My Sandy Experience

Hurricane Sandy / Image credit: NASA GOES Project

Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey around 8 pm on October 29. Up until that point, things had been going as well as could be expected, with a lot of rain and wind, but not much damage. Around the time Sandy made landfall, trouble started with the electricity. First the lights started flickering, and then there were two or three momentary power drops — the lights would go off, my desk fan (to cool my laptop) would stop, and I'd lose my internet connection. Each time, the power was restored after about a minute. Then around 8:30 pm, the power went off for good. It was off until about 6 pm last night. A lot of nearby towns are still without power.

The good news is that I survived the storm with no injuries. So did my parents and sisters and everyone else I know that I've been able to contact so far. My house is still intact, and the water never got cut off. It also isn't 90°F, so life without electricity was a lot more bearable. I am so glad that the stove and hot water heater are both powered by natural gas and not electricity. There was surprisingly little flooding for a storm of this magnitude, at least in Central New Jersey. Low-lying areas were wet, and a few roads were flooded, but the main roads seemed to be open. The flooding was nothing like that during Irene and Floyd.

While there was little flooding, the wind was ferocious on October 29. It was the worst wind storm I can remember. Many trees and branches are down. I saw at least one car with a Silver Maple on top of it. Bradford Pears were massacred. One Gingko had its top ripped off and tossed on the ground beside it. Other trees took power lines with them, and some crashed through houses. Many trees in my birding patch were uprooted. The Norway Maples along the back fence of my yard lost a lot of limbs, including a big one that crushed the fence.

I feel very lucky because this could easily have been a lot worse, and there are still a lot of people that have no power or water or even homes in some cases.

I did a little bit of post-hurricane birding on Tuesday morning, once I had an idea of what the storm had caused. There was nothing rare at Donaldson Park, my one stop. The Chipping Sparrows I had seen on October 28 were still there, though reduced in number. There were hundreds of gulls, including 119 Laughing Gulls. These are almost certainly storm-blown birds since they rarely visit the site except during unusual weather patterns. I also saw a Peregrine Falcon and a Northern Harrier. The latter might be a storm-displaced bird, though it is hard to be certain. I have only seen one other harrier at the site as far as I can remember, and that was several years ago. The Peregrine, of course, is a local breeder.

My Best Photos of 2011

In 2011, I took at least one photo on every day of the year and uploaded it to Flickr. A lot of users do projects like this, sometimes called a 365 project. I never really announced that I was doing one but just tried to keep it going for as long as I could. Here is a sample of my best images from last year, one from each month.

1. January: Red Crossbill at Seven Presidents Park 
2. February Tonight's Sunset (2/10/2011) 
3. March: Sun Rises Over Cape May Point 
4. April: Snowy Egret 
5. May: Bleeding hearts 
6. June: Oriental Beetle 
7. July: Red-banded Hairstreak 
8. August: Gray-hooded Gull is not impressed by your Wonder Wheel 
9. September: Trichopoda pennipes 
10. October: Hoverfly 
11. November: Rose and fallen leaves 
12. December: Douglas Firs

Eight of those twelve images were shot within a short walking distance of my home.

From among those photos, I feel that my best was this image of a hoverfly I took in October. It was feeding on a chrysanthemum in my backyard. A lot of elements came together in a photo that I did not expect to turn out so well: good lighting, enough depth-of-field to keep most of the insect in focus, and a flower whose rays lead the eye naturally to the insect. I blogged about this image once before.

My best bird photo of the year was probably this photo of a Snowy Egret that I took at the South Cape May Meadows in April.

We are already on our third day of 2012, and I am still reviewing what happened last year. My blogging will turn to things from the new year soon, though.

Top 8 Nature Moments of 2008

This meme seems to be making the rounds again (see here, here, also here), so here are my top nature moments of 2008.

1. Working with raptors in Cape May – not really a "moment" but still the top nature-related experience of the past year.
2. Seeing a Golden Eagle for the first time (up really close).
   
