Ipswich Sparrows at Sachuest Point NWR

The day before the Superbowl of Birding, I traveled up to Massachusetts together with Corey, Andrew, and Jacob, the latter a member of a young birders team who needed a ride from New York. We decided to take a detour through Rhode Island to look for a Green-tailed Towhee that had been reported regularly at Sachuest Point NWR. Birders were leaving seed on the ground to keep a mixed flock of sparrows, including the towhee, returning to the same field. The towhee would have been a life bird for both Corey and Andrew; as it turned out, neither of them got it. You can read more about that misadventure in Corey's post.

The trip was not a total loss since a lot of birds were active in the field where the towhee should have been. We enjoyed good looks at a Northern Harrier and a couple Red-tailed Hawks. A Northern Cardinal stood in the snow, and a Carolina Wren flitted around the nearby trees. There were also lots of sparrows, though none of them was the expected towhee.

There were several species present: White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, and American Tree Sparrow made up the majority. There were even a couple Fox Sparrows in the mix. The stars of the sparrow show were "Ipswich" Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis princeps).

"Ipswich" Savannah Sparrow is one of the many subspecies of Savannah Sparrow. They are larger than typical Savannah Sparrows, but very pale, with fine streaking on their undersides. Their pale plumage often appears almost gray, so that they blend in with the coastal sand dunes where they spend the winter months. This feeding station was the furthest inland I have seen an Ipswich Sparrow, as far as I can remember. In the photo above, two Ipswich Sparrows share space with a normal Savannah Sparrow, while a White-throated Sparrow jumps in the background.

While they get their name from the Massachusetts town where the type specimen was collected, Ipswich Sparrows breed further north. Their breeding range is restricted to Sable Island in Nova Scotia, which they build nests in marram grass and beach peas. Ipswich Sparrows rarely breed on the nearby mainland, and regular Savannah Sparrows rarely breed on Sable Island. They winter along the coast from southeastern Canada, through New England, and into the Mid-Atlantic states. I occasionally see them in New Jersey in winter, at sites such as Barnegat Light and the dune line in Cape May Point.

Beyond being relatively uncommon, Ipswich Sparrows are delightful birds to watch and study. Their presence at Sachuest Point helped relieve the pain of missing the vagrant we hoped to find there.

Gulls, Ducks, and More in Gloucester Harbor

Aside from magnificent looks at Common Eiders and a White-winged Scoter, Jodrey's State Fish Pier offered views of some other waterbirds at close range. Some sleeping Red-breasted Mergansers are shown above. Other ducks in the harbor included Greater Scaup, Common Goldeneye, American Black Duck, and Bufflehead.

Gulls were plentiful as well, largely due to the fishing industry, which has fishing boats and processing plants lining the piers. The most interesting gull continues to generate discussion at 10,000 Birds. Opinions on its identity range from Slaty-backed Gull to Lesser Black-backed Gull to Great Black-backed Gull. I am undecided and still waiting to see if a consensus develops among more knowledgeable birders than me.

A lot of gulls were clearly Great Black-backed Gulls. Some of them were fighting a continuous battle over this fish carcass. One would win and get a few mouthfuls, and then another would come along, drive it off the rock, and claim the carcass for itself. You can see a few of the gulls fighting in the video I posted of a swimming Common Eider.

Besides the common trio of gulls (Great Black-backed Gull, Ring-billed Gull, and Herring Gull), the pier is a great place to find white-winged gulls. On the day of the Superbowl of Birding, we spotted a Glaucous Gull from the pier, as well as three Iceland Gulls. On Sunday morning I was able to photograph one of the Iceland Gulls, this one an adult. Unfortunately the photo does not quite render how pale the wingtips are or how beautiful these gulls look in person.

As I mentioned in my post on the Superbowl, we spotted three species of alcids from the fish pier during the competition: Thick-billed Murre, Black Guillemot, and my life Dovekie. The Thick-billed Murre and the Black Guillemot were in the harbor again on Sunday. This time the murre was ridiculously close to the pier. It is hard to get much better looks at an alcid than this, especially from land!

