One Year in eBirding
With the entry yesterday morning of a list of birds into eBird that I found on a quick walk around the campus of the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, I have finally completed one of my long-term bird projects, a complete list of birds from a single hotspot. 147 checklists later, an average of just over 2 a week, I’ve finally filled in the last gap to complete the account of a year of birds at the museum where I work.
This graphical representation of the birds present is one of the coolest things about eBird. Previously, graphs of abundance were the province of wildlife refuges and other publicly accessible birding locales. They obviously take a lot of time and a lot of work to do manually, but eBird’s software takes the burden off, allowing a regular birder such as myself the means to have this information at my disposal simply by entering my sightings on a regular basis. Beyond that, it’s just cool to look at. Feel free to click the picture to access the entire list.
There are some interesting things to take from the chart. 104 of the 105 species were seen by me (the missing bird was an Ovenbird seen by someone this spring. Not surprising, but still one I expected to turn up myself). 6 species were seen every single week of the year: Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Northern Cardinal and American Goldfinch, and 5 more that were seen 51 out of the 52 weeks (Brown-headed Nuthatch, Eastern Towhee, Tufted Titmouse, and Mourning Dove). If I had to pick 11 species to be my most constant, those would have probably been the ones.
There were some surprises, like the flyover Great Egret late last summer and the Merlin this spring, and the thrush bonanza that added Swainson’s and Gray-cheeked on a single fall morning following a strong weather system. I managed 22 species of warbler over the year, from common Yellow-rumps and Pines to one-day wonders like Worm-eating and Blue-winged and several other notable migrants like Orioles, Grosbeaks, and Buntings.
As expected, the wetlands provided a fair bit of variety. Great Blue Heron and Belted Kingfisher were evident most weeks, though absent during the late spring and early summer when I presume they were breeding elsewhere. A pair of Pied-billed Grebes made the fall exciting and Hooded Mergansers were present nearly the entire winter except for the weeks when the wetland was iced over. Canada Geese attempted to nest again and Wood Duck was a rare visitor that I half expected to show up more often. Maybe next year.
The museum site may be fairly pedestrian when compared to other similar places in the triangle as far as potential for a wide variety of species, but it is a great indication of what you could expect during a regular year in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Working towards its completion has encouraged me to get out more often then I might otherwise. Now that every week is accounted for I can afford to be less anal about it, but there are still some gaps that need to be filled and more data is always better.
I do work there after all, it’s not as if I’ll lack opportunities.
Western Pelican
Of the eight species of Pelican in the world, Pelecanus occidentalis is the smallest and, if its latin name is meant to be indicative, the species whose range extends furthest west of all it’s large-billed co-geners. I’ll give ole Linneaus a pass here when he named the Brown Pelican in 1766 since he wasn’t yet aware of the even more western American White Pelican. I’ll simply state that directional names seem a bit presumptive when the vast majority of a massive continent still remains to unknown beyond the westward horizon and leave it at that, knowing full well that my critique of his technique coming nearly 250 years too late totally puts the great taxonomist in his place. Take that Carolus!
Of the five subspecies of Brown Pelican that can be found on coastal environments all up and down the North and South American continents, the one most familiar to birders on the east coast is Pelcanus occidentalis carolinensis, the eastern Brown Pelican, which nests along the Gulf coast, around Florida, and as far north as Maryland and is a common as a non-breeder north all the way to New York. The subspecific name, carolinensis, refers to the very first specimen which came from Charleston harbor in South Carolina where they can still be found nesting in the barrier islands beyond the city.
There’s something inherently prehistoric about watching a Brown Pelican in flight. Other birds may have larger wingspan, or strike a more dinosaurian pose when perched, but the Pelican, by virtue of it’s long, thin wings and massive bill necessitating that the head rest just-so on the front of the torso, that seems practically Pterodactylic. There’s no bird alive that so resembles those massive flying lizards, specifically the genus Pteranodon. And it’s not much of a leap when watching a lazy flock of Pelicans slowly cruising down the beach to imagine they’re flying again.
There’s a good reason for that of course. Natural selection, which slowly and inexorably drives species to fill certain niches. This one, filled prehistorically by Pteranodon and currently by Brown Pelicans, involves taking advantage of the bounties of the sea. A massive bill holds many fish and squid and long, narrow wings find thermals that exist just inches above the ocean’s surface. A Brown Pelican can travel far on little energy, which is a clear advantage when you have an entire ocean in which to forage. And forage seems like such an imperfect word for watching a massive Pelican turn into the wind and drop from 40 feet up into the water with a spectacular splash, a sight even the least bird aware person in the world can appreciate. But it wasn’t always that way.
