This week’s blog focuses on one-of-a-kind birds—and a book to go along with them. For those of you who have been following FatherSonBirding for the past couple of years, you may remember a February, 2022 post about monotypic animals. These are animals that have no other species in the scientific genus to which they belong. At the time of the post, I had begun researching a new children’s picture book about animals that were not only monotypical to genus, but to the family or order taxonomic level. In other words, these animals are really alone in their taxonomic world. What’s more, they often possess wonderful adaptations and behaviors found nowhere else in the animal kingdom. They include both animals you are undoubtedly familiar with such as the platypus, leatherback sea turtle, whale shark, and pronghorn. They also include lesser-known critters such as India’s purple frog and the South American monito del monte.
Often called an “antelope,” the Pronghorn is actually a unique survivor of our Ice Ages, whose closest living relatives are giraffes and okapis.
The good news is that Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures is now a reality, exploring 13 of earth’s most remarkable creatures! But since this is (mostly) a birding blogsite, let me focus on the one-of-a-kind birds in the book.
Like No Other’s very first animal is Africa’s Secretarybird. I first learned about this bird 25 years ago when I was researching a book called Birds of Prey: A Look at Daytime Raptors. That book is now out of print, but while researching it, I came upon this bizarre-looking, long-legged raptor that often kicks and stomps its prey to death—when it’s not carrying them up into the air and dropping them from great heights. This grassland- and savanna-dwelling bird originally lived throughout much of Africa, but has declined sharply in much of its range. Culprits include habitat loss and degradation, collisions with fences and powerlines, and poisoning from pesticides. It is a dream of mine to see these birds in the wild before I croak (or hit a powerline myself).
Though a bird of prey, the Secretarybird’s appearance, behavior, and ancestry is unlike any other raptor.
The second bird in Like No Other is a bird I’m not sure I’d even heard of before writing the book: South America’s Oilbird. These squat, kind of chubby-looking birds are reminiscent of nightjars such as the Common Nighthawk or Common Pauraque, but similarities stop there. Oilbirds roost in colonies of up to 10,000 birds in caves of forested areas of northern South America and along the spine of the Andes. Like bats, they use echolocation and an excellent sense of smell to locate fruits of forest trees. Birds of the World lists them as of “Least Concern,” but they contain so much fat that in the past they have been boiled down for oil lamp fuel. No one has any idea how long they live.
Oilbirds live in caves in South America and hunt using echolocation, good night vision, and a great sense of smell.
You know me. I would have packed a lot more birds into Like No Other but felt obligated to include a fair number of other vertebrate groups (those darned vertebrates!). I did manage to wedge one more monotypic bird into the pages, however—New Zealand’s enigmatic Kakapo. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, the Kakapo is the world’s heaviest parrot. Even more amazing, it doesn’t fly! I first learned about the birds 35 years ago when I was on a four-month bicycle trip through New Zealand. At the time, fewer than 50 Kakapo were thought to exist, and as is so often the case on Pacific islands, invasive mammalian predators were largely to blame. Thanks to an intensive conservation program that included captive breeding and eradication of introduced species from offshore islands, however, the Kakapo’s future now looks much rosier. Kakapo are by no means out of the woods, but their population is up to about 250 birds, and they are being closely monitored. It’s another wonderful example of what humans can accomplish when we put our minds to it.
The Kakapo provides an inspirational story of what we can do to save species if we try.
Humans are the very last one-of-a-kind creatures in Like No Other. Nothing like us has ever existed on the planet before, and the jury’s still out whether we can figure out what to do with our big brains and ambitions without destroying ourselves. Stories of protecting the Kakapo and other species in Like No Other, though, give me hope we’ll come up with solutions.
Like No Otheris available now from your local independent bookstore, online stores, and other outlets.
Like No Other is available now through your local independent bookstore and other outlets.
Following Memorial Day, it is fitting that FSB presents a wonderful guest birding post about Hawai’i by Roger Kohn. For many Americans, World War II began in Hawai’i and left few families untouched by the experience. Roger’s dad served in the Navy during the war, and both of my grandfathers (Braden’s great-grandfathers) served in the Pacific. Meanwhile at home, my grandmother and great aunt worked in the huge Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine plant in Kansas City. As we honor all who served, I can’t help wonder how astonished our veterans would be to see peacetime Hawai’i today—a peace won by their commitment, intelligence, and sacrifice.
