ABA Blog

2013 ABA Camp Avocet

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

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

  

Eastern Kingbird and Peregrine Falcon aerial battle

Being involved with this blog means I am fortunate to be privy to any number of remarkable birding experiences sent to me by our readers and members. When Massachusetts birder Tim Spahr sent this remarkable set of photographs along I knew I had to share them. I'll let Tim set the scene.

Tom Wetmore and I had elected to meet on Plum Island at Parker River NWR on August 6 to look for shorebirds and passerine migrants.  While we were chatting at Lot 1 around sunrise, Ryan Schain turned up, so all three of us decided to hang together.  After a few hours we ended up at the Hellcat Dike area.  This season Bill Forward pool, the southern impoundment, as been drawn down a bit and is drawing good numbers of shorebirds.  While Ryan and I were on the Dike, Tom was off at the blind about a half mile to our south.  All at once the shorebirds took flight in a panic, and from the south a large, dark juvenile Peregrine was among them.  

It made a few lazy passes at a few birds and continued on a more-or-less straight line for Ryan and me.  Realizing it was going to come fairly close, I got the camera up, but also cursed the bad light, as the falcon was not going to be lit properly.  As luck would have it, an extremely vocal and aggressive Eastern Kingbird arrived on the scene and proceeded to mob the Peregrine relentlessly.  While this unfolded, the two birds drifted just enough to my west and north to be quite well lit.  Of course by now the Peregrine was ignoring everything but the angry Kingbird; both birds flew just past Ryan and me no more than 100 feet up.

 

I managed to get off about 30 photos of the encounter, expecting a few decent shots.  It was nice to see the Kingbird's red crown stripe flared in anger in a few of the photos.  That definitely exceeded my expectations! 

Included are a couple photos from the encounter, but the entire set is available at Tim's flickr page and the photo set is well worth checking out in its full-sized entirety.

Thanks, Tim!

You Know You're a Birder When...

For the latter half or so of July I was incredibly fortunate and privileged to sail from western Iceland to Greenland aboard the National Geographic Explorer as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow.  The trip was so full of highlights that I'm still wrapping my head around it; I'm working on photos and movies, making plans for curriculum development and community outreach built around my experiences, and journaling about some science themes I found interesting on my PolarTREC page.

 

 I thought I'd share one experience that most readers of this blog can relate to.  On our last full day at sea we were heading up the western coast of Greenland towards our departure point of Kangerlussauq.  In the early afternoon the announcement went out over the ship's PA system that Blue Whales were spouting off the bow in the distance.  Pretty much all of the ship's guests turned out to see this most amazing creature, the largest animal to ever inhabit planet Earth.

 

THAR SHE BLOWS!!  Spouting Blue Whale, Sukkertoppen Bank, Southwest Greenland 27 July 2013.

A pair of the behemoths were feeding, following a pattern of short-interval blows at the surface for a few minutes before diving for 5 or so minutes.  While the whales were down it was pretty quiet aboard, with folks chimping over cameras or having conversations about other places they had seen whales, what pertinent field marks to observe, etc.  As their time down stretched most kept a keen eye peeled to see where the far & fast-ranging rorquals would surface next.  When the whales spouted there was a din of shutter clicks along with actual ooohs and ahhs (some coming from my own mouth, I'm sure.)  But in one of the lulls something caught my eye- amongst the ubiquitous Northern Fulmars and steady stream of Iceland Gulls there was first one and then two darker, more ominous-looking birds powering along in purposeful flight off the port side.  Jaegers!  (Er, maybe since we were in Greenlandic waters, Skuas??  Can I get a ruling...)  

Anyway, both were of a good size and had the chesty look and double-flash in the underwing to be confident calling Pomarine.  The fact that one sported nicely maintained tail spoons didn't hurt, either.  So there I was, my attention turned perpendicular to everyone else's, firing my camera like a madman at 5fps until my buffer filled while about everyone else waited for the Blues to reappear, probably wondering what the heck was so special about the "sea gulls" I was so intently photographing.  The birder in a group always eventually outs him or herself, right??

"So I was watching Blue Whales off the coast of Greenland and then this happened..."  Admittedly, something I never thought I'd say prior to this summer.  Sukkertoppen Bank, Southwest Greenland 27 July 2013.

