ABA Blog

The ABA Will Be At Point Reyes Birding & Nature Festival—Will You?

 

 

Pt. Reyes Festival group by Jane Hart

 

The Point Reyes Birding & Nature Festival is a wonderful new addition to the roster of spring birding festivals. This will be the Festival’s third year and it is well worth attending, as ABA Board Member Robin Leong can attest. He'll be representing us there this year, as he did last year.

What makes this Festival special? It’s the unbeatable combination of spring at the Point Reyes National Seashore and surrounding region plus the outstanding birders who give their time and expertise to guide the field outings and present workshops and lectures. 

 

Chocolate lily by John Longstreth

 

If you’re not familiar with Point Reyes, you won’t regret taking the opportunity to explore and bird this outstanding place. The region is endowed with unique geography and extensive wildlands and ranches. Its pristine coastline, beaches, dunes, mudflats, bays, estuaries, freshwater wetlands, forests, grasslands, coastal bluffs and chaparral together support one of the highest levels of bird diversity in the country.

In the same weekend, you can see migrating shorebirds, lingering wintering waterfowl, resident and migrant landbirds, raptors, alcids, albatrosses and other seabirds. Add to that the stunning wildflower displays and migrating whales, and you’ve got an unmatched birding and nature experience! Point Reyes also happens to be home base for some of the nation’s top birders and naturalists, offering an ideal setting for a spring festival for bird and nature enthusiasts of all levels. 

 

Red-shouldered Hawk by John Longstreth

 

Horned Grebe by John Longstreth

 

This year’s Festival lineup  includes over 70 field trips and indoor presentations guided by such top birders as Rich Stallcup, Lisa Hug, David Wimpfheimer, Alvaro Jaramillo, Peter Pyle, Joe Morlan, Sarah Allen,  Keith Hansen, Allen Fish and John Muir Laws, who will give the keynote address. The Festival also has events for beginners and kids. 

 

Weasel by John Longstreth

 

The locals enjoy this festival because it offers a chance to bird with so many outstanding leaders as well as to celebrate the exuberant convergence of returning migrants, breeding season, migrating shorebirds, courting raptors, wildflowers and marine mammals. But those coming from out of state can expect to see  west coast specialties such as black oystercatcher, pigeon guillemot, surfbird, wandering tattler, Brandt’s and pelagic cormorant, snowy plover, red-necked and red phalarope, lazuli bunting, white-throated swift, hermit and black-throated grey warblers, rufous-crowned and grasshopper sparrows, rock wren, bushtit and wrentit.

 

West Marin hike by Jane Hart

 

One outing that will venture into Sonoma County can be expected to yield American dipper, sooty grouse, and mountain quail. Monday’s pelagic trip to Cordell Bank, a nearby seamount, is likely to encounter black-footed albatross, Sabine’s gull, thousands of migrating pacific loons, tufted puffin, Cassin’s and rhinoceros auklet as well as humpback and gray whales, some accompanied by young calves. 

 

Black-footed Albatross by John Longstreth

 

Point Reyes Station, where the Festival is based, is located in the heart of West Marin, a charming and scenic area loaded with attractive lodgings and good restaurants, all within about 60 minutes of San Francisco and near the wine-growing regions of Napa and Sonoma counties. 

Not only is this Festival a fantastic birding opportunity, the funds generated support a great cause: the habitat conservation work of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin (EAC).  You can read about some of EAC’s conservation work at www.eacmarin.org and http://www.savepointreyeswilderness.org

Visit http://www.pointreyesbirdingfestival.org to see the full listings and register. The field outings fill fast, so don’t delay! Inquiries can be sent to prbnfestival@gmail.com. 

And be sure and stop by the ABA table and say hello to Robin while you're there!

Join the ABA at The Biggest Week 2012!

Having been a resident of the Front Range for just a little more than a year, people frequently ask me if I miss, "back home," in my case, Delaware. And while Liz and I are thrilled to be living in Colorado, there are some things we do miss. My (partial) list includes family and old friends, of course, but also the smell of the salt marsh, choruses of frogs, crab cakes, Tastykakes, lady-slippers, sweet gum, and luna moths.

And warblers. God, do I miss warblers.

It's true, the West does have warblers. But kind of in the same way the East has mountains. Some lovely ones, for sure, but there's little question which way to head if you have the choice.

And if you want to see a lot of warblers close, there's no place or time that beats Northwest Ohio in early May.

So I'm thrilled to say that I just bought plane tickets for Liz and me that will whisk us to the Motor City on the second day of May. From there, we'll head south and east into the Buckeye State to join up with the grandest celebration of warblers and other spring migrant birds that there is: The Biggest Week in American Birding.

 

I didn't make it to the Biggest Week (or BWAB for short) last year, but I was there for its premier in 2010. It's an extraordinary event in many ways. 

The birds are extraordinarily beautiful and interesting:

Cerulean Warbler by Kenn Kaufman

You get to see these birds extraordinarily close up:

 

BBWA @ BWAB 2010 by Jeffrey A. Gordon

And you get to experience being part of an extraordinary gathering of people who are all focussed on enjoying and sharing these wonderful views of these amazing birds:

Birders on Boardwalk @ BWAB 2010 I by Jeffrey A. Gordon

 Birders on Boardwalk @ BWAB 2010 II by Jeffrey A. Gordon

In short, it's a really good time. Liz and I can't wait. You should come, too.

