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With single-digit temperatures in Montana this week, it is still very much book reading season, a time when all birders can—and should—beef up our birding resumés by tapping into the vast wealth of research and experience of the global birding and scientific communities. This past week, I delved into a topic that intrigues most birders by picking up Joan E. Strassmann’s The Social Lives of Birds: Flocks, Communes, and Families (Tarcher, 2025).
Joan Strassmann’s The Social Lives of Birds is packed with delightful revelations for beginning and experienced birders alike. (Click on the cover for ordering info.)
A well-regarded professor and scientist, Strassmann has created a comprehensive resource that introduces readers to almost every aspect of bird society. She begins by answering the simple question “Are Birds Social?” (You can probably guess the answer to that!) Then, chapter by chapter, she explores topics that fascinate beginning birders as much as they do veteran scientists. These include flocking behavior, mixed-species flocks, the predilection of many birds to roost and/or nest in colonies, the pros and cons of nesting and/or roosting together, lekking behavior, and more.
The author devotes an entire chapter to the fascinating and intriguing world of seabird colonies, such as those of one of the world’s most popular birds, the Blue-footed Booby.
I learned something fascinating with each chapter. For instance, I was first drawn to the book because the cover showed a line of six Long-tailed Tits packed tightly together on a branch. I had had the pleasure of observing these birds in the Netherlands (see our post Layover Birding in Amsterdam), Japan (see our post Birding Japan: Kyoto), and Spain (see our post Birding Barcelona, Part 1: The Urban Core), but had no idea that they lived and foraged in stable flocks that are often built around a main breeding pair and its offspring. In her book, Strassmann recounts a study that showed that on chilly nights, the tits nestle tightly together to stay warm, and that often it is the lowest birds on the “tit totem pole” that have to endure the chillier end positions. This is no trivial matter since the birds lose about 9 percent of their total body mass in a single, chilly night.
After observing Long-tailed Tits in Europe and Asia, I was fascinated to learn more details of their highly social behavior in The Social Lives of Birds.
Similar revelations emerge with every chapter, examining birds from a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic habitats. My favorite chapter was the last, “Supersocial Groups: Birds That Are Always Together.” That’s probably because it featured one of my favorite birds, the Acorn Woodpecker (see our post College Search Birding in California), and three other species I was fascinated to learn more about: White-winged Choughs, Sociable Weavers, and a bird Braden and I are always delighted to see, Pinyon Jays. Regarding the latter, Braden and I have seen Pinyon Jays only a handful of times here in Montana, and I had wondered why they aren’t more common. Strassmann explains that the birds need extremely large territories to guarantee a dependable food supply. Unfortunately, their main food source, the pinyon pine, has suffered extreme losses from clearing for agriculture and other reasons. Warmer temperatures driven by climate change have also impacted the production of pinyon pine seeds, leading to large-scale die-offs of these beautiful, dynamic, gregarious birds.
Strassmann devotes much of the final chapter on one of Braden’s and my favorite birds, Pinyon Jays, shown here in a cemetery in Helena, Montana.
The Social Lives of Birds struggles a bit over whether it wants to be a comprehensive resource or an engaging narrative in the vein of the recently reviewed The Great Aukor A World on the Wing. The author mentions her personal connections to many of the topics, but I found these more distracting than engaging. Still, that will not prevent readers from enjoying the book and harvesting a wealth of information—knowledge that will help you look at birds with greater understanding and appreciation each time you head out to bird.
One of our goals at FatherSonBirding is to encourage support of scientists and nonprofits working to protect our planet’s many imperiled bird species. We hope that you will consider sending a donation to Montana Bird Advocacy, whose work is featured in today’s blog. You can do this by clicking here. It will be money well spent!
Late July often ushers in the birding doldrums. Having finished courtship and breeding, most birds get super quiet. They often disperse from their breeding territories, too, making them more difficult—or at least unpredictable—to find. But this year I was in luck: I had a writing assignment that would guarantee I see at least a few very cool birds.
