Tree Swallow Yoga

Found a gorgeous Tree Swallow (Tachycineta biocolor) enjoying a hot spring morning at Fenner Nature Center.  I offer some screen grabs from a video showing the latest in Yoga poses and stretches the trendy and healthy Tree Swallow practices.

Count Dracula

The Flag

Regal (like an Eagle)

Voila!

The Front Stroke

Landing Gear

Situation Normal

The Flare

Hand Behind My Back

The Twist

The Pretzel

Caped Crusader

Iron Man

The Angel 

Rocket Launch

Here's the whole video:

For the Love of Lifers

Valentine’s Day is approaching along with its expectations that we support the corporate juggernaut by buying expensive, intrinsically worthless objects to supposedly prove our love for that special someone. That’s not my cup of tea, so I’m going to talk about birds.

For most of the fall and early winter there had been reports of Purple Sandpipers (Calidris maritima) hanging around a rocky break-wall on the Lake Michigan shore. It was in Pere Marquette Park in the city of Muskegon, Michigan to be precise. That’s not a hard spot to get to, but my wife and I were living lives of unprecedented upheaval at that time. Jobs and homes were being juggled like flaming chainsaws and birds weren’t on the agenda, even potential lifers like these.

Juncos were about as exciting as it got.

Yes, that’s correct, we’ve done a good bit of birding, but had failed to cross paths with Purple Sandpipers. Our Atlantic coast trips were either at the wrong time of year or before our more avid birding days. On the Great Lakes, we get Purples, but they aren’t that common.  

Purple Sandpipers are pretty awesome shorebirds. While you typically look for your sandpipers in places like tidal mudflats, flooded farm fields (a favorite in this region during migration), or even shallow ponds and pools (for the taller guys like the Yellowlegs), with Purple Sandpipers you’re exploring the rocky wave-swept shoreline. If you see rocks getting pummeled by waves and figure all the sensible shorebirds are a kilometer away on the sandy beach, you might be in perfect Purple habitat.

Not Purple Sandpiper habitat - no rocks and the Peregrine doesn't help either.

Sarah and I dipped on a reported Purple Sandpiper in the town of Harrisville on the Lake Huron shore in November. We also just barely missed one in the town of Oscoda a bit further south. By the time the birds in Muskegon were being reported, Sarah had moved downstate to Lansing and I was still in the frozen inland up north wrapping up things at the house there.

On stunningly gorgeous January morning, I ventured south to visit my wife and decided to make the trip 385 miles instead of 175 by diverting to the Lake Michigan shore for some birding. A Peregrine Falcon that allowed me to watch him enjoying lunch for 15 minutes in Ludington State Park was an auspicious start.

Sadly, it didn’t pan out for the sandpipers. I walked the break-wall and stood at the end for an hour enjoying Common Goldeneyes, Horned Grebes, and the usual gulls. The fishermen there told me the sandpipers had been around that morning, but there was no sign of them in the afternoon. That was really fine with me. I knew I’d have a chance to bring Sarah back in a couple days and we’d get the lifer together as we always try to do. Birding (and nature watching in general) is a team hobby for us. We both enjoy it immensely and it’s a special part of our relationship. Any bird seen when your partner isn’t with you is somewhat less exciting, but a lifer can be particularly bittersweet.

This is good Purple Habitat - especially when they've been reported here for weeks.

And so it came to pass that two short days later Sarah and I jumped in the Prius, stuffed our birding buddy Josh in the backseat with the optics, and headed out to Muskegon. The weather report wasn’t making me too happy, but I held out high hopes. When we got there, there were waves crashing completely over the break-wall sending spray fifty feet into the air. Purple Sandpipers like waves, but this was a bit much. I scanned potential habitat on the leeward side of the wall with no luck. There would be no lifers today. Not for us, at least. We stopped by the sewage ponds (it’s a birder thing) and got Josh his life Snowy Owl. That made the trip worthwhile for all of us. A lifer makes a good trip, even if it isn’t yours.

Adult male, no less.

The story may have ended there, but I’m a birder. I decided to recreate my double-distance return to the north two days later and go from Point A to Point B via Point M, Muskegon. First week of January, 50 degrees Fahrenheit, perfect calm on Lake Michigan’s typically blustery shore. Absurdly weird weather. I threw the scope on my shoulder and began strolling out toward the break-wall. As the path left the sandy beach, I glanced at the first rocks of the wall and saw two Purple Sandpipers standing there returning my gaze. Three yards away. Lifer. And I didn’t even smile.

I spent an hour with the birds, mostly just watching them probing the rocks for tasty invertebrates and ignoring the gentle waves. I took a break to scope a gorgeous pair of Long-tailed Ducks and a male Common Goldeneye. When I figured I’d drank in the birds enough to sate my personal shorebird lust for one winter morning, I returned to the car and drove straight home, alone. Sarah was back in the city getting ready for work. I knew we’d be back together in a new home in a few short weeks, and not long after that we’d be adventuring around during spring migration.

