Stalking Birds: 25 tips: How to get close to birds without scaring them away

In my previous post I discussed whether it was really necessary to get closer to a bird. In some cases, to protect the welfare of the bird, it may be best not to approach closer. Likewise, if other people are desiring to see the bird, it would be rude to scare it off so that others couldn't enjoy it. And you don't want to harass birds, or give the impression that you are to onlookers.

You can learn to approach birds more closely without frightening them. Then again, you can remain still and have the birds come to you! Both these outcomes start with the same premise: Don't look threatening.

Approaching birds

Perhaps you have noticed in a park that some birds habituated to people remain only a few feet off the trail as bicyclists, hikers, and even dog walkers pass by. Yet you don't get as close as they did and don't even get your binoculars raised before the bird flies off! Why?

Think about it from the bird's perspective. People pass by all day, most paying them no attention. They are not a threat. Yet here come you, straight at the bird. Not only that, you are staring at the bird with these large unblinking glass eyes. Threat!

So your first fieldcraft tip is (#1) not to approach a bird directly. Make as if to pass the bird by. Meander. Curve your path gradually toward the bird. Don't stare at the bird while moving toward it. Look away. Watch it out the corner of your eye until you are closer. Then stop.

Next, (#2) as you approach carry your binoculars or camera up to your face. Birds are often spooked by arms raising suddenly or pointing. Rest your optics on your cheek as you approach, then slowly tilt your optics to your eyes.

Third, (#3) watch your step! Don't break a twig or scrape the gravel. A sudden noise and off they fly! Move slowly and steadily.

Watch the bird. (#4) Is it alert and watching you? Stop. Let it get used to you and get back to whatever it was doing before you showed up. Is it fidgeting? Twitching its wing? Standing up straighter? Nervously scratching? Raising the tail? It may already be too late. Back off. Wait. If the bird is comfortable singing, feeding, and just being a bird while you take photos, then you are the correct distance.

Diving water bird tip ("Dive and Dash") (#5): Diving ducks, loons, grebes--wait for the bird to dive. Count how long the bird stays down. Next time it dives, run forward, crouch down. Wait for it to resurface. It may move closer. If it resurfaces farther out and facing away, you've been spotted. It won't return.

Singing bird tip (#6): Singing males are more easily approached during the time they are belting out their song. In between phrases is when they fly. If they are singing you may be better off walking forward at that time. Avoid over-pursuing singing birds during this sensitive breeding season time.

Territorial Blue Grosbeak.

Auto tour tip (#7): Some refuges and nature reserves may have auto tour routes. Even some country roads with wide shoulders along fields or wetlands may have bird viewing and photography opportunities from inside your car.

Black Skimmer at the San Diego River mouth

Black Skimmer. Mission Beach, California. June 1, 2019.

A flock of about a dozen Black Skimmers were feeding in the San Diego River mouth on June 1st, where I was able to get these flight shots.

To fly low and plow the shallow, calm waters with their knife-like bills, skimmers flap from horizontal to highly vertical, not below the horizontal in this feeding flight. The flock feeding flight appears choreographed and synchronized at times (upper photo). At other times flocks appear uncoordinated and chaotic (photos below).

Great Horned Owl chick at Borrego Springs

Peek-a-boo! Great Horned Owl chick. Borrego Springs, California. May 25 2019.

I heard an adult male Great Horned Owl hooting from trees in a golf course. "That's odd." I searched around and spied this large chick checking me out! I never did see any adults, or other chicks.

It looks to be in the "branching" stage of development. This is a period of a week or so when the large owl chicks leave the nest, climbing and hopping among the branches. Just yesterday I saw a comical photo of an owl chick, hanging upside-down by one foot from a branch, where it had fallen down a few branches. It eventually fell the rest of the way to the ground and then crawled its way back up the tree. They soon learn to fly, leaving this cute, but awkward, stage behind.

Greater Yellowlegs at Borrego Springs

Here are three photos showing a Greater Yellowlegs in different poses.

