ABA Blog

Little Things Can Be Big

We all know that bigger is not necessarily better, but still many people strive for big houses, luxurious cars, grand vacations, high-paying jobs, and the like, as if we could not be satisfied with anything smaller. A few of us, a bit more removed from the mainstream, instead of striving for larger material things, work for large life-lists of birds, or bigger big days or big years. Also, while most birders say that we really like little birds as much as big ones, it’s hard not to become more  excited when we view a Great Horned Owl or a Sandhill Crane than when we view a Screech-Owl or a rail (unless it’s a Rufous-necked Wood-Rail) or a wren. I know that some of my delight in large birds is because they are usually much easier to find and to see.

Sometimes, finding a very small bird can bring much pleasure, however, even if it is not rare. Of course, finding a rare bird is wonderful, no matter whether it is large or small. That is particularly true if we have to work hard to find the bird or if we get a very good look at it.

My thoughts on bird size were set in motion on a recent driving trip that I took in eastern Pennington County, south of Wall. It had been a non-noteworthy drive. I had stopped at my standard viewing areas (the Wall sewage ponds and a lake just north of Quinn), and then headed south across areas with fields and Badland views. The most common birds had been Mourning Doves, Western Meadowlarks, Eastern and Western Kingbirds, Bullock’s Orioles, American Kestrels, Red-headed Woodpeckers, Lark Buntings and Starlings.

A large part of my trip homeward was along Base Line Road, one of the main cross-country roads that heads generally back toward Rapid City from the Wall area. There are miles and miles of grassy, gently rolling golden fields, scattered cows, and very few birds in August along Base Line Road. Nevertheless, I usually drive slowly along the road in any season, windows rolled down, hoping to hear or see something besides grass and cows and meadowlarks. Every now and then, there is an isolated farm house and yard, and periodically, there are picturesque fallen or falling-down old homes and outbuildings, sometimes with a few trees, where I look (usually in vain) for a perched bird. Only a few times are there small ponds or other wet-appearing green areas.

On this particular driving trip, I was wondering whether the Dickcissels had all migrated away already as I approached one such green area. To my delight, I heard a perky little multipart chattery call and of course immediately thought, “Dickcissel” and then immediately realized that it was definitely not a Dickcissel. It was a very unexpected bird, a Sedge Wren!

For those of you not familiar with the normal range of Sedge Wrens, you need to know a couple of things: Pennington County is in far western South Dakota; Birds of South Dakota (Tallman et al., 2002) only shows two sightings west of the Missouri River; the National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America (Dunn et al.) only shows Sedge Wrens in eastern South Dakota; and I had never heard or seen a Sedge Wren in western South Dakota nor talked to anyone else who had. I was ecstatic. The Sedge Wren was singing its head off, hopping up and down in the few low bushes that were out in the… yes… sedges! It was so engrossed in its singing that it ignored me completely as I snapped photos and took videos of the singing bird.

Later that day, after I posted my sighting on the sd-birds listserv, at least a couple of other birders also got to see and hear the singing Sedge Wren.

A Sedge Wren is under five inches long. It is small. But it is one of my biggest sightings for 2013.

So far.

 

Blog Birding #149

The most recent edition of I and the Bird at 10,000 Birds concerns everyone's favorite lobed footed waterbirds, the grebes:

And now we enter into a family of birds more or less unknown to non-birders. Destined to be forever written off as ducks which which they share an affinity with water and little else, or maybe coots primarily among those who may reside near large numbers of those squabbling, aquatic rails, or more likely ignored as they slink back into the vegetation to do their business away from lookie-loos and carriers of bread bags. To know a grebe is to take your bird awareness to another level. To cast your eyes to the cattails on the edges of the pond or the raft of birds at the lake’s center and to know what you are likely to find. On those occasions when grebes deign to reveal themselves to non-birders they are met with confusion, because they don’t easily fit into the non-birder’s notion of an expected water bird.

There are few groups of birds as exciting and as confusing as jeagers. At The Nemesis Bird, Erik Bruhnke expands on the thrill of jaeger watching:

Originating from the German word for “hunter,” jaeger is a very appropriate name for these unique birds. Jaegers are kleptoparasites, which means that they steal other birds’ food for their own food. When breeding on-site in the arctic tundra, jaegers will readily go after shorebirds (to eat them). When jaegers are out over the expanses of water, they will readily pursue gulls in search of food. Using their sickle-like wings to accelerate and propel themselves into mind-blowing acrobatics, jaegers will harass the gulls until the gulls regurgitate food.

