Another birds in music track. This from the rather jaunty The Lovely Eggs! Maybe it’s just me but I’ve always liked a nice northern accent on a woman. Reminds me of times spent up in Leeds when I was younger. Assume they are riffing on the classic Eels track ‘I Like Birds’ track’ (here).
Whilst plugging my latest bird related mixtape on Facebook my old friend Alex (he’s not old, our friendship is – just to make that clear) from London piped up with a couple of tunes. He has a pretty wide and eclectic taste in music but he certainly mentioned a couple of little gems, including this rather nice tune from Besnard Lakes. I guess I could have used the Fleetwood Mac track of the same name, but to be honest I’m with the Reynolds Girls (obscure 80’s British pop music reference) when it comes to Mick’s boys!
Eastern Screech Owls
Being the local hawkwatcher has its benefits. Usually I get emails asking me any number of different questions, but a week or so back I got a nice email from Brian Burgeson telling me about some of the exciting finds he had made whilst monitoring the Wood Duck Boxes that Lake Plains Waterfowl Association (website here). The LPWA has a large number of boxes spread through the Braddock Bay area and not all of them contain Wood Ducks. Amongst the interesting finds during monitoring were a couple of Eastern Screech Owl nests and even a Flying Squirrel (would it be Northern up here I’m not totally sure?)
Anyway the shots here are kind of cool I think. The top one shows a rufous and gray morph bird in the same box. Interestingly Brian noted a second nest box with owl eggs just a short distance away but with no occupants. There are reports of Eastern Screech Owls practicing polygamy so I wonder if this male maybe had a second female he was tending too? It seems unlikely that a second pair would be nesting quite so close to this territory to me but then again I am not an expert on owls by any means.
Eastern Screech Owl
The picture above is of another nest box again replete with another gray morph Eastern Screech Owl. Instead of getting all agitated by the intrusion, I guess this bird has decided to go for the playing dead option? You can find out loads of info about owls at Owl Pages (website here) And there is even a forum that you can ask questions about owls on. I recently went to an interesting and entertaining presentation at Braddock Bay Raptor Research given by Fred Sauter about how he enticed Eastern Screech Owls to nest in his backyard. BBRR currently has Fred’s plans for how to build a box up on their website (here).
One of the things I found fascinating about Fred’s talk were the pellets that he brought in. It’s really amazing the variety of prey that they seem to take from insects, through crayfish and I have read about them taking birds as large as Bobwhite and Ruffed Grouse. This shot of the secondary nest that was taken near to where the shot with the two owls in shows just how significant birds can be in their diet, especially in migration. In the shot below I can see Northern Cardinal and American Robin feathers in there but am interested if anyone can recognize any of the others?
Screech Owl Nest
Anyway thanks very much to Brian for sending me the email. It was interesting to hear from him about the owls and to hear about some of the history of the LPWA (which was initially apparently set up to fight the building of Ontario State Parkway) and some of the conservation programs that they are involved in today. These programs include improving the areas bird populations (primarily Wood Ducks, Hooded Mergansers, and obviously Eastern Screech Owls) and other conservation efforts like tree plantings, and Hunters Safety Classes. They currently manage 256 Wood Duck Nesting Boxes throughout Western New York, with approximately 130 in and around the Braddock Bay Wildlife Management Area, quite the undertaking!!!
Another day another bird inspired music mixtape. What about the first track you are wondering? ROBIN Gibb – get it! Kinda cheating I guess 😉 Anyway check out the new youtube playlist here. For some reason this won’t seem to link and play automatically so you’ll have to hit play all.
1/ Bee Gees (Robin Gibb) – I started a joke 2/ McDonald and Giles – Flight of the ibis 3/ Devendra Banhart – Wake up little sparrow 4/ Neko Case – Maybe sparrow 5/ Belle and Sebastian – I’m a cuckoo, 6/ Islands – Creeper 7/ Born Ruffians – Hummingbird 8/ Dodos – Black night 9/ Buffalo Tom – Birdbrain 10/ Giant Drag – Swan Song 11/ Sleeper – Swallow 12/ Doves – Black and white town 13/ Caribou – Brahminy Kite 14/ Birds and Batteries – Lightning 15/ Thom Yorke – Black Swan 16/ Swans – Love will tear us apart (hard drums version)
Josh Lawrey - Doublescoping!
