New Google Gadgets Tap Into eBird [Observations]

Yes, I am way behind in publishing posts to this blog.  I’m going to skip giving excuses this time (and in a bit of forewarning, I’m not even going to mention how pathetically slow I am anymore) and just get to the nitty-gritty.

This is for you eBirders out there.

Well, that’s not true. This is for anyone wanting eBird data to work for you, and you don’t even have to contribute. You can depend on the kindness of those more obsessive-compulsive birders who do.

Zachary DeBruine has released three Google Gadgets that tap into the eBird database to let you, the birder, find out what’s been seen in your defined area.  The first gadget allows you to pick a place, like your home or favorite patch, and it displays on your Google page what’s been reported.  The other two gadgets let you choose which species to show, or which to ignore:  a “wants list” and a “needs list.”

So, check out his blog, Birdventure, and use eBird to easily find out when that rarity shows up within driving distance of your armchair!

(OK, an aside, just between you and me:  maybe this will motivate you to contribute, as some of the birds you observe may be needed or wanted by some of your neighbors.  Spread the wealth!)

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Something New [Novelties]

It’s only natural, I think, to notice new things, especially when they occur where you spend a lot of time. Put an extra bottle of wine in our rack and I’ll find it before entering the kitchen. Sweep the garage and I’ll think I’m in the wrong house. Move a few sticks from the brush pile to the fire pit and our backyard loses all balance.

That last example, while generally being true, is also meant to say I spend a lot of time in our yard, and as a birder, a lot of that time is spent looking at whatever birds happen to be around. I track them by entering them into eBird, so I know the Snow Goose flocks I’ve been counting for the last few days are right on time. Though they may be seen anytime during the month, the big peak usually passes overhead during the second week of March, when the lion and lamb are still wrestling to control our weather.

Tons — literally and figuratively – of geese flew over last night, a flight that continued this morning. But there was a stranger among them, a bird I haven’t recorded from our yard before: a “blue-morph” Snow Goose.

Most Snow geese are are white underneath with black wingtips, but this blue morph (second bird from the front) shows quite a bit of bluish-gray.

Before I go any further, I apologize for the darkness of that image. I didn’t think to change my camera settings when it dawned on me that I should be taking photographs. Click on the image for a larger, and hopefully clearer, version.

As most of you likely know, Snow geese come in two morphs, white and blue, which are strikingly different and easy to recognize in the field. As far as I can tell, this is not only the first blue-morph bird that I’ve identified from the yard this year, it’s the first I’ve recorded from our yard, period. That seems a little weird because although most Snow geese are white, some 10% of the eastern population are blue.  I’ve watched thousands of Snow geese, likely hundreds of thousands if not more, pass overhead throughout the past decade, and if every tenth bird (on average) is blue, why haven’t I seen them?  Do birds of a feather really flock together?  I don’t think that’s right, on coastal Virginia I’ve found blue geese mingling in with predominantly white-plumaged flocks.  Most of the Snow geese, come to think of it, pass over under the cover of darkness, maybe that’s when the blue geese arrive in our area. Most likely, maybe I’m simply not paying as close attention as I think I am, but that goes against my premise that novelty stands out.

OK, I hear you. Some of you are calling me out on another front, saying, “Mike, wait, that’s not even a blue goose!” and you’re right, it’s an intermediate.

It turns out there are as many as 7 recognizable plumage types in adults, leaving behind any notion of a cut-and-dry, black-and-white (or white-and-blue) separation. On the whiter shade of pale you have “Type 1″ birds, which are pure white with at least seven black primaries, yielding the classic white-body-black-wingtip Snow Goose look. “Type 7″ birds, the pure blue morphs, are on the other end of the spectrum with all gray underparts with small amounts of white or pale around the unmentionables. OK, I’ll mention the area: around the vent and between the legs and tail. (Don’t you feel dirty for just reading that?)

The bird in the photo clearly doesn’t fit into either category (again, apologies for the poor quality of the photo). As near as I can tell, this bird is a “Type 5″ based on how far the dark plumage extends onto the underparts from the neck — in this case, back to the sternum. A “Type 4″ bird would be dark only to where the neck joins the body while “Type 6″ birds are dark all the way to the legs. In case you’re wondering, the most common intermediate form is “Type 3,” in which wings, back, and flanks are mainly dark, but underparts remain white.

So, if I’m right, I can add a “Type 5″ bird to my yard list, but feel free to offer your thoughts — am I right? Regardless, you can bet I’ll be watching more carefully for the other five “Types.”

Of course, more examples of blue-morph Snow geese can be found online.

The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds [Analysis]

First things first, if you are in the Ithaca, NY area on 28 February, consider attending the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Monday Night Seminar which will feature Richard Crossley.

“Past, Present and Future”

A story told in a Yorkshire brogue through a camera lens that loves color and art. Tales of lessons learned while growing up in the wild British birding scene – from travels around the world to living in Cape May. With humor and depth it highlights the thoughts behind the revolutionary ‘The Crossley ID Guide’ series . But is changing how we look at books and birds enough? ‘Hell, no’ says Richard. Come listen to his past, perhaps it will change your thoughts on the future!

The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
Richard Crossley
http://www.crossleybirds.com

When I received a review copy of a this new field guide I immediately lost my next half hour, absorbed completely in paging through plate after plate of birds found in the eastern U.S. and Canada. Since then I’ve been able to not only evaluate it on my own, I solicited impressions from my Bloggerhead Kingbird teammates at the Super Bowl of Birding, from folks at the workplace (turns out there are a lot of people with an interest in field guides at the Cornell Lab), as well as a few with only a casual interest in birding and birds. What follows are my thoughts along with their comments.

