Birders

[HighOnHotSauce]

I’m just throwing a line out there to see if there are any other “birders” on the forum. It started for me about 5 years ago. My girlfriend bought her mother a bird feeder as a gift, but she didn’t accept it thinking the “kids” in her neighborhood would only steal it. Anyhow, I ultimately ended up with the feeder. I started noticing the birds off and on but paying them little mind. It wasn’t long before I had three more feeders in the yard and I was cataloging what species of birds were in my yard using your basic backyard birder’s guide. Last summer I started bird watching while at my father’s cabin and state parks. This year I’ve been taking trips out to birding “hot-spots” specifically for birding a few times a week. I now have several detailed field guides as well as large encyclopedias of bird migration patters and the like. I’ve also picked up a few birding CD’s in order to learn more bird songs and calls. So, are there any birders of any sort on the forum?

[livius drusus]

I myself am not one, but my father is, as was his mother. He used to delight me with Bob White calls for ages. Right now he and my mom have six or seven feeders, all well-populated with a variety of birds, notably a pair of cardinals who have been there forever.

They also have seasonal visitors, mainly fowl from the wooded wetlands on the property. My favorites are the wild turkeys. One year my dad counted 22 wild turkeys not 10 feet from the house. There are also partridges who like to hang out -- you guessed it -- in the pear tree.

:feedingbirds:

[wildernesse]

I like watching and knowing, but I'm not especially fantastic at it, and I never call myself a birder since the moment I do some bird will appear and of course I'll have no idea what it is. I've only been counting since February (65) and I'm not actively going out and looking specifically. Right now I have no time to do anything since school just started back.

What field guides do you have/recommend?

[HighOnHotSauce]

I like watching and knowing, but I'm not especially fantastic at it, and I never call myself a birder since the moment I do some bird will appear and of course I'll have no idea what it is. I've only been counting since February (65) and I'm not actively going out and looking specifically. Right now I have no time to do anything since school just started back.

What field guides do you have/recommend?
I offer a general piece of advice about field guides rather than pointing out specific books, mainly because they are region specific. A field guide which is of your region (e.g. bird of northeastern North America) or even better of your state is obviously you first order of business. The big thing is to find one of those that have a photo (not drawings) of an adult male (most colorful and easier to spot) or female which also have pictures of a juvenile and/or a picture of the winter plumage. Having these pictures either all on the same page or adjoining page that you can see at a glance will save you a lot of time. I have a book on the birds of Pennsylvania by Stan Tekiela which is set up as I’ve just described. I don’t know if he has done other books for other states. This format will make it a lot easier on you because a juvenile can look totally different than both the female or male adult and the same for birds with their winter plumage. If you can’t find a guide like this from the start the good old National Audubon Society’s field guide is good, but is not organized in the fashion I’ve described. It’s a great guide but you will be flipping around in it looking for a female, then male then, you get the idea….

[LadyShea]

I have been noticing the birds in this area since we moved here. Because we are surrounded by wetlands and the coast we have a huge variety. A Blue Heron must be nesting near our cottage, as for the last week or so he/she flies up from an area near the little dock and over the water or into a tree every morning when I walk out with the dogs.

I would like to get a book, since trying to find them online for identification is quite difficult.

[Roland98]

I'm pretty much like wildernesse--I wouldn't call myself a "birder," but I'm outside a lot and can recognize most of the birds I see. Moving here has been cool, since 1) we live near a lake, and there are a ton of water birds. Was out on the boat last week and watched 2 osprey fishing; and 2) eagles and all kinds of hawks everywhere in the winter. I've always loved watching birds of prey and we had many types of owls and a few hawk species that I commonly saw where I lived in Ohio, but nothing like the variety and frequency I see here. We also have turkeys and pheasants everywhere--I need a "turkey crossing" sign down our road, 'cause they are slow and apparently not afraid of cars, and I've had to slow down to avoid mowing them several times on my way to/from work.

