Summing Up My Life List

With the new year fast approaching, I was thinking about all the unusual birds I was able to see this year.

Life list (Margo D. Beller)

Every serious birder keeps a "life list" of birds seen, from the humble to the rare. As life lists go, mine is rather small - 352 - for someone who has sought out birds for more than a decade. Much of my list includes the birds we see every day but this year I was able to see a record (for me) high of four "new" birds because I had the time to do it. I was irregularly employed this year, and when I did work it was from home. So it was easy to make the time (tho' not always so easy to get MH to join me).

It seems every year a number of birds not found in my part of the world show up, either blown off course by strong winds or a bad sense of direction.

My life list is a photocopy of the list at the end of the 1947 edition of Roger Tory Peterson's guide to finding eastern birds. This is still considered by many to be the best birding guide ever published because it introduced Peterson's system of identifying field marks. But in 1947 many birds had different names and since then new birds were "created" when the birding bigwigs decided to split what had been one species into two or more (or vice versa). On my list I've also added many western birds I've seen in my travels. Several of my "new birds" this year are ones I realized I had not added when I first saw them: The Wilson's storm petrel and the pomarine jaeger seen from a whalewatch boat out of Gloucester, Mass., were numbers 350 and 351. My list has become so marked up and confusing (my photo is of the front page, not the marked-up back page) I've had to transfer the information to a bound volume MH bought me for that purpose, which is how I discovered the omissions.

I can go many years between finding "life birds." For instance, I saw No. 344, a Connecticut warbler, in October 2013, and No. 345, a roseate spoonbill, in May 2018. It was not for lack of trying. Many times we've gone to where a rarity was reported only to be disappointed, such as the boreal chickadee we were told we had just missed at the feeders of the Merrill Creek reservoir in March.

It was in December 2018 my employment became irregular, and that is how I was able to leave home and find these birds originally found by others:

No. 346 was a female Barrow's goldeneye, a western duck discovered at Merrill Creek. We traveled there on a very cold day in March 2019 for the duck and the boreal chickadee. The duck turned out to be easier thanks to the sun spotlighting the duck's round, brown head and yellow bill, and the arrival of Henry Kielblock, the founder of the Scott's Mountain hawkwatch located at that very parking lot. He had driven up to see the duck, pointed it out to us and then realized who we were (we visit this hawkwatch at least once a year in the fall). After he drove off, a pair of redhead ducks flew in, an unexpected bonus.

"Black-Headed Grosbeak" by jamesbadger is licensed under CC BY 2.0

No. 347 was a black-headed grosbeak, another western bird, reported at a feeder not too far from my home. Many had already seen and photographed it by the time I drove over in April. I learned that when you "stake out" a bird, bring a chair. I had not, but a kind man who had driven up with his wife from central Jersey gave me his seat as we waited from the top of the homeowner's driveway. We were soon joined by others. It was 45 minutes before I looked up and saw the bird's black head and orange breast (the file photo above is of a female, notable for the wide white "eyebrow"). It never came down to the feeder and I had a bad case of "warbler neck" but after watching it for 10 minutes I left satisfied.

No. 348 was a Henslow's sparrow that came from the midwest to the sprawling grassland preserve known as Negri-Nepote. Grasslands are in decline as they are built upon for housing developments, office parks and warehouses. Many had seen the Henslow's sitting in a particular shrub singing away, but when we walked out to the area on a very hot July 6 we almost missed it - it was hunkered down atop a different shrub nearby and not singing as it tried to stay out of the way of several redwinged blackbirds. But I saw the identifying field mark - a dark spot near the eye - and that would have to do.

No. 349 was an upland sandpiper, another bird in decline because of decreasing grasslands. On Aug. 24 we followed the directions given in the various bird reports and parked at the Burlington County (NJ) fairgrounds. There were already several people there, one with a spotting scope. I scanned the area with binoculars but only found a large number of killdeers. The man motioned us over and showed us the upland sandpiper. He then pointed out a couple of sanderlings (usually found on beaches), a pectoral sandpiper and a golden plover. We've often found birds thanks to the kindness of strangers.

The last of the new birds, No. 352, was a Nelson's sparrow on Oct. 12. The Nelson's is one of those birds created when the birding bigwigs decided to split the sharp-tailed sparrow into two types, the Nelson's and the saltmarsh. Both look very much alike. I had seen saltmarsh sparrows in a marsh in southern Maine years ago but was never completely sure if that's what they were. That changed when I found the Nelson quite by accident as I trailed MH hurrying (for him) back to our car as we were completing the Liberty Loop trail near the Wallkill River at the NJ-NY border. When I am seeking birds I walk far slower than MH with his gimpy knees, and as I was approaching the last curve something flew up and looked at me from the top of a shrub. It had a lot of yellow-orange in its face and neck, so I knew this was an unusual bird. I looked in my books and realized I had finally seen a Nelson's, which can be found at freshwater marshes.

