Cell Phone Birding

So I couldn't find my digital camera when I headed out to Peace Valley this morning, so I thought I would play around with my cell phone. Shooting through my old scope on a window mount in the snow and rain wasn't optimal, but an interesting experiment. My scope eyepiece wasn't ideal for the job. I'll have to play around with that some more.




Not too bad, until I tried the digital zoom, which I suspected would be pretty worthless, and really just made for a smaller image.




This last photo was through my bins with the digital zoom set at the highest setting. It was easier to hold the phone steady against the binocular eyecups, but at least on zoom I didn't get much to work with.


Of course, since it's about time to get a new phone, I can look into getting one with a better camera. I'm on Verizon, so any suggestions would be welcome :-)

Hunting Wolves with Eagles in Central Asia

Cool Pygmy Owl Video

Check out this story about Northern Pygmy Owls from Oregon Field Guides. Fantastic video of these little birds. If this doesn't make you want to bag your job and just head out to study birds for three years, you're either missing the birdloving gene or you've got a fantastic job already :-)

Phrase Origin: For the Birds

Ever wondered where the phrase "for the birds" came from? Check it out here.

Great Backyard Bird Count Withdrawals

For the past five years, my favorite part of working for Audubon was working behind the scenes of the Great Backyard Bird Count. Almost as soon as I was hired, Paul Green (now with Tucson Audubon) put me in charge of the regional reviewers and customer service emails during the count. I loved spending the whole weekend connecting with thousands of people out counting birds. Doing everything in my power to get more people out counting more birds.

Since I was let go by Audubon last summer, I'm obviously not working the GBBC this year.

I miss it. A lot.

This weekend during the count, I find myself looking at the GBBC website. Wondering how the numbers compare with last year at this time in the count. Wishing I still had access to the behind the scenes metrics to know how the count is going. Looking at the count now from outside.

Serious GBBC withdrawals.

The Taming of the Turkey

Latest study published yesterday on the domestication of the Wild Turkey has it occurring at least twice--first in Mexico about 800 BCE, and then again in the American Southwest about 200 BCE. See a news story about this research here, the actual article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is here.

Conservation Biologists must oppose Feral Cat Colonies

Ten conservation biologists have just published What Conservation Biologists Can Do to Counter Trap-Neuter-Return: Response to Longcore et al., an article in the latest issue of the journal Conservation Biology, urging conservation biologists to oppose the establishment and maintanence of feral cat colonies through trap-neuter-return (TNR) programs.

The article is not available for free online, but here are some quotes:

"By way of example, those of us who are conservation biologists should look to the evolutionary biology community. When local policies or regulations are put forth that promote the teaching of creationism or intelligent design, the evolutionary biologists have responded in force from across the nation and world. Such responses have been successful in defeating the attempts to favor the teaching of creationism or intelligent design and serve to remind the public that the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the theory of evolution. We the conservation community should consider the issue of TNR in the same light and challenge such propositions when they are raised. Without such challenges by those of us who are knowledgeable about the subject, we simply allow the use of tNR to grow and thereby gain further acceptance"

And this:

"The animal welfare community opposes "cat hoarding," whereby people care more for pets than they can adequately support, because it is considered inhumane. Trap-neuter-return is essentially cat hoarding without walls. Considering that most communities have laws banning animal hoarding, we should consider the same standard for outdoor cats as those that are in a person's home."

Here are the actions the authors propose:

1) Conservation professionals should "open dialogues with the animal welfare, sheltering, veterinary, adn public-health communities" to "promote animal welfare and reduce cat overpopulation"

2) Challenge policies promoting feral cat colonies and TNR

3) Advocate for policies that endcourage responsible pet ownership--including "requiring licenses for cats, substantially decreasing unwanted breeding of pet cats through mandatory or subsidized spaying and neutering, and requiring cats to be kept under their owners control at all times when outdoors."

4) If needed, seek legal recourse against TNR and feral cat colonies as violations of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Endangered Species Act, as well as laws prohibiting animal abandonment

5) "Seek laws making it illegal to maintain cat colonies on public lands"

6) Increase public awareness about responsible pet ownership

7) Recognize as conservation professionals that depredation of wildlife species is still a major concern even where wildlife populations are currently still intact--the time to reduce predation is now before the problem gets even worse.

Best Sewage Birding Location...Ever

The Austin American Statesman just did a story about birds and birding at Hornsby Bend, where I did my masters thesis on birds and birding at sewage ponds. Love that place. 1200 acres of ponds, river, woods. Over 370 bird species seen in 40 years, at least 50 on any given morning. There is no better sewage pond for birding in all North America. Period!

