First Blood at the Bird Store

A little before 5pm today, Melissa called me to the back door and asked if I had my good binoculars (pish-sha, did I have my good binoculars--what kind of birdchick would I be without them?). There was a Cooper's hawk that had just grabbed something from the feeder...and it was still alive. Melissa and I tried with our binos to identify the prey being killed and left poor Denny to tend to the customers on his own. The Coop's was an immature bird probably fairly fresh from the nest and seemed confused and surprised that it not only had hold of something, but also how to keep it from moving. Every time the hawk lowered it's head to pluck feathers, the bird in its talons fluttered and tried to peck the hawk's face.

I often ponder how I would like to be killed if I were prey. As much as I love accipiters I think that would be the worst way to go. They have skinny little legs and thus do not have the squeezing and crushing power a great-horned owl or red-tailed hawk do. Cooper's seem to turn their feet into fast little squeezing devices so it almost looks like your being pricked to death by a sewing machine. If I had my choice, I think a peregrine falcon would be the best way to die. They dive at you at incredible speeds so as soon as they hit you, you would die or at worst be knocked out. When they have you in their talons on the ground, they snap your neck--you're nice and dead when they start to eat you. Accipiters start eating whether you're dead or alive, not so much fun.

Anyway, the prey finally died and the young Coops seemed to be at a loss as to what to do next. It started watching all the red-winged blackbirds and goldfinches mobbing it, still stimulated for a hunt. It would start to move and then realized that it was holding something and stay for a second. Then it started to preen it's feathers. Eventually, Denny had a chance to come out to watch and we all speculated what the prey item might be. I thought it looked large and had a white chest and speculated it was one of the you phoebes that are hanging around. Melissa thought maybe a cardinal or mourning dove. Denny thought it was a house sparrow. It looked too large to me, but some crows flew in to feed without noticing the hawk and the Coops was noticeable smaller than the crows, indicating that it was a male and that the prey was not as large as I thought it was.

Once we were sure the prey was dead, we started to invite customers back to look at hawk (you never know how people feel about the food chain) and they were pretty excited to see it. It was time for Denny to leave but his car was near the hawk and he didn't want to flush it off its prey. I pointed out that the young Coops had left the prey on a branch and was preening a couple of feet away from it so it probably wasn't that hungry. Denny went to his car which was parked near the Coops--the bird didn't flush! We thought for sure that when Denny drove away, that the hawk would flush. Denny drove by and the hawk stayed. Denny turned to look at me, shrugged in disbelief and continued home.

Melissa was leaving next and she has a big old mini van, surely that would flush the young Coops. No.

At 6pm when it was time to close the store, the hawk started eating in earnest plucking feathers everywhere. I closed the door and periodically watched the hawk. When I had the store secured, I noticed the hawk was gone. I thought I would go out to see if the bird had left any evidence of what it ate. When I approached the feeding area, the hawk flew up off of the ground and perched. It must have dropped the prey and continued eating it on the ground. I was ten feet from the hawk and took the photo at the beginning of this entry. Note that the hawk is sitting on one foot meaning it was completely relaxed and not bothered by me a bit. I snapped some photos and went back into the store. After another ten minutes, the Coops flew off. I went out hoping to find some carnage to investigate but found very few clues as to the hawk's meal--it ate almost everything.

Based on the bird's behavior and tolerance of humans, I couldn't help but wonder if this was the bird's first official kill? I did manage to find a couple feathers and thanks to my new Bird Tracks and Signs Book that I just bought, I was able to enjoy studying the few feathers I found. The feather on the left has two creases along the shaft. That is where the hawk had placed it's bill when plucking the feather out. Notice the punctures on the plumage of the feather on the right? Those were probably made by the bill while plucking as well. I compared the feathers, with feathers in the book and it looks like Denny was correct, it did eat a house sparrow.

I feel like an author

I got my first royalty check from Adventure Publications today. The really cool part is there's a list of stores that have purchased the calendars and some of them have very weird names like Loonasota, Jabberwocky or Shaman Drum. Then, I see that completely unexpected places are carrying the bird calendars like City Drug or Exit Restaurant.

My, how the worm has turned...

This time of year when many robins have fledged and the flocks lay low, usually someone starts and alarm that is something to the effect of "I'm not seeing robins, are they in trouble?" Several possible sinister explanations are tossed around and inevitably someone will say, "I see more crows and they eat robin's eggs and babies, crows must be responsible!" That just kind of adds to the whole anti-crow movement that is out there...and now there is this. Oh sure the robin is an innocent looking songster, but now it could be the possible carrier of West Nile Virus and not the dreaded crow?

This is an excerpt in tonight's Star Tribune:

The beloved American robin, not the annoying, raucous crow, may be the more potent source for West Nile virus, according to new research. A DNA analysis of blood taken from the abdomens of 300 mosquitoes trapped in Connecticut in the past three years found that 40 percent fed on the blood of the red-breasted songbird and only 1 percent on crows, said Theodore Andreadis, chief medical entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in Hartford. "I was quite surprised," he said.

Not Bloodworm

In my post about the Meadowlands Meeting I mentioned there was a "bloodworm" infestation. I got a couple of emails, including one from Mark Martell pointing out that trees don't have blood. I was incorrect, it is budworm that infected the trees at the bog.

My little brain must think bloodworm sounds better.

Why I Love Non Birding Bill

So, during the last blog entry I was absent-mindedly playing with my toes while typing and I felt something odd between my toes, I knew right away it was a tick and I FREAKED. You would think that someone in the birding industry would be able to handle ticks, but NO not me. I hate ticks. You know how Indiana Jones felt about snakes, multiply that by about 30 and that's my feeling about ticks. Eww. Anyway, I felt something "tickish" between my toes and just froze. Thank goodness Non Birding Bill came home from play rehearsals within the next five minutes. He noticed my agitated state and I told him that I thought I had a tick and he took care of it. I hate ticks! They just oook me out. I could see twenty severed fingers in one day and be totally okay, but a tick on my toes just makes me incapacitated. I hate ticks---ick! Why, why were they created? Ticks are almost enough to make me give up birding.

