Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week’s newsletter highlights an astounding nighttime discovery as well as a practical habit that keeps your days in the field running smoothly. In This Week in Birding History, we revisit a remarkable after-dark encounter involving a bird few would expect to find so far from home. In Birding Tip, we go over the best practice for keeping your binoculars clean so your optics stay sharp, protected, and ready when a good bird appears.

This Week in Birding History: An Ant-What? After Dark

September 1, 2006 — Twenty years ago this week, birder Martin Hagne and his wife encountered something extraordinary in the bushes near their home in Harlingen, Texas. About two hours after sunset, they heard an unfamiliar, amphibian-like vocalization coming from a nearby hedgerow. After briefly dismissing the sound as some sort of frog, Martin reconsidered. Finding the sound-maker proved difficult: barely illuminated by the house’s exterior lights, the mystery creature remained hidden low to the ground in the vegetation, refusing to reveal itself. Yet, Martin recorded the sound with an analog tape recorder and played it back, eliciting a vocal response. The recordings proved to be a perfect match to the song of the Barred Antshrike—a species representative of a family never before documented north of Mexico.

Of the 238 species in the antbird family Thamnophilidae—which includes antshrikes, antwrens, antvireos, bushbirds, stipplethroats, and fire-eyes—the Barred Antshrike comes closest to the United States. Its nearest known population lies roughly 155 miles (250 km) south of Texas. Throughout their geographic range, which stretches from northeastern Mexico south to northern Argentina, Barred Antshrikes inhabit dense thickets, shrublands, and forests with thick understories.

Academic studies of Barred Antshrikes are sparse, but ornithologists regard them as sedentary birds that maintain year-round territories, often smaller than 1 acre (4,047 square meters). Specially adapted to dense, highly tangled vegetation, they spend more time hopping than flying, with their short “flights” typically resembling wing-assisted leaps. These behaviors do not align with those of most species prone to vagrancy, making Martin’s backyard discovery an especially remarkable case of avian travel.

Listen to Martin’s digitized original recordings, captured 20 years ago this week. The next time an unfamiliar sound catches your attention, record it!

Birding Tip: Tune Up Your Binoculars

Post breeding migration is just around the corner. Cold fronts, pressure systems, and changing conditions are sending birds south as they search for more suitable conditions. As these birds begin to pass through our favorite patches, it is critical that we have well conditioned optics to aid us in our search.

It’s common to leave binoculars untuned for significant stretches of time. They are a tool and we birders certainly use them as such. As a result, our binoculars are often dirtier than we think. Binoculars have crevices that collect dust or pollen as you are out birding. Without proper cleaning technique, you risk letting your lenses scratch which can have a significant impact on clarity.

Remove Loose Debris

The first step in proper care technique is to remove any loose debris. This is a critical step because if you go straight to wiping the lenses, you could scratch them with a stray particle on the glass. It’s best to start the cleaning process with a soft lens brush or an air blower. When cleaning your binoculars with either air or a soft brush. Be sure to hold them so the particles fall out as you brush them off rather than pushing them around on the lenses. Be sure to clean the lenses as well as any moving parts of the binoculars like the focus dial.

Clean Your Lenses

After removing particles from the lenses and any area where they may get caught, it is time to clean your lenses. Start with a microfiber lens wipe and clean the lens surfaces of all fingerprints or oil. If you choose to clean with a cleaning solution, be sure it is specifically designed for cleaning lenses. Apply the solution to the lens cloth rather than directly to the lens. Wipe the surface gently, working outward from the center. In a pinch, many birders will use breath and a T-shirt but this method is not preferred to a lens wipe as the fibers of a T-shirt are rougher and could cause damage to lens surfaces.

Don’t Forget the Rest of the Binoculars

Cleaning your lenses will not be nearly as effective in maintaining the health of your optics if you don’t clean the rest of your binoculars. Sweat build up and oil from your skin can cause break down especially in the spots that make contact with your face while using them. Lens cups can easily fill with small particles that will dislodge and could end up on your lenses. By cleaning out the lens cups the build up of particles will be slower and less significant resulting in easier lens cleaning. Salt water from spray can also sit on your optics and cause damage over time. As a rule of thumb, it is best to clean salt water off of binoculars as soon as possible.

Common Cleaning Mistakes

It’s common to see people take advantage of every day cleaners to clean binoculars. Your optics are very fragile and careful treatment will result in higher performance and longer lifespan. Household cleaners are much harsher than those designed for optics. Paper towels are not a good substitute for a lens wipe and cleaning solutions that are meant to be used on a counter are likely too corrosive for delicate lenses. Aggressive cleaning can also be counter productive over time. Avoid cleaning forcefully and don’t feel the need to clean your binoculars after every trip.

Clean More Effectively

The larger theme is that cleaning optics comes down to cleaning more effectively rather than more frequently. Little bits of dust are not critical to remove as soon as you notice them. Oils, saltwater, or fingerprints should be addressed sooner rather than later as they will impact the immediate effectiveness of your optics. If you are unsure of proper care techniques, many binocular manufacturers will have care guides on their website that you can adhere to for best practices. Be sure to tune up your binoculars before it becomes a hindrance. With proper care technique you never have to risk missing a bird because your lens is smudged.

Thanks for Reading

Good birding depends on attention to detail and preparation. Rare encounters often happen quickly and under less-than-ideal conditions. Be sure you have clean optics to help ensure you’re ready to make the most of these opportunities. By building simple gear-care habits into your routine, you protect your binoculars, improve your views, and reduce the chances that a smudge or streak gets between you and the next memorable bird.

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Across the Northern Hemisphere it’s the end of summer and birding may be a bit slower where you live. But a slower summer may just be the perfect time to start planning your next birding getaway!

With so many choices of where to see our feathered friends around the world, one can easily spend hours researching new and exciting locations. It can be easy to get bogged down in the available choices. As such, trusted recommendations are always helpful in making good travel decisions, and one such recommendation comes from new Birding University contributor, Donna Keller (you have likely seen her photos in other posts and our Bird of the Day notes).

In the spring of 2025, Keller and some birding friends had an awesome adventure on the Greek island of Lesvos. Here’s a brief synopsis of the island, along with a few photos of some fabulous birds, all from Keller. We hope her recommendation inspires you to give Greece a try!

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! Today’s newsletter takes a closer look at gulls and terns, two closely related groups of water-loving birds that are sometimes lumped together under the catch-all term “seagulls.” In This Week in Birding History, we highlight an unusual gathering of terns near the hometown of a famous field guide author, while the Birding Tip breaks down key differences between gulls and terns. Our simple approach to separating the two groups can be easily practiced the next time you’re at the beach, along a lake, or anywhere these familiar birds gather.

This Week in Birding History: A Tern Party in Peterson’s Backyard

August 24, 2024 — In celebration of famed artist-naturalist Roger Tory Peterson’s (1908-1996) birthday week, we travel to Peterson’s hometown in western New York’s Chautauqua County to highlight a notable group of terns. Two years ago today, birder Jason Robinson discovered a group of seven Forster’s Terns at Barcelona Harbor—a new high count for the county.

Located along the eastern shore of Lake Erie, Barcelona Harbor is no stranger to terns, gulls, and shorebirds, particularly during migration. Even so, finding more than two Forster’s Terns together is unusual in Chautauqua County at any time of year.

Forster’s Terns have bred in New York’s coastal saltmarshes since 1981, but the Barcelona Harbor birds more likely originated from freshwater-marsh breeding colonies around northern or western Lake Erie or nearby Lake St. Clair. Roughly 3% of the global Forster’s Tern population breeds in the Great Lakes region, with additional inland breeding populations extending at least as far north as Edmonton, Alberta. Among North America’s 14 regularly breeding tern species, Forster’s Terns may be the most cold-tolerant: they winter farther north than any other tern and are the only species whose year-round distribution lies entirely within the continent.

This animated map of Forster’s Tern abundance, generated from eBird data, estimates how the species’ population is distributed throughout the year | Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Birding Tip: How to Separate Gulls and Terns

Many birders have heard the average beachgoer pointing out “seagulls” to those around them. This colloquial term, while descriptive, is often used to describe species that are not actually gulls. Understandably, someone who is unfamiliar with birds could mistake many different beach-going species as a gull, especially terns. Despite frequent overlap in the color palette, habitat, and behavioral characteristics of gulls and terns, learning to spot key differences between these groups can make identifying them a breeze.

A Brief Taxonomic Overview of Gulls and Terns

Gulls and terns both belong to the taxonomic family Laridae. Recent research that incorporated both genetic analyses and fossil records suggests that gulls and terns shared a common ancestor about 27.5 million years ago. Since then, this group has diverged into 105 species. Historically, early ornithologists did little to separate gulls from terns until 1758, when Carl Linnaeus sorted gulls into the genus Larus and terns into the genus Sterna. These two genus names still exist today, yet ornithologists classify gulls and terns into 22 distinct genera.

Currently, the 105 Laridae species consist of 54 gulls (subfamily Larinae), 48 terns (subfamily Sterninae), and 3 skimmers (subfamily Rynchopinae). Referencing AviList, all English common names for gulls either end with “gull” or “kittiwake,” whereas the common names of terns include “tern,” “noddy,” or “white tern” (also spelled “white-tern”).

While many gulls display a classic gull body (more on this below), some of the smaller gulls can exhibit a tern-like appearance.

Start With Shape

As with most identifications in the birding world, the most reliable place to start your ID process is with structure. A bird’s overall structure—how it is built—is consistent between individuals of the same species, regardless of time of year and molt cycle. For separating gulls and terns, several structural features help distinguish these groups.

Generally, gulls are larger-bodied and bulkier than terns. This does not necessarily mean that they appear smaller overall, as many terns are similar in length to smaller gulls. The key is to focus on the heft of the bird in question. A long, thin, and aerodynamic body suggests a tern rather than a gull. Gulls also show larger and rounder heads than terns, while terns will have a distinctly streamlined appearance. When perched, a gull often presents a more upright posture with a pronounced head and neck. A tern, on the other hand, will look relatively delicate and horizontally aligned.

Bill shape is another prominent difference between gulls and terns. Even smaller, more tern-like gulls have broader and heftier bills, which enable their wide-ranging diet. The thin, sharp-pointed bill of a tern is well suited to catching fish, and this pointy bill shape contributes to the overall sleek appearance of terns.

Much like the bills of terns and gulls, their wings are also adapted to different lifestyles. Tern wings are long, narrow, and pointed, suited to agility. On average, gulls have rounder and broader wings. This difference is even more prominent when looking at a perched bird, as the long folded primaries of a tern project well behind its tail.

Regarding tail shape itself, most gulls have short, square-ended tails that can appear rounded when fanned in flight or while preening. The beautiful Swallow-tailed Gull of South America is one of just a few exceptions. Most terns feature an eye-catching tail that is forked, often deeply so like that of the Roseate Tern. While not all terns show distinctly forked tails—for example, the Brown Noddy—and some gulls have forked tails, this trend is useful when paired with additional structural features.

The last structural feature worth considering is the legs. Relative to their body size, gulls tend to have thicker and longer legs, whereas terns feature daintier and shorter legs. The shorter legs of terns make them look lower to the ground when standing. Combined, the structural differences in body, head, bill, wing, tail, and leg characteristics present different silhouettes that can be all you need to differentiate a gull from a tern.

Watch the Behavior

The structural differences between gulls and terns result from millions of years of evolution, which optimizes the interaction between body design and lifestyle. A gull’s relatively broad wings, sturdy legs, and hefty bill are well adapted for more soaring flight, frequent perching and wading, and a generalist diet. In contrast, a tern’s aerodynamic wings, petite legs, and long, pointed bill fuel a fast-flying, plunge-diving, fish-eating way of life.

While occupying the same habitat much of the time, the ecological niches of these birds are different. It would be highly improbable to see a tern swoop down and steal your sandwich while on the beach. Similarly, it would be uncharacteristic of a gull to hover over the water, diving again and again at small schools of fish. Certainly one group is better adapted for each of these tasks. If you see a bird walking around and picking at scraps of food, chances are it’s a gull rather than a tern.

For a bird in flight, watch the way it moves. Quick, choppy wingbeats with a very buoyant flight style suggest a tern, while slower wingbeats and a more gliding flight style lend themselves to typical gull behavior. While foraging, terns often appear to bounce around over sections of water, making quick turns and diving into the water after fish. Foraging gulls, on the other hand, swoop towards food, congregating in areas where they can walk or paddle, or even follow boats that may be chumming water. These behavioral clues are especially helpful for separating distant gulls and terns that are too far away to directly observe structural characteristics.

Bringing it all Together

While plumage can be a useful feature to help identify gulls and terns, it is best as a final feature. Before you head out into the field, consider a few of your target species in the family Laridae. When you know what you’re looking for, consult a field guide to find some key plumage details for these species. Remember that age and season can influence the details you may be looking for.

Understanding the differences between gulls and terns in isolation is the best starting point. Learning to apply that in the context of the field is the next step. Approach these species with a mental schema. Start with the structure and understand the direction those features are pointing you in. Then consider the behavior and ask yourself whether that supports or opposes your initial judgement. There may be times when small size and a thin bill will suggest a tern, but a Bonaparte’s Gull can show those features (despite the bill still being thicker than that of most terns). Careful attention to detail, however, will reveal a squared-off tail, broader and less angular wings, and a stouter body with a round head. This is a perfect example of how identification must be done holistically in order to come to the proper conclusion.

Thanks for Reading

Gulls and terns frequently overlap in habitat and display similar color palettes, but their different body shapes, flight styles, and foraging strategies offer useful clues for separating the two. The next time you encounter a “seagull,” resist the urge to start with plumage alone. Take a moment to look at the bird’s silhouette and behavior first to determine if it’s a gull or tern. Then, use plumage details to narrow down the list of potential species. With practice, the key differences between gulls and terns will become much easier to recognize.

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There are many environmental factors that influence how shorebirds arrive at different locations. In Shorebirds 201b, we discussed how habitat and weather drive many of these movements. With the information provided at the 201 level, you should be able to confidently find reliable sites where shorebirds will congregate. How you manage your birding once you’ve found that flock is an entirely different skill.

Shorebirding, if you will, relies heavily on understanding flock dynamics, habitat variability, and how these aspects change your approach while you are out in the field. Shorebirds can make for some of the most complicated identifications in the birding world. For that reason, learning to parse the subtleties of habitat, behavior, and flock dynamics will allow you to focus your full effort on the intricacies of identification.

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From Finding Habitat to Birding It

Finding shorebirds starts with narrowing in on a specific site. We laid the groundwork for this in Shorebirds 201b. Now that we’ve established that foundation, we can build on it by approaching these sites holistically. A lake whose water level has been let down for dam reconstruction will naturally develop muddy sections that draw shorebirds. However, once you arrive, it will be clear that the lakebed will not be evenly coated with birds. Microhabitat features can make certain sections of a habitat far more productive than others.

