It's Not About the AMB Class

Sometimes, it's not about a big classroom lecture, or a big field trip.

Sometimes, it's about getting out there and enjoying the birds, whether in a smaller group or solo.

In my short time as a birder, I've had the extreme good fortune to have a couple of partners who are knowledgeable and sharing and good teachers - wonderful mentors who take little credit or expect little in return for their teaching other than just the shared experience.  There are my original mentors, Melissa and Suzi, in Florida.  Without their help and coaching and sharing, I wouldn't know a Great Blue Heron from a Northern Mockingbird.  There's also my local birding mentor, someone who has shared with me such exotics as Three-toed Woodpeckers here in the Colorado mountains, as well as all of the local nuthatches and jays and gulls and raptors and heaven-knows-what else; pretty much all he's ever asked in payment has been a shared enjoyment of the birds.  At the other extreme of these solo or near-solo mentors have been various DFO and Audubon field trips, along with the Beginning Bird-watching classes, sponsored by the same Audubon group that sponsor this AMB program, the Audubon Society of Greater Denver.  The people who lead these trips are pretty much universally knowledgeable and ready and willing to share their knowledge and love of birds.

The one thing I haven't had is a local community of birding partners, people who share an interest in seeking out birds on a quiet weekday morning, or maybe figuring out the various trees and shrubs and wildflowers in our local parks.

I had hoped for that to happen in the nano-second after I got admitted to the AMB program.  And I was, predictably, bummed when it didn't happen just that way.

But, I was thrilled - beyond belief - when it started to happen just a month or so later;  and I continue to be thrilled and amazed every time I have the opportunity to join one of these smaller groups, especially now that Indian Summer has hit Colorado in a huge way. 

My first small group experience was a few weeks ago, just a few of us - one of the mentors and one of my fellow students - meeting at the South Platte River Park in south Denver.

 The three of us first watched as this still-in-eclipse-plumage male Mallard strutted his stuff in front of us.  The beauty of the small group was that Cynthia - the mentor - used the time to point out to both of us students how scruffy this guy looks.  "Eclipse" plumage is that time - in late summer or early fall - when the ducks are just transitioning from their summer, female-like plumage into their brilliant breeding plumage.  Here's Cynthia's view of this guy:  "Wow!  Look at him!  He's a mess!"  And she was absolutely right, and what a fantastic learning experience.  I don't think I'll ever forget this duck who was in the middle of his molt.

Cynthia's other lesson:  in order to tell the male and female Mallards apart, look at the bill compared to the feet.  Cynthia says:  "SHE knows how to match the two;  same color for the handbag and the shoes.  HE doesn't.  See?  He has a bright yellow bill and bright orange legs.  SHE, on the other hand, matches."

Friends, that is not a field mark you're likely to find in any field guide today.


We saw lots of fun birds on this mid-week walk.  Cynthia took a lot of time to work with me on how to recognize different finch calls and songs.  You'll have to trust me when I tell you that her treatment of a House Finch's long bubbling song left me laughing each time she brought it up, and it was a lesson I'll never forget.

Adult White-crowned Sparrow

We found a small flock of White-crowned Sparrows who were bathing in the river, just under the footbridge over the Platte.  We stopped to watch them, and laughed over and over as each cyclist or runner who crossed the bridge disturbed our view. 

Juvenile White-crowned Sparrow

 Now, it was fun to watch these birds in their morning bath, but the true thrill lay in the fact that this was a life bird for Martha, and watching her joy was far better than my own in seeing these birds.

And, of course, the turtle stands alone.  How can you not love this guy just basking in the sun?

A week later, and there are more of us gathered together on a Wednesday morning, this time at Chatfield SP.  Our resident botanical experts - Tina (my personal mentor) and Janet have assembled a small group of us at the nature center at Chatfield for some additional coaching - something I've been hoping for.  We spend most of our morning time looking for and finding and identifying plants, so I take very few bird photos.  But late in the morning, this gorgeous Osprey does an aerial dance for us.

A few weeks later, our little group is reassembled at Belmar Historic Park in Lakewood, this time expanded to include 6 or 7 of us.  We start out watching - and listening to - a few Townsend's Solitaires.  This is the bird I missed on our first field test (well, the *first* bird I missed on our first field test, and the one that I - as a result - remember the best).  Unfortunately, I still haven't gotten a decent photo, but the process of seeing it multiple times - as well as hearing it multiple times - leave an indelible mark in my brain.

What we do have that I capture on "film" today is our first Belted Kingfisher of the day.  It's out at a distance, but I feel privileged to have here in front of me.  These are skittish birds, so any photo you get of one is a bonus.

