Limits to Technology

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."

— Albert Einstein

I don't go out of my way to be continually plugged in. My old car has a radio I can tune and a player for one CD at a time. There is no dock for continuous music from an iPod, nor do we use satellite radio. I keep using my 10-year-old phone, a BlackBerry, because it has a real keyboard for sending short messages rather than a touch screen. It has a decent camera and I can read emails. I can't "interface" with some sites anymore because BlackBerry has become a dinosaur, sort of like me, but those are sites I don't miss. 

BlackBerry, photographed using my tablet (Margo D. Beller)

Unlike the people I see on my various trains to work now, or on the busy streets of New York City, I can't monitor social media on my phone - no Facebook, no Twitter, no cat videos, nothing. I can listen to music I've loaded on it but most of the time I use the phone for what I consider its primary use - as a way to make a call (although now I also use it to text).

That said, I am no Luddite. I've had to learn how to use technology in order to stay gainfully employed. I recently bought a small tablet I can use when I travel or if I don't care to go upstairs to my laptop, itself an improvement from the "old days" of two decades ago when I had a full computer rig with drive, monitor and keyboard. My laptop is lighter and has more power than the old rig, but even here I prefer using an outside keyboard and a mouse, both of which have wires I plug into ports. (Yes, I've learned what a port is.)

Technology has also invaded the birding world beyond taking a decent pair of binoculars out into the field. 

Bird-centric technology is everywhere, starting with the apps. There are apps you can put on your souped-up phone to send your bird sightings directly to e-bird, the service run by Cornell University's Ornithology Lab and the National Audubon Society that lets you record your lists, check what's happening at "hotspots" around the world or in your backyard, and read bird-related news. You can load field guides into your phones rather than lug around your copy of the 1947 Peterson guide. You can download thousands of bird songs to check what you are hearing at that moment rather than trying to figure it out later. You can use the Global Positioning Satellite, or GPS, on your smart phone to go into the woods and presumably not get lost because you'll be able to check where you are and the type of terrain you might be stepping onto. 

Tablet, photographed using my BlackBerry (Margo D. Beller)

Even binoculars have changed. You can buy them with night vision to find that great horned owl hooting at you at midnight. There are digital binoculars that act like digital cameras so, in the words of one site, "you will not just be able to view objects but also you will be able to record them." 

I admit, some of this stuff could be helpful, especially as I get older. So why don't I use it? The cost is one reason. And the more bells and whistles, the more things that can go wrong and/or break, just like with some of the high-tech cars.

Another reason: I like to use my brain. 

It seems too much like work to go charging into the woods headlong after some reported rarity and depend on an app you might not be able to access if you don't have a signal. Too many people go into places where they are not supposed to go because they think they can get out as long as they have the app. It is like the drivers who pay no attention to road conditions, expecting the car to think for them. 

If I need to know where I am, I study a map - a paper one. Or I travel with MH, aka Mr. Map, who will either know from studying a paper map where we're going or will check his phone, which is a bit smarter than mine. I prefer to "listen" to my sore knees, my lack of breath, my fatigue and know when to turn around and go back before it's too late.

My Nikon 10x50, non-tech binoculars (Margo D. Beller)

If I am looking for a bird I'm hearing, I use my non-tech binoculars. They can't help me see at night, they can't automatically send my data anywhere, but they help me see what I am looking for, at least most of the time (especially since upgrading to 10x50s).

Again, I've learned to live with technology. But I've also learned technology has its limits. So do I.

Rediscovering Where I'm From

New York is an enjoyable city to walk in if you have comfortable shoes, keep an eye out for wheeled and human traffic and don't mind the babble around you of many different languages from people talking into their phones.

I was born in New York, specifically the borough of Brooklyn. To us, Manhattan was "the city." It is where you went to work. It is where you went to leave home and become independent. It is where you went to see a Broadway show or visit a museum or other attraction. Lately, it has become a place to occasionally find unusual birds.