The core idea that will help you navigate shorebird habitat while in the field is that habitat can be as dynamic as birds are. Just because a site is suitable for shorebirds does not mean it will be productive at all times of the day and under all conditions. One simple example that illustrates the concept of a dynamic habitat is the different places within a habitat that certain species occupy. Firmer and slightly drier soil is more likely to host a Semipalmated Plover than a deeper part of a drawn-down lake. The short legs and stout bill of many plovers help them sift through slightly drier substrate and prevent them from strolling into deeper waters. Plovers are very robin-like in their foraging actions, and it is easy to visualize a robin staying out of standing water. This also suggests that if you’re searching for plovers while birding a tidal habitat, it’s prudent to check higher tide zones, especially as the tide falls from high tide.

This concept stays true in the reverse as well. Long-legged shorebirds like an American Avocet or a Short-billed Dowitcher will be foraging in deeper water and lower tidal zones to find food. This stratification is natural in the animal kingdom and helps reduce interspecies competition for resources. Using this knowledge, a little research on a bird’s ecological niche and some extrapolation based on its size and structure can help you find it in the field.

Once you understand how species use different microhabitats, you can begin to learn about the microhabitats within your go-to patch. If you typically bird a reservoir that dries up through the summer, there are many things you can note even during the off-season that will aid your predictive birding. In many parts of the continental United States, shorebird season comes in the fall when birds are migrating to wintering grounds. While you wait for these birds to return, take note of how your patch dries up. The sections that are last to dry will also likely be first to fill following a heavy rain. There may be sections that were previously muddy that begin to sprout abundant vegetation. These sections will not hold water as substantially as a section that is devoid of root systems to absorb that moisture. The patterns that exist within the habitat will help you predict the presence of birds and which species will be found where.

While these habitat features shift, recognize that your impression of that space is always based on a snapshot in time. The way this patch looks on a morning walk following a week of rain will be drastically different from how it will look in the heat of midday during a drought. Tidal areas also have this same variability. As tides fall, new exposed substrate will likely be the focus of many birds’ attention. As these tides begin to rise again, birds will be funneled back into specific areas. Use tide charts and time of day in tandem to inform the most productive way to approach birding these habitats.

When you learn about the microhabitats that exist in your patch and the ways birds adjust to those, the patterns and presence of birds become far more predictable.

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Welcome back to the Birding University Shorebirds Study Series! If you’ve worked through Shorebirds 101 and the 201-level lessons of this Study Series, you’ve already started to build a strong foundation for understanding, identifying, and finding this beloved but challenging group of birds.

At the 201 level, we introduced and applied our Foundations of Field ID to shorebird identification. We took elements like size and shape, bill structure, legs and posture, color patterns, behavior, habitat, and vocalizations and ran them through a shorebird filter. These foundations may seem simple, but they’re worth the effort of internalizing and working through in the field.

The goal now is to move into the 301 level, where we can build on the basics and dig deeper into the features we find on a mystery bird.

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Reading the Shorebird: Moving Beyond the Basics

When we learn to identify birds, it’s easy to think of ourselves as moving through four rooms defined by two dimensions: knowing versus not knowing, and conscious versus unconscious.

A new birder often starts with unconscious not knowing: they don’t know what they don’t know. This is akin to entering the 201 level of birding as we’ve defined it in our system. As they gain experience, they move into conscious not knowing and become aware of the gaps in their knowledge. With practice, some skills become unconscious knowing—identifying a bird without consciously working through every field mark. The last two comfortably fall within our 301 level, which we feel is intermediate. The most experienced birders occupy conscious knowing: they know what they know, but are equally aware of what they don’t. Those birders would sit at the 401 level or above.

All this said, one of the biggest transitions from foundational to intermediate bird identification is learning that the Foundations of Field ID elements we start with are only the beginning. That doesn’t mean we stop using those foundations as we advance. No, instead, they become ingrained in our efforts. Letters of the alphabet that require no thought at all.

So, at the 201/beginner level, a bird might best be described as small, compact, and short-legged, with a medium-length straight bill. That’s useful. But at the 301/intermediate level we can go further with our descriptions.

For instance, we can answer questions like: How long is the bill relative to the head? How attenuated or stretched out is the body? Does the bird’s plumage appear fresh and crisp or old and worn?

The beautiful thing is the answers to such questions aren’t necessarily field marks that you need to memorize for every species. You don’t need to have a matrix of anatomical and plumage characteristics in your head every time you see a bird. Instead, individual field marks form the building blocks of a visual language. They are the letters, sounds, and syllables that eventually shape words, sentences, and meaning. At the 301 level, size and shape, color patterns, and behavior combine with new elements to add meaning and context.

The more familiar you become with these components, like learning the base words of a new language, the easier it becomes to recognize patterns across species and define new words and sentences presented before you.

The Head & Face

As we’ve stated in our Bird Topography series, the head of a bird contains enormous amounts of information due to the patterns derived from individual feather tracts. Unfortunately, shorebirds don’t always have boldly patterned faces. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule (e.g., Ruddy Turnstone). But the faces of this group are usually a bit more subtle, perhaps with an eyebrow here or there. Further, shorebirds are often observed at a distance where subtle patterns disappear. They’re also very active foragers and either constantly move their heads and bills or tuck them in as they sleep.

But get a bird in at closer range, and the arrangement of the eye, bill, crown, supercilium, and auricular (ear coverts) can provide valuable clues.

When studying the head, pay attention to:

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week’s newsletter shines a spotlight on pelagic birding. In This Week in Birding History, we investigate an unusual seabird encounter near one of the world’s northernmost archipelagos. Then, in Birding Tip, we remain offshore to explore how a little preparation can make your first pelagic birding trip more comfortable, enjoyable, and rewarding.

This Week in Birding History: A Shearwater’s Long-Distance Detour

August 21, 2024 — Two years ago this week, birder Ian Mears was boating off the west coast of Svalbard, the Arctic Ocean archipelago situated about halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Among familiar North Atlantic seabirds such as Atlantic Puffins, Black-legged Kittiwakes, and Northern Fulmars, Ian spotted something less expected: a low-flying, dark brown, medium-sized shearwater with silvery underwing patches—a Sooty Shearwater.

Sooty Shearwaters are among the world’s most abundant and widespread seabirds, occurring in all oceans, but they seem to rarely venture this far north in the Atlantic. Most North Atlantic records come from Iceland and southern Greenland. Historically, Svalbard’s handful of records—virtually all involving single birds—have been concentrated between late July and early September, coinciding with the species’ remarkable post-breeding movements. After breeding deep in the Southern Hemisphere, Atlantic Sooty Shearwaters migrate en masse to offshore waters along eastern North America. From there, prevailing winds transport the birds eastward, delivering tens of thousands of shearwaters to offshore western Europe in the late local summer.

A similar phenomenon occurs in the Pacific ocean, where Sooty Shearwaters undertake another enormous clockwise migration. Satellite-tracking studies have revealed just how extraordinary these journeys can be: birds traveling these trans-equatorial routes can cover 18,000 miles (29,000 kilometers) annually. Some non-breeders—those that skip breeding in a given year—take an even more circuitous figure-eight route, covering an astonishing 39,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) in a single year.

Birding Tip: Don’t Fear Pelagic Birding

Here at Birding University, one of our primary goals is to help birders everywhere enjoy their craft to the fullest extent. There are many ways to improve your birding skills or extend your birding experience. One such way is to take your birding to the sea on a pelagic. Pelagic birding is understandably intimidating, big seas with no shoreline in sight. Pelagic birding means no access to any resources that you don’t pack out with you. Every successful pelagic trip begins with proper packing and preparation.

Don’t do Drugs

For those intrepid birders who schedule their first pelagic trip without an abundance of experience at sea, you may not know whether sea sickness will be an issue for you. A common trope in the birding world begins with the unprepared pelagic birder who boards the boat eager to add a few lifers to their list only to find themselves spending most of the day leaned over the side of the ship and missing many of the birds they hoped to see. Given this it’s easy to assume that you are better off using medications to tackle sea sickness but oftentimes the side effects of these medications can have a negative impact on your day as well.

If you are unsure of whether you’re affected by seasickness it is best to come prepared but not pre-medicated. If possible, test the extent of your motion sickness prior to boarding the boat in order to determine whether medication would be a good option for you. Always remember that the best resource when you’re considering medications would be your primary care physician. There are many medications both sold over the counter or with a prescription that may be an excellent resource for you.

Beware Enclosed Spaces

When a birder at sea is nervous about feeling sick they will often head to the cabin to sit down. This is an easily avoidable mistake. In general, spaces with limited sightlines will make symptoms of motion sickness worse. Often, being outside where you can see the contours of the water will allow your vestibular system to respond accordingly.

The bathroom is the most likely source of motion sickness. Pelagic trips often make for long days so it may be unrealistic to not use the bathroom for the extent of your trip. It is possible to plan your bathroom breaks tactically for when the surf is at its smallest point. Anecdotal evidence from BU writers would suggest that spending a little time at the midpoint of the boat (where the rocking will be least significant) before going to the bathroom can help prevent bathroom breaks from becoming the turning point for your trip.

Exercise Patience

It’s easy to get extremely excited when on a pelagic and try to get good looks at every bird. This is a great attitude for seasoned pelagic goers who are tolerant of motion and have developed strong ID skills. For pelagic beginners it’s often over ambitious. Constantly trying to keep your binoculars steady on distant birds can be a cause of motion sickness and generally birds are very difficult to identify under those conditions. Be patient when watching from the deck and take advantage of the moments when birds fly close to the ship. Oftentimes views are excellent even without using optics.

If your goal is to maximize your time on the water the best method is often not to over analyze every bird. Guided pelagic trips are generally led by experienced sea watchers who can help steer the boat and its passengers towards the really unique or unusual visitors. Stick close to those people who have a lot of pelagic experience and listen for call outs of specific birds. Beyond that, enjoy the species that offer up a show close to the boat. Don’t stress yourself out over identifying every species that enters the vicinity. Pelagic birding can include some really challenging IDs paired with very difficult spotting conditions so keep an open mind and a positive attitude even if you feel like you’re missing birds you’d like to see.

Never Stop Looking

Above all when on a pelagic trip, make the most of your time and never stop watching. The sea can yield so many spectacular surprises. From soaring albatrosses to wayward songbirds, you never know what birds may grace the deck of your ship next. Keep your eyes on the horizon and you’ll be less likely to get motion sick while also increasing the odds that you get eyes on your target species.

Late summer and early fall can offer excellent pelagic conditions in much of the United States and Canada. If you’ve been curious about pelagic trips before, consider this a sign and give it a try. Just remember to come prepared and start your trip slow. From there if you prove to have a sturdy set of sea legs, expand your search and always make the most of your time on the water.

Thanks for Reading

Whether you’re a veteran of the seas or a trepidatious landlubber, the ocean offers birders a unique opportunity. Many of the species you will find off shore will be species you may never encounter anywhere else. Due to the dynamic nature of the seas, you never know what you may find out in deep waters. Use these tips to prepare for your first pelagic birding outing, or reup your skills before your next trip!

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Along the windswept coastline of Mangawhai, New Zealand, a bird no larger than a human hand, weighing only 2.5 oz (70g), is attempting one of nature’s most precarious balancing acts—breeding in one of the world’s most dynamic ecological zones, the beach. It is an astonishing place to raise a family, especially when so few remain.

Hidden among the patches of shells and pebbles that dot the sand, a New Zealand Fairy Tern quietly incubates its eggs. Completely exposed on an open beach, it is susceptible to the next loose dog, introduced pest, storm surge, or rising tide. Each could determine the fate of an entire breeding season and significantly affect the Fairy Tern population in Aotearoa.

The New Zealand Fairy Tern | Tara iti is New Zealand’s rarest native breeding bird. This may come as a surprise, since many think of New Zealand’s flightless birds, such as the Kākāpō, as likely holding that title.

One of four subspecies of the Australian Fairy Tern found across Australasia, the New Zealand Fairy Tern, as it is affectionately called in New Zealand, is isolated from its Australian and New Caledonian relatives and has evolved into a distinct population found nowhere else on Earth, although it has not earned full species status just yet.

Today, only about 45-50 individuals survive, including just 10–12 breeding pairs, most of them confined to a handful of beaches on the northern North Island. As few as these numbers are, it wasn’t always certain there would be even that many.

By the early 1980s, the New Zealand Fairy Tern population had collapsed to just three breeding pairs and 11 birds in total. This plunge put the entire New Zealand subspecies of the Australian Fairy Tern on the brink of extinction. For some birds, this would have been the end of the story, limping along until it winked out of existence forever. Amazingly, for the New Zealand Fairy Tern, it became the beginning of another chapter.

Recognizing how precarious the Fairy Tern’s future had become, conservationists, volunteers, the Department of Conservation, and local communities came together to protect the birds. Their efforts have helped the Fairy Tern slowly claw its way back from the brink.

But the recovery of the New Zealand Fairy Tern has been measured not in thousands of birds, but in single nests, chicks, and successful breeding seasons. The population remains critically small, but it is no longer flat-out disappearing. It is a hard-earned win and a poignant reminder of the power of collective conservation.

A Bird Shaped by the Shoreline

The New Zealand Fairy Tern is understated yet supremely elegant. Silver-gray above, white below, with a sharply demarcated black cap and a bright orange-yellow bill, it’s a real stunner and well worth praising. Yet its soft, refined palette helps it blend seamlessly into the very beaches it calls home. For those familiar with Little and Least Terns in other parts of the world, its appearance will be familiar.

In flight, it appears almost weightless, like a tiny kite on a string caught in a stiff breeze. Hovering briefly above the surf and estuaries, it plunges headfirst into shallow water to hunt tiny fish. It may be tiny, but it braves big wind and waves.

But behind its beauty and innate fearlessness, the New Zealand Fairy Tern faces a difficult life history. It’s always been tough, but, for thousands of years, the strategy of nesting on beaches worked. Then the coast changed. The world changed.

New Zealand Fairy Terns nest directly on open sand, hiding their eggs among clumps of scattered seashells, often only meters from the high tide line. There is no nest structure—just a shallow scrape in the beach. Their eggs are so well camouflaged they can disappear into the surrounding shells and pebbles, invisible even at close range. This is a necessary evolution, but in today’s world can also cause harm.

Human development has spread along New Zealand’s estuaries and beaches, putting direct and indirect pressure on the birds. Vehicles driving on the beach have compacted sand and crushed nests that are invisible to the naked eye. Introduced mammalian predators, including cats, dogs, stoats, rats, and hedgehogs, arrived in these ecosystems with no natural counterpoint. Unchecked, they’ve become a real issue for all of New Zealand’s native birds, resulting in the country’s extreme efforts to eradicate all non-native pest predators by 2050. From the sea, large storms and unusually high tides have put pressure on birds in a different way, possibly erasing entire breeding attempts overnight.

Because of these pressures, by the late 20th century, the population had fallen to a breaking point. At one stage, as previously mentioned, only about three breeding pairs were thought to remain in the entire country. Just three pairs of birds to keep the lineage going. So few that one storm could have wiped the subspecies out.

