[Tweeters] Birding while cycling..
Steve Hampton
stevechampton at gmail.com
Tue Sep 12 20:46:00 PDT 2023
I love birding by bike and have done so for years. I've done the CBC by
bike most of the past 20 years. Compared to a car, I can hear everything,
note mixed species flock and stop quickly, and pretty much park anywhere.
Compared to walking, I can cover much more ground. Even if biking out to
the lighthouse or some other destination, I can pick up flyby crossbills,
Evening Grosbeak, or even a Townsend's Warbler chip, whereas by car I would
never have heard them.
On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 7:54 PM HAL MICHAEL <ucd880 at comcast.net> wrote:
> While I don't bike much I do a whole lot of birding while running.
> Probably added at least half a dozen lifers. Plus I have "run" into quite a
> few mammals from shrews up to bison. I just find keeping m eyes and ears
> open is rewarding.
>
> Hal Michael
> Board of Directors, Ecologists Without Borders <http://ecowb.org/>
> Olympia WA
> 360-459-4005
> 360-791-7702 (C)
> ucd880 at comcast.net
>
>
>
> On 09/12/2023 6:58 PM PDT Kevin Lucas <vikingcove at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Tom,
>
> Details --
>
> I am actually birding while I'm pedaling my bicycle. Before the
> hit-and-run that shut down then greatly reduced my bicycling for years, I'd
> named areas along the Yakima Greenway Path, where I bicycled, for birds --
> 'kestrel field', 'flicker field', 'egret slough',.... I have a nice quiet
> bicycle that fits me well. Even drivetrain noise is quite low. It's well
> adjusted, I wax my chain, and I ride on pavement. I whistle back to birds
> whose calls I can imitate passably. When my wife rides with me, I'm always
> pointing out birds, most of which I've first heard. I'm typically going 12
> to 20 mph, and with my current helmet, wind noise is negligible. A slight
> turn of my head can help when needed.
> My high pitch hearing is still good. It used to be painfully good. There
> is a great amount of high frequency noise from electronics in our world
> that doesn't seem to bother most people. I rarely carry my binoculars with
> me. I tried carrying small ones, but I'm spoiled on my Canon Image
> Stabilzer binoculars, and rely on their stabilization even more so when my
> heartrate is elevated. If I were to stop to view, I'd want them, but
> they're big and heavy, so I need a knapsack for them. I like to ride
> without that encumbrance when I don't need to carry food and liquids for
> all day rides.
>
> When I lived in Alaska, though I hated the noise, I found that travelling
> by tremendously noisy air boat, Bald Eagles were unlikely to flush as we
> passed. When in my canoe or raft on the same rivers, they usually flushed
> as I passed silently by. I figured they thought I was trying to sneak up on
> them. It was not a small sample size. Thousands were around.
>
> Crippled, I wandered on foot clumsily on the Yakima Greenway Path. I was
> amazed at the close looks afforded me by little brown jobs, started to see
> their plumage well, and I got into identifying birds. It seemed to me they
> were pretty sure I had no chance of trying to catch and eat them with my
> slow and awkward movements. Similarly with my bike, it seems I often am not
> part of birds' perceived imminent threats. I also have a high vantage point
> on my bike.
>
> A couple of years ago while bicycling I heard an Ovenbird singing away. I
> stopped and tried to spot it without binocs to no avail. It was singing
> again or still when I pedaled back past the spot. That was my rarest
> bicycling find, but I also often heard and saw Lesser Goldfinches along my
> rides long before their "rare" eBird designation was dropped locally. I get
> joy from all sorts of birds while I ride, and often say to the Turkey
> Vultures that I'm not ready for them yet, while hoping that the diclofenac
> I've used for pain reduction wouldn't kill them if they ate me, as it has
> done to vultures in India and Pakistan.
>
> In a noisy, echo-y room, I'd have a tremendously hard time picking out
> bird vocalizations. Echoes and peoples voices wipe out bird sounds to my
> ears. The loud yammering of a local prominent bird lister always trashed my
> ability to hear birds at stops on his field trips. When he'd loudly schuss
> others, I'd laugh with a big smirk. Another lister makes loads of noise,
> clanking his tripod and talking, flushing birds all around. In addition to
> his carelessness and selfishness, I attribute his noisiness to his impaired
> hearing -- not realizing how much noise he is making. Their noise
> contributes to our desire and efforts to stay far from them. Even the noise
> of someone walking alongside me can obliterate many bird sounds to my ears.
> But the noise of my biking doesn't wipe out nearly as much. I don't hear
> most of the quietest chips and peeps and such, so there's the effective low
> sound pressure level notch filter that's built in to bicycling, but I hear
> enough to keep me happy and attentive while I ride.
>
> Since I bicycle at an aerobic pace, when I stop I can often hear the sound
> of the blood coursing through my ears if I try to listen intently, so stops
> aren't the greatest birding opportunities for me, other than the final stop
> at our home.
>
> Good Birding,
> https://www.aba.org/aba-code-of-birding-ethics/
> Kevin Lucas
> Yakima County, Washington
> *Qui tacet consentire videtur*
>
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 4:58 PM Tom Benedict <benedict.t at comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
> On Sep 12, 2023, at 16:34, Kevin Lucas <vikingcove at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Lately I've finally been able to return to enjoying birds while bicycling,
> something I thought I'd never be able to do again. It helps me get my fix
> of hearing and seeing birds with a much smaller turbine/lithium/carbon
> footprint.
>
>
> I’m interested in details Kevin. I have a hard time birding while walking,
> much less while bicycling. Or am I jumping to the conclusion that you are
> birding _while_ cycling rather than cycling between stops where you bird?
>
> Tom Benedict
> Seahurst, WA
>
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--
Steve Hampton
Port Townsend, WA (qatáy)
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