I heard about Francisco Garcia a number of times over the years when talking with Marcus Roening and Heather Ballash about their many trips to Mexico. Francisco is based in San Blas, in Nayarit, Mexico, and leads birding tours through Safaris San Blas. You can find them on Facebook @safarisanblas
It was really fun to hear about the excellent birding in the San Blas area that is accessible on relatively short drives from town, allowing a good bird list without spending long days traveling. I checked on eBird, and Francisco is the #2 eBird lister in Nayarit, Mexico, with a great life list there. His list is 473 species, and of interest to me is that Marcus and Heather are #14 & #15 with 342 and 340 species respectively. They have 640 and 619 in all of Mexico on their eBird Lists. I knew that they had birded Mexico a lot, but Wow!
Nayarit is one of the smaller Mexican states in population, with about 1.2 millinon people, and has a good portion of the Pacific Coastline of Mexico. The eBird list for Nayarit is 561 species of a total of 1099 in all of Mexico.
I have knows about Dennis Paulson since first moving to the Puget Sound area in 1987, and after getting his Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest book have enjoyed reading that and reviewing it every spring and fall as migration approaches. Dennis is an iconic figure in the Washington birding community. He has taught the Seattle Audubon Master Birding Class for many years, curated the Slater Museum at the University of Puget Sound and taught there, has talked at just about every local and regional birding related event for decades, and is such a nice guy that he is truly beloved by WA birders.
We talk about lots of topics on the podcast. Here are links to some of them.
Shorebirds of the Pacific Northwest is out of print, and expensive on Amazon. If you want a copy, search and maybe you can find one.
Hawks in Flight by Pete Dunne and others is here on Buteo Books.
Pete Dunnes Field Guide Companion is the third book I mentioned that is one of my favorites. It is best found as a Kindle Book on Amazon now, as the hard cover ones are expensive. It is not a book with photographs or color plates, so a digital version should be great. ‘
Here is a link to the online Slater Museum Collection of wings and tails. You’ll need to search by scientific name, so be prepared.
On The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #67 with Dr. Roger Lederer we talk about a nice variety of subjects, including his birding story, his experience as a university professor of ornithology at California State Chico, about his website Ornithology.com as well as tips to listeners who might be interested in a career in ornithology or just learning more about bird biology.
He has done a number of seminars at the Osher Foundations events, a learning for adults >50 years of age program. See the link to that program.
On a recent episode the Andrew Emlen we talked about his sea kayak programs on the lower Columbia river with the Roads Scholar program, another destination focused adult experiential education program.
In the intro I talk about county birding. As guests in the past I’ve had some top county birders. Brad Waggoner is the #1 county birder in Kitsap County, and Bruce LaBar is the Pierce County birder still living with the largest county life list. (Patrick Sullivan deceased reported having seen more species per the WA Birder Website county birding pages.
On the day of birding I talk about with Ken Brown, here a couple of photos and the list of the 12 new Mason County species I saw that day.
American Dipper Amerian Dipper
American Kestrel
Cassin’s Vireo
Common Murre
Marbled Murrelet
Brown Pelican A terrible digiscope photo for documentation of this unlikely Mason County bird.
Barn Owl How cool are Barn Owls?
California Scrub Jay
Brown Creeper
Chipping Sparrow Chipping Sparrow
Western Sandpiper This individual was photographed the day prior in Pierce County.
Long-billed Dowitcher
Andrew trying to hear a Hutton’s Vireo from his Alcyon Farm.
To record this episode of The Bird Banter Podcast I had the privilege of spending the day birding in Wahkiakum County, WA with my guest Andrew Emlen. Andrew is the top eBird lister in Wahkiakum County, is a very good birder, and a super nice guy. In addition he lives on and owns the Alcyon Farm, a fabulous Creekside property with a large area of restored riparian habitat and is a proprietor of Columbia River Kayaking.
