Sun City Birding Club

Volume 1 Issue 6

Editor’s Roost

June 2017

Hi Birders,

Here we are in June. Some of you may still be in Sun City and the rest of you are enjoying friendlier weath-

er back east, up in the great Northwest, or wherever you find refuge from the unrelenting heat. For those who

are luckier than us year-round Sun City dwellers, I hope you are taking advantage of the vastly different bird

variety in your winter nesting grounds. Please pass along any fabulous and less than fabulous sightings so

those of us looking at White-winged Doves all summer can live vicariously thru your binoculars. I will post

your sightings in upcoming newsletters, and please include photos if you have any.

In this issue:

For those of us baking in the desert heat, I will feature the bird of the month in Arizona starting this month on

the following page. Each month I will pick a summer arrival bird to highlight, and try to figure out whatever

reason it is choosing to share the summer heat with us humans.

There has been interest in using the internet to find birding spots so I will describe how to find hot spots using

e-bird. Just pick a hot spot any where and you will see what others have seen, even the very morning before

you finish your coffee! Each month I will feature a different venue on the internet that will help raise your

awareness and knowledge of our avian friends.

Also appearing is a list of upcoming meetings and classes that resume in October 2017 and go through No-

vember 2018.

Offseason field trips to local and cooler hot spots are suggest to gauge interest.

Scouting trips are proposed and covered.

Our last club activity at the Rio Vista and Skunk Creek area is featured.

That’s all I have for the front page, lets get on with the rest. BTW, sorry I am tardy getting this newsletter out

this month. No harm, no “fowl” I say as we are in the off season.

This month’s featured bird is the Lesser Nighthawk, and it seems to arrive just about the time people

like to be elsewhere. They are common in the Lower Sonoran zone from the beginning of April until the

end of September. If you could read the map below, you would notice that they come here to breed. I

can attest to this as a pair buzz my dog and I each morning on our 5 am walk. They don’t bother

building a nest, perhaps the small insect grabbing bill insures poor nest building skills. They just leave

the eggs on the ground. They make a putting sound as they buzz my head. Sibley describes their

voice in his guide: “A whistled trill on one pitch similar to tremolo song of Eastern Screech Owl, but up to

10 seconds long”. That may be the “putting sound” I hear. You most likely have seen them circling

around golf course ponds, lamp posts, or stadiums using the artificial light that attracts flying food.

The Lesser, or Chordeiles acutipennis has a similar Genus member in the Common Nighthawk or

Chordeliles minor. They are here around the same time frame but are not too common in the desert.

They look very similar however. The white wing patches are closer to the wrist and the Lessor’s are

closer to the wing tip. The lesser in slightly smaller in length and wing span. Google both birds and get a

wealth of information. Keep your eyes on the night sky or walk the dog at 5 am.

Focus on Summer residents: The Common Night hawk

Your usual view of the Common Nighthawk Less usual view of the Common Nighthawk

It’s not your eyesight, it’s a poor map

and the range does not seem to cover

the Valley. Google and see what you

can come up with.

May Field Trip Highlights

Skunk Creek/Rio Vista Recreation Area Tuesday May 9th

Species list

Great-tailed Grackle

Great Blue Heron

White-winged Dove

Gambel’s Quail

Snowy Egret

Killdeer

N. Rough-winged Swallow

Mourning Dove

European Starling

Abert’s Towhee

Canadian Goose

House Finch

Greater Roadrunner

Gila Woodpecker

Curve-billed Thrasher

Western Kingbird

Northern Mockingbird

Lesser Goldfinch

Domestic (Mutant) Mallard-

Mallard

Verdin

Rock Pidgeon

Costa’s Hummingbird

Black-crowned Night-Heron

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Double-crested Cormorant

Black-tailed Gnatcatcher

Bell’s Vireo

The highlight of this trip

was multiple sightings of a

Greater Roadrunner pair.

Marilynn Used her phone to

”call” the pair back for a bet-

ter look and more photos.

She used the Cornell Lab’s

free bird ID app. More about

that in a later issue. In the

mean time you can goggle

“Cornell Lab” and the free

app should be one of the

first offerings.

A Bell’s Vireo ID was

debated and confirmed post

trip. I caught a glimpse of the

Black-tailed Gnatcatcher but

was perhaps the only one.

Second to the Roadrunners

in multiple sightings was the

Green-backed Heron. He,

she, or they were every-

where. Most I’ve seen in one

outing.

Popular for their waddling in

single file antics were the 3

Domestic (Mutant) Mallards.

The Zombie Mutant

ringleader is seen on the left.

Photos by Dotti

All this fun and the now traditional picnic

All that walking makes one hungry. Actually it was easy walking

but we did a bit of it. Along with hot and iced coffee, we enjoyed

Breads, cakes, Home made Corn muffins and Dotti’s Pesto

Deviled Eggs.

Some field trips are not suitable for picnics, I’ll have to minimize

those. Without a post trip picnic, it is a good idea to bring

snacks and plenty of water along. If we plan a picnic, and that is

a certainty, it will be included in the trip description.

Getting around in eBird.org

Global tools for birders, critical data for science

• Record the birds you see

• Keep track of your bird lists

• Explore dynamic maps and graphs

• Share your sightings and join the eBird community

Contribute to science and conservation Overview A real-time, online checklist program, eBird has revolutionized the way that the birding community reports and accesses infor-mation about birds. Launched in 2002 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and National Audubon Society, eBird provides rich data sources for basic information on bird abundance and distribution at a variety of spatial and temporal scales.

eBird’s goal is to maximize the utility and accessibility of the vast numbers of bird observations made each year by recreational and professional bird watchers. It is amassing one of the largest and fastest growing biodiversity data resources in existence. For example, in May 2015, participants reported more than 9.5 million bird observations across the world!

