200 Birds

White-crowned Sparrow Subspecies in Utah

2012-01-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I love about birding is that the challenges never stop coming; there's always more to learn. Once a birder has a pretty good handle on the species found in his or her area, they often move on to trying to tell subspecies apart. This might sound quite intimidating at first, but for some subspecies, it can be pretty easy.

There are two subspecies of White-crowned Sparrow that regularly occur in Utah. Mountain White-crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha; also called "Interior West White-crowned Sparrows") breed here, as you might expect, mostly in the mountains. Gambel's White-crowned Sparrows (Z. l. gambelii) winter here, having migrated down from their breeding range in the western taiga of northern Canada. Around the same time Gambel's are arriving from the north, the Mountains are heading south, leaving the state to winter in southern Arizona and northern Mexico. There are a few eBird records of Mountain subspecies wintering in Utah, but I've never actually seen one documented here in Utah: I suspect it is very rare if it occurs at all in Utah in winter, but please comment below if you've documented Z. l. oriantha in Utah in winter.

Telling these two subspecies apart is relatively easy. Gambel's have a yellowish bill and pale lores; Mountains have a pinkish bill and dark lores. (The lores are the area between the eye and the bill. Look to see whether the dark line that both subspecies have behind the eye continues in front of the eye to connect with the stripe on the side of the crown.) Bill color is a little less reliable in young birds, but even the young ones usually have the appropriate color lores.

It is always possible that one of the other three subspecies of White-crowned Sparrows could show up in Utah, but this would be very unlikely. Start by practicing telling these two subspecies apart, and you'll be more prepared for a vagrant of another subspecies. For more on distinguishing subspecies of White-crowned Sparrows apart, see this and this post from David Sibley; for the VERY interested, see this extensive treatment, also by Sibley.

Adult Mountain White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. oriantha, Logan, Cache County, Utah. 11 May 2011.

Adult Mountain White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. oriantha, Antelope Island, Davis County, Utah. 7 May 2011.

Adult Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. gambelii, Washington County, Utah. 19 Mar 2011.

Immature Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. gambelii, Cache County, Utah. 20 Feb 2011.

Immature Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. gambelii. Gunlock Reservoir, Washington County, Utah. 16 Mar 2007.

Probably an adult Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow, Z. l. gambelii, Beaver Dam Wash, Washington County, Utah. 28 Nov 2009. This individual appears to have an unusually dark bill relative to most Gambel's. Are those brownish sides? Are the white stripes dingier than expected for Gambel's? This might be worth looking at again when I get more experience: is this possibly a vagrant of a Pacific Northwest subspecies?

(All photos copyright Ryan O'Donnell)

Logan CBC Highlights

2011-12-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Logan's Christmas Bird Count, the fifty-somethingth one day a year when 60 or so volunteers gather with the goal of a complete census of the birds in a 7.5 mile radius circle around Logan. As usual, we started before dawn, trying to find owls in the neighborhoods and canyons within our circle. Guillaume and I went up Green Canyon. It was cold! We started at 5:00 AM, giving us over two hours before sunrise, but we had no luck with the owls here. Our first bird was an American Robin calling as the sky turned from black to blue.

Guillaume Peron broadcasts owl calls in the cold pre-dawn of Green Canyon.

By the end of the day, the count collectively had tallied over 16,000 individuals of 92 species. That is at the low end of our averages, but given that fog hung over the valley for most of the morning, we felt pretty happy with that total. A more thorough analysis of the numbers of each species will be published in the next edition of the Bridgerland Audubon Society's newsletter, the Stilt, but here are some of the rarest species reported:

CACKLING GOOSE - Five individuals seen in a flock of 300+ Canada Geese at the Logan River Golf Course by me and Guillaume. This species was only split from Canada Goose in 2004, so most previous CBC'ers didn't try to count them. First documented in our count in 2008, seen again in 2009, and missed last year.

A Richardson's subspecies of Cackling Goose among Canada Geese at the Logan River Golf Course.

DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT - One bird with an injured wing has been hanging out at the Logan Fisheries Experiment Station ponds for several weeks. This species has only been seen on our count on three occasions in the last 20 years.

WHITE-FACED IBIS - Three individuals were seen by several counters. Only one observation on our CBC in the last 20 years.

HOODED MERGANSER - Two females or immatures continuing at First Dam, seen by several observers. Seen about every other year on count day.

HERMIT THRUSH - One individual seen by me and Guillaume, but no photos. Found on our CBC about one out of every two years.

BEWICK'S WREN - One possible observation of this species was reported by Reinhard Jockel and Caitlin Laughlin. Craig Fosdick and I were not able to relocate this bird today. This species has never before been reported on our CBC since the count started in 1956, and will probably require additional documentation to be included in the final totals.

LINCOLN'S SPARROW - Two of this species were observed, which is quite remarkable since it has never been seen on our count before. One was a continuing bird found last week by Andy Kleinhesselink and relocated by Bryan Dixon and Jean Lown. The second was found and photographed by Kurt Kotter.

Lincoln's Sparrow photographed Dec 9 by Andy Kleinhesselink, linked from his Flickr account. This bird was relocated on the Logan CBC.

WHITE-THROATED SPARROW - Another great find, continuing from Andy Kleinhesselink's discovery last week. Always a good one to look for on our CBC, found on 7 of the last 20 counts.

I photographed this White-throated Sparrow on Dec 10, but it was relocated on count day.

(RED) FOX SPARROW - Found by Guillaume Peron and me. Fox Sparrows have been reported on only four Logan CBCs since the count started in 1956, and once in the last 20 years. The CBC doesn't typically record subspecies, so I don't know whether those previous observations were of the subspecies that breeds here, the Slate-colored Fox Sparrow, or vagrants of another subspecies. The Red Fox Sparrow breeds in northern Canada and the eastern states. According to eBird, the Red subspecies has only been documented in Utah once before. (There are a few other reports that I know of that are not in eBird). There is some indication that this group might get split in the future, elevating the Red Fox Sparrow to full species status, and some authors already consider them to be a separate species. Dennis Welker reported that he also thought he had a Fox Sparrow at Spring Hollow, but it wasn't clear to me whether he considered that observation confident enough to count, and he didn't know which subspecies it was.

Guillaume and I found this Red Fox Sparrow for the first time on count day, and I was able to relocate it with Craig Fosdick today and get some photos. Note the reddish auriculars (ear patch) that contrasts with the gray around it, the white below the auriculars, the bright rufous wings and tail, and the reddish streaks on the gray back.

Finally, I found two very interesting ducks at the Logan Sewage Lagoons, neither of which really "count" as species for the Christmas Bird Count, but they are noteworthy nonetheless. First was a "Brewer's Duck," a hybrid between a Mallard and a Gadwall. (More on Brewer's Duck here.) The second was another hybrid, this time between a Northern Pintail and a Mallard. What a beautiful duck!

"Brewer's Duck," a hybrid between a Mallard and a Gadwall.

One of the prettiest ducks I've seen, a hybrid between a Mallard and a Northern Pintail. I love that long pintail that curls up like a Mallard's tail feathers!

Hawaii's Native Forest Birds

2011-12-08T22:46:00.001-07:00

Koa-Ohia forest at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, one of the best places for seeing native forest birds on the island of Hawaii.

I have recently posted on the many introduced species on the island of Hawaii, including both the game birds and the songbirds. While it is tempting to add a series of additional posts on native shorebirds, endemic subspecies, fish, mammals, reptiles, etc., this is a busy time of year for me and I'm realizing I might not get to those. So, I want to jump straight to my favorite organisms on the Big Island, and the group that is probably of the most interest to the readers of this blog: the native forest birds.

Because Hawaii is separated from the nearest continents by thousands of miles, many species have evolved only on the Hawaiian Islands, and some of those are found only on individual islands. Most of these species have evolved in the unique forests of the Hawaiian Islands. One of the more iconic endemic forest birds is the Hawaiian Hawk, also known as the I'o. The I'o is a species in the genus Buteo, and its closest relatives are the Galapagos Hawk, the Short-tailed Hawk, and Swainson's Hawk. It comes in two color morphs, dark and light.

A light morph Hawaiian Hawk soars over the highway south of Kona. (Digital composite)

Dark morph Hawaiian Hawk perched in the rain in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Hawaii also has an endemic lineage of flycatchers in the old-world family Muscicapidae. Species in this group that might be familiar to North American birders include the Northern Wheatear and the Bluethroat. Hawaii's flycatchers radiated into several species, each limited to one or a few islands. On the Big Island, there is only one species, and it is only found there: the Hawaii Elepaio. The Hawaii Elepaio is unique because it has further differentiated into three distinct subspecies on the island. I was able to see two of the three subspecies, but only one is shown here.

Hawaii Elepaio, Hilo subspecies, along the Pu'u O'o Trail.

Hawaii Elepaio, Hilo subspecies, at Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge.

Several species of thrush evolved on the Hawaiian Islands, but only one of them is still common today, and several are extinct. The Omao is the most common of these endemic thrushes, but its range is limited to the island of Hawaii.

Omao, a species of thrush that is endemic to the island of Hawaii, along the Pu'u O'o Trail.

As cool as those three species are, the species that get people really excited about birding Hawaii are the native honeycreepers. Hawaiian honeycreepers have been considered their own family, Drepanidae, but most ornithologists now consider them to be a subfamily, Drepanidinae, within the finches, Fringilidae. Whatever you call it, this group of species is one of the best known examples of an adaptive radiation. About 4 million years ago, a species of rosefinch somehow managed to colonize the islands from Asia. Finding many open niches on the islands, it rapidly evolved into more than fifty unique species. Sadly, these species started disappearing with the arrival of the Polynesians around 400 A.D., and their extinctions accelerated after Captain Cook's arrival in the late 1800s. Now, only about 17 of these species remain, and 15 of those are considered endangered or vulnerable.

If you want to see native Hawaiian honeycreepers, and you can only visit one island, Hawaii is a good choice. It has a higher diversity of native birds than any of the other islands, and is still home to seven honeycreepers, four of which are found only on that island and nowhere else in the world. I was fortunate to be able to find six of of the seven species, missing only the Akepa. Here are the six I did see, in order of approximate increasing rarity.

The most common Hawaiian honeycreeper on the Big Island is probably the Hawaii Amakihi, also known as the Common Amakihi. This species is found on only the Big Island and nearby Maui, although the two are considered separate subspecies. There is some evidence that this species has been able to evolve resistance to the avian malaria that has killed so many native birds, giving hope for the future of this species and others.

Female or immature Hawaii Amakihi on Ohia lehua flower

Male Hawaii Amakihi on mamane flower

The second most common honeycreeper was, in my experience, the most camera shy. The Apapane is a red bird that, together with the Hawaii Amakihi, is one of only two species of Hawaiian honeycreepers that are considered of "Least Concern." This is also the only species that is still found on all the main Hawaiian islands.

Apapane on Ohia lehua.

The Iiwi is probably the most emblematic of the Hawaiian honeycreepers. To me, and probably to many others, this species screams "Hawaiian honeycreeper!" They are also still fairly common on the island of Hawaii, although not doing so well elsewhere. Recent reports have detailed dramatic declines on Kauai, and the species is nearly gone from Oahu. This species also has a remarkable voice, sounding something like a robot to me, to accompany its remarkable appearance.

Iiwi in the rain near Hakalau Forest NWR.

Alright, now we're getting to the real goodies. . . . All three of the remaining species are found only on the island of Hawaii, and have been known from only there in historical times. The next bird, the Akiapolaau, is probably the most remarkable remaining honeycreeper in terms of its unique bill adaptation. It fills the niche of a woodpecker, using its straight lower bill to peck holes in wood, and its long, curved top bill to then extract insects from those holes. There are only a few thousand of this species remaining.

Akiapolaau, adult male, along the Pu'u O'o Trail.

Although it is not the rarest species, the Hawaii Creeper was the hardest for me to find. For one, they look very much like the common Hawaii Amakihi. (They can be told by their straighter bill, paler throat, more extensive dark mask, and distinctive call note.) Second, the best place to find them is in the Hakalau Forest NWR, which requires reservations and a four-wheel-drive vehicle to reach. Third, they're just not very common. There are still a few thousand of them left, but they are one of the least commonly observed species on the island because they are hard to get to and hard to identify. Only after searching for several hours in the rain was I able to finally get some decent shots of this species, and only after getting the shots was I really convinced I had seen what I was looking for!

Hawaii Creeper, probably an adult male, at Hakalau Forest NWR.

A young Hawaii Creeper in the rain, somewhat more distinctive with its pale throat and fairly obvious pale supercilium.

Last is the Palila, the only finch-like honeycreeper still living in the main Hawaiian islands. This species, unlike the others, is adapted specifically to the dry forests. It uses its thick bill to crack open seeds of a dry forest tree, the mamane, which is shown here. These seeds are toxic to other species, but the Palila loves them! This was recently thought to be one of the most secure endemic species, but despite a court order in the 1980s for their habitat to be protected from the feral sheep that eat the young mamane plants, their habitat has yet to be protected. This species has declined in numbers by about 80%, following eight straight years of population declines, and is now down to about 1,300 individuals.

Adult male Palila preparing to zip open a mamane seed pod.

Adult male Palila in mamane tree.

Seeing these rare species was an experience I'll never forget. It was exciting to see them, but I was also left feeling very sad that these species are not getting the protection they need. Because of the isolated nature of Hawaii and the relatively few people living there, these birds do not have the political power they need to garner the protection they require. Hawaii has 45% of the endangered species in the U.S., but receives less than 5% funding allocated to protect endangered species. If you'd like to help save these amazing species, consider making a donation here or here.

Bogota Sunangel Rediscovered?

2011-12-06T14:29:00.001-07:00

Bogota Sunangel, a hummingbird that was last seen alive over 100 years ago. Painting by John Fjeldsa from The Auk v. 110, issue 1.

Birders and ornithologists are understandably quite cautious when it comes to reports of rediscovered extinct species. As it is said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. With all the caveats that apply to such an announcement, I can't help but be excited about a recent announcement that the Bogota Sunangel has been rediscovered!

The Bogota Sunangel is perhaps the rarest species of hummingbird on the planet. It is known from only a single specimen, purchased in 1909 in Bogota, Colombia. For many years, people speculated that it might not even be a species, but rather a rare hybrid between other known species. (Hybrids have been mistaken for new species before. For example, see the "Brewer's Duck.") Just last year, scientists used DNA from the only specimen in existence to demonstrate that the Bogota Sunangel was in fact a real species, not a hybrid.

James Currie has been filming the only tv show I know of devoted to birding, "Birding Adventures", for a couple years now. On his Facebook page this afternoon, he reported that "Hey all - sorry its been so long since the last post but we are filming in Colombia. Having an absolute blast. Supposed to return tomorrow but we are extending our stay to try film the Bogota Sunangel. This hummingbird was last known from a specimen in 1909 so its 102 years since its been recorded! It has just been found. Wish us luck!" The ornithology world is waiting anxiously to see if his crew can secure footage of this amazing bird.

Introduced Birds of the Big Island, Hawaii: Song Birds

2011-12-03T21:35:00.000-07:00

I previously posted about the introduced game birds of Hawaii. Those species were all introduced for hunting opportunities (for food or for recreation). But many bird species were introduced to Hawaii for more aesthetic reasons: they looked or sounded pretty. Some of these were accidental, escapees from cages, while others were intentional releases to try to enhance the beauty of the island. Here are some of the introduced songbirds I saw on my recent trip to the Big Island, arranged roughly from most to least common in my experience.

Common Myna

Common Mynas are probably the most frequently observed bird species in Hawaii. To me, they were like an equivalent of European Starlings, which are not found in Hawaii. They were common in lawns and gardens around the island, and at night they would gather at large communal roosts, making quite a racket as they settled in at dusk. They were introduced from India in 1865 to control insect pests.

Japanese White-Eye

The Japanese White-Eye is a small songbird that reminded me of a Ruby-crowned Kinglet in size and behavior. They are among the most common species in some parts of Hawaii, and unlike some of the introduced species, they can be found both in the lowlands around the cities and in the higher elevations where the native birds are still found. For this reason, and because they also sometimes feed on nectar, they are sometimes considered one of the biggest threats to the native honeycreepers among the introduced birds (disease and habitat loss are probably bigger threats overall).

Java Sparrow

Java Sparrows were also pretty common on the Kona side of the island and usually found in flocks. This beautiful bird is very distinctive and can be recognized at a great distance with its pink bill and bold white cheek patch. I have read that these are the most common species at bird feeders where the species occurs.

African Silverbill

African Silverbills are also a pretty common introduced species around the Big Island. The last time I visited, in 2000, these were lumped together with what is now known as Indian Silverbills and collectively known as Warbling Silverbills. This species likes to travel in flocks, so when you see one you'll usually see several.

Saffron Finch

Saffron Finches are very bright birds that were introduced from South America in the 1960s. The book I have, from 1997, says that they are found on the dry side of the island, but eBird shows them over most of the island, so I believe they've spread in the last decade or two. They are still more common on the dry side, though.

Yellow-fronted Canary

Yellow-fronted Canaries were introduced from Africa in the 1960s, and are now found on the Big Island and Oahu. Like the Saffron Finch, they are more common on the dry side of the island but can also be found on the wet side, including some of the strongholds of the native honeycreepers.