Finally, Common Loons were also coming fairly close. In almost any other place, good looks at a loon would have been a highlight, but at the fishing pier it lags behind the other great birds in the harbor. They are still fine looking birds, though.

A Super Bird: White-winged Scoter at Gloucester Harbor

Three species of scoters frequent the coast of eastern North America: Surf, Black, and White-winged Scoter. Of these three, the first two are very easy to spot in the mid-Atlantic states while the third is relatively uncommon. Because of that, I was pleased to see several White-winged Scoters during my trip to Massachusetts. We found the species for our Superbowl of Birding checklist and saw them at multiple stops. Best of all, one passed very close to Jodrey State Fish Pier while we were standing and watching birds on Sunday morning. It was close enough to get a good look at the white wing patch that inspires its name and the hints of a white marking around the eye.

White-winged Scoters breed in freshwater wetlands in northwestern North America, but spend their winters in coastal waters along both eastern and western North America. Like other bay and sea ducks, White-winged Scoters feed primarily by diving and capturing prey underwater. They dive to the bottom, grab something, and then consume it on the way up. Their food consists of mollusks, crustaceans, and insects. On their winter territories, they mainly eat mollusks, especially rock clams and blue mussels. (Here are a White-winged Scoter eating a clump of mussels and a Surf Scoter eating some kind of mollusk.)

Aside from being a species I do not normally see, this bird was just fun to watch. Here is a video of the White-winged Scoter swimming and diving.

Common Eiders in Gloucester Harbor

As I mentioned in my last post on the Superbowl of Birding, Jodrey State Fish Pier in Gloucester Harbor is an excellent birding location. I highly recommend a stop there if you happen to be in the Cape Ann area during the winter months. The fishing industry based in the harbor attracts numerous sea birds. Some fight for scraps left by the fishing boats and processing plants; others dive for fish and crustaceans in the waters of the harbor. Many of these birds swim very close to the pier, allowing for close study and photography. They come so close, in fact, that their presence was a distraction for me during the Superbowl of Birding.

One bird that I found especially distracting was the Common Eider. This species is not at all uncommon along the Atlantic coast in the winter. One can usually see hundreds of them at Barnegat Light, and there are other places to see them along the mid-Atlantic coast. However, it is uncommon to have such close views of their regal plumage.

The were a lot of eiders in the harbor, but they swam around in small groups of half a dozen or so.

Watching them at close range made it easy to watch them as they preened.

It also gave me the opportunity to see details like the white stripe down the middle of an adult male's crown, something I have not noticed previously.

I will leave you with a video that shows an adult male eider swimming through the harbor. Along the way it passes several other birds, including Great Black-backed Gulls fighting over a fish carcass and an adult Iceland Gull doing its long call. If the embedded video does not work for you, try watching it on Flickr or on YouTube.

Shovelered, or a Return to the Superbowl of Birding

We rose early on Saturday morning in order to be at our starting point for the Superbowl of Birding. We had two goals for the pre-dawn hours: find sleeping water birds and listen for owls. Our first stop, at Flax Pond in Lynn, produced a few hard-to-find waterbirds like American Coot and Ruddy Duck. Unfortunately it did not produce our main target, a Northern Shoveler, even though another team reported the bird on the same pond at the same time, but in a different patch of open water. Our owling was more productive, as three quick stops produced the expected three species of owls – Eastern Screech Owl, Barred Owl, and Great Horned Owl.

After a quick stop at a Dunkin Donuts (our only coffee break of the day), we visited several yards with feeders in quick succession. They produced a variety of landbirds, such as Dark-eyed Junco, American Tree Sparrow, Hairy Woodpecker, and Red-bellied Woodpecker. Unfortunately we missed some birds we hoped to find around the feeders, such as Red-breasted Nuthatch, Pileated Woodpecker, and Red-shouldered Hawk. We also blew a chance to redeem our shoveler miss when a Northern Shoveler flew overhead and only three of the six team members saw and identified it in time.

