The Birding Life

Mitchell's Satyr - a very rare butterfly indeed

2011-08-02T15:22:00.000-04:00

As the piping plover field season comes to an end, I will hopefully have some time to resurrect my long dormant blog.

To start what will hopefully be a late summer and fall filled with many nature adventures that I can share on "The Birding Life", I wanted to report on a short trip Nikki and I went on to look for one of Michigan's rarest species, the federally endangered Mitchell's Satyr Butterfly.

The relatively strict habitat needs of Mitchell's Satyr have probably always made it a rare species. However human conversion of wetland habitats to other uses have led to the extirpation of the Mitchell's Satyr from historic locations in New Jersey, Maryland and Ohio, leaving Michigan as the last stronghold for this rare species. In fact of the 17-18 remaining colonies, all are in Michigan except for one last location in Indiana.

As mentioned the Mitchell's Satyr is a habitat specialist. They occur only in fens, which are a type of peat-forming, mineral-rich groundwater fed wetland. Because the groundwater that feeds fens is mineral-rich, fens tend to have a neutral or alkaline water chemistry, opposed to bogs (which people often mistake with fens) which tend to be acidic. In fact, Mitchell's Satyr is almost entirely confined to a type of habitat known as a prairie fen. Prairie fens are a globally rare and biodiversity rich habitat type dominated by tallgrass prairie species, as well as Tamarack, Eastern Red Cedar, Poison Sumac and pitcher plants. Particularly important to the Mitchell's Satyr is the presence of a healthy sedge community, particularly the sedge Carex stricta, which is the likely larval food plant for Mitchell's Satyr caterpillars. In addition to Mitchell's Satyr, prairie fens are also important habitat for other rare butterflies like the Powesheik Skipperling and other rare insects and plants.

Fens that meet the requirements of Mitchell's Satyr have probably always been relatively rare and local, making each one, extra important for the preservation of the rich biodiversity that occurs in them. Unfortunately humans have been destroying and degrading wetland habitats for centuries, and fens with their complex web of groundwater sources are especially prone to degradation. As these fens have disappeared off the landscape, so too has Mitchell's Satyr and now the species is one of the rarest butterflies in the world, with a tiny population almost entirely confined to Michigan.

Fortunately for Mitchell's Satyr they received endangered species protection when they were federally listed in 1992. This affords them some protection from habitat loss and degradation, as well as deterring some of the threat from collectors (sadly rare butterflies are especially valuable to certain types, who can't resist adding ultra-rare butterflies to their collections, even willing to pay huge costs to get them). In fact, it is believed that the last site in New Jersey may have succumbed to butterfly poachers, who can make big money from even a single specimen.

So anyway, Nikki and I travelled to a fen in Berrien County (at the southwestern edge of Michigan) that still has a healthy population of Mitchell's Satyr. Adult Mitchell's Satyr can only be see during their narrow flight period which typically occurs only during the last week in June and the first two weeks of July. So we scheduled our visit right in the middle of this period around the 4th of July. Although this seems to have been a late year for the start of the Mitchell's Satyr flight, we luckily arrived right for the beginning of it and we ended up seeing a total of about 6 Mitchell's Satyrs. They weren't very cooperative for photography but one did settle on a sedge for a few seconds, just enough time for me to snap one decent photograph (see above) which I have now made into the background on my cell phone! It was great getting to spend some time in this rare and endangered ecosystem (even if we did get bit up by deer flies and chiggers). To me the surviving prairie fens are the most interesting habitat in southern Michigan.

White Wagtail in Michigan!

2011-04-12T21:48:00.001-04:00

So Adam Byrne discovered a White Wagtail at Point Mouillee State Game Area in Monroe County. Remarkably this is I think the third record for this species in Michigan! I am guessing this has to be near the top for any inland state. I am not normally a big "chaser", that is a birder who hears about some rarity and immediately takes off to try and see it. Normally I like to visit "hotspots" or my local area and try to see species in their normal habitat and range, rather than chasing after vagrants. That being said it had been a long time since I last got a life bird and I had just been thinking "I wish somebody would find a cool vagrant for me to chase"! So anyway on Saturday I heard that Adam had found the bird and several others had seen it. I was still tired because I didn't get back from Petoskey and the Michigan Bird Conservation Initiative meeting until like 1:00 am Saturday morning. However, I decided that if the Wagtail was seen again Sunday morning I would make the two hour drive over to Point Mouillee (south of Detroit, just north of Toledo, Ohio) and try and see it.

Sure enough it was seen again, so after a two hour drive and a 6 mile hike (3 in,3 back) I had excellent scope looks at the bird and even some crappy photographs (never got closer than 100 yards or so).

Speculation by others who got better photos is that this is from one of the eastern Siberia subpopulations. White Wagtails have up to 12 subspecies across their broad range that covers much of Eurasia, some of which that have been recognized as different species from time to time. Currently this individual is easily identified as a White Wagtail but in the past differentiating it between what was called "Black-backed Wagtail" would have been very difficult. Either way thinking that this individual crossed the Bering Sea and much of North America to reach Michigan is a pretty crazy thought!

Also I have been trying to see as many birds as possible from this book I bought when I was like 14 called "America's 100 most wanted birds" I am up to like 25 now and White Wagtail is in there, so another one gets checked off the list!

Chasing Winter

2011-04-04T16:17:00.001-04:00

A couple of weeks ago our friend Dustin came up from Oklahoma for a visit. Dustin is also a birder and had never been to Michigan before. Now Michigan in late March is in a transitional period, kind of before most of the interesting migrants start moving through as spring progresses but a bit late to spot some of the more interesting wintering species. So even as spring was taking a firm grasp of lower Michigan and warmer temperatures and melting snow was the rule in Lansing, we decided to chase winter and headed to the frozen north of the U.P.

Dustin had never birded anywhere much farther north than Oklahoma/Colorado, so a wide variety of boreal/artic species could be lifers for him. So even though it was a relatively "poor" bird winter in Michigan (very few northern owls, not a great winter finch year either) we thought we could get him a few lifers. The first night we stayed in Sault Ste. Marie, so we could hit up the farm country south of town that usually holds so many of the cool winter species that the U.P. is known for. We started off pretty slow and I was beginning to worry that most of the winter stuff was gone. Soon however we found a big flock of Common Redpolls, which was a lifer for Dustin. Amazingly almost the very first first redpoll I put my binoculars on turned out to be a really nice Hoary Redpoll, also a lifer for Dustin. I assured Dustin that this isn't the usual way it goes (and indeed of the 40-50 other redpolls in the flock, that was the only Hoary). Almost immediately after this we saw a really beautiful dark morph Rough-legged Hawk one of three we would see in rapid succession. We nexted drove to Dafter to look for some reported Bohemian Waxwings but ended up dipping out on that species but we did repeat the large redpoll flock with 1 hoary in it performance. A mile or so outside Dafter we saw a large flock of 40-50 snow buntings, another lifer for Dustin.

We next checked out the Dafter Dump but the gate was locked and it was a Saturday so we couldn't get in. We scoped the huge flock of gulls from the road but had a hard time seeing anything, though we did finally pull out one Glaucous Gull. We next drove over to Hulbert Bog in the off chance that we could find a Boreal Chickadee, which has apparently been harder to do there lately. Despite about a 2 mile walk and chumming for chickadees with townhouse crackers we only managed in working up the large local flock of black-capped chickadees. We did however get Dustin two more lifers in Ruffed Grouse and Red Crossbill.

We drove up to Whitefish Point but not much happnening there birdwise. We decided to stay the night in Paradise so we drove over to the Tahquamenon Falls State Park, where we had an excellent whitefish dinner and some locally crafted beer at the Tahquamenon Brewing Company. We headed back to Whitefish Point to see if the owl banders were having any luck. We stayed just long enough to watch the banders bring in a nice little female Saw-whet owl, which was fun to see.

The next day we had one main goal. To get Nikki and Dustin their life Snowy Owl. Though they might be more common and easy to see than the other rare northern owls, you have to respect the utter awesomeness of a giant white owl. So anyway we started driving the roads around Rudyard, almost getting stuck in the wet/frozen roads a couple of different times but we were rewarded with this...

One of my all time favorite birds!

After watching it for a bit a Rough-legged Hawk flew down and made a couple passes at the Snowy Owl. On the third pass the Snowy Owl flew up and took a swipe at the Rough-leg with its talons! Quite the winter bird show! Reluctantly we had to head back to the Lower Peninsula so Nikki and I could go back to work and Dustin could catch his plane back to Stillwater. Dustin ended up with something like 6 lifers, he will have to return during a better owl winter for more U.P. goodies!

An injured plover, an endangered species conundrum

2011-03-08T10:53:00.000-05:00

Late last fall we began to hear news in the office about a piping plover that was hanging out unusually late along the shores of southern Lake Michigan. We first heard about this plover in October when some local birders in Berrien County, MI spotted the bird and noticed that it appeared to be missing its left leg. Within a few days Tim Baerwald, an active birder in southwest Michigan actually got good enough photos to read the band combination from the metal band that was on the remaining leg. From this band we learned that this was a male plover that had nested last summer at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in northern Lake Michigan. The bird was successful in fledging two chicks but was involved in a predation incident involving another one of his chicks. Soon afterword monitors noticed that he would not place any weight on his left leg, leading to speculation that it may have been injured defending his chicks. As with all banded birds, their are occassional accidents involving caught bands or other band related injuries that sometimes lead to leg injuries of this kind, but we don't have any direct evidence of that in this case.

Anyway, at first we weren't unduly alarmed. Other plovers had stayed later in the past and we have other individual plovers missing a foot that have survived and successfully bred for multiple years. However as October progressed into November and we continued getting reports that the plover was still being seen in and around Warren Dunes St. Park we began to worry. The bird had not molted out of its alternate plumage, leading to speculation that it was in no condition to attempt the migration to the primary wintering area for Great Lakes Piping Plovers, the southern Atlantic coast of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Additionally it was beginning to get colder and colder and we were becoming increasingly concerned the bird would not be able to find enough food to survive. Finally around veteran's day we decided it was time to attempt a rescue. Getting the proper permits ready for the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago (who have done piping plover rehab in the past) and arranging for them to take the bird in took a couple days. When I was finally ready to drive the 2:30 hours down to Berrien County, the plover suddenly disappeared. It was not seen again for several days, then put in an appearence but then disappeared again. This time it was not seen for over a week and we had begun to think the bird had either died or attempted to migrate.

Finally the day after Thanksgiving (when there were only a couple other people in the office because of the holiday) I got an e-mail that the plover had been spotted Thankgiving evening (making it the latest record ever of Piping Plover in Michigan). As there was supposed to be a winter storm brewing we decided it was now or let the plover die, so we decided to attempt to capture the injured plover. So another biologist who was with our office at the time, Sarah Warner, and I gathered up my mist nets and other gear and drove down to Berrien County. The very helpful birders who had been spending a lot of their free time monitoring this bird were waiting to help us in the capture attempt.

We were greeted by below zero winds coming off of Lake Michigan but soon spotted the plover, hiding behind the only bit of cover on the beach.

Photo by Charles McKelvy

Due to the supposed condition of the bird, we had speculated that it might be very easy to capture. Leading me to even bring along a butterfly net, which seems pretty silly now. It turned out that the plover, though somewhat emaciated, still had his full powers of flight and capture was not easy.

Charles McKelvy, who writies for a local northern Indiana, southwest Michigan newspaper called "The Beacher" tells the whole story here in good style...

http://www.thebeacher.com/pdf/2011/BeacherFeb03.pdf just scroll down for the whole story, with the added benefit for readers of a goofy picture of me holding a butterfly net (professional wildlife biologist indeed, lol)

Long story short, after much work and a colloborate effort by all the assembled capture team we were able to guide the plover into the mist net.

Me getting the plover out of the mist net, photo by Charles McKelvy

We delivered him to a bird keeper from the Lincoln Park Zoo for continued transportation. Though as mentioned he was pretty underweight and likely would not have survived in the wild much longer; the plover made a fairly rapid recovery and is currently on display at the zoo. The main question is what happens to him now? The humanitarian perhaps says the rescue in and of itself was worth it as it saved the bird from starving or freezing to death on the shores of Lake Michigan. The conservationist may chime in that he is now a useful education bird, great public outreach to teach zoo visitors about the ongoing conservation work done on the endangered Great Lakes Piping Plover and other imperiled Great Lakes critters. But what about something more? Captive breeding perhaps, as the zoo also has a female plover from the Great Lakes population? Or releasing him back into the wild this spring? Each choice presents different issues, legal and ethical to ponder. Captive breeding (as opposed to captive rearing of eggs and chicks taken from the wild after being abandoned which we already do) would change the whole nature of the program, and is very expensive. And what of the ethical decision to release a crippled bird back into the wild? Things we continue to ponder, but in the meantime if you are in the Chicago area stop by and say hello to our little plover friend!

Great Lakes Piping Plovers in Canada

2011-03-07T10:43:00.000-05:00

As the population of Great Lakes Piping Plover has grown in the last decade they have returned to some former parts of their breeding range that had been abandoned for decades. This includes some areas in Canada, particularly along the Ontario side of Lake Huron. The above photo is a bird that nested at Tawas Point St. Park in Michigan last year. Although this bird was nesting on the Michigan side of the lake, because of its band combination we know it was born on the Canadian side in Ontario.

