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The Snowy Owls are going bananas! One of them showed up by Ft McHenry today! Just hope there's some around at the weekend!!
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Dec 3, 2013 23:34
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razz posted:
Yeah, any time you see some major thing like this it's probably due to food shortages. What I read is that Greenland expects to lose their entire population eventually due to lemming population crashes in large part due to climate change. Definitely something to lower your excitement levels while you enjoy these birds  . The owl at the fort was reportedly being harassed like hell by gulls and even a Peregrine Falcon. There was a big Razorbill irruption even into Florida last year that probably means bad things I was reading on ebird. You have to enjoy it while you can.
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Dec 4, 2013 02:07
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I was able to see my first Snowy yesterday!! It was from a distance but still amazing. I hope to see more before the season is over. On my local listserv there was a report of a ton of them moving through Newfoundland so those might end up making their way here. I wonder how many are here already that we just haven't found? Sometimes I wonder this about all rare species. I am doing a couple CBCs this year. One this weekend and then one on the eastern shore the weekend of the 28th. Also they have stopped shooting the owls in NY. Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 14:35
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Dipping on chases really pisses the poo poo out of me sometimes. I wanted so bad to see this Rough-legged Hawk but it went away just a couple hours before I got up to see it this morning. Then I missed the nearby Sandhill Cranes too. Just a part of birding. But the worst part!!
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Dec 21, 2013 20:52
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Nearly every time I chase a bird I end up wondering why I did it. If I see the bird, especially if it's one I've seen before and not something spectacularly cool, it's like, "Yep, it's still there." If I dip then I feel like I just wasted my time. I've been trying to spend more time trying to find my own rarities rather than chase other's. I'm not exactly finding a lot mega rare birds for the region, but I've found a surprising amount of county and regional rarities this year. I have certain unofficial rules for when I will chase something. I chase something that I haven't seen before or rarely see, and is within an hour for the most part. I felt bad for the one lady who came up from Ocean City. Yikes! I will also chase if the bird in question will take me to an area I have yet to explore myself. I also will chase if the area I am going to can be birded anyway even without the rarity. These are my "rules" that I can think of. Someone could argue that it's just a cheap way to see a bird. And I understand this. But seeing the MacGillivray's Warbler like I did was completely worth it and gave me good experience with a bird that I would never otherwise see around here. And now that I've seen it I can use that experience to maybe even find it myself in the future. I wish I were better at finding rarities myself but I never seem to. But I did find some unassisted White-winged Crossbills last year. I wish I lived just a little closer to Swan Harbor so I could check it more. Seems like so many rarities turn up at that location!! There's Barnacle Geese up around there now. Even though I hate geese I'm gonna go check them out on Christmas morning if they're still around.
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Dec 24, 2013 01:35
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I just don't like them!  They're loud and annoying and poo poo everywhere. I do like seeing Snow Geese and Ross's. This weekend I saw a blue-morph snow goose. It's not really true that I don't find rarities either. I just don't usually go looking for ducks and shorebirds and such as much as warblers. But I am usually turning up the uncommon to rare species of warblers. But I always focus on what I missed because it's just always my mindset to focus on the negative. Speaking of which this past weekend I did a CBC on the eastern shore and I SAW AN ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER!!! My first for the east. That brings my warbler total for this year to 36 when you include the MacGillivray's. I'd have a perfect year in MD if I had made it out to western MD to find Golden-winged. God drat it!