Our focus then shifted to waterbirds. We made several stops along coastal beaches and coves and found all three species of scoters, Long-tailed Ducks, Common Goldeneye, Bufflehead, Horned and Red-necked Grebes, and Common and Red-throated Loons. We made our way through Gloucester to Jodrey's Fishing Pier, and spotted the Peregrine Falcons on the clock tower along the way. The fishing pier is an excellent birding location because it attracts multiple species of gulls, including Iceland and Glaucous, as well as rarer ones. Many species of seabirds come into the harbor and often linger there, close to the docks. We picked up the expected gulls and ducks. It was hard to pull my eyes away from the fantastic looks at Common Eiders, but in doing so I was rewarded with views of three alcids – Black Guillemot, Thick-billed Murre, and my life Dovekie! Not only was the Dovekie a life bird for Mike and me, but it was also a five-point bird, with a three-point bonus for being the first team to report the species on the competition day. Sadly, it would also be our only five-point bird of the day.

Moving on from the pier, we explored the rest of Cape Ann. At Eastern Point, we dipped on Wild Turkey and the moribund Common Murre found by another team, but we did see an adult Iceland Gull and the Purple Sandpipers that we had hoped to find. The Elk's Club at Bass Rocks produced an adult male King Eider, a bird that Corey initially described as a Guillemot with an orange bill. Loblolly Cove produced my life Barrow's Goldeneye, a bird we had missed last year. The neighborhood nearby featured a large flock of American Robins, as well as smaller numbers of other songbirds, including Cedar Waxwings and a Gray Catbird. Granite Pier had a raft of Harlequin Ducks. Unfortunately the rest of us could not find the Northern Gannets that Christopher spotted (see Corey's video for this moment). Andrews Point was less productive than last year, but we still found an immature male King Eider and a Razorbill. Unfortunately we did not see Black-legged Kittiwake, one of my favorite sightings from last year's run.

One more stop at the fishing pier produced a Glaucous Gull, and then we hit the road to explore the northern end of Essex County. Along the way we were supposed to look for a Turkey Vulture, but we were not able to spot one. What we did spot was a large flock of songbirds in one of the farm fields. Stopping and getting out of the van, we found that the vast majority were Horned Larks (140 by my count). Among them were a Snow Bunting and a Lapland Longspur. The latter was my third life bird of the day.

In the afternoon, we drove around Newburyport and Salisbury to look for birds that we had missed earlier in the day. We quickly found Common Mergansers and Bald Eagles along the Merrimac River. A visit to Salisbury Beach State Reservation produced an "Ipswich" Savannah Sparrow and a distant Northern Shrike, but we had a big miss when only three of us saw a Merlin flying low along the water. Suburban neighborhoods continued to be productive for songbirds, as we found a large flock of Red-winged Blackbirds and Brown-headed Cowbirds at the Old Eastern Marsh Trail on the north side of the Merrimac. The same area produced a Sharp-shinned Hawk, our second accipiter of the day.

Last year we had to race through Plum Island because we had run late at earlier stops, and as a result we missed some good birds that had been seen there. So this year we made sure to schedule plenty of time. However, our results were not much better. The only bird species we added in an hour on the island was Hermit Thrush; we did not even pick up Yellow-rumped Warbler or Golden-crowned Kinglet despite searching thoroughly for them. Rough-legged Hawks and Northern Harriers were nowhere to be seen.

We closed out the day with 73 species and 142 points. These were the best totals yet for the Bloggerhead Kingbirds, but they were not enough to win the Superbowl or any of the lesser achievements. We did not even win any of the 43 door prizes offered at the post-Superbowl social event. Despite not winning, the six of us had a lot of fun together, which is the most important thing.

Corey has a post at 10,000 Birds with more photos and video of the day.