A big day at Braddock Bay! Not sure if this was typical but this was the way it happened for me. I rolled out of bed with a start as the alarm on my phone screamed ‘get out of bed now!’ at about 6:15am. The night before the clouds had settled in and the atmosphere was thick and heavy and although sunrise was at 6:30 the bruised sky and thick clouds were keeping things looking pretty dingy out there. I stumbled sleepily into the waiting shower, forlornly trying to wash away the tiredness from a decent day the day before.
The warm overnight temperatures told me that the birds were going to be active early that morning and my scan of the weather.gov, weather.com and weather underground (are all hawkwatchers obsessed by weather?) told me that things were starting off warm today. Little did I realize that they were about to jump from warm to hot in such a short period of time. SSW winds forecast with the chance of some thunder showers had thrown the hawk forecast onto red alert for a big movement day.
The shower hadn’t quite cut it, so I decided that perhaps a jolt of caffeine would be the solution to the slightly woozy and sleepy sensation that was still coursing through my veins and the thousand yard stare that was still glazed over my eyes from the day before. It was then that I realized the enormity of the day ahead of me. As I walked into the kitchen and went to grab a mug from the cupboard I glanced out the window and saw a swirling mass of Red-winged Blackbirds lurching somewhat manically across the field outside and off over the bay.
Golden Eagle - Josh Lawrey
Stepping outside into the sticky warm air I was greeted by a sight out of Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’, a whirling mass of dark birds coursing this way and that across the treetops of the woods outside my house. Not crows though, but the large and bizarrely buoyant forms of hundreds of Turkey Vultures. I have to say my first emotion was something akin to fear! How was I going to count all these birds and what should I do next. The thought that first entered my head was that maybe I stand and count here for a few minutes and then once a break forms in the line I rush down the parkway to my platform for the day (little did I know that a break wasn’t likely to be coming for the next eight or so hours!). I was snapped back into reality as my phone rang and the calm but urgent voice of Dave Tetlow on the other end of the line ‘get to the park now!’
Dave had just arrived at West Spit and was now in a position to cover what raptors were passing over the spit whilst I tore down the parkway to get in a position to start picking them up from the far side. Arriving in the park I was greeted by the incredible sight of a dark whirling mass of Turkey Vultures parked over the West Spit that every now and then sent bursts of adventurous vultures out over the bay. Dave had already been mentally clicking them off as they jumped off over him, and as soon as we found a little break between the bursts of birds I started to take over the count from my wooden aerie.
Before the first 45 minutes were done, Dave and I had combined to tally over 2,500 birds. As the TV’s burst out over the bay, so other individuals back-filled the departing birds. Things were getting just a little crazy, but thankfully the cavalry were on hand in the shape of Josh Lawrey and Dave’s brother Mike. The number of TV’s were incredible but more than manageable as they massed, swirled and took off from their West Spit line. It was everything else that was the problem! Scattered across the sky were any other number of raptors. Unlike the somewhat orderly TV’s the strong gusting winds had broken up the flight into disorganized shards of passing raptors: a Sharpie scooting low out over the lake here, and a soaring Bald Eagle out over the parkway there. Pure craziness!
Rough-legged Hawk - Josh Lawrey
The numbers were mounting and the day was punctuated by the constant click click click of the counters as we tallied the passing birds. Incredible numbers and experiences occurring throughout the day. It’s almost impossible to pick a favorite moment from such an action packed session, but a two minute period that saw us picking off a Peregrine Falcon, a pair of Golden Eagles and a Northern Goshawk out front of us would take some beating. As the weather patterns changed (almost imperceptibly to your mere human) so the makeup of the flight of the birds changed too: an hour with 462 Sharp-shinned Hawks – all feisty individuals taking their own course across the bay, later a moment where one panned the sky and over 50 Red-tails were being buffeted by the winds that were knocking down scopes and almost people as we stood at the watch.
By now we had something of a gathering, and the platform was becoming something of a crowded spot. Birders from across the area had been emailed, phoned or texted with news of the gathering storm of birds. All were reveling in the excitement of the day and helping to pick out the odd individuals that were being missed. Every now and then the phone would also go and Dave would call in something particularly interesting that was dashing past him on the spit (more often than not a Northern Goshawk). By mid afternoon delirium, exhaustion and hysteria were settling in over those who were counting and I was even starting to pray for the rain showers that we had been promised in with the forecast winds. I remember a particularly wasted friend of mine once telling me ‘this is the best night of my life…I wish it would stop!’ and about 3pm on Monday I knew exactly what he meant!
