Fanagrams

May 18^th

I now have spent some six weeks with my daily walks, and I have come to appreciate the slow unraveling of spring and feel attuned to the changing season.  I imagine that many people are only vaguely aware of the evolution, perhaps just subdividing spring into early and late.  But I have notice that the sound of the wind has changed from the light tapping of bare branches to the rustle of leaves; the progress of the owlets, who have now left their nest and are hidden in the willow tree by a veil of slivered leaves; of the pond that is slowly drying up and no longer beckons blue winged teals; the kinglets who are now mostly gone and the swarms of redstarts who have arrived.  But no matter how attuned or oblivious one might be to earth’s orbits, no one could miss the symbol of spring that I saw today.  A pair of Canada geese were gently shepherding their flock of 8 ducklings across the pond.

New Birds Seen

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Wood Pewee

Redstart

May 20^th

Again the woods and fields are quiet and I am not sure why.  But this time I spend the walk looking at the pattern of tree bark.  Several years ago I had taken a class on identifying trees in winter, i.e. without the distraction of leaves, the identification depends on the tree shape, branching pattern and buds, which may be hopelessly out of reach.    There is the thickly furrowed bark of the burr oak, looking like a comfortable pair of wide wale corduroys, the peeling bark of cherry trees and shagbark, which look like the flakes of sunburned skin, the diamond shaped pattern of ashes, which probably house some exquisitely adapted insects, and finally the cracked bark of the white oak, which quite frankly look like the pattern on my calloused feet.  Perhaps my weight and the weight of the tree have produced the same fault lines in their supporting structures.

May 25^th

My brother in law is the contractor for our basement remodeling and sees me traipsing in and out with binoculars and bird books.  Bemused by this new phase of bird watching, he  likens it to some elaborate Easter egg hunt.  I don’t disagree with him.  I am reminded of the children’s magazine Highlights, which has been in every pediatrician’s and dentist’s office that I have been in for the past 40 years.  The best part of this magazine is the page of hidden pictures, where you try to identify the bunny rabbit in the pattern of the clouds, the baseball bat in the tree, or the old man in the bushes.  It was always a major disappointment if someone had already selfishly circled the hidden objects, ruining any sense of discovery.  Today I was in the unusual position of being more knowledgable than my birding companions.  I carefully did not gleefully point out birds or blurt out the identification and spoil the sense of discovery, and only offered assistance when asked. 

May 28th 

Well the bulk of the birds have passed through, and the birds that remain are busy with the task of mating and nesting and no longer see the need to sing loudly from an exposed perch.  My daily walks and diary entries have become sporadic.  In the evenings, and sometimes well into the night, I have become entranced with playing the on line word game Boggle.  This game consists of a 5 X 5 grid of letter cubes, and the task is to find as many words made from adjacent cubes as possible within a two minute period.  Another elaborate Easter egg hunt, and I find that I can go birdwatching here too.  Oddly enough the Boggle birds that I have found are mostly seabirds that I have never seen, but only know by name, i.e. murre, gannet, scaup, smew.  I even have a category of flightless Boggle birds that include dodo, moas, and rhea.  I would consider it a real feather in my cap if I could find the more challenging ostrich and penguin.  The game awards you a bonus point if you are the first to find a word, and I always score bonus points with my birds.    

May 11^th

I look back at my entry of April 26^th, where I smugly talk about being able to pick out the strands of individual songs.  Now, in the thick of prime migration time, I realize that this is a load of self serving crap.  What was I thinking.  I am surrounded by whistles, trills, clucks, burrs, and other assorted songs that are all running hopelessly together.  Particularly vexing is the goldfinch, who has a varied song that is easily identifiable if it is sung in its entirely.  But often, I only hear snatches of it, which sound like new arrival and set me on a quest.  After circling a tree, and exposing myself to the scourge of ticks, I discover with great disappointment that it is only a goldfinch torturing me with a small snippet of his song.  At one point, I was sure that I was hearing a new warbler.  I carefully identified the tree, spotted the flitting bird, and lifted my binoculars only to find another goldfinch.  Well, that is okay, I thought, at least when he sings, I will register this variance as a goldfinch song.  And just as the song wafted down to me, through the binoculars I say the target goldfinch carefully stuff a wad of blossoms into his mouth.  I thought, “Well, here is a new method of torture, he is a ventroloquist, too!”  I was reminded of the old Ed Sullivan show where a ventriloquist would try to enhance the illusion by having his dummy talking while he was swallowing water.  I presume that there was another bird in the tree, but I was never able to find it.