Andrew and me looking for an American Dipper from the bridge across the creek on his farm.
On our day in Wahkiakum Andrew took Marian and me birding on his farm, and in local areas before we sat in the shade in the early afternoon at one of his Kayak put-in spots to talk about his birding story and his esperiences birding, kayaking and living in the area.
A Barn Swallow nest on Andrew’s porch viewed through a mirror on a pole to show the nestlings.
Patrick O’Donnell started birding as a 7-year old in Niagra Falls, NY. From there he has birded many places in the U.S. and for the last few years has lived in San Jose, Costa Rica where he guides day birding trips, is a freelance writer and is active in the Birding Club of Costa Rica.
Patrick has published an eBook available in many formats called How to Find and Identify Birds in Costa Rica. I have bought the Kindle version and it seems to be all that is implied in the title and more. I look forward to reading it soon.
We talk about several of Patrick’s favorite places to bird near San Jose including:
37×1024.jpg” alt=”” width=”937″ height=”1024″ class=”size-large wp-image-1117″ /> Heather and Marcus on the Pacific Crest Trail part of our hike to Government Meadow yesterday. [/caption]
I have known Marcus and Heather Roening for a long time. Marcus has been a prominent Pierce County birder and conservationist for most if not all of the time I’ve lived here, since 1987. More recently I got to know them much better on a birding trip to Morocco. You can hear more about that on several episodes I produced in April 2019. Michael Carmody, the tour leader was my guest on episode #12. We don’t talk much about the trip on this episode, so check there to see more about that trip. I bring this up because it was the time when I feel like I really got to see how fun it was to be around both Heather and Marcus. They are both excellent birders and I enjoyed their company and birding expertise on that trip. Heather and Marcus with Michael Carmody (left) in Morocco in 2019.
Yesterday we went to Government Meadows, a large meadow near Mt. Rainier, in hopes of finding a few FOY (first-of-year) species for Pierce County. This was Heather’s idea, as we were trying to work out a place to record an episode and she thought it would be fun to do it outdoors, and if we could also manage to find a couple FOY Pierce County birds she might pass Bruce LaBar and go into first place for the most species seen in Pierce so far this year on eBird. We talk on the episode about this ongoing friendly competition. Rain, sleet, snow, and fatigue kept the recording from happening there, and rain pushed us indoors to their garage, a place big and open enough to properly social distance and accomplish the recording.
We saw some great scenery and got a good hike in yesterday, but alas no FOY species for any of us.
I hope you all enjoyed the episode. Feel free to leave comments here with ideas for guests, suggestions for improving the podcast, or just to reach out or give feedback.
Mike Denny
Mike Denny is my guest on The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #63, and what fun we had doing the recording. I called Mike a week or so ahead of a hoped for trip to the Walla Walla area in hopes of seeing my first Washington State Great Gray Owl. I had seen this species in Oregon, on a trip coordinated by Ken Brown for our ABC Birding Club, when a local biologist took us to a known nest box. That was very exciting, as an lifer and we got to see both adults and young birds. Mike offered to take Ken and me to a known nesting area in WA, and though the birds had fledged a week or so earlier, he expected that we would be able to find them in the area. Gray Catbird
After a nice early morning of birding the lower elevations of Walla Walla County, and adding Veery to our WA year list, we headed up Jasper Mountain. Along the way Mike held told storiesAdult Ferruginous Hawk in a tree right beside the road. Photo taken through open drivers window from passenger seat. of the Jasper Mountain Land Trust and how important they, and land trusts in general are to habitat preservation, as well as lots of cool info on the birds, butterflies, salamanders, snakes etc of the area.
After getting to the area of the nesting spot, Mike showed us the unusual nest site, a large escavated Pileated Woodpecker working, and we started to look for branching owlets. Mike pointed out scree by the road. He showed us how adult scree is all urea, like most birds, but that the scree of young owls can contain undigested hair and other material. We also saw wolf dung, like large dog poop but containing lots of hair from the deer or elk that they take as prey. Wolf Dung. Note the hair from prey .
