This marks the fourth year, beginning soon after Stacy Peterson and I put www.IdahoBirds.net online for the first time in 2004, wherein the county yearly listing frenzy has continued. What at began as just a few “crazies” in a limited number of counties competing against each other for biggest yearly species list bragging rights has swelled into an all-county (or almost so) statewide, all year, record keeping marathon, all kept on a somewhat sane, orderly keel by Lew Ulrey.
I like to occasionally look at the IdahBirds.net web page and check out how the various counties are doing as much as any other insane Idaho birder. And I find the updates on IBLE (some more regular than others, simply because of the personnel coverage advantage that some counties have) interesting… and yes, informative. But I would like to suggest a more “serious purpose” for these lists than the obvious.
When looking at each migratory species across the board, it becomes quite obvious what are the arrival dates (both early and mean) for each bird throughout the state… and in each county (and with a little bit more application, each geographic, or even topographic, section of the state).
Let’s look at it this way: Let’s say that someone wants to know when Chipping Sparrow first arrives in Idaho each year, as both an earliest arrival date and as a mean/average arrival, the information is easily accessible to make the necessary determination. And obviously with each additional year archived, there is a greater sampling from which to draw.
If this is starting to sound like an entry level statistics class, let me hopefully make it more practical. Yesterday there was an article by Seth Bornstein, an AP Science writer, published here locally in the Idaho Statesman newspaper refers to the changing dates (much earlier) for both the Washington D.C. cherry blossoms emergence and various butterflies appearing in flight over recent history. Many have also declared with anecdotal authority that our migratory birds, Neotropical and North American, are arriving earlier each year.
Well…these county lists can be Idaho’s database for a realistic assessment of arrival dates for all our migrant species.
But for these otherwise meaningless appearing dates to have any lasting significance, here are some vital things in which we all, to some degree, can have a part:
1. Carefully and accurately note all of your first arrivals of the spring.
2. Post your arrival dates directly on IBLE, Inland-NW-Birders, or SWIBA.
3. Send your dates to your county compiler (they are listed on the IdahoBirds.net site… even if you think your sighting may not be the first of the year… You never know, it may.
4. “Someone” needs to compile and work with the available dates on each of these birds (arrival for each, mean arrival date over the years, earliest arrival date), put the data in a spreadsheet form, and send the information someone who has a very specific plan for its wider utilization… Me! (More on that later… I promise.)
Maybe someone with an accountant’s mind (or who just desires to provide a lasting, potentially impacting service for understanding Idaho’s birdlife) wants to take on a few counties (or just one)… or maybe even head up this project (help put it together)? I want to definitely hear from you…. Please… pretty please. :)
There are some other just as important sides to this, which need to be worked out also. Perhaps you have an idea that you could share that would set us here in Idaho on our way toward getting all of these necessary bits of information:
1. Departure dates are needed, just as arrival dates. How can we begin to amass them?
2. Dispersal dates – arrival and departure – would be very valuable. For instance, when do we see our first Red-breasted Nuthatch in the lowlands each year (perhaps even none in some years)? When do they leave (or as in a recent case, stay over the summer)?
3. Winter (or sometimes summer, depending on the birds) invasion/dispersal species from the “North” (some predictable, others not) need to be “mapped.”
We are sitting on a goldmine of information, information that at least partially is very readily accessible and just waiting to be utilized.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
The Swan Identification Dilemma
Idaho is one of the few localities in North America where differentiating between Trumpeter Swan and Tundra Swan is a necessity... at least if we want to be carefully accurate in our observations. All too often I've heard "It looked too big to be a Tundra" or "There was no yellow on the bill" or even "They kept away from the others, so...."
Idaho Migratory Waterfowl Stamp, 1990-1991 - Trumpeter Swan
Idaho Migratory Waterfowl Stamp, 1990-1991 - Trumpeter Swan
Unfortunately all of the preceding are not good reasons in and of themselves to make an accurate determination. And although Trumpeter Swans are regularly seen in western Idaho, I wonder a bit about numbers often reported, especially considering the obvious drop-off in occurrence when moving away from the eastern Idaho breeding areas. Even the map utilized at the conclusion of this piece designates a "non-breeding, resident population" in western Idaho.... Don't mistake that as meaning the birds are there all year long. It means nothing more than they can be present during non-breeding times (non-summer or breeding season)....