“I’m just going out there to hang out with my brothers, sip a few local beers, and eat good seafood”, I told Sneed in a February phone call. “Of course I’ll bird some, but it’s not really a birding trip.” I had made plans for what I called The Brother Summit. My California brother and I would go to Honolulu in April and visit our other brother, a Hawai’i resident. “Every trip is a birding trip,” Sneed quipped. I immediately knew he was right.
Our Special Hawai’i Correspondent, Roger Kohn, celebrates a big birding score at a viewpoint on the descent from the Koʻolau mountains.
Although I wanted to see as many birds as possible, I faced some built-in barriers. My brothers are not birders and I would not have a car, so I would have to find creative ways to get to some good birding hotspots. One way was to book a tour with a bird guide. I knew this was my only chance to see two Oahu endemic species (found nowhere else in the world, including other Hawaiian Islands): the Oahu Amakihi and the Oahu Elepaio.
On the first morning of the trip, my guide and I ascended the Koʻolau mountains that tower above Honolulu. Our first stop? A roadside spot for seeing the Oahu Amakihi, a bright yellow honeycreeper and our first Oahu endemic target. As we searched for the Amakihi, we picked up two dove species (Spotted and Zebra, both very common), Red-vented Bulbuls, the omnipresent Red-crested Cardinals and Rose-ringed Parakeets (an invasive species considered a pest in Hawaii due to its impacts on agriculture, but I must confess, fun to see). I also saw my first Warbling White-eye of the trip, a Lifer for me. (For some fun perspective on this and other widely-introduced species, also Sneed’s Japan posts such as “Birding Japan: Tokyo, Part I” and Braden’s and Sneed’s post, “Layover Birding in Amsterdam.”)
I saw this Warbling White-eye near the pool at my brother’s condo tower.
After a while, the guide spotted our target bird feeding in a ginger plant at the edge of the road, and we enjoyed good looks. The Oahu Amikihi is a beautiful bird, and the first honeycreeper species I’ve ever seen. The species is designated “near threatened” in eBird, so I felt very fortunate to see it. With this success under our belts, we headed down from the mountains, pausing at a viewpoint to take in epic views of Honolulu, with its skyscrapers and Diamond Head (the volcanic feature that looms over the city), backed by the deep blue waters of the Pacific.
I loved seeing an Oahu Amakihi, a honeycreeper found on Oahu and nowhere else.
Our second stop was a forest trail with the goal of locating the Oahu Elepaio. This proved difficult, and at one point we had been trying for at least an hour and half without success. Finally, as we made our way back to the trailhead, the guide spotted two or three individuals in bushes near the trail! We did not have good looks at the birds, which moved rapidly and offered us only brief, very filtered views as they flitted among the bushes. This flycatcher species is not much to look at, brown on top and white-ish underneath. But this Oahu endemic is listed as “vulnerable” in eBird, and once again I was grateful for the chance to see a rare Hawai’ian species.
A gorgeous Red-billed Leiothrix allowed me a few good looks in the Makiki Forest Recreation Area.Even though introduced species such as this have had direct and indirect impacts on native Hawai’ian animals and ecosystems, they do offer an unusual opportunity to observe and learn birds from other parts of the world.
The next day, I got my first good looks at a Pacific Golden Plover on somebody’s front lawn. In breeding plumage, this plover species is quite striking, with a black belly and face, a thick, clean white stripe down the side of the neck, and brown, white, and shiny gold patches on the back. I would subsequently see this species all over town in any available stretch of green space, from small lawns to big city parks. Their migration to Alaska loomed, so my April visit proved ideal.
Resplendent Pacific Golden Plovers were a common sight in any available green space in Honolulu as they prepared to migrate to Alaska.