Greater Yellowlegs. Borrego Springs, California. February 18, 2019.

Standing tall.

Crouching down.

More photos of Greater Yellowlegs in San Diego from eBird. Click on the photos to rate (1 awful, 2 poor but identifiable, 3 average or small, 4 very good, 5 magazine cover worthy). (How and why.)

Dancing Western Grebes at Lake Hodges

In February I obtained a photo of Western Grebes performing their courtship dance. Unfortunately, it was an overcast day and I was up too high, resulting in dark gray birds against harsh reflected sky.

Courtship dance, Western Grebes. Lake Hodges, California. February 10, 2019.

In March it was overcast again, but I was able to get a bit lower and have the green of the opposite hillside as the reflected background. It is a bit hard to get right down to the waterline at this location, but I'd like to try again when it is sunny. This activity goes on nearly year-round here, at least February into October.

Courtship dance of Western Grebes. Lake Hodges, California. March 1, 2019.

More photos of Western Grebes in San Diego from eBird. Click on the photos to rate (1 awful, 2 poor but identifiable, 3 average or small, 4 very good, 5 magazine cover worthy). (How and why.)

Birds in three dimensions

The majestic bird spreads its great wings and gracefully launches itself from the cliff into powerful flight.

Or not.

More than likely the bird steps off the ledge of its high-rise home and when it reaches the correct floor opens its wings to get off its self-imagined elevator. Or, like a day-old Wood Duck chick, fledging from its nest 35 feet up in a tree cavity, it jumps out, bouncing when it hits the ground, and waddles away to the pond.

J.B.S. Haldane, On Being the Right Size (1928) wrote:

"To the mouse and any smaller animal [gravity] presents practically no dangers. You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes.

"For the resistance presented to movement by the air is proportional to the surface of the moving object. Divide an animal’s length, breadth, and height each by ten; its weight is reduced to a thousandth, but its surface only to a hundredth. So the resistance to falling in the case of the small animal is relatively ten times greater than the driving force. 

"An insect, therefore, is not afraid of gravity; it can fall without danger, and can cling to the ceiling with remarkably little trouble. It can go in for elegant and fantastic forms of support like that of the daddy-longlegs."

As humans we are strongly bound to the ground. We're not as solidly bound to the ground as an earthworm, perhaps, but our experience isn't as unbounded as a bird. We are only now starting to get used to seeing video shot from drones, floating off from the ground up over the roof tops uninterrupted. Yet that is the world that most birds live in.

Birds have the freedom of flight because of their strong breast muscles and wings. Additionally, because smaller birds don't weigh much compared to their surface cross-section, they have no fear of falling. A fall won't hurt them, because the air holds them up. Gravity is still the same 32 feet per second squared, in a vacuum, but in the open air they flutter down gently like a leaf.

Because of their ability to fly, and the lack of fear of hurting themselves in a fall, birds necessarily perceive the 3-dimensional world in a different way than we do. They live more fully in a 3-dimensional world than we can even imagine.

Watch this funny Suicidal Pigeon video on YouTube.

Feeding the baby

In the oaks and pines at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, in the mountains of San Diego County, I kept hearing a loud whistled call that I couldn't immediately identify. The short-duration whistle was down-slurred but rose at the end. It didn't necessarily even sound bird-like. It didn't take long to find the sources, though--they were everywhere!

Juvenile Black-headed Grosbeak. Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, California. July 1, 2018.

The whistles belonged to juvenile Black-headed Grosbeaks and evidently were begging calls.

Everywhere, it seemed, baby birds were begging to be fed! The next photo is likely the same bird I photographed above or perhaps a sibling being fed by its mother.

Dads got in on the feeding action too. Below, a male Bullock's Oriole feeds its youngster what appears to be a preying mantis.

Finally, another baby grosbeak gets fed. This time, by its father.

Skimming along with a Black Skimmer

Black Skimmers are odd birds, as I've noted before, here.

