My favorite encounters with dinosaurs are the ones that are incidental to my life. I was just out doing something else, and there they were. But still, expeditions specifically meant for birding can be very productive and a good time in their own right, if you don’t fuck yourself up doing them. I haven’t been on a ton of these trips, so I sound like a broken record when I recommend the Billy Frank Jr. Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge. The paths will keep you from twisting your ankle like you would on an undeveloped hillside or a rocky beach. I dearly hope orngdolf shitler and apartheid junior haven’t fucked it up too much yet.
My brother was living in Kansas and every time we went out was a chance for me to see something I can’t see where I live. But he wanted to see things that were new to him as well, so he’d take me to some odd spots. I don’t remember where this one was, but I remember the tableau. We were on a path, might have been paved, like a regular walking park for dogs and joggers. Down a grassy hill there was some kind of water out of sight, and a very small tree sitting alone just on the visible side of that crest. Sitting in the tree was a single bird, maybe robin sized? Dark on top, white on bottom.
Absolutely unexciting, uninteresting. It did nothing interesting and made no interesting sounds. I pointed it out and my brother said it was new to him as well. Not too hard to ID, looking at passerines in the area for something with the right colors. Eastern kingbird. Woohoo.
What exactly is the point of paying this much attention to little creatures? Sometimes, if you put your findings into publicly available data sets, it can be citizen science. Sometimes, you may see something you didn’t know was there before, and be filled with a sense of wonder at nature. Sometimes, I dunno, it’s just not that thrilling.
I have been posting these without googling the animals, trying to go off memory alone because it can be more fun that way. I might make an ass out of myself, but I give readers a chance to siwoti at me for their own amusement. But I caved on kingbirds. I read the wiki, trying to find any connection to anything interesting. Zilch!
They are part of a clade of passerines that is absolutely massive, the most speciose in the americas – tho much more variety below the US. I skimmed those birds and had not heard of any of them. Some looked like birds I knew but only because of convergent evolution; they were not the same guys. What are kingbirds all about? What do they do? I dunno. Eat a bug. Have a nice day.
Even a drab and conventional bird can be a person’s fave if they have personal experience with them. If you love eastern kingbirds, holler in the comments.
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They may be called Eastern kingbirds, but their distribution includes eastern Washington (well, maybe the Eastern does fit). Watched one near the Cle Elum River, sitting on a good exposed perch, darting out to grab bugs from the air, and to chase off other birds.
Kingbird fan here. It’s the calls. They sound like they are laughing.
Taking numbers from Wikipedia, New World suboscines represent 20% of passerine diversity. The only other non-oscine passerines are the two species of New Zealand wrens.
There’s also “see them while you still can” and “bear witness”, I suppose. Someday far from now you might be telling people, “These used to exist. They even used to be abundant.”
On a more positive note, sighting maps might help not only science but also future conservation efforts, if need be.
really surprised to get kingbird experiences here. i only had the one, so no bead on how well-known or obscure they are. thx!