Confessions of a Bird Guide reprint.

In response to the flood of enquiries we received from people not being able to get hold of a copy of my book Confessions of a Bird Guide we have now made it available again.

Same conditions as before; if you just want a really good read (or something to stop the table wobbling) go direct to Lulu and buy it from there.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/rick-simpson/confessions-of-a-bird-guide/paperback/product-20953280.html

If on the other hand you want a personalised copy, then send me an email and I'll send you a signed copy with whatever dedication you wish, but you'll need to add p+p (£1.40 2nd class UK, other destinations on request) to the price of £7.99 I'm afraid.

rick@rick-simpson.com

For the record, the cover photo is not a montage, but to get the full story you'll have to read the book!

High Island Texas.

Anyone who has dreamed of going to Texas will certainly have decided springtime is best and they will also have decided that High Island is a must-visit destination with the mouthwatering lure of Nearctic warblers lighting up the trees.

Magnolia Warbler

So when Elis and I discovered that we would be passing the end of the road on our Wader Quest journey from Galveston to Cameron Parish, Louisiana, we felt we just had to stop by and see what all the fuss was about! So on the 27th of April we stopped at Boy Scout Woods in High Island on a day that, we were told, was going to be a 'good' one with plenty of birds about.

We parked the car and as we walked to the centre we were stopped by a chap who asked "Is your name Simpson?" Naturally I confirmed this and he introduced himself as Gerald Mueller, one of our facebook friends. It was good to shake his hand after so much toing and froing and admiring of each other's photographs on the facebook pages.

Elis and Gerald Mueller

We spent a little time wandering around the sanctuary with Gerald and enjoyed the birds, the best spot by far though was a bottle-brush bush just outside the sanctuary gate in a private garden! In this I saw my first ever Prothonotary Warbler, some Tennessee Warblers and a lovely Bay-breasted Warbler.

Prothonotary Warbler

Tennessee Warbler

Bay-breasted Warbler

In addition we had a female Summer Tanager, Orchard Orioles and a White-crowned Sparrow in a tree next to the bottle-brush.

Female Summer Tanager

Male Orchard Oriole

Female Orchard Oriole

1st summer male Orchard oriole

White-crowned Sparrow

Other birds encountered were Kentucky Warbler, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Scarlet Tanager.

Kentucky Warbler

Male Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Female Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Male Scarlet Tanager

Our stay at High Island was all too short, but we certainly got a feel for the place and could just imagine what it would be like on one of the big fall-out days, even on this day, which was considered merely 'good' there were birds in every tree and movement everywhere, but apparently this was not unusual according to the regulars, "Y'all should be here on a fall-out day!" one enthusiastic local birder told us happily.

Elis joins the viewing gallery.

As we drove away we came across this pair of Eastern Kingbirds but couldn't decide if they were being aggressive or courting, such is the course of true love I suppose!  

Eastern Kingbird

Some interesting birds from Louisiana and Texas

As part of our Wader Quest Elis and I found ourselves in Louisiana and Texas. Now everyone knows that birding the Gulf coast in April means you'll see much more than shorebirds, and so it proved for us too. This Common Nighthawk was on a fence post along the beach in Cameron Parish.

Common Nighthawk

I placed a shot of this Painted Bunting as one of my favourites in the right column of this blog, here's another of this gaudy little stunner.

Painted Bunting

My first Yellow-billed Cuckoo in the USA, I have seen several Black-billed before but not this species, although I had previously seen both in the UK, on the Isles of Scilly to be precise.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

We saw a good number of these and also Indigo Buntings, sometimes there was so much colour in a tree that it looked like Christmas had come early, these blue birds, yellow warblers, red tanagers and green vireos, wonderful birding.

Blue Grosbeak

Mixed in with the grackles and Red-winged Blackbirds we came across a few Yellow-headed Blackbirds, our first was near Welsh where Steve Cardiff and Donna Dittman took us to look for waders, but it was Elis that spotted it first that time.

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Not very rare and rather widespread, it is still always good to see the Purple Martins, the males, when they catch the light are glorious.

Purple Martins

Another hirundine and a tick for me, these Cave Swallows would have eluded us if it had not been for Steve and Donna.

Cave Swallow

Wood Duck is contender for the most beautiful duck in the world (possibly being pipped at the post by Mandarin), we only saw this male and its mate during the whole trip.

Wood Duck

Small-billed Elaenia.

Small-billed Elaenia is a common resident in an area east of the Andes across to the Atlantic coast from just south of Buenos Aires, Argentina north to about Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. In the Austral winter it is more widespread moving north over much of South America east of the Andes but avoiding the arid north-east of Brazil. 

As a result although close to the edge of their range we thought that it should be fairly common in Ubatuba being a bird of forest edges and clearings of which there are plenty in the area, but it was not until December 2011 that we saw our first pair and then they were at Mogi das Cruzes between São Paulo and Ubatuba.

We came across this pair singing and displaying. Elaenias are notoriously difficult to identify by sight alone, so having a singing bird was a clincher for the definite identification of these birds. If you look closely at the first two photos on this page of the two individuals in this pairing you can see how different they look at different angles in different light and their plumages are well within some plumages of other species showing just how confusing this family can be and how dangerous it is to go by sight alone. (Of course they could be a hybrid pairing... now there's a thought!) The photo above you can see that the paler bird is the one to the right but the difference is less exaggerated.

