Prepping For Snow

This guy was in front of me when I was walking home from the YWCA...I think he is having a rougher day than me.

Knowing that we are going to get socked with another 8 - 14 inches of snow, I decided to make a break for it and went for an hour's worth of digiscoping. One thing I appreciate where I live is that eagles are only a 15 minute drive away. I headed for the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge to practice taking photos at their feeders.

The peanut feeder was getting the most action with a steady stream of nuthatches (above) and woodpeckers attacking it from every angle. Birds love peanuts out of the shell, almost as much as sunflower.

Of course, where there are peanuts there can be starlings. They love nuts out of the shell too.

This guy was really quite striking with our pre-snow gray background. I got quite a few photos until a hairy woodpecker shooed him away.

There were some tray feeders at the feeding station and it was fun to watch this female cardinal feeding along side an American tree sparrow. One interesting behavior was from a male cardinal. He would fly up to the tray feeder, take a sunflower seed and fly back to the woods to eat it--much the same way a chickadee grabs seed at feeders. Normally, cardinals will stay at the feeder to eat their fill, keeping a watchful eye out for potential danger. I have seen quite a few Cooper's hawks and sharp-shins at this feeding station, I wonder if the male cardinal developed this feeding technique to avoid hawk predation or if he's just a freak?

Well, round one of the big snow has gotten off to a late start. The snow was supposed to start by noon and give us three inches before 6pm. Thankfully, for the evening rush hour the snow didn't start in earnest until after 6pm. The worst is supposed to be tomorrow with blizzard like conditions. Should be interesting.

Long-eared Owls on the Move

Okay, I have to post this before I go to the list of errands.

When I arrived at The Raptor Center yesterday for my shift an animal control officer was waiting to be helped. He picked up a long-eared owl outside of Manny's Steak House in downtown Minneapolis. Not the best hunting for a long-earred but there are some conifers there were one could do some roosting. I talked to someone from the MOU and he said that long-ears are on the move migrating back towards breeding grounds so they could be anywhere.

This particular long-eared owl had some bruising and swelling around the pelvis and a corneal edema. He either flew into a building or vehicle in downtown. It was treated and put in a crate to rest--that's good, if this bird can make the first 24 hours he has a good chance of survival. A lot will depend on how well he cornea heals.

The vets warned that after we get this second round of snow, TRC will probably get more birds admitted, especially younger red-tails that have been spending the winter here and benefiting from the lack of cover. With another 10 - 16 inches of snow on top of the 11 we got last weekend, will make hunting a bit more tricky. They said so far that the winter has been very quiet and nothing unusual to report as far as birds admitted.

I just realized with the pounding of snow this weekend I'm probably not going to make it to the Houston Festival of Owls. I so wanted to meet Denver Holt. Man, I'm bummed about that.

More Snow?? Aaaaargh!!

Blog updates are slow at the moment.

Just when we've dug out from last weekend's snow, we're getting more snow starting at noon today. I have to run some errands before it hits.

I've had two big deadlines this week--Disapproving Rabbits is one. We discovered last night that some of the best photos submitted by readers are way too small for print quality. If you or someone you know have submitted a Disapproving Rabbit photo even one that is already on the website and it was low resolution, you might want to resend it at a much larger version (the original version that comes straight from your camera). We have to send the book in by next week or it won't be printed.

In bird cam news, the National Geographic Crane Cam at Rowe Sanctuary is supposed to start up today. Whoot. I love having that on in the background in the morning and evening.

Wall Street Journal Techno Birding Article

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted for some quotes for this article in the Wall Street Journal Online about birders carrying more gadgets in the field. Alas, my comments were cut but still interesting nonetheless. I'm obviously way too glamorous now for the WSJ--okay, I swear these jokes will ease up...at some point.

Interesting Links

I have been having such a great time watching the live video great horned owl cam I haven't been paying much attention to the Valmont Owl Cam. Fortunately, Bill Schmoker has and he captured some interesting screen shots last week when one of the owls came back with a surprising prey item. I like how the owl cached it for a bit and all you can see it the foot in the bottom of the camera view finder. Har.

Speaking of owls, I was sent this link of a young barred owl getting repeatedly nailed by what looks like blue-gray gnatcatchers. I know I was sent this a few months ago but can't remember if posted it. Either way, it's worth a look see.

And while we are on the subject of raptors, Diva Kitty sent a link to a blog where a hawk got a mourning dove. The blog identifies the hawk as a sharp-shinned, but it's actually a Cooper's hawk (note the flat head, dark cap and the fact that it is much larger than its quarry). The blogger got some sweet shots. It's pretty amazing, she got the dove through a caged tray. I didn't know mourning doves could fit through those and am amazed by the hawk's ability to get quarry in extreme circumstances.

And finally, I was so overwhelmed with the glamour of birding that I forgot to mention that the latest installment I and the Bird is up. For newer blog readers, I and the Bird is a bi-weekly compilation of bird related blog entries. It's great way to find other birding related blogs out there.

I think I'm caught up...

Snow Bunny

Minnesota weather forecasters have been predicting a big snow all week long, and they were correct. It basically it snowed all weekend long, most of it coming Saturday night. I took care to load up the feeder before the sun set thinking that our flying squirrel activity at night would keep the ledge fairly snow free. I put out the Droll Yankee X-1 Seed Saver thinking that the cover would keep the seed from getting buried in snow. However, an angrily chipping cardinal at dawn alerted me that the plan did not work, the snow still managed to cover all the seed on the tray as well as the seed on the ledge.