Survival on a Shared Coastline

When numbers fall this low, to the point you can count an entire species or subspecies’ population on two hands, extinction stops being abstract. Every egg, chick, and adult matters, and losing a single breeding bird can shift a species’ entire trajectory. Some things just cannot be reversed.

Unlike many of New Zealand’s endangered species that persist in remote offshore or fenced-off refuges, the New Zealand Fairy Tern lives alongside people in a dynamic environment. They nest on public beaches where eager people seek much-needed time outdoors. They also forage in the same sheltered harbors and nearshore waters shared with recreational swimmers, boaters, and fishermen.

Because of this direct interface between birds and people, conservation and stewardship here is not distant, hidden, or passive. It all unfolds in full view, requiring constant vigilance and outreach in a landscape where wildlife and people coexist every day during the breeding season.

And it is during this season of highest human activity that teams of conservation staff and local volunteers search community beaches for nesting sites. Once found, they rope off and signpost the critical areas. They deploy predator traps nearby and begin monitoring, often for hours each day.

It’s tireless work. A single off-road vehicle where it shouldn’t be can destroy a nest. A roaming dog from a local beachside bach can undo an entire season. Sadly, the birds can also be loved to death. Repeated disturbance, such as an adult being flushed too often by curious people, can expose eggs to lethal heat or leave chicks vulnerable to predation, even from native avian predators like the Swamp Harrier | Kāhu.

The Chicks That Run Before They Fly

New Zealand Fairy Tern chicks are born to move almost immediately. Across the bird world, many birds have precocial young, meaning they are relatively mature just after hatching and can move with little parental help. Paired with increased mobility, precocial chicks often have open eyes, alert ears, and downy feathers that enable them to move away from the nest site and survive with little parental care. For the Fairy Terns, this is a necessity to survive in the open beach habitats they call home.

Within a few hours of hatching, they can leave the nest scrape, explore nearby microhabitats, and instinctively freeze when danger approaches. Fortunately for them, their down plumage, comprised of soft grays, creams, and speckled browns, helps them blend perfectly with the beach itself.

But because of their diminutive size, they are vulnerable to nearly everything they encounter: gulls and harriers watch overhead for chicks while feral cats, stoats, and rats in the dunes are adept at finding nests at all hours of the day. But predation isn’t the only threat. Storms that flood low-lying nests and the constant proximity of human activity along the beaches and waterways add another layer of concern.

Yet, somehow, despite the odds stacked against them, they persist.

In some seasons, only a handful of chicks fledge across the entirety of New Zealand. This is no doubt thanks to the constant effort of concerned citizens and conservationists. But the birds themselves also have themselves to thank, as parents relentlessly care for young, shuttling between offshore feeding areas, delivering small fish in rapid succession, and driving away the predators they do encounter.

Conservation Measured in Small Wins

The slight rebound of the New Zealand Fairy Tern hasn’t come from one remarkable event. Instead, it has come from years of small, careful actions repeated over and over. An educational sign fixed after a storm, or a predator trapped before it reaches a critical nesting area, is a major win. Over time, these small wins stack up, creating meaningful differences that scale. Because people have stayed dedicated to these small wins year after year, the New Zealand Fairy Tern persists, creating a positive flywheel effect and giving hope to the very caretakers working to bring hope back to the birds.

The People Who Make It Possible

There are many people responsible for the persistence of the New Zealand Fairy Tern. It takes an army to ensure every known nest is monitored with every chick banded for future tracking. But the New Zealand Fairy Tern Charitable Trust deserves extra recognition.

A group of dedicated volunteers, some of whom have been at it for many years, the Trust plays a central role in the New Zealand Fairy Tern’s survival and slow growth. Working alongside the Department of Conservation, the Trust’s volunteers return year after year during the breeding season to provide much of the day-to-day protection these birds need to raise their young successfully.

The Trust is highly coordinated and committed to the success of the New Zealand Fairy Tern’s survival. At the start of each breeding season, they show up ready for the long, arduous work ahead, staying through the most critical months, and remaining until the last nest fledges or fails.

For this work, they spend countless hours patrolling long stretches of coastline, looking for nesting birds, monitoring established nests, and helping put critical protections in place, such as rope barriers, signs, or predator controls. They also embed themselves in local communities, sharing the story of this lovable bird and using awareness to drive care and conservation.

Why It Matters

Some conservation success stories are defined by extreme abundance and enormous flocks returning to the sky. Others are about reviving vast migrations that connect ecological communities across hemispheres, linkages once lost to time.

This is not one of them. The story of the New Zealand Fairy Tern is about how a dainty seabird held on at the edge of extinction, surviving despite its fragility and the odds stacked against it. But as much as this story is about the innate persistence of these birds, it is about the tireless commitment of concerned conservationists and volunteers.

As a result of good fortune and the commitment of a select few, New Zealand Fairy Terns still skim low over the waves of northern New Zealand, nesting on the sand dunes that provide the protection they need. But the beach also brings new threats they must overcome. And despite everything the coastline throws at them, these little birds face their daily survival one day at a time, much like the countless volunteers who ensure the terns are protected enough to return next year.

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week’s newsletter pairs a warbler with an Atlantic drift and a practical look at staying prepared during long, hot field days. In This Week in Birding History, we revisit a warbler that turned up far from its expected side of the continent. In Birding Tip, we focus on packing for summer birding so you can stay comfortable, safe, and ready when conditions change.

This Week in Birding History: A Warbler on the Wrong Coast

August 13, 2012 — Fourteen years ago this week, birder Donald Freiday was exploring the Lily Lake area of New Jersey’s famed Edwin B. Forsyth National Wildlife Refuge when he encountered an unexpected surprise. Donald’s brief, 15-minute outing began with the usual mid-August fare: a handful of Laughing Gulls, several Carolina Chickadees and Tufted Titmice, and American Robins feeding their last fledglings of the breeding season. Then Donald encountered a mixed-species flock of songbirds—a familiar hallmark of post-breeding birding, but one that held an unexpected western visitor.

This particular flock included a collage of colorful warblers: Blue-winged, Black-and-white, Northern Yellow, and Chestnut-sided warblers, along with a couple of American Redstarts. And a Black-throated Green Warbler? No—this bird had a yellow breast, a prominent dark ear patch, and a slim yellow crescent below the eye—a Townsend’s Warbler.

Townsend’s Warblers breed in conifer forest from Idaho north to Alaska before overwintering along the Pacific coast south to the highlands of Central America. During post-breeding migration, they generally remain west of the Great Plains, yet vagrants have turned up in nearly every eastern state and province, as well as far-flung locations including Newfoundland, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Among these eastern records, coastal and offshore locations account for more sightings than inland areas.

The Lily Lake Townsend’s Warbler is notable for both its place and timing. It ranks among the easternmost August records of the species, while August itself is one of the least productive months for finding vagrant Townsend’s Warblers in the East. The August 13 observation also represents the earliest sighting of a Townsend’s Warbler east of the Great Lakes during post-breeding migration. While still rare, eastern Townsend’s Warblers become considerably more frequent in September and October, and even more so between November and January. Many of these later-season individuals have been documented overwintering along the Atlantic seaboard.

Birding Tip: Packing for a Summer Day in the Field

Fall migration is beginning to creep into the birding calendar, but summer conditions are still very much with us. From the car, summer birding can seem simple. Heavy coats and icy trails are a thing of the past; the days are long, and on average a birder needs less gear to be comfortable. Spend a full day in the field, though, and summer presents its own set of problems. Heat, insects, sun, and quickly changing weather can all affect how long you can stay out.

Packing for a summer day mostly comes down to three things:

1. Staying hydrated

2. Staying cool and protected from the sun

3. Being prepared when conditions change

Getting those basics right makes birding easier and more comfortable even as the day heats up.

It All Starts with Hydration

Water will be the most important piece of gear for any summer birding trip and should be the first item a birder prioritizes before stepping out the door. Without water, birders may incur a whole host of health issues such as dehydration or, in more serious cases, heat stroke. It’s important always to carry more water than you expect to drink, especially when visiting sites that are highly exposed to the sun. Beaches, mudflats, and fields are some of the top contenders.

When it comes to hydration, an insulated bottle is the safest choice, and there are numerous brands and models on the market. Not only do they keep your water cooler longer, but they also help safeguard against chemicals leaching into your water if the plastic becomes too hot.

An additional bottle left in the car, especially in a cooler, provides a useful reserve for the return trip or an extended day.

For longer outings, especially those that require a lot of walking for extended periods, consider carrying a drink with electrolytes. Sweating helps cool us down, but it also removes both water and salt from your body, and replacing only water may leave you feeling drained during extended periods of heat and exertion. If you do not like drinks that include electrolytes, such as many of the major, shockingly colored sports drinks that line a store’s coolers, you can buy them separately and add only the amount that you enjoy. Beyond crystallized electrolytes you add to water, consider more natural drinks like coconut, watermelon, or banana waters, each of which has good amounts of minerals to replenish what you lost.

Snacks are another important component of a summer bag. Nuts, dried fruit, crackers, or other foods that will not spoil in the heat are best.

Building Your Kit Around Heat

Lightweight, breathable clothing helps your body release heat while still protecting you from the sun. Loose-fitting long sleeves and lightweight pants may seem counterintuitive given the heat, but they can often be more comfortable on a hot sunny day. There’s also lots of clothing on the market with built-in protection against the harmful effects of the sun. Many standard tech companies carry articles, but also check out clothing lines for boating or fishing specialists, as they often are geared toward outdoor enthusiasts who spend lots of time in the sun without shade. You can complete the outfit with a wide-brimmed hat or a baseball cap to provide your head and eyes with some relief from the strong rays of the sun.

Sun protection is just one reason long clothes are better in the summer. Exposure to ticks, biting insects, and vegetation such as poison ivy or oak will be significantly easier when you limit the amount of exposed skin.

Summer mornings may feel cool and comfortable, and as a result it is easy to forget how uncomfortable the hot afternoon sun can be. Because conditions are so variable in the summer, it is necessary to prepare for a return journey that will be less comfortable than when you initially embark.

Prepare for Sun, Insects, and Sudden Weather

There are several hazards a birder may face in summer that can all compound if not properly prepared for. Two such hazards can be accounted for simply by remembering to include sunscreen and an insect repellent in your bag. Be sure to apply sunscreen before leaving the house rather than waiting until the sun feels intense. If you wait until you start to feel your skin burning, it is often too late to prevent the damage. Be aware that chemicals in sunscreen or bug sprays can have corrosive effects on optics, especially if they get onto the glass. Always apply sunscreen or insect repellents away from your optics or camera gear if possible.

The presence of different insects varies considerably based on the habitat you are birding in. Mosquitoes may be most troublesome near wetlands and floodplains, while ticks are a greater concern in tall grasses, brushy edges, or overgrown trails. A lightweight head net — while not necessarily the easiest thing to wear while birding — can be invaluable in locations with persistent mosquitoes or flies and takes up almost no space in a pack.

Summer weather often changes abruptly. When the forecast appears favorable, it is usually a good idea to include a light rain shell in your bag regardless, as summer storms generally come on fast and hard. A small dry bag or resealable plastic bag can protect any items that could be damaged by water if rain arrives before you can return to cover.

Check the weather before leaving but keep an eye on any developments while in the field. Darkening skies or increasing wind may be a signal to move toward shelter rather than trying to squeeze in one more checklist. Any open habitat such as a beach or a ridgeline makes for especially poor places to wait out a storm, so be extra careful when your itinerary includes these types of locations.

Pack for the Habitat and the Birds

A summer packing list should reflect where and how you plan to bird. Certain outings are tailored towards long stints scanning with a spotting scope while others will require much more movement. Locations that are close to your car but require long stints in the sun may mean taking less water in favor of saving weight can be a good choice. Long hikes, however, will require a lot more hydration, and bringing water and electrolytes is a priority despite the weight it will add to a bag.

Woodland birding places different demands on your kit. Trails may be less than ideal, especially following a storm. This makes sturdy footwear, long pants, and wool socks (or something that will wick moisture) invaluable. Ticks are often more prevalent in woodlands, so be sure to read up on any potential tick-borne illnesses and keep a close eye on spots where ticks like to attach, such as waistbands or at the top of your socks.

Summer is synonymous with dry, dusty weather. When facing these conditions, it is good to pack basic cleaning supplies for optics. Dirt or sweat can quickly coat binocular lenses. Optics are even more prone to getting dirty when you are using sunscreen or bug spray near them. A clean microfiber cloth and a lens brush are far less likely to do damage to your glass than using a sweaty or dusty shirt. A lens cleaning solution can also be useful if your lenses appear oily from sunscreen or sweat. Remember to avoid leaving your optics in a closed vehicle where extreme heat can damage equipment over time.

Stay Flexible as the Day Changes

Recognizing that the best conditions may last only a few hours is crucial to a successful birding outing. You want to maximize your time in the field, after all! Birds are often most active during the cooler parts of the day, while midday heat can reduce both bird activity and overall comfort levels for birders who seek them out. Take advantage of peak activity by starting early and try to finish exposed portions of a route before temperatures become too oppressive. On the hottest days, hit up the exposed beach first and save the shaded trailhead for later in the day.

To maximize your flexibility, a well-prepped birding bag or backpack can help mitigate the hardships that come with birding during the hottest months of the year. Extra water, a rain jacket, sunscreen, and insect repellent are crucial additions to your bag. Good preparation does not eliminate the challenges of summer, but it keeps them from dominating your day. The less attention you end up devoting to discomfort, the more you can give to the birds.

Thanks for Reading

At times, summer birding can feel like type two fun. There is often a significant element of discomfort associated with heat and insects. Tumultuous conditions can quickly shape the quality of a day in the field but well-packed kit helps keep your focus on the birds. By planning ahead, the intrepid birder awards themselves more time and energy to enjoy the season’s surprises.

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We all do it. Stand on the shoulders of those who preceded us. Whether we realize it or not, every birder has, at one point or another, benefited from someone else’s time, energy, or research.

Maybe you’ve used Merlin to identify an unfamiliar bird song during a morning walk, or drawn insight from an online shorebird identification article that points out the finer elements of dowitcher ID. Our knowledge as birders is built on lifetimes of careful observation in the field, passed from birder to birder. But increasingly, we can trace that knowledge back to robust data collection, analysis, and scientific study—much of which happens outside the field.

It’s easy to take all of this for granted when so much of what we know is now readily accessible. We’re overflowing with information, but what we don’t often see are the people behind it. So much of what we know about birds comes to us without a face attached. The researchers, field technicians, investigators, and students who spend countless hours collecting and analyzing the data that make new understandings of birds possible are often unknown to the vast majority of birders.

One of the best ways to see these researchers firsthand and learn about their cutting-edge research is at the annual meeting of the American Ornithological Society (AOS).

