tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-192666712024-03-14T05:21:17.599-06:00Feather Weatherwhere it's always a good day to talk about birdsEric Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07090795037767592024noreply@blogger.comBlogger62125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-60851268989890754762010-02-11T09:58:00.000-07:002010-02-11T09:58:42.090-07:00I've moved.I have actually migrated this entire blog to Wordpress, and you can find me and my more recent postings at <a href="http://contactcalls.wordpress.com/">Contact Calls</a>, or <a href="http://contactcalls.wordpress.com/">http://contactcalls.wordpress.com/</a>. Even though I had just done a revamp of this blogspot page, I soon remembered why I had let the blog atrophy a couple times in the past few years. I've always had trouble posting images to this blog, and getting them formatted and to display the way I wanted. Maybe other blogspotters don't have this problem, but I just could not find a way around it, so I checked out Wordpress and was pleased with their editing interface.<br />
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I still have to keep this blog at least for a while though, because the images I'm displaying on wordpress are still linked to blogspot. But I wanted to make sure people coming here realized that I am still actively posting elsewhere. So please come by and take a look!<br />
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EricEric Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07090795037767592024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-24651505468772212762010-01-22T13:16:00.001-07:002010-01-22T13:19:56.775-07:00Macaulay Recording Workshop<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAHknyQK8CojPXkSRunR1JZgqXe3JtYt4GDuvrTL-fepDM-lfUBRtXEsg9kdMyfEaxH1Nt3GtfxZ5ODoB5sluRUNVz7y2dL5O5y8VAUNWpctrtDkgkThKhDtAN8V-3sNv4OSDTsQ/s1600-h/Orange-billed+Nightingale-Thrush,+May+23+2009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAHknyQK8CojPXkSRunR1JZgqXe3JtYt4GDuvrTL-fepDM-lfUBRtXEsg9kdMyfEaxH1Nt3GtfxZ5ODoB5sluRUNVz7y2dL5O5y8VAUNWpctrtDkgkThKhDtAN8V-3sNv4OSDTsQ/s320/Orange-billed+Nightingale-Thrush,+May+23+2009.jpg" /></a><br />
</div>A few weeks ago Nathan Pieplow <a href="http://earbirding.com/blog/archives/1148">explained on his excellent blog</a> Earbirding how he got into recording bird songs. In his post he also put out a call to arms as it were to his readers to go out and get more involved in recording as a means of making real contributions to the science of ornithology, and a couple weeks later <a href="http://earbirding.com/blog/archives/1380">he provided a short, off-the-cuff sample of the myriad of topics</a> and areas of research that are still essentially wide open to study.<br />
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I took the posting very seriously, and almost personally. If you know me you know that I've been immersing myself the past few years in bird song, studying it continuously and spending more than just a few dollars on CDs and a few hours organizing my iTunes library to do my own systematic study of bird vocalizations. And I definitely have contemplated getting into recording. Every time I did though I tended to dismiss it however, thinking that people like Nathan and Andrew Spencer and the dozens of other regular contributors to <a href="http://xeno-canto.org/">xeno-canto.org</a> basically have the situation covered, and that I'm just a little too late to the game to contribute all that much. I'd enjoy it as a personal pastime, sure, but I wasn't sure I could rationalize the initial expenditure on recording gear, and then later the other time and money expenditure on 'support infrastructure' needed to do justice to the pursuit. Think of it this way -- when you buy a nice new digital camera, say a Canon Digital Rebel XTi, you are effectively buying more than just the camera itself. You are also buying into batteries, memory cards, a laptop, a storage system, maybe a website subscription for posting your photos, basically all the things such a camera needs if you are going to use it on a regular basis. I just figured that going into sound recording would entail a similar approach, and although that itself doesn't scare me, it seemed like that wasn't something I should distract myself with right now as I am trying to finish my ongoing book project.<br />
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Well, I finally changed my mind, and have since reserved a spot in this year's <a href="http://macaulaylibrary.org/inside/record/workshops/index.do">Macaulay Library Recording Workshop</a> out in the northern Sierra Nevada's in June. I didn't come to the decision easily, but I figured that it's an excellent deal, and if I ever do want to get into recording on a larger scale, I shouldn't just assume that this workshop will be around forever, at least not with this level of accessibility and affordability. Also, I've been toying with the idea of going back to graduate school (again), this time in something ornithological; if I ever do that, I'm definitely going to do something with bird vocalizations, ethology and field work. It'd be silly for me to pass up this opportunity to get some hands-on training and explanation from experts. Greg Budney helps teach the class, and he's a celebrity in the admittedly small circle of bird sound people.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUJCnxv4tYIlpdxR_llaUH_B8UJH_Ek3rUUM4eZKRUj2Y3BeOEJGKcWuSFCxzxDReTuPx8NzW_G4ZTVfyEqKibNqGQHe3taldkH67DbXL6-WW0c7_E8jkqmfxclFR_aOxAP23nZA/s1600-h/3603974717_4efa2028fc_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUJCnxv4tYIlpdxR_llaUH_B8UJH_Ek3rUUM4eZKRUj2Y3BeOEJGKcWuSFCxzxDReTuPx8NzW_G4ZTVfyEqKibNqGQHe3taldkH67DbXL6-WW0c7_E8jkqmfxclFR_aOxAP23nZA/s200/3603974717_4efa2028fc_b.jpg" width="165" /></a><br />
</div>Thanks Nathan for your encouraging words on your blog, and showing someone like me the way. I'm really excited about this class!Eric Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07090795037767592024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-30592775725631769642010-01-17T14:44:00.005-07:002010-01-17T18:07:38.283-07:00Brushes With Greatness: the Snowy OwlOn Monday the 11th I left the house at 4 am and made the 2 1/2 hour drive from Fort Collins down to El Paso County, to search for the recently reported Snowy Owl that had been seen frequently in a subdivision northwest of Falcon, CO the day before. I was not sure of my prospects, knowing that this species can be quite hard to chase because of their nomadic qualities. Nonetheless, I felt that leaving so early would give me the best chances of seeing it if it were anywhere in the area.<br />
<br />
I had wondered what the feeding habits were of the Snowy Owl, if these birds hunted at night. If they did, I felt like my chances were reduced, as the bird would likely forage away from this accessible area and head towards who-knows-where. My book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/North-American-Owls-2nd-Johnsgard/dp/1560989394/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263760209&sr=1-2">"North American Owls" by Paul Johnsgard</a> made no mention of their foraging styles, and the <a href="http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/010/articles/foodhabits">Birds of North America Online entry for Snowy Owl</a> plainly states that it is "<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[n]ot known if these owls hunt at night, or even by moonlight, during winter darkness.</span></span>" Fascinating - and this is in fact typical of a fair number of species even here in North America, in that there is still a lot we don't know about how birds actually live.<br />
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I arrived at the subdivision (which I later learned is technically part of Peyton) around 6:40am. The eastern horizon was getting light, and I began my search in earnest. My plan was to go to the western portion of the network of accessible roads and scan the rooftops and antennas for large birds perch atop them, and hope to find silhouettes while scanning with my spotting scope. To my utter amazement my plan worked brilliantly, as I found a suspicious-looking character on a chimney/stovepipe vent some distance away within just 5 minutes. He didn't stay put for long, but he also didn't go far, as after a few minutes watching it became apparent that what he was doing was moving around from one perch to the next trying to improve his vantage points for finding prey in the open grassy fields surrounding the widely-spaced homes.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifeKE4PL5bq7XQ8rIoZ7riImBaIVNMO7wvWYBzHUCagWJ62oipKQW5XMRrv5UW37R4iG9YEG5yrqoRd4SnJmd0XNBwf3Z1gRyIUbOymjpe520uAoOukhg_NdxeeJ-YRengNPKT0g/s1600-h/DSCN0418.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifeKE4PL5bq7XQ8rIoZ7riImBaIVNMO7wvWYBzHUCagWJ62oipKQW5XMRrv5UW37R4iG9YEG5yrqoRd4SnJmd0XNBwf3Z1gRyIUbOymjpe520uAoOukhg_NdxeeJ-YRengNPKT0g/s320/DSCN0418.jpg" /></a><br />
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Eventually he found a nice TV antenna to search from.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8yNAHCiPsZu1bYYpLhcVYq1F_8nCF1SlmFIEBRaUWGxFdmctJqizzzCEv-OLbGZaOIw3DyuaDlJfYgeUzwG5_3Oq2xWDxA-B-QZShr0D9xT11bpvP5PAWwO0obOu0Dh1h2WzU-Q/s1600-h/IMG_7614.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8yNAHCiPsZu1bYYpLhcVYq1F_8nCF1SlmFIEBRaUWGxFdmctJqizzzCEv-OLbGZaOIw3DyuaDlJfYgeUzwG5_3Oq2xWDxA-B-QZShr0D9xT11bpvP5PAWwO0obOu0Dh1h2WzU-Q/s320/IMG_7614.jpg" /></a><br />
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After I took this shot, he launched again into a distant field, and for a moment I lost track of him. But he emerged again a minute later, and as I followed his flight in the scope I could see that he had something underfoot. I never got a clear look at it, but it was fairly large and dark, like a rat perhaps. That's all I could tell as I watched him start to tear into it from quite a distance. The light was increasing, and I set up my rig for digiscoping, which I hadn't tried doing for nearly two years. I hoped that I could just remember how to do it!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz7R1uMktUuUaiOiq03tNx530U4dhDge_EeR8ZVBBW1VtGCqJ1mvv0yX4m0n8g19r5uI_dyOiQjG19g6LHbozfKiEAm4cVeE7tcharXdycpat_-g-0tORXqrTMtkWJD9ikSK5VtA/s1600-h/DSCN0420.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgz7R1uMktUuUaiOiq03tNx530U4dhDge_EeR8ZVBBW1VtGCqJ1mvv0yX4m0n8g19r5uI_dyOiQjG19g6LHbozfKiEAm4cVeE7tcharXdycpat_-g-0tORXqrTMtkWJD9ikSK5VtA/s320/DSCN0420.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhYk26RotdAsxJXd1aABYnDVBesQfl-LmwbKxGf-QSIl4Wdd2F7PK3ZVMgJeZyEp-lp27lD-jqxRmJVmwpTHD5MLJdHkjNjhsSheWPZcM1HxmELHCIvSfOziHmwBKhBR6e5MAL8w/s1600-h/DSCN0432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhYk26RotdAsxJXd1aABYnDVBesQfl-LmwbKxGf-QSIl4Wdd2F7PK3ZVMgJeZyEp-lp27lD-jqxRmJVmwpTHD5MLJdHkjNjhsSheWPZcM1HxmELHCIvSfOziHmwBKhBR6e5MAL8w/s320/DSCN0432.jpg" /></a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">The light grew brighter as the sun finally peeked up from the horizon. I realized I could probably swing around and get a better-lit vantage point, and perhaps be a little closer. These digiscoped shots were made from about 250 yards if I had to guess, in very suboptimal light.</span><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">These next shots were made from the other side of the cul-de-sac, and the bird is in the same spot as before. I snapped about 2 or 3 dozen digiscoped shots, the vast majority of which were blurry. I blame the camera for most of that, but user error certainly played a part too. Still, a couple images came out ok. This time I was closer, and I estimate the range of these shots to be around 75-100 yards.</span><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy5mBBVFESWkIBvNkdWmC_d3CFbvB0c6YbD6vzq3VvguZEZyzOFb313Hk4PTCi848O7ReJu57fz8ZYGyAVHnd-k7wBXYRZJdYE416tiNXqjiU1_hdk4ixpzaMH5zdnSzgfHSOfTQ/s1600-h/DSCN0467.