"What the heck is all this crap anyway?"

Blog reader Nancy W. worried that my living in an apartment may not show how much snow we got in the Twin Cities so she kindly sent a photo of her back door this morning. We got about a foot in the metro area but south of us in Winona, MN they got two feet. Thanks, Nancy!

I still think you could get an idea how bad the roads were. Here was a car that got a little stuck and a little turned around below our apartment. Fortunately for the driver there were some guys with snow shovels roaming the neighborhoods looking for people to help out--seriously, they were just walking around with shovels looking for people to help out out of the snow. That's one of the many reasons I love living here, during a snow emergency it's a given that you will help people stuck in snow and ice and if you get stuck, someone will be by to help you too.

The city started plowing all the allies on Sunday, and a bulldozer was needed to move it out of the way. Yar!

Friday night we had to do our usual grocery shopping, it didn't occur to us that people would be loading up before the storm hit. Usually people are fairly low key about a snow storm in Minnesota and there isn't a run on food staples. Non Birding Bill and I always joke that where we grew up (Indiana for me, Ohio for him) that anytime there was any snow people would go out and load up on milk, bread and eggs. For some reason there was a freak out in our local grocery store and the milk and bread section was obliterated. Also, since we live in an eclectic little neighborhood other staples were missing: soy sauce, flour tortillas and soy milk. You can see photos of it at NBB's Blog.

"Okay, enough of this nonsense, let's go back inside. Bunny rights!"

We took Cinnamon out for few minutes for a hop in the snow. We had to dig out our car so we thought we would use some of our bunny's mad diggin' skills to help. She wasn't so interested in helping but did like to explore some of the larger mounds of snow.

It's Official: Birding Is Glamorous!

"I'd like to thank the academy and SonicWALL for this designation of Glamour/Society!"

SonicWALL has sent me (and many readers) an announcement regarding a change of their original designation for this site:

The request has been reviewed and rated as: "41.Glamour/Society"

Glamour? Birdchick.com? How did they come up with that assessment? This even tops when someone from the Minnesota Companion Rabbit Society said I was tasteful!

Does this mean that I have attained my goal of showing the world that you can be a birder without being a geek? I'm glad that despite the photo of me in chest waders, the photos of maggots in an eagle ear, the ugly pelican chicks, the rat guts, and quail guts that this site is STILL considered glamorous! I'm a bit baffled about the "society" part.

Is it because I kick it with celebrities like Sinbad (above)? Let's not forget that I've met Donny Osmond, Phil Donahue, and a film crew from the Colbert Report.

Maybe, it's because I like to dress up when I go to the grocery store? Like the time Maddy, Mr. Neil, and I made a stop for a last minute late night supper?

Perhaps it's my ability to accessorize with any raptor at a moments notice?

Is it the hip, travelin' lifestyle that Non Birding Bill and I have adopted?

Is it Cinnamon and her high standards? She does have a book deal...

Or maybe, it is just the birds:





Yeah, I think it's the birds.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker Blogs

For every movement, there is an anti movement.

It's Official: I'm Not Porn!

This very nice email showed up in the comments section from the post regarding my site being categorized as pornography:

As a SonicWALL employee, I apologize for the improper categorization of your site. We strive for accuracy, and your feedback helps us toward that goal. Your rating review requests should be processed within a few days. Please send an email to products@sonicwall.com if this is not corrected within that time.

Joe Levy

What a nice email and I honestly didn't expect a result this soon. Thank you so much to all who sent in a request to SonicWALL and thanks, Joe, for taking the time to leave a comment.

I don't know if I'll be getting much birding done today outside of filling all of my feeders. Weather forecasters are predicting "the big one" this weekend. I was going to go banding this morning but my car has been making that screeching noise that means, "Yo, woman, replace my breaks NOW!" Responsibility calls, I need to get that taken care of before the snow starts tonight.

Sometimes it's such a bummer being a grownup.

Birding Misidentification By Car

I had a meeting today to sort through directions for one of the Audubon guide books I'm helping with--tedious, hard to stay focused work but I tried to set the goal of a varied thrush. One had been reported near the Audubon Offices in St. Paul so I thought I would go look for it when we finished the meeting.

After the meeting, I drove over to the reported area and didn't see it. I stuck around about a half hour to forty-five minutes but no varied thrush. I suppose I could have lurked in the neighborhood longer but I've seen this species in San Francisco and didn't have to work that hard, I was getting hungry and decided to head home.

I drove by the airport to see if I could find one of the snowy owls perched out and I did:

However, it was not in a spot where I am allowed to park, bring out my scope and digiscope the bird without a stern talking to by airport security. I snapped one photo, rest assured that the lump on the corner of that building is indeed a snowy owl.

After dodging around in rush hour traffic I got back to my neighborhood. When I was about a block away waiting at a traffic light, I noticed across the street a bird perched high in a tree:

The shape and size made me think "pigeon" but it seemed strange to see one of the neighborhood pigeons sitting out in the open and high in a tree at dusk. The traffic light was still red so I aimed my binos for a quick glance on the bird and could see that it was a small falcon. My friend Amber told me that she had seen a female kestrel the other day (in winter only the males tend to stick around in Minnesota). Curious, I drove around the block to get a view of the bird in better light--was this a female kestrel?

