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Flying Lessons
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Category:

Birding

BirdingBreeding and NestingFeaturedMigration

Love is in the Air: As the migration slows, the woods are heating up

by Anders Gyllenhaal May 23, 2019
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

When I was in the fifth grade in my little hometown in Pennsylvania, the school put on dancing lessons. At the start of each session, the boys and girls would line up on either side of the auditorium and then race toward each other in a chaotic rush to find partners for that day.

I’m reminded of that frantic and frightening pairing as the spring migration comes to a close across the U.S. and billions of birds are searching for mates. Instead of a few weeks of dancing lessons, they will commit to building homes, starting families and raising their young.

A pair of Great Blue Herons meet up in Viera, Florida.

It’s no wonder that the woods, fields and marshes are filled with birds howling at the top of their lungs. They have a lot riding on a song.

A few species, including Bald Eagles, Atlantic Puffins, Black Vultures and Blue Jays, mate for life. But most of North America’s 1,000 or so species have to find new mates every spring.

Romance is very much in the air in the birding world.

Click for our gallery of two amorous Barn  Swallows — offered for biology’s sake only. 

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May 23, 2019 3 comments
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BirdingMigrationPhotography

The feeding frenzy that powers the migration

by Anders Gyllenhaal May 14, 2019
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Much about the spring and fall migrations are cloaked in mystery, from how birds know when to leave to what helps them  determine exactly where they’re going.

But there’s no question about one element of their twice-a-year extreme feats of travel: the moment the birds stop for breaks, they go to work eating seeds, beetles, worms, flies, moths, bees, lizards, caterpillars, fruit, nuts, nectar, fish, spiders, snakes, suet, mice, and sometimes other birds.

The migration is a feeding frenzy.

A Yellow-rumped Warbler wrestles with an inch worm.

Dining is a vital part of the day – and a fascinating element of the journeys that four to five billion birds are in the midst of about now across the U.S. They need to eat meals that for us would be pretty much impossible.

The hummingbird, for instance, has to consume its entire weight in nectar every day. For a normal sized human, that’s the equivalent of drinking 18 gallons of milk, according to the Audubon Society.

The Chickadee has to eat about a third of its weight in seeds, berries, insects and worms daily. For us, Audubon says, that would translate into eating 600 granola bars every day.

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May 14, 2019 0 comment
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BirdingFeaturedMigration

It’s World Migratory Bird Day — and there’s a lot we can do

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal May 10, 2019
written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

As photos of migrating birds popped up on a big screen last night, a couple dozen birders from the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia sat in a conference room at the National Wildlife Federation headquarters taking careful notes. Saturday is World Migratory Bird Day, and these folks were getting their marching orders.

Starting at dawn they’ll form teams and scour nearby “Important Bird Areas,” counting species to help evaluate how this year’s migrating birds have fared on the flight across thousands of miles to their breeding grounds. Here are some of what they’re likely to see in a gallery of photos Anders has taken from our recent migration trip (run your cursor over the pictures for their species).

Blue Grosbeak

Baltimore Oriole

Cape May Warbler

Scarlet Tanager

Eastern Meadowlark

Male Orchard Oriole

Female Orchard Oriole

Blackburnian Warbler

 

Bird counts are mostly for the hardcore. But if you’re at all interested in birds, if you’re tuning into this spring’s tweet-and-twitter symphony as you move through your day, if you wonder what it’s all about, tomorrow is a great time to learn more.

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May 10, 2019 0 comment
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BirdingBirding researchFeatured

Early birders: Researchers often get hooked as kids

by Anders Gyllenhaal May 5, 2019
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Andrew Farnsworth was just 5 years old when he first started birding. As he grew up, this pastime and the science behind it became so captivating he started thinking about how to find a career that would somehow involve birds.

