Tag: birding podcast

Notes Supplemental to The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #53 with Ryan Merrill


Ryan Merrill and I talk about his birding story,  birding in Washington State, and about his local patch birding.  He also talks about his work on the Washington Bird Records Committee, and life as the husband/father in a family with a young child as a birder.  Enjoy. 

You can reach Ryan by e-mail: rjm284-at-gmail-dot-com

Here is a link to the Washington Bird Records Committee site:  

This is info about the Seattle Audubon Society Young Birders activities:  

The Swallow-tailed Gull Ryan found in WA made the local media in many places. Here is an example:  

Ryan talks about Carkeek Park near his home in Seattle. Here is info about that local park:  https://www.seattle.gov/parks/find/parks/carkeek-park

I hope you all stay well, get birding often, and until next time. Good birding. Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #36 with Tasha DiMarzio more information


I had such a fun time talking with Tasha DiMarzio on The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #36. We talked about her younger years as a domestic fowl breeder and caretaker, her career for 15 years working to sustain and protect the endangered Steller’s Eiders of Alaska, and her more recent adventures and endeavors. Here are some links to things we talked about as well as some we did not.

Follow Tasha on Instagram @featheredobsession

Here is a page about Tasha on the Alaska Sealife Center website.

Here is the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Website where Tasha is currently working.

Here is a link to the 2019 Great American Arctic Birding Challenge

Here is the Copper River Shore Birding Festival Site where Tasha and her Mom attend for fun.

This is the site for the Kachemak Bay Shorebird Festival

Here is our ABC Birding Site link to the report on Tasha’s Talk to us in 2015.

I hope you enjoyed the episode.

Until next time. Good birding. Good day!

Dr. Ursula Valdez and The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #35


On The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #35 I talk with Dr. Ursula Valdez about her birding story and about her decade plus of work in the Peruvian Amazon. We cover a lot of issues, and in this post I hope to add details and clarification to some of the topics we discussed. Her doctoral work was studying forest falcons in the Southeastern Peru Amazon. Here is a list of some of her publications related to that work listed on the Peregrine Fund page on a global raptors site. Here is the article on my birding club’s site after she made her presentation to us at a club meeting.

The Five species of forest falcons Dr. Valdez studied in the Peruvian Amazon (from her talk at ABC Birding)

This is a photo of her slide at that presentation of the five species of forest falcons she studied in her doctoral work.
More recently Dr. Valdez has been working with a local landowner, other researchers, local youth, and visiting volunteers at él Centro de Educacíon, Ciencia y Conservacíon, in the Madre de Díos, a great name translated the Mother of Gods, in the Tambopata Province of Peru, near the town of Puerto Maldonado. This is one of the most species diverse areas of the world, and in an area being ravished by land clearing, slash burning and gold mining. We talk about the gold mining, much of which is done illegally, in areas where it is not legally allowed. The gold there is disbursed in the runoff sediment from the river, and huge areas of the river itself and surrounding forest are cleared, dug up, the gold extracted in a process using mercury, and left ravished. The ecological and health consequences are devastating to the community and of course to the wildlife of the area. Here is an article about this issue on the USAID website. The article addresses the social, ecological and community issues related to the illegal alluvial gold mining in the Madre de Díos region.
Dr. Valdez also talks about her local work at the Bothel Campus of the University of Washington, where she teaches, does local conservation work, and continues her research activities.
The facebook page @CECCOT is a great way to keep touch with their great organization and to hear about volunteer opportunities there. Be sure to like and follow their page, and support their work in any way that you are able
Until next time, good birding. Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #34 with Brad Waggoner Additional Info


In this episode Brad and I talk a lot about birding in Clallam County, WA. Over the last decade or so it has become increasingly clear that Neah Bay is a special place in the fall. If you look at a map of the northwestern U.S. you will see that Neah Bay and Cape Flattery are at the very northwest most point of the lower 48 United States.
Just this fall rare Washington species found in Neah Bay include Blackburnian Warbler, Orchard Oriole, Tropical Kingbird (frustratinglyk found the day after I left Neah Bay), Lapland Longspur, Lark Sparrow (rare for that location, not eastern WA), Red-shouldered Hawk, Northern Mockingbird, Lesser Black-backed Gull, and American Redstart.

I am hopeful that Brad will help me mark up a Neah Bay map with the birders names for locations often used in describing places in the town.

