ABA in the News

Yesterday on our field trip we were followed by a film crew from WGME. That's one of our field trip leaders, Steve Howell using a field guide to show Amy Sinclair and the camera man some of the birds we were seeing on the trip. Amy was wearing some, shall we say "antique" binoculars. I couldn't stand it and loaned her my 8x42 DLSs. I even put my harness on her so she could see how comfortable binoculars can be. She was really impressed with how well she could see through them. Perhaps we have converted her to birding? You can watch the segment here, just look for and click on "watch streaming video".

She came with us on a great day, people were getting their 500th or 600th bird. I loved finally being able to see the adorable piping plover (above) and we saw two unusual terns, an elegant tern and a gull-billed tern. Thanks, Amy for putting birds and birders in the news!

I owe Steve a huge debt of thanks. We found a dead sooty shearwater on the beach (above). Steve was having trouble getting his macro function to work on his camera and since I love taking photos of dead stuff, I was happy to oblige. This is a tough enough bird to see out on a boat in the middle of the ocean. You just don't get a chance to appreciate a shearwater in the hand very often. You can really see that tube nose and fabulous hooked bill.

The wings of the shearwater are very long and thin, perfect for it to fly right above the waves on the ocean. I have to mention that while I was taking all these photos and posing the bird, a little boy was hovering nearby. His mother saw it and said, "Don't touch, you shouldn't touch dead things." Of course, here I am with Steve doing everything but kissing the bird. You could see the little boy was barely able to keep himself from touching it and asking his mom why we were touching it. The mom couldn't come up with a good answer and probably suspected Steve and I were nuts and shooed the boy back to their spot on the beach.

Being an expert on seabirds, Steve opened the shearwater's mouth and showed us the jagged edges on the tongue and on the upper part of its mouth that are used to push slippery fish down into its crop. I was lamenting that I wanted the head for my collection of bird parts. Since I was kind enough to take photos for Steve, he was kind enough to release the head from its body and now I have a shearwater drying out in my room. Should be interesting getting that past airport security this weekend.

Chum Chuminy Chum Chum Churry

Today was a triumph of the human spirit on many levels. First, I had to meet my field trip group at 3:30 am. That's not a typo folks, that is 3:30 in the am. I don't know how, but I managed to get my stuff together to meet the field trip.

When I met up with the group, I was reminded of a flock of blackbirds coming to roost. The hotel situation in Bangor, ME is a little wonky; we're spread out over three different hotels, and for some reason I'm at the hotel with all the field trip leaders and not participants/exhibitors, so I have to take a shuttle bus to meet the buses that take us on the field trips. When the shuttle bus arrived with all of us, there were about 250 birders waiting in that hotel parking lot. Our crowd joined them and we began milling about trying to figure how who was going on what bus.

Then, just like someone tossed out a peanut butter suet cake to a flock a starlings, someone opened up the breakfast boxes too early. The original plan was that we were to get our boxed breakfasts as we boarded our respective buses, but there appeared to be some sort of bus snafu going on. I'm not sure if someone in charge just left the breakfast boxes unattended and people started going for them or if someone in charge was worried the crowd was getting ugly and decided to throw food at us as a last means of defense.

Once we finally got on the road, things seemed to have calmed down. However, the adventure was just beginning. The sea was angry that day, my friends! I learned later on that our boat was the only one allowed on the water, the swells were six to eight feet and our tour group felt it. I would say that at least half the participants ended up barfing at some point from motion sickness. I don't know how I escaped it, I used a combination of Dramamine, ginger ale, oyster crackers, wristbands and focused on a fixed point on the horizon when I wasn't watching birds. I felt that I won the battle of the bilge. It wasn't easy, especially when they started chumming.

For those who don't know, chumming is tossing in smelly fish stuff to attract sea birds that have a terrific sense of smell. Our chum consisted of fish oil mixed with popcorn (the popcorn helps keep the oil at the surface of the water) and chunks of fish. Shearwaters and storm-petrels came right in.

The second floor of the boat was loaded with everyone who was feeling a tad queasy. I did find these two towards the end of the trip. They looked exhausted, happy about the birds they had seen and a tad in love...awwwwww.

