Tag Archives: Margo D. Beller

Searching for Spring, and Finding a Phoebe

10 Wednesday Apr 2013

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spring buds

Spring buds. Photo by Julie Seyler.

BY MARGO D. BELLER

On Thursday, March 21, 2013, the first full day of spring, I took a walk to get the morning paper, and detoured home through a local park. At one point, I crossed a brook. From the bridge, I saw a small gray bird fly to a branch and bop its tail.

I had seen my first Eastern Phoebe of the season.

The Phoebe is a member of the flycatcher family. There are three types of Phoebe: the Eastern, the Say‘s (its western equivalent), and the Black (found in the Southwest United States, Mexico, and along the California coast).

In New Jersey, the Eastern Phoebe is one of the earliest of spring migrant birds.

According to my various nature guides, Eastern Phoebes show up in my region somewhere around March 10-20. Marie Winn, author of “Red-Tails in Love,” posted in her blog on March 15, that the first Phoebe had been seen in New York’s Central Park that day.

So mine was more or less on time.

Yet, it did not feel like spring. The temperature at 8:30 that March morning was in the upper 20s, and it was cloudy with a breeze. I was wearing a thin scarf around my head and neck, a hat over that, and a warm parka with the hood up.

This Phoebe was hunting –  until I spooked it. It eats insects, and in the cold there were few to be seen – at least by me.

The year before, we’d had next to no snow, and the temperature was unusually warm in March. But this year we’ve had the winter that won’t end. The 50-degree days – normal temperature – had been few and far between, and the with weather casters predicting snow and warmth maybe by April, I was feeling distinctly depressed about the continuing cold. Until I saw the Phoebe. It hadn’t heard the warnings about climate change. Its internal clock said it was time to leave the winter grounds in the deep south of the United States and Mexico, and head north.

Phoebes are remarkably faithful to a good nesting spot. Once found, they will return every year. When John J. Audubon was living in Pennsylvania, he tied silver thread on the legs of young Phoebes he caught. The next spring he caught two that returned — they still had the thread. It was the first bird-banding experiment in America.

I, meanwhile, feel stuck here. It’s getting harder for me to get through a cold New Jersey winter. I feel achy and dried out by the furnace heat, and can’t just pick up and head south for the winter.

The Phoebe reminds me that there will be other migrating birds coming through my area in the next month or two on their way to northern breeding grounds. Some will travel no farther than New Jersey, and will provide a reason for me to get out of bed early on a Saturday morning.

By then – climate willing – it should be warmer.

I’m a Birder Who Prefers to Fly Solo

26 Tuesday Mar 2013

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One bird

Birding with a group has its perks, but I often stray from the crowd. Photo by Julie Seyler.

BY MARGO D. BELLER

I have always been pulled between being a loner and longing to be part of the crowd. As a child, I kept to myself. As I got older, I made friends along the way. One became my husband (MH). He, too, is a loner, but is not much troubled by that fact. Watching birds is an ideal activity for a loner, although it is often done in a group. I find groups have a tendency to rush along and talk, and I would rather go at my own pace and listen to the singing. Even with MH, I find I bird differently than when alone.

It is when birding the loner and the longer come together.

The other day, at a pond in the middle of a suburban NJ office park, a Pacific loon was discovered. It was publicized on the NJ bird list, which I read. The office park is on the outskirts of my town, which made it imperative for MH and me to see it as soon as we could.

What was it doing there? I don’t know, but weather conditions have been pretty strange this year. This loon is an unusual visitor east of the Continental Divide, but they’ve been reported before. The office park pond, which was not frozen, must have been an appealing sight.

Except in winter, loons are found on lakes and ponds. In winter, when those ponds freeze, they are usually found along the coast. The common loon and its smaller relative, the red-breasted loon, are the Eastern loons you’re likely to see at Barnegat Lighthouse, along the Jersey Shore, for instance.

In winter, they are all black and white and gray. What gave this one away were the shadings of gray and the bill – not as stout as the common loon; not as thin and upturned as the red-throated.

When we got there, we found ourselves in a crowd, but smaller than expected. We were all friendly, talking shop, field marks, or other birds recently seen in the state. As usual, for a while there, I felt I belonged.

And yet, when they started talking about people whose names I don’t know, but they see all the time in their travels, I knew I was not part of this group. I won’t be going south to Florida to see the birds heading north with them, or trekking to Belize or Mexico.

As this point I usually wonder, when does enjoyment of the birds become an obsession? If you spend your life doing nothing but running around to find and tick off birds every time one is reported, is it much of a life?

I admit, I daydream of dropping everything and doing nothing but bird. But bills have to be paid. The loner wins.

Our Life List: 338 Birds, and Counting

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

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Margo life list

BY MARGO D. BELLER

Many people keep a “bucket list” of things they want to do before they die.

Birders have a life list.

In the 1947 edition of his classic, “Field Guide to the Birds” of the Eastern U.S., Roger Tory Peterson included two pages with a list of birds covered in the volume. The idea was for a watcher to check off each bird when seen for the first time. He called it a “life list,” as in something seen for the first time in your life.

Birders have been rushing around to see and record new birds ever since.

My husband (MH) photocopied that list several times for me years ago, and I’ve used the copies to record birds from various places – my favorite birding spots in New Jersey and in New England, for instance – plus one to use as a master list. This list is so marked up it is hard to follow at times. I’ve had to add many birds as I traveled outside the East. Many birds Peterson considered accidentals, or rarities, in 1947, have become more common as their ranges expand, or as more birders go out in the field and find them.