The first thing I noticed, and the very first observation by most everyone who I talked with: “Wow, this is huge!” Some wondered aloud whether Crossley intended this as a coffee table book. Furthering this speculation they pointed to the plates: they are, if nothing else, eye-catching. But it’s clearly not a coffee table book, it’s got “Guide” right there in the title, and it’s the second-biggest word on the cover (next to “ID”) so the intent should be obvious.

After spending a little time with this guide, a simple, direct statement sums up the general consensus: “This is wow!”

In addition to being huge in the “Does Size Matter?” department, it’s huge in the “This Is a Pivotal Moment” sense, specifically in the approach used to present the birds. It’s not a stretch to call it a landmark guide: Crossley set out to create a new kind of field guide to birds, one he feels represents birds as they are observed in the field. To a large degree, he has succeeded, and his guide deserves a spot on your book shelf alongside other excellent field guides.

A typical representation in the guide, the birds are portrayed in their expected habitat in the typical way you'd find them in the field.

The book is not large by accident. A big book means big pages, which equals usable space, which means you can include more images, ones that are appropriately sized. And this guide is all about the images, they are described as the “heart and soul,” so there are lots of them with plenty of space for presentation.

The images are meant to portray the birds as you would see them in the field, and they do. Photos of each bird, in various plumages and from various angles, are displayed on a background photo that depicts where you would commonly encounter that species. Eastern Bluebirds are portrayed in a meadow, Wood Thrushes in an open-understory deciduous forest, Sanderlings on a sandy beach with waves crashing in the background, Chipping Sparrows on a golf course (I don’t golf, but I still understand the habitat type one would expect to find them), Carolina Wrens are perched on downed logs with a tangle of Virginia Creeper, Eastern Phoebes patrol a backyard. The arrangements of many photos in different poses, arranged like you see them in the field, was appreciated by both beginning and experienced birders.

And while everyone appreciated the richness of the plates, everyone remarked on their “busyness,” that they were visually overwhelming. However, I found this became less of an issue as I spent more time with the book, like something you must habituate to. A few commented on the usefulness of some of the included photos, as they are too small or an unidentifiable flight shot, and that’s true if this were a typical field guide. In Crossley’s portrayal, however, they serve as views you are likely to get in the field, and there are clues to be gleaned, such as the “giss” (General Impression of Size and Shape) of the bird. As more than one put it, better too many pictures than too few, even if it becomes a “Where’s Waldo” of the bird guide genre (this will rapidly become an overused analogy, but it fits). Some lamented for more flight shots as some species are lacking them altogether, meaning key field marks — underwing or tail patterns – are missing.

A Black-and-white Wawrbler as you'd encounter it in the field, but is this presentation too visually jarring?

The biggest complaint about the large images: oftentimes only two species can be directly compared without flipping pages back and forth. You can compare Lesser and Greater Scaup as they are on facing pages, but you cannot compare all three scoters. So, while the size and general busyness seem to hinder its use to identify something in the field, this lack of direct comparison hinders it’s use while studying at home.

The text is somewhat brief for each species, but what’s there was well-received. Most importantly, no one pulled out anything blatantly incorrect or misleading, and I found the style is very readable, often relating descriptions one would expect listening to a trip leader in the field. Stilt Sandpipers are described as “long-legged so tips like an oil-derrick to feed,” American Redstarts “often fluttering ‘butterfly-like’ as it drops down to catch insects,” descriptions that textually paint an image that the still shots cannot capture. Some wondered if the text was too jargony in places, and if some of the descriptions would be understood by all audiences, such as a Western Sandpiper described with “. . . a neck on steriods . . . “.

Similar to the text, no one noted gross inaccuracies on the maps, though a couple wished the presentation stretched all the way to the west coast, even if the book’s focus is on eastern birds. Having access to the whole range is useful in learning about the species’ distribution.

The size is a plus in allowing the desired presentation, but that hinders its use as a field guide (meaning, specifically, a guide to use in the field). While it would be cumbersome to look up a bird as it flits around in the bush in front of you during a hike, it’s ideally suited for pre- and post-game review. It’s the sort of guide to study before going in the field: the images and text are designed to give you experience with birds you have no or limited experience with, or observe something new with species you regularly encounter. It’s also the sort of guide to study upon returning from a birding trip. Habitat associations, behaviors, and plumages that you may have observed are presented and therefore reinforced as a way to identify that species in the future. And while you probably don’t want to take it along on a trail, you very well might want it in the car waiting upon your return.

Scoters can be seen singly, sometimes up close, but more often than not in distant flocks, as captured here.

Crossley states the audience is everyone, from novice birders to experts. Beginning and intermediate birders will certainly benefit from the presentation, advanced birders will have their issues and pet peeves. There’s the layout: birds are not presented in the expected taxonomic order, but grouped by physical and habitat similarities — something that makes more sense in the field experience, but which doesn’t map with how you’ll encounter the order in other places, such as other field guides, when searching on eBird, or on other checklists. More than one person commented on the unusual group names, such as “Walking,” “Swimming,” and “Flying Waterbirds,” “Aerial Landbirds,” and “Miscellaneous Large Landbirds,” titles not usually found in traditional guides. New birders will adopt this categorization more readily than those entrenched in more-universal terms, and some remarked these casual groupings didn’t fit in with an otherwise serious guide.

