Ahh, Spring! ha-ha-ha

It's snowing here in southwest NH! Here's a photo I just took of Don snow blowing the deck, while the Corgis, Abby and Phoebe (lying down) watch. It's wet, heavy snow and we have about 5 plus inches with more predicted. We will spend lots of time cleaning off the bird feeders today and making sure they are full. Is this an April Fool's Day joke from mother nature?

Greater Prairie-Chickens

Wordless Wednesday, Greater Prairie-Chickens

Northern Flicker just arrived!

Northern Flicker

Northern Flicker, Yellow-shafted group of subspecies

A Northern Flicker just showed up in our yard, a sign of spring! Welcome! Here in NH, we have the subspecies that is in the Yellow-shafted group. You can see the beautiful yellow under wings. In much of the West, there is the Red-shafted group of subspecies and these flickers have reddish under wings.

Our bird had just arrived from migration. It tried to land on our suet feeder, but swerved away. Since we still have snow on much of our ground, it will have to find food in the melted areas. Flickers feed mainly on the ground and eat lots of ants. They also eat fruit, berries and seeds and sometimes come to bird feeders.

The ducks are coming!

Mallard, male

Hooded Mergansers, female above, male below

Common Mergansers, female above, male below

Ducks and geese on the Connecticut River between NH and VT. The Connecticut River is a major migration flyway in spring for waterfowl.

This is a great time to go out to lakes and rivers (where the ice has left) to look for all kinds of migrating ducks and geese who are making their way to northern breeding grounds. Bring your binoculars and a spotting scope, which is helpful as many of the birds may be at a distance.

Here in southwest NH where we are, some of the earliest migrants are Hooded Mergansers, Common Mergansers, Black Ducks, Mallards, Canada Geese. There are even reports Snow Geese have been spotted.

Get out there this weekend and find some ducks!

Waiting for Spring

Here are some spring images from past years that can cheer us up as we wait for spring, which is nowhere in sight right now. More snow is predicted for tonight, we still have a foot, with a few melted spots.

Tree Swallow arrives!

We saw our first Tree Swallow yesterday at Bobolink Farm, our NH home. What a brave bird. There's still ice on the pond and about a foot of snow over most of the ground. When the ice melts, the swallows seem to find insects over the water. Hopefully the ice will melt soon. We also saw our first Song Sparrow today.

Spring is coming and migrants are beginning to flood into the country and make their way north. Get ready to ID them better than you ever have before with with our new field guide.

Photo on right of us signing our new The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, at the recent Massachusetts Birders Meeting, where we gave a talk. Photo taken by John Harrison

Happy St. Patrick's Day Rainbow

The gold at the end of our rainbow, here at our 48 acre NH home, is

that we have nesting Bobolinks. Thus we have named our home, Bobolink Farm.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

Red-winged Blackbird Sign of Spring

Red-winged Blackbird©Lillian Stokes

Aaah, the sun is shining, snow melting, and a Red-winged Blackbird is singing from the pine above our bird feeders. This is a sign of spring here in NH.

What signs of spring are you seeing where you are?

Common Redpolls

Common Redpolls swarmed our feeders today.

Not enough room on the perches for them all,

so they landed all over the ground in the fenced in area beneath our feeders. We fed them hulled sunflower.

A flock of over 300 Common Redpolls of visited the feeders today. They were very flighty and would land briefly, swarming the feeders, then take off, swirl out in the air, then swarm the feeders briefly again. It's hard to convey in photos what this is like, but in reality it's awesome!!

These are far northern "irruptive" finches that come down into the U.S. when the seeds up north are scarce in winter. This is a HUGE YEAR for these finches here.

If you live in New England, add more feeders, offer hulled sunflower and thistle and you too can have this!!

White-winged Crossbills at our feeder!

White-winged Crossbill, adult male, eating hulled sunflower seeds at our feeder

White-winged Crossbills, 1st yr. male, left, adult male, right

White-winged Crossbill, adult male

White-winged Crossbill, adult male

White-winged Crossbill, 1st yr. male

On this cold, rainy, dreary morning we had a nice surprise, White-winged Crossbills at the feeder! Wow, made our day! We have never had that before. These northern birds are rarely seen here, let alone seen at feeders. White-winged Crossbills are large finches who mainly live in Canada, AK, and northern areas of the northeast quadrant of this country. In winter they can come down into the U.S. in search of food. They use their amazingly bill, which is crossed at the tip, to pry open conifer cones and extract the seeds. We were making it easy for them, as we had hulled sunflower in the feeders, no shell to remove.