That's not really serious, that's just the several shots of scotch talking that NBB gave me to calm me down. Think, happy thoughts...turkey vulture...barfing pelicans...crows eating an eye socket off of a road kill deer...hmmm, that's better.

i hate ticks

i'm probably going to regret this post in the morning

i hate ticks

Bald Cardinals

Well, it's that time of year again when I get a phone question that goes something like this:

"I think I have an escaped cage bird, or some rare bird. I've got a bird that is all red, almost as red as a cardinal (on a few occasions the bird will be brown). The bird has a small black head, and big orange bill. Do you know what that is?"

It's the bald cardinal sometimes called "pinhead" or "mini red vulture". Melissa Block got this photo. It was very funny, she called when I was in Virginia and asked if she could borrow the NovaBird Camera to get photos of birds eating mealworms for the Wild Bird Store's newsletter. I told her to just take one from the store, use it for a day or two and then bring it back. Two days later I get an email from Melissa telling me that she's having too much fun with the camera and will just buy it. It's fun, it's like you're still able to bird when you aren't home. Notice the hole just below the eye--that's the cardinal's ear. I wonder if their hearing is affected without the feathers covering the hole?

Cardinals can go bald for a couple of reasons. This time of year the birds are molting so before the new feathers grow in the old feathers fall out and for some reason cardinals will sometimes loose all the feathers on their head. The skin is black and without the fluffy feathers, their head looks teeny tiny especially with the massive bill.

Sometimes birds will get feather mites and all their feathers will get eaten away by the mites and the birds are bald until they grow in new ones. However, if you are seeing bald cardinals this time of year, it's a safe bet that they are molting. You may also see bald blue jays or grackles as well. Hilton Pond did a great article about feather mites, that featured a frightening photo of a bald female cardinal--eeeeeelich.

Raptors and Rabbit Calls

Yesterday I walked out to the feeding station behind the bird store and flushed a Cooper's hawk. The vegetation is fairly high so I crouched down. Sometimes you can get accipiters to come back by making squeaky signs. They are a bird that acts before thinking (like me, I think that's why I accipiters so much). I thought I would try out an injured rabbit call that Carrol Henderson taught me, he says that he's gotten foxes and coyotes come within twenty feet with that call. I gave the call and a cottontail rabbit hopped right over. It saw me and then hopped back in the tall grass. I thought that was weird and most likely a coincidence so I made the noise again. The rabbit slowly crept out of the grass towards me. The more I did it, the closer it came. Before I could help myself I just started laughing and the rabbit seemed to come to its senses and hopped in the grass. The Cooper's hawk never came back, so either I did the call completely wrong and sounded like a friendly bunny or rabbits have a morbid curiosity about injured fellow lagomorphs.

I noticed that there was a whining red-tailed hawk out in the wetland so I took a quick walk over. As soon as I came into view, an adult red-tailed hawk flew right over my head and started screaming (photo above). It even did the flare thing that Brian Wheeler and Stan Tekiela taught me that eagles do. When eagles see something they think is hinky, they will kind of pause in the air and flare out the talons. It serves as a message to other eagles that something is a little off over here. Anyway, the adult red-tail kept doing the same thing over my head, flashing it's talons and screaming. The immature red-tail just kept whining and trying to catch a thermal to get up and sore. I've heard that when young birds leave the nest, parents will mob a lot more actively almost to show what is danger and what isn't. I wonder if the younger red-tail was like, "Yeah, yeah okay mom I get. Oooo, big scary human. Now what's for dinner."

Meadowlands Meeting (Sax Zim Bog)

This shirt is now available at the Country Store in Meadowlands in Sax Zim Bog. All the sizes were too big for me, but I have started a tradition of giving all the bird shirts I would love to wear to Non Bird Bill. I gave it to him and he said, "I don't know, I've never birded the bog."

"Yes, you did," I insisted. "Remember last January? You , me, a librarian and a rockstar...about a dozen owls?"

"Oh, yeah." he replied.

Yesterday I headed up to the Sax Zim Bog area with Carrol Henderson and Mark Martell to a meeting with the locals and business owners about birding tourism in the area. Carrol talked about what is birding tourism, Mark talked about turning the area into an IBA (Important Bird Area) and I talked about how to market to birders. ( I'm beginning to think more and more that I'm a birding agent--Show Me the Birdies!)

I was so excited by the turnout. When Jim Larson and Pam Perry were putting this meeting together we thought maybe 12 people would show up, but there were about 70 people from the surrounding townships, and even Duluth. Some were excited to learn about what they can do to make the area more accessible to birders and some were just curious about all the fuss. There didn't seem to be anyone opposed to birders at the meeting but I have been in email contact with one person who thought people coming to watch her feeders in the front of her yard was incredibly rude and a huge invasion of privacy. I did think it was cute that she wonders why people wanted to look at her feeders, there were no owls there just common winter birds (pine and evening grosbeaks, hoary redpolls, the occasional boreal chickadee you know all those common birds we all get ;)

What I really liked about the meeting is that last night's meeting was the result of a group of people from the DNR, forest management, wildlife management, birders, townsfolks getting together to find a way to not tick off the locals and to find out what birders would like for the area. Also, there have been some huge misconceptions about how the land is managed. A couple of years ago, some people were concerned at what looked like willy nilly logging. What turned out to be the problem was a budworm infestation and they were trying to take out tress in the infected area to prevent the budworm from taking all the trees. This kind of communication is so important and we are really going to go in a great direction. I think it was a great idea to have a town meeting just to let residents know what was going on and that we weren't going to come in and tell the locals what we were going to do, we were getting their input and enthusiasm.

Birding in the Sax Zim Bog area is just going to get better and better. We won't have the owl irruption like we did, but it's still reliable for great grays (just not dozens by the day) plus other super cool birds. This is going in a great direction.

Birding in the Tabloids

This showed up on BirdChat. Can I say how much it makes me smile that birding is out there in the mainstream enough to warrant time on a tabloid tv show?