Audubon: The Flicker Years

OK, so John Flicker has resigned from leading Audubon after 15 years at the helm. I first met him right after he came on board. I had been an intern in the DC Audubon office earlier that year (1995) when Peter Berle was on his way out as Audubon president. I was trying to set up a North American birding big year birdathon as a fundraiser for Audubon, and trying to get Audubon backing for the venture. I took a bus from Austin out to Cape May to meet with John Flicker about it at the Partners in Flight meetings in October 1995. He was new on the job, and for whatever reason, my project didn't really float his boat, and two months before I was to start the birding big year I got word that Audubon wasn't going to support it. I was young, inexperienced, and a bit dispirited and so I put the birding big year dreams on hold.

I interned in the Southwest Regional Office of Audubon for a little bit when I first arrived in Austin. One of Flickers first moves as president of Audubon was to shut down the regional offices and create state offices. They opened a state office in Austin, and when they ran out of money a couple years later let almost everyone go, then started over again, leaving a lot of us wondering what was going on.

A few years later I was the Executive Director for Travis Audubon in Austin. John Flicker came out for meetings at Hornsby Bend. He had announced his 2020 vision that included building 1000 Audubon nature centers by 2020. We had an old 1916 farmhouse at Hornsby Bend that we wanted to renovate as a nature center, but he didn't like that idea so much. He wasn't making a lot of friends in Texas, but I still didn't really know him.

In 2004 I was hired to work in the Audubon Science office. I got to spend a little time with John Flicker over the last few years, including an afternoon with him and Richard Louv at the Aullwood center in Ohio, and some birding trips in Utah, but we weren't ever close. I really liked his 20/20 vision--focused on nature centers and the creation of state offices, but those expansion efforts seemed to be stalling out. Budgets were tight and morale was often low.

John Flicker did help Audubon start to focus more on birds after a couple decades of trying to be a flavor of the month environmental organization. You can read Flicker's own statement about his legacy here. He was a polarizing figure for many, and was accused of not understanding Audubon's chapter level grassroots. A Take Back Audubon movement even tried to depose him at one point. I have my own take on all this, but am more interested to hear other perspectives on Audubon: The Flicker Years.

What were the good and bad from the John Flicker years, and what changes if any should Audubon consider under new leadership?

New Audubon Chief--Frank Gill

Today comes word that long-time Audubon president John Flicker has resigned, and my friend Frank Gill will be the new head there, at least temporarily. This is really great news for birds, and marks the first time in decades that a real bird expert has headed up Audubon.

Frank Gill is one of the most respected ornithologists in the world, and I'm happy to have known him since I moved out here to work in the Audubon Science office he headed up. Though he "retired" from Audubon right before I came on board "his" office, he was always around and the Science staff would have an annual dinner at his house after one of our quarterly staff meetings. A couple years ago I traveled with Frank to the Upper Texas Coast to show off the great Texas birds to some friends of Audubon, and we had a fantastic time.

A great guy, a real bird expert, and top birder this is going to be great for Audubon. Let's hope it lasts, as it's the best news I've heard out of Audubon in a long, long time!

Here's John Flicker's resignation statement.

MA Allen's Hummingbird in Rehab

Read Scott Weidensaul's interestingcommentary on the situation here.

Where's the Bird?

Headed over to Peace Valley this morning to see what was at the lake. Now mostly frozen, the only birds were half a mile away near a small open patch.


That darker gray smudge in the middle is a Lesser Black-backed Gull surrounded by Ring-billed Gulls. Not much to look at? Yeah, that's why I headed over to the bird blind at the nature center.

It first looked pretty quiet at the feeders. Can you see the bird?



Maybe this helps...



How about now?



This Eastern Screech-Owl was sunning itself in the entrance hole of the Wood Duck box by the frozen pond. He seemed content until a couple of noisy Blue Jays flew in. Then he was gone...



There actually was quite a bit of activity at the feeders. Until this Sharp-shinned Hawk showed up.



But soon enough, the hawk was gone. The owl came back out. And life was good for the little things. Such is life at Peace Valley.






(All photos digibined with Zeiss 7x42 BTs and a Canon PowerShot SD780 IS)

Whooping Crane Video (TPWD)

Slender-billed Curlew video

While Old World birders are scouring the known and suspected winter range of this critically endangered (if not already extinct bird) for any last survivors, the rest of us can enjoy this only known video of the species, made in Morocco in 1994.

One Lucky Penguin

Watch a pod of orcas chase a penguin, and how the penguin gets away!

Lost Bird Project

A friend of mine just sent me a link to artist Todd McGrain's Lost Bird Project, a series of human-scale bronze sculptures memorializing the North American birds lost to extinction (hat tip: Mark).