This year, the 144th Annual Meeting of the AOS was held in Amherst, Massachusetts, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst from August 3 to 7. Over the course of the week, researchers, conservationists, educators, students, government agencies, nonprofits, and birders from around the world gathered to share discoveries, discuss challenges, and learn from one another.

The theme of this year’s meeting was Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, a line from Emily Dickinson’s famous poem. Truthfully, though, hope lies in the people who gathered in Amherst: the researchers asking new questions, the conservationists working to solve difficult problems, and the students and young scientists preparing to carry this work forward for decades to come.

For that reason, the annual AOS meeting may be one of the best places to find hope in today’s changing world. Below is a quick summary of the week.

What Is the American Ornithological Society?

The American Ornithological Society (AOS) is one of the world’s leading organizations dedicated to the study and research of birds. Dating back to 1883, the organization we know today officially formed in 2016 through the merger of two historic ornithological societies, the American Ornithologists’ Union and the Cooper Ornithological Society.

During each of its annual meetings, AOS brings together researchers, conservationists, educators, and bird enthusiasts to share discoveries, collaborate on new ideas, and discuss the future of bird science and conservation.

At first glance, it may seem like AOS is an organization primarily for professional researchers. But the work presented and discussed at its annual meetings extends far beyond academia. The research, findings, tools, and conservation strategies developed through AOS have real-world implications for birders, conservationists, and communities working to understand and protect birds.

Where Bird Science Comes Together

Like previous AOS annual meetings, this year’s conference featured dozens of talks, poster sessions, roundtables, and other events exploring nearly every aspect of ornithology. Topics ranged from acoustic monitoring, conservation genetics, and research methods to ecology, behavior, urban conservation, migration, molt, diet and foraging, life history, and phylogenetics and systematics, to name just a few.

Yet the meeting was about far more than countless concurrent presentations in packed rooms and research findings. Between sessions, conversations spilled into hallways, cafeterias, and courtyards. Longtime colleagues reunited, new collaborations formed over coffee, and mentors introduced students to researchers whose work had inspired their own work years prior. It was nearly impossible to walk across campus without overhearing conversations about birds, birding, or conservation.

And while the meeting was filled with tons of serious science, it wasn’t all hard work. Attendees joined daily bird walks, a morning fun run, an evening quiz bowl, and even a late-night bird band jam. If there is one thing to learn about bird researchers, it’s that they are not only incredibly dedicated to their work, they are also always ready for a good time.

Bird Conservation Takes a Village

One of the biggest takeaways from the meeting was seeing just how many different people and organizations contribute to bird conservation. Universities were, of course, well represented, with students proudly sharing the results of years of hard work. But they were only one piece of a much larger puzzle. Nonprofit conservation organizations, government agencies, book publishers, and technology and field gear partners all were present, playing a critical role, whether through presentation sessions, discussions, or the event’s bustling vendor display.

Even after spending a single day at the meeting, it became clear that no one person—and no single organization—can accomplish it all when it comes to birds and conservation. It’s both humbling and concerning to see how many species and populations are in jeopardy despite the countless people dedicated to understanding and protecting them.

But there is hope in that realization, and hope was very much the theme of the meeting. Bird conservation is built on the efforts of countless people, each bringing their own expertise, perspective, and passion to the table. Researchers, students, conservationists, government agencies, nonprofits, birders, and so many others all contribute something different.

Individually, each effort may seem small. Together, they become something much bigger than any one person or organization could accomplish alone. Ultimately, everyone at the meeting was working toward the same north star: a deeper understanding of birds and a future where they continue to thrive.

Highlights from Amherst

One of the joys of attending a conference like the annual AOS meeting is realizing just how broad, and how deep, modern ornithology has become. The universe of ornithology is ever expanding, seemingly in all directions, and it’s almost hard to take it all in. New topics are covered, and old ones are more robust than ever.

But even from sitting through a single poster session or talk, it becomes clear that science moves forward one question at a time. Each study begins with a researcher asking something we don’t yet understand, then slowly building toward a better picture of how birds live, interact, and respond to a changing world.

But at meetings like this, hundreds of those questions are being explored at once in different rooms, all standing room only as eager researchers pack in to learn more about the emerging science of their field.

Here are a few talk titles from the many sessions featured on this year’s agenda:

• Improving space-use estimates for songbirds from Motus automated radio tracking systems using spatially-explicit movement models (C. Cox)

• Nest site selection of urban Spotted Towhees (Pipilo maculatus): Evidence of an ecological trap or predator shield? (T. Hohn)

• Status, threats, and conservation of Earth’s migratory birds (N. Cooper)

• The cost of limited nocturnal roost availability on pre-migratory energy budgets in a central-place foraging shorebird (M. Handmaker)

• Asymmetric colonization and extinction constrain climate tracking in North American birds (S. Saunders)

The Next Generation Is Already Here

More than anything, the most encouraging part of the meeting wasn’t a presentation at all. It was the people giving them and those in attendance. Many of the presenters were graduate students and early-career professionals sharing their research with the broader ornithological community for the first time. Watching experienced researchers engage with these emerging scientists was a reminder of just how collaborative ornithology can be. The meeting was a reminder that science is not just about discovering new information—it is about passing knowledge forward, supporting the next generation, and building something together.

Why The AOS Annual Meeting Matters

Birders spend a lot of time talking about the challenges birds face.

Habitat loss.
Climate change.
Collisions with buildings.
Outdoor cats.
Declining populations.

These challenges are real, and they deserve our attention. In North America alone, three billion birds have disappeared from the landscape since 1970. There are noticeably fewer birds here now than there were within a single lifetime ago.

Further, the world is filled with sensationalistic headlines or dismissive handling of scientific facts as “fake news.” In a world where science has come under scrutiny from those who don’t understand it, scientists have had to rise and face the challenges ahead. Most of these people will never become household names.

But birders benefit from their work every single day. And so do the birds, who are the real benefactors. The passion at events like AOS is palpable. People love birds, and for as many different reasons as there are species of birds on this planet. But the truth is, students and researchers want to better the world as much as they want to understand it better. All of that is on display at these events.

A Birding University Takeaway

It’s easy to focus on the problems facing birds. The modern world is geared toward worry and fear, from doomscrolling to constant stressors across all facets of life at the speed of thought. But that’s not why we focus on the problems birds face; it’s because we should. For them. For us. We are stewards of the planet, and we have a responsibility for all future generations.

When we learn of another species winked out of existence or see large swaths of public land approved for rapid development, it’s easy to feel discouraged. But it’s equally important to remember that there is a dedicated, passionate, and remarkably collaborative community working every day to understand and address the challenges facing birds.

Walking through the halls and meeting spaces of the AOS meeting, it became increasingly clear that the future of bird science and conservation is in good hands. Diverse hands. People with different backgrounds, perspectives, experiences, and approaches, all bringing something different to the table.

And while you may not have been at this year’s annual meeting, keep an eye out for what comes next. The research and ideas shared there won’t stay within the walls of universities or research institutions. They will find their way into the next generation of field guides, conservation strategies, birding apps, and discoveries that help all of us become better, more informed birders.

Perhaps that is one of the most encouraging things about a meeting like this. The work happening today becomes the knowledge we use tomorrow. And eventually, it becomes our turn to pick up the torch.

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week’s newsletter pairs an unexpected shorebird record from the Pacific Northwest with a timely look at one of late summer’s most important birding patterns. In This Week in Birding History, we revisit a sandpiper surprise in Washington’s Samish Flats. In Birding Tip, we explore post-breeding dispersal and how the weeks after nesting can send birds into new places, unexpected habitats, and the paths of observant birders.

This Week in Birding History: A Sandpiper Surprise in Samish Flats

August 5, 2011 — Fifteen years ago this week, accomplished birder Ryan Merrill—a member of the Washington Bird Records Committee—was conducting a shorebird survey in the Samish Flats region of coastal Skagit County, Washington, when he encountered an unexpected visitor: a Wood Sandpiper. Abundant in the Eastern Hemisphere, this species breeds in swampy boreal forests of Europe and Asia before migrating to wintering grounds in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Australasia. In the Western Hemisphere, however, Wood Sandpipers rarely appear outside of Alaska. The Samish Flats bird became just the sixth record for the Lower 48 states and the first ever documented in Washington.

Compared to North America’s familiar shorebirds, Wood Sandpipers combine the size and pattern of a Solitary Sandpiper with an overall body structure resembling a small Lesser Yellowlegs. Unlike yellowlegs, Wood Sandpipers occasionally bob their tails, or teeter, much like the recognizable motion of a Spotted Sandpiper. Together, these field marks, among other finer points, make this Old World wanderer surprisingly distinctive once seen well.

The Samish Flats comprise a large agricultural area bounded by forest to the south and east, Padilla Bay to the west, and Samish Bay to the north. Once the former estuary of the Skagit River, this 200-square-mile (518 km²) landscape where freshwater met saltwater was drained and converted for agricultural uses starting in the late 1800s. Over a century later, wetlands are being reintroduced to parts of Samish Flats, restoring natural ecosystems and exceptional wildlife habitat. This effort, a collaboration between government agencies, non-profit organizations, and private landowners, has made the Samish Flats a true birding hotspot. Today, more than 230 bird species have been recorded here, making the Samish Flats one of Washington’s premier birding destinations, particularly for wintering waterfowl and raptors.

Birding Tip: Post-Breeding Wanderers

By late summer, migration is beginning—but not every bird moving across the landscape is traveling toward its wintering grounds. Once nesting responsibilities end, many birds disperse away from their breeding territories, sometimes traveling in directions that seem to contradict the seasonal flow of migration. These movements can quietly reshape local birdlife and occasionally deliver spectacular rarities far beyond their expected ranges.

Why Birds Wander After Breeding

Post-breeding dispersal begins when adults and newly independent juveniles are no longer tied to a nest or breeding territory. The movements may cover only a few miles, or they may carry birds hundreds of miles from where they were raised. Unlike migration, dispersal does not necessarily follow an intuitive route or lead toward a specific wintering destination.

Post-breeding dispersal can serve several biological functions. Leaving crowded breeding areas reduces competition within ecosystems, generally meaning resources are more abundant. Birds may also move toward safer molting habitat or seek areas offering better cover from predators. Young birds also gain opportunities to practice finding food and navigating unfamiliar landscapes before facing their first migration.

Dispersal may also help birds gather information for the future. Juveniles exploring beyond their natal territories can discover suitable locations to establish territories of their own. Adults may similarly visit other breeding areas and assess habitat quality in search of a more successful site to rear their young.

A Local Bird Community in Motion

Post-breeding dispersal helps explain why certain birds seem to disappear from their usual locations during midsummer. Once territorial behavior ends, adults and juveniles may leave nesting sites for habitats that provide more abundant food or thicker cover. Birds that were conspicuous singers only weeks earlier can become quiet, mobile, and concentrated in entirely different parts of the landscape.

At the same time, dispersers from surrounding areas begin arriving. A wetland may suddenly play host to a wading bird that does not breed anywhere nearby. Mixed-species flocks may also begin forming as passerines abandon the boundaries that structured their breeding season in preparation for their migratory push.

This creates a period when local bird abundance and diversity can change almost daily. Juveniles can make the local bird community appear less familiar: their subdued colors, incomplete markings, and unusual calls and behavior can make even common species challenging to recognize. Post-fledging birds often shift habitats as their mobility and foraging abilities improve. These shifts reflect those birds attempting to balance access to food with protection from predators.

When Wandering Produces Rarities

Most dispersing birds remain relatively close to their established breeding ranges. A small number, however, travel much farther than expected. These long-distance wanderers can create some of late summer’s most memorable rarity sightings. The likelihood of an unusual appearance may increase after a productive nesting season, when large numbers of inexperienced juveniles enter the population, or when changing water levels or food supplies push birds beyond their usual feeding areas.

Many wading birds are especially well known for these movements. Little Blue Herons regularly wander north of their breeding range after nesting, with white-plumaged juveniles accounting for many late-summer records. Wood Storks breeding in Florida and the Southeast disperse northward along the coastal plain and major river systems, sometimes appearing far from any nesting colony. Roseate Spoonbills and Limpkins can also become irregular late-summer visitors at inland wetlands and locations north of their usual ranges. The Limpkin has seen dramatic expansion of their vagrant range in response to the expansion of one of their main food sources, the Island Apple Snail.

On the Pacific Coast, Heermann’s Gulls provide a particularly dramatic example. Nearly the entire population breeds around the Gulf of California before moving north to spend late summer and fall along the coasts of California and the Pacific Northwest. This is a regular seasonal movement rather than accidental vagrancy, but individuals reaching its outer limits—or appearing inland—can still generate considerable attention.

Post-breeding dispersal makes late summer a season of possibility. While much of the birding can begin to feel redundant in light of the upcoming fall migration, a persistent birder may be rewarded with a truly spectacular find. An unexpected Swallow-tailed Kite soaring overhead may grace those birders who remain alert and in tune with the changing dynamics of a bird’s yearly cycle.

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Post-breeding dispersal is a reminder that bird movement doesn’t wait for classic migration windows. Once nesting winds down, birds of all ages begin to shift across the landscape in ways that can be subtle, irregular, and surprising. By paying attention to these movements, birders can better understand seasonal change—and stay ready for the unexpected birds that late summer often delivers.

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In the first half of the 201-level of the Shorebirds Study Series, we focused on the foundations of shorebird identification, exploring how you can evaluate anatomical features like body structure, bill shape, leg length, behavior, habitat, and vocalizations to arrive at confident identifications.

Of course, identifying shorebirds is only half the challenge and half the fun. The other half is finding them.

Unlike songbirds, shorebirds typically aren’t ever present in most of our lives. Certainly, if you live near the coast, this may be an entirely different story. Or perhaps you have a resident pair of Killdeer at your local farm. But, for most of us, shorebirds aren’t something we experience day in and day out.

This is largely due to their underlying biology. Most shorebird species we experience in North America, for example, breed at high northern latitudes, nesting in the Arctic tundra or across the great Boreal Forest. It is only in their migrations that we encounter them as they move from the breeding grounds to the other side of the globe for the non-breeding season.

But it isn’t just their large migrations that make them less present in our lives. Even when they are “around,” shorebirds are constantly on the move. An estuary or river delta bustling with activity today may be nearly empty tomorrow. Similarly, a flooded field that appeared unremarkable yesterday may suddenly host dozens or even hundreds of newly arrived migrants or birds knocked down by heavy storms.

Learning to predict both the annual and daily movements is one of the most rewarding aspects of shorebirding. It is also the first lever we can pull to transform what feels like a game of chance into something much more intentional and successful.

Remarkably, consistent ecological patterns shape shorebird movements. Everything from broad annual movements and migration timing to daily rhythms of roosting and foraging is shaped by food availability, which is in turn shaped by water levels, tides, weather, and climate. Where birds stop, how long they remain, and when they continue their journeys are relatively predictable once you learn the influencing factors.

By understanding these patterns, you’ll spend less time searching empty wetlands and more time visiting places where shorebirds are genuinely likely to occur.

