A Change In Plans

I had this one nice post planned, the one with Yellow-breasted Chats, but somehow due to lots of things to do and a few - gasp - birding adventures, my inspiration to this particular post has somehow left me.
But of course a promise is a promise and here we go, I'll write up a short version of what I had planned:

The Ways We Appreciate Birds

May 2005, my birding trip to Ontario and Michigan, was a decadent warbler fest. Indeed the decadence was so profound that I managed to make contact with 36 species of warblers, either seeing or only hearing (two: Prairie and Worm-eating) all of the Eastern warblers except for Yellow-throated (darn, almost got it, missed by a few hours) and Swainson's, the latter a miss easily excused by the scarcity of records north of southern West Virginia.
Wait, that's a cool sentence:
Most Eastern Warblers were seen North of Southern West Virginia.

Ha!

Nevertheless, a few of these warblers proved to be quite difficult to find and it was only after a bunch of death marches through Pelee and Rondeau (sometimes on the trails from 5:30 am to 9 pm with no break at all, not even to eat or drink) that royalties like Connecticut Warbler, Kentucky Warbler and Golden-winged Warbler were tucked safely under my belt.

Another one that went down only after putting up a fierce and long fight was the Yellow-breasted Chat.

That was a tough one, indeed.

At Point Pelee it is readily encountered in the thickets around the old cemetery, and scanning these for the Chat was thus the subject of many bird walks through Pelee National Park. Actually, I went there each day during my stay, which adds up to just about a whole week. On some of these walks, I was fortunate to go birding with no one less than John Haselmeyer himself, and it was due to his expertize that on one of the trips we actually heard the Chat. Being the humble and honest man I am (seriously) I have to admit that John heard the Chat, pointed it out and I heard what he meant, but back then couldn't have told it from a Northern Cardinal or an ordinary Texan Fan-tailed Warbler.
So even though John did his best - which is a whole lot of lots - I wasn't really happy about myself and the Chat.

I gave up.

A few days later I went to Ontario's Rondeau Provincial Park. And there, when I was least expecting it (being more ready for Western Tanagers and Fish Crows), I pointed my bins towards a movement low in the trees, saw something big, yellow below, brown above, black-and-white lores, heavy bill, thought "Wow, the Chat!!" and it was gone.
A few moments later, a large brown songbird with round wings and a long tail quickly flew out of a bush and into the same bush again: my second Yellow-breasted Chat.

Man, that felt good, like the first mouthful of cold beer after a summer day's birding.

What a bird, highly appreciated after such a long search.

But isn't it strange though?
Every bird is a fabulous bird and this is especially true for a warbler. So why did I appreciate this one particular warbler so much more than many others that frankly can easily match a Chat in many aspects, like a Blackburnian or a Black-throated Blue?
Because the Chat made me work hard, it played tricks on me, avoided me successfully and finally seeing it was thus much more than just seeing a new bird species, it was a major success!
I had overcome my own incapability and the Chat's wits and seen it. I win!

This seems to be one of the most dominant ways why we appreciate some birds more than others: by the amount of sweat and tears we have to muster to see them.

Two years later, on a foggy May morning at Ohio's Crane Creek. We had just gotten out of the car at the beginning of the boardwalk when the word spread all the way to us that a Chat was currently being seen about 100 metres away. Well, of course we went there immediately, joined the crowd and after maybe a minute's waiting, the Chat hopped by, as seen below in the two snap shots I managed before its disappearance into the thick bush beyond the parking lot.



And then something strange happened: surely I was happy about having seen it so well, but basically I wasn't too excited! Or at least not more excited than about any other scarce bird around the Great Lakes.

Why?

Because I had seen it before, so there was no victory to achieve, and the looks I had were good but short, so not extraordinary. It was - to sum it up - a nice yet rather normal warbler encounter that left me a happy but not overly excited birder.

Then came the next episode of my Chat encounters, the trip to St. Louis.

This was great: in the course of a single day, I saw a total of 6 Yellow-breasted Chats (in words: six, that's more than 5 and one less than 7, so it is clearly 6 which may not be much when it comes to the flock size of Mosquitoes but is a lot when you're talking Chat).

And by "saw" I don't mean "saw a quick movement in bush" or "caught a glimpse" or "an intriguing and interesting split-second encounter of what was likely..." but I saw them right there, out in the open, sitting on top of bushes, singing away like there was no tomorrow and not minding or avoiding my presence in any way.
Here are a few photos to prove it - and to show I was not bullshipping my readers when I said the mystery bird of the last post was a Chat - and they might still be crappy but they do show a Chat in a small tree out in the open singing along as if there was no ... well, you've read it before, you got the picture, so here are the pics:




And then all of a sudden, those Chats were very special again, and - looking back now - possibly amongst my most memorable sightings in Missouri.

