Year of the Bird

Trip to Newfoundland

2010-01-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

I recently went to Newfoundland, and have posted photos and comments on my Smugmug site...here's the link!

http://larzalere.smugmug.com/Nature/Trip-to-Newfoundland-2010/11009168_uxteH/1

South Dakota

2009-06-05T10:22:00.000-04:00

Recently I had a great birding opportunity, brought to me by my friend Tom Stephenson. Tom, as I’ve mentioned before, is an excellent birder and accomplished bird photographer, and it is always a pleasure spending time with him in the field. He was recently invited to go to the Badlands of South Dakota to help the Nature Conservany with a new property they had purchased, and asked me to join. I leapt at an opportunity to both explore a new habitat and at the same time contribute (a little!) to preservation efforts. So once again I relied on those precious frequent-flyer miles, and flew out west.

I arrived in Denver — the only airport I could easily get to for free — and rented a car there. The rental agent walked me out to the lot to show me the car, and as we were examining the outside for “pre-existing damage”, my attention wandered…there were a pair of birds chasing each other around across the lot, and then perched up on the chainlink fence. That’s an interesting shape, I thought…looks like a kingbird. I dug into my bag for my binoculars, while going over the rental contract, and took a quick look. It was a pair of Western Kingbirds; this trip was going to be fun!

The seven-hour drive took me through NE Colorado, eastern Wyoming, and then into the southwest corner of South Dakota. I passed the time watching for birds, and wound up with a decent little car list. White Pelican, Western Kingbird, Western Meadowlark, Say’s Phoebe, Lark Bunting (in beautiful black-and-white breeding plumage, unlike the one we had last fall on Long Island…not that I’m complaining), Swainson’s Hawk, Mountain Bluebird, and Prairie Falcon were some highlight, all seen at about sixty miles an hour, with only a minimal amount of swerving and rubbernecking, and maybe only one or two “emergency” pull-offs. I got into Rapid City around 6:30pm and met up with Tom and Bob Paulson, who was responsible for buying the new property that we were going to survey. The property is a ranch of about 4,000 acres, located within the Badlands National Park. The immediate area contains about a third of the remaining Black-Footed Ferret population, and consists of long- and short-grass praries, habitats that are relatively rare. Like a lot of people, I have a fairly strong opinion about conservation of habitats like this, based on partial and second-hand information and lots of emotion about “those people” who are “destroying the last of…” blah blah blah. None of it is particularly concrete. That is in stark contrast to Bob, who has been actively working with the ranchers and communities in this area for many years, and has gradually built relationships that will ultimately lead to the purchase the remaining private land within the Badlands park. His goal, and the goal of the Nature Conservancy, is to create a large and contiguous property that is conserved for the future in it’s original, unfarmed state. Bob wasn’t complaining, he was acting, and that was inspirational to see. Here's a link to more information on the project.

We went over topo-maps of the property, which had GPS waypoints marked in groups of three. These lines of three were the survey points we would check in order to get a sample of the birdlife across the property. Our job was to help develop a baseline bird number that the Nature Conservancy can then use to compare with future surveys, and also as a guide to manage the property for the future. By seeing which birds are common and which aren’t, they can decide how to manage for diversity. This can be a long process…for a prarie that has been plowed to return to full plant and animal diveristy, ie to return to a mature state, can take a hundred years.

Driving out to the property I could see how this habitat could be so easily taken for granted. From a moving car it just looks like, well, grassland. It doesn’t have the same dramatic presence as a mature woodland or costal marshland. In fact, I found that the prarie was more conspicuous in its absence that it’s presence. You don’t realize how significant it is until you drive out of the park and into farmland, past those miles and miles of sterile, agricultural “parking lots”, paved with a single type of plant that is anathema to sustaining anything but itself. In contrast, when you walk out into the prarie you find that the seemingly monotonous grassland is actually comprised of dozens and dozens of species. I spent twenty minutes one day photographing some of the different wildflowers we saw (click here): it shows just a little of the variety of life in this place.

We stayed at the former ranch house for the property, and for the next three days we got up before dawn went until noon or so, doing our survey lines. Using a GPS device, we’d go to each designated spot and stand for ten minutes, counting all the birds in a radius of 100 feet. Grasshopper sparrows and Western Meadowlark were ubiquitous throughout, and we often counted a half-dozen of each within a count circle. It was surprising to see as we walked how the prairie wold shift in even short distances. Where in one spot you’d have short grass and wildflowers, a hundred yards away you’d be stepping around cacti and spiky shrubs. With these shifts in plantlife there was also a shift in birdlife, so in the gullies we might have Bell’s Vireo, Blue Grosbeak, and Baltimore and Bullock’s Oriole, whereas on the open flatlands we’d have Western Meadowlark, Western and Eastern Kingbirds, Sharp-Tailed Grouse, Lark Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow and Field Sparrow. One pond turned up Cinnamon, Blue and Green-winged Teals, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Killdeer, Barn, Tree and Bank Swallows, and a passing group of Upland Sandpiper. It was interesting how localized some of the birds were…about twenty miles away we checked out a similar prairie that had Chestnut-Collared Longspur, Bairds Sparrow, and large groups of Lark Bunting, while where we were none of those species turned up.

The weather surprised me as much as the diversity did. I’d reluctantly packed a wool hat and extra jacket layer, thinking at the time that there was no way I’d need that stuff in late May. On our second day I found myself wearing everything I had most of the time, and still being chilled. It was generally overcast and cold, with a steady wind, and temperatures ranged down into the forties during a couple of mornings. It did warm up in the afternoon once or twice, but if I go back to South Dakota I’m bringing my parka! The afternoons were our time off, since bird activity tended to decrease by 11am or so, and our samples would be skewed if we continued to survey after that. Most of our IDs came from hearing, rather than seeing, birds, so if they stopped singing it was hard to get a good read on what was there. In fact, one morning was so rainy/cold/windy that we stopped by 8am—the birds seemed suppressed by the conditions, and it wouldn’t be a usable sample. We did take advantage of our free time, and spent one afternoon at LaCreek NWR. LaCreek is famous for it’s Trumpeter Swan population, which is largest around Thanksgiving and can number in the thousands. We hoped to see a couple of stragglers in the area, but were unlucky in that regard. We were very lucky, though, to meet up with Tom Koerner, who manages the refuge and who, without prompting, took us on a two hour tour of the place in his truck. Tom has a deep knowledge of the Refuge, and is responsible for keeping it healthy and appropriately managed. In that regard he seemed to be very successful. Managing a piece of land is utterly complex…altering one aspect has ramifications for every other. Maintaing a “wild” state is takes a lot of work, and a lot of intelligence and experience, and it certainly seemed that Tom was well-qualified for the job. He was also extremely friendly, and I found myself inspired again by someone doing the hard, concrete work of conservation while maintaining a palpable excitement about the place he is caring for.

It was a short trip..only four days. I had to get back in time to work, and Tom had already been out there for a few days more than me doing similar surveys on a property in Montana. I left Tom in South Dakota and drove myself back towards Denver. In my typical bird-the-crap-out-of-it attitiude, I managed to get in three hours of birding before my 11am flight, starting around 5am in the grassland areas in Northeastern Colorado. I wanted to try for Cassins Sparrow and Mountain Plover there. I was successful with a single, silent Cassin’s that gave me a brief look before diving back into the brush, and I missed on the Mountain Plover which I think I was a couple of weeks late for (it also didn’t help that I didn’t have a scope with me). The bird song was impressive on the prarie, with Lark Bunting, Grasshopper Sparrow and Western Meadowlark all singing over there territories, and it was beautiful to watch the sun come up over the grassland. It only cost me a car wash, with some special attention with a stick to getting the two inches of red mud out of the wheel wells before I brought it back to the rental place—if rental companies only knew what we birders do with their cars, they might put some special policies in place!

CLICK HERE for lots more pictures from this trip.

Oregon Photos

2009-05-22T19:11:00.001-04:00

I recently went out to Oregon on business and was able to squeeze in a few days of birding. Four days, to be exact, and my trip included Portland, the west coast, Burns and Hines. When it was all over I'd seen over 150 species across all the spectacular habitat the Oregon has to offer, including coastal pelagic rookeries, snowy mountains, wet decidous forest, and high desert. Here's a link to photos of a few of them:

http://larzalere.smugmug.com/gallery/8296089_kNKy2/1/543250830_FXRgp

World Series in Photos

2009-05-10T16:17:00.000-04:00

After being involved in an intensely structured year in 2008, I have really been enjoying not “having” to chase anything that I don’t want to. I can just chill out and watch the birds, take photos, and go where I want! That said, I do enjoy a little competition every once in awhile, so when Tom Stephenson suggested we compete in the photo division of the World Series of Birding, held every year in Cape May, NJ, of course I said yes.

The World Series is in its twenty-sixth year, overseen by the well known birder and author Pete Dunne. Each year people from all over the country (and the world) come to test their birding skills in a twenty-four hour contest to see who can find the most birds. Over the years the event has gotten more specialized and the number of categories of competition have increased. As it stands, there are awards for the whole state total, Cape May Island only, youth groups, a senior group, highest single county total, digiscoping, staying in a single location, birding without carbon emmisions, and then our category, photography. One would be hard-pressed to compete in the general all-state category…you’d be up against some of the best birders on earth, people with near-mythical hearing and practiced eyes, people who let nothing get by. A number of participants have been doing the World Series for years or decades, and have an encyclopedic knowledge of the state, where to find “backup” birds when the normal spots fail, where the best migration areas are on any given day. Most of these teams start at midnight, listening to (and identifying) flight calls of migrating birds. They also use the nighttime to locate owls and other noctural birds. All this can pay off with massive numbers…the winning team in 2009 had 229 species in twenty-four hours. Actually, many of the teams start long before the actual day, and may spend a week or more in NJ scouting locations and refining their route for game day.

What Tom and I do have is photography skills, and field practice in capturing the quick and the skulky in images. Tom, of course, also has great ears, and we both have pretty sharp eyes, so the photo category looked like a place we could seriously compete. Our philosophy was not to try and bird the whole state—too much driving. We weren’t trying to get over 200 birds; in fact, the winning number would probably be under 150. So we just needed to find the densest variety of species in closest proximity to each other. Of course, we also needed spots that were easy for photography…if the birds wouldn’t show themselves, they wouldn’t count. You can’t use electronic calls or other devices to bring the birds out of hiding, so they’d have to come out on their own.

Tom had experience with the World Series in previous years with the Zeiss Digiscoping Team, so he had some familiarity with possible routes. We also had an “inside man” at Cape May, Glen Davis, who would give us good info on what was happening the week of the competition. He also introduced us to our third team member, driver and scout Sam Galick, a migration counter for the Cape May Observatory who wound up being invaluable in getting us on birds and getting around the state.

On the week of the competition, Tom went ahead and started to scout out our locations. I had a job that week that kept me from going down until Thursday night, so we did a dry run on Friday. We held back a bit, knowing that we’d have to do the real thing the next day, but we still wound up with over a hundred birds on our route, which encompassed the lower third of the state. Southern NJ has a fantastic variety of birds and habitats, and we went through a lot of them, including pine barrens, marshland, shoreline, secondary forest, open fields, agricultural areas, and ocean. We had a quick dinner and were in bed by 10pm for our 4am start the next day.

Game day and we up and running before the sun was up. On our way to our first location (the route is part of the game, so I’m going to be vague!), we picked up our first bird…a Wild Turkey flew up from the side of the pavement and into a tree, and I got a blurry but identifiable shot of it in the near-dark. From there it was go go go, with Tom and I shooting anything that moved, and Sam staying a step ahead of us with the next bird to find and the next spot to hit. Some of the highlights included getting VERY close to having a shot of a Northern Bobwhite that was calling from the side of the road (a passing group of bicyclists scared it off); getting a good shot of a uncharacteristically curious Yellow-Billed Cuckoo, and getting covered with ticks while bushwacking after Worm-Eating and Hooded Warblers. We ran at a good clip, and we were probably up to about 100 species by mid-day, about 8 hours in. We spent some time in Cape May Island, hitting the beach and the fields for birds like Cattle Egret, Common Tern and Northern Gannet. At about three I think we were starting to feel it, but got a second wind that carried us through more of Cape May and up to our final spot in Brigantine. It was basically dark when we finally finished, sixteen hours later, and got in the car to head back to the Cape May headquarters to turn in our photos. I worked feverishly to sort through the 2500 or so shots we’d taken, edit, rename and export them to a disk. We had until midnight, so I spent some extra time getting each image corrected, and worked with RAW files instead of JPGs…it takes longer but it sometimes looks better. I finished and burned a disk at about quarter to midnight, and we handed in the disc, satisfied that we’d birded and photographed as hard as we could that day.

The next morning we showed up to the brunch/awards ceremony, where dozens of teams gathered in a big conference room at a local hotel. We were pretty confident that we’d done well against our competition, but when we got there we saw that our team didn’t have a final species number listed next to it on the bulletin board. I started to get an ugly feeling, and Tom went to talk to folks and see what was going on.

Well, sometimes the effort is its own reward, and in this was going to have to be one of those times. The administration for the Series had initially changed the deadline for team submissions to 10pm, but then a couple of weeks before the day sent out a new email that said the deadline was midnight. What they didn’t say was that the photo teams were still supposed to turn in photos by ten. So we had turned in the photos late, even though we were at headquarters at nine, and even though we could have turned in the photos before ten if we’d known (we could have used the JPGs that we had, instead of messing with the more time-consuming RAW files), the panel decided that they had to disqualify us. That was a bummer, since we had indeed “won”, with 132 species…the next closest team was 125. Overall, people we’re nice about it, and Pete Dunne had the room give us a round of applause for our effort. As I told Tom, it was an involuntary practice run, and it would just make us sharper and faster for next year's World Series, which we will certainly be in.

If you'd like to see a gallery of all the birds we photographed that day, click here.

Winter Highlights

2009-02-15T23:06:00.000-05:00

It's been six weeks since the end of 2008, and I've been adapting to a life without constant chasing. I've been going over the birds of 2008, and I created a Google map of where I saw them (see links at right). I'm submitting my record to NYSARC as 348 birds for the year (neither Pink Footed Goose nor Scott's Oriole are on the countable list yet, Scott's Oriole since it was a first for New York, and Pink Footed because there has been some question of whether these geese are escapes or wild). As for going out, I've been doing a lot more in Prospect Park. I led a tour there on Valentine's Day, and we had some very nice birds, including Siskin and Purple Finch. I've also been photographing birds in snow, and am really pleased with some of the images I've gotten so far.

Now all that is not to say that I haven't done a little chasing in 2009, but I'm trying to limit it to life-birds only. The year started with the Thick-Billed Murre that showed up in a lake in Hemstead Park on Long Island. I had amazing looks at it with Shai Mitra and Doug Gochfeld, and photographed it as it floated within feet of the shore. This is normally a bird seen only on the ocean, so there were concerns that there was something wrong with it. Sure enough, it was found dead on the lake a couple of days later. There were also two interesting "non-countable" birds nearby on the Island: Eurasion Teal at a nearby lake, and an Audobon's Yellow-Rumped Warbler out at Oak Beach, a very rare bird for New York even if it's not a separate species from the Myrtle Yellow-Rumped.

Jess and I took a trip to Block Island in January, and took a shot at Tufted Duck in Providence along the way. No Tufted, but we had Black Guillemot and Common Murre from the ferry, as well as a surprise appearance of a Northern Fulmar! While we were up there the Ivory Gull was reported in Massachussetts, and I just couldn't resist. I stayed over and was in Gloucester the next morning before daybreak. One other birder was there, and we waited as the sun began to dimly illuminate the snowy scene (it was mixed snow/rain that morning). We began to see forms in the air...just the shapes of gulls moving towards and then past the point we were on. We strained to see the ghostly white ivory gull, and several times thought we might have it, but each turned out to be an Iceland Gull...normally a good bird, but in this situation something to note and discard. The other birder walked a little way down the rocky shore, and then suddenly I saw a bird whiter than the Icelands, whiter than the snow itself, come soaring in from behind us. "Ivory!" I was shouting, "Ivory!", and the other birder was now shouting it, too. Over then next hour several more birders arrived, and we watched the gull as it glided right over our heads, and then landed just a few feet away on a patch of ice. I would watch it for several minutes, and then look around a bit at the other gulls (which included probably a dozen Icelands, one or two Glaucous, and a very good Thayers candidate), and then look back for the Ivory, startled again as if seeing it for the first time. It's the most striking bird I think I've ever seen.

On the way home I stopped for the Bullock's Oriole that was coming to a feeder in mid-state New York, and then worked my way back to Brooklyn. In early February Jess's sister had a baby, so we drove to Cleveland for the briss. Of course, we had to do a little birding...on the drive there I counted 33 Red Tailed Hawks, plus a Black Vulture, many Turkey Vultures, a couple of Red-Shouldered Hawks, and a group of Ravens. On the way back I got in touch with some folks in Pennsylvania about a Harris's Sparrow that was coming to a feeder there. We met up and were lucky enough to have the big, unmistakable bird come in and give us very nice looks.

Finally, I went back up to Rhode Island for the Tufted Duck, and not only found it but also saw the reported hybird Tufted Duck x Scaup...an odd bird that has white flanks, a dark grey back, and a mini-tuft. It was gratifying to have both after having missed them in January, and it was an education to see the hybrid...something to file away for when I'm scanning big Scaup flocks in the future.

So it's back to birding as usual, with just enough chasing to keep things spicy, and if the winter is any indication, we seem to be headed for another good year in birding.

One Year, Three Hundred Fifty Birds, and an Education

2008-12-31T08:50:00.004-05:00

New Year's Eve came and went, and no new birds reported, so I coasted into the new year with lots of time to reflect and look back at all that I had done in 2008. It's hard to believe that a year ago I was just starting with the goal of hitting 300, and racing from bird to bird to front-load my list as quickly as possible. There's something about this activity for me that makes my memory seem sharper, and I can picture being in the swamp at Fort Drum, the snowy trails of Bloomingdale Bog, and the hot days at Cupsogue, all as clearly as if I were there again. It's been an incredible year, and I got an education in birding that I could have only had through love, not money. I was schooled by all the masters of the New York birding scene: Shane Blodgett, Shai Mitra and Pat Lindsay, Doug Futuyma, Tom Burke and Gail Benson, Willie D'Anna and Betsy Potter, Bob Spahn, Peter Dorosh, Tom Stephenson and a dozen others, each of whom was generous without exception in sharing their vast knowledge and experience. That coupled with all the great reports and help from people all over the state, and I feel as though I was really just the driver and photographer, and that the true birding was done by everyone who spends their spare (and not so spare) hours in the field, feeding their hunger to be with the birds. I am certainly a better birder for it, and maybe a little different as a person.

The checklisting was what drove me, and for that I'm grateful. The competitive appeal of checklisting can make you do things you might never do...wait for eight hours in the snow, in one spot, to glimpse a reclusive Townsend's Solitaire, or make a dozen eight hour trips upstate to see that newly found bird, to sleep in the car in a parking lot in order to be at the "right place" at sunrise, and to spend a year of your life in non-stop pursuit, whenever and wherever it takes you. Checklisting is the little evil for the greater good. Because in fact what turned out to be truly valuable this year was all the in-between moments...the hours spent with Shai studying terns while waiting for a rare one to appear, the "unproductive" walks in Massawepie Bog for the (never seen) Spruce Grouse, the long but always too-short summer days spent checking the inlets of Long Island, and the hundreds of conversations and encounters with all the passionate birders of this great state.

On New Years Eve I went for a walk with Mary Eyster in Prospect Park, where I began birding, and we had a nearly perfect day. It was crisp and clear, and we had some beautiful birds. A gorgeuous male Purple Finch came into a call and perched a few feet away. The feeders had a festive congregation of doves, red wing blackbirds, nuthatches, Fox Sparrows and woodpeckers. A flock of Robins moved from one tree to the next, and called the alarm as a powerful Red-Tailed Hawk came soaring in throught the trees. There was no chasing here...just a walk in the park, with birds. And that's how I hope to spend many more days as this bright new year unfolds.

A Trip to Peru

2008-12-20T08:20:00.000-05:00

The year is starting to wind down now, with less than two weeks till New Years. November was a dissapointing month for rarities, most notable being the absence of a Ash Throated Flycatcher this year. However, where one expected bird fails, an unexpected bird appears, and so it was with a Northern Hawk Owl that showed up in Peru, NY, near Plattsburgh at the top of the Adirondacks. Hawk Owl is a great rarity for New York, certainly not a yearly thing, and is a very cool bird. They live in the Boreal Forest in Canada and Eurasia, and they hunt both day and night. They can spot prey up to 1/2 mile away, and can hear and catch a vole or other target under up to a foot of snow. They have a long tail, unlike other owls, and do have a somewhat hawk-like appearance and behavior, perching on treetops or posts and scanning for food.

I couldn't get up to Peru for several days, but I wasn't too concerned with this bird. A Hawk Owl that appeared in Bloomingdale Bog a few years ago stayed for a couple of months. I got a window of opportunity on Thursday night, so I drove up and got into Plattsburgh a little after midnight. The next morning I was at the spot at daybreak. At first I wasn't seeing anything, so I drove around a little, and found a large Snow Bunting flock and a few crows. The crows worried me a little, since they are known to mob predators like hawks and owls, and I didn't want them suppressing this bird. As I came back to my original position my fear was realized, as first one and then 1/2 dozen crows started hectoring a bird in the apple orchard across the street...it was the Hawk Owl. The owl was pushed off its perch and flew into the orchard where I couldn't see. The crows lost interest, and I thought I might have a long wait ahead of me before the owl showed itself. But I underestimated the owl, and within minutes it swooped up and perched on top of a telephone pole by the road. I drove a little closer and got some photos in the overcast morning light. The bird seemed completely uninterested in me, and looked intently towards the ground, swiveling its head back and forth. At one point it got especially interested in one spot, sat more upright, and then suddenly swooped down and splashed into the snow. Whatever it was, it missed, and it flew back up to its perch to continue the hunt. I spent a couple of hours watching and photographing, and didn't see it catch anything in that time, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

In addition to the owl there had been reports of a flock of Bohemian Waxwings in the area, and although I've already listed them this year I certainly wanted to see them again. I drove the local roads for a while, and at one point got onto a distant Waxwing flock that turned out to be most if not all Ceday Waxwings. I gave up around 11, and headed back to town for lunch. As I pulled up to Becky's diner I saw a berry bush across the street that was covered in Waxwings, mostly Cedar, but including 3 Bohemians and 3 Pine Siskins. I parked near the bush and used the car as a blind, and watched and photgraphed for about half an hour as the birds fed on the abundant berries. The colors of these birds almost look spray painted on, and that combined with the red berries and the red building behind nearly knocked my eyes out.

I had the day's special at Beckys (spagetti and red sauce...all eight of the other customers were having it, too), and then headed back around noon. Then the snow started, and I came back in the blizzard. What took about 5 hours the night before took 8 1/2 hours back, but I returned to a beautiful, snow-covered Brooklyn.

The Buffalo Shuffle

2008-12-15T11:41:00.004-05:00

Just before we left for San Francisco, an American Avocet turned up on Grand Island near Buffalo. There was no way to make it up there before our trip, but I kept my fingers crossed that the bird might stick around. That coupled with the Mew Gull sighting at Niagara falls gave me high hopes that the following weekend might be a good one.

The bird stuck, and so on Thursday I used my miles to book a flight to Buffalo on Saturday, the day after my return from California. I was encouraged to see the bird reported seen for the fifth day in a row on Friday, and was starting to think Saturday would be a quick and easy pick up. I was hoping that the Mew Gull might be refound as well, since there would be a good number of birders out on the Niagara River on the weekend. I was up before 5am on Saturday for my 6:40 flight, and it was a quick trip from the Buffalo airport to the island, so I was in the spot before 9am. I found the areas where the bird had been sighted right away, and started to search. And search. And search. No bird. There had been a cold snap the night before, and the water the bird had been feeding on was mostly frozen. Undeterred, I started to spread out my search area, and ultimately walked most of the shoreline along the south tip of the island. Aside from a Bald Eagle flyover, and some very skittish ducks, I came up empty-handed.

A gull was still possible, so I went over to the Falls and met up with Willie and Betsy and some of their friends, who were all scoping the thousands of gulls above the falls. We had a great time picking through the birds, and as per usual I learned a lot just being with these birders. About an hour in a darker-mantled bird was spotted...maybe a Lesser Black Backed Gull, but the tertial crescent was too wide. The bird was standing in a flock, but we were able to maneuver around for a look at it's legs...pink! Excitement was starting to mount as the possiblity of a Slaty Backed Gull became more real. We stayed with the bird for about an hour, and I had my camera ready when the entire riverfull of birds lifted off at once. I got off mabye a dozen photos before the possible Slaty was lost in the thousands of airborne birds, and then I just stood back and marvelled at the spectacle...possibly more birds in the air than I have ever seen at once. When we went through the photos, there were a couple of good wing shots, and there was the famous "string-of-pearls" pattern on the wing...it was a Slaty! This was actually my second of the year, after the gull that showed up at the Cornell compost piles, which is remarkable for the New York area.

