From left: Sue Gruver, Forrest Rowland, Ruth Draper, Sharon Lynn, Brecon, me on the first day the Cape Henlopen Hawk Watch counted over 1,000 raptors: 29 Sep 2008

Summer. It goes so fast. I find myself taking every opportunity to eat the fresh tomatoes, corn and watermelon that are at their best now. Well, nearly every opportunity—everything in moderation, you know. It won’t be long until those transcendent, cheap, local fruits and vegetables are expensive and yucky and shipped in from far away again. But the end of summer has its compensations. Cooler weather, fewer biting bugs, and hawk watching all spring to mind as things I’m looking forward to.

I’m also very happy that Forrest Rowland will be back this year as the official counter for the Cape Henlopen Hawk Watch. Up at the north end of Delaware, Cyrus Moqtaderi will also be returning to count at the Ashland Hawk Watch, so we’ll have experienced, enthusiastic counters at both sites. Should be awesome.

I look forward to seeing you up on the platforms soon. Both counts kick off on September 1 and run until November 30. In the meantime, go ahead and enjoy that extra ear of corn!

First, some eye candy. Here’s a shot taken by Captain Rick Yakimowicz of the booby that nicely illuminates its face and underparts.

Brown Booby ©Rick Yakimowicz

Here it is accepting a Mummichog–a kilifish commonly used for bait by local anglers. Does he look happy, or what?

Brown Booby accepts Mummichog ©Rick Yakimowicz

Brown Boobies are particularly fond of Flying Fish, so perhaps this qualifies. Below, a closeup of the booby downing a Mummichog.

Brown Booby eating Mummichog ©Rick Yakimowicz

Finally, a shot of the bird surrounded by food offerings. Brown Boobies like squid, too.

Brown Booby topside ©Rick Yakimowicz

The bit of news I have is a more precise read on the location where the booby came aboard the boat. According to Captain Rick, it was at  38:52  X  75:09. Plotting that  on Google Earth, I come up with the following:

You’ll see a little green tree icon to the left and below the yellow booby pin–that’s Broadkill Beach, Delaware. Lewes, where the boat docked, is close to the yellow flag below the pin. The big finger sticking down from the upper right corner is, of course, Cape May, New Jersey.

Thanks very much to Captain Rick Yakimowicz for the information and the terrific photos.

This year’s event, for me, was the best ever, largely due to Liz’s being able to attend after an eleventh hour cancellation by a group at her work. She and I wound up spending a couple of days after the festival birding, photographing, relaxing, adventuring, and just generally having a ball.

Topping the list of great moments was the audience I was granted with a Swainson’s Warbler the Monday after the festival concluded. I went out prospecting for this famously hard-to-see species on a dreary morning with intermittent rain. Along a secondary road near Babcock State Park I found a patch of rhododendron where at least two Swainson’s were singing strongly. One of those was uncooperative, but the second provided me with one of the more thrilling avian encounters I’ve ever had.

In most of its breeding range, Swainson’s Warbler is a bird of wet woods, canebrakes, swamps, and river bottoms. But in the southern Appalachians, there is a population of Swainson’s that is closely tied to rhododendron thickets. Rhododendrons, for most, conjure up images of horticultural beauty and gentility, as their flowers are familiar garden centerpieces.

This, I believe (and by all means, please correct my botany if it’s wrong, as it frequently is), is Rhododendron catawbiense an early-blooming relative of Rhododendron maximum, the West Virginia state flower. R. maximum cloaks the rocky banks of creeks with a dense blanket of dark green.

It’s pretty, certainly, but it is also thick.

So thick in fact, that it has a gloomy, almost foreboding aspect at times. I’m sure one would quickly learn to dread rhododendrons, were one to have to traverse or clear any significant amount of them.

No wonder Swainson’s Warblers and humans rarely meet.

Though my meeting with this bird lasted only a few minutes, time seemed to slow and stretch. I’ve seen the species a generous handful of times, but I have never seen it so well. I was struck by its subtle color and the way its railroad spike of a bill blended with its flat crown to give it an anvil-headed look. I marveled at its long pink toes, its big black eyes, and of course, by its ringing, rolling, liquid voice.