Crossley’s guide has its roots in a rapidly-growing approach, that which focuses on the “General Impression of Size and Shape” as a method for identification (see “The Shorebird Guide,” for example, which Crossley co-authored). As I already paraphrased from the preface, Crossley “wanted to create a book that replicates the world of birds as I see it,” and as you go through each species you’ve got two things working towards this goal: text that read as though Richard is standing next to you in the field as you observe the bird, and images that represent what you are likely to see in the field. While this guide probably won’t, and shouldn’t, replace your current favorite, it will exist comfortably along side it.

The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds
Richard Crossley
Cloth Flexibound
March 2011
$35.00 / £24.95
544 pp.
7-1/2 x 10
10,000 color images.

Many thanks to all those who offered comments, including: Andrew Baksh, John Beetham, Christopher Ciccone, Jacob Drucker, Corey Finger, Jay McGowan, Kevin McGowan, Reina Powers, Nathan Senner, Nathan Swick; sincere apologies to anyone I didn’t credit.

Also, thanks to Princeton University Press for providing a copy to review.

Gone Bowling [Flashback Friday]

Just about a year ago I posted the follow to this blog:

Friday morning, as this is posted to the Whole Wide World, I’ll be on my way to Massachusetts. After driving east for six hours, interstate after interstate, I’ll reach the outskirts of Boston where I’ll meet up with five guys I’ve never met. We will then commence to bowl.

I should clarify that I don’t mean the ancient sport of kings. No, my casual use of “bowling” is the more active but less known world of competitive birding, in this case a challenge known as the Super Bowl of Birding.

This year, history repeats itself and I am saying the same thing with one notable exception: this time around I’m meeting up with five guys I have met before (check out the introductions of the 2011 Bloggerhead Kingbirds, starting here).  But for today, I’m remembering last year’s event, mostly because I never recounted the high points of the birding, only the team members.  But I’m short on time, so welcome to my first-ever, bulleted-list Flashback Friday!

Pre-game

• The afternoon before the big day Christopher treats us to near point-blank looks at a Northern Saw-whet Owl. Killer photos, if not for all of the branches.
• We then visited Jason, a friend of Christopher, for near point-blank looks at a Chaffinch. It makes a brief appearance, enough for good looks and bad photos, then is pursued by a Sharp-shinned Hawk.  Happily, we were not the last ones to see it alive, the Chaffinch returned to the feeder a few days later. (Read more from Jason about hosting this rarity at Brewster’s Linnet.)

 

This Chaffinch visited a feeder in Waltham, MA from December 2009 through April 2010.

Game Day

• Watching a small group of waterfowl illuminated by the city-glow to pick out American Coot, the only one we hoped to encounter.  Mallards, Hooded Mergansers, Mute Swan also ticked.  Spirits soar, a good start in the pre-dawn!
• Standing in 4*F temperatures, attempting to call in an owl in the clear stillness.  Any owl. Nate finally coaxes a single screech-owl to respond, Great Horned and Barred go unrecorded. Spirits dip as low as the mercury.
• Civil twilight overlooking a bay yields more waterfowl, including Common Eider, Greater Scaup, Gadwall, Bufflehead, Red-breasted Merganser, and more.

 



A Red-breasted Merganser, sporting a funky 'do, found in Gloucester Harbor.

• On Nahant we find Brant, two scoter species, loons, grebes, and gulls, along with backyard birds such as Black-capped Chickadees, titmice, White-breasted Nuthatch, Downy Woodpecker, Northern Cardinal and sparrows.  Northern Mockingbird and Carolina Wren also found.
• Peregrine Falcon picked up on Gloucester where we expected, but no unusual gulls picked out at the harbor.  A Black Scoter cleans up the scoters.
• Niles Pond, a gull hot spot, was not so hot when we arrived.  Hardly any gulls, let alone white-winged gulls.

 



We were hoping for a Glaucous Gull at Niles Pond, but this Great Black-backed Gull was about as close as we came.

 

• A hoped-for King Eider missed on the way to Cape Ann, but we do find Purple Sandpiper, Dunlin, and Red-throated Loon.
• On Cape Ann we add Yellow-rumped Warbler, alcids including Dovekie, and Black-legged Kittiwakes.  Great looks at the kittiwakes, momentary looks at the Dovekies (in fact, I didn’t see them at all).

 



A pair of Harlequin Ducks found off of Cape Ann, which offers the best seawatching on the east coast.

• A Turkey Vulture soars overhead as we drive through Ipswich.
• At Salisbury Beach we add Song and Savannah Sparrows, Horned Lark, Bald Eagle, Northern Harrier.
• Ending the day at Plum Island we miss Northern Shrike and Short-eared Owl, but add American Kestrel, Snowy Owl, and Iceland Gull.

Post-game

• Revisiting several sites to try for better looks at Dovekie, to find the King Eider, and to add what we can to life lists.

 

It's hard to look off the coast and not find a Common Eider. I hope I didn't just jink us!

Wish us luck tomorrow! I’m sure some of us will be tweeting, check in on our progress via Twitter by following John Beetham, Nate Swick, or Andrew Baksh.

 

2011 Super Bowl of Birding [Reintroductions]

A little over a year ago I received an unexpected invitation to visit eastern Massachusetts in late January. Christopher of Picus Blog was putting together a team of bird bloggers to meet, drink, and be merry, swap some stories, dish and/or snark on birds, birding, and the world in general (verbally, leaving no permanent record), and look at some birds. Competitively look at some birds, that is, as part of the 2010 running of the Super Bowl of Birding. The goal boils down to this: accumulate as many points as possible by finding as many birds as possible within a twelve hour period.

