On The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #58 I talk birding with Dave Irons. Dave is an Oregon birder, husband of Shawneen Finnegan, my guest on Episode #17, author, eBird reviewer and past regional editor of North American Birds. I first met Dave at the last WOS annual conference at a dinner meeting when Bruce LaBar (episode #3), Ken Brown (episode #2) , Shawneen and Dave, and several other birders shared a table. He is a funny, smart and engaging guy who I thought at the time would be a great guest on the podcast. After a doing the episode I’m glad I met him and glad he agreed to do the episode.
I have a lot of respect for eBird reviewers. It is a thankless volunteer job, looking at and confirming or inquiring about the many records of unusual species of birds submitted as sightings to eBird. eBird, the Cornell University citizen science project where birders all over the world can submit our sightings for inclusion in a massive database, has fundamentally changed how birders keep records, find places to go birding, and learn.
Every time, or nearly every time, I go birding I take my smart phone. When I get to a birding location I start an eBird checklist. The phone uses its GPS function to “drop a pin” of my exact location, and then I choose from options to name the list location, usually an eBird “hotspot” at or very near where I’m birding. As I go along, or often when I’m done at a location I enter the number of each species of bird I see, and submit the list to my personal eBird account. If I identify birds that are unusual for the location and time of year I am asked to write supporting evidence to help the reviewer decide if I am likely correct in the ID. The reviewer either confirms the sighting, or sends me an e-mail asking for more information, i.e. details of what I saw, a photo, an audio recording, etc to support my sighting. After that the reviewer makes a decision on whether to “confirm” the sighting as valid, or not. If not the record remains on my personal list of sightings, but is not included in the sight database of sightings. We talk about this on the episode, and Dave gives his approach to this process, one I find fairly common but not universal. An occasional reviewer is less gracious than he might be.
We also talk about his new book titled, American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of Oregon. CLick for a link to buy it on Buteo Books. It is a new type of book by the ABA aimed at beginner and intermediate birders to help them find and identify birds in a state. It sounds interesting.
We also talk about the Rio Grande Birding Festival, and his experience as a guide there. It is a really well done festival. I went only once, but met lots of top birders, went on terific field trips, and generally had a great time. I recommend the festival. Mary Gustafson from the recent Episode #48 is a field trip coordinator, and I first med Dorian Anderson of Biking Big Year fame who did Episdoe #5 on the podcast.
I mention Larkwire, a cool web-based game-style tool for learning bird songs. I recommend it highly.
Here is a link to an article about the horse shoe crab and Red Knot issue we talk about on the episode.
Dave also mentions the change in timing of plant flowering at Walden Pond since Thoreau kept his notes in the early 1920’s Here is a link to info about that issue.
We talk about the Oregon and Washington birding listservs and here is a link to Tweeters in WA and OBOL in Oregon.
The Western Field Ornithology meeting that Dave talks about has a website link here.
In my intro I talk about Blair Bernson’s 50-50-50 project and blog. Here is a link to the blog. You can follow on Facebook or subscribe to blog updates on his website. Blair was my guest on Episode #18.
I talk briefly about the Cornell University online Bird Biology course I’m working through, and here is a link to that course.
I mention the difference in golden plover molt strategy, and Dave gives some info. This prompted me to review the issue. American Golden Plovers are an extreme long distance migrant. The first year birds get their juvenile feathers after hatching and migrate huge distances to southern South America. They then need to fly all the way back to the arctic to breed the next summer, and have the unusual molt strategy to have a complete molt of all their flight feathers as a “pre-formative” molt in the fall-winter the year that they are born. So essentially all spring returning American Golden Plovers have fresh flight feathers, i.e. not the worn juvenile feathers. The shorter distance migrant, Pacific Golden Plovers, have the more common molt strategy of retaining their juvenile flight feathers through their first winter, flying back to the breeding grounds, and not molting their juvenile flight feathers until after their return flight (their third long trip on their first set of flight feathers). So a birder in the know about golden plover molt strategies knows that any golden plover seen with very worn primary wing feathers seen in migration has to be a Pacific Golden Plover, because all the American Golden Plovers grew fresh feathers after their first trip south the year they were born. This is just one example of how knowing about a species molt strategy can help with tough species ID issues. Thanks Ken Brown for your teaching in your many years of birding classes for me knowing this bit of molt trivia.
I hope you enjoyed the episode and this post.
Until next time. Good birding and good day!