ABA Blog

Do they get it?

I was recently interviewed as an “expert” by Boxoffice Magazine, for an article they do about new movies called “Expert Opinion”. It was a fun interview, and I think the resulting piece captures most of what I wanted to say about the movie (and, they ran my mug alongside Steve Martin ... good work, if you can get it).

There have been a lot of articles recently (movie reviews mostly) on the interwebs and in the newspapers, about birding. Or bird-watching ... or whatever.

As Rick Wright puts it, “For now, though, what I’m finding fascinating is the rare opportunity to look at birding from the outside, as critics and reviewers explain the phenomenon to their non-birding readers.”

So, how do we look? Rick scoops up a few examples:

Bird-watching seems like a harmless hobby, and I’ve penciled it into the calendar for my golden years. - Joe Williams

For most of the general population the only thing more boring than birding itself is watching other people do it. - Robert Levin

Bird-watching — or birding, as practitioners prefer to call it — makes for a stupefyingly boring movie. – Rene Rodriguez

Aside from an international staring contest and the World Series of Texting, there aren’t many challenges less suited for a movie than competitive bird watching. – Matt Pais

An asinine sort-of sport. – Dustin Putman

...you get the idea. I got an idea, too. They don’t get it.

Even someone who should get it, like Jonathan Rosen (in the New Yorker), doesn’t seem to get it. He invokes Freud to help us understand “Our tormented relationship to the natural world—the world that produced us and from which we are estranged.”

Tangent: I found myself watching television this week. I never watch the teevee, but I was trapped with my wife and her mother. While flipping channels, my mother in-law stopped at a show that she “just loved!” The program was American Pickers. It follows these two guys who travel the backroads of America searching for junk. But not just junk ... good junk. Great junk. These guys know their junk.

In one segment, one of them is poking through a barn piled with 45 years worth of some farmer’s hoarding habit. He glances into a mound of unidentifiable metal parts and stops, whipping out a flashlight. Inside the pile, he identified the handlebar of a 1925 Harley-Davidson. He pulls it out (it turns out to be an almost complete frame), and begins haggling with the farmer. He gets this rusted piece of junk for $250. Then a scorecard pops up on the screen: H-D frame. Paid: $250. Value: $400. Profit: $150. 

Tick! These guys are birding for junk! Put me and my buddy Jeff in there, driving the backroads of Illinois looking for birds ... keep a running score of what we see ... and you have the same show. And people love it.

Okay, back to where I was. Here’s what people who don’t bird, don’t get about birding: it’s about skill. It’s about learning, and sharpening your skills. Rosen says, “Birding is like competitive meditation.” He couldn’t be more wrong. 

He even goes so far as saying, “They don’t even have to see them—hearing their call is enough” to illustrate how cheap he believes the birding experience to be. Does he have any idea how hard that is? How personally satisfying it is to be able to do that?

I use golf as an analogy for birding a lot. It has a lot in common with birding: it’s based on the honor system. You can participate at any level you choose ... by yourself, as a team, just for kicks, or competitively. But what hooks people on golfing is that as you do it more, you get to a point where you want to do it better. You practice, you study, you buy better equipment, you travel to more difficult or more interesting golf courses. You get hooked.

For those of us who get it, I’ve just described birding. It’s about improving your skill. Setting the bar higher. Finding bigger challenges.

Rosen makes a distinction—between “birder” and ‘bird-watcher”—where none really exists. When I started at this nearly 40 years ago, I might have looked over a mudflat and seen a flock of Avocets, some Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, a few Yellowlegs and a couple Pectoral Sandpipers. 

Now, I look at the same flat and see Avocets, a Hudsonian Godwit, Semipalmated, Least, White-rumped, Baird’s, Pectoral and Western Sandpipers. Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Stilt Sandpiper, a few Dunlin, and way in the back, in the grass, a Buff-breasted Sandpiper.

“Birder” is just what we tend to call ourselves as we get better at it. But, I know birders who call themselves bird-watchers and bird-watchers that refer to what they do as birding. There’s really no difference between the two, and there’s nothing wrong with making the distinction ... as long as you realize that it doesn’t matter, and you’re enjoying yourself. Got that?

And that’s the other thing that they just don’t get: both are having fun. So while the critics, pundits and philosophers are musing on our voyeuristic quest for balance, I’ll be out hunting for birds and having a blast. Hope to see you in the field.

The Eubanks Challenge

Ted Eubanks, in a recent post to The ABA Blog, said this:

[M]ost hard-core birders, those who pursue birds as aggressively as collectors once chased Cabbage Patch dolls, appear to care little about the unwashed masses. The crowds are little more than traffic congestion to bypass before reaching the next lifer.

I agree, that's a problem. It's been a problem for quite some time. But maybe we at the ABA are finally making progress in the area of general outreach to those "unwashed masses"? ABA President Jeff Gordon is promoting the idea of a "New ABA"--an ABA with new programs, new initiatives, and new members, yes, but also an ABA with a new commitment to preaching the gospel of birding far more widely than we at the ABA, or anyone else for that matter, has been accustomed to doing.

In this regard, I'm proud to be involved in two events tomorrow evening, Thursday, September 8th, that I think push the envelope when it comes to our traditional conception of bird walks.

First up is a bilingual, beginner-oriented, commuter-friendly, ADA-compliant, bare-naked birding workshop in downtown Boulder, Colorado. We'll meet in front of the Boulder County library, pretty much smack-dab in the heart of downtown, at 5:15 p.m., and we'll go birding along the paved Boulder Creek Path for about an hour. The outing is suitable for folks with limited mobility; if you're more comfortable learning about birds in Spanish than in English, we'll have a translator on hand; if you don't own binoculars, don't worry about it, 'cause we won't be using our binoculars anyhow; and if you don't own a car, or would rather not use one, that's great, 'cause our meeting place is a very short walk from the Boulder Transit Center. (Photo of bare-naked birders by Diane Porter.)

Right after "Bare-naked Birding" we'll commute, by public transportation, a few miles to one of the branch libraries in the Boulder public library system. Never ridden the bus before? That's excellent, 'cause first-time riders ride for free! Just let EcoArts executive director Marda Kirn, who will be at both events, know that you're a first-time rider, and she'll have a bus pass for you. Anyhow, we'll get down to our next venue, the George Reynolds Branch Library, for a 7:00 p.m. tutorial on eBird, the user-friendly, global (truly, global, like the whole planet, not "global" in programmerspeak) checklist and birding database. ("Bus Birding" logo, right--art and concept by Brian D. Collier.)

Both events--bare-naked birding and the eBird tutorial--are free and open to the public.

