Trans: Latin prefix implying "across" or "Beyond", often used in gender nonconforming situations – Scend: Archaic word describing a strong "surge" or "wave", originating with 15th century english sailors – Survival: 15th century english compound word describing an existence only worth transcending.

Category: Birding (Page 2 of 3)

Birding Beyond Binos: Find eBird Data for Fun!

eBird is an indispensable tool for the modern, savvy birder.  It even rolls with my lingo on the home page:

Birding in the 21st Century!  What’s not to like?

There are a number of key parts to the ebird experience as a viewer, only a few of which I will cover on this page.

The two most essential parts of ebird include the ability to learn about and enjoy birds when we can’t get out into the field, and know where to go/what to expect when we can.

The first objective is fulfilled with the “Species Maps” button under the “Explore Data” tab.
This tool allows us to find and track birds and their friends (such as “migrant warblers”) around the world.   This is a great way to get a handle on migrations, local owls (owls are great!) and other species that can otherwise “fly under your radar”.

 

Here, with the species tab open, I tell eBird I want to know the whereabouts of the blackburnian warblers.  

 

 

Instead of showing me all the individual sightings ever, I specify this month range (Aug-Nov) and the last ten years option.

It turns out they are all over the place right now, having migrated up the eastern seaboard.    So…

…Using the next date range (you can be more specific than I) we can see where they migrate on the south-end of things.

 

Below:

Wow!!  they are all pretty much in South America, as our frosty winter has set in here in the north.  

As you may well imagine, this is an amazing tool to discover patterns and predict when birds may arrive and depart, letting us effectively, “bird from home”.

Not a problem!

 

 

The second objective is equally simple with eBird: what can we expect from a location, bird wise?

 

Using the “Explore Hotspots” tab now, I can search for my local county.  YMMV on what criteria you will need, be it city, county, etc. 

All these little upside-down pears show up.  Similar to the first foray, we can specify dates from the dropdown tab- but really, just use the right hand button and specify “Past Week” or “Past Month” (as I have done here).   Now, the color code represents recent activity!   plan your trip and pack your bags!

I hope this is helpful breaking the ice into the world of eBird- it really fires up your birding lifestyle and ability!

-Jess

Gallery of “Warblers in the Hand”

 

Birding Beyond Binos: 5 Bird apps vs. “the Guide”.

We all have a favorite bird, animal or plant guide.  Peterson is the best at drawing; Sibley takes the best pictures.  Kauffman ties it all together; National Geographic makes a solid reference and Audubon is great for fast looks.

While these books will always have a place on the shelf or table, the depth of content and portability of smartphone apps and trustworthy (e.g. reaserch related or associated with a big bird organization you recognize) websites truly foster the next level of ecological acuity.

[I will cover apps for iPhones and iPads- these are tools I have available and find to be indispensable.]  Like the shelf of guides they can replace out in the field, there is always room for another guide- and, generally speaking, cost significantly less than the least expensive print guide on your shelf.

  1. iBird PRO –

This app does it all: view photos, range maps, sounds, and similar birds, and search by band code, Latin/common name.  The sound recordings are pretty good and can be looped individually or as a species playlist (good for playback in research situations).  Similar bird songs are playable at the bottom of each species- great for learning and verifying nuances between similar songs.  The illustrations are “ok”- better than what I could do (obviously) but nothing quite like Peterson or Kauffman.  There are two more (add-on) engines in this app I have not used:  the local birds function by GPS (BAM) and a “humanized” search tool to pinpoint the bird you are looking for (Percevia).

  1. Audubon Birds

Audubon Birds has come a long way, and generally will offer more of a comprehensive written overview on each bird- going into feeding, behavior, breeding, and habitat discussions.  They seem to have added eBird integration (far, far superior to their “nature share” tool) which allows for both a mobile search into the unfathomably large user-based data set for local birds and a way to add your own data to eBird (though traditionally, the best way to do that is from a computer).

