A Bird’s Eye View - by Mike Styles

 

2013 and 2012 Columns

 

December, 2013       Taxonomy

 

In most field guides the birds are arranged in taxonomic order, and the first birds that appear are older evolutionarily than the subsequent bird groups. In this arrangement, groups of birds that appear together are more closely related than birds that appear widely separated in the guides.

 

November, 2013       County Firsts

 

With a county list of 464 birds, San Luis Obispo County has a bigger list than many states, yet, of the 15 California counties that touch the Pacific Ocean, our county ranks in the 50th percentile. Both Los Angeles and San Diego counties can boast of a bird list over 500, and even sparsely populated Humboldt County has a larger list than we do.

 

October, 2013           Blue-footed Booby

 

It's not often a bird will make national headlines, but such is the case with the recent "invasion" of Blue-footed Boobies, making their way up the California coast as far north as Point Reyes. From the Los Angeles Times to Fox News, local newspapers, blogs, and television stations:  all are reporting on the sudden increase in sightings of this bird.

 

September, 2013      The Ultimate Photobomb

 

In early July of this year, Matt Daw — who happens to have been an honorable mention in the 2008 American Birding Association's Young Birder of the Year — was working in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Reserve in New Mexico. The 19-year-old was doing Willow Flycatcher surveys and happened to be videotaping a Least Bittern.

 

August, 2013             Provenance

 

It is every birder's dream to find the mega-rare bird, maybe a first for the county or the state, or better yet, one that is so rare it will attract birders from around the country. But, in order for the bird to be "officially" countable, that region's bird record committee must accept the sighting as valid.

 

July, 2013                 Birding in Berlin

 

Guten tag.  I'm writing this from a sixth floor flat overlooking the Kreuzberg region of Berlin. I can see at least six church steeples, some with clock faces and one with a copper dome, rising over the sea of red roofs.  The large, dark Common Swifts dive quickly through my field of view. The Fernsehturm, a TV tower just over 1200 feet tall, is Berlin's tallest structure and seems very much out of place.

 

June, 2013                Do Birds Matter?

 

Do birds matter? This question, posed in a recent edition of Audubon magazine inspired this month's column. A quick internet search with that question returned many other articles and blogs that show that birds do matter to many, many people. It's a shame we even have to ask the question, but allow me to answer too.

 

May, 2013                 Riparian Zones

 

I call them creeks, but riparian zones hold a special place in my heart. I more or less grew up in the creek bordering my grandmother's farm, often biking or walking the ten miles to get there if I couldn't get a ride. These zones are fantastically rich in birdlife and harbor an amazing variety of plant and animal life.

 

April, 2013                The Cacophony of Nature

 

This article was conceived and started (and scribbled on the back of my topo map) on a four day backpack trip to the Sisquoc River in northern Santa Barbara County.  With no cell phone service — heck, we didn't even know what time it was for four days — and none of the other distractions of our modern lifestyles, one can become attuned to the sounds nature.

 

March 2013              Plumage Variation and Molt

 

It should come as no surprise when beginning birders lament that "the bird did not look like anything in the field guide." The amount of variation in a bird due to age, gender, or feather wear, or even where they live is incredible, and impossible to show completely in any one field guide. Then throw in the mix the fact that most birds change every feather at least once a year —  some twice a year — and some take several years to finally look like they "should."

 

February,2013          How to Recognize Birds

 

It was fortuitous that the featured speaker at this year's Winter Bird Festival was Alvaro Jamarillo, speaking on how the brain recognizes birds. I was busy leading field trips and bumping up against this article's deadline…in fact, wondering what I was going to write about . . . and Alvaro graciously allowed me to "borrow" whatever I needed.

 

January, 2013           Young Birders

 

Most of my birding friends are just like me . . . a little long in the tooth, gray at the temples, slow in the step . . . just plain getting old. It does my heart good to write this article about two of our up and coming local birders. It all started for Ross at age six, on a trip to Florida with his parents. They bought him a simple pocket bird guide, which he memorized, and he recalls the birds that set the hook for him . . . Purple Gallinule, Roseate Spoonbill, and Painted Bunting. Good birds on anyone's list.