House Finch

House Finches are quite familiar to North American birders. I was surprised at how many yellow morphs I saw, like this one. Yellow morphs are somewhat rare in the mainland, but probably more common than red morphs on the Big Island. I found them to be frequent in small numbers at all elevations I visited.

Yellow-billed Cardinal

Yellow-billed Cardinals were frequently encountered but usually singly or in pairs. They were introduced from South American in the 1970s. They are generally limited to the parks and gardens in the lower elevations, but we did see one at Pu'u Huluhulu on the Saddle Road at an elevation of about 6,600 feet, which is unusual.

Northern Cardinal

There were two species of cardinal on the Big Island, the second being the same Northern Cardinal that is familiar to birders from North America. However, the Yellow-billed Cardinal is only a "cardinal" in name: it is actually a species of tanager. Northern Cardinals were less common, and also found in small numbers.

Northern Mockingbird

I found Northern Mockingbirds to be among the rarest introduced songbird I saw. I only saw two of this species in my two weeks on the island, and they were both at the same location. (There are rarer introduced species that I didn't see.) Northern Mockingbirds were introduced from North America in the 1920s, and can be found just about anywhere but are much more likely on the dry sides of the islands.

Watch for another post on Hawaii's wildlife coming soon. . . .

Introduced Birds of the Big Island, Hawaii: Game Birds

2011-12-01T10:52:00.001-07:00

In the early part of November, I went to the Big Island of Hawaii to present some of my research at a conference. But of course, while I was there, I did a lot of birding. Here is the first of what I intend to be several blog posts about the natural history of Hawaii; this one on the introduced birds.

Hawaii is a very unique place, thousands of miles from the nearest continent. It has a unique biota that evolved on the island, with thousands of species found only in this island chain and nowhere else on earth. (More on some of those later.) But, the island has been heavily impacted by the humans that have lived there, first by the Polynesians, who arrived around the middle of the first century A.D., and later by more recent human arrivals, starting with Captain Cook's arrival in 1778 and continuing today. These human arrivals have brought with them a variety of species from around the world, for a variety of purposes. So many species have been introduced to Hawaii that at times, birding there seemed like birding in an outdoor zoo. Many of these species have been introduced for food, initially for sustenance and later for recreation. This post will focus on the game birds, and a later one will focus on the songbirds.

The Red Junglefowl, a.k.a. "chicken" was introduced by the Polynesians for food. There were large bird species already on the islands, but these were quickly hunted to extinction. The descendants of the Polynesians' chickens still live in the wild on the island of Kauai, but feral chickens of more recent origin can be found on many of the other islands, including Hawaii. This one was photographed near the Waimea airport. It is a descendent of a more recent introduction, but these species are wild on the Big Island and I believe they are sustaining their numbers through their own reproduction.

Several species of introduced game birds will be familiar to North American birders, because they have been introduced to North America for the same reason. Others were native to North America, but were transplanted to Hawaii to increase hunting opportunities there. One of the later is the Wild Turkey. These were introduced in 1815 from North America and can be found on several of the islands. This one was photographed at the edge of a golf course.

Another species familiar to North American birders is the California Quail. My book says these were introduced "before 1855," so I guess the actual date of introduction is not known. Gambel's Quail is also supposed to be present on the Big Island, but I didn't see any in my time there. Based on my experience and on records in eBird, I think California Quail far outnumber Gambel's Quail on the Big Island. This one was photographed in the rain near Hakalau Forest NWR, one of the best places to see the native honeycreepers. That pretty yellow flower in the background is also an introduced species, called gorse.

(I saw a few other species that are also found in North America, including Chukar and Ring-necked Pheasant, but I didn't get any photographs of them.)

A few of the game birds introduced to Hawaii are not found in North America. These were more exciting for me, because most of them were new to me. All three of these species are in a group called Francolins, one of the most diverse groups of game birds. Francolins were once considered one genus, Francolinus, but they are now split among several genera. Francolins are native mostly to Africa, with a few species from Asia.

The Gray Francolin was common in the lowlands, and was the only species of Francolin I had seen before (on a previous trip to Hawaii). I saw them near the hotel, along golf courses, and from several roads around the towns. They are native to India, and were introduced to Hawaii in 1958 for hunting.

The Black Francolin was probably the rarest of the Francolins I saw. Like the Gray Francolin, they were introduced from India in the late 1950s for hunting. In my experience, they seemed to be found at higher elevations and in more remote locations than the Gray Francolin, although I only saw a handful of these in my two weeks on the island.

Finally, the Erckel's Francolin was probably the most common game bird I saw on the island. Like the Black Francolin, these were usually found away from the coastal cities, on the highways and other roads in somewhat higher country, although I did see quite a few of these on a golf course near a city. The Erckel's Francolin was introduced from Africa in the late 1950s, around the time of the other francolins. This one was photographed at sunset along the Saddle Road.

In total, I saw nine species of introduced game birds on the Big Island. I looked for a few others that are known to be present, including Chestnut-bellied Sandgrouse and Red-billed Francolin, but I didn't find them. Coming next: watch for a post about the introduced songbirds of the Big Island, and later, a few posts about the native birds!

Himalayan Snowcock Expedition with BAS

2011-10-24T14:44:00.003-06:00

This weekend, I led a Bridgerland Audubon Society field trip to the Ruby Mountains of Nevada in search of Himalayan Snowcocks. The Himalayan Snowcock is a large grouse, about the size of a Greater Sage-Grouse, that is adapted for living in the high rocky peaks of the Himalayan Mountains. In the 1960s and 1970s it was introduced to the Ruby Mountains of Nevada for hunting. The introduction was successful, and now this isolated mountain range is the only place outside of the Himalayas where this species can be seen. This species is sought after by the top birders of North America, and a visit to their habitat was depicted in the recent movie, The Big Year.

On Saturday morning, I met the other birders on this BAS trip in the hotel in Elko at 4:30 AM, and we were on the trail at the end of Lamoille Canyon a little after 5:30 AM. We arrived at the bench above Island Lake just as the sun was starting to hit the tops of the mountain peaks around us. At least four Himalayan Snowcocks were calling from various points around the cirque of cliffs. (The calls were all heard within about a half hour after sunrise, then the birds stopped vocalizing). Collectively, we saw two individuals, and the whole group had leisurely scope views at one individual as it foraged around a ledge in the cliffs. We also watched several flocks of Black Rosy-Finches flitting around the scree below the cliffs. We had found our target bird before 7:30 AM, so we spent a little while looking for more of them, and watching the mammals of the area, which included Mule Deer, Pika, and Mountain Goats. We then headed back down to the trailhead to start another hike.

The next hike we took was a loop to Lamoille Lake. Some parts of the trail were a bit icy, and the early parts of the trail were very birdy, so the hiking was slow. Clark's Nutcrackers were actively gathering and caching pine seeds in a large open stand of pines. We were impressed by the numbers here, and estimated about 300 individual birds in this 3.5 mile loop, most of which were in the first mile. It was fun to watch the nutcrackers extract the nuts from the cones with ease and fill their crops to the point it looked like they might pop, before flying off to a suitable place to hide them for the winter. Other species seen along this loop included Golden-crowned Kinglets, Red-breasted Nuthatches, a White-breasted Nuthatch, Brown Creepers, and three Dusky Grouse, among others. GCKI and BRCR are apparently pretty rare in northern Nevada: eBird has only five and four (respectively) previous records for these species in Elko County. We ended back at the parking lot at about 3:00, tired from our early start and many miles on the trail at high elevation, but thrilled with finding many great birds including our target bird, the Himalayan Snowcock.

Cache County Big Day Results

2011-09-12T13:41:00.000-06:00

Andy watches for new species flying over the Benson Marina to roost in Cutler Marsh at dusk.

Andy Kleinhesselink and I did a Big Day in Cache County yesterday to raise money for Point Reyes Bird Observatory. We birded from 5AM to about 11PM, driving about 150 miles and hiking about 12. We also raised ~~$154~~ $206 for bird conservation work at PRBO (so far - you can still donate here). Our goal was to top 100 species. We ended up shattering our goal, with 122 species! Here are some of the highlights (and lowlights), with comparison to eBird records. (There are 243 complete checklists from Cache County in eBird for September, all years, to give a sense of the sample size for an early or late record).

We did very well on waterfowl, with every expected species other than Canada Goose and Wood Duck. Best birds were a CANVASBACK at Sue's Ponds, the 2nd earliest record for the county, and a COMMON GOLDENEYE at the Polishing Ponds, a full month ahead of the earliest fall record for the county. We had at least three and possibly more HORNED GREBES at the same place, a high count for fall migration and the earliest fall record in eBird.

An early Canvasback, at right, with several Redheads at Sue's Ponds.

We didn't get many gallinaceous species, but a vocalizing flock of CHUKAR at Logan Dry Canyon was a nice find. Chukar have not been documented in eBird between July and November, but are certainly present in small numbers all year.

We did very well on raptors, including a FERRUGINOUS HAWK over Mendon and a MERLIN over Sue's Ponds. Excellent migration conditions also made it easy to pick up the common species as they drifted past the mountain ridges.

A Ferruginous Hawk flew over us as we were driving near Mendon. This species can be found all year in Cache County but it is rare here, seen on average a few times a year.

A Merlin defended its airspace over the Logan Landfill from a migrating Swainson's Hawk. This was the first Merlin I've heard of being reported in Utah this fall.

Shorebirds were tough to come by due to a shortage of habitat in the valley right now. We completely missed American Avocets, which have historically been on 10% of checklists. We did find three SOLITARY SANDPIPERS in flooded fields near the Logan Airport, a pretty high count and the latest fall record, and 25 BAIRD'S SANDPIPERS at the Polishing Ponds, the highest count on record.

We did about as expected with gulls and terns, finding the common species but no rarities except a CASPIAN TERN flying over Benson Marina at dusk.

We did very well on owls, with two GREAT HORNED OWLS, a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL, and a NORTHERN PYGMY-OWL calling along the road to Tony Grove before dawn. We got both the expected nightjars, COMMON NIGHTHAWK and COMMON POORWILL, with our 3-4 Poorwills in Green Canyon making the latest record in eBird.

Many flycatchers were still around. We had both EASTERN and WESTERN KINGBIRDS (with a new latest fall record for Eastern), plus OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER (2nd latest fall record), WESTERN WOOD-PEWEE (latest fall record), and three empid species, DUSKY (latest fall record), HAMMOND'S, and GRAY FLYCATCHERS.

Clark's Nutcrackers were a must-have in the mountains. We saw several of this common and vocal species.

We had several WARBLING VIREOS (latest fall record). A BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER at Newton Reservoir was the 2nd latest fall record. We did well on warblers, including ORANGE-CROWNED, MACGILLIVRAY'S, COMMON YELLOWTHROAT, YELLOW, YELLOW-RUMPED, BLACK-THROATED GRAY (latest fall record), TOWNSEND'S, and WILSON'S. Sparrows included the second-latest fall record of FOX SPARROW, at Tony Grove.

This Fox Sparrow near Tony Grove was a bit late in starting his southbound migration.

In all, we got the vast majority of the species we expected to find plus some relatively rare species for this time of year. Across species, there were a few early records but many late records, another sign of the late fall migration this year. A heartfelt "Thank you" goes out to all of you who donated to help support our cause! Here is a complete list of the species we observed, in taxonomic order:

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Mallard

Blue-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Northern Shoveler

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Canvasback

Redhead

Lesser Scaup

Common Goldeneye

Ruddy Duck

Ring-necked Pheasant

Chukar

Pied-billed Grebe

Horned Grebe

Eared Grebe

Western Grebe

Clark's Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

American White Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Snowy Egret

White-faced Ibis

Turkey Vulture

Northern Harrier

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Cooper's Hawk

Swainson's Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Ferruginous Hawk

American Kestrel

Merlin

Virginia Rail

Sora

American Coot

Sandhill Crane

Killdeer

Spotted Sandpiper

Solitary Sandpiper

Baird's Sandpiper

Franklin's Gull

Ring-billed Gull

California Gull

Caspian Tern

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Great Horned Owl

Northern Pygmy-Owl

Common Nighthawk

Common Poorwill

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Williamson's Sapsucker

Red-naped Sapsucker

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Western Wood-Pewee

Hammond's Flycatcher

Gray Flycatcher

Dusky Flycatcher

Western Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Warbling Vireo

Steller's Jay

Black-billed Magpie

Clark's Nutcracker

American Crow

Common Raven

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Violet-green Swallow

Barn Swallow

Black-capped Chickadee

Mountain Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

Canyon Wren

Marsh Wren

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

American Dipper

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Townsend's Solitaire

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

Gray Catbird

European Starling

Cedar Waxwing

Orange-crowned Warbler

MacGillivray's Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Yellow Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Townsend's Warbler

Wilson's Warbler

Green-tailed Towhee

Spotted Towhee

Chipping Sparrow

Brewer's Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Fox Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Lincoln's Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Dark-eyed Junco

Western Tanager

Black-headed Grosbeak

Lazuli Bunting

Red-winged Blackbird

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Brewer's Blackbird

Cassin's Finch

House Finch

Red Crossbill

Pine Siskin

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

Gunsight Peak from Benson Marina in the evening. We watched for birds to come into roost here as the daylight faded.

Cache County Big Day Fundraiser

2011-09-09T14:09:00.001-06:00

This weekend Andy Kleinhesselink, Andrew Durso, and I are going to do a Big Day in Cache County, Utah as a fundraiser for the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. PRBO is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study and conservation of birds around North America. If you believe that bird conservation is important, please consider donating a few dollars to help sponsor our team. All funds raised go directly to PRBO (we are covering our own costs). To donate, visit this secure online donation site. Even a dollar or two would be a big help towards our very modest goal of raising $200.
Thank you very much, from us and the birds.

Spiders of Utah

2011-09-06T16:07:00.000-06:00

A Platycryptus sp. jumping spider on a wall in Logan, Utah. ©Ryan O'Donnell and Stephanie Cobbold, 2011.

Would you like to learn more about spiders, in Utah and around the world? Stephanie Cobbold's PhD dissertation is on some of the spiders of Utah. Lately we've been taking lots of spider photos, and she's been sharing some of them at her blog. Check it out!

Birding the Atlantic Coast 2: Patteson Pelagics

2011-08-22T11:05:00.010-06:00

On Saturday and Sunday (30 and 31 July 2011) of my quick four-day trip to the Atlantic coast, we joined Brian Patteson on two of his famous pelagic trips out of Hatteras, North Carolina. Hatteras is the point of land in the U.S. that is closest to the Atlantic continental shelf and to the warm tropical waters of the Gulf Stream, so it is the best place to search for tropical seabirds.

NOAA image, accessed from wikimedia commons.

The first pelagic bird of the trip, a Cory's Shearwater, was a lifer for me, as were most of the species we saw on the open ocean. Craig Fosdick and I estimated a total of about 200 of this species on the first day and 100 on the second day, but we did not actually keep a count. In reviewing my photographs, I found that most of the 20 or so birds I photographed were of the Scopoli's subspecies, which breeds in the Mediterranean, rather than the borealis subspecies, which breeds in the Atlantic Ocean. Note the white tongues on the primary feathers, where a borealis bird should have primaries that are entirely or mostly black with small, diffuse white tongues at the most.

Two other shearwater species were much less common, but we estimated 10-30 of each of these on each of the two days. Audubon's Shearwater nests in the Caribbean and is the smallest shearwater regularly seen in North American waters.

Greater Shearwater breeds on islands of the southern hemisphere and migrates into our northern waters when it is not breeding. Despite its name, it seemed to me to be a little smaller than Cory's. My field guide says that it has a longer body, but a shorter wingspan.

The most common seabird species we saw was Wilson's Storm-Petrel. We estimated 300 or so on each day, but it was tough to make an accurate estimate because there were always a few of them following the boat. We were constantly watching out for other, rarer species like Band-rumped, Leach's, White-faced, or European Storm-Petrels, but I never saw any of these. (The trip leaders spotted two Band-rumpeds quickly flitting past the far side of a large flock of Wilson's, but neither Craig nor I were able to pick them out before they disappeared into the distant waves).

One of the highlights for me was also a specialty of this area, the Black-capped Petrel. This is the only regularly-occuring member of the genus Pterodroma in North American waters. It breeds in the Caribbean and forages in the Gulf Stream. We saw about 12 of these on our first day and about 20 on our second day.

By far the rarest bird of our pelagic adventures came on the second day. We had just come into a big flock of shearwaters and there were fish all around the boat. Others had told me that tropicbirds are attracted to activity of fish, boats, and other birds, and will often fly in high over the boat, so they can sometimes be missed if you're watching the birds on the water too closely. Each time we got into a situation like this, I tried to remember to also check the sky above us. As I peeked up from the shearwaters off the bow and looked behind me over the captain's wheelhouse, I saw the distinctive shape I was looking for. I yelled out, "TROPICBIRD!!!!" and before I could finish the word two or three other people were yelling the same thing. A beautiful adult White-tailed Tropicbird graciously made several circles around the boat before heading off towards the horizon.

All images copyright 2011 by Ryan P. O'Donnell except the illustration from NOAA.

