birdspot

The temperature has dropped, seemingly all at once and surprisingly, though in actuality it has been creeping downward rather steadily. I, too, am crawling out of this season, counting days as the hours shorten and bird migration slows, meandering when I might prefer to be beelining. Enough of slow changes and floating between seasons. I stamp my feet (figuratively and literally - now, in my favorite Converse, my toes are cold), and my impatience borders on impertinence. Bring on winter and get it over with.

Last week I spent a day in Central Park with three esteemed bird photographers, combing through Sparrow Rock and Maintenance Meadow in an altogether different fashion from my usual fall migration mania. David Speiser kindly invited me along to photograph with him, Lloyd Spitalnik, and Harry Maas. The sheer heft of serious photography equipment has kept me from sacrificing everything else I own in order to buy 800mm lenses and flashes and video tripod mounts, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t drool over really nice optics and gadgetries when I see them. I chose my own 300mm Canon lens (amazing within its range) for its mobility and hand holdability (is that truly a word?). The gear that these guys trot around the park commands a different respect, and demands a certain level of physical deliberateness. Add to this the Sisyphean challenge of trying to get amazing shots of tiny, active migrant songbirds, and you start to get the idea that this endeavor requires a level of patience and intuition not possessed by many.

I had a sneaking suspicion that these three characters might make up for hours of grey chilly weather and the near-useless, half-blurred warbler photos I would inevitably produce in such circumstances. I had the idea that witty banter would be flying, and I sincerely hoped that at least they were the sorts to have a nice sit in the Boathouse, because generally when I stay in one place for a long time the only thing I really want to do is eat. They do eat (and banter), of course, and then some, and the day I spent with them was fantastic. I didn’t pester them too much with questions on technique or exposure settings (they offer excellent classes for such things), but I did watch. I took about a hundred photos of this first-year Blackpoll Warbler, in between repartee and Central Park folklore.

Like all migrating birds, this warbler was hungry, but in this obvious fact, there are degrees to hungry. There is hunger, and then there is hunger tinged with desperation. As we clicked away (unobtrusively, I would like to state), I began to feel like this bird was experiencing the latter. It spent an unusual amount of time out in the open, along a wooden and wire fence. It returned to the fence over and over, even when it seemed impossible that any tiny living creature could possibly be left on it. This drew growing sighs of exasperation from the photographers, because if the Blackpoll were to alight on the stunted pine tree nearby, the shots would take on an instant, almost Japanese beauty. It did not prefer the pine, however, for the simple reason that there were more insects to be found on the fence. I took many partially obscured and strange rear view shots. The bird flew well, but held its wings drooped slightly, and after maybe ten minutes I realized that the left wing was drooping lower than the right. This was consistent the entire time we viewed the bird (like 16 hours, judging by how cold my feet were. well OK, not really 16). It was definitely favoring its left wing. This was a subtle observation, not an obvious tragedy in the making, but one I may have missed from a shorter encounter. The bird did, finally, fly in to us at the pine tree, the sun broke out a bit, and good photos were had all around. Followed by hot soup and coffee.

Two studies of a Blackpoll Warbler, pencil on paper, 11.5 x 11″
David Speiser’s photo of the same bird: http://www.lilibirds.com
Lloyd Spitalnik’s photo of the same bird: http://lloydspitalnikphotos.com

A wise person does not walk around Central Park barefoot, it is just not safe. There are things in the grass that might pinch you.

Like crayfish??? I first realized there are crayfish in the park by watching a Hooded Merganser on the reservoir wolf one down, as voraciously as one might wolf something down that has claws and an exoskeleton. Since then I have seen them in the streams of the North Woods (they were fighting at Glenspan Arch on Tuesday) and at the Harlem Meer.

For a list of birds seen Sept 15-16, click (more…)

On Tuesday, September 29th, NYC Audubon is hosting their Fall Roost gala and auction at the Central Park Boathouse (home of great martinis on the veranda and terrible burgers on the back patio), and yours truly has humbly created a drawing just for this event. This has been fulfilling (in ways other than financial) for me, and as such I do not mind putting a huge plug on this decidedly non-commercial blog for the drawing and the event. Proceeds from the gala and auction go to much needed conservation and educational programs here in New York City.

The drawing is pencil on paper, 22 x 18.5″ and is signed and dated on the back. It will be framed by the auction date. *UPDATE* auction over, drawing sold.

The top photo is a chipping sparrow. The bottom photo is a branch. Where the chipping sparrow was.

There are many pros and cons to an urban existence, there are many forms of entertainment to be sought in the park’s Ramble, and within one microcosm of life there are many different views on a proper birdwatching experience. There are often small irritations involved in identifying birds, especially in a public area. I am mostly bemused and tolerant of these, and generally find that there is a surprising amount of peace and quiet to be had. I love to think of myself as worldly and already-exposed to many subcultural quirks.

Yesterday, gentle readers, I was introduced to The Pisher of Central Park.

