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Anders Gyllenhaal

“He’s close.” On the trail of a rare Hawaiian Honeycreeper

by Anders Gyllenhaal June 17, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

We heard the sweet, staccato song of Hawaiian Palila on and off all day as we roamed the range of this golden-yellow bird, one of the most endangered and treasured species on the islands.

But the Palila always seemed to stay just out of sight, living up to its status as one of the rarest of the islands’ birds, found only on the upper reaches of the Big Island’s highest mountain.

Our Palila stops for just a moment on the branch of a mamane tree. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

We were visiting with Chris Farmer, the Hawaii program director for the American Bird Conservancy. Chris has spent so much time working with this and other native birds that he’s kind of a Palila whisperer. Sometimes he alone would hear the unique song, usually coming from the other side of the stands of mamane trees that dominate the dry forest.

Hawaii is a magical and complicated place for birds, particularly forest birds like the critically endangered Palila. The native birds face unrelenting pressure from habitat loss, invasive species, diseases and changing climate. They evolved in an era of few predators but now face them at every turn.

June 17, 2021 2 comments

Birds stories Photography Species

Going fishing: The Reddish Egret shows off its dancing moves

by Anders Gyllenhaal May 20, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

If you see a Reddish Egret in the shallows of a marsh, just pause for a bit because you’re about to witness an exotic performance. With wings arched over its head, the bird leaps into the air then rushes sideways through the water. The choreography of crisscrossing feet is worthy of Fred Astaire.

We came across this spectacle on the edge of Galveston Island State Park in coastal Texas one recent rainy afternoon. The scene was transfixing: the egret leaps from the water one moment, tilts its heads far over to the side in the next and then appears to tiptoe.

Made all the more compelling by its willowy springtime breeding plumage, this bird isn’t dancing for our benefit. He’s busy working, and the grand finale is a beak full of fish.

In researching what may be the most beautiful of the egret species, we learned that every part of this comical ritual has purpose. When the bird dances through the shallows, he’s stirring up the fish. By raising his wings overhead, he’s creating a shadow that draws prey to within easy striking distance. A strange and gawky lurch forward is actually an attempt to catch the next fish unawares.

May 20, 2021 0 comment

Birding Flight Migration

The perfect gift: A wild warbler party on the gulf coast of Texas

by Anders Gyllenhaal April 27, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Prothonotary Warbler

Beverly’s favorite birds have always been warblers — the feisty, colorful world travelers that are among the hardest species to find. They’re shy, skittish and can move so quickly they’re often gone before you get a good look.

Last week was Beverly’s birthday, which just happened to fall on our stop along the Louisiana and Texas coasts. It was a warbler party every day, as thousands upon thousands had just arrived from their wintering grounds in Latin America and the Caribbean. These songbirds are famished and fatigued, and for once don’t seem to mind us humans hanging around.

Hooded Warbler: “Would you like a close up?”

Some of the birds we’ve encountered are old acquaintances, such as the Prothonotary and Hooded warblers. In other parts of the country and at other times of the year we’ve had to chase them for days to get just a glimpse. But on this trip along the Southern Gulf Coast, we’ve been seeing Prothonotaries at almost every turn. One recent day, a Hooded Warbler ambled around in the brush at my feet, as if saying, “How do I look from this angle?’’ and, “Would you like a close up?’’

Kentucky Warbler

Others are warblers we’d never seen before — the Kentucky, the Golden-winged and the Tennessee. At the Sabine Woods Bird Sanctuary on the Upper Texas Coast, the Golden-winged Warbler was so hungry that it fluttered from tree to bush, hanging like an acrobat, feeding furiously with every stop. It seemed oblivious to us as we followed along just a few yards away.

Golden-winged Warbler: An acrobat of a bird

Many types of warblers are getting harder to see because their numbers are going down. A host of forces are working against them: Much of their habitat is being lost to development, and they can fall behind in their breeding routine if insects and plants blossom ahead of schedule due to a warming climate. Warblers migrate thousands of miles twice a year, an exhausting journey that exposes them to hazards all along their routes, such as colliding into skyscrapers. Even something as innocuous as a house cat is a severe threat unless it’s kept inside. Outdoor cats kill millions and millions of birds, including warblers, every year in the United States alone.

