Jon on a hike.
Jon Anderson is a hard guy to miss on a birding trip. He is a big guy with a big moustache who is not shy about joining in any conversation, enjoys both birding and birders. Jon has been a birder for decades, but has been more active since his retirement a few years ago. We talk a bit about what he calls his Perigrination, defined as, “a journey, especially a long or meandering one.” This nicely and humourously describes Jon’s year, which he journals on his blog, “Peregrination.” In addition to his biggish year of birding after retirement we talk about his birding story and his career with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Jon by email festuca-at-comcast-dot-net If you have ideas for guests you’d like to hear from please leave a comment or use the contact page above to reach me.
Sometimes while recording a podcast episode I wish I had more time to visit with and get to know a guest. This episode with Debbie Beer was one of those times. She has a goal to bird in each of the 50 states with her sister, and to see 50 species in each state. This is a standing invite to Debbie and her sister to visit WA and I’ll show them the state and far more than their goal of 50 species.
I also mention Blair Bernson as a resource for this goal, and his website. Blair was a guest previously and we talk about his quest to see 50 species in a day in each of the 50 states while birding with a local birder.
Debbie Beer is a birder, traveler, and works at Nature Lands, a land trust in the Delaware Valley area. We talk about her birding and travels. Sometimes on an episode it is fun when I learn that I share experiences with a guest. Both Debbie and I have birded in Kenya and Morocco, as well as the greater NYC area. Enjoy.
Debbie is active in the Delaware Valley Ornithologic Club, and won the Bob Billings Big Year award in 2020.
On the episode we talk about birding in Africa. I visited Kenya with my late wife Kay, Bruce Labar and leaders John Sterling and James Bradley. On the episode I say we birded from the east to the coast. Actually we started in Nairobi at Nairobi National Park, worked our way west all the way to Lake Narusha and the Kakamega Forest then looped back east seeing Tsavo West and Tsavo East and ending our trip at the coast near Watamu. My eBird list has Kenya as the country with the second most species of any country after the U.S. at 548 species. A spectacular trip.
Interestingly Debbie also toured Morocco, and that is the only other African place I’ve birded. Pervious guests Bruce LaBar, Heather Ballash and Marcus Roening were also on this trip with me. The really cold place I mention on the episode was in the Atlas Mountains at a ski area.
Here is a link to a podcast episode with Michael Carmody, the trip leader for the Morocco trip.
The John Heinz NWR sounds great. Here is a link to their web site and the eBird hotspot My Pierce County lifer White-breasted Nuthatch
After recording this episode I did manage to get out to see my county first White-Breasted Nuthatch with Bruce LaBar at the backyard feeders of a really friendly homeowner.
I hope this finds all of you happy, healthy and finding birding good as winter progresses and spring is around the corner.
Until next time. Good birding. Good day!
Cyndi is yet another great guest whose passion for her work and for birding is easy to hear in her voice and her words on the episode. Hummingbirds are the focus of birding for Cyndi, and she has become a leading hummingbird bander and a strong advocate for hummingbirds in the Americas. She leads The Southeast Avian Research Project and has birded several places in the Americas where hummingbirds can be seen.
On the episode we talk about lots of hummingbird facts, some trivia, some key to understanding these amazing tiny creatures.
Thanks for listening and reading.
Have you ever found yourself off to a great start birding in a certain area and decided maybe you should see how many species you can find in that area for the year, sort of a kinda-big-year? That describes many of the recent years of my guest this episode, Alex Patia. The ABA, New Mexico, Washington and Clallam County big years have come about this way for Alex since he became an avid birder and lister in about 2014.
We talk about his career as an environmental educator. He has worked for Nature Bridge, as well as at a camp in Maine, Camp Chiwonki
While at Camp Chiwonki he led several trips to Eastern Egg Rock. You can learn lots more about this area as well as Atlantic Puffin Reintroduction programs on The Bird Banter Podcast #57 with “Puffin” Pete Salmonsohn. The boat ride out to Eastern Egg Rock is one of my favorite easy short boat rides ever. I got my life Atlantic Puffin and Northern Gannet on this ride years ago.
I was fascinated to learn about the great birding in New Mexico too. I have birded just a little in NM, on a soccer trip with my daughter Jean when she was 13 and playing a regional tournament in Albuquerque, and on a vacation in Santa Fe with friends when we made it up to the Sandia Crest Lodge in Cibola to see Black Rosy-Finches at a feeder there.
I would love to get to Guadalupe Canyon there if that is still within my physical capability. This is a link to the eBird Bar Chart of species that can be found there. Bushtit, the typical coastal race found near where I live in western WA.
Here is a link to Birds of the World that I talk about in the introduction. I love this website.
Last, here is a link to the Bird Banter Podcast #55 with Suzie Gilbert to hear and learn more about bird rehab centers and Suzie’s novel Unflappable.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Good birding and Good Day!
Cameron Cox is a well known ABA birder who is spending time in Washington this winter as a consequence of Covid restrictions. I took advantage of Cameron being here by getting down to Chelalis last weekend to see the Lesser Black-backed Gull he picked out of a flock of gulls near where he is staying in the Chelalis area, a Lewis County first for this species I believe. Cameron has a lot of experience at bird ID in flight. We talk about his philosophy and understanding of how birders can learn this challenging skill, and how he has developed this expertise. Examples of his experience are at hawk watches, sea watches and at the Cape May morning flight.
Kay and I spent a week at Cape May several years ago. We took a 2-day hawk watching class from Pete Dunne at the Cape May Hawk Watch platform, and two mornings went to the morning flight. It is a truly incredible experience, and we were lucky enough to be there for an extraordinary flight day. Imaging seeing and identifying (or in our case not identifying but enjoying) thousands of warblers flying by at eye level, often within feet or even inches from our heads, in the breaking dawn. It is somewhat mind-blowing, and hearing the pros identify these birds in flight by their shape, size, flight pattern and call notes is pretty special.