I flew back that night to participate in the Captree Christmas Count. We had a great time scouring that region of Long Island for birds in teams, and then had the traditional dinner where all the numbers were tallied. I love Christmas Counts and will be on a couple more before the year is over. At dinner I checked my email and my fears were realized when the Avocet was re-reported, in the exact spot I had looked. After some hemming and hawing, talking to Willie, and checking and re-checking the weather reports, I used my last "silver bullet" and booked a frequent flyer flight to Buffalo for Monday.

It was deja vu as I got up at 5 and headed to the same parking spot at the airport. A quick flight, car rental, and I was back again at Grand Island before 9. This time instead of a cold breeze there was a warm (for Buffalo!) wind and light rain. The ice was gone, but when I first got there and scoped I didn't see the bird. Dreading the possibility of an extravagant double-miss, I walked down to the brushy water's edge, and woosh!, up flew the Avocet. It had been standing right by the sidewalk. I got a few shots and watched it circle back and land by an old barge. There were a lot of weeds and bushes there, so I took advantage of the cover and made an old-fashioned photo stalk...it was successful, and I managed to get lots of shots of the bird from about thirty feet before stealthily retreating to my car. It was a pleasure to call and book an earlier flight back to New York, to wait for the next rarity to show itself.

San Francisco Treat

2008-12-12T07:30:00.001-05:00

Jessica had an opening for her art work this week at Rayko Gallery in San Francisco. I didn't want to be away for too long, but I also wanted to see the show and be with her, so I went out for three days. San Francisco was beautiful, and we had a great time eating burritos, shopping, and seeing my sister for her birthday. Most importantly, though, we did a lot of birding. There were several birds I wanted to try for while I was out there, so I posted to the San Francisco list and got a lot of great information on where and when to find my target birds. What that boiled down to was spending a day going from park to park--and San Francisco has a lot of parks.

We took a trip to Oakland to try for Tufted Duck at Merritt Lake...no Tufted, but we did have ridiculously close looks at Ring Necked Duck, Scaup, Glaucous-Wing Gull, California Gull, Eared Grebe, Western Grebe, and White Pelicans. We also had a couple of "Puget Sound" gulls, hybrids between Glaucous Wing and Western Gull, which are very common in the pacific northwest. From there we went to the Palace of Fine Arts, where we had a flock of Mew Gulls to study...I spent about an hour photographing these birds along with Ring Billed Gulls, their closest confusion species, and gained a little more confidence on being able to ID one on the east coast if one ever shows up (they do, occasionally). We walked nearby Crissy Field, and had Orange Crowned Sparrows, Western Grebe, Brewers Blackbird, as well as more gulls, a Common Yellowthroat, and lots of Killdeer. Nothing rare, but that's the fun of birding in a new place...even the common birds are new and interesting. The Presidio was next, and we had beautiful looks at the Golden Gate Bridge, and scanned the waters around it for alcids an such. I could swear I had a Pacific Loon, but it dove and I never relocated it. There were Ravens, Townsends Warbler and Chestnut Backed Chickadees, and more Pelicans.

The sun was getting low, so we raced down the coast to Lake Merced, where we had flocks of American Coots walking around us as we searched for Tri-Colored Blackbird (found three), and Clarks Grebe (found one). A Mew Gull was perched on a power line with some "rock doves", highlighting the artifice of rarity...that bird on the East Coast would bring dozens if not hundreds of chasers, and here it's just another pigeon. As the sun set we hit Ocean Beach and had several Snowy Plovers, including one with four colorful bands on its legs. Willet and marbled Godwits were probing the sand along the oceans edge, and several variety of gull soared overhead. We didn't see all the target birds that day--missed Western Bluebird, Says Phoebe, Tufted Duck, and several others--but it was nearly perfect nonetheless.

Take a Stand on Boreal Birds

2008-12-08T11:28:00.002-05:00

I recently received an email from Paige Knappenberger at the NRDC about the Canadian Boreal Forests. If you're not familiar, the boreal forest in Canada is a major breeding zone for many birds...if you're wondering where the birds are all migrating to in the spring, the answer may well be the boreal forest. Recently Canada's prime minister made a major step towards preserving this vital resource, but there are still significant threats that could severely impact the birds of our hemisphere. Tar sands development is a destructive oil mining process that has been implemented in the boreal forest, and which is doing untold damage to the breeding ground for many birds. If you want to make a species extinct, destroying its breeding grounds may well be the most effective method, as the birds are frequently unable to adapt to this loss of habitat and simply die without producing offspring. It's up to us to make it unequivocably clear to the world's leaders that this kind of mining is absolutely unacceptable...it is the worst kind of short-sightedness that could impact every human generation to come. These forests are a heritage for the world, and the oil companies are literally stealing that heritage for their own gain. Please check out these links, and contribute your voice to let them know that we will not stand for this kind of theivery.

http://www.nrdc.org/media/2008/081202b.asp

http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/borealbirds.asp

You can also send a letter to the Canadian government at:

http://www.savebiogems.org/birds/

The Last Probable Bird

2008-12-01T18:03:00.004-05:00

At the beginning of this year I compiled a list of all the birds I might see. As the year progressed, I broke that list down into categories: Probable, Possible, and Rarities (Yearly, 2-5 Year and 5 years +, referring to the general frequency that they show up in New York State). Each time I'd see a new bird I'd remove it from the list. Today, with just one month to go in my Big Year, I crossed off the last Probable Bird, the Thayer's Gull.

My search for this bird started in January, when I drove up to Niagara Falls in that first hectic month to join Willie D'Anna and Betsty Potter to go gulling. At that point there were several gulls I needed, and Niagara is the place to be for gulls. In the winter thousands upon thousands of gulls come to the falls and the Niagara river to flock and feed, and in those months Niagara probably sees more species of gull than anywhere else in North America. Iceland and Little Gulls are commonplace, as are Lesser Black Backed Gulls. Glaucous are less common but usual, and Black Headed Gull is not out of the question. Rarer gulls like California are seen annually, and birds like Ross's Gull, Ivory Gull and Slaty Backed Gull have all been seen here. Of course, these rarer birds are mixed in with monumental flocks of Herring and Bonapartes gulls.

That first trip was both exciting and rewarding...Willie is one of the great gull experts of New York, and is a great guy to boot. Betsy is keen-eyed and great at picking out that "odd" gull. Spending a day with them on the river is like reading three gull books, and more fun. We spent a lot of time on Thayer's that day, and although we had several "candidates", we never had a textbook bird. I should say that Thayers gull is a VERY difficult ID, to be attempted only by experienced and serious gull watchers. While I find I've been able to pick out Thayer's candidates on the river, I would never trust myself to make a definitive ID (and no one else would trust me, either!), so without Willie I'm not sure seeing the bird would be possible. I'd venture to say that this is the only bird like that for me in New York...everything else I can ID by call or fieldmarks or photos, albeit with multitudes of mistakes along the way and confirmation from more experience birders. That's the thing about gull ID, which is different from any other bird watching...it requires both good eyes and carefully trained thought. The bird must often be pieced together as in a detective novel before a final ID is reached. This is especially true of Thayers, a species with a checkered and sorid past. The Thayers was split from other gulls in the 70s through research that has been put into serious question...many believe that much of the study that defined the bird was simply fabricated. It is somewhere between an Iceland and Herring gull in shape and markings, and IDing one is like walking a razor...too far one way and it's an Iceland, too far the other and it's a Herring. A definitive bird is hard to come by, and so on that first trip I had to leave empty handed.

Back to this weekend, and it was time to try again. Right around now is a great time to look for large gulls at Niagara...they arrive earlier in November and by January the Thayers will start to leave. We had tried to go up last weekend, but snowy weather and poor visibility waylayed the trip. This weekend looked better, so after Thanksgiving we headed up to the Falls to try again. We birded above Adam Beck, a large power plant that feeds off of the Niagara, and the best spot on the river to look for Thayers. When you bird there you're actually on the Canadian side, looking back at the US...the birds there tend to glide back and forth over the border (to them the river) with frequency. The gulls are several hundred feet away and below, so you get the odd perspective of watching them from above. That allows for good study of their upper wing pattern, which is a clue towards finding a gull. When we first got there I was amazed by the number of birds...thousands of gulls milling around the river as far as you could see.

It's overwhelming to try and pick that Thayers needle out of a Herring haystack, but we got to work, and soon had several candidates. Unfortunately, these first birds were lacking in some way...legs not bubblegum pink, some black on the underwing, not enough black on the upperwing, not enough streaking in the head, a yellow eye instead of a black one, structurally not quite right. So we persisted, and persisted. The temperature was probably around freezing, but there was a cruel east wind that seemed to suck the heat right out of me, despite my three layers, parka, gaiter, and thermals. At one point I started shaking too hard to see through my binoculars. After warming up in the car for a bit and having a cold lunch, we continued. At about 1:30 we had been at Adam Beck for five and a half hours, and although we'd seen some good stuff (including a California Gull), we hadn't found our bird.

And then it happened...one of the other birders who had joined us picked up a candidate. He called it out as it passed the various landmarks around the power plant, and I finally got on it. Looks good, I said, and Willie agreed. I got out the camera and Willie guided me onto the bird. I started shooting, and the more we looked the better the bird got. Looking at the photos, we couldn't find any major flaws. That's as good a Thayers as we're going to see, said Willie, and I was happy to hear it. We headed back just as a cold rain began, and I was glad to have worked hard for this bird, to have spent hours for it and really shopped around, sharpened my eye and then saw what we were looking for, and I was glad to have had Willie and Betsy's company, both of whom, despite many years of birding, seemed as excited as I was to have found a classic Thayers.

Ilsa's Brief Return

2008-11-15T17:19:00.000-05:00

One of the birds I've been hoping might show up this November is a hummingbird. By now, all the Ruby Throated Hummingbirds that we see in the summertime have migrated, and any hummingbird you see is likely a western bird. On the 8th a post came up from Norm Klein in Northport, Long Island, that Ilsa was back. Ilsa is a Rufous Hummingbird that spend many weeks at this spot two years ago, feeding on the carefully tended feeders that Norm and his wife put out. She made it far into the winter, and then finally headed south. No one saw her last year, so what happened to her was unknown. Now she had returned, and I sped out to Northport right away to get a look.

When I got there no one was home, but Norm had posted that visitors were welcome, so I tentatively walked up the driveway and found the half-dozen feeders they have in their back yard. No hummingbird, but Hairy and Downy woodpeckers, sparrows, cardinals, finches, nuthatches and others were all enjoying the bounty. Norm and his wife soon arrived, and we spent a little time watching from his back porch. Suddenly, the hummingbird was there. These birds are so small and fast that sometimes it seems like they just teleport into a place. She buzzed the hummingbird feeders, and then was off again. We waited, and she came back, several times over the next hour or two. Each time I got photos, but never really exactly what I wanted, which is a spread-tail shot. This bird is a Selasphorus hummingbird, and the bird seen two years ago had been speciated to Rufous...but there is another Selasphorus, the Allen's Hummingbird, and separating the two is one of the trickier IDs in North American birding. Really the only way is a spread tail shot, which shows subtle differences in the tail feathers (retrices). We all strongly felt that this had to be Ilsa, but nonetheless wanted to be certain. I got a few almost open tail photos, and nothing in them suggested Allen's (that would be a first state record), so I'm going with Rufous, and therefore Ilsa. Besides, what are the odds that another Selasphorus hummingbird would show up in the same spot?

Ilsa wound up staying only a couple of days. Norm showed me his guest book from a couple of years ago, when hundreds of people came by to see the bird. I was hoping she'd stay again...what better remedy for the short, cold winter days than a fiery-colored hummingbird buzzing through the bare branches? After six days, though, Norm posted:

So, Ilsa, the selasphorus hummingbird, has flown off one more time after only a two day+ stay; and sadly this is probably my last posting about her. I wish her well. As was said by a sentimental Rick:"We'll always have Paris."
-Norm K.

Seeking the Swallow

2008-11-14T21:29:00.010-05:00

Last week at Hamlin Beach there was a flight of Cave Swallows...38 in a morning. The next day, there were 11. So on Election Day Jessica and I got coffee, waited an hour to vote, and got in the car with Monkey to drive six and a half hours north to the shores of Lake Ontario. We met up with Bob Spahn, who had been keeping us up to date on the swallows, and spent the late afternoon looking out over a marsh where the birds had been seen in previous years. No luck with the birds, but luck with the election made up for it that night, and we were up early to try again. We got to Hamlin Beach at 7am, and spent four hours

watching out over the water. We had a group of Red-Necked Grebes, Cackling Goose, many flyover Siskins, a few Bluebirds, Horned Lark, Snow Bunting, Pipits, and a pair of Rough Legged Hawks, but no Cave Swallows. We had to be back in the city by five, so we said goodbye to everyone at the lake watch and headed back south.

The next few days I tried to figure a way to get back up to Hamlin...it's the most reliable spot for these birds, but not the closest, and I had a lot of work to do for the next week. I decided the best plan was to work Jones Beach each morning that I could, work in the afternoons and evenings, and then if that didn't work, find a way to do another Hamlin overnight. I did my first day at Jones Beach on Tuesday, and it was a beautiful day. Along with the potential swallow moving along the barrier beaches, this past week had a large movement of Pine Siskins and Goldfinches. On the first day I was there Ken Feustel counted 6800 Pine Siskins flying over in the first couple of hours in the morning. Siskins aren't easy to see here most of the year, so I really enjoyed seeing a couple of large flocks land in the trees around me, and I spent an hour or so taking photos. You have to take these opportunities when you get them!

I also spent a couple of hours near the beach itself watching for swallows. When I first pulled up I spotted two distant swallows flying away, and couldn't ID them. Those were the only two I saw. The dunes in that spot are pretty wide, and swallows are small. It wouldn't be hard to miss even a number of birds if they went by to your right or left. I walked out to the jetty, which is at least god excercise, and then back again...still no swallows. I did have a pretty cooperative Perigrine Falcon on the beach, Northern Harriers in the dunes, and a couple of active Merlins that seemed to be very pleased with all the little birds migrating through.

The next day I tried again, but this time a little earlier. I can't say I care for this Daylight Savings thing...I know it's supposed to help the farmers, although no one's every really explained that to me properly...but it means I have to get up an hour earlier to make sunrise. So I was up at 5:30 and at the beach by 7. I headed out to the beach first, making the swallows my priority. I was in the dunes for about forty five minutes. I was starting to think alot about how easy it would be to miss these birds, and about how I was going to get back up to Hamlin before this whole movement was over. I started to walk back to the parking lot, and noticed a couple of small birds heading my way. I was thinking: Not sure...don't look finchy...better photograph these...these are swallows!...calm down and get the shots...hope this works... and then they were past. I went through the half dozen shots I got, hoping for a clean ID. There was one. A swallow with a short, squared tail, tawny rump, and pale throat. Cave Swallow.

That now familiar wave of relief came over me--another six hour car ride wasn't going to be necessary, at least not for this bird. I walked out to the jetty again to see if anything interesting was going on. As I got close to the point another pair of swallows flew past...they didn't even veer or slow down when they hit the channel, but just dove low and kept moving over the waves. I was able to get a few photos off on these birds as well, and while the shots weren't as definitive they did show a collared swallow, most likely Cave. These birds came an hour after the first pair, so while they might have been the same birds, it seems more probable that they were a different pair. Later I spoke to other birders on Jones who had seen one and two Caves repectively, and Doug Gochfeld reported 8 Cave Swallows on Breezy Point later that day.

Looking back on this week, the search for the Cave Swallow had all the elements of chasing birds, good and bad. The long drives, the waiting, and all the things that come in between you and the bird: the other birds you see along the way, the people who join and leave the search, the habitats both familiar and new, and all the things that you come out to see besides the bird. The bird becomes an afterthought...it's the smallest part of the week that you spend looking for it. I come from a hunting family, and when I was a teenager I hunted with my father. To some hunting is repugnant, and I guess it is to me sometimes, too. But in the kind of hunting we did, the killing was the least of it. It was the travel, the camping, the new experiences, and just being outside...in a way the gun was just a way to go outdoors and still feel like you had a purpose. Maybe birding has replaced that purpose for me now...it isn't the "kill"that's fulfilling, finding that rarity. The rarity is just the motivation that propels me to get out and open my eyes, look around, and see more than I ever would have.

Return to Ithaca

2008-11-04T10:15:00.002-05:00

As I've said before, a Big Year is more driving than birding, and that has certainly been true this week. Sometimes all that road time pays off, though, and the past weekend was one of those times. On Saturday I was out with Peter Dorosh, who was leading a trip to the Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill in Brooklyn. This landfill has been capped, and is in the process of being converted into a park. They've covered the top of the 40mil barrier that covers the trash heap with soil, and planted grasses and trees. These are starting to take hold, and it seems very promising as a new bird habitat for Brookyln. We had just spent time IDing a perched Broad Winged hawk when I checked my email and saw that Tom Johnson, Shawn Billerman and others had seen both Pacific Loon and California Gull on Lake Cayuga. I started doing the now very familiar calculations in my head...sunset at 6:15, daylight savings tonight, 4 1/2 hour drive there, need to stop home first for monkey, girlfriend's patience being tested...OK, it looked possible. I said goodbye to the group and was headed back upstate.

I got to Aurora around 4pm and went straight for the California Gull. Shawn had been very helpful on the phone, so I had a good idea of where to look, a gravel spit at the mouth of a stream that empties into Lake Cayuga. There were around 150 gulls on the spit, and many more Canada Geese around them. The Canadas can be a pain in the butt in a situation like this...they are nature's alarm system, and I wasn't able to get closer than 100 yards before they started to call out their warning honks. I was forced to scope from a distance, and it wasn't long before many of the gulls started to fly up and leave, no doubt to roost for the night, probably out in middle of the lake. My fantasy of driving up, seeing both birds, and driving back dissappeared with the gulls, so I went to Long Point park, just a few minutes away, to scope for the Pacific Loon.

As some of you may recall, the Pacific Loon has been a nemesis bird for me this year...I put in about fifty hours of birding last winter staring out over that cold lake in mid-winter, straining to see something other than the Common Loons. I can say from experience that if there is chop on the lake, or if the birds are feeding (by diving underwater) or distant, your chances of finding this bird are slim. Tonight, though, the conditions were good...smooth water, not too cold, and there were a number of Common Loons around. But, no Pacific. So when it got dark I went into Ithica, had dinner at my favorite New Orleans inspired restaurant, and then came back and slept in my car at Long Point. The next morning I was up before first light, and on the shore with my gear as the sun came up. There were considerably more loons now, and I methodically worked my way through them. Pacific Loon is definitely different from Common, but it's not blatant, and the distance and fog can make ID-ing a little tricky. Lucky for me the birds were moving towards shore, and sure enough there was a smaller bodied, smaller billed, rounder-headed bird among them...Pacific Loon. I got a number of photos, and later I went back to them several times, only half-believing that I'd finally seen this bird which had been akin to the Loch Ness Monster earlier in the year.

Heartened by my success with the loon, I went for the gull. There still weren't a lot of gulls on the spit around 8am, and I spent an hour there before deciding to wait a bit and come back. I got a quick breakfast, and also checked around some of the local farmer's fields where I'd seen gulls the night before. I came back around 10 or 11, and now things were looking better...the flock size had tripled, and gulls were continuing to fly in. I'd seen this with the Slaty Backed Gull earlier in the year on Cayuga, where the gulls seemed to follow a predicable schedule...they'd be on the lake until 8 or 8:30, then fly to the compost heaps a few miles away to feed, and then return to the lake later in the day. Likewise, the California Gull had been spotted around 10:30 the previous day, and so it made sense to come back around the same time.

There were now a number of people with their scopes out searching for the gull. It's not an easy bird to pull out of a crowd, and it was probably and hour before I finally happend on a bird, slightly smaller than a Herring Gull, with black and red marks on its bill, slightly darker mantle, yellow legs and ... could it be? ... yes! all black eye. California Gull. After going through this painstaking process, I was triply impressed by Tom Johnson's initial sighting of this bird...I mean, we KNEW that the bird was probably there, and it still took a number of us a long time to find it. Tom didn't know before he saw it that it was even there. I found it inspirational to know that those kinds of skills are possible--I figure just a few thousand hours of study and field time and I'll be there!

The two target birds seen, I could now relax a bit and do some birding. I stopped at the Cornell Lab of O (rnithology) to look for a Red-Shouldered Hawk that is sometimes resident. It hadn't been reported recently, so I got some nice shots of the birds at the feeders, and walked around a bit. It feels good just to be at this spot, one of the centers for birding knowledge and study in the US. After I'd absorbed some of that good energy, I walked back out to my car. I was just getting in when I looked up and saw a circling hawk...not a red tail...not a broad winged...red shouldered! I got a lot of photos (I needed a better photo for this bird), and then got in the car and headed off. Sometimes--not everytime, not even often, but sometimes--everything just goes your way.

Another Twenty Fours Hours Upstate

2008-10-31T14:44:00.005-04:00

This past week I've been birding locally and waiting for another rarity to be reported. November is the best month for Western vagrants in New York, and I'm expecting at least one or two birds to show up from the west coast. Last week there was a Say's Phoebe reported in Batavia, but it didn't stick around so I couldn't chase it (Batavia is near Buffalo, about 6 hours by car). Then on Monday another bird showed up...Sabine's Gull near Niagara Falls. I had to work Tuesday, so I couldn't go up right away, but on Tuesday night at about 8:30pm I got in the car and aimed north. Around one in the morning I stopped and slept for a few hours, and then continued around five, reaching Squaw Island at 8am. It was beautiful but cold, with snow flakes swirling in the air and fresh snow on the ground. I had on all my hardcore winter gear...parka, thermal underwear, turtle, ski gloves, and that kept the weather out. Being comfortable is critical, since these chases can often mean long hours of waiting in the wind and weather. The bird wasn't immediately apparent, and I misread the emails about where it had been seen, so I headed upriver along a bike path rather than downstream to it's last reported location. The river separates New York and

Canada, and as I walked under the Peace Bridge I could see the Maple Leaf flag flying overhead. There was a big congregation of birds about a mile up towards the head of the river, so I went that way and found a nice flock of Bonapartes Gulls massed and feeding in the fridgid water. Along the shore were Bufflehead, mixed ducks, and a single Snow Bunting, my first of the season. The crisp air and the birds reminded me of my trips at the beginning of the year, and the pleasure I'd had of scanning the flocks of gulls for an odd bird all came back in a rush. My scanning was unproductive, though, so I turned back and headed back downstream. As I walked I saw a little white bird feeding in the water near shore, and saw instantly that it was a phalarope. I photographed it and got good looks, and then headed back to my car to make a positive ID from the photos...I knew it was Red-Necked or Red Phalarope, but wanted to make sure of which. The ID turned out to be tricky for me, and I'm not very experienced with these birds, so long-story-short I decided on a probable Red-Necked (this was the more likey bird), and called Willie D'Anna to let him know and, if the bird was rare enough for the area, to get the word out. Willie did and I later found out that it was in fact a Red Phalarope, a very unusual bird.

Willie also corrected my misimpressions about where the Sabines Gull should be, so I went downstream on the hunt. I saw another birder ahead of me, but I was taking my time and didn't catch up to him right away. I had seen a flock of Bonapartes Gulls across the river, and spent some time looking through them for the bird, as well as admiring and photographing some gulls that were on the near shore. Still no Sabines. I finally reached the other birder as he got to his car, and after a little chit-chat he asked "Did you see the Sabines?". I had walked right by it! I ran back, scenarios of the bird flying off and never being seen again running through my head, and there, not three feet from the shore, was the Sabines, bobbing in the eddies. I had been so focused on the far shore and on the gulls in flight, I hadn't thought to look right at my feet. The gull was unbelievably tame and cooperative...several times it floated directly under me, not ten feet away, as I snapped away with my camera. It would bob downstream, picking food out of the water, and then fly back up and repeat the process. I saw the famous "three wedges" pattern on its wings as it flapped upstream, and then got amazing looks at it's back and head as it floated past.

