Search and Serendipity: A Birder's Blog

Birding on the winter solstice

david — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:02:24 +0000

GREENE CO., MO. — It was a chickadee, that first bird of solstice. The air temperature was 8° F (-13° C), and I wondered how such minuscule bodies could survive at all. But they do, and by all appearances even thrive. They are one of the birds I associate most closely with winter; their striking head patterns and jingling calls make me feel cold on the outside and warm on the inside.

By noon, the sun was bright, but the temperature still hovered around 15° F (-9° C). Mourning Doves found a sunny spot in the flower bed to puff and preen, allowing the solar radiation to warm their bodies.

A goldfinch showed black flecks in its crown. A harbinger of warmer days to come? Or just a fading memory of a splendid summer? Either could be true, according to sources I consulted about goldfinch molt.

I met up with Charley and Lisa in the afternoon; we wandered around the Springfield area to see what we could find for solstice.

The most surprising discovery (to me) was about 60 Great-tailed Grackles feeding in a corn field with other blackbird species. Great-tailed Grackles started showing up very sporadically in the 1980s and more regularly in the late ’90s. They’ve been recorded on the Springfield Christmas Bird Count several times (including this year’s), but they certainly aren’t a bird I associate with Missouri winters. Apparently that’s changing.

They and their family members flashed brilliant hues in the late afternoon sun — royal blues on the male great-tails, green-blue on the male cowbirds, purples and bronzes on the smaller grackles, and glimpses of velvety red on the red-wings’ shoulders.

Raptors also showed well, including several harriers and this young Red-tailed Hawk.

Lake Springfield held an assortment of waterfowl, including Gadwall, shovelers, Green-winged Teal, and a male Canvasback.

We ended the day well — with three Short-eared Owls at dusk as a bitter wind swept over pastureland.

Sunset on the shortest day of the year.

Add your voice to Birds of the Solstice

david — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:28:36 +0000

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — Solstice is on Sunday, and Birdstack is throwing a party.

Birds of the Solstice is a call to observe the birds around you during solstice, to write down their names, to think about their lives and how they intersect with your own.

Years ago, during the darkest days of winter, my Scandinavian and Germanic ancestors offered grain to the birds that were hardy enough to endure harsh European winters. That’s part of my heritage; it’s in my blood.

But my experience is different now, at least superficially. What about yours?

Sometime within 12 hours either side of solstice, bird. Not sure when that is exactly? No fear, Birdstack has an official timetable, ideas, and submission guidelines. The meme is open to everyone, not just to Birdstack members, though Birdstack would certainly be a good place to record your solstice birds. There’ll be a compilation page posted by the end of the year … and I hope to see your contribution there.

Personally, I’m hoping to see participation from every continent. It’s a big goal that we might not reach this time around, but let’s try. Grab a graphic and help promote the event on your own website or blog. You can copy and paste the following code snippets.

Banner (500px by 110px):
<a href="http://birdstack.com/solar-birding"><img src="http://birdstack.com/images/solstice-banner.jpg" alt="Birds of the Solstice" title="Birds of the Solstice, a Birdstack community project" /></a>

Button (165px by 165px):
<a href="http://birdstack.com/solar-birding"><img src="http://birdstack.com/images/solstice-button.jpg" alt="Birds of the Solstice" title="Birds of the Solstice, a Birdstack community project" /></a>

Sustainable conservation through integration: Sharpe’s Longclaw

david — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:43:56 +0000

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — It’s easy to be discouraged by all the bad news we’re hearing about the environment and (lack of) conservation and protection for species and life communities around the world. But there are glimmers of hope, and I’ve been wanting to write about one of those glimmers for awhile now.

