We Alaskans 5/7/00
Copyright Anchorage Daily News
The Man Who Loved Redpolls
Fairbanks scientist Leonard Peyton has captured and released thousands of songbirds in the past 30 years. What do they tell him?
By Bill Sherwonit
As flocks of redpolls cross Interior Alaska during annual winter flights, some invariably head up Pearl Creek Bowl, where they're funneled by the landscape toward Leonard Peyton's yard in the foothills north of Fairbanks. Most years, these small northern songbirds arrive in early December, in groups of 10 to 15. Attracted by Peyton's feeders, more and more redpolls pause on their seasonal journeys, until by March hundreds of them swarm his yard's aspen-birch forest. In daily feeding frenzies, they fatten up on chipped sunflower seeds, a delicacy irresistible to the amazingly hardy birds, among the tiniest to endure the subarctic's severely cold winters.
That large numbers of redpolls gather in Peyton's yard each winter is not in itself unusual. Many other Fairbanks-area residents attract flocks of redpolls to their feeders. In fact, Peyton speculates that redpoll numbers are rising in Fairbanks because of his neighbors' bird-feeding largesse.
This is how Peyton differs from nearly every other bird-watcher in Alaska: He has lots of speculations and theories about redpolls, based on more than three decades of serious study. Since 1968, Peyton has captured, banded and released more than 20,000 redpolls. One year, he banded 4,000.
These impressive numbers become more remarkable when you learn that Peyton's 32-years-and-counting project is essentially an amateur study. He does it as a hobby, simply because he's ''interested in birds.''
But it's an amateur study conducted in a professional manner, because Peyton the hobbyist is keenly influenced by Peyton the scientist. An Alaskan since the mid-1950s, he studied large-mammal physiology at the Arctic Health Research Center in Anchorage, then joined University of Alaska Fairbanks' newly formed Institute of Arctic Biology in 1962. Initially the institute's executive officer -- substitute ''jack of all trades,'' suggests his wife, Irene -- Leonard moved back into wildlife research in 1968 and then studied northern birds and mammals until his retirement in 1990.
Peyton's pet project during his UAF years focused on fox sparrows, whose songs vary greatly from one region to another. From 1968 to 1985, he carried 35 pounds of recording gear eight to 10 hours a day for three or four weeks a summer. By project's end, he had taped the songs of 720 fox sparrows from Prince William Sound to the Arctic's Colville River.
Fox sparrows, not redpolls, probably are his favorite birds, Peyton admits, describing the sparrows as ''pugnacious little characters.'' But redpolls pass through his yard in huge numbers. They're easy to trap and band, and they don't require lengthy travel or the daily grind of field work -- an important consideration for a 76-year-old ornithologist with two artificial hips (replaced in 1989) plus an artificial shoulder and knee (each replaced within the past 2-1/2 years). Doctors say he wore the joints out while lugging recording equipment around.
While Peyton's 32-year relationship with redpolls might be considered a marriage of convenience, over time he's grown to appreciate many of their mysteries, such as where they come from and where they go each year.
I first identified redpolls at my Hillside home in Anchorage shortly after moving there in the early 1990s. Among the smallest of Alaska's birds, 5 to 5-1/2 inches long, redpolls are sparrowlike members of the finch family, with distinctive red splotches or caps on their heads, small black bibs, and heavily streaked brown-and-white wings and backs. Adult males also sport pinkish to bright red breasts.
Since then, I've tracked the redpolls each year. Here, too, they usually arrive in December, then stick around until April (about the time I remove my feeders to avoid attracting bears), when they begin to disperse and form mating pairs. Occasionally I've counted more than 100 in my back yard -- a lot, but substantially less than Peyton sometimes attracts.
Redpolls zoom in from neighboring spruce trees while others zoom out, as though at some avian fast-food diner. Squeezed wing to wing in a food line, they chirp and screech and flutter about in a frenzy. For such little creatures, they make a mighty racket.
