This is my version of a salad that Robert's mom makes. For the dressing, I use 1 T. of olive oil and kind of wing the other quantities.
Serves 1
1/2 - 2/3 bag of salad greens (whatever kind you like; I use a romaine blend with cabbage, etc.)
6 green olives, sliced
2 large dated, diced
1/2 oz. Tours mix, toasted for about 3 min at 400 degrees (see package)
Dressing:
1 T. olive oil
1 t. white wine/rice/etc. vinegar
1 t. Dijon (or spicy) mustard
1 t. chopped garlic (I use the jarred kind and include some juice as well)
Salt & pepper to taste
It has about 330 calories and 25 g of carbohydrates.
UPDATE: I've decided it's fabulous with some chopped red onion as well. You can also substitute silvered almonds (toasted like the Tours mix) and it's still quite yummy.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Fitting Words
Surprisingly, I have not yet started playing Oblivion again after returning from my holiday travels. But I did play some Bookworm Adventures 2, in which you spell words using letters in a grid to attempt to defeat various enemies drawn from (apparently mostly children's) literature (for example, there are several "chapters" involving Alice in Wonderland characters, culminating with the Red Queen). I always enjoy using words that resonate with the enemy I am fighting, even though it sometimes is sub-optimal from an objective tactical perspective. These were my favorite fitting fighting words from my last session:
Against the Stick Pig (from the Three Little Pigs): PIGLET
Against the Slothful Monk (from Buddhist stories): LOAFER and LAZIER
Against the Gluttonous Monk (ditto): TUMMY and LAPPER
Against the Stick Pig (from the Three Little Pigs): PIGLET
Against the Slothful Monk (from Buddhist stories): LOAFER and LAZIER
Against the Gluttonous Monk (ditto): TUMMY and LAPPER
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
New Year's Resolutions: Bah
Tam sent me this great column on New Year's resolutions - read it!
A few comments:
A wiser approach may be to set “process” goals: instead of specifying a target salary, commit to spending two hours a week investigating career opportunities. Rather than deciding to write the novel of the century, commit to 45 minutes of writing every morning. “Nothing discourages the concentration necessary to perform well,” writes the sports psychologist John Eliot, in his book, Overachievement, more than “worrying about the outcome.”
I think that the way my grad program fosters "worrying about the outcome" is really dysfunctional; it screwed not only with my ability to settle down and work well but my desire to do the work in the first place. Being in a highly self-evaluative state seems unavoidable when you know for a fact that you are being evaluated by faculty all the time and that negative evaluations will get you booted from the program like other myriad other previous students who were stereotyped as "lazy" or "not smart enough" or whatever, even if they were meeting the objective requirements of the program.
The constant emphasis on how you will only get a job if you can have X number of publications in the top 3 journals by the time you go on the job market is not only kind of ridiculous (given that I am in one of the only fields of academia where the number of candidates and number of jobs is basically equal) but makes you think too much about whether an idea you have is likely to lead to a paper in the Journal of Blah Research in the next couple of years. [Note: one senior faculty told me that she does not even try to publish in this journal because what they require is so ridiculous.] And really, the probability of any given idea bearing that fruit that is pretty low.
Over time, I found that it was not only the regular commonplace failures (like an experiment not working out) that were crushing and demoralizing and made me despair for the future when I must have that premiere publication on my c.v. The (rational) expectation that the next thing I did would also be a failure sapped my interest and energy in proceeding with it. Add to this the way that grad school leads people to over-identify with their scholar identity and minimizes other identities, thus robbing you of other sources of self-worth (e.g., that you're a kick-ass cook, a running machine, a supportive friend, a loving spouse, a person with a great sense of humor, a handy person who can fix anything, a person who can finish the New York Times crossword without a dictionary--because grad school does not value these things and you don't have time and energy to do them anyway) and it all just feels bad.
It's unfortunate that the professors in my program with PhDs in social psychology who study topics like self-regulation, choking under pressure, persuasion, and the like are not able to foresee the obvious negative consequences of their approach. I guess true superstars are so extremely motivated that none of these things affect them.
Or try the process-goal method used by Jerry Seinfeld early in his career, when he was determined to spend some time every day writing jokes. On a wall calendar, he marked an X every day that he got some writing done, gradually creating a chain of X’s: “Your only job ... is to not break the chain.” It’s a mechanical, nonintimidating target. If Seinfeld had aimed instead at “becoming a world-famous comedian,” might he have sabotaged his success?
I have been using a similar method myself, with placing stickers on my prominently displayed wall calendar. It seems silly, but it works pretty well. In my case, I've even found that beyond not wanting to break the chain, I actually feel an immediate reward from placing the sticker on the calendar.