We also talk about tropical birding in Central America, his favorite birding places, and more.
Here are a few links to topics we discuss. The Panama Canopy Lodge. Monte Verde Lodge in Costa Rica The Cape May Hawk Watch Cape May Morning Flight
Here is the Kikoldi Hawk Watch Tower Facebook Page
Thanks for listening to the Bird Banter Podcast.
Until next time. Good birding. Good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast is 2 years old now, with my first episode published 2 years ago tomorrow, Jan 22, 2019. A lot has happened since then. The 89 numbered episodes of this podcast have covered a time during which we have spent the last year in a worldwide pandemic, a U.S. presidential election that seemed to dominate and IMO drag our country through a time I hope can be put behind us. That said, I’ve had a lot of fun doing TBBP. In this episode I look back, at guests, stories, and more.
I won’t dwell on this, but want to here again give thanks to everyone who has helped. Listeners, guests, family and friends, and the whole birding community for your encouragement and support.
Let’s make the next 2 years better in many ways, and continue to enjoy and love our passion for birds and birding.
Thanks again.
Ed
It was really fun to talk with a professional story teller on The Bird Banter Podcast #88 with Brian “Fox” Ellis. Brian is a lifelong birder and story teller. He started earning money telling stories in college, and this evolved into a profession. I have to say stories are what powers long road trips with birders, and the lore is one of the parts of birding with friends I most enjoy. Most birders, IMHO are storytellers, and the stories are integral to birding.
I think Brian is right in that most of us come from storytelling families. I hope that you all enjoy the stories that are an integral part of this podcast. One of the things I most enjoy about doing this podcast is hearing the birding story of my guests.
Brian’s web page, Fox Tales International, will give you more information about Brian and his new books.
We talked about a number of Brian’s favorite birding sites today. You can read about many of them on the Illinois River Road Birding webpage.
Brian’s web page is at Fox Tales International and his you tube channel is here.
Here is the Hummingbird Tales video Brian mentions as one you may enjoy.
I have been really pleased with the start to the year birding and here are a couple of photos of cool birds I’ve seen. The Common Grackle I saw on Jan 11th, my 399th Washington State species, is here along with the smaller Brewer’s Blackbirds. White-tailed Kite on Puget Island. A terrible photo of the WA first Winter Wren found by Will Brooks.
Please tell your favorite birding story in the comments section of this blog post. Thanks.
Until next time. Good birding. Good day.
Dan Cooper is my guest on The Bird Banter Podcast #87, and we talk about his youth as a young California birder in the fabulous birding community that was California in the latter 20th century, about his career as an ecological monitoring and research consultant, and about birding passions. Enjoy.
I feel like every time I get to talk with a birder who grew up birding in California during what I think of as the golden age of birding there, the 1960-1990 timer range, I learn lots, enjoy the stories, and am a bit envious of their experiences. Dan Cooper was a part of that birding community, and as a podcast guest shares some of his stories of that time and more.
We talk about a mutual friend John Sterling (epoisode #10) who was one of the trip leaders and guides on a trip I took to Kenya with three prior guests, Bruce LaBar, Heather Ballash and Marcus Roening. They are also the Pierce County birders I talk about in the introduction.
It was fun to hear Dan talk about his achieving his PhD recently on the topic of urban birds. Here is an article about the Goshawks of Berlin, and here is a link to the ABC Birding club meeting with Ed Deal when he talked about his study of Cooper’s Hawks in the Seattle Area.
I wish you all a great New Year, great birding and safe travels as time passes.
I cannot wait to get to Costa Rica. Not just for birding, though I expect that to be fabulous. My daughter lives there and I realized that all of 2020 has now gone by without seeing her and seeing her live in Costa Rica. The vaccine, control of this pandemic, and freedom to comfortably travel safely again cannot come fast enough for me.
Jason Westlake is a fascinating guest from my standpoint. As I mention in the introduction to this episode Jason is my first self-described traveller as a guest. Sure, lots of us travel, and many likely travel to bird, or bird while travelling, or both, but how many of us think of travelling as our vocation? My guess is not many of us.
If you visit Costa Rica you can find Jason at Tierra de Sueños Lodge website. I mention several other episodes in the intro so here are quick links to some of those.
Jonah Gula is a graduate student at Texas State University doing research on the African Saddlebill Stork. We talk about his work with African storks, his birding story and adventures, and his other field research work. I grew up in Maine near where Jonah attended Unity College, and it was good to hear his story of work there on black bears with my niece’s husband Kendall Marden.
We talk about predation of Greater Sage Grouse by raptors that are likely predated by Swainson’s Hawks. I was surprised. I checked on Birds of the World, and male Greater-sage Grouse can weight from 1.9-3.1 kg lbs, with females weighing from 900 – 1800 grams. Swainson’s Hawks weigh from 700-1300 grams. So the Swainson’s Hawks can weigh nearly as much as the smallest female Greater Sage Grouse.
Saddle-billed Storks are indeed a spectacular bird. Check out this photo in the McCauley library. https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/93102161#_ga=2.37371427.2037751036.1608164645-532505861.1607311548 They stand up to 1.2 meters tall, and weigh up to 6 kg. They are boldly black-and-white with a huge red-black and yellow bill.
Here is a link to publications by Jonah.
I mentioned previous podcast episodes by Paul Bannick and Florence Reed so here are links to the blog posts for those episodes. Here is a link to the Sustainable Harvest International effort to help small farmers establish sustainable wildlife-friendly family farms.
I hope you enjoy this episode. Please leave comments with feedback, suggestions for future guests, or just to say hello.
Good birding and good day!
