Scotland is a Top Birding Destination in Europe

From the Daily Record:

A BIRDWATCHER has won Scotland's first five-star award for wildlife tourism - for taking groups to live in caves.

Jeremy Hastings, 45, runs Islay Birding on the Hebridean isle. He offers 10-day trips where tourists sleep in caves to learn survival techniques.

His is among 22 nature based operators given a star award from Visit Scotland in their Wildlife Experience Quality Assurance scheme.

Read the rest of the story here or a more in dept version of the family business here.

Meanwhile in Minnesota, it' been four days of drizzle! No chance for digiscoping, banding, or even scouting for woodcocks for next weekend's trip. Argh. I'm pretty sure this is Nature's way of forcing me to work on taxes. I'm going to get through them today and maybe tomorrow I will finally see some sun. I must...get...through...receipts...for...the accountant...ehn.

Oh, to be a bunny tucked away in her little cardboard fortress of solitude with nothing more to do but disapprove of my receipt filing system.

Old Bird Book & New Insect Book

Carrol Henderson and I have a love for old bird books. The other day, he showed me this gem: Birds Through an Opera Glass by Florence A. Merriam. Even before Roger Tory Peterson, this woman was starting the trend to observe birds through optics as opposed to the "double barreled" method.

The book came out in 1897 and look at that, Houghton Mifflin was the publisher! Many of us are familiar with their Peterson Guides and Kaufman Focus Guides. From the start, HM has been there to provide great natural history guides.

This early field guide uses much different names for the birds we know today. For example, the bird above which many blog readers see is called a Chewink. Can you guess what that is? The drawing is a little misleading, that makes it look like an Oregon junco, but it's not. (Special hint to Sharon's mom--you told me these just showed up behind your condo). It's a towhee! Other fun names include Yellow Summer Bird for Yellow Warbler--it makes sense. Many of use see yellow warblers in summer and they are yellow.

The language is much more colorful than what we would see in today's field guides. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the blue jay's description:

"The blue jay comes with a dash and a flourish...And so he flashes about, and screams and scolds till we crawl to the window to look at him. Ha! what a handsome bird!"

For a fun giggle, reread the above but exchange blue jay with Nathan Lane.

While we're on the subject of Houghton Mifflin, I should mention that they have a new book: Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America written by Kenn Kaufman and Eric R. Eaton.

I have to say, I love Kenn's dedication--gotta love a guy who dedicates a book about bugs to his wife. He's either a very brave man who likes life on the edge or she's just kinda weird.

Not for the faint of heart: a page of roaches! Did you really want to know how many species would be finding ways to infest your abode? Actually, the book is a perfect addition to the birder book shelf. Let's face it, there are days when the birding is slow and you notice more bugs than you do birds. This guide is in an easy to search format to the common insects we would find across North America. It's not a complete field guide--otherwise it would be as large as the multi volume Bent series but it will answer most bug id questions.

There's even a whole section on honey bees! One feature I really like about the book, is that not only does it identify the insects themselves but also shows their evidence and for some, what they look like in their habitats. This a good general guide that would appeal to adults with interest and budding young naturalists.

Go Check Out Mike's Blog

If you haven't seen the Fox Sparrow and Suprise at Mike's blog, do so this instant. He got a surprise when he got home and watched the video up close as opposed to through the view finder.

Southwest Minnesota Prairie Birding Festival

At yesterday's tourism meeting, it was said that last year in Minnesota we had 8 bird festivals. This year we have 14 going on throughout the year. Here's a new one I just learned about called the Southwest Minnesota Prairie Birding Festival going on April 20 - 21.
It's based out of Luverne, Minnesota and the trips are to Blue Mound State Park and Touch the Sky Prairie. Here's a link to a photo essay by Jim Brandenburg of Touch the Sky Prairie.

Alas, this is a new festival and in a tiny town so there's not much information online. In order to find out more information or book your space you need to contact the Luverne Chamber of Commerce. The upside of these new tiny festivals is that the field trips aren't too crowded and you get a lot of individual attention from the guides. This should be a great festival with breath taking prairie landscapes and really sweet birds--prairie bird songs are some of the best!

I love prairie birding and really want to do this one, but Non Birding Bill and I are performing Play on Birds at the North Coast Nature Festival the following weekend and we will be rehearsing.

Valmont Owl Cam Back

A faithful reader over at Schmoker's Blog noticed that the great-horned owls at the Valmont Owl Cam are giving it a second shot. Originally, the female laid two eggs and then quit incubating. They eggs were removed and the cam switched to a family of barn owls. But the great horned owl pair were stimulated to lay eggs again since the eggs were gone. Let's see if the female can incubate this time.

