Timberdoodle, Bogsucker, Labrador Twister or funnier still… the American Woodcock

Beginning in late February and going straight through the summer one of the most curious evening sounds by the most curious of New England birds occurs. The American woodcock is a grapefruit shaped shorebird (think sandpiper) that lives far from open water or sandy dunes. Compact, long billed, and wide-eyed these ground nesting shorebirds put on one of the early spring’s great aerial displays with accompanying outer space soundtrack.

The male woodcock finds a favorite piece of open field, often close to mature forest and moist with puddles of spring thaw. Known as a “singing ground” the male bird gives a series of “peeeent” calls before rocketing 100 yards into the air and flying a huge circle above the trees and open field. This flight is made even more bizarre by one of the great non-vocal sounds of the avian world. Spaces in the leading, primary wing feathers create a shimmery, twittering sound like a Hollywood robot processing a request from astronaut Mike Jones’ to "change trajectory".

This whole scene is made even more unearthly by the woodcock’s preference for crepuscular display in that enchanted gloaming light in the hour before dark. This flight serves to attract a willing female for mating. Being polygamous the males will often continue to perform this display flight each evening throughout the spring and summer. To find a Woodcock take a walk or park near an open meadow roughly thirty minutes before dusk and listen for the “peeeent” call and head towards the sound.

ideal setting for Spring Woodock sightings

The Birdist on State Birds: What They Should be...

Many people are familiar with the State Bird Program (along with trees, flowers, food, and songs) that has passed into some type of state legislative gavel drop a single specie of bird that they (the gavel droppers) deem representative. The problem is the States bird list reads like a list generated by an angst ridden 8th grader; on one hand fearful of showing real interest on the other totally unaware of local flora and fauna (3 Robins, 5 Mockingbirds, 7 Cardinals)! I've written about the Cardinals before. 

I recently came across an amusing post by Nicholas Lund on his site Birdist titled, State Birds: What They SHOULD Be and it is one of the funnier things (bird related) I've read in some time. Despite some Maine - Massachusetts guff over the chickadee I think he gets it pretty right... warning bad language and seriously deep bird references ahead. 

and more Snowy owls

A wonderful blog post on the American Birding Association (ABA) blog recounting some of the weirder places Snowy owls have shown up this year. 

If you're not familiar with the ABA they are member driven organization that promotes the ethical and educational pursuit of viewing birds. If you're interested in becoming a member click here. 

More Snowy Owls...the Snow Storm Project

Snowy owls made news again today with this incredible (data made public) website called Project Snow Storm. It was featured this morning on National Public Radio as well as being exhibited at the 2014 Annual Birders Meeting (last Saturday, March 8th). 

The project plots real GIS data from radio tagged snowy owls and overlays their movement on Google Maps. If instant world messaging via email, video chatting over Skype, online books and videos haven't made the internet incredible to you then watching real life data of animal movement may be the thing to sell you on this whole Website thing. 

Red-winged blackbirds have returned

Along with the Turkey vulture and the two note call of the Chickadee the arrival of Red-winged blackbirds kicks off spring in all its sweet air, receding snow, and drip filled ponds. Red-wing blackbirds are common across North America and are symbolic of pond and marsh. In the eastern U.S. Red-wing blackbirds winter in large mixed species flocks with Common grackles, Brown-headed cowbirds, Rusty blackbirds, and often European starlings. Found year round as close as New Jersey the arrival of these noisy blackbirds to New England is a sure sign of spring.  

Red-winged blacbirds are aptly named for the well known red “epaulets”, a band of deep red feathers moving to bright orange and fading into yellow. Only the male blackbirds have epaulets and can flare them out when courting a female or announcing territory. The female Red-winged blackbirds are carefully camouflaged in cream and brown stripes making them all but disappear in the reeds and bull rushes in which they nest. Seeing a female red-winged blackbird can be a puzzling event for beginner birdwatchers. In these March days visit any local marsh, pond, or wetland and listen for the distinct, “conk-a-reeeee” song of the newly returned blackbirds, it’s a song that will fill up the warming air all summer long.

