ABA Blog

Springing Forward

It doesn't matter where you do your big year. Spring is always a nonstop proposition - if you can handle it.

I thought that doing a county big year would be so much more simple than a state big year, and really tons more simple than an ABA big year. It is true that there is a much smaller area and fewer possible birds in Pennington County than in South Dakota, Texas or the ABA area. But when spring arrives, no matter where you are, there is pandemonium if you are doing a big year. Birds are coming, some to stay and some to pass on through. It's the passing through migrants that are the main challenge. When will they get here? Where will they stop on their way through? How am I going to be where each species is when it is there? What will I do when/if the rains come and turn the gravel roads to slime?

All I know is to keep on going, check the likely warbler spots, which are few and far between in western South Dakota in a drought, check the few large puddles for shorebirds, explore unknown areas to see what might be there and repeat until there are no new birds to be found.

Right now we are in the midst of a few rainy days. After a weekend out of Pennington County at a SDOU meeting (where there were lots of migrants, which of course were not countable for my big year), I came home desperate to get some more warblers for my big year effort. Last year there very few warblers found west-river, especially compared to the numbers seen to the east of here. Things have been better so far this year than last, but it seemed that more birds should be there somewhere.

One of the best places for warblers in Pennington County seems to be Jackson Park in Rapid City. I've been trying to go there nearly every day for the last couple of weeks, and it has been worth it. Recently, Jackson Park has allowed me to add Northern Waterthrush (infrequent here), Palm Warbler (very uncommon here), Ovenbird, Blackpoll Warbler, American Redstart, and Tennessee Warbler as well as Western Tanager to my county year list.

But the very best bird at Jackson Park was a Prothonotary Warbler today (May 20). Last year when doing my South Dakota big year, I learned that I was VERY unlikely to find a Prothonotary Warbler in the state, and I did not find one, nor do I think anyone else did. Today when an orangey-yellow bird with a dark, white-spotted tail dashed across the path though the rain ahead of me I could not believe it. I forced my way through brush and waded out on to the mud at the edge of the tiny trickling creek and there it was, a golden bit of bird working the downed branches in the stream.

In too short a time, all the migrants will have moved on. The breeding birds that haven't already been ticked off for the big year will need to be located before all the birds leave again. Some time before fall migration I'm sure that one could rest, and maybe even sleep. I'm hoping that is more possible in a county big year than in a big year in a bigger area. We shall see.

P.S. The Prothonotary Warbler was bird species #191 for this year in Pennington County. 

 

Open Mic: A Record-breaking Bahamas Big Year

At the Mic: Woody Bracey

Elwood D. Bracey, MD, is a retired physician who now lives in Treasure Cay, Bahamas, where he is very active in the birding community.

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January of 2012 started auspiciously. The early part of the month saw several productive Christmas Bird Counts and some rare birds in The Bahamas. And I watched the film The Big Year. Those circumstances persuaded me to challenge Tony White's single-year record of 198 species, and by the end of January, I was already up to 155, a new monthly record for me.

The Grand Bahama CBC tallied Western Kingbird, Hermit Thrush, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Louisiana Waterthrush, and White-throated Sparrow, all very rare in The Bahamas.

A rough road trip to Hole in the Wall in southernmost Abaca gave us three Kirtland's Warblers. And the good birds just kept popping up.

All the expected wintering species were joined by a Swainson's Hawk (a first for the Caribbean, well photographed by Bruce Hallett at left) and a Horned Lark. The Horned Lark required a trip to Nassau, where the bird was feeding in the short grass of a golf course with Palm Warblers and Least Sandpipers.

A highly unusual Greater Scaup was well documented on Hobby Horse Lake, and the lone Anhinga on Paradise Island, later photographed by Linda Huber, may have been the last survivor among the birds that once bred there. I also added a Gadwall at Harrold and Wilson Ponds, a female Shiny Cowbird at Rainbow Chicken Farm, and the Cuban Grassquits and Pied Imperial Pigeons of central Nassau; those latter two species, introduced many years ago, are now well established, as is the Caribbean Dove, originally imported from Jamaica for hunting—and smart enough now to spend most of its time hiding in the dense understory of the Bahamas National Trust Botanical Garden.

