As some of you may know, I have a little side business as an iPhone app developer. So, since v2 of my major app, birdcountr, is just about to be submitted to the store I thought I’d look ahead to my next app. The above image is basically the concept design for what I call ‘Gull Decodr.’ The app will be a way to work and learn gulls. One of the major flaws of birding ID apps currently available is that they don’t use the technology; They’re basically books digitized. Maybe they have a feature or two, but, really, they lack a really killer user experience. So hopefully Gull Decodr, if it comes to fruition (I’ll need a consultant who really knows gulls better than me!), will be the first in a line of $0.99 apps that break down members of a family of birds.

We’ve come into an absolute desolation period locally. Cape May said they had the ‘flight of the millenium.’ Across the state huge flights of Black-capped Chickadees are being seen. Here… nothing. The lakes are empty. Being a waterbird enthusiast first-and-foremost this is especially disappointing. But the weird thing is that usually by this time of year we’re full of waterbird sightings. However, for whatever reason, this year is a dud. Most of my mornings driving around Harvey’s Lake produce nothing but the ubiquitous (for this time of year) Mallards and Coots. Sea ducks and geese have been noticeably missing this year, except for the day 11 female Black Scoter dropped by (which is usually the scoter we see least at Harvey’s Lake). No Brant, no Long-tailed Ducks. It’s disheartening as far as birds go.

The shimmering hope for birds this year is that there have been multiple sightings of Evening Grosbeaks and Pine Siskins in the area. However, I still haven’t seen either and my weekend birding has been pretty limited while we’re busy cleaning out my Mom’s house to put up for sale.

So I’ve turned my attention to land snails for now. I’ve started a blog about my finds (taking the easy way out by just using a blogspot templated site instead of fully designing one). The blog is at leaflittercritters.blogspot.com. Let me tell you that birders really should appreciate all the great study and breadth of information available to them. Terrestrial gastropod information is few and far between. In fact, it’s so understudied that, even though I’ve only begun studying land snails a couple months ago, I’ve already added a handful species to the list of species previously unknown to our county. Plus the most comprehensive book on the subject dates back to 1940 and I had to hunt it down through interlibrary loan and then scan in the 2500 pages so that I had a copy for my own reference (since it is out of print).

The snail pictured above (if I’m correct) is Neohelix dentifera. Land snails are generally referred to by their latin names with many malacologists shunning common names, but the common name is Big-tooth Whitelip. It belongs to the Polygyridae family of snails which I believe is the largest family of land snails in North America.

UPDATE: After writing this article complaining about the dearth of birds, the birding gods threw me a lob this morning as I found 5 (always-stunning) male Long-tailed Ducks and a Red-necked Grebe at Harvey’s Lake.

Today I went on a BioBlitz at the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. I joined Adam Sabatine, Chris Fischer, and Corey Husic to count as many species of plants and animals we could find during our 7 hour shift.

The birding was only okay. I knew it wouldn’t be especially great when I walked out of the house in the morning and it was very warm. We managed just about 60 species, pretty low in my opinion for how long we birded. It seems like this year I’ve struck out on every organized trip I’ve been a part of: today with only 60 species; the World Series of Birding where we landed in the low 90s (when we expected to break 100); and on the spring migration count where we had the second lowest species total for the count.

Still it was a good time. We missed some pretty easy species: no buteos, no thrushes (brown thrushes anyway), no vultures, no fish crow. Probably the highlight was an Ovenbird, just because I haven’t seen one in weeks (just checked in my app birdcountr and my last sighting was August 27).

Here’s the list. I somehow missed a couple birds (Sharp-shinned Hawk, Mourning Dove).
http://blog.nepabirdproject.org/maps/Bioblitz9252010.html