Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2015 i BirdWatching

What birders are not fascinated by Cuba? The palm trees, warm breezes, good food, intoxicating music, and baseball appeal to me, for sure, but there’s so much more. There’s also the large number of birds that nest in North America and overwinter in or pass through Cuba — more than 100 of them, including a dozen or so warblers. (Contributing Editor Julie Craves described them in our December 2002 issue; you can see the list on our website.) And then there are the island’s 26 endemic species, special birds that can be found nowhere else on the planet. The bright green tody on our cover is one. Add to them 25 endemic subspecies, 22 species endemic to the West Indies region, and recent but unconfirmed reports of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker,…

May 1-3 Birding and Blues Festival Pacific City, Oregon May 1-3 Grays Harbor Shorebird and Nature Festival Hoquiam, Washington May 1-3 South Dakota Birding Festival Pickstown, Lake Andes, and Wagner, South Dakota May 1-18 Point Pelee Festival of Birds Point Pelee National Park, Leamington, Ontario May 6-9 Southwest Wings Spring Fling Sierra Vista, Arizona May 6-10 Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival Homer, Alaska May 7-10 Copper River Shorebird Festival Cordova, Alaska May 7-10 Indiana Dunes Birding Festival Porter, Indiana May 8-10 Creston Valley Bird Fest Creston, British Columbia May 8-10 Festival of the Birds at Presque Isle Erie, Pennsylvania Kenn Kaufman, Laura Erickson, and Editor Chuck Hagner will speak! May 8-11 Horicon Marsh Bird Festival Horicon Marsh, Wisconsin May 8-17 Biggest Week in American Birding Maumee Bay State Park, Oregon, Ohio…

Mountainous cloud forests in Alejandro de Humboldt National Park, a World Heritage site in remote eastern Cuba, may be the last stronghold of the Cuban subspecies of Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The park was the site of the last reliable sighting, in March 1987. Members of the survey team heard the woodpecker there in 1988, 1989, and 1992, and a handful of local residents also reported seeing or hearing the bird in the area as recently as 2008, but the sightings have not been confi rmed. Consequently, many authorities consider the subspecies, like its counterpart in the United States, to be extinct. Giraldo Alayon, a biologist who reported seeing the bird in 1987, leads several trips a year for the Caribbean Conservation Trust. One of them visits the park, although it does…

ABA Young Birders A blog by and about young birders, a list of clubs for young birders, details about the Young Birder of the Year contest, and information about scholarships for young birders who want to attend summer camps, workshops, and other activities. http://youngbirders.aba.org Bird Education Resource Directory Presented by Environment for the Americas, an extensive listing of conservationrelated resources for adults, plus lots of camps, websites, programs, activities, and other materials for kids. http://www.birdday.org/component/resources/ BirdSleuth Students observe birds, ask questions, and conduct investigations to seek answers, then publish their research in Classroom BirdScope and contribute their observations to the Cornell Lab’s citizen-science projects. http://www.birdsleuth.org CBC4Kids Information from Sonoma Birding on how to start a half-day Christmas Bird Count for kids and helpful tips for making it a success. http://www.sonomabirding.com/cbc4kids_playbook.html…

More than 40 varied families of birds have been recorded in North America north of Mexico. Each includes species that reward study and delight the eye. Many inspire not only the maintenance of feeding stations and nest boxes but also selfless acts of citizen science and rescue and rehabilitation. Yet none elicits as much heartfelt emotion as the hummingbirds. “You can learn a lot about someone by his reaction to a helpless hummingbird in need of rescue.” Sixteen species breed in United States, and five — Allen’s, Anna’s, Black-chinned, Broad-tailed, and Rufous — nest in the Los Angeles area, where rehabber Terry Masear has been caring for the injured and orphaned among them, and Costa’s and Calliope, too, since 2005. An intensive care unit with an incubator stands at the…

