Category: Podcast summary

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode#27 with the McQuades- Additional Information


A photo of the radar screen on the McQuade’s boat.

I had an absolute blast recording this episode of The Bird Banter Podcast. Both Tammy and Dave McQuade have the energy you’d expect from a couple doing their 5th consecutive lower 48 Big Year, and have a great story to tell. Maybe the most interesting part of the episode to me was hearing about their new boat that they use for pelagic trips on the Gulf of Mexico. Unlike many west coast pelagic trips, where large flocks of birds are relatively easily found, in the gulf the birds are found in much smaller numbers, and congregate around bait fish, so it’s easy to miss them. Dave and Tammy have the solution. A fast boat with super powered radar that can detect a single bird as small as a term from two miles away. Then with their fast boat they can race over to see the bird. They can cover over 300 miles in a single day of birding.

Here is a photo of the boat:

A 30’ Robalo center console with twin 300hp Yamahas

This is the radar:

In Dave’s terms the Garmin xHD2 radar “is off the charts crazy.”

They are exploring what they call ABA birding’s last frontier, the relatively unbirded gulf waters.

I also talked about several other birder’s big years in the podcast introduction. Here are some links to those that I know of with websites or blogs:

https://www.facebook.com/david.mcquade.96

https://www.facebook.com/david.mcquade.96

Dorian Anderson’s blog from his bicycle big year.  

Christian Hagenlocher’s The Birding Project page:  .

Laura Keene’s blog site  

Blair Bernson’s blog with details of many of his 50 state saga:  

Olaf Danielson’s Big Year Blog:  

John Weigel’s 2019 Big Year blog 

The book I mentioned outlining a strategy to find 650 ABA birds on a budget is

    Birdfinder: A Birders Guide to Planning North American Trips

by Jerry Cooper. You can find it used on Amazon.

Noah Strycker wrote the book Birding Without Borders, available anywhere books are sold.

I am currently working on competition only with myself for Pierce County and Washington State Big Years I have no illusions about “winning” either year, but am enjoying getting around and finding what I can. By starting each year fresh, it gives incentive to get out to lots of places and go birding.
I currently have found 202 species in Pierce County, after Levee Pond dried up just in time for migration and yielded 5 FOY shorebirds this week, and 291 Washington State species for 2019. I am aiming for >300 this year, and it is pretty reachable with at least one more Pelagic trip planned and an Eastern WA trip set for early Sept that should yield a few new year birds.

Here are photos of some of the Levee Pond bonanza seen this week. From top to bottom, Lesser Yellowlegs, Pectoral Sandpiper, Semipalmated Plover, and Semi-palmated Sandpiper.


 
Until next time, good birding and good day.

Episode #26 with Tim Larson


In this episode Tim larson, passionate advocate for seabirds on the Farralone Islands off the California coast tells us about his work in support of mouse eradication on the islands. This topic is controversial, but I agree with Tim and the near universal supporting biologists who are trying to get this project done. Listen and let me know if you agree.

Here are supporting links.
First the snail mail address to send letters in support of the project.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
1401 Constitution Avenue NW, Room 5128
Washington, DC 20230

Here are links related to the project and rodent eradication efforts elsewhere:
https://blog.nature.org/science/2015/12/15/miracle-palmyra-rats-birds-recovery-restoration-invasive-species-hawaii-nature-wildlife/?fbclid=IwAR0iIyQeuskChvJiokAEw9B7ImDNAZvJIidVbOBto8_DAYkl1zj8kXTEoQ4

https://www.facebook.com/Farallones-House-Mouse-Eradication-Project-534040270353530/?modal=admin_todo_tour

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/on-assignment/assignment-paradise-lost-found-n572216?fbclid=IwAR1FoCNxOaSVDxpGPAv1U2jZXWCa2fTiChaP7k740Bpcp-9RsN9Uy_Muv_M
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Leave comments and let me know what you think.

Good birding. Good day.

