Juli

I have seen quite a few owls in my life. When I was a child I found a red morph Eastern Screech-owl sitting in the bushes right at eye level. It was asleep and hardly opened it's eyes as I looked at it. It was intriguing and seemed like something out of an imaginary world to me. I will never forget it! Now I run in the mornings before the sun comes up. It is fairly common to hear Barred Owls. Many times I have heard them their courtship calls which get very emphatic and interesting. From time to time I see them but mostly at that time of day I hear them. I used to have a big light in my backyard that would automatically come on at night. The bugs would come to the light and a Barred Owl would come and catch and eat the bugs on a regular basis. Over the years I have seen the Barred Owls many, many times. I also have seen quite a few Great Horned Owls, including juveniles who recently left the nest. I once saw a Great Horned Owl swoop down and grab a snake out in the national forest. When in Belize this past March I saw both a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl and a Spectacled Owl. Both were very special memories!

Activity 3: Interestingly some of the changes to bird populations that I have noted in my lifetime are the same as the ones that Kevin mentioned in the video. As a child, tromping through the woods and fields behind my house I would frequently come across Northern Bobwhites. Their calls always bring me back to my youth. Unfortunately, now they are not nearly as common. We do have some areas where they still can be found and I always consider it a good day if I get to hear their call. Bald Eagles were quite uncommon when I was younger. I saw them in our local museum but I did not see my first Bald Eagle in the wild until I was about 22 years old. Now (I am 51) I see them on a very regular basis. I see them probably at least once or twice a week depending on where I am birding. They can be reliably found at a lake five minutes from my house. I have seen them as I was walking across the parking lot on the way to work, walking into Walmart, driving down the street, passing over my own backyard, etc... Today I actually saw two active bald eagle nests at St Marks National Wildlife Reserve which is about half an hour from my house. Two other birds that came to mind with this activity are the Canada Goose and the Eastern Bluebird. We have a local park called Lake Ella, which consists of a small (man made I believe) pond with a sidewalk all the way around it. As a child I used to go to Lake Ella and feed the ducks. On very rare occasions a Canada Goose or two would show up there and I would be so excited to see them! Now Canada Geese are everywhere!!! I see them in the parking lot of the bank next door to my work, at just about every birding spot with water, flying over my house, on golf courses, standing by the side of the road, etc... The Eastern Bluebird is another bird that in my life time I have seem dramatic changes in it's population. I can remember as a child reading in Ranger Rick about bluebird trail and seeing pictures of this brilliant, beautiful bird and wishing I could see one. I finally saw my first Eastern Bluebird when I was 18 years old. It was sitting on a fence at an acquaintances house that lived out in the country and had a horse farm. I was so excited to see the Eastern Bluebird which I shared with my friends who totally did not get it. Now fast forward to today, I see Eastern Bluebirds on a daily basis. I have a nest box in my backyard that they regularly nest in. There are probably 100 of them that live in my neighborhood. I go running early in the morning and as the sun starts coming up, I see and hear Eastern Bluebirds lining the roads perched on the telephone wires everywhere I go. I am so happy that the Bald Eagles and the Eastern Bluebirds are thriving! I hope that conservation efforts will help the Northern Bobwhite so that we can continue to hear and see them, and do so more than we have been.

Activity 1: Why do birds matter to me? I have always been a great lover of nature and I have always loved birds. I enjoy their songs, their beauty, and their unique behaviors. I get great joy on a daily basis, out of watching them, whether it is, at one of the feeders in my yard, a soaring vulture or a chickadee hanging upside down from a gumball. knowing that bird health is a measure of the health of the world around them gives us yet, another reason to really care about their well-being. I care very much about the health of the Earth and all of it's inhabitants. I do think being a birder really brings all of these feeling to focus and makes them more urgent and direct. I have always wanted to do the right thing for the environment. It takes work and commitment. Being a birder helps keep me motivated to work hard and always look for improvements that I can personally make, as well as, ways that I can help in a broader sense. It is very helpful to have access to direct steps I can take to do my part, as laid out in this course.

