It’s one of the great birding mysteries on display each fall with the migration: How on Earth do huge flocks of birds come together and fly in formation, zigging and zagging in some of nature’s best choreography, making split-second pirouettes at speeds of up to 40 miles an hour?
A swarm of Black Skimmers on North Carolina’s Pea Island Preserve.
For centuries people could do little more than guess at the mechanics. Do birds possess a kind of telepathy about when to turn? Is there a single leader that the birds all watch as an orchestra does its conductor?
Today, with the use of 3D photography, digital reconstruction and several ground-breaking research projects, the secrets are finally coming out. And with them are possible lessons that could be used in everything from programming drones to training people new styles of leadership.
We spent several weeks this fall on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, watching big flocks of Black Skimmers zoom about in unison, hundreds of Terns zip along the shoreline in clusters, and thousands of ducks fly in V-formations on their way south. For all the wonder of the fall and spring migrations, nothing sweeps you away like the sudden eruption of a mass flock flight.
George Armistead tells the story of the winter morning when he was standing in a landfill while on a birding walk. He got a call from
George Armistead is chief networking officer at Rockjumpers, an international wildlife tours company.
a girl he’d just started dating. “She asked me what I was doing.’’
Then he grinned. “Do I tell her I’m at a dump looking for birds? That it’s 10 degrees outside? And that it’s one of the highlights of my year?’’
Armistead, who started birding at age 9 and went on to become a research ornithologist at Drexel University and now leads birding trips all over the world, was delivering the keynote speech at the annual Wings over Water birding festival on North Carolina’s Outer
Banks. The roomful of birders from around the country smiled with him as he took up one of the quandaries of our pastime.
Why do birders do what they do? How do they explain it to others? Why do they walk for miles in the rain, wind and sometimes snow in search of a glimpse of a bird?
He had one of the best explanations we’ve heard.
Long ago, when Cathryn P. Sill first started birding, she came to a realization that has made her a popular teacher on the birding circuit: You have to listen to what birds have to say.
Today, the author and former kindergarten teacher has a rich catalogue of ways to remember bird songs, calls and warnings that help us keep up with the complex and lyrical language of the birds.
Cathryn Sill is an author and birder who teachers the art of listening
“I realized that if I was going to know them, I would have to learn their songs,’’ she told a class at the Wings over Water Birding Festival on North Carolina’s Outer Banks this month.
That’s no easy task, of course. Bird songs and calls are as varied as the birds themselves. Some are loud and clear and relatively easy to remember and recognize. Others are quiet and abrupt. Sometimes the songs from the same species will differ from one state to the next.
Some birds have a primary song that helps them stand out. Others, such as the Catbird and Mockingbird, have hundreds of songs and will even imitate the sounds of other birds.
Cathryn tells the story of the Mockingbird she encountered not far from where she and her husband live in Franklin, N.C. “We were in town one day and heard one on top of the courthouse doing the fire siren,’’ she said.
Over the years, she learned to listen intently for differences in pitch and tone, for the way songs moved up or down the scale, and for the most noticeable elements of their songs.
Over time, she has collected dozens of translations of bird songs to common human sayings that make them easier to remember.
The Black-and-White Warbler, for instance, has a song like a squeaky wheel. The Brown-headed Nuthatch sounds like a child’s bathtub toy. The Olive-sided Flycatcher sounds like it’s saying: “Quick, three beers.’’ The Wood Thrush sings like it’s playing the flute.
She recommends a list of sites and apps that offer songs and birding info. They include:
Https://www.birdingbyear.com, a Website that includes many songs and calls recordings.
Https://www.allaboutbirds.org, and then go to How-to-learn-songs-and-calls, on the site for guidance.
Https://www.xeno-canto.org, which has a wealth of recordings contributed by birders from around the world.
Cathryn suggests a number of apps, including: “iBird Pro Guide to Birds” ($14.99), which compares similar bird songs; “Birds Song ID USA” ($4.99); “Chirp! Bird Songs and Calls” ($3.99); “Merlin Bird ID,” which is Cornell University’s free comprehensive site; “Peterson Field Guides;’’ and, “The Warbler Guide” ($12.99) from Princeton University.
