James Lidster has posted some photos to his blog from the latest Morocco tour.

I leave it up to you whether he succeeds in not looking suspicious while searching for (and finding) Maghreb Tawny Owl!

Registration for this year’s Southwest Wings festival starts on Monday. Timed for the peak of diversity in southeast Arizona, this is one of the largest, best-attended, and of course birdiest events around.

Among this year’s field trip leaders will be Rich Hoyer, leading nearly every day, and Rick Wright, conducting one overnight tour to California Gulch  for Montezuma Quail, Varied Bunting, Five-striped Sparrow, and a surprise or two. This year’s keynote speaker is Kenn Kaufman, a giant on the birding scene and one of the most thoughtful birders, writers, and educators around. Join us!

California Gulch. Photo: Rick Wright.

Photo: Gary Froehlich

Many thanks to Gary Froehlich for some remarkable photos–and for this very helpful tip on seeking the Fan-tailed  Warbler he discovered at the Melrose Migrant Trap:

“Stunned disbelief is probably the best description of my intial reaction. In the three-hour wait that followed my calls to other birders, I learned the bird’s foraging patterns. Thus, I was able to sit quietly with camera in hand and let the bird come to me. It seemed more puzzled by my presence than frightened.”

Photo: Gary Froehlich.

Patience and quiet perseverance are wonderfully well rewarded–for birders and the birds.

Photo: Gary Froehlich

Photo: Gary Froehlich.

Melrose Migrant Trap, Roosevelt Co., NM. Photo: MATT BAUMANN

Many thanks to Matt Baumann for this photo of New Mexico’s first Fan-tailed Warbler–one of only about 10 US records of this charismatic species. The bird was discovered yesterday at the Melrose Trap, and is still showing nicely this morning, May 19.

A Fan-tailed Warbler was discovered an hour ago 11 miles west of Melrose, NM.

If memory serves, this would be a first record for that incredibly birdy state, and only the 9th or 10th for the ABA Area overall.

As updates come in, I’ll post them here. And if you want help in trying for the bird, consider a professional guide from AZ-Birding.com .

Kirtland’s Warbler. Photo: Jon Dunn.

Spring, and a birder’s fancy turns to thoughts of warblers–in Central Park, Mount Auburn, the Institute Woods. But it is at such famous midwestern sites as Crane Creek, Tawas Point, and Point Pelee that the major eastern migration routes converge, and a good day can produce spectacular numbers and an impressive diversity of these “butterflies of the bird world.”

Among the most sought-after is Kirtland’s Warbler, a major target of Jon Dunn and Stuart Elsom’s tour to Ontario, Michigan, and Ohio, which is underway even as I write. Famous for its rarity and its specialized habitat requirements, Kirtland’s Warbler has fascinated generations of American ornithologists and birders, among them Nathan Leopold–of Leopold and Loeb fame.

In 1922 and 1923, Leopold made two trips to the Michigan breeding areas of Kirtland’s Warbler. He published his observations in the Auk in 1924, the same year in which he and Richard Loeb confessed to the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks.

Leopold moved to Puerto Rico following his release from prison, and devoted the rest of his life to watching that island’s forest endemics. In 1963 he published his “Checklist of Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.”

Each year, WINGS and Sunbird arrange a number of private tours with our Senior Leaders for groups and individuals. The past couple of months have seen us in the field in Arizona, California, Mexico, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico, with more private excursions coming up to such notable birding destinations as Panama.

A private tour to Ecuador with Gary Rosenberg might take in spectacular Papallacta Pass. Photo: Gary Rosenberg

In addition to flexible scheduling and even more personal attention, birders on private tours benefit from the leader’s ability to tailor the route and itinerary to the participants’ needs, whether that involves concentrating on a “target list” or taking the time for a complete natural history experience.

You can set up your own private tour at any time, for yourself, your friends, your bird club, by making contact with us here at WINGS or at Sunbird.

For shorter visits to Arizona, you can also reserve a private guide on line at AZ-Birding.com.

I admire my colleagues for many things, chief among them their imagination–the ability to see connections where many people would not.

A great example: Jon Dunn’s new tour combining birding with an exploration of Civil War history in Georgia and South Carolina.

As we approach the 150th anniversary of that traumatic period in US history, thousands of commemorations will take place across the country; Jon’s new tour adds depth and perspective by connecting the natural history and the human history of some quintessentially American landscapes.

Rich Hoyer, just back from a phenomenally successful tour of northeastern Mexico, reflects on keeping healthy while traveling:

I was guiding a private tour in Tecolutla, Mexico, when the first cases of the current strain of swine flu were being detected by health authorities. This was only 75 miles from the pig farms of La Gloria, where it was thought to have started.

