rare birds
My next Birding Adventure is….”Birding Adventures TV”
By the time you read this, I’ll be either 1) rubbing my eyes at 4 am for a morning of filming in the Tandayapa Valley of Ecuador. 2) falling onto my knees with awe at a the sight of yet another radiant tanager 3) sedating myself with pico sours in order to quell this thing [...]
SE Texas: Aplomado Falcons and More (long version)
An abbreviated version of this article was first published on the Audubon Guides blog, but some innocent snaffus have prevented the article from being published in its entirety. Until that gets ironed out after or during the holidays, I am publishing the full version with more photos here – LMK Just a few weeks ago, [...]
Confessions of a Reluctant Gull Chaser
In a stuffy boardroom on a remote Alaskan atoll, a dozen elite birders sit behind a wall full of monitors, each broadcasting the birding behavior of lesser known birders such as me. These experts sit, their pens poised over the Good Birder Surveys, ready to tick off “Yes” or “No” on the “Will attempt gulling” line on my sheet.
Ruddy Ground-dove in the Rio Grande Valley
Nothing heightens the excitement of a birding festival than a rare bird being found in the beginning days. Here at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival, a Ruddy Ground-Dove was spotted on Day 1. The Ruddy Ground-dove is a “very rare visitor (almost 20 records overall) along the entire length of the [Rio Grande] river [...]
Eurasian Wigeon at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge
A male Eurasian Wigeon has been mixing company with American Wigeons and other birds at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge for the last week or so. I spotted the bird, initially reported to the Cayuga Birds birding listserv, during an impromtu stop at MNWR on my way back from Ithaca, NY. I showed up with my [...]
Ten Favorite Bird Photos of 2009
As long as round-ups are making the rounds, here’s my round-up of my ten favorite bird photos from 2009. Chosen either for quality or for the excitement of the bird itself, these are the top ten I’ll hold near and dear to my heart for years to come.
Approaches to Bird Identification & A Kirtland’s Warbler
I recall an interesting conversation I had at the Midwest Birding Symposium on approaches to bird identification. To set the stage, I also dug up a few more decent shots of the Kirtland’s Warbler at East Harbor State Park, western Lake Erie in Ohio (September 18, 2009). At lunch I had the pleasure of sitting [...]
Revisiting The Kirtland’s Warbler
The hour of 3 am and I are becoming intimate bedfellows. That being the case, I may as well prop up my eyelids with toothpicks, wince from the glare of my screen in this darkened room, and report on my trip to the Midwest Birding Symposium. I went into the symposium believing that I was [...]
My Life Kirtland’s Warbler (i.e., Life Is Good At MBS)
My $75 registration fee was just returned in spades. During one of the early morning talks at MBS today, my cell phone vibrated with a very curious message: “Kirtland’s Warbler at East Harbor State Park, Meadow Trail.” At that point, I had to bail on the fine and illustrious speaker, Jim McCormac, because I knew [...]
The Art of Listing: A Big Year Quest in NY
What does a birder do when he (or she) has graduated from little brown jobs to peeps and age-classing juvenile gulls? In New York, he sets about a big year where he attempts to see 300 species.
25 Newly Described Neotropical Bird Species
More than 25 new birds species have been described in the neotropics since the year 2000