For a moment, let us revisit the art of the pish, just in case you have no idea what I am talking about. Pishing is a catchall term for the making of noises that attract birds to you, and is useful in some cases for drawing out a secretive individual or in bringing in a mob when you are in an area with widely-dispersed birds. It can involve pursing your lips and softly “spishing,” or can be a more aggressive, loud “Pshht!” Lip smacking, tongue clicking, or hand-kissing all fall into the same general idea. Taping is a cousin, but that involves electronic devices and prerecorded bird calls.

For a moment, let us avoid the obvious. Pishing is actively debated as to its merits and ethics. It is pretty straightforward that it has an effect on birds. All of the grey areas fall into how much, how loud, where (as in many cases, urban vs. rural), when (time of day, season), and for what purpose. Many people abhor it, many people use it with discrimination, and some people are just outta control.

There were a lot of birders skulking around the Ramble yesterday, and a Wednesday is a common day for group walks. Groups are pretty good at avoiding West Side Story encounters, for the most part. I was having a decent day, despite the numbers of people and the fact that it kept threatening to rain. The weather forecast had said a high of 68ºF. I had missed the part where someone tells you “not until 4pm; until then it will be 48ºF,” so I was a little cold, but I digress.

I was scouting some of the thicker tangles, chasing a shape that was probably a bird but that certainly had reminded me of an elusive Oporonis species of warbler. I was stock still, peripheral vision all electric and buzzing, with my eyes glued to a speck of movement in front of me, when I heard the LOUDEST pish I have ever heard. The effect on the understory was astonishing: robins flushed from everywhere, giving alarm calls, three blue jays swooped in and began scolding, and a flurry of smaller, more interesting birds flushed silently away into the realm of somewhere else. I jumped almost a mile, thinking someone was standing directly behind me. Within .75 seconds, all of my birds were gone.

Imagine my surprise when I realized the offender was, in fact, no where near me. Imagine my irritation when it became apparent that he did this incessantly. My jaw dropped open when I finally ran into him and realized he was leading a group and effectively teaching them that this was OK behavior. Now, finally, imagine my fury when this continued for about 4 hours. And yes, from an empirical standpoint, the birds outside of his periphery (namely, where I was, always trying to avoid him) flushed EVERY SINGLE TIME. Forget ethics, this is personal.

Of course, I don’t really mean to forget ethics. A nice rundown of codified behavior can be found at the American Bird Association site: http://www.aba.org/about/ethics.html

My bird list for the day, after the jump: (more…)

Yesterday was a 16-warbler day. This is very normal for a pretty good day during Spring bird migration. It is not a particularly amazing number (20 warbler species and up is rather nice), but there were good pockets of birds throughout the park, with some coveted FOY’s (First of Year’s) such as Prairie and Kentucky Warblers. Normal. A nice, normal day.

The morning dawned bright and beautiful, I was going to bird with Starr and Lenore & group, and was starting at the leisurely hour of 9 am. My train up the park was on time; I was eagerly and properly caffeinated.

The North Woods of Central Park do not have the best reputation for safety and comfort, but they are incredibly beautiful, and I like to bird with a group now and again so I can really scour the dirt paths and ravines that comprise the top end of the park. These trails often end at a man standing in the shadows, and are called “desire lines” or “love lines.” Other than this, it really does not feel like you are in the city, once you tune out the urban noises. You can’t even see buildings most of the time. Yesterday, however, Starr’s group must have numbered more than thirty people. Translated: many tiny birds + many birders of differing abilities = chaos. Oh, and the film guys were there too, filming the insanity.

By 9:15 a wild-eyed, wild grey-haired man had confronted the group and yelled about a 911 conspiracy involving the similarity of two phone numbers involving high and low levels of government involving the media. By 9:18 the soliloquy was over and birding began in earnest.

At about 10:30 we noticed a fair amount of smoke billowing from behind a small ridge and a couple of us ran over to investigate. “I’m sure it’s just a controlled burn,” I joked. What we found was a small brush fire, undoubtedly set by someone-smoking-something, that was moving through a good-sized area of black, smoldering leaf litter. We called 911 and film-guy Jed tried to stamp some of it out, losing leg hair in the process.

So as we listened to sirens moving away rather than towards us, along came a savior in the form of a crack-hyped, tight-t-shirted fellow who first became absorbed with watching the flames and then started jumping up and down yelling “Take some pretty pictures take some pretty pictures!” He poked at the leaves with a stick until I pointed out that he was only feeding the fire. At this point he became joyously fixated on stamping out the flames, and I left to help guide the firemen up the paths. When an entire truck’s worth of fire fighters finally reached the spot, crack guy had single-handedly extinguished a couple hundred square feet of fire.

And then I birded for a few more hours and made some calls while looking through binoculars and met a bunch of art people for dinner/drinks at the Harrison and then went to a premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival and walked down a red carpet and and sat behind an adult film star and went to their after-party and wore these shoes and watched minor celebrities and stayed up too late and if Swarovski wants to pay me I think that would be just fine and I’m totally wrecked today. The End.

A bird list from yesterday: (more…)