Sibley Guide

I just got the Second Edition of the Sibley Guide to Birds. Although I prefer National Geographic's guide they are both very good. Here is a list of pros for each book that the other one lacks.

National Geographic:

• Better drawings with more accurate color
• Smaller size for easier use in field
• Subspecies taxonomic names are shown
• Range maps are better
• More rare bird species (just in case!)
• Special subspecies maps for a lot of birds

Sibley Guide:

• Easier to compare species
• More hybird and variant plumages
• More exotic birds
• Good tips for species comparison
• Checklist in back (although a lot of rare birds aren't included)

Other guides are good as well. There is the Peterson guide which is very informative. The Crossley guide uses many images from one species all on one page. I think that NG is the best choice but I do know people that like Sibley better, and they are both good guides.

Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Conservacy

Instead of birding on Saturday morning I went to the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Conservacy (lrwc.net) in Litchfield, CT. Although it is 90 minutes away from my house it is a great place to look at captive ducks. They have so many species there! The first duck we saw was a Laysan Teal, which is arguably the rarest duck in the world. There are very few birds left and they are restricted to Laysan Island in the Pacific Ocean.

There were also Blacksmith Plovers, which, even though they aren't a duck, are a common part of the Conservacy. In the pond with the Laysan Teal there were also Baer's Pochard, Falcated Ducks, Lesser White-fronted Geese, Meller's and Hawaiian Ducks and Philippine Ducks.
In the second pond there was also some variety. There were a lot of sea ducks from America, like Harlequin Ducks, Long-tailed Ducks and Spectacled Eiders. There were also Baikal Teal, Scaly-sided Merganser and Red-breasted Goose. The Baikal Teal is probably my favorite duck, so this picture of one is one of my favorites.
I got good pictures of the other ducks as well.
  In pond three there were Smew, Red-breasted Goose, Red-billed Pintail, New Zealand Scaup and White-headed Duck.
 
Pond four probably had the most variety. I will try to post all the birds that were there: Marbled Teal, Magpie Goose, Nene, Puna Teal, Baer's Pochard, White-headed Duck, Falcated Duck, Scaly-sided Merganser, Masked Lapwing and West Indian Whistling-Duck.
I saw many other birds, including a Demoiselle Crane group who danced and courted their mates, and a Swan Goose who imprinted on us. That means that he would follow us wherever we went. There was obviously something wrong with him but he was very cool and harmless. There were Cape Barren Geese, who were very agressive because they were having goslings. We also saw some sea ducks, a falcon and some baby birds. All my photos are on my Flickr, right here!

April Break

So, this week was my April Break for school, so I did a lot of birding this weekend. It was cool that the Tree Swallows are here, and they are one of my favorite birds.

They were very easy to photograph, especially for the aerodynamic swallows that they are. They were often perched so that was good. We did go to the Mansfield Hollow Dam to see some birds, very close to home. We saw a lot of birds but as a subpar photographer, I had a tough time taking pictures. Here are some of the good ones.
On Sunday we went to Bluff Point and got some more yearbirds. My yearlist is at 63 right now, and we got some bad views of new yearbirds like Double-crested Cormorant and Northern Mockingbird. We also saw a female Common Merganser which yielded some more average photos. I will most likely do more birding this week. But that's all for now!

Birding in Hammonasset - First Outing with the new Camera!