Meanwhile, the peregrine falcons at the King Plant have a couple of eggs.

Coolest Pileated Woodpecker Post In The History Of This Blog

Holy crap, this is going to be a super cool post! Warning: Gratuitous photos of pileated woodpeckers ahead.

So, today I had a meeting with the Explore Minnesota Tourism folks at Eastman Nature Center in Elm Creek Park (cool stuff that generated from that meeting will pop up in the next few weeks). During a break in the meeting, I went to check their feeders for some digiscoping. At first I just saw the usual suspects: nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, chickadees, etc. The feeders were spread between two rooms. When I walked into the second room, I saw this:

Okay, it may be hard to get an idea of scale with this tree, but that is a large sliver of a lump up there. I knew instantly: a pileated woodpecker. Knowing how cagey these guys can be, I just set the scope up and started to photograph hoping I might get a shot of the head.

Then, the pileated flew over to the window feeders! I was way too close to digiscope, so I took a photo old school style--just through the point and shoot. I went to the back of the room and tried to digiscope.

However, the feeder was swinging violently due to the bird's weight. It was a tall order trying to get the head in the frame and in focus at the same time. I have about 50 blurry and blank photos.

Okay, there's the head, and it's kind of in focus...but the suet feeder is in the way! Although, I did like this shot because if you look at the bottom of the lower mandible you can see it's white. I have never had the opportunity to see that part of pileated, who knew it was white?

Okay, still not quite in focus but I love this because the woodpecker was in mid peck and had its eyelid lowered to protect its eyes. This looks thicker than a nictitating membrane (extra eyelid birds have that is transparent--they use it to protect pupils in flight so dust won't damage it). I'm sure they have some sort of eyelid protection since they chip off such large chunks of bark when pecking.

Whoot! It's in focus, it's not head on, but you can still see the face very well. I like how you can see the crest feathers come together in the back. Kind of reminds me of a kewpie doll.

I couldn't believe how accommodating this bird was. The whole group had gathered in the room to watch at this point. I asked one of the naturalists if the windows were tinted and she said that they are not, these birds are just that used to people. There was also a female flying around, she was eating at the tray feeder. She tried to bump the male from the feeder, but he always won.

She was fairly close to and I was able to get a head shot of her. For those who can't tell the difference between male and female pileated woodpeckers, here is what you need to look for: the female lacks the red mustache and her red crest starts halfway up her head as opposed to right at the bill. I was pretty jazzed about this photo. Finally, a crisp head shot! Double whoot!!

The female started working her way around towards another empty suet feeder. However, instead of flying up to the empty feeder...

She went right underneath us to forage for all the fallen suet chunks! What a treat to look right down on a pileated woodpecker only five feet away! I was so excited, I almost peed my pants. There were still about ten of us in the room and we call crowded around the window.

Here's my buddy Carrol Henderson taking a photo of her. It's not uncommon to see pileateds on the ground, they do forage a bit, not quite as much as northern flickers, but they do know how to dig around old fallen snags for juicy bugs.

The male didn't stray too far away. When he was finished at the other suet feeder, he flew to a tree to keep an eye on the female. My goodness, were we watching a pileated lunch date? Boy, if things keep going this well, he'll be at third base in no time.

Eventually, the birds flew off and we had to finish the rest of the meeting. Sigh.

The naturalists told us about a barred owl nest right along one of the trails. While we were finishing our meeting, I saw Sue who volunteers with me at The Raptor Center walk by the outside window. I flagged her down to say hi. She was going to look for the nest, so I told her to let me know if she found it on her way back. Five minutes later she walked past the window and gave a thumbs up--she saw the owl. Afterwards we went to look for it, we found the nest hole, but she was hunkered down for the day doing some hard incubating. Now quite what I was hoping for, but after the pileated show how can I really complain?

One last thing, we did find a disapproving jack rabbit at Eastman Nature Center. Apparently, he didn't approve of being stuffed.

Thank You Star Tribune!

Thanks to Non Birding Bill, I got a mention in today's Star Tribune Web Search. It's a really nice write up.

Yes, Mom, we are going to pick up a copy for you and will mail it to you, but you can also see it online by clicking the link above. Happy Birthday too.

Urban Eagle Nest Near My Home

Yesterday I was driving home and I was on Hwy 77 heading onto Hwy 62 going west. As I rounded the exit, I noticed a very large stick nest in a residential area. I made a note to myself to check it out this weekend. A pair of red-tailed hawks have been hanging out in this area.

Today, Bruce Fall posted to the Minnesota bird listservs that he found an eagle nest at Hwy 77 and 62. An eagle nest? Well, last week I did see an eagle thermalizing above where I saw the nest yesterday. Since it's only five minutes from where I live, I decided to go check it out today.