Ever heard of Sharpe’s Longclaw (Macronyx sharpei)? Eight longclaws (all in the genus Macronyx) live in Africa. Some of them bear striking plumage similarities to New World meadowlarks, but they are related to pipits and wagtails. Sharpe’s Longclaw is an endangered species native to a few montane grasslands in western Kenya. The following photo is property of Charlie Moores and is used with permission:

Sharpe’s Longclaw is a habitat specialist. It requires short tussock grasslands at high elevations. If it can’t find this habitat, it cannot reproduce, and it dies. And here’s the problem: tussock grasslands are getting scarcer as Kenya’s human population grows.

Kenyan farmers depend on the land to feed and provide for their families. When they alter tussock grasslands for agricultural purposes, Sharpe’s Longclaws are unable to adapt and disappear.

Most of us in the industrialized, urbanized West have no idea what it’s like to depend on the land for survival. I’ve had the very great privilege of spending time among subsistence agriculturalists in several parts of the world. I’ve eaten foods that they cultivated painstakingly by hand and then offered freely to a pale stranger. I’ve seen their backbreaking labor carrying stones, cutting trees, digging soil, moving water. I’ve seen their storage sheds that house the only food they’ll have for several months. I’ve seen them worry about their children, who won’t have enough land to sustain themselves.

And so, when I hear the story of the Sharpe’s Longclaw (and how many times is it repeated around the world!), I am sad to think of another species being squeezed off this fragile planet. But I also think of the people who share its environment — who for the most part are not acting out of greed or excess but are themselves just trying to survive, and are trying to offer something to their children. They have names: Pio, Domai, Clifford, Albert, Mis, Abraham, ….

Which is why (I promise the good news is coming) I’m so excited about the work that Charlie Moores and others are involved with. Nobody has given up on Sharpe’s Longclaw, least of all the Kenyans themselves, some of whom have started Friends of Kinangop Plateau to help preserve this bird and its habitat.

It turns out that if sheep graze the tussock grasslands, the longclaws can get along just fine — or perhaps even better, as the grazing keeps their habitat more open. Unfortunately, local agriculturalists don’t have much incentive to raise sheep; sheep aren’t profitable in their context.

But what if they could be? Friends of Kinangop Plateau and Nature Kenya have put together the Njabini wool-spinning workshop, which buys wool from farmers and turns it into salable goods. If farmers have incentive to raise sheep, the Sharpe’s Longclaw may have a better shot at survival. Photo by Charlie Moores, used with permission:

This approach treats people and the animals they depend on as part of the entire ecosystem, rather than trying to exclude them. In many cases, they (like the birds) really don’t have anywhere else to go. It seems to me that if we can help people to integrate more successfully with their environments, we stand a much better chance not only of improving lives in local communities but also of saving unique and special organisms like Sharpe’s Longclaw.

Does that excite you? It should. And now, here’s even better news. You can get involved in this project! Charlie and his cohorts at 10,000 birds are raising money to help fund the wool workshop, ongoing survey work, and education campaigns in local schools. They’re also looking for a slogan to promote the wool workshop and are offering a prize for the winning submission. Don’t just sit there reading; do something!

Fierce winds

david — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 14:26:34 +0000

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — It’s about 25 degrees this morning, and a light layer of ice coats some of the surfaces outside. It was almost as cold yesterday when I stopped by Joe Pool Lake over lunch and found my first Dallas County loon actively feeding in the lake. Between the bird’s frequent dives and the savage north wind whipping over the water, I didn’t get super looks at the bird, but it was nice to finally pick up a species that I’ve always thought should occur on the lake but I haven’t found before.

On Saturday, things were rather different. With temperatures in the 60s, winds roared out of the south at up to 40 miles an hour, making walking difficult, not to mention birding. But Tank and I braved the wind on a joint birding-geocaching expedition through Cooke, Montague, and Wise counties northwest of Dallas-Fort Worth. That’s Tank with her Cadillac and sporting a Birdstack shirt — birding in style!

Near sunset, we got great looks at a Le Conte’s Sparrow, which perched a few inches off the ground and gave a very high-pitched call note. Other Le Conte’s answered it from the grasses. Other good birds were a Bald Eagle (on the Oklahoma side of the Red River), a roadrunner, and a Hairy Woodpecker, which I did not expect to get so far west on the Texas plains.

