By Nathan Pieplow, 4 March 2010, 10:29 pm
It’s March 4th, and that means it’s time to wish you all a happy Merganser Day.
What is Merganser Day, you ask? It’s my own personal birding holiday. It commemorates one of the most important days in my life as a birder: March 4th, 1992.
Red-breasted Merganser, Keyport, NJ, 1/2009. Photo by Harmonica Pete (Creative Commons 2.0).
At the beginning of high school, I was already an obsessive birder, but not yet a good one. I had nearly memorized the field guide and was ready and eager to see all the birds it illustrated, but I had encountered few of them in real life. My backyard seemed to contain only the common birds — robins, Mourning Doves, Downy Woodpeckers, crows — and I was solidly convinced that Sioux Falls, South Dakota was inhabited by only about fifty species of birds and one serious birdwatcher: me.
My first hint to the contrary came at the start of 1991, when I discovered a book called The Birds of South Dakota on the shelves of the public library. It was full of sightings of outlandish exotic birds (Scarlet Tanagers! Rose-breasted Grosbeaks! Black-throated Green Warblers!) from right inside Sioux Falls, with dates and names of observers — [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 25 February 2010, 10:20 pm
I’m pleased to say that I’ve added Andrew Spencer as an Earbirding author, so you’ll be seeing occasional posts by him on this site from now on. I figured it was a good idea to introduce him to his audience before handing him a keyboard — hence this author profile. [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 17 February 2010, 1:02 pm
I’m going to send you all my blogging regrets at least until the end of February. [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 31 January 2010, 9:17 pm
The post title says it all. [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 19 January 2010, 10:11 pm
I know, I know — you’re still reeling from the news that Pacific Wren is being split from Winter Wren. The last thing you’re willing to deal with right now is another taxonomic split based on vocal differences, right? [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 7 January 2010, 1:27 pm
The grapevine tells me that the AOU checklist committee has voted to split Pacific Wren from Winter Wren. [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 23 November 2009, 5:22 pm
Rich Hoyer has posted photos and spectrograms of an apparent Calypte x Archilochus hummingbird at his blog this morning. A morning’s investigation convinced me that the sound file he posted does indeed provide good evidence that the bird at his feeder could be a hybrid, probably the progeny of a Black-chinned Hummingbird and a Costa’s Hummingbird. [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 22 November 2009, 5:35 pm
Some people have asked how I learned to record bird sounds. The answer is simple: in 2004, I took the Macaulay Library’s annual Nature Sound Recording Course in California. If you’re interested in learning about audio recording in nature, I can’t recommend this course more highly. [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 5 November 2009, 2:47 pm
I recommend heading over to RMBO’s audio quiz before the 15th of November…their fourth installment is a good one. [Read more]
By Nathan Pieplow, 4 November 2009, 9:50 pm
Well, the cycle is complete: Lesson Six on Polyphony is up. [Read more]