ABA Blog

Upcoming Bird of the Year Event!

Friday May 25th through Monday May 28th is the Evening Grosbeak Weekend Out, one of the celebration events tied to the ABA Bird of the Year program this year. It's an opportunity for birders everywhere to get outside and look for Evening Grosbeaks and all other feathered beings too. More importantly it's an opportunity to introduce others to the wonderful world of birding. Please consider inviting a non-birder to go out birding with you for a couple of hours during that weekend. Show them all the beautiful birds they've been missing out on. Perhaps provide a friend or family member a gift package of a bird feeder, a starter bag of wild bird seed, and a field guide. Help them learn to identify their feeder birds and keep an eye out for Evening Grosbeaks.

Takes lots of pictures and share them with us. Please write to us and tell us of your experience on the Evening Grosbeak Weekend Out.

Where are Evening Grosbeaks being seen right now nearest you?  Check out this eBird map of May sightings from fellow birders like you and me. There are a couple of different apps like Birdseye and Aububon Birds that can help you find the nearest sightings. If no Evening Grosbeaks are within a reasonable distance, no worries. Just go birding anyway! Migration is still underway and there are lots of birds waiting to be seen.

#ABArare - Tundra Bean-Goose, Eurasian Bullfinch - Alaska

Ryan O'Donnell, guiding for St. Paul Island Tours and birding on the complete opposite side of the continent from many of the other recent exciting reports, has discovered and photographed a pair of East Asian goodies on St. Paul Island in the Pribloff Islands, western Alaska.  Bith an ABA Code 3 Tundra Bean-Goose on 5/12 and an ABA Code 4 Eurasian Bullfinch on 5/14 have passed his way of late.  This is the seventh record of the Tundra Bean-Goose for St. Paul, and the earliest record for this species. As for the Bullfinch, it's the first spring record for the Pribloffs. 

Photo by Ryan O'Donnell, used with permission

According to Ryan, the goose was on English Bay at the south end of the island, first flushed at the base of Zapadni Point near where it meets Zapadni Beach. It circled out over English Bay, went at least as far as the far side of English Bay on Tolstoi Point, where it may have landed, before returning to its original location within 20 minutes or so.

Tundra Bean-Goose is a casual vagrant to western Alaska, with most records in the spring. Many Alaska sightings can only be assigned to bean-goose species because the former Bean Goose sightings were not identified to subspecies at the time. The AOU split Bean Goose into two species, Taiga and Tundra Bean-Goose in 2007 in their annual supplement.  The committee made the split based on an article in Dutch Birding by Sangster and Oreel (1996).

Photo by Ryan O'Donnell, used with permission

The Eurasian Bullfinch was seen in Town on 5/12, and relocated on the 14th.

The first ABA-area record of Eurasian Bullfinch came from the Yukon River at Nulato in January 1867. They are primarily recorded in the spring in the western Aleutians.  It is one of six members of the Pyrrhula genus, is common and a well known garden bird in its breeding area.  It is a Palearctic breeder from the British Isles to Japan wintering in Europe south to the Mediterranean region, North Africa, the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula, South Korea, and southern Japan.

St Paul Island is accessible by air via several Alaskan airports, notably Anchorage, on Penair Airlines. 

For more information on rare birds being seen on the Pribloffs, see the Alaska Birding listserv for regular reports from Ryan and other guiding on the island this spring.

Blog Birding #81

ABA Blog contributor John Puschock is on his way to Attu for several days.  You can follow along at North American Birding Blog:

We just went through a large concentration of Least Auklets south of Semisopochnoi. Crested Auklets were scattered in with them. In the early morning, we also had a few Parakeet and Whiskered Auklets, giving us the Aethia grand slam. We also had a few Thick-billed Murres, our first of the trip.

Canada's Committee on Endangered Wildlife just updated the status of several species, including five birds.  Bird Canada is up on the changes:

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) held their spring species assessment meeting last week in the Kananaskis Valley of Alberta.  The committee considered the status of 35 wildlife species, including five birds.

