Rarebirds.com

While searching for where to see White-headed Woodpeckers in California, I came across rarebirds.com. It's an interesting site that used Google maps to record the sightings of rare birds. This site may be familiar to some of you, but it was new for me. This seems like a potentially useful tool. Right now, they seem to use only the state/regional weekly rare bird alerts as a starting point to finding birds in a specific area. For example, the state-wide NJ report is linked when I click on NJ, but locations for specific birds are not pinpointed. There is a form for entering specific bird sightings, but it doesn't seem to have too much usage yet. Check it out if you have some time.

Totally Trippy Bird Songs

What happens when a musician records singers making sounds and then speeds them up to mimic bird song? Marcus Coates, a UK artist, and Geoff Sample, author, musician and nature recordist, teamed up for the past 3 years to produce the amazing "Dawn Chorus". It's a combination of bird sounds and video footage of humans imitating the sounds. You can read about it here
and see a video clip here. It's really something you have to see to believe.

Here's some more info:

"During rigorous fieldwork 14 microphones were placed around woodland to record birds during one morning of birdsong in Northumberland. This study is the first, simultaneous, multi-microphone recording of individual birds during the dawn chorus. From this multi-track recording each song was slowed down up to 16 times, then each human participant was filmed mimicking this slowed down song. Finally the resulting video footage was then sped up, returning the bird mimicry into its 'real' register. The speeding up of the film not only magically translates the human voice into bird song, but also emphasises unconscious gestures that appear uncannily similar to the physical behaviour of specific birds; a grandfather becomes a pheasant and teachers in a staffroom transform into chiffchaffs, robins and blue tits."

Missing: One Ivory Gull

Have you seen this bird?

The Ivory Gull was not seen today unfortunately. Hopefully it's just vacationing for the day and it will turn up tomorrow. Maybe it's heading down to NJ! That would be a nice state bird.

I am thankful for my luck and the timing yesterday. I was able to get out of work to see the bird. All of the people missing this bird today made me think of some of the times I dipped on staked-out birds. There was a one-day-wonder Redwing in Pennsylvania that I missed along with 200 or so birders. There was also the very recent Long-billed Murrelet at Sandy Hook that I missed by a few hours. I missed a Brown-headed Nuthatch in Cape May by a few days and a Gray Kingbird by an hour or so. Purple Gallinule, Garganey, Bridled Tern, Barn Owl, White-eared Hummingbird, Three-toed Woodpecker, Blue Mockingbird, Rose-throated Becard (twice), White-throated Robin... wow, I didn't realize how many there were. What I'm trying to say is, there will be many more dips and many more successes and that's part of what makes birding fun in my book.

Blogger Spam

Has anyone else who uses Blogger been receiving a lot of spam comments recently? I've received several on one post. I use word verification, but that doesn't seem to stop them. I've noticed that blogger only uses a small library of "words" for word verification since I've seen many repeated over time. Perhaps some crafty programmer figured this out. Also, maybe I need to stop allowing anonymous comments. Argh.

Ivory Gull... WOW

Here's what I saw today!

When I woke up yesterday morning, I had no thoughts of seeing an Ivory Gull for many years. When's the next time I can get to Newfoundland and hope and pray to see this bird? Well, luck would have it that one turned up in Piermont, NY yesterday just over the NJ border. Yowzers. A snowstorm last night made diminished the chances of this bird staying around, but the luck is still flowing. It was there this morning. I woke up at 9:00 after sleeping in for my "delayed opening" due to the snow. I checked my email and discovered that the bird was still there. There's not a whole lot of drama to this story. I sped up the NJ Turnpike, crossed the NY border and drove into the little town of Piermont. I got my directions messed up somewhere and couldn't find the exact spot for the bird. I managed to spot a car who seemed to be in a hurry. It was what I would define as a "lifer hurry". Naturally, I followed him right to the crowd of birders.

There it was... sitting on the ice in all its... whiteness. This visitor from the Arctic was a treat for the eyes. Devoid of any notable plumage characteristics aside from its red-tipped bill, beady black eye, and black legs, the adult bird was shining in all of its pure-white plumage.



After only a few minutes, it took off and headed to a different location further up the shore. All of the 50 or so birders there hopped in their cars and followed it. We re-found the bird as it flew past us and then banked over our heads. It put on quite a show. It perched on telephone poles, ate from a Ruddy Duck carcass, flew up and down the jetty, and generally didn't care that all of these birders and photographers were there.



The Ivory Gull is in some serious decline. High levels of mercury have been found in them in a recently published study. Also, global warming has had an effect on the sea ice that the gulls roost on in the Arctic.




Oh yeah, did I mention there was a Snowy Owl there too!?!?!

The Snowy Owl above had been there for over a month and this is where the Ivory Gull was originally found. I assume the person who found the gull was looking for the owl. This is a classic example of the Patagonia Picnic Table Effect.

Popping the Cork

Beth and I spent this past weekend in the Brandywine Valley of southeastern PA. Aside from being home to Longwood Gardens, the Brandywine Valley also houses 6 wineries. Of course, these wineries all offered tastings which we gladly took part in. After our visit to Napa Valley last year, Beth and I have really enjoyed wine tastings, but not in the snooty, slurpy, swish-and-spit way. We just like tasting the wines and talking with the people there. I can't claim to taste notes of oak, chocolate, red cherries, or any of that other stuff, but I know when something tastes good and doesn't. We came home with 13 bottles of wine including a fantastic strawberry wine.

So, you would understand my trepidation when I found this Audubon Magazine article about synthetic corks linked from Earth, Wind, and Water. Only one bottle of wine that we bought has a wooden cork. The others are all synthetic. We don't usually buy high-priced wine and most of the under $20 bottles seem to be stopped with petroleum-based stoppers. Ugh. The problem is that wooden stoppers make up 70% of business for Portuguese cork growers. Their cork-oak habitat houses many species of bird and mammal including threatened species like Bonelli's Eagle, Iberian Lynx, and Barbary Deer. This habitat is protected by the government due to its monetary benefit, but what will the result be if cork is no longer profitable? I plan to send this article to each of these wineries in hope that it will make some difference.

I & The Bird #43 Premieres!

Tai Haku of Earth, Wind, & Water is the host of the 43rd I & The Bird bird blog carnival. With the Oscars coming this weekend, Tai has given us a really cool movie theme. Sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the best of bird blogging. As an added bonus, check out the awesome photos of sea critters on Tai's blog too.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird Migration Map

The 2007 Ruby-throated Hummingbird Migration Map is up at hummingbirds.net. You can use this great tool to track your sighting of northbound migrants or to see how close they are to getting to your area. It's a good way to judge when to start filling your feeders. Spring is arriving pretty quickly...