New York City’s birds have inspired a shelf full of books through the years. Luminaries Frank Chapman, Ludlow Griscom, Allan Cruikshank, and John Bull authored early surveys of the area’s birdlife, while Robert S. Arbib Jr., Olin Sewall Pettingill Jr., and Sally Hoyt Spofford produced Enjoying Birds Around New York City, a classic, in 1966. More recently, journalist Marie Winn chronicled the travails of pioneering hawks and eccentric birdwatchers in Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park (Pantheon, 1998), and Marcia T. Fowle and Paul Kerlinger compiled the comprehensive New York City Audubon Guide to Finding Birds in the Metropolitan Area (2001). Naturalist Leslie Day is well qualified to add to this collection and bring it up to date. She taught environmental science and biology for more than…

Our friend Carrol Henderson has written a number of fascinating articles for us through the years. He’s the author of our current cover story about birding in Cuba, for example (see page 16), and in December 1999, he published “Century of Bird Feeding,” a chronicle of the rise of backyard feeding throughout the 1900s. “We live in a society surrounded by wild bird food,” he wrote then. “You see it in supermarkets, hardware stores, gas stations, garden centers, and wild bird specialty stores.” Feeding birds was big business and a popular pastime, but he noted that it hadn’t always been that way. The article, in part, spurred Henderson, Paul Baicich, co-editor of the Birding Community E-Bulletin, and Margaret Barker, a former coordinator of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project FeederWatch,…

HABITAT Lakeshore, maritime forest, ponds, hedges, large meadow, mixed hardwood forest, creek, and marsh. TERRAIN Mostly flat trails with a few exposed roots. Not wheelchair-accessible. One or two descents and uphill climbs. BIRDS Year-round: Pileated, Red-bellied, Downy, and Hairy Woodpeckers. Spring: Northern Waterthrush, Black-and-white, Tennessee, Cape May, Orange-crowned, Magnolia, Yellow, Nashville, Blackpoll, Blackburnian, Chestnut-sided, Canada, Wilson’s, Cerulean, Black-throated Blue and Green, and Yellowrumped Warblers, American Redstart, Yellowbreasted Chat, Yellow-throated, Blue-headed, Red-eyed, and Warbling Vireos, Swamp and Lincoln’s Sparrows. Breeding: Great Blue Heron, Osprey, Great Horned Owl, Bald Eagle, Hooded Warbler, Ovenbird, Willow Flycatcher, Veery, Wood Thrush. WHEN TO GO Late April through May, from sunrise through late morning best. AMENITIES Next to parking lot is large kiosk with trail map and, sometimes, descriptive brochures. Portable toilets near nature center building.…

I’ve been birding along the Blue Ridge in North Carolina and Virginia for 20 years, and one of my favorite local spots is the Virginia Creeper Trail. A rails-to-trails project, it traverses a variety of habitats and elevations, making diversity its hallmark. Riparian-associated birds are plentiful along the trail because it follows streams and rivers the whole way. From Abingdon to Damascus, it goes through residential land that consists primarily of open pastures. Look for edge species like Indigo Bunting, Blue Grosbeak, and Field Sparrow, in addition to raptors. From Damascus to the trail’s eastern terminus near Whitetop, you’ll pass through a predominantly forested landscape, where you can see or hear Ruffed Grouse, Eastern Whip-poor-will, Northern Parula, Scarlet Tanager, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and Yellow-billed Cuckoo. If you enjoy birding by bike,…

HABITAT Estuarine marsh, freshwater wetlands, riparian areas, uplands, coastal dunes, willow thickets, coastal bluff scrub. TERRAIN Flat. Sandy in places. BIRDS More than 250 species. Cinnamon Teal, Redhead, Bufflehead, Whimbrel, Willet, Spotted Sandpiper, Black-necked Stilt, Black Oystercatcher, Black-bellied Plover, Surfbird, Brandt’s, Double-crested, and Pelagic Cormorants, Heermann’s, Western, and California Gulls, Short-eared Owl, Anna’s and Allen’s Hummingbirds, Black and Say’s Phoebes, Black-throated Gray, Wilson’s, and Townsend’s Warblers, Belding’s Savannah Sparrow (in pickleweed). WHEN TO GO Year-round. AMENITIES Bird walks organized by Los Angeles Audubon on third Sunday of each month (except December); meet at 8 a.m. at Del Rey Lagoon parking lot. LA Audubon also holds “Open Wetlands” event at salt marsh on first Saturday of each month from 9-12. Friends of Ballona Wetlands offers tours of salt marsh and dunes,…

