Birdlist Software

Loading Birdlist

I'm going to talk a bit about my second attempt (out of three) to make a bird list program. This post will be largely technical, but any comments are welcome on ideas how to improve it. I haven't been listing for long, so I'm sure there is information that would be useful for people to record that I am missing in my program, or features that I have overlooked.

I say second attempt of three in my opening sentence, and this is explained a little in my first post to this blog. Briefly, I have created three programs specifically to keep track of my various bird lists. The first was a web application that used mySQL to store the sighting information and PHP to present an interface to the user. I used this program on my Zaurus C1000 pocket computer and home computer, and have set it up for a couple other people as well.

My second program, the one I am going to be talking about now, stores data in XML files and uses GTK to present an interface to the user. I use this program solely on my Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, though it could be compiled for Linux and Windows desktops. This is my most mature application and it has gone through many changes and optimizations. I designed the XML structure to allow speedy data access, and have tried to design the interface to be as usable as possible. I sent a beta copy to an ornithologist in the States to try out, and got some positive comments but also quite a bit of usability issues. I have since made it easier for new users to pick up and start using.

Birdlist main screen

The third program again uses a database for storage, although this time the default database is sqlite. This is a simple, single file database that is simple to set up and maintain, ideal for my purposes. The interface is Qt4, which has the benefit of easily running on my tablet, linux desktops, and windows desktops. Unfortunately, Qt4 for my tablet isn't quite optimized for the form factor so I am waiting for some more improvements before changing over all my development efforts. This version is nearly as complete as the GTK version, but not as polished.

The goal of my bird listing programs is to allow the user to create multiple lists and maintain records of their bird sightings. For example, I have my life list, year lists for 2008 and 2009, and some trip lists. "Birdlist" presents the selected list to the user as a table with headings at the top of each column and sighting information next to each bird name. The user can filter the list to show only the birds he/she has seen (useful for reviewing sightings), or show all the birds available on the list.

Birdlist showing list selection

One of the current limitations is the species associated with the list. Right now when a user creates a list it is automatically populated with the species that have been recorded in North America. This limitation exists because that is all I use right now, but in the future this should be much more flexible. I have been thinking about how to implement this, and it is actually pretty tricky. Having a "master list" for all the species in the world and filtering the list by area would be one way to go about it, but then it is a matter of what is a reasonable area to consider? By continent? I think personally I would like to see State/Province lists, and even a little more fine - such as a Hamilton list.

Continent, Country, and State/Province lists are probably possible to include with the application, but more detail would be up to the user. I am considering an interface that would allow a user to select the closest existing level (for my Hamilton example this would be "Ontario") and filtering the list down by unchecking birds that he/she does not want to include. I will have to look further into the feasibility of this method as this is one of the features I would need to include before releasing the program.

Birdlist viewing photo

The data that is recorded depends on how the list was initially set up. When adding a new list the user has the option displaying photographs. If a user elected to display photographs an "Image" column, and a "Photo taken" column (displayed with a camera icon to save room) are displayed. If the user did not want photos shown, these columns do not display which saves room and reduces clutter. The standard data is "Bird Name," "Date Seen, "Location," and "Notes." "Bird Name" is stored within the list and selected by the user when entering data. "Date Seen" is the date of the sighting and can either be entered as text or selected from a pop-up calendar. "Location" is the location of the sighting, which is entered by the user or selected from a list of previously entered locations. "Notes" is a free text field that the user can record the conditions of the sighting, or any other information.

The user does not enter sighting data into the table itself (which is read-only), but rather through dialogs designed to make entering data as easy as possible. Inserting a sighting, for example, allows the user to start typing into the "Bird Name" entry and will show a list of matches. This list of matches is filtered to be only birds that do not have a sighting recorded already, and can match anywhere in the bird name - not just the start of the name. This makes searching for "duck" more useful, as it always appears at the end of the bird name.

Birdlist insert dialog

Modifying and deleting sightings use similar dialogs, but allow the user to select the bird they want to modify/delete from a list of bird sightings that have already been entered. All dialogs (insert, modify, and delete) require a correct bird to be selected and valid date to be entered before continuing, which keeps the data stored in the list valid at all times.