I know some people get all upset when you post exact raptor nest locations on the Internet because the nests can be disturbed, but this pair of bald eagles are obviously not too worried about humans disturbing them. It's right on a street in a residential neighborhood and you can't see it, but to the right in the photo is a VERY busy highway. These birds made an informed decision to nest in a busy little neighborhood. Did I mention that this is adjacent to the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport? This is a busy and NOISY neighborhood.

With all the leaves off of the trees, the nest sticks out like a sore thumb, but once the buds leaf out, it will be well hidden. The nest is easily visible from the 5-8 Club (Home of the Juicy Lucy Burger) and from a church parking lot just across the street from the club. I digiscoped the above photo from the church parking lot, if you look close you can make out her yellow bill.

While I was there, the male flew in for a quick copulation (is there any other kind for eagles) and then perched for some preening. When I took this shot, a plane came in for a landing. Whoot.

Yeah, I think it's time to take the bald eagle off of the endangered species list.

If Clint Eastwood Were A Bird Watcher

Red-shouldered/Red-tailed Hawk Hybrid?

I lurk on a listserv that has a bunch of beyond hardcore birders fine tuning really tough bird identification issues. They mostly talk about gulls which makes my eyes glaze over, but last night an interesting little pickle came up.

A woman posted a link to a photo of a raptor that has been stumping Vermont birders as to whether it is a red-tailed hawk or a red-shouldered hawk. I just looked at the photo on that page and thought "red-tail" to myself and didn't dig any deeper. A few replied to her email to the list that it was a red-tail and started speculating on which sub species.

Then Sibley stepped in.

He dug further into the website and looked at this photo and this photo. I have to admit, the second photo is a bit more intriguing and I can see the features that would make someone think "red-shouldered hawk". Then, there is the link to the bird's call. That sounds like a red-shoulder to me. So, here is what Sibley had to say:

"What an interesting bird! While I had a momentary first impression of “western Red-tail” that was quickly dispelled as I looked at more details and I think this can only be a hybrid Red-tailed x Red-shouldered Hawk!

The pattern of orange breast with sparsely streaked and barred belly seems like a mixture of the two species and not normal for either, the posture and body shape in some photos looks like Red-tailed, in others like Red-shouldered, and several photos show clear reddish accents in the smaller wing coverts which is wrong for Red-tailed. I’m sure a careful analysis would reveal lots more “mixed” characteristics."

A hybrid red-tail and red-shoulder? Are you kidding me? Who knew? I'll be curious to see how this pans out. Boy, what I wouldn't give to get a feather off this bird to send in for some DNA analysis.

Disapproval Update

From my buddy Carrol Henderson...a disapproving viscacha.

"I don't approve of foreigner, not the band."

Now that is one dedicated friend, he went all the way to Peru to get me a special disapproval. Love you, Carrol! I'm not sure this is an official lagomorph, but it looks close enough to a rabbit to be considered for the blog.

In honor of the campaign to prevent people giving baby rabbits as Easter gifts (Cinnamon was an unwanted Easter gift that ended up at a Humane Society) I present My House Rabbit.com, a blog dedicated to educating and providing great info to current and potential rabbit owners. This is a site that I think Cinnamon would approve of and I tried to get a photo of her approval:

She didn't seem to hip to that idea. We tried bribing her with some bunny loving:

And this is as close to an approval as we're going to get. Look, she's kind of smiling...

Speaking of disapproval, Non Birding Bill just informed me that he has uploaded a new page of bunny disapproval! We're pretty jazzed at the moment, we saw some of the early pages of the Disapproving Rabbits book today--it's really going to be out this fall! Whoot!

Spring Movement

One of the more evil participants on our crane tour just emailed over this photo. On the ride home, I made a little nest for myself on the luggage and fell fast asleep. I was happily dozing when I heard, "whisper whisper...is she awake...whisper whisper...oh if only we could put this on her site..."

Now it all becomes clear...

Leave it to spring to get people excited about blackbirds! The red-wings are starting to descend on the feeding stations here in Minnesota. Yesterday was an insane 81 degrees in the Twin Cities. Above 80 in Minnesota in March--that was a record. Non Birding Bill and I took a walk around the neighborhood before his rehearsal and heard at least six species singing on territory: mourning dove, house finch, kestrel, cardinal, rock pigeon, and starling. There was one intrepid grackle giving it a try but his call was even squeakier and rustier than usual. They always sound like that when they first arrive in spring. I wonder if it's because of the journey or if it has just been several months since they've given that call? It sure is the equivalent of a bird cracking its voice.

