Coming to a Feeder Near Me

Things have changed a great deal since I last wrote.

The heat and humidity seemed to disappear once my husband (MH) and I returned from a mid-September trip to the Finger Lakes region of New York. Suddenly it was cooler, leaves were starting to turn color and the number of migrating birds was increasing to the point where I put aside my qualms about being bitten by hungry mosquitoes, flies and other insects to go out into the field.

Labor Day. Feeder photographed from inside my enclosed porch.
(Margo D. Beller)

And, I put up the house feeder. In the past I have put it up on Labor Day but this year on that day it was still warmer than I would've liked. Still, I wanted to see what would come for a sunflower seed.

It took only a couple of days before the first white-breasted nuthatches appeared, a male and a female. At this time of year I can't really call them a mated pair because we were past the time when there would be a nest full of young to feed. Except for mating season male nuthatches are quick to chase away any other nuthatches from the feeder, and this was no exception. The male would be on one side, the female on the other. Both took a seed and flew in different directions to find a place where it could pound the seed open.

After the nuthatches came tufted titmice, anywhere from two to four. These backyard birds call to each other. The titmice and the nuthatches were the first to return after we came back from our trip and I went back to putting the feeder out.

Soon after these birds were joined by a black-capped chickadee or two. Then the cardinals I've heard at dawn came by. Lately the feeder has hosted a redbellied woodpecker, downy woodpecker, jays, house sparrows, house finches and the occasional goldfinch. Mourning doves and the squirrels stay beneath the feeder to pick up what is dropped.

Fall birding is very different from spring birding. In spring the trees have barely leafed out and what migrants show up are in bright breeding colors and singing warning songs while finding food or setting territories to breed. In fall the trees are fully leafed out. The birds have no need for bright colors to attract a mate or singing to defend territory. The chips, tiks and other little sounds I may or may not be hearing through my tinnitus all sound the same to me, presuming I can even hear them.

In fall I am more dependent on my Merlin app hearing what I can't, identifying what I can't or confirming what I can. But another fall challenge is the later daylight - 7 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time currently is around when the sun rises. Those days when I could rise at 5 and be in the field at 6 before rush hour traffic are long gone. Now I have to make my way around school buses and more cars with the kids or going to work.

White-breasted nuthatch. The black on the top of the head
shows this is a male. The female has gray on her head. (Margo D. Beller)

And the bugs are still around. I wear gloves, I turn up my collar and I wear a head covering but the bugs find my face and neck rather appealing, particularly when I stop to look up at a tree to see any slight movement that could be a bird. The Deet, I discovered, did not deter the pests (it is probably too old) but it made me smell bad.

As I write we're having one of those "taste of fall" days when the high temperature didn't make it to 60 degrees F. There are more overnight temperatures in the 40s. Soon they will be in the 30s. Unlike MH's NH family we have yet to have our first frost but I've already brought my porch plants inside - checking them for insects first - and will soon have to put the baffle on the other feeder pole and put out more seed and suet. 

Migration will end soon. The leaf blowers have already been noisily out in force. I cut back the last spent plants in my garden and soon the canna pots will be brought inside. I'm already seeing myself dividing plants and turning compost next spring. 

I hope the garden survives winter. I hope the same for myself. 

Still Bugged

I'm bugged about a lot of things. My sagging skin. My thinning hair. My inability to pedal the exercycle for 30 minutes. The new month's bills that come in just as I've paid the old ones. My neighbors' lawn mowers or lawn services making a lot of noise in the early morning when I seek quiet on my porch.

Right now I'm really bugged about bugs.

Back in 2018 I wrote a post about bugs. It started, "If there is one thing I dislike more in summer than heat, humidity, weeds and deer, it is insects."

That hasn't changed. That post talks about all the insects, the importance of them in the cycle of life and how we must dress to deal with them.

