ABA Blog

Wyoming 2012: The Hunt for Black Swift (part 1)

Editor's Note: The ABA Blog welcomes board member and Illinois birder Matt Fraker as a contributor to the blog. 

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We know they are here...somewhere...

But this is a vast land of nooks, crannies, and inaccessibility --  a place habitually hiding its own treasures. A place that teases and teases with no promise of satisfied results, if any. And she seemingly does not mind one bit. Hard to not fall in love with that just a bit, right? Consider me mindlessly smitten.

"Knowing" they are here doesn't count or matter. We need to find them.

And "we" are all here now. Scattered. Seeking proof; hoping to end the tease...

One thing I have learned about this little bird is -- at least in this place --  we probably won't find it without a little adventure on the way...

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Monday, July 29th: The I-80 Commute


I set a new bar today. Team Fraker-Denali-Tucher had some crazy driving Karma. I made Laramie, Wyoming, with only a single stop. I did a 476 mile run to start. Then another run of 481 miles to get me to the Hampton Inn in Laramie. All under 14 hours. Without being extremely illegal, I won't ever best this.

So for the last two years, I have explored into a wicked no-man's land of brutal, bear-heavy back-country n a fantasy-ridden desire to find Wyoming's first breeding Black Swifts (if not the first of ANY Black Swifts in a state that has no accepted sightings). In terms of locating the Black Swifts, I really had no idea of what I was doing. Mostly I was just proving to myself that I could get into and out of these places alive. I have spent almost two years doing double CrossFit workouts hitting both a 5 AM and a 6 AM class usually four to five days a week. Some of these two hour sessions were so ridiculous that I began to write them down just to see what they looked like on paper. But the difference it has made in the back- ountry has been dramatic. I can't train for Bears, or lightning blasts; but I can make damn sure that I will not be my own reason that I don't get back out.

I don't recall exactly when I was contacted by a fellow veterinarian named Carolyn Gunn. I do know that in hindsight I was truly embarrassed that I failed to recognize her name. Carolyn, along with Kim Potter and Jason Beason, are the current Black Swift "A" Team gurus out of Colorado (it was their ransmittered irds that were discovered in South America possibly elucidating one of the last great mysteries of ABA area birds -- where in the hell do Black Swifts go to Winter??). For some time they had set their eyes on Wyoming as a place that needed a much more thorough looking over, and Carolyn had seen my IBF postings on my exploratory attempts. Long story short, Jason Beason put together a three person survey team to do hard surveys of alpine waterfalls in most of Wyoming's mountain ranges for 2013. Those three people were Eric Horvath and Jules Evans, two folks with considerable Black Swift nest site discovery experience along the Pacific coast, and me, thanks to my experience in Wyoming's back-country, especially Wilderness Falls.

After much planning and discussion, it was decided that Eric would cover the Wyoming Range and the Big Horn Range; Jules would cover the southwest corner of Yellowstone (a place rich in waterfalls); and I would cover some of the Wind River Range and the Tetons. We also managed to enlist a couple other folks. Michael Wickens from the University of Wyoming was also going to hit the Big Horn Range; and Sherri and I funded another technician out of the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory (more or less in charge of the whole project through Jason). Jason enlisted him and as of now all I know is that he was in the Gros Ventre Range.

Over the last year, maps and lists of waterfalls were exchanged and official survey sheets were distributed. When I educated myself on surveying for Black Swifts I learned a rather unsettling fact. On the west coast and in Colorado you don't have to worry about Grizzly Bears. As I read the survey method, it was like reading a "how to meet a Grizzly Bear" infomercial.

We are supposed to get to our waterfalls of interest around 6 to 7 PM. Then we watch up the waterfall against the light of the sky for Black Swifts returning to roost, usually until 9:30 or 10 PM. Then hike out using your headlamp.

So, basically, go to a place that's noisy enough that you and a Bear won't hear each other. Do this at the time of day when Bears are most active and at a feature that Bears probably like. Then sit quietly looking up. Then hike out in the dark. Oh hell, bring foods that require lots of honey and berry jam also.

Eric Horvath had the two ranges that were likely Grizz free -- the Wyoming and the Big Horn. But Jules was heading into Maul City Central in southwest Yellowstone. Katie Duffy in Yellowstone, who helped us with our permitting, basically told me Jules would not be allowed where he was going without one to two additional folks. This is when the term "Bearanoia" gets used a lot. And I was already very familiar with the bear scene where I was going. Like anything else back here, being smart is maybe 95% of the process. The other 5% is completely out of your hands. 

And as of this moment, here is where we stand.

Eric did not find any Swifts in the Wyoming or Big Horn Ranges. Wickens also failed to find any on the Big Horn's eastern slopes. Jules had a companion ready to join and assist him but this person injured his leg just before they left and Jules had to bail as he could not find a replacement and was clearly not going into Yellowstone solo. Eric and his wife Phoebe are going to try to do his Yellowstone surveys. Jason's field tech that we sponsored is out there someplace. And tomorrow I begin my surveys. Five major targets and two minor targets, with one week of family vacation thrown in there someplace.

I previously mentioned Wyoming does not even have an accepted sighting of this species; hopefully we changed that in June when we had the two sightings two days in a row down at the Utah border by the inta Range. That should have been the greatest lifer I have ever had, but it was marred by a camera screw-up, potentially putting the entire two day sighting at risk. So, at the risk of disturbing understatement...

I really want someone to find these birds...

Some driving Karma from this day:

The evolution of county listing

I came to county listing quite innocently, at least in my mind. After college, I spent my summers doing surveys for the now published 2nd Breeding Bird Atlas in Pennsylvania, honing my earbirding skills so I could identify any breeding species by hearing just a snippet of their song. (Hint: If you really want to learn your bird songs, spend a couple summers out in the field, seven days a week practicing...) This job took me all over my state and to many areas I had never visited before. I was a very casual birder until college because I just didn’t realize that there was something besides casual birding. Remember, this was before Facebook.

An old Google Docs worksheet for my Pennsylvania County ticks (note I only had 2883 county ticks before uploading my point counts for the PA Breeding Bird Atlas)

I initially used an Excel spreadsheet (and then Google Docs) for a long time, but this was tedious and it made it hard to target species that would add to my county lists. I always toyed with buying Avisys, but just never took the plunge. Most of these sightings went into eBird as well, but my personally calculated county ticks number and what eBird told me I had were very different numbers. At some point, the eBird upload process became easy enough that I converted the 2,500 point count surveys I did across Pennsylvania into the appropriate format and uploaded them to my account, instantly adding several thousand county ticks to my eBird account. At that point I was really hooked and since then I have used eBird as my official lists keeper.

With all of my records on eBird, I could now take advantage of various new technologies as they were introduced. This of course includes the eBird Alerts that alert me to reports of species I don’t yet have in the counties I have signed up for. I generally subscribe to the counties I have lived in, as well as surrounding counties of my current home. You can also sign up to get alerts for species not on your year list for any region, but that's not much help for county ticks lists.

 

Barcharts for some of the birds I still need to find in Susquehanna County, PA.

The most recent development that has really made county listing easier is the ability to link your eBird account to the new BirdsEye app for iPhone, which I consider to be the ultimate county listing tool. The new BirdsEye makes it simple to load any of my year or life lists from eBird, and see nearby sightings of birds that are not yet on my current list. With barcharts for local abundance, it is easy to tell at a glance which birds I have a reasonable chance of finding. I have been working for quite some time to reach 5,000 ticks in Pennsylvania. In many respects this is not much of a challenge since that averages less than 100 birds in each of the 67 counties in the state. It is simply a matter of visiting enough of the counties during the right times of year to be able to see a diverse set of birds in a short amount of time. However, I now live in New York and have to take advantage of any opportunities to bird in new areas of Pennsylvania.

