Lawrence's Warbler Around The Beehives

With all my travel, I was worried I was going to miss one of my favorite parts of spring:

But thanks to the cold, wet spring, the wildflowers were late and I did have some quality time among some trillium at Mr. Neil's. I think I have missed the morel window but there's so much to pay attention to in early spring, that missing that edible fungus is negotiable in my mind.

While dealing with beehives yesterday, I couldn't help but mentally note all the birds singing and what warblers were still around. Some breed there like American redstart, common yellowthroat, pine warbler and ovenbird. Others are late movers like Tennessee warbler and blackburnian warbler. There have been blue-winged warblers that have nested there in the past. And then last year, I was surprised to find a Lawrence's warbler where the blue-wings have traditionally nested.

After checking the bees, I was debating about morel hunting or getting shots of birds for my Digiscoping Big Year. Heading down the hill into the woods towards the morel patch, I heard a blue-winged warbler call...only it wasn't a blue-winged warbler...it was the Lawrence's and it followed us around, making my attention towards morels shaky at best. I decided to plant myself down in the woods to get some photos. Of course, the Lawrence's disappeared, but like anything, if you sit quietly in one spot, if the bird you are after is on territory, it will return.

The nearby common yellowthroat was very cooperative and I got shots of it with both my Nikon V1 through my scope and with my iPhone 4s through my scope. I love the above--Disapproving Yellowthroat! That was taken with an iPhone 4s through the scope.

Since the bird was singing and out, I thought I'd experiment and get a video. As I was filming him, I heard the blue-winged warbler call again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6dUl5bKZUE&feature=youtu.be

So above you can see and hear the Lawrence's warbler. I'm betting this is the same bird as last year. But without banding it, how can I be certain?  I know Lawrence's is a hybrid of blue-winged and golden-winged warblers but can never remember the actual combo.

Here's the thing...there's a lot we don't know. Blue-winged warblers and golden-winged warblers will hybridize and produce what's called a Brewster's warbler. A Lawrence's is believed to be the result of a Brewster's backcrossing with a blue-winged warbler.  Note that word, "believed?" There's still quite a bit we don't know, golden-wings could still be in the mix somewhere. Given what I know about the birds breeding around Mr. Neil's I think that is likely this bird is the result of the Brewster's and blue-winged warbler pairing. Last year, this bird was singing in the exact spot that the blue-winged warblers have nested and this habitat isn't the best for golden-winged warblers. I've only had one or two golden-wings during migration.

So, now I'm wondering...was there a Brewster's three or four years ago breeding with the blue-winged warbler and I missed it? The blue-wings have become such regulars and I don't like to disturb them where I know they nest. And I get distracted during bee season, I think it is highly likely that I could miss a Brewster's.

However this bird got here, I couldn't help but lay on the (most likely tick infested) ground and listen to this bird make it's rounds on territory while singing--how many crazy nature things went into it being where I was. Assuming it's the same bird as last year: It's survived migrating into South America at least twice. It is the result of its grandparents hybridizing and its hybrid parent backcrossing with a blue-winged (or possible golden-winged warbler). So much I can know about this bird and yet so much I don't.

I mentioned earlier that I wasn't sure I could count aplomado falcon on my Digiscoping Big Year because it's considered and introduced population and not sustainable on its own. But, it's a species and that bird wasn't banded so it could actually be a wild bird that flew up from Mexico. And this is about getting pictures of birds in the wild, so I counted it. But hybrids are not countable on the ABA list either. They aren't even included as a check in eBird. But I'm counting this bird. I'm not really following ABA guidelines and it was work to digiscope this bird, so Lawrence's warbler is 170 on my Digiscoping Big Year.

If you would like to read more about golden-winged warbler and blue-winged warbler hybrids here are some good articles here and here.

Wood Frogs

Just a random video of wood frogs that I digiscoped. http://youtu.be/mvmXgOgtcw4

Book Signings for 1001 Secrets

In case you weren't aware...I had a new book come out in May.

I've had some book signings already, but not everyone has been able to make them and I've had emails asking how to get them signed. We have a few copies here that I can sign and send out if you would like to have one. If you want one before Father's Day, order before June 4, 2013 (I leave for Europe that day and won't be able to sign any until I get back in the middle of the month).

