Backyard Big Year

The yard itself is only one important landscape for the Backyard Big Year.  Since all birds seen or heard from your yard count, the neighboring yards and landscapes provide important habitat and opportunities for finding birds.

My yard is surrounded by wooded exurban yards, subdivisions, and an old farm (much of which was developed into the yards my neighbors and I live in.

Facing west (up), notice wooded slope to north and west, more open yards and old farm to the east, subdivision to south and northeast.

Birds eye view of neighborhood looking east (up).

The woods to my west and northwest provide a nice patch of woods, that connect to woods to my south, forming a wooded corridor that seems to funnel migrants.  The Old Farm Road pond to my east is usually empty, but sometimes hosts Mallards, Canada Goose, Great Blue Heron, and once upon a time, a drake Redhead.  Here’s hoping it attracts additional waterbirds this year, though it’s quite small.  A creek runs from the pond up onto my property, and flows down past the pond to feed into a larger creek and eventually the reservoir (see Lay of the Land III: The Local Area).

In addition to cover, the topography of the neighborhood is also important–I have almost no view to the west as this direction is dominated by raising ground and trees.  To the south, the road runs near the ridge of our hill, and the yards across the street drop off in elevation again, and since this area is also wooded, visibility is not great in this direction.

Too map of my neighborhood, showing roads, small pond to the northeast, creek, and hill rising to the west/northwest.

I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more about my neighbor’s yards as I’m walking around my own yard.  Remember to be a good neighbor and let your neighbors know that you’re going to be birding in the yard, and not staring into their homes with your high powered optics!

See Lay of the Land I: The Yard and Lay of the Land III: The Local Area

So a couple weeks ago, I threw out some old grapes that we hadn’t eaten.  I didn’t want to compost them, I was hoping some bird might like them.  I put them in a small conifer next to my compost bin and pretty much forgot about them.  Today I found out that the Northern Mockingbird in my yard is coming in to eat them.  I don’t normally get mockingbirds to spend much time in my yard (seen only 6 times in 2013 and 2014), so I was happy that the bird had found these grapes in time for the Backyard Big Year.  So next time you have fruit that goes bad, stick it in a tree and maybe your bird friends will find it for a nice midwinter snack.

Northern Mockingbird eating grapes placed in spruce tree.

Sour grapes on the ground. Sounds like the title to a song?

Theeeey’re grrrrrrrrape!

Rare in my area (Yard Code 5), a friend of mine a few miles away has this Evening Grosbeak at his feeder. Will I get lucky and get one at my feeders or as a flyover in 2015?

With less than 10 hours to go, 2014 is almost in the bag.  Tomorrow’s the big day! I will literally do a birding big day to kick off the Backyard Big Year.  I’m playing for at least 30 birds tomorrow.  While there will be many days later in the year when I see more species, there will never be another day when I see that many new birds for the year.

Recently it has been pretty easy to get 20 species in my yard by birding an hour or so in the morning.  Tomorrow I’ll hit it hard most of the day.

I’ll be shooting for 150+ species next year, which will be a lot more than the 98 I saw this year with casual yard birding.

My eBird yard listing yard listing results at the end of December 2014.

As my eBird yard listing totals indicate, I found 44 species in my yard this December.  I’m shooting for 60 in January.  I’m going to need a lot more flyovers and a lot more time out in the early morning to make that happen.  Oh, and a lot of luck since the birds have to come to me, and I have to be out watching and ready for them when they show up!

Tomorrow is looking to be cold and clear.  So viewing especially in the afternoon may be a challenge.  The neighbor’s small pond froze over last night, and Mallard pair that has been hanging out there has moved on.  But other good yard birds are bound to show up.  Tomorrow’s a new day.  A new year.  Let the games begin!

Forecast for tomorrow, and the start of the Backyard Big Year.

The yard is my primary playing field for the 2015 Backyard Big Year.  No matter where you live, your yard has strengths and weaknesses as a birding site.  My yard is 2.7 acres in Union Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey.  All the houses in may area have septic systems, so large lots are required.

Here’s a tour of my yard to help you get a feel for my playing field.

