Just wanted to share that I found the chubbiest Robin, the Blobin. Here it is.
Good stuff. Oh, there was also a Redwing there, in Portland, Maine. ABA Lifer #694.
Just wanted to share that I found the chubbiest Robin, the Blobin. Here it is.
I mean it wasn't actually all that bad from a birding perspective. I miraculously got some great trips out of the way before the pandemic hit, and then I was pretty damn lucky to be able to enjoy the birds in my backyard.
QUICK STATS
World Species Seen: 615 (new personal record)
Countries with eBird Checklists: 4 (USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Panama [airport lol])
ABA Species Seen: 292 (only 7th year since 2005 under 300)
ABA Lifers: 2 (Yellow Rail and Common Cuckoo, bringing ABA total to I think 694 counting Northwestern Crow for now)
Maine Birds Seen: 232 (most since 2010)
Maine State Birds: 12 (Bullock's Oriole, Thick-billed Murre, Western Tanager, Golden-winged Warbler, Mourning Warbler, Yellow Rail, Clark's Grebe, Say's Phoebe, Western Kingbird, Rufous Hummingbird, Tundra Swan, Rock Wren, bringing state total to 338)
Yard List: 49 year birds, 99 total yard species.
Let's do a quick review, month by month.
January
I have a good crew of birding friends, and in January we took a trip up to my family's cabin near Moosehead Lake to help out with Maine's Winter Bird Atlas, and also drink a bunch. We had a blast, and the birds were cooperative. There was an abundant cone crop, and the sky was filled with White-winged Crossbills in full song, making reproductive hay while the sun shined, so to speak. We had close encounters with most everything you'd want up there in winter: Canada Jay, Boreal Chickadee, and a very confiding Black-backed Woodpecker.
February
In February I was invited to speak at the Laredo Birding Festival in West Texas, a huge honor and an opportunity to see some incredible birds. A great time on multiple fronts: great birds, great food, warm weather (as opposed to Maine), and a few good night's sleep away from my 2 year old (lol thanks to my lovely wife). The festival was incredibly well organized, and had great support from the city. I can't thank them enough for having me down, and I encourage anyone reading this to attend in the future.
March
All the shit started this month, but I tell ya, I had a good March. Three friends and I put together an insanely fun trip to Ecuador, a 8-day whirlwind up and down and Andes. I saw or heard (or was told I was seeing or hearing) 398 species, mostly all lifers. What can I say? It was incredible. We drove on insane mountain roads, relaxed over Amazonian vistas, tromped through high tundra, ate awesome food, and just had a wonderful time. It looks like I didn't do any posts on the blog about it? Weird. Too many highlights, but one (pictured below) is my 1,000th world bird, a Cinnamon Flycatcher.
Here are a few photos.
April
OK well things were a lot slower in April. I birded locally, and wrote this about Stevie Nicks. I saw a Prothonotary Warbler in South Portland, which was cool.
May
I mean, you can't beat May pandemic or no. One highlight was taking place in a bizzaro version of the World Series of Birding, which was opened to teams outside of NJ for the first time ever. A group from Maine Audubon combined to find 139 socially-distant species on a cold, blustery day. We didn't quite have the numbers to best teams in other states (migration in early May is still not ideal), but we had a blast.
Also, hilariously, I put a call out to Twitter to see if anyone could recreate MLB logos with real birds. User @WhiskyEyeBrews managed to get a Northern Cardinal to come to her custom-made St. Louis Cardinal feeder for this photo. Unreal.
Labels: 2020, a bad year, bad, birds, Year in Review
A woman named Diana Onacki was eating at the Jackie's Too restaurant at Perkin's Cove, on the coast of Maine near Ogunquit, when she saw a little brown bird on the rocks outside. She snapped a photo and posted it to the Maine Birds Facebook group, identifying it was a late-but-otherwise-not-Earth-shattering House Wren.
Well, it weren't no House Wren, but an in-fact-Earth-shattering-to-certain-people Rock Wren, just the second ever record for Maine. A good bird.
The bird has been reliable since the of November but my schedule hasn't. I went down last week with only about an hour to go before dark and used that hour up wandering aimlessly among the boulders like a moron, with nothing to show for it. I finally had an opportunity to go again this afternoon, and was rewarded handsomely.
I re-found the bird about fifteen anxious minutes after I arrived, and watched it for about half an hour as it boinked up and down amongst the boulders after little flies.
[Quick note here: If you are someone who is showing up to try to find a bird, please actually look for the bird. Birders are so frustrating sometimes. Both times when I arrived looking for the Rock Wren there were other birders or photographers just standing there, I guess waiting for the bird to show up in their laps. You gotta look! Look around! Today, after searching the far end of the beach, I returned to the parking lot and asked one of the photographers standing if she knew when the bird was last seen. "It was last seen about an hour ago, going around the back of the restaurant." "Oh, did you look back there?" I asked. "No," she said. Well, I went out behind the restaurant and there it was, just hanging out. Unbelievable.]
