I’ve been hoping to have Jim Danzenbaker on the podcast for some time, and finally made it happen now. Jim has been involved in Washington state birding for a couple of decades, has served as WOS president, is a long time pelagic trip leader for Westport Seabirds, and yet is likely better known outside the state.
Jim has been an active guide on Antarctic Peninsula cruises for Cheeseman Ecology Safaris for many years, and has led trips in Latin America for other tour companies. He is an accomplished pelagic birder and trip leader not just in WA but all along the west coast of the U.S. and abroad.
In addition Jim gathers information about all of the Christmas Bird Counts in Washington and posts this information on the WOS website here.
You can find Jim annually at the Rio Grand Bird Festival as a trip leader, and are likely to run across him if you get out birding anywhere in SW Washington.
You can reach out to Jim by phone 360 – 702 – 9395 or by email jdanzenbaker-at-gmail dot- com
Thanks for listening and good birding. Good day!
Author: birdbanter
The Bird Banter Podcast #117 with Joe Morlan additional info.
On this episode Joe Morlan and I talk about his multifaceted birding story. Joe has been a big part of the California birding community for several decades. You can read about some aspects of his career on the Who Was Who In California Birding website by Dan Roberson. Joe also has his own website with lots more links to articles about him and lots more here.
Joe taught birding classes at the College of San Francisco for over 40 years. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or just be amazed when Joe told me it took 8 years to finish his course. Joe took the solid science and research based background that may have been developed while studying physics at MIT to his adult ed classes. He was old school, continuing to use slides rather than digital formats for his classses to the very end, just prior to Covid shutdowns.
Joe served on the California bird records committee, served as chairperson for 3 years, and now continues to contribute as webmaster. You can see the website at California Birds
Joe has published many articles on birds, a huge list is available on his website. Joe was influenced by the Ernst Mayr book Animal Species Evolution, which you can find at uesd bookstores online easily.
Thanks for listening and for your support.
Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #116 with Charlie Wright additional info
For close to 3 decades I’ve watched with joy and marvel as my guest Charlie Wright has grown from a precocious child birder in our county to a respected, talented and extraordinary leader of our birding community.
Charlie was involved with eBird from its very early days, with his first eBird list in 2006, and you can see his earliest eBird list, put in at a later date from his prior checklist, where he lists his spark bird Western Tanager which started it all for Charlie.
He went on to become one of the first if not the first eBird regional reviewer for WA, and he has been instrumental in refining the filters and hotspots in WA on eBird. Charlie notes eBird as a project to support for birders, and you can see how to do that here.
Charlie talks about his work on research ships, his work on Alaskan Islands banding passerines, his work with Kitlitz Murrelet. Imaging racing in a small boat in the ocean off Alaska to capture a small murrelet off the water in the dark! Then flying in a helicopter to find their nests high on glaciers, and exploring Peregrine Falcon nests to see if the murrelets are being eaten by the falcons! Cool stuff.
Charlie is the data reviewer for COASST, a program for surveying the dead birds that are found on the Pacific coast beaches.
As always thanks for listening and reading.
Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #115 with Iván Lau additional info
I had a chance to make a brief visit to Medellin, Colombia in early October of this year, with a dual purpose of visiting my son and his girl friend, and to sneak in a few days of birding in the country with more species (almost 2000) of any country in the world. I jumped at the chance, and previous guest Diego Calderón from Episode #106 was gracious enough to refer me to a terrific local guide, Iván Lau.
Iván was not only a terrific guide, talented, personable and really fun to bird with, but has agreed to be the guest on this episode.
We birded for 3 days in the outskirts of Medellin. Medellin is a large city, the second biggest in Colombia behind Bogata, with about 5 million people living there.
You can read more about the birding on my blog post about the trip on the Ed’s Birding Notes post.
You can reach Iván on Instagram @ivanlaulovera or by email. ivanlaulovera@gmail.com
I have found that it can be easy, affordable and a great option to larger group tours to find and use a local guide on international birding trips where I feel a guide will really allow me to find and ID lots more birds and to do so safely and efficiently.
Thanks for listening and reading.
Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #114 with Zach Poland Additional Info.
Zach Poland is a top Oklahoma birder who was referred to me by recent guest Pete Janzen. In preparing to talk with Zach I read a blog post by another guest Blair Bernson about their day of birding on Blair’s quest to see 50 species of birds in a day in every state with a local birder.
Zach is a relatively young birder who manages to bird daily with a full time day job as a geologist and a young family. I have the greatest respect for birders who manage to balance these aspects of live well, and it looks like we could take counsel from Zach on this challenge.
