Birding When You Can't Bird: Part 2 - Photography

There sure are a lot of bird photos out there on the web.  My Google Reader feed brings me about 70 birding blogs from around the web and, on this random Wednesday in November, that meant well over 100 photos of birds.  Some are spectacular, some are informative and, (like many of my shots) some are "identification only" images of negligible artistic merit.  As has been recently pointed out by some bloggers, photography is only one aspect of birding and not every bird photographer would necessarily consider themselves a birder.  Sometimes these different values can clash in the field - often as mere irritation but occasionally as inappropriate or unethical behaviour.  If you are a birder first and foremost - and I mean that in the sense of someone whose primary purpose is to locate, identify and observe birds in the wild with the goal of learning about their behaviour and distribution - then what role does photography play in your experience?  I offer three ideas, and some places to pursue them online.

1) Practice Makes Perfect

Quick! How many shorebird species?

As I have repeatedly mentioned in the last few months, I don't have as much time as I would like to get out birding.  Even if you are fortunate enough to have time, how prepared are you for trips beyond your regular birding turf?  With a continuous stream of photographs pouring through an RSS reader (a what?) you can be exposed to literally hundreds of identification challenges every day.  I'm certain from my own experience that exposure to images taken at different times of year, in different locations and contexts can significantly improve rapid identification skills.  To engage with this learning process I try to make sure that every photo I see online of a North American bird is identified and that I understand the reasons for that identification.  This improvement even goes beyond field marks and touches on the elusive birding by impression ("jizz"), which can be conveyed by many photos of a species viewed over time.


Want more "Practice Makes Perfect"?

• GrrlScientist has a daily bird photo quiz at Punctuated Equilibrium
• Birds Calgary and Prairie Birder both run occasional photo quizzes and regularly have pictures of local birds
• David Lily is just one of many excellent Alberta photographers with an excellent online repository of images

2) Let The Memory Live Again

This is a very bad photo.  It is also a life bird.

I saw a Long-tailed Duck in Calgary.  I had never seen one before anywhere.  I hadn't been birding in weeks.  Everytime I look at that photo it brings a little smile to my face.

Keeping a collection of bird photos can be a great way to reminisce about birding experiences and reflect on trips.  Improving those photos can itself be a motivator to get out birding.

Want tips on helping your birding memories live again?

• I've started using Flickr which provides a great way to share and organize photos, as well as a mapping tool where you can pinpoint the location of your birding adventures.
• Birds are often very small and often very far off.  Taking photos through your spotting scope is a way to get record/ID shots and sometimes some great images too.  The topic of digiscoping is too large to tackle in this post and could have it's own blog.  In fact here's a good one!

3) Pure Inspiration

And so we come full circle - back to the spectacular.  Just today there were was inspiration to go out and look for Rough-legged Hawks.  And there was inspiration to save up and visit Peru again - these photos were taken by a Canadian birder who is featured on canadianbirdphotographer.ca, alongside David Lily's work.  

We may lack the experience, equipment, time, patience, motivation or money to take these kind of images ourselves but they capture some of the experience of watching these birds in person.  Whether we are birders, birders who photograph, photographers who bird, or some other hybrid thereof, images from the fuzzy to fantastic and from the mundane to the magical can connect us in unique ways to wildlife.

Amazing Starlings! No, really...

This is so worth two minutes of your time...
Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

Thanks to Magnificent Frigatebird for finding this one.

Rumours of my death....

or at least this blog's death, are greatly exaggerated.

Tundra Swan, Cygnus columbianus, nr. Langdon, Alberta

October was a hectic month - a nasty cold made the rounds of the family, we helped my parents move house, and one of the kids had his appendix out.  Combined with lots going on at school there wasn't a whole lot of time for birding and I watched Rare Bird Alerts go through my mailbox with little action on my part.  The last few days have improved somewhat and I managed to catch a few nice migrant birds, mostly on and around Glenmore Reservoir (click above for map) over the course of three visits.  The rarity images are a little Bigfoot/UFO-like but it's nice to have a record of a significant sighting.

An immature Red-necked Grebe, Podiceps grisegena.  The bay where this youngster was feeding was ice-covered when I went by this afternoon, so I'm sure it is long gone.

A very cooperative Townsend's Solitaire, Myadestes townsendi, gave the best views I've ever had of this species before diving back down from the windy treetops.

The Western Grebe, Aechmophorus occidentalis, is a new Calgary city bird for me

A pair of migrant Surf Scoters, Melanitta perspicillata, have been hanging around the reservoir for a while now.  I finally had a chance to add them to my Alberta list.

