Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2020 i BirdWatching

A rusty-crowned Colombian songbird known only from old museum specimens, the Antioquia Brushfinch, eluded scientists until it was found for the first time in the wild in January 2018. After the initial sighting, Colombian researchers spotted additional birds in four patches of remnant habitat, all within Antioquia, in northwestern Colombia. Some of the parcels are already being converted to agriculture, however, and American Bird Conservancy and its partners, which announced the bird’s discovery in April 2019, knew they needed to act quickly to save the species. Wendy Willis, ABC’s deputy director of international programs, went the extra mile. She launched a GoFundMe campaign entitled “Trailblazing for Brushfinches” and then hit the Appalachian Trail (AT) on June 17 to pursue a long-time dream of hiking the AT through her home state…

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has removed the Kirtland’s Warbler from protections afforded by the federal Endangered Species Act, and it’s proposing to do the same for the Interior Least Tern. The warbler, listed as endangered since the late 1960s, saw its population dip to a low of 167 pairs in 1974 and again in 1987 before it began a steady climb toward recovery. The current population is estimated to be around 2,000 pairs, double the goal identified in the species recovery plan. The population has exceeded recovery goals for the past 17 years and continues to increase and expand its range, the agency says. The tern numbered fewer than 2,000 birds at a few dozen nesting sites in 1985, but now the subspecies numbers more than 18,000 birds…

Every birder knows how special Snowy Owls are. If you haven’t seen one of the big, white, cold-hardy birds, then they’re likely high on your must-see list. Whether or not you’ve spotted Snowies, it’s a safe bet that you wouldn’t want harm to come to the birds. More so than most bird species, Snowies inspire great interest and passion among birders and nonbirders alike. In winter, when Snowies migrate south into southern Canada and northern parts of the lower 48 states, they look for habitats similar to the arctic tundra where they breed, meaning they turn up in wide-open fields and along shorelines. Unfortunately, the fields around airport runways are quite attractive to the owls. When Snowies arrive, they pose aviation hazards, and planes certainly threaten owls when flight paths…

My first word was a four-letter word. Little did I realize that this one word would have such an enormous effect on my life: on my upbringing, my sense of humor, my view of the world, and my family road trips. The precious little word that, much to my mother’s delight, was the first to ever escape my lips — bird. The word, so simple, so delicate, for many invokes a lovely image, one of feathers, song, or the freedom of flight. For me, however, it means and will always mean so much more. Mine was no ordinary childhood because my parents were no ordinary parents. They were, still are, and always will be — capital-O Ornithologists. The horror. To say my folks are birders is an understatement. From my perspective,…

From our readers! DON’T FORGET PATUXENT I am a volunteer at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Maryland (home of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center). I was very disappointed not to see mentioned in the article about Whooping Cranes (“A Cloudy Future,” September/October 2019 issue, p. 14) the importance of the PWRC in breeding Whoopers for release in the wild, which enabled the new eastern flocks to be established. After they had matured, young Whoopers were sent to other refuges to establish migratory and non-migratory populations. The PWRC was involved for over 50 years of studying and breeding Whoopers (1967-2019). The breeding Whoopers have now been transferred to other institutions in order for captive breeding to continue. Although I was not involved directly with this program, as a volunteer naturalist…

Government agencies and conservation groups on the island of Maui are working to prevent the extinction of the Kiwikiu, or Maui Parrotbill, by establishing a second “insurance” population. In October, they moved five males and two females from the Hanawi Natural Area Reserve (NAR), on the windward slopes of Haleakalā volcano, to the Nakula NAR, on the leeward slope of the mountain. The species currently numbers fewer than 300 birds, and possibly no more than 157, in the wild. Kiwikiu is only found in the high-altitude native forests on East Maui. As its one remaining wild population has declined, the species’ range has shrunk to less than 7,400 acres. Hawaii was once home to more than 50 native honeycreeper species, but over the centuries, at least 35 have become extinct,…

Before my daughter was old enough to talk, she’d grunt and squeal and point whenever she saw a bird. For all the world, it seemed like she was crazy about birds, but I wondered if I was imagining it. Maybe, I thought, I was projecting my own interest in birds on her. Then my daughter started to talk, and one of her very first words was bird, and shortly thereafter she said owl. My daughter really did love birds — and, in fact, she still does. These days, at age 3, she likes to stand on one foot and pretend that she’s a flamingo. I’ve come to understand that my daughter isn’t unusual — a lot of kids gravitate toward birds. And why wouldn’t they? Birds come in all colors…

I place the note on an empty seat at the table. She’ll find it when she and my husband sit down to eat breakfast. The message is part of the ritual for any long birding day I take and requires two specific components: hugs and kisses. So, after brushing my teeth, I put on bright red lipstick and press my lips to the paper, evenly distributing the impressions. In the note, I leave instructions for them: “Hug each other from me.” My guilt. My love. All neatly translated and sealed for my 6-year-old. It’s 2 a.m. when I slip past the dogs. The front door creaks but neither stir, so I’m in the clear — free as a bird to bird. I leave my family to their dreams, while I…

