The Southwest Wisconsin Birder

Update

2012-01-21T22:56:00.001-06:00

I have not done much blogging lately. There are various reasons, much of it attributed to lack of decent Internet at home. But, rather than dwell on what is past, in this post I am looking forward to the future. This year, I have a few things planned out, and may have a few other things pop up unexpectedly, and I plan to keep this blog updated as regularly as possible with as much interesting content as I can.

You might be wondering what I have planned out. Well, here are a few things:
I have several book reviews on backlog that need posting. These will take up whatever space there is whenever I can't write my daily (read: almost daily) post.

Next month, I am guiding for the 4th consecutive year at the Sax-zim Bog winter bird festival.

In late April, I may possibly take a short trip to FL.

In May, I am driving east to western NY to attend a bird banding workshop at Braddock Bay bird observatory.

Come June, I will again be working for Mississippi Explorer Cruises as an Interpretive Naturalist.
All summer, I will be posting about the things I see on the river and some of the small things that most people don't see.

Overall, I will try to show you some of what WI has to offer through the seasons and do my best to portray it such a way that you may wish to come visit one day. :)

That's all I have for now, but keep checking back for there will be more to come.

Fall Rainbow

2011-10-23T23:10:00.001-05:00

On my way home from work today, I spotted this partial rainbow, looking bright against the dark clouds.
It was a rather drizzly/sprinkly day today with gaps in the clouds that left room for the sun to shine through.

A few facts about rainbows:
We only see them near sunrise or sunset.

They are not really a "bow" but rather a full, circular halo created by light refracting through falling raindrops.

The circle is visible from an airplane if you were to fly past while a rainbow was present.

The light is refracted into 5 primary colors: red, yellow, green, blue and violet.

Red is always at the top, violet is always at the bottom.

The light is refracted into these colors because a falling raindrop is perfectly round and acts as a prism.

Legend has it that a rainbow always ends in a pot of gold.

Legend also says: "You'll never grow old, and you'll never grow poor, if you look to the rainbow, beyond the next moor." ;)

Another test of mobile blogging

2011-10-21T08:44:00.001-05:00

Doing another mobile blogging app test.

It's a chilly morning here in southern Wisconsin. The thermometer hanging around 28 degrees with heavy frost on the ground. This photo was taken with my iPod.

Fall on the river

2011-10-20T19:13:00.001-05:00

I'm testing a new blogging app from my iPod so hopefully this will come out looking decent.

Fall has been somewhat slow on the river. Nice colors, but short-lived.

I took this photo of a Towboat heading downriver hauling grain down to the gulf a couple weeks ago. The mist worked well with the photo.

Fall migration

2011-09-20T12:43:00.001-05:00

Nocturnal bird migration as seen on radar

That's right. Fall migration. Happens every year at this time. Millions of birds heading to the tropics for the winter. Some of them for the summer. The summer you ask? Is that right? Yes it is! Some of our little warblers migrate far enough south that their wintering grounds are in effect a second summering ground. In other words, the birds experience not only boreal summer, but austral summer as well.

Every night during Sept and Oct, these birds lift off from wherever they spent the day refueling and fly, typically through the night, and land in a new location, further south in the early hours of the morning.
These nightly flights are in such numbers that they can actually be seen on radar.

Last night was no exception. In fact, last night was one of the strongest flights yet this fall. It showed on the radar as well. It was almost solid green from Duluth to Brownsville.

So how does one tell birds from weather? It's pretty easy. Weather moves in straight lines. Always.
Weather also produces much higher intensity (reds, blues, orange, etc) than birds usually do. Birds always produce a "donut" or circle around a radar transceiver.

Here's the way the radar works: radar sends out a radio signal that travels at the speed of light. This radio signal bounces off whatever objects are in its way and returns directly to the receiver at the tower. The time difference between when the signal is sent and the signal is received, determines how fast and what direction the object is traveling. The difference in frequency determines the cross-section, or how large the object is. This also determines the intensity of the signal that is displayed on the weather website. Dark green is a weak intensity, light green is more intense, yellow is higher intensity, etc.

On nights with heavy flights of birds, the sheer number of birds in the sky typically produces light greens to yellows on the radar display. Nights like this usually have hundreds of thousands of birds migrating all at once. The coolest thing, is that all passerines call during nocturnal migration. Everything from chips to "tseeps" to "tsips", peeps and "sips" can be heard from birds passing over at night.

Cloudy nights are typically better for hearing migrants because the clouds keep the birds flying close to the ground. On clear nights, they fly high up and are more difficult to hear over all the crickets.

A CD of flight calls can be purchased from oldbird.org that contains all of the flight calls of most passerine migrants. If you memorize these, you'll be able to identify the birds that pass over your house at night.

Good luck out there! Happy nocturnal birding!

The Bald Eagle: The majestic symbol of freedom

2011-09-16T21:06:00.001-05:00

adult Bald Eagle

If you haven't heard already, I've been working for Mississippi Explorer Cruises as an Interpretive Naturalist this summer. It's been a fun job. I get to talk to lots of people and I get to tell them all about the natural and cultural history of the ports we go out of. I also spent a lot of time scanning the banks looking for wildlife. So far, I've seen just about everything you can see on the river. A few weeks ago, we saw a lone Beaver. A week before that, we saw a pair of River Otters playing on the bank. Deer are plentiful on the islands and are often seen swimming between them. We even occasionally see fish, either swimming just below the surface or jumping clear of the water.

At the start of our cruises, people often ask what we have a chance of seeing and a lot of people ask about Beaver or Otter, but the number one thing people ask if we're going to see is Eagles.

Now, if you know anything about birding on the Mississippi River, you know that the answer is always yes. We almost always see eagles during our cruises.

In fact, Eagles have rebounded quite well since the pesticide DDT was banned in the 1970s.
In the 1960s, their population hit an all time low and the species was placed on the Federal Endangered Species list. Since then, through a number of acts passed by congress, their population has steadily increased again. In 2007, their population had increased sufficiently that they were removed from the Endangered Species list. This year's population estimate for Pool 9 on the Upper Mississippi River at Genoa was 100 pairs.

The Mississippi River has long been one of the strongholds for this species, with its plentiful supply of fish. Although, at their low point, the species almost disappeared from the river valley.

Fortunately, Alaska, the primary stronghold for these birds, due to its remoteness was never very highly assaulted by DDT and they remained there in decent numbers throughout the 1900s. Today, over half of the world's 9,700 breeding pairs of Bald Eagles lives in Alaska.

Here on the Mississippi River, every winter, we enjoy Bald Eagles in their hundreds that gather around the open water below the dams and at warm water vents. In many places, you can stand in one spot and count over 200 eagles just by turning in a circle.

Today, Bald Eagles enjoy federal protection in many forms. They are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of the 1918, the Bald and Golden Eagle protection act of 1940. They are also protected as our national bird and part of the symbol on our national seal.

Bald Eagles are known as builders of some of the largest nests in the bird world.
One of the largest nests on record measured over 9 ft across and weighed in around two tons. Most nests, however, a much smaller, measuring around 4-6ft across and weighing around half a ton.

They begin the nesting season in January, adding to and "remodeling" the same nest they used in previous years, every year making it a little bigger. Here in WI, the female lays 2-4 eggs sometime between late Feb and mid March. The young hatch roughly a month later, and fledge around the 4th of July. Once they leave the nest, the young are tended by the parents until they are able to fend for themselves, at which point they begin the long process of learning to fish. It's quite amusing to watch a young eagle attempting to fish. They are quite clumsy and sometimes quite pathetic at it. They learn quickly however and soon become master hunters. Bald Eagles reach maturity at around 3-5 years old, at which time they gain the diagnostic white head and tail.

Interestingly, at the time they leave the nest, the grown young are often bigger than their parents. The reason is because of the extra baby fat they still retain and the down feathers that they haven't lost yet.
A recently fledged young Bald Eagle can have as many as 8 or 9000 feathers. A typical adult has around 7000 feathers.

In 1782, the Bald Eagle was selected as our National Emblem because of it's long life (nearly 30 years), great strength and majestic looks. Their range covers the entire North America continent from Alaska to Florida, from Canada to Mexico. They are perhaps the single most well known bird in the world, and the one that everyone loves to see.

They are truly a majestic bird, they sit at the top of the food chain and are a symbol of strength and fearlessness. Hopefully they will be around for many centuries to come.

"May the wind under your wings bear you where the moon walks and the sun sails"
--J.R.R Tolkien

A blue day? Only in one respect

2011-08-03T16:21:00.001-05:00

Here's a couple more Dragonfly shots that I forgot to share in my last post.

The theme today is blue. It's a clear, blue sky outside, so today's dragonflies are blue as well.

Remember the female Blue Dasher I shared yesterday? This is the male Blue Dasher below:

Yep, they actually are blue!

This blue dragon is a male Eastern Pondhawk. They're such a colorful species! The males being bright

gray-blue and the females are lime green!

What? You want a bird too? Ok, ok....

Here's a "blue bird" I photographed in Ecuador last year.

Kudos if you can ID it... ;)

Summer Pt 2: The part that actually has the Meadowhawks, Clubtails and Skimmers

2011-08-02T13:01:00.000-05:00

Summer is Dragonfly season here in the upper midwest. Since I've dived into dragonflies this summer, I've found quite a few species and am finding new ones all the time. This past week, I found one dragonfly I've been wanting to see:

This colorful, highly patterned dragon is called a Halloween Pennant.

I've been wanting to see this one for a while. They perch on an upright stick with their lower legs just below their upper ones. This makes them look like a pennant hanging from a stick.

Widow Skimmers are one of the most common dragons out here right now.

Their black and white pattern is unmistakeable.

This Ruby Meadowhawk posed quite nicely for me. It's always exciting to see a bright red dragonfly.

Sometimes, the duller ones are cool too. This female Blue Dasher looked right at me just as I hit the shutter.

And of course, Twelve-spotted Skimmers are spectacular as always.

I've been trying to photograph every dragonfly I see. Unfortunately, some of them do get away. I found a Lancet Clubtail last week that refused to cooperate and a Lance-tipped Darner that kept flying just ahead of the boat.

Come Sept, the birds will pick up again. I promise! :)

Summer. Pt 1: Gulls, Cormorants, Ducks, Pennants, Skimmers, Meadowhawks, Baskettails, Clubtails, Skippers, Swallowtails and Admirals

2011-07-26T15:32:00.000-05:00

Ok, so yes, I do have a lot to cover. It's been a while since my last post.
I've been working quite a bit lately, pretty much every weekend. That doesn't leave a lot of time for birding. Good thing the birding has been slow lately and most of the Dragonflies are found near the river.

Amazingly, the only really rare bird that has been found all summer is crazy rare, a first state record in fact. Back on the last week of Jun, a Neotropic Cormorant was found at Horicon Marsh. Like most summer rarities in Wisconsin, it stuck around and has been present for over 3 weeks now.

Horicon is far enough from me that there is no way I can get there at the crack of dawn. Subsequently, I wasn't able to get the morning light on the tree it was sitting it, so I had to make do with the harsh, late morning light that provided lots of shadows:

Here's a slightly better photo that shows the diagnostic "V" at the base of the bill:

I went back a week later and had similar results with the light. This time however, the bird sat right next to a Double-crested Cormorant which gave an excellent chance for side-by-side comparison:

Since I've been working as a naturalist, I've been trying to learn as much as I can about almost every aspect of the Mississippi River. It's been a fun job so far and I've actually learned quite a bit. The best part is working outside, on the river and getting to see the wildlife on a regular basis. We actually see Bald Eagles on almost every cruise. It's nice to see how much of a comeback they've made since DDT was banned. Since most of the young have fledged, we've been seeing a lot more 1st year birds sitting up, in the open for us to look at:

On Jul 13th, I grabbed my little ten-year-old birding pal Cicero and we drove over to Sheboygan to look for a Little Gull that had been seen there the previous day. When we arrived, we found the rocks at North Point occupied by about 300 Bonaparte's Gulls and around 100 Ring-billed Gulls. While Cicero ran off to photograph the Bonaparte's Gulls (a lifer for him), I set up my scope and set about trying to find the Little Gull. Fortunately, the Little Gull was in 1st summer plumage and most of the Bonaparte's were still in breeding plumage. Even so, it still took about 15 minutes to find the Little Gull. Once I found it though, it became ridiculously easy to re-find, even if I completely lost it in the flock (isn't that the way it goes though?).

The Bonaparte's Gulls were rather skittish, so I couldn't get very close, but at least the photo is identifiable. This was my 312th WI state bird:

After watching the Little Gull for a while, I scanned the lake looking for the Franklin's Gull that had also been reported there. I found it floating with a flock of Bonaparte's about 150 yds off the point. I quickly pointed it out to Cicero who quickly picked it out; his 3rd lifer of the day.

We then headed back to Horicon Marsh where Cicero picked up Black Tern, Forster's Tern and Ruddy Duck.

All attempts to find the Black-necked Stilts however were foiled by the tall reeds and grass.

We did however re-find the Neotropic Cormorant and managed to get pretty decent looks at it.

The main ponds along Hwy 49 at Horicon Marsh were overrun with Pied-billed Grebes:

While looking for Black-necked Stilts, we found something along those lines, but not quite what we were looking for:

At least there are plenty of Cranes in the marsh. It's good to see that Sandhill Cranes have made such an excellent comeback as well.

As you may have noticed with my last post, I have taken a nose-dive into Dragonflies this summer. My latest Dragonfly exploits will be recounted in my next post.

Happy Birding/Oding/Lepping! :D

Odonatidae

2011-06-15T14:10:00.000-05:00

Common Green Darner

The family Odonatidae or Odonata, commonly called Odes is the family of Dragonflies, Damselflies and Allies. Yes, I have taken a nose-dive straight into this awesome family of insects. This is a whole new realm of creatures to ID. Not as much is known about ID of these insects as there is of birds and often, females and immatures cannot be readily identified. It doesn't help that the only Dragonfly book for Wisconsin is currently out of print and unavailable. My method of beginning to learn these winged creatures is to photograph everything I see and post it to Facebook. Inevitably, someone knows what the Ode is called. In essence, by doing so, I'm slowly building my own field guide to Dragonflies and Damselflies of southern Wisconsin. Hopefully I will have a pretty decent set of photos by the end of the season.

Here is what I have found and photographed so far that I know the ID to:

Immature female Eastern Forktail

There are several little orange Damselflies in a family called Bluets. This one is a Forktail. I have yet to figure out why...

Midland Clubtail

Clubtails are some of the more awesome Dragonflies. There are two species around here that look similar. Midland Clubtail and the more awesomely named Cobra Clubtail.

Midland Clubtails

It's always fun to see a mating pair of Dragonflies attempting to fly. They do it amazingly well.

Female Eastern Forktail

It's interesting how these Damselflies change colors depending on age. This is a female. I haven't found a male yet.

I haven't had a solid ID on this one yet, but it is probably Hagen's Bluet. The blue ones are so vivid!

Some Bluets can't be identified unless they're adults. This little green one is probably an Eastern Forktail, but is what is called Tenereal, meaning that it is newly hatched and still developing and cannot be identified to species.

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

This is perhaps one of my favorite Dragonflies and is one of the more spectacular ones as it really stands out as it flies by. I usually see these while canoeing along rivers and streams.

Ebony Jewelwing

By far one of the most beautiful of the Damselflies (is it a Damselfly?) Ebony Jewelwing is an inhabitant of the deep forest shadows. They're awesome to see in flight and just glow when they land. I love the beautiful metallic sheen.

Keep checking back for updates throughout the summer. I'm trying to post on this blog more often now that I have lots of new things to share.

Book Review: Hawks at a Distance

2011-06-15T13:29:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has participated in a hawk-watch knows how difficult raptors can be to ID. It's more difficult still to learn how to do it. It's almost impossible to put that knowledge into a book. However, well known hawk guru Jerry Ligouri has done it. His new book "Hawks at a distance" is an excellent book to have with you when out hawkwatching or even just casual observation.

In this book, the photos are just what the title says: at a distance. They are not close up, they are not cropped down, but left to replicate how you might see a hawk through your binoculars in the field.

As with the Crossley guide, impressions are best here. What is your impression of shape and size? What field marks would you pick out if you saw this bird in the field?

Let's take a look inside the cover:

Ligouri starts each species account with a brief, one or two page segment of text followed by photos:

The photos, as expected, are literally "at a distance." They show the bird as one might see it in the field.

Take this Swainson's Hawk. What, to you, says it's a Swainson's Hawk? How might that be used in the field? Those dark flight feathers show up pretty distinctly.

Like Crossley, Ligouri dispenses with pages and pages of text and keeps the text to a minimum. This allows you as the reader to determine what works for you to identify the bird.

Though my scan of the page doesn't show it, the photos in this book are beautiful and well chosen to fit every imaginable instance where you might see the bird in flight out in the field.

The newest field guides seem to be taking this stance. The new school of birding seems to be based on impressions and shape. New I say? Well, not exactly new, just coming around again.

There are two schools of birding. One is based on careful observation of detailed field marks to identify the bird. The other is based on GISS. What is GISS? General Impression of Shape and Size. Sure, there's more that goes into it than that, but that's the basic idea.

There are many field guides out there that use detailed field marks and carefully explain what those marks are and how to look for them. It's fairly easy to learn bird identification this way. The problem comes when a lot of birds, hawks in particular, are just too far away, and often in bad light, to use this method. The newest guides, the Crossley and now Ligouri's book are exploring methods of teaching identification at long range using only impressions of shape, size and behavior. With more and more of these books coming out, the well-rounded birder would be wise to study both as it provides a whole other face to bird identification.

Ligouri even goes the full step to ID by shape by providing a page of nothing but silhouettes:

Views of the bird from every angle as you might see it in the field, backlit against the sun.

Interestingly, all the photos in this book show the bird in flight. The assumption being that if the bird is perched, you can get close enough to it to ID it by field marks alone.

I would however be interested to see if we eventually get a book that tells us how to ID perched hawks from over a mile away.

In all, I would say Ligouri's book is one for anyone wishing to learn to ID all those raptors they see floating on the horizon. As Pete Dunne says in his excellent Foreword "Now that Hawks at a Distance is available to today's "students of birds," the world beyond the horizon is about the only place that a raptor that aspires to remain anonymous can hope to hide."

Little bit of this and that.

2011-04-08T23:44:00.001-05:00

Here in Wisconsin, in winter we get snow. Sometimes we get a lot of snow. Once in a while, we get too much snow. Like above, the photo that I took the day after we received 15 inches of snow in one night. It looks really pretty, newfallen, but eventually it has to be removed. For that amount of snow, normal means of removing it simply don't work. Conventional plows get stuck. That's when we revert to much more powerful remedies:

Yes, that's a Grader with a snowplow on the front. As of yet, we haven't had a snowstorm that they haven't been able to go through. One drawback though, is that they tend to wipe out your mailbox...

Here's another view of the same type of machine:

Slightly smaller, but just as powerful. This one is plowing a windbreak in a field next to the road to help prevent snow from blowing over the road.
These are the awesome machines that keep our roads clear of snow so that we can go out and enjoy the weather. Copious amounts of snow here are treated as an everyday occurrence and we simply deal with it.

