January 19: Sanibel Island

Every time I come to Florida I see yet more housing developments and retail malls sprouting up, even as I see foreclosures and shopping strips that have been abandoned. But development continues apace, and birds crowd into what's left.

The people on Sanibel Island seem to realize how essential for wildlife their shoreline is. Once you cross the bridge onto the island, you can pull over in many places to get onto the shoreline. The only development for a long stretch is occasional restrooms and picnic tables, along with a fairly narrow stretch of drivable sand far enough from the actual beach for shorebirds to cope. Dogs are only allowed on-leash, too, which is wonderful because these white sand beaches are exactly where Piping and Snowy Plovers gather in winter. I was there at high tide, the trickiest time to find many of the shorebirds, and I only got brief, distant looks at two before they flew off, but even a glimpse at these adorable little birds has the power to make me smile all day.

I was headed for Ding Darling--the nickname birders give to J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge. How did it get its name?

One of America’s most famous political cartoonists during the Great Depression and the years of the Roosevelt administration was Jay Norwood Darling. While he attended Beloit College, he started signing his artwork simply a contraction of his last name, turning “Darling” into "D’ing."  Soon everyone was calling him “Ding.”

Darling’s two passions in life were politics and conservation. He was given the Pulitzer Prize twice, in 1924 and 1943, for editorial cartoons. On the conservation side, he founded the National Wildlife Federation, conceived the Federal Duck Stamp program and drew the first Duck Stamp, and for a time headed the U.S. Biological Survey, which evolved into the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island named for him protects one of America’s largest remaining undeveloped mangrove ecosystems. 

When I got to the refuge, I’d barely cracked my car door open before the meows of Gray Catbirds were greeting my ears. I walked a bit around the parking area by the Visitor Center, looking for songbirds, and then drove the Wildlife Loop, a one-way road going along wonderful habitat. I got splendid looks and photos of two of the refuge’s iconic birds, the Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and Anhinga. Despite the high tide, there were a few large groups of shorebirds, including Black-bellied, Semipalmated, and Wilson’s Plovers, Dunlins, Short-billed Dowitchers, Red Knots, and about 500 Willets—more than I’d ever seen in a single place before. Willets are a rather drab gray when resting or running, but the moment they open their wings—wow. The striking black and white pattern is absolutely beautiful.

One loon rested in a shallow area not far from the first group of shorebirds. It looked rather sick—botulism killed a great many loons in late summer and fall on the Great Lakes this year, and I’m afraid this bird may have been a late casualty of the disease. Four Roseate Spoonbills flew over, two landing pretty far out for photos but near enough to enjoy the bright pink contrasting with all the white egrets they joined. Every species of heron and egret native to Florida gave me decent looks along the wildlife drive. I ended the morning with over 60 species, 40 of them new, boosting the number of species seen on my Conservation Big Year to 122. This does not count the feral domesticated Muscovy Ducks I saw along the drive, though at some point someone will show that they're established. The new species:

1. Northern Shoveler
2. Common Loon
3. Pied-billed Grebe
4. American White Pelican
5. Brown Pelican
6. Great Blue Heron
7. Snowy Egret
8. Tricolored Heron
9. Reddish Egret
10. Green Heron
11. Black-crowned Night-Heron
12. Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
13. White Ibis
14. Roseate Spoonbill
15. Osprey
16. Black-bellied Plover
17. Wilson's Plover
18. Semipalmated Plover
19. Piping Plover
20. Killdeer
21. Willet
22. Ruddy Turnstone
23. Red Knot
24. Sanderling
25. Western Sandpiper
26. Least Sandpiper
27. Dunlin
28. Short-billed Dowitcher
29. Bonaparte's Gull
30. Laughing Gull
31. Caspian Tern
32. Forster's Tern
33. Royal Tern
34. Eurasian Collared-Dove
35. Common Ground-Dove
36. Belted Kingfisher
37. Fish Crow
38. House Wren
39. Gray Catbird
40. Boat-tailed Grackle

After a lovely day, I drove back up to Sarasota, to have dinner with Mr. Borkowski and two of his friends, Chuck and Judy. I stayed overnight at their place on Longboat Key.

January 18: Florida!

I drove from Cordele, GA, to Fort Myers, FL, with a dinner stop in Sarasota with my fifth grade teacher, Arthur Borkowski! The only birding I did all day was what I could see from the car and at various rest stops, and it was dark by the time I left Sarasota, but I had pretty good luck at the run-of-the-mill Florida rest stops, just wandering around the periphery of the parking lots, and going on a nice little walking path at one. So I added 13 species, bringing my year total to 82:

1. Wood Stork
2. Double-crested Cormorant
3. Anhinga
4. Great Egret
5. Little Blue Heron
6. Red-shouldered Hawk
7. Eastern Phoebe
8. Carolina Wren
9. Northern Mockingbird
10. Palm Warbler
11. Yellow-rumped Warbler
12. Yellow-throated Warbler (This one was so close that I instantly regretted my policy of not lugging my big camera to every bathroom stop)
13. Chipping Sparrow

January 17: Drive day

Drove 554 miles today, from Louisburg, KY, to Cordele, GA, during on-and-off sleet and snow and then rain. So not many new birds, but did add a few, bringing my total to 69:

1. Turkey Vulture
2. Black Vulture
3. Common Grackle

January 16: Morton Arboretum and a driving day

Song Sparrow at the Morton Arboretum

In 1975, when I was a brand new birder, soon after I saw my first chickadee, my husband and I visited the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. That’s where I saw my very first crow and Canada Goose, which brought my life list up to seven. Later that same year I added my lifer Brown Creeper at the arboretum, and the next spring I saw my lifer Orchard Oriole there, so I have very happy memories of the place.