A word about our sponsors. They are a wonderfully electic lot. They are EcoArts Connections, the (Denver-based) Regional Transportation District, the Boulder County Nature Association, and, of course, the American Birding Association.

For more information, including directions to both events, check out this post to COBirds from earlier today.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

A Pox on Politics (I Ain't No Stool Pigeon!)

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt challenges Romeo. Best friend Mercutio expects Romeo to defend himself. Romeo refuses (Juliet is Tybalt's cousin), and Mercutio decides to vindicate Romeo for his "vile submission." Tybalt slays Mercutio, and as he dies he damns both Moneagues and Calulets with the immortal curse "a plague on both your houses!" In time Shakespeare's plague morphed to pox, and the latter phrase remains with us still.

Romeo refused to defend himself, and Mercutio died for Romeo's failure. Mercutio covered Romeo's back, yet Romeo still abandoned his best friend in the thick of it. There are lessons here. Be cautious of the politics of intrigue (be not Montague nor Capulet). Choose your friends wisely. Watch you own back. Don't play with knives.

The Montagues and Capulets were born to rank and privilege; Democrats and Republicans are made. Yet the deceitfulness and contrivances of Shakespeare's feuding families do seem eerily familiar. The human psyche only expresses itself in a finite number of ways; there are few original plots and the Greeks own them all. Yet if you want a ringside seat to the human drama, no better actors can be found than politicians and family. And birders.

Yes, birders. This recreation, this hobby we practice for fun, is a cherry bomb just waiting to be lobbed into the girl's restroom. All that's needed is for someone to light the fuse. I confess; at times my political writings are meant to spark. But now I want to steer clear of the Teapers and Weepers, and cautiously edge out onto the thinner ice of rare birds.

I served on the Texas Rare Bird Committee (TBRC) for a number of years. What a blessed way to make enemies. Birding is this queer pursuit where scoring depends on the the credibility and the integrity of the person reporting the achievement. Serving on one of these committees places you in judgement not only of rare birds but the rare people who report them as well. In hunting you can shoulder the gutted corpse back to camp to be seen and measured by others. Anglers drag in their stringers. Birders have little to measure other than veracity. You tell what you saw, and the rest of us either believe or disbelieve.

Given the judgmental character of birding, could it be anything but political? Scoring is completely dependent on whether or not others believe you. Without a photograph or a recording, every smidgen of evidence you provide will be completely based on your personal recollections. Whether or not you win is contingent on whether the judges like you, trust you, are in awe of you, are jealous of you, or are envious of you. Think of this aspect of birding as Olympic ice skating with binoculars.

Submitting your thoughts on a rare bird report form does not make them fact. The form only makes it easier for the experts to read your regurgitation. The report is simply a way of formalizing your thoughts that your bird looked "just like the one in the book."

Birding hovers between science and sociology. Birding sucks ideas from both, yet remains neither. At times birding is humorous. The new movie, The Big Year, stars Owen Wilson, Jack Black, and Steve Martin. Sounds like serious drama, doesn't it? You can't beat a birder flick for a good laugh. Let's invite Jane Hathaway back for a cameo.

At times birding is elevating, like in a Neruda poem. At times birding is depressing, as when we stop to consider the fate of some of those we watch. And at times birding is perplexing, like when birders try to weigh the validity of others' sightings.

Consider this example. I am certain that I saw my first Rufous-collared Sparrow in the mountains of Chiapas. I have now seen the bird many times, but I am almost sure that my first were in or around San Cristobal de las Casas. Wherever my first sighting, I am certain that the location was a long way from Georgetown, Colorado.

In early May Tim Davis and Andrew Davis found a Rufous-collared Sparrow in Colorado. There is no doubt as to the identity; in the weeks that followed photographers had a field day. Rufous-collared sparrows have no business in Colorado; they only occur as far north as southern Mexico. Nevertheless, the bird is now in Colorado. What do we make of this?

The immediate question is origin. By origin birders mean provenance. Birders want to be sure that the bird traveled to Colorado on its own two wings. Otherwise, the bird doesn't count. The bird is a marked a cheat, a victim of the fear that the bird traveled from the tropics with "human assistance." Is this bird a hitchhiker? Did it come on a train, in a bus, or in a cage? Did a family bring their faithful pet rufous-collared sparrow to Colorado when they relocated? How it the hell did it get to Coors Country?

I should draw out the intrigue, the drama, but I am going to let you in on a little secret. No one knows. No one will ever know. Only the bird knows, and he ain't talking.

I ain't no squealer. I ain't no stool pigeon.

The bird blogs have been on fire, crackling with discussions about this one lost bird. Ted Floyd wrote a fine article about the sparrow on this blog, and the responses predictably reflected the two camps, the counters and the discounters. Here is one position, that of the discounters, as submitted by Mike Patterson:

Wild is not the best descriptor in this case either. Let's use the conservative default "escaped". Insisting on the word "wild" in the framing of the hypothesis is not a neutral position. It's an "I want to be able to count this on my list" position. It's the position of a birder, not a biogeographer. The null hypothesis should reflect the conservative position. The bird is an escape from a zoo or aviary. The alternative hypothesis would be the bird came to North America without any human assistance. Given the amount of scrambling we've been doing with organisms on the planet, we should not be starting from: this rare, extra-limital and popular aviary specimen is not an escapee. This assumes our goal is to better understand the distribution and patterns of movement for species. If the goal is tickability, let's dump the concept of "unassisted" and avoid the argument altogether.

Out of curiosity, just how many of you, my readers, have ever considered yourself to be a biogeographer? How many of you even knew the term before this article? I suspect that most birders consider themselves to be exactly that, a birder, and little more.

But even within the discipline of biogeography, I would question the scientific value of one outlier. How does one bird tells us anything important about distribution and patterns of movement in the species?

Mike and many others have commented that the species is a "popular aviary specimen." I assume he means "pet." Yes, the cage bird trade in the tropics is extensive. I have traveled in every state in Mexico, numerous in Latin America, and years ago I took photographs and notes about the birds I saw for sale in the markets. Given that I live in Texas, a state where the "origin" question is raised frequently, I decided to better familiarize myself with the bird trade.

My experience is that bird vendors sell three general types or classes of birds. Consider this photograph of a bird seller in Monterrey. He has all three types in his inventory. The first type is the colorful bird. Our bird seller has Northern Cardinals, Scott's Orioles, and the like. In cages nearby he sold Painted, Indigo, and Orange-breasted Buntings, along with Lesser Goldfinches.

The second type is the singer. Toward the bottom of this stack, somewhat in the shade, is a Blue Mockingbird. Thrushes are prized, and I have seen several species including Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush for sale. Brown-backed Solitaires may be the most prized of all, and it is difficult to drive through a Mexican village in the early morning and not hear this remarkable song (courtesy Nathan Pieplow).

