Category Archives: Birds

Birds, Books, J's Favorites, Wanderings

Rails and other birds I can’t identify

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So, the other day at St. Marks NWR, I took the not-awful photo of a rail you see above.

Do you think I know what kind of rail it is?

Do you?

Considering that I’m sitting here surrounded by every single field guide I own, don’t you think I ought to be able to figure it out?!?

I can at least narrow it down, I think, but beyond that I get confused in a mess of details that I can’t decipher. The Peterson’s makes me certain it’s a Virginia; the National Geographic Guide convinces me it’s a Clapper of the Gulf Coast race scottii because of the rich cinnamon underparts; Sibley contradicts this by saying it’s the Virginia that’s bright reddish below and the Gulf Coast Clapper whose breast and foreneck are a drab gray. Crossley shows me a bunch of pretty photos, any one of which I can convince myself is this bird, and suggests that size and habitat are the only effective means of telling one from the others. The Stokes suggest King.

What the heck!

I get similarly paralyzed by certain gulls, sparrows and peeps. For a long time, I couldn’t stand terns and many shorebirds; I just couldn’t “get” what everybody else was able to see so easily.

All you snarky birders who admonish newbies to “buy a field guide and use it” simply don’t understand people like me. I’m often amazed by birding buddies who can rattle off the field marks of random birds, at will. I can not do that, ever. Even the most familiar of birds stymies any effort on my part to describe it beyond broad strokes of color and relative shape. Sometimes, I think that I see birds the way that Charley Harper paints them.

Thinking about this, coupled with the recent popularity of left-brain vs. right-brain quizzes on FB (I scored a ridiculous 87% in favor of right-brained thinking) made me wonder if this might explain the confusion and mystery I feel about IDing birds by field marks. It turns out that I’m not the only person this idea has occurred to. I was glad to find this article, published a while back on the ABA blog, which makes the argument for left-brained and right-brained birders. While the author was speaking in a different context (left-brained birders being the “listers” and right-brained birders being the “watchers”) I think his distinction between the two can just as easily be extrapolated to explain why field guides are not equally useful for all birders, and maybe, especially, not for all beginners. Maybe.

When I was a beginner, I couldn’t tell a tern from a gull, never mind which tern or what gull. What changed that for me was not having field guides thrust in my face over and over by helpful birders. It was the most patient teacher of all: time. Summer after summer spent at the beach and endless hours “wasted” enjoying terns just going about their lives at the ocean’s edge taught me how to distinguish them from the other birds that make the shore their home. Summers spent watching over Least Tern colonies taught me to distinguish them from the others of their kind. Nowadays, I can know a Least Tern from a Common simply by the level of its shrieking and the speed of its shadow as it passes overhead. Knowing Leasts this well makes the others easy, because it provides a starting point from which to distinguish them from the others. But ask me what color a Least’s legs are and you’ll draw a blank stare in reply.

I think the difficulty with many of the “hard” birds is that we simply don’t see them often enough to really experience them. Or in the case of gulls, I simply don’t care enough, yet, to learn them apart.

: )

When Jay and I lead beginning bird walks together, he often tells the story of his birding mentor and how she was so patient with him in learning the varied calls of the Carolina Wren. No matter how many times he asked, she replied patiently, “That’s a Carolina Wren!” A field guide in his face would have done little good; a patient teacher and experience are what counts. (I still have to do this for him with Catbirds!)

So… back to my questionable rail. I have probably half a dozen photos of vaguely similar birds that I’ve taken over the years. I’ve never correctly ID’d any of them, and that frustrates me, but I like to think that I’m gathering experience with these elusive birds and one day soon, I’ll “get” them and be able to review those old photos and know, finally, what I’m seeing.

Or maybe somebody out there will tell me…

Birds, I like to make lists, iPhone snaps, Wanderings

How to vacation at the beach

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Befriend the ghost crabs…

An easy way to do this is to have a picnic lunch on the sand. Bring heirloom tomatoes, basil and fresh mozarella from home. Pack a beer or two in the cooler. Sit in the shade while the locals gather shrimp in their seine nets. Try not to act too alarmed at the small sharks they bring ashore. Once you’ve forgotten about them, the ghost crabs will come out of their burrows.
 