What I didn't discuss was DEET. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 

DEET (chemical name, N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) is the active ingredient in many repellent products. It is widely used to repel biting pests such as mosquitoes and ticks. Every year, an estimated one-third of the U.S. population use DEET to protect them from mosquito-borne illnesses like West Nile Virus, the Zika virus or malaria and tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

Products containing DEET currently are available to the public in a variety of liquids, lotions, sprays, and impregnated materials (e.g., towelettes, roll on). Formulations registered for direct application to human skin contain from 5 to 99% DEET. Except for a few veterinary uses, DEET is registered for use by consumers, and it is not used on food.

Recent haiku: 

Here I sit,

Home from my birding.

Smelling of DEET.

At this time of year, besides the heat and humidity, it is more difficult for me to find any interesting birds, aside from the types of birds I'm likely to find in my backyard all year. In August the foliage is denser than in spring, the migrant birds less brightly colored and they are not singing territorial or nesting songs. When I go into the field in the days after one of the many global-warming-enhanced torrential downpours, I must look up in the treetops to see if anything is flying around.

That exposes the area of my neck under my chin to hungry flies, gnats and mosquitoes. And they've been biting.

So now I spray DEET on the backs of my hands and rub the smelly liquid on my neck, face and ears. It is very effective. The bugs don't bite. But they don't go away either, they hover and try to find a vulnerable area, like the deer that found a weakness in my fencing and took a few bites out of one of my sedum plants a few weeks ago.

The DEET smell stays with me when I drive home and I must wash it off, unless I plan on going out again to bird, so I add more.

98% DEET. I don't mess around when it comes to protection.
(Margo D. Beller)

The areas by standing water, of which there is a lot on both sides of the paths I walk after a major rain, are mosquito breeding grounds. They are bad, and so are other areas in the woods. Out in the sun, on a paved sidewalk, they are not so bad. But then I am in the sun, and on a humid day the combination is deadly.

DEET is found in a number of spray and liquid products under a variety of names including Off! and Repel, exactly why you would want to buy a chemical like this.

Says the Cleveland Clinic: 

Some people experience rashes or irritated skin after using DEET. It can also irritate your eyes if sprayed too close to your peepers.

More alarming, there have been rare reports of seizures associated with DEET. But according to the National Pesticide Information Center, most of those cases followed people drinking products with DEET or otherwise using them in ways that don’t follow recommended guidelines.

But overall, reactions are few and far between given the hundreds of millions of users.

I would not be stupid enough to drink DEET but I do know about the eye irritation.

At least this year I have not had an infestation of fungal gnats, carpenter ants or drain flies anywhere in the house or on the enclosed porch, at least not yet.

When I see people blithely walking or running through a known mosquito area while wearing shorts, open shoes and nothing on their arms, while I have on a shirt or jacket with the collar up, my hat pulled down, my light gloves on and my stink of DEET, I think, "Better you than me." But they keep moving while I stand and scan, a perfect target.

Adrift in the Dog Days

The "dog days of summer" refers to the hottest, most miserable part of the summer, when the high heat is matched by the high humidity. You can't cool off. You can't breathe. If you are my age you find yourself going out in the early morning and then being stuck inside by mid-afternoon.

The Old Farmer's Almanac says: "The Dog Days of Summer run from July 3 to August 11 each year. Far more than a modern saying, the phrase comes from ancient skywatchers who noticed that the brightest star, Sirius, rose with the Sun during this period."

(Sorry, Old Farmer. In this global-warming world we're now in it would be great if the bad weather ended today, Aug. 11. But the forecasts I've seen say otherwise.) 

Old-school birding (RE Berg-Andersson)

Back to the almanac: "The term “Dog Days” has been used for millennia to describe the hottest, most sweltering weeks of the Northern Hemisphere summer. Ancient peoples linked it with both astronomy and folklore, often viewing it as a time of drought, disease, or unrest."

I am certainly unrested. I can't sleep at night when it isn't cool but I hate running the whole-house air conditioner for just one bedroom at night. So I sleep, wake, turn, sleep, wake, etc.

