Seen Whilst Walking + Keeping Records

Sunday 18 January

There’s always something to see, even in January … and read to the end for a tale about bears and another about dolphins.

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Red-tailed Hawk

A Questing Birder

Pileated Woodpecker - female

Cedar Waxwing

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A Book you might enjoy

I have just finished reading “Into the Tangled Bank” by Lev Parikian. Subtitled “In which our author ventures outdoors in search of the British in nature”. The author is a conductor of classical orchestras by profession but a lifelong and knowledgeable birder. He is also a fine writer with an engaging style. One blurb on his websites says …‘Lev Parikian is one of those rare beasts: a nature writer with a sense of humour. This is a witty, touching and profound book about one man’s burgeoning relationship with the natural world – and it’s also a joy to read.’ And I must concur. Anyway my reason for bringing this book to your attention is the following extract which is so, so true:

We’re told over and over again of nature’s benefits. And I subscribe to that view, broadly. But so much of it is airbrushed out. And in our keenness to get people connected with it, unrealistic expectations are set. Sometimes the signs at nature reserves, designed to encourage kids to get involved, smack slightly of desperation. ‘Hey kids! This is FUN! Is everybody having FUN yet?’ Death isn’t fun. It’s brutal, impassive. But it’s part of it all, and to hide it seems disingenuous. Besides, children love a good kill. Show them a peregrine stooping on a pigeon at 200 mph and their attention is guaranteed. And you can bet that a class of ten-year-olds would look at gulls in a different way if they saw a Great Black-backed Gull, as it is perfectly capable of doing, swallowing a live rabbit whole.

Lev Parikian also has an engaging Substack you might enjoy … not all about nature and wildlife, but predominantly so and I rather enjoy it.

And so, let’s get down to business:

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Patch Wildlifing part 2 - Keeping Records

I am an inveterate note taker and compiler of lists - have been all my life I think. “Train spotting” (not the film) was a big thing when I was a kid in Leeds but I never did it because my parents banned me from going to stand on railway platforms by myself at that age of ten. Probably a good idea, but you will understand what sort of brain I had. Travelling with my grandmother once I decided to start collecting the names of random pubs that we passed on a long journey - heaven knows why, but I filled a notebook and then wisely lost it. From there, to listing birds and the like was only a matter of time and inevitability.

Last week I wrote about deciding to become a Patch Wildlifer and offered a few suggestions as to how you might find somewhere suitable within reach of your home to adopt as your patch. This week - a few ideas as to how to keep records that are useful and in future seasons will tell you what you saw “back then”. Of course, formal record keeping is not at all obligatory … what matters is that someone is keeping an eye on things and will be able to note important habitat and species changes, for good or bad. Keeping it in your head is fine, as is just jotting down the highlights as a personal aide-memoire. What you might do is to consider taking a step further. Keep regular and consistent records on a computer or in a notebook and perhaps submit your findings to one of the national or international databases that support Citizen Science.

I will write about Citizen Science, probably next week, today let’s just carry a notebook and maybe a camera as we wander our patch. I take it as a given that if you have followed this far then you are quite enthusiastic about all things natural in the local environment. The question some of you are going be asking is “what next?” Here are some ideas:

Keep Notes

It probably seems obvious, but carrying a notebook when outside is a good habit to get into. Simple notes about interesting things you have seen and identified, the weather, a few sketches if you can manage them, will be a useful aide memoire in the future. Nothing beats the low tech notebook and pencil.

What to look for

The what, when and where of animals and plants with a note of the weather.

What birds or mammals did you see - common and usually present are just as important as the rarities. One day you may wonder “where are all the Chickadees?” but without records to look back on you can’t be certain that their numbers are, actually, declining. Having records is always better than just having a feeling that something is amiss. This also works for increasing populations, of course.

What about plants? What is flowering on your patch and when did they flower? Do they attract bees and butterflies? Was the flowering early this year, or later than normal?

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Take Photographs

For most naturalists, most of the time, it’s nice to have record photographs of flowers and trees and insects and birds that have caught your eye. All the more so if you cannot identify them in the field, because you then have a visual record to work on when you return home and can make use of your field guides and the internet.

“Everyone” has a phone with a camera and today’s phone cameras are remarkably good. Certainly more than good enough for subjects like plants that stay still and you can get close to. Rather less useful for relatively distant birds and butterflies though you might be surprised at what can be achieved when the occasion demands it. Very briefly, I would suggest you look at the following options:

1. A pocket camera such as a smartphone or a small “point and shoot” camera. Small, not too expensive and easy to slip in a pocket. From experience, I have found the Sony Cybershot RX100 series of cameras to be excellent for wildlife recording. They have the ability to zoom in and get details on flowers and insects and have large enough sensors for you to be able to crop and enlarge details when you are at your computer. Not enough zoom for birds though.

