What the papers say...

Some recent comments on the Ivorybill paper:

In the comments section here:
'What a waste of papers (and electrons). What downgrades Collinson's work is his lack of credentials for the work he did for this paper- e.g., he is an amateur doing an amateur analysis. His expertise appears to be cell development. Because he knows how to write a paper in journal style, he was able to get this amateur analysis published in an online-only journal.'

From Fishcrow:
'J. Martin Collinson says, "My guess is that we've missed the boat on the ivory-billed woodpecker and they're already gone." This pronouncement comes from someone who has probably never spent time in ivorybill habitat. In an article posted at Birder's World, he contradicts himself with the statement, "There appears to be no reason to question the anecdotal sight records of Ivory-billed Woodpecker presented in Fitzpatrick et al (or in many online sources), because some of them appear credible..." Collinson's article is the shoddiest piece of work I have seen on the ivorybill.'

There are also extensive critiques by David Martin and Bill Pulliam in the comments linked to the paper.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


On a different note, I think it's really worth listening to the audio file of a searcher's story presented here. To my mind... speaking as someone who has never spent time in ivorybill habitat... there are some very telling statements in there. See if you can pick them out.

Inaugural meeting of CaMPaGULAN

Order! Order! Order! I say.
Egg and Chips and a mug of tea, 2 sugars!

Wow, that joke is so old, it thinks 'if I could walk that way I wouldn't need the talcum powder' is a witty new rejoinder.

I'm calling the first meeting of CaMPaGULAN to order. Thanks to Bob McGowan and Cole & Trobe (2000) The Egg Collectors of Great Britain and Ireland we now have full and frank information on the mysterious Percy Bunyard (19th March). Turns out he was a major player in the oological field, and the sale of his collection was a big deal. Only he had the kind of personality where he fell out with everyone, so when he died, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and he never got an obituary. He was one of the hardcore egg collectors who took immaculately prepared egg series along to the British Ornithologists' Club meetings for over 40 years, long after a series of extremely rowdy and forthright meetings has resulted in a breakaway Oological Association for exiled eggers and a distinct cold shoulder for oology in the BOC. Another major egger was the Rev Jourdain, and for much of the 1920s the MAJOR reason for going along to BOC meetings was to hear those two bickering. They sold tickets.
'Bunyard's retorts' it says here, 'abusive in the extreme would be countered by Jourdain's pointedly sarcastic rejoinders.' Apparently most were on Jourdain's side, because he was more of a purist (personal collection, well authenticated) cf. Bunyard's collection of substantially bought and traded specimens, some of which were of dodgy authenticity. Both were gifted oologists, apparently, which I assume means they were very good at climbing trees. Bunyards collection and presentations were immaculate. Although he mostly stayed in Britain, he distinguished himself in the field by going to Finland and robbing 18 bar-tailed Godwit nests - no mean feat.

At the sale of his eggs, as advertised in BB, the star of the show was a well-marked clutch of Greater Yellowlegs that went for £27, probably representing a few weeks' wages for most people at the time?

'One comes to the conclusion that Percy Bunyard deserved better recognition than the ornithological establishment was prepared to allow him.... Bunyard's last exhibit in May 1937 consisted of a long series of Blackbird clutches, mostly from Kentish orchards, one of his interesting conclusions being that erythristic eggs tended to be larger and heavier than more normal sets. By the time of the B.O.C. Chairman's annual address in November of the same year Percy Bunyard had passed on, and an important link with the old school of oologists had been severed.'
Cole & Trobe (2000) The Egg Collectors of Great Britain and Ireland

With no other competent business, I draw the inaugural meeting of CaMPaGULAN to a close. DONM to be determined.
Martin Collinson MA, PhD, MBOU (but you can call me Percy).

Heroes of the Birding Revolution VIII - Ernst Hartert

Ernst Hartert, 1859-1933

Born in Hamburg, Germany, on October 29^th 1859, to an army General, who was later posted to Pillau, Prussia, as a Kommandent. Whatever happened to Prussia? Home of colourful kings, some wars that everyone has heard of but few can explain (Austro-Prussian War, anyone?), vast estates, and eventual abolition. At school we had a history teacher who was always umming and erring as he talked, and he often dropped his ‘aitches’. Not like I drop them, from being common, but a kind of well-spoken way of knowing when to drop your aitches. I remember he was telling us about cruel King Frederick William of Prussia, who would spit on his family’s plates before the food was served, and, I quote… “ was a beggarly sod who errrr… used to drag his daughters round the errrr…. palace by their errrrrr…. ’air!”. True. I’ve forgotten EVERYTHING else he told us about Frederick William, and indeed even why we were being told about him. Just goes to show. I’m not show what it shows, but there’s a lesson there.

Ernst, a keen self-taught naturalist from childhood, became an avid egg collector in the flushing meadows and babbling streams of Konisberg, learnt to skin birds and would head off into the marshes on a whim. His researches as a young adult lead to the publication of the bird life of Prussia (274 species documented – not bad) in an Austrian magazine. In 1885/6, at the age of 25, he headed off on a 16 month tour of Africa, collecting and skinning birds, then a year later followed up with a trip to the Far East and India – Sumatra, Penang, Calcutta, Assam, Bombay. Actually he was collecting insects mostly, at least at first. Bagged some birds though, and on his return he was lured to England by the siren wail of God’s Own Job at the British Museum errrr… cataloguing the Swifts and Nightjars, it says here. But which of us can truly resist a good goatsucker? He published this, and then sensibly ran away – took his wife round Central America to have a good long hard look at some live birds. Six months later, 1892, with a nice tan and a stomach upset that scared small children in the street, he really did land God’s Own Job – Director of the fabulously wealthy Lord Rothschild’s Museum at Tring, where he stayed for 38 years contributing to the amassing of the greatest private collection of birds in the World (eventually 280,000 specimens), and, importantly, keeping on top of their classification and taxonomy. He joined the British Ornithologists’ Union in 1893 and then the Club and spent 40 years attending their dinners and bringing along interesting specimens. He made many trips to North Africa to collect birds, often in the company of Lord Rothschild, assembling a fantastic representation of the region’s birds. He also had a special interest in East India and the Far East, and wrote many papers in Novitates Zoologicae (the Tring in-house journal), Bull. BOC, Ibis, British Birds, and the like.

He became an honorary member of the American Ornithologists’ Union in 1902. Between 1903 and 1922 he published his greatest work, Die Vogel der palaarktischen Fauna, a product of a brilliantly organised mind backed up by the greatest reference collection ever seen. Publication was in 3 parts but suspended during the Great War. As a German in Britain, this was what BB called, with probably outrageous understatement, a time of ‘great difficulty’ for Hartert. Although he was at home in Britain, he retained his accent and continental airs, which must have lead to daily difficulties, even though his son died fighting on the British side. After the war, he instigated the revival of the International Ornithological Congress, on the sound basis that birds do not recognise political boundaries. Birds do recognise vicious territorial disputes, but maybe it wasn’t good to carry the analogy too far.

