For Owl'd Lang Syne: The 2018 Birding Year in Review

Happy New Year!

Song Sparrow

 It may be almost February in the rest of the world, but here on bird blog we're still processing the events (and birds) of 2018. That's right, it's time for the hotly anticipated annual 'year in review' post, now with less to review than ever before! But fewer blog posts doesn't necessarily make a not-as-good blog, as we'll hopefully see today.

American Robin

To start with, let's crunch some numbers. To start with, it should probably be acknowledged that only 26 posts were made last year, about half of the average from previous years. What happened? Well, I had a baby, and looking at the number of posts, you can probably tell precisely when. I talked a little bit about fatherhood on my first post-baby blog on the Nanday Parakeet, but my baby has been (shockingly) a slightly higher priority than birds these last few months.

Above: A Rock Wren, the first bird I got a good picture of while having a baby strapped to me

That's not to say we're looking at a permanent dip in blog productivity (or blogductivity [of blogducktivity, when I'm blogging about ducks specifically). I think we'll get better, in the coming year, and maybe get this bad boy back up to bi-weekly.

Great Egret

Birding Highlights 2018

But enough about boring stuff like new human life and having a complete shift of self and perspective, let's talk about the birds! Undoubtedly the highlight of my birding year was a trip down to LA and the nearby Channel Islands National Park. Did I see the Island Scrub Jay? Yes I did, and it was a peak birding experience for me that probably non-bird-people will not understand. Can't see this little guy anywhere else. That's where many of my most exciting birds came from this year, although there were also some cool leftovers from my November 2017 trip to Mexico that didn't get posted until this year.

Double-crested Cormorant

The most popular blog of the year was without a doubt the marginally topical If Birds Were Tracks on Kanye's College Drop Out, followed pretty quickly by the extremely nonsense-filled Bird Cup/World Cup Prediction post (spookily accurate though!) Another favorite of mine was the interest-combining The Birdchelor, which imagined birds as The Bachelor contestants. Did I perhaps cause someone to start a new twitter account with my constant #birdingthebachelor tweets or was it just fortuitous timing? We'll probably never know.

House Finch, my vote for 'bird most likely to be confused for something interesting on first glance'

The exciting thing about these blogs, which were some of my favorites of the year, is that they were ambitious and funny, and crucially did not rely heavily on me having good pictures of new birds. I talked about this last year a little, but it's been harder to find unique birds locally, and my travel perspectives are only looking more restrictive. These posts give me an ideal way forward, and I already have my idea for the next two posts of 2019. Also filed to good news is that the blog actually appears to be getting (slightly) (gradually) more popular, with each post getting a good deal more hits on average than in previous years. Shocking, but nice to see.

Red-shouldered Hawk (?Probably?)

What else do we do on this year review thing? Uhhh, pictures! Yes, those! I like my Wrentit pictures, which is a challenging bird to photograph, and took quite a lot of patience to get. I also was excited to get the Bullock's Oriole shot at Mount Burdall, which quickly joined Wetlands Edge as one of my favorite local birding spots. That's where a lot of the photos that accompany this essay are from, by the way. Wood Duck was good too. Some of my best pictures were in those Birdchelor and Kanye posts, actually, since they didn't have the restriction of needing to be pictures of new birds.

White-tailed Kite

Birding Resolutions

Lastly, let's talk resolutions. I'll start by saying I'm glad I set the bar really low for myself last year. The resolutions, in case you don't want to click the link, were 'find a new schedule that works for my changing life', and 'bird local'. And honestly, I think I kinda did both, sort of. Like, given the circumstances. For 2018 I give my self a B- for Effort! So what do I want to do this year?

American Kestrel

Well, as I've been alluding to, I want to get back up to 1. 2 posts per month, eventually. And for my other goal, let's try to 2. recommit to filling in the more common birds from my area that I still haven't posted here year. It's gonna mean squinting at some photos of gulls and sparrows, but I figure I'll have to do the work eventually. Jen Sanford has been making some really interesting points on Instagram (which I'm still not on) on the value and ethics of birding close to home, and I might try to go into it with that attitude (although maybe I'll go with more like a 20 mile radius). And I think that'll do it. Anything more ambitious would just be hubris.... although... I do really want to try and get that Snail Kite when I go to visit family in Florida this year. A blogger can dream, after all.