My best look yet at a stunning Ferruginous Hawk proved a delightful bonus to my day near Bannack.
You may recall my unsuccessful June trip down to Beaverhead County (see post In Search of the Green-tailed Towhee) to visit with biologist Jeff Marks, founder of the nonprofit scientific research group Montana Bird Advocacy. There, Jeff and colleague Paul Hendricks are performing a long-term study on one of Montana’s little-known birds, the Gray Flycatcher. When I visited, Paul wasn’t there, but I also got to meet biologist and research assistant Nate Kohler, who has been playing a pivotal role in the study.
The word “gulch” conjured up a much more verdant image to my mind, but as you can see it takes some pretty special adaptations to survive in this rugged country.
Although my June trip allowed me to see many wonderful birds and interview Jeff and Nate, my intention to see the Gray Flycatchers got squashed by a freak winter storm. Worse, the storm wiped out a whole crop of nestling Gray Flycatchers. The good news? The adults had laid second clutches of eggs, and the babies were getting ready to fledge as I again headed down there the last week of July. This time, the weather would be ideal for seeing them.
Jeff and I headed out at 8:00 a.m. and made our way up Bannack Bench Road, which borders the study area. This was the third season of the study, and its purpose is to figure out some of the basic biology of a bird that scientists know very little about. To do that, Jeff, Paul, and Nate have been banding adult flycatchers with color bands that allow field identification and observation of individual birds. The birds have been a challenge to catch, but the biologists have managed to band about a dozen each year—and with fascinating results. I won’t reveal too much about those results here since I’m also writing an article for Montana Outdoors magazine that will be out next year. However, I will tell you that seeing where these birds nest and what they are doing was a thrill.
Biologist Jeff Marks takes notes on a Gray Flycatcher nest in his Beaverhead County study area.
When Jeff first told me they were working in a place called Sheep Corral Gulch, I imagined sagebrush plants bordering some kind of verdant riparian zone, perhaps lined with aspens or junipers. Imagine my surprise to see nothing but sagebrush in every direction! Gray Flycatchers breed throughout the Great Basin, but one of the fascinating things about them is that they choose different habitats in different places. In other states, they nest in juniper, pinyon pine, and even ponderosa pine, but in this part of Montana the birds breed almost exclusively in sagebrush plants along dry washes. One thing that these places share in common is that they have open ground for foraging.
Color-banded adults allow Jeff and the Montana Bird Advocacy team to make detailed observations about mating and behavior of these little-known birds.
In Beaverhead County, though, not just any sagebrush will do. The birds nest only in taller plants four to eight feet high—plants that can mainly be found growing in the (usually) dry main stream channels of gulches. This year, Jeff and his colleagues located about a dozen nests, one to two hundred meters apart, and as Jeff and I began hiking, it wasn’t long before we spotted an adult bird up ahead. Using GPS coordinates, it took only minutes for Jeff to locate the bird’s nest—a nest with babies!
“They will fledge any day now,” Jeff told me, “and it looks like both parents are feeding them.” Having two involved parents gives the nestlings a huge survival advantage, and as we watched, we saw a parent deliver a juicy grasshopper to its ravenous chicks.
Most of the Gray Flycatcher nests were bursting with babies itching to head out on their own—after a few more meals from Mom and Dad!
For the next three hours, I followed Jeff as we visited one nest after another, and most were jam-packed with two or three babies champing at the bit to head out on their own. We, of course, made sure to stay well back so as not to spook them out of the nests before they were ready.
An unbanded adult Gray Flycatcher keeps watch on us as we move through its territory: “Move on. Nothing to see here, folks.”
I thought we would see a lot of other birds as we hiked, but especially this time of year, the birds stayed out of sight. We saw a couple of Brewer’s and Vesper sparrows, and a single Sage Thrasher and Northern Harrier. What a contrast from a month earlier when I spotted Sage Thrashers and Brewer’s Sparrows almost everywhere I looked! Nonetheless, I couldn’t have been more thrilled to get these up-close-and-personal looks at one of Montana’s most uncommon species.
