The Eyrie

Fifth Name Game

Wow...it's been awhile. Answer to Previous: 1. Osprey, 2. Common Paraque, 3. Dovekie, 4. Common Eider.

1. This bird was once thought to have hatched out of barnacles, which were thought to have grown on trees.

2. Namesake once said to Audubon in a letter “I drink no wine and do not use snuff. I hope that you are able to do the same”.

3. This bird’s scientific name may associate it with Minerva, the Roman Goddess of War and Wisdom.

4. Namesake rumored to have entered the camp of Apache war leader Cochise and persuaded the chief to abandon the warpath.

Photo Quiz 12

Answer to Previous: okay, maybe that last one wasn't fair (some of you seem to know something about that photo others don't :}....Here's the answer from Jacob Drucker:

This bird is uniformly dark, and obviously a waterbird. Its proportions are anything but duck-like. The feet don't project beyond the tail, and aren't huge, and the long wings rule out coot. This leaves Charadriiformes (shorebirds, gulls, etc.). Looking at range maps, the only dark Charadriids in Washington are Heerman's Gull and Black Oystercatcher. Wandering Tattler can look dark above, but the under parts on this bird are clearly dark as well. The uniform darkness, long thin wings, and visibly rounded head shape reveal the bird to be a Black Oystercatcher. Taken late July, Washington

 

Photo Courtesy of Andy Bankert

Interview: Pete Dunne (Part 3)

 6. Do you have a preference for writing fiction or nonfiction? If so, why? 

Fiction is just nonfiction without being constrained by the facts.  I love the latitude of expression nonfiction confers.

 7. Can you share a story from your experiences birding with Roger Tory Peterson?  

I'll recount my favorite (even if you may have heard it before).  It was dawn, May 19, 1984--the first World Series of Birding.   Myself, Pete Bacinski, Bill Boyle, David Sibley and Roger Tory Peterson were all standing on an elevated railroad bed at a place called Waterloo in the New Jersey Highlands.  The place was celebrated for its diversity of breeding warblers (like Golden-winged Warbler) and as a migrant trap.  As the morning dawned and birds broke into song it was Roger who time after time was first to pin the name to the bird.  Maybe Pete or Bill or David were holding back.  But I can tell you, truly, that on that glorious morning, Roger Tory Peterson was quicker and better than me. 

 It was the first time I'd seen the man, whose birding skills were legendary, in action.  The legend was well founded.  Roger Tory Peterson's birding skills were generations ahead of his time.

 Just as a footnote to history, I believe that this was the only time Roger and David Sibley ever birded together.  The book that brought David's immense talent to public light was still years away and Roger, too, had work yet to publish.  But I find myself musing, sometimes, that a torch was passed that morning on that old cinder bed.   Ha.  Must be the writer in me.

 8. If you could give one piece of advice to young birders, what would it be?

 That's easy.  Just have fun.  There are plenty of things in life that are going to get you all wrapped around the axel.  Watching birds shouldn't be one of them.

Interview: Pete Dunne (Part 2)

 4. You've written essays with tips on how to be a better birder. Do you have any tips on becoming a better nature writer?

Hmmm.  Do I note a particular fascination with writing here?

    First, I wouldn't box myself in .  Don't set out to be a better nature writer.  Be a better writer. 

Read great writers.  Read Steinbeck.  Read Hemmingway.  Discover what great is and then aspire to it.  I think it was Hemmingway who said: "Don't write anything someone has written before unless you can best it."  Sounds like Hemmingway, anyway.  And....

Write.  All the time.  On paper.  In your mind.  See the world as stories unfolding.  Discipline yourself to take actual experiences and rework them into words for others to enjoy vicariously.

Never miss an opportunity to do something or go some place new.  Experiences are the well we draw from for the rest of our lives.  Make it a deep one.

Get disciplined. Write a column for a local paper or a blog.  Do it for free.  Natural writers are the exception (and I don't think I even believe in them).  Good writing for most of us means lots of practice.   

    Also, learn photography.  It's easier to get articles published when they hit an editors desk complete with illustrations.  Speaking of editors....  

Trust editors.  They'll make you a better writer.  And, finally,

    Write like yourself.  Finding your voice is, perhaps, the hardest challenge for a beginning writer and the way to make this harder is to try and write like somebody else.  Write just the way you think and you won't go wrong.  Later, when you are experienced, you may (as the SciFi writer, Isaac Asimov once observed) write "better than yourself."  But let that happen, if it happens, later.

OK.  One last thing.  Don't sweat spelling or punctuation.  That's like being an architect and sweating about bricks and nails.  Many years ago Roger Tory Peterson and I were talking about writing and he said of my writing: "You know, you break all the rules but it sounds all right in the end."

I guess that was a compliment.  And I hasten to point out that in order to break the rules you have to know them first.

 5. I wrote a post asking young birders to list their top favorite bird “vocalizers” (songs and/or calls). What would your list look like?

