Hunting Digital Plumes in the US and Beyond: October 2020

Monday, October 26, 2020

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore: Plovers in Peril

[Glen Arbor, Lake Michigan. July 2020]

This blogger has been fortunate in the many occasions that have afforded observation of wintering plovers at several remarkable shorebird sites in Southwest Florida such as Bunche Beach, Carlos Pointe, Little Estero Lagoon and Tigertail Beach resulting in previous posts such as this one.

Invariably, a sighting of the Piping Plover among the shorebirds has always been deemed rather special given the multitude of perils they face earning them the unfortunate distinction of being the most endangered among our plover species. Naturally, seeing the Piping Plover at its wintering grounds has inevitably raised the question -- where do these prettiest of American plovers spend their summers?

Research reveals that Piping Plovers have 3 breeding populations in the US: the Atlantic coast, Great Plains and Great Lakes. Of these, the Great Lakes population is the smallest and the most fragile. Accordingly, a trip to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to see breeding Great Lakes Piping Plover was planned and what ensues is a photographic essay of the area species thus encountered with the centerpiece, of course, belonging deservedly to the Piping Plover.

An unbroken collar and headband mark this dainty plover in its breeding prime. Pale underparts and sandy upperparts work in tandem to make it virtually invisible against the sandy shore.

Flying long distance on their migration route is only one of the the many hazards these plovers face in Spring. Once they arrive at their nesting grounds on the pristine beaches of the Great Lakes, it unfortunately marks the beginning of warmer weather, and with it, commences a relentless plague of further disturbance and harassment. Mindless recreationists, boisterous beachgoers, marauding dogs; charging children -- all vying to inflict the maximum physical and psychological damage on the nesting shorebirds as they seek to outdo each other in the crudity and severity of their antics while the plovers work desperately to secure the safety of the next generation.

And, here is the fruit of their tender love and care: adorable Piping chicks that look like cottonwool balls on matchsticks.

Farther away from the shore, forested areas were productive for songbirds such as warblers and others.

First, Canada Warbler: A specialty warbler known for its unparalleled "necklace" of streaks radiating from a black collar.

The male's song is loud and consists of sweetly jumbled warbles of joy:

Chestnut-sided:

Black-and-white:

Other species observed included: Eastern Kingbird:

This is a familiar tyrant flycatcher known for its bold, aggressive behavior in defending its territory.

White-throated Sparrow:

This sparrow was singing the new version of its song as profiled in this article.

On the drive back from Lake Michigan, we passed through the fabled nesting territory of Kirtland's Warbler:

Coincidentally, one of the things the Kirtland's shares with Piping Plover is the choice of wintering grounds -- the Bahamas. While the latter also overwinters on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, the entire global population of Kirtland's warbler is found in the Bahamas in winter.

The male was seen in close vicinity of the female as well.

The Great Lakes are deserving of the epithet "Great" not because of their enormity but because of the critical habitats they provide to iconic species that are nourished under their protection. And, nothing personifies the unique ecology of the region than the American crown jewel of plovers: the Piping Plover.

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

A Decade in the Making: To See All US Warblers!

[US states and territories. 2007 to 2019]

This blogger's first warbler Lifer was a Yellow Warbler observed on May 12th, 2007 in Michigan. But it wasn't until 2010 (barring a wintering Black-and-white lifer seen in Southwest Florida in 2009), that a maiden May trip to Magee Marsh resulted in the following 6 additional Lifers:

Chestnut-sided
Black-throated Blue
Blackpoll
Magnolia
American Redstart
Canada Warbler

The magic of warbler mania at Magee in 2010 was addictive and this migration hotspot became firmly cemented as an annual rite of Spring on this blogger's birding calendar.

Having taken 3 years to get to 8, the lifers would steadily accumulate by 47 more warblers over a long period of nine years. When the lifelist finally hit 55 warblers by 2019, it marked the glorious culmination of a quest to photodocument all regularly occurring warblers in the US.

Indeed, this goal was substantially complete by 2013 but the last few stragglers remained elusive; and, the final capstone warbler species -- the notorious Connecticut Warbler -- finally relented by offering a quick observation opportunity in 2019. As the archetypical nemesis bird, the Connecticut sighting broke a 3-year curse of zero warbler lifers in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

How did this quest unfold? Many species can be observed in migration at Magee Marsh (Northwest Ohio). However, many others demand unqualified obeisance on their own turf. Trips were planned and travel ensued to San Antonio, TX (Golden-cheeked), Southern Virginia (Swainson's), the Chisos Mountains (Colima), the Arizona Sky Islands (Red-faced Warbler, Olive Warbler and other specialties), Alaska (Orange-crowned) and Puerto Rico (Adelaide's and Elfin-woods).