3. Seeing a Scott's Oriole in Union Square – my 300th life bird!
4. Watching a flock of redpolls.
5. Participating in the 10th C&O Canal Count.
6. Waiting for Short-eared Owls in Franklin Twp.
7. Watching Peregrines slicing through wind and rain.
8. Participating in the Lower Hudson and Raritan Estuary CBCs.
   

It is not really a "nature moment," but this event got the year off to a good start.

See also my top nature moments of 2007.

End of the Season

The end of the raptor banding season came over the weekend. We closed the last station a day early due to the threat of rain – rain that did materialize. Over the course of the season, banders recorded 2,155 raptors. Of that total, I probably handled around 500 of them in the course of retrieving hawks from nets and doing public demos. The season totals are on the project's weekly updates page. In the course of the season, I learned how to capture raptors, how to handle them (mostly without getting footed), and how to process and band them. I am hoping to learn songbirds as well in the near future.

My season in Cape May has come to an end as well. During the three months I spent at the Cape, I saw 173, including nine life birds. My stay there was extremely productive from a birding perspective, even though I had very little time to explore the Cape's hotspots.

Normal blogging will resume slowly this week. In particular, I hope to restart the Loose Feathers series this Friday.

Phillies Win!

Congratulations to the Phillies! I was alive for their first World Series win, but too young to remember it.

(Bird posts to return in the morning.)

Meal Meme

I picked this up from Snail's Eye View via Hawk Owl's Nest. As you can see, my cuisine is not all that adventurous. I am sure there are some more things on this list that I would not touch, but that I do not recognize.

Venison
Nettle tea
Huevos rancheros
Steak tartare
Crocodile
Black pudding
Cheese fondue
Carp
Borscht
Baba ghanoush
Calamari
Pho
PB&J sandwich
Aloo gobi (well, probably)
Hot dog from a street cart
Epoisses
Black truffle
Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
Steamed pork buns
Pistachio ice cream
Heirloom tomatoes
Fresh wild berries (yum, fresh wild blueberries and beach plums - typical Jersey fruits)
Foie gras (for good reason)
Rice and beans (a key part of the Oliver Twist Diet)
Brawn
Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
Dulce de leche
Oysters
Baklava
Bagna cauda
Wasabi peas
Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
Salted lassi (I have only tried sweet and mango lassi)
Sauerkraut
Root beer float
Cognac with a fat cigar
Clotted cream tea
Vodka jelly/Jell-O
Gumbo
Oxtail
Curried goat
Whole insects
Phaal
Goat's milk (only as cheese)
Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
Fugu
Chicken tikka masala
Eel
Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
Sea urchin
Prickly pear
Umeboshi
Abalone
Paneer (yum)
McDonald's Big Mac Meal
Spaetzle
Dirty gin martini
Beer above 8% (not sure; possibly)
Poutine
Carob chips
S'mores
Sweetbreads
Kaolin
Currywurst
Durian
Frogs' legs
Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
Haggis
Fried plantain
Chitterlings or andouillette
Gazpacho
Caviar and blini
Louche absinthe
Gjetost or brunost
Roadkill
Baijiu
Hostess Fruit Pie
Snail
Lapsang souchong
Bellini
Tom yum
Eggs Benedict
Pocky
Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
Kobe beef
Hare
Goulash
Flowers (only as tea)
Horse
Criollo chocolate
Spam
Soft shell crab
Rose harissa
Catfish
Mole poblano
Bagel and lox
Lobster Thermidor
Polenta
Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
Snake

Blog Note: Off to Cape May

Today I am moving to Cape May to take a job for the fall migration season. I will be working with raptors: helping with banding and doing public presentations. This will give me the opportunity to be more directly involved with bird conservation and to experience one of the East Coast's premier bird migration sites.

I expect to be very busy, so blogging may be lighter than usual, especially over the next few weeks. For the next week or so, I have scheduled a mix of new posts with some reposts of older material to run while I move and get settled. I will resume regular posting myself as soon as I can. The Loose Feathers series may need to go on hiatus for at least the first few weeks and perhaps for the fall. I will still try to post some bird news, though.