If you think banding landbirds is cool, check out the setup needed to band shorebirds over at Boom Chachalaca:

Yesterday we set up mist nets at the Heislerville shorebird impoundments, one of our usual banding locales.  On the bright side, there were thousands of birds, and many more thousands than we've been having at this spot.  The only problem was that they weren't flying into our nets!  We caught 17 birds during our 11 hours (!!!) in the field - 15 Least Sandpipers, and 3 Semipalmated Sandpipers.  Needless to say, we were very bored most of the day.  The highlights were watching World Series of Birding teams rushing by, sorting through the hoards of shorebirds, and taking tons of photos.

Ryan Ankney, writing at Louisville Naturally, shares a little bit about how color is expressed in our colorful spring birds:

Birds as we all know come in a great variety of colors, which is probably why we are so fascinated by them.  From the browns and grays of sparrows, to the bright yellows and reds of goldfinches and cardinals, to the stunning blue hues of buntings and grosbeaks.  While there are a great many birds that exhibit brown plumage, fewer exhibit yellows and reds, and fewer still exhibit blue feathers.  What makes blue plumage so different that it only occurs in a handful of birds?  Before we get in to what makes them so special we have to understand a little bit more about how other birds derive their color.

Birchick Sharon Stiteler offers a insider's view on what happens when a super-rare Kirtland's Warbler is reported at one of the biggest bird festivals on the continent:

Wednesday morning, still in a sleepy haze, desperately hoping the caffeine from my coffee would finally jump start my metabolism, I made my way to the quieter east end of the Magee Marsh boardwalk. I noticed a small cluster of people up ahead, one of them turned around and I recognized Mike Watson from BIRDQUEST and he asked, “Hey, Shaz, didn’t you need a Kirtland’s warbler? It’s right here.”

Let them know we're Birders

Via Living Bird

The end of the Biggest Week in American Birding, the Ohio bird festival on the shores of Lake Erie, is as good a time as any to touch on the economic impact birders have on local economies.  The Biggest Week is a phenomenal example not only because of the way the organizers have sold the businesses of Ottawa County on the festival, and birding, as a driver of tourism, but because those gains have been quantified in a very real manner.  Businesses know when the birders come and birders are really good about making sure their presence is felt in the community.

Beyond continental hotspots and big festivals, however, indicators of "the birder effect" are less precise.  Seeing enormous potention there, Sean Mahar of Audubon New York, assisted by a generous donation from Audubon's TogetherGreen grant program, is trying to change all that. 

Concerned that many businesses and communities are not aware of the fact that people travel some distance specifically for opportunities to bird, and worse, that those communities are not working to promote and protect to those opportunities, Mahar has created a simple business card wherein birders can include some basic information and leave the cards at businesses they frequent.  These, in and of themselves, are not unique - many festivals have encouraged similar participation - but businesses are also encouraged to contact Audubon New York so that spending can be tracked across the state.

From a recent article in the Albany Times-Union:

"Even though this economic impact is happening, we have found that many local businesses and tourism agencies are not aware that people are traveling to, and spending money in, their communities just to watch birds, and are not actively working to promote and enhance those opportunities," said Sean Mahar, director of government relations for Audubon New York. "This is happening at a time when, in this economic downturn, more people are traveling locally and looking for opportunities to recreate closer to home."

Thanks to the TogetherGreen grant, Mahar has printed 100,000 cards and is offering them for free to any New York birder.

Those looking to participate can find more information here.

THE Top 10: Reasons to make Hawaii part of the ABA Area

A recent poll on the ABA Facebook page posted by ABA member Morgan Churchill showed that a decided majority of those polled thought that Hawaii should be added to the ABA area. This would mean that birds seen in Hawaii could be added to birder’s North American lifelist. A heated discussion ensued. Below are my top 10 (utterly subjective) reasons why the addition of Hawaiʻi seems logical and/or desirable.

