10,000 Birds

On Seeing a Chat in New York

Corey — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:00:47 +0000

On Tuesday morning, after being a New York-based birder for five years and several months, I finally saw a Yellow-breasted Chat in New York State.* It was the 353rd bird checked off my New York State checklist and one of the few regularly occurring and expected birds left for me to see in the Empire State. How did I finally find Icteria virens? The internet, Central Park, a lunch break, and dogged determination! Join me in the next paragraph and I’ll explain.

I hadn’t been at work for long on Tuesday when a somewhat cryptic, and to non-birders perhaps incomprehensible, email message appeared in my inbox from one of the New York City birding listservs. The subject line said “Central park Chat + yellow-billed cuckoo” and the body of the message said, merely, “In tangle west side of Maintenance Meadow. Now Irene.”

I did not have any hope of seeing the Yellow-breasted Chat referred to in the subject line. First of all, I had no idea who “Irene” was so I had no way to determine if Irene could identify a Yellow-breasted Chat. Second, chats are notorious skulkers, and, in autumn, tend not to make any noise. Third, on Monday I spent a bit of time poking around Alley Pond Park where a chat had been reported the day before and I found nothing. Fourth, I had never seen a Yellow-breasted Chat in New York State so why should Tuesday be any different?

But, of course, when my lunch break rolled around, three hours after the bird was initially reported, I left the office and made my way to Central Park, showing some of that dogged determination that one needs when one has already seen most of the expected birds in a state. As I made my way through the Ramble to the Maintenance Meadow I watched a flock of Blue Jays harass a Sharp-shinned Hawk and spotted a Veery. Then, when I was almost to the meadow, a fellow birder noticed my binoculars and let me know that a chat had been seen earlier in the meadow and some people were waiting to see it. I thanked her and started walking a bit faster, thinking that I didn’t want to dawdle and hear the dreaded words “You just missed it.”

Three birders awaited me in the Maintenance Meadow, in the little bit of shade available to protect them from the noon sun. As is normal among our obsessive tribe we neglected to exchange names but I did learn that the bird had been seen as recently as twenty minutes earlier and that it was occasionally making brief appearances. I put my binoculars up and scanned the underbrush and came to a bird that was partially obscured but that had a bright yellow chest, or, wait, breast, and then it poked its head out and it was the chat! Sweet, sweet, easy twitch! The other birders got on it and then it disappeared into the underbrush again. I waited until it made another brief appearance and then it was back to work for me.

Above is what most would consider a great look at a Yellow-breasted Chat. Photo by Charlie.

Somehow, the afternoon at work went by a bit faster after checking the chat off of my New York State list. But then I started to think about it and realized that with Icteria virens checked off it has become much more difficult for me to add anything to my state list. I will have to travel way up north and get extremely lucky to find a declining Adirondack breeder like Spruce Grouse or Gray Partridge or go out to sea and find a Manx Shearwater or any storm petrel besides Wilson’s Storm Petrel or just get lucky with a western vagrant like Pacific Loon or White-winged Dove or a European vagrant like Northern Wheatear. There are no easy ticks left. I now understand why the top listers in New York State aren’t much above 400: it gets exponentially harder to see a new bird in New York once you break 350.

But, on the plus side, I can now say that I have seen every single breeding wood-warbler in New York State. All that are left of the wood-warblers are birds that are even less likely to cross my field of view than a chat. In fact, there are only three wood-warblers on the New York State checklist that I could possibly see: Townsend’s Warbler, Swainson’s Warbler, and MacGillivray’s Warbler (there is also the impossible-and-never-to-appear-again-in-New York Painted Redstart).

Seeing a chat made my day and I look forward to seeing many more because, as every birder knows, once you’ve seen a nemesis bird once you won’t be able to avoid them afterward.

*The one previous Yellow-breasted Chat on my life list was from coastal Connecticut in 2005, when I had been birding for only a few months. The fog of time since then makes me question the sighting but not enough to make me take it off my list.

Monumental Migration Event Tonight?

Corey — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:42:42 +0000

The buzz on birding listservs is that the northeastern United States might be in for the best night flight of migrating birds in, well, a really, really, long time, tonight. Check out these excerpts from an email on the “Night Flight Calls” listserv:

We are in one of those situations in the northeast where connoisseurs of nocturnal bird migration are in an especially heightened physiological state. I know of no specific word for it, but it is when the anticipated flight is looking so huge that it affects your adrenal function days in advance. In tonight’s case it is not simply the next cold front passage, but potentially a movement of relatively large & perhaps historic proportions.

Here in deep interior northeastern US we haven’t had a significant nocturnal bird movement since the night of August 26-27. That’s 12 nights without a major flight. I looked back in my records of the last 20 years and there is no similar event. The longest comparable string of nights around this time of year without a significant nocturnal migration event is all the way back in 1992 when hurricane Andrew made landfall in Louisana and stalled out in the mid-Atlantic states…

…Everything I know suggests to me that tonight (and tomorrow night) look to be huge nocturnal flights across northeastern US. The spring is set as tight as for any early September night I’ve seen in the past 20 years. Theoretically there is an uncommonly large number of birds ready to fly, and we are in the time when peak numbers of neotropical migrants typically move across the region. Given that the numbers of night migrants in eastern North America are undoubtedly getting smaller annually due to increasing numbers of man-made fatality sources (windows, towers, etc) and habitat loss, this may well be the largest early September nocturnal migration event we have the opportunity to experience in the remainder of our lives. If you live in northeastern US or thereabouts, you might want to consider taking the next few nights and days off.