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Dec 29, 2013 15:53
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BeastOfExmoor posted:The ABA area big year record has been broken: That's a great total for a single county. Good news that you can even go for it. My main counties basically can't be touched in terms of record. Orange-crowned are rare but regular migrants and wintering residents around here. They're a bit less rare on the eastern shore, so being there for the count gave me an opportunity and I was able to find one. Susquehanna State Park which is around here is great for warbler species diversity in spring(a guy got 29 warblers in one day last spring, and even missed a couple I think). You can find almost all the spring warblers there. This makes it fairly easy to get 30+ warblers a year if you can bird that regularly in the spring. edit: In MD you can get 36 warblers in a typical year. So I'm at 35 for MD. The 36th was MacGillivray's, which was in PA. The one I missed this year was Golden-winged. I didn't make it out to western MD and I narrowly missed it at my usual fall warbler place a couple times. It's rare in this part of MD. Used to be a lot more common several decades ago. Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Dec 29, 2013 |
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Dec 29, 2013 20:26
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I've had HORRIBLE luck with Snowies. But thankfully I have seen just one of them, so I won't completely miss them. But every. single. time. I try to go find one I either don't find one or the one that was there isn't present. It's balancing out I guess from how lucky I got with the irrupting winter finches last year. I got them just about every time I tried and scored big on the Common Redpolls.
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Jan 12, 2014 22:21
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Got to see Pink-footed Geese today. WOW!! Now there's a rarity! That one isn't even in most of the books here.
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Feb 2, 2014 01:30
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Crossposting from TFF in a more appropriate thread about my Florida visit: I had a fantastic time and ended up seeing about 130 birds in 5.5 days including 20 life birds. (Actually I just checked and it's like 23 according to this one) Those were Black-bellied Whistling-duck Mottled Duck American Bittern Reddish Egret Roseate Spoonbill Swallow-tailed Kite Short-tailed Hawk Purple Gallinule Limpkin Snowy Plover Wilson's Plover Piping Plover Long-billed Curlew Lesser Black-backed Gull Eurasian Collared Dove Common Ground-Dove Barn Owl Red-cockaded Woodpecker Crested Caracara Nanday Parakeet Monk Parakeet(They are countable after all!!) Loggerhead Shrike Florida Scrub-jay And finally...BACHMAN'S SPARROW!!! Got a great look at this one too!!! And I saw some other cool stuff that I've seen before again like Painted Bunting and what have you. Just had a great time all around when I was birding and when I wasn't from start to finish. My host was awesome and joined me on some of my later in the day birding trips. The one where we saw the Barn Owl was especially magical. Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Feb 27, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 17:11
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I would just still call it "owling". Anytime owls are the main focus of a bird expedition it's owling. Like howling without the h.
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Feb 27, 2014 14:15
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BetterLekNextTime posted:
Thanks. I'm really pleased with myself. But I did make a few errors. First it took me three times to actually see a Red-cockaded. I heard them all three times but didn't get a visual till the final try and I don't like counting life records for non-nocturnal birds as heard-onlys. The first error was when I went to this Babcock-Webb place I didn't realize the roads would be that bumpy(was driving my friend's older car) so I had to bail kind of early, especially after it got windy and I couldn't hear anything anymore. I also got lost trying to get to the entrance cause Google sent me to some boyscout camp instead of the wildlife area. However this wasn't a total loss because in this nonsense is where I saw the Swallow-tailed Kites, which I didn't expect to see on this trip. So I was thrilled about that. I finally saw the RCW in Withlacoochee state forest after two tries there, I found where to go and got one of the clusters. So that was that. But if I didn't take so many tries here I could have seen even more birds than I did. I would have chased something like Snail Kite, Burrowing Owl, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, or something else. I should have gone to this place called Hains on the day I went to Babcock-Webb since it was a little further south. But they were calling for storms that day and I didn't want to get potentially caught in a thunderstorm that far away from home in a place I didn't know. Another thing is I got so excited the day I was looking for and finding Bachman's Sparrow that I forgot to look for Sedge Wren which I wanted to see down there. Oops! They are seen up here now and then though so I'm not too upset about it. But all in all it was a lot of fun and she and I hope to do something else like this again in the future. It was easily my best trip I've ever taken.