Have you been denied access to a favorite birding spot because of
security concerns? "Inside Edition" (TV show) wants to know about
your experience. Please contact Heather King, Story Coordinator, at
212-817-5516

Ivory-billed Woodpecker Insanity

From the post and timing you are probably thinking that I will write about the whole ivory-billed woodpecker validity controversy. Well, I've got something much better, someone has written a song about the ivory-bill. If you're a fan of the soundtrack to The Last Unicorn or the animated version of The Hobbit then you will probably enjoy a song by Sufjan Stevens called The Lord God Bird now available for download exclusively at the NPR website.

It's interesting to see the controversy being played out in major newspapers. Some birders are taking the nay saying over the ivory-bill very personally, but many of us have experienced a questionable sighting with various state records committees. This is nothing new to birders and listers, except the questioning is on a national scale.

Why would people question the likes of John Fitzpatrick of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology? The argument could be made that someone like him wouldn't put his reputation on the line because too much would be at stake. The counter argument would be look at all the increased money Cornell will get from excited folks donating to become members to Cornell. I have heard researchers criticize some conservation organizations for using certain bird species as a way of making money through donations to their organization. Another possibility could be sour grapes over who was invited in the secret search of the ivory-bill and who was not. There are only so many people who could go look for the ivory-bill and keep it secret. Not to mention that politics run rampant in any field, birding being no exception.

The main reason(and I think the mostly likely reason) is that questions should always be asked in science. Let's face it, so far the only published footage is not what we hoped it would be and I see no problem asking questions if that really was an ivory-bill or not. Birders do it constantly, think about how many times someone has asked, "Was that a Cooper's hawk or a sharp-shinned hawk?" or "Was that a curved-billed thrasher or a Bendire's thrasher?"

Personally, I believe more and better footage will come, and that the most important thing that the very slight ivory-billed woodpecker sighting has brought us at this point is much needed hope.

On the off chance you have missed the ivory-billed articles these two break it down. I believe the New York Times require a free subscription.

Ivory-billed being questioned with comments from Jerome Jackson who wrote In Search of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

New York Times article with interviews with Kenn Kaufman, David Sibley and Pete Dunne.

Handheld Bird Guide

There are some fun new toys on the way for birding. You look at items coming out now for birding like the Song Sleuth for identifying and recording bird calls or optics that take digital photos. I always thought that it would be a matter of time before there is a hand held interactive birding field guide...and I am happy to report that there is one on the way.

It's called National Geographic's Handheld Birds (no website yet) and let me tell you it is going to be a sweet little program. You will be able to either purchase the software for your palm pilot or purchase the palm and the software all at once. It uses images from the National Geographic Field Guide and includes bird call recordings from Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The unit will also include features like habits, how to tell a bird from similar species, range maps, and you can take field notes with it too.

It's surprisingly easy to navigate as you can do it by type, color, general name, actual name and I'm sure there a couple of other ways as well that I just forgot in my general excitement. I went out in the field with Khara Strum and she helped identify an ash-throated flycatcher for me with the pilot. It's still a little ways from being ready for sell but they are getting closer and closer and closer.

I began thinking about nay sayers and this product. First thing that I don't like is that there won't be any book signings for this guide. I love finding a new bird author to geek out over and I don't see any practical way of getting a palm pilot autographed.

When I was testing the Song Sleuth a couple of old school birders pointed out that they remembered when people used to go out and learn bird songs not use some box to id the bird for them. But there is still some work with products like this. I think fun birding tech products are going to help mainstream birding and more people into the fold. How cool will you look with a handheld out in the field?

What I am always surprised about is how a trip like this can change my perspective of different species. For example I was at the ABA sales area and was looking over the artists that had work on display. I ended up purchasing a wood block print from artist Alex Cruz who had white-breasted nuthatch prints or painted redstart prints. I was immediately drawn to the nuthatch but the redstart didn't pique my interest. However, after visiting the Garden Canyon area and seeing twenty or so painted redstarts, I now wonder if I should have bought that print instead. Having experienced the bird in the flesh I now get how cool Alex's prints were. Amy sensibly purchased a redstart print--I should have followed her smart example.

I met another artist named Ray Nelson who has had some of his prints in Birding. My favorite is called Beauty and the Beast and it's a turkey vulture and hummingbird, it's beautiful. He's not sure he will sell it, he did get an offer from someone but it was a little lower than we wanted and he was thinking of going ahead and selling the original for that. I alas, don't have the money but hope he sticks to the price and in the next year or two when I will have that kind of money would love to have the original on my wall. He also has a barn owl piece that is just to die for as well.

I found a book that I must add to my library page on the site (actually, I am in dire need of updating that, a couple of friends have asked why their books aren't on there, it's not that I don't like their books, I'm easily distracted). The book is called Bird Tracks and Sign A Guide to North American Species by Mark Elbroch and Eleanor Marks. It is such a handy tool for tracking birds. It goes way beyond just finding pellets or tracks in the snow, it talks about common feathers found and how to id birds from those. There's a section on cracked acorns and how to figure out who ate them and little sidebars of interesting tips like ravens need a little run to take off but crows do not. Crows can jump straight in the air and fly, a raven can't--I never noticed that before. There's also a funny story about the author's canoe trip and all the roosting owls discovered along the river and the unfortunate luck of canoeing under a great blue heron rookery and learning the hard way of heron missile defense (their stanky fishy poop). It came out in 2001 and is a good read and will improve your birding skills. And for those who think I only read dry books with not pictures, this is a VERY photographic guide (alright, a good portion of it is bird extracta like poop and pellets, but there are photos).

So, What Exactly Happens At Bird Conventions?

And people think birders don't know how to get down and have a good time. We have our own fun. That is not to say we don't have time for stimulating conversation about pressing bird conservation issues and the finer points of gull id and that sort of talk but after a day of getting up at unnaturally early hours to watch some great birds we like to unwind! Now that I think about it, there was quite a bit of singing going on. Jeff Bouton of Leica Optics kept trying to sing snippets of The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkle and Sheri Williamson and Tom Wood were singing a version of the song I'll Fly Away but with a birding theme. Both sang it and was just lovely. Sheri has a beautiful throaty voice that blended well with Tom. I tried to maintain some decorum by sticking to Barry Manilow songs, although I did come up with the idea of singing American Woman, but changing it to American Bittern. However, Sheri came up with a better idea of chaining it to American Wigeon so that way you could make the song into a lament of really wanting a Eurasian Wigeon...I know, I know you're thinking of that line Judd Nelson had in The Breakfast Club, "Demented and sad, but social."

