Birding and Diaper Changing

I recently pushed the challenge of birding to new heights. No kidding. If any of you thought that the big year of Ken Kaufman or Sandy Komito were la creme de la creme in term of birding challenge, you guys got it wrong. Completely wrong.

I recently pushed the limits of birding far enough to make the rediscovery of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the buggy swamps of Alabama look like a pleasant boys scout scavenger hunt. Yep

What is this new challenge I am talking about?

I am talking about "BIRDING and DIAPER CHANGING"

(admiration from the crowd)

This is not an easy task, believe me. This new extreme sport involves many challenges, including dealing with sleep deprivation, extremely limited free time and restricted finances.

To deal with all of this, I decided to use several tactics, and for the most part, I think they have been proven to be quite successfull

1) Prioritize your goals.

Ok, at my level, you can not really prioritize your goals, because one goal is plenty enough. I just don't have time for any secondary goal. In my case, I choose to focus on my county list. Note that I did not have a lot of choices here, because the country or even the state are simply too big. County is great because you can go to any point in about 30 mn or so.

For example, I had a one hour window last sunday, so I went directly to the place where a pair of Orchard Oriole was seen. I ticked the bird, took a picture and came back

Male Orchard Oriole, in terrible mid afternoon light (as Jochen told me once, any birding is better than no birding!)

2) Learn the bird songs

It is simply more efficient. You can not change a diaper and look though binoculars at the same time, but you can listen. I happen to have a long commute to my job every day, so I am trying to listen to bird songs all the time. This was happened to be handy last month then, a few days before the birth, as we were watching the final of the french open, I heard a funny sounding bird in my backyard. I did not know the song, but I knew it was something special. So I went outside and quickly spotted a connecticut warbler!!! That was a lifer for Diane and I and obviously, a great backyard bird!!!!!

3) Take advantage of opportunities

Lunch breaks in a place as sterile and unbirdy as Dowtown lansing are not supposed to be great birding times, but sometimes, opportunities occur. Yesterday I spotted 2 juvenile red tailed hawk next to the capitole, and I was able to have great views and picture opportunities. Last winter, I also had some white winged crossbills!!!!!

Father's day gift

The title of this post should explain two news that are going to have a significant impact on the frequency and quality of this blog :

- First and foremost, I am now an happy Dad!!!!! Raphael was born on June 13th, and is obviously the cutest baby of the planet (admittedly, I am strongly biased).

- Second, Raphael managed to be born a week before Father's day, and I received a nice gift, which I had been waiting for, dreaming, anticipating, evaluating for many many months. A new camera!!!!!. The camera is a Panasonic fz28 and has a nice little leica superzoom lens, which will allow me to take some decent pictures of birds for this blog. This is the end of digibining!!!!

Choosing a camera for birding is a tough job, because it is all about compromising. At one end of the spectrum, I was tempted for a while by the DSLR cameras. Their quality is obviously a few steps above any kind of point and shoot camera you can buy, and are wonderfull toys to play with. One the other end of the spectrum, I could pick those nice little superzoom cameras which, in the $300-$400 range, provide a cute little zoom.

At the end, I choose the superzoom camera, for personal reasons :

- First and foremost, the price : An entry level DSLR plus an entry level 300mm zoom are probably about $1000-1500. That's $700-1200 more than a superzoom bridge camera. That's money that could be better used for many many things in a house with a cute little baby. Or maybe two plane tickets to south texas, or florida, for the next vacation (babies travel for free, I was told)

- Second, size and weight. I already carried my son for one hour in one of those cute little kanguru bags. Not too bad, but I was told babies are growing quite fast. I believe I am more likely to bring my camera for traveling and hiking if the camera is light and tiny.

Anyway, I was able to experiment a little bit with my camera during a trip at the sleeping bear national lakeshore. This was a short family trip, and I did not have the chance to do a lot of birding, but still, I enjoyed it

Sleeping Bear Dunes Landscape

Milkweed colonizing the dunes.

Piping Plover nest protection. I was tempted to get a bit closer to see if I could see a plover, but I thought it was better to leave them alone......

Indigo Bunting. The picture was taken about 5-6 meters away (15-18 feet), and I was pretty excited to take my first bird picture with my new camera!

Rose Breasted Grosbeak. My dad spotted first this "funny black and white bird". The bird was 20 m away (60 feet).

Nesting instinct

Believe it or not, but I have spend more time lately reading books about growth and birth of little humans, than birds themselves. I know, this is hard to believe. After all, little humans are easy to ID. Duck size (average 7 pounds), pink skin, fat cute little bummies, and unmistakable song (which they are supposed to use loudly, night or days, unlike these neotropical migrants who only sing in May, between 7 AM to 9 AM).

