ABA Blog

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).

 

Blog Birding #148

Summer is often the peak of travel and birders are no differnt. We tend to have lots of gear to tote around with us and Charlotte of Prairie Birder offers some great tips:

One of the most important things to do when it comes to packing your optics is to keep them with you in your carry-on luggage. Don’t take the chance of your cameras, binoculars, and scope getting damaged, stolen, or lost in your checked luggage. Last year when I went to Long Point for the workshop and again this year, I packed my scope, cameras, binoculars, and new iPad in my backpack. There’s just not enough room in my backpack for my tripod, and it’s pretty sturdy and not as desirable to thieves, so I packed it in my suitcase with my clothes.

When Robert of Birding is Fun was delayed at the airport, he made up for it by making new friends and ended up with a handful of lifers:

So what is a birder to do while stranded in a city far from home? Go birding of course! But how to go about it is another challenge. While I waited for my new flight arrangements to be made, I desperately searched the web on my iPad for the closest eBird hotspots and figured I'd could take a cab and just see what happens. That didn't seem too appealing. I needed local experience to point me in the right direction. I looked up Rhode Island ABA members on the online directory. None of them had shared their email or phone numbers. Foiled! Then I remembered BirdingPal.

Many people shudder at the thought of immature gulls, but I'd challenge you to look at the variation in young Ring-billed Gulls and notice their beauty as Amar of Anything Larus describes two different types in the spectrum of plumages:

The late Claudia Wilds felt that Ring-billeds show the least amount of geographical variation of all North American gull species. Although the various populations across North America bear close resemblance, Wilds' statement should not be understood as a lack of intraspecific variation in juvenile plumages. Indeed, this is generally true with many monotypic gull species as they arguably appear to come together and show less variation as definitive adults.



Cory of Boom Chachalaca enjoys the birds of his new home state and wastes no time in trying to learn something new. Check out all the great photos on his latest post:

Perhaps the most numerous and cooperative bird at the lake is the Red Crossbill. My daily trips there are filled with birds feeding in the larches and gathering grit from the old campfire sites along the trail. I am working on gathering recording on what I suspect may be at least two types of RECR in the area. 

It may still seem like it's mid-summer but Cornell Lab of Ornithology has already started putting out their BirdCast migration forecasts. Check it out for the regional forecasts:

Scattered light and locally moderate movements will occur across the West, while two primarily northeastern pulses of light to moderate and locally heavy movements occur among storm systems in the East.

 

Blog Birding #147

With the proliferation of eBird, more and more birders are learning about what is needed for a comprehensive bird documentation. Lauren Harter at Phainopepla Fables offers some great tips:

The list below is structured from least helpful to most helpful in bird documentation, from my own subjective view. I want to stress that no information is useless or should be left out–more information is always better! My point here is to encourage eBird users (and others) to include more of the really helpful information. Disclaimer: all the examples below are made up by me; I’m not actually quoting anyone here.

Many parts of the continent have been hit by serious inclement weather this summer, at 10,000 Birds, Sharon Stiteler looks at how that effects birds:

In June, storms hit Minneapolis very hard. Some friends had come by to help me lift my window unit air conditioner into my window. After they left, I began securing the flashing around the unit and noted the skies getting dark and green. Suddenly a huge gust of wind hit and blew all the flashing in to my apartment. I watched a large branch fly past my window and break a neighbor’s window. “I should maybe step away from my window,” I thought.

Kathie Brown at Birding is Fun gets ready for the shorebird season with a poetic appreciation of Black-bellied Plovers:

On this September day in 2011 I saw my first Black-bellied Plover. I remember feeling so awed by seeing this bird. It was one of the fifteen new species I saw on that day. While these photos may not be of National Geographic quality, for me they are a reminder of what that day felt like with it's air of magic and art and poetry. Two years ago I wrote a poem about these birds and this day. I have posted it below. These photos remind me of a style of painting called pointillism popularized by the art of Georges Seurat. Between the poem and the pictures I hope that maybe you will also be able to feel a bit of the joy and wonder I felt on that late summer day on South Beach in Chatham, Massachusetts. It is the search for that feeling that keeps me out in nature and watching birds.

