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At the top of our report this week is the stunning occurrence of a Great Kiskadee at Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada on September 7. Though the species has been spreading in Texas, and along the Gulf Coast to Louisiana, records outside this area are extremely rare. Great Kiskadee, Rondeau Provincial Park, Chatham-Kent, [read more…] 
On December 19th, 2017, the Recording Standard and Ethics Committee (RSEC) voted unanimously (6-0) to consider the 2017 ABA Checklist additions from Hawaii as provisional species allowable for inclusion on 2016.* 2016’s Big Year ended with a dramatic three-participant run to Hawaii. The RSEC was consulted as to the legitimacy of the inclusion [read more…] This year’s much anticipated release of the American Birding Association Checklist is here! In version 8.0 there are 105 species added due last year’s inclusion of Hawaii in the ABA Area–33 of which are ABA rarity code 6. Also added are 4 vagrants accepted by the Checklist Committee: Common Shelduck, Amethyst-throated Hummingbird, Pine Flycatcher, and [read more…] Jeff Skrentny and I decided a while back that we would be making one more trip down to Little Egypt and the Trail of Tears in hopes that we might finally be able to track down what may be Illinois’ most elusive summer resident: Anhinga. It would be my 5th attempt. As the day that [read more…] If you bird long enough, you will acquire a nemesis. What’s a nemesis? Mirriam-Webster gives us a few choices, but one definition hits the nail on the head as far as we’re concerned here: a formidable and usually victorious rival or opponent. We don’t often think of birds as “opponents” when birding, but it happens. [read more…] Last weekend the ABA Lounge was open for visitors at the American Birding Expo in Columbus Ohio. Hats off to Expo organizers Bill Thompson III and Wendy Clark, as well as the whole Birdwatcher’s Digest team, for a wonderful event. The expo featured tour companies and guides from virtually every part of the globe, optics [read more…] November 2–6, 2016 There are a lot of birding festivals in the ABA area–fifteen between now and the end of 2016–but one stands out: the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. Now in its 23rd year, RGVBF is legendary. The birding is, as you might imagine, off the hook. South Texas specialties, like Green [read more…] John James Audubon, by John Syme – The White House Historical Association, Public Domain. John James Audubon walked the woods, fields, and mountains of our ABA area, with a muzzle-loading shotgun in hand, looking for birds. Birding, if you will. He would come across a flock of small passerines–warblers, perhaps–and a report would [read more…] Some people say birding is hard. But seriously … what could be easier? You just go outside, and pay attention. Once out in the temperate, sweet, springtime woods, a stunning little black and orange bird hops along the branch of an ash tree that’s just beginning to put out its leaves for the year. Even [read more…] |
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On Birding and Photography
When I started birding in the early 1970s, there were only a very, very few people taking pictures of wild birds. Eliot Porter, and his amazing nest-side portraits of warblers near his home in Ely, Minnesota, comes to mind. As does my mentor, Dr. William Beecher, who was probably the first birder to carry an [read more…]