Tag Archives: migration

Testing the IPad

We’re leaving for Spain in a few days and I’m planning to blog with my new iPad, but testing things while I still have computer backup. Here area few images from the last couple of days.

This Spotted Sandpiper was just upstream the other morning.

A month ago, I would have been in waist-deep flood water shooting this group. They are enjoying feeding at normal river level. It makes me wonder, where did the ride the storm out?

We’ve had several Great Egrets in the area since the storm, and seeing this heron and egret, couldn’t help but wonder if they were comparing migration plans.

Mid-May Birding

Every day, new birds are arriving – it’s a great time for birding. Yesterday, I drove into a parking spot at Ginger’s play group and rolled down the window to get this hummer.

This Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and his mate are driving our neighbors crazy with their constant drilling on the sheet metal shed roof.

Canada Geese are raising youngsters all along the river.

One of the delightful new arrivals are the Warbling Vireos, like the one I saw early this morning.

My birding companion is always up for an outing.

I have gathered a few warbler shots and will post them next time. It’s definitely a work in progress.

Back Home

A lot of birds arrived during our trip to North Carolina. On the first morning back, I had a wonderful outing.

My first Vermont Gray Catbird of the year
This Mallard was spectacular in the morning sun
A Solitary Sandpiper
A Red Trillium along the trail

Many birds were singing including warblers (Yellow, Black & White, Chestnut-sided, Yellow-rumped, and Common Yellowthroat) and at the end of the walk, this American Robin was singing its heart out. So it made it into the photos.

Some April Arrivals

This is a nice time to bird in Vermont as migration continues and almost every day, you can see new arrivals. Here are a few from this week.

Most Tuesdays, Ginger goes to a dog play group. Knowing that Eastern Bluebirds nest on the property, I brought my camera and sure enough.

The following day, I went up to the local airport looking for American Kestrels spotted this bird flying along the road. The photo is difficult because I had to stop on a busy road, watching for traffic as I shot.

Likewise, this Eastern Meadowlark was a challenge.

Warblers should be here soon and with temperatures warming, we are looking forward to the return of many more migrants.

March Backyard Birds – 2

As the snow slowly recedes, it’s fun to recall the birds who rode out the last big storm. Mourning Doves are here every day regardless of weather.

We have had many more American Tree Sparrow than we normally do.

This, I believe, is a Song Sparrow feeding in the back yard. They now are singing – last week they were thinking more about food.

Northern Cardinals are always handsome, but this guy was spectacular in the new snow.

Lastly, my birding companion loves to romp in new powder – last time for her this winter.

Thinking About Vagrant Birds

Recently, I was given an old birding book by a friend who was culling her library.  I have a soft spot for bird books so while my overall collection of books is shrinking, my birding books seem to be breeding.

So I have been reading A Year on the Wing by Tim Dee, a Brit with a poetic flair who writes a month-by-month chronicle of birding experiences.  Some of the stories are more interesting than others but the one story that caught my attention and spurred this post had to do with a vagrant yellow-browed warbler.  Dee writes:

Along a fence at the cliff edge at Klinger’s Geo, dancing before my eyes, was a yellow-browed warbler…Yellow-browed warblers breed no nearer than the Siberian taiga. The bird in front of me, almost certainly only a few weeks out of the nest, should have flown in the opposite direction to winter in the open deciduous forests anywhere from Nepal to the Malay Peninsula….

The yellow-browed warbler I saw …  had made a mistake, and it is probable that no amount of nurture on Fair Isle (**where Dee was observing) could truly rescue it.  Vagrancy is a death sentence. Almost all of the rarities that arrive on the island (and almost all vagrants anywhere) will have the same fate.  They are wonderful treasures from far away that we cannot keep and cannot save.  There is very little evidence that vagrant birds reorient themselves and correct their journeys.  It seems likely that the yellow-browed warbler, having gone southwest where it should have gone southeast, would continue this aberrant direction and fly on west out over an ocean that has no refuges, no green skirts, for thousands of miles.  That would be the end of it.  It would soon be homeless.  I was watching a lost child at death’s door.

