Dowitchers

For those of you who haven’t heard of dowitchers, well, maybe we should leave it that way.

Identifying dowitchers is the migraine headache of birding. (Or does Empidonax Flycatcher ID gets that honour?)

Short-billed (SBD) and Long-billed (LBD) Dowitchers are large shorebirds that look very similar. Their names aren’t helpful. Both have long bills. You must resort to plenty of studying to figure out how it ID them. Luckily, there is plenty of reference material. If you care.

If you get bored of identifying them by field marks, you can read up on how to ID them by, (deep breath)... the angle formed by drawing a line between the tip of their bill and the back of their head, and another between the beginning of the bill, though their eye and to the top of their head. The degree of the angle averages higher on SBD.

Rehearsing the rules in my head I ventured out to find a dowitcher to ID. One probed the mud across a slough. I zoomed the spotting scope onto it. I studied its characteristics. It was a Long-billed Dowitcher. It flew off, chattering the flight call of a Short-billed Dowitcher.

I can identify dowitchers with confidence and sometimes accuracy!

Red Eyes (Ken)

A couple of days ago we dropped in on Jim Stevenson in Galveston, Texas. Jim’s place is a refuge from the gluttonous development that is devouring much of Galveston Island. A refuge for Jim, the birds he loves as well as human visitors.

We hadn’t seen Jim since December, when he kindly lent us his place while he was away visiting family in Florida. This time, Jim looked tired, worn a little ragged by the rush of keeping up with spring migration. If I looked closely, I might have seen red rims around his eyes. It’s a common theme amongst birders. Bob Duncan from Florida had summed it up when we’d stayed with him and his wife Lucy in early April. Bob had recently been invited to a wedding and said, “I can’t go to a wedding during spring migration!”

Jim knows a lot about birds. He knows a lot about bird migration. Malkolm peppered him with questions about where to find birds, and Jim answered patiently. When Malkolm asked about Gull-billed Terns, he led him up to his “sky deck” and pointed one out. When they got back downstairs, Jim plopped down on a couch while Malkolm pointed his camera lens outside.

“There’s a Yellow Warbler,” said Malkolm, “and a Red-eyed Vireo.”

“Malkolm, you seem to know quite a lot about birds,” said Jim. “Can you tell whether that vireo is exhausted from crossing the Gulf?”

Malkolm thought for a minute. “No.”

“At least I’ll be able to teach you something,” said Jim. “Sure it is. It just took the red-eye on the Yucatan Express!”

And the Winner Is....(Wendy)

We are on a biking/birding trip, but this blog is about bathrooms.

I feel qualified - now that we have spent 10 months crisscrossing the continent, and stayed in hundreds of campgrounds - to elect North America’s best campground bathroom.

We have encountered a variety of restrooms. Some are unclean and uncared-for, and you are scared to touch the surfaces. One bathroom in southern Florida would have delighted a zoologist. It had mosquitoes crawling the walls, cockroaches scuttling over the floor, spiders hanging from the showerhead and a cute little green tree frog on the toilet. Many campground managers maintain sparkling clean facilities: if I dropped a cookie on the floor of one of these I could safely pick it up and eat it. Most bathrooms are unsupplied. Half the time there is no hand soap.

Everyone knows that long distance travellers crave a home cooked meal. I think there is comfort too in a homey bathroom, and that is why I am choosing High Island RV Park’s as the winner.

This bathroom is decorated with a personal touch. I admired the leopard spotted shower curtains. (“Dollar store”, whispered Marie.) The floor is covered with botanical design mats. Marie changes the mats every day.

The shelf above the sink is lined with tiny bottles of lotion, shampoo, conditioner, also shower cap, shoe shining cloth. They are the kind you bring home from a hotel – and these ones are quality. There is a bouquet on the toilet, and a bird ornament over the sink.

A notice on the paper towel dispenser says “You are welcome to use the soap and shampoo. “

There is a drawback, of course. Everyone wants to use the classy bathroom, even if they have one of their own in their RV. There can be a line-up.

Come to think of it, this blog may worsen that problem......

Golden Plovers (Ken)

I pulled my wool hat low over my ears and zipped up my windbreaker. The icy north wind shredded the fog and we could finally make out the bird’s dim silhouette on the ridge. It bobbed up and down like a marionette-bird and called, “too-lip, too-lip.” As the mist lifted, I saw a dozen caribou including several butter-colored calves feeding in a draw behind the American Golden Plover . . .

Okay. I know you’ve already figured out that this scene didn’t happen as we cycled across Louisiana. If I put on a wool hat in the steamy April warmth of the Gulf Coast I’d melt like a blob of butter. We did see three American Golden Plovers though, in a muddy field sandwiched between emerald-green rice fields brimming with yellowlegs, dowitchers and other assorted shorebirds. We saw these birds on a day when we had to cycle 83 miles, mostly against a headwind. A tough day, but nothing compared to what plovers do on a regular basis.

I can’t help but associate American Golden Plovers with the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Up north is where they are born. It is where they set out from on the first leg of their incredible migration when they are just a couple of months old. They fly eastward to the Atlantic coast, then launch into the void for a non-stop flight across the ocean to South America.

Our own “migration” across the continent in search of birds has given us a little insight into the difficulties faced by migrants. The biggest problem has to be shrinking habitat in wintering grounds, nesting habitat . . . and everywhere along migratory pathways. That is now compounded by climate change. It is no wonder that so many people have lamented that they aren’t seeing as many birds as they used to.

