Bald Eagle Is OFF The Endangered Species List

Well, it's about darn time in my book.

I'm happy to see that in my lifetime that today we have gotten something very right with conservation and that the national symbol for the United States of America has been taken off of the Endangered Species List.

The move is important on so many different levels--number one, bald eagle numbers increased from 417 breeding pairs in the lower 48 states in 1963 to an estimated new high of 9,789 breeding pairs today! The longer the eagle stayed on the list, the more critics could point to it and say, "See, it doesn't work, the bald eagle is still on the list. Let's get rid of the Endangered Species Act."

I know some are arguing that the delisting means that there could be loss of eagle habitat, but at the same time, bald eagles are choosing to nest in areas that previously weren't considered eagle habitat. Case in point, the bald eagle nest that 10 minutes from my house that's in a residential neighborhood, bordered by two major highways, and right across the street from the Minneapolis/St Paul International Airport.

These birds don't care as long as they can find food like fish, injured waterfowl, and roadkill. The eagles are also still protected under the Bald Eagle Act and the Migratory Species Act. And individual states can still keep the bald eagle on state threatened or endangered lists, but it is time for eagles to be off of the federal list, so we can concentrate on the other 1,300 species still on the list.

There are still concerns like bald eagles ingesting lead --lead is something that needs to be taken out of the environment for several species. Bald eagles are exposed to lead in gut piles of deer during hunting season, the common loon (Minnesota's state bird), trumpeter swans are exposed to it via lead sinkers in the bottom of lakes and streams. Lead isn't good for anybody--including us. We need to quit putting it out there.

And if you're still not convinced that the bald eagle delisting is a good thing, rather than sending me an email or comment telling me that I'm killing eagles and I have no business calling myself a bird lover (which I don't think I have ever used that phrase to describe myself anyway), I encourage you to read about what Rhode Island is doing and start a similar program for habitat preservation in your area.

Beekeepers Give Advice

"I don't approve of this entry at all! I'm seriously considering disowning you. Harumph!"

I've been kind of debating about whether or not to put up a link. But, I'm going back to my personal blogging rule, "Would I find this interesting?"

Yes, I would.

Nerve.com asks for experts in different fields (like sudoku masters) to give sex advice once a week. This week, they were looking for beekeepers and I was asked--that's right, they were looking for beekeepers, not birders. Who knew that beekeeping would ever lead to this? So, with LOTS of warning that this link is NSFW and to those of you who are reading this with your kids, save it for later or visit this beekeeping blog about a guy who is experimenting with bee sculpture. He was one of the beekeepers also asked for advice.

Okay, if you still want to proceed and are chronologically an adult, here is the Nerve.com link.

If you are visiting this blog for the first time from Nerve.com and you're wondering where all the bee entries are, check here. And, everyone wants to know what an entrance reducer is, so here's a photo of a wooden one and here is a photo of a metal one--I've got both! You use these to control your traffic and it helps maintain temperature and ventilation early in the spring.

Goldfinch Date

I saw goldfinches gathering nesting material today. At distance, their coloring really blended in with the dull yellow of the vegetation. You would think the males would pop out more. This female appeared to be supervising the male's gathering.

But perhaps she was just begging for a kiss? He didn't give her any nesting material, he actually dropped what he had to bill tap with her. She had started coming towards him, wings slightly fluttering, giving a soft call and then they had a quick bill peck. No copulation occurred, but I'm sure it was some sort of pair bonding.

She flew away, and he continued to gather the soft thistle down. I wonder what goldfinches used for nesting material before thistle was introduced to North America?

Minor Monarch Release

Yesterday when I was trying to get ready to go to The Raptor Center, I noticed that one of my monarch chrysalises was about ready emerge. Wow, that was fast. Seemed like it was only yesterday this guys made the pretty, green chrysalis. Right before the monarch emerges, the chrysalis turns dark and you can see the butterfly on the inside. I wish I could have gotten a photo of it as soon as it came out--they look deformed. Ah well, another time.

When I came home from TRC, I made some lunch and sat on the couch...I noticed the chrysalis was empty and paused to try and see where the butterfly was hanging out in my apartment. Then I noticed some fluttering and found it at one of the windows. It had emerged, had plenty of time to pump moisture into it's wings and was ready for forage for nectar. I didn't see any dark spots on the lower wings, which means this was a female monarch. I opened the window and tried to get a video of her release from my apartment:



After she landed, I set up my digiscoping equipment and got a few shots of the monarch resting on a tree:

Then she flew off to search for nectar. She will also search for a male for mating and eggs will grow into the monarchs who will migrate south into Mexico this fall.

Ecological Investment Market

From Newswise Science News (thanks budak for the heads up):

Farmers in Jamestown, R.I., are being paid by local residents to delay haying their fields until after birds have completed nesting in a unique test to establish investment markets for ecological services.

The project to protect habitat for bobolinks, a grassland-nesting bird whose population is declining in New England, was designed by a team of University of Rhode Island economists in collaboration with a URI biologist and Providence-based EcoAsset Markets, Inc.

“The public constantly says that they value a clean and healthy environment, and yet the economy overlooks those values and instead creates environmental problems,” said Stephen Swallow, a URI professor of environmental economics. “Ecological markets are a way to correct these environmental problems by enabling businesses and individuals to express their values and invest in the environment. It’s a way of bringing environmental qualities into our everyday decision making.”

Farmers who grow hay for their livestock can usually get two cuttings a year from their fields, but the first one typically interferes with nesting grassland birds. The mowing machines can destroy the birds’ nests, eggs and young. By compensating the farmers for the cost of delaying the harvest and purchasing replacement hay, the birds have enough time to mature and fly away without negatively impacting the farmers.

“This market approach is brand new,” said Emi Uchida, assistant research professor in the URI Department of Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. “The Jamestown residents and farmers experienced one of the first experiments in the world to use a market approach to enhance ecosystem services.”

Read the rest of this very cool story here. Very cool idea! More communities should steal that idea.

Turkey Vulture Hangover Fix

We have some really cool friends. One of whom is Kitty, who among many other talents is a caterer to bands. Now, when I say bands, I don't mean like Kielbasa Kings, I mean mainstream bands you might actually have heard of: Motley Crue, Depeche Mode, Justin Timberlake, etc. Yesterday, she came into town with TOOL and we met her and the crew for some drinks at their hotel. And I learned two things:

1. The Embassy Suites in downtown St. Paul has ducks inside their hotel.

2. And I don't quite have the alcohol tolerance I did in college. Sigh.

I have to say that after tossing a few back and then seeing a duck fly in the lobby of the hotel, I thought that I was ready to be cut off. But I went to the lobby and sure enough, there were ducks in the fountain. It looked like the hotel had cinnamon teal, wood ducks, and green-winged teal. But looking at the photos today, some of them had an odd shape or their markings are a little off. They must be hybrids from a game farm. Anyway, it's nice to know that even when a few sheets to the wind, I can still find the birds and id them...sort of.

I got a big kick meeting all of the back stage guys (wish I could remember their names)--especially the tour accountant. I tried to tell him that he was the hippest accountant I had ever seen, but he kept stressing that he wasn't really an accountant, that was just a title (kind of like people who have all the birding gear but won't call themselves birders). I met another guy who had a mother who lived in New Zealand and he lamented that she only came to visit him when he was in an area with a lot of bird species to add to her list. There's another guy looking to sample bird calls for music and I'm going to try and hook him up--he really wants a western meadowlark. All in all it was a great time...until I woke up this morning. Ugh!

And as much as I really wished I could have stayed burrowed under the sheets, I had to go to The Raptor Center for my weekly volunteer shift. I felt awful, but staying home was not an option. We had a big program scheduled and my not feeling well was entirely my own fault, not the result of a stray virus. I drove in after copious amounts of juice and coffee, hoping that working with the birds or giving a program would take my mind of off my uncertain stomach.

One of the things we are supposed to do on the morning shift is check on all the ed birds, make sure all are upright and to pick up any leftover food from the day before. Quite a few of the birds will leave behind rat skins, fish bones, chicken feet, etc. The photo above is my black glove that I use for handling. We use different gloves for different tasks, that way the birds have an idea of what we are doing when we enter their mew.

This is the big blue welder's glove that we wear when we are picking up scraps, tossing food in the mew or anything not related to giving a program. It's especially important when you are going to pick up food--sometimes the birds get a little territorial. They're not going to eat that dried up and stinky rat skin, but at the same time, they don't want you to have it. If a bird comes at you, this is your main defense. We have a great horned owl that likes to ricochet off of your head, and sometimes eagles or red-tails might run at you.

This is a little glove you can wear on your other hand so your skin doesn't have to come into contact with the leftover food. I prefer not to wear this glove when entering mews because it takes me longer to pick up the food and I really don't mind picking up old rat bits with my hands, I can easily wash them.

Some of the birds are more challenging than others. We sometimes will rotate who takes what out of which bird's mew. Today, Nero, the imprinted (thinks he and humans are the same species) education turkey vulture had some rat skin and fish bits inside his mew. He was sitting right next to the door and was not about to move. I offered to go in and get the scraps, because Nero always flies away from me when I enter his mew and sits on top of his hutch where I have no chance to reach him. He figured out years ago how short I am, so that I wouldn't be able to reach him and take him out for programs. He knows the exact spot to stand on top of his hutch so I will have no chance to grab his jesses (bracelets all the birds wear on their ankles that we use to attach them to leaches). Clever bird.

Look at that beady little head giving me the hairy eyeball. You can't see it from this angle, but he has a mailbox shaped perch near the door. He was on the far end of the perch when I opened it. I stepped in and waited for him to fly up. He didn't, he sat looking quite relaxed. As I picked up the scraps, I noticed some fish pieces back in the corner and went back quickly to retrieve them. When I turned around to leave, he had adjusted his position on the perch and was blocking me from going out. "Hm," I thought, "this is new. Maybe he won't fly away from me anymore and I might be able to use him for program again." It was at this precise moment, that Nero jumped off of the mail box perch and when straight for my legs. I was wearing some capris and had skin exposed, I shoved down the blue glove to block his attack. He jumped and thrashed, trying to dodge it and managed to get a hold of the hem on my left pant leg. He whipped his little head around trying to rip them and jockeyed for a better position. This is where it gets hard. One the one hand, you want to protect yourself, on the other hand, you do not want to hurt the bird (and there is also the third hand of not wanting to scare the vulture so it will barf on you in defense--yuck).