 

December, 2012       Questions, Questions

 

What is it about birds that we humans find so fascinating? Why do we fight the bitter cold before the sun rises, walk long distances in the woods, strain our necks searching for some warbler in the tops of pine trees, stand for hours on a windswept ocean bluff, crane our necks to see some speck of a bird through our spotting scope?

 

November, 2012       Vagrant Warblers

 

Take a look at the range maps in your field guide for Blackburnian, Bay-breasted, and Canada Warblers, and you can plainly see that they just don't occur here on the West Coast. But all three of these eastern warblers, in fact, have been seen in our county this October, and these rare, eastern warblers are what compel many birders to scour their favorite patch of willows this time of year.

 

October, 2012           "Big" Birding

 

A great deal of birding is the simple act of being in nature, your senses tuned to the slightest movement or sound in the trees, trying to discern an identification with very subtle and miniscule clues, sometimes alone but often with other birders, telling stories of birds seen and birds missed and birds we want to see one day, and generally an extremely enjoyable experience.

 

September, 2012      Owls

 

You don't have to be a birder to be fascinated with owls. In fact, owls have been worshipped and feared by many cultures for millennia, from the ancient Greeks and Romans to today's Harry Potter books.  Because of their nocturnal habits, owls have long been associated with witchcraft, no doubt because we humans are almost helpless in the dark. Owls have been considered both wise and foolish, and harbingers of death and even the weather.  The Tlingit Indians of southwest Alaska would rush into battle hooting like owls to strike fear into their enemies.

 

August, 2012            Hawaiian Birds

 

The scope of this month's article is a little further afield than my usual central California locale, mainly because I'm doing my "research" sitting on a beautiful white sand beach on Oahu's windward shore. Lest you worry that this is a working vacation, let me assure you I'm also working on my tan and my snorkeling skills.

 

July, 2012                Bird Vocalizations

 

I wish someone had told me in my early birding days how important it is to learn the songs and calls of the birds, so I'm telling you now. At this time of year, when birds are nesting and setting up territories, the amount of bird song in the air can be overwhelming. It can be very helpful, and I could almost go as far as saying essential, to be able to identify a bird by its song or call.

 

June, 2012               Keeping Track

 

This is one of those "do as I say, not as I do" kind of articles. My birding friends will chuckle as I advocate for keeping good field notes on your birding trips, because mine have been, well, non-existent. But I will implore you to keep track, because I realize what a wonderful resource it could have been, if I had kept good notes in the nearly 40 years I've been at this.

 

May, 2012                What's In A Name?

 

Every living organism has a two-part Latin scientific name, the genus and species. This standardization allows scientists anywhere in the world, no matter their native tongue, to discuss plants and animals with other scientists. This is not always true with common names, especially with plants

 

April, 2012                Common Identification Problems

 

Beginning birders are often confused with certain groups of birds. For that matter, advanced birders can be confused with certain groups of birds. Gulls, sparrows, and flycatchers — to name a few — have been known to exasperate even the most adept of experts. Entire books can, and have, been written on those subjects, and they are well beyond the scope of this article.

 

March, 2012                Hummingbirds

 

Who doesn't like hummingbirds, those little nuggets of color and quickness, visiting our flowers and our feeders? They are a fascinating group of birds, the only bird able to fly backwards—and even upside down for a short time—and, on a cold night can actually enter a state of hibernation called torpor, and can reduce their body temperature by half, and their heart rate to 50 beats a minute, down from 1,250 beats a minute while flying.

 

February 2012             The Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival

 

If you had the time and the money, you could attend a bird festival every month of the year, and travel the entire continent doing it. Many festivals are timed to coincide with migration periods, or to showcase a certain habitat or region. Most offer a wide variety of field trips, workshops, and lectures, and there are even bird festivals dedicated to specific birds like the Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival in Oklahoma or the Kirtland's Warbler Festival in Michigan.

 

January, 2012             Rare Birds

 

Finding a rare bird is every birder's dream. It is very exciting to see a rare one, and if one is seen, calls and emails go out, other birders show up to see your bird, and your name may go on the record books. If "your" bird is one of the mega-rarities, seen only a handful of times (or better yet, never seen before) in your county or state or even the continent, the excitement level ramps up accordingly.

 

 

 

 

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