The Nest Generation

Despite the belated summer weather here in Seattle -- we just went through a record setting late September spell of nine over eighty degree days (after an almost nonexistent spring and unusually cool summer) -- the birds seem to know that fall is coming and they are changing their patterns.  I've seen a couple of species back around my yard in the past week that haven't been around much during the summer.

First -- a hummingbird.  Anna's hummingbirds were frequent guests in my yard all winter.  In fact, on very cold mornings I had to keep rushing outside to make sure that the feeders weren't frozen.  I got very good at thawing them out, and keeping two in rotations, one inside the house to stay warm, one outside for the birds until it got too cold.   

I haven't seen them much this summer, though.  Which seems opposite of what you would expect.  But Seattle is a city full of flowers (a blooming city, you could say) and I suspect that the hummingbirds just had plenty of food sources and didn't need my feeders.  Now, the blooms are fading and they're coming back.

At least this little gal is.  This is an Anna's hummingbird, and though it's not easy to be sure from the photos, probably a female and very likely a juvenile.  (You don't have much scale in the photos, but if you could see her in person, and you know Anna's at all, you'd realize she's pretty small.)

(Photo by my roommate Dan)

I also saw this week -- not in my yard, but at a nearby bus stop -- a busy flock of bushtits.  These guys are frequent visitors to my yard and suet feeder, and they have also been mostly AWOL during the summer.   I was happy to see them back -- they come sweeping in with lots of activity and chirping like a sudden rain squall, and then, just as suddenly they're gone.  Off down the road to another yard.  I'll be keeping my eyes (and ears -- I frequently hear them before I see them) open for them at home.

(Photo by Dan)

(Photo by Dan)

I mentioned in my last post that I had seen a Steller's Jay eating on the rail with Timmy (my resident pigeon).  I got a few photos of him, and roommate got some more soon after.  You might not think it's the same Jay from the different angles in the photos, but I'm pretty sure he is.  And if you look closely at the photos you can see, at the corner of his bill a trace of a lighter color.  That, most likely, is the remnant of gape flanges which allow juvenile birds to open their beaks extra wide (to "gape" in other words) so that they can be fed by their parents.  In a fully mature Steller's Jay the beak is dark all the way down, with no lighter coloring visible.  That means this guy is very likely one of this year's fledglings.  It also might explain why he's on his own and looking for new sources of food.

A sad note:  One of my personal heroes passed away recently.  Sarge the Elderbull was a tireless advocate for his breed, for dog lovers (and dogs who love dog lovers) and for the welfare of shelter dogs everywhere.  You can check out this sweet remembrance of him at Stubby Dog, as well as their loving obituary.  Also, you can check out Sarge's own site at Elderbulls and his Facebook page.  Sarge was a true American hero.  Thank you to Sarge and to his human family who carry on his work.

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You can also enjoy my recent article "Crazy Flickers" over at 10,000 Birds.  They have a great site, well worth checking out even if I wasn't included.

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.   

The Canon Rebel and the Zen of Bird Watching

I am a photo birder.

Though I've gotten better over the last year (mostly from learning what to look for) I'm still a little weak at "on the wing" identifications.  I have photographs (not always good photographs) of every single bird on my yard list and most of the birds on my life list.  I feel more confident that way.

Technically, this is not a great photo, but it captures something so specific to the species -- the Junco's tendency to dive straight down toward the ground -- that I really love it.

Plus, you can learn a lot from photos.  You can see things -- details of markings, movement, flight and behavior that are hard to catch in real-time observation.  And though I like to take a beautiful shot as much as anyone, that's not really my point in shooting wildlife.  My goal is to use the camera to expand my ability to see.

The camera that I use is a Canon Rebel XTi.  I bought it several years ago and the salesperson described it as the "top of the line of amateur cameras".  (It's at least one generation back now, but I'm very happy with it.)  The next step up, he said, was to the low-end professional cameras.  The XTi is lightweight, which makes it easy to carry, even with a large lens (although you have to learn to compensate for overbalancing when the lens far outweighs the camera).  Lately, I've been using a Sigma50-500 HMS lens, a step up (in size and range) from the Canon 75-300mm lens that I used for so long and was very happy with.  The reason I switched, initially, was not because I was dissatisfied with the smaller lens, but because it developed a glitch and stopped working with the camera's auto-focus.  Otherwise, I would probably still be relying on the 75-300.  It is light and versatile -- but mostly because I am a creature of habit.  

One of the nice things about Canon is their EOS lens system.  Basically, all Cannon SLR cameras use the same set of lenses, which gives you a very wide range of options.  They are also compatible with a wide array of lenses from third-party producers.  As I said, I've had good luck with my lens from Sigma.