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy5mBBVFESWkIBvNkdWmC_d3CFbvB0c6YbD6vzq3VvguZEZyzOFb313Hk4PTCi848O7ReJu57fz8ZYGyAVHnd-k7wBXYRZJdYE416tiNXqjiU1_hdk4ixpzaMH5zdnSzgfHSOfTQ/s320/DSCN0467.jpg" /></a><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: left;">The next photo was taken with my handheld SLR and gives you an idea of what the actual distance between me and the bird was. This is fully zoomed out (300mm).<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOjEEs9VHOHd-YqX6cQSqdaTWobnl-HrH95lLDjnEOu0qB5Ij4Rxs5UVxtIWyyRIN4sSzGYUXLwqZB0o1Tej3NhINzlNufDJjIyHZeHXBPeclc89T2hgHBoIip046DwAhziLquEQ/s1600-h/IMG_7620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOjEEs9VHOHd-YqX6cQSqdaTWobnl-HrH95lLDjnEOu0qB5Ij4Rxs5UVxtIWyyRIN4sSzGYUXLwqZB0o1Tej3NhINzlNufDJjIyHZeHXBPeclc89T2hgHBoIip046DwAhziLquEQ/s320/IMG_7620.jpg" /></a><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The bird had stayed put in this spot for over 40 minutes. Apparently after eating that large rat, he was fat and happy, and just digesting. A few other birders had arrived and all got terrific looks and photos from here as well. Finally, the bird flew a bit further westward to another grassy spot closer to a house and the road, and the several of us scooted the couple hundred yards along to follow. He perched with a residence in view behind him, which belonged to a fellow who later emailed me and asked for a copy of some of my photos.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJ3GFJZsav3_vZT6eHHylnmMR3QDgi_BT1gAUrJEDQ4VOi_fTyvGPIysl3X8f5fwuSf0AJ_h9j6-mM38C-Erl3NJwkViaz15WdX0sgAmFMPGA4B4WqRTl8MEQ8CMxNa4yxNL19g/s1600-h/IMG_7625.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibJ3GFJZsav3_vZT6eHHylnmMR3QDgi_BT1gAUrJEDQ4VOi_fTyvGPIysl3X8f5fwuSf0AJ_h9j6-mM38C-Erl3NJwkViaz15WdX0sgAmFMPGA4B4WqRTl8MEQ8CMxNa4yxNL19g/s320/IMG_7625.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">At this point my remote shutter-release for my digiscope camera (an ancient Nikon Coolpix 995) had stopped working presumably due to the cold, so the only way I could take steady pictures with it was to use the timer. And that worked fine, although it also meant waiting 10 seconds every time I snapped a picture, and also not knowing where the bird would be looking when I snapped it. But then, as is the case with digital under any circumstance, just snap the hell out of it and see what comes out. Eventually I got a couple real winners:<br />
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</div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZ1APoIobmo2ek-VIuYRWKFWtjjhLTQiy-3L9wodepFYEwkZh3G5SYZFnqY3xgG8yhW0Dy-y6oTHB0Hih4e1OW9660nsHfuWyX1UeDn5o9b0vq2Wg2XXEw5OFl5KOS_T_7U9qXQ/s1600-h/DSCN0480.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcZ1APoIobmo2ek-VIuYRWKFWtjjhLTQiy-3L9wodepFYEwkZh3G5SYZFnqY3xgG8yhW0Dy-y6oTHB0Hih4e1OW9660nsHfuWyX1UeDn5o9b0vq2Wg2XXEw5OFl5KOS_T_7U9qXQ/s320/DSCN0480.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfbyvuEZumKTI0zjjfc08FJNH9Q_ovbuAFwXRVas0YxKwO-tqsiYwG1VpZGeVYU8SToQXGJ1X-htJradp0PBG-Td0ahT7WkYup4_HhtOJSvmXfJRk0D4KOGtJO5KNUL6h5RTjhA/s1600-h/DSCN0481.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPfbyvuEZumKTI0zjjfc08FJNH9Q_ovbuAFwXRVas0YxKwO-tqsiYwG1VpZGeVYU8SToQXGJ1X-htJradp0PBG-Td0ahT7WkYup4_HhtOJSvmXfJRk0D4KOGtJO5KNUL6h5RTjhA/s320/DSCN0481.jpg" /></a><br />
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After a few minutes here the bird flew across the road and into the field just south of us. It was quite a bit further away and in poor light, so my bird photography was done for the day. I needed to head back north to Fort Collins anyway, but I was thrilled about having seen this lovely animal under good light and mild weather. Here was the birder scene as of 8:30am:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfi9eetuHYXiy47jeNSGvJnWd_QuaqNxx4n07WkxXW5EXcaokpqDy_qoH7ur-qDAO3M5cl4JpMhyBrc45wkE0bPp7uJlyJkjQnNnNxQKw1lT_pQjWSrOI3AjbmrYBIizxmcGO-FQ/s1600-h/DSCN0483.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfi9eetuHYXiy47jeNSGvJnWd_QuaqNxx4n07WkxXW5EXcaokpqDy_qoH7ur-qDAO3M5cl4JpMhyBrc45wkE0bPp7uJlyJkjQnNnNxQKw1lT_pQjWSrOI3AjbmrYBIizxmcGO-FQ/s320/DSCN0483.jpg" /></a><br />
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The last photo actually has the bird in it too - you might zoom in though. Look for the small white dot in the middle of the field.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFI2UhGzABEuowZvGKjEEbx9vo4_7n6cM8GOwqoWJLasyxwRcbVdW3Sx05FAnACPWYJXET6NhfBDNrYQsJgZkNmXy_fsdJsr8WUyfKShkZIyveLN0wuxjXesJRkKSP64DNpZooA/s1600-h/DSCN0485.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgFI2UhGzABEuowZvGKjEEbx9vo4_7n6cM8GOwqoWJLasyxwRcbVdW3Sx05FAnACPWYJXET6NhfBDNrYQsJgZkNmXy_fsdJsr8WUyfKShkZIyveLN0wuxjXesJRkKSP64DNpZooA/s320/DSCN0485.jpg" /></a><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Heading back was the happiest 2+ hour drive I've had in quite a while. Not even the Denver traffic got me down. How many of those schlubs on I-25 had seen a Snowy Owl that morning? Not many, not many at all.<br />
</div>Eric Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07090795037767592024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-57239586411326244702010-01-08T16:55:00.001-07:002010-01-17T09:35:48.535-07:00Trashing my ABA list<span style="">I'm about to do it. Yep.<br />
<br />
I'm going to give up and throw away my ABA lists. I'm not going to maintain them any longer. I'm going to take the data contained therein and transfer them where applicable to other lists. But I will no longer recognize the "ABA area" as one worth keeping a list for.<br />
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I dunno. Is this a big deal? Seems like it. The ABA is a pretty big, established, prestigious organization, with a storied history. I've never heard of anyone else doing something like this - forswearing the bird checklist for the ABA. Or at least, I've never heard of anyone being as theatrical about it as I am. Still, the point stands - it's rare to trash one's ABA list, perhaps unheard of, except maybe by those who give up birding altogether.<br />
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So what brings this on? What's my story? Why am I pursuing this seemingly radical track? If you're thinking that maybe I have a beef with the ABA, you'd be right.<br />
<br />
Well, let me temper that a bit. I don't really have a beef with the ABA per se. Actually I like the ABA. I'm a dues-paying member, and I eagerly await every issue of the magazine. What I don't like anymore is the ABA listing area. I've never really understood it, and I've reached a point in my birding and bird study that the more I think about it, the more ridiculous and nonsensical it seems. And in light of the ABA's recent decision to keep the ABA area as it is currently defined for no other reason than historical consistency, well, I feel the need to take up arms against a sea of troubles the only way I can and rage, rage against the dying of the light. Or at least breath life into mixed literary allusions.<br />
<br />
Once again, I need to temper my rhetoric. Calling it an act of rage really overstates the case. I'm not really angry. I'm not really angry at all. But I do finally feel like I understand the situation well enough, and that I don't feel the need anymore to simply follow along just because it's easier, if I perceive something as redundant or overly contrived. In the case of the ABA area list, I definitely find it overly contrived, and essentially uninteresting. That many thousands of birders will certainly continue to keep an ABA list fascinates me, in the way that a slow-motion train-wreck is fascinating. Sure, you can't take your eyes off it, but you sure as hell don't want to be a part of it if you can help it.<br />
<br />
About 5 years ago the only list I ever kept was a life list. Most of my birding had been pretty solitary, and I liked it like that. I never even thought of things like state lists or year lists even. I just figured that all there really was were life lists. But when I moved to Colorado and got to know other birders better, I came to understand the appeal and utility even of keeping many more lists. I joined the ABA, and of course started keeping an ABA-area list. After all, I wanted to fit in with the kool kids and be able to measure my progress as it were against other ABA members. I did note the ABA area definition at the time, but didn't really think about it much.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.aba.org/checklist/area.html">ABA area is defined</a> as follows:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>The geographic area covered (sometimes referred to as the ABA Checklist Area) is essentially North America north of Mexico. Specifically, the area encompassed is the 49 continental United States, Canada, the French islands of St. Pierre et Miquelon, and adjacent waters to a distance of 200 miles from land or half the distance to a neighboring country, whichever is less. Excluded by these boundaries are Bermuda, the Bahamas, Hawaii, and Greenland. A subarea of the ABA Checklist Area, or other prescribed area, is as defined by its legal boundaries. If not legally defined otherwise, it includes adjacent water (rivers, lakes, bays, sounds, etc.) out to half the distance to a neighboring area, but not beyond 200 miles. Birds observed on or over an ocean are counted for the area having jurisdiction over the nearest land, if within 200 miles.</blockquote><br />
Basically, this boils down to saying the area includes mainland Canada and the continental USA (49 states). And that's it. Nothing south of the Rio Grande, no Hawaii (even though Hawaii is part of the United States of America, last I checked, unless the anti-Obama birthers recently took over the country), and no Greenland for that matter. But it does conveniently include any ridiculously remote islands that happen to be politically connected to a mainland continental political entity, like a US State. In other words, if a Eurasian vagrant like, say, a Common Nightingale lands in Kap Farvel in Greenland, that's not countable, but if one lands on Attu on the very end of the Aleutian Island chain off Alaska, then break out the champagne, we've got ourselves a new bird for our lists! Never mind that Kap Farvel is closer to Labrador and the Canadian mainland than Attu is to the Alaskan mainland. For the purposes of the ABA list, political boundaries are paramount, as is the peculiar artifact of Attu being not just US territory but technically part of the United States proper.<br />
<br />
Which is fine. As part of the United States, Attu should have the benefit of having its bird list included with that of the rest of the country. In this way, what you see birdwise in Attu is as countable as what you see in Central Park in Manhattan. But what about Hawaii? What if that White-tailed Eagle leaving Kamchatka takes a wrong turn and instead of landing in countable Attu, it lands on Kauai? Sorry, as far as the ABA is concerned, a bird in Attu is more important than one in Hawaii, even though Attu is practically as far from North America as Hawaii is.<br />
<br />
OK then, so we're keeping to islands that are at least connected geologically (if not so much geographically) to mainland North America. I get it. Attu is OK, but Bermuda is not. But then why is it that if I travel north of the border, I can count a Boreal Chickadee in the heart of British Columbia, but I can't count that Hook-billed Kite on the other side of the Rio Grande riverbank at Santa Ana in Texas? What is so magically important or different to the ABA about birds in Canada as opposed to birds in Mexico?<br />
<br />
