Owls of North America by Frances Backhouse, is a stunning, photo-loaded book featuring the mysterious and fantastic family of birds known as owls. While this oversized volume of glossy pages might be mistaken for a “coffee table book”, it is undoubtedly much more than that.

Seven informative chapters cover topics such as feeding habits, communication, mating, and the entire life cycle of owls. These chapters lead up to a final chapter that covers all the owls of North America in great detail. These accounts cover:

• Background Info
• Colorful Range Map
• Appearance
• Voice
• Roosting Sites
• Distribution
• Habitat
• Feeding
• Breeding
• Migration/Movements
• Conservation

This volume won’t substitute for a field guide and may very well end up on a coffee table. But it is nonetheless appealing for anyone that loves owls. The text, while not simple, is definitely readable for younger audiences (pre-teen and up). It was hard to keep our 10-year old niece (Sammie) from running off with the book.

Rating: 9 of 10 feathers

Owls of North America
ISBN: 1554073421
Pages: 216
Price: $34.95
Published: Sept 2008 by Firefly Books

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A murder of crows, a parliament of owls, a colony of gulls, a raft of ducks…but what would you call a collection of Brown Creepers? Over the weekend we had a fun (but cold) outing with our local bird club and while the bird diversity was a bit low, the birds we saw were enjoyable.

For starters, we found what we identified as an “Oregon” race of Dark-eyed Junco. This photo was taken by Dakota who was briefly borrowing the camera to practice on feeder birds.

Then, we found a large gathering of Brown Creepers in the woods. There were about six or seven of these birds in a group, which according to Pete Dunne’s Essential Field Guide Companion, rarely number in more than six at a time. It was something that no one in our group had witnessed before. So, due to their cryptic coloration, we decided to call this a Crypt of Creepers.

Brown Creeper

Lastly, we found this strange looking Canada Goose which we were unsure if it was some sort of hybrid or just some sort of color aberration with a long scientific sounding name that essentially means “oddly colored”.

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Bird Photography Weekly #11 had 17 species.

Please join in again this week!!

Join in Bird Photography Weekly #12

The list:

1. Barred Owl
2. Milky Stork
3. Chipping Sparrow
4. Greenfinch
5. Tri-colored Heron
6. Blue-throated Bee-eater
7. Common Koel
8. Trumpeter Swan
9. Killdeer
10. Yellow-billed Magpie
11. American Kestrel
12. Red-necked Grebe
13. White-throated Sparrow
14. Peregrine Falcon
15. Brewer’s Blackbird
16. parrot sp.
17. Eastern Bluebird

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In 1993 the Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas (ABBA) was launched with the ambitious goal to complete, for the first time, a survey of the breeding birds across the entire state of Arizona. This great project was completed and published in 2005 by the University of New Mexico Press.

Edited by Troy E. Corman and Cathryn Wise-Gervais, the ABBA (not to be confused with the musical group) provides an unbelievable resource for bird conservationists as well as birders. This information can also prove essential when policy makers are put up to the challenge of choosing what areas are more valuable to protect. This data will provide the baseline for future surveys and studies.

Much of this survey was done by volunteers; “regular” birders like you that wished to put their skills to a worthwhile project. Some of the surveying was done by paid field crews as well, but it was the complete effort and devotion of all those involved that completed the project.

The Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas covers the process involved as well as a Arizona’s history of ornithology. Also included are complete descriptions of all the habitat types in Arizona–40 specific types in all–which are broken down into seven distinct categories.

270 species of birds are covered with two page spreads which includes photos, maps, and detailed information about nesting habitat, breeding phenology, and migratory status. The diversity of nesting birds in Arizona is astounding but undeniable.

Inside of the atlas

Breeding birds are the epitomy of bird sightings for conservationists and many birders. A confirmed breeder means a high propensity for an increase in bird populations. Compare that to the excitement of finding a rare vagrant that doesn’t add as much to the overall importance of bird conservation (although it of course is still good for birding).

As printing costs continue to rise (this book will set you back $40 or $50 and was printed in China), it is likely that these types of productions will make their way to the internet shortly. While we love printed materials, it makes sense to make use of technology that is searchable, cross-functional, and would make the information available to many more people at a much lower cost overall.

Regardless, every resident birder of Arizona and any birder planning a trip to the Grand Canyon State would benefit greatly from adding this book to their library. A quick look at the graph and breeding bird map of a particular species can help a birder find great places to look for particular birds.

And as a point of interest: the two top counties as far as number of breeding birds (207) are Cochise and Cococino. Cochise is found in the famously bird-rich area of southeast Arizona, but Cococino is way north and undoubtedly birded much less.

Rating: 10 of 10 feathers

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Everyone have a grand weekend!! We have a lot of projects in the works plus a NCIOS field trip so this looks to be a busy weekend.

Eastern Bluebird - digiscoped

Our Skywatch Friday submission is a morning scene in northern Illinois (in HDR)

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Digital SLR (single lens reflex) cameras have many advantages over traditional point-and-shoot digital cameras, many of which carry over into the realm of digiscoping. The biggest advantage is the SLR’s ability to shoot numerous shots in succession with nearly no lag time. Not only that, but you have virtually complete control over every aspect of the shot: manual focus, aperture, exposure, shutter speed, etc. Of course, learning the right settings takes time and we are at the early stages of this process.

Cedar Waxwing - digiscoped

Swarovski makes a wonderful digital camera adapter (DCA) for digiscoping. The adapter has two pieces: one attaches to the scope’s eye piece and the other threads to the digital SLR’s lens. We use the Canon EF 50mm f1.4 USM lens with our current camera, the Canon EOS Rebel XTi.

The adapter fits snugly over the eyepiece, eliminating any vignetting and allowing for quick removal when done digiscoping. There is a tightening knob on the adapter so you can lock the camera in place while digiscoping. When not locked, you can still zoom in and out with the scope’s eyepiece.

It is important to leave the camera in manual focus at infinity and perform all the focusing with the spotting scope. Set your aperture down to as low as it goes and have at it.

Keep in mind that digiscoping isn’t easy but it is fun. Our setup weighs in at a bit over 11 pounds, which gets heavy when lugging it around for extended periods of time. But if you are into photographing birds, we would definitely recommend trying out digiscoping. And if you already own a great scope, you might as well give it a shot (pun intended).

Swamp Sparrow - digiscoped

We’ll have many more posts about digiscoping in the upcoming weeks and months. You can view many of our digiscoped shots at our brand new digiscoped lifelist page.

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