Ever curious, this adult Pomarine Yaeger took a victory lap around the ship.  I'm not sure how many guests took serious notice but I sure appreciated it!  Sukkertoppen Bank, Southwest Greenland 27 July 2013.

Anyway, I'm not too tunnel-visioned to ignore something as awe-inspiring as a Blue Whale and got some images I'll be pleased to share alongside the jaeger pics!  More importantly, it was such a cherry on top of the whole trip to be in the presence of magnificence, both avian and cetacean.

Diving Blue Whale, Sukkertoppen Bank, Southwest Greenland 27 July 2013.

Blue Whale scat & Northern Fulmar, Sukkertoppen Bank, Southwest Greenland 27 July 2013.

I also had a fantastic time working with the 8 young explorers on board, a nice warm up for Camp Avocet next week!  Also, I would be remiss if I didn't thank National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions for offering me and 13 other educators the chance to visit the Arctic this summer.  Our students, colleagues, and communities will benefit incredibly from the experiences we've had!

Here I am with fellow Grosvenor Teacher Fellow Joe Super and 8 awesome young explorers.  Bonus birder points for Wesley sporting the puffin hat!  Photo © Ralph Lee Hopkins.

Stand by for posts from Delaware and watch out for awesomeness from the young birders and other leaders I'll get to rub elbows with!!  

p.s.  If you are still with me thanks for reading.  Here are a few other bird photo highlights from the trip- enjoy!

Atlantic Puffin, Flatey Island, Iceland, 20 July 2013.

Common Eiders & Ice, Skjoldungensund, Greenland, 22 July 2013.

Common Ravens, Nanortalik, Greenland, 23 July 2013.

Immature Greenlandic Common Redpoll, Hvalsey, Greenland, 24 July 2013.

Male Greenlandic Common Redpoll, Kangerlussuaq, Greenland, 28 July 2013.

Eurasian Oystercatcher, Flatey Island, Iceland, 20 July 2013.

Northern Fulmar portrait, Flatey Island, Iceland, 20 July 2013.

Iceland Gull, Skjoldungensund, Greenland, 22 July 2013.

Iceland Gull feather & tundra, Nanortalik, Greenland, 23 July 2013.

Iceland Gull, offshore of Skjoldungensund, Greenland, 22 July 2013.

Northern Fulmar, Atlantic Puffins, and Common Murres, Flatey Island, Iceland, 20 July 2013.  Oh, and some finny thing.

Just kidding- I love whales as much as seabirds.  Mother Orca (inverted, underwater) with youngster, Latrabjarg, Iceland, 20 July 2013.

Orcas, Latrabjarg, Iceland, 20 July 2013.

 

 

Bald Eagle Eats Whale!

OK, maybe the headline is hyped a bit ala The National Enquirer but my enquiring mind was certainly impressed with the gastric ambition of a pair of eagles I saw at Kalaloch Beach, Olympic National Park last week.  The night's high tide had sadly deposited a baby Harbor Porpoise along the wrack line (thanks to Katie Jones, naturalist for Western Prince Whale & Wildlife Tours, for the ID.)  

A pair of adult Bald Eagles thought that was just dandy, though, and while one tucked in the other waited down nearer the water for its turn.  Bald Eagles are pretty famous for their opportunistic feeding habits including fishing, aggressive predation of significant-sized prey (like Sandhill Crane), kleptoparasitism, and scavenging.  So even though finding them eating a washed up porpoise isn't groundbreaking, I thought it was pretty cool (probably my landlocked Colorado perspective on things made it even more special for me.)  If you want to play along, leave a comment with an interesting Bald Eagle dietary story of your own!

Some nearby hikers prompted the Bald Eagle to move the baby porpoise down the beach a bit.  It couldn't get the carcass completely airborne but I was duly impressed with the bird's lifting power- it ended up dragging its meal about 50 meters closer to the surf, leaving a very cryptic trail along the beach.

 

When the eagles were done I snapped this pic showing the dragging trail leading down the beach.  Stow that one away in your mental animal-tracking files!

Porpoise flipper- it's what's for breakfast!

That gape was made for gulping!

A little repositioning hop shows off the business end of the Bald Eagle's feet quite well.

Sated, the eagle heads off for some serious digesting.