The free-flying exotic waterfowl kept by Pericles Maillis in the western suburbs of Nassau often attract wild migrants, among them the beautiful male Northern Pintail that joined the Green-winged and Blue-winged Teal and White-cheeked Pintails on the pond.

More controversial was the Caribbean Coot, with its high white frontal shield, found on the abandoned Shark Golf Course; though the AOU recognizes this species, others, including David Sibley, have their doubts. I counted this species, and in fact found another good candidate later in the year on the pond at the Treasure Cay Golf Course; both were photographed by Tony Hepburn. A Black-headed Gull, present as an immature in 2010-2011, returned in 2012 as a handsome adult, molting into its dark-headed breeding plumage during its stay.

Back on Abaco, the Organic Vegetable Farm maintained its status a the best place to see Bahama Yellowthroats (hundreds!). We also had a Chipping Sparrow, a second White-throated Sparrow, American Pipits, and a young male Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Nine Barn Owls crowded into a single large ficus tree overlooking a recently plowed field, attracted by the same mice and rats that kept the Swainson's Hawk there all winter, too.

Several early February deepsea fishing trips turned up Magnificent Frigatebirds and Audubon's Shearwaters, but no Manx, which are possible at that time of year. A favorite spot for sparrows, the Big Bird poulty Farm south of Marsh Harbor produced such good wintertime finds as Lincoln's, Savannah, and Grasshopper Sparrows, along with American Robins, American Pipits, Dickcissel, Blue-headed Vireo, Nashveille Warbler, and a Northern Rough-winged Swallow. Most frustrating was a Swainson's Warbler that popped up for Bruce Hallett to photograph while I, just ten feet away, missed it. Nothing would bring that skulker back out again.

Spring migration can be a non-event in The Bahamas. But 2012 was different. I'd never seen so many migrants, especially thrushes and seed-eating birds. After a cold front with rain on April 24, I counted 20 Veeries, 24 Gray-cheeked Thrushes, and 2 Swainson's Thrushes at Angelfish Point. Later that day I had a Wood Thrush along the Treasure Cay sewage outfall. Four migrant thrush species in one day is a once-in-a-lifetime thing in The Bahamas!

Swallows were numerous, too, including Bank and Cliff among the commoner Tree, Barn, and Bahama Swallows. A lone Chimney Swift was seen high above the coppice, where I found Red-eyed Vireos and Eastern Kingbirds and yet more thrushes along a narrow trail. Our backyard feeder was a riot of color with Painted and Indigo Buntings galore, two Blue Grosbeaks, and a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak. The grosbeak stayed for a week, but a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird was a one-day wonder. That same last week of April saw such summer residents as Gray Kingbird, Black-whiskered Vireo, and Bahama Mockingbird return and set up territories, while Blackpoll Warblers continued to pass through until mid-May.

In early May, Bridled, Sooty, Roseate, and Common Terns followed the Least Terns back to The Bahamas. Then came the White-tailed Tropicbirds, the Antillean Nighthawks, and the Great, Cory's, and Sooty Shearwaters. Finally, on May 12, after hearing the birds deep in the coppice, I saw my first Key West Quail-Dove for the year at Angelfish Point.

June is the month for fishing tournaments and deepsea trips. We continued to see good numbers of pelagic species, including a Black-capped Petrel fifteen miles off Munjack Cay. Most exasperating was the mid-afternoon revelation one day by the mate that he had seen a "Jesus Bird" cross our wake earlier in the day; I never saw a Wilson's Storm-Petrel on a single one of the ten or more deepsea trips I made in 2012.

Abaco was quiet for the rest of the summer, but trips to other islands really helped my list. With the help of Ed Rahming and Lewis Phillips, my late-June adventure on South Andros added Great Lizard Cuckoo, Indian Peafowl, Bahama Oriole, and eleven Cave Swallows. In July, my wife, Betsy, and I added Pearly-eyed Thrasher and Red-footed Booby on San Salvador, where surprises included a Purple Martin, an American Avocet, and lots of Gull-billed Terns.

The expected Snowy Plovers were nowhere to be found, but the endangered subspecies of the West Indian Woodpecker was easy to find along Jake Jones Road. 

