Category:

Migration

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

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal May 1, 2019

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.)

May 1, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birds stories Breeding and Nesting Migration Photography

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.

April 28, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birding research Migration

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.

April 27, 2019 0 comment

Birding Birding Basics Birding guidance Migration

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.

April 19, 2019 0 comment

Bird of the Week Birding Migration

Sandhill Crane Stories: Bold city birds vs. their shy cousins

by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal March 19, 2019

written by Beverly Mills Gyllenhaal

Audubon’s annual Nebraska Crane Festival starts today, where 80 percent of the world’s cranes are converging on one 80-mile stretch of land. More than half a million Sandhill Cranes will touch down in central Nebraska this spring to fatten up before migrating north to their breeding grounds.

Meanwhile, in central Florida, some 5,000 very unusual Sandhill Cranes aren’t going anywhere.

Florida is home to a sub-species of Sandhill Crane that never migrates. While their cousins in other parts of the U.S. are so skittish they’d never stay still for a photo, Florida’s cranes are urban birds unafraid of people.

There may be tens of thousands of Sandhill Cranes near Kearney, Nebraska, for the festival this week, but to see one up close you’d have to hide behind a bird blind. If you’re in Florida, like Anders and I are for a winter birding trip, the crazy cranes are grazing on golf courses, standing in people’s front yards and walking alongside major roadways without showing a care in the world.

Because Florida’s suitable crane habitat has been shrinking for years, these native birds have grown accustomed to sharing space with humans. (Sandhill Cranes can live up to 35 years and mate for life.) State law forbids feeding cranes, but it’s not unusual for them to walk right up to your car hoping for a handout.

You’re not likely to forget a close encounter with a Sandhill Crane. Statuesque at 4 feet tall, with leathery crimson skin on their faces and gray-and-brown feathers that fan out at the hips like a skirt, these birds are astonishing. Cranes are among the world’s oldest living birds and one of the planet’s most successful life forms, having outlasted millions of species. The Sandhill Cranes of North America have not changed appreciably in ten million years.

March 19, 2019 1 comment

Birding Birds stories Migration

These ducks were out to make fools of us — and boy did they ever

by Anders Gyllenhaal January 22, 2019

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

We hadn’t been birding in a while because of miserable weather, so we were anxious to get out last weekend and see the ducks and geese that take up residence on Maryland’s eastern shore every winter.

The waterways were jammed with ducks, most of them Canadian Geese you could hear from half a mile away.

We could hear the Canadian Geese as we approached the Wye Island refuge just off the Chesapeake Bay — literally thousands of them filled waterways and fields. There were also supposed to be lots of Black Ducks, Mallards, Tundra Swans and Buffleheads.

Then we turned a corner and saw two or three dozen Canvasbacks visible through the marsh grass in an expanse of salt water a few yards away. We pulled off the road in a rush. I went to the back of the car to set up my camera while Beverly grabbed her binoculars.

We spotted the Canvasbacks through the reeds — and went right to work.

Luckily, a thick wedge of grasses hid us as we crept up. It was windy and overcast so the light wasn’t favorable, but it looked like we could get closer than we’d ever been to this large of a flock.

I started shooting before there was even a clear view: You never know when they’ll take flight, so I wanted to be ready. Beverly headed one way and I went the other as we gradually moved to the edge of the marsh for a direct look.

Even as we got close, the ducks didn’t seem fazed. The waves kicked up in the wind, but they held their places as if they wanted to be sure we got a nice photo. I finally found a break in the reeds and managed a full look at our quarry. The realization hit me.

January 22, 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 Birding research Featured Migration Photography

Year of the Bird: Can this sweeping campaign curb rising threats to birds?

by Anders Gyllenhaal December 20, 2018

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

First of two parts

The most ambitious effort to protect birds in a century comes to a close next week. Although its catalog of accomplishments ranges from enlisting thousands of new supporters to collecting reams of fresh data, the Year of the Bird faces a tough question:

Was the 12-month campaign powerful enough to make a difference on behalf of endangered species, or will it turn out to be mostly a memorial to an era of plentiful birds that’s slowly disappearing?

Led by the Audubon Society, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Geographic and BirdLife International, the Year of the Bird project gathered 180 partners, 50 proclamations and tens of thousands of new supporters over the course of the year.

The campaign turned a loose collection of like-minded organizations into a coalition that can push for legislation, preserve habitat and rally supporters in the future. “The network is now in place,’’ said Miyoko Chu, senior director of communications for the Cornell Lab.

An example of Cornell’s maps that turn eBird data into animations of bird migrations by species. Look below to play video versions.

The project elevated Cornell’s effort to turn its birding apps into ground-breaking tools for visualizing migration and population trends. The apps are fueled by an army of 400,000 birdwatchers who record species to form a collective portrait more detailed than ever before possible. Last month, Cornell unveiled new technology that creates animations showing precisely where and how specific birds migrate during the fall and spring seasons.

The Year of the Bird was accompanied by a flow of stories, photos, videos and essays from National Geographic that took readers on a tour of the front lines of birding. The magazine launched its contribution with an essay by novelist and expert birder Jonathan Franzen, who took on the question of “Why Birds Matter.’’ It’s must-reading for anyone interested in the future of birds.

The Year of the Bird also inspired dozens of offshoot projects as partners came on board. In one example, a class of advanced graphic design students at Ithaca College heard a radio interview with Franzen and immediately went to work with Cornell on a series of posters in support of the project.

“People participated in Year of the Bird in all sorts of ways, from the individual level to the global,’’ said Nicholas Gonzalez, an Audubon media specialist. “It’s always the year of the bird at Audubon. We never need a reason to celebrate birds. But this was an especially big deal.’’

And yet, right as the project was coming to a close this fall, a series of setbacks came along, as if to remind the organizations what they’re up against.

December 20, 2018 0 comment

Birding research Flight Migration

Here’s a surprise: Birds watch out for each other, take turns on the hard jobs and use aerodynamics on their way South

by Anders Gyllenhaal November 16, 2018

written by Anders Gyllenhaal

The most visible sign of the fall migration has always come with a kind of riddle: Why do birds fly in those big V-shaped formations on their journey south?

Flying in formation

When researchers came up with a way to ride along for a portion of the trip, they learned there’s a lot more going on up there than they expected. The maneuvers turned out to be impressive displays of teamwork, aerodynamics and selflessness of the part of birds. Experts say we could learn a thing or two from how they travel.

An earlier Flight Lessons post looked at secrets emerging on flight flocking, in which thousands of birds move together like a cloud. Several readers asked what’s going on with another form of joint flight: the V-formations that larger birds in particular, such as Canadian geese, all varieties of ducks, Ibises, storks and Pelicans, form as they fly.

A V-formation of Ibis pass over Myakka River State Park in Southwestern Florida.

The V shapes are a symbol of a migration that otherwise takes place mostly at night or out of our view. There’s something magical about them, says Bret Tobalske, director of one of the nation’s leading flight labs and associate professor at the University of Montana.

“People from time immemorial have been fascinated by the formations,” he said. “We have looked up for a long time and been just fascinated by how they do this.”

November 16, 2018 0 comment