Today in NJ Birding History

Great Cormorant

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 22:41:00 +0000

On this day in 1929, Joseph Harrison "secured" an immature Great Cormorant near Salem, NJ. The specimen made its way to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and to Witmer Stone, who published a note about it in the Auk. The bird that Harrison collected was one of two that he saw.

Subsequently, Charles Urner published a note in the Auk regarding sight reports of Great Cormorants in the Barnegat Bay area. Although some cormorants in the area were strongly suspected to be Great Cormorants (or European Cormorants, as they were called at that time), it wasn't until 23 February 1931 that a Barnegat Bay cormorant was seen well enough to for the field marks for Great Cormorant to be made out. As Urner concluded his note: "Since identification of single cormorants in the field is so difficult unless the bird is in, or approaching, breeding plumage, or is seen very near at hand, this species is probably of more regular occurrence than the published records indicate (Urner 1932)."

Stone, Witmer. 1932. The European Cormorant in New Jersey. Auk 49:77. PDF here

Urner, Charles A. 1932. The European Cormorant in New Jersey. Auk 49:341-342. PDF here

The Moth and Me #13

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:51:00 +0000

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of The Moth and Me blog carnival. Although thirteen is widely regarded as an unlucky number, there are those who go against the grain. None of the folks who submitted posts seemed to be scared off by triskaidekaphobia, and for that I thank them.

The number thirteen is often associated with the supernatural. Since many moths are creatures of the night and their life histories can be downright bizarre, it doesn't take much imagination to think of some of these posts as part of a collection of spooky stories.

A happenstance meeting with a moth in London briefly reminds Martin of Martin's Moths of Gothic architecture and a sinister murder case. Chris of The Skeptical Moth tells a ghost story, albeit a scientific one (it's about a previously undiscovered ghost moth). There are many other fantastical creatures in the annals of the weird, but even in the times of the ancients, sphinxes can't have been as common as they seem to be now: this carnival includes sphinx moth (or hawk moth, if you prefer) reports from Mark at Skev's B.L.O.G. in Leicestershire, UK, and Matthew of SEE TRAIL in Texas, USA. There's even a sphinx moth mimic (an Apatelodes) from Missouri, USA (a first state record for Shelly at MObugs).

Several posts deal with caterpillars and their transformation from crawling things to creatures of the air. Even when the transformation goes well (as it does in this post from Elaine at Memorizing Nature), it's somewhat uncanny. When Tim at The Backyard Arthropod Project attempts to rear a found caterpillar, however, he soon has a totally unexpected creature on his hands (zombie caterpillars, anyone?). Since caterpillar's life is a hard one, some species defend themselves with chemical warfare; in this post, Kristen at Tales from the Butterfly Garden explains why you want to think twice before touching fuzzy-looking caterpillars.

Adult moths have to worry about predators, too, of course. Sometimes death comes from the air, as it did for this Edwards' Glassy-wing Moth found by Katie at Nature ID; sometimes it comes from the ground, as it did for an Australian moth found by Denis at The Nature of Robertson.

Despite the number, though, this carnival isn't really a collection of supernatural stories. That ghost story, for example, is really about doing science. Another post about doing science (and the intimate relationship between moths and plants) is this one, where Chris at Coyote Crossing interviews researcher Jeremy Yoder about his work with yucca moths.

A more informal way of doing science is to set out a moth trap in one's backyard and see what happens. This is more common in the UK than in North America at the moment; Charlie at 10,000 Birds has been posting mothy updates like this one about June moths, while Mike at Norfolk Wildlife shows a tiny but well-camouflaged moth.

Backyard mothing has yet to become as popular in North America as it is in the UK, but we do have bioblitzes or biothons here. Seabrooke at The Marvelous in Nature helps out with a biothon and discovers that moths can add good numbers to a biothon total.

Even without a ongoing moth-netting project, some moths are eye-catching enough to stop observant people in their tracks. Some are colorful, like these from John at A D.C. Birding Blog (currently located in New Jersey). Some have flashy spots, like this one found by Natalie at dreamfalcon. Pink is a color that gets people's attention, as I've found when posting photos of Rosy Maple Moths on Flickr, so it's no wonder this little pink moth got the attention of Amber at Birder's Lounge.

And finally, if you're like me, you are fascinated by moth nomenclature (well, ok, most people aren't like me, but bear with me here). Any group of critters with common names like The Small Engrailed, Abrupt Brother, The Neighbor, Dejected Underwing, Wanton Pinion and Disparaged Arches (to name but a few) offers plenty of prospects for wordplay, if that's your game. The Voice of the Turtle's lavenderbay considers various things that have been named for Virginia, including the Virginia Ctenucha moth.

With that, The Moth and Me #13 comes to a close. I don't believe there's a host for August yet, so drop Seabrooke a line at canadianowlet AT gmail.com if you are interested. Thanks to everyone for their posts and submissions this month. Now get out there and look for some more moths!

Atlantic City Bird Names

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 01:15:00 +0000

A. C. From Brig
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

Some more old Jersey bird names from Trumbull's Names and Portraits of Birds Which Interest Gunners.... These are from Atlantic City which, given that Trumbull's book was published in 1888, looked a little different than it does today.