I think I managed to meet Scott Weidensaul (pictured right) without scaring the dickens out of him. He was incredibly gracious and nice and I learned that he has a new book coming out in the fall. I'm really bummed that I'm going to miss his speech since I have to go back to the bird store but few minutes just shooting the breeze was pretty darned cool. He kissed my hand at the end of the evening--in a very courtly and gentlemanly way, not like a smarmy guy making a move. I think it will be at least 72 hours before I begin to think about washing that hand.
I got the coolest thing from Bill Thompson (pictured left--that must have been taken during one of the few thoughtful birding discussions we had about upper tail coverts) He has a band and he burned me a CD. They are called the Swinging Orangutans and his talented artist/writer wife Julie Zickefoose is on there too.

Wow, looking through all these photos I realized that I need to update my author sighting page, I got a few lifers this weekend with Sheri Williamson and Tom Wood and I can change Weidensaul's status from heard only to actually seen.

I've gone to my share of conventions, but I'm thinking that this ABA Convention was the best ever. It was almost as good as getting an adult female goshawk in the nets at the hawk blind.

ABA Field Trip

The bird trip that I signed up for the ABA Convention really delivered the birds. Although, I had never birded this area so most of the birds we saw were lifers and I was easy to please. The redstarts, bridled titmice, hepatic tanagers, and sulpher-bellied flycatchers were cool, but I'm a raptor chick at heart so Bill Thompson helping me get a lifer zone-tailed hawk was a high fiving moment and to cap off the trip our leader Al Hays drove by an area and got us a surprise look at a really cool adult gray hawk.

We had one Funny Guy on our trip (a true gentleman from Kentucky who for the life of me I can't remember his name) and I am incredibly indebted to him for the loan of toilet paper when we came to a horrifically dirty port-a-potty. At one point, someone in our group shouted, "Trogon just flew over the road!" We all darted back ready to aim our binoculars towards the bird. Movement to our left, a bird popped up into the higher branches of tree, we froze and discreetly tried to see what it was, was it a trogon, could it possibly...no! I was some blasted flycatcher. The group laughed at itself for freezing in unison and carefully turning towards the would be trogon that ended up being a flycatcher of some sort. Funny Guy grabbed his chest a la Fred Sanford shouting, "Oh, Elizabeth, it's the big one."

The highlight of the day were hummingbirds, which I was surprising more interested in than I anticipated. We even managed a hummingbird rescue of sorts. While birding along a road near where we had parked our leader was trying to pish out some birds. We all noticed a metallic chip call but couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from. After much searching I found a hummingbird nest (a first for me) and we speculated if there was a chick inside chipping. The rest of our group was trying to find the nest and as many know, it's hard enough just trying to describe where a small brown bird is, a nest the size of a walnut is even harder. Some members of the group just could not find the nest to save their life, so Funny Guy announced he had a fool proof way of finding a nest. As the members quickly gathered around him, Funny Guy gasped. At his toe was a teeny tiny hummingbird chick (pictured above), on the ground directly under the nest. How we didn't step on it as we were milling about looking for the nest, I will never know. The chick was the bird making the metallic chip note that we had been trying to figure out.

Of course my raptor rescue mode kicked in and I came up with what I thought was a brilliant plan of driving over our van directly under the nest, someone climbing on top of it and placing the chick back in the nest. Our field trip leader would have none of it. I'm sure there was a liability issue, but the chick's peeping set off my maternal hormones (curse anthropomorphism and everything it stands for) and I just wanted to help it. The trip leader made an attempt at that's the way nature is but I tried to reason that wouldn't it make a great story that one of the field trip groups at the ABA Convention helped a broad-tailed hummingbird chick back in the nest. It was clearly too young to be out of the nest, the flight feathers hadn't developed yet so it was not a matter of early fledging. I didn't see anything like feather mites so didn't see the harm in putting it back in. Alas, the trip leader would have none of it.

I placed the chick on a rock in the shade and I did see a hummingbird fly over in its direction so it was noticed, hopefully by the female that was feeding it. We continued on with our trip when a truck from Sulphur Springs Valley Electric Cooperative, Inc. pulled up. I flashed a smile and they pulled over and asked about the birds we were seeing. I asked if they would happen to have a ladder as there was a hummingbird chick a little ways back that needed to be put back in the nest and that all we needed was something about as tall as their vehicle for someone to stand on to get it back in the nest. They didn't have a ladder but were happy to lend us the use of their truck. The gentlemen backed their truck up right under the nest, and one of the tallest members in our group, Dave Muret of Grove, OK (right) climbed on top of the cab was able to grab the branch pull it down and drop the hummingbird chick back into the nest. It was a wonderful group effort (photo of rescue group).

I have struggled the last twenty four hours whether to include the actual ending to this tale, because it seems so perfect to end it there. However, I stick to my motto of putting things in this blog that I would find interesting and the actual end of the story would definitely be something that I would want to read.

After we finished our hike and were returning to the parking area we discovered that the chick fell out of the nest again and got crushed. Here is a prime example of nature weeding out the ones that aren't going to survive. I was talking with Bill Thompson and Pretty Boy Bouton about what would have caused this and it could have been the nest wasn't properly built or that ants or mites were all over in the nest making in uncomfortable for the chick forcing it to get out of the nest. Who knows. I thought of all the times I have told customers who are upset about hawks flying in for birds at the feeder or about nests that various predators had eaten in their yards, about how that is the way nature works and how nature can be cruel but that's how it ensures the strongest and best will survive. I hate it when I forget to follow my own advice. Well, we gave it the old college try and nature gave the final decision.

HUGELY geeking out

So, I'm hanging out having a drink with pretty boy Bouton and Amy from WildBird Magazine and Bill from Bird Watcher's Digest and two unbelieveably cool things have just happened. Sheri Williamson said that she sometimes reads my blog and Scott Weidensaul just came in and after he settles in his room is going to have a drink with us. I don't think I can handle the geekitude that is coursing through my brains.