Recently I was interviewed by a Canadian journalist for an article he was working on about Piping Plovers breeding in the Canadian Great Lakes. Here is a link to the article

http://onnaturemagazine.com/beach-birds.html

Fool Hen

2010-11-09T22:02:00.000-05:00

On a recent trip back to the U.P. Nikki and I visited one of our favorite places, Whitefish Point Bird Observatory in Chippewa County, perhaps the best location in the midwest to view waterbird and hawk migration. Though the waterbird migration was a bit pedestrian on the two days we were there (Sabine's gull and a juvenile parasitic (probably) jaeger but very low numbers overall) we did get great looks at one of my favorite species the above spruce grouse or "Fool Hen" as it locally known. This species which earned its nickname for sometimes being ubsurdly tame when approached, resides in coniferous boreal forests across much of Canada and Alaska, but barely reaches the lower 48 in places like the U.P., northern Minnesota and northern New England.

Though locally common in spots in the U.P. it can be very difficult to pin down at any given time. In fact when I was in high school this was a major nemesis bird for me, as I dipped out time and time again even though it occurs in areas right around my families hunting camp. In fact check out my old website (keep in mind I created this back in the olden days of the interwebs when I was in high school so its a bit lacking um lets say lacking) www.angelfire.com/mi/upbirding for details of my then obsession of finding spruce grouse in the U.P.! My hometown library had a copy of Bill Robinson's great book "Fool Hen: The Spruce Grouse on the Yellow Dog Plains" which chronicles his painstaking research on this species in one of my favorite (and now sadly threated) parts of the U.P. Still one of my favorite books about the practice of field ornithology, "Fool Hen" only made me want to spend more time exploring the jack pine barrens and spruce bog edges where these birds can be found.

After I started working bird field jobs in some of the best parts of the U.P., I got to see lots and lots of spruce grouse and watch them displaying and see hens with chicks, but after a four and a half year stint in Oklahoma, I was pretty excited to see my old friend the fool hen again! Here are some more photos.

My new job - Great Lakes Piping Plovers!

2010-10-13T20:55:00.000-04:00

I was hired this summer to work for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ecological Services Office in East Lansing, MI. One of my primary duties is to act as the field coordinator for the endangered Great Lakes population of the Piping Plover.

Many people are unaware that there are three distinct Piping Plover breeding populations, one along the Atlantic Coast, one along the rivers and prairie potholes of the northern Great Plains, and the one that nests along pristine sandy beaches in the Great Lakes.

Both the Atlantic Coast and Great Plains populations are listed as threated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and number less than 2000 pairs. By far the most imperiled is the Great Lakes population which is listed as endangered (on the wintering grounds on the Gulf and southern Atlantic coasts, the whole of the population is considered threatened).

Historically, Great Lakes Piping Plovers were estimated to number perhaps 600-800 pairs and breed across most of the Great Lakes basin. However, habitat loss and nest disturbance and predation on the breeding grounds had reduced the Great Lakes Piping Plover population to under 20 pairs by the 1980s; almost all on isolated beaches in northern Michigan.

Since then a mix of intense conservation efforts by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state agencies and countless volunteers, as well as lowering Great Lakes water levels (which provides more beach habitat for the birds) has resulted in a slow but steady increase in the Piping Plover population. Last year a high of 71 pairs was reported across the Great Lakes basin, breeding in areas where breeding hadn't occurred in decades such as parts of Canada, Wisconsin and even Illinois.

However the Great Lakes Piping Plover continues its precarious life on the endangered species list and only intense monitoring, nest protection and other conservation activities have likely allowed it to persist at all. Now the Gulf oil spill presents new hazards for the Piping Plover on its wintering ground (luckily the bulk of the Great Lakes population seems to winter along the atlantic coasts of Georgia and Florida).

Much work remains to be done but I am sure I and the many other members of the Great Lakes Piping Plover conservation team will try our best to help make sure the ringing cry of PEEP-LOH!! continues to ring out from beautiful Great Lakes beaches!

A Great Lakes Piping Plover broods its nest inside a nest enclusure in Michigan.

Hummingbirds of Southeast Arizona

2010-10-13T20:11:00.000-04:00

As the leaves begin to fall here in Michigan and cold and cloudy weather starts to set in, I thought it was time for a bit of warmth, energy and color! So without further build-up here are a collection of hummingbird photos from last spring's trip to southeast Arizona; mostly from Miller Canyon in the Huachucas and various spots in the Chiracahuas.

Probably my favorite of the Arizona Hummingbirds is the Magnificent (formerly Rivoli's). A beautiful hummingbird that makes its home in the sky islands of Arizona and the Sierras in Mexico.

Black-chinned Hummingbirds were common at all the different areas of southeast Arizona that we visited.

A rare treat was this Berylline Hummingbird, one of the rarest of the regular Mexican hummingbird strays in Arizona.

It was even collecting nesting material!

Anna's Hummingbirds are always a beautiful feast for the eyes.

White-eared Hummingbirds are amongst the most wanted species for birders visiting southeast Arizona.

A regular behemoth by hummingbird standards, the Blue-throated Hummingbird is the largest species of hummingbird that occurs north of Mexico.

Another southwestern beauty is the broad-billed hummingbird.

... and we finish off our hummingbird party with this cool shot of a tiny broad-billed hummingbird in front of a massive Giant Saguaro!

Arizona - continued

2010-08-30T22:23:00.000-04:00

Some photos of wildlife taken in and around Sunny Flat Campground in Cave Creek Canyon, AZ.

Arizona Woodpeckers were common in the campground

and were easy to photograph

The local gang of Mexican Jays spent a lot of time begging for food

Yellow-eyed Juncos were very common at higher elevations

Gambel's Quail were common in the desert lowlands below Portal

Nikki believes she has a special power to draw-in flycatchers, like this Cordilleran Flycatcher

Blue-throated Hummingbirds are one of the many special Hummingbirds of southeastern Arizona

Catching Up - ABA # 500 Whiskered Screech Owl

2010-08-11T00:00:00.000-04:00

I have neglected my blog while I have moved across the country and started a new job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service back in Michigan. However I intend to continue catching up on posts gradually of birding and other adventures that have occurred since mid May. To start out with here is a video of my 500th ABA area bird, Whiskered Screech Owl that I took back in late May. Number 500 ABA is a pretty significant milestone for North American birders, as it is fairly difficult to get to 500 without doing a lot of traveling across the country (or countries if you do a lot of Canadian birding). Whiskered Screech Owl seems like a pretty decent milestone bird, with a very restricted range in the ABA area, plus I got these killer looks! Onward to 600!

The plight of amphibians

2010-08-10T09:31:00.000-04:00

More than most other groups of animals or plants, amphibians have suffered terribly in recent decades. Their permeable skin and general preference for the very wetlands that humans seak to drain and destroy have left them vulnerable to a wide range of attacks from habitat destruction to an insidious fungal infection known as chytridiomycosis that seemingly is fatal to frogs and toads (though the fungus and the infection itself are still little understood). The general result has been a massive wave of extinction not seen in a major vertebrate group in recorded history. Most of the seeming extinctions have come about as frogs in vulnerable tropical areas have fallen victim to a combination of chytridiomycosis and habitat loss, though other groups of amphibians, including temperate frogs, toads and salamanders have all suffered as well.

Here is a link that highlights 10 "lost" species of amphibians that may have left our midst forever.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38626084/ns/technology_and_science-picture_stories/displaymode/1247/?GT1=43001

There have been "rediscovered" species of amphibians that were percieved to have gone extinct, so some hope may remain for some of these species. However, now that it has already happened, let us take the example of the vulnerable amphibians as our proverbial "canary in the coal mine" and realize that if we have made the world unsafe for our fellow vertebrates, what are we doing to ourselves?

Catching Up - Arizona part 1

2010-06-11T21:00:00.000-04:00

For a much belated honeymoon, Nikki and I decided to take the week before memorial day off and drive out to Southeastern Arizona. This is perhaps the premiere area for a naturalist in the United States, with a high diversity of birds, herps, mammals, insects and plants (not so much if you are an ichthyologist however). This region has been calling to me ever since I first got involved in birding some 20 years ago. Any glance in a birding magazine and you will likely see some mention of this region, calling to birders with its special birds with Mexican affinities, trogons, hummingbirds, owls, warblers! It was something of a dream trip for me, and Nikki was enthusiastic as well because it is perhaps also the best place in the United States to view lizards! So with bags packed and camping gear ready we left Stillwater on May 16th for the long drive towards Portal, Arizona and our first destination the exotic sounding Chiracahua (Cheer-wa-cow-wha) Mountains. Homeland of Geronimo and the other Chiracahua Apache. One look at the above photograph (of the cliffs at the entrance to Cave Creek Canyon) and you may gain an understanding of why the Chiracahua Apache fought so fiercely to protect this land.

We stayed in the Sunnyflat Campground in Cave Creek Canyon, just a short drive from the famous South Fork birding area and only 5 or 6 miles up from Portal. The views from our campsite included the above photo and the following.

Our campsite, the first night camping, was very windy but our tent managed to stay upright, despite us somehow missing one of the tent poles!

So the next morning dawned cold and still windy and I heard very little birdsong, so we decided to sleep a couple of extra hours. Turned out to be a good idea becuase when we started birding at 7:30 it was still cold and there wasn't a lot of bird activity. However we still made our way over to the South Fork of Cave Creek, a place that every birder knows.

At first it was a bit quiet expect for a noisy and curious family group of Mexican Jays.

However after some judicious use of pygmy owl whistling imitations I quickly stirred up a mixed flock of Bridled Titmice, Grace's Warblers, Blue-throated Hummingbirds and this next guy, a beautiful Painted Redstart.

As we moved farther into the canyon, it began to warm up a little and bird activity started to increase as well. Soon we found ourselves sharing the canyon forest with a pair of Arizona Woodpeckers, a particular specialty of Cave Creek Canyon and the Chiracahuas.

This species has recently been split from the Strickland's Woodpecker, a similar species that is restricted now to a small area in the Sierra Madre in Mexico, Arizona Woodpeckers have a deep chocolate brown back and streaking but otherwise kind of resemble Hairy Woodpeckers.

As we ventured farther down the creek bird activity really started picking up, espcially with the warblers, flycatchers and vireos, as we picked up many more Grace's Warbler, Black-throated Gray Warbler, many many Painted Redstarts, Cordilleran Flycatchers, Dusky-capped Flycathers, Greater Pewee (which is a great bird this low in elevation), Hutton's Vireo and Plumbeous Vireo, among others.

However as we entered the Chiracahua Wilderness area the true prize of the South Fork remained quiet and elusive.

I am speaking of course of the Elegant Trogon, the lone regularly seen representive of the trogon family in the United States, a species that arguably draws more birders to southeastern Arizona than any other. And though I had seen many of the other trogon species that occur farther south in Mexico, I still needed to add Trogon elegans to my life list. And if you want to add Elegant Trogon to your ABA area list, the South Fork of Cave Creek Canyon is by far the best place to do it.

Anyway shortly thereafter we heard now 1, not 2 but 3 different Trogons calling across the middle stretches of the canyon. In fact, we had very little difficulty tracking one down where it proved to be quite cooperative, giving us excellent looks and even photography opportunities.

These chunky looking birds have beautiful orangish red breasts and bellies, beautiful dark green heads and backs, a bright orange eye-ring and startingly yellow bill, with a beautiful patterned tail. In short one of the most beautiful birds that grace these United States with its presence.

In Arizona, Trogons occupy some of the most beautiful habitat in the entire region, cool mountain canyons with ample moisture, filled with Arizona Sycamores, Apache Pine and other beautiful and stately trees.

A truly memorable lifer and birding experience and for now I will leave you with a picture basking in the Trogons reflected glory. More on our naturalist adventures to come!

The joys of local birding

2010-04-11T17:02:00.000-04:00

I decided to do a little birding in my local patch this morning. So I walked around the Oklahoma State University Arboretum for a couple hours. Nothing spectacular was seen but I did get a couple FOS species including Lark Sparrow and Northern Parula. Here are a couple of photographs from this morning's outing.

This was my FOS Lark Sparrow singing away in the morning light.

This little Lincoln's Sparrow was cooperative sitting atop a brush pile.

My full list of species as reported to ebird

Location: Oklahoma State University - Arboretum

Observation date: 4/11/10

Number of species: 31

Canada Goose 2

Mourning Dove 10

Red-bellied Woodpecker 3

Downy Woodpecker 1

Northern Flicker 1

Eastern Phoebe 1

Blue Jay 3

American Crow 1

Barn Swallow 1

Carolina Chickadee 5

Tufted Titmouse 1

White-breasted Nuthatch 1

Carolina Wren 1

Ruby-crowned Kinglet 3

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 8

Eastern Bluebird 3

American Robin 3

Northern Mockingbird 10

Brown Thrasher 3

European Starling 2

Northern Parula 2

Yellow-rumped Warbler 7

Chipping Sparrow 10

Clay-colored Sparrow 1

Lark Sparrow 1

Lincoln's Sparrow 2

White-throated Sparrow 2

Harris's Sparrow 3

Northern Cardinal 6

Brown-headed Cowbird 5

House Finch 2

This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)

Great Backyard Bird Count - or yes I am still alive

2010-02-25T14:09:00.000-05:00

The last month has mostly been a scramble working on my Lower Rio Grande Valley Report and applying for/interviewing for various jobs. Because of this I haven't had much time to work on my blog or to even go birding.

