BirdWatching Field of View

An open letter to our forum and gallery contributors

2013-05-07T13:00:00Z

I apologize for the form-letter approach here, but I need to let you know about something important:

As you may know, in August 2012, Madavor Media purchased BirdWatching magazine from Kalmbach Publishing Co. Since the sale, the BirdWatchingDaily website and all its contents, including its photo galleries and forums, have remained on fileservers housed at Kalmbach.

We are grateful to Kalmbach for extending this courtesy to us but don't want to overstay our welcome. Indeed, the terms of the sale prohibit us from doing so. For this reason, on May 29, we will migrate the website to new servers.

When we do, we will launch a new website. The new site will have the same name (BirdWatchingDaily) and the same URL (http://www.birdwatchingdaily.com), and much of the content will be the same. The new site will have photo galleries, but it will not have forums, and, unfortunately, we will not be able to transfer images from our existing photo galleries and forums to the new galleries.

We value your many contributions to the site. Your informative forum posts and your beautiful images have been a vital part of the browsing and viewing experience for visitors to the site for years. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

We want you to continue to be a part of the BirdWatching community. After our new site launches, we hope that you will not only post new photos of birds but also re-post some or all of your images in the new photo galleries. I'll post instructions for how to upload your photos to the new galleries in the days ahead.

Finally, we recognize and appreciate that many of you have posted much valuable information as a resource for other birdwatchers in our forums. Thank you for doing this. If you haven't saved a copy of your posts already, I encourage you to do so before May 29.

Thank you again for your many contributions to BirdWatchingDaily.com. We look forward to working with you on the new site in the future. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to contact me or leave a comment.

Best regards,

Chuck Hagner
Editor
chagner@birdwatchingdaily.com

10 huge discoveries uncovered with small geolocators

2013-02-25T21:50:00Z

A top-notch article ("The Golden Age of Tracking," pictured above) in our forthcoming April issue explains how tiny new tracking devices known as geolocators are rapidly changing what we know about the migration of Northern Wheatears, Flammulated Owls, and other birds. Author Anne Murray spoke with researchers who have used geolocators to uncover migratory secrets and pinpoint wintering and breeding areas for species such as Golden-crowned Sparrow, Willet, and Swainson’s Thrush.

A sidebar in Murray’s article summarizes 10 recent discoveries about North American birds revealed by geolocators. Here I’ve added additional information about each finding, including links where you can read abstracts or whole papers, see photos, and learn more about the researchers.

1. Northern Wheatear

Three birds have confirmed the astonishing migratory routes of Northern Wheatear. A bird from Baffin Island in northeastern Canada crossed the Atlantic to winter in western sub-Saharan Africa, and two wheatears tagged north of Fairbanks, Alaska, flew over the Bering Sea and through northern Russia and Kazakhstan before crossing the Arabian Desert to wintering areas in Sudan, Uganda, or Kenya. The Alaskan birds’ average round-trip distance — 18,640 miles (30,000 km) — is the longest known migration of any songbird.

Researchers Franz Bairlein and Heiko Schmaljohann of the Institute of Avian Research in Germany and colleagues described the study in August 2012 in the journal Biology Letters. (Schmaljohann took the above photo of a wheatear wearing a geolocator.)

In a September 2012 paper in Animal Behaviour, they explain the biological mechanisms at work when wheatears fly halfway around the world. The scientists have also used geolocators to track wheatears that nest in Europe; they described the birds’ routes to and from Africa in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

2. Burrowing Owl

Males and females that breed in Washington and Oregon spend winters far apart. In a study in which 25 geolocators were recovered from 93 tagged owls, researchers found that most females flew south to California for winter, while most males wintered in eastern Washington; males that nested in Oregon flew north in fall. The scientists say males choose to stay close to their breeding areas so they can get back to their territories quickly in spring.

David H. Johnson, director of the Global Owl Project, and Troy I. Wellicome, a Species At Risk biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service, conducted the study and will describe it in a forthcoming research paper. We're looking forward to learning more after they publish their results. (Their colleague Greg Green photographed the owl at right wearing a geolocator.)

3. Rusty Blackbird

A previously unknown migration route was uncovered when three tagged blackbirds were recaptured in 2010 at nesting areas near Anchorage, Alaska. The birds migrated through the central provinces and states and used stopover sites in Saskatchewan, the Dakotas, and Iowa. Fall migration lasted 72 to 84 days, while the spring trip was completed in 16 to 30 days.

James A. Johnson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and colleagues reported the results in the December 2012 issue of The Wilson Journal of Ornithology.

4. Wood Thrush

Tagged thrushes that were recaptured two years in a row at breeding sites in Pennsylvania did not follow the same migration route from their wintering areas in Costa Rica each year, possibly due to the effects of wind, stopover habitat, and each bird’s physical condition. The date they began migrating didn’t change much, however. Each bird departed within about three days of the date it left the year before, suggesting that a strong internal schedule drives the urge to fly north.

The research comes from the lab of Bridget Stutchbury, Canada Research Chair in Ecology and Conservation Biology at York University in Ontario and author of the 2007 book Silence of the Songbirds. In 2009, she became the first scientist to track songbirds with geolocators when she and several colleagues announced the results of groundbreaking research with Purple Martins and Wood Thrushes. (We reported on her research on our blog and in "Birding Briefs.")

The new study appeared in the open-access journal PLOS One in July 2012 and was written by graduate students Calandra Stanley, Maggie MacPherson, and Emily McKinnon, postdoctoral fellow Kevin Fraser, and Stutchbury.

5. Gray Catbird

Birds tagged in parks near Washington, D.C., spent the winter in southern Florida or Cuba. Researchers reported that the finding supports data accumulated over decades of banding work: that catbirds breeding near the East Coast winter in Florida and the Caribbean, while catbirds breeding in the Midwest winter in Mexico and Central America.