One of many target birds: Purple Sandpipers (2 points).

Exciting, to be sure, but more exciting was an invitation to return this year. It’s that second invite that says you’re good enough, smart enough, and doggone it, people like you. So I’m riding high on that wave, doubly so because I get to introduce another member the 2011 Bloggerhead Kingbirds, someone who (cliche alert!) needs no introduction, Nathan Swick.

Nate is clearly good enough, smart enough, and doggone it people like him many times over, but not only because this will be his third year back crashing the shores of Essex County, MA.  Look at it this way:  if you’re a long-time resident of the bird blogosphere, chances are good you already know Nate from his personal blog, The Drinking Bird.  If you’ve been around the nature-blog block a bit you’ll recognize him as a founding member of the Nature Blog Network (if he’s not technically a founding member, he might as well be: if possession is nine-tenths of the law, there must be an equivalent reward for duration).

If you’re new to this whole “blogging thing all the kids are into,” you’ve likely come across his more-recent offerings as a beat writer on 10,000 Birds or his work as a contributor to, and manager of the American Birding Association’s blog. If you’re not in those loops yet, well, how did you wind up here, at my humble-at-best blog?  Seriously, I’m dying to know.

Taking a break from seawatching at Cape Ann, Nate takes a moment to let his intraocular fluid thaw.

Obviously, Nate has rapidly become a prominent voice in the birding community, and deservedly so, check out his work at any of the above links.  You’ll find updates on his current Big Year and recaps of birding trips, his involvement in broadening birding opportunities for North Carolina’s youth (including but not limited to his own toddler), discussions (and sometimes rants) on politics as it relates to conservation, reviews of everything from field guides to beer, and (cliche alert!) much, much more.  One example of his effectiveness:  last summer the ABA, as well as birders across the continent, took notice of his essays on the relevancy of that organization to the birding community, leading to an open and frank discussion that is shaping the ABA today.

I know I’m choir-preaching here, so suffice it to say you already know what my weekend will be like:  non-stop birding, non-stop blog reading (but without the reading part, we get to hear it in the blogger’s own voice!), and general debauchery*.

Be sure to visit Nate’s site, specifically his introduction of another member of the 2011 Bloggerhead Kingbirds.

*Debauchery optional, not available at all locations.

Best Birding Moments, Part II [Flashback Friday]

I noticed that the first set of my Best Birding Moments has a heavy bias towards the northeastern US. In fact, all but one take place in New York, and only one of those New York moments was outside of my county. This was not by design, but I suppose speaks to the outstanding birding to be had in Chemung County. Or I’m just really, really good at making lemonade while going stir crazy in the Southern Tier. Whatever the reason, most of my Best Birding Moments between June and December are outside New York, and all are outside my county. Which indicates the latter half of my year was about travel, or by June I was simply sick of the birds in my home state.

Great Salt Lake, Utah, 12 – 15 August
I presented a poster at the Association of Field Ornithologist’s (AFO) annual meeting about one of our acoustic monitoring projects (described here, if you’re interested). Weber State put on one of the best conferences I’ve attended: big enough to see a lot of really great projects, small enough to have meaningful discussions with many of the participants, researchers and students alike. And set where the Wasatch range meets the Great Salt Lake at a time when shorebirds are on the move? Awesome birding in every direction, yielding 86 species in between talks, posters, and elbow rubbing.

A whirligig of phalaropes on the Great Salt Lake.

Best birds: Phalaropes! Hundreds of thousands of phalaropes! Best birding event: watching thousands upon thousands of shorebirds taking off from the Great Salt Lake in the dusky, evening sky. The opening night picnic was held at the Garr Ranch on Antelope Island, and as the sun set we watched huge flocks of shorebirds winging their way along the western horizon for their wintering grounds. Identification was impossible due to the distance and the fading light, the numbers were astounding, the whole experience was mesmerizing.

A Marsh Wren catches a glimpse of a birder at the Ogden Bay WMA.

Southern California, 16 – 19 August
Missing the AFO’s post-conference, full-day field trip was awfully painful as there were so many Great Basin birds left unobserved. But that remorse was softened by my next destination: I left Utah for a work trip to southern California, where I would deploy autonomous recording units for a fall migration project (the continuation of the very same project I presented at the AFO, linked to above). I flew into LAX and immediately headed north to my starting point in Ventura. My full deployment schedule would take me through Santa Barbara county, including a trip off shore to Santa Barbara Island (SBI), then south to San Diego county. I covered a lot of ground in just a few days and tallied 104 species.

One of several Nuttall's Woodpeckers I found on my southern California trip.

Best bird: I ticked a nemesis bird when I found a Nuttall’s Woodpecker early in the trip. OK, it didn’t really rise to the level of a real nemesis, but still, a target is a target. But the birds I hadn’t planned for were the most memorable. I knew I’d be on a mini-pelagic to get to SBI, but I didn’t spend any time planning for pelagic species. Nick Lethaby (our partner on this project) knows these species inside and out — well, maybe only from the outside – so I had a great tutor. As luck would have it, the seas were foggy which limited the number of species we encountered. The silver lining was I wasn’t overwhelmed with too many new identification challenges (OK, that doesn’t really rise to the level of a real silver lining). Of the species we did manage to see, it was the South Polar Skua that topped the coolness list. Not only was it a life bird, but “skua” is an awesome name. And anything with “South Polar” in its name is so deliciously exotic.

I had to throw in a California Thrasher while talking about California, right?

