New rule, 52 species

I am adding driving with a full car (4 passengers) to my Green Big Year list. Carpooling for birders is something I want to encourage!

I will keep a note of birds seen with aid of car and present two separate totals at the end of the year.

Yesterday I exercised the carpool rule to the max. at 6am my father, Todd, Adrian and myself met at a parking lot on Columbus Ave in South Philly. All four of us piled in the car to do a rarity sweep. Our goal was the Common Chaffinch in Hunterton TWP, NJ, Snowy Owl at Merrill Creek Reservoir and Say's Phoebe in Bucks County PA. The chaffinch is a first for NJ, it is a European finch, very common in gardens. Only 2 or 3 records before in NE Canada. The bird was visiting feeders behind a birder's house. I'll write more when I get the photos.
Posted by Tony Croasdale at 3:12 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
added rule to Green Year

Green Big Year

As of January 1st 2011 I will be doing a "Green Big
Year"

Going green isn't meant to be self imposed hardship or inconvenience. The point is to highlight alternatives to using large amounts of fossil fuel for a hobby.

1. I will only count birds seen from foot, bike, sailboat, human powered watercraft, or public transportation.

2. I will not count birds even under rule #1 if I flew, drove, or was driven to location specifically for birding. For example, if I flew to AZ for birding, I cannot count birds on a hike up Madera Canyon.

3. I can accept a short ride to a birding location if traveled by the rule #1. Such as accepting a ride to Militia Hill Hawk Watch, if I took the train to Ft Washington.

Wild Philadelphia

I started a new blog with my dad called Wild Philadelphia. www.wildphiladelphia.blogspot.com

I will still be making retro blogs on here starting soon and what ever else I do outside the Philly area.

Back From Brazil

Woah, such an amazing trip. 360 species of bird! I will be doing much "retro-posting" over the next few weeks to catch up. Also considering there is an ivory gull in Cape May and other goodies around, you can expect me to be posting about local trips as well!

Salto Marato

Tiger Rat Snake

We arrived in Guanacasava and took a bus up into the Atlantic Rainforest. of the Salto Marato reserve. On the way I spotted guria cuckoos and a black-and-white monjita in a pasture. Salto Marato is a private nature reserve by Fundacao Obotacario. Fundacao O Botacario is a conservation organization funded by the O Botacario cosmetic company.

Salto Marato is a relatively small reserve at 7,000 acres, however it adjoins some much larger reserves. One of the requirements of O Boticario to purchase land for a reserve is that it adjoins another protected area. This is in keeping with the theory of Biogeography, that an intact area of habitat of a certain size will have higher biodiversity than the same area of fragmented habitat.

Upon arrival at the reserve we were shown a tiger rat snake at the entrance by volunteer, Romeiro.
We had our first presentation by Zulekia, the reserve director. During the coffee break I spotted a channel-billed toucan on a bare tree outside the visitor center.

We learned about the severe degradation of the Atlantic Forest to less than 7% of it's original coverage. Zulekia explained how the over harvesting of palmito palm for hearts of palm causes a trophic cascade as it is such an important food source for furgiverous animals. Loss of this species reduces the amount of seed-dispersing birds in the forest.

Lapwing at Coritiba vs Corinthians

Brazil

Lapwing at Botanical Garden, Curitiba

It's been a while since my last post. A month perhaps. I have a lot to cover. Denali, Anchorage, Philly. Pine Barrens, Key Largo and Brazil. I write this in a private Brazilian hospital emergency room waiting room. I'm waiting for program's TA as she has come down with bronchitis and has a high fever. I'm watching a TV show about Cape gannets in Portuguese. I'm in Curitiba, a city of two million in the state of Parana in southern Brazil.

It's fitting that the show I'm watching is about South Africa as I am in another part of the southern hemisphere's sub tropics. I find the southern temperate regions especially fascinating. I want to spend more time exploring these regions. I am especially interested in auracaria forests. Curitiba's city seal is of a Brazilian pine, an auracauria. These columnar trees with strange upside-down umbrella crowns are found thorough the city. Unfortunately I don't think my trip will visit any wild stands auracauria forest. It will have to wait till my next visit when I also travel to Argentina and Chile to see monkey puzzle tree forests.

I guess I'll start in Brazil since I'm here. I'll fill in the rest with “retro-blogs” when I'm home. We arrived in Brazil about two weeks ago. We landed in Sao Paulo and took a connecting flight to Curitibia. Not surprisingly the first bird was black vulture followed by a southern lapwing. The hostel we stayed in was fantastic and had fantastic grounds to bird. Tropical parula, an unidentified spinetail and many southern house wrens and rufous bellied thrush were found from the decks. Rufous honeros are everywhere here and it's really cool to see their mud dome nests on telephone poles and Brazilian pines. We spent the rest of the day eating at a churrascaria (Brazilian barbeque and buffet) and visiting the botanical gardens.

Southern lapwings are everywhere, and I mean everywhere. All over the botanical gardens, even walking on top of the topiary hedges. Lapwings are noisy, the local name, “quero-quero “ means “I want, I want”. It's apt as the birds do sound like a whiny child. I even saw a lapwing with chick remain on the field during a football match. Coritibia aka Coxa (Curitiba's team) played the Corinthians from Sao Paulo. The lapwing and chick never left the field! Occasionally a player would come too close and the mother would fly up and even harass the players. I don't know how the chick wasn't trampled.