I think this is my favorite nuthatch shot I've taken so far. I have no other reason for posting it, other than I thought it was cool. I'm having trouble thinking at the moment. We were incredibly busy at The Raptor Center this morning, it was non stop programs and tours. My final program was a very rowdy group of kindergartners. I'm bushed.

Hey, did anyone else see the corgi on Cute Overload this morning? I wonder if that's Phoebe, the Stokes' dog? If so, I'm very impressed.

Fox Sparrow Sunday

Well, Sunday was a free day since we came home early from the tour. It was an incredible 60 degrees in the Twin Cities in the morning, so what should I do with that free time--finish up an article that's due Monday for a friend who will be nameless or go birding...hmmm...birding....article...which to choose?

I went birding of course! And got some kick arse digiscoped photos of fox sparrows:

I ended up at the Minnesota Valley NWR. Oooooooo. Ahhhhhhhh. I love the above photo of the fox sparrow with the tiny morsel of food with a bit of dirt in its bill. How do these guys find anything edible?

There were at least six sparrows mixed in with a huge flock of juncos. All were a bit cagey, but after me standing still for a bit, got used to my presence. The fox sparrows were constantly kicking with their feet to move the leaves and other natural debris to get a s tasty seeds beneath.

For a brown bird, these sparrows really are very pretty and very striking. Well, I better get to work on finishing that article due Monday.

Saturday's Adventure

Saturday morning I woke up at 3am in my hotel room to the sound of rain beating a pipe outside my hotel room. "Wow," I thought to myself, "If this keeps up, there's no way we can watch prairie chickens this morning." I then rolled over and went to back to sleep.

Our plan had been to get up early and have breakfast, go to watch prairie chickens dance, meet Paul Johnsgard, confiscate Paul for a day of birding and then go watch cranes fly in during the evening on a friend's private property.

At 5:30 am it was still pouring raing and the weather forecast was bleak with a 90% chance of rain all day until 10pm. During breakfast Stan and I weighed our options. Stay and risk staying in the hotel all day or heading home. We opted for heading home.

We did have time to stop at Crane Meadows to meet Paul.

Here are Stan and Paul meeting for the first time. I was anxious for this to happen, I think both of them are the only two guys alive who have written the most books on natural history in North America.

And keeping with the glamour classification of the blog, I had to make sure to get in the middle and get my photo taken with Paul and Stan. Me sandwiched between two bird authors--my idea of heaven. I have said it before and I'll say it again, I love Paul Johnsgard. He was a tad under the weather and yet was happy to autograph books and answer questions from our group. Paul is a great public speaker, but I find I learn the most when just listening to him talk as he is sketching. Both Paul and Stan influence people with their writing. Stan's books get new people and kids excited about learning to identify birds, mammals and trees and Paul uses his books to educate people about the conservation of the prairie. I was honored to be the one introducing the two.

On the way home, I discovered a new use for my birdJam and iMainGo speaker: playing calls and having the group try to identify them. The speaker is loud out in the wild, but in a large vehicle, it was harder to hear it, I had to pass the speaker around for the group to hear the calls. It was still a good time.

I also rediscovered my love of the game euchre. We played for several miles and reminded me that I need to find some people to play with more often.

Friday Nebraska Adventures

So, Friday morning our group went to a crane blind at Rowe Sanctuary. They were kind enough to give our group our own blind that holds about 16 people so our group of 13 fit right in. It was a two story blind, people upstairs got to kind of look down on the cranes, while those on the floor got a head on view. I was on the bottom floor, above is the view from the window.

Here is the view of the cranes through the scope. The sandhill cranes use the Platte River as a roosting area at night during their spring migration. Our group watched about 17,000 - 20,000 cranes hanging outside of our blind.

During spring migration, cranes will paint themselves with mud, giving their feathers a rusty appearance. You can see on the bird above with wings outstretched, that it has already gotten underway in painting its plumage.

You do see some other birds on the river, like this greater yellowlegs pictured above. I'm calling this a greater yellowlegs because it was larger than the killdeer running around and because when it called it said, "you you you". Generally, lesser yellowlegs will only give a single "you" or a double "you you", while greater will give three or more. If you're Kevin Karlson, I'm open to other options on the id.

We also heard a great horned owl calling outside the blind. I did see a few red-winged blackbirds and wondered why they even bothered singing on territory since the din of 17,000 cranes tended to drown out their song.

Normally at a crane blind you sit in there for about an hour and a half to two hours and then they all fly off at once--a big noisy lift off and you can leave the blind. The cranes Friday morning were total slackers and we were there almost three hours and no lift off. Our volunteer guides let us vacate the blind and we thought the cranes would take off, but they didn't. Don't get me wrong, it was still very cool, but I was hoping our group would get to experience watching the several thousand cranes take off at once. Ah well, another adventure for another day.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous and I suspect the cranes we were watching were planning to take off and head north on Friday, so perhaps they were getting in a touch more rest? By mid afternoon the cranes were catching thermals overhead and the easiest way to watch them was to just lay on the ground. Temperatures in the sixties, bright sun, cranes flying overhead--what a great way to spend an afternoon.