Birding the Atlantic Coast 1: Dismal Swamp and North Carolina's Outer Banks

2011-08-09T17:28:00.009-06:00

Last week I took a short trip with Craig Fosdick to do some pelagic birding off the coast of North Carolina. We arrived on Thursday night and were anxious to start the birding. After a quick stop to drop off some gear at the hotel, we headed straight to the Great Dismal Swamp, a famous birding location in southeastern Virginia. Although it was hot - 98F and very humid - some birds were still active. My first lifer of the trip was a singing Acadian Flycatcher, the first of several that day. Not much longer, we spotted a few of one of my most wanted species for the trip: Prothonotary Warbler. Other typically eastern birds were seen and heard, including a Wood Thrush, several Yellow-billed Cuckoos, several Carolina Wrens, and many Eastern Wood-Pewees. For the full list from eBird, click here. We went to bed early in preparation for more birding on Friday morning, along the 3 hour route to Hatteras, where our pelagic trips would start on Saturday morning.

The next morning, our first stop was at the Palmetto-Peartree Preserve. This private land is a preserve for the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker, our target species of the stop, and is also excellent habitat for Brown-headed Nuthatches. We got a little lost from a poorly-drawn map, but still managed to find both of these species near the Preserve, although at the time we thought we were in the preserve. I saw my lifer Prairie Warbler the day before at the Great Dismal Swamp, but got good looks at a few more here. One of the highlights of the trip for me was seeing my lifer Southern Leopard Frog here, a species that is closely related to the one on which I'm writing my dissertation. Here is a link to all the species we saw at this location.

We stopped at a few more Outer Banks birding locations on the way down to Hatteras, and I picked up my lifer White Ibis and Tricolored Heron at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Pond and then my lifer Piping Plover at Pea Island NWR. It was another early bedtime in preparation for the boat trip the next morning, the main point of our trip.

(To be continued . . . )

Macro Flash: a Homemade Diffuser

2011-07-13T20:33:00.011-06:00

I just bought a new macro lens (Nikon 105mm f/2.8D AF Micro-Nikkor). Stephanie and I have been having a blast using it to take spider photos. We've been getting some nice ones, like this photo of a Pelegrina aeneola jumping spider taken last weekend at Wood Camp, up Logan Canyon.

As happy as I am with this shot, I don't really like the sharp shadows under the spider. I think it looks too obvious that a flash was used (which it was, of course). So yesterday I bought some cardboard and some vellum from the USU bookstore, and tonight I made my own flash diffuser. Sure, you can buy a pre-made flash diffuser. They're not too expensive - starting around $5. But I didn't see any that were as large as I would like them to be, so I made my own.

I should have taken some pictures of the process of making the diffuser, but I just didn't think of it. So, here's a photo of the finished product:

And here's a photo of the finished product mounted on my flash.

Now, instead of having harsh shadows, I get a soft, even light - almost like shooting under an overcast sky. Compare these two shots of a key. Can you tell which shot used the diffuser and which one didn't? All the other shooting conditions were the same.

Finally, here's a photo of a Platycryptus jumping spider on the wall of our house taken with the new diffuser. Check out that natural-looking light!

Field Trip this Saturday: Cache County's High Mountains

2011-07-13T13:48:00.002-06:00

This Saturday, 16 July 2011, join me and the Bridgerland Audubon Society as we hike around Cache County, Utah's Tony Grove Lake and towards Naomi Peak in search of the specialties of our high mountains. Target birds include Red Crossbill, American Three-toed Woodpecker (above), Clark's Nutcracker, Golden-crowned Kinglet, and Steller's Jay, among others. Rarities seen in this area in previous summers include Band-tailed Pigeon, Red-headed Woodpecker, and White-winged Crossbill (below). Pack a lunch and lots of water, and be prepared for a strenuous hike, but at a slow birding pace. The trip is free, but bring a few dollars to help cover the $5 parking fee. Meet at 8 a.m. in the parking lot between Caffe Ibis and the Logan Fire Station (50 East, 150 North, Logan). All skill levels are welcome. We will be back in the mid-afternoon.

Vagrant Dickcissel and Birding Slump

2011-06-28T17:02:00.006-06:00

Last week, Tony Jones heard a bird singing from the fields behind his house in Farmington; a bird he didn't recognize. It took him three more days to be able to see the bird, and then he was able to identify it as a Dickcissel. Dickcissels are typically an eastern species, so he knew this was a big deal. He sent word to the Utah birding community via the Utah Birders website, and many avid and excited birders soon arrived in his neighborhood to look for the bird. Today, I was one of those birders. I got this photograph, and some audio recordings (which I will share here later).

Only three previous records of Dickcissel have been accepted by the state Bird Records Committee. With the excellent photographs that have already been taken, it is almost certain that this bird will stand as the fourth accepted state record. What a great bird!

The timing of this bird is a bit of a surprise, as most vagrant records of this species, and the majority of vagrant records in general, come during spring or fall migration. This is the time when more birds are moving, and hence more birds are likely to get lost. But the fact that this bird was found in what is ornithologically-speaking the dead of summer supports the old axiom that anything can turn up anywhere. It is always a good time to go birding.

Birders in Utah have submitted fewer records to eBird for the first week of July than for almost any other week of the year (exceeded only by the second week of December). July is typically the start of a mid-summer birding slump. Spring migration is done, and fall migration hasn't picked up yet, so the motivation to go birding, and to enter those records in eBird, declines. But as the recent Dickcissel shows, rare birds can be found in mid-summer, too. And, the distribution and abundance of breeding birds is arguably the most important data that eBird can collect - especially now that the new data input pages allow you to record breeding indicators such as parents carrying food and the presence of fledglings. So don't let July get you down - go birding, and go eBirding. You never know what you might find.

Red-necked Grebe in Utah

2011-06-20T15:00:00.003-06:00

On Saturday I got a call from Bob Atwood that he had just found a Red-necked Grebe at Hyrum Reservoir, about 20 minutes from my house in Logan. I was out of town at the time, but as soon as I got back the next day, yesterday, I headed down to see if I could find it. I set up my spotting scope on the dam where he had found the bird, and saw a tiny speck on the water about a quarter mile out. There were probably lots of other specks on the water, but luck was on my side and the first one I noticed was the target bird, my first Red-necked Grebe in Utah and my first anywhere in breeding plumage.

I drove around to the closest point on the shore to the bird, and couldn't find it. I was afraid it might have flown while I was driving, but it was also swimming pretty fast and I thought it might have just swam out of my view from that point, where trees were on either side of me and I could only see straight out from the shore. I drove back around near the dam, and saw the bird closer to me than I expected, and getting closer to shore. I climbed down the shore and scanned again for the bird. Just when I thought I lost it again, it resurfaced right in front of me! I got a few good shots then, and several more by running down the shoreline each time the grebe dove, and lying still on the rocks ahead of it before it resurfaced.

Red-necked Grebes have been seen several times in Utah, but they are very rare here. There are about a dozen previous records for the state, and most are of immatures or non-breeding adults in the winter. This bird was unique not only because it is so rare, but especially because it was in full breeding plumage. What a great bird!

(Photos copyright Ryan O'Donnell 2011)

Adventures in Bingham County, Idaho

2011-06-08T21:16:00.009-06:00

This year I've taken a part-time job doing bird point counts and other bird surveys for a local consulting company. We're studying the birds that are using the site of a future wind project near Blackfoot, in Bingham County, Idaho. It's been a great job for me because it has given me professional bird experience, it's kept me in the field in a time when my PhD work is all in the office, and it is only every other weekend, so it hasn't interfered too much with my PhD work. The best part, though, is that it has forced me to explore the birds of a rarely birded part of Idaho. (Oh, and I get paid!).

I started off with the goal of seeing 100 species in the county, but then a casual conversation with my friend Craig ended up raising the bar. Craig is going to try to see how many species he can see in Cache County this year (like I did back in 2008). So I made a bet with him that I could see more than half as many birds on my eight or nine work trips to Bingham County as he could in a year in his home county. At stake is a six pack of the winner's favorite beer from the Logan liquor store, plus a little bit of bragging rights.

The record for the most species seen in a year in Cache County is 242. I think if I can see over 120 species in Bingham County, I'll have a very good chance of winning the bet. If I can see over 130, Craig is pretty much sunk. So far, I'm at 108, but there's plenty of easy ones still to find. . . .

These photos are from Bingham County, Idaho. The scenery was photographed at our study site. The Cedar Waxwing was photographed in Blackfoot, and the Cinnamon Teal pair was photographed at American Falls Reservoir, both in Bingham County.

Urban Mushrooming

2011-06-02T22:16:00.005-06:00

The frequent flipping between rain and warm weather has been tough on us Utahns waiting anxiously for summer. But there is one thing it is good for: mushrooms. And you don't need to search deep in the forest for the tastiest wild mushrooms, the kind that will make you want to give up those store-bought buttons. They can even be found in your own yard.

Last week Stephanie and I found a Shaggy Mane (below) on the way home from school, and tonight I found another in the driveway. One mushroom hardly makes a snack, but where there's one there's often more, so we'll keep an eye on the gravel for the next few days. Shaggy Manes are very distinctive, and very safe. There aren't any dangerous mushrooms that really look like them (but don't take my word for it - don't eat any mushroom if you're not sure what it is!). The only catch with Shaggy Manes is the narrow window of opportunity. They grow fast, and go bad fast, turning to an inky gooey black from the bottom of the cap up in just a day or two.

I like to cook Shaggy Manes very simply - I dip them in beaten egg, then fry them in a little butter. That's it. Yum!

Shaggy Manes are well known for preferring disturbed soils like the kind that can easily be found in cities, but they aren't the only urban mushroom that you can eat. We've also recently found and eaten Black Morels, including the one above from the front of a hotel on Main Street. In wetter climates (but not in northern Utah) you can also find Chanterelles and perhaps others in your yard. Take the time to learn your mushrooms, and you could be rewarded with tasty treats from as close as your driveway!

Here are two books I highly recommend if you would like to learn mushrooms:

Evening Grosbeak Call Types

2011-05-11T16:36:00.000-06:00

Like Red Crossbills and Pine Grosbeaks, Evening Grosbeaks (Coccothraustes vespertinus) have been described as having distinct call types that vary geographically (Sewall et al. 2004). These distinct call types also correspond approximately with subspecies that have been described based on morphology. Because of these distinct call types which correlate to geography and morphology, it has been suggested that Evening Grosbeaks may be in need of further taxonomic work, that is, that they may be candidates for future splitting. In that Sewall et al. paper, they leave northern Utah as a question mark in their map, an unsampled area between the ranges of (morphologically-defined) subspecies C. v. brooksi and C. v. warreni, where no birds were examined and no calls recorded.

Yesterday I recorded a small flock of 4-6 Evening Grosbeaks calling in the treetops above my yard in Logan, Utah. Evening Grosbeak call types are distinct enough that they can be told apart by ear, but I don't have any practice at this so I imported recordings into the software RavenLite to examine the sonograms.

Most of the calls were of Type 1. This is the call type that is given by C. v. brooksi, the subspecies which ranges from Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming north to northern British Columbia. Here is a sonogram of a Type 1 call I recorded yesterday:

And here is a recording of Type 1 calls from Washington you can listen to:

In my recording yesterday, I was also able to pick out a few examples of Type 4 calls in my recordings, which is typical of C. v. warreni and mapped by Sewell et al. as occurring from about the Uintah Mountains, through Colorado, to northern Arizona and northern New Mexico. Here is a sonogram of one of the Type 4 calls from my yard:

And here are some Type 4 calls from Colorado you can listen to:

Sewall et al. documented both call types 1 and 4 from northwestern Wyoming and southern Colorado. It appears that both call types also occur in northern Utah. More work will have to be done to tell whether this is the result of movement of individuals, intergradation between subspecies, or overlap between reproductively isolated cryptic species.

Sewall, K., R. Kelsey, and T. P. Hahn. 2004. Discrete variants of Evening Grosbeak flight calls. Condor 106:161-165.

Budget Bird Songs CD

2011-04-01T00:22:00.002-06:00

I'm proud to announce today the release of a project I've been working on for quite some time: my budget bird songs CD. If you want to learn to recognize bird songs AND save money, this is the product for you! Take a minute to listen to this short promotional clip, including audio samples, for Ryan's Budget Bird Songs CD.

Lesser Sandhill Crane?

2011-03-27T20:27:00.000-06:00

While out this afternoon, I photographed a Sandhill Crane in Benson, Cache County, Utah that was significantly smaller than its 20 or so companions. I've been under the impression that the only subspecies of Sandhill Crane expected in Utah is Greater (Grus canadensis tabida). This one looked to me like a Lesser Sandhill Crane (G. c. canadensis). However, I don't know whether I've ever seen the third migratory subspecies, Canadian Sandhill Cranes (G. c. rowani), which are intermediate in size between Greaters and Lessers. eBird is of little help here because apparently no Sandhill Crane records from Utah in eBird have been identified to subspecies. Does anyone know anything about subspecies of Sandhill Crane in Utah? Does this (left-most bird) look like a Lesser to you?

Possible Dark-eyed Junco x Song Sparrow Hybrid

2011-03-08T18:39:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I photographed an interesting DARK-EYED JUNCO in my yard in Logan, Cache County, Utah. The bird had most of the basic traits of a female Oregon subspecies Dark-eyed Junco, except for a few anomalies. Most obvious was a soft-edged buffy malar ("mustache") stripe that matched the flanks in color. I grabbed a few quick photographs through the window, but could not relocate the bird when I went outside to try for better photos. In the photographs, I noticed that the bird also has a hint of a pale supercilium ("eyebrow"), a slightly more striped back than expected (although perhaps not entirely outside the range of variation for a pure DEJU), and the white in the outer tail feathers appears to not reach the tip of the tail, instead fading to black.

The combination of anomalous traits make me think this is not just an aberration, but more likely a hybrid of some kind. Hybrids between DEJU and sparrows of the Zonotrichia and Melospiza genera have been previously reported. It seems to me like the best match for this bird would be a Dark-eyed Junco x Song Sparrow hybrid, a combination which has been reported before. (For example, here is a link to a possible photo of another DEJU x SOSP hybrid, and here is a link to an article describing another.) It is my opinion that the only way to be 100% certain of any hybrid parentage is with genetics, but I think this is the most likely explanation for this bird based on the traits observed, the frequency and range overlap between the species in question, and the fact that hybridization between these two has been documented previously. The Song Sparrow-like traits are pretty weak on this bird, so a backcross (the offspring of a mating between a pure DEJU and a DEJU x SOSP hybrid) also may be likely. Any thoughts or comments on this bird are welcome.

Hook bird(s)

2011-01-13T14:38:00.001-07:00

Jerry Ligouri's recent post at the Utah Birders blog got me thinking about "hook birds." Your hook bird is the one bird that caused your first "wow" moment, and got you hooked on birding for life. I've heard some fun hook bird stories, and in a way I wish I could point to one bird as my hook bird, but I can't. I have three hook birds, each marking a different transition in my birding.

Despite growing up in the city, I feel like I've always been interested in the natural world. I know many people have a moment in their life when they realize how interesting and wonderful wildlife is, but I think I was born with a particularly strong sense of biophilia, as E.O. Wilson calls it. In fact, my first word; before "mom," "dad," or anything else; was "bird." A few years after that, I remember being impressed with my father's knowledge of the natural world. He wasn't a biologist, or a birder, or a hunter. He worked (and still works) in automotive insurance. But he loved nature, and as a young child, I noticed. I remember, at an age of less than ten - maybe five? - hearing a bird sing in my front yard, and having my dad tell me it as a chickadee. I was fascinated that he could give a name to that sound, and even tell me what the bird looked like, just by hearing it. I wanted to be able to do that. So in a way, Black-capped Chickadee was my hook bird.

You might say that a Black-capped Chickadee in my yard in Seattle was the bird that got me into birding for life. (I photographed this one near Birch Creek, Cache County, UT on 17 Jan 2010.)

But, that was hardly the start of my birding career. I was interested in birds, but also in everything else - plants, fossils, rocks, stars, mammals . . . anything natural and real. As I grew up, my focus narrowed on animals. In my last year of college, where I majored in Zoology, I took an ornithology class, but I don't remember any of those birds standing out from any others. It wasn't until I started working on my Master's degree at Oregon State University that I ever went birding for the sole purpose of finding and observing birds. My statistics professor, Dr. Fred Ramsey, was also a birder, and author of "Birding Oregon". One morning at the start of class, before we dove into p-values and correlation coefficients, he took the time to draw a simple map on the board. The "X" on that map marked a treasure: a Snowy Owl that had been hanging out in a farm field a few miles outside of town. The next day, a couple friends and I drove to check out the owl, and were suitably impressed. I think that was the first time I realized that birding was not just learning to identify the common sparrows and warblers that were resident in my area: birding could also reveal unexpected surprises. Those surprises were worth looking for. And so, Snowy Owl was my second hook bird.

A Snowy Owl in the Willamette Valley of Oregon was my second hook bird. This one was photographed in Alaska by Floyd Davidson, and was taken from Wikimedia Commons.