Not more than 40 years ago, the Brown Pelican, specifically the eastern populations, were in big trouble. North Carolina, which now has the largest nesting population of the species, was down to 75 breeding pairs. That’s it. Other states saw similar declines. Louisiana had 11. The entire state of Texas had 8. The culprit was the same toxin that was doing a similar number on other large predatory birds, DDT, which causes the birds to lay eggs with shells so thin that the weight of a brooding bird was enough to crush them. The situation was so dire that the Brown Pelican, the eastern subspecies as well as the Pacific californicus, was placed on the Endangered Species list in 1970 and efforts immediately taken to bring them back from the brink. DDT was banned in the United States in 1972, and the Brown Pelican, as well as other affected species like Osprey and Bald Eagle, famously rebounded, a real deal success story. Delisted in 1985, Brown Pelicans are once again thriving in their former range, a common sight along any coastline in the southeast United States including Wrightsville Beach in New Hanover County, North Carolina, where I found this small flock.
What images of soiled birds that have come out of the Deepwater Horizon clean-up effort have by and large been Brown Pelicans. Because they’re so distinctive, so indicative of sunny days at the beach and lazy summer vacations, they’re an excellent way to relate the severity of the disaster to regular people. Pelicans are proud and adept and just so big, and to see them reduced to a pathetic oil-soaked lump of feathers is wrenching in a very visceral way. They’re not supposed to be like this.
But birds are remarkably good at recovering given the opportunity to do so. There’s some solace, then, in the realization that Brown Pelicans have endured far worse. They’ve been laid lower and returned. Every Brown Pelican on every beach is a testimony to the power of simply giving birds the time and space they need.
It’s inspiring really, at a time when we probably all could use a little inspiration.
My Life’s Birds: #404
December 25, 2006 – Merritt Island NWR, Fl - The best part about spending the end of year holidays with my wife’s Jewish family is the idea that December 25, celebrated across the rest of the world as the commemoration of some sort of miraculous event, is just another day that you’re fortunate to have off. This means that if you’re lucky enough to find something that’s actually open, there are no ceremonial obligations, no wrapping paper conglomeration, and no exhausting family gatherings. Not that those things are wholly unwelcome or unpleasant, because there was a certain bittersweet feeling at being away from my Missouri family at this time of year for the first time ever, but the odd deviation from tradition can be freeing as well. There was, after all, no way in hell my own family would have been up for a Christmas day run up the coast for a bit of birding at Merritt Island NWR and to chase a very special rarity that just happened to be spending some time up there.
Early, early that morning, my mother-in-law, my wife, and I snuck off to make the two hour drive that would put us there not long after the late winter sunrise. We arrived to a bit of rain, but a wide open wildlife drive that was free of cars and allowed us looks at some of the loveliest wintering waterfowl you can imagine. My wife is hardly much of a birder, but you’d have to be made of stone not to appreciate bays full of sleek Northern Pintails, dapper Redheads, and the odd Green-winged Teal and Shoveler. A solitary Roseate Spoonbill was a real crowd-pleaser and a trip to a bridge where dozens of wintering Manatees congregated was a treat to those less bird-obsessed.
If you ever have an opportunity to do some birding in Florida, one of the most desirable species has to be the state’s lone endemic, a charismatic species that requires a very specific type of habitat. There are better places to find Florida Scrub-Jays than Merritt Island, but we weren’t at those other places. We were limited to the invitingly named Scrub Ridge Trail which helpfully has pictures of Scrub Jays at the trailhead to urge you forward to what may well be the most difficult place to find Scrub Jays outside of the metro Miami area. For all the iconic images of Florida Scrub-Jays perched on top of visitor’s hats, eating peanuts out of people’s hands, and otherwise making a mockery of the concept of “endangered species”, the birds at Merritt Island were not easily found. In the end, we heard the distinctive call, turned to see a distant Jay atop a beachfront scrub, and barely lifted binoculars before it quickly disappeared, staying maddeningly out of sight. I thought these birds were supposed to be simple.
