Secret Birding

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

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.

Peeps Arrive

I stopped by Sue's Ponds (just west of the Logan Landfill) this afternoon to see if the nasty weather might knock down some migrants, and I wasn't disappointed. The highlights were the peeps, which have finally arrived just a bit behind schedule. Today I added four species to my year list: six Western Sandpipers, one Least Sandpiper, one Semipalmated Sandpiper (a lifer!), and one Sanderling. All four of these were new for the year. By the time Craig showed up about an hour after I got there, the Sanderling was gone, but the others hung around the whole time we were there. Other good birds included no less than twenty-two Bonaparte's Gulls, one Caspian Tern, and three Wilson's Phalaropes. There were also at least three and maybe five species of swallows flying around, but the only ones I got really good looks at were the species I've already seen - Tree Swallows and Barn Swallows. I'm pretty sure there were also Cliff and Bank Swallows there, and a Northern Rough-winged swallow was there a few days ago, but I was too focussed on the peeps to pay much attention to the swallows, which will all be common very soon.

Yesterday I went snowshoeing at Beaver Mountain. Some friends had thought they saw a flock of Pine Grosbeaks up there a couple of weeks ago, so we were hoping to relocate them. Unfortunately, we didn't see anything too remarkable. Perhaps all the snowmobilers had chased off the good birds. The biggest surprise was a flock of California Gulls flying over, far from any open water or trash, and probably headed to Bear Lake. We did see three subspecies of Dark-eyed Junco (mostly Pink-sided with at least one Slate-colored and one Oregon), including one partial leucistic bird with white patches throughout its plumage. There were also one Ruby-crowned Kinglet flashing its crest and many Red-breasted Nuthatches (photo above) singing to each other.

Logan Sewage Lagoons

Today I celebrated the end of my written comprehensive exams and took a break from studying for my oral comprehensive exam by joining the Bridgerland Audubon Society on a trip to the Logan Sewage Lagoons and a few other nearby hotspots. We saw a total of 58 species as a group, including several firsts of the year for me such as Willet, Caspian Tern, Marsh Wren, Black-crowned Night-Heron, and Tree Swallow. Ron Ryel alerted us to a Great-tailed Grackle nearby, a very rare bird this far north and one I had been waiting for to remove an annoying sp. from my list. Ron outdid himself by calling us again only a few minutes later to tell us about a male Eurasian Wigeon a bit further down the road, an even rarer bird here (photo above, at bottom left).

After the field trip dissolved around noon, Craig Fosdick, Keith Archibald, and I continued on to the Benson Marina, where we added Osprey and Common Loon to the list for the day. We also found a breeding-plumage Horned Grebe. This is normally a rare bird here, but this was our third of the week! Coincidentally, the same was true of a Hooded Merganser seen at the sewage lagoons - three individuals of a rare species in a very short time. On the way back from Benson, we saw our first Swainson's Hawk of the year fly over, and later a second Osprey.

Does it Count?

You might not know this, but not every bird I see in Cache County will count towards my list. If I manage to find the two Mandarin Ducks that have been seen around Logan, they won't count. In the last few months, I've seen a Red-crested Pochard; an Indian Peafowl, a Mute Swan; and several Swan Geese, Greylag Geese, and Domestic Chickens, but none of these are included in the list at right. Why not? Well, believe it or not, there are rules about these things. According to the American Birding Association, the standard for competitive listers in the US, a species cannot be listed in a competition unless the bird is "alive, wild, and unrestrained." The rules go into great detail to specify, basically, that the bird must either be a native species, a natural vagrant, or an established introduced species; and the rules for "establishment" are pretty strict. So, while all those birds may be interesting to find and to watch, they are not known to be established in the area. Even if they are free-living, they depend on human handouts for survival or have not been able to successfully breed long enough to be considered established, so they don't count.