There are some species that have the uncanny ability to appear like a multitude of others, for Jeff Cooper of NeoVista Birding, that bird is Mountain Bluebird:

Setting gulls aside, I think I've been tricked by Mountain Bluebirds more than any other bird species when it comes to initial impressions for an identification. We have both Mountain and Western Bluebirds in Utah, but the Westerns are found more in the southern part of the state. A bluebird in northern Utah should be a Mountain Bluebird. The first time I saw a group of Mountain Bluebirds in Northern Utah I got excited and declared that one was a Western Bluebird because I saw a rufous coloring on its chest. My birding mentor kindly explained that female Mountain Bluebirds can have some rufous on their chests.

It's shorebird season, and Don Freiday of Freiday Bird Blog shares some tips on parsing out the young birds from the adults:

One of these days I'm going to write a post called "The Rules of Shorebirds," and list them all, but for now, here are two of the rules. First, shorebirds come in three plumages, plus transitions between them.  The top dowitcher is a juvenile, and I'm technically required to point out that correctly we would say, and spell, the plumage it's in as juvenal. The bird is juvenile, the plumage is juvenal. The bottom dowitcher is an adult in "breeding" or alternate plumage, worn breeding to be more precise since it's been wearing this coat of feathers since northbound migration last spring and they're looking a little tired, not as bright and neat as they were last spring.

As a Camp Chiricahua alum (Class of 1994), I'm thrilled that the newest generation of birders gets to share in the excitement of birding the wonderland that is southeast Arizona with experienced leaders. Jennie Duberstein at The Eyrie shares some highlights:

VENT’s Camp Chiricahua, sponsored by the ABA, took place in early August in southeastern Arizona. Thirteen campers from across the U.S.and as far away as Panama arrived in Tucson on Tuesday, August 6 to join leaders Michael O’Brien, Louise Zemaitis, and me (Jennie Duberstein). After a welcome to Tucson cookout in Madera Canyon, we spent the first few days camping up on Mount Lemmon at Rose Canyon Lake, getting an introduction to the Sky Islands and seeing great birds like Zone-tailed Hawk, Olive Warbler, Greater Pewee, and more Red-faced Warblers than you can shake a stick at (seriously, we had 17 on one hike).

 

ABC and Partners in Flight Meet This Week in Utah

Editor's Note: The ABA is pleased to welcome American Bird Conservancy President Dr. George Fenwick to the blog to introduce the 5th International Partners in Flight Conference and Conservation Workshop, held this week in Snowbird, Utah.

In addition to the critical conversations and trans-hemispheric planning sessions occurring at the meeting this year, the ABA is proud to announce our presence there as well. We'll be taking our acclaimed conservation program Birders' Exchange on the road, distributing optics and equipment to deserving researchers from all over the hemisphere right on site.

Without further ado, here's Dr. Fenwick.

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I don’t write a lot about meetings, especially in advance.  This post is the exception that proves that rule.  There is a meeting that will take place outside Salt Lake City, Utah, August 25 – 28 and if this meeting does what it’s designed to do, it will be a banner day for birds but more specifically, it will be a banner day for declining neotropical migratory birds found in the Western Hemisphere.

The meeting in question is the fifth international meeting of Partners in Flight (PIF) and is being hosted by American Bird Conservancy. PIF (www.partnersinflight.org) was formed as a collaboration of hundreds of groups and agencies in 1990, in response to growing concerns about the decline of many of our landbirds, especially neotropical migrants.  Its partner list is a Who’s Who in bird conservation in the Americas; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supports the only paid position in the partnership – the Partners in Flight National Coordinator.  

PIF has been described as one of the most ambitious conservation efforts ever launched, but it doesn’t do a lot of conferences – roughly two per decade. That’s a useful thing when the economy is tight and travel is expensive. For that reason, bird conservationists took note when this fifth international PIF conference and workshop was scheduled for this summer. At this point, hundreds of ornithologists and other scientists are expected to attend. Participants include not only home-grown NGOs concerned with these migratory bird problems, but a range of bird experts from 14 countries and almost 100 organizations from Canada and Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean.

PIF and ABC are doing everything they can to help ensure that this year’s meeting shapes the future of bird conservation, which is a tall order indeed.  Our target - simple to voice but exceedingly complex to implement - is a better life for the declining migrants found in the Americas. We hope to reach that goal  by working together on a set of “conservation business plans” designed to identify and prioritize actions needed to improve the habitats used by the migratory birds. In recent years, “business plans” have become attractive to donors because they are necessarily very specific in identifying what will be achieved for a given commitment of resources.

