Last Known Photo From Birdchick's Camera

Cinnamon potpurri

In lieu of a post today, I present a series of miscellaneous Cinnamon pictures. The insects done wore me out.


Cinnamon is a Castor Rex, bred for their fur, which is very soft. Wild rabbits have a combination of long and short hair. Cinnamon's is all short.

She's a curious rabbit, and by that, I mean she likes to explore. Sometimes I worry she gets too bored, so we try to take her out to the park when it's not too hot, or into the hallway to let her stretch her legs. Most of the other rabbits we've had were content with the apartment, but Cinnamon likes to explore.


It took us forever to find a treat that she liked. I don't know what her life was like before we got her from the shelter (we were told the previous owners had a baby, which is why they gave her up), but we couldn't get Cinnamon to take any treats at all. It was weird.

Then one day some dried cranberries spilled on the floor and she snarfed them up like a vacuum cleaner. That was when the penny dropped and she realized that HUMANS COULD BE A SOURCE OF FOOD!
Which was all well and good until she also realized that the food came from the kitchen, the one area we don't want her to go into it, since that's where the trash is.
Combined with her naturally curious nature, it's becoming sort of a game for her to see how close she can go into the kitchen before we yell, and--more importantly--get up. When we shout, she'll pause for a moment and look back to see if we're getting up. If we don't, she just keeps on doing what she's doing. But if we get up, then she knows we mean business and she scampers off. Until she thinks we're not paying attention.

She's lost a lot of weight in the last year, which has made her even more active.

When Sharon wanted to put up a section of rabbit photos on her (then) new website, I thought it was a dumb idea. This was a site about wildlife after all; why put up pictures of domestic rabbits? Who'd wanna look at that?

"Disapproving rabbits" was the last thing I put up, and grudgingly. Joke's on me! Especially when the book comes out in October.

Okay, I'm off to read some Gene Wolfe and veg. We will hopefully have a more coherent post tomorrow.

Whoop tay yai-yay

When Sharon took off on her trip, she left behind one of the cameras she uses for digiscoping, a Nikon CoolPix 4500. It's got two very interesting things about it: one, it's capable of taking absolutely stunning close-up ("macro") shots, and two, it was forged in the fires of Hell by Lucifer himself.

They don't talk much about that second one in the promotional material.

I'm trying to explain why this post, about caterpillars, will only have two pictures in it. No matter how hard I tried, I simply could not get this camera to focus on what was right in front of it. But the CoolPix and I have bad blood between us, ever since I tried to shut off its time-delay function, which was apparently near and dear to its cold, black heart. The manual was less than useful: "To counteract time-delay function: Do not. Will cause universe implosion. If such effect is desired, please shift yourself into a parallel dimension first, and speak to the Vortex Warlock for further guidance."

So, then, caterpillars!

As you probably know, every year, Sharon "ranches" Monarch caterpillars, growing them inside a mesh container until they're become full-fledged butterflies and be set free.

This year she's ranching Black Swallowtails as well, which are a lot harder to break to the saddle, let me tell you. Also, they come from darker eggs, which means Mrs. Olson won't give us as much for them.

Ahem.

Anyway, the swallowtails are interesting: as Sharon pointed out earlier, in their initial form they're colored to look like bird poo, then look more or less like Monarchs, but when they cocoon, their chrysalis looks more like a Metapod.

Note the two silk strings attached, and the funky wood-like coloration. The other Swallowtail is green like a Monarch chrysalis, however. I'm not sure if this a natural variation, someting to do with age, or health. At any rate, it looks pretty cool, don't you think?

And it is chrysalis city in the Monarch ranch, here. We've already got about eight in cocoons, two more about to assume the J position and get started metamorphosizin', and a couple more big fat cats munching down milkweed as we speak. Soon I'll have to rope 'n' brand 'em, which is much harder than you think, seeing as the branding iron is so small.

In fact, in the time I spent off yesterday, bee-tending, they had eaten the milkweed down to the stalk and were subsisting on dead leaves on the bottom of the container. Eep! I'm sorry guys! I didn't know you'd be so voracious. I'd think you had a tapeworm, except that, well, you're a lot smaller than tapeworms.

Prowling through the street looking to feed the cats hungry for an angry fix, I left the house first thing this morning looking for milkweed, which like Scotch tape and a corkscrew, is something you trip over constantly until you need it. What must I have looked like at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday, walking the streets, my eyes glued to the edges of lawns and medians? A burglar? A drunk, staggering home? Or worst, a birder?

Ah well, I found what I was looking for, stuffed it in the container, and rustled up the cats onto the leaves, where, after a lot of exploration, they started happily munching away. I could tell that one stalk wasn't going to be enough, so later in the day I walked the Greenway for a bit, making myself a menace to the bikers as I scanned the wild growth.

Bikers, I apologize. I had hungry insects to feed, and, frankly, "On the left!" really confuses me, which I recognize is a personal problem. See, if you just ring a bell, I can generate a Pavlovian response that tells me I should dodge to the curve nearest the side I'm on. But when you say "On the Left!" First there's a shock of hearing someone bark at me, then I realize there's a person on a bike closing on me, then I have to think "Do they mean they're coming on my left, or that I should move to the left," which is really stupid, I know, because you're not saying "to the left," but there you are.

Plus, in that split second of minor panic, it takes me a second to remember which side the left is. So my natural instinct is, deerlike, to freeze in the middle of the path just so I can be certain I'll get creamed.

Anyway, some green, sluglike creatures get to stuff themselves, so that's okay.

ANOTHER PRIVATE MESSAGE TO SHARON. PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS.

Dearest Heart,

Glad to hear that you're enjoying your trip, however I find it distressing that you won't tell me where you are or when you're coming back. And why do I hear laughter and Mariachi music in the background?

I miss you. The birds do, too, apparently, because just today I saw a flock of Goshawks fly right by our window.

Warmest regards,
-NBB

END PRIVATE MESSAGE.

This post is covered in bees

Hello, all, NBB here.

As Shazz pointed out, I was initially apprehensive about her keeping bees. Given that both her and Neil's schedules are so hectic, I was convinced that his assistant Lorraine and I would end up being the bulk of the work. And while I don't have a bee phobia, the idea of intentionally walking up to a big pile o' bees and tearing their home apart to steal their honey gave me pause.

So it was a little surprising to find myself heading off to inspect the hives today, alone. Well, except for Cabal the beekeeping dog, who really serves only in an advisory capacity.

I can haz beez?

The really weird thing is that beekeeping isn't all that scary. The suit covers you completely, and the smoker causes them to instantly scurry back into the hive. Whenever we go out there, I'm more concerned about crushing a bee that I am about getting stung.

Another thing is that the bees themselves aren't aggressive. As long as you handle the boxes carefully, and smoke regularly, most of them just go about their business, even as you take the frames out, one by one. You'd think you'd get a bigger reaction, since they live and work in darkness, but opening the hive really only affects a small portion of the hive, who come out and buzz around, but don't immediately attack. Part of this, of course, is because we go out in the middle of the day, when the foragers are out collecting pollen, but still.

The only time they've become deliberately aggressive is when a frame we were handling slipped from the glove, fell about an inch, but landed on the hive with a good, solid, bonk! In a split-second, the buzzing got much louder, and Sharon and I both froze.

"I wish that hadn't happened."

"Me too."

Still, even when they're buzzing around your head, butting against the screen that shields your face, there's not really a sense of attack--though we have been stung in the gloves a couple of times. Maybe it's because before all this, my interaction was with lone bees--foragers, and all you think about is the stingers, rather than them working as a group, building a hive.

So anyway, I like the bees. They're kind of cute. Perhaps it's because they're fuzzy.

And now for your weekly bee report.

Queen Kitty II, by the Grace of God, Defender of etc., etc. had been accepted into the hive and it was hoped that she would start laying workers to replenish the hive. I'm happy to report that I believe this is happening!

Let me first apologize for the quality of the pictures; taking good shots of bees is tough enough, but add in a black screen in front of your face, direct sunlight on the view screen, and sweat dripping onto your glasses, and it's hard to feel the love when you're trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, before you need to find out if you're allergic to bees (and you realize that you left your cell phone back at the house. Screaming "911" doesn't really work as well).

Plus, and I hate to gossip, but the bees just really didn't take direction well. "Throw back your wings!" I shouted. "Show me how much you love that honey! Stick out your proboscis!" Honestly, it was like they weren't listening at all. Prima donnas.


This is the top box of Kitty. Some activity there, and a lot of buzzing. The last few times we visited the hive was very lethargic (quiet), so I took this as a good sign. Pulling out the end frames:

Workers, drawing out comb, which means that they're building their own comb on top of the plastic sheets in the middle of the frame. I don't know if you can see it in this picture, but there are a lot of bees in the middle box, below this one. Pulling out the center frame:
It's almost entirely filled with honey, some of it capped. This actually made me a little apprehensive, because what we hoped for was brood: eggs that would turn into workers. At least, I pretty sure it's all honey. Sharon's the head beekeeper here and I'm just trying to remember what she told me as I watched her inspect the hive. Anyway, not seeing any evidence of eggs, I moved onto the second brood box.

Tons of activity and a lot of buzzing, which I was happy to hear. On the end of the box they were drawing out more of what looked to be honey, and making more of their funky comb (Kitty hive takes after her namesake). I was pleased by the activity, but knew that I had to keep digging until I could report to Sharon that we had larvae. So, moving into the middle frame of box 2:
Larvae! Precious, precious larvae! Now, if I remember correctly, the worker cells are relatively flush with the comb while drone cells puff out, because the males need more room for their recliners and beer. So, is this almost all future workers for the Kitty hive. In addition to this, there was a lot more activity going on inside, lots of noisy buzzing. Yay!

Having established that Kitty II was having a prosperous reign, I closed the hive and moved onto Olga.

Olga, as you'll recall, was our big hope for honey after the Kitty I decided to go on tour with her Swarm (which would be a good name for a hair metal band, late 80s. So if you're thinking about traveling back in time and living like a modern cowboy, on a steel horse you'll ride...). However, after having no end of problems with the first honey super (the wax centers kept collapsing), we added a section of plastic rounds, but left the first super on as well, just to see what the bees would do.

And here it is: The bees are building feral comb in the empty frames, which, if all goes well, will translate into edible honey for us, albeit in a very funky form. Olga, your bees are getting results, but they're not following the rules!

Suddenly I'm a chief inspector in a bad 70s cop show.

Very little activity otherwise. Moving onto the plastic rounds:

ZILCH.

We're getting completely nooged by the Olga bees, who I think might be onto us. One was constantly buzzing my head, and despite my best efforts to smoke her, she kept right on flying a patrol around my noggin. Lots of bees running around in the plastic rounds, and they'd glued them all together with propolis so tightly I had to pry them out with both hands, but not a single spot of comb.

UPDATE: Turns out the plastic rounds are supposed to have a wax foundation (like the other frames) that goes in between them. After rummaging around in the shipping boxes, I found them, added them to our second set of rounds, and swapped the boxes. Needless to say, the bees don't really appreciate two visits in one day. Ah, life.

So, this concludes your regular bee update. And now, if everyone will please close their browser windows...

A PRIVATE MESSAGE TO SHARON:

Darling, please come home. I'm sorry I made jokes about birds. I'm so, so sorry. I miss you. The pets miss you. Well, Cinnamon doesn't, but you know what I mean. I promise never to make jokes about how brown birds look exactly alike, even though they obviously do. And all those times I said you were nuts to go and stand in a field at 5 a.m.? Well, uhmmm... well, I was right about that, too, but if you come back I'll keep it to myself and only laugh when I think you're not looking.

Please, please come back.

END PRIVATE MESSAGE.

