Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2020 i BirdWatching

DUCKS SPLIT, CROWS LUMPED This year’s most notable changes to the official Checklist of North American Birds include the splitting of Mexican Duck from Mallard and the lumping of Northwestern Crow with American Crow. The changes were announced in late June and published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances. The bulk of the Mexican Duck population lives in the interior plateau of central Mexico. Richard Crossley, in his Crossley ID Guide: Waterfowl, writes that fewer than 1,000 individuals occur in the United States. Mexican Ducks that breed in the U.S. are found in southeastern Arizona, southern New Mexico, and west-central Texas. SIBLEY SELECTS ART CONTEST WINNERS This spring, BirdWatching teamed up with David Sibley and his publishing company, Knopf, on a bird art contest. We invited artists to submit their images…

Artwork from 114 artists from throughout the world will be included in the 45th annual “Birds in Art” exhibition, on view September 12 through November 29, at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin. Art by BirdWatching Contributing Editor Kenn Kaufman was chosen for the exhibition. “Birds in Art” features 2020 Master Artist Timothy David Mayhew, who employs European Old Master practices in his work. “Birds in Art” presents original paintings, sculptures, and graphics created within the last three years, celebrating avian marvels through fresh artistic interpretations. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the opening-day festivities, including a talk by the Master Artist, have been canceled. The museum, which offers free admission, intends to present the exhibit as usual, but if you go, check www.lywam.org to verify the hours…

Are you looking for ideas to enrich your birding world while staying closer to home? Are you also, like many of us, missing the birdwatching community as well as our feathered friends? I have had the good fortune to tour the world as a storyteller and author for more than 40 years. For the past dozen years, I have been a featured speaker at about 12 birding festivals each year, where I have shared the weekend with a few of my birding heroes but also where I have made lots of friends in the birding community, a wonderful collection of unusually fine folks. In the past two years, I have taken birding trips to East Asia and South America. And last summer, I finally made it to my 50th state,…

One of the most widespread duck species in the northern hemisphere, found all across North America, Europe, and Asia, the Gadwall is also one of the least ornate. Even males in full breeding plumage have only subtle patterns. As a result, this duck may not command as much attention as more colorful species. Still, it has been recognized for a long time — its simple name has been in use at least since the 1660s, clearly applied first by everyday people, not by scientists. No one seems to know the origin of the word. In North America, Gadwalls are most numerous in the West, breeding mainly on the northern Great Plains and in western lowland marshes. Smaller numbers nest north to southern Alaska and east to the Great Lakes and…

In last issue’s column, I described how mistakes made by neurobiologists in the late 1890s were perpetuated for about a hundred years, leading to a great misunderstanding of the bird brain. The structural arrangement of the bird brain is very different from that of mammals. This led early biologists to believe that while birds could exhibit simple instinctive behavior, they lacked the ability for cognitive thought. In the early 2000s, biologists published a major paper correcting this wrong with new information. Importantly, bird brains have many brain cells (neurons) — even more than in mammal brains — packed together and capable of cognitive thought. The most intelligent birds are members of the Corvidae family (crows, ravens, jays, and relatives) and large parrots, all of which have relatively large brains and…

This summer’s movement for racial justice and atonement finally spurred Mississippi to remove the Confederate symbol from its state flag, Washington’s NFL team to change its racist team name, and statues of Confederates and other racist historical figures to be taken down. Will the names we use for birds be next? The practice of naming species after people was common in the 1800s, when white naturalists honored their friends, family members, or colleagues (often other white naturalists) with eponyms — birds named in their honor. Today, many of those names are fraught with ethical problems. McCown’s Longspur, for example, was named for an officer of the Confederacy who defended slavery and also battled multiple Native American tribes. Townsend’s Solitaire and Townsend’s Warbler bear the name of John Kirk Townsend, a…

The instant image feedback from digital cameras and the lighter weight of many of today’s telephoto lenses have spurred many birdwatchers these days to carry photo equipment into the field. And many of them practice their bird photography in their backyards. Your backyard bird feeders can provide a steady stream of photographic subjects. One advantage is that the birds become familiar with you and are usually not scared away, allowing for a closer approach. You also have a predictable location where the birds will land, so you don’t have to chase them in the field. As easy as this might sound, backyard photography can come with its challenges when you’re trying to get an aesthetically pleasing image. Elements in the background such as a house, power lines, busy tree branches,…

IT is early morning in one of the largest tracts of Florida dry prairie. A chorus of insects fills the dark chilled air, and heavy dew soaks through my pants as I carefully navigate thick underbrush. I make slow and calculated movements. After nearly an hour of hiking through the ecosystem, Rebecca Schneider, sparrow biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), abruptly tells me to stop in my tracks. “We are here,” she whispers, glancing down at her GPS. I peer out into the golden prairie, seeing only the gentle waving of grass, welcoming the sunrise. We are on the search for one of the rarest birds in the world — the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow. It’s an endangered subspecies of the widespread Grasshopper Sparrow found only in…

