American Kestrel, photo by copeg. Today was the day of the American Kestrel. It started at 10 am and by the time I finished counting at 6 pm, 28 of these light weight, Microtus–killing machines had flown past. That was counting 10 in the last hour, and four birds in the last few minutes of that hour. This is a good day count for Montclair in March when we would only expect a small handful in one day. The really interesting part was that most of these falcons followed the same flight path and they often came in groups of two. Kestrels are sexually dimorphic so I could see that they were often traveling in groups comsisting of one male and one female. Whether these falcons were flying with their mates or just pure coincidence, it made for an interesting observation.
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I really wish I had a picture for this post. I guess that will have to wait until I manage to get a dSLR camera with a nice 300mm fixed lens. Anyways… Standing in one spot for a whole day gives me quite a chance to observe things that I don’t ordinarily get to see. I was up at the hawk watch, like I will be every day for the next 6 weeks, scanning the skies and waiting for the next migrating raptor. Off in the distance I see a Cooper’s Hawk winging its way northward towards me. Just as I am getting excited that I will get to put down another tick for the day, he (a really small bird, hence ‘he’) tucks his wings and disappears into the trees just south of me.
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The first day went smoothly, minus the various encounters with curious dogs and their unconcerned owners. You would think people would be embarrassed to have their dogs sniff thru perfect strangers bags but no, instead its our fault that we “don’t like the dogs.” Never mind that the dogs are supposed to be on a leash. Well, Tree Swallows are back. Had a couple come through individually and then a group of four flew past the hawk watch. One the drive home, they were everywhere that there was water. Phoebes were also vocal. Raptors for the day were 11 Turkey Vultures and 4 Red-tailed Hawks, plus one Red-shouldered Hawk that was going the wrong direction.
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Tomorrow marks day one of the Montclair Spring Hawk Watch, weather permitting. After reaching about 75°F today the thunderclouds are rolling in and we might get a good storm tonight. Thats all good but what about this…snow on Friday? That could make things really interesting. Well, hopefully I will have some reports soon and some pictures to go along with it. I went to the Montclair Bird Club tonight and was treated to a great slide show of western Montana, one of my favorite places that I’ve been. I would recommend it to anybody. My best experience in Montana was driving on backroads. One day my fiancee and I were meandering along and approached some roadkill that a Black-billed Magpie was feeding on. I was already slowing down to get a better look when I noticed some thing large swoop out of the sky to my right.
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Well, I didn’t miss this one. Seems like everyone else got to see the Smith’s Longspur in the blogosphere- City Birder, Mike from 10000birds.com, Jersey Birder, etc. I was pretty sure that I was going to come up short again after searching for over an hour and only seeing Snow Buntings and Horned Larks. I had also wanted to see the Lapland Longspurs that it associated with but they were nowhere to be found. Finally, after walking back and forth several times, scanning the different areas for any signs of movement we went back to the Snow Bunting flock. We had searched the group several times for longspurs but the flock was homogeneous. One last check and, oh what was that, thats not a bunting. The flash of the white outer tail feathers gave us what we needed, the Smith’s was still here.
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Montclair Hawkwatch

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This weekend I will be moving to NJ Audubon’s Weis Ecology Center to start as the counter for the Montclair Hawkwatch. I suppose I will be giving updates on the flights and the progression of spring as I watch it come northward everyday for the next two months. I am excited about being outside for 2 straight months in the spring after spending the entire fall outside at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. There is something special about being able to see the different waves of migration and leaf out as it happens and not miss any of it.
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For any of you who have looked through a flock of gulls and thought it was hopeless to pick out the different species, you are in luck. Scientists have just released their findings in the UK journal Molecular Ecology Notes regarding DNA barcodes for bird species in North America. They found that most of the large, white-headed gulls (California, Herring, Iceland, Lesser Black-backed, Western, Glaucous-winged, and Glaucous Gulls) share 99.8% of their DNA. Although there is no official percentage that endows a bird with its own species name, these gulls show a high percentage of similarity, enough that the researches lumped them all into one group. This would greatly simplify the issue and birders would only have to worry about separating Herring and Ring-billed Gulls. The idea that they are all the same species is difficult for me and many others to believe.
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I and the Bird #42

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The newest I and the Bird is out, featuring a voyage with Darwin as the the Neurophilosopher goes through the top birding blogs of the last two weeks at Neurophilosophy. It is a great journey covering four continents (I think I counted right) and many countries.
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Clever crow

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Here is a neat video showing tool use by a clever crow.
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Short-eared Owls have been on my want list for Pennsylvania for quite some time. I had several opportunities to see them while in college in northern Indiana and greatly enjoyed that. Then I got a tip on where they might be in my own county. My own county! Now some people might not understand that thrill, but having just recently hit the 200 mark in my current county, I am enjoying the growing number. So anyway, there is a fantastic piece of grasslands not 20 minutes from my house. I decided to hit it late afternoon in order to be there for the most productive time for the owls. I was elated when I arrived, 2 were already flying around.
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