Birder's World Field of View

Honduras on my mind

I've been in touch with my friend Robert Gallardo recently. He is a bird-tour leader, photographer, butterfly and orchid expert, and bird-song recordist who lives in Copán Ruinas, Honduras, where he and his wife manage a nature center.

He runs the terrific birdsofhonduras.com, and he's the principal coordinator of the Mesoamerican Birding Festival, scheduled for February 22-27, 2009. The festival will take place at Lake Yojoa in west-central Honduras, where more than 400 species occur in wetlands, pine forest, and pre-montane and montane broadleaf forests. 

Robert tells me that he hopes to hold the festival in a different Central American country each year. He offered to share his photos of Honduran birds with our blog readers, and I'm more than happy to oblige. Enjoy! — M.M.

Blue-tailed Hummingbird

Lesser Roadrunner

One-of-a-kinds from last year's Christmas Bird Count

It's almost time for this year's Christmas Bird Count, the 109th. (I'll be taking part in the Milwaukee CBC on December 20.)

If this year's event is anything like last year's, it's bound to be a lot of fun. 

According to a summary published by National Audubon Society, counts took place in 2,113 circles last year -- 1,658 in the U.S., 371 in Canada, and 84 in Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Pacific islands. A total of 50,742 field watchers participated in the event -- 40,742 in the U.S., 8,205 in Canada, and 1,692 in other regions.

You'd expect that many observers in that many circles to turn up one heck of a lot of birds, and they did -- more than 57 million birds and 2,267 species, about a quarter of all species on earth. (The majority of the species were reported in Latin America; 281 were found in Canada, 665 in the U.S.)

I'm not a statistician, but it stands to figure that with so many eyes in so many places, you might also expect a few of them to be in the right place at the right time to spot a bird that no other Christmas Bird Counter recorded anywhere -- a single bird in a single count circle -- and that happened, too, as you can see from the list that follows. 

Vulture watching on the Appalachian Trail

Associate Editor Matt Mendenhall stands atop McAfee Knob, on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia.

I'm at the 18th annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists in Roanoke, Virginia, this week, and today a group of about 30 of us hiked on the Appalachian Trail. We trekked up Catawby Mountain, starting at an elevation of 2,000 feet, and after 3.5 miles, we reached McAfee Knob, a federally protected rocky overlook at 3,197 feet. 

The view was well worth the climb, and I was even more pleased to see birds. An Eastern Towhee hopped around in the scrubby trees. Three or four Black Vultures circled on thermals above us. And an adult Red-tailed Hawk hung in the air parallel to the overlook for at least a minute. The bird didn't flap like a hovering kestrel; it just stayed in one place for a surprisingly long time before veering left and dropping toward the trees below. 

On the way down the mountain, we encountered this black rat snake (left). It crossed our path, then raised its body as if it intended to rock climb. I was impressed. 

It wasn't the birdiest day ever, but I wasn't complaining. It was a warm day spent on one of the most iconic trails in the world. — M.M.

Note: A 2007 TV story about the California Condor by San Francisco's public television station KQED received first place in the Outstand Story, Television category in SEJ's 7th Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment. 

It's time to count swifts!

I heard from Paul and Georgean Kyle of the Driftwood Wildlife Association today. They're what I call great friends -- friends of the magazine and friends of favorite birds of mine: swifts. I've copied their message below. --C.H.

Greetings! 

It is time for A Swift Night Out September 2008!

As summer draws to a close and the swifts have finished raising their young, these fascinating aerial acrobats begin to congregate in communal roosts prior to their migration in the fall. Some roosts may consist of an extended family group of a half a dozen birds or so, but the larger sites can host hundreds or even thousands of swifts! 

We encourage you to involve your local Audubon chapters, bird clubs, scout groups, and neighbors in this exhilarating spectacle. August was a great success, and the September event is just around the corner!

Herons in a square

It's Thursday, high time for another piece of art from the upcoming Birds in Art show. This one, entitled "Displaying," comes from the pencil of well-known artist and conservationist Robert Bateman. 

Herons, as you know, are lengthy creatures. They have long bills; they stand on long legs that trail behind them when they fly; they have long necks; and they fly on huge wings that can stretch six feet from wingtip to wingtip. 

They come in a size and a shape, in other words, that seems to demand a rectangular canvas -- one that's either tall enough to accommodate snaky necks and spindly legs or wide enough to allow spread wings -- but Bateman's portrait is square. 

Wingtips are cut off. Feet and legs below the tibiotarsus aren't visible. It's as if Bateman wants us to look through special binoculars with an exceptionally narrow (and four-sided) field of view, to focus not on topographical completeness but on courtship. 