As with identification itself, finding shorebirds is ultimately about stacking probabilities. No single factor guarantees success, but when several favorable conditions align, the odds improve dramatically. The good news is, we can stack the odds in your favor

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Finding Shorebirds: Stacking the Odds in Your Favor

Sometimes finding a large flock of shorebirds is pure chance. You’re driving down the road and notice the local field is flooded after the recent rain, and there’s a nice group of yellowlegs and peeps. Perfect! Or you know there’s an estuary close to a river mouth by that Airbnb you rent, and you try your luck.

But for the best birders, finding shorebirds begins long before heading into the field.

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Welcome to the Birding University Shorebirds Study Series! One of the biggest misconceptions about shorebird identification is that experienced birders memorize every species individually. While experience and familiarity certainly play a role, the process of identifying distant or challenging shorebirds is usually far more systematic than rote memorization alone.

While we admit there are instances where a single defining field mark can assist with an identification, such as the black-and-white wings of a Willet, skilled shorebirders evaluate multiple characteristics simultaneously, gradually building confidence as each layer of information supports and eventually confirms an ID.

As we’ve said before, this is the same philosophy we introduced in our Foundations of Field ID series (linked below). Identification rarely depends on one perfect feature. Instead, it emerges from a collection of clues that work together such as a bird’s size, shape, color pattern, behavior, and the habitat it occupies.

Thankfully, at a foundational level, shorebird identification is no different than that of songbirds or raptors. One piece of information rarely reveals the full picture when you’re looking at nothing more than a brown dot on a mudflat. But as more pieces fall into place, the image becomes increasingly clear.

Throughout 201a of the Shorebirds Study Series, we’ll explore the foundational characteristics that should form your mental checklist whenever you encounter a shorebird in the field. Even if you know the ID right away, it’s helpful to go through this process to develop the muscles to assist with future identification challenges. That said, these concepts will continue to build throughout the remainder of this Birding University Study Series and will eventually become the framework you’ll rely upon for identifying even the most challenging shorebirds.

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This Quarter: Shorebirds (July-September)

We’re exploring shorebirds, arguably one of the most beloved yet challenging groups of birds to learn. Over the next three months, we will work through a few main concepts that will help you find, identify, and find joy in these amazing birds.

Because it is taxonomic in nature, this Study Series is structured around a set of core areas that we will revisit each month, progressing from foundational skills to more advanced applications. Going from the 201 to 401 levels:

• Field Identification — developing a structured approach to identifying shorebirds using the Birding University Foundations of Field ID: size and shape, color patterns, behavior, and habitat. This will have a unique angle, geared towards this group of birds.

• Finding Shorebirds — strategies for locating shorebirds during migration. While this Study Series is launched in the fall, these skills are applicable to spring as well.

Ultimately, the series is designed to progress intentionally—from building a reliable identification framework, to recognizing patterns across species and situations, to tackling more complex and challenging scenarios. We will likely touch upon conservation and ecology throughout the quarter as well.

By the end of the quarter, you’ll not only be more confident in identifying shorebirds but also better equipped to anticipate where they’ll be and understand the systems they’re part of.

Relevant BU Content

At Birding University, our content is designed as part of an educational ecosystem, with each piece carefully considered to work synergistically with other elements. While this particular Study Series goes progressively deeper each month, it is important to remember that there are foundational articles and tips that we’ve already developed that serve as the core of what you’ll learn here.

The resources below are especially relevant to this taxonomic group of birds and will provide a strong base to support your learning as you progress through the Study Series. If you have not yet found the time to read them, we recommend giving each of these a glance before diving fully into the Shorebird Study Series. We recommend bookmarking them to return to in the future. Of course, if anything appears missing, please let us know.

• Shorebirds 101 — A primer on the often-confusing birds of our coasts, mudflats, and wetlands

• Foundations of Field ID: Size & Shape — The fastest way to start identifying birds—recognize them by outline, posture, and proportions before anything else

• Foundations of Field ID: Color Patterns — From bold contrasts to subtle streaking, color patterns provide quick and powerful identification clues

• Foundations of Field ID: Behavior — How a bird’s movement and actions can reveal its identity

• Foundations of Field ID: Habitat — Narrow possibilities using location, season, and environment

• Bird Topography: The Head — Let’s take it from the top

• Bird Topography: The Body — Feathers at the heart of ID

• Bird Topography: The Wing — Feathers that lift bird identification to new heights

• Birding Tip: Estimating Flocks of Birds — Some easy approaches to counting large flocks of birds

Shorebird ID

Shorebird identification can challenge even the most experienced birder. Shorebirds are often painted in a feathered palette of muted grays and browns. While there’s great diversity among different families, such as the plovers, oystercatchers, and sandpipers, their body shapes can be surprisingly similar within groups, like the “peeps” or stints. Adding to the confusion, they can sometimes gather in large, mixed-species flocks. Throw in the fact that shorebirds are usually viewed across great distances in conditions that test our patience and push the limits of our optics, wading through their identification can be a daunting exercise.

Thankfully, accurate, confident identifications are feasible with some practice. The 201-level on identification lays the groundwork for identifying shorebirds in the field. This approach is as relevant for birds in the Americas as it is for birds in Australasia. Rather than relying on a single field mark, effective shorebird ID comes from combining multiple lines of foundational evidence. Structure, size, bill shape, behavior, and habitat all combine to form a more comprehensive picture from which solid identification is born.

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Phil Brown (he/him) is a seasoned naturalist and bird conservationist whose life has been devoted to connecting people with the avian world. Raised in Staten Island, New York, where pockets of green space ignited his passion for nature, Phil pursued degrees in natural resource management at Rutgers University and environmental studies at Antioch University New England. His career spans over two decades, including 17 years as Director of Land Management at New Hampshire Audubon and his current role as Bird Conservation Director at the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock, NH.

Find out more about Phil and his work at The Dreamcatchers and the Harris Center for Conservation Education.

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You’ve spent decades helping people experience nature, whether through bird conservation, leading tours, or now through MicroExploring the SuperSanctuary, your first book. Looking back, what transformed you from someone who enjoyed nature into someone who truly began seeing it? Was there a particular experience that changed how you observe the world?

For me, finding deeper observation was only possible by slowing down my pace of observation. It’s been a gradual progression with several notable experiences and mentors who’ve helped me grow and continue to evolve as a naturalist. Becoming a parent was one very important moment that opened up my eyes to nature in a new way. It led to lots of small discoveries, first because I needed to wait more and physically slow down. Learning to see through my children's eyes, being a little more childlike and playful myself, I developed a renewed way of experiencing the natural world.

This is the essence of my new book MicroExploring the SuperSanctuary. When you slow down, look closely, and listen, you can begin to receive nature’s gifts. Parenting young children through the pandemic only amplified this, and we all began to make discoveries right outside the back door. From birds as a primary interest, I made room for plants and moths, and I developed a more spiritual relationship with the outdoors that still drives me every day. Time in nature became as essential as the air we breathe and water we drink.

This chapter of my life dovetailed nicely with my hiring as the first Bird Conservation Director at the Harris Center for Conservation Education, a land trust and environmental organization based in the town where I live in southwest NH. This meant developing impactful bird research and monitoring projects in my very own community.

One of my first tasks was finding and monitoring nesting Broad-winged Hawks through a partnership with Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, which hoped to expand its research on the full life-cycle ecology of this species. We had little idea what results this project would yield during the 2020 pilot season, but finding a single Broad-winged nest in my backyard that summer was transformative for me—and for the project. Six years later, this research project remains strong, and I’ve spent countless hours monitoring dozens of nests, some of which have led to affixing transmitters on nesting female hawks.

Birders often talk about life lists, rarity chases, and identifying every species they encounter. Your work seems to emphasize something different. What do you think birding can teach us when we stop treating birds as boxes to check and start treating them as teachers?

I used to play that game, too, so I know how compelling—and equally fun—the thrill of the chase can be. And I recognize that it’s an approach to nature and birds that works for some. Heck, I still participate in the Superbowl of Birding most years, and I love doing a Big Day every spring. But this kind of manic birding on a regular basis wasn’t for me, as something was missing from this game.

At a fairly young age, I entered a kind of ‘Jedi training’ as a birder, apprenticing with an expert and being pushed to learn the tricks of the trade quickly and effectively. I developed a keen sense of identification and a well-tuned ear, and began to immerse myself in a lifelong pursuit of a better understanding of bird habitats. It was thrilling to grow more proficient as a birder. This was an exciting time for an adrenaline-seeking youngster, and I competed in (and often placed well) in local Big Days and in the World Series of Birding.

Soon, every day of birding became about listing, and at some point I stopped seeing bird species as the beautiful and amazing creatures they were. But through exposure to conservation work during my undergrad schooling and through working field jobs in wildlife conservation, I gained valuable perspective and my horizons broadened. My passion for birds grew to have a bigger purpose, and I began to see the role it could play in advancing my interests in truly doing something for birds and their habitats. Through a deeper understanding of birds and truly watching them, we learn to love them and discover ways to better protect them. In turn, they bring us tremendous joy and connection.

You’ve devoted countless hours to conservation and volunteer work in your local community. Why is local stewardship so important to you, and what do you hope people gain when they move beyond simply enjoying nature to actively caring for it?

Conservation and stewardship of nature have been my passion since this path solidified during my time as an undergraduate student. Though I don’t have one particular ‘a-ha’ moment that put me on this path, I do believe it was my interactions with birds in wild places when I was younger that directed me. Whether watching for migrating warblers in a maple tree outside my childhood home in Staten Island or searching for new species on family trips to Florida’s Everglades, I understood that birds represented a wildness that connected places and people, and they certainly helped me connect to something bigger. And I grew up at a time when more attention was shifting to bird populations being in trouble.

Though there have been many bright spots for conservation since my childhood, the picture for bird populations is decidedly alarming today. There’s lots of negative news about their declines, and it can be overwhelming. But we can all work on solutions at whatever scale to make a positive difference. My own career path—over half my life now—has included working on a mix of habitat stewardship at various scales, a diverse array of bird monitoring and research projects, and education surrounding these initiatives through a mix of teaching, guiding, and writing. A regional American Kestrel conservation project I launched through the Harris Center four years ago is an example of a solutions-oriented initiative that incorporates many of these elements. It has grown to not only provide nest boxes for this declining species, but to engage landowners in habitat management compatible with kestrel conservation and that of other grassland bird species.

Through my conservation and guiding work, I have come to believe that if birds are thriving, I would be, too. In this way, I came to see personally what Robin Wall Kimmerer describes as “all flourishing is mutual,” and I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to spread the wonder of birds with others to advance a shared cause with positive impacts for all. If we take care of nature, it will take care of us, too.

Whether you’re leading someone through the forests of New Hampshire or the rainforests of Costa Rica with The Dreamcatchers, you’re not simply pointing out birds—you’re creating an experience. What have years of guiding taught you about how people learn to notice the natural world, and what makes your tours different from a typical birding trip?

Birding tours are about more than just birds. Maybe one gets into guiding for the reason of wanting to see more lifers—and, even as a part-time birding/naturalist guide, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel a fair bit and see my share of bird species. But, for me, succeeding in this field and finding fulfillment isn’t a measure of the biggest bird list. Similar to habitat stewardship for birds, nature tourism is about creating a diverse and multifaceted environment in which people can thrive—and come to reciprocate by giving back in positive ways. It’s about catering to clients’ comfort and individual needs, listening carefully, and rolling with changes and anticipating the unexpected. It’s a challenge I deeply enjoy. When safety and comfort are established on a tour, participants can turn their attention to letting go and opening up to receiving, learning, contributing, sharing.

Tours that I lead with The Dreamcatchers—both short offerings locally in southwest NH and longer trips further afield in Costa Rica—feature something very different from most birding/nature tours: a hidden itinerary. Only my co-guide, Ignacio, our driver, and I know where we are going next. It removes expectations, keeps participants present, and allows them to open up quickly with each other. Quite literally, surprises lie around every corner! And no two trips are ever the same.

The gift of presence is an unexpected find that many don’t even know they need until they receive it, and people come away from these trips not only satisfied—but changed. So many of our participants have become friends—with each other and with us. Though I’ve had tremendous opportunities to see amazing places and fantastic birds, it’s the human element that has been the most fulfilling aspect of these tours, something my former teenage birder self would have never guessed. Shared experiences are so powerful, and a community of birder friends helps keep the rich memories of these exciting trips alive year-round.

One of the central ideas behind MicroExploring the SuperSanctuary is that we don’t have to travel far to experience awe. That almost feels countercultural today, when so many people equate adventure with exotic destinations. How would you explain MicroExploring to someone who has never heard the term before?

MicroExploring is the intentional exploration of the nature and geography immediately surrounding us, often no more than 15 minutes from home. It’s about finding deeper meaning and making small discoveries in the overlooked. It’s guided by wonder and not agenda, and it’s something anyone can practice anywhere, anytime—even when time is short. It’s about noticing what’s right in front of us, engaging the senses, and being open to joy, wonder, and awe. Beyond this, MicroExploring is practical, green, and an investment in local that inspires love of where you live. And when you love something, you want to protect it, and conservation and stewardship are important underlying themes of this guidebook.

We wrote MicroExploring the SuperSanctuary partly as a tribute to the incredible conserved landscape of southwestern NH that I call home. Sure, not everyone lives within an ecologically-rich ‘SuperSanctuary’ of conserved summits, picturesque ponds, and connected wetland landscapes. But we intend—and firmly believe—that these concepts can be applied everywhere, even in rural settings. I practiced MicroExploring decades before I knew this term’s meaning in heavily suburban NY, and I bet this definition resonates with many BU readers.

Many people assume they’ll discover more by walking farther or moving faster. Your philosophy almost argues the opposite—that slowing down often reveals more. What are we missing when we’re always trying to get to the next hotspot?

Let’s face it; people are busy, and oftentimes we’re forced to choose: breadth or depth? There are times for each approach, but they’re often mutually exclusive. It depends upon how you define ‘more’. To me, more isn’t necessarily a bigger bird list, and even if using this metric, sometimes stillness is the right solution. To me, ‘more’ is a richer experience through birding: seeing birds better, watching them longer, and understanding how they connect us to other aspects of the natural world. And that’s often best achieved through slowing down the pace or being still altogether. Spend a little more time watching that female Scarlet Tanager, and see what she’s finding to eat, or get to know some behaviors by doing a ‘Big Sit’ bird count and letting birds approach closer while you’re still.

Specifically, how does MicroExploring change the way someone approaches birding? Does it alter what they see, how they observe, or even what they consider a successful day in the field?

MicroExploring and birding are highly compatible approaches. Looking for birds forces your mind to shift from your inner self to your environment, enhancing the senses. Through MicroExploring, one can take a mindful approach to birding. These ‘slow birding’ practices allow you to form a deeper connection to birds, as individuals and as a species connected to their environments. You’ll notice more about the birds you observe, which in turn will improve your ability to identify them, but also to understand them. Perhaps strip away the need to assign an individual bird to a species, but see it as a living art form or hear it as music. Redefine the traditional measure of success of a day of birding from a species list to an experience list. Add some qualifications to the quantifications that many birders traditionally keep.

