Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Eyes in the Skies A Brief Guide to Finding Migrating Birds Online



With the onset of September’s cooler, discernibly shorter days and the sharper angle of the sun comes one of nature’s most exciting times of year.  Creatures that spent the preceding months eating and enjoying summer begin to feel the seasonal changes.  They become restless.  Many begin to regroup.  Unable to resist the pull of the season they start looking for their binoculars.

So for humans, fall migration begins. Birders search for their beloved and frayed Peterson’s and Sibley’s.  They pull out old, dedicated maps.  Others find and share apps.  They update statuses, they blog and tweet.  

Fall offers birdwatchers (and the friends they invariably drag along) the most exciting months to precede a dreary northern winter.  Over 200 species of birds migrate through New Jersey.  For hawk watchers in the northeast fall is akin to Nirvana.  Fourteen species of diurnal raptors migrate through New Jersey September through November: Ospreys, Bald eagles, Northern harriers, Sharp-shinned hawks, Cooper’s hawks, Northern goshawks, Red-shouldered hawks, Broad-winged hawks, Red-tailed hawks, Rough-legged hawks, Golden eagles, American kestrels, Merlins and Peregrine falcons.  

Some of these visitors are common to the point of breeding locally: Red-tails and Cooper’s are almost “back yard” birds.  Some are just a bit less common but have rock star status: Peregrines, Merlins and Bald eagles.  And some raptors, even for the most experienced, well-worn-field-guide expert, are sensational: Gos!  Golden!  Roughie!  (Note the endearment, single case and exclamation! That’s how rare and spectacular they are!)

But how do you find them?

Of course, there are hawk watches throughout the northeast.  Look to the mountain ridges along the Appalachians and Alleghenies where hawks soar ancient migratory routes on winds lifted by warm air.  Look to coastal peninsulas and river valleys where they funnel across water from land to land.

Or look to the internet.  Google “hawkwatch nj” and you will find exactly where those hawk watches are.  The Hawk Migration Association of America is a great source.  There you can find over 40 hawk watches in the NY/NJ/PA areas, with links and maps.  

There are way more resources for the passionate (or compulsive) birder.  Now, with web sites and online social networks (Facebook, blogs and most appropriately named for birders, Twitter), bird watchers cannot just know what Peregrine or Gos! was spotted, but can do so in real time.  

I cannot emphasize enough how important real-time sightings are for birders.  For the social network gumbies out there who only rely on web sites and speed dialed friends, I will explain.

Because bird watchers historically have loved to share, the potential for finding birds by Twitter is monumental.  Lillian and Don Stokes tweeted on Tuesday: 
         Swainson's Hawk, a western species, seen over Pack Monadnock Raptor Migration Observatory, NH, yesterday, a record for that site.  

CMBO (Cape May Bird Observatory) tweeted in the last 2 hours 
        Clay-colored sparrow in burn pile behind beach at state park, 
and 
        23 Brown pelicans off Sunset Beach, 
and just this moment 
        Cape May Point streets and state park full of warblers!  

Just  this moment John @dendroica
         saw a Green heron behind Morgan Mudflats.  

and @urbanhawks a second ago spotted 
          an adult Peregrine falcon on 100 Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village in New York. 

 EBird.org is a global online wild bird statistical, checklist and interactive observation program started by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.  Some of the data provided on eBird can be very intimidating for the statistically challenged to whom bar charts and line graphs are frightening.  More accessible for the common person, members can explore or report sightings in specific areas.  For example, I searched Northern goshawk in NJ.  EBird has no current sightings in NJ, but after scanning the map I found that on September 9, 2012, Raymond Birdfellow (name changed for obvious reasons) spotted a Northern goshawk “immature bird, heavily streaked breast and prominent white eyebrow” in Litchfield, CT.  

The Crested caracara, a southern raptor that on Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology's own web site “reaches only in Arizona, Texas, and Florida” was reported for the first time ever in NJ.  More specifically, on Ebird I found that between September 11 and September 13 of this year 12 sightings were reported of a Crested caracara in Mercer County, most recently at 9:30am this past Thursday.  

EBird also has a Rare Bird Alert and you can sign up to get daily - or hourly - updates. 

Never underestimate Facebook for learning what and who is where and when.  My Facebook friend Jim Birdbuddy (name changed for obvious reasons) posted his Caracara pictures on Facebook Wednesday. 

These online tools are to a bird watcher what a Porsche 911 is to a middle aged man.

Realize, though,  that I just spent 3 hours indoors on my laptop instead of 2 minutes outside with my binoculars.  That’s one of the hazards of online bird finding.  You don’t ever want to spend time birdwatching with your face in a device (or book, for that matter) instead of in binoculars.  And another, real hazard is that in finding and sharing bird sightings, birders can love their birds to death.  It has happened that hundreds of well-meaning birdwatchers and photographers have holed up and settled in for days around an exclamation mark-worthy bird to the point that it was harassed from feeding, or worse, grabbed by a predator attracted to the commotion.

It’s a dilemma for the bird watcher.  I will leave that to your ethics and good judgement with a quote by E.B. White that all bird watchers will understand:   

“I arise every morning torn between the desire to save the world and the desire to savor the world. It makes it hard to plan the day.”


Some online resources:







A few birding blogs:







Some bird watching Twitter feeds