2017: An okay year for birds, part 1

It would be hard to beat 2016 as a year for new life birds, without making extensive new travel plans, and that we did not do in 2017.

We returned to Boynton Beach, Florida in late January, and discovered that it wasn't nearly as birdy as late February 2016 had been. It was disappointing, but we still had a wonderful time and managed to scrape up a few more life birds apiece. Knowing more about the region this time, we were determined to visit all three of the local wetlands within easy driving distance. (Not that we were dong the driving. Our wonderful friend Adam Castro did the driving.)

Loxahatchee wetlands is a tiny slice of the Everglades, a National Wildlife Refuge with a lovely nature center, lots of alligators, and a chunk of nearly-extinct cypress forest, all alongside encroaching farms. Just driving there, I was extremely lucky to spot a Crested Caracara flying across the road in front of us. Alas, no picture. Alas, Ed did not also see it. But the bird was utterly unmistakable in flight, with its short wings with a big white flash, its black-and-white head. Mind you, I'd never seen one. But I had memorized the image from the bird books, and I had zero doubt what I saw and shouted out as soon as I saw it.

There were Loggerhead Shrikes on the wires. No photos from either of us, but there's no mistaking their silhouettes. Definitely birds we want to see more closely in the future. [Spoiler Alert: WE DID, but 2 years later.]

Another bird we came to see was not a disappointment. Our first ever Pileated Woodpecker! We heard him before we saw him, as we traveled on the cypress forest boardwalk. You better believe we RAN towards the sound -- it was like someone hitting a big tree with a smaller tree. And there he was, in his pileated glory! Of course he flew off after we got only a few shots...

I hadn't been feeling well, so I stayed behind while Ed and Adam went chasing after gators. There is a nice deck with shaded benches behind the nature center, facing into the cypress forest. I sat and found a few warblers and gnatcatchers, which made me happy.

Then this happened. One of Florida's ubiquitous Turkey Vultures landed on the railing only a few yards away from me.

Then a few more showed up. And performed an aerial ballet in the wide clearing in the cypress forest that was right in front of me. I had seen one up close before, but not so many. Not like this. 

They are BEAUTIFUL. They are made of bronze and sunshine. 

They spent a good fifteen minutes lazily circling and drifting about in the clearing. A couple of them drifted away, a couple others landed to enjoy the sun. If I hadn't been feeling unwell, I'd have missed the show. Turkey vultures. Damn.

After Spouse and friend failed to find alligators, we departed and visited Wakodahatchee. Like Green Cay, this is another "artificial" wetland created for purposes of water treatment, surrounded by developments and shopping centers. The birds don't seem to mind.

The special thing about Wakodahatchee is how close you can get to LARGE BIRDS and their extremely um, adorable babies. Great Blue Herons and Wood Storks really are extremely large, and it's extremely startling to realize their nests are sometimes just a few feet away from the boardwalk.

There was a system to the mixed flocks in the low, broad trees. Great Blue Herons had the top of each tree -- one or even three pairs. Then Storks and Great Egrets below. Then Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Anhingas and Gulls crowding into whatever branches happen to be left over. Cormorants seemed to have their own trees to themselves. Wood Storks mostly had their own trees too. Iguanas hung out on the lowest branches nearest the water, not doing much.

We'd never seen colony nests like these before.

I'd also never seen a Great Blue Heron try to swallow a duck before.

And I hope never to see that again, anytime soon.
(For the record, he gave up, a turtle made off with the carcass, and then he tried again...at which point we got on with our lives and departed.)

Cormorants were everywhere, flying and swimming and diving and hanging out. One of them was another lifer, a Neotropic Cormorant. Yay!

It pays to pay attention to even common looking birds. You never know.

Alas, there was only one Roseate Spoonbill. Dat spoon, dat spoon, dat spoonbill.