If every Birding University reader decided to spend one hour this week practicing MicroExploring close to home, what would you encourage them to do for their very first experience?

Turn your binoculars upside down and use them as a hand lens. Or go birding without your binoculars. You’ll be forced to observe more closely, quietly, and intentionally to find birds, and you’ll notice the other things, too. Take a familiar path, but walk it in different ways. Maybe bring a journal to document what you’re seeing, or give yourself little challenges such as finding as many colors in nature as you can. Walk alone, or share the experience with a friend. New perspectives may open your senses to new possibilities and learning. Move slowly and with purpose. Let wonder be your guide.

Finally, we always like to ask: who would you most enjoy seeing featured in a future Birding University interview?

Everyone who loves birds has a worthwhile story to tell. One such story I’ve come to know is that of a man named Alex Martinez, a Costa Rican conservationist who has become a friend through our collaborations on Dreamcatchers journeys. Now an older man, Alex has dedicated many decades of his life to protecting forests—and macaws—in the Caribbean lowlands of Sarapiqui.

By preventing illegal poaching and logging, he has put his life on the line, and he continues to advocate for the protection of the critically endangered Great Green Macacw | Lapa Verde. His current conservation initiative involves purchasing giant almendro (almond) trees where the macaws feed and nest. A single tree can grow to nearly 200 feet in height and may yield multiple families of macaws. Our Coffee & Birds in Paradise trips to Costa Rica often feature Alex and support this initiative. This audience would enjoy hearing his inspiring, passionate message about conservation.

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week’s newsletter pairs an unprecedented breeding mystery with a timely look at one of birding’s most challenging identification groups. In This Week in Birding History, we revisit a recent discovery in Tennessee that evolved into something no one expected. In Birding Tip, we explore why taking a broad, methodical approach is the best way to tackle shorebird identification as southbound migration gets underway.

This Week in Birding History: A Flycatcher First in Tennessee

July 27, 2025 — One year ago today, the puzzling saga of a rare ornithological discovery reached its conclusion. The events unfolded not in some remote, under-surveyed wilderness, but in the tree-lined median of a busy four-lane highway near downtown Jonesborough, Tennessee.

The story began two summers earlier when Daniel Huffine discovered a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher while baling hay on June 10, 2023—a notable rarity in eastern Tennessee. Presumably the same bird, though impossible to prove, returned the following spring with a mate. Together they successfully fledged at least two young, documenting the first known nesting attempt by Scissor-tailed Flycatchers in northeastern Tennessee. Then, in April 2025, a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher returned once again. Although no mate was ever confirmed, by late June the bird was tending a nest containing three healthy nestlings. Even more remarkably, observers watched an adult Eastern Kingbird regularly feeding the same young, despite maintaining a nest of its own—with another Eastern Kingbird—in the very same tree.

Naturally, birders began debating what they were witnessing. Were the neighboring Eastern Kingbirds responding instinctively to the begging calls of hungry nestlings? Were the adults somehow sharing responsibilities between two nearby nests? Or had something even more extraordinary occurred?

Recognizing the significance of the situation, local birders—including Rick Knight and Daniel Huffine—carefully monitored both nests for more than five weeks. Early photographs, obtained by raising a telescoping inspection mirror above the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher’s nest, showed young birds with pale heads and dark eyelines that did not quite resemble either species. As the nestlings matured, photographs of two surviving fledglings confirmed the answer: they were Eastern Kingbird × Scissor-tailed Flycatcher hybrids—apparently the first documented hybrids between these two species.

Hybridization within the kingbird genus (Tyrannus) is uncommon but not unprecedented. Scissor-tailed Flycatchers occasionally hybridize with Western Kingbirds and Couch’s Kingbirds, while Eastern Kingbirds are known to interbreed with Western Kingbirds. Until the Jonesborough nesting, however, no documented hybrids between Eastern Kingbirds and Scissor-tailed Flycatchers were known. The young disappeared shortly after July 27, and no additional records of this hybrid combination have surfaced. What these remarkable birds would have looked like as adults remains a mystery.

The story may not be over. This year, a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher again returned to the same Jonesborough nesting area and, despite no second Scissor-tailed Flycatcher being reported, was observed incubating a clutch of eggs. Whether history repeats itself remains to be seen. If nothing else, the Jonesborough saga serves as a reminder that some of North America’s most remarkable ornithological discoveries can emerge from the most unexpected places—even a highway median.

Birding Tip: Start Broad with Shorebird Identification

Shorebirds are often considered one of the most challenging groups of birds to identify. Many species share similar plumage, gather in mixed flocks, and change appearance considerably with age, season, and feather wear. Challenging viewing conditions and constantly moving birds can make the process even more difficult. With the shorebird southbound migration beginning to ramp up, preparing for these identifications will make a day in the field far more enjoyable.

The key is to avoid beginning with fine plumage details. Instead, use a consistent process that moves from broad characteristics toward more specific field marks. Over the coming months, keep an eye out for our upcoming shorebird study series, where we will take a closer look at the features, behaviors, and identification challenges associated with this diverse and fascinating group.

Begin With Structure and Behavior

Resist the urge to name the bird immediately. This is a very common pitfall that can lead to difficulty breaking from your initial ID. Start with its overall size, shape, posture, and behavior. Is it plump or slender? Long-legged or low to the ground? Does it probe deeply into the mud, pick food from the surface, chase waves, or forage while swimming?

Next, study the bird’s proportions. Pay particular attention to bill length and shape, leg length, neck length, wing projection, and the relationship between the head and body. These structural features are often more reliable than subtle plumage markings, especially when birds are distant, molting, or in worn plumage.

Use Context to Narrow the Options

Once you have a general impression, consider the bird’s habitat, flock composition, and position within the feeding area. Some species favor open mudflats, others remain near vegetation, and some stay close to breaking waves. Comparing an unfamiliar bird with nearby shorebirds can also provide a valuable sense of scale. You can also use temporal context if you understand the general movement patterns of these species during migration seasons.

Listen for vocalizations and look for a few supporting field marks rather than trying to evaluate every feather at once. Leg color, breast pattern, eyebrow shape, rump pattern, and wing markings may help confirm an identification, but they are most useful after structure and behavior have already narrowed the possibilities.

Shorebird identification becomes more manageable when it is treated as a process of elimination rather than a search for one perfect field mark. Start broad, compare carefully, and allow yourself time to observe the bird. With practice, even a crowded mudflat can begin to look less like a collection of nearly identical birds and more like a series of recognizable shapes, behaviors, and species.

Thanks for Reading

Some of birding’s greatest rewards come from slowing down and letting the evidence guide you. Whether you’re documenting an unusual nesting pair or sorting through a flock of migrating shorebirds, careful observation often reveals details that first impressions miss. By building strong identification habits and remaining open to the unexpected, you’ll not only identify more birds—you’ll be better prepared for the rare discoveries that continue to reshape what we know about them.

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As part of our growing shorebirds content collection, this quick quiz serves as a bridge between Shorebirds 101 and our forthcoming Shorebirds Study Series. Let’s see where you’re starting from!

Shorebirds have a reputation for being one of birding’s most intimidating groups, but don’t worry—this isn’t about perfection. It’s simply a fun way to test your current knowledge, establish a baseline, and perhaps reveal that you know more than you think. This quiz focuses on North American shorebirds, though we hope to release similar quizzes for other regions in the near future.

We’ll reveal the answers in a future newsletter. Good luck!

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week’s newsletter pairs a remote warbler record with a broader look at why birds appear where they do. In This Week in Birding History, we revisit an early documented Colima Warbler encounter that required some effort to reach. In Birding Tip, we explore how birders can pay closer attention to the ecological drivers of change—habitat, weather, food, disturbance, and seasonality—that shape bird distribution and behavior.

This Week in Birding History: A Warbler Worth the Walk

July 20, 1928 — Ninety-eight years ago today, University of Michigan entomologist Frederick Gaige was participating in a biological survey of the Big Bend region of Texas when he collected a bird unlike any previously documented in the United States. The medium-sized warbler featured a gray head, brownish-gray upperparts, buffy brown flanks, a complete white eyering, a relatively long bill and tail, bright yellow undertail coverts, and a small rusty-orange crown patch—field marks that identified it as a Colima Warbler.

At the time, the specimen was just the twelfth Colima Warbler known to science and established both the first United States record and the northernmost occurrence then known. Today, the Chisos Mountains remain the species’ principal U.S. breeding stronghold. Although Colima Warblers have since been found roughly 100 miles (160 km) farther north in the Davis Mountains, Big Bend still represents the northern edge of the species’ core breeding range.

For many North American birders, finding a Colima Warbler remains a rite of passage. Each spring, enthusiasts make the long climb into Big Bend National Park’s Chisos Mountains, where nearly every successful search begins the same way—with a song. Males often deliver their rich, ringing phrases from hidden perches high on canyon slopes long before revealing themselves. Patient birders who follow the song may eventually be rewarded with a brief view as the bird hops through oak leaf litter or pauses on an exposed branch. More than a century after Frederick Gaige’s remarkable discovery, the annual pilgrimage to see the United States’ only breeding Colima Warblers remains one of North America’s classic birding adventures.

Birding Tip: Birding the Ecological Engines of Change

Birders often learn to read landscapes by noticing what is present: mature trees, dense shrubs, open water, or broad grasslands. Just as important, however, is learning to recognize how those habitats came to be. A burned forest, flooded field, wind-thrown woodland, or abandoned beaver pond may appear damaged or disorderly, but each reflects an ecological process that is actively reshaping the landscape. These forces of change can alter where birds feed, nest, and seek shelter, sometimes transforming an entire bird community in only a few years.

Before visiting a recently disturbed habitat, remember that fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other events can destroy homes, displace communities, kill wildlife, and damage ecosystems. Birders should approach these places sensitively: obey closures, avoid recovery operations, remain on approved roads and trails, and never treat someone else’s loss as a spectacle.

At the same time, disturbed landscapes reveal an important ecological truth: habitats are never static. Ecology shifts as the forces of nature drive change within a system. These changes displace some birds while creating opportunities for others.

Disturbance Creates Diversity

An ecological disturbance is any event that alters a habitat’s structure, resources, or physical conditions. Some occur suddenly, such as fires, floods, tornadoes, and treefalls. Others develop gradually through drought, disease, insect outbreaks, erosion, changing water levels, beaver activity, or simply the natural successional process of a habitats vegetation. Logging, mowing, grazing, dam removal, and restoration can also reshape habitats.

These forces act as ecological engines by creating patches of different ages, vegetation structures, moisture levels, and food resources. A mature forest may gain a sunny clearing, a meadow may become a wetland, or a burned woodland may develop into shrubland before eventually returning to forest.

This patchwork is often essential for bird diversity. Mature forests provide large trees, cavities, and layered canopies, while younger habitats support birds that depend on grasses, shrubs, and dense low growth.

Fire

The effects of fire depend on many factors. A mild fire may clear the understory while leaving mature trees alive, while a severe fire may create large areas of snags and exposed soil with very little vegetation.

Species such as the Black-backed Woodpecker often enter burns to feed on insects colonizing damaged trees. Snags provide feeding sites and future nesting cavities, while flycatchers and other aerial insectivores benefit from newly opened space.

As grasses, wildflowers, shrubs, and young trees return, the bird community changes. Seed-eaters and early-successional species such as Eastern Towhees or Yellow-breasted Chats may move in before the canopy eventually closes again.

The edges between burned and unburned vegetation can be especially productive because they combine open feeding habitat with nearby cover.

Fire does not benefit every ecosystem, and birds using a burn do not necessarily prove that the event was ecologically beneficial. Some habitats evolved with frequent fire, while others are damaged by fires occurring too often or too intensely.

Blowdowns and Windstorms

Strong winds can bring the forest canopy to the ground. Sunlight then reaches the forest floor, encouraging shrubs, vines, and young trees to grow. Fallen logs retain moisture, support fungi and insects, and slowly return nutrients to the soil. Damaged standing trees may develop cavities or loose bark used by tree creeping species.

Large blowdowns can create habitat for birds such as Chestnut-sided Warblers or Mourning Warblers when the forest opens up from a dense canopy to one with a select few large overstory trees.

It is always best to observe these areas from established roads and trails. Fallen and suspended trees may remain unstable long after the storm has passed.

Floods and Changing Water Levels

Floods can transform a dry meadow or retention pond in moments. Shallow water acts as a conduit for passing ducks and certain shorebirds as small insects concentrate in these conditions.

As water recedes, exposed mud will still make excellent shorebird habitat for the next few days. Larger floods may also shift river channels, form sandbars, knock down trees, and create new backwaters or wetlands. Pay attention to water depth as it is one of the most indicative points of what species will capitalize on a location. Dabbling ducks may use deeper sections, shorebirds feed along shallow margins, and herons often patrol isolated pools.

Drought can produce the opposite transformation. Shrinking wetlands and reservoirs exposes mudflats and concentrates fish and amphibians, benefiting some birds while reducing nesting cover for marsh specialists. Drought may also have impacts on forests and other vegetation by increasing chances of fire.

Ice, Snow, Insects, and Disease

Ice storms and heavy snow can impact a habitat by breaking limbs of trees as well as covering these resources temporarily during a critical season for the species that rely on them. Increased sunlight from broken limbs encourages understory growth, while damaged wood may later provide cavities and insect prey.

Immediately after severe winter weather, birds often concentrate in protected valleys, stream corridors, evergreen stands, urban plantings, and other places where food remains accessible.

Insect outbreaks and plant diseases can also kill trees across large areas. Some bark-foraging birds may initially respond positively to abundant insects. Down the line, dead trees create snags and openings, gradually shifting the community from canopy birds toward species that use gaps, edges, and young vegetation.

This fact speaks less to the benefit of introduced pests and disease and more to the resilience and adaptability of birds. A blight may devastate a forest, and this will have many lasting negative impacts. Birds will capitalize on these conditions to the best of their ability regardless of the negative impacts in a broad ecological perspective.

Human Disturbance and Restoration

Human activities are one of the strongest drivers of ecological change. A birder can observe this especially in the human tendency to create open or early-successional habitat. Powerline corridors may support shrubland birds, harvested forests may resemble natural openings, and restored grasslands may attract Bobolinks, meadowlarks, and sparrows.

The presence of birds does not erase the environmental consequences of development. It again speaks to the birds ability to respond to habitat structure, food, and shelter rather than whether an area is considered natural.

Restoration projects can deliberately use disturbance to improve habitat. Prescribed fire, invasive plant removal, controlled flooding, dam removal, forest thinning, and native meadow establishment may look messy at first, but bird monitoring can help show whether the habitat is developing as intended.