Still Bird Blogging

Mike Bergin asks: "Why are you still bird blogging?"

Now some readers might wonder whether I am still bird blogging. In recent weeks, posting topics have included public transportation, Daily Show videos, Supreme Court decisions, Bush administration follies, the border wall, a pink millipede, climate change, federal legislation, and Hummers. If you look back further into the archives, you can find many more non-bird topics, or at least posts that do not explicitly feature birds or birding.

Contrary to rumor, I am still blogging about birds, even if the focus of my bird blogging has changed. While I originally intended this blog was to focus on birding trip reports, lately my focus has shifted more to bird and environmental news. So why do I still blog about birds after three years?

Here are a few reasons:

1. Birds are endlessly fascinating creatures.
   
2. I still watch birds and go birding whenever I can.
3. I still see life birds from time to time.
   
4. Birds are relevant to human health.
5. Birds are affected by ongoing environmental problems.
6. I am still involved in bird surveys.
7. There is a steady stream of research about birds.
8. Rare birds still need help and protection.
   

I could probably think of more, but those ought to suffice to answer the question. All of those things give me plenty of writing material and plenty of reason to keep writing about it. Plus, the knowledge that there are regular readers who are interested in what I have to write keeps me posting even through the most prolonged bouts of writer's block.

Three Years

I neglected to mention yesterday that it was this blog's blogoversary, though some readers noticed the marker at the bottom of the page. Bird blogging has changed tremendously in the last three years. When I wrote my first post, I knew of only a handful of other bird blogs; now there are hundreds. (Mike Bergin's Nature Blog Network lists 344 blogs, and I am sure that there are others out there.) There are also more professional birders with blogs than three years ago. Some blogs that I really enjoyed have since stopped publishing, or disappeared entirely; other new sites have taken their places.

This blog has also changed its focus. I originally conceived it as a way to write more expansively about my field birding. Since then bird and environmental news has gradually taken over and is now the main topic that I write about. Within the last year, the blog also survived a change in my location, from DC to New Jersey.

Here are a few highlights from the last year:

• Bald Eagles No Longer Endangered
• Shorebirds at Jamaica Bay
• Bar-tailed Godwits on the Move
• Warblers at Noon; Rails at Dusk
• Bird Claws and Evolution
• 1 in 1,000,000
• Counting on the Canal
• A Rare Bird by Subway
  

My Birding Binoculars

Patrick recently asked his readers to describe their first pairs of binoculars. I could give several possible answers to this question.

Like Laura, I started birding – in the sense of going out to look for birds and keeping lists – in my mid 20s. However, I was interested in wildlife and the natural world for a long time before that, so I had binoculars before I really started birding. My first pair was a Tasco 7×35 that I received as a gift when I was fairly young. I forget the model name, and I cannot find them to look it up. I do remember that they were quite basic, with plastic lenses and no diopter.

In my early 20s I bought another pair, a previously-owned Meade 8×40, so that I could bring them along on hikes in case anything looked interesting. Again, I cannot remember the exact model, and I no longer have them. These were my primary binoculars at the time I started to become more interested in birds. They served me well for several years, until I accidentally dropped them on my apartment floor. The impact misaligned the internal mirrors, and repair would have cost about $80, more than I had paid for them. So I looked for another pair to replace them.

After some research – and reading a lot of reviews – I bought a Swift Audubon 8.5×44 (porro prism). This was the cheapest pair that matched my requirements and was designed specifically for birding. What I liked most was the wide field of view – great for watching fast-moving songbirds – and the relatively close focus. As long as I kept the lenses clean, it produced a clear image with enough detail to make most identifications. What I did not like was the weight, which I felt especially on long walks. Since this was the first pair I acquired specifically for birding, one could say that it was my first birding binoculars.

