Another installment in: Birdy Words You Should Know

You might hear: I finally traded in my old porros for a new pair of roofs.

I’ve never really stopped to think how odd this statement must seem to non-birders, but honestly I hear it or something similar often. They are referring to the prism system in their binoculars, porro prisms are the more traditional type with the large lens spaced wide apart and the barrels take a little jog before the eyepieces to get them close together to match your eye space.

Roof prisms have a more straight through design. It used to be considered that you could get a better binocular for the money if you chose porros, but technology has changed and roof prisms are greatly out numbering porros both in purchases and models offered by companies. Roof prism are more compact, tougher and they are able to be made with extremely close focusing options; it’s common to be able to focus at 4 feet, some models even less. (More on why you would want that a little later.)

Having said this, I still feel that the low end porros are better than low end roof prism, generally speaking, that would be under $195 but there are exceptions, you need to compare for yourself. A good roof prism will have “phase corrective coating”, and just because they say, “fully multi-coated” they don’t necessarily have the phase corrective coating.

You might hear: I stuffed some suet in a snag and the woodpeckers went wild.

Again, I not lying, I’ve heard this on several occasions, in bird land a snag is a dead tree that is still standing, aka a woodpecker magnet.

Suet, technically speaking, is the big chunks of fat around the kidney of cattle. Also a woodpecker magnet, so if you combine two magnets you get one really powerful one. I know more than one person who has a large bore drill bit on a cordless drill to make even more stuffing holes in snags.

In bird land though suet has become fat with any and all kinds of mixtures added, there is berry, dried fruit, insects, meal worms and all have some seed thrown in to make it look even better to the buyer, not necessarily though to the end user. Remember, if a woodpecker won’t eat the seed on a feeder he is unlikely to eat it in the suet mix either. Most suet mixes have cheap seed like millet or corn added as filler, so make sure the $5 a pound “Premium Insect Suet” you are about to buy isn’t half full of 13 cent a pound corn.

A little more on suet versus fat.

You can get fat from almost any source, you can drain the fat off you meat when cooking, lard is the fat around the kidney of a pig, shortening is vegetable fat and all these can be mixed with seeds, peanut butter, corn meal, oat meal even a little flour to stiffen it up. But, you have to watch that it isn’t melting in the summer, the way woodpeckers feed, with their breast pressed against the holder and even up-side-down under the holder to get the last pieces, the melting fat will drip into there feathers and is very hard to get off in the bird bath. It can hinder flight and the insulation value of feathers.

Even raw suet, which is great to feed in winter will drip in summer. If you want to feed suet in the summer it should be real suet and “double rendered”, that is, cooked then strain off all the bits and let it harden. When you heat it up the second time, (the double part) you can add your secret ingredients and pour it into molds. The longer the mix “ages” the harder it gets, so if it’s a little soft, keep it in a cool place for a few days.

You might hear: It’s just another LBB.

What they mean is little brown bird, some birders just skip over all little brown birds without even trying. I’ve heard, “It’s just another LBB” while the bird was still scratching up seed 20 feet away, a quick look and there was a striking White-throated Sparrow. There are many LBB’s around, but each species is different and quite beautiful. I’d find it acceptable to say, “There’s an LBB in that birch tree at three o’clock”, if you are calling it to the attention of other birders and I might not push you in the river if you right it off as an LBB if it got away before you had a good look.

I’ve also heard LBJ and I used to think it was American birders confusing the term with their former president, but apparently it stands for “little brown job” which, to me, is even more annoying.

You might hear: I built a roosting box for chickadees.

The first time I printed labels for my roosting boxes I slipped in an “a” for an “o” and was trying to sell roasting boxes. I was getting weird questions and the odd dirty look until I noticed my mistake.

A roosting box is a place for birds to spend the night, it’s similar to a bird house but larger, the hole is on the bottom, there is no vent holes at the top and the inside is lined with numerous perches. This design allows groups of birds to safely get into one cavity and share the trapped body heat.

You might hear: There wasn’t much bird activity in the heat of the afternoon so we decided to do a little dragonflying.

Sound exciting? It is, New Brunswick has enough dragons and damsels to keep you hopping for several summers. I found and incredible website called Odonata of New Brunswick, (there’s a link on our blog) it lists the damselflies and dragonflies found in our province, complete with species profiles and pictures. This is better than the books and you might see some familiar names who have contributed to the many pictures. Get ready for this...New Brunswick has 37 species of damselflies and 97 species of dragonflies. I think I can identify about 4.

Another similar activity to keep birders busy on the hot days when their prime focus are keeping to themselves, is butterflying. Again New Brunswick has a whopping 85 species of butterflies to challenge your identification skills. Once you get hooked on dragonflying and butterflying you’re going to want one of those close focusing binocular I mentioned earlier. Some species require very close looks to get positive identification, but mostly they are just incredibly beautiful and you are going to want as good of views as possible.

