March Birding, welcome migrants!

One of the good things about March is the anticipation of the birds that will be migrating back soon, such as the ones we saw on this birding trip along the Connecticut River in NH and VT at the end of March several years ago.

The highlight of the trip was the Brant (small goose on the right), spotted by Julie, found in with the Canada Geese. Brant winter in coastal areas and breed in the Arctic, they are not usually found inland in NH.

Most of the birds we saw were far away, so all were photographed at quite a distance. Here's a male Mallard.

Hi there, it's us. It was a very cold and windy day, so down parkas were a must.

The Connecticut River at one of our stops. It's quite a beautiful river and a very important migration highway and breeding area for birds.

Hooded Mergansers in flight, showing their upper wings. Male is below, female above.

And here is their under wings. The male is such a strikingly patterned duck.

When I said the birds were far away, this gives you an idea how far. The photos of the mergansers above were taken at this size in the original, uncropped photo. Can you make them out in the middle of the photo? This is the before shot of the mergansers showing their upper wings. The beauty of my new Canon 1D Mark IV camera is that it's 16 megapixels, so I am able to photograph birds that are very far away, but still crop them to usable size (72 dpi) for blog photos. Of course you have to get them in flight, as a tiny dot, in the center of the lens, with the autofocus operating, and shoot.

We saw a good variety. How many kinds can you find here? 

Lots of birders equal more fun and many eyes to spot things. Scopes were essential and people with scopes generously shared them with people who did not have them.

We looked at other species of birds too. We pulled over at one point because someone had spotted a hawk in a tree. It exploded out of the tree and was a Cooper's Hawk.

I helped this birder, find in the scope, the Barrow's Goldeneye, female. I really like to work with people to help them spot the birds. There's always an "oh, wow" moment for them when they see the cool bird everyone else is on.

Common Mergansers were plentiful. The male is below, female above. It shows her white chin and I love the red feet. We get lots of migrating Common Mergansers on the pond we live on.

At Herrick's Cove IBA, a stop on the Vermont side of the river, birders went out on a spit of land and saw few ducks but up in the sky there were 2 Bald Eagles!

I just took my Canon 300mm IS lens, with 1.4 teleconverter, as I wanted portability. All of the bird photos were taken, from a distance, with this, a very sharp lens.

At Herrick's cove, we found a Black-capped Chickadee excavating a nest in a birch. Chickadees will nest in bird houses and can excavate their own nest cavity in soft, partially rotted wood.

I tried to get it coming out of the nest and tried to time the photo, getting it as it left.

What a riot, it's launched in mid-air, with a beakful of birch. The chickadees flew off with the excavated material and deposited it away from the nest. I hope they have a successful breeding.

The last stop was near Springfield where we looked way, way across at that mountain at a rocky ledge, and saw a nesting Peregrine Falcon sitting at the nest, a white dot in the scope.

This birding trip, on Sun., was billed as a waterfowl safari, surveying the ducks in migration on the Middle Connecticut River, IBA (Important Bird Area) in NH (from Charlestown to Walpole) and VT (from Westminster to Springfield.) The trip was co-sponsored by the Monadnock Chapter of NH Audubon and Harris Center for Conservation Education. There were over 35 birders. We had a great time. Here's the final bird list, tallied by Julie Tilden and Phil Brown.

Canada Goose - several hundred (low), mostly at Great Meadow & Malnati Farm
BRANT - 1 Atlantic race observed in Great Meadow of Charlestown
Wood Duck - 15
Mallard - 100
American Black Duck - 40
Green-winged Teal - 30+
Common Goldeneye* - 2 females from Joy Wah Restaurant (VT)
Hooded Merganser - 10
Common Merganser - 40+
Great Blue Heron - 1 roadside
Turkey Vulture
Bald Eagle* - 3 (2i, 1a) observed from Herrick's Cove
Northern Harrier - 1 at Herrick's Cove + 1 at Great Meadow ~3 pm
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1 Walpole
Cooper's Hawk - 2
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel - 1 at Great Meadow
Peregrine Falcon* - pair at Springfield, VT ledges
Killdeer
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher* - 1 at Herrick's Cove
Downy Woodpecker - 1
Hairy Woodpecker - 2
Eastern Phoebe - 1 found by Ken Klapper at Great Meadow
Blue Jay
American Crow
Common Raven - 3
Black-capped Chickadee - 1 excavating nest hole at Herrick's Cove
Red-breasted Nuthatch - 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Eastern Bluebird - 5+ in a few places
American Robin
European Starling
Song Sparrow - 20+ on the ground at once at Herrick's Cove alone
White-throated Sparrow - Great Meadow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Common Grackle
House Finch
American goldfinch
House sparrow