If you'd like to see some more images of the birds found around the NW Ohio lakeshore during the Biggest Week, check out these galleries by Christopher Taylor  and Brian Zwiebel.

Also poke around the BWAB web site, especially the conservation page.

I'd like to take a moment and address a concern that many people have about The Biggest Week: crowds. Nearly every birder would look at the first two images above and say, "Wow, I'd love to be standing where that photographer was and see that same view." But the bottom two images may provoke a more mixed reaction. A lot of us just don't like crowds.

Two things: 1. It's not crowded everywhere. Like so many things, all you have to do is get a teeny bit off the most beaten path and you'll have plenty of space. And it's easy to find other spots. For the $25 registration fee, you get access to a full 10 days of guided morning and afternoon field trip opportunities at Magee Marsh and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge (and lots of discounts at local establishments if you show your Biggest Week name tag).  Look here for daily guided walks info. Some of these walks will show you lesser know sites, and all of them are led by folks who can give you pointers on where to go.

Here's point 2. The crowds are a big reason that you SHOULD go. Everyone ought to experience some of the energy and excitement of being part of that throng on the Magee Marsh boardwalk. There's something very empowering and hopeful about so many people packed in all looking at birds and having a ball. Would I want to bird under those conditions every day? Of course not. But wow, is it great to see a crowd trying to help each other get on and understand the identification of a Gray-cheeked Thrush. It's a stark constrast to some of the sorry consumer culture spectacles we've seen of people pepper-spraying or literally trampling each other to get Black Friday "bargains."

When you are in a birding crowd at BWAB, it's like being at a friendly concert. It's just a great feeling to be part of it. And it offers us a great opportunity to do a little service, too.

Many of the folks who show up at Magee aren't really keyed into birding yet. They may have come because they read an item in the local paper or saw something on the news. They may have no idea that something called The Biggest Week is even going on. Or that there's something called the American Birding Association.

So there's an unparalelled chance to help people get turned on to the greatest hobby there is. Think of it: warblers, tangers, orioles...just a few feet away. It's just the best for getting people to see the wonder and excitement of birds. 

And of course, you're likely to run into a lot of birders you know, or have been wanting to meet. I can't even begin to describe the range of activities and events that will be occurring. The web site does a great job of that. Or, if you need a more arcane question answered, call or e-mail the folks at Black Swamp Bird Observatory for help.

For all the reasons above and for many more, I'm proud and excited to have the ABA as a major sponsor of this year's Biggest Week. 

Liz and I will be at the Biggest Week from its kickoff on May 4th, 2012 until Wednesday, May 9th. The event runs until Sunday, May 13th. We'll be running around trying to soak up as much of the experience as we can. If you'd like to meet up while we're there, you can reach me through Facebook or Twitter or e-mail (jgordon AT aba.org). We'd love to see you and share a few birds.

Come on out to Ohio in May. It'll be a blast. And maybe, just maybe, we'll get enough of a warbler fix to last us a while.

Dutson: Birds of Melanesia

Few even are the birders who, on hearing a mention of Melanesia, can confidently put their fingers on the map. Fewer still are the birders who will actually get to visit this vast stretch of tropical islands, extending from New Guinea to Fiji off the northern and eastern coast of Australia.

Whether we know where they are or not, however, those islands have been the site of monumental research into avian distribution and speciation, conducted over more than a century by some of the world's most important biologists and evolutionary theorists; at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we cannot think about birds without thinking--at whatever remove--about the work done by such scholars as Ernst Mayr and Jared Diamond, whose 2001 book The Birds of Northern Melanesia was called by David Bishop "the single most important publication on evolutionary biology since Darwin's." 

The results of all that island evolution are on handsome display in this splendid new guide from Princeton University Press. I'm fairly sure that I'll never get to Melanesia, but after reading Guy Dutson's work--and relishing the fine illustrations by Richard Allen, Adam Bowley, John Cox, and Tony Disley--I'm inspired to try.

The guide covers the birds of fourteen island groups belonging to four nations. Given the high rates of endemism and the pronounced geographic variation shown by many species, this could have been a nightmare of book design; but the challenge is elegantly met here. A careful reading of the front matter's explanation and a little practice was all it took to unlock the clever system of color-coded distribution bars, which not only show which island groups are inhabited by a given species but also reveal its status as an endemic, a resident, a regular migrant or vagrant, an introduced species, or extinct. All this information is provided both on the caption pages of the plates and in a convenient tabular checklist, making it easy for the lucky birder to prepare for a trip to one or the other of the islands.

The guide comprises two sections, one containing 86 beautiful plates with their facing-page captions and distribution charts, the other the species accounts. The texts are headed with the species' English, French, and scientific names, often with notes indicating different taxonomic approaches, and include a description, an often extensive treatment of similar species, voice descriptions, accounts of habit and habitat often including flight style, a statement of each bird's conservation status, and a detailed (often island-by-island) summary of geographic distribution. 