A storm in late August brought some unusual fall migrants to New Providence. Most notable were the Arctic Tern and the two Black Terns seen on the stony shores of Lake Killarney by Paul Dean and Tony White and photographed by Tony Hepburn. By the time I got there, two other much-needed birds, a Sandwich Terns and a female Boat-tailed Grackle, had left: I would have to wait 'til later in the year for them.

Back on Abaco, we had the pleasure of the company of a young American Flamingo on Maillis's Pond through the summer.

Unbanded and not yet entirely pink, this was most likely a second-year bird. The flamingo departed at the end of September, but a Wilson's Phalarope, the first for Abaco, appeared on the very same pond October 2, spinning and feeding with several Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs.

At the Poultry Farm we had an Empidonax Flycatcher, an Eastern Wood-Pewee, two Blackburnian Warblers, and a tantalizing thrush. Browner than a Gray-cheeked Thrush, the bird did not vocalize, and though we suspected a Bicknell's Thrush, we did not count it. The farm near Treasure Cay gave us several sightings of a Philadelphia Vireo and a Great Crested Flyatcher, a Blackburnian Warbler, several Tennessee Warblers, and a lone Cedar Waxwing were at Robert's Nursery. Most exceptional was the second Bahamas record of a Warbling Vireo, seen on October 18 near Marsh Harbor with Becky Marvil, who got diagnostic photographs of the bird.

The arrival of Hurricane Sandy on October 26 was much worse than predicted. Three days later, I met Bruce Hallett and Margo Zdravokovic on Grand Bahama to look for birds blown in from the continent. An Eastern Bluebird, perhaps only the second record for The Bahamas, was feeding at West End among the distressed swallows, pipits, and Palm Warblers. The 25 Common Terns at West End Point were exceptional; among them were two Sandwich Terns, the only ones I saw all year. At McClean's Town, on the eastern end of the island, we found two Clay-colored Sparrows, well photographed by Hallett.

Back on Abaco, an Orange-crowned Warbler was in the Avocado Grove at the Big Bird Poultry Farm in mid-November, and a House Wren and a Swamp Sparrow, both extreme rarities, were photographed at the always interesting Cooperstown Dump. The next day I found a Wilson's Warbler at Robert's Nursery, and on November 23 I had a Swainson's Warbler in the exact spot at the poultry farm where Bruce Hallett had photographed the bird in the spring. That same day I watched a seemingly large, silent Myiarchus with a pronounced yellow belly. Brown-crested Flycatcher? Maybe, but it did not call, and I did not count it. 

I thought I'd missed the Chestnut-sided Warbler for the year, but on November 28, one emerged from the deep coppice into plain view. Another miss avoided!

A visit to Great Inagua was essential for several species, so Hallett and I met in Nassau and went on to Matthewtown, the only settlement on the most southerly island of the The Bahamas. It had rained for two weeks straight, roads were flooded, the mosquitoes were ferocious. But we could watch thousands of courting American Flamingos, and we added Roseate Spoonbill, Snowy Plover, Burrowing Owl, and a bonus American Wigeon to my year list. 
The most amazing sight was of a Peregrine Falcon nailing an exceedingly rare Greater Scaup on the ponds; the scaup survived, dazed. We were interested to find a population of Red Jungle Fowl living in the woods far from any human habitation; Warden Henry Nixon told us they had been there for years, but I listed Gallus gallus as an exotic, uncounted species.

Back in Nassau, on November 28 I saw a Caspian Tern from Tony White's deck. Tony, competitive as he is, congratulated me on breaking his Bahamas big year record—a real friend!

The end was in sight, and I made a big push in the last two weeks of the year with three Christmas Bird Counts. First up was South Abaco, where we located another House Wren. Nassau was next, with another Wilson's Phalarope loafing with the Black-bellied Plovers; a female Boat-tailed Grackel flying in front of my vehicle finallly checked off a bird I'd missed several times during the year. Two Bahama Mockingbirds, seen with the CBC compiler Neil McKinney, were also good finds for the early winter.

A sunny Christmas Day was made even more joyous when I saw my first Red-breasted Mergansers in over two years. The Green Turtle Cay mudflats were alive with shorebirds, including 52 Red Knots, an all-time high count for that species anywhere in The Bahamas.