In fact, as the Buddhist-influenced Japanese psychologist Shoma Morita liked to point out, it’s perfectly possible to do what you know needs doing—to propel yourself to the gym, to open the laptop to work, to reach for the kale instead of the doughnuts—without “feeling motivated” to do it. People “think that they should always like what they do and that their lives should be trouble-free,” Morita wrote. “Consequently, their mental energy is wasted by their impossible attempts to avoid feelings of displeasure or boredom.” Morita advised his readers and patients to “give up” on themselves—to “begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect or a procrastinator or unhealthy or lazy or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself.”
I love this. One thing that has been helpful to me when facing a difficult or onerous task is realizing, "I don't have to like this. I only have to do it." (Those are the exact words that I generally use when talking to myself.) That sounds terribly negative and all that, but it's truly very liberating. It's much easier to just do something than to make yourself feel a particular way. And once I've given myself permission to not enjoy it, it's often not so bad. (Sometimes it's murder, of course, but that's OK. I can hate it all I want and not feel like some kind of failure for not liking it. I mean, hey, I did it even though I hated it, that's pretty good, right?)
My mom and I have often talked about how often people in the exercise business carp on how important it is to find the exercise you enjoy and then you'll realize that exercise is just awesome! As though there are not many people who just don't like doing any exercise. Instead of leveling with people -- you know, esp. when you're overweight and out of shape, exercise is really hard and can totally be not very much fun at all, but over time, it will get easier because you'll be stronger and exercising will become habitual, though some days, it will still suck and you'll have to just grit your teeth through it -- they claim that if you could just find your Ideal Form of Exercise, it will be awesome every day from day one. They seem to have no insight into the fact that the kind of people who become professional exercisers are not representative of the population. There's a weird kind of empathy/theory of mind failure mixed with the belief that you have to like something to do it underlying this advice. (Of course, it's not that I think people should pick their least favorite form of exercise -- I, for instance, hate elliptical machines and just won't use them -- but the idea of an "exercise you enjoy" seems to be placing the bar pretty high for a lot of people. And for many, exercising might be an activity that they have to learn to like.)
Several months ago, when I was reflecting on just how counterproductive the constant evaluation and emphasis on outcomes in my program is, I did a fair amount of reading in the literature on self-relevant thought. I really like the work by Mark Leary on "hypo-egoic mindsets"* -- i.e., "psychological states that are characterized by little involvement of the self" and "a low degree of abstract self-awareness" (common to phenomena such as flow, meditation, and mindfulness). A big idea here is that although self-relevant cognitive modes (thinking about yourself in the past and future, introspection, self-evaluation, and thinking about how you are perceived and evaluated by others) have benefits, they can also be liabilities. They can be distracting; promote unnecessary regret, shame, worry, and a focus on social image; cause choking under pressure; and undermine motivation.
* Leary and Terry (2012). Hypo-egoic mindsets: Antecedents and implications of quieting the self. Handbook of Self and Identity (2nd Ed.)
Because I've done work on construal level theory, I am particularly struck by how thinking about yourself abstractly/at a high level of construal can backfire. For example, thinking abstractly about leaving dinner in the oven too long so it became inedible can lead you down the sinking road of "I am irresponsible, I have a terrible memory, I can't cook, I'm an incompetent person" etc. Thinking concretely is more likely to come up with, "Man, I really fucked that up. Time to call for a pizza!"
I'd like to note that hypo-egoism is very different from high self-esteem, a state that society at large views as desirable but which recent research shows is not really all that great a thing (particularly the kind of unearned and therefore brittle high self-esteem that is fostered by meaningless praise, etc. - i.e., the only kind of self-esteem that most people talk about).
A few comments:
A wiser approach may be to set “process” goals: instead of specifying a target salary, commit to spending two hours a week investigating career opportunities. Rather than deciding to write the novel of the century, commit to 45 minutes of writing every morning. “Nothing discourages the concentration necessary to perform well,” writes the sports psychologist John Eliot, in his book, Overachievement, more than “worrying about the outcome.”
I think that the way my grad program fosters "worrying about the outcome" is really dysfunctional; it screwed not only with my ability to settle down and work well but my desire to do the work in the first place. Being in a highly self-evaluative state seems unavoidable when you know for a fact that you are being evaluated by faculty all the time and that negative evaluations will get you booted from the program like other myriad other previous students who were stereotyped as "lazy" or "not smart enough" or whatever, even if they were meeting the objective requirements of the program.
The constant emphasis on how you will only get a job if you can have X number of publications in the top 3 journals by the time you go on the job market is not only kind of ridiculous (given that I am in one of the only fields of academia where the number of candidates and number of jobs is basically equal) but makes you think too much about whether an idea you have is likely to lead to a paper in the Journal of Blah Research in the next couple of years. [Note: one senior faculty told me that she does not even try to publish in this journal because what they require is so ridiculous.] And really, the probability of any given idea bearing that fruit that is pretty low.