Here is a link to Matt Bartell and Ken Knittel’s WA Birder website. http://wabirder.com/

Here are some photos from my recent Neah Bay trip:

Black Turnstone

72 Black Oystercatchers

Gray Whale

Here is a link to the ABC Birding website of our local birding club. http://abcbirding.com/

Good birding. Good day!

Note Related to TBBP #10 with John Sterling.


John Sterling started birding at age 11 in California, during what I’ve always considered the golden age of modern U.S. birding, where a generation of young birders took birding to a new level. They explored known birding spots, and discovered many new hotspots. Looking for and chasing vagrants became a key part of the birding game in those days, and many California and ABA first species sightings were discovered. John, with the support of his Dad and many of the California birders of his youth, became a key part of that renaissance.
Don Roberson’s site Who Was Who in California Birding: 1965-1989.
He tells us about his remarkable career as a field ornithologist, with stories of the American tropics, California birding, research in the northern boreal forests, and his recent trip to China.
Here are photos from John’s web site of his trip to China last month. Here are his photos from the trip I went with him to Kenya in 2016.

Cocha Antshrike photo of a female from The Internet Bird Collection website gallery.

Here is a link to Cornell’s Neotropical Birds telling the story of the Cocha Antshrike that John was involved with the rediscovery of in the 1980’s in Equador that he talks about in the episode.

Brewers sparrow is the species I talk about in the introduction, and play the song from the Sibley App at the end of the episode. These are among the more drably marked LBJ’s (little brown jobs) we see in WA, and I don’t have any great personal photos, so here is a pic from the same site as the Cocha Antshrike above. Here is a link to the site for reference.

Brewer’s Sparrow photo, credit on link above.

Please leave comments below if you have any questions or suggestions.

Thanks.

Good birding. Good day!

The Bird Banter Podcast Episode #6: Ed Takes Ken Birding

Ken Brown and I went on a 6-day trip to Southern California. This trip was exactly the opposite of most of our prior trips together, when Ken did most of the planning and led the trips. I have spent some time in recent years in the area, and so planned and led this trip, with the goal of helping Ken see the area specialty birds, both native and introduced exotic species. I discuss the trip in the last episode of The Bird Banter Podcast, and here áre some photos of the trip.

One of the more recent exotic introduced specise to be accepted as “listable” by the ABA. Eguptian Goose.
A Brown Booby from our fowl weather pelagic on Saturday out of San Diego.

Wrapping up Southern California Trip

A Brown Booby from our fowl weather pelagic on Saturday out of San Diego.

Sitting at the Orange County Airport, waiting to fly home. We had a great trip, with 179 species, including 9 lifers for Ken, and 6 new California life birds for me. 30 checklists, lots of fun, battled some poor weather, but overall a great trip and the planned topic for the next episode of The Brid Banter Podcast. Stay tuned.

One of the more recent exotic introduced specise to be accepted as “listable” by the ABA. Egyptian Goose.
A Brown Booby from our fowl weather pelagic on Saturday out of San Diego.
A Cassin’s Aucklet too full of fish to take flight.
Black-vented Shearwater
Cactus Wrens at the Anza Borrego Visitor Center.

Enjoy the podcast. Good day. Good birding!

The Bird Banter Podcast: Episode #3 with Bruce LaBar

Bruce is a longtime leader on the Westport Seabirds pelagic trips and loves pelagic birding. This is a Northern Fulmar seen on one of my trips with Bruce

Bruce LaBar is my second guest on The Bird Banter Podcast and I am flattered to have Bruce to talk to you. Bruce is a very accomplished birder, a bigtime lister in Washington, and is well known and respected in the birding community. Bruce is the #1 all-time lister in WA with a WA lifelist of 452 species seen in WA, as well as the #1 all-time lister in our home Pierce County, WA with 285 species seen. He is currently the #1 2019 lister in both WA and Pierce County also, and is a good birding buddy to me (and really to almost every local and regional birder) as he is such a nice person.

Black-footed Albatross is the common albatross off the WA coast.

Bruce and I did Pierce County Big Days in every month of 2018 (I missed Feb.) and added Pierce to the counties in WA with a big day in every month of the year. We talk a bit about that in his podcast episode.
Bruce spent his formative years in birding in California during the time when ABA birding exploded, the 1970-1990 time frame, and lists as his friends many of the legendary California birders of that era.
I think you’ll enjoy hearing from Bruce on this episode. Here is a link to the episode on the iTunes store. Enjoy.
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