8
Fridav. October 27. 1972
University Daily Kansan
Vice Chancellor Balfour's Hobby is for The Birds
By JAMES COOK
Kansas Staff Writer
A lot of people don't give two hoots about birds and can't even tell a robin from a parakeet. For them a bird watching trip to East Africa sounds like something the film shows get as a conservation prize.
But for William Balfour, vice-chancelor for student affairs, a 23-day bird watching trip this summer to East Africa provided him with the opportunity to see the birds he had seen before, which he had never seen before.
Ballour and his nine companies drove along 25,000 miles of African roads, highways and trails in search of pelicans,
William Balfour
flamingos, lovebirds, busters secretary birds and others.
They visited the Taabo and
Mombasa, a Ugurorgorongo
Amboseli, a Ugurorgorongo
Crater and Serengeti preserves
in Uganda. They also parks
and preserves in Uganda.
Some of the most unusual bird were the starling, which, as coniferous tree, is beautiful bird in Africa, and the open-billed stork, which cannot breed in Europe.
Max Thompson, president of the Conservative Audubon Society, has been a friend of such faraway places as Alaska and Africa and lives with Balfour Greenhouse.
Balfour told the East Africans protected the game preserves and made sure tourists enjoyed themselves since most of their incomes depended on tourism from Africa, though it thought unusual, he said that he traveled partway around the world to look at birds. He said the
only trouble he had was during his first attempt to leave Uganda, which had been in a state of political disruption.
BALFOUR SAID he was certain that the birds, which have excellent eyesight, watched him as closely as they watched them.
Balfour said he were old clothes and did not carry food or water. He had to go on a long trip. Often he stayed in lodges adjacent to the preserves, but sometimes in barns and binoculars and a pair of logs were all that needed to watch
Even though there were many African birds Bafour would have liked to have brought home, he was reluctant to do so because of the long wait for past experiences with the English sparrow and the starling. he said. He said he would have liked to bring home some African songbirds, some African colorfuls or the more brilliantly colored birds.
Balfour began watching birds as a child when he watched the parakee martins his parents had taken for a walk and interest in the hobby grew quickly and when he moved to a new house he took the bird houses in his back yard. Balfour has identified 54 species of birds in his yards and 300 to 400 birds in his garden.
SOME BIRDS have been coming to his yard for 10 years, he said.
Some Kansas birds are permanent residents, Balfour said. Others such as the pelicans, migrate, he said.
"Bird watchers," Balfour said, "are always looked upon as
Laundry Room Once A Home For Students
The shortage of housing space for KU women once necessitated making laundry rooms into living quarters.
The laundry rooms in Hashinger Hall were converted into rooms for upperclass men. October 8, 1964, Kansan reported.
The laundry rooms were opened when the dean of women's office received late residence hall contracts.
eccentric to say the least. You don't pay much attention to birds and anybody who does is considered peculiar.
Although the rooms were somewhat smaller than normal rooms, bunk beds, mirrors, desks and tables moved in to make them habitable.
Bird watching, Balfour said,
"has made me more conscious of
ecology and what man does to his
environment.
"This hobby, like most good hobbies, takes you away from your own problems, particularly when you know that a starling is rioting. And that students are rioting. He knows that it is all that important."
BALFOUR SAID he was certain that more people would be interested in bird watching if he could find them. Others might place on them.
Balfour said he didn't mind most bird hunters and said he no longer justified his hobby to others.
"I can see the sport and the skill of some bird hunting," he said. "But I do object strenuously to those who go over their limit or hunt out of season. The statuary is not a lot that may actually be helping the bird population some by cutting down on some of them."
BALFOUR SAID the best way to learn bird said was to go out with a good teacher. "Not all bird watchers, of course, are trained in the art of guiding whose enthusiasm is catching," he said. "And you
need a good pocket guide, one that is simple and illustrated. The cheap paperbacks available at campus bookstores are excellent.
"Put up a feeder which will give you an opportunity to study birds and put out food and a dish of water."
Balfour said bird calls and recording machines which attracted birds were unnecessary
Most bird watchers, he said, do not listen to bird songs because they are not different from bird variations. A bird's Baifour said, is both his claim to territory and his mating call. He also calls a species song at different hours.
THE MATING habits of many
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birds, Balfour said, are very curious.
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to attract attention and others will perform elaborate rituals and feather displays, he said. The grouse will drum and thump on the ground and produce a sound and miles away can bear, he said.
BALFOUR SAID the male bowerbird, birding by building and decorating pots on the ground. Another African bird, the monarch, was a visitor.
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One of the most peculiar African birds, he said, was the crowbill, which lays its eggs in the cowbird's egg. The cowbird's egg is very large and the baby cowbird is often larger than the unwitting host mother, the baby cowbird is tended and does not without hesitation, he said.
The scissortail of western Kansas, when sighting a mate, will signal it, and the birds will swat him. In high speed, ramming each other as if they were trying to knock each other out, he said. Then, joined, they rush upward and swoop down, in opposite directions.
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