As luck would have it, this year's annual Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology meeting was set for the northeastern corner of the state, at the border of two counties. I had briefly birded one corner of Luzerne County but had never recorded a single species in Lackawanna. I was only about 200 birds short of my goal and was hoping that my trip and full weekend of birding in a new area would allow me to reach it. By dutifully submitting eBird checklists on the field trips I led (live from the field with BirdLog!), and keeping track of some incidental sightings (hooray for BOY Common Nighthawk that flew over a large group of us at the conference center!) I was able to keep track of exactly which birds I still needed to fill in my county lists, and where they had recently been spotted. By the end of the meeting, I was only a couple short and was able to stop in another new county for me on the way home to reach my 5,000th County Tick.

Knowing at any point exactly which birds have been seen nearby that I still needed for my county lists was nothing short of incredible. eBird and the apps based on eBird sightings have created an environment where I can spend more time out in the field, and less time at home looking through my lists to nail down which birds I still need and where to find them. I can spend more time watching the behavior of every bird I find, and learning the habitat associations that help me find birds when I am out birding in a new area. Seeing a patch of willows along a stream surrounded by pastures, and knowing just by glancing at it that I can probably find Baltimore Orioles with just a few minutes of listening, or that I can walk along that hemlock shaded stream for a couple miles and surely encounter Louisiana Waterthrushes, is knowledge picked up over hundreds of encounters with these birds and those habitats. Anything that gives me more time to make those connections is priceless, especially when I find myself too busy to bird every day like I could when I was in school.

And that is what county listing is all about for me. Sure, I am making more lists, but the fun is in applying everything I have learned about a bird and its habitats in one county to find that same bird when I find myself in unfamiliar terrain. For me, the birds are driving my lists, rather than my lists driving me to bird.

How do you keep track your of lists and has it changed over the years?

Mako Sica- maybe not!

From the Badlands National Park website FAQs:

Why is it called the Badlands?

The Lakota people were the first to call this place "mako sica" or "land bad." Extreme temperatures, lack of water, and the exposed rugged terrain led to this name. In the early 1900's, French-Canadian fur trappers called it "les mauvais terres pour traverse," or "bad lands to travel through."

My son Garrett & I spent 3 nights at Badlands National Park on the way back to Colorado from Wisconsin last week.  I hadn't been to the park for about 30 years but still recognized the multi-hued, Kodachrome-friendly clay hills and gullies as old acquaintances.  Beyond the inspiring rugged scenery, the park is famous for the world-class fossil resources found within its boundaries, particularly late Eocene and Oligocene mammal fossils along with other fauna from ca. 40-28 million years ago.  

What I didn't really remember from my teenaged visit but immensely enjoyed on this trip was the park's horizon-spanning mixed-grass prairie habitat surrounding the barren areas most visitors frequent.  With so much pristine habitat (the park encompasses 244,000 acres), native wildlife is sure to abound and in my opinion this is the park's best kept secret (though I'm sure my SD buddies are all over the birding there!) 

 
A sea of grass entices Bighorn Sheep away from their cliffy strongholds for some rich grazing opportunities.

Pronghorns feature on the landscape along with crowd-pleasing Prairie Dogs.

The most mega of the park's charismatic megafauna are  American Bison.  This old bull hung out in the Sage Creek Campground, giving me a nice pose as I sat at our picnic table.

 
Near-constant companions of the bison, Brown-headed Cowbirds are a bit less charismatic and a lot less mega but I think them not too odious when they are in their natural milieu instead of, say, laying eggs in a Kirtland's Warbler nest.

This Long-billed Curlew joined an American Crow in harassing a Coyote.  My son & I enjoyed the show immensely but I'm not sure if the Coyote was as appreciative.

I've never experienced Grasshopper Sparrow density like I did in the mixed-grass prairie of Badlands NP- it seemed that every time I stopped in grassy areas to listen there were 'hoppers singing.

Western Meadowlarks were also legion in the park, nice to see for a species that has declined across most of its range due to prairie fragmentation and habitat loss.

Mountain Bluebirds are at about the eastern edge of their normal range in the Dakotas at Badlands NP. 

Lark Sparrows seemed to be around every turn in the rugged portions of the park, especially where grasses bordered areas of exposed bare rock.

After a dramatic morning thunderstorm, we found this Wild Turkey drying itself and sorting its feathers on a Badlands ridgeline.

A snazzy Sharp-tailed Grouse dazzled on the high wire just west of the Sage Creek Road entrance.

Another indicator of good habitat and a danged neat bird in my book, this Upland Sandpiper wasn't about to be outdone in the fence line balancing department along Sage Creek Road.

Anyway, if you are transiting the northern Great Plains I'd highly suggest blocking some time to spend birding and soaking in the prairie ambiance and scenery at Badlands National Park!

Sunset rainbow, Sage Creek Campground, Badlands National Park, 21 June 2013.  (iPhone panorama shot with AutoStitch.)

Peru's Insane Birding Rally Challenge

Peruvian Pygmy-Owl.

If you blinked last week, you may have missed an outrageous birding competition—certainly the strangest, most wonderful I have ever attended—called the Birding Rally Challenge: an eight-day-long, no-holds-barred torneo June 11-18 across the deserts and jungles of northern Peru. The rally’s organizers call it birding’s World Cup, and, while I might liken the event more to a grueling Iditarod or Dakar Rally, it’s an apt comparison. Never before have birders been treated so much like celebrity athletes.

Consider this scene from Day One: Six teams of birders from five countries (four members per team, each in its own bus with dedicated driver and guide) roll along a dusty road near Bosque de Pómac in northwest Peru, searching for such delectible arid-desert specialties as Peruvian Plantcutter and Rufous Flycatcher. Suddenly, the convoy turns a corner to find hundreds of schoolchildren lining both sides of the street, cheering and waving flags of each of the countries represented by the birding teams. It’s a greeting fit for heroes or royalty. I later catch some of the birders actually signing autographs.

A birding expedition with an ambulance?

Altogether, including drivers, guides, organizers, dignitaries, press, full-time police escorts, a staffed ambulance (just in case), two official judges, and the six international teams of birders, more than 100 people in our group trace a 1,500-kilometer birding route, from coast to Amazon rainforest, in one intense eight-day blitz, traveling in more than a dozen vehicles. Everything is perfectly planned and executed. We stay in the best hotels (for instance, the Cajamarca Inca Baths, where thermal water is piped into every room), rise at 4:00 am every morning, and hit all the juiciest birding spots to soak up species. There is barely time to appreciate northern Peru’s remarkable scenery, which rises from sea level to the top of the Andes and then falls away into humid, green forest stretching to Brazil. Though we all follow the same itinerary, each of the birding teams is free to stop where it wants, which rewards good strategy and scouting.

Peru's spectacular Marañon Valley.

Competitive birding is nothing new (think “The Big Year”), but Peru has taken the concept to its logical extreme. Last November, the PromPeru Peruvian tourism board and Inkaterra hotel association hosted the first Birding Rally Challenge in an ambitious attempt to promote national ecotourism. If the world’s best birders could compete against one another, they reasoned, attention would focus on the playing field—for its natural riches, Peru is painfully underbirded—and, perhaps, more tourists would begin booking plane tickets to the tropics. They invited well-known birders from the U.S., U.K., Spain, Brazil, and South Africa to spend six days touring the Machu Picchu region, and that first event was such a success that its organizers didn’t even wait a year to do it again, this time expanding to an eight-day route across northern Peru. Current plans are to host the rally twice each year, switching between the two different regions.