I hadn't had opportunity, though, to photograph them in their eponymous behavior, that is, actually skimming!

But a few weeks ago I found a single Black Skimmer skimmering around in the mouth of the Tijuana River!

To feed, skimmers fly low to the water with wings raised mostly above the horizontal in deep, slow, mechanical wing beats. The head is held down, with the bill knifing through shallow water. When a fish is caught, the head snaps up and the fish swallowed.

Black Skimmer, Tijuana River mouth, Imperial Beach, California. July 16, 2017. Greg Gillson.

Even when not skimming the water the head is held below the body in flight.

Transcript: Why birds? John Muir Laws

I found this little video on the Audubon California YouTube channel. It is so great I decided to transcribe it here.

It is just the last minute and a half of a talk by Jack Laws at Richardson Bay Audubon Center & Sanctuary in September 12, 2012.

You can watch the original here.

Transcript:

“The last thought is 'Why birds?'

"I am continuously amazed and awed by birds. If you are interested in observing animals and you want to look at mammals, they all hide from you. So what do the biologists do—the naturalists leading the field trips? They're like, “Oh my gosh, there's some scat!” Right? And they get all excited about looking at animal scat because the mammals are all hiding. Nobody looks at bird scat—because the bird is actually out there in front of you doing their bird thing!

"People say, 'I can't draw that because they fly away.' Yes, that's the point. Because they can fly away, they can hang around, right? It's because they can fly that makes them such great subjects. They can take off any time they want. And they kind of go like, 'You going to catch me? I don't think so, you land-locked primate!' So they will be out there in front of you courting and feeding and preening and cleaning themselves and doing all these sorts of things.

"You want to see mammals? You can go to the zoo. You can look at a nature special. You can look at scat on the ground. But it's nothing compared to the opportunities to see the real wildness that birds give us every day.”

The bizarre song of the Yellow-breasted Chat

It was clear and sunny, but surprisingly chilly here at sunrise. Though it would make its way into the mid '70's in a couple of hours, it was unexpectedly 30 degrees cooler than that right now in this river valley. Birds were singing and calling and flying about actively this early April morning near Escondido. While my attention flitted from bird to bird, a distant birdsong was trying to interject itself into my consciousness.

"chuck-chuck-chuck-chuck."

No, not rolling enough for Cactus Wren. It's not a Mockingbird, either. No, no, it's completely wrong for Roadrunner. I know that call, but I just can't place it.

A few minutes later the "chuck-chuck-chuck" call joined a whistled "whoit, whoit" and then a crow-like "caw, caw, caw" and some cackling. Oh! Yellow-breasted Chat. Of course!

Yellow-breasted Chat in full-throated song. Escondido, California. April 5, 2017. Greg Gillson.

Except when singing so brazenly, the chat is reclusive, shy, wary. But in spring and summer--even at night--it makes a joyful noise in the densest riparian thickets.

This chat was a week earlier than the typical first arrival of the species locally. When he has more male competition, and the attention of females when they arrive in a week or so, then watch out. The varied song now will take on a fevered pitch. The flight display song the male gives to the female is both amazing and bizarre. The male sings its varied song, but rises slowly in circles in the air. His wingbeats are mechanically exaggerated, his head lifted in song, his long tail pumping wildly, and his feet dangling down, trailing below as if forgotten. When he reaches a pinnacle--hovering, down he glides--ever so slowly--as his singing and his flight slowly come to an end.

Yellow-breasted Chat in colored pencil. Greg Gillson.

Little Blue Heron hunting posture

I was looking unsuccessfully in late December for a rare Tricolored Heron at the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge in Imperial Beach. The tide was unusually high and a group of Little Blue Herons were actively feeding up close to the road. There was one white immature and three adults--all at close range. Only the rainy weather kept me from getting even more photos.

There was also a white Snowy Egret feeding nearby. And I noticed that there was something different in the way these similar-sized birds hunted....