2. A bridge camera. These are all-in-one cameras of moderate size. Some have surprisingly competent zoom abilities and give you the possibility of getting those fabulous pictures of birds that you really want. My current camera of choice is the Sony RX10 which has a large sensor and a lens by Zeiss that zooms to 600mm equivalent when needed, so good for bird photography as well as close-ups. Sad to say, bridge cameras are showing signs of becoming a dying breed, quite a number of models have not been upgraded for some years or are simply not being sold any more.

3. Mirrorless interchangeable lens camera bodies. The sky is the limit here depending on how deep your pockets are … I won’t go into detail, there is plenty of information on the internet.

Whatever camera you use, make sure you understand the controls and be prepared to do some post-processing on your computer. You don’t need to have Photoshop which is overkill and costs an exploitative fortune, but you might care to look at Affinity which is totally free or, if that’s a bit advanced then Photomator takes a lot of beating, though it’s for Mac only. For Windows look at open source and free GIMP.

Do make sure to set your camera to record images in RAW format - the internet will tell you why that matters for the very best quality. At least set it to record in both RAW + JPEG so you have the RAW file, which has more detail than compressed jpegs, just in case.

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Identification Tools & Field Guides

No getting around it, identification of species is a complex task and being skilled at it only comes with practice and experience. But don’t give up at the starting gate … there is a vast range of information sources, printed and on the internet, to help you and you can always seek advice from other naturalists who will always be pleased to help you. A few such sources are listed below. Note - whenever using a field guide always look at the map first. A common error is to “identify” a species when it lives on the other side of the continent. Start by being sure that you can identify the common species (Robins, Blackbirds, Dandelions etc) and then slowly add less frequently seen species as you come across them.

• Start with iNaturalist installed on your phone and computer - perhaps the easiest of all the identification resources to use and which gives you assistance with tricky identifications. It is universal in its species range and not restricted to birds or butterflies or plants. If you see it and it’s alive you can report it. They describe themselves thus: One of the world’s most popular nature apps, iNaturalist helps you identify the plants and animals around you. Get connected with a community of over a million scientists and naturalists who can help you learn more about nature! What’s more, by recording and sharing your observations, you’ll create research quality data for scientists working to better understand and protect nature.

Join, or find out more, at https://www.inaturalist.org

In essence, you take a photograph (which doesn’t have to be perfect) of a species. You upload the photo - if you took it with your phone then you will use the iNaturalist app to upload directly, or you can do it when convenient from your computer at home. It asks you where you saw it and when. It then suggests an identification which you accept or not. Other users of iNaturalist will stumble across your report and agree or disagree with your ID and gradually confidence in the ID improves. Often the people who contribute are professional or very experienced experts and you can learn a lot from them. The initial suggested identifications are provided by artificial intelligence and are often uncannily accurate - of birds, flowers and butterflies in particular. iNaturalist is a joint initiative by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society and operates worldwide.

See also https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/what%252Bis%252Bit

• Printed bird field guides - get the editions for the eastern part of the continent. The best by far in North America are the guides by Sibley and by National Geographic. In Europe get the Collins Bird Guide.

• Online bird field guides start and end with the free Merlin app (made by Cornell University) which will ask you a couple of simple questions (location, size, dominant colour, date) and then present you with a short list of options. It also offers a facility for identification from bird calls. BirdNET is another app that focusses just on identification from bird calls.

• Plants - you can always photograph a plant so put the iNaturalist app on your phone. The best ID guides to plants are ones set out as dichotomous keys, but they are hard for beginners not familar with botanical terminology to use. A couple of good printed guides are Clemants and Gracie’s Wildflowers in the Field and Forest (our favourite) and Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide.

• Insects - again, use the internet. All the useful stuff has moved there. The exceptions being butterflies and moths for which I recommend Peterson for moths and Evan’s Field Guide to Insects and Spiders of North America for everything with six or eight legs.

Next week : An introduction to Citizen Science

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A Note on the Montreal Euro-Robin

Many readers will have heard by now of the famous European Robin that has appeared a few miles from me, but outside walking range, in the east of Montreal - a first for Canada and almost a first for the continent. Here is a link to a short video from local television that you may enjoy.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/rare-european-robin-spotted-in-montreal/

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Take the long, green path

Small things matter, as the article to which this link will lead you, demonstrates:

Lichen Incognita

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The Tale About Bears

I am sure you will enjoy this article about living with bears while manning a forest fire lookout tower.

What a Standoff with a Black Bear Taught Me about Life in Northern Alberta

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Dolphins

I know this edition is getting lengthy, but it’s Sunday so hopefully you have time for a last link. Just before posting I read the following article about a dolphin stranding incident in Orkney and how it was handled by people who know what they are doing. The author is a biologist, and this is not the usual woo and fairies stuff that is too often written, it’s rather good in fact and with plenty of information.

the dolphin in my arms