Miscellaneous – My Birding World

New Adventures

November 6, 2022 Elizabeth Olin Comments 1 comment

Several months ago, I bid farewell to the Bay Area. I said goodbye to my neighborhood chickadees, juncos and nuthatches, and did some final visits to the bay waters and peeps. I was sad to leave these special birds that have melted my heart for so many years.

But I knew that new adventures were ahead. I eagerly reviewed eBird lists to see what new birds I might see regularly in my new town. Swainson’s Hawks! Yellow-billed Magpies! Sandhill Cranes! It seems like the Central Valley is filled with goodies and exciting new opportunities to explore. In fact, on the day we moved, we were greeted by a friendly neighborhood Black-chinned Hummingbird. This is a good sign.

Except we moved in June. And during a year with record-breaking heat waves. My Bay Area 80-degrees-is-too-hot mentality was quickly shattered by countless triple digits days. Who the heck can bird in that heat? I resorted to brief early morning walks around the local neighborhood park. That was the only birding I snuck in for months.

During these walks, I became familiar with the local scene. Black-chinned and Anna’s Hummingbirds fiercely battled each other for the right to sit atop a certain tree (while ignoring all the other available trees). Barn Swallows nested in a certain house and loved to dive around the field after the city mowers kicked up bugs. Northern Mockingbirds loved to sing. Loudly. In the middle of the night. Eurasian Collared-Doves mobbed every street lamp, scooting starlings out of their way. What a scene.

Fast forward to mid-September, which brought cooler temperatures. And by “cooler” I mean mid-90s. Migration should start soon. What would that look like in this little neighborhood park?

I found a Say’s Phoebe, which was previously unreported in this spot. I had to submit details to confirm a correct a ID. Without a camera, it was a great opportunity to really take in its features. I took this bird for granted in the Bay Area. Now, it’s a treat that one is calling this little park it’s home for the time being.

The first day of fall was marked with nice weather and a clear sky that wasn’t pierced by the blazing summer sun. The Say’s Phoebe was joined by a second one and they called to each other while bouncing from sand pile to treetops. I heard geese in the sky, probably the Canada Geese I’ve seen a few times. Except, these geese sounded weird. My foggy summer bird brain sluggishly flipped through its media library. What the heck sounds like a rattle?

Or a bugle.

CRANES!

I whipped up the binoculars just as a “V” of Sandhill Cranes flew overhead. Yes! I can see cranes migrating from my little park!

In the days after, I had quick visits from a couple of Yellow Warblers and an Orange-crowned Warbler. A Western Tanager made a brief appearance. White-crowned Sparrows have shyly started to emerge singing their familiar tunes. The notorious Yellow-rumped Warblers are also now here, announcing their presence with a solid “CHIP” note. They all like to hang out along one side of the park. How fascinating to see the birds carve out their niches as they arrive.

I look forward to new birding adventures in my new county.

Birding Meditation

May 31, 2021 Elizabeth Olin Comments 1 comment

“To meditate is to pay full attention to something.”

-Thich Nhat Hanh

There’s been a lot of publicity around meditation and mindfulness, even before the pandemic but certainly during the last year and a half. The market is flooded with meditation products, whether it’s books, guided meditation apps, or various trinkets to support the pursuit of calm.

“Meditation” or “mindfulness” can conjure up different meanings or images depending on the person. Perhaps most prevalent is the image of sitting alone on the floor, fully upright, and focusing on breathing.

I personally have practiced breathing meditation (although I’m usually on the sofa, slouched), and I find it useful for stressful days. But I can also find it exceptionally difficult. I’m an active person, as in, I don’t sit still very well. If I’m sitting down, I’m wiggling my legs. If I’m standing, I’m bouncing in place. Stillness and breathing is an excellent option for me at times, but it is by no means the only way to achieve calm and presence.