Big Yellow-legged Plover - Greater Yellowlegs
Black-breast - Dunlin
Blaten Duck - Gadwall
Bog Snipe - Wilson's Snipe
Brant-bird - Dunlin
Bull-head - Black-bellied Plover
Calico-back - Ruddy Turnstone
Cock-robin - Hooded Merganser
Cock-robin Duck - Hooded Merganser
Cub-head - Common Goldeneye
Granny - Long-tailed Duck
Gray-back - Short-billed Dowitcher
Hay-bird - Pectoral Sandpiper
Hollow-head - Black-bellied Plover
Horse-foot Marlin - Whimbrel
Long-neck - Northern Pintail
Mud-hen - Clapper Rail
Old Granny - Long-tailed Duck
Ring-tailed Marlin - Hudsonian Godwit
Sleepy Broad-bill - Ruddy Duck
Small Yellow-legged Plover - Lesser Yellowlegs
Spoon-bill - Northern Shoveller
Sprig-tail - Northern Pintail
Straight-billed Curlew - Marbled Godwit
Telltale - Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs
Triddler - Pectoral Sandpiper
Winter Snipe - Dunlin

Previously in this series:

Jersey Game Bird Names 1
Barnegat Bird Names
Tuckerton Bird Names
Cape May City Bird Names

The Concrete Ship

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:07:00 +0000

Great Cormorant
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

On this day in 1926, a storm hit Cape May. A concrete ship hulk, which had been intended to find its final harbor as part of a ferry dock, broke away from its moorings in the storm and ran aground not far off Sunset Beach. The ship could not be salvaged afterward and has been crumbling into the sea ever since.

Though the idea of a concrete ship seems to defy the laws of physics, a number of these vessels were built during World War I and II. The S. S. Atlantus was seaworthy enough to bring troops home from Europe and transport coal in New England after she left her home port of Brunswick, Georgia, in December 1918. She was retired in 1920, only to be resurrected by the prospect of a ferry service connecting Cape May with Delaware. Then the storm put paid to that notion. It wasn't until 1964 that Cape May-Lewes ferry service finally became a reality.

After the S. S. Atlantus ran aground, she became a curiosity for tourists and a landmark for birders. The concrete ship took her place among the birding topography of Cape May along with the bunker, the magnesite plant, and the beanery. She became known as a good place for a seawatch, and a good spot for Great Cormorant, Purple Sandpiper, or staging migrant Red-throated Loons (in the appropriate season). Unfortunately, she continues to decay into the bay; I guess it's a mark of the time that I've spent birding that the concrete ship is obviously reduced from what she was when I first met her.

For lots more about concrete ships in general, see the concrete ships site. The S. S. Atlantus is also given her own page there. For the stop-and-go history of ferry service between Cape May and Delaware, see the history page on the official Cape May-Lewes ferry site.

Rest in peace, S. S. Atlantus. We'll miss you when you're gone.

For Ada Lovelace Day: Thank You, Claudia Wilds

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 02:48:00 +0000

Ada Lovelace Day is a day for bloggers to celebrate women in science and technology. I'm not sure if this post will fall exactly within the parameters of what was intended for this day, but I would like to take the opportunity to honor the memory of one of my birding role models, the late Claudia Wilds.

I first ran across Wilds' name while reading Jack Connor's guide for would-be intermediate birders, The Complete Birder. This book delved deeper into the identification of complicated groups such as warblers, shorebirds, terns and gulls than many field guides of the time went (The Complete Birder was originally published in 1988). Connor quoted identification criteria in a conversational style; I subsequently found out that he was citing articles in the American Birding Association's journal Birding, but at the time I first read (and reread and reread) his book, I had no idea that the ABA even existed. I just thought Connor knew some birders, and that Claudia Wilds sure knew a lot about shorebirds.

I had already caught the shorebird bug by the time I first read The Complete Birder. The identification of birds (and especially difficult groups such as shorebirds or gulls) was an irresistible intellectual challenge. Wilds' work offered the tools to get to grips with these challenges. Once I found ABA and became a member, and then bought up all the back issues of Birding I could get, I discovered Wilds' own articles, and her critiques of other shorebird references.

In the meantime, as a birder in the mid-Atlantic, I had also found my way to Bombay Hook NWR and other Delaware sites. Lo and behold, Wilds had also written a bird-finding guide to the DC area (which included Delaware). Not only did it cover birds, it also dealt with practical matters such as Delaware speed traps.

Eventually, I wrote a few articles for Birding myself, on old bird books. At that point, Wilds was Associate Editor of Birding, and I have at least one manuscript marked up by her (as well as Paul Lehman, Birding's editor at the time).

It wasn't until Wilds' untimely death from cancer in 1997 that I found out that she had had an illustrious career as a linguist with the U. S. State Department before she came to birding (if you Google her name, you will find references from both chapters of her life). I never met her in person, but she was and continues to be an inspiration to me.

Oh, and the image for this post? A run of Western Birds (originally California Birds) showed up in the Buteo Books catalog in the late 90s, so I snapped it up (those being the days when money was no object when it came to building my birding reference library). Look closely at the upper right-hand corner of that cover. It says "Wilds."

An incomplete list of further reading:

Claudia Wilds: Finding Birds in the National Capital Area. Smithsonian Institution Press.

Claudia Wilds: Separating the Yellowlegs. Birding 14:172-178

Claudia Wilds: On Taking a Notebook Afield

Claudia Wilds and David Czaplak: Yellow-legged Gulls in North America. Wilson Bulletin 106:344-356 (PDF)

Claudia Wilds and Robert Hilton: Emerging from the Silent Majority: Documenting Rarities

Paul Lehman: A Tribute to Claudia Wilds (1931-1997) Birding 29:358-360

Claudia Wilds obit

Claudia Wilds gull photos

Who was who in California birding: out-of-staters

Claudia Wilds Fund of the Montgomery (MD) Bird Club (scroll to page 8 of the PDF)

Mothy Monday 6: Spring!

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:39:00 +0000

Unknown Phigalia-type Moth
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

After a winter full of snowbanks, and a late winter with way too much rain, there was a spell of fine sunny warm weather last week. That was all the early-season moths needed. My first moth of the season may have been a Fall Cankerworm Moth (Alsophila pometaria) but the photos weren't quite good enough to clinch it. Soon afterward, I saw the first Spring Cankerworm Moth (Paleacrita vernata) of the season, a browner individual than the gray ones I've seen in past years.