Return and Watch It Change

The greatest value of identifying habitat changes comes from revisiting these disturbed habitats. A burn, flooded field, blowdown, or abandoned beaver pond may support a different bird community each year.

Record more than the species you encounter. Note vegetation height, water depth, shrub density, standing dead trees, and habitat boundaries. Photographs taken from the same location can document changes that are easy to forget.

Birds respond to all resources that a habitat provides. All ecological engines continually redistribute those resources. By recognizing these processes—and visiting affected areas responsibly—birders can move beyond simply finding birds and begin understanding why they are there.

Thanks for Reading

Birding becomes more meaningful when we look beyond the checklist and ask what is driving the patterns we see. Changes in habitat, climate, food availability, and timing all influence where birds occur and how they move through the landscape. By learning to read those ecological signals, birders can make better predictions in the field, contribute more useful observations, and develop a deeper understanding of the forces shaping birdlife over time.

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If you’re anything like us, birds probably pulled you into the natural world. A spark bird that opened your eyes. Open eyes that led to discovery. Discovery that became endless curiosity. One bird became 10. Ten species became a life list. Before long, every walk became an excuse to scan the treetops and hedgerows, listen for unfamiliar songs, and check every distant silhouette.

But here’s something we’ve learned after decades of birding: The best birders rarely study only birds.

They notice the butterfly puddling along the trail. They recognize the dragonfly hawking insects above a marsh. They identify the native wildflowers carpeting a woodland floor. They question the shadow of a mammal that slinked away. They understand the habitats around them and the plants that define them. All of this leads to a deeper, more intimate understanding of the natural world, helping us recognize why a pine-oak woodland sounds different from a spruce forest—or why a desert wash or canyon ravine may seem eerily quiet one week and explode with birds the next.

Birds are part of nature—not separate from it.

During the summer, especially after pre-breeding migration has passed and as many birds settle into breeding territories or become quieter after nesting, the pace of the birder naturally shifts. There is still plenty to observe—from courtship and nesting behavior to fledglings learning to navigate the world—but the sheer volume of birds, and often the pace of discovery, naturally slows. Songs become less frequent. Mixed flocks disappear. The excitement of migration gives way to the quieter rhythms of the breeding season.

Rather than seeing this as the “off-season,” many birders embrace summer as one of the best times of year to become more complete naturalists. Let’s explore why.

Birds Are Only One Piece of the Puzzle

Every bird depends on an ecosystem. A Blackburnian Warbler isn’t simply a colorful bird in a tree. It’s a highly specialized predator feeding on caterpillars that are eating native leaves growing on soils shaped by fungi, geology, rainfall, and climate.

Understanding those connections changes how you bird.

At first, birding is often about answering a single question: What is it? That’s an exciting place to begin, but over time, another question becomes even more rewarding: Why is it here?

Why does this species occur in this forest but not the one across the road? Why are warblers concentrated along one stream corridor while another seems nearly empty? Why do hummingbirds suddenly appear when certain wildflowers bloom? Why do some years produce explosions of finches at feeders across the area while others barely produce any at all?

Those questions lead beyond birds and into ecology. They encourage you to notice the trees, the understory, the insects, the geology, the weather, and the countless interactions that shape every landscape. Before long, you’re no longer simply identifying birds—you’re learning to read ecosystems.

And once you begin reading ecosystems, birding becomes richer, more predictable, and far more fascinating.

Why Summer Is the Perfect Time

Every season offers something different to birders.

During pre-breeding migration in spring, birds race poleward or upslope to establish territories and breed. Migration is condensed and energetic, landscapes fill with fresh arrivals, songs ring from nearly every woodland edge, and many species wear their most vibrant plumages of the year. It’s a season of urgency, courtship, and constant discovery. It’s hard to look away from birds during spring.

Post-breeding migration in autumn brings a different kind of excitement. Young birds join the population for the first time, swelling numbers across the landscape. Migration unfolds over many months, nearly half the year, as plumages become more subtle and identification often more challenging. It’s also one of the year’s best seasons for finding rare birds and unexpected vagrants.

Winter settles into an entirely different rhythm altogether. Birds shift from reproduction to survival, responding to frozen landscapes and limited food and water resources. Yet even this quieter season rewards observers with spectacular finch irruptions, wandering owls, unusual waterfowl, and species that are absent during much of the year. Birds are still a key part of the landscape, but in some places, beyond identifying trees by their bark and stems, there may be little else to observe.

Summer, however, stands apart.

While birds are engaged in one of the most demanding and fascinating stages of their annual cycle—defending territories, incubating eggs, raising young, and preparing for the months ahead—the experience of birding changes. Singing gradually decreases. Birds become harder to find. Mixed flocks are still weeks away. Resident species become familiar and provide a great backbone for learning, but discovering something unexpected often becomes less expected.

With that, the slower pace of peak summer birding becomes an invitation rather than a limitation. As birds settle into the rhythms of family life, fewer birds are demanding our attention, allowing us to notice everything else. A familiar bird walk becomes an exploration of flora and fauna and the countless ecological relationships that connect them.

The rest of the natural world comes alive in ways that it doesn’t from late fall through early spring. Butterflies cruise flowering meadows. Dragonflies patrol wetlands and woodland streams. Native wildflowers reach their peak bloom. Frogs call after evening thunderstorms. Moths gather beneath porch lights after dark. Each reveals an astonishing diversity that many birders never notice.

Ironically, by spending a little less time focused exclusively on birds, many birders come away with a much deeper understanding of them.

Where Naturalists Often Turn Next

The beauty of natural history is that there is no single path. Every ecosystem has its own cast of organisms waiting to be discovered, and every naturalist develops different interests along the way. The groups below are just some of the most common places birders expand their curiosity because of their diversity, density, and accessibility. Still, your own journey may look entirely different depending on where you live—or where your travels take you.

Animals

• Butterflies & skippers — Bright colors, fascinating migrations, and close relationships with native plants make them one of the easiest groups for birders to begin exploring as bird activity slows. Besides, birders are already keen on colorful things with wings.

• Dragonflies & damselflies — Agile aerial predators that patrol the same wetlands, rivers, and ponds many birders already visit, offering endless opportunities to observe flight behavior and ecology.

• Moths — With hundreds of moth species found across many regions, moths reveal an astonishing world after dark. A porch light or a simple moth sheet can uncover remarkable diversity right in your own backyard.

• Amphibians — Frogs and salamanders add an entirely different dimension to wetlands and forests, especially on warm summer evenings when choruses replace dawn bird song.

Plants & Fungi

• Native wildflowers — Learning which species bloom when and which insects and birds they support helps explain the rhythms of the landscape throughout the year.

• Trees & shrubs — Oaks, pines, aspens, willows, and countless other woody plants form the foundation of bird habitat. Learning them is one of the fastest ways to understand where birds occur and why. Find the food and breeding habitat they depend on, then combine that knowledge with timing and range, and you’ll often find the bird species you’re looking for.

• Grasses, sedges, and rushes — Often overlooked, these plants define entire ecosystems and provide food, nesting material, and cover for countless birds and other wildlife.

• Fungi — Although often associated with autumn, fungi quietly underpin nearly every terrestrial ecosystem, forming underground partnerships with plants and recycling nutrients that sustain the forests we bird in. Summer rains can produce a fantastic growth of fungi in your local woods.

Everything Is Connected

One of the most rewarding parts of becoming a naturalist is realizing that very little in nature happens in isolation. Birds respond to insects; insects respond to plants; plants respond to soils, geology, rainfall, elevation, and countless other forces. Every organism is part of a much larger story. The more of those stories you begin to recognize, the more predictable—and more fascinating—birds become.

An oak supporting hundreds of caterpillars suddenly explains why a canopy is alive with breeding warblers as light warms up the larval insects. A patch of blooming cardinal flower makes the appearance of a Ruby-throated Hummingbird feel almost inevitable. A chorus of frogs heard down the road after an evening rain hints at healthy wetlands that may also support rails, bitterns, herons, and swallows. Even something as common as a stand of goldenrods can tell you where sparrows may gather months later during post-breeding migration.

Birds don’t exist apart from these relationships—they exist because of them.

The more you learn about the rest of the natural world, the more clearly birds reveal the ecological threads that connect every landscape.

You Don’t Have to Become an Expert

The sheer diversity of life on our planet can feel overwhelming. There are countless butterflies, dragonflies, moths, wildflowers, trees, fungi, and other organisms waiting to be discovered. It’s easy to think becoming a naturalist means mastering all of them. But here’s a tip: it doesn’t.

Natural history isn’t about knowing everything—nobody does. It’s about noticing more than you noticed yesterday and leaning in with curiosity.

Let curiosity guide you. Maybe this summer you will learn to recognize the common butterflies in your local park or the ones that visit your apartment’s patio of potted plants. Next year, perhaps you will dive deeper into smaller butterflies and skippers or focus on identifying the host plants that draw butterflies to your yard. Another season might be spent learning the trees that define your favorite birding hotspot or the wildflowers that bloom along a familiar trail.

Over time, those small pieces begin fitting together. Gradually, you stop seeing individual organisms and start recognizing communities, habitats, and the ecological relationships that shape them. That’s when a walk outdoors transforms from simply identifying species into understanding landscapes. You learn more, broaden your connections to the natural world, and become a better birder in the process.

Becoming a Better Naturalist

Like birding itself, becoming a naturalist isn’t about rushing through a checklist—it’s about learning to observe more deeply. A few simple habits can open entirely new ways of experiencing the outdoors.

• Slow down — Spend time exploring a single meadow, wetland, woodland, or shoreline instead of constantly searching for the next new bird. Familiar places often reveal the greatest discoveries. Set out on a trail with no destination in mind, and if you only make it 20 feet before your time runs out because you stopped to turn over every leaf—literally—that’s an outing well spent.

• Study the habitat first — Before looking for birds, notice the trees, shrubs, wildflowers, water, soils, and landforms around you. Habitat often explains what you’ll find before you see or hear it.

• Visit the same places throughout the year — Returning in different seasons reveals how birds, plants, insects, and other wildlife change together through the annual cycle. And if birds are still too much of a distraction, summer and winter are great times to expand your naturalist journey, when birding is often slower, and there is more room to notice the rest of the landscape.

• Explore beyond daylight — Summer evenings introduce an entirely different community of organisms, from moths and katydids to frogs, fireflies, and bats. Yes, mothing with a sheet and the right lights can be fun, but a simple porch light left on is a great and easy place to start. Leave a light on while you read for a while as part of your evening wind-down. Come back every hour and see what cast of moths and other insects has arrived.

• Bring a different field guide — Leave room for curiosity. A butterfly guide, wildflower guide, tree guide, or dragonfly guide may become just as valuable as your bird book. There are also lots of apps coming to market.

• Stay curious — Every unfamiliar organism is an opportunity to learn something about the landscape. Questions are not interruptions to the experience—they’re often the beginning of it.

A Lifetime of Discovery

One of the beautiful things about birding is that it rarely stays only about birds. Many birders eventually become botanists, butterfly enthusiasts, dragonfly watchers, mushroom hunters, or amateur ecologists—not because they planned to, but because curiosity naturally spread outward. That’s one of the greatest gifts birds can offer. They teach us to notice. And once you begin noticing, it’s hard to stop.

Logging Your Sightings

Just as eBird helps birders track their sightings, iNaturalist helps you document the incredible diversity of life beyond birds. From butterflies and wildflowers to fungi, insects, and everything in between, iNaturalist allows you to record observations while connecting with a global community of experienced naturalists who help confirm identifications and share their knowledge. These observations become more than personal records—they contribute to local, regional, and even international research, helping scientists better understand biodiversity and how species are changing over time.

Thanks for Reading

At Birding University, birds will always be our first love. They’re why many of us explored the outdoors in the first place, and they’ll remain at the heart of everything we do.

But becoming a stronger birder doesn’t always mean finding another species. Sometimes it means learning the oak that hosted the warbler, the milkweed that fed the butterfly, the dragonfly patrolling the pond, or the frog calling from the marsh after sunset. Those discoveries don’t take you away from birding—they deepen it.

This summer, when migration quiets and the pace slows, consider widening your focus. You may not add many birds to your life list, but you’ll almost certainly add something even more valuable: a richer understanding of the living world that birds call home.

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week’s newsletter pairs a remarkable count from South America with a timely tip to watch how birds move through the landscape after the breeding season. In This Week in Birding History, we revisit a standout observation involving a large gathering of parakeets in Colombia. In Birding Tip, we look at why following family groups can be one of the best ways to find birds, understand behavior, and make the most of late-summer birding.

This Week in Birding History: A Perspective on Parakeet Population

July 13, 2022 — Four years ago this week, experienced Swiss birders Fabian Schneider and Jean-Esteban Liberek were birding a valley in Colombia’s Serranía del Perijá when they encountered multiple groups of Perijá Parakeets along a 1.6-mile (2.55 km) stretch of road. By tallying the birds seen throughout the morning, they estimated a remarkable 80–100 individuals—the highest total ever reported on a single eBird checklist for this endangered species.

The significance of that count becomes clear when viewed in the context of the species’ tiny population. Fewer than 2,500 adult Perijá Parakeets are thought to survive worldwide, all within an area of roughly 3,200 square miles (8,400 km²)—about the size of Yellowstone National Park. The species inhabits undisturbed montane forests along the western slope of Colombia’s Eastern Andes and the Sierra de Perijá on the Colombia–Venezuela border, where it is most often encountered in small, noisy flocks of five to thirty birds. Despite growing interest from birders visiting the region, Perijá Parakeets have been documented on fewer than 200 eBird checklists.

One hundred parakeets may not sound extraordinary until viewed another way. A flock of that size represents roughly 4% of the world’s adult population. If Black-capped Chickadees were concentrated in the same proportion, the equivalent gathering would number approximately 1.7 million birds. Applied to House Sparrows—the world’s most abundant bird according to a 2021 global population estimate—the equivalent flock would exceed 64 million individuals. Encounters like Fabian and Jean-Esteban’s offer both encouragement that important strongholds remain and a reminder of just how vulnerable this endangered parakeet continues to be.

Birding Tip: Follow the Family Group

By July, many birds have finished nesting, and the woods begin to feel quieter. Dawn choruses fade, territorial disputes become less common, and many birders assume activity has slowed. In reality, birds are often still very active, they’ve simply shifted their priorities from defending territories to raising young. Learning to recognize family groups is one of the easiest ways to find birds during midsummer.

Listen for the Young

Unlike the rich songs of spring, fledglings communicate with simple, repetitive begging calls. These high-pitched notes may sound insignificant at first, but they can quickly reveal the location of an entire family. Newly fledged birds frequently call whenever a parent approaches with food, creating brief bursts of activity that draw attention to otherwise hidden birds.

Take a moment to stop whenever you hear these unfamiliar calls. Parents often make repeated feeding trips along predictable routes, giving you multiple opportunities to observe them. A single begging call may lead you to adults, fledglings, and sometimes neighboring families all using the same patch of habitat.