José Koechlin, CEO of Inkaterra Association.

José Koechlin, chairman and CEO of Inkaterra and longtime conservationist, tells me that the idea for a birdwatching competition first occurred to him decades ago, around the same time that he helped with Werner Herzog’s 1972 film, “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” set in the jungles of eastern Peru. “We had this great group of people on the film,” Koechlin says, some of whom then helped him build his first lodge in a remote region of Madre de Dios, using just machetes and axes—and then worked on Herzog’s next film, “Fitzcarraldo,” which Koechlin also helped envision and produce.

Today, Inkaterra hosts many tens of thousands of travelers each year, and Koechlin’s unusual birding rally idea has been realized. He sees the event not only as a contest, but as a rapid-assessment scientific expedition, with teams of experts creating a catalogue of bird species present. When the birds are known and scouted, he hopes, birders will follow.

The lodge at Lago Lindo, in Amazon foothills.

Part of the rally’s mission is to promote environmental awareness within the country, so we make several meet-and-greet stops at key pueblos, presenting local councils with Spanish field guides, grand speeches, and general good will. Birders can’t solve the world’s problems, of course; three days after we visit Cruz Conga, where the government plans a controversial gold mine, more than 4,000 villagers stage a mass protest nearby. But I hope that, in our own way, our merry band of birders helps show that birds are worth preserving.

Peru’s diversity is staggering on any scale. Its national parks alone add up to four times the size of Costa Rica. Peru vies with Colombia for the highest overall bird list of any country, and its infrastructure is sufficient for tourists to take full advantage while still feeling a raw sense of adventure. The number of birders visiting the country remains pitifully small—full new species are still being discovered—a lingering effect of political troubles in past decades and a government preoccupied with social issues. Where some other tropical countries (Costa Rica) have already capitalized on their natural attractions, Peru is just getting started. All of which makes the country an exciting place to visit now: A groundbreaking field guide, published in 2007 and updated in 2010, has paved the way for a new wave of birders, and recently developed tours and lodges make the place more accessible than ever.

The winning LSU team (left to right): Glenn Seeholzer, Paul Van Els, John Mittermeier, guide Silverio Duri, and Dan Lane.

At the end of the rally, Dan Lane, one of the authors of that field guide, leads three graduate students from Louisiana State University to victory by recording an impressive 636 species of birds in eight days, beating out the second-place U.K. team by a comfortable 35 species. Combined, the six teams find 835 species, including 34 Peruvian endemics. The Peruvian Minister of Tourism presents the winners with a trophy molded as the endemic Ash-throated Antwren, and addresses a crowd with a speech: “This is an extraordinary opportunity to show the world the amazing places we have,” the minister says. “I’m proud that Peru is starting to be known as a destination for birders.” Encouraging words, indeed.

U.S. team "e-Birders" (left to right): Marshall Iliff, Luke Seitz, Tom Schulenberg, Steve Kelling, and local guides.

At the afterparty, while waiters circulate with platters of free beer and pisco, birders from each team exchange war stories from the adventure, staying up late into the night. We are all massively sleep deprived. But we discover that our flight to Lima doesn’t leave until lunchtime the following day, and plans are hatched. Marshall Iliff, who had accompanied another team from the U.S., manages to arrange a couple of buses. The next morning, although the official event is over, almost all of us are up again at 4:30 am, off to the cloud forest, looking for birds.

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Noah Strycker is Associate Editor of Birding magazine.

The Bare-Naked Big Walk

 

I can think of several essential ingredients for any successful birding “Big Day”—an effort to identify as many bird species as possible during a single midnight-to-midnight period. Here goes:

1. A good team.
2. A good route.
3. A good plan.

And I can think of two other Big Day essentials we tend to take for granted:

4. Good wheels.
5. Good optics.

Robert Mortensen probably saw the following a mile away: I recently completed a Boulder County, Colorado, Big Day that broke all the “rules.” Specifically:

1. I didn’t have a good team. It’s not that my team was bad. Rather, I had no team at all.
2. My route bypassed many, probably most, of the must-visit birding destinations in the county.
3. My plan, to the extent that I had one, was to head in a circuitously westward direction. Oh,
    and I wasn’t going to miss lunch with my family.

As to transportation and optics:

4. I didn’t drive. I didn’t board a bus. I didn’t ride a bike. I walked. The whole way.
5. I left my binoculars and telescope at home. As Ted Eubanks might say, I went bare-naked.

This was some sort of gimmick, right? Or a fundraiser perhaps? Gimmickry is not beneath me, and I admire fundraisers, but, no, that’s not it. This was an honest-to-goodness, plain-old Big Day of the sort that Amar Ayyash and Greg Neise excel in.

I hope to convince you that not using a car or bike contributed to what was an enjoyable and successful Big Day. And now for the real heresy: I truly believe that not using binoculars helped my cause.

I’ll get under way with the recap in just a moment, but, first, let’s do the numbers:

• Date: June 13, 2013.
• Time: 4 a.m.–8 p.m.
• Distance: About 25¼ miles, according to Google. But Google’s Distance Calculator doesn’t compute a vertical vector, which point we’ll return to.
• Species Total: 125. I think it’s fair to say that 125 species is a “good” total—perhaps a great total—even for a traditional (car or bike, bins and scope, good teammates, etc.) Boulder County Big Day in the third week of June.

My “Bare-Naked Big Day” route. Click here for a zoomable version of the map with stickpins showing the locations of notable birds seen or heard along the way.

 

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky at 4 a.m., but starlight was notably dimmed by heavy smoke from the Black Forest fire to the south. At a little pond to the north, western chorus frogs a few Woodhouse’s toads were going off. What would be first bird, I wondered? I soon got the answer: a sputtering Western Kingbird [04:07:59], one of the most expected and characteristic sounds of astronomical dawn in early summer in Boulder County. The next bird was delectably unexpected, but not at all implausible: an Eastern Screech-Owl [04:10:48], an uncommon permanent resident in the county. Those two birds, it occurred to me, wonderfully emblematize the East-meets-West quality of birding in Boulder County.

I started walking. Due east. So much for my “plan” to head west.

A Pied-billed Grebe [04:14:49] went berserk in a cattail marsh, a Mallard [04:17:01] quacked, and a Yellow-headed Blackbird [04:19:13] “sang” a “song” that only Mark Peterson could love. The anurans were still going at it, Capella and Fomalhaut were rising in the northeast and southeast, respectively, and an Eastern Kingbird [04:23:52] started calling. Next up were a female Great Horned Owl [04:27:53], a Killdeer [04:32:03], and an impressively bright meteor.

I passed South Teller Lake. A Blue Grosbeak [04:32:42] burst into song, and, a few minutes later, the Red-winged Blackbirds [04:35:44] were going at it. Next up were my first and only Common Nighthawks [04:36:35] of the day, followed by the first of the great throng of American Robins [04:37:47] that would keep me company all day long. A Western Meadowlark [04:38:24] followed, and then a Spotted Sandpiper [04:41:58]. I passed a few houses, where some House Sparrows [04:43:54] were stirring.

An instant later, I heard one of the greatest of avian “voices”: the spooky winnowing of a Wilson’s Snipe [04:43:55]; this non-vocal sound is given as air rushes through the tail feathers of a male in aerial display. It was still nearly an hour to sunrise, but a Grasshopper Sparrow [04:47:35] was singing steadily. This species often sings right through the nighttime hours.

The dawn chorus was going at full tilt now: Mourning Dove [04:53:40], Vesper Sparrow [04:54:16], Bullock’s Oriole [04:58:32], Barn Swallow [05:05:22], Yellow Warbler [05:06:03], Common Grackle [05:08:41], and House Finch [05:09:51].

