birdspot

6:30 am, Little Compton, RI. The birdsong starts before sunrise, but a gentle span before sunrise, as befits August: no spring/early summer mania at 4am. I, concrete-weary and tired of urban cacophonies, use the dawn chorus and the lightening sky as an alarm clock, and am up and abnormally awake.

First birds heard: possible Cuckoo sp (though I might have been dreaming that), Gray Catbird, American Robin, Carolina Wren, Northern Mockingbird.

I am taking photographs on the property of a lovely couple; I am making a drawing for them, of whatever I want, inspired by their incredible environs. I spent the night in their guest loft over the barn. I am not birding, I am WORKING, but as always I am listening, listening, listening…

Birds heard, and added to the previous species, as the sun just begins peeking up: domestic Rooster, Cedar Waxwing, Chipping Sparrow (with begging juvenile Cowbird), House Wren, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Song Sparrow. It is getting distracting.

Focus, I tell myself, you are at work now. Lose yourself on colors and patterns, compositions and ideas. I want to distill the visual and aural cadences around me into something else, and I need to get some interesting reference photos. It would be nice to achieve something beyond the mundane, though now there are 16 different avian species vying for my attention, tugging at me from multiple directions. Bird watching does not really a great drawing make.

Calls are rising with the sun: American Goldfinch, Red-shouldered Hawk (screaming, distantly), Blue Jay (nervously, nearer), Northern Cardinal (off in a more suburban yard), Downy Woodpecker, Mourning Dove.

The sun warms the fields, dew becomes mist, and a couple of bucks are feeding across the meadow. They have been eyeing me for a while, but we are all nicely together in a peaceable kingdom as I do my early morning reverie thing. Until, that is, I raise my long telephoto lens to take their picture, whereupon the larger of the two actually barks at me, stamps his foot, and off they go. Methinks those deer know a thing or two about rifles.

Insects must be moving more freely, because now I hear Tree Swallows! Eastern Kingbird! Barn Swallows are flying overhead as well, but silently. Chimney Swifts intersperse their chattering when they cross paths with the Tree Swallows. Eastern Phoebe (harsh “Phoe-bree”) and Black-capped Chickadee (softer “phoeebe”) immediately take me back to spring, and more distantly, to Vermont, and graduate school, and a host of other associations I don’t want to go into here. A Great-crested Flycatcher starts doing its harsh “Mreep”, sounding prehistoric. A Tufted Titmouse or three are off in the woods.

The light is rapidly changing. Larger (lazier?) birds are making their way across the sky: American Crows hold complex conversations with their wheezy juveniles (who sound like Fish Crows), a Red-tailed Hawk screams and makes the Red-shouldered shut up, and then, off to the south, I hear the plaintive, wimpy whistle of an Osprey, which makes me think that I should be at the water instead of these fields because shorebird migration is happening RIGHT NOW and there is just so little time and what if I’m missing something really good? Red-winged Blackbirds chuck at me as they fly to the water, a Northern Flicker calls from the eastern edge of the property, and a House Finch begins singing its rambling jumble of notes, near the house. A Great Egret squawks as it lumbers over. PLUS: everything from earlier is still singing, minus the elusive and potentially imagined cuckoo. 33 species, heard-only, in 30 minutes. It is amazing I get anything done at all.

Two sketches of a Three-toed Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina triunguis), from Texas.

Whether through corporeal genetic makeup, or via upbringing and freedom of choice, I have managed to do just about everything backwards in this life. If I were to stand as an example of how to pursue a career, participate in the world of contemporary art, write a blog, make photographs, it would become painfully apparent that I have gone about it all wrong.