Bunny flops galore

Here's a very cute video of a pet rabbit, which features bunny flops galore.

Birding books (a shopping guide)

Hello, all, NBB here.

First off, I should tell you all that Shazz (a nickname she picked up from a UK reader, as I recall) is alive and well and is getting ready for a short trip out of town, which is why I'll be your host for the next few days. I'm sure when she returns, she'll have a long series of posts detailing every single inaccurate thing I wrote about birds, or perhaps, if we're very lucky, she'll go back and annotate the posts I did write, so we'll get sort of a director's commentary.

My wife is a wonderful woman with a great sense of humor. Except when it comes to birds, an area where she has no sense of humor. At all. I can make jokes about bees carrying little pails and Cinnamon needing to color eggs for Easter, and it's all good. But jokes about pouring salt on a bird's tail are met with a stony silence, and heaven help us if we're watching a movie and characters camping on a mountain forest hear a loon call.

Which of course just makes it funnier to me.

To compensate for this, I try to give Sharon bird-related books she'll really like. Now, Sharon's pretty hardcore, so these suggestions may not apply to the birder in your life, but I thought I'd pass them on, regardless. This is primarily for the significant others of birdwatchers, because boy howdy, I think I've caused a few fights in other people's relationships by buying too good a gift, if you know what I mean.

The first thing you need to know is that there are four kinds of bird books. There are basic books, field guides, scientific books, and bird porn (here's hoping that last category doesn't get us flagged again).

Basic books have a lot of general information and pictures, and are designed for the casual bird watcher. There the kind of book you'd get someone as a housewarming present, I guess; they don't give a lot of details, because they don't want to bore the casual reader. I recognize them by picking a paragraph at random and thinking, would I read this book myself? If the answer is "yes," then I don't get it for Sharon. Don't get me wrong, these books often have useful information, and if your loved one starting out as a birder, this is probably the best place to begin.

Field Guides are pretty obvious, but need to be suited to the personality of the birder. Think of it like choosing a wand in Harry Potter. "This one? No, no, no, too heavy. How about... Yes, this is very good for birds in your area, not so much for shore birds. But then there's..."

It's probably best to let a birder choose their own field guide, though of course they can drop hints about one they'd like for someone to pick up for them (cough, cough). Guides are either use photos or paintings. Photos, of course, show you what the bird actually looks like (but are often taken from a distance), while paintings can show a lot more detail (but you kind of have to translate an artist's rendering into real-world situations).

One fun thing you can do with field guides is look for ones that refer to different countries. In addition to the fact that they probably won't have it, the birds in other countries are (gasp) usually colorful, and pleasing to look at. Guides to other countries are usually the only ones I buy for Sharon because in terms of what she needs for her day-to-day birding, she has the guides she needs: a Sibley in the car for checking field marks, and several more at home for puzzling out difficult birds.

Scientific books are the meat 'n' potatoes of what I get Sharon. And the best part is that you can usually find them really, really cheap because no one in their right mind would buy them unless they worked at a library and needed to fill up the stacks with books that no one ever checks out.

Scientific books are books written by ornithologists for ornithologists. They have very few pictures, lots of graphs, and such thrilling titles as "Biosystemics of the American Crow." When I see something like this peeking up at me from the bottom row of Half Price Books, I think "Pay dirt!" More boring makes it more better, as I learned over the course of a few Christmases, having put down books on very obscure topics (Analysis in Turkey Vulture Droppings) in favor of bird books that looked mildly interesting (to me). Fortunately for all concerned I mentioned to Sharon the terrible books I had almost bought, before I realized she'd left for the bookstore so quickly that all I was talking to was a Sharon-shaped dust cloud that slowly dissipated.

So, if you have a hard-core birder in your life (Hi, Reier!) these are the kind of books to look for. You especially want to be on the look out for The Life Histories of North American Birds by Arthur Cleveland Bent, an amateur birder who compiled data on, well, every North American Bird and published the data in a series of books through the Smithsonian (and later, Dover). Again, these are pretty much reference books, not really for reading. Unless you're married to my wife.

A story: we're lying in bed together, reading. I forget what I was reading, something nerdy no doubt about elves and Quests and so forth, but somewhere in there, Sharon let out a gasp. An audible, shocked gasp. I looked over to see what she was reading, and the chapter header was Parasitic Infestations of Peregrine Falcon Nests, 1920-1921.

The final category is Bird Porn, which means giant, full color books filled with pictures and illustrations of birds. It's hard to go wrong with picture books, but you do have to be careful when dealing with illustrations, because, well, sometimes they suck.

And by that I mean that they're inaccurate. Or that the birder in your life doesn't like the illustrator's style. I generally don't pick up books of illustrated birds unless they're by Robert Bateman, an artist I know Sharon likes.

So, that's that. Sorry the post wasn't funnier or more interesting. I'll bring out the bees and the bunnies soon, I promise.

Falcon Fascination and Wetlands

Sharon's still recovering from having a tree fall on her while eating mushrooms, but, communicating only through eye blinks, she asked me to pass this one to all of you

Dear Sharon,

I'm writing from KQED Public Broadcasting in San Francisco. We recently did a TV story called Falcon Fascination for QUEST - our multimedia series on environment, science and nature. Here’s a brief description:

"When it comes to these Bay Area internet celebrities, you can peak into their homes 24 hours day. QUEST visits a famous pair of Peregrine Falcons in downtown San Jose, whose family dramas-- from courtship to parenthood-- are caught on webcam."

You can watch the video in a much bigger form on the KQED website.

Oh, and while I'm posting links, here's one about the Wetlands Reserve Program:

Congress is considering whether or not to include the wetlands reserve program in the next farm bill. Considering the state of affairs with wetlands in this country, this is really important to have. We've already lost 90% of our wetlands.
It has never been easier to let your representatives know about this.

Here's the link.

-NBB

The Brown Bird

Dean Martin once asked Sinatra how he always managed to get such a great crowd reaction. Frank replied that he went out and started with three songs he knew would kill, and that after that, he could do anything he wanted, and the audience would love it.

Borrowing a page from the Chairman, I've decided to kick off my stint here with something I know you'll all love: Brown Birds.

You'll note that my nickname is non-birding Bill, and not bird-hating Bill. I rather enjoy our fine feathered friends, especially from the comfort of an air-conditioned room with a high-speed wireless internet connection and cable TV, so I can, you know, have something to do after I see the birds.

Shazz, on the other hand, loves nothing more than getting up at 4 a.m. to drive 2 hours on dirt roads and stand in the freezing cold, scanning the horizon for a bird that might be there. I keep pointing out to her (as she wakes me up) that she has books with pictures of these birds in them, but she just sighs and puts on another layer of clothing.

I think these two photos, taken last Christmas, sum up what birdwatching is like for me:

Sigh.

Of course, it's not just what birders consider ideal conditions for birding (cold, damp, desolate, locust plague, raining blood). It's also the fact that they love, love, love The Brown Bird.

The Brown Bird (sepia dullus) is a creature that has evolved a remarkable form of camouflage: no other bird will eat it because it looks so uninteresting. Birders, however, posses a genetic flaw that not only allows them to see The Brown Bird, but causes them to hallucinate, causing them to think that it's actually several different birds.

To wit:

To a birder, this looks like two different birds!

However, it's not enough to see The Brown Bird sitting at your feeder, where you can, you know, find them all the time. No, birders judge status amongst their kind by the conditions under which they were seen, and will often hire a skilled professional, called a "guide," to take them to the most out of the way place, show them a brown tree in a brown copse where The Brown Bird might be seen, and then strike them repeatedly about the head with a baseball bat. Kenn Kaufman, of course, rose to fame after detailing the 1% difference in brown shading found on the wingtips of The Brown Bird while being struck by lightning! David Allen Sibley countered by drawing every bird in North America while having his blood replaced with hydrochloric acid. Then the government stepped in.

Meanwhile I go off to feed the ducks, who make a pleasant quacking noise and seem to genuinely appreciate whatever bits of food (corn, salami) I toss them.

But I kid the birdwatchers. I kid, because I love. As a recovering hardcore geek m'self (comics, etc.), I see birders as, well, collectors. And like any other kind of collector, the more detail they notice about their subject, the more joy they get out of it. Sharon is, in my not-unbiased opinion, such a great ambassador for birding because she not only has a great deal of knowledge about the subject, but is genuinely excited about birds and most importantly, gets others excited about it, too.

Even, alas, me.

I was walking to work one morning and saw something bebopping around in a hedge. "Oh," says I, "that's a yellow-rumped warbler."

And then I stopped.

And then I wanted to punch myself.

There's a new sheriff in town

All right, everyone, it's NBB here.

Sharon's going to take a few days off from the blog, and she's left me in charge. Mwahahahahahahaha! (thunderclap)

Ahem. Sorry about that.

Sharon's left me some bloggable material, and in addition to that, I think we'll be able to dig out a few rabbits, some bees, general geekery, and maybe just maybe, we'll talk about birding from a non-birder's perspective, or "how I learned to stop worrying and enjoy the brown bird."

All opinions expressed will be my own, not the Birdchick, who will reserve the right to disapprove of anything I post. And probably will (Mwahahah. Sorry.).

We'll get started properly tomorrow, so in the mean time, enjoy this video of a raccoon, who, well, just go ahead and watch.

Friday's Fun At Carpenter

But first, a wee bit of bragging. My sister, Terri N. Graves has a front page article in the current issue of NatureScape News! If you have a copy, it's the one with the blue dragonfly photo. If you don't have one, go out and buy it right now--it's a great paper and my sister is a great writer, a bit different from me--perhaps a tad more conservative...and not as many typos. Here's her profile on their website, but here is what she actually looks like. I think she's going to be a regular contributor to their publication and I'm so excited for her. She'll write on birds, flowers, dragonflies, or whatever tickles her outdoor fancy. NatureScape News covers the whole Midwest and Terri will be their Indiana field contributor, giving her Hoosier perspective. Go, Terri! Whoot.

Well, it was a mini bogging conference on Friday at Carpenter Nature Center because Hasty Brook and Hell Ziggy showed up to join in the fun. I learned that I am not ready to get black-capped chickadees out of the nets on my own. You would be surprised at how hard they are to retrieve, because they ball up their little toes around the nets, and you have to get their feet out before you get the rest of their little bodies out. Problem is, as soon as you get the toes out, they sneak in and clamp down on more net. My particular chickadee had fluttered quite a bit and was beyond tangled. It had to be cut out, which I didn't enjoy, since banding nets cost about $70--ack. Hell Ziggy did get a photo of me above getting a song sparrow out of the nets--easy cheesy. Alas, I was an over achiever with that bird, for I not only got it out of the nets swiftly, but accidentally let it go before we had a chance to put a band on it. Ah well, easy come, easy go.

While I was working on a chickadee, I could hear that someone else was trying to get a woodpecker out of the nets. Some can be quite squeaky and vocal when you are getting them out. I wasn't sure of the species, but could tell by tone that is was a woodpecker. I was surprised when they walked in with a young yellow-bellied sapsucker (above)! We really haven't seen them around Carpenter this summer, so I imagine that this is a young bird leaving its nesting territory--kind of like a kid leaving the house at about 18 years old and living on its own. Here's what the adult looks like. It's a pretty woodpecker.

It was challenging to try and get a photo, it kept flapping and squealing. I was curious to see if any hawks would come in. I've heard that sometimes playing a "wounded woodpecker" call and bring in hawks, foxes, coyotes, and mink.

We also got in a TON of catbirds. I think they young are finally leaving the nest and we may also be getting a few moving out of territories and pondering migration. I laughed when I was looking over the photos, my shot of one of the catbirds looks rather petulant.

