"Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."
― Benjamin Franklin
Though photographed only a couple of days ago, the canopy is filling in quickly along the Pheasant Branch Creek Corridor. Migration has seemed somewhat subdued even though we've had sustained south winds for the past several days. Are they flying over? Is it the modified and more open habitat? Is migration running behind? Usually by May 12th we've had 20+ warbler species days at the creek corridor, but our daily high count thus far has been 17. This morning I heard a Canada Warbler, got to see a male and female Cape May, and a Black-throated Blue sang several times from the bowl-shaped Parisi ravine where I often find them.
It's astonishing how many birders are using (relying on?) the Merlin app these days ― I've seen it work, and I've seen it fail. Hey! Just like birders, right? Yesterday I identified a Philadelphia Vireo by song and a birder next to me said "Merlin says it's a Red-eyed." I took out my smart phone, loaded up the Sibley app and played Philadelphia Vireo. Well, wouldn't you know, Merlin called that a Red-eyed Vireo, too. I'm not exactly sure how the Merlin algorithm works, but my hunch would be it uses spectrogram shape, frequency, patterns, iteration between song fragments, and so on. However, the bird before you is the bird and there can be much variation in song delivery. I'll never forget one of my songbird mentors had everyone in our group convinced there was a Yellow-throated Warbler singing away. Somewhat skeptical, I scanned the trees with my bins and eventually came upon a Chestnut-sided Warbler rendering an almost perfect YTWA song. It was comical because Charles is rarely ever wrong.
One of the exercises I like to do for my birding posse is just to quietly whisper bird names with each song or call I detect. Recently, a woman who was standing next to me at the creek corridor noticed I was running way ahead of the Merlin app as it played catchup to my pace and missed species as well.
Birders can become overly reliant on Merlin or other apps for identifying birds. But does it hurt anything or anybody? Not really, I suppose. It can be a little annoying for someone to try and correct me by what Merlin detects. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I can understand if one is hard of hearing why they might use the app. One time I estimated the number of avian vocalizations I know somewhere north of 3,000 ― it's like a superpower and I really love having it.
I've read anecdotes of Merlin mistaking non-avian sounds for birds, like frogs, distant car alarms, and other mechanical noises. Apparently, the app is notorious for confusing similar sounding species like Chipping Sparrow, Worm-eating Warbler, and Pine Warbler. There are cautionary advisories coming from various record-keeping reviewers who have noticed a huge uptick in questionable bird sightings that have been "confirmed" by Merlin.
Look, obviously I'm not a luddite, but enough of the Merlin App ― I'm done criticizing it. Whether or not to use app is a personal choice, but for me and where I am with birding, it's a lesser state of existence when absorbing and appreciating the morning avian chorus. As I've said before, to step out onto a trail and almost instantly know all the birds vocalizing within 100 yards is a cool thing to experience.
We can at least all agree that warblers are among the coolest and most beautiful birds to grace our woodlands for a short period of time during April and May. Pheasant Branch has a few resident species like American Redstart, Yellow Warbler, and Common Yellowthroat, but the rest move on. There's always Baxter's Hollow where 20+ warbler species nest, but they're a lot harder to see once the tree canopy has filled in.
More wildflowers are blooming ...
The creek corridor is greening up ...
But what about the obligatory tiger beetle content?
After failing to find Six-spotted Tiger Beetles at Pope Farm Conservancy after several attempts, I decided to try my old reliable spot for them at Indian Lake Park. It's about a 10-minute drive from Middleton, so it's not a big commitment in terms of travel time and gasoline consumption.
It took a bit of searching, but eventually several were located at the base of the steep rocky trail at the western end of the park. Some beetles were maculated with the monikered six spots, while others had eight, and a few had none. There was one particular beetle I got a visual on that had really nice bold markings. I had to double-check to make sure it wasn't a Northern Barrens, but it was indeed C. sexgutatta. I saw it only the one time, so no photograph to share.
My macro setup doesn't do quite as well for capturing detail on brightly colored beetles during peek daylight hours. I prefer Pope Farm's rock wall for better angles and lighting, but these will do for now. I was just grateful to find them, watch them, photograph them, and swear at them whenever they flew off before I could press the shutter button.
As Monday comes, we'll already be halfway through May. It seems to take forever to get here, but when there's so much to see and do, it goes by so quickly. On account of the somewhat colder than normal April, I can't help but feel like spring is a bit more condensed compared to other years. But there again, if all springs were exactly the same, what would be the fun of that?
All images © 2023 Mike McDowell