Category Archives: eBird

Birding Japan: Tokyo, Part I

Since we published them, our birding posts about Japan have been read in more than a dozen countries. If you are planning your own trip to Japan, you’re in luck! Sneed’s new book, FIRST-TIME JAPAN: A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR THE INDEPENDENT TRAVELER, tells you everything you need to know about how to plan your trip to this remarkable, yet sometimes intimidating, country. Order now by clicking here.

Well, I warned you it would be a while before you heard from us again, but we hope you find the reasons acceptable. Braden has been chasing salamanders and frogs in Maine while I have spent the last three weeks with my daughter, Tessa, in Japan! We had dreamed of visiting the Land of the Rising Shopping Mall for many years, and the country and people delivered in every way. While birding was not the purpose of the trip, you might guess that I took advantage of every opportunity to get to know Japan’s avian wildlife—experiences I’d like to share in the next few posts, starting with the focal point of Japanese civilization, Tokyo.

**While disguised as a train station, Tokyo Station is actually a small city in itself—and the transportation hub for Birding Central HQ during our stay.**

While we planned to visit several Japanese locations, Tessa and I agreed that we wanted to spend the most time in Tokyo. Accordingly, we reserved five days there on the front end of the trip and four days to finish up our journey. Wrapping our heads around such an incredibly large and diverse city proved a challenge, but after much research I booked our first hotel near Tokyo Station. Mind you, this is no ordinary train station. Trains for hundreds of destinations come in and out of the place and the station itself is a vast, entertaining commercial complex featuring hundreds of shops and restaurants, many lined along extensive underground “streets”. The area also happened to make a pretty good headquarters to begin birding.

On our first day there, we worked in a visit to Hamarikyu Gardens in between Tsukiji Outer Market (former home of the famous tuna auctions) and Tokyo Tower. While Tessa enjoyed a park bench in the sun, I quickly snapped up six life birds including Eastern Spot-billed Duck, Common Pochard, Tufted Duck, Oriental Goldfinch, White-cheeked Starling, and Brown-eared Bulbul. I was especially taken with the bulbul—only to find that apparently it is the most commonly observed bird in Japan! Still, I didn’t let that dampen my enthusiasm for these noisy, beautiful birds.

**My first day of Japan birding, I was so excited to see my first Brown-eared Bulbul, a bird that I’d been studying assiduously. Little did I know that it’s probably the most common bird in Japan!**

Because of the 15-hour time difference with Montana, I woke at 3 a.m. the next day, and as soon as it got light I let Tessa sleep in and walked over to the Imperial Palace a few blocks away. The grounds were still closed, but I began exploring the moat around the walls and some potentially birdy parks across the street. Right away, I saw a Little Grebe, and then the discoveries grew even more exciting. I saw a small, greenish bird flitting around some bushes—another life bird, Warbling White-eye! Continuing my prowl, I discovered two more lifers—Falcated Duck and Dusky Thrush, two species I had studied intensively before the trip. They put me in a great mood before we went to watch the Yokohama BayStars defeat the Yomiuri Giants 1-0 in the Tokyo Dome that afternoon!

I began Day 2 of my Tokyo birding with a visit to the uber-dramatic Imperial Palace. The grounds were not yet open, but I found some great life birds nearby!

I should pause at this point and say that besides wanting to see Japan’s birds, I had another ulterior motive for birding. When we left Montana, my life list stood at 968 species—perilously close to 1,000. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, I can crack 1,000 while in Japan. In fact, looking over what I might see, I felt fairly confident about meeting that goal—something that spurred me to take advantage of every opportunity.

**Falcated Ducks were a new species I studied before heading to Japan. After seeing them on Day 2, I had no idea this would be the only time I’d see them on the entire trip.**

On the third full day of our adventure, Tessa and I planned to head over to Tokyo Disney to try to score tickets. We did get some and visited the Disney Sea park—but that’s another story. More important, we stopped at perhaps Tokyo’s best birding location, Kasai Rinkai Park. As we got off the train, the reason this park is birdier than others seemed evident: it is one of the few Tokyo locations with remotely natural habitat. Tessa got some of her now-favorite milk tea from a vending machine and settled in to draw on a bench while I hurried off to see what might be living there.

I had not yet met any Japanese birders, but a couple of hundred meters down the trail, a woman with binoculars and a camera saw me looking for birds and silently pointed into reeds next to a pond. “Arigato gozaimasu,” I whispered and crept toward where she was pointing. Sure enough, a half a dozen small brown birds were gleaning seeds and once again, my study paid off. They were Reed Buntings—birds I had hoped, but not expected, to see!

