New Jersey Birds Spring 2009

Husted Landing Sunset
Originally uploaded by ammodramus88

The Spring 2009 issue of New Jersey Birds has just been posted online; you can find it here. In addition to the usual seasonal reports and photos, there is also an interesting article laying out a possible future for the journal while sketching the evolution of some birding information networks.

There is also an article by Bill Boyle and Laurie Larson about the various (often hybrid) flocks of cranes that have called NJ home in recent years. One of these flocks is known to hang out at Husted Landing, Cumberland Co. Husted Landing is the location that supplied this post's photo: yes, we "got" the cranes as they came in, calling, at dusk, but low light is not conducive to solving difficult identification problems. The sunset that day was fabulous, though. So, it was "crane sp." and "great sunset to Flickr" for me.

Another feature of the latest NJB (hopefully to be continued) is "50 Years Ago," which reprints snippets of NJ Audubon bird sightings from a half-century ago. The current installment includes "mocking birds," House Finches of unknown origin (the question of western vagrants vs. NY escapes/releases), cranes, and legislation to protect birds of prey, "...except when in the act of killing poultry or livestock."

I will be the first to admit that I prefer doing my research by flinging my back issues of R/NJB all over the floor and rifling through them (then generating more research questions and flinging all my state bird books and N/ABs across the floor on top of the R/NJBs), but if NJB has to be online-only, I hope it will prosper in that format. NJ needs a permanent record of bird sightings. R/NJB has provided that in the past and hopefully can do so into the future.

New Jersey Birds Winter 2009

I've been remiss here in noting the appearance of the Winter 2009 issue of New Jersey Birds. This is the first online-only issue of the journal. In addition to the normal seasonal reports, it includes an article on NJ's first Long-billed Murrelet. You can find the PDF here.

The decision to make NJB an online journal was, to put it mildly, a controversial one. Personally, I prefer leafing through my stacks of back (print) issues (and do so on a regular basis, between random curiosity, researching a project, and looking up something for NJBRC business). As someone who has written for (and, more importantly, reported sightings to) the journal in the past, I can't help but wonder what the future holds for NJB. I do hope it continues, since it is an essential source of information on the state's birds.

In the Mailbox: New Jersey Birds Summer 2008

Yesterday I got the latest issue of New Jersey Birds in the mail. This issue features an article on the first state record of Lesser Nighthawk by Michael O'Brien, as well as a couple of notes by yours truly (Barnacle Goose added to the full State List, Cave Swallow dropped from the Review List).

I'm not writing this post to toot my own horn, though. If you belong to NJ Audubon, you can receive New Jersey Birds as part of your membership at no extra charge. You have to ask for it, though, and it's easy to overlook on your membership renewal form. I'm not sure that there is any organized way to sign up for NJB when becoming a new member, though I would be more than happy to be corrected and hear otherwise. Please comment, if so.

The articles in NJB usually deal with significant avian events such as first state records, or in another example, NJ's first Royal Tern nesting colony (that article was in the spring issue). NJBRC business is also published in the journal; the fall issue always contains the NJBRC Annual Report, along with color photos of some of the rarities that were voted on during the circulation year.

The real meat of NJB (or RNJB to us old-timers, since the journal's name used to be Records of New Jersey Birds) is the sighting reports. NJ is divided into five regions (which are also used in Boyle's A Guide to Bird Finding in New Jersey), each of which has a regional compiler (here's the current list of compilers). You can also look at NJB issues back to fall 2006 as PDFs on this page, though there are many years of previous issues that have not been digitized (hint: snap them up if you stumble across them).

Although we are in a transitional time when it comes to the technology of sharing bird sightings (eBird, anyone?), the framework of regional compilers found in NJ and other states (and upon which North American Birds is also built) is the traditional means for reporting sightings of interest. Looking at past issues of NJB can give you an idea of what observations are particularly interesting in terms of the state's historical record (and no, Review List species are not the only birds of interest). It's certainly easy to send an e-mail to JerseyBirds or post your photos on Flickr, but you'll make compilers' jobs a little easier if you send your observations directly to them as well.

Murrelet Linkages

The Long-billed Murrelet was refound at Sandy Hook today, much to the relief of many birders. Although I prefer not to attempt blow-by-blow accounts of current rarities (NJBirds and JerseyBirds do a far better job than I can), I did think it would be worthwhile to compile some murrelet links, particularly since this is such a notable bird for NJ.

Photos of Sandy Hook's latest celebrity bird by:

Sam Galick one, two, three
Jim Gilbert photos

Reference material:

Long-billed Murrelet in Ithaca, NY.

