Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2018 i BirdWatching

As a kid growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, I got many of my first lessons in nature education from Joe, our neighbor. He had a big yard with lots of trees, where my siblings and friends and I could run and explore. For decades, Joe was a subscriber to National Geographic, and, as far as I know, he kept every issue. I recall seeing bookcases in his house holding nothing but the distinctive yellow-sided magazines. Eventually, he ordered a Nat Geo subscription for me and gave me a collection of pocket-size field guides — to trees, insects, birds, rocks, the night sky. His generosity sparked an interest in nature and the wider world that this city boy otherwise might not have learned. Most of us who call ourselves birdwatchers or…

Since the 1960s, tens of thousands of birds living on the Great Lakes have died during periodic outbreaks of botulism. The outbreaks have only become more common and widespread in recent years, leaving scientists who track the birds puzzled. Setting out to understand the spiking outbreaks, ecologists at the University of Wisconsin- Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey turned to citizen scientists. In a USGS program, volunteers tracked bird deaths along Lake Michigan from 2010 to 2013 to discover what conditions lead to large die-offs. The researchers found that warm waters and algae — both of which have become more frequent over the years — tended to precede bird deaths, likely because they promoted the growth of botulism toxin-producing bacteria. Birds can contract botulism in much the same way people…

In 1976, the North American hawk-watching community was astonished, and in some quarters skeptical, of species totals being amassed at an incipient hawk watch in Cape May, New Jersey. My totals. And my fellow hawk watchers were just as unsure of individual species counts at Cape May that eclipsed the totals at more well-known hawk-watching junctions such as Hawk Mountain, Pennsylvania. One of the red flags, raised by skeptics, had to do with the inordinate number of Cooper’s Hawks I was reporting. In those post-DDT years, the accepted ratio of Sharp-shinned to Cooper’s was 50 to 1 in favor of the smaller accipiter; my figures were closer to 20 to 1. Separating the two similar species has been an identification challenge since hawk watchers first raised binoculars to the sky.…

I was a self-professed “mammal person” when I took my first ornithology class several decades ago. As much as I had enjoyed the feathered visitors that came to our winter feeders when I was growing up, birds somehow seemed more alien and less engaging than mammals. But as winter began to lose its grip on the Vermont hills where I lived, I started to use my binoculars on a regular basis and soon noticed there were infinitely more birds around me than I had ever realized. And they were far more captivating than I had imagined. Driving past a small pond bordered by alders and young cottonwoods on my way home from class one afternoon, I noticed a pair of ducks gliding together in perfect synchrony across the water’s smooth…

It takes me two to three hours to walk the one-mile loop at Woodside Natural Area, especially on spring mornings. The reason for my slow pace? This is one of the birdiest places in Vermont. Seasoned birders love Woodside partly for the frequent surprises (Cerulean Warbler, Virginia Rail, Black-billed Cuckoo), but I love taking beginning birders here because they always get good looks at so many different birds. One gentleman started a walk with a curt comment: “Gotta tell you. Don’t believe warblers exist.” Halfway through the mile, he had memories and even photos proving to him that they really do! One morning, I sat on the bench overlooking the beaver pond and noticed a Red-shouldered Hawk crouched on a low pine branch. It abruptly dropped to the water’s edge…

HABITAT More than 23,000 acres of multi-age hardwood forest. TERRAIN Rugged ravines and ridgetops. To see warblers, plan on hiking some of the many trails. However, even birding from parking lots can provide good looks at some of the breeding species. BIRDS 180 species. Breeding warblers: Ovenbird, Worm-eating, Louisiana Waterthrush, Blue-winged, Black-and-white, Prothonotary, Kentucky, Common Yellowthroat, Hooded, American Redstart, Cerulean, Northern Parula, Yellow, Chestnut-sided, Pine, Yellow-throated, Prairie, Black-throated Green. Other breeders: Wood Duck, Wild Turkey, Broad-winged Hawk, Chuck-will’s-widow, Eastern Whip-poor-will, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Scarlet Tanager, Acadian Flycatcher, Yellow-throated Vireo, Wood Thrush, Yellow-breasted Chat, Summer and Scarlet Tanagers, Indigo Bunting, and Orchard and Baltimore Orioles. WHEN TO GO Mid-April to the beginning of July is best for warblers. AMENITIES Restrooms at campgrounds and near Yellowwood Lake. A variety of campsites. Towns of…

Scott Bourne shoots with Olympus equipment. He says it’s extremely lightweight, easy to pack, and best of all, it produces photographs on par with more expensive gear. He notes that his work can be printed at dimensions of 6 feet by 9 feet. “Image stabilization is built into the camera body, so you don’t need a tripod with Olympus gear,” he adds. “It’s much easier to carry around, and the image quality is stupendous. The tracking autofocus is another thing that bird photographers really need. You can’t fake it when you’re trying to photograph an eagle that switches its dive angle toward the water 90 degrees in one tenth of a millisecond. Autofocus has to be able to keep up.” Here’s what Bourne carries into the field: • OM-D E-M1…