That voice, and this bird, are in many ways, a personification (birdification?) of the rhododendrons. Superbly adapted to the niche these shrubs provide, the warbler is as at home here as a clownfish in a coral reef, a giraffe in an acacia thicket, or a flea on the back of a dog. The key, apparently, is a tangled understory but a relatively open forest floor, where these warblers spend most of their time foraging with a unique, shuffling gate.

Once the breeding season is over, Swainson’s Warblers take up residence in similarly dense understory in forests of the West Indies and nearby portions of the Yucatán and Honduras. They especially favor the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, a suitably exotic winter residence. But everywhere, throughout their lives, Swainson’s are birds that earn the designation, “seldom seen.” Our time with them is measured in seconds, not in hours.

The bird soon returned to his tangled lair and I to my less claustrophobic habitat. I noticed that I was out of breath–I don’t think I’d inhaled or exhaled very often while the bird was around–and trembling just a little with the excitement of seeing a very special ghost. I’ll always be grateful for the chance to have gotten to know this mysterious and wonderful creature just a little bit better.

While I certainly intend to keep putting up blog posts when I have something that fits better here than elsewhere, if you’re interested in keeping up with what I’m doing, for now, Facebook is where I am. There’s a badge at the upper left of the page that you can click to find my personal Facebook profile and send me a friend request.

There’s also a badge where you can become a fan of Peterson Field Guides and I would appreciate it very much if you would do that. At the moment, the PFG fan page is, well, it’s me. But only in that I’m responsible for posting content there and serving as moderator. Like all things social media, it is meant to encourage interaction. And in only a week and a half, we’re already seeing a great response, with fans sharing their own photos and experiences.

Of course, I’m honored that the people at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have asked me to take on the PFG fan page. It’s an opportunity to share a lot of great content from the Peterson vaults, create my own, and to have other interested naturalists share theirs. I’m especially pleased that we’ll be covering the vast range subjects of natural history that are featured in Peterson guides, though you can expect that birds will feature most prominently. I know it will be a big opportunity for me to learn, which is wonderful.

As an example of the kind of things I’ve been doing on the PFG page, below is a video I made and posted last week. It’s just a quick sequence of calling Spring Peepers, but I think it’s nice, especially if you haven’t been out and actually watched this classic sound being produced.

You can also click here to go to the HD version of the video on Facebook itself. It’s much better looking in HD, to say the least.

So, that’s where I am these days. I don’t know if six months from now Facebook will be over and we’ll all have moved on, but at the moment–most of the time–it feels like the place to be.

But please, keep this blog on your RSS subscriptions…or check back every once in a while, if you don’t do RSS. You never know when I’ll have something that only fits here. Thanks for stopping by!

The second of my photos that appears in the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America is one of the big ones, spanning two pages, a treatment afforded only 3 shots in each book. It appears across pages ii & iii.

But the photograph has to share space–lots of space–with two text boxes and a map. Not only that, but the elements that float over it get to hog the most significant real estate, the central areas where one’s eye naturally goes, so the layout presents a bit of a challenge. Either you need a picture with the bird or birds in the lower left, or you need a flock shot, a wider picture where the birds become semi-abstract design elements and can be cut and blocked without destroying the overall flow of the page. In the Eastern book I went with the latter, much easier option. Here’s what it looks like unobstructed. Somewhat ironically, the bird most sharply focussed of the whole bunch, the knot just above and right of center, is almost entirely obscured in the book.

I took this shot on the evening of 20 May 2010 at Slaughter Beach, Delaware. Named for a family rather than a massacre, this stretch of coast is among the most productive along the entire shore of Delaware Bay for horseshoe crab spawning and shorebird feeding. If you’re unfamiliar with this annual May spectacle, the Delaware Birding Trail has a thumbnail sketch of it here and there are plenty more sources of info to be found with a little Googling.

