The Virtues of 5MR Birding

Surely, by now 5MR birding needs no introduction. Briefly, it’s the attempt to reserve a portion of your birding energies to try and locate species within a 5-mile radius of your home. 5MR fever has spread across the globe, thanks to the tireless efforts of the movement’s evangelist-in-chief Jen Sanford. I won’t retread the myriad reasons you should think about starting your own 5MR patch, but seriously, look into it. Instead, I offer some thoughts and observations on how 2019 has unfolded so far, and how the new approach has shaken up our routines.

There are several reliable spots in our 5MR for Eurasian Wigeon

We’ve been in our house for about a year and a half now, and until the 5MR challenge got underway we hadn’t been gung-ho county listers for our new home county, Linn, Oregon. That means some fairly low-hanging fruit was ripe for the picking. In contrast, nearly all of our birding this year has been ultra-local. We’re steadily teasing out Albany’s secrets, stalking its underbirded nooks, and venturing into its overlooked crannies.

Killdeer

Red-breasted Sapsucker

Spotted Towhee

Lesser Goldfinch

Bewick's Wren

We’ve been checking out a lot of hotspots we hadn’t explored before; hotspots we didn’t even know about. Timber-Linn Memorial wasn’t on our radar at all, but we got lucky on our very first visit with a Snow Goose who thought it was a wigeon. This could have been super tough and not the least bit surprising if we hadn’t found one in our 5MR this year. Likewise, we picked up Red-shouldered Hawk (county bird!) on our inaugural visit to Truax Island – a place we didn’t know existed until a fellow 5MR birder recommended it to us.

Snow Goose

American Wigeon

Besides exploring new corners of our patch, we’ve been hitting our usual places even more often, including the greenway encircling our development. A Merlin we found in our neighborhood on New Year’s Day might be the only one we see all year. Same with Tundra Swan, a species for which there’s really no habitat in our circle – but a couple weeks ago we stepped outside our front door to go for a walk, and immediately two flew right overhead.

Merlin

Cooper's Hawk

Northern Flicker

Suet showdown

In January we followed up on a Swamp Sparrow report from a little ways down the street. We gave up after two hours of flogging the same row of blackberry bushes (White-throated Sparrow was a nice consolation prize), but the next day we found our own Swamp Sparrow in a completely different part of the neighborhood. After chasing a few of these in Oregon and dipping repeatedly (sometimes even within an hour of others finding them) this had become quite the state nemesis for us. Nemesis: vanquished.

Bewick's Wren

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Zonotrichia combo - White-throated and Golden-crowned Sparrows

Swamp Sparrow

On the other hand, some birds I’d taken for granted actually aren’t so common inside our 5MR (e.g. Northern Pintail and Northern Shoveler), which took some planning to get. And we still need others, like Townsend’s Warbler and Chestnut-backed Chickdee that feel overdue. Part of the fun has been constantly expecting one of these “easy” species to turn up, and finding a something out of left field instead. How is it we found a Mew Gull before Hutton’s Vireo? Or Wild Turkey before Pileated Woodpecker? We’ve added 17 new birds to our Linn County list (so far!) just from exploring and wondering what will turn up next.

American Coot

Green-winged Teal

Ring-necked Duck

Black Phoebe

Some birds we’ve seen in Linn County in the past, but the most reliable, heavily reported locations fall well outside our 5MR, so we’ve had to put in the legwork to find our own spots. Horned Larks, Savannah Sparrows, and Dunlin all hang out in agricultural fields, which are one of the defining features of our circle. But not all fields are created equal, and these species are all most easily found too far south to count.

American Pipits

Horned Larks

Western Bluebirds

We’ve taken to driving quiet stretches of road that we’d never been down before, where we can pull over to the shoulder to scan, and we picked up most of our ag. birds in no time. Even better, we spotted a Northern Shrike less than a mile from where we ticked Horned Lark. The shrike kept hovering like a kestrel – we’d never seen that behavior from a shrike before!