To ignorant monoglot Brits (not pointing any fingers) it is actually his 1912 Hand-list of British Birds that remains the most enduring influence. Hartert was first author of four, the other three being the British Birds triumvirate of editors – Harry Witherby (Hero of the Birding Revolution), FCR Jourdain (future edition: Egg-collecting Hero of the Birding Revolution – not yet documented) and Norman Ticehurst (future edition: Hero of the Birding Revolution). I’ve pasted in a random page – looks pretty normal to us, but it is impossible to describe how revolutionary (at least in Europe) it was at the time, with subspecies recognised by use of trinomials, and strict adherence to the International Rules of Zoological Nomenclature, even when it meant changing a lot of well established scientific names. It was his advocacy, as one half of the Seebohm-Hartert axis, of the recognition of subspecies and the use of trinomials that changed Europe’s landscape. The Practical Handbook of British Birds came next (1924), for which he was the expert in nomenclature and classification. He recognised and named 18 new subspecies of British bird, documented numerous type specimens from around the world, and landed the BOU’s Salvin Gold medal in 1929, one year before retirement and the trip back ‘home’ to Berlin. Back in Berlin, he was given a room to himself to work in the Berlin Museum, which he used until his death on 11^th November 1933. After Hartert left Britain, the Rothschild Collection was sold and packaged off to the States under circumstances that Lord Rothschild would probably have preferred to have avoided – between the loss of the Tring collection and the Ernie’s death, the heyday of ‘British’ taxonomy was over, and a long-term decline set in.

Ernst Johann Otto Hartert. At the turn of the 20^th century you dragged European taxonomy kicking and screaming into a modern age, in the face of extraordinary resistance to the use and recognition of subspecies. You single-handedly managed the greatest logistical one-man taxonomic band ever known, in the shape of the Rothschild collection, and sorted out the mess left by other people’s attempts to organise their own collections, without which European taxonomy could not move on. For this you are recognised as a Hero of the Birding Revolution, first class.

Adapted from his obituary in British Birds, February 1934.

The Land that Time Forgot

London, February 1939, to be precise. I found this advert in that month's number of British Birds.

Ach - you just don't find people called Percy any more. Especially not egg collectors called Percy Bunyard. I can imagine he probably had pince-nez spectacles and wore waistcoats, and smoked Turkish cigarettes from a silver case. Where did that world go? No one calls themself MBOU any more either. Shame that. I'm going to set up a new pressure group: CaMPaGULAN i.e. Campaign for More Percys and gratuitous Use of Letters After Names. I'm 95% certain this will catch on. In fact I can't see anything that might possibly go wrong.

Note to kids: egg collecting is BAD. Bad as in old fashioned use of the word, i.e. 'bad', not the 21st century definition that implies 'good'.

Patchworking

Who was it said 'From the troubles of the World, I turn to birds'? So, back on the Newtonhill patch and an almost entirely woodpecker-free posting, except
1) I just realised that of the 118 press reports (!), many had me as being Scottish , which is an insult to the good people of Scotland. I am, as Diane would say, and does, a sassenach git. BUT I realised I missed a fantastic chance to do that interview with CBS in a comedy Scotch accent in the style of Private Frazer from Dad's Army. I do that really well: 'We're doomed! We're doomed... and so are the IBWOs!' Sorry Nearctic readers, you have to have seen the programme on TV.
2) Lordy, the BBC. Now you know where the licence fee is going. And Scientific American. And Fox News! That is just insane. It must be 'The British are Nuts!' week on Fox. Have been on their website for 15 minutes and I seem to have developed this overwhelming desire to invade Iran. Anyway, enough.... back to birds.

It was such a good storm last night. Looked out the back window first thing this morning and all our garden furniture had transmigrated majestically across the lawn and was trying to get into the neighbour's garden. Some of it actually had hopped the fence. Good effort. Wind was from the NW and Cripes! it was suddenly snowing. Piled on a few extra jumpers... down at Elsick Mill, I surprised a pair of White-throated Dippers, who were cavorting together next to the culvert where the nest has been in previous years (though not last year). Neither of these was the ringed bird from times past, so I guess that one has moved on or found a special peace of its own somewhere. The Dippers have really got a move on this year. Argh! I hate it when (apart from today) we have really nice early springs and the birds kick off early. You aren't allowed to enjoy it, cos it's probably global warming and spells DEATH for us all, or something. It certainly spells wet carpets for the houses by the beach. Private Frazer welled up within me... 'we're DOOMED!'.
A Northern Lapwing flying determinedly over Cow Field was a patch year tick. They all count.
Down on the beach, it was lovely, out of the wind. Just me, a Rock Pipit, 3 Common Eiders (noooo!!! I can feel a sermon about racial identification coming on!) and a flock of nasty annoying little flies from somewhere (note to self... probably something dead - don't go look). The female Eider was drinking seawater. I guess she has no choice, but eugh! Doesn't she know this is Newtonhill, where we still pump untreated sewage onto the mussel beds? That last sentence is dangerously close to the '40% of lies' category, but we do pump sewage. Oh, I can't help it. I had really good views of 12 male Common Eiders, including the bird I shall now name 'roundy-lobes' (it's less offensive that 'wtf') from last week. In fact there was lots of variation in both the shape of the bill and the colour between the birds. 12/12 had some yellow in the bill, at least on the basal 1/3. Only 2 of those I would describe as largely greenish grey bill, 10/12 were 'mostly yellow', and 5 of those were entirely bright yellow apart from a ghouly pale yellow-green nail area. IN shape, apart from roundy-lobes, there was another 'half-roundy', and lots of subtly different varieties of pointy lobes. Even restricting myself to the birds I saw really well, and only today, there appears to be a lot of variation that rivals the intra-taxon variation. See the illustration (pasted here) of different subspp. from the idiosyncratic, often overlooked but very beautiful Ducks of Britain and the Northern Hemisphere by John Gooders and Trevor Boyer. Most birds on my patch are like the middle one, perhaps a little less extreme, less than 20% are like the top one. One of them is like the v-nigra, but withot the nigra-v. This bad obsession is messing my mind, but I don't think any of them are anything other than locals. Don't give me that look - I report, you decide.

APB Avril Rennie - Clancey info

Bob McGowan has written a section on Phillip Clancey for the upcoming 'Birds of Scotland 3' and would really like to get in touch. Can you leave us an email address? Ta. Apparently it involves shooting birds out of a moving taxi!

Argh! The backlash! Meow!