That afternoon, I had gone to Slaughter Beach with Kevin Fleming pictured below with two of his cameras, both Nikon D700′s, the left with a 600mm Nikkor lens and the right with a 200-400mm Nikkor zoom. Kevin and I spent a lot of time last spring shooting together, him working on his upcoming book, Wild Delmarva, and me doing the Peterson shots. Kevin was kind enough to let me use the 200-400mm rig on quite a few occasions and 6 of the pictures reproduced in the Eastern book were taken with it. A seventh was taken with Kevin’s 200-400 lens and a Nikon D300 body.

Looking over the barrel of the 600mm lens, you can see the shoreline crammed with shorebirds, with plenty of Laughing Gulls flying overhead. By slowly and carefully approaching the birds, staying very low to the ground, we were able to get close enough for satisfying photos without disturbing the birds’ frantic foraging and feeding. It’s a real thrill to see such gorgeous animals, massing here almost in my backyard.

As the sun dropped toward the western horizon, the birds were lit in beautiful, if strongly directional light. I shot hundreds of pictures, trying to get group shots, portraits, interesting behaviors, on and on and on. Below, a Red Knot lifts a bonanza from the sand, a marble-sized mass of several dozen fresh horseshoe crab eggs. Having flown in from South America and soon to depart for the High Arctic, the knot needs the calories these eggs furnish if it is to arrive on its breeding grounds at all, let alone nest successfully. A Ruddy Turnstone looks on, perhaps jealous of the knot’s find. I believe those fluffed feathers may literally be raised hackles–an aggressive display, perhaps in hope of scaring the knot into surrendering the goodies. Watching these shorebirds, one sees quite a bit of inter- and intra-species aggression. It’s no picnic for these guys, it’s a matter of survival.

A different turnstone strikes a more sanguine pose, with a pair of horseshoe crabs coming in to spawn in the background.

Another looming pair of horseshoe crabs provides a backdrop for a sleek Red Knot.

Being shorebirds, the turnstones, knots and others took flight fairly regularly, most explosively when a Peregrine Falcon strafed the beach, perhaps in search of a meal or maybe just some sport. When the birds took wing, Kevin and I would rapidly switch gears and try to fire off as many flight shots as we could manage. It was one of these that ended up being used. Below is a more wide angle shot of shorebirds coming back to the beach after startling.

If you’re looking for a way to help preserve beach habitat for this globally significant phenomenon, may I humbly suggest a donation to the Delaware Bird-a-thon? I’ll be competing again this year and would love to have your support. I’ll be posting more about this event as it draws closer.

]]> http://jeffreyagordon.com/2010/03/pictures-for-peterson-2-red-knots-ruddy-turnstones/feed/ 1 http://jeffreyagordon.com/2010/03/pictures-for-peterson-1-scarlet-tanager/ http://jeffreyagordon.com/2010/03/pictures-for-peterson-1-scarlet-tanager/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:43:28 +0000 jeff http://jeffreyagordon.com/?p=1052 I’m beginning with the first of my bird photos that appears in the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America, hereafter simply, Eastern. It appears on page i.

Obviously, it’s a male Scarlet Tanager. It was photographed 19 May 2009 near Georgetown, DE. When I accepted the assignment to provide 30 photographs for the new Eastern and Western books–more about how that came to pass later–I knew that I wanted to turn in a selection of images that were appropriately varied: some songbirds, some waterbirds, some common and widespread, some more restricted in range and/or abundance.

I figured, though, that I would lean somewhat toward birds that were pretty or otherwise visually striking. After all, the Peterson bird guides are designed to be attractive, eye-catching, and accessible for beginners, but with enough detail and accuracy to give more advanced birders something to chew on, too. So I was aiming for a lot of favorites, but hoping to slip in a few that were a little offbeat. Clearly, Scarlet Tanager is in the former category–as predictable as Sousa at a 4th of July concert. But then, there are good reasons why some things are classics. Here’s that same shot, cropped from full-frame, but before being put in the final layout.

