FBC 2.23.19 Walk

     I did the best thing ever last week.
I went on a bird walk with the Feminist Bird Club.
     I saw some of my bird friends.
I made new bird friends.
     We saw birds.
We had cooperative weather.
     I met Paul Sweet.
I toured the AMNH Ornithological specimen collection.
     I saw birds I will (sadly) never see in my life time, even if I tried.
I HAD THE BEST DAY!

A white throated sparrow is ready for its close-up.
Our walk was led by Martha, they did an amazing job sharing the birder names of areas in the park and of course, all the birds!

CLOSE-UP!
Busy foraging among the decaying leaves and twigs, grabbing some seeds or larvae hiding among the warmth that rotting stuff creates.

Undeniably cute af, this tufted titmouse is too, ready for its close-up.

These birds were quite abundant, as well as many other "common" bird friends like...

Northern Cardinals.
This female is striking. I think the females are so beautiful, if not more than the males overall-color look.

Also ridiculously common, but often overlooked, but delightfully beautiful - common grackle. They can shimmer when you get them in the light.

Before heading into the museum, a red-tail hawk is spotted on the museum.

At the American Museum of Natural History, Paul Sweet introduced us to, essentially, the bird library. The ornithological specimen collection includes skins of different preparations, eggs, and bones. Specimens can date back well over 100 years and are from all over the world. I believe Paul told us the museum has over 800,000 specimens representing species from around the world in existence and extinct.
Each bird on the above tray from the Solomons represents a different species of bird. The ones looking quite similar each hail from a different island- similar to the finches of the Galapagos.

More birds from the Solomons, including the very kingfisher that caused a stir a few years back.
Paul explained how great an importance these skins are, from DNA to aiding in research of various works from scientists around the world. Specimens can only be collected with proper permits and permissions. Their impact on our knowledge of natural history and more is priceless.

Speaking of priceless, a bird I will never see alive in my lifetime or beyond, the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
Extinct in the United States and most likely, the wild. Very (VERY) slim chance maybe in Cuba.
Guess what caused their extinction....

The tags on each specimen provides much information from sex to collection date, to location of collection to who collected it, and more.

Trays of pittas, a type bird found in Asia/Australasia/Africa. I believe these are more from the Australasia region.

Among other extinct birds shared with us, the Great Auk (pictured). Once again, wiped out by humans.
In addition, other birds whose extinction was caused by humans that we got to view included Carolina Parakeets, Passenger Pigeon, and Imperial Woodpecker (classified as possibly extinct- but if alive, would be the worlds largest woodpecker, 2nd largest is also extinct, the Ivory-billed).
As we are in the midst of a 6th extinction, this is a real bummer to reflect back on - the excitement of seeing real birds, very dead, that I will never see in the wild or at a zoo, alive. Ever. Because us.

A collection of cowbird eggs with the host species. This was pretty cool. The cowbird egg sometimes looks pretty different from the host.

The diversity among murre eggs. So beautiful - from pure white to blue, brown speckles, black streaks - absolutely amazing.

This visit was legit a childhood and adulthood dream to participate in such a tour. The collections at the museum are even more vast than the exhibits (and there are A LOT of exhibits)! What a privilege! My thanks to Molly, Martha, and Paul for an AMAZING, dream-come-true kind of day!

South Brooklyn Shorelines

     I met up with my friend Tom and be birded along the shores of Brooklyn. I biked and met up first at Gravesend Bay, then to Coney Island. and last to Sheepshead Bay. I racked up a few more year birds and Tim, some life birds!
     It was nice to ride my bike around Brooklyn, get some birds, and bird with a friend!

It's an Iceland Gull.
I'm very happy it's an Iceland gull, I just time after time after time, can ID a glaucous no problem. But Iceland's I second guess too much. Perhaps my second guessing should be a tip off for me that I am looking at an Iceland. That's a valid field mark, right?

Always Purple Sandpipers along the rocks of Gravesend Bay. These were life birds for Tom. Woot!

Also confusing the life out of me... scaup.
This is a hungry scaup.

This is a float on a back scaup.

This is a rub the belly scaup.
(I think the last two pics are greater.... and the first one lesser.)