For now, I was driving through the wilds of Michigan on a gorgeous mid-winter day and musing not about seeing Purple Sandpipers, but that Sarah had missed them. I was wishing I hadn’t been able to find them until we found them together on a beach in Virginia next year. Without my partner to share them with, the Purple Sandpiper was the worst lifer ever. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Happy Valentine’s Day. And, Sarah, there’s a rocky cove on Maine’s Downeast coast with our name on it – and Calidris maritima on every slimy rock.

Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Nova Scotia. Minutes after getting our lifer Blackpoll Warbler.

Crossbills vs. Hemlock

With some unseasonably warm weather lingering (but predicted to end), I headed out on a January morning to Hartwick Pines State Park. This is a real gem in Michigan's park system. It would be amazing in any state! Harboring some of the Midwest's last virgin White Pines, Hartwick Pines straddles what I like to call the Grayling Line. There's an imaginary line that goes through east-to-west through the town of Grayling, Michigan that unofficially marks the southern boundary of the "North". South of this line, you will rarely find boreal species of birds - or anything for that matter. Look at range maps for plants, birds, insects, reptiles, etc. in the Great Lakes region and you'll see an astounding number of organisms that call the Grayling Line either the northern or southern extreme of their range.

Thus, I like to bird here. In the summer, some of the northern birds common in the far north will nest this far south. And in the winter, you can have an experience like I had this week.

I was strolling along, enjoying the smell of a grove of Eastern Hemlocks. (This is also the line where hemlocks start becoming scarce, although you can find them much farther south in Michigan, they are far less common. Luckily the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid hasn't gotten here...yet.)

While watching a Red-breasted Nuthatch bouncing on a log, I heard a flutter of many wings and some frenzied flight calls just before the hemlock above my head burst into movement. Every branch was swinging and hemlock cone refuse was raining on me. The tree I was standing under was suddenly being brutalized by a flock of White-winged Crossbills.

Crossbills are fascinating birds. Their bills are indeed crossed, so that it appears they have a deformity that would make feeding problematic if not impossible. It turns out that bill adaptation is ideal to give the bird leverage to pry open conifer cones to extract it's favorite food, seeds. I'd seen Red Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra) on Lopez Island in Washington, but all my looks at White-winged Crossbills (Loxia leucoptera) had been poor. A fleeting glimpse of a flock here and there. On this blessed morning, I got all I wanted and more.

You can see how it got the crossbill name...as well as the white-winged part.

White-winged Crossbills strongly prefer hemlock and spruce trees for foraging. If you live up north, and there's a good cone crop on some local trees, stake it out and treat yourself to a crossbill feeding frenzy.

This one was reaching for a cone. I love the coloring of the breast.

The Love of Moss - Part 1

I took a stroll in the woods last week on a rainy day in December. I didn't expect to see many birds or bees. I certainly wasn't expecting any flowers, and it was midday, so I expected the beavers would all be sleeping. I'm happy to report that my expectations were met - I saw nothing. At least that's what I fear many people would say had they taken the same walk. I'm a bit atypical, so I ended up staying out far longer than I expected. I was moss-watching.

Moss is some of the easiest wildlife to observe. This patch didn't even try to get away from me.

I've always loved moss. Perhaps it's because its physiology is so primitive, being based on a design about half a billion years old. Maybe it's because its texture and colors are a study in greens beyond the works of any human artist. Or, most likely, it's because you can find a hundred dramatic examples of moss in a few acres of woods on a rainy December day in northern Michigan when not much else is going on.

This stump appears to be being consumed by moss.

A fallen log enshrouded with moss, as is its stump. How many times was this scene repeated  in just a few acres?

Dozens.

This moss (Hypnum sp. ?) is exploding out of a hole in the log.

Here's some lichens joining the moss. Probably Cladonia sp.

Cladonia macilenta. A lichen called "Lipstick Powderhorn" by some.

Cladonia macilenta again.

You'll notice I don't even attempt to identify the moss and lichens in many of these pictures, while in others I make only a guess. Does this mean I don't know what I'm talking about? Yes. Yes, it does. I'll talk a little about moss identification in the next installment. It's a horror story.

All photos here were taken by me near Big Bear Lake in Otsego County, Michigan.

My 2012 eBird Challenge!

I've got a challenge for all you birders out there that involves nothing more than you, your binoculars, your favorite field guide, and eBird.

This Hairy Woodpecker is listening...

What is this eBird thing, you ask. Let’s allow the folks at eBird themselves to answer:

“A real-time, online checklist program, eBird has revolutionized the way that the birding community reports and accesses information about birds. Launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, eBird provides rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales.”

Some ducks from my life list. A life list is like a collection of awesome memories, isn't it?

Reduced to its most basic utility, eBird is a fun and convenient way to maintain your personal birding lists. Your life list, year lists, month lists, and numerous geographic lists are there for your perusal and updated automatically every time you enter a bird sighting. Have you seen more birds in Comnache County, Oklahoma or Grand Isle County, Vermont? eBird can tell you in a second, as well as every sighting you’ve ever had at specific locations in those counties.

My county lists. County birding is soooo much easier with eBird.