Nebraska is still fairly dry and we had a tough time finding waterfowl in potholes as compared to previous years, but a visit to Prairie Dog Waterfowl Production area proved some great entertainment. We found loads of prairie dogs and some distant waterfowl including snow geese, pintails, shovelers, and greater-white fronted geese. Stan gave a great talk on prairie dogs and tried to get them to bark. All he got was the disapproving look above--I felt surprisingly at home.

There were quite a few killdeer running around amongst all the mounds. They both look so distrusting. I guess they have good reason--well, at least the prairie dog does. It's hard to find love for prairie dogs among ranchers. I don't know what the killdeer's excuse is.

One of the tour participants said that she was having a tough time getting a photo of a single crane. After going through my photos, I had to agree with her. I have the above shot thanks to some cropping. I took this shot on our way to Fort Kearney. We were going to the bridge to watch the cranes fly in.

The bridge was packed. Some of our group was there on Thursday and not many people were around, but Friday night the Kearney night life came out. Above is a group from a local school who are part of an after school/outdoor club. This trip had some fishing and crane watching.

One of the really fun and cool things about this group was the willingness to share bird information and to corrupt Nebraska youth towards birding. I let the kids borrow my binoculars and look through my scope. The guy pointing towards me is Howard, a tour participant who let the kids look through his scope.

Wow, I thought I was trendy with the digiscoping, but here Howard is helping a youth photograph cranes with a cell phone through his scope. Now that, my friends, is high tech. The kids got some great veiws of the cranes thanks to our optics. I'm grateful the local schools have these outdoor programs and hope the kids know how lucky they are to grow up with multitudes of cranes every spring. They seemed really excited.

Home a Day Early

Check out what I found for sale at Rowe Sanctuary:

Crane temporary tattoos! I wonder if my tatoo inspired it?

We did make the trip back on Saturday instead of Sunday. The group was very understanding about it, and we're going to try and find a way to make up the lack prairie chickens to them.

I'll post more later, I am starving and there's rumor of a black vulture near the Twin Cities metro area, I may go look for it after breakfast and then come back and post about our group's Friday adventures. It's weird...now that I think about it, we left Thursday, birded the heck out of Friday and came back Saturday--still feels like we were gone five days.

Rainy Morning Entry

Some random photos of cranes, because, hey, that's about all I got.

Sometimes you just can't help but take pride in your work--I had that moment in spades yesterday. I really enjoy leading bird trips, they are exhausting but it's so much fun. It's kind of like hosting a mobile party that lasts all weekend. Many people don't realize that bird identification is the smallest part of the job. A more important factor is customer service and anticipating the groups needs and being sensitive with their comfort. The number one priority is not the bird, it's food. People will be forgiving if a target bird doesn't show or if you were planning on seeing 600 swans and only 4 are present. They know that you cannot control the birds. However, you can control food and if you don't have enough and people get hungry. If they don't get fed soon they get hangry (deadly combo of hungry and angry).

Having led a fair share of birding tours of the years, I've picked up on some little tricks and tasks that need to be done. I usually lead tours with my friend Amber and she is the best organizer. We have our trips planned down to the minute. Doing this trip with Stan has been very different, he's very...shoot from the hip, keep the schedule flexible and just do whatever. I think we're making a good combo as I play Julie to his Gopher (yes, that was a Love Boat reference).

The breakfast situation on Friday morning was up in the air, I knew we were going to Perkins, they don't really do reservations and I wasn't sure of our exact arrival. We have to stay in the crane blind until all the cranes take off which can be anywhere from an hour to two hours. I did call Perkins last week and say "Hey, sometime between 8:30 am and 9:30 am nest Friday you will have a group of about 13 people come in for breakfast. I'll give you a call a half hour before we arrive so as not to overwhelm your staff."

They appreciated the heads up. Yesterday we left the blind, I called, they said the were ready. As soon as our group arrived we were whisked away to a table and the waitress was pouring the coffee--and they were busy too, almost all the tables were full. Just as the last of our group came in, another tour bus arrived with 21 people who had been to a crane blind and they were ready for breakfast--but the tour leader had not called ahead and they were turned away. I smiled to myself and thought "Amateurs." I pitied the tour guide, the bus was looking a little hangry and restaurant options for a large group with no reservations are tough. We've seen the group a few times and they've been having a few glitches here and there. Even if you get great birds, a hangry group can be brutal.