Sage Thrashers were noticeably more elusive than only a month earlier, but this one did pose nicely on a fencepost along Bannack Bench Road.
You may be wondering just where Gray Flycatchers can be found in Montana. That itself is a fascinating story, because they apparently arrived in our state only recently. The first official record occurred in 1999, and Jeff believes that the birds may only have reached the Treasure State as part of an expansion northward from the Great Basin that occurred in the 1970s. Their Montana strongholds are in Beaverhead and Carbon counties (see post Bear Canyon—Montana’s “Tropical Birding” Paradise), but it takes careful observation and listening to distinguish the birds from almost identical-looking Dusky Flycatchers. The fact that the birds are so restricted here in Montana, though, points out how important it is that we protect our fragile sagebrush communities. It also underscores the great value of the work that Montana Bird Advocacy is conducting, because only by understanding the biology of the Gray Flycatcher and other sagebrush species can we know how to protect them.
Please consider supporting the ongoing work of MBA by clicking here and making a donation. The flycatchers will thank you—as will generations of future birders!
While getting ready for the next day at the study site, MBA’s rental cabin offered an idyllic view of pastureland, complete with deer, coyotes, and gobs of Common Nighthawks. Donate to Montana Bird Advocacy by clicking on this picture.
The state of Maine can be simplified to four things: lobster, moose, blueberries, and puffins (with Dunkin Donuts as a runner-up). During the four years I’d spent going to school in the state, I’d eaten lobster rolls, visited blueberry bogs, and tried my hardest to find a moose, a quest that would continue later this week. Through no fault of my own, I had never even tried to see a puffin and the reason was simple—my school year did not overlap with the Atlantic Puffin school year. This year, however, was different. I was actually still in the state of Maine as puffins were arriving at their breeding colonies, and was not going to miss my last chance to see these iconic seabirds. So, on May 14th, I boarded a large boat in Bar Harbor and took my seat in the cabin, binoculars and camera ready.
Unlike previous boat rides I’d taken to see birds, this cruise was relaxed and family-friendly. About two hundred people crowded the deck, many of whom were just as interested in the Bald Eagles and American Herring Gulls circling above the harbor as the prospect of seeing any alcids (Alcidae is the family of birds that includes puffins, murres, auks, and guillemots). Over the intercom, a very knowledgeable guide spouted off a non-stop stream of facts about the islands, lighthouses, and wildlife of the area as we headed for Egg Rock, a sparse strip of land just barely visible to tourists standing onshore in Bar Harbor. With the coastline of Acadia National Park to our right, we slowed as we approached the island.
This Common Murre was the only one I saw the whole boat ride. While this species hasn’t yet started nesting at Petit Manan, the ornithologists are hopeful that they will soon!
Egg Rock did not have a puffin colony—it was too close to shore for that. What it did have were colonies of several other species of seabirds. Gulls dominated the island, mostly Herring with scattered numbers of Great Black-backed Gulls mixed in, their charcoal backs sticking out amongst the sea of gray. Cormorants patrolled the southern side of the island, standing tall like gargoyles on the rocks. And in the waters lapping up against the side of the island I saw my first alcids—Black Guillemots! Although guillemots, which are black with white wing patches in the summer and white with black wing patches in the winter, are in the same bird family as Atlantic Puffins, they are far easier to see in Maine. Not only do they breed right on the coast during the warm months, they also stay for the winter—something that the puffins do not do. That’s one of the reasons why I’d never seen puffins here during my time at the University of Maine: From August to April, these birds stay as far from shore as possible, floating around somewhere in the North Atlantic.
