Category:

Birding

Here are 5 top-flight gift ideas for your favorite birder

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal December 3, 2019

Finding holiday gifts for birders is relatively easy since birders tend to love all things birdy. And there are a lot of birdy gifts out there. The challenge is targeting the type of birder you’re dealing with, and then homing in on just the right choice for them.

Here are my five personal favorites for 2019:

1) If your spouse or someone else in your immediate family is an enthusiastic, shout-it-from-the-rooftops type birder, visit your local motor vehicles office for a personalized license plate.

Nicolas Lund, a.k.a. The Birdist, who writes about birding for the Audubon website, has this to say about spotting personalized plates: “I knew immediately that these people were my people. I didn’t even need to meet them. Personalized plates could be a great way to let everyone know how much you love birds without having to say a word.” Click here for Lund’s entertaining essay.

2) If your birders love to be in fields and forests, they really need tick protection.

Specially treated socks

Ticks are nasty creatures and cause a host of diseases in addition to Lyme. The best way to stay safe is to wear clothing treated with permethrin, a synthetic version of a chemical produced naturally by the chrysanthemum flower. Permethrin is EPA-approved for clothing, and it kills or disables ticks, mosquitoes, ants, flies, chiggers and midges on contact.

Although you can spray your own clothes with permethrin, there are factory-treated items containing the industry standard 0.52 percent permethrin that will last for 70 washes as opposed to four or so with the spray. So my favorite stocking stuffer this year will be these Insect Shield Sport Crew Socks for $10.95. You can find them for sale here.

December 3, 2019 0 comment

Bird of the Week Birding Birding Basics Birding research

Can the Wild Turkey survive? Thanksgiving is the least of its troubles.

by Anders Gyllenhaal November 21, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Something is after the Wild Turkey. Actually, almost everything is.

A pair of Wild Turkey hens forage in a field in Eastern Maryland.

A combination of coyotes, hunters, loss of habitat, hawks, climate change and troubles in the nest is undermining the species that once competed for the title of national bird. In parts of the country, populations are down by half and the overall drop is about 15 percent.

“We have a problem,” said Michael Chamberlain, a University of Georgia wildlife expert who leads a 15-state consortium working to find a response. “A lot of things like to eat turkeys.”

For the past half century, the Wild Turkey was the poster bird for how to bring back a species approaching extinction. Starting in the 1970s, after decades of overhunting and habitat loss, hunters, environmentalists, wildlife managers and researchers joined forces in a campaign that pushed the nationwide population up to more than 7 million birds.

Michael Chamberlain

But today, the combination of accelerating development, warming temperatures and all those predators has started setting back that progress, particularly in southern states. “We thought maybe it was just a natural phenomenon, where the population had peaked,” said Chamberlain.. “But fast-forward to today, the populations are not doing as well.”

November 21, 2019 0 comment

Birding Photography

Getting a close-up view of some beautiful birds

by Anders Gyllenhaal November 15, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

The inherent contradiction of birding is that we want to get as close a look as possible of subjects who want to stay as far from us as they can.

CloseUps, our new feature on Flying Lessons, seeks to answer that urging with a series of photos that help you see the silky sheen of feathers, the construction of beaks, even the expressions on the faces of these remarkable creatures.

Bird watching surely goes back to the origin of the species. But today’s technology, especially the latest telephoto lenses and cameras with extraordinary light sensors, provide us steadily more compelling views, taken from a distance that doesn’t disturb our wary subjects.

CloseUps can be found on the third spot down the navigation bar, or with a click of this link.

We’ll replenish the gallery as fresh photos come along that work with this feature. You can click through the gallery using the thumbnails to the left, or simply wait every few seconds for the slider to advance. We hope you’ll enjoy the view.

November 15, 2019 0 comment

Bird of the Week Birding Birds stories

How one squirrelly nuthatch can change your world view

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal October 25, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

Last in a series

If it’s a crisp fall morning, with the sun highlighting the gold and orange of the still-moist leaves, it’s possible that luck could bring you a visit from a nuthatch. And if you get that chance and if you have the time, you’ll want to sit quietly and pay close attention.

