That Bear

 

  I just got home from a vacation in the Outer Banks, NC. The purpose of the trip was to take the world famous pelagic trip lead by Brian Patterson and Kate Sutherland to the Gulf Stream. I will cover that trip, logistics to getting to the Outer Banks, and birding, in other posts. But my first post is dedicated to one bear.

    I went to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge four different times looking for birds and wildlife. The place has a variety of habitat ranging form farm fields to  swamps. It has a very large bear population.  I had only planned on going once but  ended up going multiple times for a number of reasons. The main two were, 1 one of our boat trips got rained out so we had to do something. I had such good luck with bears my first day I chose to back a second day and get there earlier. 

   Every time I went I saw this one bear. It looked to be a two year old in the same spot. He was out on some grass right next to a large empty field of dry dirt. Between him and I was a drainage ditch about ten feet deep. The bear could have easily went in it and after me I suppose, but having it between us was a psychological barrier for sure. Because of the ditch, I got to photograph the bear from about thirty feet away. He was preoccupied with everything but me which made for a nice photo shoot. Every time I saw it, I left before it did. There's just so many photos of the same bear with his face making the same expressions. Still, I took photos under a variety of shooting conditions and I didn't have to rush. The bears at Alligator River, especially this one was probably the highlight of my vacation.  

I do know I can crop these and play with them a little. Except for the close up head shot, which I did crop a little, all photos are unaltered.

Looking at the birds

    There is a difference from birding and bird watching. If you talk to someone that does neither, they will almost certainly call you a bird watcher. Truthfully all of us with feeders at our house are bird watchers. We enjoy looking at the birds that come to our feeders or nest in our yards. We can do watch birds from our kitchen table, deck, or a lawn chair.

   Birding is far more active. Birding is actively going out to find the birds. Going birding requires patience, skill and time. The more of these three things you have the better the birder you will become. To be a good birder you need to study. You need to know the field marks of birds that look similar so you can tell them apart. If you think bird watching and birding are the same, I challenge you to walk out to Napatree under a hot sun when the next rare bird is found there. All the while rushing back so you don't get a parking ticket. You will understand the difference.

   But here is the thing about birding, birders spend far more time looking for rather than looking at birds. Think about that for a second because it is true. All of us have gone to Trustom right? Think about how many minutes you take to look at birds through your binoculars during a two hour walk. How long are the eye cups actually over your eyes? Chances are that amount of time is less than a few minutes. Of course, there are many reasons for this. There are plenty of roots and rocks to watch out for. There are plenty of places where there aren't birds to look at. These are  valid reasons. 

   The other main reason we don't spend a lot of time looking at the birds is because subconsciously our main goal is to ID them. Think about it. How many times have you raised your binoculars only to say out loud "Robin" or "just a Chickadee". Chances are if it is a common bird, you lower the binoculars and move on. Yes, I am just as guilty as anyone else. There is only so many times I can admire a robin when my main goal is a Pileated Woodpecker.

   However, what I am really trying to do is watch and look at the birds in migration, even the common ones. For example, I seem to be seeing Rose Breasted Grosbeaks everywhere. I've probably seen ten over the last four after work walks. They are still beautiful even though I am seeing them every day. So instead of raising my binos and saying out loud "another Rose Breasted Grosbeak" and then moving on, I have been watching them. I have been admiring their beauty. I watched a male chase off another male at the Cumberland Monastery last night. It was fun

   While I was at Great Swamp on Friday I came across a very cooperative Black and White Warbler. It was feeding only feet from me and didn't care about my presence at all. I've seen dozens of them so far this year. But this one wanted to put on a show. So I stayed there and I watched it. It would sing while it was feeding doing that high pitched buzz. The whole show lasted a good three minutes. I am happy it decided to hang out with me for that time.

   Since warbler migration only lasts a month or so, I am doing my best to keep my binoculars up when I see a pretty bird. Just because orioles are everywhere, it does not take away from their beauty. I love seeing them, I love getting photos of them. So this spring once I ID them I'm going to keep my binoculars on them for a few more seconds and really enjoy the colors. I will be better off for it.

Isn't Nature Beautiful Part 1

   

As someone that likes to take photos I am always happy to capture the moment. However, as photographers we get far too much credit for good photos. As a professor said in an online photography course I watched " If you want to be a better photographer, put yourself in front on more interesting stuff." If you think about that, it is absolutely true. No matter how fancy the gear or  much you know about your camera if the photo subject is boring no one is going to give a damn about your photo.

