Partial Albino Barred Owl

Okay, cool owl photos of the day can be found at Michael Furtman's website. He saw a white owl in his yard and thought at first it was a snowy, but closer inspection revealed it to be a partial albinow barred owl. Can this Minnesota owl winter get any cooler??

Dead Redpolls and Pine Siskins

About a week ago I started getting emails and calls at the store about people finding dead common redpolls and pine siskins. I called the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center in Minnesota and they had gotten about ten phone calls regarding the same thing. A few days ago, I got a call from Carrol Henderson from the Minnesota DNR saying his office was getting several phone calls from around the mid and northern part of the state regarding sick and dying northern finches. Carrol said that he was getting calls mostly about redpolls and siskins but one yard did have one dead evening grosbeak. He also said that they had eight dead redpolls to examine to try and determine the cause of death. Preliminary results show that the infection that killed the birds was probably viral rather than fungal--so what does this mean?

Viral vs Fungal
The usual culprit when dead birds show up at the feeder is that the feeders are dirty and have mould built upside that is killing the birds. When this happens it's best to take down your feeders and clean them thoroughly with bleach and water or antibacterial soap. If you are unable to completely clean the feeder due to its construction, throw it out and buy a feeder that you can clean. Since the preliminary results lean towards viral that means that the redpolls and finches are passing a virus to each other rather than getting sick from eating directly out of the feeder.

Should you take your feeders down?
If the birds are spreading it to each other, chances are large congregations of birds at a feeder could be infecting each other. By the same token the birds are spreading it to each other by the very nature of the way they behave in flocks whether they are at a bird feeder or not. Some argue that the birds will spread it to each other regardless of your feeder so why not provide meals even for those that will succumb to the infection soon. Others argue that having birds concentrate in your yard could risk spreading it to other species (although the infection seems to only be infecting redpolls and siskins at this point). The bottom line is that it's a personal choice.

We don't know all the facts yet, but we should have more answers Monday or Tuesday.

Bald Eagle Slaughtering

It's unfortunate, but it still happens. Bald eagles are being slaughtered in British Columbia.

Great Owl Photos

There are some really cool photos of a great gray owl hunting today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Trumpeter Swans

Incoming!!


So today started with much promise for getting things done and I did get quite a few errands and writing accomplished, but not as much as I wanted. I'm trying to find a digital recorder that won't cost an arm and a leg, is Mac compatible, and can pick up ambient bird sounds if I'm interviewing someone outside. I've been trying to ask around for opinions but get either, "oh I'm sure you'll find that" to "here's something that's perfect for picking up sounds 200 yards away and can be ordered from such and such and then jerry rigged to do such and such". I will say, a guy named Rich Peet showed me a very cool microphone that attaches to a brimmed hat that you can record while you walk--the brim blocks out some of your stomping as you walk. The downside is that you would need to wear the mic with the stereotypical birder's hat and I don't know if I can do that.

The one thing I don't like about being a birder is the wardrobe. Couldn't we come up with some fancier duds? Is it too much to ask for the occasional form flattering shirt or pants? The endless khaki, the vests and don't even get me started about the whole tuck the pants into the socks bit. It's bad enough that the birder dress code requires that we dress like geeks looking for someone to beat us up, but it's often made worse by the accessories. Have any of you guys seen the walking sticks that double for a sort of chair? I'm sorry but old people sitting on what appears to be a stick up their butt is not attractive at all--and it really doesn't look comfortable either...wow, where did that rant come from?

Anyway, I thought I had found the recorder I needed was Mac compatible, but alas non-birding Bill can only find updates for the software needed to download the sound files and not the software itself. Judging by the amount of profanity still coming from the living room, I think I will be taking the recorder back to Best Buy.

On the upside, I did have another fun afternoon with the trumpeter swans out at Monticello. I did discover that the digital camera I'm using takes videos and maybe I can use the audio from that to do what I want.



Canada geese and trumpeter swans loafing and feeding in Monticello, MN.
What could be worse than yellow snow...brownish green snow--ew.

Monticello Trumpeter Swans

Here's the link for those interested in seeing the trumpeter swans in Monticello, MN.

Great Gray Owl WCCO

WCCO has a great slide show about the great gray owl irruption on their website.