Tomorrow an interesting hummer story.

Disapproving Horny Toad

Disapproving animals follow me where ever I go.

Word on the street was that someone was going to be at the ABA Convention protesting the validity of the ivory-billed woodpecker sighting bringing proof and a speech outlining all the problems with the sighting. No one has done any such thing yet, although I did overhear a very prominent birder and author say, "I have seen better footage of Big Foot."

Hmmmm.

HOT

This is a broad-tailed hummingbird that is hanging out outside the hotel.

By the way, when people tell you that it will be hot but it's a dry heat so it won't be so bad, they are full of crap. It's hot, just plain hot. I have sweated in places that I shouldn't sweat. I was worried that I was leaving a trail.

I have found my crowd, birders who drink and like a surly joke every now and then. I'm sitting currently with a rowdy group and would you believe that Amy Hooper the editor of WildBird Magazine and Bill Thompson of Bird Watchers Digest and they are as wild as all get out. Rumor has it they are going to pants a binocular rep. Tighten the belts lads.

I met Debra Shearwater today. If you haven't been on one of her pelagic trips you may have read about her in various birding magazines or her part in the book Big Year. Anyway, she ws showing Amy and me photos of gray whales and then she points to a large pink oblong thing. She asks if we can identify the object, we both quickly realized it was a whale tallywacker. Debra proudly announced that it was over six feet long (that's longer than me--my body that is). That's my kind of woman.

Oh the irony

So the week or two Minnesota gets two new state birds to add to the list (brown pelican and white-winged dove) I travel to two states where both birds are quite common. This morning I opened the curtains to see my first Arizona bird and what do I see? A starling (harumph), the second is a female cardinal (getting better), the third a mockingbird (nice, but I saw lots of those in Virginia last week), then popped up a thrasher it was either a Bendire's or a curve-billed (either would be a lifer. Alas, they are almost impossible to tell apart. And then to sooth my birding frustration were two very accomodating white-winged doves. At least one lifer before breakfast. Not bad.

I'm kind of geeking out right now. I'm in the Double Tree lobby taking advantage of their free wireless and Paul Lehman is a few seats away and is on his cell phone editing some publication. He is completely unaware that I am stalking. He's talking sooty terns and now something about a glossy ibis he found some place unusual. I see so many names of birders in print or via email in a way it's like I'm birding them. Fun.

Unexpected Grape Jelly Eater

You must check out this photo by Bill Marchel. It's of a most unusual visitor to a grape jelly feeder. Note: the bird probably isn't eating the jelly but eating insects attracted to the jelly or just roosting on the platform.

ABA here I com

Well, I'm as about as packed as I can get for the ABA. I still have several loose ends to tie up before I head out this afternoon. Mostly bird store stuff, but I think I can get it done.

Yesterday one of the NovaBird People stopped by and we talked about a fun new hand held pishing device they are working on. It has sounds on it to call in birds--including pishing. They recorded my pishing sounds for possible use on the machine. I hope I make the final cut. Wouldn't it be dreamy to see someone with this device at a birding convention, use my pishing sounds and get a great rare bird? As everyone is congratulating themselves on a bird well observed, I would casually say, "You know that pish you used? That's my pish." I'd be so cool.

There are a few other birders they are recording such as my good buddy Carrol Henderson (who wrote theMN DNR's Wild About Birds book among others). Perhaps he and I will have a friendly competition on whose pish gets the most birds. My pish fu is the best. I just realized that if there are any beginning birders or non birders reading this blog, they will be utterly confused about what pishing is and quite possibly assume I have an incontinence problem.

I'm just getting into my non birding summer obsession of raising monarch caterpillars. I have one caterpillar and two eggs...actaully as I type this one of the eggs is hatching. Alas, it is too small for me to get a photo with my camera but in a few days it should be big enough. Monarchs become the store soap opera from July through September as we find eggs and caterpillars outside the store and bring them inside to raise them into a monarch. We then release them so they can begin their migration south. Val Cunningham told me that just about everything eats monarch caterpillars (despite the awful taste they have from eating milkweed) so if you can raise the caterpillars indoors it does help the monarch population. Plus it's fun.

Birding Podcasts

I just got this link about British bird podcasts on BBC4 from Mr. Neil--very cool--and I'm so jealous about the cassowary.

Catching up on email news

Well, we made it back in time last night to watch the Fabulous Lorraine play with Bedlam at Keiran's Irish Pub last night and this morning I'm back to the grind at the bird store and sifting through email that I avoided during the few times I scanned webmail.

While wading through important messages (spam) from the likes of Summerhouse A. Ventriloquism and Howl O. Vacillation I discovered that some great birds are being seen around Minnesota and one of my very own employees, Bob Janssen (the sweet birding grandpa I always wanted) got his 400th Minnesota bird in the form of a white-winged dove. There is also a brown pelican that is a first state record for Minnesota--here I have been watching them all week from the beach and a brown pelican is right here in my home state. For directions to both birds, check the MOU-net archives.

I have also learned that raccoons most likely abetted by a red squirrel having been reeking havoc on a couple of Mr. Neil's bird feeders. Somehow, someone has given them my travel itinerary and they are waging a full on attack while I am incapable of traveling out there to rearrange and recitify the situation. But when I get back, they will pay...oh yes, they will pay.

In two days I will be off to Tucson and the ABA Convention. I'm so excited to see friends from around the country who I otherwise don't get to see and one of the bird store employees will have a booth featuring some of his artwork. I'm still trying to negotiate with Non Birding Bill to let me take his Power Book with me so I can do some blog updating while there. How cool would it be to give up to the minute gossip where many of the big wigs of birding will be? Of course, I doubt that we would see anything like Kenn Kaufman pantsing David Sibley (although I would pay good money to see something like that) but you never know what might be seen or heard.

Is that a ham or a grackle

Well, we're winding up our annual visit to family in Virginia. I won't be home three days and then it's off to Arizona for the American Birding Association Convention. Woo Hoo!