Next morning I flew to Grand Bahama for one last shot at the scarce Brown-headed Nuthatch, which had eluded me three times during the year. On December 27, at our third and final stop, when my friend Bruce Purdy had already got back into the vehicle, I heard the call; not one but two of these little tree creepers came in close to pose for pictures, going up and down and upside-down on the Caribbean pines. What a delight, and what a brilliant end to my big year of 242 species!

New Year's Eve was a welcome end to the frenzy: it was our anniversary, and I promised my wife that she would be a bird widow no longer. Many thanks to her and to all my good birding friends for their help. 

 

Sparrow Time Plus

I haven't always appreciated sparrows. The more colorful birds tend to get more attention and to be more eagerly sought and more easily identified. When I'm doing a very serious big year, sparrows are often more problematic to find than the other birds that I “need” because of their cryptic coloration and often  sneaky habits.

One nice thing that I've found about a county big year is that it makes me look for every possible bird species, including sparrows, but there is more time than in a state or ABA big year to actually look at all the birds.

Right now the sparrows are finally, I think belatedly, arriving in Pennington County. Just as in Texas it seems that the western part of the state is always behind the eastern part of the state.  I've been hearing for way too long about all the "east-river" migrant sparrows. A few of them had trickled into west-river last week, when I found two Lark Sparrows east of Rapid City, and then when I returned home, there was one in the yard along with the Chipping Sparrows that had replaced the wintering American Tree Sparrows. I was delighted to find that today (May 6) was a very nice sparrow day in Pennington County, with newly arrived  sparrows popping up along my county wanderings.

It started at our weekly Canyon Lake survey when we had our first Clay-colored Sparrow joining a small group of White-crowned Sparrows that have only been around a week or so. The Clay-colored Sparrow was a bit shy and we were not certain of its identity until it began buzzing from the brush where it had disappeared. This evening two Clay-colored Sparrows also joined the five White-crowned Sparrows in our yard.

After the Canyon Lake survey, I drove east to Wall by way of a long stretch of gravel roads. My main goal, as had been the case for days, was to get my first Upland Sandpiper, which I did. There were two of them talking to each other after their long journey.

Shortly after the Upland Sandpipers, there was a muddy puddle beneath a bridge that had attracted more White-crowned Sparrows and two other sparrows that at first would not let me get near them. So I stood at the edge of the road and waited and scanned the grassy fields nearby. Eventually the sparrows returned. They were oh so drab. At first I was thinking "Brewer's Sparrow" but they were just too plain. Finally I could see pink beaks and white eye rings and a smudgy rusty crown -- two Field Sparrows, new for the year.

I'm still hoping for Harris's (Fort Worth Audubon's logo bird), and possibly Swamp and Brewer's Sparrows, and Lark Bunting. Of courses, there are also many colorful birds that should arrive soon. It's so much fun looking and finding!

For those who are interested, following is an UPDATE on my big year: as of the end of May 6th, I have seen 150 species in Pennington County (see http://www.lynnbarber.com/id92.html for information on birds seen so far). I'm still a ways from 200 species (about which quite a number of you made guesses as to when the 200^th bird would be added to my list), but right now things are moving along at a nice clip. This coming weekend is the West River Migration Count and I've been assigned some great areas in the portion of the Black Hills that is in Pennington County. Great possibilities coming up... Stay tuned!

 

Contest Update - Big Year 200 Species

Last week I announced a contest for people to guess the date this year that I reach 200 species in my Pennington Co. (SD) big year, the prize for the closest guess being a signed copy of my book, Extreme Birder: One Woman's Big Year.

The response has been great.

Unfortunately I forgot to give a closing date for entries. I am remedying that now: the CLOSING DATE IS FRIDAY, MAY 5th. Entries after that date will be ignored. Also, if you have already entered and want to change your entry for any reason, please do so by May 5th.

Also, should there be tied winners, the first person to submit that guess will win the prize.

Thank you for your interest.

One of the new birds for my list seen on April 29th in my yard.

 

Bird Questions - and a Contest!

What is it about the number 100 that many people seem to think is noteworthy? Why is a list of 100 birds, or birding sites, or counties birded or anything, so much more likely to be mentioned than 99 or 101 of the same things?