Over time, I found that it was not only the regular commonplace failures (like an experiment not working out) that were crushing and demoralizing and made me despair for the future when I must have that premiere publication on my c.v. The (rational) expectation that the next thing I did would also be a failure sapped my interest and energy in proceeding with it. Add to this the way that grad school leads people to over-identify with their scholar identity and minimizes other identities, thus robbing you of other sources of self-worth (e.g., that you're a kick-ass cook, a running machine, a supportive friend, a loving spouse, a person with a great sense of humor, a handy person who can fix anything, a person who can finish the New York Times crossword without a dictionary--because grad school does not value these things and you don't have time and energy to do them anyway) and it all just feels bad.
It's unfortunate that the professors in my program with PhDs in social psychology who study topics like self-regulation, choking under pressure, persuasion, and the like are not able to foresee the obvious negative consequences of their approach. I guess true superstars are so extremely motivated that none of these things affect them.
Or try the process-goal method used by Jerry Seinfeld early in his career, when he was determined to spend some time every day writing jokes. On a wall calendar, he marked an X every day that he got some writing done, gradually creating a chain of X’s: “Your only job ... is to not break the chain.” It’s a mechanical, nonintimidating target. If Seinfeld had aimed instead at “becoming a world-famous comedian,” might he have sabotaged his success?
I have been using a similar method myself, with placing stickers on my prominently displayed wall calendar. It seems silly, but it works pretty well. In my case, I've even found that beyond not wanting to break the chain, I actually feel an immediate reward from placing the sticker on the calendar.
In fact, as the Buddhist-influenced Japanese psychologist Shoma Morita liked to point out, it’s perfectly possible to do what you know needs doing—to propel yourself to the gym, to open the laptop to work, to reach for the kale instead of the doughnuts—without “feeling motivated” to do it. People “think that they should always like what they do and that their lives should be trouble-free,” Morita wrote. “Consequently, their mental energy is wasted by their impossible attempts to avoid feelings of displeasure or boredom.” Morita advised his readers and patients to “give up” on themselves—to “begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect or a procrastinator or unhealthy or lazy or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself.”
I love this. One thing that has been helpful to me when facing a difficult or onerous task is realizing, "I don't have to like this. I only have to do it." (Those are the exact words that I generally use when talking to myself.) That sounds terribly negative and all that, but it's truly very liberating. It's much easier to just do something than to make yourself feel a particular way. And once I've given myself permission to not enjoy it, it's often not so bad. (Sometimes it's murder, of course, but that's OK. I can hate it all I want and not feel like some kind of failure for not liking it. I mean, hey, I did it even though I hated it, that's pretty good, right?)
My mom and I have often talked about how often people in the exercise business carp on how important it is to find the exercise you enjoy and then you'll realize that exercise is just awesome! As though there are not many people who just don't like doing any exercise. Instead of leveling with people -- you know, esp. when you're overweight and out of shape, exercise is really hard and can totally be not very much fun at all, but over time, it will get easier because you'll be stronger and exercising will become habitual, though some days, it will still suck and you'll have to just grit your teeth through it -- they claim that if you could just find your Ideal Form of Exercise, it will be awesome every day from day one. They seem to have no insight into the fact that the kind of people who become professional exercisers are not representative of the population. There's a weird kind of empathy/theory of mind failure mixed with the belief that you have to like something to do it underlying this advice. (Of course, it's not that I think people should pick their least favorite form of exercise -- I, for instance, hate elliptical machines and just won't use them -- but the idea of an "exercise you enjoy" seems to be placing the bar pretty high for a lot of people. And for many, exercising might be an activity that they have to learn to like.)
Several months ago, when I was reflecting on just how counterproductive the constant evaluation and emphasis on outcomes in my program is, I did a fair amount of reading in the literature on self-relevant thought. I really like the work by Mark Leary on "hypo-egoic mindsets"* -- i.e., "psychological states that are characterized by little involvement of the self" and "a low degree of abstract self-awareness" (common to phenomena such as flow, meditation, and mindfulness). A big idea here is that although self-relevant cognitive modes (thinking about yourself in the past and future, introspection, self-evaluation, and thinking about how you are perceived and evaluated by others) have benefits, they can also be liabilities. They can be distracting; promote unnecessary regret, shame, worry, and a focus on social image; cause choking under pressure; and undermine motivation.
* Leary and Terry (2012). Hypo-egoic mindsets: Antecedents and implications of quieting the self. Handbook of Self and Identity (2nd Ed.)