Watching redpolls in subzero cold or during snowstorms, I marvel that they survive Alaska's winters. Anchorage is tough enough. In Fairbanks, temperatures fall far below zero for weeks at a time and midwinter nights last 20 hours or more.
To endure the subarctic's extreme conditions, redpolls have evolved a way to store the seeds they take from willows, alders or feeders. Like other finches, they stockpile seeds in a pocketlike esophageal pouch, or crop, while eating. Once settled in a sheltered perch for the night, they digest the surplus seeds gradually through the long hours of darkness.
Exactly where redpolls spend nights is uncertain. Some may seek out cavities in trees while others perch on spruce boughs. There have been reports of redpolls burrowing into the snow to escape the cold. Though many scientists remain unconvinced, it's known that certain songbirds in Europe and Asia regularly roost in holes within the snowpack.
Another survival device: Redpolls have dense winter plumage that they fluff up for added insulation, giving them the appearance of feathered balls. The performance of these winter coats is extraordinary. Redpolls can maintain a core body temperature of 105 degrees even when the air temperature drops to minus 60. That's a temperature differential of 165 degrees over a distance of a quarter-inch. As former UAF physiologist Pierre DeViche once commented, ''Think if you could make a coat with that sort of insulative ability. It's incredible, really.''
In my own quest to learn more about these remarkable creatures, I heard about bits and pieces of Leonard Peyton's work. When I called him, he played down his research, describing himself as an ''amateur ornithologist'' and emphasizing the hobby aspect of his study (for which he has a government permit).
Other scientists were more enthusiastic.
''You've got to talk to Leonard,'' Anchorage biologist and former redpoll researcher Declan Troy told me. ''There's no Alaskan more deeply involved with redpolls.''
Leonard Peyton came north in 1955 on the advice of his parents, who fell in love with Alaska while visiting a relative stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base. Knowing their son's interests, they imagined he might appreciate Alaska, too. Peyton expected his stay to be a short one. But while vacationing here, he learned his California employer was ''closing its doors.'' Free to explore possibilities, he got a job in Anchorage working as a biologist.
Peyton's wife, Irene, had reached Alaska by a different route. A lifelong New Englander, she crossed the continent in 1958 on something of a whim, simply because she was curious about ''this place called Alaska.'' Hired as a data processor by the Arctic Health Research Center, she met Leonard in Anchorage. They dated some, but Irene left Alaska after a year, briefly visited Hawaii, then returned to Massachusetts. She and Leonard stayed in touch by mail, and in 1960 he invited her to a family wedding in Fillmore, Calif. There, on his parents' citrus farm, he proposed.
Married in November 1960, the newlyweds resettled briefly in Anchorage, then moved to Fairbanks when Peyton joined the Institute for Arctic Biology. At first they lived along College Road, near the university. But after Fairbanks' disastrous flood of 1967 inundated their basement with water and muck, the Peytons headed for the hills and found a 4-1/4-acre forested plot only a few miles from town.
They built their dream home in the woods despite having no construction experience, thanks to a shared love for adventure and Leonard's problem-solving acumen. Depending mostly on ''book learning,'' with occasional advice from professional builders, he performed all the carpentry, electrical work and plumbing. Irene helped out where needed.
''Leonard did the fun stuff,'' she jokes. ''I did the sanding and painting.''
The end product, as Irene describes it, is ''a good old-fashioned, two-story Alaska house that's energy-efficient.'' A ''Peyton Place'' welcome mat greets visitors.
Now in their mid-70s, with a son, a daughter and grandchildren living in the Seattle area, the Peytons stay active with travel and hobbies.
''Leonard's hobby is birds. Mine is volunteering,'' says Irene, a slender woman with an easy smile, short-cropped silvery hair and a slight accent that betrays New England roots.
A fidgety sort, Irene can't sit still for long. Leonard, on the other hand, moves slowly in deference to his artificial joints and degenerative arthritis. Mostly bald, with a rim of white hair and a ruddy complexion, he wears wide-brimmed glasses over pale blue eyes and has hearing aids in his ears. His speech is as deliberate as his movement, but he talks in a deep, soft voice. There's a slight bend in his posture.
