Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2019 i BirdWatching

This is our last issue of 2019, so I thought it would be fun to ask: What have been your most memorable birding moments of the year? Did you find a rarity? Did you witness a bird behavior you’ve never seen before? Did you take a dream trip? Did you get a child hooked on watching our feathered friends? Did you plant a boatload of native plants to benefit pollinators? My highlights of the year, so far, have included my first sightings of Black-backed Woodpecker and Canada Jay, which I saw during the Adirondack Boreal Birding Festival in New York State. I also saw, for the first time, truly wild Whooping Cranes, which I wrote about in our last issue. My No. 1 birding high point, however, didn’t involve life…

Q I recently noticed that the male House Wren that uses my bird house stopped singing daily, then resumed after 10 to 12 days. I thought perhaps that once the first brood fledged and the parents were feeding off nest that they were either too busy or no longer needed to sing. Now they’re back at the box with a second brood, and the singing has resumed. Is this common in songbirds who raise two broods a season, or have I misunderstood the silence? — Judy Power, Cape Cod, Massachusetts A Many songbirds do largely cease singing once they’ve established a territory, attracted a mate, and especially when they begin feeding young. Some species, such as House Wren, demonstrate a little more complex song phenology. Males will continue singing over…

In the wake of the devastation that Hurricane Dorian unleashed on the Bahamas this summer, conservationists feared the worst for several bird species that occur on the hard-hit islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco. They include: • Bahama Nuthatch. Only a small number of these birds were known to exist on Grand Bahama before the storm. • Bahama Warbler. This species is endemic to Grand Bahama and Abaco. • Olive-capped Warbler. This is a bird of the northern Bahamas and portions of Cuba. • Bahama Yellowthroat. Before Dorian, the species had mostly been recorded on Abaco, although smaller numbers were on other islands that had not been hit. • Other vulnerable birds are Bahama Swallow, Bahama Woodstar, Bahama (or Abaco) Parrot, and Piping Plover, which winters on the affected islands.…

HABITAT Marshlands, grasslands, coastal shrub, oak woodlands, a flood channel, and salt ponds. TERRAIN Flat trails through the marshes. Moderate to steep trails through the hills. BIRDS Over 280 species. Year-round: Pied-billed Grebe, Anna’s Hummingbird, Common Gallinule, Greater Yellowlegs, California Gull, American White Pelican, herons and egrets, White-tailed Kite, Northern Harrier, American Kestrel, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Black Phoebe, California Scrub-Jay, Bushtit, Marsh and Bewick’s Wrens, Common Yellowthroat. Summer breeders: Tree, Barn, and Cliff Swallows. Fall through spring: Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Gadwall, Blue-winged, Green-winged and Cinnamon Teal, Canvasback, Bufflehead, Common Goldeneye, Ruddy Duck, Least and Western Sandpipers, dowitchers, Burrowing Owl, White-crowned and Golden-crowned Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warbler. WHEN TO GO Year-round. AMENITIES Nectar garden, picnic tables, bike paths, visitor center open 10-4 Wednesday through Sunday. Birding trips led by the…

Earlier this year, we received an incredible response to our 2019 BirdWatching Photography Awards! No fewer than 726 people entered 1,234 photos of birds. Needless to say, our judges had a difficult time choosing the winners. On these pages, we present the three winners and a selection of the finalists. To see all of the finalists, visit www.birdwatchingdaily.com/photography/featured-galleries. Finalists Bird Photographer of the Year Bird Photographer of the Year is an annual international photo competition based in the U.K. The judges include BirdWatching Contributing Photographer Brian E. Small and Editor Matt Mendenhall. The results of the 2019 competition were announced in August, and we featured a gallery of the winners on our website, birdwatchingdaily.com. The winners and many other short-listed images are also featured in a new book that was…