Many birders follow the beachgoers "down the shore" because shore birds are at the ocean-facing shore or in protected places such as the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. (I live too far from the shore but when I need to see water I much prefer going to the bay where the Delaware River on NJ's western shore empties. Plenty of birds over the bay's calmer waters and not so many people.)

Birds are only starting to head south in August. I see reports of many types of warblers and flycatchers in New York's Central Park, for instance. In my backyard the robins and grackles continue to eat the ripe cherries from my tree. A flicker or two pokes at the ground for insects. I have not seen or heard catbird in weeks and the house wrens are a distant memory.

Today, already tired out from our trip to the supermarket to fill our larder - and how expensive food has become! - I finish what library books I have and try to do something useful. I've been rearranging closets and dresser drawers but today that is done. So what do I do now?

I write a blog post about the odds and ends I've been collecting since the last post.

I found two pictures from January, when we got the most snow in years. When you are hit with so much snow you think of the spring, when the trees leaf out and the birds fly through. But now, when it is too hot and humid, I look at the picture with a longing for cold, forgetting how miserable it is to be buried in snow.

January, when the plow guys cleared the driveway and the yew hedge
was completely bent over. At this moment I miss the cold.
(Margo D. Beller)

I hung my hummingbird feeder out again, hoping for visitors. Ever since I took in the wren box I have not been out on the porch as much so I don't know if any hummers have come. It's been ten years since I've seen hummers battling over the food. This year's flowers bloomed and busted early thanks to a ton of rain and high heat. At Great Swamp recently I watched as four hummers - including one adult male - battled and occasionally fed at the two feeders out. I watched wistfully.

One thing I won't be doing is installing an app that would allow me to get a ping on my phone every time something like a hummingbird came to the feeder so I could watch, the same way people with doorbell cameras do.

This product - and there are many because feeding birds at home and watching them is a huge industry supporting everyone from nonprofit NJ Audubon to commercial chain Wild Birds Unlimited - is an app from some company called BirdWeather. I saw it on my Facebook feed because I put up bird-related comments, as well as my latest blog post, there. This app is everything I can't stand about the new technology - aside from Merlin, which I eventually downloaded to use because of my deteriorating hearing. 

The birding groups love this. Anything to get people interested in birding and either become members of their groups, or buy their products, or donate, or provide data in the name of Citizen Science is great, even if it means promoting an app where you never have to break a sweat walking outside your door. To me this is not birding, it is another form of watching TV. Instead of walking in nature, you're glued to your phone. 

Here is what the app promises. I have no idea what PUC stands for. My comments are in brackets.

Most birdwatching takes time, patience, and a whole lot of expertise. PUC takes about 30 seconds to set up, and does everything else for you. [So you can be a complete idiot and still call yourself a birder.]

Just plug it in, open the BirdWeather app, and walk away. [Forget waking at dawn, walking in an area with your binoculars and actually using your eyes, ears and brain to find birds passing through.]

From that moment on PUC is listening around the clock, identifying every species by sound, logging every detection with the time and date, and building a live picture of the wildlife in your garden. No cameras. No binoculars. No manual effort. No technical knowledge required. [In other words, birding for idiots.]

Hundreds of BirdWeather users have discovered species they never knew existed in their garden, just by plugging in and letting PUC do the work.
Nature was always this active around you. Now you'll finally know it.

Sorry, but you'd "know it" if you got off your keister, went outside and listened.

Even during the Dog Days.

*******

Update: Here's another app I won't be using.

Introducing the Chirpful Smart Bird Feeder! A smarter, more connected way to enjoy backyard birding.

With Chirpful you can:
- Watch birds live right from your phone in 4k
- Capture and download photos and videos of every bird visit
- Get real-time notifications
- Identify over 10,000 species of birds
1.5L easy refill capacity means more time for birdwatching!

Bird feeding meets smart technology. Enjoy interactive, up-close birdwatching experience from anywhere!  [ I don't want a bird feeder that is smarter than I am.]

