Ed Forum birdwatching 2008

Just back after a few days. According to the field guide I bought, Madagascar would have been a better option for birding, but, since I was threatened during a romantic dinner that I'd not see my 11th wedding anniversary if I didn't put down the binoculars, this is the best I can come up with from some incidental birding over the past few days.

Seychelles
Mahe - Oct 04
White-tailed Tropicbird
Seychelles Blue Pigeon, Alectroenas pulcherrima
Zebra Dove, Geopelia striata
Seychelles Sunbird, Nectarinia dussumieri
Moorhen
Mynah, Acridotheres tristis
Aldabra Fody, Foudia aldabrana
Audubon's Shearwater
Madagascar Turtle Dove, Streptopelia picturata
Grey Heron
Yellow Bittern
Black-crowned Night Heron
Green-backed Heron
Garganey

Mahe - Oct 05
Common Sandpiper
Terek Sandpiper
White Tern
Madagascar Fody, Foudia madagascariensis
Seychelles Fody, Foudia sechellarum

Mahe - Oct 07
Wedge-tailed Shearwater
Sanderling

Mahe - Oct 08
Seychelles Bulbul, Hypsipetes crassirostris
Whimbrel
Ringed Plover
Domestic Plgeon, Columbia livia domesticus

Mahe - Oct 09
Lesser Black-backed Gull

Oh, and fruitbats, lots of fruitbats, which are way too bony to be bothering with and no amount of Creole curry can cover the gamey liver/kidney taste.

Off on a business trip (with bins and field guide) so hope to add some new birds in the next fortnight. Won't be of the magnitude of Kotatsu's Japan jaunt though...
 
Hi all,

No time to read or write very much. I`m at 138 species now. I`ve been in Japan for almost exactly a month now, and only five days (including today) have not given anything new. I can`t remember what I reported before, but here`s a start (* = photos exist, but not necessarily of the individual reported):

14/9 Yatsuhigata, Chiba:
Little Egret - Egretta garzetta*
Spot-billed duck - Anas poecilorhyncha*
Grey heron - Ardea cinerea*
Reed bunting - Emberiza schoeniclus*
Brown-eared bulbul - Hypsipetes amaurotis
Grey Starling - Sturnus cinereus
Teal - Anas crecca
Treesparrow - Passer montanus
Black-tailed gull - Larus crassirostris*
Grey plover - Pluvialis squatarola
Kingfisher - Alcedo atthis
Black-crowned night-heron - Nycticorax nycticorax
Domestic Pigeon - Columba livia domestica

14/9 Gyotoku, Chiba:
Azure-winged magpie - Cyanopica cyanea*
Great tit - Parus major minor*

15/9 Gyotoku, Chiba:
Oriental Greenfinch - Carduelis sinica

16/9 Abiko, Chiba:
Barn swallow - Hirundo rustica
Grey-faced buzzard-eagel - Butastur indicus (not sure about scientific name)

16/9 Teganuma Lake, Chiba:
Mute swan - Cygnus olor*
Coot - Fulica atra*
Mallard - Anas platyrhynchos
Zitting cisticola - Cisticola juncidis
Cattle egret - Bubulcus ibis*
Skylark - Alauda arvensis japonica
Moorhen - Gallinula chloropus
Carrion crow - Corvus corone orientalis (correct subspecies?)
Lathams`s snipe - Gallinago hardwickii
Bull-headed shrike - Lanius bucephalus
Japanese wagtail - Motacilla grandis

17-19/9
No new birds, except a dead Oriental cuckoo (Cuculus saturatus) on which I found some lice (probably Cuculoecus latifrons).

20/9 Wakkanai, Hokkaido:
Black kite - Milvus migrans*
Buzzard - Buteo buteo
Slaty-backed Gull - Larus schistisagus*
Glaucous gull - Larus hyperboreus*
Whooper swan - Cygnus columbianus (latin correct, I am not sure about English)

20/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Eastern Marsh Harrier - Circus spilonotus

20/9 Lake Kucharo, Hokkaido
Wadering tattler - Heteroscelus brevipes (latin correct)
Black-headed reed warbler - Acrocephalus bistrigiceps (Latin correct)*

21/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido (First day of banding here)
Rubythroat - Luscinia calliope*
Jay - Garrulus glandarius brandtii*
Marsh tit - Parus palustris*
Japanese bush warbler - Cettia diphone*
Nuthatch - Sitta europaea*
Black-faced bunting - Emberiza spodocephala personata*
Willow tit - Parus montanus*
Arctic Warbler - Phylloscopus borealis*
Narcissus flycatcher - Ficedula narcissina*
Grey-headed woodpecker - Picus canus*

22/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Long-tailed rosefinch - Uragus sibiricus*
Japanese Pygmy woodpecker - Dendrocopus kizuki ijimae*
Brown-headed thrush - Turdus chrysolaus*

23/9 Wakkanai, Hokkaido
Pelagic cormorant - Phalacrocorax pelagicus

23/9 Cape Soya, Hokkaido
Japanese Cormorant - Phalacrocorax capillatus
Herring gull - Larus argentatus (1)*?

