ABA Blog

The Naked Hunch (The Results)

The title means exactly what the words say: naked lunch, a frozen moment when everyone sees what is on the end of every fork… William S. Burroughs on Naked Lunch

I am more curious about what is at the end of every birder’s arm. What do we hoist, perch, lift, finagle, finger, and thumb to identify birds? We invest mightily in accoutrements such as binoculars, scopes, recorders, cameras, and field guides. How often do we use them? For every hour of birding how many minutes are we actually spying through those $2000 glasses? Leica promises that their binoculars offer “breathtaking images all day, any day.” Do we really screw these tubes to our eyes “all day, any day?”

My “Naked Hunch” is no. The survey that I recently posted investigated this suspicion. The results are in.

The Naked Hunch received 143 responses from 28 states and the District of Columbia. New York and Texas sent in the most. I also received surveys from four foreign countries: Canada, Dominican Republic, Denmark, and Costa Rica.

Participants reported an average of 19 hours weekly watching birds. I filtered out the zeros (if you are not watching birds, why are you responding?). Responses ranged from 1 to 136 hours.

Of that 19-hour average, respondents are without optics or field guide around 45% of the time. They have access to optics yet no field guide a similar percentage (45%). They bird with both (field guide and optics) only 10% of the time.

Combined our respondents spend around 55% of their birding time with optics. Of this optically-enhanced period, however, they spend only a third (32%) actually looking through these optics. In other words, our birders actually use their binoculars around 17% of the time they bird.

Let me make an assumption. These respondents are relatively active, committed birders. Given this forum, I doubt that Ma and Pa with their backyard feeders responded to the survey. This is a survey of birders. Proof? Our sample reported the ability to identify an average of 243 species without optics or field guide (the range is 0 to 2000, the median is 150). This is the hard core.

Thumb through your most recent Birding magazine. Most of the articles and ads are focused on this 17% of our birding time. We assume that people can find, detect, locate, and uncover birds, and devote our attention to the final act of identification. Yes, there are services advertised that address the 83%. Tours and tour leaders handle preparation (lodging, meals, transportation), finding, and identification. Most reduce the act of birding to look, see, and tick.

The process of birding, the act itself, has distinct phases. Preparation, detection, and identification demand different skill sets and resources. Birding addresses the first and last well enough. I scanned the 10,000 Birds blog this morning. Articles included "Essentials for Packing When Birding Anywhere in the World" and the "Pied-billed Grebe from Every Angle." Yes, we cover preparation and identification well.

For the most part we ignore finding, the actual act of detecting a bird. Birders purchase books, tapes, CDs, web resources, and optics to prepare for birding and to identify birds. We publish tomes dedicated to tail feather patterns in the Dendroica (or whatever the hell it’s called now). At every turn there is a new field guide. What’s available for finding or detecting, that critical act of uncovering a bird? How much time do we invest in developing these skills?

Birds are ubiquitous, spread throughout the earth’s habitats and ecological zones. This distribution is not random. We know that shorebirds like shores, and land birds like land. But within these gross delineations there is a fine partitioning of space and resources. To find birds, we must work at their scale.

Subtle, almost undetectable clues mark their presence. What is obscure to us is obvious to them. A quick flick of the tail, a whispered call note; that which is inconspicuous to us may be blatant to a bird.

For 83% of the time we are reduced to their level. We use our blessed panoramic vision to watch for motion: a quick flick here, a restrained bob there. We listen for the thinnest of chips and cheeps, the sound of birds advertising their presence.

For 83% of the time no optic or field guide aids us. Of course we depend on these tools for the final act of identification, the coup de grace, in instances when bare-naked birding isn’t sufficient. But what is the return on the investment in a new field guide or a new pair of binoculars? Fractional? Marginal? Negligible?

Is a new field guide that much better than the old ones? How many species will the new guide aid us with over the course of a year? To what degree do the $2000 binoculars actually help us find and identify new birds? As Ken Rosenberg wrote, “today’s mid-priced binoculars in many cases seem better than the top-of-the-line models of a decade ago.” This is not to say that the newest models do not deliver a remarkable image. But to what degree do they make us better birders as opposed to better gearheads?

