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There seems to be lots of birders around. Nice! There seems also to be birders with completely different approaches to their pasttime, which is always interesting. I'd like to share my aspect on it, since it seems to be completely different. For me, the essence of birding is not the bird itself, it's the subjective value of an observation. It might be 10 000 Steller's Eiders on one day, a twitched Eastern Imperial Eagle another day. It might be zero Ruffs on a week of May, a late European Nightjar on an October night, or an record-breaking early Common Tern, or the lack of Barn Swallows one spring. It might also be something absolutely trivial that simply calibrates my notions of what is interesting and special re: other active birders, like a nocturnal Redwing on early August. A Pallid Harrier in late August is not very interesting, a Montague's is - and vice versa in the spring. Even though they both are very interesting to me personally, another one has more "punch" when it comes to other birders and generates more interest and discuss. When I go abroad, I generally pick a list of elusive, difficult or rare birds that I want to find. Usually I don't see them, but the seek gives me lots of stuff I would otherwise miss, like Reichenbach's Sunbird in Ghana, Verreaux's Eagle Owl in South Africa or weird vangas of Madagascar. So, it might be said that I aim for some very freak form of bragging rights? It's most likely indicative of the birding culture I have spent my entire life in. Even though many of my friends are active ringers, mostly spending their time ringing Robins, tits, Willow Warblers and finches in remote islands, I have never really enjoyed that facet. For me, it's the migration that's the thing. I don't particularly enjoy walking for several kilometers just in the hope of seeing a Great Snipe or Richard's Pipit, I much rather stare at the empty sea in the hopes of a Pomarine Jaeger, Kittiwake, some lunatic raptor or a Spoonbill. I want to see something that I and other people consider interesting, nevermind just what it exactly is. And that makes me often dismiss the popularized, highly vulgarized, newspaper friendly "birdwatching meetings" as something that's only superficially like my hobby. They produce no interesting observations, but do, nonetheless, give birds more publicity, which is nice from conservation point. It also drives me crazy, since my LWHG identification skills are not up to par, and I don't have Caspian on my ticklist! Argh! The highly social and interconnected, relatively competitive birding culture of Finland seems to place very high emphasis on indentification skills, specialization and active days per year. Lifeticks are also generally considered a good indicator of "general birding knowledge", to the point where crossing 300 is nowadays considered an entry to standard club and ~360 is "you're getting to it" - for comparison, there have been 471 species recorded in Finland in total, so 360 is by no means trivial, unless you have looots of money and time. Almost no one has broken 350 without twitching a lot. El Perkele fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Aug 29, 2013 |
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Aug 29, 2013 10:12
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razz posted:I like hearing about how other people view birding. There's no wrong way to enjoy birds. Unlike you, I enjoy the "walking several kilometers" in the hopes of seeing something part. Walking around outdoors is my favorite part of birding. Actually it's just one of my favorite things to do in general. I can walk for hours and hours. I find all sorts of cool stuff out walking around. I regularly find skulls, deer antlers, feathers, fossils, and all sorts of cool things. It just adds to my outdoor experience. The funny thing is, I love walking around when looking for lichens, mosses, polypores, butterflies, dragonflies and heteroptera. It just doesn't really translate to birds. Guess I'm a seawatcher, or what's the english term for migration observation? There is also a very, very heavy social component to my birding. My friend has a blog, the title of which says "about 10 % of birding has to do with birds", and I agree. We usually love to spend time just standing in a birdwatching tower, shittalking other people, birds and each other, pondering about cultural and social aspects of birding and having pointless discussions about etymology or obscure birding history. Guess that's why I love to spend time in bird observatories, because they're pretty much "seawatching/hanging around with people/doing something stupid, like macroing crustose lichens".
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Aug 30, 2013 07:11
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Carolina Parakeet is not as well-known as Passenger Pigeon, Great Auk or Dodo, but it is, at least for me, by far the most infuriating.