House sparrow pair, Central Park (Margo D. Beller)

After many years working from home in New Jersey, I now work in Manhattan. Last time I was on the west side of midtown. Now I am on the east side, which has a completely different vibe.

I am rediscovering this city. As when I was a child taking the subway in from Brooklyn with my mother, I find myself looking up at the top of the very tall buildings to see the decorated parts you can't otherwise see from ground level.

One such day I was heading east toward the area of the United Nations. Before crossing the street I looked north along Lexington Ave. and up at a colorful skyscraper that was not a glass box or a so-called pencil building. A dark figure sat atop the tower. At first I thought it was a redtailed hawk, maybe the famous Pale Male or one of his many progeny. But later it occurred to me it could've just as easily been a peregrine falcon, a raptor I've seen atop many a skyscraper or bridge, using these man-made structures as its more usual cliff top.

Unfortunately, I had no binoculars with me to know for sure what I was seeing. However, any raptor would have an easy time picking off pigeons, squirrels or rats in some of the city's park areas, including that oasis of green in the midst of concrete, Central Park.

Past Central Park pond visitor - male wood duck (at top)
with mallards (Margo D. Beller)

One day I walked north on Fifth Ave. in midtown, relieved the holiday tourists finally went home. I had no particular place to go, just a desire to stretch my legs and get some air after being in the office in the morning. At noon, church bells rang from St. Patrick's and, up the block, St. Thomas. They were generally ignored but I stepped to the side and listened as the lunch-hour workers and visitors rushed past me, the high-end retailers and those trying to get a handout.

What does this have to do with birds, you might wonder.

I had not planned on visiting Central Park but it was such a nice day and I was so eager to rediscover this city of my birth that I continued up Fifth Ave. until the retailers gave way to expensive hotels and apartments and there was the park. The mood changed and the pace slowed. I looked in the trees and saw pigeons and starlings, two of the three most common birds seen in Manhattan along with house sparrows. I knew I was near the Pond at the park's southern end, so I walked over to see if anything unusual was around.

Pigeons, Central Park (Margo D. Beller)

In winters past one of my favorite ducks, the colorful wood duck, has been there, hanging with the usual mallards and Canada geese. One notable year, a Mandarin duck was at the Pond and became such a sensation people created a Twitter feed and a website about it. Mandarins are colorful and New Yorkers have always gone ga-ga over colorful celebrities in their midst.

However, during my visit there were no colorful creatures. There was a great blue heron watching for lunch from a branch low over the water at the edge of the Hallett Sanctuary, an area of the park kept locked except for small, restricted tours. In the water were a couple of American coots, black and white birds that might look like ducks but are actually related to more chicken-like birds such as rails, according to the Cornell Ornithology Lab. Although they will hang out in ponds with ducks, their feet are not webbed. Instead, according to Cornell, "each one of the coot’s long toes has broad lobes of skin that help it kick through the water. The broad lobes fold back each time the bird lifts its foot, so it doesn’t impede walking on dry land, though it supports the bird’s weight on mucky ground."

Central Park carriages, where a cardinal flew across. (Margo D. Beller)

It stunned me to find the coots, but I should not have been surprised. Central Park is known for the unusual birds that pass through on their way north or south, depending on the time of year. It would've been easy for me to just keep walking and looking for more interesting birds while ignoring the many people visiting the park and its attractions including the nearby zoo, or walk farther up Fifth Avenue and see if Pale Male is still around. 

Unfortunately, my lunch time away from work is limited so on that day I restricted myself, noting the mourning dove with the pigeons, the white-throated sparrows with the house sparrows and the calling male cardinal that flew over the line of horse-drawn carriages waiting for fares. 

The park isn't going anywhere and, for now, neither am I. I'll be back.

Pecking Order and the Mob

When a redbelly comes by, everything else scatters
 (Margo D. Beller)

Not long after putting out the house-shaped feeder the other morning, a male cardinal came by for a few seeds. He was soon followed by three house finches, two of them male. They sat atop the feeder while the cardinal sat and ate. One of the male house finches found its way to the other side of the feeder and started to eat, until a female downy woodpecker showed up and chased him off. She grabbed her seed and flew off to either eat it or hide it somewhere for another time. The house finch tried again, only to be chased off by the returning downy.