Although I have been birding and listing bird species seen each year for much of my life, it never occurred to me to tally the number of bird species seen in each county until some of my fellow Carolina Bird Club members began to post their totals sometime in the 90’s., with a stated goal of trying to get 100 species per county. Although most of my relevant data are [Ted Floyd: please note the verb here] probably somewhere in my birding records and I could therefore figure this out for North Carolina, I have not done so (nor have I yet posted all that data to eBird). It’s too much fun to bird, and not so much fun to pore over my old bird notebooks.

When I moved to Texas, I began to keep records of my bird sightings by county as I now do in South Dakota. I figure that if I run out of birds to see in a particular state, I can concentrate on increasing my county lists there. I did not stay in Texas long enough (just about 10 ½ years), to run out of birds, however. New ones just keep arriving there.

This county listing effort requires that I carry a state map that shows the county lines and that every time I cross a county line, I need to restart my bird list for the day and write down everything all over again, even if I have just seen it in the previous county. In this county mode, when I bird with someone else, I am always making them help me keep track of which county we are in. It is a lot of work, but someone has to do it.

While I was in Texas I never spent much time trying to get 100 species in each Texas county, but I did try to maximize the number of birds in each county to whatever level I could bring it. The Texas Ornithological Society, however, has encouraged birders to get 100 species per county by establishing a Century Club, giving birders the goal of seeing 100 species in each of 100 counties (of the 254 counties in Texas). The Century Club web site currently indicates that two birders have reached that goal, one of whom has exceeded it, and another 5 have at least 100 species in each of over 75 counties. There are, however, a few counties in Texas where apparently it is not even possible to get 100 species, ever. The counties may be huge, but there is nothing in them to lure in most birds to winter or breed, and most birds seen are just passing through.

Although I thought the same might be true in at least some of the 67 counties of South Dakota, where I now live, from the records listed on the South Dakota Ornithologists’ Web Site, it appears that over 100 species are possible in even the unpopulated, very dry counties. I expect to keep working on seeing more species in more South Dakota counties. So far, since mid-2011, I have seen over 100 species in each of 10 South Dakota counties.

How does this all relate to big years? Most of my widespread Texas sightings and South Dakota sightings are due to the fact that I did big years in both states. Otherwise, it is unlikely that I would have done so much statewide travelling. It is much easier and less expensive to stay near home, which is what I am mostly doing this year, but it results in fewer county 100 records.

Just last Friday, I finally got to 100 species for the Pennington County big year that I am now doing. Reaching this goal got me wondering how long it took to get to 100 species in my other big years, so today I went back to my web site (www.lynnbarber.com) to do something I love to do – make a table - to compare my previous big years with each other and with this year.

The result, showing the date by which the number of species indicated was seen follows, should you be interested too, is:

Year/Area              Species:    100        200          300          400        500        600       700         TOTAL        100^th bird of year

2003/TX	1/1	1/13	3/22	5/16	n/a	n/a	n/a	485	Sandhill Crane
2005/TX	1/2	1/7	2/5	4/11	8/31	n/a	n/a	522	Green-br. Mango
2008/ABA	1/1	1/9	1/20	2/29	4/21	6/8	10/24	723	White-tailed Hawk
2012/SD	1/30	4/25	5/30	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	350	E. Screech-Owl
2013/Pennington County, SD	4/19	?						??	Lesser Yellowlegs

And now, the CONTEST: The next question for me is, WHEN will I reach 200 species this year in Pennington County? Or will I even get that many in Pennington County? I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone wanted to guess an answer to the first of these questions. In an attempt to motivate YOU to make a guess, I am now announcing a contest. To enter the contest, email me at dalybar AT aol.com your guess of the date on which I will get my 200^th species this year in Pennington County. Don’t post your guess here, but email it to me to keep it secret from others. You may think that you don’t have enough information to hazard such a guess, but you are not alone. I don’t have a clue either. If it turns out that birding is so bad that I don’t even get 200 species this year, the person who guesses the last date will be the winner.

The PRIZE? A signed copy of my book, Extreme Birder: One Woman’s Big Year, sent to you or to someone whom you designate.