I left my good camera at home for this trip, opting for a lighter “travel camera” that unfortunately didn’t produce the sharp bird images I craved, but I was still delighted to get a photo of this male Reed Bunting who is obviously shouting something important at me.

Continuing down the trails I made more discoveries including Japanese Tits and Masked Buntings, both also lifers! Then, walking along the water, I spotted two suspicious shapes about one hundred meters offshore. As I grew closer, the shapes resolved into what has to be one of Earth’s most gorgeous, elegant water birds, Great Crested Grebes!

**Despite this lousy photo, you can probably get an idea of why I was so excited to see my first Great Crested Grebes!**

As I went back to meet Tessa, I was happy with what I had found, but I also knew I had missed some important species here that I would probably not get a second shot at. These included Azure-winged Magpie and any kinds of shorebirds. No matter. I felt grateful for this look at Japanese nature and optimistic for the days to come!

Sneed’s Kasai Rinkai Park eBird checklist.

Golf and Birding

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Welcome to our new subscribers! We appreciate your interest in our adventures and experiences, and hope you feel free to share this post with others. If you’d like to support FatherSonBirding, feel free to order some of Sneed’s books from online stores or, better yet, by through your local independent bookstore. Thanks, and have a great weekend! Next week: more of Braden’s High Sierra adventures!

Did you ever stop to think that the words “golf” and “bird” both have the same number of letters in them? No? Good. It’s a stupid lead to a blog. Plus, golf is a sensitive subject for me. In my mid-thirties, I began playing with friends and found I quite enjoyed it. Sort of. In between the tears and swearing and bouts of hopelessness and low self-esteem. After my golf swing betrayed me once and for all, in fact, I tossed my clubs into the basement to collect dust for the better part of a decade. Foolishness springs eternal, however, and a few years ago I began a ritual of golfing once a year with a buddy—only to discover an aspect of golf I had never before recognized: Birds.

**Many golf courses’ locations adjacent to wetlands and other natural habitats give them a wide range of opportunity for the golfing birder!**

When I golfed in earlier years, Braden and I hadn’t yet become birders. Imagine my surprise, then, when I got back onto the links to discover that birds abounded—at least at Linda Vista Golf Course, my favorite course in the area (and one that happens to have a great cafe). I realized, in fact, that this course could actually be one of the best birding spots in Missoula. The problem? It is challenging to golf and record birds at the same time, and I have to thread a fine line so that my buddy doesn’t brain me with a 4-iron while I’m trying to figure out which kinds of swallows are circling around us. This dilemma, however, gave me an idea—one that I finally carried out last week: to get permission to bird the course sans clubs one morning before the golfers showed up.

Even with the distractions of actually playing a round of golf, I had managed to record 25 species of birds a couple of days earlier. These had included surprises such as Cinnamon Teal and Red-naped Sapsucker. I wonder what I’ll find with more time to study my surroundings? I asked myself as I again headed out two days later.

Given the trees close to the water, Wood Ducks made sense for the golf course, but Ring-necked Ducks?

Almost immediately, it became evident that there were greater numbers of birds than I had noticed before. The Yellow Warblers were particularly insane with a new one spouting off every twenty or thirty yards—about the distance of a short pitching wedge. This made sense because part of what made this course such a great birding spot is that it was shoe-horned between river and wetlands on two sides and farm/pasture on another. Along with the Yellow Warblers I noted an abundance of Red-winged Blackbirds and Gray Catbirds—but was also surprised by an absence of Common Yellowthroats and dearth of Song Sparrows. Hm . . . maybe they were just quieting down for the season?

**Spotted Sandpipers are always a welcome sight—though I’m not sure the plastic sheeting around this pond made it a great choice for this bird.**

Continuing around to the third hole, I came across several open ponds where I was pleased to see at least seven Wood Ducks, Killdeer, a Spotted Sandpiper, and a pair of Ring-necked Ducks, an unlikely find for the time of year. One of the delights of birding a place that doesn’t get much attention is the frequency of red “unreported” dots that appear on the eBird checklist. The Killdeer were unreported and while I was logging species on eBird, another unreported species, Double-crested Cormorant, flew by. I devoted a good ten minutes to figuring out swallows and quickly noted Tree and Northern Rough-winged. As my binoculars pin-balled back and forth, however, I made another great discovery: Bank Swallows! Braden and I love finding these because they always seem to pop up when we least expect it, and this morning they followed tradition!