Steve Tucker, at the irreverent Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds, gets to the bottom of the biggest secret society in birding, the Bird Police:

What is it like to be a bird policeperson—to protect and to serve—I’m glad you asked me that question, Steve.  It’s basically like being a non-bird policeperson, but minus the weapons, chick-magnet uniform, and relevant authority—and with a very different beat.  Paperwork—it boils down to reading lots of reports and looking at lots of photographs.  Most difficult for me has been the fear that I am going to accept something only to find that the record goes 8-1 and I was the only idiot that misidentified a bird in a photograph—cue derisive laughter from Dunn, Pyle, McCaskie, et al.  Drown in tears—resign committee position—hara-kiri. That sort of thing.

At the intersection of birds and pop culture, sports teams are front and center. Nick Lund, The Birdist, considers the ornithological bon fides of the NBA team newly re-christened the New Orleans Pelicans:

The concern here is that they're not using the correct species.  There are two species of pelican in these United States: the American White Pelican and the Brown Pelican.  While White Pelicans can be found in Louisiana, it's usually in the winter, when they huddle in big groups in the middle of big lakes and reservoirs.  I've seen it.  They're cool birds all, but they're pretty pathetic in the winter time, and certainly not worthy of naming a cool NBA team after.

 

Blog Birding #146

It's an issue that many traveling birders wrestle with; what can we do about the carbon emissions produced when we travel for birds. Laura Kammermeier at Nature Travel Network shares a solution:

Organizers just announced how funds from the 2013 project will be spent. The COBP habitat-building project will restore portions of the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge Boss Unit (on Benton-Carroll Road, just south of Rt. 2) to sedge meadow and warm-season grasses.  This should restore quality habitat–a full 15 acres–for shorebirds and grassland birds.

Much has been made about the similarities between Common and Hoary Redpolls and whether they are, in fact, separate species. Nathan Pieplow at the always amazing Earbirding blog takes a look at their vocalizations:

During the course of these discussions, a couple people argued that Common and Hoary Redpolls have been shown to differ in vocalizations.  To verify this claim, I set out to track down the relevant peer-reviewed literature, including a paper in Swedish, two key publications in Russian, and a book in German.  It took some six months, but thanks to the help of a terrific interlibrary loan crew (and some assistance from Albert Lastukhin in Russia), I finally managed to get copies of all the sources.  My dusty old fluency in Russian came in handy, as did my one year of college German.  (Oh, and Google Translate.)

Ted Parker, the late great field ornithologist, died 20 years ago this month. At Cornell's new All About Birds blog, they're celebrating his legacy:

Ted was an amazing person right from the start. Even as a child, he knew he wanted to be a naturalist and spent countless hours exploring the woods and fields around his home in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was an avid birder since childhood and in 1971–during his last semester of high school and first semester of college–he did a big year, tallying 627 species in a single year, smashing the existing big-year record of 598 species.

Birding puts us in out of the way places, which aren't always the safest places to be. Dick Mansfield of Vermont Birder elaborates:

Just as I returned to the boulder-strewn area, disaster struck.  Somehow, I slipped a bit and landed hard on my right foot.  My right leg crumpled and I took a hard fall with excruciating pain.  I yelled and of course, the dog came back to see what was up — I just laid there, unable to move.  After a bit, I attempted to right myself but could put no weight on my right leg.  So, here we are, about a mile in, no cell coverage at all, and no one around.  It was still early, only about 10 AM and I had a water bottle and some food so I figured, if worse came to worse, I could just stay there until help came. 

Don Frieday at the Frieday Bird blog gets to the heart of late summer birding, shorebirds and molt.

I set out around the South Cape May Meadows, NJ this morning without my scope, because I'm lazy, mainly. And I later wished I had brought the scope, because the Nature Conservancy, which owns and operates the meadows, has the easternmost pool drawn down nicely and it was kind of full of shorebirds, mainly ones beyond reasonable identification distance with binoculars alone. I muddled through, detecting for example White-rumped Sandpiper by call from a group of peep flying by.

Blog Birding #145

Juvenile and immature are terms that are often used interchangeably among birders, but Dave Irons at Birdfellow explains just what is the different between these all-too-similar and occasionally overlapping definitions:

If you see a hatch-year thrush, warbler, or sparrow in July and then see that same bird in September, its appearance will have changed dramatically. Think of what an American Robin, Yellow-rumped Warbler or Dark-eyed Junco looks like when it is still being fed by an adult. By the first of October, you won't be seeing spots on the breast of the robin and the uniform streaking that marked the underparts of the warbler and  the junco in July will be long gone. 

