Buff-collared Nightjar / Field Sketching Workshop

Years ago in the village of Alamos in Sonora, Mexico, Alan, Beth Russell and I stumbled across this Buff-collared Nightjar. (Maybe stumbled across isn't quite right––we were out on that chilly night specifically to look for one!)

The bird was nestled under a street lamp next to the cemetery and didn't want to budge. How obliging! It was begging to be sketched.

Today's request from Western Birds for a sketch of a Buff-collared Nightjar brought back the whole scene. Digging through old field journals, I found it. It actually provides great incentive to get back out in the field with a sketchbook.

If any of you have a similar hankering, think about joining me next August for a weeklong workshop in field sketching, offered through WINGS. We will be based right here in the Chiricahua Mountains. What setting could be better?!

Midway Atoll!

Alan and I are just back from Midway Atoll, an idyllic coral-fringed trio of islands, where significant history and wildlife converge. I was scouting a tour which WINGS will offer in coming years.

Color-drenched Sand Island at Midway Atoll (Photos by Narca)

When we step off the small chartered jet into the night, into the cool sea breezes, our first sight is of Bonin Petrels fluttering overhead. The petrels enter their burrows at night to take over incubation duties from their mates or to feed chicks. At dusk, a tempest of petrels amasses just offshore, and when it's dark enough, they storm inland, homing in on their burrows, filling the air with their churrrs and piping.

A Bonin Petrel returns at night to its nest burrow.

The track from the runway to our rooms in Charley Barracks is lined with the nests of albatrosses, as far into the dark as our vision penetrates. And indeed, when day comes, the sight of a million albatrosses within the confines of a small island is astonishing. Midway is the birds' turf. How presumptuous of humans to think it was ever ours.

Charley Barracks surrounded by nesting albatrosses, all of them quite unconcerned that humans share their island.

Portrait: Laysan Albatross

Laysan Albatrosses are sovereign here. About 70% of the world's Laysan Albatrosses nests at Midway. Their numbers have been steadily rising with the change in the atoll's status from being primarily a military base to being managed as a national wildlife refuge. (In addition, the atoll is now part of the Papahanamokuakea Marine National Monument.) The number of Laysan Albatross nests had grown to about 480,000 in spring 2011, when the tsunami struck the island. Biologists figure that 110,000 chicks and quite a few adult birds were lost in that catastrophic event. This year the albatross nest tally is about 380,000, so the tsunami caused a downward tick, but they are still prospering.

An adult Laysan has just returned from the sea to feed its chick. A chick needs provisioning by both of its parents in order to survive and fledge.

When we look at the vast stretch of nests––nests of one sort or another are packed into nearly every available square foot––we see chicks everywhere, adults returning from the sea to feed their young, and masses of teenage albatrosses, all socializing, learning to display, checking out potential mates, forming their life-long pair bonds. When young albatrosses are about 3-5 years old, they return to their natal island to find a mate. They practice everything: synchronous displays, nest-building (such as it is), occasionally cuddling chicks.

A trio of young Laysan Albatrosses relaxes after a bout of strenuous displaying.

Like teenagers everywhere, these subadult Black-footed Albatrosses pass the days socializing and pair bonding.

Along with the vast numbers of Laysan Albatrosses, a few tens of thousands of Black-footed Albatrosses also nest––and a single pair of nesting Short-tailed Albatrosses.

Portrait: Black-footed Albatross

Short-tails are highly endangered. They mostly nest on Torishima, an island off the coast of Japan. At one time their entire nesting population consisted of only 10 pairs. By 1949 they were thought to be extinct, but a few subadult birds were still at sea, and they eventually returned to Torishima to nest. With intensive protection, Short-tailed Albatross numbers have come from a low of about 25 birds in 1954 to a current estimate of 2,000 or more.

The Short-tail is magnificent. It towers above the other albatrosses. The Laysans seem very curious about it, approaching and circling with outstretched necks, occasionally attempting to preen it. I am so very, very glad that this splendid and regal bird still rides the winds, glad that some day our grandchildren might also see it.

A superb Short-tailed Albatross (a.k.a. "Golden Gooney")

We'll return to Cambodia-related posts when there's a free moment, but right now I'm heading off for a Jamaica tour, while Alan holds the fort at home! A busy winter and spring!

