Bruce Bowman, of Bowman's Bird Stuff fame, has finally captured on film (as the old folks still call the process of taking a picture, digital or not) what was long suspected yet never proven, that the name "Sandhill Crane" can occasionally make sense:
Sandhill Cranes !
Monday, 29 March 2010
Monday, 22 March 2010
Introducing "The Cast in alphabetical order"
Hilke of "One Jackdaw Birding" recently commented that she had trouble finding the bird species I mentioned in one of my posts in her German field guides as I only provided the English names.
This had me thinking, and even successfully so as I realized that she's got a significant point there:
Even though I blog in English, this is still a German bird blog (sometimes), so I really ought to also mention the German names in those posts that are about the birds of Germany, or more generally about European bird species.
Therefore, from this day on my blog posts (those with European content) will conclude with a list of the birds mentioned. Therein I will provide the English name, the scientific name, the German name and the English translation of the German name (as in this post of mine).
This had me thinking, and even successfully so as I realized that she's got a significant point there:
Even though I blog in English, this is still a German bird blog (sometimes), so I really ought to also mention the German names in those posts that are about the birds of Germany, or more generally about European bird species.
Therefore, from this day on my blog posts (those with European content) will conclude with a list of the birds mentioned. Therein I will provide the English name, the scientific name, the German name and the English translation of the German name (as in this post of mine).
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Alpine Eye Candy: Snowfinches in Austria
Some may remember that I spent two weeks in Tirol (that's part of the Austrian Alps) last January.
1) We were to attend the first international Austrian-German bird blogger convention.
2) Dale wanted me to see Snowfinches. And I wanted me to see Snowfinches just as bad.
That's up.
I had seen Snowfinches twice before in the Alps, once in July or August of 1987 when a handful of birds quickly flew away from me somewhere around Switzerland's Matterhorn, and in February (or January?) of 1997 in the German Allgäu, where a small flock of around 5 birds would regularly fly away from me whenever I turned up at the peak of the Fellhorn during a week's trip there.
Yes, I wanted some better looks.
The first Snowfinch we saw at Kühtai ... er ... kind of flew away from me, so it seems it's some sort of a tradition thing. But then a few birds landed at a feeder nearby, and then more and more birds showed up, and then I got some amazing looks at the birds sitting, and then hopping, and then flying. Yes, away from me again, but also towards me, around me, and above me. Not below me, but one always ought to leave out one thing in order to have a reason for coming back, so I was fine with that.
On one of the finer days of this trip, I teamed up with Dale (or rather he took the risk of meeting me) to do some very fine birding after Dale was able to shake off his job duties Friday afternoon.
We drove up, up, up into the mountains to the small village of Kühtai, at a height of approximately 2,000 m above sea level (around 6,000 feet), for two reasons:
1) We were to attend the first international Austrian-German bird blogger convention.
It turned out to be the most successful bird blogger convention ever, anywhere, as definitely 100% of all the bird bloggers of Germany and Austria attended. A picture of the entire delegation (the complete German and Austrian bird blogger scene) and a few more details can be found here (yes, I had a good reason for looking that tired - check the comments there).
2) Dale wanted me to see Snowfinches. And I wanted me to see Snowfinches just as bad.
Snowfinches are a species of birds related to Sparrows of the Old World kind (yes, North America, rub it in some: here, we have some issues with common names not meeting taxonomic standards, too), and they occur up, up, up, in the highest mountains of Europe and central Asia. To give you a rough idea how much up I am talking about: they move down quite some ways in winter, and we were there in winter, and we were up at 2,000 m above sea level.
That's up.
I had seen Snowfinches twice before in the Alps, once in July or August of 1987 when a handful of birds quickly flew away from me somewhere around Switzerland's Matterhorn, and in February (or January?) of 1997 in the German Allgäu, where a small flock of around 5 birds would regularly fly away from me whenever I turned up at the peak of the Fellhorn during a week's trip there.
Yes, I wanted some better looks.
The first Snowfinch we saw at Kühtai ... er ... kind of flew away from me, so it seems it's some sort of a tradition thing. But then a few birds landed at a feeder nearby, and then more and more birds showed up, and then I got some amazing looks at the birds sitting, and then hopping, and then flying. Yes, away from me again, but also towards me, around me, and above me. Not below me, but one always ought to leave out one thing in order to have a reason for coming back, so I was fine with that.
And then I took some pictures:
A small group sitting amidst empty sunflower seeds on the roof of a ski-lift station
"We need to talk."
The marching bird.
I've never seen birds with such determined walking gaits. Not as goofy as the Ovenbird, but surely with a comparable mindset.
Best ... Feeder Bird ... Ever!
The Underdogs' feeding frenzy below the feeder.
And now the Eye Candy: the flock in flight.
We were there on a cloudy day, and the sky was as pale and uniformly white as the snow on the surrounding mountain slopes.
In theory this is bad. And it might be bad if you are trying to enjoy 9,999 of the world's 10,000 bird species.
But for viewing Snowfinches, this is perfect weather.
Against a white sky (or snow) the white in the birds' wings and tails merges in perfectly with the background and the Snowfinch has thus one of the most peculiar flight silhouettes I have ever seen (well, have ever partially not seen).
The following two heavily cropped images may convey part of it, but it is so astounding it needs to be seen in life to be appreciated.
Such marvelous avian wonders.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
So many names in the names
The following post was written quite some time ago but then got lost in the archives, half finished and half forgotten, until I stumbled upon this particular and peculiar post on Nate's incomparable Drinking Bird blog.
Bird names.
Oh, some might remember while others had hoped to forget, but this is a topic I am very fond of. I'll need to add tags to my posts one of these days - and this is not the one of the lot - but I can recall three posts on the subject (here, here, and here), with a few more surely buried in the archives.
Nate, inspired by a flaming and brilliant email from Ted Floyd (I'll have a lot of good to say about him soon) to a bird forum, writes about honorific names.
Well, I was about to look it up, but then quickly deduced that this had to mean bird species that were named in honour of a certain person by naming it after that certain person.
And as a matter of fact, this is something I had not failed to notice shortly after setting foot on North American soil for the first time in 1987.
I had bought myself a sweet little field guide - actually I had three, Peterson, the Golden Field guide and a third one whose name I can't recall, with photos instead of drawings.