Hell Ziggy's on the other hand looks down right artistic (and completely in focus). I've been hearing lots of reports of catbirds eating grape jelly (and robins too). Though it is possible that these species will regularly come in for grape jelly, I wonder if the increase in reports to me has to do with the dry conditions in Minnesota or more people taking notice?

Here's a photo Hell Ziggy got of Hasty Brook releasing a goldfinch. It almost looks like she's doing the flourish at the end of a magic trick. Hasty also got to release a catbird and appeared to have a magical experience.

Hell Ziggy on the other hand wanted to go for a more hard core, if not masochistic experience of holding a cardinal...

I got a shot of it, pre-crunch. Now, that's what I call a nail biter! Har har. She took it like a trooper though, and was proud of her blood blister from the cantankerous cardinal bill.

Afterwards, we headed out for lunch and I got some much needed fun conversation. Remember, you too could be having this kind of fun, so stop out at Carpenter sometime.

A Wee Bit More on Sulphur Shelf and Trees

Wild mushrooms can be good for you. It's always best to know what you are doing before you cut them off willy nilly. There are only four species that I can safely identity and eat in the wild and they are:

Sulphur Shelf
Hen of the Woods
Giant Puffball
Morels

There are other edible species, but those are the only four that I trust myself to identify through books and through friends who are well versed in mushrooms. I wouldn't start eating wild mushrooms based on my blog, but I would encourage you to read up on them and when you feel 110% comfortable being able to identify them, then try them.

As for the tree issue, from a wildlife perspective, so many birds and animals need dead trees to survive, that I support them being left up when possible. One of the reasons we are losing red-headed woodpeckers is because of the lack of dead trees with soft enough wood for them to nest in.

Here is an informative article about sulphur shelf on trees by Rosanne Healy, Department of Plant Pathology at Iowa State University that came out on June 27, 2007. Even she says, "If it is on an acreage, and not likely to do irreparable damage should it fall, it may be worth considering leaving it alone."

That is the situation with the oak that we found with the sulphur shelf.

Sulphur Shelf aka Chicken of the Woods aka Yummy

So many questions about the sulphur shelf mushroom that we found on an oak tree while walking out to the hives on Saturday.

Did we really eat it? Yes, and had plenty leftover for storage.

Sulphur shelf is also known as Chicken of the Woods and is one of the "Foolproof Four"--one of four edible mushrooms that you cannot mistake for anything poisonous in North America. Many claim this is a favorite to eat, and though I enjoy sulphur shelf very much, I must say that Hen of the Woods is my favorite thus far (I have yet to sample giant puffball).

Though sulphur shelf can be huge and yield quite a bit of food, the best parts are the tender outer edges. I cut off about an inch of flesh off of each bracket for a few reasons: fewer bugs, more tender and flavorful flesh, it's more likely to keep growing and we can harvest again this summer, and other critters might want to eat it.
Even just taking the edges, I still had an over flowing bowlful of food! This is such a colorful fungus, it's really fun to just take a moment and admire all the beauty of bright orange and sunny yellows, even after you cut into the flesh.

A good sign that you are cutting the fungus at the right time is that will drip after you cut it, this sulphur shelf was dripping like crazy--a good sign for freshness and flavor. We took the pieces inside and Mr. Neil rinsed them in water and filled the bowl with about equal parts water and white vinegar to kill off any bugs still inside. If you ever find chicken of the woods--don't let bugs keep you from trying it--the vinegar trick works GREAT and the flavor is well worth it.

The fates were with us, because the night before, Mr. Neil had roasted a chicken and he saved the carcass. It's a good idea to cook fungus before eating, this makes it easier to digest. We put the carcass, some potatoes, carrots, and a little chicken stock in a pot with some water and added the sulphur shelf--it was a wonderful aroma. The fungus boiled in the broth for about a half hour and we removed three baggies worth for freezing and saved the rest for dinner.

Just from simmering in the chicken broth, the chicken of the woods was most tasty. Even though this is a safe fungus to eat, it's still a good idea to only eat a small amount for your first serving to see how your gastrointestinal tract reacts with it, so we only had a small amount with dinner. When you eat it, you can really feel a chicken like texture in your mouth, but the flavor reminds me somewhat of eggs. We ate the sulphur shelf from the soup, but saved the broth for later.

And speaking of eggs, this morning I sauteed some of the sulphur shelf in butter with some onions and corn tortillas and mixed that with some scrambled eggs. Sort of an extra ingredient to my migas recipe.

Our friend, Jody the Librarian added some melted cheese and it was a mighty fine breakfast (we also had some of our plain yogurt with honey from the Olga hive--decadence!)

For lunch, Mr. Neil took out the soup he started the night before, heated it up and added some eggs--for a sort of egg drop soup. I think this was my favorite way we had the fungus all weekend. It was so meaty and juicy from being in the broth all night. We even had some roasted with marinated chicken breast for dinner and as I type this, more sits in the freezer, and yet even more is growing on the tree--another brand spanking new bracket was found this evening. Now that's what I call a giving tree.

There are several books out there on getting started with wild mushrooms. One I started with was written by my buddy Stan called Start Mushrooming. Another good one is Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America.

Chickadee Eating A Sunflower Seed

And now I present you with a video I digiscoped (or digivideoed) of a black-capped chickadee eating a black oil sunflower seed. Note how it works the nut meat apart bit by bit. Also, note how this bird is not eating at a feeder, chickadees fly away to another perch with their food--presumably to eat it out of a potential predator's view.

When you see the chickadee puff up in the video, another chickadee has landed nearby, and it's trying to look intimidating to protect its food--it's a mini mantle.

Mini Honey Harvest

Well, it's official, Mr. Neil took one for the team...

...and got stung on the neck. The going pool was that all the helpers with the hive had to give the stingee $10 each, so for his pain he got some payola. He was walking near the Olga hive sans bee suit, so it was kind of his own fault. Good news though: no allergic reaction and he is still alive, well, and underfoot.

We went out to check the status of the Kitty hive, to see that the new queen was laying eggs, and boy howdy had she gone to town! If you look in the above cells, you will see minute grains of rice--those are fresh eggs, laid sometime within the last three days. We even found larvae and some brood being capped. Overall, worker numbers are low, but the honey supply for the hive is rich and I think it's still very possible to recover enough to survive the winter.

There is still some brood left that hasn't hatched yet that was transferred from Olga to Kitty, so even while we're are waiting the three weeks for the new eggs to emerge into workers, fresh workers will still be on hand to keep the hive running. Once the new eggs emerge into workers though, watch out!

Here's a new worker just chewing her way out to join the crowd. I'm glad I added in these frames from Olga, when bees first emerge, they are "nurse bees" that are to tend to eggs and larvae, keeping them fed and helping them grow. It's the older workers who are the foragers that look for pollen and nectar. This worker will tend all the eggs and larvae from the new queen--an important bridge in our hive's survival.

We checked the Olga hive and found one frame of harvestable honey--it was capped, when bees cap the honey, that means it's ready for storage and more importantly, ready for human consumption! This was a frame I stuck in one of the brood boxes, below the queen excluder as an experiment. It was a completely blank frame with no foundation and the bees built on it all over on their own. They filled it and capped it... but they haven't really done any comb building above the queen excluder. I've read different theories on the queen excluder. The idea is that the smaller workers can easily pass through the excluder to build comb, but the larger queen cannot get through. This makes the workers fill up all the comb with surplus honey and insures that no eggs and larvae are mixed with your honey for human consumption. Some beekeepers say that bees are reluctant to pass through the excluder and it slows honey production. They say that the third brood box is so full of stored honey that the queen won't go past it into the supers. Since we haven't had luck using the queen excluder and our honey supers are going empty, we took it off today to see what would happen. Hopefully, this time next week I can report that the girls are drawing out comb in the honey supers.

In the meantime, we decided to take advantage of the experimental frame that got filled in the brood box and harvest the honey! H-O-L-Y C-O-W was it an unbelievable taste--it's so light and delicate and yet, so full of nectary goodness. We each took a chunk of the comb loaded with the lightly colored honey. When my teeth pushed through the wax, a wave of honey surged over my tongue, covered the roof of my mouth, and flooded around my teeth. The flavors seemed to shift from minty, to peppery, to unbelievably sweet, but always fragrant. After I had swallowed several chunks, my breath smelled like a field of flowers.

Since this was in a brood box, the queen had laid a few drone cells in the center of the frame--they were easily cut out. You can see two drones in the above photo--the two cells with dark objects filling them. Mr. Neil said that in Italy, people will sell the larvae with the honey--perhaps for aphrodisiac purposes...not really what I'm looking for, so we just tossed them out. I had to laugh, when I was taking this photo, I was holding the hunk of comb to the window for the light, and just kept my finger on the camera button to take several photos in a row. About photo six...

...Cabal came over to to sniff the comb! Crazy dog. He didn't eat it, but the sudden nose surprised and tickled me.

So, we have our first mini harvest of the Gaiman-Stiteler honey (Non Birding Bill calls it Stamen Honey) from the Olga hive.

We ended up getting seven suet cake sized packs of comb honey. There were four of us and we ended up eating at least one full box. Which seemed like a good idea at the time--we were swept up in the excitement of the first harvest--Mr. Neil and I both assumed that we would get no honey either because it was our first year or some freak accident would happen (like, oh, I don't know, a swarm, killing off the queen, or the queen flying away) and yet despite all that we got a little honey, and there's still hope on the horizon for more to come this year.

We were down right gluttonous sampling Olga's wares, it was intoxicating--almost like tasting all the plants within five miles all at once in a sugary burst. But then the insulin goes a little haywire and you find that eating half jar's worth of honey is probably not the best idea you've ever had in your whole life--up there with eating a whole tube of chocolate cookie dough, but boy was it fun at the time.

Whoot!

Guess What We're Having For Dinner Tonight?

Found on the way to inspecting the beehives today--ginormous (I've used it twice in a week, I'll stop) sulphur shelf! I was going to say this fungus is as big as your head, but that's Non Birding Bill for size comparison and it's already bigger than his head--and he has an unusually large cranium to begin with! (Seriously, he's not egotistical, he really does have a large head--to hold that massively huge brain--it's why I love him.)

I am so hungry!

FYI - fun bee post coming soon!

Birds Adapting

Lots of readers sending in this story of the gull thief with a taste for crisps:

Swallowtail and Monarch Report

I just saw a promo for Mr. Neil's movie on tv. I can't believe I know someone who wrote a book that's being promoted as a mainstream summer movie. The "in a world" guy is even narrating the trailer. Ooooooo.

Poor Cinnamon, first she's losing blog time to birds and bees, now she's losing her parsley to the black swallowtail caterpillars.

Well, the black swallowtail caterpillars are proving to be very exciting compared to the monarchs. If you recall from the last entry, I was having trouble initially identifying the cats because they didn't look like the photos of black swallowtail caterpillars in my books. That has changed in the last twenty four hours. Here is one of the caterpillars from yesterday.

Here they are today! Some of the cats are finally looking like they do in my caterpillar field guides. Two still look like bird poop, but they're growing up so fast. Another exciting development is that I thought I only had four, but discovered that I in fact, have five swallowtails to watch grow.

I broke out my Nikon 4500 to get some macro shots of the caterpillars. The bird poop looking ones do have some color when you look at them up close--little dark orange spots with spikes coming out of them. I think since the young caterpillars spend so much time on the top side of the leaf, the bird poop look helps them avoid predators (no one wants to eat that).

Then compare that to the more colorful older ones. They are very garish and look as though they would stick out like a sore thumb. However, I noticed that they tend to stay on the stems of the parsley and if we were looking at parsley bunched together, the yellow, white and black stripes would help them blend with the stems.

Even their little caterpillar toes are cute!

While I was taking macro photos, one of the bird poop looking cats, shed its skin to reveal the older cat coloration--it happened too fast for me to get a photo, but you can see the old skin right behind it. Freaky.