I have to say that I've had some very surreal moments this spring. This was from a book signing at Biggest Week and at one point I looked to my left and saw Kenn Kaufman signing and two my right were the Stokes--all influential in my early birding days. I kept asking in my head, "How did I get here signing my own book along side them?"

In the above photo we have Ken Keffer, Lillian Stokes, Don Stokes, me, Kimberly Kaufman and Kenn Kaufman. Wow.

I do have more signing coming, they will be listed here. I'm excited that I'll have a signing in my own neighborhood bookstore Magers and Quinn and The Raptor Center will be there with a live bird! I bet I could be talked into a Birds and Beers when it's over.

Biggest Week 2013

 

The view from the drive in to Magee Marsh in Ohio and one of the few sunny days I've been allotted this spring.

Well here I am at the end of May and barely a month left to complete my Big Half Year goal of digisoping 250 species by June 30. I'm only at 170 and spring did not play out quite like I thought it would. I'm missing quite a few "gimme" species like rose-breasted grosbeak, indigo bunting and American goldfinch but part of that comes from me knowing that if I could get a sunny day and time at Mr. Neil's, that would be easy cheesy...yet this spring has been incredibly cold, cloudy and rainy. I didn't rack up nearly as many species (digiscoping wise) at Biggest Week or Detroit Lakes like I thought I would because of the weather. But, ah well.

I do have one more trip that includes Austria, Paris and Amsterdam in June but those are not the birdiest destinations out there. However, they could easily help me get the total to 250.  We shall see. As much as I love bird watching, I kinda just want to eat my way through Paris and not have to drag my digiscoping equipment down the Champs-Élysées with me if I don't have to.

The Biggest Week in American Birding is great for warbler watching and a bit of a challenge photography-wise. For one thing, if the conditions are right, like on this particular Sunday when it was cool and the winds prevented the warblers from crossing Lake Erie the birds are too dang close.

Also, there are lots of people and with tiny birds that move fast, it's a challenge to get shots.

I did get photos--I got lots like this. I swear, some day I will write a field guide to how you will really see birds--often obscured by leaves. I couldn't get my mojo going with this chestnut-sided warbler. I had great and stunning looks at them, but I couldn't digiscope this bird to save my life.

But if you haven't been to this festival before, you essentially hang out on the boardwalk at Magee Marsh, the trees are dripping with warblers, vireos, orioles and a whole host of other spring migrants. Anywhere you look could reveal a cool bird. The west of the boardwalk is jammed packed and a bit of sardine birding, where as the east can have all the same birds but not so jam packed with people. Or you can be smart like my friends Paul and Lili above and sit on the boardwalk rail and get some space from the birding hoard.

You can check out the trails along the shore of Lake Erie (but those can swarm with birders too, but you don't feel as confined as you do on the boardwalk). You can also visit Black Swamp Bird Observatory and Ottawa NWR. There are guided field trips, but I end up spending almost all of my time out on the boardwalk.

But warblers abound and are quite easy to see (they may not be easy to photograph). Above is one of the many yellow-rumped warblers.

Here's another one of my favorites, the black-throated green warbler. Easy to see an came down quite close. When it was cold and windy, the warblers would be at eye level.

If you looked under the leaves, you could see some of the insects the warblers were after.

I'm not a fan of the sardine birding so usually I hang out on the less crowded east end or find something like the above whip-poor-will and set my scope on it. People can get their lifer whip-poor-will (and I usually help people get photos with their smart phones) and the beauty is that while I sit there, the warblers work their way past and I get almost all the same birds that people get at the crowded west end.

As I had my scope on the above whip-poor-will, someone asked why it was a whip and not a chuck-wills-widow (a bird I have very little experience with). The best answer I could give was that the guy who wrote the National Geographic Field Guide (Jon Dunn) text pointed it out to me. He returned a few hours later and I asked him specifically how whips were different from chucks and he gave an impromptu identification class--and autographed guides. All part of the fun of just hanging out on the boardwalk.