Thomas Ryder and Peter Marra of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center and geolocator designer James Fox, formerly of the British Antarctic Survey, explained the results in the July 2011 issue of The Auk, the quarterly journal of the American Ornithologists’ Union.

6. Flammulated Owl

A long-suspected wintering area in southern Mexico was confirmed in 2011, when four tagged owls were recovered near their breeding areas in central Colorado. The birds covered the 1,500-mile (2,500-km) distance in one to two weeks in fall; the return flight took a month or more. In northern Utah, HawkWatch International tagged 24 owls in 2012 (including the bird being released at right); when the birds return this spring, their geolocators should provide more information about wintering areas and migration routes. Stay tuned.

Brian Linkhart, associate professor of biology at Colorado College and the world’s foremost expert on the species, reported on the route to and from Mexico at the 2012 North American Ornithological Conference in Vancouver. Learn more on page 214 of the conference’s abstract book.

See photos of owls in the hand and read more about the project on the blog of Phoebe Parker-Shames, one of Linkhart’s students who assisted with the research.

7. Snow Bunting

Spring migration lasts about 12 days longer than fall migration, according to new data from geolocators worn by 13 Snow Buntings that nest on East Bay Island in northern Hudson Bay. The finding is highly unusual because most songbirds fly north in spring much faster than they fly south in fall. Scientists say the birds appear to make long stopovers, possibly in large groups that enable individual buntings the best chance to avoid predation by Peregrine Falcons.

Christie Macdonald, a graduate student at the University of Windsor, and several colleagues described the discovery in the open-access journal Animal Migration in November 2012. Macdonald tagged about 90 birds in two summers on the remote island.

8. Black Swift

Winter records of northern Black Swifts were nonexistent until researchers at the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory tracked them with geolocators. They discovered that the birds fly 4,350 miles (7,000 km) south, from Colorado to lowland rainforests in western Brazil, at an average speed of 212 miles (341 km) per day.

Jason Beason, special monitoring projects coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory, and colleagues placed geolocators on four swifts in August 2009 and retrieved three the following spring. They reported on the migration path and wintering area in the March 2012 issue of The Wilson Journal of Ornithology.

In December 2012, a photo of an alleged Black Swift was taken at the Tambopata Reserve in southern Peru, not far from the area in Brazil that Beason identified as the wintering area of the tagged birds. If confirmed, it would be one of the only sight records of the species in South America.

9. Pacific Golden-Plover

The large shorebirds set groundspeed records of 60 mph as they flew 9,900 to 14,900 miles (16,000 to 24,000 km) on a previously unknown circular migration route around the Pacific Ocean. The birds flew from American Samoa in the South Pacific to a stopover in Japan before completing their trip to Alaska. The return flight from Alaska to American Samoa lasted just six and a half days.

A group of 14 researchers from four nations announced the findings in July 2012 in the Wader Study Group Bulletin. Lead author Oscar “Wally” Johnson, an ornithologist at Montana State University, has been studying the shorebird and its migratory habits for decades and co-authored the Pacific Golden-Plover account (No. 202) in the Birds of North America reference series.

10. Purple Martin

Birds of the eastern subis subspecies were tagged in far-flung breeding sites in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Minnesota, Virginia, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Texas. When their geolocators were retrieved, the data revealed a surprise: The birds share a broad, overlapping wintering area along the Amazon River in northern Brazil. In contrast, martins from the western arboricola subspecies appear to have a distinct wintering region in southeastern Brazil, approximately 1,800 miles (3,000 km) from the core wintering region of the eastern subspecies.

Fraser and Stutchbury of York University and 12 colleagues published the research in December 2012 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. --Matt Mendenhall, Managing Editor

Our past articles about geolocators

Pacific Golden-Plover’s circular migration route, October 2012

Geolocators reveal Red Knot flights, June 2012

Black Swift winter site, June 2012

Veery migration and winter ecology, December 2011

Songbirds migrate three times faster than expected, June 2009

Photos

Burrowing Owl wearing a geolocator by Greg Green

Flammulated Owl being released wearing a geolocator by Mike Shaw

Purple Martin by Daniel Cadieux

Friday photos: Towhees

2012-07-27T20:24:00Z

Compare photos of Eastern, Abert’s, California, Green-tailed, Canyon, and Spotted Towhees. The images are from our galleries. Enjoy!

Share your bird photos in our galleries.

View the contents of our August 2012 issue.

Compare photos of Eastern, Western, Gray, Loggerhead, and Cassin’s Kingbirds.

EASTERN TOWHEE: Online member The Scavenger photographed this debonair black-headed male.

ABERT’S TOWHEE: You can see Abert’s only in the Southwest. Jaygee1 found this bird at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson, Arizona.

CALIFORNIA TOWHEE: This bird was at Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas, California, east of Los Angeles. Online member RaptorCA took the photo.

GREEN-TAILED TOWHEE: A rufous cap, white throat, and olive wings are field marks of this species. Maxmast found this one far east of its normal range: at Possum Branch Preserve in Clearwater, Florida.

CANYON TOWHEE: Raptrlvr watched this bird in his backyard in southwestern New Mexico.

SPOTTED TOWHEE: This bird, a cousin of Eastern Towhee, held still long enough for West Coast Birder to photograph it at Iona Beach in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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Bird-Watcher or Bird-Getter?

2012-07-24T20:33:00Z

In Born-Again Bird-Watcher, a provocative article in our August 2012 issue, Vermont birder Maeve Kim recounts her evolution from a wonder-filled bird-watcher to a joyless bird-getter and describes how she rediscovered what it was about birding that once filled her with joy. It's a great read.

In the issue, we asked readers to tell us about their own birding, about the differences between bird-watching and bird-getting, and whether they regarded themselves as Bird-Watchers or Bird-Getters.

As you can read below, the responses we received were eloquent, passionate, and fascinating. Please join in! Your comments and letters are welcome. -- Chuck Hagner, Editor

Read "Born-Again Bird-Watcher" by Maeve Kim (subscription required).

See the contents of our August issue.

