Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count report

The bushtit made its first appearance on the Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count Dec. 17, 2022. A small flock has been hanging out at Lions Park this fall. Photo by Grant Frost.

Cheyenne Christmas Bird Count had several remarkable observations

By Barb Gorges

            Perhaps somewhere in the archives of Rocky Mountain National Park is my signature on a piece of paper from the cylinder on Hallett’s Peak, proving I made it to the top in August 1973.

            Short of birth, death and graduation records, most of us don’t lead a permanently, well-documented life. But if you participate in a Christmas Bird Count, you can look yourself up online, at least back to 2005. More important are the number of birds counted, distances traveled and the weather conditions. That data goes back to 1900 (1974 for Cheyenne).

Explore the data at https://netapp.audubon.org/cbcobservation/. The address changes whenever the sponsor, the National Audubon Society, reorganizes its website.

            This year was the 123^rd Christmas Bird Count, straddling the year end of 2022-2023. The Cheyenne count was held Dec. 17, 2022, within a 7.5-mile-diameter count circle centered on the State Capitol.

            The 20 participants together walked 26 miles, drove 76 miles and watched feeders for 15 hours.

            Here is the list of 51 species and how many were seen of each, plus a few notes.

Cackling Goose 97

            These geese used to be lumped with Canada geese as four smaller subspecies, sometimes as small as a mallard, and are showing up more often.

Canada Goose 1,148

            These may be a mix of a non-migratory local flock and some migrating here when there’s open water.

Snow Goose 1

            Oh no – is this species of goose thinking about wintering here too?

Mallard 354

Northern Shoveler 8

Redhead 1

Ring-necked Duck 2

Green-winged Teal 22

Common Goldeneye 7

Gadwall 2

Rock Dove (pigeon) 129

            There’s a much larger flock in northeast Cheyenne that eluded us.

Eurasian-collared Dove 181

Wilsons’s Snipe 3

            They know where there’s a spring providing open water.

Northern Harrier 5

Sharp-shinned Hawk 2

Cooper’s Hawk 1

Bald Eagle 4

Red-tailed Hawk 12

Rough-legged Hawk 4

Ferruginous Hawk 2

Eastern-screech Owl 1

Great-horned Owl 2

            Good showing of raptors, including the merlin and kestrel listed below.

Belted Kingfisher 2

            Always a couple along Crow Creek.

Downy Woodpecker 5

Hairy Woodpecker 1

Northern Flicker 15

American Kestrel 1

            Not all of them migrate farther south.

Merlin 1

Northern Shrike 2

Blue Jay 13

            This eastern bird continues to increase in numbers here.

Black-billed Magpie 80

            It should really be the state bird since it stays year round and cleans up carcasses.

American Crow 133

Common Raven 30

            Lorie Chesnut videoed a flock of 25. Jane Dorn, who studied ravens for her masters degree, said young birds may flock, otherwise, ravens hang out in ones and twos. To tell them apart from crows, listen for the raven’s croak compared to the crow’s caw. Also, when flying, the raven’s tail looks like the point of a diamond. The crow’s looks like a half-circle fan. Crows are only 17.5 inches from beak tip to tail, ravens are 24 inches.

Black-capped Chickadee 14

            I need to more careful in assuming all the chickadees I see are mountains and check for their white “eyebrows,” which the black-cappeds don’t have.

Mountain Chickadee 22

Horned Lark 9

Red-breasted Nuthatch 4

White-breasted Nuthatch 4

Brown Creeper 2

            These are very hard to see. They are like a moving piece of bark on a tree trunk.

European Starling 444

Townsend’s Solitaire 10

            This relation of the robin is more slender and is all gray. It likes to sit at the tip top of trees, especially junipers, eating their berries.

American Robin 5

            Every year there are a few that winter here. We aren’t sure if these birds spent the summer here or if these are birds that came from farther north.

Cedar Waxwing 6

            Waxwings only show up when they find fruit still on the tree or shrub so seeing them is very lucky.

House Sparrow 432

House Finch 119

American Goldfinch 2

American Tree Sparrow 42

            In summer, small flocks of sparrows are often chipping sparrows. But they leave in fall and the tree sparrows come for the winter.

Dark-eyed Junco 59

Song Sparrow 2

            They are almost always year round, by a creek.

Bushtit 10

            This is the flock our Christmas Bird Count compiler, Grant Frost, has been watching this fall. We are happy they stayed for their first count here. If they make it through the winter, they might decide to stay and make a state breeding record.

Pine Warbler 1

            This is the same bird that has been hanging out in Chuck Seniawski’s backyard this fall. Nice it could stick around and provide a count record.

Golden-crowned Kinglet count week

            Not an unusual bird in winter, but there are not many to be seen, plus they are tiny and not noticeable in the treetops where they hang out.

Barb Gorges is the author of “Cheyenne Birds by the Month,” www.YuccaRoadPress.com. Her previous columns are at https://cheyennebirdbanter.wordpress.com. Contact her at bgorges4@msn.com.

Vagrants visit this fall

Unusual birds “on the road” this fall, including around Cheyenne and southeastern Wyoming

Chuck Seniawski has been hosting this lost pine warbler, from Eastern North America, at his bird feeders nearly every day since early November and so far, through Dec. 5. It should have migrated south instead of west. Photo by Chuck Seniawski.

By Barb Gorges

            On Nov. 9, a friend called to tell me she heard a story on KUWR, Wyoming’s National Public Radio affiliate, about a Blackburnian warbler that blew across the Atlantic to an island off the southwest British coast, exciting birdwatchers.

            It’s ironic that this eastern North American bird was named by a German zoologist for an English naturalist, Anna Blackburne (1726-1793). She never saw a live specimen, but her name seems appropriate because the 5-inch-long male burns with a flaming orange throat and head on a body that is otherwise black and white.

This female Blackburnian warbler, photographed at the Wyoming Hereford Ranch May 28, is considered a “vagrant” in Wyoming because it is a long way from its normal range in eastern North America. The female’s throat is a paler orange than the male’s. Photo by Mark Gorges.