Yesterday I decided to visit Plainsboro Preserve on the off chance some moths were perched on the building (they are attracted from the surrounding area by the building's lights). I wasn't expecting much, but was delighted to find several The Half-wings (Phigalia titea), more Spring Cankerworm Moths, as well as various unidentified Noctuids and others. Spring has officially sprung, as far as the moths are concerned.

In other mothiness around the web, the most recent The Moth and Me blog carnival has been posted at the Xenogere blog. Some female moths are wingless, and a nice video clip of such a female is part of the carnival (not to mention a whimsical conversation with her, but that's another story). I've never seen one of these wingless moths, so it was a great opportunity to see what they look like in real life.

Also, Seabrooke Leckie at The Marvelous in Nature has an interesting post about creating range maps for the upcoming Peterson series field guide to moths, and the dilemma of what to do when one doesn't have a lot of data from which to generate a range map.

Bird Documentation in the Digital Age: A Bird in the Book

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:48:00 +0000

The practice of birding is currently undergoing major changes in response to technological changes. These changes include both the introduction of new types of technology as well as new modes of using existing technologies. These changes can be disorienting; while some birders are happy to adopt any new gadget that comes along, others see no reason to change their proven ways of doing things. Somewhere between the "social media will save the world" and "social media is a faddish waste of time" schools lies the truth, and it's impossible for us to totally grasp that truth, caught up in the historical moment of change as we are. What we can do is look back at a previous world-changing technological shift in the practice of birding: the shift from collecting birds with guns to looking at birds with binoculars. The tried-and-true ways we may now want to keep were once themselves novel and suspect to the old school.

There are several good histories of the time period covered by this change (Barrow [1998] is more academic, while Weidensaul [2007] is aimed at a general audience), but the way I'm going to tackle this topic is by looking at how this technological shift altered the language of bird descriptions found in books intended to guide bird students. These identification guides set forth the basic criteria by which a bird student could determine the identity of a bird. Although the technology by which observations were made changed (shotgun vs. binoculars), the technology that helped bird students understand what they were observing (the printed book) did not. What did change in these guides was the graphic presentation of the information and the language used to describe the identification criteria for birds.

Enough generalities, let's start by comparing a couple of descriptions of the same species, from Shriner (1896) and Peterson (1980). Shriner goes first:

"Length, twelve and a half inches; extent, twenty inches; general color above, blue slate; feathers of the head long and pointed, forming a conspicuous crest, bluish slate, centered with black; the inner tail feathers have an irregular black stripe down the middle, the rest are black, with slaty blue edges, all are more or less spotted with white; long wing feathers, black, with the basal portion white and a few white spots on some of the outer webs; color of under surface of the body, white, with a broad slaty blue band across the breast, while the sides of the body are slaty with white bars; the white of the throat extends around on the back of the neck, forming a more or less complete collar, and there is a white spot in front of the eye and another just below it; some individuals have white dots on the upper surface of the wings, and in certain plumages the slaty breast band is suffused with rusty; the bill is two inches long, strong, sharp-pointed, and black, excepting near the base of the lower part of the tip, where it is of a horn color; the wings are marked with small specks of white; legs, extremely short, of a dirty yellow color, above the knee bare of feathers for half an inch; the two exterior toes are united together for nearly their whole length; claws, stout and black. The female has a reddish brown band across the under side of the body below the slaty breast band, while the sides of the body are also of this color." Paragraphs on nesting habits (including description of the eggs), distribution, and diet ("exclusively fish") follow.

Now here's Peterson:

"Hovering on rapidly beating wings in readiness for the plunge, or flying with uneven wingbeats (as if changing gear), rattling as it goes, the Kingfisher is easily recognized. Perched, it is big-headed and big-billed, larger than a Robin, blue-gray above, with a ragged bushy crest and a broad gray breastband. The female has an additional rusty breastband." Single sentences on Voice, Range, a reference to the eastern range map, and Habitat follow.

There are obvious differences in length between these two descriptions. Shriner's description includes more details than Peterson's, first giving measurements, then plumage colors in detail, followed by structural details such as the bill and feet. Nowhere is behavior mentioned (there is no reference to "hovering" in his discussion). This description is clearly intended for a bird student with the bird in hand and enough leisure to note fine points such as the black centers to the head feathers and white spots on the outer webs of the flight feathers. The description in its list-like structure portrays the bird as a collection of parts that are given equal weight.

Peterson, by contrast, writes of the bird in motion, describing its feeding and flight behavior. The only color notes are the general "blue-gray above," "broad gray breastband" and description of the female's rusty breastband. On one hand, there's no need for Peterson to describe the bird in further color detail since a color plate of both male and female kingfishers is on the page facing the text (Shriner has a black and white photo of a taxidermist's mount of several kingfishers). Even so, the emphasis is on what the bird is likely to be doing when a bird student finds it rather than what it looks like. Rather than listing the structural features as independent items, as Shriner does, Peterson unites them in the succinct phrase, "big-headed and big-billed," pulling the big picture out of the details. The details that Peterson uses are chosen carefully, with the most prominent ones highlighted and others discarded from the description entirely.

Two different descriptions of the same species are, of course, a very small study sample, but I suspect a larger study would arrive at similar findings.

Bird books from the transitional period between shotguns and bins (think the 1920s-1930s) tend to try to cover both bases. Forbush (1925-1929) included both descriptions and field marks. Bagg and Eliot (1937) listed details of sight observations that today we would pass off without discussion, but that still did not satisfy people like Ludlow Griscom (Davis 1994). Stone (1964) expressed concern about sight records and their reliability, but also had this to say:

"No descriptions of the birds are presented as everyone interested in bird study today possesses one or more manuals for identification. There are, however, many comments on the appearance of birds in the field, of the deceptive effect of light and shadow upon coloration and the relative value of field characters. Even these are perhaps unnecessary in view of the appearance, after most of the 'studies' had been written, of Roger Peterson's admirable 'Field Guide to the Birds,' but so intimately are they associated with other parts of the text that it seemed best to allow them to stand."