Takes one day at a time
My heart was so very warm as I read the article Born-Again Bird-Watcher. Maeve Kim captured what my husband and I so often feel as we go on our birdwalks. We want it to be like it used to be when we were awed by the first time we saw a Scarlet Tanager. I found myself saddened, just the other day, as I turned my back to the singing scarlet beauty because I was searching for that Hermit Thrush that I hadn't ever gotten to photograph. How sad it was to be that Bird-Getter!

Sometimes I just can't seem to help feeling disappointed... or feeling guilty for feeling disappointed, when only "the usuals" are out. I guess that is because there are so many beautiful birds that we haven't yet seen; we have been birding for only three years.

We love to plan trips just to find some bird that is not native to New Jersey. April we are on our way to South Texas to see the Painted Bunting and other birds that we might never otherwise get to see in New Jersey. I guess that what comes with the excitement of finding new birds is the disappointment of NOT finding them as well. It's a balance that we strive to reach.

I hate the thought of being bored by Scarlet Tanagers or Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. We do chuckle every time we hear those beautiful sounds in the woods, like a symphony of praise to our ears. They never really do bore us; for a moment we only believe they do... but we know better. Perhaps we are recovering Bird-Watchers and only slip occasionally into being Bird-Getters. We take it one day at a time.

Great article! Thanks! -- Lisa and Ben Fassett, Budd Lake, New Jersey

Enjoys old friends
I really enjoyed the article Born-Again Bird-Watcher. I am more of a watcher than a getter also. I enjoy adding names, but I still like to just sit back and observe old friends that come to my feeders or at the local park. Like the writer, I hope I never tire of watching the beautiful birds we are blessed with. Keep up the great work on your magazine. -- Lee Dusing, Winter Haven, Florida

Learns from the best
Yes, I am a twitcher (bird-watcher), as they say in New Zealand. Like Clive Rainey in the article about President Carter (A Life Bird for a President, August 2012, page 24), I began watching/noticing birds as a Habitat for Humanity staff person in the western region of the United States. Although I do keep a life list and began separating out just my Oregon birds last year, I love watching intently whatever bird is near me. I look up behavior when I have time in one of my reference books (recommended in your reviews).

About once a year, we attend a small bird festival somewhere in our state to learn from the best birders. Thankfully, we have an excellent local teacher of birding by ear, Dave Tracy. He annually conducts such a group, free, for the East Cascades Audubon Society, taking us every week during the spring along a stretch of our Deschutes River in one park to hear and see migrants coming through. From March until June, from frigid mornings to warmer ones, Dave also shows us how to be Bird-Watchers, not Bird-Getters. Thanks for asking. -- Annis Henson, Bend, Oregon

Joys of not getting
Slow down, linger, watch, listen, enjoy, learn... I love the messages in Maeve Kim's article on the joys of not getting. -- Don Kroodsma, Hatfield, Massachusetts

Experiencing isn't identifying
Usually I don’t respond to opinions, editorials, or essays in newspapers or magazines, but I took great interest in the essay Born-Again Bird-Watcher by Maeve Kim and felt compelled to respond. I too have found myself in both categories: Bird-Getter and Bird-Watcher. And I agree with most of the points made by the author. Birds like Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are not only beautiful in their own right but fairly easy to identify.

I did, however, find fault in the author's desire “to be the one who identifies it.” In my opinion, unless you have discovered a new bird unknown to any field guides, then you have not identified anything; you have only experienced one of God’s creatures that someone else had given a name to because long ago it had not been given a name. In other words, at the moment a bird is first found and named, it can no longer be said that one can identify it by using one’s own skills because someone has already done that. Maybe it’s just a question of semantics, but I think that what you are actually doing is playing the game of Old Maid (so to speak) by experiencing something in the field and matching it to a picture in a field guide or an image from a field guide in the recesses of your mind.

I guess the same could hold true for those who want to identify solely on the basis of the bird’s song or call. If that song or call is locked into the memory channels of your brain and it can be retrieved to match it up with the correct bird, then you have also just experienced a bird that someone has already identified and recorded on an audio field guide. However you slice it, we are just recreating something that has already been achieved by someone else.

We are, though, experiencing it for ourselves for the first time, and we get the added benefit of not being required to use artistic skills to draw a bird or record the sounds it makes. We can simply bask in the experience and call it a bird that we have seen and or heard.

Being an avid birder, I have met and known quite a few deer hunters who have put down their rifles and taken up the bow. To them, it is a matter of wanting more of a challenge. Maybe it’s the challenge that is part of the basis for Ms. Kim’s do-it-herself attitude, but I don’t think so. I think the author is truly blessed with her life and wants to soak up all the beauty that God has created. Praise God for that!

I do think, however, that tools like the listserv and the iPod are wonderful in that they help us not only to find birds but also to lock in to a bird’s true identity. If you are basing some of the tougher-to-get birds solely on a song from an iPod, then you are not “learning anything,” as the author states. Or are you? I think the more data that one can gather increases bird knowledge, so in this case, more is definitely better. As I always say, repetition breeds knowledge. So I am discouraged with the fact that the author dislikes “luring away” birds by using iPods or by having a slight dislike for the listserv.

I do agree, though, with the fact that the bird-getting can be a huge distraction to life with all of the time spent chasing and feeling the competitive pressure. I know -- I did a Big Year just last year, and it was fun but at times stressful. I have just recently fallen back into the Bird-Watcher category. In fact, as I have been ruminating and writing this article, I had to pause twice. Once was to investigate why a group of Blue Jays were squawking (possible hawk present). The second was just to listen to the sounds of a Common Loon overhead.

Isn’t God awesome! Let’s give Him the praise for not only creating all the birds but also for giving us the tools we need to play this game of Old Maid. Now wouldn’t it be nice if more Bird-Watchers or Bird-Getters for that matter, would commit themselves to being in the true sense of the phrase “born-again"? -- Peter J. Makousky, Anoka, Minnesota

No expectations
Thank you for Maeve Kim's article Born-Again Bird-Watcher.