A favorite hotspot in the San Antonio area is Mitchell Lake Audubon Center, 11 miles south of downtown. It was once known as the Laguna de los Patos (Lake of the Ducks), later as ranch lands, and then as an extension of the sewage treatment system. The city property was cleaned up and designated a refuge for shorebirds and waterfowl in 1973, and the National Audubon Society has managed the area since 2004. It was featured as BirdWatching’s Hotspot Near You No. 25 in October 2007. Mitchell Lake has 650 acres of woodlands, wetlands, brush, and grasslands, and it has checked off 341 species of birds, in addition to coyotes, bobcats, wild hogs, and copperheads, rattlers, and coral snakes. It is one of only two refuges in Texas where you…

Since its inception, the international photo competition Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY) has had the twin aims of celebrating bird photography and inspiring people to care about the natural world through stunning imagery. More recently, in early 2020 the team established the grant-awarding charity Birds on the Brink, a U.K. nonprofit that now owns BPOTY. Birds on the Brink was borne of a passion for wildlife and in particular birds, but also out of a sense of despair: a response to the seemingly unstoppable process of human environmental exploitation and biodiversity’s steady progression toward extinction. But at its heart, there is a recognition that all is not yet lost and that if enough people care passionately enough about the world we live in, we stand a chance of reversing…

Let’s hear from you! Submit photos as full-resolution, high-quality JPG files via email (no TIFFs, please). Include a short description of the photo; include the bird name, the equipment used, and the location. Please include your name, address, phone number, and email address. If we publish a story or photo of yours, we’ll send you a complimentary copy of the issue in which it appears. There’s no payment for use of text or photos in “Your View.” Send your photos and stories to: Your View Editor BirdWatching Magazine yourview@birdwatchingdaily.com…

Karolina Araya Sandoval grew up in the northern Chilean town of Arica. Nicknamed the “City of Eternal Spring” for its Mediterranean climate and famed for its rich alluvial soil, Arica sits at the edge of the world’s driest desert, the Atacama. Not far away, the Chilean Woodstar makes its last stand. Chile’s smallest bird, this critically endangered hummingbird is now found only in two deep, arid river valleys, and fewer than 400 are thought to remain. Sandoval and her colleagues dedicate themselves to helping the endemic species rebound. The bird prefers native scrub habitat. It migrates altitudinally and appears to rely on continuous vegetation along rivers to undertake such movements. After Sandoval studied veterinary medicine in the country’s south, she returned home and assisted with annual monitoring of the woodstar’s…

As readers of this column probably realize, wife Linda and I spent last winter and early spring in California with her parents. Our return drive the first week in May was uneventful and spiked with birds not seen during our trip out in December — multiple Swainson’s Hawks, Scissor- tailed Flycatchers, and other gems. And while the bird riches of California’s Central Coast do not lack for abundance or charm, it was only on our first morning home that I realized that I had been deprived of the resonant two-note honk of the Canada Goose for five months. I’m not saying California is goose impoverished. Far from it. But this oh-so-common New Jersey resident bird was absent in the wine country where my in-laws reside. Here in New Jersey, they…

Florida Grasshopper Sparrow is not the only endangered sparrow subspecies found in the Sunshine State. The other is Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow, a permanent resident of southern Florida — specifically Everglades National Park and Big Cypress National Preserve. It’s the only bird restricted to the Everglades ecosystem. The bird inhabits areas that are periodically burned and flooded — inland prairies of cordgrass, muhly grass, and short sawgrass. The sparrow is sometimes known as the “Goldilocks bird” as conditions have to be just right for it to survive. Despite being named for Cape Sable, located at the southwestern tip of Florida, the subspecies has not been seen there since the 1970s.…

And a good south wind sprung up behind;The Albatross did follow,And every day, for food or play,Came to the mariner’s hollo!-- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798 Albatrosses inspire more than poets and ancient mariners. They also stir scientists’ imaginations, if the efforts of biologists at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) are any indication. The researchers are using the majestic birds to detect fishing boats that may be involved in illegal operations. The dragnet is called Ocean Sentinel, and its maritime police force is staffed by Wandering and Amsterdam Albatrosses. Albatrosses are particularly fitting for the mission, says lead project scientist Henri Weimerskirch. The birds soar across huge areas of the sea surface. In a CNRS study, some 50 albatrosses covered more than…

I started making sound recordings of nature in January 2001. When I record birds at home, I always focus on individuals, using a parabolic or shotgun microphone. When I travel to an exotic place, I’ve sometimes left out a recorder with a built-in microphone for an hour or longer to capture the local ambiance. I treasure those recordings, but oddly enough, it never occurred to me to make similar recordings in my own backyard until the pandemic. Background noise always seemed too big of a factor. I’m in a high-risk group for COVID-19, so I didn’t leave my home or yard this April, May, and June, when bird song was at its annual high. I used my good shotgun microphone several times in April but quickly discovered that when I…

If I asked you to name the season when birds are looking their best, I suspect you would answer “spring.” That’s when most species are in their most showy and colorful breeding plumage. But I would like to make a case for fall as the season when birds are actually at their most beautiful. Spring birds certainly capture the headlines with their bright colors and contrasting patterns. Birds like buntings, warblers, and tanagers have just returned to their nesting territories and use their brilliant color to show off for mates and rivals. The beauty of fall birds is more subtle — delicate shadings of gray and buff, crisp pale edges, all feathers new and unblemished. Almost all birds molt in late summer, replacing their worn-out breeding-season feathers for a whole…