Chincoteague, Virginia, 23 – 27 November
Admittedly, not the best birding trip I’ve had on Chincoteague, but it makes the list because it’s Chincoteague – I love any chance I get to spend time there. It was a working Thanksgiving vacation so my birding time was limited and irregular, managing only a couple of trips to the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on top of the daily walks around the neighborhood. Most of the time was spent working on the the newly-remodeled vacation home which, happily, looks right out on the bay so it’s easy to steal glimpses of waterfowl, gulls, terns, shorebirds, and raptors. I managed a mere 69 species on this trip, but I’m already looking forward to an awesome “yard list” while sitting on the deck with a gin and tonic.

White Ibis are not expected at Chincoteague, at least not by me.

Best birds: The visits to the beach included some of the best (read: near shore) views I’ve had of feeding gannets and migrating scoters and loons. The first birds I saw on the island were a flock of White Ibis on one side of the road and a Black-crowned Night-heron on the other. But three Lesser Black-backed Gulls were not only unexpected, they were the first I’ve ever encountered in Virginia. Tick!

Juvenile Black-crowned Night-heron, shortly after being chased by a Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Central Arkansas, 21 – 29 December
I already wrote about part of my holiday experience in Arkansas, so you can read more details here. Like my Thanksgiving trip to Virginia, this one barely included any birding, just the 39 species I managed to note around the yard.  So why is this a Best Birding Moment? Because it reminds, and reinforces, that birds are everywhere, which means birding can, and should, happen everywhere.

Common bird on a common phone wire, but great to see: Northern Mockingbird, the state bird of Arkansas.

Best birds: Serendipity was the name of the game as I not only picked up an unexpected year bird when I encountered Red-headed Woodpeckers in my in-law’s yard, but also when I witnessed the daily commute of thousands upon thousands (upon thousands upon thousands) of blackbirds.

eBirding Everywhere, 01 January – 31 December
One overarching New Year’s resolution for 2010 was to eBird as much as possible. That lead directly to two of my Best Birding Moments (those daily walks around the yard as well as monitoring a series of points on my daily commute), not to mention paying closer attention anywhere I chose to watch birds — sites around New York, work trips to Utah and California, working vacations to Virginia and Arkansas, and so on. This really was the meta-Best-Birding-Moment as it enabled all of the other ones. The second part of the resolution was to keep up on entering those checklists, which I mostly did. They’re not quite all in now (gotta finish up some Christmas Bird Count as well as my scouting trip for the World Series of Birding), but I can already sit back and enjoy a year of eBirding with a few mouse clicks on the eBird site.

Best birds: every single one. ‘Nuff said.

Papa Wants a Brand New Bag [Carrying Capacity]

If you are a serious birder and serious amateur photographer that travels, I have a question for you: how do you pack for flying?

For years I’ve traveled light. Everything I brought fit into one internal-frame backpack that I checked, plus whatever I carried on the plane. My “carry on” was probably what a “personal item” is these days: a small backpack that fit under the seat, eventually morphing into a laptop in the mid-’90. I never bothered to compete for an overhead bin.

But now I’ve accumulated a set of equipment that I like — nay, need – to bring whenever I go anywhere. Binoculars, scope and tripod, DSLR camera and accessories, laptop and more. Depending on the destination, a field guide or two, and most definitely a notebook for field notes. I’m not sure how to pack this stuff safely anymore . . . in fact, it just occurred to me my problem is starting to sound like this George Carlin riff.

Anyway, a camera bag loaded with gear and the bins comes on the plane with me, as does the laptop case. Tripod goes in the checked backpack — long ago I took a knife to it so two separate compartments became one tripod-length area – but certainly not the scope. Now I’ve got my arms full with delicate things I wouldn’t trust to the most gentle grandmaster of packing, which may be pushing the tolerance of a ticket agent, depending on their mood. To this end I offer prayers that their spouse hasn’t left them recently, their morning coffee wasn’t cold nor their toast burnt. On occasion I carry things for my traveling companions, which often happens with a six-year-old. I guess I was naive, originally thinking she would become my sherpa. And things may become more complicated if (when?) I expand my photography rig.

 

This is what traveling with me is starting to look like.

So, for those of you who have similar cargo, how do you pack it? We’re in the market for a new set of luggage-type stuff, so what should we be looking for? Brand-names are welcome! Plus, your thoughts, ideas, and experiences are appreciated, as are any stories that come with checking/carrying birding and/or photography gear.

To share one story: I’m used to finding a “TSA Searched Your Stuff” tag in my backpack anytime I carry a tripod, but I’m continually surprised no TSA agent ever wants to examine the scope more closely. The Germans held me for almost twenty minutes until they were satisfied, or at least persuaded, I wouldn’t knock the pilot over the head with it. I guess I finally convinced them Vogelbeobachtung was more important to me than taking over an airplane, and the mere thought of swinging a thousand-plus dollar optic for any reason was a sure sign of mental illness.

Luggage photo via sun dazed at flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

 

Best Birding Moments, 2010 Edition [Flashback Friday]

Welcome to the re-installment of Flashback Fridays. An obvious place to start is with a recap version, specifically my Best Birding Moments from 2010. To make it even (I’ve been watching a lot of “Monk” lately) I chose 10 and divided them into two separate posts, five each. You’ll thank me later. Oh, and they’re arranged chronologically so those lesser top birding moments won’t feel bad.