To become a better birder, to become more effective at finding birds to identify with these close-focused, waterproofed, multi-coated, space age wonders, where better to invest than in the 83% of the time we spend watching birds without them? No field guide will find birds for us. No pair of binoculars will help us notice the winter wren rustling the leaves in the thicket along the stream, or alert us to the Nelson’s sharp-tailed sparrow poking through the smooth cordgrass. Knowing sounds, motions, behaviors, seasons, habitats, shapes, and relative sizes are all finding skills that can be learned and honed. Bare-naked birding is more feel and intuition than gear. When is the last time that you felt the presence of a bird?

I began this particular thread with an article in Birding in 2007. Bare-naked birding has evolved in this brief interlude, and its value has only been enhanced with this evolution. If we spend most of our birding time naked and unadorned, and if the general public is perpetually in a state of undress, why not invest our limited time and resources in developing skills that do not depend on the accoutrements? Why not learn to find, detect, and notice as well as to identify? Why not learn to sense their presence?

Telephoto-Macro?!?

Most photographers buying big telephoto lenses are thinking about reaching out to relatively distant subjects.  Conversely, folks wanting close-ups will often acquire a good macro lens.  But don't forget that modern telephotos often focus pretty close, increasing their utility as "telephoto-macros".  With its high magnification, a telephoto lens that can focus as close as about 2 or 3 meters can bring out intense detail in small nearby subjects.  As an added bonus, skittish critters like dragonflies or butterflies will often tolerate slow approaches to 6 or 8 feet but flush if a lens is thrust any closer.  So a telephoto can be perfect to photographically nab these gems.  On those wonderful occasions when a wild bird is really close, this technique can also yield stunning portraits!

A few considerations for telephoto-macro photography:

• If you've never tried this technique, find a little target like a pebble or leaf and see how close you can get with your camera still able to focus.  (If you have a focus-limiting switch don't forget to select the full range or near range, depending on the lens.)
• Telephoto lenses inherently yield very narrow Depth of Field (DOF).  Even a smallish butterfly can have the body in focus but upturned wings out of focus.  Solution: crank down your aperture (increase the f-stop.)  To explore how DOF for your lens is dependent on variable distance and aperture, try a utility like Simple DoF.
• For longish subjects like dragonflies, it may be difficult to get the whole critter in focus if the body is angled away from the camera.  Here you can make the artistic decision to just let the back go soft (focus on the eyes if in doubt.)  If you want everything sharp you may need to reposition so the head and body are nearly perpendicular (and thus nearly equidistant) to the lens.
• Cranking up your f-stop will slow your shutter speed.  If you've lost too much speed to get sharp images (especially if you are hand-holding the lens), bump up your ISO until you get satisfactory shutter speed back.
• Review your shots in the field by blowing up the image on your camera's display.  Can you see bristles or tiny antenna on a dragonfly?  Can you see scales on a butterfly wing?  If not, keep trying.  This is a pretty experimental, non-standard technique so figure out what works for you!!

Yours truly photographing odes stream side in Weld County, Colorado, July 2011.  (Photo by John Barr.)  While I'm using a big telephoto (Nikon 200-400mm f4 VR + 1.4X teleconverter), my subjects are within 10 feet of the lens.  All photos below taken with this rig.

 

American Rubyspot, Weld County, Colorado, July 2011.

 

Pale Clubtail,  Weld County, Colorado, July 2011.

 

Crab (genus Graspus? Help me out here if you know.) San Diego County, Colorado, October 2011.  These guys would scuttle away when I tried my conventional macro but stayed put and continued feeding when I was 8 or so feet back using my telephoto-as-macro technique.  I kept most of the 4" or-so wide critter in focus by dialing my aperture up to f/14.