American Crow

See you all next month!

2017 Birding Year in Review: Wren it Rains it Pours

Hola bird fans. How was your 2017? Good? Not good? Extremely not good? Are you ready for 2018? Yeah, I am too. But I can't go into the New Year until I've left the old year behind and reflected on some of the best and most memorable birds we birded and blogs we blogged, as is our tradition.



First, some statistics: we did 44 blogs last year- a significant number for sure, but it represents an overall decline in blog production. What happened? Well, we really slowed down around the time your editor here got a new and somewhat more demanding job, leaving fewer hours in the week to bird and to write about it. Something we'll have to be figuring out going forward is whether or not this is a more sustainable pace, or if we'll be able to jump back up to higher blog numbers.



The most popular post this year was the surprise micro-viral Xmas sensation, Bird Ornament Detective. I was proud of how this one turned out, but especially of the concept, which was a spontaneously arrived-at rare bit of 'relevant content'. And I can tell you that I am for sure going to be Merlin-ing more non-bird objects. It would be good if I could more regularly produce blogs tied to current events. For more of this see my SuperbOwl post on the Atlanta Falcons, and my math-based arguments on why they, as a group of Falcons, would easily defeat the New England Patriots. As with so many of my bird-based predictions, this turned out to not be correct.



Our second most popular post was our BUrdZZFEED What Bird Are You? Quiz. Another outside the box idea that I'm glad I did, although it's possible that some of the popularity has to do with people actually mistaking my website for Buzzfeed. In this category see also my exhaustive breakdown of the State Bird Power Ranking (part 1 and 2). And of course there were the .gifs- both of the surprisingly bird-heavy Labyrinth and of a bunch of music videos. Even though they stubbornly refuse to achieve viral sensation status, I'm really happy with the template I've established for these .gif articles.

Probably the best thing that happened to our bird blog in 2017 is that we inspired some fan art for the first time. That was on our entry for Pyrrhuloxia, the excellent desert bird who should still just have a different name already, and it was done by the talented Ayelette Raviv. It was also one of my favorite photos of the year- for more good good bird pics, check out Verdin, and especially Greater Roadrunner.



Desert birds were something of a theme this year, and that's no coincidence. This year I've found that for better or worse most of my birds came from 3-4 big trips somewhere else rather than local birding. In this case that would trips to the Caribbean, South Texas, and most recently Baja California Sur, Mexico. This might be because I have less time for local birding or that I've already gotten so many of the photo-cooperative and easily identifiable local birds. Although I will say that when I was going through my photos for this post, I was heartened to see that there's still a lotta birds in the hopper.

So enough hemming and hawing, how did we do with our resolutions from last year? Honestly, it's a mixed bag. I actually did better with conquering old resolutions, such as the Painted Bunting, the Golden Eagle, and the aforementioned Roadrunner, rather than actually sticking with what I said I'd do last year. The only one I can really say I did was 'do some solo birding', which was what my trip to Texas was, but does doing it once even count? I definitely didn't do more local birding, if possible I got less confident in my camera knowledge, and never really approached the idea of showing my work anywhere outside of the context of this blog. But I feel like the good birds I saw this year have to count for something.

So let's give me a score of: Hangin' in There for 2017.



What about next year? Well, 1. I want to put in some effort on the less glamorous local birds. Really see about some of those ducks, sparrows, and finches who show up on every local e-bird list and actually learn them. Maybe I'll even ID a gull correctly.

2. Come up with a schedule that works for me and incorporates some of the changes I want to make to this blog. Right now I'm thinking maybe 2 new birds per month and 1-2 entries that are more timely/bigger/weirder.

And you know what, let's just do those 2 resolutions. Another thing I've learned this year is that I'm happy with my current level of birding involvement, and that while I love the hobby there is such a thing as taking it too far for me. 2018- all about keeping it stable here on bird blog, and hopefully out in the world.

