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| Scaly-breasted Munia, male. Lake Hodges, California. November 26, 2015. Greg Gillson. |
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| Scaly-breasted Munia, female. Lake Hodges, California. November 26, 2015. Greg Gillson. |
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Scaly-breasted Munia at Lake Hodges
A few weeks ago I presented some photos of Scaly-breasted Munias in Carlsbad. Recently I found 5 more birds at Lake Hodges near Rancho Bernardo.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
BirdLog is dead! Long live eBird Mobile!
eBird Mobile for Android just came out, joining eBird Mobile for iOS that has been available for about 5 months. These Apps replace BirdLog.
eBird is a real-time online checklist program by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. It was first introduced in 2002. Frankly, I wasn't enamored with it until 2010-2011 when useful tools showed up that allowed anyone to view recent bird sightings maps and frequency and abundance bar charts anywhere in the world. Other enhancements that followed included selectable alerts and photos embedded in the checklists. In December 2011 I called eBird "an absolutely indispensable real time world-wide bird status and distribution tool." eBird can even make you a better birder.
The power of eBird was greatly enhanced in 2012 by the introduction of BirdLog by BirdsEye Nature Apps. I called BirdLog the "'killer app' for eBirders!" Now one could submit bird sightings directly from the field on their smart phone! No more transcribing field notes into eBird on your computer at the end of the day. It is so easy that you just start a new checklist for each new location during your birding trip and keep track of the birds as you see them. In July 2013 I wrote an eBird best practices post on using BirdLog. These best practices apply equally to the new eBird Mobile.
You know what's even better? eBird Mobile is 1) FREE! and 2) one App covers the whole world! Previously, BirdLog for each region (North America, Mexico and Central America, Australia and New Zealand, etc.) was priced at $10 each, while a world App was $20. eBird Mobile is now available in 5 languages.
In February 2011 I wrote: "Just as binoculars and field guide has defined a birder for the past 75 years, I believe eBird will define what it means to be a birder in the coming decades." I believe this to be more true than ever, and now with eBird Mobile it is free and so much easier!
Many thanks go to the developers of BirdLog for making field data entry into eBird so wonderfully easy. Now that this functionality is moved directly to the eBird team, I expect even smoother integration and regular enhancements. Well done to all involved! Congratulations.
eBird is a real-time online checklist program by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. It was first introduced in 2002. Frankly, I wasn't enamored with it until 2010-2011 when useful tools showed up that allowed anyone to view recent bird sightings maps and frequency and abundance bar charts anywhere in the world. Other enhancements that followed included selectable alerts and photos embedded in the checklists. In December 2011 I called eBird "an absolutely indispensable real time world-wide bird status and distribution tool." eBird can even make you a better birder.
The power of eBird was greatly enhanced in 2012 by the introduction of BirdLog by BirdsEye Nature Apps. I called BirdLog the "'killer app' for eBirders!" Now one could submit bird sightings directly from the field on their smart phone! No more transcribing field notes into eBird on your computer at the end of the day. It is so easy that you just start a new checklist for each new location during your birding trip and keep track of the birds as you see them. In July 2013 I wrote an eBird best practices post on using BirdLog. These best practices apply equally to the new eBird Mobile.
You know what's even better? eBird Mobile is 1) FREE! and 2) one App covers the whole world! Previously, BirdLog for each region (North America, Mexico and Central America, Australia and New Zealand, etc.) was priced at $10 each, while a world App was $20. eBird Mobile is now available in 5 languages.
In February 2011 I wrote: "Just as binoculars and field guide has defined a birder for the past 75 years, I believe eBird will define what it means to be a birder in the coming decades." I believe this to be more true than ever, and now with eBird Mobile it is free and so much easier!
Many thanks go to the developers of BirdLog for making field data entry into eBird so wonderfully easy. Now that this functionality is moved directly to the eBird team, I expect even smoother integration and regular enhancements. Well done to all involved! Congratulations.
Monday, December 7, 2015
How to identify birds in flight
Birds fly. At least, most can. In fact, “flight is the defining characteristic of birds” (as Jonathan Alderfer and Jon Dunn and Kenn Kaufman write). Then why don't field guides teach us to identify birds in flight?