Scientists have known for a few decades about a genetic component to bird migration. Recent studies in birds have identified large regions of the genome, encompassing hundreds of genes, associated with migration, but it has been more difficult to pinpoint the specific roles of any single gene. In a study published in August, however, researchers who studied Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers found one gene that is associated with the final wintering destination of the species. The genetically similar species breed in the Midwest and Northeast. Blue-winged Warblers, for the most part, migrate to wintering grounds in Central America, from Guatemala to Panama. The Golden-winged population that breeds in the Great Lakes also winters in Central America, whereas the Appalachian population migrates to South America, primarily Venezuela. The researchers took genetic…

For the fifth straight year, seabirds along the Alaska coasts starved to death in alarming numbers. More than 9,000 dead seabirds were found along the state’s western coasts and outer islands from May through August. Most of them were Short-tailed Shearwaters. Carcasses of Horned Puffins, Black-legged Kittiwakes, murres, and auklets were also found. The National Park Service reported that “large die-off events have occurred each year since 2015. Consistently, bird carcasses examined during these recent die-offs were determined to have died due to starvation.” The same was true of the 2019 die-off. “Our northern oceans have been experiencing record-breaking, above-average sea surface temperatures,” according to the Park Service. “Seabirds eat cold-water fish and zooplankton, which are both reliant on cold water. If the cold-water fishes have relocated because the ocean…

SAN FRANCISCO BAY IS THE largest Pacific estuary in the Americas. In 2012, it was designated a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance by an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. The shores of the bay and nearby lands are protected by a number of refuges and parks, including Coyote Hills Regional Park (pictured above and profiled on the next page). The park has lots of great birds that are present year-round, such as American Bittern and Black-necked Stilt. Ridgway’s Rail occurs in small numbers all year, and the endangered California Least Tern is typically seen in late summer. If you’re in the Bay Area, be sure to check out the park, as well as nearby sites such as Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge…

HABITAT Lakes, ponds, wetlands, ponderosa pine forest, riparian areas, grasslands. TERRAIN Several trails lead to a variety of habitats. The office is wheelchair-accessible, as are several paved trails. BIRDS Year-round: California Quail, Great Blue Heron, Red-tailed Hawk, Black-billed Magpie, Black-capped and Mountain Chickadees, Red-breasted, White-breasted, and Pygmy Nuthatches, Song Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Red Crossbill. Summer: Trumpeter Swan, Blue-winged, Green-winged, and Cinnamon Teal, Gadwall, Mallard, Redhead, Ring-necked and Ruddy Ducks, Pied-billed Grebe, Osprey, Virginia Rail, Wilson’s Snipe, Spotted Sandpiper, Black Tern, Common Nighthawk, Black-chinned Hummingbird, Red-naped Sapsucker, Northern Flicker, Western Wood-Pewee, Willow Flycatcher, Say’s Phoebe, Eastern Kingbird, Western Bluebird, Cedar Waxwing, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Black-headed Grosbeak, Yellow-headed Blackbird. WHEN TO GO Year-round. Spring, summer, and fall are best seasons. Most productive birding in early mornings and evenings. AMENITIES…

Oceanic Birds of the World: A Photo Guide, by Steve N. G. Howell and Kirk Zufelt, Princeton University Press, 2019, paperback, 360 pages, $35. This essential new guide to the birds of the oceans is both beautiful and practical. It includes more than 2,200 color photos of more than 270 bird species and is chock-full of field marks, range maps, tips on how to observe and identify birds at sea, and more. Most of all, it offers a sense of wonder about the world’s petrels, albatrosses, and other seabirds — creatures that live out their lives above the waves. A Short Philosophy of Birds, by Philippe J. Dubois and Elise Rousseau, Dey Street , an imprint of HarperCollins, 2019, hardcover, 176 pages, $19.99. This slim book, first published in France…