Painted Bunting

Painted Bunting aka. Nonpareil (fr)

Big Bend National Park, Texas, USA
July 2017
Member of the Cardinal Family
§A Palette of Buntings§

{Etymology Corner} The scientific name of this bird is Passerina ciris. Evidently, it's named after the Greek Mythological character, Princess Scylla. She is turned into a bird after betraying her father in favor of an invading King Minos, who she has fallen in love with at first sight. She subsequently drowns while attempting to swim after her fleeing love, who wants no part of this whole thing. It's a wild story. It's also a pretty bad name for this bird, since she was supposedly transformed into a seabird, which this is not. I can agree, however, that this looks like a bird brought into the world through magical means.

~true bird fact~  As anyone can see from looking at it, this bird is incredibly colorful. This has made him a frequent target of poachers. In the 1800's, the were trapped in the thousands and shipped back to Europe for heavily marked-up sale as caged birds. This kind of trade is now illegal, happily, but has not been entirely eliminated. I know it's probably none of you dear readers, but please stop buying wild animals.

How endangered are they? They are listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN. Now I don't want you to panic, because they are till a fairly common bird, with an estimated 13 million adults out there. The rating is probably the result of a dramatic 60% dip in their population that took place between 1966 and 1995. Numbers have seemed stable since then, but you can never be took careful with a bird like this. The pressures on their population seem to be habitat loss from development and the aforementioned poaching.



Musically inclined
Despite his outwardly confident appearance, he's been the subject of a lot of pressure throughout his life
You can tell how he's feeling very easily- 'wears his hear on his sleeve'
Always laughs at your jokes

Cartoon Roadrunner vs. Real Roadrunner

Let's talk about the Road Runner. He was my favorite cartoon when I was a kid for sure, beating out even the antics of beloved proto-troll, Bugs Bunny. But as you age, you put away childish things, and now I probably prefer real road runners. This is a bird that's been on by bird-bucket list (birdcket list(TM)) for a while now, and on my recent Texas trip I finally got to see him, and in abundance. So I was thinking, just how does the Road Runner cartoon compare to the genuine article.

Appearance

Correct

Long, prominent tail

Dark crest

Darker wing than belly

Incorrect

Not really predominantly purple/blue

Wrong number of toes

Beak shape wrong

Neck too long

Behavior

Correct

Runs quickly, favoring roads (up to 15 miles per hour)

Doesn't really fly (flight is possible, but brief)

Lives in the Southwestern American Desert (per Chuck Jones)

Incorrect

Can outrun a coyote (they can get up to a whopping 43 miles per hour)

Would be hunted by coyote (coyote are voracious hunters and scavengers, but one of the few things that live in their range that they don't eat are Road Runners. Not worth the effort?)

Call is just extremely wrong

So how do we put this all together? Ultimately, I'm going to give him a passing grade because I think this cartoon succeeds in depicting a caricature of a roadrunner for the most part. The important part is that he is recognizable as his real-world inspiration, but just barely. The color is the real tricky part- it's just not a color these birds have (except in a small spot behind the eye). Most damningly, no other Looney Tune has a color scheme this unrealistic. Rabbits can be grey, ducks black, pigs pink, coyotes brown, etc. I guess what I'm saying is he's no Beaky Buzzard

Realism Score: C-

Also, have a profile, cause why not 

Greater Roadrunner aka. Chaparral Bird, aka. Chaparral Cock, aka. Ground Cuckoo aka. Snake Killer
Big Bend Ranch State Park, Presidio, Texas, USA
July 2017
Member of the Cuckoo Family
§A Race of Roadrunners§
★Excellent State Bird of New Mexico★

~real bird legend~ Road Runners have a special place in the belief systems of many Native North and Central American peoples. They are considered to be courageous, strong, and fast, perhaps because of their habit of taking on fearsome venomous prey like rattlesnakes, scorpions, and horned lizards. The X shaped mark their feet make (2 toes in front, 2 in back), is thought to ward off evil and has been used as a sacred symbol by the Pueblo tribes. The footprint disguises the direction you're going in, keeping evil spirits from following.

Adventurous, tends to rush in

Equally at ease by himself and around big groups. Either way he ends up talking a lot

Maybe should be a little more careful, seems to walk around like he's invincible

Sleeps well at night

2016 Birding Year in Review: Egrets, we've had a few..

2016, what a year, huh? In some ways, we needed birds more than ever this year, and they came through. As is tradition here on bird blog, we're going to take today and look back at some of the best moments and most memorable moments in the last year. Interspersed will be some random pictures from this year that didn't really fit in anywhere else. Finally, we're gonna set some brand new birding resolutions.