Zach talks about several top Oklahoma birding sites. Here is a screen shot of a spread sheet Zach sent to me after we talked with tips on finding the 4 Longspur species in Oklahoma in winter.
Oklahoma Longspur Tips
It’s a bit small on the screen but I think might be useful.
He mentioned several eBird Hotspots. Here are some eBird links to these:
Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge
Sooner Lake (note there are several Sooner Lake hotspots in Oklahoma.
Tallgrass Prairie Preserve
Great Salt Plains State Park
I mention my Colombia birding in the intro. If you want to read more about that trip check out the Ed’s Birding Notes tab on this web site.
I also put out a request for suggestions for guests you’d like to hear from on the podcast. Suggestions with an introduction of some sort are optimal. I’m looking especially for guests from Montana, the Dakotas and Carolinas, and lots of other places. If you have ideas send me message.
Thanks for your support. Good birding and good day!
Medellin, Colombia Early Oct 2021
I arrived in Medellin, Colombia on Oct 2, 2021 from Los Angeles via Ft. Lauderdale, FL on Jet Blue on a red-eye that left the night prior.
Brett met me at the airport, and surprisingly I didn’t feel badly at all. We relaxed that day, and on Tuesday Brett, Valeria and I visited the Museo Casa de la Memoria, and enjoyed the city. The museum was intense, difficult as all of the plaques were Spanish only and it would have taken me hours to get through just a few of them, but it was very good.
Monday, Oct 4th was day 1 of guided birding in Colombia with Ivan Lau, a guide recommended by Diego Calderon, a prior guest on the podcast. Ivan was terrific, and handled taking me along with my son Brett and his girlfriend Valeria on a very nice, long and strenuous day of birding near Medellin.
We met near my hotel in Medellin, and struck off for La Romera, a preserve just south of the city. We were birding there shortly after 7:30 AM after a a couple of stops along the way where we saw a nice variety of birds, including Colombian Chachalaca, Yellow-faced Grassquit, a fly by Bald-faced Ibis, Cattle Egret, House Wren, Blackburnian Warbler and others.
Once at the preserve, which is a place you can park outside and access on foot, we got into lots of birds from the get-go. I’ll not try to walk through bird by bird, but give an idea of the place. It is a well maintained mostly paved trail, which is long and at times fairly steep. The primary reason many birders go there is for two endemics that can be accessed there nearby a major city. We managed excellent looks at both of these. The easy one is Red-bellied Grackle, which was noisy, not shy, and seen multiple times.
The hard one was picked out quickly by Ivan, Yellow-headed Manakin. It is tough because unlike many manakins, it tends to be silent, and often sits still. He picked it off a branch well off the road, and got not just our group, but another guide and his client on the bird for great looks and for me a documentation photo.
The rest of the walk was overall birdy. Highlights were cool hummingbirds (no feeders there so tough to find and see) like the very elegant Western Emerald, Tourmaline Sunangel (cool name or what), Collared Inca (my favorite) and Long-tailed Sylph, which would have been my favorite if not distant and in poor light. Lots of colorful and novel species to a North American birder like me, including Tanagers (bay-headed, golden, scrub, flame-rumped, blue-and-black, and the common palm and blue-gray), Flowerpiercers (Rusty, masked, bluish, and white-sided), several tiny Spectacled Parrotlets, Turdus thrushed Black-billed and Great Thrush, White-naped and Chestnut-capped Brushfinches, Russet-crowned and Slate-throated Warblers (the STWA here is yellow not red with black), tons of always cool Blackburnian Warblers and Swainson’s Thrushes, and Black-winged Saltator.
After lunch, we went to a higher elevation area called San Sebastian de la Castellana where a much rougher trail took us from about 1900 meters to over 3000 meters above sea level, and pretty much exhausted me though it was a beautiful hike. We came into two nice mixed flocks along with several bamboo specialists and higher elevation birds. Maybe the coolest was Southern Emerald Toucanette seen near the top of the hike, along with nice hummingbirds, a Black-browed Peppershrike, and lots more.
I have two more days with Ivan planned on Wednesday and Thursday so am excited about that. I think today was 70+ species with 35 +/- lifers. I’ll count later.
I took a day off on Tuesday, and spent the day with Valleria and Brett in Medellin. We visited a really cool area called Comuna 13, an area that until recently was notorious for being the epicenter of the Colombian drug trade, extremely dangerous and now is a prime tourist attraction, with music, street performers, vendors, restaurants etc. It is a cool story well outlined here.