Interesting Gull at Gloucester Harbor

Yesterday morning, before we left Massachusetts, we spent a few more hours birding around Gloucester to get better looks at some of the birds we had seen during the Superbowl of Birding on Saturday. (I will have more to say about the competition in a future post.) At our first stop, in Gloucester Harbor, there was an interesting gull near the pier where many gulls normally roost. on top of a green warehouse. Most of the more knowledgeable birders present believed it to be a 3rd winter Slaty-backed Gull, a rare species along the eastern coast of North America, but one that has appeared around Gloucester before. If you have not already done so, take a look at Corey's post, which has photographs of the gull in question and summarizes points in favor of the bird being a Slaty-backed Gull. If you have an thoughts on the identification, especially if you know a lot about gulls, please leave a comment there.

Afternoon Sky During the Superbowl of Birding

Near Salisbury Beach State Reservation in Essex County, Massachusetts.

Superbowl of Birding

As I mentioned earlier this week, today is the Superbowl of Birding, and I am competing as a member of the Bloggerhead Kingbirds. I hope that you all had a chance to click through the links in that post and meet my  teammates. If not, here is a list of the introductory posts, so you have another opportunity:

• Andrew
• Christopher
• Corey
• Mike
• Nate

I will post updates on Twitter as frequently as I can during the competition. You can follow them on my account and those of my teammates on my Bloggerhead Kingbirds list. If you have your own Twitter account, you can follow them all individually. Here are their pages:

• Andrew: @birdingdude
• Christopher: @picusblog
• Mike: @noflickster
• Nate: @NC_N8

I will have some blog posts on the competition once I get back from Massachusetts.

Bloggerhead Kingbirds Ride Again

Regular readers may remember that last year I joined the Bloggerhead Kingbirds to compete in the Superbowl of Birding. If you have a good memory, you might remember that we acquitted ourselves well, finishing 6th in species and 7th in points, and we won a prize for earning the most points in Essex County. This weekend, we will be gathering in eastern Massachusetts once again to defend our Essex County title and attempt to win the whole thing.

What is the Superbowl of Birding? It is an annual competition sponsored by Massachusetts Audubon. Teams compete to see the most species and earn the most points within a 12-hour period (5 am to 5 pm). Unlike the World Series of Birding, in which every species counts the same, bird species are worth from 1 to 5 points, depending on how common they are, with extra points possible for the first team to report a 5-point species. All species must be recorded in Essex County, Massachusetts, or Rockingham County, New Hampshire.

So who else is on this year's team? To find out, you will have to visit Feathers and Flowers, the blogging home of one of my teammates. Mike blogs with the authority of an experienced ornithologist about such important topics as the mass death of blackbirds in Arkansas and what bird-related costumes not to wear for Halloween. Mike is also a dedicated eBird user. In addition to maintaining his own daily lists, he made sure that all of our sightings from last year's competition were properly recorded, with complete eBird checklists for each location that we visited. Last year, he brought an extra spotting scope along with him, which allowed me to have use of a scope for the competition day. So go visit Mike's blog to learn more about this year's team!

Link Round-up for Bloggerhead Kingbirds

Bloggerhead Kingbirds at Andrews Point

I am posting this to collect all of the posts on this year's Superbowl of Birding in one location. I will update with additional links if any more get posted. Corey's second post has a photo of the points and species totals for all of the competing teams.

10,000 Birds (Corey)

• The Day Before the Competition 
• Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Superbowl of Birding

Birding Dude (Andrew)

• Super Bowl of Birding 2010 - On the road to MA… 
• Super Bowl of Birding 2010 - Game Day – Luck and Time Management…
• MA Super Bowl of Birding 2010 - Grace Under Pressure...
• MA Super Bowl of Birding 2010 - The Home Stretch... 