Birding Highlights 2016



We blogged 48 times last year, including some really cool birds I was happy to add to my life list. Hawaiian birds were an obvious highlight, with the 'apapane being probably my favorite, as it was a now increasingly rare Hawaiian native bird. From there I focused on cool Southern California birds for a while, getting the very desirable California Condor, Black Skimmer, and Phainopepla. I was proud of myself for getting more frequent timely blogs out there. We had special blogs for valentine's day, the presidential election, and christmas, to name a few.



Some of my best photos this year, to my eye, were in my Florida birds entry (both the Cranes and the Great Blue Heron stand out to me) and Chestnut-backed Chickadee. My personal favorite entries were probably my beloved .gifs. I'm not sure if anyone likes them but me (they don't get particularly more traffic or anything), but I'm going to keep doing them darn it. Check out my Planet Earth II review, my Halloween crow gifs, or, again the Valentine's Day blog, which contains some of the things I've made this year that I'm proudest of. Oh, and this. The most popular blog this year was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Who's That Pokebird (and part 2). I successfully capitalized on a trend! Look, I'm learning media! I also think it's a pretty good and fun blog, so go read it maybe.

Resolutions



So last year I said I'd do some stuff. Let's see how I did. Did I get into more calendars and photo contests (Resolution 1)? Well, I entered a few, but didn't actually make it. This might be too ambitious of a goal, so I'm going to start with something smaller. I would say I kept up a good pace of social media interaction (R2) (for me, at least) and succeeded in birding more current-events related stuff (R3). And did I go to the Farrallons (R4)? Well, yes, I totally did. Unfortunately, I became violently ill 1/4 of the way through the 4 hour boat ride and got approximately 0.5 usable pictures (seen above). My wife swears there were amazing whales and birds, but I didn't see them. It was probably my biggest failure of the year, aside from preventing Donald Trump's election with my biting social commentary. So let's say I succeeded in approximately half of my resolutions. Not bad!


Here's what I'm going to focus on this year

1. Do more local birding. I want to focus on my own Beautiful Bay Area and highlight some locations around here that are some of my favorites for birds. I want to focus on locations more in general, actually, and I think it'll help me with the looming specter of running out of new birds.

2. Find more time for solo birding. My current methods generally involve combining birding with various trips and vacations, or with hiking around with friends or family. This is not the best arrangement for birding or my travel companions, since there's sometimes a tug between wanting to get a slightly better picture and trying not to slow our group's pace to a crawl. As such, I want to try to use some more of my time to go on walks dedicating more specifically to birding and take my time to get the best shots and the most illusive birds.



3. Learn more about my camera. Not sure how to do this, but I've gotta start somewhere. There are a lot of settings that I just don't know what to do with and maybe knowing how to toggle them would fix some of the (rare) issues I have with the camera. Currently my biggest frustrations come from shots that end up focusing on the background behind the bird (see #worstbirdpic for more on this), or from not being able to take a good picture of a white bird in full light under basically any circumstance.

4. See about getting some photos in a local business. This is my new 'get out there' goal. There are coffee shops and restaurants around here that seem to showcase local artists, and maybe I'm good enough for that. Won't know if I don't try. I've been inspired to try this by seeing a friend do a similar thing with his new photography hobby.

5. Keep getting those blogs out to you, the people. Isn't this the most important goal of all?

Happy new year, folks, see you next week.

The 2015 Birding Year in Review: Amateur Status Intact

Let's start with some statistics. In 2015 we blogged 49 blogs (coming in at just 1 under last year's 50, keeping our rate of 1 almost every week of the year). The blog has gotten more popular too. Although nothing seems to be capable of taking down That Flappy Bird Post as most clicked, we had our second brush with 'virality' this year when we co-started the #WorstBirdPic hashtag on twitter. Karl Mechem, @TheIneptBirder (funny bird person and overall great-seeming guy) even interviewed your intrepid blogger for the Audubon website. It was a trip. Even more interestingly it happened entirely outside of the confines of this website, on 'The Twitter'. I'm not nearly as active on it as I should be, but I am managing to Social Media, at least to some degree. We also started delving into Etymology a little bit and visited some great bird locations (look for Hawaii birds starting very soon!).