Long-billed Murrelet in Seneca County, OH.

The Long-billed Murrelet that made it all the way to Dawlish in Devon, UK. This feature on Surfbirds has lots of photos and useful links. Other photos by Dave Appleton and Jonathan Wasse.

Long-billed Murrelet id (with particular reference to head pattern) at The Bird Guide.

Long-billed Murrelet account at Ocean Wanderers.

Brief Bibliography:

In the hot-off-the-press department, the December 2006 issue of Birding World contains an account of the Dawlish Long-billed Murrelet, its initial misidentification and the subsequent twitch set off when it was correctly identified. There are great photos as well, of course. Thanks to Gail Mackiernan for the tip.

Friesen, V. L., J. F. Piatt, & A. J. Baker. 1996. Evidence From Cytochrome B Sequences and Allozymes for a 'New' Species of Alcid: The Long-billed Murrelet (Brachyramphus perdix). Condor 98:681-690. PDF here
Maumary, Lionel, & Peter Knaus. 2000. Marbled Murrelet in Switzerland: A Pacific Ocean Auk New to the Western Palearctic. British Birds 93:190-199.
Mlodinow, Steven G. 1997. The Long-billed Murrelet (Brachyramphus perdix) in North America. Birding 29:461-475.
Sealy, Spencer G., Harry R. Carter, W. David Shuford, Kevin D. Powers, & Charles A. Chase III. 1991. Long-distance Vagrancy of the Asiatic Marbled Murrelet in North America, 1979-1989. Western Birds 22:145-156. PDF here
Sibley, David. 1993. An Asiatic Marbled Murrelet in Ontario. Birders Journal 2:276-277.
Thompson, Christopher W., Kevin J. Pullen, Richard E. Johnson, & Eric B. Cummins. 2003. Specimen Record of a Long-billed Murrelet From Eastern Washington, With Notes on Plumage and Morphometric Differences Between Long-billed and Marbled Murrelets. Western Birds 34:157-168. PDF here

This post may be updated in the future with more links, especially if more photos of the Sandy Hook bird are posted.

In the Mailbox

This week, the latest issues of New Jersey Birds (NJB) and North American Birds (NAB) arrived. NJB is published by the NJ Audubon Society. It's a benefit of membership, but you have to request it, so pay attention to your renewal form if you would like to subscribe to the print version. There are also plans to post issues on the web going forward.

NJB's fall issue, as always, contains the Annual Report of the NJ Bird Records Committee (NJBRC). The 2006 Annual Report covers records from 2005 and a few that edge over into the beginning of 2006 (not to mention a Franklin's Gull record from 1993). Disclaimer: yours truly is one of the six co-authors on this year's Annual Report. In addition to the Annual Report, the current issue of NJB contains articles on NJ's first state records of Green Violet-Ear and Brown-headed Nuthatch, plus field notes and photos from the spring 2006 season.

NAB is now published by the American Birding Association; it has had a long history under a number of titles and was originally published by the National Audubon Society. When I started subscribing to it, it was American Birds. The current issue also covers the spring 2006 season. One of the highlights of the season was the White-tailed Hawk at Great Swamp NWR; it receives its own SA sidebar in the Hudson-Delaware column (Veit & Paxton 2006) and the photos appear in the Pictorial Highlights section. The main articles are all extralimitals, as far as Jersey birders are concerned: Streaked Shearwater and Lesser Frigatebird in Wyoming, Kirtland's Warbler in Cuba and Striated Heron in the Greater Antilles.

Veit, Richard R., & Robert O. Paxton. 2006. Spring Migration, Hudson-Delaware Region. North American Birds 60:353-357.

Resources

I've just revamped my links section somewhat. I'll take that as an excuse to expand on some of the links in the "Reference" section.

Birdmail (aka "Siler's page") is probably known to every active birder. It provides a way to keep up with the birding mailing lists in places both near and far. There's even a section for those of us who've gotten distracted by bugs.

Searchable Ornithological Research Archive (SORA) has been an invaluable boon to this blog so far, and I don't expect that to change. Here you can search the back issues of ornithological journals such as the Auk, Wilson Bulletin, Condor, Western Birds and others. This is a terrific online resource because runs of these journals are not always easily found. Making them available online for the use of researchers is one of the things that adds value to the internet. I encourage every reader of this blog to visit SORA and explore the archives. You're sure to find some intriguing information there.

Ornithological Books Online is a collection of links to, well, ornithological books online. This page can lead you to John James Audubon and Alexander Wilson's works (although some of the links may be outdated). A good adjunct to this is the new Google book search, which has started adding some older (i.e., public domain) works in their entirety. Several of Frank M. Chapman's books, such as Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America and Bird-Lore, can be found at Google.

