I’m always amused when birders fret about the way “the others” see us. In a new article in the Vancouver Sun, a Vancouver Island birder with a bit part in “The Big Year” muses that the movie may produce a more positive public image for birders.

I’m amused because I don’t think that birding has a public image. Those as yet unbitten by the bug don’t spend their time thinking about the rest of us and our curious hobby; ask the person on the street what she thinks about birds and birders, and she’ll look at you like you’re insane–not because you’re a birder, but because you’ve stopped her on the street to ask her such a bizarre question.

I suspect, too, that the enthusiastic extra hasn’t actually read the book on which the movie is based. It’s a good book, often funny, but I’d never say tha the light cast on its principal figures is anything but a black one. We’ll see. My prediction is that it will be a very good movie (at least the parts of it with Steve Martin–never heard of the other two principal actors), and that it will have as much effect on the “public perception” of birding as, say, a movie about crocheting or Studebaker collectors might.

What do you think?

What do you think? Leave your answer as a comment below–the first correct answer, and the best incorrect answer, will win a WINGS cap.

What North American breeding bird has an English name that commemorates a site in the southeastern US and a scientific name that commemorates a site in the northwestern US?

Rick Wright e-mails from Rome:

It’s always tantalizing for a leader to show up the day before a tour begins. It’s essential, of course: there are always last-minute arrangements to attend to, always last-minute emergencies to fix. But once all that’s out of the way (and thanks to the yeoman work done by the Tour Managers back in Tucson, it never takes all that much time), then it’s time to go birding. A few hours to re-familiarize yourself with routes and sites, to gauge the progress of the season, or even, as I’ve done today, just to get your ear back in.

I’m staying at a very pleasant Holiday Inn between Rome and Fiumicino Airport, where Marco and I will meet up with the group tomorrow for the drive north into Tuscany. It was raining when I arrived, but it let up soon enough that I threw on my jacket and took a stroll around the neighborhood. It’s not exactly wilderness here in the middle of our industrial park, but I was amazed by what I saw. Among the thirty species I tallied in a two-hour stroll, never getting more than a quarter mile from the hotel’s parking lot, were Hobby, European Turtle-Dove, European Bee-eater, Rose-ringed Parakeet, Sardinian Warbler, Zitting Cisticola, Cetti’s Warbler, Firecrest, and (naturally) Italian Sparrow.

A good start, and all I could do to keep from asking the front desk to get all the other early arrivals downstairs so we could start birding!

What is the easternmost county with an accepted record of Varied Thrush?

The vagrancy range of Varied Thrush is vast, with accepted records in all but a couple of the US states and Canadian provinces.

The westernmost record seems to come from Wrangel Island, Russia, right on the 180th meridian. The easternmost record comes from November 1982 in the county of Cornwall in southwest Britain, a bird of unknown sex lacking any orange in the plumage.

Barry Rossheim was the first to identify that record as the easternmost–you’ll soon be able to recognize him in the field by the dapper WINGS cap atop his head.

The May question will appear this weekend in the newest edition of the WINGS e-newsletter. Will you win this time?

New rules will go into effect January 1, 2012, governing inter-island travel in the Galápagos.

Starting in January 2012, no vessel will be permitted to visit the same site more than once every 14 days. The brilliant week-long itineraries now in effect will no longer be possible; by visiting the best sites, those itineraries make them unavailable for the next week’s cruise. It seems certain that all cruise companies will now divide up the best islands so that each week’s cruise visits some–but of necessity not all.

The upshot for birders? If you want the best of the Galápagos in just a week’s time, plan to go this year or in 2011.  Rich Hoyer’s next cruise is scheduled for November 12-21, 2010, followed by another convenient, but different, itinerary in November 2012.

What is the easternmost county with an accepted record of Varied Thrush?

Leave your answer here as a comment.  As always the first correct answer, and the best incorrect answer, will win a prize!

Last month’s winners were Roger Craik and Austin Saupe; the correct answer was British Columbia, the province that has held CBC records for high counts of many species, among them Golden-crowned Kinglet and Dusky Thrush.

The NYT has a good-looking and very timely slide show from “The Valley” on line. If you’ve never been, this should whet your appetite–along with the most recent reports from Gavin Bieber’s spring and winter tours to one of the great meccas of American birding.

Among the brilliant beauties lurking in the Rio Grande’s narrow band of thornscrub are Altamira Orioles. And who knows, perhaps your visit will be graced by something as surprising as the Black-vented Oriole photographed on South Padre Island two days ago.

PHoto: New York Times.

The rediscovery of the Santa Marta Sabrewing holds out hope for the many other “Santa Marta endemics” of Colombia.

You can read all about it in today’s NYT.

As WINGS clients know, Oregon offers some of the most exciting birding on the continent.

Now there’s an outstanding online guide to Oregon and its birds–just the sort of thing to whet your appetite for Rich Hoyer’s next tour!

Serendib Scops Owl. Photo: Uditha Hettidge.

Deepal Warakagoda, the leader of our tours to Sri Lanka, has done it again. Already well known for his discovery of the Serendib Scops Owl, Deepal recently found a population of Marshall’s Ioras breeding on the “tear of India,” as the magical Island of Sri Lanka is sometimes known.

Marshall's Iora. Wikimedia Commons: Arpit Deomurari.

The colorful Marshall’s Iora had been thought to be restricted to the Indian mainland, making Deepal’s discover a significant one. And we have a good chance of seeing this newest addition to the Sri Lankan avifauna on our next tour, in the area of Tissa.