Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Preparing for Birding the Oregon Coast

The first week of August, my extended family is having a family reunion at Cape Lookout State Park along the Oregon Coast. Family reunions are great, especially when some new birding habitat is involved! I'm pretty pumped about my birding opportunities in Oregon. I'll likely get to see birds that I normally flip past in my field guide because I'm not normally in the right habitat. To channel my excitement productively I systematically prepare to see these birds. Let me share with you how I go about this.
We're going to be camping at Cape Lookout State Park and visiting locations all the way up to Seaside (see the stars on the map)
First, I find out which counties I'll be visiting and then I create an eBird bar chart of all the birds seen in those counties.

Then I download the histogram data into Microsoft Excel and remove all of the columns except for the weeks surrounding my planned visit. Then I delete all the birds that show no sighting data during those weeks. This gives me a good list of what I can reasonably expect to see. I convert the data to percentages rather than long decimal numbers for my own convenience. Often, I will delete from the list all the birds that I am already familiar with to create my study list and my potential "life bird" list. 

Here is my potential "life bird" list for Tillamook County, Oregon for the last week of July and the first two weeks of August - sorted by probability as per submitted eBird data for birders like you:
Once I have this list I can start studying the birds so that I "know" them as much as possible and I am prepared to recognize or identify them when I am there in person. Many times I will go to the websites of my online birding friends to see what they are seeing. Greg Gillson, one of our fantastic contributors here at "Birding is Fun!" is the perfect resource for this Oregon Coast trip. I browse through his Photo Checklist of Oregon Birds and peruse the images of my potential life birds and my excitement just builds and builds.

Check out Greg's photography below that helps me get an idea of what these birds look like, what habitat I might see them in, and a glimpse of how they might be behaving when I see them:
Black Oystercatcher
Black Turnstone
Brandt's Cormorant
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Common Murre
Fork-tailed Storm Petrel
Glaucous-winged Gull
Heermann's Gull
Marbled Murrelet
Pelagic Cormorant
Pigeon Guillemot
Rhinoceros Auklet
Semipalmated Plover
Sooty Shearwater
Tufted Puffin
Wrentit
After seeing these images, I'm all sorts of giddy inside! Wahoo!!! Bring on the Oregon birds!!!

Next, I read about each of these species at AllAboutBirds.org. I particularly like the descriptions of habitat and feeding as well as the "cool facts" with which I will delight (or bore) my family members.

Finally, I spend some time in my arsenal of field guides both paper and digital, studying the illustrations and photos, and reading the text for each. May I recommend the Stokes Field Guide to the Birds of North America by our own Lillian Stokes? Another cool thing I like to do is find online video and sound clips for any of the species I can. Video really helps get an idea of general shape and size, habitat and behavior, and often sound. When will they start incorporating video into the digital field guides for smartphones and tablets?!

Speaking of apps, I can also use the apps like Audubon Birds with "Find Birds with eBird" to zero in on locations where each of these species has recently been seen.

By following this pattern of study and preparation, I feel ready to identify, if not recognize, and enjoy these birds and add them to my life list. I'll check back in after the trip and tell you how I did!

23 comments:

  1. I like your approach and I'll try and do something similar when I take a trip Pittock Conservation Area in Woodstock, Ontario.

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    1. Thanks for the comment. Let us know how your preparations and trip goes!

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  2. Nice work Robert! This trip looks great--that's a tidy nice list of birds you've got to see there, wouldn't mind to hit that spot too!

    Make sure you stop by the Tillamook factory while you're there! Best Sharp Cheddar in the U.S.

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    1. Tillamook Sharp Cheddar is our family favorite cheese and the Tillamook Cheese Factory is high on our priority list for our visits in that region.

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    2. Likewsie, and get the ice cream too!