Northern Shrike

One of Jen’s objectives for the 5MR challenge is getting people to drive less. It’s actually atypical that we haven’t taken any day trips to the coast so far this year. We usually plan a semi-ambitious itinerary for our weekends that might take us an hour or more from home in any direction. At least for now, most of the time we ask ourselves what we’re doing this weekend, it has to do with tracking down 5MR target species. It’s been really great getting to know our home territory much more intimately over the past two months.

Double-decker Wild Turkeys

They're so freaking weird

Lastly, one very rewarding aspect of 5MR birding has been getting to know local birders (as more than just a name on an eBird checklist). Some veteran listers have proactively reached out to us to offer advice or help getting access to tricky locations. Others have connected on Facebook. The collective excitment around 5MR birding and the mutual support it’s engendered have been altogether amazing. If you haven’t already, you can follow the “5MR Birding” group on Facebook, or find tips and resources to define your own circle here.

Gadwall

Mallard

Show Me Your Plumes!

For a long time, I've been so envious of those stunning photos of a Great Egret displaying its breeding plumage like a fluffy white fan. I have seen a few Great Egrets with breeding plumes and those bright green lores that develop during mating season, but the egrets have just been standing still in water or just going about their business, doing things other than trying to attract a mate at that very moment. So many times I would say to them, "Show me your plumes!"

View of the rookery at Harris Neck NWR. I couldn't even fit the whole scene in one shot.

Some nesting Wood Storks and Great Egrets

I loved how you could see the wispy Great Egret plumes sticking out from the nests.

Well, finally, we had some obliging Great Egrets! Last weekend we went to Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge about 60 miles south of Savannah. We were told that this is THE place to go to see breeding Wood Storks and Great Egrets. It was indeed, and it did not disappoint! The main stop along the wildlife drive is a spot of open water with a shore and scattered little islands full of trees just teaming with nesting and courting Wood Storks and Great Egrets! This rookery was a magnificent spectacle! We could just see tons of white birds as far as the eye could see. Some had already settled down and were starting to incubate, others were still building nests, and yet others were still courting.

Mating Great Egrets.

Pretty good shot digiscoping with my iPhone and Zeiss scope.

I didn't get THE ultimate shot that I wanted, but I got pretty close. Ideally, I would have wanted to see a Great Egret head on, doing its display dance, and showing off its beautiful plumes. Instead, I got a less desired position of its backside, but still showing off its gorgeous, delicate-looking feathers. So for now, I'll take it! This one egret in particular was a good subject as he was the closest and not only showing off his plumes, but also giving a little dance. It was definitely fun to watch as he would spread those lovely wispy plumes in a circular fan, bend his legs, and elongate his neck, hanging it low and then whiping it high with his bill pointed straight up. Then he'd do a sultry little sway from side to side, shimmying his fluffy white plumes as to say, "Hey ladies, look what I can do <wink wink>." 

Doin' a little dance, hoping to make a little love. Gettin' down tonight!

Great Egret displaying his gorgeous plumes. 

Displaying Great Egret

I could see why these feathers were so desired back in the day to make beautiful fashions. Thank goodness for those pioneers who founded the National Audubon Society as a response to the massive killing of birds for their plumage.

Another avian friend seen here - Swamp Sparrow

I believe there were Yellow-crowned and Black-crowned Night Herons getting ready to nest here, too. We saw this YCNH and then we just kept seeing them speckled in the trees. 

Just a pile of baby gators.

I'm very happy to have seen a displaying Great Egret, not to mention the great numbers of other nesting egrets and Wood Storks. We also got a look at some other reminders of baby-making season - an assortment of baby alligators. There were groups of young gators of various ages hanging out close together at the bank of the lake leading to the rookery area. 

Baby Gator face off. 

A different view of the faceoff.

Close-up of a baby gator

This little guy is trying to blend in, but he doesn't fool me!

If you're ever in the area during nesting season, Harris Neck is definitely the place to go. And it'll have you saying, "Show me your plumes!"

Common Buckeye

Little Wood-Satyr

Long-tailed Skipper