Saturday Happenin's and Shocking News From the Bell Museum
The hungry birds at Hyland Park yesterday did not lie--it be snowin' buckets here. I wonder if we will have a proper Minnesota winter this year? The first year Non Birding Bill and I lived here, it snowed in November and there was snow cover until April--no lie. I remember thinking at the time, "Can I really handle this?" However, we haven't really had it since.
This is what it looked like outside the Bell Museum (where we had the MOU Paper Session) right before I gave my presentation. It didn't look so bad, but I stuck my head outside and it sounded like some ice was falling.
This is what it looked like about an hour later and throughout the morning, the visibility got worse. The decision was made to kind of move the proceedings along quickly so instead of rounding out the day by 4pm, we ended up wrapping up around 1:30pm. NBB was doing some work near the museum and he and his buddies picked me up.
This was the view of I-94 on our way home--and yes that is the Dude on the dashboard (that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing). It's still snowing as I type this, so we have holed ourselves up and are watching movies (Radio Days and Troy thus far) and drinking martinis.So, here was kind of some shocking news at the Paper Session. The Bell Museum of Natural History is planning to move to a new location and they are in the process of designing a new building. So, the museum director shows the MOU members plans for the new building and it's got a HUGE glass design so we can look out of the museum and see all the landscaping that will be done for birds...while birds slam into the windows and die. There were audible gasps heard in the audience when the design was shown to a bunch of birders. Now, I would just say that perhaps the Bell Museum just wasn't aware of the problem of birds flying into windows...however, they have been one of the partners with Bird Safe--as a matter of fact, Bob Zink, curator of birds at the Bell Museum of Natural History, is helping coordinate Project Bird Safe!
Bell Museum--what were you thinking? Well, perhaps when they have school groups over and they are doing a Bird Safe program they can just use the giant glass wall as a teaching tool, "See kids, you don't want a wall like we designed, because birds fly into it during migration and die." Or maybe this is way for them to study birds hitting windows up close?
Sigh.
posted by birdchick at 7:55 PM
17 Comments:
Oh dear. Maybe they're trying to increase their collection - they might get some good new specimans from the window hits.
miz_geek: That's exactly how I came up with half my collection for Ornithology lab back in college!!
Someone did a big doodoo.
Is it to late to revise the design ? Or protest it ?
Ugh...snow. I am glad it usually doens't snow here till late January or February. And then rarely more than a inch or two. We get an inch here, the whole town shuts up down. But that is pretty much how the South is, unless your in the mountains.
kitmarlowescot2
Someone did a big doodoo.
Is it to late to revise the design ? Or protest it ?
Ugh...snow. I am glad it usually doens't snow here till late January or February. And then rarely more than a inch or two. We get an inch here, the whole town shuts up down. But that is pretty much how the South is, unless your in the mountains.
kitmarlowescot2
Reminds me of the "Wall of Death" suburb in California http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/eco-friendly/birds-real-estate-wall-461127
Suburban developers might not have the brains of a flamingo but the Bell museum should know better.
Wow. If the plans go through, I hope birders insist on permanent screening, as they did at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I posted photos of how they made their big window bird safe on this page:
http://www.lauraerickson.com/101/02-House/006-windows.html
Calm down everyone. I am sure with the partnership that the MOU has with the Bell museum they will put bird screens on the windows. The MOU when I was on the board gave some $ ( I think it was $5000 or possibly $10,000 ) to the Bell Museum to help with thier relocation plans. I was at the meeting when the Bell director gave the MOU a presentation of the plans. ( Jerry Bonkoski was the president ) The MOU has a long standing relationship with the Bell because we have a room where the MOU stores its permanent bird records and also copies of the "Loon" and other periodicals. The MOU gave money to the Bell with hopes that the MOU can still store its records there.
So all in all the Bell people will be putting screens on the windows or other devices to keep birds from hitting the windows.
Mike H.
Duluth MN
OK, I have to ask: Where did you get The Dude? I need one for my husband to put in my office.
In the grand scheme of museum donations, the MOU donation is really not enough to have that big of an impact. And I'm not going to just assume that the Bell will do anything about the window design unless they say up front that they are changing the design or that there are plans to put screens on the windows.
henrietta
I have no idea where TJ got the Dude that is sitting on his truck's dashboard. I would try googling Lebowski bobble head.
Sharon:
The money the MOU gave to the Bell Museum was just the start of more to come. I remember during the talks that the MOU was going to monitor the situation and donate more. I know the MOU wants a presence in the new building and I assume the Bell's director wants us aprt of it as well since he ask for time before the meeting to give a presentation. So I feel very confidant with the relations the MOU has with the Bell (Ann K. Link and others) it will be a bird friendly building.
Also during the Bell's presentation at the MOU Paper Session was there a question/answer period? If so did you raise your hand about the windows? Also if you were upset/frustrated by the design did you walk up to the Bell Musuem person and ask about the windows? Gasping and blogging will not answer your questions. Give them a call tomorrow and see what is going on vs. spreading speculation that hundreds if not thousands of birds will be crashing into the new windows. I also ask if those living in the mpls/St. Paul area do the same and phone/email or visit the Bell Museum and see what the deal is with the new design plans.
Bell Museum has always been bird friendly and why would they start acting the opposite?
Mike
"Gasping and blogging will not answer your questions."
Asking the question in the blog gets lots of people asking the same question. The more people ask, the more the Bell will listen.
This is off-topic, but I just wanted to let you know that the other day, my husband and I saw a hawk swoop into one of our trees. Remember what you had written about birds staying very still when there's a predator around, I checked out our feeder. Sure enough, there was a chickadee there, standing very still. My husband than spotted a downy woodpecker, doing its best imitation of a statute. If it hadn't been for your blog, I never would've known about such behavior. Thanks!
Here's one place you can get a Dude bobblehead from:
http://www.entertainmentearth.com/prodinfo.asp?number=BBP01001
Why do I know? Because I asked for one for X-sam! LOL
"Asking the question in the blog gets lots of people asking the same question. The more people ask, the more the Bell will listen."
I am sure some of your readers will be asking the same questions but how in the world will the director of the Bell Museum or the Museum Board will know you asking these questions?
To get your questions answered do the old fashion thing by actually using the phone or visiting the Museum and ask your questions. You sound like you have lots of concerns about the bldg design, therefore call them, visit them or email them and ask your questions or better yet take all the questions from your readers and present them to the Museum.
Here is the Bell Museum website:
http://www.bellmuseum.org/index.html
There is a section where you can be a advocate to the project and maybe here you can pose your questions.
Ah, I think I finally see the disconnect here, Mike. Your assuming that I'm not going to call the Bell Museum and only post the question in the blog. I posted the question in the blog so maybe that gets some of the readers here calling and talking about it too, rather than just me calling.
Thanks for posting the links to the Bell for the readers to follow.
Uh, I meant "statue." Like a downy woodpecker is going to know anything about the law.
You also got a lovely shot of my office building (the Armory) right across from the Bell. I hadn't realized they were planning glass walls, though. Thanks for the info...
--Danielle
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/mahlu002/oneday
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