  1. Audubon Owls

This app is only a small vignette on owls; there seems to be more info geared solely about owls here than in Audubon Birds- photos, videos, tips, and tricks

  1. Merlin Bird ID

Despite the hardcore Bird Photo ID algorithms and location-based searches, this is geared toward those who may be starting out, and want to up the ante.  You fill in a few parameters about a bird sighting (this will not help with bird sounds), then it will generate a list of probable birds.  Supposedly, if you get a good photo of the bird on your phone (Digi scoping/Wi-Fi upload?) It can id the bird visually.

  1. eBird

If you are truly doing an eBird list for your trip, try this app for basic, quick additions- but I would not rely on it for media uploads or anything too crazy.  You can upload your checklist from the field then edit it later, though it is unclear if that is really a good idea in the scheme of data collection.

This is a list of the Bird apps I use on my phone, most getting use many times a week or even every day (iBird Pro).

-Jess

Rugby Morning #3.6

…During #3 I got demolished by biting insects- “.6” times later I had purchased and applied a significant DEET and re-entered the fray!

-Jess

Rugby Morning #2

Guess where I went this morning?

Breaking in the new spot.  Additionally, I saw Magnolia, Yellow, and Common Yellowthroat warblers, and heard Black Throated Blue and Green warblers.  Veery, Hermit, and  Ovenbird thrushes were around, in addition to catbirds.

-Jess

Some Environmental Rugby-Bird Portraits

I scoped out the local “rugby” field this morning.  A retired birder-couple told me “188 Species” of birds have been spotted in the last decade (by them) in this mixed-habitat space.  Here’s a start…

-Jess

 

Common Yellow Throat

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Hermit Thrush

Catbird

Hunting for Trees = BIRDS

Today, I went lurking about Langdon Woods in search of as many trees as possible.  I took over 300 photos of bark, leaves, and twigs, aiming to highlight the growth patterns and key ID features of the trees on the PSU natural history final exam.   This went well, and I will be posting these Tree-I-Dee’s as soon as I get through the pictures.

The following photos are the result of chance and some enthusiastic "pishing" I did to draw in the birds, so I would not need to get to off course.

  1.  Redstart Warbler.  This is a breeding male in full attire.   The Redstart song is often heard through these New Hampshire forests these days.  This fellow responded very well to “pish” sounds, and danced over to me to see what the fuss was about.

  1. Black-and-White Warbler.  These Warblers have a weezy, squeaky sound almost identical to a rusty wheel. They act like Nuthatches but "dance" up and down the tree more enthusiastically, which is often a good way to tell which is which.

  1.  Hermit Thrush.  These amber-toned thrushes have a beautiful song, but the only thrush singing today was the large Ovenbird population.   More characteristic to the forests on the sides of white mountains, they will all sing together about an half an hour before sunrise.  The proper thrushes (not including robin) of NH seem to follow an altitude metric:  Wood lives at the bottom, Hermit lives in the low hills, Swainson sings in the mossy forest below the krumholz, and Bicknell rules them all, only breeding above four thousand feet.  !!!

-Jess

Fox Park #16 and #17: 4/16/17,Big Toad.

I was in and out of Fox park today as well as yesterday, so I will not put a time.  The sun was hot (77F), the skies were clear, and the birds were singing.  Loudly.  I did a sit spot yesterday, which kind of rolled into today- there was not a peep yesterday.  I do not have the foggiest idea why; regardless, it was soggy and drizzly, and  I did not make any great achievements worth writing home about.  I did, however, find this extremely large and incredibly dead American Toad.  Observe it in all its massiveness.  This fellow was around 6 (6!) inches long.  Key things to note about a toad:

  • the bizarre patterns with no discernible regularity.  This one has leopard print pants and a camo shirt.  This seems to have to do with where it lives; forest floors where yummy worms and grubs reside are where these toads make their homes.
  • The poisons in the bumps behind the eyes are “not weak”.  Toads have toxic glands, excreting “bufotoxins” (bufo really just means toad) which are a sort of steroid chemically mangled with strange and hard-to-synthesise-in-the-lab compounds.  The toxins in this American (and “eastern”) toad are “weak” because they should only kill your small dog if eaten.  🙂   The even larger South American cousin however (Cane toad) can not only grow to have a 9 inch long body, but simply licking it will kill most humans.  As a result, they are not commonly eaten in the wild, so toads are generally not endangered.