Birding at Home, 01 January – 31 December
Ever since we moved into our place in 2003 I’ve been keeping tabs on our patch’s birdlife in an inconsistent way. I’ve been eBirding since the day it was born, but this year I decided to take it to the next level: for 2010 I officially resolved to collect (and enter) at least one effort-based checklist for every day I was physically home. That’s right, I’d record all birds, keep track of times and distances as appropriate, and get the results into eBird as soon as possible. As of 31 December I had collected (though I just now finished entering) 341 eBird checklists for our yard, all collected in 2010. Yeah, you Gaussians are right, I fell short of the estimated 365 checklists, but take into account I was out of town for those 24 (or so) days and I did pretty well. And it got it me in the habit of regularly birding my patch, one that I can’t help but continue.

An Eastern Phoebe waits to make a delivery to the nest.

Best observation: My more regimented effort paid off with 116 species recorded in/from our yard, several were new yard birds. The most memorable sighting is a toss-up between two yard-first, fly-over observations: a male Bobolink performing a display flight low over the yard in early May, and a loosely-grouped asylum of nine Common Loons crossing our airspace on their southerly migration in November. But even better than those are the Eastern Phoebes that have nested above the back door to our garage for the past few years. They arrive like clockwork, they crank out two broods each year, and they are simply awesome to watch up-close-and-personal throughout their breeding cycle.

Elmira Christmas Bird Count, 02 January
The Elmira Christmas Bird Count is a fairly mellow affair, but it serves as a great way to kick-off a new year list. It was bitter cold and I spent my half-day outside trudging along the snowy trails at a local nature center, trying to keep warm, and having a generally great winter birding experience though I rounded out the day with a very modest 31 species.

Best observation: A Northern Saw-whet Owl stole the show. I spent quite a bit of time in a large conifer stand that looked reasonable for roosting saw-whets. Even though I know they’re in the count circle (I hear them in our backyard, for cripes’ sake) I really didn’t expect to find one. But I did, which turned out to be the first ever for the Elmira CBC circle. Sweet, sweet, it was so sweet! (A cry I’m determined to steal from the Yellow Warblers.)

Super Bowl of Birding, Massachusetts, 30 January
Competitive birding always places on a Best Birding list, and birding with folks you admire but only sporadically meet has to be among the best of the best experiences. My birding with these guys is so sporadic it only happened once all year (maybe that’ll change in 2011, but as this is a flashback and not a flashforward we won’t dwell on that). I was invited to participate in the Super Bowl as a Bloggerhead Kingbird and subsequently several awesome things occurred: we observed 73 species during the course of the weekend and had stellar looks at many of them. We found many year birds, in some cases species many of us wouldn’t see again in 2010. Some life birds were ticked, we won the Essex County prize, and I even won a raffle. Best part was the camaraderie and how well everyone clicked. That made it a no brainer when I was invited back for a second tour this year.

John of A DC Birding Blog (click image to visit John's blog) scans Bass Rocks, trying to add just one more species for the day.

Best observation: well, in a very legitimate sense, all of them. It was a competition, so they were all “good.” But I gotta go with a pre-Big Day Chaffinch that I never wrote about (but Nate and Corey did).

Regular Patch Birding, New York 16 March – 31 December
This endeavor stems from birding, but actually overlaps the realm of monitoring. For a few years I’ve been regularly driving back roads, at least part of the way, to Ithaca in an effort to see fewer tail lights and more diverse birds. This year, recognizing the imbalance of how much time I spend staring at a computer screen and/or through a windshield vs. the time I spend outdoors looking at birds, I decided to incorporate more soul-satisfying birding stints along my drive. By March I had selected a handful of points where I started conducting 5-minute stationary counts a couple of times a week. You wouldn’t think a five-minute-here, five-minute-there approach would yield much, but I tallied 127 species during those point counts and, more importantly, I equalized the yin of the work day with the yang of recreation.

A Northern Harrier hunts over a weedy field at one of my regular birding stops.

Best observation: The most memorable bird came during the first week of my “formal” monitoring, a very happy surprise in the plumage of a Lesser Black-backed Gull. While not uncommon on the Finger Lakes, I didn’t expect one so far away from those larger bodies of water (or a landfill or compost facility), but one joined a flock of Ring-billed and Herring Gulls at a small wetland during a snow squall.

Adirondack Trip, New York, 05 – 07 June
Last summer I had the extremely good fortune to be invited on a weekend trip to the Adirondack mountains. I realize that I’m fortunate to be invited anywhere, so this outing was elevated to good fortune because the focus was bird finding, it was spent in the company of birders (Laura Kammermeier of Birds, Words, & Websites and Chip Clouse from the American Birding Association), and my wife allowed me to go. It was extremely good because our trip not only overlapped with local and visiting birders who were attending the Adirondack Birding Festival, but because Laura had secured our lodging at the High Peaks Lodge in Lake Placid and Park Motel and Cabins in Tupper Lake. Now that I’m back in the blogging kick my details and reviews will be coming, but you should read Laura’s recaps starting here. For the moment let me just say: plan your visit now. Seriously, you will thank me later.

Adirondack Birding Festival field trip members, straining to hear a Bicknell's Thrush singing from the void.

Best observation: Hands down, the three Bicknell’s Thrushes which were found in spite of foggy, rainy, cold weather. We heard the calls, we heard the song, we eventually saw two birds and ultimately photographed one of them. Not only was it a year bird for all of us, it was a lifer for Chip. Plus the post-birding breakfast (not brunch, the trip ended early when it began raining in earnest) couldn’t be beat. Wish I could remember more about that place.

 
Update, 14 Jan 2010:  Part II is now available.
 