I had my scope handy and pulled up to a corner, aimed it on the falcon and took some fast photos in the dwindling light. In the small view finder the bird looked to be a merlin. Not common, but not unheard of in my neighborhood either. I was really hungry and the light was dimming fast so I went home. When I downloaded the photos from the camera I found the bird to be something quite different:

Look at that huge malar stripe (vertical stripe under the eye). Also notice how the wing tips go all the way to the tip of the tail--that's no merlin, that's a peregrine falcon! This has to be the smallest male I have ever seen in my life (for non birders, in the raptor world, females are larger than males).

Now, some of you may be wondering how on Earth could I mistake a merlin for a peregrine--aren't peregrines noticeably larger? Wouldn't that be obvious? Not always. A female merlin can be 12 inches in length, a male peregrine falcon can be a small as 14 inches in length. I don't know about you, but I have trouble determining length at a distance--especially hashing out a couple of inches here and there.

Also, this bird was out of context for me. Most of my peregrine falcon experience is seeing them on buildings or cliffs, not sitting perched on a branch in a tree. It didn't occur to me right away that a falcon perched in a tree could be a peregrine. I wish I hadn't been so hungry at the time I took these photos, I would have been curious to see the bands on his legs.

No varied thrush but cool birds today. And a good lesson for me to pay more attention to what I'm focusing on in a view finder--not just making sure it's focused.

Gyrfalcon and the Family

Whoo Hoo, our earliest migrant is back in Minnesota, the horned lark! I actually took this photo on Monday in Connecticut but yesterday while toodling around Dakota County I flushed quite a few flocks along the road.

I was trying to go see the gyrfalcon that has been hanging around south of the metro area. There are a couple of fields where thousands of mallards and Canada geese come in to feed late in the afternoon and the falcon likes to hunt them. There are some great videos of the gyr at the MOU website. One in particular is of the falcon eating a mallard while surrounded by thousands of live mallards. Periodically the gyr will lunge towards the flock, spooking them into the air. I wondered why it would do that, but after watching this noisy flock of geese and ducks yesterday I could see how they gyr might long for some silence while it ate. Incidentally, notice the dark line behind the geese in ducks in the above photo? That's thousands more waterfowl.

I did find the gyr but was not able to photograph it. I saw it high on a power pole off of a busy county road. I pulled over and it kept flinching as ducks flew in--it was hungry and trying to decide on which mallard to take. The gyr had it's wings outstretched and almost looked like a weathervane with an eagle on top of it. Finally, they gyr descended on the ducks, but none would flush, seemingly knowing that if one of them did, they would be falcon food for sure. The gyr flew over the grounded flock, banked towards my car and then flew just on the other side of the road, right at eye level! It was SWEET! That's the closest I've ever been to a wild gyr--well worth the drive down and back during rush hour traffic.

Ah, it's good to be home. Here is my family: Non Birding Bill, Cinnamon, and Kabuki piled on top of the Love Sac watching a Douglas Sirk movie. Good times.

Well, Cinnamon has finally disapproved of the fake bunnies. She has resumed digging in her litter box and ignoring the fake bunnies altogether. If I try to pet them, she lunges and grunts at me, and then hops away with even more grunts. It's as if she's irritated that I'm paying attention to the fake bunnies--don't I know that they aren't real? If I try to pet her after petting the fake bunnies she grunts and spins around. I don't want to irritate her, but I have to admit that I love the sound of her grunting. She's like a cute, little, furry piggy. Grunt grunt.

This weekend is another bunny adoption event at Minnesota Valley Humane Society in Burnsville from 12pm - 4pm both Saturday and Sunday. I'm going to try and get more photos for the book but we have narrow it down to 160 and have all the photos and captions decided and turned in By March 1--ack! Harper Collins moved up the deadline which I'm willing to do since I know that it will take time to get this together and really want the book to be out this fall.

Looking at what is going on with the two different publishers, it looks like the Disapproving Rabbits book is going to come out sooner than my City Birds/Country Birds book. It's very weird to me, the bird related book has been in the works almost a year and a half and the rabbit book was started four months ago and the rabbit book will probably be printed first. Different publishers have different styles I suppose.

Ummmm...

I might need a little reader support for a moment.

I just got a notice from an alert reader that my site is being blocked by SonicWALL. Non Birding Bill did some investigating and discovered this:


The site www.birdchick.com rated as Pornography?? Have I been talking about bird mating too much? We've put in a request for a review of the site, but it may help to have multiple people enter it in to help confirm that this site is not porn but more in the category of Sports/Recreation/Hobbies. If you have a chance and don't mind, go to SonicWALL and enter your email and classification of Sports/Recreation/Hobbies.

Thanks!

Dunkin Donuts Broke My Heart

But has probably saved me loads of calories. Sigh.

One of the joys of travel is being able to eat at chains I don't have access to in Minnesota like Chick-fil-A and Dunkin Donuts. I grew up on Dunkin Donuts, I remember my mom's friend Diana coming over on Friday nights with a big box of donuts and pigging out. My favorite being the chocolate or vanilla creme filled donut--a donut covered in powdered sugar and filled with thick, tooth-numbing creme. That was the embodiment of donut to me.

Last summer when I went to Maine for the ABA Convention, I ate at a Dunkin every morning. WildBird on the Fly and I loaded up a bag and feasted on our way to Acadia National Park--it was a gluttonous heaven. Alas, those days are gone...

Being on the East Coast this weekend I knew I would have access to lots of donuts. Dunkin Donuts started in Rhode Island--I would be near the mother land. My first morning I stopped at a Dunkin and asked for the creme filled donut. They didn't have it. I figured this was just an irregularity, so I stopped at another less than a mile away and learned the awful truth--they have been DISCONTINUED. ARRRRRRRGH!