I certainly believe that people and even institutions are free to create and adhere to lists of whatever nature they like. That's our prerogative, one for all of us. But that prerogative says nothing about whether or not it makes any sense to follow it. And the more I think about the ABA area as it is currently defined, the less and less sense it makes. And to have an institution like the <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">American</span> Birding Association <a href="http://www.aba.org/wingingit/issues/wi_v21n6.pdf">continue to ignore</a> rather conspicuous parts of America, defined either geographically (Mexico) or politically (Hawaii) when it had the choice not to, makes me think that it's not worth keeping up a list for the birding area that they most proudly lay claim to. (note - link requires ABA-member password to access) The continuing insistence of allowing freaky Attu birds to count on an ABA list just because Attu has had some awesome vagrants just by conveniently being downwind of Asia, while the Bahamas are likely excluded because they will never be able to keep up with the Attu'ses birdwise, shows me that the ABA doesn't really have its priorities straight. But just because they don't doesn't mean I have to follow suit.<br />
<br />
So instead, I'm going to convert all my ABA lists to AOU lists, and USA lists. I'm also going to integrate my Hawaii and ABA lists to create a USA list. (This won't be too hard for me, since I've not yet been to Canada or Mexico anyway.) I'm also going to forget ABA year lists, and convert those to US and North America lists. My ABA lists will be dismantled and forgotten, and I will instead focus on lists that make more biogeographic or more political sense. Continent or biogeographic regions, like say, North America, the Western Palearctic, or Australiasia make sense to me. Country lists make sense. State lists make sense. County lists make sense. Yard lists make sense. But does the ABA list make sense? Nope, not really. It never could decide whether it's a political or a biogeographic list, so it tries instead to be a mysterious hodgepodge of both. It's just there anymore because some people (OK, <span style="font-style: italic;">lots</span> of people) are stuck in the past, and don't want to lose whatever sense of prestige gained from keeping a list based on such a strange definition.<br />
<br />
And again, that's fine if that's what they want. They're allowed. But I'm allowed to call that kind of thinking ridiculous, and move on to something that makes more sense.<br />
<br />
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</span>Eric Dhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07090795037767592024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-91722975808644358972008-06-29T09:54:00.013-06:002010-01-17T09:37:58.234-07:00Give me GallinuleThis is one of those topics that doesn't really matter a whole lot in the scheme of things, yet seems to bring out the strongest and most fiercely guarded opinions - the names of things.<br />
<br />
The species <span style="font-style: italic;">Gallinula chloropus</span> has been a problematic one apparently with regard to its name, although for as long as I've been birding, I've known it as the <a href="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Common_Moorhen_dtl.html">Common Moorhen</a>. I've been blissfully unaware of the history of the naming of this bird until recently, where I've learned that it used to be known as the Common Gallinule. In fact, on some web pages including the very Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology page that I referenced in the link to Common Moorhen, under Cool Facts, the last bullet item uses the old name 'Common Gallinule' whereas the rest of the page uses Common Moorhen. Obviously the content writer still hears the old name in his or her head.<br />
<br />
But change is afoot again! Just last month the South American Classification Committee, a subcommittee of the American Ornithological Union, <a href="http://www.museum.lsu.edu/%7ERemsen/SACCprop335.html">passed proposal #335</a> which will return the name Common Gallinule to the species. This will be a reversal of the naming convention adopted in 1983, as stated in the proposal's background section:<br />
<br />
<blockquote style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span><i>Gallinula chloropus</i> was known in the W. Hemisphere as "Common Gallinule" in the 1957 AOU checklist but was changed to "Common Moorhen" in a Supplement sometime in advance of the 1983 AOU checklist. For more than a century prior to the 1983 list, it had been known as either the Florida Gallinule or Common Gallinule, but always a Gallinule. The change was a concession to the BOU to keep the "Moorhen" in the name; the species there had been known "forever" as the Moorhen.</span><br />
</div></blockquote><br />
The 'BOU' referred to here is the British Ornithological Union, which oversees among other things the English naming conventions for Old World birds, like those in Europe, Asia, and Africa. <span style="font-style: italic;">Gallinula chloropus</span> is a wide-ranging species with subspecies in the Old World, and those birds have long been called 'moorhens'. There are also several other species of closely-related birds in the genus <span style="font-style: italic;">Gallinula</span>, also commonly called 'moorhens'. Still, as the proposal states:<br />
<br />
<blockquote style="font-family: inherit;">The breaking point for me came when, at the Neotropical Ornithology Congress in Venezuela this year, even the Spanish-first speakers were ridiculing it and using it as an example of an absurd common name. To make matters worse, the endemic Neotropical species of <i>Gallinula</i> still retains the name Gallinule (Spot-flanked Gallinule, <i>G. melanops</i>). The credibility of NACC as a body capable of governing English name usage was questioned. [Yes, I mentioned to them that this change happened before I was on NACC.] <br />
</blockquote><br />
<blockquote style="font-family: inherit;">Although most Old World <i>Gallinula</i> are now called Something Moorhen, two Australian species are called Native-hen, so the genus itself already does not go by a single English name. <br />
</blockquote><br />
<blockquote style="font-family: inherit;">The globalizers will go ballistic if we backtrack on this one, and there will be some who say that, heck, we've lived with Moorhen for 25 years and to backtrack now looks bad. I am reasonably certain, however, that the vast majority of our clientele, professional and amateur, will welcome a return to a better and historically traditional name. In fact, many of you may have noticed that many people refuse to use Moorhen in the field anyway except to fill out official checklists, and that many state game agencies retain Gallinule.<br />
</blockquote><br />
Makes good <span style="font-family: georgia;">sense</span> to me. Although I do have affinities for some bird names, 'moorhen' is not one of them. It has always struck me as a strange name, and I like that it now shares a common name with the Purple Gallinule, even though the latter species isn't even in the genus <span style="font-style: italic;">Gallinula</span>. It visually makes more sense, given the similarities between the two North American gallinules.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">And maybe it's just my naivete, but I am struck by the arguments against changing the name, made by a few of the committee members:<br />
</div><br />
<blockquote style="font-family: inherit;"><u>Comments from Stotz</u>: "NO. I voted against this return to Gallinule in the North American committee, and I will vote against it here as well. I didn't like the change in 1983 and it took me a long while not to think of this bird as a Gallinule, but it has been 25 years now, and a large number of birders and ornithologists have never known it as anything other than a Moorhen.<br />
</blockquote><br />
Yes, and I am one of them. And yet, I love this name change, so please don't think you're doing me some kind of favor by voting against the name change in this instance! Honestly, it's this kind of argument that drives me bonkers: "Yes, we made a bad decision a while ago, but it's too late now to do anything about it, so let's ignore it." Good grief! You're the naming committee! <span style="font-style: italic;">That's what you do</span>. I understand about the 'optics' of reversing a name change made only 25 years ago, but if it was a bad decision then, I see no problem of correcting it now. And really, of all the birds that people are likely to get huffy and defensive about, <span style="font-style: italic;">Gallinula chloropus</span> is kinda low on the list. Are there really legions of birders who would 'go ballistic' by changing it back? Really?<br />
<br />
<blockquote>NO. We made our bed, and we need to lie in it. Too many have switched to the dark side, but it would give our committee a lot less credibility if we whimsically switch back and forth without any real reason aside from personal opinion.<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/" rel="tag"> </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/" rel="tag"> </a><br />
<br />
</blockquote> This is another variant of the previous argument, but it does raise an interesting question, that of 'committee credibility'. I can at least understand the concern about name changes like this as it pertains to credibility, but again, as the proposal states, there are already state game agencies using the old term anyway, despite AOU official convention to the contrary. I really don't think the SACC is sacrificing any credibility here, because on the issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">Gallinula chloropus</span>, they were being ignored anyway.<br />
<br />
I think the worry here is way overstated, and that the gallinule-moorhen question is not going to be generalized and become a slippery-slope into ornithological common-name chaos like it is with botany. I think it is plain to see here that this is a very special case, and although it is a reversal of a position taken a short time ago, I really can't see it as having any significant impact on the seriousness with which the ornithological and birding community at large takes the committee's work. With all the highly technical taxonomic work they do, are there really people out there who would use the gallinule name-change as a reason to ignore, say, the removal of <span style="font-style: italic;">Saltator</span> from Cardinalidae? I dunno.<br />
<br />
In any case, this only applies for now to the South American lists - it has no bearing (yet) on the North American committee, until at least someone in the committee proposes changing its name to maintain consistency in the Western Hemisphere. But I would have to think that proposal will come within the next several months to a year, and after that we should start seeing 'Common Gallinule' back on the official state checklists and in bird guides. I'm fine with that, really.<br />
<br />
I can understand the reluctance to change common bird names wholesale, for sure. I agree that there needs to be some measure of continuity, even if the current common name isn't fully accurate or sensible. But at the same time, that desire for continuity shouldn't rule out every single name change, especially when the change is actually to set it back to what many people are still using out in the field.<br />
<p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-19187092862170779232008-06-17T15:26:00.007-06:002010-01-17T09:39:05.596-07:00The 5 Stages of Bird List Grief<span style="">I got back from a trip to New York City about a week ago. It was a cultural trip with my non-birding wife, and we mostly took in the big tourist sights like the Empire State Building, the UN, Brooklyn Bridge, Katz' Deli on the Lower East Side, the Natural History Museum, and even a couple TV show tapings. Great fun actually.<br />
<br />
On the 3rd, we spent a good portion of the day in and around Central Park. I knew going in that there was some decent birding to be had in a few of the areas, so I brought my binos, "just in case". And I'm glad I did - even though I had to do my usual hemming and hawing to my wife about why I had them and why I wanted to go this particular route through the park. Fortunately, she's pretty accommodating, and I don't have to debase myself too much to get what I want.<br />
<br />
