Product Revew: Sibley Backyard Birding Flashcards

It all started out as a scheme to get my daughter a bit more into birding. She is a great kid and super smart, and she is interested in birds and nature and outdoor stuff, but she has a stumbling block: her twin brother. He is also a great kid and super smart, but when he is interested in something he gets really interested in it, so much so that I think it turns his sister off of it because she sees it as "his thing" (I can't imagine which parent he inherited this obsessiveness from!). It has been like this for years with dinosaurs and, to a lesser extent, animals in general, so it is only natural that it was like this for birds (they are dinosaurs after all).

So I worried that she might miss out on a hobby or activity that she actually likes and is good at. Just to be clear, my daughter is actually pretty good at identifying birds: she knows many common yard birds, can pick up Northern Cardinals, Song Sparrows, and Carolina Wrens by ear and can tell Fish Crows and American Crows apart. She actually is a great birder for her age and is a better birder than many adults. Her twin brother, however, must have gone through his Sibley Field Guide many times and does things like identifying Broad-winged Hawks soaring over his school.

The interest was there, but how could I get her something more that would get her on a more solid footing as her brother (so she wouldn't feel like his junior partner if we were looking at birds)? Her little brother!

My daughter loves to teach my youngest son, so I jumped on Amazon and looked for some flashcards that I could use with my youngest, and my daughter could help me out. It wasn't coincidence that it just so happens that the best way to learn something is to teach it, so while my youngest might learn some birds, my daughter would learn even more.

There were a couple of options for flashcards, but I went with Sibley Backyard Birding Flashcards. This seemed an obvious choice, as I love the Sibley Guide and was assured to have good quality images. So let's see what I got!

Paul's Texas Trip Part 5 (South of Kingsville)

Our plans for the mid-southern Texas gulf coast included: birding the seashores, taking the Whooping Crane tour, and, on our last day a visit to the King's Ranch (which sits outside of Kingsville). They offer tours and it sounded like something the kids would be interested in doing, but alas the tours were running only at 12:30 and 2:00 p.m. What would we do in the morning?

My wife helpfully suggested that I do a bit of research and see if there were any good birding spots close by. After a few minutes of eBird, I had located something good about a half-hour south of Kingsville: Kaufer-Hubert Memorial Park. It is located at the mouth of a small estuary that opens into the intercoastal waters of the gulf and recent bird reports were quite promising. It also looked like a good place for a picnic lunch. Our plans were settled then.

Paul's Texas Trip Part 4 (Port Aransas Day 2)

Our second day in the Port Aransas area (see the first day here) and we had big birding plans. That's right, plans to see the tallest native bird of North America: the Whooping Crane. They overwinter in the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, which is a fairly short boat ride out of Rockport, Texas.

We had made reservations with the Whooping Crane Boat Tours, which run on the Wharf Cat (a 80 foot catamaran). While anxiously waiting the departure of the boat, we noticed a Black-Crowned Night Heron sitting on a post in the harbor. Just like that, in the harbor? Anyways, as we pulled out of port, the captain helpfully detailed all of the birds we were likely (and then commenced to view) to see over the next hour as we motored out to the Whooping Cranes. These birds included: Laughing Gulls, Common Loons, Forster's Terns, American White and Brown Pelicans, Double Creasted and Neotropic Cormorants, and Ring-Billed Gulls.

Paul's Texas Trip Part 3 (Port Aransas Day 1)

It was Day 3 (see here for Day 1 and Day 2) of our "Escape from the Canadian Winter by Driving Around Texas Looking for Birds" trip, and we were headed to the Gulf Coast. First, though, we briefly stopped at The Alamo to have a look. The birding was dismal, with only House Sparrows and Rock Pigeons, but the kids had fun and learned something about U.S. history.

Damon's New Year in Cape May, Part 2 (Two Mile Beach to Stone Harbor)

New Years in Cape May happened. I previously wrote about the morning section of the day with a count of 62 birds. How many more birds could I get? Would I get anything to top the Painted Bunting and White-winged Dove? Could I keep up the pace of Paul in Texas? Was the day awesome?