When I first realized the diversity of prey species my Greater Roadrunners were catching — lizards, butterflies and moths, bees, dragonflies, scorpions, grasshoppers, cockroaches, snails — and how they were catching them, I knew I had to write about them. Then, when I saw the male bring his mate a bunch of yellow wildflowers, desert bladderpod, as nesting material, I knew I had to write them up carefully to avoid rampant anthropomorphism. Birders are well aware of the several avian families that capture prey on the wing: raptors, nightjars, and flycatchers, most notably. But roadrunners are seldom seen “on the wing,” so it is not well appreciated how aerially adept they are and how developed their beak-to-eye coordination is. I have seen my pair of roadrunners catch all of those…

ONE OF THE BIRDS that Kenn Kaufman describes on the previous pages, Brown-headed Nuthatch, can be found at one of the hotspots described in this section: Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge, located southeast of Charlotte, North Carolina. The bird can be hard to see well because it tends to stay high in the canopies of pine trees. When you’re in its likely habitat, pine forest, listen for its squeaks, similar to the sound of rubber duckies, coming from above, and start scanning the trees. At Pee Dee, your attention will also be drawn to the vast numbers of other birds on the refuge, including ducks, raptors, and others. Our other hotspot in this issue, North Point State Park in Maryland, is a good place to look for Rusty Blackbird, Northern…

A recent study published in Science concluded that 29 percent of the bird population of the United States and Canada — that is, 3 billion birds — have been lost since 1970. And a report just published by Audubon concludes that climate change threatens nearly two-thirds of our birds. What can we birdwatchers do when the problems are so very huge? Individual actions may seem insignificant, but fostering what Audubon calls a “culture of conservation” can be important locally, and it can ripple outward regionally and even nationally and internationally. How? In 1993, a small group of people in Toronto, wanting to do something about all the birds killed at tall lighted buildings during migration, banded together to form the Fatal Light Awareness Program (flap.org). Volunteers combed downtown in early…

King Eider King Eider is one of the most northerly breeding bird species in the world, occurring mainly above the Arctic Circle. In June, during the breeding season, King Eider pairs can be found from northern Alaska east into the Canadian Arctic — places that are largely unvisited by humans. By February, the species has retreated to nonbreeding grounds in two distinct locations: in the northern Bering Sea between Alaska and the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia, and in the eastern Arctic, from Labrador to Newfoundland and Greenland. Purple squares on the eBird map from places like California and Virginia represent (normally solitary) individuals that strayed farther south than is typical. Records in inland North America are exceedingly rare away from the Great Lakes, where they are annual. Mountain Plover A…

When you talk about Cape May, it’s not necessary to pinpoint a state. There isn’t a birder alive who does not know that Cape May is the terminus of the land funnel that is New Jersey. The region is celebrated for songbird fallouts and is known as the “raptor capital of North America,” averaging 50,000 migrating hawks tallied from September to November. Every visitor hopes that his or her trip coincides with the passage of a migration-spawning cold front and the northwest winds that ferry birds to Cape May Point, but some fall seasons are cold-front impoverished. 2019 was such a year. But birders came anyway because travel plans made months in advance are not easily deferred, nor should they be. The fact is that Cape May always has an…

Along the western boundary of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge lies Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, which was created in 2014. In the center of the refuge and just 1.2 miles from its visitor center, you will find the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center. It opened in 2017 and is jointly operated by the Maryland Park Service and the National Park Service. To understand the historical significance behind the most impressive wildlife areas in Dorchester County, stop at the center for a self-guided tour. The center is a museum where tourists can learn about the life and legacy of Harriet Tubman and others who participated in the extrication of enslaved people via the Underground Railroad. The site is also part of the 125-mile-long Harriet Tubman Scenic Byway. A…

In pine forests of the West, Pygmy Nuthatches are among the smallest songbirds and are often the most conspicuous. Active, acrobatic, highly social, these nuthatches clamber up, down, and around tree trunks and limbs, hop along branches, or dangle upside down from twigs. Usually in flocks of three to 10 individuals, they keep up almost a constant high-pitched piping. Often, they’re at the center of mixed flocks, with chickadees and others joining the roving nuthatch gangs. Any discussion of Pygmy Nuthatch leads to a mention of its close relative, the Brown-headed Nuthatch. The two are so similar that in the past they occasionally were treated as one species. While the range of Pygmy Nuthatch extends north into western Canada and south into the mountains of Mexico, the Brown-headed is essentially…

Each visit I make to North Point begins the same way: on the Black Marsh Trail. I take the trail from the parking lot, and within seconds I’m immersed in the wonders of the mature forest that surrounds the Black Marsh. There are no bends along the forested part of trail, making the view long and tunnel-like. If you didn’t know that a brackish marsh was sandwiched between two large forest fragments, you might think the trail went on forever. However, at the end of the wooded tunnel is a tidal freshwater/brackish wetland. The urge to rush through the prelude to the marsh is strong and excitement builds the closer I get, but I always hold back because the stillness is intoxicating. If you’re interested in snakes, this is a…

Established in 1963, Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge features diverse habitats and more than 200 bird species. Fall and winter bring waterfowl species from points north. Dabbling ducks make up the majority of the thousands of ducks that spend the winter on the refuge. Wood Ducks nest on the refuge and are present in winter months as well. Ring-necked Ducks and both Lesser and Greater Scaup may be seen as well. Although Bald Eagles breed here, they are much more visible in winter with the absence of foliage. Spring and summer are the seasons to visit the refuge to enjoy warblers, tanagers, and vireos. Shorebirds take advantage of the managed moist soil units before moving on to northern breeding grounds. Kentucky Warblers, Swainson’s Warblers, and Yellow-throated Warblers utilize woodland habitat…