Rare Bird - Kirtland's Warber

If you thought that the Nerds went to Ohio and stopped there, you are mistaken. We left Magee Marsh on Sunday and headed out to Michigan (another 4 hours in the car) to see a very rare bird - the Kirtland's Warbler. There are only about 2,000 of these birds in the world. The bird is rare due to it's limited geography for nesting and wintering sites. The warbler winters exclusively in the Bahamas and nests ONLY in certain pine forests in Michigan. Although it would probably be really cool to see one in Bahamas in January, Michigan is cheaper so we went to Michigan.

Nerds in Michigan

The best way to see the bird is to join an Audubon tour which takes you out to the nesting grounds. The tour starts at the Hartwick State Forest visitor center where we watched a short film about Kirtland's Warblers. It was eye opening. The film showed forest destruction by timber companies and fires devastating the landscape. All of which turned out to be GOOD for the warblers! Why? Because they only nest in areas where pine trees are between 5 and 20 feet tall. Once the trees get taller, the warblers won't breed there. They also rely on big territories of this habitat, which logging and fires provide. Here is a view of the nesting area. Not what you would expect for a warbler.

Jack Pine regrowth area

We went out to the field with the Audubon Naturalist and immediately heard a few Kirtland's singing. It was difficult to spot them but this guy popped into a bare tree for a bit. Can you see him? He is sitting on the left side.

Kirtland's Warbler

Here is a cropped shot. The photo is lousy, but you can see the bird singing. I would have liked a closer look but at least we saw one of the 2,000 remaining birds.

Kirtland's Warbler

The good news here is that the forest service is actively managing habitat for the warblers and the logging companies are making money too. A win-win situation. A few Kirtland's Warblers have even found nesting sites in Wisconsin and Ontario which is the first time ever recorded outside of Michigan. Both of those locations also have managed logging programs in place. Hopefully, this little warbler will continue to thrive.

The Owl and The Pussycat

So, what could make me look like even more of a nerd?  Hmmmm.  Let's see. . . What? What? What, could I do?

Oh, I know!  I could take my cat to Jake's Landing to look for Short-eared Owls, that's what.  Yup.  You read that right. Mimi, Roxy and I went to Jake's Landing this evening to look for Short-eared Owls.  My Fiat was the only car in the parking lot when we arrived so I let Mimi out.  Jake's Landing Road winds through woods, then a marsh and ends at a boat ramp.  The gravel road and parking lot are surrounded by wet marsh so I let Mimi out of the car while I searched for the owls.

She circled the car.  Then she circled it again.  Then she started making wider circles to the edge of the grass.  I wasn't worried since I knew she couldn't go far so I focused my attention on finding an owl and hopefully getting a photo or two.  Every so often I would look around for her. Then, I looked around and couldn't find her.  OH CRAP.  Connie will never speak to me again if I lose this cat . . . But really, how far could she go?  She is 20 years old for God's sake. 

It didn't seem that weird - until the other cars came down the road and sent me scrambling to find the cat.  I found her all the way at the far edge of the parking lot and only because I heard the jangling of her tags. Imagine what the other drivers thought when they saw this lone woman with binoculars, a camera and a CAT slung over her shoulders. I looked like the crazy cat lady, that's what.  Needless to say, the other cars left quickly and I put the cat in the car.

The good news is that I managed to find 3 owls sitting in the marsh and also got to hear 2 calling.  The bad news is that none of them ever got closer than this:

And, they only became active after this which rendered my camera useless:

Mother Nature This Week

So, we had an earthquake, a hurricane, and some tornadoes in Philly this week. Pretty unusual for our part of the world and certainly unusual back-to-back. The earthquake was really freaky. I was in my office in Center City and didn't know what was going on for a few seconds. At first, I thought it was Roxy under my chair moving around but then my coworkers started getting out of their cubes and looking at me like - "What do we do? It's an earthquake!". We all stood outside like dopes for 20 minutes (which is the opposite of what you are supposed to do in an earthquake) before returning to work.

The weather people sure played up Hurricane Irene to the point that Cape May was evacuated, Septa stopped running, etc, etc. and it turned out not to be that bad. Barbara, Di and I headed down to the shore on Sunday to see if the shacks were still standing - which they were - and to check out the "storm birding" scene. Not familiar with storm birding? Well, it is when birders rush out after a big storm to see rarities. It is a big deal with hurricanes since they tend to blow tropical birds far north so rare sightings are quite common.

Check out the scene at the Concrete Ship at Cape May Point. This is 2:30 PM on Sunday with 45 MPH gusts and sustained winds of something like 25 MPHs which sandblasted the skin off of my legs. That is why we are all huddled together next to the Sunset Grille (great grilled cheese sandwiches btw). Sadly, we can no longer deny being the nerdiest of nerds after seeing this photo.



Our deniability is also out the window since this scene was made public on both the Cape May Bird Observatory blog (that's me in the front looking through the scope, Di to my left in the red and Barbara to my right in the navy) AND The Philadelphia Inquirer (that's Barbara on the extreme left in the photo).

We got to see the unidentified large swift and all of the terns mentioned in the blog post. We were too late for the petrel and the tropicbirds though.

Brown Booby persists on the channel marker. I wonder when that bird will go south?

Nerd Squared

Taking the nerd part of our name to new heights here lately.
We are birdwatchers - nerd strike one
We submit our sightings electronically - nerd strike two

Two of our submissions from Belize are under scrutiny by eBird.  We are emailing descriptions and photos to the guy almost daily.  The 2 submissions under question are Sparrow which we saw with our guide Eric and identified as Botteri's Sparrow and a hawk that we saw on Ambergris Caye that sat on a telephone pole and baffled us for more than 15 minutes.  Luckily, I have photos of both birds which I sent to the "auditor".  The sparrow came back as Lincoln's Sparrow which the guy says hasn't been seen in that pahe rt of Belize since 2003 and he was pretty excited about the sighting.

Barbara and I spent a long time staring and photographing and trying to identify the hawk on the telephone pole.  Diane and I spent even longer staring at the computer screen and the field guide trying to identify the hawk from the photos.  We used 2 field guides.  Birds of Belize by Lee Jones which is rated the best guide for the country, and another guide that covers all of Central America.  We finally settled on Great Black Hawk (immature) due to field marks and process of elimination of all other species.  The auditor didn't like that submission stating that only one Great Black Hawk had been recorded on Ambergris Caye and could it possibly have been a Common Black Hawk which, by the its very name, is common in the area.  Once again, I sent photos.  His response was really, really nerdy and fascinating and exciting.  He said that his second review of the photos lead him to believe it was Broad-winged Hawk - which is b-o-r-i-n-g EXCEPT that only one of those have ever been seen on Ambergris.  Then, he asked if he could send my photos to Lee Jones - that's right, the guy who wrote the field guide. 

Oh, and if that is all not nerdy enough for you.  Here is nerd strike three - the PhillyBirdNerds are entering the World Series of Birding this year.  Yup. The biggest gathering of nerdiness outside of the computer expo.  To make matters worse, the PBNs are using technology including eBird reports, mapping tools, and "apps" on our iPhones and iPads (yup, we have iPads but no iTampons). 

Overwhelmingly nerdy.  More about the World Series of Birding in coming days.