WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2020   |   SUBSCRIBE    ARCHIVES   

BACKYARD BIRDING
Many bird nests and nesting activities are obvious, but some birds can be surprisingly secretive about the location of their nest, and hide their approaches to and from the nest site to avoid detection. Even experienced birders can be surprised that an undetected nest is only revealed after a fledgling appears in your yard. Although the first fledglings began appearing many months ago in the Sunbelt, it’s been six weeks or so since the first fledglings left their nest in more northern areas.
BIRDING LIFESTYLES
Each year during the third week of June I celebrate the peak of hatching among Arctic-nesting geese. One June, I traveled to one of the premier goose nesting locations in North America – the Yukon River Delta – to experience the nesting season among four nesting goose populations and a wealth of ducks, shorebirds, and such outstanding birds as Tundra Swans, Lesser Sandhill Cranes, Willow Ptarmigan, Lapland Longspurs, and more.
BIRDING NEWS
Celebrated wildlife photographer Melissa Groo leads you through more than three hours of video instruction that covers 30 bird photography topics in a new online course offered by the Cornell Lab’s Bird Academy. The videos are accompanied by text information, image galleries, and guided practice designed to build your confidence and abilities in photographing birds. Special topics include how to photograph shorebirds and photographing birds in flight.
The American Birding Podcast’s host, Nate Swick, shares an interview with two co-organizers of BlackBirdersWeek, Corina Newsome and Tykee James, who discuss what the week meant to them, and how to progress from there. Tykee James is the government affairs coordinator for the National Audubon Society and the host of the podcast “On Word for Wildlife.” Corina Newsome is an ornithology graduate student at Georgia Southern University, and both Tykee and Corina are avid birders.
Scientists have long known that birds probably have better color vision than humans do, and according to a new study, hummingbirds definitely see colors that humans cannot detect. In fact, hummingbirds may see the world in a much different way than what humans see, considering they see the ultra-violet spectrum, which includes colors such as UV-green and UV-red. Recent field experiments with wild Broad-tailed Hummingbirds near the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado provides new insights into the topic.
EDITOR AFIELD
The last species to arrive on the wide open native prairie south of my office were Dickcissels that seemed to seamlessly fit in among territorial Bobolinks, Clay-colored Sparrows, and other passerines. Even though they were last to arrive, they arrived singing, and I’ve never seen more in the area. Three and four years ago there were none; the past two years I have found two pockets of territorial Dickcissels, but last week they took over an enormous area that stretches for miles across the ultra-green prairie areas.
GEAR
The Bushnell Engage 8x42 ED Binoculars deliver top performance, both optically and ergonomically, that makes them highly competitive with other binoculars in this price range – and they’re on sale now with $70 off. The lens and prism systems yield an exceptionally clear view, and fully multi-coated ED (extra-low dispersion) lenses transmit a high percentage of incoming light and minimize chromatic aberration. The PC-3 phase-coated roof prisms help brighten your view and improve contrast in all the birds you observe.
PRODUCTS
A photographic celebration of the diverse family of pheasants, grouse, quail, partridges, ptarmigan, and turkeys, the large-format book Game Birds – A Celebration of North American Upland Birds beautifully illustrates and describes the 34 different gallinaceous birds found across the United States and Canada. This milestone book features 384 spectacular color photos that range from the diverse mating displays of the different grouse species to close-ups of the intricately marked Montezuma Quail, providing impressive collections of photographs of each species.
Simple yet elegant, this new translucent orange hard-plastic dish feeder attracts beautiful orioles to your yard or business when filled with grape jelly or cut oranges. The stylish orange dish fits perfectly in the center of its metal holder atop the 19-inch long stake that you can easily install almost anywhere. It’s easy to fill and clean the 3-ounce capacity dish – just add grape jelly and orioles! But wait, you will find that House Finches, catbirds, and even robins may frequent this jelly feeder, along with orioles.
RARE BIRDS
Two First State Records were reported last week, a first Black Skimmer for Michigan and a first Scarlet Tanager in Washington. The biggest excitement may have come from Big Bend National Park in Texas, where a Slate-throated Redstart was sighted. There was also a Tricolored Heron found by birders in Newfoundland, a Neotropic Cormorant in Missouri, and a Brown Booby in Pennsylvania. Also, a most impressive list of very rare birds continue to be seen in Arizona.
 

While negotiating a particularly strong wind, the action of a Marbled Godwit banking was framed at the Wet Meadows photo hotspot.

This is an especially busy time in the bird world, with whole communities of birds singing, establishing and protecting nesting territories, building nests, incubating eggs, searching for food, feeding and brooding nestlings, feeding and protecting hatchlings, and more – which means lots of exciting photo opportunities. The birds are present, so when the light is right, where are you planning to be?

As the season progresses, dedicated bird photographers will search out locations that provide repeated photo opportunities over a period of time. That time may las a few days, a week or two, or a season. In fact, they may renew and reappear annually during a certain time of the year. As with anything related to birds, it seems things are ever-changing, but some locations attract a variety and abundance of birds for a while, and veteran photographers take advantage of these locations as long as they last.

