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Every day I try to get 20 species in the yard for my 20 Bird Minimum Daily Requirement .  So far this year it usually takes about an hour in the morning to do this.  As it gets colder, and the local reservoirs freeze, the gulls and geese are not moving through  my neighborhood as much, and it is getting tougher to get those 20 birds.

Yesterday it was -4°F at 6:30am and I had to drive my daughter down to Baltimore for a clarinet audition at the Peabody Institute.  I only got 8 birds before I had to leave, and didn’t get back until a quarter to 5 and a Downy Woodpecker was the only other bird I was able to get for the day.  So yesterday was a pretty spectacular Birding Fail, and my first such day for my yard this year.

Some days are like that, and even a birding big year sometimes has to take a back seat to the family!

There isn’t anything more hard-core birding geeky than running numbers on potential bird sightings for a big year or big day, even if the projections are limited to your backyard!

I’m trying to gauge how I’m doing so far on my big year.  I’m a bit behind where I was hoping to be, as far as species totals go, but otherwise running numbers to see if I can make any projections based on my previous years birding in the county.

For the past three years, I’ve birded Hunterdon County pretty heavily but mostly birded my yard fairly casually.  Here’s how my birding has compared to the sum total of all eBirding in the county:

Here’s how my January birding in the county has compared to the rest of the year’s birding:

Usually, the top local county birders hit the month of January pretty hard, scour the county pretty good, and try to see all of the species seen in the county–including overwintering lingerers that are much more easily seen later in the year.  Hence the high percentage of all year birds seen in January.

If my 2015 Backyard Big Year birding were to follow that kind of trajectory, based on finding 47 birds in January, it looks like my total yard birds for the year would end up around 112 and 152, based on finding 31-42% of the ultimate total year birds in January.

There are reasons to believe that this trajectory won’t hold for the yard big year.  Instead of scouring a wide area, with yard birding I’m much more restricted to waiting for birds to come to me.  While there are daily and seasonal bird movements going on in January, there is a lot less movement than later in the spring or fall–so less chance of seeing many of the birds found in small numbers or scattered across the wider area.

Here’s how my casual yard birding has fared over the past few years:

Based on these totals, my 47 January birds may be only 26-30% of my total birds for the year, leading to a projected total for the year of  157 to 181 birds.

Are these realistic projections?  Time will tell.  Yard birding is in many ways different from county birding–it is much more challenging to find many species as flyovers or moving through a stationary point, than it is to go to where they are more easily found across a wider area.  In addition, I am recording nocturnal flight calls–which might actually increase my ability to find some species.  In 2012 I recorded Virginia Rail, Whimbrel, and Short-billed Dowitcher from my yard–birds which no other county birders were able to find on the ground during the year.  So hopefully nocturnal recording will boost my totals even higher.  How high?  How many birds will only show up as nocturnal migrants?  It will be exciting to find out!

Based on my projections, I should end up between 150 and 200 species for the year from my yard.  Anybody care to predict on a final total?  If yard birding were like other betting sports, how would we run betting on a backyard big year like this?

Only time, a lot of birding and recording review time, will tell what the final numbers will be.  In the meantime, there’s a whole year of geeky bird number crunching to keep me busy in the down times…oh wait, there really aren’t many down times when you’re at least always sitting by a window or listening to the OldBird 21c mic in the yard!

American Tree Sparrow  (Code 3)  27 Jan 2015

Area: Locally uncommon winter resident, most often in open or wooded brushy areas with other sparrow flocks.

Yard: Rare winter visitor, only one sighting prior to 2015.

Sightings: First bird of year was seen briefly under feeders after a heavy snow, but flew before I could get a photo.  On 9 Feb after another storm with freezing rain, a bird spent a few minutes under the feeders and I was able to get some photos (above).