Again At Midsummer

Nearly a year ago I wrote a post about what was going on in my yard. In many ways things are the same and things are different this year.

Cherries in various stages of ripeness (Margo D. Beller)

After the house wren family dispersed, I waited to see if another wren would use the nest box. It took five days - not one like last year - for a male to investigate and start singing around my yard. But nothing much happened. No female showed up. Several times the wren would fly to the box but then would leave.

Finally, I investigated. I found the opening to the box was plugged with nesting material for a house sparrow. Neither the nest nor the sparrow would be able to fit through the small opening so the bird gave up. I knew it was a house sparrow because of the nest material. House wrens use twigs. According to the bird experts at Cornell, house sparrows use "coarse dried vegetation, often stuffed into the hole until it’s nearly filled. The birds then use finer material, including feathers, string, and paper, for the lining." They also steal other birds' nests for their own.

I pulled the mess out of the opening but by then it was too late. It takes many weeks for a wren to find a mate, for her to sit on the eggs and raise the young. Southbound migration is only a month or so away. I've heard no  house wren song in my yard, tho' I've heard them elsewhere. I'll take the nest box down soon.

One of many robins in the cherry tree (Margo D. Beller)

Last year the apple tree did not lose its leaves for some time. This year its yellowed leaves are scattered below. The last apple was taken by a squirrel near the middle of June, nearly a month earlier than in the past. The tree survived its surgery but has been hit, as has the rest of my garden, with high winds, searing heat, thick humidity, the occasional flooding downpour and, now, wildfire smoke. Unlike me, it was not affected by the nearly three days we were without power over the July 4 weekend because of hurricane-force winds and hours of rain. Global warming? You be the judge.

The heat and humidity has kept me from doing much in the way of gardening, and the weeds have been taking advantage. But also taking advantage is a cherry tree at the edge of my yard.

I didn't plant this tree. I don't know if a previous owner did or if it sprang up from a dropped seed. This tree's growth was blocked for years by a nearby apple tree and the giant ash tree, both of which I cut down for different reasons. Once those trees were gone the cherry tree got plenty of light and so jumped in height and spread out. This year it was covered in flowers and now is covered in cherries. These are small and sour (yes, I tried a few) and the families of grackles, robins, catbirds and other fruit-eating birds love them.

The cherry tree trunk is the smaller one to the left.
(Margo D. Beller)

The nearby viburnum's berries are currently green but will, I hope, soon turn red. So will the dogwood's fruit. The privet shrubs will soon have their own berries. All of these will feed the birds as they get ready to head south for the winter.

It is hard to believe some birds are already migrating, such as male hummingbirds - which is why the trumpet vines and jewelweeds are flowering for them. At my house I've twice caught sight of a hummingbird investigating flowers but no birds have been inclined to use the feeder I have out, as far as I know.

There are plenty of birds that breed in my area, meaning their spring migration north stopped in my yard or in local parks that provided them with food, water and a protected place to breed. Hearing them singing or flying around gives me something to enjoy when I go out early in the morning nowadays. And there are plenty of fruiting and seeding plants out there - including weeds - that will feed those birds and the others later in the summer when it's time for them to leave.

So Many Babies

The catbird sat on the branch just below the wren nest box. It surveyed the ground below, looking for movement of a worm or insect. Then it flew down to nab its meal.

While it sat there, no house wren came out to chase it from the nest. For the first time in weeks the box was empty. 

Wren nest box, June 2026 (Margo D. Beller)

For the second straight year, after years of just missing, I saw the house wren chicks leave the nest and take their first wobbly flight to where a parent was no doubt calling for it. I was on my porch so I could not hear the parent, but I could see the three chicks as, one by one, they flew to the bare part of a dogwood branch. Each fluttered to keep its balance. One by one each moved to the leaves at the end of the branch and flew in the direction of the blue spruce's boughs.