As I'm typing this, it's pouring down rain--the worst weather for bird watching on minimum maintenance roads. According to Weather Underground it's not going to stop until tonight. Prairie chickens are not Gene Kelly and will not be singin' and dancin' in the rain. We're contemplating canceling the dawn prairie chicken watch this morning and perhaps even heading back to Minnesota today instead of tomorrow. From my table in the hotel lounge I can see the group with the glitches loading onto their bus...surely they are not going out birding in this weather? Not only is it hard to see the birds, but the gravel roads are much too dangerous and slick. Another part of being a tour leader is to "know when to fold 'em" as Kenny Rogers is known to sing.

Lights Out in Twin Cities to Help Migratory Birds

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Two downtown Minneapolis skyscrapers are the initial participants in a new project that will turn off lights to prevent birds attracted by the nighttime glow from crashing into tall buildings or circling them in a daze until falling.

The 57-story Wells Fargo Building and 33-story Accenture Buildings will turn off unneeded lighting during peak migration hours under the Lights Out Minnesota Project.

Most songbirds migrate at night. Although most manage to navigate around tall buildings and other hazards, millions die each year. Lights Out programs in Toronto, New York and Chicago have saved migratory birds, said Mark Martell, director of bird conservation for Audubon Minnesota.

"The Lights Out program costs building owners or managers little or nothing to implement and will save energy and money at the same time it saves birds," Martell said.

The Minneapolis and St. Paul Building Owners and Managers associations are encouraging members to sign on.

Citizens who want to help the effort can donate money to the Nongame Wildlife Program on their state tax forms, or they can volunteer to collect fallen birds to help experts assess mortality causes. For more information, call the state Audubon Society at 651-739-9332.

You can also watch a video of the segment at WCCO. If you or someone you know works in a tall office building please encourage them to get their building managers to join this effort to help birds on their way to their breeding grounds. Also if you work in either the Wells Fargo Tower, the Accenture Building or any skyscraper participating in the Lights Out campaign, it probably wouldn't hurt to tell them thank you.

Have We Seen Any Sandhill Cranes Yet?

In case you were concerned whether or not our group had seen any cranes yet, here is your answer:

Oh, just a few...thousand! Once we got past Grand Island, they were all over in the fields. The group was antsy for them too. I forget how exciting the multitude of sandhill cranes can be. I was assuming after our nine hour drive that the group would want to unwind at the hotel, but as soon as we started seeing cranes, no one was interested in checking in to the hotel, they wanted to just sit and watch and listen--I was the same way my first time too! So, stop and admire we did.

We stopped at Fort Kearney and found a large flock that was spooked into the air and looked like a cloud of smoke off in the distance--pure magic!

Another highlight in Nebraska for all the Minnesota birders was all the Harris sparrows mixed in with the juncos. Boy, you know it's a hardcore birding trip when people are excited about sparrows. I must admit, I do enjoy Harris sparrows. They always remind me of Bluto...or Pavarotti.

No Way, Wireless already at the Lunch Stop

We are stopping for lunch and I must say, we are seeing oodles of red-tailed hawks at least six of which are dark-morphs, mostly in Iowa. Red-tails seem to be one every 4.3 miles. It's gotta be some spring migration. Other highlights include merlins and meadowlarks--spring woot.

No cranes yet, but we won't see those until we're much closer to Kearney.

Oh and in case you have not heard, the long-whiskered owlet has been "rediscovered". There are photos and everything! This is a species that wasn't discovered until 1976, and until now was only known from a few specimens captured in nets after dark, has been seen in the wild for the first time by researchers monitoring the Area de Conservación Privada de Abra Patricia – Alto Nieva, a private conservation area in Northern Peru.

Off To Nebraska

At times like this getting up at 4:45am that I question why I do what I do. Is it really worth it? After some coffee--yes it is.

Off to drive our group to Nebraska for thousand cranes and to see the man who designed my crane tattoo. I should have wireless in the hotel so we should have some updates at night.

Star Tribune Noticing Nature Blogs

Props out to Gwen from Bird Brained Stories for getting a nod from the Minneapolis Star Tribune Web Search for cool nature blogs. She got a mention up there with Hilton Pond which is one of the best naturalist sites out there. Whoot! Go, Gwen!

Around the Apartment

"Someone is advertising to me??"

As I'm typing this, I am hearing a full thirty second commercial for wild bird food on the radio. That is a first in the Twin Cities. I've heard local garden companies and bird stores advertise their seed but never a wild bird seed company advertising their product. And the bird calls in the background were somewhat accurate. It's for Scotts Wild Bird Food--available at Walmart. This adds an interesting dynamic to wild bird specialty stores, this company is doing its best to give the appearance that they know what they are talking about, something that wild bird stores have to this point cornered the market on.