 

Red-tailed Tropicbird at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, Kauai (by G. Armistead).

10. The Iʻiwi 

One of the most awesome birds on earth, and a trip to Hawaiʻi provides birders a good chance to see it. Pronounced “ee-ee vee”, the species produces a variety of sounds and one of the most oft-heard calls is that for which it is named; a cartoonish approximation of a car-horn, “be-BEE beep”. How the Hawaiian Goose, the “Nene”, got top billing as the state bird over the Iʻiwi is anybody’s guess.

 

Iʻiwi in Hakalau National Wildlife Refuge, Hawaii (by G. Armistead).

 

 9. Great Trip for SOBs

Those of us with non-birding spouses quickly learn how imperative it is to keep your non-birding half content, if you hope to achieve your birding objectives. Happily, Hawaii is a great place for birders and for spouses-of-birders, a.k.a. “SOBs” (what did you think I meant?). After you’ve gotten in a good day of searching for Anianiau or Omaʻo, you can meet your better half back at the beach for a little snorkeling, a happy hour cocktail, and some fine dining. Your spouse can tell you about their day relaxing on the beach, paddle-boarding, or checking out volcanoes and waterfalls. There’s plenty to do for everyone in Hawaii. It’s a win-win.

 

 8. See the Kauaʻi Birds Before They Are Gone 

The forest in Kauaʻi gets quieter all the time. Even just five years ago birds like Akikiki and Akekeʻe were fairly easily found. Their numbers have declined to the point that finding them now is rather difficult on a short visit. Adding Hawaiʻi to the ABA area might inspire some birders to go and see these unique species before they disappear forever.

 

 7. More Birder Attention = Improved Conservation?

Over 33% of the listed endangered birds in the U.S. are Hawaiian, yet they receive only 4% of the federal funds dedicated to recovery actions (Leonard 2008). The two species that receive the most funding are the Hawaiian Crow and the Palila, yet most of the money they receive is due to lawsuits filed on their behalf, compelling the USFWS to expend resources on their recovery.

If birders knew more about Hawaii’s native birds and the threats facing them, perhaps the dollars might flow a little more freely in their direction. George Wallace of the American Bird Conservancy says that adding Hawaii to the ABA area "has great value in raising awareness about the species and their plight and may attract new supporters for conservation action." Many Hawaiian birds are still easily found, but for how long?

 

 6. You might get to see a Humuhumunukunukuapuaʻa 

A what!!? You know, a Humuhumunukunukuapuaʻa… or, if you prefer a Reef Triggerfish, the state fish. They are cool, and if you do a little snorkeling while in Hawaiʻi, there’s a good chance you’ll see one. The crazy Hawaiian name means “fish that grunts like a pig”.

 

 5. You’ll get to learn the Hawaiian Alphabet

There’s not too much to it, though it does take a little practice. With just 13 letters it doesn’t take long. The Hawaiian Alphabet consists of the 5 vowels (never “y”), and 8 consonants: h, k, l, m, n, p, w, and the ʻokina. The ʻokina is that backwards-looking apostrophe-like thing, which represents a glottal stop.

 

 4. Some Sweet Seabirds

While the forest birds on Hawaiʻi are indeed awesome, the seabirds sort of steal the show, and many can be seen right from shore. Tapping into these for one’s ABA list would sure be satisfying. White Terns nest right in Waikiki, and a timely visit to Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge should net you stupendous views of two tropicbird species, Great Frigatebird, Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Laysan Albatross, and a sulid or two. There are places on Kauaʻi where one must “brake for albatrosses”; heed those “albatross crossing” signs! (I can’t think of any other spot in the world other than Taiaroa Head in New Zealand where you can find drive-up albatrosses). Pelagic trips off Hawaii yield other goodies too, such as Mottled Petrel, Christmas Shearwater, and Bulwer’s Petrels among others.

 

Wedge-tailed Shearwater over the Kaulakahi Channel (by G. Armistead).