In any case, this lifer was not supposed to be the exciting one on this trip. Merritt Island was an appetizer and once we’d had our fill it was time to head to the main course, being served daily at a water treatment facility just outside of Melbourne. The bird in question was a Masked Duck, a stunning neotropic vagrant, that had amazingly stuck around for several months since being discovered in the fall. This was a bird that I had missed at least twice in Texas, one high on my most wanted list. To have it so near to where I was going to be was too good and I’d been following it well before we left and every day leading up to Christmas Day, when I planned to get myself a fine ducky gift. Long story short, we spent the better part of two hours combing the marsh for the bird until an afternoon thunderstorm chased us back home. There were lots of other species of ducks, a fine assortment of waders, but no Masked Duck. It was never seen that day, some thought it has finally vamoosed. Until it put on a show two days later…
So it goes, Florida Scrub-Jay is a heck of a consolation gift though.
FLSCJA from wikipedia
The opposite of vegetarianism
You may not know it, but southeastern North Carolina is something of a hotspot for those most botanically bizarre species, the carnivorous plants. It has to do with the nutrient-poor soils that predominate in the swamps and sandy plains along the southern coast and into northern South Carolina. It’s a noteworthy distinction, one I admit I never knew about at all before noting a Venus Fly-trap Trail at Carolina Beach State Park during my 2008 North Carolina big year. The State Park is a great place to find Painted Buntings, and I intended to make it back at some point to scope out that trail where one can find the most charismatic of bug-eating plants.
The last day of my wife’s and my mini-vacation to the Wilmington area I thought I had that opportunity. I let my wife sleep in and headed down to Carolina Beach with the intention to walk the short trail and find some Fly-traps. Thought I had my eyes on the ground, a birder is still a birder, and the hot weather notwithstanding, there were still a small handful of species around. No Painted Buntings sadly, but several Brown-headed Nuthatches foraging near the ground in open Slash Pine forest. A scene that couldn’t be more southern if I were enjoying a mint julep at the time.
For such a widely-known and cultivated species, wild populations of Venus Fly-traps are extremely range restricted and only found within 60 miles of Wilmington, North Carolina. While I’d hoped to easily discover the small plants in the sandy soil, they’re apparently far more difficult to find this late in the summer when their tall flower stalks have since wilted. That’s the long way of saying I was unlucky this time. Not was I fortunate enough to come across some of the other carnivorous species in the area, like the Sundew or the flashy Purple Pitcher Plant.
I did, however, find a nice stand of Yellow Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia flava), which at nearly 18 inches tall, is far easier to find than the others, and equally cool with a subtle gape that hides death for unlucky flies. So it was far from a total bust.
I’m not going to abandon bird finding for plant finding anytime soon, but when the bird activity is suppressed due to the soaring sticky humidity of the southern summer it’s a nice thing to which to turn, even if the plant of the hour proved difficult to track down. I only wish the horticultural haps in the Piedmont were as exciting as they are down here. There’s a serious lack of blood-thirsty plants to be found most other places.
Also worth nothing was the successful addition of New Hanover County to my list of North Carolina counties in which I’ve seen 100 species of birds. The 7th such county since I began keeping track. Only 93 more to go!
You should be reading this
Texas birder, author, and ecotourism consultant Ted Lee Eubanks is well-established as one of the most original and influential voices in American birding. His “Who Advocates for Birding” (.pdf) from the January 2010 edition of Birding magazine is one of the best commentaries I’ve read maybe ever and one I often come back to when considering the future of birding and birding organizations. It’s amazing and fortunate that he’s part of the bird blogosphere too.
If you are not reading his blog, you absolutely should be. His latest run of fantastic pieces on the conservation movement’s responsibility in light of the BP oil disaster should be required reading at the highest levels of environmental NGOs. At the very least, it should be required reading for birders who care.
Go there now, spread it around, you can thank me later.
The ABA’s presidency problem (or from here, where?)
The fifth anniversary edition of I and the Bird comes home to 10,000 Birds.
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Since writing a post two weeks ago hinting at some of the issues surrounding the American Birding Association’s dismissal of president Rob Robinson I have been in touch with folks who have informed me, perhaps more that I wanted or needed to know, of the sausage making process behind the surprising decision. Needless to say it’s not pretty, and there are a lot of ugly words being thrown around not unjustifiably; words like incompetence and embezzlement and worse*. It appears that Robinson’s time as head of the organization was nothing short of disastrous and will no doubt have repercussions that resonate far beyond his short tenure as the ABA attempts to get out from underneath the mess he’s left behind. I don’t bring this up specifically to air the ABA’s dirty laundry, I’m merely a regular member with a regular member’s interests and it’s not really my place, but to consider the ABA’s future, which at this point sadly appears to be legitimately in doubt, you have to start somewhere.