 

Sometimes you don't want to get too close!!  Black-tailed Rattlesnake, Santa Cruz County, Arizona, August 2006.  Note the limited depth of field here- gives an artistic effect but leaves most of the snake out of focus.  In these cases make sure the eye is sharp.

 

Anise (Nitra) Swallowtail (black form), Gilpin county, Colorado, July 2007.  Since the whole rather large butterfly is about in the same plane, DOF wasn't a major problem here.

 

Sometimes a bird makes an especially close appearance.  Stay tight and go for a portrait!!  Sage Sparrow, Boulder County, Colorado, April 2010.

 

New eBird Maps!

I hope Brian Sullivan will elaborate on this sometime soon, but eBird has recently rolled out a beta version of their new & improved global range & point maps.  I have been playing around with them some and think it is an amazing resource for birders- I hope it will steer even more people into using eBird.  The feature "...allows you to view global maps for any species or subspecies, refine the data to a specific season or date range, and then drill down to the individual sightings that make up the map." 

Click over to get the full details on what these maps can do for you!!

Believing in the Impossible

Imagine heading out to Hawk Mountain for a day of watching hawk migration. If you've ever been to this well-known migration spot, it will be easy to envision the hike through the trees and the anticipation of what avian wonders might pass by over the course of a day's vigil. This site is known for its importance in the history of hawk conservation, its beautiful scenery, and the often spectacular raptor migrations. Now, continuing in your imagination, you may be hiking up the ridge with a birding acquaintance, perhaps someone more familiar with Hawk Mountain's migration patterns.

As you both pause to catch your breath, you ask your birding friend, "What are our chances for a goshawk today?" This is a species you've always wanted to see, the big Accipiter of the forests. Always a favorite during fall migration in the eastern United States. Your friend replies, "We're a little early, but still a decent chance. Keep an eye out for a stocky Accipiter, moving fast. Let me know if you see something that seems like a good candidate." You continue up the trail a little farther, until you gain your first view of the valley below. "I'd love to see a goshawk," you say, "but I was also wondering about something else. Any chance for a Pterodroma petrel?" Your friend looks at you in disbelief: "Do you see an ocean? What are you thinking?"

 

Hawk Mountain: Perfect Petrel Habitat?

If the day in your imagination was October 3rd, 1959, your ridiculous question would have seemed prophetic. On that day, a dark Pterodroma with white in the primaries was seen for about 5 minutes at Hawk Mountain. Unprecedented and nearly unbelievable. There is still debate as to its identity, but the fact remains: a petrel, master of the ocean winds, was more than 100 miles from the closest ocean, flying where hawks would be expected, not seabirds. No one would have predicted or expected that to happen.

What does this mean for your everyday birding? It means you must expect the unlikely, never discount something because it seems unreasonable or improbable. Even when you've had a slow day of birding with few birds and poor conditions, don't give up. That Pterodroma is far from the only outlandishly unexpected bird to be seen in the ABA area. Lesser Frigatebird in Michigan (2005) and a dark-morph Parasitic Jaeger at Fort Huachuca in Arizona (2006) immediately spring to mind. And it isn't just seabirds, of course. A relative newcomer to birding photographed an unusual shorebird in West Virginia in August 2007. It looked different than the others he was seeing and he couldn't figure out what it was. The pictures he took clearly showed a Great Knot! I could go on about this, and I'm sure many of us could come up with similar stories and examples of very unexpected birds where they shouldn't belong. However, how do we prepare for the unlikely?

The first rule is to trust yourself. If you see a bird that seems impossible for your location or time, don't tell yourself you must be mistaken or confused. Remember, these things happen! When I see a rare bird, the first thing I think of is documentation. Pictures or field sketches are invaluable when reporting your sighting to others. Take notes about why you think it is unusual. In fact, you may find a bird that you've never heard of before and don't recognize at all. Don't say: "Oh, I don't know what this is, I need to be a better birder" and give up. Take notes and pictures and make careful observations; even if you can't identify it in the field, someone may be able to recognize it based on your documentation.

