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.