Innholdsfortegnelse for March - April 2015 i BirdWatching

Wouldn’t you know it? Pete Dunne’s column about Cape May, New Jersey, has inspired an article about Galveston Island, Texas. In our last issue, Pete tallied all the reasons why Cape May, New Jersey, deserves consideration as the best birding location on the planet (“Birder at Large,” February 2015, page 14). These included not only that the area claims both the spring and autumn Big Sit records but also that, for many years, it held the North American yard-list record, too. No fewer than 316 species, Pete wrote, had been recorded in or from one yard in Cape May. If you are at all like me and Managing Editor Matt Mendenhall, you probably read that and wondered, 316 species? In one yard? And someone somewhere, in another yard, has recorded even more?…

A gap of about 340 miles divides the two breeding populations of Painted Bunting: one in the southern Great Plains and the other along the southeastern Atlantic coast. Ornithologists have speculated for years that the two groups represent distinct species, largely because they winter and breed separately and molt and migrate on notably different schedules. A genetic study published in 2011 may help decide if the species should finally be split. It showed the two populations are evolving independently “with no measurable gene flow between them” and that they began breaking away from each other between 26,000 and 115,000 years ago. Author Connie A. Herr wrote that they “should be recognized as separate management units” for conservation purposes, but she didn’t suggest the species should be split officially. In July…

March 5-8 San Diego Bird Festival Mission Bay Park, San Diego, California March 5-8 Vallarta Bird Festival Puerto Vallarta, Mexico March 11-15 Big “O” Birding Festival LaBelle, Florida March 13-15 Wings over Water Northwest Birding Festival Blaine, Washington March 14 Pelican Island Wildlife Festival Sebastian, Florida March 15-22 Eilat Birds Festival Eilat, Israel March 19-22 Audubon’s Nebraska Crane Festival Kearney, Nebraska March 27-29 Othello Sandhill Crane Festival Othello, Washington April 9-12 Galveston FeatherFest and Nature PhotoFest Galveston Island, Texas April 10-12 Olympic Peninsula BirdFest Sequim, Washington April 11-12 Attwater’s Prairie-Chicken Festival Eagle Lake, Texas April 15-21 Godwit Days Arcata, California April 15-22 Lek Treks and More Lesser Prairie-Chicken Festival Woodward, Oklahoma April 17-19 Grand Isle Migratory Bird Celebration Thibodaux, Louisiana April 22-26 Florida’s Birding and Photo Fest St. Augustine, Florida…

1Bring extra binoculars. I’ve seen beginners struggle with compact binoculars, binoculars that were over 40 years old, and binoculars with cracked lenses. One woman even brought a tiny, elegant pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses! 2Teach binocular basics. At the start of any walk, make sure everyone knows how to get the most out of their optics. Check that eyecups are down for the people with eyeglasses and up for everyone else. Demonstrate how to calibrate binoculars. (This is especially important since beginners often borrow other people’s optics.) Pass around a cleaning cloth. And explain how to find birds with your eyes first, then raise your binocs. 3Explain the clock method. Then use it to tell people where to look. Example: There’s a bright orange bird at three o’clock in that…

HABITAT Wetlands, open water, irrigated pastures, semi-desert grasslands. TERRAIN Flat, open. Good birding from car. BIRDS 250 species. Year-round: American White Pelican, White-faced Ibis, Black-crowned Night-Heron, Yellow-headed Blackbird, Common Yellowthroat, Black Tern, Least Bittern. Spring and fall: Long-billed Dowitcher, Dunlin, Wilson’s Phalarope, Snowy Plover, Redhead, Ruddy Duck, Northern Pintail, Canvasback, Eared and Western Grebes, Tundra Swan, Snow Goose. Summer: Wilson’s Phalarope, Sora, Virginia Rail, Franklin’s Gull, Forster’s and Black Terns, American Bittern. Winter: Bald Eagle, Rough-legged Hawk, Northern Shrike, Short-eared Owl. WHEN TO GO Year-round. Shorebirds from late April to mid-May and July through September. Waterfowl arrive in late fall. AMENITIES Auto tour loops, hiking trails, boardwalks, observation decks, restrooms, boat launches, photo blinds, camping. Spring Wings Festival held each year; this year it’s on May 9. Refuge headquarters is…