Parrots are the third and final general type of caged birds that I have seen for sale. Sadly, parrots are for sale everywhere. I remember one vendor who set up in the parking lot at a Pemex station on the way to Mazatlan. His small truck bulged with various parrots and parakeets for sale.

There is a fourth type I will mention, one I have seen only rarely. There are birds that are prized for their mythological or symbolic value. One spring in Monterrey I noticed young men hawking hummingbirds in small cages. I learned that young women believe that a hummingbird brings good luck in attracting a mate. I have also seen vendors hawking hawks by the roadside just outside of Matehuala.

Let's get back to the bird in question. The Rufous-collared Sparrow is widely dispersed within its native range, and haunts include urban and suburban environments. In other words, it tolerates people well, and I can see it being an attractive cage bird. However, I have never seen it for sale in the various markets that I have visited. I respect that others have, but I can only tell about my own experiences.

Yet the discounters continue, arguing that "anything with color and/or a song is put in a cage in Latin America, sold, and cherished by its owner" and "the bird accompanied the shipment of rescued circus lions which arrived on a direct flight to Denver from Bolivia." I like the last one the best. Maybe I could interest Steve Martin in that story line for his next big flick. What a riot!

One blogger wrote that "it may take a committee of experts to determine its wild vs ex-captive status." How? Exactly how will a committee know what can never be known? There in no way of determining how this bird traveled to Colorado. Not now, not ever.

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork...Edward Abbey

Birds have wings and do not read the range maps. Ever so often their wiring goes haywire and they plop into some place they do not belong. Birders, faced with the fact that we can never know the bird's means of transportation (I still like the lion's cage), are left to speculate. And that, my friends, is all that we can do. We can do no more.

Bird committees invariably brag about adopting a conservative approach. I am sure that many of you understand that the word itself, conservative, gives me the willies. Therefore my approach, for what it matters, is to adopt the liberal line. I believe that the onus is on the committee that judges rare birds, and not on the observers who see them. The observer's task is to prove the identification; the responsibility of the committee is to prove that which is rarely provable. For those of you interested in this topic I recommend an article published in Birding in 2007 titled "More on the ABA Checklist Committee." I appreciate this quote from that article;

...the provenance of many species that stray to the ABA Area can never be known with certainty.

If provenance cannot be disproven, and the identification can, how can a reasonable committee invalidate a record?  Notice that I said disproven or disqualified by circumstantial evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. To my knowledge no one has actually seen a Rufous-collared Sparrow stowing away on a ship. I am curious if anyone has actually seen a caged sparrow being transported across the border. I wonder if anyone knows of other examples of exotic birds being discovered in freight in the Denver airport. Is there any firm evidence, circumstantial or not, that would lead a reasonable person to judge this sparrow's presence as being assisted by humans?

I did not travel to see this bird. I have no dog in the hunt. Yet my hackles rise when I read statements that support one position or another lacking any firm evidence that should underlie a position. The identification of the bird is without question; the evidence is irrefutable and convincing. The evidence questioning the provenance of this bird is shallow, conjectural, and reliant on supposition and guesswork.

These committees do important work, typically for no compensation. In a real sense the committees are the rule keepers, those who decide, in the end, who scored and who did not. There are regional rule keepers, state rule keepers, and national rule keepers like the AOU and the ABA committees. They do not always make sense (like excluding Hawaii), but I believe that all sincerely try to toe the conservative line. I believe they all feel an obligation to defend the sanctity of their respective lists.

I, for one, feel no such obligation. I care little for lists. What attracts me to this story is the bird, its improbable appearance and its mysterious origins. Since we can never know its provenance, we can allow ourselves to put birder on the shelf and go back to simple bird watching. We can return to a time and age when committees didn't matter and we celebrated the simple existance of a wayward soul. There will be many more rare birds for the lists; not all will be so enigmatic.  But for this moment, these precious days and hours, we have been offered a glimpse at a bird whose value transcends the constrictions of our recreation. The sparrow humbles us, and reminds us that there is a limit to what we can know. 

Job Opening at the ABA

Hello, Birders!

This blog post consists of two parts. First is a position announcement; we need somebody to produce our “Sightings” column for Birding and Winging It. Second is some commentary from me about this column.

First things first. Interested in producing the “Sightings” column for Birding and Winging It? Then please carefully study this announcement:

ABA is looking to fill the position of “Sightings” Department Editor. This position is undeniably fun, but it is also a time-sensitive monthly commitment. The main duty is producing a high-quality monthly column about rare bird sightings across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. A successful applicant must have excellent writing skills, the ability to solicit information and photos from various sources, and unsurpassed punctuality. “Sightings” is a current events column, so timeliness cannot be stressed enough; copy is submitted, in alternating months, to Birding editor, Ted Floyd, and Winging It editor, Michael Retter, immediately before it goes to press, making it impossible to accommodate late submissions. Past editors have employed substitute compliers when they have upcoming vacations or other conflicts that would make submitting on time difficult. If finding a substitute is impossible, though, the editor is expected to submit regardless, which may involve long evenings. Information for the column is submitted by a growing network of regional informants (whose names and contact information will be provided), but the editor must continually work to keep informants current and must seek out information in uncovered areas. The position pays $150/submission.
    Please notify Ted Floyd by e-mail (tfloyd@aba.org) if you are interested in this position. Please indicate SIGHTINGS DEPARTMENT EDITOR (yes, all caps) in the subject line of your e-mail inquiry. The ABA is enthusiastically and aggressively non-discriminatory. We welcome inquiries and/or statements of interest from all birders.

Second, some commentary from me:

In recent years, “Sightings” has emerged as one of the top-flight, must-read items in Birding and Winging It. In a nutshell, “Sightings” is the one and only place to get a succinct yet thorough overview of all notable rarities from the U.S. (including Alaska and Hawaii), Canada, and Mexico. It’s a compendium of rarities, yes, but it’s also written as a fun, friendly narrative. A comment I hear a lot goes like this: “I always read it from start to finish, without stopping.” And I hear variants on this comment: “I just love the photos.”

There are various reasons for the recent good fortunes of “Sightings,” and one of them probably stands out above all the others: Michael Retter. I’ll be honest with you: If you’re the person who takes over the “Sightings” column, you’ll have a tough act to follow. Michael’s a fine writer; he’s reliable and responsible; he has solid knowledge of the status and distribution of the birds of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S.; and he’s a great “people person.”

Don’t blow off the “people person” aspect of this job. Each and every month, Michael has had to correspond with dozens of “informants”—folks who supply photos, folks who check facts for him, and of course the folks who supply the sightings themselves.