Melanesia as defined here covers some 42,000 square miles. To minimize page flipping, the guide's passerine plates are broken into seven color-coded sections, one for each of the major island groups included. Thus, the birder visiting New Caledonia and confronted with an unfamiliar songbird has to consult only five plates, the visitor to the Bismarcks 11, and so on; the non-passerines, many of which, especially the water birds, are widely distributed among the islands, occupy the first 49 plates. There is necessarily some repetition in the case of species occurring across several island groups, but the artists and the designer have taken this as an opportunity to display regional variation in several species; have a look, for example, at the various Island Thrushes or the Cardinal Myzomelas, some of which differ strikingly from their counterparts on other islands.

In addition to the usual habitat descriptions, regional maps, and conservation discussion, the guide's introductory material includes a dozen pages on birding Melanesia, with practical tips for finding birds on 20 islands and island groups; one gets an unvarnished sense of just how difficult, even dangerous many of these sites are to visit.

The book is refreshingly well edited and proofread, the only major goof the English names given Tachybaptus novaehollandiae at the top of Plate I. (It should be Australasian Grebe.) It's a pleasure to leaf through this guide, which serves very well indeed the author's and artists' intention to "stimulate the study and conservation" of the beautiful birds of a remote and alluring part of the globe.

De Boer, Newton, and Restall: Birds of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire

They keep telling me this has been the mildest winter in memory here in north Jersey. For this hothouse flower, it's been a long one and cold, and March has brought no relief so far. I've been seeking refuge in slippers and hot chocolate--and in field guides to warmer portions of the globe.

And what better place to dream of than a trio of tropical islands? Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire lie just off the northern coast of Venezuela, and their avifauna--most of it shared across all three islands--has an exotic flair. While these small arid islands lie between two major routes for neotropical migrants, they are still home to such warm-climate treasures as the Caribbean Coot and the Yellow-shouldered Parrot, along with endemic subspecies of both Barn and Burrowing Owls. 

Before the appearance of this new field guide, birders both visiting and resident would have used Steve Hilty's Venezuela or Restall's Northern South America, both books monumental in their coverage, their detail, and their bulk. A handy half inch thick, this new volume comes in some 2,200 pages and several pounds under its bulkier competitors, already reason enough for praise.

In addition to its overview of the islands' geology, climate, history, and politics, the Introduction offers a concise site guide to 21 of the region's best birding localities. Particularly notable are wetlands supporting the largest populations of American Flamingos in the southern Caribbean; these areas were among the first half dozen Ramsar sites designated in the western hemisphere. 

A field guide rises or falls with its illustrations. The paintings here, all by Robin Restall and many of them taken over from Birds of Northern South America, are not the book's great strength. It's probably unfair to hold any field guide illustrator to the standard set by Guy Tudor, but there are not a few cases where the illustration of a bird I know well is close to unidentifiable, raising concerns about the accuracy of the depictions of species I am not familiar with. The occasional caption errors don't help matters: Black and Chimney Swifts are reversed, and several fall "Dendroica" [=Setophaga] warblers are labeled spring. All in all, the paintings do not rise to the level of most modern guides, and all of them make a rough, tentative impression.

That same roughness is apparent in the images illustrating avian topography. The choice of a fluttering woodpecker--taken over from Northern South America--is an odd one given that there are only eleven records of any picid for all three islands combined; the drawing itself makes it hard to locate many of the feather areas identified, and some, such as the underwing coverts, are simply invisible. The use of the term "mesial" for the malar sensu Sibley is unusual, and it is impossible to distinguish the orbital ring from the eye ring on the passerine head. 

One great advantage of this guide is its layout, where in "modern" style, text and plates face each other across the gutter. Unfortunately, the text is reproduced in a ridiculously tiny type--an unnecessarily tiny type, given the shocking abundance of blank space on many of the book's text pages. I'm not a book designer (readers, be grateful!), but I see no reason that the text could not have been enlarged or, even better, additional information used to fill all those creamy acres of nothing.

The texts are probably adequate to identify most of the birds included here. Outright errors are very few: I doubt that the extent of streaking is sufficient to distinguish winter individuals of the dark Plegadis ibis, and the account for Franklin's Gull is garbled. I'm very pleased to see attention paid in the texts and on the plates to geographic variation; most birds are identified to subspecies, and the authors point to a number of races that have not yet been detected but can be expected to occur on the islands. Some of the blank space on the text pages could have been devoted to more information on the identification of those still extralimital subspecies and of such species as the Western Reef Egret, Lesser and Greater Yellow-headed Vultures, and Yellow-billed Tern, all of which are mentioned as possibilities but none of which will be identifiable by the observer using just this guide.

The authors use a generally progressive taxonomy, relying "mainly" on the AOU's SACC. The old "Sandwich" terns are split, the bird included here known as Cabot's (Cayenne) Tern Thalasseus acuflavidus. At the same time, many of the parulids still bear their pre-2011 generic names, and Phalaropus lobatus is Red-necked in the main account and Northern in the discussion under Red Phalarope of similar species.