The tally by Warbler lifers by year:

2007: 1 lifer
2009: 1 lifer
2010: 7 lifers
2011: 11 lifers
2012: 14 lifers
2013: 15 lifers
2014: 3 lifers
2015: 2 lifers
2016: 0
2017: 0
2018: 0
2019: 1 lifer

And, here is the detail on how we got here:

#	Species	1st Seen Date	Location	Warbler Lifers in the Year	Year
1	Yellow	5/2007	Seven Ponds, MI	1	2007
2	Black-and-white	1/2009	Corkscrew, FL	1	2009
3	Chestnut-sided	5/2010	Magee Marsh, OH
4	Black-throated Blue	5/2010	Magee Marsh, OH
5	Blackpoll	5/2010	Magee Marsh, OH
6	Magnolia	5/2010	Magee Marsh, OH
7	American Redstart	5/2010	Magee Marsh, OH
8	Canada Warbler	5/2010	Magee Marsh, OH
9	Palm	10/2010	Carlos Pointe, FL	7	2010
10	Common Yellowthroat	4/2011	El Moro, CA
11	Bay-breasted	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
12	Black-throated Green	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
13	Blackburnian	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
14	Cape May	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
15	Nashville	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
16	Northern Parula	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
17	Northern Waterthrush	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
18	Ovenbird	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
19	Prothonotary	5/2011	Magee Marsh, OH
20	Pine	11/2011	Corkscrew, FL	11	2011
21	Hooded	4/2012	Magee Marsh, OH
22	Louisiana	4/2012	Corkscrew, FL
23	Myrtle	4/2012	Magee Marsh, OH
24	Kirtland's	5/2012	Magee Marsh, OH
25	Tennessee	5/2012	Magee Marsh, OH
26	Wilson's	5/2012	Magee Marsh, OH
27	Blue-winged	6/2012	Port Huron SGA, MI
28	Mourning	6/2012	Port Huron SGA, MI
29	Prairie	6/2012	Corkscrew, FL
30	Orange-crowned	7/2012	Anchorage, AK
31	Audubon's	11/2012	Pillar Pt, CA
32	Yellow-throated	11/2012	Corkscrew, FL
33	Black-throated Grey	12/2012	Sabino Canyon, AZ
34	Painted Redstart	12/2012	Sabino Canyon, AZ	14	2012
35	Lucy's	3/2013	Sabino Canyon, AZ
36	Grace's	4/2013	Mt. Lemmon, AZ
37	Olive	4/2013	Mt. Lemmon, AZ
38	Cerulean	5/2013	Magee Marsh, OH
39	Golden-winged	5/2013	Magee Marsh, OH
40	Hermit	5/2013	Mt. Ord, AZ
41	Kentucky	5/2013	Magee Marsh, OH
42	Red-faced	5/2013	Mt. Lemmon, AZ
43	Townsend's	5/2013	Mt. Ord, AZ
44	Virginia's	5/2013	Mt. Ord, AZ
45	Worm-eating	5/2013	Magee Marsh, OH
46	Yellow-breasted Chat	7/2013	Big Bend, TX
47	Adelaide's	9/2013	Cabo Rojo, PR
48	MacGillivray's	9/2013	Sweetwater Wetlands, AZ
49	Elfin Woods	10/2013	Maricao, PR	15	2013
50	Swainson's	4/2014	Great Dismal Swamp, VA
51	Colima	6/2014	Big Bend, TX
52	Golden-cheeked	6/2014	San Antonio, TX	3	2014
53	Lawrence's	5/2015	Port Huron SGA, MI
54	Brewster's	6/2015	Port Huron SGA, MI	2	2015
55	Connecticut	5/2019	Magee Marsh, OH	1	2019

Note: these were all found on US territory (Adelaide's and Elfin-woods are in Puerto Rico). Some warblers are no longer placed in Parulidae (eg., Olive, Yellow-breasted Chat) while some are considered subspecies but once had full-species status (ie., Myrtle and Audubon's) and finally, some are hybrids (Brewster's and Lawrence's).

