Tuesday, August 13, 2013

"Famous" Dave

I meet alot of people while birding. Some of them are Famous (with a capital F) like Pete Dunne the famous author and birder.  Some of them are locally famous because they report alot of birds on text and email alert systems. And some of them are "famous" by way of making a name for themselves on the Internet. I met one of the Internet famous birders this weekend - David LaPuma aka woodcreeper.com. He was up on the dike at Higbee on Sunday morning.  Dave has been on my radar ever since I realized that radar could be used to track bird migration movements. In fact, it was Dave's website www.woodcreeper.com where I learned all about it. He used to be a local Jersey birder who was doing research into using radar to track bird movements but he moved to Wisconsin (of all places) and works for Leica optics. The radar is now being presented through Cornell Lab at Birdcast so Dave doesn't have to do it by himself anymore.

It was really nice to meet him and get to bird along side him and other locally famous birders on Sunday morning. It was especially nice because there were no crowds like there will be in Sept/Oct. Just a few of us watching the first big migration flight of the year that had hundreds of Yellow warblers, Redstarts, and other warblers flapping past us.

Here are a few photos from the day. I spent some quality time with this Blue-winged Warbler down behind the dike.
Blue-winged Warbler
 Also spent quality time with this not-so-Spotted Sandpiper. They lose the spotted breast in fall and winter. This bird is ready for winter for sure.  They are easy to ID even when they don't have the spots because they constantly pump their tails up and down.  This bird was picking through a puddle and didn't seem to mind me and Roxy watching it from close range.

Spotted Sandpiper
 This was a mystery bird for me. It flew to the top of the phragmites along the dike and only sat for a few seconds.  It's too big to be a warbler. It's an immature Baltimore Oriole - not orange yet. I had to ask a friend to confirm the ID for me.

Baltimore Oriole

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you got to meet "famous Dave" ...this was a fun post. BTW, looked up juvenile cardinal. You were right!
That's what our guy is. Thank you. HH

Linda said...

awesome. glad to help with the ID.

David La Puma said...

You are too funny Linda. It was great to finally meet YOU, and hear about all of your 'stupid' birds you're chasing this year ;)

Brendan was indeed at Camp Avocet and I had a great time birding with him from Virginia to New Jersey! I told him to steer clear of birding competitions, especially those where Aunt Linda is involved ;)

Hope to see you again soon!

Good luck with the Billings competition!!!!


Famous Dave (not of BBQ fame... man, that would be awesome!)