The attraction for birds may be a habitat or mix of habitats, or a food source, or behavioral features such as a series of elevated perches or nesting cavities. Birding vets are always on the lookout for these locations, and always checking back on past photo hotspots – go-to locations that produce photo ops with regularity. A hotspot might be a site you can visit, a trail you can hike, locations along a local drive you take regularly – there’s no set recipe, except a hotspot is a location that attracts interesting birds you can photograph time and time again. The concept of “photo hotspots” may not be obvious to some birders, so let me share a number of my birding hotspots that are go-to photo sites for me now, or during a given season.

Hotspot Examples

The dramatic behavior of a displaying Killdeer provided a few choice photographs as the bird blocked the Lost Road.

At this time, I have four photo hotspots that I frequent for their abundance and diversity of species – and I’m usually successful in photographing birds at each location each time I visit them – even though different species may provide the photo ops during each visit. That’s interesting in itself, but it emphasizes the element of surprise in bird photography – and all aspects of birding – that keeps us interested day after day.

Three of my go-to photo hotspots are local, but my McKenzie hotspot is two hours away. Even so, I have photographed birds at McKenzie for seven consecutive weeks – and each week different species have treated me to primo photo ops: (1) fighting pheasants, (2) displaying Western Grebes, (3) a variety of birds including pelicans, (4) White-faced Ibis, (5) Common and Black Terns, (6) an Eared Grebe, and (7) duck broods.

Local Hotspots

Day to day, I currently have three go-to hotspots that yield an abundance of photo opportunities, especially when the wind dies down. The first of these hotspots begins just a half-mile south of my office and includes three major wetlands that are bisected by the same three-mile length of road. I refer to this photo area as the Three Mile Marshes, and they attract a variety of ducks, geese, and waterbirds, with a scattering of wading birds, shorebirds, passerines, and raptors.

I’ve mentioned the Lost Road before, and that two-mile drive through a remote prairie area is an excellent photo hotspot that now features Common Nighthawks, Upland Sandpipers, Wilson’s Snipe, Bobolinks, Dickcissels, Orchard Orioles, Western Meadowlarks, Eastern and Western Kingbirds, Least Flycatchers, and native sparrows (Clay-colored, Grasshopper, Savanah, and Song Sparrows).

I call the third local photo hotspot the Wet Meadows. Recently, an area of new shallow wetlands that formed for the first time this spring when high water levels spilled over the normal shoreline of an area lake to create shallow floodwater areas that were quickly populated by ducks, shorebirds – including Marbled Godwits, Willets, American Avocets, and Wilson’s Phalaropes.

Short-term and Seasonal Hotspots

A graceful American Avocet in speeding flight above a mudflat created on the south end of the Three Mile Marshes that attracted a temporary concentration of 14 avocets.

Of course, birding hotspots change with time, although mostly they change when birds vacate them. For example, you may remember that I made repeated 80 mile trips to Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge early last spring over a four-week period as spring migration began. After the huge concentrations of geese left the area, I felt I could photograph similar birds near home, so that hotspot was put on hold until late fall or early next spring.

Hotspots are often seasonally recurring, such as my spring warbler “migrant traps,” that are my go-to locations when songbird migration is in full swing. Then too, my winter raptor hotspot centered in the Pierre, South Dakota region is best from December to February when a concentration of eagles, hawks, and falcons lures me a couple hundred miles southwest for overnight photo trips periodically.

Sometimes photo hotspots are linear, that is, they include a favored area to drive a transect through. That may be an option as I drive from one location to another – such as during my weekly drives to Bismarck, Fargo, or Minneapolis. There are a number of routes I can take that pass through excellent habitats and a couple wildlife refuges. Then too, along the way I sometimes encounter a site that offers birds a seasonal habitat or food source that provides a reason to spend some extra time, and perhaps return to.

A hiking trail or walking path through a favored section of an area park or lakeshore can provide good bird photo locations along the way. Your favorite bike trail may pass through a hotspot too, or you may decide a bike is the best way to access an existing hotspot.

While trying an alternate route on the way to the McKenzie hotspot, the payoff was a surprise photo session with a Canvasback with 2 ducklings (2 of the 4 in the full brood).

Actually, I have favorite photo hotspots across the country, from San Diego to the mountains and deserts north and west of Los Angeles, to Glacier National Park, the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone; from Tucson and Phoenix to coastal Texas and southern Florida, northeast Ohio, the Minneapolis and Duluth, Minnesota areas, and beyond – each with remarkable birds at given times of the year – or daily.

As the summer progresses, appreciate and utilize photo hotspots you find; and keep an eye out for potential hotspots that may heat up during other periods of the season and the year. I’ve had great fun and considerable success photographing birds at my four hotspots during recent days and weeks, and I’m hoping for more fun and success in the coming weeks. I wish the same for you as you hone your skills and reap the rewards of bird photography.

Article and photographs by Paul Konrad

Share your bird photographs and birding experiences at editorstbw2@gmail.com

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