However on the weekend of the 13-14th of February I did participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count. This event sponsored by the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is an attempt to create a Christmas Bird Count like event during a more "true" (at least for most of North America) winter season (Christmas time is actually more like very late fall for most birds, often times very northern birds have not yet come down into the U.S. while some birds that normally winter farther south may still be lingering up north at Christmas time).

Anyway I spent all of Saturday the 13th and much of the rest of the weekend birding around the area at as many of the local hotspots as I could, trying to wrack up a lot of checklists. Stillwater has led Oklahoma in number of checklists submitted for this event every year since I arrived, and I wanted to do my part again (submitted 10 checklists for different locations again this year. Though I didn't find anything super interesting I did find the only Greater White-fronted Geese submitted for Oklahoma during the count period, and had about 50 species overall, so it was still a good time to be birding the sooner state. I also saw a large number of Red-shouldered Hawks, like the one above, which is always nice.

As spring draws ever nearer and I hopefully can start wrapping up the initial draft of the rio grande valley report I hope to get out birding/lepping/herping a lot more so I can have some actual material to update my blog!

Blizzard Birds

2010-02-02T15:08:00.000-05:00

As many of you may have heard, Oklahoma got hit pretty hard by last weeks and weekend's winter storm. Though Stillwater was not among the unfortunate communities that lost power for extended periods, we were effectively snowed/iced in for a couple of days.

During periods of poor weather, birders will often notice increased bird numbers and activities in their yards and feeders as birds attempt to compensate for the increased stress of cold and wet weather by eating more and different foods. I personally had a new yard bird during the storm. Eastern Bluebirds normally occur in more open areas on the edge of town, and I had never before seen one at my yard in the middle of blocks and blocks of houses and suburban yards. However with the coming of the storm Nikki and I found a flock of 17 Eastern Bluebirds chowing down on the berries in the backyard. Other birds that we noticed with unusual numbers or activities included Dark-eyed Juncos, Northern Flickers, Mourning Doves, and Ruby-crowned Kinglets.

Second Annual Rusty Blackbird Blitz!

2010-01-14T15:17:00.000-05:00

Photo taken from eBird

The second annual Rusty Blackbird Blitz is taking place this coming January 30 - February 15th. All birders within likely Rusy Blackbird wintering range should spend some time trying to document this quickly declining species and report their sightings to eBird. Researchers are trying to learn all they can about this species before it is too late.

Check out the link to the eBird page about the Blitz.

http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/rubl-survey-2010

In addition you can join my event on facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/#/event.php?eid=247369852443&ref=mf

Sprague's Pipit - Endangered?

2009-12-03T13:59:00.000-05:00

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/article_88376d66-dfa2-11de-ba96-001cc4c002e0.html

When I was working on a Mountain Plover project in northern Montana many moons ago, I really enjoyed birding at Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, and watching the Sprague's Pipits perform their beautiful figure 8 courtship flights. A sight that is apparently getting rarer every year.

Picture of the Day - Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

2009-12-01T16:12:00.000-05:00

Photo of the day - Red-bellied Woodpecker

2009-11-10T12:37:00.000-05:00

Marriage on the Mountain

2009-11-04T11:51:00.001-05:00

Just a bit of personal news. This past weekend I got married on Rich Mountain at the Queen Wilhelmina lodge. The long ridge that is Rich Mountain is located on the border of Oklahoma and Arkansas and is home to one of the most beautiful salamanders in the world, the highly endemic Rich Mountain Salamander. Found only on a few mountaintops in this part of the Ouachita Mountains, the Rich Mountain Salamander is one of several Ouachita Mountain endemic salamander species inhabitating the region.

Though I study birds, I have always been equally fascinated with salamanders. Many of the things I love to study in birds, endemism, speciation, biogeography can be appreciated in even greater detail in salamanders. They also can be very difficult to find and have beautiful and remote locations where they are found. It has always surprised me than that "salamander watching" is not a more popular pastime. But perhaps it is for the best, the habitats of these often rare creatures can be sensitive, and I am afraid that there are too many "herpers" interested in collecting rather than just watching or photographing these beautiful animals.

Still I hope that we as birders have a fascination and respect for all the biodiversity of the earth and a desire to see quality conservation across the spectrum of life!

Some LRGV pics

2009-10-28T01:08:00.000-04:00

White Peacock

Armadillo

Mexican Bluewing

Buff-bellied Hummingbird

Green Jay

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher

Coast Guard Helicopter patrolling the Rio Grande

Least Grebe

Queen

Texas Tortoise

Rio Reforestation!

2009-10-25T20:28:00.001-04:00

As you advance in birding in the ABA area, you gradually learn that the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas is amongst the top birding locations in all of the United States. With many Mexican species that just barely spill across the Rio Grande, as well as the confluence of two different migratory bird pathways, plus numerous species at the eastern or western edges of their ranges, the area has one of the most diverse avifaunas in the USA. Many exotic or tropical looking species like Green Jays, Great Kiskadees and various Orioles jump out of the pages of many birding books and magazines enticing birders to visit this part of the country.

One thing birders may not learn is that the natural habitats of this area are amongst the most endangered in all of the U.S. In fact numerous sources estimate that over 95% of native Tamaulipan brush habitat (the dominant habitat type of the LRGV) has been lost on the U.S. side of the border. That means that so many of the species of birds that thousands of birders travel to south Texas to see each year are pushed onto a tiny network of fragments of remnant habitats (primarily Santa Ana NWR, Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park and a few other tiny areas of public land owned by other conservation minded organizations and agencies).

Not all is doom and gloom however. The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, which is a collection of many different tracts of land stretching across all four counties that make up the valley (and currently covering over 90,000 acres) is attempting to create a "wildlife corridor" linking the best remaining areas of native habitats in the valley.

Many of these tracts are areas of reclaimed farmland that no longer support native vegetation. Because of this the LRGV NWR has developed an interesting revegetation effort. Native plant species are grown by the refuge or a collection of local farmers that help the refuge in return for the ability to farm certain areas. These native plant seedlings are then planted at refuge tracts in an attempt to restore the dense native brushlands required by much of the valley's wildlife species.

Currently researchers at the refuge are trying to determine the best mixes of native plants for quickly and effectively restoring native brushlands. Many factors come into play. Invasive Asian grasses are a constant threat to native plants in this area and quickly creating a native plant canopy to shade out the grass is one technique that may prove successful. Only time and careful research will tell what strategies will prove most effective for restoring quality wildlife habitat in the region.

With the help of farm crews, local school children and of course the biologists of the LRGV NWR, some of the fields of the Lower Rio Grande Valley may soon be restored to native brushlands supporting birds, Ocelots and other wildlife species. Hopefully the restoration of a viable wildlife corridor in the area will provide quality habitat in the valley for generations to come!

Yellow Rail!

2009-10-19T00:12:00.000-04:00

Growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and spending a lot of time at Seney National Wildlife Refuge during the early days of my wildife career, I was lucky enough to work on part of the ongoing Yellow Rail research at Seney. Yellow Rails are often considered the most difficult bird to "see" in North America (in the right habitats during the breeding season hearing one is quite a bit easier). However this ultra secretive species is very much an "avian mouse" almost impossible to flush and even more impossible to see as they navigate underneath the tall grass and sedges of their marshes and meadow homes. Because of this they are almost always considered amongst the "most wanted" birds in North America by birders. They breed locally across a broad swath of sedge meadows and wet prairie in Canada and the farthert north parts of the U.S. and winter primarily along the Gulf Coast.

In recent years birders have begun to discover certain locations where Yellow Rails seem to concentrate during migration. One of the prime places for this has been Red Slough Wildlife Management Area in far southeastern Oklahoma. A former rice plantation that in recent years has been converted into a marsh complex that is one of the best birding locations in Oklahoma.

So in hope of spotting some of the rare and beautiful Yellow Rails that I had known so well at Seney NWR I found myself dragging a rope across acres of wet fields on a beautiful October morning. One of the few ways to get the notoriously Yellow Rails to show themselves is to drag a rope with attached weighted bottles in a line with a large group of people behind it. If you are lucky perhaps you will get a brief look at a tiny dark rail with white patches on the back of their wings flush in front of you.

Sort of like this guy in the above photograph.

Some lucky birders watching the Yellow Rail fly above the wet fields of Red Slough WMA.

And if you are very lucky you get to see this happen not once or twice but five times in one morning!

Other birds seen on a Yellow Rail drag at Red Slough include quite a few Sedge Wrens and LeConte's Sparrows.

And if you are very very lucky. You actually spot a Yellow Rail walking amongst the grasses right ahead of you, where you can watch him and photograph this "shadow bird" in all its secretive glory!

Species Focus - Lewis's Woodpecker

2009-10-14T15:25:00.000-04:00

"I saw a black woodpecker (or crow) today… it is a distinct species of woodpecker; it has a long tail and flys a good deal like the jay bird” - Meriwether Lewis, July 2oth 1805.

I have long been fascinated by the Lewis and Clark expedition. I have read the journals and most of the available treatises on the subject. I even took a seminar class on the expedition in grad school. The thought of travelling out into the thrilling unknown, the romantacism of seeing the American West before it was "civilised", all of these things draw me and thousands of others into learning about the famed expedition. Perhaps as a biologist the part that intrigues be the most is the discovery of new species of plants and animals. Lewis was a pretty good naturalist in his own right, and when not suffering from one of his bouts of depression, would take copious notes and samples of the new flora and fauna they were seeing as the traversed the continent. As an ornithologist I am of course most interested in the new birds discovered by the expedition, perhaps the singular woodpecker (or crow) of Lewis most of all.

When visiting the Harvard Museum during an ornithological conference, I was able to see and photograph the voucher specimen of Lewis's Woodpecker, that is the actual Lewis's Woodpecker collected by Lewis himself and thus the first known to science. Sadly most of the specimens and other artifacts collected by the expedition have been lost, either in fires or other mishaps. So this lone Lewis's Woodpecker represents an extremely valuable part of American and scientific history, a truly fascinating and valuable artifact!

Besides its discovery having an interesting and fascinating backstory, the bird itself is decidedly odd. As you can tell from Captain Lewis's quote above, upon first glance many people, even with reasonable naturalist backgrounds may confuse Lewis's Woodpecker with some kind of corvid. It often perches upright at the top of a tree or limb (very un-woodpercker like), it flies kind of like a jay and has such a dark. odd color pattern (a mix of dark green, gray, crimson red, and blushy pink), so unlike any other bird, especially woodpecker!

I recently spent several days in the northwest corner of Oklahoma and the southeast corner of Colorado, right at the edge of the sporadic range of the Lewis's Woodpecker, and spent a leisurely hour watching the behavior of and photographing a group of five Lewis's Woodpeckers in the beautiful Cottonwood canyon in the Comanche National Grassland.

One of the most interesting things about Lewis's Woodpeckers is that in the summer, they rarely forage in the manner of other woodpeckers (that is hopping up and down the sides of trees, hammering and scraping at the bark to get at the coleoptera larva and other goodies underneath). Instead they spend much of their time hawking insects, much like a flycatcher! The group of LEWO that I watched were doing just that, flying out from a grove of cottonwoods in the beautiful canyon catching dragonflies and large grasshoppers! The above photo shows one of the LEWO with a large grasshopper.

In the winter, Lewis's Woodpeckers return to feeding much like other woodpeckers. They are known to cache acorns and other nuts, and that is in fact what the above bird was doing. They were collected acorns from a nearby oak and wedging them into gaps in the bark of this giant cottonwood!

Sadly, this odd and fascinating species is rapidly disappearing from the landscape. BBS records indicate a general decline since the 1960's and there are several instances of known local extirpations. Though loss of habitat and especially nesting places are often blamed, Lewis's Woodpeckers which are generally uncommon and spottily distributed throughout their range are difficult to study and thus poorly understood. Hopefully, more research will discover keys to conservation for the LEWO. One of my favorite species and a unique part of American history.

The Wildlife Society - Wildlife Policy Updates

2009-10-08T12:56:00.000-04:00

http://joomla.wildlife.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=517

Quite a few important bills and potential policy changes being considered at this time. Its a good idea for wildlife conservationists to be aware of these things and write to their representitives. I have found that uniquely written messages sometimes do make there way into the hands of some of these politicians.

Sabine's Gull, Lake Carl Blackwell

2009-10-03T16:55:00.001-04:00

I finally picked up my life Sabine's Gull this morning! This species, which breeds in the artic and winters mainly at sea, is a very rare visitor (though annual) in much of the interior of North America. One of the most beautiful gulls in the world, with I think a very attractive juvenile plumage (this SAGU was indeed a juvie). It was associating with a flock of about 30 Franklin's Gulls which in of itself was a nice little find on Lake Carl Blackwell, which is actually a pretty small reservoir about 10 miles outside Stillwater. The above photos were the best I could do, as the bird was about halfway out in the reservoir and never got closer, but at least they are diagnostic. A very nice find for me on a beautiful fall morning, I love fall migration!

Good News for a very rare bird!

2009-10-02T15:16:00.001-04:00

http://www.birdlife.org/news/news/2009/09/jerdons_courser.html

Bats!