OK back to the story. After some morning birding at the hostel and breakfast were off to Paranagua. Brazilian breakfast consists of sweet breads, caramel spread, chocolate cake, ham and of course, coffe. We took the ferry from Paranagua across a bay to Guaraquecaba.

. During the crossing we saw cocoi herons as well as great egrets and little blue herons feeding on mud flats near mangroves. The bay in surrounded by rainforest covered mountains. We had several dolphin sightings. The low triangular and non curved dorsal fins made me think they may be La Plata dolphins, the South American estuarine members of the river dolphin family. However they are apparently shy of boats and occur in low densities. Maybe we saw more than one kind of dolphin? Soon we saw our first brown boobies diving into the dolphin pods. Magnificent frigate birds were constantly overhead and often mixed with black vultures in thermals over islands. Occasionally a frigatebird could be seen pursuing a booby or royal tern. I believe I saw a snowy-capped tern, but I'm not sure if they occur over such open water. I think they are more of a marsh tern. Out n the bay I witnessed one of the most amazing wildlife spectacles I ever witnessed, two rafts of neotropic cormorants in the THOUSANDS!. I never know neotropic cormorants occurred in such congregations. There must have been ten thousand between the two groups. Brown boobies were also in big numbers, in groups of dozens and even some in the hundreds. With the bay surrounded by mountains I suspect the bay could be quite steep and deep, maybe there is a canyon and an upwelling like a mini Monterrey Bay? Maybe it is a seasonal occurrence, the birds and dolphins drawn to spawning fish or a anadromous fish run.

Fairbanks

I left camp on a Department of Natural Resources chopper that was ferrying in the Fish and Game guys who will be sharing camp for three weeks banding ducks. The chopper was a Bell 212 “Huey” , the twin engine version of the classic Vietnam war workhorse. I was thrilled to fly in it. I had to wear a Nomex flight suit. The chopper was used by the DNR's forest fire service and in addition to the pilot the bird arrived with a fire service person who was assigned to the chopper to coordinate fire fighting operations should the machine be called in to fight a fire. The fire service guy was an ex-Navy SEAL who now DJ's parties in Thailand in his off-season. That guy's life is sure dull!

When I touched down in Fairbanks I was struck by the noise, we landed right in town on a busy street. I hadn't heard a car in three months. Remote tundra and boreal forest is extremely quite. You can hear the wing beats of a warbler while inside your tent, a flock of shovelers bombing in to land sounds like a B-52. I was in such culture shock upon landing it was hilarious. I took a cab from the DNR offices to where I would be staying in Ester, just west of Fairbanks. I was staying with Judie Gumm and her husband Richard. Judie has a successful business making nature themed jewelry, you most likely have seen her work in catalogs. The Gumms put me up in their cabin on the grounds of their place in Ester, which also includes a store and workshop.

Ester in a cool little dirt road town nestled in woods on the side of Ester Dome just a few miles out of Fairbanks. Ester is know for the Golden Eagle Saloon, which lets you grill your own hamburgers and steak on a grill. Richard lent me a mountain bike and after the first time I slept in a bed and took a shower in three months I headed into town to get my gear and and help Florian (the manager of the Avian Influenza lab) load up a resupply for camp.

The next day I headed into town to get a sleeping bag and tent for my trip to Denali. I was successful in both missions. I also stopped by Cramer's Fields and the Alaska Bird Observatory and took in some birding. Cramers Fields in a farm mananged fro migratory waterfowl and cranes. Many sandhill cranes were feeding as I passed by. Behind ABO's closed visitor center I found my first two life birds of the trip, Townsend's Warbler and Hammond's Flycatcher coming into their water drip. It is so hot and dry in interior AK that it made sense to find these birds there. Later I met up with a local birder, James and we tried to find some birds around Fairbanks. August is a bad time to find birds in town as James apologized for numerous times. I just enjoyed his company and the freedom to watch non duck birds.
I birded with James the next day and went to see the culminating performance of the Fairbanks Summer Festival. This is two weeks of music, dance and art classes taught by staff brought in from around the world. Fairbanks has a brutal winter to say the least and its location as access point for remote Alaska and having a large University brings in a large temporary and transient population. I get the impression that residents recognize this and have gotten pretty creative in their ways of dealing with it, Fairbanks just has a cool vibe, I wish I had more time to spend there but Denali was calling.

Oh as for spruce grouse, a hen and her chicks were seen in the Gumm's year while I was out birding with James!

Delta Dawn

A few weeks ago my boss' PhD advisor came to visit the camp for two days. Really great guy, he brought his 6 year old daughter for her first field experience. It was a blast having them out. That little girl was a trip. She loved playing with Delta, my boss' dog and expert nest searcher. when she was asked who she was going to miss most, she exclaimed emphatically and with out hesitation, "Delta!".