Wednesday Brett and I headed for the mid-Magdalena Valley area with Iván and a drive Harley, who is also a birder. The day prior with three of us we took a larger van, but today was a standard taxi, which worked out just fine. It was about 1 ¾ hour drive to get to the final destination, with a couple of roadside stops and a quick breakfast along the way. The breakfast stop was at a roadside restaurant near the final destination, which has stunning valley views. When we arrived it was clear at the stop, with clouds in the valley below, just stunning, and there were a few birds in the treetops just outside the restaurant. By the time we left, we could barely see the trees for the dense fog that had rolled up the valley.
The day of birding was on a public dirt road from the highway down to the river below, maybe 2-3 miles long, and active birding the whole time. A couple of endemics were the primary attraction for listers, Beautiful Woodpecker (lives up to its name) and White-mantled Barbet, but the birds were just flat out great the whole morning. We spent about 4 hours altogether, with lots of great birds including new families for me including my first Jacamar (Rufous-tailed) and lots more. Out eBird list, which Iván was very helpful to keep had 70 species for Iván and 68 that I kept on mine. Unfortunately I messed up my photo download due to terrible internet at my hotel, and lost most of the photos for the day.
After lunch at another place with birds and a view, we made a brief stop at a small wetland area near the airport adding several birds to my Columbia list like Blue-winged Teal, Common and Purple Gallinule, and Cattle Tyrant to my life list.
Thursday was a shorter day. Just Iván, Harley and me, and we went to the San Pedro de los Milagros area with the primary goal to bird a family dairy farm there and find one of the newest species in the world, Antioquia Brush Finch.
This bird has a cool story. It was initially listed in a species in 1969 after a museum specimen was found that was a new species. Extensive looking for the bird in the San Pedro area did not yield any live birds, and it was suspected to be extinct. This area is heavily used, mostly for dairy farming and potatoes. The potatoes there are heavily treated with pesticides, and not a lot of habitat is left. A local birder and environmentalist, Rodolfo Cporrea Peña whose uncles run the areas largest dairy farm, had known people looking for the Brush Finch, knew what it looked like, and after church one Sunday noted a brush finch on outside church. He took a cell phone photo, sent it to the researchers, and it was felt to be an Antioquia Brush Finch. More searching on his farm led to several individuals, and now there are felt to be about 20 birds on his families farm, and maybe 150-200 total known individuals. Rodolfo Carrea Peña has formed an organization to help try to preserve the species, and is working with local landholders to try to improve habitat. Here is the article by Rodolfo and others about the bird. They seem to like brushy edges of fields, and his family farm has not cleared, and has protected the steep ravines and other difficult to farm areas, leaving quite a lot of good habitat. Overall a cool story, and we managed to get great looks at 4 individuals, some at pretty close range.
The birding there was not as exciting as the day prior, but for a heavily used agricultural area we did see some pretty cool birds including Golden-fronted Redstart (or as Iván prefers Whitestart), a metaltail, finally good looks at Lesser Violetear which we had been hearing and barely seeing for all three days, and soaring Broad-winged and White-tailed Hawks (one each).
I got back to town in time for lunch, to find a place for a Covid test (negative) so I could fly home Saturday, and to spend the rest of the visit relaxing and visiting with Brett and Valeria.
A total of 159 species in 3 days of birding, about 86 of these lifers. I visited and birded a new continent for me, South America, and saw a really cool city, Medellin. We also visited the cultural museum in Medellin on Friday morning. Tuesday we visited a really cool area called Common 13. This was infamous in the late 1980-2010 time frame as one of the most dangerous crime and drug riddled areas of the world. It is on an extremely steep hillside, and had very poor road access, leaving residents with few work options, and making it nearly impossible to police. An infamous police attack in the early 2000’s led to a number of deaths (drug gangsters? Innocent residents? It is unclear) but did not lead to much real change. The turning point seems to have been building a cable car line to the area in about 2012. This gave residents the ability to get to work, get in and out of the area reasonably, and in addition good sidewalks and a large escalator system was built onto the hillside. It has since turned into a major attraction, with famous graffiti artists/murals on every concrete roadside wall, many street vendors and performers, and it seem much safer and is bursting with energy now.
I loved the cable car system. On Friday visited the Parque Arvi, at the end of another cable car line to the large park there. A bit of a hike gave us time in the forest and a few birds, but mostly a spectacular vista on the way up and down.
From what I saw Medellin is a fine place to visit, with good hotels, pretty inexpensive food and lodging, and excellent birding nearby. I can’t wait to explore more of South America on future visits.
The Bird Banter Podcast #113 Ed on Molt- Additional Info.