Blackbirds in the Dead of Night [Mortality]

Given today’s traffic on Facebook, Twitter, various blogs, and of course various news outlets about this story you’ve probably already heard about the kind-of-spooky die-off of blackbirds in Arkansas on New Year’s Eve.  And before I go any further I must confess, yes, I was in Arkansas for the holidays.  But I have an alibi: by the time the blackbirds were aloft in that dark night sky I was comfortably on my couch back in New York. Check my Facebook updates, I was probably responding to something.  And, for the record, let it also be known I had nothing to do with the recent spate tornadoes, either.

Now that I’ve cleared myself of involvement, let me also admit I didn’t really know where Beebe, AR was until I looked it up on Google maps this morning.  I remember the northwest part of the state pretty well and I’m getting better about recognizing names from the central part of the state, especially the cities of Jacksonville (mother-in-law’s house) and Cabot (father-in-law’s house) that lie just to the northeast of Little Rock.  Imagine my surprise when I found out Beebe is 10 miles northeast of Cabot, meaning I’ve driven past it several times over the past few years on my way to Bald Knob NWR.  That shows you how closely I pay attention to road signs.  (By way of explanation I was either trying to make the Red-tailed Hawk perched on top of the sign  into a Rough-legged as I drove by, or I was arguing with myself about whether I was going in the right direction or not.  I have very animated arguments with myself, often to the exclusion of anything else.)

This Arkansas trip included very little time for birding. I secretly hoped for a day trip to Bald Knob, but a series of mid-December events lead my wife and I to spend most of our vacation packing up my father-in-law’s apartment so he could return to New York with us.  We spent most of our waking hours, and many of our sleeping hours, dealing with various aspects of the move, none of which involved finding interesting birds.  Ironically, it was that circumstance that lead to a very interesting blackbird observation.

But not just any blackbirds, I’m not using the Arkansas news story to tie in something I saw in NY, I’m talking specifically about the blackbirds that are making international news and will likely be part of many a Sunday sermon in the Natural State this weekend (end times, anyone?).  Because I couldn’t go elsewhere to find birds I tried to catch quick glimpses of birdlife around the apartment complex in Cabot.  I wouldn’t recommend it as a birding destination, but it hosts a nice colony of Purple Martins and the odd Scissor-tailed flycatcher in summer, and at this time of year it had a pair of Killdeer near-constantly making noise in the parking lot, a mockingbird patrolled the rooftops and the power lines, a Carolina Wren tea-kettled from the nearby woods.

And then there were the blackbirds.

I find that blackbirds, in the general usage where I mean Red-winged Blackbirds, Common Grackles, and Brown-headed Cowbirds, aren’t usually interesting by themselves, at least not in winter.  They’re fascinating as individuals during the breeding season when they’re flaring their epaulets, depredating a nest of an egg or two, or parasitizing the nest of an unsuspecting songbird.  In winter they’re fascinating as a group, and that’s what I found on one of my trips to the parking lot.

It was late afternoon, just before 5:00, as I stood outside the backdoor trying to figure out which bags off accumulated stuff were trash and which were to be donated, subconsciously hearing chips and squeaky calls from above.  I soon stood between two piles watching the cloudless, dusky pink-purple sky as a literal and figurative river of blackbirds passed over the apartments.  I couldn’t see the lead bird, I must have caught the flight in midstream.  I never saw the final lagging ones, either.  Their passage was steady and constant.  I don’t know how long I watched — three minutes?  five? – before I looked at my cell phone (4:58 PM) and back at the sky.  When the river finally ran dry it was 5:11 PM and I made my way to the car with a load of bagged clothes.  From the parking lot I noticed the birds were still moving, the main passage had shifted to the east so they were no longer directly over my head.  I have no idea how long the entire event lasted.

I can’t even hazard a guess at how many birds passed overhead, five hundred per minute?  A thousand per minute? Two thousand? More? The winter roosts of these species can number in the millions.  I don’t know where they were coming from, somewhere from the southwest, the direction of Little Rock.  Somewhere in that direction must be fields loaded with food . . . well, maybe not anymore with that many birds feeding all day.

They were clearly heading to a communal roost, and if you follow the direction on a map you discover they were — you guessed it – heading somewhere towards Beebe, perhaps honing in on a large expanse of phragmites.  While looking at the map this morning I found the apartment complex and traced the line that they were traveling, which was pretty much following the southeast side of Rtes 67/167 . . . which runs right through Beebe.

The next morning I was at the UPS store in Cabot.  While the clerk weighed, measured, estimated, addressed, and otherwise processed my boxes I stared out the large, east-facing windows.  It was already 9:00 AM, the sun had been up since a quarter past seven.  In the distance, above Kroger, I watched a stream of blackbirds heading back in the direction of Little Rock.

Large flocks, according to the BNAOnline, may stretch for miles.  The migratory movements of Red-winged Blackbirds, a clear harbinger of spring in NY, consist of fewer birds — thirty here, forty there – and the birds tend to fly side-by-side instead of in the column I was witnessing.  Over the years, when visiting Arkansas, I’ve seen movements like this in chance encounters, but this was the first time I was staying in the path of one.  The daily ebb and flow of those birds, which may take them fifty miles each way, passes over Cabot this season, and it was incredible to see.  That evening they were heading northeast again, but farther east from my vantage point in the parking lot.

For some reason, at least some portion of that roost took flight after dark on New Year’s Eve, perhaps due to fireworks going off nearby.  Some speculate hail or lightening killed a few thousand (estimates up to 3,000) of the birds over Beebe.  Others speculate it may have been mid-air collisions, which may be more plausible as blackbirds are not known to be adept at flying in darkness and the radar doesn’t seem to show any weather events in that area at the reported time.  Pathologists and others are performing tests to hopefully determine what caused this event.