The past few days have been pretty cold, with mostly the normal suspects.  This morning I finally got a Common Grackle for the year.  But the big news is that birds are really starting to sing, and I’ve added several more species to the audio recording big year.  Northern Cardinals are singing every morning, as are Tufted Titmouse, and this week the Song Sparrow and House Finches in my yard started to sing.  So even though it seems like the heart of winter (it was 3ºF this morning), the singing birds mean that spring is on its way!  Thank goodness!

American Robin in the snow

The past few days I’ve also had groups of American Robin moving through, after being scarce for the past month.  Another highlight this morning was a Great Black-backed Gull actually flying over my house with Ring-billed Gulls–and not just a couple miles away through the scope.  Too bad I wasn’t quick enough on the camera to get a shot–I’m going to need it for the photo big year!

eBird checklists:
4 Feb 2015
5 Feb 2015
6 Feb 2015 (AM)

Common Grackle  (Code 1)  6 Feb 2015

Area: Locally common to abundant migrant and summer resident, uncommon winter visitor.

Yard: Fairly common in spring and fall, less common summer and uncommon winter visitor.

Audio: Recorded 10 March 2015 by OldBird21c mic as small grackle flock briefly visited feeders (Northern Cardinal singing in foreground).

Sightings: First of year (FOY–below) was a bird that hid in an oak tree near the sparrow slick until the other birds cleared out, then it dropped down to feed on the seed for a few moments.

Snow Birds

One month down, 11 to go!  By the end of January my backyard big year has 48 total birds for the yard, 33 birds photographed, and 21 birds sound recorded.  I’ve spent over 100 hours birding in the yard, and many more inside listening to my OldBird21c microphone and watching the feeders.

After starting the year with 36 species on January 1, including 3 new birds for my yard list, I was very excited.  January 2 brought 2 more new birds for the year.  Then things slowed way down.  I managed to see my 20 Bird Minimum Daily Requirement every day (except for my weekly Birding Sabbaths), but perhaps this wasn’t enough to get those rare flyovers.

Building 3 miles away on distant hillside.

I have one narrow through the trees scope-view of the valley and distant hills 3 miles to the north (photo on left)–and that’s where I saw my best new yard birds.  I check out that view regularly each morning, but I haven’t been willing to spend hours staring through the scope hoping for something to fly by.  So one strategy for February, when it isn’t too cold–spend more time outside and more time watching the distant hills for flybys.

I’ve been recording with my OldBird21c mic in the yard all day most days, and most nights when it isn’t snowing or too windy.  There could be more bird species recorded on those recordings that I haven’t reviewed yet.  That takes a long time, especially for the day time recordings when there are a lot of active calling birds.  So I need to dedicate more time to reviewing the recordings for the audio big year.

As far as my rankings with other yard birders on eBird–I’m getting a bit of a slow start.  Here are my results as of 30 January, before I added three more species on 31 January:

After adding the three birds on 31 January, I actually rank 59th for the year in the U.S.  It’s a bit slower start than I’d hoped for, but I’m 4th in NJ and first in my county–not too bad for a yard with no real water feature to attract waterfowl.  I will be pushing hard to get that U.S. ranking to go up this year.

Cooper’s Hawk hiding in grape tangle 31 Jan 2015

Cooper’s Hawk  (Code 1)  31 Jan 2015

Area: Uncommon resident and fairly common migrant.  A few pairs nest  in woodlots across the county.  Most often seen during fall migration.

Yard: Uncommon visitor, most often seen during fall migration–12 previous sightings from 2011-2014.

Sightings: The first bird of the year (above) flew into a tangle at the bottom of my yard and I was only able to get some terrible shots.  On 6 Feb an adult spent some time in the neighborhood and I was able to get a better shot as it sat in my side yard.  Later that day I was in my kitchen and saw the starling flock take off and the jays start calling–I told my son there must be a Cooper’s Hawk around.  We went to the window just in time to see one buzz down the side yard.

Cooper’s Hawk in side yard.  6 Feb 2015.

