Yellow-Billed Magpie NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

Home , Bird feeder, Bird food, Eurasian magpie, Fieldfare, Gulf of Maine, Magpie (character)

The Big-head Divers: Goldeneyes and Buffleheads

BIRD Vol. 43 No. 2, November/December 2020 W ATCHER’S DIGEST

Species Profile Yellow-billed Magpie NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

Scott Display until December 31st Weidensaul: On the Slope Our beaches are open and our destination is ready to welcome you back. We’ve missed you.

Plan your escape and request a vacation guide at GulfShores.com/back-to-the-beach 877-341-2400

2020-6047 Bird Watcher's Digest Nov Dec.indd 1 9/10/20 4:58 PM B R U C E W U N 98 D November/December 2020 ER LI CH COLUMNS & DEPARTMENTS 6 Letters from Readers 92 True Nature 10 Quick Takes The Naturalist’s Dilemma Paul J. Baicich Julie Zickefoose 16 Migrations 98 Birdtography On the Slope The Ethics of Bird Scott Weidensaul Photography 24 Bruce Wunderlich 24 Cover Species Yellow-billed Magpie 106 Watching Bird Behavior T S Brown Creepers and E Kenneth M. Burton W Readers’ Observations IL A G 34 Identify Yourself David M. Bird The Big-head Divers: Goldeneyes and Buffleheads 114 Far Afield Alvaro Jaramillo Birding Oklahoma’s Ouachita Mountain 42 Constantly Counting Foothills and Tenkiller Lake Chickadees Jerry Uhlman Al Batt 120 Spotlight on Nevada 56 Pete’s Tips Learning Vocalizations 124 Book Notes

O L Pete Dunne 128 Classified L I M A 58 The Urban Birder 130 Redstart Birding R A 34 J American Birds on Both O R A V Sides of the Atlantic L A David Lindo FEATURES 64 Fab Five of the Far THE Northwest BACKYARD John Shewey

46 Winter Shower 68 Shakespeare’s Birds Carmen Christy Jerry Dennis 58 R E C 50 Mr. Creeper’s 76 See Where They Fly: N E P Neighborhood: Suet on Banded Gulls in the S

L L a Tree Trunk Gulf of Maine E S S Don Grussing Jon Woolf U R 54 My Way 84 One Short of a Parliament Birding as Meditation Eli J. Knapp Mary Giraulo

About the Cover Hidden Colors: Yellow-billed Magpie, by Christina Baal. For more information on this painting and the artist, see Bird Watcher’s Digest • page Novem 96.ber/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 1 North America’s favorite birding magazine since 1978. FOUNDING PUBLISHERS William H. Thompson, Jr. (1932–2011) & Elsa Ekenstierna Thompson (1934–2019) PRESIDENT/PUBLISHER Wendy Clark EDITORIAL Dawn Hewitt, Editor Jessica Melfi, Assistant Editor PRODUCTION Bruce Wunderlich, Magazine Design MARKETING Sarah Clark, Digital Marketing Director CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Edward Kanze, Diane Porter, Hank Weber, Norma Siebenheller, Julie Zickefoose FIELD EDITORS Alvaro Jaramillo, Howard Youth CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Steve and Dave Maslowski, Arthur Morris, G. Cope Schellhorn, Bruce Wunderlich ADVERTISING Kelly Ball, Sales Director EVENTS Emily Nichols, Events Manager WEBSITE Katherine Koch, Webmaster SUBSCRIPTIONS Melody Carpenter, Circulation Coordinator Cindy Martin, Circulation Assistant FINANCE Alan Rollins, Controller REDSTART BIRDING Angela Anderson-Beach, Manager

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2 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest North America’s favorite birding magazine since 1978.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 3 A Letter from the Editor —Dawn Hewitt Here’s to a Better Year to Come! This is the final issue ofBWD about a decade, which is most for 2020. Good riddance to gratifying. Redstartbirding.com that year! Colder temperatures, sales are beating our targets gray skies, and long nights are nearly every month. We’re ahead, but so are winter holi- planning a slew of Reader days! Let’s hope the bleakest Rendezvous for 2021—more Tseasons of 2020 are behind us! of them, but smaller groups. Bird Watcher’s Digest has (Visit readerrendezvous.com proven again and again that for more information.) Our we can survive the worst of podcasts, Out There With the challenges and tragedies and Birds and BirdSense, are going keep on going. We’re here to gangbusters! (They’re available stay. Please notice that there wherever podcasts are distrib- are more and bigger ads in this uted.) Circulation of our free, issue of BWD than in the Sep- twice-monthly digital newslet- tember/October 2020 issue, and ter, BirdWire, has never been that’s a huge relief. We hope higher and continues to grow. you will show our advertisers Kind and generous friends have some love by paying attention given us money way beyond the to those ads! We hope you will price of a subscription for the visit their websites, check out sole purpose of keeping this their products, or consider magazine going. How could we their events or destinations in be less than grateful for how your birding plans. Advertising well this small, woman-owned pays for the printing, post- company is doing despite this age, and paper of each issue, cursed year? and you can show support for All this is not to say that BWD by letting our advertis- business is soaring. Our adver- ers know that their ads are well tising revenue is still far below targeted and noticed. pre-COVID levels, but we’re Our magazine circulation is still publishing, still chugging higher now than it has been in along, confident that it will be

4 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest back. We remain a determined, dedicated, fun, and cohesive team, determined not just to survive, but to thrive in the years ahead. You can help us out. With holidays approaching, we hope you will consider gift shopping Join us and... at redstartbirding.com, or a subscription to BWD for a ...Explore birder friend or family member, Our publications, web resources, and events or a subscription to Watch- have much to offer anyone with an active interest in birding, whether ing Backyard Birds for loved you like to stay close to ones whose interest in birds is home, or to wander the primarily at the bird feeder or globe, or a bit of both. otherwise close to home. A bird ...Share feeder and a big bag of black- Get immediate access oil sunflower seeds also make a to a network of great gift and can be a gateway friendly, passionate to a satisfying new hobby that birders all around the can be life-altering. Consider continent. Whether surprising your spouse, part- it’s solving identi- ner, parent, or offspring with fication puzzles, or getting directions to a species you’ve long hoped to a Reader Rendezvous birding see, you’ll discover fun new ways to share your adventure. own birding experience and perspective. Let’s all do our best to usher ...Contribute 2020 out with a positive atti- As birders, we know how our own lives have tude, with hope for better times been changed for the better by being exposed ahead. We’re expecting 2021 to to the wonder of birds and the fellowship of bring good things, good times, birders. Membership in the ABA gives you and good birds to the BWD targeted, effective ways to give back to the family, and that includes you! community that has given us all so much. Best wishes for happy holidays, Call us at 800.850.2473 or go to aba.org/join

Dawn Hewitt Editor

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 5

ABA 2019 ad-BWD-.5V.indd 1 7/16/19 12:39 PM Idahoan Approves Spotlight Your dedication to keep publish- To the Editor: ing a quality magazine through While in the Idaho legislature the past difficult year and now I was the proud sponsor of the with the coronavirus is greatly resolution creating the official admired and much appreciated. Idaho State Birding Trail, so Thank you. I was very pleased to see you George Sayler Spotlight Idaho in the July/ Coeur d’Alene, Idaho August 2020 issue of BWD. We truly do have some great birding Fan of Musician Wren and JZ opportunities. Our recently up- To the Editor: dated Idaho Birding Trail Guide I loved Julie Zickefoose’s (idfg.idaho.gov/ibt) now lists 275 article about birding in Ecuador sites. (July/August 2020). In it, she My only regret about the described the joy of listening to Spotlight column was that the musician wren. I checked it northern Idaho was not well out on YouTube, and it is indeed represented. In Kootenai Coun- beautiful. I appreciated her ty, where I live, our local Audu- happiness that the new birder in bon members regularly find 200 their group was the one who got or more species each year just to see the bird. within the county. Nonetheless, The part I liked best, howev- I enjoyed the article, and as a er, was when she expressed that native Montanan, I was also when the stakeout bird didn’t pleased to read the piece about appear, “a watch of breathless birding in Montana’s “Little anticipation…had to be chan- Rockies.” A double delight! neled sideways into delight at Over the years I have en- what was there. Thus we neatly countered many wonderful sidestep disappointment at what articles and photos in BWD, wasn’t.” Like many people, I and the July/August issue, have taken this same approach though smaller in page count, to birding, but I’ve never heard was big in heart and content. it expressed so nicely. As she

6 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest More discoveries.

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zeiss.com/morediscoveries Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 7 says, it’s a pretty good philoso- phy for handling things in life that you just can’t control, too. Janet Shields San Diego, California

Editor’s note: Don’t forget that videos and sound files of Tanager Fanager some of the bird species men- To the Editor: tioned in stories and columns I enjoyed the scarlet tanager are linked in the digital edition species profile (March/April 2020). of each issue. Subscribers to I still remember my first sighting, BWD can hear Julie’s recording as a child, of this colorful bird. of the musician wren by clicking Perhaps it helped spark my long a link in her column in the July/ relationship with birds for the past August 2020 digital edition of 50-plus years. BWD. Nearly six years ago we moved to north-central Wisconsin, where Trumpeting Trumpeter Ecologist our house is surrounded by woods To the Editor: with mature trees. I thought it a Thank you for the feature great location for scarlet tanagers, on trumpeter swans. The amaz- but was disappointed until fall of ing success of their return 2018, when two immatures came needs to be trumpeted about. to our yard. Then in May 2019, As residents of central Min- we finally had the real thing when nesota we find swans the most a bright mature male found our reliable sighting on our birding oriole jelly feeder! This was only drives in the country. Why? feet from our living room window, Because of one man: “Carrol so we got great looks at him and Henderson,” wrote the Star some photos, too. Is this unusual Tribune, “was responsible feeding behavior for tanagers? for the largest release ever of Margaret Wenger trumpeter swans into the wild

Athens, Wisconsin MARGARET WENGER during his tenure as the state’s first and only nongame wildlife Editor’s note: It is not uncom- program supervisor.” mon for tanagers to visit grape jelly Dick Schoenberger feeders, especially during spring St. Cloud, Minnesota migration.

8 birdwatchersdigest.com • November /December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest

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zeiss.com/morediscoveries Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 9 by Paul J. Baicich

Big Parks, Small Parks, now well-accepted proposition, Birds, and Us with much research to back it Recently, researchers at the up: Urban green space im- University of Washington in proves people’s mental health Seattle invited visitors to Dis- and well-being. Based on this covery Park—Seattle’s largest proposition, many cities are park, with 500-acres on the thoughtfully sprinkling pocket city’s western edge—to submit parks—and even green roofs— comments about their experi- throughout the urban mosaic. ences with nature in the park. We have looked at this devel- The results were examined in opment previously in Quick an article in January in Fron- Takes, from verdant roof tiers in Sustainable Cities. gardens to the transformation

The findings confirmed the of small golf courses. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Parks: Bigger is better.

10 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest But the University of Washington study raised an additional variable: size. The Moved by very size of the green space is the wind crucial, since researchers are increasingly examining green spaces to understand how Cometo bemove inspired people connect with nature by you.the moving in cities and to design urban sculptures of spaces that will facilitate and Lyman Whitaker deepen human connections. in perfect harmony Without getting too deeply with a breathtaking into the results, the many expe- natural setting. riences, including gazing at vistas, sitting beside water, walking along bluffs, and watching Newark, Ohio birds, were influenced by the perception of “wildness.” In- Reserve your visit www.dawesarb.org deed, 96 percent of the respon-

dents linked their experience to Funded in part by a grant from Licking County Foundation wildness. Of course, no urban TEXAS GULF COASTpark offers wilderness, but like many other large urban parks, TEXAS GULF COAST Enjoy the thrill of discoveryDiscovery during Park an contains ac- varied habitats, sections of relatively Enjoy the thrill tion-packed road trip throughunmanaged six statesland, modestwith of discovery journalist and field naturalistlevels of wildlifeNancy Grant diversity, old- during an during spring migration.growth trees, large open spaces, action-packed and wide vistas, as well as the road trip It’s the travel adventurechance book for visitors to feel a through six sense of peace and solitude. that’s like going birding states with The perception of wildness, journalist and with a friend. assert the researchers, has to field naturalist Nancy Grant do with size and space. Results during spring migration. Order your copy today.suggest that city dwellers need It’s the travel adventure access to relatively large and even unmanaged parks to get book that’s like going birding the full benefits of nature in with a friend. www.nancygrant.us urban areas. Meanwhile, there are ever-increasing pressures Order your copy today. Includes details of birdon behavior, these open quirky spaces, travel creating www.nancygrant.us anecdotes, and more! Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 11 a “tension—between wanting Diverse Cropland in large urban parks to remain the Neotropics undeveloped, while wanting Also in the area of the size to develop some of the open and makeup of habitat comes space in these parks to address a long-term study from Costa other pressing urban needs,” Rica: a 20-year collection of the researchers muse. “But data on diverse cropland. J. does developing that land lead Nicholas Hendershot from to largely unrecognized costs Stanford University, along in terms of human well-being with seven colleagues, recently and human flourishing?” they published in Nature an assess- ask. Their results suggest that ment of the benefits to wildlife the answer is yes. from diversified farms, where We could leave the study crops like coffee are interwo- by simply concluding that big ven with banana plants, and parks are better than small whose edges often incorporate parks for humans—but how strips of wild forest—com- about the birds? And how pared to crops of monoculture. about situations where small The researchers revealed parks can be created—ac- that over two decades, the cumulated green spaces that diversified farms were able to have been abandoned, for sustain a more stable popu- example—where larger parks lation of bird species, while are not a real option? What more intensively farmed about the campaign by the monocrops exhibited shifts thoughtful Trust for Public and declines in species’ rich- Lands based on the concept ness over time. These more di- that no American should be verse patchworks of farmland farther away from a great park provided a degree of stability than a 10-minute walk (see tpl. and security to wildlife that, org/10minutewalk)? while clearly not the same as Most of the time, larger natural forests, was at least green spaces are better for the similar to natural forests. birds, and even some common This was particularly valid species require large, contigu- for rare and endangered birds. ous habitat (sometimes for- Diversely cropped farmland est, sometimes grassland) for was found to contain 59 viability. But those small green percent of the endemic and spaces can still provide respite endangered species that were for birds, especially during present in wild forests. In con- migration. trast, intensively farmed areas

12 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest The Middle-American screech-owl prefers natural forest habitat in Honduras.

of monocrop had only 39 forest—and then pinpointed percent, and the number was three types of habitat to ana- declining. lyze within each: monoculture Moreover, with intensified crops like sugarcane and pine- agricultural plots, the team apple plantations, diversified documented a 28-percent agriculture that included more decline in nectar-feeding birds, than one crop type (usually suggesting that food wasn’t within 500 yards of remnant available for these species. forest), and untouched natural Diversified farms were more forest. The data they gath- likely to be located near or ad- ered spanned the seasons and jacent to natural forests, which incorporated almost 300,000 served as buffers, as opposed sightings. to monoculture farms, which Of course, agriculture typically are in broad stretches can never replace nature; the of landscape of just one crop. study showed that nothing can The researchers examined compete with the richness and four environs in Costa Rica— biodiversity of natural forest.

BRUCE WUNDERLICH from lowland to premontane Still, given shrinking protected

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 13 themselves against extreme weather and diseases, both of which can devastate monoculture plots.

More Seabird Protection Modern fishing gillnets are vertical sheets of netting held up by floating buoys, where the nets trap passing fish by the gills. These are constructed from monofilament nylon and are virtually invisible underwater. This widespread tool in fisheries around the world also poses a high risk of entanglement to many diving seabirds. In fact, an estimated 400,000 seabirds are killed each year as accidental by-catch in fishing The Bobby. nets, with nearly 150 different seabird species thought to be areas around the world, some susceptible to this danger. farmlands can become the next The gillnet problem is how best thing for troubled wildlife. to make the nets visible to This study may reveal some birds but not fish. Alas, un- obvious results, but it is always derwater solutions have had, reassuring to be reminded of to date, limited successes. An the essentials, and it is vital to alternate approach would be review cumulative and quanti- to discourage birds from div- fied findings. ing near gillnets in the first Beyond that, although place. Researchers thought wildlife was the study’s main that conspicuous “eyespots,” focus, the researchers were found on many creatures such eager to emphasize that as butterflies, could be used to diversified farms provided evoke an avoidance response in benefits for people, too. Grow- some seabirds. ing more than one crop is a To adapt this technique way for farmers to diversify to the marine environment, their incomes and to insulate BirdLife International and the ANDRES KALAMEES

14 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Estonian Ornithological Soci- serious risk due to by-catch. ety developed a novel floating Researchers are monitoring buoy that displays large, obvi- the behavior of any seabirds ous “looming-eyes” that can within 50 yards of the Bobbys, be seen from a long way off. compared to an area contain- As the buoy bobs in the water, ing regular fishing buoys. (No the tall supporting pole sways, gillnets are present in either lo- and the eyes will rotate in the cation, making the experiments wind. Researchers called it the completely safe for the birds.) If looming-eyes buoy, or, more the experiment proves success- affectionately, “The Bobby.” ful, the Bobbys could be pro- Since last winter, trials have duced commercially, impacting been conducted in Küdema by-catch prevention and saving Bay, off the Estonian island seabird lives in gillnet fisheries of Saaremaa. The bay attracts around the world. large concentrations of wintering seabirds, including the Paul J. Baicich is a co-author long-tailed duck and Steller’s of The Crossley ID Guide: Wa- eider, both of which are at terfowl, published fall 2017.

FLAT FIELD Winter flocks can span your entire field of view. Keep all your observations straight with the new Regal ED featuring flat field technology.

B I N O C U L A R S

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 15 Migrations By Scott Weidensaul

On the Slope I slapped a mosquito the other Rough Start day—as one does, naturally—and The trip was the brainchild of immediately thought about how David Banks, then the Alaska you can use bears to save birds. chapter director for TNC. He Obviously, there’s a story here. recruited me to serve as a co- IAbout 15 years ago, I had leader, but the real heart of the a chance to spend a week on venture was Bob Dittrick, raptor the most remote river I’d ever expert and the founder of Wilder- visited, shepherding a group of ness Birding Adventures, and his rich (or richly connected) people ace guide Nan Eagleson, Arctic through the Alaskan Arctic in a birder, biologist, and botanist bid to help fund protection for extraordinaire, both of whom had the region through The Nature been working and guiding in the Conservancy. It was an extraor- Arctic for decades. Our destina- dinary experience, with terrific tion was the Colville River up on people and amazing birds, and it Alaska’s North Slope, which, as resulted in several now-deep and a lifelong raptor nut, had been a important friendships. But it also dream destination of mine for as served, weirdly, as a master class long as I could remember. in saying exactly the right thing at I had some buzzard’s luck on

precisely the right time. the front end; I arrived in Fair- SCOTT WEIDENSAUL

16 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest A clearwater tributary, the Oolamnagavik flows into the silty Colville across the wide, flat Arctic coastal plain. banks to find that one of my two (neon green), a musty-smelling duffels had not. That meant I sleeping bag, and then made an didn’t have a sleeping bag, and expensive run through the huge about half of my already stripped- Fred Meyer department store in down wardrobe of field clothes, town for everything else I needed. including rain gear, was AWOL. Naturally, we then discovered that No problem, I thought. I’d inten- my “missing” bag had, in fact, tionally flown in two days early to been sitting in some guy’s office at accommodate just such an issue, the airport for almost two days. which is not uncommon flying into Alaska in the summer. But as Stunning Landscape hours turned to days, and despite With minutes to spare I repeated and increasingly frantic swapped out my gear, repacked appearances at the airport’s lost- everything on the terminal floor, baggage office, the bag failed to and managed to catch our small materialize. As the clock ticked commuter prop plane flight to down to the last hours before our the tiny village of Bettles, popula- departure for the Slope, I raided tion 13, just north of the Arctic Bob’s lost/spare gear locker, Circle. From there we switched to pulling out badly mismatched two float planes for the 200-mile rain pants (scarlet red) and jacket charter flight to the North Slope,

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 17 of rain showers curtained the range, then parted with streaming sunbeams. But ahead of us, the hills rolled down to the flat coastal plain of the North Slope, braided by sinuous creeks and meandering rivers flowing out of the mountains toward the Beaufort Sea. In its tundra swales and willow thickets would be all manner of far- north birds, like bluethroats, Arctic warblers, and northern wheatears.

Land of Mosquitoes If I had any hesitation about the trip, it grew from the stories I’d been hearing, for as long as I’d been traveling to Alaska, about the mosquitoes on the North Slope. Mossies are bad in most of Alaska, and I’d experienced some epic swarms in my years there, but everyone assured me that the absolute worst mosquitoes were on the Slope. The worst place on A braided river meanders the North Slope, they said, was the through the heart of the Brooks Colville River. Oh, and the peak Range in Gates of the Arctic National Park. skeeter season? Just about when we were going. Gulp. heading northwest through the So as our pilot circled our Brooks Range and Gates of the landing spot—a small lake near Arctic National Park, some of the the Etivluk River, a tributary of most stunning landforms on the the Colville—and set the first float planet. The spruce forests of the plane down with a gentle kiss on interior fell quickly behind us as the water, I was feeling a little ner- we passed over craggy mountains vous. I hopped out onto the right whose gray, rocky peaks scraped float as we drifted toward shore, the bottoms of low clouds, their pulling up my hip boots and tak- tundra valleys green and empty ing the tie-off rope in hand. The of anything human—a landscape sun was shining brilliantly, the air I still ache to explore. Wisps was warm, and there wasn’t a bug

18 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest to be seen. So much for the epic mosquitoes of the North Slope, I thought. I hopped off the float onto the boggy muskeg of the shoreline, and a gray wall of mosquitoes rose up to meet me. Oh, Lord, were they bad—every bit as bad as we’d been warned. It was a very non-Arctic day, nearly 80 degrees and little wind, and everyone scrambled into their head nets and bug jackets as fast as they Broad-winged could, as we unloaded the plane hawk. and schlepped hundreds of pounds of gear and food across the marshy tundra to the firm, rocky banks of the river. Task one (made no easier An hours-long task made harder by the swarming mosquitoes, even by epic swarms of mosquitoes, after a breeze kicked up) was as- pack canoes and kayaks must sembling our boats, four canoes be carefully assembled for the and two kayaks. Each boat con- wilderness float trip. sisted of a heavy rubber hull skin, horizon but barely skipped below inside which we patiently pieced it; even at midnight we would together aluminum ribs and cross have low, rich light spilling across braces to give it form and rigidity, the landscape, throwing every- finally bolting plastic seats into thing into sharp relief. The river place and, voila! Within a couple was broad and smooth, flowing of hours we had a small flotilla, swiftly but with little in the way packed to the gunwales with gear of choppy water, so we could but, as we found, remarkably place ourselves mid-channel and, sturdy and rugged. except for an occasional dip and swirl of the paddle to keep the On the Water boats aligned, just ride the current Once we got onto the water, and watch the world go by. We and especially once we’d followed saw no one else, nor did we expect the fast-moving, whitewater- to; the lead pilot who dropped us laced Etivluk to the wide, smooth off said that as far as he knew, no Colville, the mosquitoes fell away, one else had floated this part of and we quickly fell under the the river in several years.