2009-10-02T14:09:00.000-04:00

After seeing my friend Heidi's post on bats today I was inspired to finally post this Hoary Bat picture I took about a month ago. This beautiful little guy had sadly been injured during a severe storm the night before and was found and brought to us hoping he could be rehabilitated (sadly no, his wing was far to shattered and he seemed to be in a lot of pain so he was humanely put down).

It did however remind me of the plight that faces bats around the world. These interesting and beautiful creatures are one of the truly great products of millions of years of evolution, the only flying mammals! They are among the most specious and diverse of all the groups of mammals, with forms most varied and interesting.

I've been interested in bats for about as long as birds. My hometown, Iron Mountain, MI has what is probably the largest bat hibernaculom in the midwest (actually located only about a quarter of a mile from the house where I grew up).

http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/wildlife/viewingguide/up/07Bat/index.htm

This site discovered only during my childhood, led to an in-town battle over whether the hibernaculom which is located in an abandoned Iron Ore mine, should be saved, or whether the town should go through with a plan to fill-in the mine due to concerns about safety.

This led the founder of Bat Conservation International, Merlin Tuttle

http://www.batcon.org/index.php/media-and-info/about-bci/merlin-d-tuttle.html

to come to Iron Mountain during a series of visits where he spoke at the town library about the importance of bats in the ecosystem and why bats needed to be saved. In a rare instance of wildlife winning a battle like this, it was decided that the hibernaculom would be saved, and made into an ecotourism site! As a young nature nerd, I was delighted (I was also delighted to meet Merlin Tuttle, I brought along several National Geographics he had written bat articles in to get autographed) and inspired to continue down a biologists path.

Bats may have won this one little battle, but unfortunately they continue to lose the war. Bats are still hated and feared by many people. So it is difficult to muster up the kind of conservation support that animals like Pandas, Whales and other charismatic species enjoy because of this stigma. But bats face countless problems and there are quite a few bat species on the Endangered Species list, and many more knocking on that door. Habitat loss, wind farms, persecution, and disease are just some of the issues facing bats today.

Please visit the Bat Conservation International Website to learn more about these beautiful, interesting and declining creatures.

http://www.batcon.org/

Climate Worries

2009-09-04T17:23:00.000-04:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/01/MNBT19E450.DTL

The above link is a San Francisco Chronicle article that discusses a study by the Point Reyes Bird Observatory that examined the potential effects of climate change on the avian community of California. The study which was just published today found that many species, particularly those occuring in mesic forest habitats will see a range reduction from the spread of dry conditions as predicted by most climate change models. Once again drawing attention to the potential consequences the environment will face from the effects of climate change.

Top 25 Best Mexican Birds

2009-09-03T19:37:00.000-04:00

Top 25 Best Mexican Birds.

When I was a freshman at Michigan State, I enjoyed perusing Don Roberson’s website (you can find it here http://creagrus.home.montereybay.com/ ). Featuring pages on a many of the worlds bird families, this was one of the major factors in me developing an interest and passion for learning about and seeing birds outside of the ABA area (the others being access to true high speed internet for the first time, and the immense resources of the Michigan State library where I could check out many great books featuring different bird families, as well as foreign field guides). You see before college I was one of those birders who on the main, thought that the ABA area was the be all and end all for my birding.

Anyway another interesting feature of Don Roberson’s site was his list of his choicest for the 50 “best” birds of the world. He defined “best” as a mixture of impressiveness, uniqueness, rarity, difficulty to see, and unique factors like interesting ecology or other things. He ranked birds on each of these categories from a 1-5 scale (5 I think being the best) to come up with his “best” bird rankings. These rankings spurred me to learn a ton about these various species, as well as other “best “ type birds, many of which are severely endangered, have highly endemic and restricted ranges, or have super interesting plumage or behavior, etc.

As I have chosen Wildlife Biology as a career, I doubt I will ever have the time or money to really make an effort at seeing too big a variety of the birds chosen by Don Roberson or other similar species. I do however enjoy thinking about these “best” type birds for different areas and regions. You could make your own list using similar criteria for the ABA area of course.
Here however I have decided to create a similar ranking for the birds of Mexico. I first travelled to Mexico for a conference during my first year of grad school. I visited the amazing hawk watching site north of Veracruz in Cardel, Mexico and got to watch literally hundreds of thousands of raptors soar by over me at the two main hawk watching spots. I also visited unique coastal savannahs and thorn forests, picking up Mexican endemic species and common resident birds. To put it simply I fell in love with the amazing and interesting birdlife of our neighbor to the south, as well as the culture and geography. I have been back and visited many of the interesting habitats and areas of south Mexico since, and plan on continuing to explore the many wonders of Mexico.

So knowing I will probably never be a world traveler on the scale of Don Roberson or many other international birders, but hoping to have the time and money to explore Mexico, I have made a Don Roberson style list for the Top 25 Best Birds of Mexico (a list I could more realistically complete) based on the following criteria:

1) Impressiveness/Interesting – Being beautiful or huge or something is great, but being a tiny skulker that only inhabits some interesting niche is cool too.
2) Unique – Is it really similar to other species or is it the only member of its genus?
3) Rare – Let’s face it, birders and other wildlife watchers like to see things that are rare and difficult to observe over ubiquitous backyard species.
4) Hard to see – see above
5) Endemic/special circumstances – Since I am doing this for just a single country I am giving points to species that are endemic or very nearly endemic to Mexico. Also points will be considered if there are interesting historical or cultural significance based on a species.

The List – Keep in mind before ranking, I hand selected a much smaller pool than all the birds that inhabit Mexico to save time. Therefore there were some really interesting and cool species I didn’t even consider. Any sort of list like this no matter the ranking system still has a lot of subjectivity. The last 5 or so species were especially difficult because there were so many great birds to consider that didn’t make it on the list. How do I not have any owls, nightjars, seabirds or island endemics? Oh well that’s for other people to debate and come up with their lists! Also I did not include extinct species, or species likely extirpated from Mexico, thus no Imperial Woodpecker or Harpy Eagle.

1. Horned Guan - 25 – The “best” bird of Mexico, this amazing and bizarre Cracid is endemic to cloud forests on the border of Mexico and Guatemala. There are only a few places it can be seen and even here they can be hard to find. The seemingly best place (El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve in Chiapas State in Mexico requires a long hike in and overnight camping). – Have I seen it – NO

2. Sumichrast’s/Nava’s Wren – 24 – This pair of allopatric wrens have extremely small ranges encompassing only a few spots in a couple of Mexican states. They are drab and cryptic (and thus would not have been a major consideration on Don Roberson’s main list) but I think their really long bills, (for their size) makes them stand out and makes them two of the most distinctive wrens. They are also really hard to see, quite endangered, and inhabit a really cool (and disappearing) habitat type, evergreen rainforests with karst understory, meaning the forest floor is covered in large sharp rocks and caves. The wrens forage amongst these rocks on the forest floor. – Have I seen them – YES, they were a primary focus of my 2008 trip to Oaxaca and Veracruz.

3. Bearded Wood Partridge – 23 – This beautifully patterned wood partridge is a highly endangered and disappearing species. Inhabiting only a few locations in Veracruz and adjacent central Mexican states. It is now very hard to see, especially without locale guides. – Have I seen it – NO.

4. Resplendent Quetzal – 22 – One of the most beautiful and unique birds in the world. This species only inhabits a small portion of Mexico, mostly in the very southern cloud forests of Chiapas. Super famous as being one of the “Best” birds in the world but lost a couple points on my list because it is not endemic. - Have I seen them - NO

5. Thick-billed/Maroon-fronted Parrots – 22 – Gorgeous “proto-Macaws” inhabiting temperate pine forests in the northern Sierra Madres, this allopatric pair (Thick-billed in the Sierra Madre Occidental and Maroon-fronted in the Sierra Madre Oriental) are both highly endangered. The Thick-billed formerly spilled across the border into southeast Arizona but no longer regularly occurs there. Both can be considered endemic. – Have I seen them – NO

6. Dwarf Jay – 21 – This tiny and beautiful jay occurs only in a small area of east-central Mexican mountains, where it can be seen in mixed species flocks in humid Pine-oak forests at high elevations. It is an endangered species and there is only one or two reliable places to see it. - Have I seen them – Yes, thought we were going to dip out on this species on a trip to Oaxaca after not seeing them for several hours, but on our way back to the car a small group flew over us calling!

7. Cabanis’s Tanager -21 – A beautiful and uniquely patterned Tangara tanager. This species has a tiny range in Chiapas and adjacent Guatamala. Another species that most people seem to find at or near El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve. - Have I seen them – NO

8. Tufted Jay-21 – A striking Jay with a tiny range, this species resembles forms found in South America hundreds of miles away, leading some to wonder if they are descendents brought to Mexico as part of an ancient meso-american human bird trade. Either way an awesome bird of beautiful forested canyons in west Mexico. - Have I seen them – NO

9. Tuxtla Quail-Dove-20 – Another species with similar relatives that occur far away in South America. This striking and hard to see species is restricted to the Los Tuxtlas Mountains in Veracruz, where most of its habitat has been destroyed. - Have I seen them – NO

10. Short-crested Coquette -20- A tiny hummingbird that is critically endangered. Is found only along one road in the Sierras of Guerrero state where it is rarely seen. A similar species is found from Panama into South America. Have I seen them – NO

11. Eared Quetzal -20- This unique and beautiful Trogon is endemic to the Sierra Madre Occidental of northwest Mexico. It is rarely seen but occasionally shows up in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. Have I seen them – NO

12. Belding’s/Altimira/Black-polled Yellowthroats – 20- This similar trio all have tiny ranges in different parts of Mexico. All inhabit severely degraded and declining marshes and are highly endangered. Very cool to the taxonomist but lose some uniqueness points for being closely related to the Common Yellowthroat. Have I seen them – NO

13. Chestnut-sided Shrike-vireo -19- A striking bird with a striking name, this species inhabits high elevation forests from central Mexico into Guatemala. They can be quite hard to spot as they forage slowly and quietly. Have I seen them – YES

14. Slaty Vireo-19- Another striking endemic vireo. Very unique colors and small range make this an interesting species. They are also quite skulky and difficult to see. Have I seen them – NO, probably my biggest dip on my trip to Oaxaca.

15. Red/Pink-headed Warbler -18- Both are very beautiful and uniquely plumaged warblers that are endemic to highlands in Mexico (Red) and Mexico and Guatemala (Pink-headed). Not particularly hard to see in the correct habitats but boy are they beautiful! - Have I seen them – YES

16. Rosita’s Bunting-18 – Another beautiful endemic. Rosita’s Bunting is endemic to a tiny area in the southern part of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. I just love the color pattern of this species. It is also named after the wife of pioneering Mexican ornithologist Francois Sumichrast. Have I seen them – YES

17. Aztec Thrush-18 – This uniquely plumaged thrush with a great name for Mexico is endemic to highlands in north and central Mexico. It can be a tricky species to pin down. Have I seen them – NO (another big dip)

18. Giant Wren-18 – This wren is huge! It is also endemic to the coastal part of the Mexican state of Chiapas. Have I seen them – NO

19. Ocellated Thrasher-17 – In my opinion the most beautiful species in an already classy looking group of birds. The Ocellated is also endemic to a relatively small area of south central Mexico. It can also be a bit of a challenge to see. Have I seen them – YES, a major highlight of any trip to Oaxaca.

20. Red-breasted/Grey-throated Chat-17 – Both of these beautiful and uniquely plumaged warblers are endemic or regional endemics. Red-breasted occurs only in thorn forests along the pacific coast of Mexico, while the Grey-throated is endemic to the Yucatan and adjacent lowland rainforests. Have I seen them – YES, Red-breasted was expected but we also picked up Grey-throated at Uxpanapa in Veracruz where they are not even on the site list in Howell.

21. Double-striped Thick-knee-17 – A truly amazing looking species! Stands out in the coastal savannahs of eastern Mexico. Not particularly rare seemingly across its large range, but range is apparently spotty. Have I seen them – YES

22. Mexican Ant-thrush – 17 – I had to have some sort of ant following species on the list and this one is endemic. Have I seen them – NO but I did hear some.

23. White Hawk – 16 – This beautiful hawk has to be one of the most striking and beautiful of all raptors. Occurring in lowland rainforests across a broad range of the Neotropics, the ones in Mexico have more white in their plumage and might be the most beautiful of all. Can be a bit tricky to see. Have I seen them – YES

24. Elegant Quail – 16 – Mexico has several beautiful species of endemic quail but I feel this is the most beautiful of them all. Have I seen them – NO

25. Sierra Madre Sparrow – 16 – I felt I needed to include one of Mexico’s endemic sparrows and this is rarest of them all. Have I seen them – NO

"State of the State Birds", or no I actually don't have this much time on my hands

2009-09-02T14:15:00.000-04:00

Ok, this is a complete repost from something I wrote for my livejournal back in 2006. Now that I have a birding blog it seemed right to revisit the idea. So without further ado here it is.

-

Well I have had it in my head to do this for several days. No I am not actually this bored nor do I have a lot of time to kill but I just wanted to do this for some time. The recent attempts to have Michigan's state bird changed from the American Robin to the Kirtland's Warbler got me thinking about the "state" of our state birds. When looking at any list of our state birds, it is easy to see the lack of diversity between the states. For example 6 states have Western Meadowlark, 6 have Northern Cardinal, 5 have Northern Mockingbird, 3 have American Robin, 3 have American Goldfinch, 2 have Black-capped Chickadee, 2 have a breed of chicken, and 4 have some kind of bluebird. We have 51 "states" (including the district of columbia) that have named a state bird, but only 27 species represented. I feel this is a misuse of the state bird system.