Fast-forward a couple of days, and I was thrilled to get a chance to score some seabird Lifers. I had a big gap in my life list, with no shearwater, tropicbird, noddy, or booby species. However, during my pre-trip study, I came across a hotspot where many of these species could potentially be seen: the Japanese Fishing Shrine, on the southeastern coast of Oahu. This hotspot is literally just a shrine on a hunk of lava rock that juts out into the sea. There is nowhere to walk, so whatever birds I would see would have to come to me. One species that I particularly wanted to find was the Red-tailed Tropicbird, an elegant white seabird with a red bill and long red tail streamers. Not long after I arrived, I got my target, as four or five Red-tailed Tropicbirds traced large circles in the sky. At first, they were pretty far away, but as time went on their flight paths kept coming closer and closer to me and I was able to see them up close and capture great photos. A Lifer, and a spectacular one at that! In between tropicbird sightings, I scanned for other species and managed to pick up a pair of Sooty Terns, another Lifer, flying low over the ocean in the distance. Rendezvousing with my brothers, we headed to Kona Brewing, where they helped me celebrate my seabird treasure with a couple of rounds of delicious seasonal beers at the bar, with sea breezes whooshing around us in a pretty marina setting.
An elegant Red-tailed Tropicbird patrols the southeastern coast of Oahu.
One area that piqued my interest was the wetlands near Kailua, on the southeastern coast. After a pretty, 25-minute drive on the Pali highway and a superb lunch of a grilled mahi mahi sandwich and guilt-free fries (highly recommended!), my brothers dropped me off at Kaha Park. This is the starting point for exploring the Kawainui Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary, a delightful spot graced with abundant water and velvety green mountain views. Right away, I was rewarded with up-close views of Common Gallinules, including a super cute youngster that would melt the heart of even the most jaded observer.
A Common Gallinule chick at the Kawainui Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary. Whoose da cutest bird in the marsh?!
As I continued walking, I got good looks at both bulbul species (Red-whiskered and Red-vented), Common Waxbills, and Northern Cardinals. In the grasses, I saw another Lifer: a Scaly-breasted Munia, a songbird with rich chestnut hues above and an attractive and well-defined scaly pattern on the belly. Another introduced species (native to India and southeast Asia), this was another Lifer for me.
A handsome Scaly-breasted Munia in the grasses on my wetlands exploration.
As I returned to the trailhead, someone pointed out a Black-crowned Night Heron, which I had missed as it stood as still as a statue in the water a mere 50 feet away from me. While I waited to be picked up, I scored yet another Lifer, Java Sparrows (which are actually finches, so I wonder what genius named them Sparrows?), which were foraging in a grassy field nearby. In an hour and a half, I had picked up three Lifers, which I celebrated with my brothers at Lanikai Brewing. The parking lot for the brewery faces a pretty stretch of Hamakua Marsh, where I was delighted to pick up another Lifer, Hawaiian Coot, and see Black-necked Stilts for the only time on the trip. Bonus brewery birding, woohoo!
Finding Black-necked Stilts in Hamakua Marsh right behind Lanikai Brewing was a serendipitous event.
Another trip highlight was finding a small flock of Yellow-fronted Canaries, a boldly patterned bright yellow finch native to Africa, in a waterfront park. I had assumed I’d have to head up into the mountains or to some specific hotspot to find this species. Yet here they were, busily calling and feeding in a park amidst the hubbub of Waikiki. I also got brief but spectacular views of a Red-billed Leiothrix in all its multicolored glory, which I had barely seen on the guided tour, in the Makiki Forest Recreation Area. Bird of the Trip honors is a tough call, but I’d say it’s a toss-up between this species and the Red-tailed Tropicbird.
A Yellow-fronted Canary poses for me at Fort Derussy park in Waikiki.
As of mid-May, according to eBird, 108 species have been reported in Honolulu County (encompassing the entire island of Oahu) so far this year. In a nine-day trip in which birding was only one of several priorities, I managed to see 31 species. Seventeen of those were Lifers, which far exceeded my expectations. With determination and a little help from my brothers, I had an excellent birding trip to Honolulu. Indeed, in the words of a wise blogger I know, every trip is a birding trip.
Our Bend, Oregon-based correspondent, Roger Kohn traces his birding obsession to a November 2016 Sneed visit to the Bay Area and considers Sneed his birding mentor. Though grateful for that, he sure wishes Sneed would increase his consumption and appreciation of craft beer.(Editor’s Note: I’m not sure what Roger is complaining about. I have been known to drink up to two beers a month!)