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Feb 27, 2014 22:02
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What makes that definitely a Blue Grosbeak? I don't see any rufous color on the wings but maybe that's just the image. I thought Indigo when I first saw it. I don't really see much of a mask there either that a BG would show. It's more the small Indigo Bunting kind to me. Mystery pic I'm seeing juvenile Starlings also. Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Mar 5, 2014 02:06
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Finally got my lifer King Rail last night. Generally have bad luck with Rails and Bitterns and such but it was calling and I got behind this bird blind and was even able to locate the bird in the grass!! I went back to Florida again too! This time I didn't chase as much and relaxed more(just focused on incoming warblers a lot of the time!) but I did manage to get Snail Kite, Burrowing Owl, Black-whiskered Vireo and Bronzed Cowbird. I also saw spring Western Sandpipers and got Summer Tanager as a lifer which I never bothered to look for in MD for whatever reason. I'm pissed that I missed out on Swainson's Warbler though. Oh well, Great Dismal Swamp here I come!
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Apr 21, 2014 16:30
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There's lots of variations on the Carolina Chickadee. The one with the tune almost sounds like some kind of clock. But there's one that's less tuneful also. The first time I heard the tuneful one I was sure it was some kind of warbler or something rare I didn't know it was the same as the chickadee. Fee bee fee bay.
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May 6, 2014 14:15
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Finally got to see a super cooperative Mangrove Cuckoo today.
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May 8, 2015 23:49
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BeastOfExmoor posted:drat. After the trip I just took to Texas this may be my most desired North American bird. Are you in Florida? Awesome! I'd love to see one of those. I gotta get out and see some more of those western birds. When I get the chance is the question! On the cuckoo...Well I gotta admit I kinda cheated . I went out of the continental US to get it. But who cares it was still tough to actually get a look at one. I was out with my mom since it's close to mother's day which was real cool cause she got to be on one of my bird walks. So she's a photographer and she even got a pic of it!!!!My previous attempts at this bird(one outside the continental US also) were completely futile. But it's big so I can't get it on here. Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 12:26 on May 9, 2015 |
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May 9, 2015 12:10
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Ok I'll work on that. I'm headed home today and have a long day of travel coming up so you won't see it till sunday but I really like the pic she got. It was cool it reminded me of when I was a kid and she used to take me places birding. Never thought she'd be the one I'd see the Mangrove "c*********" Cuckoo as I had come to call it. edit: Edited in case someone is offended by that! Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 14:49 on May 9, 2015 |
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May 9, 2015 12:28
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http://i.imgur.com/7VhJa4W.jpg Here it is! I think my mom did a pretty good job with this pic.
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May 10, 2015 12:50
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Recently found my first Golden-winged Warbler outside of western MD in some time. Also got to look at a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper someone found in our state for the first time ever. Wow!!
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Sep 6, 2017 01:22
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Nice! It's migration time- get out there and look for birds! Oh yeah I'm on it. Warbler migration is my favorite. I only need one more this year for my first ever complete warbler year in MD. I always miss one--but this year I have Golden-winged, Connecticut and Mourning already in the bag. Just need Orange-crowned, which should be coming through soon. Also RIP to the Chat being in the warblers. We knew it never was, but still sad to see it go! Now just 35 regular warblers as opposed to 36.
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Sep 6, 2017 14:56
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It's always nice when you see a spruce tree and say "Hey a spruce tree, maybe a cape may is hiding up in there" so you go and check and sure enough, there is a cape may up in that spruce tree!
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Sep 11, 2017 23:44
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Saw that Swallow-tailed Gull on ebird pics. That's nuts!! One of few gulls I'd bother chasing after if it came around here by some miracle.
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Sep 12, 2017 16:44
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Some recent rarity finds for me: Dickcissel(tough in my county, also never seen one off breeding grounds), and Mississippi Kite(lots of fun to watch its acrobatics).