New Birds Seen

• White Crowned Sparrow
• Blackburnian Warbler

May 12^th

I have been frequently seeing red tailed hawks circling over the meadow, but they have been silent until now.  Today, the soaring hawk repetitively cried, an agonizing harsh cry which may me think of wild and untamed nature, with a hint of danger.  But I was a little disarmed when I realized that this auditory cue comes predominantly from television ads and programs, who insert the sound of a red tailed hawk whenever they want to create an image of something that is really out there.  Remember those ads for trucks that are improbably parked on top of a precipice?  Inevitably there will be the sound of a red tailed hawk in the background.

New Birds Seen

• Golden winged Warbler

May 14^th

This weekend I am on a quick trip to the Upper Peninsula Michigan to stay in our family’s cabin along the shores of Lake Superior.  This cabin has been in the family for several generations and has accumulated books and possession for probably 50 years.  I was looking through the musty bookshelves and stumbled across an original 1934 Peterson field guide to birds.  The book was very hopefully titled, “A Bird Book with a New Plan.”  Peterson’s “new plan” was to helpfully put a small arrow next to the key features of a bird.  Like any great idea, this plan seems pathetically obvious in retrospect, but Peterson’s field guide was the inspiration to generations of amateur naturalists.  In 1934 my mother was only 7 years old, so presumably this book belonged to my grandmother, or perhaps to the owners that preceded by grandparents.  My grandfather bought the cabin from an elderly, childless couple who both died one winter, and he took possession of the cabin and all its contents, including the unfinished knitting project on the nightstand and the hairbrush with embedded silver strands of hair and all the books.  As I flipped through the book, I hoped to find some markings, or stumble on someone else’s life list, but no such luck.  I did discover that many of the pictures of the birds were in black and white, which thankfully have been replaced in my 2000 edition, and the pictures were tiny and cramped on the page.  With a little additional searching in other bookshelves in the cabin I found a 1937 edition, a 1947 and a1960 edition, with each edition with progressively larger and more colored illustrations.  Here I was continuing on the cabin tradition of following birds.

May 15^th

For the past several years there has been a bald eagle’s nest about a mile down the beach.  When the eagle nests in the spring, there is minimal foot traffic beneath him, but as vacationers swell during the summer months, there are many visitors to the beach.  Although it is easy to see the bald eagles in and around the nest in August, at this point, the eaglets have been fledged and the eagles seem oblivious to our presence.  As I approached the nest, I noticed that there was an eagle sitting on the nest.  I turned my head to watch two common mergansers in the cold waters of Lake Superior, and when I turned my head back, I realized that the eagle had left the nest, was joined by another and were headed directly toward me.  I had just finished reading the bird guide which described the eagles “enormous beak and sharp talons,” and my anxiety grew as the eagles swooped down low and passed directly overhead.  They then circled around and headed back again toward me.  As they passed overhead I could actually hear them calling, which sounded like scratchy radio static.  I quickly beat a hasty retreat. 

New Birds Seen:

• Common Merganser
• Hooded Merganser

May 16^th

I stopped by the house of local residents Steve and Lorraine Ferguson.  They had set up a bird feeder in their back yard and a bird bath with running water.  As I was chatting, I noticed a bevy of sparrows enjoying the handouts and refreshments.  Steve mentioned that for the past four days a Harris sparrow had been at the feeder.  I had never heard of a Harris sparrow and when I consulted my bird guide, I realized that this sparrow is generally found farther west and was distinctly unusual here in the along the shores of Lake Superior.  As I looked at the sparrows fraternizing peacefully under the feeder, I had a rare opportunity to appreciate the relative sizes of these birds; in order of size, much like a group of siblings lined up by age, there was the diminutive chipping sparrow, the stout white throated sparrow, the sleek and confident white crowned sparrow, and if I may be permitted to read into the body language, the bewildered Harris sparrow, who was perhaps wondering what wild wind had landed him unexpectedly in this obscure corner of the north woods.