His attack continued and I could feel his chest pressed against my hand, trying to get a better bite. My hand slid down his chest and he jumped up, this time landing on the glove. I quickly raised my hand up and put him in handling position, like I would for a program. This kind of confused him--he was perched the way he was trained to be perched, but the glove wasn't the usual glove. I used those few seconds of his confusion to secure his jesses in my gloved hand and stood for a moment. As soon as I had him secure, the bird curator poked her head in smiling and said, "Hey, what's going on?" She had seen what happened and said I did everything right and then got a handling glove and crated him for a bit. The bottoms of my capris have little tassels and she wondered if the tassels where what Nero was after. Mental note: don't wear tassels in the vulture mew.

I noticed after the vulture incident, that I wasn't feeling my hangover so much anymore. Nothing like a little vulture therapy. Here is a video I took of Nero later on in the morning after he was placed back in his mew with a touch of improved Jaws soundtrack:

Piping Plover vs Least Tern

Another great link from Jeff that I had squirreled away in my massively overstuffed inbox:

Nesting piping plover vs least tern.

For some reason, the link defaults to the photos being irritatingly large. If you click on "zoom out" above each photo, they fit the frame and are easier to view.

I never realize how small some birds until I see them together. That piping plover looks big compared to the least tern and for some reason I have it sent in my mind that terns are bigger. I remember seeing a yellow-rumped warbler foraging in some reeds next to a least sandpiper and noticing they had the same body size--it blew my mind.

Now to deal with my inbox--I may just declare email bankruptcy and just delete the whole batch that's built up in the last few weeks.

Pigeon Extremists

I originally decided to keep mum on a story that broke in late May about a handful of roller pigeon enthusiasts in Oregon and California who were charged with killing raptors (including Cooper's hawks, goshawks, red-tailed hawks, and peregrine falcons) to protect their hobby. I figured it was a case of a couple of bad apples spoiling it for the rest of the club. You have extremists in anything and the area of birds is no exception. We recently had a debate on the Minnesota birding listservs about whether or not playing recordings of bird songs to find a species is harmful. Some felt ANY kind of disturbance to get birds to pop up is wrong--even pishing! That's a little extreme in my book.

I didn't want to bring attention to the roller pigeon issue, because I figured most of the members and the national organization would want to distance themselves from a few extremists who broke the law and not be that bothered by raptors...then I read the press release put out by the National Birmingham Roller Club. Though they are distancing themselves from the members who knowingly broke the law, the release reads as though they are in support of some kind of raptor control for their clubs. The press release starts:

" The National Birmingham Roller Club's position has always been one of not condoning or promoting the harassment, capture, or killing of birds of prey for any reason. The NBRC in no way endorses or supports any activity that would cause stress, injury, or death to any bird of prey."

That looks good, however, reading further down...

" Many of our Club members have pleaded with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for intervention or assistance to relocate Cooper's Hawks, in compliance with laws protecting livestock predated by endangered species. So far, our pleas have gone unanswered. Our government regularly assists ranchers when their livestock are predated by wolves, coyotes, cougars and bears. However, when thousands of our valuable pet pigeons are killed by Cooper's Hawks whose current numbers far exceed any previous hawk population estimates, our pleas for assistance to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are met with silence."

Hmmmm, here is where I have trouble getting on board with the situation. I understand that a roller pigeon can have a value of over $100, but that is hard to equate that with livestock--these birds are pets, not a food supply for a nation. This particular breed of pigeon is not native to North America, the hawks are. This would be like having a pet starling or house sparrow and asking for protection from raptors.

If you are going to have prey for a pet (no matter how expensive), you are going to have to accept the fact that native wild creatures are going to want to eat it. I understand that--Cinnamon, my beloved pet rabbit is prey, she has a body built for food. And much like the roller pigeon, she has a "unique genetic trait" that makes her fur irresistibly soft to the touch--and rabbits can be expensive pets. She can run like the dickens, and can be incredibly fast and make hair pin turns and dodges. I would love nothing more than to release her in the park or in the field next to where we keep our bees and just watch her go--really see her go fast and far, but I won't do that because of the risk of a red-tailed hawk, Cooper's hawk, bald eagle, etc grabbing and killing her is just too great. Even in my urban neighborhood in busy parks, I've seen raptors take a look at Cinnamon when she's out on the leash. They don't come for her because I stay near when I spot them, they won't come in with a human so close.

So, the idea that pigeon fanciers are releasing birds out to fly in the wild, far from humans and then some get upset that predators are flying in for them baffles me. I would imagine that decades ago, raptors weren't so much of a risk with racing pigeons and roller pigeons--the hawk, falcon, and eagle populations were unnaturally low because of pesticide use. Now that those populations have recovered, the playing field has changed and you probably can't fly pigeons like you used to. The club does acknowledge this further down in the press release:

" However frustrating it may be, we understand and work with the hawk problem by not exposing our birds routinely to hawks when they are present and also by not flying at all during the seasons of the year when hawks are most prevalent, typically fall and winter in North America. This is the only method the NBRC recommends and endorses."

Falconers release their birds in the wild and that is a risk for them too. A smaller raptor can be killed by a larger one, battles can happen if you fly your bird in the territory of the same species, or another raptor could try to fight your bird to steal the prey it just captured. Of all the falconers I know and articles I've read, they take total responsibility for that. If their bird gets killed while out, they feel it was their for fault for not being aware of the habitat, for flying the bird at the wrong time of day, for not paying attention. And while the NBRC acknowledges that they are trying to not fly their pigeons when there is potential danger, the press release still reads that the overall situation is not their fault, it's the Cooper's hawk that has the unfair advantage in the current situation. I would have more sympathy if they weren't tossing prey into the air that is naturally going to stimulate a Cooper's hawk's hunting and survival instincts.

And for the record, I'm not anti pigeon, anti pigeon racing, or anti pigeon rolling. I think they sound like fun sports and I could see myself with a flock of homing pigeons some day. And I give a benefit of the doubt to a majority of pigeon fanciers--that they are not killing hawks. The press release gives me cause for concern--if we start allowing the removal of raptors for hobbies, that is a slippery slope. What about people who don't want hawks around the bird feeder?

I am against removing native wildlife because a pet owner wants to let their non native prey animal loose and not get eaten. If you're going to play with fire, you have a good chance of getting burned. I don't think wildlife should be removed for a hobby and that includes pigeons, bird feeding, beekeeping, etc. You have to learn to live with wildlife and work with wildlife, we are running out of room and just can't afford removal for hobbies.

Maybe rolling pigeon and racing pigeon enthusiasts could hook up with knowledgeable birders and falconers? Maybe working with experts on the raptor species could help them come up with methods of flying pigeons with the hawks? If US Fish and Wildlife is ignoring them, they should try for other organizations or people to help them learn more about the raptors. Maybe this is an opportunity for some birder or raptor specialist out there to reach out and help? Who knows, they talk about the value of the birds, perhaps they'd be willing to pay for raptor consultations? Anyone want to give it a go? Try it out as a graduate project?

Click For Condors

Just got an email from a friend with a request...along with a very weird graphic (not sure how I feel about being ordered around by a bushtit):

Patagonia (the outdoor clothing company) is opening a new store in Palo Alto, CA and as part of the promotion they will be giving away $5,000 to a local charity. Ventana Wildlife Society is one of the candidates, and we need your help! The winner is determined by online voting, so we need all the votes we can get. All you have to do is go to here and vote (you don't have to sign in or anything, just click--and as I understand it, you can click mulitple times). Nepenthe, a local restaurant has offered to match the funds if Ventana wins, so the dtal could go to $10,000!

Why would this be of interest at the Birdchick Blog? Ventana is going to use the money to the California Condor reintroduction program, which is seriously strapped for funds this year. This year there are two Condor nests in Big Sur with healthy condor chicks--it's the first time in over 100 years that condors have bred in Monterey County! This money will go a long way to help ensure the survival of those chicks.

So, if you're feeling in the mood to help birds but are short on time and money--give a click.

Unrest In The Kitty Hive

Five days ago we checked the hives to see if they were ready for some expansion. Olga was very ready and we added a third brood box. Kitty was about three frames behind, so we decided to expand Olga and give Kitty a few more days to build up comb.

We took a look at Kitty today, and I noticed all but one of the frames had comb drawn out. We took out a center frame to check the status of the brood and found something most troubling. Can you see it in the above photo? It's down at the bottom, towards the right...kind of looks like a peanut shell...here's a close up:

The bees have formed queen cells. Now, I'm perplexed as to what is going on. There were about six queen cells formed throughout the hive and most were formed on the bottom of the frame--off of a column of drone cells. Now, here is the deal, queen cells are formed for two reasons--swarming (when the bees run out of room, they raise a queen, divide up and swarm) or supercedure (which means the current queen is failing, injured, or dead and the workers are trying to raise a new queen to replace her).

Now, according to bee literature, swarming queen cells are on the bottom of the frames. Supercedure queen cells are formed on the center of a frame...Most of the queen cells in the Kitty hive were on the bottom, but I did find two that were on the frame towards the center. I could find no eggs, but if the hive is about to go into swarm mode, the queen would have stopped laying eggs. However, it's been weeks since I've seen the Kitty queen. Is she dead? did she get injured or killed when we checked the box five days ago? Now, what do I do? Should I buy a new queen to introduce to the hive?

Check out this frame laden with capped over honey and a small patch of brood. From reading about queen cells in books and bee forums, the only thing that is certain with bee keeping appears to be that there are some guidelines, but really nothing is hard and fast. Sure swarming cells are usually at the bottom of a frame, but according to bee literature and bee forums--anything is possible. All of this may just be the Kitty girls feel crowded and are ready for a third brood box. I started thinking back: We checked the hive five days ago, and all seemed normal--eggs in cells and no queen cells. Today--there are about a half dozen queen cells. It takes fertilized eggs three days from when they were laid to be larvae and queen cells get capped at about seven days after being laid--these can't be more than four days old. The queens don't emerge until nine days after they have been capped. I decided to remove all the queen cells I could find and to add the third brood box and check again in a week. If there are no eggs after a week, then I'll order a new queen.