 

 3. Twitch Exotics

Few places in the world have been more befouled by releases of alien bird species than Hawaii. The impacts have been severe, but even in spite of that it is still kind of fun to see free-ranging Kalij Pheasants, Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse, Lavender Waxbills, White-rumped Shamas, or to hear the far carrying calls of the Hwamei. These are just a few of the many introduced bird species that the ABA checklist committee would have to consider adding to the official checklist, should Hawaii be added to the ABA area.

 

 2. The Akiapola’au

One of the state’s most sought-after birds is the strange and charming Akiapolaʻau; often just referred to as the “Aki”. This is a species we want on the ABA list… Have you seen the bill on that thing!? Also, it behaves like a woodpecker, but is sort of more nuthatch-like in GISS. It uses its straight peg-like mandible to hammer away at the branches of the Koa tree, and then uses its absurdly slender, decurved maxilla to extract insect larvae. Few bird species in the world sport a more specialized bill.

 

Akiapola'au on Hawaii (by G. Armistead).

 

 1. It’s a state after all…

Why should the 50^th state be excluded? Sure there are reasons to consider including Greenland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and Puerto Rico in the ABA area, but let’s start by including each of the 50 states. If I were a birder in Hawaii I’d be pretty bummed out that the big national birding organization of my country chose to omit my state from its treatment of “North America”. There are not a ton of birders in Hawaii, but we are talking about some cool folks out on these islands. We could all learn a lot from each other.

Bottom line:

Making people more cognizant of Hawaiian birds and the challenges they face could pay dividends for conservationists. The 50^th state could use a little help, and I say we give it to them. Also, birding in Hawaii is fun. Hawaiian birding veterans will note that I didn’t even mention that Bristle-thighed Curlew is a lot easier to see in Hawaii than in Alaska. And, there are a bunch of endemics, a unique subfamily (Drepanidinae) of finches, some sweet seabirds, and few places offer more beautiful scenery, and have such fantastic food. We are lucky enough to have one little corner of the Polynesian Triangle in our country, so why not take full advantage?

If you would like to support the conservation and protection of Hawaiian birds then consider making contributions to the:

American Bird Conservancy

http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/oceansandislands/hawaii.html

Pacific Rim Conservation

http://pacificrimconservation.com/

 

Acknowledgements:

My thanks to Eric VanderWerf, Peter Pyle and George Wallace for their contributions to this article.

References:

Leonard, D.L. Jr. 2008. Recovery expenditures for birds listed under the US Endangered Species Act: The disparity between mainland and Hawaiian taxa. Biological Conservation 141:2054-2061.

Rare Bird Alert: May 11, 2012

I'm a little under the weather right now so the usual much-anticipated introduction will have to be abbreviated today. It's May, the birds are coming fast. But you knew that, right?

If you're an ABA area big lister or just a birder looking for the hottest birding on the continent, Florida has to be your destination right now.  Bahamanian and Caribbean birds are all over the place including a Thick-billed Vireo (ABA Code 4) in Broward, not one but two Bahama Mockingbirds (4) in Monroe and Palm Beach, and a La Sagra's Flycatcher (4) also in Palm Beach.  Good seabirds include a Red-footed Booby (4) and two Black Noddies in the Dry Tortugas, Monroe,  and a Brown Booby (3) in Volusia.

Just north in Georgia, a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is present in Gordon.  There is some speculation that this bird may be one of the few that overwinter in Florida annually. 

An Anhinga in Anne Arundel, Maryland, is notable not only for being one of very few records, but a chaseable bird as well.  It has been present much of the week. 

A Fork-tailed Flycatcher (3) near Centerville, Delaware, however, appears to have been a one-day wonder.

Found late last week and not mentioned in the last Rare Bird Alert, was a White-faced Ibis in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, only the state's 2nd ever record.

In Atlantic Canada, a Painted Bunting is notable in Gagetown, New Brunswick. 

