David Buckley and I were cruising the roads of Okanogan County, Washington today. David got three lifers, getting his Lower 48 and ABA lists to 600. Our new friend, found standing on the road just minding its own business (shown below), wasn’t one of the lifers, but it certainly was one of the highlights of the day.
Ruffed Grouse
If you’ve ever chased a vagrant or have been at a hawkwatch, you’ve probably heard someone say it. After a long period of not seeing anything, someone will say that they’re offering themselves as a sacrifice — they’re leaving so that the bird everyone is looking for will show up or that activity will pick up. Rarely does it work.
Unfortunately for one person, but fortunately for another person, it did work on our recent St. John’s trip. Everyone’s main target when visiting St. John’s is Yellow-legged Gull (unless there’s a Lapwing or Redwing around). In North America, it only occurs regularly at this location. Weather and luck conspired against finding the Yellow-legged for most of the tour. One person left early, empty-handed (the early departure was planned before the tour started). Then two hours after dropping him off at the airport, our group found a Yellow-legged (photos by Jared Clark below).
I don’t know if it’s related, but the tour ended this morning and a Redwing was found in the afternoon. D’oh!
The review of my new Canon 7D DSLR has been delayed largely due to the weather here in the lovely Pacific Northwest. As you might imagine, it’s been raining. Raining quite a bit, actually, and I’ve been hoping to first test the camera out on a sunny day. This past Saturday actually had some sunshine, and I was able to do some comparison shots with my 30D. One of the first things that I discovered was that I’m not very good at manually focusing the new camera, so I’ll need to work on that before I can really get into comparing image quality.
However, in the meantime, I can say that the 7D’s viewfinder is impressive. It’s very bright and sharp (and that’s why I’m surprised by my focusing problems). The LCD screen is equally impressive. Both the viewfinder and LCD screen are way beyond the 30D’s. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything if I use the camera and my 400mm lens instead of my binoculars to look at a bird. Now I’m not saying that the camera is a replacement for my binoculars — I’m sure the view through the bins is still better, and I’ll probably start noticing the difference the more I use the camera — but I won’t be terribly disappointed if I can only look at a bird through the 7D.
Well, there haven’t been any additional Northern Lapwings in Newfoundland reported to nf.birds and the weather conditions have changed, but the Zugunruhe tour group did see one of the previously-reported birds this morning. It took them a whole half-hour to find it. Jared spotted it sleeping in a field. Good work, gentlemen!
That makes a 100% success rate for lapwings on our “official” tours: we’re two-for-two. I say “official” because I’m not counting my scouting trip. That one was lapwingless, and I have to say I will be really surprised if we get another lapwing on a future tour.
Over the past several days, three Northern Lapwings have been reported in eastern Newfoundland. As you would expect, the local birders are excited, but they’re not just excited about those three lapwings. They’re excited that there could be more to come.
There have been several significant invasions of Northern Lapwings to the maritime provinces of Canada. The largest was in December 1927 when hundreds, possibly thousands, were found, primarily in Newfoundland. A smaller invasion occurred in January 1966. Both invasions occurred when there was bad weather in western Europe and easterly winds over the North Atlantic.
Northern Lapwing seen on our Dec 2008 tour
The reason for the excitement is that the same conditions are occurring right now, plus Ireland has seen huge numbers of thrushes (Redwing, Fieldfare, Song Thrush) arriving, presumably from points east and perhaps continuing west, so Newfoundland’s birders are looking for more than just lapwings. Jack Snipe is also on their minds.
I’m excited because our 2010 Newfoundland tour starts today (OK, the birding won’t actually begin until Saturday), so I’m hoping the participants will see a lapwing and possibly another European species or two. St. John’s birder Jared Clark will be leading the tour, so I’ll be missing out on the fun this time around, but remarkably, we had a lapwing on the previous Newfoundland tour (photo above). It was a great “bonus bird” for the trip list.
It’s been too long since my last post. I’ll place the blame squarely on the holidays.
Anyway, I bought the controversial Canon 7D DSLR a few days ago. I say “controversial” because the reviews vary from proclaiming it to be the best crop-factor* DSLR ever to no better than a Canon Rebel that costs about 1/3-third the 7D’s price. (*A crop-factor DSLR has a sensor smaller than a 35mm film frame, and makes the apparent focal length of a given lens longer than what it actually is, i.e., the image is magnified compared to a DSLR with a full-sized sensor or a 35mm film camera.)