Activity 1: In the past I kept a birding journal. There was a lot of good information in my old journal. I documented the time, date, temperature, and general weather observations at the start of each entry. Then I documented all the birds I saw, what they were doing, and any unusual behaviors. I find that my own notes serve as a great source for knowing what birds to expect to see in my own yard at any given time of year. Because of this assignment I decided to give field notes a better try, as far as really looking for descriptors and field marks. I found that even if I looked at a bird I know well (or maybe especially a bird I know well) that I noticed more about it's coloration and markings when thinking about if I were to draw it. I think drawing pics of the birds is probably out for me. I did try and draw a picture of a female Northern Cardinal that had lost her tail that was at my feeder. It really ended up looking like a rubber ducky not a Northern Cardinal. LOL. I think the notes and concept are very helpful but art takes too much focus on the art itself and is not something I can just do in the field. I have never been organized and really kept a list of all the birds I have seen. At various times I have checked off various checklists but not been organized about it and do not even know where many of them are anymore. Since being introduced to ebird I use it every day. I really love that it keeps track of what I have seen and where. I also got a camera for my birthday (August 13, 2020) and I have been working on my bird photography skills. I try to take pictures every day. Some turn out really good and others not so good. I love adding the pictures to my ebird lists. I find that it is a great way to document what I have seen. I like many others have mentioned with this assignment, use my photos to get my ids correct. This is really helpful for many of the shorebirds. I upload ones that I am not confident in to Merlin and can usually get some clarification. I also am a member of multiple Facebook groups that are for bird id. I have used them several times to get opinions on birds that were difficult.

Activity 3: I sat out in my backyard and listened carefully to all of the birds. This was not much different from what I normally do, as I birdwatch in my yard pretty much every day. I am always listening and hoping to hear something I do not recognize. This particular time I hear many of the usual birds, Northern Cardinal, Carolina Wren, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Carolina Chickadees, Northern Mockingbird, Downy Woodpeckers, and Blue Jays. Then I heard something I had not heard for a good while, a Northern Flicker, first one of the season! First I heard his "kleer" and then I was able to locate him and see him, as well as get a picture of him. Listening is a skill I continue to work on. I recognize many of the birds I see (and hear) on a regular basis but I am not familiar with the calls or songs of birds I do not frequently see and hear. If I hear a bird I do not recognize, then I do all I can to track it down and figure out what it is. I often listen to calls/songs on Merlin of birds that might be in my area that I am not familiar with their calls.

For Activity 1 I went outside and sat and watched several birds. First I watched three Tufted Titmice as they gleaned bugs from the undersides of the leaves in an oak tree. I saw several times some beak wiping. Then one of them started calling repeatedly and then flew across the yard to a magnolia tree. The other two followed. They seemed to be a family unit. Once they got over to the magnolia tree they continued gleaning bugs from the undersides of the leaves, and the one that had been calling continued being very vocal. It was joined by another group of Tufted Titmice. It turned out there were a total of seven of them. After that I watched a Downy Woodpecker as it foraged in the branches of a small dead tree. It found a sunny spot and started fluffing and preening. It was also doing some scratching of it's head with it's foot. I never would have realized that this was just a part of the preening process. The fact that they can not reach their head in any other way had never occured to me. Watching in this moment it was clear that it was a part of the birds preening.

Activity number three: I enjoyed looking at the pictures of the American Goldfinches and the Common Loons in their winter and summer plumages. I was already familiar with these birds different plumages but it is always nice to see. Both birds are so fantastic in their breeding (summer) plumage. I also enjoy them in their winter plumage but they are not as showy and spectacular.