Winters however, can be rather long some years, and are often quite harsh. The harsh realities of these long, cold winters don't often show themselves, but every once in a while, one runs across the evidence:

Still, quite a few species are hardy enough to survive. Even ones you might not expect.
I photographed this White-crowned Sparrow on one of my Christmas Bird Counts this winter:

I also found White-throated, Song and Fox Sparrows on that CBC (one of the products of a mild start to the winter). However, some other migratory species find places to overwinter. This Killdeer and its mate were found foraging next to a pair of Wilson's Snipe in the shallow water in the bottom of a fish hatchery impoundment:

But of course, you have to always expect the unexpected. Killdeer and Snipe are regular CBC birds if you know where to look for them. Every once in a while, one runs across a species that they did not expect:

Carolina Wrens are, of course, non-migratory, but it's still amazing to me how they survive the harsh, cold winters of Wisconsin. They are quite a delightful CBC bird though since they, like many wrens, sing regardless of the time of year. It was very nice to hear the rolling "chorlee chorlee chorlee" echo through the woods.

But you're not thinking of winter now are you? Winter just ended. The warm weather is upon us and spring is quickly filling in its annual role. That's ok, this time last year, I wasn't thinking of spring either. I was in Ecuador looking at birds like this Immaculate Antbird:

Or this Masked Flowerpiercer:

When I arrived home, it was almost May and spring was in full swing. Unfortunately, that's not the case this year and I'm home to watch spring slowly unfold before me. However, that can be the fun part sometimes. This is the time of year when birds are moving and rarities tend to show up. This weekend has a huge warm front moving through the upper Midwest. Who knows what that could bring. You never know what you'll see. You gotta get out there and look. Maybe you'll get lucky one day and get a Whooping Crane or two:

Or, if you live in Wisconsin, maybe you'll get really lucky and find a Smith's Longspur:

See? You just never know. Anything could show up!

So get out there and see what you can find to share, and if you find something good, don't forget to let me know!

Til next time, Happy Birding!

Scoter at The Lake

2011-03-31T14:06:00.002-05:00

female White-winged Scoter

I few weeks ago, I headed over to Sheboygan to check out the lakefront. The number of Common and Red-breasted Mergansers was staggering. A hundred thousand between Sheboygan and Harrington Beach State Park was a conservative estimate. Thousands of Greater and Lesser Scaup also dotted the lake.

Greater Scaup

Off of North Point in Sheboygan, I found the Harlequin Duck, bobbing up and down in the surf.
A few Great Black-backed Gulls flew by and a Thayer's Gull zoomed over.

Thayer's Gull

Out on the horizon, a raft of a few hundred Long-tailed Ducks bobbed around in the waves, popping up for a few seconds before dipping back into the next trough.

Long-tailed Duck

Not to be outdone, a Snow Bunting came zipping along the shore, landed for a second, then took off again.

Snow Bunting

The majority of gulls appeared to be Ring-billed

Ring-billed Gull

But a "Kumlien's" Iceland Gull was a nice find:

"Kumlien's" Iceland Gull

In all, it was a fairly cold day at the lake, but a highly productive one.

Amazingly, I haven't been over to the Mississippi River yet this year, but considering the waterfowl being reported there, that might have to be my next stop!

Til next time, Happy Birding!

Spring Raptors

2011-03-28T14:23:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything about "normal" birding and sightings. But, today, I'll lean a little that way. ;)

It's springtime. Well, at least, in the calendar sense it is. This time of year, in the upper midwest, you tend to see lots of raptors pairing up. Eagles, Hawks (especially Red-tailed, there's always two Red-tailed Hawks this time of year) and falcons like this pair of American Kestrels. I was out birding down near Spring Green, WI last week and photographed this pair sitting on a high power line. The male is on the left, told by his sharper, brighter colors, bluish wings and rusty red back. The female is duller and browner.

Many early spring migrants are in now. Red-winged Blackbirds, American Robins, Fox Sparrows, tons of waterfowl including 5 species of Geese, 3 species of Swans, and up to 18 species of ducks. I saw 13 species yesterday evening at one stop.

It's always interesting where you find migrant ducks. Many times, you find them in unexpected locations. Seeing a Ruddy Duck trying to dive in a puddle in the middle of a farm field is a pretty amusing sight.

Keep your eyes out when out birding. The weather is beginning to warm and the birds are starting to fly. Anything could show up!

Notes from the ABA: What do you want to talk about?

2011-03-10T00:15:00.001-06:00

Back on March 2nd, our intrepid ABA president, Jeff Gordon, posted a video blog in which he asked us, the members, what we wanted to talk about. There have been some amazing comments, issues brought up, questions, and suggestions. You can read all 60 or 70 some here.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to lay on the table. I have always been a big promoter and devout supporter of young birders and getting kids involved in birding. I decided that I would lay on the table my issues and suggestions for the ABA's Young Birder programs. There have been hitches, glitches and drawbacks in the past, as well as some amazing events and programs. Over the past couple years, they've really started to go downhill. With the new leadership, they are finally starting to go in the right direction. I decided to lay out my suggestions as to what the ABA could do to promote YBs and get more kids interested in birding. Below is my "blog-post-length" comment:

Jeff,

I've been a member of the ABA for as long as I've known about the organization. I've been a firm supporter of the ABA and a devout promoter of young birders.

Several people have mentioned doing more to get young people involved in birding and promote more interest in birding, particularly the youngest kids. Few have mentioned ways to do this. I like the suggestion of a nation-wide Speakers Bureau, to have people representing the ABA doing presentations and workshops.

Getting kids out looking at birds is always a challenge. There's simply too many things tugging at their attention. What the ABA needs to do is use some of these things (particularly social media) to direct and engage youth. Not just at the national level, but at the local levels as well. I know a few kids who regularly attend local Audubon walks who might just join the ABA if it could offer them something. Yes, the ABA offers summer camps, but too often these are too expensive and too far from home for the less hardcore birders to attend. However, many times, these YBs don't even know that the ABA offers things like summer camps or the Tropicbirds Teams. I never would have been a member of the Tropicbirds Team if I hadn't already been an ABA member and seen the ad in Birding Magazine.
I'd like to see more advertising on this front, more subsidizing of attendance fees and lower attendance fees if possible.

With a speakers bureau, the ABA could have someone do a young birder workshop at local audubon and other nature events that would be designed not just to get kids interested in birding, but also provide some knowledge and opportunity for more serious YBs to find out what the ABA has to offer and take advantage of it.

I mentioned using social media too. I think the ABA is recognizing that Facebook and blogging are excellent ways to reach people. This new multi-author blog is great. The ABA's official page is good too. However, frankly, I have been disappointed with the ABA's Young Birder page. I feel that there has not been enough time devoted to it except for the occasional update about the Tropicbirds or the summer camps. In order to create more of a YB following, I think the postings on the page should be more regular and more engaging. Post things like photo quizzes, trivia quizzes, facts about birds, links to blog posts or helpful websites, ID tips, the kind of things that would get people thinking and get them interacting more. Not just with the FB pagemaster, but with each other.

I don't know if you know this or not, but my friend Jacob Cooper and I, a couple years ago, noticed that the Peeps listserve for Young Birders had died and nobody was posting on it. Using the database of YBs subscribed to Peeps and our own YB Facebook friends, we put together a more interactive chat group via the website Meebo.com. We called the group Jocotoco Wanderings. Unfortunately, there were glitches with Meebo and content couldn't be shared as much as we liked and it slowly died. Then, Facebook revamped their group pages and offered us a new venue. We moved the group to Facebook. The opportunity to share photos, links, thoughts, ID tips, etc via the Facebook group is enormous and it quickly took off. We now have 70 YBs as members of the group and many of them regularly contribute to the group. I have kept it a closed group however (invitation only) because I feel that all too often too many adults join groups like that and the YBs tend to get pushed aside by the (sometimes) superior knowledge and experience of the adults and end up simply listening and not actively joining in the discussions.

I have been thinking of adding a few select "Celebrity" Birders to the group. In the old Meebo chatroom, we had Kenn Kaufman join our discussions from time to time to great success. It allowed those who look up to the "celebrity" birders to actually talk to them and ask them questions. If the ABA could have select knowledgeable "celebrity" birders like this work to try to engage YBs more, the effect would be to get the kids thinking and maybe give them some spark to work harder to become better birders.

I attended a presentation the other night by Richard Crossley. He made one point that really hit home. In his home country of Britain, there is a birder by the name of Bill Audi. He's a TV star in a show called The Apprentice. People will follow what their Celebrities do. If their celebrity is a birder, then there's a greater chance that they too may take up the sport. This new movie coming out with Steve Martin and Jack Black I think is going to make an impression among the American public; two mainstream actors who are promoting the sport of birding. Crossley also mentioned that the US needs celebrity people like this. He held up James Currie, host of Nikon Birding Adventures TV as our current and future "TV celebrity birder" His point being that people who are well known draw attention. If they can draw this attention to birding, more people will become involved in it.

But, getting back to what I was saying earlier, If the ABA is able to do this and offer something worth joining in, the YBs will come. Friends will tell friends who tell friends and the network reaches YBs around the country.

But how does the ABA engage new, potential YBs? That has more to do with groundwork. Being there on the local level.
Birding is beginning to go mainstream. Even with youth. I'm seeing Young Birders clubs springing up around the country. These clubs and the Audubon societies will find the youth interested in the outdoors and birding. It's up to the ABA to engage them and take them to the next level, to promote birding with them and do what it can to help them become better birders. Offer them ways to connect with other YBs, offer them camps, workshops and field seminars to attend, do everything possible to keep prices for these events to a minimum. Try to make workshops that are free to attend.

How do you find the best places to go to do workshops? Again, the local level. Talk to local Audubon societies, YB clubs, even local birders who know a few kids who would be interested. Every little bit counts.

I owe the ABA a lot in my training as a birder. I used to (and still do) attend Audubon field trips, various local birding field trips, but it wasn't until I applied to (and was accepted onto) the ABA/Leica Tropicbirds Team that I really took off. Here was birding on a completely different level than what I was used to, with birders who were skilled far beyond anyone I had previously known. I took in everything as fast as I could, learning everything I could during the few days I spent in Cape May. The next year, I was eager to try again. This time, was with you and Liz. This time, I was older, a little more experienced, but again, birding on a level I wasn't used to, my skills jumped again.

Then came the camps that I found out about. The High Island Camp that didn't have enough people sign up to officially go, but thanks to some quick thinking and background work by the then Youth Education coordinator, Lori Fujimoto, I and another YB were able to spend a week at High Island living at the Tropical Birding house and birding alongside the TB guides. Again, it was a huge jump in my skills and knowledge as a birder.

In '08, I attended the YBC in Minot, North Dakota. This was one of the best events I've ever attended. An entire week spent birding not only with people my own age (which is a rare occurrence where I live) but also having mentoring by world-class birders (Michael O'Brien and Louise Zemaitis, Steve Howell and Ron Martin along with Jane Kostenko and Tyler Bell). The daytime field trips were awesome and the evening presentations and the photo quiz were superb. Again, it made a huge difference in my skills and knowledge as a birder.

I would really love to see something like this back on the ABA's agenda. From what I heard about the camp in California and Camp Colorado, they weren't even on the same level. I sincerely hope that the upcoming Camp Rio Grande will be about more than just birding the Rio Grande valley but really go into depth about the natural history of the birds and wildife present and the actual history of the area, how it came about as a birding mecca and where it's going. Past, present and future are always important to know. Presentations and workshops at the camp about ID, molt and other things is always engaging as well. I have a whole list of things I'd like to see at ABA camps, but I won't go into that here just yet.

Speaking of camps, I would also really love to see a Young Adult Birders Conference. An event designed for birders who are between 19 and 25. Design it so that it caters to all levels. Help out the beginners who want to come, but also offer the more technical, in depth things that the more hardcore birders will enjoy (I particularly liked Steve Howell's presentation about Molt at the YBC '08 in Minot).

I think the most important thing with any camp is that the camp leaders need to be more skilled and knowledgeable than any of the attendees. I would also suggest having one or two "Camp counselor" type positions (which I know the ABA has something along these lines already) at their camps for older (over 18) YBs who want to help out and give back to what the ABA has given them. I hold this in substantial importance because these are the people who will (hopefully) be the biggest promoters of YBs and the future camp leaders, the future teachers of the next generation of YBs to come through the ABA camps.

I guess in all of this, the best thing the ABA can do is to be able to offer something to YBs that is worth their time to check out and get involved in. Work on engaging YBs via social media like Facebook and offer things to get them out in the field and teach them about birds and birding. Whether that be sponsoring workshops, or YB clubs or whatever else or simply just being a presence that can help mentor YBs who want to become better at what they're doing and give them opportunities to advance their skills and knowledge through camps, workshops, birding with other their own age and birding with the best birders the ABA can offer them.

The value comes in knowing that there are other kids about your age who love to do what you do. Nobody likes to do something alone. Birding with others your own age is really the most fun thing I can think of doing. Seeing old friends and making new friends, working a network of people your own age. It's a really comforting thought that you're not the "only one" so to speak who is the "nerd" in your school.

Something else too, is not just to promote birding with youth, but to promote the older YBs and encourage them to help out the younger generations. Kids will look up to a celebrity birder who is older, but the real value comes in someone closer to their age who is willing to help them out. That is the person who they will look up to and follow.
Having gone through all the steps to get to where I am now and having been through the ABA's programs and knowing how to do things, I have tried to be that someone to the YBs I know;
the leader of the group and the one who encourages, engages and promotes. I have done it with moderate success. Especially in the Jocotoco Wanderings FB group. It really makes a difference when kids know that there's someone they can go to and ask a question, any question, and get a good answer. Even if I can't answer the question myself, I'll find someone who can. Whether or not my method is the best one or not, it works for me and I do whatever I can to promote youth in birding. The more YBs we have, the better. They are the Sibleys, Kaufmans, O'Briens, Crossleys and Jeff Gordons of the future. That's why we need them and why they need someone to look to for guidance and support.

When someone you really look up to takes the time to help you do what you want to do, that is the best thing that could happen to anyone. I'd like to see the ABA be that someone who gives kids a little nudge out the door so to speak.

At any rate, that's my 5 cents worth.

--Chris W

One thing I neglected to mention here is probably the most important. Schools. Go to the schools. This is an environment where you have the kids full attention without other distractions and you can tell them about all the awesome and amazing things there are to see in the natural world.
I spent a week last fall working for the Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, WI.
My job was to go around to area schools and talk to them about birds. These weren't high school kids, these weren't college kids. Many of them weren't even Middle school kids. The targeted age group was Elementary school. 1st-4th grade. Why? because that is the age at which kids are developing their interests and when they are interested in everything. That is the age at which their interests can be directed to things like birding. I tried to keep my presentations friendly, interesting, engaging and most important of all, I tried to show birds that the kids would like. Owls, Tanagers, Buntings, etc. The really colorful birds are the ones everyone loves to see. It was my hope that I would spark some interest in birding in at least a small percentage of them. Did I? I certainly hope so. As I stated above, kids are really the Sibleys, Crossleys, Jeff Gordons and Petersons of the future. All our hopes and dreams lie with them. The more kids interested in birding, the better.

Winter in review and the upcoming spring

2011-03-03T17:42:00.000-06:00

So I have neglected this blog for too long. I've been somewhat busy writing for the NA Birding Blog which is a collective of voices around the country contributing posts about various bird-related topics.
I've been writing a weekly feature called Rarity Watch which summarizes the regional and ABA rarities reported around the ABA area.
Recently, I also wrote a Book Review about the new Crossley ID Guide that just came out in bookstores nationwide. The new guide will be a superb addition to any birders library. While not a field guide in the true sense of the phrase, the book will certainly be an asset to birders looking to improve their ID skills.

What else have I been up to you ask? Well, let me see:
Christmas Bird Counts for one. I counted 3 CBCs this season and am the new compiler for one of them. We totaled 56 species for the new CBC I am compiler for. Interestingly enough, I came up with 48 of those...

I spent 3 days in Sax-zim Bog at the end of Dec which resulted in (finally) my lifer Great Gray Owl. We also cleaned out the bog and saw pretty much everything that could be seen there with the exception of a Goshawk which I have not seen for a few years now.

In January, a mixup, some miscommunications and new assignment of territories led me to not completing my entire section for the Annual Golden Eagle Survey. I did eventually find a Golden Eagle, but the numbers of other raptors were much higher.

February was highlighted by another trip to Sax-zim Bog. This time to guide at the annual Birding Festival along with my friends Alex Stark, Seth Cutright, Erik Bruhnke, Lars Benson and Alex Watson.
What better way to enjoy the winter boreal birds than doing something I love with some awesome friends? I can't think of one. :D

Otherwise, I have been trying to keep busy planning stuff for the spring and summer. What sort of stuff? Various trips, both national and international, Bird surveys, leading various field trips and a new job. What new job? oh don't worry, I'll be talking about that later. :)

This winter season has been fairly slow lately. Skyrocketing gas prices have kept my birding to a minimum. I haven't been out much except for the odd WSO trip here and there.

Monday, I'm headed to Milwaukee to attend a presentation at the Urban Ecology Center by Richard Crossley, author of that excellent new guide.

Next weekend is another WSO field trip. This time to Sheboygan. This is always a fun trip usually with some awesome birds around. What's up for this year? Purple Sandpiper anyone? Maybe? We haven't had one on this side of the lake for a few years now.

At any rate, this coming season should be a fun one. Hopefully everything will play out like I want it to.

Til next time, Happy Birding!

Brian Jacques

2011-02-07T16:14:00.001-06:00

"Who are we but strolling players,

Wand'ring through the long ago

Joys and sadness, hopes and longings,

Keep us traveling onward through

The laughter and applause of others,

Who view the passing cavalcade,

Leave echoes hovering some far summer,

Floating round a woodland glade.

'Twas but a tale for your amusement,

Like my small unworthy rhyme,

Gone, alas, into those realms,

The land of once upon a time." --Prologue to Marlfox

James Brian Jaqcues passed away Sat, Feb 5th at age 71 at his home in Liverpool England.

He was one of the greatest writers of the last century, and one of my favorite writers ever.

"You will find me in Noonvale on the side of a hill

When the summer is peaceful and high

Where streamlets meander, the valley is still

'Neath the blue of a calm, cloudless sky

Look for me at dawn when the earth is asleep

Till each dewdrop is kissed by the day

Neath the rowan and alder a vigil I'll keep

Every moment that you are away.

The earth gently turns as the seasons change slowly

All the flowers and leaves born to wane

Hear my song over the lea like the wind soft and lowly

And come back to Noonvale again." --Rose's song from Martin the Warrior

RIP Brian. You will be sorely missed.

May you find your own Noonvale of eternal peace.

The Best Bird of the Year, or, the simple things in life

2011-01-05T01:32:00.001-06:00

Scaled Antpitta, Tandayapa, Ecuador

Every year, once a year (usually between the last week of Dec and the first two weeks of Jan), the infamous question arises, "What was your best bird of the year?"