She cautions against using the recordings to lure birds to come to you. That’s particularly true during the spring mating season, when birds will sometimes abandon their nests if they hear recordings of what they assume are competitors in their territory.
“During mating season, when these birds are singing, they are so busy trying to raise their young. You don’t want to interfere,’’ she said. “Remember, these birds are not here for our entertainment. They are entertaining, but they’re not here for us.’’
Learning to listen to the birds is the best way to find birds and to recognize what you’re seeing when you do.
“The key to learning the birds by ear,’’ she said, “is learning to listen.’’
Frigatebirds fill just about every square foot of the air above Isla Contoy.
The scene comes straight from a primordial past: Five thousand Magnificent Frigatebirds — one of the largest and strangest birds on earth — circle in the air all at the same time, high above an undeveloped island near the intersection of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
Biologists are studying the birds on the five-mile-long island, Isla Contoy, located off the Yucatan coast about 30 miles north of Cancun. Though the Mexican government protects Isla Contoy, the project allows a limited number of visitors each day for three-hours, which is how we found ourselves feeling as though we had traveled back in time.
The Magnificent Frigatebird does look like an ancient creature. Guidebooks describe their long wings as pterodactyl-like. Their are tails are forked, practically demonic. The tropical birds are enormous, with a wing span of more than seven feet. But the Frigatebird’s mating routine is its most remarkable trait. Males inflate a gland sac in their throats so that it looks like a red, nearly heart-shaped balloon. Then the male waves its head around to show off its balloon while clattering its beak to in hopes of attracting a mate.
This is the mysterious bird that turned out to be a Mourning Warbler.
For days, we couldn’t figure out what the small, yellow bird was that stared out from a series of photos taken in the southern Nova Scotia. Beverly looked through every one of her many birding books without finding a match. I went back and looked at looked at all the photos for clues.
Finally, Beverly emailed the photo to a birding expert and friend in Maryland to ask for his help. He said it was a tricky one because the bird was almost certainly a juvenile who’d yet to come into its full colors. They eventually decided it had to be a first-year Mourning Warbler, an uncommon species that just happened to look a lot like other Warblers.
Anders and Beverly, in the mountains in western North Carolina.
Beverly and I take very different approaches to birding. She is exacting and studious. She can spend an hour moving slowly through the woods or fields to suss out shy birds, and then devote another hour hardly moving as she watches them at work and play. She has gradually taught herself to spot species even from afar, to learn their complex calls and to coax them out of their hiding places. Like with the Mourning Warbler, she won’t give up until she’s figured out what she’s seen.
On the other hand, I like to charge ahead to see what’s around the next corner. As the photographer, I try to keep moving and hope to come upon birds by surprise. I’m happiest when I can catch a bird in flight, taking off or landing to show the magnificent science of flying. I’m comfortable with guesses as to what we’re seeing — and like to move to the next question.
Both of us were journalists for many years. Beverly was a reporter, an editor and then the food editor at The Miami Herald, before she launched syndicated columns on first parenting, and then cooking family meals, which turned into the Desperation Dinners franchise that included weekly columns, then a series of books and finally a national website.
Anders, on the beach in Georgia.
I began as a reporter and photographer at newspapers in Pennsylvania, Virginia and New Jersey, before switching to editing and eventually running newsrooms in Raleigh, Minneapolis and Miami. My last assignment was the top editorial position for McClatchy, a network of newspapers from California to the Carolinas. All of this led to a love of writing, reporting and photography that helped to lead us to this website.
Beverly, at one of our camping sites in Ocracoke, North Carolina.
When we retired, we got the chance to combine our love of the outdoors, camping and hiking with our fascination for birding. We started traveling, first in a small Casita trailer, and then in the Airstream you see behind Beverly, which lets us stay out for long stretches when the birding is good.
It might be our years in journalism that push us to look for the broader story. That got us thinking about the layers of lessons we’ve encountered over the past several years that go far beyond simply identifying the birds we see. We still consider ourselves to be in the learning stage as birders. But we hope if may have stories, questions, discoveries to share as our experiences.
We’d love to hear from you about your thoughts and observations about learning from the birds. Here’s an email to use — or please leave comments on any of the posts and pages. And once more, thank you for spending time on Flying Lessons.
-Anders and Beverly