I was getting into taller and wetter grass now, and I heard the strange, pulsing song of a Dickcissel [05:10:22]. A Big Day is no time to indulge my penchant for counting birds, but I couldn’t help myself: I would encounter a minimum of eight along this stretch of the trail. Until a few years ago, the species was uncommon, perhaps merely casual, in Boulder County. In recent years, though, the bird has been reliable here at Teller and elsewhere.

I nearly missed the next bird: a Savannah Sparrow [05:15:37]—two or three of them, actually. If I’d had a better plan (see Big Day essential #3, above), I’d have had a checklist with me. Glancing at a checklist every four or five minutes is an excellent way of pacing yourself, and of reminding yourself what to focus on—right now. I guess so. But I also don’t much care for routine and predictability, at least not while I’m birding. (Oh, but if you’re a contributor to Birding magazine, don’t you dare miss a deadline or mess up a possessive gerund.)

The next bird, my twenty-seventh of the morning, was the first I detected initially by sight. It wasn’t yet sunrise, but the shape of a flying European Starling [05:16:36] is distinctive. A moment later, I would hear its burry flight call, and that reminds me of something: Very, very few of the species on my list were seen-only. That’s not to say the silent birds weren’t special. I’ll talk about that later. Back to the dawn chorus: Western Wood-Pewee [05:21:00], House Wren [05:21:35], and Red Junglefowl [05:26:58].

What? A rooster? Are you crazy? Tell me this: What sound is more evocative of daybreak in the countryside? The idea that the species somehow doesn’t belong, that it doesn’t “count,” is patently absurd. The crowing of a rooster, the sweet smell of hay, a tractor rumbling to life, the first rays of sunshine—those things are the very essence of the new day.

More birds: Black-capped Chickadee [05:28:00], Black-billed Magpie [05:29:48], American Goldfinch [05:31:21], and, just east of Teller Lake No. 5, my only Bobolink [05:33:47] of the day.

Sunrise!—and time for some feedlot birding: American Crow [05:36:32], Brown-headed Cowbird [05:37:15], and Rock Pigeon [05:38:57] with the cows and horses at Teller Farm.

I crossed Valmont Road and continued in a generally northward direction, picking up Cliff Swallow [05:46:04], Red-shafted Flicker [05:47:01], Eurasian Collared-Dove [05:50:58], Blue Jay [05:52:03], Downy Woodpecker [05:52:33], Belted Kingfisher [05:55:34], White-breasted Nuthatch [05:56:01], Great Blue Heron [05:56:10], Red-tailed Hawk [05:56:11], and Common Yellowthroat [06:00:25].

Breakfast time, and what better place to pause than the typically productive southern floodplain of Boulder Creek. An Eastern Warbling-Vireo [06:02:50] sang directly overhead, and I audio-recorded its song. (No binoculars for me, but, yes, I brought along the VN-8100PC.) This was the first of a whopping eight of its kind I would find during the next several hours. I heard a Song Sparrow [06:04:26], I saw an American White Pelican [06:08:00], and I saw and heard—how could I not have?—a flock of Canada Geese [06:13:32].

Next up were two decent birds for Boulder County. First was a Willow Flycatcher [06:16:10] singing from a perch along Boulder Creek; the species (indeed, the same individual?) has been present here for several summers, and it may represent an unusual subspecies for Colorado. Second was a first-spring male Orchard Oriole [06:23:58] singing exuberantly from a tangle just north of the creek; this species reaches the extreme limit of its range in eastern Boulder County.

I wrapped up breakfast with a Yellow-breasted Chat [06:30:03] singing by the creek and a flyby Double-crested Cormorant [06:32:03], and then continued north across the floodplain. A few Bank Swallows [06:42:12] cruised about an irrigation ditch, and it was time for the long slog across Gun Barrel Hill. The Gun Barrel terrain is high, dry, and hilly, and the avifauna is relatively sparse. But you can find some good birds here.

Like the singing, skylarking Cassin’s Sparrow [06:42:58] that greeted me at the very beginning of the ascent. Until a few years ago, the species was unheard of in the county. But a few summered in 2009, a few more in 2010, a whole bunch in 2011, then almost none in 2012. What about 2013? An obvious migrant was discovered in May, and now there’s this bird. So they’re on a five-year run.
(Left: Photo by © Tony Leukering.) 

Continuing across Gun Barrel Hill, I added Say’s Phoebe [06:59:37] and Lark Sparrow [07:03:24]. Then a long stretch with no birds, and then a dandy: a Cassin’s Kingbird [07:40:08]. The bird wasn’t unexpected, I have to say: I’d seen one there earlier in the month, and multiples were seen back in May. In this vicinity, Gun Barrel Hill borders a residential stretch with decent plantings of piñon pines and junipers—great for birds with affinities with Colorado’s canyonlands.

I rounded a sharp bend and headed straight west. To my right, a few Horned Larks [07:47:30] were singing; to my left, a female American Kestrel [07:49:19] peered from a nest box. More piñon–juniper lay ahead—good for a singing Chipping Sparrow [07:51:44] and a Spotted Towhee [08:01:42].

Note to self: Bird here more often. This southwest corner of Gun Barrel Hill is the perfect refuge for birds straying from the canyon country of southeastern Colorado.

From Gun Barrel Hill, I meandered through the sprawling Heather Wood subdivision, and then south to the Boulder Creek crossing at 75th Street. Here I enjoyed another one of those bewitching East-meets-West episodes: American Dippers [08:21:05] bringing food to a nest and a watchful Eastern Phoebe [08:23:52].

As I crossed 75th Street, so as to get over to the always productive Walden–Sawhill Ponds complex, I noted a who-needs-binoculars adult Bald Eagle [08:30:59] and a screaming and circling Swainson’s Hawk [08:31:01]. The birding at Walden–Sawhill was slow but steady, yielding American Avocet [08:55:26], Snowy Egret [09:03:43], Wood Duck [09:07:14], Northern Rough-winged Swallow [09:13:11], Tree Swallow [09:14:19], Osprey [09:14:43], Hairy Woodpecker [09:16:59], Black-headed Grosbeak [09:20:36], Cedar Waxwing [09:22:49], Lesser Goldfinch [09:23:53], and Indian Peafowl [09:37:17]. (Click here if you need to be persuaded of the “countability” of the last species in the preceding enumeration.)

Walden–Sawhill is always good for non-avian spectacles, of which I saw several. For example: an adorable baby raccoon making some impressively loud whistling and warbling sounds. Also: several dozen birders out looking for a county mega found a few days earlier by Boulder County super-birder Christian Nunes. I delighted in the birders’ fine company, but assiduously avoided their optics and neurotically changed the subject at the first hint of conversation about finding birds.

I wound down my time at Walden–Sawhill with a careful inspection of Cottonwood Marsh. It took some patience, and I had to squint and crane my neck, but even without binoculars I was able to see Cinnamon Teal [09:56:06], Gadwall [09:57:58], White-faced Ibis [09:59:36], Great-tailed Grackle [10:11:00], and Western Grebe [10:11:33].

For a whole hour, I added nothing to the day’s list as I walked a long, barren stretch north along 75th Street and then west, west, west along winding Valmont Road. But things picked up near the intersection with 63rd Street. A house had feeders, and the feeder had a male Black-chinned Hummingbird [11:18:22].

I hooked up with the Boulder Creek Trail, and, over the course of several miles, added several more birds to my list: Lazuli Bunting [11:25:05], Cooper’s Hawk [11:58:04], Cordilleran Flycatcher [12:21:11], Violet-green Swallow [12:54:20], and Turkey Vulture [13:07:13]. I had an Alison Kondler sighting, too, along the trail. And as nice as it was to cross paths with Alison, I sighted something even more glorious: a water fountain, and not only that, but a working water fountain with cold water.