Unbeknownst to me until recently, I’ve been practicing meditation for years unintentionally. As you’ve probably guessed, it’s through birding! I like Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh’s approach to meditation, which is to be fully present and engaged in whatever activity you are doing. If your thoughts wander, then you gently bring your attention back to the activity at hand. This could be while breathing, walking, gardening, driving, brushing your teeth, eating, basically everything. And of course, that includes birding.

Birding is a perfect meditation activity. I’ve personally gone into states of hyperfocus as I listen for calls, songs, or rustling leaves. I’m tuned in to every slight movement in the air, trees, ground, roofs, or bushes. I’m laser-focused, in the moment, and wholly engaged with all my senses, and anxious thoughts no longer pelt my mind. This is presence, meditation, and promoting a deeper connection and appreciation of nature.

If you want to meditate and haven’t found the right activity, try thinking of your birding as a natural activity for this effort. Doing it for 5-10 minutes each day can do wonders!

Mistakes Were Made

April 17, 2021 Elizabeth Olin Comments 0 Comment

Sparrows are notoriously difficult to ID. Savannah Sparrow

Each morning my inbox is full of rare bird alerts from eBird. Before deciding to pursue a rare bird, I carefully review the unconfirmed reports to ascertain whether I think the ID is reliable. It’s so easy to make mistakes – identifying birds can be super hard!

It always makes my heart sink when I receive an email informing me that I’ve misidentified a rare bird. The local eBird admin reaches out for clarification or to request a correction in the list. After all, eBird is used by researchers and conservationists in their studies, and they need a reliable data set, especially when it comes to a bird that it out of its range.

Although it’s difficult to absorb that your public rare bird posting was in error, I (eventually) see mistakes as a good teaching moment. It builds our knowledge about particular species, and we can apply this the information in the future.

I now know that Red-breasted Sapsuckers in the winter may have worn feathers that affects the amount of red in the head and breast, i.e. not a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Immature Ferruginous Hawks can have stripes on their tails, which I did not find in any of my field guides (I did find a couple examples in the Macauley Library media). A young European Starling venturing out for the first time looks super weird and does not resemble the adult unless you focus in on its structure. These were lessons learned either from an eBird admin or through posting pictures to online Facebook birding groups, and this information is now burned into my brain for future use.

If you’re new to birding and use eBird to report sightings, you may find that a bird you see is rare for your area or for that time of year. If so, try to get a picture or record its vocalizations on your phone, but at the very least spend time thoroughly examining its features. Work your way from bill to tail. Examine the size and color of the bill, the eyes and facial features, patterning and colors in its wings/back/breast, and markings in the tail. Online apps such as Merlin ID and iNaturalist are great starting points, but a rare bird sighting typically requires more documentation such as media or your own description of the bird in question.

Most of all, enjoy the rare bird you spot. They are far away from home and may be visiting you for only a short moment.

Spring Is In The Air!

March 13, 2021 Elizabeth Olin Comments 0 Comment

Spring is in the air! Flowers are blooming, warmth from the sun pokes through chilly winds, and the world is filled with bird chatter.

Springtime brings on the breeding season, so birds are doing their best to show off brightly-colored plumage, inviting nesting territories, and belting out their best tunes. It’s a birder’s paradise and a welcome change from a cold, gloomy winter.

Now is also a great time for patch birding – observing birds in the same area over a span of time. A patch could include your backyard, your neighborhood, a favorite hike in a park, basically any place where you become familiar with the surroundings and eventually start to notice patterns.

I consider a neighborhood walk as my birding patch. During the winter, a single White-throated Sparrow would appear with a flock of White-crowned Sparrows in a bush in front of a certain house. I’d only see it before the noon hour. I noticed that the larger flocks of Bushtits have reduced in size, sometimes with a single Bushtit or a pair foraging alone. I followed on and found it building its hanging nest, which I now check on periodically. From my window, I noticed the neighborhood pigeon pair starting to fly back and forth to a certain spot on a nearby building. A closer look confirmed nesting material was being transported in their beaks – a sign of nest building.