My husband and I are relatively new to birding (two years). Thinking back to why we started, I realize it was because it was easy -- birds are all around us -- and inexpensive -- all you need is a good pair of binoculars and a guide book. Also, birding provides countless levels of participation. You can watch your backyard birds passively, if that's all you're in the mood for, or you can go on a field trip, become fully engaged in listening and looking, and see what happens.

Half the fun is having no expectations and being thrilled with what Nature presents to you at each opportunity. Life is stressful enough without letting bird-getting turn a wonderful, relaxing hobby into something that becomes totally goal-oriented and competitive. -- Karen Hielsberg, Oshkosh, Wisconsin

Recognition of kinship
I read Maeve Kim's article with a recognition of kinship. I, too, started out as a bird-watcher and now am one again, though mainly because age and infirmity prevent my going afield in search of additions to my life list. I never was a hard-core lister, anyway.

My husband and I started with a feeder at our first home in Columbus, Ohio, and continued when he was transferred to northwest Indiana, where we took a birding class, including field trips, at Indiana University. Another transfer brought us to the Atlanta area, where an Evening at Emory class introduced us to Joe Greenberg, PhD, a great birder, whose class consisted of field trips. Trips to the Georgia coast and Florida panhandle increased my list, and we took several birding tours in Arizona, Texas, and Oregon. Then our group of birders, including Joe, got too old for field trips. Joe died a little before my husband did.

Now I am back to being a Bird-Watcher. I get much pleasure out of seeing parents bringing fledglings to my feeders, and the highlight of spring migration was a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak on the hopper feeder. Over the years, I have landscaped our backyard with birds in mind; the back third of my acre lot is devoted to native plants. The Brown Thrashers, mockingbirds, and robins clean the beauty berries as soon as they ripen, and I entertain a flock of Cedar Waxwings when the Nellie Stevens hollies are in berry.

During the past weeks of drought and record-breaking heat, this 84-year-old woman has struggled to keep five bird baths cleaned and filled, but it has been rewarding to see the birds drinking and bathing. This year, for the first time, two families of catbirds have called my yard home. P.S. I participate in FeederWatch. -- Theda Davis, a Bird-Watcher, Lilburn, Georgia

Keeps list but doesn't count
Many thanks to Maeve Kim for her super article. Birds bring me lots of pleasure, so I'm a Bird-Watcher, but I am always delighted to see a new bird and check it off on my list, the index to one of my favorite birding books. I don't know or care how many birds are on my list. -- Ida Luttrell, Houston, Texas

A watcher always
Definitely a watcher. Always was, always will be. Great article, thanks. -- Ray Denenberg, Silver Spring, Maryland

Nothing wrong with getting
I enjoyed Maeve Kim's essay very much, as it contained information several eastern Massachusetts birder friends and I have discussed over the years. I can't find fault in Ms. Kim's logic; it's just that my situation seems a little different than hers.

I have been bird-watching for 65 years. I have also been an avid bird-getter (within my ability and means) for over 50 years. I am passionate about birds to the extent of sitting and enjoying each little summer family of parents and new ones coming to our feeders, while scanning the evening skies for interesting flyovers. I love looking down from the cliffs of Acadia and seeing the red legs and feet of the Black Guillemots. I'm using this as a metaphorical example of bird-watching, as did Ms. Kim. But at the same time, I wouldn't want to be in that area without checking the inland trails and spruce clumps for Boreal Chickadee, etc., and would feel a disappointment at going back to Massachusetts without seeing one.

To me, the spiritual enjoyment of watching the birds is augmented by the excitement of the chase after rare birds locally or life birds on occasional travels. When traveling, one has to study what to look for where and be prepared to identify an unfamiliar species and view it critically and in context with the new habitat. We who have discussed this realize that bird-getting is addictive and leads to bad habits -- quick IDs, accepting others' IDs in order to tick a species to make the list longer, etc. But it doesn't have to, with a good conscience in place and the desire to WATCH everything new.

I personally do experience disappointment at missing a sought-after species. I'm built that way. I haven't reached the point of not caring about anything beyond my patch, and I don't think I ever will. But I very well appreciate living in a highly migratory spot south of Boston, where there is a substantial variety of local residents, plus an amazing group of migrants that use the area. There is ample opportunity to study the molts and age phases of shorebirds and terns, etc. That is bird-watching also. It is educational and stimulating. And while doing this, vagrants have shown up and sometimes been identified because of the intense watching.

So in summary, I'm of the school of thought that bird-watching is a basic and necessary life style, and there is nothing wrong with being a getter at the same time. -- David T. Brown, North Quincy, Massachusetts

Each bird an individual
I can proudly say that I am a bird-watcher or feather-watcher.

Yes, I've got lists on bits of paper from trips we have taken, but they are stuffed away in books and file folders. No, I do not have a life list, but I imagine that it would be extensive, as I've traveled a lot. Yes, today we drove an hour each way to see the Indigo Bunting on Pine Flat Road in Sonoma County. No, I do not play bird songs to attract birds. I've always been just happy knowing that a certain species is in the area, even if I don't see it.

As for the gentleman who said "Like we haven't seen enough of them already" when referring to the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, our northern California guru birder and all-around wonderful person Rich Stallcup would say, "Ah ha, but have you seen that Rose-breasted Grosbeak?" Remember, each bird is an individual, after all.

Thank you. This was a wonderful article. -- Marcia Johnson, Sebastopol, California

Listing enhances watching
I enjoyed Maeve Kim’s article Born-Again Bird-Watcher but disagree with her characterization of birders as either listers or watchers. Not only is it possible to engage in both activities, they frequently complement each other. Bird listing gets a birder out in the field more frequently. This leads to more opportunities to watch birds. I use eBird, so I have my life, state, county, and year lists automatically maintained. I love those lists and the friendly competition that they encourage.

