Seriously Funny Bird House Video!

Best Ways to Keep Birds from Hitting Windows

We've all seen birds smack into windows, and now there are several products on the market that are supposed to help birds avoid window collisions. But do they work?

Dan Klem, an ornithologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania conducted experiments to find the best ways to stop birds from hitting windows.

The results?
Window Alert Decals: Ineffective when used alone, but effective if almost completely covering the windows.

FeatherGuard: Ineffective unless enough are used to almost completely cover the window

CollidEscape: Mostly effective, though one bird did hit it during trials.

Other useful treatments included glass with a ceramic frit pattern and glass with alternating strips of UV reflecting and absorbing film.

The published study results are online here:

Preventing Bird–Window Collisions. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 121(2):314-321. Daniel Klem Jr.

Birdchaser on Martha Stewart radio

I'll be on Martha Stewart radio tomorrow morning 8:15 EDT to talk about summer birds and birding. Call in number is 866-675-6675 if you want to chat about birds!

Still in Top 10

Surprisingly, I'm still one of the Top 10 eBirders in North America (by species), though not even in the Top 500 for number of checklists submitted. Looks like we still need to get a lot more folks to submit their bird sightings to eBird!

Baked in Alaska

Sometimes life events shatter your psyche, leaving you to pick up the pieces. Other times, they melt your brain, leaving you with a gooey mass and nothing to do but wait for it to recongeal. 11 days in Alaska have fully baked my brain (photos here).

Endless hours of sun, seawater, glaciers, mountains. Too much to absorb.

And hundreds of humpback whales! Sometimes breaching completely out of the water. Often so close you could hear them spout, and once so close you could smell their briny breath! I saw a dozen feeding together, and heard them bugle a trumpeting call that echoed across forests and snowfields.

I saw Orcas! Killer whales! A pod of these black and white beauties surfacing again and again alongside our ship, while a larger cruise liner sailed on by without taking notice. I now live in a world where these beasts aren't just Discovery channel features or performers at Sea World. They seem to have taken part of my heart with them as they slipped below the icy gray waters of Glacier Bay.

And then there were the birds. THOUSANDS of Marbled Murrelets. We called them Bloop Bloop Birds. While a birder is lucky to see more than one or two in a day in the Lower 48, we saw hundreds every day, reminding us constantly of how important it is to protect the Tongass National Forest for these tree-nesting seabirds.

On the upper reaches of Glacier Bay, where trees for nesting Bloop Bloop Birds are scarce, they are replaced by the even rarer Kittlitz's Murrelets--pale versions of their darker cousins that nest on the bare rocky ground around the glaciers. I watched dozens of these swim, dive, and careen across the blue waters of the icemelt. A week later their little feet are still pattering across the surface of my feelings.

Other birds came and went as we cruised over 1300 miles across Southeast Alaska with Cruise West and Audubon Odysseys on the Spirit of Discovery, a small expedition vessel that was our home for the week as we explored the native Tlingit village of Kake, sea kayaked and hiked in Sitka, and wound our way in and out of dozens of mountain-lined fjords carved out by the glaciers. We counted dozens of Arctic Terns, and were visited by an Aleutian Tern as we watched a glacier calving in Glacier Bay. I glanced out the window as we crossed Icy Strait and saw a Horned Puffin on the water. We later saw dozens of Tufted Puffins in Glacier Bay. And on our final night home, in a raging storm in the pale evening light, both Parasitic Jaeger and Pomarine Jaeger sliced through the wind in pursuit of dozens of wheeling Black-legged Kittiwakes.

How do you recover from a week of this? And the hours watching sea otters and brown bears? Take the Grand Tetons, stretch them out over thousands of miles, add the ocean and wildlife and take away any sign of human habitation for days on end, and try to absorb that a week later.

My mind is melted. Baked in Alaska. Not sure how my soul will recongeal, but know that part of it will forever be trying to get back to the whales and wilderness and Bloop Bloop Birds irrevocably forged into my being by a week and a half on the Spirit of Discovery.

Birding Juneau

I'm in Juneau getting ready to board our cruise ship for exploring the Glacier Bay and the Inside Passage. Here I am with a native Tlingit building, raven pole, and a raven on the roof.

Birds right in town are the Common Raven, Bonaparte's Gull, Mew Gull, Herring Gull, Glaucous-winged Gull, Bald Eagle, Swainson's Thrush, and Pigeon Guillemot.

More from the trip when I get back!