This Bushtit behavior would be very hard to see with the naked eye.

My technique, so far, is really not much of a technique at all.  I take my camera with me to all sorts of places -- and most importantly I keep it close to the front door, so that I can get out onto the deck in a hurry.  My front yard provides a big part of my birding excitement lately -- I make as many discoveries there as I do when I go on excursions.  (Which maybe means I should broaden my areas of excursion?)

This photo is not clear and hard to identify, but along with the next one ...

It makes a positive ID:  Black-headed Grosbeak

With the possible exception of writing and playing with my dogs, there is simply nothing in my life as healthy and calming as bird watching and photography.  I find that the stillness that it takes to really see the birds around me is meditative.  I'm generally not a person who finds it easy to stay still -- much less quiet.  Really hearing the birds requires that I stop talking to myself, at least for a little while.  I wear glasses -- I see pretty well close up, but not at a distance -- but I have my camera focus adjusted for my uncorrected vision.  The slight blurriness of the world when I take off my glasses is actually an asset, I think.  (And I can now identify a number of familiar birds without my glasses -- House Sparrows from their markings and their sound, Juncos from the charcoal cowl and the flash of white on their tails, chickadees with the sharp pattern of black-and-white).  It allows me to relax and focus more on the entire space around me, rather than the details of one thing.  What I'm looking for is motion.  Songbirds are all about motion.  

In Zen and the Art of Archery, Eugen Herrigel's archery teacher told him, "Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out! ... The shot will only go smoothly when it takes the archer himself by surprise .... "  I like that kind of photography.  

This Chickadee seems confused, landing on the wrong feeder.  But I would guess he's looking for ants.

A flash of yellow could be anyone -- too fast for the eye to tell.

Last week I was out on my deck and I noticed movement in the tall bushes by the sidewalk.  Bushtits often forage in those bushes, so that's what I expected at first.  As I was bringing the camera up, I saw a flash of bright yellow.  Definitely not a bushtit.  The bird was moving so fast though, flitting around in the bushes so much that it was almost impossible to get a good look at him.  Even through the powerful lens, my eyes couldn't catch him.  This is when the features of the Cannon Rebel really come into their own.  With the settings on automatic (I usually use the "sports" setting because it shoots so fast), you lose a lot of control over aperture and film speed and such, but the auto-focus is very good.  I simply track the motion, shooting as fast as I can.  The 50-500 lens takes some getting used to, because of its length and weight.  Some people prefer to use it with a tripod, but with small songbirds I find that too restrictive.  (Although it could work well at a hummingbird feeder).  I have learned to handhold this lens, and I can keep it steady now while I shoot.  Don't think of what you have to do, don't consider how to carry it out.  The great joy of this kind of shooting is when it takes the photographer himself by surprise. I shot hundreds of frames of my little yellow visitor, and even after I finished, I didn't have a clear idea of who he was.  He was moving too fast.  With my naked eyes (even with glasses) I never would have gotten a good enough look at him to identify him.  Binoculars probably wouldn't have helped much either.

But when I started looking through my shots I found wonderful surprises. 

Unmistakably a Wilson's Warbler.

The camera captures what the eye could never see.

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

(Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

Sizing up songbirds: My favorite trick for identifying birds

What's the first thing you notice when you glimpse a strange bird?

Not too long ago, I didn't know a black-capped chickadee from a Dark-eyed Junco.   Of course, I knew a hummingbird when I saw one, and I was familiar with gulls and crows.  But I spent too much time in the heart of the city, and I wasn't very good at being still long enough to really see the smaller songbirds around me.

Now, I probably recognize a dozen or more species of songbirds on sight -- sometimes just by the way they move or fly.  And though I'm not a very good "by ear" birder, I have learned the songs and calls of many of my most familiar species.

Color and movement command attention.  But are they the best keys to identification?

But a couple of unusual visitors in the past week have gotten me to thinking about the perennial bird watcher's question:  what is the best way to identify a bird in the field?  If you look around at bird books and blogs and magazines you will find endless information and advice on this topic -- much of it very good.  But, as a novice myself, I thought it might be helpful to say something about how I have learned to do it in the past year.  

So again, what's the first thing you notice when you catch sight of an unknown bird?

Probably color.  Color demands our attention.  And movement.  Location, in a tree, in a bush, on the ground.  Songs and calls.  All of these are vital clues.  But the problem is that there's so much relevant information, and often our chance to observe the bird is so brief, that it can be hard to know what we should pay attention to first.

