Spring Migration 2017, Part 2

Birders at Magee Marsh.

For those of us who are still scratching our heads about this year's spring bird migration, there seem to be more questions than answers and, of course, theories aplenty. Only yesterday (June 8) there was a female black-throated green warbler in our yard in southeast Ohio—a bird that should be in the northern forests brooding eggs or feeding nestlings by now.

The dedicated news team at our Out There With the Birds podcast sent Ben Lizdas, cub reporter, into the field to speak to two migration experts for a special episode focused on spring migration. Ben spoke with Greg Neise of the American Birding Association and Dr. David LaPuma, director of the  Cape May Bird Observatory.

Greg Neise of the American Birding Association.

Dr. David LaPuma of Cape May Birding Observatory.

Both of these guys are avid birders with loads of spring migration experience—Greg primarily in the upper Midwest in Illinois and David in both Wisconsin and New Jersey. I found what they had to say quite informative and most interesting.

You can hear their take on spring migration 2017 by listening to Episode 13 of Out There With the Birds: Spring Migration Report.

Enjoy and happy (late) spring birding!

Your OTWTB podcast hosts Bill (left) and Ben (cub reporter).

How Was Your Spring Migration?

Taking a respite from posting all my content, quips, and thoughts to the immediate-gratification machines of the social media channels, I thought I'd add a pithy question here on the dusty old Bill of the Birds blog.

Male cerulean warbler.

So...How was spring migration in your area?

I'm hearing that the spectacle of migration was quite unimpressive in many parts of the eastern half of the United States. I was at Magee Marsh in northwestern Ohio from May 10 to 14—which normally would be at or near the peak of spring songbird migration. My experience was one of "more people than birds," which is unusual for that spot at that season. Even at my farm in southeastern Ohio the migration seemed to be in dribs and drabs with no single day standing out as impressive or amazing.

All of this begs the question: Is this our new subdued migration reality? Have we reached (or passed) some sort of songbird-population tipping point where numbers of warblers, thrushes, tanager, orioles, vireos, etc, have crashed? In other words, are we experiencing "Silent Spring?"

Or, is this spring an anomaly, affected by weather, foliage development, insect hatches, etc?

I'd love to hear how the migration was in your region. Please use the comments section here, or comment on the inevitable Facebook and Twitter posts for this blog topic.

In an upcoming episode of our Out There With the Birds podcast, Ben Lizdas interviews several avid birders about the spring migration of 2017. Tune in to find out what they say.

Male prairie warbler.

The Master of Crappy Warbler Photos

'Tis the season when our in-boxes and social media accounts are flooded with gorgeous bird imagery from our shutter-buggy friends who are sharing their most recent photographic tours de force. From well-known migration hotspots like High Island, Magee Marsh, and Central Park, an almost constant stream of bird photographs (usually of male warblers in their spring finery) floods your world. 

At first it's wonderful to see these striking images—they whet the appetite for your chance to get out there for a swim in the river of spring songbird migration. Then your reaction transitions slowly to one of envy, even jealousy. And by the time the final stages (grief and anger) hit you, you're thinking about giving up birding, photography, and social media for good.

Why do THEY (your talented photographer friends) get to spend endless days frolicking through the woods, marshes, and parks snapping away to their hearts' content while you have to sit here in your cubicle at work, cursing yourself for not taking the entire months of April and May as vacation/sick/personal emergency days.

But the joy keeps building. When you finally get out there with the birds, it's rainy and cold and the migration is pretty much over. You get some dark shots of American robins and red-winged blackbirds and one shot of a Canada goose family. But that's it. Maybe you're like me and you're struggling with an older camera that's not as easy to use [idiot-proof] as some of the newer DX/FX Mark XXVIII with the 800 fixed and a 1.4 converter with the Beamer thingy and a 'roided-up battery pack that lets you take 2,750 frames per second. I've got a Canon 30D with a 300mm fixed lens that has a mind of its own. Its auto focus takes longer than the 17-year locusts. When the shutter finally clicks, it sounds like one of the doors slamming shut in the intro to Get Smart. Canon keeps e-mailing me saying they want it for their exhibit at The Smithsonian Museum of Ancient Technology. It will sit right next to the cotton gin and the rotary phone.

It's at this point that you know—in your heart of hearts—that if one more person says "You shoulda been here last Saturday! It was a HUGE fallout" YOU. WILL. MURDER. THEM.