**Double-crested Cormorants were one of several species that earned me a coveted red “Unreported” dot on eBird!**

The rest of my birding round yielded nothing that will upend the scientific community, but proved mightily enjoyable nonetheless. While talking to the lone golfer out this early in the day, I spotted a gorgeous male Western Tanager. A Bullock’s Oriole also flew by. Over on the pasture side of the course, Eastern Kingbirds abounded and Cliff Swallows replaced the Bank Swallows zooming around me. I finished the day with 33 species—not dramatically more than I had found while actually golfing, but I had savored every tee, fairway, and green.

**One of the fun things about my round of birding was the number of juveniles about—including this young Eastern Kingbird waiting to be fed by a nearby parent.**

Speaking of golfing, I did notice an odd phenomenon while doing the round with my buddy two days earlier. I actually played better than I had in recent memory. It may have been that I had forgotten my bad habits, but I think that the birds actually helped. One of my problems with golf is that I overthink everything. Instead of just hitting the ball, I am telling myself Remember to tuck in your hip as you draw back or Keep that left foot planted and your elbow straight. With half of my mind on birds, I didn’t have time to do that—and hit some of my best shots in years. The lesson? There isn’t one. Just get out there and keep birding, wherever you happen to be.

Note: if you would like to bird your local course, be sure to ask permission—and it obviously wouldn’t hurt if you already golf that course yourself. With the manager, discuss the best time to go out and stay polite even if she/he/they says no. After all, golf courses generally are money-making ventures and they have real customers to take care of. But speaking of that, I can’t help wondering if any particularly birdy courses have considered charging a modest fee to people who would like to bird them? Especially for courses that adopt green practices such as using less water, pesticides, and fertilizers, it might be a great way to earn a bit of extra income while promoting sustainability. Just a thought.

Rare Bird Hat Trick!

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In my last blog, My Accidental Big Year, I recounted my fun birding adventures with some of Houston’s top birders in my quest to “accidentally” break my Big Year record of 336 ABA species. Even as I posted that blog, I harbored serious doubts if I could do it. However, after this week’s—dare I call them shocking?—events, I am more optimistic. It all started when I got a great email from Will Sebern, who had read my last blog and asked if I had gotten an Anna’s Hummingbird for the year and, if not, would I like to come over and see the one visiting his feeder. The answer: No and a resounding Yes! Less than 24 hours later, I was pleasantly chatting with Will on his porch admiring a gorgeous beauty sipping at his feeder. Ka-ching! My year count rose to 328—only nine short of my goal! Thank you, Will! (Note, I picked up number 327—Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay— during a daddy-daughter trip to Salt Lake City last week!)

**Anna’s Hummingbirds sweep through western Montana every year, but Braden nor I had ever seen one—until my surprise invitation from Will Sebern!**

That said, nine new Year Birds in Montana—in winter—was not a small number. For one thing, I was not willing to race everywhere across the state to chase birds. Burning up gasoline to see birds, birds that are directly harmed by carbon dioxide emissions, has become more and more of a concern for me and other birders. I was willing, though, to travel an hour or two, especially if I could carpool with others. “Maybe,” I thought, “I might be able to run into two or three rarities fairly close to Missoula,” and began eyeing eBird rare bird alerts. During my trip to Texas, I missed quite a few opportunities, but then, a few days ago, Montana eBirder Sharon Dewart-Hansen posted a picture of a Long-tailed Duck at Brown’s Lake only an hour from Missoula! I couldn’t go that day or the next, but called Braden and asked, “Do you think it will still be there tomorrow?” He answered, “Well, ducks often stick around for a while. I’ll bet it will.”

**One of the delights of our day was the first sightings of so many of Montana’s western winter birds—including this immature Northern Shrike!**

I fired off a text to several local birders to see if they wanted to join me—and no one could make it. “That’s okay,” I thought. “I’ll take the dog and we’ll have a good time whether or not we see anything.” The next morning, though, Steve Flood texted that he could make it after all. We rendezvoused at the truck stop in Bonner and merrily headed up Highway 200.

Arriving at Brown’s Lake, a surprise flock of Common Redpolls greeted us, but though we saw some cool grebes and ducks, THE duck was nowhere in sight at our first stop. We kept circling the lake, though, and spotted a suspicious critter near the campground. I hit the brakes. “Is that it?” Steve answered, “I think it is!” Sure enough, the Long-tailed Duck paddled only fifty feet offshore. The duck, however, was just the beginning. At the campground, Steve found three distant Pacific Loons while I spotted two gulls that turned out to be Bonaparte’s Gulls. A pair of American Tree Swallows—the first of winter—put an accent on our finds.