Winter in the Piney Woods

david — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:28:16 +0000

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — Last weekend was the 15th annual Caddo Lake Warm-up Winter Bird Count. The count occurs around the only natural lake in Texas (which we actually share with Louisiana) and is a joint project of the Northeast Texas Field Ornithologists and the Bird Study Group of northwestern Louisiana. (Update: See discussion of Caddo Lake’s origin and current status in the comments section.) This is the eighth year I’ve been able to participate in the count, and it’s an event I look forward to every year.

Jason Pike and I birded our traditional territory, which includes Caddo Lake State Park and the communities of Karnack and Uncertain. Highlights this year were of a single Pine Siskin feeding with goldfinches, a solitary male Purple Finch feeding alone in a tangle of vines, an immature Harris’s Sparrow (rare in east Texas and the only the fourth time it’s been found on this count), and three Le Conte’s Sparrows in a field just before sunset. One of the little sparrows took no notice of us at all — it actually flew toward us and perched up atop the grasses, glowing orange in the evening sun.

We got good looks at two Sharp-shinned Hawks too, and a wonderfully cooperative Blue-headed Vireo. And we even got a few meadowlarks and Killdeer, which we sometimes miss entirely in this heavily forested region.

Brown-headed Nuthatch, Inca Doves, the exquisite song of a Winter Wren floating across the bayou on frosty air … there’s just so much to love about this part of the world.

Regular readers may remember that we found the count’s first American Bittern in 2007. Jason and I finished the day with 62 species. I haven’t yet heard the count total, but it’s often in the 90s. Count compiler Dorothy Metzler has posted some pictures from the day.

While I was over in east Texas, I also birded Martin Creek Lake State Park and other sites on the reservoir, pushing my Rusk County list up to 107 — that makes six counties for the TCC!

East Texas winter birds hold a special place in my heart.

Northern (Great Grey) Shrike in southwest Missouri

david — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 23:55:44 +0000

GREENE CO., MO — This morning Lisa Berger, Charley Burwick, and I wandered around the Osage Plains west-northwest of Springfield, Missouri. We found gobs of red-tails, kestrels, and harriers, but no Merlins or Prairie Falcons. We did pretty well with sparrows: Harris’s are always special, I don’t get to see American Tree Sparrows in north-central Texas, and we heard a Fox Sparrow singing.

But the day’s big excitement was a certain shrike.

From a distance, the shrike’s mantle appeared rather pale (”frosty,” Lisa said). Its mask seemed narrow, and the bill seemed long. All these features suggested Northern Shrike, but the distance was a little too much to be certain. Northern Shrikes are rare in this part of the state, and we didn’t want to make a sloppy call.

Happily, we didn’t have to wonder forever. As we sat quietly beside the road, the shrike worked toward us, eventually offering fantastic scoped views. Fine dark edges on the bird’s pale breast feathers produce a scalloped or vermiculated look at close range. Note too that only the lower half of the bird’s eye is within its blackish mask. And, the area immediately over the bill is whitish, not dark. Photo digiscoped by Charley Burwick.

Here you can see the bird’s huge, very strongly hooked bill, which is pale at the base. You can also see a pale whitish mark in the bird’s dark lores. The bird shows a square head and a distinct neck. (See more on Loggerhead and Northern Shrike ID.) This photo is also by Charley Burwick.

Texas Century Club: Fun for crazy psycho listers!

david — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:22:47 +0000

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — Texas comprises a whopping 254 counties. Its closest competitor is Georgia (oddly enough), which contains 159. Our smallest county is Rockwall, weighing in at just under 150 square miles (i.e., approximately 12 miles by 12 miles in linear dimensions). The biggest is Brewster, which is almost 75 percent larger than Delaware, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia combined. It’s also larger than Connecticut.

So what’s a birder to do?