 Then I notice the male Mallards in the water near me.  I mean:  how could you not???  I understand that to many people, these are unremarkable, ordinary birds.  But every time I see a male Mallard in full breeding plumage - like these two guys - I marvel.  Such beauty!  Really, I don't get how this is *ever* ho hum.  Remember the guy from a few weeks ago that we dubbed "a mess"?  Not so at all today!

Then our Belted Kingfisher returns with a fish in her bill.  Wow!!!!!  I invoke my Anne Lamott prayer without a reminder;  it's that impressive.  Wow.  By the way, for folks wondering how I know this is a female Belted Kingfisher, it's all about the bling.  For most dichromatic birds (those would be the birds that show different plumages between males and females), the males are the more colorful.  This is believed to be an artifact of the need for females to be better camouflaged while nesting and breeding and fledging young'uns.  The Belted Kingfisher is one of the oddball species where the female is more colorful than the male.  Both males and females have "necklaces";  the remarkable thing is that the female has TWO necklaces, the second one being a beaufitul orange-y color.

The cool event of the morning with this group for the next several hours is that we'll continue to see and hear the kingfishers.  I'm never quite certain if we have a single pair (male/female) who chase each other around;  are there just two birds making all that racket, or are we looking at other pairs?

Then we watch the water and get all kinds of ducks out there.  We see bunches of birds I am content to watch through a scope, and never raise my camera.  There are fabulous black-and-white Buffleheads (well, at least the males are black-and-white), and the oh-wow-factor Hooded Mergansers, and the hiding-in-the-shadows-of-the-willow-tree unmistakable Green-winged Teals.  While I don't even try to photograph these birds, I am captivated by my first of season Lesser Scaups, so even though they're really too far out there, I snap away.

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The great synchronicity of this program is that - although sometimes it seems that I'm hopelessly behind in the reading and in the homework - sometimes (every great once-in-awhile) it seems that magically it seems to all come together.  Like the fact that last night, I read all of the articles and assignments on the differences between Greater and Lesser Scaups and Ring-necked Ducks, and here - right in front of me today - are ducks that make me exercise my newfound knowledge.  Here in the lake at Belmar, we have two male and one female Lesser Scaups, validated with this male lifts up and flaps his wings on the water.  See the topsides of his wings?  The innermost wings (the "Secondaries") are all white.  The outermost tops (the "Primaries") are gray.  These are not field marks I knew before I did the reading last night, and here the bird is obliging to demonstrate the point in the reading.

That's pretty darn cool.  Thank you.  And wow. 

We also have some more pretty cool ducks throughout the day, as well as some other land birds.  My photos are kind of random, and oddly selective, mostly concentrated on the birds that pose for me, like this still-in-eclipse-plumage (pop quiz!  do you remember what "eclipse" means?!) Northern Shoveler.

And this series of beautiful Gadwalls, both males and females.

Yep, sometimes, it's not about the classroom, or the big field trips, or any of the truly organized stuff.  Sometimes it's just about the birds, and sitting back and watching them in their quiet beauty.

AMB Class #7 and Solo Birding: The Jaeger Master Show

It's October 7, and we gather for class at a new location, the Audubon offices at Chatfield.  This is in deference to the undeniable change of seasons, and the fact that the Nature Center - a delight, with the garage-style doors that leave the room open to nature and birdsong to underscore our lessons - is unheated, and the water is already turned off.  We've lost something in ambiance while gaining a bit in heat and light; the space is more cozy (that's politically-correct speak for "a bit crowded") than our old digs, and I already find myself looking forward to spring when we'll move back to the Nature Center.  But mostly, it feels like a rite of passage:  we've survived the first part of our AMB journey, and we're moving into a new stage.

Consistent with the new stage is a new speaker tonight:  Doug Kibbe.  I've been on several field trips that Doug has led, so although the surroundings are new, this feels a little like old home week.

That's the good news.  The bad news is that, although I like Doug and he's shown me a bunch of cool birds in the last year, I'm not all that excited about tonight's subject:  Grebes, Loons, and Cormorants.  I can't tell you why.  Maybe I'm a little burnt out.  The homework, reading, record-keeping, along with the field trips and other requirements of this program:  exhausting.  Despite my best efforts, I feel like I'm slowly and surely slipping backwards.

Back to good news:  Doug does not disappoint with his presentation.  Why was I not jazzed coming into the lecture?  Silly me.  Where our last guest lecturer was full of energy and enthusiasm, Doug is full of knowledge and a sly, subtle, smart-assed humor.

We get great stuff on loons (birds I have little experience with), and grebes (more experience, but as always, I learn new stuff in the hands of an expert), cormorants (really, only one species in Colorado), pelicans (American White are common in Colorado;  I've seen Brown outside Colorado, but tonight I learn that they differ from the white birds in that they are plunge divers), terns (lots of species, but I can't help thinking that my Florida friend Melissa knows so much more about terns than I do that I'll never catch up), and jaegers.