I also love observing birds in my yard as well as farther afield. I recently went out looking for a Virginia Rail for my county year list. But that didn’t stop me from being thrilled with the Little Blue Heron that I found. I watched the heron for quite a while, observing plumage details and his feeding style. This morning, I observed a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird at my feeder. I wondered how late I usually see males, and because I keep lists, it will be easy to compare the dates for the last sightings from year to year. Lists help you see patterns in migration, a form of observation.

I could go on and on with examples of how the activities of keeping bird lists and watching birds enhance each other for me. Most of my birding friends also keep lists but still find joy in watching the common birds of our area. -- Shelley Rutkin, Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Misses the point
I read the article on birdwatching vs. birdgetting in the August issue. I am as far from a Bird-Getter as one can possibly be. I don't even keep a list. I could probably go through a species list and say, "Yes, I've seen that" or "No, I've never seen that," but that would entirely miss the point (for me, anyway.) -- James Smith, Columbus, Ohio

Read "Born-Again Bird-Watcher" by Maeve Kim (subscription required).

Read "A Life Bird for a President" by Phil Hardy.

See the contents of our August issue.

Friday photos: Kingbirds

2012-07-13T18:02:00Z

Compare Eastern, Western, Gray, Loggerhead, and Cassin’s Kingbirds in the photos below. You can spot each species in North America, but the Loggerhead is more likely to be found in the Caribbean. The images are from our galleries.

Share your bird photos in our galleries.

View the contents of our August 2012 issue.

See five photos of hummingbirds from around the world.

EASTERN KINGBIRD: Gman79 photographed this bird as it sat along a country road near Albany, Georgia.

WESTERN KINGBIRD: MiaM came upon this yellow-bellied bird in Utah County, Utah.

GRAY KINGBIRD: This bird was chasing its lunch. Hunter58 took the photo.

LOGGERHEAD KINGBIRD: Pedro William heard these two birds fighting in Guajataca State Forest, in the central northwestern part of Puerto Rico.

CASSIN’S KINGBIRD: This bird had just taken flight when RaptorCA snapped this shot at the Hansen Dam in Sylmar, California.

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Film about Central Park and its birders explores birdwatching, 'this deeply human activity'

2012-07-12T20:15:00Z

The birds and birders of New York City's Central Park have been described in our magazine and others numerous times. They've been the subjects of great books like Red-Tails in Love, Birds of Central Park, and Central Park in the Dark. And who-knows-how-many blogs and websites are devoted to the topic.

Now, a fantastic new hour-long documentary puts the birds and birders of Central Park on film. Birders: The Central Park Effect will debut on HBO on Monday, July 16, at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Legendary birder and tour leader Victor Emanuel called it "the best film about birding that I have ever seen." I wholeheartedly agree.

Jeffrey Kimball, the film's producer, director, and cinematographer of all its bird and nature footage, provides a few bits of off-screen narration to set the stage. Mostly, he tells the story through interviews with birdwatchers and scientists young and old, famous and not.

He begins in spring, the most exciting time of year to bird the park, then proceeds through summer, autumn, winter, and the following spring. Woven throughout the film are gorgeous images of Great Egret, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Cooper's Hawk, Hooded Merganser, and dozens of other species. (Birders who make lists of birds they see or hear in films will be busy keeping track of all the birds here!) Before I say more, here are shots of a few of the birds from the movie:

Baltimore Oriole

Common Yellowthroat

Cooper's Hawk eating a pigeon. (Amazing closeup!)

Eastern Screech-Owl

Northern Flicker. The video of it singing from a nest hole is gorgeous!

If Kimball had focused simply on the birds, however, he would have had a 10-minute short at most. After all, the reason Central Park is great for birds is simple: when they're migrating, they need a place to eat; Central Park is a big oasis in the urban jungle; and consequently, birds show up. John Fitzpatrick of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Red-Tails in Love author Marie Winn explain that aspect of the story quite well for Kimball.

It is the birders' descriptions of why they bird and what birds mean to them that make the film so enjoyable and heartwarming. They give the movie an emotional anchor not often found in nature documentaries. It's a safe bet that HBO would not have picked up the film had it focused solely on birds.

"HBO is the ideal home for 'The Central Park Effect' and gives us the ability to tell an important story to millions of people," Kimball told Indiewire last spring. "Even though it's set in the middle of New York City, this is a story about people's connection to nature. It's important for us to realize that as the world becomes more urbanized, nature doesn't have to entirely disappear from cities."

The people we meet — and won't soon forget — include:

Jonathan Rosen. The author of the bestseller The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature and other books describes the moment 15 years earlier when he first learned about warblers and that they'd soon be migrating through Central Park. The discovery, he says, changed his life.

"I don't think of it [birding] as a hobby any more than I think of raising my children as a hobby," he tells Kimball. "You're simply embedded in this deeply human activity."

Starr Saphir. She is "the matriarch of Central Park birders," says one regular birdwatcher. Saphir (pronounced "sapphire") leads bird walks four times a week in spring and fall and has been doing so for almost 30 years. Kimball shows her in action, finding birds and pointing them out to others. When she says, "I could keep this up for hundreds of years," it's obvious that she's not joking. Kimball also visits her at home, where she shows him her notebooks in which she records her daily sightings. "I have about 80 notebooks altogether," Saphir says.

She also reveals that she has terminal breast cancer, but it doesn't seem to have slowed her down. If anything, she seems to appreciate birds more. "Looking at birds," she says, "really takes away sadness in a lot of us. Looking at birds takes you out of yourself into the real world." (The Wall Street Journal recently profiled Saphir here.)

Lloyd Spitalnik (above) and David Speiser (right). The photographers and good friends bird the park often. Both have contributed to BirdWatching.

David's photo of a Yellow Warbler was on our June 2012 cover, and we've published several of Lloyd's photos, many of which were shot in the park. When asked if they ever got tired of looking at cardinals, their answer is immediate: "No!"