   So with that I say May is the month to find interesting stuff. I've been birding every chance I can, but far less than normal thanks to an overwhelming work load. Still, if you are outside in May you're going to run into some interesting stuff. Below are some of the things I've seen. Hopefully you may think some of the photos are excellent. More likely you will think the majority are good. However, most of the photos I took of moving little birds are bad, very bad, of moving little birds. Just remember, the photo isn't important, it's the subject that is. Nature is beautiful, all I did was freeze a small moment of time

Osprey

Baltimore Oriole

Male Ruby Throated Hummingbird

Blackpoll Warbler

Bleeding Heart

Blue Headed Vireo

Eastern Bluebird

Tree Swallow

Garter Snake

Chipping Sparrow

Eastern Phoebe

Northern Rough Winged Swallow 
(photo upgrade)

Astronomy

 Well, as if I didn't have enough things to keep me busy, I seem to be picking up a new hobby, astronomy. For the last couple of months I have been watching courses on astronomy. Also, thanks to Facebook, I have been watching free live chats about the science. These chats have mostly been resented by Astronomy clubs in California.

   I won't even pretend to tell you I know that much yet. For one thing, when I go outside I have too much light pollution to see all the constellations near my house. However, I can see the bright stars and planets. Other than Orion and the Big Dipper I didn't know what any of the stars/constellations in the winter sky. Now I can pick out the stars in the Winter Hexagon, I know where the Pleiades are and where to find the Orion Nebula. All of these discoveries have been fun and fascinating. 

   If you look at the second star in the handle of the Big Dipper through binoculars you can easily see it isn't one star but actually two! The star you can see naked eye is Mizar and the other one is Alcor. If you follow the arc of the handle and keep going past the last star across the sky you will see a bright red star that is Arcturus. The way you find it is you "arc to Arcturus". Learning things like this really made my winter go by so much faster. I am really looking forward to seeing how the sky is going to change throughout the year.  Since everything is new to me, it feels like I am looking at the heavens through the eyes of a child. 

   A friend of mine offered to sell me his telescope for a good price. His scope is a professional one not the kind you would buy at Dick's sporting goods. I would never need to buy another one. However, I m so new at this, that I still have plenty to find in binoculars. But I am looking forward to the point where I graduate up to his ten inch refractor telescope!  

Two Lifers, a trip to Maine, and a Covid Test

   

Redwing

   A few weeks ago another really rare European visitor visited the lower 48. This one was not in Rhode Island but in Portland, ME. The bird is known as a Redwing. It is a bird of fields and meadows and sort of resembles a Robin. The closest they regularly occur is Iceland. There have been very few sightings in the USA. A bunch of my friends went on a Saturday in January to see it. Because of Covid they all took separate cars. I had to work and my friend Sue had to babysit. Neither of us were terribly upset because it was during that cold spell. The high for the day was eight degrees and the wind was whipping. 

   The bird has not left the spot it was found for weeks. Although it is really rare, it is usually very easy to see in the brush near the "Henry bench" at Capisic Pond Park. Sue suggested we go up to Maine and look for it. Besides the Redwing, another rare bird had been seen there, a Black Headed Grosbeak, a native of western grasslands. To add more sweetener to the trip a pair of Dickcissel have been hanging around. I have seen a few Dickcissel, but never got a decent photo of one. 

   

Dickcissel

So Sue and I got a Covid test and once we got our negative results we planned our trip. If time was not an issue Sue wanted to bird the New Hampshire coast and we both wanted to try Salisbury for a variety of birds. Salisbury Beach has had Crossbills, Snowy, Short Eared, and Long Eared Owl this winter. Not to mention Redpolls, Snow Buntings, and White Winged Crossbill. Most important to me was the Long Eared Owl which I have dipped on but would be a lifer. 

    Within five minutes of pulling into Capisic Park we had the Redwing. A couple of people were looking right at it. We watched and photographed it for fifteen minutes. Fifty feet down the path I saw a flock of House Sparrows was in the brush. Knowing that Dickcissel associate with House Sparrows I watched them. A Dickcissel popped out right out in the open for us. Again we watched this bird for quite some time. 

