john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman) (02/06/88)
I'm not surprised that Sharp-tailed Sparrows are so hard to detect. The ones I saw at Palo Alto Baylands were always CRAWLING THROUGH the pickleweed, never on top of it. I heard another cute story about invisible birds. Seems someplace in Colorado some folks set out rodent traps and started catching all kinds of Sedge Wrens in a place where they had never been seen---and they still haven't! -- John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, New Mexico USENET: ihnp4!lanl!unm-la!unmvax!nmtsun!john ``If you can't take it, get stronger.'' --Falline Danforth
mjm@oliven.olivetti.com (Michael Mammoser) (02/09/88)
In article <1350@nmtsun.nmt.edu>, john@nmtsun.nmt.edu (John Shipman) writes: > I'm not surprised that Sharp-tailed Sparrows are so hard to > detect. The ones I saw at Palo Alto Baylands were always > CRAWLING THROUGH the pickleweed, never on top of it. A couple of weeks back, on a high tide, I was at the Baylands and went to find the sharp-tail. When he (she?) made his appearance, he sat in the lower branches of a bush for some minutes and then started feeding along the edge of the water; all in plain sight and within about 20 feet of a half dozen birders. Go figure these guys. :-) > I heard another cute story about invisible birds. Seems > someplace in Colorado some folks set out rodent traps and > started catching all kinds of Sedge Wrens in a place where > they had never been seen---and they still haven't! > -- > John Shipman/Zoological Data Processing/Socorro, New Mexico Last fall I was in Chicago visiting my family, and my brother (also a birder) was in from Colorado. We went to Montrose harbor, down on the lakefront, to a place called the "magic hedge" (so called for its ability to attract the most interesting migrants, especially warblers). The hedge is a row of short, thick bushes about 30 yards long and 10 feet wide, with 3 or 4 trees thrown in. Next to the hedge is a circular clump of thick bushes about 30 feet in diameter. While we were there, a sedge wren was seen in the circular clump. Since both my brother and I needed this bird for our life lists, we decided to work at it. We stood about 10 yards from the edge of the clump were the wren was seen and pished our brains out for about half an hour; getting only glimpses of movement from the bushes. We continued birding the area for a while, only to be drawn back to the clump later for another try at the wren. We repeated the same procedure as before, again with little luck. A local birder was watching us and asked us what we were looking for. When we told him - "sedge wren" - he casually told us; "well, why don't you just walk up to it and grab it?". He proceeded to demonstrate the method; walking up to the edge of the clump where the wren was seen. The wren moved away from him but seemed uninterested in moving into the interior of the clump, rather staying along the edge. He followed the wren, walking it around the edge of the clump in a circle; getting good looks at it, since the bird seemed to suddenly become interested in this intruder in its domain. My brother and I quickly joined in; taking the wren for a walk. The bird finally moved under a low-lying plant that had very broad heart-shaped leaves. We approached the plant from opposite sides to within 3 feet or so. I looked down between the leaves and saw the wren's head peering up at me (it was soooo close). It finally moved out from under the plant and stopped right out in the open with the two of us standing right over it for about 15 or 20 seconds, and then it moved back into the clump. What a view! And here we were, hoping to get just a good enough look to make a positive ID. :-) Also, that day, I got the best looks at Peregrine falcon that I have ever had. There were two of them roosting in a tower on the breakwater. One was an immature that was hacked along the lakefront earlier in the summer, and the other a migrating adult (both were of the Tundrius subspecies). We scoped them to our heart's content from about 50 or 60 feet. Good hunting, Mike