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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.

May 5, 2019 0 comment

Birding Breeding and Nesting Featured Photography

The first chicks have arrived: beautiful, gawky, hungry and often noisy

by Anders Gyllenhaal March 28, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Wood Stork chick

Great Egret chick

Sandhill Crane

Anhinga chick

You can sometimes hear them before you see them: Sweet but incessant cries of early life, calling for food, warmth, attention. If you’re lucky — and in the right place — you get a look at the first chicks of the season, which can be found all across Florida this month where the warm temperatures get the breeding season off to an early start.

The photos above, (from left to right), include a weeks-old Wood Stork, a Great Egret so new its feathers are nothing but fuzz, a Sandhill Crane already up and walking and a very young Anhinga, calling for food.

A Great Egret carries a branch to its nest

We spent the past six weeks roaming Florida on a spring-time birding trip. The nesting and breeding season is still many weeks away farther north, but here it’s in full swing for large coastal birds. You can see Egrets and Herons hauling sticks and branches across the marshes, and Wood Storks in the midst of their mating rituals. We witnessed the first generation of Anhingas, Cormorants and other new hatchlings in the nest, then perking up, and finally standing, walking and attempting to fly.

March 28, 2019 0 comment

Birding Birding and the Airstream Featured

Birding from the Flying Cloud: Aboard an Airstream, you’re already there.

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal March 15, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

Our birding base is an Airstream Flying Cloud. It’s what makes it possible to pursue this passion on our own terms. Forget waking up and driving to the woods to catch the dawn’s birdsong. We’re already there.

A campsite just outside Asheville, N.C.

On move day, here’s the routine: Pour coffee into a Stanley thermos, pull up stakes, crank up the truck and hit the road in search of the next scenic campground. The Flying Cloud follows along like a satisfied puppy on a leash.

We’ve situated ourselves beside a brook in the Virginia mountains where Louisiana Water Thrushes hopped from rock to rock. Goldfinches bathed farther upstream.

The scene on Ocracoke camping amid the sand dunes

One August afternoon we parked 10 yards from a lake on a rocky peninsula in New Hampshire. Before we could unload the chairs, we’d already noticed Brown Creepers scaling the surrounding pine trunks. (Another new bird for my Life List!)

Just beyond a primal sand dune on Ocracoke Island in Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Anders got photos of a Great Egret walking through a puddle near the bathhouse. (Cold showers only at Ocracoke, so hooray for the Airstream’s propane water heater.)

All of this splendor can be had for an average of $30 a night. You don’t get room service, but the camping life offers other perks. Anders wakes me up with a cup of coffee, and he often builds a campfire before a breakfast outdoors. No overpriced buffet, but even oatmeal tastes terrific with a touch of wafting wood smoke.

Camping beside a rushing stream in Southern New Hampshire

March 15, 2019 0 comment

Birding Birding research Featured Photography

Who delivers the Stork? Here’s a nursery like no other

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal March 8, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

There’s a rare birding phenomenon that happens every spring at Wakodahatchee Wetlands in Delray Beach, Florida. The 50-acre preserve turns into a full-fledged nursery, chock full of nests, eggs and chicks anxious for their next meal.

Baby Wood Stork

The unique thing about the Wakodahatchee Wetlands is access and diversity. You don’t even need binoculars or a telephoto lens to see the nesting Wood Storks, Great Blue Herons, Anhingas, Great Egrets, Green Herons and more.

You can stand under a shaded gazebo on a boardwalk 12 feet from the action. This is not a zoo, but it sure feels like one.

On two visits to Wakodahatchee in the past week, Anhinga chicks wrapped their necks around their moms’ so tightly it was hard to tell one from the other. Great Blue Heron babies are simply comical with oversized eyes and feathers like dandelion fluff. But it was the dozens of newly hatched Wood Storks who stole the show.

Storks feed their young by squirting “pre-digested” fish directly into their mouths. And when these downy chicks are hungry, everybody hears about it. Disproportionately large yellow beaks fling wide open, and you can even see their tiny tongues as they cry.

Great Blue Heron chick

Bawling Wood Stork chicks sound oddly like distressed human infants. When one starts up, they all join in. It’s loud, and just as things start to get obnoxious, the mother Stork reaches over with a long pink toe and strokes the baby. Ornithologists call this “comforting behavior” — pretty much what any good Mom would do.