Snowman and flying squirrels

I talked non-birding Bill into going out to build a snowman tonight. We tried to make it into a snow bunny, but it looks more like Marge Simpson than a bunny or at the very least quite abstract. Anyway, we're in the trendy Uptown area of Minneapolis so it looks arty and that's the important thing.




As we were rolling the large balls of snow (our snow creature ended up being over five feet tall) the flying squirrels were chirping at me overhead. I wondered if they recognized me as the one who is always putting out nuts for them on her bedroom window or if they were just chirping at the odd humans moving large mounds of snow?

Anyway, one is staring at me now with a mouth full of nuts? Can I get a photo...yes, here it is:

WCCO and Bog Weirdness

WCCO is going to air their segment about the great gray owl irruption Sunday night on the 10pm news--whoo hoo!!

Well, owls are still being seen in good numbers around Hinkley and I talked to Carrol Henderson from the MN DNR and he (yes he even though the first name is Carrol--it's a weird Minnesota thing, I don't get all the guys with female names up here either) he is speculating that many of the owls will stick around and breed here because the vole population is still no where near recovered in Canada and that owls aren't regular migrators but a tad nomadic and will start nesting where ever there is food. Still so much to learn about what is going on.

For all those that have come to Minnesota to see the owls, please don't forget to report your spending to the MOU. It's important to try and learn the economic impact these owls are having on the state. That's one of the best tools for conservation.

You know, I have never put any kind of warnings about some of the weirdness to be found in the bog. Some people live out in the middle of no where because they don't want to be around other people--and that is true in the bog. There are some places we try to avoid. If you visit Mike Hendrickson's home page and scroll down to the bottom, you see one of the homes we try to avoid. We do this for several reasons, one being that you don't know what would set someone off and start firing a gun and two, if they are unhappy people are visiting their area, they will take steps to remove whatever is drawing people to the area. I always make a point to avoid the yards that have signs up that say "no birdwatching" there are plenty of places to find good birds in the area without irritating people.

Sometimes you just find really odd unexplainable stuff. When we were up earlier this winter we were excited to see a fox on the side of the road...that is until we realized that it wasn't moving. We got out of the van to look at it we realized it was kinda dead, and could find no visible sign of what had killed the fox, but were shocked that someone took the time to try and pose it on the side of the road.

Was it teenagers with too much time on their hands or just some weirdo? Who knows, but it is all part of the fun and adventure of visiting Sax Zim Bog.

Where can I get a great gray owl for education?

Okay, I'm stealing a blog technique from Neil. Whenever he gets several emails with basically the same question, he answers it in his blog, so I'm going to do that here. Many want to know if they can get a great gray owl carcass mounted or a permanently injured owl for educational purposes.

First, in order to have either, you have to have state and federal permits for education--even to get a mounted dead owl. You can't just have a mounted great gray sitting on top of the tv, there's no way US Fish and Wildlife will give a permit for that. The hundreds of owl carcasses are being sent to various research facilities and you can check this article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune to read more about that and I would contact Bob in the article to find out how you can get a mounted owl.

Second, The Raptor Center has some injured great grays but the chances of any of them qualifying as an education bird are slim to nil at this point. Apparently the great gray doesn't have the temperment suited for a bird to do public programs. I asked our assistant bird curator at The Raptor Center if we would get an education great gray and she said she felt lucky if we would be able to get a mounted owl.

Birdchick is Sweeping the Country

I've made it ino the Bangor News as have the owls. I was excited about this and had a moment of minor panic that a certain researcher will lash me for the use of "invasion" as opposed to "irruption" in the article...

I'm very excited, a group of ladies from work and I are planning a trip to Nebraska to see sandhill cranes in March. I don't know if we're going to do the Rivers and Wildlife Celebration but we will get out for some sandhill crane and snow goose action. If you've never done this you really should...unless of course you are trying to come see owls in Minnesota, that should take priority in 2005, but at some point Nebraska in March should be on your list of birding trips.

Hoo Wee

Some days I just feel like people are making life a lot harder than it needs to be. I'm busy all day long, but don't get anything worthwhile accomplished. And then one of my customers will send me a photo like this that makes me smile and glad to be alive.

A meeting of the minds:

I wonder what kinds of pleasantries a first year goshawk and a mallard pair would exchange? I also can't help but notice the male mallard is gallantly positioning the female in front of him.