Moreover, there was the issue of timing. I took on this job in April of ’09, with a deadline of July. I wanted to mostly use new photographs, so I knew I wouldn’t be shooting many Snowy Owls against winter dunes. Clearly, the birds depicted were going to be mostly from spring and summer. And though I knew I would need to–get to–do some travel, the less time and money spent on that, the better. Given all these factors, a photo of this species seemed essential–they’re spectacular, popular, quintessentially “eastern,” and common in the breeding season near where I live. Here’s an alternate shot of the same bird on the same perch, but in mid-song, with that impressive bill wide open. It’s not as sharp, and it’s a somewhat unexpected pose, but still fun, I think.

I spent most of the day May 19th photographing, devoting much of it to Scarlet Tanagers. I had some luck with 2 different males–the bird above, and another, near Laurel, DE. The “winning” male had a couple of advantages: he was bathed in low angle, late afternoon light against a dark green background of pine needles. Beyond that, he seemed like an almost perfect specimen, whereas the other individual had some issues. Here’s a shot of that other male.

Not a bad shot, perhaps, but not as good as the one I went with. For one thing, I used fill flash on this guy and while it’s within my tolerance of looking natural enough, it’s missing the quality of light that flattered the other bird. This guy was photographed more towards late morning, in full but open shade.

But there was another issue  with him and it’s one that you might find interesting. Look at the crown, about 11 o’clock from the eye. See a smudge there? That’s a slapdash cloning job. If cloning is something you only know from genetics labs, here it’s a sort of digital airbrushing and it’s a controversial technique, one that I use sparingly if at all. People often will say an image has been, “Photoshopped,” but I wasn’t actually using Adobe Photoshop here, so I’ll stick with the more accurate term. What was I concealing? Whoever heard of a Scarlet Tanager that needs a makeover? Well, take a look at another shot of the same bird.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this bird has a tick. No, not an habitual muscle spasm, but an arachnid ectoparasite. A big fat one. Sorry to perhaps mar your image of life in the treetops, but birds, even pretty birds, do get ticks and other nasty things. You can also see that this guy, in addition to having his flank feathers fluffed as Scarlet Tanagers often do, isn’t in quite complete alternate (breeding) plumage. There are some yellowish patches here and there. He’s just not as perfect as the other bird. I’m pretty sure that this guy is a male in his second summer; i.e., he was hatched in summer, 2008, and is back for his first breeding attempt. The other male is older–back for at least his second breeding attempt. If someone with more banding experience than me can confirm or disprove these theories, by all means do so in the comments. I think the wing feathers are sharp enough to allow for accurate aging.

Sometimes, a heavy parasite load can cause a bird to be unable to molt into full breeding plumage. In fact, some ornithologists theorize that attaining full breeding plumage is one way birds signal to potential mates that they have a low parasite load and are in generally good reporductive condition. But again, I think this is just a young buck with a tick.

Interesting, though, that we humans would rate a male Scarlet Tanager’s attractiveness using many of the same visual criteria that a female Scarlet Tanager would. Simply put, the winning male is not only better photographed, he’s just better looking.

]]> http://jeffreyagordon.com/2010/03/pictures-for-peterson-1-scarlet-tanager/feed/ 5 http://jeffreyagordon.com/2010/03/les-petersons-nouveaux-sont-arrives%e2%80%9d/ http://jeffreyagordon.com/2010/03/les-petersons-nouveaux-sont-arrives%e2%80%9d/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:57:08 +0000 jeff http://jeffreyagordon.com/?p=1041 A few days ago, something besides another foot of snow fetched up against our doorstep. Two big brown heavy boxes, all the way from Indianapolis.

Sure enough, they were the brand-new Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Western North America and the similarly titled but quite distinct, Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America. That’s right, fully updated Peterson bird guides are once again available in a more portable size and narrower geographic scope. Liz snapped a shot of me unboxing this bounty, attired in my très très chic walking outfit.

At last, here they were in-hand.

