2007 List of Banished Birding Words

Check out djringer’s 2007 List of Banished Birding Words, based on Lake Superior State University’s List of Banished Words. I know I’ve been guilty of some of these.

Eastern population of Golden Eagles being tracked

The National Aviary in Pittsburgh and Powdermill Avian Research Center are both working on satellite tracking several Golden Eagles that were trapped this fall near the Allegheny Front Hawk Watch near Bedford, PA. I was lucky enough to be in the trapping blind for a day when 39 Golden Eagles and 1 Bald Eagle migrated past but unfortunately we only caught two Red-tailed Hawks. The eastern Golden Eagle has been recognized as a geographically and genetically isolated population for more than two decades now and it is crucial that we understand how their migratory behavior might be affected by proposed wind power projects along the Appalachian ridges. According to one article…

The possible increase of wind power on Appalachian ridges may threaten golden eagles as they travel their historic migratory corridor that follows these mountains through Pennsylvania to reach their nesting grounds in eastern Canada or wintering grounds in the southern reaches of the mountain chain. Since all known eastern golden eagle migratory routes track over the Appalachian Mountains, possibly along or in close proximity to ridges targeted for wind power development, the Game Commission must ensure the well-being of this state and federally-protected species – as well as other wildlife – as this growing industry sites turbines between the state’s Allegheny Front and Blue or Kittatinny Ridge. -according to PaForestCoalition.org

Below are the tracks of two Golden Eagles that were trapped this fall.

For more info on this project, click here.

Ten Laws of Winter Birding:

I saw this on the Birdchat listserv and enjoyed it. And boy, are they true.

1) The older we get, the colder it feels while birding. Global warming is counterbalanced by personal cooling.

2) The possibility of seeing a Gyrfalcon is inversely proportional to the listing need.

3) Red Crossbills never land. Never. As in nada.

4) “It was just here 10 minutes ago.” (Note also spring, summer & fall birding rules.)

5) Boreal Chickadees respond to pishing. Once a decade.

6) Golden Crowned Kinglets have three distinct calls. Except when Brown Creepers are also in the area.

7) Cardinals will sing in the winter. Period. This is not an event, but a ruse.

8) Walk the snowy winter trail. Miss the bird. Walk back on the winter trail. Miss the bird again. Warm up the car, see the (potential) bird fly by, binoculars fog. Until the bird disappears.

9) Vagrants always occur in the portion of the state farthest from you. If vagrants do occur in your area, your schedule will become unbelievably jammed – until the day after it leaves.

10) Prayer does help. But God also has a sense of humor.

Study reveals further declines for the world’s waterbirds

In the somber news category, the fourth edition of the Wetlands International report on waterbird species around the world has been released. It’s based on annual field surveys by 15,000 voluntary expert observers across hundreds of sites worldwide, including many IBA’s. Of the 878 species that they present estimates and trends for, 44% are either decreasing or have become extinct since the last edition was released 4 years ago.

Read the full article.

Solitary Sandpiper © 2006 Drew Weber

How to count birds

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Snow Geese flock, originally uploaded by topherous.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird site has just posted Bird Counting 101. For anyone who spends time out in the field watching large flocks, whether they are shorebirds, waterfowl or hawks knows that estimating flock size can be ridiculously hard. Just looking at the flock of Snow Geese above is overwhelming if you want to try and estimate the number of birds. Estimating sizes of flocks can be biologically important because it is an additional data set that can be more useful than just knowing whether a species is present or absent.

Cornell puts forth several different tips for counting in their first installment:

1. It is very important to write your observations down right away. No one can remember counts for 40+ species at a time. You will also end up second guessing yourself if you don’t write down what you see, particularly with the more common species, “Did I really see a Mourning Dove today or was that yesterdays walk?”
2. Be conservative in your estimates, making sure you are not counting birds twice.
3. For larger flocks, count a small portion of the flock and then extrapolate for the rest of the flock. For instance, count 10 birds in the flock and get a good idea of what that feels like. Then count the flock in 10 bird increments. This fall I was the counter on South Lookout at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, PA on the morning that a flight of over 5,000 Broad-winged Hawks migrated through. I mainly counted in 5 and 10 bird increments because the birds kept coming and coming and coming.

One fascinating fact from the article was that we have a hard time estimating flocks when they are flying in 3D space. If a large blackbird flock is 100 birds wide, 100 birds long, and 100 birds deep, that is 1,000,000 blackbirds! I have a hard time imagining that.

Check out the full article.

The Long-billed Murrelet Quandry or "Would you Count it?"