This week I was in Aurora, Illinois, visiting relatives as I wend my way toward Florida, and on my way out of town I couldn’t help but stop at the Morton Arboretum for a little walk. I could only spend a couple of hours there, but since I’m doing a Conservation Big Year, it seemed important to highlight this place that works so hard to preserve the trees that birds need. I walked through the beautiful elm exhibit, which seemed especially poignant since one of my favorite birds, the Baltimore Oriole, was once so associated with elms. This being winter, there were no orioles to be found, but hundreds of robins and at least a dozen Cedar Waxwings provided ample evidence of the value of fruit trees for birds. The temperature didn’t get much above 15 degrees and it was very windy, but cold isn’t a deterrent for these birds as long as they have enough food.

The other most abundant bird at the Morton Arboretum on my short walk was the Canada Goose. On Russ’s and my first visit there in March 1975, people in the visitor center told me how thrilled they were because a pair of geese had nested there the previous year. They said a local rehabber had released a permanently flightless goose in an arboretum pond where the water stayed open all winter, and he or she managed to attract a mate. Come spring, the flighted goose probably wanted to take off for parts unknown, but geese are exceptionally loyal and committed to their mates, so the pair made the best of things, raising their young at the arboretum. Because they couldn’t migrate together, they didn’t teach their young to migrate. Year after year, they raised more young, some moved on with their new partners while others remained at the arboretum, having found partners willing to be non-migratory, and the population grew. Geese happen to be one of the few bird species that graze on and can digest grasses, and manicured lawns provide not just food but wonderfully safe places to bring goslings, where any lurking predators are easily seen. And geese are such sociable birds that wild migratory geese started joining urban groups, learning to relish the same amenities. It’s hard for people younger than me to realize that urban geese are a relatively new phenomenon, but this is how geese populated urban parks throughout the country. Even though Canada Geese are proof that there can be too much of a good thing, I was very happy to see them at the Morton Arboretum, where I’d first discovered them.

Few birds were out in the open in the cold, but one brave Song Sparrow popped up briefly, it’s feathers completely puffed up to provide insulation. The biting wind quickly sent him back into thick vegetation, and my own shivering made it easier to return to my own sheltering car and the long drive ahead.  I’d added a few new birds for the year, and more importantly, had reconnected with one of the wonderful places that gave me so many treasured experiences.

I'm up to 66 for the year. I added:

1. Eastern Bluebird
2. Cedar Waxwing
3. Song Sparrow

January 15: Day of rest in Aurora, Illinois

Well, it was a day of rest from birding, but not from birds. I spent the day at the school my cousin Dan Satinover's daughter Maddie attends. The fourth grade classes are starting an owl unit, and so I presented to all five classes in three presentations. It was exhausting but fun. Then I spent the night in the Justin Bieber room. (Why am I glad my spellcheck has never heard of him?)

I had just a few species between Maddie's house and the school, so my total remains 63 species for the year. It was wonderful spending a couple of evenings with a lovely family.

January 14: Birding around Madison, Wisconsin

Great Horned Owl (not an individual I saw this year)

I do most of my birding alone, but every now and then it’s nice to spend a morning with a birding buddy. I got to spend this Monday morning with one of my best birding friends, though oddly enough, we’d never actually birded together before. Mike McDowell is one of the world’s premier digiscopers, and the kind of birder I consider the cream of the crop. He’s intimately knowledgeable about one place, the Pheasant Branch Conservancy in Middleton, Wisconsin, which he visits over and over throughout each year. Not only does he know all the regular birds found there, but also he discovers rarities like nesting Yellow-breasted Chats, and he’s taken gorgeous photos of many of these birds. This year I’m highlighting places and people important for bird conservation, so I made a special point to spend some time with Mike at Pheasant Branch.

Sunday I drove from Duluth to Middleton, and Mike and I got together Monday morning before sunrise. First thing he took me straight to a pair of Great Horned Owls, one sitting directly above the other in a medium-sized spruce tree. Mike has been keeping track of several pairs of owls at Pheasant Branch, and he knew exactly where to look. That was new for my Conservation Big Year count. He also showed me a huge tree cavity nearby that they’ve nested in some years.

Next, Mike brought me to a trail that has bird feeders alongside it. Here’s where I started feeling my age—I’ve been losing some of my high-frequency hearing, and never heard several Brown Creepers that Mike heard easily. He also pointed out a flicker, American Tree Sparrows, and several other little dickey birds that I had to strain to pick up. Scolding chickadees and a rush of wings put us both on a Cooper’s Hawk carrying prey.

