Entries from January 2007 ↓

It’s the end of the month and time to have a quick recap of what went on in January.

* New Year’s Day started off nice with our first bird of the year, the Red-tailed Hawk.
* We attended the 60th Anniversary of Rockford’s Bird Club, NCIOS.
* The blog was completely redesigned with a new look.
* We introduced two new features of Birdfreak - The Geobirding blog and the Birdvine.
* I talked about my love of Wrens and the desire to see all of them.
* Wordpress finally allowed me to put my video of an American Robin bathing to music.

In the non-blogging world, I saw close to 30 species of birds (I usually start the year out slow) and 16 species at the Callaway Nature Preserve.
The year bird - Red-tailed Hawk was sighted about 33% of the month for me and over 50% for Veery (who is now commuting to school).

All in all, it’s been a good month; nothing extraordinary but still fun. As the year progresses, I plan on traveling locally a lot. In fact, the majority of my birding this year will be in the states of Illinois and Wisconsin, so my year list is not likely to be that high.

However, the main goal this year isn’t trying to see the most birds, but to SEE the most birds. We are planning on doing birding surveys, find breeding birds, and report on as many local birding events as possible.

Upcoming topics we wish to discuss - Birding in Mexico, why the birding in the midwest is so great, a few more book/movie/product reviews and a whole lot more info on the Geobirding blog.

We hope you enjoy reading; we certainly are having a blast blogging!

The Javan Hawk-Eagle is an endemic that gained much publicity when it became the official Indonesian symbol.

Photo courtesy (c) LutFi Sahid Nurhakim

This bird is rare and endangered due to logging and poaching, though there are conservation efforts being made. The Fauna & Flora International became involved in conserving the Javan Hawk-Eagle in 1997.

I am what I like to call a “casual” coffee drinker. I usually have a cup or two on weekends but my drink of choice during the week is cappuccino. Most birders have heard about shade-grown coffee and there are now several companies that offer it. However, I just read a release from the World Wildlife Fund about coffee being illegally grown in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (BBS) in Indonesia.

This area is a prime location for wildlife including Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinos and many cool birds. Already the BBS has lost 30% of its forest cover mostly to illegal coffee cultivation. The World Wildlife Fund did an in-depth report on the entire supply chain of this coffee from Indonesia to super markets in at least 52 countries (including the U.S.). The WWF contacted some of the companies such as Kraft Foods and Nestle and has so far gotten mixed responses (they don’t specifically say who said what). Some companies are working with the WWF on how they can stop this problem while others are in denial. Most are unaware that the illegal beans are being mixed with legal ones.

Full article

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the Callaway Nature Preserve (CNP) is our name for our backyard. We have been diligently converting the yard from a grassy waste to a bird paradise. The CNP is located in the city of Rockford, Illinois (population 150,000+) and is only a 1/4 acre in size, but has attracted over 80 species of birds in the last 3 years. (The most recent new bird was a Wilson’s Warbler in September 2006).

January at the Callaway Nature Preserve

Our goal this year is 60 species, a lofty goal but we’ve been improving the landscape and watching much more intensely each year. The list so far, as of January 30, 2007 is as follows:

1. Red-tailed Hawk (year of the Red-tail, our first bird of 2007)
2. Black-capped Chickadee
3. Blue Jay
4. White-breasted Nuthatch
5. Mourning Dove
6. Cooper’s Hawk
7. Northern Cardinal
8. American Goldfinch
9. House Finch
10. Dark-eyed Junco
11. Downy Woodpecker
12. Red-bellied Woodpecker
13. American Crow
14. Canada Goose (flyover)
15. European Starling
16. House Sparrow

16/60 (26.7% of our goal) with 11 months left to go.

We also spotted a CNP first, a small group of Northern Flying Squirrels. Judging by the amounts of bird seed they consume, and their attempts at “flying”, they must think they are birds.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has preserved more than one million acres of land within their state. Keeping a current Breeding Bird Atlas is one of their many environmental projects.

New York’s first publication of The Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State came out in 1985. Even though they are still working on revising the atlas, you can still find maps and breeding information on their site.

The New York State Ornithological Association divided the region into ten main areas with a total of 5,333 3×3 mile blocks for the surveys.

The new Atlas of Breeding Birds will be similar to the old one with many breeding distribution maps.

The maps of the Blue-winged Teal are an example of how one particular bird has declined in New York. By studying data over years of Breeding Bird Atlases, conservation plans can be drawn up to help birds in decline.

Name: Alberta Mountain Forests - NA0501 World Wildlife Fund

Location: Alberta, Canada along the Alberta/British Columbia border

Size: 15,400 square miles (size of Connecticut and Maryland combined)

General Description: The Alberta Mountain Forests are a mixed forest habitat of alpine and subalpine ecosystems. Trees commonly found in this ecoregion are alpine fir and lodgepole pine. The conservation status is stable as there are several large protected areas including Jasper and Banff National Parks.

Birding: A lot of the typical northern forest birds can be found in the Alberta Mountain Forests: birds such as Evening Grosbeak, Redpolls, Waxwings, Crossbills, and Great Gray Owl. Also, Sprague’s Pipit and Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow are found here, two species that are vulnerable.

Cedar Waxwing - often confused with the Bohemian Waxwing

A bird that is quite common in the southeast does not have a video (gasp!) The Internet Bird Collection  is a storing house for videos of birds all over the world. I view the videos quite often because not only does it aid in identification, but they are just plain fun to watch.

I was rather surprised to find that there were no videos on New Mexico’s state bird, the Greater Roadrunner. I have been in roadrunner country on three different trips and have seen them each time. On our most recent trip to Texas, I did not own a video camera (which I do now) but could have captured some great video as we had several roadrunners next to us on the side of the road.

If you have a video of a Greater Roadrunner, check out the Internet Bird Collection and see about adding it!