Shouldn't a state bird reflect something interesting about the state? An interesting historical anecdote, or represent a unique habitat type or a dominant/unique ecoregion of the state (a mountain bird for a mountain state, a seabird for a maritime state, etc.). I feel this could help bolster state ecotourism. Wouldn't it be more interesting to travel to a state and see your lifer in the state where it was the state bird? Personally I don't like the trend of naming the most common or flashy and easy to see bird in a state the state bird. Doing something just because joe public (or a 2009 update "joe six-pack") might have heard of it or approve isn't always the greatest idea. This trend has resulted in the lack of diversity in the state bird mentioned above. Just because Robins, and Mockingbirds, Cardinals, etc. are easy to see doesn't mean EVERY state needs to name these ubiqutous species.

In fact naming a more obscure species might inspire the public to learn at least a little more about their local avifauna, which could lead to a better appreciation for conservation as a whole. I have decided to make a list of the current state birds and an example of what I feel would be a better choice. Feel free to comment on this and come up with your own choices!

Getting it right the first time, the states that did a good job.

1. Oklahoma: Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. Ah here is a state that did itself proud. No other state claims the beautiful ST Flycatcher as its state bird, it is also relatively breeding range restricted to the southern plains and is not a species everyone knows about. Good job Oklahoma!

2. New Mexico: Greater Roadrunner. An excellent choice. No other state has it as a state bird, it is an interesting species that truly speaks of the southwest. New Mexicans can be proud.

3. Pennsylvania: Ruffed Grouse. Very nice, only state to claim it, represents the eastern forests of pennsylvania well and represents the hunting culture of the quaker state.

4. Minnesota: Common Loon. What bird better speaks to the image of the northwoods? The haunting call of the loon makes the lakes of the northwoods summer special. What better bird could you think of for the land of 10,000 lakes?

5. Utah: California Gull. This falls into the interesting historical anecdote catagory. I believe the people of Utah named this the state bird because they ate a locust or cricket plague that was threatening the early farmers of Utah.

6. Maryland: Baltimore Oriole. The bird named after the lord baltimore, whose coat of arms colors matched it perfectly.

7. Louisiana: Brown Pelican. Good choice, represents the gulf coast region well.

OK but could be changed

8. New Hampshire: Purple Finch. Does represent the northern regions but the range may be a bit wide. How about Bicknell's Thrush.

9. Alaska: Willow Ptarmigan. Really a good choice, unique to alaska (as far as not being in other US states) however the lack of birds of prey on the state birds list should be changed, so how about Gyrfalcon.

10. Hawaii: Nene. Unique, but what native Hawaiian birds aren't? How about one of the highly endangered honeycreepers to give evidence to their plight, my favorite is the akohekohe also known as the crested honeycreeper.

11. Colorado: Lark Bunting. I like Lark Buntings a lot and they are unique to the plains. However I think of Colorado as the quintensential Mountain state, so to reflect that, how about White-tailed Ptarmigan.

12. Vermont: Hermit Thrush. Only state to have it, the hermit thrush is a good indicator of the northern forests but its range is pretty wide. How about something more restricted to the northeast like Black-throated Blue Warbler.

13. South Carolina: Carolina Wren. It is named Carolina Wren, and it is a bird somewhat of the southeast. But what about the suite of birds truly endemic to the southeastern pine forests. Let's go with Red-cockaded Woodpecker.

14. District of Columbia: Wood Thrush. Good eastern forest bird but I think of DC as being surrounded by water with the potamac, so how about a wetland species like Prothonotary Warbler.

Not completely bad, but should be changed.

15/16. Delaware and Rhode Island. Varieties of the domestic Chicken. Not completely bad as these are quirky state birds for two little known states; but having domestic fowl as a state bird still seems like a bad idea. How about Red Knot for Delaware, as it is a crucial migration spot and Purple Sandpiper for Rhode Island, as the rocky coastline is prime wintering grounds for this species.

17. South Dakota: Ring-necked Pheasant. Well it is a bird many people hunt for in SD but it still is an introduced species. How about a native game species, like Greater Prairie-Chicken.

18. Alabama: Northern Flicker. Only state to have it as the state bird. However the Flicker is very widespread, how about another southeastern specialty, the Brown-headed Nuthatch.

19. Arizona: Cactus Wren. Really not a bad choice at all. But I just think Arizona needs to name the elf owl the state bird. How cool are the pictures of a tiny owl staring out of a cavity in a giant saguaro? The answer, VERY cool.

20. Georgia: Brown Thrasher. Only state to claim it but too widespread, another southeastern specialty, Bachman's Sparrow (sparrows are kind of drab for John Q. public but Bachman's do have a pretty song).

21. California: California Quail. Well similar to Carolina Wren, an ok choice. However California is so diverse and has so many species (including endemics) that it is difficult to name something here. However I have decided on Marbled Murrelet, a seabird that nests in the giant conifers, so represents the ocean and the unique giant trees of california.

The states that copy eachother, state birds that must be changed.

22. Arkansas: Mocker. Too many states have this bird, if the Ivory-billed discovery is ever verified, why not the Lord God bird? (2009 redo: as it appears ever more clearer that Ivory-bills are not haunting the swamps of Arkansas, I'll change this choice to Whip-poor-will because the Ozarks are a crucial part of their range).

23. Connecticut: Robin. Robins live pretty much everywhere, but I am having trouble thinking of something for this one, so how about Scarlet Tanager, more strictly a bird of the eastern half of the US.

24. Florida: Mocker. How about something that is more restricted to the swamps and marshes, like say Snail Kite.

25. Idaho: Mountain Bluebird. Also the state bird of Nevada. How about something associated with the Lewis and Clark expedition that famously struggled through the mountains of Idaho, like Clark's Nutcracker.

26. Illinois: Cardinal. How about something associated with the prairie country of pre-settlement illinois, like the Dickcissel.

27. Indiana: Cardinal. How about a species associated with the great deciduous forests of the pre-settlement ohio river vallery, like the Cerulean Warbler

28. Iowa: Goldfinch. Shared with other states. Another prairie bird, Upland Sandpiper?

29. Kansas: W. Meadowlark. Shared with other states. One of the last strongholds of Lesser Prairie Chicken

30. Kentucky: Cardinal. Can we say KENTUCKY WARBLER!

31. Maine: BC Chickadee. I struggled for a bit thinking I should put in a northern forest bird, but wait what better than Atlantic Puffin!

32. Massachusetts: BC Chickadee. Hmmm difficult but Harlequin Ducks do winter on the coast.

33. Mississippi: Mocker. Another good southeastern bird Anhinga?

34. Missouri: Eastern Bluebird. Shared with other states. Stronghold of Henslow's Sparrow.

35. Montana: Western Meadowlark. What state is more associated with Lewis and Clark? How about Lewis' Woodpecker.

36. Nebraska: Western Meadowlark. The famous Platte River migration spot and sandhill region leaves little choice but Sandhill Crane.

37. Nevada: Mountain Bluebird. Nevada is a tough one, hmmm Black-throated Sparrow?

38. New Jersey: Goldfinch. How about something to represent the Pine Barrens, Pine Warbler.

39. New York: Eastern Bluebird. How about another forest warbler, Blackburnian.

40. North Carolina: Cardinal. One of the most well known states for pelagics, Black-capped Petrel?

41. North Dakota: W. Meadowlark. Most people get lifer Bairds Sparrow here, also Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow. Wow I have really violated my no obscure birds rule with all these sparrows, especially the several ammodramus. What can I say sparrows rule!

42. Ohio: Cardinal. another good forest warbler, Hooded.

43. Oregon: W. Meadowlark. A cool bird of the tall cool northwestern forests, the Hermit Warbler.

44. Tennessee: Mocker. Another southeasternish warbler, the Yellow-throated

45. Texas: Mocker. Texas is difficult with its huge size and wide range of habitats, but how about the breeding endemic, the Golden-cheeked Warbler.

46. Virgina: Cardinal. How about a bird of the coast, American Oystercatcher.

47. Washington: A. Goldfinch. The sound of the northwestern forests, Varied Thrush.

48. West Virgina: Cardinal. I always thought Worm-eating Warbler was a great bird to represent Appalachia

49. Wisconsin: Robin. Wisconsin is tough for me as I grew up only a couple miles away. How to represent both northern forest and prairie? I gave up and went with Black-backed woodpecker, Why? because I like them.

50. Wyoming: W. Meadowlark. Kind of tough what with mountain forests and short-grass prairie. I decided on Ferruginous Hawk to add another bird of prey.

The worst one

51. Michigan: Robin. How can you have a breeding endemic to a very small region in the northern temperate zone(a very unique situation) and instead have one of the most widespread and common birds in North America. GO KIRTLAND'S!!

Some Stillwater Butterflies

2009-09-01T14:20:00.001-04:00

On Sunday, Nikki and I visited the Oklahoma Gardens here in Stillwater. This is a pretty good area for picking up spring migrants, and also because of the abundance of planted native and exotic flowers, is also a great spot for butterflies. It was a beautiful day and there we counted hundreds of different butterflies of more than 20 species, including the Silver-spotted Skipper above. Here are a few more photos from our visit to the gardens.

There were several of these beautiful Gulf Fritillaries around. This species contracts back towards the warmer parts of Texas and the Gulf Coast in the winter, but comes back to Oklahoma every year in the late summer and fall.

This is Oklahoma's state butterfly (one of the few states that have named one actually) the Black Swallowtail.

And here Nikki makes a new friend. Hackberry Emporers commonly land on people, probably in search of the salt on our skin!

Trouble on the Prairie

2009-08-06T15:48:00.000-04:00

http://www.newsok.com/prairie-grouse-protections-may-threaten-wind-energy-in-oklahoma/article/3390500?custom_click=lead_story_title

Check out this link from the Daily Oklahoman newspaper. Just the headline will show you what no doubt most Oklahomans think about the issue. Read the comments if you want to confirm that suspicion. Lesser Prairie Chickens are almost assuredly more "endangered" than many of the birds that are actually on the endangered species list. There has also been a lot of research to confirm that statement, contrary to what many of the commentors on the above article think. Unfortunately the politics of the region where LPCH's live will probably keep them off the list for a long time to come.

The Birding Life - Travels throughout the land - Part 7

2009-07-29T17:34:00.001-04:00

For my last entry in this travel segment of The Birding Life, I will talk about the bird that is more responsible than any other for hooking me into a life of birds!

Our last night in Grand Marais there was a torrential downpour that lasted for hours, leaving us, our tent, and the U.P. more than a little damp! After a long day touring around Seney we couldn't quite decide if we wanted to drive all the way back to Iron Mountain, or just drive part of the way and then relax in a hotel. Ultimately this idea won out because I also had an idea to check around some of my old haunts to look for a very special bird, and staying in Escanaba put us a little closer to a potential location.

So anyway we got up the next day a little on the late side but I still thought that if there were birds around we would have a good chance at finding one, for when they are singing, they are very loud and actually quite tame. If you know your birds, you have probably already gathered from the top picture that I am of course speaking about the Kirtland's Warbler!

The Kirtland's Warbler is a federally endangered species that has been on the endangered species list since its inception. This bird has a tiny breeding range, basically confined to the state of Michigan (though a few have occassionally and recently been found breeding in Wisconsin and Ontario) and very exacting habitat requirements. It occurs only in areas with dense young jack pine, mostly between 5-12 years old, with porous, sandy soils and scattered openings. It nests on the ground typically concealed by overhanging braches from a young jack pine. Formerly the Kirtland's was restricted to just a few counties in the north-central part of the Lower Peninsual where it bred, and then migrated to the Bahamas to overwinter.

When I first started reading about the Kirtland's Warbler in the late 1980s it was very very near extinction. In fact in 1987, the annual Kirtland's Warbler census revealed that the bird had fallen below 200 pairs. There were two principal causes for the near extinction of the Kirtland's. Number one being habitat destruction. As mentioned above the KIWA requires very specific habitats. Habitat that typically only occurred after a wildfire had swept through an area cleaning the slate clean and allowing for the regeneration of dense stands of jack pine. Humans in general try to prevent and control wildfires (sometimes for good reason of course!) but in the case of the Kirtland's Warbler, this lead to a large scale dissapearance of their already rare habitat. The second blow came when Brown-headed Cowbirds, formally a species of the Great Plains, expanded their range into Kirtland's country. This species is a nest parasite, laying its eggs in other birds nests for the host to raise. In its native range many of the species have defenses against the cowbird, but many species like the Kirtland's are defenseless and raise the aggressive cowbird nestlings to the deteriment of their own young.

Just when it looked the bleakest however, the Kirtland's Warbler population began to turn around. The key elements in the recovery have been habitat restoration using controlled burns and more recently another technique using machine planting that creates similar habitat; and also cowbird control. In fact just about the time I got my drivers license and began to explore the U.P. on my own, the Kirtland's had recovered to the point that presumably habitat in the L.P. became saturated and a few birds started showing up in the U.P. My first ever volunteer bird "job" was actually assisting with the U.P. Kirtland's Warbler census when I was just 16!