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  3. Sounds like you are ready to go! It's was fun to read about your process. I too have used ebird to discover what birds I might find in areas I'm not familiar with. It's a terrific tool! With the exception of the Semipalmated Plover, all the birds featured above would be life birds for me. Wishing you a wonderful trip filled with awesome bird sightings and family reunion fun! Fantastic post!

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    1. Ahh...West Coast birding! This will be my first time on the coast as a birder. I hope I get some good pics to share.

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  4. Robert, it is fun to read how you go about this process. Thanks for sharing!

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    1. Thanks Mia! I'd love to hear how you prep for wild bird photo shoots.

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  5. Just reading this on my way back from the west coast myself (BC) where I saw several of these species although Black Turnstone is turning into a bit of a nemesis for me! Good luck and enjoy your trip.

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    1. Thanks for commenting David. I followed the link of your name to your awesome blog and I added it to our "The Big Birding Blog List" for all to follow your updates. Happy Birding! - Robert

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  6. Hope you'll get to see all the birds on your list! I bookmarked this post to remind me next time I travel to a new location how best to go about it.

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    1. Thanks for the well wishes. I hope to see at least 10 of them. The study prep time is well worth it!

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  7. My guess is you'll have no problem seeing all birds except the storm-petrel, which is rarely sighted within a dozen miles of shore. Make sure to stop at Haystack Rock at Canon Beach for Tufted Puffins--it may be a bit too late in the year to find juveniles still sitting outside their nest burrows high up on the grassy slopes of that huge monolith. And the Wrentit is a skulker.

    Cape Meares and Bayocean spit is a must-stop for the whole family. You may wish to stop for a cup of chowder at Bay City Oyster Company, where you'll find numerous turnstones outside.

    Oh, one more thing. I'm the eBird Reviewer for Tillamook and Clatsop County. I'll be keeping a close eye on any rarities you report!!!!

    Greg

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    1. Thanks for the tips Greg. I have shared them with my family members so we make sure to hit those locations. Let me know if you want to come out birding one of those days!

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  8. What a useful procedure, Robert! I'm definitely going to use it.

    The other part that needs attention, though, is knowing the lay of the land. I always check for an ABA/Lane guide when I go to a new area. Not only are the directions to locations useful, but there can be birding tips that will help if the standard locations don't work.

    Last year I did a spring trip to south Florida. One of my target birds was American Swallow-tailed Kite. The guide books said they would be all over the Everglades and the keys, but I had no luck anywhere. In reading the species account in the ABA guide, I learned that post-breading, they would go west of Lake Okeechobee, including the NAS's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. Since it was a very dry year, I thought they might have dispersed already. The location section for Corkscrew included a phone number, so I called and asked if they were being seen. The response was "Not today, but we had some yesterday." I had one fly over the car three miles before I reached the turnoff!

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    1. Excellent comment Steve. Knowing the lay of the land really does help and such books as you mention are extremely helpful. My father-in-law has a book of great birding locations with well written descriptions that I will also be using.

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  9. I hope you have a fantastic trip, sure sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Love all the photos you take of these fantastic birds.

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    1. The photos are all credit of Greg Gillson, the wonderful BiF Contributor from Oregon. He is after all "The Bird Guide". Thanks for commenting and all the best to you!

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  10. How wonderful to have you coming out to our neck of the woods (a few miles north, but I claim it :o) I really appreciate this post about your approach - I find it very helpful! I rarely "chase" birds but am occasionally in another area wishing I knew where to find birds and what birds to look for, so this will be great. Thanks also for the link to Greg's photo checklist - for some reason I hadn't seen it before - will be checking it out now, though!

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    1. I should try and arrange a get-together and some birding for birding friends online. Greg is a great resource for birds in the area you live in. Thanks for commenting Dawn!

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  11. I'm really blown away with the panache you take to planning a trip this way! You certainly have used your resources well in preparing for it. Have fun!

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    1. Thanks Zachary. Keep up the great work on your eBird gadgets. You inspire me!

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