I was short on time and needed to grab some breakfast so I reluctantly ordered a box of donut holes to eat. They were not as good--they weren't what I was craving and looking forward to, they didn't stand a chance of being tasty to me. I ate a fair share of the donut holes and realized it was silly to waste the calories and decided to share the donuts with some gulls. Hence all the photos of ring-billed gulls eating donuts from my hand in this entry.

I haven't been this angry and bitter since Caribou Coffee discontinued the North Woods Latte (it tasted like liquid French toast, it was yummy) --yeah, Caribou, I'm still upset about that. I quit going there for almost a year when that happened and go only sporadically now.

I'm trying to tell myself this is a good thing, a way of the universe telling me that I've been doing so well by current healthy eating habits, why wreck it now? It's hard enough to eat healthy on the road, so losing this donut access will only allow me to have better choices.

No, I want my creme filled donut!

We passed this car in a parking lot and thought it was a fun cloud of herring and ring-billed gulls surrounding a car. As we started taking pictures, the car left. Are they ashamed that they feed gulls?

KARE 11 Cardinal

Today was just go, go, go. I got back in from Connecticut late Monday night and had to be at the KARE 11 Studios this morning for my segment on Showcase Minnesota. When I signed in I saw that Jill Spiegel the Flirtologist had signed in before me. It's a party in the green room whenever she is there.

When I finished my segment, Veronica who runs the front desk ran in saying that a cardinal had just flown into the front windows, could I help. I dashed out and sure enough there was a stunned male cardinal in front of the door. I scooped him up, listened to his heart (sounded okay), felt for broken bones (couldn't find any), and checked for blood around his nares (nostrils) and inside his bill (no blood). I had Veronica get me a small box and decided to wait out the rest of the show with the cardinal in the box. If he was just stunned, he would start thrashing within a half hour and I could release him. If he didn't perk up within a half an hour I knew I would have to take him to the Wildlife Rehab Center.

I sat in the green room and watched the rest of the show and sure enough by the last segment he perked right up and started to thrash about in the box. Jill was the last segment and had mentioned when I brought in the cardinal how symbolic cardinals were to her. They are a symbol of good things in her career. I asked if she wanted to do the honors of letting the cardinal go.

Since cardinals are big biters with those big sharp bills, we thought it best that she just open the box instead of holding the bird to release it. We took it out the backyard area of the studio to set it free. I wasn't sure if the photo would turn out:

But look at that. It almost looks like a photoshopped in the cardinal, but that is all from the high speed ability of the Fuji FinePix 900. The cardinal flew back towards the studio instead of the bushes but this time managed to avoid the windows. It landed on the wall and fluttered to the ground. I walked towards it and then it was off like a shot to the bushes--a good fast flight.

Timing is everything, I was glad I was there to help out. And I was glad Jill got a chance to release a favorite bird. Not that she really needs it, but I hope this a fantastic sign for where her life is headed.

Why Can't The Chickies Get Along?

Holy Mackerel, the post about the Colbert Report filming at the Connecticut Bald Eagle Festival has been getting lots of traffic. On Sunday when people found out that the crew had been there the day before, they were very disappointed that they missed it.

I got an email from Caitlin who confirmed that the man in the photos is Paul Dinello and she runs a fan site about him. I gave her all of my photos from the day and she has posted them here. Thanks for the link, Caitlin!

So, I'm a digimiscopin' fool! I was practicing on a hen mallard in Connecticut.

Here she is just kind of chillin' out on a dock post. There were about fifty other mallards and ruddy ducks sitting on the ice and floating on the water (there was even a male and female engaging in "some tenderness" if you know what I mean--mating in ice water out of season--not THAT is kinky).

The hen I was photographing then assumed the bird sleeping position. Even though her head it tucked, I could still see that her eye was open. Good thing too--

Another hen flew in and pushed her off--I can't believe I got this shot digiscoping. I love this new set up!

There stood the new hen, bowing victorious for claiming this valued roosting spot (or just trying to get a closer look at an odd colored spot, wondering if she can eat it).

Newsweek Bites

In the interest of closure here are some follow ups to the Walda Cameron cardinal killing essay. First there is an article by Scott Shalaway in the Sunday Charleston Gazette on his thoughts on the article as well as a few quotes by Senior Newsweek Editor Nancy Cooper.

This week Newsweek printed some letters regarding the essay. They apparently only had the space to print two:

A Gun-Toting Granny

As a wildlife rehabilitator, I constantly field calls from people asking for help with wildlife conflicts. I wish Walda Cameron had asked a professional for help instead of illegally—and cruelly—shooting the cardinal that was bothering her ("Why I Broke One of My 'Cardinal' Rules," my turn, Feb. 12). There are many ways to humanely prevent birds from banging into windows—which usually happens only in spring and summer, when territorial males mistake their reflections for intruders. You can keep blinds or curtains pulled, affix holographic decals, sun catchers, or cut-outs of hawk silhouettes outside windows, or install "invisible netting," which is nearly invisible to the human eye, to keep birds from hitting windows. With a little patience and understanding, it's easy to live in harmony with our feathered neighbors.
Evelyn Flengas
Virginia Beach, Va.

Walda Cameron's essay may have struck readers as simply amusing satire. But many Audubon members and others who care about wildlife are concerned that some readers may miss the satire and be tempted to mimic the proposed solution. We'd like to remind them that some actions are both wrong and unnecessary. Whether one is a bird lover or not, it is not only wrong but illegal to kill a northern cardinal or any species protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. And, in fact, it is possible to prevent bird collisions with windows and other structures by removing the reflection from the places where they peck. This method is most successful when something is put on the outside of the window—a decal, screen, windsock—to break up its reflective nature. Instead of rethinking her belief system, the author could have put more effort into living it.
Greg Butcher, V. P. of Bird Conservation
National Audubon Society
Washington, D.C.