After finishing my degree at OSU, I moved to Washington, where I worked on a project studying frogs and salamanders. One of my coworkers, Casey Richart, was an avid birder. Just as I had been impressed with my father's ability to identify a chickadee by its call, I was impressed by Casey's ability to identify a raptor from what seemed like miles away. Casey and I went birding several times, and I learned a lot from those trips. We also shared a house for a while, and worked on a collective yard list (which reached 39 species by the time I moved out six months later). It was while birding with Casey that I realized that birding is not just a matter of memorizing the field marks pointed out with little arrows in the field guides, but that it is a skill that can be honed for a lifetime: learning the subtle differences in how a hawk holds its wings, recognizing the difference between chip notes of sparrows, or learning to tell the sex and age of birds. Birding was a hobby that would challenge me as long as I cared to let it.

Around the same time, I had the chance to "chase" a very rare bird that had been found right in the town we lived in: the first Redwing ever seen in western North America. (Redwing is a species of thrush from Eurasia, not to be confused with the Red-winged Blackbirds of North America.) The bird stuck around for quite a while, long enough for my aunt to read about it in the newspaper, for me to read about the bird online, and to go find the bird. When I went, I saw dozens of other birders also looking for the bird. We shared the search that morning, we shared information when we found it, and we shared optics so that everyone could get a look. It was my first rare bird chase, and I loved it. I loved seeing a bird that had never before been seen in the region, I loved the camaraderie of the group as we looked for the bird, and I loved the thrill when someone finally shouted "there it is!" as it landed in the top of a tree filled with robins. I was impressed on that day that birding isn't just an activity to do by yourself or with a friend: it can be an activity of an entire community of people who share sightings online, learn together, and share a passion for birds. That Redwing was my third hook bird. Besides showing me that there was a community of people like me who loved birds, that experience taught me that rare birds can show up anywhere - even in your own neighborhood.

The best shot I could manage through my spotting scope of western North America's first Redwing, in Olympia, Washington, on 28 December 2004.

A flock of birders shares smiles as they watch the Redwing in a residential neighborhood in Olympia, Washington.

"My" Mew Gull

2010-12-12T19:55:00.002-07:00

One of the most challenging groups of birds to identify are the gulls, which is why I like them so much. I admit it, I'm a lariphile. Getting excited about gulls makes winter birding much more fun, because winter is a great time to find rare gulls. Here in Utah, Ring-billed and California Gulls are by far the most common two species, although either one may greatly outnumber the other depending on your location in the state and the time of year. In winter, Herring Gulls are also pretty easy to find. I would consider any other species of gulls in the winter to be a rarity, although some are more rare than others.

This week I was able to find a rare gull in Logan, in a field north of the landfill and near the Logan Fisheries Experiment Station. Scanning through a flock of about 300 gulls, I saw mostly Ring-billed Gulls, about one California Gull for every ten or twenty Ring-billeds, a couple of Herring Gulls, and one that didn't match any of the other three species. It was slightly smaller than a Ring-billed Gull (our smallest common gull). It had a dark eye, more smudging on the nape than a Ring-billed Gull, a slightly darker mantle, and a short, small yellow bill with only a faint smudge of black. It was a Mew Gull (photo above, bird with wings raised). The white dots at the end of the primaries (black wing feathers) and the lack of black markings on the "wrist" of the wing told me it was an adult, which in this species means it was at least in its fourth winter.

Mew Gulls primarily breed throughout much of Alaska and northwestern Canada, but in the winter they are almost strictly coastal, being found within a few miles of the coast from British Columbia to Baja California. (The photo below was taken in Washington.) They are always a surprise when they turn up in Utah, and perhaps especially so in Cache County, where we tend to have fewer gulls than in the Great Salt Lake area. As of 2007, there was only one other record of a Mew in Cache County, a first-winter bird found by Ron Ryel in 1991. But in the winter of 2007-2008, I found the second county record, another first-winter bird. The next winter, 2008-2009, in almost the same spot, I found a second-winter Mew Gull. I didn't see any Mew Gulls here in the winter of 2009-2010. And now, in the 2010-2011 winter, I found an adult Mew Gull. It seems quite likely to me that this is the same bird, one who got lost in his first winter, was lucky enough to find a patch of warm water and a nearby buffet at the landfill, and has decided to find his (or her) way back to the same spot each winter. So while it's always a surprise to find a Mew Gull in Utah, it might be a little less of a surprise if I find an adult, "my" Mew Gull, at this same place again next winter.

Jealousy

2010-12-10T18:19:00.001-07:00

I've got to admit it, I get jealous sometimes. It's bad enough that birders in southern Utah can find show-stopping species like Vermillion Flycatchers, California Condors, and Phainopeplas almost any day they like. Add to that the propensity for rare birds to show up down there, like the recent Purple Sandpiper, and I can get downright green when I think of my southern neighbors. (Certainly a part of the abundance of rare bird discoveries in southern Utah is due to the great birders that live there.) It is times like these when it pays to remind myself of the good birds of northern Utah, some of which are tough to find elsewhere in the state.

Some species reach the southern edge of their breeding range in Cache County. One example of this is the Grasshopper Sparrow, which was on the state review list until 2002. The only breeding records in eBird for this species are north of Salt Lake City, and the species is pretty easy to find in Cache County. Another example is the Common Grackle. They are a pest bird in the east, hogging seed from feeders and keeping other birds away, but in most of Utah they can be difficult to locate. We have a few reliable spots for them here in the north.

But this time of year, winter, is when northern Utah really shines. Many of the species that breed in the arctic barely make it this far south in the winter, and so northern Utah is the place to be if you want to see northern birds. We get Snow Buntings and Lapland Longspurs almost every winter, for example.

Common Redpolls are more likely to be found here than elsewhere in the state. Winter owls are also more likely here: Cache and Rich Counties together have had four of the five Great Grey Owl records in the state, and Cache County has the only record of a Boreal Owl outside of the Uinta Mountains. Last year, Cache County was the winter residence of the first accepted Utah record of an Iceland Gull, and has hosted at least 11 other species of gulls. These are the things I remind myself of as I long for the bright, exotic birds of the southern reaches of the state; I've got plenty to look forward to up here, too.

Alpine Tundra: Uinta Mountains

2010-08-24T15:41:00.015-06:00

Last weekend I went to explore the alpine tundra of Utah's Uinta Mountains with Craig Fosdick and Carl Stiefel. The alpine tundra holds a number of species that are unique to that habitat. In particular, we were in search of White-tailed Ptarmigan, a species none of us had ever seen before.

We camped at about 9600 ft. elevation, in a stand of Lodgepole Pine. Several mountain species were common here, such as Mountain Chickadees, but I was surprised at how many American Three-toed Woodpeckers we saw - we had at least five at one time!

On Saturday we started early and hiked through more pine forest up into the alpine tundra, where we hoped to find the ptarmigan. On the way up, we heard a couple of Pine Grosbeaks, only the second time I've encountered this species, and saw several Gray Jays, another specialty of high-elevation habitats. We later saw a Northern Goshawk in this same habitat, and I had seen a Northern Flying Squirrel in this habitat the night before. Several Townsend's Warblers were also seen here on their way to their wintering grounds.

At the top we saw several alpine tundra specialties. Pikas live in open boulder fields, and have to be among the cutest mammals. The flyover Golden Eagle and Northern Harrier would have gladly taken one as a meal, though. America Pipits were common up top, at about 11,500 ft., and breed here in the summer.

Although the hike was beautiful and included several animals that are only found at high elevations, we never found our target species, the White-tailed Ptarmigan. But that just gives us a reason to go back. (As if we needed one!)

Hybrid Bunting in Salt Lake City

2010-07-10T14:23:00.003-06:00

On a recent trip to Salt Lake City, I took a short birding trip in City Creek Canyon, a location that comes up often on the Utah birding listservs. It was neat to see several species whose boundaries seem to be in the short distance between SLC and Logan, like the Western Scrub-Jay, which generally doesn't occur in Cache Valley, and the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, which can be found in Cache County but only with difficulty. But the highlight of this little walk was a unique bird that I had not seen before. The bird looked mostly like an Indigo Bunting, a species that is typical of the eastern US, but which occurs in Utah rarely. Except, unlike a pure Indigo Bunting, it had a white belly. I think that this indicates that my bird was a hybrid of an Indigo Bunting and a Lazuli Bunting, the common bunting of the west. These two species do hybridize with some regularity, and a quick Google search turned up many examples of birds that were similar to the bird I saw. It would have been nice to see a pure Indigo Bunting, a rare species in the state, but it is some consolation that this hybrid combination is probably even more rare!

Monterey Slender Salamanders

2010-07-06T18:14:00.009-06:00

Slender Salamanders, or Worm Salamanders, are a genus (Batrachoseps) of small, thin salamanders that are found only on the west coast of North America, from Oregon to Mexico. In recent years, the use of genetics has greatly enhanced our understanding of this genus. The more we study them, the more diverse they seem to be.

There are now about 20 species known in the genus, and most of them have very small ranges. While I was in Monterey last month, I took the opportunity to find two of these narrow endemics.

The Gabilan Mountains Slender Salamander, above, was described as a species in 2001. It is found in only a small part of California. Like all members of the genus, this species captures small insect prey with a projectile tongue. The last photo above shows the habitat where these individuals were found.

The Santa Lucia Mountains Slender Salamander is closely related, and although it is said to be slightly more robust, it may be impossible to distinguish it reliably except by genetics. Fortunately, its range does not overlap with the Gabilan Mountains Slender Salamander, so the species can be identified safely by location. This species is even more narrowly distributed, being found over only about 50 miles of the California coast.

Monterey Bay Pelagic

2010-06-22T18:40:00.011-06:00

On my recent trip to California, I was really hoping to be able to take a pelagic bird-watching trip. June is the best time of the year to see albatrosses off the coast of California, and an albatross (of any species) was at the top of my most-wanted list. Unfortunately, it's not a good time for rarer seabirds, so none of the well-known pelagic bird watching companies offer tours in June. It wasn't until we were wandering Fisherman's Wharf on Wednesday that I realized I was overlooking an obvious alternative: joining a whale-watching tour. I wouldn't expect the same level of attention to the birds, but if they were out there, I knew I'd see some, and after two other pelagic trips I figured I could identify most of what I saw.

Thursday morning we took off on one of the whale-watching tours in search of humpback whales, which can be found in Monterey Bay this time of year. The seas were rough, but some drug-store Dramamine did the trick well enough. Several other passengers were either not as well-prepared, or not as lucky. Not too far out, I saw my first lifer of the trip, and one of my most-wanted birds: a small flock of three Marbled Murrelets flushed ahead of us and skittered out of sight to the starboard side. It happened too fast to get a photo. It wasn't much longer before we started seeing Sooty Shearwaters, first one here and one there, and eventually flocks of up to several hundred.

Word came over the radio, which our captain relayed on the PA system, that another tour had found a Humpback Whale a few miles northwest of us. The boat picked up speed and in a few minutes, we had found the other boat, and the whale.

Shearwaters and albatrosses sometimes feed on the same foods as whales, and so where whales are found, seabirds are likely to be as well. This was no exception, and dozens of Sooty Shearwaters and several Black-footed Albatrosses were also cruising around the area. A close pass across the bow by a Black-footed Albatross was probably the highlight of my trip, despite the whale.

We were able to watch the whale as it surfaced twice to catch its breath, but ten or twenty minutes after we arrived, the captain told us that we had to turn back in order to end the three-hour tour on time. On the way back, we were moving with the waves, so the ride felt smoother. We picked up one new pelagic bird on the return trip, a species I have seen before, but not often: a Pink-footed Shearwater.

Although we didn't see as many pelagic bird species as we might have on a trip designed to search for birds, I still had a great time and saw some great birds. I'd recommend hitchhiking on a whale-watching trip as a decent alternative to a birding trip to any coastal visitor who can't adjust their schedule to match that of the few bird-watching trips.

California Specialties

2010-06-20T22:10:00.012-06:00

I just returned a week ago from a trip to California. The main purpose of the trip was for scuba diving, but I took some time to hunt down a few birds that are specialties to California.

The first lifer of my trip was a true California specialty, the Allen's Hummingbird. It ranges from southern Oregon to southern California during the summer. This species looks very similar to the Rufous Hummingbird, and an immature like this one couldn't be told apart based on a shot like this. You'd have to look at the shape of the spread tail feathers to be sure. However, during the breeding season range is a reliable indicator, and being found in central California this is certainly an Allen's.

Another species I went in search of was the Oak Titmouse. This is very closely related to the Juniper Titmouse, which is found in Utah, and used to be considered the same species and called the Plain Titmouse. This is the best shot I could manage of this active forager, and obscures the crest that helps distinguish this species from the similar Bushtit.

The California Towhee is found from Oregon to Baja California. It is often found in coastal chaparral and can be common there. This male was singing on his territory in a small city park in the town of Pacific Grove.

Chestnut-backed Chickadees are found from Alaska to California and from the coast to Montana, but they look different here at the southern end of their range, where their flanks tend toward gray instead of the dark rufous they have further north. For example, compare it to the chickadee in this post, from Seattle.

Several other species are widespread along the coast, but rarely or never make it to Utah. The Black Oystercatcher is a unique shorebird that specializes on mollusks in the intertidal from Alaska to Baja. The thick red bill is used to pry open oysters, mussels, and other goodies on the rocks.

Heerman's Gulls are also strictly coastal. They breed mostly around both coasts of Baja California, but wander north when they are not breeding, sometimes as far north as British Columbia. I think they are the most beautiful gull in North America.

Western Gulls also breed in Baja California but their breeding range continues north through California to Washington. In Washington, they hybridize regularly with Glaucous-winged Gulls, forming a hybrid known as an "Olympic Gull." It was neat to see them in an area where most individuals are probably "pure" Westerns, with little introgression of Glaucous-winged genes.

Coming soon: more from California, including herps and pelagic birds.

A Good Yard Bird

2010-05-27T21:24:00.006-06:00

Two years ago, my friend Craig and I had a friendly competition to see who could see the most species in the county. Lately, our competitive natures have shifted to our yard lists. As of earlier this week, I'd seen 72 species at or from my yard since I moved here three years ago. That's pretty impressive, but Craig still had me beat by quite a bit, with 79 species from his apartment complex at last count. This week I moved one closer to catching him, and in a dramatic way. I found a female Rose-breasted Grosbeak at my feeder.

The Rose-breasted Grosbeak is common in the eastern US, but only very rarely wanders to the west in migration. Males are distinctive and easy to identify with their black and white plumage and bright red breast, but females are tougher. Some of the traits on this bird that set it apart from the Black-headed Grosbeak are the white breast with crisp brown streaking all the way across the breast (not really visible in this photo) and the pale pink bill with the upper mandible not noticeably darker than the lower one. Let the house list race continue. . . .

Sage-Grouse Expedition

2010-04-19T23:32:00.007-06:00

It seems that the gallinaceous birds always make you work for it. You might have already read here about my trek to find Himalayan Snowcocks last fall. And perhaps you read about my attempt to see as many species as possible in one year in Cache County. Despite many attempts, one species I had not yet seen in the county was the Greater Sage-Grouse. The best way to find this species is to hike a mile and a half uphill to one of its historical leks, but you have to arrive before dawn, and you have to know where you're going. Just like the hike for the Snowcocks, the Sage-Grouse make you earn your views.

This weekend I joined Ron Ryel and Craig Fosdick for a very early Sunday morning. We left Logan well before 6:00 AM and headed up to Hardware Ranch. From there we hiked up the hillside and eventually made our way to the lek, breathing heavily the whole way and working up quite a sweat despite the below-freezing temperatures. Ron had been to the leks before and was able to guide us right to them.

When we got there, we were not disappointed. We immediately spotted a handful of male Sage-Grouse strutting their stuff on the lek, trying to defend their spots from other males and impress any female that should happen past to choose a mate. As the sun rose over the mountains behind us, the grouse were illuminated and their courtship intensified. Within an hour, we could count a total of 33 different males at four different leks in the area, plus 3 females shopping around. This was more than twice Ron's previous high count in over a dozen years of visiting the leks! It was reassuring to see that, despite a recent decision that the species is "warranted but precluded" from federal listing as a threatened species, they seem to be on the rise if anything in Cache County.

Seattle Birds

2010-01-05T17:10:00.013-07:00

The holidays are the perfect time to visit old friends. At the end of December I was able to return to Seattle, where I grew up, to visit my family and friends who are still in the area. While I was there, I took the time to visit a few old avian friends as well.

Fox Sparrows are common over much of North America, and they can be found near my current home in Utah, especially in the summer. But there is variation among Fox Sparrows, and the subspecies found in Utah is not the same as the one in Washington. This is a Sooty Fox Sparrow I photographed near my parents' house in Issaquah.

One of the ornithological treats of visiting Washington is seeing the coastal species that don't usually occur in Utah. This flock of Brant is a perfect example, a species that lives almost exclusively along the coasts. Once every few years, one gets lost and turns up in Utah among a flock of Canada Geese, but here in Puget Sound they can be found in some numbers every winter.

Speaking of geese, one of my latest points of focus in my birding has been learning the subspecies of Canada and Cackling Geese. This recent split has left a lot of the country realizing how overlooked these geese have been. Travelling to Washington was a good chance to practice my subspecies identification. Here are three Ridgway's Cackling Geese with two Taverner's Cackling Geese (the middle bird and the bird behind it, to our right).