On the more negative side of things, I was unable to get a photo accepted for the Golden Gate Audubon Society Bird Calendar this year. I guess I had assumed it would be not that unlikely that I get in again, since I was chosen the first time I submitted. I have high hopes for some of my pictures this year. Also disappointing- I failed in literally every one of my birding resolutions. I gave an honest shot to finding a golden eagle, a condor, a painted bunting, and went out of my way for owls several times (I actually half way completed this one, since I did see one new owl, and several others in captivity [DOES NOT COUNT]). And I just straight up missed the window of opportunity to go to the Farrallons this year.



Still, we accomplished a lot. In today's blog I'm going to highlight some of my favorite moments from the last year.

BIRDING HIGHLIGHTS 2015

Ridgeway's Rail A great image of a rare and endangered bird. I thought this one would be a shoe-in for a calendar for sure. Another great endangered bird we got was the Snowy Plover. This one has a double bonus of having both a funny .gif and a super cute baby bird. I also think the Pygmy Nuthatch image was a real standout.

Rest in Peace California Towhee A truly sad bird blog post. Rarely do we flirt with anything like serious emotions on this blog, so it's notable when we do.

Bird Relationship Status Update I enjoyed the short bird fiction style I was able to come up with for this one, and I like that it was a timely, holiday-related blog. We can all learn a little something from birds and their love lives. The Baby Birds of New York City entry took a similar format.

Red-tailed Hawk The story of the Red-tailed Hawk's cry is one of the most endearingly interesting and quirky anecdotes in birding, and I'm glad I was able to get it down on the blog in somewhat competent fashion. It's a decent pic too. Also in 'interesting stories', we got to talk a little bit about convergent bird evolution in our Spotted Towhee blog. A good, quick read.

Both Belted Kingfisher and Roseate Spoonbill are just super cool looking birds that I got real good pictures of. Good job, me.

I always enjoy the .gif entries, and kept going with my Life of Birds series. However, my favorite moving images this year might have come from the Spooky Halloween Bird Gifs article. This is mostly new territory for me, but look for more stuff like it in the future. The best individual .gif, however, might've been in a mystery bird entry.. You be the judge.

Our most popular blog of the year was The Roosters of Key West. Again, an interesting story, and I'm always glad to blog about domestic birds. Along the same notes, I got to continue with one of my favorite rarely recurring features, Bird Reviews with African Goose (he is not a popular goose).

We'll wrap with some birding resolutions. It seems like wishing for specific birds is wishing for disaster, so I won't go there. Instead, let's try these-

1. Submit photos to more calendars and contests

2. Become more active on social media

3. Write more timely blogs that tie into current events. This was a plan I've always had, and occasionally remember to do (see The Bird Cup, The National Birding Championship), but have fallen down on somewhat this year.

4. Remember to go to those damn Farrallons

And of course 5. Continue to produce great weekly content for this here bird blog. Happy New Year everyone, and keep on birdin' in the free world.

Roseate Spoonbill

Roseate Spoonbill
Green Cay, Boynton Beach, Florida, USA
April 2015
Member of the Spoonbill and Ibis Family
§A Bowl of Spoonbills§

~true bird fact~ Most people know that the distinctive color shared by Rosey over here and his compatriat Flamingo comes from algae in the small crustaceans they mainly eat. Sadly, his unique coloration has also made him the target of poachers. Populations declined in the 1800's, when Spoonbill wings were popularly made into fancy fans.

Likes to weird people out with counterculture behavior and appearance
Would adopt pit-bulls, make a big deal out of it
Rich mom and dad
As the world changes to be more progressive, and his enemies fewer, he finds himself a little bit lacking in purpose





Amateurnitholog (author's notes)
Well, here it is blog followers, one birding resolution well and truly accomplished! Spoonbill is totally one of the birds I was most interested in finding during my recent travels to South Florida, and boy did he deliver. He was sitting totally cooperatively on a branch right along the boardwalk trail, but as you'll all see in coming weeks, he was far from the only interesting find. Propers to Green Cay and Wakodahatchee Wetlands, which are both incredible birding spots- really nicely maintained and well-attended. When I was a kid growing up in Florida, places like this didn't really exist there. It's heartening to see Florida embracing it's natural beauty and wildlife a little more with places like these.