Ack, this is nerve wracking.

I ended up removing quite a few of the drone cells as I removed the queens. I felt terrible about it, but the hive needs workers to build and gather food,not males to eat honey while they bide their time to fly out looking for queens. As I removed wax, cells got exposed and you can see the larvae oozing out. I really felt bad killing the, but it needed to be done. On the upside, none of the larvae and pupae I exposed had any varroa mites--which means the overall health of the colony is good. After I scraped this chunk off, some of the drones started to emerge (above photo). I'm sure it was panic at feeling the cells being moved. As with any type of farming, you will have to kill some of your stock, but I found myself feeling more guilty about it than I had anticipated. If I'm like this with drones, I don't want to even think about my state at the end of summer in 2008 when I have to let my older colonies die off.

If anyone has advice or insights to my queen situation, please feel free to comment.

In other news, I have three new monarch chrysalises around the apartment. Two were formed about three days ago and appear to be parasite free. Whew!

News and Odds and Ends

So, I stumbled upon a really interesting blog called Pete at Midway, written by a man spending six months on Midway Atoll in the Pacific Ocean--who knew they had Internet access there? Anyway, he's got some great shots of the birds around there including albatross, fairy terns (also known as white terns), and tropic birds. He started his blog June 9 and you can easily catch up on his adventures. I love this photo of his front yard covered with albatross in his first entry.

In other news, I can finally get my favorite beer that I've had at birding festivals in the Twin Cities: Fat Tire! Whoot!! It's the best, and quite possibly could be the official birder beer. If you live in the Twin Cities and you have never had it, I highly recommend picking one up.

I got a press release today for the Midwest Birding Symposium that's happening September 13-16, 2007 to be held once again in the Quad Cities. The MBS happens every other year, so the last one was in 2005. It's held in an area twice, so this is the Quad Cities second go at it:

"We hope you enjoyed your time in 2005, and we have a whole new experience to share in 2007!

Highlights for 2007:
New venue - Stoney Creek Inn & Conference Center, Moline, IL. The hotel is a northwoods experience on the Mississippi River!
Keynote speaker: Kenn Kaufman
Expanded field trips
Earlier dates for migrating species.

Join us for a great time, free reception, and reconnect with the friends you made in 2005."

I went to the MBS in 2005 and had some fun, I'm not sure if I'm going to go again this year. It's good to see that they listened to feedback from last time and changed when they are having the festival and labeling which trips are boat trips. Although, I did notice that they are still promoting one trip by saying, "Participants may also see the Eurasian tree sparrow." I signed up for that trip last time just for the sparrow and when I was boarding the vehicle, I asked the guides where we were going to see one. They shook there heads and said, "There are no Eurasion tree sparrows where we're going." Hm, I wonder if they will be there this time?

Saturday Morning TV Appearance

I'm going to be on KARE 11 Saturday tomorrow morning. I'm scheduled to be on between 9:30 am - 10 am. I'll be talking about summer bird feeding.

The Loghouse and Homestead Bed and Breakfast

Yo, Mom, Terri--y'all are gonna want to pay attention to this entry. I think we need to do a weekend at this place!

Wednesday, Explore Minnesota started it's pilot project of Bed & Breakfasts & Birds (BBB). What we are trying to do is help teach bed and breakfasts how to market to birders who travel around looking for birds. We also want to help people become local bird guides. Many people guide, but very few are paid what they are worth (if at all). The goal was also to get guides a chance to meet bed and breakfast owners in their area so they could get more business. The B&Bs could offer birding packages to guests or have a guide list on hand for guests who visit and are looking for someone to take them out. The end of the workshop featured a short walk for the guides to show their birding skills.

Bobolinks were a hit with many of the B&B owners--many of whom hadn't really noticed them before. Man, I must say, this year has been the year of the bobolink for me. I remember being a kid and looking through my field guides thinking about how cool it must be to see and hear one of those.

The workshop was hosted at the Loghouse and Homestead Bed and Breakfast in Vergas, MN owned by Suzanne Tweten. This is the Loghouse, it was built circa 1889 by Suzanne's great-great grandparents! There are framed bits of newspaper throughout the loghouse that were found inside the walls, it's cozy and beautiful and perfect for a girlfriend getaway--or birding getaway.

When Explore Minnesota was making my lodging arrangements, they asked if I had a room preference. Being the wiseacre I am, I said that I wanted the least crappy room. So, I ended up in the Fredholm Suite--complete with hot tub, a box of chocolates, and the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in. Organic, fair-trade coffee awaited me in the room--at night I could hear loons singing off of Spirit Lake in front of the B&B. It was an almost perfect night--except for the lack of Non Birding Bill.

The property is loaded with ruby-throated hummingbirds, this male is flaring out his wings and tail fighting for his position on the feeder. A female hummingbird had taken hold of this feeder, and some males she allowed to feed and others she chased off. After a little flaring, this male was allowed to stay. Later on, they both retreated to a tree and he started a mating display, his flare up at the feeder must have appealed to her.

Here is the female chasing off a different male. Check out the differences in the tail. You can see white tips to the tail feathers of the female on the feeder. There is no white on the male's tail in the top left hand corner of the photo. Female ruby-throats are kind of little Murphy Browns. They mate with the males, drive them out of the territory, build the nest and raise the chicks completely on their own.

I had timed my travel to this meeting to get some digiscoping done. The meeting and workshop started at 10am on Wednesday morning and was about three and a half hours from where I lived. I drove up Wednesday before the meeting, so that way I could spend the night and digiscope like crazy Thursday morning and take my time driving back to the Twin Cities. Above is Chloe, the Suzanne's spaniel showing me that my breakfast was ready. The food served at this place is FANTASTIC. Suzanne served me a broccoli, cheese, ham and egg dish with olive bread. My favorite part was the warm blueberries with cream cheese. Not only is the food tasty, they also grow some of the ingredients right there on the property and try to buy food locally as often as possible.

Suzanne does what she can for birds on her property, like providing housing for bluebirds (above), being careful with land management and taking dropped off cats to the local shelter.

Chipping sparrows nest in many of the trees. This one was preening his feathers and I have so many weird photos of him--but he was in great light, so I had to post them. Kind of reminds me of Audubon paintings--he was always posing birds in weird ways. Seriously, has anyone ever seen an egret pose like this?

Cedar waxwings acted like they were nesting right out side my window, but I was unable to find it.

The highlight bird for me was this male golden-winged warbler. This was the mellowest warbler I have ever seen. One of the guides had noticed him during the walk and saw that he was carrying a caterpillar around--as if on his way to feed chicks. When I saw him, he was singing on territory and not bothered by me in the slightest.

He was even stretching! Warblers are tough birds to digiscope, so I couldn't believe my luck in this one being so relaxed and easy to see. I think I took about 92 photos of him in all different kinds of light. I was even able to get a video of his song:



Isn't that just a weird song for a bird that looks like that? Many associate warblers with musical twittery calls, and this guy sounds like Froggy from The Lil' Rascals.

The trails are well maintained and you can do a prairie loop or walk though woods. I will warn, it's quite tick heavy this year in Minnesota. Something interesting that I'm noticing is that when I wear fruitier smelling lotions, I get fewer ticks on me. On Wednesday when I was walking around, I had on "Juniper Breeze" and had three ticks--three wood ticks and one deer tick (all attached). Thursday, I wore "Cherry Blossom" spent way more time in tall grass areas and found only one wood tick and it was not attached, but crawling around on my hip. I started noting this at the Detroit Lakes festival when people were really getting ticks, and I was getting very few. I was wearing Cherry Blossom then as well. Something to think about.

And, I have to end this on another bobolink photo. If you're going to be up and around the northwestern end of the state, I highly recommend staying at the Loghouse and Homestead, there's great birding on the property and there are quite a few birding areas nearby including Rothsay Prairie, Fergus Falls, and Tamarac NWR just to name a few.

Okay, I forgot I had a bobolink video, so I'm going to end with a singing bobolink:

Random Hummingbird Photo

I took a ton of photos Wednesday and Thursday at the Log House and Homestead Bed and Breakfast for a meeting and workshop with Explore Minnesota. I'm trying to put together a blog entry about it, but I've got over 45 photos and two videos I want to use, so I'm trying space them out. Anyway, here's a cute photo:

"Mmmmmmm, that's good nectar!"

A Reason To Visit Fergus Falls, MN

Just came back from a magical experience in Vergas, MN--more on that later, for now, I present Fergus Falls, MN.

And I don't just mean the giant otter statue in the park...at least I think it's an otter since it's in Otter Tail County. But to me, this looks like a weasel. Whatever it is, it's the animal statue in the city park off of State Hwy 59 in Fergus Falls. Anyway, it's not the reason I'm talking about to visit Fergus Falls.

Okay, and this isn't the reason I'm going to point out either, but I did get a kick out of the idea that a local church in Fergus Fall is bribing members to show up with the promise of free coffee and donuts.

This, my friends, is the reason to visit Fergus Falls. It's a little island in the city park. What could be so cool about that?

It's chock full of great egrets, they use it as a nesting rookery. I have never stopped at Fergus Falls--even though I pass quite a bit in my travels, but my buddy Carrol Henderson told me about the rookery in the city park that I stopped by today for lunch, gas, and to digiscope the nesting egrets.

The island is so close to the parking lot, that it's easy to get up close shots or just casual views of all the nesting great egrets. And in case you haven't noticed yet--take a look at those toes, hanging out over the side of the nest! Cute...in an extra terrestrial kind of way.

I loved watching the adult fly in. At first approach, they looked very dignified and heron-like with their necks tucked in, but in the final descent, their necks shot out, their long legs would splay, and they just looked out of control as they tried to land on a branch.

But, when the adults got to the nest, it was all business feeding the chicks and then just standing guard over them for awhile. The chicks actually made quite a bit of noise. It almost sounded like locusts trilling, with their monotonous buzzy, nasally begging calls. I tried to get a video with sound, but the wind was too high and interfered with the mic on the digital camera.

