Pelagic Birding

Sooty Shearwater

Great Shearwater

One of the great birding things to do this time of year is to take a pelagic birding trip to find seabirds. You can up your birder life list and experience some pretty cool birds firsthand. Often the trips are billed as whale watch trips, but you can see pelagic birds as well as the whales, especially if the captain caters to the birders on board and tries to find pelagic species. Birds such as Great and Sooty Shearwaters can be seen in numbers.

Great Shearwater 

On a whale trip in the past we saw many seabirds, we weren't counting as much as looking and I was also photographing. The seabirds were out feeding with the whales, near Jeffrey's Ledge, a 33 mile long shallow glacial deposit underwater formation that stretches from off Rockport, Mass. to south of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Because of nutrient rich upwelling from the deeper waters next to the ledge, it's very productive of food (small fish, mollusks, crustaceans) for the whales and other marine creatures. Here's a Great Shearwater in flight. By far, the most numerous seabirds we saw were Great Shearwaters. They have grayish brown upperparts, a dark cap and a variable white collar. This one has less of a collar. You can see the narrow U-shaped white patch on the rump.

We also saw a fair number of Cory's Shearwaters, shown here. The yellow bill is quite prominent, a help with their ID.

It ain't easy to photograph seabirds. First of all, you're on a moving boat. We were lucky in that the seas were calm, with no big swells. Some tips, brace yourself against the wall of the boat, keep you knees slightly flexed and plant your feet somewhat widely to steady yourself. Forget a tripod. The boat is crowded, rocking and you have to manuever around people. Use a telephoto lens with image stabilization. I had a Canon 300 mm IS lens with a 1.4 teleconverter (giving me 420 mm). If you can hand hold the heavy 500 mm lens or the 300 mm f 2.8 lens then good for you, they are too heavy for me.

Here's a Great Shearwater taking off, love the pinkish feet.

Another species we saw was this Sooty Shearwater, an easy ID because of its almost all over sooty color, except for the whitish on the underwing primary coverts.Here's what it really looks like, with lots of little shapes bobbing on the water. These are Greater Shearwaters, but you need to look carefully at each group of birds and all birds flying by to ID them.

There are many seabirds that can be seen in the Gulf of Maine from whale watch boats from NH and MA. The Granite State Whale Watch Trips leave from Rye, NH. and is a great trip to take if you live in that area.

Whale watch boat we took near Digby Neck, Nova Scotia, Canada a few summers ago.

Greater Shearwater, swimming

Of course, the whales are spectacular also. Here's a photo of mother and baby Humpback Whales I took from Nova Scotia. What a thrill to see such huge mammals up close.
While most were on one side of the boat watching the whales, I was the only person who ran to the other side of the boat to get some of these seabird photos. Look for a pelagic birding trip near you.

Osprey with fish

Osprey with fish photo I took on Sanibel, FL. Osprey populations, once threatened by DDT, have nicely increased, including in our home state of NH.

Puffin Fun in Maine

One of our favorite summer birding things to do in summer is to go see Atlantic Puffins off the coast of Maine. We have done this a number of times. There are several places to go, including Machias Seal Island. That's where I took the above photo. The best times are from June thru mid-August. You need to take a special tour boat, such as the one run out of Cutler, Maine by Bold Coast Charter Company, that has the permits to land there. When you land, you go to very small wooden shacks that are blinds with little windows that you can look out of, to photograph and watch the puffins close by. This is to create the least disturbance to the birds. It is an amazing thrill to see these little "Parrots of the Sea" up close and personal. Call in advance for the tours.

Are Hummingbird Numbers Down???

People have been emailing us reports of hummingbird population declines. Are your hummingbird numbers up or down and where do you live? Here are some recent comments we have gotten:


"It's now July 2012 and in Pittsburg, Kansas at this time of year ten or fifteen hummingbirds at one time might be buzzing at each other to be at the feeder on the south and others on the west side of our house. Now once in a while, I'll see one or two.  I mentioned this to a daughter in Rolla, Missouri.  She's noticed the same problem, and so has my daughter in Owensboro, Kentucky.  What's going on, we wonder.  Do you have any ideas??"

Not everyone is reporting hummer numbers as down, but some people we're hearing from are saying they see less hummers than usual. So what's going on? It's hard to know whether the reports we get accurately reflect a widespread population decline in hummingbirds, especially Ruby-throated Hummingbirds. Who is even keeping track of hummingbird numbers?

