More on the Peru Trip!

The date's been finalized.  Now I'd like some people to join me.  In fact, if we get more than five people to sign up, the price goes way down...to right around a thousand bucks ($1090) which is really crazily affordable for eight days of potential great birds.  Here are the details:

Departure Date:  December 12th, 2010 from Lima
Eight Days at Carpish and Satipo Road area.
Accomodations: Basic but manageable
Target Birds:  Golden-Backed Mountain-Tanager, Owls and Nightjars, too many other birds to mention (I list only MY targets, read trip details for more)!
Price includes:  Food, lodging, guides, comfy bus to Satipo, and most importantly a donation to the communities to build on the ecotourism infrastructure.

Trip details and signup form are at The Kolibri Expeditions Page and I hope others can sign up to get that rate to a lower level and make it a fun, friendly group!

Warblers This Weekend!

Sunday was a glorious day, despite the fact that I got out fairly late and went straight into the shady woods.  Island Cottage was a treat, with several firsts of the year for me:  Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher, Yellow-Rumped Warbler.  Lots of Brown Creepers everywhere.  I walked from Schaller's to Lake Plains and back over the teeter-totter boardwalk, scaring up the usual small flock of Wood Ducks in the process.  Also of note were at least five different kinds of butterflies:  a Mourning Cloak, a little blue one (Spring Azure?) and three different kinds of brown ones, one of which (the medium sized one of the three) had lovely crinkly edges.  Can someone tell these guys to sit still for a minute so my eyes can focus?

When exiting Island Cottage, I heard a loud trill and paused until I convinced myself I'd heard a Junco.  I checked out another section of woods before again meeting up with another birder who corrected me:  it was a Pine Warbler I'd heard.  So much for talking myself out of turning back!  I went to the Schaller's trailhead again and soon located the bird, now silent, mixed in with a flock of Yellow-Rumped Warblers visible from the platform.  My first two-warbler day in NYS!  Thanks, Gary!

I went to Badgerow Park after that and watched a White-Breasted Nuthatch build a nest.  It was like watching a dentist pack a filling, in a way.

Yesterday, as I'd mentioned, I returned to Camp Beechwood to see what was back and what wasn't.  I was kinda hoping for an early return of the Bank Swallows (considering some have been seen to the south) but I only saw one swallow, up high, which I couldn't ID.  I did see two pairs of Kingfishers, though, including one that seems to have set up housekeeping in the Bank Swallow bluff just like last year.  Creepers, Kinglets, and Phoebes were all out in good numbers (I didn't see any Ruby-Crowned, just Golden).  The most remarkable thing to me, though, was the sheer number of singing Pine Warblers.  By late afternoon, it seemed like each little section of woods had its own trilling bird.  I got good looks at several and there was no doubt they weren't Juncos or Chippies or any of the other birds I get confused on.  :)

I was confused on one bird, though.  While near where I heard my first Pine Warbler, mixed in with a flock of Chickadees, I heard a definite Warbler song.  My first thought was Hooded:  it was loud, with roughly the right cadence.  However, it came from higher up than I'd expect a Hooded, and seemed to have a bit of the Chestnut-Sided flavor to the song, but like I say, very loud.  Usually any warbler with a loud call from up high that I can't identify is a Redstart, but geesh...it's early for all three of my possibilities, isn't it?  So I tried to get a look at the bird, to no avail.  It kept singing that same Hoodie/Chessie song from various trees until I just gave up.  Any guesses?

I had a marvelous time at Beechwood.  I explored trails I hadn't used before and covered just about every inch of the place in six hours of walking.   The crows found me my obligatory Great Horned Owl,  Red-Breasted Mergansers and Buffleheads floated offshore, Killdeer called from the marsh flats, Song Sparrows tseeped from the brush, and Robins hopped along in front of me on every trail.  What a perfect day!

West and East of town

What a nice weekend for an extra day off!

