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How we’re birding now

Gucci discovers birding, and it’s never been more fashionable. You don’t want to miss this!

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal January 16, 2021

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

It’s official. Birding’s cool factor is off the charts. And a certain bird nerd, one who has endured an abundance of ridicule and eye rolling from her offspring, is feeling fairly smug. Birding’s coolness is nothing short of a miracle, and here’s how it happened:

In March national headlines started blaring, “Birding is the New Black” and “You Have No Choice but to Become a Backyard Birder.” Then bird feeders started flying off the shelves, and bird watching was proclaimed an economic bright spot in an otherwise dismal economy.

Next came news of scientific studies proving bird watching’s positive effect on mental health – again, a bright spot at a time when global mental health is teetering toward the edge.

As a longtime birder and the butt of a few too many birding jokes, I find this appreciation for birding long overdue. With each new headline I’ve been texting my kids: “Look at this! See? I’m not the only one!” Their responses, on the other hand, haven’t been nearly as validating as a cultural shift of this magnitude deserves.

Here’s a glimpse of the Gucci/Northface clothing line that drops on Friday.

But as of this coming Friday, all of that changes. Luxury brand Gucci and outdoor apparel powerhouse The North Face are dropping a collaboration of “high-fashion meets functional” clothing with the stylish birder in mind.

I realize this is hard to fathom. So I am going to pause here for a few moments while you click here to enjoy a digital fashion spread that Gucci sponsored, called “Birdwatching with Gucci, The North Face and Flock Together.” (Flock Together is a club in England made up of real-life birders, some of whom were chosen to model the collection.) Be sure to scroll down to the video with the birders in front of a VW camper van, and click the volume button to start the sound. It’s a hoot.

Or you can go straight to the video on Facebook by clicking below. This isn’t like any birding outing you’ve ever seen before, which is part of the fun:

So there you have it. Birding has reached a pinnacle of fashion coolness that few will ever achieve. So take that, my dear children, take that! And what I will take is that Gucci birding jacket for Mother’s Day.

January 16, 2021 3 comments

Quarantined with an Owl Nextdoor: But will we ever find him?

by Anders Gyllenhaal December 6, 2020

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

We’re winding up the year sharing the most popular — and we hope most compelling — Flying Lesson stories from 2020. Most of the posts are profiles of bird encounters, including this story of a neighborhood owl who turned out to be far more wily than we were. Along with our regular posts, we’ll run a best-of piece every Sunday through the end of the year.

When we finally spotted our neighborhood’s Barred Owl, perched deep in the nearby woods but still within hooting distance of our balcony, we realized he was one step ahead of us.

Our owl watching from one of his favorite spots / Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

The owl had been watching us long before we found him.

We spotted him planted on a branch midway up a towering ivy-covered tree, camouflaged with a background that perfectly matched his plumage. He was staring down at us as if to say, what took so long.

The Barred Owl is a surveillance wonder. Its huge, dark eyes have telescopic vision. It can sit for hours scouring its territory. It can swivel its heads almost all the way around in either direction, a feat so impressive researchers at Johns Hopkins University conducted a full-fledged study to figure out how owls do what no other creature can. (See the explanation below after the second photo gallery.)

December 6, 2020 0 comment

Beverly's Birding Basics Birding Conservation How we're birding now

Lessons in generosity: Birds benefit when we’re all welcoming on the trail

by Beverly and Anders Gyllenhaal October 7, 2020

written by Beverly and Anders Gyllenhaal

Smack in the middle of bustling Washington, D.C., near the highest elevation of the city’s Rock Creek Park, lies a clearing that’s proven to be a prime spot to see migratory birds.

At dawn every spring morning, some of the country’s best birders sit here, along a stone wall, sharing their wisdom with anyone who happens along. These veterans are beyond generous, throwing out identifications with the glimpse of a flight pattern or silhouette. Lucky for us, this became our birding classroom each migration season while we lived nearby.

The unforgettable plumage of a Pileated Woodpecker. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

We’ve been thinking about that experience as we’ve pondered some questions we believe are more crucial than ever: What’s the best way to make progress as a birder? What helps move you from novice to intermediate, from backyard birder to one who takes birding vacations? And how can we welcome anyone interested in nature to learn what we’re seeing?

The way of birding is definitely a path, and ours started with simple curiosity about what we were seeing on weekend trips to the Blue Ridge Mountains and Maryland’s Eastern Shore. We’ll never forget our first encounter with a Pileated Woodpecker or the time we stumbled upon an Indigo Bunting singing in a field filled with wildflowers. In the early days, we once followed a flock of vultures for half an hour, wondering if they might be some type of unusual hawk.

