Since iGoogle went bye-bye a few months ago I’ve had trouble making Bird Trax work, but today had time to figure it out. Now the ABC site has pages for the latest rarity sightings for not just WA, but several counties key to we Western WA birders as well as several neighboring states and British Columbia.
Hope you find these to work for you and of use.
Good birding.
Ed
ABC Meeting – January 23, 2014 – BIG YEAR! ************************************ Ryan Wiese was fresh off the plane from Arizona where he did nothing but twitch, but with great success (all of the Thrashers!). ********************************* Mike Charest managed to find just about every bird that landed in Pierce County in 2013 plus more! It all started at a prepossessing industrial site called Gog-Le-Hi-Te… His Flickr site is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikecharest/ ******************************** Laurel Parshall didn’t know she was doing a big Washington year until suddenly she realized how close she was to 300 and set her sights on that number! Swamp Sparrow caught her eye just as time was running out! Her Flickr site is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/llp_unesolitaire/ **************************** Brian Pendleton really twitched towards the end of the year and hit the big time, reaching 350. It takes someone who knows their Gulls! His Flickr site is: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianpen286/ **************************** These birders are all accomplished photographers as well. What a combination! A great program! Click on photos to enlarge:
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I just found a blog following Dorian Anderson who is doing a fundraising green big year. He started yesterday on a “zero-petroleum” for transportation big year, by bike and foot. Amazingly his first two birds were snowy and short-eared owls by bike in Massachusetts. I plan to follow him at http://bikingforbirds.blogspot.com I’m sure our Eastern WA class trip will be relatively balmy compared to his Jan 1 day biking for birds in MA at 8 degres F. I though some of you might enjoy this.
For an entertaining read check out Accidental Big Year a blogspot blog by Neil Hayward who may have broken the ABA big year record held by Sandy Komito of The Big Year movie and book fame. The 746th ABA listed bird plus 3 ABA provisional birds was Great Skua on Dec 28th out of North Carolina. This puts him at one above the 745 big year of Komito, and one above the 748 of Komito including his 3 provisionals that were accepted.
I did not know that officially on an ABA big year birds seen that are subsequently accepted onto the ABA list don’t count as they were not listable when seen.
Anyway it’s quite a year detailed nicely on his blog. Check it out.
Bud Anderson’s Hawk Class / Western WA Hawk Watching Class / Tacoma 8 Jan. – 5 Feb 2014 Wednesdays, 7-9pm University of Puget Sound / Class meets for 2 hours, one night per week for five weeks. 2014 cost is $175 per person. Includes a full day field trip. Minimum registration is 20, but hoping for lots more. He will add extra field trip dates if the class is large enough. Exact dates are Jan.8, 15, 22, 29 and Feb.5. / TO REGISTER: Call (253) 591-6439 OR register online using Bar code 69459 at: https://www.metroparkstacoma.net/onlineregistration/Activities/ActivitiesAdvSearch.asp
One of the photography forums I frequent provided a link to this cute, heart-warming story of a rescued owl off Finland
Hi there, here is Ruth at ManorCare Health Services in Tacoma, enjoying a moment during her recovery with her Jack Russel Terrier “Tobey.” Ruth will probably be at this nursing home for physical therapy for the next 4-6 weeks. Thanks so much for all your well wishes. Ruth greatly appreciates everyones support. Sincerely, Shep Shep Thorp, VMD The Animal Emergency Clinic Puget Sound Veterinary Referral Center 5608 South Durango Street Tacoma, WA 98409 sthorp@theaec.com 253-370-3742
Movie Night at ABC! Oct 24, 2013 We celebrated two years of ABC with movies and theater candy! Thanks, Ryan Wiese and others for making the video and audio both happen! Since November and December are filled with other stuff, we probably won’t meet again until the fourth week of January. What would you like to see happen in 2014? With our group, anything is possible. Longer field trips are being bandied about. Contact Ken Brown with any ideas for programs, classes, field trips at kennethwbrown@hotmail.com, and cc to Ed Pullen at edwardpullen@gmail.com and Diane Y-Q at Avosetta@hotmail.com. The world is waiting! Several ABC’ers might be drafted to give a report on how to get to Ecuador and other nearby areas, logistically speaking and for less than a king’s ransom. Volunteer for this if you have tips! First up, we saw a short subject that everyone in attendance identified with strongly! “Far East Tour” by Cara Borre and Asta Tobiassen, “far east” meaning far eastern Washington! Their trip in June this year had everyone nodding and laughing at the right times. We laughed and we cried!! As we speak they are flying off to Maui, and they might just see more birds. More of their stuff can be seen on Youtube at their Wild Thing Productions webpage: https://www.youtube.com/user/wildthingproduction1?feature=watch Then we watched the feature film, “Birders: The Central Park Effect,” which brought back great memories to a number of us including Kay & Ed Pullen, who had actually birded with Star Saphir, the bird leader profiled, who died earlier this year. Also David Marshall lived for 2 years in NYC and saw 21 or 22 warblers there in one short morning! One of the writers profiled, Jonathan Franzen, later published a #1 bestseller that featured a Cerulean Warbler on its cover and as a main character, “Freedom,” which also landed Jonathan on the cover of Time Magazine. (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_%28Jonathan_Franzen_novel%29). For those who asked how to get the movie, you can buy it on line at Amazon and other places: http://www.amazon.com/Birders-Central-Effect-Regina-Alvarez/dp/B009VRVGLK/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1382676097&sr=1-1&keywords=birders+the+central+park+effect Christmas Bird Counts coming up! Get ready! Some of our group at movie night (click to enlarge):
Kay and I took off for Southern California on Thursday Oct 9th with plans to visit Santa Cruz Island the next morning, followed by a visit with family and me sneaking away for a pelagic trip out of San Diego on the Sunday of the weekend. It worked out about as well as we could have hoped, with great weather, obliging target species and calm seas.