 So as the title says, my dad and I went to Hammonasset Beach State Park on Sunday morning. We saw many birds, even a lifer here and there. I was hoping to get some Snow Buntings, since they had been sighted. So we set off for Hammonasset Beach.
 It was an hour-long drive from where I live, but it was worth the drive. As soon as we pulled up, we saw a small flock of Horned Larks, a lifer for the day.
 This was also the first picture with my new camera. Even just on the drive up we saw all kinds of sparrows, blackbirds and gulls. I knew it would be a good day. As soon as we started walking we were flooded with crows, grackles, and Red-winged Blackbirds. They were everywhere throughout the park, and here are some of the photos.
 So, we continued walking, As we went, we saw a Tree Swallow, another year bird. They were here early, and it was good seeing them for the first time. They seemed very cold, though. I guess they just weren't ready for that morning CT wind! (That would make two of us. I was also very cold.) We kept walking and saw more blackbirds and such, and they were very loud. We took a short detour, and we saw some doves and cardinals. Not many good photos came out of it though. All the photos are on the bottom of the post.
 However, we did hear some good news. We were looking at Song, Swamp and Fox Sparrows (the latter two are yearbirds) along with Purple and House Finches (yearbirds as well). There were also some blackbirds, Brown-headed Cowbirds and robins. Someone said that there was a Snowy Owl sighting at the boardwalk! Of course we wanted to see it! We went out there, and while seeing some Killdeer as well, we got a bad view of it. It was very far away, but it was there! I was excited to see it.
 After that, we saw a Yellow-rumped Warbler, which was very hard to photograph. Worse yet, my camera ran out of battery right about then! I will always remember to charge it from now on. So we decided to run back to the car, drop it off, and go see the beach.
 As we went to the beach we saw some Lesser Yellowlegs and some more crows. We saw lots of gulls (mainly Herring) on the beach. We also saw some black-headed gulls in the distance, but it was too inconclusive to identify. Even though the Bonaparte's Gull was most common in Hammonasset at this time, I didn't want to be assumptive and add it, because it would be a lifer. So I just called it Laughing Gull in my personal list and said gull sp. on eBird when I reported it. We also saw some Mallards and Black Ducks in the ocean, and a quick flyby of Red-breasted Mergansers. At the end of the point we turned around and headed home.
 Well, we didn't go home just yet. We went to another area in the park, still in search of the Snow Bunting. We did see some Hooded and Common Mergansers (that completes the merganser trifecta!) as well as some Great Black-backed Gulls (yearbird). After a quick look at more Mallards and some Canada Geese, we went home. We didn't see a Snow Bunting but I had a great time birding. Also, I did check Horned Lark off my life list, as well as adding ten yearbirds!
Photos:

Red-winged Blackbird

Horned Lark - Lifer

Hooded Mergansers and Common Merganser

House Finch

Snowy Owl

Common Grackle

Mallard

Tree Swallow

Great Black-backed Gulls

Fox Sparrow

Lesser Yellowlegs

Song Sparrow

Killdeer

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Mourning Dove

American Crow

That's all for now. Thanks for looking.

New Camera!

Today I am getting a new camera just for myself. Usually I use my dad's camera for picture taking, and most of the time he just takes all the pictures. But I am getting a camera for myself and it's a Nikon P510. I am very excited, and other birders are saying it's the best camera in my price range. I have been saving up money for like three years waiting for this camera. I am gonna get it some time today, and I will go birding tomorrow and get some nice pictures with it. I will most likely post those tomorrow too.

Birding in Hartford

Today, on Sunday, I took a short drive out to Hartford, about 30 minutes away from my house in eastern CT. My dad and I went to the Riverside Park, and even though it was cold some of the water was unfrozen and there was some good birding there.

We came in and saw a Northern Flicker, but it flew away too quickly to get a photo. When we got out of the car we would hear crows galore, and they were easy to see! There had to be 150 crows there, and they were very loud the whole time.

 These crows were some of the many crows that were in the trees, and there were many different individuals. Some of them were standing on the ice, and some were in the trees. But wherever they were they were calling loudly.
There were also some seagulls there. I didn't get any good photos, but I did get some. They are on Flickr, and the link is on the bottom of the post. I actually don't know what it is, but I am believing they are Ring-billed.

Tufted Titmouse

We saw some ducks in the distance, but had no idea what they were. So we went closer, and it actually yielded some other sightings. More crows, of course, and we saw some songbirds in the woods that we went by. We saw a Tufted Titmouse, a Northern Cardinal (no picture), we heard a Black-capped Chickadee, and we even saw a Downy Woodpecker in the trees, pecking. We also spooked some Mallards, who flied away quickly. I kinda stink at getting flight shots but I tried to get some.

Downy Woodpecker

The highlight however, was a flight picture. It was a juvenile Bald Eagle, which was something we were aiming to see the whole time. It was in flight, and since it was just soaring very slowly I could get a good picture. One of them is below, in flight. It was great to see the Eagle, which even though it isn't a lifer, is always a delight to see. We looked for the adult bird but we couldn't find it. We saw a quick view of a Red-tailed Hawk flying away, but we couldn't get a picture of it. But the eagle was certainly a highlight.

