One Last Bird

As 2022 wound down, I added one last bird to my yearly bird-watching list.

During one of my jogs this month, a birding calling from the top of a tree caught my attention. I'd never seen the species before, but after collecting enough visual and auditory evidence, I was able to return home and identify it through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds site.

The bird was a Townsend's solitaire. It was the 82nd and last species I sighted this year and the only addition to my life list that 2022 brought.

This year of birding certainly ended on one good note.

First Sight and Further Reflection

A brown pelican fishing a Moclips.

One of the birds I saw on a recent trip to the beach took me about a second to identify; another bird required a couple of days and input from two other birders.

As I walked toward the ocean at Moclips two weeks ago, I saw the unmistakeable profile of a brown pelican flying down the beach. Just like that, I had added to my 2019 birding list.

Later, while wading at the waterline, I added to the list again. This time though, I wouldn't know for sure that I had added to it until more than 24 hours later. That's because the second identification was difficult. Among a group of western sandpipers and least sandpipers, I saw a strange interloper. Like the other two species around it, this bird was a smallish shorebird, but it was slightly larger than the others and had distinct plumage. I took some pictures of it for later identification.

An early-arriving sanderling.

The pictures didn't help much even when I consulted my field guides or online sources like All About Birds. Finally, I sent a picture to a contact at the Black Hills Audubon Society. She guessed it was a sanderling but wasn't sure because the pattern on its breast was a bit unusual, so she sent the picture to another birder, who confirmed it was a sanderling. Besides having slightly different plumage, the bird was also an early arrival on its migration and marked my very first sighting of the species; so the identification was definitely worth the wait.

Whether I know it at first sight or need further reflection to identify it, any bird is a fun and rewarding addition to my birding list.

Staying Power

Life for endangered streaked horned larks poses many risks, but one member of this subspecies of horned lark continues bringing hope to conservation efforts aimed at protecting the birds, returning to his nesting site in western Washington year after year and lasting longer than even the identification band that gave him his name.

Photo of a horned lark (not Pinky though).

Born in 2009, Pinky the streaked horned lark keeps showing the tenacity of his subspecies. Last year, South Sound Prairies, an organization that promotes conservation, restoration, and preservation of native prairies in the South Puget Sound region, announced that Pinky had returned (still sporting his pink identification band) and built a nest at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord military installation.

Considering that the oldest horned lark on record was about eight years old, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds site, and that fewer than 1,000 streaked horned larks remain in the wild, the news brought great excitement. Over the winter, I thought about Pinky occasionally and hoped 2017 would bring equally happy news about him. This year, the venerable Pinky returned again, sporting a slightly different look. Now eight years old, he'd lost his trademark pink band, but that didn't keep him from nesting in his familiar spot.

I learned this year's good news about Pinky while birding at the Glacial Heritage Preserve on Prairie Appreciation Day last month. The ornithologist who told me about Pinky couldn't hide his excitement and pride. That's understandable, especially given the endangered status of the subspecies and the powerful symbol of hope Pinky has become.

With that, I'd like to wish Pinky another great year with safe travels. Stay pink, my friend!

The Changing Face of Birding

Let's face it--identifying a bird's species isn't always easy. (Ever tried to distinguish between the various types of flycatchers?)

For novice bird-watchers, the struggle of identification sometimes becomes an obstacle to getting to know birds. Professional bird-watchers have the skills to make quick identifications, but the rest of us can spend hours consulting field guides and online resources, and even then, we may not confirm the species.

A new, free smart-phone app promises to make bird-identification tools more available, giving a greater number of people the chance for full engagement in birding. Birdsnap uses facial-recognition software to identify birds. All a person needs to do is take a picture of the bird in question. The app then uses the bird's physical characteristics to make the identification. For a more detailed discussion of Birdsnap, check out this article by Chelsea Harvey of Audubon Magazine.

In recent years, technology has made the avian world more accessible to us. From nestcams to Web sites like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds, we have a growing number of opportunities to engage with and learn about birds. With its innovative technology, Birdsnap represents another important contribution to birding.

Thanks to technology, birding might look different than it did twenty years ago, but the changes have turned more bird species into familiar faces.

Everything and More

We've all had people give us too much information about themselves, but TMI no longer applies when birds are the subject.

My blog entries frequently mention the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds Web site because it provides great information about birds. In fact, after exploring the site, one might think it really has all the bird information ever collected. It turns out, however, that there's more, and the Cornell Lab's latest offering gives us additional insight into the world of birds.

All About Bird Biology, a recently released (they say, "hatched") companion site to All About Birds, focuses on the biological aspects of birds. For example, the first collection of information looks at feathers. The site is interactive and already contains nearly a hundred videos about birds.

Billing (get it?) itself as a resource for birders, teachers, students, and just about anyone curious to learn more about birds, All About Bird Biology moves public knowledge of ornithology up a notch. As someone who once had an entire science fair project dedicated solely to feathers, I love it. To check out the site, click here.

Between All About Birds and All About Bird Biology, we can know birds inside out.

Seeing the Hermit

Sometimes, hermits come for a visit.