As with all ‘good’ things it had to eventually come to an end and as the surprisingly dry front moved through, so the sightings died behind it. There were just dribs and drabs of birds that hadn’t pushed through ahead of the front and we finally managed to catch our breath and survey the damage for the day. By the end of it all we had tallied 8870 Raptors: 5230 Turkey Vultures, 1825 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 1124 Red-tailed Hawks, 14 Northern Goshawks, 71 Rough-legged Hawks, 17 Bald Eagles and 4 Golden Eagles amongst the real highlights.
Sandhill Cranes - Josh Lawrey
Even with the day winding down to a close we picked up one final surprise as he birds of the day, and even probably the season thus far, appeared in the shape of two American White Pelicans that I picked up cruising over East Spit towards West Spit late afternoon. They eventually put down behind Tackles Bar in Salmon Creek, much to the delight of a few local twitchers. Other highlights included a couple of Sandhill Cranes and a dark morph Red-tailed Hawk which I missed thanks to going to grab my lunch at just at the wrong time.
Amusingly Josh who has been helping out the last few days (and who has counted here for a few seasons in the past) had seen a pair of American White Pelicans whilst doing the watch in a previous year. Being used to counting out west though he didn’t realize the significance of the sighting and didn’t mention it until posting the birds late that evening. He then received irate emails form some of the areas local birders. In fact the first thing one of the regulars at the watch had mentioned to Josh this year were the pelicans, so when I called them out Josh’s initial response was to say that someone had already tried that joke on him this year!
I should really say thanks to everyone who came down and made it such a fun day and helped pick up birds. Special thanks of course to Josh Lawrey and Mike Tetlow for helping out (the day would have been impossible without them), to Dave Tetlow for the early morning West Spit cover and for calling out a few goodies that were whizzing by him at the West Spit and to Daena Ford for getting the word out swiftly to the local birding community. The day helped erase most of the memories of a poor March and we already broke through 20,000 birds for the season. If you want to see the day in pure numbers you can see the data on hawkcount (here) . You can also see what Dave was picking up from over the West Spit in the way of passerines and raptors that were probably just too far out over the lake for us to see from our perch at the hawkwatch (here). Extra thanks to Josh for providing some shots from the day!
9,000 raptors later!!!!
One of the latest bird related records that I stumbled upon (and the first band I have stumbled upon named after an extinct one): The Dodos. Cool psych or indie folk and they just stuck out a new album No Color. An entertaining video too. Hope you enjoy.
Oldsquaw - Luke Tiller
Out on Lake Ontario as well as getting to see some cool birds I am also getting to see some cool plumages. Back in Connecticut I have never knowingly seen an adult male breeding plumaged Long-tailed Duck. Here they are dotted around amongst the birds that are still in basic plumage. Hard to believe that those stunning Long-tails in their mainly white finery are actually in their dowdy non-breeding garb. The other day I said that I sometimes joke about hating ducks. I definitely don’t hate Oldsquaw (or Long-tailed Duck to give them their politically correct but less characterful new name) in either their winter or summer finery. It’s just hard to decide which of the two is prettier!
Saw-whet Owl - Luke Tiller
It was a slow day at the hawkwatch, after a bright warm start the clouds settled in, the air cooled and it robbed me of any afternoon flight. I decided to cut my losses and head home and save my energy for tomorrow. Still it was pretty early in the day, so I decided to go and have a wander around some local spots and see what, if anything, I could add to my Big Green Big Year list (here).
Over at the hawkwatch I had managed to pick up my first Blue-winged Teal of the season (about 4 drakes and two hens) and I thought I might be able to pick up others on the Manitou Beach Road side of the bay. No joy, and I still haven’t even managed to get Green-winged out this side of the bay yet either – perhaps Teal will be my bogey duck? The hike down to Breakers could have been a complete wash were it not for happening upon a Caspian Tern that was cruising up the creek. Still with that and the Red-throated Loon from Ontario Beach Rd I am at least steadily accumulating for the season, and I am up to Two Fat Ladies as they say in bingo (88).
As I was right there already, I decided it was at least worth a little wander through Owl Woods to see what I could find there. A Long-eared would be nice – I think it’s time to give up on the dreams of finding a Boreal 😉 No Long-eareds today but Saw-whets were again easy to find. I tried to get a couple of digiscoped shots with my recently returned Swarovski Scope, not exactly Nat Geo material but a visual memory of the occasion at least.