Which brings me to a perhaps obvious question: Why the heck would anybody want to do this? I know that’s a risky question, as it implies that the job isn’t worth it. Well, if all you’re looking for is an easy $150 per month, the job isn’t worth it! Go donate plasma or be a lawyer or something. But if you really want to make a difference in the North American birding community, then being the “Sightings” Department Editor is a great way to do it. I honestly believe there are thousands of birders for whom Michael Retter is something of a hero. They may not know him personally (although being “Sightings” Department Editor does win you many personal friends!), but they are truly grateful for the resource he has provided, month after month after month.

There’s something else. I think you’ll have a great deal of fun doing this job. Oh, sure, there will be the tedious moments—as when you have to ask a contributor for the umpteenth time which county her Scott’s Oriole photo was from. But in your capacity as “Sightings” Department Editor, you’ll learn a great deal about North American rarities. You’ll learn from so many great birders all across the continent, and you’ll make many new friends in the process. If you love birding, and like (most) people, I can’t imagine a more satisfying job than being “Sightings” Department Editor.

Return of the Sparrow

One of the most famous passages ever penned by Aldo Leopold goes like this:

One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of a March thaw, is the spring.

He goes on:

A cardinal, whistling spring to a thaw but later finding himself mistaken can retrieve his error by resuming his winter silence. A chipmunk, emerging for a sunbath but finding a blizzard, has only to go back to bed. But a migrating goose, staking two hundred miles of black night on the chance of finding a hole in the lake, has no easy chance for retreat. His arrival carries the conviction of a prophet who has burned his bridges.

Fast forward to the 21st century. All over North America—increasingly, these days, all across the northern hemisphere—geese “migrate” from golf courses to corporate headquarter lawns.

But I get the point. I see what Leopold is getting at, even if the movements of geese today signify something very different. Leopold’s point is this: We birders—we naturalists—mark the passing of the seasons by certain avian auguries.

In my home state of Colorado, the Rufous Hummingbirds started showing up a couple of weeks ago. These feisty hummers do not breed in Colorado. Neither do they migrate through in the spring. They’re fall migrants, plain and simple. Even though their “fall” migration begins just a few days after the summer solstice, they are unambiguous harbingers of autumn. They are—in their own way—every bit as exemplary as Leopold’s skein of geese. (Right: Photo by © Bill Schmoker.)

Rufous Hummingbirds are not, however, the first to get back. Here in Colorado, fall-migrant Marbled Godwits arrive even earlier than the first Rufous Hummingbirds. In most years in Colorado, the first Marbled Godwits are noted pretty much right at the solstice. But there’s a hitch. Godwits, you see, are fairly common spring migrants through Colorado. They’re still passing through in late May. When the godwits “return” in late June, they’ve been gone for just a few weeks. It’s different with the Rufous Hummingbirds, reappearing for the first time in more than eight months. Marbled Godwits are subtler auguries, I think it’s fair to say, than Rufous Hummingbirds. (Left: Photo by © Bill Schmoker.)

And Bullock’s Orioles are subtler still. Here’s the deal. They haven’t gone anywhere at all. Unlike Marbled Godwits, which are gone for at least a few weeks, Bullock’s Orioles are present in Colorado all summer. But if you’re attentive to the avian annual cycle, you come to appreciate the Bullock’s Oriole for being a sure sign of autumn. Around the middle of June, adult male Bullock’s Orioles start to move off the breeding grounds in Colorado; these birds are “molt migrants,” beginning their annual “molt migration” to molting grounds in the Desert Southwest. Toward the end of the second week of June, you start to see them in the “wrong” places—on yucca flowers out on the plains, instead of in leafy treetops along streams and rivers. As an emblem for the new season, the Bullock’s Oriole is, I accept, a bit like Leopold’s cardinal or chipmunk. (Above: Photo by © Bill Schmoker.)

Which brings me to an even subtler—far subtler, I would say—first sign of fall. I noted it at 6:42 a.m. yesterday morning, Sunday, July 17th. I was birding, barely birding, along a busy road in surprisingly bustling Louisville, Colorado. Then I heard it: high-pitched, a tenth of a second, and then it was over. It was the flight call of a Chipping Sparrow. Chipping Sparrows do not breed in Louisville. They breed within ten miles of Louisville, in the steep foothills of the Front Range, just to the west. But not right in Louisville. A few will stop over in Louisville, but most will proceed eastward quite a ways—to eastern Colorado and western Kansas, where they complete their annual molts. Like Bullock’s Orioles, Colorado’s Chipping Sparrows are molt-migrants—a fact that was discovered just a few years ago.

(Right-click here to listen to the flight call of the Chipping Sparrow. Audio recording by © Michael O’Brien.)

A Bullock’s Oriole, jet black and blaze orange on a yucca, is hard to miss. Same thing with Leopold’s cardinal. But the flight call of an unseen Chipping Sparrow—now that’s obscure. Even if you know the brief, high-pitched call, it’s easily missed, lost amid all the other sounds of a summer morning. It’s over in the blink of an eye...and that's an odd way of putting it, as there’s nothing to see.

The flight call of the Chipping Sparrow is arcane knowledge. But isn’t that a large part of the allure of birding? It’s marvelous, it’s wonderful—isn’t it?—to begin to realize that there’s much more out there than we ever knew. It’s what sustains us, after all these years, as birders. But it’s also what got us started in the first place.

“The Club,” Take 2

Long, long ago, Pete Dunne wrote in American Birds about bird club meetings. His core message, as I recall, was that all bird club meetings are basically the same. He meant it in the best possible way: Bird club meetings are all the same in all the best ways. Call it the Anna Karenina Theorem of Bird Club Meetings: All happy bird clubs are the same.

In his essay, Dunne described the proceedings of a meeting of a certain unnamed bird club. His description freaked me out. Everything he wrote about “the club” matched perfectly my own experiences with my bird club—at the time, the State College Bird Club, based in central Pennsylvania. Dunne had never attended a meeting of the State College Bird Club, I’m sure; but he might as well have. It was all the same: his club, my club, and every other bird club. We all do it the same way, from the chitchat before the meeting, to the various committee reports, right through to adjournment and beyond.

I’ve come to realize that the Anna Karenina Theorem applies not only to monthly bird club meetings but also to annual state ornithological society (SOC) conventions. Of late, I’ve been averaging about three per year: always my SOC convention in Colorado, plus a couple elsewhere. They’re all the same. They’re all blessedly identical.

A few weeks ago, I attended the Ohio Ornithological Society’s convention, based out of Shawnee State Park, in the extreme southern part of the state. I’d never been there; I’d never done much birding in Ohio at all. I’d heard of almost none of the convention attendees; I’d previously met even fewer of them.