We visited Green Cay again the next day, to witness what we already thought of as The Usual Assortment of wetland waders and swimmers. Lots of Anhingas, Common Gallinules, Blue-winged Teals, Great Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Tricolor Herons, Pied-billed Grebes, Gray-necked Moorhens, Green Herons, various swallows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Boat-tailed Grackles, Limpkins, White Ibises, Glossy Ibises, etc.(Pretty much the same birds as Wakodahatchee, but in different blends.)

Any visit to Green Cay is a good one, though.

Catching Up, Part 1: Summer 2018

Been a long time since I made a blog post. Much has happened in our lives since I last nattered on about birds and orchids and cookery and books I like. I reckon I’ve felt distracted.

We recently went to Ireland for a week to attend the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, and that seems to have knocked loose some inspiration, some renewed desire to natter on again outside of Facebook.

Spouse and I made two trips to new places back in 2018: San Jose, CA (again for Worldcon), and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (for a birdy vacation). (SEE NEXT POST for more about that trip.)

California is a delight to us because we know delightful people there. We stayed in Piedmont (part of the Bay Area) with a delightful family for a week, from Spouse’s group of amazing friends. They made us comfortable and fed us and entertained us and we did our best to be good guests. We love and adore these people and feel so lucky that they seem to like us too. The August weather was cool and bracing; we enjoyed the open windows in our guest room every night, and only once in that week did we catch whiff of the terrible wildfires destroying huge swathes of northern California that month. (The fires did come much closer in the next few weeks, but we were gone by then. Our friends were fortunate to suffer only from the choking smoke, though for asthmatics that is plenty terrible.) (See above for a sunset view from their home.)

One thing we did that was necessary was to visit the American Museum of Bookbinding in San Francisco. Our hospitable artist friend needed to see the place, and we wanted to see author and friend Madeleine Robins again, as she now works there. (Do please visit her page in Book View Café. We are fans of hers as well as friends.) I highly recommend this museum to anyone with a love of books, a geeky love of the history of technology, and a love of the arts of covers and type. Witness the efforts people have made over the centuries to make the written word not just more widely accessible but also attractive to have and hold.

What else was wonderful was our new appreciation for the bird life of the Bay Area. When last we visited it wasn’t quite one of our obsessions yet. But now? I paged through the guide to Western US birds on the plane, with emphasis on those creatures featured in the eBird lists Spouse had shared. One of my rewards was to stand on our host’s rear deck overlooking a forested canyon road lined with native scrub as well as hill gardens, and know INSTANTLY that the twittering cigar with wings swooping at eye level had to be a White-throated Swift. The backyard also yielded Anna’s Hummingbird, California Scrub Jay, Lesser Goldfinches and Hermit Warbler. Spouse later saw Bushtits, and I was sorely vexed to have missed those. They remain a target bird for me.

We visited Lake Merritt and we found an Oak Titmouse and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Bewick’s Wren, California Towhees and Brewer’s Blackbird. California and Western Gulls were abundant, as were both White and Brown Pelicans. Black Phoebes were on the wires. No Bushtits. Argh.

San Jose was close by but oh so different. The sun felt so much hotter, for one thing. It’s a smaller city than San Francisco or Oakland, but has quite a distinct personality of its own. The public transit trams run frequently, there was bike and scooter sharing, and a lengthy pedestrian (and tram) street mall lined with shops and good restaurants. The Museum of Art was small but quite wonderfully inviting, with intriguing exhibits and good public space inside.

Our convention-block hotel, the Fairmont, faces Cesar Chavez Plaza. Spouse had learned from eBird and elsewhere that Acorn Woodpeckers, a normally shy and non-urban species, had established themselves in the palm trees of the park, and when we actually arrived at the hotel and saw the park we were skeptical, to say the least, that shy birds would enjoy living there. But lo! We exited the hotel after checking in, and FIRST THING we saw looking up was not one but two Acorn Woodpeckers flitting about above our heads. It turned out there were dozens of them. Magic. We soon got to know their favorite trees for acorn storage, and really enjoyed watching them going about their lawful woodpecker business every day. Furthermore, there were Black Phoebes casually perching on the backs of benches, something we’ve never seen Eastern Phoebes do in Central Park. Made more remarkable by the large numbers of people using the park every day.