We’ve had a few Blackburnians accidentally find their way to Wyoming. At eBird.org, under the Explore tab, you’ll find that Mark Gorges, my husband, was the last to record one in Wyoming, a female, on May 28 at Wyoming Hereford Ranch.

Warblers typically eat insects, so the lost warbler Mark saw could find them in late May. Warblers leave the north in September and October when cold weather limits their food supply.

However, beginning Nov. 11, Chuck Seniawski has had a pine warbler visiting his Cheyenne feeder nearly every day through Nov. 27, so far. This is another lost eastern North American species – and it is way late for an insect eater.

Pine warblers, according to Doug Faulkner’s “Birds of Wyoming,” published in 2010, are “vagrants.” Their normal migration, breeding and winter ranges in the eastern U.S. and southeastern Canada are nowhere near Wyoming.

However, Doug wrote, every fall there is at least one reported in Wyoming, usually between mid-August and mid-September. Doug’s only winter report was a pine warbler that spent five days in December 1988 eating peanut butter at a feeder in Gillette.

Chuck says his pecks at his sunflower feeders, hunts on the ground underneath and uses the birdbath. He isn’t sure if the bird is eating seed bits or finding something else. When he posted a photo, Don Jones, eBird regional data reviewer in Laramie, who spent four years back East, agreed with his identification. Also, Chuck had just seen one in Central Park in New York City.

Pine warblers look a little like a female or a winter-plumage male American goldfinch, yellowish with dark wings with two white wingbars, so maybe we should all examine our feeder birds more closely.

Serious birders stake out reservoirs during fall migration, including the Laramie Plains Lakes. Jonathan Lautenbach was rewarded with being the first to record two king eiders, sea ducks, Nov. 12 through 18 at Lake Hattie. He reported they were a female and a juvenile male, plain brown. The adult male, not seen, would be half white and half black with a bright yellow-orange “bill-shield” on its forehead.

eBird shows these king eiders as the first to be recorded in Wyoming. Doug Faulkner does not list them at all in his 2010 book, which is a comprehensive review of bird sightings up until that point.

King eiders breed in the Arctic, across northern-most Canada. They winter around coastal Alaska and northeastern Canada, but there are frequent winter sightings in lower 48 states, most often coastal, and they are also usually female and juvenile birds.

Cheyenne birder Grant Frost was probably checking Sloans Lake in Lions Park for interesting ducks and other waterbirds when he came across a small flock of bushtits Nov. 3 and again Nov. 27. “Peterson’s Field Guide to Birds of North America,” published in 2020, describes their habitat as brushy woodlands and pine-oak forests of the southwest.

But if you look closely at Peterson’s range map, it shows this thin line of purple (meaning year-round resident) drawn up the Front Range of Colorado, practically pointing to Cheyenne. More bushtits may be in our future. Look for pale brown and gray, 4.5-inch-long birds building sack-like hanging nests.

            Grant also found a blue-headed vireo at Lions Park Nov. 1, and it was last seen there Nov. 3 by Vicki Herren. Vireos are much like warblers, eating insects, but also fruit in winter. This species breeds across Canada, through New England and down through the Appalachians. It winters along the southeast coasts of the U.S. It’s possible that the birds from western Canada would head south through Wyoming to get to the Texas Gulf Coast. They are just hard to pick out from other vireos and warblers bouncing around in the trees.

            Unusual bird observations submitted to eBird automatically get flagged. You are asked to write a description of your observation and submit a photo if you can. Someone appointed by eBird for that area will decide whether your record becomes public.

            These days eBird and the Wyoming Bird Records Committee work together. Find out more about the committee at https://wybirdrecordscommittee.wordpress.com/.  

Female Blackburnian Warbler, May 28, feeding on insects in a cottonwood tree on the Wyoming Hereford Ranch, outside Cheyenne. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Big Day Arctic visitor

This juvenile red-throated loon spent several days on Sloans Lake in Lions Park. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count catches Arctic visitor

Published June 4, 2022, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

            I’m sure our Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count compiler for Cheyenne Audubon, Grant Frost, was thinking to avoid cold, nasty weather when he picked May 21 instead of the 14^th for the count. But it snowed the day before anyway. Our total of 125 species is not too shabby considering the weather was chilly, but not windy.

We had several highlights:

–Red-throated loon juvenile was seen at Sloans Lake for several days before and on the count. It is considered rare in Wyoming, wintering on either coast and nesting in the Arctic.

–Common loon juvenile same place.

–Broad-tailed hummingbird was trying to get nectar out of frozen crabapple blossoms at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens.

–Harris’s sparrow may winter next door in Nebraska but is seldom seen here.

–Red-headed woodpeckers showed up in two locations, including a pair in one.

–Baltimore oriole, the eastern counterpart to our Bullock’s, came by with a female.

–No eagles were seen.

            I came across the scan of a “Tribune Eagle” article about the 1982 Big Day, held a week earlier than this year’s, with 40 people counting. The total number of species seen was nearly the same, 124.

            The difference between which species were seen in 1982 but not this year, 29, was close to how many were seen in 2021 but not this year, 27. But if you look at eBird for the first three weeks of May this year in Laramie County, 185 species are listed. Some species passed through before our count day and some could have still been here count day but in less abundance and we missed them.

            Besides all the species name changes in the last 40 years, what’s interesting is what isn’t on the 1982 list but is in 2022:

–Cackling goose was split from Canada goose in 2004.

–Eurasian collared-dove was first observed in Wyoming here in Cheyenne in 1998.

–Great-tailed grackle in 2003 was my first Cheyenne observation.

–Common raven, though they have always been reliably seen starting about 10 or 15 miles west of town, my first Cheyenne observation wasn’t until 2010.

            The 1982 count lists five winter species we didn’t see this count: bufflehead (duck), rough-legged hawk, northern shrike and at the time what are now subspecies of dark-eyed junco listed as two species, Oregon junco and gray-headed junco. Maybe they migrated earlier this year thanks to weather or climate change.

            Evening grosbeak made the 1982 list, but it is hard to find them anywhere these days. They are listed as a globally threatened species.