Yellow Warbler

When you see warblers hit land just after their nonstop flight across the Gulf of Mexico, it’s easier to appreciate the breathtaking feat of migration. You can witness them jamming insects, fruit and worms down their throats in a glutinous spree that turns their beaks berry red. They’ve hardly swallowed, and it’s on to the next bite.

Migrators are traveling north on a mission, headed to their breeding grounds to claim a territory, find a mate and start a family. The males are dressed up in their springtime best for the courtship rituals ahead.

American Redstart (male)

While it’s hard to choose the most impressive warbler, I was struck this week with the near-neon glow of the black-and-orange America Redstart. Not long after we spotted the male, along came a female Redstart, so the fancy attire seemed to be working.

Thanks to the colorful feathers spring is the best time to see warblers, especially if you’re not used to looking for them. For the best chance, head out to the nearest woods or the edge of a brambly hedge between dawn and roughly 10 a.m., wear clothes in dull colors of leaves or twigs, bring binoculars, stay still and listen for high-pitched chirping and buzzing.

Blackburnian Warbler: Plumage like a sunset

Sometimes the late afternoon can be productive as well. We caught a Blackburnian Warbler at the top of a tree just as dusk descended. Its plumage shone like a sunset in the last light of the day, a blend of black, white, yellow and orange in lightning patterns across its head.

American Redstart (female)

Beverly’s love of warblers has only grown as we’ve gotten more familiar with them. That has meant I’ve spent many hours chasing them, too, trying for the perfect photograph, and as often as not, never getting more than a glimpse of these hyperactive birds. The truth is, I’ve come to be as captivated as she is by these birds and their stories.

Here’s a gallery of some of the warblers we’ve seen the past few weeks. As you can see, these are birthday gifts that don’t need wrapping – each different than the last, but all of uncommon beauty.

Hooded Warbler

Kentucky Warbler

Black-and-White Warbler

Female Kentucky Warbler

American Redstart (male)

Common Yellowthroat

Prothonotary Warbler

American Redstart (female)

Canada Warbler

Prothonotary Warbler

April 27, 2021 4 comments

Beverly's Birding Basics Birding technology Birdsongs

There’s no better time to take a birdsong ID app along with you. We tested them all and found a winner.

by Anders Gyllenhaal April 17, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

With migration in full swing and the birds at their loudest, this is the time of year you’re most likely to run into an unfamiliar song. We’ve pulled out our most popular post of the year as a guide to the slew of birdsong ID apps on the market.

For a long time, these apps weren’t much help with anything but the most obvious birdsongs — the same ones we’re most likely to recognize by ear. But the technology is advancing and the best smartphone apps do a pretty good job with the tough task of capturing the songs and instantly listing the most likely bird behind behind them.

But which is best for you? How hard are they to use? And should you go with one of the free versions or spend up to $30 a year?

Leading the field is a free app called BirdNET, which just recently launched an IOS version to go with a popular Android version that has more than a million users.

We put them all to the test and have clear rankings to share – along with a few surprises. This is a version of a post we ran last year that we think for good reason turned out to be our best-read post of the year.

Before we delve into how these services perform, it’s worth spending a couple of graphs on the scientific competition that’s behind this progress – and why the science of bird sounds is now coming into its own.

The bird ID apps are mere sideshows in a race to master the use of sound to study wildlife. The science of bioacoustics, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze audio from the wild, has become a powerful practice in field research.

Click here for our primer on bioacoustics that ran in the Washingon Post.

The discipline is fueled by the same digital advances powering the internet and has turned out to be particularly effective to study birds. That’s because birds are so vocal and can be found and researched almost everywhere.

A worthy contender is a European app called ChirpOMatic.

As several major universities, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and a number of private companies developed bioacoustic techniques, they found they could spin off commercial phone versions that identify bird calls and songs the same way the popular Shazam app does with music.

About a dozen birdsong applications have reached market as the race to create truly reliable versions has accelerated over the past three or four years.

Today, there are about a half dozen worthy apps, including versions from the Cornell Lab, Princeton University Press, the technology company Wildlife Acoustics, a couple of European firms and several individual U.S. developers who are betting there’s money to be made on these products. Almost all are available for download for both Android and IOS phones. Other more sophisticated bioacoustic devices that can be used in birders’ yards are also under development.

While these solutions are cresting, we couldn’t find anything that ranked how accurate they are. So we spent time with each of them, testing their precision and assessing how easy they are to use. There’s one clear leader in the field, three that were right about half the time and several that were almost always wrong in our tests.

