Author: birdbanter

The Bird Banter Podcast #169: Ed’s Winter Trip Additional Info.


It’s good to be home, and good to add the latest episode to the podcast. This winter’s trip away from the rainy Pacific Northwest started in Florida. About 10 minutes before my planned 3 AM alarm to dash off to SEATAC for a 6 AM flight to Orlando, my brother Bill called to let me know he had just tested positive for Covid, and that I shouldn’t visit. That made for 5-6 days of improvization necessary before Marian and I could arrive at the Big Pine Key home that a family friend of Marian was letting us use. We had tentatively planned to visit Epcot Center from Bill’s place in The Villages, and so decided to start our trip in that direction. First though I convinced Marian that trying to see the American Flamingos that had been blown north from their Rio Lagartos stronghold. Four birds had been being seen consistently at the Merritt Island NWR–Haulover Canal Area most days, and so on our first night in Florida Marian and I drove to Cocoa, FL for a night, then headed to the NWR early the next AM. On arrival at the hotspot, it was easy to spot, but hard to really see with binoculars the four flamingos, maybe a mile offshore near a small reef-island.

In addition to the flamingos we enjoyed nearby Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins, Ruddy Turnstones and plenty of waders.

Ruddy Turnstone in basic (non-breeding/winter) plumage.

We had a nice day exploring the island and refuge. We planned to stay until evening to watch a Space-X manned missle launch, but it was postponed, so heaed back for another night in Cocoa before heading for Disney World the next morning.
Epcot Center seemed much more worn-down and commercial than I had remembered from years ago, but we had a nice day walking around and easily avoiding buying Disney themed junk.
Marian in front of the Epcot entrance.[/caption]
After a night in Orlando, we decided to take a couple of days to drive south toward Miami. A nice stop was at the Loxahatchee NWR where we took a midday walk on the March Trail. A pair of Sandhill Cranes were on the dike trail, and essentially refused to move aside, so we quietly walked past them with these iPhone photos unavoidable.

From here we decided to spend a couple of days at Miami Beach, and ate well, checked out the beach, and generally played tourist.
Lesser Black-backed Gull

Miami Beach

From here we headed for the beach house on Big Pine Key where we enjoyed the weather, views and quiet time. Birding was very slow, but some of the Florida specialties obliged.
American Aligator at the Blue Hole.
White Morph of the Great Blue Heron.
Key Deer are a very small subspecies of White-tailed Deer. They are protected, very tame and abundant on Big Pine Key.

After a nice vacation at Big Pine Key, we drove back to Miami where Marian headed on to visit family in Georgia, and I waited to pick up Bruce LaBar at the airport that evening. During the wait I chased and ticked my second ABA lifer of the trip, a Yellow-headed Caracara that had been visiting the Pelican Pavillion at Oleta River State Park at the end of the afternoon most days.

Yellow-headed Caracara[/caption]

After picking up Bruce, the next morning we met Mariah Hrynovich and her husband Luis for a day to try for as many of the Miami area target lifers as possible for Bruce. Too many photos to include most, but the Biltmore Hotel grounds were very cool with lots of parakeets and parrots, along with the historic hotel where many famous guests and movies have been filmed.

Spot-breasted Oriole. This bird was spotted as it flew in overhead by Bruce and Mariah.
At the end of the day we returned to the Oleta River SP where we again managed to see the Yellow-headed Caracara, and retreat to our hotel before heading to Barranquilla, Colombia in the next day.
We arrived on the first day of Carnival!

Our trip was with Joshua Covill of Hillstar Nature Tours, and was an overall fabulous trip. There were too many photos to put many here. Check out my Flickr album for lots of pics, and the eBird trip report for details.
Hybrid Scarlet x White Ibis (aka Pink Ibis)

After the Colombia trip I headed on for a nice visit with Jean and Alan in Costa Rica. This was in large part a family trip. Here are a few photos.
King Vulture

This King Vulture flew right over Jean and Alan’s home and landed in a tree quite close.
Fiery-billed Aracari and Yellow-throated Toucans were daily visitors.

Check out Jean’s Regenerate Your Reality website.
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for more episodes with guests.
Good Birding.