24/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Woodcock - Scolopax rusticola
Grey wagtail - Motacilla cinerea
Hawfinch - Coccothraustes coccothraustes*
Bean Goose - Anser fabalis

25/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Eye-browed thrush - Turdus obscurus*
Kestrel - Falco tinnunculus
Coal tit - Parus ater*
Sparrowhawk - Accipiter nisus
Hobby - Falco subbuteo*

25/9 some harbour we passed:
Harlequin duck - Histrionicus histrionicus

25/9 Hamatonbetsu harbour, Hokkaido
Tufted duck - Aythya fuligula

26/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Red-breasted merganser - Mergus serrator
Peregrine falcon - Falco peregrinus
Siberian stonechat - Saxicola torquata maura (2)

26/9 Pon-numa, Hokkaido
Red-necked grebe - Podiceps grisagena
Wigeon - Anas penelope
White-tailed eagle - Haliaeetus albicilla
Goldcrest - Regulus regulus
Black woodpecker - Dryocopus martius

27/9 Hamatonbetsu
Japanese robin - Erithacus akahige*
Grey-streaked flycatcher - Muscicapa griseisticta

28/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Dark-sided flycatcher -Muscicapa sibirica
Mugimaki flycatcher - Ficedula mugimaki*
Osprey - Pandion haliaeetus
Merganser - Mergus merganser

28/9 Hamatonbetsu harbour, Hokkaido
Glaucous-winged gull - Larus glaucescens

29/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Japanese thrush - Turdus cardis*
Greater white-fronted goose - Anser albifrons

29/9 Lake Kutcharo, Hokkaido
White-bellied green pigeon - Sphenurus sieboldii
Black-headed gull - Larus ridibundus

29/9 Beniya, Hokkaido
Mandarin duck - Aix galericulata
Guillemot - Uria aalge
Lesser sand plover - Charadrius mongolus
Greater Scaup - Aythya marila
Pacific diver - Gavia pacifica (3)
Pacific swift - Apus pacificus

29/9 Hamatonbetsu harbour, Hokkaido
Kittiwake - Rissa tridactyla

30/9 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Dusky thrush - Turdus naumanni
Greater Spotted Woodpecker - Dendrocopus major*
Buff-bellied pipit - Anthus rubescens*
Japanese white-eye - Zosterops japonicus*

1/10 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Common Snipe - Gallinago gallinago*
Olive-backed pipit - Anthus hodgsoni*

2/10 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Orange-flanked bluetail - Tarsiger cyanurus*
Pallid thrush - Turdus pallidus*

3/10 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Treecreeper - Certhia familiaris*
Rustic bunting - Emberiza rustica*
White-backed woodpecker - Dendrocopus leucotos

4/10 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Middendorff`s Grasshopper warbler - Locustella ochotensis*

5/10 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Grey bunting - Emberiza variabilis*

5/10 Beniya, Hokkaido
Common tern - Sterna hirundo
Parasitic skua - Stercorarius parasiticus
Ancient murrelet - Synthliboramphus antiquus (!!!!)

6/10 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Goshawk - Accipiter gentilis

7/10 Hamatonbetsu, Hokkaido
Ural owl - Strix uralensis*

7/10 Ohse, Hokkaido
Black scooter - Melanitta nigra

8/10 Furen-ko, Hokkaido
Japanese crane - Grus japonicus*
Radde`s warbler - Phylloscopus schwarzi* (!!!!)

8/10 Shunkunitai, Hokkaido
Oystercatcher - Haematopus ostralegus
Shoveller - Anas clypteata
Dunlin - Calidris alpina
Lesser ringed plover - Charadrius dubius

9/10 Furen-ko, Hokkaido
Blakiston`s fish owl - Ketupa blakistoni (!!!!)
Gadwall - Anas strepera
Falcated duck - Anas falcata (!!!!)

9/10 Ochiishi, Hokkaido
Sabine`s gull - Xema sabini (!!!!)
Short-tailed shearwater - Puffinus tenuirostris (4)

10/10
Nothing new

11/10 Shunkunitai, Hokkaido
Black-throated diver - Gavia arctica
Wren - Troglodytes troglodytes

12/10
Nothing new.

So, a quite exhaustive list of what can actually be seen here, with a few golden nuggets thrown in for good measure (marked with commonly accepted signs of excitement). The majority of the photos are of birds in the hand. I haven`t managed to see the fish owl yet, but a pair sits outside our field station every night hooing. The French farmer I travel with saw the female fly over the other night.