**Seeing only my second Long-tailed Duck ever will long lodge itself in my memory banks. Never did I suspect it would be the first of three Big Year birds Steve Flood and I would see that day!**

Elated with our finds, we headed out along the backroads behind Brown’s Lake, which I had never birded, but Steve knew well. More surprises greeted us including a bevy of other new winter arrivals including my first Rough-legged Hawks, Bohemian Waxwings, and Northern Shrikes of the season! Since we were on a roll, I asked, “Hey Steve, you want to take a quick run up to Seeley Lake on our way home?” Steve was game. We turned right at Clearwater Junction and twenty minutes later pulled into the River Point picnic area on the lake’s west side. I had few expectations, but we saw Common Loons, Western Grebes, Hooded Mergansers, and another surprise flock of Common Redpolls. Then, looking through his scope, Steve said, “I have a present for you.” I peered into the eyepiece and saw . . . A beautiful Pacific Loon! Er, check that . . .

**Birding with top-notch birder Steve Flood proved not only a way to learn a lot and help reduce our carbon footprints, it was a great way to make a new friend!**

It was the same Red-throated Loon Steve had discovered a couple of weeks before! Neither of us had any idea it would still be around, and it capped a remarkable day, one that not only netted me three new Big Year birds, but almost every winter bird that Braden and I work hard to find every year. Well, okay, except for Snowy Owls, Great Gray Owls, Lapland Longspurs, and Snow Buntings. You’ve got to save something for later, right? Even better, I felt like I’d made a new friend in Steve, who is not only an excellent birder, but a pretty darned good guy! Once again, it brings up the adage, “In birding, you just never know—but you won’t unless you keep getting out there!”

My Accidental Big Year

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If you’ve been a loyal fan of FatherSonBirding, you probably know about Braden’s and my 2016 Big Year in which we saw 337 species in the American Birding Association (ABA) region in a calendar year. Since then, we have never set out to topple that record even though, with our vastly improved birding skills and knowledge, it would be a relatively easy thing to do. In fact, a couple of times we have come perilously close without really trying thanks to trips to Texas, California, and in Braden’s case, a band trip to Hawaii. When I received two invitations to Texas for this fall, however, I thought to myself “You know, maybe it’s time to give this a shot.”

Mind you, it was still a long shot. When I left for The Hummerbird Celebration in September I had managed to scrape together only about 260 species in Montana, Idaho, and Washington for the year, and knew I’d have to go BIG that first trip to Texas. I did, scoring about fifty Year Birds—but still left myself more than 20 birds short in perhaps the toughest time of year to bird. “Still,” I thought, “if I can somehow get ten or twelve more species on my second Texas trip, I might get within striking distance.”

I knew I would need help.

I’ll take a blurry Lifer any day—including this beautiful Brown-headed Nuthatch. By the way, this bird brought my ABA Life List to 498 birds! Only two hours later, I got number 499, Monk Parakeet! What will be 500?

My trip last week unfolded when I was invited to give a keynote address at Houston Audubon’s (HAS) annual Avian Affair fundraising gala (more on that in my next post). As you probably know I love HAS and was honored to accept, but I brazenly asked my hosts if there was a chance anyone could take me birding when I arrived. Before I knew it, a team of expert birders, all HAS board members, had been assembled with the express goal of helping me tackle my Texas “needs” list! In fact, within twenty minutes of my arrival, Bill Matthews picked me up at the airport and whisked me off to our first stop, the W.G. Jones State Forest—home to some of the state’s most accessible Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.

To be honest, I didn’t think we’d find the RCWOs since they can forage over a large area, but I was also hoping for a Life Bird, Brown-headed Nuthatch. As we began walking around the forest, we found no woodpeckers near their roosting trees, so decided to take a longer walk down a trail. Very little stirred, leaving me feeling that maybe we wouldn’t see much—until, that is, we had walked about half a mile. Then, all of a sudden, Eastern Bluebirds were flying everywhere. Other Year Birds soon surrounded us—Carolina Chickadees, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Tufted Titmice, Pine Warblers, and oh joy, Brown-headed Nuthatches!

My W.G. Jones eBird List.

Though Braden and I had seen Monk Parakeets in Israel before the pandemic, this was my first ABA Monk Parakeet. Bill Matthews mentioned that the severe freeze in Texas earlier in the year had pared down the parakeets’ numbers significantly.

