Bill of the Birds

In the spring of 2008 when I walked into Salem-Liberty Elementary School, and into daughter Phoebe's 6th grade classroom, it was the highlight of my professional career. That was the day that I handed all the 6th graders their own copies of The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of Eastern North America?a book they'd helped me create over the previous two years.

I felt such pride because the book had been a true collaboration. The kids really helped me to get the content, design, and format just right. I was also proud because I knew the book would help aspiring young birders to enjoy bird watching?to connect with the feathered part of the natural world in a meaningful way. It's the book I wish I'd had when I first noticed birds in 1968. And my hopes for the book were realized. Since it came out in early 2008, many thousands of copies have made their way into the hands of young birders (and into the hands of new birders of all ages, too). I've given talks to and led walks for young bird watchers all over the eastern half of North America.

Yesterday I got to repeat this very special event when I took son Liam's classmates their copies of the The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of North America, which they helped me create. The new book, which I've blogged about before, was created by expanding the eastern guide, and adding 100+ western species, to cover all of North America. Now young birders in the West have a book to get them started birding.

Yesterday afternoon, just as the school day was winding down, I gave the Salem-Liberty 6th graders their books, signed most of them, then we went out in front of the tiny rural school and snapped a photo for posterity (above). All of these kids are in their last days at Salem-Liberty. Next year they will all attend Fort Frye High School on the other side of the county. I thought back on the many dozens of birding walks we'd taken around the school grounds since 2006. I feel so lucky to have been a part of these book projects with these young folks. We've always had fun.

I believe that birds are the easiest way to connect young people to nature and that's been my mission with these two books. It will continue to be my mission for the rest of my life. But there's no way I could have done it without the great minds and enthusiastic helpers at Salem-Liberty Elementary School.

I'll be forever grateful to those amazing Salem-Liberty kids and their dedicated teachers.

Most of you know the drill by now for these BOTB Caption Contests. I mean, we've done 21 of them! For any fresh-faced newcomers, here's how it goes:

Use the Comment interface at the bottom of this post to write a silly/funny/engaging/philosophical caption for the photograph shown above, then wait around twiddling your thumbs while our panel of world-renowned caption experts debates the merits of all submissions (and guzzles huge amounts of micro-brewed pale ale, or if it's breakfast time, bird-friendly shade-grown coffee and a few pale ales). They pick a winner. If it's you, you get a fabbo prize: in this case one of the brand-new products from Bird Watcher's Digest: a optics cleaning kit.

So huff some fog on your spec lenses and clean off the schmutz so you can see to write your most bestest, funniest caption. I can't wait to read it!

There's a new episode available of my podcast "This Birding Life."

This episode (#36!) is a new type, I'm calling "Ear Candy" because it's audio-only. This is my attempt at creating shorter (but I hope no less interesting) episodes in between the longer episodes that come in both audio and enhanced audio (with images) formats. The longer episodes (I'm working on one about birding in Israel right now) take me a much longer time to create, which often means there are long lags between episodes. Which is why I'm hoping that Science can perfect cloning soon.


This episode "Sounds of Spring at Indigo Hill" is built with audio field recordings I did with my iPhone. And there's a bit of narration tossed in between. I hope you like it.

I'd also like to thank Carl Zeiss Sports Optics for their sponsorship support of "This Birding Life" and Podcast Central.

Today (Friday, April 27) is Arbor Day, a holiday with its origins in the pioneer days on the Nebraska plains in the 1870s. Back then, farmers needed to plant trees as wind breaks to keep the plowed soil from blowing away. While I have mixed feelings about most of the Great Plains falling under the plow, which necessitated the planting of trees (that would never have naturally occurred there), I do believe that planting native trees in places where they belong is a good thing. You can read the history of Arbor Day here and learn about the Arbor Day Foundation here.

The Nature Conservancy is using the celebration of Arbor Day to focus attention on their Plant a Billion Trees project. The project focuses on restoration in the Atlantic Forest region of southeastern Brazil. I spent a week birding in this amazing part of the world back in 2008 (you can read a few of my blog posts here.) I witnessed vast tracts of forest, filled with birds and animals. And I also saw thousands of acres where the trees had been removed?often by slash-and-burn?and the land turned over to agricultural use. Some areas were so overgrazed and eroded that they were just bare, rocky earth.

