Immaturely Funny Bird Genera

I’ve touched on immaturely funny bird names many times before, but there is an untapped goldmine of snickers and guffaws within the scientific names of birds. Today I will be focusing birds that have a funny genus. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of funny species names, but today we are just going to discuss genera.

Damon's Birds for the Weeks of August 18 - August 31

I was NOT shut out!

Weeks 33 and 34 Paul's Update

Another late and short summary of my birding efforts in August.

Sunday Shorebirds: Sanderling or Red Knot

It was Sunday morning and time to get the family out of the house for the day. Perhaps we could go Birding?!? I had been looking at eBird to see where we might go, but there have been very few reports lately. Very few. Two or three during the entire month of August for the few spots along Lake Ontario where we normally go.

However, one of the most recent posts (from a day or two ago) listed several shorebirds that I hadn't seen (including the Stilt Sandpiper and Pectoral Sandpiper). It was for a place I hadn't been before: the Brock Street bridge in Whitby, Ontario. Nearby, at the Lynde Shores Conservation Area, there were also reports of similar shorebirds along with the Common Gallinule. (The Common Gallinule used to be called the moorhen, and not many people get excited about seeing this duck-like bird, though I don't recall ever seeing one before and, of course, this would be a nice addition to the year list.)

Preliminary App Review: BirdLog NA, by Birds in the Hand LLC

It finally happened. I have gotten over my butthurt about eBird and decided to use it, embrace it, even love it. What caused this? The Top 100 lists for each region! Yep, you can go to the website and see the Top 100 for whatever region you want (country, state, county, continent, etc.), which is automatically compiled by the data. Yeah, I went there and saw the Delaware County and Philadelphia County lists and I could easily be in each of them, if not the top 20. Hell, just estimating, I'd be in the top freaking five for Delaware County, top 15 for Philadelphia County, and probably top 50 in New Castle County in Delaware (and I am only there for work). I want that fame!

Weeks 31 and 32 Paul's Update (Summer Birding)

The strange thing I find about writing two-week updates on birding activity is that tends to group very different birding activities together. Of course, birding has been slower this summer so I don't have much really to write about the past two weeks. Looking at my list, I guess that's not entirely true as I saw 7 new species over this time period.

Damon's Birds for the Weeks of August 4 - August 17

Previously I mentioned that birding was slow up in the Philly region so I headed down to Cape May, and boy am I glad I did! I spent every morning for the week getting up at 5:30 so I can head down and put a good many hours of birding before my family was even awake. The best way to not feel guilty for spending so much time birding while on vacation with your family? Sacrifice sleep! Ok, I did go to be early every night, so my sleep didn't suffer.

Tangential to Birding Music Review: The Carpenter by The Avett Brothers

It happened again this last week. Yes, I got judged by my binoculars.

This shouldn't be a problem and it doesn't really bother me, except when people insist "you should borrow some binoculars" after I politely say no thank you that I am fine with the crappy ones I have. Even then it doesn't actually bother me so much, but more annoys me because it can come across as condescending, and I could only imagine how that might turn off new or beginning birders.

Birding Nummy Island, New Jersey

The summer drags on and any serious birder would have gone to other parts of the country by now to get new birds. Now, I am a serious birder, but I am also a father of three, so my options of birding migration are limited. Luckily, I live very near Cape May, New Jersey and can go visit relatives in the area fairly often. So I did!

Shorebird migration is in full swing, and even though we get some peeps around here and even an occasional larger shorebird, the real fun is happening in New Jersey. So when I went down to Cape May and went on a couple birding walks with the Cape May Bird Observatory I made sure to ask about where good places to go to find stuff on my own. I was directed to go birding on Nummy Island.

Oregon Birding IV: The Coast

As I mentioned in my last update post, I went birding on the Oregon Coast with my family a couple of weeks ago. If you haven't been to the Oregon Coast, I highly recommend it even if you are not a birder. There are scenic vistas, quaint light houses, fresh seafood, beaches, tsunami escape route signs, salt water taffy, tide pools, and (if you have more time) you can go deep sea fishing, clamming, and crabbing. All good times. But what about the birds? I had high expectations for the coast. Damon had told me previously of his trip years ago to Seattle and how he got like a dozen new bird species just stepping off the plane. New gull species, nesting pelagic birds, strange and exotic shorebirds! The sky was really the limit. 