The photos might make the caterpillars look much larger than they are at the moment, so I used a pen as a size comparison. That is one of the older cats munching on some parsley--still quite tiny. I bet next week it will by ginormous.

The monarch caterpillars are still going strong. Almost all of my eggs have hatched. This tiny egg was showing signs of getting ready to hatch yesterday. You can see the dark head showing through the top of the egg.

This morning the egg was empty, the cat was out and about.

It had already fattened up quite a bit by noshing on some milkweed and leaving some frass (caterpillar poop). Monarchs are cool, but it's fun growing caterpillars that change color.

Birdchick and Barn Owl

There was a request to see video of me giving a Raptor Center program. I don't have that, but Tuesday when I was feeding the education barn owl during my volunteer shift, I had fellow crew members, Maddy and Sue take some video with my camera and just ask me questions. This is not like one of my usual programs--I'm WAY more animated in front of a large audience, but I thought it would be fun to watch the barn owl eat. For those curious, I'm feeding her cut up pieces of mice.



The video cuts off before I can answer that last question. The barn owl is a captive bred bird and imprinted on humans. I think The Raptor Center got her from a facility in North Carolina, who breeds them for release in the wild.

Hey, We Did Some Good!

Sometimes you see things on the Internet requesting clicks or money or whatever, but you never hear the results. Well, I'm happy to report that we were all part of something good and we did make a difference. Remember the Click for Condors? Here is a note from the folks at Ventana Wildlife Society:

Fantastic news! Your rabid clicking for the condors helped us win!! We got the $5,000 grant from Patagonia, which was turned over officially to us on Saturday, plus a matching $5,000 grant from Nepenthe. Thanks to you, VWS was rewarded $10,000, which will go to support our Species Recovery program and our work with the California Condors. Thank you all so much for your help, and for passing my message on to so many friends and family. We blew the competition out of the water, ending up with 18,000+ votes, which was something like 60% of the total.

And now, here is an official thank you from our Executive Director, Kelly Sorenson:

"This recent online vote was eye opening to us. What was so amazing is that we are able to reach thousands of people in such a short period of time. This online vote was fun and I know for some of you it became an obsession. We are committed to sharing with you interesting stories, news and updates and other activities like this recent vote on things that are important to our mission. One of the reasons why we were so successful in this vote was because of email. Please take a moment and forward this message of thanks to anyone that you asked for help during the vote and invite them to join our free email subscriber list. All they have to do is click here to subscribe. Anyone can unsubscribe at anytime but I promise to make it as fun and interesting as possible while furthering our mission of conserving native wildlife and their habitats. Together, we can create hope for people and wildlife. Thank you again for your support." If you had fun helping us out and you want to join our e-mail list, you can do that by clicking the link above. But don't feel obligated: your help was just what we needed. And as Kelly said, please forward this thank you e-mail to anyone you passed my original plea to, because I want to make sure everyone knows how much this meant to me, to Ventana Wildlife Society, and to the birds! I have also attached a thank you in the form of a laboriously crafted mini-comic starring our avian overlord, the King of the Bushtits. Oh, and a condor.

So, readers, if you did any clicking, pat yourself on the back, that you indeed helped a group reintroducing condors get $10,000. If you live near either of the business, make sure to let them know you appreciated their support of VWS. Great job, everyone. It's nice to see when we can make a difference.

First Birds and Beers Recap

I have to admit, I went into Birds and Beers last night with a little nervousness. I put up a notice on the blog and on the Minnesota listervs and I got a lot of emails from people saying that they want to come, but were either out of town or lived too far away. I wondered if anyone would show up?

But show up they did, and we had about 12 people! Merlin's Rest had promoted it, so some of their regulars also stopped by to see what it was all about. I didn't have much a of a theme planned, my ultimate goal was for people to connect, maybe learn about new places to watch birds, get bird questions answered, or even find a new bird watching partner.

I was really excited that the banders from Lowry Nature Center in Carver Park showed up--they offer banding that is open to the public every third Saturday of the month--as a matter of fact, they will be banding this Saturday. They're fun and knowledgeable guys. Frequent commenter on this blog, HellZiggy came with her hubby. He is not a birder, so Non Birding Bill even had someone to talk to. There were so many other people who showed up, and I fear I will not remember the names: I remember Pat, Bob, Katherine...I'll have to start assigning bird names--that I can remember.

It was a fun and easy going night, John Dingley the general manager, offered a peregrine falcon poster as a prize, local author Bill Watkins read about a wren being the king of the birds from one his books and we gave that away, and I gave away copies of the new Great River Birding Trail and Minnesota River Valley Birding Trail.

I'm going to do this again, probably the next one will be at Merlin's Rest, and as I travel, I will try and organize them on the road. I think Rochester, MN would be good--and Duluth, perhaps even at bird festivals. I also think I might have a theme night. I'm kicking around having people bring their favorite bird related book to the next one.

I had something else going on yesterday too--it was my birthday. When I had scheduled Birds and Beers with Dingley, we pretty much scheduled it as, "Hey, let's do it two weeks from Tuesday." NBB later pointed out, "That's your birthday." We didn't really have anything planned, and what better way for me to spend my birthday than with birders? When I told the group last night, Mark said, "What a wonderful way of having a surprise birthday party, turning the tables and surprising all your guests!"

NBB and I had a little party right before we left for Birds and Beers, and I am now happy to report that I am completely Bent! He got me the one book I am missing from my Arthur Cleveland Bent series, and I finally have a complete set! Whoot. He also had a gift specially crafted for me...

A custom made Birdwatcher Crayon Set. There are four colors: sepia, chestnut, brown, and beaver. I'm not sure how I feel about having a crayon called beaver, I never realized that was its own color.

New Caterpillar Madness

I've been monarch ranching for awhile, but I've always wanted to ranch some swallowtails. Some species of swallowtail caterpillars feed on parsley. Earlier this spring, I found out that we had accidentally had a black swallowtail living in our apartment (we guess it came in as a caterpillar on some of Cinnamon's parsley) but I wanted to it right this summer, and find the caterpillar and watch it grow. Mr. Neil has some parsley (above) in his garden, so I decided to see if I could find swallowtail caterpillars on that. I find that locating caterpillars takes a long time the first time you look for them, but once you find them, your eyes become trained and in the future, they are easier to find. I sat down and studied the parsley.

After a good ten minutes of study, I found six small caterpillars. They looked nothing like any of the swallowtail caterpillars in my books. I looked up the general characteristics of the black swallowtail: caterpillars are found on parsley (check), on the top side of the leaf (check), and early stages resembles bird poop (check). But still, if you look at what a large black swallowtail looks like, the books show you this. This tiny thing doesn't look like that at all. Fortunately, with the magic of google, you can narrow your search of images on the internet and I found photos of young black swallowtail caterpillars and they look just like what I found in the above photo--success, we have swallowtails!

I took four of the six swallowtail caterpillars and put them in my butterfly pavilion. You can see a water bottle inside, holding a bunch of curly parsley for them to feed off of, right along side a water bottle full of milkweed and monarch caterpillars. Next to the pavillion is a bunch of milk weed in a different water bottle--those are plants with monarch eggs on them. I keep the eggs separate until the caterpillars hatch so I don't confuse leaves with eggs with the leaves for feeding. Should be an interesting couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, we've had an early sampling of our dangerous honey from the Olga hive. Mr. Neil told us to mix some of our honey and comb with some plain Greek yogurt. YUM!

It's like a decadent dessert, only it's yogurt...and honey... from our own bees--that's got to be healthy, right?

Birds and Beers

Don't forget, tonight at 6pm is Birds and Beers (a gathering of birders to have a drink and talk some birds) at Merlin's Rest. People of all abilities are encouraged to come, if you're interested in birds, you're invited. Non Birding Bill will also be there too, so if you want to bring a non birding spouse, bring 'em along.

Here's the announcement on Merlin's Rest website:

Tuesday: The Birds and the Beers! Join the Birdchick, our ornithologist publican (John Dingley), our ornithologist bartender Bob, and many others for an informal gathering of birdwatchers and enthusiasts. And did you know that Minnesota has its own ornithologists union? Check ‘em out. Smart folks and great photos in their gallery.

Sneak Thieves

Mr. Neil has a cat flap on his garage...

I think I need to put a clarification up before I go further with this post. Mr. Neil has cats. I have given him all the information on the Cats Indoors Campaign, and some of his cats are strictly indoor cats, however one cat in particular cannot be an indoor cat (Mr. Neil readers know him as Fred the unlucky cat). Please do not bombard him with info on Cats Indoors, he knows it, I know it--we've discussed it, especially after the time when young Fred showed up with four puncture marks on his hind quarters in the shape of great horned owl talons. And yes, in a perfect world for me, all cats would be indoors--however, who out there lives a perfect world? It's not always an easy task to turn a free roaming outdoor cat into an indoor cat. We're not going to change every mind in one night and we're not going to get every cat out of the wild by tomorrow morning. We do what we can, as we can, and the Cats Indoors campaign is a gradual effort.

That said, Fred is an outdoor cat who lives in the garage. There is a special cat door that only opens when Fred is standing in front of it, he has a special sensor on his collar that causes it to open. We keep all of the bird seed in the garage (and beekeeping equipment). Recently, something has been coming into the garage and living large in the bird seed--most likely a raccoon. The only way that I could find that they could be getting inside, would be the cat door, I'm sure raccoon claws could outsmart a sensor. We have a motion sensitive game camera and set that up:

Raccoon one (apparently wearing a monacle) came in through the door. I had the camera too close to the cat door and the flash WAY over exposed all the images. Non Birding Bill did a lot of tweaking to get them to this state.

Raccoon two came into join the party. If one has figured it out, it's not long before others follow.

And raccoon number three--this one appears to be smaller than the first two. So far these three have kept there shenanigans to the bird seed and have left the bee supplies along. I'm not sure what the next step is going to be. On of Mr. Neil's readers has suggested a door that uses image recognition software. I suggested leaving Cabal, his large white german shepherd in the garage for a few nights.

And so, here is one of the coons leaving, a little fatter. Perhaps they will eat so much they will not fit through the door--much in the same way Pooh got stuck in Rabbit's hole after eating too much honey.

A Milestone For Me

And yet another grasshopper sparrow, they are everywhere I go, I can't escape them. I've seen them before, but not like this summer. I don't know if I'm just paying more attention or if we are having a bumper crop of grasshopper sparrows...or if aliens from some distant planet are trying to send me a message about saving the planet via grasshopper sparrow (although, that would seem to me to be an unreliable messenger).

You can tell this press release about Cape May Bird Observatory's new website was sent by a hardcore birder:
"Since you all have blogs and/or have close connections to Cape May I thought you might like to take a look at the site..... and in the event that you might be looking for something to write about given the slow nature of the summer......."

Slow nature of summer? Not in my neck of the woods! There's always some birding happening (and now bees--and some new caterpillar madness had started which I'll be talking about soon). Oh, how my grasshoppery ways have caught up to me this last week--sheesh. Here it is Monday, and I have bloggin' left over from last Friday.

So, Friday at Carpenter was a first for me--banding a tiny bird. Usually, at Carpenter, I'm happy to lurk and watch the pros but the bands swiftly on the birds. I enjoy trying to get the birds out of the net and bringing them in, but I always felt my place at the table was to just promote all the cool things that they do. I'm used to banding large birds, but not the tiny ones, so I have avoided actually pacing a band on a bird. Friday that changed. There have been offers before, but every time I always answer, "Oh, let's wait for a cowbird, let me practice on a cowbird, not a chickadee or goldfinch."

