[va-bird] Re: painted bunting photos

Sue--
     Thanks for posting John's photos---but those Painted Bunting photos make 
me ask, is there anything that John Fox can't do?  
   On Thursday there was that great Washington Post Lapwing story involving 
John (the story is below, without the three accompanying photos). Then, on 
Saturday, John motivated the entire state to submit our checklists for the 
Great Backyard Bird Count ( http://birdsource.org/GBBC/ ), and now Painted 
Bunting photos!

  John--you've had a busy week!  --Thanks!


Bird-Watchers' Hopes Aflutter 

The Faithful Flock to Frederick in Quest to Spot Rare Specimen



By Elizabeth Williamson

Washington Post Staff Writer

Thursday, February 17, 2005; Page B01 



    Not since Shrimpy the kelp gull blew in to Maryland from South America in 
the 1990s has this region played host to such a rare, well-traveled and 
positively unusual species as Jim Swarr. 



    The retired ophthalmologist from St. Petersburg, Fla., joined fellow 
birders from South Carolina, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and the Washington 
region in the muck of a Frederick County cornfield yesterday, hoping for a 
glimpse of the Northern Lapwing. 

 

 

Fox sets up a scope in a field where he thinks he spotted a Northern Lapwing, 
which "is one of my dream birds." (Photos Katherine Frey -- The Washington 
Post) 

 

      The bird, whose wing feathers glow with a metallic sheen, usually winters 
in East Asia but was seen for the first time in Maryland this week, pulling 
worms from a puddle of melted snow. It may have gotten lost on its way south 
from its Northern European home or been blown off course by high winds, but 
either way, its appearance, news of which spread through the Internet, provides 
dedicated birders such as Swarr with one of the biggest thrills of their sport. 



     "This is an exciting bird, a vagrant Code 4, very unusual for North 
America," Swarr said, consulting one of six bird guides he carries in the back 
of his Honda minivan. The guide lists V(4) birds as having been spotted only a 
few times in North America over the past three decades. 



    Swarr is a full-time "chaser," a birder who will go anywhere, at any time, 
to add a species to his "life list," a record describing in obsessive detail 
each new bird and the time, place and conditions under which it was sighted. 



     Since last summer, Swarr has clocked 51,000 miles in his Honda, building 
his life list to 660 species and, like many birders, spending thousands of 
dollars pursuing his sole leisure activity with money he has saved. "It's 
addictive," he said. 



     He has walked along a two-mile seawall off the coast of Vancouver to visit 
a pair of McKay's Buntings gone astray from Alaska. He has driven cross-country 
to California to list a Nutting's Flycatcher. He has stood in sweltering Texas 
heat for a glimpse of a Roadside Hawk, rare in those parts. And he has stood 
with thousands of others near a tiny airstrip on Martha's Vineyard, watching, 
through $1,500 binoculars, a Red-Footed Falcon sitting on a traffic sign. 



     This day, Swarr explained with narrow-eyed seriousness, is not going to be 
the day he "dips," or fails to spot his quarry. "I always get my bird," he 
said. 

With that, he took his position yesterday with 10 other die-hards in a ditch, 
bracing against a chilly wind rich with the scent of damp cornstalk. There, 
smoking a long and aromatic pipe, was F. Glenn Smith, a retired divorce lawyer 
from Columbia, S.C., with 702 birds on his life list, including a couple from 
the island of Attu, Alaska, where he had gone "to see what blew in from China, 
Japan and Russia." There was Chuck Berthoud of Hershey, one of a delegation of 
Pennsylvanians who were "shut out" on Super Bowl Sunday, not because the 
Philadelphia Eagles lost in football, but because they had missed the Redwing 
sighting in Bucks County, Pa. "We're really wound up now," he said. 



     And there was John Fox, a patent examiner from Arlington, a self-described 
piker who said he became interested a couple of years ago when he looked out at 
his bird feeder and thought, "What the hell are those?" But the Lapwing, he 
said, "is one of my dream birds." 



    The Northern Lapwing winters in Asia Minor, the Indian subcontinent and 
Southeast Asia. It is about as large as a crow and has a black and white face, 
a majestic black crest and near-iridescent wings of green, black and bronze. 
Its cry sounds like "chee peewi . . . peet . . . air willucho weep weep ee yo 
weep," according to the Sibley Guide to Birds. 



    The sound of the birders was louder as they compared notes, seeming only 
rarely to peer through binoculars. Fox, outclassed, gathered his camera gear to 
get into his car. "I'm a jinx," he said, and headed off to try his luck in 
another spot. 



    An hour passed, the remaining birders saw nothing, and some gave up. Not 
Swarr. "Come on," he said, piling into the Honda for a trip around rural 
Thurmont, in northern Frederick County. The back end was stuffed with clothing, 
bedding, nine maps and the six bird guides. Swarr peered out the top eighth of 
his windshield, scanning the skies. 



     "Ah!" he said, training his Swarovskis on a treetop. A kestrel. Then 
robins, Canada geese and a single turkey vulture. Hardly life list material. 

Passing farmhouses and cows, he faced the prospect of dipping. "Hmmm," he said. 
"Maybe not today." 



     Swarr would have to wait. But at that moment, on Blacks Mill Road, John 
Fox the dabbler, wild-haired and windblown, was emitting the cry of the 
victorious. 



    "Got him! Got him!" Fox shouted, beaming from the ditch. "Caught him 
flying!" 


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Susan Heath 
  To: VA Birds 
  Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2005 7:30 PM
  Subject: [va-bird] painted bunting photos


  All,

  John Fox provided me with some photos of the Chesapeake Painted 
  Bunting.  I've put them up on my website for all to see.  What a bird!

  http://www.virginiabirding.org/images.htm

  Sue

  -- 
  Susan A. Heath
  George Mason University
  Environmental Science Department
  Fairfax, VA

  Secretary, Virginia Avian Records Committee
  Keeper, Virginia Comp List at www.virginiabirding.org

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