Episode 3 - Digiscoping Techniques

   

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And here is episode three which includes a last minute cameo addition of a Lawrence's Warbler! How many bird shows do you know have one of those in an episode?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQDKYi3fhKY&feature=youtu.be

Clay and I also talk some photography techniques in this episode and remember, kids, birds shown in the first seven episodes have all been digiscoped by both Clay and me and are a clue to the series theme! If you correctly guess the series theme, you are entered into a drawing for a Swarovski spotting scope.

Be sure to check out the pages of our generous sponsors for this episode, especially if you saw something in the show you liked:

Swarovski Optik (the optics I've been using for years)

Princeton University Press (my favorite nature publisher and sign up for updates on their cook BirdGenie bird call identifier app that's coming)

BirdsEye Birding (the most useful bird finding apps available)

Please read over the contest rules before entering. All entries that deviate from the contest rules will be disqualified. The winner will be announced in the eighth episode airing on June 26, 2014.

To make sure you do not miss an episode, subscribe to the Birdchick YouTube Channel.

Contest Rules (To make sure you do not miss an episode, subscribe to the Birdchick YouTube Channel. )

1. All entries for the Swarovski STS spotting scope need to be emailed to digiscoping@birdchick.com and must include the answer, your first and last name, mailing address and phone number (in case I need to contact you regarding shipping).

2. You can guess the theme more than once, but only ONE correct entry per person will count in the drawing. (You should probably watch a few episodes before you guess).

3. All entries guessing the series theme must be received no later than 11:59pm Central Time on June 23, 2014.

4. The winner of the Swarovski spotting scope will be chosen at random and the decision of the judges is final.

Lawrence's Warbler

I took a quick trip down to Indianapolis to visit my family. On the way, I made a stop at Mr. Neil's and got a big surprise. I went to the spot where blue-winged warblers have nested in the past and sure enough heard the familiar 2 note, buzzy call of a blue-wing. I was excited to see one, but when I got it in my binoculars I was surprised to see something golden-winged warbler-ish...it was a hybrid!

This is a Lawrence's warbler which is some sort of mix of blue-winged warbler and golden-winged warbler. These two species are known to hybridize, the more familiar hybrid is the Brewster's warbler. This bird really threw me for a loop because it sounded so much like a blue-winged warbler. Here's a video so you can hear what it sounded like (there's also a common yellowthroat singing in the background):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XffAG983LY&feature=youtu.be

I was kicking myself that I didn't wander the trail for bird watching until so late in the evening, I wished I had better light. I took both the photo and video with my iPhone through my scope...incidentally, I used the Meopix iScoping Adaptor to secure my iPhone to my spotting scope...more on that later.

I found an interesting article by by David Bonter and Irby Lovette on these two hybrids. It reads, "The most common hybrid form is known as a "Brewster's" warbler; the rarer form is known as a "Lawrence's" warbler. We currently believe that a "Lawrence's" warbler results when two "Brewster's" warblers mate, or when a "Brewster's" warbler backcrosses with one of its parent species, but research into the genetics of hybridization between these species is underway and many questions remain unanswered."

I haven't paid attention to this spot in the last few years because of my work and travel schedule. Did a golden-winged warbler mix it up with a blue-winged warbler? I can't imagine this bird coming to the exact territory where a blue-winged has nested in the past unless it hatched here. One thing is for sure, I'll be checking it more closely this year.

Here's a an article from the American Birding Association's Birding about the hybrids with lots of great photos.

 

 

What Happens When North America's Rarest Warbler Shows Up At A Bird Festival

There really aren't many more life birds I can get in the Eastern US. Sure, there are some birds I saw when I was a kid that I'd like to see again, but for the most part, I can count on one hand the species I need to get from this part of the US. One of those is the Kirtland's warbler, which is a possibility at the Biggest Week In North American Birding, but I wasn't going to hold my breath. Wednesday morning, still in a sleepy haze, desperately hoping the caffeine from my coffee would finally jump start my metabolism, I made my way to the quieter east end of the Magee Marsh boardwalk. I noticed a small cluster of people up ahead, one of them turned around and I recognized Mike Watson from BIRDQUEST and he asked, "Hey, Shaz, didn't you need a Kirtland's warbler? It's right here."