Common Myna

Probably the most abundant and ubiquitous bird on Oahu, the Common Myna was introduced to Hawaii from India in 1865 by Dr. William Hildebrand to combat invasive Army worms. Hawaii has never been the same since. These birds nest in trees but also on buildings and bridges, and are found walking on parking lots, lawns, and beaches all over Oahu.

In the United States, the only other place to see them is in south Florida, where they have become more and more common since first reported in 1983.




I took these shots on Oahu with a Canon PowerShot through my 7x42 Zeiss binoculars.

Birding Oahu

Oahu is covered with birds. That said, birding Oahu can be a challenge!

Upon arriving in Honolulu, one quickly sees Spotted Doves and White Terns (Fairy Terns) all over the city, as well as the ever present Common Mynahs and Red-vented Bulbuls. Birding any of the parks or open areas around the city quickly gets one several other non-native birds (including Zebra Doves, Japanese White-eye, Red-billed Leiothrix, Common Waxbill, and Red-crested Cardinal).

Last weekend I was on Oahu to present a paper at a conference, and spent four days exploring the island. Beyond the common birds mentioned above, most other birds, especially native birds, were few and far between.



To find native wetland birds, I had to journey to the Kahuka area at the far northern tip of the island. The James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge and adjacent sewage treatment facility are gated and closed to the public, but by standing on the sign pictured here, I was able to see some ponds as well as all four of the native birds pictured on the sign (from left to right Hawaiian Stilt, Hawaiian Gallinule, Hawaiian Duck, and Hawaiian Coot). I was also lucky enough to spot three Bristle-thighed Curlews that hadn't yet departed for their Alaskan breeding grounds.



Seabirds were easily found at many rocky headlands--though usually in small numbers. The most plentiful by far were Red-footed Boobies. I only saw one Brown Booby (a flyby at China Walls in Hawaii Kai), and a couple of Red-tailed Tropicbirds and one White-tailed Tropicbird near Makapu'u Point. The picture above is from La'ie Point, where within a few hundred yards of shore I was able to spot Wedge-tailed Shearwater, Christmas Shearwater, and a single Bulwer's Petrel. By keeping my eyes open, I was able to see a Great Frigatebird (while body surfing at Waimanalo Beach Park) and a small flock of Grey-backed Terns (again at China Walls), but around most of the tourist beaches seabirds were few and far between.



The forests above Waikiki (above) are mostly made up of non-native trees brought in to control erosion after the island was mostly deforested in the past century. The birds there are almost all introduced as well. The common birds listed above are also joined by the melodious White-rumped Shama and a small handful of other birds. One is almost continuously haunted by the specter of missing native plants and birds. To think about the dozens of native birds now missing is heartbreaking. It took two hikes up Mt. Tantalus to finally find a single native forest bird (another story completely, and coming soon!). A couple of hours looking for the Oahu Elepaio near Hawaii Kai were singularly unproductive.



A visit to the picturesque Byodo-In Temple (above), a replica of a 900 year old Buddhist temple in Japan, illustrates the sad state of Oahu's birdlife. The place is crawling with birds--but they consist of a dozens of individuals of only a handful of introduced birds, including Common Peafowl, Black Swan, Cockatiel, Red-crested Mynah, and Common Waxbill. Most of the birds are actually the abundant Zebra Dove (below), Spotted Doves, and Common Mynahs that are ubiquitous in the settled parts of the island.



So while Oahu is a fantastic vacation spot, and crawling with birds, it is a challenge to see more than just a couple dozen introduced land birds and the most common seabirds (boobies and fairy terns). To see native wetland birds requires a bit of a drive, and finding native forest birds is probably best accomplished on some of the other Hawaiian islands.

More photos from my trip on Facebook.

40 Days and Nights in the Bird Blogging Wilderness?

It has been two weeks since Audubon let me go, and almost as long since I've posted anything. Enjoyed a trip to Austin with my family, including an afternoon of birding and catching turtles, frogs, and lizards at Hornsby Bend.

Pondering the future of The Birdchaser, and bird bloggining in general. I first started this blog when I found out I hired by Audubon and would be moving to Pennsylvania for the job. The idea was to use the blog as another motivator to keep myself out in the field as much as possible while holding down a "real" job :-)

The bird blogging world has changed a lot in the meantime. Now it is almost more of a photo journalism medium. Blogging has created new birding celebrities. Many blogs have come and go. Few attract a large regular audience.

So I'm taking a sort of quiet time right now, a sort of 40 day fast, to think about where we are headed with all this bird blogging, and where I see myself fitting in.

Any thoughts about the future of The Birdchaser are welcome. Meanwhile, I've got birding trips to Hawaii and Alaska lined up for most of June. Have fun out there!