Patch birding is a great way to get to know your community of birds, and what better time to begin than in the spring with all its highly visible activity!

It’s the Great Backyard Bird Count!

February 12, 2021 Elizabeth Olin Comments 0 Comment

Red-crowned Parrot: One of several species I saw in my first GBBC

One of my earliest memories of doing a real bird count and submitting a checklist goes back exactly ten years ago when I participated in my first Great Backyard Bird Count. With my interest in birding starting to bud, I was down in SoCal visiting my family when I learned about this annual birding event. The rules were different, something about only recording the highest number of birds you see at a single time unless you were positive you were not recounting the same bird(s). You also noted things like your skill level, habitat, weather, and snow level – data that the birder no longer needs to enter into eBird checklists.

Armed with a paper notebook and pen, I was excited to participate in this activity for the first time. We scoured Irvine and Costa Mesa for birds. One new location yielded the non-native Egyptian Goose, several hummingbirds, and dozens of crows. But what I remember the most was popping up over a hill and feeling my head whirl when I found a couple hundred waterfowl crammed into a little pond. Everyone in my party moaned at the unbelievable task before us of counting them all. This was my first experience attempting to count what felt like a huge number of birds. I diligently ticked off every single bird for a total of 78 American Wigeons, 88 Mallards, and 23 American Coots. What a huge number for my first ever GBBC experience!

I did my first GBBC checklist of 2021 while looking out the apartment window this morning, thinking how much has changed in ten years. These days it’s easier than ever to record bird sightings. Our smartphones allow us to use eBird, automatically capturing data like distance traveled and time spent birding. It’s now permissible to give an estimate of the number of birds seen. Submitting a checklist do not require transferring data from a notepad to your desktop computer at home. Very convenient.

I hope you will join this annual event over the next four days. If you’ve never done it before, I encourage you to give it a try. Not only do your sightings contribute to bird conservation, it’s a great way to decompress and be in nature. Grab a friend or a Valentine sweetheart and have fun!

Nature Journaling

December 30, 2020 Elizabeth Olin Comments 1 comment

Harris’s Sparrow

A few months ago, I started keeping a nature journal. The idea was to jot down observations about birds and nature, write mindful reflections, or even get creative, such as tracing tree leaves to create my own personal field guide (I am lacking in illustrative skills, so tracing an object is about the best I can do).

In researching ideas for nature journaling, I found that a common suggestion was to get a notebook that can be carried into the field for in-the-moment writing opportunities. Since I prefer to immerse myself into nature completely on my walks, I ended up buying a standard composition book that I keep at home. When inspiration strikes, I jot down a few notes on my phone, and then carve out some time later in the day to write in the nature journal.

My mom suggested that I include a reflection on the entire year for future reference. I easily filled a page with notes including: the initial Shelter-in-Place in March that resulted in reduced pollution from less traffic and planes, the concerning lack of rain, and the extended fire season. I noted that Townsend’s Warblers and Hermit Warblers were seen more on the ground rather than the trees this year (some have wondered if insect populations are declining causing the warblers to forage in different locations). There’s been an explosion of Pine Siskins in the neighborhood due to the irruption year. All these things will be interesting to look back on in future years.

Nature journaling is quite popular, and a Google search will yield a ton of hits on how to approach it. If this is of interest to you, my advice is to first think about your goals, and then determine how you can meet those goals. Don’t get caught up in which an article claims a nature journal “should be.” Approach it in the way that is best for you.

Here’s to a calm and hopeful new year!

Birding with Codes

November 29, 2020 Elizabeth Olin Comments 0 Comment

Snowy Egret: SNEG

I’ve been a user of eBird for several years now. It’s a database of bird observations. The data collected is then used for research purposes. I find it cool that a simple effort on my part is contributing to science and bird conservation efforts. (To find out more, check out ebird.org. There’s also a free online course on the Cornell Lab Bird Academy website that explains how to use it.)