When I started birding, in 1975, I wasn’t interested in photography. I was a college student and couldn’t afford a telephoto lens or the expenses of film. More important, during that acquisitive period, I wanted nothing more than to see lots of birds and didn’t want fiddling with a camera to slow me down. I birded for more than two decades before I rethought things. I still didn’t want to be a photographer; I just wished I had amassed the wonderful fruits of being a bird photographer without any of the hassle. In about 2005, I began taking photos — first with an extended-zoom digital camera and then via digiscoping. I still didn’t think of myself as a photographer, and even now, I call myself a birdwatcher who takes pictures.…

Snowy Owl, Short-eared Owl, Bald Eagle — those are the species that Massachusetts birder Dorian Anderson ticked on New Year’s Day over a year ago. They kicked off what would turn out to be an unprecedented and wildly successful Big Year. Determined to raise money for the American Birding Association and the Conservation Fund, Anderson was on a mission to find as many birds as he could throughout the year without the aid of gas-powered vehicles. As we noted in our April 2014 issue (“Birding Briefs,” page 9), he expected to ride 12,000 miles and hoped to see 550-600 species. Throughout the year, he traveled from Massachusetts to South Florida, and from there through Texas to southeastern Arizona. Then he turned northeast toward Colorado and snaked northwest to Washington and…

Misidentifying a bird doesn’t end the game; it just resets the board for the next match. Last autumn, I gained two insights from misidentifications that will serve me in the future. The first boo-boo occurred on my regular Monday-morning birdwalk in Cape May, New Jersey. It was late October, raptor primetime, and I spotted a low-flying raptor coming straight for us in a set-winged glide. My initial assessment was Peregrine Falcon. The size and wingspan were right, but something prompted me to hold my breath, so I did not blurt out the name. Passing seconds underscored the wisdom of my decision, as the presumed Peregrine Falcon morphed into a perfectly identifiable Cooper’s Hawk. OK, technically, I can’t be charged with a misidentification, but all the same, my initial identification was…

SPARROWS ARE THE BIRDS responsible for the popular phrase “little brown jobs,” or LBJs. Their predominately brown plumage, small size, and mostly shy nature create ID problems for many birders, although recent attention to differences in size and structure have eased some of this confusion. TIPS FOR VIEWING SPARROWS The best way to find sparrows is to look for them in appropriate habitats, especially fields and brushy areas. While this may sound overly simple, it is because sparrows can be secretive and easily overlooked, especially in winter. Large feeding flocks in fall and winter may contain many species, providing great opportunities for direct comparisons of similar sparrows. Initial encounters with sparrows can be unnerving. Many birders have painful memories of small, brown, ground-hugging birds disappearing into dense grass or brush…

HABITAT Tropical forest with two of the last freshwater ponds left in the Florida Keys. Giant mahogany trees, Cuban palms, orchids, two butterfly gardens, and native plants.  TERRAIN Flat paths. 70 percent of grounds wheelchair-accessible. BIRDS 190 species. Muscovy, Masked, and Ruddy Ducks, American White and Brown Pelicans, Common Gallinule, American Coot, Osprey, Bald Eagle, Magnificent Frigatebird, Common and Antillean Nighthawks, Belted Kingfisher, Black-bellied and Wilson’s Plovers, White-crowned Pigeon, Eurasian Collared-Dove, White-winged and Mourning Doves, Common Ground-Dove, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Eastern and Western Kingbirds, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Tree, Bank, Cave, Barn, and Cliff Swallows, Orchard and Baltimore Orioles, Shiny Cowbird, 36 warblers, nine vireos. Rare: Bahama Mockingbird. WHEN TO GO Best during migration: March through April and September through December. AMENITIES Raised boardwalk. Eight self-guided tours. Small visitor center offers…

I have fed birds for about 47 years in the same backyard location. Over the last several years during the month of October, all the year-round birds seem to disappear until mid-November. Where do they go? — Oliver Fleming, Ahoskie, North Carolina Fall is a period of abundant resources: Songbirds can avail themselves of large crops of seeds, nuts, berries, and other plant foods and therefore may rely less on feeding stations. While many bird species are found in one location year-round, they often move short distances in fall and winter, so the individuals in your yard in summer may not be the same birds that spend the winter with you. For example, all or parts of populations of American Robin, Blue Jay, chickadees, and sapsuckers may shift south most…

BIRDS OF A FEATHER By Colin Rees and Derek Thomas Colin Rees lives in Annapolis, Maryland. Derek Thomas lives surrounded by the sea on the Gower Peninsula in Wales. In this book, they portray birds and birding in the U.S. and the U.K., offering month-by-month accounts of their separate but linked birding years. The result left us with a greater appreciation for the universality of both the changing seasons and the movements of birds, and a heightened admiration for all that unites birdwatchers the world over. FACING EXTINCTION by Paul Donald, Nigel Collar, Stuart Marsden, and Deborah Pain This new book from Britain’s top bird conservationists examines the process and issues concerning extinction — how and why it happens and what can be done to prevent it. About 20 species…

