ABC FEBRUARY 2016 MEETING REPORT:
LIFE NET NATURE/Ecuador:

On February 16, 2016, ABC’ers were entertained and educated by three of our own, Mike Walker, Jerry Broadus, and Clarice Clark, on their experiences banding and otherwise counting birds at the Life Net Nature site in Ecuador at the Las Tangaras (Tanagers) Reserve in the tropical Andes. The group was so thrilled that we practically had to be kicked out of our room at the library or we would have been there all night.

The history of this reserve, one of several throughout the world administered by Life Net, is another example of one person making a huge difference in the knowledge deficit surrounding tropical birds, this person being the founder of the reserve, Dr. Dusti Becker. Just a few days of observing and banding in this reserve almost always turns up something previously unknown to science.
Mike started out with this history, which he knows well, having done 5 volunteer stints there by now. He was definitely recruiting for the next December period. This last time there were 7 volunteers besides the staff, and his map showed the ABC Team (3) plus 2 from Utah and 2 from the east, so only 7 people. Mike made it sound like Paradise, which perhaps it is, with great food, luggage carriers (burros), and a swimming waterhole. The lodge must be hiked into, so not a lot of riffraff. The swinging bridge wasn’t loved by all (Clarice!), and the barracks sleeping quarters weren’t like the Hilton, but running water, occasional electricity, clean air, and the music of the jungle. Volunteers pay $1650 from Quito for 2 weeks all inclusive, part of which is fundraising, but anyone who’s priced birding in this area will recognize this as a darn good deal.

The forest was so dense that it was hard to see birds, but the huge network of mist nets turned up amazing finds that would never have been seen just with binoculars. The photos were great and were taken by our team, either at Las Tangaras or nearby afterwards.

A crowd pleaser was the Andean Cock-of-the-Rock, which the team got very acquainted with via photos and videos of lekking males. Wow! Not a really melodic dawn chorus, though!
Jerry led us through the banding process including the amazing Club-Winged Manakins, which they were able to both examine in the hand while banding plus get video of that amazing wing-slap sound!

Clarice ended the presentation with the dessert — Hummingbirds! There are so many species (30+) that in short daily counts watching 3 feeders, the team relied on cheat sheets. Some were caught for banding in the mist nets, but most of the banded hummers were caught with a feeder trap. One of the miniscule bands was passed around for the group to see the size. Attaching these to the tarsi of tiny birds was a painstaking and even scary process.

The website for the organization is currently not working well, although if you persevere and scroll to the bottom you can find most of the meat about the projects and how to volunteer:
http://lifenetnature.org/index.php/volunteer/andes-mountains-south-america/
Also: https://lastangaras.wordpress.com/who-are-we/

APRIL 10, 2016:  Yakima County with Andy & Ellen Stepniewski!  

MAY 18, 2016, 6:45 PM, Pierce County Library Administration Building, 3005 112th St E, Tacoma, WA 98446 (near Highway 512).  Dr. Ursula Valdez teaches at UW-Bothell, is a native of Peru, and refers to herself as a tropical ecologist with a research interest in predator ecology. She has facilitated classes taught simultaneously at the U and in Peru, using Skype. These classes focused on shared concerns between the northwest and Peru of biodiversity and climate change. Professor Valdez is also adept with social media to spread her message. She served as Raptor Ecologist at the Los Amigos River Biological Station and did research in the Amazon rain forest on Forest Falcons for her PhD.  In addition to teaching at the U, she also teaches a field course in the Andes and Amazon in Peru.  Find out about her mission and the very exciting birds she knows personally including Harpy Eagle!
More info:

http://www.uwb.edu/ias/faculty-and-staff/ursulavaldez

http://commons.bcit.ca/catttrax2/peru/action/

Ursula Valdez of Peru and UW-Bothell, an expert on forest falcons

ABC Meeting, February 16, 2016:  6:45 PM, University Place Library:

LIFE NET Nature/Ecuador – Banding:  Special Presentation on LIFE NET Nature and their work in Las Tangaras Reserve near Mindo, Ecuador. Our own intrepid bird banders, Mike Walker, Jerry Broadus, and Clarice Clark, were there in December to band birds and will tell us all about it. Mike has done this for 3 seasons and got Jerry & Clarice to join him this time.  This reserve is WAY off the beaten path, and you are unlikely to stumble across it unless you’ve volunteered.