SCOTT WEIDENSAUL (2) Arctic’s spell. The sun circled the At midday we would find a

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 19 At one o’clock in the morning, the low Arctic sun, just barely above the horizon, illuminates camp on a windswept gravel bar of the Colville River. windswept expanse of riverbank The Bluffs where we could beach the canoes But the real draw for us, the and kayaks, unload the coolers, reason we were on the Colville and eat a shore lunch: cheese and instead of one of the many other reindeer sausage, fruit, crackers, rivers that run out of the Brooks trail mix, always something new Range to the Beaufort Sea, was the that Bob had squirreled away in a Colville’s bluffs. In this largely flat, series of fresh surprises. slightly rolling landscape there is We followed the trails of wolves little vertical rise, except where the and bears, moose and caribou meandering river has created low, in the mud, and we kept an eye sharp cliffs along the water’s edge. peeled for Pleistocene fossils. Bob These are magnets for nesting and Nan have found plenty of raptors, and the Colville has one mammoth teeth and tusk frag- of the highest densities of nesting ments on the river, and Bob told birds of prey in the world, compa- us how he once discovered the rable to places like the Snake River huge skull of an Ice Age long- in Idaho. horned bison eroding out of a For the seven days we were on hillside, far too big and heavy the river, we were rarely out of to carry out on the boat he was sight or sound of rough-legged using. (Leaving it behind was a hawks, peregrine falcons, or ravens struggle, he said, but his wife Lisa (which are, ecologically speaking, later colluded with a pilot-friend raptors). As we came in view of of theirs to fly back, retrieve the a new bluff, one or more of the skull and surprise Bob with it that adult raptors would take to the Christmas.) skies, scolding us with harsh cries

20 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest as they kept these unusual intrud- ers in view. Most exciting were the many gyrfalcons we encountered, mostly brownish juveniles that had recently fledged. One day I was at the stern of a canoe with Bob in the bow, leading the group downstream. The river swept left in a big curve, foaming white against the lower edge of a small cliff. “Hey, there’s a PEFA chick!” Bob yelled back, using the bird-banding code for Making a turn for another a peregrine. Bob had studied attack, a territorial peregrine peregrines all over the Arctic in his falcon defends its nest along younger days. And sure enough, one of the Colville’s many river a big, fluffy falcon chick—which bluffs. must have tumbled off its nest Paucity of Big Mammals ledge—was perched on a rock not Raptors were a constant during far above the water, watching us our days on the river, but big game with curiosity as we drew nearer. was noticeably absent. Normally, “I wonder if the adults have Bob said, there would be hundreds been taking care of...DUCK!” or thousands of caribou graz- Bob yelled, throwing himself flat ing the tundra, but (as we later against the bow. learned) the herds had moved out At that moment I heard the of the Colville drainage, taking cack-cack-cack-cack-cack! of a fu- predators like wolves and bears rious peregrine, and bent double at with them. We found some tracks, the waist myself as the big female and saw moose from time to time adult swooshed inches above my where willow thickets crowded the head. As she roared up into the shore. Bob slept with a 12-gauge air, stalled and rolled into another shotgun by his sleeping bag, the dive, we slashed the water with our chamber open but a shell ready, paddles and raced away as fast and he didn’t complain about the as we could, hollering a warning absence of bears; too many close to the boats behind us to cling calls over the years. For most of to the opposite shore. We all got us, though, the lack of big mam- through unscathed, and were in no mals was a disappointment doubt that the grounded chick was In one case, more than a disap- safe from any fox or wolf foolish pointment. One of the travelers,

SCOTT WEIDENSAUL (2) enough to come too close. Rhea, represented a large founda-

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 21 I was releasing a fish when I looked up and saw a grizzly stride out of the willows on the other side of the river mouth, maybe a hundred yards away, heading toward us. “Rhea, there’s a Wilderness guides Bob Dittrick and Nan Eagleson. bear coming,” I said tion with a history of generous in as calm a voice as I could environmental philanthropy. She muster. “No, don’t run. Reel in told David on our first evening and we’ll walk backwards.” I (only half in jest) that The Nature waved my arms, shouting, “Hey Conservancy wasn’t getting a bear! Hey bear!” but the bruin dime from them until she saw a acted as though it couldn’t see bear. It was a promise she re- or hear me—which it might not peated day after bearless day, and have. The wind was from the as we came toward the end of the bear to us, the river was rushing trip, I think David was beginning and clattering through rapids to sweat a bit. all around it, and the grizzly wasn’t looking around much as Bear! it forded the shallows. After our last full day on the I glanced back to camp, gave water, we pulled into the mouth a shrill whistle to get their atten- of the Oolamnagavik River, which tion, and held up my arms, fingers emptied into the Colville. Unlike curled in like claws in the universal the Colville, which was milky-gray “Bear!” signal. (They later said with glacial silt and had few fish, they thought I was holding up my the Oolamnagavik was a clear- hands to show how big the fish water river, full of Arctic char were that we were catching. They and grayling. Rhea and I, both cheered and clapped and gave us fly-fishing aficionados, grabbed thumbs-up, then went back to our rods and hoofed upstream what they were doing.) The bear from camp to where the shallow, was closing fast, the nearest climb- braided channels of the Oolam- able tree was a couple hundred nagavik came in. Casting dry flies, miles to the south, and with the we were having a blast catching wind blowing in our faces, there and releasing grayling, marveling was no way to use my protective at their immense, sail-like dorsal canister of pepper spray without fins and iridescent purple sheen. choking ourselves.

22 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest We kept walking rapidly back- time. Just as it gave a loud, startled wards across the multiple shallow woof! and turned tail, racing away channels of the river, eyes glued from us, there was an ear-splitting on the bear that was now just 30 Bang! right over our heads. At yards away and still advancing the noise, the grizzly really hit the as we yelled and waved our arms afterburners, charging across the and fishing rods, the bear acting shallow channels in great curtains as though it either hadn’t noticed of spray, and vanishing into the us or didn’t care. Rhea’s eyes were willows a hundred yards up- huge, and I suspect mine were stream. From behind us, at camp, bugged a bit, too. I tried to find a I heard Bob’s voice, faint but clear, position from which I could safely as he hollered, “Good bear!” use the spray, but the wind was We soon learned that in those swirling all around us now. final moments, Bob had real- We reached the southernmost ized what was really happening, shore of the Oolamnagavik, the grabbed the shotgun that was grizzly just 50 or 60 feet away in never far from his hands, and mid-channel. Suddenly the bear fired a cracker shell—basically, stopped, rising halfway onto its a big firecracker that explodes in hind legs, sniffing the air. HEY“ midair—over our heads. BEAR!” I shouted once again as I was shaking as we walked it dropped to all fours and took into camp, and Rhea was vibrat- a half-leap toward us. My stom- ing like a plucked string. “Did you ach gave a lurch; here we go, I see…,” she said. “I mean, the bear, thought. it was…” She was having a hard Several things happened all time putting it all into words. at once. I thumbed off the safety And that’s when David Banks catch on the pepper spray, ready stepped beside her and put a com- to fire regardless of the risk. forting arm around her shoulder. The bear slammed to a halt and “So,” he said, “you saw your seemed to notice us for the first bear. How many zeroes can I put you down for?” Grizzly tracks on a muddy That, my friends, is how a con- river bank summate fundraising professional does it.

Author and researcher Scott Weidensaul’s newest book, A World on the Wing, will be published in spring 2021. He lives in

SCOTT WEIDENSAUL (2) southern New Hampshire.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 23 Yellow-billed Magpie

K e n n e t h M . B u r t o n

“I have a magpie mind. I love anything that glitters.” —Lord Thomson of Fleet SPECIES PROFILE

Click here to see a video of yellow-billed magpie recorded by Mary Hanson.

Yellow-billed magpie.

24 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest In the entire continental US, there subsequently occupied much are only five single-state endemic of North America. Pleistocene bird species (that is, birds nor- glaciation isolated the California mally found in only one state); population, which evolved into the California is blessed with two of present-day YBMA. The black- them. One of these, the Island billed expanded westward again scrub-jay, is confined to a single once the glaciers receded, and the offshore island and seen by rela- two species now occur within 50 tively few people. The other, much miles of each other in some places, more widespread and readily separated by the Sierra Nevada. Iencountered, can truly be consid- Magpies are not big on dispersal, ered California’s iconic bird: the but the occasional wanderer does yellow-billed magpie (YBMA), make the trip to visit its cousins; Pica nuttalli. yet hybrids have not been reported. The 19th-century ornithologist Genus Pica Elliott Coues suggested that it was The world’s seven Pica magpies merely a “perpetuated accident” are a remarkably similar bunch of that allowed the YBMA to evolve showy, black-and-white corvids and has kept the black-billed from with blue-green iridescence in their breeding it out of existence. wings and very long tails. They are believed to have originated in the YBMA Habitat and Range Himalayan region. The YBMA is The YBMA ranges throughout the smallest of the lot and the only California’s Central Valley and one whose bill isn’t black. It’s very in the drier valleys of the Coast closely related to the more familiar Ranges from the San Francisco black-billed magpie; in fact, the Bay Area to near Santa Barbara, two are so similar genetically that extending into the low foothills. perhaps they should not be con- From my childhood home north sidered separate species at all. (The of San Francisco, it was usu- other five species are the Maghreb ally the first “interior” bird I saw magpie of North Africa, the Asir on trips inland. It is typically a magpie of Arabia, the blackbird of oak savanna, a habitat rumped magpie of the Himalayas, greatly reduced by agriculture the Oriental magpie of East Asia, and development in California. and the Eurasian magpie of Eu- Few landscapes are more altered rope and North Asia.) than this bird’s historic range, and We know from genetic analysis its distribution and population and fossil evidence that the ances- have been shrunk and fragmented tral American magpie colonized greatly over the past two centuries.

GAIL WEST Alaska from Kamchatka and It has been extirpated from San

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 25 Mateo County (just south of San species) in 1837, it had been well Francisco) and Ventura County known to native peoples for mil- (just north of Los Angeles). Yet, lennia. Some tribes regarded it as the species has managed to adapt a symbol of intellect, and many and is still relatively common in used its tail feathers as ornamen- some areas, especially in the core tation on clothing (especially of its range. Even so, it is not at all headdresses), blankets, and cer- secure—but more about that later. emonial poles. YBMAs and their By the time John James Audu- human neighbors shared many of bon named the YBMA after the same food resources, includ- Thomas Nuttall (also immortal- ing grasshoppers, acorns, figs, and ized by Nuttall’s woodpecker and grapes. dozens of other plant and animal Given the YBMA’s boldness,

Yellow-billed Magpie Pica nuttalli What to Look leading edges of the distinguished by their and Listen For primaries are black, shorter tails and less The yellow-billed so the folded wings yellow bills. magpie is a medium- look black. The wings Magpies are not sized corvid, 16½ are relatively short discreet, and if they’re inches long, slightly and rounded as befits around, you usually over half of which is a bird that doesn’t know it. Their vocaliza- tail. The sexes are really go anywhere. tions are not as varied alike (though males In good light at close as those of ravens or are slightly larger) range, blue-green iri- some jays. The most and, as with other descence shows in the common is a whining, corvids, there is no wings and tail. And, up-slurred call that can prealternate (spring) of course, there’s the be thought of as the molt, so they look the eponymous yellow bill, “mag” in “magpie.” same year-round. along with a variable There are also several Under most conditions, amount of yellow skin variations of chatter magpies look black around the eyes. Juve- calls used to maintain with white scapulars niles, seen from May contact or alert flock- and belly; there’s also to September, have mates to food or dan- a narrow gray rump brownish upperparts ger. Males “babble- band, and in flight and creamy under- sing” during the early the largely white pri- parts—they’re basically part of the breeding maries create large duller versions of their season; this song is a flashing patches. The parents. Fledglings are series of soft, warbling

26 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest distinctive and recognizable Not Universally Admired appearance, and uniqueness to In some cases, however, it California, it’s no surprise that its seems familiarity breeds con- name and image have been widely tempt. Many farmers and ranch- adopted. Among the many busi- ers in the region tend to exagger- nesses named after the bird are ate the magpie’s impacts on crops the Magpie and Yellowbill Cafés, and believe wrongly that it harms Magpie Publications, Little Mag- livestock. For example, a rancher pies Preschool, and Yellowbilled might wrongly assume that a Tours. Two Audubon Society group of magpies scavenging a chapters, an online birding group, lamb carcass has killed it. Mag- a winery, and a country club all pies are also drawn to afterbirths use the species in their logos. and are sometimes seen, wrongly, Continued on page 30

notes interspersed you’ll have a rough County, Phoenix Park with higher notes and map of the species’ in Sacramento County, sometimes featuring current range. Within Lancaster Road in some mimicry. These that area, occurrence Stanislaus County, songs may function to is patchy, and the Quien Sabe Road in stimulate females prior highest densities occur San Benito County, and to egg laying; try it out in the center, roughly Lake Nacimento in San on your chickens! (Hey, from Williams to Mer- Luis Obispo County. what harm can it do?) ced and Modesto to Paso Robles. Drive Feeding Behavior Where and When to back roads along val- Most foraging occurs Look ley edges through on the ground in areas The YBMA is a orchards and oak of short vegetation year-round, sedentary savanna in those such as grazed pas- resident of central areas, and you’ll be ture. During the rainy California. Period. If hard-pressed to miss season, magpies will you draw a straight it. Focus on areas with look for low-lying, line from Redding to large, widely scattered saturated areas where Sacramento and from oaks on valley floors worms and insects are there to Fresno and and gentle slopes and driven to the surface, another from Pleasan- along riparian corridors. like robins do on wet ton to Solvang and go A few particularly good lawns. In the hot, dry out 25 miles on each locations are Sand season, foraging activ- side of those lines, Creek Road in Colusa ity is highest in early

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 27 fruits, nuts, and seeds. Notice the iridescent tail of an adult YBMA. They will occasionally eat small vertebrates, which they dispatch either by pecking or, less often, drowning, and they have been observed picking flies and ticks off deer and horses. And they’re not above scavenging, often competing with ravens and vultures at road kills, afterbirths, garbage dumps, and livestock carcasses. They may occasionally raid nests of other birds.

Nesting Behavior YBMAs typically pair for life, with surviving individuals re-pairing morning and late after- availability. Grasshop- after their mate’s noon. Magpies employ pers may constitute death. Pairs maintain a wide variety of forag- over a quarter of the bonds through an ing behaviors including overall diet and over extensive repertoire chasing active prey, half during the dry sum- of elaborate signals rummaging in leaf litter, mer and fall months and rituals including overturning cattle drop- characteristic of Cali- mutual preening, bill pings, gleaning from fornia’s Mediterranean touching, and gentle vegetation, flycatching, climate. Magpies will bouts of tug-of-war and pouncing from capitalize on ephem- with twigs or vegeta- perches. eral food bonanzas tion, accompanied Terrestrial inverte- such as mayfly hatches by soft vocalizations; brates constitute the and tent caterpillar the male generally bulk of the YBMA’s diet outbreaks. Their diet lets the female “win” throughout the year, broadens somewhat these matches, after the makeup varying in fall, when they eat which she drops the

seasonally based on large quantities of object. “Didn’t really JIM BURNS

28 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest want it anyway!” an initial foundation. experiences no nest Pairs establish and The domed canopy parasitism (e.g., by defend territories contains two well-con- cowbirds), it will eject around their nest trees. cealed openings that any non-magpie eggs Territorial disputes gen- may improve airflow placed in its nest; this erally start with lengthy and provide a back may be an evolution- chases and often door in case of enemy ary holdover from end in actual fights in attack. Inside is a mud the ancestral Eurasian which two birds will bowl lined (mostly by magpie, which likely grapple with and peck the female) with hair, was parasitized by each other, potentially grass, bark, and/or cuckoos. Incubation, attracting a crowd of rootlets. which is by the female raucous onlookers that Long-term pair only, lasts 16–18 days. may terminate the con- bonding doesn’t pre- Both parents feed test. These fights are vent a little action on the nestlings during the always between birds the side, and colonial day, while the female of the same sex. As nesting behavior pro- broods them at night. would be expected for vides frequent opportu- As the chicks mature a sedentary bird in a nities for hanky-panky. and food is depleted, mild climate, the onset YBMA males also seem the parents range of breeding behavior to have a meddling more widely in search is quite early, with nest streak and interrupt up of prey, and the time building beginning to a third of copulation between feedings in late January in the attempts by mated increases. Fledging southern part of the pairs. Extra-pair copula- may be as long as 30 range to mid-February tion attempts are typi- days after hatching, inland and north. cally initiated by males, and fledglings stay in Both sexes con- but the females deter- the nest tree for up to struct a globular nest mine their outcomes. five additional days. of sticks on a mud or If a male catches Family groups within dung base nearly a his mate in an act of the “colony” gradually yard across; one nest attempted infidelity, coalesce into flocks weighed 24 pounds! he will chase his rival that stay together until Nests are typically away and herd her the following breed- placed 30–65 feet back to the nest tree. ing season, at which high and often far out Five to seven blue, time the young birds from the trunk to thwart buff, or olive, heavily leave the flock, often nonvolant predators. speckled eggs are laid as smaller flocks of their Roughly a third of nests starting about ten days own, and the breeders are placed in mistletoe after nest completion. disperse to their nest clumps, which provide Although the YBMA trees. —K.M.B.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 29 Female yellow-billed magpies are slightly smaller than males.

as a threat to newborn animals. It colonies of three to 30 pairs. YB- seems people are always looking MAs typically don’t breed before for a scapegoat, and the magpie the age of two, and yearlings often makes a convenient target, both stick together in small groups, usu- figuratively and literally; ille- ally away from breeding colonies. gal shooting of magpies, sadly, Winter flocks often select relatively remains a small but not insig- warm sites that facilitate thermo- nificant threat. In truth, the vast regulation and minimize energy majority of what magpies eat consumption. are insects generally considered Some of the YBMA’s corvid agricultural pests, and they do not cousins, such as Clark’s nutcrack- attack livestock. er, are well known for their caching behavior, storing thousands Social, Planner of nuts in fall for winter retrieval The YBMA is a highly social and showing an uncanny ability creature, more so than other to remember where most of them magpies. It forages in groups are. Living as it does in a region throughout the year, forms large known for its mild winters, the nonbreeding flocks (historically, YBMA has not faced the evolu- at least, up to over 800 individu- tionary pressure to develop this als), roosts communally outside behavior, and what caching it does the breeding season, and nests in is short in both distance and time.

what could be described as loose Caching by YBMAs is a useful WIKI COMMONS GREG SCHECHTER

30 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest solution for dealing with a discov- evolved is now largely a thing of ery of food that can’t be consumed the past, especially in the Central immediately or might be stolen Valley. Even where it does persist, (or, in the case of dry dog food, oak recruitment is greatly reduced eaten by its intended recipient) but by overgrazing, and the native caches are seldom recovered more perennial grasses have been re- than a few days later. Life is easy placed by annual invasive species. in the California lowlands! (These Eurasian grasses are what now give California hillsides their Threats famous golden color, but it’s a Well, it used to be. The very purely human artifact.) Residen- climatic conditions that obviated tial and commercial development the need for the YBMA to prac- swallow more of what’s left every tice winter caching also helped year. Fortunately, artificial food make California the breadbasket sources such as pet food, dump- of the world and the nation’s most sters, road kills, and some nut populous state. The oak savanna and grain crops help offset loss of landscape in which the YBMA natural habitat.

YEAR-ROUND RANGE

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 31 Parent YBMAs feed their young for about 16 days after fledging.

Unfortunately, magpies’ curios- lost to the disease, which nearly ity and scavenging habits some- always proves fatal once con- times lead them into direct contact tracted. The YBMA appears to be with traps and poisons used to more at risk from the virus than control predators and rodents; en- even other corvids, none of which tire colonies have been wiped out has experienced comparable ef- in single incidents of secondary fects, likely due to its sociability (a poisoning, and predator and pest lesson we would do well to heed control campaigns in the late 19th right now). The Breeding Bird and early 20th centuries may have Survey indicates that the species is caused major declines and local not recovering. The total popula- extinctions of YBMAs. tion in 2004 was estimated to be An entirely new and truly men- 54 percent of what it was in 1968, acing threat to the YBMA has when the survey began in Cali- arisen in recent years. Corvids in fornia (probably already greatly general are particularly susceptible reduced from earlier levels); in to West Nile virus, an introduced 2017, it was down to 21 percent. mosquito-borne disease that These losses, if they continue, will reached California in 2004. Within pose a serious threat to the contin- just two years, perhaps half of the ued existence of this iconic bird. remaining YBMA population was The species is already designated

32 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Yellow-billed magpie: a gorgeous show-off.

Near Threatened by the Interna- spawning a whole new crop of tional Union for Conservation of birders. There may not be a lot we Nature, and Vulnerable by The can do about West Nile virus, but Nature Conservancy. what we can and must do to save As I write this piece, humanity the bird that defines California is is (too quickly?) reemerging from support and promote initiatives a global lockdown precipitated by and organizations that work to a deadly and highly contagious vi- protect and restore its habitat and rus. Preoccupied as we are by con- give it some room to recolonize, re- cerns over our own survival and lieve crowding, and stave off some that of our friends and family, our of the worst effects of the next communities, and our economy, epidemic to come along. Because there may not be much left over it is coming, for the YBMA and for concern over a bird facing for us. Wouldn’t it be nice to know a similar threat. One thing I’ve that both we and it will be here and seen, though, over the past few better prepared? months as people have hunkered down is an increased focus on and Ken Burton has held innumer- appreciation for what’s nearby, able jobs, most of which have had and there’s already evidence that something to do with birds. He lives

GAIL WEST (2) this shrinking of our spheres is in Humboldt County, California.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 33 Bufflehead, male. ENTIFY YOURSELF

ID Click here for bufflehead audio recorded by Lang Elliott The Big-head Divers: Goldeneyes and Buffleheads A l v a r o J a r am i l l o

For a lot of birders, winter is a ducks are the ones we associ- time they don’t look forward to. ate with winter in most places. It depends on where you live, of Some of the Great Lakes teem course. For some, winter brings with flocks of long-tailed ducks, Fa sense of loss of the birdsong as well as massive flocks of and the many birds that greater and lesser scaup, leave and head farther perhaps canvasbacks south. Yet, if you are in and redheads, and if the southern part of our you are lucky you may continent, winter often AUTHOR see scoters, although brings in high densi- they are more coastal or READ-AHear the authorLOUD ties of migratory birds, readP thisLA Yarticle IT in restricted to the largest including waterfowl. our digital edition! of lakes. Among diving Even in the North, in ducks are some species the Great Lakes, coastal areas, that will use smaller ponds and and spots that have large lakes even rivers: bufflehead and gold- or reservoirs, such as in southern eneyes come to mind, and these Canada and the northern US, will be our focus. ducks can make winter birding a Before look at the goldeneyes real treat. Specifically, the diving and bufflehead, why not talk a

34 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest The distinctive wing pattern of a female common goldeneye.

bit about the relationships within For example—and this may ducks? I think that most birders blow your mind—the ruddy think of ducks as coming in two duck is more closely related to major flavors, diving ducks and geese and swans than it is to puddle or dabbling ducks. If you other ducks! Within the ducks, live in the South, you may see the diving group that includes whistling-ducks, and, of course, the scaup, ring-necked, redhead, there is the ruddy duck, which, and canvasback is more closely behaviorally, is a diving duck. related to the dabblers than they Genetic research has clarified that are to the goldeneyes and mer- the ducks and geese, along with gansers. In fact, the goldeneyes, the chicken-like birds, are evo- mergansers, scoters, and eiders lutionarily very old, among the group into a separate subfamily oldest lineages of birds, in fact. within the waterfowl known as Yet, within the ducks we find that the Mergini (which sounds like a the division we have made about yummy seafood pasta, but no, it divers and dabblers is entirely is a group of ducks). Why all the behavioral and does not match background on genetic relation- the genetic relationships of these ships? Partly because it adds a

ALVARO JARAMILLO (2) waterfowl. bit of context, but it somewhat

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 35 Bufflehead, female. it comes from Buffalo-head, and you know our American bison— they are big-headed critters! Of these three “ox-head” divers, the bufflehead is much smaller and has dark eyes. The two goldeneyes are larger and show whitish-yellow eyes as adults. With that in mind, let’s consider the bufflehead first, and then the more similar goldeneyes.