But what gives? Backlash from the Skeptics? :-O
'Gutless wonder' 'witless flack', 'Apparently Collison [sic] hasn't read enough of our blog postings'.
Actually I think I've just read one too many.

Dudes, get this... I can't fight all your battles. Don't make me come over there! But as you've rattled my cavity under the eyes of robo-birder, I'll pop out and preen. Tyler Hicks has twice described sightings that appear to be IBWOs on the basis of seeing more than one field mark. That's the science bit. They are credible sightings, in that some people might believe them. They are a lot of other sightings that I'm 80% sure are total nonsense. This is the birder Martin speaking, not the scientist, it's a gut feeling. The overall pattern of sightings (poor, fleeting, without optics, large number of competent observers dipping out while others get multiple sightings, failure to get photos) screams 'error' to me. As such, even though some of the sightings are credible, I don't believe that Ivory-bills are currently being sighted. None of these records would last 10 minutes in front of a rarities committee assessing a record of that magnitude. That's not so hard is it? Now.... fascinating though the above undoubtedly is, it did NOT belong in BMC Biology. As many of you will have read ad nauseum by now, one photo or video, or even a decent observation, would end this debate tomorrow. The longer this drags on without a decent sighting... well?

Backlash part 2.
This was inevitable, and is in fact welcome. That is the challenge - to prove me wrong and end this debate

Backlash Part 3
Notes from Soggy Bottom
Bill has long been a source of thoughtful analysis of the Luneau video, and I don't dismiss his opinons lightly, or indeed at all.

Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Scotland

Hey, today has been a most atypical day. Lots of media coverage, not that that's why we do it, but this is important. My favourites:

Science Now
USA Today
As It Happens (CBS) (part 3 - from about 3 minutes to about 20 minutes - need Real Player)

Associated Press rang me this afternoon and within 2 hours there were 60+ media reports of variations of this text
ABC

Of course, I prefer the birding things. Very thorough job by these people
Birder's World Field of View
which has at least saved me the trouble of writing a CV for my next job (I'm applying to be Head of the Department of Cryptozoology in the University of the Highlands and Islands - Departmental motto 'Primo Ivory-billum, deinde creatura Loch Ness'). No! That's a joke. There is no Department of Cryptozoology in the University of the Highlands and Islands, at least that I'm aware of. And my flippant motto is totally out of keeping with the serious scientific, respectful and grown up ethos that we are all trying to maintain in this. Talking of which, I very much liked this one:
Bootstrap Analysis
oooh, now there's a thought. Does the action of typing all my uncensored thoughts, on a blog that is 50% factual but drivel, 40% invented lies and 10% scalpel-like incisive wit (mostly in the comments!) detract from the serious points I try to make? That would be an ecumenical matter. Work is work, and serious. Birding is hobby, and frivolous (but much more important). Existence or not of Woody Woodpecker is kind-of on the boundary of serious work and hobby, and might just be tainted by my intemperate comments here. Fact: I am currently a source of much amusement among the family and friends of Mrs Doc. Apparently I should stop playing with my pecker. I don't even understand that.

Big respect to Cyberthrush for his comments, which reflect the balanced approach and magnanimity of most Ivorybill believers to this evidence. I agree that we should move on from the Luneau video and see whether the rest of the evidence for IBWO survival stands up. Many MANY thanks to Davids Nolin and Luneau for permission to use their videos.

New things... David Sibley and colleagues have published a letter in Science today that reiterates why the Luneau bird could not have been an Ivory-bill. You need a subscription, but I'm sure the authors will provide a pdf to serious researchers and birders. They actually make my paper irrelevant.

I really do not want to go into further discussion of the evidence just now until the dust has settled. But a couple of 'holding' points.
1) The issue of deinterlacing was thoroughly discussed during 6 months of review and revision. The referees and editors were distinguished by their relentlessness and stringency, not their willingness to wave this through unchecked.
2) I would advise against identifying the Arkansas bird on the basis of its ability to maintain a fast wingspeed for wingbeats 4-12. It's clutching at straws that may already have broken.

Very important. It is NOT my intention to suggest that anyone has overstated their case wrt the id* of the Luneau bird, or acted in bad grace or even done anything wrong.
Given the date, maybe we should Beware the Id's of March!
The point is that poor views of Pileated Woodpeckers, from behind, might look like we expect Ivory-bills to look. In that respect, a fleeing Pileated might catch the observer out. I believe, obviously, that in this case the observers (of the video) were caught out, and a mistake was made. Other people have seen my paper and are still convinced that the Luneau bird was an Ivory-bill. We started off with a video of a bird that appeared to be totally unlike a Pileated - that was the extent of our knowledge in 2004/5. Sibley and colleagues, and many others, chipped away at that perception (I'd like to think this current paper will play a part) until as of 15th March 2007 we have a video of a bird in Arkansas that is pretty much like a Pileated, but with a couple of oddities. The white on the back, the white patch peeking out from behind the tree, wingbeats 4-12, are things I can only explain in an arm-waving sort of way just now. BUT... showing that a particular feature is a bit odd is a million billion miles away from 'this is proof of Ivory-bills'. This morning I thought the ball was back in IBWO-believers/Cornell court to prove me wrong. I would be delighted to be proved wrong. This evening I find, courtesy of Associated Press, that the challenge is to find a Pileated Woodpecker that flies like the Luneau bird. Well, no. Sibley et al. have shown why the Luneau bird wasn't an Ivory-bill. I've contributed to showing why it might easily have been a Pileated. Today at work, there was something odd about my apple (it was a funny colour - a bit yellow). 'Something odd' about my apple did not make it an orange. I'd shown it couldn't be an orange. It was consistent with an apple. There were features of my apple that I couldn't explain, but it was still an apple. That was by way of being a metaphor, but true.

So, you learn something new every day... well I try not to. I was so frazzled by time of getting home, while Mrs Doc (Diane) had a girly night with friends and red wine in the next room I went out and bought the Spongebob Squarepants film DVD and watched that by myself. I couldn't handle the sophisticated humour - the first time I laughed was about 20 min in when Spongebob and Patrick synchronised an enormous burp. It's a good film, and I did learn something, viz. you don't need a licence to drive a sandwich. I'm taking the sandwich to work tomorrow.

While I'm getting all these hits, I want to feature , again, this piece of genius, for those who missed it first time.
I have it on the BEST authority that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is about to prove its existence by marching on the Pentagon. I'm not sure why, yet.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker Paper

Collinson JM. 2007. Video analysis of the escape flight of Pileated Woodpecker Dryocopus pileatus: does the Ivory-billed Woodpecker Campephilus principalis persist in continental North America? BMC Biology 5: 8.

Now online from here as a provisional pdf.

Things have gone a bit wacky here - will try and answer all queries in turn.