The second rule is that previous knowledge can go a long way in the field. The more time you spend studying birds (in the field and in the field guides) the better you'll be able to recognize something unusual. I've noticed over the years that many rarities are found by people having previous experience with the species. This means that the more your study, the better prepared you'll be when an impossibility flies by you. The final rule is that you should never give up. You never know what exciting bird might be right around the corner; always take that extra scan of the ocean or sweep of the horizon, because the possibilities are there, you just have to look for them!

A Matter of Perspective

On a tour I led in North Dakota this summer we ran into a curious Marbled Godwit that joined us on a back country gravel road.  Like many roadbeds in the area, this one was elevated to keep it above the soggy meadows and marshes it crossed.  I suspect the bird had chicks out in the nearby field and it felt better keeping tabs on us from the open visibility of the road as we scanned for other birds.  The godwit didn't act agitated and pretty much just shared some space with us for a while.  I like to experiment with different compositions when an interesting, cooperative bird like this comes along, and would like to share three images of the same bird in the same place for your consideration.

1) Shots like this are pretty typical- the bird is standing there and I'm standing nearby to take the picture.  The problem is that disconnect between the level of the bird and the level of the lens.  It also accentuates the gravel road here- while not the worst background (say, like an oily parking lot) it certainly isn't the most natural-looking setting as the bird seems lost in a sea of sterile gravel.  If this was a rarity to document or something I wanted to study later or confirm an ID on I'd certainly be happy with the pic- it is sharp and shows ample details.  But it isn't really an image that would sell many northern plains trips, would it?

2) By sitting in the road (think safety, of course, if you are going to be doing crazy bird photographer things like sitting in roads), the lens is at about eye level with the godwit, making for a more pleasing photo in my opinion.  The shallow depth of field lessens the impact of the road in the image, too, but the road still dominates since it is in line with the lens.

3) By getting in the ditch along the road and shooting the bird from slightly below, I think the road becomes a more minor element and the background foliage and sky present a much nicer tableau for this iconic northern plains shorebird.

I know we don't always have the luxury of a cooperative bird in a setting that allows multiple photo angles but if you find yourself with a subject that sticks around, play with your perspective a bit to see what kind of results you can produce.  For birds on or near the ground or on the water, it can make a world of difference to get low and shoot at eye level or as close to that as you can get.

How We Take the ABA to the Next Level: A Card, A Shirt, and Your Ideas

Below is a picture of my ATM card. Of course, I've sloppily cloned out a bunch of numbers from the photo of it, and it's bleached and nicked from (over)use, but I still wanted you to see it. I should say right up front that this is not the card referred to in the title that I think can help the ABA and birding. That isn't a credit card or debit card at all. I'll get to that card soon.

When I moved to Colorado Springs last winter, one of the small but very real pleasures I found in the mountain of hassles that accompany moving was my discovery that my new bank wouldn't force me to carry the same old boring ATM card. Their website would let me upload my own photo to personalize it (or choose one of their many stock photos).

.

So, perhaps feeling a twinge of homesickness and certainly lacking any photos from Colorado yet, I chose this shot I took of a flock of Ruddy Turnstones feeding on horseshoe crab eggs along the shore of Delaware Bay. It's a picture that just makes me happy.

I can't tell you number of opportunities this card has provided me to talk to people about birds and birding. And the fact that I can say it's my photo really adds to the lift I get when I do so. With one simple change, my ATM card has gone from being something with which I have little personal connection to a co-branding collaboration between me and Wells Fargo. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

 

How does this relate to the ABA?

Well, one of the perennial ideas that the ABA (and many other organizations) have employed over the years is the idea of an ambassador group. In the ABA's case, what this has generally meant is that very small numbers of super-wonderful and super-dedicated volunteers have been recruited. And please please please understand that nothing I say here should be construed as criticism of those terrific folks or their tireless efforts. I am nothing but grateful to them. But I am interested in providing them (and lots of other members, I hope) with a more streamlined, elegant, effective, and fun way to promote the ABA and birding in general. To use a buzz word, something more viral.

