Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch 2014

I volunteer as a hawk counter at the Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch in Virginia.  We are a third of the way through our season and now are on the backside of our Broad-winged Hawk peak.  The current tally for the season is 18,000+ Broadies, several thousand above our season average, but a far cry away from the 32,000 record.  Falcons are doing well this year with Am. Kestrels right on about average.  Merlins and Peregrines are both above average for the date, with their peak in 1-2 weeks.  We've hit 2nd highest season for Osprey already with plenty of time left, if we're lucky we just may break season record of 348 (we're at 293 as of now).  Bald Eagles are doing well with 142 recorded in and PLENTY of time left.  Low Harrier year.  Sharp-shins are off to a great start, peak still to come.  Low Cooper's.  Good early season flights of Red-shoulder and Red-tail with these species not to peak until November.  1 early Golden Eagle on Sept 7th, a nice adult flew overhead.  Highlight this year has to be the Mississippi Kites.  Our 9th ever MIKI at the hawk watch flew past and was photographed on first day of the hawk watch Aug 15th.  Second one of the season making for our first ever multi Kite year on Aug 16th!  Today we had our third, an immature that allowed for photographs.  Looking forward to Accipiter, Falcon, Red-tail, and Golden Eagle season.  Bring on the Goshawks, too!  Check us out on the web www.rockfishgaphawkwatch.org and join our Facebook page.

Help Keep Wildlife Wild!

I have been enjoying watching the Bears in the last week, my first Bear sightings of the year since they have emerged from their winter dens.  I came across a Bear today that was at the edge of a Picnic Area, and potentially in trouble because of some naughty picnickers, had my mom and I not gone to the rescue.  If you are going to be in Bear Habitat this summer (or even if you're not!), please feel free to check out a photo of my Bear sighting today and a description about how to Help Keep Wildlife Wild while in their habitat!  https://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrielmapel/13963598495/

432, 288, what next

Its December 31st 2013 and here we are - New Years Eve is upon us again and it starts all over again.  Starts all over again?  A Non-birder might ask.  But, for a Birder, New Years Morning is one of the funnest mornings of the year.  The Year List starts all over again and every bird species becomes new, one time, until the following year.

Unless a Black Rail magically flies into the flooded creek below my house, and calls, my final count for 2013 will be 432 species, just 5 short of my 2011 record.  And my Year List for my own state of Virginia will be 288 - a number that put me in 3rd place for eBird in Virginia this year.

There are several rarities in my area right now, and tomorrow they become new again.  My Godmother Eve, my mom, and I will be spending the day tracking down these birds, hoping to "twitch" them onto our year lists - Snowy Owl, Brewer's Blackbird, Trumpeter Swan, and Greater White-fronted Goose are all birds I hope to get tomorrow, or very soon.  They're in the area, and great to get "out of the way" so early on.  Snowy Owl I didn't get 'till December this year, and had it not been an irruption year, I would've dipped it.  Brewer's Blackbird I got in Montana this year, and probably will again in 2014, but certainly would be nice to get it out of the way now, especially for Virginia!  Trumpeter Swan is never a sure thing anywhere, and I got it in Ohio in May this year.  Again, probably will again, but certainly nice to have it out of the way so early on, especially for Virginia!  As for Greater White-fronted Goose, it along with the Snowy Owl is the one I REALLY want to get tomorrow, it's do or die, now or nothing.  I could have easily missed it for 2013 (I did for 2012), and would be suuuuuuuuuuuuper nice to have it out of the way on the first day of the year for 2014!

I'll post my Day 1 of 365 2014 results tomorrow.

CBCs

Why?  A non-birder might ask.  Why?  Why spend a day putting hundreds of miles on your car to travel to another state to see a certain bird species.  There are birds everywhere, they might argue.  I've been asked this question by many non-birders.  I explain that I want to see lots of birds, different kinds of birds, and the only way to do this is to travel abroad.  Some non-birders may walk away from that conversation like "I get that but I don't want to do it!" and others may not get it and just go try and find another birder to ask the same question of.  But something that even less non-birders might not understand is why put a hundred miles on your car and spend a day driving back and forth along roads in your own county, looking at 40 some species, most of which I can see in my backyard at one time or another?  Well, it's kinda hard to explain, I'll admit it, but birding is addictive, obsessive, a lost-your-only-mind passion, whatever it is, to a birder, it is FUN.