Let the surf rock you to sleep at low tide… 

The beach has stretched out as far as it can go (and on Jekyll Island, that’s pretty far!) I think low tide is the best tide… it’s open, gentle and inviting. Sea life enlivens the shallow water and it’s a fun time to explore what’s been left behind with the outgoing tide. There’s always some treasure… we caught glimpses of small sharky fins and a ray or two. Sadie seemed to love the gentle rocking of the sea. It’s also a good time to start a drip castle… dig a little hole and pile up the sand… let it dribble between your fingers and before you know it, there’s a world of towers, silly and crooked.
Daydream beneath a canopy of live oaks draped with spanish moss… 
Shade is important on a beach vacation; too much sun on all of those bug bites will be very painful when you’re trying to sleep later tonight… I’m not sure how I lived without the occasional sight of live oaks before moving to GA… they are the most wonderful of trees, I think! 
Breathe deeply of sky and salt marsh… 
The salt marsh is another wonderful place for exploring, especially if there’s a paved path to do it by bike! Fiddler crabs abound, as do the birds who hunt them.
Watch the sun go down behind the marina… 
There can never be too many sunsets over the water on a beach vacation, right? It’s all sort of strange and magical. We’d gone from place to place each day trying to avoid the bugs, but they found us, especially, here. The beautiful view was almost worth the bites, though.
(The shrimp and grits were especially worth the bites!)
: )
Count the pink birds when they show up… 
Let’s see… 8 roseate spoonbills, 6 wood storks, 3 tri-coloreds… who else?

Find a little town that harbors shrimp boats… 

Shrimp boats always dot the horizon here; it was fun finding them, finally, at rest.
Be on the lookout for sea turtle hatchlings!
We walked on the beach just about every night (another ploy to escape the bugs at the campground!) and all of those nights were leading up to/during/just after the fool moon. It’s a wonderful walk when the tide is out… the sand glows and the water twinkles under the huge moon. So beautiful! Who could be inside at a time like that? Who could sleep? We had a magical experience with some loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings on our first night on Jekyll… more to come!
Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

More little owls

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There’s a part of me that wants to just post adorable and artistically composed photos, but that would only tell half the story of these burrowing owls and might leave the reader overly impressed with my bird-finding skills.

: )

The truth is that I had a map and the birds were very easy to find on the city streets and neighborhoods of Cape Coral, Florida.

Known-to-be-active burrows were clearly marked and had a t-shaped perch in place for the owls.

Actually seeing the owls was a challenge, but only until we’d come up with something like a search image in our minds. We drove around this neighborhood near the library a couple times without seeing any, but then once we spotted one owl at the entrance to its burrow, others suddenly became visible.

We found this pair out enjoying the sunshine on a very busy street only because of a man standing on the sidewalk staring intently at them from a couple feet away. He told me he checks in with the pairs that live on his daily walking route. They didn’t seem the least bit bothered, but I snapped just a couple pix and was back in the car.

If you’re in the neighborhood, Cape Coral and its Burrowing Owls are worth a visit. They’re so very tolerant that I found it a little too easy to get overly close… keep that in mind, especially, if you visit during nesting season.

Birds, Snapshots, Wanderings

Big white birds

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I used to think that heron and egret-like birds were easy, then I moved to the South.

It used to be that all tall white birds were Great Egrets and the short ones, with golden slippers, were Snowy Egrets. Once, very far away in a scope, I saw a white morph Great Blue Heron. That was something of an anomaly.

But in South Florida… all bets are off!

White Ibis are pretty distinctive and easy to see… in small flocks along roadways and even perched on telephone wires (imagine!) like so many Starlings.

I love their crazy blue eyes!

Now the confusion starts…

Immature Little Blue Heron which can be confused with Snowy Egret, but for the feet and bill.

Snowy Egret, showing off his pretty golden foot. Their whole demeanor is somehow different than Little Blues and they’re much more active feeders, too. Except for this one, who was begging shrimp off the dockhand at the place we were staying on Sanibel Island.

: )

I fell in love with Cattle Egrets on this trip!

I’d seen one a couple times in Cape May, but I’d never really had a good long look at them or had the chance to study their behavior much.

They’re a very stocky bird and I guess habitat is the main clue if you’re confused. These birds have an attitude about them that just makes me chuckle!

The oh-so-familiar Great Egret… tall and stately with yellow bill and black legs. We saw them doing odd things in Florida, like hunting anoles along the roadside…
Another big white bird we saw is the white morph Reddish Egret…
I might also include the American White Pelican and the Wood Stork… both of which we saw on this trip.
Confused yet?
: )
Any favorites among you?
Birds, Jersey Girl in GA, Remembering, Wanderings

No whining in paradise

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Isn’t there a saying about a rainy day at the beach being better than almost anything…

: )

So it rained while we were in Florida and when it stopped raining it got so cold and windy that being outside on the beach was almost unbearable.

Almost.

We got to do all the things I was hoping for and it was still fun, but the weather did put a damper on things.

Florida is magical to me, regardless of the weather, really. During the many hours on the road, driving back and forth on I-75, I found myself remembering a road trip my family made to Florida when I was a kid. I don’t remember much about that trip beyond the rain and that I had to sit next to the leaky window in the backseat of my dad’s Cadillac.

Any trip to Florida still holds a certain level of excitement for the Jersey Girl in me. Growing up, the lucky kids got to go to Florida on vacation.

: )

But having been able, recently, to visit different parts of the state, I’m seeing it differently now and starting to form opinions about favorite places to spend time.