My White-breasted Nuthatch

My nuthatch was a White-breasted with a black-and-blue back and an evocative black stripe on its head. He seemed to say watch me. Not only am I good-looking, but I’m smart and industrious, too.

Putting words into the mouth of a bird may be a silly habit, but I can’t seem to help myself. This bird spoke volumes to me.

If I had my way, we’d just give everybody in Congress a pair of binoculars and put them in the woods.

As I sat on a picnic table a couple of weeks ago in a campground near Nashville, I thought the nuthatch was doing his usual thing — creeping up and down the trunk of a tree, probing the bark for something to eat. Then he started hammering away as loudly as a woodpecker.

Hatching a nut

Strange. I’ve seen these birds crack nuts open with their beaks, (thus the name “nut hatch”), but I’d never seen one imitate a woodpecker – or a squirrel for that matter. Suddenly I realized the bird was boring holes in the tree to hide some of his nuts.

Here’s a gallery of our White-breasted Nuthatch, ignoring gravity, climbing its tree, hiding food and preparing for the winter:

October 25, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birding guidance Migration

Headed for the birding superhighway and a perfect migration pit stop

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal October 12, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

We’re on our way to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to witness something magical.

By the hundreds, flocks of songbirds, ducks, swans, skimmers and other shorebirds will touch down on this chain of islands and wildlife preserves to take advantage of nature’s perfect pit stop.

A Black Skimmer at the Pea Island preserve

When it comes to the fall migration, an 85-mile swath of northeastern North Carolina, from roughly the Virginia line to Cape Hatteras, won the geographic lottery. It has some of the richest and most diverse natural habitats for birds in the United States.

“This area is the halfway stopover point on the Atlantic Flyway for birds that are migrating to tropical areas,” said Becky Harrison, head biologist for the N.C. Coastal Refuge Complex. “And there is a continuous stretch of geographic features and habitats that’s easy for the birds to follow.”

Flying thousands of miles requires enormous energy, so periodically birds must stop, rest and refuel. “Birds are following the resources,” Harrison said. “Because this area is so connected, it means there aren’t a lot of decisions for them to make.”

American Oystercatchers speed along the surf on the Outer Banks

Flying Lesson: Birds of every species will come when there’s a path of supportive habitat. This unique string of refuges is a model for how we can care for birds.

October 12, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birding research Conservation Featured

New research finds 30 percent of the bird population lost over 50 years

by Anders Gyllenhaal September 19, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Every birder will want to tune into a study published today in the journal Science that reaches a startling conclusion: Three billion birds — or 29 percent of the total population across all species — have been lost in North America since 1970.

The research is much more than a traditional study. All of the major bird organizations pooled resources to collect data from the last half century, track what has happened to every species and analyze the modern state of the avian landscape with a precision never before possible.

What this study means is that a sharp and widespread drop in the bird population is taking place. It includes not just the endangered species that get the most attention, but familiar, common birds like orioles, blue jays, sparrows, blackbirds that seemed to be thriving.

Grassland birds (down 53 percent) are losing habitat with the spread of farms, while coastal birds (down 37 percent) are affected by development and climate change. Populations of forest birds are down by about 30 percent from 50 years ago, and arctic birds are down 23 percent.

Go to the end of this piece for links to the many stories, opinion pieces, graphics and videos on this research. To read the Science paper itself, go to the website developed as part of this project, click “findings” at the top right and you’ll find a link.

One of the posters the Cornell Lab released with the study

The findings are so stark and surprising, the authors say, that they have reason to hope this might lead to the kind of public response that followed Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring,” that helped forge strong new conservation laws.

The research is delivered in the form of a dispassionate scientific study. But the authors –- a Who’s Who in ornithology — do not mince their words when describing the conclusions.

“This data suggests that we are facing the beginning of the end for nature as we know it,” said Mike Parr, president of American Bird Conservancy (ABC). “If we continue to put economic benefits first at all costs, that’s where we are headed.”