Greg Miller has been spending a lot of time trying mixing and matching eBird data in interesting ways and thinking about how to get the most use out of it:

Look at #1.  The number shown is 375.  But if you remember when we were downloading this information it only had 342 species, right?  Where did the extra species come from?  Ah, I am glad you asked.  Look at #2.  See the “(Domestic type)”?  Yeah.  That counts as “taxa”, but not as a species.  First on our list will be cleaning up our spreadsheet and filtering out the non species.

Gulls can be difficult enough without considering the myriad ways lighting can affect our interpretation of their plumage. Amar Ayyash at Anything Larus goes there, though:

The Bonaparte's on the far left looks paler than the other five. Does it suffer from a pigmentation condition that's yet to be explained by ornithologists? Of course not. It happens to be the only individual (along with the Little) that is almost exactly parallel with the camera lens (i.e., the observer). The other five Bonaparte's are all facing towards the observer's ten-o'clock. A slight change in this so-called angle-to-observer can dramatically change our perception of the grays we're seeing. The effect is multiplied on sunny days.

Geolocaters have been the seemingly magical tools behind so many of the most fascinating bird study results of late, but they can shine light on local birds too. Take a look at the research being done on Gray Catbirds at the Rouge River Bird Observatory at Net Results:

In fall 2012, we put 2 more geolocators on birds, but did not see any birds with geolocators in spring 2013, despite a lot of patient observation of the catbirds on site. Earlier this year, Dr. Bowlin received a grant to purchase 26 new geolocators with longer light-collecting stems better suited for catbird study. You can see the older device below in the top picture, and a newer one with the longer "stem" in the bottom photo. They both weigh the same, 1 gram including the harness.

I love reading about Big Days, particularly when those reports come with a lot of photos. Dan Arndt of Birds Calgary shares one such Alberta Big Day:

Quite a bit of planning went into our attempt, with many hours collecting data from eBird and the Albertabird Yahoo Group, and using Google Maps to plan our route to maximize the time we’d have outside of the vehicle to find our target birds at each stop. Our original plan was to start at Cold Lake before dawn, listening for as many warbler and vireo species as we could identify by ear, head to a few other ponds and lakes near Cold Lake, then begin driving down the east edge of the province, stopping briefly at a few spots along the way to pick up other targets that are only found in the boreal and parkland biomes, before hitting up Dinosaur Provincial Park for the badlands and prairie specialists there.

 

Blog Birding #144

At 10,000 Birds, the most recent edition of I and the Bird this week has to do with Ibises:

You may not realize it when you look at those bizarre looking waders with the massive bills and the vacant expression, but you’re looking at a group of birds that has inspired humankind for literal centuries. There are only a few birds for whom their names have changed little since the dawn of the written alphabet itself, but ibis, named by the Greeks a few thousand years before, is one of them. Anyone with a passing interest in Egyptian mythology has seen the man with the ibis head, the god Thoth.

The Traveling Trinovid is on its way to the ABA's Camp Colorado with our friends David La Puma and Jeff Bouton of Leica.

We’ve made it to Colorado a day in advance of the ABA Young Birder camp, determined to try and find the majestic Prairie Falcon for both our new Product Specialist David La Puma and (possibly more importantly) Travis the Traveling Trinovid binocular. After a rendezvous at the Denver airport, Leica’s Jeff Bouton and David La Puma, and ABA’s Bill Stewart headed up to Red Rocks to see whether they could score.

What are the characteristics of a great birder? And how do you reach the pinnacle of the Global Birder Rankings? Seagull Steve of the irreverent Bourbon, Bastards, and Birds has the scoop:

BREAKING NEWS. Being the Number 7 birder in the United States, I am constantly besieged with questions about the Global Birder Ranking System (GBRS) that assigned me this lofty position in the first place. As I have mentioned before, GBRS is very secretive, and those of us considered to be Birding Giants are typically under various gag orders...we are able to acknowledge the existence of GBRS, but giving out details is not something we are typically free to do.