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Aug 31, 2013 09:37
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ExecuDork posted:My binoculars are Bushnells, a brand that I think is well-regarded; in any case, I'm happy with them. 8x42 (that's decent magnification and big enough at the light-gathering end they're fairly bright) and waterproof / very rugged (I've dropped them into all sorts of wet and rocky places, no damage yet!). They cost me $100 about 5 years ago. I really, REALLY suggest anyone who is interested in good picture and long durability to invest in good (=expensive) binoculars. Nikon Monarch series is usually considered great value (comes at about 300$), as are Hawke ED Frontiers (about 550$) - with these, the picture quality, durability or longevity are not limiting factors. They also pack a punch above their price level and can beat more expensive older roof prisms quite often in different tests and field use - which is really good, since we had a long period when we lacked high-quality low-price field suitable binocs. I find Hawkes a bit cumbersome and they're not very suitable to combined bird-butterfly-dragonfly hobby, but they are nonetheless great binoculars. Pretty much every model that runs over 400$ is hermetically sealed and has lens coating. If you are super-serious about birding, then obvious choice is to invest in high-end binoculars, since with them there is even less chance that you miss an ID due to technological limits. I use old Swarovski AT80HD 20-60x as my scope and Swaro EL 8x32 as my binoculars. The combination is expensive, but lasts long (scope has served me for 14 years and still going strong, I assume the binoculars will run 10+ years easily without need to update) and I rarely encounter situations where my equipment leaves me lacking. Usually it's the talents or the situation that causes trouble. Of course, you have to be very serious about birding if making such an investment. I also have Pentax Papilio 8,5x21 as my summer/work insect binoculars. They are... good for their price, but the FoV is narrow, performance in suboptimal lighting is unsatisfactory, construct is a bit shoddy and they are not sealed at all. Investing in good, high-quality binoculars is a good, long-term choice that pays off every time you're birding.
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Sep 9, 2013 15:58
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InternetJunky posted:I'm fairly sure it's a juvenile Parasitic Jaeger. Here's a poorer shot of the top of the bird showing the much darker colouring: It's a gull, in Europe I would say Herring sp. Jaegers show large white patches on the underside of primaries and pale shafts on the uppersides; also the upperside coloration is different. Here's Arctic, two 1cy (pale and dark morph) http://tarsiger.com/gallery/index.php?pic_id=Dick1314858877&lang=eng
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Sep 9, 2013 19:48
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InternetJunky posted:That's disappointing. Based on the size I was sure I had the right bird! Be not disappointed, you will see Jaegers at some point. Probably when weather is horrible. I have seen most of my Baltic autumn jaegers during very strong westerly gales (they usually keep out in the open sea during good weather). Size is always really difficult to guesstimate reliably in the field and is generally not as good indicator of species as colouration, behaviour or jizz. Sizes are more often than not estimated completely wrong. For example I can generally only estimate sizes through jizz as in "very slow wing-beat indicates a very large bird" or "flight style quite similar to LBBG, probably ~similar-sized". Direct comparison is useful. And different gulls are very differently-sized - in reality, most jaegers are same size or even smaller than standard large gulls; even the barrel-chested Great Skua is only a bit larger, but much heavier, than Herring Gulls. They just have different jizz which makes their size bit difficult to estimate correctly.
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Sep 10, 2013 07:17
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The Dregs posted:My kids are fans of Jack Black (his more kid friendly stuff, anyway), and they absolutely love The Big Year. I'm actually kind of disappointed that you guys don't look too favorably on it. They've been asking and asking to try birding, so we're going in the morning. I bought the Audubon Society Field Guide last night to take along with us. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford binoculars. maybe if it goes well we can invest in a decent pair. The local state park (Kennesaw Mountain in GA) is supposed to be a great spot, so that's where we're headed. I like The Big Year. It's stupid, way too traditional and not very realistic, but it handles its prime subject, the social aspect of birding, really well.
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Sep 29, 2013 14:13
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Great birding experiences all around: Saturday: Spent about 4 hours watching arctic goose migration. Cold, strong northern wind. About 7000 geese, mostly Barnacles, flocks often disappeared into clouds. Horrible light. Also 44 Eurasian Jays. No Saimaa Ringed Seal despite relatively good place. Got bored after 4 hours, drove a bit to see if the 10 000 Barnacles were still present in the nearby field. Turns out they were, but before we got a chance to start sweeping through the flock, a young White-Tailed Eagle shows up and chases all the geese away. Hooray! Yesterday: Spent 1 hour watching waterfowl migration. About 7 Black-Throated Loons, some Oldsquaw and couple of Common Scoters. Strong wind, light rain. Today: Spent 30mins in one place watching arctic waterfowls again. 2 Loons, 15 Wigeons (about 4km away). Drive to another location - 1 Chiffchaff. Nothing else. Third location: One flock of Long-Tailed Tits. Cold, strong wind.  I really hope the wind turns soon, this is hopeless.