Eagles

Today was the second of our Valentine's Day Eagle Tours. This was a rowdier crowd, but a fun crowd. The morning started out beautiful, one of those "ah, this is the reason why I enjoy winter"


The view just outside The Raptor Center this morning.

We made a side trip to see the gyrfalcon, and got completely skunked on that. However, the eagles at Colville Park put on quite a show: flying and diving for fish. There was one young female eagle who kept trying to boss around all the others on the ice, she seemed full of piss and vinegar.

Oh, and for the tour participant who scoffed at my holding my digital camera to Amber's spotting scope:


I took this photo of seven eagles. Digi scoping does work. These may not be award winning photos, but they work for souvenirs or sometimes even documenting rarities.

We had an older couple sitting behind me that kept cracking me up, partly with his jokes my favorite being, "When you're hunting, how do you attract rabbits? Make noise like a carrot." Plus they had that wonderful banter of a couple that's been married almost too long.

Another fun story was a guy who decided to take his lady friend on a unique first date. Most first dates are dinner, drinks, maybe a museum. This guy told the lady of his affections that he wanted to take her to hear the owls in Roseville. Now, I think this is a gutsy move. First, you're taking a lady for a first date out into the middle of the woods after dark. Birders I'm sure would think, "yes, how romantic" normal people would think "uh oh, ax murderer". When they finally get down the dark ravine to hear the barred owls, he begins hooting. A birder would probably critique the hooter on his accent and cadence. A normal person would think, "hm, does this person need an appointment at Hazelden?" Well, all will be happy to know that the owls answered the young man back, the lady was impressed by his ability to talk to the owls and they are still a couple. Ya gotta like that, a guy takin' a risk and gettin' the girl, all through the power of birds.

Owl Irruption and Disapproval

My favorite email of the week is from owl researcher Bill Lane:

sharon.
it's not a migration. it's not an invasion. it's an irruption. jeeez.

bill

I have been guilty of calling this large concentration of great gray owls in Minnesota a "migration" and an "invasion" both of which my brain finds sexier terms than "irruption". I feel bad for irritating researchers, I love the so. Irruption just sounds too much like a zit gone wrong or that blazing owls are oozing down the streets and melting cars and smothering people. Anyway, for my poor use of avian terminology, I give myself one disapproving rabbit.


I disapprove of owl migration...I disapprove of owls in general.

Drunken Waxwings

Cedar Waxwings got drunk and flew into some windows in an office park in South Carolina was the top story for a local news station. You can watch the video here, there's nothing sadder than a drunk waxwing.

Disapproving Eagle

"I disapprove of rabbits that I cannot eat!" This is Leuc, one of the education bald eagles at The Raptor Center.


Amber and I did the first of our "Take Your Sweetheart to See Eagles Tour" today and couldn't have had better weather. I hope it keeps until our second one on Monday. We saw mostly adult bald eagles and only a few juveniles. We did get an unexpected bonus of six trumpeter swans and lots of common mergansers. We stopped at various places along the Mississippi but our best stop was Colville park where the trees were just loaded with them.


Tree chock full of bald eagles at Colville Park in Redwing, MN.

What surprised me was that this was a rather quiet laid back crowd. They were very excited about the eagles but not some of the pranksters that we normally have. I will say it was a generous crowd, we ended up signing up eleven people as member of TRC, that will help feed a lot of birds in clinic.

Incidentally, I ran into one of the flight crew at TRC today and she told me that this is the first month that great gray owls make up the largest percentage of our patients. As she was leaving the building she had hold of a great gray owl that had been recovering and was going to be test flown and execised to prepare it for release. It had a green spot on its bill. I asked what that was from and she said normally they put color bands on the legs of the raptors so they can tell them apart in the clinic flight rooms, but the great grays sit so low on their feet that you can't see the bands. In order to tell them apart, they put little dabs of color on their bills.

Bird Chick on Amazon.com

Well the 2006 Birding Calendars are officially in motion. They are listed on Amazon, they're not available yet buy you can sign up to be the first to order one. It's so weird, I have just gotten used to writing 2005 for the date, my calendars are soon to be available for 2006 and I'm already working on calendars for other states for 2007. I hope this isn't messing with the space time continuum too much.

Seriously, I need to finish the other book.