Contrary to the widely held belief that southern populations of Red-tailed Hawks don’t migrate, a 42-year study of Red-tails in southwestern California has revealed not only that they migrate, but that they fly north, not south. Before the birds turn four years old, they embark on annual summer sojourns, traveling as much as 900 miles (1,460 km) from where they hatched. Then, in late summer or fall of the same year, they head back south to spend the winter in their natal area. Once the hawks find mates and establish territories, their migrations come to an end. The finding is based on encounters with 64 Redtails that were banded as nestlings and 16 fledglings that were fitted with backpack-mounted satellite transmitters. Most of the hawks hatched within a five-county area…

Hey, you birders out there! Are you tired of spending every Saturday driving to the opposing end of the state just to see some bird whose appeal is that it isn’t supposed to be there? Do you anguish that somebody might break your Big Day record? Is your year list driving (literally) your life? Need a break? Need to find a hobby that’s engaging and relaxing? Try birdwatching. You’ll love it. Birds are animate, visually arresting, winsome, and everywhere. Go outside. No need to get in your car. Take a walk around the neighborhood. Look, there’s a bird now! “The bird was still there, watching me, challenging me to appreciate it. After 40 years of birding, was I up to the challenge?” Then what? Easy, just train your binoculars on…

Even if Kenn Kaufman were not the author of “ID Tips” in every issue of BirdWatching (page 36) and one of our longest-serving contributors, we would still love his series of field guides. The Kaufman Field Guides to birds, butter flies, mammals, and insects use smart, descriptive, nontechnical text and well-chosen photos to give identification pointers that any reader can understand. “Although the authors and editors go to great lengths to ensure that the books are accurate and complete enough to be trusted by experts,” Kaufman says on his website, “the number one goal is to make the books accessible and understandable for beginners, so that newcomers to natural history will be able to take their first steps with confidence.” In 2012, Kaufman and his wife, Kimberly, executive director of…

Shortly after Tony Angell and his wife moved into their first house, north of Seattle, in 1969, he heard a Western Screech-Owl singing in the nearby woods. When an intense winter storm knocked down the hemlock snag that the owl and its mate nested in, Angell quickly built a box, hauled it 20 feet up a cedar next to his bedroom window, secured it to the trunk, and waited. Within weeks, an owl claimed the shelter. Over the next 24 years, Angell figures that at least five different pairs of owls used it for nesting and occasional roosting. They fledged about 50 young. “In the opening chapter of The House of Owls, Angell recounts living in close proximity to the birds, watching them hunt, court, and raise families.” In the…

The problem with identifying birds is that we often see them only for an instant, or we see birds that appear superficially similar, that have no outstanding field marks, or that are far away or poorly lit. The solution, write Kevin Karlson and Dale Rosselet in this exciting new addition to the Peterson Field Guide series, is to stop concentrating on plumage and bare-parts details, at least for the time being, and to begin anew: that is, to start the ID process not with traditional field marks but with an assessment of size, body shape, structural features (the bill, legs, neck, wings, tail, and head), and behavior, and then, if there’s still time, to move on to feather details, general coloration, habitat use, and vocalizations. The authors have studied not…

It’s a safe bet that only a handful of people know the birds of their home state as well as Robert B. Janssen knows the birds of his state, Minnesota. In 1975, he co-wrote Minnesota Birds: Where, When, and How Many, and in 1987, he followed it with Birds in Minnesota. And from 1958 to 1996, he was the editor of The Loon, the quarterly journal of the Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union. In 1997, the Minnesota State Parks and Trails Division wanted to know what birds occurred in two state parks east of the Twin Cities. It turned to Janssen, who immediately signed on to survey the properties. He established a method to count birds in spring, summer, and fall at randomly chosen locations within each park, to cover as many…

