Crowning Achievement

There are all sorts of birders out there.  One of the things I miss about New England Birding is the cold winds of shorebirding. Gusts of near zero or subzero winds while you are trying to count the dunlins and turnstones really made winter special.  Here in Georgia, Winter birding is different.  There are warm days and lots of sunshine and no subzero gusts.  I spent some time with a new friend enjoying her yard.  Even though it was raining, the birds were out in force.  In particular there was an awesome Orange Crowned Warbler and Ruby Crowned Kinglet.  The Rain made their Crowns very visible.

Some people have describe the Orange Crowned Warbler as our dullest most unremarkable Warbler and some of that stems from the fact that the OCWA hides its crown almost all of the time.  Yet, on this rainy day, the crown of the OCWA was barely visible.  Making it a real treat to see!  While I miss the cold wind, I think these Georgia summers have some exciting parts as well! Until the next time!

OCWA with hints of Orange in the Crown

And enjoying some Suet

A rain soaked RCKI

More on the OCWA - Link here

Wild Bird Wednesday - Link here

Cedar Waxwings

The Cedar Waxwing is one of the most striking birds that I got to see.  While they are much more common that their cousins, the Bohemian Waxwing, Cedar Waxwings are fascinating and social birds to watch.  As I approached the grouping that I photographed below.  They were startled by my presence.  To be fair, I was startled by them as well.  They, unlike me, flew up out the cedars.  Where I had seen 3 or 4, 15 popped out of 3 different cedars.  They zoomed around the cedars looking, presumably for another place to hide from me.

I got lucky.  The street where the cedars were was an over populated, overbuilt street leading to the beach and the waxwings landed back in the first cedars.  Lucky for me.  But I thought about the poor waxwings.  They just wanted to be safe.  What if instead of a birder, I was a car?  A cat?  Another predator?  The Waxwings probably would fly off of course but to what end.  I guess what I am talking about is habitat and birds.  This is something that has preoccupied me lately and something I hope to write about in the future with a more detailed idea.  In the mean time, enjoy pictures of waxwings!

Wind so strong it blew the feathers in the face of the waxwing

Two Pictures of Cedar Waxwings (C) me 

2013 Year List
Brown Headed Cowbird

The Joys of Gulls

Gulls still remain a mystery to me.  And several other people in fact.  Due to the recovery efforts from the recent Blizzard, I am missing out on a Gull Class.  While the glamours of migration bring in different Warblers and raptors is quite alluring, Gulls don't offer any flashy colors or amazing habitats like some warblers and other birds do.  Lush forests to find warblers versus landfills to find Gulls.  In any case, I am excited about going gulling this weekend.  I wish that I was going to be attending the class as well but alas, such is life.

I am going to keep this post short since I've have so many pictures!

 2 Gulls hanging out in a local pond (C)

Western Gulls roosting above the Seattle Aquarium (C)

 A Black Headed Gull (C)

A Laughing Gull (C) Me

Bonaparte Gull hanging near the rocks (c) me

A Northern Cardinal (c) Me

2013 Year List: 76 (123 to go!)

Notable Additions:

Chipping Sparrow

American Goldfinch

Barnacle Goose - Found!!

With Saturday free and my dog relaxed and in bed sleeping, I decided to spend the day out chasing rarities and even ventured to New Jersey to chase a couple of very rare birds.  As the readers of this blog will know, the Barnacle Goose has been a bird that I've spent many hours looking for the Barnacle Goose.  I am now happy to say that after days of staring at hordes of Canada Geese, I can now say that I've finally seen my first Barnacle Goose!  I showed up at a dam pond in New Rochelle, NY where there were rumors of one.  By rumors I mean eBird reports.  The Park where I found the Barnacle Goose was full of birds, 2 Pileated Woodpeckers, Red-Bellied WPs, Gulls, Chickadees, and Cardinals.  When I finally got to the pond, I was confronted by a Great Black Backed Gull eating the remains of a Canada Goose, a couple of Hooded Mergansers, and

The other rarity I chased was a Northern Lapwing in New Jersey.  While the Birders were out in force, finding the Lapwings was no easy task.  Before we found them, we found Blue Jays, Sandhill Cranes, and some aggressive Turkey Vultures.  It was the aggressive Turkey Vultures that rustled up the Lapwings.  There were about 3 of them far in the back of the field hanging out with some killdeer.  It was a great day to be out and about and to catch all those rarities was quite a treat!  Anyway, go outside and see some birds!

A Great Black Back Gull eating the leftovers of a Canada Goose (C) Me

A Pileated Woodpecker (C) Me

The Found Barnacle Goose (C) Me

2013 List: 73 (127 to go!)

Notable Additions:

Northern Lapwing (Lifer)

Barnacle Goose (Lifer)

Bonaparte's Gull
Merlin
Sandhill Crane

Life List: 258 (42 to go!)