Depending upon the type of birding you are doing, your first detection of a bird may be of a bird in flight. For instance, you are walking along a hedgerow and previously unseen sparrows fly up from the grass and disappear into the brambles. You turn a corner and a bird takes off from a tree and flies away. Movement catches your eye and you see a flock of birds flying in formation overhead. You scope out the ocean from a promontory and view numerous birds winging by offshore.
These are the common ways that we see birds. It only makes sense that your field guide should tell you how to identify these birds in flight. But they don’t. Oh, some occasionally mention the unique flight styles of a certain few birds. There are a few specialized guides for hawks and ducks in flight. But these books are often based only on shape and pattern, not actually the behavior of flight that might help you to identify distant or quickly-viewed birds.
This manual teaches you the basic mechanics of flight and gives you the vocabulary necessary to describe a bird in flight in such a way that you may identify it to family or even species by flight alone. Combine flight style with flight call notes or key observable plumage field marks, and most birds in flight are readily identifiable.
The above text is the introduction to my 38-page manual on how to identify birds in flight. As far as I know there is no other book or manual that explains how to go about describing flight characters in order to identify birds. Flight style mechanics, silhouette and shape, flapping and flight path progression, and other ID clues are all brought together in a "Bird flight style identification worksheet." This is followed by 11 examples describing the flight style differences between such groups and species as West Coast Shearwaters, European Starling versus Cedar Waxwing, Crows and Ravens in flight, Late autumn sparrows in the weedy marsh, Flight style comparison: Red-winged Blackbird and Brown-headed Cowbird, Flight of American Robin, and several more.
Using what you learn here, and the examples given, you will be able to describe flight characters and learn the ID of flying birds you observe.
The entire manual is now loaded into a stand-alone page on my Greg in San Diego blog. It is here: How to Identify Birds in Flight.
Depending upon the type of birding you are doing, your first detection of a bird may be of a bird in flight. For instance, you are walking along a hedgerow and previously unseen sparrows fly up from the grass and disappear into the brambles. You turn a corner and a bird takes off from a tree and flies away. Movement catches your eye and you see a flock of birds flying in formation overhead. You scope out the ocean from a promontory and view numerous birds winging by offshore.
These are the common ways that we see birds. It only makes sense that your field guide should tell you how to identify these birds in flight. But they don’t. Oh, some occasionally mention the unique flight styles of a certain few birds. There are a few specialized guides for hawks and ducks in flight. But these books are often based only on shape and pattern, not actually the behavior of flight that might help you to identify distant or quickly-viewed birds.
This manual teaches you the basic mechanics of flight and gives you the vocabulary necessary to describe a bird in flight in such a way that you may identify it to family or even species by flight alone. Combine flight style with flight call notes or key observable plumage field marks, and most birds in flight are readily identifiable.
The above text is the introduction to my 38-page manual on how to identify birds in flight. As far as I know there is no other book or manual that explains how to go about describing flight characters in order to identify birds. Flight style mechanics, silhouette and shape, flapping and flight path progression, and other ID clues are all brought together in a "Bird flight style identification worksheet." This is followed by 11 examples describing the flight style differences between such groups and species as West Coast Shearwaters, European Starling versus Cedar Waxwing, Crows and Ravens in flight, Late autumn sparrows in the weedy marsh, Flight style comparison: Red-winged Blackbird and Brown-headed Cowbird, Flight of American Robin, and several more.
Using what you learn here, and the examples given, you will be able to describe flight characters and learn the ID of flying birds you observe.
The entire manual is now loaded into a stand-alone page on my Greg in San Diego blog. It is here: How to Identify Birds in Flight.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Book Review: Better Birding
Princeton University Press sent me this new bird book to review. I am very interested in teaching others to improve their field birding skills. So naturally, I was anticipating this new offering.
Better Birding: tips, tools & concepts for the field. George L. Armistead and Brian L. Sullivan. Publication date December 8, 2015. Paperback 360 pages. 8.5 x 5.5 inches.
The first thing I had to do when reading this book is to adjust my preconceptions. You see, based on the title, I was expecting the entire book to be a "how to" manual, similar to Alderfer and Dunn's National Geographic Birding Essentials (2007). In fact, it is a guide for explaining tricky identification problems in North American birds using more than just plumage. It is thus more similar to Kaufman's Field Guide to Advanced Birding (2011). In this regard the book does not disappoint.