I had a day I haven't had in ages! I got 13 life birds on one trip, I've never been on an eastern pelagic so it was easy to rack 'em up. So many birds were being seen in different directions, I didn't know which one to look at first. Behind me was a gannet, to the right of me was a shearwater and to the left was a razorbill. AAAAARGH! Sensory overload.

Needless to say that in high swells, getting photos of the birds is challenging to say the least. Okay, this isn't anything to write home about, but the above photos is a souvenier to remember puffins and razorbills.

Here are a couple of razorbills flying by. I really enjoyed those birds more than I thought I would. I was ready to go away from this trip with puffins being my favorite birds, but I couldn't take my binos off of the razors.

It was a great day of birding, well worth the early morning rising. One thing about ABA trips, you get your money's worth with birds. The trip leaders are generally top notch and often there are so many leaders on one trip, you can pick the personality you're most comfortable with and hang with them for the day. I chose Jim Danzenbaker, not only because he's a great birder, but because he had a whole Richard Dreyfuss look (from the Jaws movie era) going on. After returning from the trip at 3:30 pm (12 hours after we started) I headed to the vendor area that was opening up at 4pm to work the binocular booth until the banquet at 6pm. Am I bushed? You betcha. Was it a great day? Totally. Did it make up for the Legionnaire incident? So, so very much!

I Got The Power

Thanks to Non Birding Bill and his mad shipping skills, I have a power chord for my Mac. Insert huge sigh of relief. Of course, now that I have it, many birders with Macs are arriving to the ABA Convention. Ah, life.

Now a bunch of us birders are kickin' it in the hotel lounge swapping bird stories. There are at least three bloggers here: Me, Wild Bird on the Fly, and JeffGyr. Word on the street is that Bill of the Birds is arriving tomorrow so the convention should be well covered on the bird blogs.

It's Good To Be The Bird Chick

I'm getting some great swag from the ABA Convention. When I checked in at registration I got a new bag (I'm sure Cinnamon will fit in this one too), a note pad in a waterproof cover, a puffin pin, a new name badge with pockets and a local shorebird guide.

I also got an advance reading copy of Julie's upcoming book Letters from Eden courtesy of the Houghton Mifflin booth. I'm really having to force myself to work and not read it. That totally makes up for all that went wrong yesterday!

If you're wondering if the book as cool as you think it is...yes! It's good to be the birdchick (okay, I'm done referring to myself in the third person now).

Yikes! Just realized that I am on an 11 hour pelagic field trip tomorrow before working the binocular booth. Vomit city, here I come! I should really rack up some life birds on this. I'm severely lacking sea birds.

Early ABA Report

I have maintained that the Utah landscape just isn’t ugly. Maine is giving Utah a run for its money. Doesn't the above photo just make you want to break out into Barry Manilow's Weekend in New England? Okay, the start to the ABA Convention his still a little wonky for me. Apparently, we had the hottest day in Maine in recent memory—it was 90 degrees yesterday and the Civic Center wasn’t prepared for that kind heat, so the air conditioning didn’t get kicked on in time. My boxes weren’t at the Civic Center for set up, because they were clearing out the Legionnaires' stuff (those guys are just causing problems all over the place). And one top of that, the power chord for my G4 broke and no one in nearby Maine carries Mac products and the soonest I can get one is on Tuesday. Blog entries may not be as frequent until I get the power adaptor.

I won’t be a complete whiny pants, my optimistic nature is kicking in. Even if the Legionnaire’s hadn’t caused a gum up with boxes being brought over, it would have been too hot to function in the Civic Center, so that was kind of good. And my power adaptor broke right where it connects to the Powerbook, at least it didn’t get stuck inside. I’ve also had some iPod issues the last week and the wonderful folks at birdPod are helping me out until I get my warranty repair squared away—they do have GREAT customer service. The birdPod program I'm using this week is different than the one I have--this one has photos. When I get more power for the computer, I'll describe it in more detail. It's pretty nifty.