What has often been done is that expensive, heavy boxes of expensive, heavy publications have been shipped to our ambassadors (did I say how much I appreciate the efforts of those folks? 'Cause I do!) who would then display them at a table at a local bird event or nature festival.

Now, I love birding festivals. I go to a lot of them and I've spent a lot of time in booths at them. I only want festivals to get better and better. But I have to say that from a return on investment standpoint, that old ambassador strategy seemed less than optimal when it came to getting new members. It was however, good for visibility and was often a great way to contact existing members. And we'll still do that sort of outreach, whenever we can.

Another recruitment tool is the standard membership brochure. You know, with the little, "fill it out and mail it in," membership application. We have 'em. Everybody has 'em. They're useful, too. But they also seem to me, in the age of social media, very impersonal and a bit cumbersome.

So here's what I see as an innovative and I hope, effective approach to ABA outreach. It's something I've had in mind for quite awhile and have discussed with various people, including current ABA ambassadors. But I think it's time to open it up to you. I'd ask that you look over our ideas. Tell me which ones are good and which are not. What ways would you suggest to make it better?

 

The Program

• The key is interacting with people in the field, at the eyepiece. Go where you can help people see more birds and get more out of the birds they're seeing right where they are. That could be a traditional "birding spot" or not (a city park with a duck pond would be fine, for example). Set up your scope. Hand over your binoculars. Tell the people you meet what birds are around and a quick story or a few cool things about those birds. Here's a very quick example.

ABA First Lady Liz shares her bins, and a family of Prairie Falcons, with a (former) stranger

• This program should have very little barrier to entry. If you want to do it, at most you should have to spend a few dollars, possibly splitting the cost with ABA, and that's it. You're in.

• There needs to be an easy way to track and reward your success. If you get us 1 new member, I want us to be able to know and to thank you. If you get us 10 new members, I want to really thank you. 

• I want to know what types of rewards would be meaningful to you. Free membership for yourself, a special hat or shirt, your name at the top of a new listing category? What about for the super achievers? Optics, or travel, or at least discounts thereon? A donation to a club or cause?

• We might want to come up with a name other than "ambassador." Field crew, something. I need help here.

• The ABA would produce two basic items to help you seem more "official," and maybe give you a teeny confidence boost, if you're feeling a little shy. At the most basic level, one is a card and the other is a shirt (you'll see there are some possible variations, but let's start with card and shirt).

 

The Card

• The card should be larger than a business card but still pretty small. I'm thinking it should be at least 3x5" but not more than 5x7". It ought to tuck neatly into a "little Sibley," a Kaufman guide or similar sized book. Folded over once, it should fit easily into a pocket.

• The card should clearly communicate the message, "I enjoyed meeting you and birding with you. Here's how to take some next steps and/or stay in touch."

• The card should be beautiful and eye-catching, with at least one photo or other art work. Ideally, users could upload their own photos, or choose from some great shots and art that the ABA would provide free of charge.

• The card should be thoroughly ABA-branded, with logos, contact info, etc. It might offer some sort of less expensive trial membership, or a special premium or gift for joining.

• The card should be personally branded, too, with your contact info, to the extent that you want it to be. Want more readers for your blog, more Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and so on? That should be easy. Want none of those things? That's fine, too. Use the space to put a quotation about birds or birding that you like or anything that makes the card yours. 

• The card should be environmentally friendly in its materials and production.

• The card should look professional. We shouldn't be asking you to print if off on your home printer.

• The card should have your ABA member #, or a bar code, a QR code, or something that lets us know if the person you gave it to actually joined and thus lets us thank and reward you.

• I am open to the idea of the card giving contact info for other organizations in addition to the ABA, especially local bird clubs. Even bird-related businesses aren't out of the question, but we'd very likely want the biz to contribute money or other resources to the program. It's got to be first and foremost you, the ABA member and the ABA itself, but I want the ABA to support and work well with groups that support us and our mission.