Jaegers?  What the heck?  By the time we get to jaegers, I'm done for the day.  My brain is full.  Jaegers are not birds that are common in Colorado.  I figure if I tune out a little bit now, it won't really matter.  I mean, really:  when will I get a chance to see a jaeger? 

Fast forward about a week.  Unlikely as it seems, people are reporting a Pomarine Jaeger at Chatfield State Park.  I am still not a convert:  I figure that it's only the experts who are reporting the jaeger.  I have an incredibly busy week.  I don't think that I'd have a snowball's chance of seeing the bird, so I kind of ignore all those cobird messages, and I read through the ebird postings with a kind of jaundiced eye.  Really, what's the point.

But on Friday morning, after the bird - the jaeger - has been reported at Chatfield for close to a week, Doug Kibbe sends me a message.  "You haven't seen the jaeger yet, have you?  You should get down there."  And he proceeds to give me advice on where to see it.  He assures me that there will be lots of other birders down there to guide me should I need help in finding it.

So I blow off an afternoon training thingy at work Friday afternoon in favor of a long lunch hour that I'll spend driving to and from Chatfield.  I have no delusions that I'll see the bird, but I feel an obligation to make an effort.  

As soon as I drive into the park, I start to see birds.  Nothing rare or unusual, but birds in larger quantities than I've seen for a while.  It snowed overnight, and the sun has been busy this morning melting the white stuff.  I get out of my car at the fisherman's jetty - the place Doug directed me to visit - and there are birds all around.  Canada Geese, Black-billed Magpies, Northern Flickers.  There are lots of birds.

But there isn't a single, solitary person here.  I'm here to see a rare bird.  And I'm completely on my own.  My chances of seeing this bird just went from slim to, well, less than slim.  Oh boy.

But as I walk out onto the jetty, I hear birds and see movement.  There's an entire flock of LBJs.  I stop to take a few photos, and I really don't know what they are.  I figure that I'll puzzle this out later.

But I remember my mission, and I continue out to the end of the jetty.  I have my still-very-new-to-me-scope, and my camera, and my binocs.  It seems a little silly to have all this stuff, but you never know.

I look out over the marina, and see scads of gulls and cormorants.  I raise my binoculars to check for the jaeger;  no expectations.  I scan the field, and there in the midst of all these white gulls is a very brown gull-like bird, slightly larger.

Oh.  Heavens.  That can't be the Pomarine Jaeger, can it?  That would be WAY too easy.

So I set up my scope, and get a better look.  Whoa.  Now I desperately wish I had paid closer attention in class.  What are the field marks for the jaeger?  How can I know for sure what I'm looking at?  Damn.  That class was not even two weeks ago, and now I wish I could do some time travel.  I don't have any notes with me, and I really don't want to take my eyes off this bird.  Is it?  Really?

I take a few photos, but it's a lousy angle, and quite far away. I've just bought the digiscope adapter for my camera and scope, and have it along.  I fumble putting the thing together, and when I get it set up, I take the world's worst photos with it.  I'm cold - it's only 47 degrees out here, and I left my gloves in the car, not expecting to stay long.  I finally give up on the digiscoping, and disassemble the entire mess, and put my camera back together.  I go back to watching the brown bird - the presumed but unproven jaeger - through my binocs.  It was preening when I first saw it, and since then, it's had its head down, sleeping.

But now it raises up and stretches its wings.  LARGE wings.  Oh my.  This might make a decent photo.

So I raise my camera, and the bird stretches its wings again, and I miss the photo op, but then the bird is airborne.

Oh my.

This is the Pomarine Jaeger - I don't know how I'm so sure, but still I'm sure - and it's flying directly in front of me.

Oh my.  Oh my.  Oh my.

I'm shaking from cold and excitement and nervousness;  somehow I know this is my one shot at this bird.  I snap off photo after photo, knowing that most will be out of focus, throwaways.  But still, I get some fabulous views of this graceful creature.  It flies like a raptor, nice slow wingbeats, and seems very focused on heading across the reservoir.

Oh my.

This creature disappears out of my view.  I stand there a few minutes longer, hoping that it will come back, but I know it's gone.  I think of Anne Lamott's prayers, and I whisper thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou, over and over again, and then I remember the other prayer:  Wow.  And again and again.  Wow.

I grab my scope and start the walk back to my car.  I feel starstruck.  So it's a bit amazing that I even hear the chips, or see the motion, but there's that small flock of sparrow-ish birds again.  So I stop and take a few more photos, first deciding that they're Chipping Sparrows in non-breeding plumage, then thinking that they are American Tree Sparrows, then giving up and thinking I'll just have to figure it out later.

And I also think I'm going to have to pay a lot closer attention in class next time.  You just never know what rare bird might show up here, and I'd sure hate to miss the next one.

AMB Classes #5 and 6: Holy Schmokers! Migrants! And Bird Parts!