It's interesting how quickly people become experts on the boardwalk and get caught up in the enthusiasm of sharing birds on the boardwalk. This is my buddy Rue Mapp from Outdoor Afro who is a newer birder and there she was, putting people on an eastern screech-owl like a boss!

I think that this year, this fest in Ohio should have been called the Biggest Week in Woodcocks (I suggested that but was met with skepticism as that might attract the wrong sorts of people). But woodcocks were all over the freakin' place. Above is a little grassy knoll in the parking lot at Magee Marsh and there's a female woodcock incubating eggs. She's very had to see, but she's there.

But they were a common and easy to see sight along the boardwalk at Magee too. I saw them every single day I was there, not to mention the birds that were peenting outside of our cabin at Maumee Bay State Park.

There's also something to be said for just hanging out in the parking lot of Magee Marsh--a male scarlet tanager put on quite the show and made the rounds several time, down low for anyone to get a photo.

As I was staked out waiting for warblers to come by, a waterthrush flew in. Being in Ohio, I was on the look out for a Louisiana, not just a northern. This bird had bright pink legs and I grabbed some shots with my iPhone through my scope. I wasn't 100% on my id on this one and wanted a consult to confirm I had a Louisiana

Low and behold, I run into Greg Miller on the boardwalk and he confirms that is Louisiana.  For non birders, Greg Miller was Jack Black's character in the movie The Big Year. And that's kind of what makes the Biggest Week a cool event: amazing birds and really cool people.

Love My Non Birding Friends

Because they send me thing like this:

"In all honesty, being that this is near a Burger King entrance, aren't the birds better off?"

Thanks, Barb Abney!

And at least the sign reads "birds" and not "seagulls."

ABA Bird of the Year Contest

Wow.  Just...wow.  It's the American Birding Association Bird of the Year contest. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFQr5ISVWec&feature=youtu.be

I think they're going for Double Rainbow guy...but rather than sounding high on shrooms it sounds a bit more like dirty phone calls I've received.

Birdchick Podcast #143 Condors & Wind Farms

The LA Times had a jaw dropping headline: Companies Won't Face Charges In Condor Deaths...but how accurate is the reporting? A cat credit for wind farms?

Red-winged blackbird riding a red-tailed hawk.

Bald eagle foreplay gets out of hand.

Alaska eagle party.

6 year old reinstated as Jr Duck Stamp winner.

Eye-rolling bird watching article (at least for me).

Birdchick Podcast #143

Judging A Birding Tattoo Contest

It has been a crazy two weeks. An example:

My new book was a prize in a tattoo contest at a bird festival...said no person ever until Biggest Week in Birding 2013. Above is Paul Riss from Punk Rock Big Year and Rue Mapp from Outdoor Afro who were among the five judges. When Kim Kaufman asked if I would be part of the tattoo contest, I wasn't sure if she meant as a participant since I have a couple of tattoos, but she meant as a judge.

I happily agreed and then I wondered how many entries there would be...we had 11 which is 10 more than I expected.

This one surprised me--the logo for Black Swamp Bird Observatory. That's one heck of an organization that can inspire such loyalty from it's employees.

There were the expected tattoo birds, like a peacock tattoo so large that we could not see the whole thing without the contest suddenly being rated R. But still quality bird work.

There were charming ones like a  scarlet tanager with the song title, "Don't Stop Believing."

There were really beautiful and artistic ones like this Cape May warbler which had been a nemesis bird and she had it applied to her side after finally getting one at Biggest Week in 2012.

There was a Roger Tory Peterson art tattoo. This kestrel and peregrine falcon are from his cover of the Peterson Guide to Hawks.

One contestant went the extra mile and hand a tattoo of crossbill feet designed by field guide author Kenn Kaufman who was even on hand to explain how accurate the bird feet were...lol, she brought in a ringer!

Then the tattoos got serious. There are multiple birds on here like a drongo and above that you can see a black vulture and turkey vulture head. I thought that we had our overall grand prize winner here...

Until this guy took off his shirt. He had bird tattoos all over (even a raven that was about to chomp his nipple which I can't believe I didn't get a shot of. But look at the flying pileated woodpecker/ivory-billed woodpecker tattoos.  Wow. On his left shoulder, you can see a double-crested cormorant--who gets a cormorant as a tattoo? This guy, because it was his spark bird. He had more like herons and a few storks flying on his back but he wowed us the most and won the overall contest and a pair of Eagle Optics binoculars.

