Mokka mit Schlag

October 1997-February 13, 2012
We will miss you.

For some time, I’ve been trying different techniques for extracting animals from photos and isolating them on white backgrounds. (Note that these are wild animals. These are not studio shots, and backgrounds and lighting are what they are. White boxes and umbrellas are not an option. This is not product photography. Photoshop works, sometimes, but it’s tedious. Topaz Remask also works, and can usually get the job done; but is extremely time-consuming: an hour or more per photo. OnOne PerfectMask is buggy and crashed on me, losing my work. Today I discovered Vertus’s FluidMask, downloaded the demo, and fired it up. Capsule summary:

Promising, but not yet good enough to replace the more complicated tools.
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The Northern Suffolk Christmas Bird Count (CBC) found a Mountain Bluebird at Rt 25A and Hulse Landing Road near Wading River over a week ago. However I just hadn’t been able to convince myself that it was worth driving that far to pick up a rare but regular vagrant, especially after very nearly striking out on much closer birds two weeks ago after Brooklyn’s CBC. Then yesterday on the Southern Nassau Count Doug Gochfeld found an incredible Grace’s Warbler much closer at Hempstead Town Park in Point Lookout. This is a first state record, and probably the northernmost and easternmost record ever for this species, which otherwise you’d have to travel to Arizona to find. I still wasn’t convinced though, since the bird disappeared yesterday around 1:30 after being very cooperative for about three and half hours. It felt like a one day wonder, and the weather today wasn’t looking good. But when Steve Walter reported a “warbler sized bird” around 8:30 AM, I started packing my bag; and when David Speiser reported a definite sighting shortly after 10:00 AM, I clicked the “reserve” button at zipcar and headed out the door for Point Lookout.

When I arrived at Hempstead Town Park about 60 minutes later (after narrowly avoiding being sideswiped by a car full of women birders who did not know which way they wanted to turn off the Loop Parkway –check a map before starting out folks) the bird was staked out but not showing itself. A couple of times someone thought they saw movement, but couldn’t say what it was. About 15 minutes later, Lenore Swenson and Starr Saphir showed up in a taxicab after taking a train in from the city. Memo to self: when possible stand behind Starr. She found the bird in less than five minutes. However I was a few meters down the road from her at the time, and by the time I got over to where she was and pointed into the same tree, the bird had dropped down and out of sight again. At least it wasn’t hunkered down completely in all the wind as I had feared.

Five minutes later, as almost everyone including me was scanning and rescanning the same tree where it had recently appeared, hoping to see something move, Lenore spotted it in another tree off to the left; and I got on the bird this time for maybe a full 30 seconds or so as it moved up and down and around the pine, scavenging for what insects it could find. At first I thought I might be looking at a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The back was sort of blue-gray with wingbars. However eventually it turned its head toward me, and I could clearly see a bright yellow throat, and yellow superciliary, and no kingletish eye ring. Bang! #800 Grace’s Warbler.

Normally I’d stick around and try for a photo and maybe scope views. However it was damned cold and windy out there. More importantly, as long as I had already rented a car and driven all the way out into Nassau County already, I wanted to try for the Mountain Bluebird too. So I said a quick goodbye, and hopped into the Sentra and headed up the Meadowbrook to the Southern State. I was hungry but I decided to skip lunch until I had at least tried for the Mountain Bluebird. If it wasn’t being cooperative, I could grab lunch in Suffolk County, and then try again before dark.

I got to the intersection, right around 2:30 PM. There were several other cars pulled off the road at various spots around the field where the Bluebird was most frequently seen. The driver of the first car kindly told me that the bird was still present in the expected location on the snow fencing paralleling Rt 25A. I walked back along the side of the road, carefully scanning the top of the fence with my binoculars. Well not that carefully, because I walked right past the bird without noticing it. Fortunately a driver in another car, pointed me back at the bird he’d been watching from the comfort of his vehicle. After convincing myself the bird was in fact a powder blue Mountain Bluebird and not an Eastern or Western Bluebird, I walked back to my car and grabbed my scope and camera gear. I tried digiscoping the bird unsuccessfully–I need to improve my digiscoping rig–but I was able to get some good if small photos of the bird with my 400mm f/4:

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Saturday’s Kings County Christmas Bird Count was great weather and spectacular birding. 132 species, only three short of our alltime record. Three of those were species never before seen on a Kings County Christmas Count: a Barrow’s Goldeneye at Jamaica Bay, a Red Phalarope of all things in Erie Basin (between the Ikea and the Fairway!), and a Black-and-white Warbler I spotted in Prospect Park (not unusual for Brooklyn but shocking for this time of year). Add in the continuing Northern Shrike at Floyd Bennett Field, and there were three life birds to chase on Sunday. With choices like that, where to start? I guess you have to go for the rarest of the rare: the Red Phalarope. This is an ocean going bird rarely seen from land, and it’s not that easy to find on a pelagic trip. I’m not sure whether it’s ever been spotted in King’s County before. So at 7:00 AM I hopped in a Mini Cooper and headed down into Red Hook to look for the Phalarope.