This is for Avril: Phillip Clancey 1917-2001

Phillip Clancey 1917-2001

An outstandingly talented man - ornithologist, author, artist and Director of the Durban Museum and Art Gallery for 30 years (1952-1982). He was not, as far as I know (and I *do* know), involved with Coelacanth discovery. A Glaswegian! Schooled in Glasgow, studying at Glasgow School of Art. 'Cin yer mither sew?' and all that. Nearly died several times in the Second World War. An ornithologist right through the middle, with taxonomy written through him like a stick of rock. Made extensive studies of British birds and named many new subspecies. Many of these were very subtle and indeed, only Clancey could really tell them apart. But in the context of the time, well, he wasn't the only one doing it.

Clancey travelled the east side of Africa, from the Middle East down to South Africa, studying birds with the fearful Col. Richard Meinertzhagen. They really did not get on. Seven months of bickering. And not just bickering. Meinertzhagen was a mental wreck at this time; he regarded Clancey as very opinionated and felt that he was inclined to be dismissive of anyone who didn't agree with his views. 'He's a bloody young fool - he thinks he knows everything, but is useless!' Clancey felt the same about Meinertzhagen. Maybe they were both right :-)) . Certainly Clancey - a distinguished and very able ornithologist even then - felt abused and dissed being used as Meinertzhagen's baggage boy. They ended up having a massive argument about Black-throated Bustards and their driver returned from a shopping trip to find both men with their shotguns trained on each other - he had to talk them down! Another reason for the animousity, or maybe an excuse, was that Clancey first suspected, and then proved to his own satisfaction, that Meinertzhagen was a liar and a fraud. It started with some South African Longclaw specimens, and finished with proof of fraudulent redpolls, which was the basis for Alan Knox to subsequently formalise the process of exposing Meinertzhagen.

Clancey moved to South Africa for good in 1950 - he liked it so much he Directed the Museum. Wrote bucketloads of books about South African Birds, many of which are still standard references today. Hundreds of papers, especially on taxonomy. Many South African bird subspecies defined and named by him. Over 40000 skins assembled for the collection at the Durban Museum. Discovered the Lemon-breasted Canary Serinus citrinipectus new to science (it's yellow - did you guess?). When he died, he was the undisputed grandaddy of South African ornithology, and a major figure in the European scene too.

His legacy... in the interests of presenting my usual thoughtful and balanced apparaisal of both sides of any argument.... I'm compelled to mention that not all his work has been universally accepted. In a British context at least, many of the subspecies he named were purged by his peers shortly before (and perhaps more overtly after?) he went off to South Africa. And sadly, probably rightly so - the plumage and biometric features on which they were based were often too slight to be useful, perhaps even verging on the imaginary.

Phillip Clancey, collosus, character, ornithologist - we salute you!

Noooooooooo!!!!!

Sunday 11th March
Just when I thought I'd put Common Eiders to bed, at least for a while, this happens. I'm not going to go all McKinney on you, but what the b***** f****** p****** b****** h*** b******* is that??

Three male Common Eiders on the sea. One a 'conventional' green-grey-billed bird (actually in the minority around here). Another a yellow-billed 'fake-borealis' jobby. Third one, has a bright yellow bill, with a paler whitish washed-out nail, more white coming up the crown so it looked white-topped, and a weird head-bill profile that was almost convex and lacked the 'step' seen on other birds (step on other birds shown in the smaller diagram). Weirder still, the 'pointy' processes at the top of the bill were all rounded, recalling dresseri, although of course it wasn't dresseri. The green neck patches did not even think about the fleeting possibility of starting to encroach under the eyes.

Ivory-bill Update

Paper will be published in BMC Biology on Thursday 15th. Amazingly I just got a 30 minute interview from USA Today. That's huge. Beats the pishy North-east Scotland Press and Journal ('cat stuck in tree, cow misbehaves at show') hands down. No offence P+J - we love you really.

Look momma, another edition of Cage and Aviary Birds!

...but sadly not a lot new in it this week for trade-aware birdspotters.

Of interest...
For Sale, Baikal Teal, drakes, £30 each. Now THAT is cheap. Also Azure-winged Magpies, £375 pr. THAT is expensive, but perhaps worth it. And 'Rainbow' (Painted?) Bunting cock, 'very fit but missing nape feathers', £70.

Things that made me chuckle...
'Wanted One Female Hawfinch for breeding purposes (Wales)'
I assume the ad was placed by a Punterfinch, or possibly a Pimpfinch.
Stay with me, I did say it was a slow week.

btw...
Why don't you see penguins in Britain? Because they're afraid of Wales.
That joke doesn't work on so many levels, but it was on page 11, right next to an even worse one..
Why do penguins carry fish in their beaks? Because they haven't got any pockets.
That last one is true, not funny.

In 'Cage and Aviary Birds' this week....

'RSPB opposes ending bird registration scheme
The RSPB has warned that the withdrawal of a scheme requiring bird keepers to register individuals of the most threatened species held in captivity could lead to an increase in the number of birds, especially peregrine falcons and goshawks, plundered from the wild in Northern England....
...Goshawk numbers are at an all-time record high and need control, not protection, Cage & AviaryBirds argued...
...But Cage and Aviary Birds, the Hawk Board, the British Bird Council, the Pet Care Trust, the Sustainable Users Network*, and others have argued for complete deregulation. Editor Donald Taylor said: " We believe organisations in favour of registration, such as the RSPB, should meet the full cost if it is retained." '

*By all the seven levels of hell, what the bejeezus is the 'Sustainable Users Network???

Meanwhile... all spare a thought for Bedfordshire-based bird keeper Tony Philip, who has given up the hobby after his collection of 22 redpolls, 18 goldfinches, 6 bullfinches, 23 greenfinches (including pied and lutinos), 2 chaffinches and 2 bramblings (bramblefinches), worth £4000, were stolen on New Year's Eve. If you are offered cheap bullfinches in your local pub on Saturday night, try and get a look at the ring numbers.

The heated debate about whether Siberian bullfinches and goldfinches should be allowed to compete as 'British birds' at shows rumbles on. I think the British Bird Council is going to have to annex Siberia. That might do the British List some good as well.

For Sale:
European Eagle Owls
Snowy Owls (£250 each)
Golden Eagle
Merlin
European Goldfinches £60 ea
Siberian Bullfinches £190 pr
Bramblings £40 ea
Chaffinches £3o ea
Crowned Cranes £1300 pr
Sacred Ibis £350 pr
Green Wood Hoopoe £425 pr
White-cheeked Starling £75 ea
White-shouldered Starling £75 ea
Yellow-vented Bulbul £60 ea
Wheatears £160 pr
White-faced Whistling Ducks £80 pr
Red-breasted Geese £225 pr
Black Swans £200 pr
Hawfinches, good condition, £95 each
Chestnut-breasted Negro Finches £50 pr

My favourites are...
'Quail, jumbo, £5 ea' ????
'Homing Pigeons, ready to go' -eh? surely they should be ready to come back?
'Zebra Finches, line bred' I think that means they are euphemistically 'monkeyfeathers'

Crikey, by Jove, and wtf?