Buffleheads Buffleheads are adaptable; explains why the very different they can winter on a small pond goldeneyes have female plum- or lake, as well as on the Great ages in the same color pattern as Lakes or even in harbors in mergansers. The two are related coastal areas. They are not fond even though their bill types are of the open ocean coast. This is entirely different. And like the a small duck, but has a rotund mergansers, buffleheads and body. It is no coincidence that goldeneys use tree cavities for hunters call them butterballs, as nesting. they are small but relatively fatty, In the world, there are only which accounts for their rotund two goldeneyes, but the third bodies. member of the group is the There is something inherently bufflehead. They all belong to cute-looking about buffleheads. the genus Bucephala. The mean- I think it is the big-headed shape ing of this word is “ox-headed,” that, with a small bill, looks car- and for those who like trivia, toonish. Adult males are striking Alexander the Great’s horse was in their simplicity of pattern, and named Bucephalus because it look black and white in the field. had a brand of an ox head on its The body is entirely white, with haunches. If you had to consider black upperparts and wingtips, what makes these three ducks while the head and neck look stand out, it is that they are kind black, with a big white area on of big-headed. With a puffy the rear of the head. It is a large “mane” toward the back of the area: Almost a third of the head head, the bufflehead is named is white—all on the rear. If you for its big head! Although it get a great look in good light, may not have occurred to you, the black of the head turns out

36 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest to be iridescent, with violet tones Common goldeneye, toward the front, and green ones female. toward the back. The cute look and the white on the head help in all plumages, but only the adult male is strikingly black and white. Females are brownish gray on the body with a dark brown head. Their head patch is oval, oblong lengthwise from just below the eye to the nape. The adult male has a big white fan on the head; the female a well- secondaries, while female golden- marked white oval on the cheek. eyes have more extensive white on Buffleheads always have dark the inner wing. The large extent of eyes. A tricky plumage is that white on a flying male bufflehead of young males, and I have seen should be distinctive, but also them confused for hooded mer- focus on the inner wing, which gansers. is largely white. Buffleheads have Young males look like the quick, almost whirring wingbeats females, but by later winter they in flight. In winter and migration, have molted to a lot more white the bufflehead may be seen nearly on the head than a classic female. anywhere in the US and Canada. At this point, it is not just a white It is an exceptionally widespread oval they show on the head, but a duck. big white patch. If the patch looks too big for a female bufflehead, The Goldeneyes you may default to thinking about The two goldeneyes are much the other species with a big white more similar to each other than patch on the head: hooded mer- either is to the bufflehead. We ganser. However, it is the brightly could cut to the chase and say colored male mergansers that look for the golden eye as a have the patch, not the females, feature to separate them from a and as is typical of the fish-eating bufflehead and other ducks! But mergansers, hooded shows a long, juvenile goldeneyes have dark narrow bill instead of the more eyes, and some other species of traditional duck bill of a buffle- diving ducks, the scaup as one head. example, also have yellow eyes. In flight, bufflehead females While helpful, the eye color field

ALVARO JARAMILLO (2) have only a white rectangle on the mark has to be used in context.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 37 Click here for common goldeneyes audio recorded by Lang Elliott

Breeding male and first winter male, common goldeneyes.

The common goldeneye is of white on the body. widespread in the US and Cana- The classic male common da as a migrant or wintering spe- goldeneye has a large head that cies, while the Barrow’s goldeneye bulges on the nape. The head has is largely coastal, although a few a greenish iridescence, and the are found in the Great Lakes main mark of the face is a round annually. Barrow’s is restricted patch between the eye and bill. to the northern coasts in winter, Barrow’s goldeneye has a gener- being more common in the West ally smaller bill, a puffier-looking and more restricted in the East head with a steeper forehead, to the far northeast in the US and a more extensive “mane” on and the Maritimes in Canada. the nape than the common. The But lost Barrow’s goldeneyes can head of a Barrow’s has a crescent show up in a multitude of places, shape patch between the eye and so you need to be aware of their the bill, and in good light the identification. Male goldeneyes iridescence tends toward violet, of both species are white on the depending upon the light angle. flanks and breast, have blackish The body of the common backs and rear ends, as well as goldeneye is more extensively blackish heads with iridescence in white, particularly on the scapu- good light. How the two golden- lars (feathers adjacent to the eyes differ is in their head shape, back). On common, this area is bill size, head pattern, and extent

largely white, sometimes looking ADOBE STOCK

38 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Click here for Barrow’s goldeneyes audio recorded by Lang Elliott

Barrow’s goldeneyes, female and male.

thinly streaked with black. The ish than the dark-eyed female Barrow’s has largely dark scapu- bufflehead. Female goldeneyes lars with white oblong spots, have a color pattern similar to almost like a line of “portholes.” female mergansers, but again, An amazingly good feature to the mergansers have long and look for even at a distance, or narrow bills, larger and longer when the duck is sleeping, is that body shapes, and a spiky crest or the Barrow’s has a dark “spur” “bed head” look, unlike the more on the breast that is lacking in smooth-headed and shorter- the common. This breaks up the billed goldeneyes. The brown- white profile of the breast on ish heads of female goldeneyes the Barrow’s. You may be able contrast with their gray bodies. to see the different face patterns When the birds are alert you can when the ducks are in flight; as a also see they have a white ring on secondary characteristic, the in- the neck immediately below the ner wing is much less white on the head. Both species have similar Barrow’s than on common. colors, although on average the Barrow’s is darker-headed, more The Goldeneye Girls chocolate brown. The key to Now for the females—and distinguishing female goldeneyes this is where the difficulty re- is the head shape, which differs ally lies. Female goldeneyes are as in the males: Barrow’s has a

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS larger and grayer, less brown- steep forehead, almost straight

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 39 in order to protect Gibraltar from being invaded by Franco’s Spain. This operation was planned by a commander in Britain’s Naval In- telligence Division by the name of Ian Fleming. Name ring a bell? He wrote the James Bond novels once he retired, all from his comfortable estate in Jamaica, called “Gold- eneye.” How James Bond got his Another big-headed diver: hooded merganser, juvenile. name is for another time. Adults have golden eyes. I hope you have enjoyed this contemplation of the goldeneyes up, with a puffier mane, giving and the “buffalo head” as well as the head a more oblong look. how to differentiate them from Then there is the smaller bill of each other, and from their relatives the Barrow’s. The smaller bill and the mergansers. When you are out steeper forehead give it a different enjoying the winter ducks, also look. take in what a wonderful assort- In winter an additional feature ment of diversity we have of these really helps in separating these gorgeous birds. Ducks are among two: The female Barrow’s tends the fanciest of our birds, and they to get a largely yellowish bill. This are great in giving us views right is a great feature, but use it with out in the open, for the most part. caution. Often this is the only Sometimes they are out in the feature people look for, and some middle of a lake, but often there common goldeneyes can look is a good spot where they can be more yellow-billed than others. In seen up close. Make sure that you summer Barrow’s has a dark bill! consider them with the attention Use this field mark in conjunc- they deserve; the color they bring tion with the head shape differ- to winter is enough to make almost ences. In flight, female Barrow’s all birders enjoy this colder time of ADOBE STOCK have very little white on the lesser the year. coverts (forewing), while the common has a substantial white patch Alvaro Jaramillo is the author there. In flight goldeneyes make of several bird books and has a fun a distinctive whistling sound with time guiding birding and nature their wings, and it has given them tours. He lives with his family in the nickname “whistlers.” Half Moon Bay, California. As an aside, in World War II, alvarosadventures.com Operation Goldeneye was planned

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Constantly Counting Chickadees

Holy house finches! Duck Stamp, binoculars, cam- This is the time of the year era, hat, gloves, a notebook to when I’m thankful for many fill the holes in memories, na- things. I’m thankful I have tional parks pass, an Audubon people I want to give Christmas (ABA, Cornell Lab, bird club, Hgifts. nature center, etc.) mem- What do I give people bership, or a bird feeder? who love birds? It’s go- That’s it. Everybody is ing to be tough to top getting a bird feeder. I’ll AUTHOR what I gave them last READ-ALOUD strike a blow for sanity. year: a plastic mug with Hear the author Ken Burns could do an readP thisLA Yarticle IT in my high school gradua- our digital edition! eight-part series on bird tion photo on it. Should feeders. I’ve made feeders I give them a subscription to out of recycled milk cartons and BWD (Editor’s note: YES.), jugs for gifts before, but I grew books, a field guide (paper or weary of answering the question,

app), a state park sticker, a “What’s this supposed to be?” AL BATT

A l B a t t

42 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Bird feeding has been a feeder predators keeps me hum- soothing salve during the pan- ble. It could be worse. I talked demic. It has shown us where to an Alaskan who told of a the birds are and allows us to brown bear breaking through meet them there. It’s a way to his garage door and taking a connect with birds in a mean- roast from a chest freezer. ingful way and to learn what You’ll find your bird-feeding the fuss is all about. It’s an guru at another store. Good excuse to get outside and spend advice will flow like a river and quality time filling feeders. It flatten your learning curve. looks good on a resume. I have You’ll start providing the kind bird chores. I carry food to my of food the birds would buy if creaky feeders. It’s Fitbit fun. they could. For me, that means I fill and clean the feeders. I’m no milo or red millet, the sprigs their beast of birdin’. of parsley of bird food. Milo If you go to a store that looks like a BB fired by an air doesn’t have bird-feeding ex- rifle. With the right food, you’ll pertise, a clerk who sounds like be there when a goldfinch falls he knows everything will tell in love with a yellow feeder you to buy a tube feeder and and a male cardinal offers a mixed seed with little stuff in it. sunflower seed to a female as “You don’t want fat birds,” he’ll a symbol of devotion. Get to reason. know your birds. Identify 12 Feeders are popular with bird species from a window. squirrels. Sooner or later, you’ll Then use each bird’s name in a go to a different store to find a sentence. squirrel-proof feeder. The bar- I may be a couple of feath- ber who cuts your best friend’s ers short of a hummingbird, brother’s hair has a neighbor but I’ve learned things during who believes Sasquatch, the a lifetime of feeding birds. It’s New Jersey Devil, and squirrel- important to put the feed- proof feeders are real. I believe ers outside. And, this is where all three are mythological char- many failed bird feeders go acters. Some feeders are squirrel- wrong: Put bird seed in them. I resistant. That’s akin to smart- feed birds all year. I figure I eat phones being water-resistant nearly every day; they should, instead of waterproof. Squirrels too. I enjoy their company and are problem solvers. My feed- don’t want them to move to a ers are defenseless against the nicer restaurant down the road. onslaught of raccoons, deer, and The late Speaker of the House squirrels. Matching wits with of Representatives Tip O’Neill

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 43 Left: White-breasted nuthatch, male.

Northern cardinal, male.

Female Northern red-bellied cardinal, female. woodpecker. said, “All birding is local.” of chickadees together. You’ll see references to O’Neill When snowflakes turn to saying, “All politics is local,” blizzards, Project FeederWatch but I know what he meant. Bird thrives. It tells me the birds I’m feeders are local. most likely to see are, in de- I watched an anchorman- scending order: black-capped handsome chickadee this chickadee, downy woodpecker, morning. A chickadee makes white-breasted nuthatch, dark- me smile without doing eyed junco, blue jay, hairy anything more than being. In woodpecker, American gold- 2017, I spent too much time finch, northern cardinal, red- in a hospital. Freed from that bellied woodpecker, and house confinement, I found walking finch. That’s the Feeder Bird difficult and birding nearly Hall of Fame for my ZIP code. impossible. I decided to count Feeding birds is finer than chickadees, with 1,000 being frog’s hair. my goal. I didn’t care if it was Happy and merry every day, the same chickadee repeat- my friends. AL BATT (4) edly, if I saw it, I counted it. Each chickadee was like the Al Batt is a writer, speaker, first bird I’d ever seen. I told storyteller, and humorist who no one, holding my own soft lives in Hartland, Minnesota. celebration upon achieving my His first book is a collection of goal. Feeders made that possi- his stories, A Life Gone to the ble. On cold days, I warm my- Birds, published by BWD. Avail- self by rubbing two thoughts able at RedstartBirding.com.

44 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Northern cardinal, male.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 45 Winter Shower C a r m e n C h r i s t y

neck. A little moisture wasn’t going to prevent me from enjoying my daily walk around our three-acre property. Rocky the dog decided to join me even if it was wet, so off we went, doing our best to avoid the slipperiest mud. The two-legged walker had a much tougher time than the four-legged one as we made our way along the fenceline. After the turn toward home, a young Cooper’s hawk, Cooper’s hawk came juvenile. gliding in above our heads from the south An overcast and rainy day in and coasted over the storage Southern Arizona is uncharac- barn. He swooped low into teristic for January weather. It’s the garden, then lifted over often warm and sunny, but not the roof of the house without today. When the clouds lifted a wingbeat. Catching some a bit, I grabbed my jacket, hat, air, he put on the brakes, and and walking stick, and hung plopped onto the highest

Amy binoculars around my branch of the big, winter-bare JIM BURNS

46 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Arizona ash in our front yard. the art of sneaking into my I wasn’t surprised to see yard undetected. Whizzing over him this misty-moisty morn- the lawn from wall to wall they ing. Young Cooper’s hawks hope to catch something on visit my garden regularly. His the fly. Instead they just scare parents have been successfully everybody. When my resident Winter Shower raising youngsters for years in flock darts for cover, the sudden an enormous tamarisk about a wild flapping and frantic ran- a r m e n h r i s t y C C half-mile down the way. Had I dom movements of doves, spar- seen this particular bird before? rows, and house finches throw They all look the same until the young Cooper’s hawks off their adult feathers grow in. their game. The occasional Every spring fledglings adult who hunts here knows courageously launch themselves how to steal from tree to tree, off the low limbs of that tree. hiding in the foliage, lurking Opening their wings, they flap quietly. But the truth is, nobody furiously and plunk down. is fooled. The birds go quiet. Tiny dust clouds rise as they Even Rocky sees him there in hit the ground. They stand the shadows and barks a warn- there, blinking, for a bit, per- ing at the Cooper’s hawk. haps to catch their breath, and I paused to watch this young then valiantly clamber back up bird sitting in the ash tree, then somehow and have another go. lifted my binoculars. Something With wings beating and balance was different about him. Fac- precarious, their first efforts are ing east into the wet wind, he hilarious, but they learn quick- looked like he was molting, ly. As they range farther and or had too many feathers, or farther up and down the wash maybe they were too long. The from the tamarisk, their parents streaked feathers covering his stop delivering lunch when they breast and thighs seemed to be can catch it on their own. Last lifting, blowing, and trailing out spring’s batch of adolescents from his body. I watched the is now almost a year old and feathers along his sides, long about as big as their parents, and flexible, stream back over although not yet red-eyed, and his wings. Under his tail, his still in their juvenile dress of covert feathers were so long and closely streaked dusky brown fluffy that I thought he might and cream. be shedding the last of his baby Growing fast, with enormous down, but no fuzz drifted away appetites and hunting hard for in the breeze. Then it dawned dinner, they haven’t perfected on me: He was allowing the

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 47 schedule as we button up our A juvenile Coop stretches its wings. coats. He settled his blowing breast feathers, then his pure white undertail coverts back into place. He didn’t preen while he sat in my tree. He didn’t reach down to rearrange or zip anything. He just opened his coat of many feathers, let the wind and moisture blow through, and then slowly closed it up again. As he lifted off and headed west following the wind, he tucked in the last of his feathers. By the third or fourth wingbeat his usual sil- houette had returned, smooth and sharp. Watching the young hawk take a shower this drizzly morning, I observed a bird behavior not often witnessed, an unexpected, engaging view of an avian creature who comes wind to blow the drizzle into his and goes through my garden. feathers. I’ve never seen him catch any- As he perched there, he thing, but that doesn’t mean checked around below him. he doesn’t. There’s a place for He looked up at the sky, as if everyone in my garden, even to take stock of the weather the young Cooper’s hawk. He’s and the chances for more rain. welcome, too, especially if all Maybe he just needed a time he wants to do is sit in my ash out before he went looking for tree, enjoy a refreshing moment, lunch. After a bit he slowly and take a winter shower. JIM BURNS began to pull in and rearrange his plumage. Carmen Christy contributed It wasn’t a fast process. He several joyful backyard bird- took his time and seemed preoc- watching stories to BWD and cupied, like we are when we Watching Backyard Birds in the think about what’s next on the past few years. She died in July 2020.

48 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Bird Watcher’s Digest THANKDear Friends, YOU A decade ago, the publishing industry began to decline—for a number of reasons. Many people believed that print publications would go the way of cassette tapes and rotary phones, disappearing into the hazy history of our world’s digital communication evolution. Concerned, many of our devoted subscribers asked if they could help us continue to print the bird-watching magazines they loved. Their greatest support was already being shown through their faithful renewals and gift subscriptions, but a few people wanted to do more. Because of these loyal friends, we started the BWD Content Club. Funds donated to the Content Club are used to support our contribu- tors, as well as our print operating costs, helping us continue to provide great birding content in print through Bird Watcher’s Digest and Watch- ing Backyard Birds. Although we are a for-profit, locally owned small business, some of our loyal subscribers have donated funds each year to support our ever-increasing print and operational costs. This year, sadly, we’ve watched many of our friends and fellow publishers retrench to digital-only formats, and some have closed their doors for good. We, however, are still moving forward, much like “The Little Engine That Could.” Bird Watcher’s Digest celebrated its 42nd birthday with the Septem- ber/October 2020 issue, and we are incredibly humbled and grateful. We have dealt with great changes and losses—personally, organizationally, and financially—over the past 24 months, yet we are hopeful, strong, and inspired. Why? Because of you. We thank you, our subscribers and especially BWD Content Club do- nors, with all our hearts for your continued support during these difficult financial times. From all of us atBird Watcher’s Digest: We appreciate you, and we hope to continue to provide print and digital content that informs and inspires you and gives you great joy for many years to come.

Sincerely, Wendy Clark

President and Publisher Bird Watcher’s Digest Redstart Birding Watching Backyard Birds Reader Rendezvous Birding Tours

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 49 Mr. Creeper’s Neighborhood: Suet on a Tree Trunk D o n G r u s s i n g

Click here for brown creeper audio recorded by Lang Elliott

Brown creeper, doing what creepers do.

A brown creeper landed on the suet available in supermarkets. trunk (where else) of the oak I like to help and watch all the tree growing near my house winter birds that will include in a well-forested, suburban, suet in their diets. Ahalf-acre yard. A suet feeder But the creeper was descend- is fastened to the trunk about ing the trunk, away from the six feet above the ground. The feeder. I was outside, filling up coated wire cage is kept full a seed feeder only five feet or with high-quality suet—kidney so away from this interesting fat from butchered cattle, when little bird. So small. So obscure

I can find it—or with processed that I think they are overlooked JIM BURNS

50 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest by many who feed the birds in The pileated will stop its at- winter. Its feathers are such a tack, cock its head to look at perfect blend with tree bark the chunk, and then, apparently that it is not an easy bird to deciding that extracting it is not see. It certainly does not have worth the effort, goes back to the flair and glamour of the work hacking at the main suet pileated or red-bellied wood- and swallowing large beakfuls. peckers, or the busyness of the I wish I could follow the downy and hairy woodpeckers. brown creeper closely to see But I always watch for them. how it lives. When I was a kid And I keep a suet feeder on a and had much better legs than tree trunk because I suspect I do now I used to follow the that brown creepers are just not winter birds. It was interesting comfortable unless they are on or near a trunk. Brown creeper. They usually hunt by working up the trunk, peering under every bark crevice for insect eggs, pupae, larvae, or whatever else might be edible. Some people report that creepers will eat peanut butter and sunflower seeds (I suspect this means hulled sunflowers). They are tiny birds and survive on the tiniest foods. And that is just what this little guy (or girl; creeper sexes are indistinguishable) was doing. It was an experienced visitor to this location and knew that it could find tiny morsels of suet at the base of this oak tree. It is spillage and debris from the larger birds that feed on the suet. The pileateds are the sloppiest. They attack the suet with force and vigor, and many small chunks fall to the ground beneath. At times even

ARTHUR MORRIS a big chunk will be dislodged.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 51 to see them hang together in a Downy woodpeckers do Looking for Gifts for the loose group as they wandered use my bluebird houses, and through the wooded pasture seem to like to look out of the where I spent a lot of time entrance hole for several min- Birder on Your List? (perhaps too much, according utes before ducking down to to my parents). The congrega- spend the night. I’ve never seen tion (I hesitate to use the word a hairy use a birdhouse. The flock) usually included a few downies sometimes repay me chickadees, at least one downy for my hospitality by enlarging woodpecker, sometimes a hairy, the entrance hole so that the usually one but sometimes two house is not useful or attractive white-breasted nuthatches, and to bluebirds or even deer mice. sometimes one solitary brown But where do the brown creeper. They all headed off creepers go to spend a cold in the same direction. I won- winter night? They nest under if there was a leader, or if der bark crevices, so maybe something else was guiding this they have found a few special bunch. peeled- off tiny slabs suitable But what did they do at for a long night’s sleep. night? Did they stick together? At least I know where it Or just reconvene the next day? spends its days. I’ve found some places where chickadees sleep. One smart Editor’s note: According to bird spent many nights next to birdsoftheworld.com, winter an outdoor light that was on, roosting behavior of the brown probably getting some needed creeper is not well documented. heat. Or perhaps this bird was Reports include two or three sick, not well enough to go creepers squeezing tightly into into the metabolism-slowing a crack or scar in the bark of sleep that reduces chickadees’ the same tree nightly for sev- need for calories to burn to get eral winters; and two creepers through the night. huddling in a crack between a Others sleep in birdhouses chimney and a roof. I leave up, especially those under my deck that are better Don Grussing is a freelance protected. Some roost up in the writer who lives in Minnetonka, wooden support beams of the Minnesota. He is author of The deck where they receive some Seasons of the Robin, pub- protection from the wind and lished by the University of Texas precipitation. Press. His first story in BWD was published in 1985.