Anyway, so I was trying to memorize the birds, their names and identification and struggled, because so many names were characterized by names. I'll let my comment to Nate's post do the fine tuning:
"... It is already difficult enough for a European birder to learn the identification of a few “difficult” bird species by heart before he visits North America, but to memorize in advance which warbler is from Connecticut, Kentucky, Tennessee, Nashville, Cape May, or is the sole property of Swainson, Townsend, Virginia (Virginia who?), Kirtland, MacGillivray, or Wilson, is a near impossibility, especially as the visiting birder has likely never been to any of these places, might have no idea where they are as he’s visiting Point Pelee in Ontario on his first trip to the continent, and has certainly never been introduced to the owners of the birds, let alone had a conversation with them. ..."
So quite a while ago, I started flipping through the pages of my trusty ol' Sibley and actually counted the birds named after names.
The result was impressive, as can be seen by the list at the end of this post. I am fairly sure the list is incomplete, but nevertheless:
The list contains 69 different persons, and 89 bird species are named after a person, which is roughly 11% of the bird species regularly found in North America. However, I should not fail to mention that the number of persons is likely larger than 69 as I have (for reasons of simplicity and because I just didn't want to freakin' google all the 89 honorific bird names) attributed all the Wilsons and Clarks etc. to the same person. I am fairly certain however that the two Clark birds (grebe and nutcracker) are named after two different Clarks and that this will likely be the case for a few more names.
And these are only the honorific bird names that contain a person's name. How about geographic names that honour or mention (or whatever it is that pleases) landscape structures or geographic entities, which in my honest opinion also fall into the same category?
Oh dear!
If we take geographic references and names of landscape elements into account as well, the number of birds named after a name increases by roughly 105 species to at total of at least 204 species or 25% of all the bird species of North America.
You doubt that figure?
If in doubt, think it out...
1. All the "Eastern"s and "Western"s and "Northern"s like Eastern Kingbird, Western Grebe, Northern Shrike, ...
Seriously, they may seem to make sense, but in reality they mostly don't. A few examples:
The "Northern" in "Beardless-Tyrannulet might make sense if you live somewhere in Mesoamerica but for citizens of the USA or Canada, it's a joke. And look at Texas recently, where birders were able to see a Northern Wheatear (a vagrant from the far North) and a Northern Jacana (a vagrant from the far South) at the very same time.
And last but not least, just picture Clare up at Arctic Bay. Northern Cardinal? Well, he must be chuckling all the way through his Sibley...
2. All the states and cities, e.g. California Gnatcatcher, Kentucky Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, California Gull, Florida Jay, Carolina Parakeet (oh dear), Baltimore Oriole, Virginia Rail, Savannah Sparrow, ...
All you have to do is ask birders in Connecticut if they have the namesake's warbler on their state list and you'll have to agree that it's all a bit less then perfect.
3. All the geographic areas: South-Hills Crossbill, Mississippi Kite, Gunnison Sage-Grouse, Laysan Albatross, ...
Ha! Look, while in St. Louis I never saw Mississippi Kites anywhere near the Mississippi, they were all in residential areas. The hawk might as well be called "University City Kite" if it was up to me.
And last but certainly not least, yes, you know it applies, no matter how much you may think it is unfair:
4. All the Americans: American Robin, American Crow, American Goldfinch, American Black Duck, ...
I am sorry but I just don't think that bird names were meant to sound patriotic, especially as American bird names just mimic European species that aren't even closely related to them, and I frankly feel the American Tree Sparrow and the likes deserves better.
Yet, worst of all:
5. All the Europeans or rather Eurasians: European Starling, European Tree Sparrow, etc.
Apparently, being invasive ecologically just wasn't enough.
Now, if you still disbelieve that 1 out of 4 species in North America is named after a name, go ahead: flip through your Sibley, page by page, and see for yourself.
I've been there, I've done that, and while the results were fun, the process wasn't particularly so.
I'll now leave you with the list of North American honorific bird names, the birds that were named after persons. It's a long, long list...
But rejoice: African birders must surely be worse off, but I am just not prepared to flip through my entire SASOL just yet...
Honorific Bird Names of North America
Abert (1): Towhee
Allen (1): Hummingbird
Anna (1): Hummingbird
Audubon (3): Shearwater, Oriole, Warbler
Bachman (2): Sparrow, Warbler
Baird (2): Sandpiper, sparrow
Barrow (1): Goldeneye
Bell (1): Vireo
Bendire (1): Thrasher
Bewick (1): Wren
Bicknell (1): Thrush
Bonaparte (1): Gull
Botteri (1): Sparrow
Brandt (1): Cormorant
Brewer (2): Blackbird, Sparrow
Brewster (1): Warbler (hybrid)
Buller (1): Petrel
Bullock (1): Oriole
Cassin (5): Auklet, Kingbird, Vireo, Sparrow, Finch
Clark (2): Grebe, Nutcracker
Cook (1): Petrel
Cooper (1): Hawk
Cory (1). Petrel
Costa (1): Hummingbird
Couch (1): Kingbird
Cravieri (1): Murrelet
Fea (1): Petrel
Forster (1): Tern
Franklin (1): Gull
Gambel (1): Quail
Grace (1): Warbler
Harlan (1): Hawk
Harris (2): Hawk, Sparrow
Heermann (1): Gull
Henslow (1): Sparrow
Herald (1): Petrel
Hutton (1): Vireo
Kirtland (1): Warbler
Kittlitz (1): Murrelet
Krider (1): Hawk
La Sagra (1): Flycatcher
Lawrence (2): Warbler (hybrid), Goldfinch
Leach (1): Stormpetrel
LeConte (1): Sparrow
Lewis (1): Woodpecker
Lincoln (1): Sparrow
Lucy (1): Warbler
Manx (1): Petrel
McCown (1): Longspur
McGillivray (1): Warbler
McKay (1): Bunting
Murphy (1): Petrel
Nelson (2): Gull (hybrid), Sparrow
Nuttall (1): Woodpecker
Ross (2): Gull, Goose
Sabine (1): Gull
Say (1): Phoebe
Scott (1): Oriole
Smith (1): Longspur
Sprague (1): Pipit
Steller (2): Eider, Jay
Swainson (3): Hawk, Thrush, Warbler
Thayer (1): Gull
Townsend (2): Solitaire, Warbler
Traill (1): Flycatcher (pre-split)
Vaux (1): Swift
Virginia (1): Warbler
Wilson (3): Stormpetrel, Plover, Warbler
Xantus (1): Murrelet
Bird names.