In past years, this question has been relatively simple. The American Flamingo I saw near Corkscrew Swamp in the mid 90s, the lifer Western Kingbird I found in Kansas one year, the lifer Lazuli Bunting that flew over the hood of the car in Colorado a few years later. More recently it was birds like the Purple Sandpiper or the White-faced Ibis or the Band-tailed Pigeon I saw in Cape May, NJ in the spring of '06, or the Roseate Tern or the Curlew Sandpiper that I saw there the following year.
Perhaps the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher in early Spring of '08 during a week spent in High Island, TX, or the Baird's Sparrow seen during the Young Birder's Conference in Minot, ND that June, or maybe it was the Flame-colored Tanager at Madera Canyon during VENT's Camp Chiricahua that July. All of them the best in their own way, even though the Tanager eventually won out.

'09 became slightly more difficult when more birds were seen and more rarities were found. Perhaps my best bird in '09 was the 15th Arizona record of Crescent-chested Warbler, a bird that I had always wanted to see. Maybe it was the 1st New Mexico State record Clapper Rail that I found at Bosque Del Apache one day in mid May, or maybe it was the highly cooperative Sinaloa Wren that always seemed to know when I was coming and never failed to show itself. Perhaps it was the 1st ABA record Gray-collared Becard that decided to show up in Cave Creek Canyon one day in early Jun that only a handful of people ever got to see, or maybe it was the 1st ABA record Brown-backed Solitaire found by my friends at Camp Chiricahua that year. My birding travels later that summer made it even more difficult. Yellow-footed Gull at the Salton Sea, a 1st known record of a hybrid between Great Knot and Surfbird that hung out at a Snowy Plover Reserve in San Diego for a few weeks, many lifers on my first ever pelagic trip on Monterey Bay, the Yellow-billed Magpies that I found on my way back to Arizona.

My trip home that year made it even harder. Green Jay, Audubon's Oriole and Magnificent Frigatebird near Corpus Christi, TX, White-tailed Hawk sitting on a telephone pole near Aransas NWR in a total downpour, Audubon's Shearwater blown up off the gulf by a freak storm in Louisiana. I had nearly 500 species to choose from that year. Rarity again trumped all others on my list with the Becard, the Wren and the Solitaire all tying for first place.

This past year however has been different. Before last year, I placed a high priority on keeping a year list and keeping my life list totals as exact as possible. 2010 started out the same. I spent the first few months of the year running up my year list as much as possible. Then, I took my first (and very much unexpected) trip out of the country. The 8 day tour to Costa Rica with VENT changed a lot of things for me. All of a sudden, I was seeing more birds in a single week than I could see in the US in several months. The birdlife of Costa Rica in March was extravagant, Toucans, Toucanets, Parrots, Parakeets, Tanagers, Orioles, Warblers, Sparrows, Motmots, Antbirds, Oropendolas and many others, all vying for attention. Each seemingly trying to outdo the previous one with spectacular colors and progressively wackier songs. How could anything back in the US compare with these birds of the tropics?

A month later, I was in Ecuador, living and working at Tandayapa Bird Lodge in the Andean Cloud Forest near Mindo. These birds were not quite as gaudy or spectacular as the Costa Rican ones, but they were special in their own way. Each with its own unique set of habits and its own character.
After a month in Ecuador, I flew home thinking that birding would not quite ever be the same again.

Back home in Wisconsin, several really good sightings found their way into my year. Multiple Ibis of two different species all over the state, nesting Black-legged Stilts at Horicon Marsh, my second WI Ruff turned up in Dane county in April and, along with it, my 600th ABA lifer in the form of a female Smith's Longspur.

A trip to Colorado in June cleaned up almost all possible lifers for me in that state and included some quite rare birds for that region. My lifer Lewis's Woodpecker was quite a welcome one as it was a bird I had long searched for without success. Another was my lifer White-tailed Ptarmigan which was finally done eluding me. Shortly after, my family took a trip to the Medicine Bow Mountains of Southern Wyoming where I found more Three-toed Woodpeckers than I believed possible. They were overshadowed however by only the 3rd ABA record of an Orange-billed Nightingale-thrush that chose to skip its usual Texas stopover all together and land in Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a feat unheard of before.

September yielded my 3rd trip to the tropics, my second trip to South America, and my first real taste of birding in the Amazon Rainforest. Here, birds abounded everywhere. Daily lists exceeded a whole year's worth of birding back home in WI, and the entire trip total for the 18 days I spent in Southern Peru nearly matched my whole life's worth of birding in North America. It was about this time that I lost track of my lists entirely. inundated with more birds in two weeks than I had seen in 10 years left me with a pile of paperwork almost too big to tackle. My ABA life list is fairly complete and easy to keep track of, but I haven't the slightest idea what my world life list is except that it's somewhere around 1600 species give or take a hundred or so.

Birding the Tropics is at once both exciting and frustratingly difficult. A lifer around every corner, and yet, that's only if you can get a good enough look to identify it. Over my 3 trips to Central and South America this year, I learned many things about birding and bird identification. I especially learned to study a bird for as long as it is cooperative and not just glance at it because, especially for some species, there's a good chance you may never see that bird again. The excitement of another lifer around every corner drives you on and on to see every part of the tropics and eventually the world.

When I arrived back home after this 3rd trip, birding seemed dull, boring and easy. These were birds I saw all the time, there were no possible lifers here and I could look at them whenever I wanted to. So, with nothing else to do that's what I did. Until November that is when a Ross's Gull showed up in Denver, CO. With this new lifer so close (Ross's Gulls live north of the Arctic Circle), I and 5 other friends gave chase and made the long drive overnight out to Denver to see the bird. Twitching and chasing birds long distance is, has been, and I think, always will be fun. The thrill of driving long distance just to see something with wings, a body, a head and feet keeps even the most exhausted birders wide awake, crossing our fingers, hoping the bird will be there when we arrive if nothing else, simply to make the long drive worth it. Then comes the exhilaration of actually seeing that bird you drove so far for, and then the mental and physical exhaustion taking over on the long drive home.

I ended the year of 2010 with a short trip to my favorite winter birding hotspot, Sax-zim Bog where I finally found a long-awaited lifer, Great Gray Owl. Another of the many birds I had been wanting to see for many years, it was quite a nice end to the year.

Last week, one of my friends just asked me the yearly, expected question, "What was your best bird of the year?"

I thought about this for a long while. I thought of all the places I had been and all the things I had seen. What could I really, truthfully call the best bird of the year?

Was it the Snowy Owl on Jan 1st at Buena Vista Grasslands? Or was it the Northern Hawk-Owl at Sax-zim Bog a month later? Maybe it was the Rufous-naped Wren in Costa Rica that was my 600th world lifer, or perhaps the Toucan Barbet in Ecuador a month later? Or was it my 600th ABA lifer Smith's Longspur in WI in April? Perhaps it was the stunning Resplendent Quetzal of montane Costa Rica or the Snowy Cotinga of the lowlands? Or maybe it was my lifer Lewis's Woodpecker or White-tailed Ptarmigan in Colorado? or all the Three-toed Woodpeckers in Wyoming? Or perhaps it was the Orange-billed Nightingale-thrush that so randomly chose to appear in the Black Hills? Maybe it was hearing Black-faced Solitaire in Costa Rica or White-eared Solitaire in Ecuador? Or was it the Spangled Cotinga or the Flame-faced Tanager or the Scarlet Macaw in Peru? Was it the Ross's Gull in Colorado this fall? Or was it the Great Gray Owl at Sax-Zim Bog so recently? Or perhaps it was the Inca Terns and the Diademed Sandpiper-Plover of Peru? Perhaps the spectacular Lyre-tailed Nightjar in Ecuador? or the Mangrove Cuckoo at 8000ft in Costa Rica? A bird seemingly so far from its regular habitat that it looked completely out of place. Was it the two species of Ibis in one scope view at the same time at Horicon Marsh? or was it the Black-necked Stilts that were doing their best to raise a successful nest so far from their normal range. Perhaps it was seeing Giant Antpitta up close in Ecuador or finding the beautiful Cinnamon Flycatcher? Was it the Eye-ringed Thistletail or the White-tufted Sunbeam or the Royal Cinclodes in Peru? or was it seeing a very out of place Black-billed Cuckoo in Colorado? Perhaps it was finding a cooperative Eastern Screech-owl near my home in WI or finding a pair of Whooping Cranes in my home county? Or was it being the first person to photograph a Chuck-wills-widow in WI or seeing my lifer Kirtland's Warbler?
Maybe it was the Costa Rican Pygmy-Owl or the Peruvian Pygmy Owl? Or was it the spectacular Sword-billed Hummingbird of Ecuador? Was it the Northern Shrike I found on almost every CBC or the Audubon's Warbler I found in WI on a CBC in western WI? Or maybe it was the Great Potoo of Peru or the Common Potoo of Ecuador? Or maybe the overly cute Collared Redstart in Costa Rica or the stunning Flame-throated Warbler or the young Torrent Tyrannulet sitting on a branch over a rushing stream begging to be fed?

Or maybe, just maybe, I told them, it was that Tufted Titmouse at my backyard feeders the other day gathering sunflower seeds to stash for a colder, less fruitful time of year.

Merry Christmas!!!

2010-12-24T22:06:00.000-06:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

2010-11-25T06:00:00.001-06:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!!!

Happy Halloween! (All Hallows Eve)

2010-10-31T07:00:00.012-05:00

For this year's Halloween, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite Halloween stories.
Enjoy!

Happy Halloween! :D

Peruvian Paradigms: Pt 3: Rainforest reminisces Pt 2: 1000 birds and counting

2010-10-28T13:16:00.001-05:00

Inca Terns, Callao, Peru

When I first arrived in Peru, I knew I would break the 1000 mark on the first full day of birding. I guessed that I would at least break the 1400 mark. What blew me away was the number of species I actually saw. I still don't have the exact total, but I'm fairly certain that my life list is now upwards of 1600. That would be nearly 600 species seen in two weeks in Peru, 465 of them in one week. Talk about insane......

The number of species in a single week was so mind blurring that had I not photographed a lot of them I might not even believe that I had seen them. During the trip, I birded almost every habitat in Peru; from coastal mudflats to beaches to western slope foothills to paramo to Andean bogs to east slope foothills to cloudforest to tropical rainforest and more.

The two Inca Terns above were one of my most wanted birds in Peru. The most elegant of all the Terns, these birds are graceful (if not somewhat chunky) fliers. The other coastal species I saw were pretty awesome too. Guanay (pronounced "wan-aye") Cormorant, Peruvian Booby, Peruvian Pelican, Kelp, Grey, Band-tailed and Andean Gulls, South American Tern, Peruvian Thick-knee, Surfbird, Whimbrel and many other species that were both lifers, and familiar residents in the US.

Of special interest were the members of the Toucan family that I encountered, like this Chestnut-eared Aracari and Blue-banded Toucanet:

Chestnut-eared Aracari, Puerto Maldonado, Peru

Blue-banded Toucanet

Higher up in the Andes, the stunning Gray-breasted Mountain-toucan takes over:

Gray-breasted Mountain-toucan

Toucans are a family of birds that have no living relatives in the ABA area, so for me, it's always fun to see one of the Toucan family.

Birding the tropical rainforest is always fun. You never know what you're going to see and you can always get a lifer, no matter how long you've spent in one spot. I actually know someone who spent three months at a single lodge in the Ecuadorian rainforest and got a lifer on his last day.

Rainforest birding is much like birding in Southern AZ in the fall. You spend a lot of time walking the trails looking for mixed flocks. Once you find one, you spend half an hour following it trying to glean out every last species in the group. Sometimes, there are so many birds in the flock that you don't know which way to look. There were a few times that I ended up birding with my camera rather than binoculars just to make sure I had a picture of the bird to identify it. This was necessary, because by the time you saw the bird, got a good look at it, flipped through half the field guide trying to find it, ID it and then look up again, the flock would be gone. Had I not been birding that way, I would've missed this Peruvian Recurvebill:

Peruvian Recurvebill, Puerto Maldonado, Peru

The bird came zipping through the leaves, landed on the branch for a second, then took off again. Too short of a time to see the diagnostic bill, but just long enough to snap a shot off.

One of the highlights of the week in the Amazon rainforest was a short trip up the Tambopata River to a small oxbow lake known for being the only place in Peru where one could find Unicolored Blackbird. A bird discovered at the location previously by our guide, Gunnar Engblom, of Kolibri Expeditions.
We did eventually see the Blackbird, though my photo of it is mostly grass and reeds.

Gunnar was pretty happy about getting the Blackbird:

The other inhabitants of the lake provided some better photo ops. This Hoatzin posed quite nicely:

Hoatzin, Puerto Maldonado, Tambopata, Peru

Hoatzins are, perhaps, the wackiest, as well as largest, member of the Cuckoo family; being roughly the size of a small turkey, with their spiky crown and the most insane call of any Cuckoo.

Here is a recording of a Hoatzin from the same area:
[http://www.xeno-canto.org/sounds/uploaded/SBFBVYGIJC/opihoa01.mp3]

Also present on the lake was a bird that I had been hoping we would see. If you recall last fall, a Sungrebe turned up at Bosque Del Apache in central New Mexico constituting a first US record of an unexpected species. Fortunately, the bird is far more common in the tropical Amazon and provided us with some great looks:

Sungrebe, Puerto Maldonado, Tambopata, Peru

Other birds seen during the day proved far too numerous to mention. Along the river, we had two chance sightings of birds that we never saw again. The mystical Bare-necked Fruitcrow in a quick flyby, high above, and the almost comical Red-crested Cardinal sitting on a rock in the middle of the river. Not wanting to get my camera wet (the river boat we were in was slightly more than a long, motorized Canoe...), I missed the chance to photograph either of these species.

Tune in again soon for part 3 of Rainforest Reminisces.

Peruvian Paradigms: Pt 3: Rainforest reminisces: Pt 1

2010-10-27T12:24:00.002-05:00

Sunset in the Amazon

As we crested the top of the last hill, all of a sudden the earth dropped away before us and turned from rolling foothills and wide river valleys to a vast ocean of trees, stretching as far as the eye could see towards the east. The land became utterly flat without a hint of the rolling hills we had just left. Sad was the view from the highway as we entered this sea of green for it appeared not as it had from above. Comprised not of continuous rainforest, but rather of small tracts of trees interspersed with vast open pastures, farm fields, savannah and lowland marsh. Only those few protected areas we visited displayed any resemblance to the stunning, untouched rainforest that is so often advertised. The town of Puerto Maldonado, while quite a large town, appeared nothing like the city of Lima that we had left the day before. Just as North American cities appear all the same, each Peruvian city was different. Puerto Maldonado was characterized by long, cobblestone or dirt streets lined with cinderblock or often mud brick buildings; power lines on the poles above all clumped together like a string of dense vines through the jungle; few of the buildings were more than one story high, and yet, this town, because of its location along the edge of the Rio Madre de Dios, is one of the most important cities in southern Peru due to the wide use of rivers in the Amazon as rainforest superhighways. Unlike the US where you can drive anywhere you want, much of the Amazon basin is not stable enough to support a vast highway or rail system. The result is the continuing use of riverboats as a primary means of transportation. So much so, in fact, that the city of Iquitos in Northern Peru, the largest city in the Peruvian rainforest, is accessible only by water.

But what, might you ask, is the primary mode of transportation on land? Well, it's not a car.

Auto Rickshaws, also known as Mototaxis or Pedicabs, like these below, are little more than a dirt bike with a metal or plastic cab attached:

Sorry for the blurred photo. Taken from a moving car

So how many people can you fit in one of these Pedicabs? Ten I think is the most I saw. Four in the back, four in the front (including the driver) and two riding on the back of the cab just like you'd ride on the back of your friend's bicycle.

Tune in again soon for Part 2 of Rainforest Reminisces when I actually start talking about birds again. :D

Peruvian Paradigms: Pt 2

2010-10-18T23:36:00.000-05:00

Andean Fox

Eight, two-legged creatures carrying weird-looking things over their shoulders walk up the road towards me. They stop, all facing the same direction, apparently looking and listening for something.
I slip through the dry brush to get a closer look. They're facing away from me, looking out over the nearby lake. They raise some curious looking black things to their eyes. I move closer.
There are ruins nearby, from some long-lost civilization who my ancestors must have watched as I watch these creatures today. Ruins that these present-day creatures now observe intently. What could these creatures be looking at with no apparent intent to hunt? A small bird flies up from the ruins and away towards the lake, and yet, these creatures make no move toward it. They simply observe.
I move closer, making sure they can't see me, and give them a good once over.
They carry no weapons I know of. They don't appear to be out to harm anything. Simply to observe.

The day is moving on, the sun rising higher in the sky. I must be off to find food before it becomes to warm. Sensing that these creatures pose no threat, I run across the road, up the hill a little ways and stop and turn for one last look. One of the creatures points something at me, but nothing happens save for a clicking sound. I turn and make my way around the hill and out of sight.
These creatures are a regular part of my life. There are many of them, but only a few of us.
I will live day to day and forget, but they will remember me for a long time to come.

Peruvian Paradigms: Pt 1

2010-10-08T19:55:00.001-05:00

The chill wind whipped across the nearly barren landscape. Nothing moved or shuddered under it's influence. Most of the plants growing up here were pressed close against the ground. I, being the sole object in its way, had to lean forward slightly to avoid being blown over backwards.
The mountains rose around me like a circle of sentinels, ever watching with a stern impassiveness. The valley fell below me like some deep chasm seeking to pull its known world down into its clutches.
The spectacular scene was lost on its observer however. Ignoring the stunning view, I raised my binoculars and scanned the boggy tundra in front of me. A flash of white caught my eye. White-fronted Ground-tyrant. It was a good bird, but rather drab by the standards I was searching for. I skipped over it moved on to the next bird in line. This one displayed a brown back and a pure white belly. White-bellied Cinclodes. An endemic and certainly a very desirable bird, but since I had spent time observing one at length about an hour earlier, I again skipped over it. Not finding my quarry, I started walking on a heading that took me through the bog in front of me. Hoping to flush something, I hopped and skipped from dry grass to raised lumps of hundred year old moss. Something dark moved in front of me. Excitedly, I raised my binoculars for a closer look. False alarm. It was one of the dirt common Bar-winged Cinclodes. Don't get me wrong, they're cool birds, but once you've seen a thousand of them, they lose some of their interest. I picked my way around the outskirts of the bog trying not to dunk my foot in the frigid water. Some of the small ponds were still covered with a thin layer of ice, still shaded this early in the morning from the harsh sun by a clump of grass or moss. Sunlit areas were bright and shadows were dark in the harsh light making finding birds a bit of a challenge. There were too many places to hide out there. I kept walking.

Stopping to scan again, I noticed a movement in the shadow of a clump of moss. I watched for a minute. Eventually, the bird popped out. It took only a split second to figure out what it was; a long-legged Charadriiforme with a slate-grey back, black and white barred chest and belly, black face, long, weirdly bent bill, rusty-rufous nape, and a thin white diadem encircling it's head.