David Sibley makes some good (and as usual, well illustrated) points, primarily based on a visit to Skagit Valley of Washington State to view both species. The material is worth careful consideration, especially at this time of the year:
David Sibley makes some good (and as usual, well illustrated) points, primarily based on a visit to Skagit Valley of Washington State to view both species. The material is worth careful consideration, especially at this time of the year:
Personally, I have found two id points to be most helpful in sorting out these two very similar species. First, I have not found the head shape to be a variable between the two. As with white-cheeked geese, taking careful note of the relationship between bill and head is very telling. With practice, it is quite easy to see the much more rounded shape of the Tundra Swan head, which is even more accentuated by the steeper slope of the bill in relation to the head. Trumpeter Swan head/bill relationship is much more continuous in nature, from bill tip to top of head, which often seems quite peaked with what can even be an abrupt point at the rear of the crown. A head-on view of a bird might be more of a challenge, but usually the bill/head relationship identification point is diagnostic of itself. Another little referenced but extremely useful point when looking at a bird "head-on" is the fact that the bill outline of Trumpeter Swans forms a "V," whereas that of a Tundra is much more of a "U."
A second point that can be very helpful is the positioning of the eye. Even when viewing the suggested 10% of Tundra Swans which have no yellow on the bill at all, the eye still seems to be "disconnected" from the bill, whereas in Trumpeter Swans the eye and bill blend together into an indistinguishable whole. I find that even at a distance this trait is useful and, with practice, can be easily noted.
Here are some often used identification points that should not be relied upon, especially if used in isolation:
1. apparent body size of the individual bird
2. presence of (or lack of) yellow on the bill
3. body shape and structure
4. association with or away from other swans
5. leg color
6. isolated vocalizing birds - "bugling" of Tundras can sound strangely like the "trumpeting" of Trumpeters. "Whistling" (hence the former name, Whistling Swan) is not the only vocalization of a Tundra Swan.
Also, of interest are the total reported Trumpeter Swans in the Great Backyard Bird Count, beginning in 1998 through 2008, for Idaho, Oregon, and Washington:
Washington: http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/report?cmd=showReport&reportName=SpeciesCity&species=truswa&state=US-WA&year=2008
One issue also worth mentioning is the identifcation of first year birds. Bill size and shape is not reliable on young birds, particularly since young Tundra's bills seem quite "large." Young birds (gray-brown in both species) which have pure white on scapulars in December and January are always Tundras (Trumpeters are still in full juvenile plumage during this time period). During the months before December, when juveniles can seem quite similar in plumage, Trumpeters are said by many to have a more patterned, scaly look resulting from lighter feather edges. I cannot personally speak to this potential differentiation.
Of instructional value may be detailed range maps for both species (provided by southdakotabirds.com):
Tundra Swan
Trumpeter Swan
(As always, your critical comments about the helpfulness, accuracy, and reliance of any identification material is welcome.)
One issue also worth mentioning is the identifcation of first year birds. Bill size and shape is not reliable on young birds, particularly since young Tundra's bills seem quite "large." Young birds (gray-brown in both species) which have pure white on scapulars in December and January are always Tundras (Trumpeters are still in full juvenile plumage during this time period). During the months before December, when juveniles can seem quite similar in plumage, Trumpeters are said by many to have a more patterned, scaly look resulting from lighter feather edges. I cannot personally speak to this potential differentiation.
Of instructional value may be detailed range maps for both species (provided by southdakotabirds.com):
Tundra Swan
Trumpeter Swan
(As always, your critical comments about the helpfulness, accuracy, and reliance of any identification material is welcome.)
Monday, March 10, 2008
A Call for L.I.C.S. (Locality Intensive Coverage Surveys)
I should probably be the last to bring up this subject, but having actions matching our convictions would be a worthy goal for anyone’s deeper aspirations, right? And I for one am definitely into that type of “matching.”
Ted Trueblood WMA, North Pond
Photo: Courtesy of Tom McCabe
So, with that cryptic preface, let me launch out boldly to say that I’m sure it’s a given that few of us non-professionals in ornithology have unlimited field time (unless perhaps we may be so fortunate as to also have “bottomless pockets”), most of us picking and choosing our time in the field from an assortment of weekends, mornings, evenings or days off from doing the things that bring in the paychecks and keep our lives, whether family or personal, from falling apart. Where we spend those limited hours of birding does make a difference…at least if considering a larger picture than just enlarging our home county, state and/or life lists.