Here are our findings (and we explain our testing approach below).

April 17, 2021 2 comments

Birds stories Photography Video

It’s a bird-eat-bird world: Pileated Woodpeckers Part 2

by Anders Gyllenhaal March 24, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Two male Pileated Woodpeckers battle for supremacy. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

We heard the clamor from our woodpecker’s nest and instantly knew something was up. The bird’s usual call was replaced with a high-pitched, staccato screech and both the male and female birds leaped around their tree as if the place was on fire.

Last week, we wrote about the idyllic life these two Pileated Woodpeckers created within a few steps of where we are camping. This week, we got a reminder that nature is unpredictable and sometimes violent. By the end of the week, the pair were forced out of their nest just as they were trying to start a family.

The cries we heard that day were the precursor to an attack from another Pileated Woodpecker who wanted to take the place of the male. We scurried over to see what was going on just as an attack was about to begin. The two male birds jumped from one branch to another, howling furiously. Then they tumbled to the ground as if in a western, falling head over tails as they wrestled. We though the duel might be over, then the two males flew to the top of the nesting tree and began circling each other while trading jabs and squawks.

Pileateds are the largest woodpeckers in North America, more than a foot tall with a wingspan of two feet. They are powerful birds with large claws and sharp beaks. All of those tools came into play as these two battled for the advantage.

Finally, our original male took a powerful swipe at the intruder, who then flew off in what turned out to be the end of the threat. Both the male and female climbed up and down their nesting tree, ready for another assault that never came. Eventually, they settled down and went back to readying the nest they’d worked on for the past two weeks.

Here’s how it looked in a video:

March 24, 2021 2 comments

Featured Species Video

It’s springtime — and these Pileated Woodpeckers get down to business

by Anders Gyllenhaal March 17, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

We’ve always been drawn to Pileated Woodpeckers. Who can resist these magnificent birds, with their striking yodel, two-foot wingspan and bright red crests set against more than a foot of jet-black plumage?

The male Pileated outside its nest. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal.

So when two of these woodpeckers showed up for several days running in a dead tree right next-door to our campsite, we were captivated. It was hard to get anything done; they’d sound off a dozen times a day, and I’d have to drop everything and see what was going on.

The female outside their nest cavity

Something was up indeed: It’s springtime – and we had a romance brewing before our prying eyes.

We’ve always had to catch Pileated Woodpeckers in brief glimpses when they’d appear on a birding walk, or zip by overhead on their way to somewhere else. This encounter turned out to be different. The pair decided to build their nesting cavity 30 steps from our spot on the edge of the busy Land Yacht Harbor Airstream park in Central Florida where we’re spending a few weeks. They seemed used to people and didn’t mind my keeping up with their progress.

They chose a tall dead pine and started chopping out their cavity 25 feet up the trunk. The male did most of the work in the beginning, then the female took over. She was tireless, working away for hours at a time, then picking up mouthfuls of chips and tossing them out the front door as if spitting tobacco juice.

Here’s a video of the two working on their nest, to the Beatle’s love song, “I will:”

March 17, 2021 1 comment

Birding research Conservation Photography Video

Keeping up with the Jays: Half a century of research is slowly paying off

by Anders Gyllenhaal March 9, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

The Florida Scrub-Jays have come to recognize the white Ford pickup that bumps along the sandy roads headed their way. They’ve long since become accustomed to the familiar figure that jumps out of the cab and starts walking along the roadway. The birds are zipping his way at full speed within a minute or two of his arrival.

It’s the monthly census at the Archbold Biological Station– and the jays are more than willing to be counted.

The driver is Reed Bowman, the state’s expert on Scrub-Jays who’s spent 30 years studying these endangered birds in search of a way to help their population rebound. The monthly census gives the birds something they want — peanuts that Bowman scatters along the road to draw the birds. And Bowman gets what he needs: a close look at the birds to make sure they’re all accounted for and healthy.

Reed Bowman checking off the jays he’s spotted. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

“Here they come,’’ Bowman says, on his second stop of the morning, where the jays were particularly eager to reach him. They land and wait in the stunted oak undergrowth nearby. Then they plunge forward and go after the treats. Bowman raises his binoculars and quickly spots the colorful bands on their legs that identify every individual bird.