On this episode I talk about molt, the process by which birds replace their feathers each year. Replacing feathers is mandatory for all birds, and different species have different strategies for accomplishing this essential annual task. All birds undergo a basic molt every year, where they replace all of their feathers. The plumage they attain after this molt is called their “Basic Plumage.” In the most commonly used terminology, the Modified Humphrey-Parkes terminology, the molt by which feathers are changed is named for the plumage attained, so the molt into basic plumage is called the “pre-basic molt.”
Some birds have an additional molt each year where they replace some of their feathers to achieve a different appearance. Many birders call this their “breeding plumage” and this plumage is often brighter and more showy than the basic plumage (but not always). This plumage is called the “alternate plumage” and the molt into alternate plumage is called the “pre-alternate molt.”
So birds either have “basic” or an “alternate” molt strategy.
All birds need to grow a first set of feathers that they need to be able to safely get out of the nest, and this is called the “juvenile plumage” so the process of growing these feathers is called the “pre-juvenile molt.” We usually don’t see this first molt except on web-cams or when watching a nest specifically, so it is not commonly thought about, but every bird has to go through a pre-juvenile molt to get their first set of feathers. In some species this first set of feathers, the “juvenile plumage” is retained for a full year or more until the first pre-basic molt into the first basic plumage at a year or more of age. Other birds undergo a special molt in their first year, usually shortly after fledging, into what is called a “formative plumage.” These species are said to have a complex molt strategy. Reasons for evolving this strategy are unclear, but probably allow a quick set of head and body feathers to be grown so that the birds can get out of the next faster than if they needed to grow a strong set of feathers that could last a full year. Then after fledging they replace some of most of these first set of feathers to look more like adults and to have feathers suited to last a full year. Maybe the initial juvenile feathers allow them to be obviously different and easily recognized by their parents to be fed while very young. The real reason may vary and is not completely understood, but most North American songbirds use this complex molt strategy, and are said to have a complex molt strategy.
So now you know that birds can be split into 4 groups of molt strategies:
Simple Basic: these birds grow a set of juvenile feathers that they keep until their first basic molt more or less a year later, and then have one complete basic molt each year after.
Simple Complex: these birds have one additional molt in their first year, from juvenile into a special one-time formative plumage, and then just one pre-basic molt each following year where they replace all of their feathers.
Simple Alternate: These birds retain their juvenile feathers through their first year until a first pre-alternate molt some time later, and then have one full “pre-basic molt” every year into their “Basic plumage” and another “pre-alternate molt” each year into their “alternate plumage.”
Complex Alternate: These birds have a one-time “Pre-alternate molt” after fledging into a “Formative Plumage” and then follow the same molt sequence described in the simple alternate strategy above.
Examples of birds with each strategy are below:
Simple Basic Simple Alternate Complex Basic Complex Alternate
Albatrosses Large White-headed Gulls Spotted Towhee Most common strategy for
Barn Owls our North American passerines
Petrels
Using this concept of thinking about the plumages you see in birds can really help understand what you are seeing. If you see an essentially perfectly feathered Turkey Vulture soaring overhead in July or August you can deduce that it is this year’s first cycle bird, because essentially all of the adults will have some degree of flight feather molt going on. In the winter if you are in a place where Osprey are wintering, only the first cycle juvenile birds will have all of their wing flight feathers intact, whereas all of the adults will have some feathers being replaced.
You know that many of our migratory song birds have spring and early summer plumages that are quite different from how we see them in the fall. In fall they are in their basic plumage, all new feathers. In the spring they have undergone their alternate molt and have some head and body feathers that are replaced and their appearance is noticeably changed.
There is a lot more to know about molt, but here I just want to touch on the basics. For lots more see either Howell’s book or this article he wrote on molt.
Here is the ABCBirding post I put up after one of Ken’s classes.
As I mentioned in the podcast episode, I’ll be travelling for a few weeks, and may not get another episode published until I’m home again. Until then, good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #112 with Pete Janzen: Additional Information
I enjoyed talking about birding Kansas with Pete Janzen this episode. Pete was really informative, and I learned a lot about a place I know little about prior to talking. The Kansas eBird list includes 458 species, and Pete has listed 437 of these. He talks about Kansas hotspots Quivira NWR and Cheyenne Bottoms, both fairly near his home in Wichita.
You can find both of Pete’s books on Amazon. The Guide to Kansas Birds and Hotspots and The Birds of Sedgwick County and Cheney Reservoir.
I did not know that Kansas has the largest remaining population of Lesser Prairie Chickens or that it was possible to see both species of prairie chicken on the same lek. If you need these species check out the tours Pete recommends on this website. You’ll not only see the birds, but support their conservation efforts.
You can find Pete on Facebook easily.