Whatever the cause, it seems the number of casualties is a tiny compared to what I observed each evening and morning last week.  Blackbirds, for the record, are known as a pest species due to the damage these swarms can do to crops (in fact, measures to control winter roosts and reduce crop damage place humans as a major source of Red-winged Blackbird mortality).  But I have to wonder, how many of the birds I watched were unlucky enough to be part of that mysterious event?

Update: ABC News is reporting, “Trauma as a result of thunder and lightning is being blamed for the death of thousands of blackbirds who rained down out of the Arkansas sky on New Year’s Eve.” According to Dr. George Badley, state veterinarian for the Arkansas Livestock and Poultry Commission, “There were multiple thunderstorms that night and for several days that week. Red-winged blackbirds fly in large groups and if they got pulled into a thunderstorm, likely lightning struck them. That would be my best guess.”

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Christmas Bird Count Blues [Censusing]

I’m going to try a new type of post: I’m going to start it, and I’m asking you to finish it. Not quite a Mad Lib, I can supply the nouns, verbs, and adjectives. I need you to round out the content. In doing so, you’re going to (hopefully) help me get some birding mojo back.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

The start of the new year means, among other things, we’re nearing the end of the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) season. If you weren’t already in the know, now you understand the heavy tilt towards CBC-oriented posting on bird blogs over the past couple of weeks. Today I completed the second of my usual two local counts, and during one of them I asked myself a question I haven’t been able to answer. Why do I bother?

OK, let me back off: I had a fun time doing the Elmira, NY count today. I went out owling for an hour just after the ball dropped in Times Square (nothing responded, except a pack of coyotes that edged closer and closer — kind of eerie in the darkness). I spent the morning hiking my assigned nature center properties counting woodpeckers, chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches, I spent some of the afternoon cruising my “neighborhood.” We live in the boonies, so that entails walking stretches of rural roads flushing juncos, American Tree Sparrows and White-throated Sparrows, counting perched raptors, and guesstimating how many flippin’ crows live around here.

It’s the other count that makes me want to throw in my bins altogether.

Three weeks ago, as I wound my way through my section of the Corning, NY count circle I rediscovered the most common sight you encounter: yellow signs tacked to every fifth tree warning you not to leave the road. “POSTED,” they read, followed by a litany of things you’re not allowed to do: hike, hunt, trespass, spit, covet stuff, commit idolatry, cross your eyes. From what I can tell the only thing you’re allowed is to bleed after they exercise their right to plant a boot in your nether regions should you ignore the signs. Every so often, as I got out of my car to walk some portion of the road, I’d think about slipping into the expanses of woodlands, or follow a creek meandering through hemlock groves, or walk the edge of an old field. Then, after a volley of gunshots from those areas (warning shots, I began to suspect) I’d bail on my plans to even walk the road. I mean, I love birding, but I’m kind of attached to living, too.

This year seemed particularly bad. In past years cars would often stop while I’m trying to get a bead on some chip note from a roadside ditch or count the starling flock passing overhead, and once we got past the “why’re ya starin’ at my land?” phase the landowners were amicable to letting me look at their property. Not encroach on it, mind you, but at least I had permission to stare at their cows, corn stalks, and/or rusted appliances. Some offered suggestions on finding the “bunch of birds” they “always see” in the area. Not this year. This year the cars that stopped weren’t even interested in giving the, “You’re counting birds? Whatever you’re into, wackjob” brush off. No, each pick-up truck politely informed me my ass would be gettin’ a beatin’ if I didn’t move along . . . NOW, kid! Or at least some variation of that. Frick, dudes, I’m seriously not interested in your damn meth lab.

Now add in the social aspect of birding. CBCs, in my mind, are essentially a Big Day, just don’t forget to keep adding up the individuals of each species you find throughout the day. Like a Big Day, a team gets together and plans a strategy and a route for their section of the count circle, they scout the most active locations or to keep tabs on an unusual bird, they finally spend the day together racking up the numbers. The team may be two or six or somewhere in between, multiple eyes and ears and minds help find, identify, and track the birds. I also believe that comradarie of birding with friends is what keeps the momentum going. Birding by oneself, especially after being hassled by landowners, can start to drag. Our group that covers the entire Corning count circle is stretched thin so I’ve always birded by myself. In some years I’ve covered two sections since volunteers were scarce. Hmmm, at least, that’s the reason I’m given, maybe I should check my deodorant.

Traditionally Reina accompanies me on the first half of the day, luckily I’m able to keep our birding on public lands (a park with a playground, a path along the Chemung River) for those morning hours. And this year, after we ate our traditionally early lunch and Donna rescued her from what would prove to be a slow afternoon of unfulfilling car birding, I found my self getting more and more depressed as I drove on back roads trying not to make eye contact.

The Elmira count, which happens on January first, has the allure of starting off your year list, all birds — even House Sparrows and starlings – are “new.” The Corning count kicks off around 350 days into the year, so there’s very little chance of finding something you haven’t already seen.

But here’s why I’m going back next year . . . .

OK, don’t leave me hanging. I’d like to continue the count, but my motivation is at an all-time low. What strategies should I use to have a better CBC experience? How do you perform your counts? How do you keep you motivation high? Seriously, I’m looking for advice here! Please leave notes in the comments, or write a blog post about your methods and let me, and others, know.

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