I spent a while with the Sabines, and then headed back to Buffalo and celebrated my 343rd bird of the year with hot dogs and onion rings at Ted's, a famous local eatery. I had a seven hour drive back, and I broke it up by stopping at Montezuma Wildlife Management Area, where there were thousands of Ring-Necked ducks, as well as American Wigeon, Coots, Green Winged Teal, Pintails, and a variety of other ducks. One interesting surprise was a pair of juvenile Pectoral Sandpipers, who stopped briefly on a mud flat before flying on, no doubt feeling behind schedule on this late date in migration. The movement of the ducks on the water, the snowy landscape highlighting the remaining autumn-leaved trees, the chill wind blowing into the open car window and the warmth of the car heater, all put me in a peaceful state of mind that lasted the long drive back to Brooklyn.

2008-10-22T21:14:00.000-04:00

Today I got a call from my neighbor Allison. Allison is a vet at New York City Veterinary Specialists, and she had an unusual patient that she needed help with. It was a wild bird that had come in with a broken leg, and they though it might be a King Rail. Not having seen a King Rail this year, I was naturally interested, and drove over right away (I'm not sure what the rules are on sighting a wild bird in a veterinary clinic, but either way I wanted to see it!) When I got there I saw that it wasn't a rail, but in fact an American Woodcock. The bird was clearly not well, letting its head drop onto the table when not propped up. Stacy, also working at the clinic, was in charge of the bird, and was treating it with food and bandages. I advised feeding it worms once it was in better shape...Woodcocks have special flexible bills that are designed to probe through loam and leaf litter for worms. Stacy was doing a great job with the bird, and I heard later in the day that the bird was still alive and had perked up considerably.

Handling a bird up close is a different experience from seeing it through binoculars in the field...I love getting a different perspective on a bird, and feeling a closer connection with the animal than I get from a scope view. I'm sure the bird was not as thrilled to be close to us, and once again the bird's ill fortune was the birder's gain. Thanks to Allison for giving me the opportunity to see this beautiful bird!

Northern Race

2008-10-17T09:37:00.003-04:00

On Wednesday I was in Central Park when I checked my email and saw that a Northern Wheatear had been reported in Loweville, a town above Utica. It was 11am, and having just driven down from Utica the day before I knew it would be at least five hours up there...sunset was at 6:15....it would take an hour back to Brooklyn by train...I could just make it! Assuming of course that the bird stayed put. I was back home by 12:15, downloaded a couple of podcasts, and out the door by 12:30. On the way up I was checking my email and rerouting my google maps every 30 minutes or so. Several email updates assured me that the bird was being cooperative and hanging around...but google maps kept telling me it was a longer drive than I thought it should be. I pushed the car a little faster - I find that 10mph over the speed limit or less and the cops leave you alone...so I was at 74 mph the whole way. As I came in to Utica I judged the daylight left with my fingers (each finger that the sun sits above the horizon is about 15 minutes)...I still had a chance. My gas gauge was getting dangerously low, but I didn't dare stop for fear that I would show up a minute after the bird left...and yes, this does happen, so not a totally unfounded worry. Finally I was up at the farm where it was seen, and saw a couple of other cars there...a good sign...I was out of the car and running, and there it was, a Northern Wheater, perched up on a woodpile. In the photo below the woodpile is on the left and you can just barely make out the bird on top.

It was about 5:30, so the sun was setting and the light was beautiful, and the bird was extremely tame. I was hesitant to get too close at first, but the other birders assured me that this one wasn't going anywhere, so I was able to stand about fifteen feet away with a couple of other photographers and get great photos. After a bit the other birds left and I was alone with the Wheatear, when it hopped down on the ground and then swooped up and perched on a post not five feet away. I didn't have a camera in hand so I was actually forced to stand perfectly still and just watch...we looked at each other for a few moments, each curious about the other. For me it was the first time I'd seen a Wheatear, a probable weeks-old bird that had probably just flown down from the barren fields of the Far North, and the bird probably looking at a close-up human being for the first time in it's life. After a few moments, the photographer in me took over--I lost my cool and tried to reach for a camera, and the bird flushed back to the woodpile.

Tom Magarian, who had reported the bird, came back and invited me to join him and Tom Carrolan to check on the bird radar station he monitors. We headed up in his car to the base of one of the many giant wind turbines that dot the landscape there. Being at the base of the turbine was awesome, and I didn't grasp the scale of these giants until I was underneath one. They are comprable to the Statue of Liberty, if the Statue of Liberty was slowly swinging her arms around in a circle. There are little flags around the base that warn you not to get to close, since the turbine itself can have an energy field around it. In the picture at the right you can see my car and a small trailer, and the trailer is the radar station. It has two antenna that spin, the type you see on top of larger boats, on on top of the trailer and one attached to the side, so that there is both a horizontal and vertical reading. The radar can pick up the movement of birds, and give a good idea of the scale, altitude and timing of migrational movement.

After checking that everything was working with the radar, we went back down to town and had dinner. Both Toms have done counting at hawk watches and at Cape May (in addition to other things), so it was edifying to listen to them talk about any bird subject. Counting at Cape May is kind of a college education in bird identification...Cape May is one of the, if not the, best spots for birds on the East Coast, and the counters spend all day, most days, for a couple of months, counting and ID-ing the birds that pass by. By the time you're done you may have seen hundreds or thousands of birds that you might only see a handful of in a year elsewhere, plus rarities that are seen almost nowhere else. In addition, Cape May is a central focus for some of the most famous birders in the field, and apparently it's not uncommon to run into people like David Sibley or Pete Dunn. It's hard to imagine a better way to improve one's skills and knowledge about birds and birding.

Adirondack Sojurn

2008-10-14T10:40:00.002-04:00

Timing is everything when it comes to finding birds. The difference between missing and seeing a rarity can be a matter of seconds, and a birding spot that is flush with warblers one day can be dried up the next. Likewise in a big year, being in the right area at the right time of year is important. I don't want to be upstate when a rarity shows up on Long Island, or visa versa. So this Sunday, when the migration activity seemed to be dying down, and with the weather not promising any immediate bird movement, I decided use the opportunity to take yet another "quick" trip to the Adirondacks.

I say quick because it's for one overnight, but there's nothing quick about the six hour drive it takes to get to Tupper Lake from Brooklyn. We left at 6am, and were out in the woods by 2pm, searching for the elusive Spruce Grouse. When we pulled up to the spot a grouse flushed immediately, but I could see by the color and the tail band it was Ruffed Grouse, a relatively common bird in the Adirondacks. Spruce Grouse, on the other hand, is one of the hardest birds to see in New York, evidenced by the fact that this was my fifth trip to this spot, the only "reliable" place to look for them. In my experience, grouse are unpredictable and hard to photograph in this area. Frequently the only look you get is when the bird exlodes out of the brush it was hiding in and flies away. Occasionally you get the other bird, the one that just stands there, six feet away, eyeballing you before it saunters off. The birds we had this time were definitely the former. The grouse we flushed was the only one we saw that day, so we were back at the same spot before daybreak the next morning in the hopes of finding a bird on the road. These birds sometimes dust themselves in the road, and some birds also eat sand or grit to help them digest their food. In any case, this are is privately owned, and we weren't allowed to walk anywhere but the road, so the road was where we looked. We didn't find anything else but some bear scat, and as we walked back a gorgeous full moon came up through the trees.

The next morning we we back before daybreak. We walked slowly, staying on the road margins to muffle our footsteps. We were about halfway through the area that Spruce Grouse have been seen, when a bird blew up about 10 feet to my right and flew directly away and down the road. I went for my camera and found that it was tangled up, and by the time I had it at ready the bird had settled back into the dense spruce forest. The bird was very dark if not black, and my impression was Spruce Grouse. My heart was racing, and now I made my next mistake. Rather than wait and hope the bird came back to the road, I walked down to the spot where I'd seen it go into the forest. Right as I got there, there was another explosion and the bird flew back into the woods, this time gone for good, without me seeing it again. Needless to say, I was a little frustrated, and pissed at myself for not having the camera up and ready while I walked. We had one more grouse along the road, and I had the camera ready this time, but it was a Ruffed.

We were there for about four hours, and then headed back, with a stop at Ferds Bog. Ferds was lovely with the changing leaves, and we spent an hour there and got good looks at a pair of Black Backed Woodpeckers, as well as a couple of Gray Jays. The Three-Toed Woodpecker here has been known to associate with the Black Backs, but not today apparently. We headed back to Brooklyn and got home around nine. It was another beautiful trip to the Adirondacks--sans target birds, but beautiful nonetheless.

Plum Bird in Brooklyn

2008-10-08T10:26:00.000-04:00

After birding Plum Beach for Nelson's and Sharptailed Saltmarsh Sparrows on Sunday, I saw a post on Wednesday morning that an even "better" bird had shown up there...LeConte's Sparrow. This is one of the rare sparrows that we occasionally see in NY. Last year, I was with a group of birders at Tilden when Shane Blodgett got us on to an immature LeContes. This year, the bird was found by Doug Gochfeld (yet another rarity he found this year, after Red Necked Stint and Wagtail), an it was an adult. Jess and I drove to the beach and saw the now familiar site of a group of birders searching for a rarity. We fanned out and meandered over the dunes and marsh hoping to re-spot the sparrow. This went on for about forty-five minutes, during which time several more birders and photographers arrived. Suddenly the call went out..."over here!" and we were on the bird. It showed briefly and went back into the brush before I could get a look, and we all went back into slow-search mode, but with considerably more adrenaline in our systems. The bird finally popped back up and gave everyone good views before landing on the ground and scurrying under some brush. Again with the walking behavior, which I'm coming to believe is the best way for a bird to hide itself.

Connecticut in Central Park

2008-10-07T07:07:00.004-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to Prospect Park with Peter Dorosh, Mary Eyster and Tom Stephenson, and we heard a Connecticut Warbler sing it's song, which was enough for me to mark it as "seen" on my year list. Still, I wanted to really see the bird, and I've been trolling Prospect and other venues hoping to find one walking around. The trouble with this bird is that it walks on the ground instead of flitting from tree to tree, so even if you're just a few feet from it you can still miss it completely.

As it turns out, the best way to see a bird is still to have someone else spot it and tell you where it is. So this morning while I was out looking in Prospect for a Connecticut that had been seen the previous day, I checked my email and saw that the one that had been seen in Central Park was still there. I drove over and was there in an hour, but it turned out there was no rush. In the Pinetum area of Central Park, on a lawn by a maintenance area, was a first year Connecticut. What a weird bird! It was ambling around as it picked up insects off the ground and out of the air. I've seen several Oporornis warblers this year, including Kentucky and Mourning, and they also walk on the ground, but this bird just sort of waddled, almost like an armadillo, and moved very slowly across the lawn in meandering loops. As we stood there it clambered over to us, seemingly never noticing our prescence, and actually got within about five feet of me. Another birder there told me he once had a Kentucky Warbler walk between his legs. I was there for about forty five minutes, and it just continued to waddle. At one point it did come out of the grass and climbed up on some rusting machinery, but then it worked its way back down and onto the lawn again. Watching all this just confirmed why it's so tricky to spot one of these birds...if there had been any ground cover, it would have been invisible. It makes me wonder how many are in the parks right now, unhurredly collecting insects before flying south, completely unnoticed.

Migration Weekend

2008-10-06T14:39:00.004-04:00

This weekend turned out to be one of the best of the fall, and I wound up in one of the best spots for it. On Friday I saw that we had good northwest winds, and emailed Peter Dorosh to see if he wanted to do a half-day at Fort Tilden, a great place for fall sparrows. We were there with Shane Blodgett last year when he spotted a LeContes Sparrow, and I was hoping there would be something equally exciting this year.

As it turned out, Peter was running a Brooklyn Bird Club trip to Tilden, so Saturday morning we met at 6:45am and a group of us headed out. The conditions were very good, with good winds and weather, and a sharp edge of clouds overhead indicated that a front was passing by, and that birds might be dropping in behind it.

We spent the first hour or so looking for sparrows, and didn't see much more than Savannah and Song sparrows. Then Peter got a text from Seth Ausabel, who was working another section of Tilden, and the avalanche began. Seth had Yellow-Throated Warbler, very rare for fall in NY...we hurried over and got a few glimpses of the bird. As we were standing around, Peter called out on a flycatcher in a tree, and it was a Western Kingbird. We got good looks at that bird, and then went over to the community gardens and had both Bobolink and Dickcissel. A short while later we spotted a couple of sparrows in the grass, and one of them was a Lark Sparrow. So all in all we had three rare birds and two uncommons in a matter of an hour or two. This was hard to top, so we moved on to Floyd Bennet Field on our way back, and had great looks a Clay Colored Sparrow, and finally a Ring Necked Pheasant. Overall, a spectacular day, and not just because of the birds we saw. Being out with the bird club and really birding (as opposed to driving seven hours, birding one, and then driving home) was a nice change of pace from my chase-y schedule. As the year winds down, I'm hoping to do a lot more actual walking around and looking, with fewer "target" birds and less of an agenda.

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm adverse to the odd chase here and there. The next day I was going with Jessica to her grandparents house when Shane Blodgett called with some interesting sparrows at Plum Beach, so we decided to stop there first for a quick look. That turned into about an hour and a half, with several of us getting great views of both Saltmarsh and Nelsons Sharptailed Sparrows, including a nelsoni/alterus race of the Nelsons, which is typically seen in the middle of the continent, and not coastally. Birding with these other birders was, as always, a great education, and it is amazing to me how much they know about birds. At some point the only way to learn some birds is to be with a more experienced person in the field, and I've certainly had that happen over and over this year. Incidentally, the Nelsons was my 340th bird, which means I'm getting into the upper realms of New York big years, with hopefully many more rarities to come in the next three months. Even though we're getting to the end of the year, I feel just as excited as when I started nine months ago, with more avian surprises to come!

Pelagic Found

2008-09-23T11:14:00.000-04:00

My three-day pelagic with Tom Stephenson was great, but now I needed to see some birds in New York, and I was running out of time. Certain pelagic birds like Audobon's Shearwater depend on warmer water, and as fall progresses they become less and less likely to be seen. I found a boat in Point Lookout going out to the Hudson Canyon, but weather was not cooperating and last week's scheduled tuna-fishing trip was cancelled due to rough conditions. In fact, the Marine Forecast for offshore had been looking pretty grim. There was a short window for relatively calm seas on Sunday and Monday, so that was my chance. After that, we'd be into late September or October and I'd likely miss a couple of birds I was hoping for.

There are a few boats that go out this time of year for tuna, and I found one in Belmar, NJ who's website showed an overnight for Sunday, leaving at 5pm. I couldn't raise them on the phone, so I drove down and found their boat docked. The guys on board said no, they don't go out on Sundays...that was last year and no one had updated the website. I spoke to a few other captains and got a couple of schedules for trips, but nothing that would leave in sooner than a week. Resigned to waiting and hoping for the best, I got in my car. I did one quick check...I knew that the Jamaica did tuna trips, and I wanted to see what her plans were. I was in luck...she was leaving that day at 5. I got directions from a couple of old salts on getting to where she was docked (about 20 minutes away) and raced down there. Thankfully she was still there, and had a space for me. So at 5pm we steamed out of port and headed for the Canyon.

The Jamaica is a fast boat, and we cruised at high speed out to sea as the sun went down. I stood up in the bow so long as there was any light, and spotted a couple of Gannets and a few Wilson's Storm Petrels, but this was tough birding...basically like birding from a car cruising down the freeway. You'd spot the bird and maybe get one or two photos and/or a few seconds view before you were past it - the photographic equivalent of trap shooting. At dark I went down below and found all the fisherman sleeping in anticipation of being up all night in the Canyon. The bunks were by the engine room, with just a red bulb illuminating the room...sort of like being in somebody's basement in the 70's, if that basement were next to a revving Mack truck. I got some sleep, and woke up around 3am to find us idle in the Canyon, with all the fisherman working their jigs and bait over the sides. The water has a noticeably different blue color, and you can see down ten or twenty feet, just enough to give you a sense of the vast deep you can't see below that. A red moon rose through the clouds and made it a little easier to see out over the water. I stayed up for about an hour, straining my eye for and movement that might be a storm petrel - as I'd seen on the Viking, a few birds came in to the lights, and I got a couple of ID-able photos, but they were all Wilson's (as opposed to Leach's, Band-Rumped or White-Faced, all much rarer). I got a couple more hours sleep and then was up at sunrise and on the upper deck scanning for birds.

Weather was good, with tempatures in the sixties and seas at 3-5 feet. The night's fishing had been a total bust, so at around nine the captain decided to salvage the trip by picking up some Mahi-Mahi, which cluster around fisherman's buoys. We would go to one buoy, fish for ten minutes, pull up and go to another. This wasn't a bad way to see birds. I had several shearwaters cruise the boat, including Corey's, Greater, and one Manx. At one point I was amazed to be continuously scanning, looking in all directions, and then suddenly have a Corey's Shearwater right next to the boat. This is one of the several disadvantages of a tuna boat as opposed to a dedicated pelagic birding trip...the more eyes looking, the better chance you have. Often a bird just appears briefly, and if you're not looking that way, you just don't see it.

Interspersed with the shearwaters were a number of storm petrels, which I examined with as much care as I could in case there was something other than a Wilson's out there...I had gotted some practice at this with Tom on the previous trip, so I had a least some idea of what to look for. Despite my efforts, though, nothing out of the ordinary fluttered by that I could discern. The camera is a great tool out on the water, and I photographed everything I could so I could look at the bird after it had passed...once again the images kept me honest, so even birds that I thought might be flying differently or that looked longer winged, in fact showed the marks of yet another Wilsons.

My other useful tool was my GPS logger, which takes a GPS data point every ten seconds. When I get home I download the data and then attach it to the photos by the time that they were taken, thus confiming that I was in fact at the Hudson Canyon, and not some other spot of the captain's choosing. I've been told that if the crew finds you with a GPS they'll destroy it, and I've read as much on one boat's website, so I was careful to keep it discreetly hidden on my camera bag. The fishermen are proprietary about their fishing spots, and I imagine that the distinction between locating birds and fish might be lost on them if the GPS was discovered.

The three "best" birds of the day would up being two Pomarine Jaegers, one adult with long tail feathers, the other without, that both came in close to the boat, and (much to my relief) an Audobon's Shearwater. I hadn't see the jaeger with it's adult tail feathers, which stream out behind and then turn at a 90 degree angle to create a bulge at the end, and that was exciting to see. The Audobon's was a last-minute special, which I got just as we were getting ready to leave the Canyon. It flushed in front of the boat and then settled as we passed, allowing me to get a few shots that show it's characteristic white lores, one of the marks that disitinguish it from the similar Manx Shearwater (the lores are the areas between the eyes and the bill).

The surprise of the day was a passerine that came flying by the boat around noon. At about 100 miles offshore, I wasn't really looking for a Red-Eyed Vireo, but that is what it turned out to be. Hopefully it made it's way back to dry land.

We were back in port at 4pm, and I wove my way to the car, sea-legged and dry-mouthed from the rolling boat and the Scopoderm I use to prevent sea-sickness. It wasn't as spectacular a pelagic as the one I took with Tom (no whales, for example), but I'd seen a couple of new birds and spent another night offshore, and that's a good trip.

A Pelagic Prelude

2008-09-21T11:34:00.003-04:00

Sunday morning I went out with Jess to get coffee and walk the dogs and do the crossword. I was contimplating how I was going to get out on the water again to look for birds in Hudson Canyon, and my plan was to go to the marina in Belmar, NJ later that day. When we got back I checked my email, and presto, a new and exciting bird. One of the rarities I had hoped for, Black-Throated Gray Warbler, had shown up in Central Park, a long way from it's regular territory on the West Coast. Within five minutes we were in the car and on our way. I texted Peter Dorosh, and we picked him up as well. In an hour we were parking by 81st Street, and hoping that the bird would be there. It was now an hour and a half since the posting, plenty of time for the bird to decide to go elsewhere, or even just move to a spot we couldn't find. We saw a couple with expensive binoculars as soon as we entered the park, and they pointed us to Tanners Springs, a little pool of water that attracts birds and that is favored by photographers in Central Park. We got there and there were four photographers with "big rigs" set up around the pool, cameras with monster 400, 500 or 600mm lenses set up on tripods with flashes and accessories. This was a good sign. We joined the dozen or so birders waiting, and soon had a bird coming down from the canopy that looked right. Sure enough, the Black-Throated Gray flitted into a shrub by the pool, then onto a branch (placed there by photographers for this purpose), and finally onto the ground to drink, about ten feet away. The cameras and flashes were firing like it was a celebrity sighting, which I supose it was. We got good long looks and I got a few good shots, before it flew back up into the big trees and out of sight. Peter and I smiled and headed back to Brooklyn, agreed that it was the easiest way to see a "hard" bird you could ask for.

Bunting for a Connecticut

2008-09-19T11:50:00.000-04:00

At about 7:30am was on the Penninsula in Prospect Park with Peter Dorosh, Mary Eyster and Tom Stephenson. The wind was good the night before, and we were hoping for a Connecticut Warbler, one of the trickier birds to see in the fall migration. Like the other Oporornis warblers (Kentucky, Mourning, and Macgillivrays), Connecticuts are walking warblers: they creep around through the leaf litter, turning over leaves for bugs. This means that even if they aren't shy, they are hard to see, because they tend to be under leafy ground cover. Things were looking good, with some nice warbler activity in the trees around us. We had been there for about half-an-hour, carefully searching the good habitat that the Penninsula provides, when a bird called out about twenty feet away. Warbler calls like this are less common in the fall, when birds aren't defending or defining breeding or feeding territories, or trying to attract a mate. More significantly, the call was distinct and unusual, and I knew right away that it was something different. Tom said it could be Connecticut, and we thought he was joking until I played the call on my iPhone...it was an exact match! So now we knew the bird was there, and we spent another forty-five minutes looking without luck. We finally gave up and moved on, but Mary called Ed Crowne and let him know what had happened. Sure enough, about 1/2 hour later Ed called with the news that he had seen the bird about fifty feet from where we'd heard it. We went back and joined Ed. Oddly, I had just said something to Tom about a Lark Bunting. Not two minutes later I got a call--Lark Bunting at Robert Moses State Park. I spent a few more minutes hoping to photograph the Connecticut, but finally had to go in favor of the much rarer bird.

I was out at RMSP in a couple of hours, and, as usual in the NYC and LI area, there were already a lot of birders there ahead of me. The Lark Bunting had been spotted by Doug Futyuma in a flock of House Sparrows. It was little ironic that everyone was trying to find a flock of House Sparrows, which are normally seen as a "trash" bird, and without much success. The Bunting hadn't been seen for a couple of hours at that point, but we were figuring that it would have to come back out at some point. Three hours later I was starting to question whether that was true, and after having a negative interaction with one of the over-zealous park workers (she told me she didn't want people walking around one of the maintenance areas because they were worried that someone was going to "poison the water supply", and no, I'm not joking), I had to abandon the search. Back home again, the inevitable happened--the Bunting reappeared around 6pm.

So that meant up at 4:30, and at RSMP by 6am. This time it was too early for the park workers, and it wound up being moot, as the Bunting appeared almost right away at daybreak, feeding with a large group of House Sparrows in the gravel and grassy areas where it had been seen the day before. I was joined by two other birders, and we got lots of looks at the birds, despite the surprisingly skittish behavior of the sparrows. It was dim and I was never close enough to get great photos of the birds, but I did get a few acceptable shots. Withing half-an-hour the flock broke into a few smaller groups and scattered around the area...I was seeing now why the bird had been so hard to see during the middle of the day. That proved to be true over the next few days, as people saw the Bunting at either dusk or dawn, but had a much harder time locating it at other times.

The Lost Pelagic

2008-09-12T20:11:00.013-04:00

It was time to try for fall pelagics, those birds that spend most of their life over the ocean. The annual fall NY pelagic trip was cancelled because of high prices, so I had to make my own by tagging along on a tuna-fishing boat. These boats typically go to offshore canyons where the water depth plunges to many thousands of feet, and this is where you'll often find large congregations of aquatic life, including fish, cetaceans, and, most importantly, birds.

On Tuesday night I packed up the car and met Tom Stephenson, and we drove the three hours out to the end of Long Island. We arrived early and had a beer before proceeding to the Montauk docks. At midnight the office opened, and we registered for the trip, and then boarded the Viking Star along with 12 fisherman and 5 crew. We steamed out of Montauk at 1am.

At 7 the next morning we wake up in our bunks, and have a little breakfast. The bunks are in a single open cabin, and the overhead flourescents are kept on 24 hours a day, but somehow the motion of the boat made sleeping easy. It's a beautiful day, sun shining and calm seas, and we climbed up to the upper deck to start our bird watching day. The fishermen are already up, with a dozen rods set up for tuna on the lower deck. The water is sparkling as we troll through the rolling seas. Practically the first bird we have is a big, gull-like bird, cinnamon brown, that comes cruising up behind the boat. I start photographing at the same time I yell "Skua! Is that a skua?!". Tom confirms it: it's a skua, and it soars twenty feet over our heads, slowing flying up the length of the boat. It hovers right above us and then, having checked us out, soars back out to sea. It's an auspicious start to the trip.