''I used to be 5-8-1/2,'' he chuckles. ''Now I'm down to 5-8.''
Irene spends a lot of time in the kitchen. Beneath a north-facing window, sharing counter space with her catalogs and fruit bowls, is a pair of binoculars. The window is an excellent spot for watching birds at Leonard's 10 feeders. Seven feeders hang from a rope tied off to aspens; all but one is topped by an umbrella-shaped plastic dome that keeps squirrels away and protects against snow and rain. Three hanging feeders contain suet or peanut butter for jays, chickadees, woodpeckers. The others are filled with shelled and chipped sunflower seeds -- redpoll food. Always the tinkerer, Leonard built a rope-and-pulley system to raise and lower the feeders -- another defense against squirrels and neighborhood cats.
The three remaining feeders sit atop piles of worn tires stacked waist-high. All are baited with seeds. I say ''baited'' for good reason. These platform feeders are metal cages divided into four compartments, each with its own trapdoor. When Peyton isn't banding, he props the doors open so redpolls can freely come and go. When it's time to catch some birds, he sets the doors to fall shut when tripped by hungry redpolls. Three of his hanging feeders also do double-duty as traps. Each can be set so redpolls can easily enter but can't escape.
The system works admirably. In just a few hours in an afternoon, Peyton can capture and band 20 to 80 redpolls. Not wishing to harm them, he won't trap when temperatures fall below 10 degrees. Any colder and redpolls could freeze their eyes against a trap's metal mesh as they struggle to escape.
''I've seen it happen,'' he says. ''Tissue will pull right off the eye.''
Given the temperature constraints and Fairbanks weather, Peyton doesn't normally start banding until late February or early March. He stops in early May, when the redpolls disperse to breed. Slowed by arthritis and artificial joints, he still tries to band a thousand birds each winter and spring, and most years he succeeds. When I arrive on March 9, he's already caught and released 500.
The next afternoon, I follow Peyton out to the feeders along a path he's shoveled through 3 feet of snow. The temperature is 18 degrees on a beautifully clear day, the sun blazing across a cobalt-blue sky like a slow-moving welder's arc. A stiff breeze quickly numbs fingers and hands when they're removed from gloves.
Plenty of seed remains in the cages, so all Peyton has to do is set the trapdoors. Finished within 15 minutes, we go into the house to wait and warm up. Soon we're back outside, transferring redpolls from cages to a plywood box. An avian jailhouse, it's divided into six holding cells, each with an inward-swinging front door and wire-mesh window at the opposite end.
We go from cage to cage, Peyton repeating a routine he's done thousands of times. Reaching in, he corners a desperately flapping bird, gently grasps it and transfers it from cage to box. Though they flutter wildly and chirp noisily while trying to escape Peyton's grip, most redpolls turn limp in his hand. Only pounding hearts and shining black eyes hint of the distress they must feel.
''Would you like to try?'' Peyton asks. He cautions me to hold the the birds firmly but gently. Weighing less than an ounce, redpolls and other small songbirds can easily be squashed or suffocated.
Earlier in my visit, I asked Irene if she too was interested in birds. Her blunt ''nope'' was followed by a long pause. Then she added, ''I had a bad experience once when netting birds. That was enough for me.''
Working with Leonard, I get the rest of the story. Years ago, when banding migrating songbirds in their yard, he invited Irene to help. Grabbing a robin, Irene squeezed the bird tightly, afraid it might escape. The robin died. Since then she's stayed away from her husband's studies.
Before I grab a bird, Peyton shows me another of his tricks: Redpolls seem especially calm when their heads are gently grasped between two fingers. Holding one this way, he inspects the left leg to see if it already wears an aluminum band. If so, he checks the numbers on it; if they're part of the series he's using this year, the redpoll gains its freedom. If from a previous year, the bird goes inside for further study. Such recaptures are exceedingly rare. Of the 20,000 redpolls he's banded, few from past years have been caught again, by Peyton or anyone else. The average is two or three per thousand.