Rest easy, fellow non-traveler. I am here to assuage your feelings of being left out and left behind. To wash away that bitter taste left from seeing the 347th stunning shot of a male Blackburnian warbler, in deep tones of black, white, and Valencia orange, making duck lips at the camera. 

For I am just like you. I am a taker of crappy bird photos. I am a misser of migration. I am a gainfully employed, never-gonna-retire, working-for-the-weekend, gazer at the passing parade of nearly pornographic bird images as they drift past my open digital window. And I feel your pain.

Here is my antidote. I am posting, below, my crappiest warbler photos from two days this past week when I walked the boardwalk at Magee Marsh. During the past 10 days the photos coming out of Magee and The Biggest Week in American Birding have been stunning. And I took none of them. You perhaps did not either. 

So, like Jamie Lee Curtis proudly showing off her middle-aged, unretouched body and face, I am sharing these unedited images as a way to strike a blow for us normal bird photography folks. This is how OUR photos look. And they are realer than real, man. I only hope the world can handle them.

Male blackpoll warbler, imperfectly backlit.

Male Cape May warbler, butt-only. Shout-out to my buddy Dave, who specializes in burdbuttz.

Please Mr. Autofocus, focus on the stick, NOT on the bird. Thanks! Cape May warbler male.

This would be a perfect shot of sunlit ash leaves but for the blurry chestnut-sided warbler that photo-bombed it.

Magnolia warbler, fleeing the frame.

Beheaded magnolia warbler.

Yes, that's a male northern parula. Trust me.

Black-throated green playing hide-n-seek.

Perhaps the first photographic evidence of the ghost of an male American redstart.

So there you have it, friends. My photographic tour de farce. And I give you my word that none of these images was processed or tweaked in any way—because I'm sure you were wondering.

Peace, my brothers and sisters, and I'll see you out there with the birds (and without my camera).

BOTB

Christmas in April: Arrivals Pouring In!

Blue-gray gnatcatcher.

 

 

 

This spring every new day feels a little bit like Christmas morning.

It was a brutal, long, gloomy winter here in southeastern Ohio and springlike weather has been slow to arrive. But now that the insect-eating songbirds are beginning to make their spring appearances, I awake each morning full of anticipation about what gifts may have flown in from the south on the night breezes. This is why it's Christmas-like. Just like every Christmas Day morning for the past five decades, I'm rearing to go and full of "Can't wait!"

Often, these last few weeks, my very first thought—before my eyes are open—is: "I'll bet today is the day that the hummingbirds (or tree swallows, or blue-winged warblers, or wood thrushes) get back." The little, brightly feathered "presents" that Nature brings us each spring—in dribs and drabs at first, then in a marvelous gush of song and color as migration reaches its peak.

Oddly our current spring migration has been somewhat inconsistent with our records for returning dates of migrants. Hummingbirds are several days late. Tree swallows are back all around us but ours have not appeared, making us worry about their fate. Only a few warblers have come back—so far no tanagers or orioles. 

Male yellow warbler.

It's all right. Let them take their time. After all, the anticipation is almost as wonderful as seeing and hearing an old familiar friend, returned from a winter away from this old ridgetop farm.

White-eyed vireo.

 

My first vireo of the spring was a male white-eyed vireo that was singing in our orchard on April 11, several days early according to our records. [We've been keeping arrival, departure, and nesting records here on Indigo Hill for 20 years. White-eyed vireos usually arrive each spring on April 15 or 16.]

Singing male ovenbird. Photo by Julie Zickefoose.

I was giddy to hear an ovenbird on Monday of this week. His song is so loud and percussive that it's hard to miss. I'm sure he was not back sooner. He was drifting around the old orchard to the west of our house, singing half-heartedly. By early May our woods will be ringing with the songs of ovenbirds and a dozen other warbler species.

Like the song says: "Springtime, you know it is my songbirds' sing time." And that's music to my ears.

They're Baaaaack!

Uggh! One sure and early sign of spring around these parts is the return of the parasitic nest pirate: the brown headed cowbird.

I looked out at the freshly filled bird feeders this morning and there was a male cowbird, all shiny black body and chocolate-brown head. The male cowbirds return first in spring and the females follow a week or so later. Once everyone is back, they begin their traditional business of courting and making whoopee. The male emits (because it can't really be called "singing") a burbling sound that rises in pitch, ending in a piercing squeak. As he vocalizes, he raises his bill to the sky, trying his best to look at once handsome, regal, fierce, and ready for some lady action. In the next week or so, our farm will become a noisy cowbird singles bar.