Another favorite of mine is the gulls. Gulls are one of the classic identification challenges in birding, and I love the challenge of sorting through a flock of gulls. This adult Mew Gull was feeding on a mayfly hatch on the shore of Lake Sammamish with Ring-billed Gulls, California Gulls, Glaucous-winged Gulls, and several hybrids. If you click on the photo you might be able to make out the insect about to be grabbed in the larger version of the photo. I have seen Mew Gulls in Utah before, but they are very rare there, and like Brant, are typically a coastal species in winter.

A lot of people I talk to who aren't birders know what a chickadee is, but don't realize that we have several species in the U.S. One of my favorites is the Chestnut-backed Chickadee, a resident of mostly coastal forests and to me a strong reminder of the Northwest. This image of a Chestnut-backed Chickadee clinging to Douglas-fir cones seems an almost iconic reminder of my friends and family in Washington and Oregon, and of course of my avian friends there.

Himalayan Snowcock expedition

2009-11-10T17:38:00.006-07:00

Last weekend I joined 11 friends in Wendover for a night of gambling to celebrate my friend Ian's birthday. While I was there, I thought it would be a good chance to look for Himalayan Snowcocks. The Himalayan Snowcock is a large grouse that is native to the alpine habitat of the Himalayas. In the 1960s, the Nevada Department of Wildlife decided that it did not have enough species for its citizens to hunt in the high mountains. Arrangements were made to acquire several individuals of this species from Pakistan, and after several introductions and much captive breeding, a total of about 2,000 birds were successfully introduced into the Ruby Mountains of NE Nevada and the nearby East Humbolt Range. The Himalayan Snowcock is a dream bird both for hunters and birders. It's preference for steep alpine cliffs and its wary nature make it very difficult to find, and it is considered the most difficult bird to hunt in the U.S. Birders do not have much more luck, and many hire helicopters to take them into the steep terrain where this bird lives.

On Saturday morning four of us left Wendover for the two hour drive to the Ruby Mountains. We parked at the trailhead at the top of Lamoille Canyon and hiked two miles up to Island Lake, at an elevation of just under 10,000 feet. As soon as we arrived, I set up the spotting scope and started scanning the hillside. I started at the bottom of the slope and scanned up towards the rocky ridgeline. I got very lucky and spotted one bird walking along a ledge almost at the top of the ridge. The views were very distant, but the bird was moving slowly and eventually we were able to find two others with it. Everyone in the group got a look (photo below, bird is the blob at center), and it was a lifer for all of us! This exciting and rare bird almost made me forget my gambling losses from the night before.

Much-needed Update on Field Work

2009-07-02T14:29:00.008-06:00

It's been a long time since my last post, and I can't promise that future updates will be any more regular. The field work is going slowly. I don't have much time for computer work, like updating the blog, and when I do have time to work on the computer I'm spending it entering data, catching up on email, trying to finish a couple of papers in the works, and editing my photos from the trip. If you are on Facebook, I have been posting my photos there much more regularly, although without much commentary.

A big lesson I'm learning in the field this year is that Northern Leopard Frogs are declining throughout their range, and generally their range is contracting from the edges in. Previously I had read that the species was declining in the west and apparently stable in the east, but I do not believe that is the case. Each regional field guide I read, and each local biologist I talk to, mentions that the species is declining locally, but it seems no one has put that together range-wide yet. They are declining locally, range-wide!

That makes the work hard for me, because I'm specifically sampling edge populations for my project. However, the edge now is, in most cases, not where it used to be. In West Virginia, the species only persists at one of the many historical localities. I spent two days there searching for leopard frogs, and found only one. Right now I'm in Rhode Island: I've spent two days searching in the area around Tiverton where there are several museum records from the 1980s and some sight records from the last few years. But this morning I talked to the state herpetologist (I finally got through to him - I've been leaving messages and emails for weeks) and he told me that the population here is probably extirpated, and that they only persist in one or two populations on the islands of the state. The story has been similar in many of the other places I've tried to sample lately.

While I can't say the frog sampling has been going well (I'd estimate I'm about three weeks behind schedule at this point), I am happy and healthy and safe. I've seen some great things, including many species of amphibians, reptiles, and birds I've never seen before. And I'm learning as much about the northern leopard frog as I expected to, even if most of that information is where it used to be.

My first Marbled Salamander, in Pennsylvania.

In Kentucky the young leopard frogs were metamorphosing. I found it easiest to catch them at night as they were crossing the wet road.

My first Mink Frog, in Minnesota.

Looking for Northern Leopard Frogs in Minnesota. (Photo by Becky Alsop.)

Making Up Time

2009-05-25T14:36:00.005-06:00

Southeast Nebraska was much easier than I thought. It took a few false starts at areas that apparently only have Plains Leopard Frogs, but after only a day I found a population of Northern Leopard Frogs that was heavenly. There were frogs everywhere, more than I've ever seen at one place. This will be an interesting population genetically, because Plains Leopard Frogs were also present and hybridization has been reported in the past based on morphology. No one really knows whether these hybrids are fertile, but my genetic work should be able to tell us whether they are.

I saw something here that I'd only read about: I saw a bullfrog catch and eat a leopard frog! It all happened so fast. I scared a leopard frog that took two quick hops. As it landed the second hop, a large bullfrog that was waiting nearby lunged forward and grabbed the easy meal. Whoops! Bullfrogs have been so widely introduced that we don't really know whether they are native or introduced in some parts of their range. This is one of those parts. I felt bad for the leopard frog, of course, but this was fascinating to see. I got a distant photo, below, of the bullfrog with leopard frog legs hanging out of its mouth. You should be able to enlarge the photo by clicking on it.

It only took two days to catch the frogs I needed from this location. Even when they're abundant, they're not easy for me to catch! So, now I'm in Iowa, back on schedule. The weather has turned rainy for a day or two and I still have a couple of reports I need to finish, so now I'm working in a coffee shop. It's nice to just sit inside for a while after spending so much time chasing after frogs.

A Slow Start to the Field Season

2009-05-19T10:50:00.004-06:00

This blog has been quiet for a while, but it's only because I had nothing good to say. (Oh, and it’s hard to find time to be online while I’m looking for frogs.) My field season started three weeks ago in northeast Nebraska, where I need three more populations to finish off the project I was doing last year. I was afraid I was getting too late a start, hitting the road on April 26th, but in fact I think it was the opposite. The northern leopard frogs just weren’t active yet. At first I thought I might just be looking in the wrong spots, but I think it kind of hit home on May 1st, after I had been looking for almost a week, when I woke up to snow.

I gradually worked my way south as I hoped for better weather. About mid-way through my second week, I heard frogs calling at night. What a relief – I had found them! I spent three more days looking for them at that spot, day and night, but I never saw a single frog there. I know they spend their winters underwater, and I wonder if they were still spending their days at the bottom of the ponds and only coming up at night to mate. The odd thing is that I never found any egg masses or tadpoles, either. I still haven’t. This is the big mystery of the year so far. Even when I know frogs are breeding, I can’t find their egg masses. This is a big disappointment, too, because it is much easier to catch an egg mass than a frog!

After a few days at that location, I tried Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge. This was a nice change of pace because the refuge manager kindly allowed me to stay in their researcher housing – a bed and a shower for free! Again I spent several nights hearing northern leopard frogs, and several days not finding them. I decided I needed a positive control to figure out what was happening, so I went back to a place where I had found frogs to be abundant last year. They were still abundant. It was a nice change to finally be catching frogs again! But I still didn’t know why I couldn’t find them elsewhere. A few things I noticed were that it was warmer here than the other places I had been looking, and warmer on that day than on any day so far on my trip. Also, although I could hear frogs calling at night here, I couldn’t find them in the lake where they were calling, and conversely I never heard any calling from the ditch where I was finding frogs. So, I think they’re just too hard to find when they’re breeding, and just then, in the first week of May, they were finishing their breeding and heading to their summer hunting grounds.

I decided to travel further southeast in search of frogs that were already active. (In spring in Nebraska, it is usually warmest in the southeast and coldest in the northwest.) What I found were lots of leopard frogs. Of the wrong species! It was exciting to find my first plains leopard frogs, Rana blairi (photo below), but the excitement soon turned into frustration when I couldn’t find any northern leopard frogs, Rana pipiens.

I gradually worked my way north again until I found a good population of northern leopard frogs. Once I found the right place, I was able to collect all 24 that I need in three days, but now I was two and a half weeks behind schedule. I cruised back west toward Crescent Lake NWR, and found another population of leopard frogs on the way. I was able to collect all I need there in three days, putting me only one week behind schedule instead of two and a half. Now I’m on my way to southeast Nebraska for my last stop in the state. This might be tricky because I need this to be an edge population, and in this part of the state northern leopard frogs and plains leopard frogs occur together. They are very similar, so I usually need to catch them to tell them apart. So, instead of just catching 24 frogs, I might need to catch 50 or so and throw half of them back! Wish me luck. . . .

Planning a Frog Collecting Expedition

2009-04-02T20:58:00.006-06:00

This spring and summer, I'll be travelling widely around North America in search of northern leopard frogs like the one shown above. My dissertation research is on the genetics of this species, so I need to collect genetic tissue from 24 frogs at each of 23 populations.

As I travel, looking for frogs, I'll mostly be camping. I did this last year in a more limited area, and it seemed to work well. I can usually find a small plot of land to put a tent on overnight.

Camping is great, but I'm travelling alone and I don't have a lot of money, so I'll be looking forward to every chance to visit with friends or to crash on a couch or take a shower. So, if you're reading this blog and you know me, please take a look at the map below. Blue dots are places I plan on sampling this year (except for the dots in Arizona, Washington, and South Dakota, where I already have samples or I think I can get them from other people). I'll generally be travelling across the southern part of the range (roughly along the red line), then up into eastern Canada, and then back west across Canada. If you live near any of these dots and would like to hang out for a few hours, provide a place to crash, and/or help me catch some frogs (it's not easy, but it's fun!), then send me an email and let me know. I'll be looking forward to seeing you soon!

Red Crossbills Move In - From the Treetops or the North?

2009-03-31T16:43:00.004-06:00

This winter has been a great one for seeing crossbills in Utah, and around the United States. There was a big influx of White-winged Crossbills from the north, presumably in response to a failing spruce crop this year. But just recently, the Red Crossbills (like the one above) have shown up in big numbers down to the seed feeders. What is most surprising to me is how synchronous this arrival seemed. Around Cache County and even further south around Salt Lake City, people started reporting Red Crossbills at their feeders last weekend. Within days they were at the feeders of everyone I know who keeps a feeder. What caused this big change at the feeders? Did the local cone crop suddenly run out? Has a second big influx of crossbills, this time Red Crossbills, pushed down from the north? My guess is that it is both happening at the same time. One thing I've noticed is that at the same time Red Crossbills started showing up at feeders, I started hearing different call notes from them.

Red Crossbills have as many as nine subspecies around the continent that some people think should be considered full species. Each subspecies specializes on a different kind of conifer, has a different-sounding call note, and has a different shape to the bill that is adapted for the conifer on which they feed. Our local population has a very liquid "kip" or "quip" call that is relatively soft. In the last week, I've also heard a very dry, sharply-upturned "whit" or "swit" call from a crossbill type that is normally found feeding on Douglas-firs in the Pacific Northwest. I've also recently heard another call type that I cannot identify, but it has the same upslurred "quip" as our locals but calls more loudly and harshly, with less time between notes. So, although our cone crop may be getting low, I think we also have some new Red Crossbill visitors in town.

Brewer's Duck

2009-03-22T22:52:00.004-06:00

I found a very interesting duck in Logan today, a "Brewer's Duck". The famous ornithologist John James Audubon described this species in 1840 on the basis of a specimen he collected in Louisiana. He mentioned that he had been unable to procure a second specimen, and that he thought this species was probably closely related to both Mallards and Gadwall. He was more right than he knew. We now know that this "species" is in fact not a species at all: it is a hybrid between a Mallard and a Gadwall.

I wasn't able to photograph the bird I saw, unfortunately. I got distant looks at it through my spotting scope, but as I moved closer to take some photos, it flew away to the south and out of sight. But, a very similar bird was found by Carl Ingwell and Jeff Bilsky less than an hour's drive from here on the Great Salt Lake exactly one week ago. (Photos of that bird are ~~here~~. Edit - removed broken link; those photos are gone.) Could this be the same bird? We will probably never know, but I think it's likely given how relatively close the other sighting was in both time and space. I'll keep looking for the bird in the hopes that I can get a photograph, which might help us determine whether it's the same bird.

This hybrid combination is rare, as are all hybrid combinations. It's the rarity of hybrids that keep species discrete from one another. However, ducks are famous (or notorious) for the amount of hybridization between species, relative to other taxa. For example, see this blog post for a series of beautiful duck hybrids, including the Brewer's Duck. My favorites are the Mallard x Red-crested Pochard, and the Mallard x Wood Duck. Keep an eye out for unexpected hybrid combinations at a pond near you. You never know what beautiful combinations might turn up!

White-winged Crossbill Irruption

2009-02-26T20:03:00.006-07:00

White-winged Crossbills breed in Utah, but only in very small numbers. This fall, I found my first White-winged Crossbill ever up Logan Canyon. Now, they seem to be turning up all over the place, thanks to a large influx of crossbills from the north. Stephanie and I found a flock of them in Clarkston during the Great Backyard Bird Count a couple of weekends ago (photo above), and earlier this week I saw and heard a large flock of them at the Logan Cemetery. Today Stephanie and I went back to the cemetery to try to photograph them. We heard them fly overhead several times, but never got a good look or any photos. With all the spruces there, it is likely they'll hang around. Maybe I'll try again tomorrow. This year, instead of trying to see as many species as I can in the county, I'm trying to get better at bird photography. And White-winged Crossbills are a species I'd really like to photograph better.

Update: Thanks to a call from my friend Jason, who notified me when he relocated the USU White-wingeds feeding closer to the ground, I got a few better shots. Here are a few of them (below).

The Mystery of the Cackling Geese

2009-02-04T19:44:00.008-07:00

In 2004 the American Ornithologists Union made a major change to birding in North America by announcing the split of what was formerly known as Canada Geese into two species. The larger of the two was to remain known as Canada Geese, and the smallest four of the eleven or so subspecies in the Canada Goose group would be known as Cackling Geese. This decision was based on genetic evidence that showed little to no interbreeding between these groups. This move was not unexpected by those who had been paying close attention to Canada Geese. The subspecies of Canada Gees were discernible in the field, and various subspecies or groups of subspecies had been elevated to species status in the past. However, it was a big surprise for most of the birding community, because, to be honest, most of us hadn't paid much attention to Canada Geese before.

In Utah, and probably throughout many parts of the U.S., this caused a stir. What was once one of the most common and familiar species in the state was now a pair of strangers. The safe thing to do in this situation was to assume that all previous records of Canada Geese applied to what was still known as Canada Geese, because the most common species here, the Great Basin Canada Goose, was still considered a Canada Goose. However, some records already existed of Cackling Geese in Utah, namely museum specimens. But the Utah Bird Records Committee decided to put the Cackling Goose on the state review list so that any records of this species in the state would be reviewed by a panel of experts.

Now that more people are looking for Cackling Geese, more people are finding them. In the four or five years since the species became a species, there have been over 20 records of Cackling Geese in Utah. However, I think the Records Committee must remain unconvinced, because few records have been submitted to the committee and even fewer have been accepted. Part of the problem, I think, is that the details of Cackling Goose identification were not well worked out. There were conflicting opinions on various websites about the traits that distinguish the largest subspecies of Cackling Goose (Like Taverner's Cackling Goose, seated at right in the photo above, and Richardson's Cackling Goose, in the back of the photo below) from the smallest subspecies of Canada Goose (like the Lesser Canada Goose, in the foreground of the photo below). Thankfully, I think that confusion will soon come to an end. A brilliant article published in the latest issue of North American Birds outlines in thorough detail how to tell the subspecies of Cackling Goose from one another, and from the smallest Canada Geese. I'm hoping that this article will be just the thing to help our knowledge of Cackling Geese advance in Utah and elsewhere. In the meantime, I intend to continue to submit records to the Utah Bird Records Committee until a pattern of occurrence has been established. Based on one year of actively birding in Utah, I think we will soon solve the mystery of the Cackling Geese and realize that this species, although rare, occurs annually in winter in Utah.

Reinita Ceilo Azul Reserve, Colombia

2009-01-13T14:23:00.008-07:00

After El Paujil Reserve, we went to the Reinita Cielo Azul Reserve, about a day's drive to the northeast. "Reinita Cielo Azul" is spanish for Cerulean Warbler, a species that breeds in North America but has been declining because of loss of its wintering habitat in South America. Just like we missed el Paujil in El Paujil Reserve, we also didn't see any Cerulean Warblers at Reinita Ceilo Azul Reserve. But also like before, we saw many cool birds here. The biggest highlight for me here was the hummingbirds. I saw four species here, including the rare endemic Black Inca (first photo below), the bizarre Booted Racket-tail, the endemic Indigo-capped Hummingbird (second photo below), and the Andean Emerald. Another highlight was a breeding pair of Vermillion Flycatchers, feeding a baby in the nest right in front of our cabin (third photo below).

We had only one full day in this reserve, so the overall diversity of species we saw was not as high as at El Paujil. For example, we saw only one kind of frog and no mammals. But there were more habitat types here, and so the bird list made up for the shortage of other species.

