Archive for New York
Free Field Trips with the Linnaean Society of New York
Posted by: | CommentsUpcoming field trips I’ll be leading for the Linnaeans:
October 20, 2012: Sparrow Workshop Note that this follows my October 4 lecture to the Brooklyn Bird Club, “Sparrow Tales.”
November 10, 2012: Sandy Hook
April 27, 2013: Brigantine
The trips are free, but registration is required and the group size is limited. To get complete information and to sign up, check the registration page about two weeks before each trip.
Sorting
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s what we birders do most of the time, sorting the bird from the non-bird, the “good” bird from the ho-hum. Naturally, most of what we see when we’re sorting is the expected, but you can’t find the scarce if you don’t look.
So this morning at Newark’s Weequahic Park I looked. I sorted through the American Coots to see Gadwall and Ring-necked Ducks, and I sorted through the Common Mergansers to see Hooded Merganser and Ruddy Ducks. And I sorted through more than 1,500 Canada Geese in search of anything different.
Difference, fortunately, comes in lots of flavors, especially when it comes to geese. This flock included one “black-cheeked” Canada, a ghostly white leucistic Canada, and the two banded birds above; one sported a very tight orange collar around the neck, inscribed with the yellow characters “F0F0.” I’ve submitted the number to Patuxent; we’ll see what they can come up with.
And then of course the gulls had to be sorted. I almost wish I hadn’t.
Just what this is I’m not sure, but in size, structure, molt timing, wing pattern, tail pattern, and upperparts pattern, the best fit to my skeptical eye was, ack, Thayer’s Gull.
Maybe it’s just a tiny, molt-retarded, pale-winged Herring Gull (like the great hulking bird in front of it), but I’d be surprised.
This is the second individual Thayer’s-like gull I’ve seen this winter in New Jersey. I’ve submitted documentations for both to the NJRBC, and can only hope that the committee’s response is polite.
Birding Course at Westfield Adult School
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Want to enjoy birding even more? Join me this spring at the Westfield Adult School for a new course. We’ll be meeting two Monday evenings for lecture and discussion, followed by a Saturday morning field trip to try out our new skills.
You can register here. See you in March!
Jon Dunn on the Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s very sad, but the latest report of the ABA Checklist Committee probably sums it up: there’s no evidence whatsoever that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker survives.
And here’s what the new, sixth edition of the National Geographic Field Guide has to say:
…intense searching subsequently [after the April 2005 announcement] has yet to produce more documentation, [a circumstance] seemingly not possible in an age when most rarities discovered are photographed and those images are posted on the Internet the same day…. sightings that lack provable evidence more likely represent wishful thinking.
The seventh edition will see that fine bird relegated to the appendix shared by Eskimo Curlew, Bachman’s Warbler, and Labrador Duck.
Oh, to have been born 150 years earlier! No, never mind.
New York: Purple Finches
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The snow and cold finally brought a few Purple Finches in to our Hamilton feeders, at least one adult male and two brown birds; anybody care to age and sex the one above?
This has been one of my favorite birds for more than 30 years now (yikes), one of the first species Alan introduced me to when I “became a birder.”