As I posted Friday, the weekend started out with three kinds of owls and a Western Grebe.  It got better!  I had the following experiences:

1.  A fun bird behavior
2.  Sharing the joy of another's life bird
3.  Seeing a nice bird in our region
4.  Seeing a life bird myself
5.  Making a tough ID in which I had confidence and no back-up
6.  Seeing a nice harbinger of spring

The fun bird behavior was a first for me - a Northern Shrike flat-out singing, not just the call but a real little song.  Wonderful!  I really like Shrikes.
Numbers two and three were the same event and I'm not going to say much more about 'em pending publication of the Field Trip report from Saturday. :)
The Lifer was, of course, the Barnacle Goose at Iroquois...thanks to Willie and everyone else who helped my get on the bird from a tough vantage point.  Once seen, this bird stuck out like a sore thumb with his little white face.   After watching the goose for ages and stopping for a quick Eagle check (one eagle sitting nice and low on the nest, once doing a move that looked like egg-turning) I headed to the Gypsum Ponds to see what I could see.  This led me to #5, making what for me is a tough ID by picking out six Cackling Geese with confidence amidst the hundreds of Canadas.  Smaller, with stubbier bills.  Check.

I finished up the day at Burger Park, spotting a pair of Hooded Mergansers in the water with the Ring-Necks and a pair of Wigeon.  While on the platform, I heard a sound I hadn't heard in a while...so I tromped across the field and located the lovely singing Eastern Meadowlark perched in a tree and pouring his heart out.  I saw another Meadowlark fly from the same area and land in the field, but this guy just kept singing away.  That's my nice harbinger of spring, item #6.  :)

I hope everyone had such a great weekend!

Owl Tips 1: Owls Poop!

Since I need to get in the habit of writing more on this blog thing, I thought I'd start a series on finding Owls.  Roosting Owls in particular.  I'm sort of an Owl freak and usually have great luck finding roosting Saw-Whet and Long-Eared Owls in early spring migration, when they pop up most along the southern Lake Ontario shore headed north.  Think about the geography of the Great Lakes area to figure out why this is the best time:  when flying south, the birds will funnel through the narrow spots between or at the edges of the Great Lakes to avoid flying over the lakes, but when they fly north they fly up, hit the lakes, then stop and rest for a while before going around.   Since Long-Eared and Northern Saw-Whet Owls are the two main owls that actually migrate through my home town, I'll start with them since I'm most familiar with their habits.

Tip One:  Owls Poop!  Well, they actually vent a rather nasty substance referred to as whitewash.  This is a very good name!  Whitewash is often my first indication that I've found an Owl roost. Don't confuse whitewash with tree sap:  sap is generally a bit grayish in color, and because it drips so slowly it wraps around the branches instead of dropping straight down.  Whitewash is bright white, only eventually fading to off-white, and less viscous so it'll drip from one branch to the next in a sort of cascade.  Look for this substance on conifer branches especially - and if you spot it, look a bit higher to see if an owl is responsible.  Long-Eared Owls are a bit more fidgety and tend to flush from their roosts a bit more, so you may have only found a spot where an Owl has been...but if it's a good spot, you may want to check later to see if the Owl or another with similar roosting sense has returned.  Saw-Whets frequently stay nailed to their roosts throughout the day and even though they're tiny, they can put out some big amounts of whitewash.  One owl I saw last year kept coming back to the same roost site for days, and the base of that tree was just covered in white!  A few pellets, little gray lumps of coughed-up food remnants, also accumulated beneath this same tree.  Pellets are harder to spot than whitewash, at least for me, but if you find both  in the same area you know you've found a tree that at least one owl has liked a bit.  Keep an eye on that tree, you never know what you'll find!