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Oct 1, 2013 07:25
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On a more serious note, anyone have first-hand experience with following tripods: Gitzo GT3541L, Velbon N650D, with Manfrotto 701HDV? Updating from 028B+501, Gitzo is nice but soooo expensive.
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Oct 1, 2013 07:26
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Kawalimus posted:Wind is the biggest pain in the rear end when birding. It's one of the only things that will get me to cancel a birding outing. I don't have problem with wind per se, I have problems with 6m/s northern winds that have continued for one and half weeks. Luckily wind direction will change soon, that ought to do something. Some of the best sea migrations I have seen were in near-storm westerlies.
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Oct 1, 2013 13:08
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ExecuDork posted:Last week I had a chance to tag along with some owl banding, which was way less work and way more sitting in a farmer's kitchen listening to stories than I expected. Especially on owls and raptors this is very, very common guidance. I usually check every dead bird I find for rings; it's unlikely to find them on common species, but raptors and owls are surprisingly often ringed. BTW, Martin who?
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Oct 17, 2013 21:14
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razz posted:What do you guys think this is, a Laughing Gull or a Franklin's Gull? Hasn't been answered, isn't this 1st winter Franklin (tail, very white underparts, head colouration).
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Dec 12, 2013 15:05
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Kawalimus posted:I wish I were better at finding rarities myself but I never seem to. quote:I hate geese 
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Dec 28, 2013 00:45
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InternetJunky posted:Assuming budget wasn't a big issue, if you had to get a birding scope that would also working well when digiscoping, what would you pick? If the above-mentioned Zeiss seems too steep, then Swarovski ATX 30-70/90x is the next tier. Behind that are the new Zeiss Diascopes and Kowas - which are great scopes, although even their prices have more than enough air. Nowhere near Swaro, though! edit: ATX has all kinds of accessory meant for digiscoping with DSLR setups and the scope itself is phenomenal.
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Jan 5, 2014 11:48
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ExecuDork posted:Does anyone have any strong opinions one way or the other regarding bird feeding? If you are feeding birds throughout winter, you are essentially forcing them to change habits and habitats for your own pleasure! Of course, humans have changed habits and habitats for millennia and birds are remarkably flexible. You are changing community species compositions! This is true and not always necessarily desirable if you view a species composition of year X preferable to that of year X+n. Several North European species have benefitted wildly from widespread bird feeding. This might lead to increased competition in feeding places viz "more original" species (Blue Tits vs. Willow Tits, for example), increased winter and nesting populations (Greenfinch), changing overwintering habits (Blackcap, Blackbird, Robin, Long-tailed Tit, Nuthatch etc.) and thus changing genotypes etc. Of course, urbanization could very well itself lead to these, so... If bird feeding becomes a beneficial factor for an invasive species, then I would most definitely advise against it - at least for some time. Pablo Bluth's remark about bird feeding being ultimately wasteful for humans and nature alike is definitely true - but then again, most of the things mankind does are, so unless you're really adverse to hypocricy in your everyday life and moral choices, you can pretty safely ignore that.
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Jan 6, 2014 09:12
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Tardigrade posted:Anyone have any good experiences owling? It sounded like a terrible hazing ritual at first - midnight, cold, rainy, nothing in sight - but somehow it all feels justified when you finally see (and hear) that screech owl. So worth it. Rainy is bad. Hampers activity and hearing range. Good weather is generally calm, preferably clear or broken skies, and not too cold. Last year we were owling when it was -25 F (-32C) and holy poo poo did it suck balls. We heard one GGO and few Tengmalms, which was bad for that area. I was expecting ~20 owls! But yes, it is a horrible hazing ritual. Generally my friends take glühwein and other warm alcoholic drinks with them and I drive. At least makes it tolerable. And you get to see stars, night, mammals and visit places you have never ever even heard of before. If you really want to hear stuff, you should also look at the normal calling times for different species. Same route can give you completely different species composition if you go through it from 6PM-2AM or from 11PM-6AM.
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Jan 11, 2014 12:02
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Went birding yesterday. ~9½ hours gave me a whopping 32 species, with 3 dips and maybe around 2 easy misses. It was also minus -21 degrees C. God bless winter birding here! Right now 32 species a day is not the maximum, over 33 a day is good, and over 40 almost impossible.