Secret life of birds Birds’ abilities to sense approaching storms and imminent earthquakes are not understood well, but it’s clear they’re better than our own. Banders in southern Israel, for example, reported that gulls and herons took wing just before a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck in 1995 (“Since You Asked,” June 2010), while a Marbled Godwit wearing a satellite transmitter flew from Baja California to Texas and back, apparently to avoid Hurricane John in 2006. Now, thanks to researchers led by Henry Streby of the University of California Berkeley, we know that songbirds, too, are acutely aware of coming bad weather. In 2013, he and his team equipped 20 male Golden-winged Warblers that nest in eastern Tennessee with miniature light-level geolocators. He later recovered backpacks from five birds. Each spent the…

The message on my answering machine was breathless and excited: “It’s Herman! Herman from class! I was just picking up something for my wife at the outlet mall, and there was this really weird bird next to the parking lot. So when I got home, I looked in an old bird book, and I thought I figured it out. Then I looked online, and I was right: It was a Siberian Accentor!” Hmmm. A Siberian Accentor in northern Vermont. At an outlet mall. I had to go online myself to find out how likely that was. I learned that the bird breeds in Siberia, as the name suggests, and migrates to southeastern Asia in the winter. Two were recorded in Alaska in September 2014, on St. Lawrence Island and St.…

HABITAT Forests, grasslands, croplands, fields, prairies, wetlands, and 28 lakes and ponds. TERRAIN Six trails less than a mile long as well as the 3.2-mile Busch Hiking and Biking Trail. Several trails are easy and offer at least partial wheelchair access. Auto route tours excellent bird-viewing areas. BIRDS 260 species. Blue- and Green-winged Teal, Canvasback, Mallard, Ring-necked and Wood Ducks, Bufflehead, mergansers, Northern Bobwhite, egrets, herons, Sharp-shinned, Cooper’s, Red-shouldered, and Red-tailed Hawks, Sora, Great Horned and Barred Owls, Wilson’s Snipe, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Red-bellied, Red-headed, and Pileated Woodpeckers, Red- and White-breasted Nuthatches, Tufted Titmouse, Cedar Waxwing, kinglets, Wood Thrush, 35 warblers, Summer and Scarlet Tanagers, Indigo Bunting, Eurasian Tree Sparrow (uncommon). Rarities: Harris’s Sparrow, Red Crossbill. WHEN TO GO Year-round. AMENITIES Visitor center offers restrooms, a small gift shop, exhibits, and…

HABITAT Glacial lakes, prairie pothole wetlands, native and restored prairies, oak forest, agricultural fields, and hedgerows. TERRAIN Rolling hills, gravel roads. Hiking trail on a ridge from headquarters to Big Spirit Lake. BIRDS 273 species. Nesting: Trumpeter Swan, Ruddy Duck, Red-necked Grebe, American Bittern, Upland Sandpiper, Black Tern, Black-billed Cuckoo, Belted Kingfisher, Willow Flycatcher, Loggerhead Shrike, Warbling Vireo, Marsh Wren, Cedar Waxwing, Louisiana Waterthrush, Prothonotary Warbler, Clay-colored Sparrow, Scarlet Tanager, Dickcissel, Western Meadowlark, Great-tailed Grackle, Orchard Oriole. Migrants: Red-breasted Merganser, Common Loon, American White Pelican (also summering subadults), American Golden-Plover, Franklin’s Gull, American Pipit, Snow Bunting, Nelson’s Sparrow, Rusty Blackbird. WHEN TO GO Late March to mid-November. AMENITIES Restrooms and fee campground located at Marble Beach Recreation Area. Information kiosk near headquarters. ACCESS State wildlife management area, federal waterfowl production…

Whether a bird spends the winter in high latitudes or migrates to more southerly climes in fall has less to do with temperature than with food availability. Given a reliable food supply, birds can usually cope with the cold. As temperatures drop, birds can generate heat by shivering, but this is a temporary fix that requires a stepped-up metabolism and increased food intake. For the long term, passive mechanisms are preferred. One adaptation for heat conservation is size. Birds of northern regions tend to be larger than similar birds from temperate zones. Bigger size gives birds a smaller surface-area-to-volume ratio, so less body mass is exposed to skin and, therefore, less heat is lost. Larger size also increases a bird’s fasting ability. Examination of House Sparrow survivors and victims of…