Brad

I’d like to thank Princeton Press for sending out a new batch of birding books for my review. The first of these is Nigel Cleere’s Nightjars, Potoos, Frogmouths, Oilbird and Owlet-nighjars of the World. That title normally gets abbreviated to Nightjars of the World. I found this beautiful, full-sized, hard-cover book to be a wonderful addition to my library. Nightjars are among the most elusive targets for the bird watcher. In addition to being master of camouflage, they are generally nocturnal. While we might hear the call of the Whip-poor-will in the moonlit night, finding them and getting a good look at them is another matter altogether. Nightjars of the World uses more than 580 photos of the various species of Nightjars from around the world to let the reader get to know the entire order of Caprimulgiformes. By the way, did you know that the nightjar is the origin of the legend of the chupacabra, or mysterious goat sucker? You can read my full review of Nightjars of the World at this link or click the link below to find it at Amazon.com.

Last night, May 11th, at around midnight, I heard a noise from the area on the deck where we have a bird feeder. I though it might be a raccoon trying to get into the feeder. I turned on the deck light, but couldn’t see anything so I got a flashlight and shone it through the window. No movement was visible, but the bird feeders that normally hang on the corner of the deck were gone. Stepping out on the deck with a flashlight, I heard very heavy pounding footsteps galloping off toward the woods. My wife saw a low black shape about the size of a black bear running off. Rather than go out and survey the situation in the dark, we waited until morning.
When we went out to check on things we found three bird feeders from around the yard missing altogether. Apparently, the bear had carried them off. We later found all three about 50 yards from the house about 20 feet off of one of our walking trails. The thistle feeder was crushed, and the mixed birdseed feeder was broken into pieces. We also found claw marks in the deck railing where the black bear had apparently tried to pull itself up to reach the feeders there. Another metal pole used to hold a bird feeder was bent by the bear as it pulled down the feeder there.
I had heard reports of several people throughout southeren New Hampshire losing bird feeders to black bears, but we hadn’t had any here before. To prevent bears from coming after your bird feeders, you can simply take them in at night. This will also prevent them from being raided by raccoons or other nocturnal prowlers.
The same goes for any chicken feeders that you may have outside if you have chickens. We had some covered steel trash cans with chicken feed stored outside near the house, but, fortunately, the bear did not find them. Today, I’ll be putting them into a shed to keep them safe and to avoid tempting any animals overnight.

I was lucky enough to be invited by the Jamaica Tourist Board to visit the island and see the amazing bird watching opportunities that Jamaica has to offer. Jamaica has 28 endemic bird species (species that live only in Jamaica) and it is possible to see them all in one trip with a knowledgeable local guide. I missed a couple of them, but the trip was meant to be an overview to get me to see a number of different birding locations in Jamaica rather than personally get me to see as many birds as possible.
I, along with five other journalists who focus on bird watching topics, was put up at two of Jamaica’s finest eco-friendly hotels/ lodges during my stay. Both offer great food and accomodations while maintaining environmentally sound business practices. I enjoyed both Hotel Mocking Bird Hill and Forres Park very much. We were able to find unique birds on the grounds of both places and both were within relatively easy driving distance of some of Jamaica’s top birding habitats (for the experienced local drivers that were provided to us).
Click this link to read more about the bird watching vacation in Jamaica or click here if you just want to see the pictures from the Jamaica trip.

As you may know, I write a column on birdwatching for the Manchester, NH edition of Examiner.com. As a part of that column, I regularly go out into the field and take pictures of birds and various birdwatching locations around New England. I have the opportunity to hang around with many excellent bird photographers (of which I am not one). However, despite my ordinary point and shoot, autofocus digital camera and lack of formal training and experience, I and my readers enjoy the bird photogrpahs that I do take and publish. There are a few basic tips that can help anyone take better bird and wildlife photographs and that is the topic of my latest Manchester Bird Watching Examiner article, called Bird Watching 101: How to Take Better Bird Photos. If you’ve ever wanted to improve your nature and wildlife photography, this article is a good place to start for those just starting out and with only a basic digital camera.

Nature photogrpahy and wildlife photography in particular, is a great family activity that is enjoyable, educational, and eart-friendly. Whether you are going on a birdwatching vacation or just snapping some pics of the birds at your backyard feeder, use these simple tips to get better pics.

There is a new Facebook fan page for the Manchester Bird Watching Examiner. That’s me! If you want to join a fun Facebook group with lots of other people interested in birds and birdwatching, then become a fan today. Fans will also have the opportunity to suggest new articles that may appear in the Examiner and can post questions about birds in the discussion groups to be answered by the Manchester Bird Watching Examiner directly.

Share your bird pictures or videos and join the discussion

The page will also contain links to bird identification guides, ways to attract birds to your yard, birdwatching equipment reviews and more. If you have a bird related blgo or website, or know of an important bird related cause, please join and leave a link in the links section, on the wall, or in the discussion pages.