The next good bird pulls a similar move...it comes cruising up behind us, and then soars right over the upper deck. Similar to the skua, but not quite as heavy bodied, it's a Pomarine Jaeger. Again, a great bird to see and very exciting to have on the trip. I'm feeling great when I ask one of the fisherman when he thinks we'll get to Hudson Canyon. He says we're not going to the Hudson Canyon. I get a bad feeling in my stomach. I approach the captain and ask where we're going. He says we're headed to Atlantis Canyon...in Massachussetts. The fishing is better there, he says. So despite my calling Viking four times and asking each time about where we were going (and being assured it would be in NY), we're out of NY waters and will be for the whole trip. Nothing on the trip will count for my big year, including the skua and the jaeger.

After a little wrangling with myself, I settle my mind and accept my fate, and decide to just make the most of it and enjoy what we see. And we do see a lot! Although the numbers aren't high, it seems like every bird we see is a new species. We have Wilson's and Leach's, Corey's, Greater, Manx, and Audobons Shearwaters, and (on the second day) another good look at a Pomarine Jaeger, this time chasing a Herring Gull for it's food. Jaeger means "hunter" in German, and these birds defenitely fit that description. Although it's quite a bit smaller than the gull, it manages to hector it until the food the gull is carrying drops from and is swiftly picked up by the Jaeger.

Another great moment happened on the first night. The fisherman are fishing around the clock, and at about 3:30am I hear a shout that there's a swordfish on. Having never seen a live swordfish, I get up and watch them reel it in, and then watch the bloody business of killing it, cutting off it's sword, and packing it off to the ice chest. A few moments later, one of the men calls out, "Bird guy! Bird guy!" I figure that's me, so I go around to midships and find that there's a Wilsons Storm Petrel that's just run into the boat. The Storm Petrels are attracted by the fishing boat's lights, and apparently this sort of thing isn't that uncommon. I pick it up the way I've seen banders handle birds, and I bring it inside and wake up Tom. We both get good looks and I take a few photographs before we let the now fully awake Wilsons fly back out over the water.

In addtion to the birds, we saw lots of cetaceans. We estimated over one hundred fin and humpback whales over the three days, as well as numerous pods of dolphins. We had a pod that none of the crew could ID...subsequently Angus Wilson IDed them as either Nothern Bottlenose Whales or Cuviers Beaked Whales from my photos. Several pods had calves with them, and one or two fin whales came within twenty feet of the boat. At one point we could see six different groups of whales all around the boat, all spouting.

On the third day we motored back to Montauk, and for a couple of hours we were back in NY waters. Unfortunately, we didn't see anything new in that all-too-brief window, so the net of the trip for my big year was a zero. But I didn't regret doing the trip at all. Tom and I got a lot of practice looking at Storm Petrels, watching Shearwaters and even IDing whales. It was great to be with Tom, who is a sharp and very experienced birder, and, as it turns out, an excellent travelling companion. We both were happy to have had more experience on the water with these rarely seen but rewarding birds, and I'm looking forward to my next trip offshore, which will have to be sometime in the very near future.

2008-09-01T15:00:00.012-04:00

After a restless night, I woke up around 5am, and decided I might as well do some birding. Seeing as there are no current rarities in my area, I decided to go upstate and try to get better photos of a couple of birds I already have for the year. By about 7:30 I was at Bashakill, a beautiful wetlands preserve that I've already visited several times this year. Using information from John Haas, the local expert for Sullivan and surrounding counties, I found a pair of Common Moorhens feeding amoung the vegetation there. I'd seen this bird up at Perch River, but it was very distant and my photos were very poor. While these birds were still a little ways off, I got much better photos, and then spent and hour looking for rail and cuckoo and whatever else was around in the area.

By 9am I was on Cooley Road in Sullivan County, where White Winged Crossbills have been seen regularly. I ran into a couple of other birders who were already there for the same thing, and we had a couple of looks at one or more crossbills, perching high up in the spruce trees and singing. Again, I was able to snap some recognizable photos (previously, I only had an audio recording from Ferd's Bog). So far so good!

Around lunch time I spoke with Curt McDermott, and he mentioned that there was a birding group nearby checking out the sod farms. Sod farms grow, well, sod, and they are popular for birding in the fall when American Golden Plover, Bairds Sandpiper, and Buff Breasted Sandpiper are all possibilities. I met up with the group just as they were entering Pine Island Sod Farm, and we drove a in a caravan around the fields scanning for birds. Within minutes we were on a good-looking bird amound a large group of Killdeer. We conjectured that it was a Bairds, and when we drove up further we got close enough looks to confirm it. Again, I got some distant but recognizable shots. Three good photos in one day is excellent this late in year, and my collection of pictures is getting to be substantial.

I have about 5,000 photos so far for the year, with documentation of 327 of the 328 birds I've seen, and only four of those are audio recording only (Whiporwill, Chuck-Wills-Widow, Red Crossbill and Sora). Only Black-Billed Cuckoo has eluded me altogether, and I still have a chance at that in the fall migration. I can't emphasize enough how the camera and audio recorder have allowed me to bird beyond my actual ability....birds that might otherwise be tough to ID can be either confirmed or disregarded from a good photo or recording, and it lets me share my experiences with all the expert birders in the state.: in a way it's like bringing the best sight and ear birders with me wherever I go. And just like birding with an expert, the camera keeps me honest...I can make as bad a call as I want in the field, but when I go home and look at the photos it forces to recognize what I was right and wrong about. It's been a great educational tool, and has accelerated my learning process significantly. Of course, I also love to take photos, so just getting a beautiful shot of what I see and sharing it is very satisfying.

Western Migration

2008-08-27T21:59:00.003-04:00

This week I was in Palm Springs and San Francisco for a wedding and to spend time with my girlfriend Jessica. I also hoped to squeeze in a little west coast birding along the way. Palm Springs was hot hot hot...about 110 in the daytime, although it cooled off a lot at night. We stayed at a very nice little pensione called Korakia, which is Morrocan-themed and so has lovely pools and palms and landscaping. This all turned out to be good for the birds. I was up before daybreak the first morning, and watched as the birdlife picked up and got busy before the mid-day heat arrived. Besides the ubiquitous pigeons and sparrows, there were a pair of Cactus Wrens, a Bewicks Wren, several hummingbirds (definitely Annas, possibly a Black-Chinned), and a Verdin. Great Tailed Grackles and Common Raven also sailed by. Once 8 or 9am came, everything quieted down considerably due to the intensifying heat, and so we spent the rest of the day relaxing and swimming, and then attended (and photographed) the rehearsal dinner that night.

At four am the next morning we awoke and got into a car we had borrowed, and then made the two hour drive down to the southern tip of the Salton Sea. Tom Stephenson had been kind enough to recommend us to some experienced birder friends of his, Nick and Mary, and they happened to be doing a scouting trip that day to prepare for the tour they were leading the next. We stopped for some gas station donuts and coffee, and met them at their motel. On our drive to the sea itself we stopped to see several burrowing owls perched outside of their burrows which were made in the roadside embankments. This included an adolescent, whom Nick and Mary said was the first that they had seen. These were my first views of any burrowing owl, and they were all interesting to me.

We continued on to the Sea. The Salton Sea is a vast lake that is at once strange, grand and dismal. It's a body of water initially created by the delta of the Colorado, which has since been completely diverted for the rapacious water requirements of the cities and agriculture of the west. Before that, either the Salton or the delta created a stopover for millions of birds...now the Salton is their only choice, and that itself is drying up. The lake is sustained only by agricultural runoff from the farms around it...when we flew in we could see the green valley created around the Salton, and the vast desert that surrounds it. The runoff contains some pesticides, and is apparently insufficient to maintain the lake's water levels, so there is a continuous receding that leaves behind alkali flats that can be bizzare and beautiful, but lifeless. Along the lake itself, the avian life is vibrant. Thousands of Black-Necked Stilts work the shallow waters for food, along with flocks of peeps, more thousands of Pelicans (both brown and white), and similar numbers of Gulls. Among those gulls is the special attraction of the Salton Sea...the Yellow Footed Gull. These birds breed in Mexico, but some spend their post-breeding time at the Salton Sea, and it's the only place in the U.S. to see them. Through the morning we encountered a couple of dozen Yellow-Foots, and got really great looks through our scopes, as well as some photos. Other highlights were the Western Sandpipers (here they were hoping for a Semipalmated among the Westerns, while in Jamaica Bay we sift through the Semipalms hoping for a Western), dozens of Phalaropes (Wilsons and Red-Necked), hundreds of Avocet, a couple of hundred Marbled Godwit, thousands of White-Faced Ibis (as opposed to our one at Jamaica Bay, but again a Glossy Ibis here would be rare), and dozens of Long Billed Curlew. It was the numbers that were most gratifying to me, though...to see a flight of several thousand pelican rising up like a white cloud in the distance was dramatic and gratifying and memorable. Counterbalancing that sight was getting a breath of the hot, sewer-like stench that can come off of the Sea, standing in swarms of flies, while watching a group of park rangers retrieving sick pelicans for rehabilitation, Many thousands of these birds died a few years ago due to an avian botulism outbreak, and it was unclear if what they were doing was related. I don't know what the facts of the place truly are, but there was a strong contrast between the bustling bird life and the feeling of decay and death as the sea shrinks around them.

Our last stop was a group of natural mud pots that were in a nearby dirt field. This is the sort of thing that you would normally see as an attraction, with a fence and boardwalk and explanitory plaques, but here we just hiked right up to them and peered in. The area were were in runs along the San Andreas fault, and so there is a lot of geothermal activity. In fact, we saw several geothermal electic generating plants on our drive along the lake. So here was some concrete evidence of that, complete with comical burping sound effects as the liquid mud was forced up to the surface. This is part of what is so strange about the Salton Sea...clearly there is a lot of man-made environmental damage going on here, but at the same time it's a brine lake in the desert along a fault line, so there is a lot of natural desolation as well, and my understanding of the place wasn't great enough to easily separate the two.

That night was the wedding, and it was lovely. We danced under the sky and drank good red wine, and all had a wonderful time. The next morning we were off to San Francisco, to stay with Jessica's friends, see my sister, and relax for a day or two. Of course, relaxing includes birding, so we did a bit of that as well. At the Ferry Terminal we had a delectible outdoor lunch from the farmer's market while watching a curious and hungry Heermans Gull take bits of bread from not two feet away--an excellent way to study plumage. We had Western and California gulls, Brewers Blackbird, and a couple of Red Faced Parakeets fly over. These Parakeets are the famous Parrots of Telegraph Hill, about which there is a book and movie, and although we also went to Telegraph Hill, we never got truly good looks at them. Later we went to the beach and looked for Elegant Tern and Snowy Plover, but without success. We did see lots of Heermans Gulls, a cluster of Ravens, and hundreds of Cormorant and Pelican roosting on the big rocky outcroppings that sit just off the coast. In Golden Gate Park we had Chestnut Backed Chickadee, Pygmy Nuthatch, and Bushtit (yes, that really is a bird). In between all that we had some excellent burritos and generally enjoyed ourselves. Change is the constant and so today I'm on a plane hurtling towards New York, making a crosswards migration back to my Big Year.

Two More for the Road

2008-08-20T21:54:00.001-04:00

Last week we had a pair of interesting birds at Jamaica Bay. Once again I got a text from Shane Blodgett, and followed his find. This time it was White Faced Ibis, as found by Shai Mitra a couple of days before. I had hoped to find this bird earlier in the season, since it is easier to ID then. Now that the Ibis are generally out of breeding plumage, the marks have become fairly subtle. Specifically, the White Face Ibis shows a red eye and pink facial skin, while the more regular Glossy Ibis has a dark eye and face. I was apprehensive about finding marks like these, especially on my own and from a distance. I arrived at the East Pond and immediately found a large group of Ibis across the water, a couple of hundred feet distant. I put the scope through its paces, but despite careful scrutiny I failed to find the marks I was looking for. I noticed then that there were two more birds off on their own further south on the pond. As Shane has taught me more than once, it's important to be thorough, so I made the (possibly ill-advised) decision to walk south along the muddy shoreline to get a better look. After about twenty minutes of careful wading, I got myself into a better spot, and checked these two birds. I was immediately struck by the red eye of one--it was the White Faced Ibis, and obviously so. It was especially nice to have it feeding next to the Glossy Ibis, as that brought out the contrast even more clearly. I got some distant photos, and then spent another forty-five minutes or so walking around the pond to get some slightly closer photos. I ran into a European tourist along the way who tagged along to get my help with general IDs on the pond...I was happy to oblige as well as I could, having been the recipient of that sort of help countless times this year.

As I was heading back to my car, I got another call from Shane's group (from Sean Sime)...this time it was American Golden Plover on the North End. This bird is expected in small numbers in the fall, so I didn't have to go right then, but as the old saying goes, "a bird in the hand..." I got out to the pond as Shane, Sean and Doug Gochfeld were moving on, and soon saw the plover, standing out on its own with a few other shorebirds and gulls. It was molting from breeding plumage, and had a distinct gold tone on its back (as opposed to the much more common Black Bellied Plover, which is more black and white), as well as the fieldmarks of some black still in the undertail coverts and a smaller bill. Again, got a few good photos, and back home to get work done and prepare for my trip out west.

Dead Birds Tell Tales

2008-08-17T22:48:00.004-04:00

I took an early trip out to Jamaica Bay this morning with Tom Stephenson, hoping to see yesterday's White-Faced Ibis and whatever else might show up. We didn't have much luck with any rarities (in part because the water levels were very high), but we did find a dead Semipalmated Sandpiper on the sidewalk. Semipalms are quite populous at Jamaica right now, and this one must have flown low and hit a car. This little death gave me a nice opportunity to look at the bird up close, and especially to see the webbing between it's toes for which it is named. You can actually see this webbing at times on live birds, but this way is a lot easier.

Scissortail and a Move

2008-08-16T22:29:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a busy day. My girlfriend Jessica and I had movers coming to help her move into my apartment, and we've been packing and getting ready for a couple of weeks. Everything was going to plan until I got a call at 9am from Shai Mitra...he'd found White-Faced Ibis at Jamaica Bay. I'd given up on this bird for the year because we've passed breeding season, and they are much more difficult to distinguish from the common Glossy Ibis when they are in non-breeding plumage. Nonetheless, Shai and Doug Gochfeld had managed it, and now I was apologizing to Jess and racing out to Jamaica Bay. The movers weren't coming until noon, so I had time to make a quick dash and back. Unfortunately, the bird flew, and has not been seen again. So I did my morning of birding and was back exactly at noon. OK...still on track for the move. And then another call from Shai...Scissortail Flycatcher, seen the day before at Shawangunk Grasslands (near New Paltz), was being seen again. Against my expectations, it had stuck around. The movers showed up and I alternately watched the clock and got a good workout for the next four hours, hauling boxes and furniture up and down stairs. Things went quickly and at 4pm Jess and I were in the car and racing upstate. A traffic jam on the Deegan Expressway made it a closer call than it needed to be, but we got to the Grasslands with about 45 minutes of light left. No one was there, but the bird was, and we got to watch it perch and flycatch until sunset. It was a beautiful adult with bright red shoulders and a long, forked tail. We all enjoyed a little peace at the end of the day, and then headed back to our new home.

Whimbrel Walkabout

2008-08-14T23:21:00.007-04:00

The past few days I've been doing some intense Whimbrel hunting. Whimbrel is a large shorebird with a long, curved bill used for eating fiddler crabs. This time of year there are a few birds that come through New York...unfortunately, they don't stay long, and they are often seen as a fly-by or for a short time feeding in grasses or mud flats. In past years they have been seen in Shinnecock Inlet or Cow Meadow, or a few other spots on Long Island. I'd been working these spots over pretty regularly, with no luck. Then today I exchanged emails with Karen Fung, who mentioned that two Whimbrels were seen a couple of days ago on the North Fork of Long Island, in a spot called Cedar Beach. I didn't have a full day to work with today, but I figured what the heck and went into full-on chase mode. This means checking checking all the prime spots thoroughly but quickly and then moving on. I hit Cow Meadow first on the way out East, and at lunch I checked the Ponquogue Bridge at Shinnecock for its low-tide mud flats. No luck. I had just enough time to hit Cedar Beach before turning around, so I googlemapped my way there and started looking. At first it seemed like a regular, stony beach: not a lot of shorebird habitat. But as I walked my way around I found an inlet where there was a goodly supply of marsh grass and some little islands with flats. And there, on one of those islands, was a whimbrel. I just saw it briefly before it went behind some reeds, but I was able to change my vantage point and get some good (if distant) looks as it went back and forth, picking at fiddler crabs. Again, if I hadn't checked that spot at just that moment, I wouldn't have had that initial glimpse, and I might not have seen that bird at all. Luck and timing are a birder's best friend! On our way back to the car, Monkey seemed especially interested in some of the grasses by the shore. I figured he'd found a crab, but when I looked more closely I saw that he had found hundreds of them. There were crabs everywhere, scurrying along the shoreline and throughout the reeds. No wonder the Whimbrel was hanging out here...it's a fiddler crab buffet!

Waiting for the Whimbrel

2008-08-08T13:11:00.006-04:00

After the excitement of the double-rarities at Jamaica Bay last weekend, things have been relatively quiet in migration. I've been checking Cow Meadow and Jones Beach, as well as Plum Beach and Jamaica Bay for early grasspipers and whimbrel. The grasspipers we will probably see in the area include American Golden Plover, Buff Breasted Sandpiper, and Bairds Sandpiper. We should also have Whimbrel come through (there have already been a couple of sightings in the past two weeks), as well as Western Sandpiper and Marbled and Hudsonian Godwits. I was lucky enough to get a look at the Marbled Godwit that stopped over in Cupsogue on Monday. The bird was reported by Shai Mitra, and I went out the next day for it. It was a gorgeous day on the flats, and there were lots of shore birds and terns feeding in the late day light. I was working with the sun in my eyes, so I went to the west end of the flats and then worked my way back, and I got some nice shots of Red Knot and immature Common and Least Terns before spotting the Godwit feeding amoung the flock. Godwits have an upturned bill and are relatively large, so they aren't too hard to spot in a group. This one was in non-breeding plumage, but shone a beautiful golden color.

Plum Beach is accessed via a rest stop on the Belt Parkway, and has a nice tidal flat that appears at low tide. Whimbrel were seen there last week, but I didn't have any luck with them myself. There were, however, a half-dozen Black Skimmers, which are one of my favorite birds. They were skimming in the shallows at the edges of the flats, and it's amazing to see how precise they can be as they drag their lower bills through the water for food. It was in that end-of-day light again, so it was a great photo op, and I a couple of hundred photos. I'm learning through the year that when you get a good opportunity to photograph, grab it! They don't come along that often, and you may not see that bird again until the next year.

Rarities from the Far East (Pond)

2008-08-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

On Friday around mid-day I got a call from Shai Mitra...Red-Necked Stint at the East Pond of Jamaica Bay. Wow! There have been four accepted Red-Necked Stints in NY State, and this bird was on my list of "True Rarities" for NY. While I still have a few birds to see that just haven't been around because of the time of year, it's the rarities that make up the "luck" component of my Big Year and will determine how many birds I actually see, and it's the rarities that are becoming more of a focus as the year rolls on.

Out the door in less than five minutes, in the car and speeding to Jamaica. I called to reschedule one of the business meetings that I was going to miss. Then I called Shane, who was in the group who found the bird (the actual person who spotted it was Doug Gochfeld; Rob Jett and Bob Kurtz were there as well)...at the time they were not seeing the bird, but I decided to keep going and hope it turned back up. When I was about 20 minutes away I got a call from Rob that they had rediscovered the bird and were on it...I hit the parking lot and ran, putting on my gear as I went, but stopped dead when I saw that there was a large group of peeps right at the muddy entrance to the pond. I couldn't see the other birders and in my hurry I'd left my cell phone in the car. I couldn't see well out onto the pond, so for all I knew the Stint could be right here...I glassed the birds as best I could and didn't see anything obvious. Of course, Stints can be a difficult ID. I moved forward slowly, but there was no way not to flush the peeps...they took off as I reached the edge of the pond. Thankfully, I saw that the birders were actually some distance away and scoping the opposite bank. I trotted over along the muddy edge (straying from the edge of the East Pond can lead to dire, mucky consequences) and was soon with them. Bob gave me a quick look through his scope, and then I set up my own. And there it was...bright and beautiful, feeding on the far shore. The looks weren't ideal--we were several hundred yards away--but the bird was in good breeding plumage and really stood out with its bright orangey-red across its face and neck. I took a lot of very poor photos, and then thanked everyone and trotted back, hoping to make it back to NYC for another meeting I had.

On Sunday I went back to Jamaica Bay, this time with Tom Stephenson and two of his friends, one of whom works for the Natural History Museum, and the other who works for the airlines and is doing a world-wide big year around urban areas. They wanted to see the Stint, and I was happy to go back, so were were wading out on the East Pond again around 8:30. This time the scene was quite different--the word had gone out, and there were fifty or more birders all parked on one side of the pond, and scoping in different directions. Seeing the scopes pointing different ways is not a good sign...if the bird is there, you should see everyone aiming at it. All the regulars of the New York birding world were there, including a few people who had driven down from Upstate. It was a festival atmosphere, everyone coming together over their shared excitement, and although you wouldn't want to be birding with fifty people every day, it's great fun every on special occasions.

And there is a special benefit to having that many eyes in one place. Commonly referred to as the Patagonian Picnic Table Effect (after Patagonia, Arizona, a famous birding locale), when you have a lot of birders in one place, stuff gets seen that might not have been otherwise. And we got a great example of that: before we had arrived, Seth Ausebel spotted a Sharp-Tailed Sandpiper. That bird is one of the few he could have seen that is actually rarer than the Stint for NY State (only 2 accepted records). It was not currently being seen, but it was likely on the pond somewhere, so we started looking. Happily, the Stint reappeared, and many people got first-time-ever views through their scopes. A group of us then moved South, scoping as we went. After twenty or thirty minutes a birds was seen across the pond resembling a Pectoral Sandpiper...that's very close to a Sharp-Tail. The light was poor, and the distance wasn't ideal, but after some close examination by the experts among us, and with a little change in light and angle, it was determined to in fact be the Sharp-Tailed. I got some more long-distance shots, and then turned back, only to find that the Stint had flown to our side of the Pond. We were able to get withing twenty feet of the bird, and got much more satisfying looks that I had on Friday, as well as much better photos.

To have two rarities like that on the same day in the same place is spectacular. Both birds are from Asia, and either one showing up anywhere in the lower 48 is significant. To have both is one of those moments that birders will talk about for years to come, and it reaffirms the legendary status of Jamaica Bay as one of the best spots for rarities in New York.

Closing the Winter Finches

2008-07-28T18:03:00.008-04:00

Reports have been coming in the past week--very exciting reports. It looks like White Winged Crossbills are going to have a big year in New York...they are being seen in roving bands all over the Adirondacks, and all the way down to Pharsalia (near Ithaca). According to Matt Young, crossbill expert, the birds are gathering now and may nest in the state later this year. Like Red Crossbills, they use their specialized bills to feed on the pinecone seeds, and so their presence is connected to the boom/bust cycles of that cone crop. Often, the White Winged Crossbill is a very rare bird in NY State, but this year it looks like the exception. This caps what has been an excellent year so far for the winter finches, and it's the last winter finch to see on my list.

No surprise, then, that I spent three days last week up around Ferd's Bog in the Adirondacks, looking for both the White Wings and trying again for the Three Toed Woodpecker. I drove up in the afternoon, and immediately went for a drive on the backwoods Moose River Plains Road, where a lot of WW Crossbills had been seen the week before. The first 24 hours I was there it was either drizzling or raining, which wasn't a help, and although I saw a pair of Common Loons with a chick riding on it's mother's back, I missed the crossbills. Moving on, I slept in my car at Ferd's Bog, and walked in at 5am, hoping to hear or see the elusive Three-Toed Woodpecker that has been seen there recently. Since there seems to be just one female bird there right now, it's not a certain proposition by any means (this is the fourth time I've been there to look for it). Three-Toes, I'm told, can also be notoriously silent, and seeing her in the tangle of deadfalls around the bog is a difficult trick and involves some luck. Of course, the longer you spend looking the luckier you tend to get, so I put in three hours that morning. Nothing but beautiful habitat and a few other bog birds, so I headed out to Moose River Plains Road again. Unfortunately, my luck stayed the same, and although I did get a good look at a nesting Lincoln's Sparrow, as well as Magnolia and Blackburnian Warblers, I didn't have any crossbills. Crossbills can be hard to see because of their nomadic, unpredictable behavior--they seem to rarely stay put--which is sort of the opposite problem as the Three Toed Woodpecker, who I know is in Ferds Bog, but is reclusive.