This was a change. In past years, the wrens would fly in the other direction, to the shrubbery behind the flood wall. But this year a new neighbor had moved in and put up a wall so his dog could run in the yard. While he had put the fence well in from the property line to leave the trees and shrubs standing, the wall might've made the area too confining to the parents. So they led their young to Spruce, who had told me when the male first investigated the box in mid-April.

"They were here, Margo," he told me now, "but soon they all flew down to the ferns you have growing near me. I couldn't see them in the foliage. They might've flown behind your fencing."

This was on Tuesday, June 16, a week after my last post. In the interval the young had grown so big they could only be fed from outside the box. It was only a matter of time before they flew, I thought. And so, again, I was right.

I have not heard any of the wrens in the yard since then but there have been plenty of baby birds calling after their parents to be fed: cardinal, chipping sparrow, catbird, robin, starling, grackle, titmouse. But the yard is different without the sound of a singing house wren.

This fawn from several Junes ago was in the backyard,
under the apple tree and away from the street.
(Margo D. Beller)

Last year the box was empty only a day before another, or possibly the same, male claimed it and started singing. This year there have been no new takers as yet.

Meanwhile, in late May a doe appeared in the backyard nearly every morning, mainly eating weeds in that sheltered area behind the flood wall. I told my husband and MH's immediate comment was, "Is she pregnant?"

Memorial Day to early June seems to be the time when pregnant does give birth to one, two, sometimes three fawns. The fawns are hidden at first, spending their time sleeping like any newborn, surviving on mother's milk. We have found sleeping newborns in the yard in past years. So I understood his question. No, I said.

But I figured there was a fawn somewhere nearby. After a few weeks it would start following Mom around and supplement its milk diet with grass and plants. (A dangerous time for any unprotected plants as the young figures out what tastes good and what doesn't.)

The viburnum stands in front of the flood wall, with the fence
beyond. (Margo D. Beller)

So I was not surprised the other week when I found the fawn hunkered down in the area behind the flood wall. I couldn't see it from where I was sitting outside on the patio. But when first a chipmunk and then a squirrel climbed a tree and started their alarm calls, I went to see if a cat was hiding back there. Instead, there was the fawn. We stared at each other. When deer are small like this they look cute. It is when they grow and destroy my plants that I want to shoot them. (Same with baby Canada geese.)

Well, I said to it, at least your mother didn't leave you behind the deer netting where you'd make a mess trying to get out. (I now use an old garden hose to block the way in behind that fence.)

I moved and then the fawn bounded away in that herky-jerky way colts run, heading for Mom.

I figured Mom would not leave it there alone again and I was right. When I saw it behind the flood wall today, Mom was nearby, behind a privet bush. Both took off, going around the house next door, perhaps to the area where they'd have gone directly had the fence not been there. 

But they'll be back at some point. Whether house wrens are is another story.

House Wrens and a Sea of Green

With the exception of the viburnum, whose flower heads went from greenish yellow to bright white and have now faded before they will eventually produce red berries, all the trees and shrubs in my garden have lost their flowers. No more pink flowers on the dogwood or white blossoms on the apple and pear trees or yellow on the forsythia. The rhododendron and azalea flowers have shriveled and fallen. The irises have finished their bloom and so has the peony.

Viburnum flowers (Margo D. Beller)

Other perennials are now growing and will soon flower. The weeds are way ahead of them and I've already made several long, painful attempts to contain the spread by pulling what I can reach over, under and behind the deer fencing. 

For the most part my yard is a sea of green except where the clover is showing its white flowers in the grass. In the midst of this green sits the house wren nest box.

At this time of year what birds I find in my usual places have ended their migrations to nest and breed. Many of them now have young that need feeding. I hear the young birds calling for food and I see their parents zipping around, gleaning insects from tree leaves. The tree foliage is so thick now I can't see the birds well up there, I can only hear them unless they happen to come lower to hunt on the ground.

The house wrens living in my yard also have young. I estimate they have at least two, maybe three. I'm not sure when exactly the eggs hatched but Mom was in the box a lot at first and now both parents are flying back and forth from the box to remove waste and bring food. Last week the young were small enough for both parents to go inside the box at the same time but usually it is just Mom who goes in. If Dad brings food while she is in the box he gives it to her to give the young.