As I was digiscoping the great egrets, I noticed that I could hear some sounds behind me. It was a little different than the call the young egrets were making. I decided to go investigate.

A quick scan of the pine trees in the park revealed dozens of black-crowned night-heron nests. Perhaps the night-herons found the great egrets too noisy, or preferred to be along the shores of the park, as opposed to the islands, but any conifer in the park that was next to the lake had one, if not more black-crowned night-heron nests.

While I was at the city park in Fergus Falls, quite a few vehicles pulled up to watch the egret rookery. Many of them obviously hadn't noticed the night-heron nests---otherwise they wouldn't have parked directly underneath them like the car in the above photo. I love birds, and I know bird poop getting on cars is a fact of life, but when it comes to a bird the size of a night-heron, I would not want to tempt fate by parking directly beneath a couple of nests.

Scanning the ground directly beneath the nests revealed several night-heron egg shells and a few dead night-heron chicks (and poop). From my experience going out to heron and pelican rookeries for banding, I'm always amazed that any heron (or pelican) survives beyond hatching from the egg. Survival is tough--older siblings or other birds try to kill and eat you, if you fall from the nest too early your parents will ignore you and you will starve, all the nests are piled above each other, so birds are pooping all over each other--it's just a mess. But survive, they do...somehow.

So, if you find yourself in Fergus Falls, check out the city park for herons and egrets. It's an easy photo opportunity and one of the most easily accessible heron and egret rookeries I know of in Minnesota.

Still A Bird Blog

Just to keep the bird stuff going around here, I found some photos that were sent to me last month, that I haven't had a chance to post yet. Aaron sent these photos of woodcock chicks. Can you see it in the above photo? If not, here is an up close view.

Can yo see the chick? It's running away in the upper left hand corner. If you still can't see it, Aaron helps us out in the next photo.

Aaron says, "I wanted to send you this photo of some woodcock chicks I found while out looking for Goshawk territories. I know you dig the courtship flight of the woodcock. Have you ever seen the mothers broken wing routine? It's the same kind of thing as a momma mallard dose but weird and I fell for it too. I was just walking threw some open woods at about 6 AM and this wood cock takes off but instead of flying away from me like they usually do she flew at me and over my shoulder kind of appearing to have a tough time of it and then landed very close by. Then just as I was thinking to myself, "hum, maybe there's something wrong with that bird", I heard the peeping cheeping at my feet. I looked down and three little chicks were scattering like a good break on a pool table."

"It was the strangest flight. Like a bird from Mars. Loopy and like a Dr. Seuss cartoon. She flew and flopped/flapped her way around in the air and just plopped down in the grass in front of me and starred right at me several times. I put the chicks down and got out of there and a few moments later I heard her fly over and join them."

Thanks for the photos Aaron!

Young Porcupine On Solid Foods!

Unexpected Life Dream Realized: A young porcupine crawled into my lap--I didn't even know that was a life dream until it happened. This totally made up for the unexpected, pricey, yet oh so needed, costly vehicle repair today. His handler can now hold him without gloves and as I was taking pictures, he crawled my way. She said, that if I wanted, he would probably crawl on me, and well, he just crawled on my lap...I let him call the shots. No quills were fired. Whew!

The wee porcupet is about three times larger than the last time I saw him. We had the video of him nursing...now brace yourself for him eating solid foods! Today, the woman who is rehabbing him, gave him a piece of banana. You will hear some minute squeaks at the start of the video--are you ready for this? Those are porcupet hiccups!! Wahhhhhhhhhhh!

Here is the video, and trust me, it is SO worth all one minute and twenty-four seconds. This is safe for work, and as a matter of fact, I insist that you show it at work--who could have a bad day after seeing this? It may even prevent a firing.

Bee Update and Misc. Bugs

Warning: there is a spider at the end of this post. I used to be scared of spiders, not so much now.

We checked the hives yesterday and we had one of the hive namesakes to help out (Olga). We currently have three bee suits, which Mr. Neil, Olga, and I wore. Non Birding Bill came along too, but he wore the pith helmet with a net and a set of gloves. The rest of his outfit was a red t-shirt and gray sweats. I admired his bravery (or foolhardy attitude), although he wasn't digging around in the hives like I was, only staying back and taking a few photos.

Here is Mr. Neil showing a frame of burr comb from the bottom brood box of the Olga hive. Olga is giving the frame a puff of smoke. She still prefers to think of her bees as striking out new ground and innovative design as opposed to being problem bees. Actually, since I've started using the frame spacing tool, we haven't had too much of a problem with bees making the funky come.

Here's an up close look at the comb. If you recall, when I first posted a photo of Olga's odd comb, it was light in color and now looking at it above, it has darkened quite a bit. All normal and to be expected as the wax ages. Most of the worker brood has hatched on the above frame and there are quite a few drone cells.

We wanted to check both the top and the bottom boxes to make sure that all looked healthy and happy, see if we need to reverse the position of any of the boxes to encourage more brood. Some brood cells had been built between the two brood boxes and we exposed some larvae. We had to scrape them off and I felt awful about it, but the comb couldn't stay there. That is one tough part of beekeeping--you will kill some of the bees. Every time you go out, some of your colony will perish--some workers will sting your gloves and die, some bees just will not get out of the way when you put the hive back together (I hate crunching sound), or you have scrape away brood cells that are not in an appropriate area.

Despite some of our killing we did see new life. If you look at the above photo (towards the top and towards the left corner), you can see a new worker who has just finished pupating, chewing her way out of her cell--new life emerging into our hive! That was really exciting. Int he lower right hand corner is both a worker bee and a larger drone.

Here's a great frame shot! On the bottom is bright yellow capped brood (pupating into new workers) and some uncapped brood still growing. Above that is a layer of workers tending to the uncapped brood and feeding on honey. The top is the lighter colored capping is honey--all honey--properly aged and everything! Mr. Neil got some of it on the hive tool and we took a taste. Earlier in the season we had tasted the uncapped honey, which basically means that it had more moisture in it and wasn't true honey and could ferment. After the worker bees regurgitate the nectar into the cells, they fan it, evaporating the water from the regurgitated nectar and raising the sugar concentration. When the nectar has evaporated to less than 18.6% moisture, it will not ferment and that is when the bees cap it. When there is capping, you have true honey. We tasted it, our first true honey from our hives. Before we had tasted promise, this time, we tasted perfection. I was so proud of my girls.

All looked well, Olga had filled both brood boxes and was ready for a third brood box. I remembered from my notes in the beekeeping short course that three brood boxes were essential to overwintering our bees to insure that they would have enough honey and pollen stores--however, I couldn't remember if I needed to use the queen excluder at this point to that it would only be filled with honey and no brood. I reread my manual and couldn't figure it out, so I emailed the professor. She said to not use the queen excluder until I would put on our honey supers for our own consumption, that the queen have access to the the third box. So, no queen excluder for the moment. Kitty is now about three frames behind Olga, so we did not add a third brood box to her. We'll check again next weekend and then let them go. Hopefully, by mid July, we might be able to add our own honey supers and then use the queen excluder.

And since we're talking about bugs at Mr. Neil's house, I thought I would add a few more. I don't know about where you live, but around here I am noticing a TON of red admiral butterflies. The drive way was covered with them yesterday!

I even found a few flitting around in the education bird courtyard at The Raptor Center this year. I think their larvae like stinging nettle, must be a good year for that plant too. Yippee.

This isn't a painted lady, but a giant leopard moth near the trash bins. As if this moth isn't cool enough on the back, check out the front side:

Check out those crazy blue mandibles. I'm not sure if they make it look scary or incredibly wise. Speaking of scary...brace yourself:

Ewww! Spider--with an egg sac. At first glance, I thought this was a wolf spider. Someone else speculated garden spider. I remember once seeing a wolf spider with her back covered in babies, but some quick Internet research showed that wolf spiders carry their egg sacs in back and this girl was carrying her eggs in front.

Also, looking at the photo, this spider has very thin legs compared to wolf spiders. What could it be? Well, I googled "spider egg sac" and quickly found the answer. Turns out, this is a nursery web spider who carry their eggs sacs in their jaws (in front) as opposed to wolf spiders who carry them on their spinnerets (in back).

I don't know if this photo does the spider justice--it was quite large. And now we return to our the regularly scheduled bird updates to the blog...and quite possibly another porcupet post is in the works.

Bander's Eye View Of A Peregrine Falcon

Ever wonder why banders wear hard hats when banding peregrine falcon chicks? Well, my friend Carrol Henderson got some photos last week during banding to answer the question.

"Get your grubby human hands off of my chicks!"

Oh, Animal Planet!

I'm getting some work done while having Little People Big World on in the background. A promo just came on for Animal Planet, they are going to show Winged Migration next weekend. In the promo, they showed the bald eagle from the movie landing...and what sound did I hear dubbed over?

Red-tailed hawk.

Is it too much to ask for a little accuracy from Animal Planet?

Caterpillar Parasites

This post is going to get kinda gross. You may not want to read it during a meal if you have a sensitive tummy.

"Sigh, will I ever be that big?"

Last week, I did my segment on Showcase Minnesota about the Monarch Ranching Class that I'm doing at Staring Lake Nature Center July 7. Non Birding Bill and I grabbed some milkweed plants at Loring Park and they were loaded with monarch caterpillars of all sizes.

Here is a leaf with small, medium, and large monarch caterpillars. I generally don't like to get a caterpillar as large as the one on the right--too much of a risk of a parasite but I needed cats for all sizes for the tv demo. Wasps and flies (and who knows what else) will lay their eggs in caterpillars. The wasp or fly larvae will feed on the inside of the caterpillar and about the time it forms a chrysalis, it will pop out. Yeah, it's as gross as it sounds.

After I finished the segment, I brought the milkweed home and set it in a glass full of water. I normally don't like to put milkweed in a glass of water, on the off chance that a caterpillar could fall into the water and drown, but this time, I'm glad I did.

The next day, one of the monarch caterpillars went on a "walk about"--a long journey to find the perfect place to form a chrysalis. It stopped at the top of our living room window frame and we thought, not the place we would pick, but safe enough in our apartment to chrysalize.