I have noticed that things have gotten kind of heated about some of the goings on at Owl Woods recently and it was nice to see that BBRR have posted some guidelines about both looking for and photographing owls. Out of interest he ABA birding ethics guidelines can be found here (note the constant reference to the best interests of the bird!) I spend most of my year in Connecticut, and the listserve there has outright banned the posting of nocturnal owl sightings due to questionable birder and photographer behavior. It leads to something of difficult situation whereby beginners who are not very experienced at looking for owls get frustrated by the fact that they don’t get them reported. Anyway, it makes me more aware of how lucky local birders are up here in Rochester that these birds get posted to the listserve.
That said I don’t believe there is a right to know about bird sightings and the more thoughtless behavior that birders observe at Owl Woods, the less likely I imagine they are to share their sightings. Although it can be difficult, I think it’s really incumbent on people to say something (politely) if they see things that they believe are overstepping the mark (moving or even removing branches for better shots of the birds is pretty obviously not on!). It’s possible that people just aren’t aware of the stresses they are placing on the birds, so if you say something do think carefully about how to say it tactfully.
Saw-whet Owl - Luke Tiller
Today I managed to fairly easily find two Saw-whets at the woods. In both of these shots I was digiscoping the birds from a fair distance, but as you can see they are aware of my presence. Once I found them I backed off to a distance to let them settle back down and even avoided going to search through another set of trees, as I would have had to squeeze past one of these birds. I took a couple of shots and was out of their vicinity within a minute or two. It’s always such a great experience to see an owl, but I strongly believe it’s incumbent on us to make sure that we don’t disturb them while we enjoy them. Owl Woods is a really magical place, I hope it stays that way and that people continue to feel comfortable sharing their sightings from these amazingly productive little woods.
Just because my owl pictures are so amateur, I thought I’d share one my friend AJ took in Westport CT which he loaned me for my blog before (here). He actually didn’t like this shot very much – shows you how good his best ones are!!!! You can find more of his owl (and other bird) pictures from Sherwood Island in the links on the side of the page. You can also read about the time I went owl banding (here) and see some of the great sketches my friend Birdspot produced from the trip (here).
RT Hummingbird - Luke Tiller
I have been messing around with the playlists function on youtube and have finally nailed what I think is a pretty decent indie/alternative bird related music setlist. Hope you enjoy it: http://www.youtube.com/p/AA119E9311CC651A?hl=en_US&fs=1
Track List: 1/ Eels – Little Bird 2/ Grant Lee Buffalo – Mockingbirds 3/ Iron and Wine – Flightless Bird, American Mouth 4/ The Bird and the Bee – Please Don’t Stop the Music 5/ Goldfrapp – Little Bird (Animal Collective Remix) 6/ Catbird – Yellow Moon 7/ Sun Kil Moon – Heron Blue 8/ Electrelane – Birds 9/ Foals – Hummer 10/ The Decemberists – Crane Wife Three 11/ De Rosa – Robin Song 12/ TV On the Radio – Owl and Stork 13/ Fleet Foxes – Meadowlarks 14/ The Tallest Man on Earth – Where do my Bluebirds Fly? 15/ Swans – Love Will Tear Us Apart
Eurasian Wigeon - Art Tanghe
Another new species to add to the growing list of ducks I’ve seen over the almost month I have been here. Probably only he second rarity as well. It’s amazing how abundant species that would be considered uncommon or even rare when you get as far east as Connecticut can be here. Tundra Swans are an very day occurrence, flights of Snow Geese regular, numbers of Shoveler, Pintail and Redhead nothing to get too excited about. What was most interesting to me was seeing Horned Grebes sitting right up by the mouth of the creek yesterday instead of way off on the open lake or at least even at the mouth of the bay. One of the few times I’ve had point blank views of Horned Grebes with just bins.
Thanks to Art Tanghe for both finding the bird and sending me a visual memory of the bird and letting me borrow that memory to illustrate the blog. Terrible conditions for photography and the bird was some distance out in the haze but it’s a nice record. Out of interest I wonder whether anyone in the US has ever had a female type Eurasian Wigeon record accepted? I don’t recall any off the top of my head in Connecticut.
This evening I popped out to listen for displaying Woodcock and was intrigued to spot a Great Horned Owl on the far side of the field where the Woodcock were displaying. I think we were both there to listen for owls but its reason for doing so was slightly more sinister than mine. I remember seeing a Great Horned Owl carrying a Woodcock at Allen’s Meadows and became aware that the Great Horned Owls that nest nearby must make this a regular part of their diet as they would often show up at that time of year. I just hope they don’t try and swallow that Woodcock bill and all – could make for an interesting pellet!
Under Clear Skies 