To which I replied something to the effect of, "Get the frak out of town!"

I dashed over and after some jockeying for position, Mike got me on it.  He wisely said, "Here, hand me your scope, just get you bins on it."

With a rare bird like this that is endangered and a lifer, I wanted to get a great look at it before I attempted digiscoping.

The above photo of the Kirtland's warbler is by Mike Watson and that's the bird he showed me and pretty much what I saw in my Swarovski ELs.  There it is, folks, North America's rares warbler. There were only about 15 of us on it and immediately the stories were buzzing. The bird was found by a couple visiting the marsh for the first time and one of them said, "Huh, is this a magnolia warbler?"

Bobby Harrison happened to be there, took a look and said something to the effect of, "Holy crap, no, that's a Kirtland's."

This is one of the few festivals where Twitter is being used as much as walkie talkies to spread the word about birds seen on the board walk. People can either follow the @BiggestWeek feed or the hash tag #BiggestWeek for bird updates. Within minutes of tweeting, birders were sprinting towards us.  Alas, the Kirtland's flew across the canal and Mike and I tried to follow it but couldn't keep our bins on it.  I started getting the sinking feeling of, "Danger, Will Robinson," as the crowds formed on either side of me on the boardwalk.  I'm claustrophobic in crowds and I need to see an exit strategy to feel safe...I was not getting it. Sarding birding was happening and that's not my style.

Like a salmon going up stream to spawn, I darted and dodged my way to a boardwalk intersection and climbed up on the wooden railing, watching the hoard assemble.  This isn't even half the crowd, this is just what was visible from my vantage point. The crowd anxiously awaited another glimpse of this target bird and then over the walkie talkie came the report that the warbler was heard out in the field.

And as quickly as the birders assembled, they herded towards the new report. Birders were fast walking/running to get to the field.

As people were texted, tweeted, emailed, facebooked and called, more cars arrived to get on the bird.

The group spread out, desperate to hear the song of the Kirtland's. Would it be found again? I was happy I got to see it, but it's not that much fun to be the person to say, "Oh, yeah, Kirtland's, I got that like 15 minutes ago," while 400 people kink their necks for a glimpse.

I decided to go back to the boardwalk and digiscope other birds. I just lining up on a really sweet mourning warbler when my buddy Clay called and said, "Get your butt back out here, you can totally digiscope this thing, we're on it!"

And I went back to the field (I have to say, this is one of the few bird festivals where I've lost weight from darting back and forth so much on the boardwalk).

The hoard of birders marks the spot! I had to giggle when I came out and watched the crowd, it really was like a swarm of bees, especially the way the crowd moved and clustered together once they were back on the Kirtland's warbler.  I immediately found my buddy Clay and started scanning the trees.  In the center of the crowd was the American Birding Association president Jeff Gordon, using his booming voice to call out instructions to find the bird. Around him you could hear excited squeals of, "I got him!" or still desperate, "Where is he, where is heeeeee?" It seemed so appropriate to have our country's club president leading the way on this rare bird.

Clay and I tried to train our scopes on the Kirtland's and had people line up behind us and we'd dodge to the side while they would jump in for a glimpse.  As other people shared their scopes, I took the opportunity to digiscope the warbler. And as great as I am getting at using my iPhone for digiscoping birds, I didn't want to play around and went straight to my SLR to get photos.  That my best and fastest technique and the bird was high and far, I wanted all the power I could get my fingers on to get a souvenir shot of this awesome life bird.

Not bad considering how far away the bird was.  I can't believe I freaking digiscoped a Kirtland's warbler surrounded by 500 people.

The rest of the day was spent regaling each other with how we finally got on the bird. Word soon spread that while we were out in the field, another Kirtland's was heard.  Jeff Gordon and others speculated that there may have been more than one.