What happened here? 20 visitors to the Secret Freezer on Saturday (and very welcome you were too, btw) , then I mention the word 'Ivory' at the tail end of a sociological post about bus drivers(!) (or maybe I announced it - :-)
and this happens.

I should mention Ivory-bills more often. Ivory Ivory Ivory! As I've appeared on the Ivory-bill Skeptic page (more than once now), I'll get my retaliation in first... I'm not really an Ivory-bill Skeptic - I'm a universal data skeptic! :-) Just ask the lab. Although I do get to do some rarity record assessment it's not really my forte. It's not what the upcoming paper is about, but I really have no reason to doubt the recent sight-records. What DOES ring alarm bells for me (in general - not IBWOs), in the realm of birding record assessment, is any one or more of the following:
1) Repeated 'possible' sightings without positive confirmation
2) When poor sightings suggest a rarity but good sightings turn out to be something common.
3) When brief sightings suggest a rarity but prolonged sightings turn out to be something common.
4) When a small number of people see the rarity several times, while other equally competent observers never see it at all.
Leave it to the believers and skeptics to decide how many of those apply to Ivory-bills.

Bark at the Mow-own

Did you see the lunar eclipse last night? I was watching it out of the back of a freezing cold bus between Arbroath and Stonehaven

....of which more later. The last lunar eclipse, six years ago, I remember we were stood looking out of the front door at home in sunny Winchburgh, watching the moon go a shade of blood red. Diane was heavily pregnant with Lizzie nearly two weeks overdue(!) and I *knew* it was a bad omen. I was joking that our baby would be born evil. Next day Diane went into hospital and our baby was born evil. It just shows that you should be careful what you wish for.
Anyway, Saturday I went down to Edinburgh to gatecrash the BBRC AGM on the foreshore at Cramond, at a Globetrotter Inn efficiently staffed by 20-year old Australians. A very educational afternoon, and put a few names to a few faces. Still not much wiser about borealis Common Eiders, although I could buy the theory that they are irruptive and occasionally they or their DNA makes it into our resident populations. Every bird-related event I go to seems to coincide with major engineering works on the railways (grrrrr..), and this was no exception, with no trains between Dundee and Aberdeen. So on the way back got onto this unpromising-looking coach in the dark at Dundee. The driver was outside having a faaaagggg with the door open, so I understood the bus might be a bit chilly when we got on. But when we set off it got colder - no heating but a healthy blast of cold air coming in all the vents. I was freezing my swonnicles off and in a foul mood all the way back as we trundled up the coast road. Really needed a pee as well, which didn't improve my mood either, but the moon cheered me up. Even though I was the only passenger by then, the driver wouldn't stop at Newtonhill, but no sweat I thought I'd hop on a bus at Stonehaven. Argh! Where have the bus stops gone? I went to where they used to be, and they weren't there, and by that time on Saturday evening there was no one to ask except a crowd of refreshed young men throwing their shoes at passing cars. So got a taxi and £13 later was home in a worse mood.
AND our computer had died during the day. One minute working, next completely deid apparently, not a light on, nothing. Amazing. Only Friday (yes the DAY BEFORE) I'd backed up everything onto the laptop for the first time in months, for no real reason. Nae problemo then, I just spent the morning getting the laptop back into online operation - £25 to renew the antivirus crap (grrrr....), and a lengthy and entertaining cabaret of a phone call to a centre in India when my renewal didn't process properly. Then the fun of waiting for 45 Windows updates to install, and to work through all the warnings about various things that were trying to contact the internet for the first time. It took me til 2 pm before we had a functional computer. And the kids were driving me nuts, until it was 'right, get your coat on, we're off out!' and I made them run around the swing park in sub-zero temperature with 25 mph windchill for an hour until the fight had left them. Diane came round in the car to see if they were cold and wanted to go home, but I judged they hadn't yet suffered enough.
So I guess I'm saying I didn't do any birding. But there was a good reason! Also Peter peed on my jeans in an artistic way that made it look like I was the one who'd peed. Like his Dad, he's an artiste.

So....... my paper about Ivory-billed Woodpeckers was accepted by BMC Biology, and I expect it to be published online in the next few days (Open Access online - I'll post the website as and when). Those of you who know me will know roughly the message what's in it. It's kinda daunting with all the media interest surrounding the issue, that I'm starting to regret already sticking my head above the parapet in such a public and permanent way. Still, the truth will out - hold your nose and here goes.

Yawn!

If you lost interest in borealis Common Eiders, look away now. Here's a sensible post from Id frontiers today, by Harry Lehto:

Interesting Eider discussion. From your web page [Norman van
Swelm's site] I quote
"So I propose to re-acknowledge the northeast Canadian
orange-billed (male) Eiders as borealis : the Canadian Eider
and the green-billed arctic Eiders as arctica : the Greenland
Eider!"
I have not been looking very carefully at the detailed bill
color of Eiders in Finland, but if my memory serves correct
and Sampo Laukkanen's and other's photographs on
www.tarsiger.com reflect the truth e.g.
http://www.tarsiger.com/images/SL/sommol_lagsi_k93(24).jpg
http://www.tarsiger.com/images/SL/sommol_lagsi_k93(18).jpg
then I have hard time claiming that these are green-billed
birds. Well, they are not orange either.  I have no doubt that
these birds are from the local breeding population.
Please accept my ignorance on the intricacies on the racial
identification of Eiders, but how would you separate the Brouwesrdam
Jan 27 2007 from a Finnish Eider shown in the pictures above?
Regards
Harry
hlehto(at)utu.fi

These Finnish birds are like the ones I see off Newtonhill, and astonishingly like Norman's Dutch birds.

On the other hand, I've had *this* pointed out to me, a photo by Bruce Mactavish of a rather fine v-nigra (see if you can spot it!) among borealis in Newfoundland.