New Birds Seen

• Harris Sparrow
• Common Goldeneye

Pictures courtexy of Allen Siegle

May 5th

The last few days have been disappointing with few additional birds.  Where are they?  A whole new wave of migrants should be arriving any day now, although the cold north winds have probably kept them at bay.  Although I am pleased that I am increasingly recognizing bird songs, I realize that that this led to a change in my birding experience.  At the beginning of my learning curve, when I heard a new bird song, I would carefully stalk the bird, clumping through brush and mush until I finally spotted it in the binoculars.  With a rush of discovery, I would triumphantly confirm both my tenuous identification based either on call alone or visual alone.  The blue-winged warbler will always hold a warm spot in my heart since it was the first bird that I identified with the two pronged approach of sight and song.  It was at least a decade ago in Hartford, CT, where I was visiting the corporate office of Aetna on business.  The office was situated on a lush suburban campus, but a ring of brush was left intact.  At the end of the business day I headed to this margin in my work clothes, consisting of a thin silk skirt and a pair of party shoes.  (As a child, party shoes described any shoes that could not be used for sports.)  I first heard the unusual song of the blue winged warbler, which sounds something like a tiny person snoring, perhaps Sleepy from the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  I then spent a good hour chasing the warbler around, in the process totally ruined my shoes in a swamp, and my very fashionable skirt was left matted with burrs.  But when I finally put the sight and song together I was giddy with excitement.

Today I heard a blue winged warbler and felt little compulsion to track it down.  Although wearing appropriate attire, I would have to depart from the beaten path, and the grass was wet and I am scared of getting ticks.  I also heard a Northern Waterthrush and merely nodded my head toward it in acknowledgement.  Perhaps my enjoyment of birdwatching is transitioning from the rapturous excitement of discovery to a quieter grateful appreciation.  I have noticed that in our bird banding group, our leader Caleb takes bird walks in between banding episodes without the benefit of binoculars, instead just appreciating the birds he can hear. 

But I also rejoice knowing that I am standing on an infinite learning curve, and with a little nudge of intellectual curiosity, the trajectories of this curve can head off in infinite directions.  Who knows, maybe five years from now I will have abandoned the crutch of binoculars, or will instead by besotted by dragonflies or butterflies, or perhaps like Darwin, earthworms will become my passion.

New Birds Seen:

Solitary Sandpiper

May 7^th

We are now in the peak of the migration, with the early migrants still lingering, and newly joined by the later arrivals, so each tree is alive with birds.  I am reminded of a cocktail party we were once invited to years ago.  The invitation said from 6-8PM and I thought that we had made a mistake by arriving promptly at 6.  There is a certain awkwardness about being the first arrivals, and so it was with some discomfort that I approached the apartment door.  To my surprise, I heard the party in full swing inside, and I wondered how it was that everyone was so prompt.  And then just as we were about to enter, others left, thanking the hostess profusely for the lovely evening.  I was puzzled.  I later discover the hostess had invited three waves of people, some from 5-7, some from 6-8 and some from 7-9.  We were in the middle wave.  I feel that the migration is now in the middle wave.  Soon the kinglets will move on, to be replaced by the last wave of flycatchers.