Black-bellied plovers and mountain plovers, grassland species recorded in 1982, rarely make our count anymore, but eBird has sightings recorded for April 2020—when everyone was out birding more than usual.

            Our Big Day count area is essentially the same as our Christmas Bird Count, a 7.5-mile diameter circle centered on the Capitol building. There are more trees to attract birds than in 1982, or in 1956 when only 85 species were counted, according to early compiler May Hanesworth. But as the surrounding grasslands are built upon, mowed and invaded by free-roaming dogs and cats, the grassland birds will be harder to find.

Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count, May 21, 2022

125 species, 19 participants  

Cackling Goose

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Blue-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Northern Shoveler

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Mallard

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Redhead

Ring-necked Duck

Lesser Scaup

Common Goldeneye

Ruddy Duck

Pied-billed Grebe

Eared Grebe

Western Grebe

Clark’s Grebe

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

American Coot

American Avocet

Killdeer

Marbled Godwit

Least Sandpiper

Semipalmated Sandpiper

Western Sandpiper

Wilson’s Phalarope

Red-necked Phalarope

Spotted Sandpiper

Solitary Sandpiper

Greater Yellowlegs

Willet

Ring-billed Gull

California Gull

Common Loon

Red-throated Loon

Double-crested Cormorant

American White Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Northern Harrier

Cooper’s Hawk

Swainson’s Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Great Horned Owl

Belted Kingfisher

Red-headed Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Kestrel

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Western Wood-Pewee

Willow Flycatcher

Dusky Flycatcher

Say’s Phoebe

Western Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Warbling Vireo

Blue Jay

Black-billed Magpie

American Crow

Common Raven

Black-capped Chickadee

Mountain Chickadee

Horned Lark

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Tree Swallow

Violet-green Swallow

Bank Swallow

Barn Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Rock Wren

House Wren

European Starling

Gray Catbird

Northern Mockingbird

Townsend’s Solitaire

Swainson’s Thrush

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

House Sparrow

House Finch

Pine Siskin

American Goldfinch

Chipping Sparrow

Lark Sparrow

Lark Bunting

White-crowned Sparrow

Harris’s Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Lincoln’s Sparrow

Green-tailed Towhee

Spotted Towhee

Yellow-breasted Chat

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Western Meadowlark

Bullock’s Oriole

Baltimore Oriole

Red-winged Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Brewer’s Blackbird

Common Grackle

Great-tailed Grackle

Orange-crowned Warbler

MacGillivary’s Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Yellow Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Wilson’s Warbler

Western Tanager

Black-headed Grosbeak

Lazuli Bunting

Indigo Bunting

2021 Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count

The 2021 Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count was held May 15. Early morning fog at Lions Park obscured the views of birds. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Published June 4, 2021, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, “2021 Big Day brings in birds and birders”

By Barb Gorges

            It’s a chicken or the egg conundrum. Which comes first, lots of birds or lots of birders?

            It’s true that the more birders there are out looking, the more birds are seen. But the way to get more birders out to look for them is for there to be more bird reports coming in. That piques interest and more birders go out looking instead of doing mundane household chores.

            Mark, my husband, was out nearly every morning the first two weeks in May to one of several of his favorite hotspots: Wyoming Hereford Ranch, Lions Park (both are Wyoming Important Bird Areas), Laramie County Community College (the pond areas) or F.E. Warren Air Force Base (ponds there too).

            When he came home, he’d give me a report on what interesting migrants he’d seen and show me photos he’d taken before adding them to the checklists of birds he’d seen and entered through the eBird.org phone app. He’d tell me too, who else he’d met, mostly birding friends, but sometimes visitors.

            In the evening he liked to check eBird to see what sightings local birders had entered for the day. And he’d check birdcast.info to see if birds were going to be making a strong migratory push through our area overnight—and coming to earth here to rest and refuel in the morning.

            Every year, for 60-plus years, the Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society designates a date for its Big Day Bird Count and hopes to hit the biggest migratory push. It’s usually the third Saturday in May. Sometimes we’ve had icy storms and wonder if we should pick a later date. Sometimes eBird reports show that there just isn’t a peak to the migration. We wonder too if climate change means we should move it up a week.

            This year we had a good lead-up that encouraged more people to be out on our Big Day, May 15. We had a couple of sharper than average birders joining us too, Nathan Pieplow, author of the “Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Western North America,” and his friend, Will Anderson.

Nathan signed books the evening before. It was going to be an outdoor event but thank goodness the Hales family lent us one of the WHR barns as backup since a good gully washer blew in.

            Saturday morning was chilly and foggy, but the birds and birders were out. We weren’t all in one big group, but we would get the scoop on cool birds from each other when we met up.

            The next day, Mark started compiling the list of birds, looking at checklists on eBird for sightings in the Cheyenne vicinity.

            At least 30 people submitted, or were included on, 74 checklists. I submitted a couple just for our bird feeders when we took a break at home.

            It was one of the best Big Days in Cheyenne in a while: 136 species. And the warbler count was very good: 12 species.

            Sunday, there were still a lot of migratory birds in town including 50 pine siskins under our thistle feeder for an hour.

            But the show was over by Monday—both out in the field and at our now deserted feeder.

            This year, migration seems to have peaked on the Saturday we picked, making it like Christmas in May.   

May 16, 50-plus Pine Siskins and one American Goldfinch pick at thistle seed that spilled from the feeder overhead. While some birds attempt to use the dog’s water dish, there is a birdbath to the left, out of view. Photo by Barb Gorges.

---

Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count, May 15, 2021

Compiled from 74 (51 unique) eBird lists. At least 30 people participated.

