{"id":432,"date":"2011-06-21T10:40:16","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T15:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/?p=432"},"modified":"2011-06-21T10:40:16","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T15:40:16","slug":"black-rail-masked-duck-yellow-green-vireos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/?p=432","title":{"rendered":"Black Rail, Masked Duck & Yellow-green Vireos"},"content":{"rendered":"

My summer birding has been going well.\u00a0 After reaching 700 North American lifers, as previously posted herein, I returned to Iowa where I was able to locate, by ear, my first ever Black Rail<\/strong>.\u00a0 This elusive bird has seldom been seen in Iowa and is very difficult to see anywhere.\u00a0 This one has been heard and seen near Solon in eastern Iowa for several weeks, and many birders and photographers from near and far\u00a0have\u00a0trudged through the muddy and vegetated river-bottom swamp to see it.\u00a0 I slowly and tediously followed suit, the mud very nearly\u00a0sucking my boots\u00a0 off my feet.\u00a0 I did not see the bird, nor do I intend to try further.\u00a0 I think it deserves some protection\u00a0from over-intrusive birders and photographers who have created muddy, matted down trails through the swamp, and have over-used recordings of the Rail’s call in order to get the bird to come close, thinking\u00a0it has a potential mate or rival. He or she has little prospect of that here in Iowa, so far from the Black Rail’s traditional nesting areas.\u00a0 My newly adopted personal view is that hearing is as good as seeing if you are absolutely sure of the call, which I am.\u00a0 Moreover, it eliminates the foolish<\/strong>\u00a0incentive to disturb unnecessarily the target bird and thereby perhaps damage its prospects of survival or reproduction.\u00a0 And so, the Black Rail becomes my North American Life Bird number 702, and Iowa Life Bird number 327.\u00a0 Inconsistent <\/strong>with the\u00a0opinions of some\u00a0purists in the birding community, and especially photographers, (and, I must admit,\u00a0my own past practice), the Black Rail becomes my very first “heard only” life bird.\u00a0 I feel good about that, for, as expressed by our\u00a0famous American poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, and philosophers and divines.\u00a0 With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”<\/p>\n

For several days the North American Rare Bird Alert has reported online that at Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary south of Brownsville, Texas, a single female Masked Duck<\/strong> and several Yellow-green Vireos<\/strong> have been seen on a regular basis.\u00a0 Both species are rare in North America (ABA # 3s).\u00a0 Having never seen either of them, and having nothing better to do, I headed out for Texas last week and was\u00a0excited to locate both birds.\u00a0 Others were there for the same purpose, many successful and some not.\u00a0 Everyone was most cordial and helpful to one another, a common characteristic of birders I have met over the years.\u00a0 It was of mild interest to me that of the dozen or so birders there for the same purpose I was, all were men. One was doing a “Big Year”.\u00a0 The heat index was 103, the wind was gusting at 40 miles per hour, and the “dry jungle” which Sabal Palm is, was muggy and uncomfortable.\u00a0This, of course,\u00a0added to my satisfaction of finding these two great birds.\u00a0 Actually, there were 4 Yellow-green Vireos, apparently reflective of a successful nesting effort.\u00a0 My first “identification” of the somewhat distant Masked Duck is suspect, because when I returned later I thought I saw three of them, again at quite a distance.\u00a0 I really needed a scope, which I had left home to make my air travel less cumbersome.\u00a0 These 3 all turned out to be the somewhat similar and far more common\u00a0Ruddy Ducks.\u00a0 And so I lingered long at the blind until, fortuitously, the real Masked Duck appeared close at hand enabling me to clearly see the three black lines across the face, and confirm its identity.\u00a0North American birds number 703 and 704 are now securely on\u00a0my list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My summer birding has been going well.\u00a0 After reaching 700 North American lifers, as previously posted herein, I returned to Iowa where I was able to locate, by ear, my first ever Black Rail.\u00a0 This elusive bird has seldom been … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iowabirding","category-northamericanbirding"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emptynestbirder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}