Wanted to get some (Winter) Wrens' songs today. Bum! Battery flat in RememBird thingy. And it's raining. Haven't I suffered enough?! Apparently not, cos there's no birds in Newtonhill either. Had a good look round though. A Skylark singing while in flight over the bay. Fantastic territory, the sea - wide horizons with good visibility for spotting predators coming, but crap nest-site opportunities. A Peregrine round the muddy quagmire that is Cran Hill, giving the Herring Gulls and Feral Rock Doves a bit of exercise and something to think about. 2 Mallards flying round and round in wide circles over N/hill for the best part of 2 hours. it doesn't get any better than this. I was counting Chaffinches at the Retreat (11 - didn't take long) when my mood was improved by a text from Harry saying he found a Caspian Gull. It was in Cork, so I didn't go for it. But I did try and find one of my own, but the 50 Herring Gulls feeding by the railway line didn't produce the goods.

eeek

Sooooo.... take a look at this. I'm the LAST person to suggest that we try to impose our judaeo-christian values on other countries and cultures who might have different values, and there are large parts of the World where people would laugh at the inherent sentimentality in the video. But at the same time there have to be better ways of doing this. Preferably that involve not doing it.



And if you want to, there's a petition here

Watching - a televisual hero of the birding revolution, probably.

For those of you who don't watch enough telly, at least in the UK, Watching was a late 80s/early 90s sitcom about (wait for it) an ugly socially inept birdwatcher getting a girlfriend. hee hee. Yes, a minor miracle, but it has been known. I liked it at first - gormless birder 'Malcolm' (Paul Bown) meets over-the-top polka-dotted hair-ribboned, ear-ringed, brash scouse 80s stereotype, reasonably pretty 'Brenda' (Emma Wray) in the pub, and they somehow hit it off, much to the annoyance of Malcolm's posh mum (Patsy Byrne). Not only an undertone of good old fashioned sexual discovery, but an overtone (eh?) of class war as well, AND, bearing in mind I was 18 at the time, Malcolm was kind-of living the dream. In a comedy tradition that could only have come straight from 1972, Malcolm had a clapped out old motorbike that needed constant tinkering, AND a sidecar, for putting Brenda in.

As I recall, in the early episodes there was actually some birding in it, but in later series (that I saw less of) birds had pretty much tailed off. Jeessus Malcolm was wet. He was of the 'Well, if a rare bird jumped up in front of me I'd be happy, but I'm not going to twitch one' level. I need someone to confirm this... but I'm pretty certain that the ahem, beautiful symmetry of the programme derived from a weak early plotline that Brenda and her sister were 'people watchers' in some way... I might have dreamed that bit, so let me know. But most of all... I have to salute Watching for awakening a generation of teenage men to the murky waters of secretly fancying Liza Tarbuck (Brenda's sister). Don't you agree? Well, maybe that was just me then.

I'd like to think there's a little bit of Malcolm and Brenda in all of us. Ugh, actually, no, I'd like not to think that... but now the image won't go away.

Emma Wray - comedy genius

Watching - we salute you

It's *not* very common, it *doesn't* happen to every man and it *is* a big deal. Or something

Thanks to Tom for reminding me of this one.... October 1980 - a great month in the history of British birding journalism. This paper has gone down in birding lore. Moss, R. 1980; British Birds 73: 440-447.

Why are (Western) Capercaillie cocks so big?

All the more amusing for puerile people like me is that the answer is that the females prefer bigger cocks. In fact the bigger cocks also drive the other males away, thus showing that not only does size matter, but what they do counts too.

Today was a fantastic sunny day to be out birding. Nice and calm too in Newtonhill. Plenty of birds being busy. An abnormal number of Sky Larks going through as well (50+) - mostly heading inland. Dunno if they were using the nice weather to head off whence they had came during the icy blast.

27 Common Eiders offshore, of which 15 were male, 2 with the traditional green-grey bill, 13 with the enterprising largely yellow offering, and 1 on these with obvious scapular 'sails'. Make of that what you will.

Ker-ching! The hedge bordering the Mill garden has been 'cut' (read 'flailed') by one of those nasty drive-by chain-thrashing thingies that farmers use. It's destroyed - bad for the hedge, but good for me as it will be much easier to get a good look into the garden this spring. Don't know why people would do that to their garden, but in this case... bravo!

To the person...

... who got into the Secret Freezer doing a Google for 'see three lady in freezer' - Shame On You!

Othe popular Google searches that get people here include:

'I must go down to the sea again, the lonely sea and the sky'
'Momma told me there'd be days like this'
'Winchburgh'
'How to get smell out of freezer'

and occasionally

'freezer making noise like cow' (we've all been there).

The Day After Tomorrow

So the observant ones will have noticed that today wasn't an ideal day to be out birding. At least not in North Scotland. I don't know about the rest of the World, cos we've lost all contact with it. In fact this post was hand-written on the back of a Be-bop Deluxe album sleeve and posted by pigeon to an internet cafe in Tangier for uploading. Looked out of the window this morning and saw how wet it was, and actually the prospect of watching several episodes of Birding with Bill Oddie on UKTV Gardens was quite appealing. MMmmmmm... Bill Oddie, put your hands all over my body. But after half an hour of that I decided it was time to tool up and get out. It was one of those days when even the old army coat wasn't going to keep me dry, so I got my 'proper' waterproof. I hardly ever use it - bought it about 10 years ago.... in the shop it looked like a darker version of a subdued airforce blue/grey colour. When I got it outside in the daylight (£105 later) it turned out it was fluorescent blue!! Fantastic for being spotted by mountain rescue when only your arms are sticking out of the snow; crap for creeping up on birds unobserved. Does the job though, if 'the job' is keeping dry and not enjoying leisurely views of relaxed passerines. Still, today it didn't matter becasue the only things I was going to see were the ones I flushed, so maybe it was a benefit.

Eventually out, and as I sheltered behind the Cypress hedge at the Mill garden, a male Goosander (Common Merganser) flew over, going inland. Could be quite a valuable patch year list tick that one. In five years I've seen three here, including that one, so it wasn't guaranteed. Just goes to show it's always worth going out. Flushed a few Chaffinches on my way down the track, and stopped in the bay to admire huge waves crashing into the shore and someone with a 'See you jimmy' hat, complete with red hair, pottering about on the pebbles.

This is a see-you jimmy hat, for those going 'wtf?'. Bit of Scottish culture for you.


Difficult to see what was going on offshore, so I climbed up to the big green box for the pump at the Wastewater Pumping station, in the teeth of the weather (cold and wet and windy). I managed to wedge myself into the gap between the box and the wall (with some difficulty, it's about 30 cm wide), and by twisting round could get a look out to sea without getting sprayed by water. It was err... well worth it. About 40 Herring Gulls hovering in the wind in a line along the edge of the white water of the surf, swooping down to get food items. I don't care where you're from, that looks like hard work. With nothing else on view, I went back home through the village, calling in at all the gardens with bird feeders. SO I saw lots of House Sparrows, Starlings, Chaffinches, Greenfinches, a few European Goldfinches and a couple of mad dog walkers.