Wood Storks breed for life, and at least one parent stands guard at all times to shade the chicks and sprinkle water over them if they need cooling off. They’ll also intervene if a Great Egret from a nearby nest happens to get too close.

Here’s a video that puts you in the middle of the action:

March 8, 2019 0 comment

Birding Featured Photography Species

Birds For Beginners: They gotta stay still and be big enough to shoot

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal February 22, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

The Great Blue is the largest heron in North America.

We loved this comment and question from Candy Krewer of Montana:

“I am a beginner birder and love to try to photograph birds. The Great Blue Heron is a current favorite since it’s a large target, often standing still! I also have a LBB (little brown bird) as a regular on my list. Please tell me more about what birds you are following.”

If you’re learning to take pictures of birds, you can’t go wrong with a Great Blue Heron. Big shorebirds were also among our favorites when Anders and I got hooked on birding five years ago, and we love them still. The herons and egrets often fish in the same spot for long stretches, and when they take to the sky, it’s a sight to behold.

A nesting pair of Roseate Spoonbills.

We’re currently in Florida for a few weeks, and so we’re surrounded by shorebirds. As to Candy’s query about what we’re following right now, the Roseate Spoonbill is my hands-down favorite. It’s pink and fluffy, funny and frilly — and it just makes me gasp every time we see one.

Spoonbill or a photographer’s sitting duck?

Did I mention photogenic? Anders heard about the Stick Marsh Critical Wildlife Area near Melbourne, Fla., where there are two protected islands stuffed with nesting Spoonbills. So last week we set out to find them. Even shooting in the “wrong” afternoon light, I think the photos Anders got were stunning. We’ll definitely go back at dawn. (The Stick Marsh site is adjacent to the T.M. Goodwin Waterfowl Management Area. Click here for more information.)

As for other “Beginner Birds” that keep still and are big enough to shoot, woodpeckers are tough to beat. It’s hard to know if we’re following them or they’re following us. Woodpeckers make a lot of noise (so you can find them), and some species, like the Red-bellied, are common. Once alight on a suitable tree, they tend to stay put and peck away.

February 22, 2019 0 comment

Birding Birds stories Featured Photography Species

Chasing the Kingfisher — five years and one lucky day

by Anders Gyllenhaal February 7, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Every birder has a favorite species or two. Mine has always been the Belted Kingfisher, partly because this elegant speed demon is so elusive.

For five years I’ve been trying to get a photo in mid-flight, but it’s been like catching a shadow. The Belted Kingfisher is so skittish and moves with such unpredictable twists and turns, he comes up mostly as a blur.

That is, until the other day.

My fascination with the Kingfisher goes back to my first encounter in Huntley Meadows Park in Northern Virginia, where I found one patrolling a swampy lake. I caught just a glimpse of him zipping about, but that’s all it took.

I managed this slightly fuzzy photo in the Alligator Preserve in North Carolina.

Kingfishers prefer shallow water where they can spot fish from the air. They like to fly along the banks, and then perch in a tree on the water’s edge. It’s as if to taunt a birder into thinking you might get a clear shot if you can just get a little closer. Half the time these sightings occur in swamp-like areas, so this can be a murky and muddy pursuit.

The Kingfisher’s Elvis look

Part of the Kingfisher’s appeal for me is its striking appearance. The Kingfisher looks like a cross between a military officer in a crisp uniform and a surly teenager with spiked hair. When it spreads its wings the Kingfisher looks like Elvis in his most outlandish getup.

February 7, 2019 7 comments

Birding Birding research Featured

Anxious for the spring migration? Try Armchair Birding on Facebook

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal January 24, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

House Sparrows hop along the sidewalks of downtown Washington, even on a 20-degree day. There are starlings galore and the occasional mockingbird. But my warblers, buntings and finches flew south months ago.

I find myself craving a forest silence shattered by birdsong and the endorphin rush of spotting a male in full breeding colors. It’s a glorious state of oblivion I can’t seem to get any other way.

How did this “birding thing” become so addictive?

My gardening friends tell me it’s much the same for them, only with dirt, blooms and weeds. To get through the Massachusetts offseason, my sister-in-law studies seed catalogs and salivates.