Florida Jan. 2023


Marian and I had a nice vacation in a friend of Marian’s Big Pine Key home from Jan 21 until Jan 31, and it was very quiet and pleasant. Overall cooler than last year, and quite windy at times. We visited Key West one day, and a couple of beaches nearby other days, but overall I birded locally a bit each morning, and we relaxed a lot. Binged on a couple of Prime series, and read a lot.

Yellow-headed Caracara

Jan 31 I dropped off Marian, and that afternoon I headed north to Oleta River State Park, where for a few weeks an ABA first (accepted by the Florida Bird Records Committee, not yet by ABA) Yellow-headed Caracara has been seen. It has seemed to develop a pattern of a morning visit to fish cleaning areas, and in the afternoon, after things at the picnic area quiet down, stopping by the Pelican Pavilion Picnic Area to look for scraps. I got there about 2:45 and waited. At about 5:03 I spotted the caracara come in low over the beach, and three birders, including me, got great looks and photo ops for about 20 minutes.
Amazingly, after picking up Bruce that night, spending a day with Mariah Hryniwich and her spouse and partner Luis who took us out for a great day of briding, I took Bruce back and the bird gave a repeat performance on the next day.

On the day with Mariah and Luis we got several exotics, Spot-breasted Oriole, Red-masked and Mitred Parakeet, Orange-winged Parakeet (not yet listable), along with Limpkin and several other cool species. It was fun to be with Mariah and Luis for the day.
Spot-breasted Oriole. This bird was spotted as it flew in overhead by Bruce and Mariah.

Orange-winged Parrot

After getting the Caracara we headed north, spent the night in North Ft. Lauderdale, had a great dinner at a Jewish kosher deli for hummus and Mediterranean food, and a nice night at a the Fairfield Inn and Suites, we headed north to have a nice walk, but no Nanday Parakeets, at Loxahatchee NWR, before ticking Florida Scrub Jay at Jonathan Dickinson SP. A long drive back to Miami, then overnight and at the airport to head to Barranquilla, Colombia for a week of birding.

The Space Coast to Big Pine Key

Two American Aligators were directly below the observation deck at the Blue Hole on Big Pine Key, FL.

Marian and I left Cocoa, FL on Thursday, Jan 18th and visited Epcot Center, a place that can be decribed as a nice place for a walk where you spend a lot to park to be able to pay a lot to enter where you can spend a lot for mediocre food and on Disney Brand merchandise. Anyway, it was a pleasant day. On the walk around the center pond we saw the various “country demonstrations”, had some Tex-Mex food, and visited a few exhibits with rides.
The Blue Hole in perspective.
That night we stayed in a nearby area with more “entertainment park” stuff, and headed south. We made a very nice stop at Loxahatchee NWR, where we spent a couple of hours walking on the marsh trail, Purple Galinule, Yellow-throated Warbler, Sandhill Cranes being the birding highlights, and then on to spend two nights in Miami Beach. We splurged on a hotel right in the middle of the tourist area, the Esmé, a tiny room but nice place. Overall good food, a nice beach, and it was nice to show Marian the place.
Anhinga

From there we drove down to Marian’s frineds place in Big Pine Key, where we will be staying for about 10 days before I head back to Miami for a couple of days of birding before the Santa Marta’s in Colombia with Bruce LaBar and Gene Revelas.
Today was very windy here, so I found shelter in a place called the “Blue Hole” where I found a small warbler flock with a Black-and-white Warbler and an American Redstart with the many Yellow-rumped and one Palm Warbler.

A nice afternoon walk to No Name Key was surprisingly without waders.
Good birding.