• The card, ideally, should have something useful on it. Something that would make it valuable even if they never got in touch with you or joined the ABA. The ABA Code of Birding Ethics (almost certainly in an abridged form due to space limitations) is one possibility. What else would be useful? Some very basic identification info? Birding tips? What?

• The card should also be available in an electronic version, easily e-mailed, texted, or passed using Bump or some similar app.

• Hard copies of the card should be printable in fairly small quantities, without tying up too much ABA staff time. There are many digital presses; e.g., MOO, that do this sort of thing, though I don't know of one yet that does exactly this. Do you? 

 

The Shirt

• The shirts (and hat and binocular strap) already exist in a simple, elegant form. You can get an ABA logo shirt at Shop@ABA right this minute. But I'm thinking of a special shirt (or vest, or banner, or flag). One that you wear or display only when you really want to do outreach (and one you can take off or cover up if you want some privacy for a while).

• The shirt prominently displays the ABA logo, perhaps in a slightly modified form. But there's a tropicbird in blue and green and blue, for sure. Almost certainly the words, "American Birding Association," and almost certainly our URL: aba.org

• Even more prominently, the shirt says, "ASK ME ABOUT BIRDING!!!" I think it does that with those exact words, in big big letters. Think about those old Frankie Goes To Hollywood T-shirts from the 80's:  

Frankie Says Relax T-shirt photo by Fighting with Spoons, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

OK, maybe not that exactly, but you get the idea, right?

• The major function of the shirt is to identify yourself, at some distance, as a person that wants to help others enjoy birds and birding more.

• It would be great if the shirt looked good and/or cool. But not to the extent that it obscures the basic message. "I am a birder and I am here to recruit you!" Any suggestions for how to balance wearability with impact are most welcome.

 

Your Ideas

OK, that's what I've got for right now. I'm sorry for running on so long, but as you can see, I'm trying to put a bunch of thoughts out there and see where you all take them. Now I need you to say what's right and what's wrong with these concepts. Help us come up with something really cool.

I appreciate your interest in and support of the ABA and I can't wait to have this program fully launched. With your help, it'll be a lot of fun and do a lot of good.

 

 

 

 

I've got it narrowed down to two...

"I can't decide; I saw it well enough, but I'm not sure which one it was!" This is a common identification challenge for various pairs of common birds. It is easy to narrow it down to two species, but taking that last step becomes much more difficult. In eastern North America, I think that one of the best examples of this conundrum is Downy vs. Hairy Woodpecker. These are both rather common birds that are seen often, but it can be hard to make that final decision: Was the bill long enough? How big was it? This is one of those cases where a simple psychological rule can be applied: If I'm questioning which one it is, it is probably a Downy. When an actual Hairy shows up, there is usually not much question as to its identity. The bill seems clearly longer, the bird seems bulkier, has more obvious "shoulders", and everything adds up to Hairy Woodpecker. When you are confronted with a Hairy Woodpecker, you know what it is. When you are confronted with a Downy Woodpecker, it is easy to question yourself and try to trick your mind into believing the bill seemed a little long or it wasn't small enough. Deliberation should encourage strong consideration of the default choice. In this case, Downy.

Another pair that often causes confusion is Greater vs. Lesser Yellowlegs. In this case, I think that the default should be Lesser Yellowlegs. Again, when confronted with a Greater Yellowlegs, the larger size and longer, upturned bill make it obvious. If you are asking yourself which one it is, it is probably a Lesser.

A yellowlegs, but which one? Nothing about the bill "jumps out" at me, so I'll call it a Lesser.

I can certainly think of a few pairs of species where I don't recommend this approach: Cooper's vs. Sharp-shinned Hawk and Short-billed vs. Long-billed Dowitcher come to mind. With these pairs, there is no default species (except expectations due to distribution or migration patterns). Each time these species are encountered, they must be carefully considered, and I don't expect anything to be exceptionally obvious on one or the other.