Yet another reason why we appreciate certain birds more than others:
Getting a decent look at what was so secretive before and finally being able to appreciate the bird for what it is and not for how difficult is was finding it.

What Am I ?

A little Mystery Bird Quiz for the Weekend.




No price, but a prelude to a post I have planned for early next week.

Happy birding everyone!

Genesis Of A New Nemesis: the one St. Louis bird that got away

Here we go again - on this last part of my St. Louis travel account - and talk about the Nemesis bird, the one we always miss when all around us they show such a massive presence that other birders are annoyed by them.

I don't think I have a North American Nemesis Bird, yet. I mean, this is a difficult thing to define when you've never seen so many of the region's species.
But now, after my trip to St. Louis and a few birding outings here in Michigan, I have a certain feeling deep down in my guts that maybe, just maybe, I am just experiencing something each birder dreads:

The Genesis of a Nemesis!


For a species to qualify as a Nemesis Bird, two criteria need to be fulfilled:

A) It must be a bird we know from the book and that somehow fascinates us, so we are particularly aware of the fact that we haven't seen it yet and we would really appreciate an encounter.

B) This encounter never comes.


Within the context of this post, here in North America, I am talking about no other bird then the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron.


Here's a bit of a historic background:

When I was a 16-year-old birder, I went to New York City and there I visited Central Park, where I sure got two lifers, Northern Mockingbird and Tufted Titmouse but no Yellow-crowned Night-heron.
When I returned to North America in May 2005, my wife and I went to New York City, this time though we didn't have the time to visit Central Park but had a short look at it from its Southern end.

No harm done...

However, about a year later, I found this post that disturbed me quite a bit.
I had missed it. I had been twice in an area where the species occurs and hadn't realized it. Otherwise, I might have searched for it specifically and - who knows - seen it!

"Oh well", I thought, "there will be other times".

Wait a minute, there had been other times!
In May 2005, while staying at Ontario's Point Pelee, there were reports of an immature Yellow-crowned Night-heron from nearby Hillman Marsh.

Nice.

Of course I went there a few times and saw a huge array of great birds, ranging from a multitude of shorebirds to a flock of majestic American White Pelicans, but despite looking for it specifically, I never located the Night-heron, although it was reported on and off during my whole stay there. I didn't consider this incident to be very significant as there were so many new impressions to be gained, such great birds to see, that missing out on one particular species was something that just happens.
But looking back now, I can't help but wonder...


Then came my trip to St. Louis and of course by now, the Yellow-crowned Night-heron had gained a more dominant presence in my thoughts and wishes. It was not one of the specials I was particularly keen on seeing, as it occurs widely in other parts of the world I hope to one day visit on birding trips, but nevertheless I had decided that I wanted to see this bird this time.

Yes, I did!

The book "Birds of the St. Louis area" had something very interesting to say about the Yellow-crowned Night-heron:

"Yellow-crowned Night-herons ... are most reliably found near Holten State Park..."

So on my second day in St. Louis, on the road to Horseshoe Lake, I payed Holten State Park a visit, just to find it was nothing more but three ponds with a very small rim of trees and vegetation embedded in a Golf Course. To me this looked more like the habitat of European Starlings, House Sparrows and Killdeer than anything else, but hey, I tried.

For about two hours.

In vain.

There was nothing there, not even other species of note.

I didn't even write down anything in my note book.

Too bad.

But then, I thought, I had been there around noon in bright daylight, with the sun blazing down from blue skies. And although Black-crowned Night-herons have a wacky sense of humour, Yellow-crowned Night-herons might not. They might indeed take pride in their name.

It seemed I had missed out once again on seeing that species.

But on the last day, after the Bewick's Wren incident, I unexpectedly got another chance:
My wife was attending the final feast at the end of her meeting, you know, these happenings where everyone is celebrating themselves with lobster and champagne (except for my wife who is a very humble person and just went there for the food and company).
She asked me to pick her up and take her back to the hotel around 9 p.m. (21:00), which was after dark.

Well, I could also have gone for the lobster, but somehow - strangely - decided that this was my best chance yet at seeing Yellow-crowned Night-herons, and off I went yet again to Holten State Park.

I parked my car at a spot that allowed for easy scanning of the ponds and waited for the appearance of the herons.

And waited.

And then decided to wait some more.

But not after I had done some additional waiting.

And then finally decided it was no use and that I just had to wait.