Friday, Jen Veith, the Development Director and experienced bander would not take no for an answer and had me band my first tiny bird--a house wren--man oh man, talk about a really tiny bird to band! Larry took a photo of this momentous occasion (above photo). It all happened so fast, and I was so freaked about not breaking one of those tiny wings, or legs that I barely remember it.

Up next was a house finch. Larry helped supervise the banding of that bird. You will note that we are doing these outside. Jen recommended that the first few times I band birds outside, that way, if I accidentally let one go, it won't risk injury by hitting walls and windows indoors. I was much more comfortable putting the band on this one.

Here I am taking the wing cord--fancy talk for measuring the wing. This house finch was a hatch year bird (hatched this year) and we couldn't tell if it was male or female. I measured the wings, all went well and the bird flew away.

Since many of the birds I have banded (pelicans, hawks) it's still hard for me to get the songbird bander's grip down: holding the bird in my left hand with it's back to my palm, it's head between my index and middle fingers, also holding it's chest. With my small hands, the finch and wren fit easily in my hand...

Then came a much larger hairy woodpecker--not so easy to hold in one hand--good grief, how will I ever hold a blue jay in one hand? This bird we could tell was female and were able to determine her age by her eye color (brown to grayish brown indicates that this bird was hatched either last year or this year). She also had a brood patch for incubating eggs and chicks, which she wouldn't have if she hatched this year, so that means she is a second year bird--she was hatched last year.

In between teaching me how to band, Larry got to band an eastern phoebe. I took a picture with his new Sony digital camera--it's got a pretty good macro feature--look at that feather detail. While we were taking this photo, the phoebe flapped a few times, and each time we heard a rapid clicking noise--phoebe's snap their bill when agitated--just like owls do! I never knew they did that. Of course, I've never had the opportunity to make a phoebe angry.

After banding, Jen and I explored the prairie area at Carpenter--loaded with grasshopper sparrows (another one above) and sedge wrens. Jen and I came upon a family of grasshopper sparrows, and the young were just learning to fly. It was a hoot to watch their labored flights around us and then the oh so awkward landing on what looked like a sturdy perch but turned out to be a wobbly prairie flower. About as graceful as a girl in her first pair of high heels.

There was also a pair of eastern meadowlarks scolding us, we must have been too close to their nests. It would be fun sometime to move the banding operation out to the prairie and get some bands on the birds out here.

Translating for Ornithoblog

I picked Ornithoblog for the 8 Random Facts Meme and he asked me translate. My French is a tad rusty, but here are what I think his 8 random things are translated into English. If anyone out there finds fault with my translations--please let me know:

1. I bungee jumped the highest bridge in Europe at 182 meters.

2 In 2000, I shook the hand of Charlie Oleg one evening at BDE in Clermont Ferrand, a few years before, I shook the hand of Jean Pierre Descombes (the voice of the "Right Price"). And I also did in a report at Julien Courbet's home (of Back on the Beach), what a class act.

3. My favorite authors are: Stephen King, Michel Tournier (Friday or Limbs of Peaceful) and Jack London.

4. I have milked goats, and made bread and jam.

5. I met my concubine under a real Indian tipi

6. I have a degree in "Master of Management"

7. I like to walk in the woods and along water's edge

8. I have been attack by a vulture (in a park), a pony and by a buzzard (hawk?) (it got me on top of my dark blue bike) but people are usually bit by poodes.


I'm not 100% sure on all of the translation there...especially the one about the concubine. Maybe that's just a pet name for his girlfriend? NBB has called me an infamous creature, I'm sure that can lose something in the translation. Again, if anyone wants to help in my translations, I welcome it. It's been awhile since my last French class.

Son Of A Beeswax!

Non Birding Bill and I headed out to check the status of the Kitty hive. Last time, we had placed a new queen in a cage inside the queenless hive. The cage opening was covered with hard candy. The workers were supposed to chew their way inside and by the time they got to her, the whole hive would be under the spell of the new queen's pheromone.

When we took out the frame with the queen cage, several bees were gathered around the queen, a good sign. They didn't appear to be attacking the cage, but VERY interested as to what was inside. I decided to remove the cage from the wax to see if the queen was still inside.

You can see on the side of the box is a piece of tape with a hole chewed through it. Behind the tape is the cage's opening. The opening is jammed with hard candy. The hole in the tape and the tunnel in the candy tells us that the workers have been trying to get the queen out--and have almost made it all the way through.

If you look at the workers on the side of the cage, you can see their proboscis is out to feed the queen nectar through the screen--they look like they are ready to serve under her rule. We did one more test. I had NBB smoke the cage to remove all the workers and we waited to see how long it would take for the workers to come to her again. Not long! They came to the cage before I had a chance to turn on my camera. Watch them come to the queen:



I think it's safe to say that they are assimilated to her. We put her in on Tuesday and here it is, Saturday afternoon and they are all over her cage, and have almost chewed their way through the hard candy. I decided to go ahead and open up the queen cage like we did when we first installed the bees in April. I'm an old pro at that now. I gave NBB the camera and had him make a video of this momentous occasion:



Did you catch what happened there? In case you missed it, that big bee flying away above my hand in the last few seconds of the video is our queen, flying away. HOLY CRAP! That wasn't supposed to happen! As soon as the camera was off, she flew to the right, I almost had her in my hand. She landed on one of the brood boxes. I went to get her and then she flew behind NBB and I lost track of her. It was not unlike the moment in A Christmas Story when Ralphie lost all the screws when he and his dad were changing the tire and he said in slow motion, "Oooooooooooh Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge."

Only, I didn't say "fudge." Imagine the worst profanity you can think of and that's pretty much what I said at that moment. What else could possibly go wrong with the Kitty hive? I briefly thought back to just a scant two months ago when Olga was the problem child.

Then, I immediately switched gears to problem solving mode, and thought back to the beekeeping class I took. The instructors warned us that this could happen when we would be hiving our new packages and releasing the queen. They said the thing to do is just stand where you are when the queen left and wait for fifteen minutes. The queen who just flew off is full of eggs and ready to lay and therefore, kinda heavy. She can't fly far and as she leaves she will realize that this isn't really what she wants, she's not going to find what she's looking for on this flight and back track. She'll look for familiar objects from where she she started--what could be more noticeable than two giants dressed all in white?

We stood and waited. I noticed when she flew that she was obviously larger than the workers and flew like a drone--slow and heavy. I went behind NBB to see if I could find her clinging to any nearby bushes, but didn't see her. NBB and I still waited. A large bee flew by my head, I watched it land at the entrance--drat, it was only a drone. The noon time sun combined with my tension of wondering if the queen would come back started to form sweat along my forehead and back. I kept remembering what the instructors told us, that the queen would come back, even if we didn't see her. After fifteen minutes, go ahead and close up the hive, she was probably in there. Although, those instructions were for installing a package in April when there were no leaves on the trees, no flowers, and much cooler weather. This was a warm, sunny day, with clover all around, and trees chock full of leaves--perfect for a queen to hide. Would the same strategy work?

Another large bee bounced off my hood, I watched it fly low to the ground, and then to the entrance. Another #$%& drone.

I started to form another strategy in head. The queen dealer wasn't far, maybe I could pick up another queen and start all over? Boy, that would be embarrassing to explain that I lost another queen. Although, I prudently hadn't killed the queen cell with an egg that we found last week, maybe I could just go with that plan? Suddenly, a large bee came from behind NBB, it was heavy and slow, and very tan. It landed right on the frame where the queen cage had been. Could it be? Was it really? YES! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes! The queen came back! Of course, we videoed her triumphant return:



I'm sure we only waited for less than five minutes, but I have to say that it felt like we were waiting for an hour! In case you are having trouble viewing her in the video, I did get photos:

She's right in the middle of the photo, surrounded by attendants. Note how her abdomen extends well past her wings. She's also much lighter in color than the original Queen Kitty. We have noticed that our workers in both hives have been changing colors. This hive started with lighter bees and now has darker bees, I'm sure it has to do with what types of drones the queen was mated with. The queen dealer told me that he had mated this queen with a variety of males, including a couple of carniolan drones which should bring me some colorful workers. Since carniolans are black, I wonder if the original Queen Kitty was carniolan?

Anyway, help us, Queen Kitty II, you're our only hope. The workers will show her around, she'll get rid of any queen cells in progress, and commence to layin' some eggs. Man, oh man, what nail biter that hive visit was.

In other news, the Olga hive continues to be a model of good bee behavior. We got in our new Ross Rounds comb honey super and are going to try that since we are having so many problems with the original comb honey kit. I'm happy to report that not only did the Ross Rounds kit come with instructions (unlike the other kit) but it was already assembled. Since I didn't want to waste time, we didn't paint it, but added it right to the Olga hive. You can tell the Ross super from the rest because it's not painted. Here's hoping we get some good old honey out of that.

Having A Sense Of Humor

I love celebrities who have a sense of humor about themselves. It's an admirable quality. The US readers of this blog may not have seen it, I've been chuckling about since I found it on You Tube last month (it's about five and a half minutes):

Banding Young Raptors

A question came up in the previous entry about banding young raptors, do we worry about being bit and do we band the adults (and if so, how do you get the adults)?

Let's talk about handling raptors: If you have ever noticed from my fall hawk banding photos, we always are holding the hawks and falcons by the feet. It's the same with the young osprey, note Reier in the above photo. It looks like he is cuddling the bird, but he's keeping the feet safely away from his body and since the bird is pressed to his body, that prevents it from flapping around.

We're not really worried about the the hooked beak. The feet on raptors are the business end of the bird--their powerful toes are what separates them from other predatory birds--they grab and kill with their toes. So, when a raptor (eagle, hawk, owl, falcon, kite) feel threatened, their instinct is to always defend or attach with their toes and sharp talons. The beak is a last resort, it's too close to their eyes, and eyes are so crucial to their hunting ability that they don't want to risk putting them near danger.

In the last few years, researchers have also been taking blood samples from the birds. This could be useful for future DNA studies--especially if the populations fall low again and a reintroduction is necessary. Again, in the above photo, note how Amber is holding the young osprey's feet, and has her other hand over the bird's chest to hold it in place while mark takes its blood. Osprey are about five weeks old when we band them, they have learned to stand up and walk a little, but their wing muscles are weak. They also haven't figured out quite what their feet are for. As we are holding them, sometimes they will weakly and slowly make grabs with their toes, but they aren't nearly as swift and as strong as the adults.

Even when its time to put the bands on the legs, one person needs to hold the large chick while another places the band on the legs. Above, Amber holds the bird and feet steady as Mark places the band on the young osprey. Already, osprey banding is a two person job. However, that's just putting the bands on--getting the chicks out of the nest is another matter altogether. You either need...

...a cherry picker to donate their time and truck to go up and retrieve the chicks and put them back. Or you will need...

...a professional tree climber to donate their time and skills to go up and retrieve the chicks. It's a group effort to band osprey--at least two to three people are needed. Note that the climber in the above photo is also having to climb past a slick metal raccoon baffle to to get to the top.

As to the adults, they don't band them anymore in Minnesota. They used to do that when they first started the reintroduction program in the Twin Cities, but I've never observed it. To my understanding, it's not easy. It's not like other raptors where you can put out a bait pigeon and some mist nests--osprey only eat fresh (live) fish. From what I understand, they would take one of the education eagles from The Raptor Center and perch it out near the osprey nest. The adult osprey would fly in to chase off the eagle and either get tangled in nets surrounding the eagle, or some other type of trap. I remember a few times that adult osprey were brought in to TRC from banding because after they trapped it, they found fish hooks in their talons and were able to remove them and return the adults to the nest that day.

And for those curious, no education eagles or wild osprey were hurt or got hold of each other during the banding process.

Now, on to get check the the doin's a transpirin' out at the Kitty hive.

