Welcome to my world of birds!

Welcome to my world of birds!

Details

Hello, my name is Sherie. Thank you for visiting my blog about my encounters with birds. I decided to blog about birds to share my passion, dedication and experiences with birds. I want to present a plethora of birds to inspire you to appreciate birds for the beauty they bring to the world.
I submitted my first official eBird Checklist in February 2016. I have been hooked ever since. At this point I have birded in twenty-one states and six countries. My favorite place to bird is in my own yard while sitting on my T-house with a hot cup of tea and my binoculars.
I love talking “birds” with anyone who will listen and most are interested since birds are everywhere in the world. Most people have some kind of experience with a bird. It might be as simple as seeing them in the backyard or seeing them on an organized bird walk or bird tour in some exotic country.
I want to get people excited about birds and help them pursue their curiosity about them. I also feel strongly about the conservation of birds and so I am involved in many conservation projects and efforts that help them out. My blog will focus on birds with a handful of conservation efforts and a sprinkle of butterflies that share the habitat with the birds.

Birds and Technology

Did you know that most birds migrate at night? There is a cool tool to inform you of the number of birds that migrate each night in your area. It is called BirdCast powered by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Colorado State University. It forecasts nocturnal bird migration in real-time, detected by the US weather surveillance radar network between sunset to sunrise. These bird migration forecast maps are active from March 1st to June 15th. Then again August 1st to November 15th.

It is very easy. I will walk you through it.

  1. Go to https://birdcast.info
  2. Go to the Migration Dashboard and enter your state or county. It will tell you the number of birds that crossed your area the night before. Last night, April 4th, 3,043,200 birds crossed Bexar County. Peak migration traffic was 505.300 birds at 17 mph. They were flying NNE at an altitude of 2,100 feet. There is a list of expected birds that were arriving or departing based on frequency of observations this time of year.
  3. Go to the menu and select migration tools
  4. Go to Live bird migration maps and click on the map.
  5. Click the play button on the left and you will see real-time analysis showing the intensities of actual nocturnal bird migration.
  6. Read the descriptions under the map and the key to understand what the colors, arrows, lines and dots represent.

Lights Out Texas – Science-to-Action

Everyone can help birds during migration. Simply turn off all non-essential lights from 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM during both spring and fall migration. These dates are: March 1 – June 15 and August 15 – November 30.

Lights attract and disorients migratory birds, confusing and exhausting them. This makes them vulnerable to collisions with buildings including residential houses. 365 – 988 million birds die in collisions with buildings annually.

Thanks for reading this blog and helping our feathered friends out.

hbabmamy

2 responses to “Birds and Technology”

  1. Really enjoyed reading your blog Sherie!! It’s a whole new fascinating world. Love reading about your experiences. I want to check out BirdCast, sounds very cool!
    Thanks for sharing!