I agree with HotSauce about the field guides--I have one specific to Iowa birds but it's somewhat outdated. (Got it from a used book store for a few bucks and it still says osprey are rare, while the Iowa DNR site says they've been making a comeback in the past decade and are seen more frequently). Nice thing about it is that it has them organized both by type of bird (hawks, finches, waterfowl, etc.) and also by color, so it's pretty easy to find what I'm looking for.

[Clutch Munny]

I don't go out to "bird", but we have a couple of decent guidebooks that let me identify the ones that come round our feeder and flowers. We have several families of cardinals and blue jays that are long-term moochers (the jays can be nasty to other birds). There are also tons of common birds like robins, barn swallows, black-capped chickadees, and sparrows, plus a few more interesting fellas: ruby-throated hummingbirds and woodpeckers, including an absolutely gorgeous yellow-shafted flicker in the backyard just a couple of weeks ago. I wish he'd come back!

[wildernesse]

Hmm, I'll have to look into getting a field guide for Georgia specifically--that would probably save me some time. Right now I have a Peterson's Eastern birds (next to last edition) and a Stokes Western Region. I like Stokes a bit better than Peterson's because there are photos rather than drawings and the range map is on the same page as the critter--you don't have to flip around. Plus, there is a color coded mark to help you flip to the section on a type of bird easily (ducks, for example).

[HighOnHotSauce]

We have several families of cardinals and blue jays that are long-term moochers (the jays can be nasty to other birds). ! Yes they can be. I have four blue jays who visit daily. On one occasion they were "dive-bombing" a cat that was in my yard. From what I could tell the cat made it out of the yard unharmed. I had read about Jays doing such things, but it was really something to witness.

[HighOnHotSauce]

I have been noticing the birds in this area since we moved here. Because we are surrounded by wetlands and the coast we have a huge variety. A Blue Heron must be nesting near our cottage, as for the last week or so he/she flies up from an area near the little dock and over the water or into a tree every morning when I walk out with the dogs.

I would like to get a book, since trying to find them online for identification is quite difficult.
I love great blue herons (http://www.fnal.gov/ecology/wildlife/pics/Great_Blue_Heron.jpg) and had the opportunity to watch one daily near my father’s cabin last summer. I would watch him and follow his movements up and down the river for hours. It was a great experience. The wetlands I frequent have a resident mating pair that I often spot. I go there at least once a week for a few hours and I nearly always spot them. I’ve managed to spot two other types of herons there as well. My girlfriend and I spotted a Black-Crowned Night Heron (http://www.huntington.edu/thornhill/images/wildlifephotos/black-crowned-night-heron.jpg) heron fishing. He wasn’t far off and we watched him stocking fish and doing some grooming. On another occasion, I saw a green heron (http://www.fnal.gov/ecology/wildlife/pics/Green_Heron.jpg) fishing and it was a pleasure, such a beautiful bird.

[seebs]

Hey, is that black-crowned night heron a bird one could see in MN? Because I'm pretty sure I've seen one a couple of times.

[HighOnHotSauce]

Hey, is that black-crowned night heron a bird one could see in MN? Because I'm pretty sure I've seen one a couple of times.
It’s possible. They would most often be seen in wetlands, swamps, streams or near overgrowth by lakes.

[RevDahlia]

I am here to gloat about the male painted bunting I saw in my yard this morning. Gloat, gloat, gloat. I'd seen them in field guides but never believed they really existed. Turns out they do, and they're spectacular.

Central Texas is great for birds. My dad lives in Medina County and the avian life on his property is unreal. There are purple martens, scissortail flycatchers, all kinds of cool ducks and herons, and Western tanagers, which are so red they look like a mistake. Seriously, you see one flying and it looks like a CGI error in a crappy sci-fi movie. They make cardinals look drab.

It's strictly amateur hour at my house, birdingwise. I love birds, but my husband has a mortal fear of them. Anything bigger than a chickadee gives him the creeping horrors; he even kind of hates the cardinal couple who lives out back. He's sane otherwise, so I can forgive him, but I have to be discreet with my field guides and binoculars, and refrain from yelling "Wow! Get a load of this!" unexpectedly.

