The Pits

Yesterday I had a wonderful morning giving a lecture on the evolution of Buddhism and its historic arrival in Mongolia to a small group of American students. They're here for the semester through the School for International Training, headquartered right in my mother’s town of Brattleboro, VT. Even more exciting, they’ve hired me on as a lecturer and tour guide for a field trip to Danzan Ravjaa’s Khamar Monastery this coming weekend. Full report next week, natch. 

Now it’s time to turn to the eternal questions. Like, “Hey Konchog, seriously, what is it with you and birds, anyway?”

I wish I could offer a satisfactory answer, I really do. Maybe I was a predatory feline in a recent past life? But it’s just there. Periodically, I just have to go out and look for birds, and identify them, and list them. No matter what others say, it contributes to my mental health, honest. So, knowing that the unseasonably warm weather (and serendipitously cancelled meetings) of the past two weekends – pushing 60F, calm – would afford me pretty much the last opportunity for the next six months to comfortably get outdoors, I dusted off the binoculars and headed out to scope the last stragglers of this fall’s bird migration. The rewards were rich.

The first Sunday, Brother Brian and I took an early jaunt out to the eastern gravel pits. For 99% of you I know that sounds like, well, the pits. But birders, those unabashed boosters of local sewage treatment plants everywhere, they will sigh appreciatively and understand. Migrating shorebirds and raptors had passed, but if there are pits, and they’re filled with water, the knowledgeable know that at this time of year they will attract migrating waterfowl. And so they did, all the usual tufties and wigeons and goldeneyes and such. But the star of the day was the most unassuming little guy, feeding in a little flock on the bare gravel slopes. So few were the identifying marks, and so well did they blend into their surroundings, that Brian and I spent the better part of a half hour stalking the flock, narrowing down the possibilities, until finally we caught them drinking against a dark mud background. Then I was forced to abandon plumping for them to be Lesser Short-toed Larks (truly ignoble nomencalture) and concede that they were, in fact, Rock Sparrows. Plain bird, drab name, I don’t care. It was the first time I’d seen one, lifer #869, and I was thrilled. It was also a new bird for Brian’s Mongolia list – he hadn’t seen one for 30 years – and he picked up Great Grey Shrike as well.

This past Sunday was a bit impromptu, Mongol-style, which follows the fact that the outing was organized by Huyagaa, a young man from the Mongolian Bird Watching Club, and Amaraa, another young man from the Mongolian Ornithological Society (new site, new link). Both are longtime friends from Eastern Mongolia, working towards master’s degrees in ornithology, the former studying Saker Falcons, and the latter yet to narrow down his water bird research.

After sorting out busses and acquiring a car, they took us to a site I’d never been to, all the way south to the very end of the airport road. There we found ourselves on a vast floodplain of the Tuul River tucked against rocky mountains and studded with mature tree groves and tall bushes. As a birder, when I saw it I just got that feeling. Something cool was bound to turn up.

When I’m birding in a habitat like that, especially when it’s new, I get so absorbed that my sense of time dissolves and when I snap out of it, I’m frequently shocked by how far I’ve wandered from my starting point. So it was then. The birds were sparse, but wonderful: Hawfinch, Cinereous Vulture, Dusky Thrush, Lesser and Great Spotted Woodpecker, Eurasian Nuthatch. But it’s a Birding Law that just as you’re thinking you should head back, there’s an explosion of avian activity. Getting onto a small foraging flock triggered a combined memory of winter-plumage American Goldfinch (feather patterning) and Ruby-crowned Kinglets (size, compact shape, and busy-ness). Tighter inspection revealed them to be an adorable little bird I should have seen in Europe somewhere but never did: Goldcrest. And, as often happens in winter, several species were foraging together and I got a new bird for Mongolia, the equally adorable Long-tailed Tit.

I wandered a little further, feeling preposterously pleased about this, when I heard an unfamiliar ‘cheep’ right above my head. Looking up, seven of one of the most stylish birds you’ll ever see were perched and gawking at me right back. Others swear they turn up regularly in UB parks, and I’ve no reason to doubt them, but I’d never managed to come across one either here or in North America: Bohemian Waxwing.

OK, that’s enough of that. Brother Konchog has been feeling pretty under the weather the last couple of days and I think it’s time to pop an echinacea lozaenge and get horizontal again.

Ah, almost forgot. Thanks and folded hands to Philip at Tricycle Blog for the kind words and linkage and pointing to other "great Buddhist blogs."

Comments

[Ryan]

Bohemian Waxwing? This amateur birder is jealous!

[Carol of Seattle]

Wow, I am now officially in love with the Bohemian Waxwing!

[Konchog]

Ah, two women of impeccable (or perhaps peckable?) taste. But you know, ladies, the Boho is a bird of the northern forests and ranges widely in winter. There's every possibility they're in your local park, or occasionally in your back yard. Focus those binocs!

There's a third in the family, Japanese Waxwing, I intend to track down if I'm ever in Korea at the right time of year. Or, you know, Japan.