Bad weather continued in the afternoon to the extent that I got so bored and desperate that I cleaned the kitchen. I found a dead moth and an earwig under the George Forman Lean Mean Fatbusting Grilling Machine. I scrubbed the sink, cleaned down the side of the fridge and even swept the floor. It's not like me at all. Mind, I wore my leather jeans to maintain the rock n' roll image. Figured I'd get my midlife crisis in nice and early. Hope things improve tomorrow.

A competition

... and I am actually offering a prize. let's see what I've got lying around here..... OK, there is a CD-ROM of 12 FUN Disney girl game demos and a 100 ml tub of Body Shop Hemp Foot Protector (wtf??) for the clever person, probably UK-based, who can tell me what this has got to do with birding.

Have I fallen in his spell?
Does he drown me in Chanel?
Is he vibrant? Is he hell!
So what do I see in him?

Am I dazzled by his style?
Has he made my life worthwhile?
Does he melt me with his smile?
Don't make me laugh.

Every inch of him is limp.
He's a 14-carat wimp.
I would rather have a chimp
As my other half.

But then I'm not blessed with charm.
I bring chaos where there was calm.

So the question should be
What does he see in me?

Now *that's* marketing!

Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.... it is May 1919 and popular birdspotting magazine British Birds (the original and best) springs a nasty surprise on its war-weary readership. A 50% (fifty!) increase in price.


Mind... that extra money did pay for a complete redesign of the magazine. Look here - it's barely recognisable. The grouse is facing a different way, and The Zoologist is consigned to the rubbish bin of history. And E. J. Peele has stopped signing her copies in disgust.

Killer Thriller

OoooKay. My first twitch of the year. What could possibly have drawn Martin out of his Newtonhill hermit cave? A time-managing visit to my Dad with Black Scoter thrown in? A choice of Pacific Divers? A year-tick Barrow's Goldeneye or and American Robin? Black-eared Kite? An outside bet on a quick cross-ocean dash for Black-throated Thrush? Ha! Nothing so obvious! (But jeeez what a fantastic choice for February). Nope... down to the Forth for Killer Whales. I get the feeling it's not very PC, but I'm going to call them Killer Whales. None of that Orca nonsense - I know what they're up to. Actually, doesn't 'Orca' mean 'demon' or devil' or something. Either way, I bet mummy seals tell stories about them to warn their babies to be good.
Ian B offered me a lift and the lure was too strong. Tigers and Killer Whales are the two predators you have to see before you die. Even if it's just before you die! A tart's tick, but when they're on a plate...

...except they weren't on a plate. We got to South Queensferry (home of smugglers and press-gangs) at 8.30, but didn't see a Killer Whale until nearly 11 o' clock, under the Forth rail bridge. By that time we'd been along at Hound Point looking at Common Eiders, Bar-tailed Godwits, a Red-breasted Merganser and Shags, from where I sent Diane a text to tell her I was freezing my swonnicles off. She sent a text back saying the kids had been up since 7 and she had a rotten hangover caused by drinking too much iced tea and rosewater at her friend's house last night.

And it was 1 o' clock before we finally got views of the white bits, turning UTVs into UTBs. (eh?). By that time we'd gone back over the river to North Queensferry and shimmied round the side of someone's house to get a magnificent panorama of the firth with 2 Killer Whales swimming about, harassed by a couple of yachts but apparently feeding well. I say 2 - they never showed at the same time, but there were two fin shapes on display - both female-type but one taller one with a bit of a kink, and one rounder one. They/it would come up 3-4 times in succession, then disappear for 4-5 minutes. Underwater. Magnificent beasts, looked powerful. Do you know they take adult Polar Bears? Not in North Queensferry, normally, but it was something to think about as we perched on the slippery stone pier at NQ with a fresh wind pushing us sideways. Actually, before the first sighting at 11 ish, I was at the point of stripping naked and swimming round in the river making baby seal noises. Glad it didn't come to that.

There's a BBC report on them, with a link to a bit of video HERE.

Belatedly, here's a rubbish picture of those Grey Partridges that turned up in our neighbour's garden across the road in September (posted here). They were driven out of their favourite field by some heinous muckspreading. Sorry I didn't have the digital camera at hand, so it was done with Diane's old fashioned film camera on max zoom, but no light, hand held. Hence it's shit.

More faux-borealis Common Eiders

See Norman van Swelm's delightfully quirky 'Radioactive Robins'
website.

He posted on ID Frontiers to point out these 'borealis' Common Eiders
on the Dutch coast, and to ask if any others had turned up recently.

Norman and I have a long history of good-natured and light-hearted
antagonism, the origins of which are lost in the mists of time but probably
involved a disagreement over gulls.

So I was hoping someone else would take this up and educate me too,
but no one did, so I posted...



If no one else is taking this up, I'll start, cos
it's been bugging me all month.  There have been
a few borealis reported around the place in recent
weeks (quite impressive for a bird with only one
accepted british record), so I started checking
our local birds (NE Scotland) more carefully.
Certainly birds with yellow-orange bills are
remarkably common around me and I have seen one or
two with extended scapular sails, and one or two
orange-billed ones that appear to show no sails,
and a reddish female. You can read the semi-literate
'lite' version of what's been going on in George
Bristow's Secret Freezer  
http://proregulus.blogspot.com (
28th and 21st jan entries, with photos).
Have to say, based on my personal prejudices,
which I know you always agree with norman, that
given the known tendency of european Eiders to
shown yellow/mustard tones in the bill, I'm
inclined to think there's a good chance that
they are local breeders.  Especially the ones
without good sails like on your site :-) If you
can go back to June entries on the blog there's
a photo of one of the local males with a yellow
bill (but no sails).  Blogger seems a bit
screwed up just now, so let me know if you want
any files mailed.

Norman got back with a typically informative reply:



My dear Martin, believe me I am not responsible for Canadian
Eiders breeding in Scotland! May be the same people who were
responsible for the introduction of American Ruddy Ducks in
England are, ask Malcolm Ogilvie. Or 'climate change'? Seen
any icebergs lately? If so, Polar Bears may follow soon!

How do you know your June bird is a local breeder? High Arctic
birds leave Europe from late May onwards and some stay f.i.
because the weather is unfavourable at the time of departure.
I have seen large numbers of seaducks along the Atlantic
coast of Ireland in summer.

The 'sails', if visible, may indicate an arctic origin but are
of no value in determining the bird's subspecies. The
impression is that these 'sails' are being kept down most of
the time so if you maintain Garner's criterion that 'sails'
must be seen than I am not surprised there's only one accepted
British record!
Have a glass of wine with Mrs.Collinson my lad.

Cheers,Norman


Angus Wilson was confused too, but had a good reference:
Can anyone point me to recent literature or good web sites
that summarize the identification criteria for subspecific
ID of Common Eiders?