We took a route through an area called "The Ramble", and just as we started to enter, I heard a sound that I'd never before heard in the field. But it was one that I had heard frequently on my "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Birding-Eastern-Central-North-America/dp/0618225927/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213739665&sr=1-1">More Birding By Ear</a>" recordings by the Peterson's Guide. It was an unmistakable thrush song, Bicknell's Thrush! Quickly I scrambled over to the area where the song was coming from, and not long after I got a few views of the bird in question. How exciting! I wasn't at all expecting to find this species on this trip, so what a great bonus to add to my newly-formed New York state list, which would only have a couple dozen species on it, but at least one new life bird!<br />
<br />
One thing bugged me though - how did I know it wasn't a Gray-cheeked Thrush? Come to think of it, I had no idea what their song was like. Is it similar? Would either of these species be singing if they weren't on territory? Lots of questions, and few answers to be found in my NYC guidebook. Well, I had to wait until I got home to look this stuff up. I eventually got home and began my investigation.<br />
<br />
And if you are a knowledgeable East Coast birder, you can probably imagine my disappointment when I realized that Gray-cheeked Thrush does indeed sound a lot like Bicknell's. In fact, there's only one really helpful sound trait you can use to separate them in the field. And I probably heard it too - the problem is, I <span style="font-weight: bold;">didn't remember it!</span> I wasn't even paying attention to those crucial notes at the time, because I hadn't bothered to study the two species before I left for the trip. Who'da thought I'd be hearing any thrush songs in Central Park?<br />
<br />
At this point, I should have known that I wasn't going to be able to count this as a Bicknell's. But I wasn't ready for that. I had to go through the </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model">Kübler-Ross</a></span><span style=""> 5 Stages of Grief first apparently.<br />
<br />
(Denial)<br />
<br />
Well, I tried ruling one or the other out, based on the likelihood of singing away from their breeding territories. I thought maybe I could just eliminate Gray-cheeked just because it was much further from its usual breeding grounds than the Bicknell's, which breed in upstate New York. If only it were that easy - <a href="http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/">Birds of North America</a> as well as a couple different comments over email from knowledgeable East Coast birders informed me that either one could well sing during migration. And as far as field appearance goes, as good a look as I got, it wasn't nearly enough for me to see any clearly distinguishing traits. I knew it wasn't a Hermit or Swainson's, or even a Wood. But that's as much as I could say.<br />
<br />
(Anger)<br />
<br />
I felt annoyed that I may not be able to count this as a life bird after all. (I already have Gray-cheeked in Colorado and Florida.) The supporting evidence I had used so confidently to call this a Bicknell's was falling away, leaving only uncertainly and ambiguity. I had already gone to the trouble of adding it to all my lists! Like hell if I'm going to take it off again!<br />
<br />
(Bargaining)<br />
<br />
So, given that <a href="http://www.nycbirdreport.com/sites/1/birds/6/bird326.html">Gray-cheeked</a> generally occurs on more days in May and June than <a href="http://www.nycbirdreport.com/sites/1/birds/7/bird327.html">Bicknell's</a>, it's likely that I heard the former instead of the latter. Of course it isn't ruled out completely - part of me still thinks I heard a rising note at the end. So maybe it was a Bicknell's! How about if I take off a different species from my life list, like Robin or something? Wouldn't that balance things out?<br />
<br />
(Depression)<br />
<br />
Bummer.<br />
<br />
(Acceptance)<br />
<br />
Well, in the greater scheme of things, I'd rather add a life bird to my list knowing without a doubt that it was that species, instead of scurrilously adding a bird with doubt, just to pump up the list. I'll just have to make a dedicated trip up to the Northeast some day and look and listen for Bicknell's properly. Dang it.<br />
<br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-69624761215371236152008-04-12T10:16:00.005-06:002010-01-17T09:39:52.105-07:00As always, this is awkward.<span style="font-size:-2;">It's time for another of my "gosh, I haven't posted anything new in a while, boy do I feel like a schmuck" postings.<br />
<br />
Until this morning I wasn't even sure when the last time I posted here was, but I see that it was over a year. I didn't even have anything new for all over 2007! In the back of my mind over this past year, I remembered Feather Weather and knew that I would have to come back sometime. It rankled that I was leaving it unattended and forlorn, and yet I never felt overly compelled to write anything new. As is often the case when I leave the blog, it's not because I have nothing to write about (although there are sometimes 1-2 week spans where I delve into other interests that have little to do with birds and therefore I feel there's nothing to offer in the short term), but because I go through phases where I convince myself that my next blog post ideas are too perfunctory to merit the attention needed to make them interesting. Even if I have other more interesting ideas in the pipeline, sometimes I think the blog has little or nothing to offer me, in lieu of what I'm actually doing or preparing away from the computer. What do I mean by that? I think I mean that if I don't really have a readership (and I realize that a readership comes about only through regularity of posting, and that regularity of posting for me comes through readership), I lose the kind of motivation I usually require to post some of those more perfunctory items, before I get to the other more interesting stuff that doesn't require as much of a kick in the pants for me.<br />
<br />
In any case, the past year was plenty full of bird watching, and bird learning. I just didn't write about it. But it was there. And now the pendulum is swinging back again, and I'm feeling the necessity of articulating and recording, because some different and very interesting things are starting to happen now.<br />
<br />
If I can just get over the perfectionist streak that often prevents me from posting anything that I don't consider artful or illuminating, I think I can post a lot more often. Perfectionism isn't always bad, but it is often the impediment to progress. As Voltaire once said, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."<br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1167578384041974522006-12-30T08:13:00.002-07:002010-01-17T09:40:44.566-07:00Colorado Birding YearHaving left Colorado a few days back for the last time in 2006, it’s time for another year in review. The birding is over, so let’s see how things went....<br />
<br />
2006 was a fun and productive year in birding for me. My state list burgeoned from 229 on January 1 to 318 as of Dec 27. 91 new state birds this year included regular seasonal visitors like the Northern Shrike, Great Egret and the Rosy-Finches, and a fair number of unusual vagrants like the White Ibis, Yellow-throated Vireo, and Hudsonian Godwit. I chased quite a few rarities, with mixed results, and I also visited some new areas of the state which allowed me to pick up other varieties which are typical in their respective habitats but not often seen in or around Fort Collins. Towards the end of the year I managed to pick up a couple really nice species, the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and the Varied Thrush, both of which turned out to be much easier than I expected.<br />
<br />
As in 2005 I kept a year list, to see how much I could improve on my regular bird-finding. I had 229 birds in ‘05, and sought to find 300+ in ‘06. I got close, but unfortunately came up short with just 294. I’m still pretty happy with that - 294 is a lot of birds. Off the top of my head I can think of at least 15 species that I looked long and hard for but failed to get, for various reasons. Some of that is of course blind luck, or lack thereof. Despite my best efforts I simply won’t always find what I’m looking for, and that’s not a reflection of anything in particular. Another reason I missed 300 was that I never did do the spring SE Colorado trip I thought I might earlier in the year. Sure, I visited Chico Basin Ranch a couple times, once in February (for the Long-billed Thrasher) and again in May for a Nature Conservancy-led field trip. I also was down in Pueblo in February for a Winter Raptor Survey, and in Cañon City in late September in search of the elusive Common Black Hawk (which I apparently missed only by one day). But these were very short trips, and I never did make a visit out to points further east like Lamar or John Martin Reservoir or better yet Cottonwood Canyon way down in Baca County, like I did in 2005. If I’m going to get 300+ birds in Colorado for a year, a couple days in that part of the state sure helps a lot.<br />
<br />
I resisted for over a year since I arrived, but I finally gave in this year and started up some Colorado county lists in earnest. I had been afraid of the administrative overhead in maintaining so many additional bird lists, but the advantages in doing so have turned out to outweigh the challenges. For one, keeping county lists adds a new dimension to in-state travels, giving purpose and relevance to seeing birds in a new place that you might see quite often in more familiar and regularly-visited stomping grounds. Even Rock Pigeons are interesting if you see one while crossing into a county that you’ve never been to before - time to fire up a new list! At year’s end I have 15 county lists, ranging in length from 20 in Montrose County (which we only drove through during a SW Colorado trip back in early August), to 239 in Larimer. Weld and Boulder counties also see a lot of action, and I have 182 and 137 in them respectively, but all other counties have fewer than 100 species tallied so far.<br />
<br />
As fun as county lists have proven to be, at this point I still don’t bird for the purpose of increasing their lengths though. In Colorado my real interests are increasing my life list and my year lists - county lists are incidental accomplishments. In time this may change, and I will possibly travel across the state just to pump up county lists. But for now I’m probably obsessed enough as it is.<br />
<br />
So what do I hope to do next year, listwise? I’m not sure - I’ve not thought that much about it yet. I still want to see 300 species in a year, but part of me wants to wait to do a full-on Big Year and shoot for 350+. Another part of me wants to focus more on bird-finding and less on bird-chasing this coming year - that would be more in line with my belief in the real purpose of listing, which is to increase understanding of birds, their populations and distributions, and the furtherance of their conservation. That kind of focus would probably reduce my total species counts for the year, but it would increase the number of rarities for which I was the original finder, and it may well be a better use of my skills anyway, helping to cover ground that other birders aren’t focusing on.<br />
<br />
Lastly, I started a yard list too this year. The “yard” includes any bird seen from my property, whether flying overhead or in a tree across the street. Some people have great locations and can tally 70, 80, or even a 100 species over time in their similarly-defined yards. I’m currently at 34, which I think is pretty good, but until I can create a much more bird-friendly yard and attract more songbirds, it’ll be tough to boost that number by much. My best yard birds so far are the Eurasian Collared-Dove, Hermit Thrush, and Bohemian Waxwing.<br />
<br />
Soon I'll post some more detailed overall year-end highlights, and finally some of my nicer trip photos.<br />
<span style="font-size:-2;"><br />
tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/colorado" rel="tag">Colorado</a><br />
