Birding with Kenn and Kimberly

From a hotel somewhere in Harlingen, Texas, Kimberly Writes: Kenn and I are in Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival  where Kenn will be leading several walks and giving a special presentation tomorrow night.  We arrived yesterday afternoon, made a brief stop at the convention center where the festival headquarters are located, and headed for our hotel.  As we were unpacking the second load from the car, I noticed a couple birds perched atop a smallish shrub in the vacant lot beside the hotel.  As we stepped off the pavement to get a better look, we were stunned to see that they were two White-tailed Kites!  Well, we took our white tails right back in to our hotel room to fetch optics and cameras, and when we came back there were THREE circling above the hotel.  I managed to shoot about 30 seconds of video of one of the birds as it "kited" in one spot.  Wait for the 13 second mark and watch as the bird cuts out and heads for parts...

Kimberly Writes: I've received a tremendous amount of feedback on my last post about bird research.  I wanted to share a particular comment, because I think the points are so valuable.   The following comment was made by by "Jude," and I thought it was important enough to share openly on our blog in order to generate some good, healthy dialogue about this subject.  The comment from Jude: "I don't know the birder who sparked your response, but I'd be very surprised if their call to re-examine banding came from a place of not understanding the critical importance of the data being gathered. As a novice birder, I've already seen distressing examples of geese with overly tight neck bands, smaller birds with too tight leg bands, and birds with too many bands altogether. I imagine you have to have seen way more than I. Understanding the value of data gathering in conservation efforts and advocacy can and should be accompanied by compassion and a very high ...

From Homebase in Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kimberly Writes:   Recently a well-known birder, admired by many (including yours truly), spoke out publicly about her belief that banding and color-marking is bad for birds. Of course this is not the first time these research methods have been criticized. Humans have active minds and diverse interests and beliefs; we are always going to disagree on some things, and that’s okay. But this particular situation felt like a blow because it drew such an emotional reaction from people who, I believe, actually know better. Whether the topic at hand involves birds or some other issue, when emotion overrules facts it is cause for concern. This is a delicate issue, and to be honest, I’m not sure I’m the right person to take this on. Truth is, I would rather just ignore it and focus on things like the upcoming Ohio Young Birders Conference and all the other positive things BSBO has going on. But part of what creates this problem is the fact that we need m...

From homebase in Oak Harbor, Kimberly writes: Last night, Black Swamp Bird Observatory loaded a bunch of birders into our awesome Bird Bus and went to see the movie The Big Year.  I was excited to go to the movies with Kenn and a bunch of friends no matter how good or bad the movie turned out to be. To be honest, I was more than a little concerned that Hollywood would simply adopt the model perpetuated by the media for decades and cast us in the same stereonerdical  role. I was wrong. Steve Martin's character, " Stu Preissler," is a powerful , wealthy, executive who is obsessed with birding. His colleagues all bow to his executive prowess and on more than one occasion, they actually beg him to rescue them in challenging business negotiations. He's a hero. But here's the beauty. He's also a really nice guy.  He loves his family, and while on occasion (with some gentle admonishment from his loving and supportive wife) he skips a few famil...

From home base in Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kimberly writes: To say that I hadn't traveled much before Kenn and I got married would be a serious understatement. A lifelong Ohioan, I come from a family perfectly happy to set their roots deep in northwest Ohio and keep them there forever.  The idea of living any place else or traveling the world was something that had never entered my mind.  All that changed when Kenn and I were married in 2005.  Suddenly, I found myself in love with a world-traveler who had experienced some of the most extraordinary places on earth.  In terms of deciding where we should make our home together, the world was on the table. If you read this blog or know anything about me and Kenn, then you probably know that the bird migration here in NW Ohio is pretty phenomenal. I'm sure most people just assume that birds are the reason we decided to live in Ohio, and of course that's a big part of it.  But, the main reason we decided ...

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: With the Midwest Birding Symposium (MBS) only a couple of days away, here are some final suggestions for how to make the most of the experience, for yourself and for the birds. All too often, when birders are asked to support conservation, we are just asked to send money somewhere. Of course, that’s often a good thing to do; but I prefer to focus on approaches that represent an actual, personal involvement. So, in a post on September 10, I recommended that you should connect with Birds & Beans Coffee. That’s a personal commitment: if you’re going to drink coffee, why not go for the type that protects bird habitat, not the type that kills birds? In a post the next day, I suggested picking up the Duck Stamp and the Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp. This is a personal involvement also: we’re not just sending $15 off somewhere, we’re buying a stamp that we can show off in public, to demonstrate that birders are stepping up to the plate and supportin...

The current Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp: not only is it one key field mark of a good birder, it can also help to get you a significant discount during the Midwest Birding Symposium. From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: This is a continuation of yesterday’s post about how to make the most of your visit to the Midwest Birding Symposium (MBS), in Lakeside, Ohio. But as I’d like to point out, you can take advantage of some of this advice even if you DON’T get to attend the MBS. Yesterday, I wrote about how you could do yourself (and the birds) a favor by visiting the booth of Birds & Beans – The Good Coffee. Today, here’s another kind of approach: 2. Get Your Stamps On. Everyone who goes birding in Ohio should be a stamp collector to some extent, collecting at least two per year: the “Duck Stamp” and the Legacy Stamp.  This year's Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp  The Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, popularly kn...