If your binoculars are 8x42 and they have a close focus of 3 feet, that means the object appears 8 times closer or 4 and a half inches away. I don’t know about you but my eyes won’t even focus on objects that close.

If anyone is interested in New Brunswick checklists for dragonflies and damselflies or butterflies contact me and I can e-mail it to you.

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More "Birdy" Words You Should Know

A group that’s always held my interest, even before I was into birding, is birds of prey. When I went on my first hawk watching field trip, I was told it’s easiest if you first separate the accipiters from the buteos from the falcons. I just nodded, I’d heard the word falcon before but what were the others mentioned? I had no clue, luckily an old saying came to mind: it’s better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you’re an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt. So, there I stood, watching specks in the sky and trying to absorb as much of the chatter as possible, hoping no one asked my opinion.

When I got home I quickly looked into buying all the titles of the books I saw floating around and after getting my first hand me down computer I bought a couple of cd-roms with great video-game-like hawk watching quizzes. After almost 20 years, I’m able to identify most hawks that fly over our yard without running inside for 5 different field guides.

Accipiters have relatively short rounded wings and a long rudder like tail that gives them the ability to follow prey through thick bushes. They usually fly with several wing flaps then a glide. We have three species, Sharp-shinned, Cooper’s and Northern Goshawk, the most common hawk to see around feeder stations is the Sharp-shinned Hawk, it can be seen scouting around the yard with it’s characteristic flight pattern, when prey is spotted a sprint through the trees is likely to follow. Telling the sharpie from it’s close relative the Cooper’s Hawk in considered one of the toughest identifications for the hawk watcher, in general, the Cooper’s is larger, but there is overlap, an immature female sharpie might be larger than an adult male Cooper’s. They say to rely on several “clues” to come up with your ID.

I still haven’t checked off Cooper’s on my life list. Maybe I should put that on next years to do list.

The Northern Goshawk is a little easier to tell apart from the other accipiters, it’s larger and thicker, and has a distinctive plumage. They too can be seen around feeder yards, bearing down on an unsuspecting pigeon.

Buteos have broad wings, wide bodies and short tails, they’re able to soar for long periods. Buteos are the main subject of most hawk watchers, hundreds can be seen on a one day hawk watching stint as near by as New Horton in Albert County. Locally the buteos include the Red-tailed Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk and the occasional Red-Shouldered Hawk.

Most people hear “falcon” and they think Peregrine, but there are 3 falcons commonly found in New Brunswick, and yes it’s great to think of the Peregrine Falcon again as somewhat common. We also get the Merlin who looks much like a mini Peregrine and the one who nests in houses is the Kestrel, a beautifully coloured falcon about the size of a robin. Compared to the accipiter, falcons have long tapered cycle shaped wings and a short tail, they fly with constant flapping compared to the intermittent flap glide of the accipiter. Falcons rely on speed in open spaces, rarely continuing the chase into bushes.

So, if you’re on a hawk watch and you hear, “Buteo at 10 o’clock.” You can at least narrow your guess down to 4 species, or less, first it’s not likely a Red-shouldered, Rough-legged overwinter here and leave early, Broad-winged feed mostly on cold blooded animals so they arrive last and leave first. Red-tailed hunt mostly mammals to they will arrive first and leave late. If the first 250 buteos spotted were Red-tailed, you’ll likely be safe guessing Red-tailed, but you never know for sure.

You might hear: “We went on a birding trip to Grand Manan and I picked up 3 lifers.” They weren’t talking about picking up hitchhiking escaped convicts, they were referring to 3 new birds they added to their life list. Most birders keep a list of the birds they have identified, there is the life list, day list, year list, yard list, province list, county list, many even keep a yearly province list, yearly county list…you get the picture. I keep a life list and yard list, I’m not big on paper work.

Some try for big days, tallying up the species they can see in a 24 hour period, there are areas where a skilled birder can get over 200 species from midnight to midnight, (not individual birds, species) and some put their lives on hold and shoot for the big year record, crisscrossing the continent following migration and rare sightings, (the record is 745 species).

There are people who are referred to as “twitchers” these are people only concerned with checking off another box in the list. They don’t really care about observing the bird, taking in the habitat, watching behavior, just getting a glimpse and moving on, usually they don’t get out of the car, or even shut it off. They’re called twitchers because they get all twitchy at the thought of adding another check mark, although I see it in books, I’ve never heard anyone called a twitcher, but I’ve met quite a few people who fit the bill.

The Bird Quiz

I'm still hoping someone will get 100% on the quiz. So far though nobody has gotten every answer right, even if I allow for the answers that are a matter of opinion. I even challenged the subscribers to the natureNB listserve. I guess I made it too hard, next time I'll try to take it easier on you guys.

You still have almost 2 weeks to get your answers in.

To further sweeten it, I'll give an automatic $20 gift card to the first 100% and leave your name in the draw (so if you're the only one in the Grandmaster category you're guaranteed $40).