Of course, if nobody enters my contest, I’ll get to keep the book, and just let you know the answer to the question of when I reach 200 species when 2013 is over. But it would be much more fun for me to be able to announce a winner. What do you have to lose?

Number 100 this year: LESSER YELLOWLEGS

 

Self-restraint

I’m guessing that most people who think about doing big years and about what big year birders do and who big year birders are rarely think about “restraint”. If the big year is a serious big year, it’s more likely that the only restraints that the big year birder allows or experiences relate to there only being 24 hours in a day, and there only being so many dollars in the bank and allowed to be charged on the credit cards.

Although it may not seem like it to someone watching me, I have noticed that between big years I tend to put self-restraints on my bird chases. Having maxed out my budget and my energy in a previous big year, I have found that I sometimes actually ignore the possibility of getting a new bird for the state, or even for the ABA area, when I am not doing a big year. Or, as also happens, I tell myself that I just won’t chase a particularly wonderful bird if I don’t “need” it for a big year, and then I give in and try for it, often to find that I waited too long. During a big year, of course, no matter where the bird is in my big year territory, I am driven to go for it, and must go for it if at all possible.

It can be a big relief to sit back and hear about others chasing a bird that I do not need to find for a big year. Others can tell about their all-night drives, or their failures at finding a bird that they chased, and I can relax and think back to the good old days of my chases. But no matter how relaxed I get, deep inside I feel that I really should get out there and go for it. An odd sort of guilt sets in, that I am not being as fanatic about bird-chasing as I believe that I should be.

Actually, though, I do think I’m mellowing a bit. A couple of weeks ago, someone in eastern South Dakota reported a Eurasian Wigeon, somewhere near Brookings. Brookings is probably only about 4 hours from where I live in Rapid City. But I almost did not even consider driving out there, even though I had the time and even though I have never seen a Eurasian Wigeon in South Dakota. Sometimes I wish I had gone, but it was in contemplating whether to go or not that I realized that I do sometimes impose restraint on my bird-chasing. I don’t drop everything every time I hear about a bird that I’d like to see. Sometimes I deliberately allow a bird to get away.

This is my first year of doing a county big year, so I can’t relax much when someone reports a bird in the county that I haven’t yet seen for the year in the county. Thus, I did do a couple of 100-mile loops this last weekend to try for the Sandhill Cranes that others had seen in the county, even though I had seen thousands of them a few weeks ago in Nebraska. Sandhill Cranes are not rare in the county, but they don’t stay long as they pass through in migration, so I did need to find some (or at least one) of them. This year I can have moments of self-restraint on bird-chasing for birds that are located anywhere in the South Dakota area or in the ABA area or in the world, except for birds that are in Pennington County.

Is this sometimes self-restraint just a sign of (finally) becoming more mature in my birding? Or is it a sign of getting older and more tired, or a sign that I am gathering my strength (and funds) to head off to a more extreme bird-chase? Or is it just a temporary aberration in a lifetime of growing bird-fanaticism? Only time will tell, I guess.

A “GOOD” BIRD

Yesterday I realized, once again, that what I think is a “good” bird often changes. I suspect that is true for many of us.

When we first became birders, any bird, even if we could not figure out what it was, was a good bird. The birds became even better when we could put a name to them. If we were listers, adding them to our list as a new birds was the best.

Now, when I haven’t been birding for a while, any bird is a good bird, with the possible exception of the untold numbers of pigeons and starlings and House Sparrows that frequent my yard. Sometimes, however, even among the relatively common birds, some of them are more welcome, and thus seem to be especially good birds. This weekend there were two Northern Flickers drilling and eating on my lawn where the snow had recently melted away. They were intent on their tasks and only interacted a couple of times. They were good birds just by being interesting, and close, and not all that common in my back yard, where there is only one tree, and that one is not a very large tree.

Most of the time, what makes a bird seem to be particularly good is whether the bird is doing something that is noteworthy and whether I get a close, clear view of it. If it is also an unusual bird for the area that I am in I am much more likely to be delighted by seeing it. In my undergraduate studies in zoology, my two favorite courses (other than ornithology) were the two animal behavior classes that I took during my senior year, one in the zoology department and one in the psychology department. If I could have figured out a way to make a living just watching what animals do, I probably would have done that.