Hey- as you read this I'll be aboard the National Geographic Explorer poking around Iceland & Greenland.  I was incredibly fortunate to be chosen as a Grosvenor Teacher Fellow this year, heading to the arctic to share the importance of geographic education and climate change awareness with guests.  I hope to do my share of bird-finding for folks too!!  My role will also include working on curriculum & outreach when I return.   Stay tuned for (hopefully!) some bird & wildlife pics when I get back.  I promise I won't lobby too hard about including Iceland & Greenland in the ABA area!  -Bill 

Innovative Smart Phone Digiscoping Bracket

Hey ABA Blog readers- I recently saw this video showing the new PhoneSkope C4 universal phonescoping adapter and thought it was pretty intriguing.  I haven't put my hands on one yet (I'm hoping to get one to review soon) but wondered if any of you have tried it?  If so please leave a comment with your thoughts about it.

The twist-on piece that adjusts and locks onto the eyepiece looks especially neat.  If it works as promised this would be excellent to bring on birding tours where you may be looking through different scopes (always ask permission first before digiscoping or phonescoping on someone else's rig) or for switching between your scope and bins without needing any extra adapter parts.  Good to see companies like PhoneSkope continue to innovate!

 

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.)

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!!

 

On the importance of a good perch for feeder photos...

I'm scrambling to get everything squared away before heading off to the 2013 Colorado Field Ornithologists Convention in beautiful Cortez, Colorado, so I'll let these two pictures do the talking...  Bottom line: If you want better snaps at your feeders, give your avian subjects some nice-looking perches to pose on.

Ughh... Beauty and a Beast!

 

Ace!

DSLR Bird Vids

I'm easing myself into a new realm of bird photography, dabbling with videos to supplement my core interest of shooting stills.  Three primary factors influenced my decision to try this.  First, I enviously watched my buddies Brian Sullivan and Chris Wood shooting video with their DSLR rigs and thought it would be fun to try it.  Second, I finally upgraded to a DSLR body capable of video (putting my trusty Nikon D300 into a backup role with my new D7100 stepping into its place.)  Finally, I've seen the power of video to tell stories though experiences like my PolarTREC expedition and I know the attentive way my middle school students engage in topics with short movie clips.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, how about a movie?? 

Anyway, I'm still figuring this game out but I'd like to share three short bird videos I've made this spring and a lesson or two I learned from each.  I hope experienced bird videographers will leave their best tips in the comments to help get me and anyone over the learning curve faster!

 

Case 1:  Wilson's Snipe, Weld County, Colorado, 1 April 2013.  

Scenario:  First serious bird video I attempted.  I was shooting from my car along a roadside ditch with the feeding snipe (& nearby vocalizing male.)  

Lessons learned:

•  I shot this with the camera resting on my car's windowsill but still had trouble with shake and smooth panning.  I'm spoiled shooting stills with hand-holding teqnique, using high shutter speed and image-stabilization but with video it is important to use good support.  I resolve to have my bean bag on hand for windowsill work and my sturdy tripod & gimbal head for field work.
• The audio here is from the built-in microphone, far from terrible, but any breath of wind really scours the mic and trashes the sound recording.  I resolve to get an external mic with a wind muff to dampen wind noise and get better bird vocalizations and ambient noises.

 

 

Case 2: Short-eared Owl, Boulder County, Colorado, 16 April 2013.

Scenario:  After a significant spring blizzard there was an amazing fallout of longspurs along the plowed edges of eastern Boulder County rural roads.  When swapping notes with some buddies about what we'd seen I got wind of a Short-eared Owl a few roads over.  I shot from my vehicle which worked great as a blind- once I stopped and shut down the owl dismissed me after an initial keen look-over.  Sparse traffic didn't seem to bother the owl, either, and the drivers didn't even notice the bird as they passed it mere feet away (in fact, I missed it on my first transit, looking out along fencelines instead of roadside where it was sheltering on the leeward side of the roadside ditch.)

Lessons learned:  

• The beanbag on the window sill worked great for steadying the camera.  
• The addition of a RODE VideoMic Pro with a wind muff really helped to un-harsh the effect of wind.  HOWEVER...
• I left my image stabilizing on, and the mic picked up the sound of the gyros in the lens as a steady high-freqency whirring.   If you have a VR (Nikon) or IS (Canon) lens or similar system you can hear this if you put your ear next to the lens when the stabilizing feature is on, and the mic is right over the lens, ideally situated to capture this noise.  I resolved to turn off the VR when I'm shooting video.  For this vid I scrubbed most of the whirring out in post-production using the equalizer function in iMovie but if I had high-freqency bird vocalizations I would have lost them.