Among acclaimed birding personalities, some have seen all species in their home state; others, their home country; still others have towering lifelists that span the globe. In humble comparison, photodocumenting all 55 US warbler species is no feat of mastery, yet in its own meager way, it is nevertheless a notable, perhaps even celebratable, marker in this blogger's pursuit of a passion in birding.

Thus, without further ado, we now present the 55 in alphabetical order (see also the blogger's Flickr album):

Adelaide's

American Redstart

Audubon's

Bay-breasted

Black-and-white

Black-throated Blue

Black-throated Green

Black-throated Gray

Blackburnian

Blackpoll

Blue-winged

Brewster's

Canada

Cape May

Cerulean

Chestnut-sided

Colima

Common Yellowthroat

Connecticut

Elfin-woods

Golden-cheeked

Golden-winged

Grace's

Hermit

Hooded

Kentucky

Kirtland's

Lawrence's

Louisiana Waterthrush

Lucy's

MacGillivray's

Magnolia

Mourning

Myrtle

Nashville

Northern Parula

Northern Waterthrush

Olive

Orange-crowned

Ovenbird

Painted Redstart

Palm

Pine

Prairie

Prothonotary

Red-faced

Swainson's

Tennessee

Townsend's

Virginia's

Wilson's

Worm-eating

Yellow-breasted Chat

Yellow-throated

Yellow

While passion can fuel such a quest, it must be kept in mind that birding as a process and activity cannot be circumscribed by mere metrics or milestones. Nevertheless, a goal, however inconsequential it may appear to others, can hold tremendous significance in one's own birding development. And, such was indeed the case with the observation of this blogger's 55th warbler -- a Connecticut -- which marked the culmination of a long cherished quest to see all warbler species in the US.

What is Plume Hunting?

Plume hunting was big business in the late 1800's. Unfortunately, the dark side to the beauty of plumes led to the slaughter of millions of birds so women could wear fancy hats (Read about Plume Hunting).

Thankfully, in this age of digitization, we can capture most anything we want -- books, music, video, etc. -- digitally. And, with the advent of digital photography at the turn of the millennium, we can once again hunt for plumes -- but digitally; with none of the accompanying destruction. This blog is dedicated to capturing the beauty of nature reflected through the incredible diversity of our avifauna.

Reproduced below is ecofeminist Celia Thaxter's, "Woman’s Heartlessness" (Boston 1886; reproduced from Google Books) which was published at the time when plumes were worth their weight in gold and many species of birds were fast headed toward extinction:

WOMAN’S HEARTLESSNESS
By Celia Laighton Thaxter

When the Audubon Society was first organized, it seemed a comparatively simple thing to awaken in the minds of all bird-wearing women a sense of what their “decoration” involved. We flattered ourselves that the tender and compassionate heart of woman would at once respond to the appeal for mercy, but after many months of effort we are obliged to acknowledge ourselves mistaken in our estimate of that universal compassion, that tender heart in which we believed. Not among the ignorant and uncultivated so much as the educated and enlightened do we find the indifference and hardness that baffles and perplexes us. Not always, heaven be praised! But too often,--I think I may say in two-thirds of the cases to which we appeal. One lady said to me, “I think there is a great deal of sentiment wasted on the birds. There are so many of them, they will never be missed any more than mosquitoes. I shall put birds on my new bonnet.” This was a fond and devoted mother, a cultivated and accomplished woman. It seemed a desperate case, indeed, but still I strove with it. “Why do you give yourself so much trouble?” she asked. “They will soon go out of fashion, and there will be an end of it.” That may be,” I replied, “but fashion next year may order them back again, and how many women will have human feeling enough to refuse to wear them? It was merely waste of breath, however, and she went her way, a charnel-house of beaks and claws and bones and feathers and glass eyes upon her fatuous head.