Classic Birding Bit

If you haven't seen this classic produced by my friend Evan for the Daily Show, treat yourself! Little known fact: Audubon had the chance to hire Evan a few years ago, but they went another way. He hasn't suffered since then, working on some very popular shows. But ya gotta wonder what Audubon might be like if they had more creative folks of Evan's caliber on staff (and could afford to pay them what they are worth!).

Ticked off while birding

While birding this past Saturday I brushed off three wood ticks that got onto me in the field, and when I got home I pulled off one nymph deer tick that had embedded itself in my leg. While I'm a big fan of strange and unusual creatures, I have to admit that these little critters give me the willies--and worse. A couple years ago I got a Lyme disease infection from a deer tick bite. I'll be watching the site of this latest bite to see if it shows sign of an infection, and will probably get a blood test done later this year just to make sure there isn't an undetected infection.

A new movie is just out discussing the controversy around the diagnosis and treatment of chronic Lyme disease. Under Our Skin is well worth watching or even showing in your community. Be careful when you are out there birding. It is often tempting to go crashing through the brush in the quest to see more birds. But that is exactly where the ticks are. Take proper precautions out there, and especially do a good tick check when you come in from the field and get medical attention if you are bit or find signs of a tick-borne disease!

Birdathon Day List

In eight hours today we found the following birds in the Wissahickon Watershed in and around Ambler, Montgomery Co, Pennsylvania. Usually not a lot of water birds around, it is mostly upland habitats. Bob Ridgely joined us for a couple hours in the morning--most productive place all day was Militia Hill in the Fort Washington State Park. This is my fifth year helping out with the birdathon, and I really enjoy birding with my mostly retired birdathon buddies!

Not a huge list, but a very satisfying day:

Observation date: 5/8/09
Number of species: 74

Canada Goose 25
Wood Duck 5
Mallard 8
Double-crested Cormorant 2
Great Blue Heron 4
Green Heron 4
Black Vulture 1
Turkey Vulture 2
Red-shouldered Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Rock Pigeon 1
Mourning Dove 28
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 1
Black-billed Cuckoo 2
Great Horned Owl 1
Chimney Swift 12
Belted Kingfisher 2
Red-bellied Woodpecker 6
Downy Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker 1
Eastern Wood-Pewee 2
Eastern Phoebe 3
Great Crested Flycatcher 1
Eastern Kingbird 5
Blue-headed Vireo 1
Warbling Vireo 2
Red-eyed Vireo 1
Blue Jay 12
American Crow 6
Tree Swallow 25
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 2
Barn Swallow 18
Carolina Chickadee 4
Tufted Titmouse 5
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Carolina Wren 1
Eastern Bluebird 3
Swainson's Thrush 1
American Robin 55
Gray Catbird 45
Northern Mockingbird 4
European Starling 13
Blue-winged Warbler 1
Northern Parula 7
Yellow Warbler 3
Chestnut-sided Warbler 1
Magnolia Warbler 1
Black-throated Blue Warbler 4
Yellow-rumped Warbler 85
Black-throated Green Warbler 12
Black-and-white Warbler 8
American Redstart 1
Ovenbird 2
Common Yellowthroat 3
Hooded Warbler 1
Scarlet Tanager 2
Eastern Towhee 7
Chipping Sparrow 12
Field Sparrow 1
Song Sparrow 11
White-throated Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 9
Rose-breasted Grosbeak 5
Indigo Bunting 3
Bobolink 5
Red-winged Blackbird 35
Common Grackle 15
Brown-headed Cowbird 28
Orchard Oriole 1
Baltimore Oriole 18
House Finch 1
American Goldfinch 17
House Sparrow 5

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

Spring--finally!!!

The rain finally stopped long enough this morning for a short foray into the woods on my way into the office this morning (only three more days and counting!). A lot of flooding kept me out of some of the areas at Peace Valley, but it was nice to see the catbirds everywhere and run into a Veery, Yellow Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. Tomorrow is my annual birdathon for a local watershed, so looking forward to a full day in the field!

Birdchaser Moving On

Yesterday I was informed that Audubon was eliminating my position and my last day of work there will be May 11. I'll miss helping run the Great Backyard Bird Count and working on eBird and blogging at Audubon Birdscapes. On the other hand, I look forward to finding new ways to work with folks around the country to make the world better for birds and people. And to more birding and blogging here at The Birdchaser!

The Ultimate Life List

I don't remember when in the early 90s I first heard about Phoebe Snetsinger, the indomitable middle-aged birder who became a legend chasing birds around the world in a quest to see more than 8,000 bird species. I never got a chance to meet her, but her daughter Marmot worked on the same project I did in Montana one summer, and in the mid-90s I house-sat for some mutual friends in Austin as they joined her on a few privately organized birding expeditions. Her persistence, attention to detail, and note-taking were famous and we were proud to see her as a birding hero.