And yet the whole event had the feeling of a homecoming. Everything was so familiar.

First, there was the long ride from the airport. SOC conventions are always far from the state’s major population centers, it seems. My companion and I birded our way there, of course. Our only non-birding stop was for junk food at a filling station, of course. And we finally rolled into town two hours late, of course.

The event itself was typical of practically every other SOC convention I’ve attended: “bird talk” around the registration table; shirts, mugs, and other objects sporting the SOC’s logo; a huge poster with a checklist of birds observed during the convention; afternoon workshops on building birding skills; scientific presentations by energetic twentysomethings; booths staffed by brochure-laden representatives of bird and nature organizations; a couple of evening programs; a sit-down banquet; and of course field trips.

A comment, if I may, about the field trip I attended on the morning of the first full day of the convention. As is the case with most other SOC convention field trips, folks got around by carpooling. The occupants of my car were: me, a guy I’d been birding with for a quarter century, and two perfect strangers. And here’s the most felicitous thing of all: It’s as if all four of us had known each other for the entirety of our combined lifetimes. That’s how it is, in a rather general way, with birding. That’s how it is, especially, with SOC conventions, which are, I find, a microcosm for all that is wonderful about birding.

Those two perfect strangers were, I soon enough found out, pretty new to birding. I didn’t ask, but I suspect that their values, lifestyles, and life stories were substantially different from my own. Yet we bonded instantly. There was, I have to say, a certain intimacy about our newfound friendship. It was as if we’d known each other for a quarter century or longer. We might as well have been family members.

So it is at practically every SOC convention I’ve attended.

I’m off to the Iowa Ornithologists' Union convention next month. On the one hand, I have no idea what to expect. The convention will be in the northeastern part of the Hawkeye State; I have zero experience in that part of Iowa. I’ve never met the convention organizers; chances are, I’ll have had prior contact with no more than three or four folks in attendance.

On the other hand, I’m confident that the whole experience will be delectably familiar and familial. Some dude will pick me up at the airport in Des Moines, and we’ll be on our way. Instantly, we’ll forge a lasting friendship. And everything else will fall into place.

SOC conventions bring out the best in us. And I haven’t even touched on all the other things SOCs do. Most SOCs put out superb quarterly journals; most are significantly involved in bird monitoring and conservation efforts; and most provide scholarships or other resources and opportunities to young birders.

Are you a member of your SOC? Go on! Just do it! Join today! If you can’t get info on your SOC (hint: Google), send me an e-mail. I’ll be delighted to get you in touch with the membership person with your SOC.

Are you already a member of your SOC? Good for you. And if that’s the case, could I ask you a small favor? Could you tell us about your SOC? Tell us about all the wonderful things your SOC does. Use the “comments” field below. Don’t be bashful. Tell us how to join, tell us the dates of your next annual convention, tell us anything else you’d like for us to know.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

 

The Great Voice

Sunday, June 5th. With Paul Rodewald, a birding companion from my college days, I’m listening for birds along a country road in Adams County, down in far southern Ohio. It’s not yet dawn. A Chuck-will’s-widow is singing its head off. We hear another in the distance. A Purple Martin calls as it flies over in the darkness.
    “Let’s try for Eastern Screech-Owl.”
    I whistle an imitation of the bird’s whinny. Right away, a bird answers. Then another. And another.
    It’s a lovely night. It’s muggy, of course, with partial overcast. I can see just a few stars though the haze and cloud cover. But—oh, man!—the fireflies! There must be thousands of them. Thousands!

Sunday, June 12th. Now I’m with Marcel Such and Joel Such, perhaps the best teen birders in Colorado. We’re up in the Flatirons, a dramatic formation at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Sunrise is still two hours away. Common Poorwills are singing their serene songs. A Violet-green Swallow is twittering in the starlit sky above the ponderosa pines.
    “Let’s try for Northern Saw-whet Owl.”
    I whistle an imitation of the bird’s tooting. After a minute or so, a bird answers. It’s soft at first, then louder, then totally berserk. It gets another saw-whet going. Now they’re both spazzing out.
    What a marvelous night. It’s clear as a bell, with the Milky Way arching gloriously straight across the night sky.

The lowlands of the Ohio River valley...the steep foothills of the Rocky Mountains...You would be excused for thinking they have nothing in common. True, they are different in a great many ways. I hope I’ve succeed in getting that point across.
    But there is one thing they share in common. It’s a bird. It’s a bird that, in recent years, I have come to regard as the great voice of the nighttime hours in early summer. It’s a bird that sings louder than a Chuck-will’s-widow, more spastic than a Northern Saw-whet Owl. If it wants to, it can sing a song as evocative as that of an Eastern Screech-Owl or a Common Poorwill. It can sound like practically anything it wants to; I’ve heard it give notes that might be mistaken for the calls of martins and swallows.
    It can be heard over a large swath of the United States. It sings in the humid lowlands along the Ohio River, as I’ve said, and it occurs in great plentitude along the slopes of the Rocky Mountains; and it flourishes in many other habitats in North America.
    It sings throughout the daytime hours, but it’s really in its element at night. I’m not talking about a warm-up act for the “dawn chorus.” I’m talking about singing in the middle of the night—midnight, two in the morning, whenever.

Click here to listen to the great voice of summer nights.
Sound recording by © Lang Elliott–Smithsonian Field Guide to the Birds of North America.

Indeed, it’s the Yellow-breasted Chat. Catch him while you can. Across the mid-latitudes of North America, the show is pretty much over by the second week of July. It’s worth dragging yourself out of bed for his great performance. Moonlit nights are the best of all. And we had a full moon the other night. This coming weekend—June 18th and 19th—should be outstanding, with a bright moon rising an hour or so after sundown and staying high in the sky all night long.

I know where I’ll be at 2:00 a.m. tomorrow.

Pieplow Made Me Do It

A few evenings ago my kids and I were exploring Walden Ponds, a bucolic birding spot in Boulder County, Colorado. We were in the buggy back end of this sprawling complex of marshes and woodlots, listening to the sounds of early summer in the foothills of the Rockies: twittering Violet-green Swallows and chattering Bullock’s Orioles; harsh Western Wood-Pewees and a querulous Black-billed Magpie; and a dispirited Warbling Vireo.

The Warbling Vireo sounded like a bird of the expected western, or swainsoni, subspecies-group. These western birds—represented by multiple subspecies—are thought by some ornithologists to be so different from eastern birds as to deserve separate-species status. The names proposed for these two “species” are, unsurprisingly, Western Warbling-Vireo and Eastern Warbling-Vireo.

