist at the Spanish Ornithological Society. "If it's very hot birds don't fly around during the day which cuts down their feeding time."

Unlike people, birds lack sweat glands and so cannot sweat to cool themselves down. Black vultures and wood storks, for instance, use a highly practical, if not pretty method: they defecate on their unfeathered feet and legs. As the moisture in the excretia evaporates, the bare skin cools quickly, sucking heat from the bird¹s body. Vultures and other large soaring birds also cool themselves by riding thermals to several thousand feet up in the atmosphere where the air may be 50 degrees cooler than on the ground.
A bird in flight produces from 9 to 15 times as much heat as a resting bird. They also simply reverse their heating tactics: Instead of fluffing up their feathers, they compress their plumage to retain as little body heat as possible. And, they increase circulation to unfeathered parts that will radiate heat from their blood to the outside air.
When air temperatures rise over 100 degrees, many birds - pant, stepping up their breathing rate to expel hot, moist air from inside their bodies. The influx of dry outside air also cools the bird evaporatively from within by vaporizing water in its lungs and its air sacs, a system of balloon-like extensions of the lungs that fill most of the extra space in a bird¹s body, including some of its bones. Most birds can dissipate about half of their resting heat production by panting.
In addition to panting, some birds - like the perched white-winged dove - pulse the skin of their throat in and out, and at the same time, increase the blood flow to their throat skin. Like a car radiator cooling the hot water from the engine, the fluttering skin radiates the heat of the bird¹s blood to the air.
By Susan Tweit http://www.southernnewmexico.com.