In Nova Scotia, a brief staying European Goldfinch on Sherbrooke begs the obligatory provenance questions, depite being worthy of note.

Some good birds in Quebec include a Western Tanager near Lascelles, and both a Say's Phoebe and a Blue Grosbeak at Bas-Saint-Laurent.

A Kirtand's Warbler is an excellent find near Stoney Creek in Ontario. 

And practically annual every year at The Biggest Week in American Birding, another (and possibly two) Kirtland's Warbler was discovered in Ottawa, Ohio. 

A Ruff (3), the latest of many this spring, made waves in Gennesee, Michigan, but perhaps more remarkable was an apparant Cassin's Vireo in Berrien.

Excellent for the midwest US, a Swallow-tailed Kite was seen in Harrison, Indiana, in the southern part of the state.

In Illinois, a Brewer's Sparrow was reported from Will. 

Good so far north and west was a Glossy Ibis in Black Hawk, Iowa.

Fresh off one rare finch, Arkansas snags another, this time a Lesser Goldfinch in Benton.

Remarkable both for its location and the time of year is a Yellow-billed Loon at Tuttle Reservoir, in Riley, Kansas.

Lots of good reports from California this week, including the odd pariting of a Common Redpoll and a Baltimore Oriole on San Clemente Island in Orange.  Also in SoCal, a White-eyed Vireo was well-photographed in Los Angeles, a Prothonotary Warbler  in San Diego, and a Brown Booby (3) picked up on a pelagic off of San Diego.

A Great-tailed Grackle near Burns, Oregon, in Harney, is yet another outpost for this rapidly expanding species.

And in Bristish Columbia, a stunning male Chestnut-collared Longspur was discovered in Vancouver.

--=====--

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

#ABArare - Red-footed Booby - Florida

Florida continues to blow up with rare birds, the most recent of which is an ABA Code 4 Red-footed Booby, discovered by Connecticut birder Nick Bonomo and others, roosting with Magnificent Frigatebirds on Long Key in the Dry Tortugas, Monroe County.  The bird was first observed from the ferry terminal on Garden Key and again from the ferry.  Note that this is the Long Key within the National Park, not the Long Key in the Florida Keys between Conch and Fiesta Key.

Photo by Nick Bonomo, used with permission

The Dry Tortugas are part of the Florida Keys 67 miles west of Key West, Florida, and are accessible only by ferry, catamaran, or seaplane from Key West.  There are many companies in Key West that provide transport to the Dry Tortugas, some of which cater specifically to birders. 

Red-footed Boobies are polymorphic with a white, black-tailed white, "golden" white, brown, white-tailed brown, white-headed brown, and white-tailed brown morphs.  It is one of two booby species that nest in trees where they will also roost.

Red-footed Booby is pantropical in distribution and long foraging flights make plotting this species' movements difficult.  Juveniles are notorious for their long flights with some birds recorded over 100 miles from the nearest land. They often leave on foraging journeys at first light, returning after dark (HBW, Volume 1). Red-footed Booby is one of the most abundant and widespread of the boobies, yet it is casual in the ABA Area except at the Dry Tortugas where it it has been seen in 10 of the last 15 years (ABA Checklist, Seventh Edition, Pranty et al.).  Its food preference is flying-fish and squid, both food types caught by plunge-diving, although flying-fish are also caught in flight.  During moonlit nights, when squid are attracted to surface waters, Red-footed Boobies take advantage of the abundance of surface foods.

ABC creates Bird Risk map

Via A DC Birding Blog

The rapid increase in large scale wind-development, and the associated concerns about bird strikes and habitat degredation, has been a hot issue among bird conservation organizations for some time now.  The American Bird Conservancy has continued to do great work bringing attention to these concerns and providing resources for birders interested in getting involved in the often local decisions that determine where these industrial scale facilities are sited. 