Well, if you’re David Sarkozi, you dream up the Texas Century Club: a challenge to find at least 100 bird species in at least 100 Texas counties. (Here’s the email that started it all.)

It may sound deceptively simple, but I estimate that if you birded full time, with an unlimited travel budget, you would need to bird for at least 18 solid months to pull that off. And that’s if you’re smart, competent, and lucky.

Given a more moderate but still quite adventurous birding pace, we’re looking at years — even decades — to accomplish the goal. Three Texas birders have seen 100 birds or more in over 50 counties: Dell Little (67), D. D. Currie (66), and Anthony Hewetson (52).

Well, I finally got bit by the bug. It’s kind of insane, but there are several reasons I gave in:

Suddenly, every bird is exciting. Can you imagine actually trying to find House Sparrows and coots?
I’m kind of a sucker for numbers games.
Keeping county lists forces me to pay attention to distribution and habitats. Where do Red-bellied Woodpeckers stop and Golden-fronted Woodpeckers begin?
I am motivated to explore new places and learn new things.
Reporting observations from underbirded parts of the state is satisfying because I feel I’m contributing in some small way to our knowledge of bird distribution and abundance.
I have an excellent tool — Birdstack — to track my lists. (Yes, I’m one of Birdstack’s owners, but I’m also one of its biggest fans.)

I’ve made a little graphical map to track my progress by county:

After poring over various old records I have, I came up with a list of 65 Texas counties in which I’ve recorded at least one bird species. I’ve recorded over 100 only in five (Dallas, Galveston, Harrison, Smith, Tarrant) but am close in three others. One frustration is that I didn’t keep better records between 2000 (my first visit to Texas) and 2007, so dozens of counties have only a few species recorded because I kept track only of highlights. You can check out my lists on Birdstack; counties with over 100 species have a “TCC” prefix while others have a “Texas” prefix.

So now I find myself planning trips to hit new counties or boost my lists in various counties that I’ve visited before. There’s actually quite a bit of strategy to the whole thing — identifying habitats, picking different times of year, seeking out cemeteries, hanging out in Walmart parking lots ….

Help!

Birds of the Luzon tropical pine forests

david — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 11:26:56 +0000

QUEZON CITY, PHILIPPINES — I’ve been attending some meetings here in the Philippines and had a chance to bird at Camp John Hay in Baguio City. Baguio is nestled in Luzon’s Cordillera Central mountain range, and Camp John Hay has a nice “eco-trail” through montane pine forest. Come with me for an early-morning walk:

Elegant Tits twitter high in the pines. Tawny Grassbirds skulk in the open, ferny understory, offering quick looks at their rusty caps and streaked backs to the patient. The Luzon tropical pine forests cover (or covered) much of the Cordillera Central and provide habitat for some surprising birds, like an endemic subspecies of the widespread Red Crossbill.

Tree ferns and pines? It seemed an odd combination to me, but they seem to coexist quite happily in the mountains of Luzon. This forest provides a home for the smoky blue and rufous Blue-headed Fantail and brilliant yellow Citrine Canary-Flycatcher. A mix of Palearctic and Indo-Malayan avifauna have carved out niches here.

Here’s a less-than-stellar shot of a nice Philippine endemic, the Elegant Tit (Periparus elegans). To North Americans, it would seem most similar to a chickadee; to Europeans, a Coal Tit. They are dapper in yellow, black, and white as they move in flocks through the forest, extracting seeds from pine cones or plucking small insects from the large fronds of tree ferns.

Large-billed Crows range widely across Asia and do reach the Philippines. I liked the shot of this bird silhouetted through the pines. The steep forehead, long bill with an arched culmen, and long tail are all field marks for this species. Sometimes they skulk in the forest, but they are also capable and spectacular aerialists, soaring on winds that sweep up from the valleys.

As winter approaches, many species have retreated from northern Asia to warmer tropical lands like the Philippines, Indonesia, and New Guinea. One of these is the Grey-streaked Flycatcher (Muscicapa griseisticta), which perches on limbs and stubs below the canopy, flying out to snag small insects.

