Until this last week, I haven’t birded much recently. It’s been hard to get out since there’s a baby girl at home who likes to spend time with her daddy. And who can say no to that? But if I’m honest with myself, it’s also been tough to find motivation to get out. Summer is hot (and unbearably muggy here in the South) and there aren’t that many birds out.

Thank goodness for fall and migration! The chance of seeing different birds is a good motivation. But since I still have the time constraints to deal with, I mostly bird close to home. So I’m really fortunate that our neighborhood has its own nature preserve.

It’s very nice, yes, but it’s definitely not what you would call a birding hotspot. It’s small, about 10 acres, but with fairly nice habitat. I’ve birded it five times in the last week, for about an hour each morning, and have only averaged 25 species a day. So the diversity isn’t all that great on any given visit. But, on the bright side, there’s usually something new every day. One day it’s a Yellow-breasted Chat, the next a Worm-eating Warbler.

A single morning at a true migration hotspot would probably yield more species than I get here all season. But still, it’s great to have a place so close by where I can loose myself amongst the birds for an hour or so. And, if nothing else, it appears that my birding slump is over.

Tags: neighborhood preserve

Least Bitterns are not rare in Georgia. They breed here, mostly along the coast, though there is some inland nesting. And apparently a few may even winter here. But, embarrassingly, I had never seen one in Georgia. I bird the coast mostly in fall and winter, so I’ve just never been where they are when they are here.

But that changed this weekend. My wife, daughter, and I joined my dad and stepmother in Savannah for a long weekend. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do much birding, but I did want to set aside a little time to try to fill this empty box in my state checklist. Thus, a trip to Altamaha WMA was in order.

Altamaha is a fantastic place. The impoundments that formerly grew rice are now managed for ducks and other wildlife. From my vantage point on an observation tower I could see that the place was teeming with birds. Boat-tailed Grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds were flying and calling all over the place. Every heron and egret that you would expect, even a couple of Black-crowned Night-herons, could be seen. Glossy Ibis outnumbered their white cousins. Well, on the ground at least. There were always some White Ibis in the air above, from pairs to large skeins. A pair of Black-bellied Whistling-ducks would fly around every now and then.

You couldn’t help but smile at the family of cute, fuzzy, black Common Moorhen chicks. A single, resplendent Purple Gallinule made a short appearance. I can’t believe I left the digiscoping adapter in the car, making it tough to get any pictures.

The most interesting thing, behavior-wise, was the displaying of some Black-necked Stilts. I could see two stilts feeding in the impoundment on one side. But every few minutes one of them would take off and fly around slowly in a circle, all the while calling kek kek kek incessantly. When it was done, a stilt from the other side of the dike would respond by doing the same thing. At the time, I thought that perhaps the raised dike was the boundary between two territories and that these were border disputes. More on this later.

But no Least Bittern. I scanned and rescanned the edges of the impoundments, hoping to spot one clinging to the vegetation, but to no avail. I only had a few minutes left, due to an appointment elsewhere, when I saw a small bird fly into a cluster of reeds. It was out of the corner of my eye, so all I was able to make out were large, buffy wing patches. That was enough to know it was my Least Bittern! I got my scope on the spot in time to see the bird, partially obstructed, clamber deeper into the vegetation and out of sight.

Whew. It was a great relief to finally see it, just in the nick of time. But looking back, I think I enjoyed the stilts even more. I had never expected to see such a shorebird display here. The arctic tundra, sure, but not in Georgia. That gives me hope that I haven’t become a crazed, list-obsessed birder. Not totally, anyway.

Back to the stilt display. After doing some research later, I think I was wrong about what they were doing. They may have been mobbing me. They were flying nearby or right over me, no more than twenty feet above my head. That could easily be explained, though, if the dike were the territory boundary with the tower at the corner. But both The Shorebird Guide and Pete Dunne mention that stilts will aggressively defend their territory against intruders, including humans, by giving incessant flight calls. I guess they took offense to my presence. I honestly didn’t think it was me at the time, but if it was, hopefully I didn’t disturb them too badly.

And now I’ve learned something new. Gotta love birding.

Tags: Altamaha WMA

With the end of May, spring migration is petering out here in the South. But for me, it never really began. It feels like I’ve barely seen any migrants this year. That would be understandable if I hadn’t been birding at all this season, but that’s not the case, though I may not have been out as much as I have in past years.

There’s a ten acre “nature preserve” in our neighborhood with fairly good habitat and a nice trail running through it. Every spring and fall during migration, I try to take a stroll through it on weekdays before work. I usually end up birding it 10-20 days per season, for about an hour at a time.

Understand, it is no migrant trap. Five species of warblers is a very good day. But what it lacks in sheer numbers (other than cardinals, they’re all over the place), it makes up for in diversity. In six years, I’ve recorded over 30 species of warblers there. And day-to-day, you can almost count on seeing something different. I may have a slow day, but it was always enjoyable.

But not this year. I don’t know where the birds were, but they weren’t here. Sure, the “usuals” showed up: several White-eyed Vireos on territory, a Kentucky Warbler singing most every day (but haven’t seen him this year), Northern Waterthrushes bobbing along the water-filled ditches beside the trail. But there were very few days that I encountered anything different. And some days the place seemed devoid of birds altogether.