Nick Lund, of The Birdist, shares an interesting interview with our own Rick Wright on the proposed, and possibly pipe-dreamed, de-extinction of the Passenger Pigeon:

The birdosphere appears split between loving this idea and hating it. I love it. An extinct species back from the dead! Passenger Pigeons once again darkening the skies along the eastern seaboard! I think it would be a triumph for science, and an important step for humanity's relationship with nature. I will elaborate on why later on, but I want to hear your thoughts first. On Facebook, you commented that this whole pigeon business was "Short-sighted gimmickry." Why?

Lillian Stokes at the Stokes Birding Blog celebrates Columbids, with tips on feeding and hosting the flashy birds:

Doves are large birds (except for Common Ground-Doves) and feed mainly on the ground. So when choosing bird feeders, select feeders that have a platform or wide ledge so doves can land and comfortably eat. Doves will also feed on seeds that fall to the ground from bird feeders. The Stokes Select 3 in 1 Platform Feeder and red Platform Feeder are excellent feeders for doves.

 

Blog Birding #143

Few ornithologists in North America were as influential as Alexander Wilson. Rick Wright, at Birding New Jersey and Beyond, tells the story of Wilson's first moments in the New World, and the first bird that inspired him:

Those words ring a bell — and not just because Cantwell re-uses exactly the same phrases 30 pages later to paint the backdrop for Wilson’s life in Grays Ferry. In fact, the words, uncredited both times, are Wilson’s own, taken from his account of the Red-headed Woodpecker in the American Ornithology — where they describe the bird’s general nature and where Wilson makes not the least mention of this 1794 encounter. Cantwell’s transformation of Wilson’s natural historical information into a biographical episode verges on the dishonest, an example of what Frank Egerton called his failure to “differentiate between definite information and his inferences, which are extrapolated beyond the evidence.”

They're one of the most common species continent-wide but how many of us really pay attention to those ever-present Canada Geese. Chris Petrak at Birding is Fun does:

But ... if you do pay attention, you might ask why a pair of geese are protecting a dozen or more goslings when they normally lay only six eggs. A couple of years ago, I watched two adult geese leading twenty-three goslings in the Retreat Meadows; I was able to count the moving number when I had my photograph on the monitor so that the birds stayed still. Behind that group came another pair of adults leading sixteen youngsters. These were only two of the gosling collections scattered around those waters.

Ron Dudley, writing at Feathered Photography shares some remarkable photos of a mated pair of Western and Clark's Grebes:

Both species are common in my area and I’ve spent years photographing them and observing their behaviors.  During the breeding season it’s relatively easy to single out mated pairs based on a variety of well-known behaviors that occur between paired birds.

One of the behaviors that occurs between mates is called “mate feeding”.  This is where the female repeatedly begs for food from the male while he is on the water’s surface.  When the male catches a fish he gives it to her and then almost immediately dives for another.  The begging of the female stops while he is under water.

At The Perch, National Audubon's blog, Geoffery Giller documents some interesting findings regarding the incredible appetites of American Kestrel nestlings:

We have documented some of the rather amazing eating habits of nestling Kestrels. One photo, taken in Wisconsin in 2005, shows an approximately 18-day old female slooowly devouring a snake. Another photo shows a little glutton on the Crooked River Ranch, who was being retrieved for banding from its nestbox by volunteer Marilynne Keyser. Several photos show close-ups of the bird as it devours a western fence lizard. It’s too bad that we didn’t have the time to check on the progress of the nestling/lizard situation a day or two later.

Swallows, with their frantic movements and blazing speed, are an underrated identification problem. Greg Gillson, the Pacific NW Birder, offers some tips on the identification of the browner species:

The identification of swallows is generally considered a "beginning birder's" identification problem. As Kenn Kaufman explained in Advanced Birding, it is not so much that swallows are misidentified, rather many swallows go unidentified as they fly by overhead twisting and turning, swooping and diving. As an eBird reviewer, however, I think that some misidentification is happening with swallows--and not just by beginners, either. The ID problem I want to highlight is the 3 brown swallows. Yes, three. Northern Rough-winged, Bank, and Tree swallows. Wait--Tree Swallows? Yes indeed!

 

Blog Birding #142

Meet the newest ABA Young Birder of the year in her own words as Ioana Seritan introduces herself at The Eyrie:

I started birding just over three years ago. My interest in birds came almost out of nowhere. In the fall of 2009, I took my bird to the vet. While my parents and I sat in the waiting room, I saw vets walking around with cockatiels on their shoulders and canaries in cages. I realized that there are adults who work with birds for a living. The moment I had that realization, I was done for. There was nothing I could imagine that was cooler than working with birds. It took me two seconds to decide to become an ornithologist. Once school got out for summer break, I borrowed my brother's binoculars and tried bird watching for the very first time.