The goal of this restoration project is to plant a billion trees in Brazil's Atlantic Forest by 2015. To help make this happen, TNC is asking for donation of a dollar per tree. More details can be found on the project's fancy, informative website: plantabillion.org.

Or, if you're wanting to make an impact closer to home, plant a native tree in your own backyard. Then stand back and take a deep breath of fresh air, because (don't forget) without trees, we would have a lot less oxygen to breathe.

Myself, I plan to find a really nice old tree on Arbor Day, put my arms around it and give it a long hug.

I spent some time on a sunny afternoon at the end of last week with the spotting scope and camera, watching the red-shouldered hawks at their nest. The few times I stepped inside the back door of the office for a phone call, the action heated up at the nest. I don't think the adult hawks are the least bit perturbed by the activity around our office and parking lot. I just think my timing was slightly unlucky.

We hear the adults calling to one another in the moments leading up to some sort of interaction. One will be on the eggs, glancing skyward occasionally. When he/she see the mate, short high-pitched screams are given, which sends the BWD staff lunging for the nearest west-facing window in hopes of seeing some neat behavior. I've seen a couple of food deliveries and in both cases the one on the nest (the female is slightly larger, but this can be hard to judge) took the food and left to eat, replaced by the food bringer who settled down carefully onto the nest.


Once they are settled down, it's not easy to see the adult on the nest?at least not from our vantage point. The Carolina chickadees, American robins, and blue jays that frequent the upper reaches of the sycamore DO notice however and often set up a racket of protest. I'm curious to see if the Baltimore orioles that usually nest in this same tree will do so again this summer. Having such large neighbors could be good or bad for the quality of the "neighborhood."


This image (above) was snapped with my Canon G12 compact camera on full zoom. It was just prior to this that the bird on the left brought the bird on the right a nice foot-long snake.


The adults are very vigilant around the nest?just like we are!

Well, it's finally here and I'm really happy about that. It's my latest book, the book closest to my heart, and the book that I really wish I'd had as a young bird watcher: The Young Birder's Guide to Birds of North America. That's right, this baby covers the entire continent, not just the East, as the earlier version did.

Writing a book is like baking a cake. You gather the ingredients, mix them all together in the proper order, and pop it in the oven. Then you wait. And 45 minutes and you have a cake! Or, in the case of a book, you wait a year while it bakes to perfection.

This new YBG has 300 of the most common, most commonly encountered, and most awesome North American birds in it. That's 200 species from the original eastern version of the book (158 of which have at least some distribution west of the Midwest) with 100 additional western species added. It's 368 pages and retails for less than $16. If you want one personalized for yourself or the young birder in your life, here's the place to make that happen.

What makes me really happy is that now young (or new) birders in the West have a book expressly written for them?a book that was conceptualized by their peers (my kids' elementary school classes worked on both books. This one is arriving just as Liam is about to leave elementary school and start high school!).

That's Phoebe Linnea Thompson on the left, me in the middle, and William Henry (Liam) Thompson IV on the right.

What might inspire a young birder as much as placing a live bird in their hands? [That's my daughter Phoebe with a baby bluebird in her hands.]

Placing a brand new, high-quality binocular in their hands would probably be on top of the list.

When I think about the optics I used for the first 10 years of my bird watching, it gives me a headache (or brings back unpleasant memories of the headaches my old binocs gave me.) I've said this many times before, we are living in The Golden Age of Birding!

Think about it:

• You can buy excellent starter binoculars for about $100.
• You can walk into any bookstore anywhere in North American and buy a field guide to the birds (or mammals, butterflies, moths, reptiles, etc).
• You can get bird seed and a feeder at any number of retail stores in your town.
• You can listen to any bird song in North America on your ever-present cellphone.
• You can get up-to-the-second info on bird sightings on the same device.
• You can brag INSTANTLY to all your birding friends about the Bachman's sparrow at your bird bath, via social media.

The Rain Crows rehearse for their upcoming gig at the nudist camp,
singing with a bear behind.

Erik said...His name must be Pooh, he's trying to pick up the honeys.

Erik also said...Which one looks slower? Which one looks slower?

Northern Goshawker said...With the Grateful Dead no longer touring, the dancing bears have been looking for a good summer jam band and found one in the Rain Crows. Here, Cubby is chillin? to Cotton Candy Sky.

I could easily pick a winner at random?you all are some funny folks!

I hope you enjoy these little side-trips to goofyland. I know I do! Thanks for playing everyone!