Worldcon 2018 was quite enjoyable, shared with multiple friends also in attendance, and I might’ve bought a few books and um, some jewelry. The panels were good, except that towards the end the crowds did exceed many room capacities. I'll always have fond memories for attending. 

2016: A GREAT Year for Life Birds, Part 2

Not a bird. My apologies.

In mid-February 2016 we went to Florida, with intentions of birding at Loxahatchie and Green Cay reserves near the Everglades. We visited a friend whose home is on the shore of a small lake and surrounded by a moat, and he likes to post photos of white ibis gazing into his living room windows while the indoor cats lose their minds. Well, it was all true.

Good times started with lunch at My Big Fat Greek Restaurant on Griffin Road, between Ft. Lauderdale and Boynton Beach. They have a friendly male Boat-tailed Grackle that likes to steal sugar packets from the outdoor patio tables, and enjoys snacks of fried calamari. Anhingas swim and fish in the canal alongside. I have seen both species before in previous trips to Florida, but never bothered to enter them on a life list before. Likewise the earnest Muscovy Ducks also enjoying the water, and the Cattle Egrets on every roadside greensward. Boom!

The word anhinga comes from the Brazilian Tupi language and means devil bird or snake bird.
Wikipedia says so.

Come morning, the White Ibises in the canal by the hotel, and in the parking lot, kind of put things in perspective. Big birds are just part of the suburban landscape in that part of Florida. If you look up you'll see Turkey Vultures, gulls, terns, egrets and herons drifting by. If you're lucky, you'll see a Double-crested Cormorant trying to perch on a power line like an enormous pigeon wearing swim fins. (I wish I had a picture of that.)

We only made it to Green Cay that weekend, with a couple of friends along to make the experience even more fun. One friend spends most of the winter in a nearby community and visits the place several times a week. She knew all the good places to keep one's eyes peeled, and helped spot two alligators. Another birding friend who lives in the region also kept pointing out good things. We really hit the jackpot there for new life birds. Best birdy afternoon ever!

First thing we saw gallinules, wood storks, egrets, herons and ibises. Like all at once, right near the nature center and boardwalk. Considering how much trouble we go through in New York to get good views of herons and egrets, it seemed almost unfair!

Wood storks are clearly dinosaur throwbacks.

Purple Gallinules aren't common, like the Common Gallinule, but were among the first birds we saw there. Gray-headed Swamphens, an introduced species, were only seen further along the trek.

One is purple. One is common. One is neither.

Tricolored Herons were abundant. They seem to find the boardwalk railings a congenial place from which to watch humans pass by.

I walked right around this one. No reaction.

Little Blue Herons and Green Herons stalked about everywhere. I could only recall all the trouble I'd had seeing my first Green Heron in Central Park a few years earlier. Gah.

I had the completely mistaken impression that a Limpkin had to be an exotic and elusive creature.

It's not.

As a special treat, a normally elusive American Bittern was hanging out right alongside the boardwalk, basically right under our feet. It didn't seem to care how many camera lenses were pointed at it.

Not pretending to be reeds.

I also never expected to be thisclose to a Pied-billed Grebe. I can throw away all my long-distance shots from the Central Park Reservoir birds.

Mottled Ducks and Blue-winged Teals were the dominant waterfowl. Both were often found right around the boardwalk. Both are very nice to see up close.

Sleepy Mottled Ducks. Sleeeeeepy.

Plump, stately Teals.

White Ibis and Glossy Ibis are quite handsome birds. (I actually didn't realize Glossy Ibis also live in New York City, at Jamaica Bay, as part of their invasion force in the US.)

Sentinel.

Roseate Spoonbills are among my favorite dino-birds. I've seen them quite close up in zoos, the better to appreciate their bony faces, but seeing them in the wild is quite another experience.

A farther-away experience, mostly.