Contrary to popular rumours floating about, there is more to the AMB program than identifying Vireos.  At least that's what Bill Schmoker tries to convince us of when he is the guest lecturer for two of our consecutive classroom sessions.

The good news:  this guy is incredible.  He's fun, animated, full of energy;  he has great presentations that include his own fabulous photographs.  I'm told that he teaches middle school as his day job, so obviously keeping a small roomful of adults - who actually want to be there learning - interested and engaged is a snap for him.  No problem

The bad news:  there is so much to learn that there is simply not enough time - even in two classroom sessions - nor enough brain cells resident in my body - to capture and retain more than just a small amount of the lectures.

The first session, on September 9, is on migration.  Oh my.  A huge topic.  When I look through my notes a good month later, it's hard to recall how all this information was dispersed in a 2-hour session.

The session is timely, since we're in the middle of fall migration even now - or at least that's the idea.  I'm still working on getting a grip on what that all means.  It turns out that fall migration is much more protracted than spring migration;  some birds start heading south again as early as July, and it continues as late as into December.  Spring migration is more condensed, largely because the male birds are racing toward their breeding grounds, hoping to get there early to claim their territory and begin attracting the females.

I love this image, of male birds racing like crazy to claim territory and to start setting up households, kind of like Almanzo Wilder building a frame house on his homestead, hoping that Laura Ingalls would consent to nest there with him.

But wait!  We're talking about fall migration, so not only is the nesting done, but the kids are fledged and going-going-gone for the most part.  They (mom, dad, kid birds) head south to follow the food - especially in the case of insectivores.  Everyone goes in search of more/better food supplies, and often, in search of open water.  The good news is that since we're in the middle of the continent, although we lose lots of our smaller species in the winter (all the passerines - the perching birds, many of which are the "songbirds" we love to hear;  passerines make up roughly 60 percent of the bird population, so there are tons of birds who move out), we also get an influx of other birds - lots of ducks and geese - who come to spend the winter in Colorado.  These are birds who find our winter weather quite fine, thank you very much.  (Shhhhhhh, don't tell the rest of the world, but our winter weather *is* quite fine most of the time;  we wouldn't want it to get out that we have so much sunshine and lovely weather in the winter that more critters of the human species joined the great migration into this colorful state.)

Snow Goose
Denver City Park
1/15/12

Some birds just pass on through, on that original freeway known as the Central Flyway - a mostly north-south route that passes through this part of the country.  Among those who don't stop to stay are huge flocks of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes.  Shorebirds stop along the way and refuel on the mudflats of reservoirs that have low water levels at the end of the summer.  Somehow, I'm still adjusting to the thought of "shorebirds" being resident in the middle of the continent:  it seems they should be on the coastal shores.  And yet, even in just my second full year of birding, I'm coming to expect them on our local very-much-inland shores.  We'll have a field trip in a few days, going out to Jackson Reservoir to get a glimpse of these birds.  I'm happy to get to see them here, but still, if it's all the same to you, I've emailed my friend Melissa - who lives in Florida - about my upcoming Christmas trip to see her.  Can we see some shorebirds on the actual seashore, please?  It will, one hopes, make for better photo ops with the white sand beaches in the background.

But I digress.

We actually get tons more stuff on migration, way too much to transcribe here, but some impressive stuff.  And, we're told, there will be more in the spring.  And that's good, because I need to move this thing along, since our next classroom session with Bill Schmoker comes a few weeks later on September 30.  Bill is back to teach us Bird Topography.

For non-bird-speakers, that's shorthand for "bird parts".  And this, my word-loving friends, is where the fun starts.

There's this alternate language to describe bird parts.  Sure you know the common terms like wings and tails and such.  But do you know this fun stuff?

• About bird bills:  a "recurved" bill is one that curves up?  Like with an American Avocet?

  

  American Avocet
  Cherry Creek State Park
  5/7/13

   Or "decurved" - one that curves down, like an ibis?

  

  White Ibis
  Lafreniere Park, LA
  10/9/12

• How about "Gibbous" to describe the bulging hump on the bill of a Surf Scoter?

  

  Surf Scoter
  Point Reyes National Seashore, CA
  3/27/13

• Or "spatulate":  the term to describe the bills of Northern Shovelers?  And another fun fact:  hunters sometimes call Northern Shovelers "spoonbills"....and to birders, spoonbills are an entirely different type of bird.