I remember hearing and discussing her death (in a van accident on a birding expedition to Madagascar) in the fall of 1999 when I was just starting my PhD program. My own chasing about after new birds was starting to slow down as I faced the challenges of grad school and parenthood. When the American Birding Association published her memoir Birding on Borrowed Time, I got it from inter library loan and enjoyed what I thought would be the ultimate account of her birding exploits.

Frankly, when I heard that Olivia Gentile was coming out with a new biography of Snetsinger, I wondered why in the world we would ever want or need another book about the late great birder. Birding on Borrowed Time had pretty much covered all the trips and all the birds that she had seen, and seemed like the definitive bio.

Now, having read Life List, I'm grateful that Gentile took the time to revisit Snetsinger's life and times. With much more background on Snetsinger's family and copious details provided by friends and family, we get another view of the determined, and even obsessed, bird lister. A view that contributes to her memory, as well as to the growing literature chronicling the social and emotional toll that so frequently encumbers serious birding.

As with Dan Koeppel's To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifetime Obsession, Gentile's book shows in heart-rending detail the emotional costs that serious birding demands from those caught by the siren song of increasingly harder to find new birds, and from their closest family members. As we read about Snetsinger's exploits, we birders may feel twinges of jealousy--so many great birds and birding trips!--but also recoil from the emotional devastation that Snetsinger left in her wake.

And we may see hints of these same dual forces in our own lives. I already mentioned how my own bird chasing started dropping off in grad school as I struggled to juggle family, school, birding, and other competing interests. On my recent trip to Europe I fought off temptations to hijack weekend family time towards a pursuit of Eagle Owls and other lusted after avians. Its hard to get enough of both family time and birds--unless you're willing to write off one or the other.

Back when I was house-sitting for friends who were off on birding adventures, and before kids came to my family, some of the tour leaders mentioned in Gentile's book met me for a bite to eat at the Whole Foods in Austin. They told me about how great it was to be in the field, as well as how difficult it would be to have a family as a tour leader. One result of that conversation was that I ended up going back to grad school rather than trying to make a career of bird tour leading.

Fifteen years later, I've got the advanced degrees, a job at Audubon, and still manage to get out and see birds pretty much every day. Sometimes I even get to travel to see birds. Reading Life List, I revisit not only Snetsinger's exploits, but my own birding path, with the inevitable decisions that become signposts along the way. My own life list is far, far smaller than that of many of my friends. We all make choices. Hopefully, as you enjoy reading about Phoebe Snetsinger and her choices, you'll appreciate the ones that you make every day in your own efforts to fully enjoy birds along with whatever else gives you joy.

And if you are like me, it will inspire you to take even more birding trips in the near future!

Rhymes with Bird

For your blogging/poetry needs, from one online source:

blurred, burd, byrd, curd, ferd, gerd, gird, gjerde, heard, herd, hird, hurd, jerde, kurd, leard, nerd, slurred, spurred, stirred, third, word

Missing of course: a slang term for feces. And what about purred?

Any others?

Forensic Bird Photo ID Challenge

So here's the challenge: A) find the bird, B) tell me what it is.

At least as good as published photos of 21st Century Ivory-billed Woodpeckers!

Botched digibin'd shot through my 7X42s. Bird took off before I could set the zoom on my digital camera and get another shot.

Great Tits!

(photo: wikimedia commons)
Ah Europe, you gotta love a place where you can see tits every day and talk about them with a straight face! These little birds are everywhere. And so are their cousins--Blue Tits. Other tits, such as the Long-tailed Tits I saw this afternoon are less common, but not too hard to come up with.

Europe, the land of Great Tits!

Bar-headed Goose

Snapped a photo of this beauty yesterday in Hofgarten park in Düsseldorf. It's a Central Asian bird, and since this is Western Europe, it's just an escapee--not countable by most birding standards. But a beauty nonetheless. Düsseldorf is crawling with exotic birds--I see Rose-ringed Parakeets from India almost as often as the native House Sparrows. A pair of feral Ruddy Shelducks cruise up and down the Rhine near here, and I see Canada Goose and Egyptian Goose almost every day. On the other hand, and ironic I think, I have yet to see a European Starling here, while back in PA they are a dime a dozen.

German Duck Stairs

One of the things I get a kick out over here in Germany are the little stairs in all the fountains so baby ducks can get in and out of the water. Nice!