At day 134 of the year the count now stands at 204 for me, 206 for Lise, and a combined count of 209. I’ll do a little more numerical analysis in a bit. I need to come up with some daily index based on our species count, the phase of the moon, and the Federal prime interest rate. Something FOX News would use to trash the Obama administration. I believe FOX is an acronym for Facts Optional Xenophobes.
We have been getting out but our counts have not been spectacular. We get a couple new species each outing but we are not seeing some of the leaps I thought we would during this season. The migration seems a bit spotty. When we were more active down in Indiana we would get into waves of migrating warblers. Flocks of mixed species passing through an area. Here we haven’t really hit large mixed warbler flocks. We are finding things in dribs and drabbles.
Abilities come into play about now too. What separates great birders from good birders is aural capabilities. We just do not have the bird calls down as well as we should. The trees are leafed out right now so being able to distinguish calls is critical. Knowing the common birds is just as important as knowing the less common. Knowing the common species allows you to filter them out of that wonderful morning cacophony, to focus on the uncommon rhythms and patterns.
Then I need to get dead synapses to fire, allowing me to pull some familiar pattern out of long neglected memory banks. Carolina wren? Kentucky warbler? At one time I could distinguish between them. Lise has some music training behind her so I think it is easier for her. (Got a Grasshopper and Henslow’s Sparrow. Both are furtive grassland species, but have distinctive calls. – Lise)
Some calls I simply cannot get. Year after year I hear indigo bunting and bluebird calls but I just cannot commit them to memory. I can remember that the acceleration due the earth’s mass is 9.8 meters per second squared, there are 10 to the seventh seconds in a year, and the rest mass of an electron is 0.511 MeV /c squared (million electron volts divided by the speed of light squared), but I can’t get those two calls into memory. I could probably pull Boltzmann’s constant out if I had to in a crunch but not an indigo bunting call. I think it’s because my brain is full. For something new to come in something old has to go out. The physics constants are pretty much burned into the brain so if something has to leave it tends to be things like marriage anniversary dates or children’s birthdays. Things my brain apparently believes are optional. So far I have been able to keep loved ones’ names intact. That’s the only thing keeping me alive.
Barb has a neat audible aid called Bird Jams. It is an Ipod loaded with the Stokes’ birds calls. The program strips off the voice announcing the species so all you hear is the call. You can get a North American frog package too. Neat little gizmo that may become the family Christmas present this year.
Next couple days will be busy without much chance for birding. Monday evening we are going to the National Honor Society induction for Molly and our bud Lindsay. Nothing my parents had to be concerned about. I guess that’s the difference between studying for Advanced Placement World History and watching Gilligan’s Island. You go girls. We are pretty damn proud of you both.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 