As I entered downtown Boulder, I channeled my inner John Vanderpoel. I was in Full Chase Mode now, and I detoured into the center of the city for a Chimney Swift [13:25:54].

Speaking of detours, I next made a big one: a sit-down, indoors lunch with Kei, Hannah, and Andrew. Somewhere out there, Jack Solomon saying, “I told you so.” The food was good, but better still was a change of footwear. Kei and the kids brought me my bionic boots, essential for the next leg of my journey, and check this out: They brought me clean, chilled socks. I can’t begin to tell you how good they felt. (Back to the boots for a moment: Yes, Joe Roller, the same pair that delighted you so when we birded together in Bolivia.)

Eventually, I resumed my Big Day. Walking straight south up 9th Avenue, I practically stepped on a lovely adult male Yellow-shafted x Red-shafted Flicker [14:55:45].

Eh? You’re counting a hybrid?—between two subspecies, no less?? Relax. It’s my list. Not yours. But I’m not spoiling for a fight: I’ve elected not to count the bird. The things I do for the cause of birderly comity... :-)
(Right: Photo by © Bill Schmoker.) 

At the summit (seriously!) of 9th Street, I ticked an unproblematic Broad-tailed Hummingbird [15:07:41], soon followed by a flyover Pine Siskin [15:08:48]. I next found my way to Ski Jump Trail, where I spotted a promising raptor that obligingly sailed right over, resolving itself into a Golden Eagle [15:21:21]. As I proceeded into the ponderosa pines, I found a couple of inevitable birds: Western Tanager [15:25:20] and Virginia’s Warbler [15:33:45]. And finally—finally!—I got the day’s first Common Raven [15:37:19]. How I missed that species back in Boulder proper is beyond me. (And I had a Vulcan mind meld with John Dillon: How come dog owners in Boulder County carefully and lovingly drape plastic bags full of dog doo from branches along the trail?)

From Ski Jump Trail I worked my way down to Gregory Canyon, which, in mid-June, is Boulder County’s version of The Magic Hedge. First up were a couple of birds that I think many of us associate with eastern North America: Rose-breasted Grosbeak [15:43:09] and Gray Catbird [15:45:00]. Then a light rain shower and a couple of inarguably western birds: Western Warbling-Vireo [15:51:51] and White-throated Swift [15:55:18]. (Don’t like the warbling-vireo? A little birdie tells me a forthcoming scientific paper may change your mind.) Then another “eastern” bird: Red-eyed Vireo [16:01:49]. Then a slew of westerners: Mountain Chickadee [16:01:59], Plumbeous Vireo [16:10:25], Bushtit [16:12:19], and Steller’s Jay [16:15:05]. And the most cosmopolitan bird of all: a wailing Peregrine Falcon [16:31:53] pulling up for a landing on a rock outcropping.

Gregory Canyon’s non-avian life forms were diversionary. I paused for a garter snake (Thamnophis, sp.) and a fence lizard (Scleoporus, sp.); where’s Joey Kellner when you need him? I delighted in all the two-tailed swallowtails and Weidemeyer’s admirals, I was transfixed by a plague of Putnam’s cicadas, and I was vexed by a beautiful green hairstreak in the genus Callophrys; where’s Dave Leatherman when you need him? Finally, the wildflowers were enchanting; where’s John Tumasonis when you need him?

Back to birding. An Olive-sided Flycatcher [16:47:08] cried out, a reminder that Gregory Canyon quickly ascends into the boreal zone. As if to emphasize the point, a calling Hammond’s Flycatcher [16:56:06] flew in close. Other birds followed in a steady procession: Pygmy Nuthatch [16:57:08], Rock Wren [17:02:04], Green-tailed Towhee [17:08:32], Canyon Wren [17:21:02], Red-breasted Nuthatch [17:21:24], MacGillivray’s Warbler [17:21:46], Gray-headed Junco [17:41:13], Wild Turkey [17:46:06], and a strikingly black-backed adult male Arkansas Goldfinch [17:47:05].

About a horizontal mile—and a substantial fraction of a vertical mile—from the trailhead, Gregory Canyon Trail becomes Long Canyon Trail. Along this stretch, the birdlife begins to take on characteristics of the spruce–aspen zone, and, accordingly, I found Brown Creeper [17:51:06], Audubon’s Warbler [18:00:40], Lincoln’s Sparrow [18:21:16], and Ruby-crowned Kinglet [18:22:08].

Long Canyon Trail ends at Flagstaff Road—which keeps going and going. And so did I, picking up a flushing Townsend’s Solitaire [19:04:14], a chorus of Hermit Thrushes [19:09:23], and a pair of Type 2 Red Crossbills [19:16:33] chippering their way across a clearing.

 

Kei and the kids pulled up beside me at 8 p.m. It would have been impolitic of me to ask that they just hang out there for two hours, you know, so that I could get up into better habitat for bluebirds (I thought I heard one) and sapsuckers (I saw drillings), and then Common Poorwill and the three species of small mountain owls.

Besides, it wouldn’t have been in the spirit of my break-all-the-rules Big Day. There was something fitting about walking—no, riding, finally riding—away from an easy five, probably closer to ten, additions to my list.

And there’s always next year.

In the meantime, I have a few questions, and you probably do too:

1. Let’s start with an obvious one. What birds did you miss?
Answer: Cottonwood Marsh and the various other ponds surely harbored a few silent birds that were too far away to ID without binoculars. Blue-winged Teal, anyone? Green-winged? American Coot? A night-heron or even a bittern roosting in the cattails across the way? And there was a decidedly interesting hawk at the base of Gregory Canyon; binoculars would have resolved it into an uncommon Broad-winged, or not.

2. Those are the birds you missed by going “bare-naked.” What birds did you miss by going “green”?
Answer: Along this particular route, nothing. On the contrary, I saw many, many more birds than I would have seen by birding this route in a car, or even a bike. I’ll take it a step further: This route would have been impossible and illegal except by foot.

3. That suggests another question: Did you gain any birds by going “bare-naked”?
Answer: It’s hard to prove, but I think so. Speaking for myself (but also, I suspect, for a great many of you), I find that binoculars are a crutch. Without binoculars, I enjoy a heightened sense of awareness. I’m always looking around. I’m always paying attention. I suspect I would have missed one or two species, maybe four or five, during all that time I would have been peering through binoculars at only a tiny fraction of the airspace visible to the naked eye.

4. Did you misidentify any birds?
Answer: Ouch. Let me back up a step here: I misidentify plenty of birds with binoculars. During the course of my Big Day, I endeavored to see birds at least as well as I would have with binoculars. That means I had to wait on some birds (cf. Golden Eagle), and let others go (cf. possible Broad-winged Hawk). But let’s take the broader view: Even if I missed a few (e.g., ducks at Cottonwood Marsh) and messed up a few (could the White-faced Ibises have been rare Glossy Ibises?), practically everything out there was slam-dunk. I’m increasingly impressed by just how unimportant binoculars and telescopes are. Optics are The Great Lie of birding.

5. Okay, but don’t binoculars enhance the birding experience?
Answer: That’s the conventional wisdom, but I’m seriously starting to question it. Ask me the next question.