I've learned a little trick that works very well for me, and often provides a key to figuring out a bird's identity.  It's not unique to me -- I've done a lot of reading in the past year and had the opportunity to pick the brains of people who know a lot more than I do -- but I've been able to adapt it to my area and habits.  What I've done is train myself to ask a different question first, one that's not nearly as instinctive as some of the others: How big is this bird?

Bushtits are the smallest songbirds in North America.

Among songbirds, size is crucial.  Knowing the approximate size dramatically narrows the possibilities.  Then the other things I notice -- color patterns, movement, location, song -- all become much more useful, because there are a lot less candidates to choose from.

If you're like I was, you're thinking, "How in the world do you expect me to guess the size of a bird that I see for less than a minute a hundred feet away?"  In my mind, when I started out, all small birds were "sparrows" and I was convinced I couldn't tell them apart.  Little did I know there was a whole galaxy of smaller-than-sparrow species to learn.

The trick is, you don't have to know how big a bird is in centimeters or fractions of a gram.  All you have to know is relative size.  How big is the bird compared to species you already know?  If you can place him between two species you know, then the task of identifying him becomes much simpler.

Everyone knows Robins, which makes them the perfect beginning metric for birdwatchers.

In my head, I have gradually built up a scale.  It will be a little different depending on where you live, and what birds you're familiar with.  But you don't have to know a lot of birds to start.  Two or three species is enough to start making valuable guesses about size.  (Even something as simple as "Is it bigger or smaller than a Robin?" can be very valuable.)

Crows are the largest songbirds most city-people see regularly.

For instance, in my neighborhood, the smallest songbirds around are bushtits.  (Actually they're the smallest songbirds in North America, about the size of an Anna's Hummingbird.)  And the largest songbirds are Crows.  (There are occasional Raven sightings out here in West Seattle, but they are very rare.)  Around here, if it's bigger than a crow, it's not a songbird.  You're into groups like hawks and gulls then.

My personal scale runs -- roughly -- like this:  Bushtits, Black-Capped Chickadees, Dark-eyed Juncos, House Sparrows, Robins, Steller's Jays, Crows.   This is a pretty good scale for where I live.  Nine times out of ten, if I get a good look (or a good photo) I can pretty quickly place the bird on my scale.

So when I glimpse that unknown visitor in the cherry tree, I ask myself about his size.  I know he's bigger than a House Sparrow, not quite as big as a Robin.  Once I know that, I can easily leverage whatever other information I have -- orange chest, black head and wings, white bars on the wings -- into a good identification:  That's a Black-Headed Grosbeak.

And what could be more satisfying to a bird watcher than that?


(I'd love to hear some of your favorite aids to identification.  Feel free to leave them in the comments.)

RELATED POSTS

Crows

Turf Wars

Bushtits

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

(Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

Bushtits

The day before yesterday, in the late afternoon, a flock of very small birds swept into my yard like a sudden rain squall.  They were everywhere, all at once, hopping from branch to branch in the large cherry tree  and swarming all over the suet feeder -- maybe a dozen at a time!  I rushed to get my camera, but by the time I got back there were only a few left.

As suddenly as they came, they were gone, off down the street to the next stop in someone else's tree.

Bushtits are the smallest songbirds in North America (by weight) -- the smallest of any birds on the continent except hummingbirds.  Even my resident chickadees look big beside them.  According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology's "All About Birds" site (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bushtit/lifehistory) the range from 2.8 to 3.1 inches and weigh between one and two tenths of an ounce.  (By contrast, the Anna's hummingbird, common in this area, averages about 3.9 inches and weighs almost the same.)  They also note that the Bushtit is the only member of its family found in North America -- there are seven others species across Eurasia -- and they build complex, hanging nests.  My favorite field guide, "Birds of the Puget Sound Region"  (by Bob Morse, Tom Aversa and Hal Opperman) describes an  " ... extraordinary hanging nest woven of moss, lichen, spider web and other material, up to a foot long with small entrance near top, usually less than ten feet from the ground."  I've never seen one of these nests in person, but I would love to.

Bushtits were one of the first species discovered to have "helpers" at the nest.  Extra individuals, presumably related, who help the mother and father with care of the young.  All the family members (again, according to "All About Birds") sleep together in the nest, but they leave it after the chicks fledge. 

My own experience with Bushtits is limited to these sudden visitations in my yard, two or three times in the last eight months.   I knew absolutely nothing about them before those encounters.  Unlike the chickadees and juncos who spend so much time in my yard and at my feeders, the Bushtits come and go very quickly.  It might take a lot longer to really get to know them.