Naming birds

When your wealth of bird knowledge is being able to tell a robin from a blue jay from a cardinal, there is lots to learn at a birding conference like the Midwest Birding Symposium held at Lakeside September 17-20. I'll begin with a snippet of trivia that I picked up by attending some of the programs when I wasn't volunteering (I was the early a.m. shift at the gate, and the dinner crew on Friday).

Scott Weidensaul gave a fascinating short history of birding on Friday night with wonderful photos. I never even saw him look at his notes and he must have included hundreds of details covering about that many years. One interesting thing he told us was that generally, birds that were named early in our country's history have common, descriptive names--red wing blackbirds, black throated blue warblers, barn swallow, etc. Ordinary people named them based on their observations. But as the population moved west and explorers and scientists named them, the birds began to get names of people--family, friends, mentors, and politicians.

Lucy was the name of John James Audubon's wife, but he never named a bird for her. However, Lucy's Warbler is named for Lucy Baird, who was herself named for Lucy Audubon. So, indirectly, Lucy Audubon got her bird.

I also learned that a "big sit" is when people gather in a particular spot and count species they see. This "big sit" at Lakeside I believe counted 27. Also, I'd assumed "shore birds" meant what we have in and around Ottawa County, birds that like the shore, but that's not what they are. Shore birds are sandpipers and plovers, but not gulls and ducks.

I really enjoyed the vendors' displays in South Auditorium and the Rhein Center and I got a lot of freebies. I had no idea that bird watching was so high tech. Nor did I know the Amish sold binoculars! Apparently birding is quite popular with the Amish. The prices were out of this world. Also at this event, people donated their old binoculars (I think there were hundreds) and then these are redistributed to birding groups in poor countries.

Oh yes, and because the Caspian Tern was our poster bird and the logo on our caps, I can now tell a tern from a gull. They are hard to miss up on Lake Erie--really big, with bright red bills that point downward and they float around and then dive bomb into the water and come up with a fish. They breed on 5 continents and in 70 countries, so they really span the globe.

Jane Alexander was one of the Saturday evening speakers, and I think she said there were 80-90 million birders in the U.S. but that seems a bit high--wouldn't that be almost a third of the population? However many, it's a lot--and as near as I could tell from the advertising, you could be attending a symposium, conference or festival every day, and still not see it all. There's even a guy in the Ohio Army National Guard who is helping Iraqis with their bird books and equipment.

The Symposium will be back at Lakeside in two years, so if you're a Lakesider, or enjoy that area, keep an eye open for this event. We had a great time.