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</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1166584029668020282006-12-19T19:58:00.001-07:002010-01-17T09:41:11.812-07:00Varied Thrush rushI drove out to Crow Valley campground today, having heard about a Varied Thrush that has been seen there the past couple days. Things are pretty quiet at the campground - the gate is shut, and I was the only human there. In spite of that (or perhaps because of it?) I was able to find the bird hanging out with some thrush pals (robins and solitaires) near the picnic area in just a few minutes. Here are a few views of it.<br />
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<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1009/193/1600/564082/IMG_2346_1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1009/193/400/261494/IMG_2346_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1009/193/1600/237128/IMG_2350_1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1009/193/400/293165/IMG_2350_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1009/193/1600/920491/IMG_2353_1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1009/193/400/753409/IMG_2353_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1009/193/1600/928607/IMG_2351_1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/1009/193/400/453426/IMG_2351_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />
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Varied Thrush is pretty rare in Colorado, and this was my first one here. It's one of favorite birds though - very handsome, like a Robin that got tired of its plain look and decided to sport a necktie or a vest.<br />
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tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/thrush" rel="tag">thrush</a><br />
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</font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1160786569769862852006-10-13T18:27:00.001-06:002010-01-17T09:41:46.562-07:00Moonwalking ManakinActually, to me this shimmy looks a little more like the "Electric Slide" than Michael Jackson, but that's just nitpicking.<br />
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The clip doesn't make it clear, but this bird is <i>Pipra mentalis</i>, the Red-capped Manakin. It ranges from southern Mexico down through Central America into northern South America.<br />
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tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/dance" rel="tag">dance</a><br />
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</font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1159455621396485252006-09-28T08:25:00.000-06:002006-09-28T09:13:36.356-06:00500 miles. 1 bird.Yesterday I made a trip down to Cañon City to see the Common Black-Hawk that's been reported frequently over the past few weeks. I've only seen one of this species before, in Costa Rica about 4 years ago, so I was eager to see another and to see it here in North America. The bird has been hanging out along the Arkansas River near the Mackenzie Avenue bridge (SeEtta Moss at <a href="http://secoloradobirding.blogspot.com/">SEColoradoBirding</a> blog describes the situation in detail <a href="http://secoloradobirding.blogspot.com/2006/09/common-black-hawk-seen-again-in-canon.html">here</a>). There'd also been Black Phoebes seen in the area too, and those weren't yet on my Colorado State Life list.<br /><br />And if that weren't enough, there had also been a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher reported about 30 miles east of Pueblo, at the Otero/Pueblo county line. I had visions of having another terrific Colorado birding day like the one I had <a href="http://featherweather.blogspot.com/2006/01/all-in-days-birding.html">several months ago</a>, so I set out at 4:50am to make it happen. One wrinkle though - I had to pick up my brother-in-law from the Denver Airport around 2pm, so I had to be efficient and see the birds in a timely manner if I was to get them all in, especially considering the driving involved. In other words, I needed to go 120 miles to Colorado Springs, go another 40 miles to either Cañon City or Pueblo first, and get to both the Pueblo County line (far eastern Pueblo county) AND to Cañon City (in Fremont County, 50-60 miles west of there. Either way was going to be tons of driving.<br /><br />I made a decision to look for the STFL first. It took 3 hours total driving to get there, and I realized that I really only had about 20-30 minutes to look for the bird before I had to leave, if I wanted to get to the Black-Hawk spot by 10am or so. It was a calculated risk, but having had success finding a STFL last May in Arizona in a short time (hey, I haven't talked about that trip yet, have I? That's a story in itself), and knowing that the bird was seen in a very limited area, and that it should be easy to spot if it's anywhere nearby, I thought it would be worth it. Well, in the end it wasn't, because the bird was nowhere to be found. By 8:40am I was back on the road steaming toward Cañon City, hoping to get there before 10.<br /><br />I made it, but it was feeling late in the morning, like I'd missed the bird already. Apparently many have seen the bird around that time, so realistically it was as good a time to be looking as any. But there weren't any other birders around, so I couldn't help but think that the Black-Hawk train had left the station. In 2+ hours I did actually see the Black Phoebe, which is a great bird for Colorado of course, and even a Western Tanager flew by. But no Black-Hawk showed up, and in general the area was very quiet, except of course for the lumbering cement trucks crossing the bridge every couple minutes. By 12:20, I had to leave, and drive 100 miles or so to the airport, and from there, another 55+ miles back to Fort Collins.<br /><br />So when all was said and done, I'd bagged one new state bird, and dipped on two others. Nearly 500 miles of driving, and $30+ dollars in gas. That's pretty nuts, isn't it? Especially since I'm already thinking of trying again next week!<br /><br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/" rel="tag">birds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/chasing" rel="tag">chasing</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1158932235049462952006-09-22T16:51:00.000-06:002006-09-22T16:59:38.413-06:00List tweaksI just returned from a brief non-birding trip to Kansas, during which I curiously managed to do a fair amount of birding. Funny that. Anyway, I managed to see my first-ever Nashville Warbler, which was life bird #799. On the day I returned, neighbor Nick called and we went in the afternoon down to nearby Union Reservoir to look for recently reported Arctic and Least Terns. We didn't find them, but we did find a few Common Terns, and that too was a lifer me, #800.<br /><br />And so, while updating my lists, I decided to do a little organizing of my <a href="http://www.geocities.com/yoericd/birdhis.html">taxonomic life list</a>, where I break down my life sightings by family. I thought it might help if I ordered them as they are listed in the <a href="http://aou.org/checklist/index.php3">AOU list</a>, where possible. (I realize that the truly kosher thing to do here is to list them in accordance with, say, Sibley-Monroe or some other world checklist, but I don't have such lists handy. All in due time, I'm sure.)<br /><br />I came to realize that some taxonomic changes have occurred, and these have a bearing on my list. Not only that, I discovered that I had omitted a very commonly seen bird from my life totals - the Western Gull! That's right, perhaps one of the first birds I ever learned to identify never made it into my life totals until this week. Well, that immediately pushed me up to #801.<br /><br />The Scarlet-rumped Tanager, a bird of the neotropics, was also split not long ago into Passerini's Tanager and Cherrie's Tanager. These new species generally occupy the eastern and western coastal areas in Costa Rica and Panama, and although my current lists record sightings for the bird in and around the Caribbean Slope, I do have very distinct recollections of the bird around Corcovado down along the southwest coast. So there's #802 - 2 new life birds, and I didn't even have to leave my couch!<br /><br />But alas, not all was good news. While sequencing hummingbirds, I realized that I had mistakenly counted Magnificent Hummingbird twice - once in Costa Rica in 2002, and again this year when I saw it up close down at Beatty's Guest Ranch near Sierra Vista, Arizona. Ooops. Back to #801.<br /><br />I'm mostly done with the list review, but a few other changes have been made, mostly in the arena of species' renaming, based on new splits. For example:<br /><ul><li>Little Hermit -> Stripe-throated Hermit<br /><li>Crowned Woodnymph -> Violet-crowned Woodnymph<br /><li>Gray-fronted Dove -> Gray-headed Dove<br /><li>Pacific Dove -> West Peruvian Dove<br /></ul>Unlike the aforementioned Tanager case, here I've only seen one of the "new" species that was previously considered a subspecies, so no automatic list bumps.*<br /><br />Also, the family of Dendrocolaptidae, or Woodcreepers, has been subsumed under Furnariidae, the Ovenbirds. Recent genetic evidence confirms their close association, and the decision has been made to put them all in one family, as opposed to keeping them as subfamilies under one family name. I've also moved a couple European members of Turdidae (Thrushes) to Muscicapidae, in accordance with recent decisions regarding the breakup of the family of Old World Warblers. Namely, these two species were moved from Turdidae to Muscicapidae:<br /><ul><li>Black Redstart <br /><li>European Robin<br /></ul>I may find other changes to make soon as well. I also might have to make notes in my guidebooks too, especially regarding the Neotropic name changes. Guides like Skutch and Stile Costa Rica book still haven't been updated since 1989, and probably won't be for a long time.<br /><br />* Some of these updates were tricky to make - I was able to find out about the Gray-fronted Dove change from AOU Supplement 46 to their 7th Edition, but the other ones involved consulting the latest info on their <a href="http://aou.org/checklistsouth.php3"><i>South</i> American checklist Committee site</a>, which annotates many of their species lists and name changes. Very informative, albeit time consuming.<br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/listing" rel="tag">listing</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1157642241942900572006-09-07T09:15:00.000-06:002006-09-07T09:17:51.406-06:00"huffy underpants"My dad in Florida frequently likes to send me newspaper clippings about birds from his small town (Avon Park area). There's a regular segment in the paper called "Wild Bird Sketches", and it's written by a couple bird enthusiasts, the Kowalskis. Recently they had an article about the Northern Flicker, which featured this amusing description of the bird:<br /><blockquote>This woodpecker is about 12 inches in length, has a brownish-olive back, barred with black and a large white spot near the tail. The huffy underpants are thickly spotted with black and there is a black crescent on the breast. ...<br /></blockquote><br />Huffy underpants? Sounds like a great epithet for someone who gets riled up about things a little too easily! Come to think of it, flickers do sound a little crabby sometimes.<br /><br />Obviously they meant to write "buffy underparts". I can imagine how this malapropism made its way into the article though, maybe if one of the Kowalskis was reading the description out of a book but didn't have his/her glasses on!<br /><br />Anyway, I thought it was funny. An endearing mistake, to be sure.<br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/malapropisms" rel="tag">malapropisms</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1156120651241813132006-08-20T18:26:00.000-06:002006-08-20T18:37:31.253-06:00Unexcused absenceThree months. I've been away from the blog for a little while, but I see that people have kept showing up here anyway, waiting for something, anything. Sorry about that!