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Oct 6, 2017 14:03
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White-tailed is the last North American Kite I haven't seen. Wonder if they're a lot like their Mississippi counterparts! I really need to use that level of ebird more. I kind of get annoyed though cause sometimes I feel like birders around here spend too much time on ebird, looking at other peoples lists and just following those. Just recently I went to this spot, that's a pretty good birding area. Got some nice habitat and stuff. Turns out there hadn't been a single list submitted from there this ENTIRE YEAR. I couldn't believe it. I went there and had a great day with like 60-some species. People concentrate on the main hubs, I get the sense because that's where other people are submitting lists and that's where all the birds supposedly are. I talked to my friend about it and he's like "oh yeah, that place is only good if certain winter irruption birds are showing up". Utter nonsense, and based solely on ebird lists rather than actual experience at the area. So my goal lately is to get to these areas that may be just marginally worse than the "main" spots and get the birds there that other people aren't getting. Some good birds are probably being missed. Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 15:32 on Oct 8, 2017 |
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Oct 8, 2017 15:22
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Hey, you can't throw those rio grande valley birds at me like that! Speaking of which, I need to get down to that area someday.
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Oct 10, 2017 17:50
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Do it soon. That dumb-rear end border wall is going through some of the refuges. Good idea. Visiting there I mean not the wall. I can never have nice things birding. Lutha Mahtin posted:I think you shouldn't get too discouraged with eBird. Getting mad because the users of a website don't seem to understand statistics and economics on the level that you do is always going to end in frustration. It's great that you're going to less-reported places though Oh I'm not really mad with ebird at all  . Best site of all time. Just get frustrated that people won't spread out a little more or try different places. I noticed that a few more people went to my place the other day after I put up a list. So hope I can help do my part. BetterLekNextTime posted:^^^ For what it's worth, there's a LOOOONNNGGG history of know-it-all birders trying to show off– eBird didn't start that. And don't forget about the back end of eBird- all those data are used for research too, not just as a listing/sighting tool. Hah, this is why I hate birding in big groups a lot of the time. I feel like there's such an effort to appear knowledgeable. I was in a group like a month ago and it's like every time something happened somebody had to have some know-it-all comment. Like we had a Cuckoo and some woman is like "See? Did you hear what I just said before?? This is cuckoo country!!" and we were trying to figure out this gnarly immature warbler song and the guy was wondering if it was a Canada, so some other guy goes on like a minute-long spiel about how the Canadas have mostly already gone through, so he "highly, highly doubts" it would be that. As if the group didn't know that already. Then there was this time we were looking for a bird in this park, and one guy who didn't like the other guy started accusing the guy of scaring the rare bird off. He kept trying to smear the other guy's name, saying like "the bird's over the buildings there. It's gone! Quit even looking for it he scared it off! It's gone!" like 50 times. It got so annoying that I positioned a bush between me and that guy so I didn't have to see him while I tried to find this bird. Of course it flew right out of the grass a few minutes later, not gone at all. These birders are such a weird bunch sometimes! But I just find this stuff hilarious for the most part I don't get mad at it at all.
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Oct 11, 2017 01:31
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Jeez, that's like more bad/dumb birder behavior than I've had in 5 years of birding. Every birding group I've been a part of has been fairly enjoyable, although I avoid the Audubon walks that seem to attract the same ten retired people every week. Oh man that's just scratching the surface. Another ridiculous story: A few years back there was a rare sparrow bonanza where multiple different rare sparrows turned up in the same small area on the same day. So naturally tons of people were there. There were some birds coming out of the grass so we were watching them do so. And I guess this guy and the people by him were looking at one bird and I was looking at another. So one person asked what it was and I said "Oh that's a savannah sparrow". Well I guess instead of thinking I was looking at a different bird than he was this other guy just says "Noo it's naaaa~~~aaaahht!!" in this falsetto sing-songy mocking voice. I couldn't believe someone would be such an idiot like that! It was just a song sparrow or something anyway. But yeah this sort of thing almost makes it more fun in a way. These rear end in a top hat birders make you want to do better than them and show them up. My friend and I are always sharing stories about these types.