I prefer to use eBird on my smartphone, as it’s super convenient to use. At least, it felt easy until I got carpal tunnel syndrome earlier this year. My smartphone suddenly felt like a brick – awkward to hold and very heavy for my already-pained fingers.

Time to adapt. For now, I’m starting an eBird checklist on my phone so that it can calculate the distance I’ve traveled. Then I tuck my phone into my pocket for the rest of the trip. To record my observations, I have a lightweight notepad and a gel pen, which glides easier than a ball point pen.

To lessen the amount of writing, I use the standard four-letter bird codes – a shorthand for recording bird observations. This is widely used in the birding community and is featured in eBird as an option for inputting a bird’s name. When I get home, I transfer my written observations onto eBird in a way that is better for my hands.

Black-crowned Night Heron: BCNH

I’ll admit, the codes are daunting! However, the more I use them the more I realize that there’s a clear pattern that emerges making it easy to figure out codes on the fly. It did take some practice, and I started off with practicing the codes for just the birds at my feeder.

Below are my observations about the codes – but use whatever shorthand that works for you! I use the Institute for Bird Populations for reference, using the PDF that organizes it by English name.

Boat-tailed Grackle: BTGR

Bird Names with One Word

For birds whose name is only one word, such as Bufflehead or Killdeer, all you have to do is take the first four letters of its name to come up with the code.

Bufflehead = BUFF
Killdeer = KILL

Bird Names with Two Words

For two words, you typically take the first two letters of each word, then combine them to create the four-letter code. There are exceptions, but overall this is the general pattern.

Anna’s Hummingbird = AN + HU = ANHU
Black Phoebe = BL + PH = BLPH
Lesser Goldfinch = LE + GO = LEGO
Snowy Egret = SN + EG = SNEG

Exception: California Towhee is CALT instead of CATO. There may be other exceptions but I haven’t come across them yet – at least for Bay Area birds.

Bird Names with Four Words

I’m going to temporarily skip the three-worded names because it’s more complex and I’ll bet I’ll lose you instantly. Instead, this category is much easier as there’s not as many birds with four words in a name.

For this category, you simply take the first letter of each word to create the code. There’s no concern about whether or not the words are hyphenated. There are some exceptions to this pattern, of course.

Black-crowned Night Heron = B + C + N + H = BCNH

Exceptions:
There are two in particular I’m aware of, but there’s probably more: Black-throated Gray Warbler and Black-throated Green Warbler. The problem with these two birds is that they would both end up as BTGW! So instead, the codes reflect the last letter of the third word.

Black-throated Gray Warbler = BTYW
Black-throated Green Warbler = BTNW

Bird Names with Three Words

I find this category the most difficult. It seems to depend on whether there is a hyphen present and where. I don’t always remember where hyphens are in names, so that can present a problem. This may be a category where it’s easier to create your own shorthand.

For no hyphens, the general pattern is to take the first letter of the first two words, and the first two letters from the third word. For example:

American Tree Sparrow = A + T + SP = ATSP

When there is a hyphen, the rule I’ve observed is that the two hyphenated words offer only one letter to the code, regardless of their position.

Examples where the first two words are hyphenated:

Black-headed Grosbeak = B + H (hyphenated) + GR (no hyphen) = BHGR
Golden-crowned Sparrow = G + C (hyphenated) + SP (no hyphen) = GCSP

Examples where the last two words are hyphenated:

Western Screech-Owl = WE (no hyphen) + S + O (hyphenated) = WESO
Northern Pygmy-Owl = NO (no hyphen) + P + O (hyphenated) = NOPO

Fall is Here!