Oh, some might remember while others had hoped to forget, but this is a topic I am very fond of. I'll need to add tags to my posts one of these days - and this is not the one of the lot - but I can recall three posts on the subject (here, here, and here), with a few more surely buried in the archives.
Nate, inspired by a flaming and brilliant email from Ted Floyd (I'll have a lot of good to say about him soon) to a bird forum, writes about honorific names.
Well, I was about to look it up, but then quickly deduced that this had to mean bird species that were named in honour of a certain person by naming it after that certain person.
And as a matter of fact, this is something I had not failed to notice shortly after setting foot on North American soil for the first time in 1987.
I had bought myself a sweet little field guide - actually I had three, Peterson, the Golden Field guide and a third one whose name I can't recall, with photos instead of drawings.
Anyway, so I was trying to memorize the birds, their names and identification and struggled, because so many names were characterized by names. I'll let my comment to Nate's post do the fine tuning:
"... It is already difficult enough for a European birder to learn the identification of a few “difficult” bird species by heart before he visits North America, but to memorize in advance which warbler is from Connecticut, Kentucky, Tennessee, Nashville, Cape May, or is the sole property of Swainson, Townsend, Virginia (Virginia who?), Kirtland, MacGillivray, or Wilson, is a near impossibility, especially as the visiting birder has likely never been to any of these places, might have no idea where they are as he’s visiting Point Pelee in Ontario on his first trip to the continent, and has certainly never been introduced to the owners of the birds, let alone had a conversation with them. ..."
So quite a while ago, I started flipping through the pages of my trusty ol' Sibley and actually counted the birds named after names.
The result was impressive, as can be seen by the list at the end of this post. I am fairly sure the list is incomplete, but nevertheless:
The list contains 69 different persons, and 89 bird species are named after a person, which is roughly 11% of the bird species regularly found in North America. However, I should not fail to mention that the number of persons is likely larger than 69 as I have (for reasons of simplicity and because I just didn't want to freakin' google all the 89 honorific bird names) attributed all the Wilsons and Clarks etc. to the same person. I am fairly certain however that the two Clark birds (grebe and nutcracker) are named after two different Clarks and that this will likely be the case for a few more names.
And these are only the honorific bird names that contain a person's name. How about geographic names that honour or mention (or whatever it is that pleases) landscape structures or geographic entities, which in my honest opinion also fall into the same category?
Oh dear!
If we take geographic references and names of landscape elements into account as well, the number of birds named after a name increases by roughly 105 species to at total of at least 204 species or 25% of all the bird species of North America.
You doubt that figure?
If in doubt, think it out...
1. All the "Eastern"s and "Western"s and "Northern"s like Eastern Kingbird, Western Grebe, Northern Shrike, ...
Seriously, they may seem to make sense, but in reality they mostly don't. A few examples:
The "Northern" in "Beardless-Tyrannulet might make sense if you live somewhere in Mesoamerica but for citizens of the USA or Canada, it's a joke. And look at Texas recently, where birders were able to see a Northern Wheatear (a vagrant from the far North) and a Northern Jacana (a vagrant from the far South) at the very same time.
And last but not least, just picture Clare up at Arctic Bay. Northern Cardinal? Well, he must be chuckling all the way through his Sibley...
2. All the states and cities, e.g. California Gnatcatcher, Kentucky Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, California Gull, Florida Jay, Carolina Parakeet (oh dear), Baltimore Oriole, Virginia Rail, Savannah Sparrow, ...
All you have to do is ask birders in Connecticut if they have the namesake's warbler on their state list and you'll have to agree that it's all a bit less then perfect.
3. All the geographic areas: South-Hills Crossbill, Mississippi Kite, Gunnison Sage-Grouse, Laysan Albatross, ...
Ha! Look, while in St. Louis I never saw Mississippi Kites anywhere near the Mississippi, they were all in residential areas. The hawk might as well be called "University City Kite" if it was up to me.
And last but certainly not least, yes, you know it applies, no matter how much you may think it is unfair:
4. All the Americans: American Robin, American Crow, American Goldfinch, American Black Duck, ...
I am sorry but I just don't think that bird names were meant to sound patriotic, especially as American bird names just mimic European species that aren't even closely related to them, and I frankly feel the American Tree Sparrow and the likes deserves better.
Yet, worst of all:
5. All the Europeans or rather Eurasians: European Starling, European Tree Sparrow, etc.
Apparently, being invasive ecologically just wasn't enough.
Now, if you still disbelieve that 1 out of 4 species in North America is named after a name, go ahead: flip through your Sibley, page by page, and see for yourself.
I've been there, I've done that, and while the results were fun, the process wasn't particularly so.
I'll now leave you with the list of North American honorific bird names, the birds that were named after persons. It's a long, long list...
But rejoice: African birders must surely be worse off, but I am just not prepared to flip through my entire SASOL just yet...
