Have we become lazy birders?

Lets face it, birders today go into the field armed to the death.  High powered binoculars and spotting scopes, field guides, blackberries with checklists, e-mail and recordings all set of every North American species.  Digital Camera, camcorder, sketch pad (for the old-timers), hat, sunglasses (I never understood wearing sunglasses while birding, since all birds have the same color then- ha!), bottled water, inspect repellant, toilet paper (forget it once, you’ll never forget again), map, flashlight (for nocturnal birding), identification to present to the authorities when you are arrested and  your name sewn into your underwear so they can ID the body after you get mauled by a bear.

But with all that equipment, are we better birders today then we were say 30 or 40 years ago, when most birders took a comfy pair of shoes and binoculars into the field?  Certainly the use of digital photography has meant that many rare or unusual birds have been recorded and positively ID.  You rarely hear the term “probable” anymore because of this.  But while ID’ing a rare bird at home is certainly a thrill, have our skills diminished that much that we can’t ID it in the field?  I dunno.

Its almost that we have become handicapped by all of our equipment, we have become almost dependent on field marks because we have optics that allows us to count feathers at 500 yards.  But we’ve lost some of those skills such as judging size, shape, watching behavior and understanding habitat and time of year.  I find a lot of new and casual birders lacking these skills, trying to find the perfect match in a book, rather than looking at the birds!  Danika was very much in this group until recently.  Lately we have been studying gulls at the Coxackie Boat Launch in Greene County.  Anyone who studies gulls knows there can be great variation in plumage, especially in young birds.  I’ve gotten her into the practice of looking for the “odd” gull, the focus more on size and shape than color.  Her efforts were rewarded when she was able to pick out her life, Lesser Black-Backed Gull by noticing certain details on the bird, before the obvious field marks.

That’s not to say there isn’t a place for equipment, I certainly use a scope and the best pair of binoculars I can afford.  But there are times, when I simply leave them in the car and I challenge myself to find and identify as many birds as possible without the aid of equipment.  I find I learn a lot more about, even common species, little details which I never noticed before in my rush to find, ID and check off a species.  Once you start to look at every bird you find in this way, the rare and unusual birds will show themselves and after all who doesn’t like finding a good bird?

Historical Bird Records: How Much Should We Believe? Black Rail, Greene County, NY 1963

For those of us who are interested in the avian history of New York State, the efforts by the New York State Ornithological Society to archive and make searchable 57 years of their Kingbird Journal  are nothing short of amazing.  Especially for someone like me, who has only been alive a little more than half as long as the Kingbird, it has given me great insight into the birds and birders who covered Region 8 (Eastern New York) before me.  But with these great stories and birds, comes some trepidations on my part, I just don’t believe some of these reports.

The first “No way!” moment I read, came from the 1963 V 13 #3 Kingbird.  In the report from that Spring, a Black Rail was reported from Vly Marsh in Catskill on May 18.  Black Rail, has a very limited range in New York, pretty much relegated to a few isolated pockets of salt marsh along the south shore of Long Island.  Because of its small size and secretive habits and difficult to get into habitat, it likely is under reported, but has never been common.  Many field guides still list Black Rail as rare and local inland, especially along major river valleys.  Its status away from the coast is more or less a vagrant, although it may very rarely breed, somewhere! 

 Now the observer who reported the Black Rail was well known, was listed as an observer long before and long after this particular sighting and was familiar with the area.  The Region 8 editor, describes the sighting as “convincingly described”, but no details as to what made the description convincing!  My argument is look at the date, May 18.  By this date at least some Virginia Rails, which would have been fairly common along the Hudson River marshes would have had downy chicks.  A well known ID pitfall of Black Rail is its similarity in size and color to the chicks of both Virginia Rail and Sora, both of which would have been found in the marsh.  A sighting of a small black rail in mid May, if indeed that’s all there was, is certainly not enough to make this report convincing. 

Now, to make this even more interesting… On September 19, 1963, the same observer, along with another, reported Black Rail at the same location.  Again, the Region 8 editor simply says the sighting was “convincingly described”.  Now this sighting holds more potential.  Given the mid September date, the chances of a late brood of either Virgina Rail or Sora are pretty low, but not impossible. In my opinion there is a good chance that a small black rail, is in fact a Black Rail.  Since it was seen by the same observers, who were reliable, this September sighting makes their sighting from the previous May, more credible.  But without specific details separating it from young rails in May, or even in September, I have a tough time accepting either record.  As such, Black Rail remains on my hypothetical species list for Region 8.

Looking at Other People’s Bird Feeders

During the Albany County Christmas Bird Count on December 20, Danika and I had, not one, but two incidents involving people and us looking at their feeders.

Now our territory is a large land-locked section of North-Central Greene County in New York.  Almost 100% of the land is privately owned, so we do a lot of driving and I mean A LOT of driving.  However, we do come across a lot of bird feeders and we often (briefly) stop to count.  We don’t get out of the car, we often pull to the side and obey all traffic laws (most of the time!).

Our first stop was in a group of houses.  A feeder in front of one house, was full of junk (cracked corn, bread etc.) and had attracted a large number of Blue Jays and Starlings.  We spent a minute counting the birds and then moved on.  After we made it back to the main road to travel to our next location, a red pick up truck, roared up behind us, flashing his lights and blowing the horn.  We were at our turn anyway and turned, then he followed us!  We pulled over to let him go past, but he slowed down and positioned his truck to block us.  He rolled down his window.

“I saw you looking at my house!” he sneered at us.

“Okaaay…” Danika Responded.

“On Aquetuck Road, I saw you looking at my house!”

“We are doing an Audubon Bird Count today, we were just counting the Blue Jays on the feeder!”

“A What?”

“A bird count, today we are out counting all the birds in the area, it is done every year and helps organizations and states manage bird populations.”

“Oh.” he responded.  “You weren’t looking to steal my snow blower?”

“No.”

At this point, he told us of how he buys day old rolls from a Bakery in Albany and throws them out on the Ice of his little pond for the birds.  He was frustrated however that all he ever gets is Crows.  Turned out he also knew my father in-law and he left and we continued our count.  But it was a rather scary incident, it ended well but it could have been much worse.

Also on our count is a home with a glorious feeder set up.  Sunflower feeder, thistle feeders, suet, ground, trays, you name it, they have it!  The place is always hopping with good birds.  On our way through, we stopped (not in front of the house mind you, but up the street a bit), I started counting birds, while Danika added to our tallies.  A few moments later a woman comes tearing out of the house (with her New York State Trooper Jacket on, nice intimidate try, but she failed her roll) and motions to us to “Come Here” as if we were kids or a dog that had gone on the carpet.  She marches up to the car.

“What are you doing here.”

“Today is the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, its the day we count all the birds in the region for research purposes.” Danika replied (she is now the official Nightjar liason with Rednecks).

“Well my mother saw a man looking at the house with Binoculars.”

“Yep.” I replied.

“You were looking at the house?”

“No, the feeders outside”

“Oh.” she replied (a popular response with the suddenly enlightened paranoid).

Danika went on about how we look forward to stopping at their house every year because the have the best feeders in the area and there are always lots of birds.  The woman didn’t say much, but spun around and headed back inside.  The impression we got is this woman, never in a million years thought we were looking at birds.  She seemed surprised that we even knew she had feeders.  Again it ended well, but both incidents left us with a bad taste.

Anyone else have some interesting stories to share?