Osprey Banding

I don't know how many of you readers have been following the Zickefoose Blog about blogging styles: as a blogger, are you an ant (writing posts ahead of time and having a store of well thought out, well written, typo free entries) or are you a grasshopper (posting as the muse strikes you, never bothering to have a larder of entries)? If you haven't been able to catch on by my typos, I am very much a grasshopper. I would say that for the most part, that works for me. However this week, the blogging has been a struggle. Nor for lack of inspiration--but lack of time and alertness to do many posts. I have a back log of entries.

Now, on to Thursday's osprey banding:

My friends, Amber and Reier picked me up Thursday morning for some osprey banding with Mark Martell. We stopped at four different nests and had some interesting discoveries.

Nest 1: only one chick to band (mark did two nests on Sunday and each had three chicks) and the adult female had a transmitter on her back--she's from Milwaukee. Can you see the chick in the nest in this photo? When the osprey parents call the warning, the chicks go flat like a pancake, this only shows their brown feathers and hides the white feathers. To a passing aerial predator, the nest would look empty.

Nest 2: three chicks, one died as soon as it was taken out of the nest--very similar to what happened in 2005. The necropsy of the 2005 chick showed that it was severely weakened from a liver problem and that it died from cardiac arrest. The stress of being taken from the nest killed it, but had it been healthy to begin with it, then it would have survived the banding. The problem that the chick had would have killed it either before it left the nest or not soon after. I have a feeling, the necropsy for this bird will show that they same thing happened. Bummer.

Nest 3: Two healthy chicks. Although, besides just the pair of adults screaming at us as we banded, a third flew over and joined in the screaming and yelling. You should be able to see three birds in the above photo, flying in the sky.

Nest 4: Empty. What was interesting about this nest was that chicks were observed in the nest this past Sunday but a mere four days later they were gone. It was way too soon for them to have left the nest and even still, there should have been some osprey activity and it was dead quiet. A new eagle nest was built withing half mile of the osprey nest and Mark speculated that the eagles at the chicks sometime between Sunday and Thursday (guess the pancake defense didn't work so well that time). Talk about getting two birds with one stone (har har)--they get to juicy birds as well as cut back some of the competition for fish in the lake.

Sometimes great horned owls will take osprey chicks, but they aren't strong enough to carry the body away and eat it right in the nest. An eagle, is much larger and can easily carry an osprey chick. The lack of feathers and body parts in the nest points the finger to the eagle.

For me, the best part of the day was at the Lake Josephine nest. There were some kids who came to watch the banding and while this bird waited its turn to be banded, I let them touch it and even better--smell it. Since osprey only eat fish, they have a very distinct aroma. They also became our helpers, holding the bands and other equipment before we put them on the birds. They did a good job. Perhaps future naturalists?

And, because I feel like everywhere I go, I'm finding grasshopper sparrows, I'll include the above photo. This bird was near one of the osprey nests, perched on top of a sapling covered with a plastic tube (to keep deer from chewing it) and then covered with netting on top (to keep bluebirds from going into the tube looking for nest cavities and getting stuck). It tried not to move, hoping I wouldn't notice it just sitting there with some incredibly incriminating billful of food, on its way to feed a nest of hungry chicks. I was more entranced by the insect that whipped around in the tiny bill. I wonder what it was?

I'm Trying

I keep trying to do a blog entry about osprey banding today, but I keep finding ticks. I've lost count of how many I have found crawling on me and I'm not sure what's more disturbing: the number of ticks I keep finding or the fact that I've been out of a tick area for over six hours and I'm still finding them. Why are they just crawling on me, why aren't they latched on? Am I not to their taste or is something wrong my blood?

What does it say when you are rejected by ticks?

Birds and Beers

The bandwidth is going of the charts again this month. Non Birding Bill just looked into it and found I'm getting quite a bit of traffic from the International Atomic Energy Agency (the agency that promotes safe, secure and peaceful nuclear technologies). Interesting....

I'm organizing an informal get together of birders. There are so many people that are doing interesting things bird wise--research projects, banding, writing, etc. and we don't often find out about it on the listservs. I also notice that some of us only have a chance to meet at a stake out bird. I thought it would be fun to get some of us together, have a drink, and talk some birds.

So, if you aren't doing anything on Tuesday, July 17 at 6 pm and are in the Twin Cities metro area, come on out for Birds and the Beer at Merlin's Rest. This is not any kind of paid thing, or something the restaurant is sponsoring. It's just an informal gathering to talk with fellow birders--beginners, novices, hard-core--whatever you are, come on in. I chose Merlin's Rest because I know the owner (he's helped with peregrine falcon reintroduction in the Midwest) and it's got bird photos on the walls, so it can't be all bad. Even one of the bartenders is an ornithologist.

They do serve food there as well, so if you want to grab a bite feel free. If you can't make it to this one, I'm hoping this is an ongoing thing and I would like to try it when I travel to other areas.

If you're curious about the tufted titmouse photos, I was around yesterday when one hit a window and dazed itself for about five minutes. When I picked it up from the ground to keep it safe from predators, cats, and dogs I realized that I had never held a titmouse before and it's one of my favorite birds.

Upon closer inspection you could see that this bird was fairly fresh from the nest. Notice the yellow along the gape (the corner of its bill), that's the give away. Poor thing must be learning to fly and like a 15 year old with a learner's permit, lost control.

I loved getting a look at all the little whiskery feathers around the bill. The titmouse sat in my hand for a few minutes and then took off like a flash. That was when it found its way to my head. It stayed for another minute and rejoined its begging siblings in a conifer ten feet away.

Can't Stay Out Of The Hives

I dedicate this entry to Christina, who I inadvertently stood up--I swear I left a message, just on the wrong phone. Here's what kept me away:

A first for me: placing my ungloved hand on top of a brood box loaded with bees, and not having a complete and utter nervous breakdown. When I realized that the Kitty colony was queenless, I tried to purchase a replacement queen but every place I called had just run out of queens. So, I decided to go for the madcap raising an egg from another hive into a queen plan--risky and time consuming, but my only other option was to combine our two hives and I didn't want to do that unless I absolutely had to--the hive would then be just be too high for me to reach and inspect.

I recently made friends with some local beekeepers and was telling them about my problems with Kitty and several of them told me of a man nearby who still had queens for sale, but they warned, I had to get her installed now. I called the number, he said he had what I needed, we made an appointment, and in a warehouse out in undisclosed town that could pass for the picture definition of the boonies, the deal went down. We shook hands, he pulled a small wooden box from his pocket, I pulled some cash from my pocket, and the queen was mine. I put her in Non Birding Bill's pocket and from there we hightailed it out to the Kitty hive to install the new queen.

We threw on the bee suits, NBB lit the smoker (because he is the smoker master), and I gave Mr. Neil the queen for safe keeping. It was late in the day and we had to act fast. The foragers would be back in the hive and those are the most likely to sting you. However, when we opened Kitty, all was surprisingly calm--must be the lack of queen. Mr. Neil took the queen from his pocket and as soon as he took out the box, one of the Kitty bees landed on it. The queen's very first subject! That's it, my pretty, drink in that pheromone, assimilate, assimilate.

Basically, the queen is in a little cage that has a piece of candy covering the opening. When we first put the queen cage in the hive, the workers will want to come and kill the queen--but when they approach, she releases her pheromone and they want to serve her. Her aroma is released through the screen and both she and the other bees chew through the candy to have access to her. Once they get through the candy, they will have worked out their differences and the workers will show the queen around the hive so she can commence laying eggs. Here is the video of attaching the queen cage to one of the frames:




When we pushed in the cage, some of the cells with honey came open and created a small river of honey. In the video, you can see some of the workers start to lap it up. Here's a detailed photo:

Look at the lines of bee proboscis (tongues) lapping up that honey. Feast, my girls, feast. A new queen has arrived to build up your numbers. Some of you readers may be wondering why I went for a whole new queen if we started some eggs growing in a queen cell? Well, that wouldn't yield any new eggs for two weeks, and then it would be another three weeks until those eggs would hatch into new workers. Now, we have a new queen, fully fertilized and ready to lay. She'll need a few days to work her mojo on all the workers, but then she will get to layin' and I'll have new workers in three weeks instead of five weeks, giving them more time to build up food stores for winter.

So for the moment, the workers are all over the queen cage, like ugly on a pig, absorbing her pheromone. More bee madness to come this weekend.

Hey, Where'd That Titmouse Go?

This just about sums up my day.

Requeening The Kitty Hive

I took a photo when we opened the Kitty hive and just when I hit the button, a worker went straight for me--INCOMING! Oh, and if you are curious, none of us have been stung through our bees suits...yet.

Today was the day to find out if the mad experiment worked. You may recall that last week, our dear Kitty hive had swarmed and in my efforts to try and prevent it, I removed all the queen cells, but the hive swarmed anyway. Doh! I read about a plan to take eggs from the healthy Olga hive and see if Kitty would raise one of the eggs into a queen...

But first, I have to show you a really cool new tool I got to make our hive inspections easier. It's a little hanger you attach to a brood box while it's open. When you take out a frame, you can hang it on that, instead of setting the frame on the ground--it was pretty sweet and keeps you from crushing bees or letting the queen crawl onto the ground.

We had to dig around and look for the queen cells and we found one. This one had LOTS of activity around it. We tried smoking the bees out of the way to see if we could look inside and find an egg or better yet, larvae. Any fertilized honeybee egg can be a queen. What separates an egg from being a worker as opposed to the queen is that the the larvae is fed only royal jelly every day before it pupates. Workers only get royal jelly for three days. All this activity around this cell had me hopeful there was larvae inside, but I couldn't see anything, because it was at a weird angle. We continued our hunt for more queen cells. We found many, but they were empty.

But then we found two queen cups on the bottom of a frame (queen cups are the early states of a queen cell and low and behold, there was an egg inside the queen cup on the right. Can you see the tiny thing that looks like a grain of rice? That's an egg that has been transferred so it can be raised as a queen. WHOOT! If you're having trouble seeing the egg, try clicking on the picture, that will make it larger. Things are looking up for the queenless Kitty colony. An Olga egg that was originally intended to grow into a worker, is now to become a queen--should I change this hive's name to Anny Boleyn?

Okay, it will be an egg for three days, a larvae for about 5-6 days and pupate for about 7-8 days. When she emerges, she will get a quick tour of the hive for a couple of days, then fly around and fornicate and kill some drones for three days, and then get down to business and layin' some eggs. Hopefully in about two and a half weeks, we'll see some eggs!

Last week, we had added a honey super to Olga, as well as a propolis trap. I went to check in and see how that was doing. As you can see in the above photo, the trap is well on its way to filling with propolis--yum. The honey is another matter...

I've been having some issues with the comb honey kit that I ordered. First, there were no instructions that came with it that told me the important step of nailing the comb foundation into the frame, so last week all of our foundation started to melt, bend, and fall out of the frames. I called the place I ordered my kit from and they unhelpfully asked, "Didn't you nail in the foundation?" I told him no because there were no instructions. So, I nailed in all the foundation. Today, when went to look inside, the foundation had fallen out again! And I had nailed it! In the above photo, you can see the foundation laying between frames on the bottom of the box. They bees are using it, but it's going to make inspecting the hive and extracting the honey a pain. Hey, and remember how Olga had a talent for building funky comb? Well, that talent finally came in handy:

She built her own comb on one of the empty frames! Go Olga bees! Not only did the bees build inside the frame, but on the bottom for good measure. As much as I appreciate Olga's ambition, this may not be the best way to go. I called the company and complained about my dissatisfaction with this comb honey kit and we are going to exchange the kits we have for a comb honey kit called Ross Rounds, hopefully that will work better for all involved. So, if anyone is reading this blog and thinks one day they will try having their bees make comb honey...choose your kit carefully.

