Birding with Kenn and Kimberly

Rich Stallcup, as he appeared about the time I first met him in the 1970s. Photo by Van Remsen. From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: This past Saturday, December 15, was the annual Christmas Bird Count at Point Reyes, California. One of the largest CBCs in North America, Point Reyes regularly fields around 200 observers and records around 200 species, a testament to the fabulous birding culture of Marin County.  This year, for the first time in many years, one observer was conspicuously absent: the legendary Rich Stallcup, beloved leader of the Marin birding community for the last half-century. Rich had been battling illness for many months.  As the bird counters gathered for their compilation Saturday evening, he slipped away across the horizon.   To say that Rich Stallcup had a massive influence on birding and natural history in the great state of California would be a huge understatement.  Everyone knew him, everyone had learned from him.  But his influ...

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: Readers of this blog will know that I’ve been very preoccupied for the last three months by the current situation at the American Birding Association. (In fact, I’ve been so preoccupied that the blog hasn’t been updated since the end of August.) In early July, I was asked to be on the search committee for a new president / executive director for the ABA. This fine organization had just gone through some tough times, owing to a few bad decisions and a lot of bad luck. The previous president had been fired, the staff was upset about a variety of issues, membership had been declining, and the financial situation was going from bad to worse. Things were looking shaky for the ABA. But because this organization had done so much for me in the past, I agreed to try to help. It has been a time-consuming and complicated process, as you might guess if you read the previous entries on this subject. But ultimately we had over a dozen serious applicants for the p...

From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: Six weeks have passed since Dick Ashford, chair of the board of the American Birding Association (ABA), contacted me out of the blue and asked me to be on the search committee for ABA’s next Executive Director (or President, as the position is currently called). Being part of the search has been far more time-consuming than I had expected initially, but it has given me some rewarding insights as well. Shortly after getting involved, I wrote about the ABA’s situation on this blog, and the outpouring of comments was remarkable -- highly detailed comments came in from more than 40 people, including no fewer than seven former ABA board members and other well-known leaders of the North American birding community. During the same time period, I had conversations with most of the current ABA staff, dedicated long-term members of the organization, and many others. After the first couple of weeks my outlook on ABA’s future was not very positive, for three re...

Mallard on the park pond, Yellow-bellied Flycatcher at the migrant trap, Wandering Albatross over the Drake Passage: would you enjoy looking at any of these birds? If so, you're a good birder. From Oak Harbor, Ohio, Kenn writes: The intense discussions this summer regarding the future of the American Birding Association (ABA) have led some people to question just who the organization should be for. Predictably, a few have suggested that it should be a group designed for "good birders." I have strong opinions about that idea, I’ve expressed them in the past in other settings, and I want to repeat them here. Forgive me if it seems immodest for me to quote from myself. But I wrote something a long time ago that still seems relevant: "Birding is something that we do for enjoyment; so if you enjoy it, you’re a good birder. If you enjoy it a lot, you’re a great birder." I wrote that back in the 1980s, and apparently it rang a bell with some people. The editors of B...

From a state of contemplation, Kenn writes: The American Birding Association (ABA) has been an important part of my life ever since I joined, at the age of 16, back in the 1970s. The ABA was a brand-new organization then, and it served a unique role in connecting the active birders of the U.S. and Canada. Its little bimonthly magazine, Birding, was a treasure trove for me as a teenager, giving me tips on bird-finding and bird identification that I wouldn’t have known about in any other way. When I started traveling, as a hitch-hiking, teenaged birder, the ABA connected me with other enthusiasts and with prime birding hotspots, and helped to put me on a course as a professional naturalist. In subsequent years I was involved with ABA in many ways. I taught bird I.D. workshops at many of their conventions, and later I began giving evening keynote talks at these events; for a while, I had spoken at more ABA conventions than anyone else. I wrote dozens of pieces for Birding magazine, and...

From an airport someplace, Kenn writes: Okay, I’ll give you a million dollars if you can figure out what this post is about, just from the title. Ha. I didn’t think so. To explain it, I have to give some background. First, you have to know that there’s a phenomenon known as a "Big Day" among birders, an attempt to identify as many different bird species as possible in one calendar day. It’s purely a game, with no scientific value or other redeeming quality whatsoever, producing a score which is of interest to no one except the participants. It’s also a heck of a lot of fun. I tell people that Big Days are my one vice: I don’t smoke or gamble and I almost never drink, but I do enjoy the rush of that 24-hour race against the clock to find as many birds as possible. Second, you have to know something about Oklahoma. It’s a great state for birds, since it straddles the center of the continent and it gets birds typical of both the east and the west within its borders. But in term...

From Birding Central, Kenn writes: Back when "publishing" always involved ink and paper, a Photo Quiz was popular in various bird magazines. A challenging photo (or two or three) would be presented in one issue of the magazine, with the answer(s) to be revealed in the next issue. Birders would study the photos and their field guides, discuss the quiz with their pals, then wait a month or two or three for the next issue to see if they’d gotten the answer right. Today, in the age of online publishing, photo quizzes are legion. There are literally dozens of "mystery bird" photos posted every week on websites and blogs. Followers of these quizzes wait only days for the answers, not weeks or months. Other things have changed as well: birders researching a tricky photo today are more likely to look for pictures on the internet, and a fair percentage of those online photos will be misidentified or mislabelled. And when the online quiz posts its answer, there’s a chance th...