February, More Feeder and The Brown Creeper

So once again, home improvement thwarted any adventurous birding outings.  I did however managed to take a walk around my local neighborhood.  There were a ton of birds out despite the late hour and the biggest surprise was a Yellow-Rumped Warbler.  They had disappeared for a few weeks and I was excited to see them again.  I was happy to walk around despite the cold.  Ducks and swans were hard to ID as the ice-free part of the local lake was too far and the sparrows were all too happy to stay beneath the brush cover.  But I managed a few Nuthatches of both local kinds and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker.  My favorite sighting of the day was a Brown Creeper though.  I love these birds.  Their camouflage is unique and their presence is always fun.  While they lack an elegant flight pattern, I do love the way the seem to glop on to any tree in search of food.  Always makes for a good time!  So I post a picture of a Brown Creeper for your weekly Blog post!  Home Renovations are taking a break so birding is back on!  WHoo hoo!

Brown Creeper (C) Alan Vernon

2013 Year List: 64
Newest Addition: Yellow-Rumped Warbler (Myrtle's)

Red Knots and Redpolls

Too bad you can't call birds over like in the Red Rover game.   Red Rover, Red Rover, Hoary Redpoll, come on over!  It doesn't really work like that.  It doesn't work like that at all.  The search for the Hoary Redpoll began and ended with my feet in the snow.  For a couple of weeks of now, a Hoary Redpoll has been visiting a local feeder.  So, i woke up and headed over.  After an hour and a half of standing in the snow, I had to call it quits.  My feet were cold, my toes were numb and my blood was probably at the early stages of icing.  So without any sign of any more than 2 Common Redpolls at a time, I called it quits and went in search of another bandit.

Beach, wind and shore birds.... lots of shore birds.  What do you do when you are face to face with a single digit wind chill and hundreds of similar looking peeps?  You call it a good day and take out your scope for a good time.  The cold melted away and the wind was stayed with a bounty of chap stick as a looked over Dunlins, Plovers and Turnstones.  The challenge was to judge the legs, beak and coloration all while trying to count the birds!  Sadly, I dipped out the red knot but that doesn't mean I am not going to go out looking for it again... Maybe I'll try the red rover thing with the red knot and redpolls...

The Hoary Redpoll (C) Juho Holmi from Finland

The Red Knot (C) DickDaniels http://carolinabirds.org/

2013 Year List:

62 (138 to go!)

Highlights:

Common Redpoll

Northern Harrier

American Robin

Hooded Merganser

Life List:

256 (44 to go!)

2013!! and more Owls...

I've done a lot of thinking about my goals for 2013.  Last year, I set a goal of adding a 100 birds to my life list and having a year list of 200 long.  Well, I beat both since I got 254 for the year and about 251 for the year.  A nice padding for the crossing the bar.  I was thinking that for 2013 I would set a couple of different goals, which I will outline below:

Life List Goal at 300
I recognize that this may be the easiest goal to meet but given that I can't go chase every new rarity, I think it is good to be modest while still setting a high goal.

Year List Goal at 200
This is a repeat of my goal last year.

I am also going to set some very specific goals:

I want to do at least 2 pelagic trips.  Note that I am and will be counting Whale Watching trips (which my wife loves) as such trips.

I am also targeting a few specific birds: Parastic Jaeger, Barnacle Goose, Canada Warbler, Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher and a Bobolink.  While a interesting mix to be sure, these are just birds that I would like to see!

Some of you will notice that Northern Saw-Whet isn't on the list.  That's because I got it early this year!  What a Great pick up!  Some Birders helped me out and I am so excited to be able to see this sweet, yet vicious bird of prey.  Click the Photo below for a bigger shot!

2013 Birds: 24 (176 to go!)
Life List: 255 (45 to go!

Christmas Life Bird

So, I decided to take a break from owling (for now) and went looking for some shore birds.  I visited some local ponds after X-mas breakfast.  I was looking for a local Wilson's Snipe that had been reported.  I never had much luck with birds like Snipes and Woodcocks.  I got my first Woodcock earlier in the fall and I was excited that the prospect of another worth ducking out of some holiday activities to see the Snipe.  (video below)  I took my dad out with me and he's a beginning birder.  So we talked a bit as we searched and scanned the grasses along the pond.  We found nothing at first, but decided to walk around the park to see what we could find.  Of course at that moment the Snipe flys off!  He's was right below us the whole time.  Fortunately, I was able to re-locate him and take the video below.  The wind was cold that day, but it was worth it to get this bird.