Thus it was a surprise for me to discover that so much literature was available for the growth and development of a single specie. "what to expect when you are expecting" alone has more pages than David Sibley "The Sibley guide to bird life and behaviour"! And this is even BEFORE the baby is even born!!!!

So anyway, I spend the last months or so reading, studying and comparing many many different books about pregnancies, took all the classes available, etc.

So then last week Diane woke me up at 5AM (and lied telling me it was actually 6AM) and told me "let's go to Crane Creek", I became suspicious. I remembered this paragraph about the nesting instinct of soon-to-be mothers. A few hours before birth, pregnant women are supposed to get a burst of energy that lead them to do all sorts of things, including cleaning the house, the windows etc.

Diane being a birder, maybe this burst of energy translated into a desire for a birding trip?

Anyway, it was an offer I could not refuse. See the books also say "be specially nice to your wife". So of course I sacrificed myself, packed the binoculars (and the scope, you never know what could show up), snacks, drove through the local McDonald for coffee, and here we went.

The trip on the board walk started in a near comic way. Diane almost had an accident. With a prothonotary warbler. The warbler was flushed by another birdwatcher and had to make a desperate turn in order to avoid Diane's belly (remember she is full term it was no little task for the bird). Nice way for Diane to see a lifer I guess. Wonder if the ABA rules specify something that would allow me to add it to our baby's list.

The other highlight of the trip was a great lifer for both of us. There was a Least Bittern calling (it would be really too much to call this a song), and this plus birding with Diane made it a wonderfull day! Too bad she did not wake me at 4h50 instead of 5h00, because people around told me the bird was seen from this very same place, at less than 6 feet away!

Anyway, I digibinned a few mediocre pictures on this trip. Next year, I promise, I should have a much better camera.

Oh, and by the way, no baby yet....

Eastern Screech Owl

Chesnut Sided Warbler


Cape May Warbler



Black Throated Green Warbler






Gray Catbird

A few pictures from Crane Creek

This is the top of the spring migration here, and of course, that should mean more posts, more pictures, more interesting stuff on all the birder's blog. But more time birding simply means less time posting. That's the sad reality.

So I will just post a few digibinned picture from last Sunday, in Crane Creek.

Yellow rumped warbler

Yellow Warbler, female


Veery

Killdeer

Green Heron

Cape May Warbler

Digibinsing in Flight

Went last Saturday at Pointe Mouille, with the hope to see a few early shorebirds. Not such luck (except for the killdeers), but I still managed to have a good time, despite the strong wind. There was still an important number of waterfowl present (Scaups, Ring Neck Duck, thousands of American Coots, Pied Billed Grebes, Canada Geese), and a few Bonaparte's Gulls, as well as some Common Terns, Double Creasted Cormorans. Best bird of the day was an early marsh wren.

Having met at the start a fellow birder who had been criss-crossing the preserve with his bicycle for hours, I knew pretty much from the start that my quest for shorebirds was going to be vain, so I relaxed a little bit, and tried to bag a few decent pictures. They were hundreds of tree Swallows arround, and I took up the challenge to digibins a few swallows in flight. As expected, I turned out it was not very easy, but I managed to take a few OK pictures.

Tree Swallow, digibinsed

Common Tern, digibinsed

Common Tern, Digibinsed

Bonaparte's Gull and American Coot, Digiscoped

I was quite surprised to see that the 2 Bonaparte Gulls I've seen were not yet in complete breeding plumage.

American Goldfinches in my back yard. 2 Pine siskins are still around, and I am hoping for a nest!!!!

A cooperative bird

Too often birds have no mercy for the inexperienced birder. Some of them always seems to hide their most significant features from the rookies ( I am one of them), forcing them to check too many times the dreaded "unidentified emp. flycatcher species", "unidentified shorebird species", or the even worst "unidentified bird species" (I am not going to talk today about the possibility of misidentifying a squirrel for a bird, but you should know it happened to me in the past)

But for once, this was not the case last Saturday, in the Arb. Bird activity in the afternoon was rather slow, telling me that I will soon have to wake up at 6 in the morning on week ends if I want to have a chance to see any bird at all. Luckily, I will be soon be awake anyway, since our first baby is expected in a few weeks!

Anyway, after a slow start, 12 chickadees and one bluebird, I ran into a rather small bird, flying and hoping through a rather brushy area

Mmm, small, grey, let see, probably some kind of a kinglet, maybe a golden crowned kinglet, if only he could show the top of his head......