That's why I participate in Christmas Bird Count.  Not one Christmas Bird Count.  Not two, three, or four Christmas Bird Counts, but I signed up to participate in five different Christmas Bird Counts this year.  Non-birders that spend their life doing things like golfing, quilting, etc, might ask another question: What is a Christmas Bird Count?  A Christmas Bird Count (CBC) is a citizen science project to get a sampling of birds in a 15-mile radius circle.  There are many (hundreds?  thousands?) count circles nationwide, and the "Count Circle Coordinator" gets to pick a date, between December 14 and January 5 to conduct the local CBC.  Then, the data gets submitted to Audubon and becomes part of the annual Christmas Bird Count.  Each Count Circle is divided into Sectors.  Once again the power is given to the Count Circle Coordinator and he or she gets to choose how many Sectors to divide the Count Circle into.  For the data set, it doesn't really mater as the data gets reported by Count Circle, not by Sector.  But it would be impossible for one birder, or one party of birders to thoroughly bird a 15-mile radius area.

Each Sector (Count Circle Coordinators generally choose to divide Circles into about 6-9 Sectors) has a Sector Leader.  As soon as the Count Circle Coordinator asks if someone is willing to be a Sector Leader, and the person agrees, the Sector Leader becomes responsible for managing their sector.  They coordinate with other people joining them, they choose their start time, their route within their sector, etc.  You have to be a good and respected birder to become a Sector Leader because you don't want Joe Blo off the street counting birds, and mis-identifying them.  If you are a new birder, I suggest you contact a Count Circle Coordinator and ask to be assigned as an assistant to a Sector Leader.

Well, that was an H of a lot of explaining about what is a CBC.  Now, the fun part, my experiences of Winter 2013-2014 CBC birding.  Here goes:

As I mentioned above, I signed up to participate as either a Sector Leader (3 or 4 counts) or an experienced assistant (1 or 2 counts) for a total of 5 counts, between December 14 and January 5.  I was going to participate in (all Virginia): Rockingham December 14 (Sector Leader), Augusta December 15 (experienced assistant to my good friend who was Sector Leader), Rockbridge December 22 (Sector Leader), Waynesboro January 4 (either Sector Leader or experienced assistant), and Lake Anna January 5 (Sector Leader).  Unfortunately Rockingam December 14 was postponed to January 4 due to snowy road conditions and since I had signed up as a Sector Leader, I had to drop out of participating in Wayneboro this year.  4 isn't too shabby though :).  Last Sunday, Sector Leader Vic, Rose (both good friends of mine), and I ran SE sector for Augusta count.  We had a fun, but in birding terms, rather uneventful day.

Yesterday my dad and I ran a sector on the north edge of the Count Circle for Rockbridge/Lexington Count.  My dad and I had a fabulous day in our sector logging in 53 species highlighted by a Merlin!  A Merlin (for anyone unaware) is a mid-sized, dark falcon, that usually only passes through this area in migration.  December 21st is bloody late for a migrant Merlin so this was either a rare over-wintering bird or a bird that missed the bus several times!  Showing how rare this Merlin was, this was the first Merlin recorded on the annual Lexington CBC since 1977!  Truly, a fantastiche bird.  Better yet, it posed in great light for us for over 10 minutes while eating breakfast, which, this day was an unfortunate Eastern Bluebird.

I'm looking forward to two more CBCs and I encourage any interested birder to participate in a CBC!  Happy Birding,

Gabriel

Merlin eating Breakfast (Eastern Bluebird)

Back Blogging - Review on 2013 (Part 1)

It's been over 1.5 years sense I wrote my last blog post for this blog - I simply lost the passion for writing for a while.  But I wanta get back into it!  In 2014 I plan to blog my wild adventures.  I'll start now.

Fall migration is over but fortunately wintertime is a good time to bird.  I've had a few surprising things happen for my birding life this year.  First, I managed to record 432 species (thus far, I may not get any more) and I am AMAZED.  My best year ever, my Junior Big Year (www.juniorbigyear.blogspot.com) in 2011 I logged 437.  It's unreal IMO that I came so freaking close to my "record"!  I was hoping, unsure if I could do it, that I would break my total from last year,  305.  Well, I smashed it!  Had I known early on (say, after July) that I had a real shot at breaking my Junior Big Year record, I would have put more effort into it.  A lot more effort into it.   I only started having the thought after I returned from a whirl-whind and amazingly productive trip to Montana, in late August.  After that, I think I sat somewhere right around 400-410.  I kinda thought I had a shot at breaking 2011 but didn't give much thought to it.  Another big "should have" in the life of a birder.  But I had my eyes set on my favorite birding event of the year - 3 months of Hawk Watching had just begun, and I was an official volunteer counter at my local site (Rockfish Gap, in Virginia).  I didn't give much thought to breaking 2011, even though I was only 25 birds away.  To be honest - I didn't want to repeat fall 2011 and miss out on a lot of hawk watching as well as bear and other wildlife watching, just to "twitch" some birds, that probably weren't even lifers.