Bird Observations Today- Langdon Woods

This is in lieu of a wonderful 2 hour walk around PSU property during my natural history class.

Firstly- open the below link to see the 25 species we encountered today:

http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S35873502

I want to also point out how spectacular and special the 3+ courting yellow bellied sapsuckers were.  These birds are relatively rare to find- here are the first things off the top of my head you all should know:

  • They do not suck sap.  They eat bugs like all the other woodpeckers…
  • They are farmers.  These are the only birds to my knowledge who literally farm for a living….  They peck a matrix of holes in trees with sap- often perfect rows and columns- into which bugs fall and get trapped. Then, at their leisure, the sapsucker will visit its “sticky bug fields” and gobble the bugs up.  This not only makes their life of pecking and eating super laid back, it allows them to have personal property.  🙂
  • They were pests not long ago.  Because of the whole farm-the-tree thing, human farmers of high octane fruit trees and other trees pushing a large amount of sap would generally shoot the sapsuckers ASAP to avoid the sapsucker killing the tree.  As scary as that is, the humans are correct- the sapsucker will win,  One sapsucker doing some farming can spring a significant number of leaks in young trees, allowing bugs and parasites in, killing the unassuming orchard.
  • They not endangered.   These birds are rare because, as any farmer will tell you, they have lots of work to do around the active bug-sap-hole farms.  They each have their own space, and respect each other’s trees and areas.  This makes the concentration low, but the overall population number still healthy.
  • They are a wild card for at risk forests.   Sapsuckers don’t mean any harm, but fragile ecosystems with just a few sap filled trees can get a makeover after a few sapsuckers move in.   Sometimes, this is fabulous: old trees die, allowing other animals and organisms to move in, including other species of woodpecker.  New plants will grow, and the space will move on and evolve.  On the other hand, as our orchard friends know, a tree bleeding sap is undoubtedly going to have a problem sooner or later.  Woodpeckers are fine with that, but other species are not…

 

…So those who saw the sapsuckers today, consider yourself lucky; that was spectacular!

-Jess

Beaver Dam @ Quincy Bog #1: 3/30/17, The World Has Gone Mad

The first year PSU natural history class wandered into the middle of Quincy Bog onto the local beaver lodge at about 10am today, 3/30/17.

We had came to this spot originally to float about the area and gather fun and mildly interesting questions and about the “real” natural world (as opposed to the classroom).  We found lichen to be a mutualistic symbiosis between algae and fungus; the bog is full of “leather leaf”, but is not acidic enough to be completely full of this plant, as real bogs around here are; we also saw a few crows mobbing a raven.

And:  A peregrine falcon…

…And (what to my knowledge is) a short eared owl.

There have been between three and five short eared  owls in the main portion of New hampshire in the last decade (besides at the seashore near the northeast tip of Massachusetts).  According to the eBird, we can see in 2013 and 2014 there were around two or three short eared owls migrating up to their summer home in far north Canada.   After reviewing a few migration routes from around the web, I can say there is a good chance a few short eared owls will be coming from the “middle of the east half of the west”- likely farms and fields emanating from Tennessee- at this time of year.  Obviously, this owl is vastly more important than anything else I could have done today, so it will occupy the remainder of this spot review.

Taken from: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Short-eared_Owl/id

Screenshot from a google image search. Not my image. Note the black slashes parallel to the body on the median and greater coverts, and a dark head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Firstly; things pushing against the evidence I do have for this owl.   The owl like to float around 10 feet over the grasses in fields to snatch mice and voles.  This owl was about 700 feet up in the air.  Additionally, it is likely there were two of these birds seen up there soon after we arrived.  After that initial glimpse however, there was just one.

Reasons this is a short eared owl:

  • We were standing in a prime hunting spot for a migrating short eared owl-an iced over bog should be riddled with yummy critters.  A group of 20 people milling about the middle of this bog could be a good reason to do some gliding at some distance, waiting for the people to leave and the mammals to emerge again.
  • The bird was a light grey color, with distinct black wing tips.   That is the first mark we saw.  A fat “buteo”-like (think a soaring red-tailed hawk) tail, creating almost a complete semicircle, was really built into the bird’s body.  This is totally different than a flared harrier tail, which is long.