To that end, collaborative teams are being formed for eight different ecological regions used as wintering grounds, geographically linking north and south to cover wintering, breeding, and transit areas. These teams and conference attendees will develop specific sets of programs and projects to address the most pressing threats for these regions and their migratory birds. The result: a “conservation blueprint” for our most imperiled migratory species.

We have set up the meeting to be inclusive, inviting all who are concerned about birds and their conservation to attend, participate, and contribute. It is an opportunity that does not come along often on a stage this large.  It seems like the pieces are in place for this collaboration to produce a lasting legacy for conservation. Such things have happened before -- prominent scientists and conservationists coming together and significantly changing the course of conservation. In 1917, Victor Shelford gathered scientists and formed the Ecological Society of America, leading to the publication of The Naturalist’s Guide to the Americas (1926) and launching the modern conservation movement in the United States.

Another historical moment in bird conservation occurred in 1985, when research showed that waterfowl populations had plummeted to record lows. Concerned groups and individuals came together to create the North American Waterfowl Management Plan, recognized by both the United States and Canada in 1986 and later joined by Mexico. That plan has generated more than $5.3 billion to purchase and enhance waterfowl habitat on more than 20 million acres in these three countries­—a remarkable legacy of coordinated public-private action.

In addition to the working sessions, the meeting also offers plenary sessions that run the gamut from provocative:  Can Conservation Save Birds?  – to international:  The Challenges and Success of Migratory Bird Conservation in the Wintering Grounds, from the Latin American Perspective – to fresh approaches: The Partners in Flight Full Life-Cycle Approach: New Directions for Bird Conservation.  See the full line-up of plenary sessions here. 

Special sessions – nine in total -- have something for everyone, including:  A Western Hemisphere Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment for All Birds; Understanding and Overcoming the Social Challenges of Bird Conservation; and Migration Stopover and Bottlenecks for Long-distance Migrants within the Western Hemisphere. Check out the full schedule.

And of course they have a full set of birding field trips after the heavy lifting of the meeting has taken place: 

For more than 20 years, under the banner of Partners in Flight, thousands of our best scientists, conservationists, and educators have labored to understand, address, and enlighten us about the disappearance of migratory birds. These are great people. Let’s hope they can make a difference again. If you care about bird conservation and you haven’t signed up for this meeting, you should check it out at www.pifv.org.

Call for Birding Milestones!

With the retirement of Winging It (and the imminent publication of the new Birder's Guide series) it was critical that we find a new place for the ABA's popular Milestones feature. We've heard from many members about how much they enjoy Milestones, particularly when a friend or acquaintance turns up in the rolls. It's a touchstone for the ABA community and we want it to continue to have a prominent place in our publications.

Members will be happy to know, then, that Milestones is now going to published bimonthly in Birding magazine. With this new, arguably higher, profile, we need birders to fill it up with notable sightings.

For those who may not know, Milestones is where birders who reach significant milestones on their ABA, world, state, province, or territory, can announce those special birds in print for the rest of the membership to enjoy vicariously. It is generally, though not always, limited to those birds whose numbers end in -00, the ones that tick over the old life list odometer.

So if you are a member, let's have those milestones! Send your notifications to tfloyd AT aba.org and we'll be sure to include them.

Thanks!

 

Rare Bird Alert: August 23, 2013

A short introduction this week, but sufficed to say that the streak is once again on the verge of being broken. Birders have seven more days to find a first record somewhere in the ABA area. Get to it!

In actual found bird news, the question "How many Blue-footed Boobies constitutes an irruption?" is an increasingly relevant one. Following New Mexico's second record last week, another Blue-footed Booby (ABA Code 4) was discovered in the southwest, this time at Patagonia Lake in Santa Cruz, Arizona. Rest assured that this individual is a more more robust representative of booby-dom than it's starving NM counterpart, and it's been seen on several occasions fishing successfully at the lake. 

photo by Andrew Core

Also in Arizona, and even also in Santa Cruz, a Yellow-green Vireo was also found this week. 

In California,a Curlew Sandpiper (3) was well-photographed in Monterey.

Other vagrant shorebirds include a Ruff (3) near Quesnel, British Columbia.

Another Ruff (3) in western Canada was seen near Langdon, Alberta.