We left without RCWOs, but I was elated with our finds. Bill hadn’t finished with me, though, as we stopped by a roosting Eastern Screech-Owl in a neighborhood nesting box and two Monk Parakeets behind his wife’s studio. By this time, Bill’s fellow board member and well-known bird guide Glenn Olsen joined us, so after the parakeets, we adjourned to Molina’s Cantina for some great Tex-Mex food and to plan our next day’s conquests. Unfortunately, the next day proved a lot tougher than the first, but we still were able to hear a Limpkin—a rare visitor to Texas—at Sheldon Lake, and see some incredibly cool Brown Boobies on a “tower of power” at Baytown Nature Center, accompanied by yet another great birder and HAS board member, Skip Almoney.

**World’s Most Cooperative Owl? This Eastern Screech just may take the prize!**

With a total of 8 Year Birds, I was fairly satisfied as I actually did some work the following day, speaking to fifth-graders at Western Academy—and saw Year Bird #9, Scaly-breasted Munias! Glenn Olsen was not satisfied, however, so on my last morning, he picked me up early before my flight and we headed back out to W.G. Jones, meeting up with another great HAS board member, Eric Mayer, out at the site. Again, I didn’t think we’d see the woodpeckers and we didn’t. After an hour, in fact, it was time to head back to the car so Glenn could take me to the airport. As we approached the parking area, though, Glenn shouted, “Woodpecker!” I got my binoculars on a black-and-white bird landing on a pine tree and guess what? Red-cockaded Woodpecker! It was a great way to finish up a great trip, and left me with a flock of wonderful new friends—and only 11 birds to break my record. Will I make it? Good question. While in Texas, I missed four or five migrating rarities in Montana and it appears they have left the state. I will keep up my quest, however, so stay tuned!

**I was a doubter, but this Red-cockaded Woodpecker really wanted me to break my Big Year record!**

Birding for Mammals

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“eBird really needs to add a checklist for mammals!” I tell Braden for the 58^th time. What has prompted my sudden outburst? A marmot scurrying off the road in front of us. The truth is that the past seven years of birding have led us to an amazing number of mammal sightings in Montana and beyond—mammals we wouldn’t otherwise have seen if not for birding. Sure, we’ve observed the usual pronghorn, elk, deer, and bison by the hundreds, but it’s those smaller, cooler mammals that I most remember.

**Actually, there are two moosii (plural for moose) here—the other behind that bush on the right.**

Let’s start with moose. Okay, they’re not smaller, but they are way cool—so cool that we remember every single moose location we’ve encountered, from the burn area around Lincoln to the meandering creek near Philipsburg. Coyotes rank similarly high in the mammal standings, whether they be trotting around one of our favorite birding hotspots, the Gravel Quarry, or galloping hell-bent-for-leather across the grasslands of Bowdoin National Wildlife Reserve like the one we saw last week.

**Is there a roadrunner somewhere around here???**

Some mammals, though, deserve special honors. For years, I’d been griping about never seeing a live porcupine—a fact that astounded me given how many dead ones I’d spotted over the decades. Shortly after covid hit, however, Braden and I were driving into the Lee Metcalf NWR when I noticed a suspicious shape balled up on a bare branch right above the road. “No, it isn’t. It couldn’t be . . . “ I gasped. It was. A live porcupine. Finally!

A few weeks later, I was hiking up a trail about a mile from our house looking for a Three-toed Woodpecker that Braden had found. Suddenly, a long white shape climbed up onto a rock not twenty feet from me. I stared and it stared back—though not with its mouth open like mine. It was a short-tailed weasel, by far the best look I’d ever seen! And as a bonus (and disadvantage for the weasel), it wore its mismatched winter coat against the snowless ground, demonstrating up-close-and-personal the threats animals face from global warming.

Our mammal list also includes numerous red foxes, bighorn sheep, beavers, hares, otters, mountain goats, bats, muskrats, whales, dolphins, monkeys, raccoons, black and grizzly bears, seals, prairie dogs—even a bobcat in Aransas NWR and our first-ever javelinas down in Texas. And that’s not even mentioning the beluga whales, polar bears, and walrus Braden has seen on nature trips with his grandparents. I admit that we still have never glimpsed a wolf, lynx, wolverine, or thylacine—but we hope to.

Which goes back to my original point: Can’t eBird add a basic mammal checklist, at least for the ABA area? In no time, they’d be collecting millions of invaluable data points for scientists and conservationists. Plus, it would be a lot of fun. I know. I know. Some of you are saying, “Use iNaturalist!” I hear you—but I’m never going to. One app is plenty for my curmudgeonly brain. So what say you Cornell? Are you game—and not just Big Game? I and millions of other birders are waiting!