[xyza]

I was as a kid, but not so much in the back garden, I was lucky enough to grow up in an area where there were loads of wildlife reserves and bird reserves, so i got to do the whole hide thing.

Here in London I buy the coconut shells filled with fat and the bags with peanuts/bird seed in. I was looking at the price of actual feeders today and was shocked.
I don't record what birds show up, but if I see any out of the ordinary I make a mental note. I was shocked at the birds we do have coming into the garden, as before we moved here all I ever noticed was magpies and pigeons.

[Dingfod]

Now that our Border Collie is in the great sheep pasture in the sky, the birds are returning to us here at Ranchito Paradiso. I saw a whole bunch of little birds I'd never seen before up in the burr oak tree right in front of our house the other day. They were very small birds, about the size of a canary, greyish-green with white and yellowish bellies, with a crest on their head like a jay or a cardinal. I think they might have been tufted titmouses (titmice?). Given that we do live in their range, I suppose it's possible.

[Dingfod]

...Western tanagers, which are so red they look like a mistake. Seriously, you see one flying and it looks like a CGI error in a crappy sci-fi movie. They make cardinals look drab.
You have to be thinking of the scarlet tanagers, which are brilliant red.
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/Photo/Images/h6080pi.jpg

This is the Western tanager male (the females in both are rather drab colored):
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/Photo/Images/h6070pi.jpg
Sometimes they are quite yellow in color.

[RevDahlia]

You're right, Warren. I was taking my dad's word for it that that was what they were; the amateur hour thing applies to him, too.

I know exactly the little greenish birds you're talking about; we have them here too. They're really teeny, and they only seem to appear in huge groups, and they make a kind of "beep beep" noise, don't they? Someone told me they were bushtits, but when I looked up bushtits on Google Images (you can imagine what came up that had nothing to do with birds) they didn't look like the same thing.

[Dingfod]

Crested titmouse:
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/htmsl/h7310pi.jpg

[HighOnHotSauce]

They're really teeny, and they only seem to appear in huge groups, and they make a kind of "beep beep" noise, don't they? .
A bird which comes to mind when you mention the “beep, beep” noise is a little guy called nuthatch There are a Whtie breasted (http://www.nps.gov/wica/images/White_Breasted_Nuthatch.jpg) and Red breasted (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse/bird_bios/speciesaccounts/images/rebnut.jpg) variety.

[RevDahlia]

They're really teeny, and they only seem to appear in huge groups, and they make a kind of "beep beep" noise, don't they? .
A bird which comes to mind when you mention the “beep, beep” noise is a little guy called nuthatch There are a Whtie breasted (http://www.nps.gov/wica/images/White_Breasted_Nuthatch.jpg) and Red breasted (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/birdhouse/bird_bios/speciesaccounts/images/rebnut.jpg) variety.
These are definitely not nuthatches. They're much smaller and rounder and hang out in groups of maybe a dozen. I know what you mean about nuthatches beeping, though.

I am leaning towards a tit or titmouse of some variety.

[HighOnHotSauce]

A case of thread resurrection. Anyhow, I started this thread some time ago and since then I've moved. I now live on the coast about 500 miles northeast of where I was what I first posted this. I made the move on the first of July last summer and didn't really get settled in with a job until the end of August but I still had time to work in some bird-watching. Living on the coast has broadened the scope of my "birding". Just this morning I managed to see nearly a hundred common eiders, a dozen or so common golden-eyes a few common mergansers as well as a pair of hooded mergansers. It took me a few months to find the hot birding spots near here (and I'm sure there are more to be discovered) but it was in the late fall before I could really get out there and start observing. Even so, I saw quite a few double-crested cormorants, glossy ibis, great egrets, snowy egrets, spotted sandpipers, greater and lesser yellow legs, black scoters and the list goes on without mentioning the variety of gulls. I am very much looking forward to the spring which is fast approaching although it didn't feel like it out on the island this morning. :shiver:

[The Lone Ranger]

A word on field guides, if I may. Which sort is best for you depends on your expertise. The kinds with photographs and that are typically organized by the color of the bird in question are great for those with little or no training in avian taxonomy.