I'm familiar with some of the classic accounts (e.g. Parkes'
descriptions in Palmer's "Handbook of North American birds"
(1976) and Knapton's 1997 article "Identification of female
Common Eider subspecies in Canada." Birders J. 6: 134–136)
but wondered if there is anything more recent or from a
European perspective.

In light of recent discussions, it seems worth keeping in mind
the following list in the Birds of North America bibliography:

Baker, A. J., A. Grapputo, K. Dickson, S. Wendt, K. Scribner.
1997. 
Mitochondrial DNA control region sequence variation in Common
Eiders reveals extensive mixing of subspecies. Abstract.
First North American Duck Symposium and Workshop, Baton Rouge,
LA.

Cheers, Angus Wilson
New York City, USA
http:www.oceanwanderers.com


Then Martin Scott provided the killer info on the local provenance of these Eiders.  
I didn't know about the ringed bird.

There has been a lot of discussion about this among some of the
Scottish birders of late (as I am sure Martin is aware)
One, of four, "sailed" birds on the Ythan Estuary north of
Aberdeen bears a ring which has been traced to it being ringed
at the same locality as a nestling c.20 years ago. Thereby
either "boreal" Eiders have been breeding in Scotland since at
least then, and have gone undetected or they aint Boreals........

We have also had sailed birds in the Outer Hebrides. Some of thes
have also different in lobe shape (eastern Scottish birds seem
to have pointed lobes, western ones rounded) and in structure.
Perhaps here in the Hebrides we are getting birds of a NW/ Nearctic
origin. Is bill colour so important?

Overall I dont think Boreal Eider is as 'easy' as has been suggested. 
Perhaps not every bird with a sail is a Boreal.

Work in progress is the label for this one!

I think I'm happy that borealis is not an easy one to clinch in the field, that
diagnosability is not fully figured out, and that these 'borealis-ish' ones we
see are local breeders.

Heroes of the Birding Revolution VII - Joseph Grinnell

Joseph Grinnell 1877 - 1939

A former biology teacher with a lifelong interest in natural history became California's foremost ornithologist and mammalogist. He was the founder and first director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley from 1908 until his death in 1939.

Joe was an enthusiastic field biologist who wanted to understand the relationship between an organism and its environment. He invented, or at least defined, what we now understand to be competitive exclusion. He pioneered and invented the concept of the ecological niche (published 1924) and gathered evidence to show that two different species cannot occupy the same niche at same time, because one will exclude the other. Millions of students worldwide are taught this, and it shapes their world view, but few know where it came from. Blame Joey.

Of course, this being the early 20th century, the art of writing wasn't quite dead, and his scientific works are quite entertaining to read. Check this, from California’s grizzly bears

‘Opinion frequently expressed by old-timers to the effect that grizzlies would not tolerate the presence of black bears within their home territories is borne out by the history of the respective geographic ranges of the two species: As that of the grizzly in certain parts of the State shrank, that of the black bear expanded - at least in those directions where factors of climate, food, and shelter were favorable to the latter species. Thus, at the south, in the Tehachapi-to-Santa Barbara tangle of chaparral-clothed mountains, up even to the 1890's the metropolis of grizzlies, as these beasts vanished, blacks (or browns) came in from the southern Sierra, to the eastward, spread and multiplied, until according to Forest Service reports they are now relatively numerous in Los Padres National Forest.’

Grinnell was devoted to wildlife conservation, particularly through the National Park system, and performed numerous long term studies in Yosemite national Park. He recognised that California's wild lands and wildlife were under threat and used his ecological studies to suggest management plans. Perhaps his greatest insight was in recognising the value of baseline data - going out into the countryside and recording accurately what was there, such that 'after the lapse of many years, possibly a century, the student of the future will have access to the original recordof faunal conditions in California'. It took us in Britain over 50 years to catch up with that.

His strength was in accurate observation and record keeping: Grinnell and coworkers collected more than 20,000 specimens, took about 2,000 photographs, and filled 13,000 journal pages at over 700 study sites. Working for Joey sounds like hard slog - he required more from his collectors than the ability to bring home a dead bird in a bag. Each specimen had to be accompanied by detailed notes on the circumstances of its collection and (here comes the ecological niche bit), the surroundings and the weather. But don't be fooled into thinking he was dry and boring. Have a scout through his field notebooks, starting here and you see he's just a birder at heart. Good man. He was a keen student of subspecies too, and began to put two and two together regarding the role of natural selection in shaping ecological communities.

His vision is being followed up too... there is now a resurvey project going back to his old haunts

Many of his books and articles describing Californian avifauna are online (google them), but among the areas where he was ahead of his time are things like this:
Risks incurred in the introduction of alien game birds." Science 61:621-623
where he pointed out the detrimental effects of exotic introductions on native communities.

To my mind, this is the best bit... for all the great philosophers out there who believe they were the first ones to suggest that vagrant birds might be pioneers of new breeding or wintering areas, I'm afraid Joey got there before you. Read this and weep, from The role of the accidental. Auk 39 (1922): 373-380.

'But before the individuals within the metropolis of a species succumb directly or indirectly to the results of severe competition, or those at the periphery succumb to the extreme vicissitudes of unfavorable conditions of climate, food or whatnot obtaining there, the latter have served the species invaluably in testing out the adjoining areas for possibly new territory to occupy. These pioneers are of exceeding importance to the species in that they are continually being centrifuged off on scouting expeditions (to mix the metaphor), to seek new country which may prove fit for occupancy. The vast majority of such individuals, 99 out of every hundred perhaps, are foredoomed to early destruction without any opportunity of breeding. Some few individuals may get back to the metropolis of the species. In the relatively rare case two birds comprising a pair, of greater hardihood, possibly, than the average, will find themselves a little beyond the confines of the metropolis of the species, where they will rear a brood successfully and thus establish a new outpost. Or, having gone farther yet, such a pair may even stumble upon a combination of conditions in a new locality the same as in its parent metropolis, and there start a new detached colony of the species.'

See also this 'amusing' cartoon suggesting (horrors!) that birders might get frustrated by taxonomists recognising and naming taxa that are difficult to distinguish from each other. See, if you think you were the first to think of that, Grinnell was miles ahead.

That cartoon also demonstrates that the standard of publishable humour has improved dramatically in the last 80 years.

Joseph Grinnell - visionary, cleverclogs, pioneer of Biodiversity Action Plans(!), ecologist, taxonomist, collector, curator, rarity hunter, enthusiast. You shaped our modern view of what drives birds to do what they do. In the spirit of internationalism, I hereby name you a Hero of the Birding Revolution.

"We’d be sitting in camp, and we’d both be skinning. Pretty soon, he’d throw a rat over to me, and he’d say, 'Here, Russell, finish this one up,' and he’d just ... pick up his notebook, and start writing."
Ward Russell