November 2012 Meeting Report

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The ABC (Advanced Birders Club) meeting last night (November 29) was lively with member slides from various people. First Laurel Parshall reported on last weekend’s pilgrimage to Vancouver Island to see the Citrine Warbler, which was a great success, even if there were bumps along the road or strait to get home again. That group included Laurel, Ed Pullen, Faye McAdams Hands, and Diane Yorgason-Quinn. Then Jerry Broadus gave a great survey of volunteering at various bird and wildlife venues with his own and Clarice’s experiences a great guide including photos from their many years of doing this work at Midway Island, Malheur, Nisqually, and many others. Heather Roskelley then gave a slide show of some of her best professional-level photographs from various recent field trips to our oohs and aahs. After stumbling through some annoying mystery slides from various members and the ABA site, the evening was topped off when Laurel passed out Christmas presents to the group — miniature feathered Snowy Owls!

Citrine Wagtail Expedition

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Saturday Nov. 24th Laura Parshall did the legwork to plan a trip to chase the “mega-rarity” Citrine Wagtail that has been seen at Comox, BC on Vancouver Island for the last week.  I learned today that the only prior sighting was not on the Alaskan islands, but in Starksville, Mississippi Jan 31-Feb1992. Thankfully this Comox bird has hung around much longer. Laura, Diane Yorgensen-Quinn, Faye McAdams-Hand and I set out early to catch the 8:20 ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria.  We made the sailing nicely and enjoyed watching the couple of hundred Common Murres along with lots of common loons, two Long-tailed ducks at the Port Angeles side.

Citrine Wagtail 11-24-2012 Comox, BC

After getting to the island we raced for the Comox site and the many cars along side the road and then seeing about 20 birders, scopes set up, all looking out on the flooded field at the well described on Tweeters from sightings over the last week had us jumping out of the car to get on site. Transient anxiety ruled while we waited, scanned and heard all about the many prior sightings of the day, all on the far end of the field, maybe 150 yards or more away.  After about a half hour wait, at about 1:25 PM the Citrine Wagtail was seen flying across the far side of the field.  From then for about the next 1 3/4 hours we watched this energetic bird hop, pump its tail energetically and work its way all around the field to end up about 35 yards in front of us and hop around giving us great close-in looks.  We got to study all the field-marks and enjoy the bird with the afternoon light to our backs keeping us warm and comfortable.

While we studied the Citrine wagtail we had a flock of bushtits come in behind us, 22 Trumpeter swans and a bald eagle oversaw the specticle, a peregrine falcon flew through to keep the afternoon interesting, and we all just could not quite grasp that this long day trip had worked out so perfectly.

The trip home turned out to be a bit more convoluted. We left plenty of time to catch the 5 PM ferry from Nainamo to Tsawassen that was promised online, but on arrival at the ferry found a sign hung from a chain on the road saying that today’s last ferry was at 3:15, next ferry tomorrow AM.  Disappointed we headed for Victoria, planning to stay overnight and reserve a morning 10:30 AM ferry to Port Angeles.  The morning ferry reservations were all booked, so we went to be hoping that by getting to the terminal early we can still catch the ferry, which thankfully happened uneventfully. No luck at 3-Crabs for Tropical Kingbird but a sunny, glorious weekend.  We’ll look on this trip home as the minor hardship to pay for adding a great bird to all of our life lists.  We passed on the Sushi Eh!

 

Local Gull Identification Workshop Trip Fall 2012 #1

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Ken Brown led some members of ABC birding and some of his class members, totaling 10 of us in all on a gull ID trip to Gog-li-hi-ti, the nearby port area, and the Marine View log booms today.  We enjoyed great looks at 7 gull species, unfortunately not including Slaty-backed and Franklin’s gulls.  Highlights were excellent views of Thayer’s, Herring, Mew, California, Boneparte’s, Glaucous-winged and Western Gulls. As always the company was delightful, as is not always the weather cooperated with overcast but dry skies until the very end of the afternoon.

Photos thanks to Kathleen Miller:

 

 

 

Be ready for the next ABC class with your assessment of species, age and plumage.    Have fun.

Ed

October 2012 meeting report

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ABC met on October 25, 2012, and we were regaled with tales of Cape May, New Jersey, by Ed and Kay Pullen including many interesting tips on identifying hawks in flight that they picked up from Pete Dunne and witnessing an amazing falcon migration that Kay called the most exciting birding of her life!

Then Marcus Roening reported on his recent Ecuador trip with Heather and his original birding buddy with whom he first did this trip 20 years earlier. It was fascinating to hear about the changes in the intervening years, both good and bad.

We also heard from Bruce Hoeft on attending an event about Crow Roosts at the UW-Bothell, including watching that particular stream of Crows come in, something we can all relate to. Then we saw ABC field trip photos from Pat Damron, and we’ll have lots more of those at the November meeting on November 29!