Vagrants are wonderful treasures from far away that we cannot keep and cannot save. photo of yellow-browed warbler by sussexbirder

Vagrants are wonderful treasures from far away that we cannot keep and cannot save. photo of yellow-browed warbler by sussexbirder

I thought about this yesterday as I traveled to New York state to look (and not find) the rare Common Pochard that was first seen on New Year’s Day on Lake Champlain.  It might be wild, it might be an escapee, but in any case, it’s a long ways from safety.  The other vagrant, which I’ve not chased but tracked by reports, was the Northern Lapwing in Massachusetts.  The finder wrote this post on January 2nd and expresses the mixed emotions of many birders who see rarities:

Despite a four hour vigil in Bridgewater, the Northern Lapwing was NOT seen.  Hopefully it found a warm spot or decided to fly to a more hospitable environment. This would have been the bird’s 53rd day since I found it on November 12th.  It brought many hundreds of people joy in its presence, from as far away as Canada, California, Hawaii.  I know of people from at least a dozen states and I’m sure there were more than that. Anyway, I’m sure we all hope the bird made it to a safe place and who knows, it may turn up again!!

This joy of discovery balanced by the reality of the bird’s situation was aptly described, with humor, by Jim Mead, an active Vermont birder who found a rare Ruby-crowned Kinglet last week:

This tiny bird has already survived 2 nor’easters, many cold days and nights including the night before last with temperatures between -10 to -20 below(F degrees). It was busily feeding while flashing its ruby colored crest the entire time… as I drove off I had a few thoughts.

This bird deserves an all expense paid, First Class, one way ticket to the south! It should be served all of the fresh water that it can drink and bathe in.   An employee of the airline should write a frenetic small bird menu so he can have his choice of desirable cuisine during the flight. I mean, with words like- Ruby, Crown and King in his name, shouldn’t he be treated like Royalty?

 

Two pelicans taken care of by the Wildlife Rehabilitators Association of Rhode Island hang out in a camping tent before being flown to Florida. photo by Wildlife Rehabilitators Association of Rhode Island

Two pelicans taken care of by the Wildlife Rehabilitators Association of Rhode Island hang out in a camping tent before being flown to Florida. photo by Wildlife Rehabilitators Association of Rhode Island

Many of us saw the news reports on the two Brown Pelicans blown north by Hurricane Sandy privately flown to Florida in November.  I think, even though it is impossible to do very often, that’s the way we’d like to help the rare birds many birders chase.  Let folks see them and then FedEx them to their true destination.

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Do You Drink Bird-Friendly Coffee? Cornell Offers Guidance

Imagine you walk into the neighborhood coffee house for your morning cup of joe, and on the counter is a tip jar with a sign reading, “$ for wintering warblers” with a photo of a Chestnut-sided Warbler in a tropical forest.  You’d drop your change in, right? Any proud bird watcher would do their part for the wellbeing of the sprightly warblers that delight us so much come spring.

Coffee bushes

Shade grown coffee bushes in the cloud forest. Copan Coffee Tour – Finca Santa Isabel, Copan Ruinas, Honduras

It’s not such a stretch of the imagination, York University researcher Bridget Stutchbury told a packed audience at the Cornell Lab’s Monday night seminar series last week. Many of the colorful songbirds that are just now leaving us for the winter, including warblers, tanagers, orioles, and grosbeaks, will spend the next five months in and around shade coffee plantations in Mexico and Central and South America.

But only if the birds can find them. Shade-coffee plantations—particularly ones that grow coffee under a natural forest canopy—are increasingly being deforested, leaving North American migrants with fewer places to spend the winter. The good news, Stutchbury said, is that you can have your dark roast and your songbirds too if you buy sustainable coffee, particularly Bird Friendly coffee.

Read the excellent article by Cornell Lab science editor Gustave Axelson

Photo credit: Adalberto.H.Vega

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