That pair served me well for about four years, including two big days, several bird counts, and about 120 life birds. It survived a few falls, including once when I fell face-down on top of them with the binoculars around my neck.

I would still be using that pair, except that a few months ago, I received a much better one, a Zeiss Conquest 8×30. The improvement in image quality has been remarkable. The most surprising part to me has been how bright of an image the Zeiss Conquest produces even in low-light conditions. It seems to be brighter than the Swift Audubon, despite the latter's larger objective lenses and exit pupil. Since it is a roof prism, it is also very light, so I do not have to worry about back and neck pain as much. Now I no longer use the Swift Audubon pair much at all, though I still keep them ready as a backup.

So what were your first birding binoculars? Are you still using the same pair? Please post to your own blog or leave a comment.

Six Word Memoir Meme

John, the Born Again Bird Watcher, asked me to do the six word memoir meme that has been floating around the nature blogs. I am far too young to be thinking of memoirs. In keeping with the bloggy nature of the meme, I decided to do a blog memoir instead.

I finally saw a cerulean warbler.

Long-time readers will know what that means.

I think most of my regular readers have done this meme already, so I will not tag anyone new. If you have not done it, consider yourself tagged.

1 in 1,000,000

I have written about eBird on a few occasions on this blog (for example, here and here). EBird is a website, run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, that solicits sightings reports from birders across the Americas. Data from the submitted checklists is used by scientists at the CLO for population and distribution studies. The site's public software allows registered users to view their own submitted data, along with data submitted by other birders.

Since late summer, I have been contributing lists of my bird sightings to eBird. In December, one of my lists became the one millionth checklist submitted to eBird.

The one millionth checklist was one I submitted for a recent trip to Liberty State Park. Shortly after the submission, I received a notification from eBird that my name would be featured in a press release and that they would send me a pair of Zeiss binoculars as a gift to commemorate the occasion. The news came as a real surprise. I had no idea that eBird was planning a prize for the one millionth checklist, or that the one million-checklist milestone was even approaching.

The press release is now online.

Here is the millionth checklist.

Location:	Liberty State Park
Observation date:	12/15/07
Notes:	30degF; 20mph wind
Number of species:	34
Brant	400
Canada Goose	150
Mute Swan	1
Gadwall	100
American Wigeon	3
American Black Duck	30
Mallard	6
Ring-necked Duck	1
Greater Scaup	170
Bufflehead	10
Red-breasted Merganser	3
Ruddy Duck	60
Horned Grebe	5
Double-crested Cormorant	8
Great Blue Heron	1
Black-crowned Night-Heron	1
Northern Harrier	1
Sharp-shinned Hawk	1
Killdeer	3
Ring-billed Gull	180
Herring Gull	40
Great Black-backed Gull	3
Rock Pigeon	100
Mourning Dove	1
Downy Woodpecker	1
Horned Lark	3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	1
Northern Mockingbird	3
European Starling	40
American Tree Sparrow	3
Song Sparrow	2
Snow Bunting	60
American Goldfinch	4
House Sparrow	20

Eight Random Facts

As I was completing the birding meme on Monday, I remembered that some time ago, John at Born Again Bird Watcher tagged me with the Eight Random Facts meme that has been spreading around the blog world. Though I have been slow in responding, I did not want to pass since I have enjoyed John's blog since I first became aware of it. (And subsequently David and BirdCouple have tagged me, too.) So I decided to finish and post my response.

First, the rules for Eight Random Facts:

• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
  

Now for my facts:

1. On the night owl - early bird continuum, I tend to be a night owl. This has been true for me for as long as I can remember. Sometimes this gets in the way of good birding.
2. But for the last month or so, I have been more of an early riser.
3. My five favorite birding experiences since I started this blog have been seeing my first cerulean warbler, watching phoebes and yellow-rumped warblers in the snow, coming face-to-face with a barred owl, hearing chorusing barred owls late at night, and reaching 101 species on a birdathon in DC.
4. I am a historian by training; my interest in nature is something that developed gradually outside of my academic pursuits.
5. Central Jersey is considered Mets territory, but I grew up as a phan of the baseball team that recently lost its 10,000 game.
6. My eighth grade class was the last to graduate from my elementary school.
7. Places I will miss walking in DC: the Mall in the spring, Kenilworth during summer, Rock Creek Park in fall migration, the Arboretum in winter.
8. Places I look forward to seeing more in NJ: Great Swamp, Sandy Hook, and the lower Jersey Shore.
   