Owl Stories Pouring In

Well this blog has temporarily gone to the owls. Next week I am leading an eagle tour with Amber so we will talk about other birds. People have been so kind with all their emails and sharing their owl stories. I had to share this photo from Mart and Suze Eldridge who are supporters of Project Wildlife in San Deigo.



Mart and Suze had barn owls nesting in their Mexican Fan Palm Tree.


One of the young birds fell out and Mart and Suze got someone from Project Wildlife to get the young bird the help it needed. Barn owls are usually something you associate with a farm in the midwestern country side. I just love this photo of the young owl aroung these tropical looking plants.

Okay, today I'm supposed to be working very hard on finishing my Urban Birdfeeding Book, so if I don't reply to emails don't take it personally. I'm just trying not to tick off my publisher.

My wonderful employees

For those that may have missed the NBC segment, you can view it at MSNBC.com.

I swear, you leave one bird encased in ice, several layers of foil and a couple of freezer bags and your husband labels you a freak and possibly an unsafe cook. Personally, I think it's his fault for digging into mystery items in the fridge. I don't see what he's complaining about, it's just a little waterthrush that flew into a window (I keep meaning to take to the Bell Museum and keep forgetting--and for those curious, I do have a permit for that bird in my freezer). If non-birding Bill is upset by a tiny frozen warbler, I don't even want to begin to think of what he'd say about the partially crushed great-horned owl in the freezer at work. My employees don't complain, but then again I'm in charge of their checks.

Speaking of which, it's time for me to do performance appraisals at work. I always joke that the gifts should start pouring in this time of year, and a few employees have taken me seriously (one learned of my love of bacon and got me a rasher of the fanciest bacon I've ever eaten). Last week Denny got me owl pellets...and not just any owls pellets, but long-eared owl pellets, it's not every day you get one of those. After a hectic day I dissected them and found two rodent skulls in each and wished I had more of an interest in learning rodent anatomy. I have no idea what these four critters used to be but I had fun digging them out of the little black fur wads.


Long-eared owl pellets from Denny.


Two skulls were found in each pellet. Alas, I don't know what type of rodent, if I did then I would be the rodent chick which just doesn't have a nice of ring to it as bird chick does.

Well, I better clean up my mess, non-birding Bill doesn't appreciate exploded owl pellet all over the coffee table.

Donations

Holy cow, I have never received so much email in a short span before in my life! For those interested in making donations please visit The Raptor Center's website. They were the hospital featured on NBC Nightly News.

NBC Nightly News...again, maybe

I just got a call from Stephanie at NBC Nightly News, the owl segment will probably air Tuesday night February 8 between 5:30pm - 6pm. It supposed to be the final segment to finish on a happy note. Because of this, if something super exciting happens in the news, it could get bumped.

MOU Youth Mentorship

To learn more about the MOU Youth Mentorship Program visit the MOU website. It's free and a great way to introduce classes, day camps, scouts, or just about any kid to birding.

Slacking Off Leads to a Gyrfalcon

After having been out of commission from my oral surgery I really needed to get out today, even though I have not finished my Urban Bird Feeding Book. I justified by going down to Redwing to check on bald eagle at Colville Park for our trips next Saturday and Monday (space is still available for Monday if you with to take your sweetheart to see bald eagles on Valentine's Day (952-473-4283). Anyway, eagles are there so we should have a great time, plus I found one of the eagle nests we visit occupied with a resident pair.

My main focus going down was to check out the gyrfalcon that had been reported. You can see of photo of the bird at the MOU website's Recently Seen Page. I was driving around the area of Hwy 55 and 42 when I noticed two cars pulled up next to each other. "Birders" I thought to myself. I saw lots of arm waving and point, but nothing that really signaled either one had found the gyrfalcon yet. I noticed in the rear view mirror of the car directly in front of me that the driver had a well kept beard, "Denny!" I thought to myself. Eventually more birders showed up, one being Paul Budde from the MOU who had a bird in his scope. It was near another bird that was for sure a red-tail, but at the distance we were I couldn't be sure the other bird in Paul's scope was a gyr. Drew Smith showed up and he confirmed it was the gyr. We all moved our vehicles to a closer spot and still the bird could only be safely identified with a spotting scope, but if you had access to a good scope you could see it was a gyrfalcon.



Steve Weston, Paul Budde, Barb Martin and Drew Smith gleefully enjoy viewing the adult gray phase gyrfalcon in Dakota County.