I know… I can hear some of you already…Yes, I’m the guy who spent an entire year running around Idaho, chasing every possible lead, probably single-handedly pushing up the price of gasoline by my personal use and demand, often idly wishing I could get some kind of frequent flyer/use awards for repetitively traveling I-84 east and US 95 north from Boise. But I’m happy to say that my family, budget, and ethics all survived that year’s peripatetic quest, which by December left me wondering what mental magical euphoria the ability to truthfully and proudly state that I had seen “318 different Idaho bird species, recognized, accepted, and greater in number than any other birder before me in this state during one calendar year” was all about. In retrospect I’ve come to the conclusion that although it was a definite challenge and personal achievement stretch, I’ve boldly and indelibly etched on the tablets of my psyche “Never again!”
Yes, you’ve probably already guessed it. This is going to be an impassioned, but hopefully most logical, appeal to not be a bird chaser, but rather a bird finder…and then not just to anywhere your fancy may strike you on a given day or weekend, but at a specific, regularly checked, carefully tabulated, explored, and consciously selected locality or route that you stick by for not just a few weeks or months, but perhaps even years, season in and season out…a LICS or Locality Intensive Coverage Survey.
Everyone wants to be in that place “where the birds can be found”…as many and of as great a variety as possible. No one wants to spend their precious, limited time looking at little of number or consequence. If I’m going to put off mowing, cleaning, fixing, and shopping (to name just a few, often family assisted, glaring needs that have a way of “intruding” on free time), then I want to make sure I’m not wasting my energy on a potentially bird-less landscape, right? Why not go to where someone else has already assured me of a good shot at numbers, variety, and even possible rarities?
Before I answer my own rhetorical questions… (definitely beware of people who talk to themselves!), let me tell you that I’m the kind of person that doesn’t like life just handed to him by someone else’s actions. I actually enjoy the hard work and effort necessary to accomplish. I get a rush out of seeing it happen because I myself make it happen. For me “passivity” and “conformity” are in the same category as malignant cancers, the N.Y. Yankees, big oil companies, Soap Operas, and Country Music… I know that I can’t escape them and can’t outrun their relentless resiliency and pervasive power, but in no way or form do I want to succumb to their ever encroaching evil either, and be branded by them. (I figure that I’ve lost about one-half of you with that last sentence, but…I believe honesty is still a virtue.)
Let me put it this way, especially for all you hardcore listers. By doing the hard work of selecting an area to regularly and carefully census, recurrently and conscientiously following through on surveying that area, and then keeping permanent records over the course of many seasons, records which in some way can be shared with others about observable changes in avian populations, you and I can potentially be adding an important piece to a larger puzzle of occurrence, distribution, dispersal, population, and habitat adaptation of various species, to say nothing of chronicling potential changes in the land itself and its environmental suitability for birdlife.
I know, the Breeding Bird Census, Christmas Bird Count, Great Backyard Bird Count, and various other lesser known and appreciated “counts” having been doing this very thing for years… but they are all one time, seasonal, “give me your best now and then move on to something else” at best.
Let me share my personal example. As of this writing there are few active birders in the Mountain Home, Elmore County area. After Stacy Peterson left for Alaska, there were few that ventured down to Ted Trueblood Wildlife Management Area and the area around C.J. Strike Reservoir on a regular basis. Yet the area always seemed to have “good birds” when checked by birders passing through or deciding to give it a seasonal shot for a day or so. The Bruneau Christmas Bird Count attests to the possibilities of at least a portion of the area. Ted Trueblood WMA is but 52 miles from my front door, and I can make a round trip, after continuing on through Grand View to the Strike Dam, finally stopping at access points along the south shore of C.J. Strike before returning home, totaling approximately 150 miles (at $3 or so per gallon, that’s about $18 to $20 per week). While I may not be able to “run my route” on the same day of the week, 52 weeks per year, I have decided to come as close as possible to that precision regularity as schedules, family, finances, and the serendipitous nature of life will allow.
Initially I will be able to compare my sighting results to other more irregular visits I’ve made in years past (and perhaps the visits of other birders also). But the fun really starts when comparison can be made going into a second or subsequent year, looking at species numbers, arrival and departure dates, dispersal patterns, breeding and over-wintering records, etc.