Finally it was too dark to see and I knew another shift of waiting would likely produce the same results: zilch. No Night-herons of any sort, let alone the ones sporting a yellow crown.

I returned to the highway that was to take me back to the city and drove towards the bridge crossing the Mississippi when suddenly I saw three Night-herons crossing the highway, coming (roughly) from Holten State Park heading North.
Now, I don't usually try identifying flying birds when doing 50 miles and hour myself, but these night-herons were strange.
I have seen probably a few hundred Black-crowned Night-herons, many of them as silhouettes in flight, but these looked remarkably different. Although clearly being Night-herons, they showed a stronger curve in their neck and the legs appeared longer, just like a hybrid between a Night-heron and an Egret.

Funny, in a very peculiar way.

Back at the hotel, I checked the Sibley guide and found, to my utter frustration, that the differences I had noticed were exactly what differentiates the flight silhouette of a Yellow-crowned from a Black-crowned Night-heron.

Well, terrific!

I finally got to see likely Yellow-crowned Night-herons and wasn't able to pin down the identification with an adequate amount of certainty. Just what I needed, and thank you very much I am fine, how about you?

Sadly, this is how the last of my St. Louis lifers got away, just before it could be turned into just that: a lifer.


If some of you who are reading this are not entirely convinced yet that the Yellow-crowned Night-heron is starting to evolve into a Nemesis bird, I have one more thing to add:

There have been reports of one hanging around Point Mouillee, a nice wader and shorebird area on Michigan's part of Lake Erie.
I have been there twice now and seen plenty of ... Black-crowned Night-herons. In bright day light.

These are black(-crowned) days ... the rise of the New Nemesis.

Modern Marvels

I am mostly glad to live in a modern, advanced world. Sure, the times when Africa was still largely unspoiled by European "discoverers" were surely nice, or the times when all you had to do every few days was go for a walk with your buddies to hunt mammoths. No office hassle, no stressed out wreckage on a jammed highway trying to make it to work on time and all these other nasty things modern times are tied to. But honestly, could you say farewell to so many of civilization's wonders for the sake of a less stressful life?
And if your answer is yes, how certain are you you're not going to regret swapping with a cave man?

Take, for instance, coffee.

Don't you think those ice age hunters 10,000 years ago would not have liked to sit alone on a hill, wind in their face, overlooking the plains in front of them and then take out their thermos can and have a nice zip of freshly brewed coffee? Sure beats cold muddy swamp water if you ask me.

Oh, but coffee has been around for ages, right? At least in Ethiopia, it's been known at least since the 9th century, so it is not something we can freely attribute to modern times and therefore it is not suitable to demonstrate the advantage of today over yesterday. So wouldn't it be much nicer to live somewhere in the - say - 12th century and have the advantage of drinking coffee plus a general lack of modern nervousness?

Simple answer: nope!

Know why?

Coffee Creamer.

Yes, many of us - possibly even the majority - enjoy their coffee with a shot of milk or cream. And this was quite a difficult thing to do in the times of old. There were no fridges, no cans of condensed milk and surely there was no powdered coffee creamer.
Imagine again those ice age hunting parties: do you think it was practical for them to take a cow along on each hunting expedition? Might have earned them a but too much attention from the local pride of sable-toothed tigers.

No, I tell you, coffee creamer is a true modern wonder that has changed the world.

Here we see a prime example of a classic Coffee Creamer. Small, light, convenient and sure not to turn into cream cheese if you're out in the sun for longer than you had expected.
What an advantage!




But here's the best, if we turn the paper bag around and take a look at the ingredients:




Oh wonderful progress of our food industry! Now we don't even need milk anymore to put some cream in our coffee!

Ain't science something?

There's modern marvels even in the smallest things.

The One I Deserved: The last of the St. Louis lifers

As I have mentioned in a recent post, I prefer to see all the specials of a particular area instead of striving to add as many species to my list as possible, and to me these special bird species - but of course all of them are special in one way or another - are species one is most / only likely to encounter in that one particular area. Now, the Heartland of North America only harbors a limited number of these special birds as most of the local breeding species can be seen further South in winter or also occur at more popular birding destinations.
Let's be honest here, I thoroughly enjoyed Missouri. But once I am back in Germany and birding in North America will mean a somewhat costly holiday, I am more likely to consider trips to Colorado, California, Arizona or Florida (and of course upstate New York) than to, say, Kansas or Iowa.
So now that I was right in the central part of the Continent by lucky chance, I tried my best to see the two birds most special to that particular area. These two bird species can actually be found over much of South-Western North America, but the forms occurring in the central part seem rather distinct and, with today's approach to taxonomy, might be viewed differently in the near future.
Of course I am talking about the eastern/central forms of Bell's Vireo and Bewick's Wren.