Juvenile Bald Eagle

So soon we got to a place where we could see the ducks that were just a dot on my vision a while away. One was a Brant, all by itself in the river. When I reported the sighting to eBird I found out that that Brant was the first Brant sighting ever reported to eBird! I was very excited when I found this out. We kept going (this is when I heard the Cardinal and then saw it, but we couldn't get a picture), and we found out the other birds were Common Mergansers. It isn't a life bird, but it's still a good sighting. We walked back, took some more crow pictures, and saw a small group of Canada Geese on the way out. Later we saw robins, starlings and pigeons too. But it was certainly great to see the eagle.

To see more of the photos: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/100012535@N07/sets/72157641775733483/

To see all my photos on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/100012535@N07/

Great Backyard Bird Count!

Birding is always a lot of fun. I go whenever I get the chance. But this weekend provides a special reason to go birding: the Great Backyard Bird Count. This count (unlike the tedious and annoying Christmas Bird Count) only requires an eBird account (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/) and a little birdwatching. It is a fun way to contribute your findings to the world of ornithology. People from around the world contribute to this count. It is easy, free and fun! Learn more here and good luck birding.

Great Bird Websites!!!

Great Bird Websites and other cool stuff

There are a lot of cool bird websites for all kinds of bird lovers all around the Internet. Here are some that I have found that will amaze you.

Image sites

http://antpitta.com/ - Antpitta.com is a great birding website for South American photos. This site, which often has updates from the creator's new trips, is a great source for some of the most diverse bird areas on Earth. There are also some non-Neotropical bird pictures. All the photos are great and the species variety there is magnificent.

http://orientalbirdimages.org/  - Oriental Bird Images is a lot like antpitta.com except all the birds there are from, you guessed it, the oriental region. Unlike antpitta, where there is only one contributor, many people add their amazing photos to the site. There are many, many cool bird pictures to observe each day. You can even look at new species that have been recently uploaded to the site. It is usually a hotspot for new species as well as amazing Asian bird pictures.

http://ibc.lynxeds.com/ - The Internet Bird Collection features all kinds of birds from everywhere. Anybody with a free account can upload their photos of birds (even I have an account) and each photo is magnificent. Their database includes over 100,000 bird photos spanning over 9,000 bird species (about 91% of all living birds), as well as over 80,000 videos and over 10,000 sound files. The videos show  a lot about bird behavior and are a great way to learn about birds right from your computer.

http://www.arthurgrosset.com/ - Arthur Grosset's bird website, while focusing mainly on Neotropical birds, has a lot of photo variety featuring birds across the globe. You can also view some of the sound files that he has captured. His collection of species is rather impressive, as are all the great photos he has collected. If you want some info about the bird you're looking at, you can always read the informative couple of paragraphs he writes about most of his sightings.

http://vireo.ansp.org/ - VIREO, or Visual Resources for Ornithology, is another great collection that has birds from all over the world by many different photographers. It has over 160,000 photographs of over 7,000 species and is always growing with each helpful contribution. The search tool allows you to search by common or scientific name, and you can even browse the birds by family.

http://www.arkive.org/birds/ - Although this is a website for all animals, ARKive's bird sector includes great photos of some of the world's rarest birds. Not only that, but it also displays well-known and common birds that are worth a second look. Even though they don't have many species each photo is a lovely look at a bird that may be hard to see in the real world.

Info websites

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Page.aspx?pid=1478 - You can never go wrong with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Their website has a lot of info on how to tell apart some of the North American birds, and it also goes over general birding topics that every birder should know or understand. As you will see from the front page, there are so many things you can do on this site, from reading the Annual Report to interactive quizzes and games that increase your birding IQ.

http://www.birdforum.net/opus/Welcome - The BirdForum Opus is a great source for bird info and pictures. With an account you can also make your contribution, as well as talking with fellow birders on the forums. Even without an account you can learn about all kinds of birds, as well as locations across the world where birdwatching is the main focus. Just by clicking on the Random Page link you can see a new bird that you may have never heard of before. You can learn a lot here.

http://www.birdlife.org/ - BirdLife International is a site mainly based on concern for the world's bird species. Many of the articles on the front page talk about the state of rare species. If you go to the Data Zone after hovering over science, you can look at profiles for each species. You can even see the estimated populations and ranges of every bird species, as well as a lot of good info about the species' status and future.

http://birds.audubon.org/ - The National Audubon Society focuses on birds, and their website is astounding. It has pages for each bird in North America, set up somewhat like Cornell's pages, with more beautiful bird photos. There is also a section for bird conservation, which heavily interests me as well as many other bird lovers across the world. You can also find ways to participate in citizen science and get out in your community.

http://avibase.bsc-eoc.org/avibase.jsp?lang=EN - Avibase is a great website for checklist comparison, as well as finding out the birds of any area. Its checklist page includes lists of birds from every corner of the world, including small regions of each country. Avibase also provides information about the different ways birds are taxonomically organized in checklists, so you can easily compare different checklists.