Episode #25 with Dr. John Fitchen


In episode #25 I talk with another physican Dr. John Fitchen. He is a retired hematology-oncologist and a top Portland, OR area birder. He recently published a book:

    Life Through the Lens of a Doctor Birder: A Memoir

. I read the book and it is an enjoyable read for birders or for general interest. Birders will enjoy chapters on his trip to Attu, and his Multnomah County Big Year, as well as the field notes at the end of each chapter describing the last 20 species he saw entoute to getting to 300 on his Multnomah County Life List.
Readers or listeners can get a 10% discount on the book at https://aerbook.com/store/fitchen using the code BANTER

On the podcast we talked briefly about the role of physician in early American ornithology. I looke more into this to be sure I was remembering correctly. Spencer Baird, of Smithsonian fame, married the daughter of the Secretary of the Army, and with that influence managed to recruit the help of many Army Surgeons on exploratory expeditions, as well as at outposts, who sent him species skins, eggs, etc. Some names that will sound familiar are:
John James Cooper (Cooper’s Hawk)
Adolphys L Heermann (Heermann’s Gull)
John Fox Hammond (Flycatcher)
In addition George Stellar was a Russian physician who explored the northwest and Arctic areas, having Stellar’s Jay, Stellar’s Sea Eagle, the Extince Stellar’s Sea Cow, Stellar’s Sea Lion named after him.
You can read more about this at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44442753?read-now=1&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents
I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you have yet to listen, you can find it at http://birdbanter.com/
On that page you can listen on Podbean, or can find one-click links to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Spotify.
Thanks.
Good Birding. Good Day!

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Episode #24 with Nick Bonono


In this episode Nick Bonono and I talk about his birding story, his recent trip to Alaska, his Connecticut Big Year experiences, his blog, Shorebirder.com as well as using NEXRAD weather radar to look at migration. Nick is a top birder, has a trip he is leading for Connecticut Audubon to sub-Saharan Africa, and is fun to talk with. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Here are some links and additional info related to the podcast episode.

Nick was kind enough to send supporting information in an email, and here is what he sent me.

Connecticut Audubon Society’s EcoTravel: https://www.ctaudubon.org/ecotravel-home/
You don’t have to be a Connecticut resident to join us! We have many travelers from other states.

My Blog: www.shorebirder.com

For those who enjoy pelagics, for an East Coast flavor:
1) Summer trips out of Cape Cod, where we often see White-faced Storm-Petrel and great seabird variety overall:
https://www.brooklinebirdclub.org/pelagic-trips-2/
2) For World Class Seabirding experience that’s the best on the east coast, go out of Hatteras, NC with Brian Patteson and Kate Sutherland:

Home

As far as the Radar stuff goes:
Here is a primer from eBird – https://ebird.org/news/radar
I like to use the following site to view the maps:
http://weather.rap.ucar.edu/radar/

It takes some playing around with to learn, but a good way to start is to check the following fields:
Product: 0.5 Reflectivity
Background: (doesn’t really matter)
End date: Today
End time: Most recent
Loop duration: 3-4 hours…this gives you a good timespan to see migration in action. You can view the “liftoff” as the sun sets, or you can view the much more gradual “descent” of birds as dawn approaches.

Play with these variables on a night of good migration. Nocturnal migration is light right now, but should get going sometime in August and really heat up Sep-Oct depending on your latitude.

Thanks. If you are able, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts so I can get feedback on the episode.

Thanks.

Ed

Why Birding- Notes on Episode #22

On of many hundreds of dolphins, whales, seals, sea lions and other marine mammals seen on the 5-day pelagic trip out of San Diego I discuss in the episode.

In episode #22 I address the question, “Why am I a birder?” I think it is a good question, and I try to give a coherent answer on the epidose. In this post I’ll leave some photos and additional information.
For me birding is a hobby, or passion, or obsession, it all depends on your point of view. In the episode I talk about some of the things I find alluring about being a birder. People are certainly a part of the attraction. I find most birders to be helpful, smart and fun to be around. When Ken and I go birding the conversation usually covers sports, politics, birds, and family, along with whatever else we are thinking about. Still, talk about birding often dominates.
A Lorquin’s Admiral. It’s hard not to see butterflies when I’m birding in warm places.