That can be a lot of fun, but it’s also a treat to use eBird to help locate birds. Let’s say you find yourself in southern Arizona in September of 2011 and you want to add a Lucy’s Warbler to your life list. Have any been seen in the area this month, and if so, where? A quick check of eBird reveals the answers.

Lucy's Warbler sightings in south-central Arizona in September 2011. (eBird screen shot)

If all of that isn’t enough, consider that every sighting you enter at eBird is a contribution to science. Ornithologists use the data collected there for myriad reasons, not the least of which could be in studies to determine migration and nesting patterns and the need to protect vulnerable habitat. It’s one of the finest examples of citizen science you can find. If you’re a birder, you are a citizen and a scientist already, you know.

Happy Scientist.

Consider this: You’re on a leisurely sea kayak trip on an early fall day. You’ve paddled out to False Cape State Park in Virginia and put-in for lunch on the barrier island’s beach. There you spot a pair of Buff-breasted Sandpipers. No other humans are in sight. You are now the sole possessor of some data. The species of bird, number of individuals, precise location, and time and date of appearance are all data that you, and only you, possess. Feeling some responsibility to share this newfound treasure? You should be! When those data are entered at eBird along with all the other sightings of Buff-breasted Sanpipers for the fall, a picture (literally!) of that species’ fall migration appears. Your sighting alone may seem insignificant, and it’s true that the vast majority of bird observation data are not very valuable in a vacuum. But combine those with millions of other records and the existing data become stronger and stronger with every new entry.

"Here's what I want you to do..."

So, here’s my challenge to you. If you haven’t signed up at eBird or haven’t used it much, I’d like you to become an active user and try to enter at least 365 checklists in 2012. But that’s a checklist for every day of the year, you cry! Yes, but it’s not as difficult as you’d think. (For one thing, there are 366 days in 2012, so it’s not even one per day, but that’s splitting hairs.) With jobs and kids and life and weather it’s impossible to go birding every single day of the year. But 365 checklists doesn’t mean 365 days. I entered twelve checklists for one 6-hour birding trip in November this year. These aren’t day lists, but rather checklists of sightings at fairly specific locations for relatively short periods of time.

Here are some tricks to easily get to 365.

One way is to enter Sunday yard birds. Spend 15 minutes counting birds in your yard every Sunday morning. Who doesn’t love relaxing like that? And with virtually no effort, you have 52 checklists for the year without leaving the house.

Birding doesn't have to be an adventure every time.
aka Gratuitous Angelina Jolie picture to generate blog visits.

You also have to start appreciating, and recording the seemingly mundane lists. Do you pass a pond on the way to work every morning? On most mornings does it have a few Mallards and a Great Blue Heron? In most of the country that would be something to yawn at. At eBird, that’s valuable information. Stop for five minutes, see what else you see, and enter the list! Who cares if the ducks and heron are all that’s on the list? Those are data that serve to make the entire body of data more valuable. A five or ten minute observation is all it takes. Two hundred of those counts may total about 20 hours of your entire year.  Is 20 hours spent watching birds in nature all that bad?

Common as dirt...and you should count 'em and list 'em!

And now you only need about a hundred more lists to hit the goal. If you go out actually birding once a week, and enter an average of two checklists for a morning bird walk, you’re going to hit the goal. If you take a weekend drive, ten lists in a day isn’t uncommon.

And we haven’t even added in the incidental sightings while driving or looking out the window of a restaurant. We birders like to say that we’re always birding, at least while awake. If that’s the case, 365 lists at eBird in 2012 should be a piece of cake.

Do it for the ornithologists. Do it for you. But most importantly, do it for the birds. Are you up for this challenge?

Comment below and let me know if you're in!

Wordless Wednesday - Christmas Edition

Grebe Feet!

ed. note: Today, we have a guest blogger from the land of Florida, David Peterson. I invited him to join us after he showed me the coolest photo of grebe feet in action I've ever seen!

Horned Grebe in winter plumage (Photo by David Peterson)

After running a few errands today, I stopped at a local beach, called Hudson Beach (officially Robert J. Strickland Memorial Park). I wasn't really expecting much more than to relax and enjoy the day, when a walk along the seawall gave me a very pleasant surprise. A little horned grebe was fishing right along shore, and did not seem to mind me walking up and down the seawall trying to get a couple pictures of it. I must have taken about a hundred photos, but I missed at least that many opportunities for more because I simply enjoyed watching it and forgot to point the camera. I was enthralled for over an hour.

Horned Grebe (Photo by David Peterson)

Then, while in pursuit of some small silvery fish, it came quite close, and I snapped a bunch of photos while it was diving underwater. When it went further away from shore again, I stopped and checked to see if any had turned out, you should have seen me—I literally jumped and gave a hoot, with the fist-pump and everything! A couple people looked at me like I was weird and one guy just chuckled away at me but gave me a thumbs-up. What can I say? I like grebes! And Grebe-Feet are just so cool!

Grebe Feet!  (Photo by David Peterson)

David Peterson hails from Port Richey, Florida, though he is quick to point out he's originally "from Wisconsin."  He sits on the board of the Nature Coast Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society.