*A note (7/22/2010): I should be clear that don’t know for certain whether the allegations are accurate, I only know what I’ve heard second-hand from sources I consider reliable. That said, I strongly feel the Board should address some of the more pertinent allegations in the interest of opening up a dialogue with membership and regaining some of the lost trust and, at the very least, assure us that whatever legal avenues the ABA has to rectify those concerns are being explored. It suffices to say that they were serious enough to dismiss the President and that the specifics, whatever they may be, aren’t necessary to address the ABA’s future.
I should preface this by saying that I have a sense of allegiance to the ABA borne of their kindness to me as a young birder. In 1994 I was fortunate enough to attend Camp Chiricahua, a joint venture between the ABA and Victor Emmanuel Nature Tours, in southeast Arizona. The Camp was a 10 day birding tour of the area specifically for young birders and is a fond memory to this day. But it was expensive, and I wouldn’t have been able to go if not for a generous scholarship from none other than the ABA as well as my local and state Audubon chapters who thought enough of me, and of young birders in general, to make those scholarships available. Back then I often felt like I was the only birder under the age of 40 in Missouri, and to be put in a social situation with others like me, along with expert guides in a famously birdy locale, was a defining moment in my birding career even as I sit here closer now to 40 than I am to the birder I was then.
So as long as the ABA exists I’ll be a member even though I have been, in part, disappointed with the ABA’s apparent acting ignorance of young adult birders, their lack of direct involvement in land use issues that effect bird conservation efforts, their half-hearted and pointless wading into the Ivory-billed Woodpecker fray. Most of that disappointment has been tempered, however, by the general high quality of the magazines (especially of late), the good work they do for birders under the age of 18 and the idea that an organization that brings actual field birders together in some semblance of a community in and of itself is a practical necessity in this day and age. But I guess I’m an idealist. Besides, who else then to compile and manage a list of North American’s avifauna for the birder rather than the professional ornithologist? I still believe the ABA can and should do these things but the question of whether simply filling that void is enough to sustain the organization remains unanswered, especially among birders who are less apt to cut the ABA some slack than I am. What is their reason for keeping on?
I suppose we as birders need to re-evaluate what we want a birding organization to be. The ABA was originally founded as a response to conventional birding organizations’ move away from field birding as sport and the rather serendipitous discovery of large groups of like-minded individuals looking to take advantage of the interest in active birding as a way to enjoy the outdoors. It was a way to enjoy the friendly competition, to share information about how and where to find desirable species, and to constantly push the boundaries of field identification to new and fascinating levels. Flipping though the copy-paper flyers that later became the journal Birding one gets the impression that it was, in short, a real community.
In recent years the role that the ABA played in the 70s and 80s has been increasingly filled by state and interest specific e-mail listserves which offer more obviously relevant subject matters and involve more local birders for whom the participant is more likely to have more personal interaction. This model is expanded upon yet again in the bird blogosphere, an ever expanding group of bird and nature writers from around the world who share field experiences and discuss topics significant and incidental, formally and informally, but always transparently. A group like the Nature Blog Network which, full disclosure, I help administer, offers hundreds of authentic voices at your disposal. It reminds of nothing so much as those original ABA mailers.
And I think it’s that authenticity that’s lacking. There’s a sense of clinical sterility at the ABA. That’s not the fault of the ABA staff, who nearly to an individual are passionate and dedicated to birds, birding, and our larger community, it’s simply the result of a failure of the organization apparently comfortable with remaining insular. This may seem strange to those who have been involved in the national birding community for some time, who know many of the major players personally, but for those of us not coming from that original generation of birders the organization is essentially faceless and what goes on behind the office doors in Colorado Springs is largely foreign to most of us. That’s true regardless of who they put in the top spot. I’m willing to take some of the blame based on a general lack of interest as a voting member in the machinations of the Board, but the pervasive apathy lies as much in the failure of leadership to really connect with members as much as it lies with the general membership.
I keep coming back to the nature blogosphere, where birding luminaries like Kenn Kaufman and David Sibley make themselves available on their own blogs. I can comment and feel confident they’ll read and respond. I, as normal joe birder, can have a conversation with them as an equal, more or less (mostly less). In this interaction there’s transparency. In this community there’s honesty.
And that I think is lacking in the ABA at this point in its history, made clear by this whole Robinson debacle. I wouldn’t know half the ABA board on the street, and I assume most ABA members wouldn’t either, but there’s a real sense of betrayal in the way they’ve handled the presidency problem made worst by the fact that they’re been so unforthcoming about the situation the organization finds itself in. There are allegations of double dealing, of conflicts of interest, of outright fraud, and I certainly don’t know enough to know what’s true and what’s not, but the functional sequestration of the parties involved and the apparent lack of accountability among key members doesn’t help. I certainly don’t think that casting blame is the only thing to do here, but there has to be some acceptance of blame or at least some agreement as to what went so wrong before we can move on to really rebuilding the ABA to be the kind of organization of which we can be proud. Otherwise it’s only a matter of time before we find ourselves in the same situation again.