The back matter includes a chart showing the island-by-island distribution of all species recorded in the area. The bibliography is helpful, but for some reason cites the British edition of the Sibley field guide; Stoffers's 1956 Vegetation is listed without a publisher (it was Martinus Nijhoff),and von Berlepsch should be alphabetized under B, not V. It's a shame that the index does not include any of the local names listed in the text accounts.

Confident and reasonably experienced birders visiting these islands will, I think, find this conveniently sized guide a very useful memory jogger, along the lines of Princeton's illustrated checklists. Others may find the poor illustrations a significant barrier to identification; but even they will want to mark up their guide of choice using the lists provided here, reducing the overwhelming contents of larger works to just those birds found on these islands. Warm, warm islands....      

The ABA Is Seeking An Awesome Birding Events Coordinator: Is It You Or Someone You Know?

 

 Birders out there having fun in the warm California sun at ABA's Half Moon Bay Event, October, 2011

 

The ABA, almost from its inception, has had a strong tradition of pioneering and offering wonderful birding events for its members. A compilation of all the amazing stories, hilarious to hair-raising, from 4 decades of ABA events large and small would (and probably should, someday!) fill not only a book, but a book shelf. Or at least a really big website. Events have been one of the most visible ways we've helped to build the birding community.

I'm going to largely resist the temptation here to recount the ways that ABA events have changed my life for the better, because I'll probably get all teary and mushy and you don't want to see that. But suffice it to say that my life, even before I joined the staff here at the ABA, would have looked very different and not as good were it not for the experiences I had and the people I met at ABA events. So I'm a huge fan, to say the least.

But in the last couple of years, let's face it, ABA's event offerings have slowed to a trickle. The reason is simple: we haven't had an events person on staff for over a year. Thankfully, it's now time for that to change.

Though we've enjoyed considerable successes with last fall's Half Moon Bay event, and the recent Arizona Sparrows IFO seminar, we're looking to kick things into a higher gear. For that to happen, we're going to need a really great Events Coordinator. Maybe that's you. Or someone you know.

Are you well organized and friendly, with a passion for creating wonderful opportunities for birders and birds to interact? Would you like to join a team committed to forging a new era of awesome ABA events? Well, opportunity is knocking.

You can download a position announcement by clicking the link here:  Download Events postion pdf

If event coordination isn't your thing but you know just the person for it, please pass the word along!

James Currie on Rogitama Hummingbird in Colombia: Lost Relic or No?

James Currie, host of Nikon's Birding Adventures TV, was on the scene in Colombia when remarkable news came through that a mystery hummingbird was feeding at a private nature reserve three hours north of Bogotá. At first, the species was thought to be the Bogotá Sunangel (Heliangelus zusii), a lost relic known to science only from a single specimen purchased by a collector in 1909. Needless to say, this caused quite a stir both on the ground and on the Internet as the news caught fire. Is the species indeed a Bogotá Sunangel? A hybrid? A new species or genus? Time will tell. 

In our interview, and as described in this video clip below, James relates the unfolding mystery of the sighting, filming, and eventual capture of this hummingbird and proffers his impressions of the bird's ID. 

(Full disclosure: The ABA has invited James Currie on as a guest contributor to this blog. I work part-time for Birding Adventures.)

 ***

James, you just returned from filming a Nikon's Birding Adventures TV (BATV) series in Colombia - which by all measures has some of the most incredible biodiversity on the planet. What regions did you visit? How would you rate your birding experience? 

Yes, ProExport Colombia sent me down there to film three episodes of BATV on the birds of Colombia. We were escorted through several parts of the country by Daniel Uribe and Sergio Ocampo of Birding Tours Colombia, a local tour operator that excels in birding trips to Colombia.  

We visited Los Nevados in quest of Bearded Helmetcrest and other goodies, then Río Blanco, Montezuma and Otun Quimbaya in search of Cauca Guan and rare tanagers and lastly, to the Cali region in quest of Grayish Piculet. This was my first time birding in Colombia – the birding here is unaparalleled. I think that this is what birding in heaven must be like!

While you were there a group of Colombian ornithologists discovered a hummingbird that caused quite a stir. Some initially suspected it could be the Bogotá Sunangel-a hummingbird so rare that it has actually never been documented alive; it is only known from a single specimen that was purchased by a collector in 1909. What was your role in this find?

On our final day, we received notice that a suspected Bogotá Sunangel had been rediscovered 3 hours north of Bogotá. The hummingbird was reportedly feeding in fuchsia flowers at a private nature reserve (Rogitama Nature Preserve). Though filming had wrapped up, I extended my stay by three extra days in the hopes of documenting this find – whatever it would be. 

Can you describe what the energy was like at the scene? What other professionals were involved? 

With ProExport's support, Daniel Uribe and his brother escorted me to the reserve. The night before, I was awake all night wondering which way it would go: would I be lucky enough to find, and film, a major ornithological discovery or would the bird turn out to be something quite ordinary? I was so amped when we got there and found the bird really quickly. Immediately it was apparent that this bird was something very different.

