Trip to Newfoundland

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.