More on Todd and his project here:

Lost Bird Blog

Cornell Chronicle

Around the Lab (CLO)

Audubon Society of Portland

Ithaca Times

Audubon Magazine

Say Hello to Pacific Wren

Word on the street is that the AOU Committee has voted to split Pacific Wren from Winter Wren. That would mean that the birds I grew up with on the West Coast are different from those I see here in Pennsylvania. Makes sense to me. More on the reasons why these are actually considered separate species now is found here.

Bad Photos of Good Birds: Northern Shrike

On Sunday Kirk and Lois Moulton of North Wales found a Northern Shrike west of Quakertown on the Christmas Bird Count. Since it has been two years since I've seen one of these guys, and never in Pennsylvania, I went up to look for it during lunchtime yesterday. I didn't see it, but then it showed up again later that afternoon. So this morning I headed up first thing to see if I could find it.

When I pulled up, Mike Lyman was looking for it in the trees on the edge of a huge soybean field. It wasn't near the road, but he finally spotted it down at the other end of the field. I couldn't see it from the road, so I asked at the nearby farm house and got permission to walk back and look for it.

I've been skunked by this bird several times in the last few years, so it was very gratifying to finally see one in the state. I was able to grab a few photos with my Canon Powershot through my Zeiss 7x42s. So, until I fork out thousands of dollars for either a new scope or a big photo setup, here's the best I could do shooting through my handheld bins.







Great to put my recent string of bad chasing luck behind me!

In Search of...

...a new blog template or layout. It's been three or four years since I tweaked my blog layout. Anyone with good suggestions on where to find a good Blogger template, I'm all ears. Eventually Birdchaser will probably migrate to a Wordpress format, but for now, I'd like to play around with Blogger a little more. So expect changes here as I play around :-)

Best Birds of 2009

I've already come up with my best birds of the 2000s, but here's my quick list of my best birds of 2009:

1) Whooper Swan--great to chase this bird in Idaho when I was out doing some consulting on eagles and a transmission line right of way back in February.
2) Aplomado Falcon--stopped by border patrol agents because of my suspicious birding activity right along the Mexico border in New Mexico, but got this beauty and some spectacular scenery.
3) Snail Kite--great to watch this one catch and eat some snails in Florida.
4) Short-tailed Hawk--after missing this one a couple times in Florida and Arizona, finally got it on my North American bird list when one flew low overhead as I pulled up to look for one on the Peace River in Florida.
5) Hawfinch--missed this one in England on my last trip to Europe, so good to see a couple in Germany this April.
6) Allen's Hummingbird--should be on the West Coast, but the one here in Pennsylvania was a treat to see earlier this month.
7) Horned Puffin--we only saw one on our Alaska cruise, but it was great to see floating on the ocean as our Cruise West ship passed through Icy Straight on the way to Glacier Bay.
8) Oahu Amakihi--took several hikes up the mountains near Honolulu, but finally got a good look at a female high up in the native forest above the ecological nightmare that passes for modern Hawaiian countryside.
9) Bristle-thighed Curlew--great to see in Hawaii.
10) Hawaiian Duck--nice to see with Hawaiian Stilts, Moorhens, and Coots.

Wild (Pink-footed) Goose Chase

So last night after I got offline word went out about a Pink-footed Goose in Allentown about half an hour away. I saw the note this morning and got there as soon as I could, but the bird was already gone. I spent the day driving around checking out several ponds where it had been seen, and waited until foraging birds came in at dusk to roost on the ponds, but ended up empty-handed. Here's hoping it shows up again!

Original notes on this bird here, map here

Search for the Slender-billed Curlew

This winter, there will be an extensive search for the possibly extinct Slender-billed Curlew across its previously known and presumed winter range around the Mediterranean and across the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. Formerly abundant, no sightings of these birds have been confirmed since 2001, though when I was in The Netherlands last month I heard reports of birds still occasionally being offered for sale at Middle Eastern markets. Here's hoping there are still Slender-billed Curlews out there somewhere, and not just in museum drawers and shelves--like these photographed in the Naturalis Museum in Leiden, The Netherlands.

Best Birds of the Decade

Hard to believe that I've lived in Pennsylvania now for half a decade! In response to a thread on the PABIRDS email list, I've compiled my Top 10 PA Birds of the 2000s. I suppose it's time to start getting more serious about my PA bird list, since as an expat Westerner I've let a lot of good state birds slide by without a chase. At any rate, here's my Top 10 PA birds for the past decade:

1. Fork-tailed Flycatcher (made up for the one that spent a month at my local patch in Texas a couple months after I moved up here)
2. Yellow-billed Loon (missed more than half a dozen times growing up out in Oregon)
3. Long-billed Murrelet (10 minutes from the time I saw the email to the time I saw the bird at Nockamixon. Sweet!)
4. American Oystercatcher (fun to find this one at Nockamixon)
5. Allen's Hummingbird
6. Barnacle Goose
7. Lazuli Bunting (one of only a few Western birds I chased in PA, 'cuz it's so beautiful)
8. White-winged Crossbills
9. Snowy Owl ('cuz I got to show it to my kids our first week in the state)
10. Swallow-tailed Kite ('cuz I got to show it to my sister visiting from Utah)