Braden and I write FatherSonBirding in the hopes of sharing the wonders of birds and birding, and the urgency to protect them. We do not accept advertising or donations, but if you’d like to support our work, please consider buying *NEW* copies of some of Sneed’s books—First-Time Japan, for instance, or my forthcoming picture book for younger readers, Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures, available for pre-order now. We appreciate your interest and hope you will keep reading!
Saturday was the long-anticipated wedding day of our friends, Jazz and Brad, but the Big Event wasn’t kicking off until 3:30 p.m. True to my recent trend, I awoke at 3:30 a.m. with ample time to hit the birding spot that I most looked forward to on the trip: March Point. Why? Because I thought it might offer my best opportunity to find both seabirds and shorebirds. Looking at a map, in fact, March Point looked like a wonderful, natural area and I was already envisioning pristine beaches and offshore waters loaded with birds. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at 6:00 a.m. to find that March Point is actually the site of a gigantic Marathon Petroleum refinery!
March Point was not quite the undisturbed natural area I was expecting!
It was a cold, blustery morning, but undeterred, I pulled over and scanned the offshore waters. I spotted several groups of presumed Pelagic Cormorants, but precious little else on the waters or the shore. With some persistence, I did locate another Pigeon Guillemot out near the ginormous pier jutting out into Puget Sound, but it was slim pickins.
What do you suppose this Pelagic Cormorant is about to eat? I’m guessing an eel-like fish called a wrasse!
I kept driving, pulling over now and then to scan the shore—no doubt closely monitored by the refinery’s security team. Finally, at one pull-out, I spotted a bird near the top of my trip wish list: a Black Oystercatcher. I watched this magnificent bird from my car for several minutes before it flew off, leaving a smile on my face.
This Black Oystercatcher at March Point definitely strolled into contention for “Trip Bird” honors for our Wedding Day weekend.
Turning around, I made my way back around immense oil storage tanks and stopped to study some Glaucous-winged X Western hybrid gulls. It took some research and a discussion with Braden to figure out exactly what these gulls were. Glaucous-winged Gulls are known for beautiful soft gray wings and wing tips, but all of the gulls I was seeing looked too dark—yet not dark enough to be Western Gulls. According to Braden, though, this part of Washington State was dead center in the transition zone between the two species, and accordingly, most of the birds were hybrids.
This Glaucous-winged X Western hybrid gull is typical of the gulls I saw during our entire trip to Washington: too dark for Glaucous-winged, too light for Western. Very educational!
On my way back to the hotel, I stopped at Padilla Bay at the base of March Point for a nice visit with some warblers and swallows. There, I heard my year’s first Black-headed Grosbeak giving off its frenetic robin-like song. Then, it was back to Burlington to prepare for the wedding.
The wedding was a smash hit, full of love and music and joy. And never fear, dear readers, I did amass an eBird list of six species at the wedding venue, including the year’s first look at a Black-headed Grosbeak, singing in celebration of Jazz and Brad’s big day. Oh, and they (Jazz and Brad, not the grosbeaks) served Thai food at the wedding. How good is that???
Alas, the next day, we were due to return to Seattle for our flight home. Fortunately, we didn’t need to be at the airport until noon or one o’clock, leaving time for one last morning birding adventure. I really wasn’t sure where I should go. I wasn’t having much luck along the coast, and felt I’d seen most of the forest birds that interested me. But there were two more species I wanted to take a shot at: Black-throated Gray Warbler and Red-breasted Sapsucker.
Ted Reep Park offered the trip’s last birding opportunity—and my best shot at seeing both Red-breasted Sapsuckers and Black-throated Gray Warblers.A bit of bush-whacking required!
It had been years since I’d seen either one of these birds and, well, I was missing them. Lucky me, eBird showed a spot only a mile from our hotel which had recorded both birds in the past month. I wasn’t sure what my chances of finding them might be, but after a quick bowl of oatmeal, I made my way over to Ted Reep Park. I parked in the deserted YMCA lot, despite warning signs threatening that I would be towed. After all, I was a member of the Missoula YMCA!