Long story short, I found some likely looking habitat relatively near Rapid River, MI. The first place I had ever seen a Kirtland's in fact. Nikki and I walked around for awhile but no Kirtland's were singing. Just as I was thinking of giving up, boom a Kirtland's appeared right in front of me without ever even singing! One of the nice things about Kirtland's is their extreme tameness. This one (which you can see was banded, later we would discover in 2006) allowed me to follow it around for 10 minutes or so, while I snapped all of these photos. A short time later we would discover another Kirtland's which made three for us on the trip counting the one I heard earlier in Chippewa County.

The Kirtland's Warbler's comeback has been impressive, they now can be seen in many areas in the Northcentral L.P. and in scattered locales across much of the U.P. However there are still only a little over 2,000 pairs or so. Not exactly the most numerous bird around! Because of the nature of their habitat, and limited potential breeding range, the KIWA will likely never be common. They will continue to require cowbird control and habitat restoration-creation to survive. If we stopped these measures it would be only a short time before they fell to previous lows because of the ephemeral nature of their habitats and lack of cowbird defenses. However, if we remain diligent and watchful, the "Bird of Fire" will continue to sing its song across the unique Jack Pine Barrens of Michigan.

The Birding Life - Travels throughout the land - Part 6

2009-07-29T16:52:00.000-04:00

For me the east-central part of the Upper Peninsula, the area around Seney NWR in particular has been almost just as much as a home as Iron Mountain. In fact I probably know the area a little better, as I have explored close to every road, trail and deer path in the area. So no trip "home" is really complete for me until I visit Seney and the surrounding state forest lands. Plus I still have good friends who work at the refuge, which makes it even better.

Seney NWR is part of what was once known as "The Great Manistique Swamp", this immense area of marshes, bogs and pools was gradually logged out and drained away during the logging boom of the 1880s to 1920s. Afterword people tried to farm in the newly drained areas but poor soil conditions led to farm collapses during the great depression and the lands eventually reverted back to the United States government. They decided to create Seney NWR basically as a refuge for Canada Geese really. The civilian conservation corps was put to work in the 30s and 40s restoring the refuge, they dug pools and dikes and created the refuge that we know today.

The eastern two portions of the refuge (referred to as units 1 and 2) consist of a system of pools, dikes and roads within a general forested matrix. The wastern third (unit 3) is a designated wilderness area with very little access. This part of the refuge primarily consists of immense sedge meadows and striated bogs. The refuge features many of the different habitats that can be found in the U.P. including Black Spruce bogs, sedge meadows, open water, upland forests, jack pine/red pine savannahs, aspen regen, red oak openings, in other words its a veritable haven for U.P. biodiversity!

If you want to know why I am cheerleading so much its because I spent a considerable amount of my young adult life at Seney, working on various bird field projects and internships. So it is truly a place near and dear to my heart. Anyway here are some photos from in and around Seney.

This female Ruffed Grouse was actually a little north of Seney, she had chicks hiding just off the road and allowed us to approach quite closely in the car without flying away.

One of the highlights of any trip to Seney are the many Trumpeter Swans inhabiting the pools. The Trumpeter Swan (once extirpated across most of the United States) was reintroduced to Seney in the 90s and has been so successful there that they have occupied all of the available habitat and have started to colonize other nearby areas. (My first peer-reviewed journal article was actually on the Trumpeter Swan population at Seney in the journal Waterbirds)

Another great long-term study at Seney is on the Common Loon population here(and in fact I believe it is the longest running and most complete study of Loons anywhere!). The person currently doing the field work for the Loon project as Seney is my friend Damon (who let me tag along to assist in some loon banding many years ago) who has discovered many new and interesting things about loon ecology.

Loons are typically shy and difficult to approach, even by car, but this one was quite content to remain closeby as we drove along the Seney wildlife drive.

One interesting tidbit, the current Whooping Crane recovery project is largely based on techniques pioneered on Sandhill Cranes at Seney NWR.

The Birding Life - Travels throughout the land - Part 5

2009-07-27T17:44:00.000-04:00

I wanted to show Nikki some of my old haunts in the eastern U.P. Places that I had worked or spent a lot of time. Besides general relaxation (and a few days of respite from my family for Nikki) we also wanted to see some of the cool boreal birds, butterflies and plants! We camped for a couple of nights in Grand Marais, in far eastern Alger County. This is one of my favorite places in the U.P. Its right on Lake Superior and almost always quite cool even in the middle of summer, while we were there it didn't much rise above 60 even though in the interior of the U.P. it was pushing 90. For a birder one of the cool things about Grand Marais are the few pairs of endangered Great Lakes Piping Plovers. Below Nikki can be seen by a sign warning beach goers not to disturb the birds!

We saw a pair who had a nest right on the main Grand Marais beach. Don't worry I have a 15x zoom on my camera so we didn't approach any closer than about 50 feet from the birds.

The Great Lakes population of the Endangered Piping Plover numbers around 50 pairs, though at one time it had actually fallen to something like 18. So they are a bit of a conservation success story at this point.

After enjoying some great fresh caught Lake Superior Whitefish (and some delicious locally crafted beer) at the Lake Superior Brewing Company (aka the Dune Saloon) Nikki and I enjoyed a beautiful Lake Superior sunset.

The next morning we woke at 3:45 am for some good old boreal birding! We drove out to an area of many bogs north of Trout Lake in Chippewa County. We were hoping for Connecticut Warbler and perhaps a cool mammal or two (like a moose). We didn't get CONW or moose, but we did get MANY MANY mosquitos. Below Nikki protects herself from the skeeters as best she can as she plays warblers songs for me.

The habitat in this area is awesome however, and there were tons of other warbler species like Magnolias, Nashvilles, and Chestnut-sideds. You never know what you might find in this area, for the second time I actually heard a Kirtland's Warbler in this strange boggy habitat. In 2005 me and some of the other Redstart crew saw a Kirtlands only a few miles from this spot as well. In addition there was apparently a Yellow Rail reported from this area this year.

I did get a few pictures of cool warblers here as well, below we see a Blackburnian Warbler, they were quite common in the area, like they are in much of the U.P.

Somewhat rarer in the U.P. and more restricted to the eastern half is the Black-throated Blue Warbler, one of my favorite birds. We had quite a few of these guys in the mature beech/sugar maple forests that occured in upland areas between the bogs.

Black-throated Blue Warbler

Olive-sided Flycatcher

In addition to the birds we were hoping for some new boreal butterflies. One of my most wanted for the trip was the below Jutta Artic. A species restricted to Tamarack/Black Spruce bogs, primarily in Canada.

We also saw many beautiful Milbert's Tortoiseshells

One species we saw repeatedly in boggy or other wetlands areas was the Harris's Checkerspot, I really liked the underwing pattern in this species.

After our morning in the bogs, I took Nikki to Whitefish Bay, were we looked across at our Canadian neighbors to the north.

And stopped briefly at the Point Iroquois lighthouse. This is near the place where the Chippewa Indians stopped the expanse of the Iroquois confederacy in a bloody battle.

I stopped by some of Beth's old sites northwest of Raco in Chippewa County.

Where I found this beautiful little American Copper perched on some reindeer moss.

One of my favorite of Beth's sites was site number 12 seen below.

Where I found this Red-backed Salamander below.

After our eastern U.P trip we continued on to Seney NWR where we saw this baby turkey vulture. But that is for the next blogpost!

The Birding Life - Travels throughout the land - Part 4

2009-07-24T14:57:00.000-04:00

Growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was awesome for a budding ornithologist. Because of our location at the crossroads of the northern hardwood and boreal forests, the U.P. is a true hotbed of breeding bird diversity. As most of our breeding species are neotropical migrants, that is birds that migrate every year between wintering areas in the Caribbean, Central and South America and breeding habitats in the United States and Canada, we get to watch the great cycles of arrival during spring migration, breeding, and then depature during fall migration. In fact, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is rivaled by only Northeastern Minnesota for breeding Neotropical migrant diversity in North America. Though I am a big fan of the Tanagers, Flycatchers, Vireos and all Neotropical migrants, one group to me stands alone. They are the Parulidae, the wood-warblers.

My favorite spot for viewing warblers when I was a kid was Fumee Lake. This beautiful northern lake, surrounding by hills of hardwood and coniferous forests is located just a few miles from my home town of Iron Mountain. It was once an area of iron mines and later a drinking water source for the local area. However in recent times it has been made into a natural area. A place for people to come and enjoy wildlife and all nature has to offer. There are breeding Loons and Eagles, but to me the main attraction was always the warblers. During spring migration I have seen over 20 species of warblers in a single morning at Fumee but even during the breeding season it can be quite good. As part of my trip home I just had to show Nikki Fumee Lake Natural Area. The place I truly caught the warbler bug. Here are some pictures of warblers I took on a late June morning at Fumee.

Northern Parula

American Redstart

Common Yellowthroat

Northern Waterthrush

Black-and-white Warbler

Nikki enjoying a fine morning at Fumee Lake

The Birding Life - Travels throughout the land - Part 3

2009-07-23T13:22:00.000-04:00

After Leaving Kansas, we continued on our way to Michigan. The first night we stayed in Des Moines Iowa, before proceeding to the U.P. the next day. My plan was primarily to relax and let Nikki meet the rest of my family. But we had over two weeks to spend in the U.P. so of course I also had plenty of birding and other nature watching planned as well. The first few days we stayed at our families camp as seen below.

Our camp is located on 40 acres of family owned land, which my grandfather and some friends bought in the 1920s. During the depression other lands owned privately were forclosed by the bank and eventually went back to the state. As a result our camp is completely surrounded by miles and miles of the Copper Country State Forest, so it is all public land. There are a few logging roads and cross country ski trails in the area that allow a little quicker access into some nice habitats. One of my favorite areas however, is miles and miles back from any road. This area surrounding Scott Lake, has classic boreal hardwood transition forests, as well as some tamarack bogs, and northern white cedar swamps. To get back to Scott Lake you have to cross a cool fallen log that has been laying across this swamp for decades. It is covered in moss and wildflowers.

You also have to go through this narrow ravine, we have always called it Porcupine Pass.

You can also climb on top of some cool bluffs covered in Reindeer Moss.

Right before you get back to Scott Lake you walk by this cool pond, covered in Algae in the summertime.

Then you get back to Scott Lake, it is surrounded by White Pines on the ridges and Black Spruce, Tamarack bogs. I have seen lots of cool wildlife here, like Otters, bobcats and beavers.

Its nice to get back to a place like Scott Lake now and then, a place where I have never come across any other people.

On the way back there we were looking for all the wildlife that we could find, including birds, butterflies and other cool insects. A recent clearcut was full of cool early and mid successional bird specialists, like this Chestnut-sided Warbler. This species prefers brushy areas, the recent clearcut fit right in!

We also found a pair of Mourning Warblers, though somewhat shy, the Mourning Warbler is fairly common in brushy areas in much of the U.P.

We were also looking for cool insects, their were many of these beautiful Six-spotted Tiger Beetles on the trails back towards Scott Lake.

And spiders and Dragonflies, including this Wolf Spider preying on this guy!

Also seen were many Jewelwing Damselflies.

And of course many cool and new butterflies!

Canadian Tiger Swallowtail

Little Wood Satyr

Common Ringlet

White Admiral

And a very friendly Northern Crescent

Stay tuned for more from our trip to the U.P.!

The Birding Life, travels throughout the land - part two

2009-07-15T15:08:00.001-04:00

After I returned from the Lower Rio Grande Valley, I had a week of getting work things in order before departing on a two and a half week trip to visit my family (and do some birding) back in my native Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

On the drive towards Michigan I deliberately chose a path that would take us past the National Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Kansas. This preserve much like the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma lies in the Flint Hills region. This region most of which lies in Kansas but spilling over into adjacent Oklahoma has some of the best Tallgrass Prairie habitat left in the world. The reason for this is the rocky soil of the Flint Hills wasn't suitable for cultivation so much of the area was used to graze cattle instead, cattle grazing, unlike row crop agriculture is actually fairly compatible with maintaining native wildlife. The National Preserve is actually owned by the National Parks Service, (the one is Oklahoma is owned by the Nature Conservancy), in addition the National Preserve lying several hours to the north is located more in the heart of the the Flint Hills, making it a somewhat better area to view native Tallgrass Prairie butterflies, which was the main aim of stopping at the preserve.

Our first stop was touring the still standing barn and outbuildings of the large cattle ranch who's lands would eventually make up the bulk of the preserve.

Nikki enjoyed the basement of the old barn, which addition to being delightfully cool, also housed some friendly barn cats.

After this we took a walk on some of the trails that lead up away from the buildings and out into the prairie. We were not dissapointed, butterflies were everywhere amongst the native prairie flowers and other vegetation!

We quickly spotted many different species, including this Variagated Fritillary above. In some places along the trails it was difficult to focus on individual butterflies before another species would fly by!

Tallgrass prairie birds were also in attendance with abundant Dickcissels like the one above singing away, as well as Eastern Meadowlarks and Upland Sandpipers.

The true part of my prairie quest remained elusive, so we continued on with our march through the bluestems and indian grass, past the butterfly milkweed and asters, searching for a rare and declining butterfly, soon a blur rocketing past me (at least as much as a butterfly can rocket) proved to be my quarry.

Ever since I began watching butterflies, I had my eye on two species in particular, both rare and declining both sexually dimorphic, beautiful and large. The Dianna Fritillary of the Appalachian and Ozarkian mountain meadows, and the above Regal Fritillary of America's dissappearing tallgrass prairies. Both of these species like other members of the genus Speyeria, feed on species of violets as larvae.