Picusblog (Christopher)

• Bloggerhead Kingbirds at the Superbowl of Birding - The Pre-game show 
• Bloggerhead Kingbirds at the Superbowl of Birding - Game Day
• Bloggerhead Kingbird - wrap up post

The Drinking Bird (Nate)

• Saw What Owl? 
• Ice Bowl

The Feather and the Flower (Mike)

• Let the (Re)counting Begin! [Fun & Games]

Finally, my own

• Finally, a Northern Saw-whet 
• Cold Competition
• Cold Competition, Continued
• Scoping for Seabirds

From other teams

• Granite State Bird Watch: Superbowl of Birding Results 
• NYSYBC Ninja Nighthawks: Superbowl of Birding 2010 
• Burger Kinglets: Super Bowl VII 1/30/2010

Newspaper coverage

• The Newburyport Current: Superbowl of Birding draws crowd

This should be my last post on this topic, and next week the blog will be back to its normal topics.

Scoping for Seabirds

 At several stops during the Superbowl of Birding, other birders would ask us what we were seeing. According to the contest rules, teams may not receive assistance from people who are not on the team during the competition, except for a few sanctioned sources. This means, in part, that teams cannot give each other assistance. Even without such a rule, it would be unwise to tell other teams where good birds are located because that could make the difference between winning and losing. So we had to coldly rebuff such requests. After several such encounters, Christopher expressed his frustration that he wanted to get back to talking about birds instead of keeping quiet.

On Sunday morning, we had a chance to do some normal birding (without a veil of secrecy) before all of the team members had to go their separate ways. We chose to return to Cape Ann, to look for the King Eider we all missed and the Dovekie that Mike and I missed. We also hoped that some of the unusual gulls might have returned to Gloucester Harbor or Niles Pond. Unfortunately we missed all of the desired birds, but the coves at Cape Ann provide ample opportunities to view and photograph some gorgeous seabirds such as Harlequin Ducks and Purple Sandpipers. I was also glad to spend more time at Andrews Point, which became my favorite birding location from the trip.

Mike had brought an extra spotting scope when he drove from New York to Massachusetts, so I had use of a scope throughout the competition and during the next day. On the competition day it was very helpful to be able to scan the ocean and marshes because I was able to find birds faster than I would have otherwise. On Sunday I took advantage of the scope to take a closer look at some species (such as a Black Guillemot) and try my hand at digiscoping.

The bird above is an immature male Common Eider that was swimming in the bay near East Point. Unfortunately the focus is a little soft; I am not sure if that was a result of how I focused the scope or what the camera picked as a focal point. The birds below are Harlequin Ducks from Andrews Point.

I tried digiscoping a few other birds as well, but the results are not presentable. I will need a lot more practice before I can produce images on par with someone like Mike McDowell or Kevin Bolton.

As I mentioned in my second post on the competition, our team won the Essex County Excels award for accumulating the most points in Essex County, Massachusetts. We received gift certificates for a nature store in Newburyport, and since we were all (except Christopher) leaving the area that day, we needed to cut short our birding time if we wanted the opportunity to use them. I used mine on a lens pen and two insect guides: Stokes Beginner's Guide to Dragonflies and Caterpillars of Eastern North America. Those books should help me to identify insects faster and more accurately – and post photos of them on the blog more quickly.

Having said our goodbyes, we went our separate ways. I was very happy to meet and bird with Corey, Andrew, Nate, Mike, and Christopher, and I hope to bird with them again, hopefully sooner rather than later. You can read their own versions of the weekend's events on their blogs; I'll post links here to the individual posts once everyone is done posting.

Cold Competition, Continued

When we left Nahant, we had already missed some good birds and needed to catch up. As we drove into Gloucester, we made a quick stop to find the Peregrines that perch atop the city hall's clock tower. I missed them since my binoculars got tangled in my seatbelt, but four team members saw them, enough for the species to count. (I saw one of the Peregrines on the following day.) From there we headed to Gloucester's fish pier, normally a reliable spot for white-winged and other unusual gulls. On that day the only gulls were Herring and Great Black-backed, with the exception of a possible Iceland that Christopher picked out in flight. We had a similar result at the nearby Niles Pond, another reliable gull location that was bereft of gulls on the day of the Superbowl.