Alaska is beginning to heat up again, most notably on St. Paul, where a Common House-Martin (4) was stooping at many of the guides there. Birders in Gambell are weighing in as well, with a Little Bunting (4) and a Dusky Warbler (4) seen there over the last couple weeks. Also, a Long-billed Murrelet (3) was spotted in Kachemek Bay and a surprisingly rare for Alaska American Goldfinch at a feeder near Pelican.

Swallow-tailed Kites are making their annual foray into the midwest, with reports from Cass, Michigan, Hancock, Ohio, and Dearborn, Indiana.

In Illinois, a Great-tailed Grackle is a good bird in Morgan.

A Brown Pelican was seen in Wheatley Harbour, Ontario, meaning the species has been seen on both sides of Lake Erie now. 

Another Swallow-tailed Kite flew over Capitale-Nationale, Quebec.

New England is becoming the region to find White-faced Storm Petrel (3), but one in Rhode Island's offshore waters was still notable.   

In New York, a sharp-looking Curlew Sandpiper (3) was seen by many in Suffolk.

Birders offshore in Maryland waters were somewhat surprised to see a Black-caped Petrel make an appearance.

That same boat had Band-rumped Storm-Petrel in Delaware waters, one of only a few for that state.

Several Herald "Trindade" Petrels (3) continue to linger in the Gulf Stream off of Dare, North Carolina, but this weekend a White-tailed Tropicbird (3) made an appearance too, with several more coming from an NOAA ship even farther offshore.

Good for Florida, a Willow Flycatcher was noted in Miami-Dade. 

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Omissions and errors are not intended, but if you find any please message blog AT aba.org and I'll try to fix them as soon as possible. This post is meant to be an account of the most recently reported birds. Continuing birds not mentioned are likely included in previous editions listed here. Place names written in italics refer to counties/parishes. 

Readers should note that none of these reports has yet been vetted by a records committee. All birders are urged to submit documentation of rare sightings to the appropriate state or provincial committees. For full analysis of these and other bird observations, subscribe to North American Birds <aba.org/nab>, the richly illustrated journal of ornithological record published by the ABA.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, LIVE from Camp Avocet...Pish & Twitch!!!

Pish & Twitch, Brendan Murtha (l) and Caleb Frome (r), rock the house ©George Armistead 

The ABA, with vital support from Leica Sport Optics and other generous donors, conducted two summer camps for young birders in the last month. I was truly fortunate to spend time with both groups and I wish the entire birding community could have joined us to see and feel the energy, excitement, commitment, and enthusiasm that the kids and their adult guides brought to these events. If you're ever feeling a bit down in the mouth about the state of the world, I recommend birding with kids as a potent corrective.

I started to make a list of just a very few highlights from the camps to give you a quick sketch of the range of experiences we all shared but soon abandoned the effort as there's so much material that mentioning some means leaving too much out. But I will say that the camps offered an incredibly diverse range of experiences from serious and cerebral to fun and physical, all centered around building the practice and community of birding. 

If you haven't looked at Bill Schmoker's post here from earlier today, do so. It has links to some wonderful photos and video that will give you a great overview of Camp Avocet.

There is one thing I do want to share one thing with you, that I hope you'll get a big kick out of. A couple of the campers at Camp Avocet, Caleb Frome and Brendan Murtha, surprised us one afternoon by telling us that they had formed a band and that they had written some songs about birding.

Billing themselves as Pish & Twitch, Brendan and Caleb, with assistance from William von Herff, proceeded to delight the entire camp group by performing 3 song parodies with the lyrics reworked to joke about the joys and travails of birding. They were so good that we demanded they do it again the next night and give us another chance at recording them.

They obliged, this time performing no less than five songs! Once again, they brought the house down. Below, I provide links to videos for all five songs. I invite you to watch them all and be as stunned as we were by the creativity of these young birders.

In posting these videos, I'm inviting you to share in a spontaneous event full of exuberant, goofy fun. Other than me captioning the songs, so you can better appreciate their astonishing word play, it's presented straight and unfiltered. So there are some very mild instances of salty language, as well as some affectionate jokes at the expense of us camp leaders, some famous birders, brands, and so on. It's all in good fun and should be heard that way. It's summer camp for teenagers, after all.

Without further ado, I present Pish & Twitch and their first song, "Chase Me Maybe."

 

Great stuff, huh? That's Brendan on the left and Caleb on the right.

