Red-breasted Nuthatch - a winter irruption

The diminutive, eye-striped, lesser known cousin of the familiar White-breasted nuthatch is making a big showing this fall throughout New England. Typically found in sandy, pine forests of Cape Cod and higher elevations the Red-breasted nuthatch (known to birders as the “R.B. Nut”) is expected to have a “winter irruption” this year. Irruptions, unlike migrations are not annually occurring movements but rather population shifts caused by environmental factors such as food availability. This is to say when there is a bad pine cone harvest R.B. Nuts move south into areas where food is available. Each winter Southern New England may have an increase or decrease in a number of species from common birds such as Blue Jays to more uncommon visitors such as Red Crossbills and Evening Grosbeaks. One of this year’s irruptive species is the Red-breasted nuthatch. Watch for these birds among stands of pine trees or feeding from the suet feeder. Listen for there comical “toy, tin horn” call, a nasally “meep-meep-meep.” For more on irruptive winter species visit Ron Pittaway's Winter Finch Forecast.

The Couch Birder - what to watch

Late fall can bring that particular kind of spirit dampening darkness, spritzed with 40 degree rain, coupled with a "I finished the whole bag of peanut-butter cups that I bought for the trick-or-treaters" hangover. On such a day sometimes the couch and some television is the only cure. New Hampshire public television recently released their documentary, "Saving Songbirds" and from the clips I've seen so far it looks excellent. 

"Saving Songbirds" focuses on the major conservation efforts happening to protect passerines, and more importantly frames this work globally. This global perspective is an important one not only for conservationists but for all of us. It highlights the fact that the tiny, colorful, musical birds that fill New England in the spring are only visitors to our stone fenced world or as Stevie Wonder might call it, "part time lovers." The warblers, flycatchers, thrush, and vireos are transnational travelers of the first degree. Whether Yankee expats living in Jamaica or a Jamaican emigrants to New Hampshire, you can decide but the important take away is that the biosphere in which these birds live is a changing, amorphous layer of life that covers our earth like a thin smear of glory. Our actions have reactions, our movements have counter movements and what we see out our window is but a single still frame from a long movie reel - only part of the story. 

New Hampshire residents check your local listings, for those who "don't live free or die" watch clips online at NHPTV.org or purchase a copy on DVD. Happy couch birding. 

Watch Saving Songbirds | Preview Trailer on PBS. See more from WENH.

Online Resources for Better Bird Watching - Ebird

The Natural History of Selborne - journals of Gilbert White

Beginning in the late 19th century the field of “natural philosophy” took a hard turn away from the casual naturalist wandering the hills and dales and moved indoors to the labs and collection halls of the University. This move away from the observations of farmers and fishermen, hunters and bird watchers towards “hard science” meant individuals from outside the academic circle had little input on the research and publications of the day.

Since the 1960s academia, has arguably loosened its monopoly on the field of natural history, acknowledging the role of “amateur” observations. What is most commonly referred to as, “citizen science” is a push toward inclusion. The power of citizen science is the breadth of data that can be easily collected from thousands, even millions of locations. The advent of the Web and its ability to easily communicate and instantaneously share data online citizen science projects have literally connected millions of nature journals into a single source of searchable data. 

One of the more impressive outcomes of this online citizen science data is “Ebird,” a website dedicated to recording and sharing bird watching observations from across the United States. Ebird (www.Ebird.org) is a collaboration between the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society. The concept is simple, allow folks to enter their own list of species and tie that list to a specific location and time. 

Since 2002 Ebird has collected over 3 million observations from bird watchers across the U.S. and has begun to process this raw data into usable, graphical information and there are many features to explore and utilize within the website that make for powerful teaching tools for the classroom teacher, informal educator, or curious naturalist. Below are a few highlights. 

• Store, tabulate and compare you own data by using the “submit observations” feature. Follow the simple steps of free registration, enter the location of your observation (local park, school yard, conservation area etc), enter the time and date, and then click the species you observed into the online checklist. Ebird saves and adds your observations into their databases but you can go back month to month or year to year to compare your sightings and track individual species. 

• Find locations to look for birds by clicking on Explore Data then Range Maps. Locate both trip lists or the frequency of a single species based on location. This is a great way to identify good areas for a field trip or weekend bird watching adventure. 

• Compare the monthly frequency of up to five species at once through the Explore Data then Line Graphs feature. This feature allows you to see the seasonal changes in various species. 

• What can only be described as amazing, watch the animated Occurrence Maps. Using a black and white map of the United States specie occurrence data is overlaid using a concentration of color, ranging from dusty orange indicating low frequency to bright white indicating high frequency. A sliding bar at the bottom of the map loops from January to December, giving the viewer an animation of seasonal observations from across the country. What transpires is nothing less than incredible. A glowing algae bloom of bird movement, created solely by individual observations. We can literally watch as Chestnut-sided warblers burst from the gulf of Mexico in April and flood northward in a matter of weeks, leaving the lower 48 by May, but for a few strips of breeding birds in the Appalachian mountains. Watch Longspurs descend from Canada in the winter or the mysterious migration of the Blackpoll Warbler. 

Long-tailed ducks

More wonderful video provided by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology