Archive for July, 2007
Willcox II: Larids
Posted by: | CommentsThe sharp-eyed will have noticed the alternate-plumaged Black Tern in one of the images from my last ‘post’; there were two there, perching on the mud like little skimmers and skimming the water like giant moths. And they were joined by what counts in southeast Arizona as a gull flock: a single Franklin’s Gull and this creature.
Help.
I called it a California Gull, but the ratty beast was thought by others to be a Ring-bill. The iris was not yellow, but was notably paler brown than the pupil; the orbital ring wasn’t visible. I was basing my identification largely on the length of that pencil-like bill, but given how nearly naked the head was, the bill may have looked longer than it would have on a normally feathered face.
Ideas?
Willcox Waders
Posted by: | CommentsShorebirds in the desert!
Just when it seems like it will never happen, the monsoon rains begin, and the adult shorebirds begin to trickle down from their northern breeding grounds.
I’m only half-teasing when I tell people that southeast Arizona is the best shorebirding on the continent; we don’t get a huge variety and we don’t get huge numbers, but what we do see, we get to see up close and well.
As even this rather distant shot demonstrates, by far the majority of the waders on the Willcox sewage pond this afternoon were Wilson’s Phalaropes, a couple of hundred of them spinning around and generally acting goofy on the water and the shore. Unlike the Least and Western Sandpipers, many of the phalaropes were juveniles, this summer’s birds just beginning to molt into their grayer winter plumage. Check out the new scapulars on this one.
Even younger were the 3 American Avocet chicks we watched, locally hatched downies with short bills; even though they lacked the extravagant bill structure of their parents, they were still feeding in an unmistakably avocetian way, sweeping their stubby beaks through the shallow water just like the grown-ups.
But except for the phalaropes, avocets, and other nearby breeders like Killdeer, Black-necked Stilt, and Spotted Sandpiper, July at Willcox is the time for adults. There were a few dozen Least Sandpipers scattered about, fewer than I’d expected but wonderful to see (and hear) all the same; their upperparts are so worn that many appeared simply black above at any distance.
This one is already showing some winter lower scapulars.
Nearly as common as Least were adult Baird’s Sandpipers, a bird near and dear to this prairie boy’s heart.
The commonest peep, though, was Western Sandpiper, dramatically plumaged rufous birds badly in need of a molt. The only other Calidris we saw were Stilt Sandpipers, two adults feeding with Long-billed Dowitchers and phalaropes, their usual companions this time of year.  Â
And there was a real rarity, too, first discovered a couple of days ago by Richard. I’ve now seen two individual turnstones in Arizona, representing two species, and both were on precisely the same stretch of muddy shoreline at Willcox.
Not bad for the desert!
Bulgaria 2007: The Limits of Identifiability
Posted by: | CommentsJust what is the relationship between birding and bird photography? I know people who won’t ‘count’ a bird unless they’ve got a good image of it, and I know, alas, many people who leave the identifying of their photos to the sometimes dubious expertise offered by one or another of the internet “forums.”
I’ve ranted before about how twenty-first-century birding is on the path to overvaluing images and undervaluing thought; it’s part of a greater anti-intellectualism, I suppose, and it’s turning birding into something I don’t recognize and don’t much like. There is a very good, if slightly miscellaneous, article by Ted Eubanks about these problems in the newest issue of Birding; the author’s call for a return to “intuitive birding” should be required reading for those who post their House Finch photos under the terse heading “Identify, please.”
I wonder what the forums would say about these two images. I know what both birds are because I watched them, listened to them, took notes on them; but as usual, my pointing the camera at them was a tardy afterthought, and the images I got show it.
I suspect that this first one, of a bird singing in a small thicket on the Black Sea coast, is probably identifiable by someone who really knows her warblers.
Or maybe not. But knowing what it is, I can convince myself that I see the long, sloping forehead, the outsized bill, and the rounded tail of a Hippolais warbler; adding in habitat and range information, I suppose we can get to Olivaceous Warbler with some confidence. And that’s exactly what the bird was, one of many we got to enjoy all across Bulgaria.
