Birder's World Field of View

Cardinal singing us into spring

A Northern Cardinal shows off its bright red plumage. Photo by tlindenbaum, used under a Creative Commons license.

A winter storm is hammering much of the U.S. today. It's missing us here in Wisconsin, but that doesn't mean we're warm: The mercury right now reads 12 degrees F. We keep wondering if winter will ever end.

To the Northern Cardinal that was singing outside Chuck's office this morning, however, spring is already here... on January 27. We took notice because the calendar says winter is supposed to last almost two more months. Even more notable is that today's bird sang nine days earlier than the first cardinals we heard singing in 2008 and 19 days earlier than the first one Chuck heard in 2007. — M.M.

Snowy Owl on a street light

A Snowy Owl perches on a street light near the Coast Guard Impoundment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, December 30, 2008. Photo by Paul Sparks.

The gorgeous Snowy Owl above has been hanging around the Coast Guard Impoundment, a terrific birding site south of Downtown Milwaukee. (We featured the CGI in "Hotspots Near You" in December 2006.) Birders first reported the owl on Sunday.

On my drive over to the CGI this morning, I was hoping the owl was still there. (Can't tell you how many times I've swung and missed trying to see a Snowy.) So when I pulled up to a stop sign and looked up, I couldn't believe my eyes. There was the owl, perched on a street light across from the CGI.

Two birders were parked next to the iconic blue trailer enjoying the bird, which didn't seem to be bothered by the constant truck traffic below its perch. Paul Sparks shot lots of photos of the owl, and he generously allowed me to use a few on the blog. Be sure to check out his website.

The Snowy Owl stretches a wing. Photo by Paul Sparks.

I was certainly thrilled to see the owl, but I'm also aware that birders can stress rare owls. Last winter, blogger Nuthatch noted that a Snowy in Michigan, which had been seen by many birders, died of malnutrition. "This Snowy Owl," she wrote, "was an example of a bird that dozens of people perceived to be healthy and 'happy,' even as it was slowly starving to death."

This winter, Snowies are being reported throughout the northern states and southern Canada. I've heard conflicting reasons for the influx: that Snowies had a good breeding season last summer and produced more young, and that rodent populations in the normal winter range farther north have crashed, forcing more birds south. Whichever explanation is right, it also seems to be true that some Snowies aren't doing well. The Canadian Press reported two weeks ago on owls starving in Ontario. One source said “They’re dying. This is happening all across Canada."

Here's hoping for a better outcome for the Milwaukee Snowy. — M.M.

Maps plot invasion of the winter finches

This winter is shaping up to be an invasion year for White-winged Crossbills and a few other northern finches.

Crossbills, grosbeaks, siskins, and redpolls — known collectively as northern or winter finches — move south into the United States and southern Canada when seed and fruit crops in northern Canada and Alaska are diminished. This year is no different.

Below are notes on birds to watch for and maps from eBird of where they’ve been seen since October. Be sure to report your sightings to eBird, too!

White-winged Crossbill sightings, October-December 2008. Source: eBird.

White-winged Crossbill. This handsome finch named for its curved, crisscrossed bill has been reported in large numbers in the Northeast and Midwest, including an observation of 1,785 crossbills during two and a half hours on November 24 at Hamlin Beach State Park in upstate New York. According to eBird, the birds “may be expected to show up this winter as far south as Virginia, Ohio, and Kansas, and stragglers may turn up even farther south to the Carolinas, Gulf coast states, and northern Texas.”

Look for the birds in conifer stands and at places where migratory birds are frequently seen. And be sure to familiarize yourself with their vocalizations.

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. 

Scientist and his 14-year-old son report a glacier-nesting finch in the Peruvian Andes

This news release issued today by the University of Massachusetts Amherst reports on the discovery that a South American finch nests on ice. Way cool! — M.M.

A White-winged Diuca Finch nest (right) rests on a glacier in the Andes Mountains. Photo courtesy UMass Amherst.

AMHERST, Mass. — In an unusual research collaboration, a University of Massachusetts Amherst geoscientist, Douglas Hardy, and his son Spencer, 14, recently reported what is believed to be the first well documented evidence of a bird other than a penguin nesting directly on ice, in the Andes Mountains.

The elder Hardy, a glacier specialist with the university's Climate Systems Research Center, found evidence over the past four seasons of studying climate on the Quelccaya Ice Cap high above Cuzco that a bird species was nesting on the glacier. Spencer, an accomplished amateur student of birds and their nesting habits, was in sixth grade at the time he identified White-winged Diuca Finches from photographs and began helping to interpret evidence that they were responsible for the nests. He is now a freshman at Hanover High School, New Hampshire, near the family's home in Norwich, Vt. The jointly authored father-son paper appears in the September issue of the Wilson Journal of Ornithology.

Douglas Hardy says, "I never would have tackled this without his interest. But it's been stimulating and enjoyable working on this puzzle with Spencer." The researcher attributes their discovery to his son's scientific curiosity. "I'm really delighted that Spencer followed his passion and his desire for knowledge about this, which motivated me as well. I was lucky enough to be on the glacier in Peru doing the fieldwork, but he was a full partner in putting the paper together."

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. 

Wildlife watching expressed as dollars and cents -- and jobs

A report released recently by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers evidence for the surprising economic clout of bird- and other wildlife watchers. 

According to FWS, expenditures for wildlife watching are equivalent to the revenues generated from all spectator sports, amusement parks and arcades, non-hotel casinos, bowling centers, and skiing facilities -- combined.

Keep THAT in mind when you turn on your TV and see huge crowds at NFL and Major League Baseball championship games this weekend.

Using data from the 2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, FWS published the addendum report Wildlife Watching in the United States: The Economic Impacts on National and State Economies in 2006. It shows wildlife watching not only contributes significantly to people’s enjoyment of the outdoors but is a major factor in the state and national economies.

In 2006, the direct expenditures of wildlife watchers generated $122.6 billion in total industrial output. This resulted in 1,063,482 jobs, a federal tax revenue of $9.3 billion, and a state and local tax revenue of $8.9 billion. 

The new report details the economic impacts of wildlife watching expenditures by state. The top five? California, Florida, Texas, Georgia, and New York. --C.H.

New Orleans hotspot could use our help

The opening spread of our June 2008 feature story about City Park in New Orleans. Prothonotary Warbler is one of 38 warblers recorded in the hotspot. 

Joelle Finley, a Birder's World subscriber from New Orleans and a member of the Orleans Audubon Society, recently told me that birders in the Big Easy are collecting donations for Couturie Forest in City Park, the birding hotspot we featured in our June issue.

It's a worthy cause because the forest provides one of the best stopover habitats for migrating birds in the whole city. Our writer, Dan Purrington, said this about Couturie:

From kestrel country to Birder's World cover

If you think Colorado is a mountain state, you're only about half right. Drive east from Denver, keeping the mountains in your rear-view mirror, and you'll come upon a vast, open plain of sprawling ranches, wild grasslands, and desolate country roads. Beautiful country. And the home turf of photographer Rob Palmer, whose dramatic shot of an American Kestrel made the cover of our October 2008 issue, on newsstands now. 

When I asked Palmer how he took the picture, he recalled a cold February morning spent cruising those Colorado plains. "In the winter, there's large numbers of kestrels, and they hang around country roads all the time," he said. That day, about four inches of snow covered the ground. "That's a good time to look for them, because they're hungry."

Palmer says the birds like to perch on phone lines or dead trees. During his drive, he noticed one kestrel sitting in an old cottonwood tree, gazing downward. "I knew he was looking at something. I just backed up my car to where I thought the action would occur."