When the songbird nesting season starts in about a month, the female brown-headed cowbirds will spend their time watching and waiting. They are very clever at finding the nests of other bird species: warblers, thrushes, tanagers, sparrows, vireos, and many others. Once she spots a nest, a female cowbird will inspect it to see if it has eggs in it. If it does, and if she has a fertilized egg ready to go, she may drop it right there in the nest.

Then she simply flies off to look for another male cowbird, another nest of an unsuspecting songbird into which she can deposit an egg. This nest parasitism evolved from the nomadic lifestyle of the cowbird. Cowbirds traditionally followed the large herds of bison as they roamed across the continent, eating the insects the herds kicked up. As the herds moved, so did the cowbirds, a lifestyle which did not leave any time for nest building or young rearing. So the brown-headed cowbird figured out a way to reproduce successfully by having other birds raise their offspring.

My lifer summer tanager was a handsome adult male, sitting on my parents' platform feeder in our small-town backyard. It was feeding a fledgling brown-headed cowbird.

Each spring I have slight urge to do something to help our songbirds avoid being parasitized by cowbirds. And each spring I realize just how futile this would be. We do cut back on ground feeding, especially on offering cracked corn, when the cowbirds are around. Secretly I'd like to ask for a week-long visit from the Fish & Wildlife Service folks who "control" cowbird populations in the Kirtland's warbler's nesting range. They have large, baited cages where cowbirds check in but they don't check out. A cowbird Hotel California.

Alas they are native birds, so, as much as I despise them, I accept them. And sometimes I even sing about them.

First Robin of Spring!

I am pleased to report that on my recent birding adventure to the north country, I encountered The First Robin of Spring! Clearly these early returnees to the wintry parts of the species' range are made of different stuff than your normal, everyday robins.

I've written here before about TFROS. I wonder if they subsist on iceworms during spells of inclement weather.

Signs of Nature

I shot this image of a male western bluebird at the Red Rock State Park near Sedona, Arizona. He seemed to know where the good habitat was. And speaking of habitat...

After a couple of weeks of festival travel, speaking, performing, and guiding, I'm looking forward to a spell at home and this birdy time of year. For the first time in at least a decade I'll be home for a large chunk of spring migration, and I'm looking forward to it. If this morning was any indication, we're in for a late rush of migrants. I had 55 species on the farm in just under three hours, and that was all within hearing distance from the house.

Now I'm in town at work at Bird Watcher's Digest and there is a different set of birds here, so by the end of the day (despite work and other "distractions") I should easily pass 70 species.

I think I feel a big day coming on...

Wishing you a beautiful and birdy spring.

Blink and Whoosh!

Blue-gray gnatcatcher.

Dear Readers:

My sincere apologies for the sparse and irregular posts of late. After my first Guyana post last Monday I had the very best of intentions last week about sharing some more from that trip but then life revved up into krazy-train mode. I blinked and it's another Monday!

I will try to do better this week. I hope you'll stick with me (I do appreciate your patience).

In other news the blue-gray gnatcatchers got in this morning on the farm. I heard my first brown thrasher of the spring on Sunday, and the eastern meadowlarks were battling it out over the meadow this morning. We watched them from the tower where we'd run hoping to identify three mystery ducks that flew over the hills to the west of us. No joy on the ducks, but the woods showed us its flimsy spring garments—the tree buds and blossoms exhibiting the most wishful thinking possible. We'll see if leaping into spring so soon is warranted or even advisable. I fear winter may yet have a face slap or two in its arsenal.

Birds Passing Through

Today a vesper sparrow stopped by the farm on its way north. Small and finely streaked, with that faint eyering and chestnut shoulder—it's the first one spotted here at Indigo Hill in a decade.

Otherwise, spring migration here this year seems at least a week behind schedule.

Hurrying the Seasons

Weak spring sunlight casting shadows of leafless trees on new meadow grass.

It's been spring, officially, for two weeks, but it's not really spring for us bird watchers until the good spring migrants start showing up. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the hardy early arrivers: pine warblers, tree swallows, chipping sparrows, brown thrashers. But it seems so much more wonderful when the wood thrushes, chestnut-sided warblers, great crested flycatchers, and Baltimore orioles show up.