From the time I pulled up, the spot looked—or rather, sounded—promising. Merlin’s Sound ID immediately picked up White-crowned Sparrow, Black-headed Grosbeak, Warbling Vireo, Song Sparrow, Yellow Warbler, and more, and I soon started seeing some of these birds.
You just gotta love Song Sparrows. Not only are they incredibly handsome critters, they often pose for close-up photographs!
This was thick riparian habitat, however, where visuals were hard to come by and most birding was by ear—not ideal for someone like myself with hearing disabilities and a brain that had trouble remembering bird vocalizations. My new hearing aids were a vast improvement over my old ones, though, and with the help of Sound ID I began teasing out most of the species around me. Then, I heard something that got me really excited: a stuttering drumming sound, like a car having trouble starting up! A sapsucker! But which one?
A quick look at my Sibley app told me that Red-breasted was the only sapsucker remotely likely to be in this area, so I plunged into the woods, following the trail toward the stutter-step drumming. Predictably, the trail grew more and more sketchy, and I soon found myself crawling under and over logs that had fallen across the path. Nevertheless, after five minutes, I found myself standing directly beneath the sapsucker drumming.
There were at least two sapsuckers—but probably three or four—and it became evident that they were dueling, perhaps over territories or mates. But darn it, try as I might, I could not spot any of them against the backlit tree trunks and branches! Just as frustrating, the birds kept moving around, so like a Keystone Cop I chased the birds up and down the trail. Finally, I despaired of getting a look at any of them, but by now I at least was confident that these were indeed Red-breasted Sapsuckers. And wouldn’t you know, as soon as I decided that, two of the birds chased each other right by me, their red heads clearly visible even in the dark forest!
Happy, I bushwhacked through raspberry vines and a swath of chest-high grass until I ran into another trail that led me back toward my car. I still hadn’t seen a Black-throated Gray Warbler, and didn’t find one on the hike back, but I was delighted to have discovered such a wonderful birding spot. It again reaffirmed how important it is to protect natural habitats for animals and people. Bravo Washington for protecting places like Ted Reep Park!
I failed to capture any photos of the Red-breasted Sapsuckers, but just love this White-crowned Sparrow’s pose out at March Point. I think he’s singing “Once we all wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, we can turn this place back into the natural habitat it is meant to be!” At least that’s what Google Translate came up with.
Braden and I write FatherSonBirding in the hopes of sharing the wonders of birds and birding, and the urgency to protect them. We do not accept advertising or donations, but if you’d like to support our work, please consider buying *NEW* copies of some of Sneed’s books—First-Time Japan, for instance, or my recent Orbis Pictus Award winner, Border Crossings. We appreciate your interest and hope you will keep reading!
When birding big cities I’ve discovered that it often requires a bit of extra effort to reach even a highly modified natural area. That proved true last year when my daughter and I visited Japan (see “Birding Japan: Kanazawa”), and it once again proved to be the case when my wife and I recently visited Barcelona. After birding city parks and tourist sites all week, I had barely breached 30 bird species total—far short of my goal of 50 or 60 species (see “Birding Barcelona, Part 1: The Urban Core”). I had a plan to help rectify the situation—but it was going to take that extra bit of effort to realize it.
On the last full day of our trip, I rose early, wolfed down some yoghurt, and hailed a cab in front of our hotel. In my mediocre Spanish, I explained to Isabella, my driver, where I wanted to go and even showed her the place on Google Maps. She knew about the area and had even been there, so we set out toward the airport in a light drizzle.
When visiting Barcelona, the best chance for a birder to enjoy some natural habitat—and an abundance of birds—is to take a taxi out to the Espais Naturals del Delta del Llobregat near the Barcelona Airport.
My destination was the “Espais Naturals del Delta del Llobregat,” which I’ll just call “Llobregat” for simplicity. Llobregat was a wetland divided into two parts, one on either side of the Barcelona airport, and the reason it existed at all was no doubt due to the fact that you can’t build huge buildings where giant aircraft can run into them. I thank the travel gods for that because these wetlands were the only orange-colored (high species count) hotspots anywhere near the city of Barcelona.
