Today’s blog is for “techno birders,” people like me who play with technology and go birding to get away from it all.  Or so I thought.

Until recently my birding was low-tech.  I’d go outdoors with only binoculars and my field book.  Then three months ago I bought the Sibley eGuide for my cellphone.  I thought I wouldn’t use it much.  Hah!  I love it!

First let me say that I come by technology honestly.  I’ve worked with computers since high school and my real job at WQED is Director of Information Technology (no, not “blogger”).   Even so, I’m conservative about gadgets and updates and am slow to adopt the latest technology.  I never have the newest stuff because I’ve seen too many new things crash and burn.

On the other hand, I have a Droid smartphone.  I don’t carry it to make phone calls.  Nooooooooo!  It’s my pocket computer and I use it everywhere.  I suffer withdrawal if I can’t get on the Internet.  Ask my husband how I react in a certain place in Maine that has no 4G network.

Being a slow adopter I am very cautious about downloading apps to my Droid.  My low-tech husband was the one who researched the Sibley eGuide for my birthday gift.  I downloaded it a few months early so I could use it during my trip to Nevada last April. (It cost $29.99 at the time.)

Since then I have become addicted.  The Sibley eGuide allows me to:

• See Sibley’s great images and read detailed information about each species including range maps and behavior.
• Zoom in on the images to see more details.
• Use taxonomic or (my new favorite) alphabetic lists.
• Narrow the scope of potential birds by choosing my state/province location.
• Use the Smart Search function to further narrow the possibilities by size, color, body features (such as tail patches), etc.
• Listen to the song to help my identification.  (No! No! No!  I do not play the songs so the birds can hear them.  I turn the volume very low and listen right next to my ear and play just a short bit to verify my audio guess.  Do not play the sounds for the birds!  Here’s why, from Sibley himself.)
• Compare two species’ images side-by-side as I would in a book-based field guide.
• Compare two songs side-by-side.  Can’t do that with my field book.
• Record the bird’s date and location and email or export the list.

The Sibley eGuide [no longer] validates its license over the network every time you open it. It works just fine when you’re off the grid.  For me, it used to force-close at startup but that’s because I was being way too tech-y and killing it with my task killer instead of gracefully closing it like a normal person.

Since downloading the Sibley eGuide I’ve changed my birding habits.  Instead of thinking “I’m not carrying my field guide because it’s heavy and I won’t encounter a bird I don’t know,”  I now say to myself,  “I don’t need my book. I have my Droid.”

I never leave home without it.

(image from Sibley eGuides to Birds App webpage at sibleyguides.com. Click on the image to read more about the app.  Get it at Android Market or at iTunes for iPhones or at Blackberry App World, depending on your cellphone model.)

As you can tell from the links in the photo credits, the Sibley eGuide also runs on the iPhone (its original platform) and the Blackberry.

By next Sunday the young peregrines at the Cathedral of Learning will be completely off camera (they’re leaving the nest) but I’ll be on camera on WQED-TV.

On June 5 from 8:00-9:30pm WQED will rebroadcast the popular PBS Nature show Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air. 

We’ve reserved 90 minutes for this one-hour show because it’s a fundraiser.  During the pledge breaks our hosts will ask you to pledge to support our broadcasts of PBS Nature.  (These great PBS shows are really expensive!)  They’ll also be interviewing me as their special guest on the subject of birds.

This is live TV so I can’t even predict what I’ll say!  I can already tell you I’m no hummingbird expert but I’m absolutely sure that the subject of peregrines will come up.

So tune in to WQED on Sunday June 5 at 8:00pm to see me on air. 

Will I wear my birding hat?  And what will I say?  It ought to be interesting.  

(photo of me by Chuck Tague)

Here’s a lecture you won’t want to miss if you’re in the market for a new field guide.  And even if you’re not!

On Monday May 16 at 7:30pm at the National Aviary, acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley will speak about his revolutionary new field guide, the Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds.