Well, I was there. And I most certainly saw an alcid. Could have been a murrelet. Definitely not a Razorbill. Hmm… So is this the record that I put on my life list? It seems questionable, for all I know, I could have seen a Marbled Murrelet. But most of the people there were looking at a Red-throated Loon and will probably mark it down as a lb murrelet. Does that justify my tick? Anyways, the wind was ridiculously strong and the surf rough which made seeing any bird well almost impossible. If you were in this situation would you record it or not. Please leave me a comment about what you would do!

The chase is on!

A stray from Asia, the Long-billed Murrelet has been sighted at Sandy Hook, NJ and I am off to meet Cameron and some other birders in Bucks County to carpool to the site. I will let you know tonight if I am successful!

The Croissant-shaped bird

I got out today and did some of my first birding in Maryland, but was sorely disappointed. The weather had turned bloody cold but there are still no ducks around. Maybe they don’t get ducks out here? I guess that is a possibility. I did manage to pick up some year birds including a Pileated Woodpecker for #72. That is not very fantastic for the start to the year but I’ve been busy and the weather hasn’t been conducive. Well, in between reading fascinating life histories of grassland birds I took some time to go back through the photos I digiscoped in New Jersey last month and edited a few more.

These first two are some shots I got of Brant. I was ridiculously close to the Brant and am a little bitter that I didn’t get anything clearer to show you. The morning sun was particularly bright and I didn’t account for that in the cameras settings so I ended up with many overexposed shots. The shots that did turn out well were sharp enough, so I guess I can’t complain too much. I do wish that I had an SLR camera for such close birds, I could have turned out some fantastic images in no time at all.

I was also plagued with light issues digiscoping the Ruddy Turnstones that were hopping over the rocks at Barnegat Light. I definitely learned that more light is not always better. The light was shining right down the barrel of the scope and so most of the shots show that distinct sunbeam going right across the turnstone, washing out all the color. I fixed one up the best I could in order to commemorate the turnstone that got picked off later in the morning by two hungry Peregrine Falcons. I particularly like the hunch-backed look to the turnstones. In Pete Dunne’s Essential Filed Guide Companion, he describes them as having a croissant-like shape which I think is a apt desciptor.

Now the last picture I am going to show you is what I consider one of my luckiest digis because I didn’t focus on the bird and even aiming at the Great Blue was luck. It took off from where it was perched and I whipped my digiscope setup around, using the auto-focus to lock on the bird if I got it in view. After a little clean up editing in Photoshop I am fairly proud of this flight shot. I hope you enjoy these!

Stop lurking and leave me a comment!

So I just heard this on multiple posts and thought I would pick it up before the weekend came. I won’t be posting for a few days because I am moving to Frostburg, Md to start grad school but I would really love comments if in fact anybody does read this blog. It would be great to hear what you like, don’t like etc. Expect in the future to start hearing lots more about grassland birds and reclaimed strip mines in western PA and MD because thats what I’ll be studying.

Year birds, state birds and a lifer

Yesterday I spent the day cruising the gull scene around Tullytown, Pa which is home to a rather massive dump. Larophiles know that dumps can often attract large numbers of gulls and this dump is no exception, attracting one of the largest numbers of Lesser Black-backed Gulls of anyplace in the Americas. My goal was to find a few white winged gulls, particularly Glaucous Gull which I have never found in Pennsylvania. Well, I was not disappointed! By the days end we had found at least 7 Iceland Gulls, all first cycle birds. I say at least because we saw at least that many that looked different, who knows if some of the similar looking birds were repeats or brand new. Up to this point I had only ever seen 1 Iceland Gull before so this was really a feast for my eyes.

It was at this point that another birder from the west part of the state joined us, looking through the closer gull flock that contained at least 2 Iceland Gulls. After tiring of the search through the flock we decide to do some other birding. We set off down the road and only made it a mile or two when this other birder screeched to a halt behind us, hopped out and shouted, “The Black-headed was right at the corner when you left!.” There had been a Black-headed Gull reported several days earlier and we had scanned for it several times with no luck. Pulling a neat little U-turn in the intersection we streaked back to the gull flock and sure enough, there it was sitting serenely not 50 feet from us, putting my life list up to 575. The bird was obviously smaller and seemed pretty intimidated by the bigger Ring-billed and Herring Gulls that surrounded it. We managed quite a few decent pictures of the bird and enjoyed studying this 3rd county record.

After this excitement we decided to search for the Glaucous Gull one more time. We were lamenting the difficulty in finding this and Cameron was remarking how he usually finds 1 Glaucous for every 3-4 Iceland’s and suddenly he excitedly shouted out, “I’ve got one!” This gull was a big bruiser, roughing up every gull that came close to it and in general causing a ruckus wherever it went. I managed to get a few identifiable photos, notice the pale wing tips, large size and black tipped bill. The Glaucous and Black-headed Gulls have advanced my PA list to 245, a modest number that will hopefully grow in the next few years.