I'd be interested to hear of other examples where this psychological trick ("If it doesn't jump out at you, it must be the default species of the pair") can be used. Any suggestions?

Liguori: Hawks at a Distance

As Pete Dunne points out in his witty and eloquent Foreword to Jerry Liguori’s latest guide, identification books have been trying for a century to make the birder’s ability to see a bird coincide with her ability to identify it: to make, in Dunne’s words, “Far” match up exactly with “Close Enough.” Of necessity, it’s been the raptor watchers who have put the most effort into closing that gap, abandoning traditional plumage-based characters to concentrate instead on shape and flight habit to identify birds dismissed by most of us as indistinguishable specks.

Those birders schooled in the old “field marks” method of bird identification will find Liguori’s Hawks at a Distance startling—and ultimately, I think, revelatory. The book treats nineteen widespread migratory species (along with another nine geographically restricted or resident birds). Each is illustrated with a handsome, eminently field-guide-worthy portrait, but the real meat here is in the series of small, often badly lit images, six to a page, that are intended to show the reader what can and, most importantly, cannot be seen on flying raptors viewed at a distance and from angles ranging from awkward to impossible These photos aren’t specks, thankfully, but they are intentionally and carefully chosen to force the reader to concentrate on those elements of shape and attitude that become painfully visible just as a speck begins to assume two-dimensionality. Hawks at a Distance is, I am sure, the first identification guide ever to pride itself on presenting images of birds of unknown (and unknowable) species, age, or sex.

Pictures don’t speak for themselves, of course, and Liguori provides detailed captions pointing out the features each image is intended to illustrate. Throughout, the author is at obvious and laudable pains to avoid anything reeking of jargon, and a short glossary introduces most of the indispensable terms of art. I was puzzled to find the familiar and perfectly serviceable term “wing window” replaced by “panel,” a neologism that will inevitably lead to confusion with the very different panel shown by the wings of some passerines, for example. I would also have liked to see such behavioral terms as “lofty” and “wristy” defined—I think I know what Liguori means, but only because I know the birds, not the words. 

In addition to the photos and their captions, each species is also given a brief prose introduction, broken into an overview of its salient structural characters and a description of its distinguishable plumages. The latter seems unnecessary: no reader of this book is going to be without the standard raptor references, all of which treat plumages in greater detail than Hawks at a Distance can or should. And the sections titled “Overview,” while full of valuable little nuggets, are plagued by logical and syntactic clunkinesses and would have been well served by some editing.

The most innovative and perhaps the most interesting section of the book is titled simply “Shapes,” in which each of the nineteen principal species is depicted in up to 50 (!) thumbnail-size silhouettes; these pages have an obvious forebear in the annotated genus plates of the author’s 2005 Hawks at Every Angle, but the kettle-like swirls here are even more useful. Let your eye drift through until you find a silhouette you would not have recognized in the field—then see what Liguori has to say about it. You’ll be surprised at what you learn, and at what you can see when at first you might think you can’t see anything.

Kaufman: The New Advanced Birding

I don’t normally get my books autographed; it’s always seemed to me sort of silly, an imposition on the author and a fetishization of what is really just a block of paper and cardboard.

I’ve made one exception over the years, and I stood in line to do it. Then I had to go out and buy a new copy of Kenn Kaufman’s Advanced Birding and retire the old one, graced with a characteristically generous inscription from the author.

Now comes Kaufman with a second edition of this book that has made such a difference in the way North Americans bird.