Colombian ornithologists involved in the identification include Roberto Chávarro (ornithologist, owner Rogitama Nature Reserve), Oswaldo Cortes (Universidad Nacional), Diego Calderon (Colombia Birding), Laura Agudelo, (Colombia Birding and Sociedad Antioqueña de Ornitologia), Gary Stiles (Docente Universidad Nacional), Pablo Rodriguez (Docente Universidad UPTC), Andrea Fonseca (Biologa UPTC), and Jurgen Beckerns (Trogon Trips). Major props also go to the entire Chávarro family for creating this nature reserve and sharing it with visitors.

Did you obtain footage of this bird? How many did you see? 

Yes, see the YouTube clip above! My camerman Jeff had gone home, so all I had was a hand-held video camera but we managed to get pretty good shots of the bird in good light. 

It was difficult to ascertain exactly how many birds are there. I suspect that there are at least two but as you know, hummingbirds are lightning fast so we cannot be sure. The bird looks different under varying light and distance conditions, which further complicates the ID process.

Can you describe its appearance and behavior? What was your initial impression of the bird’s ID? 

In some light conditions the bird looks almost all black. In other conditions it can appear pale grayish/green on the underside. (Unless, of course, there is more than one bird!)

The bird has a distinctive pale whitish vent/undertail coverts, a short straight bill, white spot behind the eye, a long, dark purple tail and a bluish-green gorget and green shield. It was clear that bird was highly unusual and it didn’t fit the description of other sylphs found anywhere in Colombia. 

Although my opinion leans towards something sylphish or closely related to a sylph, DNA analysis will be key to revealing its identity.

Ultimately, the hummingbird was captured by professor Gary Stiles who marked it, measured it, and captured two feathers for DNA analysis before releasing it back to the wild. What is the current thought on the bird’s ID?

Many of us spent hours and hours looking at it and it certainly appears to be something out of the ordinary—we just don’t know what yet. It may either be a new genus of sylph, a new species, a hybrid, or a color variation of Long-tailed Sylph.  It could even turn out to be a Bogotá Sunangel, although I doubt it. 

The difficulty here is that only one specimen of Bogotá Sunangel exists. Although it does not appear to be the sunangel from the official description in The Auk (read here), we have no idea how much variation there was with this species. So, in other words, we can only hypothesize at this stage. 

DNA analysis is underway and we’re anxiously waiting on the results. 

Where can birders stay posted about developments on this mystery bird?

I would wait for an official statement from the Colombian team or from the owner of the reserve, Roberto Chávarro.  Once we hear anything we will post developments on our Facebook page. 

We look forward to you occasionally sharing Nikon's Birding Adventures footage from around the world here on the ABA blog. Will you be sharing any more of this hummingbird footage here or on your show?

We have so much footage of Colombia that it might be tough to include this in the upcoming shows but I think we will include a little of it. Depends if my camera work makes the cut. Without my trusty camerman, I was left to my own devices for better or for worse. I learned a lot but my footage is not going to win any film awards anytime soon!

Check out some of this video footage, below: 

Thanks for the update, James! Let us know what you find out.

Nikon's Birding Adventures TV features birding hotspots around the globe. It can be viewed Mondays at 10:00 am EST and Tuesdays at 2:30 pm EST on Versus/NBC Sports, Inc. from January through June. Stay updated with James' birding travels on Facebook or subscribe to the BATV YouTube channel.  

 

Images courtesy of James Currie.

Show Me The Money!

First, let’s book a little history.

Avitourism (birding tourism) is a Texas original, like “Don’t Mess With Texas,” Aggie jokes, and jake-leg politicians. Texas didn’t invent birding (although the ABA began here in 1968), but avitourism is as Texan as Willie Nelson and all-hat-and-no-cattle cowboys. Give us credit for something other than our embarrassments.

In 1993 Paul Kerlinger, Dick Payne, and I published an article in Birding titled “High Island: A Case Study in Avitourism.” I fabricated the word 'avitourism." I thought that birding tourism sounded too plain, too pedestrian, too unscientific. I wanted to be taken seriously, and I needed a puffed-up word that sounded serious as well. Avitourism seemed just inflated enough.

Earlier that spring I had presented a paper on the ecotourism opportunities in Galveston. The two publications attracted the attention of Texas Parks and Wildlife (TPW). Then-director Andy Sansom invited me to join a task force being appointed by Governor Ann Richards to develop a nature tourism strategy for the state.

Our planning efforts were getting underway in late 1993 when Watchable Wildlife met in Corpus Christi. Late in the conference (lubricated by a few timely glasses of wine) Madge Lindsay and I began to consider implementable recommendations that could be woven into the state strategy. Madge mentioned her contact with the new ISTEA enhancement program, I mentioned my idea of a birding trail, and two years later (1995) we joined Roger Tory Peterson in Rockport to dedicate the first section of the world’s first birding trail – the Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail. Around the same time Kerlinger and I published "Birds and Bucks" in Birding as well.

Birders and conservationists didn’t talk much about the economic impact of birding in those days. Our article in Birding joined a handful of previous attempts to quantify the contributions made by birders to local economies. But our efforts to organize a state nature tourism strategy catalyzed (at least for us) the idea that birding, as a recreation, might serve economic as well as conservation interests.