The closest looking species to Small-billed Elaenia is White-crested Elaenia. Both species have a white crown stripe, but the White-crested usually shows its crown whilst a Small-billed seldom does. In addition the books say that the former often shows only two wing bars and the latter three. In these pictures this appears to be born out but I would recommend caution in sticking rigidly to these criteria as hard and fast ID features. The third wing bar (uppermost) is barely discernable and at some angles may not be visible at all.

The White-crested Elaenia is also an Austral winter migrant to Brazil, so in our case it was extremely unlikely to be one of these as the date concerned was the 4th of December 2011. More circumstancial evidence can be added by the fact that White-crested are reportedly virtually silent in Brazil, so it is unlikely that you would come across a pair displaying and vocalising at that time of year. The individual in the photo below looks very like it ought to be a Lesser Elaenia, with its yellowish belly and pale throat, it is the same bird as in the first photo at the top, but there is no hint of a crest and of course it was calling and singing as Small-billed.

Not long after discovering this pair, on the 13th of December we came across another pair, this time in Ubatuba at Ubatumirim. We thought we had found a new species for Ubatuba and a breeding pair at that, but discovered shortly after this that they had already been seen. 

This pair had a nest and a chick. However there seemed to be something amiss with the chick, it seemed to be impaled or trapped in some way by a branch next to the nest. 

The parents did however continue to feed the bird despite its predicament

We were unable to reach the bird to assist and sadly this first record of a breeding attempt in Ubatuba failed, we saw the chick dead in the same position on our next visit. We did however see the pair still in the area and concentrating their attention on a different tree. We decided not to investigate as we didn't want to put them off if they were trying again.

First cuckoo or first cowbird?

We're all waiting anxiously to hear our first cuckoos, except maybe some of the smaller host species of passerine. Thinking about this parasitism reminded me of a scene that we witnessed back in Brazil. The species involved were not a cuckoo and a warbler or Dunnock, it was a Shiny Cowbird and Rufous -collared Sparrow.

Foster parent arrives with food and the cowbird chick starts to beg.

Feeding begins.

There isn't the difference in size that occurs between a cuckoo and its host
but the cowbird is still larger than its foster parent.

After the feeding period is over the cowbirds soon form up into small flocks of juveniles and you can't help wondering if they simply wake up one day and realise they are a cowbird or whether someone tells them! I mean, we think that birds have no sense of self, so how do they know they belong with the black birds and not the stripey brown ones that they have seen all their short lives. Fascinating stuff.

My book is published at last!

Never mind 50 shades, forget about Harry Potter, a new best selling author (in waiting) has arrived... me!

My first book Confessions of a Bird Guide is now available (ISBN:  978-1-291-33819-5 Pbk £7.99 + pp only available from the author at this time; write to rick@rick-simpson.com.)

Here's how it is described on the back cover, couldn't have put it better myself:

"Confessions of a Bird Guide is a witty, candid account of Rick Simpson's adventures in birding and a life that has taken him from England to Brazil and back again. Charting his journey from young boy in a makeshift hide, through the twitching years to becoming a bird guide in Brazil and eventually setting up the Ubatuba birdwatching centre, it is a tale full of highs and lows, of buff-throated purpletufts and black-hooded antwrens, of friendship and subterfuge that is sure to strike a chord with birders everywhere."

Hard at work, the scribe in action.

On the 4th of April I will be giving a talk to the Bucks Bird Club at the Memorial Hall, Manor Road, Wendover HP22 6HF where I will talk about my experiences as a bird guide in Brazil, it will be your chance to get hold of one of the very first copies of this literary masterpiece to go on sale so come and see us!

We have written and produced this book in the hope that we will be able to use it to raise some funds to support the Wader Quest project. So whether you like reading books, couldn't care less what has happened to me in my insignificant little life or even think that I am a complete pillock, I implore you to buy a copy even if you only use it to fuel your stove. Buying the book is supporting Wader Quest and therefore the Spoon-billed sandpiper.

Me in action again, this time pontificating, the backing band didn't show up!

Species Champions!

Elis and I have decided, in the name of Wader Quest, to put (more of) our money where our mouths are and have committed to being BirdLife International Species Champions as part of the BirdLife Preventing Extinctions Programme.

Elis and I are really happy to be supporting BirdLife with their work on all globally threatened species (Critically Endangered, Endangered and Vulnerable).

Of the critically endangered species of wader in the world we have only seen two so far and hope to be seeing one more later this year, however realistically we have little chance of seeing any more in this first year of Wader Quest. Javan Lapwing, Eskimo Curlew and Slender-billed Curlew are all thought to be extinct, Jerdon's Courser has gone off the radar and the last species on the list, St. Helena's Plover, we will definitely make the effort go and see one day, but it is doubtful we will get funding help, so probably not this year.

The first of the two species we have seen is Spoon-billed Sandpiper which we saw last November just after Wader Quest started. We saw three or possibly four birds in total and spent many happy hours in their company at Pak Thale in Thailand.

Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Pak Thale, Thailand: November 2012.

The second species is Sociable Lapwing. I saw my first of these at Dartford in Kent in March of 1985, my second was at Welney in October 1990 and my third in Chatteris in 1991. I don't really expect that we'll be blessed with any more in the UK any time soon as their numbers have fallen significantly hence their status as Critically Endangered; we can but hope. During Wader Quest we saw them on the Pivot Fields of Dubai in November of 2012. There were four birds present.

Sociable Lapwing, Pivot Fields, Dubai, UAE: November 2012

This is the only other hopeful for us, the Black Stilt. This bird has stubbornly resisted attempts to build a strong population, one of the problems facing it is interbreeding with White-headed Stilts in its New Zealand home.

Black Stilt. Photo courtesy Brent Stephenson, Eco Vista.