That’s one of the problems with the internets: you can easily find the full range of opinions and reviews on absolutely everything. In the coming days, I will add to that morass and provide you with my own review of the camera! I plan on approaching it not so much from a technical, pixel-peeping viewpoint but more of a look at real-world results.
I haven’t done any serious testing of the camera yet, so the review will have to wait, but I have learned one thing about video playback. You can find more than a few complaints about dropped frames online. Quite a few people suggest the problem is using a memory card that’s too fast. Some blame the camera itself. But it appears the actual problem is the computer, particularly the software used for viewing the playback. I was experiencing the same problem — jerky movement caused by missing frames — when watching the playback on my computer. I was using an old (i.e., not the fastest) CF card, so that shouldn’t have been a problem, and then I reformatted the card as suggested. Still had dropped frames, but the playback looked fine on the camera, so the problem had(?) to be on the computer. Then I found a post recommending the use of the VLC media player, a free program, for viewing the video from 5D Mark II and 7D cameras.
After following the instructions in the aforementioned post (you have to make a change to the preferences or it won’t work), the video plays back quite well. Some of the videos I recorded before reformatting the card still drop frames, but I wonder if it’s just that those videos are more demanding and maybe it has nothing to do with the reformatting. Anyway, I just shot a couple more videos. They’re very jumpy when viewed on ZoomBrowser EX, software provided with the camera, but there doesn’t seem to be any hiccups when watching them on VLC.
More to come as the testing continues!
The American Birding Association (ABA) is trying to increase its membership, and as part of this effort, “they” are changing it’s logo. You can vote for what species will be featured in the new logo at http://www.aba.org/logo/. One option is retaining the Red-billed Tropicbird, which has been used since 1971, but as Blake Maybank pointed out on BirdChat, it’s unclear if votes for that option will actually count.
If some bird other than Red-billed Tropicbird wins, I would guess that those votes did NOT count. Why? Because there are quite a few people who want to keep the Tropicbird, and there doesn’t appear to be any stand-outs among the other seven choices. Those other candidates will split the “change” vote. Each one will almost certainly get a small percentage of votes compared to the Tropicbird.
I’m not sure if the logo change in and of itself is supposed to attract new members or if it’s part of a rebranding of the organization to make it appeal to more people. Based on what’s in the latest issue of Birding, I strongly suspect it’s the latter. Now, I have no real background in marketing, advertising, psychology, etc., but this _is_ the internets, so I’ll still give you my opinion: I just don’t see it. I don’t think the species depicted in the ABA’s logo makes any difference at all. Does the Tropicbird really make the organization appear to be elitist? Would something else, something more familiar, make it appear to be more welcoming to those not interested in chasing rare birds? Have you ever “judged a book by its cover” in the case of a birding/conservation organization?
The ABA has listed ten new initiatives for the organization. None of them are bad, but I question how much some of them will contribute to increasing membership. Meanwhile, various factions have different opinions on the direction the organization should be headed. Some want it to be more conservation-focused. Others want it to be devoted to birding, much as it was when the ABA was first formed.
My opinions are mixed. First, “conservation” is a very general term, and I’d like to see more specifics about that. Will it mean being involved with purchasing land to protect habitats? If so, would ABA members be allowed to access these properties? Or will conservation efforts be more in the vein of lobbying for legislation? Or something else? Moving on to the other side, what exactly should an organization for birders be doing? I can see how the ABA was vital in the 70s and 80s. There was no other means for easily sharing information at the time. But now with the internet, that role has been diminished, though there is still a need for a source of reliable, or at least semi-reliable, identification articles and birdfinding guides.
In the long run, the ABA needs to find ways to improve the value of membership. They need a good answer when someone asks “Why should I join?” Some of the new initiatives are directed towards that, such as new print publications and special content for members on its website, though of course we’ll have to wait to see if that’s really worth it. Planning an American version of the British Bird Fair is interesting as well, though I don’t know if members will benefit from this any more than non-members. One other thing that might be worth pursuing is negotiating discounts for members like the discounts members of AAA and AARP now enjoy.