El Paujil Reserve, Colombia

2009-01-07T17:54:00.006-07:00

While I was in Colombia I had the fantastic opportunity to join Stephanie, her dad Peter, her brother John (above right, photo by Stephanie), and her cousin Esteban (above middle) on a trip to two ProAves reserves in the lowlands along the west slope of the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes. The first reserve we went to was El Paujil, designated to protect the endangered Blue-billed Curassow. The Blue-billed Curassow must be in serious trouble, because even at the reserve named in its honor it has never been photographed, and a maximum of two individuals are currently thought to live on the reserve. One of the biologists doing surveys for the species there told me that they had never seen one.

We didn't see the Curassow, but we did see many cool birds here, including my first parrots and my first toucans ever. However, the birding was slower than I expected. I should have anticipated this, because being in a rainforest meant that the vast majority of birds were heard and not seen. I don't know any of the tropical birds by sound, and neither did our guides, so I was only able to identify the occassional bird that gave me a good look. Still, we found some very neat birds, such as the Plumbeous Kite and White-fronted Nunbird shown below. The herps were also cool, although I found it frustrating to not have a book to identify them with. The frog below is a treefrog in the family Hylidae, but I'm still trying to figure out which species. . . .

Common Birds of Bogota

2008-12-24T17:42:00.003-07:00

Stephanie and I are currently in Bogota, visiting her family for the holidays. Of course, I've taken the opportunity to see some birds while I'm here. Everything is different and it can be overwhelming to try to identify all the new bird sights and sounds. Even the ubiquitous House Sparrow and European Starling are absent as far as I can tell. Rock Pigeons are still quite common. Mourning Doves are replaced here by a similar species, Eared Doves. These doves have shorter tails than MODOs and differ in some details of plumage. Here in the tropics they may breed year-round, but they're certainly breeding now as I've seen several pairs in courtship and even copulation.

The common sparrow in the city and the countryside is "el Copeton," the Rufous-collared Sparrow. This is a congener with the White-crowned Sparrow that is familiar to me in Utah and elsewhere in the States, but seems even more common and adaptable to human habitation. In the places I've seen it, it seems more like the House Sparrow, hopping around food carts in the city and picking up scraps and feeding on small seeds in ornamental plants.

The third common species here is the Great Thrush. This is the equivalent of our American Robin and it is in the same family. I have seen these feeding on worms in the fields and on small fruits in the trees. They are common but not as approachable as the other two species. Any time I get close, they seem to fly up into the dark center of a dense tree. I have heard these singing, so they may be breeding now as well.

More soon from Colombia. . . .

Top Ten Birds

2008-12-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

One of the most frequent questions I get about my Cache County big year is, "What was the best bird you saw?" That question is hard to answer, but when I think of the best bird several things enter in to the decision. Rarity is of course a big one, both rarity in the state, rarity in the county, and rarity to me. The quality of the look also contributes - a beautiful adult male in breeding plumage that poses nearby on top of a rock will score higher than a drab juvenile skulking in the weeds, and both will score higher than a call note from a bird I never saw. There is also some pride involved - birds found by me will score higher than those that were first found by others. Finally, there's a completely ambiguous "coolness" factor. My coolness scale might not match with yours: for example, I love gulls. With the caveat that it's all subjective, of course, and with those vague criteria in mind, here are the ten best birds of 2008. When I have them available, I've also shown photos that have not appeared on this blog before.

10. Snow Bunting. This is a species I'd heard a lot about but never seen before this year. It was quite a treat to be able to pick a couple of them out of a distant flock very early in the year.

9. Northern Waterthrush. I don't know why, but this bird had attracted my attention for a long time. I just thought it was so weird to imagine a warbler running along the side of a stream. And when I finally saw one this year, it was as exciting as I thought it would be. I got decent looks when I found it, but got much better looks the next day. It was nice to be able to share this one with some other local birders. This was a lifer for me and one that is seen only once every few years in the county.

8. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch. This is another species I had often dreamed of seeing before this year. I think they probably occur in the valley in some small numbers each year, but they're not seen each year. The looks were distant, but the birds were cooperative enough to get some good looks and it was neat to pick out at least two subspecies in the flock. I had tried for this species elsewhere several times, and missed each time, so this was also a lifer.

7. Band-tailed Pigeon. This is a rare species in the valley, but not a rare species for me, as they are relatively common in Washington. This one was special for several reasons. It is rare in the valley, being seen only once every five years or so. I also saw/heard what was probably the same individual twice, once was great looks with my friend Craig Faulhaber, who has since moved away, and the second time I heard it on a very special camping trip with my girlfriend a week or two later in the same area.

6. White-winged Crossbill. This was a hard-earned lifer. This species probably occurs in the county each year, but isn't seen each year. I had to search through hundreds of Red Crossbills to finally find one of these, just when I was about to give up hope. This was also the species with which I tied the previous Cache County year record, adding a certain something to my memory of the sighting.

5. Mew Gull. This was the first really big find of the year, although certainly not the last. I was photographing gulls so that I could practice identifying them at home from the photos, and I snapped a few shots of this bird as it circled around and landed in a small pond. The photos didn't match any gull I was considering a possibility, so I sent the photos to some birding friends who told me that I had photographed the second Mew Gull ever seen in the county. This sighting was later highlighted in an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, and featured one of my photos!

4. Glossy Ibis. Craig and I had been joking about finding this species in Cache County. This species had only been seen twice before in the county, and both sightings may have been the same individual. At the time it was also the first record for the state. This species seems to be expanding its range in the United States, or at least there are more and more records of vagrancy, so maybe it shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it was. But it was certainly a surprise, and finding this bird made it worthwhile to have been carefully examining all the White-faced Ibis I had been seeing all summer.

3. Iceland Gull. I wish I had found this bird, but at least I can claim to be the first one to identify it, which counts for something in my opinion. Jason Pietrzak emailed me photos of this bird for me to help identify, and I could tell it was one of two species, either a Glaucous Gull or an Iceland Gull. After some studying and thinking, I thought it was probably an Iceland Gull, but it wasn't until I found it the next morning that my thoughts were confirmed. If this is accepted by the records committee, this will be a first state record.

2. Whip-poor-will. This species was a first state record, and it was almost mine (kindof). Craig, Stephanie, and I were on our way up to the end of Green Canyon on a random Thursday night because we weren't hearing many owls lower down the canyon. On our way up, we passed Ron Ryel racing down to notify us of this great find. He found this bird about a half hour before we almost certainly would have. I don't mind, really. It was great just to hear it, and I'm glad I got to share it with those three people. This loud and persistent first state record claims the number two best-bird-of-the-year spot.

1. Mississippi Kite. Because this was a first state record and because I found it, this bird takes the top spot. It could've been better, if I had gotten photographs or if more other people had found the bird after me, but it also scored bonus points for being a raptor and a lifer. It was a big year for wandering Mississippi Kites. Several states had first records, I believe, and New Hampshire's first record ever included a successfully breeding pair!

CBC Brings the Year to a Close

2008-12-20T21:51:00.006-07:00

Today was the Logan Christmas Bird Count, and also my last day of birding in Cache County this year. We birded all day, from before sunrise looking for owls to picking rare geese out of a flock as the light dimmed in the evening. I was with Stephanie in the morning and Ron Ryel (photo below) from mid-morning to evening. We found some good birds today, including the Mourning Doves shown above. (There were many seen this year, but some years we only find one in the entire count circle.) There were five species that my group found that were not seen anywhere else in the count circle: Cedar Waxwings, a Greater Yellowlegs, a Ruddy Duck, a Ross's Goose, and two Cackling Geese. In total, I saw 54 species, but none of them were new for the year. Our count circle found a total of 93 species, but none of those would have been new for the year for me either, so it was good to know that I didn't miss anything. The dinner celebration and count compilation at the end of the day was not only a good way to end a cold day, but also a great way to end the year.

It's only the 20th, so why is my big year ending early? Well, Stephanie and I leave tomorrow at 4:30 AM to go to Colombia for the holidays. Which brings up another good question: what will happen to the blog? You might have already noticed a few small changes; I'm going to keep the blog going and transition it into a place to write about all of my natural history experiences, in Utah and elsewhere. The changes may be gradual, but within a few weeks this will be a whole new place! So, watch this spot for more adventures in the natural world. Up next, Colombia!

Optimism

2008-12-17T18:11:00.003-07:00

Right now there is a hummingbird feeder full of nectar that is freezing solid in my front yard. All of our hummingbirds migrated south months ago, so I'm sure my neighbors think I'm crazy. Well, they're probably right, but not for the reason they think. You see, like all birds, hummingbirds sometimes get lost. With enough birders keeping track over a long enough period of time, patterns emerge in when and where they get lost. Although the odds are that there has not been a single hummingbird in Cache County for months, if there is one it is likely to be an Anna's Hummingbird, a species that is only seen in Utah about once or twice a year. But when it is seen, it's usually in the cold of winter. In fact, three of the last seven observations were in December. I don't have a lot of chances left for new birds this year, since I leave on Sunday for Christmas in Colombia. So, my feeder is hung by the spruce tree with care, in hopes that a hummingbird soon will be there.

Frequently Asked Questions

2008-12-13T19:21:00.002-07:00

I've gotten a lot of questions about this attempt to see as many birds as I can in Cache County in one year. As the year draws close to the end, I thought I'd answer a few of the most frequently asked questions here. (Photo of me birding by Stephanie Cobbold.)

Will you do it again next year?
No. It has been a blast, but my main motiviation for doing it was to get to know the area better, both geographically and ornithologically. I've accomplished those goals and more, and now it's time for something else. I might do another county big year the next time I move to a new county, but I don't plan to do another one here. I'll probably bird a lot less in 2009. Maybe I'll work on my county life list, since I've got a pretty good start so far.

Will your record last?
I doubt it. I travelled a lot this year, and there were many birds that know I missed, like Say's Phoebe, Sage Thrasher, and Lewis's Woodpecker. Of course, we'll never know the birds I missed that everyone else missed, too. I think my record will last only until someone decides to break it. I had a great year of birds with some real surprises, but anyone who could commit even more time to birding could probably see more birds.

What was the best bird you saw?
I'll be answering this one in some detail soon. Watch for a "top ten best birds" list as a future post.

How much time did you spend birding?
This is a hard question to answer. For one, I didn't keep track. Even if I had tried, it would be hard to say, because in a way, I'm always birding. Some birds I found for the first time while I was doing something else, like my first Yellow Warbler of the year on a bike ride to school, and my first Red-breasted Nuthatch on a walk home from school. But it wouldn't really be fair to count every trip to school as a birding trip, because that wasn't my main objective. The same thing goes for hiking in the mountains - if I go for a hike with some friends and bring my binoculars, does that count as a birding trip? I guess that the best answer I can give to this question is that on average, I'd say I spent about one full day every week where my main objective was birding. That's a rough estimate and the range is from three weeks without birding (while travelling out of the county) to maybe four full days in a single week.

Are you the best birder in the county now?
No. I am certainly a better birder than I was a year ago, but I know that there are much better birders than me in the county. Some of them I bird with regularly. I only saw as many species as I did because I put a lot of time into it, not because I am more skilled than people who saw fewer species. Luck also played a role: there were many good birds found this year, by myself and others, some of which had never been seen in the county or even the state before.

Was it worth it?
Absolutely. But only because it was never REALLY about counting the birds. It was about learning the secret spots of Cache County. It was about getting to know my fellow birders. It was about getting in touch with the passage of the seasons as translated by bird migrations. It was about learning the subtle details of plumage that mean nothing to the average human but everything to survival and identification of bird species. I certainly learned more about birds and birding than I have in any year so far. And for all these reasons, it was absolutely worth it.

Uncountable Birds

2008-11-25T15:23:00.006-07:00

Just for fun, I thought I'd make a list of the birds I saw this year that aren't countable. These birds are not included in my county year list because they are not considered by the ABA (or by myself) to be either fully established or naturally occurring in the county. Birds only made it to this non-countable list if I saw them free-roaming in the county. That means that caged zoo birds would not be listed here, but a chicken that found a hole in the fence and was wandering across the street would be listed.

Swan Goose (photo above)
Graylag Goose
Mute Swan
Mandarin Duck (photo below)
Red-crested Pochard
Helmeted Guineafowl
Indian Peafowl (a.k.a. "Peacock")
Red Junglefowl (a.k.a. "Chicken")

Long-tailed Duck

2008-11-22T16:17:00.006-07:00

Today I joined the Bridgerland Audubon Society (photo below) on a field trip to the Logan Sewage Lagoons. This trip was a must for two reasons; the sewage lagoons are one of the best places in the county to find the rare lost sea ducks that should be migrating through in very small numbers, and the only way to bird them is to go with the Audubon Society - they are closed to the public.

It took some work, but we were able to pull one new bird out of the trip. Craig Fosdick spotted a very distant Long-tailed Duck, photo above, on the ponds among thousands of other ducks. Later we were able to relocate the albino Northern Shoveler I found last weekend at the Polishing Ponds, which people seemed to enjoy.

After the Audubon trip, Craig, Jason, and I birded Sue's Ponds and Hyrum Reservoir. Sue's Ponds was still hosting a Lesser Black-backed Gull, a first for Craig, but Hyrum was pretty empty except for a bunch of distant gulls. I'll probably keep trying there, but it has not turned out the scoters like we thought it would. From the posts I'm reading online, it seems that Cache County must be the only place in the state WITHOUT scoters right now.

Cackling vs. Canada Geese

2008-11-17T13:50:00.004-07:00

In March I found at least two of what I considered to be Cackling Geese (photo above), a recently-designated species that used to be considered part of Canada Geese. I submitted a report to the Bird Records Committee for Utah, because Cackling Goose is on the review list for the state. Although identification of this species can be difficult with certain subspecies, it is easier with others. The birds I saw were not the easy-to-identify subspecies. I beleive they were Taverner's Cackling Geese, Branta hutchinsii taverni. The record was just voted on for the second time, and was rejected. This surprised me, as I felt fairly confident in my identification. So, I've spent a lot of time reviewing photos, identification articles, and other documents on the identification of these species (such as this, this, and this), to try to determine where my fault lies. Either I misidentified this species, in which case I should remove it from my list, or I wrote a report that was insufficient to convince the committee that I saw what I did, in which case the bird would remain on my list.

After much careful review, I am still convinced that I saw at least two Cackling Geese on that day. The trouble with the review of the record lies in that the smallest Canada Goose, the Lesser Canada Goose, overlaps in many traits with the largest Cackling Geese, such as Richardson's and Taverner's Cackling Geese. I did not make the case well enough that the Lesser Canada Goose could be excluded, although I do believe that from my photos and the features I observed it can. The comments of the committee are particularly interesting in this respect. For example, "I still think most of the features point to a Taverner's Goose," "I don't feel at all confident identifying the white-cheecked geese that aren't at the extremes of size/shape," "the written description fits Cackling Goose," "Looks like we share the same doubts about identifying the mid-range Canada/Cacklers from each other," and "I almost want to rescue myself from this vote because I am still struggling with the definitive identification of the various subspecies of the Canada/Cackling Goose complex . . . could possibly be the taverni or hutchinsii subspecies."

Of course, these comments are obviously taken out of context and are incomplete, but I think they convey the level of uncertainty held even by experts in distinguishing this pair of species. In summary, I don't blame the committee at all for not accepting this record. These are tough species to tell apart, and my record did not do an adequate job of describing and documenting the traits that showed that these were Cackling Geese. The committee did the right thing in not accepting a record of which they were not certain. However, I remain convinced that these were in fact Cackling Geese, and not Lesser Canada Geese. In fact, I'll go a step further and say that as our identification and knowledge of these two species improves, I think we'll find that Cackling Geese are more common in Utah in winter than we currently believe. In the meantime, I'll make it a goal of mine to 1) get to know the differences among these species and subspecies even better and 2) thoroughly and convincingly document Cackling Geese if and when I encounter them in Utah in the future.

Winter Wren - Another (Partial) Albino

2008-11-17T11:41:00.006-07:00

Thanks to a tip from Craig Fosdick, I finally found a Winter Wren this morning at Guinavah-Malibu Campground in Logan Canyon. This species is an old friend of mine. When I was working in Washington, I'd hear dozens of them every day in the Douglas-fir forests where I did my research. Out here in Utah, they're much more rare.

This particular Winter Wren was very interesting because it was a partial albino. In the photos below, you can see the clean white patch above the bill and on the front part of the crown, with a few white feathers scattered back into the hind crown. This is not a normal part of their plumage - this spot should be brown like the rest of the bird. It was an interesting coincidence to find this partial albino bird and a fully albino Northern Shoveler in two days.

Ferruginous Hawk

2008-11-16T18:56:00.005-07:00

Gulls aside, it feels like it has been a while since I spent a lot of time chasing after birds found by other people. Of course, it feels much better to find a rare bird yourself than to chase after one found by someone else, but sometimes it's nice to take a little break and just enjoy someone else's bird, without having to find new rarities on your own. Today I did a little bit of each, but mostly chased after birds found by other people.

Yesterday, Stephanie found a Snow Bunting up Logan Canyon, her first solo find of a rare species, I think, so we went up there first thing this morning. I have seen Snow Buntings before, and they are already on my county list, but all my looks at them have been very distant so I was hoping that this bird would be more photogenic. Unfortunately, it failed to show up for us.