You are needed for the Grays Harbor Winter Shorebird Survey

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> From: jbroadus@seanet.com > > Subject: (Fwd) more info GH Winter Shorebird Survey INFO > > It is a project to count shorebirds all along the Pac. seaboard over a number of years, beginning this year. Our area is > Grays Harbor. Shep and I have signed up through the refuge. As you can see from the email, they need > more volunteers than we can provide. All need to be at least a little skookum on counting shorebirds. The > ABC club members would be ideal. Have them contact Cyndie directly, CYNDIE SUNDSTRUM (snowplover@comcast.net). > Jerry Broadus > > > > ——- Forwarded message follows ——- > Subject: more info GH Winter Shorebird Survey INFO > From: > Date sent: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:02:32 -0700 > > Y’all, > Attached are a couple of flyers on the upcoming PRBO winter shorebird > survey at GH — training is on the 20th of this month (A COUPLE OF > WEEKENDS AWAY)…. We believe the training will be at GH Comm College > (on the road to Westport [hiway 105] – just past the small Aberdeen > shopping mall). No room or building info yet. Others are working on > that. The training should be between 10 or 11am to ~5:30pm or so. > > Because the need is to (apparently) have as many as 20+ volunteers to > help w/ this project we have decided we need to look beyond you (our > core group of trusty, birdy volunteers). So please read Jean’s email > (below) and see the attachments. Please pass this on to any ‘birdy’ > friends you think would like to help w/ this… It is open to all. > PRBO will sort out who’s doing what after the training session…. > > CYNDIE SUNDSTRUM (snowplover@comcast.net) will be heading up the > coordination / communications / emails/ etc about this whole thing > from now on… She can get your email addresses off this email. She > will most likely send a map to the GHCC, and as before I suggest y’all > car pool in a Refuge Vehicle. > > IF YOU ARE NOT PLANNING TO ATTEND THIS UPCOMING TRAINING SESSION ON > OCT 20TH PLEASE LET CYNDIE –not me — KNOW. SHEP, I remember your > email question and am trying to get some clarification. I will get > back to you. > > CYNDIE: Please pick up these individual’s email address’s (rt click > on each of them), to add to your email list for this project. They > will contact you w/ questions if they have them. They have all > expressed interest, I believe they are all planning to attend the > Training and they all REALLY want to know when between NOV 15 and DEC > 15 the survey will take place (as we all do). > > Marian M. Bailey > Refuge Wildlife Biologist > Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge Complex > 100 Brown Farm Road > Olympia, WA 98516 > Phone: (360) 753-9467 > Fax: (360) 534-9302 > marian_bailey@fws.gov > > Jean Takekawa/NISQ/R1/FWS/DOI > 10/09/2012 01:48 PM > > > Hi, > > We are working with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory to do a shorebird > survey out in the Grays Harbor Estuary starting this fall. This first > year will focus on developing methods, refining survey locations, and > conducting a survey in Nov/Dec. Surveys and recording will be done > largely by trained volunteers. The training that PRBO will provide is > scheduled for October 20th. I wondered if you might be interested or > know anyone who might like to join this volunteer effort? I know how > busy you all are, so if you’re not available, maybe you know someone > who might have an interest. We are circulating this to Black Hills > Audubon, Grays Harbor Audubon, some Refuge volunteers, and some of the > birders we know in the area, but we wanted to get it more broadly > circulated, so feel free to post or pass this on to others. > > We appreciate your continued support and interest in Grays Harbor and > the Refuge. > > Thanks, Jean >

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Summary of a Day of Hawk Watching at Cape May with Pete Dunne

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Great Day at the Falcon Fest Workshop with Pete Dunne

Kay and I are at Cape May, NJ on Falcon Fest weekend, and are half way through Pete Dunne’s hawk-watching workshop through the Cape May Bird Observatory, and today was just a wonderful day.  The winds were out of the northwest, prefect for a day of hawk watching at Cape May.  As Pete says, “Birders come in on  a northwest wind, it’s uncanny.”  There were easily a hundred birders on the various platforms today, and the birding was great.  We spent the afternoon yesterday on the platform with Tom Reid, the official counter, and yesterday was flush with peregrine falcons, an estimated 60+ in the hour and a half Kay and I were on the platform.  Not a lot of other hawks noted though as you can see on the day count posted today:

Today was cool in the morning, warmer in the afternoon, and a perfect overcast sky against which to spot the birds.  Dunne is a great and patient teacher, and we felt we made great progress in raptor ID, although here are just a few of the gentle ways Pete guided us to the right ID when we (mostly I) were off target:

  • “What makes you say that?
  • “Let me take a look.”
  • “I’ve made that mistake many times too.”
  • “Take a closer look.”
  • “That is one of the toughest hawk watch IDs.”
  • Many more I forget now, but needless to say with a casual bare-eyed glance upwards Dunne was right essentially every time.

Here are a few fun “Pete Dunnisms” from the conversations of the day:

  • Osprey look like a gull that’s not gull, with slotted wingtips (primary feathers separated) and with a head.
  • Kingfishers are, “Heads on wings  that are running on fumes.”
  • Broad-winged hawks are like well dressed birds, the kind of buteo that you would not mind if your son or daughter brought home to meet.”
  • Harriers have languid, desultory wing-beats.
  • On why juvenile raptors tend to have longer wings and tails. “Like surfers.  Novices use big boards so they can keep upright, but more experienced surfers use smaller boards so they can be more maneuverable.”
  • Kestrels tend to come in small flocks or groups.  Merlins won’t tolerate the company.
  • On thinking about the likelihood of an accipitor being a Sharp-shinned vs. Cooper’s:  “If we stay stuck in the 30 year old probability (used to be 50:1 SSHA vs COHA and now can be nearly 1:1 some days) we are sunk.  Cooper’s are just vermin now-a-days.”
  • Best of the day. First casually, “Sometimes it’s easier to ID hawks without binoculars.” Then after a split second of thought, “This hawk watch is brought to you by Swarovski.”

Also today was a peak Monarch butterfly day, with huge numbers seemingly everywhere, but especially on some favored roosts where a pine tree branch would just be decorated with Monarch’s.   Sorry to miss Rolan’s woodpecker presentation, but glad we are here.

Ed