The observations of each participant join those of others in an international network of eBird users. eBird then shares these ob-servations with a global community of educators, land managers, ornithologists, and conservation biologists. In time these data will become the foundation for a better understanding of bird distribution across the western hemisphere and beyond.

How Does it Work? eBird documents the presence or absence of species, as well as bird abundance through checklist data. A simple and intuitive web-interface engages tens of thousands of participants to submit their observations or view results via interactive queries into the eBird database. eBird encourages users to participate by providing Internet tools that maintain their personal bird records and enable them to visualize data with interactive maps, graphs, and bar charts. All these features are available in English, Span-ish, and French.

A birder simply enters when, where, and how they went birding, then fills out a checklist of all the birds seen and heard during the outing. eBird provides various options for data gathering including point counts, transects, and area searches. Automated data quality filters developed by regional bird experts review all submissions before they enter the database. Local experts re-view unusual records that are flagged by the filters.

Data Integration eBird collects observations from birders through portals managed and maintained by local partner conservation organizations. In this way eBird targets specific audiences with the highest level of local expertise, promotion, and project ownership. Portals may have a regional focus (aVerAves, eBird Puerto Rico) or they may have more specific goals and/or specific methodologies (Louisiana Winter Bird Atlas, Bird Conservation Network eBird). Each eBird portal is fully integrated within the eBird database and application infrastructure so that data can be analyzed across political and geographic boundaries. For example, observers entering observations of Cape May Warbler from Puerto Rico can view those data separately, or with the entire Cape May War-bler data set gathered by eBird across the western hemisphere.

Data Accessibility eBird data are stored in a secure facility and archived daily, and are accessible to anyone via the eBird web site and other appli-

cations developed by the global biodiversity information community. For example, eBird data are part of the Avian Knowledge

Network (AKN), which integrates observational data on bird populations across the western hemisphere. In turn, the AKN feeds

eBird data to international biodiversity data systems, such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). In this way any

contribution made to eBird increases our understanding of the distribution, richness, and uniqueness of the biodiversity of our

planet.

Copied from eBird.org

“about” page. On the next

page, I will show you an ex-

ample of how I use eBird to

get a current view of what

species might be at a “hot

spot”. Explore all the other

features to find something

that is interesting to you!

Using eBird.org to view current birds

at your favorite hot spots

1) Browse to eBird.org

2) Click on “Explore Data” tab 4th from the left on top menu bar.

3) Click on “Explore Hotspots” (don’t forget to come back later an check out the other choices).

4) Enter Hotspot name (lets use Glendale Recharge Ponds here as a drill).

5) Click on red upside down teardrop then click view details.

6) I can see on the left that Mark has seen 40 species there today.

7) Sometimes there is a camera icon to the right of a bird name. You might have to scroll down to

find one but you will be rewarded!

8) On the right you can see list totals of recent birders. Below that you can see the total different

species that a particular birder has seen at this hot spot.

9) Try other sites we have explored such as Hassayampa. Have fun exploring this site and be

sure to look elsewhere for bird topics on the web as well.

Upcoming meetings and classes

Wednesday October 11th 2017 10am General Meeting

Wednesday October 11th 2017 11am Intro to Birding Seminar

Wednesday October 11th 2017 12pm Executive Board Meeting

Wednesday November 15th 2017 10am General Meeting

No meeting scheduled for December

Wednesday January 17th 2018 10am General Meeting

Wednesday January 17th 2018 11am Intro to Birding Seminar

Wednesday March 21st 2018 10am General Meeting

Wednesday March 21st 2018 12pm Executive Board Meeting

Wednesday April 18th 2018 10am General Meeting

No meetings scheduled for the offseason

Wednesday October 17th 2018 10am General Meeting

Wednesday October 17th 2018 11am Intro to Birding Seminar

Wednesday October 17th 2018 12pm Executive Board Meeting

Wednesday November 21st 2018 10am General Meeting

No meeting scheduled for December

All above events scheduled at the Bell Center Multi Purpose Rooms in front of Lawn Bowling

Planning for offseason field trips

Contact:

Tom Locascio

locascio2000@hotmail.com

623-977-4992

Checking out the eBird hotspot information, I see plenty of opportunity to do some EARLY

morning trips to some of the locals we have enjoyed in the past. I’m not going to schedule

anything yet as I would like to hear from anyone still here, that there is interest in revisiting

(or perhaps you missed it in the first place) any of the areas we have been to. I’ll include a

short list below to refresh your memory. If you have any interest in the following, and feel

free to suggest somewhere new, please contact me using the information at the end of this

page. Here are the sites that still have good sightings…. which do you choose?

1) Glendale Recharge ponds. Someone tallied 40 species there yesterday.

2) Gilbert Water Ranch. Always fun but leaving early is a must.

3) Boyce Thompson Arboretum. Leaving earlier that early is a must.

4) Rio Vista/Skunk Creek. You guessed it, early is best, but it is much closer!

Scouting field trips

I am currently researching some cooler weather destinations as well as spots in Southern

Arizona. Same as above, contact me if you have any interest in a wild goose chase to ex-

plore new field trip destinations. Some of the possibilities are:

Flagstaff and the Snow Bowl.

The White Mountains.

Ramsey Canyon, San Pedro River, Huachuca Mountains, Catalina mountains

Tucson hotspots

Some trips require overnight stays.