Today, Farnsworth, now 46, is one of the research associates at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which just completed its Global Big Day count that drew 26,000 contributors from around the world. (For a deep look Cornell’s innovation and development as the globe’s leading citizen science effort with its eBird project, see our story that ran Tuesday in the Washington Post. )

One of the intriguing backstories about eBird – a technology that’s become central to the routines of hundreds of thousands of birdwatchers – is how much of this work is in the hands of folks for whom birding was part of their upbringing.

“I was fascinated by migration at a very early age,’’ said Farnsworth, who works out of New York City and oversees the lab’s BirdCast and BirdVox projects that track the migration through a series of new tools. “I was very fortunate to be able to turn it into a career at the lab.’’

The stories of many researchers at Cornell, as well as Audubon, birding associations and conservation groups, follow similar paths.

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May 5, 2019 0 comment
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BirdingBirding guidanceMigration

A Little More Freedom: Letting go of your worries on the birding trail

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal May 1, 2019
written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

Saturday is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s “Global Big Day,” a highlight of the spring migration when birders around the world count as many species they can find in 24 hours.

My birding bag and I were both getting ready.

This post started out as a way to tell you how to get prepared for a day traipsing the countryside in search of wading birds, wood warblers or anything else that might happen to migrate by. But when I sat down to catalog everything I bring along in my birding bag, I came to a jarring realization.

First I need to explain that my birding bag is a small brown backpack with pink zippers that’s a hand-me-down from my daughter’s time at summer camp. It reeks of sweat and bug spray, but I’m afraid to wash it because it’s so old it could fall apart. And then I might, too.

The whole point of having a birding bag like mine is to anticipate disaster and be fully prepared to deal with it. Inside there’s a tube of sunscreen, a water bottle, gum, lip balm, tissues, hand sanitizer, lens cleaners, a protein bar and dental floss. (Dental floss makes a great temporary shoestring or emergency suture, but mine’s there in case a bit of the protein bar gets stuck in my teeth.)

 

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May 1, 2019 1 comment
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BirdingBirds storiesBreeding and NestingMigrationPhotography

How he stole my heart: Cocky, reckless and drunk with love

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal April 28, 2019
written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

Love can be dangerous. We know it. And yet, there are times when this most elemental of emotions pushes you beyond all reason.

Why else would an otherwise elusive, tiny yellow bird end up walking down the middle of the road in broad daylight? It was a gorgeous spring day, and this Yellow-throated Warbler was drunk in love.

Typically Yellow-throated Warblers are so difficult to find that they’ve hardly been studied. They spend most of their lives hidden, conducting all of their daily activities behind the leaves of trees some 200 feet tall.

And yet…there he was, hopping down the road in mid-May at the Pokomoke River State Park on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Anders and I had just finished a long birding hike through the forest, heading back to build a fire and call it a day. Out of the corner of my eye there was a suddenly a splash of lemony yellow where it wasn’t supposed to be.

A jolt of something akin to electricity shot down the backs of my legs as I realized what was happening. I dug my fingernails into my husband’s arm and pointed, resisting the urge to jump up and down.

Then all I could do was stand by and watch, holding my breath to see if Anders could move fast enough to get the photo.

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April 28, 2019 1 comment
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BirdingBirding researchMigration

Washington Post story explores the success of world’s leading citizen science project

by Anders Gyllenhaal April 27, 2019
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Around the world, all sorts of efforts are in the works to protect the many bird species now in decline. This week, in an article for the Washington Post, we take a deep look at one of them: the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird project and its innovative way of researching the daily life of birds.

We hope you’ll take a look at our piece, which you can find here online and is the cover story of the Post’s Health and Science section on Tuesday.

An eBird map charting the Bald Eagle’s travels over the year

The eBird project stands out in several fascinating ways: it’s now the world’s most successful citizen science effort. The project is also the scientific foundation for numerous studies on the status of modern birds, and it’s helping reshape how conservation is conducted. This is is a big part of what our Post story explores.

What’s most interesting to us is how the technology behind eBird does all of this as it’s become a valuable tool to help individuals identify the birds they see and keep track of their own birding lists. At last count, 462,000 people around the world are using the eBird app.