Damon's Birds for the Weeks of July 21 - August 3

Yeah, summer is slow and we slow down with our weekly reports so that they are every-other week, only we put an extra week into that. But, hey, both of us have plenty of birds to report for these weeks!

Weeks 29 and 30 Paul's Update (Oregon)

I realized a couple days ago that I neglected to post my last two week update, but Damon didn't post his on time either so I don't feel too bad about it. But looking back, I do have some birding to report over the past few weeks!

Tangential to Birding Book Review: Playing at the World by Jon Peterson

Ok, I've been sitting on this post for a few weeks now, trying to get the subtleties of what I am saying to come forth into writing. It hasn't worked, so I'm doing the next best thing: writing this while tired and after having a couple beers!

There is a section at the beginning of The Big Year (holy shit, it is only $6 on Amazon, go buy it now if you don't have it!) where the author (Mark Obmascik) talks about Sandy Komito as joking around and having fun during birding, while others around him were more serious acting and rolled their eyes or acted in a way that showed they disapproved. Now, I don't have the book in front of me (I lent it to my brother who I am sure is reading it right now) to quote it, but this stands out to me for a few reasons. First, Sandy Komito is one badass birder in the book, yet he still makes jokes and enjoys himself while doing it; no one can say after looking at his year count that he isn't serious. Second, this is something I've exactly noticed while birding.

Nova Scotia 2: Cherry Hill Beach

After seeing pelagic birds on a whale watching tour, I wasn't sure whether there would be other interesting birds for me to see while we kicked around the Southern Shore of Nova Scotia. We drove down to Cape Sable Island because we heard that this was quite a bird magnet. There were a lot of shorebirds there but they were all (with the exception of a few Willets) out of binocular range. However, we kept hearing about the Piping Plovers that nest on Nova Scotia beaches and I that decided we should try to track one down! I looked through my options and found a beach close to our rental cottage that looked promising.

Nova Scotia 1: Bay of Fundy

When we decided to go to Nova Scotia for a mid-summer vacation, I had visions of all kinds of north Atlantic birds dancing through my head. I would see new gulls, terns, pelagic birds, shorebirds; it would be bird heaven. And then I realized that many of these birds head to the Far North for the summer and that many others of these birds spend most of their time away from seashore. How would I have a chance to see any of these birds?

Birding Down to Maryland: A Short Trip

Paul went to Nova Scotia recently, but before that he went to eastern Oregon. Yeah, he gets around more than me, but I do the best I can with my little corner of the world! So after his Oregon trip, I took a trip down to Maryland for oddly similar reasons. While travelling there, I decided to do a little birding and keep a list of all the birds I saw that day. A big day? Nahhh, not that big, but here is my travelogue (along with other information added later and various musings)!

Year of Birds by the Numbers, Part 2

We have reached the 1/2 point through the Bird of Year competition and, much like I did for the 1/4 way mark, it is time for another numerical analysis of our progress!

Damon's Birds for the Weeks of July 7 - July 20

Ok, I don't quite have the neat stories as Paul (no trips to New Scotland, no pelagic birds) and I haven't been to Cape May during this last couple of weeks, but I did get a new bird each of the weeks!

Weeks 28 and 29 Paul's Update (Nova Scotia)

As Damon mentioned, now that birding has slowed down in the heat of the summer, we are posting every other week updates. I could have posted one last week but it would have been fairly short, and besides that I was on vacation looking for new birds.

And I did find new birds because we went to Nova Scotia and kicked around the Southern Shore for a few days. As it is on the coast and has different habitats, this made it fairly easy to track down a new bird or two. Nova Scotia is also fairly "boreal" giving it some more northerly birds as well. It also helped that we went on a whale-watching boat ride, which was actually a bird-watching trip for me (more on this later).

Book Review: Kingbird Highway by Kenn Kaufman

It is book review time here at The Year of Birds! We will have plenty of these as a relatively regular feature, or at least whenever we have time to read bird-related books and talk about them. And while the format may change with different reviews, today we are having a question and each of us give our own answer to it as it relates to the book. Yes, you can probably note that Damon can be long-winded and meandering, but you've already read enough on this site to know that already.

So, what is the first book of the Year of Birds Book Club? Is it the obvious The Big Year? Nah, since we both read that years ago. Nope, today we are reading Kingbird Highway, by Kenn Kaufman. Is it just a story of him hitchhiking his way in search of birds and the reason for the extraneous second 'n' on his first name?