By contrast, the Peterson guides and some of the other "high end" guides are arranged in taxonomic order and assume that the reader has a sufficient knowledge of bird taxonomy to be able to identify the family or genus of the bird in question at a glance. Personally, I find the Peterson guide vastly more useful when, for example, I see a duck leap up off the water and I wonder to myself, "Was that a female Black Duck (Anas rubripes) or a female Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)?"


Though it's obviously not portable, people may find the WhatBird (http://www.whatbird.com/index.aspx) site to be of interest. It contains drawings, range maps, and sound files for pretty-much any species you may encounter in North America.

Oh yes: a further word of advice about field guides is this: don't rely too much on the range maps. The range maps in field guides are often little more than "best guesses," and are often outdated anyway. That's true of field guides to reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and even plants, in my experience. But it's especially true for birds, given how mobile they are. I've often seen birds dozens or even hundreds of miles from where they're "supposed" to be found, according to the field guides.

Cheers,

Michael

[godfry n. glad]

I'm a rank amateur and pretty much like Clutch, I like to identify those that show up in my tiny garden. Lately, it's a flock of wrens of some kind.

I do know enough to not go birding with Dick Cheney.

[HighOnHotSauce]

A word on field guides, if I may. Which sort is best for you depends on your expertise. The kinds with photographs and that are typically organized by the color of the bird in question are great for those with little or no training in avian taxonomy.

By contrast, the Peterson guides and some of the other "high end" guides are arranged in taxonomic order and assume that the reader has a sufficient knowledge of bird taxonomy to be able to identify the family or genus of the bird in question at a glance. Personally, I find the Peterson guide vastly more useful when, for example, I see a duck leap up off the water and I wonder to myself, "Was that a female Black Duck (Anas rubripes) or a female Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)?"


Though it's obviously not portable, people may find the WhatBird (http://www.whatbird.com/index.aspx) site to be of interest. It contains drawings, range maps, and sound files for pretty-much any species you may encounter in North America.

Oh yes: a further word of advice about field guides is this: don't rely too much on the range maps. The range maps in field guides are often little more than "best guesses," and are often outdated anyway. That's true of field guides to reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and even plants, in my experience. But it's especially true for birds, given how mobile they are. I've often seen birds dozens or even hundreds of miles from where they're "supposed" to be found, according to the field guides.

Cheers,

Michael

Indeed. The primary field guide I use is the The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America (http://www.amazon.com/Sibley-Field-Guide-Eastern-America/dp/067945120X). I do, however still lug along in my back back the Stokes Field Guide to Birds: Eastern Region (http://www.amazon.com/Stokes-Field-Guide-Birds-Eastern/dp/0316818097) as I still find a guide with actual photos very useful at times.

I agree with what you said about the range maps in the sense that they are to be used as very general indicators. I look at them as more broad regions paying little attention to finite barriers.

Reading wise, I've been sinking much of my time into Ornithology (http://www.amazon.com/Ornithology-Franklin-B-Gill/dp/0716724154) by Franklin Gill.

[roastelk]

I'm sure i can identify more species geese, grouse, an ducks than most people can. but can I still be called a birder If ive shot an eaten a few of those birds

also I've managed to get several whisky jacks to sit on my arm and eat out of my hands, which really isnt hard to do considering they're not scared of people. You have to keep an eye out for em if your camping, theyll swoop down and take the food right off your plate while your still eating.

[The Lone Ranger]

Whiskey jacks (http://www.2steger.de/canada/images21/whiskey%20jack.JPG) (Gray Jays, Perisoreus canadensis), are indeed neat little birds, and all but fearless of humans. I used to love seeing them when hiking in the North Woods.

I really like Steller's Jays (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/bow/stejay/) and Blue Jays (http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Cyanocitta_cristata.html) as well. All the members of the Jay Family are interesting and remarkably intelligent birds, in my experience.

Cheers,

Michael

[roastelk]

Whiskey jacks (http://www.2steger.de/canada/images21/whiskey%20jack.JPG) (Gray Jays, Perisoreus canadensis), are indeed neat little birds, and all but fearless of humans. I used to love seeing them when hiking in the North Woods.

