Birding on Base

My former labmate, Nick Anich, encourage me to document my birding on eBird.  There aren't many regular participants of eBird in Japan, and so the diversity of what one might see out here on vacation is probably underrepresented.  Know which species are present where and when is an important part of conservation.  Although my birding skills are far from perfect, they can only get better with time, and I think most birders assume that counts are probably an underestimate of some kind.  "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," right?

Also, Nick pointed out that I might be one of the "top ten birders" in Japan, according to eBird.  The idea of me being in the top ten of birders ANYWHERE is a bit scary, but he made the point that there's just not a lot of active birding going on here.  Things have been a bit slow, hanging out in the bachelor's officers quarters all day while Ryan is working, so I thought I'd take a walk and see what there is to see on base.

Turns out, there's a LOT to see!  There is a canal that runs near the front gate of the base that has shorebirds in it fairly regularly.  I'm thankful for my time with Lauren Helton this past spring.  Had I not worked with her, I probably wouldn't have recognized any of the other shorebirds besides the stilts (Black-winged Stilts).  There were also Common Redshanks, Common Greenshanks, and Common Sandpipers in good numbers.  I've been struck by how few birds I've seen that I would associate with the ocean.  For example, I've yet to see or hear any kind of gull.  No pelicans, and there are supposedly some big ones out here.  The shorebirds have been the only bird species to suggest I'm near an ocean, let alone on an island.  Of course, we know from Lauren's research that migration takes many shorebirds well inland to places where you'd not expect to find them.  At any rate, the little canal on Camp Foster is a good place to see some shorebirds with a fair amount of certainty.

Little Egret (Egretta garzetta)

Common Greenshank (Tringa nebularia)

This guy is not a shorebird, but is my favorite "common" yardbird to day: a Red-bellied Rock Thrush.  Apparently, there is some debate about taxonomic status at the moment, whether it should be treated as a separate species or lumped, as it currently is, with the Blue Rock Thrush.  Either way, the male is quite the handsome bird, wouldn't you agree?  They behave very much like the American Robins, spending most of their time on the ground, bouncing along or running and then stopping to look around every so often, and standing almost at attention with their wingtips lower than their bellies.

Red-bellied Rock Thrush (Monticola solitarius philippensis)