In his book, Crossley shows the birds in their natural habitat, on the ground and in flight, near and far, in breeding and non-breeding plumage and in transition.  This is as close to reality as you’ll get in a guide.  It’s what you see when you’re out in the field.

Click on the image above to watch Richard Crossley’s video and see what I mean.  It’s a new look at birds.  I’m convinced!

The lecture is free and open to the public.  The guide will be for sale that evening and Crossley will stay after the lecture for a book-signing.

(video from YouTube)

Happy Easter.  Best wishes for a good Passover.

Happy Spring to everyone!

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

Every year there’s a day in May when birders swarm across New Jersey to raise money for the birds.  It’s the annual World Series of Birding, an intense competition that pits teams of birders against each other to see the most species in 24 hours.  Supporters pledge per species-seen and the money is donated for bird conservation.

The World Series of Birding raises more than $600,000 for the birds every year.  How many species is that?  Well, last year there were 52 teams and the winning teams saw 228 species.  Wow! 

This year a team from Pittsburgh will compete on May 14.  Five intrepid birders from the Pitt Birding and Ornithological Club will go for the gold:  Lukas Musher (team captain), Jared Feura, Ryan McDermott, Conor Higgins (pictured above) and Ryan Ford (not pictured).

They’ve chosen a name that honors Pitt’s most famous birds — The Pitt Peregrines — and they’ve designated the National Aviary’s Department of Conservation and Field Research, the department that sponsors the falconcams, as the recipient for supporters’ pledges.  

Go, team!  But they need your help in two ways.

First, you can pledge 5 cents or more per species to support the National Aviary’s Dept of Conservation and Field Research.  Click here to read about the department’s programs, led by Dr. Steven Latta. 

To make a pledge, email Luke Musher at pittbirdingclub@gmail.com with your name, contact information and pledge per species (example:  $0.05/species, $0.10/species, $0.25/species,… $1.00/species, etc.)  The team expects to see 200 species so pledge accordingly. 

Second, you can help defray the team’s costs.  From May 3 to May 14 they’ll be scouting New Jersey to find the best concentrations of birds.  To do this they’re taking time off work, buying gas, food and lodging and paying the $115 per person entry fee. 

You can help defray their costs by supporting them through the club.  Send a check written to “Pitt Birding Club” with “World Series of Birding” in the memo line to their faculty sponsor:  Dr. Anthony Bledsoe, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.   Call Tony at 412-335-5431 if you have questions.

Any money left over from support sent to the Pitt Birding Club will be donated to the National Aviary as well.

Go team!  Go Pitt Peregrines!

(photo of the Pitt Peregrines Team from Lukas Musher)

We had great fun at Celebrate Pittsburgh’s Peregrines at WQED on Monday night.  Here are some pictures from the event.

To put them in context for those who could not attend, I did most of the talking but my visuals were slides and a video (of a peregrine stooping!) both of which look pretty boring in photographs.

The real paparazzi star was Horace the lanner falcon from the National Aviary, pictured here on Cathy Schlott’s glove.  Lanner falcons are slightly smaller and paler than peregrines.  He showed us what a live falcon looks like.

Horace is one of the birds Cathy is training for the National Aviary’s new outdoor flight show called Sky Deck which will open on Memorial Day weekend.  She chose lanner falcons for the show instead of peregrines because lanners maneuver closer to the ground than peregrines and will be easier for the audience to see.   I can hardly wait to see him fly this summer!

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And here are some pictures of my lecture showing me, the size of the crowd, and part of my presentation.

I talked about the history of Pittsburgh’s peregrines, their lifestyle during the nesting season, and our favorite webcam stars: Dorothy and E2 at Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning, and Louie and Dori at the Gulf Tower.

Thanks to everyone who attended and especially to the National Aviary for introducing us to Horace.

It was really fun.  Let’s do this again some time!

(Photos of Horace and me by Sharon Leadbitter. Photos of the lecture by Kristine Masta and Amanda Morgan).

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