There are a number of ways to reduce the effort of recording a sighting. If a user is keeping a life list and a year list and sees a new life bird, it follows that the bird must also be a new bird for the year. The user enters the sighting details into either of the appropriate lists, then clicks and holds on the new sighting in the table. This brings up a menu with "Modify" and "Delete" entries (which are useful to quickly modify or delete a specific entry) and also a "Copy" menu that will allow the user to copy the sighting to one of his/her other lists. No duplicate data entry required.

Birdlist insert dialog with bird selection

Another planned feature that will reduce effort is import and export of lists. Import will allow a user to import sighting data into a new list, while export would export a list (or portions of a list) into a different format. There are a number of challenges to implementing import, but first and foremost is the format of the incoming list. Even if the incoming list has the same number of fields, and the fields generally map to one another one-to-one, the problem is identifying which bird a record goes with. Bird name is not a flawless indicator, since birds can have more than one name (ie. White-winged Scoter and Velvet Scoter) and this leaves a problem. I think the best solution would be to use bird name, but when an entry comes up that cannot be matched allow the user to manually select the correct bird.

Exporting lists into different formats would be useful for backup purposes (although the application backs up by default on the N810) or for displaying in HTML on the internet. Allowing the user to select a subset of a list (all the birds that have been seen but not photographed, all the birds that have been photographed but do not have an image, birds seen in a given month, birds seen in a given year, etc) would be interesting for statistical analysis or just curiosity.

Birdlist preferences

If the user clicks on a sighting to select that row, and then clicks on the image portion or the row a dialog will pop up to show a larger image. Zooming and rotation are not currently implemented, but they are on the road map. The entire photo handling/selection portion of the application is due for an overhaul.

If the user has the sighting selected and click on any text portion a dialog will pop up containing identification information. This is like a brief field guide, with juvenile description, differences between sexes, primary identification and alternate form identification, and similar species. This can be very useful in the field, but it is only available for the more common North American species. Currently the data comes from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, but I have not determined whether it is appropriate to be distributed with the program. I will include a web lookup in future versions.

Birdlist statistics

The application has a number of options that can be changed to suit different preferences. Having the application start in fullscreen mode, or only showing birds that have been seen will save a few clicks and a bit of time on each startup. The font option affects the entire interface and can be small enough to show quite a bit of information at a glance yet large enough to read easily. Obviously there is no one setting that is just right for everyone, which is why this is changeable. Column sizing with a stylus on a small screen can be quite challenging, so having an option to select widths where the columns wrap their text is hopefully simpler and only has to be done once.

The program generates a few statistics that I find useful from time to time. Using the total number of birds in the list, the number of bird sightings in the list, and the number of sightings that have been photographed (if the list displays photos) produces three raw numbers and three percentages that can be gratifying to see (15% or North American birds sighted).

Birdlist main view showing non-seen birds

The application now has a "First Time Run Wizard" that takes the user through the steps of setting up a first list and changing the program preferences before starting up for the first time. Changing the program to allow the use of different species lists (mentioned above) is the last hurdle preventing me from releasing this version to the public. This version may never see public release, since the number birders that own an N800 or N810 internet tablet is probably quite limited. The Qt4 version would run on many more platforms, increasing the number of people who would be interested in the program. While there is a bit of limbo waiting to see whether Qt4 will run sufficiently well on the tablet, I am quite happy using this current version. If anyone happens to be reading this blog (unlikely) and owns one of the aforementioned devices (very unlikely) and would like to try this software (extremely unlikely) send me an email and I will send you a copy.

If anyone reading this blog has an idea they think would improve this program and future version (much more likely) please email me or leave a comment.

Glaucous Gull - New Life Bird

Great Black-Backed Gull

Having just spoken about my difficulties with warbler identification I will now address another problem area I have - gulls. Warblers are difficult for me because they are small, in constant motion, difficult to photograph, and there are so many types. Gulls are difficult for another reason, primarily because whenever I see a gull or group or gulls I assume they are Ring-Billed Gulls. Sparrows are the same, I assume they are all House Sparrows. The problem this creates is that I seldom study a group of gulls for individuals that are different, with few exceptions.

