In our April issue, colorful spring birds, hotspots, and guides to photo blinds and citizen-science projects

Posted Tue, Feb 23 2010 2:19 PM by Chuck Hagner

I'm happy to announce that our April 2010 issue -- full of places to go birding this spring, a guide to photography blinds, a list of citizen-science projects that help birds and need volunteers, ID tips from David Allen Sibley and Kenn Kaufman, lots of great photos, and plenty more -- is now available online.

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The issue contains too much to summarize in a few paragraphs. Here are highlights:

Oklahoma's Spring Birding Eden
Author Gary Lantz describes his recent visit to one of the best birding locations you've probably never heard of -- Red Slough, in the Ouachita National Forest in Oklahoma. The Painted Bunting, the colorful bird on our cover, is just one of the many birds that make visiting the wildlife management area a real pleasure.

Windows on Nature: A Photographer's Guide to Blinds
An article sure to help you take better bird photos: Well-known photographer and longtime Birder's World contributor Steve Maslowski writes about blinds and cover-ups that he, his brother Dave, and his father Karl H. Maslowski have used through the years to photograph birds and other wildlife.

100+ Citizen-Science Projects
With the help of some of our very best friends, we assembled a list of more than 100 ways you can make your birdwatching count (and have a lot of fun). Look here for the species you're most interested in or a project near your home, then get involved! 

Hotspots Near You
Experienced local birdwatchers describe four great places to go birding this spring:

• Goldstream Provincial Park in Victoria, British Columbia -- Great for American Dipper, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Varied Thrush, Townsend Warbler.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in Sherman, Texas -- Where to be for migrating warblers, vireos, and American White Pelicans.
• Fontenelle Forest in Bellevue, Nebraska -- "The single best place to see eastern birds near the western edge of their ranges and western birds near their eastern borders."
• Mason Farm Biological Reserve in Chapel Hill, North Carolina -- The fields here teem with Blue Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, and Yellow-breasted Chat.

See an interactive map of all the locations we've profiled in "Hotspots Near You."

Readers' Favorites: Warblers
Associate Editor Matt Mendenhall lists the 25 locations in the United States and Canada that visitors to BirdersWorld.com recently voted their favorite places to watch warblers.

Read how you can win Nikon binoculars by taking part in our next Readers' Favorites survey.

Help with bird identification
Of course, no issue of Birder's World would be complete without bird-ID pointers from Kenn Kaufman and David Allen Sibley, and this issue is no different.

In "ID Tips," Kenn Kaufman describes the field marks of five specialties of the Texas Hill Country: Golden-cheeked Warbler, Black-capped Vireo, Green Kingfisher, Audubon's Oriole, and Common Pauraque. Read more about Kenn.

In "ID Toolkit," David Allen Sibley explains why it sometimes pays to take note of behavior before field marks. You might just be able to recognize subspecies or distinguish residents from migrants. Read more about David.

Nuggets from contributing editors
Like every issue, our April issue also contains great contributions from Eldon Greij, Pete Dunne, Paul Kerlinger, and Julie Craves.

• In "Amazing Birds," Founding Editor Eldon Greij explains one of the most fascinating areas of bird behavior: how birds use photoperiod, the always-changing number of hours of light and dark in a day, and precise internal clocks to initiate reproductive activities and to orient in the proper direction prior to migrating. Read more about Eldon.
• In "Birder at Large," Pete Dunne, director of the Cape May Bird Observatory, recalls painter, environmental activist, raptor expert, and Cape May landmark Al Nicholson. Nicholson mentored Clay Sutton, co-author of the 1989 classic Hawks in Flight and other books, and was profiled in Jack Connor's 1991 bestseller Season at the Point. Read more about Pete.
• In "On the Move," Paul Kerlinger describes the wing shape, flight strategies, and breeding and wintering ranges of a species of high interest to me and other rail watchers: the Virginia Rail. Even more interesting, Paul presents a surprisingly long list of questions about the rail's migration that still await answers from ornithologists and intrepid birdwatchers. Read more about Paul.
• And in "Since You Asked," Julie Craves answers readers' questions about the best way to construct a backyard brush pile, whether birds other than robins regurgitate the seeds they consume, and why a Northern Cardinal that showed up in Zanesville, Ohio, recently would be bright yellow, not bright red. Read more about Julie.

Please take a look, and then let me know what you think. I'd be happy to hear from you! --Chuck Hagner, Editor

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