As I arrived at the tip of Van Brunt Street, Shane Blodgett was just leaving. He hadn’t found it there and was driving over to IKEA to scope from the other side of the basin. I walked up and down the promenade, but didn’t find it. I then drove over to the IKEA myself. Steve Walter also showed up at IKEA, but none of us could locate the bird, so one-by-one everyone gave up and decamped for Floyd Bennett Field to look for the Shrike.

At Floyd Bennett Field, An American Kestrel was incredibly cooperative. I found six Hooded Mergansers and a Common Loon in Dead Horse Bay. There were also some nice House Finches, a couple of Northern Flickers, and lots of Northern Mockingbirds that look vaguely shrike like if you aren’t careful. I also ran into Tom Preston, Rafael Guillermo-Campos, Rob Jett, and Heydi Lopes, all of whom were out looking for the Shrike; but none of us found it after a couple of hours of searching. Strike 2.

Around noon, I gave up on the Shrike and headed down the Belt Parkway to Jamaica Bay for the Barrow’s Goldeneye. There were over a thousand ducks on the far side of the West Pond, mostly Ruddy’s but with a few American Wigeons and Scaup mixed in. However if there were any Goldeneyes there, Common or Barrow’s, I couldn’t pick it out. Strike 3. I’m out. The wind was blowing, and it was cold, so after multiple scans across through the duck raft through my scope, I gave up and headed home around 1:00. Whiffed Again. I thought with three staked out birds I really had a shot, but you just never know.

Then, just as I was getting ready to turn onto Eastern Parkway (almost all the way home in other words) my cell phone goes off in my pocket. I pulled off to the side of the road, and miraculously managed to get the phone answered before it went to voicemail. It was Shane and the Shrike had reappeared right where it had been the previous day on the Christmas Bird Count. They had found it about midway between the two locations we’d previously been looking. Damn bird! I wasn’t sure exactly how to get back to Floyd Bennett form that location, but my GPS knew and soon I was speeding down Kings Highway to try one more time. 25 minutes later I arrived back at the runway from which the Shrike had been seen. Rob, Heydi, and Shane had left but several other birders were there; and they told me that the Shrike had been making regular appearances every few minutes for the last hour. I walked down the runway, and about kept scanning the southeast tree line looking for anything perched. And yes! There it was! No, damn it. That’s a Mockingbird. Back to the scanning the tree line. Hey! Something moved! And it’s grey! And it’s a…damn it another Mockingbird.

Then I turn around and notice the group behind me is looking at something on the Northwest side of the runway. I turn around and look right at a bird that’s so backlit it could be anything. But before it flies away, I get my scope on it for about three seconds and sure enough, it’s a Northern Shrike. And after last year’s miscall with the Loggerhead Shrike at Jones Beach, I’ve made sure I know what I’m looking for in advance. In my head I check off the field marks in about half a second. Narrow dark mask with white markings around eye? Check. Large bill with obvious hook? Check. Paler gray above? I don’t know. The bird was too backlit and without a direct side-by-side comparison, it’s hard to distinguish such subtle shading; but the hooked bill and white around the eye are good enough to make the ID. #799 Northern Shrike!
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I’m debating whether to make a trip to Florida next year. There are still a few life birds for me down there, most notably the endemic Florida Scrub-Jay. Near endemics in the ABA area include Limpkin, Bachman’s Sparrow, Swallow-tailed Kite, Short-tailed Hawk, Sooty Tern, and Snail Kite. Also possible are Brown-headed Nuthatch, Leconte’s Sparrow, Henslow’s Sparrow, Black-whiskered Vireo, Swainson’s Warbler, Shiny Cowbird, Black Rail, and Yellow Rail. Greater Flamingo is arguable but only if I get down to the Everglades. None of these are easy to find, but most should be doable if I plan for them specifically.
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Although I managed 14 life birds and 74 state birds at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival this past week, I still missed a lot and there’s more in other parts of the state I haven’t visited. Species I still need from Texas include:

• White-collared Seedeater (Upper Rio Grande Valley)
• Golden-cheeked Warbler
• Black-capped Vireo
• Hook-billed Kite
• Masked Duck (rare)
• Swallow-tailed Kite (rare; easier in Florida)
• Short-tailed Hawk
• Harlan’s Hawk
• Ferruginous Hawk
• Ferruginous Pygmy Owl (King Ranch)
• Prairie Falcon
• Lesser Prairie Chicken
• Scaled Quail
• Yellow Rail
• Black Rail
• Mountain Plover
• Red-billed Pigeon
• Elf Owl
• Cordilleran Flycacther
• Gray Vireo
• Black-whiskered Vireo (easier in Florida)
• Yellow-green Vireo (rare)
• Brown Jay
• Tamaulipas Crow
• Brown-headed Nuthatch (also in Louisiana and Florida)
• Rock Wren
• Canyon Wren
• Mountain Bluebird
• Sprague’s Pipit
• Swainson’s Warbler
• Golden-cheeked Warbler
• Crimson-collared Grosbeak (rare Mexican vagrant)
• Varied Bunting
• Canyon Towhee
• Green-tailed Towhee (missed repeatedly this past trip)
• White-collared Seedeater
• Lark Bunting
• Bachman’s Sparrow (easier in Florida)
• Cassin’s Sparrow
• Brewer’s Sparrow
• Baird’s Sparrow
• Pink-sided Junco
• Smith’s Longspur
• Mccown’s Longspur
• Chestnut-collared Longspur

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