The weather cleared towards the end of the day, so I was hopeful for a better chance the next day before I headed home. I slept at Ferd's again, and was in the woods at about 5:30am. In this situation the call is as likely as seeing the bird, so I had my recorder running in 5 minute segments the entire time. I had just heard a soft call that I thought might be Three Toed, when I heard a chatter overhead. I pointed the microphone up at the same time, and realized that I had a group of WW Crossbills flying over! That lasted a few seconds, and then I had the woodpecker call again, which I also recorded. I was a uncertain about the quality of the recordings, but I was glad to have had a little luck, and headed home. Back in Brooklyn I isolated the calls and amplified them, and sent them out to Matt Young and Tom Stephenson for their opinion. Unfortunately, the woodpecker call was faint, and I'm afraid it's not conclusive enough to count (the call is similar in quality to a Pileated Woodpecker, and although this was a soft call and I'm pretty condfident was a Three Toed, I don't think the recording is definitive). The crossbill call, though, was definitely White Winged Crossbill, which is a great addition to the year list.

How Not to Chase

2008-07-22T16:05:00.005-04:00

I have three "silver bullets" this year in the form of frequent flyer airline tickets. I've been saving them for rarities that might show up upstate, so that I can get up there quickly and save the 14 hour round-trip drive to Niagara Falls or Dunkirk Harbor. Two days ago a Franklin's Gull showed up in Dunkirk Harbor...I couldn't do the drive because of business. Franklins has only been showing up every two or three years lately, so I figured it was time to fly. I got my tickets and was at the airport with my gear for my 8am flight (the earliest I could get)...by 10:30 I was in Dunkirk, at the same spot the gull had been seen. I only had about 3 hours to look, but I figured that if the gull were there it was there and that would be enough time to see it.

The beach where the gull had been seen was covered with gulls, but no Franklins. I scoped the adjascent beach...nothing. I worked the stone breakwater with the scope from several angles, and though there were some Caspian Terns and Great Blue Herons, I couldn't see any hooded gulls. I checked the harbor, where there were a number gulls again, but once more no Franklins. I ran into several other people looking and no one had seen it, and I called some upstate birders who hadn't heard of any sightings that day either. Looked like I missed it.

I finished my allotted time back at the original spot, and had a Bald Eagle soar over and spook off all the birds. That seemed to be my cue, and I was back in NYC by 5:30. I had a business meeting, and got home around 9. Checking my email, I saw a post that in fact the Franklins had been seen, both in the early morning and again at 5pm. If I had just had a little more time, I would have seen it for sure. There have been no reports of it so far today, so now it may really be gone. So in short, my first silver bullet was a miss.

Cattle Egrets and Crossbills

2008-07-18T23:42:00.006-04:00

A cattle egret was seen near Lake Cayuga associating with some cattle yesterday, and I figured to get a few species at once and chase that bird at the same time. Cattle Egrets are seen each year at Jamaica Bay, but I figured the bird-in-the-hand approach was best, and combined with the other targets I could make a little more progress in the year.

The egret was spotted at the home of a veteranarian, whose wife initially saw the bird hanging out with their cows. Cattle Egret are common in the south, but are pretty uncommon in NY...they look a little like Snowy Egret, but with a yellow crown, breast and bill, and an overall stockier appearance. They associate with cattle and eat the insects that the cows stir up. I left Brooklyn around 2pm, planning on getting to the spot by 7, but then hit an hour-long, construction-fueled traffic jam. I pushed on as fast as I felt was safe, and got to the house at around 7:45, as the sun was beginning to set. I was afraid I was too late, and at first the bird was difficult to see...it was in the back of their pasture in some tall grass, and I was staying on the road in order not to trespass or disturb the owners. After a few worried minutes I spotted a white something by the cattle, and there it was. I got a few blurry and distant but recognizable photos and was getting ready to go, when the owner returned home. He and his wife were very gracious and invited me onto their deck for a better view...just around then the egret soared up (I got some flight shots), and then perched on a telephone pole and posed for some nice portraits and satisfying looks.

I stayed in Ithica and got up at 3:45am the next morning to look for Red Crossbill in Pharsalia. Crossbill expert Matt Young had given me a lot of great advice, and I went to a spot he had recommended. It's a road that I had been to in the winter several times, looking for that same bird without luck. This time, though, I heard the birds fairly quickly, and for the first hour of daylight heard four or five separate birds and was able to make a recording of one. I sent the recording to Matt later that day and he confirmed it, and thinks it might have been a Type 4, which would be less common for that area. [Crossbills are currently broken into 9 groups, types 1 through 9, and may at some point be split into several separate species].

I was planning on going on for more birds (I still need a photo or recording of that Black Billed Cuckoo!), but had a change in my work schedule and had to come back early. Nonetheless, as I've learned many times this year, no chase is a guarantee, and two new birds is a good result. In fact, people looked for the Cattle Egret the next day and didn't see it...it's gone off to some other place and may never be seen again.

Pelagic Day Trip

2008-07-08T17:55:00.008-04:00

I've been spending a good part of my birding time on Long Island lately...it's the place to be for Terns and other sea birds. The sea watches have been good, and I've seen all the expected species for this time of year by watching from the shore. What I haven't done is gotten photos of most of them, because they are often a mile or two out and moving fast. Since there are no official pelagic birding trips between February and August in NY, I decided to improvise and go out on a party fishing boat. These boats are probably the cheapest way to get out on the water...$60 for a full day...and if you go on a weekday they are not particularly crowded. I went on the Trade Winds II out of the Captree marina, aftering reading a post on the NY Birding messsage boards by John Gluth who had a good experience. The captain, Paul Risi, is very friendly and also very interested in birds, and he was extremely obliging. The boat is 78' long and can carry several dozen people, but today it was about 15 fisherman and me, plus a couple of mates and the captains dog Duke. The fisherman all fish from the lower deck, so apart from a seasick passenger or two I had the upper decks to myself . I used to get seasick a lot as a teenager, so now I use a prescription patch called Scopoderm (scopolomine) which keeps me barf-free.

There was a five foot swell due to hurricane Bertha, but it was manageable. Shooting flying birds from a rolling boat is challenging and I enjoy it, but its another reason to be diligent with sea-sickness meds. Keeping your eye in a telephoto lens while the boat pitches and rolls amplifies the whole experience. Within a few minutes of getting to sea we had a Greater Shearwater come in, and I got a few shots as it cruised stiff-winged past the boat. The shearwaters all have a distinctive flight, using the micro-winds created by the waves to glide just a few feet above the water. I was excited to have one close in. The next bird was a black, sparrow-sized creature flitting above the water...Wilson's Storm Petrel. These birds are often seen in rafts of several hundred, but today I saw twenty in ones and twos. I was hoping to see their feeding behavior...they patter their feet on the water while hovering just a couple of inches above the surface. Sure enough, when we got a little further out I saw various Storm Petrels do just that. The boat made numerous stops and starts, moving to different fishing spots, and along the way we also had a number of Corey's Shearwaters fly by. We built up a fair number of terns around the boat when some bait was being tossed over, and I was hoping a Parasitic Jaeger might drop in to hassle them for food. No Jaeger, but I did have a Roseate Tern briefly join the raucous Common Terns.

Overall it was a great day, and I added three new photos to my collection. I had two Greater Shearwaters, about twenty each of Coreys Shearwaters and Wilsons Storm Petrel, and one Roseate Tern. At this point I've photographed or made an audio recording of every bird except Black Billed Cuckoo, which I heard but didn't record. I'm hoping to keep it up for the rest of the year...it'll be a great collection to look back on and remember this big year.

Barred Owls and Stilts

2008-06-28T14:11:00.005-04:00

Summer is here in full force and the birds are mostly still up in their breeding territories, so in addition to my trips in Cupsogue I've been making some little "clean up" trips for birds that I can still see. On Thursday I did a short drive up to Bedford in Westchester, to the Mianus River Gorge. Tom Burke had reported 8 (!) Barred Owls there, and I was happy to hear about such an accesible way to see them, especially after missing them in the Adirondacks. The area on the way up is full of VBGs (Very Big Houses) - one of those super-wealthy enclaves tucked away above the city. I half expected to get pulled over for breathing the air up there, but it was quiet as I pulled up to Mianus. The Gorge is a private preserve, only open from 8:30 am to 5 pm, but the owls have been active during the day, and so I got there around 10am. I hiked about a quarter mile into the woods, feeling like I could easily miss an owl in the dense pine and deciduous mix that lines the river. I was looking at tree trunks as well for any whitewash, when I caught a little movement and saw a big bird fly over the trees and perch a little ways off. I called to it a couple of times, without any luck. I stood there hoping something would happen, when I heard a "hoo, hoo" above me...I looked up and there was an adult Barred Owl checking me out not thirty feet away. It seemed huge, and with its all-black eyes it was an intimidating presence. I got some photos despite the very dim light, and as I was I heard a screeching behind me, which turned out to be a first-year Barred Owl perched nearby. In contrast to the adult, the first year still had down in its plumage, and a fluffier stuffed-animal appearance. It called continuously for several minutes, perhaps hoping for some food from the adult. All told I spent about an hour there before heading back to the city.

Today (Saturday), I got a call at 7:30am from Shane Blodgett...Black Necked Stilt at Jamaica Bay! I'd chased Stilt twice this year, and this was probably my last best chance. I had a previous commitment until about 9:30, but by 10 or so I was at the West Pond at Jamaica. At first the bird was not apparent, but after a few minutes I took another scan of a large flock of geese and there it was. Even though Stilt are impossibly long-legged, they are still much smaller than a Canada Goose, so this one had probably been blocked by its larger, less elegant avian brethren. We got fairly close and I got some shots through my scope, which were still a little fuzzy due to the heat haze. I joined Sy Schiff and when we were done looking at the Stilt we checked the East Pond as well, but aside from a lot of Mute Swans (a couple of hundred, probably), and spotted sandpiper, there wasn't much else to see. In a week or two this spot should start to heat up with "fall" migration shorebirds (yes, it's July, but the early bird gets the fall migration, I guess)...meanwhile, the Stilt was a nice bird to tide us over until then.

Double Duck Drive

2008-06-22T18:38:00.009-04:00

Friday morning I was checking my emails when I saw that a Black Bellied Whistling Duck had been reported in Broadalbin, about and hour north of Albany. I grabbed my bag and started driving...I was in Broadalbin at about 12pm. For the next three hours I worked the lake by Broadalbin, looking for a spot to see the water, and trying to scope as much territory as I could. I've said it before, but trying to find a bird on a lake that has been almost entirely privatized (even the local park was for "residents only"!) can be very frustrating...the phrase "property is theft" somehow keeps running through my mind. Marxist ideology aside, I did my best but didn't have any luck, and drove home. I got into Brooklyn around 8pm. Just as I pulled up to my house I checked my email...a revised post showed that the duck was not in fact on the lake, but in a pond about a mile away.

I'd scheduled the next two days for Cupsogue to look for Arctic Tern and pelagics, but I really wanted to see the duck, too. After a little hemming and hawing I set my alarm, and at 3:30 the next morning we were out the door and headed back for Broadalbin. By 7:30 we were at the pond watching it eating with a flock of Canadian Geese. I took some photos, and we turned towards Cupsogue. By 2pm I was on the flats with Shai Mitra, who found not one but two Artic Terns. We had a great time studying them for a couple of hours, and then went on to seawatch where about a dozen of us saw Manx, Coreys and Greater Shearwaters. It was the longest day of the year, and we used the it to the fullest.

We stayed at a "cheap" hotel in Riverhead (cheap is relative in the summer in the Hamptons), and I got up early the next morning to try for the third time for Blue Grosbeak at Calverton. Third time (and some good direction from Tom Burke and Shai) was the charm. It took about and hour and a half, but I finally heard a faint call, and as I got closer saw it was the bird. I was able to get some recognizable photos, and then walked out of the brushy habitat and picked a half dozen ticks off my pants and rubber boots (this is one of the ticky-est spots I've ever seen...Monkey had gone into the brush for about 5 seconds on the previous trip and I pull over a dozen ticks off him).

We finished the weekend at Shinnecock looking for Wilson's Storm Petrel and scanning the ocean for other pelagics. We had a couple of more shearwaters (two Great and one Manx, as far as I could tell), but no Storm Petrels. It was a beautiful day, and the time passed quickly...it was mid-afternoon before we knew it, and we headed back to Brooklyn. On the way back I checked my email again...Tom Burke had seen the Black Bellied Duck in Broadalbin, and had noticed a yellow band on its leg. Turns out it was an escape from an aviary about five miles away...not a vagrant from Florida or Texas, and not countable for the year. Still, I wasn't dissapointed...we'd put the effort in for the bird, and that's really all you can do. Next time I'll check more carefully for leg bands, though.

Whiteface, Bicknell's Thrush

2008-06-17T17:50:00.000-04:00

Since before I even started the big year, I had been told by several people that one of my big year requirements was going to be a pilgrimage to the mountain top: specifically, to the top of one of the several mountains in the Adirondacks where Bicknell's Thrush breeds. The time had come (Bicknell's arrive in late May/June), so I packed up the car with my girlfriend Jessica and with Monkey we headed north.

I was working Friday to Sunday on a shoot, so we left Sunday afternoon and got up near Whiteface Mountain around 8:30 and checked into a motel. We ate and were asleep by 10:30, and then up at 3:15am. We were at the base of Whiteface at 3:30, and started hiking the 5 miles and 2500 foot incline we needed to cover to get to the top. We were hiking a road that you can drive, but only after 9am, and I didn't want to miss our only opportunity because we got there too late. We started with headlamps, but first light hit by about 4:15, and by 4:30 we were starting to hear bird song. This is one of the tough things about birding this time of year...first light is very early, unlike in January when it's still dark at 7am. About 1.5 miles in we heard a thrush, and then another and another! I started to record, and we started to talk about getting to turn back early, when I realized that the call was not Bicknell's, but Swainsons Thrush. Chastened but undaunted, we soldiered on up the mountain. We heard many birds on the hike, but it wasn't until we were about 500 feet from the top that I finally heard the Bicknell's call. Just as I started recording, the bird flew across the road! It was perched briefly, but I managed to get a shot off with my camera. It was thrilling to see the bird as well as hear it, and we happily hiked the last leg to the top of Whiteface to enjoy a panoramic view of the Adirondacks with the mountaintop all to ourselves. We took a minute to get a photo of Monkey, who at the time was probably the highest elevated Border Terrier in North America. On our way back down we had two Bicknells singing in same spot, and got some more recordings. We made good time back down the mountain, and were back at the hotel by 10am.

We tried for several other birds on the trip, including Three Toed Woodpecker at Ferd's Bog and Spruce Grouse, but no luck. Surpisingly we didn't see a single Ruffed Grouse (which I've seen but need a photo of), nor did we hear a Barred Owl (which I've yet to see), so the Bicknell's was the only new bird for the trip. Nonetheless, I think we all felt satisfied (and tired!) on the way home.

Cupsogue

2008-06-14T23:07:00.007-04:00

The last week I've been going out to Cupsogue, on the eastern end of Long Island. Along with several other inlets on the South Shore, Cupsogue is a great area to see terns, and also a good spot to sea watch. Sea watching, of course, is just what it sounds like...sit on a beach (preferably in an elevated spot) watch the water for birds. This time of year you might see several types of Shearwaters, Wilsons Storm Petrel, and maybe even a Jaeger. Of course there is a lot of seeing nothing, too, but you can do worse than sit on the beach and look out over the ocean these days.

The flats at Cupsogue are very cool...mud flats are exposed on the bay side at low tide, and lots of shorebirds are attracted to them. Dowitcher, Red Knot, Willet, and other sandpipers are common. The terns are mostly Common Terns, but every once in a while another bird seems to magically appear in the flock. In the last week I've seen Roseate Tern, Royal Tern, and most surprisingly (and with Shai Mitra's help!) a Sandwich Tern. Arctic has also been present several days this week, but I haven't seen it yet...I'm sure a little persistance will pay off eventually with that bird.

Even when there are no "special" terns around it's great to just wade around out there and photograph the birds. I was about 8 feet from a group of Short Billed Dowitchers, and had a great time taking photos. Also got photos of Salt Marsh and Seaside Sparrows, both of which are in the grassy marsh that abuts the flats. It's sunny and hot and I'm using sun tan lotion for the first time this year, and it's been really enjoyable to be at the beach and be looking at great birds.

The Tern Defense

2008-06-04T17:53:00.008-04:00

I went out to Jamaica Bay and Breezy Point today. It started off misty and rainy, and then turned into a flat, cool and hazy day. I got to Jamaica Bay around 8am on a falling tide, and there were lots of shorebirds. Also in the inlet at Big Egg Marsh (part of Jamaica Bay, just south of the visitor center) were hundreds of horseshoe crabs, apparently mating and laying eggs. They ranged in size from salad plate to serving platter, and as I walked along the beach I flipped over the ones that were lying helpless on their backs (if horseshoe crabs have backs). After the recent debacle with the fishery's overuse of these creatures, I figure they can use any help they get. The shorebirds were mostly Semipalmated Sandpipers, as well as Ruddy Turnstone, a few Red Knots, Sanderling, and a single White Rumped Sandpiper (a new bird for me). No Whimbrel, but it's really more of a fall bird--like many of the shorebirds I'm looking for now, it will be more common in the fall migration than the spring.

At the West Pond of Jamaica I worked over the marshes and tidal flats. The "best" birds were a Tricolor Heron, Little Blue Heron, Glossy Ibis, and (out in the open for a few seconds!) a Clapper Rail. A couple of Willow Flycatchers were calling along the path, and there were a few terns plunge diving out in the bay. I've been checking the Glossy Ibis each time I go for White Faced Ibis, but no luck so far...I'm also hoping a Sora will show itself as one did last year, but still no sign of it, either.

I made a stop at Plum Beach at low tide for Black Skimmer, but just found some Least Terns and more horseshoe crabs, so I decided to go all out and hike out to Breezy Point, one of the primary breeding areas for Black Skimmer. Breezy is difficult to access: basically a private community that has co-opted an entire penninsula at the end of the barrier islands of Long Island. I parked in Fort Tilden and started the long hike west...I've never made it all the way to the point, but I figure it's at least a 45 minute hike on the beach. There were no people on the beach, but there were plenty of birds. First gulls, then Common and Least Terns, and then Black Skimmer, in groups of 20 or more. I saw about 75 of these odd birds, including one resting in classic Skimmer fashion on the sand with it's body flat and head laid out like a dog. The birds also make a kind of doglike barking call, and a few flew by noisily and then dropped down and skimmed the water with their giant orange bills.

There were also lots of Sanderling, and a few Piping Plovers, a single Semipalmated Plover, and a Least Sandpiper. After walking and watching for about an hour I turned back, and headed a little closer to the dunes. I noticed a bunch of terns on the sand there, and got a little closer. As it turns (terns) out, it was a nesting colony. When I was about 100 feet away, the entire colony of several hundred terns lifted up into the air...I had accidentally set off the alarm! They swarmed forward and one after another terns dive bombed at me, loudly sqwaking their displeasure. Not realizing what was in store, I took a couple of photos of the attacking birds, planning to move off momentarily. Well, the terns starting squeezing off shots of their own, and before I new it I was splattered with tern poop. I beat a retreat and assessed the damage...shirt, pants, camera, bag and binoculars were all hit. I was laughing as I waded out into the water to wash off what I could, chastised and baptised by the terns.

Quick Update

2008-05-29T14:12:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm working to get up posts from the last two or three weeks...spring migration was great, but hectic! I should have a number of updates and posts soon.

Fort Drum Part 2

2008-05-25T13:10:00.002-04:00

The next morning I got up early to try and improve some of my photos from the day before. I started off in a spot for Mourning Warlber, and had one calling in the same spot we had looked the day before. It took me some time to realize that the bird was not calling from the ground and lower canopy (which would be typical) but was actually about 30 feet up in a nearby try. It was very cool to see this bird out in the open and calling, and again was one of the reasons I wanted to go upstate...birds that are rarities in the NY City parks may breed elsewhere, and you have a much better chance to see and study the bird.

I drove the dirt roads to the marsh next, hoping to see the Least Bittern. It was calling as it had been the day before, but distantly. I weighed my options for a bit, and then decided what the hell, donned my shorts and rubber boots, and waded out into the marsh, leeches be damned. I moved towards the call as quietly as I could, holding my camera overhead, and with my recorder in my pocket, trying not to go too deep and thus ruin my gear. It took about a half hour to get close, and then I waited for another forty-five minutes. Finally, the bird moved and showed itself, edging out from the cat tails and giving me an amazing look (and photos!). I edged quietly back out of the marsh, amazed that my scheme had worked. I got my first leech of the season, and here's a photo of the little sucker.

After that it was back on the road and down to Brooklyn. I checked the emails on the way down, and saw Matt Young had reported Anahinga (!! - very rare, southern species, also know as the Snakebird for it's long neck and habit of swimming with only its neck and head visible) not two hours south. The drive went by faster than normal as I was peering intently all around as I passed through the area the bird was seen. No luck there, nor with the reported Mississippi Kite at Bashakill, where I stopped briefly and where several other birders were intently searching (including Curt McDermott, Tom Burke, and John Haas). These fly-through rarities are tough, but I figure you try for enough of them and eventually you'll get lucky.

Back in Brooklyn for a barbeque at around 9pm, and home, exhausted and happy, by 11. A great trip at a great time of year in Upstate.

Fort Drum Interlude, A Death in Antwerp

2008-05-24T13:33:00.000-04:00

On my way back to Fort Drum I went through a small town called Antwerp, NY. As I approached the entrance gate I passed a few small houses, and suddenly saw a brown blur flash out into the road. I braked and stopped short immediately, but was too late. I had run over what turned out to be a feral cat carrying a kitten, and they were both in their death throes. I had a sickening few seconds trying to think what I would do if they did not die - they were both badly injured - but that resolved itself as first the mother and then the kitten lay still. I pulled over and talked to some teenagers up the block, and they said that the cat didn't belong to anyone. I was thankful that I hadn't caused anyone in the town a loss. I went back and lay the two at the side of the road, the kitten nested alongside the mother, and drove into Fort Drum. The next day when I left Fort Drum I stopped and looked for the cats, but they were gone. There was a dried bloodstain there on the road.

Fort Drum Day 1

2008-05-24T12:37:00.000-04:00

I got upstate on Thursday night and slept in the car in a parking lot, and then got up early to pick up a couple of reported birds in the area. First stop was Whiskey Hollow, where an Acadian Flycatcher had been reported by Bill Purcell. The Acadian is one of a group of flycatchers that are most easily ID-ed by call rather than appearance...it's very similar to Acadain and Willow flycatchers, and not dissimilar to Least and Yellow Bellied. This is the time of year to study these birds since they are calling pretty regularly, and that let's you get a definite ID on them before studying their physical characteristics. The Hollow was just that...a wooded ravine with a natural spring and tall trees. I hiked into the area that looked right, and started walking. In about ten minutes or so I heard a faint call that sounded right, and another few minutes got me close. The bird was distant and seemed to be moving around quite a bit. As I came up on a clearing, I spotted a young fox, who saw me as well and ran off. I played the Acadian call a few times, and soon the bird was closing in, moving from perch to perch. I had my recording equipment and got the call on tape, and then finally got close enough to get some decent photos. In the distance I heard a Black Billed Cuckoo calling, but missed getting it on tape as well. The whole seen seemed idyllic and beautiful--another quiet spot in NY State that I would have never known about if I hadn't undertaken this Big Year.

After Whiskey I moved on to Lake Oneida, where a Sedge Wren had been reported by Andrew VanNorstrand in a marsh. With his helpful info, I was able to find the spot quickly (wearing my trusty rubber boots), and had not one but two Sedge Wrens calling back and forth to each other, and got a photo of one when it came up briefly to look around. This was an easy way to get a tough bird -- Sedge Wrens are few and far between in NY. Nearby on Lake Oneida I had my first Black Tern, a beautiful tern with white wings and a black body.

Now I headed up to Fort Drum to get my permit for accessing the military installation. I really had no idea of what to expect...maybe some big airfield, or a grassland or two? In fact, like many military installations, Fort Drum is mostly undeveloped land, which is periodically used for military training. It covers a vast area with mulititude of habitats, including large grasslands (good for Henslow's and Grasshopper Sparrows), wooded sections (20 species of warblers breed here, including the elusive Mourning Warbler), and marsh (good for Least Bittern). I stopped at the permit office and got my papers for the next days trip, to be led by Jeff Bolsinger, who has studied the birds at Fort Drum for over twelve years.

