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By Nate Swick, on September 13, 2019 Continuing ABA Area rarities include the Thick-billed Vireo (ABA Code 4) seen again this week in Florida, as well as the Berylline Hummingbird (4) in Arizona. A Red-footed Booby (4) is on and off in California, and the Little Egret (4) in Maine continue their summer stay in the northeast. In Alaska, the Jack Snipe is still being seen with some regularity on St Paul Island, Alaska.
And it’s in Alaska where we start this week, specifically Gambell which had one of those legendary weeks that keeps people coming to the Bering Sea outpost. It started with one of very few records of Middendorf’s Grasshopper-Warbler (4), a special enough bird, which was followed in relatively short order by veritable suite of Asian goodies include the ABA’s 3rd living record of Eurasian Wryneck (5) and the ABA’s 6th Rufous-tailed Robin.
Still to come was the big one though, and not long after, birders on the island discovered an Alaska and ABA 1st record of Pallas’s Grasshopper-Warbler. The East Asian skulker is famously known as “PG Tips” in the UK, where it is an infrequent vagrant, due to the characteristic white tips on the tail. An extraordinary record and testament to Gambell’s track record as a beacon for ABA Area rarity hunters.
And that wasn’t all on Gambell this week. The aforementioned birds were the headliners, but a Little Bunting (4) and multiple Siberian Accentors (4) would be noteworthy in any year as well.
In British Columbia, a Scripp’s Murreletts were noteworthy, seen on at least two pelagic trips out of Tofino.
In California, notable birds include a likely “Siberian” Whimbrel in San Francisco, and a Connecticut Warbler in San Luis Obispo.
Nevada had a Painted Bunting in Clark.
Very exciting for Colorado, was a Groove-billed Ani seen by many birders in the Denver area, this is the 5th state record, but the first in a generation of birders. All previous records came from a brief period in the late 70s and early 80s.
Good for Arizona was a Purple Gallinule in Pima.
In Louisiana, a Sabine’s Gull photographed in Cameron is the state’s 12th record.
Alabama had a pair of good birds in Baldwin county this week, a Fork-tailed Flycatcher (3) and a Bullock’s Oriole.
Tennessee’s 4th record of Brown Booby was seen at Pickwick Lake in Hardin this week. The lake straddles the border of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, and it was seen in all three states.
Somewhat regular, but still noteworthy for Virginia was a Bar-tailed Godwit (3) at Chincoteague NWR, in Accomack.
Rhode Island’s 2nd record Gull-billed Tern, likely a waif from Hurricane Dorian, was seen in Newport this week.
Birders on a cruise ship in Massachusetts waters had Barolo Shearwater (5) off Nantucket.
A Sandwich Tern in Saint Pierre et Miquelon this week was a likely hurricane-blown bird.
Nova Scotia had a Swainson’s Warbler at Hartlen Point, and a hurricane assisted Royal Tern in Halifax.
Exciting for Newfoundland birders this week was a Brown Booby (3) that rode on the mast of a ship right into St John’s harbor. And the passage of the storm that was Dorian also dropped some southern terns on the island, including a Sandwich Tern at Witless Bay and a Gull-billed Tern in Pasadena.
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Omissions and errors are not intended, but if you find any please message blog AT aba.org and I will try to fix them as soon as possible. This post is meant to be an account of the most recently reported birds. Continuing birds not mentioned are likely included in previous editions listed here. Place names written in italics refer to counties/parishes.
Readers should note that none of these reports has yet been vetted by a records committee. All birders are urged to submit documentation of rare sightings to the appropriate state or provincial committees. For full analysis of these and other bird observations, subscribe to North American Birds, the richly illustrated journal of ornithological record published by the ABA.
By Ted Floyd, on September 10, 2019 On a not-exactly-a-bird-walk a week or so ago, one of the participants, Roberta, was intent on documenting whatever it is that was happening in the general vicinity of a pot full of patriotic petunias:
 Not all that long ago, we went birding with scopes and binoculars. Today we’re at least as likely to carry phones and cameras with us in the field. Different equipment, same birding? Or not? Photo by © Ted Floyd.
We’re going to return to Roberta in a moment, but note, please, that there’s another human in the image above: Andrew, in the background, working a smartphone—perhaps checking the NASDAQ or tweaking his fantasy football roster?