New Birds Seen:

Pine Warbler

Magnolia Warbler

Chestnut Sided Warbler

Rose Breasted Grosbeak

May 8th

I certainly should not be surprised at seeing a house wren in the field, although its name certainly implies that this should be a backyard bird.  In addition, the sweet jumbled song of this bird instantly brings back memories of summer lunches on my grandmother’s patio.  I suppose my interest in birdwatching traces most directly back to her, although she may have picked it up from her grandmother in the early 1900s.  Although she was more of a horticulturist, she always had bird feeders in her gardens and several birdhouses for house wrens on her patio.  I realized that certain bird songs, although most often heard in the deep background, can serve as audio prompts for powerful memories.  Many years ago our family celebrated a family reunion in Montana, and our host and guide suggested that we go on a canoe trip.  We were a sporting and adventuresome lot, and he naively assumed that we all knew how to canoe, which, it turned out was totally erroneous.  So off we went down some narrow river.  Although there were no rapids, there was a swift moving current and constant hairpin turns.  Disaster immediately struck, as one after another all but two of the canoes capsized.  I was in a canoe with my mother and daughter, and though we remained dry, my mother did have one near death experience; her head got caught underneath a wire cord stretched low across the river.  As our canoe moved swiftly forward I was unable to guide it toward the spot with the highest clearance and instead headed for where the cord was slung at its lowest.  The cord hit her square in the chest and then as our canoe moved forward, the cord marched up her chest.  As she leaned back the cord got caught on her neck and strained against her chin.  The bow of the boat plowed down and we tipped wildly as my mother tried to escape the imminent garroting.  With a big splash she escaped.  I was only momentarily relieved as I realized that I was up next and I would have to do a flat out limbo to escape a similar fate.  The story has been passed around our family many times, told and retold and embellished.  But the one thing that brings it immediately back to me is the song of the yellow warbler.  The narrow stream was bordered by brushy willow trees, which were absolutely filled with yellow warblers madly singing to establish territory.  I was in the stern of the canoe, and every moment I lifted my binoculars to try and spot one, the canoe would quickly careen off and slam into the bank on the other side.

 One day while driving in the car, the bird tape came on and out came the beeping sound of the white nuthatch.  The white nuthatch is a commonly heard bird in the woods of northern Michigan where we vacation.  I mentioned to my daughter, “I’m sure that you have heard this bird before at HuronMountain, particularly on the hike to PineLake.”  A smile spread across her face, and she said, “Yes I knew that I had heard it someplace before.”  I am sure that from that moment forward, the song of the white nuthatch will be an auditory anchor for a whole raft of summer memories.  

New Birds Seen:

Scarlet Tanager

Orange crowned warbler

Yellow Warbler

Warbling Vireo

Red Eyed Vireo

Nashville Warber

Wood Thrush (song only)

April 26^th:

The woods are now teeming with yellow rumped and palm warblers.  The noise level has risen to a surrounding white noise, but instead of standing befuddled in the midst of a cacophonous UN debate, I can begin to sort out individual strands.  Most of the songs are from the quintet of song sparrows, yellow rumped warblers, ruby crowned kinglets,  robins and goldfinches.  And every now and then, I can pick out something new, which is how I found the new warbler, waterthrush and vireo today.  The blue headed vireo is interesting since between my original field guide and my new Peterson guide, the bird has quietly changed names from the Solitary Vireo to the Blue Headed Vireo.  I imagine committees of impassioned birders, arguing forcefully for some sort of name change, and the undercurrents of vicious politics.  Perhaps, “I will vote for your blue head if you vote for my yellow rump.”  Oddly the Latin name remains the same, vireo solitarius.  Perhaps the Latin name is etched in stone.  And the name blue headed vireo is only somewhat descriptive, as the blue is sort of a dark dusky blue.  If I were going to change the name, I would really go for it and use one of the wacky color names that you seen in clothing catalogs.  How about, Gun Metal Headed Vireo, or Storm Tossed Marine Headed Vireo.

New Birds Seen

Black Throated Green Warbler

Northern Waterthrush

Blue Headed Vireo

Pied Bill Grebe

Northern Shoveler

April 29^th

The last few days have been windy and darn cold and I have not seen much, though today did turn up a few new species.  I think that birds do not flit about in a heavy wind and the wind drowns out the sounds of the bird songs.  It is difficult to rely on visual cues alone, since it is harder to pick up the sudden movement of the bird among branches that are already swaying.  I am pleased with the yellow throated vireo, since this is a bird I have only had pointed out to me once, and this is my first solo effort with this vireo.