Notes from Wildness in the City: the Case for Birding the Patch

Notes from my session, Wildness in the City: the Case for Birding the Patch. As delivered at the 2013 MEES Annual Conference. 

About Alex Dunn

AlexanderJosephDunn@Gmail.com

ADunn@EcoTarium.org

• EcoTarium: www.ecotariumlorg
• Mass Audubon Broad Meadow Brook: https://www.massaudubon.org/catalog/
• The Daily Bird New England: http://thedailybirdnewengland.blogspot.com/

Links, book titles, and references in order from Wildness in the City: the Case for Birding the Patch as delivered on March 6, 2013 at the MEES Annual Conference

Twitch vs. Patch

• Big Year: http://www.amazon.com/The-Big-Year-Steve-Martin/dp/B004LWZWBU/ref=pd_bxgy_mov_img_y
• Big Sit: http://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/bwdsite/connect/bigsit/index.php
• Big Green Day: http://greenbigday.org

From Ecophobia to Topophila

• Last Child in the Woods, Richard Louv
• Beyond Ecophobia, David Sobel
• Topophilia, YiFu Tuan
• Becoming Animal and The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram
• My Green Manifesto: Down the Charles River in Pursuit of a New Environmentalism, David Gressner

Wildness as adventure + magic

• Urban Explorers, www.Undercity.org
• Alastair Humphreys, http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/
• Microadventures: http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/microadventures-3/
• The Boy Who Biked Around the World, Alastair Humphreys
• S24O by Grant Peterson, http://www.adventurecycling.org/resources/Petersen_S240s.pdf

Finding Patches in the City and Urban Birding

• The Typology of New Public Sites, Graham Coreil- Allen http://grahamprojects.com/pdfs/nps-t.pdf
• David Lindo “the Urban Birder”, http://www.theurbanbirder.com/
• Birders: the Central Park Effect http://www.amazon.com/Birders-The-Central-Park-Effect/dp/B009VRVGLK
• Ebird.org “hotspots map” (you must register to view): http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ 
• Mass Breeding Bird Atlas: http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/bba/index.cfm?fa=explore.ResultsSummary&BBA_ID=MA2007 and preliminary report: http://www.massaudubon.org/StateoftheBirds/

Resources for Exploring a Patch

• What the Robin Knows, Jon Young and http://whattherobinknows.com/ or http://birdlanguage.com/what-is-bird-language/ecourse/
• Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast, Peter Del Tredici
• Raccoon Nation documentary on PBS, http://video.pbs.org/video/2192070266/  
• The Cloud Collector’s Handbook, Gavin Pretor-Pinney and www.cloudappreciationsociety.org

History of the Field Guide

• John James Auduon
• Alexander Wilson
• Two Little Savages, Ernest Thompson Seton
• Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

A Model for Developmental Bird Watching

•        Jean Piaget (developmentalism): learning occurs in stages that happen at intervals and can be aided by, but not always pushed to by adults and teachers

•        David Kolb (experiential learning): learner must be actively involved in the experience, able to reflect on the experience, possess and use analytical skills to conceptualize the experience, and possess decision making and problem solving skills in order to use the new ideas gained from the experience.

•        George Hein (constructivism): knowledge is created by the learner, not pumped in externally

•        Abigail Housen (aesthetic development) and Visual Thinking Strategies: http://www.vtshome.org/research/aesthetic-development

•        Stage I – From Not Seeing to Seeing (the Spark bird)

•        Stage II – Seeing (the bird feeder)

•        Stage III – From Seeing to Watching (the bird watcher)

•        Stage IV – Observing (The expert aka I love Confusing fall warblers)

•        Stage V – Integration (Ecological thinking)

Spring Bird Song Crash Course day three – Northern Cardinal

Listen for the “laser beam” song in the morning. “Zooo-Zooo-Zooo-Ze-Ze-Ze-Ze-Ze” or a popping “uhh-weit, uhh weit, uhh weit”. Very loud and piercing, possible confusion with the Carolina wren. 