136 Species

Snow Goose

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Blue-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Northern Shoveler

Gadwall

Mallard

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Redhead

Lesser Scaup

Bufflehead

Ruddy Duck

Pied-billed Grebe

Horned Grebe

Eared Grebe

Western Grebe

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

American Coot

Black-necked Stilt

American Avocet

Semipalmated Plover

Killdeer

Marbled Godwit

Least Sandpiper

Long-billed Dowitcher

Wilson’s Phalarope

Red-necked Phalarope

Spotted Sandpiper

Willet

Ring-billed Gull

California Gull

Double-crested Cormorant

American White Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Black-crowned Night-Heron

White-faced Ibis

Turkey Vulture

Northern Harrier

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Cooper’s Hawk

Broad-winged Hawk

Swainson’s Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

Great-horned Owl

Burrowing Owl

Belted Kingfisher

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Kestrel

Peregrine Falcon

Western Wood-Pewee

Willow Flycatcher

Least Flycatcher

Gray Flycatcher

Dusky Flycatcher

Say’s Phoebe

Cassin’s Kingbird

Western Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Plumbeous Vireo

Warbling Vireo

Loggerhead Shrike

Blue Jay

Black-billed Magpie

American Crow

Common Raven

Mountain Chickadee

Horned Lark

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Tree Swallow

Violet-green Swallow

Bank Swallow

Barn Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Rock Wren

House Wren

European Starling

Gray Catbird

Brown Thrasher

Northern Mockingbird

Townsend’s Solitaire

Veery

Swainson’s Thrush

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

House Sparrow

House Finch

Pine Siskin

Lesser Goldfinch

American Goldfinch

American Goldfinches like thistle seed (treated to not sprout). Photo by Mark Gorges.

Chipping Sparrow

Clay-colored Sparrow

Brewer’s Sparrow

Lark Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Lincoln’s Sparrow

Green-tailed Towhee

Spotted Towhee

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Western Meadowlark

Orchard Oriole

Bullock’s Oriole

Bullock’s Orioles like orange pulp. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Red-winged Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird

Brewer’s Blackbird

Common Grackle

Great-tailed Grackle

Northern Waterthrush

Common Yellowthroat

Orange-crowned Warbler

Nashville Warbler

Virginia’s Warbler

MacGillivray’s Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Townsend’s Warbler

Wilson’s Warbler

Western Tanager

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Black-headed Grosbeak

Blue Grosbeak

Lazuli Bunting

Indigo Bunting

Lazuli Buntings are seed eaters. Photo by Mark Gorges.

Book reviews: Birds and bears

Published April 21, 2019, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows of North America by Rick Wright, c. 2019, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Birders can be nerdy.

This is a book for sparrow nerds and would-be nerds.

There are three main parts to Wright’s multi-page treatment of each of 76 sparrow species or major subspecies: history of its scientific description and naming, field identification, and range and geographic variation.

Did you know the pink-sided junco (dark-eyed junco subspecies) has Wyoming roots? A Smithsonian collecting trip, the South Pass Wagon Road expedition, made it to Fort Bridger, in the far southwest corner of what is now Wyoming, in the spring of 1858. Constantin Charles Drexler, assistant to the surgeon, collected a sparrow identified as an Oregon junco and shipped it back to Washington, D.C.

About 40 years later, experts determined it was the earliest collected specimen of pink-sided junco and Drexler, who went on many more collecting forays, lives on, famous forever on the internet.

Wright’s feather by feather field identification comparisons will warm a birder’s heart, as will the multiple photos. However, over half of each account is devoted to range and geographic variation. No map. No list of subspecies by name. To the uninitiated, including me, apparently, Wright’s writing rambles. If you would become an expert on North American sparrows, you will have to study hard.

Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Western North America by Nathan Pieplow, c. 2019, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

It’s here, the western counterpart of Nathan Pieplow’s eastern book I reviewed in July 2017, https://cheyennebirdbanter.wordpress.com/2017/07/24/.

Each species gets a page with a small range map and a short description of habitat. The tiny painting of the male bird (and female if it looks different) is not going to help you with feather-splitting identification problems. It’s just a faster way to identify the page you want if you are already familiar with the bird. 

Each species’ page has diagrams of the sounds it makes, spectrograms. They aren’t too different from musical notation. The introduction will teach you how to read them. In addition to the standard index for a reference book or a field guide, there is an index of spectrograms. It works like a key, dividing bird sounds into seven categories and each of those are subdivided and each subdivision lists possible birds.

Then you go online to www.PetersonBirdSounds.com to listen. I looked up one of my favorite spring migrants, the lazuli bunting. There are 15 recordings. Birds can have regional accents, so it was nice to see recordings from Colorado, including some made by Pieplow, a Coloradoan. If you’ve ever wanted to study birdsongs and other bird sounds, this is the field guide for you. 

A Season on the Wind, Inside the World of Spring Migration by Kenn Kaufman, c. 2019, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I referenced the advance reading copy of this book a couple months ago when discussing the coming development of the wind farm at Cheyenne’s Belvoir Ranch. It gave me insights into the impact of wind energy on birds and bats.

The larger part of this book is about spring migration where birds and birdwatchers congregate in droves along the southwest shore of Lake Erie.

It’s as much about the birds as it is the community of birders, beginning with those year-round regulars at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory like Kaufman and his wife, Kimberly Kaufman, the executive director, and the migrant birdwatchers who come from all over the world, some year after year.

Even if you know a lot about bird migration, this is worth a read just for the poetry of Kaufman’s prose as he describes how falling in love with Kimberly brought him to northwestern Ohio where he fell in love again, with the Black Swamp, a place pioneers avoided. 

Down the Mountain, The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear by Bryce Andrews, c. 2019, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Are you familiar with the genre “creative nonfiction”? It means a book or other piece of writing is factual, but uses literary conventions like plot, character, scene, suspense. This is a suspenseful story. We already expect a death, based on the book’s subtitle.

Rancher-writer-conservationist Andrews documents how a bear he refers to as Millie, an experienced mother with three cubs, gets in trouble in the Mission Valley of western Montana despite his efforts to protect her and other bears from their worst instincts.

Don’t turn out the lights too soon after following Andrews into the maze of field corn where grizzlies like to gather on a dark night.

Bird and wildlife books for winter reading & gift giving

Try these bird and wildlife books for winter reading and gift giving

This column was also posted at Wyoming Network News: https://www.wyomingnetworknews.com/try-these-bird-and-wildlife-books-for-winter-reading-and-gift-giving. It appeared Dec. 16, 2018, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

By Barb Gorges

Several books published this year about birds and other animals I recommend to you as fine winter reading, or gift giving.