Here’s an arial view of my yard, the  long bent lot in the middle.  Lot lines are off a little, should be shifted a hair to the right, with the row of small conifers along the driveway forming the eastern boundary.

My yard has several major features, as well as several smaller areas that will be  important for the Backyard Big Year–including the front yard, side yards, backyards, creek, patio, and feeding station.

Bing birds eye view of yard looking north, taken a few years ago before we put in the walkways.

Bing birds eye view of yard facing east. Patio is in the shadow behind the house. The small conifer on the left of the picture in line with the blue dot is one corner of the yard.

Bing birds eye view of yard facing west, showing front yard, driveway, side yards, and backyard.

Front Yard
My yard slopes about 30 feet from the top of the lot near the road, down to the creek at the back end of the lot.  The front yard is the highest area, and is mostly open lawn with shade trees, boarded on one side by the side yard and by the driveway and a row of small conifers on the other.  This is my best view of the sky, and will be where I put up my 15 foot tripod deer stand to get the biggest view.

Front yard looking towards the road from the house.

Foundation plantings along front of house are worthless for birds, and need to be replaced. Can you envision a nice hummingbird/butterfly garden here? Me too!

Back Yard
My backyard is a sloping lawn with trees on all sides. From my patio I can sit and watch all the trees as if in a giant wide-screen birding Imax.  Trees include large oaks that attract a lot of migrant warblers, and large grape vines that cover the smaller trees and bring in a lot of thrushes and fruit eating birds in the fall.  The back yard is usually the best area for watching birds moving through my actual yard, though the trees limit my view of the sky.  It is also the part of the yard I can most easily watch from inside when I am working on the computer.

Bing birds eye view of backyard looking east–showing patch of trees on side yard to east, and tree line along west.

View of the back yard from house living room window. Note the OldBird 21c on duty to record nocturnal migrants and other birds. View of sky narrowly constrained by trees in side yards.

Small conifer on my side yard to the west. The black creeping Dalek on the left is a compost bin. I’ve got a small water pan in front of the tree and have spread seed on the ground here for sparrows.  This is a prime site for a critter cam.

Side Yard
The western edge of my yard is in a conservation easement to protect the local watershed.  It forms a link between larger wooded patches in my neighborhood, so many birds move along it as they cross my landscape.  This patch of woods attracts many migrants, as well as wintering sparrows.

View of lower part of side yard to the east from the back yard. Trees and shrubs provide good cover for migrants and wintering birds.

Creek
Down at the bottom of the yard I have a small section of a creek that feeds into Mulhockaway Creek–the primary water source for nearby Spruce Run Reservoir.  It is really small and intermittent as it flows through my yard, but still provides a byway for some birds.  I’ve even had the occasional Belted Kingfisher (Yard Code 3) come up the creek this far.

Small creek at bottom right, flowing from my side yard woods, AKA Winter Wren lure.

Feeding Station
I usually provide a Nyjer feeder, Black Sunflower feeder, and suet feeder on the back of my patio–visible from my kitchen table.  I will be providing additional food sources here later in the year, and will create additional feeding stations near the side yard, closer to cover for more shy birds.  Fruit, mealworms, and cheap millet seed will all be in the offering, as well as sugar water for hummingbirds.

Patio and feeding station in backyard are on north side of house, and very shaded for most of the day during the winter.

As long as I’m hanging out so much in my yard this year, I will be taking the opportunity to improve this habitat, and look forward to charting the changes in my yard as we make them this year.

So–yard strengths:  large lot, many trees and bordering woods, decent feeding station.  Yard weaknesses–too much lawn, trees obscure horizon, no real water, could do a lot more birdscaping to attract birds.

Of course the actual yard is only part of the playing field.   The surrounding area can have a big impact on what birds are nearby and visible from your yard.

Coming soon–Lay of the Land II: The Neighborhood and Lay of the Land III: The Local Area.

The 2015 Backyard Big Year will be a machine assisted Big Year.  I’ll be using remote cameras and microphones to monitor bird movements and to improve my chances of detecting hard to find species.

Gearing up for the recording season by replacing the plastic seal and cloth cover for my OldBird 21c microphone.