Since set up couldn’t happen, I spent time at Acadia National Park. I did get two new birds yesterday! This funky looking duck: a common eider (that's the male on the left and if you look close in front of herring gull you should see three females laying ont the vegetation) and a black guillemot. Sweet! Acadia is a beautiful park, but I must say that places like North Dakota, Utah and northern Minnesota have completely spoiled me rotten. I'm so used to being the only person around. Acadia was jam packed with people on Sunday, and that irritated me. Didn’t they know that I wanted to listen to all those black-throated green warblers in peace? If I ever do that park again, it will be on a weekday. It reminded me so much of Duluth, only instead of having Lake Superior, it has the Atlantic Ocean. Could this view get any better? It actually did, while I was taking it in, I heard the call of a wood thrush echoing up followed periodically by a winter wren. Nice.

This is a cliff with a peregrine falcon aerie. Some of the young birds were fledging that day. They are in the photo, just so high up, you can't see them. Really, trust me, they are there.

Not much to report gossip wise yet—although, during dinner at a fine establishment called Captain Nick’s I noticed two birders sit at a table diagonally behind us. One of them had a shirt that showed a trogon—that’s how I knew it was a birder. Mr. Trogon Shirt was trying to get his paper wrapping off his straw. He kept blowing and blowing but the paper wouldn’t budge. He finally blew with all his might and it sailed off the straw and narrowly missed hitting a boy in the back of the head at a neighboring table. He and his dinner companion giggled and he looked to see if anyone noticed. He caught my eye and I gave him a thumbs up.

 

First Blood at the Bird Store

A little before 5pm today, Melissa called me to the back door and asked if I had my good binoculars (pish-sha, did I have my good binoculars--what kind of birdchick would I be without them?). There was a Cooper's hawk that had just grabbed something from the feeder...and it was still alive. Melissa and I tried with our binos to identify the prey being killed and left poor Denny to tend to the customers on his own. The Coop's was an immature bird probably fairly fresh from the nest and seemed confused and surprised that it not only had hold of something, but also how to keep it from moving. Every time the hawk lowered it's head to pluck feathers, the bird in its talons fluttered and tried to peck the hawk's face.

I often ponder how I would like to be killed if I were prey. As much as I love accipiters I think that would be the worst way to go. They have skinny little legs and thus do not have the squeezing and crushing power a great-horned owl or red-tailed hawk do. Cooper's seem to turn their feet into fast little squeezing devices so it almost looks like your being pricked to death by a sewing machine. If I had my choice, I think a peregrine falcon would be the best way to die. They dive at you at incredible speeds so as soon as they hit you, you would die or at worst be knocked out. When they have you in their talons on the ground, they snap your neck--you're nice and dead when they start to eat you. Accipiters start eating whether you're dead or alive, not so much fun.

Anyway, the prey finally died and the young Coops seemed to be at a loss as to what to do next. It started watching all the red-winged blackbirds and goldfinches mobbing it, still stimulated for a hunt. It would start to move and then realized that it was holding something and stay for a second. Then it started to preen it's feathers. Eventually, Denny had a chance to come out to watch and we all speculated what the prey item might be. I thought it looked large and had a white chest and speculated it was one of the you phoebes that are hanging around. Melissa thought maybe a cardinal or mourning dove. Denny thought it was a house sparrow. It looked too large to me, but some crows flew in to feed without noticing the hawk and the Coops was noticeable smaller than the crows, indicating that it was a male and that the prey was not as large as I thought it was.

Once we were sure the prey was dead, we started to invite customers back to look at hawk (you never know how people feel about the food chain) and they were pretty excited to see it. It was time for Denny to leave but his car was near the hawk and he didn't want to flush it off its prey. I pointed out that the young Coops had left the prey on a branch and was preening a couple of feet away from it so it probably wasn't that hungry. Denny went to his car which was parked near the Coops--the bird didn't flush! We thought for sure that when Denny drove away, that the hawk would flush. Denny drove by and the hawk stayed. Denny turned to look at me, shrugged in disbelief and continued home.

Melissa was leaving next and she has a big old mini van, surely that would flush the young Coops. No.