Shortly Ken spotted two owlets on a branch of a tree maybe 75 meters away. We looked at them, and then moved to a place with a clearer view. Mike suggested that we sit and watch, and wait for the parents to come feed them. I thought this was a perfect time to talk, and record the podcast, so Mike, Ken and I sat on a roadside bank, watched the owlets, and recorded this episode. I used an omnidirectional speaker, so listen carefully and hear both the owlets begging, the adult GGOW answering, and lots of other birds in the area. Two of the 3 Great Gray Owl branching young birds that we watched for an hour or so.
Here is a link to The Secret Life of the Forest: The Northern Blue Mountains.
Here is the web site of the Blue Mountain Land Trust, the group that has helped preserve the land around a top birding area we visited, Coppei Creek https://bmlt.org/
Here is the snake that Mike spotted in the road on the way down from Bethyl Ridge Road. A species of snake, a “Racer” of some variety, that Mike managed to get to move from the middle of the road to directly underneath his vehicle.
And here is Mike looking for the snake in his engine compartment, after he tried to shoo it away to safety, and instead it hid under his car, then disappeared. Mike searching for the snake in his engine compartment.
Overall a great day of birding, ending with this fabulous sunset. Sunset over Rattlesnake Mountain.
Until next time, good birding and good day!
Jean at her Caribean Food Forest
On The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #62 with Jean Pullen we talk primarily about her passion for restorative agriculture. Other names for this type of food production are Permaculture, Food Forestry, and Agriforestry. Jean and her partner Alan are in the process of restoring a hectacre of previous pastureland into a self-sustaining agricultural forest, with multiple layers of habitat for birds and other animals, along with an abundance of food for themselves and to market.
Jean is also involved with other organizations that are working to improve farming in the tropics and elsewhere, to restore the land, improve the farmers lives, and provide uber-healthy food for their own consumption and as a revenue producing crop. See lots of additional information at Kiss the Ground, where you’ll find podcast, video and blog posts.
You can follow Jean at her Facebook page.
We talk about the relatively tiny 500 M2 property on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica that Alan and Jean have converted from a small lawn into an incredibly abundant food-producing multi-layered forest in just a couple of years. Jean resting from her agriforestry work.
I cannot wait to have the chance to spend time in Costa Rica with Jean, learning the birds there, of course visiting my daughter, and enjoying the insanely delicious fruit.
I also talk about the Scarlet-rumped Tanager seen in Jean’s garden. Here are some photos of the tanager and a few of the other birds I saw in her garden. Social Flycatcher The Clay-colored Thrush, the National Bird of Costa Rica I discuss in the introduction.
You can find my podcast episode with my son Brett at The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #42
Nate Swick is my first ABA guest on The Bird Banter Podcast. Nate joined the American Birding Association team about 10 years ago when as an ABA member he contacted them and pitched himself as the person to bring them online and into the information age. I enjoyed talking with Nate, hearing his birding story and his story of work at the ABA.
In the intro to this episode I mention an odd sandpiper that perplexed Bruce LaBar (see episode #3), Shep Thorpe (See episode #9)
Here is a photo of that odd Tringa Odd Tringa, likey a Solitary Sandpiper
What fun to talk with Gary Bletsch on The Bird Banter Episode #59. Gary is a county birder supreme, having 328 species in Skagit County, WA on eBird, a number that is among the highest individual county life lists for any county in WA. I had a really great talk with Gary. I hope you enjoy it.
Gary is an eBird lister almost beyond compare. He has submitted, as of 5-9-2020 24,648 eBird checklists from Skagit County alone, and 27,194 in Washington, and 30,128 in the world. This ranks him at #1 in both Skagit and WA (second in WA is at 11,373) and #15 in the world. His total in Skagit County alone would rank at #24 in the world!