They're one of the most enigmatic birds in North America and Ryan O'Donnell, writing at Birding is Fun, has some spectacular images of Black Swifts on the nest:

This was an exciting species for me because it was an "eBird lifer," that is, I had seen them only once before (June 2000), and it was before I was keeping detailed enough notes that I could later enter the sighting into eBird.  Black Swifts are a mysterious species as birds go: only about 200 nesting sites are known, and they made big news last year when their wintering range was finally discovered in western Brazil.  The total population is estimated at about 15,000 individuals worldwide, and is declining at about 6% per year.  Here are a few photos from my recent trip to see this intriguing bird at a nesting colony.

Red-tailed Hawks are among the most variable raptors in the world, Jerry Liguori at Utah Birders looks at their belly bands:

I have had the unique experience to follow juvenile Red-tailed Hawks molting into adult plumage. Now, obviously the coloration changes in several ways, but one thing I learned that is unpublished (just a neat fact that isn't worthy of an entire article) is that most juveniles have a prominent bellyband,  which often becomes less prominent as adults. Here is a local Utah breeding pair of Red-tails with minimal bellybands, and one of the fledglings (on fence post) showing a prominent bellyband. By all accounts, this juvenile will have a sparse bellyband when it gets its adult plumage next year. This is one factor that makes some juveniles confusing to ID to a specific race, particularly outside of the nesting season. 

We love hearing about encounters with the ABA's Bird of the Year, Common Nighthawk. At Bird Canada, Dan Ardnt finds a few in Alberta:

The appeared to be flying over the river, hunting the flying insects that were certainly in abundance, as my many mosquito bites spoke testament too. The Cottonwood Trail is a fairly short loop that follows the river on the north end of the main driving loop, and I figured it would be my best opportunity to get a bit of a closer look at the Common Nighthawks, hoping maybe I'd even find one perched down low. 

Amar Ayyash at Anything Larus almost always has some fascinating aspect of gull identification teed up for us, and this look at an unusual Franklin's Gull is no different:

Of all the world's gull species, Franklin's Gull is the only one that is known to replace all of its feathers twice a year (complete prebasic and prealternate molts). It's said that this phenomenon is more common in adults than in first cycle birds. Seeing a northbound Franklin's in migration, therefore, is somewhat of a unique experience as it provides the observer with an opportunity to asses whether a complete prealternate molt took place on the wintering grounds, or, if the molt is suspended, or never took place at all.

 

http://www.anythinglarus.com/2013/07/franklins-with-puzzling-primaries.html

Blog Birding #141

This week is Independence Day in the United States, a holiday for many Americans. It is unfortunate that this off-day comes during one of the slowest birding times of the year, but that doesn't stop Steve Brenner at Thermal Birding from throwing down the gauntlet with the 4th of July Birding Challenge:

One week from today, people all across the country will be having cookouts, launching fireworks, and birdwatching! The rules of the challenge are simple: when you are out birding on the 4th of July, every species you see that begins with the word “American” counts. Also, any species that begins with the name of a U.S. state (e.g.. California Towhee) also counts. You can also collect bonus birds for each of the following winged-countrymen you spot: Bald Eagle, Wild Turkey, and the official birds of each U.S. state.  

We don't often hear about the trials of the non-birding spouse, but Gabryelle Rowland, The Birder's Wife, lays it all on the table:

This hobby may sound boring to many of you, but I promise – it’s not.  Watching a birder watch birds is essentially the same as watching a seven year old with ADD, a plastic gun strapped to his back, find his way through a black-lit laser tag course in which a kitten is hidden in every nook or cranny (also, the refills of Mountain Dew are endless and he’s snorting lines of blue Pixie Stix dust).  Their eyes dart everywhere, their hands start shaking, their nostrils flare – the whole shebang.  Portrait of a Birder.  I think that will be the title of my first novel…

I usually focus on birding in the ABA Area here, but Jonathan Mayrev, writing at Nature Travel Network, shares a unique way of breaking down a difficult group of birds, in this case Israel's wheatears. It would be interesting to see this treatment applied to any of North America's difficult families:

Being birds of open landscapes, most Wheatears have striking tail patterns and strong and melodic songs, both used to communicate over vast areas and in courtship and display.   Most Wheatears are rather distinct and beautiful birds, but some species pose interesting identification challenges, especially in non-adult male plumages. Most Wheatears have distinct tail patterns and these are important for identification of tougher birds.