My most valuable bionic birding gear will be my OldBird 21c microphone to detect nocturnal bird migrants calling as they pass over my yard.  If it flies over my yard, and makes a sound, I will have a chance at detecting it if I can record it and ID the call.

Usually the OldBird 21c sits on a chair in my backyard, and I turn it on at dusk during migration.  For the Backyard Big Year, I’ll be recording at night all year.  I’ll also record at times during the day to detect and get recordings of birds singing or moving through the yard.  I run a cable from the microphone into my house so I can listen live to the mic as it records.  If I’m asleep or away from home, my little bionic birding buddy can still be on the job.  It will take a massive amount of time and effort to review these recordings. That will be a big part of the Backyard Big Year, but I’m excited to see what the recordings turn up–and to learn more about nocturnal migration here in New Jersey.

I’m also planning on putting up some critter cams at water features, in case any shy migrants try to sneak through the yard unobserved.  I don’t have a system set up yet, so I’m up for comments and suggestions on best equipment and ways to do that kind of monitoring.

It is a Big Year tradition to rank bird species by how difficult they will be to find during the Big Year.  The American Birding Association has published bird finding codes for each species found in North America.  To help me in my 2015 Backyard Big Year, I’ve created my own Backyard Listing Codes.

Pileated Woodpecker–a solid Code 1 species that should be practically impossible to miss during the 2015 Backyard Big Year.

Code 1–Common Species Easy to find

Code 2–Should be findable with consistent effort

Code 3–Regular in area, but hard for yard, and possibly detectable by night flight call

Code 4–Scarce or rare in the county and very difficult to detect

Code 5–Vagrant, not regularly expected in county.

Examples of Code 1 birds are American Crow, Downy Woodpecker, and White-throated Sparrow.  These are in my yard all the time and it would take something like a nuclear disaster to keep me from finding them in my yard.

Code 2 birds are tougher to find, but they are expected to pass through the yard regularly.  These include birds like Osprey and Great Horned Owl.  They will take work to find, but should be findable.  Brown Creeper is the only Code 2 bird that I haven’t seen in the yard before 2015.  Perhaps it is really a Code 3 bird!

Code 3 birds are where things start to get really dicey–they are found in the county each year, but might be very tough to find in the yard.  Most waterfowl are going to be in this category for me, as well as birds like Cape May Warbler and Rusty Blackbird.  Shorebirds and rails may be in this category as well, and will most likely only be detected as calling nocturnal migrants.

White-winged Scoter–a tough Code 3 bird for the county, and regularly found at Spruce Run Reservoir a few miles from my home, will be an almost impossible Code 4 bird to try and find in the yard.

Code 4 birds are scarce or rare in the county in general.  Some of these might actually be easier to detect as nocturnal migrants than by traditional birding strategies, so this will be fun to see how many can be found with solid year round effort.  Grebes, additional owls, shorebirds, and other good local birds are in this category.

Code 5 birds are those that have only occurred a few times in the county, so they wouldn’t be expected at all in my yard.  But one can dream!  These include local rarities like Eared Grebe, Northern Gannet, Neotropic Cormorant.  It’s a big list of birds that would make any local county birder salivate.

So how many of these birds are findable?  Here’s the breakdown of the 311 Hunterdon County bird species recorded in eBird:

Code       #         Pre-2015 yard birds
1               49           49
2              40           39
3               73           54
4              92            11
5               57             2
Total      311           155

Here you can start to see the real challenge!  There are fewer than 90 birds that can be fully expected to occur in the yard on a regular basis.  If birders love to find rare birds, than this game is the ultimate challenge because it makes even common birds rare.  In my case, even Rock Pigeon (Code 3) is a bird I will have to work hard for!

In 2014, this Calliope Hummingbird at a friend’s house was the first one ever found in the county. Solid Code 5 birds like this will not be expected, but can still be hoped for on the Backyard Big Year!

While I easily find over 200 bird species in the county in a year (240 in 2014), finding over 200 species in my yard would require me to see 111 Code 3 and 4 birds!

Let the Games Begin!