Birding with Kenn and Kimberly

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes:  A big event is coming to northwest Ohio at the end of September, and local birders are excited about it. That in itself is not unusual. Northwest Ohio is no stranger to birding events. One of the largest and most important bird festivals on the continent, The Biggest Week In American Birding, makes a huge impact here every May. Another notable festival, the Midwest Birding Symposium, is held here in fall every other year. But the event in late September isn’t a birding festival. It’s the contest to choose the artwork for next year’s Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp—better known as the Duck Stamp. The Duck Stamp program dates to 1934, a time when waterfowl populations in North America were in serious trouble because of habitat loss. The federal wildlife agencies needed a way to raise money to purchase or restore wetland habitats. By producing the stamp and requiring hunters to buy it, they were able to immediately start ra...

South Georgia Pipit (Anthus antarcticus) From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: According to the International Ornithological Congress, there are over 10,480 species of birds in the world. According to us, every single one of those species is fascinating in its own way.  Take this one. It's not large, it's not colorful, it doesn't have the most interesting song. But it lives in an amazing place. This is a South Georgia Pipit. It isn't found in the state of Georgia in the U.S., and it isn't found in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. No, this bird lives only on South Georgia Island, out where the South Atlantic meets the Antarctic Ocean. South Georgia is huge, wild, remote. About 100 miles long and up to 23 miles wide, it is crowned with snow-capped peaks that rise as much as 9000 feet in the air. The island and the surrounding waters are home to many large and spectacular creatures: seals, whales, penguins, albatrosses, various other seabirds. This is also...

Eskimo Curlews, as painted by John James Audubon in the early 1800s. From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: Fifty years ago today, on Sept. 4, 1963, an Eskimo Curlew was shot on the island of Barbados. Many migratory shorebirds were shot every fall on islands in the Lesser Antilles. It was almost a fluke that this small curlew was recognized as something unusual and that the specimen was given, many months later, to an ornithologist from Philadelphia. And in another fluke, as a little kid and beginning birder, I heard about this only two years after the curlew was shot. I had joined the National Audubon Society at the age of nine, since it was the only bird group that I'd heard of, and one of my very first issues of Audubon Magazine carried the sad news about the curlew.  At that point the Eskimo Curlew was already a bird of legend. It had been abundant at one time, migrating north through the Great Plains in spring, nesting in the Canadian Arctic, migrating out over the Atl...

An update on Black Swamp Bird Observatory's struggle to  protect birds from  poorly placed wind turbines in the  critical migratory bird stopover habitat in northwest Ohio.  You've all seen that play, right?  The runner has the ball, he's fighting off defenders like a mad man, dragging tacklers down the field, making forward progress in spite of the odds, and then... WHAM!    He gets clobbered by the one he didn't see coming. The image below is the one we didn't see coming. A large wind turbine ready to be installed at the  Erie Business Park in Ottawa County, Ohio.  Only a few miles from Magee Marsh. Would that it were only a game. And when the play ended and the whistle blew, we could simply shake off the hit and return to real life. But it isn't a game. This is real life. The playing field is critical migratory bird habitat. The players are just ordinary people with an EXTRAordinary level of dedication to protecting...

Kirtland's Warbler: North America's rarest songbird species. The only known consistent stopover area  for this bird during its migration is in northwestern Ohio - the area now being threatened by wind power development. From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes:  Our book tour of New England was wonderful, but it was cut short by the approach of Superstorm Sandy.  We had to cancel our last appearances on October 29 and 30, and since all flights were cancelled as well, we drove our rental car back to Ohio through the rain and high winds, arriving safely at home on the 30th.  Once there, however, we were dealing with an ill wind of another kind.  As many of you will know already, Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO) has been leading an attempt to stop construction of a large wind turbine at the Camp Perry Air National Guard Station, on the Lake Erie shore in the heart of Ohio's premier bird migration hotspot of Magee Marsh / Crane Creek / Ottawa NWR. This is t...

For a first-time birder, something like a male Baltimore Oriole, shining in the sun, can be worth its weight in golden feathers. From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn and Kimberly write:   Quick quiz.  When you go birding, what is one of the best things you can do to ensure a bright future for birds?  Answer:  Take someone with you, someone who has never tried it before, and introduce them to the fascination of birds and birding.  Building up the birding community is one of the best ways to build support for conservation. Getting more people to care about birds and nature is vitally important.  Over the years we have taken many hundreds of people out on their very first bird walks, so we've had a chance to see what works and what doesn't, and we wanted to share some results of our experience.  How do you make sure that someone will catch the spark and develop a lasting interest?  We sometimes use the analogy of teaching people how to swim....

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...

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: In a few days, the Midwest Birding Symposium (MBS) will roll into Lakeside, Ohio, for the fourth time.   I spoke at the first one there, in 1997, and Kimberly attended the one in 1999, but we didn’t know each other then.   We were both involved when the MBS came back to Lakeside in 2009, and we’ll be even more heavily involved this time: for example, we’re giving a keynote talk together on Friday morning, September 16th.   And Black Swamp Bird Observatory and Kaufman Field Guides are sharing one of the major booth spaces in the vendor hall.   We’ll hope to see many of you at the Symposium! If you attend, you’re bound to have a good time, no matter which of the many alternative activities you choose. But there are a few simple things you can do that will make your visit good for the birds, as well as for you. I’ll describe a few of them, in separate posts. 1. Go talk to Birds & Beans. This company is a sponso...