That night before we went to bed, he assumed the "J Position" and worked to shed his skin. We noticed another monarch caterpillar J-ing out on a monarch leaf. We tucked ourselves into bed, excited to find chrysalis the next morning.

Alas, I found one of our caterpillars shriveled up. It was dead--my fears were confirmed. If you look up at the third set of legs, you will see a bit of film--the left overs of fly larvae that had emerged from the caterpillar.

I looked up to the caterpillar that had been at the top of the window frame and found it had made it as far as forming an actual chrysalis, but the slimy rope hanging from it, showed that fly larvae had emerged--ew. All that milkweed chewing for nothing! The maggots emerge form the caterpillars when they are ready to pupate.

Since the larvae dropped straight down from the caterpillar and chrysalis, they ended up in the bottom of the glass of water and drown! Too late for the caterpillars I had, but at least they won't be getting future monarchs. Take that, you nasty maggot. I know you have to survive, just not on my monarchs.

This Is Supposed To Be A Henslow's Sparrow...

I think someone requested a western meadowlark from the North Dakota photos? Well, here's an eastern meadowlark, I hope that works.

I keep meaning to talk about the big Audubon press release about common birds on the decline (although, I have to ask how common has a boreal chickadee been to most of us) but I really need to read the data and understand it. It's interesting that common grackle is on the list. Working at a bird store, I know many customers would argue that their decline is "okay with them".

One thing I do agree with is that habitat destruction is the number one problem with songbird declines--much worse than cats. The more we can do to restore habitat, use pesticides responsibly, manage farmland in a safer way--the better off the birds and all of us will be. If you are concerned about the press release and feel a need to do something immediately, you can purchase a new Duck Stamp when it comes out June 22, 2007.

The banding was steady Friday at Carpenter Nature Center, but with the warm temperatures and high humidity, I didn't take any photos. It's a stressful time--some birds have chicks to feed and being handled in warm weather is enough, they don't need additional paparazzi.

I was still on a sparrow high from North Dakota and I realized that I don't recall ever having seen a Henslow's sparrow before. Afton State Park is just down the road from Carpenter and I thought I would stop by after banding to digiscope one. It would save on gas since I was in the area and I knew they were there because many birders had given detailed directions of their location in the park.

Now, the Henslow's song is not the most exciting one out there. Here's a link to it--don't blink or you'll miss it. It's kind of a sparrow hiccup. I was supposed to follow the trail to a shelter area to find the sparrows, but I heard them singing as soon as I started walking along the trail at the north entrance--I heard at least four, but couldn't see them. I wondered how often I had passed them in field and just never got their song on my radar--kind of sounds like a house sparrow chirp--which I would normally tune out. It was in the 90s and oh so humid--my least favorite weather, but I found a shady spot and set up the scope, readying myself for one to pop up. So, I waited, dripping sweat.

And waited.

And waited.

And sweated.

The darn thing never teed up, but just kept singing from below grass level--which is what they do best. BNA notes that this remarkably inconspicuous bird "is often difficult to detect because it sings from inconspicuous perches on low forbs, shrubs, or grasses." I decided to get some meadowlark shots since I was out there and continued to wait the bird out. The Henslow's sparrow kept teasing by singing closer but never coming into sight.

Finally, after about an hour of marinating in my own perspiration, I decided to give up the ghost. I packed up my scope and flipped the singing birds off with both hands. There are some days we just don't get the target birds we set out to see--I accept that. But to have the little stinker sound so close but never pop up from the tick ridden grasses was just to much for me to bear in the high heat.

I'll be back for you one day, Henslow's sparrow. In lower temperatures.

Sweaty Bee Update

Ah, the bees suit which has been such a comforting fortress of solitude has turned on me in 90 degree heat into a sweat factory.

Lorraine and I went out to the beehives today to put up some skunk preventative. Near the area, we found some "leftover turkey". There were several clumps of turkey feathers. Lorraine mentioned they had flushed a turkey near the hives a couple of days ago. My guess is that they won't be flushing it again.

A quick scan of the feathers leaves me with the impression that this bird may have become prey to the coyotes. I've heard them recently, but also looking at the barbs you can see some ripping marks that match up with canine mouth shape. Also, the shafts lack any impression from a bill or talons. The whole body is missing and a turkey is so large, about the only thing large enough to carry it away would be a coyote. Ah well, on to the bees.

The bees were not as defensive as I thought they would be. Lorraine pumped the smoker to keep them calm. When we got to the Kitty Hive, the side was covered with bees getting in and out. It makes sense, they've had a few weeks of brood hatching so of course we should have several more bees. The last few visits, we've been using a frame spacing tool and it is helping cut back on funky comb construction in the Kitty hive. It takes a little extra time to use it--it's not as easy to use as it looks--all the sticky makes the frames stick.

When we last visited, the Kitty Hive was ahead as far as comb production in the second brood box, but this time she seemed to have slowed down. There were for sure more bees in the hive--but just going at a slower pace. Above is a frame with what looks like some bubbled up, capped comb--those are drone cells. Drones are larger and need more space to grow, so the workers make the cells bigger. We found eggs and then closed Kitty up. We'll check on them a bit more next week.

Olga has almost completely fill up the second brood box. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but we may get to use a queen excluder next week--whoot. Speaking of the queen, that's Queen Olga above. I was trying to take a photo of her eggs and she walked right into the shot--the really scoots along in the hive.

Here are some cells with her eggs. It's interesting to watch her, she doesn't really do it systematically by laying eggs in each cell, row by row, but she appears to run around all willy nilly, inspecting the cells and then randomly depositing an egg. Here's a video so you can see who quickly she moves about and towards the end of the video you can see her slip her massive abdomen into a cell and deposit an egg.



If you curious, the bird singing in the background is an indigo bunting. I have to admit, with all the sweating going on, it's great to have a life where you can be out working some bees and be serenaded by one of the bluest birds in the country.

We set down some carpet tacking to keep the skunks away. What the skunks are doing is slapping the ground outside the entrance to irritate the guard bees, force them out, grab them, and eat them. For whatever reason, the stings don't seem to bother them. The nail tips on the carpet tacking are supposed to prick the skunk's paws when it walks up to the hive entrance and when it starts slapping the ground. I'm not sure why this will work since stings don't bother the skunks, but many beekeepers have found success with this. If this doesn't work, we'll look into an electric fence.

And really, trapping a skunk is not an option.

Stamp Uses

Paul Baicich found a new way to use your Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation [Duck] Stamp while in North Dakota. Perhaps I'll do this with my old stamp when the new one come out this month.

Pipestem Creek

While in North Dakota, I had the good fortune to stay in a trailer converted into a cabin called the Bobolink on the property of Pipestem Creek. If you are planning a visit to North Dakota, I highly recommend staying here. The photos on their site show the cabin, it can sleep six if you are willing to share a double bed (I'm way too floppy in sleep and shouldn't inflict it on anyone apart from Non Birding Bill). Otherwise, it easily sleeps four--two double beds and two singles. It's cozy, clean, has a full kitchen and living room with bird, plant and mushroom books.

And I'm not sure why, but every time I took a shower, I thought of WildBird on the Fly.

And if you're wondering, yes there were bobolinks singing around the cabin. There is an incredible dawn chorus, which is worth the price of admission alone.

The loudest and earliest singer was the western kingbird. He started at about 4am.

Anyone who runs a wild bird specialty store is probably already familiar with Pipestem Creek. I was staying in a cabin on the property, but the company's main business is creating beautiful, edible seed wreaths.

All the parts of the wreaths come from nature (and almost all come from the farm or neighboring farms) and can be used as bird feeders. Most people hang them up for a bit indoors and then put them outside for the brds. Ann Hoffert, the owner has even appeared on Martha Stewart Living in November of 2002 demonstrating her mad stylin' wreath techniques.

Tours of the facility and production are available when you visit. I was so impressed when I went through. We carried some of these when I worked at the bird store and to see the process from creation to the shelf was pretty darned incredible. Ann also really loves the birds and is very involved in organizing and promoting the festival, she's as dedicated to preserving the birds and wildlife in her state as she is to her business. As a matter of fact, if you pick up a Birding Drives Dakota brochure, that's her in all the photos.

The birds around the property sure appreciated the business. This is a brown thrasher nest tucked into some honeysuckle right outside the widow of the assembly room.

The goldfinches covered the ground snarfing up all the spilled seed.

Killdeer nested along the gravel roadways, I found three pairs just along the gravel covered loading area in back.

And the birds loved the manure piles--look a that: he's king of the manure pile, master of all her surveys. When I was taking this photo, I was thinking, "Wow, what a great shot of a house sparrow--and it's on a manure pile--part of what made them so successful when establishing themselves in the 1850s!" Then I downloaded the photo and notice the stick up its vent (for non birders--that's the bird equivalent of the butt). Sigh, wish I had more time for Photoshop.

The manure pile was also covered with yellow-headed blackbirds. Here we go, a bird on a pile of poop, while in mid poop--you won't find a shot like that in Birder's World, but that's just how edgy we are at Birdchick.com and that's the way we roll. (Oh dear, I'm referring to myself in the plural third person...I think that's my last cup of coffee this morning). Anyway, while the bird was in mid poop, I noticed the yellow feathers around the vent. And I thought to myself, "Do yellow-headed blackbirds have a yellow vent?"

And as if the bird were able to read my mind, he turned around and mooned me. Yes, yes he does have a yellow vent. Who knew? Not me. I wonder how this bird ended up with a sensible obvious name and didn't end up being called after a part that is not readily seen? Why didn't early bird scientists call this the yellow-vented blackbird? I did a quick check of BNA and did find that it is listed as a distinguishing characteristic: "yellow feathers ring the cloaca."

Other birds around Pipestem Creek include orchard oriole (nesting) and Baltimore oriole (nesting). It's a cool place, and I highly recommend staying there.

Alright, now I have to get dressed and go deal with the bees. Whoot!