This seems to have passed around to most of the bird blogging niche - or at least to most of the blogs that I read regularly, so I am not going to tag anyone. But if you have not done it, and would like to, consider yourself tagged.

Blogger Migration

As of today, I am no longer living in Washington, D.C., but in Central New Jersey. I moved yesterday with the help of my parents. It took longer than expected to load the truck and make the drive thanks to a series of problems that were mostly beyond our control (jammed doors, elevators out of service, etc.). I am going to miss D.C., but I think this will be a good move.

So now that I am not in DC anymore, this blog probably should have a new name. I have some ideas, but I have not settled on anything yet. Blogging will be light this week while I get settled.

In addition to writing this blog, I was on the Board of Directors for the DC Audubon Society and maintained their website. While some site administration can be done at a distance, it is preferable to have the site's administrator and writers working in close communication with the board. If any DC-area birders would be interested in writing for the DC Audubon website, please let me know.

Evening on the Mall and Two Years of Blogging

After a week of hot and sticky weather, today was actually fairly comfortable. This evening I walked over to the Capitol to enjoy the change.

As usual, there is a contingent of mallards on the Capitol's reflecting pool. Some were guarding ducklings. Most of the males were molting, as in the photograph below. One hooded merganser was swimming by itself in the middle of the pool.

Red-winged blackbirds take advantage of the lush foliage of the Indian Museum's wetland pond. I am pretty sure they breed here, but I have yet to spot a nest.


All around the Mall, I could hear the begging calls of young birds. The mockingbirds below were in the midst of an exchange in a tree on the Capitol's west lawn.

I missed my blogiversary earlier this week. I started this blog two years ago on Monday. Now, over 900 posts later, I cannot believe the time has passed so quickly.

Taking Requests

I am working on planning out a few new writing themes for this year. Since I have not worked out the details yet, I am not going to unveil them at this time. I am thinking that some series on local birds and local birding opportunities might be in order. What I would like to know is whether there are any topics that my readers would like to covered. Is there anything that I am already doing that you would like to see extended? Are there any topics that I am not covering that you would like me to take up? Should I do more of the technical or metablogging posts like last night's post on RSS?

I will probably retire the Birds of the Mid-Atlantic Series, which has gone about as far as I want to take it. By the end of last year, I found that my posts for that series had started to become somewhat repetitive - if not in subject matter then certainly in structure. Once that happened, I felt it was time to move on to something else. (I may still make an occasional post for that series, if something strikes me.)

So if there are any themes you would like me to cover here, please let me know, either by adding a note to the comments for this post, or sending an email to empidonax@gmail.com.

Non-Bird Notes from the Eastern Shore

Trapping is still practiced near the Blackwater NWR. A local hunter traps muskrats on the refuge during the winter season. Their fur goes to the garment industry, musk glands are sold for perfumes, and the meat is sold by local grocery stores. The practice may sound cruel to modern ears, but it does play a role in refuge management. Trapping helps keep the muskrat population in check and prevents muskrats from overrunning the refuge and destroying the aquatic vegetation that migrant waterfowl need. Blackwater only recently eradicated its population of invasive nutria, which had stripped much of the marshes bare of their grasses.

Historic Highways

Many Washington-area birders travel to Delaware Refuges such as Bombay Hook and Prime Hook to view their concentrations of waterbirds and shorebirds in fall and spring. Many of the rural roads we travel to reach these refuges are also rich in history. Northern Delaware was an important corridor for the Underground Railroad. A portion of that network may be designated as a scenic and historic highway.