Then, at the end of a fantastic tour to southern Tamaulipas and the El Cielo Biosphere, my group and I saw guys hawking newspapers on the streets of Matamoros. I managed to glimpse the words “Influenza Porcina,” and you don’t need a degree in Spanish to figure out what that translates to. Gosh, did we just barely escape this scary country in the nick of time!

Given recent reports in the media, this seems like a good time for some tips to help you stay healthy while traveling through airports. While the most recent news has eased our fears of the swine flu (media overhype can be carried on for only so long, after all), we are reminded of the fact that travel does indeed expose us to pathogens that can make their way around the world through humans’ increased mobility.

By now, we’re more aware of the nature of this particular outbreak and the reasons that it caused such a stir at first. But people paying attention, and not relying just on the overhyped mainstream media, also quickly realized quickly that many of the reactions, such as travel bans and the slaughtering of pigs, were little founded.

For one thing, it was clear early on that even though people traveling from Mexico were spreading the flu worldwide, there were not simultaneously infecting all of the passengers in the airplanes and airports. The publicized overreactions were at times even comical, but they may still have led people to cancel travel plans needlessly.

The birding we do in rural areas is about as safe as you can get. In fact, even if we had been birding forest patches across the road from the pig farms of La Gloria, there is no way we could have caught the flu.

But you are exposed to a lot more human contact in airports. Make it a habit to wash your hands frequently, including:

• on entering the bathroom and again when you leave.

• after touching surfaces that a lot of other people have touched, such as handrails on escalators and moving walkways

• after handling money

• before putting food into your mouth.

Be aware where you are putting your hands and avoid touching your mouth, nose, and eyes. And remember, if you’re not feeling well, you could be the one spreading some bug. So try to stay healthy before travel by eating good food, exercising, and avoiding stress.

Dreaming about all the great birds you’ll see on our trips should help as well.

James Lidster writes from the field:

May 2:  Pleasantly surprised to have wifi in my hotel, so I’m writing this after dinner. Outside my window are 6 White-tailed Eagles and 200+ Smew, as well as some distant Common Cranes and hundreds more ducks and geese.

May 3: Headed out by 5:00 am. Our first stop was to look at 4 White-fronted Geese, and two of them were Lesser White-fronted Geese! Flocks of Barnacle Geese going over, and small numbers of Common Cranes. By  breakfast at 9:00, we’d also seen Tundra Bean Geese, Bewick’s and Whooper Swans, Garganey, Common Merganser, Smew, Horned Grebe, Marsh Harrier, double figures of White-tailed Eagles, White Stork, and Gray-headed, White-backed, and Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers. After breakfast: more of the same plus Woodlark, Savi’s Warbler, Mealy Redpoll, and Willow, Bearded and Penduline Tits.

May 4: Today’s highlights included displaying Black Grouse, a female Capercaillie in flight, Black Woodpecker, Bohemian Waxwing, and Eurasian Wryneck–all before breakfast. The morning in fantastic fresh-smelling pine/birch forest, with Wood Warblers and Tree Pipits singing, Black Grouse “bubbling,” and a real feeling of remoteness. Later we saw several Caspian Terns, Black Stork, White Storks on nests, more White-tailed Eagles and best of all a Red-breasted Goose among the thousands of Barnacle Geese (estimate of 50,000 for the day!).

May 5-6: Thousands of Long-tailed Ducks, with hundreds of  Velvet and Common Scoters. Mixed in were smaller numbers of Greater Scaup, Common Eider, Red-throated and Arctic Loons, Little Gulls, and a lone Parasitic Jaeger. The setting for our seawatch was a superb pine forest at the water’s edge, with groups of Common Crossbill and Siskins flying about. Driving south,  Lesser Spotted Eagles, good looks at Montagu’s and Hen Harriers, and a lone Honey Buzzard. Some fields held Eurasian Whimbrel, 200+ European Golden Plover, Ringed Plover, and Ruff.

May 6: A quick coffee before driving to Nigula, a stunning area of mixed birch, aspen, and conifer forest. European Nightjar, Common Crane, two Hazelhen, Black Woodpecker at a nest hole, Wood Warblers, and a heard-only Red-breasted Flycatcher. Mammals included Mountain Hare and Roe Deer, and some distant cow-type noises were presumably Elk. Back at the hotel, I can see many Long-tailed Ducks offshore. An interesting diversion provided by an Adder hiding out under our front tire.

James’s full report on this 2009 tour to Estonia will be posted to the WINGS website. Meanwhile, you can see more of his photos at his blog, and ponder participating in next year’s tour, May 2-9, 2010.