I apologize for the lack of italics. Also, I have not added all records from all prefectures I have visited (two so far), as that would take too much work. I may do so later.

---
(1) This should be checked. The race here in vegae, which in the local bird book is separated into its own species - Vega Gull. If this is done in Clements, or in a peer-reviewed paper afterwards, we should follow this. Otherwise, it is a subspecies of argentatus.
(2) Has this been split into different species?
(3) With this, I have filled my first order. I have seen the other four species in Sweden, so there are no divers more for me to discover. I guess that apart from monotypic orders, this is the easiest one to see all of, though. Anyone else who has?
(4) My first shearwater ever! And three of them!
 
Alos, I`ll try to read through everything I missed as soon as I get a chance to go to a real internet cafe, and not just use the computers of banders... One short thing for those who are interested in meeting up in London this December: Could you send me a suggestion for dates to my email (daniel . gustafsson @ zool . gu . se)? I will be there between the 30th of November and the 20th of December. Also, if you know some good second-hand stores (books or clothes), or a good place to get yarn for knitting, please let me know. I may go to Southampton/Portsmouth one of the weekends I am in England to visit a few friends, so if there`s any good places near there to go birdwatching, please tell me.

See you all as soon as possible! And have a nice autumn until then.
 
Also some new mammals:
Japanese deer
Momonga (flying squirrel)
some kind of bat
DOLPHINS!!!!! (I never saw this before)
Tanuki
Yellow fox
Some kind of vole (I know knly the japanese name)
Chipmunks.

Three more weeks in Japan now, and I hope to be able to get to see the monkeys. If anyone has suggestions for what to do in Tokyo in four days, apart from the Ghibli musuem, please mail me!
 
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I have had no time for birds recently except when I was in Spain: and I was in towns most of the time. For some reason towns in the north of spain are curiously bird free. So here were sparrows and pigeons and the odd magpie and not much else to report. I did see several storks (they nest on churches there) which was exciting for me, but I do not know what kind they were. Common though :). And also what appeared to be a vulture or eagle - could not get close enough to see them properly but they were brown and they seemed to have gold/yellow bars on the underside of the wings. (images on google suggest the honey buzzard but I do not know if that can be right) Their flight was beautiful and I was sorry not to get closer.

Sorry to be disappointing - I had hopes too!
 
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Spent the beginning of October in Michigan. My host had a bird feeder right outside the kitchen window, and I was startled to see how different these visitors were to my own. On the first morning I exclaimed, oh, it's a coal tit, but it was something called a black-capped chickadee. (Love the names!) The most spectacular to my eyes was the Northern Cardinal. I'd never seen an all-red bird before. Also saw something big in a nearby field, and was told they were probably wild turkeys.

Yesterday I counted 10 separate species visiting my own bird feeder. All usual suspects, but I was still pleased by the variety. It would have been 11 except that the hoodie crow stayed away until today.

I don't know if I have about ten coal tits who are feeding constantly, or if there are more of them running a relay system. They are capable of emptying the seed feeder in about four hours. Much of it onto the ground, I have to say. I noticed that what was on the ground wasn't just barley, which they genuinely don't want, but also included a fair bit of chopped maize and some pea. I'm afraid I scooped most of it up from the patio and put it back in the feeder. I wish there wasn't so much barley in the seed mix. The little birds don't want it, and although the collared doves will come and clear some away, it mostly lies there. But the only seed mix I found without barley was a ridiculous price. About £3.25 for a kilo. The usual stuff is £1 a kilo. Mean time, my American friend has bags of just over 9kg, no barley that I could see, with a price ticket of $6.99. No fair.

Rolfe.
 
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Rolfe,

Can you get sunflower seeds? The striped seeds are acceptable to just-about all birds here, and the, pricier, black-oil sunflower seeds are favorites. The major drawback is that the shells suppress growth of vegetation (e.g., grass) where they fall.
 
Mercutio said:
I like the new layout; less to have to scroll around on the countries lists. Speaking of which, I think one of my Greece entries from earlier in this thread did not get added--the european swallow hirundo rustica, unless it goes by another common name. Post 735 in this thread (but I did not have it named back then).
Click to expand...
OK I missed that one. Could you give me a date and place? I can't quite work it out from the post as to where in your trip that photo fits in.
 
Hokulele said:
New sighting as of today...Hawai'ian Stilt... in flight, which is fairly rare.
Click to expand...
Why, do they normally walk? :D

I have only a few for today, but one new one for the list,

Pied Crow, Corvus albus - Accra, Ghana.

Hope to get out to the Nat.Park near the capital, but I'm here on work so birding opportunities are going to be limited.
 
JJM said:
Rolfe,

Can you get sunflower seeds? The striped seeds are acceptable to just-about all birds here, and the, pricier, black-oil sunflower seeds are favorites. The major drawback is that the shells suppress growth of vegetation (e.g., grass) where they fall.
Click to expand...