Many times, however, my views of birds are brief and/or obscured by branches or distance. My excitement then tends to depend primarily on whether I can be certain of the bird’s identity and how rare the bird is. When it is rare, whether or not I’m doing a big year, it is a good bird, even if drab and sitting still, doing nothing and even if my view of it is not the best.

Everything changes when I am doing a big year. When I see a bird during a big year in my chosen big year area (e.g., Texas, the ABA area, South Dakota or Pennington County, SD) that I have not yet seen there during that year, it is by definition a “good” bird. That is true even if it is a common bird there. During a big year, however, there are different levels of “good”. The more rare that a bird is in that area, the better it is. As I am sure that most of you know, in the ABA area, every bird that has ever been seen there is assigned a code that is intended to correspond to the likelihood that that species will be seen in the ABA area. Code 6 birds are those believed extinct or extirpated from the area, so of course those birds would be even better than good – they would be miracles (think Ivory-billed Woodpecker). Code 5 birds are the rarest of those one might possibly find, and the lower numbers progressively identify the more common species. So, during an ABA big year, the very best birds are Code 4 and 5, and the biggest chases are after those birds. Of course, by the end of a big year, if you are missing any Code 1, 2 or 3 birds, you are likely to be very embarrassed by that fact. I was, and still am. 

Sometimes, even during a big year, a bird that has already been seen that year can still be a very good bird. That is particularly true when the first sighting of the year was brief or otherwise unsatisfying and if the later sighting is a very clear, well-seen sighting. That occurred yesterday for me. Earlier this year, a friend reported a White-winged Crossbill (rare in Pennington County) at his feeder in a small flock of Red Crossbills (less rare in the county). Two of us spent a morning scanning his feeders, waiting for crossbills. Finally, they arrived. But they were difficult to see, high in a tree over his house. Finally one of the birds was clearly seen to be pinker with light striping, a very different color than the other, redder crossbill males. We could not see its wing at all, however. I decided that it had to be a White-winged Crossbill, but was not happy with the sighting.

Yesterday, in our weekly Canyon Lake survey (in Pennington Co.), we found a small flock of crossbills, all White-winged! Although they stayed in the tops of the spruce trees, munching on the cones, we could see them well. Of course, due to the cold morning (about 8 degrees), I had left my camera back in my car, so I had to race back to get it and hope the birds would not leave in the meantime. They did stay, and although the view was not as good as earlier, I did get a couple of pictures. A very good bird!!

Taking a Big Year Break to Honduras

It will be a short blog post this time. As I mentioned I was going to do in my last blog post, I took a break from big year birding, and from U.S. birding for that matter, and I went to Honduras for just over a week. I returned home Monday (March 4), happy and tired.

There is probably nothing better to take a big year birder’s mind off of a big year than to become immersed in a totally different world. Leaping from a cold, dry, bird-scarce South Dakota winter land to the hot, steamy birdy greenness of Honduras is a bird-world shock. I’ve gotten used to looking for birds across vast rolling treeless fields of winter brown with the arid cold wind howling straight down from the North Pole. All of a sudden I’m peering into impenetrable leafy vines trying to see a bird hidden in the darkness or I’m looking up into the very high treetops to try to discern which leaf-sized silhouette is a bird. I’m very, very hot. Completely unfamiliar squeals, chirps, and whistles are all around. I have no thoughts for big years and bird-chase planning at all. It is birding in the here and now, with birds everywhere. It may be hard to imagine making such a bird-jump if you too are in the midst of a North American winter.

Think going from Snowy Owl to Central American Pygmy-Owl,

Or from American Goldfinch to Gartered Trogon (formerly Violaceous Trogon),

Or from Dark-eyed Junco to Turquoise-browed Motmot.

It may be a difficult transition, but it can be, and was, wonderful fun!

 

Big Year Interruptions

When I am doing a serious BIG BIG year, I do not like non-big year interruptions. I very much begrudge the time I spend on events and duties that I just cannot avoid or feel that I must do. I don’t even like to take time to sleep or eat or other things that normal people deem to be essential.