It's fun to age and sex the birds at your feeder and our new field guide will help you. The top photos are of an adult male who has "Two broad well-defined white wingbars; white tips to tertials (lacking on Red Crossbill). M. head, rump and most of underparts pinkish red; back all black to mostly red; rear flanks paler and strongly to indistinctly streaked darker. F. variably faintly greenish, (sometimes yellowish) on crown, back, rump and breast: otherwise, grayish-brown upperparts and pale underparts darkly streaked with brown. 1st Yr: M. mixed brown with pinkish red or orangish yellow; f. brownish or faintly greenish." (The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, page 749).

Stokes in Boston Globe, Sat. March 5th

The Boston Globe will have a wonderful article Sat. March 5th in the feature section "g" about us and our new book, The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America.

Globe Correspondent, Joel Brown did an extensive interview with us about our career and attitude about bird watching. I am quoted as saying, "I get just as thrilled with seeing the beautiful male cardinal just singing and singing in my yard as I did over 20 years ago."

When asked "What bird do you want to see most?" Donald said, "Every bird, better."

The full article is already online here.

Some quotes from the article,

"Bird watching is not just about distinguishing between, for example, a semipalmated plover and a piping plover, or knowing the difference between a bobwhite and a bobolink. It’s about forging a lasting connection to the natural world, according to best-selling authors Donald and Lillian Stokes, who (having written dozens of birding books) know a thing or two about being in the wild.

It’s not like there are humans and then there’s nature,’’ Donald said. “You can’t draw a line between us and the things around us.’’

That said, for those who do want detailed information about plovers, sparrows, and hundreds of other winged creatures, the couple is there for you. Their acclaimed latest book, “The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America,’’ took six years to compile and covers 854 species in 816 pages.

The Stokes, who live in New Hampshire, will talk about the book — their 31st — as keynote speakers today at the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s 19th annual all-day Birders Meeting at Bentley University in Waltham.

Lillian took more than 500 of the 3,400 brilliant color photos in the Stokes guide, earning it a place on the shelf alongside... classic field guides...

“I think it’s fantastic,’’ said Wayne Petersen, director of Mass Audubon’s Massachusetts Important Bird Areas Program and co-editor of the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas. “The quality of the images and the sort of telegraphic text accompanying the images . . . is a very, very tough act to follow.’’

“The other day somebody reported that they might have had a yellow-legged gull up in Gloucester harbor, which is a European gull that would be very unusual here, but possible,’’ said Stephen Moore of Northborough, a veteran birder. “Most of the field guides, if you got any pictures of yellow-legged gulls you’d be lucky, but in this one they’ve got nine separate pictures of yellow-legged gulls. . . . It’s very helpful.’’

“I’m one who believes you should be looking at the bird, and afterward you can go look at your field guide,’’ said Sue McGrath, founder of the Newburyport Birders. “I think all birders will be using this, at all levels.’’

Neither Stokes keeps a traditional birder’s “life list’’ of all the species they’ve seen, but they do keep a list of the more than 190 species of birds they’ve seen at Bobolink Farm. And they’re never bored with the everyday.

“I get just as thrilled with seeing that beautiful male cardinal just singing and singing in my yard as I did over 20 years ago,’’ said Lillian.

“People say, ‘What bird do you want to see most?’ ’’ Donald added. “And we say, ‘Every bird, better.’ ’’

Photo Workshop with Lillian

White Pelicans with Willets flying by like confetti with a Marbled Godwit in the middle.

1/2700, f/11, ISO 640, -0.67

Reddish Egret, juv. dark morph, hunting fish

1/1600, f/10, ISO 640

Osprey against white clouds

1/3200 f /6.4, ISO 640 +1.33

3 Snowy Egrets flying together

1/2500, f/13, ISO 640 -1.33

Dunlins in flight, very far away

1/3200 f/10 ISO 640

Brown Pelican diving

1/2700 f/10 ISO 640

I had great fun today leading a Stokes photo/birding workshop, along with Don, at Ding Darling NWR as part of a fundraiser for the refuge. We took 2 trams of people (I led the photographers, Don led the birders) into the refuge which is closed on fridays.