Didn't get any good photos, but before the day was over I'd also added Caspian Tern, Royal Tern, Northern Harrier, Red-shouldered Hawk to my life list. 

There were also plenty of Coots, Lesser Scaups, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Brown-headed Cowbirds, White-winged Doves. Prairie Warblers and Palm Warblers and other species familiar from elsewhere. Also Painted Buntings in abundance at the bird feeders right at the entrance...just two months after we hunted one down in Brooklyn!

Also this Sora, more cooperative than expected. 

Green Cay is just a terrific place to BE, never mind spot birds. The boardwalks are comfortable (I could wish for a few more shaded gazebos but oh well). The nature center is well-organized and informative, and I love the tote bag I bought. The writer friend we were visiting was happy to learn of the place, as it's ten minutes from his house and gives him a great place to take exercise walks.

Green Cay is also a great place to see lots of bird butts.

We returned in January 2017. That's another post.

2016, A GREAT Year for Life Birds, Part 1

[I'm more than a bit behind in my posting! Here's where I finally catch up on all my bird posts that should've been made in 2016 but weren't.]

As of the first week of February 2016, I already added 7 new birds to my life list -- as many as I added in all of 2015.

The last Saturday in January, I finally saw a Common Merganser on the Central Park Reservoir. It was definitely bigger than the more usual Red-breasted Mergansers,

On the last Sunday in January, we enjoyed an Audubon Society Eco-cruise of New York Harbor. It was a picture-perfect day of bright sunshine, blue skies, calm water, near 50 degrees. The 2-hour cruise took us past the shores of Brooklyn, Governor's Island, Ellis Island, Liberty Island and Bayonne, and down to Hoffman and Swinburne Islands, two small man-made islands on the eastern shore of Staten Island. There are ducks out there, ducks and loons and gulls that don't come inland to the Central Park Reservoir and only occasionally visit the East River or Hudson River for easy viewing.

Clangula hyemalis. Accept no substitutes.

Lots and lots of gulls and cormorants all over the place.

Familiar Herring Gulls, Ring-billed Gulls, Greater Black-backed Gulls, Double-crested Cormorants, Mallards, Black Ducks, Buffleheads and Red-breasted Mergansers were abundant along the shores. Spotting the unfamiliar Bonaparte's Gulls and Common Loons was the challenge!

There are seals too! Harbor seals like to sun themselves on the rocks and sandbars around Swinburne Island. They tend to hit the water when the boats come close, and stared at us from the waves.

So freaking cute.

So on one cruise I got Long-tailed Ducks, Common Goldeneye, Great Cormorant, Bonaparte's Gull, Red-throated Loon, and this Surf Scoter that was an unexpected bonus bird:

That is totally a Surf Scoter. Yay!

It hardly bothered me that my erstwhile spouse had already seen several of these birds elsewhere around New York City waters. I'm just not as eager to go chasing a critter that might have flown off by the time I got there. I figure I'll get them eventually...and often do.

In mid-February we went to Florida, with intentions of birding at Laxahatchie and Green Cay reserves near the Everglades. We visited a friend whose home is on the shore of a small lake and surrounded by a moat, and he likes to post photos of white ibis and wood storks gazing into his living room windows while the indoor cats lose their minds. Well, it was all true.

That's in the next post.

2015, a Good Year for Life Birds

Well, I didn't have nearly the exciting birding year that some people did, but it was quite satisfying nonetheless. I didn't spend as much time twitching in Central Park in 2015 as in the past few years. Partly that was due to a torn hamstring/torn ligament combo that spanned Thanksgiving 2014/January 2015, and caused me to spend the first half of 2015 limping about with a cane and extreme caution. While walking was part of therapy -- along with many, many leg lifts and stretches -- the uneven ground in the park was uncomfortable at first. So it wasn't until late in spring migration that I really got out and about again.