We will return to description as a basic part of bird documentation later in this series, but this is its birthplace: when specimens were not always available but records of noteworthy observations needed to be kept.

In the next post in this series, we will return the present and look at the falling cost of bird photography.

Bagg, Aaron Clark, & Samuel Atkins Eliot, Jr. 1937. Birds of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts. Hampshire Bookshop, Northampton, MA.

Barrow, Mark, Jr. 1998. A Passion for Birds: American Ornithology After Audubon. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.

Davis, William E., Jr. 1994. Dean of the Birdwatchers: A Biography of Ludow Griscom. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

Forbush, Edward Howe. 1925-1929. Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Norwood, MA.

Peterson, Roger Tory. 1980. A Field Guide to the Birds. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA.

Shriner, Charles A. 1896. The Birds of New Jersey. Fish & Game Commission of the State of New Jersey, [Patterson, NJ].

Weidensaul, Scott. 2007. Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding. Harcourt, Orlando, FL.

Previously in this series:

Introduction

What Is a Bird Record?

Ivory Gull Link Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 23:42:00 +0000

Ivory Gull
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

I'm tempted to designate the Ivory Gull the Official Patron Bird of this blog. In a post on 3 February 2007 (the anniversary of the first state record of a dead bird picked up in 1940), I typed the following:

"...the steady increase in climate warming suggests that this [Ivory Gull] is one of the least likely vagrants to visit NJ in the future."

By the end of the month, there was an Ivory Gull in Piermont, NY, not quite in NJ but close enough for regret.

Then, at the beginning of this year, there were two Ivory Gulls in Massachusetts, a circumstance that led to me doing my assigned reading for that week of classes in the back seat of a small car hurtling toward Plymouth. I had to get my homework done, of course, but an Ivory Gull as close as Massachusetts was too good to pass up (especially when I was able to add a visit to a cemetery of genealogical interest into the bargain, but that's another story). That experience led to the first installment of the current blog series on Bird Documentation in the Digital Age.

So now Cape May has finally gotten its Ivory Gull, which had the impeccable timing of arriving for Thanksgiving (though it seems to prefer fish heads to turkey on the menu). This is one occasion where I don't mind being wrong. In fact, in order to properly celebrate, I am posting a link roundup of Cape May Ivory Gull sightings in cyberspace. I hope to keep this post updated, and I'm sure I've missed something, so feel free to drop me a line at ammodramus88 residing at gmail.com if you would like to add something I've overlooked. And good luck to everyone looking for the gull over the weekend!

Ongoing coverage is on the blog at CMBO's website, but individual posts don't have permalinks, so I'm posting a general link to the blog. Another Cape May site with Ivory Gull pix is Bob Fogg's keekeekerr.com.

Ivory Gull newspaper coverage
(or, more accurately, online coverage from newspaper sites)

Cape May Times photo essay

Courier-Post Winged Wonders blog

The Press of Atlantic City article

The Press of Atlantic City photos

Ivory Gull blog posts

Birding in New Jersey

Caroline County MD Bird Club

Flight of the Scrub-Jay

Flogging Babel
The Hawk Owl's Nest

jgrussell - my world

Melissa's Birding / Wild Birds Blog
Nervous Birds

New Jersey Nature
Peeps
Recycled Photons

Ivory Gull trip reports

wisbirdn

Ivory Gull vids

"aburdo" vid
Benjamin Clock Ivory Gull foraging
Ray Duffy vid 1 vid 2

Ivory Gull photos
(if there are more than five photos from a particular photographer posted on Flickr or a similar site, I've just posted a general link to the photographer's online photo page. Screen names are in quotes.)

various photographers gallery on CMBO site
"Birding At Night" photo 1 photo 2 photo 3 photo 4 photo 5
"bluedasher" Flickr set
Devin Bosler photo 1 photo 2
Peter Burke photo 1 photo 2
Steve Byland photo
J. B. Churchill photo
Benjamin Clock photo 1 photo 2
Dave Czaplak Flickr set
Jeff Davis photos
Joe Delesantro Flickr set
Gerry Dewaghe PBase set
"donna lynn" photo
Ray Duffy photo

Scott Elowitz photo set
Howard Eskin photos
Bert Filemyr set from 11/27 set from 12/1

Sam Galick photo
Jim Gilbert photo 1 photo 2 photo 3 photo 4
Steve Glynn photo
Jennifer W. Hanson (bad) photos
"ingret9" Flickr set
Phil Jeffrey photos
"johnjos" photos in discussion thread on fredmiranda.com
Tom Johnson photo 1 photo 2 photo 3 photo 4 photo 5
Sandra Keller photo 1 photo 2
"KFiabane" photo
Tony Leukering photos
Karl Lukens set from 11/27 set from 11/28 set from 11/30
Chris Magarelli photo 1 photo 2
"mj3151" photos in discussion thread on whatbird.com
Dan Murray photo 1 photo 2 photo 3 photo 4 photo 5
"ngannet" photos

James Petersen photo 1 photo 2 photo 3 photo 4
Tom Reed Flickr set

J. G. Russell photos in discussion thread on photography-on-the.net
Harvey Tomlinson photo 1 photo 2
Dustin Welch photos
Scott Whittle set from 11/27 set from 11/28

And thanks to Patrick Belardo for pointing out the all-important souvenir category to me. Not only can you get a cute Ivory Gull from Birdorable, you can also get a classic logo treatment from BirderGifts (no endorsement or economic profit to either myself or Patrick, for the record).