Yellow throated Vireo

Turkey Vulture

Northern Parula (by voice only)

April 30^th

It continues to be cold; there was even frost today.  A north wind has discouraged any new arrivals, and the current residents are silent.  I did see an Eastern Towhee (another mysterious name change from the more descriptive Rufous Sided Towhee), and a few water birds.  The yellow legs is a migrating water bird that comes in two sizes, greater and lesser, and otherwise is indistinguishable.  It is very difficult to tell relative sizes unless the two birds cooperate and stand side by side for comparison, but otherwise it is just a toss up.  My field guide says that the ankle joint of the greater yellow legs is much more prominent, but that hardly seems adequate to hang your hat on. 

New Birds Seen:

Yellow Legs, greater or lesser, you pick ‘em

May 2^nd

Another day of minimal activity.  With nothing else to do, I dwell on my birdwatching technique, which involves a complicated series of movements.  As I scan the trees with my bare eyes, I hold the bird guide under my arm.  If I spot something, I quickly move the book to between my legs, scooch my glasses up unto my forehead and lift the binoculars to my eyes.  This all must take place within no more than a second, otherwise the bird is likely to flit off somewhere.  It can be difficult to find the exact spot with the binoculars that you saw with the naked eye, and sometimes you need to take a few steps from side to side.  This means that with my otherwise fabulous system, I am trying to walk with a book between my legs.  Old fashioned etiquette training required young women to walk with a book on their head, but I am sure that walking with a book between your legs was not considered stylish. If the bird is particularly provocative and I have to take a few large steps, the book just plops on the ground.  Anyway, as awkward as this may sound, this system has served me well for twenty years, but this year I have one slight modification.  I am using a new field guide.  For twenty years I had used the Golden Guide to Birds, but last year I was told that this book was not professional enough.  My new selection was a Peterson Guide.  Roger Tory Peterson is a giant in the bird watching field and revolutionized field identification in the 1930s by helpfully pointing out key features.  All birdwatchers stand on the shoulders of this innovative naturalist.  This current edition is very sleek with a handsome glossy cover that is intended to be somewhat waterproof.  The problem is that this book is too slippery for my system.  As I try and take tiny steps the book slips down between my legs – a major distraction.  I definitely need improved traction, either in my pants or on the book.  Here is yet another use for duct tape.

New Birds Seen:

Green Heron

Blue Winged Warbler (song only)

Rough Winged Swallow

Sora (song only)

May 1^st

Today starts the beginning of bird banding at Shaw Prairie, so for the moment I have abandoned my usual route.  Thirteen mist nets are set up in the morning, and then checked each hour for the unfortunate birds that happen to fly through.  Every hour, the team of volunteers checks the nets, extracts the birds, puts them in a muslin bag, and then returns to the central station where they are weighed, measured and banded.  And then after thanking the birds for their forebearance they are happily released.   The banding information is submitted to a national database to gather information on migrating patterns.  I am somewhat equivocal about the banding process, since I am a little hesitant to handle these fragile looking birds, many of them weighing no more than the heft of 4 pennies.  But these looks must be deceptive, since the birds have survived a several thousand mile commute.  One of the attractions is that you spend several hours in the company of very knowledgeable birders, who so far seem extremely patient with my naïve and silly questions.  Since you get an in depth look at these birds, you can also confirm your somewhat tenuous sightings.  For example, I was able to confirm that what I was calling a swamp sparrow really was a swamp sparrow.  One of my concerns was that the swamp sparrow did not exactly match the book, and I was startled when I was told that the picture in my Peterson was inaccurate.  Like any spectator sport, you cannot tell the players without a scorecard, and I was aghast to think that my scorecard, the standard Peterson, was basically wrong.  Many birders like to use multiple field guides – since the birds can be presented different ways, in different poses and some even use photographs – so that a final identification represents an amalgam of Gizzes from different sources.   But toting multiple copies into the field is problematic.  My cousin Terry likes to use three guides at once, and his system involves wearing cargo pants with deep pockets.  So when he walks around, he has a virtual library clunking around his knees.  But for a single reference, I thought that the Peterson would be the best.  I am told the Sibley is the new standard.