  After seeing our two targets, we looked around for the Black Headed Grosbeak for about ninety minutes. It hadn't been seen  for a few days but we gave it the old college try. We left more than happy that we got the Redwing and Dickcissel and it still wasn't noon.

   We drove along the New Hampshire coast and stopped at Hampton Beach. Sue is hoping to get one hundred species in each New England state. We were pleasantly surprised to find an Ipswich Savannah Sparrow and eight Purple Sandpipers. I think we left New Hampshire with about twenty birds.

 

Extremely cropped photo of my
lifer Long Eared Owl

 I'll be honest, despite the long list of good birds I named four paragraphs up, all I really wanted at Salisbury was the Long Eared Owl and maybe the very unlikely White Winged Crossbill. I went up specifically for the Long Eared a couple weeks ago but dipped. I didn't care if I saw Snowy Owl or Common Redpolls. Long Eared would be a lifer, and with our luck so far, I was optimistic. After heading straight to the bathroom we started birding. The Long Eared Owl has been in a clump of pines for three or four weeks. The problem is sometimes it stays well hidden. 

  From the rest room parking lot we could see a bunch of cars around the pines. We got excited because that many people wouldn't be there if it wasn't visible. Sure enough when we drove over we were rewarded with views of the Long Eared Owl. It was well hidden behind a lot of brush in a cedar tree only three feet off of the ground. This did not make for a good photo shoot, but seeing it was awesome. We watched it for quite a while, while also showing other birders where it was through Sue's scope. We left the owl, and looked for Crossbills and Redpolls, but the best we could do was a Red Breasted Nuthatch upgrade.

Needless to say, we had a fantastic day. I got two lifers, Redwing and Long Eared Owl (Sue had seen Long Eared Owl before). I also got photo upgrades of Dickcissel and Red Breasted Nuthatch. If you throw in the Pink Footed Goose from yesterday I got life or upgrade photo of five species of bird in about eighteen hours. 

Red Breasted Nuthatch
not cropped

I owe a huge thank you to Sue for suggesting the trip. I also went with her to get Covid tested which has very easy and completely painless. I never would have taken the trip alone. We had a lot of fun and saw some great birds. A few more photos below

A Red Tailed Hawk that only had one 
red tail feather

Another look at the Redwing

Dickcissel in a different tangle of brush

Yesterday's Pink Footed Goose

Well named

I'm told this Red Tailed Hawk flew so close to 
my head yesterday that I should felt the wind from
its wings. I didn't, but it did land in a tree six feet from 
me after it flew over me. 

Lucky Goose

 Today I went to South County for three reasons. I wanted to see the Snow Geese, I wanted to see Red Crossbills, and I wanted to take a rapid Covid test. The test came back negative, so off I went to see Snow Geese. It snowed ALL DAY today, but did not stick to the roads. After getting my test in Westerly I drove up to Card's Pond Road in Matunack The geese were in a field with Canada Geese. They were at least sixty yards away and the snow looked like a blizzard coming down. Factor in Snow Geese are white as the snow on the ground, lets just say it was not a good photo opportunity. However, Snow Geese are in my top ten favorite bird species so I watched them for fifteen minutes while snow piled up on my coat.

   From the Snow Geese I had a ten minute ride to Jerusalem. I did not see the Red Crossbills. They were probably off waiting out the snowstorm as best they could. I did have a young Red Tailed Hawk fly so close to my head that my friend Sue said I should have felt the wind. It landed in a tree right next to me and although the light was bad, got off some decent photos.

   

Easy to see why it was named 
Pink Footed Goose

While we were looking for the Crossbills, a girl named April Alex found a Pink Footed Goose n Johnston. I have only seen one Pink Footed Goose (PFG for now on). And I think there have been less than five ever seen in Rhode Island. PFG are a much more northern species. You are likely to find them in Greenland. This worked out perfectly for me since I have to drive through Johnston to get home. The little pond it was at was only 1.3 ,miles off of I-295. 

   The PFG was up on the bank feeding. I had it before I got out of my car. After it went back in the water for a swim I got some great photos as it swam all around. With the Mallards and Canada Geese it was comfortable with people around. I watched it with another birder for a half hour before I decided standing out in the snow was enough for one day.  