There are certainly many good records in Colorado of Western Warbling-Vireo; it’s our default warbling-vireo. And in recent years, it has become clear that Eastern Warbling-Vireos make it at least into the eastern tier of counties along the Kansas border. Check out the xeno-canto website, and you’ll find several recordings from eastern Colorado of Eastern Warbling-Vireo. But how far west do Eastern Warbling-Vireos get? Do they come into contact with Western Warbling-Vireos? Such information could help resolve the matter of species limits within the warbling-vireo complex.

We walked down the trail a bit farther, and heard another warbling-vireo. This one was different. My initial impressions of the song were, well, impressionistic: Its song was “brighter” and “sweeter.” If the bird we’d heard earlier was “dispirited,” then the bird we were listening to right now was “declamatory.” Hm. “Bright,” “sweet,” and “declamatory.” You might as well describe a bird’s plumage features as “nice,” “handsome,” and “interesting.”

With a little bit of effort, we were able to get good views of the bird. I was struck by the extensive yellow on the bird’s flanks, and I was especially impressed by the bird’s overall heft and honking big bill. Those marks are consistent with Eastern Warbling-Vireo, although I hasten to point out that field identification of the warbling-vireos—especially of relatively drab birds in late spring—is a problematic matter.

The bird burst into song again. And again. It was appreciably different from the nearby presumptive Western Warbling-Vireo, audible from where we were standing. Did we have enough to “pull the trigger” and claim a sight record of Eastern Warbling-Vireo from Boulder County?

My first instinct: Call Bill Schmoker! Or drag Bryan Patrick up from Colorado Springs. Those guys are seemingly inseparable from their long lenses, and they do a wonderful job of photo-documenting practically every rarity they encounter in the field.

Then I had another idea. Why not come back and make a recording of the bird? The key differences—other than DNA—between Eastern and Western warbling-vireos are vocal, not visual. Well, I could think of one good reason not to do that: I’m a total klutz with gadgets, and my largely unused recording gear is decidedly low-budget. But then I remembered something Nathan Pieplow had posted (by way of Nate Swick) a few days earlier to The ABA Blog:

If you can, make an audio recording. Use your cell phone. Use your camera on the video setting. Use a cheap voice recorder. Use your laptop. Use any device that can possibly record sound.

So I came back, laptop and cheap voice recorder in hand. The birds were still there. First, here are three songs, recorded at five-minute intervals, from the bird I’m calling an Eastern Warbling-Vireo.

Bird #1, First Song (right click to download and listen)
Bird #1, Second Song (right click to download and listen)
Bird #1, Third Song (right click to download and listen)

Now let’s take a look at sound spectrograms of the three. For whatever reason, I can’t upload them to The ABA Blog, but here are quick links to sound spectrograms of the first song, the second song, and the third song. On all three, note the sharp, high-pitched note at the end. That’s classic for Eastern Warbling-Vireo, the song of which I’ve seen rendered thus: I can see you, I will seize you, I will squeeze you, till you SQUIRT. (Sorry, Nathan. I’ve just violated your Rule #4.)

Now let’s consider the sound spectrograms of a different warbling-vireo out there. I’m not so sure it’s one of the presumed Western Warbling-Vireos my kids found two evenings before. Regardless, take a look at this sound spectrogram. The terminal SQUIRT (again, apologies to Nathan) is missing. Here’s another song from the same bird, again with no terminal SQUIRT. And it’s the same in this third song from the bird.

Something else. In all three songs from this second bird, the song appears to be “flatter” overall—less clearly rising and falling—than the songs from the first bird. That’s a good point of distinction between Western and Eastern warbling-vireos, with the latter often described as more “singsong” than the former. But let’s be careful on this apparent difference; the horizontal axis is scaled a bit differently for the two birds, in such a way as to “flatten out” the song of the second bird. Just as birders need to watch out for photographic artifacts, so they need to be wary in the matter of interpreting sound spectrograms.

Here are the sound recordings, by the way:

Bird #2, First Song (right click to download and listen)
Bird #2, Second Song (right click to download and listen)
Bird #2, Third Song (right click to download and listen)

Okay, so what birds were out there? I’m open to suggestions, but I think the first bird is an Eastern Warbling-Vireo: Its rising and falling song consists of relatively pure-tone phrases, and that sharp, high-pitched note at the end is hard to explain away. The second bird is a bit of a mystery to me: It lacks the signature SQUIRT at the end, and its song is perhaps looser and flatter overall—but not by much.

It would have been “elegant,” as mathematicians and physicists say, for there to have been one of each out there: an unambiguous Eastern Warbling-Vireo singing alongside a slam-dunk Western Warbling-Vireo. And that’s what I might have reported, if it weren’t for the actual physical evidence. “Elegant,” yes, but also ignorant, and, when you think about it, ultimately dissatisfying. The most wondrous thing about birding, if you ask me, is the constant ability of birds to surprise us, to throw us for a loop, to mess up all our simplistic assumptions.

We start off by putting a name on a bird. Then we get serious. Our brains kick into high gear, and we start to question our assumptions. Our eyes and ears get in on the act. We pick up on nuances and subtleties we hadn’t been aware of. We deconstruct the bird. The process is exhilarating. The fun has begun.

* * * * *

POSTSCRIPT. In a comment below, Alvaro Jaramillo asks about the “scolds” of these birds. As it turns out, I obtained a recording of the scolds of bird #2. Here it is: Bird #2, Scolds. As with the links to the soundfiles in the main text of this post, you’ll need to right-click on the link to download the .wav file.

The Wisdom of Kammermeier

 

Whew!

It’s over!

The month of May is finally and fully in the rear view mirror. In a great post to The ABA Blog, Laura Kammermeier set the tone for this most glorious month of the birding year. The thirty-one days of May are the high holy days of birding. If you’re a birder, there’s a Mardi Gras atmosphere about the month of May.

What follows is an artless but heartfelt enumeration of 25 fond memories from the past month. Twenty-five different bird species, 25 different places in my home state of Colorado. That’s it. There’s no theme here at all, except for that most glorious theme of all—the splendid diversity of birds, birders, and birding experiences to be enjoyed during the grandest month of the year.

Here goes:

25. Sale Lake, Boulder County, May 8th. With my kids Hannah and Andrew, I detour for a quick check of this diminutive migrant trap near the base of the foothills of the Rockies. On getting out of the car, the very first bird we hear is a loudly singing Tennessee Warbler.

24. Dillon Reservoir, Summit County, May 22nd. Don’t be fooled by the date. It’s still winter in Colorado’s high country. A snow squall has just ended, and Hannah and I are scoping the icy waters of this immense reservoir. In one of the patches of open water, we see four handsome Red-necked Phalaropes.