I was thinking about that, because I do think they are selectively picking out the sunflower seeds. They like the maize too though. I need to look at the price on the sunflower seeds.

I've already relocated the feeder so that it isn't above the lawn, and the seed part is actually over a bit of monoblock patio. Barley isn't that good for lawn either! These coal tits are just guzzling like mad, completely oblivious to the rain of wastage that's falling from their beaks.

There seemed to be very little wastage from the feeder my Merikan friends have. This may however be partly due to its design, which was a lot more egalitarian and allowed any species to perch on the side and feed from a wooden trough. Still, they did point out the "garden" of a few maize plants which had sprung up where some of the seed had fallen to the earth.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
I was thinking about that, because I do think they are selectively picking out the sunflower seeds. They like the maize too though. {snip}
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I have never stocked maize (corn) in my feeder; but I did offer thistle seed, which is a favorite of goldfinches. However, I soon realized they were just as happy to eat the sunflower seeds, so I quit the thistle. I do offer (rendered) suet, it brings in woodpeckers that don't eat seeds.

I think of maize as being for large birds that feed on the ground (turkeys, pheasants, etc.). I get small, ground-feeding birds to come to a platform feeder that is the size of a dinner plate.
 
EHocking said:
OK I missed that one. Could you give me a date and place? I can't quite work it out from the post as to where in your trip that photo fits in.
Click to expand...

June 14, the tiny village of Parthenon, in Northern Greece, a little East and a bit south of Thessaloniki.
 
Is this is a White Duck?

nlse1w.jpg

[Yarra River at Warburton, 12th Oct 2008]

:)
 
Hokulele said:
New sighting as of today (4 October 2008, Maui, Hawai'i).

Gray-backed Tern - Onychoprion lunatus

We also saw a pair of Great Frigatebirds (already on the list), and a Hawai'ian Stilt (also on the list) in flight, which is fairly rare.
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Which Stilt was it?

Himantopus mexicanus
or
Himantopus knudseni

H.m is "Black-necked Stilt"?

ETA: OK, found the last one from you. Black-necked Stilt, but Hawaiian sub-species, thus, H.m.knudseni

Oh, and the Frigatebirds are F.m.palmerstoni ?? As that was your last entry.
 
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Pending verifying by Kotatsu, and an additional one for myself today in Accra, Hooded Vulture, Necrosyrtes monachus

here's the latest.

Order Total :19
Family Total :93
Species Total :636
Species Total :640(inc. Subspecies)
Carrion/Hooded, Rock/Domestic Pigeon, Short-Eared/Hawaian Owl, Siberian Stonechat
Total Sightings:2068

I'll work on updating the webpages - at least the country lists.
 
JJM said:
I have never stocked maize (corn) in my feeder; but I did offer thistle seed, which is a favorite of goldfinches. However, I soon realized they were just as happy to eat the sunflower seeds, so I quit the thistle. I do offer (rendered) suet, it brings in woodpeckers that don't eat seeds.

I think of maize as being for large birds that feed on the ground (turkeys, pheasants, etc.). I get small, ground-feeding birds to come to a platform feeder that is the size of a dinner plate.
Click to expand...


The maize in the seed mix is chopped, and the little birds seem to like it. However, they seem to pick the sunflower seeds selectively. I just have visions of them chomping through actual neat sunflower seed just as fast as they go through the mix, and me ending up as bankrupt as Iceland.

I also offer fat balls, and a square fat block. That's pretty popular too, especially the block which the robins can get to (unfortunately so can the crows and the magpies). The only time I saw a woodpecker though, he was perched on the peanut feeder, with a look on his face that said "pretty funny tree-trunk, this one".

My bird feeder has a plate-sized square mesh table section, but I usually put kitchen leftovers and occasionally some dried mealworms on that. One day I saw something large grab a piece of stale bread from that in a flypast, without actually touching down at all!

Here is a pic of the actual model. I hang peanut feeder, seed feeder and fatball feeder from the three hooks. The other things are the mesh table and a water container.

Fiona said:
@ Rolfe. My friend buys from an agricultural place and he gets it in bulk much cheaper. Also RSPB does a variety of stuff which, while not as cheap as £1 a kilo seems better than you say you are paying, I think

http://shopping.rspb.org.uk/mall/departmentpage.cfm/rspb/76550
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Oddly, my local garden centre sells these fat balls even cheaper than the online price. However, the seed mixes still look pricy to me. If my Merikan friends can get a low-mess seed mix at $6.99 for a 9kg bag, where's the justice? (I only ever bought one bag of the "Bill Oddie" low-waste mix at £3.25 a kilo. I told the birds this was the special introductory offer and they better make the most of it.)

Rolfe.
 
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