  

  Northern Shoveler
  Wheatridge Greenbelt, CO
  1/5/13

• My final fun fact for bills is the name for that pouch you see on American White Pelicans:  the Gular Sac.  Pronounced Goo-lahr

  

  American White Pelicans
  Walden Ponds, CO
  4/13/13

• Coverts - the various rafts of feathers that cover the bases of other, larger rafts of feathers.  For novices, it's a maze of coverts:  Undertail coverts, uppertail coverts;  there are wing coverts that overlie the primaries and secondaries (those would be the big wing parts):  Greater Coverts, Median Coverts, and lesser Coverts;  heaven knows what coverts I'm forgetting
• My favorite bird part, but one I'm in need of help to identify:  Alula.  No, not hula, but Alula.  It's the feathers right at the wrist (that would be on the wing, in case you - like me - weren't really sure where a bird's wrist was, exactly).  Bill shows us great photos of alulas, but I'm doubtful that this is a bird part I'll easily notice in the field.
• My favorite bird anatomy factoid:  those "knees" that look like they operate backwards?  You see them clearly on larger wading birds, and they just look funny.  Well, that's because they're not knees;  they are actually ankles!  The real knees are hidden up further in the body or are otherwise covered with feathers.
• And then there are tons of head parts.......



Spotted Sandpiper with distinct eyestripe
Belmar Historic Park, CO
5/12/13







Cassin's Finch with distinctive ear coverts (aka "auriculars")
Steamboat Lake SP
6/1/13

Great Kiskadee with distinctive eye mask
Hazel Bazemore Park, TX
4/8/13

These lectures leaved me jazzed, and we finish the Bird Parts lesson with a review, where Bill leads us through a number of bird photos, asking the class to identify the bird parts.  We call out the names as the red dot of the laser pointer rests on each feature.  Primaries!  Cap!  Greater coverts!  (Okay, on that one, I mostly listen and take my cues from my classmates, as all of the coverts have me a bit flumoxed.)  Malar Stripe!  Eyestripe!

And I realize that this lesson is maybe not so much unlike a middle school class - and wonder why I never found my classes back at that age nearly as much fun.

Errata Volume 1, continued: A little bird with an identity crisis

When last we left our little hero, it had morphed from a Warbling Vireo:

to a Red-eyed Vireo:

to a Philadelphia Vireo:

And I could buy this ID, since the field marks made sense to me:  

No wing bars.  Has eye stripe & eyebrow line, both fairly distinct & dark lores. Inconsistent with Warbling Vireo. Crown - lacks a distinct line between eye brow & crown, and lacks contrast with back. Brownish rather than gray. Inconsistent with both Red-eyed and Warbling.  Breast - appears uniformly yellowish - inconsistent with both Red-eyed & Warbling.

So, I'm pretty excited to enter this bird into ebird.  (Shhhhh, don't tell anyone, but I really liked this turn of events, since a Philadelphia Vireo gives me a life bird.  Very cool!)  When this comes up as a "rare bird" in ebird, I pause for only a moment.  ebird contains quite a bit of intelligence, and when you enter data, it only presents you with birds that would be expected to be seen in that location and time of year.  You can add other birds, but they get flagged, and you're required to provide an explanation as to why and how you've IDed the bird.

I run this ID - and the "rare bird" thing in ebird - past a good friend and birding mentor who works at banding stations, my biggest concern being that Colorado is far out of the normal range for a Philadelphia Warbler.  He tells me that it's not at all unusual to see Philadelphia Vireos migrating through in the fall.  They see them each year at the banding stations during migration.  So I feel confident as I enter this bird into ebird, along with my explanation and description of the process I went through to identify this bird.

When I hit "enter" on the list, I know that it will generate an ebird moderator challenge, and I'm ready for it.  I kind of think, "Bring it!"  When I was a fledgling birder (maybe I should say "very fledgling birder"), I entered rare birds pretty much willy-nilly into ebird.  Then I'd get the follow-up emails from ebird moderators - folks who are acknowledged experts in the field - asking for verification.  These folks help keep the ebird database clean, which advances the scientific value of entering our sightings into the website.  In those very early days, I would dutifully send off my photos, saying, "here's my defense!", and I'd ultimately get a message back from some kind and patient person saying "that's not a SuperDuper Hawk, it's a juvenile PlainJane Hawk", or "that's not an Intergalactic Gull, it's a young Earthling Gull", or somesuch, and each email would provide a description of details I had missed.  It has been a grand and educational experience, and one of the things it has taught me is to pay attention to details that aren't all about field marks, but rather, about time of year and migration patterns and regionality and oh so many other things.  It has made me pause before submitting a "rare bird", and to re-examine my photos, and to send them off to people who know far more about birds than I do, and to essentially question everything.  It has taught me to be careful about the data I enter into ebird.  In the not-quite-two-years since I started down this birding odyssey, I've gone from dreading the challenge to embracing it:  forewarned, I'm forearmed!

So when I enter my Philadelpia Vireo into ebird, I think, Yeah!!  Here's my Philadelphia Vireo! And my super explanation!  Challenge that!