More Iceland Gull. A good year bird- a big miss in 2018. Glad to have it in 2019 early on.

The more I see black scoters AND close up, the more I fall in love. Right under us at the Coney Island Fishing Pier.

So many scoters still in the area, enough to get you a flag on your ebird count.

Gaddamn, this bird is good looking!

Speaking of good looking ducks...

IT IS A LONG-TAILED DUCK!
(super cute yawn action!)

This is the long-tailed duck drake.
It has a long tail, just as it's name states.

It also makes a funny noise.

They are also super cute.

Great Backyard Bird Count: 2.16 - 2.17

     The Great Backyard Bird Count continued yesterday and today, with all types of exciting things to experience. Yesterday, Tim and I traveled up to Shawangunk National Wildlife Refuge in the afternoon, enjoyed the show that nature puts on as dusk approaches each day. On the drive, I was able to spot my first bald eagle of the year.

Shawangunk Grasslands are vast, open, and beautiful. The birds are often far, taking advantage of the space. When I came last year, a fresh cover of snow was hiding much of the grass and prey. Both Northern Harriers (like the one perched here) and Short-eared owls were out, active, hunting, and in decent numbers.

Yesterday, the day shift of harrier were out and in due time, the owls began to take flight and seek higher ground.

An owl wakes as the sun starts to near the horizon.

The harriers seems almost frantic, as the light begins to fade, they seem to know that the owls are waking and it will get a touch harder to claim that last morsel of food before the day is up.

Their owl-like face, with that disk shape serves just the same purpose as it does for owls. Both harrier and short-eared owls fill the same niche, just one by day and the other by night. Hunting in a very similar fashion to one another, soaring over the fields for prey relying on sight and sound.

The plumage fo this bid suggests either this bird is a hen (female) or immature bird. The mature males are a silvery-grey. I think, personally, this plumage of the female type is so very beautiful.

And here come the owls...

I was so excited to share all this with Tim, I promised him owls and we got a great show! He had never been to Shawangunk before and I'm so glad he got to see some owls.

Watching these birds fly is an absolute treat!

AHHH!!!! 

SCREAMING OWL!!! <3

These owls are called short-eared owls, they are very soecific to grassland habitats and do have little tiny feather tufts. BUT, they are soooo tiny, those tufts. Really they are often not visible fight in the center of the facial disk.
Tufts or not, these birds are awesome.

And for the record-- these photos are taken from the trails, with a 500mm zoom lens (some folks had GIANT lenses), and this photo is heavily cropped. 

This is a non-cropped photo, at 500mm. Just to give you an idea of how not close you are when you watch this all go down.

Always looked forward to is the changing of the guard, when the owls start to get the harriers off their turf so they can own the fields.

Good way to end the afternoon. On our way back, we stopped for an awesome pasta dinner at our buddy's new pasta & provision shop in Nyack. It's a good way to round out a trip up that way.

     Today, I birded before and afterwork, right here in Brooklyn. I stopped at Marine Park before work and ventured out onto the Coney Island Fishing Pier after work.

So many signs that spring isn't too far away. The red-wing blackbirds were "Onk-a-REEE'ing" their chorus with back up from cardinals with their own songs.

Also cheering for spring was this song sparrow, singing the song of his kind...

Something that I was pretty happy to spot- a fox sparrow! Soon this little bird will be heading north of here to nest.

The American Robin was not doing the spring thing. Ground was frozen and it had to stick to its winter berry diet.

After work, I went out on the Fishing Pier in Coney Island and admired ducks- like this very beautiful long-tailed duck over some beautiful waves.

A female red-breasted merganser was close to the pier in the low glow of the sun. Isn't she stunning?

Also a super cool chance to see that amazing fish catching bill, serrated to grab and hold onto a slippery fish.

Im going to say it...
Gulls are beautiful.

The real spectacle were the scoters, there were a good number of black scoter between the beach groins (those are what those rock pilings coming out from the beach are called). There were even more, and surf scoters out further on the water.

A female black scoter.
All these birds are getting ready to fly northward to nest and rear a little family up in Canada.