From Non Birding Bill

Albino Black-capped Chickadee

This fluffy white cuteness comes to us from Deb Pflueger of Avon, Minnesota. It's a recently fledged albino black-capped chickadee! If you look closely at the photo, you can almost see a hint of the lightest beige where the black cap and beard should be. It was in her yard on June 9, 2007 but she has not seen it since.

Thanks, Deb, for taking such a great shot of this unusual bird.

My Neck Of The Woods

I just found a photo blog for my neighborhood. If you want an idea of where I live and where I see some of the very birds you see in the blog, check this site out.

A Skunk In The Beehives?

Don't forget, there's a FABULOUS new shirt available in the Birdchick Store. As Ian and Margery would say: "Kids in Carpool Alert"--parents who read the blog with kids may want to wait until reading alone to check it out. View the shirt here.

I could not escape bees while in North Dakota--not that I really want to. We don't want to overly inspect the hives, so they can get down to comb construction and honey production. We've been giving our girls space and room to grow and I've missed them.

We saw beehives all over in North Dakota, we passed several. I'm not sure all were permanent residents. Teageeare, a regular reader, attended the Potholes and Prairie Festival and told me about a flatbed truck she saw covered in beehives resting in town. She wanted to get closer and inspect it, but her husband sensibly kept her away--sounds like a woman after my own heart.

Also, while out on the prairie, I got a call from Mr. Neil about our girls. So far, all of us have been able to meander very close to the hives without our bee suits when not inspecting the hives and the girls go about their business. Mr. Neil and Cabal (the new dog) have been able to run through and I've been watching indigo buntings and digiscoping bobolinks without any trouble. That's now all over.

Mr. Neil and Cabal were taking their normal jaunt around the property and as they approached the hives, the workers started bumping into them. They were still very far away, but the girls were warning they were about to sting. Mr. Neil looked down and found one bee trying to sting his shirt--the stinger had not penetrated skin, but she was releasing warning pheromone and several bees were coming to her spot to join in the attack. He flicked her off and both very sensibly fled the area.

I have a suspicion that a skunk has been attacking our hives (and not just because of Cabal getting sprayed). The instructors in our beekeeping class warned that we would know without a doubt that a skunk had visited because of the change in personality of our hives. One day, our girls would be friendly and docile, but the next day they would be irritable and short tempered. Skunks come to the hive at night and slap the entrance around irritating the workers. The bees come out to attack the intruder, which is what the skunk wants--it wants to eat the bees and the stings don't seem to bother them. So, now all of our girls are irritated and on the defensive. And we are staying well away from the hives unless in full bee suit armor.

I'm going to get some carpet tacking and put that outside the hive (hopefully on Thursday), it's supposed to keep the skunk away--also if anyone has any skunk prevention tips, I sure would appreciate any advice.

Color in North Dakota

There appears to be a general lack of comments after the last entry. Non Birding Bill said the reasons was that all the birds were just brown, brown, brown, brown.

After all the brown birds in the previous entry, I wanted to post some of the colorful things we saw. This red-winged blackbird was in full on mating mode. A female was working her way through the cattails and he wanted her attention in the worst way.

Yellow-headed blackbirds were all over the place. I never get tired of these guys, they are just so cool. Their song isn't that musical, but I still enjoy that throaty screech.

Any farm that had a shelter belt of trees was just covered in birds like this yellow warbler. When trees are few and far between, a shelter belt is prime real estate.

Not all the color came in the form of birds. This sphinx moth was covered in a delicate blushy pink. Incidentally, this is the same type of moth that the eastern kingbird was trying to eat last week.

All the brown on many of the bird species serves an important purpose--they blend in very well with the surrounding vegetation. There's a nest here, can you see it?

Move the grasses and it there are two eggs. A mourning dove flushed from this spot as we were walking along. I've never seen one nest on the ground.

On Sunday, I did do some driving around before I hit the highway home. I was meandering down this gravel road following the map--passing some great birds. I kept following the map, came to an expected intersection and then noticed that the condition of the road seriously deteriorated...

According to the map, this goes on for at least another five miles. I decided to head south instead of continuing east.

Which I was so glad that I did! I came upon the uber colorful ruddy duck! I love these ducks and the boys were close to the road and displaying for a female lurking nearby. I think the male in the middle totally embodies this description by Arthur Cleveland Bent:

"He knows he is handsome as he glides smoothly along without a ripple, his saucy sprigtail held erect or even pointed forward till it nearly meets his upturned head; he seems to strut like a miniature turkey gobbler."

Bent continues, "His mate knows that he is handsome, too..."

"...he approaches her with his head stretched up to the full extent of his short neck and his eyes gleaming under two swollen protuberances above them like the eyes of a frog; with his chest puffed out like a pouter pigeon, he bows and nods, slapping his broad blue bill against his ruddy breast; its tip striking water and making a soft, clucking sound."

Hoo-wee. Is it me, or is it getting hot in here?

Anyway, as you can see, there were some very colorful birds in North Dakota.

Birding So Good, It Makes Ghosts Cry

Brace yourself for another brown bird bonanza.

And if you watch Hong Kong movies, you get that reference in the subject line. So, thinking back to my bird watching experience on the prairie, I keep humming the Shirley Bassey version of Where Do I Begin?: Where do I begin? To tell the story of how great the birds can be? The sweet old story that is out on the prairie, the simple truth about the birds that you can see. Where do I start?

At the start of this entry you can see our group spread out and that white speck in the distance is our motor coach. Behind me...

...you can see miles of vast grassland. This was taken at Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge--one of the many places we birded during the festival. I could have meandered around here for a full day quite easily. We saw so many great birds, we never really had time to see the infamous pelican colony that this refuge is known for. Julie Zickefoose was the keynote speaker and she added photos of sweeping vistas with bison roaming. She got a tad choked up when she tried to talk about the prairie and I think understood what she was saying. We have only remnants of the prairie left, when at one time it was so unbelievably vast and stretched for miles. How we as a species managed to reduce it to such a small amount that is so fragile it could easily disappear is equally unbelievable.

One of the main attractions of the Potholes and Prairie Bird Festival is the chance to see grassland sparrows--the most common one we found was the savanna sparrow (above). Some of the non birding blog readers are probably starting to roll their eyes asking "Seriously, brown birds?" But these aren't the brown birds (house sparrows) that crowd out other birds at the feeder. These are more shy, unassuming singers that if you could, would jump at the chance to attract them. Besides, that sparrow isn't all brown--note the yellow spots on the crown?

The second most common was the grasshopper sparrow. Even this little bird isn't all brown--note the hint of yellow on his shoulders? We have quite a few grasshopper and savanna sparrows where I live. Their songs can sound very similar, but a great way to learn them is to sit in some grasslands and listen to the two birds side by side, and you can tell them apart. The grasshopper sparrow definitely has a more buzzy sounding song. Interesting fact according to National Geographic Handheld Guide to Birds: grasshopper sparrows shake off the legs of grasshoppers before feeding them to their young.

This distant bird is a Le Conte's sparrow--a life bird that many festival attendees needed for their lists. These guys can be found in wet grasslands and meadows--they are incredibly secretive which makes them hard to see. The look very similar to Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrows (below) and for me, the best way to tell them apart is by song--which this guy was doing with gusto.

We did get lots of looks at Nelson's sharp-tailed sparrows. We were on our way to look for a Le Conte's when this one popped up about ten feet away. One of the women on the field trip asked which one it was and before anyone could answer, it gave the sharp-tailed call loud and clear. It really is a pretty sparrow, its front is a delightful pumpkin orange color. Wouldn't it be cool if this pretty little brown bird showed up at your feeders--not going to happen, but would be cool nonetheless.

The big target sparrow was the Baird's sparrow. These guys are tricky. They don't return to the exact same spot to nest every year. If there is a slight change, they move one--sometimes several miles away. This is probably an adaptation from long ago when the prairie was ruled by wild buffalo grazing and wild fires. Now, they are affected by change, but don't seem to appreciate the human recreation of prairie, so their options for nesting habitat get more and more limited every year. Our guides on the trip had a Baird's staked out and we could hear it in the distance almost as soon as we got off the bus. When we found it far away through our scopes in dawn's early light--we felt very fortunate.

Then we got closer and here is a photo of the bird from behind.

And then we got ever closer and were able to change position to get the Baird's sparrow in perfect light. Last year I heard and saw Baird's sparrow but not a look like this--I couldn't believe our fortune and that the bird simply ignored us.

Then we got even closer--a digiscoper's paradise! We were able to take so many photos of the bird, and it wouldn't leave. It seemed wrong somehow to just walk away from it, but this bird was not budging from its singing perch. Two packed bus loads of birders got to see the Baird's and anyone with digiscoping or photography equipment got incredible shots. The song was so clear and one of my favorite songs, I decided to up the ante by digivideoing the Baird's sparrow:



Isn't that just one of the sweetest bird songs on the planet? I remember working at the bird store and listening to the Stokes' bird call cds and every time the Baird's sparrow song played, I would think to myself, "What a pretty song! What must it be like to hear that out in the wild?" The other target bird was a Sprague's pipit, which was singing and displaying nearby. Some bird festival attendees wished the Baird's sparrow would quiet down so they could hear the pipit a little better. Last year, I had the exact opposite problem, I wished the pipits would be quieter so I could hear the Baird's! Ah, life.

Here we have a herd of birders nestled in the grass, enjoying lunch in the glorious sun after a great morning of birding. Seeing all those life birds makes a body hungry.

When I'm on the prairie, I myself get a misty-eyed. To the group, I say that it's allergies (and sometimes it is) but all the different bird songs, insect buzzing, and wind combine to a chorus that would bring Mozart to his knees--it's so beautiful and grasps a strong hold on every single one of your senses, you are forced to enjoy it. I can tell you how wonderful everything is, and link to individual songs of birds, but until you hear it and see it for yourself all at one time, it's just too hard to communicate. It's kind of like tasting vanilla extract and thinking how kinda unimpressive that is. However, when you combine vanilla extract with some sugar, flour, eggs, butter, and chocolate chips--you get one heck of a cookie.

Whatever you do in life, find a way to visit a true prairie with your family at least once--it's a true North American treasure.

A Quick Burrowing Owl

Let The North Dakota Blog Updates Begin!