Because I've done work on construal level theory, I am particularly struck by how thinking about yourself abstractly/at a high level of construal can backfire. For example, thinking abstractly about leaving dinner in the oven too long so it became inedible can lead you down the sinking road of "I am irresponsible, I have a terrible memory, I can't cook, I'm an incompetent person" etc. Thinking concretely is more likely to come up with, "Man, I really fucked that up. Time to call for a pizza!"
I'd like to note that hypo-egoism is very different from high self-esteem, a state that society at large views as desirable but which recent research shows is not really all that great a thing (particularly the kind of unearned and therefore brittle high self-esteem that is fostered by meaningless praise, etc. - i.e., the only kind of self-esteem that most people talk about).
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
A Bit of Cold Weather Birding
From The Big Year, this is Al Levantin's (Steve Martin in the movie) experience in 1998 at the same location Robert and I went to this past weekend for my birthday.
He kept telling Ethel [his wife], there are a few birds that usually live in the Arctic, but drop into northern Minnesota in January. Duluth for these birds was like a Caribbean cruise for people -- a midwinter change of scenery with decidedly warmer weather. Big Year birders who didn't score these species in Minnesota would have to bushwhack for them in northern Canada sometime in summer. Chasing them now meant you didn't have to battle the mosquitos.
He flew to Minneapolis -- finally, a birding hot spot with a direct flight from Aspen -- and drove north. He hardly had the heart to tell his wife that he wasn't really aiming for Duluth. That was just a city most people had heard of. His true destination was another forty-five miles northwest of Duluth. Officially, this place had no name; even the roads had only numbers. But by driving Highway 53 to County Road 232 and then looping up 7, 28, 788, and 213, Levantin would be on cherished ground -- the place birders called Sax-Zim Bog....
By the end of his time in Sax-Zim, he had accumulated whole shot glasses full of stories. He lucked into the Arctic's two toughest dainty birds, the sparrowlike common and hoary redpolls, gorging themselves at feeders in someone's backyard by a frozen lake. He found a snowy owl camouflaged on the jammed ice and drifted snow of Duluth harbor. Mostly unlikely of all, though, was the way he scored his great gray owl. The elusive flat-faced nemesis of so many accomplished birders, the great gray owl stared at Levantin with brilliant yellow eyes atop an electric pole in the frozen bog flanking the road from Sax (a wide spot in the road discovered by Rand McNally's mapmakers) and Zim (no McNally).
So how did our trip compare?
Standing in the 11 degree cold, checking out the first bird feeder, we immediately saw the common redpoll (which was the bird we had been looking for in our last local outing, when we saw the crossbills instead). So within minutes of hitting Sax-Zim, I got my ABA Life Bird #500.
Robert got #500 when a big, head-less, sort of mountain-shaped lump detached itself from a tree and sprouted massive wings. Not just long, like a bald eagle, but but deep, too -- giant wings. Thus were we spared the fate of "so many accomplished birders" who do not get the great gray owl... including, ironically, Sandy Komito (Owen Wilson in the movie) during his 1998 Big Year.
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through Duluth, not a creature was stirring -- except for Sandy Komito. He was wrapped in frustration. From an hour before dawn to an hour after sunset, he had driven every road and glassed every tree in the Sax-Zim Bog, but he still couldn't find his great gray owl. It was the only breeding bird of North America that still eluded him. Wile E. Coyote and the roadrunner had nothing on Komito and his great gray owl. He had chased it on nine different trips this year -- Minnesota in March, June, November, and two tries in December....
(Though Komito apparently is now convinced, after seeing more flying great grays, that he did see a flying great gray owl on that trip, but he still does not officially count it on his list for his Big Year.)
At a later feeder, we saw a couple of hoary redpolls mixed in with the common redpolls (and they were easier to differentiate than we expected, with brighter white chests and unstreaked white rumps) as well as the boreal chickadee, bringing my list to 503 by the end of the day. (We also saw some birds that we had previously only seen in the Rocky Mountains, such as pine grosbeaks and gray jays; it's always a pleasure to see birds in a new location.)
So as Robert put it, Happy Bird-day to me! Annoyingly, however, the two bird species chosen by the ABA for the 500 pins are birds I have not seen -- the northern jacana and the swallow-tailed kite. Hmm.
Am I already thinking about 600? You bet.
Note: I almost forgot to say, Yes, unlike Al Levantin, we did not see a snowy owl. The snowy owl remains our nemesis!
He kept telling Ethel [his wife], there are a few birds that usually live in the Arctic, but drop into northern Minnesota in January. Duluth for these birds was like a Caribbean cruise for people -- a midwinter change of scenery with decidedly warmer weather. Big Year birders who didn't score these species in Minnesota would have to bushwhack for them in northern Canada sometime in summer. Chasing them now meant you didn't have to battle the mosquitos.