Portal, Late Summer

We've had a full week! Many friends who know the Sky Islands choose the late monsoon season to visit, when hummingbirds are streaming south, nectar-feeding bats cluster around the feeders, and masses of clouds keep the temperatures just about perfect. (Of course the gnats find the temperature perfect too!)

South Fork, singed trees and all, has been the site of much trogon activity this week! (Photos by Narca)

Diminutive Buff-breasted Flycatcher along the Herb Martyr Road

Jon Dunn, our good friend of several decades (!––How can it have been so long?), is in town with his WINGS group, and yesterday I joined them for a fine day in the field. We wandered down Herb Martyr Road, where flash floods the day before had brought new debris across the road, and had also cut a new trench at the Crystal Cave wash, though it was manageable in the big van with its high clearance. After Herb Martyr and a stop at Southwest Research Station for the hummingbird show, we continued to the barricades at East Turkey Creek––the current site for anyone undertaking The Great Mexican Chickadee Quest. The higher Chiricahuas are still closed due to danger from the big Horseshoe Two burn and associated flash flooding.

The day brought many highlights:

We did find a Mexican Chickadee, albeit only one, and not terribly cooperative. Today Jon and friends will make a second try for better looks at The Chickadee. The Chiricahuas are the only accessible locale in the States to find this prize. They also live in a mountain range in the bootheel of New Mexico, but that is on private land and access is difficult, even on the very rare occasions when permission can be obtained.

One of the fledgling Northern Goshawks was broadcasting his wish for a meal. Jon spotted the bird in a pine not far away, and several enjoyed scope views of the youngster before he moved higher up the ridge.

Montezuma Quail covey (Detail from watercolor by Narca)

Returning, one of our folks spotted a male Montezuma Quail, standing stockstill on a rock, not 20 feet from the road. From inside the van, we scrutinized the place until several more of these cryptic birds revealed themselves. It was a family group––a gorgeous pair of adults with about six half-grown chicks in tow.

Acorn Woodpecker at Jackie's feeders in Paradise

After a stop at Jackie and Winston's feeders in Paradise (Juniper Titmouse––yes!), we headed back to Portal. Along the way, a richly-colored Blacktail Rattlesnake decided that the big white van was definitely suspect, and a shower of sound cascaded from its rattles as we photographed the beauty.

Black-tailed Rattlesnake decides that the van isn't trustworthy.

The evening finale brought great views of a little Western Screech Owl and the swooping mass of nectar-feeding bats that visit our hummingbird feeders each night at this time of year. The nearly full moon illumined drifts of cloud in the deep night sky.

A Goose on the Lava Flows??

In Hawaii, wandering atop the dark lava flows (only recently colonized by 'ohi'a shrubs), is a small goose, the Nene. I marvel that a waterbird, a goose, is at home on these rough lava beds.

Nene on the Big Island (Photo by Narca)

Hawaii's extreme isolation has posed an enormous barrier to colonization by wildlife. Any bird, mammal or butterfly that came under its own power from the nearest continent had to cross nearly two thousand miles of ocean to get there. Yet some managed the feat: a bat; a few butterflies; an ancestral finch; an ancestral thrush; a hawk. In this tropical terrain of fire, mist and rainbows, a few winged colonizers gave rise to a marvelous radiation of species.

The Nene's long-ago ancestor was very similar to the Canada Goose. In all, at least nine species of goose evolved on the Hawaiian Islands, but only the engaging Nene survives, a symbol of quintessential old Hawaii. 

You can see the Nene without too much trouble, on Kaua'i where they have been successfully introduced as part of a strategy to prevent their extinction, and on the Big Island, where they still roam the lava flows, quite at home. 

If you would enjoy seeing Nenes and other unique Hawaiian wildlife, I invite you to join me in March 2011 on a WINGS tour to explore Hawaii. Just click on the link to the WINGS website. 


We'll be linking the trip to a Midway tour, "The Albatrosses of Midway Atoll," for those who would enjoy coming on both. The Midway tour is also running this coming spring, in March 2010, and we still have a few spaces––why not join the fun?!

Nene (Pen and ink by Narca)