a Wyoming mini adventure...

Our Thursday was a bit busy. We woke up early to do our practice point
count session with the Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory crews. And we had
a tiny bit of snow to deal with. Thankfully, we had 4-WD trucks, so we
collected ourselves - having gotten most of our gear, data sheets, and
GPS set the night before - and headed to Wind Cave National Monument.
After finishing the training, the boss and I packed our things up, and
departed for Wyoming (we were in South Dakota, near Custer) and our first
official point count of the season.

After navigating ourselves to our first point - it was about a 3 hour
drive, with the last hour on a maze of dirt roads through the national
grassland - we did some minor exploring, just touching up on our bird
songs. The days were still short (this is in mid-May), so we got our
tents set up. I set in to read for a little bit, then began making
dinner.

While the boss and I made and ate our dinners, the sun was starting to
set. The mountains were far away yet, so we had rolling grassland and
sagebrush hills as far as the eye can see. This part of Wyoming was
mostly open rangeland, so we did see some fences here and there. But our
transect, and our camp location near the road, were on actual national
grassland land (part of the Forest Service). The wind had more or less
ceased by the time the sun was setting.

Crisp, cool air. Calm. Wide open. We enjoyed the quietude and solitude.
And then we began to hear a faint "pip" "pip" "pip" noise, distant. Kind
of like bubble wrap, being popped one bubble at time. We both looked at
each other, walked a bit to the west to the next rise. Still couldn't see
anything - but we could tell it was fairly distant (maybe up to a
kilometer away). And we were fairly sure of what we were hearing. So, if
we were right, we were bound to see and hear it again in the morning, on
the way to the transect.

It is dark out when we awaken the next day. Sunrise is close to six AM,
and we have a long enough walk to the transect we want to make sure we
give ourselves plenty of time. Wind is always a concern: we cannot do our
surveys if the wind is in excess of 20 mph (35 kph), and that is a common
occurrence on the grassland. We had checked the forecast before we left
South Dakota, but still - better safe than sorry. But both of us were
also anxious to see if the noise we heard the night before was what we
thought it was.

We prepare our breakfasts by headlamp, and get ourselves warmed up. It is
near freezing, and layers is the way to go, since it is bound to be up to
30 degrees F warmer by the time the transect is done. During breakfast,
we are keeping our ears peeled, and yes, we do hear the same noise from
the night before, in the same direction. The sounds are a bit more
emphatic, and more frequent. We are now 99% sure of what we found, but it
will be nice to see it to confirm. Plus, it is not something we would
have expected to find, at this time of year.

Breakfast finished - it is still dark, though sunlight is starting to
crest the horizon. We get ourselves together, making sure we have all the
equipment, data sheets, food, and water we need for the morning. Then we
begin walking west. It is not difficult hiking, mostly just sagebrush and
shortgrass prairie grasses through gentle hills. But we watch out for
sneaky cacti, and thorny shrubs that might snag our clothing. And walk
towards the "pip" noises.

After every new rise, we do a brief binocular scan on the next few hills
and valleys, to look for what we are hearing. After the second or third
rise, I say I've found it.

A couple of hill rises away, near a cattle water tank, are ten Greater
Sage Grouse, on their lek. Nothing on our transect description sheets,
written by the crew the previous year, have anything written down about
hearing or seeing one. We were pleasantly surprised to see it - normally
the leks have finished by early May, but due to a heavy snow year,
apparently the birds needed to continue to display, since the females
still needed to select some mates. While watching the males display, we
do see some females nearby, about five. And the males make all sorts of
ruckus. Small jumps. Wing whooshes. Brief charges. Lots of air sac
"popping" (the pip noises). We can tell the two dominant males - they
never stop displaying, they are towards the middle, and seem to charge
the others a bit. The periphery males sometimes seem to not know what to
do.

We admire them for a while from our location, then continue on to our
transect. The work still needs to be done. And the rest of the avian
community is waking up - Brewer's Sparrows, Lark Bunting, Horned Larks,
and Western Meadowlarks, among others.

Our path to the transect - we are being careful to stay on public land -
brings us quite close to the lek. Surprisingly, we are able to pass
within a couple hundred meters of the birds without them seeming to be
bothered. Either they are very devoted to their task at hand, or, for
once, are not leery of human encroachment. We still hear them when we get
to our starting location, so when we begin, we note the lek on our data
sheets, the number, and the location.

Within the first hour of the transect survey, the grouse have finished -
I could not hear them after my second point, but the boss could, since
her points were closer to the lek. We had an overabundance of birds to
count, but finished our transects with plenty of time to spare.

And thus ends the story of my favorite birding moment - so far, anyway.
This was in May 2010.

Migration

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus forficatus). Near Pampa, Texas; 25 September 2011

Migration is a fascinating thing.