I will usually look for Herring Gulls in a group a Ring-Billeds, mostly just for the practise of identifying them. Great Black-Backed Gulls, like the ones currently hanging around the Burlington Lift Bridge, are impossible not to notice due to their great size and black backs. I just found out today that the Great Black-Backed is the world's largest gull.

Glaucous Gull (back)

Another problem with gulls is the immatures and juveniles. Most gull species take two to three - and sometimes four - years to reach their full adult plumage. I have enough problems with adult identification. It will be a number of years before I can determine the species of an immature gull with any great measure of confidence.

The other day I was looking on the ice on the bay at the lift bridge for my first Bald Eagle of the year. The eagles are very regularly seen on the ice, though they tend to be too far out for good pictures with my equipment. I believe the eagles are fishing on the ice by waiting beside some open water for fish to appear. While looking at the eagles and wishing for a longer lens I heard to birders talking about Glaucous Gulls being seen on the ice earlier in the day.

Glaucous Gull flying
Three Bald Eagles (back)

My list of life gulls is very short, consisting of the previously mentioned Ring-Billed, Herring, Great Black-Backed, and Bonaparte's Gull. I was very interested in adding another gull to my list, but it did not happen that day. Yesterday I was at the lift bridge again, and while looking at the eagles on the ice I noticed a gull sitting close by with a white back. I knew the Glaucous was a white-backed gull, but also that the Iceland Gull is similar in appearance.

When I got home and showed my photos to Ron and Lynda we saw that the gull was quite a bit larger than the Ring-Billeds it was standing behind, making it definitely a Glaucous. I added it to my life list, which now happily contains five gull species. A winter trip to the nearby Niagara River would almost guarantee more gulls, but I would need to go with a good gull-identifying birder to get the most out of it.

Red-Breasted Merganser

My trip to the lift bridge yesterday also afforded me with my closest look this year at a Red-Breasted Merganser. Four mergansers were swimming right off the end of the canal walkway, and I popped my head over the wall to take some photos. Somewhat surprisingly they did not take flight, being a nervous duck, but swam calmly away. There were more White-Winged Scoters on the canal than I have seen in one place before, and not a single Surf Scoter to be seen with them.

There are at least eight adult Great Black-Backeds hanging around the lake end of the canal, and the Long-Tailed Ducks are still present in good numbers. Scaup and Redheads are also around, but for some reason I still haven't seen a Canvasback at the lift bridge. Identifying Scaup will be the subject of a future post, assuming I can take a picture of each and identify it myself!

Last May's Warblers

Nashville Warbler

In May of 2008 I frequented Paletta Park in Burlington, only a few minutes from my work, during my lunch hour. There were many good opportunities to view warblers - something that I had not done with any great measure of success before. Warblers remain one of my weak points in identification (as I'm sure they are for others) but after watching a good spring migration I now have quite a few sightings under my belt.

The biggest opportunity I missed at Paletta last year was a Worm-Eating Warbler that hung around for about a week. This elusive skulker eluded me, although I managed some good pictures of a White-Eyed Vireo that was spotted at the same time and caused much excitement. I'm sure I didn't come close to seeing half the warbler species that were seen at Paletta during the spring, but I think May was my most successful warbler month so far.

Wilson's Warbler

I saw quite a few Nashville Warblers, as seen in the first photo here. The grey head and white eye ring make for easy identification. Yellow Warblers were among the earliest, along with Yellow-Rumped Warblers. Yellow and Yellow-Rumped were the most numerous in this particular area.

Wilson's Warbler came around the same time as the Canada Warblers, and both were new life species for me. The black cap on the male Wilson's makes it immediately identifiable, as do the dark back and necklace of dark streaks on the Canada. The aptly-name Black-Throated Blue look just as their name suggest, but I only saw them in the shadows deep in a row of cedars which doesn't make for good photographs.

Canada Warbler

The most memorable warbler of the spring was a male Common Yellowthroat. While walking the paths of Paletta the first few days after warblers started to appear I marked out an out-of-the-way spot that I felt quite likely for warblers. After a couple of weeks I hadn't seen anything significant there when I saw some movement. A male Yellowthroat - my first - hopped right out in front of me into the sun on a branch a few feet away. He posed for a few photos before making his way off again to catch some bugs.