On the way to Eastern Point, the first of our coastal stops along Cape Ann, we spotted a small group of Wild Turkeys in someone's backyard and a Black Scoter on the bay. One thing I noticed during the event was that White-winged Scoters, a species I consider a relative rarity, seems very common in Massachusetts, but Black and Surf Scoters seem much less common. Most scoters I saw were White-winged. Eastern Point itself was a blast – in the sense of a blast of Arctic air. Even my hand and toe warmers and multiple layers proved inadequate against the penetrating cold. Needless to say, we did not spend much time there.

Elsewhere along Cape Ann's coast, cold and wind proved less of a problem.* Nate picked out a Black Guillemot, a life bird for me. Andrew spotted an airborne flock of Sanderling with a Ruddy Turnstone at its head. At one point, the lure of watching several dozen Harlequin Ducks proved too much for me to resist until Mike announced another alcid, this time a Thick-billed Murre. Nate found a Northern Flicker flying in off the ocean; where it originated is unclear. Our last stop in Cape Ann was Andrews Point, a rocky outcropping with a commanding view of the ocean. There the team picked up a Dovekie, our first five-point bird of the day. Enough team members saw it for it count. Unfortunately both Mike and I missed it; the Dovekie would have been a life bird for both of us. My consolation prize was a satisfying look at my life Black-legged Kittiwake.

Pressed for time and needing to find more birds, we headed north to Salisbury and Newburyport. Along the way we scanned every distant raptor-like bird for the elusive Turkey Vulture, a five-point bird for this winter competition. Finally, I spotted two out the front window of the van just outside Ipswich. At Salisbury State Park, we found Bald Eagle and Horned Larks, but missed Merlin, Snow Buntings, and Lapland Longspurs. In downtown Newburyport, we missed the Common Mergansers that we had expected and that Nate and Christopher had seen the day before. At Parker River NWR, commonly known as Plum Island, our luck changed for the better as we quickly found an American Kestrel, a Rough-legged Hawk, and two Snowy Owls. We missed Northern Shrike, despite our best attempts to make one out of every robin and mockingbird that we passed. We ended the competition scanning the ocean from the top of a dune. Nate picked out an Iceland Gull floating on a block of ice while the sun set over the marshes behind us.

As the clock ticked over to 5 pm, we left the refuge for the compilation dinner, and I posted "Game over" on Twitter. We ended the day with 70 species and 127 points, which was good for 6th in species and 7th in points among all teams. The winning team, The Granite State Bird Watch, observed 83 species for 164 while competing only in Rockingham County, New Hampshire. You can read about their day at The Worn Field Guide. While our effort was unable to beat The Granite State Bird Watch – or several other teams, for that matter – it did win us the Essex County Excels award for the most points in Essex County, Massachusetts. Truth to be told, we probably won only because another team neglected to compete in that category, but a win on a technicality is still a win. As a prize, we each received a $50 gift certificate for Massachusetts Audubon's nature store. With the competition over, we headed back to our hotel suite for dinner and some much-needed sleep.

* Some details in this paragraph may not be completely accurate since many of the stops blur together.

Cold Competition

On the morning of the Superbowl of Birding, we rose early in order to be at our first stop by the 5 am starting time. As we were driving to our starting point in the rental van, we passed by a sign giving the time and temperature. The sign showed the temperature as 3°F. Combined with a modest wind, this made for a frigid start to our birding.

We arrived at our first stop just a few minutes before 5 am. Once the clock read 5:00, we jumped out of the van and started looking for birds. Scanning the waterfowl sleeping on a small pond, we quickly located our target species, American Coot, and recorded a few other species like Hooded Merganser as well. Over the next two hours, we listened for owls at several locations while Nate and Corey did their best owl vocalizations to try to draw responses. We heard an Eastern Screech Owl respond at one location but missed Barred, Great Horned, and any other owl species. During this time the moon shone brightly and appeared especially large as it sank towards the horizon.