Recapping the last few weeks

Townsend's Warbler on right

 Now that the pressure is off of chasing every bird under the sun, all I really want to do is make memories and document them with my camera. I want to have as few bad days birding as possible and drive home with a smile on my face as close to one hundred percent of the time as I can. The last few weeks have been great. I didn't do too many blogposts because I needed the post about the Christmas Bird Count to stand alone for a while so people that may be interested could see it.

   However, I have done all kinds of adventures. Most of the birds are still around if anyone is interested in finding them. 

January 28, Bourne, MA

   In a snow flurry I drove to an area near Scusset Beach I staked out a Townsend's Warbler. This is a west coast species. They don't show up very often so I went down to Bourne to look for it. It was living in a backyard and eating at a feeder. It took over an hour staring into a backyard before it ate at the feeder. A lot of people must have been there in the days before me because a cop drove by. He never slowed down and just gave me a polite wave.

January 29

I went to go see the Varied Thrush that has been hanging out in Chepachet for over a month. I saw it feeding within ten minutes of being there but the real highlight were the bluebirds that came to the road while I was parked feeding on berries right across the street in perfect light.

Varied Thrush

After I left the thrush and bluebirds I went for the number one bird I wanted to get a photo of that I have seen. The species...Evening Grosbeak. The good news is I saw a whole flock. The bad news is they were pretty far away and they never stopped moving so I didn't get any wall hangers despite fifteen minutes of trying. So mission accomplished that I got photos, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

Feb 5

I went to of all places, Cranston to see Rusty Blackbirds. Rusty Blackbirds are one of three species I really want to see/photograph this year. Ninety minutes and 210 photos later, that mission is complete. I had only seen Rusty Blackbirds once in my life. They are really cool and enjoyed watching them. A couple of photos, then more adventures below

Feb 11

   I decided to try my luck at Salisbury Beach again. There are a lot of good birds in that one area. Long Eared Owl has been there for a week. Seeing one would be a lifer. White Winged Crossbill has still been reported, and I really want a photo. Those are the two birds I wanted most but there is a Snowy Owl there now. Continuing birds include Red Crossbills, Common Redpolls, Snow Buntings, and a Hoary Redpoll that would be a lifer.

   Unfortunately this was not the best day birding. I didn't see White Winged Crossbills or the Long Eared Owl and neither did anyone else. I did see the Snowy Owl one hundred yards in the marsh. I did get a photo upgrade of Red Breasted Nuthatch. Despite dipping on the two reasons I went there. I enjoyed my five hours spent.

Northern Harrier taking off

Red Breasted Nuthatch

It's not too often I get a face show of
Northern Harriers. They have a face like an owl

Snowy Owl keeping far away from people

The only Red Crossbill I saw.
Female

Feb 12

   Since I dipped on so many birds on Thursday, I figured I'd try to dip on a mammal on Friday. So I went, for the third time, looking for River Otters. As usual, I had missed them. Apparently they spent all day on the ice yesterday playing and people got amazing photos. This morning, while I was nursing a migraine, I missed them by an hour.

   While I was dipping on the otters, my friend Jan refound a Yellow Breasted Chat that was seen yesterday in Beavertail. Other friends Carlos and Jess found a Rough Legged Hawk in Matunack, the first one since 2019.  The hawk is the rarer, therefore "better bird" but I wanted the Chat more. I was only 20 minutes away. Despite being so bright, Chats are a very hard bird to see and photograph. They are very shy and like to hide in the thickest, densest cover they can find.  I ended up meeting Carlos and Jess, then later Sue. We found the Chat. I had only seen three others before and only had one photo of a blurry lemon in a tree. I got two clear photos of today's Yellow Breasted Chat.  

   After seeing the Yellow Breasted Chat I did go down to Matunack for the hawk. Two other birder friends were on it so I had it as soon as I stepped out of the car. The sky had turned grey and the bird was far away. Still, I only had one photo of a Rough Legged Hawk and it was flying away. So despite not getting any great photos of it, I did get an upgrade of what I had.

Rough Legged Hawk

Even though I am not keeping a year list, I have decide to keep track of photo upgrades. Mostly so I can remember the location and date. January was excellent. I got 3 life birds, 11 photo upgrades and two out of the three lifers I got a life photo. So far in February I've gotten four photo upgrades. The Chat, Rusty Blackbirds, and Rough Legged Hawk are all rare birds (the fourth is the Red Breasted Nuthatch). So far so good, making birding fun again!