As far as ABA birds go, the past decade was a lot of fun, and I added 62 new ones to my ABA list. My favorites:

1) American Flamingo (6 Jul 2000--TX with my global listing friend the late John Gee)
2) Blue Mockingbird (1 May 2001--TX)
3) Black-headed Nightingale-Thrush (24 Jul 2004--TX)
4) Lawrence's Goldfinch (11 Apr 2005--CA, unforgettable enchanting area up Mines Rd out of Livermore)
5) Atlantic Puffin (17 Aug 2005--ME, Eastern Egg Rock thanks to Steve Kress and my time at Hog Island Audubon Camp)
6) White-eared Hummingbird (10 Sep 2005--AZ, playing hookie from an Audubon meeting with Sheri Williamson)
7) Ivory Gull (26 Feb 2007--NY, got to show it to my oldest daughter playing hookie from school)
8) Western Reef-Heron (6 Aug 2007--NY, after three failed chases in three states, got to see it with all three of my kids on the fourth try)
9) Whooper Swan (18 Feb 2009--ID, fun chase after spending a weekend with relatives in Idaho)
10) Kittlitz's Murrelet (22 Jun 2009--AK, my first trip to Alaska, a ten day wildlife cruise with my sweetie)

Globally, only six short trips outside of the ABA birding area, but some highlights:

1) Oahu Amakihi (2009--my first Hawaiian Honeycreeper--now to get to the other islands and see some more!)
2) Totoweh (2008--Mopan Mayan for Barred Antshrike--love the onomatopoetic name and my time doing ethnoornithology in Belize)
3) Hawfinch (2009--fun to find this one while playing with my kids in the forest in Germany)
4) Bristle-thighed Curlew (2009--don't know when I'll see this in the ABA area, but great to see in Hawaii)
5) White Stork (2009--a pair on a light pole over a freeway in Rotterdam on an urban birding conference field trip)
6) Black-and-White Owl (2008--a great night in Belize)
7) Black Hawk-Eagle (2006--fun day trip to the Tuxtla Mountains in Veracruz)
8) Waco (2006--Ch'orti' Mayan for Laughing Falcon--an omen of rain in eastern Guatemala)
9) European Golden Plover (2009--thousands in fields in southern Holland in the yellow light of late afternoon)
10) Fairy Tern (2009--the prettiest urban bird ever in beautiful Waikiki)

Here's to more PA birds, ABA birds, and global birds for everyone in the next decade!

PA Allen's Hummingbird Chase

So last weekend the Pennsylvania birding community was excited to learn that Scott Weidensaul had banded an Allen's Hummingbird--normally found in California--in a Lancaster County backyard. The bird is a female, and only identifiable for sure by measurements in the hand. So even though nobody can identify the bird themselves, dozens of birders have been going to see the bird for the past few days.

This morning after getting the kids off to school, I jumped in the car and headed over to Leola about an hour and a half away to see this little jewel, the first Allen's Hummingbird ever identified in Pennsylvania.

A good map of the neighborhood where the bird is found is online here.

Instructions are to park in the visitor parking spaces of the townhome community, walk back between the end towhhome unit and the low white fence, turn and walk between the arborvitae bushes and tall white fence, and stand behind the arborvitae bushes where you can see the feeder on the back deck of the second townhome from the end.

Here's the layout of the place with notes and directions:



I got to the scene about 10am, and after 20 minutes the bird flew in from a neighboring yard, landed in a small tree for a few seconds, then went to the feeder for maybe 15 seconds before zipping off again. In the hour I stayed there, the bird visited the feeder 3 times.

Each time it came from a neighboring yard where it was not visible, and the first sign of it coming was the chittering hummingbird noises it made. Or by looking down the path between the fence and the arborvitae, you could actually see it zip across that opening a few seconds before you could hear it arrive.

In a new low for rare bird documentation, here's the best photo I could get on my camera phone through my Zeiss 7x42s (don't laugh, there really is a bird there, hovering to the right of the feeder).

Much better photos by Geoff Malosh are online here.

So while I didn't get good photos, couldn't technically identify it from the very, very similar female Rufous Hummingbird, the smile on my face is the result of yet another fun and successful bird chase.