These new volumes are exciting to me for a couple of reasons, particularly in that they feature my photography. Now, don’t get too upset…they’re still very much Peterson bird guides, with RTP’s paintings, digitally revised by Michael O’Brien and Michael DiGorgio, as in last year’s continent-spanning Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America. But where last year’s model featured fifteen bird photographs by Roger himself, employed as decorations for title pages, section headings, and such, these two volumes each contain fifteen shots by me. Me. Me? Me! Cool, huh?

Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share those 30 photos with you, along with a few stories about how and when and where they were taken.

PS: I know it’s been months and months and months since my last post, but I find that there are few things more boring and less necessary than bloggers apologizing for how they haven’t been blogging much lately. Readers, if your’re still here, thanks. If you’re new, welcome.

In this rather tight crop, the bright white wing linings, for starters, are clearly visible.

For the latest info on location, etc, check the DE-BIRDs LISTSERV, a transcript of which can be found here.

Thanks to Andy, Anthony, Chris and all involved in the discovery and identification of this bird. Now, wish me luck!

I knew I recognized her right away–that actress from The Matrix and Memento and so on–I just couldn’t remember her name. Fortunately, Jim Rapp, who is pretty much the Oz behind the entire birding weekend, in addition to being the Director of DLITE, whipped out his pathetically cracked but still-functional iPhone and looked her up. Carrie-Anne Moss–that’s her name! We were all excited to have such a hip pop culture icon out enjoying birding and natural history (and craft brewing) on the Delmarva Peninsula. The only cloud over the whole experience was that our friend Sally O’Byrne had apparently headed to the rest room or something and missed the whole thing. And sure enough, Sally re-appeared just a couple of seconds after Carrie-Anne vanished. And I do mean vanished–we tried to find Ms. Matrix again so that Sally could see her, too, but it was like she had just evaporated or something. Kinda trippy.

After the weekend, I was really itching to go out and take some bird photos, so Monday morning I decided to go to Redden State Forest and surrounding areas, where there are hundreds of newly arrived warblers and other neotropical migrants. I figured that in addition to taking some photos, I could work in a little scouting for the Delaware Bird-a-thon, which I’ll be participating in next week.

Redden has a nice mix of  pine and deciduous forest types, plus lots of regenerating areas where the timber has been harvested. In one of those cutover spots, I found this Prairie Warbler.

He was happy enough perching and singing from trees both deciduous and evergreen.

Also singing were Black-and-white Warblers–two different ones this time–again in both gymnosperm and angiosperm settings.

I was especially hoping to get a really great portrait of a Worm-eating Warbler. These rather plain but still strikingly beautiful birds are surprisingly common around here.

This was the best I came up with. It’s not bad, but I’m definitely still looking for that ultimate Worm-eating shot.

This Kentucky Warbler proved to be a even more challenging target, but it’s such a cool bird and so seldom seen by most of us that I couldn’t resist including it.

Finally, an Ovenbird. These guys are downright abundant in decent forest around here. I spent less time on them than I did on the other species, but I still thought the pose here was pretty cool.

So that was my morning. Not officially part of the Delmarva Birding Weekend, but it gives you an idea of some of the birding we enjoyed. Tomorrow, I’m off to another great birding event: the New River Birding & Nature Festival. It’ll be great to see a bunch of old friends, plus this year’s event is chock-full of bird bloggers, many of whom I’ll be meeting F2F for the first time. Perhaps the best part, though, is that I’ll be heading out there with my Mom, who I know is going to love not only the birds and the birders, but also the fabulous botanizing. We’ll see how I do photo-wise there…I’m sure I’ll have something to show you when I get back.

Ornate Flycatcher, Milpe, Ecuador

How often do you find the words cute and unmistakable in the same sentence with flycatcher? Bob Ridgeley combined them to capture much of what makes this bird special. My photo, unfortunately, only shows the ventral side of the bird. Add in the glowing yellow rump and rusty-based tail and you’ve got quite a cute, small, essentially unmistakable flycatcher.

That’s all I’ve got time for today! Off to teach a saltmarsh/bay ecology class to a bunch of 8th graders, then lead a birding boat cruise on the Delaware Bay and Broadkill River for the Delmarva Birding Weekend. Whew!