Helping Birds in Snowstorms

Northern Cardinal

American Goldfinches on Stokes Select™ Thistle Tube Feeder

Dark-eyed Junco

Downy Woodpecker, male

From yesterday's snowstorm got about 12 inches here, the biggest of the season. We have a full service restaurant as Juncos, a large goldfinch flock (50 plus), Downy Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, Mourning Doves, chickadees, cardinals and many more enjoy the Stokes Select™ feeders. So nice to feed the birds and see them close and know this helps them in weather like this. We feed lots of high energy food, such as suet and hulled sunflower which gives the birds the calories they need to keep warm. We sprinkle mixed seed on the covered deck to help the ground feeding birds like Juncos since their main food, seeds in the wild, would be covered by the snow.

Snowy Owl love!

Snowy Owl

Who doesn't love Snowy Owls? These big beautiful owls come down in winter to mainly the northern U.S. from their far north arctic tundra breeding range. They go to favorable open habitats where they can find voles. This one was seen on the NH coast in a state park several years ago. Look for them in coastal and open habitats.

Welcome Back Northern Flickers

It's Feeder Friday. We recently had a Northern Flicker at our feeders in NH. Possibly a returning migrant. Attract flickers with suet and hulled sunflower. Look for them soon. This bird was enjoying hulled sunflower on a Stokes Select Jumbo Seed feeder.

Downy vs. Hairy Woodpecker, can you tell the difference?

Downy Woodpecker, m. (left), Hairy Woodpecker, f. (right) on Stokes Select Four Cake Suet Buffet feeder.

Wow, look at the size difference. In this photo you can see the bars on the outer tail feathers of the Downy Woodpecker. This usually occurs on most subspecies of Downy Woodpecker except the "leucurus subspp (s.e. AK-. NE south to AZ-NM) may lack barring on tail." (from The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, which contains information on all subspecies of birds, no other field guide does). The Hairy Woodpecker usually has white unbarred outer tail feathers (except in a few subspecies).

Common Redpolls are here!

Common Redpolls are beautiful winter finches that can be attracted to your feeders with Finch mixes, nyjer/thistle and hulled sunflower. Look for them as they are still being seen. Waiting for them to show up at our feeders in NH this year.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! Share it with the one you love !

Great White Pelican Again, Will She Be Accepted 1st N.A. Record?

Great White Pelican adult female, left, American White Pelican, right

Great White Pelican

Great White Pelican adult female, left, American White Pelican, right

Amazingly the female Great White Pelican, a species from Africa, Asia and Europe, that first made an appearance at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, Sanibel, FL Feb. 28, 2016 appeared back again there yesterday for the 3rd time in 4 years. Each time she has appeared it has been in February. She usually is seen in the company of American White Pelicans. The big question is, is she a wild or escaped bird? This bird was rejected as a new North American record by the Florida Ornithological Society Records Committee. This new sighting of the Great White Pelican could be resubmitted to the FOS committee and the case reopened.  So stay tuned.

There are interesting discussions about this taking place on the Florida Birding and Rarities FB Group. Researchers are also asking for information about any banded American White Pelicans the Great White Pelican is hanging out with.

There is interesting information about this bird. For starters, the evidence is that she is not an escaped bird from the U.S. A Great White Pelican expert,who keeps track of the Great White Pelicans in captivity in this country had done a survey of them just before this Great White Pelican first appeared in 2016 and said there were no escaped birds. Also Great White Pelicans in captivity are banded or microchipped and she has no bands.
There is also an informative research paper on The origin of out-of-range pelicans in Europe: Wild bird dispersals or zoo escapees? It found that a lot of the Great White Pelicans found in northern Europe are vagrants and not zoo escapees. Annual vagrancy patterns in Europe were well predicted for all three species (including Great White Pelican) then by population size indices, reproductive success and/or climatic components, which presumably influence survival and/or dispersal.
Wintering conditions such as the previous year's rainfall could effect the water conditions on the wintering grounds and then the ability of European Great White Pelicans to survive the winter in Africa and to come back to Europe the next spring.
Hopefully the FOS Records Committee will again consider this bird and consult further scientific input and other relevant information.
(Photos are from the 2016 and 2017 appearances.) See my other posts on this bird from the
2016 appearances stayed Feb. 28th to Mar. 3rd
2017 appearances here and here.

Spring in February, Cardinals Singing 60 degrees

Cardinals singing, Downy Woodpeckers drumming, nuthatches singing "were-wer-wer" 60 degrees, its spring in Feb.!! Riding the global climate change roller-coaster. The upside today.