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April 27, 2019 0 comment
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BirdingBirding BasicsBirding guidanceMigration

Why now is the best time to jump on the birding bandwagon

by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal April 19, 2019
written by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal

The buzz was as loud as a flock of hungry seagulls when four birding groups gathered to celebrate a new guidebook by the Smithsonian’s Bruce Beehler last week in Washington, D.C. For many of them, after five months of winter, this was the first chance they’d had to talk about their favorite birding spots, conservation plans, tools of the trade and upcoming outings.

At long last, the highlight of the birding year – the spring migration — is just a week or two from its peak in much of the country, and so there’s a lot to talk about.

The party got us thinking of how much birding advice and wisdom there is, and also about the many people who ask us how to get started. So we sat down for a conversation with Beehler, a Smithsonian research associate at the National Museum of Natural History’s Division of Birds, whose encyclopedic new book is called, Birds of Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia. We also interviewed experts from a cross section of the leading bird institutions — Audubon, Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology, and the American Bird Conservancy.

On at least one fact, everyone agrees: If you want to be a birder, there’s no better time to start than now. Every spring, about half of the 650 species in the Western Hemisphere are on the move. From mid-February to mid-June, between 4 and 5 billion birds will fly thousands of miles to reach their breeding grounds.

Smithsonian author and ornithologist Bruce Beehler

“The birds are singing, and they have their spring plumage,’’ Beehler said. “In the spring, the birds are going to come to you, you don’t need to go to them. They’re going to pass right through your backyard, whether you know it or not. That can be pretty darn exciting.’’

We’ve boiled all of this advice down to six short suggestions for how to make the most of the spring migration. This kicks off a series of posts on preparing for the migration that you’ll find on Flying Lessons in the coming weeks. Many of today’s suggestions are aimed at novices, but we hope they’ll also serve as helpful reminders to anyone gearing up for a new birdwatching season. 

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April 19, 2019 0 comment
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BirdingBirding researchBreeding and NestingPhotography

Here’s a nice surprise: While many species struggle with climate, the Roseate Spoonbill is thriving

by Anders Gyllenhaal April 15, 2019
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Jerry Lorenz, Florida’s leading expert on the Roseate Spoonbill, kept hearing about a new nesting ground in Central Florida named for the nearby town of Stick Marsh. So he decided to see for himself what was happening on the string of small inland islands where dozens of the state’s most elegant bird had set up living quarters.

Audubon research director Jerry Lorenz / photo by Mac Stone

“They told me, ‘We think there’s probably 25 or 30 nests.’ But I sat there on the shoreline and counted,” said Lorenz, state research director for the Audubon Society in Florida and professor at Florida International University. “There were at least 150 nests there.”

A Spoonbill in full breeding allure balances on a Stick Marsh branch

A surprising and encouraging trend is under way with the Spoonbills, a striking specimen with deep pink and red coloring and a frame that harkens back to its dinosaur origins. As changes in water levels and habitat play out in Florida, this is one bird whose numbers and range have steadily expanded.

The Spoonbill is thriving at least partly as a result of the climate trends that are working against many species. The rising water and temperatures have forced the Spoonbill to move north, expand its reach and find new sources of food.  Lorenz believes that the population of  one of Florida’s emblematic birds has never been higher in modern times. Across, Florida, he estimates their numbers at 3,500 to 4,000; though not a huge number, it’s many times what it was at the turn of the century when the Spoonbills feathers were so popular hunters almost wiped them out entirely.

As water levels have risen in coastal nesting places, the Spoonbills have looked elsewhere to find the unique environment they need. That in turn has helped them to spread their reach beyond heavily developed South Florida and the Everglades that had been their primary Florida breeding grounds for decades.

They’ve found inland nesting locations such as Stick Marsh and Merritt Island in Central Florida. They’ve moved into other southeastern states, including Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and the Carolinas. As they’ve scouted new locations, Spoonbill have showed up as far away as Minnesota and New England, though they aren’t expected to put down roots that far afield.