Time to waste…?

Charlie — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:53:04 +0000

…then have a look at a strange page that involves origami birds folding themselves and flying out of the frame with accompanying calls. Let it load fully and then click wherever you feel like it. It’s not for the massively time-pressed but fun for everyone else! (Thanks to Alan Tilmouth for the heads-up.)

Danish White-tailed Eagles poisoned

Charlie — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:32:13 +0000

BirdLife are reporting that for the first time in almost a century a pair of White-tailed Eagles Haliaeetus albicilla bred in the Danish island of Funen. Tragically the birds were found dead at the end of June after feeding on a poisoned bait. Tests proved that the birds were poisoned with the prohibited and extremely powerful neurotoxin carbofuran which leads to paralysis and suffocation. A reward has been offered, but sadly there’s no news on whether the culprit, when caught, can be dosed until he too dies a horrible death as natural justice would seem to demand…

Hummingbirds at Dusk

a Guest — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:00:37 +0000

A week or so ago I was sent an email by a reader named Jimer asking if I’d like to see some photos of a Red-tailed Hawk being whalloped by a mockingbird. The photos, he said, were a little bit distant which they indeed turned out to be (good, but a little distant). He added though that he would send a few photos of his hummingbird feeders which he said were attracting good numbers of hummers, though he doubted whether I could identify all the species involved from his photos. He was correct about my US hummingbird ID skills (no doubt someone far more experienced than me will be more confident), but I thought that the photos were so evocative I asked if I could post them anyway…

All photographs copyright Jimer

Birds’ Lice Match Their Feathers

Corey — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 22:00:34 +0000

Not surprisingly, but interestingly, the lice living on a bird match the colors of the bird’s feathers. Darker birds get darker lice and lighter birds get lighter lice, at least, on birds’ bodies. On birds’ heads, where a bird can’t see them, lice always tend to be dark. Evolution in action!

Conservation Club closes in on 100 members

Charlie — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:36:10 +0000

We’re extremely proud to say that the 10,000 Birds Conservation Club has attracted close to 100 members in its first nine months. We’ve already given away several thousand dollars worth of books, art, and holidays and raised almost USD2500.00 for conservation projects! Thanks to everyone who’s joined for your faith and support.

Inbred bumblebees ‘face extinction threat’

Charlie — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:25:07 +0000

Some of the UK’s rarest bumblebees are at risk of becoming extinct as a result of inbreeding, research suggests. The lack of genetic diversity is making the bees more vulnerable to a number of threats, including parasitic infection, say scientists in Scotland who warn that some populations of bees are becoming increasingly isolated as a result of habitat loss. The UK currently has 24 species of bumblebee, and of the remaining species, one quarter have been identified as being in need of conservation to prevent them from disappearing.

Stop Swatting Wasps - Buglife

Charlie — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:18:30 +0000

Buglife is asking the public to learn to appreciate Wasps, and to stop swatting them! In a new campaign launched this week, Buglife is challenging common-held beliefs that wasps are dangerous, aggressive and of no use. Buglife is asking people to take a new look at wasps and to sign up to the Stop-swatting pledge. Definitely worth supporting (I’ve signed despite my ongoing problem with Hornets using my moth-trap as an ‘all you can eat’ buffet).

Birding (and Fishing) Onteora Lake

Corey — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:00:13 +0000

This past weekend was another upstate weekend, and one couldn’t have created a more beautiful Labor Day weekend if one had a weather machine and the willingness to use it. The sun shone from blue skies with fluffy white clouds for almost the entire weekend while a cool breeze blew to prevent the heat from ever getting worth mentioning. It was absolutely gorgeous, so, of course, we spend almost all of the weekend out of doors. Like the last time I was upstate my brother Jonathan and I snuck out before dawn one day to make sure his canoe was in working order. Our destination this time was Onteora Lake, a small narrow lake along State Route 28, west of Kingston in Ulster County.

I sat in the front of the canoe and switched between the three tools I had at my disposal-the paddle, the camera, and the binoculars. Jonathan steered from the back when he wasn’t busy trying to catch himself some fish (he ended up catching a smallish bass which he released). Mostly we just enjoyed the sky and the sun and the lake and being out and about while the world woke up around us.

A couple of mixed foraging flocks of migrant warblers and vireos kept me busy with my binoculars and I learned how difficult it is to get an identification of a quick little bird high in the canopy when one is in a moving boat. Most of the little birds were left on the table but a surprise Philadelphia Vireo, a Black-throated Green Warbler, several Magnolia Warblers, a Black-and-white Warbler, and a couple of other species made me glad I had my binoculars. Even better was hearing repeatedly and finally spotting my first Pileated Woodpecker of the year, finally! Living in New York City makes missing a Pileated Woodpecker for the year a distinct possibility, a fate I wouldn’t wish upon the worst stringer in the birding world.

As happy as I was to see the woodpecker I was even happier to be out breathing fresh air in an area where such birds are not only possible but likely, a feeling made stronger by a flyover Common Raven while we paddled along the shore chasing after the Eastern Phoebe in the picture below.

We only had a couple of hours before we were expected back but we made the most of them, paddling over most of the lake and seeing as many birds and making as many casts as we could while we were on the lake. Despite our best efforts at coming up with excuses for delaying our arrival back at our folks’ house (we tipped the canoe, we were attacked by a bear, we got lost, we thought we were in the Central Time Zone) all too soon it was time to pull the canoe out of the lake and skedaddle. Onteora Lake is a pretty little lake and well worth a visit, especially if you have a boat from which to explore the entire length of the lake.

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