Ecuador-Part 2

2010-09-14T15:59:00.000-05:00

First of all, sorry for not posting for two months. Every time I start to write, someone or something distracts me. So far, I've covered my first week of birding in the Ecuadorian Cloud Forest. This post will cover the next two weeks and some of the different places I visited while in Ecuador:

Part II:
Week 2 and 3.

The next two weeks were spent birding the heck out of the Tandayapa Valley and surrounding areas. 5 hiking trips to Bellavista Cloud Forest and the upper valley, 3 half day trips to Yanacocha Reserve, Milpe and Mindo cloud Forest reserves and to Paz de Aves, home of Maria, the Giant Antpitta.

Birding on the trails around the lodge was very good at times. One of the loudest residents of the main trail was this Rufous-crowned Warbler. While a Warbler, it is a member of the genus Basilueterus rather than our northern Dendroica genus.

Like in Costa Rica, Rufous-collared Sparrows were a common sight in the valley.

Immaculate Antbirds were another common sight at the hide behind Tandayapa Lodge.

And now my computer is giving me problems uploading photos, so I will finish the rest with text.

Yanacocha Reserve sits at around 10,000ft and is one of the few places in the world that one can find Black-breasted Puffleg. Unfortunately, these awesome Hummingbirds did not wish to cooperate with me. However, my single highland target bird did. A single Sword-billed Hummingbird posed just long enough for me to get it's picture. Other birds including Thornbills, Shining Sunbeam, Golden-breasted Puffleg, Rainbow-bearded Thornbill, Masked Flowerpiercer and Crimson-bellied Mountain-tanager made up for the lack of Black-breasted Pufflegs. The spectacular scenery lasted til about 9am when a cloud descended over the mountain and shut us in. After the scenery petered out, I focused my attention on the Hummingbird feeders where Glossy Flowerpiercers, Great Sapphirewing, Buff-winged Starfrontlet, Sapphire-vented Puffleg and others were busily emptying the feeders.

Milpe Reserve turned out to be the exact opposite of Yanacocha. Being in the foothills (~1200ft) it had more potential for tropical species. However, it turned out to be one of the worst days I'd had. Arriving 2 hours later than I'd wanted to, I hiked every trail in the reserve, including, at one point, scrambling over a fallen tree, wading through ankle deep mud and walking down a steep slope down to the river and back up again. Except for the first 100yds of trail, the place was deader'n a doornail. No Choco Toucan, no Moss-backed Tanager, nada. At least the Club-winged Manakins were nice to see. A Brown-billed Scythe-bill in a small Funariid flock made it a worthwhile day.

Mindo simply had the same species as Tandayapa. Nothing new to see there other than to say that I've visited the World-famous Mindo Cloud Forest. :)

Easily, the best day I had was a visit to Angel Paz at Paz de Aves Reserve near the Tandayapa Valley.
My guide at the reserve managed to call in Yellow-breasted Antpitta, Dark-backed Woodquail and Rufous-breasted Antthrush. All three species fairly difficult to see otherwise. Then, after much searching, we finally found, waay in the back of the reserve, Maria, the Giant Antpitta. The single most famous Antpitta in the world if I'm not mistaken. Hiking back to the feeding platforms at the beginning of the trail, the guide put out fruit and whistled in Sickle-winged Guan, Black-chinned Mountain-tanager, Toucan Barbet and others.

The birds in the Tandayapa Valley were equally as spectacular. White-winged Tanager, Flame-faced Tanager, Golden-crowned Flycatcher, Beautiful and Turquoise Jays, Cinnamon Flycatcher, Tropical Parula, Brown-capped Vireo, Powerful Woodpecker, Guayaquil Woodpecker, Common Potoo, and many other species graced the Cloud Forest during my walks. Pale-legged Hornero, Torrent Tyrannulet and White-capped Dipper were among the species that frequented the stream in the small village of Tandayapa.

In all, it was an awesome 3 weeks of amazing birding in and around the Tandayapa Valley. Many thanks to Tropical Birding for allowing me to stay at Tandayapa Lodge during my 3 weeks there.

I will try and post more photos to this blog eventually. Til then, most of my best photos from Ecuador can be viewed at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swallowtailphoto/sets/72157623925417032/

I am flying to Lima, Peru on Thurs (Sept 16th) and will be attempting to blog about my adventures in Southern Peru for the next 2 and a half weeks. I will be in Peru from Sept 16- Oct 4th.

So til next time, many safe and happy travels to you all!

Ecuador: Republic of the Equator. Week 1-Part 1

2010-07-10T19:17:00.003-05:00

Tandayapa Bird Lodge. The name is famous among those in the birding world, even to those who have never been there, those who wish they could go someday. What does the name mean? It means birding in the Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve, a place in which more than 300 species can be seen. It means traveling a short distance and birding the world famous Mindo Cloud Forest Reserve, some of the most pristine cloud forest in the world. Travel a short distance down-mountain and you reach the Jocotoco Foundation's Reserva de Milpe, a lesser known, but up and coming birding hotspot. It means driving the old Nono-Mindo road, home to some of the best birding in the world. But it also means home to Tandayapa Lodge, the best spot in the world to see Hummingbirds. Some 14 species regularly patronize the lodge feeders with some days seeing 16 or more species.

Tandayapa Lodge is owned and operated by Tropical Birding, a birding tour company that runs tours around the world. During the spring and summer, there is usually a volunteer resident at the lodge to help point out birds to clients and keep the place shipshape. I had the good fortune to spend 3 weeks in April as one of these volunteers. The following is an account of the 3 weeks that I spent birding around the lodge and areas nearby. In all, I found 209 species (rather pitiful for South America, but pretty decent considering where I went and that I spent most of the three weeks right around the lodge itself).

I flew into Quito on April 1st. The 5 hour flight got just a tad long towards the end. Arriving at the airport after 9pm, I caught a taxi to my hotel in downtown Quito. The next morning, I awoke early and hopped outside on the balcony. I quickly picked out a dove that looked suspiciously like a Mourning Dove. A quick check of my field guide revealed that this was in fact an Eared Dove, superficially similar to Mourning Dove but, of course, Ecuadorian. Several Great Thrushes were present in the area as well.

A couple hours later, Nick Athanas of Tropical Birding came to pick me up and take me to the Tropical Birding office. Sparkling Violetears were almost deafening, calling from the trees around the office. There, I met Pablo Cervantes (the manager of the lodge) who was going to take me up to the lodge. Pablo spoke some english and he and I communicated fairly well, so the drive up was quite pleasant. On the way, I was surprised at the amount of rainforest that had been logged off for farmland:

Once we got back into the Tandayapa Valley, it became a bit more natural and much more of the forest was protected. The "road" up the valley was narrow and muddy and full of potholes. Not the world's greatest road by any means, but at least you could call it a road. Sort of.....

The driveway up to the lodge was in substantially worse shape due to a recent landslide that took out half the driveway:

You could sort of call it a road.

I hauled my suitcase out of the car and then discovered the infamous stairs. Rising nearly 100ft straight up from the parking area. 77 steps later, I got my first look at the lodge. It was a long, low building with a single main room and a long hallway with bedrooms on either side. Pablo directed me to what was to be my room for the next 3 weeks.

Once I had dumped my belongings in my room, I grabbed my camera and bins and took off, checking out the amazing bird life around the lodge.

Since there wasn't much light left, I spent most of the time watching the Hummingbird feeders attempting to figure out exactly what each Hummer was.
The most common bird at the feeders was by far Buff-tailed Coronets like this one above. They were also one of the more vocal Hummingbirds in the area. Green Violetear was the other.

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird was the first species I recognized having seen it in Costa Rica a month earlier:

This one appears to have gotten into quite a fight and lost part of it's lower mandible.

I was amazed at the number of Hummingbirds there that had bent or broken bills. I would guess a lot of it is due to fighting, but who knows how much of it is due to environment as well.

As I watched, another Hummingbird with a long tail flew in. It made a quick visit to the feeder, then flew to a nearby perch, flaunting it's long, violet-purple tail. Violet-tailed Sylph!! This Choco endemic was high on my list of must-see birds and here was one, sitting right in front of me:

Unfortunately, the bird's tail was too long to get the whole bird in the frame, and have it appear larger than a pixel. They are amazing birds. One of the larger Hummers at the feeders, they can be bullies sometimes, but nowhere near as bad as the Buff-tailed Coronets that perch near a feeder and guard it.

One of the other common birds at the feeders was this Booted Raquet-tail. While not an endemic, these little guys are one of the most sought after birds of the tropics. They're about the size of a Rufous Hummingbird (maybe a tad smaller) and the males have long tail streamers with feathered "Raquets" at the end. The only similar species is the Peruvian endemic Marvelous Spatuletail. Both sexes of Booted Raquet-tail have the white, feathered "boots" around their legs.

A less common, but still totally awesome visitor to the feeders is the tiny Purple-throated Woodstar. While not the smallest of Hummingbirds, they do have the fastest wingbeats of any bird; their wings buzzing at nearly 130 beats per second.

Seeing 14 lifer species of Hummingbirds in less than an hour is a completely overwhelming experience. Identifying each of the 12 species proved tricky at first, but within a day or two, I became used to recognizing each of the 14 regular species without having to refer to my field guide.

After a quick dinner, darkness falling, I turned in after an awesome first day in the tropics of Ecuador.

Where in the world is Chris?

2010-06-22T10:52:00.000-05:00

That's always the question anymore among my friends. I'm always vanishing off to some different place and showing up where people least expect.

Currently? I'm sitting in Denver Int airport waiting to see if I can catch an earlier flight home.

I spent the past 10 days birding Colorado and adding 6 lifers and a host of state birds.

Finding some of them proved tricky. White-tailed Ptarmigan, Sage Sparrow and Mountain Plover were among the trickier ones.

I will detail the trip a bit more when I arrive home.

Where am I off to next? I have no idea. I think it'll be family vacation to somewhere in the US... but... if you know me and how my schedule changes, I could end up half way around the world next week.......

Til next time, Happy Birding!

Ecuador Republic of the Equator

2010-03-31T01:33:00.001-05:00

A very common question as of late has been "where in the world is Chris?" Well, 24 hours from now, I will be in a hotel in downtown Quito, Ecuador. What will I be doing? I have a position as a birding volunteer at Tandayapa Bird Lodge in the Upper Tandayapa Valley about an hour's drive north of Quito. For the next two months, I will be living and working at Tandayapa Bird Lodge. My job is to assist the staff with whatever they require, help guests with finding and identifying the local bird life, and pretty much just go birding all day every day and find as many of the local endemics as I can!

How many species is that? The lodge checklist is approx 300 species long. 250 of which are fairly regular around the lodge. 200 of which I will likely see. Considering it's spring, there won't be any boreal migrants around and almost all 200 species will be lifers. The only exceptions being the ones that I saw in Costa Rica at the beginning of the month.

Did I expect to be flying to the tropics twice in the same month? nope! Even two weeks ago I couldn't have told you I was leaving in just a few hours. Just another surprise trip for me. Just like the Costa Rica trip.

Anywho, I will update this as often as possible with photos and tales of my adventures in the tropics, so stay tuned!!

Til next time, as always:
Happy Birding!!!

Aerial Tram and Savegre Lodge

2010-03-29T04:48:00.002-05:00

Yes, that is a Resplendent Quetzal. One of the most sought after birds of the Tropics, possibly in the world. They are endemic to Central America, ranging from southern Mexico into central Panama. A bird of the highlands, their range is usually restricted to above 7000ft in elevation, but sticking to the deep valleys rather than the mountaintops.

With their deep, blood red chest, iridescent blue head and shimmering blue-green back, they are widely regarded as the most beautiful bird in the world.

The twin "feathery" feathers extending past the tail are one of the signature field marks of this species. Not really tail feathers, the two feathers are actually the extended central two upper tail covert feathers.

We saw a total of about 8 Quetzals during our 2 day stay at Savegre Lodge. Not bad eh? :D

Our last day at La Selva Research Station brought rain, a few lifers, and a sighting of a bird that we would see only once. Mimi picked out a Laughing Falcon sitting on a dead snag half a mile away through the rain. Not a bad find considering how tricky these birds can be!

Our drive to Savegre Lodge was marked by an early start, a stop at the Aerial Tram and Butterfly Garden and a rather long day.

The stop at the Butterfly Gardens was a productive stop considering that we saw only a couple species of Hummers. Violet-headed made up most of the birds we saw. Rufous-tailed made up the rest.
The lack of Hummers was more than made up for by the flight of raptors that went through. It started with a flyover Double-toothed Kite that some of us managed to get onto before it vanished over the trees. Then, while waiting for a Lattice-tailed Trogon to come out, someone happened to look up and spotted this huge, black and white bird cruising slowly over, far above us. The call went up within a matter of seconds. KING VULTURE!!! In all, 6 of these awesome birds floated over, high above us.
Then a few people (including me) spotted a large, buteo-like raptor with broad wings and after much discussion, decided it was a Great Black-hawk.

A flock of Tanagers flew through. Mostly Olive, but also containing Golden-hooded among others. A Scarlet-thighed Dacnis gave quick views and our thousandth Chestnut-sided Warbler was seen (well, somewhere up there anyway...)
After deciding that we had plundered all the goodies from that section of forest, we moved on to Savegre Lodge.

Savegre Lodge turned out to be nestled at the very bottom of one of the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen. The greenery was a welcome change from the drab brown I'd been seeing all winter here in the upper midwest. The entire valley was a glittering shade of green.

Panorama stitching is courtesy of my friend Andrea over at the Earthbirds Blog

The buildings blended well with the surroundings and the blue sky overhead was a welcome change from the grey clouds we had been seeing all week.

Even as we hopped off the bus, the birding began in earnest. This was a completely different group of species than the lowland rainforest birds we had been getting used to. This Black-capped Flycatcher posed quite nicely for the camera.

The Hummingbirds proved to be easier to see and even a little more spectacular than the lowland Rufous-tails. The star of the show turned out to be this White-throated Mountain-gem who appeared to be well versed in the art of posing:

Green Violetear was by far the most numerous Hummingbird and possibly the most numerous bird of the highlands. You could hear their fast, chipping call almost everywhere we went.

The best part about Savegre Lodge was the beautiful gardens on the grounds. Words cannot fully describe them. Neither can photos, but here is my attempt at it:

I spent most of the last part of our first day at Savegre exploring the gardens with Dave, Mimi, and a few other people. The actual number of species at the lodge wasn't even close to the diversity of the lowlands, but the quality made up for it. There were still some reminiscent species from the lowlands. The ever present Tropical Kingbird had perched himself high on a power line, and Clay-colored Thrushes still attempted to wake me up long before the designated time, but the higher-elevation, montane species took over from the rest. Flame-colored Tanagers were very vocal, Grey-breasted Wood-wren replaced it's White-breasted cousin, Spangle-cheeked Tanagers took over from Olive and Swallow-tailed Kite filled in the nearly absent spot that the Turkey Vultures once filled.
Perusing our way through the garden, a Ruddy-capped Nightingale-thrush captured our attention as it acted much like a Robin. Hopping around on the ground out in the open and giving excellent looks:

Here in the highlands, a few extra families reside that don't show up at all in the lowlands.
The ringing, echoing, bell-like tones of Black-faced Solitaire filtered down from above like sunlight filters through the leaves of a forest. We never saw the majority of them, but fortunately, a few did give us excellent looks and one was nice enough to pose just long enough to have his portrait taken:

Hunting deeper through the gardens, someone eventually spotted one of the far cuter birds of the area.

I had taken a break and gone rock hopping down the creek, but managed to get back just in time to see and photograph this Collared Redstart. Unfortunately, he didn't pose long, but did stay long enough for everyone to get excellent looks at this awesome bird.

Back at the lodge that evening, several of us took advantage of the hummingbird feeders (something non-existent in the humid lowlands due to the extra-high maintenance they require down there)
The hummingbirds proved to be very much used to people and would let us walk right up to them without even blinking.

White-throated Mountain-gems are totally awesome aren't they? :D

Just as a comparison to how close they'd let us get, I took the following photo with my little Point & Shoot rather than my big DSLR. Crazy eh?

Our first and only full day of birding at Savegre Lodge involved a run to the very top of the nearby Cerro de La Muerte. As one goes up in elevation in the tropics, the species diversity decreases with every 1000ft of elevation gain. Only about half a dozen species live at the top of Cerro de La Muerte. Several of them are Endemic to the highlands of Costa Rica and Panama.

Sooty Thrush is one of the simplest birds to ID in the Costa Rican highlands. Simply because it is bigger and darker than anything else that can be found at the top of Cerro de La Muerte. Although, even when seen further down the mountain, it is still unmistakeable.

Our trip to the top of the mountain targeted only a couple species because they could be found nowhere else. Our primary search was for Volcano Junco. A bird that is restricted to a few mountain-tops in Costa Rica and Panama. Fortunately, the search proved easy as we saw 3 within the first 15 minutes of getting off the bus. This particular individual posed quite nicely:

After some searching, we eventually found Fiery-throated Hummingbird, Large-footed Finch, Volcano Hummingbird and Timberline Wren. Having filled out our list, we headed back to the lodge for the evening.

Our final morning at Savegre, we started with one of the most productive hikes I've ever been on.
We made excellent use of the Lodge's 4X4 vehicles as we headed to the top of the mountain in preparation to hike down. On the way up, several of us in the first vehicle heard a Rufous-browed Peppershrike. A hidden testament to the fact that there were more birds here than we could possibly see in the alloted time. Arriving at the top of the trail, we checked out a staked out Costa Rican Pygmy-Owl nest. Despite our repeated attempts to coerce one into showing itself, we gave up and started inspecting the other local birds. Here, at 8500ft in elevation, Golden-bellied Flycatcher replaced the Kiskadees of the lowlands. While the group headed off chasing one of these admittedly awesome birds, I stuck it out for the Pygmy-owl. Reverting to my 4 months of experience looking for cavity-nesting owls in Arizona, I decided to try a classic trick. I walked up and scratched the tree. Having proved it working on every cavity-nesting owl I had tried it on so far, I had high hopes for it working this time. Sure enough, curiosity got the best of the little owl and he poked his head out just long enough for me to take his portrait:

Unfortunately, even though I called to the group the moment he stuck his head out, they arrived just as he poked his head back in and, not to be outsmarted again, refused to come out. Despite all further attempts at convincing him to appear.

As we were about to head down the trail, Dave's sharp ears picked out the sound of a Silvery-throated Jay calling from somewhere nearby. Using playback with great effectiveness, Dave lured the Jay closer so we could see it. Highly intellegent, like most corvids, the jay was not easily convinced and kept his distance. Just close enough for us to see. Just barely. Eventually, he flew into the tree directly above us where we lost him. While looking for the jay, I spotted a movement at the top of a 100ft Oak. The white belly combined with long, spotted tail and black and yellow bill left little doubt as to the family but the exact ID was a tad harder in figuring out. The weirdness of the location left me guessing for a second before it hit me. I called to Dave "Dave, I've got a Cuckoo" Dave just gave me a look that said "a what???" He called back "A Cuckoo???" "Yea, I've got a Cuckoo" I replied. He came running over and we both studied the bird. After photographing and examining both the photos and the highly cooperative bird through the scope, we both reached the same conclusion. The pattern of the tail and the rather buffy coloring underneath left no doubt. It was a Mangrove Cuckoo.