Not long after, we registered for a beginner’s bird walk. Our leader pointed out species we didn’t know existed and gave us a peek through his powerful binoculars. The world of birds came into focus for the first time, and that changed everything.

This is our new column running in the latest issue of American Bird Conservancy magazine and reprinted here with permission from the Bird Conservation quarterly. The column, under the name Flying Lessons, is meant to draw on our travels to explore what we’re learning from birds. While we had to put off our birding trips this spring and summer, we’re now back on the road again. We’ll post these columns as they appear. You can get a subscription to the magazine if you donate $40 or more to the conservancy. Here’s the donation link.

October 7, 2020 1 comment

Beverly's Birding Basics Birding Flying Lessons essay How we're birding now Migration

How is a warbler like an apple-glazed donut? Both are impossible to resist.

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal September 29, 2020

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

There’s a spot on the boardwalk next to the Town Hall in Duck, N.C., that everyone knows is famous for doughnuts. This morning dozens of customers wait in line for up to half an hour, and the fall menu boasts flavors like Pumpkin Streusel, Pumpkin Roll and Maple Bacon.

A.Chestnut-sided Warbler, one of the many warblers passing through the Duck boardwalk region. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal.

Only a few yards away there’s another place that should be famous, but very few people have ever heard of it. Here, atop the live oaks and the willows is a different fall menu — the Chestnut-sided, Black-throated Green, Black-and-White, Prairie, Palm, Black-throated Blue and Northern Parula warblers.

Doughnuts are my weakness — oh the lengths I will go and the calories I’m willing to trade. Today at the donut shop there’s a deliciously wicked autumn confection called Caramel Apple Pie (apple glaze with salted caramel drizzle), and my stomach is growing.

These flavors won’t be around for long, but neither will the fall warblers – hands down my favorite birds.

Many of them have flown in from their nesting grounds in Canada and the Northeast, touching down on the Outer Banks only long enough to fatten up for the next leg of a journey to the Gulf of Mexico, then across the waves to their wintering grounds in Latin America. According to eBird, there’s a darn good chance of spotting 15 types of warblers and a “reasonable” chance of seeing 11 others along the boardwalk today between the Methodist Chapel and the Duck Donuts shop. That’s almost a third of all the warblers found in the U.S.

Here’s a video of a Black-throated Green Warbler, frantically collecting fuel for its migration:

September 29, 2020 0 comment

Beverly's Birding Basics Birding Flying Lessons essay How we're birding now Migration

You’ve started down the path to becoming a birder. What next?

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal August 25, 2020

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

Let’s say you started birding in the pandemic, bought binoculars, and now you’re hooked. You can identify the songbirds and woodpeckers in your neighborhood. So what happens next?

A Chestnut-sided Warbler we found in Massachusetts this summer. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

I’ve been thinking a lot about that question while hiking through an Audubon sanctuary in western Massachusetts, peering through bushes looking for fist-sized birds that have no interest in being seen.

Time is of the essence. The American Redstarts, Chestnut-sided Warblers, the Black-and-Whites, the Yellow Warblers and all the other varieties that spend the summer here will start migrating south any day.

Not that long ago, I didn’t know a warbler from a sparrow. So exactly what does it take to become a good birder? Once you’ve moved past the cardinals, blue jays and robins, what’s keeping you from finding the Indigo Bunting or a Rose-breasted Grosbeak?

A female Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Becoming a birder is a process, and it could go any number of ways. Some of it depends on your personality, how much time you have and how mobile you are. Do you like to collect things? Do you crave the thrill of the hunt? What’s your frustration tolerance?

Let’s say you’ve spotted a bird you can’t identify. Would you rather use a book to compare diagnostic markings such as eye rings and the color of a bird’s bill and feet? Or would you prefer a phone app designed to help you identify the bird easily and instantly. Perhaps you’d want a fellow human who can guide your way.

August 25, 2020 2 comments

Birding Featured How we're birding now

Flocks of new birders are turning out, which should be good news for birds

by Anders Gyllenhaal May 6, 2020

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

In the weeks leading up to Saturday’s Global Big Day, the eBird team at the Cornell Lab noticed something they’d never seen before.

The eBird smartphone app that has become the standard for filing bird sightings was flooded with new users. That was followed by tens of thousands of fresh checklists and thousands of reports from back yards across North America. In parts of the world, eBird observations jumped as much as 2,000 percent between this April and last.

Jenna Curtis

With much of the world at a near standstill from the coronavirus, it wasn’t surprising that people trapped at home would try birding to pass the time. But the dimensions of surge were so big, scientists guiding the project are hard at work to make sense of what they they’re seeing.