I was a bit worried that my mid June visit to the preserve would be a bit early for catching a glimpe of one of these butterflies, as they more typically don't emerge until a little later in June and into July. However, males, like the one pictured above do typically emerge a little before females which are a little larger and have white instead of orange spots on the back of their forewings.

The Regal Fritillary like its tallgrass prairie home has disappeared from much of its original range. Once occuring extensively in the east, they cling on east of the Mississippi only in a few scattered remnant populations, where a small amount of tallgrass has been spared the plow. Here in the Great Plains, where a bit more of the tallgrass has been preserved they still remain in seemingly stable populations in areas like the National Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. Hopefully such places will continue to be protected so we can continue to catch a glimpse of this truly Regal creature of the prairie.

The Birding Life, travels throughout the land - part one

2009-07-14T15:52:00.000-04:00

Its been a long time since my last post. Part of the reason for my lack of posts have been my many travels both for work and vacation.

The first week of June found me in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. Currently I am working on a technical report for the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and needed to visit the area to talk with the biologists and managers who run and do research on the refuge. Mixing meetings and visiting the various refuge tracts during the day, and birding during the early mornings and evenings, I managed to see quite the variety of bird, butterfly and other animal life.

Plain Chachalacas are quite common and easy to see at Santa Ana NWR, my home base for my week long fact finding tour of the LRGV.

The predominant habitat community at Santa Ana NWR has been described as Mid-valley riparian woodland, this is essentially a bottomland hardwood community dominated by cedar elms, Berlandier ash and sugar hackberry, all draped in Spanish Moss.

I arrived in the valley during an intense thunderstorm. I knew that the much needed rain in the dry valley would bring out some interesting herps, including this Sheep Frog. This species' range barely reaches the U.S. only in very south Texas. Sheep Frogs are microhylids, this frog family has many members like the sheep frog that spend much of their time under leaf litter and specialize on eating ants and termites. This is a threatened species in Texas.

The Lower Rio Grande Valley, particularly these forested areas along the Rio Grande are important stopover habitats for neotropical migrant songbirds, including this very late (June 2!) migrating Olive-sided Flycatcher.

Texas Tortoises are listed as endangered in Texas. In the LRGV they rely on Upland Thornscrub habitats many of which have been degraded or destroyed. Many of the better areas left for this species lie on LRGV NWR lands.

The valley has the greatest butterfly diversity in the United States, here we have a Ceraunus Blue.

What would a visit to the LRGV be without watching some Green Jays for awhile. I followed around this likely family group as they foraged and interacted with one another.

The Chachalacas on the refuge are usually quite tame.

The managed oxbow wetlands, known locally as Resacas, are important habitat for many wetlands birds, like this Tricolored Heron.

More examples of the great diversity of butterflies found in the LRGV, from top, Tawny Emporer, Carolina Satyr, Clouded Skipper, Fiery Skipper, Teleas Longtail, Western Pygmy Blue (probably the worlds' smallest butterfly, and Clytie Ministreak.

The LRGV is also home to the Giant Toad (also known as the Cane Toad and other names). This species dwarfs the American Toads known by most people. It has become a problem in some areas where it has been introduced, in the valley however they are a native species.

The LRGV is home to several species of native cats. The Ocelot and Jaguarandi are both federally endangered and extremely difficult to see. Bobcats however are quite a lot more common, I actually saw them on multiple occassions on my evening hikes around Santa Ana.

Everywhere in the valley you are reminded that Mexico is literally only just across the river. This is of course both a blessing and a curse. Just another one of the many issues in a complicated land.

The LRGV NWR also includes lands on the Gulf of Mexico. These areas are some of the best preserved habitats for shore and seabirds left on the Texas Coast. Here we see a flock of mostly Royal Terns.

Black Mangroves along the mouth of the Rio Grande provide the farthest south habitat for Seaside Sparrows, as well as habitat for Mangrove Warblers, a distinctive race of the Yellow Warbler, that may warrent species status.

The Boca Chica beach tract of the LRGV provides habitat for rare and threatened species, including the above Piping Plover and below Least Tern, the beach is also a nesting ground for the endangered Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle.

The LRGV national wildlife refuges and associated Word Bird Centers, provide some of the best remainging habitat in the United States for many birds of more tropical origins. These include the above Groove-billed Ani, as well as the Gray Hawk, adult and nest with nestlings pictured above. Without these areas, many of the birds that draw thousands of birders and millions of ecotourism dollars in the LRGV region each year would lose their foothold in the United States.

Oklahoma Big Day attempt

2009-05-15T17:16:00.000-04:00

Oklahoma Big Day Attempt – Sunday, 5-10-2009
Paul Van Els, Jason Heinen, Dustin Lynch and myself Vince Cavalieri, left Stillwater at 10:30 Saturday Morning on our way to Black Mesa. Our big day plan was to start in the Black Mesa area, then bird our way back east stopping at various hotspots and birds we staked out on our way out there. Being confident at finding eastern birds in the Stillwater and Tulsa areas (this would prove to be our undoing).

In general our Saturday trip out there was successful in finding target birds to stake out for the next day. At an old house and barn near the intersection of 412 and 95 south we staked out a Barn Owl. In the fields around Boise City we located two fields that had courting Mountain Plovers and a lingering Northern Harrier. The Boise City Sewage ponds were very active with 3 Red-necked Phalaropes in a large group of Wilson’s Phalaropes, as well as other common shorebirds, ducks and a Black-crowned Night-heron. The road between Boise and Black Mesa had many of the usual suspects including Lark Buntings, Long-billed Curlews and Ferruginous Hawks. We also found a Curve-billed Thrasher at the large prairie dog town south of the state park (but no burrowing owls). At the State Park we had a Bald Eagle at Lake Carl Etling and the usual Wild Turkeys hanging out in the park. Our best spot was the canyon and Mesas above camp Billy Joe where we had Pinyon Jays, Western Scrub Jays, a Juniper Titmouse and Common Ravens. I was a bit concerned about the time it would take to bird that spot the next day, but we had enough birds there to warrant the time we felt. We ended the day camping at the State Park, ready to get a few hours sleep before starting the big day very early the next morning.

We awoke at 3:45 am and got our first bird, Wild Turkey at 3:47 (three of them were roosting in the cottonwoods above our campsite). While we were packing up the tents, we added some other birds singing or calling in the darkness like Western Meadowlark and Killdeer. North of the state park we stopped at a spot we had heard a Poorwill the night before and not only picked up that species but also a singing Cassin’s Sparrow. We stopped at the Cimarron River Bridge hoping for Western Screech Owl and instead got lucky with a singing Lesser Goldfinch. Driving the road north and then east into the riparian area along the river again, we did hear a Western Screech Owl and then shortly thereafter we had Great-horned Owl.

As the sun was rising we raced over to Camp Billy Joe and made our way into the canyon and then up the canyon walls to the top of the Mesa. Here we had multiple Ash-throated Flycatchers, Canyon Towhees, Rock and Canyon Wrens, Bewick’s Wren and a Western Scrub Jay. Trying to keep up with the fleet footed Paul I stepped on a loose rock and went tumbling down the mesa side. Luckily I was mostly unhurt but did rip my jeans, leading me to bird the rest of the day with a jacket tied around my waist in an effort to not let the whole world know the color of my boxer shorts. On top of the Mesa we added Pinyon Jay, Juniper Titmouse and Bushtit. Back near the actually camp Billy Joe we added a seemingly out of place House Wren and a Bullock’s Oriole. We next drove into Kenton and quickly added Black-chinned Hummingbird, several of which were coming into the feeders at the Merc. At the merc we also had a Say’s Phoebe and two Yellow-headed Blackbirds in a nearby snag. We also added some more town oriented birds like House Wren, House Sparrow and Eurasian-collared Dove. We made a quick stop at the Hoot Owl Ranch but were unsuccessful in spotting Lewis’s or Ladder-backed Woodpeckers. We did however pick up Yellow Warbler, Yellow-rumped (both Audubon’s and Myrtle in the same tree!) Warbler and Northern Waterthrush. Other passerine birds included Blue Grosbeak, American Goldfinch and a Red-breasted Nuthatch of the pale variety seen in the Rockies.

At the state park we added Yellow-breasted Chat, some lingering sparrows like White-crowned and Lincoln’s, also a Rufous-crowned Sparrow. Could not find a Vermillion Flycatcher but did pick up a Willow Flycatcher. At Lake Carl Etling we quickly spotted our staked out Bald Eagle, sitting very near to where we saw him the day before, other water birds included Double-crested Cormorant , Blue-winged Teal and Spotted Sandpiper. Here we also spotted what was to be our only Orchard Oriole on the day.

Checking out the Prairie Dog town south of the state park we added our staked-out Curve-billed Thrasher, as well as Grasshopper Sparrow, Lark Bunting and Horned Lark (still no sign of Burrowing Owls). Farther along the road to Boise City we had one amazing occurrence where we spotted a Ferruginous Hawk, then in the same binocular view noticed a Long-billed Curlew with a Chihuahuan Raven flying over it. Paul then spotted a “Puma” which of course turned out to be a House Cat, which seemed to unfortunately be stalking the Curlew. Shortly after we added our Swainson’s and Red-tailed Hawks and then Great-tailed Grackle as we arrived in Boise City. The Sewage Ponds had fewer birds then it did the day previous, some Wilson’s Phalaropes were still there but we could not locate any Red-necked Phalaropes or the Black-crowned Night Heron we had seen the previous day. We also had Black-necked Stilt, American Avocet, Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Duck, Eared Grebe and assorted Swallows and a Chimney Swift.

At our staked out Mountain Plover spot, we had Mountain Plovers and a Northern Harrier in a matter of seconds and then soon thereafter added American Kestrel and Scaled Quail sitting on a water tank. In Keyes we finally added Rock Pigeon and European Starling. As we were nearing the Texas County line we spotted a Prairie Falcon (how regular are they in Texas County in summertime?) and then picked up our staked out Barn Owl. Along 412 we picked up Turkey Vulture and Eastern Kingbird which put us at 93 species, exactly halfway to tying the current Oklahoma record of 186. As it was only 11:00 and we weren’t even yet to Guymon we were feeling somewhat confident at this point.

In Guymon we lost some time getting gas and then having to retrace our steps when Jason thought that he had left his binoculars back at the gas station. Fortunately his binocs were safe in the trunk so we were able to continue on with our big day attempt. We decided to take the northern route across the state so we could bird the Salt Plains. This route had a lot of water and there were many little Playas and wetlands scattered across the landscape between Hooker and the Salt Plains area.

A wetland near Turpin had Cattle Egret, White-faced Ibis, Baird’s Sandpiper, Pectoral Sandpiper, Ring-billed Gull and Long-billed Dowitcher. Though we now had over 100 species our hopes began to fade as we drove through the rest of the panhandle and through Harper County, encountering only a few new species over the next hour. In places like Ocain, Gate and Buffalo we added Loggerhead Shrike, Mississippi Kite, American Crow, Canada Goose, Eastern Bluebird and Common Nighthawk.

One amazing wetland complex near Ingersoll briefly restored our hopes as we started racking up a big number of species. We saw Great Egret, Snowy Egret, Franklin’s Gull, Willet, Eastern Meadowlark, a remarkable flock of 15 – 20 Marbled Godwits and 3 – 4 Hudsonian Godwits right next to the road, as well as some singing Dickcissels pushed our species total near the 120 mark.
The Sandpiper trail at Salt Plains NWR was simply full of birds. Here we added many of the remaining potential shorebird species like Semi-palmated Plover, Snowy Plover, Piping Plover, Least Sandpiper, Stilt Sandpiper, White-rumped Sandpiper, and Semi-palmated Sandpiper. We also picked up Purple Martin and Forster’s Tern but unfortunately did not see any Least Terns here. The marsh overlook and observation deck near the exit of the Salt Plains auto tour also proved productive as we added a good number of species here. These included, Little Blue Heron, American White Pelican, Pied-billed Grebe, Black-crowned Night Heron, Black Tern, Great-crested Flycatcher, as well as Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs.

As we continued east we picked up a few more birds along the roadside, including Baltimore Oriole, Gadwall and a solitary, Solitary Sandpiper in a roadside wetland. Despite hitting 140 species we knew we were now in trouble as it was now past 4:30 and the weather was pretty terrible, windy, cold and overcast. We knew eastern migrants and residents were going to be hard to come by in this weather and that we probably didn’t have time to bird the Tulsa area well. We decided to take a gamble and go to Sooner Lake hoping for some lingering divers and hopefully a few surprises and then bird the Stillwater area the last few hours of daylight since we knew the area so well.

Unfortunately for our big day attempt the Sooner Lake plan turned out to be an almost total bust, the big lake and the power plant area had almost no birds and we didn’t add a single new bird between 4:30 and 5:30. The line of small trees along the fishermen’s access road did have some species, including Brown Thrasher, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Bell’s Vireo, and Northern Cardinal. We all found it humorous that Northern Cardinal was not seen until we had seen nearly 150 other species on the day.