I don’t know what the ultimate direction of the ABA will be, but it was once a great organization manned by birders that felt like us or so I’ve been told. The golden age of the ABA ended before I came along and perhaps it’s been running downhill for years, I don’t know. I do pick up that there’s a feeling among long time members that the organization is irrecoverably broken, that the good times are past. I definitely don’t abide by that view. I think the golden age of birding is still to come, one that pushes frontiers of field identification and molt and subspecific variation, and understands the importance of birders taking an active role in conversation. The ABA may well have an important role to play in that culture should we weather this storm. I don’t know the precise steps to take to get there, others have put forward ideas that seem very sensible to me, but I do know that pushing the general membership away only exacerbates the problem by removing our stake in the organization.
And we need that stake. We need to feel ownership of the ABA again, and the board needs to find a way to let us do so. Because the ABA’s ultimate fate lies in our hands, not theirs.
Update: Since writing this, I’m pleased and humbled to see that it’s struck a chord among those perhaps with the influence to do something about it and maybe even the general ABA membership, about whom it should be repeated ad nauseum, who are the real strength of the organization. So I encourage those visiting to also check out Kenn Kaufman’s thoughtful take on the situation here and Rick Wright’s call to action here. Both are really good stuff.
Thanks again.
Beach day
When my wife and I each say something like ” I love the beach”, we really couldn’t mean it more differently if we were actively trying to make some sort of literary statement as to the varied possible interpretations of an otherwise vague declaration. This, of course, makes planning any sort of beach outing something of a hairy predicament, rife with potential relationship defining stressers. I suspect it’s the sort of thing with which any long-suffering birding widow has to deal, as the dichotomy is as predictable as it is stark.
My wife likes the beach in the traditional sense, the relaxing notion of laying on the sand for hours with a good book and listening to the rhythmic pulse of waves crashing against the shore and all that jazz. Me? If it involves sitting in one place “relaxing” for extended periods of time, I’m not into it. I can’t sit on the seashore and stare at the ocean for hours unless there’s the promise that something interesting is going to pass by. It doesn’t even have to have feathers, I’m not picky, but I’m constantly on the lookout for some biota I can nail down to species, or at least genus. As you might expect, this is not the sort of attitude that corresponds with the conventional beach-goer’s vacation, but luckily I have a spouse who not only understands my fanatical need to look for stuff, but accommodates it.
So we left for the beach early Monday morning, ostensibly to beat the crowds but no doubt also to get a head start on the peak of bird activity. As soon as we had everything straightened out on our little patch of beach, I packed up my scope and headed up to the north end of the island to the inlet where a shorebird area has been long established as off-limits to beach-goers and is one of the best places on the island to look for birds year round.
I forgot to mention above that one of the conditions of beach-lazing was that I got to choose the access point, so I headed to the north end specifically to be within walking distance of this little area. Fortunately, my wife isn’t picky, and since the access area hosted a parking lot and public bathrooms, she was happy to oblige.
Early July is not the best time to bird the beach, it’s still early for most of the migrating shorebirds and most of the resident species are nesting and not easily found in areas near people. But there were several Wilson’s Plovers running around chasing Fiddler Crabs that they’d make short work of with their huge crab-cracking bills. There were at least a dozen birds around, mostly young ones indicating a successful year.
Willets were common too, the slender eastern birds that nest on the beaches here. It’s a few weeks yet before their numbers are augmented by the larger western birds that replace the nesters in the winter and leave us comfortably Willet-filled year round.
There was one migratory shorebird on the flats, a solitary Black-bellied Plover showing no signs of alternate plumage and already as aptly gray as can be. A pair of Least Terns and a few Oystercatchers rounded out the morning.
Soon I decided to make my way back to the spot where my wife was waiting. Granted the birding was not as exciting as I had hoped for, and thus necessitated the sort of waiting around on the beach I generally dislike. But at least I wasn’t worried I was missing anything, as the marsh and beachfront had been covered ably. I guess this made the whole exercise a little more acceptable, at least so much that it allowed me to relax a bit and maybe listen to the rhythmic pulsing of the waves against the shore. I’m not made of stone, after all.