Mute Swan

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:08:00 +0000

Mute Swans
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

On this day in 1916, a young swan was picked up "exhausted" and identified as a Tundra Swan (then Whistling Swan) at Elizabeth in Union County. This observation was included in a list of "unusual visitors" by Charles Urner that was published in the Auk in 1921. One issue later, there was a sequel. The swan (published as a Tundra Swan either through misidentification or typographical error: both are blamed) turned out to be a Mute Swan, which was at that time an introduced species with a very limited distribution in the New York City area. W. De Witt Miller at the American Museum of Natural History made the correct identification after seeing the bird. In 1932, Urner published a further account of the species' spread in NJ; at that point he said it was "completely naturalized...a number of pairs breed in a wild state in suitable ponds along the coast from the vicinity of Asbury Park to Bayhead" (Urner 1932). When Witmer Stone wrote Bird Studies at Old Cape May, he quoted Urner and noted that Mute Swan was not yet known to reach Cape May (Stone 1965). By the time Walsh et al. was published in 1999, Mute Swan was breeding across the state (including Cape May), mostly in the north, though the distribution was somewhat scattered. Coastal ponds remain excellent places to see Mute Swans; in spring, large numbers can be seen in various locations.

Urner, Charles A. 1932. Mute Swan in New Jersey. Auk 49:213. PDF here
Urner, Charles A. 1921. Unusual visitors at Elizabeth, N. J. Auk 38:120-121. PDF here
Urner, Charles A. 1921. Whistling Swan: A correction. Auk 38:273. PDF here

Buller's Shearwater

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:46:00 +0000

On this day in 1984, a Buller's Shearwater was found on a pelagic trip off the Jersey coast. The bird was about 31 miles ESE of Barnegat Light, and remains a unique record. This species breeds on islands near New Zealand and the NJ record is the single North Atlantic record of the species. See Angus Wilson's Ocean Wanderers site for more info about Buller's Shearwater and its usual distribution.

David Sibley was the one who identified the shearwater, according to the account in Records of New Jersey Birds. I recently heard someone who was there at the time say that it was one of only two times he ever heard Sibley shout (the other was for a Mississippi Kite, which just shows how much times have changed).

Dunne, Peter. 1985. 1984 Fall Field Notes, Region 5. Records of New Jersey Birds 11:18-22.

Happy Birthday, Brig!

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:32:00 +0000

View Toward the Hack Tower
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

On this day in 1939, Brigantine NWR (later renamed Edwin B. Forsythe NWR) was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. Although the original intent was to serve as refuge for waterfowl (i.e., game birds), it eventually became a magnet for birders because of its habit of attracting rarities in many bird groups (see below).

I first visited Brig in 1989, on one of my first birding trips. That was my introduction to coastal salt marshes, the day I learned how to use a checklist, and the day that the car's radiator overheated so that we had to limp homeward on Rt. 9 until we finally washed up at the Cranberry Bog (an opportune restaurant with a pay phone so that the driver's father could be summoned to the rescue). I got about 20 lifers that day, never mind the memories.

Then there was the World Series of Birding day when we were headed out along the south dike and the driver (same driver, different car) said, "Don't look behind you." Of course I did, only to see a wall of evil-looking clouds coming in from the west. The tempest blew through, with lightning strikes in the impoundments. Even in the dark of the storm, we could see the white rumps of the White-rumped Sandpipers as they flushed when the lightning struck. Other shorebirds took the opportunity to bathe as the rain poured down. We didn't get most of the birds we had hoped to add at Brig that day, but the weather drama was unforgettable.

Then there have been all the rarities I chased and missed at Brig over the years, the few I chased and got, and, of course, the greenheads. And the seasonal blizzards of Snow Geese. And the peregrines. And the wind in the marsh grass. Etc., etc. I could go on and on. A long-term relationship like the one I have with Brig can't be reduced to a single blog post.

To conclude, here is an incomplete list of some good birds we can thank Brig for (drawn from the most recent edition of the NJBRC Accepted Records List; asterisks indicate first state records):

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck - 2000*
Fulvous Whistling-Duck - 2004
Greater White-fronted Goose - 1993, 1996
Ross's Goose - 1972*, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1993, 1996, 1997
"Black" Brant - 2001
Cinnamon Teal - 1974*
Garganey - 1997*
"Common" Teal - 1997
Eared Grebe - 1986, 2007
American White Pelican - 1996
Reddish Egret - 1998*
White Ibis - 1996, 1998, 2007
White-faced Ibis - 1981, 1983, 1986, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007
Roseate Spoonbill - 2007
Swallow-tailed Kite - 1988
Gyrfalcon - 1941, 1971, 1972, 1975
Yellow Rail - 1971
Purple Gallinule - 1964, 1971, 1974, 1985, 1993, 1998
Sandhill Crane - 1998
Wilson's Plover - 1979, 1996, 1999, 2007
Black-necked Stilt - 1996
Spotted Redshank - 1978*, 1979, 1993
"Eurasian" Whimbrel - 2001
Long-billed Curlew - 2001
Black-tailed Godwit - 1971*
Bar-tailed Godwit - 1971
Red-necked Stint - 1999*
Little Stint - 1985*
Curlew Sandipiper - 2001, 2002, 2003, 2007
Sooty Tern - 1979
Pacific-slope/Cordilleran Flycatcher - 1981*
Say's Phoebe - 1960, 2003
Ash-throated Flycatcher - 2007
Gray Kingbird - 1993
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher - 1995
Fork-tailed Flycatcher - 1972, 1995, 1999
Cave Swallow - 1999, 2007
Northern Wheatear - 1970, 1974, 1983, 1995
Mountain Bluebird - 1982*
Bohemian Waxwing - 1999
Black-throated Gray Warbler - 1984
Townsend's Warbler - 2006
Western Tanager - 2005

Happy 70th birthday, Brig!

Bird Documentation in the Digital Age: What Is a Bird Record?