Peyton believes the low recapture rate reflects redpolls' short life span -- few live beyond three years, he says -- and their erratic, gypsylike lifestyles and occasional long-distance travels. Redpolls, like other northern seed-eating songbirds, sometimes go on southbound ''irruptions'' when local seed crops are poor. These flights may take them into Canada and the Lower 48. One of Peyton's banded birds was found two years later near Montreal, 3,000 miles southeast of Fairbanks. Another bird, banded at Quebec City, ended up in his trap in Fairbanks.
''What this tells me,'' he says, ''is that they're spread out everywhere.''
The chances of someone finding a banded bird is slim. Though admittedly frustrated by the low return on his investment, Peyton is a persistent man and loves a challenge.
''I think most people would get discouraged,'' says Irene. ''Not Leonard. He just keeps doing what he loves.''
Finally, I get my chance. I corner a redpoll and carefully cradle it. A mature male with a trace of pink on its breast, it's incredibly light. I feel the softness of the feathers, the rapid beating of the heart, and I see alertness in those dark, shining eyes. What do birds make of us, I wonder. Do they feel fear? Or something similar to relief when released?
Peyton doesn't dwell on such questions. While I may wonder about the emotional lives of redpolls and how they perceive the world, he's concerned with behavior and coloration, the nature of seasonal travels and whether they should be classified as one species or two.
Ornithologists for many years have divided redpolls into two species: common (Carduelis flammea) and hoary (Carduelis hornemanni). Hoary redpolls are pale birds with white, unstreaked rumps and undertail feathers; commons are darker, with heavier streaking. This sounds good in theory and looks even better in guidebook illustrations; but in the wild, even birding experts often have trouble telling them apart.
At home, I'd seen only two or three redpolls that appeared light enough to be hoaries. But Peyton now shows me birds that I would unequivocally identify as common redpolls and tells me they are hoaries. And he shows me why. No. 92201, for instance, has a relatively short bill, weak rump streaking and only partial streaking of its undertail feathers. All are characteristic of hoary redpolls. Yet overall the bird appears dark, with dark brown streaking of wings and back.
It's not surprising I'm confused, Peyton says.
''I've probably handled more redpolls than anyone, and even I can't be sure until I've got one in hand,'' he says.
Even with his standardized codes, the distinction sometimes becomes arbitrary because there's so much apparent overlap between the two types.
After closely observing thousands of redpolls, Peyton is convinced that common and hoary redpolls are variations of a single species.
''From what I've seen,'' he says, ''there's a complete gradation from almost white to dark brown redpolls and everything in between.''
Though he holds a minority opinion, Peyton isn't alone in his lumping. In 1985, after years of studying redpoll plumage and skeletal characteristics, Anchorage biologist Declan Troy recommended in a professional paper that hoary and common redpolls be considered extreme forms of a single species. Still, the consensus is that the two are separate.
''It's a complicated thing and not completely resolved,'' says Dan Gibson, manager of UAF's bird collection. ''I'm not sure it will ever be.''
As Peyton shares more of his findings and ideas, it becomes clear he's something of a maverick who enjoys taking on the conventional wisdom and speaking his mind. His theory on hoary redpoll migrations is another example. He's noticed that large numbers of pale redpolls invade the Fairbanks area every four to six years. They stick around briefly, then disappear. Because no one has found a place in Alaska where hoary redpolls are consistently abundant from year to year, Peyton speculates they're Siberian residents that ''get blown over here when the winds are just right.'' Once in Alaska, they disperse.
Gibson considers Peyton's theory ''interesting'' but emphasizes, ''Like Leonard says, it's speculation. There's no data that I know of to support his idea.''
While Gibson is polite in his response, Peyton is more blunt.
''Other ornithologists think I'm crazy. They say there's no evidence. But no one is studying redpolls in Siberia. How can anyone know?''
This is one of the hoary-abundant winters. Of the first 500 redpolls he's banded, Peyton identifies 71 percent as the pale variety. I can imagine what he's thinking. Where do they come from? Where do they go?
