Letter from the President

This year marks the 57^th year I have called myself a birder. I started my life list when I was 11 years old after being introduced to the idea by a middle school teacher (who thereby changed my life). My first life bird was European Starling, and my most recent one (#720 for the ABA area) was the Tundra Bean Goose that showed up in Pennsylvania in 2020. It has been quite a journey with many great memories.
 
Over those years I have seen incredible changes in birding. The quality of optics and the widespread availability of digital cameras are obvious ones. However, I think the most profound change has been eBird. When I started birding in the 1960s, birding information was hard to come by. We relied on our birding friends and recorded phone rare bird hotlines to find birds. By the latter, I mean you would call a phone number to hear a recording of the rare birds that had been reported recently, usually updated once or twice a week. To report a rare bird, you would call a different number and leave a voicemail for the person running the hotline.
 
Despite the widespread popularity and use of eBird, I still think it is underutilized. While many people submit their checklists regularly, few really tap into the data that are available online with eBird. eBird has sighting maps, seasonal bar charts, illustrated checklists, photo galleries, state-of-the art range maps and much more. Most of these are found under the Explore and Science tabs on the top menu. I think you will find your birding greatly enhanced if you tap into these resources that can help you find and identify your target birds.
 
The next big thing in birding is probably going to be AI enhanced identification tools. The most popular example of this is the Merlin phone app that does a remarkable job of identifying photos and recordings. If you have not tried it, it is a lot of fun. You can open the app and click on “Sound ID” and it will start listening with your phone’s microphone and telling you what birds it hears. For a first-generation tool, the accuracy is impressive. HOWEVER, be careful not to assume that it is 100% accurate. For example, it identified Cope’s Gray Tree Frogs in my backyard as Semipalmated Sandpipers. Still, used properly, it will help you hear things that you might otherwise have missed, and I enjoy walking around with it, especially in spring, and seeing what it hears. Eventually this technology will be built into binoculars and bird identification will become a lost art for humans!
 
Lastly, a couple of notices about Bombay Hook: First, the new visitor center is scheduled to open in April. Second, the logs that are piled up near Bear Swamp were not harvested on Bombay Hook land. They were purchased to be used for a structure to control the increasing erosion on the bay side of Shearness Pool. Thanks to Andy Ednie for these updates.
 
 -Michael Moore, DOS President

February 15 Meeting:

“Species limits and conservation of the Sharp-shinned Hawk complex" by Therese A. Catanach
February 15 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm EST

The Sharp-shinned Hawk (Accipiter striatus) complex is widely distributed across the New World, breeding from western Alaska to Argentina.  Although currently treated as a single species, based on size and plumage variation some authorities have suggested there may be multiple species of “Sharpie”. Using nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from over 50 samples, from across the geographic distribution of the group, we reconstructed an evolutionary tree (phylogeny) to test species limits in the A. striatus complex. In particular, we densely sampled across the Caribbean and the Neotropics, where 8 of the 10 recognized subspecies are breeding residents. Our findings confirm that Sharp-shinned Hawk is a complex of multiple species, including several unique and geographically restricted lineages with small populations, which are of special conservation concern.

Dr. Therese Catanach is an ornithologist and entomologist who studies the evolutionary biology of hawks and eagles (Accipitridae) and their associated feather lice. They hold two doctoral degrees, one in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology (University of Illinois), and the other in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences (Texas A&M University). They have been a Research Associate at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (Philadelphia, PA) since January 2016, and have conducted fieldwork around the world including in the United States, Philippines, Tanzania, Kenya, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, South Africa, Swaziland, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Argentina, and the islands of Dominica (West Indies) and Ascension (South Atlantic).

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The meeting is held online via Zoom software.
 

Members will receive an email with Zoom login info prior to the meeting. If you are not a member and would like to attend, please request login info which is available a few days before the meeting.

Red Knot Youth Birders

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Bird Sighting Database comes to the DOS Website

Birding in Delaware’s Historic Past: Hermitage Natural Area Bird Census

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