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:08:00 +0000

Philadelphia Centennial Bird Exhibit
Originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution

"Whenever I think seriously about why I love notebooks I'm reminded of those cave walls covered in drawings of game by our Neolithic ancestors. Bison, deer and horses gallop across their subterranean galleries in exuberant patterns of charcoal and ochre....They are precious documents about our past, but also about our present condition, since their unconscious beauty finds its echo - if not a direct lineal descendant - in the birder's notebook." (Cocker 2001)

In the beginning, there was a bird.

Some time afterward, there was a human being that wanted to tell other human beings about a bird. This would have been long before any form of written language was invented, so speech was the likely medium (though birds also appear in cave and rock art, of course). Since speech tends to be ephemeral unless it is written down or it persists in a carefully-maintained oral tradition, those earliest bird reports are lost to us today. This is unfortunate, since they would doubtlessly be very interesting.

An encounter between a bird and a human observer is a unique experience. A bird report is the result of that unique experience being translated into a form that allows it to be communicated to people that did not participate in the original experience. That translation is often made with the help of technology. The type of technology used in the translation process inevitably affects the final form of the report (for example, a written description of a bird and a photograph of a bird are very different from each other, even if they report the same individual bird). Technology may affect the circumstances of the observation as well.

The distinction between a bird report and a bird record is subtle but significant. A bird record is a bird report that has been examined and approved by a person or agency with the authority to designate what is accurate and what is not. Various entities claim this authority; the claims of ornithologists and bird records committees are widely accepted by the birding community and others, but any individual can claim a similar authority (whether that claim is honored by others is another matter entirely). To complicate matters further, different authorities may have different criteria for considering a report to be a record.

Both bird reports and records become part of the avian historical record, although a bird record has more status than a report. A basic criterion for a bird record is that there is sufficient information available for future reseachers to review the evidence for a claimed observation and draw their own conclusions. In other words, though current authorities do the best they can in terms of designating accuracy, there is an acknowledgement that future generations may make different designations. Future researchers may even look at observations currently considered to be reports and upgrade them to being records (or vice versa).

To boil it all down to the essentials, the process of turning a bird report into a bird record is the process of turning an anecdote into a data point.

What you just read (if you are still with me) is an idealized version of a stable situation. Technological and social change (which are often entwined with each other) tend to throw such ideals into chaos until a new status quo appears. We are currently living through one of these periods of technological and social change, but the next post in this series will look back at a previous shift: the transition from a shotgun to binoculars as the must-have tool for a bird student.

Cocker, Mark. 2001. Birders: Tales of a Tribe. Atlantic Monthly Press.

Previously in this series:

Introduction

Bird Documentation in the Digital Age: Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:48:00 +0000

At the beginning of this year, two Ivory Gulls appeared in eastern Massachusetts. Since both birds stayed for a while, crowds of birders got to see them; not only local birders but twitchers from far away. I was among the twitchers, as two friends and I made a memorable day trip to Plymouth and saw the bird. By the time we went for the bird, many photos had been posted online to Flickr and other sites, and many of those photos were taken at invitingly close range. When we were there, however, the gull stayed out on the jetty and even farther out in Plymouth Harbor. We did get to see it, though, and it was a lifer for all of us.

Once I got home, I knew I should be a good birding citizen and submit a writeup on the bird to MARC, the Massachusetts Avian Records Committee. As usual, however, I didn't get to it as soon as I wanted and several weeks passed before I e-mailed a description taken from my field notes to the MARC Secretary. The reply I got startled me: I was informed that I was the only person who had submitted written details on the bird up to that point. Granted, with such wonderful photos so easily available, MARC's acceptance of the record was unlikely to hang on my details, but I would have assumed that somebody else, somewhere, would have written some sort of description (and perhaps someone has, in the long interim between my submission and the writing of this post).

The process of bird documentation has undergone a sea-change since I started birding. This begins a series of posts intended to examine this phenomenon in more detail: where we've been and where we're going, and some of the issues that have arisen as a result. Although documentation of rarities may seem like an uncommon situation to many birders, I see that kind of documentation as the tip of the iceberg that is really how we as birders record all birds that we observe.

Next: What, exactly, is a bird record?

The photo that illustrates this post was taken by Jason Forbes in Plymouth on 24 January 2009 (the day I was there) and is under a Creative Commons license. Jason's blog is Brewster's Linnet and he also has a Flickr stream.

New Jersey Birds Spring 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:55:00 +0000

Husted Landing Sunset
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

The Spring 2009 issue of New Jersey Birds has just been posted online; you can find it here. In addition to the usual seasonal reports and photos, there is also an interesting article laying out a possible future for the journal while sketching the evolution of some birding information networks.

There is also an article by Bill Boyle and Laurie Larson about the various (often hybrid) flocks of cranes that have called NJ home in recent years. One of these flocks is known to hang out at Husted Landing, Cumberland Co. Husted Landing is the location that supplied this post's photo: yes, we "got" the cranes as they came in, calling, at dusk, but low light is not conducive to solving difficult identification problems. The sunset that day was fabulous, though. So, it was "crane sp." and "great sunset to Flickr" for me.

Another feature of the latest NJB (hopefully to be continued) is "50 Years Ago," which reprints snippets of NJ Audubon bird sightings from a half-century ago. The current installment includes "mocking birds," House Finches of unknown origin (the question of western vagrants vs. NY escapes/releases), cranes, and legislation to protect birds of prey, "...except when in the act of killing poultry or livestock."

I will be the first to admit that I prefer doing my research by flinging my back issues of R/NJB all over the floor and rifling through them (then generating more research questions and flinging all my state bird books and N/ABs across the floor on top of the R/NJBs), but if NJB has to be online-only, I hope it will prosper in that format. NJ needs a permanent record of bird sightings. R/NJB has provided that in the past and hopefully can do so into the future.