Even birding outings that I would normally look forward to with eagerness are sometimes dreaded as cutting into my big year time. I love to do such things as Christmas bird counts, the Great Backyard Bird Count, and Breeding Bird Surveys, and I do them every year, whether or not I’m doing a big year. But during a big year, part of me is always thinking while I’m birding at the preordained site for a particular count, “I could have let someone else do this” or “I wonder what others are seeing while I’m stuck here birding where no new year birds are likely” or “What am I missing?”.

In my last blog post I discussed the advantages of doing a big year in a county as compared to big years in larger geographic areas. In this post, I would like to add one more reason to my list of reasons to like doing a COUNTY big year instead of a state or ABA big year – I’ve got time to do it all! I don’t feel the pressure, at least now in the mid-winter to be out getting birds for a county big year all the time. I happily participated in the early January Christmas Bird Counts because 2012 and my SD big year was over.

The Great Backyard Bird Count, of all my self-inflicted birding “chores”, is the best of them all for doing during a big year. Because the GBBC lets birders count anywhere as a “backyard”, I can go bird where I want to bird for my particular big year, and count the birds, some of which may actually be new for the year. Thus, on February 15^th, the first day of the GBBC this year, I added Bohemian Waxwing to my county big year list while putting together one of my lists for posting on the GBBC web site, and at the same time added it to my life list for Pennington County (SD). On February 16^th I added Ferruginous Hawk to my county big year list. After that (right now), due to the fact that a VERY big interruption is about to occur, I did not do much birding for the GBBC. As I write this post, I have tons of real interruptions to my birding, otherwise known as client deadlines that must be met before this very big interruption occurs.

What is this big interruption? When this blog post appears on the ABA blog, I will be birding in Honduras! Finally, after nearly 10 years of not feeling I could take the time (or spare the money after all those big years), I am interrupting my county big year and leaving the US to bird in a foreign land.

Maybe after I return, I’ll interrupt my blog posts about big year matters and talk about Honduras birding.

Short-eared Owl - one of my favorite county big year birds this year

BIG YEAR COUNTING IN A COUNTY

Surprise, surprise! Doing a county big year is a different thing than doing a state big year, and of course very different than an ABA big year. That is of course particularly true of a big year done in a county that is way up north, Pennington County in South Dakota. I’m not sure what the number of birds possible for a year is, because I do not have data on anyone else having done a big year in this county. I know, however, that the number of birds possible in one county, even a large county, in western South Dakota is much less than in all of the state, or in Texas, or in the ABA area.

On January 1st this year, two of us doing a fairly intense big day in Pennington County found considerably more than half of the likely winter birds in the county. Most of the birds that may be somewhere in the county right now that I have not already seen this year are probably here year round. In other words, there seems to be very little need to go birding right now to try to find the birds that are around but that I have not yet seen.

The lure right now after finding most of the likely regular winter county birds is the hypothetical wandering bird. That’s what gets me out into the snow and wind, sometimes. The problem is that South Dakota is not likely to get many wandering birds in the winter. The wandering Pacific birds (Brambling for example) or wandering Atlantic birds (Northern Lapwing) or wandering Mexican birds (like Brown Jays or Crimson-collared Grosbeaks) are not likely going to wander as far as South Dakota. What I can hope for as winter hangs around for a few more months are winter birds that are sometimes found in nearby counties but not in this one. Examples include Gray-crowned Rosy-finches that are found in most winters one county to the west (on a mountain top) or Common Ravens that are rarely found in the state but one was found last year to the north and west of Pennington County, or Pinyon Jays that in theory could wander to this county from other Black Hills counties.

Or maybe I could do the unexpected and relax about birding. I find that staring out my home office window at our bird feeding areas, watching the over two dozen wintering American Tree Sparrows, and photographing them, including short videos, is very satisfying. Sometimes I even forget for days on end that I am doing a big year. In fact I'm beginning to suspect that there will be very little that will be big about this year. Oddly enough, that does not particularly bother me. Of course when spring migration approaches, all that may change. I just cannot imagine being non-frenetic during warbler time.

In the meantime, I'm heading for Honduras in a couple of weeks. This will be my first international birding trip since I got hooked on doing these big years. It's not only that the big years drained all our funds away. They also did not allow me to look outside the U.S. Doing a county big year has given me freedom to expand my birding to non-big-year birding, and I can hardly wait!

One of the American Tree Sparrows in our yard