It's been just over a month since we started the Utah Birders Blog and we are averaging 1.3 posts per day. Thanks to Jerry Liguori, Carl Ingwell, Jeff Bilsky, Ryan O'Donnell, and Tim Avery for the time and effort into creating the posts we have had thus far. Hopefully a few others will start adding some content as well as the new year moves along.

Of course a huge thank you to everyone participating in the discussions. We have had some great information sharing happening here and we want to continue that as well.

Good Birding and Blogging

The Utah Birders

Who says winter birding is boring? I met up with Carl Ingwell out at the Saltair Marina where he had keyed in on a first winter Iceland Gull. Unfortunately when I got there, that bird had flown but after 30 minutes or so we had a first winter Glaucous Gull show up. I'll be honest that I don't get too stoked about Gulls, but I'm starting to...


From there, I headed down the frontage road and through the Salt Lake International Center (IC). Highlights included a Great Horned Owl (pictured), a Northern Shrike, and a Ring-necked Pheasant being a highlight only in that it was strutting down a street at the IC...I found this slightly odd.

I attempted to type in a park called Jensen Park up near Antelope Island into my phone's GPS and it picked the Legacy Nature Preserve instead. I don't know why but I went with it and followed the friendly voice on my phone north to the Legacy Parkway. After realizing the Legacy Nature Preserve was basically just a series of trails along the freeway, I decided I didn't feel like hiking and instead found a frontage road to drive along off of 500 south. It led me near the Bountiful Dump and a lake adjacent to it that had a lot of Gulls on the ice. Noted nothing unusual amongst the Gulls in a brief scan, but in the trees around the lake, I spotted something I found to be unusual for Northern Utah - especially in the winter: a Northern Mockingbird (pictured).




I was glad to have found a new place to bird and after another try on the GPS, I was able to target Jensen Nature Park. On the way the voice on my phone led me past several farm fields. In one I spied a Ross's Goose amongst a bunch of Canada's. Upon arriving at Jensen Park, I found yet another Ross's as well as a first year Snow Goose (pictured). Then I looked some more and started to be baffled at the number of ducks using a bit of open water at this park. Ruddy Ducks, Gadwall, Lesser Scaup, Common Goldeneyes, Shovelers, Green-winged Teal, Mallards, and what the heck were 6 Cinnamon Teal doing there in winter? This seemed more like a pond in St. George.

Next stop, the Antelope Island Causeway. I ran into Steve and Cindy Sommerfield along with Jack Skalicky. Steve told me he doesn't like hats and won't wear one; he'd rather be cold. Steve rules. The highlight here (other than meeting up with friends) was a group of 6 Snow Buntings. I was honestly pretty excited to find these. That's the most Snow Buntings I have ever seen and knowing they flew all the way from the Arctic Tundra to hang out here in the winter- it's just really cool.

The sun was beginning to set and I decided why not try for some owls at Farmington Bay on my way back to Salt Lake. I caught glimpses of a Barn Owl and a Short-eared Owl just after the day ended.

Awesome.

Question – what are the most important aspects regarding hawk ID? Answer – shape and flight style. Yes, plumage is important, but shape and flight style are more reliable traits when plumage is difficult to judge. I was watching hawks in April 2009 at Gunsight Mountain in Alaska on a day when there were several hundred Rough-legged Hawks and Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawks. A distant hawk approached at eye level….in certain postures and conditions, Harlan’s can appear quite lanky in shape, and hold their wings in a slight modified dihedral (wings raised at the shoulders and level at the wrists) similar to a Rough-legged Hawk. Anyway, I said, “here comes another Rough-legged Hawk”. The other observer turned to me and asked in a genuinely curious way “how can you tell?” as if I had a trick up my sleeve, but I didn’t.