 

 

Case 3: Foraging Bonaparte's & Franklin's Gulls, Weld County, Colorado, 21 April 2013.

Scenario:  A midge hatch on a pond attracted a few dozen Bonies along with a Frankie or two.  I shot hundreds of stills, trying to capture some of the birds' amazing aerobatics and ability to nab midges without slowing down.

Stills like this are neat but only capture 1/2000 sec. each of a bird's behavior.  Amongst my still shooting I tried to keep up with their flights to put a little clip together.

Lessons learned:

• Here I felt like I was somewhat finally getting my act together- I set up my sturdy photo tripod rig (Gitzo 3541L+ Wimberly Gimbal Head), switched off my image stabilizing, mounted up my RODE mic with the wind muff, and let 'er rip.
• Even with the gimbal mount, keeping up with these birds was tricky.  I put the lens into continuous focus mode so I could just worry about trying to keep the birds in frame.  I also backed off the zoom a bit to have a wider image and thus more easily track the birds and lessen the jerkiness factor.  It did pretty well, although a high percentage of the footage was crappy.  As with stills, I learned to shoot a lot of video and be willing to look for the good stuff among the throwaway footage.  

 

 

Avian Interlopers

I hope that you enjoyed Noah Strycker's latest ABA Blog entry about camera trapping as much as I did.  Like Noah, I'm really enjoying the addition of motion-activated trail cameras to my bag of tricks. One of Forrest Gump's trademark quotes may well apply to camera trapping: "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."  Just substitute "checking a trail camera memory card" for "Life" and I think the comparison is apt.

Anyway, in my last ABA Blog installment I mentioned that I was experimenting with a couple of Bushnell TrophyCam HD units, with a primary appeal being their ability to shoot motion-activated infrared movies at night.  One is still pointed at my Barn Owl box, and I repositioned the other to face down a log downed by beavers along Boulder Creek in Weld County, Colorado.  One issue I've noticed with the TrophyCam is that close subjects get overexposed by the IR illumination, even when it is set to low power.  Commentator Mike Patterson responded my post by suggesting I use copy paper as a diffuser, a technique he successfully used to build a virtual pitfall trap.  I liked the idea and it worked well in a short test but I was worried about the effect of wet weather on the paper over long unsupervised deployments.  Following the similar advice of the Camera Trap Codger I tried a homemade IR diffuser made of a thin sheet of closed-cell packing foam, which I taped to the inside of the metal security housing in front of the IR array.  I like the results- the bright levels I experienced center frame in earlier trials seem toned down and didn't require post-production adjustments to moderate the exposure.

I was expecting mainly mammals at this set, particularly the beavers that chewed the tree down, but in a week of camera trapping I had many birds join the mix.  I edited some highlights of the week into the video below to show the surprising diversity of mammals and birds that triggered the camera.  

This time I have a challenge for my faithful readers. In the comments section, list the bird & mammal species as they appear in the video (heard-only detections count, too!)  I know the audio isn't the greatest, but it does add an interesting aspect to each clip and I know you'll recognize several species making noise.  The first person to list them correctly will win a copy of Brian Kimberling's new novel, Snapper.  There is a birding theme in the story- here's the publisher's synopsis: 

A disastrous love affair between a man and a place, Snapper relates the brief career of a professional bird researcher in Southern Indiana. While conducting surveys and censuses of the same songbirds John James Aubudon painted in Indiana two hundred years ago – now in catastrophic decline – Nathan Lochmueller traverses a deeply dysfunctional society. He encounters an enormous concrete Santa Claus statue at a remote highway diner, white supremacists, the nation’s oldest Dial-A-Prayer service, Vietnam vets, and a discarded human thigh bone. And, of course, a woman who won’t stay true and a pick-up truck that won’t run.

Both a short story cycle, and a fully-formed novel, Snapper is a lyrical portrait of a rural wilderness and its very dark, very human, heart.

So good luck to any challengers for the prize!  Remember to list all of the mammals and birds in the movie including heard-only detections- first correct list in the comments gets the book.  Even if you don't want to play along, I hope you enjoy the little vignettes of streamside life captured by the trail cam (you might want to embiggen it by clicking the full screen icon in the lower left of the video frame.)