Charlie holding a Bald Eagle at his 40th anniversary on the FDNY.
Each month from March to August we feature season-specific atlas challenges for a chance to win Atlaser of the Month. In May, the challenge was to find nest building. Charlie Roberto was randomly selected from 4,879 entries to win the May monthly challenge with an observation of Red-winged Blackbird building a nest. Congratulations, Charlie!
Name:
Charlie Roberto
Hometown or county:
Croton-on-Hudson, Westchester County
How you started birding:
My interest in birds started in the mid-sixties when I saw my mother sitting in a folding chair by a fruiting mulberry tree looking through magazines with binoculars on her lap. She pointed out birds coming to eat the berries. Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, Indigo Bunting, American Robin, Brown Thrasher, etc. That got me looking more, but it wasn’t until 1982 when I took a work friend (NYC Fire Dept) fishing in Putnam County on a good migration day. He had a degree in biology and never realized there were so many types of birds. He lived in NYC and started taking birding classes at the American Museum of Natural History. A few months later, he told me he had seen over 100 different species. We looked through his book and he counted all the ones I remembered seeing. He had seen more species than me, so it was off to the races. After a year or two it became more about the birds, not numbers of species. I tend to pass on chasing rarities.
Favorite birds:
Boreal Owl. I saw one with my daughter, Anna, at Whitefish Point while she was working on a Saw-whet Owl research project. We caught a Boreal Owl to band and it reminded me of a Muppet character—the Animal—the crazy drummer in the Muppet band. I also like warblers. Every year spring is like old friends coming home. Least favorite bird: Brown-headed Cowbird.
Motivation to atlas:
To better document the decline in bird species and create more awareness of this tragedy.
Favorite atlasing area:
Putnam County. There has been so much change in 30 years of surveying birds there. (Ralph Odell helped start the Putnam Christmas Bird Count in 1954 and asked me to start bird surveys ten years ago. The Atlas and eBird make it easier. He still does the CBC. 😊) Putnam County is the smallest county in NYS, and for being so close to NYC, it is very underbirded. Fahnestock State Park has over 10,000 acres.
Most rewarding part of atlasing:
Getting other people interested and excited about it.
Favorite atlasing discovery:
Watching a Rose-breasted Grosbeak build a nest while with a family with two young boys I brought on a hike. And finding a Bank Swallow colony just across the border of Putnam County after seeing some at a local park in the breeding season.
Advice for someone “on the fence” about participating:
The data will outlive us. My younger birder friends laugh about me talking about the old days. We need to find ways to help restore declining populations. We have habitat with no birds. Is it insect loss, invasive plants, insects, disease, drastic temperature changes in the spring, cowbirds? So many questions. Atlasing provides hard data we can use to effect some changes in how we do things.