I did a little birding the rest of the day at Perch River WMA (a distant Common Moorhen and some very close Marsh Wrens were the hightlights), had dinner, and then forayed out onto the installation at around 9pm for Whiporwill. Jeff had pointed me in the right direction and I had one calling in the distance, weirdly mixed with the sound of taps being played on the military base.

The next morning I was up and ready to go, and met Jeff and the other trip participants at the permit office. We carpooled into the installation, and soon were in a giant birding playground. We quickly had Vesper Sparrow (common here), and Clay Colored Sparrow, both singing. These birds which are tricky to see downstate are easy as pie at Fort Drum, which was part of my motivation for coming. We also had multiple Grasshopper Sparrows, as well as a couple of distant Upland Sandpipers.

Our next stop was a sandy open pine forest, where we had four(!) Red-Headed Woodpeckers, flying around and apparently still working out mates and breeding territories. These are really beautiful birds, and it's a shame that they have declined so severely in NY in the past years. It was treat to see more than one in one place.

Next we headed out the large fields which, in addition to a helicopter graveyard, had several Henslow's Sparrows. Another tricky bird to see due to habitat, the Henslows needs fields that are mowed infrequently, which has become rare in the state. Henslows are similar to Grasshopper Sparrows, and at a distance might be hard to ID. One trick Jeff taught me is to watch for how long the bird throws its head back in song...a very brief movement is Henslows, because its song is so much shorter than Grasshopper. We could see this on a distant bird that was too far away to hear the song clearly, but who we could see was singing with quick snaps of the head.

Next was a marshy area for Least Bittern...this is another elusive bird that, unless you're kayaking in the right place at the right time of year, can be very hard to see. I was very excited to get a chance to hear or see this bird, so I was thrilled that we got once calling distantly in the cattails. I got a recording of it, but really wanted to see it as well, which I got a chance at the next day...

We wrapped up looking for warblers, notably the Mourning, but as it was later in the day now the birds were mostly quiet and we didn't have any luck. The group disbanded, but I followed Jeff out to nearby Cape Vincent to check out a reported pair of Marbled Godwits. I then turned around and went out back to Fort Drum.

Sterling and Bashakill

2008-05-23T12:19:00.000-04:00

I've been birding Prospect Park heavily during migration, and I'd gotten most of the likely species I could see, so I decided to go upstate for a couple of days and try and fill in a few birds that are easier to see up there than down here. The trip started on Thursday with a drive up to Sterling Forest and Bashakill with Peter Dorosh and Tom Stevenson. We got up to Sterling Forest in the early morning in some of the clearcuts made by power lines. These are traditionally good spots for Golden-Winged Warbler, and withing a few minutes we were hearing one sing nearby. The Golden-Wing is threatened by hybridization that has been going on in recent years -- yet another form of "threat" to a species -- as it mates with Blue-Winged Warblers (producing Lawrences and Bresters Warblers, through direct and backcross mating). That means that it's one bird that you can't necessarily judge by call alone, since all four warblers seems to be capable of similar calls. Over the next half hour or so we tracked it (in part through Tom's incredibly good ear-birding skills), and finally had it perch out in the open about fifty feet away-a full-bred, beautiful Golden Wing.

The weather was on-and-off rain and sun, and we figured it was a good time to go further upstate to Bashakill. I hadn't seen Bashakill before, and it was really spectacular that day (I've posted a video below). Big open marsh habitat that you rarely seen in New York, with forest surrounding it. The turbulent weather made it even more dramatic. This is a good place for Moorhen and Rail, Sora, Mourning Warbler and Flycatchers. Again Tom's ear birding came to the fore...now that the trees are fully leafed out, you find birds more through hearing than seeing, so his skills are invaluable to helping find the hidded birds. We had a Willow Flycatcher pretty quickly, lots of Swallows, Osprey, Louisiana Waterthrush, probable Alder Flycatcher, and a surprise Bald Eagle flyover. We also had a Sora make it's cool whinny call, which is great to hear in real life and not as a recording.

After Bashakill we checked out Liberty Marsh, and got another Sora calling loudly and consistently. At one point I was within ten feet of it, but I never got to see it. These birds are masters of skulking, and they can get down in the reeds right under your feet and remain out of sight. I did get a good recording of the call though, and I hope to get a photo to augment it at some point in the next few months. At Liberty we also ran into Curt McDermott, who had the amazing Hoary Redpoll at his feeder this winter (I think he said it was there every day for over eighty days!). Curt, friendly and generous as always, took us over to a nearby spot for Grasshopper Sparrow. We got good looks at a couple of these little birds staking out their section of meadow with their high, tinkling calls.

That was enough birding for the day and we parted ways, Peter and Tom heading back to the city, and me heading several hours north to Fort Drum.

Help the Birds!

2008-05-06T21:12:00.003-04:00

This Saturday is the New York City Birdathon, where lots of birders go out and see as many birds as they can. I'm going to be part of a five person team, competing against other teams to get as many birds as possible (friendly competition, of course). Our goal is to raise money to save Calverton Grassland, the largest remaining grassland on Long Island, and habitat for several threatened NY species, including Short Eared Owl. The area is threated by a large development. Here's the recent Audubon New York action alert concerning the critical need for action to protect this area:

http://audubonaction.org/campaign/saveLIgrasslands

I urge everyone to donate what they can to help preserve this critical habitat. You can donate a fixed amount, or per bird (we'll probably see around 100). Just click this
link and email me with your pledge and information. Thanks!

Jones Beach Ternout

2008-05-06T20:53:00.006-04:00

The big wave of migration over the weekend has slowed a bit, as is natural, and so I took the opportunity to hit Jones Beach today for Gull Billed Tern, which had been reported over the past few days. The weather was definitely beach weather, so it seemed like a perfect fit. I ran into Ken and Sue Feustel at the Coast Guard Station where the birds had been seen the day before. They have worked extensively on the new Breeding Birds of New York Atlas for 2000-2005, which documents the birds that have nested in the state, so they know quite a bit about the birds of NY. We had a nice chat and then I settled in for the next couple of hours watching the sandbar just off the dock as the tide receded. Birds feed in the mudflat here when it's exposed, and there was a lot to look at. While I was there I had first Forster's and Common Tern, then Gull Billed (perched very close), and finally two diminutive Least Terns, who came in to settle for a while. The terns are some of my favorite...sort of an elegant verion of a gull, their flight is buoyant and graceful, and they have bright, contrasty markings. Some terns plunge-dive for food, and it's great to see them bob through the sky and then plummet into the water, wings tucked.

It got hot enough to sunbathe and bird at the same time, so that's what I did. A mixed flock came in to feed for a while and I got good looks at Red Knots, Semipalmated Plovers and Sandpipers, Sanderling, Ruddy Turnstone, Willet, Greater Yellowlegs, Black Bellied Plover, and Short Billed Dowitcher (including a very odd looking, almost leucistic molting bird). Sitting out there I must have been quite a site: camera gear, scope and tripod, three bird books, shoes and clothes scattered, and loving it!

They're Here!

2008-05-04T20:25:00.000-04:00

It's been a very busy few days! The first big wave of migration started on Friday, and on Saturday and Sunday the birds were in the city parks in full display. Peter Dorosh led a park walk on Saturday that had 23 species of warbler (the most I'd had in a day to that point was around 10). Rob Jett and I went out in the morning before joining them and found a similar bounty of birds. Kentucky warbler had been reported in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens from Friday night, so we were hoping to find the bird there on Saturday...unfortunately the gardens were having their cherry blossom festival, so they closed off the area where the bird had been seen. Rob and I spent a very frustrating hour walking the perimeter of the fenced in garden hoping to catch a glimpse of the secretive and rare bird, but to no avail. Rob is a great "ear birder", meaning he can ID birds by their calls, or by parts of their calls, which is especially useful now that the trees have blown their leaves and the birds have lots of cover. Warbler watching can be pretty challenging, as a lot of these small creatures feed high up in the trees on insects, and are often far overhead. It takes patience and a strong neck to track their movements until you can figure out what they are, and it takes good ears like Rob's to know that they are up there in the first place. The rewards are great, though, as the park is full of song and color when they are around. I was out from 6am until 7pm, and had about 80 species in the park.

Sunday was equally good, and the weather was better. I started in Prospect Park, but then got two texts in as many minutes...Lark Sparrow in Greenwood Cemetary and Kentucky Warbler in the Rose Garden in Prospect Park. I picked up Peter and Rob and we raced over to the cemetary. It seems like a strange place to bird, but Greendwood is one of the great green spaces in Brooklyn. Monk Parakeets nest over the main entrance, and I had gone to see them earlier in the year. Now Steve Nanz had relocated the Lark Sparrow further into the cemetery (it had been seen the day before, like the Kentucky). We spent a few comical minutes on the intentionaly meandering roads before we found the spot the bird had been seen, and we got out and started searching. We wandered apart and worked the area, and at least 20 minutes went by without luck. I started to get that sick feeling that we'd never find the bird, and that I'd have to spend the next six hours fruitlessly wandering the cememtary, when my Rob called my cell and said he had it! I rushed over and we stood about 20 feet from this striking sparrow...the only other one I'd seen was in Texas, and it was a long way from home here. Steve Nanz came around with his awesome photo rig (400/2.8 lens with two extenders, plus tripod and gimbel mount...very serious photo gear) and got some great shots. After a few minutes we tore ourselves away and raced back to Prospect for the Kentucky. Again, we spread out and looked/listened for any sign...again about 20 minutes passed before Rob heard the call, and then heard it again, homing in on the warbler. Within a couple of minutes we were seeing the bird in all its glory, hopping nonchalantly out in the open and feeding in the path. Nearby was a hooded warbler, as well as a common yellowthroat, and it was a delight to have all three birds, each bright yellow with black facial marks, flitting about in the same place.

Other highlights of the weekend was a mourning dove with chick, dozens of Baltimore Orioles, Orchard Orioles, Scarlet Tanager, and many, many warblers. The first wave was great, and there should be one or two more to go. It's a great time to be outside!

S&M Swans

2008-04-24T02:47:00.008-04:00

In addition to birding Prospect Park lately I've also made a couple of trips to Jamaica Bay. Being near this and the other Gateway parks that run along the coast of Brooklyn and Queens is one of the great advantages of birding around NYC. The refuge is near JFK airport, and if you've seen the marshlands as you come in or fly out from there, part of that is Jamaica Bay. Some expected birds have arrived there, including Glossy Ibis, Little Blue and Tricolored Herons, and Forsters Terns. But the most interesting moment I had was watching the more familiar Mute Swans, an introduced species that is not always beloved by birders because of their aggression. Apparently, they save their worst aggression for each other. I was scoping the East Pond when I heard a commotion on the lake and looked up to see a pair of swans trying to kill each other. Or at least that's what it looked like. This series of photos gives a sense of the violence of the interaction...
I was pretty sure one of these birds was going to wind up injured or dead. The fight went on for at least five minutes. Finally, one swan got around the other and appeared to mount it:

The breeding (if that was what it was...I am only assuming here) was more akin to a prison rape than anything else, and what I'm deducing was the female looked miserable and nearly drowned. As I'm sure Leda could tell you, getting ravished by a swan isn't all it's cracked up to be. Finally, the (presumed) female pulled away and escaped, probably to recover and renounce males for good.
I've since looked up some videos online where the copulation was not nearly this aggressive, so again this may have been a dominance display rather than a mating pair. If anyone has any more information on this behavior, please email me.

Yellow Throated Warbler

2008-04-24T02:11:00.004-04:00

The last few days have brought in a few birds here and there, though it's been pretty slow -- the Big Push has to happen eventually, but the birds definitely do it on their own time, and the peak of migration is still a couple of weeks off. Nonetheless, there have been some good birds lately, most notably a Yellow-Throated Warbler that turned up on the eve of the 22nd. A local birder named Edith Goren had spotted the bird around noon, and Peter Dorosh texted me around 4pm. This is one of the "overshoot" warblers we've been hoping for...a bird that flew too far north in migration and wound up past it's normal breeding range. Peter and I met in the park to walk the area it had been reported, and then went around the whole lake. It was dead...barely a warbler seen anywhere, and after a while we were resigned that the bird was not going to show. We were just enjoying the weather and the walk. At about 6:30pm we were leaving the park, talking about how you have to have slow days to appreciate the good days, and how I feel like I need to find more birds on my own as opposed to chasing birds all the time, when we both spotted a streaky warbler right by the path. We had our binonculars on it when the bird turned towards us to flash a bright yellow throat, and we both exclaimed almost simulatneously "Yellow Throated Warbler!" Peter started texting local birders to alert them, and I pointed my camera and held down the high-speed shutter to make sure I got a photo. We also called Lloyd Spitalnik, who runs the MetroBirds list online. The list is dedicated to NY city area rarities only, and when it's time to call Lloyd then you know you've got something good! In all that fuss we lost track of the bird...several other birders showed up within minutes, and we all started scouring the trees to relocate it. The light was fading, and Rob Jett wisely checked the treetops that still had sun on them. Since warblers are generally insectivores, and since the bug activity would be in the last warm spots, this made sense. He found the bird again quickly, and this time we all kept our eyes on it until everyone had gotten a good look. The light finally faded, walking out of the park Peter and I recounted what had happened only a few minutes earlier in second by second playback..."I saw the streaky sides, and I was thinking 'That's either a black and white or a yellow throat' and then it turned its head and I saw the yellow and called out...", etc. , both of us aglow with the discovery, and reminded again that birding is full of surprises.

Warbler Arrivals

2008-04-21T03:10:00.006-04:00

I suspected that Sunday would be the good warbler day this week, and when, at 8am, I got four separate text messages (two from Peter Dorosh, two from Shane Blodgett), I knew I was right. The birds had moved overnight, and when I met Peter and Mary Eyster in Prospect Park things looked good. Lots of movement, little warblers flitting in the trees, birdsong - everything a birder hopes for. We started at the Vale and soon had the Worm Eating Warbler that Peter and Shane had texted me about...an olive, retiring bird, feeding in the leaf litter (they also frequently probe dead hanging leaves for insects). As we moved through the park we had a nice diversity of birds, including Black and White Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Northern Parula, Northern Waterthrush, Palm and Pine Warblers, and the ubiquitous Yellow Rumped Warblers. We also had Wood Thrush and House Wren, both first-of-year birds for me. It's a joy to see the park come to life with these birds after a winter's hibernation. The color and diversity of the warblers and their flitty movements seem inherently optimistic.

Around 3pm, after six hours at Prospect, I went to Owl's Head Park near the Verazanno Bridge, on another texted tip from Shane Blodgett. This park is on the south shore of Brooklyn, so it can act as a first-landfall for birds heading north across the New York City harbor. Thanks to his excellent directions, I soon had Hooded and Prarie Warblers in the same tree. Both were beautiful, but the Hooded is exceptionally stunning with it's rich yellow body and stark black hood. I got good photos of both--the Prarie was as close as three feet away from me at times, which is a nice change from the usual look at a warbler: far up in a tall tree through the leaves.

After Owl's Head I made stops at Drier Offerman and then Jamaica Bay as the light faded. Nothing new for me at either, but there's no better way to end a day than a walk around the West Pond at Jamaica Bay. You quickly forget you're in New York City, and with birds all around, Glossy Ibis flying overhead, terns over the water, herons in the marshes, it's easy to feel grateful and at peace.

Mad Dash to the Derby

2008-04-19T21:47:00.000-04:00

Movement in the park was good last Saturday, and tapered off gradually since then. This time of year is when we look forward to the possiblity of some overshoot warblers--birds that breed south of New York, but fly a bit too far north in the spring and wind up here. Yellow Throated Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, and (very rarely) Swainsons Warbler all fall in this category. In other words, it's a good time for me to be birding in around NYC. At the same time, the migration tends to happen in waves, frequently connected to weather fronts. The birds use south winds to help them travel up the coast towards their breeding grounds, and if the winds are against them they often move less. Hence in the spring we look forward to south winds, and in the fall to north winds. A typical pattern is to have a front move through, and have a good day of birding the next morning (most birds migrate at night). The birding then tapers off over the next few days until the next push.

All that said, the birding was tapering off since Saturday, and I thought I might take a chance and zip upstate to look for a couple of birds that had been reported there lately. I left Thursday mid day and by 6pm I was in Montezuma NWR, at the north end of Lake Cayuga, looking for Sandhill Crane. As the sun came down low and warmed the marsh reeds up to a golden hue, I spotted one of these large, beautiful birds feeding at a distance in the fields. It stayed a few moments and then lifted up and soared out of sight. A great moment and a great way to start this whirlwind trip.

From there I drove up to Derby Hill, a famous hawk watch located on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, just outside of Mexico, NY. I pulled in around ten to the sound of thousands of Spring Peepers and other frogs chirping in loud unison. What a difference from being here six weeks earlier, when just a few minutes in the wind would leaved my gloved fingers numb and my face nearly frostbitten. Now it was 50 degrees at night, and a balmy 70s in the day, and the animals were taking full advantage. Monkey and I bedded down in the car and slept relatively well (despite not being able to quite stretch out in the hatchback), and were up with the sun at 5 or so. Hawks tend to fly on thermals, and the thermals don't get going until the sun warms things up, so it would be a few hours before any raptors arrived. In the meantime we birded the road and hedgerows. Around 8am I met up with Jerry Smith, local bird club president and very well versed with upstate birds. He gave me some good suggestions on where to find some of my "problem" birds; and soon, birders were arriving in cars up the hill of the North Lookout.

Hawk watches often depend on funneling mechanisms, and Derby Hill is not an exception. As migrating hawks come north they hit Lake Ontario and, loath to fly out over the open water, they cruise along the shore towards Derby Hill, where the lake end and the birds can turn the corner to continue north. Hence, the birds are all funneled past this spot, which makes Derby Hill one of the best hawk spots in the East. On a good day there can be thousands upon thousands of birds passing overhead. Today wasn't quite that spectacular, and though it started slow there were plenty of good birds to see. Several large kettles of Broad Winged Hawks passed by, as did a number of lone Sharp Shinned Hawks, Red Tails, Red Shouldereds, and (climactically later in the day) 3 immature Golden Eagles, dwarfing even the enormous Turkey Vultures with their wingspan.

Having seen the Broad Wings and Golden Eagles (my target birds for the trip), I left Derby Hill and spent a few hours on the east shore of Lake Ontario poking around and hoping to see a Vesper Sparrow. No luck with the Vesper, but at around 4 I checked my email and saw that Upland Sandpiper had been reported at a nearby aiport. I drove down and spent a little while looking through chain link fence into the fields around the airport, half expecting a cop to come up and ask me why I was checking out the hangars with binoculars. That worry never materialized, but the sandpipers did, and I got good looks at a pair of these birds which are declining precipitously in New York State. One last check of the email at sunset - nothing reported downstate, thank goodness - and I headed south to Brooklyn, ready for the next front to roll in.

Piping Plovers and Fledgling Owls

2008-04-12T14:49:00.006-04:00

I went out with Peter Dorosh and several other folks today on a Broolyn Birding Club trip to several parks in Queens and Brooklyn. It was a beautiful spring day and it got better as the day went on, eventually warming up to t-shirt weather. The birds warmed up progressively, too, and we had a lot of activity and variety. In Alley Pond Park we were directed to a Great Horned Owl nest, where the two young owls have now fledged. One was perched out on a branch in the open...it was fluffy and cute like all young owls, but nearly as large as an adult. The combination of the lethal talons and the fluffy exterior were reminiscent of a Doberman in a bunny suit.

The warblers were busy and we had Yellow Rumped, Pine and Palms, as well as both type of Kinglets, Towhees, and lots of sparrows. Later in the day we went to Rockaway beach, a strangely neglected section of Brooklyn waterfront. As with many spots along the Long Island coast, there are roped off areas here to protect the endangered Piping Plover. These birds started to come in a couple of weeks ago, but this was the first I'd seen. In contrast to the owl they are small and unassuming, and blend beautifully with the gravelly sand of the beach. In the summer you might see cages over spots in the dunes - these are predator cages that are intended to protect the plovers from birds and animals that might attact them or their young.

We also had a group of American Oystercatchers on the beach, calling and flying and courting on the shore. It's great to see behavior from these birds that normally are colorful but relatively stationary. We ended the day at Floyd Bennett Field, which was full of sparrows, Brandt, and juncos. We saw about a dozen field sparrows (one of my favorites). Mary Eyster accidentally started up a Killdeer, and we got to see another breeding behavior...the broken wing routine. Killdeer nest on the ground, and if a predator approaches their nest, they flop away from it dramatically as if they have a broken wing. When they've drawn the intruder far enough away, they shake off the false affliction and fly off. Mary was careful to move away from the possible nest area, and we watched as the Killdeer circled around back where we assumed it was nesting. At the end of the day we had seen 81 species, and had our first taste of spring.

Swans Attack Canada

2008-04-10T14:28:00.005-04:00

Early migration is in on us, and the breeding and nesting is also underway. In Prospect Park there are two Mute Swan nests that I've seen, huge affairs with one very large and protective mother on top of each. Even away from the nests these giant birds seem even meaner than usual, evidenced today on in the Lullwater. I heard a commotion, and ran over to find a swan chasing after several Canada Geese. The Canadas are already pretty big birds, but as you can see from the photos the Swan dwarfs them, especially when it spreads its wings. It hasselled the geese for several minutes, chasing one and then the other, snapping and flapping. Eventually the Canadas got tired of it and moved on, leaving the swan the tyrant king of the river.

On the more romantic side of migration, the Ruddy Ducks are finally into full plumage, and their rusty flanks and bright blue bills are hard for any hen to resist. Shane Blodgett and I were lucky enough to witness a little courtship ritual, where the males and females took turns standing up in the water and vigourously flapping their wings. The whole flock of thirty seemed agitated , and there was a lot of dashing about (at least dashing by Ruddy Duck standards).

This beautiful Blue Winged Teal was also around with a female, and has been hanging around the lake and Lullwater for the past week. These birds are rare for Prospect Park, so it's been nice having them around for awhile. They compliment the Pintail pair that's also been cruising the lake, also in their spectacular spring plumage.

Migration Approaches

2008-04-06T10:05:00.005-04:00

I've been going to Prospect Park every day for the past week...Prospect Park is my default birding spot, and it's close by, so if there's no reason to go elsewhere I generally wind up there, with the occasional trip to Jones Beach or Jamaica Bay for variation. The birds are definitely starting to move--these are the early stages of the big migration that will happen in a few weeks. Last week seemed to be "Eastern Phoebe Day", with hundreds of these birds showing in the park. At one cluster of phragmite reeds there were a dozen Phoebes, and wherever you looked you'd see one of these birds flitting off its perch to catch an insect out of the air. Now we have Pine and Palm Warblers in the park, and their numbers seem to be increasing. Yesterday there were three kinds of swallows working the lake for bugs (Tree, Rough Winged, and Barn), darting back and forth and always on the move. Soon it will be Louisiana Waterthrush, Blue Gray Gnatcatcher, and then all the myriad of spring warblers that many birders anticipate all year. On a good day in April or May you might see twenty or more species of warbler, all flitting through the trees and singing their various calls, and flashing their brilliant colors. It's an exciting time of year, and it's hard to remain patient for all the great birds that are on their way.

Western Promises

2008-03-30T20:31:00.005-04:00

Immediately on my return two new rarities showed up in the New York area. First a Western Grebe on Staten Island, and second a Western Tanager in Central Park. It was a nice change of pace not to need to go upstate for a rarity, and each bird was just a short car ride away. The Tanager has been very cooperative, spending time in a bush at 81st street on the West Side of Central Park. I took my dog Monkey and we soon found a group of binoculared folks viewing the bird, which has been feeding from Sapsucker holes (like the previous Scott's Oriole in Union Square; you can see them in the photo). We all had a nice view and took photos, and then it was a quick drive to Brooklyn. Lovely.

The Western Grebe was a bit trickier...I spent some time working the Staten Island waterfront, going from park to park and scanning the water in less than ideal conditions (chop and glare). I spoke for a while with a retired fireman who was helping to build a retaining wall adjascent to Lemon Creek Park (for a future condo development). Later I ran into a few birders who told me they had tried to signal me while I was talking from across the bay...they were trying to point out the Grebe I was looking for, and which I had walked directly away from after my conversation. Thankfully the bird remained where the birders had seen it, and I was able to go back for some good views.