Bohemian Waxwings, Awesome Birds!

Bohemian Waxwings are being seen this winter in NH. Sometimes, the stars are aligned for a photographer. I went to northern NH several years ago to try and photograph Bohemian Waxwings. Where hundreds had been reported, I found only one, but what a cooperative bird!

Click, click, click. It posed, feeding on the crabapples, resting to digest them, looking about, even eating snow at one point, all the while oblivious to me and the other passers-by in the parking lot where it was.

If you want plumage drama, then this is the bird for you. What an exquisite contrast between the gray-brown, velvety, body feathers and the dramatic black, white and orange facial, wing and under tail markings, all finished with the yellow tail tip like an exclamation point! These graphic markings remind me of certain styles of japanese painting or designs on Native American pottery.

A huge advantage of digital photography is that you can enlarge and look closely at your photos and discover fascinating things about a bird, such as that the black mask is underlined with white.

You can notice what a small bill yet large gape this bird has. The black comes fairly far out the upper and under surface of the bill.

Waxwings (both Bohemian and Cedar) have appendages on the wing, like little, red candles.

Here's a close-up showing some of the waxy projections on this bird. The number of them varies with sex and age so that "1st-yr .females may have 0-5 waxy projections on wing and reduced yellow on tail; 1st-yr. male and older birds have 4 or more waxy projections.." From (The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, our new book.) 

This bird was agile in grasping onto the crabapples, then let go.

My camera caught this spread wing which shows at least 6 waxy projections which are the tips of the secondary feathers. How cool is that!

It's all about crabapples and eating them. Waxwings are big fruit eaters and usually wander in flocks, all the more eyes to find the berries. It's interesting this bird was alone. Many of the crabappple trees at this location were pretty stripped of berries, perhaps the flock had moved on.

The size of the crabapples mattered. Even though this bird could open it's mouth fairly wide, 

some of the apples seemed too big to swallow and we saw it toss some of them. Lesson for the bird gardener — plant crabapple trees in your yard that have small diameter apples. (We have Zumi and Sargent crabapples in our yard, which seem right for the birds.)

It's just amazing how wide that bill can open, reminds me of a snake swallowing prey. We also saw this bird eat snow, getting fluid to help process the fruits.

Bohemians are far northern birds, nesting in the boreal forests of mainly western North America (as well as the northern parts of Europe and Asia). When their prime food of berries is in short supply in winter they" irrupt" or wander widely (hence the name bohemian, i.e. gypsy-like) down into the northern areas of the U.S.

I was in heaven photographing this beautiful Bohemian Waxwing. Photography is not a zen moment as some people may think. It's fast, furious, demanding of all my skills and a rush when I think I am getting good photos. You never know if your subject bird will fly away so you have to keep clicking, moving your angle and big camera, as the bird moves in the tree, adjusting f-stop, ISO, exposure compensation, etc. You're grateful if you come away with half decent photos or thrilled, as in this case, when you get fascinating images of an extraordinary bird. I love it!

Pine Grosbeaks Visit, Wow!

Several years ago we had two female Pine Grosbeaks (the males are mostly red) hanging out in our "Prairie Fire" crabapple trees chowing down. I was amazed how many apples they ate and they seemed to continuously eat for most of the afternoon, like a kid going through the Halloween candy. They were really very tame, not at all bothered by us or the Corgis who ran under the trees. The hardest part of photographing them was to get a clear show through the tangle of apple branches and also to every get a photo of them without applesauce covering their bill!

This is a more northern species who usually is found throughout Canada and up into AK and parts of the West. In irruptive years, such as this one, when so many northern species come down into the U.S. due to lack of food in their usual area, Pine Grosbeaks can join the exodus. Pine Grosbeaks are now being reported from numerous locations around our state of NH.
Thus far we have had these irruptive species visit our yard; Pine Siskins, Common Redpolls, Purple Finches, Red-breasted Nuthatches, White-winged Crossbills, and now, Pine Grosbeaks.
We try hard to landscape our property for the birds, using lots of berry and food producing shrubs and trees. It pays off when we get to see such a beautiful species.

Feeding Bluebirds in Winter, How You Can Help

Eastern Bluebird male

Eastern Bluebird female at Stokes Select Suet feeder

What do Eastern Bluebirds do in extreme cold? They sit on their feet to keep them warm and chow down on high calorie foods like suet at our Stokes Select Double Capacity Suet Feeder that will give them the energy they need to make it through the night. Such a treat to see these bluebirds up close. You can provide for them at your feeders by offering suet and hulled sunflower.