52 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest redstartbirding.com Looking for Gifts for the Birder on Your List?

Bird Watcher’s Dredstartbirding.comigest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 53 MY WAY: Birding as Meditation M a r y G i r a u l o

At noon, I run down to my car in relief” found tips on meditation the office parking lot, pull off my and exercise. Meditation I tried, heels, slip on my dressy walking but I found deep breathing un- shoes, and hit the sidewalk. It’s 88 comfortable to the point of pain, degrees of Florida summer, but and I couldn’t keep it up enough AI’ve dressed in thin clothing and to feel any effects. And exercise, have my ice water clutched to my well, I was always the last one side, and I’m ready. There are five picked for teams in P.E., and I small retention ponds along this often got excused to help teach- quarter-mile stretch and shade ers grade papers instead. I zeroed from plenty of big old-growth in on the article that said that trees. I hear a cardinal chipping even 10 or 15 minutes of walking from a tree and blue jays yell- could make a noticeable differ- ing at each other. Three sandhill ence in one’s stress level. So, I cranes cross the road on foot, walked down my street—and felt majestically, right in front of me. better in a matter of moments. The birds love this place, and I’ve I started walking 15 minutes found I can’t do without it. each morning, but that wasn’t A few years ago, the stress enough, so I added 15 minutes of my job started getting to me; at lunchtime, and then I in- I began crying in my car or in creased both to 30 minutes. I meetings and becoming more was delighted to find that my irritable with my coworkers. A office complex was full of birds, search on the internet for “stress thanks to plenty of food, water,

54 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest and shelter between the ponds that made me sad or upset and and the trees and bushes. Even gave me unforced moments of in the heat of the day, I could joy. Years later, I’m still walking often tally 15 species. I found every day, despite heat or cold solace in the distraction and or even light rain. experience of wonder that they More and more research offered and came back to the comes out every year on the toll office a new woman each time, of a sedentary job and the stress more patient and emotionally and busyness of modern life- balanced. If I didn’t take my styles. Many prescriptions are of- walk, I would feel the emotion- fered, including diet and exercise, al effects later in the afternoon. and they’re all worth trying if It wasn’t until during a you’re in need of some relief. For conversation with a coworker me, I’ve found my effective dose: who is a yoga aficionado that I hitting the pavement, watching realized that I hadn’t given up the birds. on meditation. “Anything that causes you to focus and dis- Mary Giraulo is a nonprofit tracts you from your thoughts consultant and board member for can be meditation,” she said. Flagler Audubon Society. She lives Listening to the birds, watching with her husband and toddler (who the water, sky, and foliage for loves learning bird calls) in Palm their movements—these kept Coast, Florida.

ADOBE STOCK me from ruminating on things

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 55 PETE’SPETE’S TIP TIPSS by Pete Dunne

Learning Vocalizations

No matter how accomplished glimpse of these furtive brown a birder you are, you still want gremlins. to be better with bird vocaliza- So, if you, like me, are chal- tions. From the planet’s new- lenged by bird vocalizations, est birder to Michael O’Brien here are a few tips. (one of North America’s finest First, nothing beats repeti- Nbirders-by-ear), we all aspire to tion. Hearing a bird multiple sharpen our audio ID skills. times helps lock the sound in. Me? I have poor hearing; 40 Second, do not approach percent deficient at 4 kilohertz bird vocalizations with an open in both ears, so I empathize mind—in essence, hear a song with those who likewise strug- and aspire to memorize it. gle to learn bird sound. But Listen critically. Analyze my greatest obstacle has been the quality and pattern in your mental, not auditory. Visually mind and find words to de- acute, I early on shunned bird scribe it. sound in favor of bird sighting. Is the song loud or whis- To my youthful mind, it was pered? Complex, with multiple analogous to television versus elements, or simple, a single radio. note repeated? Is it lazy or hur- Of course, TV trumped. ried? Finding the precise words Too late did I realize that that lock a bird song in your a grasp of bird vocalizations mind can be as gratifying as the not only enriched the birding song. Absolutely write your de- experience but was also key to scriptive keystone words down! locating and identifying species. If you don’t, you’ll discover Case in point: The song of that they are as elusive as bird the winter wren is more viscer- song. ally gratifying than a quick Try to compare your latest

56 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Summer tanager, male.

challenge with a similar song ing summer tanager. Near dusk, banked in memory. the birds were not singing but Summer tanager’s song calling incessantly. We got the recalls American robin but is bird. They, not familiar with the more hurried and sweeter. call, did not. To my ear, it sounds like a So, by all means expand your tanager trying to sing like an horizons and apply yourself to oriole. But my ears aren’t your learning bird sounds. The chal- ears; you’ll have to work it out lenge gets easier as you bank for yourself. more and more vocalizations in Mnemonics? Sure, they work memory. for some species. Take the call of summer tanager, a stuttered Pete Dunne is the retired di- pick-a-tuck. rector of the Cape May Bird Ob- Several years ago, during the servatory, founder of the World World Series of Birding, a rival Series of Birding, and author of team and our team stood at a dozens of books on birding.

ADOBE STOCK location known to host breed-

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 57 The Urban Birder American Birds on Both Sides of the Atlantic D a v i d L i n d o

David Lindo.

Despite being from the other side The hummingbirds were en- of the pond, in London, England, chanting, the sage grouse fasci- I have always had quite a strong nating (they had not been split in connection to the birds and those heady days), and tufted tit- birders in the United States. It mouse desirable. The illustrations Dstarted when my mother bought were created by the late and great me a book on the wildlife of the American artist Arthur Singer. I Americas when I was eight. It was was unconsciously captivated by a huge book—or so it seemed in his artwork, and I regularly tried my small hands—that helped in- to copy his birds into my school troduce me to animals including exercise book to pass off as my puma, ocelot, and coatimundi. I own. was mesmerized by those crea- There was one bird that stood tures, but it was the birds that head and shoulders above any

really captured my imagination. other that I yearned to see: the SHARON CAVANAGH

58 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest The Urban Birder swallow-tailed kite. How could I saw on the Isles of Scilly, the such a large graceful-looking bird most westerly point in the UK, of prey exist and not be on the and never since anywhere in the American Birds on Both verge of extinction? The reason world. The laughing and ring- Sides of the Atlantic for my oddly negative outlook billed gulls, Baltimore oriole, was because I had just learned rose-breasted grosbeak, buff- D a v i d L i n d o about the fate of the passenger breasted sandpiper, and others I pigeon and Carolina parakeet, so have seen since in the US. I expected all beautiful birds to be Of course, I missed the vast hunted relentlessly. majority of the American waifs, As I grew older, I realized that Laughing I was beginning to harbor an in- gulls. sane jealousy toward an element of America: your incredible bird list that must be approaching 900 species. You have hummingbirds, two species of waxwings, a ton of wood-warblers, and swallow- tailed kites. The situation was made worse when I realized that quite a few of the birds that I thought were exclusive to Britain and Europe had also shown up in the Land of the Free. European among them including the thrushes like redwing, fieldfare, notable (and so far not repeated) and even blackbird have all made appearances of a red-breasted appearances; European wigeon, nuthatch and blue-winged war- northern lapwing, and even corn- bler in the UK. The former spe- crake have all found their way cies evaded three of my attempts onto your collective bird list. to see in a pine wood in Norfolk By the time I was in my 20s I in eastern England, and the latter had begun my short foray into was the biggest dip (no show) of the world of twitching: the act my life. It was a stunning male of running after rarities. It soon discovered innocuously hanging became apparent that quite a few out in bushes at a shopping mall American species turned up in parking lot in a random town in the UK, especially on the off- Kent, in southeastern England. shore islands. I managed to catch Its discovery resulted in the big- up with some of these vagrants, gest twitch known to humankind, including Philadelphia vireo and with an army of 5,000 camo-clad

DAVID LINDO blackpoll warbler, both of which birders attending the general area

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 59 White-rumped sandpiper.

after the news broke. I was one of with him, staying in posh hotels that number standing in the cold and hanging around on sets. One waiting for the American beauty of his regular haunts was Los to show itself. And did I see it? Angeles. We visited this megacity No, was the resounding answer. for 13 years on an annual basis My consolation after a six-hour for sometimes up to three months freezing wait was an unexpected at a time. This fabled land of great grey shrike and a sole Bo- dreams, silicon, and flashy cars hemian waxwing. Both were life soon began to feel like my second birds, although, due to missing home. out on the star bird, my interest Although life was breezy being in twitching began to wane from based in sun-dappled salubrious then on. West Hollywood, with its vegan Ten years passed before I cafés filled with chain-coffee- began the first of my regular drinking, script-writer wannabes, visits to the States. Aside from a countless gyms, and expansive couple of previous visits to New hillside properties; there was a far York, my first real immersion uglier side to the city—a feature into American birding was to Los that it shares with most other cit- Angeles. Back then I had a very ies on the planet. Not all of LA’s different life before entering the streets are paved with gold, and birding world at large under the downtown was downright scary. guise of The Urban Birder. As a It was where the underbelly of personal assistant to a director the city resided. It was also a site who made TV commercials and for good birding. music videos, I was able to occa- I remember being taken there

sionally traipse around the world on a twitch to a rough park by RUSSELL SPENCER

60 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest a retired casting director. Dick Great Barth was a man after my own egret. heart. Practically deaf, yet he could hear the faintest cry of a distant yellow-rumped warbler, or be aware of some other barely moving bird that I had no idea was there. A classic example of his urban birding prowess was when he took me to observe a red-naped sapsucker that he had miraculously discovered perched stock-still on a palm tree in the middle of a traffic island on the I watched this rare visitor to the mega-busy Sunset Boulevard. West Coast through trembling That man certainly had The Force binoculars, aware of the drug with him! Anyway, on that fate- exchanges going on all around us. ful day in the dodgy downtown What many people don’t real- park, Dick showed me a winter- ize about LA is that it is a coastal ing black-and-white warbler he city set in a desert. Far from

had previously discovered there. being devoid of natural life, it’s a DAVID LINDO

Northern lapwing. RUBÉN CEBRIÁN

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 61 Bohemian waxwing.

migration hotspot, and its many looking at the feather details of parks and canyons are home to western and least sandpipers— multitudes of birds, from Cali- the world’s smallest wader. I be- fornia quail and red-shouldered came good at separating migrat- hawks to Anna’s hummingbirds ing long-billed dowitchers from and band-tailed pigeons. I was the similar-looking short-billed drawn to the coast, and in par- dowitchers. It was a complete ticular to Ballona Wetlands, a joy to be able to walk right up 1,087 acre mixture of saltwater, to feeding whimbrels, American brackish, and freshwater marsh- golden plovers, western willets, land situated on the coast very and marbled godwits feeding on close to LAX, the city’s main the beach. Surfbirds, wandering airport. Throughout its history tattlers, and ruddy and black it constantly has fought off the turnstones were all equally ap- threat of development. The most proachable along with the loafing recent of these battles was against laughing, Heermann’s, mew, Steven Spielberg, who wanted to California, western, and, dur- build a studio on the site. ing the winter, glaucous-winged Aside from the conspicuous gulls, plus the royal, Caspian, pied-billed grebes and snowy and Forster’s terns. It was an and great egrets, Ballona is also a unbelievable experience. I also great place to watch waders that found a couple of rarities for the sometimes perform at point- site, including an errant hunting blank range, especially around short-eared owl on one visit. It the shores of its brackish and was the site’s first in several years. freshwater ponds. I reveled in Indeed, it is hard to describe Bal- RUSSELL SPENCER

62 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Turkey vulture. Caspian tern.

lona Wetlands without reeling off American!” exclaimed an elderly a mouth-watering bird list. lady birder in the group. My most memorable day there “Err, they have a worldwide was my first ever visit back in distribution…,” I tried to explain the 1990s. After hearing about before being cut off once again. this legendary site, I finally had a “No! They are American chance to visit it, and I remember birds!” she retorted. being bowled over by the mul- Sensing an impending break- titude of species that presented down in Anglo/American dip- themselves to me on arrival. It lomatic relations, plus seeing literally took me an hour to walk the other members of the group 100 yards. Soon, I bumped into suppressing smirks, I raised my a local Audubon group being hands in submission. Bob seemed led by my now good friend Bob impressed by the way I handled Shanman. Seeing that I was on his patriotic group member, my own, and being an incred- and asked me to lead a tour the ibly friendly guy, he invited me following morning in Malibu to join the group. I was shocked Creek State Park. Thus began my by how close we could get to the sub-career in bird guiding. It has birds despite the noise the group been a journey that has taken me was producing, and the Baywatch across the world several times. I scene on the beach that was being have now finally added swallow- played out before my eyes, con- tailed kite to my list in Peru and sisting of cavorting joggers and Colombia. However, I have yet to rollerbladers. see one from US soil. Maybe one I noticed a Caspian tern fly day. past, so I pointed it out to the group explaining that they were David Lindo is author of How to be found all over the world. to Be an Urban Birder, Princeton

DAVID LINDO (2) “No they’re not! They’re University Press, 2018.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 63 Fab Five of the Far Northwest J o h n S h e w e y Hermit warbler.

Look up. Higher. Straight up, where in prime locations high in near the top of that huge old the mountains. Douglas fir. There, did you see This is prime time for bird- that tiny speck flash through the ers to catch more than a fleet- needles, a speedy black shadow ing glimpse of these Northwest Lagainst the dark boughs? You endemics, because thereafter, just saw your first hermit warbler! hermit warblers retreat to the If a tiny flitting speck 200 feet conifer-forest canopy, where they up in a fir tree seems a disap- are easy to hear but difficult to pointing way to check hermit see—one of the most frustrating warbler off your life list, then species for enthusiasts eager to consider the merits of good see all of the far-West warblers. timing: for a week, maybe two, Late May through the first in early summer, from knee level half of June also just happens to treetop level, these bedazzling to be the best time to find some little warblers sing ebulliently and of the Pacific Northwest’s other chase one another frantically, must-see endemics—and you the males practically coming to won’t find them on the region’s fisticuffs in the Coast and Cas- deservedly famous wetlands cade Mountains from Northern wildlife refuges, the bird- California to southern Washing- watching hotspots, such as ton. They’ve arrived from their Klamath and Malheur national wintering grounds in Mexico and wildlife refuges. Guatemala, eager to establish ter- No, to find the Northwest ritories and find mates. During a Fab Five—hermit warbler, brief late-May/early-June win- Townsend’s warbler, white-head- dow, these frenetic lemon-yellow ed woodpecker, chestnut-backed bundles of energy flit and dart chickadee, and mountain quail—

and zip about seemingly every- you must immerse yourself a JOHN SHEWEY (3)

64 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest little deeper, literally and figura- tion is common. The flashy tively, into the Pacific Northwest. black-and-yellow Townsend’s Happily for birders, all five can warbler is most easily found on be found in reasonably close the east slope of the Cascades, proximity in the Cascade Moun- and particularly from Central tains, although the chestnut- Oregon north through Washing- backed chickadee is more readily ton. Townsend’s warblers forage seen west of the mountains. at all levels, usually in semi-open conifer woodlots and associated Hermit warbler, male. riparian margins. Hermit warbler. Townsend’s warblers are increasingly numerous as you head northward along the east slope of the Cascades, and are ubiquitous in the mountains around Leavenworth, Washing- ton, but also fairly easy to find in Oregon, such as in the central Oregon’s Metolius River area. Hermit warblers are surprisingly Hermit and Townsend’s common in Oregon, less so in Warblers Washington; specific high-prob- The treetop-loving hermit ability locations include Crater warbler is closely akin to the Lake National Park as well as equally showy Townsend’s the Santiam Junction area, both warbler, so much so that where in the Oregon Cascades. their breeding ranges overlap along the crest of the Cascades White-headed Woodpecker from central Oregon through Strongly tied to ponderosa central Washington, hybridiza- pine forest, the aptly named white-headed woodpecker finds Townsend’s warbler, abundant habitat along the male. eastern foot of the Cascades throughout Oregon and Wash- ington. Here, a narrow band of ponderosa-dominated forest bridges the gap between the mixed-conifer forest of the east slope of the mountains and the juniper woodlands farther east. In prime habitat within this zone,

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 65 and in the forested slopes southwest of Ellensburg, Washing- ton—and in many other places.

Mountain Quail In contrast to the widespread and gregarious California quail, the mountain quail is both elusive and uncommon. It shuns flying, preferring to escape White-headed woodpecker. danger by simply running into and at a few places farther east dense cover, and prefers steep, in the Northwest, these piebald brutally rugged mountain slopes. woodpeckers are common. Dur- The easiest way to catch sight ing spring—May and June—they of mountain quail is to drive or also tend to be vocal. hike gravel forest roads in prime Happily for birders, white- Oregon locations—such as the headed woodpeckers frequently North Umpqua River canyon forage low on tree trunks, making or Jackson County’s Pilot Rock them much easier to observe than area—and hope for the best. some of the other woodpeckers They don’t make it easy. found in the same areas. They These handsome, chestnut- are widespread within their ideal flanked quail can also be located habitat and easy to find around by their eerie, exotic call, or more aforementioned Metolius River accurately their general location can be discerned, but actually Mountain quail. following the sound of a calling mountain quail to catch a glimpse of the little ventriloquist is usually a fool’s errand. None- theless, during late spring, listen for the ringing eee-ark—even if you can’t find the bird, you’ve identified it by sound.

Chestnut-backed Chickadee Purely a Northwesterner, the chestnut-backed chickadee is a common denizen of evergreen forest and mixed woodlands, especially west of the Cascades

66 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Chestnut-backed chickadee. Oregon and Washington less frequently targeted by birders. Resources aplenty can help narrow your search, chief among them ebird (ebird.org), an interactive tool that allows you to search the region by species to find specific locations a bird has been seen frequently and most recently. Local summit. More demure than the Audubon chapters offer help abundant black-capped chicka- both online and in person at dee, chestnut-backed chickadees meetings, and US Forest Service are easy to overlook. Nonethe- offices provide excellent maps less, they frequent birdfeeders and other details for locations and thrive around cities and frequented by these and other towns with lots of evergreen species. trees, even in the low-lying valleys If pressed for one single loca- of western Oregon and western tion among several prime options Washington. Look for them in in the region, I’d offer up Oregon forested parks along the high- as the best bet in general—hermit ways leading up into the moun- warblers and mountain quail are tains. These little chickadees tend more common in Oregon than in to flutter quickly from point to Washington—and I’d suggest the point; flock members typically mountains south and southeast fly one at a time across openings. of Ashland or the Cascades slope Their calls include a high-pitched from Sisters west to Santiam Junc- and often steady peep-peep-peep- tion. With astute planning, birders peep, and also a rapid and airy can find all or most of the Fab Five chick-a-dee-dee, less musical than in a relatively small geographic area the namesake call of the black- and within the span of two or three capped chickadee. days—or perhaps all in one day for what might qualify as a Fab Five On the Ground grand slam. Oregon and Washington’s famous wildlife refuges are deserv- Outdoor writer and photog- edly popular among birdwatch- rapher John Shewey is the lead ers, but to find the Fab Five, you author of the field guide Birds of

JOHN SHEWEY (3) need to branch out into parts of the Pacific Northwest.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 67 Shakespeare’s Birds

J e r r y D e n n i s

Humans meddle. Apparently, all, as a member of the American we can’t resist. Consider Eugene Acclimatization Society, it was Schieffelin, the amiable drug his duty. The society’s mis- manufacturer who in the 1890s sion was to introduce to North allegedly tried to bring all the America “such foreign varieties Hbirds mentioned by Shakespeare of the animal and vegetable king- to North America. Although dom as may be useful or interest- questions remain about his ing.” These days, of course, we motives and the degree of his in- realize what a bad idea that was. volvement, there’s no doubt that It should surprise no one that Schieffelin captured some birds the American Acclimatization and carried them across the At- Society went extinct long ago.

lantic to the United States. After Schieffelin is sometimes WIKI COMMONS

68 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Shakespeare’s Birds

English sparrows, aka house sparrows.

blamed for bringing the English to New York City and released. sparrow across the Atlantic— Subsequent releases in New where Americans eventually York, Philadelphia, Ohio, Michi- began calling it the house spar- gan, and Wisconsin ensured row—but if he did, he wasn’t the their survival on this side of the first. According to Ted R. An- Atlantic. derson’s exhaustively researched Schieffelin might not have natural history, Biology of the brought sparrows to the New Ubiquitous House Sparrow, this World, but the evidence is pretty sparrow, the most widely distrib- clear that he brought skylarks, uted bird in the world, was first nightingales, chaffinches, song introduced to North America thrushes, and bullfinches, none in 1850, when eight pairs were of which survived. Donald carried to Brooklyn by the staff Peattie, in his 1941 memoir The of the Brooklyn Institute (which Road of a Naturalist, suggests later became the Brooklyn Mu- that Schieffelin might have tried seum). In 1852 or 1853, another to transplant European robins, 100 individuals were brought thrushes, and blackbirds as well,

BRUCE WUNDERLICH on a steamship from Liverpool again without success. Then in

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 69 European starlings.