The Breeding Bird Survey, a long-time study that started in 1966, surveys nesting birds in May and June. Volunteers drive a 25 mile routs and stop every half mile for 3 minutes and record every bird seen or heard at that spot. This is most effective at picking up singing males. Birds that do not sit in one spot and sing (such as hummingbirds) may be under-reported in the BBS. You can look up population trends for any species on the Breeding Bird Survery website.

eBird is another source of bird population data. This recent website was begun in 2002 by Cornell and it allows people to send in their bird reports electronically. You can look up how many reports of each species have been seen in your area on their website. People have been sending in reports of hummingbirds. But this is not a long term scientific study, so it's hard to draw conclusions about overall poplulation trends. 

The Christmas Bird Count is a long running population survery of birds in December and January and you can look up which birds are found where on the website. Many hummingbirds leave the Untied States in the winter months. A few Ruby-throated Hummingbirds do overwinter in southern and Gulf Coast states.

Aside from these surveys, there seems little else in the way of widespread collection of hummingbird population data in spring and summer.

Why might some people be seeing less hummingbirds in their areas?


Here is speculation:

- There is lack of food at critical times such as when they first arrive from migration. If colder or hotter or more severe weather (due to global warming) affects the flowering of their nectar sources or insect populations (Ruby-throats do eat insects) when they need it, they may not survive.
- Or there could be more abundant food and flowers in the wild, so hummers do not come to feeders where they can be seen and counted by people.
- Or there could be higher mortality for Ruby-throated Hummingbirds in their wintering areas (Central and South America, and who is counting them there?) so less return each year.
- Or, there are other unknown factors (disease? severe weather extremes) impacting them that we do not know about.
- Or, their reproductive success rate, due to lack of food when the young are in the nest or other factors, is declining.

How can you help in the short term? Keep your hummingbird feeders clean and free of mold and bacteria, which can harm hummingbirds. That means cleaning your hummer feeders every 2 days in hot weather!! Plant hummingbird flowers that bloom at different times so there is ample wild nectar resources from early spring to fall. Help conserve land so hummingbirds continue to have places to nest.


Keep your hummingbird feeders full and clean for the rest of the summer. In August you may see more hummingbirds, and they may also come back to you next year. Hummer numbers are at peak in August as young of the year are out of the nest. There is also peak hummingbird migration through August and September and migrating hummingbirds may show up at your feeders.

Dragonflies for Birders

Birders can look for dragonflies through their binoculars! This is a Halloween Pennant dragonfly, so aptly named, and one of my favorites. We have hundreds in our fields right now.

Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer. The most colorful dragonflies with patterns on their wings are often in the Skimmer family of dragonflies.

When birds are quiet in summer, birders turn to watching dragonflies, that's what we do. Dragonflies are active on warm days, the hotter and sunnier the better. Dragonflies are stunningly beautiful, have cool names, and are abundant in fields, lakes, streams, shores, many of the places people go in summer.

Here are a few tips to enjoy and identify them.

1. Use your binoculars to spot them, if you have close focusing binos, even better.

2. Some dragonfly males patrol territories along ponds, lakes, and streams. Females mate with them then lay their eggs on emerging vegetation. If you see 2 dragonflies flying in tandem, this is a precursor to mating. In the wheel positon, mating is occurring.

3. Some dragonflies are more perchers, others more fliers, that can be a clue to their ID. Different perchers have different ways of perching, again an ID clue.

4. In general, some of the most obvious, colorful, and patterned-wing dragonflies you see are in the Skimmer family, so look in that section of our book.

5. Different species of dragonflies are on the wing at different times during the summer, so you will constantly see new ones.

6. Male, female and immature dragonflies of the same species can look different, just like birds.

We (along with dragonfly experts Blair Nikula and Jackie Sones) produced a book, Stokes Beginner's Guide To Dragonflies in order to quickly help you get into enjoying these marvelous insects. We worked out an easy key and lots of color photos. Take it and binoculars along with you the next time you go to the lake, river or stream. We take it with us in the canoe whenever we go out in the summer. Enjoy!

Happy Fourth of July Birds!

Northern Cardinal

Great Egret

Indigo Bunting

Flowers from our garden

Happy Fourth of July! Hope you see some red, white and blue birds!

Butterflies for Birders!