Well, I found the swallowtail chrysalis! It was on the side of the shriveled parsley. Right under my nose the whole time. From now on I will watch parsley plants more closely in the apartment...I wonder how many swallowtail eggs and caterpillars Cinnamon has unknowingly eaten?

My flying squirrels are wearing out their welcome. Up until last night I have always loved that they fly right to our bedroom window and purchase seed just for them. I've mentioned before that they have this high pitched bark that I can hear and Non Birding Bill cannot. I always felt a tad superior about this--I'm more in tune to the natural world. Last night, that ability completely bit me on the butt. At about two in the morning the squirrels started barking at each other. I went to the bedroom window and opened it, hoping that would scare them off--no! They just chirped more! ARGH--more irritating than a leaky faucet and snoring husband combined. Curse my ability to hear high pitched noises!! Perhaps we will be cutting back on the night time treats...

Meet Robops the Robo Falcon

From the BBC:

The city council is mounting a campaign to rid the city of the birds, which it says are being fattened up by the public feeding them leftovers.

Ten robotic birds of prey are being brought into the city centre to scare off the pigeons and visitors are being warned not to give them food.

The council wants to encourage the birds into parks and open spaces.

The mechanical birds - called "Robops" - are to sit on the roofs of buildings, and can be moved around.

They look like a Peregrine Falcon, which is a natural predator of pigeons, and even squawk and flap their wings to scare off the birds.

Councillor Berni Turner, Liverpool city council's executive member for the environment, said: "Feral pigeons are a real nuisance in the city centre, they fly up at people and they leave droppings everywhere which not only makes the city look really unattractive but can make surfaces slippery and dangerous.

"We need to get the message across that anyone who feeds the birds intentionally, or occasionally with leftovers such as sausage rolls or burgers, are responsible for our streets being so crowded with these birds."

The pigeons get bigger because their natural diet is seeds and insects, rather than high-fat junk food.

Councillor Turner said it is making them "overweight and gives them a scruffy, unhealthy appearance".

She added: "We want to be able to showcase our city centre in our birthday year and of course in 2008, so it's essential we tackle this issue now and educate members of the public that if there's no food, there'll be no pigeons."

The city council uses the equivalent of 88 man hours a day cleaning droppings from streets and buildings, at a cost of £160,000 a year.

I tried to find a video of the robo falcon in action at the Robop's website but there doesn't appear to be one. There is a dvd you can order, but nothing on the website yet. I love how the site bills it as "the world's first intelligent bird repelling system."

I tried You Tube for a video and didn't find this exact product but did find another robo falcon that does look like loads of fun for someone who would is interested in falconry but just can't get a bird at the moment:

Peregrines and Red-shouldered Hawks

A guy named Craig is starting a blog dedicated to his nesting red-shouldered hawks. A different take on a nest cam.

Peregrine battles are popping up all over. We had the one at the Riverside Cam and word at The Raptor Center today is that one heck of a battle happened yesterday in downtown Minneapolis. The females were going at it and were found fighting in the nest box at the Multifoods Tower. One female is banded and the other is unbanded. The banded female is Mendota who has a notorious history. In 1999 she ended up killing the resident female at the Colonnade in Minneapolis. The battle last over two and a half hours but she was the one who ended up taking over the nest. At this point it's not known who won the battle and we may not know right away. During the 1999 battle, the older female won the initial fight and chased Mendota off. She flew to the nest bloody and missing and eye. The next day she was found dead and Mendota took back control of the nest. Peregrine expert and ornithologist Bud Tordoff always said that Mendota may have lost that particular battle, but she won the war.

Mark Alt posted to the Minnesota listservs this link to another peregrine battle caught on camera in Pittsburgh. I think we'll be seeing more of these as space for nests runs out on buildings.

What Is My Bunny Singing?

"I disapproved myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy way!"

Assembling the Hives

I'm starting this entry with the tufted titmouse photo above. Non Birding Bill really liked it (that's sayin' something). I set some mixed nuts in a tray of one of Mr. Neil's feeders and EVERYBODY flew in right away. The titmouse is contemplating the large Brazil nut. Look at the size of that food morsel! Alas, it is way to heavy for this mere titmouse to carry away in flight.

Today we decided to assemble our bee hives. The bees won't ship until late next month but that gives us plenty of time to prepare for their arrival. This gives me time to order anything that I discover is missing after assembly.

We were told that we are supposed to name our hives (with women's names) so NBB put together Olga...

While I put together Miss Kitty. Some readers my recall that I was thinking of using screws, but thanks to Old Drone's assurances we went with nailing the hives together and he was right, it was easy. The wood was soft and many of the nails were small so I didn't have much chance to smash my fingers.