Cape May City Bird Names

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:56:00 +0000

Dunes
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

In honor of a Fourth of July spent unsuccessfully chasing Cape May rarities (but still having a very nice day out), here are some old Jersey bird names from Cape May City.

Black-breast - Dunlin
Black-breast Plover - Black-bellied Plover
Blue-bill - Greater Scaup
Broad-bill - Greater Scaup
Bull-head - Black-bellied Plover
Calico-bird - Ruddy Turnstone
Cob-head - Common Goldeneye
Cur - Common Goldeneye
Diver - Bufflehead
Gray-back - Short-billed Dowitcher
Hairy-head - Hooded Merganser
Hay-bird - Pectoral Sandpiper
Kill-cu - Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs
Marlin - Marbled Godwit
Mommy - Long-tailed Duck
Robin-snipe - Red Knot
Sea-pigeon - Short-billed Dowitcher
Shelduck - Red-breasted Merganser
Short-billed Curlew - Whimbrel
Spike-bill - Marbled Godwit
Spike-billed Curlew - Marbled Godwit

Mothy Monday 5: Bicolored Woodgrain

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Mon, 04 May 2009 22:39:00 +0000

Bicolored Woodgrain 2009
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

I guess it's human nature to look for harbingers of spring. The first baseball cards appearing in the dime store, or pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training. The first cardinal, or Song Sparrow tuning up. Spring Peepers singing. Phoebe Day.

These days, the first Bicolored Woodgrain is one of my spring indicators, even though most of the other indicators listed above have happened by the time the woodgrain shows up. It was one of the first moths I ever identified (before I had a camera to help me make moth identification a process that could potentially take years). I seem to recall a moth perched on the screen looking out on my deck, and me flipping through the plates in Covell's field guide to moths. Luckily, the Bicolored Woodgrain has actual field marks, most prominently that pale slash on the trailing edge of the forewing. Ever since then, I've looked for the Bicolored Woodgrain in late April, and have yet to be disappointed.

Western Meadowlark

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:23:00 +0000

On this day in 1940, John T. S. Hunn and Miriam Minton were birding south of South Plainfield in Middlesex County. The original goal of their day was to find Upland Sandpipers, but Hunn heard a song he recognized from trips out west as belonging to a Western Meadowlark. Although Hunn returned to the location several times during May 1940, the bird was never refound.

It was a good thing that Hunn knew the Western Meadowlark's song, since Eastern and Western meadowlarks look very similar and the best method of distinguishing them is by song. There have been seven accepted records since, all from the spring to summer season. In contrast to many NJ rarities, all Western Meadowlarks so far have been away from the expected coastal rarity magnets such as Cape May or Sandy Hook.

Hunn, John T. S. 1941. Western Meadowlark in New Jersey. Auk 58:265. PDF here

Whip-poor-will

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:17:00 +0000

Whitall House Brickwork
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

On this day in 1749, Pehr Kalm set down some notes about the Whip-poor-will. The impetus for his journal entry was the arrival of the species on this day of that year. Kalm's teacher, Carl Linne (Linnaeus) considered the Whip-poor-will a variety of the European Nightjar, but Kalm noted that the species' voice was different from the European bird. He compared it to the Common Cuckoo of Europe for its habit of remaining unseen by day but calling at night. He also wrote, "It commonly comes several times in a night, and settles close to the houses; I have seen it coming late in the evening, settling on the steps of the house in order to sing its song" (Kalm 1987). Kalm also relates the story of a Whip-poor-will that played dead when his servant attempted to shoot it.

The photo that illustrates this post shows what would have been a brand new house in 1749; the Whitall House in National Park, Gloucester County, which was built in 1748. A fine example of the brick houses of that era, its fame was sealed when it found itself a front-row spectator of the Battle of Red Bank in 1777.

Kalm, Peter. 1987. Peter Kalm's Travels in America. Dover, New York, NY.

Mothy Monday 4: The Dark Side

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 23:50:00 +0000

Red-banded Leafroller Moth
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

There was a time when birders were seen as having no interest in other aspects of the natural world apart from birds. I'm sure there have always been well-rounded naturalists, and birders who were interested in learning about other types of fauna and flora, but the stereotype was something I became aware of as I "grew up" as a birder (and yes, was primarily interested in birds).

Time passed, though, and as it did, I got more interested in insects. Butterflies were the initial flirtation, then came dragonflies and damselflies. But moths were the group that really sucked me in.

Lo and behold, as I started looking for identification information on these insect groups, I came across names that I knew (even if I didn't know the people in question) as birders. But here they were, often putting up complicated and useful resources on the web, not for bird ID, but for bug ID. I think this is why one birder I know refers to birders getting interested in insects as "going over to the Dark Side."

Well, if I had any doubt that I had gone over to the Dark Side myself (honestly, I've suspected it for a while; if I'm digiscoping Elderberry Borers, that obviously means it's high time for an intervention)

the moth that illustrates this post sounded the final death knell.

For sixteen years (ouch), a friend of mine and I have been doing something we call the March Ramble. We wander around Cape May County in late March and try to find as many species of waterfowl as possible (twenty is the goal). We also like to build a good day list of other birds. It's a very relaxed Big Day; some years (such as this one) the Ramble slides into early April. The day totals are usually around 70-80 species, and the cumulative total is over 100.

This year, when we arrived at Bunker Pond, we walked up onto the hawkwatch platform and set up the scopes to look out on the pond. As we did, I saw a tiny fluttery thing flush and fly off. I knew it had to be a moth. I watched its flight; luckily, it landed on another part of the platform.

Then, with my scope ready to scan Bunker Pond for various species of waterfowl and other birds, I walked away from it and took this picture of a tiny but nicely-patterned moth that turned out to be a Red-banded Leafroller Moth (Argyrotaenia velutinana). I made sure I had a good photo of the moth (for ID purposes) before walking back to my scope and getting back to birding. Yes, I have truly gone over to the Dark Side.