With somewhat heavy hearts we continued on to Stillwater still hoping for a mini fallout of warblers or some other unlikely event that could give us the more than 30 species needed in the last couple of hours of fading daylight and poor weather. The Lake Sanborn area pushed our total to over 150 with common eastern species that we still needed like Carolina Chickadee and Blue Jay but there were very few migrants about just some Swainson’s Thrushes and a Nashville Warbler. Lake Carl Blackwell proved a bit more productive with Summer Tanager, Fish Crow, Orange-crowned Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, White-eyed Vireo and a Chuck-wills Widow that began calling at just past 8:00 to tell you how dark it already was due to the overcast sky.

We went to the Teal Ridge Wetland and picked up a Green Heron for bird number 164 on the day, as the last of the light faded. We could have pressed on and perhaps driven our total over 170, as we still needed things like Barred Owl and Eastern Screech Owl. We knew that the record was out of reach however and being tired we decided to call it quits. Of course we were a bit disappointed that we had fallen well short of the record after a pretty promising start. Perhaps if the weather had been better and we had been a bit quicker at some of our stops we may have had time to bird the Tulsa parks and pick up enough migrants to break the record. Likely the better plan is to start in the east and pick up as many species as possible during the dawn chorus before heading west. We wanted to stake out some of the harder species in the Cimarron County area however, and we did do pretty well out there.

Despite the small amount of disappointment however, we were all happy with a day well spent, many fine bird species seen and multiple state birds and even some lifers for some people in the group. In addition I made a huge addition to my Oklahoma year list pushing it well above 200 species which I was happy about. In the end a great day in the field in Oklahoma!!

Fun with butterflies!

2009-05-04T19:13:00.000-04:00

As promised I have been spending a fair amount of time this spring looking for butterflies. I've found its a lot more productive if you concentrate on either birds or butterflies on a particular outing and not both. If you pay attention to birds you barely even see butterflies and vice versa, there is just a wider gap in search images, scanning techniques etc. than I would have imagined. Of course you can still listen for birds while butterflying :) Anyway I've had a lot of fun with it, particularly the whole "larval food plant" aspect of butterflies, and also the relative ease of photography (at least compared with birds). Its been a very rainy spring here in Stillwater, which has really put a damper on looking for butterflies in the last few weeks, but here are some images of butterflies that I have taken so far this spring. So far I have only seen 20 species or so, but I hope to expand that exponentially as the summer progresses here in Stillwater and also when I eventually head to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of TX, later this year.

Red Admiral

Painted Lady

Monarch

Eastern Tiger-swallowtail

Eastern Tailed-blue

Red-banded Hairstreak

Fun with herps

2009-04-30T16:11:00.001-04:00

My Fiancee Nikki is doing her master's project on the breeding ecology of Skinks. For those who don't know Skinks are lizards from the family Scincidae, the largest and most diverse family of lizards. In general skinks have very little neck and usually have relatively reduced limbs, in some genera in fact they have no legs at all, which contributes to the myth that Skinks are or are related to snakes. Despite being the most common or only types of lizards in many areas, very little is known about skink biology. Nikki has two different study sites in the Stillwater area, one in a crosstimbers forest for woodland species, and one in a large old field for grassland species.

Anyway occassionally helping Nikki with her fieldwork helps me get my herp fix (I have always been interested in reptiles and amphibians nearly as much as birds). So I enjoy going out with her and trying to catch not only skinks but the many other species of reptiles and amphibians that she catches in her traps and under her cover boards. Here are some pictures of some of the various critters we have been collecting this spring.

Here we have a Ring-necked snake, a common snake species at the woodland site.

Here we see a juvenile five-lined skink in a bag! Nikki doesn not want him to escape, check out his beautiful blue tail.

This species occurs almost exclusively at the woodland site.

Here we have a Woodhouse's Toad, the grassland site can get quite marshy after rain and we see quite a few amphibians here.

Here we have a Strecker's Chorus Frog, this is a relatively range restricted species native to the southern plains

This beauty is a Speckled King Snake, a gorgeous black and yellow/green speckled constrictor snake, they eat rodents as well as other snakes and lizards.

Here Nikki teaches her minions a little bit about the biology of the Speckled King Snake.

Here we have a Small-mouthed Salamander, the only regularly occuring Salamander in the Stillwater area, I love Salamanders as much as birds, they are awesome!

Here I contemplate a world without Salamanders.

Nikki pit tags all of her Skinks, this way she can tell who she has captured already, as she is doing a mark/recapture study. This allows her to discover all sorts of things about skink natural history.

Here a beautiful southern prairie skink awaits his turn for a pit tag. This species occurs only in prairie habitat like the grassland site, it has a very restricted range and very little is known about it.

LIFER!!

2009-04-24T11:38:00.000-04:00

No word is as exciting to a birder as the word "Lifer". Lifers are often the currency by which birders judge themselves and others. A lifer is simply a new bird for a birder's "life list" a bird that they have never before seen. For some birders, birds are often little more than numbers, something to collect as they build their life lists higher and higher. To these birders the goal, in this case a large "life list" is the important thing, the journey is just a means to an end. For others they barely pay attention to their lists, they simply enjoy the experience of seeing a new bird, watching its never before seen beauty and its novel behaviors. For the majority some mixture of the above two scenarios is the norm. Most birders (though not all), watch birds because they do indeed LIKE birds, they enjoy watching their behavior, soaking in the particular habitat of each new species and listening to new bird vocalizations. However, they may also enjoy some facet of listing, competing against others or just against their own goals and expectations.

I fall into the last category, I am and for as long as I can remember, have been fascinated by birds (and indeed by all of the natural world). So much so that I chose wildlife ecology and management as my career. To me life just doesn't get better than being in a new habitat for the first time and watching a whole new community of birds and other organisms interacting with the habitat and eachother. I do admit to also being conscience of my lists though as well. For example at the beginning of each year I set a goal for myself about how many birds I want to see that year, how many lifers etc. its the part of it that makes it a game and a little more fun. With that in mind I entered this year (in what will likely be my final year living in Oklahoma), wanting to get my Oklahoma state list over 300, something I was hoping to accomplish much earlier but with grad school obligations and other responsibilities, I haven't had the time to just bird like I did in years past. Last weekend I was leading a group of my ornithology students (I am teaching an ornithology lab class at OSU this semester) to the Wichita Mountains NWR, one of the last strongholds of the Black-capped Vireo in Oklahoma. It just so happens that I had never before seen this species, not only in Oklahoma but never before period.

The morning started off cool and foggy and I was worried the birding was not going to be very good. However about 15 minutes after arriving at the refuge the fog began to lift and we soon saw a herd of bison.

Many of the bison in this herd appeared to be young males, and they seemed to itching for a fight.

We then took a trail into some likely looking Black-capped Vireo habitat. The birding was good and the students were hearing and seeing many new birds, many of them newly arrived Neotropical migrants like Summer Tanagers and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. Soon we heard a probable Black-capped Vireo but after hiking off trail for awhile toward where the song originated from, we were unsuccessful in locating the caller. After contemplating turning back to check some other areas for waterfowl and other species, I convinced the group to continue on through likely Black-capped Vireo habitat for little longer.

Ornithology students walking through Black-capped Vireo habitat at the Wichita Mountains.

Only a couple of hundred yards farther down the trail. We heard another Black-capped Vireo calling from up on a hillside. Andy Crosby, one of the students who had formerly worked on a Black-capped Vireo project and I led the way up the hill towards the singing Vireo. The Vireo was skulky and mostly stayed hidden in the small shinnery oaks but we were patient and eventually he showed himself.

Perhaps the most important thing about "Lifers" is that sometimes its just an individual bird, never before seen that can propel somebody into a life of birds and birding and eventually bird conservation. These lifers are called "spark birds" a bird that lights the spark that ignites the birding pation in somebody. For me I can actually point to one of these birds and moments that hooked me on birds for life. At 8 years old I had been interested in dinosaurs first and eventually this led me to a fascination with non-extinct animals as well, especially birds. But I don't think you could have called me a "birder" until a fateful family trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1989. I had been watching the local birds around my little hometown in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a year or so, and had already seen many of the common species. This trip into the "west" however would change me from a passive birdwatcher into an avid birder. I had brought along my little Tasco binoculars and golden field guide my grandparents had given me as a present and while my parents and siblings were swimming at the pool in our campground I walked around the area looking for new birds. I still vividly remember the bright sky blue bird that flew into my vision, over the black hills spruce and onto a barbed wire fence seperating the campground from a pasture. My field guide said it was a Mountain Bluebird but to my 8 year old mind it was something much more, something new and exotic, it was a lifer.

Finally adding the beautiful and federally endangered Black-capped Vireo to my lifelist has certainly been one of the highlights of my spring. More importantly adding this species to the fledgling lifelists of my ornithology students might help influence some of them to become ardent birders and bird conservationists themselves, just like that Mountain Bluebird in that Black Hills pasture did for me almost 20 years ago.

Yearlisting amongst a cloud of sparrows

2009-02-26T16:15:00.000-05:00

A number of years ago I read a book called "A Cloud of Sparrows". Although this book had absolutely nothing to do with birding, (it was a memorable story about the difficulties faced by the japanese people during the rapid industrialization and westernization that occurred in Japan during the late 19th century) I have always loved the title and thought it a fitting description of birding in Oklahoma. The Sooner state is well known for the many species of sparrows that spends at least part of the year here. We have interesting breeders, like the above Rufous-crowned Sparrow (a southwestern specialty), and the rare and hard to see Bachman's Sparrow (a southeastern specialty) as well as many others. We also have many more northerly breeding species that spend the winter here, including the white-crowned sparrow and range restricted Harris's sparrow seen below.

Oklahoma also has all four species of Longspurs (which are a specialized kind of sparrow) wintering here, as well as some of the harder to see Ammodramus sparrows that winter and/or migrate through like the Le Conte's Sparrow (the species seen in this blogs title) and the Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow.

All of these beautiful sparrows are part of what makes birding in Oklahoma great! This year I am attempting an Oklahoma "Big Year". This is an attempt to see as many species as possible WITHIN Oklahoma within the calender year. Most birders attempting a feat such as this probably have a lot more money and time on their hands than this recently graduated former graduate student, thus a very respectable OK big year attempt should be near or above 300 species. Due to my lack of funds and many time commitments I would be quite happy with something around 250 however. Wish me luck!

more things to identify

2009-02-23T18:23:00.000-05:00

For many years now I have resisted the temptation to plunge myself into the world of butterflying. Still too many birds left out there to see, I thought. So many other vertebrate taxa that I haven't hardly began to enjoy. But having taken a short-term job that will place me in the LRGV of Texas (a region known not only for its awesome Mexican birds but also its awesome Mexican butterflies) for at least part of the upcoming spring/summer. I decided to pick up a butterfly field guide and start learning some of these guys! In fact the field guide helped lead me to some other resources that allowed me to (tenatively) identify some of the butterflies I photographed in Mexico last year.

Diaethria a. anna, aka Anna's Eighty-eight

Heliconius erato cruentus, aka the Erato Heliconius or the Crimson-patched Longwing

Hamadryas februa ferentina, aka the Gray Cracker

Papilio (Pterourus) multicaudata grandiosus? aka the two-tailed tiger swallowtail

So when the temps start warming up, not only will I be looking for the usual warblers, tanagers and flycatchers but also the skippers, fritillaries and checkerspots!

Sandia Crest

2009-01-29T17:16:00.000-05:00

Sandia Crest, New Mexico

My fiancée and I decided to spend the Martin Luther King day weekend (Jan. 17-19th) observing the Rosy-finches at Sandia Crest New Mexico. Rosy-finches are birds of high mountains in western North America and eastern Asia. In North America, Rosy-finches primarily breed in alpine tundra above the timberline at high elevations. In the past ornithologists recognized just one species of Rosy-finch but now recognize four species, three of which occur in North America. Traditionally many birders had to travel to different regions to see these three species, but relatively recently birders discovered that all three species winter in the Sandia Mountains of northern New Mexico. Earlier this decade birders set up feeders at the Crest House, a restaurant and gift shop at the highest point in the Sandias (10,678 feet). Here birders can take a relatively easy drive (if the weather is nice) up into the mountains and see Rosy-finches coming right into a feeding station! In addition local birders and ornithologists began a banding program at Sandia Crest, which has expanded into looking at stable isotope data and now even radio tracking individual birds. Here are some of the photos I took at Sandia Crest.

This is the most wide-spread of the three Rosy-finches in North America, the Gray-crowned Rosy-finch, which breeds in Mountainous areas of much of Northwest North America, stable isotope studies have shown Gray-crowned Rosy-finches wintering at Sandia Crest come down from as far away as Alaska

And here we have the most range restricted, the Brown-capped Rosy-finch; breeding mostly in Colorado small portions of adjacent Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico, this species is one of only a handful of species entirely endemic to the United States

Here is the Black Rosy-finch this species breeds in much of the middle Rocky Mountains, in Utah Wyoming, Idaho and Southern Montana, stable isotope studies have shown that the majority of Black Rosies wintering at Sandia Crest breed in a small area of northern Utah, this is also a United States endemic

Here are some pics from the rosy-finch banding

A Black Rosy is banded

and had its wing cord taken

A close-up Brown-capped Rosy-finch

A newly banded Black Rosy

Here my fiancee, Nikki releases a newly banded Brown-capped rosy-finch

Here all three species of Rosy-finch feed on the deck of the Crest house. Hopefully the information gleaned from the Rosy-finch banding project will aid in the conservation of these beautiful mountain wanderes!