Also of note- I posted this as a Holiday Special bird because 1) he looks like a Star Wars alien, and today is not-real-nerd-holiday May the Fourth 2) he is a predominantly South American/Mexican bird, and tomorrow is actual-real-holiday Cinco de Mayo. This bird looks like he would enjoy cracking open a Corona, huh?

2014: A Birding Year in Review

At the beginning of this year, I posted some birding resolutions for the coming year. Well, it's our last blog post of the year, and I think it's a good time to look back at some of those goals and see just how much we accomplished, as well as setting some new ones. Were they mostly amateurnifails or amateurnisuccesses? It's a time for reflection, a time for introspection, it's the amateurnithologist year in review.

1) Take a picture of a Golden Eagle

Status: TOTAL FAILURE
Amateurnithologist should have set this goal as 'take a million pictures of bald eagles' since it was really their year. I saw them probably a dozen times this year, but never even spotted a golden eagle. This goal will have to continue forward, since I still totes wanna see that bird.

2) See a Roseate Spoonbill

Status: Semi-success
Well, I definitely got to see this bird, and I even got a picture of it, so maybe it's a full success. But I just can't get over how disappointing it is that I didn't have my good 'birdin camera' on this very eventful trip to Florida. It broke shortly beforehand and I had to use a backup, hence why there haven't been many pictures from it post to the blog. We're a victim of our commitment to quality here on Bird Blog. Next year maybe I will get a picture of a Spoonbill worth a portraiture entry.


3) Get a good picture of a Vulture

Status: Good Job!
Actually was able to knock the whole North American Vulture Family off the blog list this year, with solid entries for both Black and Turkey Vultures. It was most exciting that I finally got to find some at rest and take intimate portraiture shots that you don't often see of these birds. Condors, my 'reach goal', were not to be had, but they were always unlikely.


4) Blog about more ducks

Status: Duckcess!
We managed to get a few good ducks on the blog in this year, and have several more in the queue. Most importantly, I paid more attention to ducks in my day to day birding, and as a result got quite a few interesting ones, including the inexplicable Lake Merritt Tufted Duck and the Surf Scoter that was my 'duck to look for'.

5)  Track down the elusive Snail Kite

Status: DID NOT DO
Yeah, when I went and visited his home, there were simply no raptors to be seen. I think I'd need to dedicate a lot more energy to finding this guy, and frankly he doesn't seem worth it. If Snail Kite happens, he happens, if not, I'm willing to let this one go. I did get a ton of other raptors this year, many of which will be blogged about in the new year, including the above Merlin.


6) Find a Painted Bunting

Status: Welllllll... 
This Painted Bunting Pic (PBP) was taken by Amateurnithologist's mom at Green Cay Wetlands in Florida. So, since I worded the goal 'find the Painted Bunting', you could call it a success. I now know where he is. However, never one to rest on his laurels, the Amateurnithologist will not be satisfied until he sees one himself and can put a quality picture of it up on the blog. Next year Painted Bunting, next year!

Total Success Rate: 50%
I'd say halfway getting to your new years resolutions is better than most people manage, so I'm going to call this one a success. So, just to recap, what am I going to be trying to do in 2015? I think this year's goals are going to be mostly local, trying to take in the rarer birds that I know are here, but haven't gotten to see yet. It will the year of the California bird.

Three goals that carry forward
1. Golden Eagle
2. Califonia Condor
3. Painted Bunting

and three new ones
4. Audubon Society blog (expertly named Audublog) posted recently about Owling California. It seems California is positively lousy with the things. I'm a huge owl fan, as seen in entries about the Barn and Burrowing Owls, and would be excited to get, let's say... Two More Owls this year.
5. Sitting nearly right under your Bird Blogger's nose are the Farrallon Islands one of the great birding destinations. You don't need to travel half way around the world to see Puffins, and this year, I'm hoping to get out there by boat and capture some images of Tufted Puffins.
6. Road Runner. I just want a picture of a road runner. He lives in, like, all of our deserts. Let's make it happen.

Thanks for joining us on this journey, loyal readers. Join us next year for another fantastic year of birding amateurishly.