And of course, ebird challenges that.  The challenge comes within a day or so of submitting the list.  This time it's from an ebird reviewer I haven't had a challenge from yet, but whose name is very familiar.  The guy is one of the state's top birders, and I've been hoping to meet him, so this seems like a great time to impress him.

Dutifully, I enumerate the field marks, and the reasons why I (ahem, "we" since this has been a group effort) have ruled out the ousted candidates, and how we arrived at this identification.  And of course, I attach a bunch of photos, just to make my case.

The next morning, I'm heading out to (guess what!) go birding with an AMB classmate and mentor, and I'm waiting for my Grande Latte at the Starbucks drive-thru window.  While I'm waiting, I decide to see if I've gotten any late-night or early morning emails worth reading.  And there it is, a response already at 7 a.m. from the ebird reviewer.  

Cool!  Can't wait to read it!  I look up;  no coffee for me yet, so I open the email.

It begins,  "Hello Judith.  Alas, this appears to be a Warbling Vireo."

I can't read any further, because I'm laughing.  I laugh, and I laugh and I laugh some more.  In fact, I laugh until I have tears streaming down my face.  My rib (the one I broke a week ago or so;  did I mention that?) hurts because I'm laughing so hard.  I move forward in the Starbucks drive-thru line, and I know the guy who gives me my latte thinks I'm nuts because I'm still laughing.

But that's okay.  It turns out that even with several of the best birding brains in the state, nobody really agrees on an identity for this bird.   In the end, my little bird has apparently decided against being labeled.  And bully for him. He's gorgeous and he was curious and he posed for photos.  Who needs a name when you have all that?

Vireo sp.
Crow Valley Campground, CO
9/7/13

  

Nervous Breakdown #1; er, make that Field Test #1

My nerves start jangling every time I look at our class schedule and the fifth item in the "Field Trip Schedule & Test Trips" column:  Test Trip #1:  Bear Creek and Red Rocks.  This comes just eight weeks into the program, after just five classroom sessions.

How they heck can they test us already?  I feel like I don't know anything yet!

From Day One, mentors explain over and over that the test results don't really matter;  this is a test to get our feet wet and to let the mentors know where we stand;  we have plenty more tests (six tests in total), so if we don't do well on this one, it's not a disaster.

What I hear:  blah blah blah blah blah.  It's a freaking test, okay?

And here's the thing to make the Field Tests completely scary beyond all get-out:  they are so very random.  By random, I mean, you can't control what birds show up.  The tests are live, in-the-field "what's that bird?", either the one who just called, or the one who just flew overhead, or the one sitting in that tree over there.  You can't practice your essay answer on this one;  you have to be able to make the call in the field.

In brief, it's an approach that totally nails your skill and knowledge level.  You can't fake this stuff.

That's the scary stuff.  The non-scary stuff is that it's maybe not completely random, after all.  The Field Tests are held in typical birding locations, and we have every expectation that on test days we'll see the same birds we usually see in those places.  It narrows the field some.  And.......for those things that we're tested on that are not birds or bird calls, the plants and habitats, we should be able to scout these things out and learn them well enough to identify them on test day.

That's the theory, anyway.

And that's part of why I'm so nervous a couple of weeks before test day.  I've been trying like the dickens to learn these blasted plants, and I just feel completely unprepared.  I ask one mentor for help, and he tells me to study the plant guides that we've been directed to acquire and read.  Friends, have you ever tried to use a plant identification guide that employs the dichotomous key (a kind of fancy way of saying a kind of decision tree)?  Maybe one day it will make sense to me, but the profusion of scientific/botanical terms makes following the key nearly impossible to a neophyte like me.  Here's a choice:  Opposite Simple Whorled Leaves vs. Opposite Compound Leaves?  Huh?  There's a lot to know before you can figure out the stuff you already know you don't know.

I give that the good old college try, then I go running to my mentor Tina for help.  Luckily for me, she is a plant guru and says, of course I'll help you.  It turns out the only day that our schedules mesh is the Sunday before the Saturday Field Test.  It turns out that that Sunday is part of our rainy, monsoon weather.  But it also turns out that I don't have a choice - they're not going to postpone the test because I'm insecure and unprepared - and lucky for me (again), Tina is a great sport, and so we do plant ID lessons in the field, in the rain.  We pull leaves off trees, and look at the catkins and trunks, and I label things and try to take copious notes.  Tina points out stuff to me that I would never pick up using the books alone.  Relief in sight.  I may not get all the plants right, but I won't miss them all, either, and for now, that's my very low bar.

It's probably a good thing that I have to be in New Jersey for work in the days immediately preceding the test;  it makes it harder to obsess over it, and it makes it impossible to go camp out at the test site for the entire week.  The test site - Bear Creek Lake Park, per the schedule - is not a place I've really birded, so I'm nervous about that;  if I were home, I'd most likely be going out there every day just to get a sense of the place.  I take a suitcase full of reference books that I stay up late in my hotel, reading, again and yet again.  I take my binoculars, and go out birding along the Raritan River, and feel good - confident, actually - at my ability to spot and hear the Gray Catbird, and the Song Sparrow, and the Tufted Titmouse, even if that last bird is not a Colorado bird at all.