There are birds I seek out every year but this year I found a number of birds I haven't seen in years - blue grosbeak, Tennessee warbler, least flycatcher - on trips I took alone to places relatively close by. That was when I would be restless because of my underemployment and needed to get out to give my days a sense of purpose.

But now I have a new job that takes me away from home, and my birding time is again limited to weekends. I'll have to make the most of the time I have.

My Grail Bird

These are not Wilson's warblers.
They are goldfinches.

There are people who want to see every bird on earth. There are people who want to find the ivory-billed woodpecker.

I would like to see a Wilson's warbler.

It is a peculiar truth that what is a common bird for some is far from common for me.

In Chicago once, my husband (MH) and I were standing on the shore of Lake Michigan in a downpour made worse by one of the Windy City's patented gales. Trying to hold up my umbrella in one hand while focusing my binoculars with the other, a man in his rain slicker, shorts and sandals came bounding up and asked, "Have you seen the loon?"

We're all loons here, brother, I remember thinking. But he was looking for a common loon that had been reported, which while common on placid Lake Sunapee in New Hampshire when we visit is not so common on choppy Lake Michigan.

In Playa del Rey in California I was able to add 10 birds to my life list within 15 minutes on Ballona Creek because they were "common" to that area and not to New Jersey.

In Florida I saw two types of kites, a limpkin, a woodstork and an anhinga, plus a lot of prothonotary warblers. When one of these warblers appears in the New York area it always causes a stir among birders.

Wilson's warblers, however, are common to my area. Every year when the warblers move through Central Park there are Wilson's. Every year they are reported in New Jersey.

A prothonotary warbler I photographed
near the NY Public Library. You can't
see the big crowd this little guy drew.

One year one was reported - and photographed singing - in Bee Meadow Park in nearby Hanover. The next day I rushed out there but couldn't find anything in the area except a kid on a motorbike going round and round and pretty much killing any chance of finding anything else.

My good luck in finding a gray-cheeked thrush, a life bird for me, in another part of the park didn't sink in for quite some time because of my disappointment over that missed Wilson's.

Once I thought - maybe - I heard a Wilson's singing in a brushy area near a part of the Great Swamp wilderness area in Harding Township. MH was sure a Wilson's came to our feeder several years ago while I was at work because, he swore, it did not look like a goldfinch. Wilson's are yellow below with a green back and the males have a black cap. Neither sex have wingbars, unlike the goldfinchs.

It is likely the reason I want to see a Wilson's is just because it is such a common bird. It is a point of pride.

I doubt I'll ever see an ivory-billed woodpecker, if one is still around in that Arkansas swamp where it was allegedly found. I doubt I'll ever see any of the Siberian birds that get blown across the Bering Strait to Alaska. There are thousands of species of birds around the world that don't come anywhere near North America, much less New Jersey. I can accept this. But the Wilson's is another matter.

MH has never seen a redheaded woodpecker, but it doesn't bother him. He's more laid back about birding than I would be in his position.

This is not a redheaded woodpecker.
It is a pileated woodpecker.

You may think you've seen a redheaded woodpecker but chances are it was the more common redbellied woodpecker (whose red only goes down the back of the head) or the pileated (whose red is on the crest) . The redheaded woodpecker has an entirely red head, white breast and belly and a back that is solid black and white.

It is a striking bird. The first time I saw one was after a report that it was in a tree along the driveway to the old Great Swamp visitor center - practically in my backyard. I had to go. I almost missed it, too, but for the kindness of another birder who practically walked me to the tree where the woodpecker was preening for another birder's camera.

Several times we've tried seeing a redheaded woodpecker. For MH's own good, of course.

But we keep missing it, at Great Swamp where there's usually one every year; at Lord Stirling Park, which is Somerset County's part of the Swamp; and even at the New Jersey Audubon's Scherman Hoffman center, where one was at the feeders for several days the other month. When we got there a crowd in the driveway was watching the distant trees.  Something moved and I pointed it out to MH. Then I realized it had a solid black back...a pileated.

A good bird, but not THE bird.

MH calls these wild bird chases my hunt for the Grail Bird, which was the title of a book about the hunt for that ivory-billed woodpecker mentioned before. We always want what we haven't had, and in my case not seeing a "common" bird others have seen as regular as clockwork sticks in my craw. It reflects badly on my abilities as a birder, even as others tell me I'm pretty good at it.

It is a fine line between enjoying a day in the field and obsession, and I walk it every day.

But spring is nearly upon us, and with it will come birds heading north. Maybe this will be the year I see the Wilson's warbler.