Both White-rumped Sandpiper and Pectoral Sandpiper make long-distance migrations in the Americas, but the differences in timing are striking. In winter in Argentina, I have seen them in the same areas. In summer in northern Alaska, I have seen both at once. But in my area of Ohio, the first Pectoral Sandpipers come back in March, or even late February. Peak numbers occur in April, and they’re gone by the last week of May. The first White-rumped Sandpipers, however, don’t arrive until early May, and their spring peak is in late May and early June. Why the difference? For Arctic-breeding shorebirds, the timing of spring migration must balance several factors. The birds must arrive on the tundra early enough to claim good territories or mates, but not so early that…

Nestled within suburban Palm Beach County, Wakodahatchee Wetlands is an artificially created marsh alive with birds. As part of a forward-thinking wastewatertreatment system, it filters millions of gallons of water every day while also providing wintering and breeding habitat for more than 150 bird species, including Florida specialties like Wood Stork, Limpkin, and Purple Gallinule. On any given day of the year, I can tally 40 or more species. Most enjoyable for me is late winter through late spring, when the site is bustling with activity. This is the time when herons and egrets are in breeding plumage and wading-bird rookeries are full of youngsters begging for food. All of the action occurs just yards from a comfortable, well-maintained boardwalk. I always make sure to bring my camera, as the…

HABITAT Pastures, hay meadows, riparian areas, forests, and rural residential habitat. TERRAIN Gently sloping path traverses steep or flat terrain, depending upon location. Accessible via motorized wheelchairs. BIRDS Spring and fall: Red-eyed and Blueheaded Vireos, Acadian and Great Crested Flycatchers, Wood Thrush, Eastern Bluebird, Brown Thrasher, Ovenbird, Worm-eating, Black-and-white, Yellow, and Hooded Warblers, Northern Parula. Breeding: Warbling Vireo and Blue Grosbeak (between Abingdon and Damascus), Chestnut-sided Warbler, Ruffed Grouse, and Least Flycatcher (near Whitetop). Winter: White-throated Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, and Loggerhead Shrike. WHEN TO GO Year-round. AMENITIES Public and private campgrounds along the higher, eastern half of the trail. Restrooms available in Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area near Damascus. Restaurants and stores close to Abingdon and Damascus. ACCESS Public-private recreational trail operated by the towns of Abingdon and Damascus and…

The incredible egg. Essential to the species. Relished fried or poached. And the perfect package. But how did it come about? Like reptiles, birds broke away from the need to lay eggs in a watery environment by bringing a watery environment to the eggs. The process by which each egg is produced is a marvel. Early on, the developing embryo, perched on top of the yolk, sends out layers of cells that are not part of the chick but are essential to its development. One of the membranes, called the amnion, surrounds the embryo and contains the watery environment. The other two are highly vascular. One surrounds the yolk and brings nourishment to the embryo. The other underlies the shell and functions as both a lung and a kidney by…

Q In the February 2015 issue, you said pigeons and doves regurgitate a milky substance to feed nestlings. What is in this substance, and can other birds produce it? — David Patrick, New York, New York A Male and female pigeons and doves produce the substance. It’s created by the sloughed cells that line the crop, the structure that many birds use to store food prior to digestion. The thick liquid is approximately two-thirds protein and one-third fat; it also includes antioxidants and other trace substances that help enhance chicks’ immunity. It is regurgitated and fed to the nestlings for about 10 days after hatching. Although the substance often goes by the name “pigeon milk,” flamingos and male Emperor Penguins produce similar liquids. Q I saw an adult robin swallow…

A spectacular species of hummingbird last recorded in 1946 has been rediscovered in the only place it is known to occur: at high elevations in a remote part of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains, in northern Colombia. Researchers Carlos Julio Rojas and Christian Vasquez of the Colombian bird-conservation group Fundación ProAves located Blue-bearded Helmetcrest on March 4. Over the next two days, they observed three birds within three scattered patches of habitat on steep hillsides. The patches were tiny, less than 25 acres (10 hectares). The distinctive bird has a short crest, a dark mask, and a purplish-blue beard bordered in white. In 2013, it and the three other members of the genus Oxypogon (White-bearded, Greenbearded, and Buffy Helmetcrests) were recognized as individual species after having been lumped…