Sound websites

http://www.xeno-canto.org/ - Xeno-canto is a great place to listen, research, and download sounds. They have over 160,000 sound recordings, spanning nearly 9,000 species. When you reach a species, you can look at the sound in detail, being able to view the location the sound was viewed, the length of the sound, and extensive details about the sound. You can also download them for free.

http://avocet.zoology.msu.edu/ - The Avian Vocalizations Center, or AVoCet, is another enormous database of bird sounds from across the world. Brought to you by Michigan State University, you can easily browse bird species and listen to their sounds. Once you find a recording you can look at many details, including location, elevation, and confirmation of the bird's ID. You can also download the sound for free, as well as the graphic sound analysis, in picture form.

http://macaulaylibrary.org/ - The Macaulay Library, from Cornell, has many bird sounds. There are some extra features for this website, however. Some of the files stored here are videos of the bird making a sound, which is a unique feature of the three websites. You can view the sound and with QuickTime, you can take part in extra analysis with Cornell's Raven Viewer. You can also download guides that include sounds, including the Cornell Guide to Bird Sounds: Master Set for North America. However, these wonderful sound files are not for download.

Bird feeder cams

http://sabalpalmsanctuary.org/feedercam/ - This live feeder cam, set in Brownsville, Texas (on the eastern Rio Grande Valley), shows a sample of birds from one of North America's most diverse bird areas. I have actually been to this spot and seen the bird cam there, and the site is an amazing place to see birds. Common birds there include Green Jay, Plain Chachalaca, White-tipped Dove, and Northern Cardinal. You can also see a raccoon if you are lucky!

http://www.ornithos.com.br/live-cams/ - This website includes many bird cams from Brazil, and although I don't know all the birds there, there is a lot of variety. Since there are five total cams, at least two or three are on consistently, and since they are set in the rainforest, there are almost always birds there. Common birds on these cams include Palm Tanager, Brotogeris parakeets, Green-headed Tanager and Speckled Chachalaca.

http://www.allenbirdcam.com/ - The Allen BirdCam is set in Pretoria, South Africa. It has a feeder which almost always includes many birds feeding. When I am watching this cam I feel like I am in South Africa. Too bad I can't add those birds to my life list! Common birds there are Cape Turtle-Dove, Southern Masked Weaver and Grey Go-away-bird. You can also view more common species at the website. At night, you can sometimes view genets and bushbabies as well!

http://cams.allaboutbirds.org/ - Yet another facet of the amazing Cornell Lab Website is the set of live feeder cams. In different seasons different cams appear, but birds including albatrosses, hawks, ospreys and the two FeederWatch cams, in Ontario and Ithaca. You can commonly view Pine Grosbeak and Evening Grosbeak in Ontario, and Mourning Dove, Blue Jay and Mallard in Ithaca. Ithaca is another place I have been, set in the Cornell Lab's visitor center.

Other websites

http://www.whatbird.com/ - Whatbird is one of my favorite bird websites ever. It includes an online bird guide for North America, with great drawings and lots of information. It is straight from the mobile app iBird, which in my opinion is the best mobile bird app. You can also view the forums, and with a free account you can reply and meet other bird lovers online. If you have a bird you don't know, post it there and you can find out what your bird is. You can also vote on polls, participate in quizzes, or just talk about birds with other members.

http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ - eBird is a well-known website where you can report your bird sightings and help contribute your findings to citizen science. You can do much more than that, however. You can explore data from already submitted checklists, look at bar charts for a specific location (they are also available for download), and explore hotspots with the new Hotspot Explorer tool. There is also a live submission map that shows when checklists are being submitted by the second.

http://www.hbw.com/ - I decided to save the best for last. The Handbook of the Birds of the World is by far the best of these bird websites. Although it is the most expensive (a basic one-year subscription is about $30) it includes amazing drawings and information from the Handbook of the Birds of the World series. You can also look at Internet Bird Collection photos from the website, look at organized plates of species, and look at news updates about birds. I highly recommend purchasing it.