I was concentrating on teaching people about shooting birds in action. Above are some of the shots I took. We did not use tripods and most people had about 400 mm lenses. My best advice was to "move your feet" and "move the camera dial" to get to the photo op and catch a good exposure for the situation. Knowing your camera and how to fix the settings quickly is essential. There are many ways to do photography and there is more than one right way to approach a situation.

I was using my Canon 1D Mark IV camera, set at AV (Aperture-Priority, although sometimes I shoot M), AI Servo AF mode, and H (high-speed continuous shooting). I had a 300 mm IS lens with a 1.4 teleconverter. The Mark IV allows one to shoot at higher ISO setting without the grain one might have if using the less expensive Canon digital SLR cameras. Hence I could shoot at 640 ISO, even though I did not have to.

For those of you in the workshop reading this blog post, keep up all the great work, hope I shared with you some tips and incentive to take more birds in action shots!

Birds in Action

Osprey, in fog, balancing on branch with just caught fish

Snowy Egret during a feeding frenzy

Brown Pelican diving at moment of impact

By far, my favorite type of photography is to catch birds in action. Here are a few of my favorite photos from Sanibel this year.

Brown Pelican drama

Took this image of a Brown Pelican diving in fog with my Canon 1D Mark IV camera. I was taken by the drama of the wonderful lines of the pelican augmented by the white space of the fog.

ISO 1250, 1/640 sec., f/16, 420mm

More Roseate Spoonbills

I cannot take enough photos of Roseate Spoonbills!

Rufled Roseate Spoonbills

Went into Chico's (did you know this women's clothing store chain started on Sanibel?) a few days ago and noticed the new look for spring was pale pink ruffles. Someone must have told these Roseate Spoonbills in Ding Darling NWR because they were obviously ready for the runway.

So many photos so little time to post. We have been busy here and are giving a big talk and book-signing tonight to the Sanibel-Captiva Audubon Society, where many of my photos from our trip here will be shown.

More photos coming soon.

Lovey-Dovey: Happy Valentine's Day!

Common Ground-Doves

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

I photographed these Common Ground-Doves in Ding Darling NWR, Sanibel, FL. They, as well as the Mourning Doves and Eurasian Collared-Doves, are beginning to breed down here, hence the cosiness. These diminutive little birds, found in the far southern areas of the country, are about half the size of Mourning Doves and just oh, so, cute!

Enjoy your Valentine's Day!

Birding

Tri-colored Heron

Tri-colored Heron

Don with Caloosa Bird Club

We went birding with the Caloosa Bird Club in Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge, a great group of birders. It's fun to share our knowledge with others. Our new Stokes field guide comes in handy when discussing tricky ID of shorebirds and immature Night-Herons. It was foggy in the morning and the low light added drama to the photos of the Tri-colored Heron I took.

Peregrine Falcon grabs tern

Peregrine Falcon grabs Forster's Tern

From the corner of my eye I saw a flash of wings, on reflex alone, I raised the camera and shot, just in time to get on this image of an adult Peregrine Falcon, carrying its prize, a Forster's Tern. The hunter and the hunted, unless you are a small fish, then the hunter becomes the tern.

BBC Wildlife Mag. Great Review, Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America

Lillian's Yellow Warbler photo, from the Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America, is in BBC Wildlife Magazine, along with a review.

We have gotten an excellent review from the prestigious BBC Wildlife Magazine for our new The Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America. They published a beautiful photo of the Yellow Warbler, by Lillian, from our new guide. The review was by Mark Cocker, famous British bird author.

He says, "I need to declare a bias at the onset; I am not a fan of id guides that use photographs rather than paintings... But if a single photo guide could ever persuade me of the merits of the (photo) format, this would.. be it. This is a glorious book put together with loving attention to detail, covering all of the 864 bird species that regularly occur north of the US-Mexico border... the text is succinct and thorough and the maps are clear... the true selling point of this book is the images, which are almost uniformly pin-sharp. There are at least 4 per bird; for more comples species that have several plumage phases there are as many as a dozen... this is a superb, good-value field guide."

Mark also notes why this book is of keen interest to British birders. "A good many of them (i.e. North American species), such as the gulls, waders and wonderfully colourful American wood-warblers, are relevant to British-based birders because they can turn up on this side of the Atlantic as migrants or windblown vagrants."