Lloyd continues: "How could you? Honestly, how could you? If you get tired of looking at the common birds, you might as well just pack it in." Something tells me he and Maeve Kim, author of "Born-again Bird-watcher," are kindred spirits.

Later, David and Lloyd lament the decline in overall numbers of birds that visit the park. Lloyd calls it an "unbelievable decrease."

Chris Cooper. One of the park's regular birders whose enthusiasm for birds is infectious. We watch him calling a fellow birdwatcher on his cell phone to report a Prothonotary Warbler, see him craning his neck to get a view of birds high in the trees, and learn that his friends don't understand his obsession. "They know from experience, from April 15 to Memorial Day, they won't see me… because I'm birding." (Follow Chris on Twitter, where he only reports rarities from Central Park.)

Anya Auerbach. For me, 15-year-old birder Anya is the heart and soul of the movie. She takes her binoculars everywhere (except school), has dreams about birds, and simply loves to watch birds. She's a bright, happy young woman who interrupts herself to call out bird IDs. Perhaps her presence in the film and her zeal for birds will inspire more young people to get outside and explore nature.

Jonathan Franzen. The celebrated author of The Corrections and Freedom (and a board member and spokesperson for the American Bird Conservancy) says he was introduced to birding in the park one spring day years ago. "It was like the trees were hung with ornaments," he recalls. "It was amazing."

He continues: "It was one of the rare times in an adult's life when the world suddenly seems more magical rather than less."

Franzen offers up more gems throughout the film, and while it's tempting to quote them all here, I won't spoil the film for you. Suffice it say, like all of Kimball's subjects, the guy has a way with words. --Matt Mendenhall, Associate Editor

Images from the film courtesy of HBO.

Birders: The Central Park Effect debuts Monday, July 16, at 9 p.m. Eastern on HBO and will be replayed 15 more times in the following weeks. It is expected to be released on DVD, but the release date is not yet available.

Read more:

"Birding Central Park" by Geoffrey LeBaron, Birder's World, December 2007

"The Screech-Owls of Central Park" by Robert DeCandido, Birder's World, December 2002

"My Bird Problem" by Jonathan Franzen, an essay published in October 2010 on Oprah.com

Download a two-part brochure on the birds of the park from HBO

New research: Geese react sooner to oncoming planes with lights on

2012-07-09T23:00:00Z

No, you didn't accidentally land on one of Kalmbach's websites about model planes, trains, or automobiles. The men crouching in the photo above with a remote-controlled airplane are wildlife biologists who may have uncovered a new way to prevent collisions between birds and aircraft. If, like me, you're frustrated that birds invariably end up being blamed for such accidents, you'll want to hear more about their findings.

First, a few introductions: From left in the photo are Steven Lima of Indiana State University, Bradley Blackwell of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Wildlife Research Center, and Esteban Fernandez-Juricic of Purdue University. Lima studies predator-prey interactions and other aspects of bird behavior; Blackwell focuses on species frequently involved with aviation accidents; and Fernandez-Juricic researches the behavioral and visual ecology of birds and other animals. Their expertise in these related fields of wildlife research are on display in a new paper published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology.

Using remote-controlled planes and 58 captive Canada Geese, the scientists and three other colleagues found that by turning on lights, aircraft can be more visible to birds, giving them more time to get out of the way.

"Birds see so much differently than humans do, so we cannot translate our own perceptual understanding to the problem of birds avoiding aircraft," says Blackwell.

Utilizing knowledge about birds' visual systems, the team tested the response of geese to three radio-controlled aircraft: the first with lights off, the second with lights on, and the third painted to resemble a bird of prey. On one plane, the lights were mounted on the landing gear and pulsed at a frequency of two hertz, a rate "considered safe for civil aviation pilots," the researchers write.

Here's a photo from the grass field where the study was conducted:

You can see a plane flying over four penned geese. Their wings were clipped so they couldn't fly away, but when the airplane approached and flew over the pen, they reacted as if it was a threat: They raised their heads, extended their necks, increased scanning, or crouched. The scientists placed 14 groups of four geese each in the pen to film and record their reactions to the plane. They conducted the study over two days in July 2009 in northwestern Ohio.

They found geese responded 4.2 seconds faster to the threat of an approaching model aircraft when its lights were on than when its lights were off. Also, the response to an aircraft with lights on was 5.6 seconds sooner than to the predator model. "Because Canada Geese will respond to aircraft approach as a potential threat," says Blackwell, "the theory behind how animals respond to predators is very applicable to understanding the response to aircraft approach, and we can enhance this response via lighting."

The research — the first to combine visual sensory ecology with anti-predator behavior — could set the aviation industry on the right track to developing lighting systems that will reduce the rate of bird strikes. It's also notable because most work aimed at preventing bird strikes is centered on airport properties — keeping big birds away from runways and surrounding fields. However, more than 20 percent of all bird-aircraft collisions reported to the FAA Wildlife Strike Database between 1990 and 2010 occurred at altitudes above 2,500 feet. And, according to a 2011 study, the accident rate is increasing faster for incidents occurring above 500 feet in altitude than for incidents at or below 500 feet. In other words, we're doing a pretty good job of keeping birds away from airports; not so much after wheels are up and the plane is climbing.

Consider US Airways Flight 1549, the flight that ended with the so-called "Miracle on the Hudson." The Airbus A320-214 sucked several Canada Geese into its engines about three and a half minutes after takeoff from New York's LaGuardia Airport at an altitude of 2,818 feet above ground level. (Analysis of the birds' feather remains later found that they were from a migratory population that may have come from the Labrador region of Canada.) Had the plane been lit differently and traveled on its way safely, would Capt. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger have become a household name?

The scientists admit that studying penned birds that sensed a threat from a slow-flying remote-controlled plane isn't the same as what wild birds face from an oncoming 737 doing 180 to 600 mph.

"Nevertheless, our integration of sensory ecology and animal behaviour in an experimental approach can clearly be used to improve the potential effectiveness of aircraft lighting in the context of bird strikes," they write.