After circling Egg Rock to look at the seabird colonies, as well as the dozens of Harbor and Gray Seals lounging on the rocks, the boat picked up speed and headed out to sea. While we never lost sight of the coastline, it grew hazier and hazier until eventually, a new island appeared on the horizon: Petit Manan. The first thing I noticed about Petit Manan were the buildings. Many islands off the coast of Maine had lighthouses, built during centuries past to help steer ships into harbors. As recently as the late 1900s, lighthouse keepers and their families lived on the islands and maintained the lighthouses, although by now many of the keepers had left, likely because boats had better forms of navigation at their disposal. The houses they left behind had been taken over by people working a very different type of job.
The Lighthouse on Petit Manan Island.
Both Egg Rock and Petit Manan are part of a large reserve known as Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge. Every summer, dozens of wildlife technicians head out to these islands to spend weeks and months working with the birds that live there. On some islands, like Petit Manan, this work includes Atlantic Puffins, but it also includes monitoring and conservation of other species like Common, Arctic, and Roseate Terns, Common Murres, Black Guillemots, Razorbills, Common Eiders, and Leach’s Storm-petrels. Several of my peers at the University of Maine worked for Maine Coastal Islands and would be heading out to their assigned locations within the next few weeks.
I began to make out large rafts of birds next to the island as our boat approached, and was delighted to spot football-sized alcids with rainbow bills taking off in front of us. I raised my binoculars and smiled—these were the first Atlantic Puffins I’d seen in seven years, since 2018 when I’d been lucky enough to visit Iceland with my grandparents (see my post “All About Alcids”). The birds lounged in the water close to the rocks, and our guide told us that many of them had likely just returned for the summer from their mysterious marine wintering grounds. I counted ninety or so during our half hour stay at Petit Manan.
A raft of Atlantic Puffins and Razorbills!
The puffins weren’t alone. Black Guillemots were here, too, as were a couple dozen Razorbills, another gorgeous black-and-white alcid named after the unique shape and decoration of its beak. I spotted a single Common Murre amongst their ranks, my fourth alcid of the day and a species that had not yet attempted to nest at Petit Manan—but scientists were optimistic! A dozen or so Common Terns circled the island loftily, letting out loud “kyeeeer” calls to notify everyone who was really in charge here. In a few weeks, the numbers of terns would swell into the hundreds, and include Arctic as well as Common. Terns were the aggressive defenders of islands, and would dive-bomb anything they perceived as a threat, including people. I remembered one walk in Iceland when we were asked to hold a tall, wooden stick so the Arctic Terns there would target that instead of our heads!
These birds are the reason that so many alcids nest at Petit Manan. The huge tern colony on this and other islands provide safety for the puffins from predators like gulls and Peregrine Falcons that might otherwise raid their nests. Of course, the biologists working for Maine Coastal Islands NWR were also there to aid these species and chase predators off the island. It hadn’t always been that way, unfortunately.
Common Terns nest in huge, aggressive colonies along the Maine coast!
A hundred years ago, feathered hats were all the rage in cities across the east coast of North America. The demand for white feathers meant that large numbers of terns, gulls, and egrets were harvested—to the extent that these species declined dramatically across much of the country. With no terns to protect them, puffins nesting in Maine were faced with higher predation, but not just from other birds. Rampant collection of eggs and puffin meat also plagued many of Maine’s islands, leading to a dramatic decrease in this species down to just two tiny colonies. Sadly, it was looking like the Atlantic Puffin would join the ranks of the Great Auk and Labrador Duck in Maine’s list of extinct birds.
Thankfully, ornithologists and bird-lovers alike noticed how much environmental damage was being caused by these practices and stepped in. Groups like Audubon formed and began lobbying for the protection of birds, eventually leading to the passing of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. And in 1973, Audubon launched Project Puffin. Scientists were sent out to islands equipped with broadcasting equipment and decoys, as well as a small number of puffin chicks donated from colonies in Canada. Step one was the rearing of chicks on islands that had previously been occupied by puffin colonies; step two meant attracting terns back to the islands. Finally, with their defenders back in place, Atlantic Puffins began returning to many of the islands they’d previously been extirpated from. They now occupy six colonies in Maine.