That’s a good thing, I guess. The magic isn’t at Disney anymore, but instead in the places that aren’t so developed. The roadside orange groves and blooming bougainvillea delighted me. The palm tree-lined streets are charming, but for all the traffic. The birds are amazing… I’ve never seen so many Osprey!

So… I came home without even so much as a sunburn. I’ve a bucket of seashells from Sanibel to sort through and some lovely photos of Florida “junk birds” like this Yellow-Crowned Night Heron. Plus the memories of a couple rainy days in paradise…

Birds, Pastimes, Wanderings

Here birdy, birdy…

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We spent the early morning hours on Saturday with Georgia’s IBA (Important Bird Area) Coordinator and some of his volunteers. They were out at Panola Mountain State Park to band sparrows.

We met before the sun was up and were pleased to see and hear American Woodcock doing their flight display over the grassy fields of Panola.

Here birdy, birdy…

I’m not sure how much you all know about how birds are caught and banded, so I played Kenny Kodak and took pictures of the process to make myself feel useful. I’m a bit too squeamish about it to actually handle the birds myself…

Mist nests are erected in likely habitat and then checked by volunteers every thirty minutes.

Removing birds from the nets is a very delicate process. Volunteers are trained over the course of years to learn how it’s done.

The birds are then placed in soft cotton bags until they’re processed by the bander.

As a side note… a couple years ago at Jekyll Island, where Charlie also bands birds, they did a study of the droppings left in the bags in order to better understand what specific plants birds were making use of in the local habitat. Neat, huh?!?

A bucket o’ birds!

This is my favorite part of the banding process… Charlie is blowing air on the bird’s keel to check for fat… you can actually see the fat deposited there when the feathers are blown out of the way. He rates the amount of fat each bird has and records it, along with the expected info like weight, wing measurements, sex, signs of molt and how much the flight feathers are worn down. The band number is recorded and the bird is set to fly away, back to its weedy patch of home.

Another quiz!

We have the idea that going to these banding sessions might actually help us learn to better identify sparrows, but I’m not so sure. Even though I know these are two different varieties of sparrow, I can hardly recognize the field marks that differentiate them! Anyone care to guess?

The morning wasn’t all about LBJ’s though…

Eye candy!

Bags and bucket in hand, the volunteers head back to check the nets again…

Birds, Wanderings

Room for the unimaginable

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Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable. 
–Mary Oliver

Five endangered Whooping Cranes, the twelfth such group to be led by ultralight from Wisconsin to the gulf coast of Florida, arrived the Friday after Thanksgiving on their wintering grounds at St. Marks NWR.

And we were lucky enough to be there to see it!

The cranes arrived a full month ahead of their usual schedule and we were in the neighborhood for the holiday, so we just followed the signs!

I’d been wanting to see the Whooping Cranes at St. Marks for years; I’ve since learned that it’s practically impossible to see them other than when they arrive because the group is secreted away in a distant part of the refuge to protect these terribly endangered birds and to minimize their contact with humans.

Anyone who interacts with the birds wears a funny suit like this to prevent the birds from imprinting on humans; even the ultralight pilots wear a crane suit. Understand that the staff and volunteers with Operation Migration raise these birds from hatchlings and train them to fly behind an airplane in order to teach them a migration route; the ultimate goal being to reestablish an eastern population of wild migratory Whooping Cranes. Seeing them arrive at St. Marks feels like a huge success, but it’s really just the beginning for these five juvenile birds. They have much to learn during the winter ahead. If things go as planned, this spring, they will make their way north without an ultralight to guide them and will continue making this north-south migration for the remainder of their lives.

Many people follow their progress via the web and call themselves “Craniacs”; some even follow the birds’ journey and travel to “flyover” sites, such as the one we visited in St. Marks, to catch a glimpse of them. Regular updates about the cranes are posted in a field journal maintained by staff and volunteers… it’s fun reading and a great way to keep up with what’s happening… click here for a look! Somewhere on Operation Migration’s website (when the birds are migrating south with the ultralight) there is a list of flyover sites posted ahead of time… maybe one will be in your neck of the woods next year!

We waited around at the flyover site for about 45 minutes… there was a delay due to frost that morning. First we saw the tracking van, with its antenna on the roof, pull into the parking lot where the crowd had gathered. A couple minutes later the birds and the ultralights came into view over the distant treeline… they circled around us a couple times (to much cheering from the crowd!) and then disappeared over the horizon to make their way to their secret spot on the refuge where the cranes were “dropped off” for the winter. The pilots and support team returned to the flyover site an hour or so later to answer questions and such. My impression was of a tight-knit group that really enjoys what they do. And they love these birds.

I’m not skilled at making videos with my iPhone, but I get goosebumps watching this, still. My silly giggles at the end say it all…

Top photo from USFWS; used without permission. My iPhone pix were awful.