Next, the team hopes to expand their understanding of the visual ecology of other bird species commonly struck by aircraft so they can design aircraft lighting that will be seen by a range of species. "This is only the first step," Blackwell says. "As well as lighting, we also want to understand how to manipulate aircraft paint schemes so that birds find them easier to detect. It's exciting work." --Matt Mendenhall, Associate Editor

Photos courtesy USDA National Wildlife Research Center

Canada Geese culled in New York

When talking about birds and airplanes, it can't be us vs. them

Friday photos: Hummingbirds of the world

2012-07-06T18:48:00Z

Photographed in Tobago, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala, the hummingbirds below are great examples of the beautiful birds to be found in Central and South America. We found the photos in our galleries. Enjoy!

Share your bird photos in our galleries.

View the contents of our August 2012 issue.

Read about our readers’ favorite places to see hummingbirds in North America.

See five photos of birds of India.

RUBY-TOPAZ HUMMINGBIRD: RLewis0727 snapped this dazzling image of a hovering male at Adventure Farm near Plymouth, Tobago.

BRONZY HERMIT: JBirds got this close-up of a perched bird on Isla Colon in the Bocas del Toro archipelago in Panama.

LONG-TAILED HERMIT: Lorarend found this bird feeding at the Laguna del Lagarto Lodge in Costa Rica.

SWORD-BILLED HUMMINGBIRD: This super long-billed bird was at the Yanacocha Reserve in the Mindo Cloud Forest of Ecuador. Online member PhotosByBen took the photo.

RUFOUS SABREWING: Maxmast caught this bird poking a flower for food at Finca El Pilar in Antigua, Guatemala.

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Friday photos: Birds of India

2012-06-29T18:11:00Z

Today’s collection of reader photos comes from our World gallery. They show just a few of the many colorful and exotic birds to be found in a beautiful, faraway country that we’d dearly love to visit someday – India.

Share your bird photos in our galleries.

View the contents of our August 2012 issue.

See five reader photos of Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

SPOTTED OWLET: SriniBirder photographed this owl, a relative of our Burrowing Owl, at Lalbagh Botanical Gardens in Bangalore.

TAWNY EAGLE: Rishi Khanna snapped this photo, which shows well the tawny coloration that gave the bird its name.

LONG-TAILED BROADBILL: Debapratim Saha found this colorful bird in the Himalayan foothills on the outskirts of the Mahananda Wildlife Sanctuary in Darjeeling.

PAINTED STORK: Bhasmang shot this gentle giant at the Khijadiya Bird Sanctuary in Gujarat.

ORIENTAL WHITE-EYES: Rishi Khanna found not one, but two white-eyes sharing a perch.

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Friday photos: Rose-breasted Grosbeak

2012-06-22T22:13:00Z

Which is more beautiful -- the male or female Rose-breasted Grosbeak? Sure, males stand out with their bright red chests, but as you can see in the photos below, females are striking too. We found the pictures in our galleries.

Share your bird photos in our galleries.

See a slideshow featuring photos of Rose-breasted and Black-headed Grosbeaks.

Read a magazine profile of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak.

View the contents of our August 2012 issue.

See five reader photos of hybrid birds.

ROSIE: This male was visiting a feeder in the Florida backyard of rstrick11 during spring migration.

LOOK: Bill McMullen snapped this shot of a female perched on a moss-covered stump in Prescott-Russell, Ontario, Canada.

FLY! A white-bellied male flashes the red under its outstretched wings. Paddler took the photo.

HUNGRY: Mnoasis33 reports that this female visited the backyard feeder for only a short time.

BEAUTY: A blooming apple tree fills the background of this portrait by Daniel Cadieux.

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Friday photos: Hybrids

2012-06-15T19:41:00Z

The birds below are unique; they’re hybrids. That is, they contain the genetic DNA for two different species. Look up each member of each pair in your field guide. See if you can spot the characteristics of each species in the hybrid. The photographs were taken by readers. We found them in our online galleries.

Share your bird photos in our galleries.

Eldon Greij discusses how we decide birds are, and aren’t, new species.

View the contents of our June 2012 issue.

See five reader photos of waxwings.

BLACK-THROATED GREEN x TOWNSEND’S WARBLER: Lorarend photographed this hybrid in Boy Scout Woods at High Island, Texas.

BARROW’S GOLDENEYE x HOODED MERGANSER: This male was discovered in 2006 in Alameda, California. Since then, it has been spotted regularly around the Lake Merritt area in Oakland, California. Mojoedevine snapped the photo.

VIOLET-CROWNED x BROAD-BILLED HUMMINGBIRD: Nnitzky found this hybrid at Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona, in February 2009. The bird lives there year-round. You can find it at the feeders.

CINNAMON x GREEN-WINGED TEAL: MiaM came across this fascinating duck in northern Utah.

BREWSTER’S WARBLER: Online member The Scavenger photographed this Blue-winged x Golden-winged Warbler singing the Golden-winged’s song at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in northwestern New Jersey.

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Friday photos: Waxwings

2012-06-08T15:05:00Z

Smart-looking waxwings typically show up in a flock, descending onto backyard trees en masse, then departing as quickly as they arrived. In the photos below, you can compare Bohemian and Cedar Waxwings. We chose the pictures from our galleries.

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See a great photo of a Cedar Waxwing and read how the photographer got the shot.

See the contents of our June 2012 issue.

See five reader photos of Burrowing Owl.

PAIR: GTPugh found these yellow-bellied Cedar Waxwing in central Virginia.

BANDIT: This gray-bellied Bohemian Waxwing looks like it was returning Daniel Cadieux's glance.

FLOCK: Online member woodwarf lane 1 photographed this flock of Cedar Waxwings in the early morning.

BEAUTY: This handsome Bohemian Waxwing was eyeing a berry in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. May Haga took the photo.

BUDDIES: These Cedar Waxwings are showing off their yellow tail tips. Bobvt photographed the birds near his home in northwest Vermont in May 2012.