(I am not humanizing these birds, but it is easier to call them Mom and Dad than to keep saying "the female house wren," etc.)

This year's male house wren. (Margo D. Beller)

After Dad has delivered the food to the nest he sometimes goes to a higher branch in the dogwood and flutters. Then he sings. I don't know what the fluttering means. The singing is the only way I can tell male from female.

Soon the young will get so big both parents will feed them from outside the box, except when Mom squeezes inside to get the waste matter. Eventually, the chicks will be induced to leave the nest and try flying to their parents. With luck they'll make it to the safety of the thick shrubbery across from the box and eventually learn to feed themselves. Then the family will disperse.

Always, there are dangers.

So far this year I have shooed away house sparrows trying to reach into the box to destroy the eggs and take the nest for themselves. They are bigger than wrens so I knew they couldn't get past the small opening on the box to destroy any eggs. Still, I ran them off. I have also run off squirrels several times in the last week because I don't know if they are climbing the dogwood to find insects in the leaves or any fruits being formed or to grab a wren chick.

Until yesterday what I thought was the most horrifying attack I've seen on the nest box - and who knows how many I have missed - was the male red-bellied woodpecker that flew to the box and then stuck its long bill, and longer tongue, inside. At that point there were only eggs. I chased the bird off and later learned from an article that many types of woodpeckers, including the red-belly, eat baby bird brains. I can no longer hear a red-belly in my yard without apprehension.

But worse than that attack was the Cooper's hawk.

Another immature Cooper's hawk atop another feeder pole.
(Margo D. Beller)

Sitting on my enclosed porch with my coffee early in the morning, trying to wake up, I was horrified to see a hawk fly at the nest box as the parents were shuttling back and forth to feed their young. Based on the size I thought, "Cooper's hawk." After hitting the box it flew back to the nearby privet shrub. I ran out clapping my hands to scare it off. When it flew I realized the bird's wings were brown - an immature bird. (Adults have gray wings.)

As I stood near the dogwood after the hawk flew off I heard the cheeping of the wren young.

I went back to the porch and waited for at least one parent to return. After what seemed an eternity, Mom returned and zipped into the box, then left to get more grub. I did not hear the male. It will be much more difficult to feed all those young with only one parent, I thought. That happened several years ago when the male disappeared, the female did all the feeding and then a new male appeared to help her.

(Margo D. Beller)

I went out for a while to do some birding, not wanting to know if the juvenile Cooper's had succeeded in grabbing a meal. (Adult birds are usually much more successful than juveniles that are still learning to hunt.)

When I returned from my time away I went back to the porch, this time with my breakfast. And then I heard Dad. Then I saw Dad and Mom shuttling to the nest box to feed their young. 

The Cooper's had missed. It was as though the attack had never happened. 

This is what life is like for a bird - you migrate, you pick a territory, you find a mate and raise young. If you are lucky they will live to feed themselves, migrate, then come back next year - perhaps to the box I hang in the dogwood - and do it all over again. If a chick trying to fly falls to the ground a jay may grab it for a meal, as I've seen happen. The parents continue feeding what young remain. Do they mourn the loss? Mourning is a human concept. 

Life and death are everyday occurrences in nature. There is very little I can do, but I try to keep the cycle going in my yard.

For now I'm watching the nest box like a hawk.

'Dumb' Bird Watching

This very rainy morning I sat on my enclosed porch and watched the wren box. Even though the rain had weighed the dogwood branches down to obscure most of the box, I knew what was happening because I had seen the same activity yesterday when it was merely cloudy.

The female appears to be sitting on eggs.

The male house wren would start singing from a nearby bush and the female would pop out of the box to go get some food. The male would continue singing, now from the dogwood, until the female returned and went back in the box.