Mike and I ran into each other and we compared photos of our birds, since he got a photo of the one close and low on the boardwalk and I got my photo with the one high out on the trees.  Here's a comparison:

My photo is on the left and Mike's photo is on the right.  The streaking appears to be slightly different, especially on the lower streak. Kinda looks like there was more than one male Kirtland's at the festival.

Again, I'm not one for huge crowds, but it was a blast being in the center of that melee and feeling the energy and excitement. It was a full on twitch as British birders would call it.

And I would like everyone to take notice that I avoided using the eye roll inducing phrase, "Birders flocked to the Kirtland's warbler." News media, please take note. That sort of headline is dead and used to death.

Biggest Week In American Birding

So if you've been following my Twitter feed, you know I'm at something referred to as the Biggest Week, it's a big ole' honkin' bird festival in northern Ohio at Magee Marsh.  It bills itself as the "Warbler Capital Of The World."

I have seen quite a few warblers, but not enough yet to call it the warbler capital of the word...yet.  Warbling Vireo Capital Of The World is my current title for it--these dudes are all over the place.  That's one in the above photo.  I think the winds haven't been in our favor so far, so we're not getting the numbers of warblers dripping low off the trees that Ohio birders speak of with reverence, but I'm sure it's coming soon.

It's a cool festival though, there are warblers all around. The first bird I got when I stepped out of my rental vehicle was a chestnut-sided warbler (the bird above). It's not the best photo, I got that with my iPhone and spotting scope.  As a matter of fact, all of the photos in this post were done with my iPhone.  I thought I would challenge myself to only go out with my iPhone for a few days to see what I could do digiscoping wise if I left my SLR in my hotel room.  Some of the results are okay, but some have really surprised me.

Here's a yellow warbler, they're all over the Magee Marsh Boardwalk.

Here's my favorite warbler photo so far of a Cape May warbler and yes, I got this shot with my iPhone and Swarovksi spotting scope.  Am I ready to leave my SLR home for good?

I have to admit, I was worried this festival was going to overwhelm me.  You mostly bird watch from a boardwalk through Magee Marsh and with hundreds of people that can be some sardine birding. I think being short gives me a natural aversion to crowds--I can't see over tall people and I really don't like standing in a place where I cannot see an exit strategy.  The west side of the boardwalk is jam packed with birders--some people really enjoy that. Not me.

However, if you are like me and would like some space, the east side of the board walk is for you.  There will be some clusters of birders but you can still get past and there are a ton of bird because warblers move around.  So many birders from all over are here, it's fun to run into people I know only via Twitter or old friends from festivals past. The camaraderie is 50% of the fun.

Leftover Horicon Marsh Photos

Hey, remember in May when I went to Horicon Marsh?  It's funny, I've always been the sort of blogger who puts stuff up as she goes, never one with a backlog of material but as the Internet has changed to interacting with people via Facebook and Twitter, I don't blog as much and now I have a glut of back posts and photos.  Last week on one of my bird surveys, I found a yellow-throated vireo, then a Tennessee warbler and even a yellow-rumped...a pang hit me--an early mixed flock?  Fall warbler migration! Noooooo!  Perhaps it was the long, slow cold spring (I wore gloves in June) but it seems like it was only two weeks ago that I was watching warblers like the above American redstart pop in through new leaves.

Horicon Marsh is an awesome place.  And if you are looking for a great place to stay and relax when not birding, I highly recommend the Audubon Inn in nearby Mayville, WI.  It's a lovely old huge hotel in the theme of John James Audubon--even some of the windows in the hotel have his paintings etched in them.  The rooms are lovely, the floors full of cozy common areas with books, buy my absolute favorite part with the hotel bar--the food was excellent and it made for some great people watching. It was a great place to get to know the local townsfolk and fun to watch their interactions and it had Internet access.

Below are some of the birds that I managed to digiscope while out an about Horicon Marsh:

Palm warbler.

Yellow-rumped warbler.

Black-necked stilt (part of a pair).

Common moorehen.

Eared grebe.

Forster's tern.

Sandhill cranes...caught in the middle of the cloacal kiss.

Sandhill cranes trying to pretend that I didn't just catch them in the middle of something.