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Please share your photos of birds! To do so, you must be registered on www.BirdWatchingDaily.com and have a valid screen name. Register here. After you have registered, choose the gallery in which you want your image to appear. Then click “Upload Image.”

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BirdWatching is now available in a digital format! You can read the magazine on your computer, iPad, and Android tablets and smart phones. Order a digital subscription, a print and digital combination, or add digital to your existing print subscription by calling our Customer Sales & Service Department at (800) 533-6644.

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Layne Kennedy is our Featured Photographer for June

2012-06-04T22:02:00Z

Today I have the privilege of introducing you to the work of acclaimed photographer Layne Kennedy. He is our "Featured Photographer" for June.

Layne takes photos of landscapes, mammals, flowers, thunderstorms, the stars, sled dogs, birds, the people of Burning Man -- you name it. He also enjoys making photos with his iPhone and teaching others to do so, as he explained recently on his blog. That's Layne at right with Uusaqqak Henson, grandson of polar explorer Matthew Henson. (Layne was on assignment in Greenland to cover the Polar Inuit people for Smithsonian magazine.)

In 2005, Layne met Editor Chuck Hagner in the Bahamas. Chuck was researching a story for Nature Conservancy magazine about Kirtland's Warblers and the scientists who study them on the island of Eleuthera; Layne shot the photos that accompanied Chuck's article.

In his "Featured Photographer" gallery, Layne presents 12 handpicked photos, each as stunning as the last. The haunting portrait of the Boreal Owl above is among them. Enjoy the gallery, and be sure to click "Full Screen" so you can see the photos big! --Matt Mendenhall, Associate Editor

About our Featured Photographers:
Featured Photographer is a new, fun feature on our website. Every month, we invite one of our favorite photographers to handpick and describe a selection of his or her photos.
>> We started in March with the photos of Marie Read.
>> In April, we presented photos by Brian E. Small.
>> For May, we featured Mia McPherson's photos.
>> This month, we are happy to showcase the work of Layne Kennedy.

Dos and don'ts of summer bird feeding

2012-06-04T15:04:00Z

This blog post and photo come from Contributing Editor Laura Erickson. Laura's column "Attracting Birds" -- about attracting, feeding, sheltering, and understanding the birds in your backyard -- appears in every issue of BirdWatching magazine.

Read Attracting Birds.

Read more about Laura Erickson.

Feeding birds in summer is a topic fraught with controversy. Some people adamantly oppose it, fearing that birds may grow dependent on us, that summer feeding may hold migratory birds in inappropriate habitat or lure birds to their deaths in window collisions, diseases, or predation by Cooper’s Hawks or outdoor cats. They also feel concerned about baby birds receiving an inappropriate diet at a time when they need protein.

Other birders are equally adamant in defending summer feeding as a mutually beneficial and time-honored tradition, pooh-poohing the risks as no worse than birds face elsewhere.

As with many issues, both sides are partly right. Goldfinches regurgitate a slurry of seeds, and doves produce “pigeon milk” in their crops, but virtually no other feeder birds feed seeds to their young. Our feeder offerings can often supplement the food adult songbirds are getting, keeping their own nutrition level high as they search for insects to feed their young. And summer feeding provides nourishment for our own souls as we watch birds at close range. I’ve taken some of my favorite bird photos at my own feeders in summer. I set out a camouflaged tent-style photo blind and click away to my heart’s content.

But the risks of summer feeding are real. To enjoy its pleasures with a clear conscience requires attention to preventing possible hazards. Here’s what to keep in mind:

* If you see birds that may be sick, close down the feeding station.

* Make sure any windows within about 30 feet of your feeders are visible to birds or have external screening. The American Bird Conservancy now sells special tape to apply in a grid on the outside of windows to make them more visible to birds.

* If any hawks nesting in your neighborhood are hunting in your yard, you may want to close down your feeding station during the time they’re present. If you keep the feeders up, make doubly certain your windows are bird-safe.

* Keep feeders clean, birdseed dry, and hummingbird solution fresh.

Read Laura’s article about feeding hummingbirds.

* Try not to subsidize birds that are already benefitting so much by humans that they’re out of balance with other species. When crowds of House Sparrows, starlings, pigeons, or similar species visit, it is sometimes kindest for your neighborhood birds to close down the station for a couple of days.

* Finally, it’s perfectly okay for adult orioles, catbirds, robins, and other species to enjoy grape jelly now and then. But if you notice them bringing fledglings more than once or twice a day, take in the jelly for a week or so. Growing birds need diets high in proteins, not carbs but, like human children, prefer sweets and may sometimes eat more than is good for them. -- Laura Erickson, Contributing Editor

Laura Erickson writes the column Attracting Birds in every issue of BirdWatching Magazine.

Read her article about feeding hummingbirds.

Read how winter finches give clues that spring is on the way.

Read more about Laura Erickson.

See the contents of our June 2012 issue, on newsstands now.

Friday photos: Burrowing Owl

2012-06-01T19:03:00Z

Delightful, football-size Burrowing Owl, shown below, can be found throughout the western half of North America and in Florida. Enjoy the photos! They’re from our galleries.

Submit your photos to our galleries.

Watch a video of a Burrowing Owl guarding its nest.

Read an article about the Burrowing Owl from BirdWatching magazine.

Read about our readers’ favorite places to watch owls.

Our June 2012 issue is now online!

See last Friday’s photo collection: Kingfishers

READY POSITION: Johnson jin photographed this alert owl near the Salton Sea in California.

SPREAD ‘EM: MiaM found this juvenile fluttering its wings in the early-morning light at Antelope Island State Park in Utah.

PEEK-A-BOO: Bradwatson saw this owl near a prairie dog town at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa.

GROUP SHOT: Snooked snapped this photo of four owls at Brian Piccolo Park in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

PROFILE: MiaM took this photo as the sun came up at Antelope Island State Park in Utah.

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