Gulling around

As I was merrily writing up my CBC account on Monday very much minding my own business and being content with me and the world surrounding me, an email by Curtis Powell arrived which included a word that I - as a European birder - was conditioned to recognize immediately even if it was muttered silently in a bursting football arena during the last minutes of a world cup's final (and forget this year's final, it was crap, Germany should have won the cup):

Thayer's Gull

He had seen a nice assembly of Gulls quite a bit east of Ann Arbor containing amongst others Lesser Black-backed, a possible "Viking's" and ... that gull, an adult Thayer's!
For anyone Gulling around Europe, finding a Thayer's must be like (to stay within this context) wining the football world cup, or the super bowl for that matter. Well, an adult Great Black-headed Gull in breeding plumage might get very close to a Thayer's, but the thrill about Thayer's is that it is such a tricky beast to identify in any plumage, so it really is regarded by many as the "creme de la creme" of Gulling.
Of course I was all excited about this and immediately asked around if anyone from the Ann Arbor area would be after the gulls in the next few days and wouldn't mind some company. My pleas for a lift were rewarded and I was fortunate to team up with Bruce Bowman today!

Bruce had corresponded with Curt and had a few likely spots for Gulls on today's agenda around the area where Curt had seen them. The first place we wanted to check was Grace lake, also known as Tyler Road lake, which is an artificial reservoir and usually has a lot of gulls resting on it. Before we got there, we spotted quite a large flock of Canada Geese east of Haggerty Road but scan as much as we might, there was - as I had anticipated very much - not two, not three, no, an incredible zero Snow Geese mixed within! However on returning to the car, a small group of geese came in to land and amongst them was one tiny little Cackling Goose! Now, I have seen two Cackling Geese on a small reservoir south of Ann Arbor a few weeks ago and the much smaller size was obvious on those swimming birds as well, but in flight the difference is enormous, it appeared just like a Mallard amongst Swans.
Arriving at the lake, we were relieved to see that there were well over a thousand Gulls present and started scanning immediately. Unfortunately the distance was quite significant. This didn't matter much when it came to picking out a few adult Greater Black-backed Gulls amongst the American Herring and Ring-billed, but finding a Thayer's was going to be one hell of a challenge. Finally our scrutiny was rewarded and we were both looking at a very nice and crispy clear adult Glaucous Gull. What can you say, this species doesn't really make your day when out to add Thayer's to your life list, but it was still a great bird, a good find and we enjoyed it quite a lot, especially as I have only seen very few Glaucous in the last couple of years and now that I think of it, this was possibly my first ever adult bird!
After having looked at this flock of Gulls for what must have been an hour or more, we decided to try the other spots on Bruce's route that usually also host gulls in their thousands and would allow for better views as the distance to the birds wouldn't be so large.
We therefore proceeded to Edison lake, Belleville lake and eventually Ford lake but were a bit disappointed at finding these almost devoid of birds. A few Common Mergansers, Gadwall and a handful of Gulls here and there, but no major Gull roost.
We then tried a few good Gull sites south of Ann Arbor, like Avis Farm ponds and the Ann Arbor landfill, but also found these areas largely devoid of Gulls and eventually returned home around 2 in the afternoon.

So there was no Thayer's today. Surely it would have been nice, but a day you get to go birding at some interesting spots you have never been before and find a Cackling Goose and an adult Glaucous Gull is nevertheless very far from being just another dull thayerless day and of course Bruce was excellent company and I was very happy to finally meet him in person after such a long email exchange.

Actually I am quite content we missed out on Thayer's today.
You see, it is too much of a special, meaningful bird to get right on your first and easy try and it will be more appreciated when I find it here in Ann Arbor flying along the Huron river next week. And while I am at it, anyone else but myself in need to be fooled right now?

Here are some images of a second winter Glaucous Gull I found at Sassnitz Harbour/Germany in March 2005. I was going to claim this was taken on a birding trip on the Bahamas but unfortunately I have never been there and I also suppose the Sea and Coastal Fishery of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (the most north-easterly state of Germany) doesn't have too many of its boxes laying around the Bahamas. But it was a very nice find even outside the Caribbean.

I wonder if they left anything in there.

Nope, just another empty box.

Greedy bunsh...

The CBC last Saturday

The CBC was, as I mentioned in my previous post, a huge and complete success and here is the story in short:
I was supposed to meet with Jerry, Will and Mike at Furstenberg Park around 9:00 am. After the whole team had assembled, we worked and counted our way through Furstenberg, and then followed the Huron all the way down to South Pond. Mike later drove around town with me a bit in search of Crossbills or Trumpeter Swans, neither of which we found.
Here are the highlights amongst the NCBs (Non-Christmas Birds) we saw:
Shoveler and Gadwall
Red-breasted, Common and Hooded Mergansers
Red-tailed Hawks
a Cooper's Hawk that reminded me to learn the field characters of juvenile Accipiters here because general impression won't work in North America
Mourning Doves (hadn't seen those for a while)
and many American Robins and Goldfinches.