THE MONTH OF APRIL is special for birders along the Gulf coast because they enjoy large, often sudden influxes of migrant birds: wood-warblers, orioles, grosbeaks, buntings, flycatchers, thrushes, cuckoos, and even hummingbirds. Places like High Island in Texas may be suddenly inundated with hundreds of birds of many species in the course of an afternoon — an event birders call a fallout. Indeed, the migrant birds are often seen flying in directly from offshore, from the Gulf of Mexico. The obvious conclusion is that the birds have flown from their wintering areas in Central and South America, staging on the Yucatan Peninsula and then flying directly across the Gulf, a journey of about 600 miles that is, of necessity, accomplished nonstop. Amazing, yes; so amazing that when the phenomenon was…

As a general rule, ducks don’t migrate long distances. This may not be obvious if we just look at them from a North American perspective, because plenty of ducks migrate from Alaska or Canada to the southern states for the winter. But if we look at the whole Western Hemisphere, we see that many smaller birds migrate much farther. Sandpipers and plovers from the high Arctic may fly to the southern tip of South America. Warblers, thrushes, and vireos from Canada’s boreal forest may travel to Central America or to the Amazon Basin. By contrast, very few of the northern ducks go much beyond the southern border of the United States. The Blue-winged Teal is a major exception to this rule. Good numbers may remain through winter in Florida and…

HABITAT Woods, wetlands, cattail marsh, pond, river, mowed area. TERRAIN Flat grassy trails, some hills, other trails on dirt or mud. Wooden bridges, stairs, and boardwalks. BIRDS About 160 species. Spring and summer: Wood Duck, Green Heron, Warbling, Red-eyed, and Blue-headed Vireos, Eastern Phoebe, Least, Alder, and Great Crested Flycatchers, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Belted Kingfisher, Brown Creeper, Baltimore Oriole, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Rusty Blackbird (most often in April, sometimes during fall migration), Song and Swamp Sparrows, Hermit Thrush, Wood Thrush, Gray Catbird, Eastern Bluebird, Bluegray Gnatcatcher, and 18 species of warblers, including a half dozen that probably nest in the park. Fall: warblers, shorebirds. Year-round: Black-capped Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, Northern Cardinal, Pileated Woodpecker, Cooper’s Hawk, Cedar Waxwing, American Goldfinch, House Finch. WHEN TO GO Worth visiting any time of year;…

Visitors to Cantigny Park can enjoy two museums, beautiful gardens, and a 27-hole golf course. It’s a busy place, especially on summer weekends. But the birds don’t seem to mind, including the Wild Turkeys that patrol the grounds. I started a birding program here in 2008, in partnership with the DuPage Birding Club. The monthly walks (March through December) are well attended and often attract new birders. We host the Birdwatching Open, our annual May birdathon, on the golf course. The event coincides with World Migratory Bird Day, and we usually find at least 80 species. Besides turkeys, Cantigny is known for two birds uncommon to the area. Red-headed Woodpeckers favor the golf course habitat with its large oaks, and a thriving Purple Martin colony can be observed from May…

HABITAT Prairies, riparian areas, forest, ponds. TERRAIN Five miles of nature trails. Many are wheelchair-accessible. BIRDS Ring-necked and Wood Ducks, Gadwall, Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, Blue-winged and Green-winged Teal, American Wigeon, American White Pelican, Franklin’s Gull, Killdeer, Wilson’s Snipe, sandpipers, egrets, herons, Red-shouldered and Sharp-shinned Hawks, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Belted Kingfisher, Greater Roadrunner, Black-chinned and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, swallows, Scissor-tailed and Great Crested Flycatchers, kingbirds, Carolina Chickadee, Loggerhead Shrike, Brown Thrasher, Hermit Thrush, White-eyed Vireo, Nashville, Yellow, Black-and-white, Wilson’s, and other warblers, Harris’s, Lark, Song, Lincoln’s, and Fox Sparrows, Indigo and Painted Buntings, Dickcissel. WHEN TO GO Year-round; most productive in April and May. AMENITIES Visitor center features exhibits, nature store, a vegetated roof, and restrooms. Butterfly garden, educational programs. Morning birding outings; see website for dates and fees. ACCESS Audubon sanctuary.…

