Birding. with Parkinsons

TL/DR: Even though I am an “old white guy” I think birding should be more welcoming and inclusive and I am in favor of the AOS decision to get rid of eponymous bird names.

Others make much more heartfelt and eloquent cases for the AOS decision. I’m not going to try to repeat their arguments, which I find compelling. You all have it right, I’m talking about you, BNfB, and I support you.

Seeing all these good do-bees under attack, I really needed to say this in public, and it feels good. Extra good ever since a decrepit swamp thing recently slithered out of the Louisiana bayous and crapped all over my local listserv, MASSBIRD, looking for signatures on some retrograde petition. You and your cronies had your turn, pal, and you lost it in particularly egregious style. So pipe down and stay in your fucking lane.

Since plenty of light and heat have already been generated in support of change, I thought it might be fun to take the low road and catalog some of the asinine, but actual, objections that have choked my inbox in the last few weeks.

Oh, and full disclosure: I was pissed when they moved all the Dendroica and a few other warbler species into Setophaga, but I got over it and so can you. (Haha only serious.)

I’m a worldwide birder and North Americans should not be unilaterally changing [English] names. First, I hope you are doing something about your severely first-world high carbon footprint! I haven’t traveled that much internationally, but when I do talk about birds with birders abroad inevitably we inject genus and species into the conversation often just for clarity’s sake. Oh, and too late, we’ve already got a lot of name mismatches to keep straight.

This is all too political/leftist/woke. Politics should be kept out of birding (and vice/versa).  My children would certainly not call me “woke,” but if they did, who cares? I suppose being open to growth and having empathy for others, even other birders, isn’t all that bad.

We should do this gradually. Why should we have to remember all these new names right off the bat? See Setophaga, above. Also, there is a certain cathartic appeal to making a change quickly and cleanly. Compared to most educational and scientific enterprises, which would talk this to death over a decade or more, the actions of the AOS are refreshingly decisive and timely.

Only really bad people’s names should be removed. By replacing all of the eponyms at once we are spared the unending arguments about who is too egregious to have a bird named for them and who is merely somewhat egregious but not too bad to keep.

We are purging the past/the history of ornithology is being cancelled.  The evidence is pretty overwhelming that most people names for birds are not named for important scientists or renowned ornithologists.  Many instead seem to have been aimed at currying the favor of some pretty unsavory characters.

This should be left up to the ornithologists.  As far as I see, they’re not the only stakeholders here.  And note, the crap about Setophaga; they cannot be trusted.

George Washington had slaves.  Should we then take him off the dollar bill?  Whaddaboutism at its finest. The argument continues that slaveholding was a feature of the time and should not be judged from the perspective of today’s mores. But we constantly judge the past, it’s called history.  By the way, maybe we should take George off the buck.

Those scientific names should change as well, then.  More partial whaddaboutism. Maybe they should change, too! And they are bound to keep on morphin’ as it is (cf. Setophaga).

And perhaps my favorite, 

This is just so the field guide publishers can line their pockets with new editions. Yeah, Sibley and Kaufman are in cahoots and are going to get rich off this.

A little over a month ago yours truly went under the knife (and burr drill) to install a Deep Brain Stimulation system. The results thusfar have been miraculous! Tremors have been tamped down in both my arms and hands, dystonia banished, I can even type! We’re still fine-tuning the signal, but have already begun to titrate down the amount of Carbo/Levadopa I take on a daily basis.

I’m still a little shaky, but can even use my binoculars again!

Thank you, MGH

I couldn’t be prouder to be the dad of the 2023 American Birding Association Young Birder of the Year, Henry Malec-Scott. Henry earned this distinction in the 10-13 year old category. It’s amazing to see the world through the eyes and ears of the newest generation of birders and we congratulate all of the participants on their hard work and inspiration. Check out his public service campaign to raise awareness of the benefits of drinking shade-grown coffee.

We’ve been busy birding our local patch this migration season. With both arms tremoring, I have relied more and more on picking out the migrants by ear and pointing out suspicious movement to Henry, whose razor-sharp, nearly instantaneous visual identifications confirm the sightings. Teamwork!

Although there’s been extraordinarily little snow this season, we have been beleaguered with long stretches of sunless gray days, and by mid-January desperately needed some sunshine. The gloom was finally enough to make my more fiscally responsible better half start to crack–when I caught her looking at flights to warmer lands I knew it was time to strike. Luckily San Juan, PR is an easy nonstop ride from our New England base.