Somerset Snowy

After a short walk in the Owl Woods (Chickadees only, but I love Chickadees so that's OK) I drove out to Somerset yesterday to get a look at the Snowy Owl at Sawyer Cemetery.  I checked out the fields along the way, turning up small flocks of Snow Buntings and Horned Larks on Foss and Marshall Roads.  No luck at my favorite Northern Shrike spot near Yates Town Park, though.  The Snow Buntings on Foss were fun to watch, picking at the bushes in the yard of the big farm house near the Amish school - they were contorting themselves into all kinds of positions!  I saw at least one Lapland Longspur on Marshall, but overall the flocks were quite small and largely lark-y.

When I got to the cemetery, I was dismayed to see a car in the ditch, watched over by a police car, right where I wanted to park.  I hope it wasn't a birder gone astray!  That section of the road was covered with blown snow and very slippery.  After a few passes, I saw another car turn around and park across the road from the cemetery on the north side of the road, so I pulled in behind and started to scan.  An interesting lump in the snow seemed to merit a scope view, so I hopped out and checked it out...yep, there was the Snowy Owl!  The car in front of me held Joe Stein and family, who also enjoyed some nice looks at this distant bird through my scope.  The Owl was sitting on the west side of the field, swiveling its head and occasionally preening.  It was nice to finally see a Snowy this year!

I stopped at Golden Hill State Park on my way home.  There was actually a little bit of open water there, unlike the ice-choked lake spots to the east.  All I saw was Goldeneye, Red-Breasted Mergansers, and Long-Tailed Ducks, however.  I hope we have a warming trend before it's time to do the Waterfowl count, since I'd like to report some decent numbers this time around!

Not a very birdy day, but the Snowy Owl and lovely weather made it a winner. :)

My Back Yard: the Killing Ground

Today, I stayed home sick.  I wasn't feeling well, and fortunately I'm able to accomplish a fair amount of work by remote connection.  Even though I felt less than wonderful, I enjoyed being able to watch my feeders throughout the day - I was hoping for a visit from one of my local hawks, but I was disappointed in that regard.  So far this year, I've seen two adult Cooper's Hawks, one juvenile Coopie, one adult Sharp-shinned Hawk, and a Red-Tailed Hawk of unknown age.I took the attached photo last year and have posted it elsewhere in response to a listserv thread about why some hawks were seen with ice on their tailfeathers:  I think my photo explains the phenomenon quite well!

The hawks have made a few hits this season, all House Sparrows.  My feeders are like a House Sparrow buffet, and I don't mind decreasing the flock every now and then!  The Cooper's Hawks have, in the past, snacked on Starling (yay!) and Cardinal (boo!) and I'm always relieved to see my "cuter" birds come back to the feeder after the threat has passed.  I know that might not be the most PC thing to say, but I'm never going to be one of those clinical, science-above-all birders:  I like some birds better than others, and I dislike House Sparrows because they're mean, not because they're invasive.  I'm happy to say that they really, really dislike my new suet feeder:  the Woodpeckers, Chickadees, and Nuthatches seem to like the beef kidney suet just fine.   That means the House Sparrows stay in their little flock, picking the squirrel-spilled seed off the ground, making easy targets for my Hawkie friends.  And so it goes.

I'm going to Peru!

It looks like I'm going to Peru this year! I'm one of a few winners of a trip to one of two locations being developed, if that's the right word, for birding tours within Peru. The birds look amazing, and most of the things we could possibly see will be lifers for me. Now, part of my responsibility is to try, gently, to get a few paid people to sign up for my trip. The more that sign up, the less expensive it gets (up until 7 people, that is). I'm hoping to go on the Satipo Road trip but Manu is also a possibility. This will make a total of only four countries I've visited, and one of those is Canada which really shouldn't count as foreign since it's just too close to home. With the Space Coast Birding festival coming up, my trip to Japan in summer, a pair of Red Sox tickets for April, and now this Peru trip, it looks like 2010 is shaping up quite nicely!
I should have details on the Peru trip shortly. I hope others will sign up for my trip!