A Texas-Sized Entry

2008-03-28T18:24:00.014-04:00

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post, in part because of my recent trip to Texas. I've posted a gallery of Texas birds here. I went down for Fotofest, a biannual fine-arts photography conference where photographers come from around the world with their portfolios and meet with gallery owners, book publishers, collectors, museum curators and the like. I was in Houston for five days, and although it made me nervous to be out of NY State for any longer, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to steal a few days in the Rio Grande Valley, considered by many to be the best birding spot in the US. I spent four glorious days driving up the Rio Grande River from South Padre Island on the coast to San Ygnacio in the interior. The birding spots there are legendary, from South Padre Island itself to Santa Anna to Bentsen to Falcon State Parks. The area borders Mexico (at times I was a literal stone's throw away from Mexican soil), and you never know when a Mexican bird will stray north into the area. At the same time, the western and eastern sides of the US butt up against each other in Texas, so you have birds converging from both halves of the country. To give a sense of the variety, a recent Big Year birder logged 522 species in one year, as opposed to the NY State record of about 340.

After Fotofest, I drove about six hours from Houston to the southern tip of Texas, Brownsville. The next morning I drove across the bridge to South Padre Island. It was spring break, but it was early on Friday and so the hordes were still a few hours off. I met Mary Beth Stowe, an experienced birder from McAllen, TX, who was kind enough to let me join her in her bird count for the island. Despite the sunbathers and springbreakers, South Padre is a mecca for birders, and although we weren't in high migration yet there were still lots of beautiful birds to be seen. One of the joys of birding a whole new area is that many of the birds, even the common ones, are "life birds", seen for the first time. I'd actually seen two life-birds in Houston just picking up my rental car. Here I had a first view of a Clapper Rail, Common Moorhen, Reddish Egret, and Mottled Duck, as well as a big flock of Black Skimmers, Terns and Lauging Gulls. Coming from New York in early March, which is relatively quiet, it was great to be in a place so alive with birds.

From there I crossed back to the mainland to Laguna Anacosta, a costal park that is also a great birding spot. Driving up the road to the park I saw my first Roadrunner, Curve Billed Thrasher, Inca Dove and Harris' Hawk, and that was before the entrance! Inside were a host of other birds, including Green Jays and Altamira Orioles, and a migrant Indigo Bunting. The park also holds 70% of the US Ocelot population, but I wasn't lucky enough to see one. I spent about six hours exploring the area, and then went back to South Padre. This time I did get a taste of the crowds, and whereas the bridge crossing took five minutes that morning, it took an hour now. Every car around me was blasting either Hip Hop or Justin Timberlake. I got an overpriced bite to eat and fled back to the mainland again and up the Rio Grande Valley.

The next day I met up with Mary Beth again, this time at Bentsen State Park for a tour she was co-leading. At the visitor center we spotted a Couch's Kingbird flopping on the ground, and by the time I got to it it was dead. It had flown into one of the windows at the center and broken its neck. This is a very common occurence, and I've been told that windows account for bird mortality only after cats (yes, cats...they are a major source of mortality for birds in this country). The silver lining of this ominous start to the day was that we got to really examine the bird...being able to touch a wild bird is always exciting, since generally I almost always experience them with my eyes and at a distance. The Couch's is bright yellow with an olive back, and it's feathers are soft like fur.

We continued at Bentsen and saw some great stuff...Mississippi Kite, a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet, and several other South Texas specialties. My next stop was Santa Anna, another park on the border, but on my way I stopped at a private nature reserve called the Blue Mockingbird. In fact, it's a private home with a couple of acres of land that has been highly landscaped to attract birds. Over the years the spot has accrued some really impressive rarities, and today was no exception. A White Throated Robin was hanging out there, and it appeared almost immediately after I showed up. This bird is a rarity for the US, period, not just Texas, and was probably the rarest bird I saw on the trip. The folks who pointed him out to me turned out to be two couples that were doing a birding trip of their own, and I met up with them again at Santa Anna later in the afternoon. We had a very nice time working our way around the ponds and woods of this famous reserve, and they pointed out some lizards, snakes and butterflies that I might never have seen. We had a Zebra Longtail butterfly that I'm told is very unusual. Butterflies seem to become a passion of a lot of birders, and in that Zebra Longtail I may have seen a future obessession...

The next day was Falcon SP and Salineno. I found a great hotel by Falcon, by which I mean a clean place for $40/night that wasn't a chain. Chains are a cancer in the Rio Grande Valley, and one is hard pressed to find a meal or bed that isn't identical to one in a thousand other cities in America. This place was an oasis, and only minutes from the park. I was up before sunrise and, on a tip from my friends at Santa Anna, was at the ranger station early listening for Common Paraque, a reclusive and noctural bird. Their voices are distinctive, and I heard several before heading to the feeders where a Green Tailed Towhee had been seen. The Towhee appeared as predicted in the first half-hour before sunrise, along with a pair of Black Throated Sparrows and a Cactus Wren. I was gone by 8am, as the Easter revelers pulled into the parking lot to set up their picnics.

At Salineno there was already a group chainsawing wood by the river to start their holiday barbeque. There was also a Canadian couple who, like me, were looking for a Muscovy Duck fly-by and for Red Billed Pigeon, which reside on an island in the Rio Grande. We did wind up spotting the Pigeon, though the Muscovy Duck eluded us. We also visited the feeding stations, where after a bit of a wait we spotted an Audobon's Oriole among the other colorful birds and the large flock of Red Winged Blackbirds eating the peanut butter and seed put out for them.

My last stop that day was at San Ingnacio, where the specialty White-Collared Seedeater is sometimes seen. I spent two hours alone at the feeders there without any luck. I parked by the river, and as I left I waved to a Mexican family on the opposite bank, also celebrating Easter.

I drove part way to Houston, stopping at a hotel and sleeping off the severe allergies that I'd picked up in South Texas. Several people there told me they had never had never had allergies until they visited the Rio Grande Valley in the spring, and I guess I'm one of them as well. The allergies let up as I headed north, and mostly cleared within a day or two. On my way to the airport the next day I stopped at the Attwater Prarie Chicken Reserve outside of Houston. This rare prarie area is the home of some of the last Greater Prarie Chickens in the US; the birds are restocked frequently and are still barely holding on. They are rarely seen. I did enjoy a walk in the prarie and found a Grasshopper Sparrow, as well as a several hawks and passerines. It was a soothing way to spend a morning before flying back to New York and my Big Year.

Love is in the Air

2008-03-09T21:21:00.007-04:00

The beginning of March has been relatively slow, but things are definitely moving now, and the birds activity is on the rise. This morning I visited Prospect Park with my friend Nicole, and we witnessed a dramatic Canada Goose fight on the lake. It's coming into breeding season for many birds, and so there should be inevitable jockeying for dominance. In general birds have a lot of mechanisms for avoiding direct physical contact...for example, birdsong may be a way for breeding birds to establish territory in a non-violent way. Sometimes, though, things just escalate, and so these two went at it like a couple of professional wrestlers, making a major commotion as they thrashed around the other ducks and geese. Canadas are big birds, and its impressive to see them throw themselves around like that. This shot shows the end of the fight when one bird finally turned tail and headed for the other side of the lake to cool off.

Later that day I went from birds at war to birds at love, when I joined Rob Jett at the Ridgewood Resevoir. This area is under hot debate right now, with the city trying to convert it into (totally unnecessary) ballfields and the majority of residents as well as NY birders and others trying to preserve it as an important natural habitat, which are extremely scarce now in the five boroughs. Here's a link to the Ridgewood Reservoir preservation group. We walked around the park, which has a beautiful lake and undisturbed woodland, and some nice habitat for our target bird, the American Woodcock. These birds have just recently started to come through on migration, and they breed in the area. They are often seen at Floyd Bennet field this time of year, and a pair was seen in Prospect Park last spring. Woodcock are hard to see on the ground, as they are very well camouflagued and match earth colors of the leafy forest floor. This photo was taken at a distance in near dark conditions, so it's not great quality, but you can get an idea of how they blend into their environment. But during breeding they blow their cover in a spectacular way. Right around dawn and dusk, the male "peents", making a loud call, and then rockets up into the air with a whistling sound, and flutters back down to the exact same spot on the ground to do a mating dance for the female that he is courting. It's very cool to see, and we were lucky enough to see a least two pairs of birds performing tonight. Tonight love was literally in the air, and I guess that means Spring can't be far behind.

Lake Cayuga, Part One Million

2008-03-02T16:45:00.013-05:00

OK, maybe not one million, but it seems like it. I put in two more days circling Lake Cayuga looking for the elusive Eared Grebe (the Pacific Loon seems to be gone from the lake altogether), and despite it being seen recently, I skunked out again. That's not to say that I didn't see some interesting things...while photographing a flock of horned larks on Center Road the first day, I saw this deer suddenly run across the field in front of me. Looking back behing it, I saw what had been chasing it: a very disappointed looking coyote. The coyote turned and made its way back into the woods.

On the lake, the temperature was around 10F with a wind of about 20MPH, which means my gloved fingers go number after about 3 minutes standing outside and scoping. The Canada Geese were bearing it, as usual, despite being covered in frost and snow. Birds are out in every condition all the time, with no relief, and still seem to thrive. Mallards dive to feed just a few feet from packed ice in the middle of winter. A pair of Red Tailed Hawks sit by the side of the road, scanning patiently in the cold for an incautious mouse or bird. Back on the lake, a large flock of snow geese creates a white, feathered disk floating in the center of the chilly blue waters.

Death of a Goldfinch

2008-02-26T22:08:00.006-05:00

The last two weeks have slowed down a bit...really there are only a handful of birds that I can see this time of year that I haven't already seen. I went to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx to see the local population of Rusty Blackbirds, and got some nice close looks. I also spent some time out in Eastern Long island, including a full day on Shelter Island trying to see an elusive White Winged Crossbill (no luck). Today in Prospect Park, though, it seems that things are beginning to pick up again, and there are signs that spring is on the way. Common grackles where perched in trees around the lake, and there was a lot of bird song. I ran into Rob Jett (www.citybirder.blogspot.com) and we watched Alice and Ralph, a mated pair of Red Tailed Hawks, working on a new nest for the breeding season. Trees in the park are starting to show a little color, and we even saw some early blooming flowers in the Midwood. The cycle of life is coming back around, and I had a vivid look at that cycle on Breeze Hill at the bird feeders there.

When I came up on the feeders a Red Tailed Hawk flushed, and there were no birds around, with one exception. One of the feeders is a 5 gallon water cooler tank with holes in the base, and inside that feeder, fluttering around frantically, was an American Goldfinch. I found out later this wasn't the first time the bird had gotten itself inside the feeder...it had been trapped and released several times. It took me a few minutes to get the feeder down, and then another ten to guide the worried bird back out of the hole it came in through. The little bird's trial was over, and it perched briefly on the feeder before flying towards the nearest branch. Before it could reach it's perch, though, an accipiter (either a Sharp Tailed or Coopers hawk) snatched the bird out of the air, landed in a nearby tree and camly began eating the goldfinch. If not the cycle of life, definitely a very rapid turn of fate.

More NYC Owls

2008-02-10T10:27:00.000-05:00

I got back late from Ithaca and then got up early to meet Paul Keim and his friend Carol to go look for owls in Pelham Bay Park. I posted about Paul's owl trip to Croton Point in December, and was looking forward to doing more owling with him. Paul is an owl expert, and is great at finding these hardest-to-find birds. Our first stop was an old tree that has hosted a pair of Great Horned Owls for a number of years...these birds mate for life, and this is their nesting season. The female was sitting where Paul expected her, probably with eggs. She watched us with an unwavering stare for the few minutes that we spent there, and we kept a careful distance to avoid disturbing her. It's always exciting to see an owl, both because they are rarely seen and because they seem so different from other birds. I felt lucky to have someone like Paul willing to show them to me.

We moved on to another area (yes, I'm being intentionally vague...it's understood with birders that you don't reveal an owl's location, since they are easily disturbed), and Paul met up with another local birder who pointed out several Saw Whet Owls...all in all there were four in this spot, and we saw two. Whereas the Great Horned Owls are big, impressive and intimidating, the Saw Whets are tiny and would almost seem cute except for their purposeful talons and hooked beak. We spent some time working though more pine trees, looking for owl sign, and found yet another Saw Whet. Owlers look for "whitewash", which is owl poop, and for pellets, which are regurgitated, undigestible parts of the owl's prey. Here we saw lots of whitewash on the branches of a pine, and right above it was another owl, not three feet from us. This is another amazing quailty of owls, their ability to completely camoflauge themselves, so that you can be looking almost directly at them an not see them. We actually jumped back we were so close to this one. We took a few photos and then moved on to leave the bird to rest.

Our last spot was another pine grove in a mucky area, and we spent half an hour working through it. There were definitely signs of owl here, but we couldn't spot the birds. We were on our way out when I happened to look back and caught the flash of a bird in flight...an owl! We backtracked to where we'd just been looking, and two Long-Eared Owls flushed out and flew past us. They seemed huge, even though they aren't as big as the Great Horned, and it was incredible that they could navigate through the dense branches of the pine grove with such speed and agility. They perched off about fifty feet from us and we got some good looks as they got good looks of us. In the car it was just a short drive before we were back in the middle of New York City.

The Elusive Loon

2008-02-09T09:54:00.000-05:00

From Long Island I drove straight up to Ithaca to look again for the Pacific Loon. Another rarity for New York, this bird has returned to Cayuga Lake each winter for several years now. I'd already tried twice for this bird when I went up to see the Ross's Gull, but I was hopeful the third time would be the charm. That said, this is not an easy bird to see. Cayuga is the largest of the Finger Lakes, and the loon seems to move around quite a bit. Also, loons are diving birds, and when the bird is feeding it's underwater more often than not. I watched a Common Loon on the lake dive and stay under for at least two minutes, to reappear many hundreds of yards away from where I first saw it. That means that you might be looking at the exact spot where the bird is, but if it's underwater you can still miss it. Cruising slowly up along the shoreline searching for the bird, it feels a little like looking for the Loch Ness Monster.

So that's what I did...I drove very slowly along the shoreline, stopping in spots, using bare eyes and binoculars, looking for the bird. For two days. And altough I saw a number of Common Loons, I never saw the Pacific. There were other birds to see, of course. On the north end of Cayuga there was a group of thousands of Redheads, several hundred Ring Necked Ducks, and over a hundred Tundra Swans (much easier to photograph than the Hook Pond swans). There was even a screech owl in a nesting box near the lake. The highlight of the trip happened as I was driving up the east side of the lake...I saw a large flock of geese approaching as I drove up route 90. They came closer and I saw that it was well over one thousand snow geese, cruising up along the lake edge in a loose formation. At some point we intersected, and for at least a minute or two I had the geese flying right above me...at 45 miles an hour, the birds were still passing me! I took some don't-try-this-at-home shots through my sunroof as I drove, and then the birds finally veered off and flew out over the lake. It left me laughing out loud.

Long Island Owls

2008-02-07T08:56:00.000-05:00

The last few days have been "clean-up" for me, meaning looking for birds that aren't real rarities but that I'd like to get out of the way. First stop was Connetequot State Park on Long Island for a reported group of Pine Siskins. Like many of the spots I've visited in the last month, I realized that I'd been to this park before I started birding: Connetequot has a fly-fishing only trout stream that you can fish on, and I'd done that years ago. A place can seem completely changed when you approach it with a different intention, or new knowledge. I'd visited Niagra Falls, for example, when I was photographing tourist spots, and Niagara can be seen as a ticky-tacky place. My last couple of visits, though, have been to the Niagara Falls that is known by birders as a mecca for gulls in the winter...probably the best gull-watching spot in North America. Prospect Park, which for nearly 15 years it was place to walk my dog or have a picnic, has been transformed into a group of spots like Lamppost 249 or Rick's Place or the Killing Field, each a different bird habitat. It makes me wonder what else I don't know, that might change how I see places again.

Philosphical discussions aside, I got down to birding and with some help from the park workers found the spot where the siskins had been feeding. Sure enough, up in the trees above the feeders, there was a group of 20 or so Pine Siskins perched and preening. The light was not flattering, but I managed a few photos and moved on. I was hoping to get all the way to Montauk to look for Red Crossbill again, but never got that far. I worked Dune Road and found the Boat-Tailed Grackles again, and got some better photos of a Common Loon diving in Shinnecock Inlet. I also got a few slightly better shots of the Tundra Swans on Hook Pond. Part of "clean up" for me is also getting better shots of birds I've already seen this year.

I ended the day at Calverton at the old airport there. This is one of the only (if not the only) spots to see Short-Eared Owl and Grasshopper Sparrow on Long Island. After poking around I wound up in the parking lot by the airstrips there, and sure enough there were four Short-Eared Owls perched out on posts by the fields. Short-Eareds are wonderful to watch, especially for the fact that they often hunt in the day, so you can get great looks of them cruising grassland areas before dusk. These birds did not dissapoint, and soon were gliding over the grasses for voles and mice. Their prey scampers under the matted grasses and are hard to see, but they can't hide from the incredible hearing of the owls, who will interrupt a graceful glide with a sudden swoop down to the ground, to emerge with a rodent in their talons. There were a couple of other people there, and we also go to see possible breeding behavior in the birds...two owls would soar up into the air and then flutter around ear other, almost locking talons, and fall back towards the grasses. This is around the breeding season for these birds, and I'm told that it's not unlikely that this was a courtship behavior.

All the more infuriating then, to have the town of Calverton hellbent on destroying this rare grassland. (Click here for a Newsday article). The current plan is to bulldoze the entire place to put in a 37-story indoor ski slope. I'm no expert, but to me the plan smacks of the "Monorail" episode of the Simpsons from years ago, where a huckster convinces the town of Springfield that it needs a monorail and drains them dry. The plans are set, but these owls may put a wrench in the process...Short-Eared Owls are endangered in New York State, and this is a well-known habitat for them. There has to be an environmental review, now, and there's a possibility that the owls will stop the development. I'm praying that it will be so...I can't imagine something less valuable than an indoor ski slope, or more valuable that one of these rare grasslands, and these beautiful birds.

Pelagic Trip

2008-02-04T21:50:00.001-05:00

I did my first pelagic trip of the year yesterday; it was run by Paul Guris of See Life Paulagics (www.paulagics.com) Pelagic birds are birds that spend almost all of their life over water. They live on the ocean and come to land only to breed, often in some remote spot in the Arctic or on a desolate island somewhere. The best (and sometimes the only) way to see these birds is to get on a boat and cruise offshore.

The trip left from Freeport, Long Island at 6:15am, and there was a sizeable group of people that were willing to get up that early and stand outside on a boat in February. The day was about as perfect as it could be for the time of year -- almost glassy smooth seas and warm (-ish) weather, or at least temperatures that made it bearable to stand outside with a parka on.

We cruised out of Jones Beach inlet as the sun rose, and many of us were out there birding as soon as we could make out shapes on the water. Like in many forms of birding, the more eyes you have looking for birds the better, and it's especially true when you're scanning the vast ocean for a tiny dark bird. Within half an hour of leaving the dock we spotted our first pelagic birds, a small group of Razorbills. From there we periodically found Atlantic Puffin, Common Murre, more Razorbill, Northern Fulmar and Kittiwake. Once out a little further, we started chumming off the back of the boat (note to self: roll up sleeve before reaching in chum bucket to toss stinky fish to gulls), and got a fair sized group of gulls following the boat. Among the normal Herring and Greater Black Backed we also had a couple of Glaucous and Iceland Gulls, as well as Lesser Black Backed. We also had some marine mammals -- great views of Fin Whale (the second largest whale, after the Blue), and various dolphins. In addition to these photos, I've posted more here.

Overall it was about as good a day as I could expected. The boat was great (even a galley!), we saw lots of great birds, and it wasn't sleeting. By the time we pulled back into port at 6pm I was ready to go lie down on the sofa and pass out (missed the Superbowl...sounded like a great game). When I woke up this morning, I could have easily gone back out on the water...I can see why people love these trips!

Ross's Gull

2008-01-31T07:53:00.000-05:00

Sunday started as a "clean-up" day for me and turned into a 2-day birdathon that left my head spinning. I started out looking for Monk Parakeets, a "gimmee" for local birding. These birds are sometimes called Quaker Parakeets and are sold in pet stores, and these Monks were escapes from that trade. They found a way to survive the New York winters, and now have an established wild population in Brooklyn. They've built their nests in a few spots around the borough, but the largest and easiest to see is the nests on top of the main entrance to the Greenwood Cemetary. When I asked the lady working at the cemetary entrance where the Parakeets were, she just smiled wearily and pointed up...that poor woman. Unlike the Pine Grosbeaks, which are parrot-like but fairly silent, these are actual parakeets, and they make a racket. On the spires of the entryway there are several large communal nests, and the birds are both in the nests and feeding nearby. I followed my ears to one noisy flock feeding in a nearby tree and snapped a few shots before moving on to Point Lookout.

I've been looking on and off a Red-Necked Grebe for the past week or two, and Point Lookout is a good place to find them. This is the kind of bird that's not really a rarity, but just uncommon, and not something you want to have to chase. Luckily I ran into Seth Ausubel, and he pointed out a bird in the channel...sure enough, a Red-Necked Grebe. This was the second bird Seth had pointed me to this year, the other being the rare Barrow's Goldeneye on the North Shore of Long Island in Oyster Bay. I headed there next--although I'd seen the bird, it was too distant to photograph, and I wanted to get a photo for my 2008 Gallery. On the way I stopped in Massapequa and got photos of another bird I'd seen but not shot, the Long Billed Dowitcher. Also spotted a Greater Yellowlegs in the same pond, and apparently there was a Common Teal there, too, but I missed it.

The Goldeneyes were much closer this time, off the point of Center Island, and I was able to get a few decent shots of the Barrows. It was about 4:30 now and the light was fading, so I started back to Brooklyn. On my way I checked my email and got a start when I saw a Pacific Loon and Eared Grebe were both seen on Cayuga Lake, above Ithaca. These are both rare birds and worth a chase, so it looked like my day wasn't over after all. I grabbed a few things at home and headed upstate. Now it was about 9pm and I was nearing Ithaca, and I checked my email again. Ross's Gull in Niagara! This is one of the rarest occurences on the East Coast, and a very exciting bird to have nearby. So I just kept driving, and got into Niagara around 1am. At 6:30 the next morning I was at Goat Island with Jim Pawlicki, a great local birder who was also excited to look for this beautiful little gull. We worked the area above the falls for about 2 hours, scanning through the thousands of gulls that regularly congregate here in the winter. We were walking back towards the parking lot when Jim spotted a small gull flying nearby and alone...it was the Ross's! I immediately started shooting, and got a few flyby shots before we chased the bird upstream. We watched it fly with some Bonapartes gulls for a few minutes, and then lost it again. Jim called all the locals, and within 20 minutes there were about a dozen of us trying to refind the bird. Just as I was about to leave, someone spotted it sitting on the ice, and we all got really nice looks at it through our scopes. It's so satisfying to find a bird and then really get to study it, as opposed to some quick flyover. And it was really very lucky to have seen this one...there were lot of ways that I could have missed it. I didn't have my passport with me, and I had Monkey in the car, so if it had turned up somewhere on the Canadian side that I couldn't see, them I would have missed it. Also, if it had been on the Canadian side and visible, I would have gotten to see it, but not to count it as a New York bird! So all in all a very successful chase. I headed back to Ithaca and never did see the Pacific Loon or Eared Grebe, but went home satisfied nonetheless.

Two Days of Rarities

2008-01-24T20:25:00.000-05:00

If there's one thing that I've heard about Big Years, it's that you have to chase rarities. That means that if someone sees a rare bird anywhere in the state, you have to drop everything and go try to see it. That's exactly what happened on Tuesday around lunchtime, when I checked my emails. Several posts had come up on the birding list servers that a Slaty Backed Gull had turned up in Ithaca, at a composting area near Cornell University. Gulls are often seen scavenging around dumps and composting areas, and this one had traveled from somewhere in Asia to do just that. Slaty Backs are one of the rarest gulls to be seen on the East Coast, so this was a great bird to see. I considered trying to get to Ithaca by dark, but it was already noon and it's about a 4 1/2 hour drive, so instead I finished up some business and left that evening. The next morning at 6:30 I was at Stewart Park, on the southern end of Cayuga Lake, one of the Finger Lakes. The gulls in the area like to sleep here, and then move out to the compost area to feed during the day. I spent a little time maneuvering to see the gulls, but then found the Slaty Back almost immediately. It has a darker back than the common Herring or Ring Billed Gulls, but not as dark as the Greater Black Backed gulls that were also present. Gulls can be especially hard to ID, and rare gulls don't always stand out in a crowd, but this one certainly did. I watched it lounge around on the ice for about and hour, and then watched it fly off. I went over to the compost area and there it was, squabbling with the other gulls for bits of food, and then resting on a nearby hillside. It was a lot of driving, but a very straight forward chase, and a terrific addition to my list!