    REALLY LONG TAIL- Harrier. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Harrier/id

Look at the fat but short tail.       https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwjPtb-Qn__SAhWB7YMKHa00AnMQjhwIBQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthrumyeye.deviantart.com%2Fart%2FShort-Eared-Owl-in-Flight-317860358&bvm=bv.151325232,d.amc&psig=AFQjCNEO_XfgvoVIrwFXZPwIcwVJCdFp_A&ust=1490998137246086

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additionally-the real kicker in my opinion- are the black slashes on the medial and greater coverts on the short eared owl.   The two photos I have included here are enough to show these unique field marks.  I have never seen a bird with that pattern; just a flat matte white with two black marks parallel to the body, and black wing tips.  Many birds of prey have black wingtips or interesting patterns/markers under the wing.  In fact, this is an outstanding way to learn big birds who usually fly overhead/don’t usually hang around on a perch.

In summary: unless we find another bird with this wing shape and color pattern, this is a short eared owl.

 …(And it may have a migration buddy!)

-Jess

Wolf Pine @ Fox Park #8: 3/16/17, Someone Bumped The Snow Machine

I decided to snowshoe into Fox Park at about 6:30am Thursday, 3/16/17.

Firstly, the forest sounded like it is in shock; dead quiet.  No crows or bluejays, only the odd cardinal or chickadee singing a questioning song to advertize its previous idea about making babies.  The snow is at least a foot deep, all powder, deadening sound as well as the attitudes the local animals were gearing up for the so-close-but-so-far spring.  I found no tracks- none, zero.  The mammals are sure to be down below the snow again, grudgingly re-entering the “subnivean” lifestyle.

My owl friend was not home either; as we know from the GHO talk from a previous post, the vertical depth challenge snow presents doesn’t deter the GHO from hunting, but plenty of other factors can cause an owl to take a vacation in a different tree.  Obviously, the clues I have been using with this “Strix” or “Bubo” buddy are way more annoying for the owl itself.  Imagine being mobbed by “idiot bird brains” day in and day out, especially when they tell their cronies where your house is…  Yes, sometimes it is time to take a break.

The snow was definitely the “highlight” of this morning’s sit spot, even as a snowshoed out of the park at 7:45….  For how long though?  When will the spanish-speaking warbler team from Panama touch down?

?

Sit spot #N.1: The GHO Talk

Great horned owls.   Except for the only exception feasible- Which is of course the Great Grey Owl who has decided to move to southern NH from its previous home in frigid Canada– the GHO is the ultimate, TOTL, high-ender of the hunters in New England at the very least.   There is a reason all the other members of the animal kingdom hate these “Bubo” eagle-owls as much as they do.   GHO’s have every trick in the book, every bell, whistle, and gadget, making the whole evolution game seem wholly unfair to, say, an unassuming chipmunk.  I wanted to give a quick rundown of the key toys and tools the GHO has at its immediate disposal, why I care, and why everyone else should care.

By shudrburg – http://www.flickr.com/photos/shudrbug/1502256414/in/set-72157594307880833/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2882446


1. 
The “ears”

GHO’s ears are essentially their entire head.  The poky things are literally there to throw folks off, though the idea was originally to emulate some bark or a pair of pine cones, some think…  Though horns, ears, or party hats are probably ok too.  As I say above, one could say with a fair amount of accuracy the entire head is a single, huge ear; Those pretty concentric eye rings?  Chamfers and fillets on the face?   these are funneling, extracting every scuffle and heartbeat falling in the laser-like path of the big, round, swivel-face.  Remember: these owls are seeing with their ears.  The GHO is always sleepy during the day, even while other owls might be a bit active- ruling out light as a reliable system for vision.