Places are another big attraction.
A breakfast spot on the northern edge of the Sahara Desers on a recent Morocco birding trip.

The only shade for lunch this day in Morocco.

Stumbling onto wonders not birds is also a part of the game.
Myrtle Falls on a walk yesterday out of Paradise, Mt. Rainier N.P.

This is a photo of a garbage dump in Morocco. We found lots of great birds there.

Let me know your stories of why you are a birder, what keeps you going out birding, and why birding and not another hobby.

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #21 with Dr. Geoffrey Hill

Dr. Geoffrey Hill is an ornithology professor at Auburn University in Alabama as well as a longtime birder. Here is a link to our podcast episode.

I’ll spend most of this post discussing his theory of speciation in birds called the Mitonuclear Compatability Species Concept. I had a fair understanding of mitochondrial function and DNA prior to reading a couple of the essays and articles linked in Dr. Hill’s blogs, but after reading them I feel better able to summarize the concept.
Here are links to a couple of the articles I like.

This article lays out the issues pretty well: Sexy Beasts: or Why Do The Most Flamboyant Males Have The Evolutionary Edge.

This is Dr. Hill’s rebuttal to an old-timer expert who shot down his theory in another article. Defending the Mitonuclear Compatability Species Concept

Here is my take on the theory.

Dr Hill was faced with a few observations that existing theories of speciation and evolution did not reconcile well. These include:
-Despide containing a tiny fraction of the DNA of an individual bird, the mitocondrial DNA “bar code”, i.e. the exact sequence of the purine and pyrimdine code components for DNA experssion, is extremely accurate in identifying individual species. This seems impossible, but is true.
-In birds and butterflies, two species where extreme color and shape sexual adaptations seem to be most prevalent, the males carry the two similar sex chromosomes and the female is the sex with one larger sex chromosome and one different small sex chromosome. In birds WW is male Wz is female, vs in most other animals XX is female, and XY is male.

He also found that although the mitichondria contains over 1000 proteins, only about 15 are coded for in the mitochondrial DNA, and most of the rest are coded for in the W chromosome of the nucleus.

His theory postulates that since efficient energy production requires efficient mitochondrial function, that a near-perfect compatability between the mitochondrial proteins coded for in the nucleus and the mitochondria must exist. When an offspring comes from same species adults, the male has two and the female one copy of same-species W chromosome, and a compatable mitochondrial protein collection is assured. When two related species mate, the offspring has either one (the male offspring with W1W2) or no (the female with W1y2) genes. In the case of the male there is likely enough same-sex mitochondrial proteins produced to have a viable though non-competative mitochondrial energy production. In the female with no closely compatible W chromosome coded mitochondrial DNA to pair with the mitochondrial coded proteins which came from the mother of a different species the offspring is likely not viable and does not survive at all This is consistent with the observation that almost all living hybrid birds are male.

Minor mutations within a species may produce more or less efficient mitochondrial function, giving more or less competative individuals in terms of energy production efficiency, and allowing gradual evolution, but mating between species will essentially always lead to non-competative individuals that die off quickly and don’t lead to ongoing blending of the species.

It also helps understand why highly flamboyant feathers and bright colors, that may put a male at a disadvantage in camoflage, capturing prey, or other day-to-day necessities prove to a female that they are more fit as DNA donors than more drably adorned males. It’s because they are so efficient, and so fit that they can afford the counterproductive adornments.

True or not I like the ingenuity and outside-the-box thinking. I also like that a top ornithology thought leader is also an avid birder!

Good birding. Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #20 with The Willettes

Laurel, Faye, Carol and Diane with Ken Brown, the birding instructor for the classes where most of the group met each other.