Here’s my challenge to you: find a place, any place, that you can “make your own.” Set out your own schedule of coverage. Maybe it can be more than once a week, perhaps in some cases even close to daily. It might even be your own backyard! Or it could be that you can only cover your area every other week, or every ten days… it’s your project. You can set the parameters and boundaries of coverage.
Here are the things that are important for you to do to make this a potentially valuable part Idaho’s permanent record of birdlife (or wherever you may live):
Choose the coverage area
Set out a schedule of coverage, keeping as close to set reporting times and dates as possible
Keep careful record of not only species seen, but numbers of each species, first and last dates seen during any season, major movements of species into the area, etc.
Note weather and viewing conditions on each day
Make note of any divergences you make from the preset observation patterns, for instance, any places you may have skipped or added on a given day.
Take down descriptions of any unusual or rare birds seen. (“Rarity” can be a very relative term, because what is rare for your viewing territory might be “common” elsewhere, or visa versa. You are the expert on the birds of your area; you have the records; you are the one who knows what birds are worthy of note.)
Regularly share your findings on a forum such a IBLE (or the bird message board of your choice for the area in which you live)
What will doing these LICS (Locality Intensive Coverage Surveys) accomplish? What’s in it all for you?
The personal satisfaction of discovery and adding to the collective knowledge of the birdlife of an area, if not also a state
Becoming THE EXPERT on the birdlife of your chosen area. No one will know more about the birds of your area than you know about them.
Refining and fine-tuning your identification, observation, and recording skills in a way that few birding exercises can accomplish
Some of you have been participating in LICS before I gave it a name and made it a potentially new birding acronym. Whether in your backyard, local park, nearby reservoir, National Wildlife Refuge, or ?...this is nothing new to you. People like Darrell Marks at Dry Lakes, Canyon County, or Cliff and Lisa Weisse in Island Park, or many others have been setting the standard (my apologies to those that I did not mention by name).
But my challenge to the rest of you is to also take up this golden opportunity. Idaho is yet “young” when it comes to what we actually know about its birdlife compared to neighbors such as Oregon and Washington, or even Utah and Nevada. I would love to see what some of you come up with. If you need suggestions or assistance in getting started with you personal LICS, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to give you some suggestions.
LICS for Idaho…and the West!
I know… I can hear some of you already…Yes, I’m the guy who spent an entire year running around Idaho, chasing every possible lead, probably single-handedly pushing up the price of gasoline by my personal use and demand, often idly wishing I could get some kind of frequent flyer/use awards for repetitively traveling I-84 east and US 95 north from Boise. But I’m happy to say that my family, budget, and ethics all survived that year’s peripatetic quest, which by December left me wondering what mental magical euphoria the ability to truthfully and proudly state that I had seen “318 different Idaho bird species, recognized, accepted, and greater in number than any other birder before me in this state during one calendar year” was all about. In retrospect I’ve come to the conclusion that although it was a definite challenge and personal achievement stretch, I’ve boldly and indelibly etched on the tablets of my psyche “Never again!”
Yes, you’ve probably already guessed it. This is going to be an impassioned, but hopefully most logical, appeal to not be a bird chaser, but rather a bird finder…and then not just to anywhere your fancy may strike you on a given day or weekend, but at a specific, regularly checked, carefully tabulated, explored, and consciously selected locality or route that you stick by for not just a few weeks or months, but perhaps even years, season in and season out…a LICS or Locality Intensive Coverage Survey.
Everyone wants to be in that place “where the birds can be found”…as many and of as great a variety as possible. No one wants to spend their precious, limited time looking at little of number or consequence. If I’m going to put off mowing, cleaning, fixing, and shopping (to name just a few, often family assisted, glaring needs that have a way of “intruding” on free time), then I want to make sure I’m not wasting my energy on a potentially bird-less landscape, right? Why not go to where someone else has already assured me of a good shot at numbers, variety, and even possible rarities?
Before I answer my own rhetorical questions… (definitely beware of people who talk to themselves!), let me tell you that I’m the kind of person that doesn’t like life just handed to him by someone else’s actions. I actually enjoy the hard work and effort necessary to accomplish. I get a rush out of seeing it happen because I myself make it happen. For me “passivity” and “conformity” are in the same category as malignant cancers, the N.Y. Yankees, big oil companies, Soap Operas, and Country Music… I know that I can’t escape them and can’t outrun their relentless resiliency and pervasive power, but in no way or form do I want to succumb to their ever encroaching evil either, and be branded by them. (I figure that I’ve lost about one-half of you with that last sentence, but…I believe honesty is still a virtue.)