Forget the feet, forget the primary feathers, he seems to be saying -- and get a load of those nuptial plumes! --C.H.

Swallows and sunshine

 

What a beautiful day. It's sunny and breezy, and the leaves of the silver maple in my backyard are whistling each time the wind blows. 

New Zealand-born artist Adele Earnshaw must have had a day like today in mind when she painted the scene above ("In the Wind," 2008, oil on canvas). The sunlight on the sheets and pillow cases is just like the light dappling the lawn outside my window, and since Barn Swallows can be found just about anywhere on the planet, it's easy to imagine them zipping past laundry waving in the breeze here in Wisconsin, in New Zealand, or anyplace.

Earnshaw's painting is one of 126 original works by 113 artists selected to appear in this year's Birds in Art exhibition, held annually at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wisconsin. The show opens three weeks from today, on Saturday, September 6, 2008. --C.H.

Notes from the AOU meeting

Here's a fraction of what I've heard here in Portland over the last few days:

During a symposium on free-ranging cats and bird conservation on Tuesday, Bob Sallinger, director of Audubon Society of Portland, described his organization's alliance with the Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon in a campaign to reduce the number of free-roaming cats in the Portland metro area. Since bird groups and cat groups usually go at each other like, well, cats and dogs, the alliance is unlikely, to say the least, but it's also promising. 

Instead of framing the problem as birds vs. cats, Bob emphasizes protecting birds and cats -- that is, reducing the number of free-roaming pet cats in order to address predation on native birds and to reduce inflow of new cats into feral cat populations. A win-win.

In her plenary lecture yesterday, Helen Grant reminded us all that neither environments nor species are static entities. Both change constantly. To preserve species, Grant said, we must preserve their capacity to change. Rising to ask a question after she finished, John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, called her lecture one of the most exciting and inspiring talks he'd ever heard. We all agreed.

Among friends in Portland

Hello from Portland, Oregon, everyone.

I'm in the beautiful Pacific Northwest -- far from the Birder's World offices, far from the all-Brett-all-the-time coverage of the Wisconsin local news -- at the annual gathering of the American Ornithologists' Union, which is meeting with the Cooper Ornithological Society and the Society of Canadian Ornithologists at the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower until Friday, August 8.

And I'm a happy camper.

Many friends are here. Just to name a few: Julie Craves, supervisor of avian research at the Rouge River Bird Observatory and author of our popular column Since You Asked; woodpecker expert, Ivory-bill skeptic, and longtime magazine contributor Jerry Jackson; and Peter Stettenheim, founding editor of the series that became the Birds of North America and the author of the incredible article about feather functions that appeared in our June 2006 issue. It's great to see people you would otherwise communicate with only by e-mail.

And it's great to be surrounded by so many bird people, so many smart bird people doing fascinating research. Don't know if you ever realized it, but a fair number of the articles that have run in Birder's World started out as presentations delivered at an AOU meeting. Future articles may originate here this week.

On the EDG with Pete in Guatemala

It's hard to believe I've let so much time go by before commenting on a long walk I took in a pouring, drenching rain with Mike Freiberg, Nikon's friendly and knowledgeable Birding Market Specialist; Derek Lovitch, author of the "Tools of the Trade" column over at Birding magazine; and Pete Dunne, director of the Cape May Bird Observatory and a regular columnist for Birder's World. It was June 6, a Friday, and we were at the beautiful Los Tarrales Reserve in Guatemala. 

And man, did it rain. My passport is still curled up from the soaking.

Celebrate migratory birds today

Today, Saturday, May 10, is International Migratory Bird Day. Through birding walks, festivals, and education programs, IMBD recognizes the great spectacle of migration. This year's theme, "Tundra to Tropics," highlights the vast distances birds fly between their breeding and non-breeding territories.

Mexican wildlife artist Eleazar Saenz painted the poster promoting this year's celebration. (Click it to see it big! You won't be disappointed.) Saenz displays 12 species against a backdrop of mountains, forest, desert, and other habitats. From the top, the birds are: Long-tailed Jaeger, Northern Harrier, Blackpoll Warbler, American Redstart, Northern Shoveler, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Ruddy Turnstone, Cinnamon Teal, Bobolink, Azure-rumped Tanager, Short-eared Owl, and Bananaquit.

Most are birds you can see in the U.S., but you won't find all 12 species on one bird walk. (You'd have to go to Mexico's Chiapas region or neighboring Guatemala to glimpse the tanager, which is endangered.) But if Saenz's art doesn't make you want to get out and see birds this spring, nothing will. Find an IMBD event near you, and watch birds! — M.M.

Read more about International Migratory Bird Day.

Read an article on climate change and birds by IMBD Program Director Susan Bonfield.