One of the most recent, and impressive, of these publicly available resources is a series of maps showing in bold colors the sites least amenable to large scale wind development due to potential interactions with birds.  These maps are available for all states, and a few parts of adjoining provinces, as a downloadable add-on to Google Earth.

Areas of high importance for birds, namely IBAs, designated critical habitat for listed endangered species, and seasonal "bottleneck" areas for migratory birds, are designated as orange or red. 

From the press release:

"This map offers a way to prevent millions of bird deaths from wind power, while at the same time providing ample opportunity for the prudent development of this potentially bird-smart energy source. Careful siting of wind energy remains the single most important factor in reducing bird deaths from wind power, and this map provides a means to do just that," said Mike Parr, Vice President of ABC. "ABC strongly supports bird-smart wind energy development" he added. 

It's vitally important for local birders and bird organizations to make their voices heard on these issues.  Most all of us would agree that an greater emphasis on renewable energies such as wind is a genrally positive development, but that we shouldn't have to sacrifice the needs of birds and birders to achieve these goals. 

So go get informed, folks.  

Birding with Children

 

Giving parenting advice, I realize, can be a great way to make enemies. Just ask any mother-in-law. Better yet, just ask the recipient of any such advice: Ask any daughter-in-law. For sure, the dispensers of parenting advice—from Amy Shua to Focus on the Family to mothers-in-law everywhere—are generally hated.

Same thing, I have found, with the purveyors of birding advice. Try telling a non-lister that keeping lists is a great way to learn avian status and distribution; or explain to a chaser that you’d rather spend time at your local patch than make the eight-hour drive for a state first. Or try telling any sort of birder that he or she might have blown an ID...

And now I’m going to offer my views on both birding and parenting. I wonder if I’ll have any friends at all when this is done.
Right: On the trail in Colorado’s San Luis Valley; we’ve just seen several hundred American alligators (it’s complicated...) and a rare Mexican Duck.

To cut to the chase, I have one and only one item of advice for birding parents.

First, a brief digression.

 

Consider the following scenario. You’re in idle conversation with a friend—the sort of casual chitchat that happens dozens of times every day. It’s a conversation that, ordinarily, would be forgotten the next morning. Then your friend says something that hits you like a ton of bricks. Oh, it’s not intended as such. Indeed, your friend has already forgotten it a moment or two later. But it’s received and processed in such a manner as to be life-changing.

Come to think of it, I posted quite recently to The ABA Blog about precisely this matter. I wrote about how a birding companion, Chris Wood, casually remarked to me, “Listen to the Green-winged Teal.” I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend for that comment to alter the way I go birding. In fact, I suspect Chris had forgotten within minutes that he’d even uttered the remark. No matter, it changed my life.

The same thing happened, a while back, in the course of conversation with Virginia Maynard, well known to many ABA members for her great work through the years with ABA bird-finding guides, Winging It, and other publications. Virginia’s kids were teenagers at the time, and my first child was on the way. We’d gotten onto the topic of birding and children, and Virginia said something that’s stuck with me ever since. I suspect Virginia had forgotten the conversation within hours. But I’ll always remember what she told me.
Left: Watching for seabirds off Monterey, California.

 

“Start ’em young.”

That’s it? That’s all? That’s all she said? And that’s the entirety of my advice to birders with children?
Right: pondering geographic variation in the “white-cheeked goose” complex.

Yes, that’s it. That’s all there is to it. But there’s just one thing. We need to define “young.” You see, Virginia wasn’t talking about high school, or junior high, or even kindergarten.

That’s way too late.

 

My daughter and I spent a good part of her first day of life at the hospital window. We saw a Golden Eagle fly by, and we listened to coyotes warbling. The next few weeks, we explored the canyons, marshes, and mesas near our home in Boulder County, Colorado. We took our first out-of-state birding trip when my daughter was three months old; with Rick Wright, we birded around Tucson, Arizona, finding such regional specialties as Abert’s Towhee and Gila Woodpecker—plus a locally uncommon Swamp Sparrow. You get the picture.