This was posted on the Biggest Week Facebook page, the judges and that winners.  I think the contest was a bigger hit than any of us anticipated and word on the street is that there will be another one next year. Get your ink on now. I've already had two people tell me what they are going to get tattooed on for next year. As they say when you get inked: go big or go home...or maybe just go birding.

Late Spring Snow

So a couple of seeks ago we had some snow in April in Minnesota and people freaked out about birds. Yeah,  I know I live in Minnesota and we get a ton of snow, but snow in April is brutal even for us. But people worried because we had a ton of robins in our area, some were birds that spent the winter and were ready to head north and couldn't. Others were birds just arriving on territory and aggressive to the birds still here. Everybody was bitter and prone to fights because that's what happens when there's a spring snow. I wasn't too worried because birds like robins are tough, robust birds. They can take a snow storm.

Last week we have a few 70 degree days and it was beautiful. Most of the snow melted. Migration progressed. I saw tree swallows and chimney swifts and relaxed that they had survived a crazy spring migration...then 15 inches hit the southeastern part of the state yesterday and more today. Now I am worried. Crazy images are showing up on Facebook like this one from Greg Munson:

Here's the description with the photo, "Greg, Munson, Quarry Hill Nature Center naturalist in Rochester. The mother goose has been sitting on her 9 eggs for 2 weeks and she wasn't about to let a little snow interrupt her task."

I linked to it on the Birdchick Facebook page and people were wowed and concerned. Someone suggested clearing the snow off of her. That's a risky idea--number one a goose on the nest is dangerous to you. Number two, she most likely would flush, exposing the eggs to snow and would she come back in time to keep them warm enough to hatch.

This morning there's an email from Greg that reads, "The goose is still surviving in the snow and it appears water may have even gone down an inch overnight.   Hard telling what the melt will do to pond levels, probably starting tomorrow. "

We'll have to wait and see if the eggs hatch.

Though we had no snow in Minneapolis yesterday (different story today), it was too cold for insects. We had a yellow-rumped warbler fallout in my neighborhood.

Yellow-rumps were everywhere! They covered the streets and the sidewalks gleaning any sort of food they could. Peter Nichols posted this photo of yellow-rumps covering his feeder. And this video of a yellow-rumped warbler feeding frenzy:

http://youtu.be/bZcXVmomngw

I know some of these birds can take it, but I do worry about the purple martins and the chimney swifts who have to wait it out under cover and not eat until any flying insects finally come out.  Will we lose some of those birds? No doubt? Can their overall population take that loss? Usually, yes. But birds face so many challenges: habitat loss, cats, cellphone towers, windows. It's a vexing winter for sure.

I do take some comfort in the yellow-rumped warblers and their sassy attitude. So cute, so fierce, they almost look as though they defy winter and all it's obstacles. Here's hoping it ends soon without the appearance of White Walkers.

Birdchick Podcast #142: Fasten Your Seat Belts, It's Gonna Be a Bumpy Night

So. Much. News. Non Birding Bill and I are about to head to Biggest Week in Birding, will we run into you?  We'll both be there the first weekend and just me the second.  If you see us on the boardwalk, please say "hi."

Screen Shot 2013-05-01 at 9.41.15 PM

CRAZY migration fallout happened in Texas at South Padre Island. The above is not a weird shaggy vine on a painted palm tree...those are all chimney swifts.  Here's another photo. Check out this photo of a hoard of dickcissel and a lone indigo bunting or this one of orioles.

The Jr Duck Stamp was just a mess this year. From the Associated Press having to print a correction to the prize being revoked from the 6 year old.

Dude fights off grizzly bear with his spotting scope.

Cool photo gallery of hummingbird nests. You must look.

Crazy, beautiful red-winged blackbird with some pigment issues.

15 products to prevent birds from hitting windows.

A TED talk on duck homosexual necrophilia. I know, right?

The house where Alfred Hitchcock wrote "The Birds" is up for sale.

Birdchick Podcast #142