Hopefully this will be the last I have to hear or write about this.

Holy Colbert, Batman!

I think today goes into the top five of one of the weirdest-yet-oh-so-cool days of my life!Who recognizes this guy? C'mon, you know you know him and he's married to that girl (just that girl, not that girl in the photo with him above, that's just me, not that girl...that he's married to--confusing enough?). I'll just let you chew on that awhile.

So, I'm in Connecticut for a Bald Eagle Festival, a very last minute decision and I find myself in the same space as a film crew for the Colbert Report! Where is BirderBlog when you need her?

One of these things is not like the other. Can you tell which one of the people in this photo is in fact NOT a birder but a member of the Colbert Report crew? I'm not sure what the segment is going to be about, but the crew was there ALL day filming all sorts of different segments. Being a ham, I tried to insert myself in the background of some shots, so we'll see if I'm there or on the cutting room floor. The producers said it should air sometime in the next two weeks. We exchanged cards and she said she would try to give me a head's up when it was about to air. The guy in the funky stripy hat is on the Colbert crew. At one point I saw the camera crew filming him in a port-a-potty and he would pop his head out with binoculars to watch for eagles.

Here was another one of the guys that was part of the filming, he was trying to "shoot an eagle" with a gun at the eagle festival. We were all asked to not laugh at whatever he did and to try and look angry, bewildered, confused--anything but laugh. It was hard not to laugh at his antics though, he was funny and weird. Since his bit was about shooting birds, I wonder if there is some chance that this is tied into the whole granny killing a cardinal essay in Newsweek?

Speaking of cardinals, check out the size of this dude I met at the festival along with an eagle. Imagine what it would be like to have this guy fighting his reflection in your windows--yikes! I've read that cardinals get larger the further they are from the Equator--but this is out of control.

I made huge strides in my digiscoping today:

The area geese were not as impressed with the Eagle Festival and slept most of the morning. I was trying to turn the white one into a snow goose, but it was a garden variety domestic.

There were lots of little ice chunks floating along the Connecticut River and check out who is mixed in with these ring-billed gulls--rock pigeons! I've never seen those guys willingly land on ice flows before. They kept creeping to the edge to gulp down some water.

Check out the ring-billed gull photo above! For me this photo was a triumph of the human spirit! Did I really take that? Okay, I know the feet are missing but I was just too close to get the whole body in, but look at that detail. I took this with my Fuji FinePix E900 and Swarovski 80 ATS 80 HD. I know I still have lots to learn, but I feel I had a true break through today. Maybe I'll enter this in the WildBird Photo Contest.

Okay, back to the dude at the beginning of this entry. Do ya' know who he is? If you guessed Phil Donahue, pat yourself on the back for a recognition well done! Gotta love a guy who helps organize and gives lots of generous support for a festival about our national symbol. Hat's off to Phil! He's being interview in the above photo by the Colbert crew.

Now to put an end to this disjointed entry and get to bed.

Costa Rica is a Theme

Can't seem to get away from Costa Rica at the moment! Tonight I met Alex Villegas from Costa Rica who has recorded the calls of 92 species of frogs in that country--and that's not even all of them.

Hawk Owl's Nest has been documenting his recent adventures in Costa Rica. If you haven't seen the photo of his magpie jay, go look now. It's like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy got hold of a blue jay and tweaked it a little.

Carrol Henderson is tempting me to distraction with more photos from his latest Costa Rica trip. Isn't the above black and white owl adorable! If I were a small mammal, I would be honored to be eaten by such a cool looking raptor!

While Carrol was in Costa Rica he saw many birds that breed in the states including this wood thrush. Some of you may know that wood thrushes have been in decline. The most common early theories that I head bandied about were saying that migratory habitat loss and cowbirds were the problem (cowbirds lay their eggs in other birds nest, disturbing the nesting success of of the host species). But Clay told me that John Fitzpatrick gave a talk explaining that acid rain had caused an imbalance in soil, causing a decline in slugs, an important food source for wood thrushes.

I have a special place for wood thrushes. When I was 13, we moved to a house with a good sized yard and a woods next to it. I remember in spring and summer hearing a bird that we could never see. One morning, my mom and I decided that we were going to find this gorgeous singer to identify it. We followed and followed with our binos as the bird kept flying away tucking itself int he canopy. Finally, we caught a glimpse of the white chest with black spots and brown back. We were surprised that such a pretty bird, was fairly brown. It took us a long time to follow it and finally see it, but we always enjoyed listening to him sing. Once I remember waking up right before dawn and hearing hundreds of robins singing and one lone wood thrush making his song known.

You can visit the fabulous Lang Elliot's site here to hear the sweet song of the wood thrush.

Disapproving Bird

Well, leave it to my good friend Carrol Henderson to find a disapproving bird! He went on his 22nd birding trip to Costa Rica and got this photo:

I can't decide between doing a caption contest or an id contest so I will do both! Here are the rules:

There will be two separate prizes, one for correct id of this bird and one for the caption that makes me laugh out loud. It is possible for one person to win both prizes.

Captions can be submitted in the comments section and ONLY comments with a name attached will win. You don't have to create an identity in blogger, but I need a first and last name for a winner.

You can submit as many captions or guesses as you wish.

Keep captions PG-13.