For their next song, "Moves Like Jaeger," Pish & Twitch are joined by William von Herff.

 

Next up, "Flight Calls," an amazing encapsulation of the weird and wonderful practice of listening for and identfying nocturnal migrants.

  

And now, the epic "Migrants Go By."

  

And finally, to send you all home, here's "Bill Stewart!"

  

Ladies and gentlemen, that was Pish & Twitch! We hear that they've been hard at work on additional parodies in the days since camp. And camper Joe Hernandez just designed this beautiful logo for them.

You can like them on Facebook and keep up with all the latest P&T news.

To Brendan and Caleb, and William and all the fine birders who made the ABA's 2013 summer camps the wonderful experiences they were. Good birding to you all! See you on down the trail. 

And to Leica Sport Optics and all the members/donors of the ABA, thank you. The future of birding is measurably brighter and more vibrant because of your support.

2013 ABA Camp Avocet

I had the thorough pleasure of attending the ABA's Camp Avocet as a counselor last week.  The camp, based at the beautiful and birdy Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware, attracted 22 keen young birders and a slew of bird experts who joined the staff for birding jaunts in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and New Jersey.  Camp Avocet followed on the heels of the sold-out Camp Colorado a few weeks earlier- kudus to the ABA and its young birder program director Bill Stewart for getting so many kids in the field with each other!  I am so pleased to see the growing popularity and success of the ABA's camp program.  And the season isn't even over- check out the upcoming ABA Mid-Atlantic Young Birder Conference at Ashland Nature Center, Hockessin, Delaware, 14 September 2013.

Anyway, I'd like to invite you to peruse a slide show of highlight photos that George Armistead and I put together from Camp Avocet (we suggest folks double-click "Slideshow" in the upper right for best viewing.)  I also put a little video highlight reel together that I hope you'll enjoy!  Thanks again to the ABA for bringing me out to Delaware, and to Leica Sport Optics for their support of the ABA's Young Birder program!

  

Open Mic: Bird Feeding Standards to Live By

At the Mic: Ernie Allison

Ernie Allison is a self-proclaimed bird nerd with a particular interest in environmental conservation. He prefers to spend his time going on nature hikes with his grandkids and tending to his yard. He’s been told that his bird feeders collection is out of control but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

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As the temperatures rise I find myself spending increasingly more time sitting on my back porch and watching my bird feeder with a glass of iced tea in hand. I enjoy sitting in the shade and watching the birds eat at my bird feeders and bathe in my bird baths. The more birds that I have in my yard, the happier I am. I have become attached to my backyard companions, so much so that I find myself constantly searching for new ways to attract them into my yard and to care for them.

This has made me wonder what the limits are in terms of feeding the birds and I’m sure many other bird lovers wonder the same thing. How much is too much? How many feeders are too many? Are there specific things I should be avoiding when trying to bring more birds into my yard? My goal has always been to have as many birds frequenting my yard and feeders as possible while keeping their best interests at the forefront of my efforts.  In order to do this, I have a few standards that I follow when feeding wild birds.

Feeder Placement

Where you place your feeder is extremely important. I like to try to make my feeders visible from almost any location in my yard so that I  can enjoy them at all times but there are a few general rules that need to be followed with deciding on feeder placement.

Windows-Take note of any windows or glass doors on your property, whether they are on your house or on a shed. It’s common for many birds leave the feeders and crash into windows. This can result in an extremely injured bird that may never be able to recover. You should place your feeders either as close to the windows as possible or as far away as possible. Placing feeders as close to windows as possible may seem counterintuitive but the idea behind it is that birds will not be able to get up to full speed before hitting the window when they take off. Closer than 6 feet to a window is usually recommended.

Trees and Shrubs- Placing feeders close to trees and shrubs may seem like a good idea but it may actually be putting the birds in danger. Cats and other predators can hide out and attack and unsuspecting bird who happens to be frequenting your feeder. If you happen to have a lot of trees on your property, select your feeder location carefully.

Food Choice and Amount

With obesity being such a hot button issue, it can be easy to get caught up in portion control when it comes to you and your pets.  While portion control is important for you and your pets, it’s really not necessary for wild birds. Some birds may look a little chubby, but their fluffy feathers make it impossible to determine their weight with only a visual inspection.  Wild birds are also disciplined in that they only eat until their stomachs are full. Most of them also have a sort of insurance policy against gaining weight in the form of a crop. A crop is just a little pouch near a bird’s gullet that helps to digest food and only allows a certain amount of food to reach their stomachs at any given point in time.