I have so many updates, where do I begin? I think I'll just be blogging all day long today and tomorrow. I must admit, the intense rain and cold winds on Thursday really put a damper (har har) on my excitement to go birding in North Dakota, but the rest of my time outdoors at the Potholes and Prairie Bird Festival was nothing short of magical. Everyone should experience dawn on a prairie at least once in their lives.

Aren't we such a colorful group? That's Julie Zickefoose, Bill Thompson, Paul Baicich, and me having a great time on the prairie. I love being able to see my friends face to face as opposed to email, but really all of us were so busy giving programs, leading trips, meeting people, and answering questions that we barely had time to say hello to each other. I wanted to head home early Sunday, I really missed Non Birding Bill but I tagged along for part of a Julie and Bill's field trip to spend a little time with them and to see...

a burrowing owl lurking in the grass. This particular owl was standing guard at a hole in a colony of Richardson's ground squirrels. The owners of the property have seen two owls, and chances were good the female was inside incubating some eggs. They also said they had a second nest on the land but it was not easy to access. The owls probably took over an already excavated hole, although burrowing owls are capable of digging a burrow by kicking backward with their feet and digging with their bills--but why dig when an excavating mammal already did the work? Burrowing owls eat mostly insects and invertebrates and are not a primary threat to the ground squirrel colony. However, burrowing owls will eat small mammals so a tiny, young ground squirrel would be fair game.

When our group had arrived at the colony looking for the owl, we could see a low flying buteo flying away with a Richardson's ground squirrel dangling from its talons. Not sure which one it was, it was flying directly towards the sun and could have been a red-tailed hawk or Swainson's hawk.

Out beyond the burrow with the owls, we could see some very old box cars. The family that owned the property said that the dilapidated box cars were home to Clark Gable's grandparents and father--and Clark probably visited. As it was time for the rest of the group to press on, the family was kind enough to give me permission to explore them, warning that there really wasn't much left inside--but how could I resist?

They weren't lying. There was nothing left inside. There were no faded and weathered Clark Gable dressed as Rhett Butler glossies with an autograph reading, "Nana and Grampy, thanks for the memories! Love, Lil' Clarkie" tacked to the walls. The floors inside were covered with several layers of mud and cow pies. Any walls that remained standing were nesting sites for barn swallows. I wondered about the family times that were spent there, did they notice the birds singing outside? How did they survive the winter in a couple of box cars before the invention of Gortex? What made them choose this site to spend their lives? What were the families hopes? fears? What were evenings like at the end of the day? As I was marveling at this, I started to hear an incredibly high pitched "seep". It was akin to the sound of night migrants calling to each other. What bird could that have been?

A quick scan with the binos revealed barking Richardson's ground squirrels. Apparently, I was grounds for alarm. I love the shot that I digiscoped above. The ground squirrel's mouth is open so wide for such a high pitched little bark. Eventually, the squirrels settled down and started their feeding and chasing despite the human lumbering around them.

As I came around to the front of the box cars, I was surprised and delighted to see a burrowing owl in flight! I've never seen one fly before, only roosting outside a burrow or perched on top of sign posts. What a cute little bouncy flight--an it even hovered like a kestrel! I think I surprised it as I came around the front of the cars, it stopped mid hover and took off well over to my right and stood on the ground. You can't see it in the photo, but the bird is near some stones and with the naked eye, the bird looked like a smaller stone. I apologized to the owl for interrupting the hunt and headed to my car and home and NBB.

More North Dakota Updates

We digiscoped the crap out of our field trip today. Today's birding was so awesome that it totally made up for the crap weather on Thursday. I have so many photos to sort through that the updates are going to be pretty darned cool!

I'm currently listening to Bill Thompson talking about birding. He just made a crack about my karaoke ability. For those who have read about their mad song stylings and have always wanted to hear them, here is a taste:



They were the music last night during the wine tasting at the festival. I shouted a request that they sing Blister in the Sun...and they did! They sound good.

Oh, more bee keeping posts are coming--don't fret bee fans, I'll be checking the hives next week. Also, we are now offering very cool bee t-shirts. BE WARNED--these are a little more PG-13 than the other shirts. So, parents who read the blog with your kids, may want to check them out alone first. Non Birding Bill came up with it, I died laughing when he showed it to me. I was hesitant to offer it, but everyone we have shown the design loves it and insists we offer it. So, here is the bee shirt.

Dopey Deer

While birding near Chase Lake in North Dakota, a white-tailed deer was running down the gravel road towards our group-completely oblivious to the group of birders watching it. It was trotting straight at us when it suddenly noticed the group with all the cameras--had an "Oh Crap!" moment and then ran away like a little school child.

I must admit, that's the dopiest deer run I have ever seen.

Blogging Fun

Thank you Born Again Birder for spreading the good word!

It's so weird, I'm listening to the great Zickefoose talk about nature journaling while blogging.

Today's weather totally made up for yesterday. This bobolink in the glowing sun is just the tip of the iceberg...or prairie. It will take awhile to sort all my digiscoped images for posts.

Back to listening to Julie.

Loon Cam and Egg

This just in from Carrol Henderson:

Hi, Sharon. I thought you would like to know about the KARE-11 Loon Cam outcome. One chick hatched last week and one egg remained unhatched. Larry Backlund from Lake George in Anoka County is the host to the loon cam. Today he brought in the unhatched egg after getting my permission to retrieve it to see what happened to it. Below is my response to him, along with an image of the x-ray. Thanks to the Wildlife Rehab clinic for taking time out of helping the injured critters to x-ray the loon egg.

I had the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic in Roseville x-ray the unhatched loon egg. The x-ray shows a small air sac at the left, then the faint image of a loon chick's head viewed from above, with the bill pointing down and slightly to the left, and to the right of the head is the yolk sac. From the small size of the air sac and the large size of the yolk sac, I would guess that the chick was perhaps more than one-half and maybe up to two-thirds through incubation when it died. If the chick had been near hatching when it died, the air sac should have been larger and the yolk sac would have been much smaller. It is possible that the immersion from the waves over the nest could have contributed to the death of the chick. Thank you for taking the time to bring the egg by the DNR office.

Like A Blizzard, Only With Rain

Look! I found more bird mugs! The other side of this one also features a cardinal and a goldfinch. Oooooo, ahhhhhh.

Well, the weather has been interesting so far in North Dakota--even more interesting than last year.

Yeah, I don't know exactly what this hat a local rancher was wearing is trying to say either, but it made me laugh.

I'm staying at the absolutely lovely Pipestem Creek--more on that later. I'm in a double wide trailer that has been converted into a little, cozy cabin--it's just cute, perfect and surrounded by birds. It's called the Bobolink, so what could be better?

Last night, I called Non Birding Bill and asked him to check the weather--I don't have internet access, a radio or tv in the cabin, so didn't know what expect. He said that they were predicting storms for my area with a tornado watch. I went to sleep at about 11pm.

I had a strange dream about my next door neighbors installing a large blinking sign that read "Eat At Joe's". It just kept blinking and irritating me. Then I woke up--it was continuous lightening--not a flashing sign. I looked at my phone and it was now 12:45am. The wind had picked up considerably and the lightening was a non stop strobe light. I was half asleep still but noticed a distinct rumbling almost train-like sound. Crap! Had the tornado watch turned to a warning? I started a checklist in my head: Did I hear a tornado siren: no, could I hear hail: no, was I in a trailer aka tornado magnet: yes! I debated with myself if I should dash over to the owner's house or risk the trailer--the lightening was continuous, so it is possible it was just non stop thunder. I decided to go the bathroom where there was plumbing that went to the ground. After five minutes, the rumbling lessened. The lightening still flickered for another half hour. And I went back to sleep before my alarm went off at 3:45am.

When I met the field trip at 4:30am, I overheard someone say that a tornado warning had been declared last night in the county I'm staying in. Yikes! Makes me rethink that rumbling.

I've said something like this before, and I'll say it again: Prairie birding--the thrill of longspurs, the agony of wind...and rain...ugh. It was not the best day to go searching for soft singing grassland sparrows. I had a tough enough time digiscoping this yellow-headed blackbird clinging to this reed while trying to sing his scratchy song.

It started off just misty and chilly, but by late morning it was full on wind and very hard rain. The bus driver heard a weather report that said it was going to be pretty much like a blizzard, only with rain instead of snow. Awful, weather for birding. But we trudged on--literally. Here's a clip to give you an idea of the wind. I think the wind is so loud that you can't really hear the rain pelting my jacket and camera. It's only 14 seconds long:



Sound fun? Ah, yes, my glamorous lifestyle! We did see some really awesome birds. We found a field that was just chock full of Le Conte's sparrows.

While we were going through the field looking for the sparrows, one of our group flushed a mallard hen. We paused thinking a nest was nearby an we didn't want to step on the eggs. All of a sudden we heard faint peeping and a little shift of grass revealed chicks hatching! We decided to leave the nest, and I took a photo so folks could see the nest without all 32 of us disturbing the nest. I also took a six second video:



Don't worry, the hen made it back to them in plenty of time.

The winds were so strong that the lakes and ponds were cresting.

Even the birds like this American avocet seemed to be feeling the effects of the wind. It's gotta be tough to search around for birds in this weather. It's gotta be even tougher if you are a bird looking for food in the water.

The forecast is for perfect weather the next few days, so I'm hopeful to have some fantastico digiscoped shots.

Colonnade Peregrine Banding

Yesterday they banded the peregrine falcon chicks at the Colonnade Building in Minneapolis. This week has been so insane--I just can't seem to keep up with the schedule. I had a business meeting this week and the poor woman and I were trying to get our schedules to sync up, I finally asked, "Dawn, do you want to meet at a peregrine falcon banding event?" Lucky enough, she did! I wasn't sure, she's one of Non Birding Bill's friends.

Here is Bud Tordoff, holding up one of the four chicks that got bands yesterday. There's a video of it here, you can see one of the adults flying around the nest ledge above Bud. You can also hear the adults screeching in the background of all the chick screaming noises.