<br /><br />Believe me, I've not left birds behind, not in the least. And I think my blog entries over the next several days will prove that.<br /><br />It's rather been a case of stepping away from the blog to do other things, like enjoy the summer. I've also been focusing my online energies elsewhere, not so much in my personal blog even (which should be evident also from my lack of posting there), but instead in reading and commenting on other people's blogs. I've been interested of late in political blogs, which is quite engrossing ... or distracting, depending on how you look at such things. The good news is that I think I've got my groove back.<br /><br />Just a few list notes: my neighbors alerted me to hummingbirds in their backyard a couple days ago. I was able to confirm among them a female Calliope, making it my 302nd Colorado state bird, bird #271 for the year in CO and #358 for the year in the US. It was also life bird #796, and ABA bird #463.<br /><br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/bird+lists" rel="tag">bird lists</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1147286359639597952006-05-10T12:31:00.000-06:002006-05-10T12:47:05.540-06:00Yellow-throated Vireo<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1506_1.1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1506_1.1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>I got a call from a friend this morning telling me about a Yellow-throated Vireo that she found in Lee Martinez Park in downtown Fort Collins. Oooo, another lifer opportunity, I thought. So I jammed down there, and with the help of another fellow, I was able to find the bird real quick-like.<br /><br />A very handsome bird, singing sporadically and sounding much like his "Solitary Vireo" cousins. I don't always get these kind of gratifying chase results, and I'm thrilled to also get a decent photo of it. My blog probably makes it seem like I get plenty of good photos from my birding experiences, but that's misleading - I often post the successes, and (obviously) never the failures, of which there are plenty.<br /><br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/fort+collins" rel="tag">Fort Collins</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1143163489660518882006-03-23T17:52:00.000-07:002006-03-23T18:24:49.706-07:00The Fremont Street Experience<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.vegas.com/attractions/off_the_strip/fremontstreet.html"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px;" src="http://www.vegas.com/attractions/off_the_strip/images/fremontstreet.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>One other amusing bird-related experience we had in Vegas was the <a href="http://www.vegas.com/attractions/off_the_strip/fremontstreet.html">Fremont Street Experience</a>, a block-long archway of lights over Fremont Street in downtown that act as a movie-screen for passersby on their way to casinos and shops. High-wattage speakers also line the street providing booming audio. One of their shows is called "American Freedom", a 4-minute long rip-roaring, flag-waving bonanza to the music of John Philip Sousa.<br /><br />At the conclusion of the piece, a Bald Eagle soars across the screen, and we got to hear the eagle's call. Or rather, we got to hear what the vast majority of America seems to think an eagle call sounds like -- an aggressive, extended high-pitched <i>keeeeerrrrrrr</i>, suspiciously similar to that of a Red-tailed Hawk.<br /><br />I just think it would be hilarious if the audience could hear what a Bald Eagle <a href="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/programs/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Bald_Eagle.html#fig1"><span style="font-style:italic;">really</span> sounds like</a>. Heads would explode from the cognitive dissonance of realizing that our majestic national bird emits whimpering cackles instead of a clarion screech. Of course, that realism would take away from the triumphalist image of the bird, so on we go, perpetuating Bald Eagle myths based only on its striking size and plumage.<br /><br />Although, perhaps to its long-term benefit - you could argue that the species is well-served by Americans' misconception of its call, which fits a preconceived notion of menace and thus makes the bird more sympathetic to Americans than it otherwise might be. Eagles get shot enough as it is, and there's no need to reduce its stature in the eyes of a country with a history of killing these remarkable creatures.<br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/bald+eagle" rel="tag">Bald Eagle</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/las+vegas" rel="tag">Las Vegas</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/fremont+street" rel="tag">Fremont Street</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1143151772191000732006-03-23T14:31:00.000-07:002006-03-23T15:14:09.073-07:00Blogless in Las VegasI got back a week ago from a 3-day trip to Las Vegas with my wife, and I've been delinquent in writing anything new here since. Part of it is because as you might expect it wasn't really a bird trip, and as you may have noticed I'm slavishly devoted to bird-only content here. Yes, we did go for a hike one day at Red Rock National Conservation Area, and I even got a few good pics while there. But there was plenty else going on in more urban settings, which was really the point of the trip. <br /><br />I think the other reason I've not been writing is to save some 'birding' energy for the upcoming migration season. I want to make the most of this coming spring, and with a planner full of scheduled activities already, I expect that I'm going to be in the field a lot the next two months. So instead I've been distracting myself with other interests like watching movies and, oh yeah, doing my taxes (which are horrendous enough, and not very blogworthy). Not that that's an interest of mine...I guess that came out funny.<br /><br />In any case, onto the wildlife.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1305.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1305.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>The first critters we came across were actually a pair of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Desert Cottontails</span>. As I prepared to get a photo of one, it darted out of view but was conveniently replaced by its buddy, who ended up in the exact same pose and position as the first.<br/><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1308_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 0px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1308_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>I also tallied my first hummingbird of the year, this <span style="font-weight:bold;">Anna's Hummingbird</span> which perched nicely on the top of a juniper.<br/><br/><br/><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1313_1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1313_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>The real birdwatching highlight for the whole trip came when I heard some rustling in the ravine below the Keystone Thrust trail. Following a dry rattle, this <span style="font-weight:bold;">Greater Roadrunner</span> emerged, enchanting both me and my wife. She likes birdwatching as much as I do, as long as the birds are big enough to be seen without the need for optics.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1320.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1320.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Lastly came this Western Scrub Jay, which I took as we were heading out of the park around noonish. It was perched on a yucca so close to the road I couldn't resist.<br /><br/><br/><br/><br />And lastly, not a bird, but rather a birds-eye view of Las Vegas at sunset, as seen from the top of the Stratosphere tower on the Strip:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/DSCN8219.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:10px auto 0px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/320/DSCN8219.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/las+vegas" rel="tag">Las Vegas</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1142312511882432442006-03-13T22:00:00.000-07:002006-03-14T07:55:40.286-07:00Weekend Bird ReviewFor some of us, the weekend goes 'til Monday. :^)<br /><br />In any case, I got to see some nice birds the past couple days. Here are some of my better photos...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1267_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 0px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1267_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Sunday morning I made a trip to Connie Kogler's home in southwest Loveland, to take a gander at a rare Larimer County <span style="font-weight:bold;">Sage Sparrow</span> that has been frequenting her feeders the past few days. I got some very nice looks at it, as you can tell. This was only my second sighting ever of this bird (the first being about 7 years ago in Death Valley National Park), so yes, I was <i>stoked</i>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1278_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 0px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1278_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>This morning I dropped by the Grandview Cemetary here in Fort Collins. It was lovely but chilly, having snowed the night before and then clearing off before sunrise. Even this <span style="font-weight:bold;">Brown Creeper</span> felt the chill, and puffed his feathers up a bit to stay warm. I was surprised at how docile he was, allowing me to get quite close and take quite a few shots without raising any fuss. It's always a delicate thing, deciding what constitutes a respectful distance from a subject bird. I used my best judgment, edging closer over a couple minutes time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1281.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 0px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1281.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>My main plan for Monday was to do some Boulder County birding, but on the way down I made an impromptu addendum to try to find a special sparrow down in Littleton that eluded me a week or two ago. I realized while driving that I'd get there shortly after 10am, which was reportedly the best time of day to find the bird. When I got there, I easily found this <span style="font-weight:bold;">White-crowned Sparrow</span>, hanging out in one of the bushes at the site.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1292_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 0px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1292_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Then, a couple minutes later, the target bird finally emerged. It was a bit of a skulker, forcing me to take several rather crummy shots of it half-hidden amongst twigs and other less-secretive sparrows. This <span style="font-weight:bold;">Harris' Sparrow</span> was a lifer for me, and upon seeing it there was much rejoicing across the land. These two sparrow shots were taken at the Carson Nature Center near the Platte River in Littleton.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/DSCN8171.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 0px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/DSCN8171.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>I eventually made my way to Boulder County, where I initially stopped at Erie Reservoir in Lafayette. As had been reported on the COBirds listserv, it was quite active, with about 600 birds there. Very quickly I managed to spot this 1st or 2nd-winter <span style="font-weight:bold;">Glaucous Gull</span> - it was hard to miss with its white plumage and large size standing out among the numerous Ring-billed and California Gulls present. Later at Thomas Reservoir less than a mile away as the gull flies were hundreds more birds, including a Franklin's and a Lesser Black-backed, both adults in breeding plumage. (Thanks to Steve Larson who I linked up with today, who pointed me toward Thomas as a good gull spot.