You should be less concerned with how much you are feeding the birds and pay more attention to what you are feeding them.  Don’t get carried away and put out whatever food you have available just to bring birds into your yard. Just because donuts are treats for us does not mean that you are doing birds a favor by setting them out. Never set out processed foods or breads because many species are unable to digest it. Processed foods and breads are also high in salt which can be extremely bad for birds because they are unable to excrete it the way humans can.

When choosing food for your feeders, you should gravitate towards high quality seeds and fresh produce. Black oil sunflower seeds are usually winners when it comes to satisfying wild birds. They crack easily, are high in protein and fat, and are easy for small birds to handle.

Feeder Maintenance

You need to maintain your bird feeding stations much like you do so in your own kitchen. Dirty and unkempt feeders lead to disease which can kill of birds, sometimes an entire flock, not to mention any other wildlife that may come into contact with it. Throw out any food that has molded or gone stale and give your feeders a good cleaning every now and then. Be sure to stay away from chemicals when cleaning because they may be extremely toxic to birds.

If you want to keep birds frequenting your yard on a regular basis, make sure you avoid letting the feeders become completely empty. When birds come across an empty feeder, they will move on to the next and that next feeder or source of food may not be in your yard. 

Help Save the Paton's Hummingbird Haven for Birders

In 1994, I was a young birder at the ABA/Victor Emanuel Nature Tour's Camp Chiricahua. We spent time at all of the southeast Arizona hotspots, including the backyard of a generous couple of Arizonans where we, like thousands of other birders had over many years, enjoyed a Violet-crowned Hummingbird. Those generous birders were, of course, Marion and Wally Paton.

Violet-crowned Hummingbird at Paton's Hummingbird Haven, photo by nebirdsplus

Since the passing of Wally and Marion a few years ago, the question of what would happen to their home has been an open one. Friends and neighbors have maintained the property and its fantastic feeders, but that solution was necessarily temporary.

Enter the American Bird Conservancy who, with the help of Tucson Audubon and Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, have entered into a contract with the Paton family to acquire the property and maintain it in perpetuity as a bird sanctuary.

$100,000 has already been raised, but the remaining $200,000 needs to come from birders and those who have realized the importance of such a place, not only for its value as an accessible site to see and enjoy these remarkable and often rare birds, but as a landmark of the birding and nature community.

Once the site has been procured, Tucson Audubon will take on the long-term management. They intend to maintain the home as a public birding site in the manner that Marion and Wally happily watched it become. In this way it will be there for future birders as it was for my Camp Chiricahua colleagues. 

The drive runs until October 15th.

#ABArare - Common House-Martin - Alaska

On August 18, Doug Gochfeld found an apparent Common House-Martin (Code 4) on St. Paul Island while he was on his way to refill a hummingbird feeder. (No, there are no hummingbirds on the island, but these guys are prepared.) I say "apparent" because another species, Asian House-Martin, is very similar in appearance, and its normal range is not much further from St. Paul than that of the Common House-Martin. However, it has not been documented in the ABA Area. To the best of my knowledge, Asian House-Martin has not definitely been eliminated as a possibility yet.

photos by Doug Gochfeld

Usually you have to search for the bird that you're looking for, but Gochfeld and the other St. Paul guides didn't have that problem with this bird after the initial sighting. Gochfeld says that everytime he moved or stopped looking at it, the House-Martin would buzz his head, nearly hitting him about a dozen times. Several times he lost sight of it, only to refind it as it flew up behind him at point-blank range. Fellow guide Cameron Cox got to share the experience as well.

Cameron Cox's close encounter with a Common House-Martin. Photo by Doug Gochfeld

The Bering Sea region, particularly St. Paul, is the best place in the ABA Area to find Common House-Martin. There are about 13 records for the ABA Area, with seven coming from St. Paul. I know of only two records from outside this region: one near the mouth of the Colville River on the north slope of Alaska in 1983 and one at Saint-Pierre (yes, of Saint-Pierre et Miquelon fame) in 1989.

Other goodies at St. Paul on the 18th included the long-staying White-tailed Eagle, Common Snipe, and a Red-necked Stint. A few participants of the ABA's rarity-hunting trips are already expressing their hopes on the ABA Rare Bird Alert Facebook group that the House-Martin sticks around for at least another month. For information on how to visit the island on your own, check out St. Paul Island Tours website here.