Okay, back to Roberta. At first glance, her actions arouse no suspicion. Now take a closer look. No binocs. Roberta is birding with a camera. Only a camera. Increasingly, these days, I’m noticing that. She’s got a smartphone, too, of course. As to what Roberta’s looking at, well, I was curious myself. I made this very short video of the action around the potted petunias:
Ah. A Calliope Hummingbird, Selasphorus calliope, probably a hatch-year male. (And doubtless better videoed by Roberta than by Yours Truly.) There’s another pollinator in that brief clip, by the way, flashing bright salmon in the wings and otherwise boldly patterned in blacks, browns, and whites. Which brings us back to Andrew. The lad moves in mysterious ways, and I don’t presume to understand half of what he’s up to most days, but I am nearly certain that neither NASDAQ nor the NFL interest him in the least. However, there’s this:
Alright, so the other pollinators, the ones buzzing around the beebalms in this clip, are white-lined sphinxes, Hyles lineata, popularly—and eminently reasonably—referred to as hummingbird moths. We estimated that there were 50 of these freakishly hummingbird-like creatures tending the expansive plantings of echinacea, coreopsis, and beebalm in this place.
How to document it all? Here’s Andrew again, captured in the act of achieving an insight:
This is a variant on what I’ve known for a little while now as “digibinning.” I learned about it from Mr. Maine Birding himself, Derek Lovitch, about a decade ago—although I confess that it seemed at the time more an exotic concept than practical reality. Then I watched in amazement as a Colorado birding friend, Jessica Vance, performed the feat in real life. And now Andrew, taking it to the next level, by making digibinned slo-mo videos of speeding sphinxes.
Everybody got in on the sphingid action. Here’s Katie:
Talk about Spiegel im Spiegel. Or don’t. But let’s talk for a moment about Jean Baudrillard and his conception of the simulacrum as it applies to nature study at the present time. In this age of Research Grade uploads to iNaturalist and eBird checklists enhanced with Rich Media, everybody’s doing it. I mean, this very blog post. Unless you were physically present for that Friday afternoon ramble around the flowerbeds at the botanic garden, you weren’t “really” there with Rebecca and Andrew and Katie and me. Or were you? That’s where Baudrillard, prophet of the modern age, comes into play. Did you really have to be there? Or does this presentation effectively substitute for the experience of having been there? Baudrillard takes it a step further: Does this presentation eerily supplant or supersede the experience of having been there? Is the hyperreality of this presentation superior to the merely real experience of having been there?
The idea of nature as hyperreality has been met with a mixed response in the birding community. On the one hand, we sense that there is some deep virtue in “really” being there: breathing fresh air, smelling actual flowers, feeling the warm sunshine of a pleasant afternoon in early autumn. On the other hand, we know better. We used to watch wildlife with opera glasses, and then binoculars, and now smartphone cameras. We ID birds and other biota in the field with Cornell’s Merlin app and iNaturalist’s Seek Camera. And if we’re honest about something: We planted those flowers to attract pollinators; in fact, we humans planted that entire arboretum, an exemplary simulacrum, preferable to whatever reality preceded it. Just you watch: Someday soon, someone’s gonna install a “Calliope cam” out there. You heard it here first.
 This Calliope Hummingbird vied with white-lined sphinxes (“hummingbird moths”) for access to flowers at a city park. How does the experience of “really” being there compare with the online experience? Is the former necessarily more authentic than the latter? Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Birding and nature study are in the process of drastic overhaul at the present time, and I don’t have a problem with that. We’re using new and better equipment, but there’s more to it than that. We’re also engaging birds and wildlife in new and I would say better ways. Here’s Andrew again, reliving with festivalgoers the experience of getting 100+ birders to look at moths, of all things:
“This was different” from the way birding used to be, Andrew muses, noting that “We weren’t following a leader.” Compared to whatever birding used to be, our experience in the arboretum “Totally wasn’t like that.”
Being able to get close to the pollinators was key. Folks with canes and walkers were able to enjoy them; so were folks pushing baby joggers; so were folks in baby joggers. You didn’t have to drag your butt out of bed at 0-dark-30 for this mid-afternoon bird pollinator walk. You didn’t even need binoculars, and, in fact, there were only a handful of binoculared participants in that great throng of pollinator enthusiasts. Andrew one more time:
“They’re so easy to see,” those pollinators swarming the flowers in the arboretum, “the accessibility.” If I may so, we birders used to esteem abstruseness and obscurity. We’d go straight to “Calliope Hummingbird, S. calliope, hatch-year male,” without ever pausing to delight in the manifest wonder of it all. And we’d, crazily, somehow bypass the once-in-a-life spectacle of frickin’ fifty sphinxes in view at one time.