It wasn't until late-October and I had 420+ "in the bag" that I was like, "Danget, I actually got a clear line-of-vision at the record".  I spent half a day (a very slow half a day at the hawk watch) number crunching in my head.  "Saltmarsh Sparrow 421.  Nelson's 422.  I could get a Sedge Wren at Back Bay, 423.  Probably can swing a Common Eider and Eurasian Wigeon, 425.  Oh, do I have Orange-crowned Warbler yet?  [Ten second pause] Oh danget yeah I remember that, with Vic at Back Bay." On and on.  Trying.  If all went right, and staying in Virginia, I thought I could hit 430-435.  I knew I'd be close.  And I knew that I would need to swing another trip out-of-state, to as far away as New Jersey, in order to set the record.  Which never happened.  So here I sit, watching the email listservs about Barnacle Goose in New Jersey, Thayer's Gull in Virginia Beach (where I was last week, just a little too early), Little Bunting in California, Rustic Bunting in Alaska, La Sagra's Flycatcher in Florida, and that Da'Gone Saltmarsh Sparrow ought to be somewhere on the VA Coast.  There, if I spent a few thousand dollars, I'd have my record.  But not this year.  I'll have to settle for being just a few short.

May finishes..sort of a repeat of last year

The 5th month of 2012, the year after my Junior Big Year is coming to a close.  This is not a Junior Big Year, however my birding is shaping up similarly.  The trips last year are what gave me the big numbers.  So far I have not flown anywhere this year and only have one flying trip planned for the rest of the year.  Obviously, my list is lower at this time than it was last year at this time.  Right now my "year list" is at 209 species, last year at this time that number was 302.  Call it 100 below, it is very close.   Although that is a big difference, the way the birds are shaping up is VERY SIMILAR to last year, only with less bird species since there have been less trips.  As an example, last year from mid April-mid May I was adding more than one year bird every day, on average.  Some days there would even be 5 or 8 "new ones".  This is because a large percent of wood-warblers, thrushes, flycatchers, vireos, etc. winter in Mexico or South America.  When the birds return for breeding, a lot of them pass through or breed here in Virginia, so the birds just "racked up".  A very similar scenario happened this year.  I had multiple days with 5-8 year birds and few days with none, from mid April-mid May.  However, at the end of the third week in May, here in Virginia the migration turns the "off switch" with not much notice.  By May 25th, Blackpoll Warblers and a few other "late warblers" are the only ones trickling through, and in very small numbers.  You still have the breeders (Redstarts, Ovenbirds, Black-and-whites, Chestnut-sideds, Hoodeds, Ceruleans, Waterthrushes, and so on) however they are all fairly common and I will have likely "picked them up" by the first week of May.  So come mid May last year year birds all of a sudden became few and far between.  In the first half of May last year I added 21 year birds.  In the second half of May last year I added 4 year birds.  A very similar thing happened this year.  In the first half of May I added 21 (do you see the pattern here?) year birds and so far from May 15-May 29 I have added 1 year bird.  

This shows you, that even when 2 birding years are very different, same patterns can and do occur with bird migration.

Even with birds being slow I've had lots of adventures with non-new birds and bears, etc. lately and I will hope to post an update from my recent adventures tomorrow.

Gabriel

How plans change

This morning my mom and I had planed to go on a bird walk..but PLANS CHANGE.  We woke up and I checked my emails to find that my friend, who's birthday was today was going to be at Shenandoah National Park for wildlife photography.  I wanted to get to the park myself, so my mom and I were off to the national park to look for Black Bears & our friend.  We found the former first, an apparent adult female bear.  She gave wonderful looks before wandering off into the woods.  Thank you special bear!  We then did find our birthday friend and spent time with him and treated him to a birthday breakfast.  Happy birthday, buddy!

That about raps it up for now.  Tomorrow should be a more-or-less so-so day but Friday I'm off to Shenandoah National Park with my dad and Saturday I'm birding with a friend.  Next week I go camping.  Stay tuned!