Finally, we have an edited version of Arthur C. Bent's Life Histories of North American Birds. Although some of this information has been superceded by more recent research, these vignettes often provide a vivid look at bird behavior. These accounts also provide a different model of scientific writing than we are accustomed to today; the reports that Bent quotes are almost chatty by modern standards.

I'm sure that the links section will grow in the future, but that's the "Reference" section for the moment.

Bibliography

JERSEY

Babson, William Arthur. 1901. Birds of Princeton, New Jersey, and vicinity. Bulletin of the Bird Club of Princeton University 1 (1):7-82.
Bull, John. 1975. Birds of the New York Area. Dover, New York, NY. Originally published by Harper & Row, New York, NY, in 1963.
Chapman, F. M. 1906. List of Birds Found Within Fifty Miles of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. The American Museum Journal 6 (3):135-196.
Cruickshank, Allan D. 1942. Birds Around New York City: Where and When to Find Them. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY.
Fables, David, Jr. 1955. Annotated List of New Jersey Birds. Urner Ornithological Club.
Griscom, Ludlow. 1923. Birds of the New York City Region. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY.
Halliwell, Tom, Rich Kane, Laurie Larson, & Paul Lehman. 2000. The Historical Report of the New Jersey Bird Records Committee: Rare Bird Reports Through 1989. Records of New Jersey Birds 26 (1):13-44.
Hanson, Jennifer. 2005. New Jersey Bird Records Committee List of Accepted Records of Rare Birds in New Jersey Through 2004. New Jersey Birds 31 (2): supplement. Most recent PDF version (February 2007) here
Kunkle, Donald. 1959. First Supplement to the Annotated List of New Jersey Birds. Urner Ornithological Club.
Leck, Charles F. 1984. The Status and Distribution of New Jersey's Birds. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.
Sibley, David. 1997. The Birds of Cape May. New Jersey Audubon Society, Bernardsville, NJ. Second edition.
Stone, Witmer. 1894. The Birds of Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, Philadelphia, PA.
Stone, Witmer. 1908. The Birds of New Jersey, Their Nests and Eggs. Annual Report of the New Jersey State Museum. John L. Murphy Publishing Co., Trenton, NJ.
Stone, Witmer. 1965. Bird Studies at Old Cape May: An Ornithology of Coastal New Jersey. Dover, New York, NY. 2v. Originally published by the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club, Philadelphia, PA, in 1937.
Walsh, Joan, Vince Elia, Rich Kane, & Thomas Halliwell. 1999. Birds of New Jersey. New Jersey Audubon Society, Bernardsville, NJ.

NEARBY STATES

Bull, John. 1985. Birds of New York State Including the 1976 Supplement. Comstock, Ithaca, NY.
Hess, Gene K., Richard L. West, Maurice V. Barnhill III, & Lorraine M. Fleming. 2000. Birds of Delaware. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA.
Iliff, Marshall J., Robert F. Ringler, & James L. Stasz. 1996. Field List of the Birds of Maryland. Maryland Avifauna 2. Third edition.
Kain, Teta. 1987. Virginia's Birdlife: An Annotated Checklist. Virginia Avifauna 3.
Levine, Emanuel. 1998. Bull's Birds of New York State. Comstock, Ithaca, NY.
McWilliams, Gerald, & Daniel W. Brauning. 2000. The Birds of Pennsylvania. Comstock, Ithaca, NY.
Veit, Richard R., & Wayne R. Petersen. 1993. Birds of Massachusetts. Massachusetts Audubon Society, Lincoln, MA.
Zeranski, Joseph D., & Thomas R. Baptist. 1990. Connecticut Birds. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH.

Sources

This blog is nothing without sources. You can see some of them in the photo.

As posts on this blog accumulate, I'll be citing various other works. Some will be print works (books or journals). Some will be internet documents or photos. The internet material will be linked to, in typical blog fashion, but the print material is going to need a bibliography. The way I intend to handle this is to title a post "Bibliography," link to it in my sidebar, and update it as need be. The books shown in the photo will be the basic pieces of the bibiliography. Some are books that deal with NJ ornithology; they date from 1894 to 2005. Others are works dealing with the birds of neighboring states. Bird distribution in NJ cannot be considered without looking at nearby places such as New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania and others. Especially in an area like the Northeast, where states are relatively small, one ignores what's going on in the avifauna of neighboring states at one's peril. At the very least, it can provide an excuse for a road trip.