Flowers of Rwanda

Other than a couple local names recorded in field notes, I don't know the names of most of these flowering plants or anything about their ecology. All were photographed from 2010-2011 at Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village on a single hillside in central-eastern Rwanda.

Lark Sparrow in Central Park!

For readers from the Midwest or Western USA, a Lark Sparrow is no big deal. But for New York, and especially Manhattan, a Lark Sparrow is a pretty unusual bird. Lark Sparrows don't breed in New York, as evidenced by NYS Breeding Bird Surveys of 1980-1985 and 2000-2005 (they don't breed along the East Coast at all!). Ebird only has one record of a Lark Sparrow in Manhattan, from 2011 (granted Ebird is a newer resource, but it has been pretty heavily used over the last several years).

As such, one should always make notes on such an unusual bird. These notes are on the Lark Sparrow, from 10-10-2013, 10:20 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. at the Great Hill in Central Park, just east of the 103rd St and Central Park West entrance, looking down from a paved path over the grassy area (the pool was directly south as the crow flies):

Seen well by both myself and Tomas Lundquist. We saw it fly off and come back twice, noticing the white on the outer tail feathers and very tips of the other tail feathers. This bird was larger than the Chipping Sparrows it was among on the ground, as close as fifteen feet from us. It had a dark central spot on an otherwise plain breast. The black marks on its throat were very clear. Above those black throat marks, there were bright white patches, and above a light chestnut brown cheek patch; a black line seemed to touch the throat marks, encircle the white and cheek patch, touch the back of the head and go back through the eye. Its head stripes were also this light chestnut brown, divided by a white line directly over the top of the head. We last saw the bird around 11:20 a.m. I was at the site for another 1.5 hours and joined by another birder, but did not refind the bird.

For my full checklist from the morning, visit http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S15369461.

I read that a few people later relocated a Lark Sparrow on the Great Hill, presumably the same bird. Fun stuff!!

Works Consulted:
New York State Breeding Bird Atlas 2000 [Internet]. 2000 - 2005. Release 1.0. Albany (New York): New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. [updated 2007 Jun 11; cited 2013 Oct 10]. Available from: http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7312.html.

New York State Breeding Bird Atlas [Internet]. 1980 - 1985. Release 1.0. Albany (New York): New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. [updated 2007 Jun 6; cited 2013 Oct 10]. Available from: http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7312.html.

Equal viewing for equal birds!

We are the united female birds of America,
and we demand to be seen!
(Black-throated Blue Warbler)

We are half of our respective species and
want your admiration too!
(Wood Duck)

Avi-feminism:
the radical notion that female birds
are equally beautiful
(Dickcissel)

Sketches of a pheasant: my introduction to drawing

Drawing 1: Just getting the pencil on paper (pencil)

Drawing looks easy when you watch the masters. David Allen Sibley, author and illustrator of Sibley Field Guides, dazzles some young kids (and blows my mind) in this Youtube clip. Or check out Pedro Fernandes transform observations and research into a bird poster for Cornell University's Department of Ornithology.

Drawing 2: Contour (pencil)

But drawing birds was quite a challenge for me! Determined to make the most out of a required art course (for my teaching certification), I thought I would learn to draw birds. In addition to our in-class drawings and weekly assessment pieces, each student had to draw a real-life object for homework assignments. The object had to be a physical 3-D item, as in not a drawing or photograph. So where was I going to find a bird?

2nd Annual Vallarta Bird Festival

2nd Annual Vallarta Bird Festival  

March 7-10, 2013

www.vallartabirdfestival.org/

View from Vallarta Botanical Garden restaurant

"The Vallarta Bird Conservancy presents this years festival March 7-10 and will be hosted by Co-founder Vallarta Botanical Gardens.  4 days of guided tours, presentations, and lectures for a wonderful opportunity to view, learn and enjoy the wonderful birds in Puerto vallarta and Cabo Corrientes area.

  

Greg R. Homel , the keynote speaker and guide, is an ornithologist, award-winning international nature photojournalist, documentary film producer, and lecturer.  Greg along with other professional international guides and biologists Alex Martinez, Carlos Bonilla, Sandra Gallo-Corona, Neil Gerlowski, Paul Hart, Roberto Ornelas, William Tractenberg and Luis Morales will be leading tours and lectures each day."

www.vallartabirdfestival.org/

Birding with Alex Martinez in 2010. We had a totally awesome time!

Red-headed Woodpecker

Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus)

Photographed December 23, 2012 at Wyandotte County Lake, Kansas.

Read about their life history, hear their sounds, and learn more at
www.allaboutbirds.org.

Are blue birds really blue?

Swallow Tanager, near Maquipucuna Reserve, Ecuador

I saw a Great Blue Heron fly over the Blue River today. The Blue River is not blue in color, and it made me wonder, are blue birds really blue?

Great Blue Heron, Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Area, Kansas

Red-cheeked Cordon-bleu, Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, Rwanda

A bird's blue is not true blue in their feathers. That is, if you ruffle a feather from an Eastern Bluebird, the blue color changes and can disappear. Why?

Eastern Bluebird, near Cleveland, Missouri

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the blue in nearly all blue birds is a "structural color." The appearance of blue is produced by "tiny air pockets in the barbs of feathers [that] can scatter incoming light." The interlocking barbs and barbules of the feather and air cavities they create form a matrix that “scatters light waves in an orderly fashion, sending only the color blue to the observer,” according to Bird Feathers, by S. David Scott and Casey McFarland. Hence, the structure of the feather displays the color blue.

Great Blue Turaco flight feather, Mabamba Swamp, Uganda
If you look closely at the bottom of the feather, near the fingers,
the disrupted area is brown, not blue!

Indigo Bunting, Blue River corridor, Kansas City, Missouri

This is in contrast to other bird colors like black, gray, brown, red, yellow, pink, and green, which are all caused by pigments in the feathers. Pigments absorb light waves but reflect those that the observer eventually sees. The pigment in a male Northern Cardinal’s feather absorbs other light waves and reflects red. The feather of the Eastern Bluebird does not reflect blue (it reflects grayish-brown), but the structure of the feather scatters light and creates the blue color. To paraphrase the aforementioned authors Scott and McFarland, if you grind up a red feather, it stays red, but if you grind up a blue feather, you lose the blue. 

Northern Cardinal, Overland Park, Kansas

White-tailed Blue Flycatcher, near Lake Kivu, Rwanda

Hopefully, learning that some of our birds are different than they appear doesn’t make you too blue.  After all, the sky isn't really blue either!