Common Yellowthroat

Other miscellaneous warblers I was able to see were Pine Warbler, Palm Warbler, and American Redstart along with various Flycatchers and Vireos. Ten species of warblers is not a significant portion of what came through, but it was enough to add seven to my life list. Hopefully next spring I'll be able to get down to Long Point Provincial Park during peak migration and add another 20 or more. I went to Long Point once last spring, but before the migration really got started.

Northern Hawk Owl

Way back on December 9th of 2007, just over a year ago, I saw my first ever owl. It was definitely not an owl I would have expected to get, given that it is not usually seen in this area. The Northern Hawk Owl occasionally irrupts South of its range during the winter if food is scarce, and this is what happened last year.

About a week earlier the owl was first reported in the Hamilton area. My father-in-law, Ron, was quite excited by the news and we decided to try and see it. I think I am correct in stating that Ron hadn't seen the Hawk Owl before - I remember that on a previous trip on the Polar Bear Express he was scouring the tops of evergreen trees for them.

We didn't get the owl on our first attempt at Port Weller, St. Catharine's. It was quite a cold day and we were surprised to see a sizable flock of Robins in the trees. I didn't really know what to look for, so I kept an eye on the tops of evergreen trees. After about an hour we decided to call it a day in part due to the cold and lack of success and in part because I had to get home for when Finn woke up from his (supervised) nap.

During the week that followed it was reported that the Hawk Owl was not again observed in Port Weller, but regular sightings were now being reported in Stoney Creek. The following weekend I set out again to observe this owl, but Ron wasn't available (and saw it the day before from afar) so I was travelling solo. When I arrived at the reported site another birder was just arriving as well. We walked the wrong direction at first, but as we were heading back to our cars another birder told us exactly where the owl was.

About 150 m along a railroad track it became evident where the owl was currently. Three men with expensive photography equipment were lined up beside the track with their cameras aimed atop their tripods at the woods. The birder I first ran into had only a pair of binoculars, and I had a relatively small lens and no tripod.

The owl was quite close at hand and seemed not to be bothered by the people watching him. He was quite a handsome owl - compact without being fat, very stripy, and fairly intelligent looking. I took a few pictures the moment he came into view in case he flew off, but he was quite unconcerned with us.

As we watched he flew from his perch on top of a tree and dove into a ditch, and when he emerged he was carrying a vole or a mouse. He took this to the top of a dead tree and started going about the business of being an owl eating a small rodent. At one point he flew over to a low branch of a large tree right across from me - still with his meal.

Once he had finished up his meal I took a few more photos and prepared to leave. It was more or less at this point that I found out that one of the photographers had already been there for about five hours following the owl. I had been there all of about 20 minutes with my lesser equipment and found I was more than satisfied with the results. There were reports later in the winter of photographers baiting the owl with frozen mice to get better pictures. I thought it had been cooperative enough just letter us watch it for a few minutes.

This owl was my second success following a mailing list to a rare bird. Less than a month earlier I saw a Brent Goose or Brant at Burloak Park. I remember I drove home from work and Ron told me a Brant was in the area. We immediately set off with Finn back to Burloak Park, which I had passed on the way home. It was just starting to get dark when we got there and there wasn't a bird in sight. Then an immature Brant stuck his head up from behind some rocks, walked around a large rock, and disappeared again. I got some disappointing photos, and have not seen a Brant since.

Birding on Vacation

Red-Shouldered Hawk

My entire family loves vacationing at Disney World in Florida. This presents a unique challenge to myself as a birder - do I spend as much time as possible enjoying the vacation with my family, or do I try to take a bit of time to do some birding and possibly add some species to my list?

Obviously I try to spend as much time with my loved ones enjoying the sites, sounds, attractions, and weather. In my last three trips I have found that vacation and birding do not need to be mutually exclusive. The picture of the Red-Shouldered Hawk was taken in the Animal Kingdom park as we walked from one attraction to another. It remains the only Red-Shouldered I have seen.