Mike is a biologist, bird-bander, birding class instructor for Tahoma Audubon, and does many projects including counting swifts at the JBLM chimney with his wife, Jodi.

Jerry and Clarice are surveyors and are past recipients of Tahoma Audubon’s service award for their donation of surveying the Morse Preserve when it was acquired several years ago. Jerry is also an attorney and is currently on the board of directors for Tahoma Audubon. They currently travel extensively in their birdbanding capacity.

Join us to hear these exciting adventures in the tropics and learn about what it takes.   Up to 18 different species of Hummingbirds have been banded during one of these volunteer Decembers!

Clarice Clark and Jerry Broadus banding at TAS’ Morse Preserve.

Mike Walker bands a Toucanet in Ecuador.

The evening of January 28, 2016, ABC held its annual self-congratulatory party with Big Year reports, member photos, and refreshments (Thanks to Vera, Faye, & Kay).

After announcements of coming TAS and ABC events, Big Year reports started with Brian Pendleton, who didn’t start out to do a Big Year, but ended up with the 2nd biggest list for the entire state and #34 in the U.S!  Then Bruce LaBar was up as #1 in Pierce County and #10 in WA.  Ed (#2 in Pierce, 7th in Kitsap) and Kay Pullen talked about their Big Years and the exodus of local birders to Texas in November for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.  Marcus Roening as #3 in the county gave his report next, as well as a report on his July trip to Alaska.  Ken Brown then talked about his Kitsap and state Big Year (#2 in Kitsap) and how eBird has made this kind of birding possible.  Cara Borre’s video account of her Mason County (#1) Big Year was then shown to the audience’s delight.

We had a short break for goodies, at which time those who wore Malheur shirts/caps to celebrate the NWR’s liberation got together:

ABCers support Malheur NWR

We had lots of fun looking at everyone’s 5 best photos from the past year!  Participation was high, and we barely got through before we were thrown out!  Thanks, all!

On January 23, 2016, Dave Grenier led ABCers and other birders around Capitol Lake on a dark and stormy morning!  The weather report was wrong, and in the wrong direction!  It never stopped, but we took on the roles of storm watchers as we experienced the glory and the wetness of the Deschutes River in full roil!

At Tumwater Falls

From Tumwater Falls to the state capitol, we stopped at every stop and saw every bird that was crazy enough to be out!  However, that netted us HUGE numbers of Canvasbacks, not to mention an argument among some of us about whether a particular goose was a Lesser Canada or a Cackler.

A truly memorable morning testing our rain gear and experiencing scenes of watery madness we may never see again.  Thanks, Dave!

The quiet end of Capitol Lake on Jan 23, 2016.

Interest has been keen for the repositioning cruise and we have 12 persons who have expressed interest on this first day. As of now there are 12 persons who have sent their names to the agent, but we have one woman and one man without same-gender berth-mates. If one more male and one more female contact me I’ll see if I can get a seventh berth reserved and we can make it a 14 person trip. Please contact me if you are interested in filling up the last two beds.

Current list of interested persons

Ed Pullen
Ken Brown
Art Wang
Bruce Labar
Donna LaCasse
Kay Schimke
Vera Cragin
Kathy (Vera Cragin’s daughter)
Joe Tieger
Margaret Tieger
Jody Hess
Brian Patterson

Thanks, Ed

I had a new experience in being a webmaster this last week +. ABCbirding was hacked by someone who inserted code to use the site to send malicious emails to lots of people leading to the site being taken down. It took some time but I’ve managed to get the site back up and have taken some precautions to try to prevent this from happening again. The “attacks” were not aimed at users of the ABCbirding site and IU have not heard that any of you got the emails.

For now the feature allowing members to post to the site via email is halted as an added security measure. Sorry about that.

Anyway let’s hope this tool continues to work for us and has no further problems.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Ed