 My list would look like a diary and a map.  The songs and calls that rank high in my esteem are all bound up in experience.  The dreamy song of Wood Thrush is lodged in the memory of evening shadows descending upon my parents backyard in suburban New Jersey.  The whip-lash incantation of Screaming Piha has wife Linda's hand in mine as we stand on a canopy darkened trail in the Amazon Basin.  The keening cry of a Herring Gull puts me on the sea wall at Newburyport, Mass,in February, with my mentor, Floyd Wolfarth, scanning right beside me.  

 I'm not very partial or even discriminatory when it comes to bird vocalizations.  Just grateful.  

More tomorrow…

Interview: Pete Dunne (Part 1)

A prolific writer with essays published in a number of birding magazines and author of numerous books on birds and birding, Pete Dunne is Director of the Cape May Bird Observatory and founder of the World Series of Birding. I know you will find his answers fun and interesting. And a personal thanks to Pete Dunne for his time in answering my questions. Enjoy!

1. Do you find the appeal of birding to be different for you now than when you were a fledgling birder? In what ways?

What a thought provoking question!  When I was a beginning birder, I was driven by the excitement of possibility.  Exciting discoveries lurked around every bend in the trail.  Every encounter of a new bird was test of skill and every successful identification a new arrow to stick in my growing arsenal of knowledge.  In some respects little has changed.  Possibility still drives me.  If we knew what we were going to find every time we donned binoculars and stepped outdoors why would we bother?  But now I use, and push, my skills to identify birds quicker and farther away than I could before.  I also go out less to test and push myself than I do to simply encounter and enjoy "old friends"--i.e. birds that I have become familiar with and that experience tells me I might run into in the right habitat and during a particular time of year.

 The old drive hasn't been lost or supplanted.  It has been augmented by a lifetime of encounters and the desire to renew old acquaintances again and again.  

 2. In one of your essays which appears in Good Birders Don't Wear White, you say "show me an accomplished field birder, and I'll show you a person who set his sights on becoming precisely that." Did you have your sights set early on to become a great writer?

Another great question.  Tricky one, too.  My answer: Yes.  And I still aspire to someday be a great writer. 

 3. At what point in your life did you realize you wanted to make birding a career?  

 Even in grade school I wanted to work in an outdoor field.  Forest ranger, game warden, outdoor photographer.  There was really no such thing as a birding career, not in the 50s or 60s.  That vocational pathway didn't open until the birding population grew large enough to support an industry to serve it.  Upon reflection, I think I decided to just dedicate myself to studying raptors more than I decided to make birding a career.  I was so wrapped up in birds of prey I didn't care if I starved.  When New Jersey Audubon offered me a job counting hawks in Cape May in 1976 for $500 I felt like I was cheating them.  Heck, I would have paid them for the privilege of counting hawks in Cape May. 

 So...I think making a career and having a career happened more or less simultaneously and without a lot of planning or thought.  My ambition was to forge a Cape May Bird Observatory.  What you call a birding career just went along for the ride.

More tomorrow…

Interview with Joel Such: 2008 YBY

 

 

Williamson's Sapsucker, colored pencil, by Joel Such

 

Joel Such (Lyons, CO) is the ABA’s 2008 Young Birder of the Year. He found out about the contest through the ABA’s website (http://www.aba.org/yby/index.html ), where he found the sample work of previous contestants both helpful and inspiring. For those interested, the contest will start again in April. Congratulations Joel!

What aspect of the contest helped you grow the most as a birder?

I participated in the field notebook, illustration, and photography modules, and the field notebook was definitely the module that helped me grow most as a birder.  By spending lots of field time observing, sketching, taking notes, and photographing I learned and discovered more about bird identification, behavior, diet, and habitat preferences.

 

What advice do you have for future participants?

Spend as much time as you can in the field and keep up on your field journaling.  For illustration, be patient, take your time, and practice.  For photography, carry a camera in the field whenever possible… you never know when you will have a great photo opportunity.

 

What about the contest did you find the most challenging?

Keeping the field notebook was the most challenging (and the most rewarding) part of the contest for me.  I found that it took a lot of time and discipline.

 

 
 sample from Joel's field notebook
 

How would you describe yourself as a birder?

Chasing birds and keeping lists is not my main interest in birding.  I consider myself more of a naturalist/artist.  I love spending a lot of time exploring my own backyard, finding and observing interesting birds that move through our property.  I am happy to spend all day out in the field, radio in when I’m hungry, and have my mom send snacks out with our dog (who carries them out in her doggie backpack).

 

What is your favorite bird and why?

That’s a difficult question for me, because the answer can change from one day to the next.  While the sky blue Mountain Bluebird and the water loving American Dipper have been long time favorites through the years, I’m always fascinated by whatever bird I’ve most recently had a close and magical encounter with.  In the past three months, I’ve answered the “favorite bird” question with White-tailed Ptarmigan, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, American Pipit, and Western Scrub-Jay, but today I’d answer the question with Canyon Wren.  Why?   A few weeks ago I heard the electronic buzzing of a Canyon Wren.  I approached the sound and spotted the calling wren on a big boulder near our house.  It was too far for a good look, so I pished and it disappeared.  A couple seconds later it popped up from under a rock at my feet and jumped up to an exposed perch in perfect lighting. The wren seemed to pose just for me.  It was so close that I had to take a few steps back to get the camera to focus.  I’m sure the Canyon Wren will be my favorite bird until my next special encounter with some other bird.