For birders, winter is a time for standing on frozen shorelines and struggling to identify distant waterbirds. That means focusing on bill shape, head shape, body proportions, and behavior, among other things. It’s understandable that you would be discouraged when you come across a bird that’s sleeping because all of those features will be partly or completely hidden. On the bright side, a sleeping waterbird reveals other useful field marks and in some cases is easier to identify than a bird that is awake. Even though part of the head is hidden on a sleeping bird, what you can see is still useful. A bird that is awake is constantly moving — preening, stretching, alert, relaxed, courting, sparring, diving, etc. The head shape changes as feathers are raised and lowered…

Global Owl Project Worldwide effort to advance foundational aspects of science and conservation for the world’s owls. www.globalowlproject.com Burrowing Owl Preservation Society Dedicated to helping owls through education, research, and protection and enhancement of grassland habitat. burrowingowls.org Burrowing Owl Conservation Society of British Columbia Working to restore Burrowing Owls to the grasslands of British Columbia. www.burrowingowlbc.org Burrowing Owl Conservation Network Advocates for the protection and restoration of the Western Burrowing Owl. burrowingowlconservation.org Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife Citizens who want to help the area’s famous Burrowing Owls. www.ccfriendsofwildlife.org Audubon Society of the Western Everglades Coordinates Owl Watch, a community science program monitoring Burrowing Owls on Marco Island, Florida. audubonwe.org…

If anything, birds on the other six continents have even more ludicrous names than their North American counterparts. Here’s a small sampling that our experts came up with. 1. Smew “The Big Year” co-stars Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson reputedly fell over laughing when they heard the name of this Eurasian duck, a close relative of the mergansers. 2. Tinkling Cisticola As Ken Chaya, a tree and bird whiz who recently visited South Africa, notes, this name “sounds like a refreshing soft drink.” Other cisticola names are just as odd and colorful. “In Africa, the cisticolas are ridiculous,” says Noah Strycker, who in 2015 smashed a world record by seeing 6,042 bird species in a single year. “How can anyone keep the Winding, Wailing, Zitting, Singing, Whistling, Trilling,…

When I was a kid, the radio in my parents’ house sometimes played a song called “On a Wonderful Day Like Today,” from a 1960s stage show. I haven’t heard it for years, but I remember one line in the lyrics. To describe how wonderful this day was, the song claimed, “Even the sparrows are singing a tune.” That caught my attention. I didn’t care about musical theater, but I cared about sparrows, and I knew that some did sing very musical songs. I didn’t like the implication that tuneful sparrows would be unusual. Although the Song Sparrow is named for being melodious, it’s not the best singer in the family. To my ear, American Tree Sparrow has one of the most beautiful songs, with clear sliding whistles and sweet…

The marshes at Coyote Hills Regional Park are a bit like a portal to another time, to before shortsighted human development stripped San Francisco Bay of roughly 85 percent of its once-vast wetlands. The park is also home to an archeological site of an Ohlone Indian village (accessible by guided tour only). On my last visit, in July, I crossed paths with dozens of American White Pelicans, some close enough to render my binoculars pointless. I also saw five species of wading birds and charming Pied-billed Grebe chicks. All year, Marsh Wrens chatter in the cattails, and Northern Harriers and White-tailed Kites soar overhead. Waterfowl, meanwhile, congregate from fall to spring, when ducks and coots are literally everywhere. An array of shorebirds adds to the mix. Exploring these formerly brackish…

Around 15,000 years ago, a series of cataclysmic megafloods swept over eastern Washington, scouring away the soil, leaving buttes, basins, potholes, and networks of channels etched in the underlying basalt. The floods, caused by rapid draining of huge glacial lakes, formed what are now known as the Channeled Scablands. It’s an ecosystem that is unique within our national wildlife refuges. Established in 1937 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge protects nearly 30 square miles of the region south of Spokane. The terrain features a variety of habitats for birds, including numerous ponds, wetlands, and marshes for migrating and breeding waterfowl. The Pine Lakes Loop Trail and Winslow Pool, about a 10-minute walk from the headquarters, are particularly productive. You can see everything from quail to Canvasbacks to…