Santa Cruz Island Fox
We flew to LAX and met Kay’s brother Keith and sister Mary and took off for Ventura where the Island Packer’s boat ride for Santa Cruz Island was scheduled to leave at 9AM the next morning. We checked ahead to assure that we would leave, given that much of the traffic on the boat trip usually go to the National Park on Santa Cruz Island which was closed due to the government shut-down. Fortunately Prisoner’s Cove where the endemic Santa Cruz scrub jay is most easily found, and where we were booked to land is on Nature Conservancy land and the trip was still on. Even better without the extra stops the boat captain obligingly extended the ride to cruise past Anacapa Island where Blue-footed boobies were roosting regularly on the cliffs. On the trip over we got to see lots of Black-vented shearwaters, good numbers of Pink-footed shearwaters but no murrelets. We were thrilled to find 16 immature BFBO on the cliffs with lots of cormorants, pelicans and gulls. At least two were mature enough to have blue feet giving great looks to all of us.
On to Santa Cruz Island, where the Santa Cruz Scrub Jays were easily found, studied and photographed.
Island Scrub Jay
We had about 3 hours on the island and due to the National Park closure the usual hike on their land was inaccessible. Graciously the Nature Conservancy agreed to allow us to hike onto their property, usually off-limits, and we had chances to see the endemic subspecies of Santa Cruz bewick’s wren, song sparrow, and fox. The fox was especially obliging. It is a tiny fox, just 6 lbs, and was not bashful at all, seeming very habituated to visitors.
Keith joined me Sunday on the San Diego 12 hour deep water pelagic trip. You would never confuse this with a Westport deep water trip. Skies were sunny, seas 2-3 foot swells, and nary a single passenger added to the steady stream of popcorn chum off the stern. The price of $60 was also wonderfully low. The Sea and Sage Audubon Society sponsored the trip, and did a great job. We traveled through several habitats, and found lots to see all day long. On the way out well within sight of shore Black-vented shearwaters dominated, with Red-necked phalaropes common and Western Gulls adult and all ages along with Heermann’s gulls the dominant larids. At the 9 mile bank, about 12.3 miles out of San Diego (why not 12 mile bank?) we had good numbers of Pink-footed shearwaters and the Black-vented thinned out. The only alcids were numerous Cassin’s Aucklets. On the 2 hour ride out to the 30 mile bank we were busy looking at less frequent Pink-footed shearwaters, lots of Northern Fulmars of all color morphs, and in incredible number of Pomerine Jaegers. I estimated 70+ for the day. One Parasitic Jaeger was seen early in the trip, before getting to the 9-mile bank if I remember correctly.
Light Morph Northern Fulmar
Shortly prior to the 30 mile bank the trip leader got us on a white bird on the water, which was flushed up by a Pomerine Jaeger. It was an adult Red-billed Tropicbird and put on a great show being harassed for several minutes by the jaeger. It flew in front of the boat, away into the distance ahead and high into the sky, then circled back directly in front of us and past the bow again, all the while in aerial acrobatics. Later on the 30 mile bank we had distant looks at small numbers of Black Storm-petrels and Least Storm-petrels at a feeding flock on some floating dead fish material.
Lot’s of fulmars and Pink-footed shearwaters were joining the flock. On the ride in we had the only Black-footed Albatross fly past the boat, and then in the San Diego trough had the jackpot of the trip, the first Great Shearwater record in S California waters. This bird gave us great looks and photographs by all.
Black Storm-petrels
After a good night sleep Kay and I celebrated our 29th anniversary on Monday by going out to a nice breakfast at Huntington Beach Central Park, before we ventured out to add Nutmeg Mannikin to our ABA list since it was added to the listable birds last month.
Nutmeg Mannikin Huntington Beach Central Park
A great trip with 7 lifers for me.