Prizes for correct id are a bag of veggie suet and a Vortex binocular harness.

Prizes for funniest caption are a bag of veggie suet and audio cassettes of 2 Plays for Voices by Mr. Neil.

Birding Projects For The Backyard

Bart sent me this photo of a red-headed woodpecker at his feeder. He took this last week with a WingScapes Camera. He lives in Alabama and these are common feeder birds. My mom reports that when she went to Brown County State Park in Indiana that they saw more red-headed woodpecker than ever before (they were scarce when I was growing up in Indiana). Living in Minnesota the last ten years I've learned that red-heads used to be quite common and are now tough to find and a species of special concern. Are they shifting their range south or is a much bigger problem going on? More observations are needed to know what's up.

Frequently, I get emails or talk to people who wish they could do more for birds, or wish that they could have a job that helps birds. One of the truly great things about birding is that ANYONE can do it. ANYONE can be an expert. Does it help to be an ornithologist and get your PhD? Sure, but it certainly is not a requirement. You can clock a lot of hours in the field and be considered an expert. One of my favorite examples is Arthur Cleveland Bent who wrote/compiled natural histories of birds in North American--which is still used to this day. When you're digging around on BNA or bird reference books, you will find quite a few references to Bent. Was this great observer an ornithologist? No, he was a business man but he compiled on of the earliest and most complete life histories for North American Birds.

Here are some projects that you can be a part of:

1. The Great Backyard Bird Count starts this weekend. Basically all you do is plan on counting birds for at least 15 minutes during the days of February 16 - 19, 2007. Count birds at as many places and on as many days as you like—just keep a separate list of counts for each day and/or location. Only count the greatest number of individuals. So, if you notice at dawn you only have one pair of cardinals and then later in the day when you are doing your official 15 minutes, you notice that you have 8 cardinals, you would count the eight. There's a chance the two you saw at dawn are part of the flock of 8. After you count, you enter the info here.

If you know someone who would love to do this but isn't online, you can get forms from your local wild bird specialty stores (good bird stores are aware of this event and generally have sheets on hand and some will even mail forms in--find out when you stop in to load up on seed).

2. Cornell's Project Feeder Watch is another citizen science project. This project is similar to the Great Backyard Bird Count, only it goes on all winter, not just for the weekend. Like the GBBC, you count the highest number of each species seen at a feeder. You count the birds that appear to your count site that you provided: sunflower seeds, suet, mealworms, birdbath, fruit bearing plants, etc. Sitings are reported to Cornell Lab of Ornithology via the website or snail mail.

3. Another really important tool for recording birds is eBird. Last night, Clay and I were talking about what a great resource this is turning out to be and how can we get more people to submit sightings (our own included). At this site you can use it to keep track of birds you see all over the country but also what birds you are seeing in your yard throughout the year. We can learn a great deal about bird distribution and migratory trends by everyone participating. The people who run it or very nice. There have been a couple of times when I reported an odd bird, and the people who check the observations were very kind when asking if I really meant to check off seeing a buff-bellied hummingbird in Texas (I didn't). I also found out that I have seen some rare birds for areas. When I was doing the ivory-bill search in Arkansas, I saw a small family group of trumpeter swans in the White River area--turned out to be a very unusual sighting, maybe more are on the way.

4. A newer one is PROJECT WILDBIRD sponsored by the Wild Bird Feeding Industry. I saw a presentation about this at Bird Watch America last January. WBFI wants to find a more standardized way to understand bird feeding preferences. Sure we can say that in general there are preferences for black oil sunflower, but this study hopes to learn of regional differences like maybe goldfinches further south in the US prefer sunflower hearts over Nyjer. They study also hopes to learn about bird feeder preferences. Generally cardinals do not feel comfortable feeding off of a tube feeder without a tray, they are larger and it's an awkward position for them, they almost always go to tray feeders.

Well, here's another photo from Bart's WingScapes Camera of a cardinal on the perch of a tube feeder. Is this because cardinals are smaller closer to the Equator so a cardinal like this one in Alabama has no problem with a perch on a tube feeder whereas cardinals in Minnesota are larger and need a tray? Is it nothing more than regional preference? That one of the things PROJECT WILDBIRD wants to find out.

You can participate in two different ways:

1. Watch birds at your feeder and monitor the activity at your feeders for a total of 3 hours spread across a single eight day segment. Each observation period is 30 minutes in length. These observations of the birds by species, the type of bird feeder used, and the feed offered to the birds and submit the total into the PROJECT WILDBIRD database using a simple computer data entry system.

2. This is a cool deal--you have to be good at identifying all the birds that visit your backyard. But you get a feeder set up to try out in your back yard. You get four different poles (with squirrel baffles) and four types of feeders on the poles. You change out the food and the feeders and monitor which birds are coming to which feeder. You can read more about the protocols and feeders you will use here. That looks like a pretty sweet deal to get all the feeders to use in your own yard.

PROJECT WILDBIRD is in dire need of participants at both levels. This started in 2005 and they had very few observers and it really skewed some of the info.

So, if you are looking for ways to help birds, try any one of these projects.

I Love My Friends

The Internet is fantastic if for no other reason the ability to communicate with friends from all over the planet. I love the people that I know from all over. Today was a great example. At about 4:30pm, I got call from my friend Clay Taylor because his flight back home to Rhode Island got rerouted to the Twin Cities because of the snow storm. He wanted to know if I was up for some company. I had dinner with him (which included a FANTASTIC turnip and apple soup at the Mall of America), made it in just enough time to see Non Birding Bill in Cyrano and top off the evening with a little late night sushi.