I asked Isabella to drop me off at the area on the far (western) side of the airport, and twenty minutes later found myself standing utterly alone on a road that appeared to lead into the natural area. Turns out, Isabella could have driven me another mile closer to the main action, but that error turned out to be a good thing. As I walked down the road, I began hearing all kinds of bird vocalizations and soon Merlin’s Sound ID picked up a new lifer for me, Cetti’s Warbler, calling from the thick reeds on both sides of the road. Sound ID also picked up Green Sandpiper, which got me really excited because shorebirds were at the top of my list to see on this, my sole real birding outing, of the trip. As I walked, I also saw what would be my only raptors of the trip—three Western Marsh-Harriers—and some high-flying swallow-type birds that turned out to be Eurasian Crag-Martins. I got occasional glimpses at a canal to my left, but saw only Mallards, a pair of Gadwalls, and a Gray Heron in it.
Half an hour later, I arrived at Llobregat’s official entrance and was relieved to see a series of established trails that led to various bird blinds around the reserve. As I followed the first trail, Common Chiffchaffs, Black Redstarts, European Robins, European Serins, and White Wagtails hopped and fluttered around me, but my excitement didn’t spike until I entered the first birding blind.
I had worried that I might miss Greater Flamingos in Spain, but a couple of dozen greeted me at Llobregat. Note how pale they are. Evidently, they are not getting enough crustaceans in their diets!
It took me about five seconds to locate the birds I most wanted to see—Greater Flamingos. But they just formed the tasty appetizer to the huge variety of waterfowl before me. This included many familiar ducks familiar from back home: Northern Shovelers, Gadwalls, Mallards, and the Eurasian variety of Green-winged Teal (which may eventually get split into a new species).
I just love the unique looks of Eurasia’s Green-winged Teals, which have a distinctively different appearance than our North American versions. I hope the taxonomic splitters pounce on them and declare them a distinct species.
The ducks that really got me going, though, were new for my life list: Common Shelducks and a pair of Red-crested Pochards that was doing its best to avoid eye contact on a distant island! I had hoped to see both of these, but had tempered my expectations. No worries—there they were, and in company of a lone Eurasian Wigeon.
Ka-ching! Life Bird #1007!Common Shelduck in the company of a pretty fetching Mallard!
As I sat enjoying the duck show, I also noted Eurasian Coots and Moorhens, along with a delightful pair of Little Grebes, all of which I had seen in Japan almost a year earlier. As I scanned the pond, I also saw something quickly dive into the reeds at the edge of the pond. I strongly suspect that this was a Water Rail, but reacted just a moment too slow to get my binoculars on it.
If you look at this photo carefully, you will see a number of charismatic Spanish species: Graylag Goose, Eurasian Wigeon, and my lifer Red-crested Pochards. The latter two are reported infrequently this time of year.
After about thirty minutes, I continued onto another viewing area. On the way, I passed a plywood wall with a few viewing windows cut into it and happened to take a quick peek. A largish purplish bird stuck out and my first thought was “Eurasian Moorhen.” Then, I did a double-take. “Hold on. Moorhens aren’t that blue—nor do they have bright red bills and legs!” The bird before me was one I had been studying on eBird quizzes, but darned if I could remember the name of it. Scrolling through eBird, I quickly found it: Western Swamphen! Even better, it had two adorable fuzzy black chicks with it!
I had not expected to see such a bird in my wildest dreams and it didn’t stay visible for long—just long enough for me to take a couple of modest photos—before disappearing into the reeds. And that, apparently, is typical for this bird, a species that rarely makes an appearance even where it might be fairly common. It immediately leaped to the top of my Trip Bird list, where it would remain for the rest of our vacation and beyond.
Earning Bird of the Trip honors, this rare sighting of a Western Swamphen put a lasting grin on my face. That black “shadow” to its left is actually one of two chicks accompanying it.
After more bird blind fun, I walked out to the beach in the hopes of seeing shorebirds. No dice. In fact, I didn’t see a single shorebird my entire morning, one of the trip’s big disappointments. I asked the interpreter about it and he confirmed that there hadn’t been many shorebirds around the entire year. Alas, I later discovered that the other section of the wetlands, on the east side of the airport, had been getting some. Nonetheless, I sat down on a jetty, breathed in the salt air of the Mediterranean, and enjoyed some bread and cheese while watching the giant jets taking off to almost every continent in the world. Then, I began making my way back down the long access road, happy with the day despite the shorebird miss.