The gulls have been most leery of the NovaBird Camera but the boat-tailed grackles sure have warmed up to it. One male in particular put on quite a show:

Scratching his bill with his feet or more bird interpretive dance?
Singing his grackley song (it's more fun if you imagine the following being sung: Barry White's "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love", Barry Manilow's "Tryin' To Get That Feelin' " or Verdi's "Rigoletto")
Showing us his best side...leavin' the ladies to sigh.

Doesn't anyone bird in Virginia in the summer?!?

Ah, I could get used to this life of covering myself in the most powerful SPF available, wearing skimpy clothing and laying on a beach watching the birds go by. Does birding get anymore decadent than watching families of osprey, brown pelicans and terns dive bomb into the water for fish? Non Birding Bill and I never tire of making airplane crashing sounds while watching the osprey and brown pelicans hurl themselves onto the ocean's surface. The terns are like watching little paper airplanes flinging themselves on the water, almost looking like they collapse as soon as they hit.

We took the tram from Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge to False Cape State Park today. It's about the only organized birding trip I can ever find here this time of year. The trip I guess is meant to just take people from one park to a very remote park and not really supposed to be strictly birding. However, there was a fellow birder on this tram and I figured between the two of us we'd be able to get the tram to stop for any good birds. We did, but the volunteer driver seemed a tad irritated with us. When we made him stop the second time for a marsh full of snowy egrets, little blue herons and glossy ibis he snidely remarked, "You know, you should really be on a birding trip if you want to watch birds." The fellow birder asked where those trips were because she had called the Office of Tourism for the area and they had directed her to Back Bay. I replied that I searched for trips and couldn't find any. The driver remarked that we should really be here in the winter. GRRRR.

My argument was that due to family commitments and gatherings some of us visit the Virginia Beach area in mid-summer and for those of us who don't live here ibis and herons are a little exciting. We stopped for snakes, why couldn't we stop for birds?

He then said we should have called Audubon and I said, "We did, no one offers bird tours here so we have to do what we can with you."

It's not easy finding birding for out of staters in Virginia. Last year, Non Birding Bill and I tried to hire someone who offered "bird boat trips" around Chincoteague. I realized as the boat left that we were in trouble when he pointed to a bird and said, "reddish egret" and it was quite obviously a little blue heron. He passed sand bar after sand bar with birds on them and when I point them out he would say, "Oops, I forgot I was supposed to stop there." I give the guy credit, he was a fishing guide who probably had heard that there is money to be made from birding trips, but he needs to be sure to know the birds if he wants to go birding on his own.

Well, that turned into an unexpected rant, so I must leave this email with a gull who is probably feeling as angsty as I am at the moment since his molt doesn't appear to be going well:

Captain! Thar be whales here!

Last night, Non Birding Bill and I were taking a romantic stroll down Sandbridge Beach in Virginia and watched a storm head out to sea and lines of brown pelicans fly overhead. As we turned and watched a large line, I saw what I thought was a large amount of water spray into the sky. I asked Bill, "Did I see what I think I just saw?" We both tried to brush it off as "It's just dolphins" but then we saw the large hump come out of the water--it was a whale quite close to shore! It wasn't long before other people noticed it and someone in the know confirmed that it was indeed a hump-backed whale (like the one in the Star Trek 4). We went back to the beach house and got the rest of Bill's family and watched the whale for the next hour. It even poked it's massive head out of the water. I of course tried to digi-scope it and discovered that whales are infinitely harder to film than birds. But I have a nice blurry lump to commemorate our impromptu whale watching. As if the evening couldn't get better a black skimmer flew by--I love those birds! I had never seen a whale in the wild and it was just as exciting as seeing a new bird, I haven't been this excited since the first time I saw a goshawk in the wild.

Whoo hoo, exciting crow

These may look like your garden variety American crows, but trust me folks, these are in fact fish crows. They give a very fun call that sounds like a crow who has swallowed helium and gives a nasally "ha haw" although Non Birding Bill insists that they are calling "a**hole". I don't think that pnuemonic will ever make it into a Sibley, Kaufman or Stokes guide...maybe a Stiteler guide someday.

Stylish Birder Hats?

Here is an eastern towhee that was singing on a bush off the deck while we had dinner. It was digi-scoped with the Vortex binoculars.

I saw these hats advertised at a Virginia Beach bird specialty store as durable and stylish birder hats. Durable? Probably. Stylish? Let's not kid ourselves.

Oh, I forgot a disapproving turtle!

Found this turtle laying eggs, not sure what species it is, but in the tradition of my rabbits, it didn't approve of my taking photos. Speaking of rabbits, Cinnamon is staying at the store while NBB and I are in Virginia. Any of you Twin Citites people reading this blog, please stop in and give her a raisin and pat on the head for me. We miss her so.

An offended gull...

"Hmpf! Well, I never..."

Beach Birding

Ladies are you trying to get your non-birding mate to go out birding with you? Well, I have discovered the key to getting them interested. Suggest beach birding and wear a skimpy suit and you won't believe how quick they are to not only bird but even offer to carry things like spotting scopes and Sibley guides. For those who feel a little modest and not ready for the world to see you in something skimpy, take heart. Normal people don't like to go to refuge beaches, so the two of you can feel like you are the only ones on the beach for miles around (chances are quite good that you are).

Today, Non Birding Bill and I headed to Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge and since it was so hot, I didn't do the typical hard-core birding I like to do but took a leisurely walk around the nature center and the beach. NBB found an immature green heron and tried digi scoping with my Vortex binos and got a pretty cool shot. The young heron was so busy preening he didn't notice us. I heard NBB grumbling for the heron to face him, so I gave my best green heron "keeeow" and NBB got the above shot. We found a male indigo bunting singing at the top of a tree and in an adjacent tree was a singing male blue grosbeak. I tried to digi scope, but alas the sun was at the worst angle and the photo didn't do the birds any justice.

On the beach we some willets and gulls but no terns or sanderlings which we normally see but we usually are in Virginia in August not mid-July which could explain their absence. The gulls were far away, but never underestimate the power of Oyster Crackers when watching gulls. I barely opened the bag and they flew in. In the photo at the right we have mostly adult and immature ring-billed gulls, a lone juvenile laughing gull in the center, and the large spotty guy in the back is an immature great black-backed gull.