I always enjoy hearing stories about how people got into birding. Ernie Allison, writing at Birding is Fun, shares one this week:

It wasn't until my oldest daughter asked me what birds we heard on a hiking trip that I got into birding specifically. I didn't want to disappoint her, so I started looking up the information. Identifying bird calls became a regular part of our outdoor activities. She wanted to see birds more often, so we started putting feeders in our lawn. Before I knew it, I had accumulated a nice amount of knowledge about birds just so that my daughter's questions would be satisfied. I created lists of birds native to our area for her to check off as she saw them. We put out bird feeders and planted flowers to attract as many species as possible. I planned our hikes around the birds commonly seen in certain areas.

There are some fascinating, if arcane, stories about the names with which our familiar birds end up, and Rick Wright at Birding New Jersey excels at telling them. Here, he spins the tale of a very familiar raptor:

Latham in 1781 does speak of “two narrow bars of dirty white” across the deep brown tail, but most of the linear markings he describes are on the underparts:

on the breast and belly, are interrupted bars of white and pale ferruginous mixed.

That he considered those the species’ salient character is evident from the name he gave his new hawk: the Barred-breasted Falcon.

 

Blog Birding #140

Greg Laden, writing at 10,000 Birds, lays out the very real, and very distressing, impact of sea level rise on marsh birds:

We should be expecting sea level rise. As the sea level rises, existing salt marshes and other coastal wetlands will become flooded; as salt marshes are inundated, they will become lower tidal zones, and new areas will be recruited to salt marsh.

People like to deny the reality of climate change, but it is real, and sea level rise is part of that. We see indirect but very compelling evidence of this when insurance companies, government agencies, and other big players act as though they considered climate change to be real. That is not a direct scientific argument for the reality of climate change, but it is nonetheless important and convincing.

What is it about birds that work their way into the core of our being? Julia Zarankin of Birds and Words explores this on her first Saturday without birds in a long time:

How is it that certain things become a part of us — a physical part, a need, I think — and how is it that this happens unconsciously? I could not pinpoint the exact moment when I recognized that watching birds had become a need rather than a whim or a fancy or a curiosity, but I can tell you for certain that today, the first Saturday of the year when I’m not out birding, I feel a physical lack, an ache almost, an uneasiness, a longing for something I never even knew I could miss since I had no idea it had become a part of me.

Attendance at an ornithological society meeting is a sort of rite of passage among birders. John Shamgochian offers a unique perspective at The Eyrie:

Of all the evolutionary twists and turns written in birding archives, very few of the world's birding masterpieces have come out as fine as Wayne Petersen, the day's announcer (a role he has played many times before). Standing on the slightly elevated stage, Mr. Petersen acquainted with the day's main courses and in quick succession introduced us to the presidents of Mass Audubon (Henry Tepper) and the Brookline Bird Club (Eddy Giles), both of whom greeted the expectant audience warmly.

You might expect the birds to be especially prevalent during a periodical cicada outbreak, but Madeline Bodin, writing at The Crux, says not so fast:

Could it be that the din of the cicadas’ mating buzz drowning out the birdsong, so that the bird watchers only thought there were fewer birds? Cicadas aren’t toxic for birds to eat, but could it be something else about the cicadas was driving the birds away? Or is there another explanation? Koenig and Liebhold teamed up to find out.

They began by looking in the data from the Breeding Bird Survey, a yearly census of bird populations collected by the U.S. Geological Survey since 1966.

On Machias Seal Island in Maine, Chris Petrek of the blog Tails of Birding, shares some lovely photos of courting alcids in their breeding finery:

It is very tempting to anthropomorphize the behaviors I photographed on Machias Seal Island, and to describe those behaviors with the smirking and chuckling terms often used. But alas, I don’t want blogger (or a prudish reader) to flag me for inappropriate content, so I will keep this on as even a keel as possible.

The most common courtship behavior I observed was “billing.” Billing among mated pairs of the birds I observed involves touching, or as it appeared to me, caressing, each other’s bills.