It can be a bit tricky, especially with a park like Animal Kingdom, to make sure the bird you are seeing is not part of the attraction. In the case of the Red-Shouldered, it was actively hunting (you can see a mouse or vole in the talons) and completely free of any enclosure. I have never been able to bring myself to count the Roseate Spoonbills in this park on my life list. Although they are native to the area, I always see them in an enclosure.

Common Moorhen

Common Moorhen are a common site around the lagoon at Epcot. I always keep my eyes peeled for a Purple Gallinule, but it has so far eluded me. The Magic Kingdom has recently become an excellent place to view White Ibis, and in fact it is nearly impossible to miss them. The parking lot for Disney Studios is a sure place to see both Common and Boat-Tailed Grackles.

During my first Disney World vacation with my wife in 2005 (I had been numerous times as a child as well) I first became interested in bird photography. I had borrowed a 70-300mm Sigma lens from a friend because I had never been to Animal Kingdom before and wanted some good pictures. I found lots of birds around the camp site and parks to practise using the lens on, and was soon attempting to take better bird photographs.

Tri-Colored Heron (front)
White Ibis (back)

In 2007, during our first trip to Disney World with our son, I would go for a walk with Finn each morning to let Erin sleep in a little. On our last morning I took Finn out in his backpack and walked to the beach near the campground. I took some good pictures of gulls, herons, and egrets (my wife considers them her favourite bird photos of mine) and saw an unusual looking bird walking along the shore.

I was able to get some good photographs, and with the help of my in-laws identified the bird as a Limpkin. It was about this time that I started listing in earnest, and the Limpkin remains the only bird on my life list that Ron has not seen. This is a bit of an accidental birding triumph of mine.

I began a practise during our last vacation to walk around the area near our hotel while Finn and Erin napped during the day. I was willing to give up some much needed rest to take the opportunity to do a bit of birding without missing quality family time. There are ponds, both drainage and natural, all over the place near the value hotels so I was able to get some good looks at ducks and wading birds. I got my best picture to date of a Ringed-Necked Duck - you can even see the cinnamon coloured ring on the neck that is usually difficult to observe.

Travel between parks and hotel - whether by bus, monorail, boat, or car - are also a good time to look for birds (assuming you are not driving). Herons and Egrets are easy to spot standing beside ponds, pelicans and anhingas are common sites when taking a boat, and hawk, vultures, eagles, and osprey can be seen soaring above. Even travelling to the airport after our last vacation afforded me a sighting of a life bird - a Wood Stork - from the bus. I had been watching for a stork for the whole vacation, and got it about half an hour before it ended.

Ring-Necked Duck

Another challenge of birding on vacation is maintaining lists. Last time I was keeping my life list and year list up to date, and also created a trip list. The life list is the easiest - you generally have a pretty good idea which bird is a life bird when you see it. It is fun going to Florida in January or February and coming back with a year list that has been doubled with species you won't see at home until much later in the year or not at all. The trip list is fun but the most challenging. You need to record every bird you see, even the common ones you have already seen that year at home.

It is probably unsurprising after reading this to find that we are again going to be vacationing in Disney World this winter. We all love it, and Finn is in even more of a position to enjoy it than his last two trips. He talks about it all the time, and he wasn't even two last time he was down. With Finn getting older it will likely be harder to find time to bird without disrupting the vacation.

Erin has very generously offered to take a day away from the parks when we can rent a car and drive somewhere reasonably close by to bird. While this is an extremely tempting offer, and I appreciate her willingness to sacrifice some enjoyment to allow me to bird, there is no way I would deny her and Finn a day of fun in the parks. Let's face it - I would have a great time with them in the park, while it would be a total drag for them to come birding with me. I will have to find another way to bird without disrupting the vacation, and - as I have found time after time - that is definitely possible.

Winter Ducks

Redhead

Hamilton is a great place to look for winter ducks.  As areas to the North freeze over, the ducks make their way South.  Many of them stop in the Hamilton area until it starts to freeze over here.  Lake Ontario takes a long time to freeze over, so there is usually enough time to see them during their stop over.