MH and I have, in our combined life list, seen 338 types of birds in the years we’ve been birders. This may seem like a lot to non-birders, but it is an almost pathetically small number compared with others who are out in the field nearly every day, or who travel the world, the United States, even their neighborhoods in search of new birds. Many have the time and money to do this, and I envy them. MH and I have to fit in our bird activities when we can.

Still, we enjoy being together in our searching, sharing the successes and being wise enough to keep the failures in perspective.

Some “life” birds have come easier than others. The prothonotary warbler that walked out of the bushes in Central Park. The sandhill cranes that soared over the Indiana toll road on our drive back from a midwest wedding. The anhinga, limpkin and kites we saw during a trip to the Florida panhandle.

Our newest, the northern lapwing, came in March and we didn’t have to go too far. Three of these European visitors, with their distinctive crest and coloring, were found by others during the winter, hanging out in a cattle field on a farm in New Egypt, N.J. Like Alexis de Tocqueville, these old-world land plovers found favor with the new world, and were received enthusiastically.

We came after the initial crowd frenzy ended, and were lucky to find another couple watching the birds with a scope, which they allowed us to use. We were also lucky the birds decided to fly around the field, making it fun to study them with binoculars.

If travel broadens the mind, as the saying goes, we will have to do more traveling if we want to expand our life list, and our life.

Many Boomer Crowds are Not for The Birds

27 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Opinion

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the birders and the boomers go birding

The birders and the boomers go birding. By Julie Seyler.

By Margo D. Beller

I enjoy a good walk in the woods with my binoculars. If my husband comes along, even better. But I get really annoyed when we find ourselves in a crowd.

We used to be considered unusual in our birding habit, but in recent years we’ve learned we are far from alone.

My husband and I, both a few years past 50, have been known to be the youngest people in an area looking for a particular bird when we go on vacation. That is thanks to having no children and being able to travel when people with kids can’t.

But that is very different on the weekends. We have found serious birders we can respect. More often we are forced to travel with flocks of families and less-respectful people around our age.atop the mountain

I can’t speak for why the families are out there. They may be trying to teach the kids about “nature“ but too often the kids are running ahead and screaming while their parents are hanging back on their phones.

As for the boomers, some, like me, may want to be challenged outdoors and look for something special that keeps them moving.

But more often it seems to be all about the cameras.

Either childless couples like us or whose children have left the nest – seem to have bought into the idea that we can use our money to do whatever we want now.

Want to tour Belize? There’s are lots of birder tours that will take you down there just as winter is coming on in the north. When you’re not snorkeling or lounging on the beach or checking out real estate you can be walked or driven through a rain forest, looking for birds you may or may not see back home. (Many northern birds, like these people, go south for the winter.)

Just as these “active adults” have bought into the idea of the large-screen TV and the computer-laden “crossover,” they want the smartphone and the point-and-shoot camera so they can travel the world capturing the birds, adding them to their life lists and displaying them on their Facebook or Flickr pages.

These are the people the medical companies love, the ones urged to replace their aching hips and their balky knees and take this pill so they can keep doing everything they did when they were younger.

These are the folks who will clamber over rocks and leave the trails to bushwack into tick-infested woods, eroding the eco-system. They can afford the expensive equipment, even if they don’t know how to use it.

I know, not every boomer is like this. Many just like to go to natural places where they can walk completely oblivious to the birds that are scattering in front of them because their dogs are running off the leash.

Then they wonder why people like me yell at them.

It’s why my husband and I do our best to avoid them.

MH and Me: Love Birds

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

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Birds flying over the Nile River, Egypt. December, 2009. Photo by Julie Seyler.

BY MARGO D. BELLER

Ever since my husband (MH), and I moved to our home and got a feeder for a housewarming present, I have been watching birds at my feeders and chasing them around fields, forests and seashores for over 10 years now.

The number of feeders has only increased with my desire to see more birds, which in turn, has led me to try and see even more farther afield.

There are many reasons I enjoy doing this. I like a challenge, particularly one that gets me out of the house and into the wood. I’m forced to sharpen my wits, use my eyes and remember many things, including field marks and songs. It gets me enjoyable exercise, walking long distances in new areas to at some very pretty (and sometimes not-so-pretty, birds), and it gets me away from the barking dogs and the noisy neighbors with their tech-savvy kids, who think I’m a strange old lady in this suburban neighborhood for going out in deep snow to shovel a path to the bird feeders.

MH also enjoys watching the feeder birds and going out with me to see what he can see, although he isn’t as gung-ho about rising at early hours and driving long distances. Our different ways of looking at things shape how we go birding.

I have a camera with a longish lens, and if we are in a place far from home that we don’t get to very often, I’ll take pictures to help me remember the scene. If there are birds I can photograph, so much the better. But generally, I rely on my binoculars for identification.

MH has binoculars and a smaller point-and-shoot camera – much more sophisticated than the old Kodaks we had as kids. When we go out I find something, call it out, and he’ll take many pictures from many angles, hoping at least one or two will come out good. (It helps these cameras make it easy to delete the bad shots without wasting film or photo paper.)

Another difference: Say I’m out in the field and I hear something I’ve never heard before. I will stand and wait and wait until I see what called. I’ll note the size, the color, where I am (habitat, state), note any field marks, then come home to start digging through the many field guides I’ve bought to identify it. If that doesn’t work, I go through my CDs of bird calls.

MH has a more scientific bent. He will look, too, and tell me what field marks he sees. He leaves the identifying to me, but once identified, he’ll go to a bookshelf and pull out a historical reference to learn when was the last time that bird was regularly seen in a particular area.

Together we make a good team, and that has become one of the best things about our interest in birding, spending time together and adding memories. We may not have children together but we do have the birds.