I spend an awful lot of time looking at birds. As a result, I meet a lot of other people who also look at birds, and in doing so have found a pleasant subculture of people who don’t mind if you stop mid-sentence and whip your head around while mumbling something completely off-topic and avian-oriented. I have to stress, though, that the community is an added bonus and not the impetus. I think a lot of birders would agree with this. When my circle of bird-related friends and acquaintances first began widening, I was a little overwhelmed as to the cultural codifications within the activity of birding. To me, it was a very quiet and personal experience, not something to compete over or cement my personal identity around. I had no interest in being identified as a birdwatcher, a birder, a serious birder, a whatever-level birder, a twitcher, chaser, or any of the other strata that exist.

That said, I am horrifically competitive by nature. I am also highly focused and goal-oriented, as long as the activity involved is 1. not lucrative and 2. slightly off the beaten path.

There are events called Birdathons. It is desirable to see as many species of bird as possible during one of these events, ostensibly because they are fundraisers for conservation efforts, and the more species you see, the more pledge money you bring in. We all know, however, that the underlying motive is the challenge. I LOVE BIRDATHONS. I can’t think of anything I would rather do than spend 24 hours through any weather with three or four excellent birders in one vehicle with just this purpose in mind. It is exhausting, it is barely sane, and it is my idea of heaven.

When Amy of WildBird magazine first contacted me to see if I might like to join her for the annual World Series of Birding in Cape May, NJ, I was ecstatic. I was not going to participate on a team, but would have a chance to scout out the event with excellent company, and spend the weekend in an area renowned for its spectacular birding. I would also have the opportunity for a civilized cocktail in the evenings and full nights of sleeping.

For that weekend, I put aside my insaner tendencies and enjoyed a relaxing tour of Cape May with a friend. In a few short hours, with little fanfare and full meals, we saw about a hundred species, including a couple of rare and off-course migrants. I did not even keep a list (though my hard-wiring makes it difficult to forget what we saw and heard). We stopped to talk with other birders. We paused in the middle of a field to watch the incredible blue of multiple male Indigo Buntings, or to analyze variations in a White-eyed Vireo song.

The above photograph is from the Meadows, looking out towards the Cape May lighthouse, just before a late afternoon squall opened up on me (and on a number of WSB teams racing through). What made this moment memorable, however, was the couple standing behind me. I had scoped the beach and found Piping Plovers just minutes before, when the two walked up. They were overdressed for a beach walk, having come over from a wedding, and were grumbling as they looked through their binoculars about how impossible it was to find the plovers, so tiny and perfectly camouflaged, so far away in fading light. I was not in a hurry, so I offered them my scope, and sat back and enjoyed the light as they cooed over seeing a rare species.

1975 cadillac, princeton, nj

There are some things to be found on the campus of Princeton University. For one, the Spring peepers are calling like crazy. There are also birds, and a bird sanctuary. There are overabundant, overly complacent deer, everywhere. There are parties in faculty houses that somehow meld astrophysicists with sleight-of-hand magicians and Middle East specialists and journalists, where astonishingly clear sound systems broadcast the likes of Jackie McLean and Cannonball Adderley over decanters of sherry and port in wood-paneled libraries, and where, when dinner is served, the food is all Lebanese mezza of astonishing variety. I have developed a sudden interest in Arak, cut with water and served with food. Last night was a very, very, interesting evening.

dowitcher sp, orange county, ca

In my humble opinion, the top two are Long-billed Dowitchers and the bottom two are Short-billed Dowitchers. Why? Well, for starters, the top two were in a flock that was talking, and the bottom two were in another flock that was not, so I have the field advantage there. It is rather miserable to contruct ID’s from photographs, I know. Between lighting and color variations, the impossibility of size judgement, differences in feather “puffiness” obscuring structure from wind or temperature, well, you know all of this if you are bothering to even look at this post so I won’t go on. One thing I can add is that the bill differences were also observed in the field, and though I am well aware of the trickiness of overlap, it is still really cool to see a whole group of one against another, where things can actually average out. However, I am happy to be wrong, or even to say impossible to tell - please let me know what you think! I’m more interested in the learning process here than in nailing the ID.