October 24, 2020 Elizabeth Olin Comments 0 Comment

Golden-Crowned Sparrow

After a scorching summer with record-breaking heat and long days of choking smoke, fall is finally peeking through. The sun is casting its light from a different angle, colors are more saturated outside, and the days are getting shorter and cooler. These all signal the beginning of my favorite season of the year.

Singing White-Crowned Sparrow

Fall migration has largely settled down, so now can I switch into a more relaxed pace of enjoying our winter friends and their behaviors. The days of the White-crowned Sparrow finally kicked off and I hear their cheerful song from my window in the morning. Sometimes I catch the solemn song of Golden-crowned Sparrow mixed in with the morning chorus. Crows are starting to merge into large gatherings to roost in their communities. More and more peeps (sandpipers) are showing up to winter in the Bay Area.

Least Sandpiper

Now is a great time to brush up on waterfowl, gull, sandpiper, and sparrow IDs. Fall becomes more of a visual birding experience rather than a listening exercise, as many birds fall quiet and resort to whispered calls and chirps. I look for rustling leaves and try to figure out if it’s the wind or a bird hiding in a bush.

Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher

A group of smaller birds suddenly flying away may indicate a raptor nearby.

Northern Harrier

And while you’re looking up for a raptor, you may spot a flock of American White Pelicans floating against a clear blue sky.

American White Pelicans

Enjoy the fall, stay safe, and stay healthy. Birding is a magnificent way to relieve the stress of these times.

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Bird Feeder Blues

April 15, 2020 Elizabeth Olin Comments 0 Comment

I woke up a chilly February morning, grabbed my phone, and surfed through my emails in bed. This is a typical routine for the weekend as I look through my rare bird alerts. One of my emails was from the National Audubon Society advertising a pretty blue bird feeder from Lowe’s. A few hours later, I was the proud new owner of a feeder.

I’ve had bird feeders in the past. A finch sock for thistle attracted House Finches and Lesser Goldfinches, but after the roof was redone on our apartment building, we decided to remove the feeder since it made a mess and could have affected the new roofing from our third-story location.

Then I had a hummingbird feeder for a while. Sadly, I forgot to refill the feeder for several days and it was outside cooking in the hot sun. Really bad mold grew inside the glass tube, and despite multiple rounds of bleaching, I couldn’t get rid of it. I didn’t want to harm the hummers, so I threw it away.

Now I’m using a feeder that can attract multiple types of birds. I filled it with no-mess sunflower seeds, and waited.

And waited.

And waited…

February comes and goes. March comes and goes. What the heck? Daily I would stare at the bird-less feeder, jealously hearing all the finches calling outside. Why won’t they come?

With the stay-at-home orders in place, I’m now working from home. No commute means I have some extra time before I start work. I’m spending that extra time in the mornings watching the crows build and tend to a nest and listening to the morning chorus of songs and calls. And watching the bird-less feeder.

On a warm April afternoon, I was in the living room and heard a Lesser Goldfinch sing. It sounded close! I snuck into the kitchen to look at the feeder through the window. Aaaand nothing. Bummed, I went back to the living room. But wait, I heard it again! I repeated my slow approach, and spotted it – a male Lesser Goldfinch hogging at the seed and singing. It was later joined by a female.

I’ve been watching this pair visit the feeder sporadically throughout the day. I’m happy to finally have some bird action at the feeder.

(No picture of the feeder because the windows are dirty. I tell myself that dirty windows will help prevent bird crashes – at least that’s my excuse!)

Bird Dad Humor

March 14, 2020 Elizabeth Olin Comments 0 Comment

It’s times like these where we need to invite a little humor in our lives. Here’s some Dad Humor, specifically Bird Dad Humor. My dad enjoys drawing comics and making other people smile, so I wanted to share this recent gem.

Pro-Tip: A “lifer” is a bird you’ve never seen before. If you maintain a list of all the birds you’ve ever seen in your life, then a “lifer” is a new bird to add to your list!

My Birding World

A Bird Blog by Elizabeth Olin

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