DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — A Bewick’s Wren was singing as I stepped out of the car this evening, but that cheery sound soon faded from my ears. The temperature was somewhere in the 30s (2 or 3 degrees if you think in Celsius), and a nasty wind was blowing off Joe Pool Lake. In the morning, there had been snowflakes in that wind. Anyway, by Texas standards, it was brutal.

I saw a harrier fly over the road and then wheel sharply, scattering the resident flock of American Pipits. A short time later, a young accipiter flushed the pipits again. I thought it looked like a Cooper’s Hawk, but as usual, I couldn’t see it quite well enough to be sure.

There were no cormorants flying south along the lake tonight, so I don’t know what explains that. The numbers of Canvasbacks and Ring-billed Gulls were down, but coots were still well-represented.

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — How do you find photos, videos, or sound files of a particular bird species? I used to get frustrated when Google Images turned up nothing and search engines spat back hundreds of pages of bird lists but no results with media files.

Times are changing now, but you do have to know where to look. Several sites and online projects have set out to collect multimedia resources on as many birds as possible, and some are doing a very impressive job. Of course, nobody will ever be able to collect pictures of every bird in the world, but it will be exciting to see how close some of these projects may come in the years ahead.

• The Bird Database at BirdForum is a huge and very active database with photographs of 4,923 species* at the time I wrote this post. You can browse alphabetically by English name or do a simple search. I can’t find a way to search or browse by taxa higher than genus. Registered BirdForum members can submit photos for possible inclusion in the database, pending review by a moderator.
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• The Mango Verde World Bird Guide has collected photos, sounds, and video for 5,043 species so far. You can browse species by families or do a search. Photographers can contribute still images by emailing William, the webmaster. All the videos are William’s and he doesn’t say whether he accepts contributions. The sound files are mostly links he’s collected to other sites.
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• The World Bird Gallery contains photographs of 5,089 species. You can browse alphabetically by English name or by families. Unfortunately, the photographs are quite small and often badly pixellated, and there is no option to view a larger image. The site has not been updated in quite some time, which makes me wonder whether the webmasters are still accepting new submissions or not.
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• The Internet Bird Collection holds video footage of 3,292 species and boasts better search capabilities than any other site in this list. The project leaders accept video footage from the public but prefer it be physically mailed to Spain.
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• The Field Guide: Birds of the World group on Flickr is another attempt to build a library of world bird photographs. Over 2600 species are currently represented in the pool. The low barrier to entry means that the pool is flooded with images of common species (e.g., 320 photos of Great Blue Herons) and improperly tagged images, though the moderators try their best to stay on top of things. [UPDATE: I just discovered Alastair Rae's interface for the Flickr Field Guide, which lets you browse in taxonomic order by families. Thanks, Alastair!]
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• The Guide to Animal Sounds on the Net has collected links to bird sounds hosted on sites around the world. Navigation can be a little challenging, but it sure beats trying to find the sound files you need on Google.
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• And finally, I elected to include Birds of the World on Postage Stamps, which hosts a huge collection of world postage stamps featuring birds. You can browse by order and family or do a search, and Chris includes range maps on the species pages where the stamps are displayed. If a photograph isn’t available, perhaps you can find your bird on a stamp!
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• * Because each site uses a different taxonomy and because collections are growing all the time, precise numbers are not especially useful for comparing sites. That said, I’m listing whatever numbers the sites gave at the time I compiled this post. [top]

There are, of course, many other sites that host bird pictures, but as far as I know, these are the serious efforts at building world bird databases organized by species. If I’ve missed some, please let me know.

Now, what if you’ve gone through all the sites and still can’t find your bird? Well, even the top sites have only about half of the world’s approximately 10,000 species. Unfortunately, that means your bird might not be in any of the databases.

The positive side, though, is that each of us can help to help build these databases. I was thrilled to discover that I could contribute photos of as-yet unrepresented species, subspecies, and plumages.

You may think that you can’t possibly have any photographs that the databases need, but you’d be surprised. As of tonight, the Flickr Field Guide does not have a single photograph of a Chimney Swift! Olive Warbler and Rose-throated Becard are also missing. And that’s right here in North America. Those of you in other parts of the world have an even greater opportunity to contribute.