There were two males and two females (researchers can tell them apart by size--even at 21 days old). Dawn and I watched a couple of the chicks being banded and then went inside to go over our actual meeting. As we were wrapping things up, the banding crew were coming back into the building. The person in charge is Jackie Fallon, who I know through The Raptor Center so I begged, "Hey, Jackie, can I come up to get photos of you putting the birds back from the floor the nest box is on?"

She said yes. Dawn gave an understanding look and I dashed into the elevator with the peregrine banding posse.

There were some maintenance people taking advantage of the absent chicks to do some minor repairs around the nest. Even though the chicks were gone, the female adult peregrine falcon was giving him the hairy eyeball:



Note the woman in the window well with the padded stick--to keep the falcon from nailing the repairman. There were some interesting leftover prey items around the nest:

This is a chord from the repair man, but under it is a rail head. I'm thinking Virginia rail.

There was also this pellet and I'm so bummed that it didn't turn out so well! There's a hummingbird bill at the top of it! Peregrines--eating hummingbirds? How? I know they are fast, but hummingbirds? Why? Wouldn't it be too much work for so little food? It's gotta be like eating a jolly rancher. I begged the banders to bring it in, but their priority is getting the banded chicks back in the nest swiftly and not getting hit by the adult falcons. It was not in an easy to grab area from the window well, and really, I was lucky just to be there watching the nest platform.

Which reminds me, I ran into HellZiggy and Hasty Brook at the banding. I got this photo of them while I was upstairs. Hi guys, sorry I didn't have more of a chance to chat.

While I was getting their photo, the male came up to see what was going on and to look for the chicks. The repairs were finally finished at the nest...

And the chicks were put back on the nest ledge. As soon as they were put down, they scrambled to the back corner of the nest and screamed together. The female falcon swooped back and forth as she could hear her chicks screeching.

As soon as the window well went up, the female flew in. Both the chicks and the female are looking up towards the well like, "What the heck was that all about?" Here's a video of the female looking over the chicks:



You can almost see her trying to work out in her tiny little brain what just happened. You can also see that she has an urge to feed the chicks. That begging cry stimulates the adults to hunt and feed the chicks.

We left the female alone with her chicks to get back to the business of rearing them. Ultimately the birds get a sense of "I won". They kind of are thinking, 'This big scary thing came in, took the chicks away, but all the falcons screaming and swooping frightened the big scary thing so much, the chicks are back."

Okay, now I have to load up the car and hit the road to North Dakota.

Cute Overload

A goal has been reached!

I finally met Cute Overload's stringent standards!! I sent a link of the porcupet nursing and it turned up on their site. They have been so kind and supportive of disapproving rabbits and just a great source of joy to my daily blog reading. I've submitted animals photos before but they never made it up. I remember taking the video thinking, "If this doesn't make it, I give up."

Whoot!

Beware The Disdain Of The Urban Rabbit

First, check it out: Wil Wheaton had a black phoebe nesting on his porch (yes, it is that Wil Wheaton).

I can't believe I was late to a meeting today to get a photo of this, but when I notice nature, especially nature that is disapproving, I must obey the call to digiscope it.

I was walking to my car when I saw the above urban bunny spread out on the lawn on the side of our apartment building. Hey, Dawn, see why I was a little late--even you couldn't have passed this by! I was 1:40 pm, broad daylight. See what a general lack of red-tailed hawks will do--produce willful bunnies. This must be part of Cinnamon's posse.

The rabbit did stretch out, stood up, and then gave me head on disapproval mixed with some aloofness. As soon as this bun sat up, I noticed something else pop up much like a submarine's periscope from the ocean right behind it.

Another rabbit, loafing in the grass! It must have cocked one ear up when it heard the first rabbit stir. I would guess, baby bunnies cannot be far behind.

And as a teaser for the next blog post. Can you guess who these two bloggers are? Both frequently comment on this blog...

Kingbird vs Sphinx Moth

I stopped at Afton State Park yesterday to hang with sparrows. And boy did I come on some weird bird activities.

Aaaarrrr, matey! The first weird find was a one eye clay-colored sparrow. On the one side of his face he looked totally normal, but the other side the who eye was gone and the area surrounding it was sunken in. He was pretty aggressive chasing other clay-coloreds out of his territory. I wonder if he lost it as a young bird in the nest (did he hatch that way) or if he lost it during a past territory battle? It's an old, healed-over wound, did he go all the way through migration with one eye? Birds are just incredibly resilient creatures.

I later found an eastern kingbird struggling to eat a sphinx moth--and do I mean struggle! Here's a quick six second video (only wind in the background--no narration):



Did you see that, the moth totally baled on the kingbird, but the kingbird got it back. Here is a link to a sideways video of the kingbird trying to kill the still live moth. And finally here is a video of the kingbird trying to eat the large thing:



Alas, I did not video the final swallow--my batteries were running low and the camera was refusing to video. But I did get a photo right after the swallow:

"Urp. I can't believe I ate the whole thing."

And here it is wiping the remains of the moth off the sides of its bill.

And then the kingbird was on the alert, watching for another tasty fat moth.

I did find a first year male orchard oriole. In another year, he will look totally different.

And here's a bluebird. Nothing unusual, he didn't try to eat a huge moth. He had both his eyes, but he just looks pretty.

Okay, now time to deal with packing and last minute errands.

Warning: Intense Bunny Nose At The End of This Post

I have a backlog of blog entries.

I was going to do some catch up today but found out that I'm actually supposed to be in North Dakota Wednesday instead of Thursday. The downside is that means I have less time to get work done at home this week, but on the upside I have a whole extra day of prairie birding--WHOOT! On top of that I get to hang with Bill of the Birds and Julie Zickefoose--Double Whoot!!

I've had some private emails asking how Cinnamon was after our scare last week and let me tell ya', she is A Okay. She's been getting extra ear strokes and nuzzling. She has even worn her harness again with no ill affects.

She tries to act like she doesn't approve of all the petting, but she's enjoying it.

And for proof, I offer a truly rare photo: intense contented bunny nose. Go ahead, beep that nose through the computer screen. You know you want to. Plus, it's the only safe way to do it.

On to uploading the cool kingbird video for the next entry.

My Dream...

Click on this link that showed up on North Michigan Birding's forum page to see what my dreams are like. I must go to this place and have this experience. I especially like how the video is slowed down to get the full effect of the hot goshawk action!

Thanks, Andy!

Known North American Birding Blogs--oy

Birds Etcetera has taken on the task of tracking North American Birding Blogs. There's well over 200 and he's taken the extra step to note active, inactive, and new. My hat is off to you, man.

UPDATE: Ooops! In the original post, instead of putting a link to the blog post, I linked to Andy Thompson (brother of Bill of the Birds) on CBS Early Show. Should be fixed now.

A Wee Monarch Caterpillar Post--and a bird.

The banding has been on the slow side this spring at Carpenter. I'm not attributing that to an overall problem, after all we only meet on Fridays--maybe I would be posting something different if we were banding five days a week. Maybe it's time to change net location--who can say at this point with just anecdotal evidence from banding once a week.

But the awesome thing about Carpenter is that if the banding is slow we can easily find other nature to occupy out time. This week it was the monarch butterflies that caught our attention:

Since I've been noticing so many monarch butterfly eggs everywhere else I've wandered, I thought I would see what the milkweed around Carpenter would yield--LOADS. The leaf in the above photo shows two eggs--believe it or not, there was a third egg on the top side of the leaf too! That's unusual, monarchs tend to lays eggs on the underside of the leaf. These eggs are about to hatch, you can see (assuming you can see the eggs) that they are dark, when they are first laid, monarch eggs are a cream color (like the ones I found last weekend). In case you're having trouble viewing the eggs, here is a close up:

See the dark spot towards the top of the egg? That's the little caterpillar head. This little cat is chewing its way out of the egg. This is also what gives the about to hatch egg a dark color.

Eventually, one of the eggs did hatch! So Tiny! It's hard to believe that in about two weeks this will be a ginormous caterpillar. And yes, in case you are having trouble seeing it...

Here is an up close shot of the freshly hatched cat. It will eat a small bit more of the egg casing and then begin to chew on the monarch leaf itself. They are so small at this point that it will just chew the top few layers of the leaf and may not make a complete hole to the other side.

It is a dangerous world this tiny creature must face. So many things can eat it at this point. If it doesn't get eaten by some other insect or bird, there is still the danger that a wasp or fly will lay eggs inside the cat which will eat its insides, killing the monarch caterpillar when the larvae emerge through the skin. It truly is a miracle that any monarch caterpillar makes to a butterfly.

I was surprised to find a caterpillar that was about five days old nearby. It was all alone, perhaps all of the others its age were eaten? This cat was on a leaf with no chew marks which meant that it was probably shedding--chew marks draw attention to potential predators and lets them know you are nearby. If you want to shed your skin--a time when you are immobile and incredibly vulnerable, you want to be incognito.

If you look close in this photo, you can see the old head sliding down revealing the new larger head behind it. The new head is not only larger, but very yellow. The skin splits right about where the old head connects to the skin on the back. Once the head is off, the rest of the skin will be pushed towards the butt end of the caterpillar where it will collect in a small heap.

After looking through the milkweed, I noticed a downy woodpecker fly to a tree and disappear--then I saw the hole! When the bird would poke his head out of the hole, the black and white feathers totally blended into the tree. He must still be busy excavating the hole, you could see wood chips on the tip of his bill and the top of his head. Cute.

Porcupet

Digressing from birds for a moment--but it is SO worth it!

Did you know that a young porcupine is called a porcupet? Neither did I! A friend of mine who is a professional wildlife rehabber has an orphaned procupet. It's already socialized to humans so she is continuing that and he will end up at either a zoo or wildlife center.

I'm just a video takin' fool lately and got these must see tvs. First is a nursing porcupet--crank up the sound so you can hear the oh so cute suckling sound as well as his contented little grunts (note the person handling him is wearing leather gloves--those quills are already set for business):



This video is the little porcupet practicing his mad climbing skills on a stool--important to build muscle and strength:



There's one more video here of the porcupet just playin' around here. If I had more time, I'd put a Black-eyed Peas song in the background of this one to go with his odd little grooves. This play is important as he is practicing his defensive moves.

I love livin' in a state with porcupines.