In December 2014, President Obama announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba, and a month later, new travel regulations were introduced. The embargo remains in place, but much has changed. Here’s an overview. Americans are still not free to travel to Cuba as tourists. To go, they will have to meet one of 12 criteria for authorized travel, as they have in the past. The categories include family visits, offi cial government business, journalistic endeavors, professional research and meetings, educational pursuits, and other activities. Prospective travelers, however, will no longer have to obtain a specialized license from the government. Instead, they’ll need only a general license, and they will no longer need to submit a written request for permission to travel. If U.S. airlines begin off ering fl ights to…

AS I WALKED up to the middle-school students waiting for me outside the environmental-education center on Jekyll Island, Georgia, I could tell they were tired and grumpy. This was going to be a tough class. Their friends had just left for the boat tour that they had enjoyed the day before. They had seen dolphins, and they were amazing. Now the kids had to stay and learn about something that sounded much less exciting. One girl in particular was just not having it. “Why would anyone,” she asked, hands on her hips and a degree of scorn unique to 12-year-olds on her face, “want to look at birds?” Why indeed? Leading the way to a trail through the woods to a pond, I thought about her question. As an outdoor…

Who knows how many newspaper and magazine articles, including several in our pages and on our blog, have described the steep decline of the Red Knot and its recent listing as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. What we needed was a thorough, up-to-date examination of the bird’s plight. Deborah Cramer, the author of two critically acclaimed books about the ocean and a visiting scholar at MIT, provides just that in The Narrow Edge. She went in search of knots throughout their vast range, traveling more than 40,000 miles in all to Tierra del Fuego in southern South America, along the beaches of Texas, South Carolina, and New Jersey, and to their arctic nesting areas on Southampton Island in northern Hudson Bay. Cramer accompanied ornithologists, some of whom have studied…

If the articles in this issue about the benefits of birding with children weren’t enough to convince you that we need to get more kids interested in birds (page 22), then perhaps this thought will: The islands off the coast of southcentral Maine almost certainly would be as free of Atlantic Puffins today as they were in the 1960s if the adults in the life of a young Stephen Kress had not encouraged his interest in skinks, frogs, and birds, beginning in the fourth grade. Kress, of course, is the founder and director of the famous Project Puffin, vice president of bird conservation for Audubon, and director of the Hog Island Audubon Camp in Maine. In this book, he and Boston Globe journalist Derrick Jackson trace Kress’s roots from the…

Whether urbanization is good or bad for birds and other wildlife is an especially hot topic these days, and an important one, since the area of developed land in the United States is projected nearly to double between 2000 and 2025. We reported in “Birding Briefs” in February about a study suggesting that robins, catbirds, cardinals, and Song Sparrows survive better in suburban and urban habitats than in rural areas. And in December, we reviewed a book in which a University of Washington professor described avian diversity in and around Seattle. He had expected it to increase as he moved from the city center through the suburbs to wild areas on the outskirts, but, surprisingly, the greatest diversity was in the suburbs. In this book, journalist Tristan Donovan casts a…

For years, birders who wanted help identifying Costa Rica’s dizzying array of trogons, toucans, hummingbirds, and other birds had to make room in their luggage for at least one big book: either F. Gary Stiles and Alexander Skutch’s A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica, published by Cornell in 1989, or Robert Ridgely’s A Guide to the Birds of Panama with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras (Princeton), which has been available in paperback since 1992. Both are classics, but heavy. Then, in 2007, came Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean’s The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide (Cornell). Compact enough to carry in the field while still depicting and describing more than 820 species, the book was a cause for celebration. This fully revised second edition is just as…