With 15 birds in the holding box, Peyton enters the cellar workshop that doubles as his laboratory. A board placed beneath a south-facing window is his lab bench. On it are the tools of his banding trade: pliers, rulers, a notebook.
Irene greets us, warmly wrapping her hands around Leonard's, still numbed from handling traps and birds. Then he shuffles over to the bench and begins taking redpolls from the box, one by one.
First he squeezes an aluminum ring onto the bird's left leg. Next he measures the length of its wings and beak. Then, using a standardized code adapted from another researcher, Peyton determines the colors of the redpoll's cap (yellow to wine red), breast (no red to pink or red) and cheeks (no red to large red patch), and the extent of streaking on its rump and undertail feathers (none to very strong). Data is collected in 10 categories including age and gender. In many cases, he can only write a ''U'' -- unknown -- for gender. He can't get specific with age, either.
Peyton believes the color of adult male redpoll breasts intensifies with age, from light pink to dark red. But he admits it's difficult to prove, given his low recapture rate.
''I've just about given up trying to correlate breast-color intensity with age; I just don't get enough returning (banded) birds to be sure.''
While he works, the still-boxed birds raise a ruckus, a cacophony of fluttering wings, high-pitched whining trills and loud scraping from the pecking of beaks on the metal screen. Once in hand, most birds again become quiet. An occasional redpoll opens its beak, a defensive posture that offers little menace.
The entire process lasts two to three minutes. Then, the indignities ended, each bird is released through the workshop window. The freed redpolls streak for nearby trees, then perch there for 15 minutes or more, as if regaining their bearings and composure. Again I wonder: What must it be like to be handled so and then turned loose? I'm reminded of the TV show ''The X-Files'' and other stories of alien abductions. No harm is intended here. Peyton is gentle as he strokes, probes and measures the birds, but he admits, ''It's got to be a traumatic thing for them.''
That trauma is part of the scientific process, so it's not something Peyton dwells on, though I do. Whenever I watch scientists capture and study wildlife, whether bears, moose or songbirds, I wonder about the pros and cons. Scientists are taught to think in terms of populations. I see individuals being handled. How much of the darting, drugging, trapping, poking, measuring, collaring and banding is necessary? I recognize the value of wildlife studies, yet I also see how they feed on the Western notion of other creatures as ''things'' instead of beings.
''Any animal that's wild, I treat with respect,'' Peyton assures me.
But how respectful is the science?
Long ago, while growing up in California, Peyton took walks with his father. A self-taught naturalist, Sidney Peyton knew the landscape around his home as well as anyone. He was especially good at identifying birds and knowing where to find them.
''If anyone wanted to see California condors in those days, they'd go with Dad,'' Leonard Peyton recalls. ''I remember seeing 20 or 30 in the sky at once.''
Among his other interests, Sidney Peyton collected bird eggs. It's something ''the environmentals would have a conniption fit over'' nowadays, Leonard says, ''but back then it wasn't as big a deal.''
Over time, his dad brought home hundreds of eggs and sometimes the nests in which they lay. Later donated to the Western Foundation for Vertebrate Zoology in Camarillo, Calif., the collection has been used by scientists studying DDT and its effects, because many of the eggs were taken before the insecticide was used.
Like his father, Peyton has collected birds and small mammals and preserved them. Most of his specimen gathering occurred decades ago. When collecting a bird, he would shoot it, gut it, fill its skin with cotton, then give it to the university or museum for study and display. Nowadays, the only specimens he collects are the occasional window-strike kills.
''It's a job when you're doing it,'' he says matter-of-factly. ''You're trying to gain as much information as possible. You need to have specimens if you're searching for evidence, for proof of something.''
In the two days I spend with him, Peyton bands 54 redpolls, nearly two-thirds of them hoaries. That brings him to 559 so far this year. He also traps a northern shrike. Nicknamed ''butcher birds'' because they sometimes impale prey on sharp objects, shrikes are predatory and have sharp, hooked bills. About the size of gray jays, they are mostly gray and white with a black mask, wings and tail.