23. Black Hollow Reservoir, Weld County, May 6th. On a lark, Andrew and I stop in here after a long morning of birding. I’ve never been to Black Hollow, and I wonder what, if anything, the site will produce. Eight Whimbrels, the first I’ve seen in Colorado.

22. Wolford Mountain Reservoir, Grand County, May 13th. As far as I can tell, there’s only one (1) duck anywhere on this enormous mountain reservoir. But it’s a doozie: a striking adult White-winged Scoter, just off the US-40 causeway.

21. Apple Valley Road, Boulder County, May 27th. There are two reasons to walk along this country road: the promise of lovely scenery and the near-guarantee of a good bird or two. A fine offering for me and Marcel Such, an outstanding teen birder, is an adult male Baltimore Oriole, working the ponderosa pines.

20. Fox Ranch, Yuma County, May 29th. It’s misty and foggy, with winds out of the east-northeast. There’s gotta be something good here! Indeed, there’s a close-up and cooperative Gray-cheeked Thrush, right at eye level in a low willow along the Arickaree River.

19. Sondermann Park, El Paso County, May 17th. ABA staffers Liz and Jeff Gordon and Bryan Patrick and I squeeze in a quick visit to this migrant trap just off I-25 near downtown Colorado Springs. Lotsa birds this cloudy morning, including a radiant adult male Indigo Bunting.

18. Cope Memorial Park, Washington County, May 29th. Playground stop! Call it a negotiated settlement: The kids let me go birding, I take them to playgrounds. It’s not a bad deal, as many playgrounds are quite decent for birding. This one produces a singing Bell’s Vireo, rarely detected on migration in Colorado.

17. Higbee Cemetery, Otero County, May 1st. Tiny, unprepossessing, and quite some distance from the main highway, this site is nevertheless productive, consistently so. Bryan Patrick and I pop in for a quick check, and we get a fly-by White-winged Dove.

16. Greenlee Preserve, Boulder County, May 7th. Hannah and I are at my local patch, and it’s a wonderfully birdy morning. In particular, sparrows abound. A highlight is a rufescent Swamp Sparrow, even singing now and then.

15. Last Chance, Washington County, May 29th. This buggy, swampy, muck-filled pit is out in the middle of nowhere, and it’s the closest thing Colorado has to the Louisiana bayou. One goes here actually expecting, not just praying, for rarities. On this windy afternoon, the kids and my wife Kei and I are delighted by a second-year female Magnolia Warbler.

14. Lake Henry, Crowley County, May 1st. Bryan Patrick and I are winding down a long weekend of birding in southeastern Colorado. It’s getting windy and overcast—yet again!—and this big lake is full of birds, among them a decidedly uncommon Common Tern.

13. Gapter Road, Boulder County, May 30th. The kids and I are driving a tree-lined street in residential Boulder. “Open the windows,” instructs Hannah, “we might get something good.” She’s right on the money. I open the windows, and immediately we hear a loud American Redstart.

12. Jimmy Dunn Gulch, Routt County, May 15th. It’s first light, way up in the rolling sagebrush country near the Wyoming border. All around me, I hear stamping and whooshing and whirring: Sharp-tailed Grouse, at least 11 males at a lek.

11. Walden Ponds, Boulder County, May 25th. The kids and I are exploring the back end of this sprawling complex of ponds and marshes. It’s warm and muggy and...buggy—perfect for an uncommon Gray Flycatcher, working the lower branches of the Russian olives.

10. Crow Valley Campground, Weld County, May 6th. You never know what you’ll find in this legendary migrant trap. Andrew and I bump into Bob Righter, who tells us to peek into a certain juniper—which just happens to harbor a roosting Long-eared Owl.

9. Boulder Reservoir, Boulder County, May 12th. Lousy weather tends to bring great birds to this large expanse of open water near the foothills. That’s the lesson Steve Mlodinow reaffirm on this rainy morning: One of our very first birds is a male Mexican Duck on the muddy north shore of the lake.

8. Connected Lakes State Park, Mesa County, May 22nd. They’re surprisingly hard to find across much of western Colorado. But not here in the suburbs of Grand Junction. Hannah and I arrive at first light, issue a few feeble imitations, and instantly call in several Western Screech-Owls.

7. Yampa River Preserve, Routt County, May 14th. With participants on a bird walk for International Migratory Bird Day, I’m enjoying a pleasant afternoon in one of Colorado’s best-kept birding secrets: the dense broadleaf forests along the Yampa River. One of our highlights is a wildly declaiming Slate-colored Fox Sparrow.

6. Andrix, Las Animas County, May 1st. Sunrise on the shortgrass prairie near the New Mexico border. There’s not much sun, actually, but there’s ample fresh snowfall. A striking sight for Bryan Patrick and me is a Long-billed Curlew, standing sentry on an embankment—or is it a snowdrift?—along the highway.

5. Georgetown, Clear Creek County, May 13th. Ah. The Rufous-collared Sparrow. It isn’t easy to see! I hear the bird singing for close to a half hour before I finally lay eyes on it. In another post to The ABA Blog, I provide additional commentary on this intriguing bird.

4. Pawnee National Grassland, Weld County, May 6th. Run...stop...run. It’s gotta be our bird. And the microhabitat—grass, cactus, and sand—is perfect for this icon of one of Colorado’s most fabled birding destinations. Andrew and I get the scope out, and confirm that we’re looking at a most excellent Mountain Plover.

3. Colorado National Monument, Mesa County, May 21st. This place is truly western. None of those eastern influences that infiltrate so much of the rest of Colorado. Just junipers and piñon pines amid soaring sandstone outcroppings. And Gray Vireos, lots of them, singing sweetly for Hannah and me, even in the middle of the afternoon.

2. Carpenter Ranch, Routt County, May 15th. They’re not all that hard to find on spring migration in eastern Colorado, but migrant Northern Waterthrushes are considerably rarer on the West Slope. Hang on a sec! These aren’t necessarily migrants on passage. These two males are singing, and they’re behaving aggressively toward each other. The habitat is perfect for nesting. Could it be a rare breeding record for Colorado?