Arrival in Florida and a Change in Plans

Aptly named Roseate Spoonbill

The week leading up to our trip to Florida was one with several phone conversations with my brother Bill and his wife Carol whom we planned on visiting for the first few days in Florida. He had just had a PRP (platelet rich plasma) injection in his arthritic knee, and we having a terrible reaction with swelling and lots of pain. He was going to be unable to pick us up in Orlando, so we arranged the day prior for a one-way car rental, but about 15 minutes prior to my 3:05 alarm was to go off to get ready for our Lyft to Seatac Bill contacted me to know that he now had a cough and tested + for Covid. An abrupt change in plans, as I changed the car rental to a 5-day rental with a drop off in Marathon Keyca where we planned our second stay of the trip.
Wood Stork

We drove to Cocoa, Florida for a couple of days near Cape Canaveral, the Kennedy Space Center, some local birding and to watch the Space X launch this evening. The night went as planned, and this morning we got up and headed to Merritt Island NWR where 4 adult American Flamingos have been seen most days since being blown in by Hurricane Idalia. We got to the Haulout Canal location, and easily saw the flamingos about a mile away by a small island. Easy to see, but difficult to ID for sure (Roseate Spoonbills are also bright pink) but a friendly birder gave us a scope view to confirm the ID. ABA lifer for me, lifer for Marian, and a nice start to the day. We got even better views, and I taught two visiting birders how to digiscope, for them and then for me!
The rest of the day was exploring. The highlight was the Merritt Island–Black Point Wildlife Drive. A fabulous 6+ mile auto loop, with getting out of the car allowed, and great looks at most of the possible waders.
Wood Stork about to land.

White Ibis with Roseate Spoonbill in the foreground.

White Ibis
Tri-colored Heron
Snowy Egret
Roseate Spoonbills
Superimposed Roseate Spoonbill and White Ibis
Reddish Egret
Great Egret
American Kestrel (stuck out tongue or prey?)

Wood Stork

From there we went to Titusville for very nice Mexican for lunch, where I got online to learn that the planned launch at Kennedy was postponed until tommorrow (windy?) and we birded a bit and came back to our hotel for some rest and dinner.
Tomorrow maybe Epcot if we have the energy.
I different, but very nice start to the trip

The Bird Banter Podcast #168 with Liam Hutcheson Additional Info.

On this episode I talk with Liam Hutcheson, who just finished his record breaking Washington State big year.  We talk about his big year, highlights, misses and people.  Also about his birding story.  The prior WA record holder for most species seen in a calandar year was Will Brooks, and we talk about his big year on Episode #121. While talking with Liam I marveled at how interconnected our birding community is, and how helpful birders are to each other.  Pervious guests on the show who helped in one way or another with Liam’s birding and his big year include:

Bill Tweit episode #8 Bill is such an icon in Washington State birding that I felt so proud and happy to have him as one of my early guests. He is also just a really nice guy.

Shep Thorpe episode #9 In the next episode I continued my streak of both extraordinary WA birders, but also really nice people with Shep.

Ryan Rodriguez episode #47 Ryan has been my youngest guest on the podcast, at age 12 when we met and did the recording.

Ken Brown #2, Bruce LaBar #3 and I were with Liam on a trip in early 2023 with Jacob Miller to the southeast corner of WA to see winter specialties. 

For more details check out the BirdBanter.com blog post about this episode. 

Until next time, good birding!

The Bird Banter Podcast #167 with Marco Valtriani Additional Info.


I visited Italy over a decade ago with my wife Kay, who was also a birder, and we were pretty surprised at how few birds we were able to see. I learned while talking with Marco Valtriani, my guest on this episode that it was likely because we looked in all the wrong places for the season we visited, I believe in early October. I learned lots more and really enjoyed talking with Marco. He is a lead guide for Birding in Italy, a bird guide group who specialized in Italy, and especially taking visiting birders whose primary reason for visiting Italy may be other tourist activities, but who want to get in a day or more of birding and use the time optimally.
I learned that Italy has a lot of national park land set aside, but than much of it has been used for human activities over the centuries prior to being set aside. I also was pleased to learn that the practice of killing songbirds for food has been markedly curtailed and is a minimal issue today.
I also talk about this being the Christmas Bird Count Season, and my experiences and enjoyment from participating in CBCs. Consider joining a count near you, find one here.
You can read the Audubon summary report of last year’s CBCs here. For more granular data on any particular count here is a link.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, good birding.