When I get home from New Jersey, there's an email from Michael, the tester:  the test location has moved.  Bear Creek has been flooding, so we'll start at the Wheatridge Greenbelt instead.

It feels like a gift.  It feels like the tester knows me, and my nervousness, and knows that I feel completely at home at this location.  It feels like a test designed to calm my nerves;  this is the place I've birded more than any other location in Colorado.  I know what birds are normally here, and where, and in what season.  It feels like a Godsend.

So, oddly enough, as I approach the test site on Saturday morning, I'm amazingly calm.  I've reviewed the bird lists for the location.  I feel - if I may be so bold - actually a little bit confident.

Until I'm standing in the parking lot, and realize that people are looking through binoculars at birds flying high overhead, or birds perched off in the distance in trees against a white early-morning sky, and I have no freaking idea what they are.  Oh dear.  I forgot that anything is fair game for the test, and that includes things I just don't really have much of a handle on yet:  birds in flight, birds from a long distance.

Yikes.

So my nerves are back to jangling as we get started.  Michael says, essentially, "game on", and that means we're in test mode.  Test mode means that the tester calls out things (one of the four categories:  bird seen, bird heard, plant, or habitat), and we write our best guess on the 3 1/2 by 5 inch index cards we've been provided for our answers.  To keep track of the difference between the various categories, we have codes for everything except "bird seen"; "h" precedes the name of the bird we just heard;  "pl" precedes the name of the plant;  and "ha" precedes the habitat name.  This is a silent test:  no talking.  Well, no sharing of answers.  It turns out that we talk a lot, sharing information about exactly what bird we're looking at or listening to, and how to see it.

Because, folks, that's half the battle:  seeing the bird in question and/or hearing it.  It soon becomes clear that I'm going to miss a lot of answers just because the bird was gone before I even knew it was on the test.

Our first question should be a "gimme":  what habitat are we in?  We're standing in an asphalt parking lot, looking out over an RV sales lot, with street lights, fences, and a freeway in the background.  I'm actually shaking as I timidly write down "Urban", but I think that's right.  This will turn out to be the right answer, but I won't know that until we stop for a review after we've had more than 30 test questions.

Next up:  a "heard" and it's an easy one.  Northern Flicker.  But I often get Northern Flickers and Blue Jays - a bird I know to be common here - mixed up, so I'm nervous about this answer, too.  The next question is a seen bird - the first of the test - and I miss it.  I just plain do not see the bird in question.

Crap.  Is this how it's all going to be?  Because if it is, it's going to be a really, really long day.

And so we get into a rhythm.  It's clear that even the most skilled among us have the same challenges that I do, trying to hear and see everything.  We all pitch in and try to help each other see and hear what we're being tested on.  From time to time, people get frustrated ("I can't see it!), and I'm right there, but my nerves are calming.  I know I'm getting some birds right;  I also know I'm missing some.  It's the ones I can't see or hear clearly - sometimes after working on it - that make me crazy.

We hear Black-capped Chickadees (easy!) and Canada Geese flying over head (a cinch!).  We see Yellow-rumped Warblers (no doubt, with that butter butt), and more Yellow-rumped Warblers.  We get easy, low-hanging fruit like Mourning Doves and European Starlings and a Eurasian Collared Dove;  Killdeer call, and Blue Jays start up their cacophony.  A Belted Kingfisher is an easy ID, both by sight and sound.  We get an easy plant (there's Rabbitbrush all around us).  I finally get my "seen" Northern Flicker.

Now, here's the nice thing about the test:  as long as the thing - whether it's a bird calling or singing, or flying or sitting there, or a plant, or a habitat - presents itself multiple times along the way, we get multiple tries at it.  So that first Northern Flicker (seen) that I miss because I just plain don't see it?  Not a problem, since Michael calls out another one, and another one, mixing things up nicely, but giving everyone a fair chance to get the bird.

And here's the other really nice thing about the test:  our score is cumulative throughout the year, and we know from the get-go what we need to "pass" this course:  100 birds by sight, 40 birds by sound, 24 plants, and 16 habitats.  Once you've seen a bird and have credit for it (say, that Northern Flicker), you don't have to get it right again, and even if you miss it later in the day, or on a later test, you still have credit for it.  You never get dinged for a wrong answer.

After 34 questions, we stop and review the stuff we've seen and heard.  Chuck is assisting Michael as the "recorder", so he runs through the things we've seen, and we get to self-correct our score sheets.  It's an honor system thing;  really, what would be the point of cheating?  I come up with my own way of marking my score card:  a big "+" in front of a thing I've gotten right, and an equally big "-" in front of one I've missed.  