Travelers who make the journey from the Choptank River in Maryland to the Pennsylvania border will follow routes 10, 15, 9 and 299, passing more than 20 sites connected to the Underground Railroad. The landmarks include houses, churches, fields and vacant lots.

"We are not pointing out one particular Underground Railroad route, but using contemporary roadways to touch on as many sites as we can to give people a sense of the passage from west to north and from the south to the north," said Debra Martin, preservation planner for the city of Wilmington.

One of my sisters has been working on this project and researching some of the sites for the past year.

Birthday Blogging

Today is my birthday. I cannot believe that another year has passed.

I picked up this birthday meme from Nuthatch, whose birthday was yesterday. The instructions are to go to Wikipedia and look up the birth month and day (without the year), and select three events, three births, and three deaths from the list of events.

Events

• 218 BC - Second Punic War: Battle of the Trebia - Hannibal's Carthaginian forces defeat those of the Roman Republic.
• 1787 - New Jersey becomes the third state to ratify the United States Constitution.
• Slavery is abolished in the United States. The 13th Amendment is formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." (not listed on the Wikipedia list)
  

Births

• 1610 - Charles du Fresne, sieur du Cange, French philologist (d. 1688)
• 1886 - Ty Cobb, American baseball player (d. 1961)
• 1888 - Robert Moses, American public works official (d. 1981)

Deaths

• 1737 - Antonio Stradivari, Italian violin maker (b. 1644)
• 1869 - Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer and pianist (b. 1829)
• 1980 - Alexei Kosygin, Premier of the USSR (b. 1904)

Happy Thanksgiving

Wild Turkey / Photo by Gary M. Stolz (USFWS)

I hope that you all are enjoying your Thanksgiving, whether you are eating a turkey dinner or something else.

If you are curious to learn more about this interesting bird, here is a post that I wrote on turkeys last November.

And here's a funny picture from New Jersey involving wild turkeys and a train. (via GrrlScientist)

From the article:

"For a moment, it looked like the turkeys were waiting for the next outbound train," said Dan Stessel, a spokesman for NJ Transit. "Clearly, they're trying to catch a train and escape their fate."

Transit workers followed the bird's movements on surveillance cameras. "I have no idea how they got there," Stessel said....

"From time to time, I've heard calls that there are turkeys on the loose," said Erik Endress, president of the Ramsey Rescue Squad, a volunteer group. "Maybe they're trying to make a break."

The Birder Survey

Patrick of Hawk Owl's Nest has started this survey on his blog. Here are my answers.

What state (or country) do you live in? DC, USA
How long have you been birding? 3 years
Are you a "lister"? Yes
ABA Life List: 284
Overall Life List: 284
3 Favorite Birding Spots: National Arboretum, DC; Blackwater, MD; Bombay Hook, DE
Favorite birding spot outside your home country: n/a
Farthest you've traveled to chase a rare bird: 1.5 hours for a Snowy Owl
Nemesis bird: Horned Lark
"Best" bird sighting: Cape May Warbler in Constitution Gardens, DC
Most wanted trip: Colombia
Most wanted bird: Horned Lark
What model and brand of bins do you use?: Swift Audubon 8.5 x 44
What model and brand of scope do you use?: n/a
What was the last lifer you added to your list?: Pacific-slope Flycatcher
Where did you see your last lifer?: Cascades, WA
What's the last bird you saw today?: European Starling
Best bird song you've heard ever: Winter Wren (and others)
Favorite birding moment: Seeing a Cerulean Warbler for the first time
Least favorite thing about birding: Finding transportation to good spots
Favorite thing about birding: Listening to birds
Favorite field guide for the US: Sibley
Favorite non-field guide bird book: Kingbird Highway
Who is your birder icon?: Pete Dunne
Do you have a bird feeder(s)? No
Favorite feeder bird? n/a

I am following Patrick's lead in not tagging anyone, but feel free to pass it along.

Tags:

• Meme
• Birding
• Birder Survey