My son got an even earlier start. He and I had wandered out onto a hospital balcony within two hours of his birth. (Long story, but it involved an impending blizzard, a scarcity of doctors and nurses, and a bit of a “misunderstanding” about restricted areas in the hospital.) It was nearly midnight, so my son and I tried for Great Horned Owl. A few days later, he and I and his big sister got Eastern Screech-Owl for the Boulder Christmas Bird Count. The bird was a “save”—the only one recorded for the count.
Above: Returning from High Creek Fen, in Colorado’s high country.

 

Let me clear about something. I’m talking about serious birding, “real” birding, hardcore birding.

A few years ago, when my kids were toddlers, we were birding in a blinding spring snowstorm at a local reservoir. We found a Ruff. My daughter knew what to do. She had me stay with the bird, and she raced back to the car for my cell phone.
Right: In this photo, she’s barely one year old. Today’s kids are born knowing how to use technology in the interest of furthering the cause of birding.

When my son was seven months old, he co-discovered with me the mid-summer nocturnal molt-migration of arizonae Chipping Sparrows. The discovery wouldn’t have happened without him. You see, I would have slept through those hot summer nights if it weren’t for my son’s nocturnal stirrings. But he stirred, I woke up, we went birding together in the middle of the night, and the rest is history.

My kids are a bit older now, and their ambitions are accordingly grander. The other day, my daughter learned that I’ll be camping and birding later this month in the remote canyonlands of the Colorado–New Mexico border; she’ll be there too, I’ve just been informed. Meanwhile, my son is angling for a birding trip to India.

What’s next?

 

In a nutshell, I don’t know. I’m typing this from the sidelines at my son’s soccer game. After the game, my daughter (also playing soccer right now) and son are meeting up for a visit at a computer store in Boulder.

I don’t know if my kids will continue as birders. They’re increasingly interested in Taylor Swift and the diabolical union of Star Wars and Legos. (They’re also interested in, and knowledgeable about, number theory and The Great Fugue; my wife and I still exert some influence over them…) A few years from now, when they’re teenagers, my kids may have as little interest in birding as I have in shopping, television, politics, and cooking.
Left: Working up the day’s checklist.

That’s fine. If that happens, I’m fine with it. Such an outcome would mean, in some sense, that I’d get my life—or, at least my birding life—back to normal. I’d be back to birding the way I did it in grade school, college, grad school, and early adulthood.

And if that happens, here’s the big question: Will I be able to sustain the turbo-charged pace of birding from my earliest years as a parent? Let’s not beat around the bush: I got more intensely into birding—way more into birding—when my daughter was born. And I cranked it up a few notches further with the birth of my son. Will I be able to keep it up? Or will I go back to the comparatively subdued birding tempo from my teens and twenties? I wonder.
Right: A close encounter on a backcountry road.

 

Here comes the preachy part. (Cf. Amy Shua, Focus on the Family, mothers-in-law everywhere.) I’ve come to realize that are two prevalent courses of action for birders with young children. Course of action #1: Just clock out for 10 years; simply stop birding while the kids are young. Course of action #2: Keep on birding while the kids are young, but do it on your own time.

All I can say is: What a pity. Even: What a waste. What could be more wholesome for youngsters—grade-schoolers and preschoolers, toddlers and infants, even newborns—than going birding? Mind you, it’s not the birding per se that’s wholesome. Rather, it’s the experience of beholding, interacting with, and beginning to understand the whole wide world. Young children who go birding get to see blue whales and dawn redwoods, snowstorms in the Rockies and thunderstorms in the Sonoran Desert, rattlesnakes on the prairie and sunrise at Montauk Point.
Above: A visit to the Department of Zoology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

But never mind them. What about me? I’ll say it again: Since becoming a parent, I’ve done more birding, seen better birds, and simply enjoyed birding more than ever before.

And remember, the kids aren’t even teenagers yet.

Folks, don’t wait for the kids to be “old enough”—whatever that means. Just do it. Just strap ’em in, buckle ’em up, and go. Go for it.

