HAVING SAID THAT.

[camwyn]

Been down to the harbor a couple of times with binoculars to count birds for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Snake Island is a popular destination for seabirds and other waterfowl at this time of year, even though it's a pretty small island and at high tide only about half of it is exposed. My binoculars are kinda crummy, as I got them for free as a reward for MS Society fundraising, but they're better than nothing (even if my uneven prescriptions mean that only one eye is ever in focus at a time using these things). In the past several days I've seen:

- a massive number of what I assume are herring gulls; they might be ring-billed gulls, but I cannot get anything even resembling a fix on their beaks to see whether the spot is red or black, let alone determine any other field marks
- a small but respectable number of great black-backed gulls
- a number of immature gulls whom I am marking down as herring gulls because for the first 2-3 years of their lives herring gulls and ring-billed gulls are both basically 'spotty white and brownish gray' ALL OVER so good luck telling them apart
- a number of birds I can only describe as 'brown and duck-shaped', with the exception of one that was 'brown and duck-shaped and kind of a long neck and I THINK it had small white diagonal wing bars'
- one bird that was in fact brown and duck shaped but at least had the DECENCY to have enough distinct visual traits that I was able to mark it down as a female mallard- it was too light to be an American Black Duck
- two loons, albeit with nonbreeding/immature colors ( https://youtu.be/rfqdZ8profQ ) rather than the distinct black and white pattern that every photo collection ever of the wildlife of New England shows
- an ASSLOAD of hooded mergansers ( https://ebird.org/species/hoomer/US-MA-025 )
- somewhat less than an assload of red-breasted mergansers ( https://ebird.org/species/rebmer/US-MA-025 )- worth noting, they look almost as silly as hooded mergansers when they are trying to impress lady red-breasted mergansers, especially when two of them are trying at exactly the same time and thus look like some weird synchronized swimming team
- several American oystercatchers ( https://ebird.org/species/ameoys/US-MA-025 ) - admittedly I have only actually seen one close, two or three in the distance, and the rest have all been audio ID because their calls carry REALLY well across water
- three common ravens, the first of which had the courtesy to make VERY distinct calls the whole time it flew from Snake Island towards the mainland; the other two were silent but flew close enough that I could hear their wingbeats and see their beaks and tails vs. those of mere crows
- ALL THE GRACKLES, ALL OF THEM
- starlings out the ass
- sparrows, mostly house sparrows, some white-throats, at least one or two song sparrows
- a couple of red-winged blackbirds
- bluejays
- cardinals
- mourning doves
- pigeons
- house finches
- something else I have not been able to see but which makes a very finch-like sound that I have unfortunately not been able to isolate for BirdNET sound identification; it might be a goldfinch, I don't know
- robins aplenty

Comments

[chanter1944]

I'm terribly amused by your descriptions of large numbers of birds, here. :P Starlings!

I wonder. Is it allowable when counting birds for Cornell or similar to go entirely by sound? That's a question of necessity in my case.

[camwyn]

I know there was a guy on a Massachusetts Audubon bird count this past summer who was identifying species entirely by sound, and I'm currently looking at the eBird page (Cornell Lab's service) of a man with retinitis pigmentosa who's trying to set the world record for the most bird species identified by a legally blind person. He's got like four thousand so far, but he does have some degree of eyesight and assistance from his sighted wife. Still, a lot of these groups are okay with audio ID as long as you get the count right.

https://www.audubon.org/news/birding-blind-open-your-ears-amazing-world-bird-sounds talks about some of it.

[chanter1944]

Cheers! :D I could use the positive distraction of logging the local morning chorus (house finches, sparrows, cardinals, mourning doves are loud!, red-winged blackbirds, chickadees, the odd sandhill crane, a bazillion Canada geese) for a purpose.

[camwyn]

Go for it. I use the eBird and Merlin apps on my phone- eBird to register my counts and submit the lists to the Lab, Merlin for IDs. I don't know how much use the question aspect of Merlin would be for you, since questions 1 and 2 are fine ('where did you see it?' and 'when did you see it?') but then it goes into 'how big was it?', 'what color or colors was it?', and 'what was it doing?'. However, the Explore Birds function they have is where you can go for 'hey, I think that was a sparrow, what kind of sparrows can I expect in this area?' and then check the app's library of songs and calls for that bird.

I don't know how good their interface is for the visually impaired or blind, though. My apologies in advance if the interface turns out to suck.

eBird also takes species lists submitted via the desktop website. I just find it easier to use the app to tap a button repeatedly to keep a running count, then submit it from my phone.