I’ve been getting a little more serious about county birding here in Washington recently. For those of you not familiar with it, county birding is trying to build up a list for a particular county or all the counties in a state. Some birders only care about their life list or their ABA (American Birding Association) list. For others, it’s a state or county list, and for some, it’s all of the above and more. I could go into the pros and cons of county listing, but that’s getting off-topic for this post. Maybe I’ll get into it later. Remind me.
Anyway, last weekend, I decided to visit a few counties that I’ve only driven through (Thurston) or haven’t even been in (Mason). In Thurston County, I stopped at Nisqually NWR and a few places around Olympia including Capitol Lake and turned up 65 species, and I found 44 species with several stops in Mason County. Between the two counties, I saw 76 species and gained 109 county ticks. I thought I did pretty well considering the weather and time of year. Well, I thought I did well until I got home.
I should probably mention that during the middle of the day I called home to get a report on what was being reported on Tweeters (the WA state birding listserv). I have a fear that a mega-rarity, or even a not-so-mega-rarity, is going to be found while I’m out and I won’t know about it until it’s too late to go look for it. I especially fear that I’m going to drive right past a spot where something’s been found, completely unaware. The birding world seems to be full of stories like that.
When I got home, I went online and found out that a couple of other birders found a King Eider at a state park in Mason County that I thought about visiting. D’oh! At least I didn’t drive right past the park, but I was fairly close. Then a day later, someone else reported two Magnolia Warblers in Thurston County. I had been pretty close to them, too. Oh, well.
Actually, I did have a good time, despite missing those birds. I’m not completely insane that into county or state listing. But the coincidence was, um, interesting.
Just a quick update: Monday was the last day that the Black-tailed Gull was reported. Searches on Wednesday and Thursday failed to turn it up.
Charlie Wright found a Black-tailed Gull on Commencement Bay, a part of Puget Sound, in Tacoma, WA on October 13. Not surprisingly, I was thousands of miles away in Quebec when it was found. Last year, a Variegated Flycatcher was in eastern Washington in September. Me? I was in Barrow, Alaska at the time. Unlike the flycatcher, the gull had the good manners to stick around until I got back home, and as of today (Nov 4), it’s still there.
Black-tailed Gull; Tacoma, WA, 27 Oct 2009
I’ve seen it three times now, and on my second visit, I was able to get some pretty good photos. Besides the one above, you can see the rest here. If you go, don’t expect to see it this well unless you’re in a boat. Otherwise, you’ll be at least 100 yards away, and you’ll definitely want a scope. In fact, you’ll probably need a scope.
I had several requests for directions after I first posted my photos to Tweeters, and I know birders are still coming to look for it, so here are directions from I-5:
- take Exit 137 (the Fife/Milton/Hwy 99 exit) and go north (a right turn if you’re coming from southbound I-5; I believe it’s also a right turn if you’re coming from northbound I-5). You will be on 54th Ave E.
- continue north for 1.0 mile on 54th Ave E. This distance is measured from where the southbound I-5 exit meets 54th Ave E. There’s a traffic light there. After you pass this traffic light, you’ll go through another three intersections with traffic lights and then come to a fourth light at the intersection with Hwy 509. (FYI, shortly before 54th Ave E. meets Hwy 509, it makes a slight bend to the left, and when it does, it’s name changes to Taylor Way.)
- turn right on Hwy 509. It is also called Marine View Drive.
- go 3.9 miles on Marine View Drive/Hwy 509. Note that at 1.7 miles you’ll need to get into the left lane. The right lane is right turn only. Along the way, you’ll pass Hylebos, Chinook Landing, and Ole & Charlie’s marinas.
- there is a pull-off on your left at 3.9 miles (marked on a map here). You might notice a street sign here that says “NE 5000″. Park here. If you end up driving past this spot, you will reach Tyee Marina at 4.2 miles. You can turn around here. Also, you’ll pass several other pull-offs before you get to the “NE 5000″ pull-off. You might want to try these, too, if you aren’t having any luck.
Here’s a photo of the bay from the pull-off:
The gull is usually sitting on the log boom, often on the right side, which as you see, is marked in the photo. Today, it was sitting right in the middle of the near side. I took this photo around 2 PM. As you can see, the light isn’t terrific and it just gets worse as the day goes on. I’ve heard that the gull is usually off feeding in the morning, so late morning to early afternoon is probably the best time to look for it from the road.
Other birds seen here today included Barrow’s Goldeneye, Red-necked Grebe, and three species of comorants.