I don’t know why this spring was so different. The preserve hasn’t changed in any appreciable way that I can tell. Are there simply fewer birds? I know that most neotropical migrants are declining, some severely, but you wouldn’t expect that to manifest itself in the numbers at just one site in a single year. Maybe it was simply an off year?

I hope so, because otherwise I would have to entertain the possibility that it was me. Were the birds still there, but I wasn’t able to find them?

One result is that I didn’t enjoy my time birding nearly as much as I usually do. I appreciate any time that I’m able to spend in the field, and I still enjoy the “usual” birds. But I just couldn’t help but be disappointed most days. Enough so, that after several slow days in the middle of the month, while seemingly everyone else in the area was finding Connecticut Warblers, I was wondering what the point would be of going back. I lost the will to bird. And that bothers me immensely.

Has anyone else ever felt this way? And more importantly, how do you get over it?

Tags: neighborhood preserve

It was a gorgeous day: clear blue skies, no wind to speak of, and temperatures hovering around freezing. These conditions could be considered balmy, given that we were in northeast Minnesota in February. We were lucky; just a few weeks before it was in the -30’s, before wind chill. When informed of the pending trip, non-birding friends and relatives wondered what could draw a cold adverse, lifelong southern boy like me to such northern latitude in the middle of winter. Other birders, of course, already knew the answer – owls.

Owls, and one in particular, are the reason my wife and I are staring intently out the windows in the backseat of Mike Hendrickson’s SUV this beautiful day. Along with some birders from Florida, we have engaged Mike, a fantastic bird guide, to help us find some birds that we missed during the festival.

That would be the Sax Zim Bog Bird Festival. The Sax Zim Bog, 45 minutes northwest of Duluth, is one of the best locations in the lower 48 for winter birds. And we have encountered many of those fantastic winter birds while on field trips the past two days. Common Redpolls were all over the place, and there were even a few Hoarys among them. At the various feeding stations in the bog we found a Boreal Chickadee, Gray Jays, and both Pine and Evening Grosbeaks. White-winged Crossbills proved to be very common this winter, and we found them at many stops.

The non-passerines were also well represented by Ruffed and Sharp-tailed Grouse, Bald Eagle, and a fortuitously re-found drake Barrow’s Goldeneye. We even enjoyed the gulls along the shore of Lake Superior, picking out Great Black-backed, Glaucous, and Thayer’s from the crowd of Herring Gulls.

But the highlight had to be the Northern Hawk-owls. We had great looks at several of these atypical owls, characteristically perched on the tip of a small branch as if impaled. But, alas, the other three hoped-for owls – Great Gray, Snowy, and Boreal – did not cooperate.

We were hoping that would change today, with Mike’s help. And it did in Duluth when Mike picked out a tiny spot of white that differed from the surrounding white vastness of the lake ice. My first Snowy Owl! At full zoom on the scope, the owl was clearly identifiable, but less than satisfactory. Luckily, we were able to drive around to a spot much closer to the bird. From there we got our fill of this marvelous creature that was just standing there, looking around, and waiting for night to fall.

I have wanted to see a Snowy Owl for as long as I can remember. But this day there was another bird that I wanted to see even more.

We have driven along miles of back (and some not-so-back) roads, eyes strained trying to pick out a small blob in a tree that doesn’t quite belong. Finally, Mike’s sharp eyes spot something. There, on the snow-covered bank. Our target – a Boreal Owl!

Dead.

We stop to get a better look. From the location of the body, it was clear that a car must have hit it. From a closer examination, Mike determined that it hadn’t been doing too well even before its demise. He could feel the keel of the breast, which meant that it had not been hunting very successfully.

One can learn much from a corpse such as this, besides the bird’s condition at death. You can better understand the physiology, such as the way the wings work and the arrangement of the feathers. You can also study the field marks at leisure, ensuring that when you come across a live bird you can identify it. Even the best field guide or photograph can’t beat the real thing!

Knowing this, I want to examine the bird for myself. Mike, who assists Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory and is thus permitted to salvage dead birds, was able to afford me a closer look. But I couldn’t do it. Not because I am grossed out; there was no blood, no mess. In fact, it appeared as if it had been killed that very day, or the night before at the earliest. Further, with the cold temperatures there seemed to be very little risk of infection by disease or parasites.

At the time, I didn’t fully realize why I couldn’t take it, or hardly stand to even look at it. The bird’s demise, especially in such an unnatural manner, saddened me. But it was more than that. Now, I think that I just couldn’t bear my first encounter with this bird occurring in these circumstances. It’s not supposed to happen this way! It should have been a long, difficult search (well, it was that) that ended with me staring into yellow, fierce, intensely alive eyes. Not these dull, lifeless orbs.

Someday, after finally seeing this owl in the manner that it deserves, I will be free to examine a fallen bird. With a mixture of pity, respect, and curiosity, I will feel the softness of the feathers, study the special adaptations that permit silent flight, and experience the sharpness of talon and bill.

But not until then.

This article first appeared in the Jan/Feb 2010 issue of Bird Watcher’s Digest.

Tags: birding festival, Minnesota, owls