Birding magazines are a bit like seed catalogs, but they just weren’t doing the trick. Then, on Facebook, I discovered an extremely entertaining way to help fill the void.

It’s a Facebook Group called “What’s This Bird?” where folks post photos of birds they can’t identify. Other birders tell you what it is. (This is a Public Group from the American Birding Association. Sign in to Facebook, and then click here to check it out.)

For starters, you’ll notice that most of the photos are same-day, and all of them say exactly where and when the bird was found. This gives me a sense of “being there” — Armchair Birding in a revved up way.

This Group is also like a quiz to test your own identification skills. Some of these folks are crackerjack birders who take the time to point out subtle details that can be surprisingly enlightening.

January 24, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birding research Featured Migration

How birders are helping to unravel mysteries of the migrations

by Anders Gyllenhaal January 17, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

The new Cornell maps of bird migrations look for all the world like works of art: great swaths of color splash across digital canvasses that would be at home on the walls of a modern art museum.

This map reflects the migration travels of the Pied-billed Grebe, with the different colors showing the stops over the course of a year.

They are also the most powerful tools yet for deciphering the inner workings of the migrations each spring and fall. As if that’s not enough, the maps could hold the key to determining how birds are adapting to global warming.

“The amount of information in these maps is way beyond what any single source or even combination of sources could give you,’’ said Marshall Iliff, project leader for Cornell’s eBird program. “It’s on a scale that’s never been done before.’’

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology announced the latest phase of its mapping project two months ago to only limited fanfare in the early going. That’s likely to change as word gets out and more animations are added beyond the first 107 species.

What sets the new maps apart is the way they come alive with the click of a button. You suddenly see a species’ entire migration unfold, moving south over the course of the fall and then back north during the spring. The maps are fueled

Mapping the Bald Eagle: see below for an animated version.

by the tens of millions of bird lists sent in by 120,000 birders across the hemisphere. The animations are then adjusted with a stew of scientific, satellite and wildlife data to approximate and in some cases predict how the collective birds will move.

Marshall Iliff

As a result, the animations are one of the most ambitious scientific crowd-sourcing experiments underway anywhere today. “We’re really excited about it,’’ said Iliff. “It’s definitely big data ornithology. It’s a whole new concept.’’

( Click here for an index of the 107 species in the first phase of the project. Click here to explore that data behind the maps, which can help birders find hotspots and explore raw observations about species. And click here for the introduction to the eBird maps).

January 17, 2019 0 comment

Birding Birds stories Featured

Talk like birding royalty: A squabble of Gulls and a bowl of Spoonbills

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal January 11, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

What could be more delightful than a herd of cowbirds, a flotilla of frigatebirds or a pandemonium of parrots?

A bowl of spoonbills, perhaps.

A Spoonbill about to join a bowl

One of my favorite of Anders’ photos is of a gangly Roseate Spoonbill coming in for a landing to join six others. So when I came across the fact that a group of spoonbills is called a bowl, the image was just so striking it made me laugh.

And of course it made me curious.

Turns out that our medieval ancestors dreamed up tons of terms for flocks of specific birds. There’s a “wisdom” of owls, a “mewing” of catbirds and a “slurp” of sapsuckers.

Is it a 1) squabble, 2) wedge or 3) a scoop of Skimmers? See the list below.

The lucky ducks get several monikers: a “safe,” a “raft” or a “paddling” while on land — or a “team” in flight.

Hummingbirds can be collectively called a charm, a glittering, a shimmer, a tune, a bouquet or a hover.

In 1486 Dame Juliana Barnes of England listed these “proper terms” in “The Book of St Alban.” They were included in handbooks to educate the English nobility — a way to distinguish the aristocracy from the less well bred.

Is it a 1) pod, 2) a party, or a 3) posse of Pelicans. Keep reading for answers.

Fast forward to 2001 and “An Unkindness of Ravens: A Book of Collective Nouns” by Chloe Rhodes. She says flocks tended to be named for peculiar habits, physical characteristics or a personality trait that people believed the birds to possess: A flamboyance of flamingos, a coronation of kingbirds, a constellation of starlings, a murder of crows.

January 11, 2019 2 comments