1. Lafayette, Boulder County, May 16th. It’s 3:05 in the morning, and I step outside the house for a breath of fresh air. Off in the distance, I hear a melancholy pweev, the flight call of a Swainson’s Thrush on nocturnal migration. Then another. And another. A good night flight is under way. Such events are quite uncommon in the Front Range metro region in spring. A Veery calls out! That’s a rare bird for us on migration in Boulder County. Sparrows and warblers are calling at a clip of three or four per minute. I recognize the piercing flight calls of Chipping Sparrows. With several years of practice now, I think I’ve finally figured out the short-duration, high-pitched flight call of the Brewer’s Sparrow; sounds like lots of them up there. One flight call is especially fine and buzzy: Lincoln’s Sparrow, I’m pretty sure. Another is abrupt and scratchy: Wilson’s Warbler, I believe. Then there are the flight calls like tiny sparks: Are they all Yellow Warblers, or could some Blackpoll Warblers be mixed in with them? And other flight calls—undifferentiated chips and buzzes—are hopelessly indeterminate. I’m not even sure if they’re warblers or sparrows.
    I stay out there for close to an hour. It’s overcast, with a low cloud ceiling, and a light wind out of the southeast. Perfect for a strong nocturnal overflight. What’s going on right now is, to me, the perfect essence of the experience of birding. I can’t see any of what’s going on, of course, but the experience is powerful, even overwhelming. This is migration in progress, happening right here, right now, right over my head. This is it!

Thanks, Laura, for a great month. Oh, sure, I would have gone birding last month, with or without your post. But your post gave me an extra nudge. I think you gave all of us that extra nudge. Yeah, I missed a few bills, and the yard really needs work. But it was worth it. It was well worth it.

 

A Worthy Bird

 

Back on May 8th of this year, Tim Davis and Andrew Davis found a remarkable bird in the mountain hamlet of Georgetown, Clear Creek County, Colorado: a Rufous-collared Sparrow, Zonotrichia capensis. At this writing, the bird is still in Georgetown, still singing sweetly, still delighting birders from all over Colorado and beyond.

 

Rufous-collared Sparrow (Zonotrichia capensis). Georgetown, Clear Creek County, Colorado; 20 May 2011. Photo by © Bill Schmoker.

 

This appearance of this bird compels me to offer to offer two observations about birdwatching—and more generally about the broader endeavor of nature study. My first observation is simply an affirmation of an old truth about all of us who are fascinated by birds and other objects and phenomena in the natural world. My second observation, though, may have some bearing on what I believe is an emerging, wonderful, new approach to birdwatching in North America.

Observation #1. We human beings—myself included!—have a tendency to make snap judgments about the things we see and otherwise sense in the universe around us. The Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow was initially assumed to be an escape from captivity. Rufous-collared Sparrows are sedentary in the wild, we were told, and they are popular as cage birds. And folks with extensive experience in Latin America informed us that Rufous-collared Sparrows exhibit no annual pattern with regard to singing; thus, it was pointless to speculate about seasonality and song development vis-à-vis the Georgetown bird.

The initial consensus, I think it’s fair to say, was that the Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow had escaped from captivity, presumably from somewhere near Georgetown.

But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Other folks soon joined in on the conversation and presented alternative viewpoints. Some Rufous-collared Sparrow populations are highly migratory, they pointed out, dispersing thousands of kilometers on their annual migrations. Most or all populations—even those at or near the equator—exhibit at least some degree of seasonality with regard to song delivery. Turns out, too, that the species is rarely kept in captivity over much of its range. And here’s a special twist: Not too long ago, a special chartered plane arrived in Denver. Its cargo was lions rescued from a zoo in Bolivia. Could a Rufous-collared Sparrow have been a stowaway on the flight?

The Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow shows no sign of having been in captivity. For starters, it’s done a fine job of surviving in the wild for more than half a month. It wears no bands, and its feathers look “normal” for a wild bird. Rufous-collared Sparrows’ songs change throughout the breeding season, and the Georgetown bird’s song sounds about right for this time of the year. As one expert on South American birds told me, “My gut tells me that this is a wild bird.”

 

 

This video of the Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow was made by © Connie Kogler. It’s interesting that this bird is singing in response to a nearby White-crowned Sparrow, which is in the same genus. At the time this video was made, the Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow lacked a terminal trill, which is not atypical for birds at the beginning of the breeding season.

 

Now hang on a second. Nobody’s saying it unquestionably is a wild bird. Certainly, I’m not saying that. My first instinct, like that of many other birders in Colorado and elsewhere, was that the bird is an escape from captivity. What can I say?—I’m one of those human beings with a tendency to make snap judgments. But as I listen to arguments in favor of the possibility of natural vagrancy to Colorado, I find myself a bit more receptive to that scenario. Also, I’ve now seen the bird for myself, and—as horribly subjective as this is going to sound—there’s something about the bird that comes across as “wild” or “natural” or otherwise “legitimate.” One of our great birders in Colorado has said that he’s “agnostic” about the status of the Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow, and that’s a great word to describe my present feelings. I just don’t know. 

Which brings me to my other observation.

Observation #2. Birdwatchers are increasingly sensitive and holistic in their outlook on nature.

Whoa! I need to back up a few paces there! Let’s take this one step at a time.

I think it’s pretty likely the Colorado Bird Records Committee will “reject” the Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow. I don’t have a problem with that. I acknowledge—even if I don’t fully accept—that records committees tend to be “conservative” in such matters of provenance. If a rare bird is of uncertain origin, then it gets rejected. That’s fine.

That’s fine, yes; and, back in the day, that would have been the end of the matter. Back in the day, most birders would have declined to trifle with such a bird as the Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow. The bird is destined to be rejected, the reasoning would have gone, so why bother? Why bother to make the trek up to Georgetown, just to see a bird you can’t even put on your life list?

Fast forward to 2011.

I’m gratified that a great many birders from Colorado—even from out of state—have gone to look for the Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow. The bird is remarkable. If it got here on its own from somewhere in Latin America, that’s pretty darned impressive. And if we’re dealing with an escape from captivity, it’s likewise impressive that the bird has adapted so well to the rigors of outdoor living. Any way you slice it, the Georgetown Rufous-collared Sparrow is a “good” bird, a worthy bird.

A worthy bird.

Isn’t that a funny notion?—avian “worth.” Yet it’s undeniable. A Painted Bunting in Louisiana has some small amount of worth. But a Painted Bunting at a vagrant trap in southern California is worth considerably more. Unless it’s a known or suspected escape from captivity—in which case it’s worthless.

Or so it used to be. I do sense that we birders are getting away from that old mindset. These days, we marvel at the sight of a California Condor along the rugged central California Coast—even though the birds are, in the official currency of life list countability, worthless. These days, we sign up for guided tours focusing on the exotics—including the uncountable species—of South Florida. And this emerging new outlook extends well beyond those notorious uncountable exotics. These days, we are increasingly committed to in-depth study of the common birds in our local patches; we are more attuned to regional population-level phenomena than ever; and, of course, we’re all plugged into eBird by now, aren’t we?

The result of it all?—greater satisfaction when we are out birding; deeper understanding of bird biology; and, for sure, an expanded conception of the worth, of the worthiness, of all objects and phenomena in the natural world.