Worst picture, best bird?  My lifer Long-tailed Duck, Clangula hyemalis 

Birding When You Can't Bird

Two weeks of silence on this blog correlates to two weeks of little to no birding for me.  A big flock of Common Grackle's moving through the neighbourhood were a treat (and a new NMT bird) while walking the dog.  A Blue Jay was a colourful and relatively rare sight in urban Calgary.  And a Bald Eagle made a majestic low pass over our raft when I was out with my students on the river on Friday - it was nice to see Grade 8's getting excited about birds.  Anyway, those are slim pickings for migration season but the new school year and some busy goings-on at home have kept the scope in the cupboard and the field guide on the shelf.

All this inactivity has got me thinking about ways we enjoy birds when, for whatever set of reasons, we can't actually go out and "bird".  The first, and for many people only, point of engagement with wild birds are feeders.  My own experience with these in Alberta has been somewhat frustrating.  With memories of vast flocks of American Goldfinch swarming over the niger seed at my Mom and Dad's house in Ontario, when we moved into this house I gamely hung feeders in the front and back yards filled with bags of supermarket bird seed.  This did not go well.  The front yard was largely the domain of House Sparrows, with the occasional brave Black-capped Chickadee and Rock Pigeons picking over the mess underneath.  The backyard was just House Sparrows.

With some help from the experts at The Wild Bird Store, on Macleod Trail , I now have a plan.  With three feeders, all in the backyard, there is one place for the inescapable House Sparrows to fill up on millet (on the plus side, I'm feeding the Merlins too!)  The two feeders closer to the house hold high quality nuthatch and chickadee mix and a finch friendly mix.  As you can see, the results have been positive.

A young House Finch, Carpodacus mexicanus

Adult House Finch (on the right) seems prepared to brave the aggressive sparrows...

...but the sparrows don't like that

By far the best views I've had of a Pine Siskin, Spinus pinus, and looking forward to more over the winter

It will be interesting to see what sort of birds I can attract once winter begins.  In any case I will keep the blog updated with any worthwhile photos.

On the topic of photos, I'll have another post in the next few days highlighting another way to bird when you can't bird and showcase a few talented fellow Albertan photographers.

Fall Migrants at Namaka Lake

"Of course as soon as the first snow hits, everything just disappears"

That's a comment overheard at the last Nature Calgary Bird Study Group meeting.  As we approach late September in Alberta there is a certain inevitability to the first snowfall and it will indeed chase away many lingering migrants.  With an uncertain and dwindling number of good migratory birding days left, I've been trying to squeeze in a few trips.

On Friday morning I managed to swing by Confederation Park on my way to school.  Large flocks of Wilson's and Yellow-rumped Warblers were a nice way to start the day.  My NMT list (explanation here) grew as well, with Orange-crowned Warbler, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and (with the help of some experienced fellow birders) a Red-eyed Vireo.

Red-eyed Vireo looks like it means business!  Image From Flickr Creative Commons taken by SeabrookeLeckie.com

Feeling suitably pumped up by that experience I dragged myself out of bed in the dark this morning and headed out to Namaka Lake, 70km SE of the city near Strathmore.  This is a designated Important Bird Area and a spot that I had been wanting to check out for some time.  Namaka certainly made a great first impression.  A fiery sunrise lit up the sky ahead of me all the way there and I arrived at the east access point five minutes before the sun broke the horizon.  As I walked towards the lake the grass was lit up golden brown.  I couldn't resist the urge to stride through stands that were five feet high, with the loaded ears bouncing off my chest sending seeds for next year flying out in all directions.  

Overblown pastoral prose aside, the lighting was pretty great for the birds too.  One of the first that I saw was a Le Conte's Sparrow.  A life bird for me and, based on my reading back at home, an amazingly cooperative example of its kind!

Le Conte's Sparrow, click to enlarge, image colour has not been manipulated - the sunrise was just this awesome! 

On the lake itself there was no shortage of bird life either.  A few late shorebirds were hanging around the shoreline: a flock of Semipalmated Sandpipers hanging out with a couple of Lesser Yellowlegs, and a few Killdeer scattered around.  The waterfowl were much more numerous with American Coot, and three Grebe species (Eared, Horned, and Western) being particularly noticeable.  The real treat on the water though was the American White Pelicans.

I know it's out of focus but this image cracks me up for some reason.  American White Pelican and a family of Ruddy Ducks

 The flocks of pelicans gorging themselves was quite a sight and I captured some digiscope video.

