21 April 2005

Challenge

Spent about 2 hours at Heise Pond on Fort Jackson last night searching for Red-cockaded Woodpeckers (no luck) and Odes. It was a beautiful evening out an nice just to be outside.

The Blue Corporals libellula deplanata were again plentiful and have matured enough that males and females both have their distinctive coloring now.

Blue Corporal Male

Blue Corporal Female

I also had some luck on the Damselfly front, getting some good shots of what I believe is a Sandhill Bluet Enallagma davisi.

Sandhill Bluet

Then there were the mysteries. Ones that I just don't have enough experience to nail down for certain (and, in fact, may not be identifiable by my photos.)

Contestant number one is a dragonfly that I think is in the baskettail family Ashy Clubtail Gomphus lividus seems the reasonable choice.--

Mystery Dragon #1

Contestant number two is a damsel, and I am willing to guess is a female Fragile Forktail Ishnura posita.

Mystery Damsel #1

Finally, contestant number three does get points for being the friendliest of the bunch. After I took this picture it flew up and landed on my head. A little later another one landed on my outstretched hand. Unfortunately, I had my right hand out and by the time I was close to figuring out how to take a photo left-handed, it had given up on me and flown. It seems to be an emergent something and is probably not identifiable.

Mystery Damsel #2

On the avian side of things, my bird of the evening was a male Summer Tanager, but it was moving to quickly through too much tree for a picture.

20 April 2005

Funny? I Don't Know, Maybe....

What did the Common Crane say when it visited Indiana several years ago and was surrounded by birders?

"I'm really getting ticked off!"

Get it? Like getting ticked off people's life list?

Sorry, I shouldn't think before the sun comes up and I have coffee....

19 April 2005

Pack Birds

I like to be out in the woods. I enjoy nature and the outdoors. That’s part of the reason I enjoy birding. On occasions pursuing other outdoor activities has led me to birds I may not have seen otherwise. Being in the woods at night while backpacking gave me two memorable checks on my life list.

The first occurred in the summer of 1990. I was still brand-new to birding. My dad and I took a trip to North Manitou Island, Michigan. We spent 3 days and 2 nights backpacking on this undeveloped island in Lake Michigan, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

The history of North and South Manitou Island is intriguing in it’s own right. South Manitou Island offering the only natural harbor for a long stretch on Lake Michigan, the islands were influenced heavily by shipping in earlier times, leading to much logging on both islands so that the wood could be used as fuel on the steamers that used to sail the waters. There are many shipwrecks in the area attributed to storms and poor navigation.

What attracted us was the promise of some isolated wilderness that was within a day’s drive of home. We booked our passage and set out. We hiked around the southern end of the island the first day and finally decided to make camp on the western side of the island. We camped high atop the dunes, overlooking the lake.

We had eaten dinner, the sun had set and we were just sitting around enjoying the cool summer evening when a ghost-like apparition passed overhead. We both looked up as it came over again and again. Making several passes mere feet above our head before flying on. It moved purposefully and yet was completely silent. In the dim illumination of the twilight, it seemed all the more ghostly.

It obviously was not a ghost, but a Barred Owl. The scene of that larger predator gliding past me without a sound was magical. It was arguably the highlight of the trip. (It certainly beat the ride back to the mainland with 3-4’ waves on the small boat. I didn’t get seasick, but I was certainly glad to put my feet back on land.)

My next nocturnal encounter also occurred while backpacking in Michigan. This time we were in the Upper Peninsula the following summer. We were at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. After birding Seney National Wildlife Refuge earlier in the day we backpacked to a site.

The walk in was a bit of an adventure in itself. We found ourselves caught in a late afternoon thunderstorm. Rain came down. Wind blew. Lightening flashed, even once hitting a tree near our trail causing a momentary fireball in the top of the tree. We were suddenly very aware of the aluminum frame packs we had on and hoped they wouldn’t become lightening rods.

The storm passed and we arrived at our campsite next to a small lake, just a few hundred yards from the big lake—Lake Superior—the largest freshwater lake in the world. We could hear Common Loons calling in the distance. As day gave way to evening, the loons mournful call gave way to the livelier call of Whip-Poor-Wills. As we were making final preparations to call it a night, one visited our campsite. I was standing up, and a Whip-poor-will flew up in front of me, hovered for a few seconds and then resumed its search for insects. The head-on-view of this nighttime hunter is another memory I will carry with me for a long time.