Oddly enough, I'm coming to Connecticut this weekend and will see Clay. After I dropped him off at his hotel I got to say, "I'll see you in a couple of days." I rarely get to say that to my friends on the road.

I came home tonight and found an odd little announcement in the Bird Jobs email. Normally it's a great resource for fun volunteer trips, or jobs to monitor birds or nests, do some banding--very much field biology. Today a bird feeding job of sorts showed up:

STAFF SCIENTIST – WILD BIRD FOOD & NUTRITION – PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT & INNOVATION.

Our client is a $6+ billion international company located near Columbus, OH. They’ve created a new position with the goal of raising the bar in wild bird food R&D by using scientific methodology for product development and innovation. This position will require a scientist with flexible skills and abilities, sound knowledge of bird nutrition and husbandry and wildlife conservation. This scientist will be involved with the development of research programs to significantly improve current bird food and bird feeding products and will work with University and external experts such as the Ornithological Societies of North America. He/she will work with a dynamic multi-functional team to translate technical outcomes into successful product development.

REQUIREMENTS: BS or MS in biology, environmental science, wildlife conservation/management or related field; sound understanding of and experience in the scientific method and research design; several years of experience working with birds as a scientist, ornithologist, zookeeper or enthusiast.

TO APPLY, e-mail cover letter and CV to CRYSTAL M. TINUCCI, Kelly Scientific/SMI (EM: tinuccm AT kellyservices.com, PH: 312-346-7404). Please respond ASAP for immediate consideration.

I'm curious about this. Feeding birds in a zoo or aviary situation is very different than feeding wild birds. I'm curious as to what this is all about.

Raptor Force--Must See TV!!

Yo, Non Birding Bill, I'll need you to record something for me this Sunday, February 18th on PBS when I'm out of town! The show Nature on PBS is presenting Raptor Force, showcasing bird of prey flight ability. Looks pretty darned sweet. Raptor Resource Project (go Neil!) was heavily involved in the making the program. I found a preview and some scenes up on YouTube to tempt your appetite. I can't watch these without doing the Homer Simpson donut sound. Haaaaaaaaaah.

Here is the preview (it's about 30 seconds long):



Here is a scene with a peregrine falcon going after some prey with a camera attached to it. It's really sweet. I wish I could hunt like that, zipping through the air over 200 mph and killing larger birds with my toes. This scene is about two minutes long:



I believe this is must see tv this Sunday.

The N'Kisi Project

At first glance this looks like a story for the Weekly World News, but it's on the BBC website, so it's got to have some validity. Meet N'Kisi, an African gray parrot with a vocabulary of over 950 words. The BBC reports:

One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.

When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?"

He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."

Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies communication".

In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards.

Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance.

You can learn more about N'Kisi and the research surrounding his communicative abilities here. There's an audio of N'Kisi in conversation with his owner Aimee. It's somewhat confusing because the male parrot has the same voice as his female handler.

Adopt A Disapproving Rabbit Month

Ever wanted a Disapproving Rabbit of your very own? Here are some candidates looking for homes.

"I don't approve of you not scratching my nose. It's gray and wiggly for cryin' out loud, get to work loving my nose!"

According to the House Rabbit Society February is Adopt A Rabbit Month. Yesterday the Golden Valley Humane Society and the Minnesota House Rabbit Society were holding an adoption event and a bunny agility demonstration. I would have blogged it sooner but didn't find out about it until last minute. I did take advantage of a free afternoon to get some more photos for the Disapproving Rabbits book.

The rabbit at the top of the entry is Truffle and is the current "star" of the GVHS. She was hands down my favorite rabbit and if Cinnamon weren't such a butthead about other rabbits I would have adopted her.

When I stepped inside her play area to take her photo, she was in full loaf mode, completely relaxed. I sat down, aimed the camera at her at which point she got up, nudged the camera out of the way and forcibly shoved her head beneath my hand--she wanted me to stroke her head. The photo above is Truffle in mid-nudge of the camera. I stroked her face and ears for quite some time. This is such a well mannered bunny, it is a matter of time before she will get a home. You don't often find cuddly bunnies like this.

Distrusting bunnies. This was a bonded pair of angora rabbits. I can't find their profiles on either the GVHS or the MCRS pages, I wonder if they are new? The little gray guy was recently shaved and is very curious and gregarious, the white puffball was more shy but did welcome some head scratching. The suspicious look these two gave me reminded me of introducing myself to the person running the adoption event. I had on a Disapproving Rabbit shirt but if you haven't seen the site, it's really hard to explain. I asked if I could take photos for the website and she looked cautious and asked, "And what do you do with the photos?"

"I take photos and then put up captions on what the rabbits don't approve of you doing, like I don't approve of what you do outside." I answered.

The woman still looked unsure but luckily for me many of the volunteers at the event have seen the site and stood up for me. One guy even said the website was tasteful, so I was free to take photos at that point.

Here we have two dwarf rabbits named Lucy and Ricky who are naturals when it comes to disapproval. Dwarf rabbits are great--permanently tiny and cute bunnies. But don't let the tiny size fool you, Lucy lifted the corner of the litter box more than once.

This willful little thing is named Oreo--very playful and full of energy. Oreo is bonded with Carmel and I tried to get some tag team disapproval but they seemed more interested in mischief. I finally decided to take a photo of them individually. As I would be concentrating on Carmel, Oreo would sneak behind me and yank one of the belt loops on my pants. Very much like Cinnamon buttheadery.