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April 15, 2019 0 comment
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Some favorite birds

American Oystercatcher American Bald Eagle Blue-winged Teal Belted Kingfisher Royal Tern Belted Kingfisher Cattle Egret Wood Stork chicks Red-bellied Woodpecker American Bald Eagle White Ibis Killdeer Red-shouldered Hawk Black-necked Stilt Barred Owl Little Blue Heron Sandhill Crane Wood Stork Great Egret

Can a bird sing with a banjo? Click this video to see.

Miami Herald story on Roseate Spoonbills

MIAMI HERALD  ON SPOONBILLS

Click here for the story and photos we put together for The Miami Herald on the revival of the Roseate Spoonbill. The package looks at why some birds can adapt to changing environments and others cannot.

Washington Post story on eBird

IN-DEPTH STORY ON BIRDING

 

Here’s a package that ran in the Washington Post on how Cornell’s eBird project grew into the world’s most ambitious citizen science project. It’s an example of the in-depth coverage we do from time to time as part of our reporting on avian topics and trends.

Click here to see the online version that ran in the Post’s Health and Science section, and here to listen to a public radio interview we did on the topic.

 

 

Quotes for the birds

“When someone asks me why birds are so important to me, all I can do is sigh and shake my head, as if I’ve been asked to explain why I love my brothers.”

— Jonathan Franzen, novelist and renown birder from his National Geographic Magazine essay on the “Year of the Bird.”

Your Comments, Suggestions & Quips:

            Comments & Quips

On How Birds Teach Humility:

–“NOB. Love it! Great little truths in this post.” – Chara Daum

— “Appreciate your insights, Beverly.” -Ruth Harrell

— “Loving your Flying Lessons blog.” -Susan May, San Francisco

On our offbeat video of a Tufted Titmouse singing along with a banjo:

“That is totally cool,” Tony Mas, Dahlonega, Ga.

“This brought a smile to us. Thanks.” John Deen, St. Paul, MN.

“Really amazing.” Florence Strickland, Sunset Beach, N.C.

On the Mandarin duck’s arrival in Central Park:

— “I think he gets his own Saturday morning now.” -Stephen Colby, Raleigh, N.C.

— “What a beautiful bird. Its colors look painted on. Magnificent.” -Christine DiMattei

On the falling numbers of Wild Turkeys:

“I was just mentioning this to a friend, how I used to see Wild Turkeys every time I hit a dirt road, and now it’s almost rare.” -Jeff Brooks.

“There are a hundred times more turkeys than when I was a kid. Fake BS to shake down donations and public funding.” -Vance Shearer

 

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Flying Lessons
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About us

About us

We’re two journalists who’ve traded in our work in publishing and syndicated writing for following and photographing the birds. We live in Washington, DC, but are traveling the country every chance we get -- and are sharing the lessons birds are teaching us and the photos we take along the way.

Popular Posts

  • 1

    Here’s a nice surprise: While many species struggle with climate, the Roseate Spoonbill is thriving

    April 15, 2019
  • 2

    How birders are helping to unravel mysteries of the migrations

    January 17, 2019
  • 3

    We used to snicker at Snowbirds — until we discovered this Airstream getaway

    April 9, 2019
  • 4

    Can you still be Valentines living in an Airstream? Love is on the line

    February 12, 2019
  • Why 3 billion birds vanished: Understanding the startling new research

    September 22, 2019

Why Flying Lessons

This website is about what we can learn from the birds around us. Some of the lessons are obvious, such as the way birds can be a barometer of environmental changes. Others are subtle, like the way you, as an observer, have to adapt to navigate the world in which birds operate. We ourselves still have much to learn about birding, a late-in-life pursuit that has captivated us in retirement. But we decided to start writing about the lessons and teachings as we’re finding our way, in hopes that our storytelling and photography will help to celebrate a captivating element of nature.

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