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Jan 20, 2014 16:15
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ExecuDork posted:I'll be travelling in Austria for a little bit in May this year, and I plan to visit as many of their 6 national parks as I can (schedule hasn't been worked out yet, so I might or might not have time to hit them all). Anyway, I'm hoping for a recommendation for a good European Bird Guide. You're all set and have the best practical book. For songs and calls I would recommend Vogelstimmen in phone, but it's kinda expensive. But it does have everything. Every single ridiculous thing. El Perkele fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Jan 22, 2014 |
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Jan 22, 2014 10:31
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Went birding yesterday because there's nothing else to do. It was cold and windy, but we still managed to get 23 species. Best (Eastern Finland, February) were 2 Fieldfares, 2 Blackbirds, a flock of Bohemian Waxwings, White-Backed Woodpecker, Great Grey Shrike and Goshawk. In the evening I also managed to see an Otter, which was nice. Tomorrow we're aiming for Moose, Red Deer, Three-Toed, Lesser Spotted, Black and Grey-Headed Woodpeckers, Siberian Jay, Dipper and owls.
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Feb 3, 2014 19:40
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Is there a good simple english term for owl listening trips (= drive around desolate landscapes in the middle of the night, it is cold, you may hear something)?
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Feb 27, 2014 11:10
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BeastOfExmoor posted:FWIW, owling is the term used in Washington state as well. Ok, good. Translating such concepts is difficult, because the jargons seem to be completely autochthonic and many terms don't even seem to exist outside a very specific set of birders. Some terms seem to be very similar between languages, but could have risen independently - the two bird theory is obvious. Owling is horrible, by the way. Completely abysmal. I like it. Nevertheless I managed to hear 4 species and 12 individuals in two evenings (3 Ural, 1 Eagle, 7 Tengmalm's and 1 Pygmy), which bodes well for owl ringers. El Perkele fucked around with this message at 18:36 on Feb 28, 2014 |
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Feb 28, 2014 18:22
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BeastOfExmoor posted:Someone would have to be kicking me in the balls ever five minutes for this to register as anything less than awesome. The terror of owling is not the evenings you happen to hear them, but the endless hours where you stand in the dark, listening to distant cars, it's too cold, it's 2am, you hear nothing
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Mar 1, 2014 11:01
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InternetJunky posted:Any chance an ID is possible from this picture? There is a James Bond joke to be made here. The bird is not a Scaup species.
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Mar 2, 2014 23:53
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Kawalimus posted: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. Coverts are blue-tinged and no black mask so I support Indigo. And support to Starling as well. El Perkele fucked around with this message at 14:20 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Mar 5, 2014 14:15
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BetterLekNextTime posted:Missed the common merg in your list- right you are! Head and breast pattern are just fine for adultish Gyr, no black in the underwing either.
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Mar 14, 2014 22:33
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for grouse bits
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Monday-Tuesday night, owling: 3 Ural Owls. Today: 1 Long-eared, 1 Eagle Owl. Tengmalms - the most common owl around here - are completely quiet.
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Mar 19, 2014 22:51
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BeastOfExmoor posted:The Kingbird struck me as a Cassin's based on the dark gray head and the relatively small size of the head and bill. All four of those species are pretty tough to ID with certainty though. The second bird is horrible. It has a jizz of a small bird, so I think it's a warbler. Uniform color. Has pale legs, greyish bill and maybe even some sort of retrice markings in secondaries/tertiaries (pale tips). It lacks obvious dark markings in the face. The back is greenish, underside yellowish, but the throat's yellow color might also come from pollen. If this was an ID competition I would probably just say it's a Yellow or Wilson's Warbler (I have a better gut feeling about Yellow, but that's definitely not an ID I would want to use!) and wait for the competition keeper to tell the correct answer. But as it is, I just say this is most likely a warbler sp. El Perkele fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 25, 2014 21:59
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Kawalimus posted: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. Mediocre. They should have played Two Bird Theory.
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Oct 12, 2017 18:29
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Cythereal posted:Yeah, Florida native here. There aren't any shore or wading birds that have feet that look like that to my knowledge - they invariably have one toe sticking backwards from the leg. I raise you sanderling
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Jan 27, 2018 16:51
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