After a break for some lunch while watching some friends play a show at Cafe Ibis, we went to Clarkston to look for the Ferruginous Hawks Craig found yesterday. We did manage to find the Ferruginous Hawks (one is shown in the photo above). This has been a hard-to-find species in the valley, so it was nice to add this one to the list. I've spent several days searching for this species, and I only know of one other individual reported in the county this year.

We then birded some waterfowl spots, but we still haven't been able to come up with any scoters, even though they're being seen all over the state it seems right now. We did find one cool bird that won't add to the list: a pure albino Northern Shoveler, shown below. From there, we raced the sunlight up the canyon to try to find a Winter Wren Craig found earlier today. We missed that bird, probably because it had already gone to roost for the night, but I might try again tomorrow morning.

Birding Buddies

2008-11-13T01:13:00.016-07:00

One of the best things about my birding big year in Cache County has been getting to know so many great birders and great people. I've been joined in the field by many friends, and had several others help by sending tips, letting me watch their feeders, assisting me with identifications from photos, or posting their sightings on the discussion groups. Sadly, Cache County has also lost many birders this year, some of which are dear friends to me. Mo Correll moved away temporarily, and Keith Archibald, Craig Faulhaber, and John Weiss moved away for good. Larry Ryel (whom I never had the fortune of meeting) and John Barnes passed away this year. I wanted to use this post to acknowledge the help and friendship of the entire community of birders, serious and casual, that have made this year so enjoyable. Here are a few photos of some of them, but you should not consider the text or the photos of this post to be exhaustive - there are too many to name and if I tried, I'm certain I'd miss a few and in so doing, be more offensive than simply ommitting any names. So, here is a tribute to all of you, illustrated by photos of a few of you.

What a Day for Gulls!

2008-11-05T16:43:00.007-07:00

Our weather has take a turn for the worse, but that often makes the birding take a turn for the better. Yesterday afternoon Jason Pietrzak found a pale-winged gull at Sue's Ponds, and sent me some photos. I couldn't tell for sure from the photos what it was, so we rushed out there yesterday afternoon to look for it, but couldn't find it. This morning Craig and I tried again, and found just what we were hoping for: an Iceland Gull (Kumlien's subspecies, above, in foreground). This is another species that can be very tough to tell from similar species, so although several records have been submitted to the Bird Records Committee, none have been accepted. This species is usually found from Baffin Island, Canada to Iceland, and winters in the Northeastern United States. We got some good photos this morning, and Jason went back later in the morning and got some even better ones, so it looks possible that we'll have another state record on our hands here!

Almost as amazingly, Jason found another rare gull while he was trying to relocate the Iceland Gull. He posted a photo, and I could tell it was not something from around here, although neither of us could tell what it was for sure from the photo (again). So I went back this afternoon, and so did he, and we were also able to relocate this bird: a Lesser Black-backed Gull! (Photo below by Jason.) If accepted (again, with great photo documentation I expect it will be), this will be only the sixth record of this species in the state! This species is usually found in northwest Europe, and usually winters south into Africa, although they wander to the east coast of North America in some numbers every winter. This made a total of six species of gulls in one day, perhaps more than anyone's seen in the county, with California Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, Herring Gulls, and Bonaparte's Gulls all present today.

Owling again

2008-11-03T10:43:00.004-07:00

Last Thursday I went owling with Stephanie Cobbold, Craig Fosdick, and Dominique Roche. We were in search of two species in particular, Northern Saw-whet Owl and Boreal Owl. Northern Saw-whet Owls are relatively common in Cache County, but as these things go, somehow Craig and I had both not heard (or seen) them yet this year in the county. (I heard several while travelling for my field work.) Although they are in the same genus, Boreal Owls are at almost the opposite end of the owl spectrum: they are very rare here, with only one accepted record in the county.

We met at First Dam at 7:00, a little after dark, and drove up to the Tony Grove Road. Dominique had heard many Saw-whets along this road before, and even heard a Boreal Owl here twice several years ago (although I don't think he ever submitted a record to the Committee). We stopped every half mile or so on the way up to broadcast Saw-whet and Boreal songs. We always started by listening quietly, but this time of year most owls aren't spontaneously vocalizing, although some will still respond to a broadcast. After a couple stops of hearing nothing, we got to Dominique's hotspot. We listened for a few minutes, and again heard nothing. We played the Saw-whet owl call, and heard nothing. We played it again, and got a response! We heard two "barks," a sharp down-slurred abrupt vocalization, that stopped as soon as we stopped playing the recording. I hadn't heard that vocalization before, but Craig had: it was a Northern Saw-whet Owl. I wasn't immediately convinced, but after reading more about owl vocalizations and hearing several more recordings of Saw-whet Owls and other possible species, I now feel confident that Craig's identification was right. So, one more for the list. Now, if we could just find a Boreal Owl!

RECORD BROKEN!

2008-10-26T22:03:00.009-06:00

Today I had an amazing day of birding around Cache County with Craig Fosdick and Stephanie Cobbold. Craig and I started at Tony Grove where we leisurely worked our way through the campground and around Tony Grove Lake. The highlight here was certainly the Northern Pygmy-Owl (photo above) that we heard calling and then were able to locate as it flew around looking for a small bird to join it for lunch. I heard my first Northern Pygmy-Owl earlier this year in Cache County, and this is only the second time I've seen one. It was neat to see Cache County's largest and smallest raptors at almost the same time: a juvenile Golden Eagle was circling high overhead as we heard the owl. Other birds here were pretty much as expected, but crossbills were suprisingly absent. We were hoping for a White-winged Crossbill, which had been reported here a couple of times but which I had still not seen.

We met up with Stephanie and headed up Swan Flat Road from Logan Canyon towards Idaho. Along the road (still in Cache County) we stopped for a large flock of crossbills that we could hear and see in the treetops. After scanning for several minutes, I was able to locate my lifer White-winged Crossbill in the flock of about 40 crossbills; as far as I could tell all the rest were Red Crossbills. The White-winged Crossbill (photo at right) was a very exciting bird for me because I have spent a lot of time looking for this species in the county this year and had not been able to find it so far. In addition, this was my 235th species of the year in Cache County, tying the record held by Keith Archibald and Ron Ryel for a Cache County year.

After a quick drive to Swan Lake just across the border in Idaho, we went back down the valley to Sue's Ponds in search of gulls. Only one gull, a Ring-billed Gull, was there when we arrived (later joined by a few more), compared to hundreds of gulls just a day earlier. After a few minutes of watching a large group of Long-billed Dowitchers feeding at close range, I scanned the back side of the pond again and spotted something we had all missed the first time through: an American Golden-Plover (photo below) foraging on the mud with the Killdeer. With this bird, a lifer and a rare find in Utah, let alone Cache County, I set the record for the most number of birds seen in Cache County in one year at 236. Wohoo! But don't worry, the blogging's not done yet. Of course, I'm going to keep birding until the end of the year, and I'm going to see as many new birds as I can. Stay tuned. . . .

Dunlin

2008-10-24T00:28:00.001-06:00

Yesterday Stephanie and I birded at Sue's Ponds and Hyrum Reservoir during a little afternoon break from work. The highlight for me was a winter-plumage Dunlin at Sue's Ponds. Two of these were reported in spring migration, but I missed both of them and I thought I might not get another chance at the species, because they are somewhat rare in Cache County (seen less than once a year on average). I got several shots, but none of them were great and of course just when the light got great, my camera battery died! Here is the best shot I was able to get of the Dunlin (center), with two Pectoral Sandpipers.

Explaining to do

2008-10-24T00:00:00.008-06:00

Okay, it seems I have some explaining to do. I my last post, I thought I had found a Thayer's Gull. Several things about the bird didn't seem quite right to me, and I thought it might even be a Glaucous-winged Gull, which is much rarer in Utah (although Thayer's are also pretty rare here). So, I sent photos and videos to several list-serves requesting help in my identification. I received responses from nine different people, and as any student of the gulls would guess, there was little consensus. Opinions ranged from pure Thayer's Gull to pure Glaucous-winged Gull to pure Slaty-backed Gull, but the most common opinion was that I had photographed a hybrid between a Glaucous-winged Gull and a Herring Gull. This was one of the possibilities I had considered, but it wasn't the identification I thought was most likely. Even after hearing all the opinions of the experts, I am still not confident in identifying this bird, and it will stay in my records as "Unidentified gull, probable Glaucous-winged x Herring hybrid".

Someone asked me before if it's embarrassing to publicly misidentify a bird. If I had called this something outlandish, then maybe I would be embarrassed. But gulls are notoriously difficult, and I feel pretty good about how I did with this one. In fact, David Sibley says of the Thayer's Gull, "Very difficult to distinguish from hybrids of other large gulls such as Herring x Glaucous-winged." After all, if the gulls can't even tell each other apart when it's time to find a mate, how can we be expected to sort them out as juveniles!

Okay, so I'm not counting the Thayer's Gull that I posted about before. Then why is Thayer's Gull still in my year list at the right? Well, I feel more confident in the identification of a different bird that we saw on the same day was a Thayer's Gull. One photo of this bird is above: the Thayer's is on the left and a California Gull is on the right. This Thayer's Gull has darker wingtips than my previous mystery gull, but it has a distinctly small, round head and petite bill, two traits I was looking for on the mystery gull but was having trouble with. So, the photo may be wrong, but I still think I saw a Thayer's Gull that day. Although I'd be happy to hear comments from the experts about this gull as well.

Evening Grosbeaks and Thayer's Gull

2008-10-19T17:24:00.007-06:00

It's been a while since my last post, but it's not because I haven't been birding. I have. Desperately. I'm so close to the record that I've spent ten or fifteen hours each weekend for the last two or three weeks birding, plus several hours during the week wherever I can fit it in. But, of course, the new birds are now few and far between.

On Friday, a school holiday, Stephanie and I hiked around Swan Peak looking for some of the mountain species I still haven't been able to find like Pine Grosbeak, White-winged Crossbill, and Evening Grosbeak. We didn't find any of these, but we did find nine Dusky Grouse, a species I took a special trip for a few weeks ago.

Yesterday Craig Fosdick and I birded all day, from the south end of the county to the northern border with Idaho. We were mostly looking for species that winter on the ocean but get lost inland this time of year, like the scoters, Long-tailed Ducks, and Pacific Loons. We didn't find any of these either, but while we were scanning Hyrum Reservoir, Craig heard a single call note above and quickly pointed out a flock of eight Evening Grosbeaks passing high overhead. The birds continued out over the reservoir, and we never saw them land. These birds are probably part of another kind of migration happening right now: the vertical migration. Rather than flying from north to south, these birds may have come from higher elevations down into the valley. Other vertical migrants we found in the valley today included Red-breasted Nuthatches and a Townsend's Solitaire.

Today I wanted to take a quick trip to Sue's Ponds to look for shorebirds, because I'm still hoping I can pick up a Dunlin or maybe something completely unexpected. The shorebirds were there in good numbers, and included ninety Long-billed Dowitchers, eight Pectoral Sandpipers, and one Stilt Sandpiper. But the highlight was not a shorebird, it was another surprise gull: at least two Thayer's Gulls (one is shown in the photo above - note the pink legs; brownish, not black, wingtips; and the relatively rounded head). I thought I might be able to find this species later in the winter, but I didn't expect them this time of year.

Wellsville Hawkwatch

2008-09-27T19:20:00.008-06:00

Craig Fosdick and I have a running joke that any time we go in search of a certain species, we'll often find something even more rare but miss the target bird. Today at the Wellsville Hawkwatch we broke that pattern with a well-planned and fortuitous day of watching migrating raptors.

Perhaps the rarest raptor that has occurred more than once in Cache County is the Broad-winged Hawk. Craig and I knew that we would have to make the steep hike at a very specific time of the year in order to find this species, so we planned a hike for today, September 27th. This is the closest weekend day to the median date of passage of Broad-winged Hawks at this site, according to the reports posted by HawkWatch International online. Still, since an average of only five Broad-winged Hawks are seen each year by these paid full-time observers, we knew our odds were slim. But I was encouraged when I read last night that a Hawkwatch site about a day's flight north of here had its best day ever yesterday, including an amazing five Broad-winged Hawks!

Today Craig Fosdick, Mike Sipos, and I started up the trail at about 8:30 AM. We reached the HawkWatch site at about 11:00 after climbing 3000 feet in 3.5 miles. The migration started slow but picked up rapidly about 1:00, and at about 2:30 we were treated to an immature Broad-winged Hawk flying past! (Photo above.) Within an hour, amazingly, we had seen two more, and the raptors were passing at a rate of about 100 an hour. The Wellsville Hawkwatch site was on its way to its biggest migration day so far this year. When asked if she thought it was a good day of birding, I overheard Audubon Society member Jean Lown (in white hat, below) say that it was, to paraphrase, "a fabulously amazing day," and long-time Cache County birder Reinhard Jockel said that it was his "best HawkWatch ever!" It was great to have a planned bird actually come to fruition, and especially in the midst of such an amazing spectacle of migration.

Guided to a Grouse

2008-09-26T19:52:00.006-06:00

Today Stephanie and I took a much-deserved day off and headed up Logan Canyon in search of Dusky Grouse. I've spent at least three birding trips looking specifically for this species, only to come up empty-handed. Stephanie took a little bit of pleasure in this, since this is the only species that she's seen in the county this year, but I haven't. But she was still nice enough to lead me to a place near one of her field sites where she's seen them somewhat regularly.

It took us about an hour of wandering up and down the steep forested hillside, but the fall colors alone would have made it worth it, and the Dusky Grouse, which I flushed and then was able to photograph (below), was a welcome bonus.

After the grouse, we went up to Tony Grove to hike towards Naomi Peak in search of White-winged Crossbills and American Three-toed Woodpeckers. We found an American Three-toed Woodpecker just a couple hundred yards from where I found one two years ago, and Stephanie and I both got great looks as it worked its way around a dead tree. On the way down the mountain we also found a Merlin, a species that usually winters here in small numbers. It felt like a warning that winter is coming soon, but with only six birds left to beat the record, I'm ready for some more winter migrants!

More Migration

2008-09-22T23:15:00.008-06:00

Today I birded Hyrum Reservoir in search of Sabine's Gulls. A Sabine's Gull would be a lifer for me, and one that I'm really looking forward to. I did find lots of gulls, including one early juvenile Herring Gull and hundreds, maybe thousands, of Franklin's Gulls, but no Sabine's. However, I did find what appears to be the best shorebird habitat around the county at the moment, at the east end of the reservoir where the Little Bear River flows in and forms mudflats. There, I found several species of shorebirds, including two Pectoral Sandpipers, which I haven't seen since I took Ornithology in New Hampshire in 1999, and three Black-bellied Plovers, a lifer for me. (Two of the Black-bellied Plovers are shown above.) I hesitated as I thought about whether to even continue today, since it's been so long since I had found two new year birds in one day, and I wanted to end on a good note. But I got greedy, and decided to head up to Sherwood Hills Resort, a place Kris Purdy had recommended for Cassin's Vireos in fall migration.

At Sherwood Hills, I started to regret my greed. In the first fifteen minutes, I had not seen or heard a single bird there. Just as I was about to turn back to the car to give up and head home, I heard some Black-capped Chickadees in the distance. Knowing that other species might be associating with the chickadees, I chased them down and found an active mixed flock which included at least two Cassin's Vireos, my target bird! (One of these Cassin's Vireos is shown below.) That made a total of three new year birds for the day, my best day of birding in months!

An "Easy" Empid

2008-09-06T21:07:00.005-06:00

The Pacific-slope Flycatcher's scientific name is Empidonax difficilis, but I think that's a bit unfair because almost all of the flycatchers in the genus Empidonax (commonly known as "Empids") are difficult to identify. Empids are generally very similar, and very unremarkable. That is part of why it was exciting to find a lifer Empid today. Craig Fosdick and I were hiking in High Creek in search of Dusky Grouse. I had seen several of this species on a hike on the same trail on the same day last year, so I thought it would be worth trying the same place again. We didn't find the Dusky Grouse, unfortunately, but we did see many good birds including two migrating Townsend's Warblers, and Craig did a great job of pishing in an angry flock of Mountain Chickadees, including the one shown in the photo above. But the highlight was the Gray Flycatcher. I've been trying to get better at identifying flycatchers in this notoriously difficult genus, but this bird was relatively easy to identify because of its behavior. Empids all flick their tails upwards, except for this species, which wags its tail gently downwards. We did see several other field marks which confirmed the identification, but this slight difference in behavior was the most convincing, allowing me to add another species to my county year list and to my life list.

The Lifer Before the Storm

2008-08-31T17:58:00.005-06:00

I birded around Cache County with Craig Faulhaber today. We started up Deep Canyon in the Wellsville range. Craig Fosdick had seen several Nashville Warblers here last week, and that is a species I had not seen yet in the county. In fact, I'd never seen one before anywhere. Birding was very slow here with a total of eight species in about an hour and a half of hiking, but we did see one Nashville Warbler, a first for both of us.

We next went to the Logan Wetlands, where there were hundreds or maybe even thousands of Franklin's Gulls but nothing unexpected or new for the year. Shorebirds were sparse, with a few Killdeer, a Black-necked Stilt, and a dowitcher that I assume was a Long-billed. On the road to the south of the Logan Landfill, we saw and heard three Blue Grosbeaks, one adult male and two females/immatures. Blue Grosbeaks have been seen several times along this road this year, and the presence of multiple females/immatures may indicate that they successfully bred here. Cache County is further north than their typical breeding range.