If you already took it you can try again, I'm just not going to tell you which answers were wrong.

Oh well, with $40, I'll be able to take my wife out to a romantic dinner for our 20th.

Dwayne

Birdy Words Defined and Explained

Some “birdy words” explained, so you can follow a conversation with a hardcore birder.

You might hear: “We’re going on a pelagic trip next week.”

This means looking for birds that normally hang out over the “open sea”. Groups will often charter boats and head off shore to look for gulls, gannets, skua, jaeger and more. These birds are often seen during whale watching trips. Technically, I suppose if they say pelagic trip they should be going out on the water, but if they say, “...going after some pelagic birds”, they may just be going to Pointe du Chene for fried clams and check out what wanders close to shore or steals fries off the next picnic table...not nearly as impressive.

You might hear: “I’m a little slow getting started, we were owling until the wee hours.”

Sounds like a wild time, and maybe it was, they were out after dark in search of owls, either by sight or more often simply listening for the calls. One might mimic the owl calls or play pre recorded calls through a portable player or over the vehicles sound system. I’ve been...one night we saw a Saw-whet Owl, heard a Barred Owl and a Great Horned Owl. The Great Horned was at first distant but within seconds it was so close I couldn’t help ducking and waiting for a territorial owl to strike my head. It was not impressed by the intrusion, I was quite eager to give it some space.

If you walk up to a couple of birders who are arguing whether the vocalization they just heard was song or a call, you might want to just keep walking. There is a difference but it’s not an argument you want to enter.

It’s usually only the male that sings, he does so to claim territory, attract a mate and to communicate if he already has one.

Many species don’t have songs but claim territory with flight displays, but most birds to have calls, they’re usually shorter and have different function than song. Some calls indicate alarm, aggression, or a quick contact call to keep in touch. If you are outside after dark in about a month you’ll here various single note whistles and chirps, these belong mostly to warblers and some sparrows. They are keeping in touch with each other while migrating south at night. Stand there for a while and you’ll likely hear hundreds of call notes, you’ll be wondering where they all came from since you only see a few in the day time.

Legend has it, there are people who can identify each bird from this call note, but how would I know if they were wrong? They all sound the same to me.

Some birds make non-vocal sounds considered by some to be song, woodpecker and grouse play the drums (my favourite part of any song), the winnowing of a snipe and the buzzing of a hummingbird is made with stiffened tail feathers during courtship flights.

The wing whistle of a Mourning Dove taking off is considered an alarm call, while the wing whistle of the Black Scoter in flight is a great way to keep track of the flock while migrating at night.

You might hear: “I saw a warbler high in the canopy, when I pished him down, it was a Bay-breasted.”

Pishing is blowing air in short blasts through closed teeth, like you do to call a cat. A curious bird will come a little closer to see what’s making the noise and you should be able to get a closer look. Some describe it as an art, but the only tricky part is knowing when to stop. I’ve been with people who are standing nose-to-beak with a bird and they are still pishing, when the bird flew away I’m sure I heard it mutter a few choice expletives, I know I was.

You want to hide yourself somewhat, pish a couple pishes, and wait. The best thing that could happen is for a chickadee to come along and scold the pisher, chickadee’s being one of the most pishable birds. If you have a chickadee over you scolding, sit tight, stop pishing and wait to see what comes along to join in the scolding. Sure you may have won the county pishing competition but you’re still no match for a chickadee when it comes to attracting other species.

If you’re out with a group, etiquette states that you should ask if we agree it’s OK to pish, if so you should have a designated pisher, both for the birds sake and your own, you don’t want to get stuck in the middle of 30 octogenarians all pishing at once.

You should have an idea of which birds are pishable (I hope that’s a word, I use it so much I’m used to it), for instance; warblers are very pishable, shorebirds are not, I’ve heard of some pishers at Mary’s Point who came close to being thrown into the bay. Chickadee and finch...very pishable, hawks not so much, continuous pishing on a “hawk watching” cliff is probably dangerous to your health too (if you’re with a group).

One hawk that is quite pishable though is the Northern Goshawk, here’s an exercise for you “over pishers” out there, next spring, stand under a goshawk nest and pish, you’ll likely get great close up views (and a few scars to brag about over drinks with other birders, don’t mention the pishing though).

Juvenile Laughing Gull

Here is the Picture of the sea bird we tried to ID at the Market today.
The picture was taken at 1:24pm on Wednesday Sept. 8th
We were about 3 miles off shore and about a mile or 2 west of Cape Enrage when I took this picture.
The bird had no fear of people. It stayed with us for about an hour. It would peck at the chum ball we had set up to attract sharks. Then it would circle the boat (flying) and hover about 2 or 3 feet over from my head and about a foot above it.
While in the water it kind of looked like a morning dove. The boat captain said he had been on the bay all of his life and has never seen one of these birds before.

Let me know what you come up with

thanks
Don LeBlanc