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.