It was definitely one of the rarer birds that we found during the trip. It is also my understanding that this was not only a new bird for the tour's all time list, but also a new bird for the Savegre Lodge list.
Seeing a bird that I connect with the lowland swampy forests of southern Florida so far from it's regular habitat at the top of an oak halfway up a mountain was, while wacky, pretty awesome! It was the last new bird for the trip that we actually saw (we heard Buffy Tuftedcheek on the way down).

In all, it was a completely awesome 8 days in Costa Rica with an awesome group and awesome guides!
Many thanks to Dave and Mimi for putting up with my nearly constant questions!

The rest of my photos from the trip can be found at:
http://flickr.com/photos/swallowtailphoto

Would I go back? of course! In a second!!

La Selva and the area around

2010-03-28T01:00:00.000-05:00

I discovered very quickly that Green Honeycreepers are excellent at posing for photos. This female gave great views and posed quite nicely. It was a start to an awesome day.

Male Green Honeycreepers, as I found out, aren't all that inclined to pose. They prefer finding Bananas to eat........

They sure do light up though. Like an iridescent fluorescent light bulb.

After breakfast, we hopped on the bus to La Selva. This time, we stopped only a couple times on the entrance road. Once, long enough to find and photograph this Slaty-tailed Trogon:

While waiting for our guide, I found out that Blue-black Grosbeaks don't like to pose either. This one stayed for only a second long enough to snap this shot:

Black-striped Sparrows are open-country birds and we found them only when we left La Selva and headed toward the foothills. This cooperative individual posed quite nicely:

The research station did have a few species that we couldn't do without and couldn't find elsewhere.

This Crested Guan was one of a group of 6 Guans that came to the feeders at the station.

They're pretty awesome birds and nothing like anything else I've ever seen.

Kind of a cross between a Chicken and a Turkey.........

Very cool to see.

Many species in the rainforest are easy to see. They have bright colors, they're gaudy, they sit out in the open, etc. But some species can be very difficult to see. Tinamous are a family of birds that has roots that go back to the first bird-like creatures. They have no other living relatives and are in a family to themselves. Looking a bit like big chickens almost, they are very seclusive birds and very difficult to find at all, much less see. Our luck turned out to hold for the good as Dave spotted this bird sitting right beside the path. I was surprised it came out so sharp since I was using manual focus practically in the dark when I took this:

The other species we couldn't go without was another Guan-like bird.

This time, a special bird of the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica, Panama.

Great Currasow is perhaps the most striking of these birds and deserves it's place here at the bottom as the last bird mentioned and a prominent one.

It was definitely a highlight species of the trip as this was our only chance to see one:

Sorry for the clipped post, but I wanted to get some photos out there. I have a couple more posts about Costa Rica coming soon and hopefully, I'll include more story-telling.

Til next time, Happy Birding!

Costa Rica 2010: La Quinta de Sarapiqui and La Selva Research Station

2010-03-25T03:18:00.000-05:00

The sudden song of a Robin singing just outside my window jolted me awake. It took me a second to realize that I wasn't at home and that the Robin singing outside was not a Robin at all but a Clay-colored Thrush. Glancing at the clock, I saw the time. 3:45am. Cursing the vociferous, mud-colored bird, I dropped back against the pillow, attempting to savor what little sleep I had left before my alarm went off 15 minutes later. When the alarm finally did go off, I hauled myself up and out of bed, grabbed my binoculars and stumbled out the door. It wasn't even fully light yet. Though, whether the sun had just come up or was still below the horizon was impossible to tell due to the heavy layer of clouds that blanketed the forest as far as I could see. hovering just above the trees, they provided an effective barrier to any hopeful rays of light that tried to sneak through. Somewhere overhead, a Chestnut-mandibled Toucan confirmed that I was no longer in Kansas. I listened, inquisitively as Collared Aracaris called, Tanagers chipped and Honeycreepers made their presence known. It was all so different! Different from anything I had ever seen or heard before.

After breakfast, roughly an hour and a half later, we grabbed our gear and boarded the bus to the world famous La Selva Reasearch Station. The station owns land on the lowland outskirts of Braulio Carillo National Park. The park land extends clear up to the top of Volcan Irazul making the stretch of land from La Selva to the crater's edge one of the largest tracts of un-interrupted old-growth forest that stretches from the high mountain oak forest to the lowland rainforest below.

Our arrival at La Selva was greeted by the quintessential ingredient of lowland tropical forest. Rain.
Nonetheless deterred, we walked down the entrance road determined to get our first real lowland birding in. A flock of Tanagers stopped us cold in our tracks barely 50ft from the bus. The ever-present and gaudy Golden-hooded Tanagers reined over this flock.

A White-necked Jacobin perched high in a tree above us and a Slaty-tailed Trogon called from somewhere up ahead. Suddenly, a large, dark bird flashed by just over our heads. I caught the yellow in the tail as it vanished through the trees. Our leader, Dave Wolf, confirmed my suspicions by identifying the bird as a Montezuma Oropendola. Lifer!!!!!
It was one of the several birds that would go from lifer to "trash bird" in about 15 minutes.

As we walked farther down the road, the Trogon gave us excellent looks and photo ops. More Tanagers abounded all around us and Toucans and Oropendolas flew overhead. A singing Bright-rumped Attila (pictured above) gave us most excellent looks

Further down the road, Dave managed to locate a Great Antshrike. Finding the typical skulker wasn't easy, but with a bit of playback and some coaxing, he finally made an appearance:

It took about 3 hours, but we finally made it down to the station itself. It was there that we picked up the most species. Golden-hooded Tanagers, Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds, Masked Tityra, 3 species of Puffbird, Grey-crowned Flycatcher, Rufous-winged Woodpecker and many others.
The big one was a highly cooperative Broad-billed Motmot:

By my calculations, this was my 700th world lifer. I had seen my 600th lifer only 3 days before when a Rufous-naped Wren woke me up at the hotel in San Jose on day 1.

The local guide at La Selva took us back onto one of the trails. Here, the birds of the open edges left us and the birds of the interior rainforest took over. It was much quieter with far less activity. A calling Rufous Motmot held our attention for a time, but refused to come close enough to the trail to actually see.
Finally, a stunning Chestnut-colored Woodpecker perched on a conspicuous branch and gave spectacular views to all:

Returning to La Quinta, we had a special treat in store for us. The Red-legged Honeycreepers had finally come in to the bananas offered by the staff.

I don't know what it is about Bananas, but everyone likes them. Even the local birds! :)

The end of a long day of birding came quickly. Darkness set in fast and before I knew it, it was time for sleep. We all crashed after the long day. No idea what lifers were in store for us the next day.

As I fell asleep, the repetitive call of a Paraque echoed in the background.
Keeping alive the darkened forest and lulling me to slumbers and dreams of what amazing birds were to come.

Tropical travels: a new twist to birding

2010-03-24T01:37:00.000-05:00

I found myself seated across the aisle from two girls. They appeared to be roughly my age. Casting my eyes further up the aisle, I took in the rest of the occupants of the Boeing 767-400. The average age was about 40-50 but with many younger people scattered throughout. Many were locals, on their way home. The majority were Americans, like the two girls next to me, on spring break and wanting to get away from the icy fingers of winter that had been gripping most of the lower 48 states. The two girls next to me (I never did get their names) were spending a week going backpacking, zip-lining, camping and just having a totally awesome time during their first trip out of the country. Looking at myself, I wasn't much different. Sure, my idea of a fun time differed slightly from theirs, but we were still going for very much the same reasons.

As the plane neared our destination, we puzzled over the customs forms. What was this? and what did they want to know that for? It took a while, but we managed to figure it out in the end.

The last hour of the flight seemed to drag out forever. At that point, we had been in the air for nearly 6 hours. Even with the layover in Miami, it still wore on us and seemed to tease us in a never ending battle of tensions.

Finally, after what seemed to be much longer than an hour, we landed, without mishap. Arriving at the terminal, I waved goodbye to my two traveling companions, wishing them a good week ahead. Would I ever see them again? probably not.

It was late at night, so passing through Customs and collecting my bags was a breeze. While collecting my bags, I met two of the 13 other people I would be spending the week with. They seemed to be a very pleasant pair. After collecting our bags, we met our ride and hopped it straight to the hotel for some shut-eye. Our hotel was the Hilton in downtown San Jose, Costa Rica. Arriving, I dumped my bags, grabbed my laptop and set out to explore the darkened lobby area while trying to find the best internet signal. I was far too excited to sleep just yet. It's not every day that one finds oneself in the middle of a capital city in a foreign country with an amazing week of birding ahead!

I finally dropped off to sleep around 1am. The 5:30 alarm came much too early. But, excitement and anticipation hauled me out of bed and down to the restaurant for breakfast. There, I met the rest of the group of birders I would be spending the week with and our two intrepid leaders.
Dave and Mimi Wolf have been leading tours for Victor Emmanuel Nature Tours (VENT) since day one. They had been leading the Short Costa Rica trip for nearly 30 years. It was definitely an amazing intro to birding in the tropics.

You're probably asking yourself right now "how did he get to go on a VENT tour to Costa Rica??"
All I can say is a lot of patience, careful vigilance, and a LOT of luck.
I was sitting at the kitchen counter one day nearly a month ago when I caught the note, posted to the Iowa bird listserve. Apparently, Linda had booked the trip, already paid for it, and couldn't go. So rather than have the money go to waste, she asked for someone else to go in her place. First come, first served. All expenses paid.

Without further ado, I called Greg at the VENT office and booked the trip. Less than a week later, I found myself where you found me. Sitting on a plane to Costa Rica, not even fully believing where I was.

Dave and Mimi were awesome trip leaders! Very efficient, highly knowledgeable and very patient with my endless shower of questions. I could not recommend them more if you ever wanted to take a trip to Costa Rica.

Surprisingly, the trip participants were also all very nice people and for the most part, good birders. It was a very good group and took the pace of the trip quite well.

Over the course of the week, I learned more about more species than I had ever learned about less than half that number in 10 years time. If you want an introduction to birding the Tropics, I highly recommend going on the VENT short Costa Rica tour. It is well worth the cost even if it's only a week long.

Ok, I know, you want me to get to the juicy parts. The actual birds we saw during the trip.
Very well, let me go get my checklist. It's impossible to remember all of the 260 some species we saw during the trip y'know..........

2010 IOS Gull Frolic

2010-02-22T04:54:00.000-06:00

Gulls, gulls, gulls and more gulls. That's what this past Sat (Feb 20th) was about. It was the Illinois Ornithological Society's (IOS) annual Gull Frolic field trip. This trip has been going on for quite a number of years and has changed over the years to become almost a one day Gull festival rather than a just field trip. Complete with food, drinks, tons of people and even a speaker for the day, this is definitely one of the best Gull-watching events in the country.

This year, the festivities had record attendance. Mostly of people, but thousands of gulls also received the memo about the day and arrived right on schedule.

There was no way to count the total number of gulls that covered the harbor and left little room for the ice. Estimates ranged anywhere from 6 to 10,000 birds.

This year, gulls of seven different species were in attendance. As always, Herring Gull was present in the highest numbers with Ring-billed being a close two. It was difficult to say who was in third place though. Thayer's Gulls probably took that spot due to the 8-12 individuals that were flying around.

Third place was Glaucous Gull at at least 5-7 individuals floating around the harbor. Iceland Gull was a close fourth though with at least 4 birds present. Three Lesser Black-backed Gulls hovered around with at least two giving excellent looks. Great Black-backed Gulls weren't quite as cooperative. The only individuals present coming only as close as the breakwater.

Chumming was the order of the day. Don't know what Chumming is? That's why I'm here.

Chumming is essentially baiting the birds to get them to come in closer and create a flock that helps draw in other birds. The word comes from the Virginia Algonquin Indians from a word that they used for the practice of baiting fish. It is done most effectively during pelagic trips where Popcorn, fish scraps, fish oil, blood and anything else edible is tossed into the wake of the boat where the ever hungry gulls come to get it. The feeding flock eventually attracts other opportunistic scavengers such as Petrels, Shearwaters and Albatross. In this case, since we were inland and had no seabirds to attract, the bread we threw out served only to draw the birds closer for better photo ops and ID looks at birds such as this winter adult American Herring Gull:

Iceland Gull was a favorite of the day, though no L.g. glaucoides subspecies could be identified out of the flock. All of the individuals seen were the Larus glaucoides kumlien's subspecies like this 1st cycle "Kumlien's" Iceland Gull:

Glaucous Gull was easily one of the larger gulls to attend. This bird is easily distinguished from the Iceland above by it's very pale, bleached, almost white feathers, pinkish bill with a black tip and massive size. These birds are almost as big as Great Black-backed Gulls, just to give you an idea of how big they are.

This guy was also a bit of a bully:

This Lesser Black-backed Gull was highly cooperative and gave me a chance to get some decent shots for once. Lesser Black-backed is a relatively easy gull to identify. The darker back, streaked head (though lightly on this bird) Herring Gull sized bill and distinctly yellow legs make this gull stand out quite well in a flock:

Thayer's Gulls are not quite as obvious at first. The adults of this species look almost exactly like adult Herring Gulls but with a few differences. The bird below is a classic adult Thayer's Gull.

Lack of black on the primaries, heavily streaked head, smaller bill and head, almost "daintier" structure, dark eye, etc.

As I noted above, Thayer's Gulls can be quite tricky to ID. Here is one such example.

The bird below is a Thayer's Gull (Larus thayerii). In naming some of the field marks of the bird above, I named the dark eye as one of the primary ones. The dark eye can be quite useful in picking out adult Thayer's Gulls out of a flock. However, the bird below is proof that this ID mark is not always reliable.

This Thayer's Gull has a yellow eye. Every other ID mark fits, except the eye. Although, the bill is slightly more yellowish as well. Also note that the inner webs of the primaries are darker black than you'd normally expect and there is little streaking on the head. Sometimes makes me wonder if these birds are actually hybrids with Herring Gull or not. At any rate, the current accepted ID for these birds is and remains Thayer's.

Anywho, I will be dealing with more details of Gull identification in a later post. My next post will be my favorite photos from the day and then my Gull ID post so watch for that soon!

The Gull frolic was an awesome experience and if you haven't been, I would highly recommend attending at least once, if not multiple times. It's always on the same weekend every year so mark your calendars!!
Many thanks go out to the members of the IOS Gull Frolic committee who went to great lengths to organize this year's festivities and entice Gull expert Alvaro Jaramillo to come all the way from his home in Half Moon Bay, California to the icy Midwest to give his excellent presentation on Slaty-backed Gull ID (which I will partly touch on in my gull ID post and in the next post as well.)

So til next time,
Happy Birding!

Sax-zim Bog Winter Birding Festival

2010-02-18T04:10:00.000-06:00

Sax-zim Bog.

No, the name is not Norwegian for "Frozen toes." Though, to some it may bring thoughts of icy Minnesota cold and deep snow. To quote long time Minnesotan and humorist Al Batt "The Mercury dropped so fast it bent the nail that held the thermometer." But even though it can be cold sometimes, the bog is one of the best and most famous birding spots in the country.

To birders, the name brings thoughts of Owls, Boreal Finches, Chickadees and Woodpeckers, Sharp-tailed, Ruffed and Spruce Grouse and the easternmost place to find breeding Black-billed Magpie.

Owls, especially Great Gray and this Northern Hawk-Owl, are what draws the most people:

Sax-zim Bog is just that. A bog. More precisely, it's a Black Spruce/Tamarack bog.

The Bog is located about an hour's drive northwest of Duluth, Minnesota between the two almost non-existent towns of Sax and Zim, just north of the town of Meadowlands.

It's a vast place. Acres upon acres of endless trees interspersed with open fields and small clearings.

This year's Sax-zim Bog Birding festival took place on Valentines day weekend.

If you're a birder without a girlfriend, what better way could you possibly spend a weekend?

Especially with awesome birds around like this Pine Grosbeak that are already suited up for the occasion:

This year's festival was excellent. Very well run. Everyone seemed to have an awesome time and, for the most part, got to see what they wanted. Due to the slow year, there was a distinct lack of boreal birds including many finches, and most notably, Great Gray Owls. Out of roughly 200 people (both with the festival and separate) not a single person was able to find a Great Gray Owl during the festival. I guess the food must be good up north.

Many of the favorites still graced our presence though. Redpolls, though much less common this year from last year were still a conspicuous sight around the bog. This highly cooperative bird posed quite nicely for the camera:

While Redpolls and other finches (especially Siskins) were present in fair numbers, other species were either present in small numbers or nonexistent. Not a single Black-billed Magpie was found and only a few Northern Shrikes. Gray Jays also seemed to be fewer than last year as well as the Chickadee population. Despite this the old favorites still showed up on time. This beautiful Boreal Chickadee gave us spectacular looks, posing here and there, just being the star of the show:

On Valentines Day, I lead a field trip to Minnesota's famous Aitkin County. The primary goal of the trip was Sharp-tailed Grouse on a Lek. Arriving at the location at sunrise, we spotted roughly a dozen Sharp-tailed Grouse already on site. Unfortunately, the moment we tried to hop off the bus, they all flushed and refused to return. Admitting defeat, we headed onwards. The rest of the day was composed of two Northern Goshawks, a few finches, a couple Gray Jays and lots of clouds and wind.

Since no Evening Grosbeaks could be found in the bog, we opted to stop by Kim Risen's feeders for a bit to try to find some. We were not disappointed. In all, 14 birds eventually came down to the feeders including this beautiful adult male:

The festival ended with the trip returning to the festival headquarters in Meadowlands.
A fun time was had by all in one of the best winter birding spots in the country. Even though some of the birds appeared to have missed the invitation.

Many thanks to Mike Hendrickson and the rest of the festival committee for all their hard work and long hours making everything work.
Thanks also to the festival speakers, Kim Risen and Al Batt for their excellent presentations.
The festival would not have been the same without Al's quick wit and great jokes.

It was another great weekend in Northern Minnesota!
Mark your calendars for Valentines Day weekend 2011! Hope to see some of you there next year, attending this great festival that is without a doubt, the best winter birding festival for boreal species in the country!

Til next time,
Happy Birding!

Michael Jackson, Moonwalking and Red-capped Manakins

2010-02-02T05:28:00.008-06:00

How many of you have heard of Michael Jackson? I thought so.
How many have seen his "Moonwalk" move? I thought so too.

But, how many of you have heard of the little bird that does it too? Some? not all.
That's ok. I expected that.

Well here you go:

Red-capped Manakin (Pipra mentalis) is a bird of the Central and South American rainforests in the family Pipridae. It is found in Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru.

There are four species of Manakins that are black with red heads, but none of them have a display like the Red-capped does. It is the only bird in the world known to do the "Moonwalk" move that Michael Jackson made so famous.

Dr. Kim Bostwick explains more about these tiny, tropical dancers:

If you haven't been down to Central or South America to see these little guys, I would highly recommend it. They are definitely one of the top 1000 birds to see before you die.