Since it was just Earth Day, I raise my coffee cup in a toast to all of the people we’ve met (and those we haven’t) who are doing great things to heal the earth so that wild creatures can survive into the future.

Migration (Malkolm)

I can sympathise with migrating songbirds on a new level now.

8 PM, April 17^th I stepped into my nice, cozy tent. Around this time millions of birds took flight from the Yucatan Peninsula.

6 AM, April 18^th I woke up, contemplating a long day of cycling. Those birds had flown all night, now they were contemplating a long day of flying.

7:05 AM, We cycled off, 82 miles of road ahead of us. That’s a long ways. Those birds still had hundreds of miles to go.

Mid Moring, It started to rain. We had a headwind. Luckily for those birds, the rain hugged the coast- so that last difficulty wasn’t a factor- yet.

3:30 PM, The road parelled the sea. We were getting tired. Suddenly I spotted a tiny songbird fluttering across the road. But as we cycled on I noticed more and more. Indigo Buntings, Orchard Orioles, unidentified flashes of yellow...

4:30 PM, We arrived, exhausted at Peveto Woods Sanctuary. We were hungry. Ken and Wendy had a beer. But I was more hungry for birding than for food. I snuck through the woods. Exhausted birds were everywhere, a Blackburnian Warbler, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Scarlet Tanagers... they feasted on bugs, and I soaked in the incredible scene.

Good Bird Jokes (Wendy)

Today we are pedalling south of Baton Rouge. Our bellies are full of grilled redfish and fried catfish, thanks to Grill Master Craig Houston and his talented family. This blog is about something that happened a month ago, but the jokes are timeless.

March 21 was a big time for us. We were three-quarters of the way through Bird Year, and had just passed the ten thousand mile mark. We visited the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Gainesville. At our presentation there, we enjoyed the most entertaining introduction ever.

A hundred people sit on stackable chairs in the high-ceilinged Sanctuary. A woman with a long blonde braid walks to the front. She wears a blue peasant skirt, white blouse, blue print over-blouse, and a name tag: LoraKim Joyner. She is a co-minister. She picks up the microphone.

“I understand”, LoraKim starts, with a mischievous look, “that Malkolm, Ken and Wendy have not been alone in understanding the need for habitat protection and reducing the use of fossil fuels. They’ve found some special birds along the way in your Bird Year.”

First-time visitors to UUF look puzzled. Church members smile. They know that LoraKim Joyner loves birds – and bird puns. They know what is coming.

“Like the birds who were so sad about climate change and losing their habitat,” she continues. She peers out into the crowd.

A church member calls out, “Mourning Dove?”

“Sure”, says LoraKim, “and Blue Bird. Then in Texas you worked with a clergy bird who spoke out against pollution. Who was that?”

No one knows.

“The Cardinal!” LoraKim cries. “Alas, there have been some detractors – those birds that want to build and expand human structures for economic gain - the Crane, the Shoveler.

And what about those birds that want to develop the Arctic Refuge for oil?”

”Bushtits” says a woman in the second row.

“No comment!” laughs LoraKim. “What about Petrels?”

“A marijuana smuggler’s boat got shipwrecked in a storm,” she continues. “It crashed on a bird rookery in the Florida Keys. All those drugs went ashore. The Drug Enforcement Agency was concerned about the effects on the nesting terns, and called the Audubon society. Their fears were confirmed.....no tern was left unstoned.”

“Now I will turn the microphone over...”

Guest Blog #5 (Sam Skinner)

By the time this is posted, I’ll have been discharged (with honour?) from Team Bird Year, and will likely be somewhere near the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans eating. Speaking of eating, at Malkolm’s urging, I’ll write about “Feeling Alive!” Originally, I used this expression to refer to when one has eaten something with a flavour so intense that all else escapes your mind at that moment. One such moment on our two weeks with Team Bird Year was biting into a Florida-grown kumquat. The sweet-sour zestiness put me right into the moment. However, after riding for 2+ weeks, I’ve come to realize that “Feeling Alive!” can happen independently of food, and could be better described as when your entire consciousness is focused on the razor-sharp edge of the present, with no thought of the future or the past.

The razor analogy fits frighteningly well with a situation where I sometimes found myself “Feeling Alive!” with Team Bird Year: riding along the very thin white line at the edge of the road with heavy traffic on one side, and on the other either an abrupt drop onto what’s left of a washed out shoulder (rural/suburban), or a series of hurricane-ready, skate-park inspired, bike-swallowing storm sewer drains (urban). “Feeling Alive!” also came in less abrasive forms. For a moment while riding up and over bridge (with a wide shoulder), nothing occupied my mind other than that one Brown Pelican gliding low over the wave-tops, pulling up a bit, flapping, and dropping into another glide. On many nights, I really did feel alive when going to look for alligators or Screech Owls, or even just walking to the bath-house, because the chorus of frogs and the warm humid night air were so alien to me yet so comfortable. I suppose even the pun-laden jokes that were past back and forth over dinner or while riding on a quiet stretch served to put me in the moment (so much so that I can’t remember any good examples – or maybe there never were any?).

Everyday riding with Team Bird Year was punctuated with dozens of moments of “Feeling Alive”, and, while I’m jealous of their whole year of wonderful (and lively) experiences, I feel lucky and honoured to have spent two utterly alive weeks on their journey.