I ended 2012 with a good year in birding.  My life list topped out at 254 and I am looking forward to improving my skills and getting to enjoy more of nature.  I'll have another post on about my 2013 goals.  So for the moment, enjoy scenes from the life of a Wilson's Snipe!

Owling...

The Holidays are coming and going and I am spending my time outside owling of course.  Once again, I am being met with failure, however, I am starting to get closer at identifying owl habitat and evidence of owls.  While the other day, I did manage to hear a Eastern Screech Owl, I am continuing my quest to find owls in the wild.  At the end of the day, I am enjoying the challenge.  Of course, I am stuck between owling and and shorebirding.  But that's a post for another day

Happy holidays to all!

White Wash on a Cedar in Connecticut (C) Mine

2012 List:
251 (eastern screech owl and white ibis)

A Busy Busy Weekend

So this weekend was filled with 2 great and wonderful birding trips. One River Cruise and one trip to Rhode Island. Both Trips yielded some great finds and even a few life birds. I've attached a few photos of the snowy owl. I was thrilled to see it. In fact, I half expected that what I saw was a gull and not a Snowy. But there she was. and she was hanging out with some Harlequin Ducks. What a great day to be outside and a birder. While I am ready for winter to be over, I am excited that there are still great birds to find out there. This is short but I'll be back. There are a few ducks to still get out there and the outings during the week will be spent trying to get them. Good birding to you all!


Outing #12
Bald Eagle
Great Cormorant

Outing #13
Black Scoter
Canvasback
Harlequin Duck LIFE BIRD!
Lesser Scaup
Snowy Owl LIFE BIRD!
Surf Scoter

2012 Total: 61

A Hairy Friend

So, while Daylight continues to linger and linger, I will continue to take advantage and go birding after work. Today, I stopped by a heavily wooded pond. One of the many things I love about birding is that in one moment there can be pure silence but if you are willing to give up a little time, then you can see a birds and all sorts of life pop up before you. Today was that sort of day. Nothing and then little flutters of birds here and there. The only new bird for 2012 was a Hairy Woodpecker. I did see some Red-Breasted Mergansers too. The biggest development of the day was 2 mystery birds. One was very very small and was alone flying from branch to branch and another was fair large, gray back about the size of a herring gull but also flying branch to branch. Neither were around long enough for me to get a positive ID and both flew into the sunlight. Guess I will have a reason to go back and look around some more! In the meantime, Here are the year totals and a picture I took of a Hairy WP.

Outing #9
Hairy Woodpecker

2012 Total: 49

Another Wild Goose Chase

So today saw me undertake another wild goose chase. Today's target bird was a Pink-footed Goose. A goose that is fairly common in Greenland and Great Britain but extremely rare bird in North America. The word on the street (by which I mean blogs, emails and listservs) was that the target bird was hanging out with a huge flock of Canada Geese. So after a few minutes of driving around, we found the flock, a flock that was over 200 Canada Geese large! Well, after standing slack jawed, i picked up my binoculars and got to looking. I must have looked over each goose about 5 times. It getting to know this flock so well that I could tell you who was walking where and who had honked at who. Then, there it was. I figured out that I was with the wrong flock. A couple of birders pointed me to the right flock. When I was with the right flock, I found the pink-footed goose. I'd like to tell there was a moment of revelation or that music and lights shone from the heavens when I found it. No such luck, instead, I found that I could not take my eyes off the bird. I beautiful goose and my first real rarity successfully chased down. A great addition to my life list and to my 2012 Year list! Well, here's to more birding!

Outing #4
Pink Footed Goose *LB
Mallard
Northern Mockingbird
Mute Swan

2012 Total 30

Another Visit to the Beach

Imagine being on the beach on a sunny day. No one else around. A whole beach to yourself. Now here's the catch, its only 40F outside. But still, this morning I had beach to myself. Saw some great birds and got a couple of new birds for 2012. Saw Ruddy Turnstones again, Sanderlings,and a Northern Harrier. The Harrier was hunting and riding the wind gusts. Red breasted Mergansers and other sea duck-like birds were around. I was hoping that there would be a harbor seal out there. I saw one last time i was out there but this time no luck. As I started to walk home, I realized I was not alone. There were about 10 other birders out and maybe 20 others, walking their dogs, themselves and a couple of park rangers. It was time to go home realizing that the park was in good hands. I was happy to see people out and about on this sunny winter day and I hope more and more people will take advantage of the parks and see the birds!

Outing #3:
Dunlin
Great Blue Heron
Northern Harrier
Red-Tailed Hawk
American Crow
Rock Pigeon
European Starling
Red-Breasted Merganser
Turkey Vulture
Yellow-Rumped Warbler

2012 Today: 26