Here is a very young male named Alfred. He's only eleven weeks old but already he can disapprove of what I'm doing while simultaneously cleaning his toes. Can't you just hear him say in a French accent, "I don't approve of how you smell. My toes smell better than you, you peasant."

Interesting to note that the bunnies I photographed earlier this month, Serena and Buster have already found permanent homes. Whoot! Hope these other bunnies find the same soon too. The MCRS did a great job of running the event. The bunnies were getting lots of attention and lots of exercise. One dedicated volunteer was taking the time to keep all the angoras in good coat condition, and all the socializing they do really shows with these rabbits.

Generally Awesome Bird Trip

Saturday morning Non Birding Bill and I were two ships passing in the night. Friday night, he went to his show opening. He mentioned that there would probably be some sort of cast party. I told him that since I needed to be up at 5am and I would decline the invitation. I went to bed at a sensible time and fell asleep. I woke when I heard Bill come in to the bedroom from his party. I rolled over to check the time and saw it was 4:30am--I was getting up in a half hour.

Here is a photo of the oh-so-slippery Hedbom Road in Aitkin County, Minnesota. I say slippery because on the field trip yesterday I was stepping out of the van and fell ass over tea kettle right on the road, bouncing my rib cage off of the door. In my effort to recover what little of my dignity I had left, I scurried to the back of the van to grab the scope and banged it right into my face--giving em a lovely gash on my gums and chin. Fortunately, the birds more than made up for my clumsiness and really nothing says "great bird trip" like some bruises.

Right before we made it to Hedbom Road, we were admiring some black-billed magpies when the group ran into Kim Risen, publisher and editor of Nature Scape News. When I went to his site to link up to him for this entry, I found that I had an article up there on bird feeding, whoot! I forgot about that one. Kim told us that he'd had just seen some great gray owls and great woodpeckers at Hedbom and we should get over there.

Hedbom has been great for northern woodpeckers like this female black-backed woodpecker above. These birds just don't care about people. The group stopped when we saw here at eye level about 10 feet in front of us. After several photos she flew over the group and landed on a tree right behind us busily pecking away for food.

The highlight for me was seeing a male three-toed woodpecker, I've never seen one before and this guy put on quite a show. I digiscoped this image using a Nikon Coolpix 4500 and a Swarovski ATS 80 HD scope.

Stan Tekiela led the trip with me. Here he is showing the group what the woodpeckers found so tasty in the trees on Hedbom.

You can see where the bark has been peeled away by the woodpeckers to reveal the tunnelings of beetle larvae.

Look at that teeny tiny larvae in Stan's palm--that's what the peckers are after. All that work for that tiny, squirming bit of protein.

We also went to see a northern hawk owl that's been seen this winter outside of the Coffee Cabin in Duluth. One of the best parts of the trip was getting to spend the day with HellZiggy and Hasty Brook (who spotted a grouse high up in the tree during the trip). HellZiggy got some great shots of the birds and you can view the gallery here and her shots of the hawk owl are better than mine. The batteries in my camera were not interested in functioning in the zero degrees.

Everyone had packed a lunch and I had a big bag of candy for some snacking. Many of us were ready for something salty after all those sweets. The last half hour of the trip home had great conversation:

-Various recipes that include bacon
-What foods will you absolutely not eat
-If you're on a deserted island with no food, I'm apparently the one to kill and eat first
-Headcheese

Needless to say some of us were in dire need of a good salty dinner and headed to Outback when we got home. It was fun to hang out with so many bloggers.

Man, I am exhausted. Yesterday was some hard core birding and today I took a bunch bunny photos at an adoption event at the Golden Valley Humane Society. I don't know if I'm awake enough to post those photo tonight. I'm having enough trouble trying to find a way to end this entry.

Curiouser and Curiouser...

BirderBlog reports that the comments for the Walda Cameron essay on why she illegally shot a cardinal have disappeared. Is this because there were so many it over loaded the comments page? If you look at the other My Turn essays the comments are very low from 2 comments to 5 comments to 15 to one particular essay that was up several days earlier and had worked its way up to 70 comments. Last I checked the cardinal killing essay was well past 120 comments in only two days.

Maybe it was because there were so many comments taking Newsweek to task for printing the essay? Could it have been all the comments proclaiming subscription cancellations? Maybe there is actually an investigation going on by US Fish and Wildlife? Maybe some of the fighting has gotten dirty and personal? Goodness knows I've had to delete a few comments in the last two days.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Relaxation

"Hey, you two on the couch, stop that! I don't approve of what you're doing."

Oh, bunny disapproval! Today was a GREAT day, Non Birding Bill took the day off from his job and we had a work day together--he's been instrumental in helping compile all the photos for the Disapproving Rabbits book. We ran errands and just took it easy. I wish I could see his show opening tonight, but I'm meeting Stan at 6:30am for our trip up north tomorrow. He said our trip is sold out, which is very exciting. Hopefully Saturday night or Sunday morning I'll have some photos of rosy-finches, great gray owls, black-backed woodpeckers and other boreal specialties. Whoot! Today I loaded up on some chocolate and some bunny grams to snack on for the trip. Double Whoot.

Birders Get Hosed!

Unfortunate typo in the headline here.

A Little More Cleansing

My side of the bed has the window at the head of it--I like it that way. But every night this week, my pillow gets frozen stuck to it.

Non Birding Bill is in tech rehearsals for Cyrano de Bergerac. I love that he acts, I love that I get to watch him on stage--tech rehearsal week--I don't love so much. NBB pretty much goes