He flew to Minneapolis -- finally, a birding hot spot with a direct flight from Aspen -- and drove north. He hardly had the heart to tell his wife that he wasn't really aiming for Duluth. That was just a city most people had heard of. His true destination was another forty-five miles northwest of Duluth. Officially, this place had no name; even the roads had only numbers. But by driving Highway 53 to County Road 232 and then looping up 7, 28, 788, and 213, Levantin would be on cherished ground -- the place birders called Sax-Zim Bog....
By the end of his time in Sax-Zim, he had accumulated whole shot glasses full of stories. He lucked into the Arctic's two toughest dainty birds, the sparrowlike common and hoary redpolls, gorging themselves at feeders in someone's backyard by a frozen lake. He found a snowy owl camouflaged on the jammed ice and drifted snow of Duluth harbor. Mostly unlikely of all, though, was the way he scored his great gray owl. The elusive flat-faced nemesis of so many accomplished birders, the great gray owl stared at Levantin with brilliant yellow eyes atop an electric pole in the frozen bog flanking the road from Sax (a wide spot in the road discovered by Rand McNally's mapmakers) and Zim (no McNally).
So how did our trip compare?
Standing in the 11 degree cold, checking out the first bird feeder, we immediately saw the common redpoll (which was the bird we had been looking for in our last local outing, when we saw the crossbills instead). So within minutes of hitting Sax-Zim, I got my ABA Life Bird #500.
 |
| The tough-ass common redpoll (image from National Geographic) |
Robert got #500 when a big, head-less, sort of mountain-shaped lump detached itself from a tree and sprouted massive wings. Not just long, like a bald eagle, but but deep, too -- giant wings. Thus were we spared the fate of "so many accomplished birders" who do not get the great gray owl... including, ironically, Sandy Komito (Owen Wilson in the movie) during his 1998 Big Year.
'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through Duluth, not a creature was stirring -- except for Sandy Komito. He was wrapped in frustration. From an hour before dawn to an hour after sunset, he had driven every road and glassed every tree in the Sax-Zim Bog, but he still couldn't find his great gray owl. It was the only breeding bird of North America that still eluded him. Wile E. Coyote and the roadrunner had nothing on Komito and his great gray owl. He had chased it on nine different trips this year -- Minnesota in March, June, November, and two tries in December....
(Though Komito apparently is now convinced, after seeing more flying great grays, that he did see a flying great gray owl on that trip, but he still does not officially count it on his list for his Big Year.)
At a later feeder, we saw a couple of hoary redpolls mixed in with the common redpolls (and they were easier to differentiate than we expected, with brighter white chests and unstreaked white rumps) as well as the boreal chickadee, bringing my list to 503 by the end of the day. (We also saw some birds that we had previously only seen in the Rocky Mountains, such as pine grosbeaks and gray jays; it's always a pleasure to see birds in a new location.)
So as Robert put it, Happy Bird-day to me! Annoyingly, however, the two bird species chosen by the ABA for the 500 pins are birds I have not seen -- the northern jacana and the swallow-tailed kite. Hmm.
Am I already thinking about 600? You bet.
Note: I almost forgot to say, Yes, unlike Al Levantin, we did not see a snowy owl. The snowy owl remains our nemesis!
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Southeast Arizona Birding Wrap-up
I am not going to bury the lede: We saw the trogon!
The day started unpromisingly. It was a bit chilly and quite cloudy/foggy and there was not much bird activity. And when we did see birds, it was very difficult to perceive any field marks; the lack of sunlight made them all look somewhat hazy and grey. We abandoned our first location fairly quickly and went to the Nature Conservancy property where the trogon had been seen. (We went to the other location first mostly because we were waiting for the NC place to open for visitors.) We got pretty lucky to see a painted redstart; even though it was somewhat hard to see, silhouetted against the sky, the coloration is bright and unmistakeable.
The trail up the mountainside did not yield many birds, but a Townsend's warbler landed in a tree perhaps 2 feet from my nose. (And I was amused to notice how my Austin-based birding experience means that all of the warblers with striking yellow and black face coloration are "those ones that look kind of like a golden-cheeked warbler." Having the golden-cheeked warbler as the reference bird for this category must be quite uncommon, given that it's an endangered species that lives only in mixed ashe-juniper and oak woodlands of central Texas.)
Once the weather started warming up, the birds and birders became more active. We fell in among a small flock of people who were looking at a bird that Robert identified for them as a band-tailed pigeon, immediately establishing himself as the group's Bird Guru. I talked to an older man who had talked to a woman who had seen the elegant trogon earlier in the day. A while after this man left the flock, and as the rest of us were looking over a tree full of yellow-rumped warblers in the hope of finding something else, I heard the sound of his distinctive voice from further down the trail. I thought, He must have the trogon!, so Robert and I moved as quickly toward him as is consistent with not scaring the fuck out of every bird on the reserve.