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1298_1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 0px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1298_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Finally, on my way home I stopped by Cattail Pond in Loveland for a quick look at the waterfowl. I've been hoping to find a Ruddy Duck this winter, and I've had no luck so far. But while scanning the water I heard some squealing overhead, and by the time I figured out what was going on one of the two birds tussling landed in a nearby tree. I don't know what the other bird was, but this was a <span style="font-weight:bold;">Merlin</span> which let me get close enough for this SLR shot from below. A nice conclusion to a birdy day, and weekend.<br /><br />And like this Merlin I'm taking off for a couple days with my wife so she can enjoy some much-deserved R&R. I'll be back by next weekend (meaning the one that most people recognize as such). Ciao for now!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1300.0.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1300.0.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/colorado" rel="tag">Colorado</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1141915999125766502006-03-09T10:00:00.000-07:002006-03-09T10:03:04.726-07:00More navel-gazingA Great Black-backed Gull spent a few days on Rist Benson Reservoir here in Larimer County last January, and on 1/20 I digiscoped several decent shots of it in very good light, with the idea that I might submit a report of the sighting to the Colorado Bird Records Committee (CBRC). Well, a couple days ago I finally did submit a report of that sighting to the CBRC. Whether my report and accompanying photos will be good enough to merit confirmation by the committee remains to be seen, although I suspect they will. In any case it was an important step for me in my continuing evolution as a birder, to make a concerted effort in documenting my observations for the benefit of others.<br /><br />I've written several times on this topic of personal evolution now, noting how differently I approach this hobby of mine from how I did several years ago. At some point I hope to tire of it, and devote my writing energies solely to the subject matter itself, but during the process of submitting that report I was struck by one particularly sharp contrast between "then" and "now", which is actually kinda funny, but also one that I think is interesting to explore.<br /><br />Part of the CBRC record report form requires delineation of differences between the bird species you think you saw with those of similar-looking species; i.e., how did you know it was a Great Black-backed Gull and not some other gull. In the case of the GBBG, similar North American occurrences include other rarities like the Slaty-backed Gull and the Yellow-footed Gull, neither of which I've seen before. But I took the time to investigate them, especially in the <a href="http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7362.html">Olsen/Larsson book on Northern Hemisphere gulls</a>. It was then that I made an amusing realization about my evolution as a birding enthusiast.<br /><br />As recently as 4 years ago, I would <i>never</i> have taken the time to study a species of bird I'd never seen before. That in itself isn't necessarily unusual or damning - beginners or novices don't often take the time for indepth study of unfamiliar birds. But in my case, it wasn't that I didn't have the time, or was confused enough just learning the birds that I had seen. Rather, it was that <i>I purposefully didn't want to spoil the joy or surprise that comes from beholding a bird when you encounter it for the first time</i>. I even felt that knowing its name beforehand seemed to pollute the sense of wonderment.<br /><br />Where did this bizarre conception come from? I recall a highly formative experience back in 1998, shortly after I moved from Davis, California (where I went to grad school) to the Bay Area (where I started my first job). My first social bird experiences were with the Sequoia Audubon Society on the Peninsula, and at one of my first meetings there was a presentation from someone who went to Alaska and the North Pacific. He had some terrific pictures of species I'd never seen or heard of before, and I was enthralled. Kittlitz's Murrelet, Red-faced Cormorant, Spectacled Eider...it was exciting to think of all the great bird species out there that I had yet to learn about. World birds were like the candies in Willy Wonka's factory - magical and brilliant, mysterious and alluring.<br /><br />But I then perceived a risk to my future experiences of seeing new birds - that of knowing too much beforehand. I feared that the magic, brilliance, mystery and allure of these birds would be diminished if I'd read too much or seen too many photos of them in advance. Wasn't part of the thrill of exploration not knowing what lies beyond the next bend in the river, or on the other side of the mountain? In that vein I think I subconsciously resolved to put the blinders on, to not to delve too deeply into bird guide books, and instead to just wait for the birds to reveal themselves to me. I didn't want birding to be a science - I already was a scientist, and birding was an artsier side-interest. I wanted to adhere to this aesthetic, an almost-romantic notion of what it meant to be on a journey of pure discovery - even a forced, false one - in which the discoveries would be not for furthering the knowledge of posterity, but solely for my own feeling of bedazzlement.<br /><br />And it was easy to accommodate this desire until recently, because for various reasons my birding was still a very solitary activity. I did actually yearn to join bird clubs and go on group outings, but my work schedule made that quite difficult, and besides, birding was more personal therapy than an effort to contribute to the broader birding community knowledge base. But after moving to Colorado, where I had gobs more time and a youthful, active birding community to join, my objectives changed fairly rapidly. I think I did continue to bask in willful bird ignorance for a short time; but the newness of the area and the feeling that I had external expectations on me from locals because of my claims of being an avid birder inspired me to give up this phony notion of "not wanting to ruin the surprise" and actually start to have some real idea of what I was talking about.<br /><br />At this point I freely admit that I haven't really foregone the joy and wonder in seeing new birds when I study them before actually seeing them. What I've realized over time is that the ideal I was hoping to uphold after that Sequoia Audubon meeting in 1998 has been sublimated to a different form of gratification, one derived from the sharing of knowledge and the <span style="font-style:italic;">unraveling</span> of mystery, and not in simply pretending that me not knowing something constitutes a state of purity to be cherished. Furthermore, I now recognize that learning what I can about birds beforehand just accelerates me to the next mysteries, like "What is that bird doing here this time of year?" or "How has convergent evolution made this species so similar to this other one on another continent?"<br /><br />What it comes down to is that I now trust that I won't run out of things to be amazed at. Nature seems to do a good job at presenting conundrums, and learning what you can when you can about it doesn't diminish its marvel or grandeur. And maybe it's silly that I had to come to this understanding in such a roundabout fashion; but looking back, how could I have arrived here any differently?<br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birding" rel="tag">birding</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/navel+gazing" rel="tag">navel gazing</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1141764515715274862006-03-07T13:42:00.000-07:002006-03-07T14:51:00.036-07:00Name That Empid<span style="font-style:italic;">(Update, 2:30pm: It didn't take long for some to point out that I had originally posted a pic of a Townsend's Solitaire. I should have known I'd embarrass myself somehow.<br /><br />Anyway, I've updated the images and text to discuss the other bird I saw that day, which I <span style="font-weight:bold;">know</span> is an Empid. Otherwise, everything else is the same.)</span><br /><br />While browsing my photo collection I came across a photo that I had previously forgotten about. Back in September on the same day that I drove out to Prewitt Reservoir to see the <span style="font-weight:bold;">Curlew Sandpiper</span>, I also drove up to Crow Valley Campground mid-day to check out the migrant situation. After a short walk I found an Empidonax flycatcher, although at the time I wasn't able to positively identify it. But I had just purchased my Canon Digital Rebel XT and with a little chasing I got some good shots of it, and hoped to figure out what it was after I got home.<br /><br />But for whatever reason I filed the photos on my new laptop in a completely different directory from all the other bird pics, and so it remained unseen until yesterday's re-discovery. <strike>Looking at the pics now, I can see that in fact I saw two different Empid flycatchers. One of them is shown here (the one for which I have the better shot), and</strike> I'm hoping I can solicit some ideas on which one it was, even though these pics are far from ideal. <strike>It'll be interesting to see if someone more confident in their Empid ID skills suggests the same bird(s) I'm thinking.</strike> Any ID pros out there want to take a stab at it?<br /><br />There are really just two pics here - each pair consists of an original shot and a zoom-in to show just the bird.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/empid_full_2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/320/empid_full_2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/empid_zoom_2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/320/empid_zoom_2.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Oh yeah, before I forget - these were taken early afternoon on Sept 19, 2005. Crow Valley Campground is a small riparian "migrant trap" amid farmland and shortgrass prairie located in Weld County, about 60 miles east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains in northeastern Colorado. The bird was (not surprisingly) silent.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/empid_full_1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/320/empid_full_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/empid_zoom_1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/320/empid_zoom_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><strike>If we can nail this down, I'll put up the pics for the other bird, for a real challenge. :^)</strike><br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/empid" rel="tag">empid</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/bird+identification" rel="tag">bird identification</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1141629743157670192006-03-06T00:20:00.000-07:002006-03-06T00:22:23.213-07:00The First Goshawk Is Always the HardestLast Saturday I went out with the Boulder Bird Club on their annual search for late-season Winter Finches, in the high country west of town. The highlight and focus of the outing of course is Allenspark, which if you <a href="http://featherweather.blogspot.com/2006/01/magic-of-allenspark.html">recall</a> is renowned for their wintering Rosy-Finches.