The Snowy Egret was quite active, high-stepping and taking short runs and frequent stabs at whatever was driven up out of the flooded estuary. Not as animated, certainly, as a Reddish Egret, but active nonetheless. Typically when hunting the neck was looped tightly with the head near the body.

The Little Blue Herons often held the same kinked-neck pose, but also did something different when hunting. For one thing, the Little Blue Herons were more slow and deliberate in stalking their prey.

A typical and apparently unique pose of the Little Blue Heron is to extend the neck fully, nearly horizontal to the ground. Then, keeping its head in the same position over the ground, it walks slowly forward until the rest of the body catches up with the head. The neck is now kinked and ready to strike.

This horizontal hunting posture may be a good identification mark for quickly finding immature Little Blue Herons among all the other white egrets in the marshes.

This particular pose is typical for a hunting Little Blue Heron.

The pale-based bill is a give-way that this is NOT a Snowy Egret.

Immature Little Blue Heron.

Ready to strike.

Looking for its next snack.

Taking a moment to rest and look around.

This horizontal hunting pose may be an identification mark whether blue adult or white immature.

Nature Journal page based on photos, graphite and colored pencils. Greg Gillson.

The "Art Weekend"

Marlene and I had a 3-day weekend off, with one caveat--we had to cover emergencies at our mobile home park, should any come up. Our maintenance man was in Mexico on vacation, so Marlene and I had to stay near home, just in case. The forecast was for showery and cool, so this seemed a great time to do something fun at home.

So we planned an "art weekend." Thursday after work we went to the craft store and bought colored pencils and acrylics and canvases and sketchpads and added cheese and wine and crackers and chocolates. On Friday we set up a bunch of how-to videos and began a few projects that we worked on through Saturday.

The mail Saturday brought me The Laws Guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling, which was my focus. Marlene completed an acrylic painting following an online You-Tube video that guided her through an ocean sunset.

Marlene's painting.

On Sunday we decided to take advantage of the sunny day and have a field trip to La Jolla to observe waves and clouds and the colors of sea and sky, plus plants and animals for ideas. I'm still too slow and uncertain of making field sketches--and perhaps too self-conscious with the crowds of people, so I took lots of photos. Even the out-of-focus photos worked for posture and proportions and coloring for my drawings done later in the day at home.

Sea Lions, Brandt's Cormorants, and crashing waves set the theme for the day.

Scratching your back on a rock feels so good! Made serpentine movements back and forth, bending at shoulders and hips, as flippers waved in the air.

Sea Lions laying in rows. Each row of Sea Lions all face the same direction! Why?

A large bull sunned himself all alone away from all the other Sea Lions. The fur on the sunny side has a golden halo.

Crashing wave. The flatter parts of the ocean reflects the sky. The waves are darker, but turns green as it thins to break. The foam turns from horizontal to more vertical as it climbs the wave.

The rumbling wave is not just white, but many shades of gray.

Looking toward Scripps Pier. The flatter bottom of the cloud is shadowed a purplish gray. The cloud looks very similar to the wave in the above photo.

It's late December and a few of the Brandt's Cormorants are already gathering nesting material and beginning courtship. Notice the clump of newly-delivered green seaweed.

The purplish and greenish-coppery iridescent scapular feathers are outlined in black. The bird throws its head back and flutters its aqua blue throat pouch and makes a gargling wail as it also flutters its wings with tail raised vertical.

Looking west over Shell Beach to the Childrens Pool.

Even in white the feather tracts around the eye, ear covert, and malar are apparent with lines or subtle shading.

A Peregrine Falcon made several passes along the cliffs exciting the pelicans and gulls into flying off. Why is it wasting effort chasing birds too large to be prey?

Very few of the people even noticed the strafing falcon a few feet over their heads. The peachy breast indicates the anatum subspecies.

An Osprey wings by...

Rock Doves (domestic pigeons) are resident here.

A view of Point La Jolla and La Jolla Cove.

A page from my nature journal. Click for larger view.