6. What were your favorite birds of the day?
Answer: You think I’m going to mention a handful of “heard-only” birds, don’t you?—the winnowing Wilson’s Snipes, the dulcet Canyon Wren, the heavenly chorus of Hermit Thrushes. Actually, no. I can think of three sightings that surpassed any of those heard-only detections.
    First was a Cedar Waxwing so close I could see the mid-morning sun reflected in its eyes. I just stood there, and the curious bird sidled down the branch to practically within arm’s reach. Is any bird more exquisite than the Cedar Waxwing? That question is definitively—and affirmatively—resolved, I believe, by beholding a waxwing with your own eyes, and nothing else.
    Second was a Western Kingbird doing something I’d read about but never seen: landing, actually landing, on a Red-tailed Hawk it was driving off. The panoramic view, without binoculars, heightened the drama. And with binoculars, would I even have bothered to look? I mean, it was just a “boring” Red-tail...
    Third, and best of all, were all the American White Pelicans at the Walden–Sawhill complex. Is there anything more glorious than pelicans soaring and spiraling against a clear blue sky? Conversely, is there anything uglier than a pelican’s ugly mug? We all know about not seeing the forest for the trees. Do birders have the same problem? Can we not see the bird for the feathers?
(Left: Photo by © Bill Schmoker.)

7. You don’t plan ahead (except when you’re terrorizing contributors to Birding), but, come on: What’s your plan for next year?
Answer: I guarantee you, I won’t do this again. What I mean is, I won’t do the same route again. Here’s another guarantee: I’m hooked, and I’m doing it again. Somehow, I’m going to get from the marshes around Boulder Reservoir to the steep foothills of the Mesa Trail complex...

8. Are you finally going to submit to Listing Central?
Answer: First things first. Kudos to my colleagues Greg Neise and David Hartley for their hard work in providing this brilliant resource to the birding community. To answer your question: Yes, in due course. Especially if Neise gets around to creating an entry for bare-naked Big Walks.

9. Has anyone else ever done a Bare-naked Big Walk?
Answer: I wonder. I doubt it. Sixteen hours, twenty-five miles, no bins. But maybe Kenn Kaufman will inform me that, more than a century ago, Lynds Jones (1865–1951) was all over the bare-naked Big Walk.

10. Can your record be broken?
Answer: Easily. For Boulder County, my money’s on Joel Such and Marcel Such. Here’s a thought that’s personally gratifying: For once, the big coastal counties are at a relative disadvantage. Remember, no optics. Seabirds and such present challenges for the bare-naked birder.
    I’ll take this a step further. I suspect my record will be demolished. I can’t say where, or when, or by whom. Of this I’m certain: 125 species—okay, “only” 120 if you don’t like my taxonomy and if you’re a peacock-hater—will be surpassed, by a very wide margin.

 

I have a final question, for you. What are your stories and strategies for bare-naked Big Walks? I’d love to learn more. Who knows—next year, I may even get a few of you to accompany me! Mark, Frank, and Chuck: Let’s do the Pittsburgh CBC bare-naked and on foot. And Noah: Next time, don’t sweat it when you lose your binoculars.

 

Kayak Kam 2

A couple of years ago I posted about a photo rig for kayaks.  I like the setup but it is mainly for pretty committed bird & wildlife photography (serious tripod & head, big lens, etc.)  As I was getting ready for a little paddling trip a couple of days ago with my 7-year old son, I devised a simple little way to have a camera at hand in the boat without the major rigging job.  This method works well for moderate setups like 100-400mm or 80-400mm zooms on DSLRs, for a smaller kit like a mirrorless DSLR rig, or for a super-zoom camera.  

Heading out into birdy territory by kayak.  Probability of splashes coming on board:  HIGH

The thing about kayaking is that lots of splashes come on board from the alternating paddle strokes.  The little cups on the paddle shaft help to keep much of the water outboard, but even on a sunny day there's going to be water droplets sprinkling down into the boat.  Putting your camera in a dry box (such as a pelican case) or in a dry bag will keep it snug but deployment will be slow if a bird suddenly appears.  As a compromise, I put a boat cushion down on the keel in front of me to rest my camera rig on (this pads the camera and keeps it up out of any water pooling up on the bottom of the boat.)  Then I drape a dry bag over my camera to shed any droplets coming aboard.  If a photo opp presents itself I can just pull off the dry bag & grab my camera.  Also, if things get dicey (like heavy rain, waves splashing into the boat, etc.) my dry bag is immediately available to slip my camera into for a more secure storage situation.

My fairly compact Nikon 80-400mm rig is in reach between my feet, resting on a boat cushion and draped with a dry bag.

Incidental splashes are kept off the camera by the dry bag.  If conditions worsen, the dry bag is immediately available to properly seal in my camera rig.

My camera is immediately ready for action by just pulling the dry bag aside.

Bird photo opps appear quickly, so having your camera at the ready can pay off.  Trumpeter Swans, Crex Meadows Wildlife Area, Burnett County, Wisconsin, June 2013.

As I said before, mixing camera gear with watercraft amplifies the risk factor significantly.  When deploying a camera in a kayak or other small boat you are always one mistake or accident away from unrepairable disaster so get real familiar with your boat and check your rig on dry land before attempting!  Oh, and have fun!!

 

Save the date! ABA South Africa Safari October 7-17, 2014

African elephants at Kruger National Park (Photo © Marius Coetzee)

We are pleased to announce the first-ever ABA South Africa Safari. The ABA is partnering with Rockjumper Worldwide Birding Adventures and BirdLife South Africa to host a safari with visits to both Cape Town and Kruger National Park.

 On safari in Kruger National Park (Photo © Leon Fouche)

At the extreme south end of the vast expanse that is Africa lies the country of South Africa, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean. At the south end of South Africa is Cape Town with the Cape of Good Hope just below it. The southerly most of the three capital cities, Cape Town’s “City Bowl” is surrounded by both mountains and ocean. The pleasant climate and varied topography make for great birding. Two endemic bird families are found here, in the sugarbirds and the rockjumpers. The unique and biodiverse Fynbos shrubland is home to a showy group of sunbird species, among other birds. Coastal areas host African Penguins, several cormorant species, with albatrosses and Cape Petrels lurking just offshore.

The Cape Rockjumper is one of two species in the rockjumper family. The family is endemic to South Africa. (Photo © Adam Riley)

Resting at the northwest corner of South Africa is famed Kruger National Park. One of the largest and most spectacular parks on the continent, Kruger is a mixture of forest, grassland, and Acacia, and it abuts national park land in Mozambique and Zimbabwe to create an immense area (nearly 22,000 square miles) protected for the benefit of wildlife. It is home to the Big 5 (lion, leopard, Cape buffalo, African elephant, and rhinoceros) and also giraffes, wild dogs, and a bevy of antelope species. Yes, there are birds too! Lots of them. An interesting array of larks are to be found here as are striking species such as Saddle-billed Stork, Lappet-faced Vulture, Kori Bustard, Southern Ground Hornbill, and the furtive Pel’s Fishing Owl.

Leopard (Photo © Adam Riley)

This is an utterly unique ABA offering, that will be of great value, and for a great cause too. The ABA South Africa Safari will coincide with BirdLife South Africa’s Save Our Seabirds Festival in Cape Town to raise money for endangered seabirds.

African Penguins (Photo © Adam Riley)

Join your fellow ABA Members and our in-country hosts for a most memorable visit to one of the world’s richest regions for birds and wildlife. Register your interest today by contacting Nancy Hawley (at [email protected], or call her at (800) 850-2473, X234).

St. Helena Bay is a good place for dolphin and whale-watching. (Photo © Markus Lilje)

The 48-hour Birdathon

 

Noah and the Wild Turkeys search for Ash-throated Flycatchers in eastern Oregon. (All photos by Tim Kurtz.)

“Ten minutes to go!”