The Brown Shrike is another migrant, and it seems widespread and common on the island. It’s also rather noisy.

A resident shrike species, the Long-tailed Shrike (Lanius schach), is quite variable across its wide range. Birds in the Philippines have solid black caps and grayish backs. They are fairly common in the forest understory and in more open areas.

Red Crossbills range widely through North and Central America and all across the Old World. There is an endemic subspecies in the mountains of Luzon, and I really wanted to see these birds. Finally, my last morning, I watched a bird sitting high in a dead pine, singing and singing and singing in the morning sun. I sat and watched him until he flew away.

Hundreds of species still await me in the forests of the Philippines: bleeding-hearts, racket-tails, malkohas, the Celestial Monarch, and the Philippine Eagle. I can only hope for a chance to return on a real birding trip someday — and that at least small fragments of the islands’ extraordinary ecosystems will survive in the years ahead.

Sulphur-billed Nuthatch

david — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:22:21 +0000

BAGUIO, PHILIPPINES — Pine forest. Nuthatches. Shrikes. Crows. (Sounding like North America? Well, I’ll keep going.) Bulbuls. Babblers. Swiftlets. White-eyes. Ah yes, this is Asia.

The Sulphur-billed Nuthatch (Sitta oenochlamys), with which I first became acquainted this morning, is endemic to the Philippines. I think its bright yellow eye-wattle makes it look rather comical.

This angle shows the bird’s black forehead patch and eyelines. The forehead patch and bare skin around the eyes are shared with S. frontalis and S. solangiae, which occur in other parts of Asia. In the past, they have all been lumped as S. frontalis, Velvet-fronted Nuthatch. Relationships among these taxa are not yet clear.

I noticed that the birds have pale grayish patches on their backs.

Merlins on wires and gulls in the sky

david — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:24:04 +0000

DUNCANVILLE, TEXAS — It’s a beautiful October day in north Texas. I can’t find a cloud anywhere in the sky. My sweatshirt is a little too warm if I stand out on the sun. Franklin’s Gulls are passing through, brilliant white against the blue of the sky, and there are wigeons on the lake.

Oh, well, you caught me. I was out running errands and stopped by Joe Pool. Didn’t really have time, but sanity has to count for something. And I figured the exercise couldn’t hurt me either. I was hoping for juncos or Harris’s Sparrows, but they are late migrants, and they aren’t back yet. They will be here in November.

Winged elms have begun to change in earnest now; most are yellow-green or golden brown. It’s supposed to reach the 80s again at the weekend, but by then, I’ll be in another hemisphere. Yes, more adventures coming soon for me, so stay tuned.

Robins, which are scarce here during the summer, are moving through again. I noticed pale fringes on their ruddy breast feathers, which I think means that the feathers are fresh.

I’ve discussed with some birding friends whether a small falcon perched on a wire can be assumed to be kestrel. This photo provides proof: no. Merlins will perch on wires too, and I noticed that when this bird landed, it did bob its tail a bit, though not as long or as emphatically as a kestrel does. Perhaps it’s some sort of balancing routine?

Around here, the fox squirrels are always dressed in autumnal colors. They’re busy now carrying acorns here and there.

I was impressed by this Phidippus jumping spider’s metallic green chelicerae.

Some colleagues who work in Mexico were here and wanted to go birding, so we went over to east Texas. At Caddo Lake, the cypress trees had started to turn, and winter birds like kinglets, Blue-headed Vireos, sapsuckers, and Winter Wrens had returned. At Martin Creek Lake in Rusk County, we saw an alligator snapping turtle (a lifer for me), which compared to a nearby Snowy Egret looked absolutely huge!

My 2008 year list stands at 690 species as I prepare to leave the country again. I’m hoping to break 700 next week! That would certainly be my biggest year total ever. We’ll see how it goes.