The first, “How to be a Good Creature, A Memoir in Thirteen Animals” is a memoir by Sy Montgomery, a naturalist who has written many children’s as well as adult books about animals.

Montgomery has been around the world for her research. Some of the animals she met on her travels and the animals she and her husband have shared their New Hampshire home with have taught her important life lessons: dog, emu, hog, tarantula, weasel, octopus.

This might make a good read-aloud with perceptive middle-school and older children.

“Warblers & Woodpeckers, A Father-Son Big Year of Birding” by Sneed B. Collard III was a great read-aloud. For two weeks every evening I read it to my husband, Mark, while he washed the dishes–a long-standing family tradition.

Like Montgomery, Collard is a naturalist and author, though normally he writes specifically and prolifically for children. He lives in western Montana.

When his son is turning 13, Collard realizes he has limited time to spend with him before his son gets too busy. Birdwatching becomes a common interest, though his son is much more proficient. They decide to do a big year, to count as many bird species as possible, working around Collard’s speaking schedule and taking friends up on their invitations to visit.

There are many humorous moments and serious realizations, life birds and nemesis birds, and a little snow and much sunshine. Mark plans to pass the book on to our younger son who ordered it for him for his birthday.

Two Wyoming wildlife biologists, Matthew Kauffman and Bill Rudd, who have spoken at Cheyenne Audubon meetings on the subject, are part of the group that put together “Wild Migrations, Atlas of Wyoming’s Ungulates.” I ordered a copy sight unseen.

We know that many bird species migrate, but Wyoming is just now getting a handle on and publicizing the migrations of elk, moose, deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, mountain goat and bison, thanks to improved, cheaper tracking technology.

Each two-page spread in this over-sized book is an essay delving into an aspect of ungulates with easy-to-understand maps and graphs. For example, we learn Wyoming’s elk feed grounds were first used in the 1930s to keep elk from raiding farmers’ haystacks and later to keep elk from infecting cattle with brucellosis.

Then we learn that fed elk don’t spend as much time grazing on summer range as unfed elk, missing out on high-quality forage 22 to 30 days a year. Shortening the artificial feeding season in spring might encourage fed elk to migrate sooner, get better forage, and save the Wyoming Game and Fish Department money.

This compendium of research can aid biologists, land managers and land owners in smarter wildlife management. At the same time, it is very readable for the wildlife enthusiast. Don’t miss the foreword by novelist Annie Proulx.

Thanks, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, for sending me a copy of the newly revised “Peterson Field Guide to Western Reptiles & Amphibians” by Robert C. Stebbins and Samuel M. McGinnis to review. I now know that what friends and I nearly stepped on while hiking last summer was a prairie rattlesnake, one of 12 kinds of rattlers found in the west.

There are 40-plus Peterson field guides for a variety of nature topics, all stemming from Roger Tory Peterson’s 1934 guide to the birds of eastern North America. I visited the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in Jamestown, New York, this fall and saw his original art work.

The reptile and amphibian guide first came out in 1966, written and illustrated by the late Stebbins. In in its fourth edition, his color plates still offer quick comparisons between species. Photos now offer additional details and there are updated range maps and descriptions of species life cycles and habitats. It would be interesting to compare the maps in the 1966 edition with the new edition since so many species, especially amphibians, have lost ground.

I would be doing local photographer Pete Arnold a disservice if I didn’t remind you that you can find our book, “Cheyenne Birds by the Month” at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, Wyoming State Museum, Cheyenne Depot Museum, Riverbend Nursery and PBR Printing. People tell us they are using Pete’s photos to identify local birds. I hope the experience encourages them to pick up a full-fledged bird guide someday by Peterson, Floyd, Sibley or Kaufman.

Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count 2017

Mark and I rechecked Wyoming Hereford Ranch Reservoir #1 in the evening of the Big Day and caught a couple more bird species. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Published June 18, 2017, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. “Thrushes take over Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count”

By Barb Gorges

The spring bird migration of 2017 is leaving people scratching their heads in puzzlement.

Because of safety issues due to heavy snow the two days before —the Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count was postponed a week, to May 27. [The best spring bird watching/counting in Cheyenne is around the old cottonwoods and the snow broke branches and left large trees hazardous to walk under.]

Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society members who organize the count assume that the Saturday closest to the middle of May will be the closest to peak migration. However, while the event was held a week later this year, we counted 113 species compared to last year’s 110.

In the preceding weeks, we saw posts from Casper birders about sightings of spring migrants we hadn’t seen yet, as if they skipped Cheyenne and continued north.

At our house, we eventually had about one each of our favorite migrants (indigo bunting, black-headed grosbeak, MacGillivray’s warbler, Wilson’s warbler), but most were after the original Big Day date.

In early May, my husband, Mark, and I visited High Island, Texas, a famous landing spot for migrating songbirds crossing the Gulf. It was empty except for the rookery full of spoonbills, herons, egrets and cormorants. A birder we met had visited during the peak in April and said it was a disappointing migration.

Bill Thompson III, editor and publisher of Bird Watcher’s Digest, posted similar thoughts about what he saw from his home in southeastern Ohio. Someone responding from New Hampshire said he saw only three species of warblers in the first 25 days of May when he would typically see a dozen.

Everyone hopes that the low number of migrating birds is due to weather patterns that blew them north without stopping over. We hope it isn’t a sign of problems on the wintering grounds, breeding grounds or somewhere in between.

For our Cheyenne Big Day, we have one group that birds the hotspots: Lions Park, Wyoming Hereford Ranch, the High Plains Grasslands Research Station and the adjacent arboretum. This year, between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m., the group varied in size from five to 15. Even the most inexperienced birdwatcher was helpful finding birds.

Because we couldn’t change the date of the permit we had to access the research station, we contented ourselves with the road in front of the buildings, and that’s where we found two eastern bluebirds, a species showing up here more often in recent years.