THANKS!!!!

Other birds seen were also pretty nice, with my first warbler of the season (yellow-rumped, as usual), 3 creepers, 2 peregrine falcons, 3 creepers and an impressive 24 golden crowned kinglets (my high count so far)

A nice walk, all things considered. This morning weather was not quite as nice, if I think about it :

April 6th, picture taken from my office window in Lansing, Michigan

Zion National Park Trip Report

I have been clearly very lazy and forgot about the second trip of our birding trip from last Summer. This is certainly unfair, because the two days we spend in Zion National Park were wonderful in all points.

Birdingwise, I think that this park was a great addition to the north Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Located at a much lower elevation, its climate is obviously much more arid, but has the great advantage to offer many different ecosystems. Many short trails, accessible by Bus Shuttles, made travelling in the park very easy. We choose to stay in one of the Lodges inside of the park, thinking that the campground was going to be really hot. We decided this during our stay at grand canyon, and were lucky enough to book the last available cabin (they were quite expensive, though, slightly less than $200 a night). The cabins were very confortable, (with Air Conditioned, which we really appreciated) and offered a breathtaking view on the surrounding mountains. Lesser Goldfinches and Chipping Sparrows were quite numerous around the cabins.

Here are a few highlights of the hikes we were able to do. Most of them were really short (2-3 miles max), and we usually were able to do one early morning and one late evening hike per day.

The Narrows

This hike is a wonderful and relatively flat trail that at the top of the valley that leads the visitor through a very narrow canyon. Great pictures to take at the end of the trail!

Birding wise, we probably did not visit this trail at the optimal time (mid afternoon), and it is somehow a shame, because this place is really unique. It contains one of the very few "desert marsh" in Utah, and I was expecting to see some very special birds. Instead, only yellow warblers, and song sparrows were seen on the trail next to the marsh. On the side of the trail, we were able to spot a female Black-headed Grosbeak. But the best bird of the day was a nice Cordilleran Flycatcher, hunting over the creek.

Desert Marsh

Emerald Pools Trail

Imagine. You start from a typical riparian area, and spot a Black Phoebe hunting from a rock in the middle of the river. A Black-chinned Hummingbird stays on a branch long enough for you to identify him (rather rare, hummingbirds were my big frustration of the trip), and not far, a Western Pewee makes a cute addition to your life list. Then you climb up a few hundred feets and find yourself surrounded by Junipers, in a very different environment. Blue gray Gnacatchers, Juniper Titmices are oblivious of your presence. With a little bit more effort, you find a Virginia's warbler and a couple of Black-throated Gray Warbler. You hike hard uphill under the morning sun, and, an hour or so later, find yourself in the shade of the canyon. A pool of transparent and cool water is there, and suddenly tall and green trees are surrounding you. You take a sip of water in your waterbottle, and notice a small bird, warbler like, with a red belly, with obvious white patches foraging in a tree just above your head. Painted Redstart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking at my Sibley (the western edition of course), I knew this bird was slightly out of range, and was not found very often in Utah, so I took my time to look at the bird. But no mistake possible.

Climbing up through the Junipers Trees

Wild Turkey. They were running around at night on the cabin's lawn.

Pa'rus Trail

A concrete bike path follows the river toward the entrance of the park. This hike was our last one, and we were trying to look for the few birds we had missed so far. We found a group of Lucy's Warbler at the very start of the hike, as well as a flock of Western Scrub Jay. Diane saw a Western Tanager (I missed this one!). The House Wrens were quite vocal, and puzzled me for a while (they really have a different "accent" than back in Michigan!)

Pa'rus Trail, at Sunset

Conclusion:

A really wonderful national park, with a great variety of habitats. If I have only two regrets :

- I wish we could have visited the Narrows at an earlier time of the day

- I wish we could have try to visit the most arid parts of the park, to look for cactus wrens, bushtit, thrashers. But these parts are not so easily accessible, specially without a 4x4 car.

- I don't think I have seen a single raptor (except red tails hawks) during this trip. Too bad.

The complete list for this park :

Wild Turkey
White-throated Swift
Black-chinned Hummingbird
Western Wood-Pewee
Cordilleran Flycatcher
Black Phoebe
Ash-throated Flycatcher
Western Scrub-Jay
Violet-green Swallow
Juniper Titmouse
House Wren
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Western Bluebird
Virginia's Warbler
Lucy's Warbler
Yellow Warbler
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Painted Redstart
Summer Tanager
Spotted Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Black-headed Grosbeak
Lesser Goldfinch