Declines among birds have been well studied in recent years, usually focused on those most threatened. Drawing on all the previous data, decades of bird counts and 10 years of weather radar, this study stands out for its breadth of data and sweep of focus.

“Multiple, independent lines of evidence show a massive reduction in the abundance of birds,” Ken Rosenberg, the study’s lead author and a senior scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and American Bird Conservancy, said in a release this afternoon. “We expected to see continuing declines of threatened species. But for the first time, the results also showed pervasive losses among common birds across all habitats, including backyard birds.”

September 19, 2019 1 comment

Bird of the Week Birding Migration Photography

Great Egrets: Putting on a bird ballet

by Anders Gyllenhaal September 12, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Our trip along the storied Montezuma wildlife drive in upstate New York had been all but devoid of birds the first hour. Then we turned the corner at the halfway mark and came upon a scene that instantly made up for the quiet start.

Two dozen Great Egrets stood clustered in a shallow pond as if in a ballet rehearsal. They moved along in groups of threes and fours in precise formation. With their long thin necks lining up one minute and crisscrossing the next, they seemed choreographed for elegance.

Great Egrets are such compelling birds to watch – and they don’t seem to mind an audience that keeps its distance. Much of the time, they prefer to forage alone, researchers say. But they will come together in small groups when there’s plenty of fish. From time to time, they’ll form big flocks like the one we came upon at Montezuma.

They aren’t hard to find all across the wetlands in the United States. Although hunted nearly to extinction during the feathered-hat craze of the late 1900s, migratory protection laws have helped Great Egrets become one of the strongest wading bird species today.

They’re flexible and adaptable, enabling them to adjust to the habitat loss that has undermined other species. The North American Waterbird Conservation survey estimates that there are 180,000 breeding Egrets in the U.S.

The egret’s green eyes in breeding season

They stand out in marshes and coastal areas — sheer white, with yellow beaks, long dark legs and a wingspan of almost 5 feet. During the spring breeding season, the area around their eyes turns lime-green, a striking accent that signals their readiness for mating.

September 12, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birding research Conservation

What will it take to mobilize the country’s birders?

by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal August 13, 2019

written by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal

Our long-planned visit to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y., this week began just as the White House announced plans to weaken the Endangered Species Act. The move seemed to strike at the heart of the lab’s work to protect birds in a time of accelerating declines.

We were at the lab for a day of interviews on all sorts of topics, but conversations kept circling back to these changes to the law. Many birds are already threatened by the combination of habitat loss, urbanization, pesticides and early impacts of climate change.

Specimens of extinct species are part of the research collection.

What will happen if the bedrock legislation that helped restore and preserve the Bald Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the Alligator, the Grizzly Bear and countless threatened bird species loses its teeth?

A second question kept coming up from members of the staff of more than 200 researchers, scientists, archivists, photographers and computer specialists:

What would it take for the millions of Americans who care about birds to come together on a scale equal to the threats so many species are facing?

“The bottom line is that we need to have a voice,’’ said Ken Rosenberg, an applied conservation scientist who works both for the Cornell Lab and the Washington-based American Bird Conservancy. “We need to be a force that the politicians have to reckon with.”

Executive Director John Fitzpatrick

This isn’t a new question when it comes to birders. It’s hard to pin down their exact numbers in the U.S., but government surveys put the number at around 40 million people. They range from backyard birders to weekend birders to those who’ll travel wherever the latest rare species can be found.

That’s a huge group that has so far remained passive and diffused through a rising tide of bad news for birds. The authoritative State of the World’s Birds Report concluded last year that 40 percent of the Earth’s species are in decline. A May United Nation’s study predicted that a million species of birds, animals, plants and insects are threatened with extinction in the coming decades if action isn’t taken.

More research along these lines is on the way: The most comprehensive report ever conducted on the state of North American birds is about to be released in a scientific study on what’s happened to the overall bird population over a span of 50 years.

The findings, assembled jointly by all the major bird organizations, are embargoed. But many who’ve worked on the study say its conclusions are alarming enough to serve as a call to action.