When the birding slows down look for butterflies! Here's a Monarch Butterfly. They lay their eggs on milkweed and their caterpillars feed on this plant.

Great Spangled Frittillary on Purple Coneflower

Close-up of Great Spangled Fritillary

American Lady Butterfly, told by the two eye spots on underside of the hindwing

Tiger Swallowtail Butterflies are unmistakable

Spicebush Swallowtails can be told from other big, dark swallowtails by their single row of prominent white dots inside the margin of their forewings.

The larvae of Spicebush Swallowtails feed on spicebush and sassafrass.

Pearl Crescent butterfly. Scores are feeding on white clover on our path so we keep the path mowed high to preserve the clover flowers for them.

Mourning Cloaks are widespread across much of North America. They are one of the few butterflies who overwinter as adults, finding protected places in log piles, nooks, or under loose bark, and when they emerge in the spring they look worn, as this butterfly does. They are one of the longest lived butterflies and some may live as long as 10 months. Mourning Cloaks feed on sap and fruit.

Our butterfly bushes will bloom soon and they're magnets for the butterflies. Here's a Great Spangled Fritillary butterfly on one of them.

We've written two books to help you attract and identify butterflies.Stokes Beginner's Guide To Butterflies, has an easy ID key to help you quickly identify the butterflies you see by size and shape.

Stokes Butterfly Book gives you plans for a butterfly garden, lists and photos of butterfly plants, and chapters, with color photos, on the identification, behavior and caterpillars of common butterflies. Both are available at amazon.com and stores.

In the middle of the day, when birds become less active, a wonderful thing for birders to do is look for butterflies. Butterflies are colorful flying creatures, just like birds. The identification skills birders already have can be transferred to identifying butterflies. Look at butterflies through your binoculars, no need to catch them in a net.

The hot weather favors butterflies as they need to warm their bodies to fly. They need to get their body temperature up to 85 to 100 degrees Farenheit in order to fly well. Adult butterflies come to flowers for nectar, lay their eggs on special host plants, which can be unique to each species of butterfly. The eggs hatch, larva feed on the plant then turn into a pupa or crysalis from which the adult butterfly will emerge. A complete cycle or generation is called a brood, and butterfly species can go through from just one to as many as four broods per year, depending on the species and the number of warm months. Different butterflies are on the wing at different times during the summer, so you will continue to see new species.

There are about 17,000 species of butterflies in the world. In North America there are about 700 species but only a small fraction are common and likely to be seen by the average person.

When you see a butterfly watch it closely for several minutes. Observe how it flies, its size, shape, and the colors and patterns on its wings, both above and below.

Start by knowing the major families of butterflies that are distinctive. Below are some:

Swallowtails - are our largest butterflies and most have long tails coming off their hind wings.

Whites and Sulfurs - these are all medium-sized butterflies that are predominantly white or yellow.

Gossamer Wings - this group is easy to identify since it includes all of our smallest butterflies, such as the blues, coppers and hairstreaks, and metalmarks. The blues tend to be iridescent blue, coppers are often copper, hairstreaks often have hairlike tails on their hind wings, and metalmarks often have metallic spots on their wings.

Brush-footed Butterflies - this is a large and varied group of medium-sized, generally dark-colored butterflies with such strong and rapid flight they are hard to follow. Their is no one field characteristic, besides their flight, that makes them easy to identify as a group.

Satyrs - these are medium-sized butterflies that are almost all brown, often with darker eye-spots on their wings. They have a weak and bobbing flight and are often seen at woods edges or among grasses.

Skippers - are small butterflies whose flight is extremely rapid and erratic. They are mostly rich brown or orange-brown.

Enjoy the butterflies!

Hot Weather Help for Birds: 10 Tips to Keep them Cool

Birds need water to drink,

and bathe.

"Hey, where's the towel and the frozen daquiris?"

An extra roof cools off the bird house below.

This baby American Robin cooled off the only way it knows how, by panting. Birds have no sweat glands and so cool themselves by rapid respiration with their mouths open

I used the mister setting on the hose to cool off the robin nest by misting the air and foliage above.

Hummingbird Feeder with shade roof

Hot weather is here and it's very hot in the East now and elsewhere. So here's some tips to keep your feathered buddies cool:

1. Bird baths, bird baths, bird baths! Birds need water to bath and drink in hot weather so buy a bird bath. You can even use any wide flat container for a bird bath, such as the lid of a trash can or a large saucer that it used under a flowerpot.