Honorific Bird Names of North America
Abert (1): Towhee
Allen (1): Hummingbird
Anna (1): Hummingbird
Audubon (3): Shearwater, Oriole, Warbler
Bachman (2): Sparrow, Warbler
Baird (2): Sandpiper, sparrow
Barrow (1): Goldeneye
Bell (1): Vireo
Bendire (1): Thrasher
Bewick (1): Wren
Bicknell (1): Thrush
Bonaparte (1): Gull
Botteri (1): Sparrow
Brandt (1): Cormorant
Brewer (2): Blackbird, Sparrow
Brewster (1): Warbler (hybrid)
Buller (1): Petrel
Bullock (1): Oriole
Cassin (5): Auklet, Kingbird, Vireo, Sparrow, Finch
Clark (2): Grebe, Nutcracker
Cook (1): Petrel
Cooper (1): Hawk
Cory (1). Petrel
Costa (1): Hummingbird
Couch (1): Kingbird
Cravieri (1): Murrelet
Fea (1): Petrel
Forster (1): Tern
Franklin (1): Gull
Gambel (1): Quail
Grace (1): Warbler
Harlan (1): Hawk
Harris (2): Hawk, Sparrow
Heermann (1): Gull
Henslow (1): Sparrow
Herald (1): Petrel
Hutton (1): Vireo
Kirtland (1): Warbler
Kittlitz (1): Murrelet
Krider (1): Hawk
La Sagra (1): Flycatcher
Lawrence (2): Warbler (hybrid), Goldfinch
Leach (1): Stormpetrel
LeConte (1): Sparrow
Lewis (1): Woodpecker
Lincoln (1): Sparrow
Lucy (1): Warbler
Manx (1): Petrel
McCown (1): Longspur
McGillivray (1): Warbler
McKay (1): Bunting
Murphy (1): Petrel
Nelson (2): Gull (hybrid), Sparrow
Nuttall (1): Woodpecker
Ross (2): Gull, Goose
Sabine (1): Gull
Say (1): Phoebe
Scott (1): Oriole
Smith (1): Longspur
Sprague (1): Pipit
Steller (2): Eider, Jay
Swainson (3): Hawk, Thrush, Warbler
Thayer (1): Gull
Townsend (2): Solitaire, Warbler
Traill (1): Flycatcher (pre-split)
Vaux (1): Swift
Virginia (1): Warbler
Wilson (3): Stormpetrel, Plover, Warbler
Xantus (1): Murrelet
Monday, 8 March 2010
Thrush Saturation Saturday
As every week has begun since the beginning of time, I went to visit the Best Bird of the Weekend post on 10,000Birds this Monday morning.
The problem is - as it is with every Monday morning visit since the beginning of time - that I seem to be the most trigger-happy commenting birder from the Olde Europe to do so, and as I am 6 to 10 hours ahead of North America the comments section is usually empty and I get to not read anything but write the first comment instead.
If I have something, or rather anything, to tell - a basic requirement only rarely met by myself not since the beginning of time but since moving away from the Baltic to shabby industrialized, built-up and crowded yet Central Park & Jamaica Bayless Heidelberg.
Not so this time, and after telling the world who wasn't willing to know what I wanted it to know on 10,000Birds, I found myself wondering why I didn't turn this comment into a post on my own blog.
So here we are now, not sure if being here was a smart decision in the first place but as we can always blame Monday morning, we might as well stay and see how things will develop.
I do realize that this blog of yours truly has been very rich in words recently and poor in pictures. Therefore, I'll just quickly copy and paste my aforementioned comment here and then follow up with the story in pictures.
What was your best bird of the weekend?
"I’ve had quite an interesting weekend around Leimen/Heidelberg, on my usual stroller stomping ground. We had a sudden re-emergence of winter Friday night with approximately 10 cm (4 inches) of snow, extremely unusual for March.
A lot of migrant songbirds in the surrounding mountains of the Odenwald got caught in this mess and decided to quickly dash down into the warmer valley of the Rhine. On early Saturday, during cloudy conditions and occasional flurries of snow, I watched a constant stream of small songbird groups making their way west, mostly thrushes (5 Turdus species, sadly no Ring Ouzle though) but also a few skylarks and - rarest of all - a Wood Lark. During the afternoon, conditions were better with blue skies and sun, but the entire landscape except for the roads and paths was still covered in snow.
Along my stroller route, I encountered more than 50 song thrushes searching for snacks right beside the road. This is great as I’d normally be happy to see more than 2!
On Sunday, the entire show was over with just 8 song thrushes during the morning walk and only 1 in the afternoon.
So, I guess Song Thrush, despite being a very common bird, deserves to take the cake as best bird of the weekend.
However, I’ve also had a fabulous observation of a Common Buzzard and found the nest of a Long-tailed Tit. The latter is good to know in case a certain birder from New York shows up with vendetta on his mind…"
This is not what one expects to be greeted by upon leaving their apartment in southern Germany around the middle of March, but it certainly wasn't enough to deter me from my plans of going for a stroller walk with my son - weekend quality time is weekend quality time and always will be weekend quality time until the end of time. According to this post, New Yorkers would have died left, right, and centre in such a "blizzard" just by looking out of their apartment windows, but Leimen is not New York. Definitely and clearly not.
I will freely admit there were times during the walk when I questioned my decision to just ignore the snow and literally push on.
Especially as the landscape did not specifically hold out the promise of many birds. 
This Great Spotted Woodpecker only gave its presence away by its pertinent scolding. No, I did not mean to write "impertinent".
Looking at the state of its habitat, I can't deny I had sympathy for the old grump, despite being of a more sunny inclination myself even on winter days in March. There was clearly spring in the air, okay? Even if there weren't any gulls around to set (purely potential) doubters right. Yeah, right!
Eurasian Tree Sparrows searching the road for food. Notice the right bird hopping to attract earthworms. This is very unwise as a) Tree Sparrows don't feed on earthworms b) only thrushes are supposed to be doing this and c) it's completely pointless on a tarred road anyway.
I highly recommend looking at Tree Sparrows head-on. Few birds look that sharp when seen head-on. With the possible exception of the Wrybill.
And all this glory was brought to you courtesy of the towering heights of the frightening Odenwald. Migrant Songbirds, heed the warning: don't go there! Fly over Leimen instead.
The problem is - as it is with every Monday morning visit since the beginning of time - that I seem to be the most trigger-happy commenting birder from the Olde Europe to do so, and as I am 6 to 10 hours ahead of North America the comments section is usually empty and I get to not read anything but write the first comment instead.
If I have something, or rather anything, to tell - a basic requirement only rarely met by myself not since the beginning of time but since moving away from the Baltic to shabby industrialized, built-up and crowded yet Central Park & Jamaica Bayless Heidelberg.
Not so this time, and after telling the world who wasn't willing to know what I wanted it to know on 10,000Birds, I found myself wondering why I didn't turn this comment into a post on my own blog.
So here we are now, not sure if being here was a smart decision in the first place but as we can always blame Monday morning, we might as well stay and see how things will develop.
I do realize that this blog of yours truly has been very rich in words recently and poor in pictures. Therefore, I'll just quickly copy and paste my aforementioned comment here and then follow up with the story in pictures.
What was your best bird of the weekend?
"I’ve had quite an interesting weekend around Leimen/Heidelberg, on my usual stroller stomping ground. We had a sudden re-emergence of winter Friday night with approximately 10 cm (4 inches) of snow, extremely unusual for March.