As I mentioned I’m on the lookout for good birding guests from every state. If you know good candidates, help me reach out to them. Send me an email on the Contact page here. Here is the article I mentioned in the WFO newsletter about megafires and the history of western U.S. wildfires.
Thanks for listening. Until next time; Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #111 with Mason Maron: Additional Information
On The Bird Banter Podcast #111 I talk in the introduction about a recent pelagic birding trip on Westport Seabirds, the WA pelagic trip company. The fog was difficult in the morning, but by afternoon it has cleared and things picked up nicely. See my birding notes post for photos and details.
Mason Maron is my guest on this episode, and we talk about his birding story, his planned research into Gray-crowned Rosy Finch diet changes in the last 60 years, and about birding near WSU in Whitman County, WA.
Follow Mason on Instagram or see his photogarphy on his web site.
Peter Wimberger, a past guest on episode #30, has been doing research into ice worms. You can hear about this on this really cool article and audio link. It seems that ice worms are an important part of the diet of rosy finches on Mt. Rainier at least.
Mason talks about the Seattle Young Birders group. It is run through Seattle Audubon Society and you can see about this group here.
I’ll be sure to get back to listeners in a year or more after the research on Gray-crowned Rosy Finches is underway and give an update.
Until next time: Good birding and good day!
Birthday Birding 2021
I had a great 2-day 67th birthday birding experience. On my birthday I had planned to head to the coast about 12:45 PM when Paul Baerny was meeting me at my house, and we were to head toward Westport with a stop to pick up Ken Brown at McCleary. About 11 AM the GroupMe Pierce County Mafia group started going wild. It began with Will Brooks telling us he had a Long-tailed Jaeger at Dune Peninsula, only 2 miles from home. I waffled about going, as I’d seen this species just a few days ago also with Will at Dunes, but decided to make a quick dash down for the bird.
On arrival there Bruce, Marcus, and Heather were already there, and in addition to the STJA had Common Terns. After some looking I managed to see the 3 COTE standing on a long in the distance. Then Heather spotted a dark shearwater making its way towards us coming down the passage between Dash Point and Vashon. We all got on it and followed it for a long time as it flew towards us and finally all the way across in front of Vashon and off towards the narrows. It was dark, minimal if any white/silver wing linings, seemed to have a small bill and Will and Charlie (up above on the gravel parking lot) confidently called it a STSH. County lifer for all! I had to leave for the coast trip, but two more STSH made a similar flight in the next couple of hours.
I got home, had lunch, and then Paul and I headed west, picked up Ken, and went first to Westport. A few godwits were at their roost on the jetty by the marina entrance, but not the desired Bar-tailed Godwit, just maybe 110 Marbled Godwits. We went over the marina dock area, managed two Wandering Tattlers on the groin rocks (FOY for Ken) and then walked out the docks to the bridge area where most of the godwits were roosting on the sandy beach right below us. This was maybe the closest look I’ve had at a BTGO, one worn adult with the large flock of MAGOs, as well as one Whimbrel and one Willet.
After a not-so-great vegetarian fajita dinner (frozen veges) we headed to Bottle Beach for high tide. Lots of Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, peeps and not much more really there. A nice sunset though.
We met at the boat at 6 AM Sept 3, and headed to sea in a pretty dense fog that lasted until about noon, making seeing much difficult. A FOY Pomarine Jaeger was maybe the best bird of the morning trip out. We did manage a shrimp boat with a nice flock of birds headed out, but photo ops were limited by fog. We kept going out to the continental shelf, and set up the least productive slick I’ve ever witnessed. For a half hour birds just didn’t come to the fish oil and beef suet slick at all. A Long-tailed Jaeger did fly past, for the only one of the trip, but really slow.
On the ride back in we found the same shrimper, after the sun came out and the fog lifted. It was really great, with tons of birds. See the photo at the top of this post for an idea of the numbers. Here are some photos of some of them.
We continued to port, seeing lots of Common Murre, several Cassin’s Aucklets and lots more Short-tailed and Sooty Shearwaters on the way. It was a remarkable trip for many reasons. The biggest was that Brian Pendleton was onboard. Brian arranged this trip to allow him to get to sea this year. Brian is a very talented birder, but has been living with a form of ALS for years. At this time he is restricted to a wheelchair, and is unable to hold optics at all. In spite of this he managed to get on every species we saw bare-eyed, and inspired everyone aboard with his tenacity, talent and spirit.
Short-tailed shearwaters were also remarkable in their huge numbers. Once into deeper water they far outnumbered Sooty Shearwaters, and gave us great opportunities to compare these two very similar species.
Overall a great birding start to my 68th trip around the sun.