The thing is, I pretty much already know which ones I've missed.  I'm mostly interested in a) confirming the things I got right, and b) getting the right answer for anything I've missed, so that I know for the next time.

We cover 98 test questions at this location.  I'm feeling pretty good about it, overall, but really have no idea how I'm doing in terms of overall correct answers.  That, after all, is the goal.  But our pace is too fast, and the listening and watching far far far too intense to allow anytime to go back and try to tally up the numbers.  There will be time for that later.

We leave Wheatridge, and head up to Red Rocks, a place that's chosen, I'm sure, because it's an ecotone:  a place where several habitats converge.  I'm pleased with how I've been doing with my plants, but at Wheatridge, I did criss-cross River Birch and Alder.  It annoys me since I really worked hard to distinguish them in my mind;  apparently, I didn't really get them straight.  At the entrance to Red Rocks I do the same thing with Wild Plum and Hawthorn.  Damn!  This makes me a little crazy, but, in honesty, I knew I might mix up these two, so it's no real surprise.  We spend only a little time at Red Rocks, getting just 15 new test questions (including a "seen" Peregrine Falcon, four new habitats, and seven more plants), then head up to Genesee Mountain Park.

It's exhausting.  It's intense, and it requires complete concentration, both in watching and listening.  To be the tester has to be incredibly tough:  imagine not just hearing or seeing the bird and calling it out as a question, but also needing to KNOW THEM ALL!  Yikes.  Yes, there are three Master Birders here for the test - Michael, Chuck, and Dave, who is helping by carrying a scope and helping us all to see/hear the "right thing" and helping Michael and Chuck with IDs in the few instances they need to consult another person - but it's got to be equally - if not more - intense for them.  We students just hope to get this stuff.  The testers are expected to already have it down.

At Genesee, another place I've spent a fair amount of time birding, we get the birds I'd expect.  Mountain Chickadees, Western Bluebirds, Pygmy Nuthatches, Steller's Jay, a Clark's Nutcracker, and - a treat - a Brown Creeper.  We get some more trees and plants that I can ID:  Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir;  Wax Currant and Mountain Mahogany; and the ubiquitous Mullein.  As the day wears on, I'm able to still identify stuff by sight, but my hearing is just gone.  When I can hear the "right" bird, I mostly just can't place it.  It's an ear-brain connection that is just plain worn out.

At the end of the day (roughly 4 p.m., after a 7 a.m. start, going pretty much nonstop), we take one last run-through of all the test questions;  then we're sent packing.  Everyone is responsible for transcribing their correct answers to an answer sheet that we then email to Michael, who keeps the master record of our past tests.

Even though I'm exhausted, I'm eager to get home to tally up my results.  I'm feeling pretty good, overall, about the day, but I'm not sure how that translates into numbers.  Coming in to the test, I've thought about this, and figured that if I perhaps check off 20 birds today "seen" and maybe between 5 and 10 "heard", I'll be doing good.  Given how I feel at the end of the day, I wonder if maybe I can be so bold as to hope to have gotten 25 or (gasp!) even 30 "seen" birds.

So I'm ecstatic when I come up with my final tally.  37 birds seen;  15 birds heard;  14 plants, and 10 habitats.  I've just checked off a fairly substantial portion of my total program requirements, and we have 5 more tests to go.  I have no idea how anyone else has done, and it doesn't matter at all.  I have every confidence that everyone in the class will, in the end, "pass" and get the certificate.  We may just all do it at different rates.  (I think I really don't want to know who did far better than I did, or if anyone was more challenged.  What does it matter?)

I spend the following days poring over the results, concentrating on the items I missed.  A few of the mentors will tell me to stop beating up on myself, but that's not at all what I'm doing:  I just want to learn from my mistakes so I can get these things the next time around.  I don't mind so much the birds I've missed because I don't know them (that early morning Townsend's Solitaire, out of its normal habitat and a bird I've only seen a time or two in my life?  I'll take that as a great learning moment) or didn't see them well (a Mallard flew overhead!  I missed a Mallard!  But I didn't flipping see the thing, so I can let that go).  I've learned to really look at a bird (head down, ashamed:  I missed the Rock Pigeon.  For reals.  Unbelievable.  I heard an American Crow, then Michael called out a "seen" bird, and I barely looked, just expecting it to be the crow.  Boy, was I wrong.  Won't do that again.)

But it leaves some low-hanging fruit for next time, and that kind of feels good.  Oh yeah, that next time:  next Field Test is on December 7, and the target is Ducks.  Ducks!  I know Ducks better than these freaking land birds, or at least I think I do.

I can hardly wait for that test.  If nothing else, I'm pretty sure I can get that Mallard.