The species above, California Quail, is a bit trickier. Their natural range comes close to here, but not quite to Utah. It is plausible that a lost bird could end up here, but unlikely. However, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has been planting them along the Wasatch Front to try to provide opportunities for hunters (don't get me started on the idea of introducing non-native species for sport . . . ). Populations along the Wasatch Front have been established and self-supporting for some time now, even if they are non-native. A sighting in that area would probably "count." But as far as I have heard, DWR has not been able to get the quail to establish in Cache County, despite repeated attempts. After no reports of California Quail from the county all winter, suddenly this week at least 40 showed up in Benson by the river. Where did they come from? Can they be counted? My guess is that they were shipped here by DWR, although I don't know that for sure. Either way, I'm not considering them countable for now. But they were still fun to see.

Winter Birds in Spring

Today I celebrated Easter with a great day of birding around Cache Valley. I was joined by Keith Archibald, John Barnes, Bryan Dixon, Craig Faulhaber, Craig Fosdick, Jean Lown, and Ron Ryel each for part or all of the day. Highlights included a pair of Hooded Mergansers at the Logan Fish Hatchery, a continuing Greater White-fronted Goose off of Sam Fellow Road, a pair of Trumpeter Swans near the Amalga Barrens, and a Common Redpoll at a feeder at a private residence in Richmond. Hooded Merganser was number four on my most-wanted list, and is a great bird to find. I was starting to think I was too late in the year to find one, since they are listed as rare in winter and absent in other seasons. I had definitely given up on Common Redpoll, having missed what was then the only one of the year a few weeks ago. This is another winter bird that must be on its way north just as the summering birds move back in. The migration was clearly evident today: other firsts of the year included American Avocet, Franklin's Gull, Savannah Sparrow, Double-crested Cormorant, Clark's Grebe, Ruddy Duck, Yellow-headed Blackbird, and Black-necked Stilt.

The photo above is a great comparison of the two swan species, with a Tundra Swan on the left and a Trumpeter Swan on the right. The pair of Trumpeters was a nice treat after scanning through hundreds of Tundras in the area. The photo below shows the Common Redpoll at a feeder with two American Goldfinches.

Did You Know?

Did you know that you can leave comments on here by logging in with your Gmail account? Blogger is owned by Google, and their accounts are interchangeable. I love to see comments on these posts because it tells me that someone is interested in what I'm writing about.

Halfway to 200!

This has been a great weekend for yard birds for me. First, there was a Ring-necked Pheasant in the yard yesterday. This bird set a new personal best in yard lists for me, surpassing my old record from Olympia of 41 species with the pheasant being number 42. Then this morning, Stephanie and I saw a Brown Creeper in the yard, a bird that is generally considered to be common but hard to find. Finally, this afternoon I added yard bird number 44, and at the same time my 100th species of the year, a flock of at least four Lesser Goldfinches! That's a male reaching out to defend its spot on the feeder from a Pine Siskin in the photo above. The other two birds on the feeder are also Lesser Goldfinches. This species is considered "occassional" in Cache County, meaning that is seen periodically but not even once a year. What a great way to reach the halfway mark! (If this is listed as 98 in my species list, how can I be halfway to 200? Because I still have two spuhs that are not yet included in the list: see the post from January 29.)

Fun with Geese

Today Stephanie and I were having lunch on our way out to do some birding when I got a phone call. The caller ID said "Craig Fosdick," and I knew that what it meant was "Good Birds Have Been Found." Sure enough, Craig and Keith Archibald were scanning a flock of about a thousand Canada Geese and had also found Snow Geese, Tundra Swans, and a Ross's Goose in the mix! By the time we got there, the geese had moved a bit further from the road, but in the next hour or so we were also able to find three Cackling Geese and a Greater White-fronted Goose in the flock. Cackling Geese are a smaller version of the familiar Canada Goose, and were recognized as a distinct species in 2004. You can see one with Canada Geese in the photo above - can you find it? Perhaps it is only because they are a recent species which didn't have much attention paid to it when it was just a subspecies, but the new species is considered rare in Utah and is being tracked by the Utah Rare Birds Committee, who will be interested in a report about this sighting. White-fronted Geese are not considered as rare state-wide, but are apparently more rare in Cache Valley - Bob Atwood told me that he hadn't seen one in Cache Valley since the mid-1990s. It seems that the spring migration is finally underway, and my list is again picking up momentum, with four new species today!