Owling with kids

Wednesday night I took a dozen kids from church on an owling expedition. We only had an hour, which was about enough time to hit three wooded areas near the church. At the first, where I've had very good close looks at Eastern Screech-Owl in the past, we got nothing. Second stop, same thing. We spent a few extra minutes showing the kids some constellations in the clear December skies, but I was getting nervous. SE Pennsylvania is crawling with screech owls. Where could they be?

Finally our two vans had to blitz down to another spot 10 minutes away where I've had owls in the past. After five minutes of playing the tape, a lone Eastern Screech-Owl answered the call. We couldn't get it to come in close where we could spotlight it, but all the kids got to hear it trilling off in the darkness.

Mission accomplished! Sort of. Most of them still haven't seen an owl, but now they've at least talked to one in the night!

Birds 1, Feral Cats 0--Court Orders LA To Stop Controversial Feral Cat Program

The songbirds of Los Angeles may get a reprieve from feral cat predation. Six conservation groups won a lawsuit on Friday against the City of Los Angeles and its Department of Animal Services to stop the practice of encouraging feral cat colonies until the legally required environmental impact reviews are performed.

The Los Angeles Superior Court found that the City of Los Angeles had been “secretly and unofficially” promoting “Trap-Neuter-Return,” a controversial program to allow feral cats to run free, even while the Department of Animal Services promised to conduct an environmental review of the program. The Court ordered the City to stop implementing TNR. The plaintiffs, The Urban Wildlands Group, Endangered Habitats League, Los Angeles Audubon Society, Palos Verdes/South Bay Audubon Society, Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society, and the American Bird Conservancy, sued the City in June 2008 to ensure that the controversial program to sanction and maintain feral cat colonies was not implemented before a full and public environmental analysis.

The groups decided legal action was necessary after their investigation revealed that the City had been unofficially implementing a so-called “Trap-Neuter-Return” program and the City repeatedly declined their request to stop implementing the program until environmental review was performed.

Although the City insisted that no such program existed, the Court concurred with the conservation groups and concluded in its Friday ruling that, “implementation of the program is pervasive, albeit ‘informal and unspoken.’”

“Our goal was to see that the City follows the California Environmental Quality Act by thoroughly assessing the program’s impacts on the environment and considering alternatives and mitigation measures before making specific programmatic decisions,” said Babak Naficy, attorney for plaintiffs. “Feral cats have a range of impacts to wildlife, human health, and water quality in our cities. The impacts of institutionalizing the maintenance of feral cat colonies through TNR should be discussed in an open, public process before any such program is implemented,” Naficy said.

In June 2005, the Los Angeles Board of Animal Services Commissioners adopted TNR as the “preferred method of dealing with feral cat populations as its official policy.” Thereafter, the Board directed the General Manager to prepare an analysis of the program under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This analysis was never completed but the Department implemented major portions of the program anyway.

The Department issued coupons for free or discounted spay/neuter procedures for feral cats being returned to neighborhoods and open spaces, including parks and wildlife areas. It also began refusing to accept trapped feral cats or to issue permits to residents to trap feral cats. The Department assisted outside organizations that performed TNR by donating public space, advertising their services, and referring the public to their TNR programs. The Department even encouraged and assisted in establishing new feral cat colonies at City-owned properties.

The Superior Court recognized these actions as illegal implementation of the TNR program that could have an impact on the environment and enjoined the City from further pursuing the program until it complied with CEQA. Dr. Travis Longcore, Science Director of The Urban Wildlands Group, said, “Feral cats are documented predators of native wildlife. We support spaying and neutering all cats in Los Angeles, which is the law, but do not support release of this non-native predator into our open spaces and neighborhoods where they kill birds and other wildlife.”

Even when fed by humans, cats instinctively hunt prey, including birds, lizards and small mammals. Colonies of feral cats, often thriving with the aid of handouts from humans, harm native wildlife and contaminate water bodies with fecal bacteria. Longcore continued, “TNR is promoted as a way to reduce feral cat populations but scientific research shows that 70–90% of cats must be sterilized for cat populations to decline. This is virtually impossible to achieve in practice, but population reduction can be achieved with only 50% removal.”

The City must now stop its TNR program and any further proposal to implement such a program must undergo objective scientific review as part of the CEQA process. This will ensure that the public has adequate opportunity to comment and that significant impacts on parks, wildlife, water quality, and human health are avoided.

Find more birds with BirdsEye

I haven't had a chance yet to check out BirdsEye, the latest iPhone app from Birds in the Hand LLC, but sounds like an amazing concept--getting all eBird sightings from your local area, including directions to how to get there, and pointers from Kenn Kaufman on how to find each species once you get to the right area. If you get a chance to check it out, let me know how it works for you.

10,000 Birds Conservation Club

I started out as a birder, chasing birds, always looking for rare birds. Birdwatching was not cool. Bird conservation wasn't a priority.