The long-eared owl seen by two participants this year at the Wyoming Hereford Ranch is a species last recorded on the Big Day in 1996.

Besides the group canvassing an area roughly the same as the Christmas Bird Count’s 15-mile diameter circle centered on the Capitol, five people birded on their own. And though they sometimes visited places the main group did, it was at different times, counting different birds.

The most numerous species this year was the Swainson’s Thrush. The quintessential little brown bird, like a junior robin, was everywhere. Two days later, there were none to be seen.

Maybe there is no one-day peak of spring migration. Maybe there never was. But spending any day outdoors in Cheyenne in May you are bound to see more species of birds than if you don’t go out at all.

2017 Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count results: 113 species

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Gadwall

Mallard

Blue-winged Teal

Cinnamon Teal

Northern Shoveler

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Ring-necked Duck

Lesser Scaup

Bufflehead

Common Merganser

Ruddy Duck

Eared Grebe

Western Grebe

Clark’s Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

American White Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Sharp-Shinned Hawk

Cooper’s Hawk

Broad-winged Hawk

Swainson’s Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

American Coot

American Avocet

Killdeer

Spotted Sandpiper

Solitary Sandpiper

Willet

Wilson’s Snipe

Wilson’s Phalarope

Ring-billed Gull

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

Long-eared Owl

Great Horned Owl

Common Nighthawk

Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Belted Kingfisher

Downy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Kestrel

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Western Wood-Pewee

Willow Flycatcher

Least Flycatcher

Hammond’s Flycatcher

Cordilleran Flycatcher

Say’s Phoebe

Cassin’s Kingbird

Western Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Warbling Vireo

Plumbeous Vireo

Blue Jay

Black-billed Magpie

American Crow

Horned Lark

Tree Swallow

1. Rough-winged Swallow

Bank Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Barn Swallow

Mountain Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

House Wren

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Eastern Bluebird

Swainson’s Thrush

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

Gray Catbird

Brown Thrasher

European Starling

Cedar Waxwing

McCown’s Longspur

Northern Waterthrush

Orange-crowned Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

American Redstart

Yellow Warbler

Yellow-rumped Warbler

Wilson’s Warbler

Chipping Sparrow

Clay-colored Sparrow

Brewer’s Sparrow

Lark Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Lincoln’s Sparrow

Green-tailed Towhee

Western Tanager

Black-headed Grosbeak

Red-winged Blackbird

Western Meadowlark

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Brewer’s Blackbird

Common Grackle

Great-tailed Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

Orchard Oriole

Bullock’s Oriole

House Finch

Lesser Goldfinch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

A spotting scope is necessary to see the waterfowl on the far side of Wyoming Hereford Ranch Reservoir #1. Photo by Barb Gorges.

Bird books worth reading

Published Mar. 12, 2017 in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, “Bird books worth reading.”

By Barb Gorges

If you are the books you read, here is what I’ve been this winter.

“The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman, c. 2016, Penguin Press

This was a Christmas present from my daughter-in-law, Madeleine, who teaches cognitive psychology. It’s an enthralling overview of the latest studies that show how much smarter birds are than we thought, sometimes smarter than us in particular ways. They can navigate extreme distances, find home, find food stashed six months earlier, solve puzzles, use tools, sing hundreds of complex songs, remember unique relationships with each flock member, engineer nests, adapt to new foods and situations. They can even communicate with us.

“Good Birders Still Don’t Wear White, Passionate Birders Share the Joys of Watching Birds,” edited by Lisa A. White and Jeffrey A. Gordon, c. 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

The previous volume, in 2007, was “Good Birders Don’t Wear White, 50 Tips from North America’s Top Birders.”

One of my favorite essays is by our Colorado friend Ted Floyd, “Go Birding with (Young, Really Young) Children.” Having frequently accompanied him and his children, I can say he does a terrific job of making birdwatching appealing.

Many of the essays start out with “Why I Love…” and move on to different aspects of birding people love (seabirds, drawing birds, my yard, spectrograms, “because it gets me closer to tacos”), followed by tips should you want to follow their passions.

“Field Guide to the Birds of California” by Alvaro Jaramillo, c. 2015

This is part of the American Birding Association State Field Guide Series published by Scott & Nix Inc. The series so far also includes Arizona, the Carolinas, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Each author writes their own invitation to the beginning birdwatcher or the birder new to their state.

While a few birding hotspots may be mentioned, the real service these books provide is an overview of the state’s ecological regions and what kind of habitats to find each species in, not to mention large photos of each. I’ll probably still pack my Sibley’s, just in case we see a bird rare to California.

            “Peterson Field Guide to the Bird Sounds of Eastern North America” by Nathan Pieplow, c. 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

While including the usual bird pictures and range maps, this book is about learning to identify birds by sound and corresponding audio files can be found at www.petersonbirdsounds.com.

Bird songs are charted using spectrograms, graphic representations of sound recordings.

You can think of spectrograms as musical notation. They read from left to right. A low black mark indicates a low-pitched frequency. A thin, short line higher up indicates a clear sound with few overtones, higher pitched and short-lived. But most bird sounds are more complex, some filling the spectrogram from top to bottom.

Pieplow explains how to read spectrograms, the basic patterns, the variations, the none-vocal sounds like wing-clapping, and the biology of bird sounds.

Once you can visualize what you are hearing, Pieplow provides a visual index to bird sounds to help you try to match a bird with what you heard.

Taking a call note I’m familiar with in my neighborhood, the one note the Townsend’s solitaire gives from the top of a tree in winter, I find that Pieplow categorizes it as “cheep,” higher than a “chirp” and more complex than “peep.” It’s going to take a while to train our ears to distinguish differences.

            “The Warbler Guide” by Tom Stephenson and Scott White, c. 2015, Princeton University Press and The Warbler Guide App.

Spectrograms are a part of the 500 pages devoted to the 56 species of warblers in the U.S. and Canada.

The yellow warbler, whose song we hear along willow-choked streams in the mountains in summer, gets 10 pages.

Icons show its silhouette (sometimes it can be diagnostic), color impression (as it flies by in a blur), tail pattern (the usual underside view of a bird above your head), range generalization, habitat (what part of the tree it prefers) and behavioral (hover, creep, sally, walk).