Bell's Vireos had been easy enough as the local birder's guide gave quite detailed descriptions to good sites. This was however not the case for Bewick's Wren, and the species therefore was my main reason for temporarily joining the Missouri bird forum and ask for help and assistance.
Sadly I got no response regarding Bewick's Wrens and remained clueless on the morning of my very last day birding around St. Louis.

That's bad.

Okay, I had been given directions to a Western Kingbird and had looked up a nice site for Yellow-throated Warbler and Fish Crow, so I had a few nice plans for the day. However, these were species I could probably encounter in other parts of the country I was more likely to visit in the future, like Alabama's Dauphin Island or California. But the Eastern form of Bewick's Wren?

Very bad, indeed.


Lifer No. 8: Bewick's Wren

So I sat there in front of my laptop in my St. Louis Hotel, ready to hit the road to the Western Kingbird, and knew that I had to make a plan all by myself.

In a last desperate attempt I googled "Bewick's Wren Distribution Missouri" and got to this link.

It clearly had to be the West I should head for, but it didn't look very promising to be right at the edge of its Missouri range, where there had only been between 3 and 5 encounters out of 100 "stops", statistically.

I checked the St. Louis birding guide and the only birding site in the South-West that seemed fit to potentially hold the Wren was ... Shaw Nature Reserve, a place I had been to 2 days earlier.
Therefore, I quickly scanned through the Nature Reserve's checklist I had bought but not read yet and Bewick's Wren was actually listed as an "uncommon" breeder. The fog was starting to clear and I could sense some light.

Now, Shaw Nature Reserve is so small that "uncommon" can't mean anything else but less than a handful of pairs, yet it is big enough to hide these pairs quite well.
I therefore had to get more information on its habitat to narrow down the possible corners of Shaw's Nature Reserve worth searching.
So, again, I returned to this wonderful link and found the following description:

"Open woods, thickets, brushy areas & gardens"

Trying to remember what the different parts of the Reserve had looked like two days ago (and were probably still looking like now), I came to the conclusion that I would spend my last few hours of birding in the woodlands just above the slope towards the lowland forests. Some parts of these woodlands had been cleared recently by park staff in an effort to restore native habitat and I figured that these open scrubby areas were my best bet.
The plan was made:
1. Western Kingbird
2. Castlewood Park
3. Shaw Nature Reserve

After successfully ticking off the first 2 point of my day's checklist I arrived at the parking lot just next to the cleared woodland areas of Shaw Nature Reserve, with about an hour left for birding until I had to return to the hotel.
I surely thought I had a certain chance, but my luck had to run out at some point and I had this nagging feeling Bewick's Wren would be it, the precise point at which my luck was bound to fail me.
First, I walked a short bit to a nice view point over the surrounding areas and scanned for the part I thought was best (seen below on the left).



Feeling satisfied with my choice, I started to walk to the target area, which took about 5 minutes, probably less.
Arriving at the edge of the target area I turned off the main path onto a small track, walked another 10 metres and spotted some movement in a scrubby patch 15 metres away, a brownish and long-tailed bird, surely a Field Sparrow.
I waited patiently and calm (as I always do in situations like these, like any other birder) for about 20 seconds until the Field Sparrow reappeared: dark brown above and heavily barred in parts, paler brown below, whitish supercilium, slender and slightly down curved bill, very long tail with small white tips.

I was left with three choices regarding its identity:

a) the most aberrant Field Sparrow of all time
b) a hybrid between a House Wren and a Gnatcatcher
c) a typical Bewick's Wren

Call me a stringer, but I opted for Bewick's Wren, two of them to be more precise, an adult feeding/attending to a young bird.

This felt good.

It felt very good.

Actually, extremely good.

Here are a few pictures, taken at a considerable distance and heavily cropped, so they are really bad, but they might allow those in favour of a House Wren X Gnatcatcher hybrid to summon more arguments for their case.



And then something remarkable happened. As I was approaching the birds to get better pictures, my camera switched off. I had been so busy birding lately that I had forgotten to recharge the batteries, and right there, in front of the Bewick's Wrens, the batteries were goners.
Now, you might think this upset me, or the fact that I had a Red-eyed vireo perched at eye-level 3 metres besides me for prolongued periods on my way back to the car, but I was actually somewhat happy:
This - the Wren - was a species I had searched for so intensively, wanted to see so badly and felt so happy to see that I really didn't mind not being distracted by trying to get the perfect picture.
Instead, I went for the perfect observation and just looked at it, soaking it in.