Then I chased the last of the California Condors back in 1985. I saw three of the last nine wild condors soar close overhead, wind whistling through their wings. I was never the same again.

After college I decided birding wasn't enough, I wanted to help birds. I went back to grad school. Got a couple more degrees. Started a nonprofit to study and help birds in Austin. Worked for another one. Spent almost five years working for National Audubon.

Now I'm proud to support a new effort to help birds, the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club set up by my buddies over at the 10,000 Birds blog. For just $25 a year you can support bird conservation causes around the world. With almost no overhead. That's not something you can say about your membership in other organizations that have big fund raising staff budgets and accounting departments.

So by all means support the big NGOs if you want. But support the lean and mean (OK, not so mean, they're really nice guys) 10,000 Birds Conservation Club. And do it for the birds, not just the chance to win some nice prizes!

Dutch Urban Birding

What better way to celebrate my 1,000 Birdchaser post (yeah!) than a recap of a day of urban birding in Holland!

On Saturday 20 of us from the first meeting of the BirdLife International Group on Urban Birds spent a very wet and rainy day visiting urban bird project sites in The Netherlands.

Here's our group with our local leader in a city park in Leiden.

Lots of good birds in the trees, including Short-toed Treecreeper and Firecrest. Redwings were migrating and flying over, as well as hanging out in fruiting trees. Rose-ringed Parakeets flew through frequently. Lots of fun, but wet!

The park has a little visitors center (behind us here) with lots of info on local birds.

A poster of local park birds in Leiden.

Part of the urban birds campaign info that won Leiden the annual award at this year's Dutch Urban Bird Conference (Stadsvogelconferentie) for best urban bird project.

After an hour birding and visiting this park, we took off to tour a new development where the planners are working to create habitat for 50 breeding species in the 4 square kilometers of the project.

Here's the group looking over the plans.

The long gray things between the windows on the upper floor of this building are boxes for nesting Swifts.

The developers are leaving the reeds in the canal here, not a common sight in Holland, where most of the canals are mowed to the edges. This can provide habitat for reedlings and other birds.

After a very wet and rainy hike through this housing and commercial development, we headed in the bus to visit a project in Amsterdam where they are building floating planter boxes to provide habitat for nesting coots, grebes, moorehens and other birds in the canals.


A skittish moorhen, not used to so much attention.

Of course, being that this is Amsterdam, the new habitat is floating in a canal right in front of a red light district. Coots and prostitutes. Only in Amsterdam!

After this eye-opening excursion, we headed out to another urban site, where a toxic dump has been capped and now forms part of a wetland greenway complex on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Lots of gulls, grebes, waterfowl, and other birds in the river and canals. It started raining again, so we ended the day quite wet, but with over 50 species of birds seen in and around several Dutch cities.

Worthless Rain

I thought the rains last night might have dropped some waterfowl onto the local lakes, but Lake Nockamixon and Peace Valley were both eerily quiet this morning. Best birds were a flock of 20 Wild Turkeys right off the highway. Sadly as I was returning home I saw a crippled deer unable to get up over the curb after just being hit by a van.

Art Book or Biggest Field Guide Ever?

Americans have enjoyed large format bird art books since Audubon came out with his huge double-elephant folio sized The Birds of America starting in 1827. Most of us don't own anything that large, but many of us own Audubon's folio-sized reprint volumes that have almost always been in print since then. After Audubon, Louis Agassiz Fuertes and others have given us additional bird portraits, though after the success of Roger Tory Peterson's books, bird illustrations from field guides have become perhaps the most popularly viewed bird art in North America.

The worlds of bird art as illustration and bird art as portrait have finally come together again in the release of the National Geographic Illustrated Birds of North America, Folio Edition. This book is essentially a large-format hard-cover version of the latest 5th edition of the popular National Geographic field guide. National Geographic bills it as "both hard-working reference and sumptuous art book" that "schowcases the more than 4,000 original, full-color, meticulously rendered bird paintings--by 20 contemporary bird artists--in striking detail and scientific accuracy."

So, is this really a "magnificent and highly collectible" bird art book, or just an attempt to sell us a Biggest Field Guide Ever version of the book we already have in our backpacks or on the seat of our car?

For me, I actually agree with the marketing description of this book and enjoy it as both reference and art book. First most intermediate or more advanced birders, who don't carry field guides in the field anyway, so-called field guides are really mostly desk references anyway. So the size of this book doesn't detract from its use in that way. In addition, after buying multiple copies of previous editions of the National Geographic guide, I was slow to consider even picking up the latest 5th edition. Sure there were some nice changes, but if you have a couple previous editions of this book first published in 1983, there's little incentive to go out and add the latest edition to the line up on your field guide shelf. So while I passed on the original 5th edition NGS guide, when this version came along it offered something new.