We had to put everything together: the boxes, the floor, the top, the individual frames where the bees will build the comb for larvae and honey--ten frames for each box! It was tiring. The wax in each frame is there to encourage the bees to build their comb in an easy to access form so I can check the hive and partake of the honey.

Between frames I did sneak away to watch the birds...

The juncos sure were frisky. Lots of chirping and chasing while feeding. You could see pin feathers on some of them, I'm sure molting in fresh feathers for the breeding season was bringing on a surge of hormones in them. I enjoy their mechanical twitters in early, early spring.

"Ugh, I don't know if I'm in the mood for that much nut."

Another bird flies in to contemplate the Brazil nut. This black-capped chickadee gave it some serious thought, but instead went for half a pecan. A hairy woodpecker ended up flying away with the large prize nut.

We did finish both of our hives, and after assembly I realized that our starter kit only came with two brood boxes for each hive. The class that I took recommended that for over wintering bees in northern states that I should have a third brood box for each hive, so looks like I'll be doing a little ordering this week.

I have to admit, I was really not looking forward to assembling these, fearing it would be really complicated. I think this stems from having to assemble aluminum purple martin houses at the bird store. I hated those things! Don't get me wrong, I think aluminum martin houses can work well to attract martins, but assembling them is about as fun as stubbing all ten toes. You have to follow the directions EXACTLY and if you get something wrong at step five, you won't notice until step 487 when the roof won't line up with the box--and you have to take it apart and start over. Whereas with a bee hive, if you make a mistake or split the wood--the bees will just fill it with propolis.

Ah, martin house assembly is coming back to me now...ahhhh....I would always try to tell customers that it was important for them to assemble their own martin house so they could truly understand it and I also would lie and say how much fun it is to put together on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Putting the hive together was much more simple and quite pleasant and I'm looking forward to assembling the third brood boxes.

Incidentally, if you're thinking of getting a purple martin house, get the plastic gourds, they are usually cheaper, are easy to snap together (if not already assembled at purchase), are more resistant to predators and save bird store employees (and you) hours of assembly grief.

Et Tu, Attenborough?

So, we loved Life of Birds so much that we rented Life of Mammals from Netflix. Life of Birds was so accurate. As we are watching a segment on pikas, David Attenborough just mentioned that eagles are a predator. As soon as he said the word "eagle" a red-tailed hawk cry was dubbed over.

Big sigh of disappointment.

MEOW! Saucer of Milk to Table 2

Some catching up: DK and the Fluffies won the owl caption contest with "Yes, damn it, we are having rodent for dinner again tonight and until you can flap your a** out of this damn nest and get your own damn food, I'm not having any more whining from you! *snap*"

Sorry I fell behind on that one, I blame the bee class. Email your snail mail to me.

Okay, a BIG FAT thank you to Veronica B in SoCal for bringing this to my attention:

Okay, to the untrained non birder eye, this might look like bird "marital relations" but it is quite the opposite. This is an all out peregrine falcon territory battle happening at the Riverside Falcon Cam. You can view all of the photos at the website, but you will need to scroll down to March 11, 2007.

You'll note in all the fight photos that the raptors are keeping their heads back and their feet forward. On raptors, the feet are the business end of the bird, they are strong and sharp. The goal is to kill or severely disable your opponent--aim for the eyes with the toes. The eyes are the last thing raptors want destroyed on their body--they can't see to hunt or defend the territory. That's why people who work with birds of prey and have them sitting on the fist aren't worried about being bit. Raptors don't want to use their bills as a primary weapon, they want to keep their eyes away from any potential danger. By bringing their face close to your face to bite you, they risk bringing their eyes closer to a dangerous situation. It's much safer for them to use their talons.

Speaking of fights, I go out today for awhile and when I come back home all heck is breaking loose on the birding blogosphere. Laura Erickson has left binoculars.com and started her new (temporary) blog here. I had a link earlier to her notice of resignation that was up at the old blog, but it has been taken down. Mike has a copy of the original notice up on his blog. I'm sure Laura will come out on top when the dust finally settles. If you're worried and want to help her, you can always purchase a copy of one of her books--even if you already have one, purchase another and gift it to a school, your senator, or library.

If you're looking for a place to purchase binoculars, I still recommend my former employer Eagle Optics. Their record for giving back to the birding community and funding for conservation programs speaks for itself. There's even quite a bit that they do that no one ever hears about. Early on in the current war in Iraq, Dan Hamilton (the owner) read about an army unit that had really poor binoculars among the many hardships they were enduring. He sent the whole unit new optics. It didn't make the papers. Just one of the many interesting facets of Dan Hamilton.