Then there’s the spectrogram comparing it to other species and maps show migration routes and timing, both spring and fall. We can see the yellow warbler spends the winter as far south as Peru.

Forty-one photographs show all angles, similar species, and both sexes at various ages.

The companion app, an additional $13, has most of the book’s content, and lets you rotate to compare 3-D versions of two warblers at a time, filter identification clues and listen to song recordings.

This is a good investment for birding in Cheyenne where we have seen 32 warbler species over the last 20 springs.

Big Day bird count big picture

Published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Opinion section May 22, 2016, “Bird count day gives us big picture.”

By Barb Gorges

            May Hanesworth was ahead of her time. An active Cheyenne birder as early as the 1940s, she made sure the results of the local spring bird counts were published every year in the Cheyenne paper. She recruited me in the 1990s to type the lists for her. She felt that someday there would be a place for that data and she was right.

            A few years ago, members of the Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society collected and uploaded that data to eBird.org, a global database for bird observations. The oldest record we found was for 1956.

            We refer to the count we make at the height of spring migration as the Big Day Bird Count. Elsewhere in the world, competitive birders will, as a small team or solo, do a big day to see how many species they can find in a specified area. But the idea of a group of unlimited size like ours going out and scouring an area is unusual, though closer to what the originator, Lynds Jones, an Oberlin College ornithology professor, had in mind back in 1895.

            Now eBird.org has started a new tradition as of last year, the Global Big Day. This year it was scheduled for May 14, the same day as ours. Results show 15,642 people around the world saw 6,227 bird species. For our local count, 20 people looked for birds around Cheyenne, and 107 species were counted [Results were published elsewhere in the paper. See the list below.].

            Finding our favorite birds in the company of friends is a good incentive for taking part, but there is the science too. Back in the spring of 1956, May saw 85 species. And when Mark and I started in the 1990s, 150 seemed to be the norm—perhaps because Cheyenne had more trees by then. However, the last 10 years, the average is lower, 118.

            Maybe we aren’t as sharp as earlier birders. Or we are missing the peak of migration. Or we have lost prime habitat for migrating birds as the surrounding prairie gets built over and elderly trees are removed in town. Or it’s caused by deteriorating habitat in southern wintering grounds or northern breeding grounds.

            But imagine where we would be without the Migratory Bird Treaty.

            This year marks the 100^th anniversary of the first agreement, in 1916, between the U.S. and Great Britain (signing for Canada), followed by other agreements and updates. In summary: “It is illegal to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, offer for sale, purchase or barter any migratory bird, or parts, nests or eggs.”

            Even migrating songbirds, like our Wyoming state bird, the western meadowlark, are protected.

            But who would want to hurt a meadowlark?

            Look at the Mediterranean flyway. Birdlife International reports 25 million birds of all kinds along it are shot or trapped every year for fun, food and the cage bird trade. Perpetrators think the supply of birds is endless. But we can point to the millions of passenger pigeons in North America prior to the death in 1914 of the last one, to show what can happen.

            The city of Eliat, Israel, is the funnel between Africa and Europe/Asia on the Mediterranean flyway, and to bring attention to the slaughter, the annual Champions of the Flyway bird race is based there. A big day event, this year it attracted 40 teams, Israeli and international, which counted a combined total of 243 species during 24 hours.

            This year, funds raised by the teams are going to Greece, to support education and enforcement—killing migratory birds is already illegal. Some of the worst-hit areas are in forests above beaches popular with tourists. Attracting birdwatching tourists could pay better than killing and trapping birds, a kind of change that has been beneficial elsewhere.  

            Many factors affect how many birds we see in Cheyenne on our big day, but we do have control over one aspect: habitat. If you live in the city, plant more trees and shrubs in appropriate places. If you live on acreage, protect the prairie and its ground-nesting grassland birds. And then join us on future Cheyenne Big Day Bird Counts and contribute to the global big picture of birds.

Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count results affected by cold, wet weather

By Barb Gorges

            The 2016 Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count was held May 14. It was cold (33-43 degrees F), wet and foggy. Conditions kept down the number of birdwatchers participating as well as the number of birds observed.

            Thirteen Cheyenne – High Plains Audubon Society members and friends birded as a group at Lions Park, Wyoming Hereford Ranch and the High Plains Grasslands Research Station. Seven others birded on their own and contributed to the total of 107 species observed. Last year’s total was 110 species.

            Few flycatchers, vireos and warblers were seen because few insects, their primary food, were around due to the cold. Few kinds of shorebirds were seen at area reservoirs. High water levels from previous rain and snowfall left few areas of shallow water and exposed sandbars for them.

            Although many of the species that migrate through Cheyenne were seen, including willet, broad-winged hawk, Forster’s tern, ruby-crowned kinglet and western tanager, the day, weather notwithstanding, may not have represented quite the peak of spring migration.

             A highlight of the count was a black-and-white warbler at the research station. It is considered an eastern warbler, rarely seen this far west, although it does nest in the Black Hills.

            The Cheyenne Big Day ran concurrent with the Global Big Day. For a look at local and global results, see www.eBird.org/globalbigday. 

Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count

May 14, 2016

107 species total

Canada Goose

Gadwall

American Wigeon

Mallard

Blue-winged Teal

Cinnamon

Northern Shoveler

Northern Pintail

Green-winged Teal

Redhead

Ring-necked Duck

Lesser Scaup

Bufflehead

Common Merganser

Ruddy Duck

Pied-billed Grebe

Eared Grebe

Western Grebe

Clark’s Grebe

Double-crested Cormorant

American White Pelican

Great Blue Heron

Black-crowned Night-Heron

White-faced Ibis

Turkey Vulture

Osprey

Cooper’s Hawk

Broad-winged Hawk

Swainson’s Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

American Coot

American Avocet

Killdeer

Spotted Sandpiper

Willet

Wilson’s Snipe

Wilson’s Phalarope

Red-necked Phalarope

Bonaparte’s Gull

Franklin’s Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Forster’s Tern

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

Mourning Dove

Belted Kingfisher

Downy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

American Kestrel

Prairie Falcon

Western Wood-Pewee

Least Flycatcher

Western Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Loggerhead Shrike

Blue Jay

Black-billed Magpie

American Crow

Common Raven

Tree Swallow

N. Rough-winged Swallow

Bank Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Barn Swallow

Mountain Chickadee

Red-breasted Nuthatch

House Wren

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Eastern Bluebird

Mountain Bluebird

Veery

Swainson’s Thrush

Hermit Thrush

American Robin

Brown Thrasher

European Starling

Black-and-white Warbler

Orange-crowned Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler

Palm Warbler

Yelllow-rumped Warbler

Green-tailed Towhee

Chipping Sparrow

Clay-colored Sparrow

Vesper Sparrow

Lark Sparrow

Lark Bunting

Song Sparrow

Lincoln’s Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow

Western Tanager

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Black-headed Grosbeak

Red-winged Blackbird

Western Meadowlark

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Common Grackle

Great-tailed Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

Bullock’s Oriole

House Finch

Pine Siskin

Lesser Goldfinch

American Goldfinch

House Sparrow

Yellow-rumped warbler last to leave

In the fall, Yellow-rumped Warblers are not this bright. Courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Published Oct. 11, 2006, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, “The last to go, warblers put on a late season show.”

2014 Update: The spring migration Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count total warbler species count is now at 31. Click HERE for the Cheyenne Big Day Bird Count Warbler List.

By Barb Gorges

As the leaves turned yellow-green in late summer, you may have noticed them shaking without benefit of a breeze.

Did you see small, greenish yellow warblers picking through the foliage for insects?

Since 1993, Cheyenne-High Plains Audubon Society has documented 29 species of warblers on its Big Day counts held mid-May, at the peak of spring migration.

We haven’t given the same scrutiny to fall migration since warblers trickle through Cheyenne beginning late August and on into October. In the spring, the timing of their migration is more concentrated.

Most of the reports I’ve received this fall are for easily recognized warblers: Townsend’s with its mask, Wilson’s with its black cap and beady black eyes and yellow-rumpeds with their yellow rump in contrast to blue-gray back and wings.

The yellow-rumped warbler stands out in many ways. First, it’s just about the most common wood warbler species, which is probably why it has a well-known nickname.

Can’t you just hear the ornithologist tracking the quick-flitting unknown bird deep in the bushes and finally exclaiming, “It’s just another butter butt!”

The yellow-rumped comes in two forms that were previously two separate species. One, the myrtle warbler, has a white throat, and is considered the eastern form. The other, Audubon’s warbler, has a yellow throat. It breeds in the Rocky Mountains and winters in southwestern U.S. and Mexico.

We see both forms in Cheyenne so it is always worthwhile to scrutinize this common bird.

The yellow-rumped has odd habits for a warbler. Last month friends and I hiked up to Emerald Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, elevation 10,000 feet. Although there was fresh snow on the peaks and aspen in full color lower down, we found yellow-rumpeds busy catching flying insects in a most unwarbler way.

They perched on a picturesque dead tree at the lake’s edge, then flew out over the water after their prey and circled back to their perches. This activity is called hawking and flycatchers are the group of birds that use it most often. According to my books, it’s a recognized feeding behavior for yellow-rumpeds too, but not for most warbler species.

What also sets the yellow-rumped apart is its wide range of gastronomic preferences. Other warblers have to head south when it is too cold to find live insects, but the yellow-rumped starts picking berries. That’s how the myrtle got its name—it likes to eat wax myrtle berries.

Apparently, yellow-rumpeds have a digestive system that can deal with the berries’ waxy coating. I don’t think around here we have any myrtle, or bayberry, its other favorite food.

But both Audubon’s and Myrtle forms stick around Cheyenne quite late, eating other kinds of berries and seeds. Robert and Jane Dorn list records as late as the first week in December.

Other warbler species’ latest dates are in mid-October.

Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion calls yellow-rumpeds “The Swarm Warbler.” I have seen this phenomenon myself, in Lions Park.

Warblers migrate at night. By morning they are ready to come to earth and refuel.

As I walked the dog one spring morning, between the new community house and the lake, yellow-rumped warblers tumbled across the path at my feet like wind blown leaves.

While they may swarm during migration, yellow-rumpeds prefer to spread out for breeding in the coniferous forests of the mountains and the north. Little is known about this part of their lives compared to that of other more gregarious songbirds.

David Flaspohler, one of the authors of the extensive account in Birds of North America, made a lot of observations while completing his dissertation on metapopulation dynamics and reproductive ecology of northern forest songbirds in the upper Great Lakes.

Yellow-rumpeds are considered to be monogamous. The female is usually the sole nest builder though the male may sing and keep her company while she works.

Flashpohler was able to watch at least eight nests in northern Wisconsin in 1996 and documented that incubation is almost entirely done by the female.

“Male often sings in vicinity of nest during incubation,” he wrote.

When it’s time to feed the young, the male helps, in between bouts of singing. In other species, parent birds are very quiet near the nest because they don’t want to attract predators.

Many other sections of the account, however, state “No information.” It looks like aspects of butter butt life history could provide many more topics for theses and dissertations.

For instance, the last time yellow-rumpeds were tested for the effects of spruce budworm pesticides was 1987, in only one place and for only one kind of pesticide.

Or, why was the yellow-rumped the most abundant warbler found in collisions with towers in Florida, but rarely in Pennsylvania?

Yellow-rumped populations are said to be stable or increasing, but standard avian demographic data is lacking.

Another species, the greater sage-grouse, is suffering from rampant oil and gas development in Wyoming today and is finally attracting lots of research funds.

Had more research been done earlier, wildlife biologists may have been able to make better recommendations sooner to stave off the disastrous situation we have now. Then again, sound biological recommendations need to fall on willing Administration ears to have any effect.

Meanwhile, enjoy warbler watching. Consider posting your bird observations on eBird.com. Every little bit helps us figure out the puzzle that is life on Earth.