A lot of migrant songbirds in the surrounding mountains of the Odenwald got caught in this mess and decided to quickly dash down into the warmer valley of the Rhine. On early Saturday, during cloudy conditions and occasional flurries of snow, I watched a constant stream of small songbird groups making their way west, mostly thrushes (5 Turdus species, sadly no Ring Ouzle though) but also a few skylarks and - rarest of all - a Wood Lark. During the afternoon, conditions were better with blue skies and sun, but the entire landscape except for the roads and paths was still covered in snow.
Along my stroller route, I encountered more than 50 song thrushes searching for snacks right beside the road. This is great as I’d normally be happy to see more than 2!
On Sunday, the entire show was over with just 8 song thrushes during the morning walk and only 1 in the afternoon.
So, I guess Song Thrush, despite being a very common bird, deserves to take the cake as best bird of the weekend.
However, I’ve also had a fabulous observation of a Common Buzzard and found the nest of a Long-tailed Tit. The latter is good to know in case a certain birder from New York shows up with vendetta on his mind…"
This is not what one expects to be greeted by upon leaving their apartment in southern Germany around the middle of March, but it certainly wasn't enough to deter me from my plans of going for a stroller walk with my son - weekend quality time is weekend quality time and always will be weekend quality time until the end of time. According to this post, New Yorkers would have died left, right, and centre in such a "blizzard" just by looking out of their apartment windows, but Leimen is not New York. Definitely and clearly not.I will freely admit there were times during the walk when I questioned my decision to just ignore the snow and literally push on.Especially as the landscape did not specifically hold out the promise of many birds. ... of any birds.
This Great Spotted Woodpecker only gave its presence away by its pertinent scolding. No, I did not mean to write "impertinent".Looking at the state of its habitat, I can't deny I had sympathy for the old grump, despite being of a more sunny inclination myself even on winter days in March. There was clearly spring in the air, okay? Even if there weren't any gulls around to set (purely potential) doubters right. Yeah, right! And yes, the tiny spot up there, that's it. No, not spring. I mean the woodpecker.
Unlike the weather and conditions on ground and tree, the sky was on fire. Apparently the weather was even worse in the surrounding mountains of the Odenwald and was actively pushing migrant songbirds down into the Rhine valley. Well, it might not have been pushing them actively, but if ever there were songbirds on a mission to get from somewhere to somewhere else and get there fast, it was last Saturday and it was around Leimen. The majority of the fugitives were thrushes, mostly Fieldfares as in the picture above, but with plenty of Song Thrushes mixed in, a few Blackbirds, an odd Mistle Thrush or two and even at least one Redwing.
Stupid Fieldfares, mistaking Leimen for Lisbon and coming down to roost.
This all happened before the high noon nap of my son. However, dad's weekend quality time doesn't end there, it goes on until bedtime and specifically includes an extensive afternoon stroller tour as well. And sure enough, times had changed from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., as seen in the two pictures below. The small and lovely flurry of snow .... ahem, I mean the ferocious and totally deadly blizzard of the millennium, for potential New Yorkers reading this, had ceased to shed its white shroud over the landscape and a ricocheting spring had managed to at least reclaim the roadsides.
This is Thrush Heaven, South Central.
Suddenly, there was grass! And boy, were the thrushes happy to see it. The grassy sides of the roads were literally covered in thrushes, mostly Song Thrushes with over 50 recorded where I'd normally be happy to encounter two during migrational days of excellence, but there were also a few Eurasian Blackbirds and a single Fieldfare who had lingered long enough to notice that those Fieldfares pushing on towards Lisbon were indeed the stupid ones...
In the above pictures, you can see a Blackbird with three Song Thrushes and three Song Thrushes with no Blackbird. The second picture may help you in figuring out which is which in the picture on top. Kidding. Look, the thrush isn't called "BLACKbird" for nothing, right?
Same game again: two Song Thrushes (identical bird) and a Eurasian Blackbird. I love Catharus thrushes. That's why I love the Song Thrush. The Song Thrush is not a Catharus thrush. But it reminds me of one, and beggars can't be chosers. Particularly those beggars residing in the moldy hell of Leimen. This is why even Blackbirds are more than fine, too.
Aaaand, the grand finale of our little crash course to Thrush Identification! Yupp, Song Thrush and Blackbird. Note the differences in size and how utterly unimportant this is as a field mark.
But of course there were other species as well:
Eurasian Tree Sparrows searching the road for food. Notice the right bird hopping to attract earthworms. This is very unwise as a) Tree Sparrows don't feed on earthworms b) only thrushes are supposed to be doing this and c) it's completely pointless on a tarred road anyway. 
I highly recommend looking at Tree Sparrows head-on. Few birds look that sharp when seen head-on. With the possible exception of the Wrybill.
Prime first-wave male Chaffinch, humiliated by having to feed in the mud. Thankfully, the females and male whippersnappers are still somewhere out of sight in southern France and Italy, busy avoiding lime-twigs.
And all this glory was brought to you courtesy of the towering heights of the frightening Odenwald. Migrant Songbirds, heed the warning: don't go there! Fly over Leimen instead. My weekend stroller schedule is Saturday and Sunday, 09:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 05:30 p.m. or by appointment in case of true vagrancy.
See you there!
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Looking back at birding in the 0's, part 2
2005
This was a sweet year, due to two good news.
The first of the two good news came early in winter - it must have still been January or February - and actually started with what was a bit of bad news really: someone approached the company I was working for (a private consulting company specializing in environmental laws and impact assessments) because he planned to construct a fricking golf course right inside the potential home range of a known pair of Lesser-spotted Eagles.
European readers may know what this means, North American readers may not, so I’ll try to come up with an analogue. It’s not quite as severe as planning a parking lot on the last remnants of Louisiana’s Singer Tract in the 1940ies, but it also isn't that far away from it severity-wise. We have less than 100 pairs of the eagles left in Germany and they are not fairing too well.
Okay? So it’s bad, and it was our job to see if it was possible at all under German nature conservation law – I am not going to say it was our job to make it possible although that’s really what it was all about.
Well, the obvious thing to do was map the exact territory use of the eagles within the usual 3-km diameter around their nest and hope that by lucky chance and coincidence they would not be using the one field the golf course was planned on.