Redheads and Canvasbacks come in good numbers, usually fairly early.  When I first saw a Readhead, I thought I would have trouble telling them from Canvasbacks due to their very similar colouration.  After seeing Canvasbacks a week or so later, I realized it would be very difficult to miss that distinct profile

Canvasback

Long-Tailed Ducks are always around in extremely large groups.  The males are always loud and boisterous, and the females strike me as cute. I first saw them through a scope off Fruitland Road in Stoney Creek on a very grey winter day, but have subsequently seen them at La Salle Marina, the Burlington Lift Bridge, and Spencer Smith Park. It turns out you don't usually need a scope to see this social duck - at the lift bridge the other day they were diving in the canal right at my feet. Their group diving fascinates me - a group of twenty-five or so will all dive within seconds of each other and resurface within seconds of each other.

Greater Scaup and Lesser Scaup are probably my biggest identification problem among the ducks seen in this area. One of the best ways of telling them apart (as far as I can tell) is the colour of the heads of the males, and that can vary a huge amount depending on the light. The first sentence from this page - Identification guide - Greater and Lesser Scaup - is not very encouraging: "Except for the wing marks, Greater and Lesser Scaup appear nearly identical in the field." This is something I will have to work on, and fortunately there are plenty of Scaup here to try to identify.

Long-Tailed Duck

I am always happy to photograph White-Winged Scoters and Surf Scoters. White-Winged are more common around here, but if there is a big enough group there is almost invariably a Surf Scoter in with them. The Surf Scoter's clownish appearance is always delightful, and the shy-but-not-too-shy nature makes them a challenging-but-not-too-challenging target. The Black Scoter is occasionally reported around here, but I have yet to see one.

Two White-Winged Scoters
Surf Scoter (centre)

When approaching a group of ducks at La Salle or the canal I am usually initially dismayed if there are Common Goldeneye among them. These extremely shy ducks will flush at the slightest perceived provocation, often flushing other ducks in the process. My desire to see the much more rare (around here) Barrow's Goldeneye and the challenge of getting better shots makes it worthwhile to try to get closer to a group of Goldeneyes.

Mergansers are another shy target. We get Common Merganser, Red-Breasted Merganser, and Hooded Merganser here, sometimes in good numbers, but are often out past the range of a good shot for my equipment. Last winter an American Wood Duck overwintered at La Salle, and several pairs of American Wigeon showed up fairly late in the winter. I don't think I have ever been to Windamere Basin and not seen a Northern Shoveler, nor have I ever seen a Shoveler anywhere else. Talk about your local speciality. Ruddy Ducks are often to be found in small numbers either at La Salle or Windamere.

Birding Ethics

I touched on a point in my previous post about some photographers having a bad reputation around owls in these parts.  There have been a couple of incidences recently of photographers not respecting the privacy of differenct owl species.

The most recent incident was a group of photographers trying to get photographs of a Boreal Owl near Toronto.  Allegations were made that the photographers stayed longer than necessary to try to get better pictures, talked louder than necessary distrubing the owl, and even went as far as to remove branches from trees to give better views.

Last winter I heard tales of photographers baiting the local Northern Hawk-Owl with frozed mice to get better pictures.  I also heard (albeit third-hand) of a photographer or group of photographers that went as far as disguising a remote control car as a beaver and driving it on the ice to get photos of hungry Bald Eagles.  I cannot verify either story, but if either is true it is indeed sad.

I think it is important that everybody interested in birds, not just photographers, become familiar with some guide lines to ensure the safety and comfort of the birds and the enjoyment of the bird watcher.  After 10 seconds of searching, I found the following:  Nature Photography Ethics

Sadly, there will always be bad apples that are only interested in their photographs and not the birds themselves.  Some people think not reporting interesting birds will deter these peoples, and while that is likely true it also prevents people from getting the enjoyment of seeing the bird.  While it may seem calous to potentially endanger a bird for the enjoyment or people, there are entire communities devoted to reporting and enjoying birds.

I don't have an easy answer.  I'm not very good at opinion pieces, but I felt I had to say this.  If you have feelings about this, I would love to hear about it in the comments.

First Life Bird of 2009

I was commenting to my wife about a week ago that I need to get more owls on my list. My only owl came last winter when a Northern Hawk-Owl wintered over nearby, presumably due to a deer mouse population crash up North.