Black Phoebe Finally

Pierce County listing for me this year has not been a priority, and so the year end is near and I’d yet to successfully chase or find my own Black Phoebe in the county this year, although several have been seen. Recently on has been reported at the Sha Dadx Wetlands in Fife, not far from home in Tacoma, and so I’ve made a couple of trys in the last week. Finally today, despite moderate fog, the bird was calling loudly over the pond in the middle of the wetland. I got a recording, although no visual. It seemed to be moving around the edges of the pond, and visibility was obstructed by the bushes.

The Bird Banter Podcast #166 with Steve Hampton Additional Info.


On this episode Steve Hampton and I talk about a wide variety of topics. Maybe the most timely and of widespread interest was his experiences ad a member of the AOU Ad Hoc committee charged with the task “to develop a process that will allow the [AOS] to change harmful and exclusionary English bird names in a thoughtful and proactive way for species within AOS’s purview.” I enjoyed hearing Steve’s perspectives and experiences on the committee’s work. You can read the recommendation in full, and I recommend you do if the topic interests you here.
Steve is retired from his prior job in California, and retired in the Port Townsend area. He recently wrote a very thourough and informative post on his The Cottonwood Post blog about gull ID in the area. He also writes on issues of indigenoous peoples of the U.S. area on Memories of the People. You can contact Steve, and get links to both of his blogs and all three of the Facebook groups he helps administer at his personal/professional website Stephen-Carr-Hapmton.com.
Steve talks about the eBird trends section, and here is a link to that feature.
I mention a prior episode about the mouse eradication on the Farralone Islands, so here is a link to the episode with Tim Larson about that topic.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, good birding and good day!

A Great Sunday. One State and One Pierce County Lifer in the Same Day!

Marian and I were staying at our Lake Forest Park cabin after returning from Orcas Island and Thanksgiving with her family on Saturday, and I was pleased to here that the Black-and-White Warbler was still being seen at Green Lake in Seattle on Saturday. Marian had plans to decorate the cabin with her grandsons on Sunday, and so I took the chance to chase the BAWW. I got to Green Lake about 8:10 AM, and was surprised that there was not a birder in sight as I located the Bath House (now a theatre) and the described area for the bird. I spent the first hour or so looking all over, with no luck. Around then birders started to arrive; a relief that I was in the right place. We looked all around, and a couple of birders I know, Bruce LaBar a good friend from Tacoma and a guest on episode #3 of the podcast, and Alex Patia who was also a guest on episode #91. We continued to search, and after a while I followed Alex well south of the usual area. He continued to look, and as I walked back toward the bath house area I saw about 4 birders intently looking and taking photos of a tree right in front of them. I was hopeful, and hurried to their location, to be rewarded with great looks at the warbler. It was doing the BAWW thing, creeping along branches and the trunk of trees, like a nuthatch or creeper but more on the horozontal limbs. No camera, and elusive to digibin attempts, but still a really great WA state first for me. After great looks, putting the word out to Bruce and others via the WhatsApp King County thread, I headed back to see Marian. She was ready to head home so we headed south just as word got out about a Tuften Puffin at the Dune Peninsula park near our home.
I drove home, and Marian agreed to come with me to Dune as it was nearing dusk. I got there, after communicating with Bruce that the puffin continued to show, and on arrival the Tufted Puffin was close enough to see bare-eyed. I got great looks, digiscope photos, and also great looks at 3 very close in Ancient Murrelets. Overall a great day for lifers in WA for me.

The Bird Banter Podcast #165 with Rachel Hudson Additional Info.


On this episode Rachel and I talk about her years birding and growing up in East Texas, her move to Washington after high school, her interests in art, photography, birding and more.
Every time I’ve met Rachel in the field I’ve been impressed that she was an extremely quiet and almost shy but very competent birder. It was fun to get to see her one-on-one for the podcast episode. She is highly energetic, a good story teller, and was a lot of fun to feel like I now know her a little bit at least.
We talked briefly about her birding and friendship with Dalton Spencer, who was a prior guest on the podcast, and recently broke the Montana Big Year record.
The Vaux’s Swift project, Vaux Happening, has helped understand the movements both spring and fall of this migratory species in the western U.S. for over a decade. You can learn about it and volunteer to help at their website .
You can best reach out to Rachel by email lighteningdash09-at-yahoo-dot-com