The Great Texas Birding Trail led to the Great Texas Wildlife Trails which led to the World Birding Center (WBC) which led to communities throughout the state investing in lands and facilities for birders. I worked on many of these. At times we took two steps forward then one back, but all of us progressed. The communities invested, Texas Parks and Wildlife and other federal and state agencies invested, and birders, attracted to the new facilities, invested as well.

Nowhere is this progress more clearly seen than in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (Valley) of South Texas. I began birding in the Valley in the late 1960s. Both Santa Ana NWR and Bensten SP were relatively undeveloped for birding then, with tiny visitor centers (in Santa Ana’s case, Wayne Shifflett’s home) inside the flood levies.

Estero Llano Grande State Park, Frontera Audubon Society’s sanctuary in Weslaco, the Valley Nature Center, the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR, Quinta Mazatlan, TNC’s Chihuahua Woods Preserve, Edinburg Scenic Wetlands, the Old Hidalgo Pumphouse, the Hugh Ramsey Nature Park in Harlingen, Resaca de las Palmas State Park, the South Padre Island (SPI) Convention Center woodlands and boardwalk, and the SPI Birding and Nature Center did not exist. Audubon kept the Sabal Palm Sanctuary closed for much of the time.

Agriculture still dominated the Valley, with limited food and lodging for birders (the La Quinta Inn and Luby’s Cafeteria in McAllen would become famous for that reason) and even less habitat for birds. Birds once common in the Valley such as white-collared seedeater, Aplomado falcon, and gray-crowned yellowthroat were gone. Many of the specialties (green jay, Altamira oriole, plain chachalaca, brown-crested flycatcher) were seen only in the few parks and refuges.

The Great Texas Coastal Birding Trail (Trail) changed all of this. I know of few places in the world where birding has been better nurtured, developed, and embraced by the local communities. No, the Trail didn’t do this alone. But the Trail did provide a platform for future action, and a context for community involvement. Without the investment and commitment by Valley communities, nothing would have been accomplished at the scale of what you see today.

Consider the investment in the World Birding Centers alone. Texas Parks and Wildlife, with funding provided by the legislature (and promoted by local elected officials) developed Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley SP, Estero Llano Grande SP, and Resaca de las Palmas SP. State funding, bolstered by local community matches, sponsored the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands, McAllen’s Quinta Mazatlan, Harlingen’s Arroyo Colorado (Hugh Ramsey Park), Hidalgo Pumphouse, and the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center. The USFWS made the WBC in Roma possible. The WBC is now comprised of nine separate birding destinations, and all of the planned enhancements are finished.

Without funding from federal and state agencies, as well as the investments of the local taxpayers, none of this would have been possible. Is it worth it? Did the taxpayers get a reasonable return on their investment?

Birders would answer an emphatic yes. But what about nonbirders? What about the conservatives in Congress who would now like to end most of this type of funding? No doubt the projects have benefited the birds, but where is the money? Show me the money!

I will. Kerlinger, Payne, and I estimated that in the early 1990s the refuges in the Valley contributed around $60 million to the local economies in direct expenditures. We later included indirect and induced impacts (a multiplier) and we estimated an overall impact of around $125 million annually. Local communities used that number for years, and, at times, we were questioned as to how birders could possibly contribute so much to the local economy. To be blunt, we were grilled.

Now another estimate has been proffered, this one by researchers at Texas A&M. According to them, nature tourists (birders, bird people, butterfly people, dragonfly people, and the like) now contribute over $300 million to the local economy each year.

According to this report,

Estimated total annual expenditures by intentionals (based on off-peak visitation) for 2011 were $300,090,886. This direct economic contribution from RGV nature tourism led to a total county-level economic output of $344.4 million and 4,407 full and part-time jobs annually. This total contribution includes a $179.4 million contribution to gross regional product and a $110.1 million contribution to labor income across the region. Local taxes generated from direct nature tourist expenditures for 2011 were $2,595,600 for sales tax and $7,262,700 for hotel tax.

The unemployment rate in the U.S. is mired at 9%. The unemployment rate in Starr County is 16.8%, Hidalgo is 12.8%, and Cameron is 12.5%. Nature tourism is a job creator in South Texas, and conservation is a side benefit. Why would government, if concerned about job creation, threaten the funding that made such jobs possible?

Let me be clear. Federal and state funding does not directly support these nature tourism jobs. Governmental funding enables the private sector to create the jobs, much like airports and highways do. The highway department funds the construction of roads, and the private sector uses these roads to move people to work and products to customers. The FAA does not ship goods; the FAA funds the airports that enable the private sector to ship freight and travel to jobs and prospects.

Public santuaries, refuges, and parks are destinations, not providers. Birders travel to Santa Ana NWR to see green jays and chachalacas, but they stay in local hotels such as the Alamo Inn and eat in local restaurants. Private resorts (Club Med, cruise ships, Disney) have no incentive to spread dollars outside of their properties. They work to fence in every cent. Public lands capture little economic return within the park or refuge boundaries (and get blamed for losing money). Travel expenditures are distributed throughout the region, helping local communities benefit from the visitation.