My morning at Llobregat nabbed me 33 species—as many as I’d seen in the previous five days in Barcelona. It pushed my world life list to 1011 species. It also pushed my trip list to 49 species—one short of my goal of 50 species. “Shoot,” I thought, riding a taxi back downtown. “Where can I go near our hotel to pick up one more species?” I hadn’t a clue, and quietly resigned myself to this epic failure that would mar my reputation and confidence the rest of my life and cast shame upon my friends and family.
More Flamingo fun. These birds sat atop my list of birds I wanted to see in Barcelona and at Llobregat, they did not disappoint.
That evening, Amy—who had spent the day shopping and visiting the Picasso Museum—and I decided to take a walk before our last Barcelona supper. She hadn’t yet visited Parc de la Ciutadella (see my previous post “Birding Barcelona, Part 1: The Urban Core”), so we strolled over there. We reached the pond where they rented rowboats and decided to go for it. I handed over six Euros and we climbed in, joining a huge assortment of merry locals and tourists. Black-headed and Yellow-legged Gulls, Graylag Geese, Gray Herons, and Mallards surrounded us. Monk and Rose-ringed Parakeets squawked overhead. I smiled. This was a perfect way to wrap up the trip.
Then, I spotted a small bird sally out from the edge of the pond and return to land on a rock. From similar sightings in Taiwan, Israel, and Japan, I knew immediately what it was. “Gray Wagtail!” I exclaimed! Just as in Japan, it was the only GRWA I had seen, and it pushed my trip list to 50 species.
I swear, you can’t make this guano up.
Ciutadella’s popular rowing pond—and site of the trip’s sole Gray Wagtail.
As 2023 winds down, we hope you enjoy our penultimate post on one of everyone’s favorite subjects. Before that, we have some great news to share. Sneed’s picture book Border Crossings has received NCTE’s prestigious Orbis Pictus Award for nonfiction! This is one of the literary world’s top children’s book awards and was inspired by, you guessed it, Braden’s and Sneed’s birding adventures along the US Mexico border. Learn more and order by clicking here!
Owls consistently rank among the favorite bird groups of birders, and Braden and I are no exceptions. We’ve had a pretty good year for owls in 2023. It got off to a roaring start with wonderful encounters with Long-eared Owls, Northern Pygmy-Owls, and Saw-whet Owls the first days of the year, and continued with the now-famous Northern Hawk-Owl in Wise River. Unfortunately, after that, our owl experiences stalled. We failed to see both Great Gray Owls and Snowy Owls last winter, nor even a Barred Owl. We also missed both Western and Eastern Screech Owls, though did pick up Burrowing Owls near Great Falls. When Braden got home from college a few days ago, however, we decided we would make one last effort to see perhaps our biggest miss of the year: Short-eared Owl.
Short-eared Owls are one of our favorite Montana birds—but so far in 2023, they had totally skunked us!
We had looked for Short-eareds multiple times in 2023, both at Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge, and on our forays into eastern Montana. In fact, I had never gone to eastern Montana without seeing one of these spectacular creatures, but this year? Zip. Ditto at Ninepipe, where we can almost always count on at least one SEOW during the year. What was going on? Joni Mitchell’s prophetic lines haunted me:
“I’ve looked at owls from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s owl illusions I recall
I guess I don’t know owls at all.”
Why does Joni always have to be so darned depressing? Nonetheless, when our neighbor Tim told me he’d been encountering gobs of Short-eared Owls while out hunting in the Mission Valley, Braden and I were determined to give SEOWs one last try. We parked at Tim’s spot amidst a winter wonderland of frosted fields created by low fog and freezing temperatures that have been blanketing the area for the past couple of weeks. A sign invited pedestrians into the property so unlike our other searches for SEOWs, which relied on driving rural roads for miles and miles, we zipped up our jackets, slung our optics over our shoulders, and followed a frozen dirt path out into a field.