“See that white and green (band), that bird right there?’’ he says. “And there’s red, (and) red. They both have antennas sitting on their back. A little bent up, but not bad.’’

Bird counts everywhere are an important part of tracking the health of species in general, but the regular census at Archbold stands apart. Every month for the past half century, the Archbold bird staff has fanned out across the 8,000 acres dotted with pines, stunted oaks and palmettos to build an unparalleled historic record of the Florida Scrub-Jay population.

About 85 families of jays live here, one of the few areas where they’re stable and even increasing on some tracts. Researchers believe the answer to saving the disappearing species lies in this intense study. It focuses not only on population size, but on their overall health, how the birds live, particularly how they mate, build nests and raise young.

Can Florida and the endangered Scrub-Jays co-exist?

March 9, 2021 0 comment

Postcard

Love Birds: What’s it take to make her his Valentine?

by Anders Gyllenhaal February 13, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Flying Lessons Postcard

He has the key to her heart

There’s no Valentine’s Day in birdland, but we thought this was a nice view into the courting ritual of another species. We caught up with these two Cedar Waxwings in Northern Virginia early in the mating season. They circled the air together, then landed on a branch side by side. That’s when he made his move. What’s the gift he offers her with such valor? It’s a tasty insect. This is a common way for birds to prove their devotion — not to mention their hunting and snagging skills. Happy Valentine’s Day all around.

February 13, 2021 0 comment

Flight Migration Photography

Taking off in a cloud, Snow Geese create a winter wonderland

by Anders Gyllenhaal January 27, 2021

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

KNOTTS ISLAND, N.C. — Suddenly the steady honking and squawking from this gaggle of Snow Geese shifts to a higher pitch, and one of nature’s great performances begins.

First just a few, then dozens, and finally hundreds of the bright white birds begin to rise up from a brackish pond on Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge in Northeastern North Carolina. Within seconds, every square inch of air is filled with flapping, wailing geese. The mass moves up, veers right and then left as if a conductor is guiding the cloud of snowy white.

The scene is mesmerizing, a gift for patient observers along the mid-Atlantic coast this time of year. Each gigantic cloud puts an exclamation point on an unusual story: At a time when most bird species are in decline, populations of Snow Geese are booming.

White Pelicans

They’re not hard to find — spread across marshes and fields from coastal New Jersey to the Carolinas — but it takes patience and a little luck to catch an entire flock on the wing.

After two days of searching, our moment came near dusk on the remote Knotts Island just south of Virginia Beach. This cluster of geese had been bobbing on the surface for hours before something, heaven knows what, startled them. Instantly they were clamoring toward the sky.

Tundra Swans, the second largest swans in North America, flying in formation over Mackay Island refuge.

Becky Harrison, the supervisory wildlife biologist at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge near Nags Head, N.C., saw the first arrivals in November. Their numbers gradually build toward a peak in mid-February.

There’s actually a trio of grand white birds that overwinters here, Harrison said. The Tundra Swan is the most elegant, the American White Pelican is the largest, but Snow Geese are the most impressive in their huge numbers.

Here’s a video of the scene:

Snow Geese in the Pea Island refuge. Photo by Becky Harrison

Snow Geese spend their summers in the far north, breeding along the tundras of Canada and Alaska. They’re best known for their bright white plumage with black wing tips, for their powerful flight and for their ravenous appetites.

Snow Goose / Photo by Becky Harrison

Researchers aren’t sure what’s behind the growth in population that has brought them back from near extinction a century ago. They suspect that the warming climate undermining many species is working in the goose’s favor. Every fall hundreds of thousands migrate not only to the East, but also down the Mississippi to several lower Midwestern States and also to California’s Central Valley.

Not everyone is glad to see them.

“All these big birds,” said biologist Becky Harrison, standing under a Tundra Swan specimen, “they’re just so striking.”

At Mackay Island, refuge manager Mike Hoff said during the day the geese often feed on the crops and vegetation in fields several miles away. With their growing numbers, wildlife managers say they’re damaging vegetation on the tundras as well.

But when the birds return to the refuge each evening by the thousands, they are a sight to behold. Part of the Snow Geese’s success is thought to be how they stick together – whether flying in formation or resting in the marshes. When you add in the Tundra Swans and White Pelicans, the masses of white forms out on the water are one of the great wonders of winter birding.