What are the other 999 species you ask? Gunnar Engblom of Kolibri Expeditions is compiling a list of just that. 1000 birds to see before you die.

Another species of Manakin you may have heard about is Club-winged Manakin.

This species has a slightly different display. They use their modified secondary feathers to produce a violin-like "chup-tseeeeep" sound to attract mates. Studies of this species by Cornell's Dr Kim Bostwickhave shown that they vibrate their wings at 1500hz which is exactly the same frequency as the sound

More on these Manakins from Cornell, via Nat Geo:

In all, Manakins are amazing little birds and some of the flashiest in the rainforest.
They're practically "jumping to be noticed."

On my upcoming trip to Peru this fall, I will hopefully see a few species of Manakins. Red-capped being high on the list of Manakins to see. Till next time, Happy Birding!

Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Is the latest report true? or a poorly fabricated hoax?

2010-01-22T20:47:00.001-06:00

Ivory-billed Woodpecker by J.J. Audubon.

If you haven't seen it yet, the latest sighting report of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker has come in a most interesting form. The following post, on an obscure website, came just a couple days ago:
http://www.free-press-release.com/news-daniel-rainsong-finds-living-ivory-billed-woodpecker-1263914173.html

The hopeful people tried to give it some leeway at first. Even a secondary post on the author's website tried to validate the sighting: http://www.joehepperle.com/Joe/Opinion/Ibw.htm
However, a simple google search will reveal all.
So who are some of these people? The answers are below:

First, who is Joe Hepprle? He's some guy from Iowa who posts totally random, unrelated stuff on his website: http://www.joehepperle.com/Index.html A Google search will tell you more about him.

Who is Daniel Rainsong? A google search reveals that too. He's a gambler. Known as "The Wizard of Odds." Does he have any reputation in the birding world? Absolutely not. Does anyone know him outside the gambling world? nope. Can anyone other than Joe vouch for his skill in differentiating between an Ivory-bill and a Pileated? NO! He has no known record in the birding community. No blog posts, no photographs, he doesn't post on any listserve anywhere in the country, he's not known in outdoorsman/hunting circles, NADA!

Another person mentioned is Rita Goldstein. The only Rita Goldstein who comes up on google is a neuro-imaging scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

What is Project Indigo? Who knows whether they have named their own (probably faked) search Project Indigo or not, but, the real Project Indigo is a program to provide a home for homeless children.

So what does Daniel Rainsong know about the Ivory-billed Woodpecker? Apparently just enough to know that it's an ecological mystery as to whether they exist or not.
The Twin Cities Naturalist came up with some interesting info here: http://www.twincitiesnaturalist.com/2010/01/daniel-rainsongs-craiglist-ad-about.html

Radd Icenoggle's blog post is hopeful, but full of skepticism:
http://www.radleyice.com/2010/01/ivory-billed-woodpecker-or-bust/
You can read my comment on his post.

Here's another question? Does Daniel Rainsong actually exist? Apparently so. The following excellent compilation was posted to Facebook by Matt Medenhall of Birder's World Magazine. Apparently, Dr. Remsen said that Mr Rainsong had talked to him but did not have the photos ready to show him:

At the risk of giving credibility to a possible hoax, here's what we know about the latest report of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker sighting.

If Daniel Rainsong has photos of a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker, as this press release claims, he has not yet shown them to two leading Ivory-bill experts.

Van Remsen, curator of birds at Louisiana State University's Museum of Natural Science and an adjunct professor of biological sciences at LSU, told me today that Rainsong visited him in Baton Rouge, "but he would not show me his photographic evidence. He said he had to develop them."

The comment suggested that Rainsong used a film camera. "I'll believe it when I see it," Remsen added. "I won't comment until I see the evidence."

Jerry Jackson, a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University and a co-author of the 2007 Draft Recovery Plan for the Ivory-bill, told me yesterday that he hadn't heard of Rainsong or seen his photos.

"I look forward to seeing them, but his approach already has me wondering," he said. "This seems to be the standard 'IB obsession' approach, similar to the last report we got with photos, which were of a Photoshopped Pileated."

Remsen and Jackson are among the handful of ornithologists who are regularly called upon to evaluate possible Ivory-bill sightings.

Remsen is a member of the American Ornithologists' Union's Committees on Classification and Nomenclature for North America and South America. Jackson wrote the account on the Ivory-bill (No. 711) in the Birds of North America reference series, and he is the author of In Search of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Smithsonian Books, 2004). Following a search for Ivory-bills in 2002, Jackson wrote "The Truth Is Out There" for the June 2002 issue of Birder's World.

Bloggers in the birding community have been skeptical of Rainsong's claims.

Cyberthrush, the author of Ivory-bills Live, says he places "NO conceivable credibility whatsoever in this story/report. NADA... ZIPPO... ZILCH!!!!!! (hope I'm making myself clear)."

Radd Icenoggle, author of Birds in Place: A Habitat-based Field Guide to Birds of the Northern Rockies (Far Country Press, 2003), notes that Rainsong "has, rather strangely, not released the images citing some obscure 'right of discovery.' Does he intend to patent the damn bird?"

Icenoggle and others have noted that Rainsong's name appears on a lot of gambling websites. Googling his name also turned up bits of an ad that has since been deleted from Craigslist having to do with a "wildlife research expedition." Kudos to Kirk Mona at Twin Cities Naturalist for piecing together most of the ad.

The ad refers to a $10,000 reward, supposedly for finding Ivory-bills. I'm not aware of a $10,000 reward, but the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has posted a reward that would pay $50,000 to anyone who could provide "video, photographic, or other compelling information and lead a project scientist to a living wild Ivory-billed Woodpecker." (Thanks Mike Duchek for the tip!)

"Obviously he's a long way from that," Remsen said. --Matt Mendenhall, Associate Editor

(if you're on Facebook, the link is here )

So here's the deal:

Two people whom nobody has ever heard of.
A press release on an obscure website claiming that someone got identifiable photos of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in an area that was surely searched during Cornell's study a couple years back.
No photos have been posted as of yet. IF they even exist.
Google searches of names of the people involved links them to everything BUT birding.
Both Jerry Jackson and Dr. Remsen have said that they have not at this time seen ANY photos at all.
Dr. Jackson said that he had never heard of Daniel Rainsong.
We have an ad, supposedly written by Mr Rainsong, indicates something about a $10,000 reward for leading an Ornithologist to a live IBWO. Apparently Dr. Remsen said he had heard something about a reward like that but didn't know the details.
Cornell has, and is offering a $50,000 reward to any person who can provide conclusive and undeniable proof (video or photographic) that at least one Ivory-bill still exists, and/or lead a project scientist to a living Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

So what are we left with?? This whole thing smells fishier than a barrel of Sardines.

If this is a hoax, why would someone go through all this trouble to make sure all his facts were straight (and they are, I checked.) to post this obviously poorly fabricated story? It's a story that any birder who knows anything about the search for the Ivory-bill could see through without even looking!

But, if this really is true and not a hoax, then why all the secrecy??
Where are the photos? Why have the leading experts mentioned in the press release denied any knowledge of photos? Why has nobody ever heard of either person before?

Why haven't Sibley, Kaufman, Ted Floyd, Jon Dunn and other prominent birders been notified, and/or why were they not mentioned in the list of people that they were supposedly going to show the photos to??

If this story really is true, there are a few things that would have to happen before I would even think about trusting either of these people:

#1. I want to see the photos. They should be crystal clear, incontestable, undeniable and conclusive.
They also better be of a bird in flight! A bird sitting on a tree is far too simple to easily fake.

#2. I want the backing of Dr. Remsen, Dr. Jackson, Kenn Kaufman, David Sibley AND Cornell on this.

#3. I want to know all the details on this supposed search and discovery and why all the secrecy. It's not like anyone is going to claim they found it when it's obvious who did? right? Geez.

Maybe all that gambling has made him paranoid. lol

Social Media workshop for birders

2010-01-20T04:17:00.000-06:00

In case you have missed it, Gunnar Engblom of Kolibri Expeditions is currently doing a social media workshop for birders. This includes blogging, Twitter and Facebook among other things.
If you haven't seen it yet, check out day three of this 31 day workshop here.

In this post, he talks about Facebook and it's advantages and disadvantages. Many people do not use it to it's full potential. While it is indeed a social networking website for keeping in touch with old friends, it has a million other current and potential uses. Many tour companies have taken advantage of it as a marketing tool. It has also been used for meeting new friends, creating new networks, sending out rare bird alerts, creating business pages, as well as several other things.

Want to know what else Facebook can be used for? Check out the workshop! It's totally free. You can sign up for the email newsletter, but if that's too much, then just bookmark the blog and come back every day. Come to think of it, bookmark each post to use as a future reference!

Haven't clicked the link yet? Why not? Do it. :)

New trip opportunity for Young Birders

2010-01-14T13:21:00.002-06:00

Over the past few weeks, I've been talking with Gunnar Engblom of Kolibri Expeditions about doing a Young Birders budget tour to Manu or Carpish in southern Peru. After bouncing the idea off of me and my fellow Young Birder (YB) Kai Reed, Gunnar came up with the following:

An 8 day trip to either Manu or Carpish/Satipo Rd. Each trip would cost a mere $699/person. That's a crazy low price for a trip to Peru. In many cases, the airfare would cost more.

You can read more about it on Gunnar's blog:

http://www.kolibriexpeditions.com/birdingperu/blog/index.php/young-birder-trips-to-peru-8-days-699/

I was able to provide him with the photo at the top of the post. It is from last summer's Camp Chiricahua. Take a look! You may recognize someone!

This is an awesome opportunity to bird Peru for practically nothing, compared to regular prices. There may also be some chance that these trips will be offered in coming years as well.

Check it out!! Peru is calling!

And the Duck Says.........

2010-01-01T15:29:00.002-06:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Merry Christmas!!

2009-12-25T01:40:00.003-06:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

One more version of The Night before Christmas......

2009-12-24T22:13:00.002-06:00

This one from the birdfreak blog. Enjoy!

http://birdfreak.com/the-night-before-christmas/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BirdfreakBirdingBlog+%28Birdfreak%3A+The+Bird+Conservation+Blog%29

Twas the night before Christmas.......

2009-12-18T22:35:00.002-06:00

To continue this holiday poem tale, here's another poem I came across a couple years back thanks to an inquiry on a listserve. Thanks to Sean Conrad for sending this my way. Enjoy!

Twas the Night Before Christmas
(Bird Count that is)
by Henry Lappen, Amherst, Massachusetts

'Twas the night before Christmas (count that is)
           when all through the dark
   not a creature was stirring
           not even a lark.

The stockings were hung
        on their feet with care
   in hopes that real frostbite
           would not settle there.

   The birders were quiet
           listening for owls
   filled up with coffee
           which gurgled their bowels.

   And Jan in her kerchief
           and Scott in his cap
   were straining their ears
           to hear any yap.

   When out in the field
           there arose such a clatter
   we sprang from the forest
           to see what was aflutter.

   When what to our wondering
           eyes should appear
   but a miniature flock
           of eight tiny Killdeer.

   I got out my camera
           lively and quick,
   I knew in a moment
           I must have a pic.

   More rapid than eagles
           the birders all came
   and they whistled and shouted
           each calling a name.

   They're buntings. No, warblers.
           They're swallows. No, grouse.
   They're Mallards. No, nightjars.
           Or maybe titmouse.

   To the tops of the trees
           the birds flew away all.
   Oh dash it! Oh darn it!
           Did you hear a call?

   As varied opinions that before
           no proof will fly
   the arguments of birders
           will mount to the sky.

   They're sparrows. No, bobwhites.
           No, alcids. You dolt:
   They were Black-headed Gulls
           in second-year molt.

   And then in a twinkle
           we heard from the air
   a trilling or chirping
           or something unclear.

   As we drew in our heads
           and were turning around
   down to the clearing
           they came with a sound.

   They were all dressed in feathers
           from head to their foot,
   they were dark as if tarnished
           with ashes and soot.

   A bundle of speckles
           they had on their breast
   their belly and shoulders
           but not on the rest.

   Their eyes-how they twinkled,
           their mandibles-how pale.
   Their cheek patches brownish,
           not much of a tail.

   Their dull little coverts
           were brown like the wing
   and their backs and their heads.
           They had no eye ring.

   They were chubby and plump
           all filled up with berries
   and also from composted
           maraschino cherries.

   A wink of an eye
           and a twist of a head
   soon gave us to know
           we had something to dread.

   They sprang to the air
           to our team gave a whistle
   that sounded as raucous
           as an incoming missile.

   But we heard them exclaim
           e'er they flew out of sight
   many starlings to all
           and to all a good flight!

Two nights before Bird Counts

2009-12-18T01:43:00.005-06:00

The following poem was composed and posted to the Minnesota bird listserve a few years back by Roger Schroeder.

It is one of my favorite Christmas bird count period pieces and helps describe how difficult it can be to decide where to go each year. I have reposted it here (as I do somewhere every year). I hope you enjoy it. :D

Two Nights Before Bird Counts-- by Roger Schroeder

Two Nights before bird counts And I'm, wide awake;
Been tossing and turning Since a quarter past eight.
The birds and the places have my heart full of cheer
But I just can't decide who to help out this year

A Snowy Owl turned up in the County of Murray.
Now Janet is hoping the bird does not scurry.
She's trying to get in place a good team
So Audubon accepts this count with more glee

Gray Jays are flooding in to the northwest
For DL and Crookston that may be the best
Now, Tamarac and Warren may get them too
But how will I get to them all? WHAT TO DO?

But three! Not just one Gray-crowned Rosy Finch
Seem very reliable - that may be a cinch
Though Carlton-Cloquet is across the whole state
And would mean a long drive after its already late

But darn it the Marshall Count's on the same day
( Maybe I'll pass it off and get far away. )
I've always wanted to help the count in Duluth
(I'd like to live there to tell you the truth)

Now what about those counts in the Southeast
that get titmice and eagles to the just the least
Winona, I think, would be a neat place to go
I'd rack up some new county birds then, you know.

La Crosse-La Crescent - one of my favorite locations
Consistently get waterfowl while on their migration
Then perhaps I could join Hockema on Rochester's count
Wait. That's the same day... that idea's out.

The Falls are quite scattered to travel by car
International, and Fergus might be just too far
Redwood is closer, Little I've done
(And I mean the location, the count there was fun!)

Oh how I long to bird all these great places
That congregate together so many nice faces
Grand places like Rapids, and also Marais
(Places I'd also love to permanently stay)

Cook, and Mankato, and Itasca State Park
Owatonna, New Ulm, and Rice Lake NWR,
Pine County, Long Prairie, Crosby, Battle Lake
Wild River and then Albert Lea - - heaven's sake!

I've already done Beltrami Island, and Big Stone
And know I can't make it to Ely by my own.
Aurora and Bemidji I'd both like to try
And want to get to Wabasha 'fore I die

New Year's day offers its set of challenges then
I want to try Pillager, and do Philbrook with Ben.
Mountain Lake-Windom is closer to Home,
But how I would love to again Baudette roam.

The vast metro area always turns up good birds
Maybe for Northern Wright County this year's my turn.
Excelsior, Afton, Cedar Creek Bog, Hastings-Etter
The possibilities just get better and better.

One in Minneapolis - There's two in Saint Paul
How can I possibly get to them all!?!
There's more than 70 Christmas Bird Counts this year!
The choice will be difficult, that's perfectly clear.

WOW! The news from Bloomington is something to say!
Will that Slaty-backed Gull stick around two more days?
Austin that next day then might be it,
But that conflicts with Two Harbors, oh I quit!

Sorry, Dad, I can't cover your ground there in Hutch
For me, this list is growing way too much.
Willmar, Virginia, Sherburne NWR
Morris, just maybe, or Isabella by car.

I should help out the portions close by North Dakota;
Moorhead, and East Grand Forks, Minnesota.
Yet Fairmont and Roseau and Hibbing need help
as they all too often are stuck by themselves.

Sax-Zim, Faribault, and Henderson would be new.
But St. Cloud-Collegeville needs some help too.
How can there possibly be this many choices
Thirteen days could be filled with birds and their voices.

Now I'm getting stressed, and I'm losing sleep
This frantic a pace - although fun - I could not keep.
I suppose its the same old thing this year again
Lamberton, Cottonwood, and Lac qui Parle...
... with good friends.

Strange how we see each other but just once a year
Yet the room comes alive with refreshing new cheer.
Reliving the day, and the days that have gone by
Perhaps close to home are the best counts to try.

Do YOU bird by GISS?

2009-12-16T01:13:00.003-06:00

GISS, or jizz as it's sometimes called is a mnemonic for "General Impression of Size and Shape."

It's a term that many birders use this term to describe the way they bird. However, is it truly what we use?

This post at the Bell Tower birding blog offers some insightful comments as to what we really do: http://belltowerbirding.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-it-giss-or-what.html

Definitely one of the more interesting blog posts I've seen lately. Enjoy!

How would you like to win a free trip to Peru??

2009-12-16T00:43:00.003-06:00

I'm not joking. Seriously. Kolibri Expeditions out of Lima, Peru has pulled a massive PR stunt. They are offering 14 free places on 14 tours to Peru. Destinations are Manu and Carpish/Satipo Road.

Check it out!

http://bit.ly/8s830C

It's an awesome offer!

Robert Frost

2009-12-15T01:16:00.006-06:00

I have been sort of suffering from writers' block recently. Ever time I go to post something, I get stuck, then distracted and never finish. I currently have a whole post about chasing Ivory Gulls that is still in the works, as well as one about the Port Washington Kittiwake that I have yet to start. Not to mention at least two posts in progress for the ABA's Young Birder's blog "The Eyrie."

Since I have little to say myself, I thought I'd let someone say it for me. The following is one of my favorite poems, by my favorite poet: Robert Frost.

Frost was born in 1874 in San Fransisco, CA and was named after confederate general Robert E Lee. In 1886, he moved to New Hampshire where he finished school and then attended college at Dartmouth. He doesn't even finish the first year of school and leaves, bored with the whole thing. During the same year, he also becomes engaged to his girlfriend and fellow student Elinor White. in 1897, he entered Harvard as a freshman but drops out at the end of the school year. It will be his last attempt at college. Over the following years, his family is ravaged by disease and death, but despite this, he takes, and subsequently drops, several teaching positions and still manages to write several pulitzer prize winning poems. He also moves several times during this period. After several years of ongoing medical problems himself, in 1941, he moved to Cambridge, MA where he would remain the rest of his life. In 1959, he predicts the election of John F Kennedy and is appointed to three-year term as Honorary Consultant in the Humanities at the Library of Congress.

In 1962, he falls seriously ill with pneumonia and is hospitalized. In 1963, he is awarded the Bollingen prize for Poetry. Not long after, he suffers a pulmonary embolism and dies Jan 29th, 1963.

A more complete biography of Frost's life can be found here.

So, without further ado, here is one of my favorite poems ever.

It is entitled "Stopping by woods on a snowy evening." Enjoy.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Who do YOU bird with?