Ring-billed gulls are so photogenic, I never get tired of watching them. NBB is fascinated with their ability to stay so white living in and around the ocean. Some other things we saw at the beach which you probably wouldn't expect include deer (yes they really are everywhere), red fox and a bobwhite. Actually, I only heard the bobwhite, but still it was in the grasses in the dunes. It's very strange and unsettling to be listening to the crashing surf and then hear "bobwhite".

More photos will be poppin up as Bill and I find open wireless connections. Thank goodness for Panera.

Poking Around

You know, a lot of us like to point out that John James Audubon used to put birds into wierd poses and positions in his paintings, but maybe he wasn't too far off. This catbird is very Audubon-esqe in its pose.

Still feeding the boat-tailed grackles Oyster Crackers. Today a catbird came up and ate a whole cracker on it's own. Working at All Seasons Wild Bird Store I of course have to check out birds stores in other states and I stopped at a new one that opened up close to our beach house. It's a very nice franchise store and I decided to pick up some live mealworms for the catbird. Non Birding Bill was a bit disturbed by what his family will think when they find a container of mealworms in the fridge, but I think that I have been married into this family over seven years so they should be used to my weirdness. I also picked up a bag of a sunflower mix with peantus, suet chunks and berries, sounds tasty and should make these dudes very happy.

I also picked up one of the new bird guides by Bill Thompson about birding Virginia so I will give that a test drive as well.

Oyster Crackers!

Apparently Oyster Crackers are the bird food of choice for birds. I set some out with the NovaBird camera this morning and got a female boat-tailed grackle and (are you ready for this?) a catbird! Who knew they ate Oyster Crackers? The grackle would come and break up the crackers and then the catbird would eat the leavings.

Life's a Beach, part 1

Did I mention that there are quite a few snakes out here? Non Birding Bill doesn't care much for birding with me, but in new areas I think he worries about me doing something foolish and needing supervision and will usually tag along on my birding adventures. He really doesn't like snakes which there are quite a few of around here one in particular which is quite poisonous, but feels morally obligated to make sure I don't get too close to any. I think, he thinks I will lean in to get a photo and get bit.

Because Non Birding Bill had the brilliant idea of getting airline tickets that left at 6am I didn't sleep since Thursday night until Saturday night (except a couple of hours on the flights interrupted by babies traumatized by the popping ear experience).

Have already seen birds not typically found in Minnesota including boat-tailed grackles on the deck, mockingbirds on the telephone poles, fish crows in the Walmart parking lot, brown pelicans along the shore (I've never had a brown pelican barf on me before, maybe that will be a goal for this trip), laughing gulls and herring gulls all over the freakin' place, a towhee outside our bedroom window, and what I'm pretty sure were glossy ibis flying over the house last evening.

Birdchick Migration

I am off to the Virginia Beach area for the week. We have located a Panera Bread so I should be able to do some updating but who knows what wacky highjinx I'll get into down south. So, I'm not abandoning the blog but doing some beach birding. Although, I am bummed I didn't book my police escort in time to bird the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.

We might head to the crazy island of Chincoteague where the squirrels are endangered. Don't bother to ask about contributing your local squirrels to the dwindling population on Chincoteague, they're apparently not the same type of squirrel. This is a great place to see godwits and black skimmers among other things.

As if endangered squirrels weren't wired enough, there are also the decency signs. They strike me

as odd because of the third bullet. It's a beach, what else will you wear but revealing clothing?? And depending on how you look in a bathing suit it might very well not be appropriate in a public setting.

Ah well, the binos and the spf 48 are packed and I think I'm ready to go. Hopefully, I'll have some fun towhee or tern photos in a day or two.

Fashion Trends

Should anyone ever feel the need to dress like a bald eagle, a cardinal or the "elusive" hawk-falcon this website should be able to serve your needs. You know it's high fashion because most of these are pushing $1000.

Looking for Fun Bird Blogs?

Check out I and the Bird being hosted by 10,000 Birds.

Also, I just found out that my buddy Amber Burnette has another fabulous photo up at the Birder's World site.

Osprey Banding

What do you do if you have a couple of hours to kill before you go into work? Why go watch osprey banding of course!
Today I met up with Mark Martell and Bud Tordoff to watch them band young osprey. This particular nest had three chicks in it. I went osprey banding with Bud and Mark in 2003 and at that time the chicks in the nest were almost too small to band. They had an unusual habit of just laying limp (photo at left) while being banded not the normal regal look a bird of prey has.

One interesting thing that ospreys sometimes do when you get to close to their nest is pick up objects like sticks and drop them, giving a fierce display of how ferocious they are. These birds did quite a bit of swooping and diving towards the professional tree climbers that scaled the pole to get the chicks out of the nest.

The first chick brought down was the smallest of the three and but still looked to be a good size. The young osprey put up a strong front lunging and attempting to bite anyone who came near (photo below), then suddenly out of nowhere the bird died. It happened so fast we could barely believe it. One second we were making jokes and in awe of how fierce the young bird was and then the next instant it was limp and lifeless.

Anyone who is as invested in bird research and study as this group is mortified by something like this. Mark said that over the years he has banded over 700 young birds and this is only the second time a bird has died out of the blue, this was an incredibly rare occurrence. Many questions were asked but no answers could be provided at the time. Seventy-five percent of the birds hatched this spring (and that's all birds not just raptors) will not survive their first year. So many things can go wrong from a glitch in the food supply, aggressive older siblings, disease, injury, etc a bird has to be in top peak condition in order to survive. Even though you know this, when you witness it up close like that you feel terrible and question yourself relentlessly.

What could have happened? Did the bird overheat? Unlikely, because ospreys have been banded in much hotter weather and this bird wasn't out of the nest very long. Was the bird ill? The vent area (where the bird poops) was clean, not showing any green fecal material build up. Since there were three birds in the nest and this one was the smallest was it the victim of siblicide? There were no obvious injuries to indicate it was being pecked at by its older siblings and the bird had a full crop (lump in the neck indicating it had been fed recently). Another possibility is that the bird had a genetic problem with its heart and it had heart failure from the stress of being banded. If that is the case the bird wouldn't have survived in the wild. If an osprey chick can't take the stress of being banded, what the heck would it have done the first time it flew from the nest or dove after a fish?