Conservatives in Congress (and in the state legislatures) ignore these facts. Show them the money, and they still will slice. The enhancement funding that made the Trail possible is under attack, and the federal scenic byway program has been gutted. No environmental law is safe. Park, refuge, and resource protection funding is being led to slaughter. Why?

Ideology. Conservatives are happy to cut funding and jobs if it appeases the ideologues. Forget proving that environmental protections actually create jobs. Forget proving that land conservation actually creates jobs and elevates property values (and tax bases). Forget proving that parks and refuges create nature tourism jobs in areas that are otherwise without economic opportunities. All that matters is their creed.

For years I quoted Francis Cairncross from her book Costing the Earth. She said that “in a world where money talks, the environment must have value to give it a voice.” I thought that we had progressed past that point where we needed to label every resource with a dollar value. I stopped quoting her years ago.

No longer. She is right, and I am wrong. I assumed that conservation had finally become integrated into the fabric of American life. I bought into the greening of America. Not the ideologues. The conservatives (mostly Republicans, but not exclusively) would like to return us to the pre-Nixon days before the EPA, NEPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act. Conservatives from his own party hated TR when he first employed the Antiquities Act to preserve public lands, and, true to form and ideology, they have stayed on the right (wing) path ever since.

Birding has proven its point. The lands protected for birds generate jobs and taxes. These same lands attract wildlife viewers, hunters, hikers, bikers, campers, anglers, and the like, and they too spend money to recreate. The government invests a little, and communities and small businesses benefit a lot.

I have and will argue that public land is among the most tangible expressions of the American democracy. Within a public park or refuge all are equal. Within public land there is no 99% vs 1%. Within public land there is equality. This fact alone should be sufficient to protect public land from exploitation. It's not.

Birders have the proof; now we must deliver the message. Forget the ideologues; they will not change. Americans suffering in this economy, however, might find our story interesting. Make it simple: land plus recreation equals jobs plus tax revenues. If you need additional information, I have posted links on my webpage. Now let's sell it.

Want to See Who Won the ABA Big Year Competition for 2010? For 1998? The Answers Are Here!

It's really, really cool to see how much attention ABA Big Years, and birding in general, are getting right now. To all of the organizations and individuals that are talking up birding, and trying to capture some of the surge of interest that is swirling around it right now, I say welcome, and thank you. Anything that's good for the birding community and good for the birds is great by us.

At the American Birding Association, we've been doing Big Years, Big Days, and just about everything in between for over 40 years. And we expect to keep promoting these kinds of birding events and helping birders do them better and more enjoyably for decades to come.

Of course, the vast majority of ABA members have never done and will never do a Big Year. Many aren't really into listing at all. But for a lot of people, there is a certain thrill to these sorts of pursuits—well, OK, obsessions—that can't be duplicated any other way, even if all they ever do is read about them and dream. And listing, even of a very casual sort, can be a powerful way of getting new people excited about birds and birding. It is a very basic way for humans to relate to the world.

I remember another movie, one that also starred Jack Black, that featured an awful lot of listing. Top Ten lists of songs and albums, but still. Life throws a lot of wonderful and not so wonderful stuff at all of us. Lists are a way of keeping track, remembering, studying, appreciating, understanding and enjoying these diverse phenomena. 

So while we're all waiting around to see how The Big Year movie comes out and how it depicts birding, birders, and listing, I thought you'd like to see what some real ABA Big Day and ABA List Reports look like. Here's the cover of this year's report, which covers the birds people reported during 2010. 

You can download the 2010 report here. It's 2 separate pdfs, one of introductory material and Big Days for 2010, the other for life lists and 2010 annual lists. That second one includes ABA Area Big Years. In fact if you want to see how the 2010 Big Year turned out, go here and look at page 58.

You'll also notice that on this page, you can look at and download pdfs of all sorts of cool stuff, including list reports dating back to 2001, information about Big Years and other types of birding, including our famous and useful ABA Principles of Birding Ethics.

Click around our web site and you'll see that there's a whole lot going on at the ABA. We aim to inspire all birders to enjoy and protect wild birds and that takes in a lot of ground. We hope you'll consider joining and/or donating to support the ABA's work of innovating and building the birding community.

But wait, I hear some of you saying. That catalog of list reports only goes back to 2001! What about 1998, when the Big Year chronicled in The Big Year book and The Big Year movie actually took place?

Well, reports of that vintage aren't online, yet. So I went into our archives and pulled a hard copy of the 1998 report. Here's the cover:

And here's the page where the ABA Big Years are reported:

 

Here's a closeup of the 1998 ABA Big Year rankings.

Yes, folks, real life is always a little bit different than the movies. It's generally even richer and more wonderful and infinitely more strange than what makes it up to the big screen. But we love movies and we're really looking forward to this one.

Let's hope that this movie lifts up all of us who care about birds and birders and introduces a whole new wave of people to this wonderful, rewarding, fun, and truly funny way of life.