We finished for the day at Rendezvous Park and the Logan River Golf Course trail, which was almost eerily quiet. There was a storm approaching and the birds seemed to be hunkered down in preparation. After about a half hour of birding here, and only four bird species, the storm hit and the high winds started knocking branches off the trees. Fearing for our lives (photo at left), we hurried back to the car and ended the day's birding just as the rain starting coming down.

Field Work - the Bane of My Quest

2008-08-15T19:22:00.007-06:00

You're right, those aren't birds. They're Northern Leopard Frogs, and if I don't end up making it to 236 species in Cache County, they will have been the reason. I think most of my blog readers already know, but in case one or both of you don't, in my "real" life I'm a herpetologist. For my dissertation work, I'm studying the genetics of this frog species. And to do that, I have to travel around the West collecting genetic tissue from frogs. I love the work, I love the species, and I love the travelling, but it has been painful to see some of the birds that have been seen in Cache County while I've been gone. Earlier this spring, I missed shots at Lewis's Woodpecker, Dunlin, and Clay-colored Sparrow (among others) while I was collecting frogs. Of course, I've also gotten to see some other great birds that haven't been reported in Cache County, like my lifer Orchard Orioles and Dickcissel in Colorado last month, and the Sage Grouse I saw two days ago in southern Wyoming (shown below), but they won't help me reach 236. And now that I'm waiting out a storm in a hotel room in Wyoming, it's hard not to think about all the fall migrants I might be missing while I'm trying to chase frogs.

Hummers on the Move

2008-08-09T20:52:00.003-06:00

This week is approaching the peak of migration for Rufous Hummingbirds, so yesterday I did a feeder stakeout at the hummingbird feeders at Spring Hollow Campground in search of this species. The campground host has put out about ten hummingbird feeders, and they draw quite an array of hummers. I saw about 25 Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, ten Black-chinned Hummingbirds, two Calliope Hummingbirds, and one female Rufous Hummingbird. The female Rufous Hummingbird was a first of the year for me. This species breeds in the Pacific Northwest US and western Canada, all the way up to Alaska. It has an interesting migration pattern, moving north along the coast but returning south across a broader swath of the continent, including through Utah, so we usually only get them in the fall. I also saw the first ever Rufous Hummingbird from my yard today, the 55th species seen or heard from my yard. The bird above is a female or juvenile Broad-tailed Hummingbird, and was photographed at the feeders at Spring Hollow where I saw the Rufous Hummingbird. I also got a photo of the Rufous, but this one's better.

Black Tern

2008-08-04T20:45:00.005-06:00

I just got back from a little over a week in Seattle visiting friends and family. The visit was great and I wish I could've stayed much longer, but as soon as I got home I knew I needed to get my bird fix. I had missed four potential new species while I was gone, and it was time to play catch-up again. My housemate Jake and I headed to the Mitigation Ponds to look for the Semipalmated Plovers and Sage Thrasher that were reported there about a week ago, just after I had left the area. Not surprisingly, the birds had left the area, too - they're probably well south of here by now. Coincidentally, Craig arrived there just when Jake had to leave, so Craig and I went to the Polishing Ponds to look for the Solitary Sandpiper he had seen there last week. We also couldn't find the Solitary Sandpiper, but we lucked out in finding another bird I had given up on, a Black Tern (photo above). One of these was spotted in the spring migration but I missed it and I thought I wouldn't get another chance, so this was a pleasant surprise.

More Mountains

2008-07-05T23:09:00.008-06:00

Today Craig Faulhaber (above) and I hiked from Tony Grove to White Pine Lake. Again, I was in search of some of the many high-mountain birds I am still missing. I was able to pick up one of those, with my first Steller's Jays of the year. This is probably the most common species I had yet to find. We also saw several mountain specialties I had already seen, like Red Crossbills, Olive-sided Flycatchers, Williamson's Sapsuckers, and Clark's Nutcrackers. But the highlight was a single Band-tailed Pigeon (photo below). This species is common further south in Utah but has only been seen in Cache County a few times.

Glossy Ibis and the Start of Fall?

2008-07-03T17:04:00.005-06:00

Today I birded the Logan City Polishing Ponds, part of the wastewater treatment facility, in search of early shorebird migrants. I didn't see any new shorebirds for the year, but I did see the first returning Long-billed Dowitcher and Greater Yellowlegs of the year. (I saw both of these species on their way north to their breeding grounds in the spring.) I can't beleive that they're coming back south aready! The highlight wasn't a shorebird at all, surprisingly, but rather a Glossy Ibis (photo above). This species is usually found along the coast of the eastern U.S. in summer, but a few wander inland once in a while. The summer of 2006 was remarkable for this species in Utah - the first three state records were all recorded within one month, after never having been seen in the state. This species is currently expanding its range, but Utah is still far from where it is to be expected. If accepted, this will only be the fourth record of the species in the state!

Mountain Birding

2008-06-30T14:57:00.006-06:00

As my list of birds seen gets longer, it gets predictably harder to add new species to the list. However, there is one habitat type that I have not spent much time birding yet this year, and which potentially holds a dozen or so species that are probably present right now waiting for me to add them to my list. That habitat is the high mountians, and last weekend I spent a bit of time on both Saturday and Sunday birding in this habitat. On Saturday, Craig and I birded around Tony Grove. Although we missed some must-have species in the area like Three-toed Woodpecker and Purple Martin, I did pick up several new species for the year, including Clark's Nutcracker, Red-naped Sapsucker, and Williamson's Sapsucker (photo at right). On Sunday Stephanie and I returned to some hummingbird feeders in the area, trying to track down the Rufous Hummingbird that had been reported there. We didn't see the Rufous, but we did get great looks at Black-chinned Hummingbirds and Broad-tailed Hummingbirds, both of which I'd seen earlier in the year.

Owling and Nightjaring - and Another State Record!

2008-06-20T00:20:00.015-06:00

Last night I went owling up Green Canyon with Stephanie Cobbold and Craig Fosdick. We were mostly hoping to hear Common Poorwills and Flammulated Owls. These species are the last two on the Cache County checklist that are listed as "Common" but that I had not yet seen or heard this year. They would also both be lifers. We started at around 9:30 P.M. near the mouth of the canyon and were quite excited to hear a Common Poorwill from the car. After a couple more stops, we realized that this species really is common here - we heard at least one or two at every stop on our way up the canyon.

We weren't having much luck with the owls, though, so thinking that they might be at higher elevations, we decided to drive up to the loop at the end of the road and then work our way back down. On the way up we passed a car going a little too fast on its way back down. As the car pulled even with us on the narrow dirt road I realized that Ron Ryel, a friend and one of the best birders in the county, was driving. We stopped to say hi and Ron was visibly excited. He had heard a Whip-poor-will at the loop at the end of the road! This species has been reported in the state of Utah about once every ten years for the last four decades, but no record has ever been accepted by the Bird Records Committee because no one has ever recorded one or had any other proof of what they heard or saw.

We followed Ron to the loop and immediately heard the Whip-poor-will calling off to the west, loud and clear and only about 60 m away. We were able to walk about 20 m closer, and the bird then moved even closer to us, within about 20 m. Fortunately, the MP3 player I use to play owl songs also has the ability to record, so I was able to get a couple of clear recordings of this bird. (You can hear one of these recordings by pressing the play button above.) We also heard a couple of Flammulated Owls here, so we heard our two target birds plus a state record! The Whip-poor-will record has already been submitted for review by the Utah Bird Records Committee, and I expect that it will be accepted because of the recording of the song - I'll post an update here when I know.

A Relaxing Day of Birding

2008-06-16T14:17:00.005-06:00

It seems like making a birding goal sometimes takes the relaxation out of the hobby - it is even a little stressful to think about the birds that I missed or might be missing each time I go birding. But, now that I've reached 200 and I'm still far from 236, today I was able to enjoy a very relaxing day of birding. First, I did the LBCA point count again, this time with Craig Fosdick (above left) and Keith Archibald (above right). We saw a total of 47 species, including my first Hairy Woodpecker of the year. We also saw a Golden Eagle nest with a chick, a Vesper Sparrow nest with eggs, and a Grasshopper Sparrow. Grasshopper sparrows are pretty rare in the county, but probably occur in some numbers every year. I think the highlight for me was actually a mammal, though: I saw my first live Badger!

After an afternoon barbecue with Stephanie and her housemates and housemate's family, we went canoeing on the Bear River. I only picked up one new species, a Common Nighthawk, and missed American Bittern yet again, a species that should be common but is proving to be hard to find. It didn't seem to matter much, though, because the canoeing itself was so enjoyable.

200!

2008-05-30T14:39:00.008-06:00

I finally made it to 200 birds today! After taking care of some errands this morning, I took a trip out to Steel Canyon in NW Cache County, almost to Idaho. Several good birds have been seen in this area lately; several that I needed. I picked up the first must-have, a Grasshopper Sparrow, singing along the gravel road to the canyon - number 199. But then the road got too muddy to drive and I had to turn around before I reached the canyon. I was afraid I might be stuck just shy of 200 for yet another day. But on the drive out, I spotted a flycatcher near a creek I had passed on the way in. I had hoped that some flashy rare bird would fill the 200 spot, but instead it was a plain bird I had seen many times before: this flycatcher was my first Western Wood-Pewee of the year. (Photo above.) On the drive home I managed to pick up yet another new bird just for good measure: number 201, an Eastern Kingbird, shown below.

What next? Well, I'm not stopping here. I've met my goal but now I've set a new one. The record number of bird species seen in a year by any one person in Cache County is 235, held by both Keith Archibald and Ron Ryel. I'm now going to go for that record, and I think I'm off to a good start. From what I've heard from my more experienced Cache County birding friends, only one person has ever reached 200 earlier in the year than I did: Ron Ryel reached 200 by "about" May 24th a few years ago.

Inching Closer to 200

2008-05-29T15:34:00.005-06:00

Yesterday Sarah Mohlman and I did a volunteer point count for the Little Bear Conservation Alliance. The LBCA is a group of landowners in the south end of Cache County who want to manage their lands to help wildlife. These landowners need to know which species are using their lands in order to protect those species, so Bryan Dixon has organized a group of volunteers, including myself, to conduct standardized surveys for birds on their lands.

Sarah and I found a total of 43 species on our 4.75 mile transect southwest of Avon, including five new species for the year for me. The highlight was a single adult male Lark Bunting, a very rare species in the valley. We also saw at least five different Yellow-breasted Chats. One Ruffed Grouse was heard drumming. Additional firsts of the year for me included Lark Sparrow (number 197) and Olive-sided Flycatcher (198). I'll be doing this transect twice more before the end of June, so hopefully we'll be able to turn up some more rarities there. Just two more species to 200!

Catching Up

2008-05-21T20:01:00.004-06:00

Today I was trying to catch up on being out of town for the last two weeks for my research. My two biggest finds for the day were two Stilt Sandpipers (one is shown above, with a dowitcher) and three Whimbrel. These are both lifers for me, and both are very rare species for the area. My friend Keith, who has been birding in Cache Co. for over 20 years, says that he's only heard of two or three Stilt Sandpipers in that time, and Whimbrel also only about once every five years. Another highlight was a male Townsend's Warbler at Rendezvous Park. This species is generally a fall migrant in Utah and is pretty much unheard of in spring in Utah from what I have been able to find out.

I was also able to find a Bobolink that had been reported online, but I think I missed my shot at the Lewis's Woodpecker and Dunlin, at least this time around. Who knows, maybe more will show up, but it is quite possible that I won't get another chance at those two species this year. There are still several species that are around which I'm missing (see the growing "Coming Up Next" list to the right). I think if I work at it, there is a chance I'll be able to hit 200 by the end of the weekend. If nothing else, I'd really like to get to 200 before I leave for more fieldwork.

An Unbelievable Evening

2008-05-06T14:11:00.006-06:00

Last night I did some birding around the valley to try to catch up on the recent migrants I had missed while I was in Arizona. In addition to finding a bunch of new migrants, like Common Grackle, Warbling Vireo, Plumbeous Vireo, and Western Tanager, I found a very rare bird, a Northern Waterthrush. This is a species of warbler that forages along the edge of stagnant water. It is also one I had never seen before. According to one experienced local birder this species is only seen in the county about once every three to five years. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me, so I went back home to get the camera and picked up Craig Fosdick along the way. When we got back to the park where I had found the waterthrush, we couldn't find the bird. But, we found something much better. A Mississippi Kite flew over us twice! This is a really big deal - although there are some breeding areas in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, and a few sporadic records in Wyoming and Nevada, this species has never before been recorded in the state of Utah! I really wish I had gotten a photo of this bird, but Craig and I both saw it well enough to be sure of what we saw: a light gray bird about the size of a Peregrine Falcon and flying kind of like it, with strong wingbeats and fast direct flight; a long, black, square-tipped tail, and distinct white flashes in the dorsal side of the wings. To see a Northern Waterthrush in the county is hard enough to believe - they are only seen here once every 5 years or so. But to see a Northern Waterthrush in Cache County AND a new state record in a matter of hours is bordering on unbelievable. My next task will be to convince the Utah Bird Records Committee that we saw what we saw for the record to be accepted. A big help will be to get a photo of the bird; I plan to try to find this bird again tonight, and to get that photo, but it may have already migrated on.

Birding Vacation

2008-05-06T13:22:00.005-06:00

Last weekend I took a break from birding in Cache County to do a little birding in Cochise County, Arizona. I was there to help my friends Sarah and Glenda with their field work on rodents, but managed to sneak in some great birding during the breaks. I saw many Arizona specialties and had a total of about nine lifers. Black-throated sparrows and Chihuahan Ravens were common in the valley. I also saw Canyon Towhees and my first Crissal Thrasher there, among others. The most exciting birds for me were up Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains. Mexican Jays were common (photo above). My first lifer up the canyon was a Yellow-eyed Junco, a species I'd been hoping to see for a while. We also saw several Painted Redstarts and Bridled Titmice at our first stop, along with several species that also occur in Utah like Wilson's Warblers, Western Tanagers, Black-headed Grosbeaks, and Dark-eyed Juncos.

At the Southwest Research Station I saw my first Zone-tailed Hawk (photo below), a beauty that tricked Sarah into thinking it was just a Turkey Vulture, which were much more common there. Supposedly this species mimics Turkey Vultures to surprise its prey. While standing in the same spot I saw my lifer Cassin's Kingbird. At the hummingbird feeders here were at least four species. I saw my lifer Hepatic Tanager at the research station, which was exciting enough, but I topped that by finding my second Hepatic Tanager in the same dead tree as my lifer Lewis's Woodpecker within an hour! Lewis's Woodpecker had been a nemesis bird for me - it seems ironic to find it in Arizona at the extreme edge of its winter range when I've spent so much time in core breeding habitat without finding it.

The next day we were able to return up the valley again and I picked up a couple more lifers, including a Grace's Warbler and a Dusky-capped Flycatcher. There were Elegant Trogons around, but we weren't able to find any. After finding so many great birds, I don't mind leaving something to search for next time. . . .

Secret Birding

2008-04-29T21:35:00.006-06:00

My birding is sounding more and more like spy work. Last post, I talked about a stakeout for a feeder bird. Today, I went on a secret birding trip. My friend Craig had found a Long-eared Owl, a species for which I'd been searching for years. The catch was that it was sitting on a nest in a relatively accessible place. He was afraid that if word got out about this hard-to-find species, the attention drawn to the nest could disturb the parents enough that the nest would fail, and I think he's justified in that fear so I do not plan to post where the nest is. But luckily for me and Stephanie, Craig trusted us enough to take us to see the bird today. We slowly approached the area and stopped as soon as we spotted the nest, still quite a distance away. But there it was, probably incubating eggs, my lifer Long-eared Owl! Below is the best photo I could get from so far away. While we were looking for and then watching the owl, we also saw a Wild Turkey and several songbird species, but not the Fox Sparrows Craig had seen here before, a species I'm still missing but which should be pretty easy to find soon.

Feeder Stakeout

2008-04-25T17:13:00.006-06:00

The feeder stakeout is probably familiar to all serious listers. (No, I'm not a serious lister.) Most of the birds birdwatchers see are probably at birdfeeders, so occassionally a rare bird will show up at a feeder and word spreads quickly. It is then the job of the lister to pretend they're a private investigator. He or she contacts the homeowner, then waits by the feeder for minutes, hours, or even days hoping that the target bird will eventually show up.

I did my first feeder stakeout yesterday, at the home of Alice Lindahl. She reported a Harris's Sparrow coming to her feeder, a bird that normally sticks to the central part of the country and is very rare in Utah. (An interesting aside: this is the only species in the world whose entire breeding range is in Canada.) So, yesterday after handing in my research proposal and giving a presentation to the dean of the college, I celebrated by sitting in Alice's living room window and watching her feeders. Thank god I caught her just as she was leaving and she was gracious enough to let me in. The weather outside was horrendous, with sleet, snow, freezing rain, and hard winds.

After about 20 or 30 minutes of practicing my Junco subspecies identification, the scruffy-looking star of the show finally arrived! (Photo above, bird at center.) Not bad for my first feeder stakeout, and a very tough-to-get bird in Cache County.