The outing succeeded, according to Andrew, because it was “untraditional,” because it broke the rules. Because it accommodated—more than that, because it prized and privileged—those who might have been left behind not all that long ago. And in that spirit, I’m going to leave us off now with the best hummingbird of all, that cloudy, rainy, boisterous, joyous afternoon:
By Nate Swick, on September 9, 2019 
Quite a bit has been written about the decline in insect numbers and diversity, but less about what it might mean for birds. At the American Bird Conservancy, Howard Youth considers the fallout.
The clues in this mystery include large-scale disappearance of insects, dipping bird populations, and a line-up of potential culprits including pesticides, habitat [read more…]
By Nate Swick, on September 6, 2019 Arizona and Florida host continuing ABA Area rarities this week, with Berylline Hummingbird (ABA Code 4) and Common Crane (4) in the former and a Black-faced Grassquit (4) in the latter.
September rarities mean Alaska rarities, and the Bering Sea is starting to really produce this week with Jack Snipe (3), Lesser Sand-Plover (3) and [read more…]
By Nate Swick, on September 5, 2019 
The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season is underway with a handful of storms already named. In the last couple decades human meteorologists have gotten pretty good at predicting the strength and track of tropical storms in the Atlantic basin, but still less good at predicting the severity of any individual season. But as it turns out, [read more…]
By Nate Swick, on September 3, 2019
Crows that feed regularly on human food tend to have higher cholesterol than those that don’t. Kaeli Swift at Corvid Research explains what that might or might not mean for them.
I’d wager that most people don’t think about this behavior beyond simply finding it amusing or annoying, but I suspect that if you describe [read more…]
By Nate Swick, on August 30, 2019 Noteworthy continuing birds in the ABA Area include both Berylline Hummingbird (ABA Code 4) and Common Crane (4) in Arizona, at least one Little Egret (4) in Maine, and the Thick-billed Vireos (4) reported in Florida just last week.
SHorebird migration continues to bring some good birds into the ABA Area, the latest of which [read more…]
By Ted Floyd, on August 28, 2019 Adult male orioles in breeding plumage are a thing of beauty. And a cinch to identify. You’re in Pennsylvania, say, and it’s May. An Orchard Oriole flies by, or a Baltimore Oriole is singing from the treetops. Easy peasy. The females and second-summer males of those species are more subtly marked, but, still, Orchard vs. [read more…]
By Ted Floyd, on August 27, 2019 You could make the case that I shouldn’t have gone birding that Friday morning. I had a meeting to attend and a presentation to prep for; I had a crushing load of deadlines in the week ahead; and I was carless at a high-rise hotel at that mother-of-all-intersections of I-40 and I-25 in downtown Albuquerque.
[read more…]
By Nate Swick, on August 26, 2019
Shorebird season is upon us once again and David Sibley, writing at Birdwatching Daily has some tips on using structure and behavior to identify birds on distant mudflats.
As with any other large group of similar species, the shorebirds can be subdivided into smaller groups of related species based on shared characteristics. Once you have [read more…]
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How to Know the Birds: No. 16, Calliope Futures
On a not-exactly-a-bird-walk a week or so ago, one of the participants, Roberta, was intent on documenting whatever it is that was happening in the general vicinity of a pot full of patriotic petunias:
Not all that long ago, we went birding with scopes and binoculars. Today we’re at least as likely to carry phones and cameras with us in the field. Different equipment, same birding? Or not? Photo by © Ted Floyd.
We’re going to return to Roberta in a moment, but note, please, that there’s another human in the image above: Andrew, in the background, working a smartphone—perhaps checking the NASDAQ or tweaking his fantasy football roster?
Okay, back to Roberta. At first glance, her actions arouse no suspicion. Now take a closer look. No binocs. Roberta is birding with a camera. Only a camera. Increasingly, these days, I’m noticing that. She’s got a smartphone, too, of course. As to what Roberta’s looking at, well, I was curious myself. I made this very short video of the action around the potted petunias:
Ah. A Calliope Hummingbird, Selasphorus calliope, probably a hatch-year male. (And doubtless better videoed by Roberta than by Yours Truly.) There’s another pollinator in that brief clip, by the way, flashing bright salmon in the wings and otherwise boldly patterned in blacks, browns, and whites. Which brings us back to Andrew. The lad moves in mysterious ways, and I don’t presume to understand half of what he’s up to most days, but I am nearly certain that neither NASDAQ nor the NFL interest him in the least. However, there’s this:
Alright, so the other pollinators, the ones buzzing around the beebalms in this clip, are white-lined sphinxes, Hyles lineata, popularly—and eminently reasonably—referred to as hummingbird moths. We estimated that there were 50 of these freakishly hummingbird-like creatures tending the expansive plantings of echinacea, coreopsis, and beebalm in this place.