New Birds Seen:

Northern Oriole (song alone)

Brown Thrasher

House Wren

May 2^nd

I again stand at the precipice of the slippery slope of the honor system, as I must decide whether birds identified only through netting can count on my life list.  This strikes me a little bit like going to the zoo instead of Africa so I dig in my heels and stand firm.  This means that the Sharp Shinned Hawk, which had the misfortune of being netted twice, and with whom I exchanged meaningful glances, is not yet on my life list.  However, other raptors seem to abound today.  There are several red tailed hawks and kestrels gliding over the fields.  The sun just catches the kestrel and his blue wings and red tail are perfect.

New Bird Seen:

Common Yellowthroat

May 3^rd

Another cold day with few birds.  To protect the birds while waiting to be banded, we put them inside our fleece jacket.  It is an odd sensation to feel the fluttering bird against my beating heart.

April 10^th

During the winter, I have also spent some time reading some of the bird watching literature.  Some of these books tell stories about amazing encounters in the woods, with compelling first hand accounts of a Goshhawk snatching a bird in mid air or the struggles of a nesting pair of owls, and it can become easy to assume that no walk is complete without witnessing some amazing visual act of nature.  But these stories represent the distillation of many hours in the field and the simple truth is the more time you spend outside the more things that you will see.  And like golfers or fisherman, even if you have the yips or you snag the trees, you most certainly have spent a nice day outside.   My husband is the coach of our senior women’s ice hockey team, and one of his all purpose bits of advice is “if you keep putting the puck on the net good things will happen.”  As I walk past the oak grove I again see the two Great Horned Owls, but this time I notice a nest in the crook of the tree.  And in it are one and maybe two owlets.  I just shot the puck on the net and a good thing happened.

New Birds Seen:

Eastern Bluebird

April 13^th

The migrant warblers are beginning to arrive.  The first arrivals are the yellow rumped warbler and the palm warbler.  Let the party begin. 

My winter tutorials on bird songs are also paying off, since I recognize the sweet song of the Eastern Meadowlark in the open field.  The rolling churr of red bellied woodpeckers is also easily recognized.  The beginning birdwatcher will be intrigued by the name of this bird, since the bird’s most obvious characteristic is its flaming red head; bird field guides indicate only the faintest blush of red on its belly.  I presume that the nameless naming committee wanted to get the concept of “red” into the common name, but that the red-headed woodpecker had already dibs’ed that name, and so they went with the belly as a weak second choice

New Birds Seen

Eastern Meadowlark

Red Bellied Woodpecker

Yellow Rumped Warbler

Palm Warbler

April 15^th

As I begin my walk, I now routinely quickly scan the oak trees for the owls  and probably see them about one half of the time, sometimes in the nest, and sometimes perched on a nearby branch.  The odd thing is that they are always staring straight at me.  When they are off the nest, you can appreciate their molting, as their baby down is slowly being  replaced by mature feathers.  While the new feathers ruffle in the wind, the down fluffs up in the wind, looking like a wad of soft brown lint.  I also pause to check for the meadowlark song in the field on the left.  Knowing the songs helps you triage the birds; once the birding gets hot and heavy in a few weeks, it will be impossible to try and identify every bird that sings, and the practiced ear will be able to pick out what is new or unusual.  I have also gotten very familiar with the bright song of the ruby crowned kinglet.  The song is long and varied, and on the bird tape you always hear it in toto.  But in the field you hear it in bits and snatches, and at this point, I can recognize the song from a couple of syllables.     