2009-11-28T00:47:00.002-06:00

Here's a question for my faithful followers, who do you go birding with? Is there some local club that you join on monthly field trips? or do you go birding with the best of the best? or just a group of friends? or do you have just one friend who you call every time you go out? or do you just find yourself on your own most of the time?

Do any of you go birding with a young (i.e. under 25) birder at all?

I very often find myself on my own. Do I like it that way? I don't mind it. Sometimes it's better because you can stay out as long as you please without having to worry about someone else's schedule. However, I like birding with other people just as much as the next person. While I don't have any one person who I go birding with all the time, there are several people who I'll call from time to time depending on where I'm going that day. Bird club and Audubon field trips are also fun ways to get out birding with other people. I have attended many and now occasionally lead them.

What about young birders you ask? Unfortunately, they are scattered; few and far between. Most are concentrated around cities. I am fortunate to live only a few hour's drive from Chicago where there are 4 YBs I know of. It is still a long ways to drive just to go birding though. With the Ancient Murrelet currently in Southern Michigan, I took the opportunity to spend a couple days birding with a couple YB friends. I'll usually take any chance I can get since I don't get to go birding with others my age very often. Since we're all so scattered around the country, we usually end up seeing each other only during camps and conferences, or specially arranged trips or wild chases. Just a random birding day doesn't really make it economical to pull off. I'm only fortunate in that some of my good friends don't live all that far away. Others aren't so lucky.

Do you know a young birder? someone who you've birded with from time to time who hasn't been able to find anyone their own age to bird with? Direct them here, and I'll see what I can do about introducing them to the network.

Anyway, some things for you to think about. You are welcome to comment with your answers, questions, stories, ect. I'd love to hear them.

Happy Holidays and Happy Birding!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

2009-11-26T10:56:00.004-06:00

From this Turkey to all you Turkeys out there, Happy Thanksgiving to you all!!!!

Murrelet twitching

2009-11-23T12:11:00.008-06:00

It was a chilly, gray, November morning when three birders arrived in the still, half light of dawn, at the end of the pier in Tiscornia Park in St Joseph, MI. Not a word was spoken as they set up spotting scopes and began scanning the water. Even though the sun wasn't fully up, there was already a flock of Bonaparte's Gulls just off the end of the pier. Finding very little on the lake, I took a quick scan through the gulls. Each Bonaparte's had a large white triangle on the leading edge of the primaries. I was just about to go back to scanning the lake when I noticed a bird that did not display the white triangle. As it banked, I could see that the entire underside of the wing was dark. "Alison!" I called. "Take a look at this gull. I think I've got a Little Gull."

Alison Vilag turned her scope towards the flock and quickly confirmed my suspicions. "Yep, that's a Little Gull." "Ooh, where?" Asked Libby Zeman. I quickly pointed out the bird to her. "The one with the dark underwing. Straight out at the top of the flock." I was pretty happy to have picked out the gull on my own. It was a lifer for both of us.

In the meantime, Alison had turned her scope back to the lake where she quickly picked out a Common Loon among the flocks of Red-breasted Mergansers.

The morning wore on. Flocks of Mergansers flew by, several Common Loons were diving just offshore, a pair of White-winged Scoters flew by at one point as well as a few flocks of Greater Scaup. Even a sub-adult Parasitic Jaeger graced us with it's presence for about half an hour.

By about 9:30, the number of people on the pier was beginning to grow. By around 11:30, there were at least a dozen people scanning the lake and still no sign of the Murrelet. Alison, Libby and I were discussing where to go next where suddenly, Joe Lautenbach said "I've got it." He said it so casually that everyone just gave him a startled look. I was the first to react. "got what??" "The Ancient Murrelet." He replied. Mass panic ensued as everyone scrambled to get their scopes on the bird. It was surprisingly difficult to find even though it was only a few hundred yards off the pier. Eventually though, everyone got a look at the bird through the scope. I was possibly more ecstatic about seeing this bird than I have been for almost any other lifer. After doing my ecstatic little dance on the pier and giving both Alison and Libby a quick congratulatory hug, I grabbed my camera and ran off about 30 photos of the bird before it suddenly vanished as quickly as it came. Though we were on the pier for another hour, it never reappeared. I heard later that it didn't come back til almost dark that evening.

Then, Alison took us on a quick tour of the Lakeshore to see if we could get a few more lifers for Libby. The female Long-tailed Duck at the near end of the pier gave us excellent looks (photo coming later)

We were successful in finding Lesser Black-backed Gulls and a couple Thayer's Gulls at various stops, as well as Horned Grebes and more ducks. Try as we might though, we couldn't find any more scoters. I gave Alison a hard time about not getting her traditional daily Black Scoter quota, but she's off the hook since the Murrelet more than made up for it.

Combined with the Black-legged Kittiwake that I found at the lake on the previous Sunday, it was a 3 lifer week for me! It's going to be a long time and a lot of luck before I can pull that off anywhere in the Midwest again.

Til next time! Happy Birding!

Lake Michigan today

2009-11-05T00:43:00.004-06:00

I know. It's been a month. Have I been neglecting my blogging duties? yes. Do I have an excuse? no. I somehow keep getting distracted. I go to post something, and end up not writing anything. This time, I'm going for gold and post my adventure from today.

This morning, I got up and headed over to The Lake. My goal was to find a Black Scoter for my year list. I have never been able to see all three species of Scoter in one year. I always see at least two, but am never able to track down the third one. Interestingly enough, it's always a different Scoter too. Never the same one twice in a row.

It's now Nov and I'm still failing. I saw one Scoter all day and it wasn't the Black Scoter that I need. It was a lonely, miserable Surf Scoter. Oh well, next time.

I did however, see some cool birds.

It all started around 11:00 this morning when I and my "trusty" Ford Taurus arrived in Port Washington, WI. Parking at the harbor, I hopped out, grabbing my scope before I locked the door and headed towards the pier. The winds were light and from the west. The skies were clear. A Cooper's Hawk sailed overhead. It was going to be a good day. I scanned the harbor briefly with my binocs before turning my scope on the breakwater. Nothing unusual. Just the regular suspects. Canada Geese, Mallards and a large flock of gulls way too far out in the heat waves to ID. Ignoring them, I turned my attention to the closer group sitting on the breakwater. Through bins, they all seemed to be the same. I decided to take a look with my scope just to be sure. "Hmm, typical, just Ring-bills. Oh, there's a Herring; more Ring-bills; a few more Herrings and....... hey! What's that???" The gull with the dark mantle stood out like a sore thumb. "Hmm, dark back, clean white chest, slightly streaked head. Seems to be a Black-backed Gull. Probably Lesser Black-backed...... hey wait a minute......... It has greenish, pinkish colored legs and a massive bill........ hmm.... let's compare with the Herring Gull next to it..... GEEZ! That's a big bird!!"

Of course, by this time, the typical thoughts were running through my head "Kelp Gull?? No way, the mantle isn't dark enough and those legs are pinkish, not straight green...... Of course!! It's a Great Black-backed Gull!!"

Great Black-backed Gull, while definitely an uncommon bird, isn't exactly rare for Wisconsin. We do get a fair number of them every year. This was the first time I'd seen one in Wisconsin for quite some time though. I don't get over to the lake very often.

Feeling a bit elated, I stopped at one of my favorite sandwich places in Port Washington (fortunately right there at the harbor) to grab a bite to eat and to post my findings of the morning.

After lunch, I headed north along the lakefront, stopping at various accesses along the way.

One of my first stops was the County D access at Harrington Beach SP.

As I pulled up to the end of the road, my thoughts were running back over what had been seen here in recent weeks. Red-throated Loon, Black-legged Kittiwake and Little Gull were a few of the goodies that had turned up just off the point at Harrinton Beach. For some reason, that stretch of lake is always productive. Unfortunately, none of the aforementioned species turned up for me. I was doomed to an hour of sorting through Greater Scaup and, even though it was a year bird (as pathetic as it might seem), literally thousands of Horned Grebes.

As I stood on the beach, scoping the ducks, I happened to glance up and notice a slightly larger gull flying towards me. As it came closer and the angle changed, I was quick to note the complete lack of any sort of black markings on the wings. It was as if someone had taken a Herring Gull and painted it white. My brain went into overtime thinking "I bet that's a...... GLAUCOUS GULL!!!" I happily finished out loud. Glaucous Gulls are regular winter residents along the Great Lakes and can be quite common but on my side of the state, they're quite rare so I was happy to see one. My next stop was the Oostburg access. I parked, hopped out and started scanning the lake. More (several thousand) Scaup, few hundred more geese, a few thousand of the same gulls I'd been watching all day...... "Hey...... that gull is tiny!" Once again, my brain went into overdrive. "Kittiwake? No, it didn't have the black "M"....... Little Gull perhaps? It did have the dark spot behind the eye......." Then the bird turned towards me, displaying a white leading edge to the wing. Starting narrow at the wrist and broadening through the primaries. "Dang it..... it's a Bonaparte's Gull........" While always fun to see, Bonaparte's Gulls (or "Bonies" as they're commonly referred to) are quite common during migration. Especially near the coasts. When I was in Louisiana several weeks ago, I saw quite a few Bonaparte's Gulls along the beaches. Sometimes, you can see hundreds or even thousands at a time.

Me next stop was the Harbor in Sheboygan. One scan with the bins was all that was needed. Dead. I headed a little farther up the lake to North Point. In the past, North Point has had some crazy birds. Glaucous-winged Gull, Slaty-backed Gull, Kittiwakes, Sabine's Gull, Jaegers, ect. I parked and started walking south along the shore. Mallard, mallard, more mallards. Not even a Scaup which had been so plentiful farther south. I turned around and headed north to the shelter at the point. A quick scan revealed only more Mallards and all Ring-billed Gulls. Not even a Herring Gull. I turned and started heading back to the car. As I did so, I happened to glance at the lake and noticed (to my surprise) a smaller, slighter duck working it's way south along the edge of the rocks. I lifted my bins. A moment later, my suspicions were confirmed. It was the female Harlequin Duck that had been wintering at this very spot for the last 5 years. Looks like she's up for her 6th year now. Perhaps one year she'll stay into the summer and bring a male with her. Perhaps.........

Having little light left to work with, I started driving the long 3 hour drive home.

In all, it was an excellent day. The weather was perfect. Not too cold and almost no wind at all. The birds were cooperative and I was able to see a few species that I don't see every day. In the case of the Harlequin Duck, it was only the 3rd time I'd ever seen that species and only the 2nd time in the USA. In both cases, it's highly likely the same bird, so my count still holds. I've only ever seen 2 Harlequin Ducks. One on Moraine Lake in Banff NP, Canada and one at North Point, Sheboygan, WI, USA.

I'll be attending the Lansing Loop field trip on Sat so hopefully I'll find time on Sun to post about that.

Til next time,

Happy Birding!

Weekend at the beach. Literally. (Pt 1)

2009-10-04T22:15:00.003-05:00

This weekend was the first major birding trip I've taken since I got home. Fri evening, I drove to Riverside Park in Milwaukee where I camped for the night. Arising at O'dark thirty the net morning, I walked down to the Urban Ecology Center to meet the banding crew for that morning. We loaded up as people slowly trickled in. Then we walked down to the banding site.

The area around the center was loaded with White-crowned Sparrows. As we walked down to the banding site, we heard good numbers of White-throated Sparrows calling.

Arriving at the site, we set about setting up the nets. The mist nets consist of two metal poles staked to the ground with the net stretched between them. Placed against a backdrop of woodland, they are nearly invisible when viewed straight on.

After the nets were up, we sat down to wait. We would check the nets at 20 min intervals to see if anything had flown into them. The trees around us were dripping Kinglets but not very many birds appeared to want to fly into our nets. In all, we caught only 4 birds that morning. 1 Swamp Sparrow (that we caught twice), 2 Song Sparrows and 1 Winter Wren.

After the banding concluded (due to the wind picking up), I birded my way back to the car. Coming up almost empty handed, I hopped in the car and headed over to Lake Park.

Lake Park proved to be the most productive of the entire day. Keeping the wind in mind, I walked along the edge of the hill. I finally succeeded in finding a mixed flock. It was mostly Kinglets of both species but I did manage to pick out an Orange-crowned Warbler and a Gray-cheeked Thrush.

Dropping down into the ravine, I found another flock. This one more diverse.

Fitting among the leaves low in the ravine, I spotted a Redstart, Nashville Warblers, Tennessee Warblers, 2 Winter Wrens skulking in the creekbed, a lone Blue-headed Vireo, Chestnut-sided Warbler and another host of Kinglets.

Arriving back at my car, I headed south along the lake. Warnimont park was dead and the lake was empty so I moved on. Sheridan park was also just as dead. It only picked up a bit when I reached Grant Park. Despite the city surrounding it, Grant park was easily the largest park I've visited along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Birding was slow here too but I did manage to find a flock of White-crowned Sparrows as well as both Swainson's and Hermit Thrushes. Scoping the lake was, again, useless since the only birds in view besides Ring-billed Gulls were Cormorants.

Wind Point in Racine provided my 4th species of warbler for the day. A lone Palm Warbler hunting insects in the long grass.

A little frustrated, I again turned south. This time right into the dark rain clouds that were looming ever so close. By the time I arrived at Winthrop Harbor, it was drizzling. I decided to call it quits for the day and headed to Illinois Beach State park for the night.

Arriving at the park, I set about finding a campsite.

In all, everywhere I went, there were Kinglets dripping off the trees but almost nothing else.

It was one of the slowest days I've had for quite a while.

Continued in part two.

Settling in at home

2009-10-01T00:01:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone! Sorry I've been rather absent from the blog world lately. I've been either swamped with birding, swamped with photo editing, swamped with scheduling, swamped with traveling, or just plain swamped. I'll try to get back into the grind and crank out some more blog posts soon. I've mentioned this before, but I've been unable to post any new photos lately since my computer hard drive has, inevitably, filled up. I have spent the last several days backing up photos and deleting them from my computer. Hopefully, I will soon have enough space to upload all the new photos from my trip to California and my trip back home. I will then be able to fully relate my adventures on the far western coast of the USA.

As for now, I am settling back into "normal" life back home here in WI.

After I returned home, my friends and I attended the WSO's Jaegerfest weekend at WI Point.

Unfortunately, this year was slower than last year with passerines being almost nonexistent. We had a good show of Parasitic Jaegers with at least 6 being seen and a single flyby Long-tailed Jaeger.

Just like last year, the weather was perfect, the lake dead calm and not much in the way of birds except for the thousands of Ring-billed Gulls present.

Hopefully next year will be more productive.

Here in WI, we're starting to wind down towards the tail end of migration. Warblers are still moving through, but in much smaller numbers. Species diversity has also dropped and numbers of Yellow-rumps have increased.

This weekend, I am attending a banding session at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee on Sat. Then, I am camping at Illinois Beach State park that night where I am meeting some other young birders and birding the Chicago lakefront on Sunday. Should be a fun weekend.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post about my CA adventures sometime soon. Just as soon as I can upload the photos off my camera.

Til next time, Happy Birding!

Press release: Great Backyard Bird Count

2009-09-25T13:33:00.007-05:00

If you can't see a formatted message and photo, view the web version.

For release: September 25, 2009

Take a Mid-Winter Nature Break With the
Great Backyard Bird Count
February 12-15, 2010

New York, NY and Ithaca, NY—Bird watchers coast to coast are invited to take part in the 13th annual Great Backyard Bird Count, Friday, February 12, through Monday, February 15, 2010. Participants in the free event will join tens of thousands of volunteers of all levels of birding experience to count birds in their own backyards, local parks or wildlife refuges.

Each checklist submitted by these "citizen scientists" helps researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society learn more about how the birds are doing—and how to protect them. Last year, participants turned in more than 93,600 checklists online, creating the continent's largest instantaneous snapshot of bird populations ever recorded.

"Taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count is a great way to get outside with family and friends, have fun, and help birds—all at the same time. Anyone who can identify even a few species can provide important information that enables scientists to learn more about how the environment is changing and how that affects our conservation priorities," said Audubon Education Vice President, Judy Braus. "Everyone who participates in the GBBC—families, teachers, and young people—will get a chance to hone their observation skills, learn more about birds, and make a great contribution to the future!"

Anyone can take part in the Great Backyard Bird Count, from novice bird watchers to experts. Participants count birds for as little as 15 minutes (or as long as they wish) on one or more days of the event and report their sightings online at www.birdcount.org. One 2009 participant said, "Thank you for the opportunity to participate in citizen science. I have had my eyes opened to a whole new interest and I love it!"

"The GBBC is a perfect first step toward the sort of intensive monitoring needed to discover how birds are responding to environmental change," said Janis Dickinson, director of Citizen Science at the Cornell Lab. "Winter is such a vulnerable period for birds, so winter bird distributions are likely to be very sensitive to change. There is only one way—citizen science—to gather data on private lands where people live and doing this across the continent over many years. GBBC has enormous potential both as an early warning system and in capturing and engaging people in more intensive sampling of birds across the landscape."

Bird populations are always shifting and changing. For example, 2009 GBBC data highlighted a huge southern invasion of Pine Siskins across much of the eastern United States. Participants counted 279,469 Pine Siskins on 18,528 checklists, as compared to the previous high of 38,977 birds on 4,069 checklists in 2005. Failure of seed crops farther north caused the siskins to move south to find their favorite food.

On the www.birdcount.org website, participants can explore real-time maps and charts that show what others are reporting during the count. The site has tips to help identify birds and special materials for educators. Participants may also enter the GBBC photo contest by uploading images taken during the count. Many images will be featured in the GBBC website's photo gallery. All participants are entered in a drawing for prizes that include bird feeders, binoculars, books, CDs, and many other great birding products.

For more information about the GBBC, visit the website at www.birdcount.org. Or contact the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at (800) 843-2473 or (outside the U.S., call (607) 254-2473) or gbbc@cornell.edu, or Audubon at citizenscience@audubon.org or (215) 355-9588, Ext 16.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is made possible, in part, by generous support from Wild Birds Unlimited.
###

Editors: Please go the GBBC News Room for high-resolution images, top-10 lists, FAQS, and results of the 2009 count. To interview a participant in your area, please get in touch with one of the media contacts listed below.

Contacts:

Pat Leonard, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, (607) 254-2137, pel27@cornell.edu
Delta Willis, Audubon, (212) 979-3197, dwillis@audubon.org
Images by 2009 GBBC participants: Black-capped Chickadee by Rodney Smith, WA; Bird watcher at window by Terie Rawn, NY; Pine Siskins by Steve Gillespie, WV.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a nonprofit membership institution interpreting and conserving the earth's biological diversity through research, education, and citizen science focused on birds. Visit the Cornell Lab's website at www.birds.cornell.edu.

Audubon is dedicated to protecting birds and other wildlife and the habitat that supports them. Our national network of community-based nature centers and chapters, scientific and educational programs, and advocacy on behalf of areas sustaining important bird populations, engage millions of people of all ages and backgrounds in conservation. www.audubon.org

Cornell Lab of Ornithology
159 Sapsucker Woods Rd, Ithaca NY 14850
Call toll-free: (800) 843-BIRD (2473)

National Audubon Society
225 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014
Call: (212) 979-3000

California: Day 1

2009-08-28T23:17:00.002-05:00

Sorry I haven't uploaded any photos yet. I'll get there.