This year the Great Backyard Bird Count is being held from February 12th, 2010 through February 15th, 2010. People all over the United States and Canada are being asked to help Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology conduct one of the biggest annual bird counts in the nation. To participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count, all you need to do is spend as little as fifteen minutes watching brids and marking down the species you see along with the highest number of birds of each species that you see at any given time while you are watching. There are convenient online submission forms and complete directions for the Great Backyard Bird Count here. You can spend your fifiteen minutes or more of birdwatching time anywhere within the United States or Canada, including your own backyard. This is a very easy way for the average person to make a real contribution to important scientific studies. Everyone who participates will also be entered into a prize drawing for the many prizes being offered by sponsors like Wild Birds Unlimited and the National Audubon Society. You’ll not only be helping bird researchers, but you could win a Wingscapes Bird Cam, bird feeders, bird identification books, or one of the many other bird-related prizes. Click the link above for more information and a handy list of links to everything you’ll need to participate in the 2010 Great Backyard Bird Count.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is a great way to show your Earth-friendly side by helping bird researchers to map bird populations across North America. It’s fun for the entire family and it’s easy to do, and it takes only as much time as you want to put into it.

Two new birding books ahve been publsihed by Princeton University Press. They are Birds of Eastern North America, a Photographic Guide and Birds of Western North America, a Photographic Guide both by Paul Sterry aan Brian E. Small. Click this link for a complete review of these new birdwatching field guides. I highly recommend both of these books as you will be able to tell from the review. They are a bit bigger than most birding field guides and so they are a little more bulky to carry around, but that leaves more room for bigger pictures to help identify birds.

recently had the opportunity to visit the bird banding research station at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island. This was my first opportunity to observe mist nets in use and to observe wild birds being tagged. It was a wonderful learning experience and a chance to see wild birds closer than you would in any other circumstance that I can imagine.

The bird banding research station at Plum Island is run by the Mass Audubon’s Joppa Flats Education Center and is closed to the public except by prior arrangement. You can read about the bird banding research station and view a slideshow of birds being caught in the mist nets and processed before being released.

Eduardo del Solar’s newest photographs are being put on public display at the Boston Nature Center in Mattapan, MA. The exhibit is open to the public and contains some incredible bird photography that really captures the essence and personality of such birds as the blue-footed booby, the tropic bird, the ivory gull, and the Galapagos hawk among others. The artistry of the del Solar’s photography is matched only by the technical excellence of his work.  On October 3rd, from 2:00-4:00 PM there will be a kick-off reception with wine and cheese that is open to the public (and free). Eduardo del Solar will mingle with fans and answer questions about the birds and the photography. It’s even more amazing when you consider that the photos in the exhibit were taken in his spare time as he has been a Boston city public school teacher for the last 25 years and continue in that profession today. The exhibit is his third in the Birds of the America series produced for the Boston Nature Center. Follow the link for a sneak preview of some of the photos and for complete information about the show and del Solar.

If you love birds and want to protect them, here’s an opportunity to do just that. It also has the potential to earn you as much as $1000 a week. All you have to do is grab your video camera and head out to the beaches in the Pacific Northwest where reckless drivers are racing along the sand with their cars or off-road vehicles and killing the ocean birds that congregate there.

Learn all the details about the $1000 reward and beach drivers killing sea birds

Baby birds learn to sing in much the same way that baby humans learn to speak. They start with babbling as they learn to make the sounds associated with their songs, and then start copying the songs of their parents. Baby birds raised by people may never learn to sing and interact with others of their own species. Baby birds can be taught songs by playing bird songs on a CD when they are young. These songs can even be different than those they would learn from their parents in a natural setting. Some researchers have even been able to teach birds to sing in reverse order of their natural songs. Like baby humans, baby birds brains are adaptable and wired to learn, but unlike humans, baby birds lose this ability in roughly 30-45 days after hatching. The songs they have learned up to that point become their adult repertoire.
Find out more about how baby birds learn to sing in the continuing series “Why do birds sing?”



A worker at a commercial production turkey farm in Chile has apparently given swine flu to the turkey flock in the first recorded instance of the H1N1 flu jumping across to birds. Because the influenza virus is recombinant, this opens the door for a bird that carries both the h1n1 swine flu and the avian or bird flu to become the host of a new hybrid variant that combines the deadliest properties of bird flu with the high contagion of swine flu. Such a hybrid flu could wreak havoc on the human population, potentially rivalling the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic in scope. Although there are much better treatments and people are in generally better health today than they were in 1918, there would still be literally millions of deaths worldwide from such an event.

This is one of the reasons why these large commercial production farms are non-Earth Friendly. They crowd the animals so close together in such confined spaces that illnesses like the flu can run through the entire population in very short period of time. To read more about the swine flu and to see pictures of the actual turkey farm in Chile were this happened, visit the link below:
Turkey farm in Chile where a worker has apparently given the h1N1 swine flu to the turkey flock.