At 6pm when it was time to close the store, the hawk started eating in earnest plucking feathers everywhere. I closed the door and periodically watched the hawk. When I had the store secured, I noticed the hawk was gone. I thought I would go out to see if the bird had left any evidence of what it ate. When I approached the feeding area, the hawk flew up off of the ground and perched. It must have dropped the prey and continued eating it on the ground. I was ten feet from the hawk and took the photo at the beginning of this entry. Note that the hawk is sitting on one foot meaning it was completely relaxed and not bothered by me a bit. I snapped some photos and went back into the store. After another ten minutes, the Coops flew off. I went out hoping to find some carnage to investigate but found very few clues as to the hawk's meal--it ate almost everything.

Based on the bird's behavior and tolerance of humans, I couldn't help but wonder if this was the bird's first official kill? I did manage to find a couple feathers and thanks to my new Bird Tracks and Signs Book that I just bought, I was able to enjoy studying the few feathers I found. The feather on the left has two creases along the shaft. That is where the hawk had placed it's bill when plucking the feather out. Notice the punctures on the plumage of the feather on the right? Those were probably made by the bill while plucking as well. I compared the feathers, with feathers in the book and it looks like Denny was correct, it did eat a house sparrow.

ABA Field Trip

The bird trip that I signed up for the ABA Convention really delivered the birds. Although, I had never birded this area so most of the birds we saw were lifers and I was easy to please. The redstarts, bridled titmice, hepatic tanagers, and sulpher-bellied flycatchers were cool, but I'm a raptor chick at heart so Bill Thompson helping me get a lifer zone-tailed hawk was a high fiving moment and to cap off the trip our leader Al Hays drove by an area and got us a surprise look at a really cool adult gray hawk.

We had one Funny Guy on our trip (a true gentleman from Kentucky who for the life of me I can't remember his name) and I am incredibly indebted to him for the loan of toilet paper when we came to a horrifically dirty port-a-potty. At one point, someone in our group shouted, "Trogon just flew over the road!" We all darted back ready to aim our binoculars towards the bird. Movement to our left, a bird popped up into the higher branches of tree, we froze and discreetly tried to see what it was, was it a trogon, could it possibly...no! I was some blasted flycatcher. The group laughed at itself for freezing in unison and carefully turning towards the would be trogon that ended up being a flycatcher of some sort. Funny Guy grabbed his chest a la Fred Sanford shouting, "Oh, Elizabeth, it's the big one."

The highlight of the day were hummingbirds, which I was surprising more interested in than I anticipated. We even managed a hummingbird rescue of sorts. While birding along a road near where we had parked our leader was trying to pish out some birds. We all noticed a metallic chip call but couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from. After much searching I found a hummingbird nest (a first for me) and we speculated if there was a chick inside chipping. The rest of our group was trying to find the nest and as many know, it's hard enough just trying to describe where a small brown bird is, a nest the size of a walnut is even harder. Some members of the group just could not find the nest to save their life, so Funny Guy announced he had a fool proof way of finding a nest. As the members quickly gathered around him, Funny Guy gasped. At his toe was a teeny tiny hummingbird chick (pictured above), on the ground directly under the nest. How we didn't step on it as we were milling about looking for the nest, I will never know. The chick was the bird making the metallic chip note that we had been trying to figure out.

Of course my raptor rescue mode kicked in and I came up with what I thought was a brilliant plan of driving over our van directly under the nest, someone climbing on top of it and placing the chick back in the nest. Our field trip leader would have none of it. I'm sure there was a liability issue, but the chick's peeping set off my maternal hormones (curse anthropomorphism and everything it stands for) and I just wanted to help it. The trip leader made an attempt at that's the way nature is but I tried to reason that wouldn't it make a great story that one of the field trip groups at the ABA Convention helped a broad-tailed hummingbird chick back in the nest. It was clearly too young to be out of the nest, the flight feathers hadn't developed yet so it was not a matter of early fledging. I didn't see anything like feather mites so didn't see the harm in putting it back in. Alas, the trip leader would have none of it.