Today was day one of my all too short trip to California.

I drove to Phoenix last night, where I spent an altogether too short night. Awaking at 3am, I hopped on the highway and flew through the city and out into the desert. A call from my friend Neil alerted me to the presence of a Great Knot in San Diego. Not all that far south of my destination. I changed plans and headed to San Diego via the Salton Sea.

Arriving at the sea around 10:00, I slowly worked my way down the coast until I finally found 4 Yellow-footed Gulls at a random boat launch just north of Red Hill.

Having seen my target bird, I flew on through and arrived in San Diego around 2:00pm. The spot was a bit hard to find at first and then I had to walk about a mile to get there, but there were the birders. All clustered around scopes and cameras. All fixed on one subject. The Great Knot. Now, it should be known that there is some speculation that this is not a pure Great Knot. Many people think it hybridized with a Surfbird. If it did (we're still waiting for the verdict) it would be even rarer. in fact, so rare, that this would be the first documented occurrence of this hybrid. Still, a cool bird to see.

Then I hopped back on the interstate (this time I-5) and headed on up to my friend Neil's house where I'm spending tonight, tomorrow and tomorrow night. We'll be birding around Orange County tomorrow.

California is an interesting state with their own laws and their own customs. Here, you will see Surfboards strapped to the roofs of cars rather than skis or snowshoes. The balmy temperatures (conditioned by the cool breeze off the ocean) are a far cry from the super dry, oven-like conditions found in Tucson.

It's almost always sunny here too. People will welcome you to "sunny california." They're proud of it. :D

All in all, it's a cool state and has some great birding. Just, it's a bit hard to navigate. I've already gotten lost about 5 times...........

Update and return from blogging hiatus

2009-08-26T21:33:00.003-05:00

To all of my faithful followers, SORRY!!! I haven't posted in over a month. Each time I went to do a post, I would get distracted by something. It's been an insane summer.

I won't go into all the details just yet (save those for a dreary winter day :D ) but I will fill in on some of the stuff that has happened.

As usual, for most of the summer, I've been chasing rare birds around southeast Arizona. Some of the birds that have turned up since my last post have been: Plain-capped Starthroat (as pictured on my blog header), Aztec Thrush, Brown-backed Solitaire (a potential first ABA record), a Green Kingfisher at San Pedro (which has repeatedly refused to appear for me), 2 Black-bellied Plovers at Wilcox (Found by me), another Aztec Thrush in the Chiricahuas (again, found by me) and several other awesome birds.

A Wood Stork has been hanging around in Phoenix over the past week (I'm not chasing it) and a Blue-footed Booby turned up on a lake just east of Albuquerque, NM (might chase it).

Other than that, it's been absolutely crazy. I've been kept pretty busy.

Oh! I wanted to tell you the most fun part of the whole summer! I got to help out with Camp Chiricahua!

Some of you might remember me mentioning this last year when I attended Camp C.

This year, I actually got to hang out with the group.

It was a younger group of kids this year, but a very awesome and highly interested group.

You could show them a bird 3 or 4 times and they would still look at it. You could show them plants, and they would look (Dave was very happy about this).

Anyway, it was one of the most awesome groups I've ever hung out with. This year, instead of the usual one person not interested, it was the opposite. Everyone was interested and everyone was a good birder! Not like some groups you get where one person isn't a birder at all (Dave was pretty happy about this too. :D )

This year's camp counselor (Rebekah Rylander from Austin, TX) was awesome and did her job well (keeping the kids out of trouble.... lol ). Definitely a good person for the job and more creative than most. She gets high marks from me. ;)

Camp C this year was highly successful (we even got to camp at Rustler Park this year. Got rained out last year.) The high point of the camp for almost all of the kids (I, unfortunately couldn't join them that day) was the finding and documenting of the ABA's potential first record of a Brown-backed Solitaire. I heard from them a couple hours later and then drove over to join them that evening. They were ecstatic (It was the first time any Camp Chiricahua group had found a first ABA area record). Dave seemed to be almost more ecstatic than they were! :D

As you can imagine, I wasn't very happy. ;) But I did take them to Patagonia to see the Sinaloa Wren and then on to Florida Canyon to see the Black-capped Gnatcatchers.

After dropping them off in Tucson, I headed back to Sierra Vista the next morning and headed up Ramsey Canyon. Fortunately for me, my luck held and I did not even have to wait. The bird sang as I walked up the canyon. 5 minutes later, I was looking at the ABA's first potential record (well, first to potentially be accepted anyway) Brown-backed Solitaire.

Fortunately for everyone, the bird stuck around for a few weeks which gave me time to go back and photograph it.

Unfortunately for the campers, an Aztec Thrush was found in Ramsey Canyon a few weeks later. I had the good fortune to be able to go see and photograph that bird as well.

A couple weeks later, a Plain-capped Starthroat showed up in Patagonia at the Spirit Tree Inn.

I had just happened to be in Sierra Vista when the bird was reported so I was able to be there the next morning. Again, my stroke of good luck held. The bird came in every 30 minutes (hence the photo on my blog header) Unfortunately for others, that was the only day it did.

Other than that, it's been rather quiet recently.

Onward to upcoming news!

I am driving to Tucson tomorrow, getting some stuff checked out on my car, and then I am driving to Monterey, California on Friday!!

I'll be doing it in stages. I'll drive to L.A., spend some time puttering around there, then drive north along the coast to Monterey where I will be catching the Aug 31st Pelagic trip with Debi Shearwater!! You can tell I'm excited. :D

It will be my first Pelagic trip ever so I'm expecting lots of lifers. I'm buying another CF card so that I can take lots of pictures. I'll need it. I expect that the first 200 or so photos will be blurry. I'll need a few hours of practice to get sharp photos from a moving boat.

Anyway, I'll give a full report about that when I get a chance.

I will be back in Arizona on the 4th of Sept. I'm picking up Dave Jasper from the Airport on the 5th and will be back in Portal that night. I will be in Portal on the 6th (packing mostly) and then starting the long drive home on the 7th. I will be home by the 15th. Just in time to leave for Duluth on the 16th. I'll be home for good by the 21st.

Sorry for the lack of photos in this post. I felt bad, so, same as the last post, here's my Flickr url: http://www.flickr.com/photos/swallowtailphoto/

Happy Birding!!

More photos

2009-07-08T02:03:00.001-05:00

Visit my Flickr page for some more photos from the last two weeks:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/swallowtailphoto/

Update

2009-07-08T01:02:00.006-05:00

Sorry! I haven't posted in over 2 weeks! I've been swamped. Here's a summary of what's happened since I posted last:

Jacob Cooper and I drove up to his house in CO for a relaxing 3 days. I drove up to Jacob Lake (west of Marble Canyon) and met him there. While I was there, we managed to do Sunset and then sunrise at the north rim of the Grand Canyon. That was pretty awesome! We hopped in his truck and headed north. Our first stop was Zion National Park where we picked up California Condor!

Then we drove up to Grand Juntion, arriving late at night. The next day, we slept in late, Jacob's mom made a full breakfast for us and we hung around the house most of the day which his mom did laundry, Jacob got some stuff done, ect. That night, we went to see the new Transformers movie. The next day, we did pretty much the same thing except go to look for Gunnison Sage-grouse. We failed, but I did find my first Brewer's Sparrow in a loooong time. It was a good year bird. On our drive back home, we stopped in Ouray, CO where we picked up Cassin's Finch, Black Swift and Western Grebe. I also got my year Barrow's Goldeneye.

We arrived back at the Grand Canyon where I spent the night. Then I drove back home the next morning.

When I hit Tucson, I picked up my friend Andy Johnson from the airport and we drove to Willcox, AZ and twitched the Pacific Golden-plover that was being seen there.

Andy and I then spent Sun, Mon and Tues birding around the Chiricahuas. He picked up all the lifers that he had missed last year including the high elevation birds like Olive Warbler and Short-tailed Hawk. We also saw the now resident Flame-colored Tanagers and a nesting pair of Berylline Hummingbirds.

On Wed, Andy and I took off for the Huachucas. We arrived mid morning and started at Ramsey Canyon. Not much there. A quick jaunt into Miller Canyon produced the usual hummingbirds at Beatty's. White-eared, Berylline, Broad-tailed, Broad-billed, Mag, ect

Mary Jo's in Ash Canyon had both male and female Lucifer Hummingbirds.

Thurs, we hit San Pedro in the morning for Tropical Kingbird and then ran to Patagonia where we had excellent views of the Sinaloa Wren!

Paton's feeders had the usual Violet-crowned Hummingbird and Thick-billed Kingbird.

On Fri morning, we birded Patagonia Preserve and added Beardless Tyrannulet to the list. Fri afternoon provided a fruitless search for Rufous-capped Warblers in Florida Canyon but we did find the lone Five-striped Sparrow that has been hanging out by the Sycamore tree there.

Fri night, we planned on camping at Catalina state park. When we arrived in Tucson, the rain was coming down so hard, that you couldn't see the road in front of the car. Water was pooling on the road and people were hydroplaning everywhere. We drove into the state park, but when we came to the first wash, I took one look at the amount of rain coming down and quickly nixed the idea. We ended up camping in a hotel parking lot.

Sat morning, we went back to the state park. The wash was covered with about a foot of sand. If we had camped in there the night before, we would have been stuck for a few hours.

Having nothing to do at the park, we drove down to Sweetwater Wetlands where we talked to some people, saw a few water birds and then saw a family of Burrowing Owls:

Then I dropped Andy at the airport and drove home to Portal. It was an amazing two weeks!

Since then, I've been birding around the Chiricahuas, looking for new work and waiting until tomorrow.

Tomorrow, VENT's Camp Chiricahua will be in town for the week! Camp Chiricahua is an ecology camp for high school aged kids. Although, the primary focus of the campers is birds, they do many other things too. It's an amazing camp and one I highly recommend.

The leaders are Dave Jasper and Rob Day. Rob is an excellent cook and Dave is the most amazing trip leader ever! I could swear that he knows by name every living thing that resides in the Chiricahua mountains. If you have a chance to go to this camp, do it! it's worth it!

Til next time, Happy Birding!

Change of plans!

2009-06-18T12:25:00.003-05:00

Well everyone, Texas is out. One of Jacob's co-workers had to leave on an emergency so he has to cover their work too. Now he'll have only 4 days to take off work.

We decided rather than waste those 4 days, we'd take advantage of them. As soon as he has some dates nailed down, I'll drive up to Flagstaff and we'll start from there. Before we head out, we'll run over to the Grand Canyon and pick up California Condor. Then we'll head north to Grand Junction, CO. At Grand Junction, we'll go looking for Gunnison Sage-grouse. On day 3, we'll go pick up Black Rosy-finch. Day 4 will be birding our way back south and pick up White-tailed Ptarmigan and Brown-capped Rosy-finch! I couldn't ask for 3 better lifers.

Wish us luck!

Tomorrow, I'm headed to Patagonia to attempt to photograph that stupid Sinaloa Wren. I'll probably be there until Sunday. Hopefully the bird will hop out into the open. Keyword here is Patience.

Happy Birding!

Car problems

2009-06-09T16:49:00.004-05:00

On Saturday, my friends Jacob, Tyler and Andrew invited me to come spend the day with them in the Huachuca Mountains. They left my house (where they had stayed on Fri and Sat, but that's a whole other post) and drove over to Carr Canyon. I had to stay for a high school group out from Tucson that I was taking Owling that night.

Needless to say, the Owling went well. They all thought I was amazing after I pulled 3 species of owls out of 20mph winds and rain. It was pretty cool. I almost thought we weren't going to do it, but the owls cooperated in the end.

Anyway, I left Portal around 10:00 and arrived (after driving up the steep, narrow, winding mountain road) at the top of Carr Canyon. Since I had arrived so late, I slept in late while Jacob and Tyler walked off to see their year Greater Pewee and Buff-breasted Flycatcher.

When I finally woke up, we walked up the trail in a futile search for Eastern "Azure" Bluebird.

We did end up finding a Virginia's Warbler though. Interestingly enough, this bird is not at all common in the Chiricahuas and was a new state bird for me.

Not finding the Azure Bluebirds, Tyler, Jacob and I decided to head to Miller Canyon. Andrew stayed to record flycatcher vocalizations.

We dropped Tyler off at the Hummingbird feeders to wait for his lifer Berylline Hummingbird and walked up the canyon. 1 young male Black Bear and some Red-faced Warblers later, Tyler had seen his Hummingbird and we headed out. Over lunch, Tyler found out about a pair of Elegant Terns at a small city park in Tucson. Needing that bird for my state list and for the year, I followed them down to the park. The small lake is surrounded by concrete shores but does have fish in it. It's the weirdest place I've ever seen an Elegant Tern:

After seeing the Terns, I said goodbye to Jacob and Tyler and headed home. Just outside of Tucson, I stopped in the small town (well, not even a town) of Vail to top off my tank. After topping off the tank, I started the engine and it immediately started making a high pitched screeching sound. I quickly pulled forward into a parking place and popped the hood.

I killed the engine and opened the hood. As I did, there came a cracking noise and the serpentine belt snapped clean in two right in front of me. Well, you should have heard me curse my bad luck. 2 hours and several phone calls later, a tow truck came and took me and my car to a nearby mechanic. However, this was late on a Sunday afternoon so there wasn't anyone open. I booked a room at the nearby Holiday Inn and settled in for the night. The next morning, I called the guy and had him look at the car. Fortunately, he managed to get to work on it right away. He called me back at about 4:00pm yesterday and said that he wasn't going to be able to finish but he would pay for a hotel room for that night. I settled right back in at the nearby Holiday Inn. This morning, one of his mechanics accidentally broke the evaporator. Fortunately for me, they replaced it free of charge. I'm rather glad because I'm sure I would have had to have replaced it someday anyway. It did take longer though and now, I'm waiting for them to finish some minor repairs. My car should be ready very soon and I'll be on my way back to Portal after spending 2 more days in Tucson than I had planned.

Hopefully they did everything correctly. If they did, I should be able to drive the car all the way to Brownsville and back with no problems. I took some time and filtered down all the problems and it all seems to boil down to one cause. The A/C on the car has cause all of the problems I've had so far. Since the Serpentine belt runs everything, if one thing isn't working, nothing works.

Now, the car has a brand new A/C system so it should work forever.

Jacob and I leave for Brownsville in two weeks. We'll probably take my car now that I've replaced almost every moving part on it. It should work great right? At least, I hope so!

Til next time, Happy Birding!

Whirlwind Birding Pt 3: Nogales to Phoenix, a nine lifer weekend

2009-06-07T11:09:00.002-05:00

California Gulch

After the Five-striped Sparrows, our next stop was nearby Sycamore Canyon.

Sycamore Canyon also runs to the border and doesn't get birded a lot so the potential for rarities is greater. However, the rarest bird we found was our 3rd Thick-billed Kingbird of the weekend:

Since we had dipped on Flame-colored Tanager the first time, we decided to head to Madera Canyon to find it. Madera was only a 30 minute drive north to we arrived rather early in the morning. As we drove in, a Botteri's Sparrow flew across the road and I spotted a Rufous-winged Sparrow sitting in a bush as we drove by. We drove up to Madera Kubo, parked and got out. Less than 30 seconds later, Jacob spotted the Mr Flame as he came down to the jelly feeder. I managed to get a shot of him a minute later:

A minute later, this Hooded Oriole also posed for his portrait:

Having nothing left to do in Madera, I called my friend Tyler to see what he was up to. He said that he knew where there was a Common Black-hawk nest. Tyler lives in Tempe but we had the whole day so we drove up to pick him up. It was then that we found out that the nest was another hour's drive away. We drove out to Sunflower, AZ where Tyler managed to pick out the nest. The hawk was sitting on it, in plain view:

It was my 8th lifer of the weekend.

After seeing the hawk, Tyler also mentioned that he knew where to find some Gray Vireos. Gray Vireo was a lifer for me so I readily agreed.

We drove out to the vireo spot and stood listening. We heard many Black-chinned Sparrows singing. I managed to get a few decent photos:

The Sparrows were great, but our real target was the vireo. After listening and pinpointing one down the slope, we were able to get him to come in:

Lifer #9 for the weekend!

There aren't many places that I can get 9 lifers in one weekend. Southeast Arizona (until now) was one of them.

We drove back to Phoenix and dropped off Tyler at his house. Then, Jacob and I continued on to Tucson where he had left his truck.

As we drove along the road to the house, I spotted two hawks sitting on the wire. They didn't look quite right for Red-tailed though. I did a U-turn and went back. Sure enough, there were two Harris's Hawks sitting on the wire. While not a lifer for either of us, it was a decent year bird:

I dropped off Jacob and drove home to Portal. I arrived home shortly after midnight, exhausted, but exhilarated after an amazing weekend of birding in Southeastern Arizona.

It was quite possibly the best birding weekend I've ever had. Jacob and I managed to actually see every rare or uncommon Mexican species known to exist in Southeast Arizona at the time!

I never expect to have luck like that again any time soon.

Anyway, til next time, Happy Birding!

Gray-collared Becard!!

2009-06-06T00:41:00.010-05:00

Apologies for this untimely interruption of my story, but I HAVE A RARE BIRD TO REPORT!!

Ok, ok. I'm serious now. This morning, I was sitting at home puttering around the computer when the phone rang. I answered. The voice on the other end sounded excited.

"Chris? Yea, this is P.D. Hulce. Three people walked into the research station this morning and showed me some photos of what I'm pretty sure is a Gray-collared Becard. I believe it would be a first US record." I sat silent for a second. The I said "How long ago?" "About an hour. I'm leaving the station in about 5 minutes." I said "I'm heading out now. See you up there."

I was out the door a minute later. When I arrived 5 minutes later, P.D. and Bob Weaver were already there looking for it. Bob was at the bridge and P.D. was farther up the canyon. I decided to walk down from the bridge since there was nobody there. As I walked, I remembered Dave Jasper saying something about birds liking to hang out around the only Chinese Elm tree in the entire canyon. As I walked by the tree, I heard the Becard call. I found it a second later. Sitting right at the top of the tree. I yelled to Bob and P.D. and they came running. The bird gave us spectacular views for about 15 minutes before it flew down the canyon. The last I saw of it was it's tail as it disappeared through the trees. It was my 550th life bird and the first of it's family that I've ever seen.

There will be around 150 people in the canyon on Sat morning. We'll know by tomorrow if the bird is still around. Here are some more photos of the bird:

Before I walked out the door, I posted on my Facebook Status update that there was a Gray-collared Becard up south fork. I found out later that Chris Benesh (who is currently in Anchorage, AK) read my update, and posted the possible Becard to the AZ-NM bird listserve. To my knowledge, that is the first time that word about a rare bird spread to a listserve from Facebook! Don't you just love instant communication? :D

Tomorrow, I go to track down another ABA rarity. Wish me luck!

Til next time, Happy Birding!