That something new is a whole new appreciation for the heft of this book. We've been spoiled over the years in seeing thousands upon thousands of bird field guide illustrations and hundreds of thousands of bird photographs. Increasing the size of this book helps us appreciate just what a monumental book it really is and has been since the 1980s. Think about it--over 4,000 original bird paintings. We used to just carry that around in our large coat pocket and not think much more about the paintings except for their use-value in helping us identify birds. While we would never use original Audubon prints for dinner table placemats, we've been undervaluing the artwork of the NGS guide by treating it as mere illustrations for helping us answer our mundane bird identification questions.

But no more. When you hold the National Geographic Illustrated Birds of North America, Folio Edition in your lap, the sheer weight of the book shatters that mindset. As you leaf through the pages of this volume, you start to see the illustrations for what they are--amazing and "meticulously rendered bird paintings...in striking detail and scientific accuracy."

I'll admit that when I first heard of this project, I had my doubts. While the text and illustrations of the original NGS field guide sent shockwaves through birding communities and immediately replaced the Peterson and Golden Guides as the guide of choice when it came out in the 80s, I thought that some of the illustrations had become a bit stale in the intervening years. For example I had never really warmed to Donald Malick's Great Horned Owl plate (p.257) and H. Douglas Pratt's jay plate (p.321) had grown a bit stale after more than 25 years of exposure.

Happily, even these plates take on new life in the larger format. As field guide illustrations, they may have lacked a certain spark, but as bird portraits, they unquestionably rank with the works of previous grand masters. They may never be my favorites, but seeing them closer to how they were originally painted, rather than scrunched into a more compact format, seems to release them from bondage and bring them alive again.

So the art work is wonderful, and it is a joy to peruse the plates as art rather than mere illustration.

That said, here's what I'd like to see in a second edition of this book:
1) There's a lot more room here, so perhaps we could expand the text of the species accounts a bit? Give us a little extra something that wouldn't fit in the original smaller format guide?

2) Since this version is billed as an art book as much as a field guide, how about printing the signatures of the artists on each plate so we can appreciate them without having to search out the credits in the back of the book.

3) If we left the species accounts as they are, how about giving us a section at the bottom of each text page with notes on the art from the original artists? Sort of like the director's commentary on a DVD? I'd love to have more info on what went into painting each of these 4,000+ masterpieces.

But even without these extra features, the National Geographic Illustrated Birds of North America, Folio Edition deserves a place in the house where it will be picked up and enjoyed--and not just a space on the shelf next to your similarly-sized Audubon reprint. For a North American field guide, the text of the 5th edition reproduced here is still a fantastic and valuable reference, and the artwork is worth seeing and lingering over in this larger format. It isn't just the Biggest Field Guide Ever, this book is something more. If nothing else, the artists who's illustrations have helped us identify birds for so many years, deserve for us to appreciate their works as the first-rate bird portraits that they truly are.

Hornsby Bend Survey--10 Oct 2009

Over 10 years ago we started a monthly bird count at Hornsby Bend in Austin, Texas. It's still going strong, and here's Eric Carpenter's recap of the survey I helped with last Saturday. I personally saw the Kentucky Warbler (locally rare) and found the only Ring-billed Gull and saw over 1280 of the over 4,000 Swainson's Hawks that went over in the morning. A great day at a great birding spot!

Saturday's (10 Oct) monthly survey was the best-attended of any survey and yielded the most surprising number of birds. As part of the weekend-long celebration of 50 years of birding on the property, there were at least 50 people for the morning survey and we were able to split into 6 groups to cover virtually the entire property. Peg Wallace also manned the hawkwatch all day and was able to enjoy the large groups of Swainson's Hawks that had over-nighted just northwest of the property. In addition, several folks stuck around most of the day and picked up several species missed during the morning. The afternoon survey at 4pm was also well-attended with over 25 folks present. A big thanks to Claude Morris et al for kayaking along the Hornsby portion of the Colorado River in both the morning and afternoon sessions to give us complete coverage of the property.

Conditions were quite ideal for this time of year. A cool front had passed thru Friday morning with rains much of Friday. Saturday was quite cool and cloudy all day and there were likely a number of birds on the property that had come down with the front.

There were many highlights lead by a heard-only Lesser Goldfinch in the northwest fields area, one of very few reports for the property. The second highlight had to be the 4000+ Swainson's Hawks that were enjoyed by virtually everyone during the morning. The overall total number of species was a hard-to-believe 124, though it was pretty evenly spread amongst the different groups of birders, as the morning group that did the ponds had the highest group species count with only 61.