Almost immediately, rodents (voles?) scurried in front of us while Northern Harriers circled the perimeter.
“There have got to be owls here,” I said. “Look at all this prey!”
Well, not so fast. We kept walking, expecting an owl to fly up at any moment, but no dice. We heard Canada Geese, saw magpies and a hawk or two, but no owl. As the road curved left, I decided to crunch my way over to a big group of cattails. As I paused to study it, I suddenly heard Braden shout, and spun around to see a Short-eared Owl quickly flying away!
More often than not, we observe the rear end of a SEOW, and this one was no exception!
For those who haven’t seen these creatures, they truly are marvels of engineering. While perched, they appear only medium-sized. Once they take off, they unfurl impossibly long, flexible wings that leave an observer breathless. Like Northern Harriers, which also hunt low over fields and marshes, listening for prey, Short-eared Owls hunt by both sight and sound, moving low and slow, their long wings giving them plenty of lift with minimal flapping. We watched, elated as this one flew in a lazy arc away from us—but it was so much fun to be out alone in the middle of this giant field that we decided to keep walking.
When a fence blocked our way, we turned right and followed an embankment along an irrigation ditch. Braden heard Marsh Wrens, and then we encountered another fence. I pride myself on having good directional sense, so I said, “Let’s head this way back toward the road.”
One advantage to the frozen ground is we could walk across normally wet places without plunging into cold water. We walked in parallel, forty or fifty feet apart, and at one point I saw Braden pause to study another group of cattails. He motioned me over, and I was stunned to see a white face with beady eyes pop out to look at me. A weasel! The mammal was in full winter “plumage,” and it was only the second one we’d ever seen in Montana, so it quickly grabbed “Bird of the Day” honors!
This Short-tailed Weasel (we think) grabbed Bird of the Day honors as we searched for Short-eared Owls.
But our owling, it turns out, had just begun. As we headed back toward our car, Short-eared Owls started popping up like jack-in-the-boxes! We tried to spot them on the ground so we could steer around them, but they were so well hidden in the grass and cattails that we never saw one until it took flight. Then we just stood in awe, watching it navigate on their incredible wings until they settled a couple of hundred meters away. One owl even had a little tête-à-tête with a Northern Harrier, exchanging some words neither Braden nor I could make out.
I had the ISO of my camera cranked too high, so my owl shots are all grainy, but this photo still captures the magnificence of SEOWs.
One thing we wondered was why the birds weren’t actively hunting. Prey scurried everywhere, and the cold air shouldn’t have been a problem for such masterful fliers. In fact, Braden and I have seen them active in all seasons and at all times of day, though they do tend to be crepuscular—most active at dawn and dusk—especially in winter. Beyond this, I am guessing that the birds were so stuffed with voles that they could afford to chill out—literally. (But see my earlier comments on my understanding of owls re: Joni Mitchell.)
After observing at least half a dozen of these glorious creatures, we finally made it back to the road. Alarmingly, our minivan had disappeared!
“Geez, where is it?” I asked. “Did someone tow it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “This road is paved. Didn’t we park on a dirt road?”
“Oh, yeah,” Braden confirmed.
So much for my infallible sense of direction! As we wandered across fields, we had veered at least 90-degrees off course and ended up in a totally different place than we’d intended. Fortunately, Braden was able to use our eBird track to quickly figure out where our car was actually located. After a short hike down the paved road, and a turn right, we reunited with our faithful birding-mobile.
Seeing one of our favorite birds was a great way to wrap up our Montana birding adventures for the year and made us feel good knowing that great habitat and plenty of food still abounded for this wonderful species. The weasel (probably a Short-tailed Weasel) was also a great bonus. The Short-eared Owl pushed my Montana Year Bird list to 252 species, my second highest total ever. That number would tick over to 253 species an hour later when Braden and I saw a Northern Shrike up near Polson. Braden’s 2023 Montana total reached 198—pretty darned good considering he spent only five or six weeks in the state. None of us can predict the future, but if we all keep getting out there, we can guarantee that 2024 will bring plenty more birding adventures. What are we all waiting for?
Braden and I hope that 2024 brings you owls—and lots of other cool birds!