Peyton inserts his hand into the cage and deftly grabs the shrike without being bitten -- a riskier task than corraling docile redpolls. The shrike is the same one he caught in April 1999. After a few measurements, Peyton releases the bird back into the wild, hoping the episode has been traumatic enough to keep it away from his feeders, for a few days at least.
Squirrels too are a problem, not only because they steal seeds but because they will, given the chance, prey on redpolls. Peyton has killed his share of squirrels, but in recent years he's found a less lethal solution: hot pepper sprinkled over the sunflower seeds.
''It discourages them for a while,'' he says. ''And it's better than killing them, I guess.''
Birds are unaffected by the pepper.
No bears have yet been attracted to the feeders (Peyton has only seen one bear in his neighborhood in 30 years), but a moose calf once developed a taste for Peyton's seeds. In the process of feeding, the calf knocked over his tire platforms and generally raised havoc. An especially heavy dose of pepper prompted that moose to change its diet.
While he specializes in redpolls, Peyton has banded more than 50 species of Alaska birds since the mid-1960s. Notebooks piled in his lab are filled with notes on everything from juncos to phalaropes. Once he banded a sharp-shinned hawk. And he's probably best-known locally for his recordings of bird songs, having taped 72 species in all.
Years ago, he sent 270 reels of Alaska bird calls and songs to Cornell University's Library of Natural Sounds. Cornell's ornithology lab later teamed with the Alaska Bird Observatory in Fairbanks to produce a tape of Alaska bird songs, presumably recorded by Peyton. To his dismay, several songs didn't sound right. Upon checking, he learned that many had been recorded outside Alaska, sometimes thousands of miles away.
''I called the lab and told the guy they'd screwed up,'' Peyton recalls. ''Here they have all my Alaska recordings, and they're using ones from somewhere else. They'd been lazy about it.''
Last fall, the Cornell ornithology lab issued a double CD of Alaska bird songs with performances by 260 species. Though more than 50 people helped out, Peyton was the major contributor. Both he and the CD have been praised by other Alaska ornithologists, and the CD's release made news in both Fairbanks and Anchorage.
Peyton's fling with fame pleases Irene, who is a more public figure in Fairbanks than her husband because of her volunteer efforts with groups like AARP and League of Women Voters.
''Usually it's been 'This is Leonard, Irene's husband.' Now he's better known around town for his own work,'' she says.
Already revered among Alaska ornithologists for both his banding and recording work, Peyton would undoubtedly gain greater acclaim -- or notoriety -- within scientific circles if he would publish professional reports about his work, whether with fox sparrows or redpolls.
''I'd like to write something up someday,'' he says. ''But the fact is, I have a lot more fun banding than writing a paper.''
As we talk, Peyton's hearing aid occasionally squeals. Irene asks him to turn it down; it's set too high. Making an adjustment, Peyton sighs. Even with the aid, he no longer hears high-pitched tones.
''You can imagine how frustrating it is for a birder to be unable to hear bird songs,'' he says.
Peyton shuffles to the computer room to transfer banding data into a program developed by the U.S. Geological Survey's Biological Services Division. Eventually, the information will go via the Internet to the agency's Maryland headquarters.
In the morning, Peyton again will check the temperature and feeders. If the day warms enough, he'll set his traps, catch more redpolls, then band and release them. He'll do this day after day until the redpolls disperse in early May.
In the meantime, he'll try to figure out more details of their lives. It's what a determined, problem-solving scientist does, retired or not. Call it a hobby if you like. I call it passion.
To order Leonard Peyton's two-CD set ''Bird Songs of Alaska,'' call the Alaska Bird Observatory at 1-907-451-7059, e-mail birds@alaskabirds.org or send a check for $28 (includes $3 shipping and handling charge) to Alaska Bird Observatory, P.O. Box 80505, Fairbanks, AK 99708-0505. To hear samples of Peyton's field recordings from the disc, go to http://birds.cornell.edu/LNS/ CommercialProductns/northamerican/alaska.htm.