As the sky lightened, we headed towards Nahant to start the diurnal portion of the competition. Along its coastline, we tallied many waterbird species such as Common Loon and Red-necked Grebe. Unfortunately we missed a five-point bird, a Northern Shoveler, in one of the coves. We searched two spots for songbirds. The first, known as the "stump dump" was bereft of birds. At the second, the Audubon "thicket," we heard a Carolina Wren singing as soon as we exited the van but somehow missed a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (another five-point bird) tallied by a different team five minutes later.

With the early portion of our route completed, we headed towards Gloucester.

(to be continued)

Finally, a Northern Saw-whet

This weekend I traveled to Massachusetts to participate in the Superbowl of Birding, an annual big day competition sponsored by Massachusetts Audubon. Christopher of Picusblog invited my to join the Bloggerhead Kingbirds this year along with Nate of The Drinking Bird; Corey of 10,000 Birds; Mike of The Feather and the Flower; and Andrew the Birding Dude. I will have a report on the competition in a subsequent post.

On Friday morning, I met Corey and Andrew in Queens to ride up with them to Massachusetts in our rental van. Along the way, we made a stop at the Pruyn Sanctuary in Westchester County to follow up on a report of a Yellow-headed Blackbird being seen at the sanctuary's feeders. We stood and waited in the cold for about an hour and a half. During that time we saw many sparrows, including a Fox Sparrow; a Sharp-shinned Hawk, and a couple hundred blackbirds, including a Rusty Blackbird. Sadly, we saw no Yellow-headed Blackbird. Eventually time constraints forced us to leave, and we continued on our way to Massachusetts.

Once we had arrived at our hotel, met the other bloggers, and checked in, we set out to do a little bit of birding. Christopher knew the roost location for a Northern Saw-whet Owl, a bird that was a lifer for me and (I think) one or two others. (This species was also a source of frustration for me when I lived in Cape May, since I missed seeing one on multiple occasions.) Christopher guided us to the roost, and we saw this:

We stayed just long enough for everyone to get a good look and take a few photos. I shot this photo through Corey's spotting scope. When I reviewed the photo later, I noticed just how good its camouflage is. If you look closely at this photo, you can see that the feather pattern on the top of its head fades into the tree. You may see the crown of its head, and you can see the eyebrow, but the feathers between those two curves look almost like bark. Owls as a group are especially adept at cryptic camouflage, which helps these birds stay hidden in their daytime roosts. It takes very careful searching and a lot of luck to locate one of these tiny birds.

Northern Saw-whet Owls are fairly common migrants, from what I understand. However, their cryptic feather pattern and tiny size make them extremely difficult to find for the average birder. Saw-whets breed in the coniferous forests of northern North America and migrate south for the winter months.

Superbowl of Birding

 

Today I will be participating in the Superbowl of Birding, an annual competition in Massachusetts to determine who can see the most birds in one day without losing any limbs to frostbite or getting blown into the Atlantic. For this year's event, I am part of the Bloggerhead Kingbirds, who participated last year with good results. As you might guess from the name, my teammates are all bloggers: Christopher of Picusblog, our captain; Nate of The Drinking Bird; Corey of 10,000 Birds; Mike of The Feather and the Flower and Andrew the Birding Dude.

Several of us have Twitter accounts and will try to post live updates there during the day. You can follow our adventures on these accounts:

• @dendroica (my account)
• @picusblog
• @NC_N8
• @birdingdude
• @noflickster
  

If you are a birder with a Twitter account, I would encourage you to follow all of those accounts anyway because they all post fun and interesting tweets.

I will try to write a post on the competition as soon as I can. In the meantime, I have scheduled a few posts to run this weekend to keep the blog going.