Below I snipped a good description of the GHO system.  The asymmetrical face construction of a GHO also is used for “vertical” hearing- check this out:

“An Owl uses these unique, sensitive ears to locate prey by listening for prey movements through ground cover such as leaves, foliage, or even snow. When a noise is heard, the Owl is able to tell its direction because of the minute time difference in which the sound is perceived in the left and right ear – for example, if the sound was to the left of the Owl, the left ear would hear it before the right ear. The Owl then turns it’s head so the sound arrives at both ears simultaneously – then it knows the prey is right in front of it. Owls can detect a left/right time difference of about 0.00003 seconds (30 millionths of a second!)”   (taken from: http://www.owlpages.com/owls/articles.php?a=6)

Obviously, anything can hear something more in the left ear and less in the right ear and know roughly where it is.  However, “roughly” isn’t in the GHO vocabulary.  Other studies have shown how owls crunch sounds at .00003 seconds; accuracy comes at the price of wildly complex brain structures that are solely used to draw auditory conclusions.   Think; each ear has a set of pre-decision-making brain structures, analysing in parallel  both the intensity of incoming sounds and the passage of time- synced perfectly to the other ear’s set and the brain as a whole.  Look at it this way;  the GHO sensing system, with its multiple super-computing cores is physically 3 times the size of the one found in our usual “smartest local birds”- the crows and ravens.  No wonder the owls are always being bothered by crows- they must be so jealous!  (and GHOs are a unrivaled predator to crows if the tides turn nasty)

2. The wings

Firstly, our local owls are dialing in around 10lbs of lift capacity.  This makes even fat wild bunnies a piece of cake, no pun intended.  Supposedly, these wings are rather disproportional to the usual bird weight/wing lift ratio, though I wouldn’t know.  Just assume the owl can lift around 2.5 times its body weight, at least as far as a nearby pine tree to start snacking.

More importantly however, these evidently powerful wings are dead silent.  The legend goes the mouse has no idea about its rapidly nearing demise until it feels the claws come in from above.  I personally believe this to be 100% accurate- every possible flight detail has been subject to evolutionary innovation, from the crinkled, broken shape of the beefy coverts and wrist to the micro-turbulent primary and secondary feather structures, all the way to those huge, fuzz-covered legs and feet.  These oversized fluffy feet, by the way, have a clamping force beginning to enter young snapping turtle territory…  …You have been warned.

The micro-turbulences generated by the wings has sparked much intrigue over the years.  Each feather exhibits a subtle, diffusive, “spiky” shape- the idea being the “ripping” and whooshing of air you hear from most birds when they take off can be removed by softening the hard edges of the feathers and wing such that the overall acceleration and lift isn’t hindered.  This acoustic principle is really the opposite of how their faces work, diffusing sound instead of funneling it in.  An intersting addendum in this GHO technology is how the coverts- the thick, leading edge of the wing- are formed.  Many other predatory birds, like the local supercar of aviation, the peregrine falcon, bank on really sharp, hard curves and edges in the coverts to squeeze as much speed and maneuverability into these big important body parts.  But not the GHO!  Without sacrificing effective speed or agility, the coverts are sort of rounded and “broken up” into smaller edges and curves, directing the air and subsequently sound into a more diffuse pattern.  Case to point:  the mouse example.  The general consensus on these coverts is these nubs are exactly the tool needed for the final swoop in to snatch the ground-dwelling prey.  Even at a steep, speedy angle, the GHO can silently hurdle to the ground without spooking anyone.  Amazing!

3. Other gizmos and gadgets:

The color and shape is its favorite spot to sleep.  The local white pine trees, especially the trunk, are prime real estate for sleepy GHOs after a night munching- so, the owl naturally looks like a white pine tree trunk (complete with two pine cones on the top).  Despite these owls being huge, they are rather common (in theory).  The chances of finding one with human vision is essentially impossible, so we must rely on other clues on its whereabouts.

The digestion system is the best among owls.   When the forest has been robbed of mice and chipmunks, GHOs can- and might even enjoy- eating frogs, big insects, reptiles, domestic pets…  The trick is they simply eat the whole animal.  There is no kerfuffling with fur here or teeth there; GHOs just go for it, 100% in.  This may contribute to the widespread success in the north east, with our crazy weather and prohibitive geological extremes other species struggle with.

In conclusion:

I hope this has been both educational and convincing enough to be enthused about owling.  Something this special and this relavent in the northeast is too important to ignore.