White-faced Ibis

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 01:09:00 +0000

On this day in 1977, J. Galli and J. Penkala found a White-faced Ibis at Brig (aka Forsythe NWR). The bird was refound on 21 April at Tuckerton. This record was so unprecedented that it merited an S.A. in the relevant issue of American Birds. From that issue: "This is a first regional record, and the fourth for the east" (Paxton et al. 1977).

Since then, White-faced Ibises have become almost routine in the state. World Series of Birding teams try to pin them down in the spring, and the typical intermittent reports of them at locations like Brig over the summer challenge birders while at the same time encouraging them to ignore the ibises as routine birds.

Paxton, Robert O., Paul A. Buckley, & David A. Cutler. 1977. The Spring Migration, Hudson-Delaware Region. American Birds 31:979-984.

The Moth and Me #2

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:53:00 +0000

I know it's not Monday, but the latest installment of a new blog carnival called The Moth and Me is now up. I had intended to submit something for it, but never got around to it because I was distracted by homework and such. No fear; Seabrooke Leckie at North American Moths Backyard Inventory (NAMBI) was kind enough to pick up a couple of my Mothy Monday posts. So, here's The Moth and Me #2.

Seabrooke is working on the range maps for a new Peterson guide to Northeastern moths (due 2012, so don't be camping out at your local bookstore just yet) and the blog is part of a drive to get more data for the maps. There's also a NAMBI Flickr pool. The blog features lots of attractive moth photos and tips on identification and mothing technique, so it's well worth reading.

Tuckerton Bird Names

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:30:00 +0000

Dowitcher Decoy
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

Continuing in a series of old bird names from various Jersey locations drawn from Gurdon Trumbull's Names and Portraits of Birds..., this list is of Tuckerton bird names. The decoy that illustrates this post probably would've been considered a brown-back.

Bay-coot - Surf Scoter
Big Yellow-legged Plover - Greater Yellowlegs
Black-breast - Dunlin
Black-breast Plover - Black-bellied Plover
Blaten Duck - Gadwall
Brant-snipe - Dunlin
Broad-bill - Greater Scaup
Brown-back - Short-billed Dowitcher
Bull-head - Black-bellied Plover
Cock-robin - Hooded Merganser
Cock-robin Duck - Hooded Merganser
Creek Broad-bill - Lesser Scaup
Crow-duck - American Coot
Cub-head - Common Goldeneye
Fat-bird - Pectoral Sandpiper
Field Plover - Upland Sandpiper
Fresh-water Sheldrake - Common Merganser
Gannet - Ruddy Turnstone
Long-billed Curlew - Long-billed Curlew
Marlin - Marbled Godwit
Mud-hen - Clapper Rail
Quill-tail Coot - Ruddy Duck
Robin-snipe - Red Knot
Salt-water Sheldrake - Red-breasted Merganser
Short-billed Curlew - Whimbrel
Shovel-bill - Northern Shoveller
Sleepy Broad-bill - Ruddy Duck
Small Yellow-legged Plover - Lesser Yellowlegs
Smees - Northern Pintail
Smethe - Northern Pintail
Sprig-tail - Northern Pintail
Telltale - Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs
Winter Snipe - Dunlin

A Little Link Love

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 21:46:00 +0000

No, really, I'm still here. But I have to say that being a grad student while holding down a job and serving on a BRC can definitely have its time management challenges (not that you need to get out the violins or anything). However, I noticed a couple of interesting posts this week and suspect they might be of interest to anyone reading this blog (assuming anyone is patient or forgiving enough to still be out there!).

1. For anyone curious about the daring, high-stakes, glamorous life of a New Jersey Birds regional editor, wait no longer. Patrick Belardo has written a great exposé on The Hawk Owl's Nest. Since Patrick is now Region 2 Editor, he is the lucky soul who will be receiving my local sightings. I guess I'd better get to work on learning my way around the eBird interface...

2. Just recently there was a discussion on the BRC listserv regarding photographic documentation and how it is swamping other sorts of documentation. I'm working on a blog series on this topic, but in the meantime, a software package was announced earlier this week that should gladden the heart of the most Old School BRC member (unless that BRC member is so Old School as to still demand a specimen).

and, as a Rutgers grad student...

3. I've got to give a shout-out to David La Puma and the Scarlet Knight Herons, who are doing the World Series of Birding this year to benefit the Rutgers University Graduate Student Association. Of course they have a blog.

New Jersey Birds Winter 2009

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:41:00 +0000

I've been remiss here in noting the appearance of the Winter 2009 issue of New Jersey Birds. This is the first online-only issue of the journal. In addition to the normal seasonal reports, it includes an article on NJ's first Long-billed Murrelet. You can find the PDF here.

The decision to make NJB an online journal was, to put it mildly, a controversial one. Personally, I prefer leafing through my stacks of back (print) issues (and do so on a regular basis, between random curiosity, researching a project, and looking up something for NJBRC business). As someone who has written for (and, more importantly, reported sightings to) the journal in the past, I can't help but wonder what the future holds for NJB. I do hope it continues, since it is an essential source of information on the state's birds.

Mothy Monday 3: Spring Cankerworm Moth

noreply@blogger.com (Jennifer W. Hanson) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:27:00 +0000

Take Two
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

I'm kind of surprised that I haven't yet seen a Green Cloverworm Moth this year (they are fairly hardy). But now it's March and, right on schedule, a Spring Cankerworm Moth showed up a few days ago. I also found a Phigalia sp. (possibly The Half-wing, or possibly not) over the weekend; again, Phigalias (Phigaliae?) tend to show up early in the season.

Spring Cankerworm Moths are unassuming gray Geometers that hold their wings more like Noctuids (i.e., not spread like a pinned specimen as many Geometers do but folded over the moth's back).