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Oct 12, 2017 02:53
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Oh man I love sparrows. Funny enough this past spring I ran into a guy who was here from Australia. And he was asking me how the hell we even tell the sparrows apart, cause to him they all looked exactly the same!! That's kind of how I feel about some of those god drat shorebirds sometimes. Though I'm getting better with them. My big dream sparrow is to get a Harris' around here.
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Oct 12, 2017 03:17
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Fall warblers are best warblers!
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Oct 12, 2017 13:00
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Went after a lifer yesterday and actually saw it for a change! I almost always strike out when I go chasing something, but the Nelson's Sparrow stuck it's head out of the reeds within 5 minutes of me being there. What the hell?? I've never seen anything like that in my life. That's some wild stuff there. Also Nelson's Sparrow is a cool bird, sometimes you run into them around here. One of these days I'll actually get a Saltmarsh Sparrow too. A little late but RIP to the Corn Crake. You were too good for Trump's America.
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Nov 11, 2017 14:29
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Me and my crew did pretty drat good. We only had the morning but got almost 70 species. No flagged rarities but several that were basically rare just not flagged. Broke three high count records for the area. Had two years of crappy weather doing this count so this one felt real good. Cant wait for next year!
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Dec 21, 2017 01:20
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Mountain bluebirds are still on my wishlist. My dream is to spot one in MD. I love this time of year here cause the freshwater marsh birds are around. King Rail, Virginia Rail, Bittern, Sora, all that good stuff. Maybe another Yellow Rail if we're lucky.
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Apr 13, 2018 19:51
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Just saw a bittern yesterday. Usually I have to work a little harder to find them, but this guy was out in the open. Its great when they do that. Leasts are a lot more trouble to get a look at, in my experience anyway. Had a pretty cool sighting the other day with a couple Little Gulls that got thrown slightly inland after a night of bad weather.
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Apr 20, 2018 03:15
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I haven't seen a least bittern in forever- I love those guys. Yeah, definitely much harder to find. You know funny enough, I just got a great look at a Least a week or so ago. Probably my best look at one ever. I should complain more about birds I don't get to see. Lewis' I always dream will just show up here. Itll never happen but I hope. Collared dove is a funny one for me cause I had my life bird after locking my keys in the car in Florida. I noticed the doves sounded weird and what do you know! Too bad about bins. Other recent findings have included Orange-crowned Warbler, my nemesis(to find myself), and a backyard Summer Tanager, a rarity here. Warblers are finally coming through in numbers so its time to hunt!! My new nemesis warblers? Those darn hybrids!! The Lawrences and the Brewsters. Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 00:52 on May 2, 2018 |
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May 1, 2018 23:33
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Violet-green swallow. I was worried it was going to be collared dove. There's a decent chance I'll get my county list over 200 this weekend too. I'm going on a field trip through one of the local Audubon societies to the east part of the county. The target birds are some cool ones like Phainopepla and Lewis's Woodpecker.
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Nailed a Bicknell's Thrush this morning. Maybe my best ever find.
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May 18, 2018 21:39
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Found a LeConte's Sparrow this morning. Always wanted to find one of those.
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Oct 31, 2018 23:39
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https://abcbirds.org/article/new-st...eSRF29U6ZLlEDMA Something to keep in mind while we are enjoying birding. As someone who's birdwatched since I was a kid it's been very obvious that there have been declines in numbers(in the last decade it's been VERY noticeable), but it's "nice" to have some actual statistics to go along with it now. In better news I found a Connecticut Warbler the other day! Always a fall fav around here. Kawalimus fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Sep 20, 2019 |
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Sep 20, 2019 01:51
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Headed down to the coast with my buddy yesterday. We found a Lark Sparrow!! Only second one ive seen in MD and first one ive been involved in finding initially.
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Nov 12, 2019 18:25
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Got a Mountain Bluebird, Whooping Cranes, and Scissor-tailed Flycatchers all in Florida today. All life birds!
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Mar 1, 2020 02:34
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