Last Friday I was birding at La Salle Marina to build up my 2009 year list. While I was pointing out the Ruddy Ducks to a fellow photographer he told me about a large number of Long-Tailed Ducks at the Burlington Lift Bridge.

On Monday I went to the lift bridge and added a couple of gulls and a Peregrine Falcon. I got some pictures of the Peregrine flying with a pigeon in his/her talons. When I got home to look at the pictures I was extremely disappointed to see that I had the camera set to over expose. I immediately set the camera correctly, and I was lucky that I already had pictures of those birds previously.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I went back to the lift bridge to see if the Peregrine was still hanging around. I didn't see him/her at the lift birdge, so I walked down to the end of the canal. There were large number of Long-Tailed Ducks, Red-Breasted Mergansers, small groups of White-Winged Scoters, Ring-Billed Gulls and a single Black-Backed Gull.

All of a sudden all the gulls took off with a lot of noise, and many of the ducks started swimming away. When there was nothing else close by I turned around to walk back to my car, and there on the wall about 20 m from me was a Snowy Owl!

As this is the first time in my life I have seen a Snowy, I'm not sure if it was an immature or a female, or maybe even a male not in winter plumage yet.

The owl watched me calmly as I turned around and got a few pictures. He/she went back to looking around and I realized that in order to get back to my car I would have to pass within 5 m on the narrow walkway. Before this became as issue the gulls chased him/her off and they flew away.

I followed them for as long as I could hoping they would circle around, but they flew off a long way over the lake. I was struck by how similar in size the owl and the gulls were.

It turns out I had a clue on my way down the walkway. As I was looking at the ducks in the canal my foot hit a high spot in the walkway. I looked down, and just in front of me were a pair of severed wings that could have belonged to a pigeon or small duck (I didn't look at them too closely). I thought that was an odd place for them, as the falcon brings his/her pray somewhere high to eat in peace.

I knew there were more Snowy Owl sightings in the area recently due to a lemming population crash up North, but I hadn't heard ot any reports for the area around the lift bridge. I was completely surprised to get my second owl and first life bird of the year.

There have been some reports on a local mailing list about photographers not being respectful of owls while taking photographs. The accusations stop short of harassment, but there was a couple of days right around my sighting that the mailing list was pretty charged against owl photography.

It's funny how I can go my whole life without seeing a particular bird, and then once I see it the first time I get another sighting almost right away. Today I saw another Snowy Owl about 15 km from the first sighting. No sightings for 28 years (2 years of that bird watching) then two sightings in two days.

Introduction

Hello blogosphere!

My name (as can be easily determined) is Andrew, and I am a Canadian bird enthusiast and amateur photographer. I have been birding for about 2 years, and taking bird photographs for somewhat longer than that. I am often asked how I got into birding, so I will relate that story along with my limited birding experience.

I have been taking photographs of various things for about 12 years, starting with a manual film camera, then a digital point & shoot, and now a digital SLR. I currently use a Nikon D50 with a cheap Sigma 70-300 lens for bird pictures. I started photographing birds as a challenge for myself when I started to be interested in wildlife photography.

I first started keeping records of my birding activities in May of 2007. My in-laws, Ron and Lynda, took me to a wood lot in town to look for some early warblers. I saw a Scarlet Tanager and a couple of warblers, and have been keeping track ever since.

I should mention that Ron and Lynda have a lot of birding experience, with something in the neighbourhood of 400 North American life species. I am lucky to have such a good birding resource close at hand - and it does come in handy.

Since that day in May I have recorded 140 life species, and taken photographs of 136 of them. My newest addition was yesterday, and will be the subject of another post. I have written several programs for keeping my lists, the first being a PHP program with a MySQL database. Although I no longer use this program, I have set up and maintained a copy for my father-in-law that he uses for his life list and year lists.

I have two current projects in various states of usefulness. First, a GTK program for my Nokia Internet Tablet that provides a good interface to XML lists. Second is a Qt program that I can run on my desktop or tablet with an SQL backend. My goal is to release one or both of these as open source programs one day.

Enough for now. More information will be forthcoming.