How to Know the Birds: No. 45, Things Birders Notice—And Don’t Notice
Something caught the corner of my eye, a shimmering amid the wooly clouds. Pelicans of course. I wheeled around for a full view...
How to Know the Birds: No. 44, How eBird Killed Birding
eBird used to have a tagline, “It will change the way you bird,” that I wish they hadn’t discarded. Because eBird has drastically changed the way I bird. So much so, that I might venture: “It will kill the way you bird.”
How to Know the Birds: No. 43, An Imperfect Waxwing
When Bombycilla cedrorum was named the 2020 ABA Bird of the Year, there was delight and enchantment all across the ABA Area. Fists were pumped, shouts were proclaimed.
How to Know the Birds: No. 42, Five Thousand Straight Days of eBirding
As of today, Tues., Sept. 8, 2020, I have submitted at least one complete eBird checklist per day every single day since Mon., Jan. 1, 2007, a run of 5,000 straight days. Why? How come? What has motivated me to do this?
How to Know the Birds: No. 41, Flying Kites on the Last Day of the Longest Summer
We had a hankering to see Mississippi kites, the most summery of summer birds in Colorado. Kites like it hot: in the old towns along the Arkansas River well east of Pueblo, where cicadas drone from the tall shade trees.
How to Know the Birds: No. 40, An Avocet in the Lovely Country
I saw an American avocet, a presumed male by bill structure, thus less spectacular than the female. The bird was bleached and worn, but still: An avocet, any avocet, even a sun-blasted, straight-billed male, is the sort of bird that bids you stop.
How to Know the Birds: No. 39, What If They Cancelled Bird ID?
I presented iNaturalist with my Hardscrabble Mountain gray flycatchers, and the app performed flawlessly. Not just the adults teed up in textbook fashion atop junipers; but also the fledglings, nearly featureless blobs of downy softness.
How to Know the Birds: No. 38, The Exemplary Cormorant
The second half of 2020 is going to be difficult, and I have no intention of downplaying or dismissing that reality. But I wonder if something quietly wondrous is beginning to happen: an awakening of community, of shared responsibility, of devotion to a cause greater than ourselves.
How to Know the Birds: No. 37, Two Truths About Birding
Seeing the bird was bittersweet for me. Sweet: What’s not to like about seeing a rock wren, indeed seeing and hearing and experiencing an entire landscape come alive with these blithe, brown birds? Bitter: I wish I’d been there with my friends from Camp Colorado, understandably canceled out of concern for the health of would-be campers and the broader community.
How to Know the Birds: No. 36, The Last Grasshopper Sparrow
The bird was a grasshopper sparrow, Ammodramus savannarum, singing, as grasshopper sparrows are wont to do, in the middle of the night. The time was 12:26 am. The full moon peeked through the haze and persistent cloud cover, but it was to be of no use in actually seeing the sparrow. Which was the whole point of this exercise. My companion and I had come to this place specifically to hear the unseen bird.