Well, the day certainly was awesome, and as I finished my lunch of Wawa Italian Hoagie and sliced apples and let my phone charge some more I scanned over the dunes of Two Mile Beach, even though it was only Yellow-rumped Warblers around. But I knew some things we were going to see because others in the parking lot had already let out that there was a Snowy Owl just down the beach.

Paul's Texas Trip Part 2 (Texas Hill Country)

On the second of our Texas adventure (see here for part 1), we headed for the hills. The Texas Hill Country that is. Our first stop would be the Hamilton Pool, which is a very large and very blue pool of water at the bottom of a small canyon. In the summer, folks go swimming there but we went to walk around it and I hoped to see some new and interesting birds.

Damon's New Year in Cape May, Part 1 (Trip down and Cape May Point)

I knew that Paul was going to start his new year in South Texas. Damn, that's hardcore birding. Really, if you think about it, where would else you want to start your bird list? There are few other choices; maybe South Florida or Arizona? It was a power birding move, well disguised as "being invited to present at a symposium", and one that would lead to Paul having dozens of birds that neither he nor I would otherwise have any chance of getting. How could I even hope of competing against that? I had no other choice.

Cape May.

Paul's Texas Trip Part 1 (Austin Birding)

Birding can be a bit slow in Ontario during the winter and it's only natural to want to go elsewhere to see birds. Just take a look through any field guide and you start to wonder: could I see these strange, exotic birds that populate the south half of America? So when the chance to go to Texas arose a year and half ago, I jumped at it. Actually I planned this trip mostly to see my cousin, Mark, and his family, who happen to live in Austin and to give a talk at a conference. But it also turned out that this was my chance to go birding: Texas style!

2013 Year of Birds

Happy New Year to all (buon anno a tutti)!

It was a nice year for us here at The Year of Birds, and though we are already in 2014 and looking forward to great things for this year, we are going to take some time to wrap up last year. Paul will be along soon enough with the data analysis (like he did at the quarter mark, and the halfway mark, and the three-quarters mark), but until then here is a short preliminary discussion of our year.

Our Year of Warblers 2013

If you weren't aware before, we weren't really hard-core birders when the year started. Sure, we were casual birders, but nothing like we are now. I know I've always kept a house list with my myriad of feeders, and I had been in a lab with real ornithologists (I worked on beetles) for about 12 years, but I hadn't really gone out and been a birder.

That all has changed.

I can't speak for Paul, but in reality, all it took was going out consistently birding and every week it seemed I was at least twice as good as I was the week before. It happened slowly, but for the first couple of months I was gaining in my birding ability and, most importantly, comfort in birding and being around other birders. But migration was approaching and I was dreading the influx of warblers.

How silly is that? Dreading having to figure out the warblers? Seriously? It just seemed intimidating, but I went out and soon I had to deal with the warblers.

And I loved every minute of it.

Bobo-Links for December 13

Ok, we are trying something new hear and we'll see how well it works out weekly. There are lots of things going on in the world of birds and birding, and while we know the majority of people rely mostly on The Year of Birds blog for their birding fix, there are other blogs and news sources out there. We would not want your insatiable appetite for this blog to have caused you to miss out on them!

Some weeks we may have themes of what we link to, some weeks may have lots of links, some weeks may have few. Some weeks may have links that are tangentially related to birds (I tend to do stuff like that sometimes).

Also, I'm not married to the name, but it is cute. Any suggestions are welcome.

Weeks 39-48 Paul's Update

I have recently been on a sabbatical from birding. This isn't really by choice but instead largely due to the end of the Fall term, several over-lapping proposal deadlines, and other somewhat trivial, time-consuming job related responsibilities. Despite all of that, I have been able to continue my birding activities, albeit with a lower intensity.

As this lull coincides with the onset of the long Canadian winter, my birding results have been somewhat sparse. In the past two months, I managed to see only 2 new species. One was a warbler flitting through the treetops in early October before all of the warblers left by the end of that month. The other bird was a Common Gallinule (or as previously referred to- the moorhen) which was seen on Lake Ontario during a short road trip with my parents.