Today, Atlantic Puffins are doing well, but are still being monitored very carefully. Puffins feed on fish that thrive in deep, cold water. That’s why the species only nests on the outermost islands in Maine. Our guide told us, “Puffins would lay their eggs in the ocean if they could.” Unfortunately, the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than any other body of water in the world, and this means that puffins are having to travel farther and farther out to sea to obtain their prey items of choice. During particularly warm years, puffins have switched their selected prey entirely to other species. Many of these other species of fish, which are brought back to their chicks on Petit Manan and other islands, differ in their size and the toughness of their skin. Often puffin chicks cannot eat them, and will starve even when food is sitting right there.
The man-made burrows where puffins nest on Petit Manan!
The good news is that there are many, many people keeping an eye on these birds, doing their best to keep their numbers high. Last year was an especially good year for the species, so optimism is in the air. I felt cautiously hopeful for the future of this species as the Bar Harbor Puffin Tour headed back to shore, content with the pictures and new memories I’d experienced with this iconic Maine species.
In our last post, we detailed where to buy bird-related books. For our 200th post (gasp), we’d like to share some of our favorite bird books. We are by no means attempting to be comprehensive and we apologize to the many fine authors and books we didn’t have space to include. When it comes to holiday shopping especially, however, we realize that “less is more” so we’ve limited ourselves to the books that first soar to mind. Note that we haven’t gone crazy on the hyper-links here, but recommend just calling your local indie bookstore and placing an order (see our last post). Any of these books can also be ordered from Buteo Books or from a certain not-to-be-named e-commerce giant. Please feel free to share this post with friends and others in desperate need of holiday gift ideas!
Field Guides
There are so many field guides available that your head will spin considering them. Braden and I have enjoyed field guides by Peterson, National Geographic, Kenn Kaufman, and many other sources. The one we return to again and again, however, is The Sibley Guide to Birds, Second Edition. While many other guides seem cramped or present information in a difficult-to-use format, Sibley strikes the right balance with generous, uncluttered illustrations and to-the-point identification information and range maps. If you’re going to buy one guide for the US and Canada, this is the one. Note that if you need field guides for specific countries or regions, you often won’t have a great deal to choose from. Our first stop is usually Princeton University Press, which seems to have field guides for many of the world’s regions (see our last post).
“How To” Guides for Beginners
I swear, I wasn’t going to include my own book near the front here, but it logically follows field guides. Especially when it comes to buying a gift for the beginning birder, you can’t beat Birding for Boomers—And Everyone Else Brave Enough to Embrace the World’s Most Rewarding and Frustrating Activity. Here’s a recent review from Foreward Reviews: “Because the book is aimed at new birders, it includes advice about what kinds of binoculars to consider, what clothing and equipment to use, the value of a good field guidebook, and useful online resources. Its guidance is casual, often relayed with light humor and embellished by personal anecdotes. Challenges specific to boomers factor into its advice on birding with hearing, eyesight, and mobility challenges, and into its considerations for those on fixed incomes. It also makes important points about safety for nonwhite and LGBTQ+ birders. With its ranging approach and easy-to-follow advice, Birding for Boomers is a handy guide for all those—boomer or otherwise—who are looking to pick up an ornithological hobby.” Click here to order!
Birding Road Trip Books
We’re going to stick with two classics here. The first is Wild America: The Legendary Story of Two Great Naturalists on the Road by Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher. This really is required—and enjoyable—reading for those working on a life list or doing a Big Year, or anyone wanting to educate herself on the history of birding in the United States. Our second choice is Kenn Kaufman’s irresistible Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder. This was one of the first birding books Braden and I read and it is still one of our favorites, recounting the passions and pursuits of someone who just couldn’t help but chase and learn about birds. If you need to add a third title to this list, we wouldn’t complain if you picked up Warblers & Woodpeckers: A Father-Son Big Year of Birding!
Natural History and Science
This category could fill several blogs, but we’ll keep it brief except to say that you must read all of the books below—and they all make great gifts for anyone remotely interested in nature.
Where Song Began: Australia’s Birds and How They Changed the World by Tim Low: highly entertaining, it will change the way you think about birds.
A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden life and Epic Journey of the World’s Smartest Birds of Prey by Jonathan Meiburg: a fascinating account of one of our favorite groups of birds, caracaras.
Far From Land: The Mysterious Lives of Seabirdsby Michael Brooke: a wonderful account of birds most of us want to spend more time with—but, sadly, never will.
Hard to Categorize—But Read Anyway
The Ravenmaster: My Life with the Ravens at the Tower of Londonby Christopher Skaife. The title says it all, but doesn’t come close to reflecting just how entertaining and fascinating this book is!
Imperial Dreams: Tracking the Imperial Woodpecker Through the Wild by Tim Gallagher. This book provides a captivating blend of adventure and natural history, following a small group’s dedicated efforts to find a species that now is almost certainly extinct—but just might not be!
The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery and the Hunt for the Perfect Birdby Joshua Hammer. A fascinating look at the world of falcon and egg poaching.
And One More for Montanans
If you really want to buy something special for your Montana birder or birding family, take the plunge on Birds of Montana by Jeffrey S. Marks, Paul Hendricks, and Daniel Casey. This remarkable volume summarizes just about everything that is known about more than 400 Montana resident, migrant, and vagrant bird species. Rarely a week goes by when we don’t dive into this book to learn about a bird we’ve seen or have been thinking about. The book occupies a prominent place on our shelves and is a prized acquisition in our bird book library. Click the image below to order.
A wonderful compendium of information about birds living in, frequenting, or just visiting Montana. As an author, I reference it constantly.
FatherSonBirding is a totally free, non-commercial blog that Braden and I write to share our passion for birds and birding, and to help educate others about birds and bird conservation. We do not accept donations, but if you would like to support us in our endeavors, please consider purchasing *new copies* of one or more of Sneed’s books—the new picture book Border Crossings, for example. These books are widely available online or can be ordered from your local independent bookstore. Oh, and they make great holiday gifts! Thank you for your support.
In previous posts, we may have mentioned that when we first began birding, Braden and I pretty much ignored the fall. Once spring migration and breeding petered out, we figured, how exciting could it be? The answer, we’ve learned, is: Plenty! In past posts, Braden and I have focused on fall shorebirds, but in the last couple of weeks alone, I’ve also watched waves of Savannah Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, American Pipits, Ring-necked Ducks, and a whole slew of raptors cascading through Montana. This fall, I’ve especially been impressed by White-crowned Sparrows.
In their adult, or definitive, plumages, White-crowned Sparrows show bold black and white striping on their heads. In fall, however, most of the birds you’ll see sport sub-adult or “1st winter” attire (see below).
If you live in California or parts of the Great Basin, you probably don’t give White-crowned Sparrows much thought. After all, you can see them all year round, and they may even be the most abundant native sparrow you encounter. The same goes for much of the rest of the country, where White-crowned Sparrows overwinter, basically from coast to coast.
Here in Montana, it’s a different story. In spring, White-crowneds zoom through the state on their way to our high mountains or far north Alaska and Canada to breed. Our most impressive encounter? Watching a male singing to high heaven on its breeding territory in Glacier National Park (see our post, “Are You Ready for the Quach?”). Our best chance at seeing them, however, is in the fall, when they saunter through at a more leisurely pace.
Not only have I seen a LOT of White-crowned Sparrows this fall, they have been extremely cooperative in striking fetching poses.
Scientists recognize at least four sub-species of White-crowned Sparrows, and choose them as a favorite research animal both because of how common they are, and how easy they are to keep in captivity. Many studies have focused on song learning in the birds, and it seems that different populations, like humans, learn different dialects based on what they’re hearing around them. Researchers even talk of “bilingual males” that live on the borders between different populations. Breeding males aggressively defend their territories by flying at intruders, puffing out their feathers and crests, and singing loudly. They may even “wrastle” with their feet—a sparrow’s version of Brazilian jiu-jitsu!
Each fall, I usually see White-crowneds in a couple of different locations around Missoula, including a skulky adult that often shows up for a day or two in our backyard. This year, though, it seems I’ve been seeing White-crowned Sparrows almost everywhere I look. In September alone, I recorded seven sightings of White-crowneds. I was sure this must be some kind of personal record, and it led me to believe that these delightful songbirds might be having an especially great year.
Not so fast.
At one of our favorite birding spots, the Missoula Gravel Quarry, White-crowned Sparrows seem drawn to an abundance of seed that will help them fatten up for the rest of their migrations.
One of the wonderful things about eBird is that you can quickly go back through all of your species observations for a particular place and/or time of year. Searching through my White-crowned Sparrow records, this is what I found:
2015: 1 sighting
2016: 0 sightings (our ABA Big Year!)
2017: 8 sightings
2018: 4 sightings
2019: 11 sightings
2020: 18 sightings
2021: 14 sightings
2022: 5 sightings
2023: 11 sightings (so far)
At first glance, you might think this data reveals good and bad years for White-crowned Sparrows. Alas, that may or may not be true. Why? For the simple reason that my birding effort also has its “good” and “bad” years. You’ll note that by far my biggest year for WCSPs was 2020. Well, guess what? That’s the year Braden and I were doing our Montana Big Year, trying to find as many species as possible in our state from January through December. It was the year we most likely spent the greatest number of hours and days birding here, and so it’s no surprise that our White-crowned Sparrow sightings peaked that year.
“Are you lookin’ at me? Are you LOOKIN’ at ME??? Well, if you want this observation to be useful for science, you’d better look HARDER and more consistently.”
If we really wanted to start getting a handle on good and bad years, we would have to introduce some consistency to our birding madness by sampling spots at the same times and same locations throughout the year or season. This, in fact, is one way scientists study bird populations. They return to places at the same times and for the same durations every year. Braden spent this past summer doing “point counts” for songbirds in eastern Pennsylvania. He visited locations (“points”) that other field biologists had sampled in past years and at each point, he looked and listened for ten minutes, recording all of the birds that he detected.
I have done a similar thing in our own neighborhood, but on a much more informal basis. From spring through fall, every weekend or two, I walk our dog Lola on a particular neighborhood route at about the same time of day, recording all the bird species I detect. I call the route “Old Pond Road” and here are this year’s results (also see our post “Best Fall Warbler Flock Ever!”):
May 14: 18 species
June 3: 14 species
June 24: 20 species
July 1: 16 species
July 9: 16 species
July 15: 12 species
July 23: 12 species
August 12: 10 species
August 27: 21 species
September 5: 5 species
September 10: 11 species
September 16: 8 species
September 24: 8 species
September 30: 12 species (this morning)
I am the first to admit that this is not a rigorous study. I birded at different times of the morning, put in varying amount of effort—and I have lousy ears, so I’m definitely not hearing everything that’s around me. Still, you can see some interesting patterns. Species numbers came on strong in the spring breeding season, slumped in mid-summer, and then hit a high for the year in fall migration. Now, as the passerines (songbirds) have mostly passed through heading south, things are settling down to those hardy year-round residents that can handle a Montana winter.
“Just checkin’ out the photographer before I get back to eating!”
I encourage all of you to start your own neighborhood bird studies. Even with my rather haphazard approach, my data may come in useful to a scientist one day. Just as important, this study has taught me a lot about the birds living in my neighborhood—and it will for you, too. To begin, you’ll want an eBird account, of course. After that’s set up, though, just pick out a favorite route and begin birding it at about the same time every week or month. In no time, a year or two will pass and you’ll be able to look back on some interesting results that will teach you and help you appreciate this remarkable world around us.
As for the White-crowneds, I will continue to be glad to see them and will welcome them back any time—whether or not they’re having a particularly good year.