Quite frankly, the “trick” is to learn the basics well before tackling the minutiae. These days, I think people concentrate on the finer details of plumage. It’s only natural, many guides show pretty pictures, and the Internet is full of beautiful bird portraits that reveal incredible feather detail. I enjoy close-up photos too. However, if you are looking for some obscure plumage detail in the field, chances are you may overlook the obvious ID traits such as shape, flight style, or the manner in which a bird holds its wings. You don’t need to know the fine details to identify hawks in the field. KNOW THE BASICS WELL. I know people who can recite bits of raptor plumage minutiae but are novices at flight identification. You need to learn the basics well to be adept at identifying flying raptors, PERIOD! Besides, it’s a whole ‘nother ball game to learn and apply the finer details accurately…that takes years and years of practice. Oh yeah, compared to a Red-tailed Hawk, a Rough-legged Hawk is less broad at the chest, and the wings are slimmer, longer-handed, and held in a more pronounced modified dihedral when gliding…every time.

When eBird came out with their "Top 100" feature, I was pretty angry. I didn't want anyone to be able to view how many birds I had on my year list, life list, county or state list. I think it is a pointless feature on a great citizen science tool. I don't post to eBird to be able to compare myself with others, or to have others compare themselves with me. I list my sightings on eBird because my data is a valuable resource for scientists to collect and analyze. It's also a great tool for novice birders (such as myself) to look up distributions, first and last dates of a particular species, hotspot reports, etc. With all the great features that eBird has to offer, I think that the "Top 100" function has no place on the website.

When eBird first came up with the "Top 100," I was mad. I didn't want others to be able to look at my stats, and I didn't want to look at anyone else's stats. To throw everyone off my scent, I changed my name to "Manny Ramirez." I'm sure that I didn't fool anyone with the name change, and that my point was completely missed.

After changing my name (taking on the identity of a steroid fueled baseball player turned birder), I decided that that wasn't enough. I started to protest eBird by not entering my lists. I told myself that as long as they were doing the "Top 100," I wasn't going to take part in their project. I mean, what kind of science cares about comparing one birder to another? I stopped entering my lists in April 2009, and haven't entered regularly since.

So why do I care so much? After all, listing and competition could get people excited about birding, and conservation issues, it fuels the economy through tourism dollars, it helps fund our state and national parks, and it gives people a hobby. I see all those points, and I agree with them. However, I've seen competitive birding turn the nicest 70 year old men into complete spiteful, arrogant jerkoffs. I've heard stories of birders not reporting a rare bird because they don't want their competition to see it. I (just like most everyone else, I'm sure) have been yelled at by self-righteous competitive birders over an ID call. Listen, I don't care if you bird competitively, I just don't want any part of it. I just don't bird competitively; I bird to learn more about myself and the world I live in. I don't want to be a part of a trivial numbers game because it doesn't matter to me. I know, I know, I realize that I have some deep seeded emotional issues, and I've been scarred by the local birding Gods. It's just not my thing. It seems to me that the "Top 100" feature is a kind of progress chart to keep tabs on whether or not you're keeping up with the birding Joneses. If that's not what it's supposed to be used for, I'd like to know its functional value.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the value of eBird. There aren't enough field biologists, or enough funding dollars to collect the data that eBird has collected over the years. Not only do they do a great job collecting all the data, but they make it easily accessible to the general public. The website has to be the greatest citizen science project that has ever been created. I realize that I couldn't collect as good of data over a lifetime that eBird probably collects during a ten second period on any given day. The minute that a species declines, expands its range, etc. eBird will be the first to know about it. I can't praise the website, or its creators, enough.

Now that I've confused you with two contradictory messages, I'll get to the point of this post. Here it is: I am a selfish jerk. eBird is the greatest collection of avian data that will ever be known to man, and for the past two years I have been boycotting it because I care about other people looking at a my meaningless life list. I missed out on some great citizen science opportunities because I wanted to stick it to people that are doing great things for the world. eBird is important, and if others are using the "Top 100" feature to compare themselves with me, it is them that are using the website for the wrong reasons. I still feel that the feature is pointless, and it should be taken off the site, but it will no longer keep me from listing on eBird.

<3 Manny Ramirez

Here's a link to a great interview with Cornell Lab scientist Kevin McGowan who analyzes the incident in Arkansas. LINK