I really like Steller's Jays (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/bow/stejay/) and Blue Jays (http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Cyanocitta_cristata.html) as well. All the members of the Jay Family are interesting and remarkably intelligent birds, in my experience.

Cheers,

Michael


interesting, i recongnise thoes stellar's jays...I alwasy asumed they where just bue jays. Ive seen a lot birds I'll never recongnise by name, that i know by sight and sound.

i dont specifically go out looking for birds, but i tend to keep my eye out for animals general. I spent over an hour one night watching a muskrat swim back and forth maby 20 feet in front of me.

[fragment]

I enjoy birds, in a pretty hap-hazard sort of way. I've never set up a feeder or kept any kind of log, but I like to recognise them when I'm out walking, and have a bird guide for that purpose.

NZ has quite a few interesting endemic birds. There used to be a fair few more, but many haven't fared well since humans discovered these isles. Of those which haven't gone extinct entirely, several are confined to a few restricted-access offshore islands. Luckily some more tenacious species survive on the main islands for me to enjoy.

[godfry n. glad]

We have the Western Scrub Jay out here in Cascadia. It's almost indistinguishable from the Florida Shrub Jay of the eastern part of the U.S.

http://www.stanford.edu/~petelat1/scrubjay.jpg

There are a regular pair (I understand they pair bond over multiple years) that lives in a nearby stand of very tall Douglas firs several lots to the east of my lot. I've watched their antics for years and they can be heard rather clearly over all the other birds, except their cousins the local crows.

The most amusing is watching the pair terrorize the local cats during fledgling season. I suspect that before flying lessons, the pair goes out an clears the practice area by harrassing the feline natives. One poor neighbor cat became the target one day and I saw it slinking and lurking under cover while the pair carried on with their chatter. Just when the cat took the chance to cross the picket fence separating my yard from my nearest neighbor, one of the jays managed a perfect dive-bomb attack and caught the cat at the top of the fence and knocked it off. Needless to say, the cat did not make a graceful landing and looked pretty confused....I could just hear those little feline thoughts...."they aren't supposed to do this....where did these guys come from?"

I note that very recent research tends to show that jays are capable of forethought....specifically, saving food in specific sites for later.

I think they are pretty impressive birds, even if they tend to be very annoying.

[The Lone Ranger]

Blue jays have been observed to use tools in captivity (they'll use pieces of paper or other objects that might be handy) to drag food closer if they can't reach it through the bars of their cage, for instance.

Several corvid species (the Corvidae includes jays, crows, magpies, and ravens) will cache food and retrieve it later, though that's hardly unique to the Corvidae. Bernd Heinrich has shown that ravens are indeed capable of insight, however. He tied some pieces of meat onto long strings and hung them from perches. The meat was too tightly-secured for the birds to get it off the string while in the air, and the string was too long for the birds to simply pull the string up.

He observed several birds sit on the perch and study the meat below them intently. Then, they'd grab the string, haul it up, step on the string to keep it from falling back, haul it up some more, hold down the portion of string that had been hauled up, and continue until they had the meat. Obviously, as Heinrich has pointed out, this behavior couldn't have been learned through trial-and-error, so the birds must have visualized the solution to the problem and then implemented the strategy they'd worked out for getting the meat.

Such an ability to mentally envison and solve problems was long thought to be exclusive to primates like ourselves, and perhaps cetaceans as well. But, apparently even some "bird brains" are capable of it.

Cheers,

Michael

[HighOnHotSauce]

I really like Steller's Jays (http://www.birds.cornell.edu/bow/stejay/) and Blue Jays (http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Cyanocitta_cristata.html) as well. All the members of the Jay Family are interesting and remarkably intelligent birds, in my experience.

Cheers,

Michael
Blue Jays are one of my favorite birds, just absolutely beautiful. In fact I've been considering getting a tattoo of one. As I am yet “tattooless” I haven’t' been able to bring myself to do it yet.