Watch the Adults

Adult birds often provide the biggest clues. Rather than singing from exposed perches, they spend much of the day carrying insects, seeds, berries, or caterpillars. Their movements tend to be purposeful. Instead of wandering through the habitat, they’ll repeatedly disappear into the same shrub, sapling, or patch of vegetation where young birds are waiting.

Pay attention to behaviors such as:

• Carrying food without immediately eating it.

• Making repeated trips to the same location.

• Giving soft contact calls instead of loud songs.

• Appearing agitated when you approach.

• Briefly exposing themselves before disappearing into dense cover.

Following these behaviors often leads to observations that would be impossible through song alone.

Family Groups Create Birding Opportunities

As fledglings become more independent, families often begin moving together through the landscape. Certain songbirds may travel as loose family units for several weeks after leaving the nest. Instead of encountering a single individual, you may suddenly find five or six birds feeding together. These gatherings also increase the likelihood of mixed-species associations. Family groups may overlap with other species using the same food resources, creating surprisingly diverse pockets of activity during an otherwise quiet season.

Look for Age Clues

Family groups offer a great chance to practice aging birds in the field. Recently fledged birds often look subtly different from adults. They may have shorter tails, loose or fluffy body feathers, softer facial patterns, pale gape edges, or less crisp markings overall. Their behavior can be just as useful as their appearance. A bird that flutters its wings, gives repeated begging calls, follows an adult closely, or waits in cover while another bird brings food is often a young bird, even if its plumage is not immediately obvious.

This is especially useful in groups like warblers, sparrows, wrens, and woodpeckers, where young birds may not match the clean field-guide image of an adult. Some juveniles look duller, streakier, browner, or more weakly patterned, while others may already be beginning to replace juvenile feathers through early molt. When you find a family group, slow down and compare individuals side by side. Notice which birds are feeding independently, which are still begging, and which plumage details separate adults from young. These small clues can turn a quiet midsummer encounter into one of the best identification lessons of the season.

Bird Ethically Around Young Birds

Watching recently fledged birds can be one of the highlights of summer birding, but it also requires extra care. Avoid approaching closely enough to interrupt feeding visits or cause young birds to scatter. If adults begin giving persistent alarm calls or hesitate to return with food, you’ve probably moved too close.

The best observations happen when you let the birds dictate the encounter. Stay patient, keep your distance, and allow family groups to continue their natural behavior. Not only will the birds remain undisturbed, but you’ll often witness fascinating interactions that would otherwise never occur.

This July, don’t mistake a quiet forest for an empty one. Listen for begging calls, watch for adults carrying food, and follow family groups as they move through the landscape. The season’s most rewarding discoveries often come from birds that are no longer announcing themselves with song.

Thanks for Reading

Family groups can turn quiet summer birding into something far more active and revealing. By watching where young birds and adults move, feed, and call together, you can uncover pockets of activity that might otherwise go unnoticed. Following these groups also builds a better understanding of post-breeding behavior, habitat use, and the subtle seasonal shift from nesting to dispersal and migration.

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week, we’re highlighting one of the most successful conservation programs ever created: the Federal Duck Stamp. While many birders know it as a requirement for waterfowl hunters, its impact extends far beyond hunting. In fact, it may be the single most effective conservation purchase you can make all year. With this year’s Federal Duck Stamp now available, there’s never been a better time to learn why this small piece of art has become one of the greatest conservation success stories in North America.

What Is the Federal Duck Stamp?

The Federal Duck Stamp—officially the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp—was established in 1934 during the depths of the Dust Bowl, when wetlands across North America were disappearing at an alarming rate. The idea was elegantly simple: require waterfowl hunters to purchase and carry an annual stamp, then dedicate nearly every dollar from those sales directly toward conserving habitat.

More than 90 years later, that simple idea has become one of conservation’s greatest triumphs.

Since the program began, Federal Duck Stamp sales have generated more than $1.3 billion for conservation and helped protect over six million acres of wetlands and wildlife habitat. Even more remarkably, 98 cents of every dollar spent on a Federal Duck Stamp goes directly toward habitat acquisition or conservation easements within the National Wildlife Refuge system. Very few conservation programs can claim that level of efficiency.

Why Birders Should Care

It’s easy to assume the Federal Duck Stamp exists only for duck hunters.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

While waterfowl gave the program its name, the wetlands protected through Federal Duck Stamp funding support far more than ducks and geese. They also provide breeding habitat for shorebirds, wading birds, rails, grebes, marsh-nesting songbirds, raptors, amphibians, pollinators, mammals, and countless migratory songbirds that rely on healthy wetlands during migration.

Protect a marsh, and you’re protecting an entire ecosystem.

Even if you live far from the wetlands conserved through the Federal Duck Stamp Program, you’ll still benefit from them. Millions of migratory birds depend on these habitats during their annual journeys, linking landscapes across continents. The ducks, shorebirds, waders, and even many songbirds you enjoy in your own community may rely on protected wetlands hundreds—or even thousands—of miles away during another stage of their annual cycle.

That conservation extends beyond individual wetlands to the places we love to experience birds. Many of North America’s greatest birding destinations—including countless National Wildlife Refuges—owe at least part of their existence or expansion to Federal Duck Stamp funding. Every birder who has enjoyed spectacular migrations, photographed waterfowl at sunrise, or watched cranes settle into wetlands at dusk has likely benefited from habitat protected through this remarkable program.

More Than a Hunting Stamp

One of the best-kept secrets in birding is that a current Federal Duck Stamp also serves as an annual entrance pass to any National Wildlife Refuge that charges an admission fee.

That means your purchase supports conservation and helps you enjoy the places your dollars are protecting.

For many birders who visit multiple refuges each year, or their favorite one over and over, the stamp can easily pay for itself while supporting habitat conservation.

A Tiny Investment With an Outsized Impact

It’s hard to find another conservation purchase with this kind of return.

For just $25, you’re helping protect wetlands that:

• Support migration — Millions of waterfowl, shorebirds, and songbirds depend on healthy wetlands during migration and throughout the year.

• Preserve biodiversity — Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth, supporting thousands of species beyond birds.

• Improve water quality — Healthy wetlands naturally filter pollutants and sediments before they reach rivers and lakes.

• Reduce flooding — Wetlands absorb and slowly release floodwaters, helping protect nearby communities. As extreme rainfall and flooding events become more frequent in many regions, these natural buffers are more important than ever.

• Store carbon — Intact wetlands help capture and retain significant amounts of carbon, making them valuable allies in addressing climate change.

It’s one of the rare conservation purchases where the connection between your dollars and real habitat protection is direct, measurable, and transparent.

Wildlife Art With a Purpose

Each year’s Federal Duck Stamp also celebrates wildlife art.

Since 1949, the design has been selected through the prestigious Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest, one of the most respected wildlife art competitions in the world. Winning artists receive no prize money—only the honor of seeing their artwork become that year’s official stamp, with proceeds supporting habitat conservation instead.

The newly released 2026–2027 Federal Duck Stamp features three striking Buffleheads painted by Minnesota artist James Hautman (see this article’s lead image), continuing a decades-long tradition that blends art, conservation, and outdoor heritage into a single annual collectible. The win also extends the remarkable Hautman family legacy. Alongside his brothers, Joseph Hautman and Robert Hautman, James is part of the only trio of siblings ever to win the prestigious Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest. Collectively, the Hautman brothers have won the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest 16 times since Joe’s first victory for the 1990–91 stamp, which featured a pair of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks.

Why Buy One Even If You Don’t Hunt?

Simply put, birds need habitat.

We often think of conservation as volunteering, donating to nonprofits, planting native gardens, or participating in community science. Those are all wonderful ways to make a difference.

Buying a Federal Duck Stamp belongs on that list.

It’s an easy annual tradition that supports one of the most proven habitat conservation programs ever created. Whether it stays tucked inside your field notebook, is displayed on your desk, or is added to a growing collection, it represents something much larger than a stamp—it represents acres of wetlands that will continue supporting wildlife for generations.

Purchasing a Federal Duck Stamp is easy. They are available through the U.S. Postal Service/Post Offices, many National Wildlife Refuges, and selected sporting goods and outdoor retailers. You can also purchase one online through the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s trusted partner, Amplex, which distributes Federal Duck Stamps on behalf of the Department of the Interior.

Whether you’re a birder, photographer, hunter, or simply someone who cares about conserving habitat, it’s one of the most direct ways to invest in the future of North America’s birds.

Community Conservation in Its Purest Form

One of the beautiful things about the Federal Duck Stamp is that it reminds us that conservation succeeds when many people each contribute a little.

Hunters purchase it because they’re required to. Birders buy it because they value habitat. Collectors appreciate the artwork. Wildlife photographers, hikers, and refuge visitors purchase it to access refuges and because they understand healthy landscapes benefit everyone.

Different communities. Shared purpose.

At a time when conservation challenges can feel overwhelming—and when rallying people around a single cause is often difficult—the Federal Duck Stamp offers something refreshingly tangible: a simple, direct way for ordinary people to help protect extraordinary places.

A Preview of Next Year’s Stamp

Looking ahead, the 2027–2028 Federal Duck Stamp is already taking shape. Each year, just a handful of eligible waterfowl species are selected for artists to depict in the Federal Duck Stamp Art Contest, with one of those species required to be the predominant bird in the composition. For the upcoming competition, artists will choose from the Cackling Goose, Blue-winged Teal, Mottled Duck, Long-tailed Duck, or King Eider. This year’s slate of eligible species has seen relatively little representation on the Federal Duck Stamp, ranging from the Cackling Goose, which has never before appeared, to the Long-tailed Duck, which has been featured just twice, most recently in 2009. That means next year’s winning design could either introduce an entirely new species to the program or celebrate the return of one that hasn’t graced the stamp in more than a decade.

Thanks for Reading

Conservation often feels like it requires grand gestures, but the Federal Duck Stamp reminds us that lasting impact can begin with something surprisingly small. A single purchase has helped conserve millions of acres over the past nine decades—not because one person bought one stamp, but because generations of people chose to invest in habitat together.

If you haven’t purchased a Federal Duck Stamp before, consider making this your first year. Whether you’re a birder, photographer, hunter, or simply someone who values healthy wetlands, you’ll be joining one of North America’s longest-running and most successful conservation traditions. Sometimes the simplest way to help birds is also one of the most effective.

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Welcome to the birdy side of the internet! This week’s newsletter pairs an unexpected coastal visitor in the middle of the continent with a timely look at how summer weather can reshape birding conditions. In This Week in Birding History, we revisit a beach bird that turned up far from the shore, while Birding Tip explores why the hours after summer storms can be especially productive in the field.

This Week in Birding History: A Beach Bird in the Breadbasket

July 9, 1995 — Thirty-one years ago this week, birders Chris Hobbs and Steve Addinall were exploring near Mound City, Missouri, when they happened upon an unfamiliar shorebird. Larger than a Semipalmated Plover but smaller than a Killdeer, the bird stood out with its stout, all-black bill, complete black breast band, and pale gray legs. Those field marks quickly led to an astonishing identification: Wilson’s Plover—Missouri’s first record of a species far more at home on sandy ocean beaches than Midwestern croplands. The Missouri Bird Records Committee later ranked the sighting as the state’s second-most significant rarity of 1995, surpassed only by a first state-record Sooty Tern carried inland by Hurricane Erin.

Wilson’s Plover is considered one of North America’s most coastal-restricted shorebirds, and inland records remain exceptionally rare. This species breeds almost exclusively on sandy beaches, barrier islands, salt flats, and coastal lagoons along the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Brazil and along the Pacific coast from Baja California to northern Peru. Historically nicknamed the “Thick-billed Plover,” the species uses its oversized bill to capture fiddler crabs and other hard-bodied invertebrates that few similarly sized shorebirds can handle.

Fittingly, Missouri’s first Wilson’s Plover was discovered during the week of its namesake Alexander Wilson’s (1766–1813) birthday. Widely regarded as the “Father of American Ornithology,” Wilson’s landmark American Ornithology was the first comprehensive account of North America’s birds and inspired generations of ornithologists.

Birding Tip: Birding After Summer Storms

When dark clouds roll in, most birders head home. Yet some of the most unpredictable birding events can happen immediately after a summer storm passes. Summer storms reshape the landscape in ways that concentrate birds, expose new habitat, and temporarily change normal movement patterns. Understanding these changes can help you take advantage of opportunities that last only a few hours.

Storms create new habitat overnight

Heavy rain often transforms familiar locations. Flooded fields become temporary wetlands. Puddles appear in agricultural fields. Reservoirs and ponds experience changing water levels that expose fresh mudflats. These newly available habitats can attract shorebirds that may have flown overhead unnoticed just hours before.

After substantial rainfall, check:

• Flooded farm fields

• Retention basins

• Reservoir shorelines

• Fresh mudflats

• Wet fields and parks

• Sewage lagoons and wastewater treatment ponds (where public access is permitted)

These temporary habitats often provide food-rich foraging areas that birds quickly exploit. During the late summer these locations become magnets for migrating shorebirds. If you are struggling to add shorebirds to your inland county list, follow the summer storms.

Weather changes bird behavior

Summer storms don’t just impact habitat conditions, they also influence bird activity. Many species become highly active immediately after rain ends, taking advantage of cooler temperatures and abundant insects brought to the surface. Swallows often flock low over open fields, flycatchers return to exposed perches, and any insectivore may take advantage of these conditions.

Storm systems may also interrupt migration. Although we usually associate migration with spring and fall, shorebirds and a handful of early migrants are already moving south by July in most parts of North America. Passing weather may force these birds to the ground to rest. This phenomenon can create brief windows when species appear in places they might otherwise fly over. These conditions are the precursor to fallout, and when they coincide with a strong push of migrants and geographical features that funnel birds, lucky birders may find themselves in the midst of an incredible experience.

Make storms part of your strategy

Rather than viewing bad weather as a reason to cancel your plans, consider adjusting your timing. Head out shortly after a storm clears instead of before it arrives. Visit locations where changing water levels can create new habitat, and check places you might normally overlook.

Some of the best birds of the summer are found when changing conditions briefly place them exactly where observant birders are looking. The next time thunder interrupts your plans, don’t assume the day is lost. Once conditions are safe, grab your binoculars and head back outside. The storm may have just improved the birding.

Safety comes first

An important note to consider despite all the excitement of storm birding. Birding after a storm is very different from birding during one. Always wait until lightning has completely passed before heading into the field. Be mindful of rising water, unstable trails, falling limbs, and rapidly changing weather forecasts. If another storm is approaching, it’s better to cut a birding session short than risk being caught in dangerous conditions.

Thanks for Reading

Summer storms can briefly reset a landscape—cooling temperatures, grounding migrants or wanderers, stirring up insects, and concentrating birds in newly active feeding areas. By paying attention to weather shifts and getting out safely after storms pass, birders can find surprising activity during a season that often feels quiet. Sometimes the best birding comes not from perfect conditions, but from knowing how birds respond when conditions suddenly change.

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