The second one is much harder. It’s the only photo I got of the only member of this otherwise common species I saw this trip, and I’m not sure that anyone could make anything out of it. The bird was hunting in an open patch of woods near a couple of buildings.
Clue number one: No, it’s not a Mexican Chickadee.
Even knowing what the bird is, I’m stumped. The exquisitely slender tarsus suggests one of the ‘booted’ families, and rules out nicely such relatively clumsy groups as finches, sparrows, and tits; its length tells us we’re not dealing with a swallow. The square tail, the slim tarsus, and the habitat might lead us to…. I’d better stop, because I can feel myself already beginning to cheat, dropping my Cartesian pose and getting all a priori here.
What do you think about this bird? It’s an easy ID in the field, but is it even possible from this image?
[Answer: it was a Common Redstart.]
Bulgaria 2007: Christmas Card Birds
Posted by: | CommentsFor a while in the 1980s, birders were playing a new and slightly perverse listing game: the Christmas Card Bird Count. If rightly I remember, Birding even published a few of the more impressive tallies. What struck me most at the time was how few Nearctic species made those lists. Once you’d ticked Northern Cardinal, Cedar Waxwing, and Eastern Bluebird, nearly every Hallmark bird was an Old World species.
That’s part of the reason that a birding visit to Europe, even a first birding visit to the continent, is so filled with déjà -vu moments. In Bulgaria this summer, time and again we ran across “familiar” birds that were in fact new to many on the bus, but whose colorful images had been impressed on memory for years.
European Bee-eaters were common enough in the appropriate habitats, at colonies in rough banks or charrupping in pairs and small flocks high overhead.
Perhaps the most abundant of European passerines, Chaffinches gave some in our party a run for their money, singing everywhere from invisible perches in mixed forests. But a few individuals were more accommodating.
Eurasian Hoopoes whooped along the roadsides every day, but for some reason I was never ready with the camera when one showed itself. Earl got great photos of this individual, but I was satisfied with a distant shot taken while I was busy enjoying Greater Short-toed Larks (much the better bird than a “mere” hoopoe!).
I’ve always been fond of Christmas cards that are “seasonally inappropriate,” with bright yellow American Goldfinches or Magnolia Warblers atop the tree. House Martins leave Europe in the winter, but they are one of the most abundant and most conspicuous of Bulgaria’s summer birds.
I’m very proud of this picture, accidental though it may have been.
The Palearctic fringillids are always good for a winter greeting. Linnets are Alison’s favorite, and every one reminded me of her excitement at seeing her first in France years ago.
The CCBC lists always tallied good numbers of European Rollers, and we did too on our Bulgarian trip. Again, though, I was always watching something rarer, like a Montagu’s Harrier, when a roller would have let me take its picture, so the best I got was this rather blurry shot. But still, blurry or not, you’ve got to admit that this is one improbably beautiful bird!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Eurasian Thick-knee on a Christmas card, but they certainly deserve to be. We saw this species only a couple of times in Bulgaria, but each time it was worth the screeching of bus brakes.
And this picture resembles a Christmas card itself, with a bright male European Stonechat perched among the flowers. It would have been better, but I was watching a Black-eared Wheatear up the slope. (Excuses!)
As I look back through this selection of “pretty birds,” it occurs to me that all of them can be seen elsewhere in Europe, in Provence, for example. But Bulgaria has them all in an abundance I had never seen elsewhere, making every day of our trip a birder’s Christmas present.
Winging It 19-04
Posted by: | CommentsThe new issue of Winging It, the newsletter of the American Birding Association, is on its way to the printer, and it’s a good one. Michael Schwitters has an exciting article on birding Shemya, in the outer Aleutians. ABA news includes member milestones, reports from the ABA/Leica Tropicbirds youth big-day teams, photos of the 2007 ABA Award recipients, and a piece on Birders’ Exchange’s efforts in Haiti.
 From the field, Will Russell ponders Big Sits, Malkolm Boothroyd updates us on his family’s fossil-fuel-free Bird Year, and the “Sightings” column includes some major rarities this time around. Reports on birding and conservation reach from Colombia to Maine.
And the Classifieds are your best source for information on tours, equipment, accommodation, and upcoming events.
Now on to the next issue, September/October!