As I stood at Yaquina Head on the Oregon Coast last weekend, my head reeled. Thousands of Common Murres jostled for space on the guano-stained cliffs in front of me, braying into my sleep-deprived brain, but my scope was trained on the seaweed-cloaked tidal flats below them. I hoped to pick out a Wandering Tattler, and the pressure was on. In ten minutes, a tattler, or any other species of bird I hadn’t seen in the past 47 hours and 50 minutes, would again become merely a tattler or any other bird. Until then, each new addition was worth roughly $164 for conservation.

Yaquina Head is a federally managed headland that juts into the Pacific Ocean, covered by seabirds in summer. A volunteer naturalist was hanging out on the viewing deck, pointing out the murres and nesting cormorants to passing tourists. I walked over and set up my scope next to him.

The convoy pulls up to a Sage Grouse lek at dawn.

“Wow, that’s even bigger than my scope!” he exclaimed.

“Seen any Wandering Tattlers?” I asked.

The man looked confused. He was supposed to interpret nesting seabirds for the public, not scan for obscure little gray birds along the gray shoreline. But he seemed intrigued, so I filled him in on a few details.

Over the past two days, along with 21 other crazed birders in three industrial-sized white vans, I had carved an ambitious transect across Oregon, from eastern deserts through pine forests, across the Cascade Mountains, and through the Willamette Valley, to finally arrive here at Yaquina Head, on the coast. Our group, dubbed the Wild Turkeys, was spotting birds to raise funds for the Portland Audubon Society; friends and relatives had kindly promised pledges per species seen during the 48-hour event. We had pulled out all stops to track down as many birds as possible, forgoing sleep, meals, and sanity en route. With ten minutes to go, we were perched at 221 species—a respectable total indeed. But we wouldn’t stop until the clock officially ran out.

The volunteer looked impressed. “That’s a lot of birds,” he agreed. “What was the best one?”

The Wild Turkey seen by the Wild Turkeys.

I tried to think back along the route, but my mind balked. How to choose between the Sage Grouse lek, the Grasshopper Sparrow teed up in evening sun, or the wetland at Summer Lake that came to be known as, simply, Magic? With so much ground covered, the Wild Turkeys had seen so many birds (including a real Wild Turkey) that I had trouble remembering them all.

Portland Audubon kicked off their annual birdathon 33 years ago, inspired by a similar event that had been started by Point Reyes Bird Observatory. Different teams of birders take to the field each May to rack up birds and pledges. The Wild Turkeys have been at it since the very first installment, and have fine-tuned their approach over the years: At first, it was a 24-hour event, but then, one year, they just kept going. After all, you can find more birds in two days than one. Less sleep equals more fundraising. The Turkeys never looked back.

Hoping for Black Swifts at Salt Creek Falls.

I have done plenty of 24-hour big days, but this was my first experience with a 48-hour birdathon. Runners know that a marathon is more than twice as exhausting as a half marathon, and I’d say the same applies to birdathons: Anyone can survive one intense day, but back-to-back efforts require real dedication. On Friday, I stayed up ‘til 1:30 a.m. owling, then got up at 4:30 to continue birding. On Saturday, I managed four hours of sleep. (Good training for Peru’s eight-day-long Birding Rally Challenge competition, which I’ll be attending next month.)

Over the years, the Wild Turkeys have met their share of unavoidable mishaps. One year a van hit a deer. Another year a team member wandered into the woods and it took half an hour of desperate searching for the rest to find her. There have been various minor injuries in the line of birdathoning. But perhaps the worst was one year, decades ago now, when the team used three personal cars to transport themselves across the state: When one car died, it was abandoned and the team crammed into the other two; but when the second car’s engine died, birding had to take a back seat for a while.

This year, the only anxious moment came on a remote gravel road in the eastern Cascades. Rental Van #2 stubbornly refused to start, only minutes after being parked. Luckily, jumper cables were found, Van #1 jumped it back into life, and our bird-crazed convoy kept trucking with barely five minutes elapsed. No sweat.

The Wild Turkeys end their 48-hour birdathon on the Oregon Coast.

Due to a quirk of this particular event, the two-day period begins in mid-afternoon on Friday and ends at the same time on Sunday. The exact time depends on when the first good bird is seen, and requires a bit of strategy. After some discussion, we had decided to roll the starting clock to our first and only Swainson’s Hawk, which meant that the 48-hour hourglass ran out at exactly 2:05 pm.

With seven minutes to go, a cry went up. “Peregrine Falcon overhead!” The new sighting had a certain symmetry: Two hundred twenty-two species at two to two. The Wild Turkeys searched in vain for a Wandering Tattler, but a raft of Greater Scaup made #223, our last added species of the weekend. We grinned at each other as the final seconds ticked down, and a bottle of Wild Turkey made celebratory rounds in the parking lot for the birds we had seen—and the nearly $40,000 we had raised for bird conservation—while Yaquina Head’s volunteer naturalist watched with amusement.

Can’t wait ‘til next year!

More information about the Portland Audubon birdathon can be found here.

A Different Kind of Wildlife Photography

A cougar cub (with its mother's tail) caught by remote camera. Noah's backyard fence is visible in the upper left. (Click to enlarge.)

I stumbled into my first camera trap a few years ago while birding on Panama’s famous Barro Colorado Island. As I walked quietly down a jungle trail, listening for bird sounds, a startling flash burst through the undergrowth like a stroke of lightning. I soon discovered that the flash belonged to a motion-sensitive camera, which belonged to a National Geographic photographer working on a story about ocelots. He got a good shot of me.

Not long afterward, news of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker’s rediscovery broke, and I traveled to a Florida cypress forest to join a search crew from Auburn University. Half a dozen of us camped out for weeks in the swamp, hoping for a glimpse of the near-mythical bird—and for definitive proof of its existence. Someone decided to put up remote-activated cameras aimed at likely trees, effectively adding to the number of searching eyes in the woods. It was my first real experience with using the cameras, which are especially popular with hunters. Though we never snagged any photos of an Ivory-bill, our setup caught lots of other Florida wildlife: deer, squirrels, armadillos, rednecks. My curiosity was piqued.

A bobcat pauses in front of the camera.

I soon found myself using similar remote cameras for a much different research project in the Australian outback. As part of a long-term study on endangered Purple-crowned Fairy-Wrens, my field crew aimed motion-sensitive cameras at a few of the birds’ nests, and discovered that goannas (a type of five-foot-long lizard) were occasionally snacking on hapless young nestlings. The images were fascinating. Not even the most dedicated field tech could sit still long enough to catch the predators in action, so our cameras exposed a dark part of fairy-wren life which would have otherwise remained hidden. One day, for fun, I posted a spare camera at a wallaby carcass just outside our camp, and it recorded a neat video of a dingo scavenging the meat.

A mother black bear with its cub.

But I wasn’t inspired to buy my own trail camera until last winter, when I spent three months at Tiputini Biodiversity Station in Amazonian Ecuador. There, in a huge tract of undisturbed rainforest, scientists maintain a network of remote cameras which, over the past few years, have documented an incredible diversity of secretive jungle fauna: brocket deer, giant anteaters, wild dogs, porcupines, even a type of little-known rabbit. One of their cameras recently caught a Nocturnal Curassow, a species of bird which had never before been photographed in the wild. Many of the photos have been used by National Geographic, which helps sponsor the project. At Tiputini, the cameras are used to estimate population densities of jaguars and other cats, which can be individually identified by patterns of spots on their sides. It is all very cool.

A pair of cougars wanders past.

When I returned home to Oregon, I immediately purchased a remote camera and posted it behind my backyard, which abuts private timber lands. I had no idea what it might capture. Rural Oregon doesn’t exactly boast the wildlife list of Amazonian Ecuador, but there were interesting possibilities—and, even if the camera only photographed deer, it would be fun to download the pictures.