As I spend my last few hours in camp making arrangements for my travels about Alaska and packing up my kit, I wonder who I'll miss most. It's a toss up between Jolene the moose, Ryan and Delta. But Delta is hard to beat.

Molting Shoveler

We have been doing molting drives the last few days. These are much like duckling drives except we are going for adult birds during the time they are flightless during molting. We caught 108 birds in one two drives two days ago. I got to band an entire drive's worth, about 50 birds! Yesterday I got to band my first blue-winged teal. We also had a duckling goldeneye that got caught in the drive, I banded him too!

Loons

The last week or so at least 70 common loons have been in front of camp on the lake. Sometimes just beyond our boats. Sometimes they are so loud in the morning they wake me up. Stupid loud loons! Makes me want to throw something at them! (Jokie!) Actually there isn't a sweeter sound. Two Pacific Loons were with them a week ago, unfortunately they didn't come to close to shore that time.

The wind is blowing fierce, hence I have time to post. We can only do our bait trap rounds (twice a day) and do no drive trapping. The wind blows the duckings and our kayaks all over. However the bait trap rounds can take 2 to 4 hours depending on how many birds we catch each and how far out and apart from each other our traps are. We move them often.

Few days left in camp on to Denali

Wild Iris

I have only a few days left in camp. I'll be flying out to Fairbanks on the 30th or 31st. I'll spend a few days around Fairbanks then off to Denali for two nights and to Anchorage. A very nice birder and local artist has offered to let me stay in her cabin near town. What an amazing offer and it goes to show what a strong community the birding community is! I've certainly hosted my share of travellers in my day but now I got to come up with some more traditional accommodations to repay the non punk birders! I'm not sure how many birders would want to stay in my punk house in the anarchist enclave, however we do have a roof top garden and a moon bounce in the back yard. My Aunt does have a house in Cape May and that is how I've been keeping up the more traditionally adult birder accommodation karma up.

I plan to rent a bicycle while I'm in Fairbanks and try to see a spruce grouse.

I doubt I'll be able to post much until I get back to Philly, and my camera is at home so unless, like out here, other people take pictures then I'll have to do just text posts.

Oh, I heard new info on the bear, it was drinking their beer! No wonder they shot it. Amazing!
I learned today that Alaskans don't lock thier cabins in the bush to let people who get into trouble access to shelter, water and food. Also it is common to leave bung wrenches on fuel drums to help out folks who are stranded without fuel.

I'm so exhausted from catching ducks all day, we work till midnight or two sometime even three then back at in the morning. I'm teetering on the brink of exhaustion and barely get enough sleep to function. Haven't had a day off in almost three months Can't wait to just kick it.

The Family

The funny thing about the family is that we have caught at least three hens with them. We have no idea who the real mother is. We should take them on Jerry Springer and do a DNA test.

Bait Trapping

Recaptured Mallard Hen, this one has a reward band.

While we still are brood driving we have started bait trapping. Bait trapping consists of a welded wire fence loop that has the open end for a funnel. The top is covered with deer fencing. The trap is zip-tied to rebar and stuck in a cleared area of mud or shallow water. Barley and corn is spread around the outside of the trap and through the funnel and inside. Eventually once the birds know about the trap only the funnel and inside is baited. The birds can't seem to find the way out, like a fish trap. We roll up to the trap and open a section of the top and fish the birds out with a dip net.

Currently we are catching mostly ducklings and occasionally the attending hen. We are beginning to catch molting males.

We have been catch the same eight mallard duckings for the last three weeks. They are in the same trap at least once a day. We refer to them as "the family".

Bladderwort sp.

This is a really cool carnivorous plant that is quite common here in bogs and marshy areas.

keeping duckings warm

Grebe Chick

Horned Grebe Chick,

Today we got a horned grebe and its chick in a bait trap. The chick was surprisingly docile considering the ferocity of its parent. Brandt despite handling thousands of birds in his day was quite nervous of taking the adult from the dip net, even with his manly field mustache.

The bear is dead

The Fish and Game guys reported that people staying at a cabin nearby killed a bear on their porch last week. The bear turned out to be a grizzly.

We actually met these guys on July 4th. They had a huge air boat and stopped by to say hello. The one guy was super jacked and bald and he was driving the boat high up on his chair. He reminded me of Lord Humongous from the road warrior.

Cold Missouri Waters, Demystification of What's Going On

Wigeon Duckling

I mentioned the song "Cold Missouri Waters" a few posts back. My dear friend Julie sent my Cry Cry Cry's chilling version of it and I am extremely grateful. The song was written by James Keelaghan about the Mann Gulch Fire of Montana in 1949. The lyrics are pretty much the exact story and very little artistic license is taken. Man, this is a strange time we live in, it's cool that you can just google a song and find out the story behind it. However, I wonder if too much demystification is a bad thing? Should we have any information we want so easily at at fingertips? As Joseph Campbell reminds us,mysticism and mythology is important. However Daniel Quinn would argue as he does in "Ishmael" that the wrong mythology can lead to the destruction of a culture and even the world.

For a song that argues for demystification I recommend "Demystification" by the great English anarchist punk band Zounds from the early 80's. I love the line, "I'm not looking for escapism, I just want to escape." Brilliant.