North American Warblers: Ranked, part 2

It snowed at least 8 inches here yesterday and it is pitch black by 5:30 p.m. This morning it warmed up enough to be about 35 degrees, so there is also a good deal of slush. I have to face it: the days of long, warm days are a ways away.

On these days of cold and drear, I dream of warblers.

Previously, I started my ranking of all the North American Wood Warblers, starting with the top 14 along with an explanation on their ranking. I won't go through all the rules for ranking (you can read the previous post for them), but obviously this is a subjective list, albeit the best damn subjective list ever made.

Today I go through the next segment of warblers, you know, those that were pretty good but not good enough to sit at the cool warblers' table in school. If you want to think of a theme for this post, it is: black and yellow.

Damon's Birds for the Weeks of October 1 - November 30

Yeah, we missed posting last months monthly birds, but it would have been a bit boring anyway. I got six total for October, with most of them ones that I should have gotten earlier in the year. But November was a different story!

I won't go into stories of my adventures too much, but November was a mix of getting birds I should have gotten in the winter plus a few rare birds that I chased down, including me finally tracking down a Snowy Owl.

The Accuracy of eBird and the Precision of eBirders

I have a love/hate relationship with eBird. I love it because it is awesome, but it is full of people and I hate people. No, that isn't quite fair since there are plenty of people I don't hate, but any endeavor that involves people, especially interacting people, is bound to have annoyances.

This is a common theme here on The Year of Birds, so much so that we have a tag for "other birders", but it might as well be called "other people". Also common is when we whine a little about eBird, but that is more so because it does so much well that it is glaring when things aren't so good. One thing it is good at, though, is giving you lots information about a birder just from look at the lists they take.

Damon Wants in on the Snowy Owls

I've been on a bit of a roll lately in terms of getting to rare birds after people have been posting them. Note, this doesn't mean that I've been good at finding rare birds, but instead that I've been good at going to locations that people have reported a rare bird is and seeing it. That said, I did find a Connecticut Warbler at Taylor Arboretum near my house earlier this fall, but for the most part when I see a rare bird it is because I've just been following others who post it.

Year of Birds by the Numbers, Part 3

Damon and I have now passed the 3/4th mark of our competition, which means its time for the 3rd installment of Year of Birds by the Numbers!

My Regular-sized Binoculars

Foreshadowing!

I've been done with my old pair of binoculars for quite some time. They are fine, I guess, but they aren't. Here, I wrote about that!

I've been wanting to get new binoculars for quite some time now, but haven't been able to afford it. My standard line to people was "once my kids stop needing things, then I'll get new binoculars" which allowed me to have some folksy charm while deflecting the fact that my old binoculars were barely usable. Funny thing, though, is that my kids haven't stopped needing things (god, they never stop with the 'needing'), yet here I am now with this:

Happiness in my hand....uhhh...you know what I mean!

My Little Binoculars

I've written about this before, and alluded to it even more throughout my writing, but my binoculars are not what most birders use. They are small, they fog up too easily, they aren't sharp, their field of view is narrow, they aren't bright, and I constantly have to readjust the focus on the right eye. They work fine enough for many things (especially because I try to not rely on optics too much), but they aren't that great. That, of course, hasn't stopped me from amassing 193 birds so far this year without leaving the general area while working and having kids. So they are functional, but limited.

My god, they are smaller than my hand!

The real issue with them is that they give off a bad impression. I know this sounds weird, especially coming from me, but people see my binoculars and don't take me seriously. This started way back in January, only days into my Year of Birds, when a couple pointed said there was a Crested Caracara nearby and zinged me on my binoculars.

Tribute to the Great Blue Heron

Through the mist I could just make out the silhouette of the bird. It was standing motionless, watching and listening to cacophony that is the early morning of the pond. The patience, the poise, the plumage were all marks of what I consider a truly great bird. As I moved closer, I could see it more clearly and it was The Great Blue Heron.