Meanwhile, the cardinal stayed put and pecked at the other house finches if they tried to take a seed from his side. When he would grab a seed and jump up on top of the feeder pole to eat - his usual habit - he would quickly jump down and chase off the finches if they came down for seeds. It was only when the larger, more aggressive blue jay came in that the cardinal left, along with the finches. When the jay flew off, the finches returned. A female cardinal came to eat on the other side from where the jay had been. She, however, allowed the house finches to grab seeds and take off.

Titmouse about to be chased off by a white-breasted nuthatch
(Margo D. Beller)

Then the titmice started arriving, grabbing seeds and flying off between visits by the jay. Finally, a redbellied woodpecker flew in, scattering the female cardinal and the smaller birds, including some house sparrows and juncos that had been attracted to my yard by all the action.

Why am I detailing this?

Because it illustrates two different types of bird behavior - the pecking order and mobbing.

Cornell University's Ornithology Lab published an interesting article at the end of 2018 about which birds are "top dog" when many converge on the same feeder. (Pecking orders are also found within the same bird species, but that's a topic for another post.) Usually, size matters, as the example of the male cardinal chasing off the house finches shows. Sex might matter, too, as shown by the female cardinal that was not as aggressive toward the house finches as her mate.

Cooper's hawk looking for
birds at the feeder
(Margo D. Beller)

However, behavior is also important. Jays are more aggressive than cardinals and sometimes even woodpeckers, in my observations. Small titmice and chickadees will hang back but then zip in and grab a seed to take elsewhere when given an opportunity. The small white-breasted nuthatch will take a seed and go, but it will also chase out slightly larger birds and sometimes spread its wings and try to make itself look bigger to keep other birds away when it is trying to get a seed.

As for the feeder mobbing, to me it seems when a big, colorful bird - jay, cardinal, redbelly - comes to the feeder, this is when all the other, smaller birds in the area want to show up and then start mobbing the feeders once the bigger birds are gone. In my example, this is what happened when the house sparrows and juncos showed up. It is a sort of feeding frenzy where these birds may fear getting nothing with the big guys around and so rush in en masse once they get a chance.

At some point, when the cardinals, jays and woodpeckers must've had their fill, the house sparrows and house finches, which will sit and eat and do little else, must've come back because I found the feeder nearly empty when I took it in at night. It is the reason why, until this recent mild weather, I usually put out at least one other feeder that only small birds can use to let them eat when the bigger birds swoop in.

Of course, when the raptors show up for a meal they aren't looking for seed, they're looking for the birds at my feeder. Then the mob disperses and the pecking order is forgotten for the moment.

High-Flying Vultures

It is a cold morning made colder by a strong wind. Where I am walking - an old railroad embankment now a paved, linear park - the river barely ripples because the trees on either side are blocking the wind from it and me. Only a pair of mallard ducks are on the river, more disturbed by me standing still and looking at them than the people running along the path, with and without dogs.

Turkey vulture, Sandy Hook, NJ, 2018 (RE Berg-Andersson)

There is not much else going on in the wind aside from a brief call by a jay. Then I look up and there is my third turkey vulture of the morning.

I have written about turkey vultures in the past. I've always been impressed by how an ungainly, ugly bird that lives on dead animals looks so graceful and majestic when it flies. Its wide wings are held back, making it look like a giant V in the sky. I heard Pete Dunne describe turkey vultures once as a man walking a tightrope, his arms held up to keep his balance. It is an accurate description.

In a strong wind a turkey vulture wobbles as it fights to stay aloft and in the direction it wants to go. On days like this, turkey vultures are the only birds I expect to see flying. Others, even redtailed hawks, are more likely to stay in the bushes or perched in the low branches of a tree to stay out of the wind.