-Jess

Wolf Pine @ Fox Park #7: 3/12/17, Surprise! It’s Cold

Arrived at Fox Park at about 1:30 today, 3/12/17, under a deceiving blue sky and some light scattered clouds.  A prohibitive 10 degrees and ~0 degrees with wind chill (at most) set the tone of my walk, though it did make walking a bit easier in general- the snow, mud, and debris had been frozen solid, so I could comfortably walk my sit spot loop in sneakers and and number of pairs of socks.  I spent the first 20 or so minutes wandering the base of Fox Park, going around from the usual parking lot, to the lower-level parking lot, around the artificial, square-shaped wet area, and up around the immediate road.  I didn’t find any owl-related clues, but I did find some other points of interest:  a few turkey vultures and a few red wing black birds.  I think it is apt to be a bit concerned (mostly for the red wing black birds) because they clearly thought it was spring time, but it actually is not.  Ground foraging, insect eating birds who rely on marshy habitats do not seem suited for today’s balmy 10 degrees.

Moving into my sit spot, I heard a brown creeper singing and a muffled “beep!” from a hairy woodpecker.  At least they seem happy.

The local “hooligan crows” and their cronies (blue jays) were zipping around in little gangs occasionally.   There was very little localization, so I think they were just rabble rousing and partaking in tomfoolery.

I did not take photos today, despite hauling my equipment around.  It seems like much of what I saw two days ago is solidly frozen in place from the time being.

Wolf Pine @ Fox Park #6: 3/10/17, Theoretical Owls and Real Tree Bark

I hit the trails at 5 am sharp Friday 3/10/17.  Nice morning, some cloud cover but a reasonable temperature for prospective chipmunks  for jaunt out of the subnivean environment.

This is where I started- within the vicinity of my theoretical big owl.  The big murder of crows was there; that is a good start.  Being around dawn-ish time however, the raucous birds dispersed within half an hour, perhaps implying my nocturnal friend either fell asleep in a huff or flew away for a less noisy and more welcoming environment (if there even is an environment that welcomes oversized, silent, essentially unrivalled killing machines…?).

I now can see a distinct, GHO-likely trend.  The crows are noisy at the time I know owls like to come back to a nice spot to go to bed, thus a time they are most easily bothered;  the crow activity is extremely centralized around this stand of large, sheltering pine trees- the crows all seem to circle the trunks of the pines that are growing most close together.  GHO’s love pine tree trunks, and rarely will nap far from the center.  I have noted the crows are never “bothering” a deciduous tree, where barred owls could be more likely found (than GHO).  I heard a few possible “whoos”the first day owling in response to screech owl calls, which is common with the GHOs.  I played barred too around then, so I wasn’t sure (the sounds I heard were very muted and did not complete any full call, but were unique owl-ish sounds nonetheless).

Here we have two common sights: red, “spear-like” Beech buds and the lingering brittle beech leaves.  These are everywhere on my way into my sit spot.

Here we have some white pines.  These are the only species of pine I could find around my sit spot…

 

Paper Birches?  -Yes, but they are too easy.  Here we have a grey birch (the grey colored one) and a yellow birch (the yellow-tinted one)- both of which are sort of near my wolf pine tree.

 

Hemlocks!  Look at the “crunchy” bark.   These are everywhere…

Red oaks.  Look at the deep cracks exhibiting an almost reddish color…..

…And some red oak leaves.  Pointy, “fire-flame tipped” leaves.  They are also reddish, which helps a bit.

 

What could these be?  White oaks!  These have this random pattern to the nubby bark, and have a “whitish green” lichen or fungus on it more often than not.  The tree to the right is the best non-greenish bark I could find.

 

The obligatory white oak leaf, in with some beech leaves.  these do not seem to be nearly as prevalent as the red oak leaves in terms of what is currently still on the ground.  This is the only leaf I could find.

To conclude, here we have a striped maple and a red maple.  I assure you:  both maples are well into adulthood!  Despite one being green and thin and the other looking old and broken, this is in fact “how they do”.  Distinct barks, but also easy with the “opposite” branching pattern (not shown).   In addition, the red maples are not only opposite branches but branch in a neon crimson color.  This helps I.D. quite a bit.

-Jess

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2024 Trans Scend Survival

α wιρ Σ ♥ by Jess SullivanUp ↑