Mokka mit Schlag » Birding

Geneva’s not a large city or a hard city to get around in. You can reproduce most of this route simply by walking down to the lake, and then walking along either side, with side trips off into the various parks that line the lake. If you want to go a little further afield, the book to read is Les Bons Coins ornithologiques de Suisse Romande by the Groupe des Jeunes de Nos Oiseaux (Our Birds Youth Group). It provides detailed descriptions (in French) of over 100 excellent birding spots in the Southern part of Switzerland. It should be available in most large bookstores in Francophone Switzerland. Several of the chapters are online including la Rade de Genève et Petit Lac, which describes most of the route I took here. Even if you read French fairly well, it might still be helpful to carry a French field guide to assist with the bird names (Nettes rousse, Fuligules milouinans, Garrots, Macreuses, Harle huppé, etc.)

For actual identification of European birds, I’m partial to the Collins Bird Guide by Killian Mullarney, Lars Svensson, Dan Zetterström, and Peter J. Grant. It covers a larger area than I’d like ideally. (It’s a little annoying to think you’ve identified a bird only to check the map and discover the one you think you’re looking at only lives in Siberia or Israel.) However the pictures and text are second to none. It’s been translated into several languages, with adaptations for the countries that speak those languages. For instance, the English translation calculates bird rarity based on how likely birds are to be found in the British Isles. For field use make sure you order the paperback vesion, not the larger hardback version (though the latter has prettier pictures, it’s much too big to carry around in the field.)

The original Swedish version is Fägelguiden Europas och Mederhavsaomradets fägler i fält. Versions are also available in French, Dutch, German, Spanish, and possibly other languages.

It’s getting harder to find life birds in my home territory, but not yet impossible. Today I picked up #326, a Black-Throated Gray Warbler in Forest Park, Queens. The bird was first reported almost a week ago by Seth Ausubel while I was in California. Fortunately it stuck around a while, and I was able to locate it today with the help of several other birders. Sean Sime took this photo of it a couple of days ago:

This bird was a rare accidental. It’s basically a western species that occasionally shows up on the East coast at this time of year. I don’t know if they’re any other records in New York City. Seeing it was a real treat. However, they’re still a few birds that breed here I’ve managed to miss, mostly the really secretive birds. These include Seaside Sparrow, Nelson’s Sharptailed Sparrow, Saltmarsh Sharptailed Sparrow, and Clapper Rail. If I spend some time at Marine Park, Four Sparrow Marsh, and Big Egg Marsh, I should be able to add these species in 2006.

The other bird I should be able to get locally is Purple Sandpiper, which overwinters here. I looked for it a few times last winter, but kept missing it. This winter I’ll start looking for it sooner. I should also be able to find the screech owls in Central Park, though there’s argument as to whether those are really “countable.”

Of course, there are also several birds that pass through once or twice a year on migration that I don’t have yet: several owls, the less common warblers (Connecticut, Mourning, Swainson’s, Kentucky, and Golden-winged), Golden Eagle, Blue Grosbeak, Common Nighthawk, and Yellow-billed Cuckoo. All these birds are reported somewhere in New York City every year, but there’s nowhere you can hang out with a reasonable chance of spotting one. You just have to spend a lot of time in the field during Spring and Fall migration until you get lucky. I chased Yellow-billed Cuckoo and Common Nighthawk a couple of times in Prospect and Central Parks this year, but without any luck.

I recently spent a few days at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim California. Nominally I was speaking at the STARWest conference, but as usual it turned into a birding trip.

Disneyland is not as good a birding site as Disneyworld in Florida, but there were a few interesting birds. besides the usual invasives (House Sparrows, European Starlings, Rock Pigeons) ring-billed gulls were fairly common. I saw them flying over the parking lot at the Disneyland Hotel, and in California Adventure. The lagoon in California Adventure was also hosting one somewhat lost American Coot. Early in the morning Canada Geese migrated across the parking lot. And I found a pair of House Finches in the Disneyland Hotel Courtyard one morning while waiting for the coffee shop to open.

However the piece de resistance had to be the Cooper’s Hawk that landed in Downtown Disney while I was drinking my coffee about 8:00 A.M. on the final day of my stay.