1890 and 1891 Eugene carried ers, and other native birds that cages full of starlings across the nest in holes and claiming those Atlantic—40, 60, 80, or 100 of nesting sites for themselves. them, depending on the sourc- Starlings have been an air- es—and released them into New borne hazard as well, in part be- York’s Central Park. America’s cause they flock in large numbers sky would never be the same. and because they are individu- Nor would America’s cit- ally much denser in body mass ies, forests, or fields. Within a than most other birds. In 1960 few decades, starlings in flocks a flock of an estimated 20,000 of thousands—and sometimes starlings flew into the path of millions—descended on farm- a propeller-driven Lockheed ers’ fields and orchards and Electra shortly after it took off devoured crops by the tons. They from Boston’s Logan Airport, devoured insects, as well, but stalling its engines and causing most agronomists agree that the the plane to crash into Boston birds have been far more harm- Harbor, killing 62 of the 72 pas- ful than beneficial. The U.S. sengers and crew on board. It Department of Agriculture esti- remains the deadliest bird strike mated in 2014 that starlings cost in history. farmers about a billion dollars a It took a few years for the year. They’re bullies also, shov- birds to thrive after Schieffelin ing aside bluebirds, woodpeck- released the first of them in BRUCE WUNDERLICH

70 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Central Park in 1890 and 1891. resident named E. Brown asked: Soon after, a pair was found nest- “Can you inform me what sort ing in the eaves of the Museum of bird it is which frequents this of Natural History near the park, neighborhood, answering closely an event noted with interest by the description of a starling, viz., a few observant New Yorkers. brown plumage, penciled, and Half a dozen years later the birds darker on head than body; beak had strayed beyond Manhat- about one inch long, and rich tan and were soon nesting as far yellow color; tail rather short, south as Florida and as far north and legs rather long? … It may as Alaska. They ate just about be found almost any clear morn- anything, and they reproduced ing on a large tree in a yard at prodigiously. the southwest corner of Seventy- Students of invasive spe- fifth Street and the Boulevard. cies will recognize the pattern. Do you know of any foreign An animal or plant finds a new birds having been liberated in European starlings. ecosystem to its liking, with few this city besides sparrows, and natural predators, and suddenly by whom? Research has so far its population explodes and the failed to identify these birds.” invader begins destroying habitat The editors responded: “In and decimating endemic species. reply to the above questions, Often a domino effect results. William T. Davis, a Staten Island Cornell University ecologists naturalist, who is familiar with have tallied more than 30,000 the birds in this vicinity, says: non-indigenous plant and animal ‘There seems to me to be no species that have been introduced doubt that Mr. Brown has been into the United States. The cost observing the starling… A flock to the nation is estimated at more of about forty starlings was lib- than $125 billion per year. erated by Mr. Eugene Schieffelin The starling infestation is in Central Park in March, 1890. interesting because it became A pair of these birds built their so widespread so quickly and nest in the roof of the Natural because we can document the History Museum, at Seventy- changes in public sentiment seventh Street, in May, 1892, and as the bird established itself. A another pair were seen with their search through the archives of young on the lawn of a residence the New York Times uncovers a on Riverside Drive during the chronicle of evolving opinion as same year. At that time their the birds spread across North fate as resident birds was far America. On March 2, 1900, from certain, but now there are in a letter to the editors, a city

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 71 colonies in many places near the they devour insects, they are of city. Many starlings may be seen use to the farmer. It is said that at times in the tall trees [through- they will eat potato bugs. Their out the New York metropolitan nests are usually built in the eaves area].’” of buildings and in old hollow Davis proceeded to bestow trees, and their whistling is pleas- praise that was probably shared ant and cheerful. As the starling by most people, at first: “They has not been found to interfere are common in England and with other birds, we may be glad over most of Europe, and, as that he has come to stay.” The source of starlings in North America

A starling appears Hotspur says: it him just once in all of To keep his anger still Shakespeare. It’s in Henry But I will find him in motion. IV, Part I (Act I, Scene III), when he lies asleep, in a scene in which the And in his ear I’ll hol- Shakespeare knew, of angry Hotspur, wishing to low “Mortimer!” course, that starlings are torment Henry, conceives Nay, I’ll have a star- excellent mimics and that the idea of having a starling shall be taught to they can sometimes be ling repeat the name of speak taught to speak a few the king’s brother-in-law Nothing but words. over and over. “Mortimer,” and give

72 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest A decade and a A molting juvenile half later starlings European starling. were no longer considered “of use to the farmer.” They had become an infestation: “Glen Ridge, N.J., Oct. 14, 1914—The State Game and Fish Commission has given permission to the authorities of this borough to destroy the European starlings which have greatly amazed residents of several streets where the birds congregated in enormous numbers. Attempts of the residents to drive away the birds have been fruitless and yesterday. The police regard they petitioned the local authori- this as a conservative estimate, ties to destroy them.” and believe that [the number is] By 1928 the birds had reached 100,000 birds at least...” the Mississippi River. Twenty July 9, 1933: “Like the English years later they were in Cali- sparrow, the European starling fornia. The Times continued to is rolling up enemies by the document the invasion and our score. Michigan farmers recently changing attitudes toward it: reported that thousands of star- December 20, 1931: “Bal- lings had settled in every county timore has recently waged a of the State. The huge flocks not defensive war against an army only ravage the orchards, eating of starlings. Thousands of birds tons of fruit, but they commit swooped down upon the city a more serious offense, driving without warning...” other birds out of their homes Jan 6, 1933: “An army of and sanctuaries.” starlings estimated at 50,000 is By 1950 starlings had colo- making a night sanctuary of nized North America from coast the exterior of the Metropolitan to coast and from Mexico to the

BRUCE WUNDERLICH (2) Museum of Art, it was disclosed Hudson Bay, and ornithologists

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 73 estimated the population in the Often during baby-bird United States had exceeded 50 season, we find nestlings squirm- million. (Today there are more ing on the lawn, where they’ve than 200 million.) fallen from their cubbyhole nests Every spring the giant sugar 20 feet above. Many are dead maple at the center of our yard when we find them, but one day becomes a starling hotel, its we discovered two that were knothole rooms available by the apparently unhurt. They were week or month. Starlings take nearly fledged, about half the over the tree so completely that size of adults, and were strug- the ordinarily fearless red squir- gling vainly to climb the trunk rels that claim it for their winter toward home and safety. We quarters hardly dare climb the didn’t have a ladder high enough trunk. The moment they get near to help, so the boys and I placed the tree a dozen starlings mob the terrified nestlings together in them and they wisely retreat. a makeshift nest, placed it in a

Shakespeare’s other birds

Osprey. Mute swans.

It’s not clear how many birds mentioned in the magpie, mallard, night- birds Schieffelin and the plays and sonnets. The ingale, osprey, ostrich, American Acclimatization inventory includes black- and owl. There’s men- Society transported to bird, bunting, cormorant, tion, too, of “paraquito” America, but if they had crow, cuckoo, dove, (parakeet), parrot, par- Shakespeare’s complete duck, eagle, falcon, finch, tridge, peacock, pelican, aviary in mind, they prob- goose, gull, guinea hen pheasant, pigeon, quail, ably fell short. Scholars hedge sparrow, heron, raven, rook, snipe, swal- have assembled an jay, kestrel, kingfisher, low, swan, thrush, vulture, inventory of at least 64 kite, lapwing, lark, loon, woodcock, and wren. BRUCE WUNDERLICH (2)

74 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest cardboard box, and carried them ing dives. The squirrel, who was inside the house. no fool, leaped for the walnut Since childhood I had wanted tree nearby and was chased half to raise starlings and teach them a dozen times around the trunk to mimic a few words or even a by a tightly banking starling. few phrases of music, as Mozart Not long ago I watched a was said to have done with his flock of 30 starlings land in the own pet starling. But it quickly high weeds next to my office and became obvious that these disappear utterly. One moment two—my sons named them they were dropping from the Beavis and Butthead—were sky in a mass of flashing wings, not interested in experiments and the next they were gone. in vocalization. Nor were they I stepped outside for a better interested in the bits of ground look, and the entire flock rose beef and other foods we tried at once. Their combined wing- to feed them. Finally, we took beats made a rushing sound, them back outside, set them in like a sudden shower of rain, their nest on the lawn beneath or like the spray from a garden the tree, and retreated inside the sprinkler as it comes around. house to watch through the win- The flock climbed, switched, dows. Within minutes an adult switched again, then flowed in starling fluttered to the ground an undulating stream across the and shoved a cluster of larvae meadow to an oak tree. When into Beavis’s yawning mouth, they reached the tree, they disap- then flew off. We have cats in the peared again. neighborhood, as well as fox, opossum, raccoon, crow, and Adapted from A Walk in the other opportunistic eaters of Animal Kingdom: Essays on nestlings, so I went outside and Animals Wild and Tame, by Jerry placed the nest and the young Dennis, with illustrations by birds on a bird-feeder platform Glenn Wolff. Published July 2015, on a post well above the ground. Big Maple Press. Jerry Dennis is Again, within minutes, an adult the author of The Living Great was there, stuffing food down Lakes, It’s Raining Frogs and their throats. Fishes, The Bird in the Waterfall, A gray squirrel began climb- and other books. His essays have ing the post with possible appeared in numerous publica- criminal intent and was instantly tions, including Audubon, Smith- mobbed by three adult starlings. sonian, Wildlife Conservation, The birds made terrifying alarm Orion, and The New York Times. calls and swooped in rapid, straf- Visit him at jerrydennis.net.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 75 See Where They Fly Banded Gulls in the Gulf of Maine J o n W o o l f

Herring gull T47, the gull that inspired the author to start reporting banded gulls.

There’s a gull down there. on it. If I can get a little closer, Well, of course there’s a gull I should be able to read them down there. It’s a chilly winter through my scope. day on Hampton Beach, New I saw my first such banded Hampshire, and I’m standing gull around the end of April near one of the beach entrances, 2012. That particular gull, an Tlooking down across the beach adult herring gull, let me get toward the ocean. There are al- within 10 feet before it moved ways gulls “down there” near the away—close enough that with water’s edge—ring-billed gulls, some help from my camera, I herring gulls, great black-backed could read both the green band gulls. But this gull is different. and the metal federal band. I Through my binoculars, I can see searched the Web and found that it has a green band around one banded birds can be reported at

leg. That band has white letters the website reportband.gov. So I JON WOOLF

76 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest went there and reported both the federal band number and the colored band with its number. The webserver looked up the federal number in its database and told me where, when, and by whom the bird had been banded. The gull turned out to be a local, banded as an adult on Appledore Island, one of the Isles of Shoals about six miles off the New Hampshire coast. That was that, I thought— bird sighted, bird reported, end of story. Interesting, but not Close-up of T47’s leg bands. something I’d likely repeat very often. Most gulls are skittish herring gull banded in July 2010, birds; getting within 50 feet is age unknown, sex unknown, but hard, let alone 10! a regular nester on Appledore. A day or two later, I got an Well, that bit of information email from a gentleman named motivated me to keep an eye out Bill Clark. He said that he was for banded gulls and report any familiar with the gull I’d re- with band numbers that I could ported. He’s a member of Dr. read. So far, my total is 33 sight- Julie Ellis’s Gull Banding Project, ings of about 20 different gulls. which was responsible for band- All but one have been Appledore ing that gull and many other gulls. Half a dozen or so have gulls over the past eight years. He been great black-backed gulls; thanked me for the report and the rest have been herring gulls. gave me some more information There was E71, an adult her- about the gull, including records ring gull in very worn breeding of other places and times it had plumage. It was accompanied been sighted. He also asked if by R77, a juvenile herring gull I could send him my pictures that apparently mistook E71 as documentation for the sight- for its parent. ing. And he told me something There was the great black- I didn’t know: The green band backed gull in Rye Harbor, with its white text was enough strutting along the gunwale of to identify the individual bird, a fishing boat and sporting a without the federal band num- black band with white lettering,

JON WOOLF ber. My gull was T47, an adult code 7E4.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 77 Juvenile herring Gull R77, left, and adult E71. There was M69, another adult show them at known ages and herring gull that frequently hangs provide a firm reference for what around Hampton Beach. I man- a HEGU looks like in its first aged to read its band through my cycle, second cycle, etc. scope, but it wouldn’t let me get close enough for a picture. There was P02, the gull that first alerted me to one practical In the spring of 2013, Bill result of spotting banded gulls: Clark and Dr. Ellis invited me You know how old the bird is. to visit Appledore Island to see Every birder who has attempted the Gull Banding Project team immature gulls knows how hard at work. An opportunity to visit they can be to identify. But if you Appledore is rare unless you’re know that a bird was banded as a a researcher or a student, so I chick on a specific date, then you jumped at the chance. So it was know how old it is and you can that I found myself headed out use it as a fixed reference point: to Appledore on the morning This is what a typical herring of May 16. That week was the gull looks like just after fledging, spring session for the gull-band- while that is what a great black- ing team. While they do band backed gull looks like around its a few adult gulls, their main second birthday. A member of goal during the week is to prowl Dr. Ellis’s team is currently build- the island, notebooks in hand, ing a catalog of banded gulls that searching for banded gulls and JON WOOLF

78 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest their nests. Team members re- cord where they re-sight banded gulls and mark every nest where one or both parents are banded. The marked nests will be given extra attention in the summer session, during which the gull chicks are banded. A gull nest is a relatively simple thing. Most of the time it’s made of grasses gathered into a simple bowl, inside which the female gull lays her two to three eggs. Studying banded immature gulls While the work is interesting is a great way to learn gull plumages. Gull P02, above, was and exciting, it’s not always the banded as a chick in 2010. This sort of excitement you want. photo was taken in June 2012, Banding gulls isn’t like band- so it’s showing late-second-cycle ing songbirds. Herring gulls plumage. and great black-backed gulls are large, strong, and often open. For those nests, the team aggressive in defense of their shoos the incubating gull away nests. Members of the team for a minute, then places a wire always wear protective headgear, cage over the nest. The cage is because the gulls usually strike designed so that the returning from above and can deal serious gull can walk in, but then it can’t injuries with both their hooked get out again. When the gull is beaks and their clawed feet. safely inside the cage, the band- Even when they’re attacking from the ground, they’re danger- A gull nest with three eggs. ous. The team has several ways of capturing an adult gull. One team member specializes in simply (but carefully!) grabbing the bird off its nest. While effective, this method only works with herring gulls that are nesting in heavy brush. It doesn’t work with great black-backed gulls,

JON WOOLF (2) or with nests that are in the

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 79 A great black-backed gull Why Study Gulls? shades its nest Gulls in general are good subjects for large-scale population studies. First of all, they’re common. Second, they’re large birds that build large, easily found nests. Third, they are large enough to wear field-readable bands, which makes tracking the birds much easier. Fourth, grown gulls face relatively few threats to individual survival. Eagles are their only significant natural predator. Disease and starva- tion are the other major natural hazards; entanglement in fishing line and being hit by cars are the top human-made dangers. Finally, gulls are keystone spe- ers return, pick up the cage, and cies to coastal ecosystems. The then carefully remove the gull health of the gull population can from the cage. tell us a lot about the health of Either way, the end result is the ecosystem in which the gulls a gull in a large cloth bag. The live. (For more information plus next step is to band the gull. regular updates on Dr. Ellis’s First a USGS-standard metal research, see her blog at band is put around one leg. This gullsofappledore.wordpress.com.) comes first because the USGS The gulls of Appledore Is- band is the most important land are particularly good sub- step. Even if the gull escapes the jects because the island is such a next minute, that critical metal restricted field of study. Ap- band is still in place. Next, the pledore is only 95 acres in size, field-readable band is put on the and most of it is easily acces- other leg. Then the team takes sible by foot, with a bit of care. measurements: wing length, The island holds about 1,100 tarsus (leg) length, head length. nesting pairs of gulls, which are They take a blood sample for divided into several smaller, dis- later genetic analysis. When the tinct subcolonies by the island’s procedure is complete, the gull is geography. Here, a biologist can released unhurt. watch gulls acting and interact-

ing almost at her doorstep. She JON WOOLF

80 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest This gull gladly would have taken a chunk out of a bander’s arm, but she made sure it only got her clipboard.

can compare great black-backed pairs, but falls sharply when they gulls to herring gulls, or the have the larger, more aggres- gulls of the rocky edges to those sive great black-backed gulls for of the grassy interior, all within neighbors. For the great black- a half-mile of each other. backed gulls, the reverse is true: Nesting success is higher when What Are the Gulls Telling Us? they are near herring gull nests, Study of Appledore’s gull and significantly lower when population has yielded several they are surrounded by others of important insights into the ecol- their own species. It seems that ogy of gulls and their coastal en- great black-backs make poor vironment. In the 1990s, Dr. Ellis neighbors not only for other and her colleague Dr. Thomas species but even for their own—a Good made a study of nesting surprising result for a colony- results of single- and mixed- nesting seabird! Colonial nesting species subcolonies on the island. is supposed to increase repro- They discovered a complex inter- ductive success, but great black- play between the two species of backs have become so aggressive gulls on their Appledore nesting and territorial that their nesting grounds. For herring gulls, nest- is suffering as a result. ing success is good when they’re While studies of gull nesting

JON WOOLF surrounded by other herring gull habits continue, the Gull Banding

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 81 The gull banding team for the 2013 season. Dr. Julie Ellis is second from left; volunteer Bill Clark is right. All About the Isles of Shoals Appledore Island home to the Appledore the island, watching the is one of the Isles of Bird Banding Station, terns from a boat isn’t Shoals, a cluster of which uses the island’s difficult to do. small islands about nature as a migrant trap Star Island is the only six miles off the New to net and band hun- island that is generally Hampshire coast. There dreds of migrating song- open to the public. A are 14 named islands. birds every year. Access hotel here is oper- Of these, four are par- to Appledore is by boat ated by the Unitarian ticularly significant to only, and is strictly con- Universalist Church and birders: trolled. rented out for conven- Appledore Island is White and Seavey tions and other gather- the largest of the cluster, islands (they’re con- ings. There are also visits at 95 acres. It hosts sev- nected at low tide) are by boats several times eral structures that date home to a thriving col- a day. Like Appledore back more than a cen- ony of terns. The colony a mile away, Star Island tury. It’s owned by the includes common, rose- is a migrant trap. In Star Island Corporation ate, and Arctic terns. It’s springtime, you can see and run primarily by the one of very few places dozens of species of Shoals Marine Laboratory on the East Coast that songbirds in the island’s as the base for a com- you can go and have 45 acres, including as bination of marine and a reasonable chance of many as 18 species of

land-based studies. seeing all three species. warblers. JON WOOLF Besides being Dr. Ellis’s While it takes special focus, Appledore is permission to land on

82 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Project itself is slowly building a characters, and the characters are picture of how the gulls disperse always a letter followed by two from Appledore in the off-season. digits: T47, C30, M72, etc. An As you might expect, the large Appledore great black-backed majority of the gulls stay close to gull has a black band with white Appledore, while a few travel to lettering, and the code pattern is more distant wintering grounds. number-letter-number, such as Appledore Island gulls have been 7E4. Bands on other species of seen as close as Odiorne Point in birds, or with other color patterns, New Hampshire, and as far away are from other banding studies; as Florida and Texas. however, they all can use our help Dr. Ellis’s yearly surveys also in reporting banded birds. show a drop in survival rates for Any time you see a field-band- adults of both species. Neither ed bird, you should make a note herring nor great black-backed of the following items: is in any danger, but the popu- • The color of the band lations of both species on the • The location of the band island have dropped noticeably, (leg, wing, etc.) reflecting a trend that is occurring • The printed code on the band throughout New England. This • The color of the code char- trend may be connected to a loss acters of food sources: open landfills, • The location and date of the once a rich food source for gulls, sighting are being closed all along the If possible, you should also coast, while the slow decay of the take a digital photo, preferably near-shore fishing industry in the one that clearly shows the band Gulf of Maine means that gulls and also shows the bird’s physi- can’t scavenge as much from the cal condition. fishing boats either. Then go to reportband.gov to report your sighting. Each sight- What Can Birders Do to Help? ing is a new data point for Dr. This, at least, is a question Ellis’s study. As the data accumu- that’s easily answered: We can lates, she builds a more accurate all help Dr. Ellis, and other gull picture of how the Appledore banders, by reporting banded gulls live and behave. gulls. Any gull, any species, any time, any place. Jon Woolf is a computer pro- All of Dr. Ellis’s gulls are easily grammer, photographer, and long- identified from the field-readable time birder from New Hampshire. bands. An Appledore herring gull He organizes pelagic-birding trips wears a green band with white into the Gulf of Maine.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 83 One Short of a Parliament E l i J . K n a p p

“That’s the third murder we’ve asks quizzically. witnessed today!” I remarked “Yeah. Did you know that a to Ezra, my seven-year-old son group of crows is called a mur- who sits in the front seat of the der?” tandem kayak we’re paddling. “No.” Ezra faces forward “What?” Ezra asks. “What do again and resumes paddling in you mean?” Of all the character- a rare moment of thoughtful Tistics of kids, unbridled curiosity silence. He’s somewhat rankled. is my favorite. I prey upon it. Like most seven-year-olds, he’d And now, I was doing exactly rather be teaching me than vice that. versa. But his curiosity trumps “You mean you didn’t see that all. I know what’s coming, and a murder?” I retort, as water drop- few seconds later Ezra doesn’t let lets drip from my paddle and roll me down. down my forearm. “Well, surely “Why?” he asks. you had to hear it? Listen! You Despite my anticipation of the can still hear it!” Ezra swivels in question, I had absolutely no idea his seat and catches my smirk. about the origin of “a murder.”