For my 20th episode I broke the trend of one guest, and invited three of the Willettes over to my condo for wine (the lure), snacks, to watch the sailboat races on Commencement Bay, and to record episode #20.
It’s a cool story, listen to hear that. Here I’ll post some photos of the Willettes. Photos are one thing never in short supply when they are along.
Here is Carol, Diane and Faye with me at an ABC Birding Club meeting.


This is Laurel, Faye and Diane in the outfits they wore to the podcast recording session. They had planned to wear the Citrene Warbler sweatshirts, but the 90+ degree weather prompted them to have the sweatshirts loosely draped and to wear matching “Willettes” designed t-shirts.
This is several Willettes with Will Brooks (episode #19) at his ABC talk.

Sergio from Raptours spoke at one of our meetings, with the obligatory Willettes group photo.

Lest you think the Willettes are all fashion and no birding, you need to know that they are all avid birders, listers, traveling birders, and volunteers. Thanks Willettes for a nice evening and doing the recording.

Laurel with Carol Smith in yet another matching T.

Enjoy.

Good birding. Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast #19 with Brooks Episode Additional Details


Thursday Will Brooks and I recorded an episode for The Bird Banter Podcast, and I expect it to be published Monday June 10th. Here are some details related to or relavent to the episode:

Here is a link to a recent WOS newsletter where Will published an article about his research. http://wos.org/documents/wosnws/wosnews179.pdf

Here is a link to the ABC Birding club site and a writeup about his presentation to our club. http://abcbirding.com/will-brooks-tells-us-the-secrets-of-white-crowned-sparrows-march-26-2019/

This is a link to Will’s eBird profile.  https://ebird.org/pnw/profile/NDE3OTMx/US-WA-053

Some of the really cool birds Will found last year include:
-Long-tailed Jaeger at Point Defiance (links are to my eBird lists when I saw the birds) https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S48534820
-Clay-colored Sparrow and Rusty Blackbird at 134th Street in Puyallup. https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S49804659
-Glaucous Gull at the Puyallup River https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S41718496
-Short-eared Owl at McNeil St Trail Overlook. https://ebird.org/pnw/view/checklist/S50277333
-Yellow-breasted Chat in the Ohop Valley. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S46280722

These are just a few that I could find on my 2018 Pierce County eBird list. I know there were many more I didn’t see of cannot recall.

I hope you enjoy the episode with Will.

Good birding. Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #17: Memorial Day Weekend Notes

Pigeon Guillemot on its nest. Most of the nests appeared to be deeper in burrows, and the sitting birds were not visible, but this one was in plain sight.

On this episode Ed talks about Memorial Day weekend just past and memories of this weekend gone by, along with the recent ABC Birding Club presentation by Ken Brown (episodes #2 & #6) on bird names and avian nomenclature. Check out the ABC Birding website post on this talk.

The sandy bank with the burrows looked like this.

At Anderson Island this past weekend there were nesting Pigeon Guillemots. They make burrows in the sandy banks, along with Northern Rough-winged Swallows, and Ed happend onto two separate colonies with 20+ birds each.

The Willettes are a group of female birders in the ABC Club that travel together, drink wine together, bird together and dress in matching bird-related attire.

Laurel, Faye, Ken, Carol and Diane (4 Willettes and Ken)

Thanks for visiting.

Good birding. Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #17 Memorial Day Weekend Notes


Pigeon Guillemot on its nest. Most of the nests appeared to be deeper in burrows, and the sitting birds were not visible, but this one was in plain sight.

This weekend I visited Anderson Island with a new birding friend Marian, and we stubled upon two colonies of Pigeon Guillemots. These are our local breeding Alcid, a species that nests in burrows or cavities in sandy banks near salt water. Anderson Island is a heavily wooded island in the Puget Sound accessible by a short ferry ride from Steilacom, WA. It has lots of high sandy banks that seem perfect for PIGU to nest, and it was fun to see their colonies.

The sandy bank with the burrows looked like this.

Northern Rough-winges Swallows shared the sandy banks.