A male Satin Bowerbird is just completing construction of his bower — a sort of dance floor — two walls of vertical dry grass stems with a lane between them. (Think of two book ends close together.) He’s constructing the bower from small twigs and dried grass stems that are intertwined vertically. He knows that a wellconstructed bower can help him attract a mate. He wants to entice a female to enter the bower lane and watch his song and dance. He grabs a twig that is leaning into the center, pulls it out, and pushes it down again into a more vertical position. There, much better. Now, he removes leaves and twigs from inside and in front of the bower so all is neat. But he’s not finished. Most…

Q Would robins move eggs to a new nest? I saw one carrying a “robin’s egg blue” color, so I assume it was hers/his. — Alice Law, Bloomington, Indiana A Robins don’t move their eggs, but they will remove the empty shells once the eggs hatch. This is to prevent predators from being attracted to the nest by the presence of shells underneath the nest site. Many birds engage in this eggshell-disposal behavior; some species even eat the shells rather than carry them away. Q Last summer I saw a hummingbird probing in the ashes of our fire pit. Are there small insects to be found there that would interest a hummingbird? I did not see anything red in the ashes that might have attracted it or spider webs that it…

Thalia, an upscale neighborhood in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is lined with red-brick ranches shaded by tall loblolly pines. The community is a few short miles from the mouth of Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. Bounded on the west by Thalia Creek and on the north by the eastern branch of the Lynnhaven River, Thalia is a magnet for homeowners seeking proximity to water. It’s also become prime real estate for marsh-loving Yellow-crowned Night-Herons. Like many other waterfront spots in the Virginia Beach-Newport News area, “almost every residence here has a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron nest in its loblolly pines,” says Bryan Watts, director of the Center for Conservation Biology, an organization that’s part of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Watts, an…

MOST OF THE TIME, watching birds is either a solitary or small-group experience. But when you attend a birding festival, whether locally or far from home, birding often becomes more enjoyable. At a festival, you can take field trips to great birding hotspots with knowledgeable tour leaders, sign up for workshops and lectures, and hear inspiring keynote speeches. At many festivals, you’ll find exhibit halls where you can shop for bird art, optics, books, and more. Lots of festivals also offer family-friendly activities to get kids excited about birds. We have compiled this guide to spring and summer festivals to help you find events you may want to attend. They occur from April through August. Look for a guide to fall and winter festivals in our September/October issue. If you’d…

The hiking trails, wildflowers, or fall color vistas are enough to attract many people to Yellowwood State Forest, but it’s the warblers that draw me and many other local birders in spring. No fewer than 18 warbler species breed in Indiana, and all of them can be found in Yellowwood, not to mention the other 18 species that migrate through. Yellowwood is a stronghold for Cerulean Warbler, which is one of the most imperiled and fastest declining eastern warblers. I’ve participated in a couple of intensive studies of the Cerulean Warbler’s habitat preferences. Ceruleans group their territories close together, often atop oak-filled ridges or in forested floodplains with sycamores and walnuts. I recommend looking and listening along the Low Gap and Tecumseh Trails on the border with Morgan-Monroe State Forest…

HABITAT Open woodland, wetlands, ponds, constructed native prairie, display gardens, and golf course. TERRAIN Generally flat with a few gentle inclines. Paved and crushed stone pathways are wheelchair-accessible. A two-mile trail is wood-chipped. BIRDS 158 species. Year-round: Wild Turkey, Red-tailed and Cooper’s Hawks, Northern Cardinal, Blue Jay, Eastern Bluebird, Red-headed Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatch, Cedar Waxwing. Spring, summer: Wood Duck, Hooded Merganser, Caspian Tern, Belted Kingfisher, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Chimney Swift, Scarlet Tanager, Indigo Bunting, Eastern Kingbird, Baltimore and Orchard Orioles, up to 25 warbler species (in May), Yellow-throated Vireo, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Purple Martin. Rarities: Northern Shrike, Common Redpoll, Black-billed Cuckoo, Rusty Blackbird, Tufted Titmouse, Clay-colored Sparrow, Wood Thrush; Nashville Warbler on 2015 Christmas Bird Count. WHEN TO GO From May through summer; birding is best when park opens at 7 am.…

Where have all the insects gone? Last summer, the journal Science published a summary of several long-term studies from America and Western Europe documenting massive declines in insects. The studies have established that even in places where plant diversity and abundance have improved, insect numbers still declined. My favorite was a Canadian study in which scientists probed into decades of stratified bird droppings in old, abandoned chimneys in which Chimney Swifts have nested for generations. Going through layer upon layer of bird poop, they tracked a striking change in the swifts’ diets in the 1940s, when DDT was introduced and the proportion of beetle remains suddenly dropped. The proportion of beetle remains increased after DDT was banned in the ’70s, but it never reached the level it had been at…

EXCLUSIVE FOR READERS OF OUR DIGITAL EDITIONS hotspots near you birds and where to see them Watch for bonus digital content with our May/June 2018 issue, available on April 24! RETURN TO MAGAZINE…