“You mean the crows?” he Much like a crow, I was an invet- WIKI COMMONS

84 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest erate scavenger. Only I preferred them is called a congregation.” to pick from the carcass of odd- “Why don’t you like that word, ball natural history trivia. On one Dad?” such foray, I’d stumbled upon the “Because it’s too hard to say. collective noun. Collective nouns Too many syllables.” are those that describe groupings “I don’t think it’s hard to of individuals. For people, like “a say,” Ezra replied, pronouncing crew” or “a team,” we’re so used congregation aloud. Ezra had a to them that we take them for knack for exposing my baseless granted. But for the nonhuman judgments. realm, they’re very little used in “Yeah, I guess it’s not too common parlance despite being bad,” I replied. “I just don’t like so vivid and illustrative. How it.” had I lived so much of my life, I’d The cawing of the crows was wondered on my day of dis- replaced by the gentle sounds of covery, without these nutritious our paddles in the calm water. nuggets? Like other collectors, We both fell silent and entered I quickly amassed a precious our own subconscious orbits of horde. But in my merriment, I thought that kayaking so se- neglected the more laborious renely ushers in. While Ezra was work of figuring out why they likely dwelling on the underwater came to be. And now my son whirlpools he was creating with had exposed my ignorance and his paddle, I was dredging the rankled me. But like most proud dumpster of the other collective fathers, I couldn’t let him know nouns I’d stuck in my mental this. So I deftly redirected the scrapbook. conversation. “Isn’t murder such a cooler A Collection of Collective Nouns word than flock?” I remarked. It was true. I loved collective “And the word for a group of nouns. But some I liked far more ravens is even cooler. It’s an un- than others. The ones I liked best kindness of ravens!” were the ones that seemed so apt, “Why?” Ezra repeated his so descriptive of their species. prior question. I tried one last Jays, for example, are strident time to dodge. birds. When their dander is up, “But some group names are they can awaken a sleepy forest, dumb. Do you see those killdeer or a man sleeping in a forest, in over there?” I asked, pointing milliseconds. The Steller’s jay is with my paddle. the worst offender. Steller’s jays “Yeah.” have nearly sent me into cardiac “Well, a group of plovers like arrest on several still mornings I

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 85 One ring-necked pheasant; two or more would be a bouquet. spent camping under the arms an artistically minded naturalist. of redwoods in California. So, Or perhaps a love-struck hunter the collective noun—a scold of on his way home to a damsel. jays—is apropos. The same logic Other collective nouns are applies for several other species. special for the sheer winsome For anybody who has joy they create. Sure, a flock of watched hundreds of starlings goldfinches is fine. But gold- suddenly descend upon a lawn finches, especially when they and the monotone cacophony adorn my coneflowers like they create will have to agree Christmas ornaments in late that a murmuration of star- summer, deserve more than that. lings is ideal. As for ravens, an So yes, I call them a charm. unkindness suits their dark and The same goes for larks. When brooding demeanor. More light- meadowlarks alight from a ly, however, is the name for a flowery field, they are far more group of ring-necked pheasants. than a flock. They are an exalta- Although it’s only happened tion of larks. And if I’m ever so once, I’ll never forget the sea of lucky to someday see a lot of colors that surrounded me when godwits amassing on a mudflat, a few pheasants exploded from I’m sure I’ll agree I’m watching a field in front of me. It was in- an omniscience. deed a bouquet of pheasants, a Other collective nouns, how- term that must have arisen from ever, clutter my mind like dusty WIKI COMMONS

86 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest tchotchkes. With a sense of ill- found superiority I ignore them because I want to change them. As I mentioned earlier, a congregation of plovers needs to go. It should be a panic of plovers. Es- pecially so when a peregrine flies over the beach. Other collective nouns simply need slight modifi- cation. Everybody knows that a descent of woodpeckers should actually be an ascent, for woodpeckers only climb up trees, not down. Descent, while rich and descriptive, should be reserved for the devil downheads—the nuthatches. Other collectives need to be One green heron jettisoned altogether. Bobolinks is insufficient for a siege. live in open fields. They migrate thousands of miles between the Etymologies Americas, and their otherworld- As soon as I had rehung the ly song is unfettered and free. A kayak to its perch in the garage chain of bobolinks doesn’t fit. and the last droplet had evapo- Chains and imperialism should rated from my paddle, I set about be reserved for the house spar- researching how the odd bevy rows that have usurped lands of avian collective nouns came from many natives. And while to be. The first thing I real- I’m at it, a siege of herons? Get ized is that they’re old. 1486, to serious. Most herons are down- be precise. The Dame Juliana right stoics, far more content to Barnes was tossing them about spectate than lay siege. Yes, they in the Book of St. Albans before suddenly launch forward like Columbus had gotten around to lightning when an unsuspect- sailing the ocean blue. Wow. Less ing fish swims by. But this is no surprising, however, is the fact siege. It’s a snatch. Wouldn’t a that many of the terms were as- snatch of herons suit them bet- sociated with the three important ter? Most herons hunt more like H’s of the day: hunting, her- kingfishers, which is why I’m aldry, and hawking. A bouquet so fond of a concentration of of pheasants probably seemed

BRUCE WUNDERLICH kingfishers. all the more fragrant when a

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 87 well-trained hawk was bringing one back for the dinner table. The other colorful collectives got their foothold in mythology and folklore. Owls, for example, were the symbol for the Greek god- dess of wisdom, Athena. Due to their look of lofty erudition, a group of them was thought to resemble a parliament. Crows, on the other hand, evidently held trials to mete out punishments for their fellow corvid transgres- One barred owl sors. Those found guilty were short of a parliament. executed by the flock. In my wooded corner of the Northeast, Among all the birds, owls do this some mornings I’m awakened best. So I’d brought my students by incessant cawing that often out to a nameless swamp to find crescendos. Irritated, I pull my my most reliable owl, a barred pillow over my head and visual- owl that had never failed to ize assassinated crows dropping regale my classes. This particular out of tree limbs. Such is the owl had predictably appeared for power of the collective noun. five straight years. Fortunately, I have not Except this year. We had transgressed my fellow crows; silently entered the woods edg- I have, however, come close to ing the swamp and were now transgressing my students. My reclining on the forest floor. My most recent moment occurred playback machine was loud, after I dragged my students out the sky was dark, and the trees for an evening of owling. We were still. It was a perfect night had spent the day straining our for an owl. But my owl—old necks trying to make sense of Mr. Reliable—apparently didn’t the confusion of warblers (an- think so. So far, it was a perfect other very appropriate collective night only for mosquitoes. We noun). With the course set to sat and generously donated end in a week, I wanted to leave blood to the invertebrate world. them with an experience they’d Twenty minutes elapsed. Thirty. never forget. One they’d tell their The woods grew so dark I could friends about. And one that hardly distinguish one student ultimately would keep a flame of from another. And knowing

outdoor appreciation alit forever. their discouragement, I was glad BRUCE WUNDERLICH

88 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest I couldn’t. Finally, I got up to up. But I was happier still to leave and the students followed see the transformative power of suit. On a lark (an exaltation!), encountering a special creature I tried one last call holding my on its own terms. Even in our playback device high as if be- cyber world where experiences seeching the avian gods to send are increasingly virtualized, these down an ambassador. desensitizing layers of abstrac- Miraculously, the gods acqui- tion can be instantly peeled away esced. On silent wings, a barred with just one barred owl. Or two, owl barreled across the sky and in our case. landed just above us on a broken One of my former students, branch protruding perpendicu- Laura, had caught wind of our larly from a gnarled white pine. evening trip and stashed herself He looked down at us, swiveled in the van. Having had me as a his head in the mechanical way professor before, she’d grown that owls do, and then rent the accustomed to my love of the silence with the best who-cooks- collective noun. Amidst the din, for-you rendition I’d ever heard. Laura suddenly called out from Despite my earlier admonitions the back, “Eli, we were just one for silence, several students short of a parliament!” audibly gasped. And then, to “Aren’t two owls enough for top it off, a second owl flew in a parliament?” I retorted. While and called. This excited the first I agreed with Laura’s idea that owl who then took up where the a parliament should have at second left off. Set off against least three owls, I couldn’t resist the sky, the two silhouetted a chance to play the role of owls worked into a dither. In devil’s advocate. Laura smiled the midst of their performance but didn’t respond. She had no I reluctantly motioned for the answer. students to follow me out of the Neither did I. And now, even forest. My owl had delivered and after consulting several sources, even brought a friend. I would I still don’t. According to most return him his swamp. We had dictionaries, a group consists of intruded long enough. two or more individuals. Since a parliament refers to a collective How Many in a Collective? group, technically two should Back in the van, the students suffice. But a parliament, at least broke loose with stories of awe the parliament my mind conjures and astonishment. I drove back up of bombastic British folk in to campus silently smiling. I wigs, needs more. So, I’m with was relieved my owl had shown Laura. As mesmerizing as the

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 89 A parliament of great horned owls. owls were, we saw a pair, not a mosquito-infested swamps. Be- parliament. cause even if I end up one short Several months later I got a of a parliament, I may yet find package in the mail with Laura’s a charm. Or be given a bouquet. return address on it. I opened it And if I hear a scold or a mur- up and pulled out a book written muration emanating out of the for teenagers with a forgettable darkest part of the woods, I’ll be picture on the front. But the extra alert. Because I might expe- egregious title, Owl’s Well That rience a sudden unkindness. And Ends Well, had me grinning who knows when, heaven forbid, ear-to-ear nonetheless. Indeed, I’ll witness another murder. all was well. While we may have missed a parliament during our Eli J. Knapp is a professor of night of owling, I had learned intercultural studies and biology yet again, that the only predict- at Houghton College in Hough- able part of nature was its unpre- ton, New York, and author of a dictability. This attribute—while collection of short stories, in which at times excruciating—I’ve come this is included: The Delightful to relish most. It’s why I’ll keep Horror of Family Birding: Shar- luring my son along on kayaking ing Nature with the Next Gen- trips and marching students into eration, Torry House Press, 2018. BRUCE WUNDERLICH

90 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Bird Watcher's Digest Is Much More Than a Magazine!

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2019 February No.1 • Vol. 22

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Bird Wbirdwatchersdigest.comatcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com• 800-879-2473 91 TRUETRUE NANATURETURE by Julie Zickefoose I The Naturalist’s Dilemma

An eastern tiger swallowtail on Joe Pye weed.

9284 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’16’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest It is the first view I see in the nesting then, and we’ve got morning when I raise the blind, those, too. We found that out and I study it like a passage in a on an April 6 cut, when I saw a book, my eye traveling over its softball-sized projectile shoot length and breadth to see what out of the last remaining uncut has changed, who is passing by. section as the tractor’s mow- IIt’s the meadow that, when Bill ing deck passed by. The blades and I bought it in 1992, was missed the woodcock’s eggs by pretty much all grass—little eight inches. She was still sitting bluestem—and good for noth- on them ten days later, and then ing in our neighbor Carl’s book. they were gone without a trace, “Broom sedge,” he scoffed. having been transformed to win- “Cows can’t eat it. Cuts their some chicks who toddled into mouths.” He advised us to plow the woods behind their mother. it up, seed it, and start over. She somehow finished out their That was just the first bit of incubation in the last tiny island advice about this meadow that of vegetation left in the mead- we didn’t take. ow. We never cut in early When I think about April again. all the advice that’s So we’ll cut it earlier, been offered to me we decided, in February. on managing this AUTHOR Hmmm. The woodcocks meadow, it makes me get here from their south- READ-AHear the authorLOUD chuckle. I must seem read this article in ern wintering grounds awfully stubborn, ourP digitalLAY edition!IT around February 19. One because I haven’t fol- year, Bill cut it while the lowed any of it. I seem not to woodcocks were displaying, and be doing anything that every- they left. Out went February one else is doing. The hayfields as an option. Beyond that, the around here are all cut around meadow in February is satu- Memorial Day, at the end of rated, and often under snow to May, which is out of the ques- boot. February is a lousy option tion if your first concern is spar- for mowing. ing nesting birds. Field spar- By now, February, March, rows, common yellowthroats, April, and May were out, and song sparrows, blue-winged and all for good, sound reasons. Box prairie warblers are in mid-cycle turtles are prospecting nest sites then, and we’ve got them all. starting in mid-May, and laying Okay then, we were told, cut it their eggs in the last half of early, first thing in April. Well, June, so there’s no way I’d take a

JULIE ZICKEFOOSE the American woodcocks are tractor out then. Not only that,

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 93 A mowed field of July. but June and July are the height mow two and a half years ago, of baby bird season. It’s literal and the sumac was higher than murder to mow then, though my head, just at the stage where it goes on in everybody else’s it was too big to brush-hog. And fields all around us. You see my that is the moment in which it options disappearing, as my would turn from a meadow to thoughts dart like a cornered rat. a forest: the point of no return. February through July are no-fly Time to mow! I called and ar- zones. By late July 2019, I was ranged for someone to come, getting frantic. The meadow was fire up the Massey that waited in terribly overgrown with large my garage, and deliver us from woody plants. Okay, I thought: foresthood. I’ll wait until the birds are done And then the early goldenrod nesting, then mow. Mid-August started to bloom, and the tall ought to do it. That would give ironweed followed, painting the the plants time to grow back up meadow in great swatches of before frost, so they’d offer some gold and royal purple. Monarchs cover over the winter. I had and swallowtails and skippers thought about it until I was tired danced over the living painting of thinking. Something had to it had become. My daughter, be done; Bill had done his last Phoebe, begged me to spare

94 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Curtis Loew takes in a September meadow in full bloom.

it, and I had the out-of-body narrowing. There wasn’t much experience of being somehow of the year left to play with. In cast as the villain in this little September, the meadow was eco-drama—a villain with a tor- still rich with goldenrod and tured conscience. I realized that abuzz with pollinators. What Phoebe was right. We couldn’t about October? November? I mow it in August, either! It was had to cut it before the Mid- surely the most beautiful bloom Ohio Valley winter rains and I’d ever seen, and I was thankful sloppy snow started and con- every morning when I raised the tinued from November through blind to behold its glory, and March. Insect-advocating when I walked out and turned friends advised me against cut- around to look at the house ting in fall or early winter, to rising up out of its purple and protect butterfly chrysalides, gold expanse. August is now cocoons, and egg masses from sacrosanct, too; it’s the height of insects. It’s always something! I wildflower bloom and butterfly had to make my choice, because abundance, and to mow then is, if I didn’t, the sumac would I have come to see, like slashing be so big it couldn’t be cut, a Rembrandt painting. and there would no longer be Clearly, my options were JULIE ZICKEFOOSE (2) a meadow to agonize over! It

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 95 “The moral of the Tall ironweed. story is that, for a naturalist who tries to consider every living thing, there really isn’t a perfect time to mow.” was now or never. I watched the sider every living thing, there re- weather and picked a dry week ally isn’t a perfect time to mow. in early November for the mow. But mow we must, if we are to The man I engaged to mow have grasses and wildflowers; showed up, tinkered with the open space for swallows, blue- tractor, found a bunch of repairs birds, orchard orioles, field and that needed to be done, started it song sparrows; prairie and blue- up, and mowed anyway. I’d deal winged warblers and common with the repairs afterward. I felt yellowthroats; edges for white- an enormous sense of relief as eyed vireos, yellow-breasted the big sumac, taller than me, chats, and brown thrashers. came tumbling down under the Mowing is destructive, but I brush hog. I breathed an apol- felt I’d finally settled on a time ogy to the insects and figured that was least destructive. And I that most egg masses, cocoons, still have a meadow, woody and and chrysalides would likely weed-grown as it always will be, survive, but just lie closer to the and all the marvelous things ground now. that live there. Without the The moral of the story is that, blade, there is no meadow. for a naturalist who tries to con- Though manning the big Massey is something I won’t

96 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest take on, I bought myself a good of purple coneflower and liatris battery-powered weed-eater and and butterflyweed blooming in learned how to whack weeds. a living tribute on his grave. It’s I put heavy-duty tires on my up to me to keep it in meadow, John Deere rider mower, and mowed at the right time so it’ll all spring and summer long, I stay beautiful and blooming. mow the paths and perimeter, to It feels good to be done think- keep the sumac, multiflora rose, ing about the best time to do it. and honeysuckle at bay. It takes Buying land, I think, is the easy hours, but I greatly enjoy the part. It’s the stewardship that’ll mown paths that allow me to get you every time. amble silently through my property. In fact, the place is far bet- Julie Zickefoose is a natural- ter kept up now that I don’t have ist, artist, and author of five to wait for anyone else to get books, the latest of which, Saving around to it all. It seems a great Jemima: Life and Love with a irony that Bill had to leave this Hard-luck Jay, was published in beautiful place and now rests in September 2019.

JULIE ZICKEFOOSE (2) the meadow, a miniature forest

Bill’s resting place.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 97 BirdBIRDTOGRAPHY Photography by Bruce Wunderlich

The Ethics of Bird Photography

I had wantedT torue photograph Natur ae head up and down, focusing on snowy owl for years. So, in 2017, the mouse. The farmer tossed when snowy owls irrupted into the mouse into the field, and the Ohio and many other states, I owl took flight and was on the hoped I might have a chance to mouse in a flash. The air was Iphotograph this beautiful bird. filled with the sound of cam- I heard reportsBirders of a snowy Ques on tionera Mark shutters as we all aimed to a farm in northern Ohio that capture a dream shot of a snowy was giving photographers a owl in flight, hunting a mouse. lot of great shots. One Satur- So that’s how everyone was day morning, I headed north getting those spectacular images to see if I could get my snowy of the owl! owl shot. When I arrived at the I wondered: Is this baiting? location, the farmer welcomed I tried to justify it by telling me and pointed me in the owl’s myself that the owl still had direction. I went where he told to hunt down the mouse after me and found a fence lined with the farmer tossed it, so it was photographers. okay, right? But that didn’t sit The owl was resting on the right with me. Because of this top of a barn, and I quickly experience, I became concerned snapped my shutter. I was not about my own standards for that impressed with the images; ethical bird photography. I they weren’t the awesome photos think of myself as an ethical I had seen of this bird on the photographer. I deeply want internet. A few moments later, to be an ethical photogra- the farmer came out of the barn pher. But am I? Sometimes as carrying a mouse he had caught. photographers we can get so All the photographers jumped to caught up in the moment that attention. The farmer walked out we forget the most important into the field; the owl watched rule of bird photography: Re- the farmer intently, bobbing its spect the birds. Do no harm.

98 birdwatchersdigest.com • September/October ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest A snowy owl flies to catch a mouse a farmer has tossed for it.

I recently had a chance to mans), begging for food. This has interview award-winning wildlife been observed and filmed, with photographer Melissa Groo on snowy owls for instance. Owls the subject of ethics in photog- and other raptors are often fed by raphy, a topic Melissa is passion- roads, because people don’t want ate about. She advised Na- to walk a distance, or through tional Audubon on photography deep snow, to feed them away content and ethics and helped from the car. They are often hit create its Guide to Ethical Bird by cars, because they fly so low. Photography. She has served as Many owls die this way. an International League of Con- Snowy owls can be hunted in servation Photographers fellow Alaska for their meat and their and has had photos featured in feathers for seven months of the Smithsonian Magazine, National year with no bag limits.* Do we Geographic, National Wildlife, really want to teach them to trust and many other publications. people and approach them for Below is our conversation: handouts? *Editor’s note: Snowy owls may What can happen to birds that are be hunted for subsistence (food being baited for photography? and clothing) only; only by Alaska Melissa: Predatory birds that residents; and only in five specific are baited with live animals locations. for photography very quickly In short, baiting raptors sucks become habituated to humans. the wild right out of them and They begin to approach humans simply introduces too many risks. (and sometimes cars, knowing What photo is that important?

BRUCE WUNDERLICH they produce food-bearing hu-

Bird Watcher’s Digest • September/October ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 99 Killdeer.

What are some signs that you may be a sign to other birds that there be stressing the birds? is a predator (in this case, you!) Melissa: Staring at you. If a nearby. bird keeps looking at you, it’s • Making alarm calls. Usually probably not comfortable with these calls are very loud and your presence. quick, not melodious like a song. • Bobbing its head. When • Clacking their bill. Raptors ducks see a predator, they and owls especially will make quickly jerk their head up sounds with their bills that indi- repeatedly, alerting other ducks cate stress. to the danger. This move often • Making mobbing calls. Even precedes them flying away. louder and faster than alarm • Straightening up from a calls, these are often done in relaxed pose and trying to make a large group that’s banding itself look thinner (particularly together to drive off a predator. true for owls). (Again, this is you.) • Raising wings and holding • Diving on you. Birds that are them away from the body. This alarmed by your presence and means it’s trying to make itself trying to protect their nests and look bigger to pose a threat to young will directly dive you. you (particularly true for owls). • Circling you. This can be

• Flicking wings or tail. This can done from high above, or by BRUCE WUNDERLICH

100 birdwatchersdigest.com • September/October ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest moving around you from impacts whenever we use flash. branch to branch. We can think about it on three • Moving away from you. Even different levels: physical (startle if a bird flies only a few yards in response and temporary loss the opposite direction, this may of visual ability), behavioral indicate that it’s not very pleased (change in immediate and long- that you are there. term behavior), and mental • Distraction displays, especially (namely, fear response). common in ground-nesting spe- For me, as with so much of cies like killdeer and other plo- ethics, it comes down to empa- vers, some birds that are incubat- thy. How do we act with coming eggs or protecting nestlings passion? If we were a nocturnal might feign injury to draw you animal, like a screech-owl, flying away from their nest or babies. back with prey to our nest full of They’ll often drag a wing or hop chicks, what would it feel like if along the ground. If you see this, a flash went off in our eyes while it’s time to move away. in flight? Wouldn’t it cause a I think it’s also good to recog- momentary loss of vision? What nize some signs that show a bird if we were to fly into something is relaxed in your presence. I’m and injure ourselves? always relieved when I see a bird preening, as I think a bird doing Just walking through the woods that is typically pretty relaxed. or by a lake can cause birds to Another is when a bird is sleep- flush. But sometimes it’s wrong to ing, either remaining sleeping or disturb birds. How do you draw going to sleep while you are there. a line between when it’s okay to To me, that’s a compliment. disturb birds, and when it’s wrong? Melissa: There’s no question What is your opinion on the use that every single time we are of flash with bird photography? out there in bird habitat, we are Melissa: I don’t use flash, in disturbing birds on some level. part because I don’t want to add Their senses are so much keener anything to what I’m already than ours, and they can flee doing that might alarm my sub- from us before we even see them. ject. My presence and the click Does that mean we should never of my shutter are enough. But I venture outside? Of course not. know plenty of careful photog- More than ever we need to cele- raphers who use it judiciously brate the natural world, be out in and to good effect. it, treasure it. Only by valuing it I think we do have to con- will we seek to preserve it. At the sider and be attuned to potential same time, we must also seek the

Bird Watcher’s Digest • September/October ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 101 A great blue heron preens. best way to be minimally disrup- verters. There are some great, tive. It’s definitely a fine balance, relatively affordable choices out and every situation is different, there, such as zoom lenses made but we can start by realizing that by Tamron and Sigma. every moment for a bird is about Build compassion and em- survival. Try to be aware of to pathy into your fieldcraft. Put what extent your presence might yourself in the place of the bird. be interfering with a natural pro- How would you feel if a giant cess critical to that bird’s survival. predator with a lens that looks If we’re changing behavior so like a giant eye suddenly put all that a bird stops feeding or hunt- their attention on you? ing or caring for its young for If while you’re taking pho- more than a few minutes, that’s a tos you do something that good sign that we should back up you wouldn’t feel comfortable or leave altogether. sharing in a description of how you got the shot, maybe that’s a What is the most important thing signal to you that you shouldn’t we can do to become more ethical do that. That’s always a good bird photographers? self-check. Melissa: Keep your distance.

Buy a longer lens and telecon- When is it appropriate to use BRUCE WUNDERLICH

102 birdwatchersdigest.com • September/October ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest call playback? Can this be done if we do this for this species, we respectfully? should be able to do it for that Melissa: I think photographers one. Birds have widely variable can use it in a careful, limited way, needs and dispositions. A couple playing a call a few times, but I years ago, I came up with three don’t think it should be used on questions in an article for Audu- threatened or endangered birds, bon that I thought could be used or during breeding season, as it in any situation to help provide can call a bird away from the nest guidance around feeding birds: or the vicinity of the nest, where Is the food appropriate and it is protecting young. I know safely provided? how quickly predators can go in Is the bird threatened or en- and snatch an egg or nestling. I dangered? also think we have to consider the Could feeding this bird change cumulative impact here, too. Are its behavior in a way that might different people calling the same be harmful to it? bird repeatedly because it’s a spe- Here’s the article: audubon.org/ cial bird that everyone wants to news/when-its-okay-or-not-feed- photograph? I think that could be birds. pretty stressful on an individual. We know enough about bird- We also need to abide by local, state, and national laws. Audio playback is not allowed in state and national parks or national wildlife refuges.