And the mapping of the eagles became a project of mine, which meant I was to patrol the entire potential home range for 10 days between April and September, scanning for the eagles or any other conservation-relevant bird species, mapping their movements, monitoring their behaviour and just have a really, really good time doing so.
The second of two good news had to do with my then-girlfriend-now-wife nearing the completion of her PhD and getting an invitation to spend three months at a lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Of course she asked me to accompany her for as long as possible and I was able to take a whole month off work. By circumstances beyond my control, the first month of her internship - where I was to come along and bird, err, help her organizing stuff and get settled - just so happened to be May.
May.
Around the Great Lakes.
Yes, May.
I didn’t really mind that a lot.
I’ll continue with my Michigan spring birding extravaganza and get back to the eagles afterwards because the best birding there was in August anyway.
Okay, so it was May around the Great Lakes and boy, did I have a good time.
First, my wife and I travelled to New York City for a week of sightseeing and a very tiny bit of birding, then she was to start working and I went to visit Point Pelee, Rondeau Provincial Park, the surroundings of Ann Arbor, the Sleeping Bear Dunes area and the eastern Upper Peninsular of Michigan.
Here is a short excerpt from the travel report’s introduction I wrote after getting back to Germany:
“This must have been one of the most enjoyable and successful birding trips of my life, not only in terms of species seen but also because most species were seen at very close range. And there are so many really beautiful species around it is hard to believe you are outside the tropics. Seeing a Northern Cardinal, a Yellow Warbler and a Blue Jay at close range within five minutes will probably bore the locals, but it is a breathtaking experience for anyone else. I recorded a total of 230 species, most of which were actually seen (which only means I did very badly on identifying them by sound alone). Amongst them were 36 species of wood-warblers (two of which – Prairie and Worm-eating - were only heard, but that still leaves 34 which I saw, and this apparently is a pretty good number compared to other trip reports I read) and 14 species of sparrows (not counting the Towhee and House Sparrows), including highlights such as brilliant views of Henslow’s, Le Conte’s and a beautiful Lark Sparrow.”
Other very noteworthy species (in my world) and good candidates for bird of the year were both American and Least Bittern actually seen, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Spruce Grouse, Sandhill Crane, Piping Plover (inland!), Upland Sandpiper, American Woodcock, Wilson’s Phalarope, Red-headed Woodpecker, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Plumbeous Vireo (yes, I know, but I never reported it), Cerulean Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, Kirtland’s Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, Summer Tanager, Clay-coloured Sparrow, and Evening Grosbeak, just to name quite a few.
Now we quickly jump back to Germany, the meadows and fields surrounding a prime forest and the quest for the Lesser-spotted Eagles.
As if surveying for the eagles wasn’t already grand enough, the entire area turned out to be extraordinarily good for large birds, particularly raptors, and after informing local birders to this who repeatedly went there in the following years, we found that this might just be one of the most species-rich area for raptors in all of Germany (I kid you not). On my tours in August I would regularly see the following species of large, large birds:
Grey Heron, White Stork, Black Stork, White-tailed Eagle, Osprey, of course Lesser-spotted Eagles, Red and Black Kite, Marsh Harrier, both Hen and Montague’s Harrier were occasionally around although not breeding (in later years I even found a vagrant Pallid Harrier), tons of Common Buzzards (later in the year many Rough-legs as well and a few years later a vagrant Long-legged Buzzard was found by others), Honey Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Goshawk, Common Kestrel, Hobby, (in later years and/or other seasons also Red-footed Falcon, Peregrine, and Merlin), and Common Cranes, both breeding and migrants.
Impressed?
Well, you’d better be!
This isn’t all, however.
The area is right next to the Baltic coast and the salt meadows of Karrendorf, where I spent two lunch breaks of an hour or so each on my two survey trips in August (you know, just getting a short raptor break to prevent overload). On these two short birding lunch breaks, I found:
Broad-billed Sandpiper, Red-necked Phalarope, Marsh Sandpiper, Great Snipe, and Pectoral Sandpiper.
Again, North American readers my not fully appreciate that list. Okay, here’s the translation:
It is like visiting Point Pelee (or Central Park for that matter) for no more than an hour twice in May and finding yourself (not twitching others’ sightings) Kirtland’s Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, Nelson’s Sparrow, Summer Tanager, and Western Tanager.
You do get the picture.
All these birds, from the raptors and storks to the shorebirds, are more than deserving to be named bird of the year.
And now, the drawing of the winner:
It was hard.
You see I had a fabulous time in North America, packed with amazing birds, and the birding in Germany was also extremely rewarding, with an almost equal amount of absolutely equally amazing birds.
Which of these to chose as bird of the year?
Well, I gave it an entire lot full of thought and am now convinced that the bird of the year just has to be the Henslow’s Sparrow.
Why?
Well, I don’t know, but I give you another excerpt from my travel report:
“YES, HENSLOW’S !!! This was one of the species I wanted to see the most. The precise reasons for this aren’t even clear to me today and I can’t put forward any rational arguments for enjoying Henslow’s so much. Surely it is a North American endemic that is difficult to find in general and it is declining over most of its range, but this is also the case with other species I encountered that didn’t even get me half as excited. Well, it all comes down to personal liking and that’s just what it was: I somehow desperately wanted to get good views of this chap!
And these I surely got.
Many thanks to Chartier and Ziarno for their excellent description of the species’ habitat in the Michigan guide. Without their guide and habitat description I would have certainly missed out on one of my most wanted species of the trip. On the way to one of the sites mentioned for Henslow’s in their guide (where by the way I also would have found it according to the Michigan email forum. What a book!), I stopped at a grassland beside the road that looked promising, switched off the engine and the first thing I heard was … a Field Sparrow to be honest, but the Henslow’s started singing just seconds afterwards and had me running to the patch of prairie like I was on drugs. I then stood on the edge of the small stretch of prairie for at least half an hour and only got brief views of flying birds that dropped into dense cover after what were at best a very few seconds. Without them singing constantly I would have not gone looking for them in that particular patch in the first place and I also would not have been able to put an ID on any of the small brown jobs that zoomed across the meadow.