'Dumb' wren nest box (Margo D. Beller)

The dogwood doesn't have the thick canopy that was once in the apple tree, where the box once hung, but the wet does not stop the house wrens from going about their business in order to survive and bring up young. The male goes up in the tree to a branch where I can see it, sings until his mate returns, then flies to the shelter of the nearest bush.

I base my presumption that she is on eggs on many years of watching house wrens using this box I hung in the dogwood, where I can see it from my chair on the porch. But even then I can't be sure what is going on. 

When we returned from a recent family visit it looked like there was no female. The "tell-tale" sticks were no longer hanging beneath the box. Did the female that had been busily building the nest depart? I have no idea, but now there is a female - possibly the same one - and she is spending more time in the box because, I presume, there are eggs in the nest.

Had I one of those tiny cameras in the nest I'd be able to see inside. But I am not a fan of "smart" technology in general, and for birding in particular.

My Facebook feed, besides items from "Friends," will sometimes send up something based on some algorithm that says I enjoy seeing things about birds. I do, but I also get ads. A recent ad appeared for a "smart" bird feeder that would allow me to "watch birds live from your phone" and download photos and videos of every bird visit, among other talents.

'Dumb' bird feeder, with titmouse and white-breasted nuthatch
(Margo D. Beller)

If there is one thing these old eyes don't need it is another reason to look at the small screen of my phone.

It is ironic that while I've been running around most mornings in these waning days of spring migration I've likely been missing "good" stuff in my own backyard. But when I am home I prefer to use my eyes and ears - albeit with some help from the Merlin app because I can't hear many calls anymore unless the bird is very loud or over my head. 

The idea of putting out a "smart" feeder that has some sort of camera in it allowing someone to see what's at the feeder every time a house sparrow or other bird shows up, even while that person is elsewhere, does not appeal to me. Too much information. Too much like one of those camera doorbells.

The birding world has come a long way from those intrepid people who would go out to distant places, see or hear something and then report back to Audubon. Merlin is helpful, yes. So is Cornell's eBird. But the social media channels - Instagram, Discord, etc. - where report of a rarity can draw hundreds of people in a pop-up flash - scare me. The coronavirus forced people outdoors, and while there they discovered birds. But binoculars and good pairs of eyes and ears are apparently not enough anymore.

Using 'dumb' technology
(RE Berg-Andersson)

I'm sure there are people out on this rainy morning looking for what migrants might still be around. But you won't find me going far from my porch.

Extreme Birding

My Facebook feed also brought me an article from NPR on three teenage boys who, with their fathers assisting them, competed in the World Series of Birding earlier this month.

My reaction to what I read was mixed. I was glad to see younger people getting involved with birding. There was a time, decades ago, when I was one of the younger ones in a group seeking out a bird. Now I'm right in there with the demographic. Birding needs younger blood.

However, I was sad to see there were no girls on the all-white team - not even a mother helping out - and I was horrified to read these kids were just as gung-ho competitive as the adults who were also running around the state trying to tick off as many birds on their list as they could in a day.

You're not seeing the birds when you are competing to see how much you can find in a day, you're seeing something - shape, sound - that allows you to claim you "saw" it and add it to your checklist.

I was amused the teenagers named their team the Pete Dunnelins, a play on the dunlin shorebird and Pete Dunne, who created the World Series of Birding as a charitable endeavor that would also contribute Citizen Science data on how well, or badly, bird species were doing in New Jersey.

The kids found 206 species of birds, but they came in second to a team that found 209.

The WSB is still an important way of recording what birds are where in a world where bird populations are in decline due to "development" and global warming, among other factors. 

But the WSB has gone way beyond its original intent. Now it is a competitive sport. The people at Cornell's Ornithology Lab - the ones behind Merlin and eBird - broadened the WSB to the world, calling it the Global Big Day. You have teams all over the world competing to find as many birds as possible. I imagine hundreds of people running into each other as they stomp on a marsh at 3 a.m. to hear grunting rails and soras, or whatever the global equivalents are.

I expect to see the WSB become part of the next X Games on television soon enough. 

No thank you.