Or at least a second edition was what I was expecting. In fact, the Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding is largely a new book, sharing some (updated) material with the old Peterson Advanced Birding, but differing importantly in purpose and approach. The 1990 volume was at its heart a “difficult species guide,” the wonderful 19 pages of introduction followed by nearly three dozen identification essays stretching over some 250 pages; in the new edition, 24 species essays come after a whopping 140 pages of learning and lore. The focus in this new book is no longer so much on distinguishing similar birds, but rather—even more so than in the first edition—these species accounts are meant to be exemplary, not exhaustive, illustrating the points and demonstrating the techniques that Kaufman offers beginning (and other) birders on their path to “advancement.” The introduction to the earlier edition remains a marvelously lapidary prolegomenon to thoughtful birding, but the new work’s exposition of an “integrated approach,” covering anatomy, topography, molt, behavior, and variation, is an expansive and thorough guide to making the step to more sophisticated and thus more enjoyable appreciation of what birders see and hear. I know that I will not be alone in assigning these clearly written pages as the “textbook” for the next workshop I teach.

There is much here that birders of all levels of experience and expertise should take to heart. Kaufman gives us the correct pronunciation of “leucistic” (a hard “c,” please), and (in accordance with the practice at Birding) dismisses from the birder’s vocabulary the odd and unmotivated “juvenal” in favor of the simple and straightforward “juvenile.” I wish, though, that the clear distinction between the tibia and the avian thigh had been maintained throughout the text, and that the spelling of “jacana” here were the same as that endorsed by the AOU.

As expected in any title issuing from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the book contains the barest minimum of errors. On page 200, the warning should be against guessing the sex of lone accipiters, not their age; and the caption on page 234 would have been more felicitously labeled top to bottom than “front to back” (for a moment I thought, mirabile dictu, that the author had misidentified the birds!). Whether Barrow’s Goldeneye truly has a shorter bill than Common (see page 149) can be controverted, and Kaufman’s mention of an incomplete pre-basic molt in Yellow-bellied Flycatcher (page 358) requires some explanation.

One of the great treasures of the first Advanced Birding was its illustrations, precisely rendered drawings of salient features discussed in the text. The new edition is much more lavishly illustrated, this time with beautifully reproduced photographs; the new images may lack the charm of the old ones, but the set of Empidonax photos alone—showing bill shapes, primary projections, and head shapes—would be enough by themselves to put this book on every birder’s bookshelf.

Every birder? Yes. There is no one out there, no matter how grizzled a veteran, who won’t learn something from this book. And beginners and intermediate birders should not let the title scare them off, either: as it is defined and practiced here, advanced birding—and Advanced Birding— is for every birder who wants to identify, understand, and enjoy more of the birds she encounters.

Better Birding is Made in the Shade

 
 
[I got right under this newly arrived Hooded Warbler in Belleplain State Forest, NJ by staying in the shade.]

It seems so simple and obvious, yet hardly anybody does it. Let’s say we’re walking along a woods edge, and want to stop to look for birds. Where are we going to stop? Obviously, we want to stop where we can see birds well, so perhaps we’ll choose to stop near a little gap or cove in the forest where we can see in. Of course we’ll stop if we actually see birds. We’ll try to stop where if we move our feet to get a slightly better angle, our footsteps will be on quiet grass or dirt, not gravel or crunchy leaves. But there is one other important factor to consider: whenever possible, stop in the shade.

Sticking to the shadows implies staying out of sight, and that’s exactly what we want to do when we’re birding. Ideally, we keep the birds in the sun, the sun at our backs, and our bodies motionless and in the shade, because in that situation wildlife of all sorts has a hard time knowing we’re around. Even if only part of the human form is shaded, and part is still in full sun, the effect is to break up the human outline, making it harder for birds to detect us, their potential predator. Always try to keep your face shaded - human faces are shiny, and they move a lot. Binocular objective lenses flash when aimed at the sun, a potential warning sign to birds.

Shade does more than hide us. It helps us see much better. Everyone knows you can’t see well squinting into the sun. In contrast, our pupils actually dilate in the shade, letting more light in. When birding into the sun, simply standing in the shade of a single tree trunk, telephone pole, or street sign makes a huge difference in what we can see, and what sees us. If you’re in a group, and there is only one tree or pole around, line everybody up to the shadow, so you are all in the shade. The only downside to being in the shade is that it can be chilly, but hotter birding will make up for that. Give shade birding a try next time you are afield.