 

 

Sample from Joel's field notebook
 

Book Review: Small-headed Flycatcher

By Neil Gilbert

 

You can’t go wrong with Pete Dunne. He’s one of my favorite authors; I’ve been reading his books since I was ten. That’s why, upon receiving a gift certificate to Bueto Books, I ordered Small-headed Flycatcher. It was one of the few books by Dunne that I had not read.

Like several of Dunne’s other books, Small-headed Flycatcher is a collection of essays about birds, birding, and birders. With his usual creativity, Dunne infuses his stories with wit and humor. Dunne has a way of presenting serious topics from a humorous angle. For example, in “Separating Hoagies,” Dunne approaches the delicate topic of rare bird committees—by comparing rare birds to sandwiches.

 

Young birders appear frequently in Small-headed Flycatcher. I found it fascinating to read about Dunne as a young birder, as many of his experiences matched those of modern young birders. I could relate to several of his stories. For example, I’ve had encounters with condescending older birders just like in the story “Passing Sights and Sounds,” in which a penniless young birder has to tolerate a rich older birder who…

I shouldn’t spoil it for you.

   

Small-headed Flycatcher has my solid recommendation. Hardly surprising. I knew it would be good before I even cracked it open; after all, you can’t go wrong with Pete Dunne. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy—and try to read it faster than I did (two days.)

YBY Contest Deadline!

Hello young birders of America,

 

This is just to say….get yourself together because the Young Birder of the Year contest deadline is this Friday, October 23! Don't forget to send in your submissions....

 

For those of you who don’t know, the Young Birder of the Year contest, held by the ABA, is a competition in which participants choose to participate in any or all four categories (field notebook, illustration, writing, and photography). In order to win the overall contest, you must participate in the field notebook section plus two other modules. Participants may also place and win prizes within individual sections. Your next chance to enter will be April. For more information on guidelines and where to send your materials: http://www.aba.org/yby/index.html

 

I highly recommend participation in the contest. I entered it three years in a row (2004, 2005, and 2006). Through the contest, I developed my skills in birding. Receiving comments and advice from judges who are considered the “top-dogs” of the birding world was the best part. They gave sincere comments that helped me improve my art, writing, and note-taking skills. In addition, I received scholarships to birding camps which expanded my view of birding outside my home state. To see a sample of previous entries visit: http://www.aba.org/yby/2007winners/

5 Best Vocalizers (Debatable)

  
Sprague's Pipit (Apalachicola, FL), Courtesy of Andy Bankert
 

How many times have you argued with your birder friends over what birds are the coolest? Maybe you haven’t and I am a total nerdatron. Since “coolest” is kind of vague, I’ve instead chosen to think up a list of the best vocalizations. I did not say the best singers, so any vocalization can be included. Yes, even the short chips of warblers are fair game. Many birds on my list have somewhat sentimental vocalizations for me, they rattle my memory. Others just sound cool. No matter how common, I still get excited over hearing these birds.

 

The following is my personal list of favorite vocalizations (top 5). This is an invite for other young birders to share personal lists of favorite vocalizations, or even to debate the ones on my list, or each other’s list.  

 

Great Horned Owl—After sunset, the monotone, deep “who-who-who….whooo….whoooo” fills the empty void left by daytime singers. The call can be heard from quite a distance, but when heard from a branch right above you, the graveyard scene sound sends a shudder down the spine.

Sprague’s Pipit—I heard this bird at the ABA’s 2008 Young Birder Conference in Minot, North Dakota. We watched this high flying singer, a dot in the sky, deliver his rolling cascade of descending song. The pipit sang when he was not flapping his wings but coasting. The sound would not reach our ears until he had begun flapping again.

American Bittern—“unk-a-lunk”, says he with a resonant voice. The sound reminds me of emptying gallon jugs of water into the sink. The sound of air bubbles sneaking in and creeping through the emptying water, “lug-a-lug”.

Sora—I love to stand before some vast marsh bristled with cattails and hear, out of the blue, a burst of uproarious laughter from the Sora. The call is sudden and jocular, as if the bird had just been told a funny joke and could not help breaking out into hysterics.

Bullock’s Oriole—I am talking about call and song (but not the wren-like chatter). Both have a juicy, round quality, like squeezing an orange…oh, and their inmate suit plumage reminds of oranges, too.  

The Fourth Name Game

Your answers were correct as follows: (1) Carolina Parakeet, (2) Gambel's Quail, Mountain Chickadee, and subspecies of White-crowned Sparrow, (3) Brown-crested Flycatcher.

1. Named after the noble King of Athens whose daughters transformed into birds

2. White-necked night-runner

3. In Europe, Little Auk

4. A soft, downy bird true to "common" and scientific name. Great pillow stuffing, ZZZZzzzzzzzz....