What a fabulous bird!

A New Room With A New View

The Bell Tower Birder has moved.
Not to Germany, at least not yet, but to a hotel on the outskirts of Ann Arbor.
Those who may care to wonder may wonder how that came to happen. Well, it has something to do with fulfilling lease agreements, redeeming a deposit and all of that crappy uninteresting stuff you don't really want to know. At least I didn't want to know but I had to as it all pertained to my own fate, so I do know now or at least have a rough overview of the situation, but it is too complex to explain here, so I just toss it to you like this: me and my lovely other half moved to a hotel on the outskirts of Ann Arbor where we'll be residing until our return to Germany in a bit less than three weeks.

Oh lovely.

Well, it is not so bad. Here's a picture of my new work space.



I do miss the big panorama windows we had at our downtown flat, but in front of the window, invisible to you due to my inability to take proper photos, is actually a bit of grass and I can see three trees, none of which are native I guess but they are better than the Maynard Parking Structure. The hotel is right next to an Interstate, so even though the "rocky gorge" impression of downtown is gone, the background noise is reminiscent enough of a waterfall to still make me think once in a while I am residing close to Victoria Falls.

As this is an Extended Stay Hotel and we are here over an extended period of time, our room gets cleaned by hotel staff once a week. We got to choose which day we want that to happen and chose Monday, quite randomly I confess. So there I was this morning happily writing on my reports when the room cleaning staff knocked on the door and I had to vanish for about an hour. This was necessary so the lady was able to clean the room properly and check our belongings for things worth gossiping about.

What does a birder do with an hour's time to spare?
Well, go birding I guess and so I took off to do just that.
And I must say, this wasn't so bad after all. I surely found again that not all the places in North America are like Point Pelee, but hey, I am going back soon, so any North American bird species is worth a good look.

This is our hotel with a nice pond in front of it, the highway is behind the line of trees on the left.



The first hotel bird was a European Starling, surely to get me in the right mood for my return to Germany, but native species were soon to follow - not after the second species was logged though: House Sparrow.
Walking around the little pond, I was pleased to see 2 Green Herons, depicted below.




I also flushed - darn, I hate to flush birds, makes me feel like the unwelcome intruder I am - a Great Blue Heron on the same pond and had a fly-over Great Egret.




This isn't really bad at all.

Other species were also present, like Blue Jays, Northern Cardinals, Common Grackles, Song Sparrows, House Finches and Mourning Doves, but none posed as obligingly as these two American Goldfinches.




Lovely birds, right?

The second pond held the star bird of the day, a species I haven't seen more than - say - 10 times during my year in Ann Arbor, a Belted Kingfisher.



I know this is a crappy shot, but then again, I presume you haven't come here to view excellent pictures anyway, so take it for what it is: a ... well ... picture, alright?

Turning away from the ponds, we can see this:



The parking lot of a Shopping Mall, in other words:

Globally important Ring-billed Gull habitat.

The problem was apparently that Ann Arbor has done so much to improve the status of Ring-billed Gulls by building a multitude of Malls that the birds are constantly scattered over vast expanses of habitat. I therefore was only able to find 2, one of which can be seen below.



I'd love to present my hotel list now, which I am sure stands at 20 species after just 1 hour of birding the surrounding, but my bird guide is somewhere I can't find it now, buried deeply in the vaults that are my half-packed luggage, so I can't. But take my word for it:

I may be away from the Bell Tower, but that won't stop the birding!

Bad timing...

Very bad timing, indeed.

I will be going back to the German Baltic Sea coast, namely the area around the cities of Stralsund and Greifswald, in about 3 weeks.

It's a good time to return there with the onset of the fall migration of geese and cranes. August however, which is now, is a truly miraculous month there - just like about everywhere else in the northern hemisphere - for watching the migration of shorebirds (or waders, if you prefer, a subject on which I am rather indifferent, although the German expression translates to "waders" as well).

Anyway, today I received an email through our local Baltic Coast birders forum about a Grey-tailed Tattler that was observed in my Baltic home patch north of Greifswald, the salt marshes of Karrendorf.

Well, not only would this have been a lifer for me.
It is also a first for Germany, and that doesn't happen all that often anymore.
And it is a species so rare even in a European context that I got an email from a friend from the UK inquiring about it as it was on their pagers as well.


Aaaand ... it is grey and cold outside, raining rats and hogs and I am stuck in front of my computer covered up to my neck in work.


You just have to agree: something here didn't work out the way it should have, something along the string of time went awfully wrong!