The 18-page introduction describes the design of the book with the catch-phrase "Wide-Angle Birding." Bird identification is not just plumage. Birds are not just field marks; they are living entities. Behavior, habitat, natural history, and taxonomy helps separate one species from another.
The book continues with 23 more groups that prove to be an identification challenge, such as White Herons, Tropical Terns, Godwits, Small Wrens, Swifts, Yellow-bellied Kingbirds, Pipits, and Cowbirds. The book contains hundreds of color bird photos and collages. The groups were chosen for 3 reasons as Armistead and Sullivan explain. The group represented an opportunity to build core birding skills. The group could use a refreshed identification treatment. The group was interesting to the authors.
Each new group has a "Focus on" sentence telling you what to look for when identifying the bird. It could be voice, range, habitat, or perhaps structure of bill or body. It tells you what plumage features to concentrate on for each group, whether head, rump, or wing pattern. This then leads you into a "Hints and Considerations" section that uses bullet points to specifically apply the "Focus on" point to individual species. The "Identification" section further refines identification techniques for the group before covering each species individually.
In July I reviewed Birding by Impression: A different approach to knowing and identifying birds by Karlson and Rosselet (2015, Review here). The ideas are similar. Both volumes stress 'holistic' birding--the bird in its living context, not just field marks on a page. These volumes complement each other nicely, I think.
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The first thing I had to do when reading this book is to adjust my preconceptions. You see, based on the title, I was expecting the entire book to be a "how to" manual, similar to Alderfer and Dunn's National Geographic Birding Essentials (2007). In fact, it is a guide for explaining tricky identification problems in North American birds using more than just plumage. It is thus more similar to Kaufman's Field Guide to Advanced Birding (2011). In this regard the book does not disappoint.
The 18-page introduction describes the design of the book with the catch-phrase "Wide-Angle Birding." Bird identification is not just plumage. Birds are not just field marks; they are living entities. Behavior, habitat, natural history, and taxonomy helps separate one species from another.
"You learn more when you can also zoom out and see the big picture--see the bird in context. Sometimes you have to lower your binoculars and step away from the scope, look at your surroundings and habitat the bird is in, consider the conditions, and use your ears. Relying too much on the view through your optics can actually hinder your attempts at identification."So, then, rather than telling how to better identify birds, the rest of the book is dedicated to showing how to identify individual species from among groups of North American birds. For instance, the first "chapter" covers the 5 loon species. Each age group and gender is covered--from the easy breeding-plumaged adults to the more difficult juveniles and immatures. This "Loon" section has 18 pages that is divided into about 6 pages of text and 12 pages of photos (44 different loon photos of all species and ages). A bit of natural history is given as an overview to all loons, then each species account covers identification individually by age class.
The book continues with 23 more groups that prove to be an identification challenge, such as White Herons, Tropical Terns, Godwits, Small Wrens, Swifts, Yellow-bellied Kingbirds, Pipits, and Cowbirds. The book contains hundreds of color bird photos and collages. The groups were chosen for 3 reasons as Armistead and Sullivan explain. The group represented an opportunity to build core birding skills. The group could use a refreshed identification treatment. The group was interesting to the authors.
Each new group has a "Focus on" sentence telling you what to look for when identifying the bird. It could be voice, range, habitat, or perhaps structure of bill or body. It tells you what plumage features to concentrate on for each group, whether head, rump, or wing pattern. This then leads you into a "Hints and Considerations" section that uses bullet points to specifically apply the "Focus on" point to individual species. The "Identification" section further refines identification techniques for the group before covering each species individually.
In July I reviewed Birding by Impression: A different approach to knowing and identifying birds by Karlson and Rosselet (2015, Review here). The ideas are similar. Both volumes stress 'holistic' birding--the bird in its living context, not just field marks on a page. These volumes complement each other nicely, I think.
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Song Sparrow at Oceanside
Here's a photo of a Song Sparrow on the cement wall at the San Luis Rey River Mouth in Oceanside. I was able to place the camera right on the wall for a low angle photo right down the length of the wall. My 100-400mm camera lens shoots best at f7.1. Fully extended to 400mm gives my camera about 12x magnification and only a very few inches of depth of field as can be seen by how quickly the cement wall goes out of focus in front and behind the bird.
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| Song Sparrow. Oceanside, California. November 8, 2015. Greg Gillson. |
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