How is providing a seed pile or even bird feeders different from baiting birds? Melissa: First, let me say I use the term “baiting” to refer to the practice of providing live or dead meat to predatory birds. The effects of feeding/baiting birds must be considered on an individual basis, that is, according to the species. We just can’t paint everything with one broad brush. Comparing the ecology of a tufted titmouse with that of a great gray owl just doesn’t make sense. We can’t say

Bird Watcher’s Digest • September/October ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 103 Worm-eating warbler, adult.

feeding best practices at this each nest situation we encounter. point. Place feeders at certain Nesting is the most critical part distances from windows, clean of a bird’s life cycle. It’s how they them regularly, stock them with continue their line. If we really care appropriate food, and keep cats about birds and want to continue indoors. Studies show backyard photographing them, we need to bird feeding can enhance survival be aware of how to help them best in songbirds during harsh winters. succeed at reproducing. Baiting predatory birds can Learn about the species in introduce a whole host of risks advance of shooting. Having a to their survival. It’s often not basic understanding of behavior provided safely, it changes their and ecology will help both your behavior, and some of the owl photography and your approach to species that it’s used on are in the bird. trouble, such as snowy owls, which Stay back at a good distance have been uplisted to Vulnerable and observe the behavior of the status on the IUCN Red List. parent(s). Then, as you get closer, observe how behavior changes. What is the most ethical way to Does that behavior return to nor- photograph nests? mal within a few minutes? If not, Melissa: Just as every bird is move back or leave. different, every nest is different. Never cut leaves or branches

We must give careful thought to away for a better view. The adults BRUCE WUNDERLICH

104 birdwatchersdigest.com • September/October ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest may have located that nest there Melissa has a new bird photog- expressly for that reason—be- raphy course available at academy. cause that vegetation provided allaboutbirds.org/product/bird- the perfect amount of camou- photography-with-melissa-groo, flage or of protection from the and you can also find her on sun or the wind. social media: @melissagroo and If it’s quite cold or hot, don’t Facebook.com/melissa.groo. do anything that sends the adult When it comes to bird pho- off the nest. The exposure of the tography, remember three things: chick to extremes in tempera- Take nothing but photographs, ture could kill it in a matter of leave nothing but footprints, kill minutes. nothing but time. The well-being Try to avoid spending too of the birds should be every much time at a nest. If the parents photographer’s goal. Ethical bird are away, your presence may be photography continually focuses inhibiting them from returning. on what is best for the birds, but Work from a blind if pos- you will also find that it helps you sible. Sometimes this will be the create more powerful images of only way you can photograph a birds in their natural behavior. nest, especially with particularly sensitive species like raptors. But Bruce Wunderlich is the whatever bird you’re dealing with, production director and a con- concealing yourself in a blind of tributing photographer for Bird some sort will just about always Watcher’s Digest and Watching put them more at ease. Backyard Birds. His award-win- Avoid walking up to the nest. ning photography has appeared You will create a virtual trail as in numerous publications. Follow well as a scent trail, that predators Bruce on Instagram @Bruce_ can later use to find the nest. Wunderlich.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • September/October ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 105 by David M. Bird

Brown Creepers and Reader Observations

As I sit here at my computer in one’s feeder or forage for insects my office staring out into my in various large trees in a green backyard, I see nothing but a space in a suburban neighbor- breathtaking forest of Douglas hood. They certainly can surprise Afirs, some standing more than one with their sudden presence! 180 feet tall. Then suddenly I will never forget a Christmas among the gray trunks and green bird count on Mount Royal in fir needles, an almost impercep- downtown Montreal when we tible movement catches my eye. were finding it a challenge to And I smile. tally 30 species due to extremely Perhaps no other bird in cold, snowy weather. We were North America flies under the standing in a parking lot getting radar as much as the brown ready to eat lunch when suddenly creeper. Here is a bird that one of our sharp-eyed students spends virtually all of its forag- pointed out two brown creepers ing time working its way to the hitching themselves up a single top only to drop down to the isolated tree right beside the bottom and start all over again! parking lot. Had I not seen them with my own eyes, I would never An Appreciation of Creepers have believed it possible to see This tiny bird with its cryptic them in that kind of scenario. coloration of browns and whites The range of the brown creep- and its high-pitched call is eas- er stretches from coast to coast, ily overlooked when one walks as far north as Alaska, and south through a mature forest domi- down into Mexico. It is the only nated by coniferous trees. While representative of the creeper it is not a bird that commonly family on our continent, and it is frequents backyards in most very closely related to its Euro- places in North America, it is pean counterpart, the Eurasian not beyond the realm of possibil- treecreeper. Only differences in ity to see a brown creeper visit vocalizations separate them.

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Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 107 The brown creeper is a year- occasional vegetable matter, they round resident in most of its mostly love to forage for a wide range, but the northern and variety of insects and their lar- eastern populations do engage vae, spiders and their eggs, and in some migratory behavior. pseudoscorpions on the trunks Some do it latitudinally, e.g., of live trees. As mentioned ear- north to south in fall and back lier, they will come to both seed again in the spring, while others and suet feeders in the winter migrate altitudinally. For such months when food is scarce. a small bird, the brown creeper They also have been observed to is certainly capable of motoring eat snow. along; one leg-banded individual Like the feeding habits of covered 280 miles in just ten days most birds, brown creepers also of migration! prove the exception from time Think of the brown creeper to time, choosing to eat unusual as a cross between a woodpecker foods or hunt in an atypical man- and a nuthatch, but without all ner. For example, corn and mast of the fanfare of drumming vig- (acorns and the fruit of beech or orously on a trunk or climbing other trees) have been observed down a tree headfirst, respec- in the diets of some creepers. tively. Creepers have slender, And one brown creeper was decurved beaks that serve them observed to fly about a foot off well to probe and peck furrows the trunk to catch an insect flying and crevices in the bark of both nearby. They are not generally coniferous and deciduous trees. known for caching food items, Like the woodpeckers, brown but one bird was seen hiding creepers also have short legs, small pieces of sunflower seed in a fairly long, stiff tail relative the bark of red pines. to their body size, and exten- Speaking of hiding, brown sively curved toes and claws, all creepers engage in some very designed to allow them to hang odd sleeping arrangements. One onto bark and shuffle themselves family group of fledglings was upward on the trunk. They usu- seen gathered in a tight circle on ally start from the bottom of the a protected tree trunk with their tree and with occasional spirals bills pointing inward and their around the trunk, work their wings and shoulders all fluffed way right to the top, only to fly out. Sometimes they will rest on to the nearest tree and start all a trunk for up to an hour and over again at the bottom. a half. In winter, two or three While brown creepers oc- adults will roost together for the casionally dine on seeds and night by squeezing together into

108 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest a crack or scar in the bark or even places a tidbit of food into the beside a chimney on a roof. throat of a begging female. Both One is most likely to hear a sexes investigate various poten- brown creeper while on its breed- tial sites for nest construction, ing territory, but in any case, the invariably between the trunk and song and call are easily missed, a loose piece of bark on a dead especially by the more senior or dying tree. Some interesting birdwatchers whose ability to per- exceptions include behind win- ceive high-pitched sounds—like dow shutters, under loose roof those of kinglets, waxwings, and shingles, and in a stack of bricks. blackpolls—is the first to dete- While the male will bring in some riorate. Composed of mostly tsee material and offer an encouraging notes, the song is referred to as song or two, the female generally being “high and thin, but surpris- builds the nest alone. She actually ingly rich and delicate.” Another creates a sort of hammock out old description has it sounding of twigs, bark, insect cocoons, like the tinkle of a small chain hair, feathers, lichens, moss, and being dropped into a heap. If you spider-egg cases. One Michigan have not heard that sound lately, nest contained no less than 872 the call is also reminiscent of that different items! They apparently of a golden-crowned kinglet, i.e., a high-pitched, rolling treet or a Brown creeper. clear, high tsit note. When the breeding season arrives, territorial brown creepers sing their hearts out while frequently changing perches high among the trees. Even in winter, despite their penchant for roosting in small groups of two or three, one can see fairly aggressive behavior between these little birds when foraging for food. We know little about the pair bonding behavior in brown creepers, but courtship displays appear obvious as early as February or March in the form of a silent chase between members of a pair, round and round adjacent tree

CLAUDIO BACINELLO trunks. Once in a while, the male

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 109 will nest in artificial houses, but a loss due to timber harvesting, so friend and I have installed them maybe this species will encour- in our respective yards with no age better forest management success to date. practices. It is one thing not to About five to six white eggs, notice these unobtrusive small sometimes with pink or reddish brown birds, but it would be quite speckles at the fat end, are laid, another to not even have the op- one per day. Only the female in- portunity to see one at all. cubates, although the male brings her food, and the eggs hatch in Readers’ Observations 15 to 17 days. Both parents bring Henry Monroe is an octoge- food to the nestlings, but only the narian birder who has been ob- female broods them for warmth serving birds since his mid-teens and protection. They depart from or earlier. Here are two behaviors the nest anywhere from 14 to 20 that he observed in his yard in days. Gainesville, Georgia, just north- It is not easy to comment on east of Atlanta, in early 2020, the status of brown creepers in followed by my comments. North America, if only because Observation One: I have a sun- they are hard to detect during flower seed feeder hanging over counts. Nevertheless, we know quince shrubbery about 20 feet enough to conclude that their from my elevated sunroom, which populations are declining overall has many west-facing windows and throughout the continent, including a corner with windows mainly due to the loss of mature on both sides. In addition to and old-growth forests. De- sunflower seeds in the feeder, I fre- spite their occasional aggressive quently scatter mixed seed under behavior toward nest predators, the feeder for ground- they still lose their nest contents feeding birds such as white-throated to various kinds of squirrels, sparrows and eastern towhees. rats, and corvids, including crows One morning in late February or and jays. Like many other small early March, I noticed three tufted birds, brown creepers have been titmice near the feeder. Then I known to collide with various heard a thump on the window human-made structures, such as around the corner from the feeder. buildings and radio and television We occasionally have birds that towers. bump the windows in trying to cut Fortunately, some wildlife through the corner, so I looked managers consider the brown out the window but couldn’t see creeper to be an excellent envi- the ground just below the window. ronmental indicator of habitat I didn’t go outside to look, but I

110 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest noticed two titmice rather excit- edly leaving the feeder and flutter- Eastern meadowlark. ing around the ground under the window for a while. Later that day, I went outside and discovered the dead body of a titmouse under the window. Is this normal for birds to notice and investigate a dead or dying bird of their own species (group)? Comment: It would be tempt- ing to think that the birds are somehow mourning the loss of their flock member, as some people think about crows, one of the most intelligent birds on the planet. But you would be wrong. In the case of the latter, corvid experts say that crows investigate a dead member of their group in an effort to determine what might yours. I have in my possession have killed it so that they might a dozen photographs of several avoid that particular location in male northern rough-winged the future. The titmice might have swallows copulating with a male been doing the same, but more of the same species struck by a likely, they were just curious. car. While I cannot explain the I recall seeing an eastern mead- behavior, I refer to it as a form owlark singing earnestly over the of homosexual necrophilia, but fresh body of its mate on a road- it is scientifically called “Davian” side after the latter was struck by behavior, named after an old a car. That was five decades ago, limerick that is much too obscene and I have never gotten the image to include here. out of my mind. I recall thinking Observation Two: Near my emotionally that it was mourn- brick patio, I have a cage suet ing the loss of its mate, but based feeder hanging over shrubbery on what I know now about avian about 16 feet from my south- behavior, I am more inclined to facing kitchen windows. Because think that it was merely trying to of nocturnal attacks by raccoons stimulate its mate to revive itself. or other “varmints,” I always And here is an even more take it down at night and hang

BRUCE WUNDERLICH macabre observation related to it again the next morning. Since

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 111 I have not seen a white- A great blue heron throated sparrow fly at prepares to dine. or land on my hanging sunflower seed feeder (feeding slots close if a squirrel lands on the bottom feeding rung), but I have seen a sparrow perch in the top of the shrubbery under- neath the feeder. Comment: The feet of sparrows in general are not well adapted for clinging onto plant material or feeders the way that titmice, chickadees, February or maybe even earlier nuthatches, and woodpeckers do. this year, I’ve noticed one or more Their feet are more adapted for white-throated sparrows on the perching on branches, fence wire, ground or in the shrubbery if the etc. Having said that, if a bird is suet feeder is hanging. When the hungry enough to target a certain feeder is unoccupied by a downy food item, they might make the woodpecker, northern cardinal, effort. However, it probably costs Carolina wren, etc., a sparrow them a fair bit of energy to try to will often fly at the feeder, flut- balance themselves by all that wing ter mightily to hang onto the fluttering, which would not be a cage, and peck at the seeds in the very efficient form of foraging. suet for 15 seconds or more. If the sparrow manages to land on Heron Intelligence top of the feeder, it can remain Finally, Robert Brown of New- longer without much fluttering. ark, Delaware, witnessed a great Of course, when a woodpecker blue heron catching a good-sized or other bird lands on the feeder, fish “close to the maximum size the sparrow will immediately the bird could swallow.” The bird drop back down. The feet of a was on a lake about 100 yards white-throated sparrow don’t from shore. Instead of consum- seem well adapted to cling to the ing it on site, the heron waded to feeder cage. Do you know if these shore and stood about 15 feet on sparrows are likely to feed on land where it flipped and swal- hanging feeders? As of this point, lowed the fish. BRUCE WUNDERLICH

112 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Comment: Normally, what not surprise me. While apparent- happens immediately after grab- ly not as intelligent as corvids or bing or spearing a fish is that parrots, herons are right up there the heron rotates the prey in its in terms of innovative behavior bill to force it down its gullet or among all the birds. A number esophagus head-first so that it of them are clever enough to lay fits nicely in its elongated pouch down bait in the form of insects stomach to minimize damage or leaves on the water’s surface to the lining from sharp fins. As to attract fish into range of their Robert himself suggested, since bills, while others will spread this fish was about as large as a their wings to create shade for heron could handle and pos- the same purpose. sibly quite slippery and wiggly, the clever bird decided to wade Send your bird behavior ques- ashore to consume it in its usual tions and observations to David way. In that manner, if the fish M. Bird, c/o BWD, P.O. Box 110, did manage to wriggle free, the Marietta, OH 45750 or email heron would have the option of your questions to bwd@ seizing it again and again until it birdwatchersdigest.com. Visit his swallowed it. This behavior did website, askprofessorbird.com.

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Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 113 Far Afield by Jerry Uhlman

Birding Oklahoma’s Ouachita Mountain Foothills and Tenkiller Lake

J e r r y U h l ma n

The rolling foothills of the long body that is a popular fishing Ouachita (pronounced WAH- destination throughout the year. she-taw) Mountains in eastern Both Ouachita foothill sites draw Oklahoma are a paradise for a great variety of winter birdlife outdoor enthusiasts, particularly for visitors to enjoy. birders and anglers. The foothills Tare crisscrossed by the Illinois, Ar- Sequoyah NWR kansas, and Neosho Rivers where The refuge is named after a bottomland lakes and reservoirs Cherokee who invented a sys- attract songbirds in the spring and tem of writing to transmit mes- waterfowl and waders during win- sages and information over long tertime. The undulating landscape distances. Although several early is both scenic and verdant. ethnic groups moved throughout Nestled in the hills just 40 miles the foothills region, there are few west of Ft. Smith, Arkansas, traces of their homelands. you’ll find Sequoyah National The Sequoyah refuge bird Wildlife Refuge at the western tip checklist of 225 boasts 13 duck of the 20,800-acre Robert S. Kerr species you’re apt to easily see, Reservoir, and 5 miles south of and you’ll have a good chance the town of Vian, Oklahoma. Just of spotting less-numerous red- 10 miles north of Vian you’ll find heads, ruddy ducks, white-winged

Lake Tenkiller, a 13,000-acre ob- scoters, and both hooded and ADOBE STOCK

114 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest Snow geese. red-breasted mergansers as well. during morning and evening Surely you’ll find many pied-billed hours. Fortunately, Sequoyah has grebes and, if lucky, a horned or a six-mile gravel loop through its eared grebe. heartland, with several short spurs For many years, Sequoyah that lead to the waters of Kerr has been the site of a program Reservoir and elongated Sally to reintroduce bald eagles to Jones Lake on the eastern and the area, and the success of the northern portion of the refuge. program will be obvious by the You’ll also find two trails along number you’ll see as you explore the wildlife loop that are both the refuge. As you drive the refuge level and paved. These trails, roads, you are certain to find Horton Slough and Sandtown eagles perched in the cottonwoods Woods, will give you an opportu- or flying over Kerr Reservoir, but nity to search for landbirds along you’re just as likely to see a pair the bottomland shorelines. atop a roadside deer carcass with The wildlife loop begins at the several black vultures impatiently refuge headquarters, just beyond waiting nearby. a large information kiosk. Direct- When visiting a wildlife refuge, ly behind the kiosk is the trailhead it’s always a plus to find a wild- of the Horton Slough Trail, a life loop to leisurely meander one-mile easy trek to the edge of through—probably several times Sally Jones Lake. The trail follows

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 115 Red-shouldered hawk. ARTHUR MORRIS

the rim of the slough to the lake, square with several short drivable crosses via a boardwalk bridge, spurs at the corners, leading to and leads back to the kiosk and waterfront overlooks. The spurs parking lot. The crossover bridge usually are lined with trees or is a favorite perching site for bald brushy hedges, great stretches to eagles, so watch and listen for explore on foot to look for water- them overhead. On one of my fowl and landbirds. visits, four perched together on If you enter the wildlife loop bare limbs while a juvenile called in the early morning hours, watch to them as it glided over the lake. the treeline on both sides of the

The wildlife loop is essentially a gravel road for hawks and owls. WILLY ONARHEIM

Northern pintails.

116 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest One morning I found a red- Horned lark. shouldered hawk and a great horned owl perched on opposite sides of the same tree, poised for a hunting soirée. As the treeline ends, you’ll find a line of shallow, grassy ponds that shelter waterfowl from brisk winds. Among the grasses you’ll easily see mallards, gadwalls, wi- geons, pintails, and shovelers. But you’ll need to be patient and thor- ough to find teals, canvasbacks, and often only seen from afar. In and redheads. As you slowly fol- Sequoyah’s grasslands, you may low the loop, each new pond can have a fair chance of spotting yield another unexpected species. one. On a recent February visit, Beyond the duck-filled ponds, I found a pair hunting together the roadsides, crop fields, and near Sandtown Bottoms along the brushy meadows also deserve western edge of the wildlife loop. your attention. Here, you’re likely The wary birds made only one ap- to spot eastern meadowlarks, proach to nearby saplings before American pipits, and horned moving out of eyesight. larks. Twice I’ve been surprised by The nearby Sandtown Woods small coveys of northern bob- Trail will give you another per- whites scurrying along the gravel spective of the Sequoyah refuge. road, quickly ducking into the tall At the Sandtown Bottoms park- grass for cover. ing lot, look for markers for the Refuge fields and ponds also designated National Recreation host flocks of geese, mainly snow, Trail. The paved pathway skirts white-fronted, and Canada. the shoreline where the Arkansas While they are uncommon, you and Canadian rivers merge and may spot a Ross’s goose among then heads into the bottomland the flocks if you’re patient and forest. persevering. This is probably your best While tall deciduous trees chance to find winter passerines ring grassy fields, you’ll often see on the refuge. You’ll have a good groups of small saplings dot open chance of finding white-breasted fields, perfect habitat for logger- nuthatches, both kinglets, several head shrikes. Shrikes are a declin- of seven species of woodpeckers, ing grassland species in North perhaps a winter or Bewick’s wren

BRUCE WUNDERLICH America, often difficult to spot as well as Carolina wrens, and

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 117 Park, at the southern tip of Common loon with chick. the lake near the village of Blackgum. The state park, dubbed “Heaven in the Hills,” has lengthy stretches of lake- front, giving many vantage points and perspectives of open waters and distant coves. Stop at the park office and pick up a copy of the visitor’s guide to Lake Ten- killer, which has a handy map showing highlights along the maybe even a Brewer’s blackbird entire shoreline. near the parking lot. As you walk While you may spot pairs or the Sandtown Woods Trail, keep small rafts of ducks, your target an eye out for American wood- bird here is a common loon. cock and Wilson’s snipe around You’re apt to find several as you the boggy patches covered with scan, and often the loons and leaf-litter. ducks are strikingly close to the rocky shores for good photo ops. Tenkiller Lake Walking through the park will When you’ve finished explor- give you another chance to find ing the refuge, head north from winter passerines. the refuge to Tenkiller Lake State Besides the state park, Burnt Park, an easy 15-mile drive on Cabin, on the southwest side of scenic backroads. Tenkiller Lake Tenkiller Lake, can be an excel- has 130 miles of shoreline dotted lent spot to scan and scope. From with vacation cabins and punctu- Tenkiller State Park, follow route ated with several rocky bluffs. The 100 and 10A west to Paradise lake has numerous access points Hill, and then head north on to the water, mainly through Indian Road to Burnt Cabin private marinas, state parks, and signage. After a short drive to campgrounds built by the US the marina, you’re apt to find not Army Corps of Engineers. Most only ducks and loons but also a Corps of Engineers’ sites have large number of white pelicans. inviting waterfront stretches, but If you choose to circle Ten- unfortunately most tend to be killer Lake, head north on Indian closed during the winter. Road from Burnt Cabin and Your first destination for return south on State Routes

optimal birding is Tenkiller State 82 and 100 on a circuit of ap- ARTHUR MORRIS

118 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest proximately 40 miles. While most can find loons and large flocks of Corps of Engineer sites you’ll pelicans swimming together with encounter are closed, Cherokee huge numbers of double-crested Landing State Park at the north- cormorants. ern end of the lake deserves a When you finish exploring the brief birding stop. If you’re near northern foothills of the Ouachita the park at lunchtime, Princess Mountains, you’ll have a great Restaurant, two miles south of trip bird list and many fond the park in Tahlequah, is a good memories of the Oklahoma’s choice for fish or ribs. scenic landscape. If you’ve missed pelicans and loons or want more, a reli- Jerry Uhlman is an inveterate able spot nearby to find them is traveler and birder. He has written Greenleaf State Park, less than 15 two Virginia bird-finding guides miles west of Tenkiller State Park and numerous magazine articles, on route 10A. Just past the park including frequent contributions to entrance on route 10, a wide arm Bird Watcher’s Digest. He writes of Little Greenleaf Creek seems “Flyways and Byways,” a nature to attract both foraging species. column in the Richmond Times- On both sides of the road you Dispatch. If you go...

