Yard Squad Challenge

 Did you know there is such a thing as Fantasy Birding?  I didn't either until I got drawn into the competition from the real world side.  Fantasy Birding, like fantasy football or baseball, is an 'armchair' way to be a birder from the comfort of your own home.  So for anyone who likes competition and likes birds but is more of a fair-weather nature fan, go check out fantastybirding.com.

Red-tailed Hawk- species I can find throughout the challenge. (digibinned)

Now what does this have to do with me?  Well, the organizer of the website is also hosting real world birding competitions, that will also have a fantasy component.  Around 125 folks from around the world, divided into 12 teams, will go out and try to see the most bird species possible over a 3-month period during spring migration.  Each individual person will bird within their "yard" patch, up to a 5-mile radius circle.  The 5-mile circle just happens to be the same as my other competition, so now I have double the motivation.  

Bufflehead (male)- wintering ducks will be early targets

Going through the checklists from eBird hotspots over the past 100+ years, I have the potential for around 195 species, although a few of those were one-time vagrants.  The reality is seeing 150 species during this time would be a amazing.  The clock for me starts at midnight today EDT, and I can't wait to get going!  If you'd like to follow along with my progress (outside of the blog) and even join the competition as a fantasy birder, I encourage you to go check out the website.  My team is the American Dippers, although hopefully we don't dip on too many species.  

Common Goldeneye- most of my images will probably be this bad but the species is clear.

I have a list of target species to get started with as soon as possible and my plan is to start with a stop at a local pond tomorrow on my way home from work.  We also get points for adding media to our sightings, so maybe you'll get to see some horrible photos of birds as I see them.  And on top of all this, I still have some bird species to confirm breeding in for the CT Breeding Bird Survey but more on that next time!

My Snowy Owl

There has been a large influx of Snowy Owls in the Northeast this year.  Since I have started birding again in a real way, about the last five years, we haven't had a decent showing of Snowy Owls... until this past week.  By the way, it's a lifer.  After a couple of reports of Snowy Owls seen in CT, one was close enough to make a run for.  So in the middle of the afternoon, I booked out of work for an hour or so and headed to Milford Point.  It was worth it.

Light might not be the best and led to a very soft image when in conjunction with my crappy lens.  But a record shot it is.  I was lucky enough to see another one about a week later in the same area but obviously a different bird, being very dark.  This one I believe was called a female, I have no skill in figuring out the difference.  I'm just glad that they are here and I hope I have another chance to get out and take a bit better of an image.  As I got to this point, at the boundary where the US Fish and Wildlife Area began, the bird seemed to be paying more attention to me and so I snapped a few quick shots and backed up so as not to spook the bird.  Not everyone is as accommodating, on Sunday I even saw two men walk through the off-limits area to go around the other side of that bird to get closer.  I heard that the bird left shortly there-after. 

The map above illustrates locations of all the spots where Snowy Owls have been seen in November and so far this December.  This data was pulled from eBird a website where everyone can participate in a citizen science project that collects sightings of birds all over the world. 

 

Without actually downloading data from eBird and creating my own maps,  the above is the total number of reports for Snowy Owls from Nov-Feb for the past 5 years.  While this is influenced by a lot factors (ie. number of people birding, ease of birds visibility, and number of reports); it's more an illustration of the chance of seeing one.

Here's the same data BUT from the 5 years previous.  aka.  2004-2008.  It looks like the last big year for Snowies in Connecticut was 2008 the winter before I started birding again.  There's lots of great ways to look at birds sightings and distributions on eBird, like these two graphs from the website.  Go check it out and submit your observations!

West Trip part 2

Where was I....

After my conference in Rapid City , SD, I again met up with the leader from the bird field trip and he graciously offered to chauffeur me around for another day of birding.  While in the field trip we were limited by the preset route; now we could go anywhere and had already done the Black Hills before.  So, this time we set out to do the lowlands with a quick stop at the base of some hills where Pinyon Jay had been seen before.  We lucked out for Pinyon Jay but did have a nice bit of activity.  Black-billed Magpie, House Finch, and Cedar Waxwings were all moving around the pines. 

My bird host Gene at our first stop

From there we headed out into the agricultural areas and to a seasonal pond.  We got lucky with water and birds. 

Seasonal pond- American Avocets and such..

The most important for me was Wilson's Phalarope (lifer)!  Not a great picture but it will work. 

Wilson's Phalarope

While staring at the pond there were a couple of Upland Sandpipers that let me know, they would rather I got back into the car and leave them ALONE!

Upland Sandpiper

While distracted by me the Uppies didn't pay attention to the real threats and one almost 'bought the farm' when this guy showed up....

Red-tailed Hawk

Fly away Upland Sandpiper!!!

Luckily, the Red-winged Blackbirds were there to help chase the Red-tailed Hawk away. 

 

Call me weird but I did get a couple of life birds on my trip that I didn't want.  (What????).  Not being a huge 'lister' I'm not compelled to see every bird possible at every spot.  And the truth is there are just some birds I want to see at home!  These are the few that aren't everywhere in CT but can be found on random occasions.  And they are birds that seem to be avoiding me.  One of these species flew across our path while heading through a little wooded area near a farm.  It was a Red-headed Woodpecker (lifer).  But since we saw another one too I guess I can't complain too much.  No picture because they really are bad.

We decided to head east a bit but on the way this eagle caught our eye.  We never got close enough for good looks or photos and this is about the best.  We called it a Bald Eagle but now I begin to wonder....  What do you think?

The eagle:  Bald?  Golden?

Once we made it out to the east of Rapid City, we poked along in some more fields and enjoyed quite a bit of nature, not all birdy either.

Thanks to the fences and fence posts, we did get some fantastic views of Horned Larks...

Horned Lark

Lark Buntings (lifer).....

Lark Bunting

and Grasshopper Sparrows!

Grasshopper Sparrow

Probably the cutest stop of the day was as we headed back into town, right after we almost made a Gray Partridge (lifer) road kill around a bend in the road; we found a nice colony of prairie dogs (awww)

Black-tailed prairie dog

Do you kow what will reuse prairie dog holes?  That's right Burrowing Owls. (awww how cute!)

Burrowing Owl

And what trip to South Dakota would be complete without a picture of pronghorn antelopes. (ps... they aren't really antelopes) 

The un-antelope antelope..  Antilocapra americana