Will bird-lovers answer that call?

At the Cornell Lab, researchers have been chronicling the vital role that birds play in the balance of nature since 1915. Executive Director John Fitzpatrick, who has shaped the lab into the research and digital powerhouse it’s become, makes the point that birds are the key to understanding our environment.

“They are literally the heartbeat of the Earth’s system,’’ he said. “They tell us how nature works.’’

Director John Fitzpatrick and Cornell staff writer Pat Leonard look over lab specimens.

The lab’s mission is science and information, leaving the outright advocacy to others. But lab staffers seem to agree that it will take more than the traditional arguments to mobilize the country’s birders in the same way the National Rifle Association, for instance, advocates for gun ownership or hunters push for protection of game species.

Today, even if the groups were to fully mobilize birders, it’s not clear how those interests would be represented in the political realm, or how funds might be collected to power a broad campaign. “The truth is, there’s no mechanism for that to be done,’’ said Rosenberg.

The major birding organizations are indeed pushing for protections, lobbying government agencies and legislators and speaking out on the issues of the day. The Audubon Society published an immediate response to the reshaped Endangered Species Act Tuesday. More pressure is certain to follow as the likely impacts of the these changes become clear.

Mike Webster, director of the lab’s Macaulay Library that collects and organizes millions of bird photos, recordings and videos.

But each of the bird groups has separate emphases, and while they work together on select projects, they have yet to create a true omnibus campaign that might help to unite their supporters.

As the news from Washington circulated through the lab, the question of how to pull that off was on the minds of everyone we talked to.

“Awareness is no longer the bar,’’ said John Bowman, head of the lab’s Conservation Media program that produces vivid reports to support the lab and its partners. “Changing behavior is the bar.’’

A portion of the lab’s enormous mural that shows every major species type around the world — along with species that have become extinct since the arrival of humans on Earth

August 13, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birding Basics Birding guidance Photography

Recruiting new birders at the Airstream Rally: Have I lost my mind?

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal August 8, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

With only a few days to go until our “Beginner’s Guide to Birding” seminar at the 62^nd International Airstream Rally, I still couldn’t figure out what to say. When Anders and I volunteered to do the talk months before, the mission seemed simple: Persuade our fellow campers to try their hand at birding.

We had just parked our trailer alongside 700 other Airstreams on a sweltering July afternoon at The Meadow Event Park in Doswell, Virginia. More than 1,000 members of local Airstream clubs had migrated from across the U.S. and Canada for this annual week-long gathering.

Some of the vintage Airstreams at the rally

Spread before us was a sea of silver: Iconic Airstreams, the oldest dating back to 1947, the largest at 34 feet and 5 tons, and all of them gleaming. American flags, state flags, and local chapter flags proudly flew from the bowsprits. Scattered flocks of plastic pink flamingos, the de facto Airstream mascot, greeted folks passing by.

The splendor of it all took my breath away. But then came a severe case of nerves about this upcoming talk. I truly believe people who spend so much time camping could enjoy life more – and perhaps live longer according to scientific studies – by simply tuning in to the birds all around them. So I soldiered on.

My assignment was to craft a short but helpful sales pitch. But what if nobody showed up? And if they did, how could I communicate the thrill of the hunt and the overwhelming dose of awe each time we track down a new species?

Baltimore Oriole

This stage fright was not without cause. Lots of people ask us how we came to be birders in the first place. We start to explain, and nearly always, by a couple of sentences in, their eyes glaze over. Or else it becomes obvious that what they really want to know is how on Earth we completely lost our minds.

Family and friends have watched us cram all manner of stuff into a 23-foot “mobile home” and buy a Ford F150 to haul it around for weeks on end. (Our daughter’s reaction: “But you’re not truck people!”)

It doesn’t help that what we tend to talk about is which species we saw during spring migration. We launch into anxious diatribes on habitat loss, plus detailed descriptions of which bird eats what and why it matters. I frequently lose my train of thought at the sound of any chirp, squawk or tweet I don’t recognize.

August 8, 2019 4 comments