New Birds Seen

Blue Grey Gnatcatcher

Wood Duck

 April 18^th

I had always assumed that the swallows darting about the water were tree swallows, and while it is probably true that 90% of the time 90% of the swallows are tree swallows, today I focused on the 10% of the 10%.  Trying to do a careful examination of swallows is somewhat dicey, since if you attempt to follow them circling and wheeling with your binoculars, you run the risk of vertigo and nausea.  Therefore, it almost better to observe with the naked eye, and  I suddenly realized that some of the swallows were smaller and some had forked tails.  The forked tails were easy – those are barn swallows, but the smaller brown ones are either bank swallows or rough winged swallows.  One stopped long enough to get the binoculars on it and to see the tell tale brown necklace of a bank swallow.

Bank Swallow

Barn Swallow

 April 22^nd

The black and white warbler is like an old friend that I see every year, but despite having committed its song to memory – it sounds like a rusty wheel turning – I realize I have never heard it sing.  The rough legged hawk is a new species for me, and fortunately its markings are so distinct, I feel comfortable in the identification.  Hawks are generally only seen from below, and with different molts and morphs I sometimes give up on the project.

New Birds

Black and White Warbler

Rough Legged Hawk

Rough Winged Swallow

April 24nd

I have now come to a crossroads in my birding ventures. So far I have concentrated on the low hanging fruit of the birding world – warblers.  Their characteristic colors and songs make identification fairly straightforward, but now I must come to grips with the sparrows.  There are many of them and they all look alike, sometimes collectively referred to as “little brown jobs,” and somehow their songs are not that memorable.  While many of the warbler songs are turned into cheerful verbal representations (yellow warbler = sweet, sweet, little more sweet; chestnut sided warbler = pleased, pleased, pleased to meet ‘ya) with few exceptions there are not many mnemonics for the sparrows.  Plus they tend to be grassland birds, and can easily disappear between the stalks, limiting any type of close observation.  I feel comfortable with the basic sparrows, which include those commonly seen at your feeder – the house sparrow, white throated and chipping sparrow, but for the others I have tended to throw up my hands in despair.  Today on my walk I came across a sparrow that looked somehow different, it just had a different “Gizz.”.  This birding expression (although I have also heard mushroomers use it to separate edible, palatable and lethal fungi) is apparently derived from the military term G.I.S, standing for “general impression and shape.”  It describes some innate feel that the bird is somehow different.  Although a Gizz may be innate, it is certainly informed by the practiced eye.  And even though I have no experience when it comes to sparrows, I felt that this was something different, and since the sparrow was cooperating by walking down the path, I had a chance for thoughtful analysis.  However, I was stricken to realize that I had forgotten my bird book.  I tried to remember as many features as I could.

April 25^th

Well, I think that it was a Fox Sparrow, based on its longer tail and reddish hue. But the question is whether I should add this unconfirmed sighting to my life list. The Fox Sparrow is certainly common, it is just that I have never seen one. There are many who keep competitive life lists, and there are even contests to see who can see the most number of birds in the continental Unites States in any one given year. Some of my winter reading focused on these contests – Kingbird Highway, The Big Year and Wild America, among others. In these contests the truly competitive birder will drop everything and hop on a plane and fly to see the stray migrant that shows up on our country’s margins. Kingbird Highway, by Kenn Kaufman, is the most entertaining, since this is the account of a teenager who dropped out of school and hitchhiked across the country and up to Alaska chasing stray birds. In the 1970s, his budget for the entire year was about $1,000! While I am certainly at the very casual end of birding, I still feel that I am bound by the honor system. I am reminded of playing solitaire card games as a child, and the overwhelming temptation to bend the rules just a little bit. I watched my younger brother Tim playing one day; he was playing the basic solitaire game where you have seven cards across and you are trying to play everything up on the aces. I overheard Tim say under his breath, “On Wednesdays, you can temporarily have an extra eighth space for a ten.” He then slid the ten over, the game opened up, and he triumphantly announced, “I won!”

Although I am conflicted, fox sparrow is now bird No. 213 on my list. And while I’m at it, I am pretty sure that other bird was a swamp sparrow. I stand on the edge of the slippery slope of the honor system.

New Birds Seen:

Fox Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Pictures courtesy of Allen Siegle