I just watched the range maps for the Northern Cardinal and the Blackburnian Warbler. I saw that the Northern Cardinal's abundance fluctuated and moved around the edges and concentrated a bit at times in it's usual range (which includes where I live in Florida) but did not really migrate. It's non-breeding, pre-breeding, breeding, and post-breeding areas are all pretty much the same with no migration. The Blackburnian Warbler's range changed drastically as it went through parts of the United States and up to Canada and then back through slightly different areas of the United States and into Central and South America. The Blackburnian Warbler shares some of it's pre and post-breeding time in it's non-breeding and breeding areas. It migrates significantly. The Scarlet Tanager goes from South America up through Central America and into the Northeast portion of the United States and on up into the NE portion of Canada and then right back where it had come from. The Scarlet Tanagers pre and post-breeding time shares area with both the non-breeding and breeding locations, with a lot of overlap with the breeding location in particular. The Western Tanger goes from Central America into the Western portion of the United States and up into the Western side of Canada. The Western Tanagers pre and post-breeding time also shares area with both the non-breeding and breeding locations, with a little less overlap with the breeding location than the Scarlet Tanager. The Ruby-throated Hummingbirds goes from Central America (non-breeding time) up through the Northeast portion of the United States and the NE portion of Canada and then back through the same areas and back where they came from. It's breeding, pre-breeding, post-breeding areas are all the same areas with varying abundance. The Rufous Hummingbird goes from Central America (non-breeding) up the far Western portion of the United States close to the coast (pre-breeding), and up into the Western portion of the Canada (breeding). On it's way back down to Central America it still goes through the Western United States but covers a much larger portion of the United States(post-breeding), further East but still in the West, and then back into Central America. These two birds are polar opposites in the areas (East and West) and they have fairly different patterns as far as their pre and post-breeding in that the Rufous Hummingbird is only traveling during that time and goes to it's breeding area but the Ruby-throated Hummingbird shares that same area with it's breeding area. The Sandhill Crane goes just barely into Central America and concentrates in Texas and Florida during in their non-breeding season. They they travel up through the middle of the United States during the pre-breeding time and then up into the Northern most parts of Canada during their breeding season. There also are a good abundance or breeding Sandhill Cranes in Central and South Florida. They they return pretty much the way they came. The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher's non-breeding location is Central America. It's pre and post breeding areas are pretty much the same areas of the Northeastern United States. They Yellow-bellied Flycatcher's breeding area is primarily the lower Eastern portion of Canada. These two birds have a lot of similarities to their migration patterns. It is really interesting to see the varying patterns and different ways that birds manage their travels. I really enjoyed using this portion of the site that I had never used before.

For activity number one the two birds I identified by shape were the blue jay and the chimney swift. Even though I was familiar with these birds and able to identify them easily by shape I did try and enter them on Merlin to use it for identification. For both birds it told me there were no matches. I moved on to activity number two. For this activity I decided to focus on birds with the color red. For my first bird I chose a red-winged blackbird. I put it in Merlin and it came right up. Then I put in a Northern cardinal, and again it came right up. For my third bird I tried a downy woodpecker. When I put it in Merlin it told me there were no matches. I tried changing some of my choices like the size and then rather than viewed at my feeder, up in the tree it was in previously. Still no matches. Then I decided I would try a ruby-throated hummingbird. Onces again it gave me no matches. I then gave up on Merlin and closed it. Then after a little time had gone by I decided to try again. I opened it up and put in the statistics for the downy woodpecker and it came right up as the first choice. Then I went back to activity number one and put in both the blue jay and the chimney swift. Both came right up as the first option. For activity number three, I observed the red-winged blackbird sitting on a lotus flower at a nearby pond. He went from flower bud to flower bud picking them apart and eating parts of them. I also observed an Eastern kingbird also sitting on the lotus flowers where it perched and hunted for bugs. It would zoom out and grab a bug and then return to the same lotus flower it had been perched on. Then came the most exciting bird I observed feeding. I watched an osprey circle the pond up in the air and then suddenly  it tucked it's wings and slammed down into the water causing a large splash, and then coming out of the water with a fish in it's talons. It flew off with the fish and unfortunately flew out of view. One of my favorite birds is the Eastern Bluebird. These small, often plump appearing little birds have rounded heads and bodies and are between the size of a sparrow and a robin. The males are a brilliant blue with a rusty reddish-orange breast and a white underside. The females are like a muted version of the males with a brown head, back, and wings with a muted blue cast and washed out rusty reddish-orange breast and a white underside. These birds perch on telephone wires, fences, and branches in areas where they can look out over open fields where they hunt for their favorite foods, insects. You will often see them fly to the ground and grab a bug and then go to the same or another perch to eat their catch. They are cavity nesters that readily take nest boxes. The male feeds the female while she sits on the nest and both parents take part in rearing the chicks. When not tending to nest or young, Eastern bluebirds can often be found hanging out in small groups.