Pine Siskins at nyjer seed feeder, 26 Feb 2015

Pine Siskin  (Code 3)  31 Jan 2015

Area: Uncommon to rare fall migrant and winter visitor.

Yard: Uncommon to rare fall migrant and winter visitor, more often some years when larger numbers come south.  Up to 75 birds seen at feeders in fall of 2012, but only one bird observed in all of 2013.

Observations:  First bird detected was a flyover on 31 Jan (audio below).  Not seen until 25 Feb when 8 birds spent a few minutes in the oak trees in my eastern side yard and I got a couple of distant photos.  Then 8 birds visited the feeders and called from the trees for several minutes about 10am on 26 Feb.

Audio:  Flyover bird calling, “klee-you” calls recorded on OldBird21c mic, 9:28am 31 Jan 2015.

Longer sequence of calling birds in trees, 26 Feb 2015 10am.

Often during the winter, thousands of gulls spend the night on either Spruce Run or Round Valley Reservoirs.  While they are too far away for me to see from my house, each morning the gulls stream west to feeding sites in (presumably Easton) Pennsylvania or along the Delaware River.

From my yard, this stream of gulls is usually very distant, and can be seen through the trees.  This video was shot with my iPhone6 through my Kowa 883 scope.  The hillside on the left is 3.1 miles away to the north.  The powerless on the right are 4.5 miles away.  The gulls are somewhere in between.  Some are closer (thankfully) but many are pretty far.

This is how I see most of the gulls from my yard.  Thankfully, a few usually fly over my house each morning as well, though the great bulk of them are these distant dots.  Most have to be left unidentified as gull sp. though most are probably Ring-billed Gulls and usually you can pick out a few larger heavier Herring Gulls–especially the darker young birds.  Occasionally I can pick out Lesser Black-backed Gulls.  And twice so far this year I’ve been able to pick out a monster huge Great Black-backed Gull.  My chances of picking out an Iceland Gull at this distance?  Probably very small!

Identifying flying gulls is a challenge, especially at a distance where it can be a challenge to separate even the abundant Ring-billed Gulls from the common Herring Gulls.  But such is the life of a backyard birder!  Each day I scope the gulls out, adding at least these two common gulls to my daily yard list, and hoping for something even more exciting–though always skeptical of what I think I’m able to see at such a great distance!

Google Maps sight line from my yard to the distant hill in the video.

My first American Crow (28 Jan 2015)

Today I had a very strange experience.  I saw my first crow.

OK, I’ve grown up with crows.  Like most Americans, crows are one of the first birds you get to know.  I listed crows as one of the birds I knew for my Wolf cub scout badge back in July 1977.  Crows are everywhere.  They fly over my yard every day.

Which is why it took until today for me to actually see one.  While watching the backyard, four crows flew into the trees above my sparrow slick.  Instead of just noticing them, like I normally would, this time I actually got the binoculars up and looked at them.

And I’ve got to say, it kind of freaked me out!  Here’s a bird I thought I knew.  Common as can be.  I see and hear them practically every day of my life.  But today, looking one in the eyes, I realized I had never really seen one before.

The crow blinked.  It looked around, its coffee-colored eyes both cold and warm at the same time.  I don’t know if I’ve ever really looked at the shape of a crow’s beak before or watched one blink.  The crow in my yard didn’t call, didn’t make a sound.  But somehow staring in its eyes it brought me a message.  From the dark.  From the night.  From aeons in the past.  From its dinosaur ancestors.  From the shamans of a vanished human cultures that have known it for the past 30,000 years in America, and it’s cousins in the Old World for perhaps a million more.

I’m as unsettled as the feathers on the nape of the crow’s neck.  It was not there for me.  And it flew without giving me a thought.  Leaving me behind.  In the snow.  It took something of me with it.  I’m not sure what it was yet.

Crow moving on, 28 Jan 2015