Air travel to north- suming, clean, and com- map is found at fws. central Oklahoma is fortable ((918) 489-2100, gov/uploadedFiles/ through Tulsa, and more suite16motel.com/en-us), Sequoyah_Hunt_2018. conveniently, Ft. Smith, with an Italian restaurant pdf. Also see fws.gov/ Arkansas (FSM), at the next door and a small, refuge/Sequoyah, or border between the two well-stocked market phone (918) 773-5251. states. across the street. The town of Gore, The towns of Sallisaw Tenkiller State Park Oklahoma, is a conve- and Vian are also suit- Tenkiller Lake com- nient home base, 50 able and convenient mercial website is lake- miles west of Ft. Smith with basic motel chains, tenkiller.com, where a and just 14 miles to restaurants, and grocery handy hardcopy lake Sequoyah NWR and stores available. guide may be ordered. 9 miles to Tenkiller SP. Also see travelok.com/ Along Gore’s main street, Sequoyah NWR state-parks/7706, or Suite 16 Motel is unas- A printable refuge phone (918) 489-5641.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 119 Spotlight on Nevada

Las Vegas may be the limit of west, and terminating north of most people’s knowledge of the Fallon in the Humboldt Sink. Silver State. Its nickname recog- Many watersheds in Nevada nizes the important role of that are endorheic—terminating in Lmetal ore in the state’s history a lake and not connecting to a and economy. Spanish explor- larger river. Nevada is the driest ers named Nevada (Spanish for state in the country; average an- “snowy”) for its mountains in nual rainfall is just 9.5 inches per winter. Nevada is tops in the year. Many bird listers visit the Lower 48 in number of moun- Ruby Mountains to tick a spe- tains, most of which run north/ cies found nowhere else in the south, and 30 of which exceed United States: the Himalayan 11,000 feet in elevation. Three- snowcock, a species introduced quarters of the state’s population in the 1960s. live in the southern tip—the Las Vegas area. Southern Nevada is Birding Festivals within the Mojave Desert, and • Eagles & Agriculture, late much of the northern part of the January, Carson Valley, state is within the Great Basin. visitcarsonvalley.org/events/ The Humboldt River lies entirely eagles-ag within the state, its headwaters • Spring Wings Bird Festival, in the northeast, flowing east to early May, Fallon, spring-

wingsbirdfestival.org BRUCE WUNDERLICH

120 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest 15

12 7

13 14 10

11 6

5 9 1 8 Resources 3 2 • Great Basin Bird Observa- tory: gbbo.org/birding • Statewide email list: tinyurl. com/NV-birding-email-list • State checklist: gbbo.org/ San Rafael Park nevada-state-checklist 4. Pahranagat National Wildlife • Birding Nevada Facebook Refuge group: facebook.com/groups/ 5. Overton Wildlife Manage- BirdingNevada ment Area • Lahontan Audubon Society: 6. Dyer-Arlemont Ranch nevadaaudubon.org (restricted access) 7. Pyramid Lake Birding Hotspots 8. Spring Mountain Ranch 1. Desert Creek Field Station 9. Ash Meadows NWR 2. Henderson area, including 10. Carson Lake Henderson Bird Viewing 11. Miller’s Rest Stop Preserve and Lake Mead 12. Ruby Lake NWR and Ruby 3. Las Vegas area, including Mountains Floyd Lamb Park, Clark 13. Stillwater NWR County Wetlands Park, Sunset 14. Washoe Lake Park, Las Vegas Wash, Rancho 15. South Fork SRA

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 121 Mountain bluebird.

Black-billed magpie. Black phoebe.

Himalayan snowcocks. Red-naped sapsucker.

122122 birdwatchersdigest.com birdwatchersdigest.com • •N Jovemanuaryber/F/Deecembruaryber ’18’20 •• BBirdird Watcheratcher’’ss Digestigest Must-see Birds Cassin’s kingbird ❏ Quail: California, Gambel’s ❏ Vireos: Bell’s, gray, Cassin’s, ❏ Chukar plumbeous ❏ Himalayan snowcock ❏ Corvids: Pinyon and Steller’s ❏ Dusky grouse jays; California and Wood- ❏ Greater sage-grouse house’s scrub-jays; black- ❏ Grebes: western, Clark’s billed magpie, Clark’s ❏ Hawk: Swainson’s, ferruginous nutcracker ❏ Golden eagle ❏ Mountain chickadee ❏ Long-billed curlew ❏ Juniper titmouse ❏ Marbled godwit ❏ Verdin ❏ Phalaropes: Wilson’s, red- ❏ Bushtit necked ❏ Pygmy nuthatch BRUCE WUNDERLICH (3) ❏ Inca dove ❏ Wrens: cactus, canyon, rock ❏ Greater roadrunner ❏ Black-tailed gnatcatcher ❏ Nightjars: lesser nighthawk, ❏ Thrushes: varied; Townsend’s common poorwill solitaire; mountain and western ❏ Swifts: Vaux’s, white-throated bluebirds ❏ Hummingbirds: Anna’s, ❏ Thrashers: sage, crissal Costa’s, broad-tailed, rufous, ❏ Phainopepla ADOBE STOCK calliope ❏ Warblers: Lucy’s, Virginia’s, ❏ Woodpeckers: Lewis’s, ladder- black-throated gray, backed, and white-headed; Townsend’s Williamson’s, red-naped, and ❏ Sparrows: black-chinned, red-breasted sapsuckers black-throated, lark, golden- ❏ Prairie falcon crowned, sagebrush ❏ Flycatchers: Hammond’s, ❏ Towhees: Abert’s, green-tailed gray, dusky, Pacific-slope, ❏ Orioles: hooded, Scott’s

cordilleran, vermilion, ❏ Rosy-finches: gray-crowned, ADOBE STOCK ash-throated, brown-crested; black WIKI COMMONS ØIVIN F MADSEN black and Say’s phoebes;

Golden eagle.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 123 Birder on Berry Lane: Three scriptions of his Massachusetts Acres, Twelve Months, Thou- home patch and its birds put I sands of Birds you in his shoes as he reasons Robert Tougias, Imagine, that a red-shouldered hawk 2020, 6.25 x. 9 x 9.2 inches, 244 is stalking his feeder for mice pages, hardcover, $19.99. rather than songbirds, appreci- In these times of pandemic ates how eastern phoebes return bird watching, when the bulk to the same nest after migrating of our favorite pastime is hundreds of miles, and acciden- performed close to home, tally albeit explosively flushes you’d think that reading one a ruffed grouse in a neighbor- birder’s commentary on doing hood woodlot. Lately, it’s nice just that over the span of three to get out of one’s head and acres and 12 months would be into someone else’s, and the overly mundane and perhaps birding episodes in this book even trite. Not so, fair reader. border on luxurious. Tougias’s richly detailed de- The book’s physical look and feel are akin to a children’s sto- rybook, with its smooth hardcover, thick textured paper, and black-and-white illustrations accompanying every chapter. And I’m ashamed to admit that, as I began skimming passages for this review, my initial thought was, Why, these chapters read like little blog posts. It’s been a tough stretch of months beyond Berry Lane. But this volume is comforting and easy to digest, exactly what some of us need right now. —Sarah Clark

124 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest systems that contribute most to the heft and value of this book. Like a field guide,What It’s Like to Be a Bird is not intended to be read from cover to cover, but a book most birders will crack open, flip through, and study ad infinitum. The introduction to this book is a fascinating and lengthy collection of topically ordered facts about birds—information that will wow even longtime birders—with links to related topics elsewhere in the book. Then comes the heart of the book: a focus on 96 species or groups of birds with essays on their special adaptations, accompanied by What It’s Like to Be a Bird: From Flying to Nesting, Eating to Sibley illustrations the likes of Singing—What Birds Are Doing, which you haven’t seen before. and Why For example, an essay on how David Allen Sibley, Alfred waterfowl keep warm in frigid A. Knopf, 2020, 8.75 x 1 x 11.3 water includes a drawing of a inches, 240 pages, hardcover, segment of arteries and veins $35. in a duck’s leg, and how they It’s probably fair to say intertwine to warm the extrem- that most serious birders have ity, with a measure of the blood a Sibley field guide on their temperature in both types of bookshelf, or in their satchel, vessels at various distances from car, or smartphone—or all of the body. It’s called countercur- the above (like me). We trust rent circulation. Who knew? In Sibley and his precise illus- the cormorant section, a dia- trations, and rely on his help gram of the anatomy of a diving to find and identify birds. In bird’s eyeball accompanies an this book, Sibley’s art—fewer explanation of how they see portraits, lots of birds in ac- clearly—while we see so poor- tion—figures prominently, but ly—underwater. What It’s Like it’s the text and Sibley’s ency- to Be a Bird is required reading clopedic knowledge of bird for bird-nerds and bird-nerd behavior, anatomy, and social wannabes. —Dawn Hewitt

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 125 my copy arrived. Yes, the book odcast entral on B is brimming with Baal’s charac- teristically vibrant art, infused with personality and detail odcasts for Bird atchers that my eyes want to linger over, and I can only imag- ut here with the Birds ine the hours she features casual conversations focusing spent illustrating on birding trends, anecdotes about each of the 30 wild birds, in-depth interviews with species included. leaders from the birding world, and But it is the ac- more. Our rotating crew of hosts companying text includes BWD editor Dawn Hewitt, that I quickly re- sales director Kelly Ball, and publisher alized must have been the central Wendy Clark. labor of love for this project. In true field guide tradition, Once Upon a Feather: A Field it offers physical and behav- Guide to Fantastic Birds ioral descriptions along with Christina Baal, author and information on habitat, range, illustrator, 2020, paperback, 8 x and life history—but these are 10 inches, 103 pages, $29.99. fantastical birds, some still liv- BirdSense When Christina Baal (artist ing, some alive only in legend. A podcast for common-sense of this issue’s cover) launched Through extensive research and bird watchers seeking an a Kickstarter campaign ear- a deep connection to mythol- uncommon experience. lier this year to raise funds ogy and nature, Baal brings BirdSense spotlights birding to self-publish Once Upon a them all to life before our eyes optics, destinations, products, BirdSense Feather, she exceeded her goal in words and pictures. In short, gear, clothing, books, festivals, in thirty minutes—and went on this ain’t your parents’ field conservation efforts, and any- to raise several times her goal guide. It’s a journey across time thing birders want or need that amount for initial publication. and distance that sheds light enhances their birding lifestyle. This is surely a testament to on our earliest appreciation of how much her fanbase adores birds and the significant roles her artwork and how eager humans have assigned them we were to see this project since the beginning of time. combining ornithology and Most importantly, Once Upon mythology come to life. Still, a Feather inspires us to seek I was not prepared for what I all these birds, or glimpses of found on the pages inside when them, in the world around us today. —Jessica Melfi 126 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest

BWD_podcasts_v2.indd 1 10/1/20 9:03 AM odcast entral on B odcasts for Bird atchers ut here with the Birds features casual conversations focusing on birding trends, anecdotes about wild birds, in-depth interviews with leaders from the birding world, and more. Our rotating crew of hosts includes BWD editor Dawn Hewitt, sales director Kelly Ball, and publisher Wendy Clark.

BirdSense A podcast for common-sense bird watchers seeking an uncommon experience. BirdSense spotlights birding optics, destinations, products, BirdSense gear, clothing, books, festivals, conservation efforts, and anything birders want or need that enhances their birding lifestyle.

Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 127

BWD_podcasts_v2.indd 1 10/1/20 9:03 AM BIRDING SUPPLIES PUBLISHER’S STATEMENT

ALPACA FLEECE-FILLED BIRD NESTING BALLS® Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (All Periodicals Publications Except Requester Publications) –Backyard birds will love building their nests 1. Publication Title 2. Publication Number 3. Filing Date BIRD WATCHER’S DIGEST 0 1 6 4 _ 3 0 3 7 09/18/20 from it! $13.50 plus shipping. Also available, 4. Issue Frequency 5. Number of Issues Published Annually 6. Annual Subscription Price alpaca apparel, the Malpaca® pillow (ideal BI-MONTHLY 6 $19.99 7. Complete Mailing Address of Known Office of Publication (Not printer) (Street, city, county, state, and ZIP+4®) Contact Person Melody Carpenter for birding excursions), 100% alpaca yarn. PO BOX 110, Marietta, Washington, OH 45750-0110 (149 Acme St.) Telephone (Include area code) (740) 373-5285 (859) 781-7741 allthingsalpacaonline.com 8. Complete Mailing Address of Headquarters or General Business Office of Publisher (Not printer) PO BOX 110, Marietta, Washington, OH 45750-0110 (149 Acme St.)

9. Full Names and Complete Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor (Do not leave blank) Publisher (Name and complete mailing address)

Wendy Clark 715 3rd St., Marietta OH 45750

Editor (Name and complete mailing address) Dawn Hewitt 622 N 7th St, Marietta OH 45750

Time & Optics Ltd Managing Editor (Name and complete mailing address)

10. Owner (Do not leave blank. If the publication is owned by a corporation, give the name and address of the corporation immediately followed by the

BWD CLASSIFIEDS names and addresses of all stockholders owning or holding 1 percent or more of the total amount of stock. If not owned by a corporation, give the Your local dealer for the names and addresses of the individual owners. If owned by a partnership or other unincorporated firm, give its name and address as well as those of each individual owner. If the publication is published by a nonprofit organization, give its name and address.) Full Name Complete Mailing Address best brand name binoculars Pardson PO Box 110, Marietta, OH 45750 Mrs. Robert Thorpe 109 Grace St., Mont Clare, PA 19453 Mary Bowers (Estate of) 365 Bond St., Brooklyn NY 11231-5159 William Riley PO Box 760,, Captiva, FL 33924 and spotting scopes Jim Dunn (Estate of) 337 Muskingum Dr., Marietta OH 45750 Janet C. & Terry Silvester 124 Mircle Strip Pkwy Unit 404 Ft. Walton Beach, FL 32548 Carol A Christy PO Box 395, Granville, OH 43023 Competitive prices & Quality service! Jeanette Sheppard` 702 4th St., Marietta, OH 45750 Scarlet Tanager Trust 715 3rd St., Marietta OH 45750

11. Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent or More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or Located between Other Securities. If none, check box None 6954 CR.77 MILLERSBURG, OH 44654 Full Name Complete Mailing Address Toll Free 866.308.0727 • 330.674.0210 Berlin and Mt. Hope email: [email protected]

12. Tax Status (For completion by nonprofit organizations authorized to mail at nonprofit rates) (Check one) The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months Has Changed During Preceding 12 Months (Publisher must submit explanation of change with this statement)

PS Form 3526, July 2014 [Page 1 of 4 (see instructions page 4)] PSN: 7530-01-000-9931 PRIVACY NOTICE: See our privacy policy on www.usps.com.

13. Publication Title 14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below BIRD WATCHER’S DIGEST July/August 2020

15. Extent and Nature of Circulation Average No. Copies No. Copies of Single Each Issue During Issue Published Preceding 12 Months Nearest to Filing Date

Presents a. Total Number of Copies (Net press run) 24,393 22,800

(1) Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies) 17,863 18,465 b. Paid Mailed In-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 (Include paid Circulation (2) (By Mail distribution above nominal rate, advertiser’s proof copies, and exchange copies) 69 74 and Outside Paid Distribution Outside the Mails Including Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, (3) the Mail) Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Paid Distribution Outside USPS® 3,855 2,240

Paid Distribution by Other Classes of Mail Through the USPS (4) (e.g., First-Class Mail®) 2 2

c. Total Paid Distribution [Sum of 15b (1), (2), (3), and (4)] 21,789 20,781

d. Free or (1) Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies included on PS Form 3541 Nominal 1,604 1,566 Rate Distribution (2) Free or Nominal Rate In-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541 (By Mail 14 14 and Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS Outside (3) the Mail) (e.g., First-Class Mail) 0 0

(4) Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means) 0 0

e. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution (Sum of 15d (1), (2), (3) and (4)) 1,618 1,580

f. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and 15e) 23,407 22,361

g. Copies not Distributed (See Instructions to Publishers #4 (page #3)) 986 439

h. Total (Sum of 15f and g) 24,393 22,800

i. Percent Paid 93% 92% News from (15c divided by 15f times 100) * If you are claiming electronic copies, go to line 16 on page 3. If you are not claiming electronic copies, skip to line 17 on page 3. the Nest Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation (All Periodicals Publications Except Requester Publications) 16. Electronic Copy Circulation Average No. Copies No. Copies of Single Each Issue During Issue Published Preceding 12 Months Nearest to Filing Date

a. Paid Electronic Copies 251 271 Special free content brought b. Total Paid Print Copies (Line 15c) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a) 22,040 21,052 PS Form 3526, July 2014 (Page 2 of 4) to you by the BWD staff. Join c. Total Print Distribution (Line 15f) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a) 23,658 22,632 d. Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c Í 100) 93% 93% the BWD family and share T I certify that 50% of all my distributed copies (electronic and print) are paid above a nominal price. 17. Publication of Statement of Ownership

T If the publication is a general publication, publication of this statement is required. Will be printed Publication not required. our love of birds! in the ______Nov/Dec 2020 issue of this publication. 18. Signature and Title of Editor, Publisher, Business Manager, or Owner Date

9-18-20

I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanctions (including fines and imprisonment) and/or civil sanctions (including civil penalties).

128106 birdwatchersdigest.com • November/December ’20 • Bird Watcher’s Digest

PS Form 3526, July 2014 (Page 3 of 4) PRIVACY NOTICE: See our privacy policy on www.usps.com. Are You Listening? TOUR & TRAVEL

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TOURS, TRAVEL & LODGING

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ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK AND OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK – Book a trip for birding, nature tours, hiking or backpacking with fun, local, knowledgeable guides. Bird- ing and wildlife viewing tours in Colorado, New Mexico, and Washington. Check us out: www. KaiyoteTours.com, [email protected], Call Kaiyote at 970-556-6103!

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Bird Watcher’s Digest • November/December ’20 • birdwatchersdigest.com 129 You’ll find your favorite birding products at RedstartBirding.com.

Steiner HX For a rugged birding binocular that stands up to the elements while offering excellent specs for bird watchers, the Steiner HX will gets you detailed looks of all the birds you want to see. Steiner’s Nano Protection coatings on the HX binocular’s exterior glass deters dirt, dust, water, and oil to ensure the lenses are consistently clear and easy to clean. NBR rubber armoring covers the Makrolon polycarbonate chassis, which means this model is resistant to impact, corrosion, slippery grips in wet weather conditions, and temperature fluctuations that can shift the optical tubes out of alignment and create focusing problems. Starting at $819.99

Swarovski Optik NL Pure Meet the Swarovski Optik NL Pure. This ultra-premium binocular for bird watching gives you the widest field of view available in the birding market today. Swarovski’s SWAROVISION technology further enhances your birding by providing the richest color fidelity to make the most of every single detail you see. Other exciting updates to this high-end birding binocular include an ergonomically grooved right-hand barrel for improved holding and carrying as well as a new focusing mechanism positioned within the housing. The Swarovski NL Pure binocular comes with a carrying strap, a strap loop connector, eyepiece and objective lens covers, a functional side bag, and a cleaning kit. For added comfort while bird watching, consider including the FRP forehead rest attachment in your order. Starting at $2,969.00

Zeiss 8x32 Victory SF The best just got better! The new Zeiss Victory SF 8x32 binocular gives you the unparalleled performance of the Victory SF line with a lighter, more travel-friendly design. Expect outstanding ergonomics, lightning-fast focusing, bright and brilliant optics, and an exceptional field of view. The comfort-focused exterior combined with top-shelf glass make the German-engineered Victory SF 8x32 the birding binocular you’ll want to take on any long field session. $2,249.99

130 Kowa BD II XD Skip the frustration of missing a good bird! The new Kowa BD II XD wide-angle binocular for bird watching lets you find subjects with rapid precision thanks to its outstanding field of view and responsive focus wheel. High-resolution XD objective lenses con- taining high levels of mineral fluorite crystal provide outstanding light transmission and virtually zero chromatic aberration. This means you can expect exceptional image resolution, true-to-life colors, great contrast, and incredible detail, even in low-light conditions. The rugged exterior, ergonomic design, and refreshing affordability seal the deal on this high-performing birding binocular. Starting at $399.00

The Vortex Diamondback HD spotting scope The Vortex Diamondback HD spotting scope packs all the power you need for birding in harsh weather, rough terrains, and low-light settings. This newly redesigned take on a Vortex favorite gives you a larger objective lens, and updated high-definition optical system, and a streamlined, snag-free body. Expect outstanding image resolution, amazing clarity, and lightning-fast focusing. As with all Vortex models, the Diamondback spotting scope is protected by a lifetime, unlimited, transferable warranty. Available in straight and angled option. Starting at $399.99

Charley Harper Is in the House! Make 2021 your most wonderful year yet with a Charley Harper calendar. Geometric shapes, intricate patterns, and bold colors combine to create the beautifully detailed birds, insects, animals, and trees for which Harper (1922–2007) is so famous. Grosbeaks, kingbirds, a tundra swan, and other creatures grace the pages of the mini (6½ x 14 in. open) wall calendar. Dazzling depictions of of heron, pelican, quetzal, nuthatches, cardinals, and so much more more are among the 12 images in this large (12 x 26 in. open) wall calendar. And if you prefer to keep your life organized in an analog planner, the 2021 engagement calendar features 32 illustrations, calendar grids, and seven-day spreads for keeping notes. Charley Harper Wall Calendar $14.99 Charley Harper Mini Wall Calendar $7.99 Charley Harper Engagement Calendar $16.99

See more great products online at RedstartBirding.com Or call 833-262-1568 131 Ohio residents add 7.25% sales tax. The Benro S4Pro fluid video head The Benro S4Pro fluid video head is versatile, compact, and capable of supporting spottings scopes and cameras weighing up to 8.8 lbs. It’s got a 60mm flat base with a 3/8”-16 threaded hole. The Benro S4Pro is designed as a one-step counterbalance, but a button at the side of the head allows you to toggle between one- and two-step setups. The fixed pan drag has a full, 360° range, while the tilt range is +90/-75°. This fluid video head is constructed from lightweight magnesium and aluminum metals. $149.95

The RYO Ultra-Light Bino Harness The RYO Ultra-Light Bino Harness’s convertible design lets you wear it like a traditional harness, as a neck strap, like a bandolier, around one arm while the binocular hangs from the opposite side, or wrapped so that your binocular is held snug against your chest. Available colors: black, orange, and olive $19.99

RYO XL Ultra-Light Bino Harness Fits wearers with 48” to 60” chest sizes. Available colors: black, orange, and olive $24.99

ABOUT OUR COVER ARTIST— CHRISTINA BAAL Title: Hidden Colors: Yellow-billed Magpie “What really strikes me about magpies is the amazing amount of color in their feathers. When I took my first painting class in college, one of our assignments was to look for ‘hidden colors’ in shadows, and I think that members of the Corvidae family are a wonderful way to practice this exercise. I love how, when the California sun hits magpies just right, their entire bodies seem to glimmer with iridescent hidden blues, greens, and purples. My favorite experience with magpies occurred in the fall, so I created a setting for this painting that captured a western field with the golds and yellows of that time of year.” Christina Baal is a bird artist, writer, and naturalist whose dream is to meet and paint 10,000 species of birds. After graduating from Bard College in 2014, she started her art business, Drawing 10,000 Birds, and has since traveled nonstop looking for birds. Most recently she lived in a small Alaskan village where she got to watch brown bears in her backyard! Christina loves going to bird festivals to show her artwork, lead trips, teach art, and spend time with the birding community. She has designed artwork for the Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, the Biggest Week in American Birding, the New River Birding and Nature Festival, and New Jersey Audubon’s World Series of Birding. During the rest of the year, she works as an environmental educator, and has recently started illustrating books including Once Upon a Feather: A Field Guide to Fantastic Birds, and Lucy’s Life List. Christina lives with her partner and adorable golden retriever. See more of Christina’s artwork at drawingtenthousandbirds.com.

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