So I guess I am trying my level best to hurry the seasons along. Despite the advice of all the New Age gurus that we must "live in the moment and not "wish our lives away." When it comes to anticipating the special birds of spring, I'm totally ready to forget today if tomorrow brings a dawn chorus of new arrivals.

Some other spring signs:

Blooming fruit trees.

Bluebirds getting house proud.

Mr. Brown is Back in Town

The brown thrasher returned to our ridge-top farm on Sunday morning. Zick heard him first and yelled it to me from the other end of the house. I stuck my head out the window and heard his jumbly sing-song coming from the spring trail.

This is a photo of the same dude (I suspect) from a few years ago. He was singing from the same tree yesterday and I would have gone after him with the camera for some fresh images, but I was simply not able. I've been down with some weird flu-like affliction since Friday night and have not been feeling anywhere close to myself.

Nice to know spring goes on, rolling around on Nature's giant wheel, even when we, ourselves, feel more like roadkill.

I am thankful for brown thrashers. Knowing that Mr. Brown is back in town has me feeling better—I'd say he's done more tom improve my health than a full dose of Biaxin—at least so far.

Mourning Morning

One morning last week I was out on the back deck trying to clip Liam's claw-like fingernails before sending him to school. As he fidgeted and I snipped and growled at him to sit still lest he lose a finger, I heard a foggily familiar bird song rise up out of the tangled mess of chlorophyll that is our old orchard.

Churry-churry-churry-churry!

No. It can't be!

But it was! A mourning warbler!

Liam's remaining fingernails were given a cursory clip, leaving them looking like he'd tried to stop a belt sander with just his fingertips. I was off to grab the camera, binocs, iPod, and Julie.

We beat it out to the orchard and the bird was still singing, but from deep in the woods. Mournings, being members of the dastardly warbler genus Oporornis, are natural skulkers, preferring the deepest, most impenetrable tangles from which to sing.

This bird was a migrant. The nearest breeding mourning warblers to southeastern Ohio are found in the rhododendron tangles of the West Virginia mountains. We spished to get his attention. He kept singing but did not come closer. I looked at the impressive blend of greenbriar and multiflora rose thorns, poison ivy, grape vines, and Japanese honeysuckle that was between us and the bird. Even if we DID manage to get through such a green maze, the noise of our crashing and cursing would surely scare the bird away.

We did have the iPod...

Migrant birds infrequently respond to recorded calls. Why should they? They are not yet defending any territory—they are merely passing through.

It was worth a try. The weather was warm and the sun was shining. It seemed we would not be putting undue stress on this male mourning warbler. Besides, even though I knew the song and Julie agreed with my ID by sound, it would be nice to SEE the bird both to confirm its identity and to enjoy its beauty: a dark hood (like a mourning cloak), olive back, lemon belly, and pinkish legs and bill.

I played the song on the iPod. The bird chipped and hopped into sight. Then it went back to singing and foraging in its newly visible location, offering up the occasional chip as it sashayed around the edge of the yard. It chased a common yellowthroat, perhaps just needing SOMEONE to pick on.

We got a few photos. And we enjoyed every minute of this lovely creature.




After I left for work, the mourning continued to sing and forage near the yard. Julie heard a second one a few days later.

This may very well be the only mourning warbler I see this year. And thinking back it's been at least two years since I've seen one well—the last being on my 2006 adventure to northernmost Minnesota seeking another Oporornis, the Connecticut warbler.

Flying North with the Birds

A singing male indigo bunting, photographed at Shawnee State Forest during the 2006 OOS annual conference.

I'll be leaving this weekend for the annual conference of The Ohio Ornithological Society at Mohican State Park near Loudonville, OH. We expect about 200 avian enthusiasts for the event--the OOS's third annual conference. Saturday night's keynote speaker is Donald Kroodsma, famed ornithologist and bird sound recorder/interpreter.

I'll be hoping to catch up with migration, too, in heading north. The blackpoll warblers are passing through here right now, which means that the major flow of spring birds is ebbing. Blackpolls have always seemed to me to be a signal that migration is slowing down. Yesterday the spruce tree outside my office window held several Cape May warblers. Today it's all blackpolls.

Wherever you are this weekend, get outside--away from the "real world" and spend some time in nature! Books and magazines and blogs and websites are great, but there's no substitution for immersing yourself in the real natural world.