And indeed, he had the trogon, who was exceptionally cooperative, giving us great, clear views of himself both in the trees and flying about. I turned to Robert to suggest that he get the rest of our flock to see this magnificent bird, but he was already halfway back down the trail to get them. Everybody ooohed and aaahed over the bird, and the older man got a really nice photo using his tiny point-and-shoot camera.
And thus did the elegant trogon lose its "nemesis bird" status in a big way.
The next day, it rained all morning but we managed to see a lot of birds at and around the bird feeders at San Pedro House, including a new sparrow - Baird's sparrow.
I left Arizona with 498 species, not quite making the goal of 500, but within range of it. We saw 18 life birds in Arizona, and 88 species altogether. A quite satisfactory outcome.
During our trip, I was particularly sensitized to bill shape for some reason, which was helpful in sorting out the thrashers we saw. There were several new species of thrashers available to us in SE Arizona, but unfortunately we kept seeing our old friend the curve-billed thrasher.
I was also struck by the variations of red on the various birds we saw. The breast of the trogon glowed brightly red. The vermilion flycatcher gleamed with an orange-red brilliance. The wet, fluffed up feathers of the pyrrhuloxia made them look like whitish-grey birds with rosy red wounds on their chests.
A couple weeks after our trip, Robert and I went to a local nature reserve where common redpolls had been seen. We did not see the redpolls. We saw something even better: white-winged crossbills, bringing me up to 499 species.
This weekend, we are headed a few hours north of home in the hopes of seeing some of the birds of the boreal forest. Come on, one more new species!
The day started unpromisingly. It was a bit chilly and quite cloudy/foggy and there was not much bird activity. And when we did see birds, it was very difficult to perceive any field marks; the lack of sunlight made them all look somewhat hazy and grey. We abandoned our first location fairly quickly and went to the Nature Conservancy property where the trogon had been seen. (We went to the other location first mostly because we were waiting for the NC place to open for visitors.) We got pretty lucky to see a painted redstart; even though it was somewhat hard to see, silhouetted against the sky, the coloration is bright and unmistakeable.
 |
| Painted redstart (photo from Cornell Lab) |
The trail up the mountainside did not yield many birds, but a Townsend's warbler landed in a tree perhaps 2 feet from my nose. (And I was amused to notice how my Austin-based birding experience means that all of the warblers with striking yellow and black face coloration are "those ones that look kind of like a golden-cheeked warbler." Having the golden-cheeked warbler as the reference bird for this category must be quite uncommon, given that it's an endangered species that lives only in mixed ashe-juniper and oak woodlands of central Texas.)
 |
| Townsend's warbler (photo from Cornell Lab) |
Once the weather started warming up, the birds and birders became more active. We fell in among a small flock of people who were looking at a bird that Robert identified for them as a band-tailed pigeon, immediately establishing himself as the group's Bird Guru. I talked to an older man who had talked to a woman who had seen the elegant trogon earlier in the day. A while after this man left the flock, and as the rest of us were looking over a tree full of yellow-rumped warblers in the hope of finding something else, I heard the sound of his distinctive voice from further down the trail. I thought, He must have the trogon!, so Robert and I moved as quickly toward him as is consistent with not scaring the fuck out of every bird on the reserve.
And indeed, he had the trogon, who was exceptionally cooperative, giving us great, clear views of himself both in the trees and flying about. I turned to Robert to suggest that he get the rest of our flock to see this magnificent bird, but he was already halfway back down the trail to get them. Everybody ooohed and aaahed over the bird, and the older man got a really nice photo using his tiny point-and-shoot camera.
 |
| Elegant trogon (photo from Wikipedia) |
And thus did the elegant trogon lose its "nemesis bird" status in a big way.
The next day, it rained all morning but we managed to see a lot of birds at and around the bird feeders at San Pedro House, including a new sparrow - Baird's sparrow.
 |
| Baird's sparrow (photo from Cornell Lab) |
I left Arizona with 498 species, not quite making the goal of 500, but within range of it. We saw 18 life birds in Arizona, and 88 species altogether. A quite satisfactory outcome.
During our trip, I was particularly sensitized to bill shape for some reason, which was helpful in sorting out the thrashers we saw. There were several new species of thrashers available to us in SE Arizona, but unfortunately we kept seeing our old friend the curve-billed thrasher.
I was also struck by the variations of red on the various birds we saw. The breast of the trogon glowed brightly red. The vermilion flycatcher gleamed with an orange-red brilliance. The wet, fluffed up feathers of the pyrrhuloxia made them look like whitish-grey birds with rosy red wounds on their chests.
A couple weeks after our trip, Robert and I went to a local nature reserve where common redpolls had been seen. We did not see the redpolls. We saw something even better: white-winged crossbills, bringing me up to 499 species.