Let me put it this way, especially for all you hardcore listers. By doing the hard work of selecting an area to regularly and carefully census, recurrently and conscientiously following through on surveying that area, and then keeping permanent records over the course of many seasons, records which in some way can be shared with others about observable changes in avian populations, you and I can potentially be adding an important piece to a larger puzzle of occurrence, distribution, dispersal, population, and habitat adaptation of various species, to say nothing of chronicling potential changes in the land itself and its environmental suitability for birdlife.
I know, the Breeding Bird Census, Christmas Bird Count, Great Backyard Bird Count, and various other lesser known and appreciated “counts” having been doing this very thing for years… but they are all one time, seasonal, “give me your best now and then move on to something else” at best.
Let me share my personal example. As of this writing there are few active birders in the Mountain Home, Elmore County area. After Stacy Peterson left for Alaska, there were few that ventured down to Ted Trueblood Wildlife Management Area and the area around C.J. Strike Reservoir on a regular basis. Yet the area always seemed to have “good birds” when checked by birders passing through or deciding to give it a seasonal shot for a day or so. The Bruneau Christmas Bird Count attests to the possibilities of at least a portion of the area. Ted Trueblood WMA is but 52 miles from my front door, and I can make a round trip, after continuing on through Grand View to the Strike Dam, finally stopping at access points along the south shore of C.J. Strike before returning home, totaling approximately 150 miles (at $3 or so per gallon, that’s about $18 to $20 per week). While I may not be able to “run my route” on the same day of the week, 52 weeks per year, I have decided to come as close as possible to that precision regularity as schedules, family, finances, and the serendipitous nature of life will allow.
Initially I will be able to compare my sighting results to other more irregular visits I’ve made in years past (and perhaps the visits of other birders also). But the fun really starts when comparison can be made going into a second or subsequent year, looking at species numbers, arrival and departure dates, dispersal patterns, breeding and over-wintering records, etc.
Here’s my challenge to you: find a place, any place, that you can “make your own.” Set out your own schedule of coverage. Maybe it can be more than once a week, perhaps in some cases even close to daily. It might even be your own backyard! Or it could be that you can only cover your area every other week, or every ten days… it’s your project. You can set the parameters and boundaries of coverage.
Here are the things that are important for you to do to make this a potentially valuable part Idaho’s permanent record of birdlife (or wherever you may live):
Choose the coverage area
Set out a schedule of coverage, keeping as close to set reporting times and dates as possible
Keep careful record of not only species seen, but numbers of each species, first and last dates seen during any season, major movements of species into the area, etc.
Note weather and viewing conditions on each day
Make note of any divergences you make from the preset observation patterns, for instance, any places you may have skipped or added on a given day.
Take down descriptions of any unusual or rare birds seen. (“Rarity” can be a very relative term, because what is rare for your viewing territory might be “common” elsewhere, or visa versa. You are the expert on the birds of your area; you have the records; you are the one who knows what birds are worthy of note.)
Regularly share your findings on a forum such a IBLE (or the bird message board of your choice for the area in which you live)
What will doing these LICS (Locality Intensive Coverage Surveys) accomplish? What’s in it all for you?
The personal satisfaction of discovery and adding to the collective knowledge of the birdlife of an area, if not also a state
Becoming THE EXPERT on the birdlife of your chosen area. No one will know more about the birds of your area than you know about them.
Refining and fine-tuning your identification, observation, and recording skills in a way that few birding exercises can accomplish
Some of you have been participating in LICS before I gave it a name and made it a potentially new birding acronym. Whether in your backyard, local park, nearby reservoir, National Wildlife Refuge, or ?...this is nothing new to you. People like Darrell Marks at Dry Lakes, Canyon County, or Cliff and Lisa Weisse in Island Park, or many others have been setting the standard (my apologies to those that I did not mention by name).
But my challenge to the rest of you is to also take up this golden opportunity. Idaho is yet “young” when it comes to what we actually know about its birdlife compared to neighbors such as Oregon and Washington, or even Utah and Nevada. I would love to see what some of you come up with. If you need suggestions or assistance in getting started with you personal LICS, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to give you some suggestions.
LICS for Idaho…and the West!
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