Enjoy these resources … and consider doing your part to make them as comprehensive as they can possibly be.

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — Exactly one year ago today, I was in Florida, birding with new friends Steve and Mary Pence. I’d sent Steve a list of birds I wanted to see, and we agreed on Snail Kite, Limpkin, and Florida Scrub-Jay as the most reasonable target birds for the weekend.

I flew into Orlando after dark, and before the sun had risen again, Steve and I were waiting at Brinson Park on the outskirts of Kissimmee. While we ate our muffins, waiting for daylight, we heard Fish Crows and — what? — Limpkin! The sun finally did rise, and it revealed not only a couple of Limpkins on the near shore but also several Snail Kites flying over the swampy expanse. One bird flew past close enough to give me a good look at the extremely long, fine, downcurved upper mandible, which I had admired in my Stokes field guide since I was a child.

Then we were off, headed south to take part in a banding event at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.

We soon got to work, joining a team to drag a rope across the grassland and flush sparrows into a mist net. Once caught, they were carefully extricated by the experienced researchers and banders for identification, measurement, and banding.

The next morning, fortified by Mary’s fabulous meals, all three of us set off for Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, where we birded the Black Point Wildlife Drive. Waders, ducks, shorebirds, and other waterbirds were abundant and spectacular. I picked an adult Great Black-backed Gull and an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull out from among the other gulls and was quite pleased. It was the first time I’d seen an adult Lesser Black-backed.

Perhaps the most interesting and comical spectacle was a Great Blue Heron wrangling with a large snake. The snake had wrapped itself around the heron’s bill, and the heron just stood there, appearing puzzled. Dropping its head, it shook the snake’s coils off its bill, but the snake quickly wrapped itself around again. The battle lasted for several minutes, but the heron was the victor in the end.

Deciding we weren’t quite ready to quit birding, we stopped by Orlando Wetlands Park on the way home. One of the first things we saw was a Bald Eagle that had caught a moorhen and carried it up into a tree. After careful searching, we found a brilliant Purple Gallinule, and we had intimate glimpses of a Limpkin as we exited the park.

Was it all really a year ago? I want to go back to Florida!

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS –I heard a cardinal, a titmouse, and a chickadee singing on my way into the office on this gorgeous morning. By the time I was free to start birding again, daylight was nearly gone.

I went to Cedar Ridge Preserve to see the day out, and I was excited to discover a female Merlin perched on a snag. Her back was fairly dark brown, consistent with F. c. columbarius, which appears to be the expected form here. Her flanks were heavily marked with reddish brown, and her head was in constant motion, swiveling back and forth, this way and that. I wondered if she was hunting for a final meal before dark.

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — I headed for the dam at Joe Pool Lake after work today, figuring I had an hour or so of daylight.

A flock of American Pipits fed in the grasses just off the road. Most of the birds stayed hidden in the vegetation, but a few came up and offered me good looks. I estimated the flock contained 30 birds or more, and I was glad to get a refresher on their calls.

Even more exciting than the pipits, though, was the discovery of a Great Blue Heron rookery, which I had suspected might exist but hadn’t been able to locate before. There are perhaps 20 stick nests — most in one big tree — and several big, gangly herons stood on or near them. It’s going to be fun watching this spectacle unfold over the months ahead.

A bit farther down the dam, I again encountered a large flock of meadowlarks. I heard snatches of the gurgly songs and blackbird-like calls that belong to Western Meadowlarks. There were also rising flight calls and once a rattle, but I’m not sure I can tell the difference between the Western and Eastern versions of those two calls. I think it’s possible, and I intend to master them if I can.

I posted a message to the Texas birding list asking about meadowlarks in this part of Texas. Everyone agreed that both species occur here during winter, but beyond that, things got confusing. Each respondent had a different opinion on whether the birds occur in mixed flocks and which species is more abundant (and to what extent).

Next time, I think I’ll try bringing along a digital recorder to see if I can capture some of the calls.

As the sun set, the lake turned orange and turquoise … like a surreal reversed-color image, I thought. Thousands of Ring-billed Gulls converged on the water or wheeled in flocks above my head while huge jets descended toward the airport many miles away.