“We’re waiting kind of cautiously before we decide what we can really do with this,’’ said Jenna Curtis, eBird project co-leader at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “But it’s very exciting.’’

Pages from the eBird mobile app / Cornell Lab of Ornithology

The statistics tell one part of the story: eBird checklists, which birders file to Cornell based on the species they identify (by either seeing or hearing the bird), increased nearly 50 percent over a year ago. Some of the specific elements birders send in, such as bird audios and photos, saw similar or even greater increases.

As a result, sometime this month, Cornell says eBird will reach a whopping 800 million total observations on birds – for a sudden boomlet at the world’s largest citizen science effort.

The other part of the story is how the surge plays out for birds. It’s almost certain to be a good thing, but it will take some time to know exactly how.

Is the quarantine giving birth to a new wave of birders, or will interest fade when schools and stores reopen? Will the avalanche of data lead to new discoveries about species, particularly those closest to where people live? Will the jump in birders strengthen conservation and raise public support for protections?

Flying Lessons: One of the intriguing elements of the eBird surge is what it tells us about the relationship between birds and people. While we travel in separate orbits, we react to each other in a number of ways, such as how our activities influence bird songs, and the way people are turning to birds in a troubling time.

May 6, 2020 0 comment

Bird of the Week How we're birding now Photography

Quarantined with an Owl Nextdoor: But will we ever find him?

by Anders Gyllenhaal April 23, 2020

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

Part of a series

When we finally spotted our neighborhood’s Barred Owl, perched deep in the nearby woods but still within hooting distance of our balcony, we realized he was one step ahead of us.

Our owl watching from one of his favorite spots / Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

The owl had been watching us long before we found him.

We spotted him planted on a branch midway up a towering ivy-covered tree, camouflaged with a background that perfectly matched his plumage. He was staring down at us as if to say, what took so long.

Almost as soon as we moved into our new home not far from downtown Raleigh, N.C., we started hearing our owl’s “Who Cooks for You” hoot. (Click for samples.) Barred Owls are homebodies, staying mostly put and rarely traveling far throughout their lifetime. Despite the urban setting, ours found a slice of woodlands with just the mix of aged trees, thick underbrush and a running stream owls prefer.

Flying Lessons: The Barred Owl has abilities no other creature does. Between its telescopic eyes and its swiveling head, the owl’s attributes have long been under study. A nocturnal bird that blends into its surroundings, the owl likes to stay out of sight. But when you do get a look, he’s a sight to behold.

April 23, 2020 4 comments

Birding How we're birding now

Feeling trapped in your yard? This tool puts the magic back in migration.

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal April 10, 2020

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

Part of a series

Birding this spring means we’re stuck in our own back yards. But it doesn’t have to be boring, said Jenna Curtis, a project manager at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who works with engagement among eBird users.

Jenna is a consistent and persistent birder, a role model whose species sightings can seem to grow at a viral rate. She could also be considered an extreme birder, someone willing to spend a day sick at sea to push her life list past the 1,000 mark. And now, just like us, Spring Migration 2020 finds Jenna mostly at home, watching the same-old, same-old birds.

Jenna Curtis

Jenna and I had a phone chat about this situation yesterday. She’s sheltering in place in Ithaca, home of Cornell Lab and smack in the middle of the most dangerous state on the planet right now.

Before Jenna and I got to the crux of our conversation – how to use eBird to add depth and excitement to birding from home — I could not resist telling her about my Barred Owl that hoots from the nearby woods every afternoon between 4:30 and 5.

“Oh my gosh. You have an owl?” Her voice jumped nearly an octave. As I delivered the details of how I finally spotted the owl and how proud I felt, Jenna, bless her heart, followed along without missing a breathless beat.

Our backyard Barred Owl swivels its head our way.

So far this chat with Jenna was the best birding moment I’d had all week.

One of the great joys of birding is sharing the experience, finding a community of like-minded people who know what it feels like to crave the high-pitched, barely audible sound of itty-bitty warblers decked out in the glorious garb of spring.

I didn’t realize how much I’ve been yearning for my birding tribe in the midst of this godforsaken wilderness – a wilderness that’s not nearly wild enough to find the warblers I still need to add to my own life list.

“It’s hard to make the choice to stay at home right now rather than be with everyone else at your local hotspot for the migration,” Jenna said. “But you’re doing the right thing by following your local health regulations. Everyone needs to be following their local regulations right now.”

Flying Lesson: Almost anywhere you are happen to be — including stuck at home during a pandemic — at least some birds will find you there. In a time of anxiety and uncertainly, a dose of nature is good medicine. Here are some ways you can make the most of wherever you’re birding now.

April 10, 2020 1 comment