It was decided that the dead osprey chick would be taken back to The Raptor Center and a necropsy (animal autopsy) be performed to try and determine a cause of death.

The other two chicks were banded with the greatest of care. The oldest bird went through the process with flying colors. The middle sized chick started breathing heavily but Mark gave it water and noted that the breathing pattern was normal for a young bird that age (photo at left). Both made it back to the nest alive and well with their bands and we will just have to wait to see what the Raptor Center discovers with the dead chick.

Why I Love Birds So Much

So, sitting outside a coffee shop tonight I read an email that completely ticked me off an hurt my feelings. I was sitting here with my sad little latte feeling like a lonely asparagus, when suddenly I heard the high pitched "klee klee klee klee" call of a kestrel. I looked above the houses across the street and there's the kestrel diving up and down on a Cooper's hawk. Whether the kestrel had the upper hand and its diving was forcing the Coop's out of its territory or the Coop's was hot on the tail of something is was ready to kill and was completely oblivious to the kestrel, I will never know. Soon, the Coop's was so low it was behind trees and houses but the diving kestrel marked the hawk's whereabouts as did the startled pigeons and grackles that popped straight up in the air to avoid being in the direct path of the accipiter. The whole scenario made me smile and made me realize what a whiner I was being.

And also made me grateful for not being an unsuspecting pigeon.

For those interested...

For those interested, the one legged grackle is still going strong. I didn't see any chicks with it today so I don't know if they are off fending for themselves or if they gotten eaten.

Weekend Birds

Even birds sometimes don't look graceful while eating! It almost looks like it's thinking, "I'm so embarassed, I could just die! Ug."

Yesterday I finished draft two of the Urban Birdfeeding book. I used Mr. Neil's gazebo as a quiet place with no distraction to get it finished. However, the birds tried their darndest to keep me from finishing it. There was some kind fight going on between two male and one female rose-breasted grosbeak. Someone gave a few angry chips, another sang a few notes that I'm pretty sure was laced with some bird profanity and it went down hill. At one point the female caught me watching them and then everyone took off in opposite directions.

On my way out to the gazebo, I passed the barn and heard some strange squeaking sounds which at first I thought was from some young wood chucks but turned out to be two young raccoons that had discovered an open plastic bin of bird seed. They were so focused on the food with their butts in the air that they didn't notice me. When the finally did, they tried to look all tough and after I snapped a photo I left them alone. I then made another discovery of a very lazy tree frog sleeping on a stained glass butterfly plant stake.

I ended up partying with LorraineaMalena for the rest of the evening, heading to bed about 12:30am, got up around 5:45am for some fun chat with Ian and Margery on a Balanced Breakfast, and driving back to the Twin Cities. Ian an Margery are so nice, I really appreciate that they help get birds on a regular radio show. It brings birds to an audience that wouldn't normally hear it.

After I finish this entry I have to get ready for work and be there by 10:30am. I'm feeling really good right now, but I have a feeling that around 3:30pm today, my behind is going to be dragging to matter how much water or coffee I drink.

The Generosity of the Sci Fi Community

I have to say I had a TON of fun at Convergence (a science fiction and fantasy convention). Amber and I did our Raptor Center presentation with Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon. What was really fun for Amber and me is that we do so many "regular" raptor programs we can do them in our sleep. This was like doing free form jazz. Mercedes and Larry shared their experience as professional wildlife rehabbers and Amber and I shared our experiences with birds so it made for a fun program for us to experience and hopefully the audience enjoyed it too.

For those wondering, yes there were costumes and here is one of the tamer photos of the evening. Here we are in the Xena Warrior Princess party room hanging out with a lad dressed as the devil. See the lovely lady in the black corset on the right--would you believe she's a librarian in real life?

What really overwhelmed me was the generosity of this community. When we do off site programs Amber and I plug membership to The Raptor Center and making donations and mailing in printer cartridges, etc and this was one of the highest end totals we've ever had. Usually when I do bird groups and we'll get a few extra dollars but, boy howdy, people at the sci fi convention were putting in twenty dollar bills into our donation box and at least two people signed up for memberships on the spot. It was one of the most generous crowds we'd ever been in. I think part of it to was because of Larry and Mercedes who both gave such a wonderful speech on how important it is to support wildlife rehab organizations in your community.

Another fun thing: Amber and I always do brief bios before we start our program and I usually include that I'm the Official Bird Lady of www.neilgaiman.com and for the first time not only did people know what I was talking about, but I even go applause.

On a side note, Larry and I kept sharing little stories during the panel (he's kind of a trouble maker) and he is now on my cool person list. He knows about the good bird smell.

I am off to finish draft two of the Urban Birdfeeding Book.

Lost Whooping Crane

This showed up in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

CORNWALL, Vt. -— A rare whooping crane is spending the summer in Vermont after mysteriously veering 800 miles off course on its migration toward the Midwest.

One of only about 400 such birds in the world, the 4 1/2-foot-tall female been in a river floodplain in the Lake Champlain valley since at least June 9, spending most of its time on farmer Randy Quesnel's land.

"It is kind of neat, although I would be a lot more interested if it was a deer out there,'' Quesnel said.

Whooping cranes have been a federally endangered species since 1967 and are subject of an intense restoration project among U.S., Canadian and state wildlife agencies.

The Vermont bird is part of that project and is fitted with a tracking device.

The bird was expected to spend the summer at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin, about 180 miles southeast of Minneapolis, where it spent the first few months of its life.

Joe Duff, co-founder of Operation Migration, an Ontario-based nonprofit that it is part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership program, cannot explain why the bird landed in Vermont this summer.

"We're not sure what she's doing there, but she seems to be selecting proper habitat for whoopers,'' Duff said. "We want to leave her there as long as possible and see if she can figure out her way back.''

You can see a photo of the whooping crane at Mike McDowell's Digiscoping Blog.