This weekend, we are headed a few hours north of home in the hopes of seeing some of the birds of the boreal forest. Come on, one more new species!
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Arizona Birds
We have now been in southeastern Arizona
for 4 days and are making progress toward our goal of reaching 500 ABA
area species. We spent the first 3 days in the Tucson
area. On day 1, we went to a kind of zoo/outdoor museum that had many
animal exhibits, aviaries, and also a lot of wild birds on the premises (which
consisted of hot Sonoran desert). In addition to new birds, we watched a
free flight raptor show (similar to what we saw at the Vogelpark that time) in
which we learned about the group hunting techniques of Robert's favorite bird,
the Harris's hawk. For example, apparently rabbits (desert cottontails)
like to hide underneath the prickly pear in the desert, where the hawks can't
reach them, but the Harris's hawks work together -- one bird (the low bird in
the hierarchy, a male; there is only one female in each group and she's large [30% larger than the males] and in charge) will stretch his scary leg and talon under the cactus, scaring
the rabbit out of his hiding place, where another hawk will nab him. (Thankfully we did not see this occur.) A
docent also had a big brown female tarantula to show us (which the docent
carefully induced to climb onto her hand) and explained that females are brown
and males are black, and that the males are usually the ones we see, wandering
around searching for a mate, while the females tend to stay in cool comfort. So the black tarantula my mom hit with the garage door that time, and that I took to school as my one-day pet, was a male.
Life Birds Day 1:
Gilded flicker
Phainopepla
Gila woodpecker
Cassin's sparrow (for Robert, who missed this species on our last South Texas trip)
On day 2, we drove up a mountain, stopping every few miles to hike and look for birds.
Life Birds Day 2:
Black-chinned sparrow
Yellow-eyed junco
Acorn woodpecker
On day 3, we went hiking at a park in a canyon, and I was miserable at the beginning with a headache, stomach ache, generalized body ache, and the feeling of having breathed in half the dust/sand in the fricking desert over the previous few days. (I was feeling so weak and achy that I literally had difficulty getting out of the car.) But perhaps 20 minutes into our hike, I saw a shape moving under a prickly pear from the corner of my eye and before I could even think about whether it made sense or not, I thought: A bunny! And it was a bunny, a desert cottontail, hunkered down under a prickly pear cactus just as we'd heard about at the bird show. This cheered me up a lot. Indeed, we ended up seeing 2 more rabbits on our hike, one under another prickly pear and one running along the ground with his white tail flashing at us. A 3 rabbit day is a very good day. (Of course, the tylenol I took soon after we got started probably contributed to my improvement as well, but I credit the bunnies with a lot.) We also saw a big group of javelina - about 6 adults, 2 adolescents, and 2 very young ones. The littlest one at the end of the line got himself (or herself - I don't know the sex) caught inbetween two rocks (that were bigger than he was) and he made a pitiful sound of distress. His only slightly bigger sibling turned to him and started nudging at him, which did not have any effect on his ability to get out of trouble but it seemed supportive and comforting, and then mom came over and helped him out. I was still feeling sort of crappy when we left, but a stop at a McDonald’s for a $1 large, very cold iced tea (caffeinated) did me a world of good.
Life Birds Day 3:
Black-tailed gnatcatcher (a bird we hoped to see on every South Texas trip but never did)
Magnificent hummingbird
Abert’s towhee
Yesterday we left the Tucson area and made our way southeast. Today we hiked up a mountain covered in dry grass and scrub trees that made dreary west Austin hikes seem positively verdant in comparison. About 3 minutes after I complained that it was hot and kind of horrible (we reached an altitude of about 6000 feet, so there was a hint of altitude sickness along with everything else), we started seeing birds. Mom, you might want to avert your eyes – we also saw a rather small male tarantula that I was so tempted to try to pick up but was able to resist. Afterwards, we stopped at a B&B where the owner has a bunch of feeders and spent about an hour and a half watching all kinds of birds (and squirrels and the owner's two pet African grey parrots) flying, squabbling, and being crazy. We did not pick up any new birds there, but we got our first Anna's hummingbird of the trip, and it was extremely pleasant to sit in the shade and watch the birds close up. We had a picnic lunch, and all was great until I put my hand down on the bench beside me and felt this sudden extremely sharp pain which I described to Robert in my acute distress as "it hurts like a motherfuck." When I looked at my finger, I expected to see a bug biting it but instead there was just some sharp thing sticking out of it. Oh. It's a bee sting. I've never been stung by a bee before (to my recollection) and now I get why people (and Winnie the Pooh, et al.) make a point of avoiding it. After the application of Sting-Eze to my finger and the consumption of a seriously extravagant amount of dark chocolate at the hotel, I started feeling okay again.