The Birds of Costa Rica: A Field Guide, Second Edition, by Richard Garrigues and Robert Dean, Cornell University Press, 448 pages, paperback, $29.95 Birds of Minnesota State Parks, by Robert B. Janssen, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 288 pages, flexbound, $19.99 Fastest Things on Wings: Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood, by Terry Masear, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 320 pages, hardcover, $25 Feeding Wild Birds in America: Culture, Commerce and Conservation, by Paul J. Baicich, Margaret A. Barker, and Carrol L. Henderson, Texas A&M University Press, paperback, 320 pages, $27.95 Feral Cities: Adventures with Animals in the Urban Jungle, by Tristan Donovan, Chicago Review Press, 256 pages, paperback, $16.95, $19.95 CAN Field Guide to the Neighborhood Birds of New York City, by Leslie Day, Trudy Smoke (illustrator), and Beth Bergman (photographer), Johns Hopkins…

A rich diversity of habitats draws me to Sterling Nature Center year after year. Two miles of lakeshore gently rise into sandy dunes and a maritime forest, and a mixed hardwood forest, complete with tangled hanging vines, berry bushes, and an occasional apple tree, provides lots of bird-friendly spaces. The property is reminiscent of the more famous Magee Marsh in Ohio and Point Pelee in Ontario. Not far from the parking lot, you’ll find several small ponds and a large tree-ringed meadow that attracts grassland species. A small creek nearby feeds an open marsh that is home to a Great Blue Heron rookery; visitors can watch the herons from a small observation deck at the edge of the marsh. Osprey, Bald Eagle, and Great Horned Owl also nest in the…

HABITAT Wetlands, ponds, live oak groves. TERRAIN Three-quarter-mile wheelchair-accessible boardwalk and flat trail. BIRDS About 200 species. Resident: Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, Mottled Duck, Wood Stork, Anhinga, Great, Cattle, and Snowy Egrets, Great Blue, Little Blue, Tricolored, and Green Herons, White and Glossy Ibises, Roseate Spoonbill, Osprey, Turkey and Black Vultures, Red-shouldered Hawk, Purple and Common Gallinules, Limpkin, Fish Crow, Monk Parakeet, Red-winged Blackbird, Boat-tailed Grackle. Late winter to early summer: Least Bittern, Black-necked Stilt, Least Tern, Purple Martin. Autumn to spring: Blue-winged Teal, Egyptian Goose, Sora, American Kestrel, Belted Kingfisher, Eastern Phoebe, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Gray Catbird, Palm, Pine, Blackand-white, and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Northern Parula, Common Yellowthroat. WHEN TO GO Year-round. AMENITIES Interpretive signs and benches along boardwalk. Three gazebos provide shade near prime viewing areas. Restrooms next to parking lot. Tropical…

In the Los Angeles Basin, the last significant wetland is the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve. It once occupied 2,000 acres of coastal habitat, but since the 1920s, industrial encroachment, agriculture, and population growth have shrunk the area to about one-fourth of its original size. The state purchased the property in 2003, and over several years, volunteers removed invasive plants, trash, and debris to help restore it to a flourishing marsh. A rich variety of birds has returned: Ballona’s list exceeds 250 species, and in midwinter and during migration, more than 70 species can be seen in a day. The most accessible spot is the 51-acre freshwater marsh at the corner of Lincoln and W. Jefferson Boulevards. An L-shaped, woodchipcovered trail leads along the perimeter, offering views of ducks, shorebirds, waterbirds,…

I’ve been hand-feeding mealworms to Black-capped Chickadees in my yard for many years, so I’ve had extraordinary opportunities to observe their behavior. They’re not banded or color-marked. I recognize only one individual with certainty, the one missing the front toes on its right foot. When it alights on my hand, the stump gives it a feel different from that of the others. It was also the first to start grabbing two mealworms per trip, and now it often tries to take three, sometimes succeeding. Almost always, it follows the same path when it flies off, alighting on the same branch in the same tree to eat. That particular chickadee often stares at me from the roof of a window feeder until I fetch the mealworms. It then flits off to…