Most people only think of birds as the animals that migrate, and only certain species of birds. But in nearly every other major group of animals, there is a species that migrates. Among mammals, there are the mass migrations of the large mammals across the African Savannahs. Some reptiles migrate, such as when sea turtles swim across an ocean to breed on a beach. Some amphibians migrate, such as certain salamanders crawling along the ground to a breeding pool. And certain fish migrate, such as tuna and sharks.

But birds are perhaps the most visible migrants we see, since we can hear their songs, see them in our yards, and some are seen in vast numbers like geese. The traditional migrants people think of are geese, in their long V-shaped lines, and ducks.

Though you see American Robins (Turdus migratorius) year round in some areas, they do migrate! In the United States, the robins you see in winter in New York, Missouri, and other states are not the same you see in the summer! Robins that breed in the far north in Canada and Alaska are perfectly happy in places like New York for the winter; while the birds that breed in New York in the summer fly south and spend the winter in less harsh conditions, such as in Missouri, Texas, or even as far south as Mexico.

Other less commonly known migratory birds are ptarmigans. Being a "grouse-like" bird (chicken like), they are not strong fliers. However, they will migrate short distances, up and down mountain sides corresponding to the seasons, to take advantage of the best food sources.

By far the most abundant groups of migrating birds are those that are inconspicuous to the layperson. As a whole, they are referred to as the "neotropical" or "nearctic" migrants. These are the wood-warblers, the tyrant flycatchers, the thrushes, the vireos, and the new world sparrows, among others. In the fall, well over a billion of these individuals take to the air, and go south. Some go only as far as places in Mexico; most fly to the forests of central America; and a few species will go as far as places in South America.

Think of that - over a billion animals, all with a common purpose: move south.

Now REALLY think about migration for a moment. You can't really "see it", unless you happen to be able to fly an ultralight aircraft and can follow a bird. For most people, they don't even think about migration, until they realize some of their less common backyard birds are gone, or they start to see geese overhead.

I have had the privilege of working a few different jobs where I had the opportunity to "see" migration in a way, including my current one in the Texas panhandle. The way I "see" migration in these cases is by being in the same location, day after day after day, and being outside watching the birds. In southern California in 2008, I conducted feeding observations of birds. I could actually watch how a bird refueled itself for its next flight. Just one of many behaviors I watched (and still watch) that are a part of migration.

Both there in California, and here in Texas, I see migration by the "changing of the species." Over time, the makeup of the bird species I see each day changes, until the birds I saw at the start of the season are no longer present, and new birds have taken their place.

For example, at the start of my time here in Texas, we had a decent variety of birds around. We had Barn Swallows, Cliff Swallows, Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, and both Eastern and Western Kingbirds, among other species. Over the course of a few weeks, we began to see fewer and fewer of these species, and see more and more Horned Larks and both Eastern and Western Meadowlarks, as well as Lark Buntings. Currently, we are slowly increasing our numbers of Field Sparrows, Song Sparrows, and Savannah Sparrows as well. Our most vocal birds, though, are the Sandhill Cranes, which arrived here from the arctic a few weeks ago, and will stay for the winter.

While in Austin this past spring, I also saw the migration occur, in a more limited way. The warblers and vireos trickled through during the months of April and May, bringing some variety to my local bird life. It took a fine ear to make sure that when I was following a chip note, that I was following my breeding species, not a migrant. Learning the chip notes was also a good way for me to find birds when I was leisure birding. And I found my Bay-breasted Warbler this past year that way.

Those small songbirds invest a lot in migration.

These are some powerful birds! A bird such as the Blackpoll Warbler, which is not even 6 inches long, will DOUBLE its weight from around 10 grams (the weight of 4 pennies) to over 20 grams in the fall. Breeding in the boreal forests in the north, it fattens itself up as it slowly makes its way to the east coast, and a little south. Then, when fully fattened, and having the right weather conditions, they take off. Flying a little east and then turning south, they fly non stop from the mid-Atlantic coast (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey area) to South America, a journey of over 2,000 miles over about 80 hours. All under their own power.

Really think about that. No landfall. Three days, three nights. No radar to tell them where a storm is. No GPS to tell them where they are. No landmarks for miles on end. If they aren't fat enough, they die. If they get tired and stop flapping, they die. If they hit a storm front, the journey becomes longer, and they may die.

Fascinating stuff.

Even more incredible? That the hummingbirds migrate too! A bird that weighs about 3 grams - just over the weight of a penny - will fly non-stop over the gulf of Mexico to get to it's winter grounds. That flight takes longer than a day. And once again, no radar to warn of storms, no GPS to tell it where it is, and no food on the journey.

Also incredible about this? In the fall, nearly 75% of the birds flying south have NEVER done that before. These are the birds that hatched that year. And they don't get taught, they don't get apprenticed. Pure instincts drive them south.

And to top all that - they do it again, in reverse, in the spring. And since most of these birds will live from 4-8 years (longer in larger species), they do it again. And again. And again.

Wow.

Makes you look at your backyard birds a little differently, huh?