Spring Bird Song Crash Course day two – Tufted titmouse

Similar to the chickadee the Tufted titmouse sings a sweet, loud multi-noted spring song that sounds like a declarative “peter-peter-peter.” The titmouse will  often sing a rising or falling song and can even change up the tempo mid song. 

Similar too chickadee, Carolina wren, or Northern Cardinal

Spring Bird Song Crash Course day one – Chickadee

The Black-capped chickadee gives has a spring song, a sweet two-noted “one-two” or “see-sew”. It has the brightness of a Tufted titmouse or a even a Northern cardinal so listen for the persistent two note structure, the first note higher the second lower.  Chickadees also are capable of a quarrelsome, husky “pee-chaw”  

The Importance of Education

I recently had the pleasure of presenting at the 2012 Massachusetts Environmental Education (EE) Society conference at the college of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. The focus of my talk titled, “The Digital Bird Watcher” was an overview of online resources and ways teachers can connect students to bird watching through real science data. These days the EE movement is largely focused on getting kids unplugged, outside, and undoing the effects of “ecophobia” (D. Sobel) and “nature deficit disorder” (R. Louv). I’m fully in favor of this anti-microchip bend that EE advocates for, so I was conscious that the word “digital” could be the cause of some rancor. To reassure the participants of my beliefs I prefaced my talk with the question, “what do we mean by digital?” and subsequently defined the role of digital technology as:
- an aid, not a replacement for being outside in the field
- connecting learning around local and global issues of conservation and migration through accessible data
- personalizing the experience of bird watching through searchable maps, lists, and shared information

Further more I defined the very goals of bird watching education as:

-  Providing an exciting and accessible entryway into the world of biodiversity

- Developing topophilia, a personal even magical connection to place

- Educating about local and global conservation issues through the story of migration

I was mindful not to make my lecture an Itunes store full of bird watching apps (though there are many good ones) nor was I going to showcase gimmicky, gadgets like binoculars with built in cameras or GPS sound recorders. The purpose of my talk was to share with teachers the incredible wealth of accessible data that lives on the web, free of charge, up to date, multimodal, and pertinent. While there are many good sites dedicated to K-12 curriculum ideas about bird education I was more interested in sharing with teachers the citizen science projects, breeding bird studies, and migratory tracking data that is being used by biologists and bird watchers across the globe. In preparing for this talk I assembled many of the resources I've been using and at the request of session participants I wanted to make these available online.

I’m please to announce that I will now host a page titled “Bird Watching Resources for Teachers and Educators” on my website the Daily Bird New England (look for the picture of the teacher studying the skeleton). I hope that these resources find their way into the hands of informal educators and classroom teachers alike and help ensure that we are getting kids engrossed in the natural world through the study of birds.

Bird Guilds

http://dendroica.blogspot.com/

A sprinkling of March snow doesn't sully the spring bird sounds from the woods. During a walk on a March morning it is not uncommon to stop to watch an active chickadee darting from branch to branch, quibbling quietly to its friend, while picking off small seeds from catkins and generally animating the winter life of the woods. In pausing to watch this small charmer one may suddenly notice that the noise is not just coming from the chickadee but also a pair of Tufted titmouse. And in giving pause to watch this two grey haired duo you may see a single Downy woodpecker working its way up the trunk of a bare oak tree, then the bleating, nasal sound of a White-breasted nuthatch joins the fray. “What am I witnessing?” some storm cloud of birds all around me? Winter songbirds including: chickadees, titmice, woodpeckers, kinglets, creepers, nuthatch, blue jays, cardinals, and wrens may travel the woods in loose bands or mixed species flocks. What is known locally, if not scientifically, as a bird guild or a group of mixed species that feed together. Theories on this type of behavior include the safety of many watchful eyes is better than one, the fact that where one bird is eating equates to food for others, as well more complex theories of food dispersal by on species that benefits another. Climatic factors  may also come into play as these groups are often found in opening with southern exposure, out of the wind and catching all that new spring sun. Watch chickadees or blue jays in the woods and spend a few minutes searching for other species in the area.