Lynn Barber: Extreme Birder

For decades, Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher’s Wild America was a masterpiece sui generis, the only literary commemoration worth mentioning of a style of birding that had been practiced quietly since the early twentieth century.

Like so many birders of my generation, I first read and fell in love with Wild America as a young teenager. I’ve re-read it a dozen times since, each time more impressed by what may just be the best work ever done by either of the authors. Impressed—and inspired. There are a hundred reasons I’ll never take a trip like theirs, but I still get an itch for Xilitla, and Peterson’s black and white saguaros remain an image as vividly impressed on my mind as my own first views of Arizona.

Over the past fifteen years or so, Wild America has come to share the shelf with a growing number of big year narratives. The best of them—Sean Dooley’s Big Twitch, Ruth Miller and Alan Davies’s Biggest Twitch, and above all Kenn Kaufman’s great birderly Bildungsroman, Kingbird Highway—are full of passion and romance and adventure and novelty.

The narratives are full of all those things and more. The years themselves, though, weren’t. Like any stretch of human existence, even a big year has its quota of boredom and anxiety. In the best big year accounts, that boredom, that anxiety, and all the nagging doubt attendant on what is ultimately—let’s just say it—a meaningless undertaking provide productive occasion for wider musings on broader contexts; in the worst, they are ignored. In Lynn Barber’s Extreme Birder, they are thematized almost to the exclusion of the year’s positive aspects.

Extreme Birder is a series of essentially unedited day-by-day extracts from Barber’s big year diary, each entry listing the notable (and especially the new) species tallied on a given day at each of the localities, famous or otherwise, she visited in the course of her 723-species big year. Barber is scrupulous in recording the names of those many birders who helped her over those extreme twelve months.

What is lacking here—intentionally, I think—is any sort of deeper reflection, any effort at contextualization, any real glance at the social and natural worlds outside the list. The names and facts are accompanied instead by sometimes agonized fretting about the expense, the trouble, and the seasickness that are necessary parts of a North American big year. We learn nothing, really, about any of the birds, nothing about any of the people, nothing about any of the habitats that made Barber’s big year such a success; the effect, even for the die-hardest of birding readers, could have been deadening.

But it isn’t. For the first time in the history of big day literature, we are given full insight into the grinding drag of it all; the reader’s experience mimics the author’s as bird names and highway miles and turbulent plane flights pile up. There’s no suspense, very little adventure, and only occasional and welcome bits of true excitement. Paradoxically, and daringly, Extreme Birder becomes a fascinating piece of birding vérité, meant not to inspire thoughtless emulation but to demand consideration. No one who has read this book will ever run a big year in the same way.

Friends Don't Let Friends Under-celebrate Spring

Though recent weather might indicate otherwise, reports from my local bird listserve indicate that spring IS actually occurring. Last night I was reminded of the other sign that spring migration is underway. My bird friends and colleagues say, "Yes! Let's get together and work on that!" Long pause. "After Migration." 

After migration. 

When one stops to think about it, isn't it odd for members of such a highly "civilized" and technologically advanced culture to delay our work to let Mother Nature sweep in and do her thing? But as birders we're much too busy during this exceptional season. We not only delay said work, but we stand back and watch in awe as natural phenomenons unfold.

Some of us are in the field banding songbirds, others are counting hawks. Some are leading local trips for the bird club, others are hosting special club events. And while some of us are traveling to birding festivals, others are staying home and watching early nesters in the backyard.

Are we, dare I ask, modern day Pagans?

A thousand or more birding events are taking place all over the country the next two months, each specially designed to observe these celebrations of nature.

Where are YOU going? What are you doing to celebrate spring?

Please let us know in the comments section - this way we can spread good ideas so that not one of us allows spring to go undercelebrated in 2011!

I'll start: Today, I am heading to western Lake Erie in Ohio to attend The Biggest Week in American Birding, which is a migration celebration held at and near the warbler capital of the world near Magee Marsh/Crane Creek/Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. Hosted by The Black Swamp Bird Observatory and Tropical Birding, the festival includes seminars, workshops, and free guiding services along the boardwalk. Warbler fallout is amazing here - and you'll be impressed by the density and proximity of warblers at several sites along the lake. The guides are present and willing to help you identify them.

I'll be presenting on the topic of mobile birding apps. Other speakers include Kenn Kaufman, Paul Baicich, Jen Brumfield, Alan Davies & Ruth Miller, Bill Evans, Greg Miller, Steve Ingraham, John C. Robinson, as well as guides from Tropical Birding, and MANY MORE excellent speakers. Please check out the list, and get thee to Crane Creek over the next 10 days. 

As I write, this Facebook report came in from Adrian Binns, a birder/tour guide from Wildside Nature Tours.

"Magee Marsh -when it is happening it is happening. When it is not happening it is still happening. it is happening now. Unreal."

A later update:

"It certainly was a magical day at Magee yesterday. Saw 26 of the 27 warbler species, without walking more than 100 meters!! Eastern Whip-poor-will, Winter Wren, Barn Owl (!), American Woodcock and Philadelphia Vireo. Absolutely INSANE!"

Remember: Friends don't let friends under-celebrate spring. Tell us YOUR spring plans...