In other news, on our way to the hives today, Mr. Neil was telling me about a hen turkey and poults he and Cabal flushed on their way to the hives a couple of days ago. Just as he was describing it, Cabal flushed a turkey right next to us that was hiding in the grass. She popped up and flew in one direction and then Cabal flushed about five poults who flew in the other directions. The poults were about the size of a cantaloupe and could fly already! I didn't know they could fly that young. All the young turkeys made it safely into a tree and Cabal did not get them.

Birds Are Fledgin' Out All Over

Young chickadees are invading the feeders at Mr. Neil's house. If you look closely at this photo, you can see a little yellow where this young chickadee's bill connects with it's face. The remnants of the gape young chickadees have to help stimulate their parents to feed them. This young chickadee was figuring out how to hold a peanut between its toes and then peck out bite sized pieces.

The adult chickadees are now ignoring the young birds crying for food and eating themselves. The ravenous young birds are following what they see the parent birds do and learning how to use the feeding stations. Once they figure out how to grab peanuts from the mesh feeder and sunflower seeds from the tube feeders, they explore further for food. This young bird is contemplating the eye hole on this decorative bird on top of the feeder pole. It is asking itself, "Can I eat this?"

"Let's find out!" PECK! The young bird pecked and prodded the eye hole a few times and then gave up. It was fun watching the young chickadees trying out new things. One intrepid youngster flew to the hummingbird feeder and ate the ants trying to get past the ant moat.

The young chickadees were looking fresh and well feathered.

The adults, well, they were looking a little rough. I'm sure it's a combination of the nonstop work of nesting and it's time for a summer molt (dropping those old feathers and growing in new ones).

Young titmice were also learning to feed too. The adults kept going to the peanut feeder over and over again while the young birds begged in the tree. Eventually, one impatient young bird followed the adult to the feeder and continued to beg. As the adult continued to feed only itself, the young bird finally got the idea that it had to dig out it's own peanut or sunflower.

As the young bird finally mastered the feeders, it seemed triumphant in its discovery. "I am king of the peanuts, master of all the feeders I survey!"

I found another grosbeak photo and I'm just throwing this in to the entry to add a little color.

Lost Weekend

This weekend wore me out. I am not a creature meant to spend lots of time in high temperatures and hot sun, but I found myself in it quite a bit. The upside is that I don't notice while I'm having fun and observing birds, but the downside is that when I get home, I am exhausted down to my bones.

Check it out, the monarch chrysalis on our radiator came out this weekend. That was timely because I had my Monarch Ranchin' class on Saturday morning at Staring Lake Outdoor Center. Stan helped out a little...well, actually he started out by distracting the group by releasing a chicken in the outdoor center--wacky boy. But after we had been out searching for monarch eggs and caterpillars, he put them under the Outdoor Center's microscope-it was very sweet to see the details of the eggs up close.

As soon as I was done at the Outdoor Center, I had to zip right over to meet my buddy Amber to do 2 back to back bird programs for The Raptor Center at CONvergence. This is our third year doing it, you may recall some of my photos from last year. I didn't have time to do the parties this year. After we finished our programs and drove back to TRC to put the birds away, I had to zip home and get ready for a friend's birthday party.

This is one of my favorite bird programs that I get to do as a volunteer. For one thing, people at a science fiction and fantasy convention are happy and in a good mood, they are seeing old friends and discussing a favorite topic--and they're in costume (note the lovely lady dressed as a fairy in the above photo). This year, one of the new staff at TRC came along to observe the program and at one point she leaned over in surprise and said, "I just saw a Dalek! I mean, a life sized actual Dalek!"

I was really impressed that she knew what a Dalek was. She already had cool points in my book anyway, she's the one who has been rehabbing the young porcupet.

It's fun to try and guess different costumes, (I think the one in the photo above is an Andorian) I also recognized Dr. Who, Brak, Sailor Mercury, and I saw at least four different Indiana Joneses at four different ages. I even saw someone dressed like Young Frankenstein! The woman who arranges for us to come is named Erin. As we were packing to leave, we thanked her for having us out and the generosity of the group (we always get great donations from this group on top of the program fee). I asked that she keep us in mind for next year. She said TRC would be back and added, "I always ask for you and Amber because you guys get us and what we're about." What an awesome compliment and it totally made my day.

This morning I was back at Staring Lake to lead an "urban bird trip". I would have advertised in the blog, but it was a last minute trip for me--I was subbing for the original trip leader. I took the group to couple of spots on the south side of the metro area, near the airport. There were a couple of unusual birds (for Minnesota) reported there and also, they are just great general birding spots. We heard and glimpsed and Acadian flycatcher at The Old Cedar Avenue Bridge and we heard and glimpsed a Bell's Vireo at Black Dog Preserve. I find that both of those species are more exciting to hear than to see.

The real star of the show ended up being Virginia rails. We passed another birder while listening for the Acadian who told us that the rails were putting on quite a show, so our group hightailed it out to the observation deck. When we arrived, a sora scuttled out of the way and is wasn't long before we heard the Virginia rails grunting. We were able to glimpse an adult chasing a younger bird. I played the Virginia rail call on my birdJam and the adult gave up the chase and came straight for us. He ran under the deck, around us, and zipped in and out of the reeds. It even paused to give its grunt call right back. The bird was moving way too quick for me to digiscope it (I snapped the above photo with my point and shoot), however someone in our group had a nice camera and...

Rob Grant got the above shot of the Virginia rail! Thanks, Rob, for letting me use your image in the blog. I have to say, I've called rails out before but these were hands down the best looks I've ever had at a Virginia rail. The bird soon ignored our group and continued its chase of the younger bird. We stayed for quite some time observing other species of birds and still the rails would scurry about us.

We also had great looks at marsh wrens--this guy popped up and sang for so long that everyone in the group got a good look through my spotting scope and I had a chance to digiscope it. Wow, a wren sitting still--who knew? I really enjoy doing these low key birding trips where we just enjoy the usual birds and get a few surprises in the process.

After the trip, I came home, took a long hot bath and napped a good portion of the afternoon. Tomorrow, I have to do Showcase Minnesota and then it's off to check the bees. Last week, Non Birding Bill and I put in some frames from the healthy Olga hive that were full of eggs and larvae in the hopes that the queenless Kitty hive would raise one of the eggs into a queen. I'll check for queen cells and if there aren't any, I'll have to combine what is left of Kitty with Olga.

Not Bad For a Quadruped

Don't drive angry.

HOLY CRAP! Deer Hunting With A Bird

It's a golden eagle used for falconry taking out a deer. I have no idea of the origin of this video, but wow, you gotta see it!

Grosbeak Enjoyment

Ah, this is the life: sipping a tasty cup of shade grown coffee while digiscoping a rose breasted grosbeak in gorgeous light:

Mr. Neil has several grosbeaks at the feeders this year--and they are feeding the entire summer long. There have been no orioles nesting this year, but the abundance of rose-breasted grosbeaks more than make up for it. The are becoming braver and more tolerant at the feeders. Typically, they feed off of the trays on safflower and sunflower, but this summer they are feeding quite comfortably on the perches of tube feeders.

Check this out! The dude is hanging upside down just like goldfinches do on an upside down finch feeder--clever boy! Actually, this feeder isn't an upside down feeder, just a copper Aspects tube feeder, so this grosbeak is hanging upside down and leaning back to feed out of a port that's behind him...do you suppose there was a lady grosbeak nearby he was trying to impress? I never cease to be amazed at the adaptability of birds.

I just love this shot--true to grosbeak form, he's cracking a sunflower and you see the little seed husks exploding all around that massive bill. Love it.

Eight Radom Facts Meme

Sometimes I wonder about the many memes that ask for facts about bloggers--is there anything we don't already share with our readers? But I got tagged by Schmoker for Eight Random Facts:

Here are the rules for Eight Random Facts:

• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

And here are the eight random facts:

1. From about seventh grade to my sophomore year, I had a massive crush on David Copperfield. Note the above photo. This was taken in Indianapolis in the late '80s, I can't believe he had bigger hair than me.

2. I'm the youngest of eight children, I have five sisters and two brothers.

3. To help make ends meet when I was in college, I was a nude art model for the university's art department.

4. I can hang a fork from my nose.

5. When I have time, I love to make candles or do Sumi-e.

6. The first play I ever wrote has a character who speaks in nothing but Barry Manilow lyrics.

7. I was in a Jesse Ventura commercial about Minnesota colleges while he was governor of Minnesota.

8. When I get really stressed out, I imagine what life would be like if I were Father Dougal MacGuire from the Father Ted series. It really relaxes me. Here's a sampling of Dougal from You Tube:




And now I have to tag eight bloggers:

Non Birding Bill
Susan Gets Native
Birding Is Not A Crime
Ornitho-blog
Bird Couple
Hasty Brook
KatDoc's World
Born Again Bird Watcher

Mom, You'll Be So Proud, I'm In Newsweek

Sort of.

There's a new website called Bird Cinema that wants to be the You Tube for birding videos. It just launched and I have been playing with it to see what the video quality is like compared to using Google Video. Any the whoo, I posted some videos that I have taken with my digiscoping set up, one being the young Cooper's hawk bathing in the roof top puddle where I narrate, "I'm a dirty girl!"

Well, Newsweek has done an article on the site and selected that video as an example of what one can find on Bird Cinema. Gee, mom, aren't you proud? Your daughter's voice is in Newsweek saying, "I'm a dirty girl, I'm baaaaaad."

It's interesting to note that the article has the birder statistics wrong. But what can we expect from a publication that thought an article about a woman illegally killing a cardinal was funny.

Non Birding Bill On Monarchs

I just discovered that Non Birding Bill blogged a little about my monarch ranching. You can read it here.

I'm so pleased he noticed.

Squirrel Up A Pole

Went to take Cabal out for a walk and though he loves to chase cats, he doesn't seem to be interested chasing squirrels (although, he will bark at brown-headed cowbirds at the feeder, so he's not all bad).

When we passed by the feeders, two squirrels ran for the woods. A third ran up the bird feeder pole and up into the raccoon baffle. Cabal trotted past, not noticing the quivering piece of metal tubing meant to keep squirrels and raccoons from reaching the bird feeder. As Cabal forged ahead, I took a moment to snap a photo of the squirrel:

The squirrel eventually scrambled down and joined his companions in the woods.

Birdchick Store fixed

Hello, all, NBB here.

This is just a note to let you know that I've fixed a problem with the Birdchick store, and you can now once again order autographed copies of Disapproving Rabbits: the Book. Sorry for the screw up, completely my fault.

Queen Excluder Time

I took this photo of an entrance reducer to show you guys what it is...I didn't notice the juxtaposition of Non Birding Bill until after I downloaded photos. If you read my answers at Nerve.com, you get the joke (insert naughty giggle here).

I'm confused about the Kitty hive, but I have a plan and am rallied by all the support! First, let's talk good news: Olga was reversed and given a queen excluder and a propolis trap today! Chances are good, that last sentence made very little sense to you, but it's a whoot in my book.

Olga had filled all three of her brood boxes with eggs and honey. Since all the frames in the boxes were 100% filled with drawn out comb, we need to switch the top box with the bottom brood box. Bees tend to fill hives from the top down, so to encourage more brood, we needed to switch--all the frames in the bottom box have hatched, all the frames on the top were full of freshly laid eggs. I'm SO glad NBB was with me. I learned something today: a brood box full of honey and brood is too heavy for me to lift...and I can lift sixty pounds without a problem.