Each of the last few days, I've seen a thrush-like bird. It's brown and lacks any particularly obvious markings. Birds like that can be hard to tell apart. However, knowing it looked like a thrush helped.

I was pretty sure the bird was not a Swainson's thrush because I vaguely remembered that they leave during the winter. With that information in mind, I guessed the bird was a hermit thrush.

After checking All About Birds and WhatBird last night, I found that my memory was correct. Swainson's thrushes move south in the winter, and the hermit thrush is the only member of the thrush family that looks like the bird I saw and lives in the Pacific Northwest this time of year.

Last night's investigation left one thing to do: wait for the bird to come back so I could confirm the species. Sure enough, it came back today, and I was able to get pictures (not the one above) that provided enough evidence to show it was a hermit thrush.

It was exciting to realize I had accumulated enough birding knowledge to make such a guess about a rather plain bird. I'm glad it decided to stop by and give me a chance to get to know it.

Write On

After having my own Cooper's hawk experience this summer, I was drawn to this article from All About Birds.

It was cool to find that someone else recently had encounters similar to mine, and the writing in the article is wonderful. The author communicates a connection to the environment with passion and care. Also, the story has some great information about the birds.

Just a Memory in the Future?

I was feeling a little down today, so I looked for some things that would put a smile on my face. After listening to some music and watching some comedians do their work, I felt better, so I stopped actively seeking pick-me-ups. Then, after a while, a seemingly unrelated urge to get some information on cedar waxwings overtook me. (As you may recall from an earlier post, the cedar waxwing is one of my favorite birds.)

I decided to go to All About Birds for my waxwing information. Along with tons of information about birds, the Web site has recordings of bird sounds, so I clicked on one of the waxwing calls. As they do when I hear them outside, the familiar trilling and whistling brought a smile of happiness to my face. However, I recognized the presence of another feeling sparked by the sounds. This one was deeper, and I realized just how connected I am to cedar waxwings.

That may sound fanciful, but in truth, I think the feeling is quite grounded. I have a number of special memories tied to waxwings. For instance, I remember my grandma yelling for a gun to keep the birds out of her berry patches; I remember my personal rediscovery of them near my home ten years ago; and I think of how this summer, while I was fishing, I decided to take a break and just sit and watch as a group of the birds fluttered over the creek in pursuit of bugs (I was so happy to see these old friends there).

Through those memories and others like them, the cedar waxwing has become part of me, and I think that is why I ended up at All About Birds, looking at, reading about, and listening to them today: Needing to tap in to something strong, I reconnected with an enduring element of my life.

Afterward, I thought about what would happen to me if cedar waxwings were not around anymore. I am in a part of the world where the birds live all year round, and I usually don't have to wait very long before I hear them outside (as opposed to finding the sound on the Internet); but I wonder if global warming might change that, forcing them farther north or even driving them toward extinction. I think if either of those scenarios were to happen in my lifetime, I'd lose part of myself, a part that would be hard to live without. (This is an example of what I meant when, in my top five reasons for addressing global warming, I said I didn't want to see the place I grew up changed by something we can stop.)

See What I See

Two days ago, I had the exciting experience of seeing a bird species I had never seen before, the eastern kingbird. The thing was, I didn't know what it was when I first saw it.

When I saw the bird, I was jogging. I'm not training for a marathon or anything, so I have time to look around me and check for animal species. However, I don't jog with a camera, so I can't document what I see. Because I still had about 30 minutes left on my jog when I saw the bird, I had to commit as much of it to memory as I could. This was particularly difficult because to see it, I had to look into the sunset. From what I could tell, it looked like some sort of flycatcher with a dark head and back and a white front. I tried to get a better angle, but when I moved, the bird flew away.

Upon returning home, I checked two online sources (WhatBird and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's All About Birds) for help in identifying the bird. These are great resources. WhatBird's search function is particularly helpful in narrowing down the possibilities. I had some difficulty with this bird, but eventually, I came to the conclusion that I was 90 percent sure it was an eastern kingbird. The descriptions of this species and its habitat basically fit what I had seen and where I had seen it, and they gave me a key identifier to look for if I ever saw the bird again (a white terminal band on the tail).

Armed with that information, I decided to go jogging last night at about the same time, hoping the bird might be in the habit of being in the same place at the same time. As it turned out, it wasn't in exactly the same place, but it was close. I saw it on a fence, stopped jogging, and looked for the distinctive band on the tail. Sure enough, it was there, and when the bird took flight, the band was even more obvious. Success: a positive identification!

It's a cool feeling to come across a species for the first time, and the eastern kingbird is especially interesting. The males and females fiercely defend the nest. All About Birds even talked about an incident in which a kingbird knocked a blue jay from a tree near the nest and forced the jay to hide under a bush to avoid further attack. Eastern kingbirds can also identify cowbird eggs in their nests (cowbirds will lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and let the other birds raise the babies). When the kingbirds find these eggs in their nest, they, unlike many other birds, realize they are different and remove them.

Discovering this information is like learning about a new friend, and it all started by positively identifying a species I had not seen before.

If, like me, you are relatively new to identifying bird species, you might want to pay special attention to All About Birds' page for building bird identification skills.