How to document it all? Here’s Andrew again, captured in the act of achieving an insight:
This is a variant on what I’ve known for a little while now as “digibinning.” I learned about it from Mr. Maine Birding himself, Derek Lovitch, about a decade ago—although I confess that it seemed at the time more an exotic concept than practical reality. Then I watched in amazement as a Colorado birding friend, Jessica Vance, performed the feat in real life. And now Andrew, taking it to the next level, by making digibinned slo-mo videos of speeding sphinxes.
Everybody got in on the sphingid action. Here’s Katie:
Talk about Spiegel im Spiegel. Or don’t. But let’s talk for a moment about Jean Baudrillard and his conception of the simulacrum as it applies to nature study at the present time. In this age of Research Grade uploads to iNaturalist and eBird checklists enhanced with Rich Media, everybody’s doing it. I mean, this very blog post. Unless you were physically present for that Friday afternoon ramble around the flowerbeds at the botanic garden, you weren’t “really” there with Rebecca and Andrew and Katie and me. Or were you? That’s where Baudrillard, prophet of the modern age, comes into play. Did you really have to be there? Or does this presentation effectively substitute for the experience of having been there? Baudrillard takes it a step further: Does this presentation eerily supplant or supersede the experience of having been there? Is the hyperreality of this presentation superior to the merely real experience of having been there?
The idea of nature as hyperreality has been met with a mixed response in the birding community. On the one hand, we sense that there is some deep virtue in “really” being there: breathing fresh air, smelling actual flowers, feeling the warm sunshine of a pleasant afternoon in early autumn. On the other hand, we know better. We used to watch wildlife with opera glasses, and then binoculars, and now smartphone cameras. We ID birds and other biota in the field with Cornell’s Merlin app and iNaturalist’s Seek Camera. And if we’re honest about something: We planted those flowers to attract pollinators; in fact, we humans planted that entire arboretum, an exemplary simulacrum, preferable to whatever reality preceded it. Just you watch: Someday soon, someone’s gonna install a “Calliope cam” out there. You heard it here first.
This Calliope Hummingbird vied with white-lined sphinxes (“hummingbird moths”) for access to flowers at a city park. How does the experience of “really” being there compare with the online experience? Is the former necessarily more authentic than the latter? Photo by © Ted Floyd.
Birding and nature study are in the process of drastic overhaul at the present time, and I don’t have a problem with that. We’re using new and better equipment, but there’s more to it than that. We’re also engaging birds and wildlife in new and I would say better ways. Here’s Andrew again, reliving with festivalgoers the experience of getting 100+ birders to look at moths, of all things:
“This was different” from the way birding used to be, Andrew muses, noting that “We weren’t following a leader.” Compared to whatever birding used to be, our experience in the arboretum “Totally wasn’t like that.”
Being able to get close to the pollinators was key. Folks with canes and walkers were able to enjoy them; so were folks pushing baby joggers; so were folks in baby joggers. You didn’t have to drag your butt out of bed at 0-dark-30 for this mid-afternoon bird pollinator walk. You didn’t even need binoculars, and, in fact, there were only a handful of binoculared participants in that great throng of pollinator enthusiasts. Andrew one more time:
“They’re so easy to see,” those pollinators swarming the flowers in the arboretum, “the accessibility.” If I may so, we birders used to esteem abstruseness and obscurity. We’d go straight to “Calliope Hummingbird, S. calliope, hatch-year male,” without ever pausing to delight in the manifest wonder of it all. And we’d, crazily, somehow bypass the once-in-a-life spectacle of frickin’ fifty sphinxes in view at one time.
The outing succeeded, according to Andrew, because it was “untraditional,” because it broke the rules. Because it accommodated—more than that, because it prized and privileged—those who might have been left behind not all that long ago. And in that spirit, I’m going to leave us off now with the best hummingbird of all, that cloudy, rainy, boisterous, joyous afternoon: