Correction to maples, page 332

Reader Sherman Dunnam sent me a note about an error in the introduction to maples on page 332. The third paragraph begins "All maples have palmately compound leaves..."

This should instead say "Nearly all maples have palmately lobed leaves..." And could go on to elaborate that a few species have the leaves so deeply lobed that they are compound, and Boxelder is unique among the maples in having pinnately compound leaves.

Updates to the Tree Guide

I have spent the last seven years working intensively on my new Guide to Trees, but of course a few misstatements and errors somehow managed to creep in. I'm always interested in learning more, correcting my mistakes, and passing along to you - the reader - newer, better, more accurate information.

So if you notice any errors, or anything that seems to be missing or misleading, please don't hesitate to let me know, either by leaving a comment here or sending me an email. I'll be posting additions and corrections as time allows. (And the same goes for any of my bird guides, of course)

Thanks!

Tree Guide news

Two events related to The Sibley Guide to Trees: It is the featured product today on the Daily Grommet website. I’ll be checking in periodically, responding to comments and answering questions through noon tomorrow (Wednesday Sep 23rd) .

And “The Art of Identification” - a show of my artwork and field sketches at the Massachusetts Audubon Society’s Visual Arts Center in Canton, MA, will be opening this coming Sunday Sep 27th, and showing until January 2010. More details are here.

My latest project

After seven years of work, my new Guide to Trees goes on sale officially on September 15th (but those who live near Philadelphia can get it as early as Saturday the 12th when I'm there for book-signings). I'll be traveling quite a bit this fall to book-signings across the US and Canada, doing a variety of publicity-related things, and adding tree identification to the topics I cover here on this blog. Coming soon...

More information about the book can be found at the Knopf website, and a list of my confirmed book-signing events for the fall is here.

More vocal copying by American Goldfinch, Purple Finch, and Ovenbird

After listening carefully to Pine Siskins this year to pick out the calls of other species (see my earlier post) I have run across several other mimics. In early June in Arlington, Massachusetts I heard a remarkable American Goldfinch song that incorporated several phrases of a Song Sparrow song along with Northern Flicker and I suspect other species were being copied but I couldn't pick them out. This is the first time I've heard an American Goldfinch that included copies of other species in its song, and these were very clear and obvious copies, but as Dan Lane pointed out in comments on my previous Siskin post American Goldfinch seems to be exceptional – the one American member of the genus that does not copy. Apparently they do, at least occasionally.

In western Massachusetts in late June 2009 I heard a male Purple Finch giving its territorial song. This territorial song began with a bright warble like a typical Purple Finch song, then continued into a longer and more varied section – a jumble of short song phrases and copies of other species. I was able to pick out copies of American Robin, Tufted Titmouse, Eastern Towhee, and Hairy Woodpecker, and again I suspect there were more. In this case the copying has been previously reported in the literature, with the BNA account mentioning Barn Swallow, American Goldfinch, Eastern Towhee, and Brown-headed Cowbird.

Several years ago I noticed a few copies in the flight song of an Ovenbird, and I've heard a few others since then. Over several days in late June 2009 I was able to hear many flight songs from one Ovenbird in Colton, New York, which included copies of Red-eyed Vireo song phrase, Robin tut note, and a Purple Finch song phrase. There are very few recordings of the flight song (since it is given at such long intervals) but one on the Stokes Guide to Bird Songs: Eastern includes a lot of mimicry. Listening carefully to that I can hear a snippet of Winter Wren song, the trill of Eastern Towhee song, Red-eyed Vireo song phrase, and ending with White-eyed Vireo song. It's such a jumble of calls that (like the Siskin song) it's very hard to pull out all the copies, so I suspect there are others, and this whole performance – other than the few typical Ovenbird song phrases in the middle – might be copies. This is another instance of vocal copying that has never been reported before, as far as I know. The BNA account for Ovenbird makes no mention of it.

It's interesting that both the Purple Finch and Ovenbird use copies in these sort of extended or auxiliary songs, and not in the more frequently heard "typical" songs.

I should point out a very interesting new blog by Nathan Pieplow about bird vocalizations, with a comment on the Pine Siskin issue here, and lots of other good stuff. And another blog about bird voices by Paul Driver, with a recent post about Mimicry here.

References:

McGraw, Kevin J. and Alex L. Middleton. 2009. American Goldfinch (Carduelis tristis), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/080

Van Horn, M. A. and T.M. Donovan. 1994. Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapilla), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/088

Wootton, J. Timothy. 1996. Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/208

Promising new window film may prevent bird collisions

The most recent research by Dr. Daniel Klem, who has been studying the problem of bird/window collisions since the 1990s, has just been published in the June 2009 Wilson Bulletin. It is available, along with lots of other bird/window resources, at his website here.

Klem tested the effectiveness of various window treatments confirming, for example, that single decals on a window are not effective at preventing bird collisions, and that the non-reflective Collidescape film is nearly 100% effective at preventing collisions. Several different UV-absorbing films were tested with small to moderate success.

Beginning in 2007 Klem tested a new film developed in collaboration with Dr. Tony Port, a chemist at CPFilms. This film has vertical strips that reflect UV wavelengths alternating with vertical stripes that absorb UV wavelengths. The UV reflection and the alternating pattern seems to be very effective at deterring birds – only a few birds collided with the windows treated with this film, and none of those collisions were fatal. The real promise of this film lies in the fact that it appears clear to humans, and should be relatively easy to apply to existing windows!

Hopefully the company, CPFilms, can be convinced that there is a market for this window film, and start producing it commercially. I can think of dozens of windows that I would put it on.

Klem, Daniel, Jr. 2009. Preventing Bird-Window Collisions. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 121:314 –321

Identification of Belding's Savannah Sparrow

In early March 2009 it was my pleasure to spend a few days in California at the San Diego Bird Festival. On my first morning in San Diego I headed straight out to the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve hoping to spend a few hours studying Savannah Sparrows (who wouldn't, right?). I had seen some Belding's Savannah Sparrows in March 2008 in Orange County, California, and realized that the treatment of this endangered subspecies in my field guide was not very good, so I was anxious to learn more.

I succeeded in seeing dozens of the resident Belding's, with many birds singing and territorial around the marsh. I also saw quite a few of the migratory northern subspecies of Savannah Sparrows (ranging from grayish to brownish) in weedy areas around the margins of the marsh.

The image below compares two of my photos showing the most obvious differences between the subspecies. Compared to northern birds, Belding's has:

• longer and thicker bill with curved culmen
  
• darker and much thicker streaks on the underside
  
• darker streaks on the upperside and coarser and darker markings on the face
• Belding's never (as far as I could see) raises a crest, while the northern birds often look slightly crested and show a distinct peak on the rear crown
  

Belding's (left) and Northern-type Savannah Sparrows. Photos 5 and 8 March 2009, San Diego, CA 

 copyright David Sibley (digiscoped with Nikon Coolpix 4300 handheld to Swarovski telescope)

Differences in behavior, habitat, and molt were also fairly obvious, and should be very helpful for identification (but bill and plumage features should be checked to confirm). 

• Belding's in early March were singing and territorial, chasing each other across the marsh, while the northern birds were in small, loose flocks moving together widely across dry grassy and weedy areas around the marsh
• Belding's flight was low and weak, with round body and fluttering wingbeats, reminding me of Sharp-tailed Sparrow, unlike the stronger, higher, more "bounding" and undulating flight of northern Savannahs
• in early March the Belding's were all in clean fresh plumage, while the northern birds were molting and scruffy with missing feathers all over the head and body

I could not hear any difference in the song of Belding's compared to Savannah Sparrows from farther north.

I was struck by how much stockier and larger-billed the Belding's looked in comparison to the northern subspecies, in many ways intermediate between northern and "Large-billed" Savannah Sparrows. Apparently some populations intermediate between Belding's and northern birds are resident farther north along the California coast, but alongside the migratory northern subspecies the Belding's Savannah Sparrows in southern California seem quite distinctive.

Vocal copying by Pine Siskins

[10 July 2009 - update added at end]

In July 1990 I spent several weeks birding in west-central British Columbia, where Pine Siskins were one of the most conspicuous birds, and I became convinced that Pine Siskins were copying the sounds of other species of birds and incorporating these sounds into their songs. I was able to identify American Robin (squeal call), Evening Grosbeak (“krrr” call), Warbling Vireo (scold call and a song phrase), White-winged Crossbill (flight call and trill), and even House Sparrow (calls).

Since then I’ve heard this in many other places, and come to expect it whenever I hear siskins singing. From late March to early April 2009 I had the opportunity to listen to several individuals repeatedly in my yard in Concord, Massachusetts, and I was able to identify the following 14 species in the siskins’ songs:

Evening Grosbeak “krrr” call

American Robin, flight squeal and single “pup” call

Eastern Bluebird, rattling flight call

Eastern Towhee, “chewink”

Black-capped Chickadee, a single “dee” note

Northern Flicker, “kew” call

Hairy or other woodpecker, “wika” call

Dark-eyed Junco, soft “tew-tew-tew” call

Eastern Phoebe, song phrase and chase call

Blue-headed Vireo, two syllables of scolding call

Red-eyed Vireo, scold call

Song Sparrow, “jimp” call

Ruby-crowned Kinglet, two-syllabled whistled song phrase

Common Redpoll, flight call

These sounds can be very challenging to pick out, since the song moves along so rapidly that the bird is already singing other sounds while your brain struggles to process and identify the previous sound. The Evening Grosbeak call is commonly used and distinctive enough to stand out each time, but other calls like the Eastern Bluebird rattle simply blend in with the staccato jumble of sounds.

In my yard the same sounds were used repeatedly day after day, so as I became familiar with them I was better able to pick them out, and started to notice other copied sounds. I could not distinguish individual siskins, so I don’t know how many sounds were shared among birds, but the fact that the Evening Grosbeak call and American Robin call were heard virtually every time I listened carefully (and were heard years earlier in BC as well) suggests that most or all siskins use these calls, and probably share a lot of other sounds as well.

If you’d like to hear some of this, check out the recording catalog number 133352 at Cornell's Macauley Library, July 2, 2007, recorded in Newfoundland by Geoffrey Keller. [You’ll have to Search audio for Pine Siskin, and then find this recording]

The bird starts singing at about the 40 second mark, and between 47 and 56 seconds imitates Common Redpoll, Evening Grosbeak, Hairy Woodpecker, Dark-eyed Junco, American Tree Sparrow and American Robin (and probably others). Notice the clear sing-song notes of American Tree Sparrow at about 55 seconds, with the abrupt “pup” of American Robin following immediately after.

Amazingly, this vocal copying seems to have been almost completely overlooked. In Bent’s life histories (online here) copying of Evening Grosbeak and (in a captive bird) Common Redpoll and Canary, are mentioned. A study of vocal copying by Lawrence’s and Lesser goldfinches (Remsen et al, 1982, pdf here) specifically says that the song of Pine Siskin does not include any copied sounds, and the Birds of North America account makes no mention of it.

Presumably the sounds that are learned are simply the ones that are common in the siskins’ environment, so siskins from the western mountains must learn some sounds that are not heard in the east, and vice versa. Another Macauley Library recording from California (catalog number 120288) includes copies of Lesser Goldfinch flight calls, among others. Given how much siskins wander, it would make a really interesting exercise to listen for copied sounds that are “out-of-range”. Hearing, for example, Eastern Towhee in British Columbia or Lesser Goldfinch in Massachusetts would give you some idea of how far that individual siskin has traveled.

Update - in early June 2009 I spent a week at The Nature Conservancy's Pine Butte Guest Ranch near Choteau Montana, and was able to hear several Pine Siskins singing. I was able to hear copies of the vocalizations of seven species there. In addition to the now-expected calls of American Robin, Dark-eyed Junco, Common Redpoll, and Evening Grosbeak, the Montana siskins copied Western Tanager call, Mountain Chickadee dee note, and a Cassin's Vireo song phrase. Clearly these birds had learned their calls in the west, and would stand out in the east. So the challenge remains – to find a siskin that has traveled cross the continent, and recognize it based on the sounds it has learned.

More on identification of Greenland White-fronts

Coincidentally, just days after my last post about the two White-fronted Geese in Concord, two White-fronted Geese showed up in Amherst, Massachusetts (about 60 miles west of Concord, but not the same birds) that appear to be one Greenland and one North American type. James Smith has some discussion and really nice photos on his blog, and he's allowed me to post some of the photos here. 

Two Greater White-fronted Geese - 23 November 2008, Amherst, MA. Photos copyright James P. Smith, used by permission. Click for higher resolution (660 kB). In this montage the upper image shows the apparent North American bird with the Greenland-type on the left. I've resized and pasted in another photo of the Greenland type below for comparison.

This provides a great comparison of the two birds, very well-photographed, in similar light and from similar angles. The Greenland-type bird shows the following differences from the North American-type:

• neck, head and bill larger and bulkier than the North American-type
• neck and head more uniform and darker brownish
  
• scapulars with slightly narrower and less contrasting pale edges
• white border on flank feathers narrower
• pale tips on median and greater coverts narrower and less contrasting, not bright white
• pale edges on tertials slightly narrower and less white

These are all the same differences that I noticed on the two birds in Concord, and that have been described before as identification features for Greenland White-fronts in Europe. One other feature deserves mention:

• bill bright orange (and James says the color is accurate and this bird was truly very orange-billed) which may be useful even though we know how unreliable bill color can be, and the other bird happens to be a fairly obviously pink-billed individual, providing a strong contrast. One thing I noticed on the Concord birds, and again here, is that the North American bird has a fairly obvious whitish tip on the bill, while the Greenland bird does not.

And on 24 November, Taylor Yeager posted photos of another apparent Greenland White-front (scroll through the gallery to see several images of this bird), this one in Sharon, MA about 30 miles south of Concord. This bird doesn't look quite as heavy-billed as the other two, but it still looks fairly thick-necked, the bill is bright orange, and it has the dark head, narrow and low-contrast feather edges on the back, virtually no white on the wing coverts, very narrow white flank stripe, and extensive black on the belly between the legs. I'm comfortable calling this a Greenland White-front also. 

This would all seem to lead to confidence in identifying Greenland White-fronts, and I think we're getting there. But when I browse photos of White-fronts from other areas they show a bewildering range of variation. Identifying Greenland White-fronts will require excellent views and a careful assessment of all the different identifying features, preferably with direct comparison to other White-fronts, and a healthy dose of caution.

Another photo of the two birds in Amherst: Greenland-type in front showing the much larger and bulkier bill and head, and thicker neck, in comparison with the more delicate features of the North American-type bird behind. Photo by James P. Smith, used by permission. 23 November 2008, Amherst, MA.

Finally, one further mystery: It's not at all clear how we can tell that the smaller bird in Amherst is a North American White-front rather than a Eurasian bird. I don't think I've ever seen a discussion of that identification issue, but Eurasian White-fronts show up rarely in Iceland, and could easily wander into North America from there or from Siberia, so it is a potential vagrant to North America. All I can dig up in a cursory search is that Eurasian birds are consistently pink-billed, and may average smaller-billed, and may average less white on the wing covert and tertial edges, but those things are all vague, subjective, and variable. So while I've called the smaller bird in James Smith's photos a North American-type, I can't actually rule out the possibility that it is a Eurasian bird. Any comments or suggestions welcome. 

Identification tips for Greenland Greater White-fronted Goose

The Greenland Greater White-fronted Goose (Anser frontalis flavirostris) is known to be a rare visitor to northeastern North America, but I have never been satisfied with a reliable, objective way of distinguishing it from the North American subspecies of Greater White-fronted Goose, also a rare visitor to the northeast.

Bill color is the most frequently-mentioned field mark – supposedly orange on Greenland birds and pinkish on North American – but this has been refuted multiple times (see Kenn Kaufmann's note in Birding 1994, my blog post here). I suspect this is a mark that works in Europe, where local White-fronts are reliably pink-billed, but not in North America, where lots of the local birds look more or less orange-billed.

Over the last few weeks a single adult White-fronted Goose has been frequenting farm fields near my home in Concord, Massachusetts, and about a week ago it was joined by a second bird (well... "joined" is an overstatement since they pay no attention to each other and keep apart in the big flock of Canada Geese). 

These two individuals, in their details, are really strikingly different, and the differences all lead me to the conclusion that the new arrival is a Greenland bird, and the other a North American bird. On 19 November I was able to get some photos of the Greenland-type bird, and I've annotated a photo here with the differences between it and the North American-type bird. The differences are listed simply from front to rear, not in order of importance. (I'll try to get some photos of the other bird to post here for comparison).

Presumed Greenland Greater White-fronted Goose, 19 November 2008, Concord, MA. Photo by David Sibley

1. bill color slightly more orange, with yellow base (vs. orange with pale pink base on the other bird); but this is very very difficult to judge and essentially worthless as a field mark (see my post from last fall about judging bill color).
   
2. whole head nearly uniform dark brownish, sometimes looking paler on the cheeks but still with solidly dark crown above the eyes (vs. paler gray-brown head and neck with narrow dark crown stripe and contrasting dark border along white front). This is highly dependent on lighting, and would be difficult to judge on a lone bird, but the Greenland-type bird does look consistently darker, and may show a contrasting dark hind-neck that the other bird doesn't, but I need to check that in more lighting conditions.
   
3. neck strikingly thick and heavy, no thinner than the head (vs. neck slender, obviously narrower than the head and looking graceful and slim). This is one of the most obvious differences on these two individuals.
4. margins of mantle and scapular feathers pale brownish, not strongly contrasting (vs. margins whitish, more strongly contrasting).
5. white border on flank feathers narrower and not extending as far forward (vs. broader and longer)
6. pale tips on median coverts narrow and not white, relatively inconspicuous (vs. broader, whitish, conspicuous)
7. greater coverts without pale edges, and with narrow and inconspicuous whitish tips (vs. obvious narrow white edges and broad white tips forming a conspicuous narrow white band across edge of folded wing). This is another obvious difference between these two individuals.
8. black smudges all over the small feathers of the belly between the legs and extending well behind the legs (vs. this area virtually all white). This is separate from the irregular black bands before the legs and up onto the flanks, which are marked similarly in both birds.
9. white tips on the tail feathers seem to be narrower on the Greenland-type, but this is very difficult to see in the field.

Overall the Greenland-type bird appears bulkier, heavy-billed and thick-necked, and darker, without the elegant white fringes that are prominent on the rear upperparts of the North American-type.

Here's another photo of the Greenland-type bird, showing the heavy orange bill, dark and thick neck, and the lack of contrasting edges on the feathers across the shoulders. But none of that is very helpful in a single photo without another bird for comparison, nor is it likely to be very helpful on a single bird in the field. 

I know that some of these things have been described before, and they are still pretty subjective, and it's not safe to generalize from a single individual, but if this is a typical Greenland White-front, then I feel more hopeful about identifying the subspecies.

notes:

Martin Reid's website has some other discussion, photos, and lots references

Sungrebe – New for North America!

Stunning news from Bosque del Apache NWR in New Mexico: a female Sungrebe was photographed there on 13 November 2008, those photos here. It was correctly identified on 17 November from the photos, then refound and photographed more on 18 November. This is not only a new species for North America, but a whole new family.

A map of the species' whole range can be seen here at InfoNatura (scroll down for the detailed map).

Of course, birders are already debating whether this is a wild, naturally-occcurring bird or an escape from captivity. On one hand, it's a secretive species that is rarely seen flying, with no known history of vagrancy or even real seasonal movements, making the prospect of one appearing nearly 1000 miles northwest of the closest known population seem very unlikely. On the other hand, it's not kept in any zoos, and doesn't seem like the kind of species that would be illegally transported by an individual, which makes the escapee theory unlikely also.

Tipping the balance in favor of natural occurrence, in my opinion, is that in South America Sungrebes are apparently quick to occupy ephemeral wetlands, even when those are isolated many miles from any other suitable Sungrebe habitat. So clearly they are capable of long-distance flight, and wander enough to discover recently-created habitat. Perhaps, like rails, or Masked Ducks, they are capable of amazing feats of vagrancy.

Unless there is some clear evidence of captivity, I would consider this a wild bird. Incredible!

Update 19 November: Jerry Oldenettel has more details and will be updating the bird's status on his website here; and apparently the original photos were taken 13 November, and identified on the 17th, so the bird has been present at least six days.

Lesser Canada Goose in the northeastern US

The primary challenge of distinguishing Canada from Cackling Goose centers on the intermediate-sized 'Lesser' Canada Goose, B. c. parvipes, which reportedly nests across the boreal forest regions of western Canada and interior Alaska (more details on my website here). I've seen a few birds that I thought were 'Lesser' in the northeast over the years, most convincingly one at Brigantine NWR in NJ that accompanied a big flock of Snow Geese rather than flocking with Canadas. But it's a pretty ambiguous subspecies. The identifying features are wholly subjective: anything that seems smaller than the regular Canadas but too big for Cackling is a candidate for 'Lesser' Canada. Recently I saw this bird (the one on the left) that I feel pretty confident is a 'Lesser':

click for a slightly larger image. 

16 November 2008, Great Meadows NWR, Concord, MA - photo by David Sibley. Taken with the 10x zoom on a Canon digital camera. The Canada on the right was a bit farther to the right in the original photo, I cut and pasted it closer for better comparison.

It was distinctly smaller than the Canadas around it, with a very short neck and short bill. In flight going away it appeared no more than 2/3 the bulk of the Canadas next to it. Whenever I scan Canada Goose flocks in the east looking for Cackling Goose, there are always a few birds that grab my attention because they look small. Often they are marginally smaller than the other Canadas, sometimes their smallness was an illusion (happened to be standing in a furrow, next to an unusually large goose, etc). After a closer study these "small" birds fit nicely into the normal range of variation of the local Canadas, and the impression of smallness vanishes. This bird stood out because its smallness held up to closer scrutiny; it was truly small with very short neck and short bill.

I called it a Canada rather than Cackling because it seemed just a little too long-billed, too large overall, and the head/bill too wedge-shaped for 'Richardson's' Cackling Goose. It also looked the same color as the Canadas around it, without the gray sheen on the back or golden cast on the breast that many 'Richardson's' show. 

There are very few reports of 'Lesser' Canada Goose in the northeast. This could be due to the difficulty and inherent uncertainty of identification: we identify only the most clear-cut examples and report those tentatively, if at all. Or maybe it's because few birders really look for them or follow-up on possibles since "it's just a Canada Goose". Or maybe they are truly rare. I have actually seen more 'Richardson's' Cackling Geese in the northeast than convincing 'Lesser' Canadas; but that could be due to any of the reasons above. Given the normal distribution of this subspecies – breeding farther south and west than 'Richardson's' Cackling, with shorter migration – I would expect it to be less frequent than 'Richardson's' on the Atlantic coast, at least in the north. The only way to figure that out is to keep watching for, and documenting, these small geese, in order to develop a better sense of the identification and status of the various subspecies.

How many rare birds did we miss before the internet?

Yesterday morning I 'found' Canada's first Lucy's Warbler... in my inbox. 

After reading my recent posts about rare birds, Cathy Mountain (whose redpoll photos were featured here last winter) sent me a series of pictures of a warbler that had been in her yard in Fort McMurray, northern Alberta, from November 8-10, 2008. 

After rejecting the possibility of a drab Yellow Warbler, she thought it might be a Virginia's or Lucy's Warbler, as did other local birders who saw the photos, but they were reluctant to call it since both of those species were so unlikely. 

photo by Cathy Mountain - used by permission

This photo is not the sharpest in the series, but it is the best for showing the identifying features: the small pointed bill, plain gray color, pale lores and eyering, and dark rusty rump just showing under the wings. (and Yes, that is snow.)

This highlights another line of evidence in the debate about how many rare birds we miss - the number of rare birds found and identified only because they are photographed. This bird, like West Virginia's Great Knot in August 2007, and countless others, would have been lost in the swirl of ambiguous possibilities if not for photography. And without the internet to allow immediate sharing, even photos might have laid in a drawer with a very low chance of ever being identified. 

Imagine the chain of events that led to this discovery:

• In all of northern Alberta, this warbler landed in the yard of a birder (maybe not entirely random since Cathy probably has some landscaping to attract birds, but still... northern Alberta's a big place)
  
• She had to notice it and take some pictures
  
• She had to realize it could be something noteworthy and go to the effort and the risk of showing the photos to other birders to try to identify it
  
• When it remained a mystery she had to continue pushing the pictures out on the internet

Judging from her email to me, I think she knew what it was, and just didn't have the confidence to say, but did have the confidence to keep trying to confirm her suspicions.

Now imagine if any one of the links in this chain had broken down. The bird didn't land in a birder's yard, didn't stay long enough or simply wasn't noticed, wasn't photographed, or wasn't 'advocated for'. This Lucy's Warbler could have landed unnoticed in dozens of yards on its trip from Mexico to Alberta. 

The digital photography revolution, and the ability to share pictures easily on the internet, means that a lot more of these birds are found (meaning confirmed), which is fantastic. But this still must be a fraction of all the rare birds that are out there.

So get out there and find something!

So how many do we find?

My last post "How many rare birds do we miss?", was simply getting at the idea that we can miss something glaringly obvious if we are not looking for it. A popular psychology quote goes "I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it". In the case of the moon-walking bear, since I wasn't looking for it, I didn't see it. 

In the comments a reader pointed to a discussion on his own blog "The Birdist" where he actually tries to answer the rhetorical question in the title of my blog post. So how many rare birds do we actually miss? The Birdist and his interviewee guess that one-third to over one-half of all rare birds are found. I disagree and I would put the percentage much much lower. 

Why do I think so few rare birds are found? Well, for one thing, I look at the very small number that are ever refound. The White-crested Elaenia in Texas last January, or the Variegated Flycatcher in Washington this September, or the European Golden-Plover in Maine in October, or the White Wagtail in the Florida Keys last week, etc etc. all share the fact that none of them was seen anywhere else in North America. Maybe a statistician can comment on the hypothetical numbers involved, but if one-half of all rare birds were being found by birders, I would expect a lot of re-finding of these ultra-rarities. It's likely each of these birds wandered slowly and spent time at many other places where they could have been discovered by birders, both before and after their actual discovery. And there must be countless others that are never found. 

The Jabiru in Louisiana July 31, 2008 could be the same one that was seen in southern Texas August 10th and 20th. But that is a big, conspicuous species that even a non-birder will notice. In fact, as I understand it, it was found in Louisiana by a local hunter who noticed it and took a few snapshots. It was refound by a birder in Texas on August 10th (if indeed the same bird) but then went missing for 10 days, reappearing on August 20th! Add to that the experience in August 2007 when a Jabiru showed up in Mississippi. Birders were alerted to it by the local farmers, but after a few days that bird vanished and was never seen again, despite intensive searching and the fact that its most likely path back to Central America would have taken it through Louisiana, past Houston and Corpus Christi, and over several hawkwatches. Rare birds being refound at a distant location are the very rare exception to the rule. 

Another interesting bit of evidence is what I will call "delayed discovery". There are many examples, as in the 2007 Mississippi Jabiru that was seen by birders only because the landowner was curious and sent out a photo. It turns out the bird may have been in the area for several weeks before that. Or the Least Grebes recently discovered in a park in Boca Raton, Florida. On September 27th self-described "recreational birders" Lee and David Hasse sent an email alerting other birders that "last Sunday" they saw two Least Grebes. This was confirmed by their photos and by "serious birders" the next day. The following day (28th of September) the nest was discovered, and on the next day (29th) the first egg hatched!

The eggs must have been laid about 3 weeks before they hatched, and nest-construction must have started at least a week before that, and probably several weeks for pair formation, etc. So those two grebes must have been at that park for at least 6 weeks, since mid-August. And if the Hasse's weren't there in late September, or hadn't taken the time to report their sighting, would the entire nesting have passed without birders noticing?

So I'll take on the question now: How many rare birds are actually found? At a place like Cape May in the fall, arguably THE most intensively birded location in North America, a Jabiru is almost certain to be seen and identified, I'd say 80 or 90% of the time, and if it sticks around for more than an hour or two the odds go up to near 100%. As we go down the scale of conspicuousness, Fork-tailed Flycatcher is fairly likely to be found (virtually all birders and even a lot of nonbirders would notice one, even from a great distance); Western Tanager is less likely to be found (much less conspicuous - you have to be within a few hundred feet to notice one); Smith's Longspur is even less likely (secretive and nondescript), etc. The odds of finding a Smith's Longspur that only stays for a day are very very low overall (although if it spends that day on the lawn by the Cape May hawkwatch, it's very likely to be found). Staying longer will increase the chances of being found, and so on.

Psychologically, birders at places like Cape May are somewhat more likely to find rare birds simply because, at known vagrant traps, we expect to find rare birds. The same observation that might set a Cape May birder running after a "possible Smith's Longspur" is more likely to be dismissed as "not worth the effort" by a birder in farm fields in upstate New York. And as soon as a historical pattern develops at a location - like Cave Swallows at Cape May in November - the tables turn and birders start actively looking for a specific rare bird.

Back to my point about birds not being refound: if each of these rarities is spending 10 or 20 or 30 days wandering around inside North America, but is only seen once, that's something like a 10% or 5% or 3% chance of being found, and that strikes me as the right range to consider for how many rare birds we actually see.

As a final note, I like to think that this makes me an optimist, since I can always convince myself that the European Golden Plover from Maine is going to show up in my local patch tomorrow, and that there must be loads of rare birds hiding in the next bush.

How many rare birds do we miss?

As birders we often talk about the problem of common birds being misidentified as rare ones. The counterpoint, but probably more frequent, is that rare birds are simply overlooked. Here's a link to a fantastic "Awareness Test" on YouTube. 

Give it a try, it only takes a minute. The relevance of this test to bird identification should be obvious, so now you can just imagine all the rare birds you haven't seen.

Big Day, and Blogging hiatus

Upcoming events: I'll be out on a fossil-fuel-free big day this coming weekend, bicycling around Concord, Massachusetts (hoping for 100 species) and I'll try to post a report about that next week. You can sponsor me through Bird Studies Canada, or through Malkolm Boothroyd's Bird Day Challenge.

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The Blog: When I started this blog last August I didn't have much of a plan, or much time, but it has evolved and grown, and the whole experience has been great. Thanks to all who have contributed, publicly and privately. For the last month or so I've had no time to work on it at all, and I expect to be equally busy for the next few months. If I find time I will post occasionally, but I look forward to having more time for it, hopefully by the end of the summer. In the meantime, why not go outside and watch some birds?

More on Texas Border Wall

Prompted by some good discussion I've read on TexBirds and elsewhere: I want to stress the point that the danger to birds is not so much the height of the wall, but more the wide swath of habitat that would be cleared for the wall and service roads. Chachalacas, Pygmy Owls, Green Jays, etc will fly over a wall, but they're less likely to cross 100 yards of barren gravel. This project might as well be a 4-lane highway.

So let's try to take immigration completely out of the picture for a moment and imagine that, instead of a wall, the federal government was proposing to build a 4-lane expressway along the river from Brownsville to Laredo. Wouldn't there be a unified grassroots uprising against it? What if they revealed that it would cut right through parts of the LRGV Wildlife Corridor, which has been so carefully patched together and cultivated over the last 20+ years? And what if there would be no exit or overpass anywhere near the Sabal Palm sanctuary and other sites, effectively cutting those places off from the existing road system? And, on top of all that, what if they announced that, in order to speed construction, all environmental review would be waived? Wouldn't we all be outraged?

People may feel conflicted or uncommitted about the border wall because it is tangled up in hot-button issues of immigration and National Security. But those issues are irrelevant to the birds. The reality is that the wall (like an expressway) would be catastrophic for birds and birding in the valley (and what's bad for birding is generally bad for the birds), and we need to speak out to demand that those concerns be addressed. Congress allowed all this to happen, and they can change it, but they need to hear from lots of us. See http://noborderwall-take-action.blogspot.com/

Border Fence puts Texas birds and birding at risk

Revised 8 Apr 2008 -

Do something: Write or call Congress. See the No Texas Border Wall campaign and their suggestions for action with several petitions to sign and instructions for contacting government officials. Defenders of Wildlife has a handy form here for writing to your representative.

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The proposed border wall (1) from Texas to California has been hotly debated, but birders should be aware that aside from local residents (2), as a group, we will be among those most strongly affected by it. Problems include:

• the destruction and fragmentation of habitat - imagine building a four-lane highway through the area (3).
• current plans call for the wall to be erected between US birders and several of our most popular birding sites - such as the National Audubon Society's Sabal Palm Grove, The Nature Conservancy's Southmost Preserve, and parts of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge - relegating those places to the Mexican side of the fence, with no plans for visitor access (4)
• over 30 environmental laws were summarily waived on 1 Apr 2008 (no joke), so that construction of hundreds of miles of border fence would not be slowed down by the nuisance of considering endangered species, clean water, Native American burial sites, etc. (5)

Border security is important, but for whatever help this wall will provide (6), the need for secure borders should not trample environmental laws. We must be able to increase security while still maintaining the natural and cultural heritage of the border region.

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Notes:
1) In the subtleties of language, calling this a fence implies a neighborly sort of boundary marker. It is really a wall, actually two walls - at least 15 feet high, solid metal and concrete, with a road on either side (see photos here).

2) Local residents are overwhelmingly opposed to the wall. An article in the Texas Observer with the local viewpoint and other issues is here

(3) from a Houston Chronicle article here "Federal wildlife officials said they are concerned the waiver of the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws will threaten the survival of a number of animals by allowing the fence to be built through a 90,000-acre wildlife corridor they spent $100 million assembling in South Texas."

(4) A refuge official says that over two-thirds of National Wildlife refuge land in the Valley will be negatively impacted, either directly or indirectly. Not to mention that access to the river will be limited, and a number of homes, businesses, and historic sites will be on the other side of the planned wall.

(5) Defenders of Wildlife press release here

(6) only 70 miles of wall are planned along 300 miles of the Rio Grande. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster told the Houston Chronicle here "I'm just a yahoo from Eagle Pass, Texas, but this is just the absolute height of folly"

More info:
8 Apr New York Times story about the legal issues of the waiver is here
A detailed 4 Apr story in Newsweek is here
The 7 Apr New York Times story about the issue here
A Houston Chronicle story is here

Defenders of Wildlife press release here and lots more in the "Related Information" sidebar

Variation in Wild Turkey

Here's an example of one of the countless thousands of questions that are still out there waiting to be answered about North American birds. I went to Texas in February (for the opening of the fantastic new Clif Moss Nature Education Center of the Corpus Christi Public Library) and I had a chance to see some Wild Turkeys nearby. As expected they had whiter tips on all the body feathers than northeastern birds, but they also seemed thinner and smaller-headed than the Turkeys that frequent my backyard in Massachusetts, and when I got home I immediately saw what the difference was.

sketch copyright 2008 - David Sibley

The Massachusetts Wild Turkeys have feathering extending all the way up the neck, while the Texas Turkeys have a long stretch of the upper neck bare (here's a quick sketch I did that first morning at home). This is logical, presumably an adaptation to the cold weather in Massachusetts, but in a quick review of some sources (the BNA account) I found no mention of neck feathering as a geographic difference. I thought maybe it was just a winter feature; maybe the Texas birds had already lost their "winter coat", and the Massachusetts birds would lose their neck feathers for the summer. They may still do that, but as of today (2 April 2008) they look the same.

As usual, this just brings up more questions: Is this going to be true year-round? What are the patterns of variation? Do all southern birds - Florida, Texas, Arizona - lack neck feathers? Does it change gradually from north to south or is the change more abrupt? and lots more....

Audubon's mysteries: Carbonated Swamp-Warbler

One of the enduring mysteries of North American ornithology involves several species which were painted by Audubon in the early 1800s but never seen again. The most striking and appealing of these birds is the Carbonated Swamp-Warbler, and since the painting was published ornithologists have debated whether this could be a rare and now-extinct species, a hybrid, or merely a fantasy created by Audubon.

Audubon wrote:

I shot the two little birds here represented, near the village of Henderson, in the State of Kentucky, in May 1811. They were both busily engaged in searching for insects along the branches and amongst the leaves of a dogwood tree. Their motions were those common to all the species of the genus. On examination, they were found to be both males. I am of opinion that they were each young birds of the preceding year, and not in full plumage, as they had no part of their dress seemingly complete, excepting the head. Not having met with any other individuals of the species, I am at this moment unable to say anything more about them. They were drawn, like almost all the other birds which I have represented, immediately after being killed; but the branch on which you see them was not added until the following summer.

Despite his definitive statement that he shot two specimens, and painted them from life (well... death), there has always been speculation that Audubon may have invented these birds, or painted them from memory rather than from specimens. Audubon frequently stretched the truth, and many of his untruths are well-documented, although as Jonathan Rosen suggests in a New York Times book review they are "more like the improvisational ''stretchers'' of Huck Finn than the calculated inventions of a man on the make".

While viewing some of Audubon's original paintings at a New York Historical Society exhibit several years ago I noticed that the paintings ranged from very lovingly detailed (e.g. Carolina Parakeet) to more cursory and simplistic (e.g. Bicolored Blackbird and others painted from specimens brought back by Townsend). It occurred to me that the painting style and quality of details might provide clues to Audubon's mystery birds. The recent launch of a complete collection of high resolution scans of Audubon's plates at the University of Pittsburgh (available here) prompted me to take a closer look at this painting.

A brief survey of the painting reveals several factual errors:

• Dark stripes on the back of the lower bird are pointed at the front, broader and diffuse at the rear - opposite of the normal feather arrangement on songbirds
• Median secondary coverts (the shorter wingbar) should have the lower feathers overlapping those above; both birds have these feathers overlapping incorrectly
• Median secondary coverts on the lower bird are too long
• Too much yellow shows in a broad wedge above the forewing on the lower bird, unlike any known songbird; there is no way the feathers painted on the upper bird could be rearranged to look like the lower bird
• Uppertail coverts of the upper bird are shaped and arranged incorrectly
• There is a general lack of detail, a sort of vagueness of structure to the wingtips and tails, both birds lack primary coverts (which should be visible) and the tails are unusually short with very narrow feathers (unlike any known wood-warbler).

One could give him the benefit of the doubt and allow that these could all be due to carelessness or inexperience. I can imagine that there must have been times when he was distracted from his painting by biting insects, weather, hunger, illness, or other concerns. But checking some of his other early paintings (Chestnut-sided Warbler plate 59, Cerulean Warbler plate 49, Purple Finch plate 4, Song Sparrow plate 25, etc) shows that these are all more detailed, with correct arrangement of coverts and streaks. There are always things to nitpick, but in each of these paintings the overall draftsmanship is painstakingly accurate, and smacks of authenticity. The Carbonated Swamp-Warbler painting is subtly lacking, which leads me to conclude that Audubon was probably not looking at a bird as he painted.

This is all merely speculation and circumstantial evidence - weighing possibilities. There is no way to know for certain what Audubon painted (unless the Carbonated Swamp-Warbler were to be rediscovered and confirmed). It's possible that this species did exist, a hyper-specialized wood-warbler, like Kirtland's, that was extinguished by the first clearing of forests in the early 1800s. It's possible that Audubon did see them, and simply painted them poorly. Or that he saw one and tried to recreate it from memory some time later (lying about the two specimens to bolster the credibility of his painting). But given that the only evidence of the species' existence is Audubon's painting and written account, that evidence needs to meet high standards. I think the quality of the painting casts some doubt on his claim that he was working directly from two specimens, and then that casts doubt on the existence of the species.