Life Birds Day 4:
Rufous-winged sparrow
Mexican jay (Dad would like this one - large, vocal, and easy to see)
Bridled titmouse (this one freaked me out when I saw its head)
Arizona woodpecker
Sage sparrow
This brings me up to an ABA area list of 494 (as we can best reckon it without access to my birding journal). Tomorrow we’re going to a place where a bunch of interesting birds were seen on Monday, including a nemesis bird, the elegant trogon. (This place is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we can only hope that the birds decided to stick around.) Although it seems doubtful we will reach 500 by the time we leave Arizona on Saturday, we should be well-positioned to make it on our next outing into new territory (or if we ever figure out how to find owls!).
Life Birds Day 1:
Gilded flicker
Phainopepla
Gila woodpecker
Cassin's sparrow (for Robert, who missed this species on our last South Texas trip)
On day 2, we drove up a mountain, stopping every few miles to hike and look for birds.
Life Birds Day 2:
Black-chinned sparrow
Yellow-eyed junco
Acorn woodpecker
 |
| The acorn woodpecker just looks weirder the longer I look at him. (Photo from Cornell Lab.) |
On day 3, we went hiking at a park in a canyon, and I was miserable at the beginning with a headache, stomach ache, generalized body ache, and the feeling of having breathed in half the dust/sand in the fricking desert over the previous few days. (I was feeling so weak and achy that I literally had difficulty getting out of the car.) But perhaps 20 minutes into our hike, I saw a shape moving under a prickly pear from the corner of my eye and before I could even think about whether it made sense or not, I thought: A bunny! And it was a bunny, a desert cottontail, hunkered down under a prickly pear cactus just as we'd heard about at the bird show. This cheered me up a lot. Indeed, we ended up seeing 2 more rabbits on our hike, one under another prickly pear and one running along the ground with his white tail flashing at us. A 3 rabbit day is a very good day. (Of course, the tylenol I took soon after we got started probably contributed to my improvement as well, but I credit the bunnies with a lot.) We also saw a big group of javelina - about 6 adults, 2 adolescents, and 2 very young ones. The littlest one at the end of the line got himself (or herself - I don't know the sex) caught inbetween two rocks (that were bigger than he was) and he made a pitiful sound of distress. His only slightly bigger sibling turned to him and started nudging at him, which did not have any effect on his ability to get out of trouble but it seemed supportive and comforting, and then mom came over and helped him out. I was still feeling sort of crappy when we left, but a stop at a McDonald’s for a $1 large, very cold iced tea (caffeinated) did me a world of good.
Life Birds Day 3:
Black-tailed gnatcatcher (a bird we hoped to see on every South Texas trip but never did)
Magnificent hummingbird
Abert’s towhee
Yesterday we left the Tucson area and made our way southeast. Today we hiked up a mountain covered in dry grass and scrub trees that made dreary west Austin hikes seem positively verdant in comparison. About 3 minutes after I complained that it was hot and kind of horrible (we reached an altitude of about 6000 feet, so there was a hint of altitude sickness along with everything else), we started seeing birds. Mom, you might want to avert your eyes – we also saw a rather small male tarantula that I was so tempted to try to pick up but was able to resist. Afterwards, we stopped at a B&B where the owner has a bunch of feeders and spent about an hour and a half watching all kinds of birds (and squirrels and the owner's two pet African grey parrots) flying, squabbling, and being crazy. We did not pick up any new birds there, but we got our first Anna's hummingbird of the trip, and it was extremely pleasant to sit in the shade and watch the birds close up. We had a picnic lunch, and all was great until I put my hand down on the bench beside me and felt this sudden extremely sharp pain which I described to Robert in my acute distress as "it hurts like a motherfuck." When I looked at my finger, I expected to see a bug biting it but instead there was just some sharp thing sticking out of it. Oh. It's a bee sting. I've never been stung by a bee before (to my recollection) and now I get why people (and Winnie the Pooh, et al.) make a point of avoiding it. After the application of Sting-Eze to my finger and the consumption of a seriously extravagant amount of dark chocolate at the hotel, I started feeling okay again.
Life Birds Day 4:
Rufous-winged sparrow
Mexican jay (Dad would like this one - large, vocal, and easy to see)
Bridled titmouse (this one freaked me out when I saw its head)
Arizona woodpecker
Sage sparrow
 |
| Look at my fancy heat! (Photo from Cornell Lab.) |
This brings me up to an ABA area list of 494 (as we can best reckon it without access to my birding journal). Tomorrow we’re going to a place where a bunch of interesting birds were seen on Monday, including a nemesis bird, the elegant trogon. (This place is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we can only hope that the birds decided to stick around.) Although it seems doubtful we will reach 500 by the time we leave Arizona on Saturday, we should be well-positioned to make it on our next outing into new territory (or if we ever figure out how to find owls!).
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