Another, mockingly, says, “Why don’t you try to save the little fishes in the sea?” and continues to walk the world with dozens of warblers’ wings making her headgear hideous. Not one in fifty is found willing to remove at once the birds from her head, even if, languidly, she does acquiesce in the assertion that it is a cruel sin against nature to destroy them. “When these are worn out I am willing to promise not to buy any more,” is what we hear, and we are thankful, indeed, for even so much grace; but alas! birds never “wear out.” And as their wearer does not carry a placard stating their history, that they were bought last year, or perhaps given to her, and she does not intend to buy any more, her economy goes on setting the bad example, or it may be her indolence is to blame, one is as fatal as the other. Occasionally, but too rarely, we meet with a fine spirit, the fire of whose generous impulse consumes at once all selfish considerations, who recognizes the importance of her own responsibility, and whose action is swift as her thought to pluck our the murderous sign, and go forth free of its dishonor. And how refreshing is the sight of the birdless bonnet! The face beneath, no matter how plain it may be, seems to possess a gentle charm. She might have had birds, this woman, for they are cheap and plentiful enough, heaven knows! But she has them not, therefore she must wear within things infinitely precious,--namely, good sense, good taste, good feeling. Heaven bless every woman who dares turn her back on Fashion and go about thus beautifully adorned!

In one of the most widely circulated newspapers the fashionable news from Paris begins: “Birds are worn more than ever.” Birds “are worn!” Pitiful phrase! Sentence of deadly significance! “Birds are worn,”—as if that were final, as if all women must follow one another like a flock of sheep over a wall, and forget reason, forget the human heart within, forget everything but the empty pride of being “in the fashion.” Ah me, my fire-flecked oriole, watching your airy cradle from the friendly swinging elm bough, go get yourself an inky coat. Your beauty makes you but a target for the accursed gun that shatters your lovely life, quenches your delicious voice, destroys your love, your bliss, your dutiful cares, your whole beautiful being, that your dead body may disfigure some woman’s head and call all eyes to gaze at her! But no,--that will not save you. Blackbirds are not safe, they “are worn.” Carrion crows “are worn,” unsavory scavengers though they be. No matter on what they may have fed,--they “are worn.” Soar, swift sea-swallow,--I would it could be millions of miles away from the haunts of men; to the uttermost parts of the earth and the ocean carry your grace, your slender loveliness of shape, your matchless delicacy of tint and tone of color, soft, wondrous like gray cloud and silvery snow,--fly! dear and beautiful creature; seek the centre of the storm, the heart of the Arctic cold, the winter blast, they are not so unkind as—woman’s vanity. Do I not see you every day, your mocking semblance writhing as if in agony round female heads,--still and stark, sharp wings and tail pointing in stiff distress to heaven, your dried and ghastly head and beak dragged down to point to the face below, as if saying, “She did it.” The albatross of the Ancient Mariner is not more dreadful. Yesterday I saw three of you on one hat! Three terns at once, a horrible confusion of death and dismay.

Does any woman imagine these withered corpses (cured with arsenic) which she loves to carry about, are beautiful? Not so; the birds lost their beauty with their lives. Today I saw a mat woven of warblers' heads, spiked all over its surface with sharp beaks, set up on a bonnet and borne aloft by its possessor in pride! Twenty murders on one! and the face beneath bland and satisfied, for are not "Birds to be worn more than ever?" Flit, sandpiper, from the sea's margin to some loneliness remote and safe from the noble race of man! No longer in the soft May twilight call from cove to cove along the shore in notes that seem to breathe the very spirit of tender joy, of happy love, of sweet content; tones that mingle so divinely with the warm waves' murmur, with the south wind's balm, and sound in music through the dusk, long after the last crimson flash of sunset has faded from the sky year after year you come back to make your nest in the place you know and love, but you shall not live your humble, blissful, dutiful life, you shall not guard your treasured home, nor rejoice when your little ones break the silence with their first cry to you for food. You shall not shelter and protect and care for them with the same divine instinct you share with human mothers. No, some woman wants your corpse to carry on her head. You shall die that vanity, that "Fashion" may live.

I fear we no longer deserve these golden gifts of God. I would the birds could all emigrate to some friendlier planet peopled by a nobler race than ours, where they might live their sweet lives unmolested, and be treated with the respect, the consideration, and the grateful love which are their due. For we have almost forfeited our right to the blessing of their presence.

But still we venture to hope for a better future, still the Audubon and other societies work with heart and soul, to protect and save them, and we trust yet to see the day when women, one and all, will look upon the wearing of birds in its proper light,--namely, as a sign of heartlessness and a mark of ignominy and reproach.

Privacy Policy

Monday, October 26, 2020

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore: Plovers in Peril

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

A Decade in the Making: To See All US Warblers!

Birding Arizona

Birding Australia

Birding the Caribbean

Birding India

Birding Florida

Birding California

Birding the Pacific Northwest

Birding Texas

Birding New Mexico

Birding the Midwest