I placed the chick on a rock in the shade and I did see a hummingbird fly over in its direction so it was noticed, hopefully by the female that was feeding it. We continued on with our trip when a truck from Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative, Inc. pulled up. I flashed a smile and they pulled over and asked about the birds we were seeing. I asked if they would happen to have a ladder as there was a hummingbird chick a little ways back that needed to be put back in the nest and that all we needed was something about as tall as their vehicle for someone to stand on to get it back in the nest. They didn't have a ladder but were happy to lend us the use of their truck. The gentlemen backed their truck up right under the nest, and one of the tallest members in our group, Dave Muret of Grove, OK (right) climbed on top of the cab was able to grab the branch pull it down and drop the hummingbird chick back into the nest. It was a wonderful group effort (photo of rescue group).

I have struggled the last twenty four hours whether to include the actual ending to this tale, because it seems so perfect to end it there. However, I stick to my motto of putting things in this blog that I would find interesting and the actual end of the story would definitely be something that I would want to read.

After we finished our hike and were returning to the parking area we discovered that the chick fell out of the nest again and got crushed. Here is a prime example of nature weeding out the ones that aren't going to survive. I was talking with Bill Thompson and Pretty Boy Bouton about what would have caused this and it could have been the nest wasn't properly built or that ants or mites were all over in the nest making in uncomfortable for the chick forcing it to get out of the nest. Who knows. I thought of all the times I have told customers who are upset about hawks flying in for birds at the feeder or about nests that various predators had eaten in their yards, about how that is the way nature works and how nature can be cruel but that's how it ensures the strongest and best will survive. I hate it when I forget to follow my own advice. Well, we gave it the old college try and nature gave the final decision.

So, What Exactly Happens At Bird Conventions?

And people think birders don't know how to get down and have a good time. We have our own fun. That is not to say we don't have time for stimulating conversation about pressing bird conservation issues and the finer points of gull id and that sort of talk but after a day of getting up at unnaturally early hours to watch some great birds we like to unwind! Now that I think about it, there was quite a bit of singing going on. Jeff Bouton of Leica Optics kept trying to sing snippets of The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkle and Sheri Williamson and Tom Wood were singing a version of the song I'll Fly Away but with a birding theme. Both sang it and was just lovely. Sheri has a beautiful throaty voice that blended well with Tom. I tried to maintain some decorum by sticking to Barry Manilow songs, although I did come up with the idea of singing American Woman, but changing it to American Bittern. However, Sheri came up with a better idea of chaining it to American Wigeon so that way you could make the song into a lament of really wanting a Eurasian Wigeon...I know, I know you're thinking of that line Judd Nelson had in The Breakfast Club, "Demented and sad, but social."

I think I managed to meet Scott Weidensaul (pictured right) without scaring the dickens out of him. He was incredibly gracious and nice and I learned that he has a new book coming out in the fall. I'm really bummed that I'm going to miss his speech since I have to go back to the bird store but few minutes just shooting the breeze was pretty darned cool. He kissed my hand at the end of the evening--in a very courtly and gentlemanly way, not like a smarmy guy making a move. I think it will be at least 72 hours before I begin to think about washing that hand.
I got the coolest thing from Bill Thompson (pictured left--that must have been taken during one of the few thoughtful birding discussions we had about upper tail coverts) He has a band and he burned me a CD. They are called the Swinging Orangutans and his talented artist/writer wife Julie Zickefoose is on there too.

Wow, looking through all these photos I realized that I need to update my author sighting page, I got a few lifers this weekend with Sheri Williamson and Tom Wood and I can change Weidensaul's status from heard only to actually seen.

I've gone to my share of conventions, but I'm thinking that this ABA Convention was the best ever. It was almost as good as getting an adult female goshawk in the nets at the hawk blind.

Disapproving Horny Toad

Disapproving animals follow me where ever I go.

Word on the street was that someone was going to be at the ABA Convention protesting the validity of the ivory-billed woodpecker sighting bringing proof and a speech outlining all the problems with the sighting. No one has done any such thing yet, although I did overhear a very prominent birder and author say, "I have seen better footage of Big Foot."

Hmmmm.