My Best Birthday Bird

Today is my birthday. And it's not just any birfday. It's my 50th. Funny I don't FEEL 50, and I'm not even sure how the time flew past so dang fast. But here I am, teetering on the brink of my second half-century.

I've spent quite a few of my recent birthdays in some far-flung birdy place: several in Guatemala, one in the Philippines. This year I'm happily staying at home on the farm in southeast Ohio (though there is some planned merry-making in the offing). In thinking about my best birthday bird ever, there is one that jumps to mind: the bat falcon I got to add to my life list in Guatemala on March 3, 2008. You can read my account of this experience in this post and this post.

My 2008 bat falcon in Flores, Guatemala. My best birthday bird ever.

The funny thing about that bat falcon sighting was that bat falcons are not that difficult to find in Guatemala, yet I'd been skunked on seeing one over the course of multiple visits to that exceedingly birdy country. I'd seen the much rarer orange-breasted falcon several times, but no bat falcon. Thanks to my buddy Jeff Bouton for spotting that 2008 bat falcon for me. It was starting to get both weird and a bit embarassing not to have seen this common falcon.

If you're still reading, and you can't wait to learn more about my odd birthday obsessions, you can read about my favorite birthday food (my mom's cherry-custard pie) in this post from 2009.

I guess the bat falcon could be replaced at the top of the birthday birds list. But it would take something like a whooping crane flying over the farm, being chased by a gryfalcon, which was being buzzed by a Xantus' hummingbird. Now THAT's a birthday birding experience!

March 3, 2008. Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.

Hey! What's That Big White Bird?

While guiding a field trip of bird photographers last weekend at Goose Pond Fish & Wildlife Area near Linton, IN, we had a special treat. We enjoyed a "Hey! What's that BIG WHITE BIRD?" moment.

Amid the thousands of migrating sandhill cranes were a few whooping cranes! During the weekend we saw 16 whooping cranes total—a significant percentage of the world population of this critically endangered bird. (There are about 600 whooping cranes total counting both wild and captive birds).

We were very careful to give the whooping cranes plenty of space. And they rewarded us with wonderful looks, if slightly distant. But that's what spotting scopes are for, right?


We watched the whoopers foraging in the wetlands.

We saw them in flight, and on Sunday, we even saw a few of them engage in some courtship dancing, which I'd never seen before in this species. To see this many whooping cranes in one place in one day, outside of their wintering areas in Texas and Florida, is really notable.

As the final field trip wound down on Sunday, we had one more BIG WHITE BIRD surprise. While watching northern harriers, rough-legged hawks, red-tailed hawks, and a young bald eagle coursing and soaring over a wet meadow, one of our group called out a flock of large white birds approaching us from the north.

It was a flock of 16 American white pelicans, newly arrived from the points farther south. The spring's first sighting at Goose Pond. And a great way to end the weekend, with the promise of spring's coming.