 

I started out by saying it’s perhaps not the smartest thing to proffer advice on birding, parenting, or especially birding and parenting. Well, don’t blame me!—this was all Virginia Maynard’s idea. And a few other folks: Betsy Blakeslee; Michael and Andrea Banks; and, nearly 30 years ago, Bill Fink. If you’re one of the aforementioned persons, you’re doubtless scratching your head right now. Regardless, you said something—in passing, and casually so—that stuck with me. You made a difference. You played an important role in ushering in the greatest years of my life.
Right: Good Times! Birding with children is a great way of getting your name in the police blotter in small towns all across America. (Check out the incident at 6:48 a.m.)

 

THE GROUND IS COVERED WITH THEM (AND THE TREES AND BUSHES AND SKY)!

When I was a little girl and just discovering birds in north-central Wisconsin many, many years ago, I had a slight tendency to exaggerate. My family routinely tried to remind me of this failing of mine every time they heard me exaggerate by quoting back to me my own prior excited exclamation of “The ground is covered with them” when I had found a flock of 20 or so juncos (then “Slate-colored Juncos) working our lawn right next to the house.

It’s true – the ground really wasn’t covered with juncos that day; I did exaggerate. But RIGHT NOW in central and eastern South Dakota for sure, and across much of the U.S., it is not an exaggeration. There are migrants and new arrivals hanging from trees, hopping on the ground, surrounding the puddles, filling the skies.

For much of the decade that I was in Texas, I thought that there was nowhere better to go for warblers in the spring than the various Texas coastal areas (e.g. Sabine Woods/High Island/Rockport). But then I did my ABA big year and discovered south Florida warbler birding in the spring, trees glowing with lively flitting colors. So I expanded my thinking to include the southeast.

Then two years ago in May I went to northern Ohio’s Greatest Week in American Birding and was stunned by the number of migrating birds (and birders!) covering the ground and trees and bushes. A spectacular bird celebration. I realized the birds don’t just all spread out and disappear when they leave the south.

This year I’m learning that it’s not just the Great Lakes states that get the central U.S. warblers. A couple of days ago in Pierre, there were as many Yellow Warblers and Blackpolls as there were Yellow-rumped Warblers, and there were zillions (no exaggeration) of Yellow-rumps, plus a couple each of some other warbler species. And migration up here is just getting started. I know that Texas has not yet released all of its warblers.

Of course it’s often the rarities that give a spice to a birder’s life, whether it’s spring migration or any other time of the year, especially a big year birder. The reason I was birding in Pierre is that a birding friend and I changed our birding plans entirely to go there because an immature male Summer Tanager, a real rarity in South Dakota, had been found. We were unable to see it in the evening when we got there, so we stayed overnight to look for it the next morning. After a couple of hours of breathless bird-silence, we suddenly heard the gentle song of a Summer Tanager, and then heard it’s call, and finally were able to locate the red and greenish yellow singer, first seen in the shadows of a large tree and then amazingly out on a limb seemingly silently posing for us. A beauty, as it turned out, in the midst of bird throng including warblers, and a gorgeous Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Baltimore Oriole.

Even in Rapid City, which is generally behind the eastern portion of the state in migrant arrival dates, the three of us doing our Monday morning Canyon Lake survey yesterday basically gave up on putting a number on the hordes of Violet-green Swallows passing overhead. No matter where we directed our binoculars skyward or when over a period of two hours, the binocular field of view was filled with 30-50 swallows, at least 99% of which were Violet-greens. They came over us, swirling, dipping down, every which way, but always pushing to the north-north west, wave after wave of swallows. We settled on the number of 800 Violet-greens, but it could just as well have been 8,000 or more. The sky was covered with them most of the time. It just so happens that there is another reason I was so excited by this occurrence – until yesterday, I had not seen a single Violet-green Swallow in 2012.

What a joy is spring when you are a birder!