2. Choose a bird bath that is shallow and has a non-slip surface. Small birds do not like to bathe in deeper water. You can add flat rocks to a bird bath that is too deep in order to create a shallow ledge for small birds to land on to drink and bathe.

3. Add a dripper, bubbler or to your bird bath. The sound of moving water will be a magnet for the birds and alert them to the presence of a water source.

4. Keep the water in your bird bath cool by adding ice cubes several times a day, or refilling the bird bath with a hose.

5. Birds will feel safer if the bird bath is placed in a more open area so no predators can hide nearby. Provide a stake or branch placed in the ground near the bird bath, if no landing places exist near it, so birds have a place to wait their turn at the bath.

6. Air condition your bird houses. We nail on a piece of plywood, using long nails and only nailing them part way into the original roof. This leaves an air space between the two roofs of about an inch. The second roof shades the first roof plus the airspace between the roofs acts as an insulator, keeping the bird house cooler. In some cases we have just shaded the roof of a bird house with piece of cardboard.

7. Misters are coolers. Misters can be bought to attach to a bird bath, or clip to shrubs near a bath. They spray a fine mist that birds can fly though, or rub against the wet shrubbery. Hummingbirds will often fly through misters, or even a garden sprinkler.

8. Use a mister on a hose. Our hose has a mist setting on the nozzle. We have misted the foliage and area above a robin nest to cool off the babies in extreme heat.

9. Think Shade. Birds will seek out shady areas and lie low in the worst heat of the day. If you do not have shade on your property plant some shade trees and big shrubs. Place bird feeders in a shady area during summer.

10. Shade hummingbird feeders. Place them in shade. Some feeders, such as our Stokes Select Jubilee Hummingbird Feeder, pictured above, comes with its own shade/rain roof, including and ant moat on the roof. You can also buy baffle-type shields and hang them above a feeder. Don't forget to change your hummingbird nectar solution every 2 days in really hot weather.

And tips for you....

Stay out of the sun and heat in the middle of the day, wear a hat and sunscreen when you do go out, and at the end of the day, after you have taken care of the birds, have a cold beer or some Prosecco,,,aaahhh!

Look who's in the mealworm feeder

Mrs. Eastern Bluebird has brought her fledgling to the dried mealworm feeder. Baby is still begging, but soon will learn to feed itself. Oh, so cute!
Our bluebirds are a constant source of delight and entertainment for us. We give them good housing, the right habitat of open mowed lawns, and supplemental food. Win, win!

No fighting!

Male Goldfinches in a squabble on a perch near the feeder. No fighting allowed, can't they read the sign?

Stokes Garden in Country Gardens Magazine

Our bird garden is featured in the summer issue of Country Gardens magazine, now on newsstands. Get your copy and learn all we share to help you attract birds.

Our 48 acre bird property in southern NH is named Bobolink Farm, here's a view from our deck.

We named our property after the Bobolinks who nest in our hayfields, which we do not cut until late summer so they can complete their breeding.

Everything is landscaped with an eye towards attracting birds. Here are the Prairie Fire crabapples in bloom. Their fruits attract Cedar Waxwings, robins, thrushes, bluebirds, vireos and more.

The article on our garden was produced by well-know garden writer, Tovah Martin and photographed by Rob Cardillo, one of the country's top garden photographers. Editor of Country Gardens, James Baggett also came on the shoot. We had lots of fun working with them all and the article is fabulous. It's titled "A Garden Takes Flight." Here Rob is standing on our deck to get an aerial view of our kitchen garden, and Don and James look on while Tovah is in the garden. There is a lot of work behind-the-scenes, including our getting the garden looking its best for the shoot. It rained for some of the time, but was misty at other times, so Rob was able to take photos.

Our kitchen garden has a hummingbird feeder hanging from the center planter. Pick veggies and enjoy the hummingbirds! We have many more tips for you to attract birds in the article.

We strive for good design and add plantings for the birds. I choose the plant material combinations, Don does much of the heavy work. 

A gazebo to the right has hummingbird feeders hanging from it, so we can enjoy them while sitting and overlooking this perennial border. A blue urn is a focal point.

We have many, many bird feeders, including offering unusual foods, like oranges for the Gray Catbirds.

 We have lots of bird houses and 15 breeding pairs of Tree Swallows, shown here, as well as Eastern Bluebirds. Enjoy the article!