It is a pity we didn't count all the NCBs as well but hey, this was a Christmas Bird count after all, so there was no kidding around but complete dedication and concentration on our target. And of course I was overwhelmed by the large number of Christmas Birds we found. A very special day indeed! Here is our official CBC list of Christmas Birds encountered:
Belted Singfisher (only flushed and we were not treated to one of its diagnostic Carols)
Fairy Woodpecker
Blue Joy
Tufted Giftmouse
Caroling Wren
Christmas Tree Sparrow
and as the single most spectacular find amongst the many Christmas Birds, quite a large flock of
House Grinches

But what was it that was so spectacular and never seen before on any CBC that even Cornell got all excited and had me writing reports and answering annoying questions again and again all weekend long?
I know you won't believe it at first, so read twice, but as a matter of fact and beyond any doubt there was actually a flock of Easter Bluebirds!
Isn't that exciting, Easter Birds on Christmas? I mean, Easter Bird species are only supposed to occur here after the first Sunday following the first full moon of spring! What the heck they were doing here now in the midst of winter I have no clue, but of course this observation adds fuel to the discussion on global warming, no doubt about that.
The problem is that we were not able to document it by video or sound recording, so the record's acceptability is in the balance. To supplement for this lack of photographic evidence, I have uploaded a picture of another Easter Bird species I encountered here in May of 2005. Of course they are not that special in spring, but that one was a bit late and a very nice and somewhat unexpected addition to my trip list back then. Hope you enjoy it.


Due to the cold spring of 2005, this Bunny Tanager was belated on its way through Michigan and was seen in early May well after the normal Easter Bird migration period.

Why blogging Rocks

Well, what can I say, the CBC was just amazing. It is not often you find something that has never ever been recorded before on any CBC worldwide! Seriously, I'll get a full report online as soon as I can get rid of those buggers from CLO that have been hanging 'round my flat questioning me for the last two days. Oh, and it is not THAT woodpecker.
OK, maybe the delay in posting is due to all hell breaking loose at the office and me working all through the weekend, but I like the first version much better and it is true, too!

Why does blogging rock?
In the comments section I found a message from this site which I think is very good fun to read and look at. Hey, he's even got a picture of a Cardinal in a Bush with Snow, and birding can't get any better than this...

Getting prepared for my first ever CBC

Tomorrow is the 60th Ann Arbor Christmas Bird Count!
Coming from Germany, I have obviously never participated in this mostly North American tradition. I mean, I have counted millions of birds on various occasions, but the proximity of Christmas has never been the initial idea behind going out to count birds. Now, being the new guy here, I had no interest in conjuring a massive embarrassment, and so I decided to scan the Internet for information on Christmas Bird Counts, or in short: CBCs.
And of course the Net never fails to inform. For those interested, a few important links are here and here, or you might want to check out this and if you need more specific help, maybe this or even this will be of interest to you. However, while surfing the net I couldn't help but notice that a lot was written about the "count" part of the CBC, but there was a distinctive lack of information on Christmas Birds. This is very bad because what good is counting if you don't know how to recognize what you're supposed to be counting.
Unfortunately, I am of no big help here. Christmas Birds reside mostly in North America and are a rare sight in Europe or other parts of the world. I can therefore only provide a limited number of photographs of Christmas Birds as examples but hope nevertheless that these will help in the birding endeavours ahead of us until January 5th.
So here goes, to those birders who don't want to let a whole day's counting go to waste, a few images from Germany as an introduction to the principles of Christmas Bird identification.

The following image is of a Rudolph Wagtail. They are quite regular in southern Scandinavia in winter but only a handful reach the German coasts, mostly in irruption years. The dominant males of each flock can be recognized by their red nose and make it easy to locate their night time roost particularly after dusk.


Here you can see both a Santa Swan and an Elf Swan on the Baltic coast. They don't visit often, but when they do around Christmas, it is usually in mixed flocks. You can easily tell the two apart: Santa Swans are considerably bigger with a white rim to their hat while Elf swans have elongated feather ears.



And here is a really rare sight along the Baltic coast, a flock of migrating Rein Geese.


Observations of these flocks are barely annual, mostly occurring around the 24th or 25th of December. There is an ongoing debate about their geographic origin. Experts have analyzed the dates of the few observations and speculate that those seen on the 25th may be true Nearctic vagrants whereas those observed on the 24th could possibly be stray flocks of Palearctic migrants. Well, unless one lucky bander/ringer manages to shoot a cannon projected net over a roof with a roosting flock, we're not likely to ever know for sure.

After this short and somewhat basic repetition of the identification criteria, I am sure tomorrow will lead to a multitude of Christmas Bird observations and I am all excited, geared up and ready to go!

A more personal note

Today is national Iron Maiden day in the UK. Tom McKinney gets to see them play in Manchester.

I don't.

Tom sometimes gets to see single Greater Scaup around Manchester.

I don't.

Where I come from, we usually see them in flocks like this:


(click on the image for a larger and more impressive version)

Ever wondered why there's no record of Lesser Scaup from this area along the Baltic coast? Neither have I.

Proof at last?

I am not sure, but could it be someone finally managed a decent video of an IBWO?

Why it never worked out...

Ever wondered why our birding somehow never seemed to work out the way we had planned? Like the numerous days I went out to get Snow Goose on my life list and found these instead?
Here's the answer to why our hobby was oh so frustrating for all these years: we all just didn't know how to do it properly!
Have you decided to quit on crappy bird watching today? Are you daring enough to take a huge leap forward, break through that final door and become a real birding wizard?
Well, then check out this video and watch your life list soar!

Cheers, Bob!