I got back Wednesday night, and before going to bed I checked the lists again. This time the postings were even more remarkable: Scott's Oriole in Union Square Park! This is a first bird for NY State...normally it resides in the Southwest and Mexico. My heart was racing as I set my alarm for 5:30am... the next morning I picked up Peter Dorosh, top birder from Prospect Park, and we drove in to look for the bird. At around 7 the sky was lightening, and a number of birders from all over the city began to show up. The bird was seen within moments, and we watched as it flitted around the commuters, ate with the pigeons, perched on park benches, and ate a slice of orange we threw to it. It's a beautiful bird, and I encourage anyone with an interest to go and see it...it may be the only time you ever do!

A Goose of a Different Color

2008-01-19T13:50:00.000-05:00

I went out to Staten Island this morning to look for the Red-Necked Grebe that had been reported there a few days ago. Apparently, the information was a little too old, and the bird was absent. I'm learning this lesson over and over: bird information is extremely perishable, and the sooner you can get to the bird the better chance you have. While I was at the reservoir I did re-find the Greater White Fronted Goose that I'd seen on the 4th. What a difference! Whereas last time I was shooting through a chain-link fence at dawn, and getting just passable photos, this time I was able to see the bird from the other side of the lake in good light, and got much better shots. Here's one old and one new.

Back South

2008-01-18T14:48:00.000-05:00

The past two days I've been working my way down to Brooklyn. In Oswego I picked up a Glaucous Gull...you can see the size difference from the Iceland Gull and the stout, pink beak with black tip. I tried Montezuma NWR again for Tundra Swan and Ross's Goose, but again the birds were too far out to get a good look at. Once again relying on other great birders to help me out, I spoke to Matt Young, an experienced birder in the Finger Lakes area. He gave me some good tips on where to look for Crossbills, the last winter finches I need for my list. I spent one afternoon looking, before staying overnight in a local town. No Crossbills, but I saw at least four Rough Legged Hawks, and two big groups of Turkey (80 plus birds each). On my way back for dinner, I looked up and saw hundreds of crows streaming overhead. They were roosting in the nearby trees...seeing all those black birds flying in the near dark seemed otherworldly, and I find it comforting to think that there is this big world outside going on all the time, whether I see it or not.

The next morning I continued walking and slowly driving ba

ck roads in the area, but didn't have any luck, depite Matt's excellent help. Crossbills are tricky because they have somewhat nomadic tendencies, and although you can go where they might be (they feed on pine cones), that doesn't mean you'll see them.

My last stop of the trip was in New Paltz. I had emailed Christine Guarino, who had reported Red Headed Woodpecker in the area. Red-Heads were much more common as recently as five years ago, but have been in serious decline, and now they take some effort to see. Just as I drove up to New Paltz, wondering exactly where to find the bird, Christine called me and offered to come out and point them out. It's just another example of the amazing generosity that I've seen from birders all over the state.

While I was waiting I got some shots of a kettle of Black Vulture that were soaring overhead...Christine says they are local residents. She drove up and showed me where to scan for the woodpecker, and withing a couple of minutes I'd picked out a distant bird with a bright red head and white tail...bingo! Christine confirmed it, although it flew off before I got a photos (ANOTHER bird I need to go back to get a good shot of). We drove down the road and scanned some Canada Geese for anything unusual, and then I headed back down the Thruway to Brooklyn, my first Northern trip of the year a definite success.

Boreal Species Bonanza

2008-01-16T14:01:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the great Northern birder Joan Collins, I had some excellent information today on where to find the Boreal species that I'd come to the Adirondacks for. I followed her directions, and hiked around Bloomingdale Bog from sunrise until about 11:30, and found just about all the birds I was looking for. These included Boreal Chickadee, Gray Jay, Ruffed Grouse and Black Backed Woodpecker. The forest here is amazing in winter, like something out of Narnia. It's almost totally silent, especially with the dampening effect of the snow. I didn't need my snowshoes since I was on snowmobiling trails, and while I think snowmobiling is ridiculous (seriously, we don't have enough motorized vehicles in the road, that we need to tear around state forest?), I did appeciate having a packed down trail. The birds here are well hidden, and a lot of looking for them is actually listening. I'd walk a hundred feet, stop, listen, walk another hundred feet. At first you don't think there could be anything living in these snow bound pines, but suddenly you hear a faint tapping, or a chip note, and following the sounds you find a group of chickadees high up in the boughs, or a single woodpecker working over one of the trunks. The grouse are an exception, of course...twice I flushed one without ever seeing it, and got a quick look before it vanished again in the forest. They were a little too quick to photograph, but Ruffed Grouse are very common in the Adirondacks, and I'm sure I'll get another opportunity in the year.

Off the trails I walked back down one of the roads to my car, and found a great feeder wi

th Gray Jays picking up bread cubes that the owner had set out. One jay spent a good minute picking up one cube at a time, then setting it down and checking another one, until it found the one it wanted and flew off into the trees to eat. Red Breasted Nuthatch and more Black Capped Chickadees were in evidence, as was a single Common Redpoll.

I got back to the car and drove over to Paul Smiths Visitor Center to look for Evening Grosbeak. The setup there is pretty cosy for birdwatching...a nice sofa in the visitor center faces a big picture

window with several feeders just outside, and the birds come right up to the window. There's even a little speaker/microphone arrangement so you can hear the birds twittering without having to open a window! Not bad on a 10 degree day. There was a single Evening Grosbeak in with the other birds, and I got a lot of shots...here's one I like.

Finally, I headed up to Malone in search of the Gray Partridge. This is probably the rare

st bird in the state, with a probable population under 100 (and maybe many fewer). These birds were introduced in the thirties by the thousands and established breeding populations for the past 70 years, but recently have been in serious decline and are now in danger of being completely extirpated from the state. The last major population was in Cape Vincent, but after talking to some local birders it seems that that population is gone, with the last sighting being at least 2, and probably 3 or 4, years ago. There was a sighting, though, in Malone about 6 weeks ago, so I thought I'd give it a shot, and get a little more familiar with the area. I drove the farmlands just south of Malone for the rest of the afternoon, scanning the stubble fields and ditches for the birds, but no luck. It won't be the last time I'm up looking, but for now I'm putting off the hunt until I get a little more information and time.

Into the Adirondacks

2008-01-15T21:59:00.001-05:00

I moved my way North today, from Watertown to Cape Vincent, then Potsdam, and down into the Adirondacks in Newcomb. There is a bird called the Grey Partridge which was introduced into New York as a game bird in the 30s. These birds established breeding colonies and have lived as wild birds in the state ever since. Lately, though, their population has declined drastically, and now there are only a handful of birds in the state. This is a bird that I'd especially love to see for my Big Year, and my Bull's Guide (a record book of birds in NY) told me that Cape Vincent is the last stronghold for Partridge. So this morning found me cruising through the snowy back roads of Cape Vincent, and beautiful penninsula towards the top of New York State, just across the border with Canada. The area is lots of farmland leading down to a craggy coastline, and I can see why it's a popular summer vacation spot. As I was driving up and down these back roads, windows down and heat blasting, I made a couple of calls to people that I thought might know something about the birds. As the morning progressed, I talked to some very helpful birders who told me that the last time the Partridge was seen in Cape Vincent was between two and four years ago, and was now believed to be extirpated. The only spot in the state that the bird has been seen recently, it turns out, is Malone, which is about 3 hours east of Cape Vincent. Well, I really want to see this bird, so I made some calls and juggled some work stuff to extend my trip a couple of days to take a shot at it. I'll be visiting Malone in a day or two and will, of course, keep you posted!

Meanwhile, I spotted a beautiful male Ring Necked Pheasant at a feeder, and found a Lapland Longspur in a flock of Horned Larks on the road.

Also had a Rough Legged Hawk flyover. The big highlight of the area, though, was the multi-thousand flock of Redheads right off the coast of Cape Vin

cent. Here are two photos, one from a distance and one a little closer.

In Potsdam I stopped at Joan Collins house. Joan has feeders and has been posting online about some amazing birds she's had this winter, including hundreds of Bohemian Waxwings and a couple of Hoary Redpolls. There were just Common Redpolls at the feeders today, but Joan was very gracious and friendly, and we talked a bit about finding some of the area specialties, especially in the Adirondacks. I guess today's theme is the importance of information...good info on a bird usually makes the difference between finding it and getting skunked. Joan gave me plenty to work with, and I plan to take advantage tomorrow morning in Bloomingdale Bog.

The Upstate Bohemian Life

2008-01-14T21:36:00.000-05:00

Got up early and went out in search of Bohemian Waxwing. Will and Besty had showed me a spot the evening before where they'd seen them, so I went back to the spot in the morning. After a little searching I found a flock of about 300 Cedar Waxwings in an apple orchard, feeding off of crab apple trees. I wasn't sure of the protocol, but no one seemed to be home so I walked back in the orchard and scoped the flock. There were about 1/2 dozen Bohemians mixed in, and got a bunch of photos (it was snowing, so they're not great photos, but they're photos). Bohemians are beautiful birds, and we don't see them so easily in New York every year. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is an irruptive year for winter finches, so we're seeing birds that might normally spend their winter in Canada. The Bohemian is a beautiful bird...really knocks your eye out with it's bright markings...and I was glad to get it checked off, since these birds are also fairly nomadic, which means you never know where they're going to turn up.

Next I checked Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge (near Rochester), where a Ross' Goose was reported the day before. This is a variation of a Snow Goose, a beautiful white bird that can flock in the thousands. In fact, that's exactly what they were doing at Montezuma -- there were several thousand Snow Geese on the lake, and from the observation tow

er it was

magnificent to see. Unfortunately, they were on the wrong side of the lake, which meant they were a little too far to pick out a Ross's, and even if I could I couldn't g

et a definitive photo. (You distinguish between these species by the Ross' is smaller size and it's beak / head shape, so a close look is important). Here's a photo of a Snow Goose -- Snow Geese are usually white, but this is a dark morph variation.

Different types of birding create different challenges...yesterday it was trying to make out the fine details on a fast flying bird from a distance. Here it was looking at a group of 10,000 birds and picking out the one that was different, kind of like a giant game of Where's Waldo. Another birder did pick out a Greater White Fronted Goose out of the thousands of Canada Geese, which made the second GWFG I'd seen in the past two weeks.

I wound up the day in Phoenix, which is on the SE edge of lake Ontario. There's a great spot there with lots of g

ulls, and I was hoping for a Glaucous gull, which we hadn't seen in Niagara. There were a number of Iceland Gulls, but no Glaucous that I saw. That means a probable trip to Monticello, where there's a good dump that the gulls congregate at. Or I might find one on Jones Beach, since they're about to start dredging the channel there and that churns up lots of food for the gulls and attracts all kinds of birds. Or maybe I'll get one on my next trip to Niagara...

Niagara Falls

2008-01-13T21:04:00.000-05:00

I started my big trip up to Northern New York with Niagara Falls, in search of the Thayers Gull. By its markings it falls somewhere between an Iceland and Herring Gull, and since there is a great deal of variation in each of those species, there is basically overlap in most if not all characteristics that would identify the Thayers. Thayers wasn't distiguished as a separate species until about 35 years ago, and recently the work that established it as such has been challenged as potentially invalid. In other words, Thayers may not exist. But for now it's recognized as a separate bird, and so it's a species I'd like to see!

I had a photo shoot at noon on Saturday that was supposed to end at one, but in fact ended at 3pm. OK, no problem, except that as I started the eight hour drive upstate I realized I'd forgotten my passport. Since a lot of the birding I was planning to do the next day was in Canada, I had to turn around and go back to Brooklyn for it. I finally hit the road around 4:30...I dropped my dog Monkey off with my mother in Westchester, and drove north, and drove, and drove. Got into Rochester around 11:30 and slept a few hours, and got up at 5 to meet Willie D'Anna and Betsy Potter at Niagara Falls at 7:30. Will is one of real gull experts, and I knew if anyone could help nail down a Thayers it was him. This is one of the most technical and difficult IDs in birding, and it consists of taking into consideration all aspects of the bird including wingtip pattern, bill and head shape, fleshy-part coloration, and eye color, all of which need to line up in order to have a positive ID. I wouldn't dare make a definitive call on a bird like this without a real expert like Will helping me.

Niagara is the best place in North America for gulls. Every year thousands upon thousands c

ollect at the falls and along the river, and more rare gulls show up here than anywhere. We tried a number of locations, many in Canada looking back at the US (remember, the bird I see has to be in New York). We'd find a vantage point, often several hundred feet up above the flying and perched birds, and then start scanning. One of us would find a candidate, and then try to help the others see it, too, out of the hundreds of gliding and milling gulls. This can take several minutes of calling out the location of the target bird in relation to some landmarks along the river. We found at least four birds that might be Thayers, including one excellent candidate, but none of them was perfect. This is the closest we got. Really, it's got everything it should to be Thayers, but the mantle color (the grey on the back and wings) was just a little too light for our taste. Again, in many people's books this would be a Thayers, but I really want as close to an unequivacable bird as possible.

Next we moved down river, and Will got a call from a fellow birder tipping us off to some Little Gulls mixed in with a large flock of Bonapartes. Little Gulls are the opposite of Thayers, ID-wise, since the black undersides of the adult bird's wing really stands out, even at a distance, and is completely diagnostic. Here's an example of a Little Gull (we found 3 total) mixed in with Bonapartes.

Overall it was a fantastic day, despite not finding my perfect target bird. It's always great to bird with someone who's much more experienced than you, and I think I doubled my gull knowledge in one day (2x0=?) Will and Betsy, like a lot of the birders I met, were just great people, and I'm looking forward to going up again in search of that elusive Thayers!

De-Railed

2008-01-11T20:25:00.000-05:00

Went out today to look for Virginia Rail and Long Billed Dowitcher at Massapequa Lake. The weather was inclement, with a fair amount of fog and cold rain. I found the Dowitcher right away, but unfortunately I did it by flushing them, so I only got flying views of the birds. They did call, though, and the call is one of the best ways to distinguish Long and Short billed Dowitcher, so it was a good ID (along with the fact that these birds have been regulars at the lake). I'm sure I'll get some photos at some point in the year. The Rail was a lot more difficult, and for the second time I played Rail calls and didn't see the bird. Not sure what I'm doing wrong (if anything), but I plan to try it again until I see it. I did see a few new birds for the year, including this Winter Wren. I spotted it in the brush and tried to get a photo, but it was being skulky (as they often are), so I played part of a call to see if he would come up. I immediately regretted it when the bird not only came up, but began to hop around me from perch to perch, scolding and agitated. I beat a retreat and felt poorly about interrupting the birds routine, and thoroughly chastised for it.

Next I went out to Point Lookout for the Red Necked Grebe that was seen the day before.

The fog was limiting, and visibility was only about 100 feet, so the bird may very well have been there and just out of sight. I did find a group of Purple Sandpiper working in the same spot I'd seen Ruddy Turnstone the day before, though. I find that regardless of the conditions, if you go out and work and area something always seems to turn up!

Solitaire Photos

2008-01-10T20:45:00.000-05:00

I spent the day out at Jones again, looking for Saw Whet Owl, Red Necked Grebe, and anything else. I did the full walk out to the point from the Coast Guard station, which takes about and hour and a half. There were large rafts of Scoter off the point, numbering in the several thousand. There was also a nice sized flock of Long Tailed Duck. I also looked around for owl for a good 45 minutes, and was ready to give up when I ran into another birder. We talked for a bit and I mentioned I was looking for owl. He said, "I can show you", and pointed to a tree about 20 feet away, where the owl was perched at the top in plain view.

It was getting later and I thought I'd try one more time for the Solitaire; although I'd finally seen it the day before, I really wanted a photo for the blog. I went back for the fifth time to Oak Beach around 3pm, and met up with several other folks who had been looking for about an hour without luck. They left a few minutes later, and the bird appeared almost immediately! I

called their cell phone and they raced back, and we all got these great looks at the bird that other birders had been reporting. The Solitaire perched up on top of one tree, and then flew down and ate a berry, and then flew to another tree--I took a few hundred photos. Here's one of them...accounting for the five days I put in, this is about a 17 hour exposure.

Montauk Reducks

2008-01-09T19:38:00.000-05:00

I went out to Montauk again to look for the Pink Footed and Barnacle Geese that I had missed on the 3rd. It was an amazing contrast to the freezing cold weather I had that day...balmy and sunny, probably up around 60F. The geese were right where they should be at Deep Hollow Ranch, and I got a good look at both before moving on to Montauk Point, and then back towards Dune Road in Westhampton.

Dune road runs along a barrier island, and has marsh and beach on either side. It's a great place to see Bittern, Rail and other marsh birds. I ran into Carl Starace, a birder who lives out on Long Island, and we looked together for the Snowy Owl that's been reported there. Sure enough, we found it perched on top of one of the duck blinds on an island in Shinnecock Bay. Any owl that sits out in the day is ok by me, and this is an especially beautiful bird. This particular Snowy was not fully adult, and had some dark markings in it's plumage. Notably, there was a dark ring around its head that looked like a halo. It was an angel for me: my 100th bird of the year!

I left Carl and drove very slowly down Dune Road with the windows open, hoping to flush an American Bittern. These birds are masters of camoflauge, and when then stand still in a marsh they are almost indistinguishable from their surroundings. I spotted this one before I came up on it, and then got out and got some shots before it flew off.

Finally, I took another stab at the Townsends Solitaire in Oak Beach. This was the fourth time I've been looking for this birds since January 1st. I arrived around three and met with some other birders also looking for the Solitaire. The bird has been hanging out at the end of a dead end road, and there were a lot of Sunday drivers out because of the unseasonable weather. At around 3:30 a driver came up and made a U turn right where we were standing, and the Solitaire flushed out from some dense brush behind us and flew off to the top of a pine tree. I quickly tried to locate it in my scope before it flew again, but wasn't fast enough and the bird flew west to a distant spot behind the pines. I thought for sure that we wouldn't get another look, and was mentally resigning myself to coming back a fifth time to wait the bird out. Luckily, fellow birder Jeannie Carillo was there and convinced me to stay until dark. At sunset, the bird reappeared! It flew back into a nearby tree, and Jeannie immediately ID-ed it. Before I could get my glasses up it was gone again into the brush between two houses. I was beginning to think I was jinxed with this bird! We both moved around and tried to get a view of where it might be, and after ten tense minutes Jeannie re-found it perched on a dead limb. I got one good look and a positive ID (but no photo) before it flew off again. What a relief! I'd like to have a photo, but the bird is unmistakable and seeing it was enough for me to count it as a "checkmark". Thanks Jeannie!

Winter Finches

2008-01-07T21:03:00.000-05:00

Since the Franklins and Sabines gull dissapeared from Dunkirk Harbour upstate, I've saved a trip there and have been able to focus locally. Yesterday was Long Island, and today I went up to the lower Catskills for some of the winter finches that have been reported there. Many of these birds are eruptive, meaning you won't see any in the area one year, and then the next they'll be everywhere. This has been an "everywhere" year, with birds like Pine Siskin, Hoary Redpoll, Red Crossbill and Bohemian Waxwing all coming downstate, and even as far as New Jersey. This is generally attributed to a crop failure in Canada (the crop refers to what the birds would normally eat), which forces the birds to move south and find food elsewhere. As is so often the case, what's bad for the birds is good for the birders, and many people in our area are seeing there birds for the first time.

I started at Curt McDermott's house in Orange County...he'd posted a Hoary Redpoll at his feeders, and has been extremely generous in accomo

dating all the birders who have come up to see it. There are two general types of Redpoll, Common and Hoary, and the Hoary is by far the less Common. It can be a little tricky to positively ID...the differences between the two species are relatively subtle, and there is some overlap between the two. The main issue is finding clean undertail co

verts (as opposed to streaked), as well as a "punched in" look to the beak.

The bird also has a frosty, grayish white tone (as opposed to a warmer brown), and less streaking on it's flanks. This bird seems to fit all those criteria!

On the way to my next location I saw a huge bird fly across the road and new immediately that it was a Pileated Woodpecker. These birds are incredible-their size is always

surprising, and they have a bright red pointed head. Not an uncommon bird upstate, but a great one t

o see.

Next was the Pine Grosbeaks,

seen at a crab apple orchard for the past week. Crabapple trees are a source of food for many birds in the winter, and are a good place to check for unusual winter birds like the Pine Grosbeak and Bohemian Waxwing. I saw about 20 birds in this flock...they were surprisingly quiet compared to other big flocks, and several came within 10 feet of me to feed on the apples. They remind me of parrots in their mannerisms, and there coloration is equally exquisite, if subtler in tone.

Next I j

oin

ed up with a New Jersey birder and we cruised some of the local roads. She spotted a Northern Shrike perched up in a tree, and I saw a fl

ock of Wild Turkey roaming a fallow field. It always help

s to have extra eyes when you're looking for b

irds!

Finally I went to Shawangunk NWR to look for Short Eared Owl and Rough Legged Hawk. The hawks were in strong evidence, with four separate birds perched around the grassland area (Shawangunk is an old airport that has gone to seed), and there were nine Northern Harriers that I saw, including five adults. The adult Harrier is sometimes called the Gray Ghost because of it's beautiful gray and white plumage. I've only seen a couple in all of last year, but here were five circling and cruising the meadow for prey. The only thing missing was a Short Eared Owl. I saw eight here about a month ago, but none today. Still, I can't complain...it was a great day in the Catskills!

Chats and Kings

2008-01-06T19:44:00.000-05:00

I had a wedding to shoot yesterday, so I squeezed in an hour of birding at Prospect Park at sunrise. There's a Yellow Breasted Chat which has been hanging around for several weeks. Remarkably, it's one of two chats that are probably in the park, one near the Boathouse and another in the Botanical Gardens. Chats are notorious for their skulkiness and secretive behavior, so it was a great relief to spot it almost immediately as I came into the park. I got some excellent views (Chat-wise), and a number of photos. Then back to my house by 8:30 to go to Bethlehem, PA, to shoot a cool wedding at the art center there. While we were doing portraits outside a large flock of crows began to fly overhead. An hour later, the flock was still streaming over...thousands of birds silently moving across the sky.

We got back to Brooklyn and in bed by 1am, and then up at 6am to go again for the Townsends Solitaire that's eluded me twice. I spent four hours at Oak Beach from sunrise to around 11:30, and got skunked again. The bird was seen yesterday, so I know it's still around (I was worried I might be killed or driven out by the frigid weather on Thursday), but it's been very uncooperative, and it's taking up a lot of the hours I'd like to spend looking for other birds. This is the rarest bird in NY right now--I believe this is only the 8th Solitaire to be seen in NY State--and it probably won't show up again this year, so I have to keep trying. At 11:30 I decided to go for a few other birds on the North Shore of Long Island that would also be great additions. I met up with Seth Austubel who is a much more experienced birder than I, and he helped me spot the Barrow's Goldeneye that was drifiting in a flock of Common Goldeneye off Oyster Bay (by Centre Island). The birds were so far away that they were almost invisible to the naked eye, but through the scope I could clearly make out the different head shape, the different sized and shaped white spot on the face, and most importantly the black streak that goes from the shoulder to the waterline that differentiates Barrow's from Common. It was too far for a photo, but I hope to return in the next few weeks and get a shot if the bird comes closer to shore. This duck has been returning to this area for a number of years, and should hang out for a bit. Seth also tipped me off to a King Eider nearby, and I drove down the road to look for it. The King can be a tough bird to find, and the females can be hard to differentiate from Common Eider without a great view. I couldn't find the birds at first but then located them a few hundred yards down the beach from where Seth had seen them. Luckily, this King Eider is an immature male, so he's pretty distinctive from the Common Eider he was with.

Next I went to Sunken Meadow State Park. It was 2pm and daylight was getting short, but this turned out to be a very easy bird to spot. The Black Headed Gull that has been seen here for several days was happily darting around a pond at the end of Parking Lot 3, picking up little bits of food out of the water. Gulls can be very hard to ID, but this one was very clear...it looks like a Bonapartes Gull, but with a bright red bill and legs. A few minutes for photos (and for my dog Monkey to stretch his legs), and we were back on the Sagiponack Parkway towards the South Shore to get the last hour of daylight looking for the Solitaire again. I met some birders from the North Fork of Long Island, who told me someone had seen the bird at 12:30, an hour after I gave up. And again, no bird, so now I've logged about 13 hours over 3 days on this bird. Aaaarrrggg!

As the sun set I drove down the beach to a spot where a Barn Owl had been called out a week ago. I tried playing a call for a few minutes, but no response. It's the exciting thing about birding...even though it didn't work this time, some day I'll do that and there will be a loud scream back (Barn Owls make a call like someone is getting murdered), or I might even have a big, all white raptor silently swoop down and flash in front of me.