Cooper's Hawk holding prey and staring at us

We checked out a prairie area where a Horned Lark flew across the road—another new species. Then Mike had to get to work, but we’d amassed a list of 24 species, fully half new for my year list. The only species I got entirely skunked on that Mike heard was the Brown Creeper, but fortunately I’d seen two of them last week.

Brrrrrrrr!

 A major cold front had kept temperatures down around 10 that morning, but I still visited Picnic Point, on the University of Wisconsin Campus. This is a place I used to know as well as Mike knows Pheasant Branch. Just a couple of days before, a great assortment of waterfowl had been reported, but now Lake Mendota’s shoreline was frozen, and  almost all the ducks I saw were too far out for me to identify while I was shivering so hard, though I did manage to see enough to identify the closest ducks—a group of Red-breasted Mergansers, another new species. And visiting Picnic Point is never a waste of time. A gorgeous Red-tailed Hawk circled in the brilliant blue sky, an adult Bald Eagle perched in a large tree on the shoreline, and a Red-bellied Woodpecker gave me nice looks.

Red-bellied Woodpecker at Picnic Point

I would have been much sadder to leave if the weather had been a bit balmier. In Illinois, I saw a kestrel on a wire, bringing the number of new birds for the year to 14, and my total year list to 63. Not bad for the first two weeks of the year. The list will climb dramatically when I reach Florida this weekend. 

New birds for the year:

1. Red-breasted Merganser
2. Cooper's Hawk
3. Red-tailed Hawk
4. American Kestrel
5. Great Horned Owl
6. Red-bellied Woodpecker
7. Northern Flicker
8. Horned Lark
9. Tufted Titmouse
10. American Robin
11. American Tree Sparrow
12. White-throated Sparrow
13. Dark-eyed Junco
14. Pine Siskin

Miles driven today (from Middleton to Aurora, Illinois) 154 + 13 miles in Mike's car = 167 miles

January 13: Barrow's Goldeneye

Barrow's Goldeneye with Common Goldeneyes

Every year in January I start a new year list. That makes even the most common species exciting for at least a moment, and makes me eager to get out at least once or twice to the Sax-Zim Bog, Port Wing, Wisconsin, and other favorite birding places so my year list doesn’t look too pitiful before the big migration hits each spring.

This year I’m trying to see as many species as I can, so I’ve been out a lot more than usual. So far I haven’t seen the Varied Thrushes that have been in Duluth—Janet Riegle and I saw one the day of the Christmas Bird Count in December, but the three times I looked there starting on New Year’s Day, I couldn’t find it. And I went to Wisconsin Point three times in search of a Barrow’s Goldeneye that has been hanging out with Common Goldeneyes in the Superior Entry, but kept getting skunked on that, too. When I left home on January 13 for my long drive to Florida, I had 47 species.

But since I was driving past Moccasin Mike Road anyway, I decided to make one last try for the goldeneye. The sky was dark and snow flurries made visibility poor, but I lucked out—Mike Hendrickson showed up with his spotting scope, and there it was! It started out on the Minnesota side, then a bunch of them took off and flew across to a little inlet on the Wisconsin side, and then it made its way back to the Minnesota side, so I got to count it for both states. I’d seen one once before in Minnesota, in 2001, but needed it for my Wisconsin list, so this was very exciting.

I saw my lifer Barrow’s Goldeneye in Yellowstone National Park in August 1979, and I saw several in Alaska in August 2001. These sightings make a lot of sense: Barrow’s Goldeneye was once referred to as the Rocky Mountain Goldeneye because it’s generally restricted to areas west of the Continental Divide. But satellite telemetry revealed an important breeding location in the forested regions of the Laurentian Highlands in southeastern Québec—this population may explain why small numbers are found every year in winter in the eastern Canadian Maritime Provinces and eastern United States.

Barrow’s Goldeneye is not listed as a species of conservation concern, but may well deserve to be. The entire world population numbers less than 200,000, so the conservation status is currently being reevaluated. This cavity nester is dependent on holes excavated by Pileated Woodpeckers or flicker holes that have been enlarged by mammals, cavities formed by broken branches, or the hollow tops of standing trees—they’ve also been known to nest in old crow nests and a marmot burrow. They’re surprisingly long-lived. One male was shot by a hunter when at least 15 years old, and another was reported to have lived over 18 years in the wild.

Spotting the lone male among the 600 or so Common Goldeneyes is like looking for a needle in a haystack or, as Mike Hendrickson said when we were looking for him, like “Where’s Waldo?” And like finding Waldo at last, getting a glimpse of this visitor from the North gave me a feeling of genuine satisfaction.

A female Lesser Scaup was also in the Superior Entry.

I searched but didn't see a single Red-tailed Hawk before dark on my drive to Chicago--the cold and constant flurries may have kept them in more sheltered spots for the day. So I ended the day with a total of 49 species. Today I drove 342 miles.

1. Lesser Scaup
2. Barrow's Goldeneye