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/1600/IMG_1236_1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1009/193/200/IMG_1236_1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a>Initially the group centered on the Fawn Brook Inn, but after about 15 minutes of finchless feeders, we ambled up the road looking for other feeders and any other activity in the pines around town. That did turn out to be fruitful, as we found <span style="font-weight:bold;">Cassin's Finches</span> and a single female <span style="font-weight:bold;">Pine Grosbeak</span>. Then suddenly someone said there was a buteo overhead. Hmmm, a buteo here at 8500 feet just down the slope from Longs Peak? I looked up and saw a very buteo-like bird circling overhead in the wind about 75 feet up; except that it was very pale grayish-blue underneath, not like any buteo I could think of except for Gray Hawk, which this obviously wasn't. I trained my binos on the bird, but it was almost directly overhead, so I couldn't see head markings. And when it wasn't directly overhead it was obscured by the towering pines all around. I was thinking <span style="font-weight:bold;">Northern Goshawk</span>, but was afraid to call it out, having never positively ID'ed one in the field before. Fortunately it didn't dash off completely, and I was able to snap a single shot of it after it had drifted even further up. By the time it soared out of sight our group consensus settled that we had indeed seen a Goshawk. A life bird for me, at long last!<br /><br />Yeah, it's not a terribly great shot, although it does capture the gist of the bird as we observed it. What convinced me most of all (not seen in this photo, but clear to us when the bird was lower) was the very distinctive underwing coloration, in concert with its strong morphological characters (wing shape, head size, and tail breadth). I've wanted to see a Goshawk for several years now, but never during the 5 or so previous possible occasions did I see the bird well enough to confidently identify it as such. Finally, on an outing where we were looking for finches, I managed a fairly sustained look at one. Go figure. Hopefully the next Goshawk won't take me years to find.<br /><br />It served to remind me that when it comes to accipiters, you should always be prepared to see one if you're anywhere near reasonable habitat. Coopers and Sharpies (and apparently Goshawks too) always seem to be "popping in", and just as quickly popping out. When that has happened before, I always think in retrospect that it should have been obvious that one might show up, and swear to myself that next time - always <i>next time</i> - I'll keep an eye out. Once again I forgot my own advice, but luckily I had the Boulder Bird Club to bail me out. <br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birding" rel="tag">birding</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/boulder+bird+club" rel="tag">Boulder Bird Club</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/goshawk" rel="tag">goshawk</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1141143334850284462006-03-05T22:03:00.000-07:002006-03-05T22:15:28.526-07:00Solo(NOTE: I actually composed most of this on Feb 28, but hadn't gotten around to finish it for posting. Apologies for my unexplained absence.)<br /><br />I got up very early this morning to do something I've never done before - go owling solo.<br /><br />The biggest trouble of course is dragging yourself out of bed. It's nice and cozy there, whereas the outside world promises only cold and makes pestering demands of consciousness and mental acuity. Still, you can't get it out of your head that in the dead of night -there- -are- -owls- -out- -there-, so you force yourself up, even as the clock says 5 minutes after 3 a.m.<br /><br />After the first 5 or 10 minutes though, the drowsiness gives way to excitement, especially as you become aware that virtually everyone else is still fast asleep, leaving you and only you as the sentinel. Pitch dark with the new moon, and no cars on the road - at least for a time, the world seems to belong only to you.<br /><br />I drove up Rist Canyon Rd, since I'd heard that was a good area to look for small owls. I'm in dire need of seeing, or at least hearing, small owls, like Eastern Screech-Owl, Northern Saw-Whet Owl, Boreal Owl, and Northern Pygmy Owl. After driving a couple miles in, I got out of my truck and just listened. Silence. I then practiced a few of my Saw-Whet <i>pip</i> calls, and after just a minute, a Great Horned Owl some ways up the canyon hooted back. Wow! I'd never had a conversation before with an owl. Granted, I was probably just pissing it off, smack-talking like some intruder owl, but still, we were <i>communicating</i>. It sounds trivial, but it was surprisingly visceral.<br /><br />I made a few other stops in the next hour or so, but hadn't elicited much else in response until I returned to more or less the same spot I started. I <i>pipped</i> again, and this time, I got a real Saw-Whet reply. It sounded fairly close, and I clambered a short ways off the road in hopes of getting my flashlight onto it. But it was far enough up the hill and in the trees to discourage me, and once it stopped <i>pipping</i> around 5:15am, I gave up altogether. I'll find the owl some other time - at least I now know where they are.<br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/owling" rel="tag">owling</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birds" rel="tag">birds</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1140102543274576802006-02-16T08:00:00.000-07:002006-02-16T08:27:03.076-07:00Bird foodI had a dream last night that I went to a market somewhere and saw boxes of <span style="font-weight:bold;">hummingbird filets</span> in the frozen section. I remembered being initially shocked upon seeing it, and then thinking that, well, I guess hummingbirds must be the locally preferred birdmeat.<br /><br />It makes you wonder about me - I mean, my brain actually invented this idea.<br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/hummingbirds" rel="tag">hummingbirds</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/dreams" rel="tag">dreams</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1139760640417262712006-02-13T09:17:00.000-07:002006-02-13T12:02:58.310-07:00Cleaning up a messState Senator Hanna recently put forward a bill regarding the feeding of "wildlife" which made it through committee in the Colorado State Assembly. Collective eyebrows were raised among the local birding community when the initial introduced version of <a href="http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2006a/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/7A46ABFEA7CBE3FC8725706C00741C9C?Open&file=075_01.pdf">this bill</a> included the following:<br /><blockquote>A BILL FOR AN ACT <br />CONCERNING HUMAN BEHAVIORS RELATED TO WILDLIFE IN URBAN AREAS.<br />Bill Summary <br />(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced and does <br />not necessarily reflect any amendments that may be subsequently <br />adopted.) <br />Punishes the offense of knowingly luring wildlife in urban areas with food or edible waste or allowing wildlife to establish housing on a person's property by a fine of $100 for a chargeable first offense, $500 for a second offense, and $1,000 for a third or subsequent offense. Exempts the feeding of songbirds, acts related to agriculture, and acts allowed by wildlife commission rule. <br /></blockquote><br />So it's OK to feed songbirds. Great! I wonder what they consider a "songbird" - this <i>is</i> the state legislature, after all. Section 1-4-c:<br /><blockquote>(c) "SONGBIRD" MEANS ANY SMALL, ARBOREAL BIRD THAT UTTERS A MELODIOUS SONG OR CALL OR WHOSE PRESENCE IS COMMONLY WELCOMED IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS. <br /></blockquote><br />Hmmm. Well, that's almost a tautological definition. A bird that is "welcomed" is OK to feed, but perhaps not one that is not "welcomed"? In other words, you're not allowed to feed birds that you don't want around? Yeah, that sounds like useful legislation. And does songbird refer only to passerines? What about woodpeckers or doves? Are they not included?<br /><br />Fortunately, this horribly written bill was greatly amended and clarified [<span style="font-weight:bold;">UPDATE 2/13, 12:00pm</span>: <span style="font-style:italic;">Jen Bolton, lobbyist for Colorado Audubon, apparently prevailed upon the bill authors to reword it</span>], omitting the bulk of the confusion and replacing it essentially <a href="http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/lcsstaff/2006/strikebelow/strikebelow.htm">with this</a>:<br /><blockquote>(1) UNLESS OTHERWISE PERMITTED BY COMMISSION RULE, IT IS UNLAWFUL FOR ANY PERSON TO PLACE FOOD OR EDIBLE WASTE IN THE OPEN WITH THE INTENT OF LURING A WILD COYOTE, FOX, RACCOON, OR SKUNK TO SUCH FOOD OR EDIBLE WASTE IN AN URBAN AREA. <br /></blockquote><br />Much better. No more mention of any birds, just specifically the four main offenders. This version apparently passed through committee on a 7-0 vote. Now, whether or not this actually solves the given problem, I can't say, but at least it's no longer so broadly and poorly constrained. Kudos to the legislature for cleaning up this messy bill, before attracting the ire of virtually every birder and birdwatcher in Colorado! (It's been so long since I've actually praised any government body for doing something right, I'd almost forgotten how to do it.)<br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/bird+feeders" rel="tag">bird feeders</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/politics" rel="tag">politics</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/legislation" rel="tag">legislation</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birdwatching" rel="tag">birdwatching</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19266671.post-1139794777706102782006-02-12T23:03:00.000-07:002006-02-12T23:15:43.396-07:00StrickenIt was on my list for almost 12 years. But as of tonight, it has been removed. Cassin's Sparrow is no longer a Life Bird for me.<br /><br />I've been doing some background prep for planning a trip to SE Arizona this coming May. This means creating a target list, as well as revisiting sightings on earlier visits. I have very good recollections of most of my sightings, but was piqued by Bird #83, a Cassin's Sparrow observed sometime in March of 1994 in Tucson. Unlike the other birds I recorded on that trip, I have no memory whatsoever of when exactly I saw that bird, nor where.<br /><br />In the case of Cassin's Sparrow, I find that problematic. For a number of years after I began birding, I relied pretty heavily on bird range maps in Peterson's Guide to help me determine what bird I was seeing, in cases where there were 2 or more competing possibilities. That's not a practice I believe in anymore, but I have to admit that it played a fair part in several IDs I thought I'd made in years past. I'd already corrected most of those (e.g., Hutton's Vireo), but this one had remained.<br /><br />I try to be very careful in tinkering with my lists when it comes to revisiting very old observations, and I am cautious not to overly second-guess my IDs. But I am aware of how my identification skills have grown over time, and I honestly don't think I could have truly known for sure that I'd seen a Cassin's Sparrow in lieu of, say, a Brewer's, based on the way I know I used the Petersen's Guide at the time, and my awareness (or lack thereof) of the likelihoods of seeing certain species in certain locations. It may well be, of course, that I did in fact see one, even if I don't remember when or where. But it troubles me that I supposedly made such a careful ID of a tricky bird at a time when I really wasn't attuned to such things, and that I remember nothing about the sighting; and knowing that I'd now have trouble picking one out of a sparrow lineup, I just don't feel comfortable leaving it on my Life List. So, I removed it tonight, lowering my Life, AOU, and ABA totals by one.<br /><br />I do feel confident that I'll be able to put it back sometime this year. I just want it to count, to identify it from its characteristics, not from deductions or extrapolations from likelihood. Yet another manifestation of how I'm changing as a birder.<br /><font size=-2><br />tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/birding" rel="tag">birding</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/bird+lists" rel="tag">bird lists</a><br /></font>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2