12 April 2005

Two for a Strike Out…

It was August last year. My wife and kids had traveled back to Indiana to visit grandparents. Work kept me in South Carolina. One evening I decided to go out and try to find a Red-cockaded Woodpecker. They are an endangered species. But they are hanging on, among other places, not too far from where I live.

I knew of some trees they used to nest, and undeterred by the fact that it was the wrong time of the year for them to be nesting, I headed off. I sat and watched near the trees and looked at the other birds as well.

I saw a Great Egret and a Green Heron on the nearby lake. I saw Red-bellied and Pileated Woodpeckers. I saw some other commoners as well. But no Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.

Well, it didn’t surprise me. They are endangered, after all, and it was the wrong time of the year to expect them to show up at their nest cavities.

But what’s that? Looks like a nuthatch. Binoculars come up. Hmmmm. That’s different. It has a brown head. A Brown-headed Nuthatch. I don’t think I’ve never seen one of those before.

A few minutes later, while looking toward the tops of the pine trees, a flash of red caught my eye. That’s no cardinal. Binoculars come up again. I watch for a few fleeting seconds. It looks like a tanager. All red. Is it? Yes, no black on those wings. That would have to make it a Summer Tanager. All right! Another lifer.

So I went for one and got two other instead. It’s hard to be disappointed with that. Plus, now I’m better-armed and have a plan to find myself a Red-cockaded Woodpecker this spring. I’m visiting the same place. I’ve found what looks to be a freshly-excavated cavity, too.

But I’m keeping my eyes open for nuthatches and tanagers as well. You never know what might show up.

08 April 2005

The Curlew Experience

It was a typical vacation setup for our family. We were on the Gulf coast, at one of my favorite places on the planet. Fort DeSoto County Park (St. Petersburg, FL). The kids played in the water and the sand and the sun. My wife, not desiring to brave the 67 degree surf and trying to avoid excess sand, sat in her beach chair reading and keeping a watchful eye on the kids.

I was the one who didn’t fit. I was the one carrying binoculars, spotting scope and camera. Daypack with a few field guides. I was behind the beach, probing in the edges of a tidal pool that makes its home on the north end of the island. I was enjoying the shorebirds and especially the long-legged waders. Some of my favorite birds—Herons, egrets, ibis.

My new camera (arrived just before we left for this trip) was being put through its paces. I was enjoying photographing the birds. I wasn’t worried about identifying everything in front of me today. I had used the camera enough the past few days to know I could get good enough pictures that I could finalize identifications later, when we were back at my in-laws, sitting in front of the computer reviewing images.

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Said in-laws arrived and lunch was had. I decided to walk around the very north end of the island in case anything I hadn’t seen was out in the inlet or the back side of the tip of the island. I experienced the usual questions I do on every beach I bird on.

“What are you looking for?”
“What are you taking pictures of?”
“What kind of birds are you looking for?” and the like.
Unless queried by someone else with binoculars, I understand it is usually just casual curiosity. I reply, but don’t invest too much information because I have learned most people don’t care that much.
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Then, after getting some photographs of an immature Little Blue Heron I was making my way back. I started to get some different questions.
“Are you with that group of photographers?”
What group of photographers?
I hadn’t seen any today. A few more similar comments as I came back toward the tidal pool. Then I saw them. These were serious bird photographers. Big camouflage telephoto lenses on sturdy black tripods. Photographers vest and bags. Long pants and hiking boots. I instantly knew something was up. Dunlin do not attract this kind of attention.

I stood back. I watched. I began to figure out where the telephotos converged. I took some pictures on my own of the suspect. I had seen it earlier. I had got some good photos. I hadn’t checked my field guide by my initial impression was Whimbrel. An interesting bird, but not a “second-mortgage for cameras” interest bird. Not for a group of four or five, not all shooting the same bird.

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I worked my way toward one of the photographers, not wanting to spook anything, wanting to show proper decorum for the situation. “Okay, so what is it?” I inquired. “Long-billed Curlew. This is one of the few places to find it in the east.” He went back to clicking.