Eventually, a bird started singing about 50 metres away from me on a high perch right on the edge of the grassy area and I knew instantly that this was my chance! Silently crawling on my belly I managed to approach the bird and finally enjoyed extremely brilliant views of it singing right in my face at what must have been less than 10 metres. Amazing when you can see the feathers on its throat vibrate in full song. What a beautiful species!!
I am also very proud to say that I didn’t set a single foot into its habitat (crawling along the edge of the prairie), hence not damaging anything (which is completely out of the question anyway, but I just thought I’d mention it) and that the bird singing in front of me also left because it wanted to have a word or two with its opponent on the other side of the field, not because of me watching it.
CHEERS, Michigan!”
Yupp, that sums it up nicely: Cheers Michigan!!
This was a sweet year, due to two good news.
The first of the two good news came early in winter - it must have still been January or February - and actually started with what was a bit of bad news really: someone approached the company I was working for (a private consulting company specializing in environmental laws and impact assessments) because he planned to construct a fricking golf course right inside the potential home range of a known pair of Lesser-spotted Eagles.
European readers may know what this means, North American readers may not, so I’ll try to come up with an analogue. It’s not quite as severe as planning a parking lot on the last remnants of Louisiana’s Singer Tract in the 1940ies, but it also isn't that far away from it severity-wise. We have less than 100 pairs of the eagles left in Germany and they are not fairing too well.
Okay? So it’s bad, and it was our job to see if it was possible at all under German nature conservation law – I am not going to say it was our job to make it possible although that’s really what it was all about.
Well, the obvious thing to do was map the exact territory use of the eagles within the usual 3-km diameter around their nest and hope that by lucky chance and coincidence they would not be using the one field the golf course was planned on.
And the mapping of the eagles became a project of mine, which meant I was to patrol the entire potential home range for 10 days between April and September, scanning for the eagles or any other conservation-relevant bird species, mapping their movements, monitoring their behaviour and just have a really, really good time doing so.
The second of two good news had to do with my then-girlfriend-now-wife nearing the completion of her PhD and getting an invitation to spend three months at a lab in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Of course she asked me to accompany her for as long as possible and I was able to take a whole month off work. By circumstances beyond my control, the first month of her internship - where I was to come along and bird, err, help her organizing stuff and get settled - just so happened to be May.
May.
Around the Great Lakes.
Yes, May.
I didn’t really mind that a lot.
I’ll continue with my Michigan spring birding extravaganza and get back to the eagles afterwards because the best birding there was in August anyway.
Okay, so it was May around the Great Lakes and boy, did I have a good time.
First, my wife and I travelled to New York City for a week of sightseeing and a very tiny bit of birding, then she was to start working and I went to visit Point Pelee, Rondeau Provincial Park, the surroundings of Ann Arbor, the Sleeping Bear Dunes area and the eastern Upper Peninsular of Michigan.
Here is a short excerpt from the travel report’s introduction I wrote after getting back to Germany:
“This must have been one of the most enjoyable and successful birding trips of my life, not only in terms of species seen but also because most species were seen at very close range. And there are so many really beautiful species around it is hard to believe you are outside the tropics. Seeing a Northern Cardinal, a Yellow Warbler and a Blue Jay at close range within five minutes will probably bore the locals, but it is a breathtaking experience for anyone else. I recorded a total of 230 species, most of which were actually seen (which only means I did very badly on identifying them by sound alone). Amongst them were 36 species of wood-warblers (two of which – Prairie and Worm-eating - were only heard, but that still leaves 34 which I saw, and this apparently is a pretty good number compared to other trip reports I read) and 14 species of sparrows (not counting the Towhee and House Sparrows), including highlights such as brilliant views of Henslow’s, Le Conte’s and a beautiful Lark Sparrow.”
Other very noteworthy species (in my world) and good candidates for bird of the year were both American and Least Bittern actually seen, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Spruce Grouse, Sandhill Crane, Piping Plover (inland!), Upland Sandpiper, American Woodcock, Wilson’s Phalarope, Red-headed Woodpecker, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Plumbeous Vireo (yes, I know, but I never reported it), Cerulean Warbler, Prothonotary Warbler, Kirtland’s Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, Summer Tanager, Clay-coloured Sparrow, and Evening Grosbeak, just to name quite a few.
Now we quickly jump back to Germany, the meadows and fields surrounding a prime forest and the quest for the Lesser-spotted Eagles.
As if surveying for the eagles wasn’t already grand enough, the entire area turned out to be extraordinarily good for large birds, particularly raptors, and after informing local birders to this who repeatedly went there in the following years, we found that this might just be one of the most species-rich area for raptors in all of Germany (I kid you not). On my tours in August I would regularly see the following species of large, large birds:
Grey Heron, White Stork, Black Stork, White-tailed Eagle, Osprey, of course Lesser-spotted Eagles, Red and Black Kite, Marsh Harrier, both Hen and Montague’s Harrier were occasionally around although not breeding (in later years I even found a vagrant Pallid Harrier), tons of Common Buzzards (later in the year many Rough-legs as well and a few years later a vagrant Long-legged Buzzard was found by others), Honey Buzzard, Sparrowhawk, Goshawk, Common Kestrel, Hobby, (in later years and/or other seasons also Red-footed Falcon, Peregrine, and Merlin), and Common Cranes, both breeding and migrants.
Impressed?
Well, you’d better be!
This isn’t all, however.
The area is right next to the Baltic coast and the salt meadows of Karrendorf, where I spent two lunch breaks of an hour or so each on my two survey trips in August (you know, just getting a short raptor break to prevent overload). On these two short birding lunch breaks, I found:
Broad-billed Sandpiper, Red-necked Phalarope, Marsh Sandpiper, Great Snipe, and Pectoral Sandpiper.
Again, North American readers my not fully appreciate that list. Okay, here’s the translation:
It is like visiting Point Pelee (or Central Park for that matter) for no more than an hour twice in May and finding yourself (not twitching others’ sightings) Kirtland’s Warbler, Connecticut Warbler, Nelson’s Sparrow, Summer Tanager, and Western Tanager.
You do get the picture.
All these birds, from the raptors and storks to the shorebirds, are more than deserving to be named bird of the year.
And now, the drawing of the winner:
It was hard.
You see I had a fabulous time in North America, packed with amazing birds, and the birding in Germany was also extremely rewarding, with an almost equal amount of absolutely equally amazing birds.