 

 

Horicon Marsh Bird Festival Warblers & Songbirds

I did a bunch of traveling in May and haven't really had a chance to sit and breathe and really focus on the wonderful birding to be had.  It started with the Horicon Marsh Bird Festival in Wisconsin.  This is a smaller festival and forgoes some of the traditional things like name badges and packets for participants. It doesn't matter, this festival is run by local bird club and they truly love this marsh and know you will love it too.

Here's the view from the driveway to the visitor center of this vast wetland--you can't help but feel your birdy senses tingling when you approach that view. You can enjoy the marsh via car, hiking and canoe, but I spent most of my three days along Dike Rd which offered excellent views and digiscoping opportunities and the birds seemed to change by the hour during migration.  What you got at 10am may not be what you would get 2 hours later.

Since this area was a bit further south of me, I was able to run into migrants that had not reached the Twin Cities yet like the above rose-breasted grosbeak.  This was one of my last morning of birding, we were walking along Northern Road--a great place for spring warblers a little patch of trees among near the marsh.

Here's a very cooperative black-and-white warbler we found during our field trips.  If you've never seen one of these, they are a weird little warbler.  It has the warbler shape, but it's colored like a female downy woodpecker and creeps on the trunks of trees like a nuthatch or brown creeper.  What it lacks in color, it makes up for in interesting character.  We had a great warbler time until we found the following vexing warbler on Dike Road:

Ugh, I would expect this sort of dull warbler in the fall, but the spring??  We consulted several guides trying to figure this out and went into my default mode of digiscoping as many shots as I could to consult field guides later.  There was a male Cape May warbler nearby and I wondered if this was a first year female who had not gone into her breeding plumage yet.

I posted it on my Facebook wall and many more knowledgeable folks than I dull looking warblers said, "Pine warbler!" Even Kenn Kaufman said, "Incidentally, on p. 418 of my new KFG to Advanced Birding, there's an illustration of a bird very much like the one in your photo."  It's so handy having access to such knowledgeable folks on Facebook.  That new edition of Kenn's book is a very handy guide for someone who feels good about their yard birds and is ready to graduate to learning the difference between shorebirds, warblers, gulls and flycatchers.

Since the leaves weren't quite on the trees yet, it made finding the blindingly red scarlet tanager less of a challenge.  I love these birds and since I have such a great Swarovski Spotting Scope, I love to give people a chance to see this bird.  There was one woman who was hanging around in back and she tried looking through the scope but didn't see the bird.  As some of our group was moving along with another field trip leader, I made it my mission to get it for her.  I can tell when someone actually sees a bird in the scope and when someone tries to politely fake it (they don't want to be a burden to the rest of the group) but I told her to stick to me like glue and as soon as I left my eyepiece to get in there.  When I got the tanager in again, I should "Move, move, move," like a football coach, she jockeyed into position, there was a pause and then an unadulterated, "OH!"

I knew she had it then.  That's one of the things I really enjoy on field trips is hanging with the people who have trouble with a bird, even one that might be common for most and giving them a really good look.

More on Horicon later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warblers Eating Honey

I'm in a quandary with my beehives and my love of birds.

On my way out to the Horicon Marsh Bird Festival, I stopped at Mr. Neil's for a quick check of our new beehives and some birding.  The warblers have arrived and the cool weather has forced those who arrive early in migration to search for alternate sources of food.  Yellow-rumped warblers like these would prefer insects.  Far too cool and far too few available, so the enterprising early migrants explored the bird feeders.

Despite the fact that Baltimore orioles are in the area and singing, none came to the feeders.  Yellow-rumps gladly took advantage of the grape jelly.

The warblers even jockeyed for position at the suet feeder among the four species of woodpecker that normally feed here.

Pine warblers are also hitting the feeders.  Whereas the yellow-rumps go for the suet and jelly, the pine goes for sunflower hearts.  It will also go for the suet, but seems content to eat the seeds.

While I was working around the garage, I noticed Neil's groundskeeper Hans had put out some old bee frames.  We do this so the bees from active hives will fly in and clean out the old honey.  These frames were from the hives that died over the winter.  The bees found it.  While I was working around the garage, I noticed warbles hanging out in the area.  At first, I thought the warblers were after the live bees and even said allowed, "I know you're desperate for insects, but you're far too small for eating bees."