Hats off to everyone that participated. The full day list follows:

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck 17
Greater White-fronted Goose 1
Wood Duck 30
Gadwall 3
American Wigeon 13
Mallard 3
Blue-winged Teal 69
Northern Shoveler 460
Northern Pintail 2
Green-winged Teal 114
Redhead 4
Ring-necked Duck 6
Lesser Scaup 1
Ruddy Duck 9
Least Grebe 1
Pied-billed Grebe 14
Eared Grebe 5
American White Pelican 42
Double-crested Cormorant 6
Anhinga 1
Great Blue Heron 3
Great Egret 4
Snowy Egret 15
Little Blue Heron 1
Cattle Egret 102
Green Heron 1
White-faced Ibis 10
Black Vulture 65
Turkey Vulture 1310
Osprey 6
Northern Harrier 1
Sharp-shinned Hawk 6
Cooper's Hawk 13
Red-shouldered Hawk 8
Broad-winged Hawk 4
Swainson's Hawk 4000
Red-tailed Hawk 6
Crested Caracara 13
American Kestrel 14
Merlin 2
Peregrine Falcon 4
Virginia Rail 2
Sora 1
American Coot 700
Killdeer 23
Black-necked Stilt 1
American Avocet 11
Spotted Sandpiper 8
Greater Yellowlegs 3
Western Sandpiper 2
Least Sandpiper 124
Pectoral Sandpiper 1
Stilt Sandpiper 1
Long-billed Dowitcher 18
Wilson's Snipe 1
Franklin's Gull 1
Ring-billed Gull 1
Rock Pigeon 320
White-winged Dove 65
Mourning Dove 40
Inca Dove 1
Common Ground-Dove 2
Greater Roadrunner 1
Great Horned Owl 2
Barred Owl 2
Chimney Swift 19
Ringed Kingfisher 1
Belted Kingfisher 3
Red-bellied Woodpecker 21
Downy Woodpecker 7
Northern Flicker 2
Least Flycatcher 5
Eastern Phoebe 24
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher 163
Loggerhead Shrike 3
White-eyed Vireo 3
Blue Jay 4
American Crow 20
Tree Swallow 6
N. Rough-winged Swallow 9
Bank Swallow 7
Cliff Swallow 8
Cave Swallow 335
Barn Swallow 275
Carolina Chickadee 45
Tufted/Bl. Crested Titmouse 7
Carolina Wren 35
House Wren 44
Marsh Wren 3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 9
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 49
Eastern Bluebird 8
Gray Catbird 2
Northern Mockingbird 4
European Starling 1500
American Pipit 6
Orange-crowned Warbler 15
Nashville Warbler 66
Yellow Warbler 1
Black-throated Green Warbler 2
Black-and-white Warbler 2
Kentucky Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat 41
Wilson's Warbler 3
Clay-colored Sparrow 3
Vesper Sparrow 2
Lark Sparrow 3
Savannah Sparrow 5
Grasshopper Sparrow 3
Song Sparrow 1
Lincoln's Sparrow 19
Northern Cardinal 131
Blue Grosbeak 1
Indigo Bunting 15
Dickcissel 12
Red-winged Blackbird 1700
meadowlark sp. 7
Yellow-headed Blackbird 3
Common Grackle 73
Great-tailed Grackle 450
Brown-headed Cowbird 1200
House Finch 2
Lesser Goldfinch 1
House Sparrow 15

Join me at Hornsby Bend

This Saturday we're celebrating 50 years of birding at Hornsby Bend, an Austin wastewater facility that is the best birding spot in all of Central Texas. We'll start the morning with our monthly bird survey (which we started more than 10 years ago and is still going strong), followed by a lunch and afternoon programs on the birds, and capped off with an evening program celebrating decade by decade the history of birds and birding at the facility. If you've ever birded Hornsby Bend, or just want to hear what it was like to be a birder 50 years ago, come down to Austin and join in the fun!

Join the Birdchaser at DVOC

On October 15 I'll be doing the following evening program for the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC) in Philly:

Birds of the Ancient and Modern Maya

Birds have played important roles in Mesoamerican cultures for thousands of years. Rob Fergus explores the connections between birds and various Mayan cultures as revealed in their ancient art and his ongoing field work with four modern Mayan communities in Guatemala and Belize. In addition to reviewing the songs and calls of Central American birds, if you want to know how the Turkey Vulture got its red head, which bird you can burn to a crisp to make into a love potion, why you can't have sex before you plant your corn crop, or how to cure warts, this is the program for you!
So if you are in the Philly area, stop on by for a fun evening of birds and birdlore!

Birdchaser on Martha Stewart radio tomorrow

Tomorrow morning at 7:10EDT I will be on Morning Living, a Martha Stewart Living Sirius Satellite Radio show talking about bird migration and what birds people can see in their yard this time of year. If you have satellite radio, tune in for a few moments of fun bird news!