I really enjoy going to "stake out birds" (for those not in the know a stake out bird is a rare or unusual bird seen that is posted to a listserv that birders all go to see). They are like impromptu parties people work together to find the bird and once the bird is found everyone helps each other to see the bird, shares stories of past stake outs and you learn how to identify birds you're not familiar with. When we were far away, the bird looked very erect in the scope but I thought for sure it was a red-tail. When we got closer there was no mistaking it for a hawk, you could see the malar stripe, the white front, the gray back. It's a huge falcon and was worth slacking off the day for.

You could see why it liked being in this area. The surrounding farm fields were full of Canada geese and mallards getting some last minute food before flying off to Black Dog lake for the night to roost. The large falcon had it's pick of waterfowl for food.

Also interesting to note today were lots of red-tailed hawks pairing up. I even saw one sitting on a nest on 494 near 35E.

Mystery Egg Solved, but more to learn

I got several responses with ideas of everything from little blue herons to screech owls. Here was one interesting post from the Minnesota Zoo:


I showed the picture to Jim Pichner, Avian Supervisor here at the MN Zoo
and he's guessing it's a Hooded merganser egg. If you still have the
egg, you can test it by rubbing your fingers on surface of the egg. If
the green rubs off and it starts to turn to an ivory white, it's a
hoodie egg.

The other option could be a Goldeneye, but we thought it looked too
small.

Steve Estebo
Avian Zoologist
Minnesota Zoo

I tried that and nothing came off the egg. Then I got this email with an interesting article link from Anne Hanley about nest parasitism in wood duck boxes followed by this:

Hi Sharon,

I forwarded your original email, with the link to the photos, to Mike Zicus,
a good friend of mine who is a waterfowl research biologist for the MN DNR
at the Wetlands Wildlife Research Group in Bemidji. He has done extensive
research on cavity-nesting ducks and has handled countless numbers of eggs
from Wood Ducks, Hooded Mergansers and Goldeneyes.

Here is his response:


I'm certain that the "wood duck" egg is a hooded merganser egg. The key is
the almost spherical shape and whitish color. They look a lot like cueballs.
Wood duck eggs would be more elliptical or ovate and smaller too (assuming
the "chicken" egg is "medium to large" in size), and they are beige in
color. Their shells are much thinner than hoodies too. Hoody eggs have a
very solid "sound" to them when knocked together because of the thick
shells. Of course, that's not evident from the photo.

I'm almost as certain that the "mystery" egg is a goldy, but it's hard to
tell from the photo. Was it collected where goldies occur? The color in the
photo looks a bit off (goldy eggs are decribed variously as "pale green,
blue-green, olive green, or malachite green"), but goldy eggs often discolor
as they sit around putrifying. Often they get darker and can get kind of
blotchy. The shape and size are OK for a goldy (assuming the "chicken" egg
is "medium to large" in size). Common mergs have much larger eggs that are
buffy to beige in color.

Hope this is helpful.

Jim Barrett
Duluth

It was also recommended that I get A Guide to the Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds by Paul Baicich and Colin J. O. Harrison and after reading that book and photo comparisons I agree that the mystery egg is a common goldeneye egg...but this leads to another mystery. I thought the egg came from a wood duck box in the customers backyard in the west metro of the Twin Cities--not a known breeding area for goldeneye. I will have to confirm with him the next time he comes in if this was from the metro area or a cabin up north. Also, after reading the book and the emails posted above I agree that the egg is a hooded merganser egg and not a wood duck egg. What a fun winter mystery this was! Thanks for all the responses.

Mystery Egg

One of my job perks are the bird mysteries people bring to us. I love trying to id birds from grainy photos or pieces of feathers, beak and legs. We've had guy come in and tell us that this past fall when cleaning out his wood duck box. He found one white egg--presumably wood duck and one bright blue egg about the size of a chicken egg. We couldn't find any cavity nesting bird that laid a bright blue egg the size of a chicken's egg so thought maybe his neighbor pranked him. Yesterday he brought in the eggs. The egg isn't blue but more of a greenish color with light brown speckling. The thought he remembered the color incorrectly but egg color can fade. I'm not sure what the egg is since I'm not an oologist, my best guess would be some type of merganser but I'm not sure. If anyone has any idea, please email!




The mystery egg next to a wood duck egg.





Chicken egg, mystery egg and wood duck egg