Why do turkey vultures fly in gusty winds? To eat, naturally. But hawks need to eat, too, and I don't usually see them in gales. I went looking through the internet and found this explanation, which you can believe or not:

One way of looking at the flight behavior of Turkey Vultures, is that they are the one species which flies “with” the wind, while other raptors fly “through” the wind. 

That's one way to look at it, although I've seen plenty of hawks flying "with" rather than "through" the wind. The experts at Cornell's Ornithology Lab note these vultures fly low and slow to smell out carrion, so perhaps the high winds are bringing the smells of breakfast to wherever the big birds roosted for the night, prompting them to take off.

Vultures aloft, Sandy Hook, NJ, December 2019
(RE Berg-Andersson)

Turkey vultures like wide-open spaces, so unless you have a particularly big yard with something dead in it, you are not likely to find them there. (I have never hosted turkey vultures in my yard except one spring, after the snow had melted, when they found a dead, frozen rabbit the day after I did. I made sure they took their snack elsewhere.)

Finding them sunning themselves on your roof on a cold winter morning or roosting in large numbers in your large trees is another matter.  I've seen many such vulture roosts, some in my neighborhood. As you would expect, most people don't want these reminders of death hanging around their roofs or trees because, as with all creatures, what goes in one orifice eventually comes out another, and 70 pooping vultures can make quite a mess.

Better to watch them aloft in the wind, doing what they must to survive.

New Year, Old Birds

I'd like to state for the record that my first bird on the first day of the first month of 2020 was a male cardinal at the house feeder. As usual he came, took a seed and then ate it from the top of the feeder pole. When finished, he took another and went back to the top of the pole. I don't know why he doesn't just sit in the feeder unless it is to watch for other cardinals or predators.

Female bufflehead duck, Sandy Hook, NJ (RE Berg-Andersson)

There is a tradition among birders that on the first day of the new year they go out and record the birds they see. For many, they are getting ready to embark on a Big Year where they set a goal of seeing as many birds as possible in a year, be it in one place or around the world. Others, however, just like making lists of what birds they see and when. This isn't necessarily part of their Life List because their "first" birds are usually common ones seen around the house. They may do it just to keep track.

Usually, I am not one of them. Weather is one reason. Two New Years ago, the weather was frigid and I was content to be home. Last year, rain soaked the area on New Year's Eve and I had no inclination to trudge through mud.

But this year, with my time limited by working away from home, I felt restless so, after seeing the cardinal, I ventured into the cold wind of January and met one of my friends who was at nearby Speedwell Lake in Morristown with his photo club.

We walked the path to the wider part of the lake. Few birds on the water, even fewer in the trees. But there was a pair of bufflehead ducks and, in an inlet, a few Canada geese.

I decided to go to another place near me to see how many "first" birds I could find. The answer: not many.

Cold, desolate and not the best place to find birds on a windy day. Jan. 1, 2020.
(Margo D. Beller)

That's how it goes some days, but I was in a truly bad place to try to find birds on a cold, windy day. I was in a county park that was once the Greystone psychiatric hospital. It is a wide-open piece of property with little to block a strong wind. Worse, the county has been cutting down ash trees to limit the damage caused by the emerald ash borer. Just like a year ago, the fallen trees have been left on the ground, pulled away from what is normally a cross-country running track. But cross-country is over for the season and the big machinery that pushed the cut trees aside churned up the path to make it nearly unwalkable for the rest of us. (That did not stop the many people there walking their dogs, however.)

A few birds could be found, mainly sparrows and woodpeckers, but the more unusual birds I've seen here before when the sheltering grasses and weeds were taller and there were many more trees were long gone. I was glad to get back to my warm car and get to my warmer home.

For the record, these are my "first" birds of 2020:

Cardinal

Bufflehead ducks

Canada geese

Song sparrow

American crow

Redbellied woodpecker

White-throated sparrow

Downy woodpecker

Turkey vultures

Rock doves (pigeons)

It can only go up from here.