The video looks pretty decent in fullscreen.  Sorry about the sniffling - it was a cool but great morning of birding!

The Warbler That Thinks It's a Nuthatch

Nuthatches are an interesting group of birds - superficially related to woodpeckers in habitat and behaviour but in fact a distinct group.  They forage for food by running up and (unlike the woodpeckers) down tree trunks, foraging for insects and seeds.  In the Calgary region, there are two common species - Red-breasted and White-breasted, which is pictured below at Pearce Estates.  This profile view highlights the slightly upturned beak, wonderfully adapted for prying under bark.

White-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta carolinensis

During our August vacation to Ontario, we spent some time on an island cottage on the Rideau Canal.  As we were hauling bags from the boathouse to the main building I saw some movement in the corner of my eye which that little part of my brain that is always birding (yes, you all know what I'm talking about!) processed as "black and white on the head + running around tree trunk = white-breasted nuthatch".  When I had a chance to put down the bags, pick up my binos, and head back out I realized it was something a little more special.  In addition to Song Sparrows, American Goldfinches, Cedar Waxwings, Nashville Warblers, and an Eastern Phoebe, our little island was also home to a pair of Black and White Warblers.

Black-and-white Warbler, Mniotilta varia - Click image to enlarge

As you can see, this quirky species feeds much like the nuthatches and creepers, foraging between the bark for insects.  So strongly is this behaviour exhibited that they were once mistakenly named "black-and-white creepers".  The great benefit for birdwatchers is that the birds' feeding habits draw them down from the tree canopy making them more readily observable than many other warblers.  Add to this the bold stripes that make identification a snap compared to many other warblers and I may have a new favourite wood-warbler!

More nuthatch-like antics! - again click to enlarge

This is supposedly a Calgary bird blog so what about the Alberta distribution of these birds?  I have yet to add one to my Alberta list but the Official List of the Birds of Alberta gives them a 'findability' of 2:  "species [that] are generally less abundant and widespread".  Despite the lower ranking, and the fact that Alberta is the western limit of their range, these birds are still regulars in Calgary and were reported last week in Confederation Park.  A couple of weeks before that I was with a group that found one in Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, although I wasn't able to get on the bird before it disappeared.

In any case these are charming and unique warblers.  Next time you are out in the spring, summer, or fall, if a flash of black and white running around a tree catches your eye, I recommend taking a closer look.

Fallout

Last week was the first week of school - 3 days of meetings and planning followed by 2 days of new kids, new classes, and new routines makes for an exciting and busy week.  That should explain the lack of posts, as well as the monumentally poor timing (from my perspective!) of 36 straight hours of rain resulting in a substantial fallout in the Calgary area.

What is a fallout?  In birding terms, fallout refers to a weather system that grounds migratory birds and/or forces seabirds to land.  A recent example is the frenetic birding on the east coast as a result of Hurricane Irene which merited its own blog.  You can also read a nice summary of the hurricane birding to be found here.  White-tailed Tropicbirds and South Polar Skuas are fantastic birds for New England (or anywhere?) but there were also some remarkable science stories that emerged from this storm.  I was particularly struck by this tale of a radio-tagged Whimbrel, which flew more or less straight through the hurricane and emerged unscathed.

While our recent wet weather was considerably less dramatic than a Category 3 hurricane, the resulting clouds of warblers and vireos delighted local birders.  A particularly nice spot to catch migrating songbirds is an area of shrubby wetland in Confederation Park (click on the link at the top of this post for a map).  One observer reported eleven species of warbler on his morning commute around this location while another added Chestnut-sided Warbler to the list on the same day.  This area has the added bonus of being my "local patch" - a short walk from work and home.

Can you find 11 species of warbler in this photo?  (Photo taken with smartphone)

Joking aside, I didn't even have time to grab my camera but just headed straight over to the park after school to see what I could find.  Fall warblers are really not an area of strength in my birding skill set but there was much to see.  The bushes were jumping with tiny birds, busily refuelling for the next leg of their migration.  I was able to positively identify Wilson's Warbler, Tennessee Warbler, American Redstart, Northern Waterthrush, Blackpoll Warbler, and Yellow-rumped Warbler, several of which are new NMT (non-motorized transport) birds for me.  Other highlights included a pair of handsomely streaked Lincoln's Sparrows and a Rose-breasted Grosbeak.  This last bird was an Alberta first for me and a special species, as it was partially responsible for getting me into birding in the first place (read under "About Me" for more details).

Not bad for a half-hour of neighbourhood birding and whenever there is poor weather bringing the potential of fallout, I will remember to get out and investigate.