Then, right about dusk when the honeybees were all tucked in their hives for the day, I noticed the warblers on the frames, pecking at them.  The light was dim but thanks to the auto timer on my Nikon D40 I was able to digiscope a Nashville warbler and a yellow-rumped warbler on the frames.

Based on the holes in the frame it looked like the warblers were going for dead bees.  Some of the frames had capped larvae that never hatched, so I figured the warblers were after the protein of old squishy non-hatched larvae.  We had more frames of dead larvae and honey in the garage so I set more out.  I figured the warblers could clean out the larvae and the bees could clean out the honey and help get a head start on their hives for the season.

The next morning when I went out for some birding, I checked the frames, they were covered in warblers.  Above are two yellow-rumped warblers and one Nashville warbler.  These were a small cross-section of about two dozen warblers waiting in line to feed off of my old beehive frames.  There were at least four species in the flock, the above two and pine warblers and orange-crowned.  I didn't get photos of the other two species, but got plenty of shots of the feeding frenzy.

Here are four warblers on one frame.  As I took pictures and watched them feed, it became clear that old bee larvae was not the only sustenance they were after.  They were very certainly eating honey.  I had a moment of panic...should birds be eating honey?  Honeybees are a fairly new species to North America, they came over with the early settlers.  Warblers did not evolve with honeybees.  Could they safely process honey and still migrate?

As I watched them I noticed that they tugged and chipped at wax foundation too.  Is that safe?  I've seen honeybees that have built comb out in the open on a bare branch, I remember seeing some abandon ones in Arizona and Texas...perhaps warblers have had exposure to this.

The air was so cold and their food scarce, I didn't want to take this source of food away if they were still trying to load up for their journey north.  I couldn't find anything about it on the Internet other than not using honey as a means to make nectar.  I wanted to plant myself in front of the frames all day long see how many species of warbler would come in but I had to go.

I also noted that as the sun got higher in the sky and our honeybees became more active, the bees didn't tolerate the warblers in close proximity and chased them off.  A few warblers still came in for the bounty but not four on a frame like at dawn.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing but if the warblers figured honey out, no doubt other birds will and I don't know if they should.  We already had one casualty of a tufted titmouse getting covered in honey while it explored some of our dead beehives.  I'm going to have to seek out an avian nutritionist to find out if this is a safe thing to offer birds.  If it is, this may be a new way to enjoy birds and bees and a new product to offer at bird stores.

Are You Seeing Tiny Birds with Yellow Spots?

Today, I had a co-worker ask me, "Is it possible that I saw a bird called a dick-shizzle?" I don't think they were using Snoop Dog speak to talk birds, I think he mean dickcissel.  It is possible to see them, but it's a bit early, but in migration anything can happen.  He said that it had yellow on either side of its chest and yellow on top.  I knew exactly what he saw:

A yellow-rumped warlber. These early arriving warblers have already passed through the southern US but they're hitting Minnesota hard as they work they way north to their breeding grounds.  This is the time of year that I would expect them, but because we've had a cold snap with rain and snow, they are having a challenging time finding food, part of the risk of an early return.  They eat insects, but they are scarce, they'll go for seeds, buds and fruit.  You might even see them flitting around the bird feeder going for suet or sunflower seeds.

This bird has a couple of different names, one is "Butter Butt" because it looks like there's a pat of butter on their rumps, the other is "Myrtle Warbler" because there are two different types of yellow rumps, an eastern version (the Myrtle) and a western version (the Auduobn's).

They're very noticeable as they dart around tree branches and flit around on the ground flashing periodic patches of yellow.  Their call note in flocks almost sounds like a kiss, you may have noticed it while walking around your neighborhood.

Yellow-rumps are the last warblers to leave in the fall and the first to arrive in spring.  These tiny, hardy birds are the warning that all those crazy colored warblers that birders go ga ga for are about to arrive.  Enjoy them while they last.