After I took a few more photos I wandered back to our outpost on the beach. I consulted my field guide. “Cool” I thought to myself as I was chided to do my parental duty and take some pictures of the kids before I filled my camera’s memory with birds.

As I reviewed pictures that evening I was very pleased with my photographic efforts. I had got some genuinely good pictures—including the Curlew. I consulted my lists. It was the first time I had seen this bird. That made it a lifer. The first instance of my personal observation of a bird.
And I had pictures. And I had not realized what was happening when I was first wading in the incoming tide taking pictures of this long-billed wonder. Somehow that made it sweeter. It was a longer and more gradual euphoria than seeing a bird I know is a lifer on the spot. It dawned throughout the day, growing and blossoming from, “Cool Florida bird with pictures.” To “Good bird for Florida” to “Lifer.”

The bird itself, of course, did not change. Nor did it care about its status in my mind; as long as the status did not include “dinner” I am sure it was ambivalent about my existence. But such are the categories we use as birders. Arbitrary as they really are in many ways.
I like shorebirds and waders. I like them for many reasons. One is that they like to hang out in areas that make them relatively easy to observe. Beaches, mudflats, shorelines. No neck-craning or tree circling to watch these birds. I also enjoy the fact that, at least for the shorebirds, they tend to hang out in flocks, more often than not mixed flocks. You can see many at once.
Finally, there is just something about the wader working its way through the water, slowly stepping, watching, watching, and then the dart of the head and the grasp of the prey. On some primal level, the long-legged waders’ hunting engages me in a way I cannot fully explain.

Our trips to Florida offer me a chance to see many of these birds. For some Florida is home, for others, like my in-laws, it is an escape from harsher northern weather in the months when temperatures drop and nights are long.

This time, with new camera in hand, it was a chance to try to capture some of these wonders. Pixels and apertures, exposures and focal lengths. The end result being a bird I can look at then at my leisure, back at my desk in my office. On days when they have departed and flown well north of my South Carolina home or when they otherwise stay in Florida.

The list still plays into the game of birds for me. I knew this trip was likely my only one to Florida for the year. That made it significant for both my year list and my Florida year list. There were also chances to increase my Florida state list and, with any luck, my life list.
It is these lists that the curlew rose through, gaining the coveted checks next to, state, year and life in their respective categories. The first entry for Long-billed Curlew. The increase of multiple lists with one bird. It made it special.
As I’ve already alluded however, the bird did not care. And on some level, I don’t either. (Well, I do, but I care on other levels as well.) I have pictures. Memories of a fascinating creature with a bill that I amazed that it does not trip over or break off. A bird with beautiful coloring of browns and black and a cinnamon underbelly. Watching it catch small crabs and somehow manage to work them through the inches of bill until they were consumed. Watching it preen and clean. A picture of it the moment after it shook, as if it had a chill, and all of its feathers were “poofed” looking very much like it had just sneezed.

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That, on one level, and I think the most important level, is the joy of birds. Just that they are so very different. So nearly magical when we try to think of them in terms of our comparably clumsy existence. They can take to flight. They are all colored differently, distinctly and beautifully. They take a common set of “bird” characteristics, feathers, wings, beak, legs and feet and employ them in such myriad different ways.

They continue to delight, inspire and amaze. From the awe of a large heron or raptor flying nearby to the golden drops of warblers that appear in the trees. From the common bird coming to the window feeder day after day to the once-in-a-lifetime rarity. Somehow, birds capture my mind and my heart in a way that no other creatures do. And for this reason, I am indebted to the joy they have brought me.

07 April 2005

Springtime Odes

This week I have seen the first Odes of Spring for myself locally.

On Monday I had some Fragile Fortails (Ischnura posita) around Semmes Lake on Fort Jackson.
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Then Wednesday evening I saw several Blue Corporals (Libellula deplanata) around the Hesse Pond Recreation are on Fort Jackson.
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After kicking the idea around for a while, I finally decided the easiest way to get information about my fascination with nature's flying things up on the net was to create a blog. that way I don't have to mess with all of the intricacies of a web site (I hope.) I've done that in the past and it turned out to be very time consuming.

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