Which of these to chose as bird of the year?
Well, I gave it an entire lot full of thought and am now convinced that the bird of the year just has to be the Henslow’s Sparrow.
Why?
Well, I don’t know, but I give you another excerpt from my travel report:
“YES, HENSLOW’S !!! This was one of the species I wanted to see the most. The precise reasons for this aren’t even clear to me today and I can’t put forward any rational arguments for enjoying Henslow’s so much. Surely it is a North American endemic that is difficult to find in general and it is declining over most of its range, but this is also the case with other species I encountered that didn’t even get me half as excited. Well, it all comes down to personal liking and that’s just what it was: I somehow desperately wanted to get good views of this chap!
And these I surely got.
Many thanks to Chartier and Ziarno for their excellent description of the species’ habitat in the Michigan guide. Without their guide and habitat description I would have certainly missed out on one of my most wanted species of the trip. On the way to one of the sites mentioned for Henslow’s in their guide (where by the way I also would have found it according to the Michigan email forum. What a book!), I stopped at a grassland beside the road that looked promising, switched off the engine and the first thing I heard was … a Field Sparrow to be honest, but the Henslow’s started singing just seconds afterwards and had me running to the patch of prairie like I was on drugs. I then stood on the edge of the small stretch of prairie for at least half an hour and only got brief views of flying birds that dropped into dense cover after what were at best a very few seconds. Without them singing constantly I would have not gone looking for them in that particular patch in the first place and I also would not have been able to put an ID on any of the small brown jobs that zoomed across the meadow.
Eventually, a bird started singing about 50 metres away from me on a high perch right on the edge of the grassy area and I knew instantly that this was my chance! Silently crawling on my belly I managed to approach the bird and finally enjoyed extremely brilliant views of it singing right in my face at what must have been less than 10 metres. Amazing when you can see the feathers on its throat vibrate in full song. What a beautiful species!!
I am also very proud to say that I didn’t set a single foot into its habitat (crawling along the edge of the prairie), hence not damaging anything (which is completely out of the question anyway, but I just thought I’d mention it) and that the bird singing in front of me also left because it wanted to have a word or two with its opponent on the other side of the field, not because of me watching it.
CHEERS, Michigan!”
Yupp, that sums it up nicely: Cheers Michigan!!
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Not dipping on a Dipper
As some of you (particularly those who regularly read Dale's excellent Discovering Alpine Birds) might know, I spent two weeks in January in and around Tirol.
The main reason of course was a ground breaking international event Dale's blogged about here (and that I will blog about at a later point in time if time herself, who is a river, will permit) but of course, while I was there and the family was with me, I thought that I might also try to get some birding done.
And yes, I did.
Well, I had visited the Alps before on a few occasions in the 1980ies and late 1990ies and was thus familiar with the very vast majority of its special birds, so there was no real rush to get lifers. However, I very much looked forward to re-connecting with a few enigmatic species I hadn't seen in a long, long time.
Amongst these species was the Eurasian Dipper.
The Dipper is a bird frequently found along mountainous streams and creeks (and therefore not a tricky bird to see or get), yet I had spent 12 years in the flatlands of northern Germany where it is but a rare visitor from Scandinavia, and one that had basically avoided my detection for the entire period there .
It was thus with great pleasure that I found a mountain creek with a lovely weir and heaps of boulders along its banks was running through our little holiday destination of Kiefersfelden, right on the German-Austrian border. And by a stroke of luck (aka a good and long nap of my son), I found myself searching said location on my first full day there, for the Dipper.
I will let the pictures do the telling in a few instances, and it will suffice to write that I found not one but five Dippers along the 1.5 kms of river I searched, although the first 5 minutes were spent in a state of anxiety when the weir, my expected hot spot, held only Mallards.
I will let the pictures do the telling in a few instances, and it will suffice to write that I found not one but five Dippers along the 1.5 kms of river I searched, although the first 5 minutes were spent in a state of anxiety when the weir, my expected hot spot, held only Mallards.
Shortly after the weir though is where this blog post really begins:
The weir where the Dipper wasn't at first - but was on later day's visits I won't blog about...
The river above the weir where the Dipper wasn't where the Dipper was at first - but wasn't on later day's visits I won't blog about (the weir is in the background)...
And here it is, the star of this post:
Dipppp...
...errrr!
The passerine diving machine - going...
... going ...
... gone - what an unexpected end to this series!
And it's back up again. The claws of this species, by the way, must be amongst the world's sharpest. Because those rocks can be dippery when wet.
The Ballad of Jack the Dipper
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jackbill has The Dipper, dear
And he keeps it out of sight
I had watched the Dipper for well over half an hour when I realized it got dark and that it was time to return home to the family.
Walking along the river bank back towards the weir, a strange and barely audible whispering caught my ear.
I stopped in my tracks.
There it was again, and this time I was able to locate it as coming from amongst the boulders underwater.
In tune with the waves' rushing and purling but clearly discernible against its acoustic background, there was a tiny, soft, and repeated "Who", and like Horton I bent down to investigate further.
To my amazement, I found a choir of caddisfly larvae had gathered on a small area of sand amongst the rocks where the current was subdued by their larval cases and the boulders sheltering them, and they sang a sad and mellow song that I will reproduce here to the best of my abilities and as I noted it out in the field, lying down in the snow by the river, and I will call their tune The Ballad of Jack The Dipper.
The Ballad of Jack the Dipper
Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear
And he shows them pearly white
Just a jackbill has The Dipper, dear
And he keeps it out of sight
When the shark bites with his teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread
A white bib, though, wears The Dipper, dear
So there's not a trace of red
Scarlet billows start to spread
A white bib, though, wears The Dipper, dear
So there's not a trace of red
On the embankment...around sunset,
Lies a dead aquatic critter
Someone's diving 'round the river bed
Is the someone Jack the Dipper?
Lies a dead aquatic critter
Someone's diving 'round the river bed
Is the someone Jack the Dipper?
From a boulder in the river
A small pebble’s drooping down
A small pebble’s drooping down
Yes, it’s from a larva’s case, dear
Bet you Dipper's back in town
Bet you Dipper's back in town
Makes you wonder if we owe one of literature's finest stories to Brecht & Weill spending one too many holidays at a creek in the Alps ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
