Possibilities by Steve Frye
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| | Boy with Binoculars |
I've written many articles and comments over the years about bird behavior and sightings on bird walks, but I have ignored one crucial and exciting phase of birding - anticipation. The wait for a birding adventure can be the best part, when we think of the possibilities of our coming adventure and imagine the perfect encounters. Whether you are going on a big birding trip or a local area you are familiar with, you can always dream big!
One of my rituals on Friday night before the Saturday Bird Walk is to research recent sightings, think about where we might go the next morning and what we might see. After that, for my bedtime reading, I will pick out a bird or two which we might see and study the field marks and then read what Pete Dunne has to say about the bird(s) in his book Essential Field Guide Companion. His book is filled with great impressions of the birds, what is referred to as giss (pronounced jizz) which is an acronym for general impression, size, and shape. It's all about bird gestalt, everything from how they move and feed, how they appear and their "expressions" are included in his offerings. He even gives each bird a nickname. It is one of my favorite references and helps me appear much more knowledgeable on Saturdays than I am. Looking through field guides as a break is a habit I picked up in Kenya. When my eyes were too tired from reading and correcting my students' papers, I would study my bird guide in the dim candlelight, getting ready for the next adventure when school was out.
Another great tool for increasing the enjoyment of your anticipation is searching on ebird. Ebird is a huge and growing collection of bird sightings in real time organized in many ways. Go to the explore section of ebird, type in the county you are going to visit and up pops all kinds of great tools like lists of recent sightings, local hotspots, and maps for all these locations. Before this kind of information, birders were relegated to always visiting the traditional hotspots of any city like the dump, airport, and sewage treatment facility. You may also want to visit our state portal websites and look for the BirdTrax report which gives you up-to-the-minute rare bird sightings powered by ebird.
I also need a checklist of what is possible at my anticipated destination. Again, our state portals resource pages can help you find proven birding hotspots. If you find a good Nature Center or Park, they are likely to have a local checklist (perhaps even on line). On line you can generate a checklist using Avibase - The World Bird Database for anywhere on the planet! Depending on how much of a lister you are, it can be fun to go through the list and calculate how many possible life birds or unfamiliar birds you could see at your anticipated destination. This may strike the wrong cord with some who look upon listing as a detriment to bird appreciation. Remember, no birder is entirely listless.
The thought of getting to know new birds and their personalities is just like falling in love. The excitement, the obsessing, and nervous anticipation of new love or new birds you have not yet seen. Perhaps, it's a bit more like a blind date than falling in love. Anyway, this is the time when all is right and we think only of the glorious possibilities.
The pitfall to this kind of thinking is slipping into despair when the time comes to find these birds and you don't. Either that or letting your obsessing imagination take over that part of your bird brain which makes identification decisions and turning ordinary birds into spectacular rarities and life birds. I always joke on the bird walks that my identification certainty goes up as the observation quality goes down. I can make up anything! We must strive to stay true to our hopes of finding birds and stay positive and hopeful in the field even when things are not shaping up like our anticipations.
This is one of the pillars of bird watching - to stay positive. Birders must enjoy and appreciate their surroundings always; whether bird-filled or bird-less, because once you start down the birding path of disappointment you certainly will miss sightings and end up unsatisfied. The following birding pillars all work together, the excitement of anticipation, enjoying the experience, and the gratitude of the experience whether "successful" or not. If you hold fast to these concepts of anticipation, enjoyment, and appreciation, you will be a life-long birder. It all starts with the sweet intoxication of anticipation.
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Check out Bird Note, a great web site which puts out daily podcasts about all aspects of bird life, culture,
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Black-Capped Chickadee
©Steve Frye
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and trivia. Here are some recent sample offerings I found interesting.
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Do you have what it takes for the coming spring? Are your ears in top shape after the relative silence of winter? Let Bird Song Hero by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology get you in tip-top aural condition. Bird Song Hero is quiz program that is an excellent learning tool.
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Bluebird Migration
We are in the midst of bluebird migration and the link
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Mountain Bluebird ©Steve Frye
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below will help you learn more about it.
Bluebird Migration
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Ask Steve
Q: How can I attract more goldfinches?
A: Goldfinch season is upon us and will continue through into May. For most of us, that is. In Colorado, it depends on where you live as to when, how many, and what kind of goldfinch you can expect. I always give complicated answers, don't I? In the mountains, you may see American Goldfinches in the peak migration times, but not usually at other times. Those times for the American Goldfinch would be September and April. However, you can also expect lesser goldfinches throughout the summer. The foothills locations have a mixed bag in terms of goldfinches. You can expect both American and lesser goldfinches in the summer and migration, but probably neither in winter. As for the plains, you folks don't usually get lesser goldfinches, but you have far more American Goldfinches. The further out from the mountains the better your chances for American Goldfinches. The seasonal pattern is a bit different because you will have goldfinches through the winter and then even more in spring followed by almost none in summer. So, with every general rule about birds comes the disclaimer that birds don't read the books and anything is possible, but what I've told you about the patterns is more probable.
Attracting either kind of goldfinch is relatively simple. They both like sunflower chips and nyjer presented either in a tube feeder or a platform. Another key way to attract goldfinches is with water. Goldfinches are great bathers and drinkers. One reason they abandon most feeders in summer is because they are so busy eating all kinds of seeds. They have a real attraction to any kind of weedy patch. I have attracted them to my garden by letting lettuce and other vegetables bolt and produce a seed head. They love lettuce seeds!
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Save 15% on Nyjer Seed!!
(Available in
1, 3, 8, & 20 pound amounts.)
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American Goldfinches ©Steve Frye
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The Gold Rush Is On! Strike it rich in your backyard with goldfinches! Use Wild Bird Company Nyjer Seed and
hit the mother lode.
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[Note: When purchasing online, discount will be applied during checkout]
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