Once the leg was mostly fully healed, hiking up and down the hills of the North Woods and the Ramble became positively therapeutic besides enjoyable. And handling the binoculars and camera was much easier without the cane needing attention. I didn't see a lot of spring migration but did have a few really good days, shared with Ed and with other friends. No life birds, though, at first. And there wasn't much to see in the summer except for the usual suspects, so I didn't make much effort to follow Ed on his weekend bird hikes again until the fall migration began.

There were opportunities away from the city. Our annual summer trip to the Catskills got Ed several life birds over the past few years, and this year I got one too: I finally saw a whole field full of Bobolinks! There were many pairs breeding in an uncut hayfield just one driveway past our friends' farmhouse -- twittering their odd song, flying up to the surrounding power lines perhaps to distract predators, perhaps just to keep an eye on the territory.

My photo, not Ed's

I was feeling kind of lazy to visit Central Park until migration began, when some really cool birds began moving through. In mid October, an injured Sora was spotted in the North Woods. Ed saw it several times, and I finally saw it too not long before it disappeared. This is one of Ed's photos of it, as I had stupidly forgotten to recharge my spare camera battery and therefore was unable to shoot the darn thing myself. Not that it was visible for very long when I was there.

Ed's photo, not mine

We also had a few really good October days seeing warblers, kinglets and woodpeckers -- there were a dozen Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers in the elm trees between the Pineatum and the Reservoir one afternoon -- but nothing else really new. Then in early November reports began of a Great Horned Owl in the Ramble, I'd missed the previous bird in 2012, I wasn't going to miss this one! So I was there the second weekend he/she was hanging out. I was well rewarded with a gorgeous autumn day, and the sight of a GHO's extremely fluffy butt, seen from below.

My photo, on a really windy day the owl did not enjoy

There was also an extremely lost and scruffy Western Flycatcher (which doesn't exist, as the taxonomy splitters claim that species is actually 2 different species THAT LOOK THE SAME) hanging around near the Boathouse, and we were happy to bring friends to see it same day as the Owl. Alas, the flycatcher soon disappeared from the park. We fear it met a sad end.

Then in December a Painted Bunting appeared in Prospect Park, and there's no good excuse for that bird to be in Brooklyn. It became quite the celebrity. We HAD to see it, despite my birder friend in Ft. Lauderdale noting he had a dozen of those a day at his backyard feeders. As I grew up living a block away from Prospect Park, I was especially pleased to return to the site of my earliest birding adventures. The Bunting was gorgeous. It glowed, as if it were painted with fluid from blue, red and neon green glowsticks. It also wasn't hard to find, as there were nearly 100 other birders tracking it.
I didn't get excellent photos of it, but Ed decided to return the next day and got lucky.

He's right there in the middle. 

As we walked from the skating rink to the Zoo, along the eastern shore of the Lake, we spotted a few ducks. One of them turned out to be a female American Widgeon -- and that was my sixth life bird for the year! If I'd only gone with Ed back to the park, I'd have gotten a seventh -- a Black-headed Gull has also been hanging out in the Lake, but I've been entirely too lazy to nab that sighting. Wouldn't be the first time. Or the last.

A Good Year for Life Birds

Yeah, I'm a little behind on my posting again. I intended to do a whole series of posts about birding, starting with late winter/early spring migrants, but somehow that fell by the wayside.

My post that was BEGUN some months ago:

Birding fever gripped the land this spring. (Central Park for certain.) Winter rolled away, leaving us blue skies, lush lawns, trees decked out in dainty petals and showers of pollen, and the usual flocks of feathered migrants seeking food, territory and mates, not necessarily in that order. A few winter birds still lingered, even while the first newcomers make their noisy appearances. We haven't seen any Fox Sparrows in weeks, but the White-throated Sparrows are still here in large numbers. Eastern Phoebes already seem to be gone.

This Ring-necked Duck appeared to prefer a quiet life with the Mallards of the Lake. 

A pair of Baltimore Orioles made it through winter in the Ramble. 

One of those fat & sassy Fox Sparrows that were so abundant here this winter.

An Eastern Phoebe pursuing its prey right to the ground. Flycatching is hard work.