After setting up shop at the Wyndham Grand Rio Mar, we were hungry and thirsty, anxious to shed our New England winter traveling clothes for lighter garb. It seems wrong, but I got my first lifer, one of the many personable Greater Antillean Grackles, in swim trunks with a cervesa in hand.

We booked a rental car and headed up to El Yunque, the only US National Forest that is a tropical rainforest . The rebuilt visitor’s center is beautiful and accessible, with the opportunity to peek into the canopy as well as to get up close and personal with a few endangered Puerto Rican Parrots. We never ventured much beyond the center, but very much enjoyed the birding around its woods and gardens.

The boy and I saw endemics and common Caribbean birds, as well as old familiar friends, such as Semipalmated Plovers, spending the winter in a more welcoming climate. We weren’t at all hardcore about birding, and were mostly just happy to get some rays, put a toe in the surf, and greet the birds as they came. Still, I picked up 16 lifers and could probably get another dozen with focused effort on a future trip. Which I hope is soon.

My wife suggests the possibility that I am depressed. My neurologist says pretty much all her patients are either anxious or depressed. It makes me laugh, reminds me of a bumper sticker sentiment: if you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.

I need a big day. Maybe October 8.

It’s fall 2022 and I am on the same rig as I have been for a while: Swarovski 8.5x42EL, Benro monopod, and Swaro ATS 80 on a thirty year old Manfrotto Bogen tripod that weighs about a thousand pounds (not including the micro fluid head.) Maybe I should give in and ask Santa for some carbon fiber for Christmas.

I don’t think I have been that good this year, but maybe carbon fiber and coal are not that far apart.

I still haven’t figured out how to carry the P900 without it banging into everything but when I am birding with the boy he sees the world through his little Canon point and shoot viewfinder half the time anyway so maybe that’s a non-issue. And since Standish Academy is a home school, I am never not birding with the boy.

“Never, not.” Maybe I need an editor as well.

Back on just Sinemet, I cannot map the lagging “on” or “peak” periods to the dosage timing, which disappoints me because I think I should be a better scientist than I am. I can barely get my pills into a plus/minus one hour regimen. I have no discipline when it comes to sticking to a strict symptomatic recording schedule. Combining the carbo/levadopa with a dopamine agonist seemed to work a lot better, right up until my feet began to swell. And there was also the slight bit of obsessive behavior to contend with, specifically a fixation on the acquisition of polyhedral dice. (Which in my defense is really a pretty mild obsession in the grand scheme of things.)

Although I need it like two holes in the head, it may be time to think about wiring up some deep brain stimulation.

This is not a very birdy post. Here’s a thought: I was with the boy doing a little hawk watching at Wachusett Mountain on Saturday and the wind felt like it was blowing 30 or 40 mph, with gusts over and above that. I was layered appropriately, except for the fact that I discovered too late that someone had poached my birding gloves from my windbreaker shell pocket. Those exposed hands were enough to make me shiver.

Shivering is contraindicated if you have PD, so stay layered up, and don’t forget to bring gloves!

Summertime and the birding is slow. Time to look for other winged things:

Lepidoptera: the showy butterfly sprites of midsummer, Cabbage White, Tiger Swallowtail, Black Swallowtail, Painted Lady, skippers and blues.

Odonata: the damselflies and dragonflies, fearsome micro-hunters, coursing with a mechanical precision and deterministic line segments, angles, and planes. Eastern Pondhawk, Widow Skimmers, Green Darners, bluets.

Mammalia: Bats. Big brown? How to tell?

We bought sunflower seed at the same breakneck pace as in prior years but, besides the juncos, the winter birds just didn’t seem to materialize this year.

In addition to the Dark-eyed Juncos, the White-throated Sparrows came in limited numbers, and there were troupes of American Goldfinches (but no siskins). Our Carolina Wrens were happy, though: we’re hopeful barring any outlier weather in the next few weeks they’ll be with us for the spring, happily setting up shop in one of the many nooks and crannies around the backyard.

The tremors continue to make birding more and more difficult; as they have expanded to the right side as well, it’s especially challenging to focus on birds in flight. It’s much easier to scope mostly stationary birds, like ducks. While hiking (well really, just “walking” to typically ambulatory persons) the majority of birds are heard, not seen.

The tail end of migration featured exceptional numbers of Blackpoll Warblers, a good variety of yard firsts, a dip on what by many accounts should have been an ‘easy’ vagrant Black-throated Gray Warbler, and some interesting ducks.

It also coincided with me monkeying around with my meds (both dosage and timing) and, with the day job buzzing with activity, something had to give, namely, this blog.

But I’m back in the saddle now!

Oh, and good birding everyone during Birdability Week!