Almost exactly a year later, I am blown away by the results.

It turns out that my property hosts more wildlife than I ever imagined. Last summer, I was astonished to discover that a mother cougar and half-grown cub were regularly visiting my yard, just a hundred feet from my back porch, even walking down my driveway in broad daylight. A solitary bobcat also made several cameo appearances. In the fall, my camera trap caught a mother black bear with twin cubs slipping into the yard after dark to eat fallen apples, along with a coyote, fox, skunk, opossum, and raccoon. Despite living here for 27 years, I had only vague ideas that most of these animals ever visited my yard. The remote camera prompted a revelation: Most wildlife, even in familiar backyards, goes completely undetected. There’s more outside than meets the eye.

Grown, twin fawns nurse from their mother.

Camera traps have become so popular with hunters that a dozen manufacturers compete with each other in an ongoing technological arms race. You can now buy remote cameras with infrared flash, hi-def video, GPS, specialized software, cell-phone access, microsecond reaction times, and the ability to take tens of thousands of images on one set of AA batteries. Top-end units cost nearly $1,000. As with many other gadgets these days, there are almost no limits to what a motion-sensitive camera can do.

Most of these features have already trickled down to mid-range options, so, unless you are dying for the best that money can buy, I’d recommend springing for something in the $150-$200 range. The most important choice is between incandescent flash (which uses more battery power, potentially scares wildlife, and produces color images) and infrared flash (which uses less power, doesn’t disturb wildlife, and results in ghostly black-and-white images). When comparing models, pay more attention to trigger delays and detection zones than megapixels. But don’t get too caught up in fine differences, which might drive you nuts. (I wanted color night photos, and got an incandescent camera: a ScoutGuard 565. It works great.)

A raccoon walks by in the rain.

Of course, you have to know where an animal will be ahead of time, which makes these cameras less suitable for regular birding. My backyard camera has only recorded four species of birds so far (Wild Turkey, Hermit Thrush, Steller’s Jay, and Northern Flicker), and those pictures are terrible; the system wasn’t designed for such small subjects. Still, a few scientific studies have already used remote camera traps specifically for bird research. As the technology improves, these cameras may get better at capturing smaller birds, too.

Meanwhile, I have new respect for the wildlife in my backyard. It’s a jungle out there!

Video: Releasing a Rosy-Finch; Looking Out for their Future

Michael Hilchey at the crest. Photo ©Raymond VanBuskirk

For many of us there, the high point, altitudinally and ornithologically, of the ABA's recent Albuquerque Rally was visiting the famous rosy-finch banding station at Sandia Crest. Above, you can see Michael Hilchey, one the dedicated crew from Rio Grande Bird Research that keep this valuable and challenging project going. At the far right, the feeder and finch trap are visible.

Below is a shot of Raymond VanBuskirk, another of the rosy-finch researchers, returning a just-banded Black Rosy-Finch to the flock. Check out the concentration on Raymond's face. These guys, along with all the RGBR gang, are fun, dynamic folks. But, boy, do they bring serious attention and care to the work they do. It's a pleasure to witness.

Raymond focussing. Photo ©Jesse Swift

I went up to Sandia the second of the three field trip days. Things started off very well, with single male Gray-crowned and Brown-capped rosy-finches visiting the feeder shortly after we arrived. A bit more waiting and some skillful trap operation, and we were fortunate to see one gorgeous male Brown-capped Rosy-Finch in the hand, a bird which had been banded there some years before.

Raymond VanBuskirk holds "our" Brown-capped Rosy-Finch. This species breeds almost entirely in Colorado. I wonder if it might be one of those that nest on the tundra of Pike's Peak, visible from ABA HQ?

 Once this lovely bird was quickly weighed and measured and otherwise processed, Raymond gave rally participant Pat Blyer the honor of releasing it. I shot a quick video of the event that I thought you'd enjoy.

 

After an eventful and exciting first couple of hours, our patience and cold tolerance got a bit of a workout. Though it was hardly a brutal day on the mountain weather-wise, it was chilly for sure, especially when standing still for long periods. But we still hadn't seen Black Rosy-Finch, ironically the most numerous rosy species wintering at Sandia.

So we waited...

And we waited...

And we huddled in the vans and ate our lunches. Then we waited some more.

But in an instant, the waiting and the cold were forgotten, as a squall of Rosies shot up over the ridge crest and settled in the trees above the feeders.

Rosy-Finches aren't exactly nervous...they can be incredibly confiding sometimes. But boy, are they ever active! We marvelled as the flocked flowed all around the feeders, and we used our newly-honed ID skills to pick out all three species, plus the distinctive gray-faced "Hepburn's" form of Gray-crowned. It was a thrilling couple of minutes.

We left Sandia Crest smiling and headed lower, where the birding was a little warmer and more diverse. But our time at the banding station was really something to treasure. I've known of the Sandia finches since the early 2000's, so getting to see them and the project members in action is something I've waited for quite a while. It was more than worth it.

As great as our time up high with Raymond, Michael, the rosy-finches was, in some ways we learned even more from the presentation they gave to the entire rally group Sunday night. In it, they shared not only some of the exciting discoveries they have made and important questions they are working to answer, but also how much the Sandia flock, both avian and human, has meant to the shape, direction, and quality of their lives. It was inspiring, all the way round.

Speaking of those discoveries and questions, as miraculous as rosy-finches and their extrordinary life histories are, there are many, many reasons to be concerned for their future. Climate change poses an exceptional threat to them, living as many of them do in tiny islets of tundra habitat which are shrinking rapidly. High altitude stocking of non-native trout and other game fish may also be having a serious impact on their survival. And there are the more prosaic but still essential issues of where exactly the rosies that winter at Sandia, their southernmost outpost, come from and go back to.

All of us from the ABA who got to visit with the birds and birders of Albuquerque came away with a deeper appreciation of the vibrant birding scene there. And we wanted to do our small part to help the rosy-finch study and the other ongoing projects of Rio Grande Bird Research continue. 

The final night of our rally, we passed a basket for donations to the finch study, collecting nearly $700 from the ABA audience. On top of that, the ABA donated $1000 to RGBR in support of all the great work they do, which includes not only rosy-finch project, but also banding in the bosque along Albuquerque's Rio Grande, and the painstaking study of Black-throated Warblers done by Ashli Gorbet, another of our primary leaders on this rally, along with her husband, Larry.

I'd like to invite you to participate in all the great times and sound conservation science that is being done by ABA members like Ashli, Michael, and Raymond. If you're able to contribute funds to support their efforts, you can send checks payable to Rio Grande Bird Research. Write Rosy-Finch on the check if you want to restrict your gift to that project. Mail to P.O. Box 6557 Albuquerque NM 87197

And if you'd like to join Raymond and Michael in New Mexico or elsewhere, check out their newly-formed tour company, High Desert Birding Adventures.

Additional info on the history of the rosy-finch project can be found at www.rosyfinch.com. For the most current updates go to the Sandia Rosy-Finch Project Facebook page. Audubon magazine did a great profile on Raymond, Michael, and the rosy-finches that you can read here.

Thanks to all of you in Albuquerque who welcomed the ABA to your patch! We're looking forward to seeing all the great things you'll do in the future.

Some of the RGBR gang at Sandia Crest. From left: Jason Kitting, Steve Cox (another of our core rally leaders and president at RGBR), Mary Ristow, Nancy Cox, Lee Hopwood, Micheal Hilchey, and Raymond VanBuskirk. Thank you ALL for welcoming the ABA! photo ©Jane Kostenko