Anyway, I found it, and it was amazing. Probably the most accommodating vagrant I've ever seen. [I dunno, maybe there were more. The Great Black Hawk was reliable, but you couldn't get that close. The Common Cuckoo a few months ago in Rhode Island was also friendly, but more so for others than for me...] It would pose up on rocks like a goddamn fashion model, showing off it's better angles but trying other positions. I might be in love? Here's the checklist, and some photos below:
Labels: maine, Rock Wren, Vagrant birds
Hey my dear friends what's happening. Will Blogger still be around after there's no democracy? Who knows. Better get these things up now.
I was recently a guest on the American Birding Association's This Month in Birding podcast, alongside superhost Nate Swick and with Nicole Jackson and Mo Stych. It was pretty depressing to start! Things are not great right now! But it got more fun and funnier! Click on the image below!
The Google Street View Birding Facebook Group is still going strong, nearly two years after its creation. It's pretty amazing. My goofy little procrastination side-project now has more than 4,300 members (most all of them much better at finding birds than I ever was), and has tracked down a simply incredible 1226 different bird species. It's a supportive and kind group of folks and I couldn't be prouder.
A line of discussion began in the group after Linda L. posted a screenshot of some caribou crossing the road in Finland - In all these miles of driving and recording by the Street View car, had it ever hit anything? Street View Roadkill? In theory you'd be able to see the entire story: a poor creature running into the road in front of the car and then left on the road out the other side. I had never seen anything, had others?
Well, yes, in fact. Group superstar Aaron Polichar recalled at least one likely incident which made the tabloid rounds in July 2019 and was brought to our attention by Oswaldo Zuniga: the sad saga of the Polish Flying Hare.
Hey friends just cranking along in this coronavirus hellscape, taking it one day at a time and just trying to put my pants on the correct legs and feet into the correct Crocs. It's tough out there, but the birds are still flying. And I am here to see them talk nonsense about them.
I did some of that nonsense-talkin' this month on the American Birding Association's This Month in Birding podcast, also featuring my friends Purbita Saha and Ryan Mandelbaum. Was an honor to have been asked back, and had a predictably fun and funny conversation under the moderation of Nate Swick. Enjoy!
Also quickly wanted to remind folks of my monthly column in the Portland Phoenix, a great local newspaper in southern Maine with innovative design and, clearly, a great taste in writers. My latest is about The Best Thing You Can Do For Birds Right Now.
Be good! Be nice! See birds!
Twitter is just the best sometimes.
For instance, the other day I was making some of my usual meaningless observations about birds, this time comparing a photo of a Baltimore Oriole on my feeder pole to one of the logos of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team:
Then, I wondered how close one could actually get to replicating that logo, which led me to:At the feeders with the wide stance like pic.twitter.com/SViLBxxm9Y— The Birdist (@TheBirdist) May 12, 2020
I expected nothing to happen. Certainly lazy old me wasn't going to do anything about it. But then, Twitter. User Tess Rouillard (@WhiskyEyeBrews) actually went and built the dang Cardinals logo, and put it up near her feeders! What!I feel like this one is ripe for replication. Can someone make a little yellow bat perch with the attached word mark and get a photo of a cardinal sitting on it? pic.twitter.com/MSiCeSKyv1— The Birdist (@TheBirdist) May 12, 2020
The trap, as she said, was set. It didn't take long for birds to visit, though they weren't the species we were looking for. A Common Grackle was first up to bat.Bait set. Now we wait 😆 pic.twitter.com/WBMQZ0Kf4Q— Tessa “Burn it all down” Rouillard (@WhiskyEyeBrews) May 12, 2020
Then a Blue Jay, which is actually a pretty hilarious mashup of two different MLB teams:Wrong bird pic.twitter.com/VYiIgTUQgh
— Tessa “Burn it all down” Rouillard (@WhiskyEyeBrews) May 12, 2020
Then, this morning, less than a day after I originally posted the thing to Twitter, Tessa and her feeders came through. A real live Northern Cardinal perched on the Cardinals logo!! Incredible!Wrong bird. Guess we know what the next project is. pic.twitter.com/0scDyFps1h
— Tessa “Burn it all down” Rouillard (@WhiskyEyeBrews) May 13, 2020
I think, frankly, that this is one of the coolest things to ever happen on the internet. I think Tessa Rouillard so much for her ingenuity and creativity and motivation. I'm hoping that the Cardinals team will see this and give her some credit for her work! Sports!@TheBirdist aaahahahahah yaassssss. Home RUUUNNN #backyardbirds #birdtwitter @Cardinals pic.twitter.com/05wpS8vHOc
— Tessa “Burn it all down” Rouillard (@WhiskyEyeBrews) May 13, 2020