It was a messy business. As we took the whole hive apart, worker bees were running a amok, gathering all over the sides. We smoked the crap out of them, but still had a tough time keeping them out of the way. Now, I see the value of a hive brush. One of the instructors in the class inferred that the hive brush was an unnecessary tool, but we could have used one today. I ended up sweeping all of the bees out of the way with my glove--boy they really didn't like that! But it was that or squishing them as we put the hive back together.

After we reversed the hive and reassembled it, I placed the queen excluder on top of the three brood boxes. This allows only the workers to pass above the brood boxes and insure that all the frames placed above this point will only be filled with honey. After I set it on top, I watched closely to insure that the workers could pass through--yes they could.

After we put on our honey supers, I placed a propolis trap on top of them. This will encourage our bees to produce more of the sticky stuff they use to seal up the hive for us to eat. Ah, propolis--irritating when inspecting the hive, tasty and nutritious in your tea.

Now, on to the Kitty hive! I wanted to take a look today to see if there were any eggs--hoping against hope that a new queen had returned from a mating flight and had started laying. As I scanned, I found a bee emerging and was watching it...then I found something troubling. Notice the worker bee right above the emerging bee? That worker bee is doing something she shouldn't--she's plunked her little abdomen into a cell to lay an egg! Doh! That really isn't a good sign for this hive. She sat in there for some time, almost appeared to be struggling like she was constipated.

I watched the hive and the other frames for a long time (at least a half hour) and only found this one worker bee trying to lay eggs. Here's the problem. When a healthy queen is present, workers don't lay eggs. When a queen is gone and the workers aren't controlled by her pheromone, ovaries develop in the workers and they begin to lay eggs. These eggs are infertile and will only turn into drones (female workers and queens are the result of fertilized eggs). If this is happening, this means that there is no viable queen. Perhaps I did kill off all of the queen cells right before the swarm--my effort to prevent the swarm has kind of doomed the colony.

There are other signs of this as well--spotty drone cells capped over in the worker brood frames. Above the bee is a capped over cell that looks puffy--that's a drone that has been laid in a worker cell. All the flat capped over cells are capped worker cells. I called B&B Honey Farms--that's who I have been getting all of our bee supplies from. They ran out of replacement queens last week, so the very helpful Tammy went over some options with me. She agreed that one bee laying eggs is a very bad sign for that hive and I need to take action now.

1. Can I find the swarm? Boy howdy have I tried, but the woods are so thick and full of hollow trees, it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

2. Do I want to pick up a swarm? There are apparently quite a few showing up along Hwy 90 and 94 through Minnesota and Wisconsin. Someone who travels around so their bees can pollinate farms has lost six already. One was in Tomah at a truck stop if I wanted to go for it. A little too far away for me at the moment.

3. Combine what's left of Kitty with the strong Olga hive using the newspaper method.

4. Then I ran an idea I came across on the Hive Mind Bee Blog(one of the beekeepers who answered questions like I did on Nerve.com): take a frame or two of brood from the Olga hive (making sure that it's full of freshly laid eggs) and inserting that into the Kitty hive. Like birds, bees look at eggs as something needing to be raised. They will take some of the eggs (they will all be fertilized and therefore female) and place them in queen cells. The only difference between a worker bee and a queen is that the queen is raised entirely on royal jelly. If one of those queens makes it, she will go on the mating flight and then come back and lay eggs. Also, the bees won't turn all the eggs into the queen, but raise them as workers--this will put some new life back in the hive to cover for the lack of eggs being laid in the last few weeks. Tammy said I could try it, however for every person who has had it work, there's another person who hasn't had it work. I think it's crazy enough of a plan that it just might work. What have I got to lose at this point anyway?

I think that's what we'll try tomorrow...too bad we just did the reversal and all the eggs are in the bottom box. Ah well, it'll be good exercise.

Because Kitty's progress we had to change the third brood box. When you start them, you put in ten frames to help with the way the comb is drawn out. Once they fill the brood box, you take one of the frames out so you only have nine in there. When you are expanding, you put the tenth frame in the new brood box. We'll we've expanded all we can in the Olga hive and the supers for honey are too small to hold a brood frame.

So, I brought it in and we had a little of the honey in our tea. It wasn't capped over, so it wasn't true honey, but it tasted awful darn close.

It was yummy! Although, now that we are going to take a frame of brood out of Olga and put it in the Kitty hive, we'll need to put this frame back in Olga. Good thing we didn't scrape off all the honey from her comb.

Refreshed, recharged, and ready to tackle the situation!

Quiet in the Kitty Hive

Non Birding Bill and I are watching Cabal (the beekeeping dog) while everyone is away--If you don't regularly read Mr. Neil's blog, the last week has been hilarious--Maddy, his 12 year old daughter has been guest blogging their adventures on a movie set in Budapest. Check it out, she writes exactly as she talks. She's crackin' me up, this one is my favorite.

Well, on to the saga of the Kitty hive. If you remember from last week, she was showing signs of swarming or a failing queen by building lots of queen cells. If queen cells are on the bottom of one of your frames, that means she's feeling crowded and the old queen will stop laying eggs, and then fly off with half the hive. If the queen cells are on the middle of the frames, that's a sign that the current queen is failing and is about to be superseded. We had mostly queen cells on the bottom frames and a few in the center. We removed as many queen cells as we could find and added a third brood box, hoping that room for expansion would encourage them to stay. We decided to wait a week and see what was happening.

Non Birding Bill and I went out to the Kitty hive and opened the box. It was quiet...too quiet. There was not the usual buzzing. We took out two center frames and they had not drawn out any comb at all. Not a good sign. We opened the second box, still quiet and the bees were totally calm. One of the most important beekeeping tools is the smoker, it helps keep them calm. We really didn't need it. The bees were as calm as the were when we first installed them...there were also noticeably fewer. We had our answer, sometime in the last week, the Kitty hive had swarmed. The old queen left, taking half the workers with her. The other half was left behind to start with a new queen.

Taking out more frames we found queen cups, the start of queen cells, the workers probably started those after I had ripped out all of the queen cells I could find last week.

I also found queen cells that I had missed. Can you find this one? Look at the top of the photo right in the center--there's kind of a vertical peanut shell structure--that's a queen cell. If you recall, this was the hive that kind of doubled up on each frame--the cells were away from the frame, so the bees had brood on the outside and between the cells and the frame--I wonder if that contributed to the feeling of being overcrowded? If you still can't see the queen cell, here is an up close shot:

I started to think back to the last time we were at the hive, last week when we first discovered the queen cells, quite a few bees were covering the side of the hive--they were much further along in swarming than I realized. Ah, hind sight is twenty twenty. Now, what will I do. I tried to find the new queen, but we couldn't. However, depending on when she hatched, she could be out on her three day "maiden voyage". A newly emerged queen is a virgin. When she hatches, the workers show her around the hive and she seeks out any remaining queen cells and kills them--it's kind of a Highlander thing--there can be only one. This takes about three days. Then she flies off for another three days to a "drone congregation area". Seriously, this is what the drones live...and die for. She will go up in the air about a half mile and find a few dozen drones to mate with (each drone she accepts will die in the copulatory act). After three days of sex and killing, she will return to the hive full of sperm and begin laying eggs.

In that time, I have to hope that nothing bad happens like a phoebe or great-crested flycatcher eating her before she comes back from her mating flight. There is some unhatched brood, but there haven't been new eggs for awhile. I'm kind of at a crossroads: do I start a new queen or do I work with the old queen? Which ever way I go, is there enough time for them to build up enough food and workers to survive winter this far north? I also wonder if I just shouldn't have left the queen cells last week.

Searching bee forums, I did what I could, but I should have caught this much sooner. My mistake was not checking the bottom box after adding the second. I thought that if I had let them alone, they would construct faster. Although, I did learn that even if I had caught it early, my methods of stopping a swarm still might not have worked. There are even some valiant efforts I could have tried, but probably wouldn't have, like finding the queen and cutting off her wings, making her flightless. If she couldn't fly, she would fall down on the swarm flight and the other workers would have been forced to stay. I don't think I could have the heart to cut the queen's wings.

As I look at the frames that are completely empty of brood, I feel that I have let this hive down with my inexperience. NBB was very excited--he was looking at this from a more scientific angle. He found the whole swarm process and the change in the hive's behavior fascinating. As I kept feeling like a failure, he kept marveling that our bees were now out in the wild--starting fresh and perhaps this healthy line would help build up the population that is so in trouble in North America. Our main goal was to have bees for pollination and well, the swarm couldn't have gone far so they will continue to pollinate Mr. Neil's yard--we will just not be managing it or getting any of the excess honey. So, for now, I will check Kitty daily for eggs, signs of the new queen. If there are no eggs in a week, I'll order a new queen.

The Olga hive, our former problem child is right on schedule and is ready for honey supers--honey for us to collect for our own purposes. Go Olga! Look at this frame full of honey! We took a small taste--it was awesome.

I walked the woods to see if I cold find signs of the swarm. Swarms don't go too far from the hive. There are quite a few hollow trees nearby, so they could be near. I watched the hives to see where the bees were flying off to. From this photo, they start from each hive respectively, and then fly up and off to the upper left corner of this photo. They clear the tree line and then go on. I tried following the bees, but was stopped by waist high stinging nettle.

I started following the creek. I was feeling very down, NBB had a hard time understanding it. It's understandable that there will be some problems your first year as a beekeeper, but I wanted to get everything right. Our class instructor even advised us to get two hives in case something goes wrong, and from what I've read, swarming happens to the best of beekeepers (although usually the second year, not with a new package). I'm bummed, I feel I've let our beekeeping operation down. But on a deeper level, I think what was really bothering me was a sense of rejection. The Kitty bees didn't care for the hive and took a bunch of their workers and left. A bunch of stinging girls left me and moved on. It's middle school all over again.

And then I heard this (it's about 32 seconds long). Can you identify the bird singing:



It's a song I haven't heard for a long time. I've never heard this species singing in Mr. Neil's woods before (this has been a good year for them, many more reports on the local listservs than usual). We used to get these in the woods where I lived as a kid in Indianapolis. It was the first bird I tried to id based on song--without the help of bird identification CDs--or records as we used at the time. My mom and I spent an entire Saturday morning chasing this bird down trying to see what made such a beautiful song. It took us a long time, but finally we caught a glimpse through the leaves of a robin shaped bird, with black spots on a white belly, and brown back: a wood thrush.

Hearing this song reminded me of how much work it was to id this bird. We'd heard it for several days before we had the chance to really track it down and find it. It took a long time, and a lot of work--that's how it was early on my birding life. And it's a good reminder of how it will be with my beekeeping life. I will make mistakes, and bees will do what they want to do.

Thanks, wood thrush, for the reminder and for making one of the most haunting melodies a person can ever hear in the summer woods.

Dakota County Bird Trip

Saturday, I led a field trip with my buddy Stan Tekiela to Dakota County, through Staring Lake Outdoor Center. It was a small group and loads of fun. I love birding this place because it's just south of the Twin Cities metro area and you can see some great birds: loggerhead shrike, dickcissel, grasshopper sparrow, indigo bunting, even a Swainson's hawk (they're not really supposed to be in Minnesota).

We started the morning by checking one of the Outdoor Center's bluebird boxes. Some of the participants got to hold a young bluebird--what a great way to start a Saturday morning!

I had driven our route on Friday looking for target birds and didn't find all of them but hoped for the best on Saturday. I did find lots of song sparrows (above). It's interesting to note the abundance of corn growing in many of the fields and I wondered how much more there will be in the coming years with the popularity of ethanol. One spot that has traditionally been great for yellow-headed blackbirds was all corn.

I like going with Stan, because he likes to help put the adventure in a trip.

Case in point, the above photo. Note in the background the sign reads "Road Closed"--that's where we parked. Well, this was our unplanned last stop of the day. We had seen all target species except for dickcissel. I had an email with me that someone in the past week had seen dickcissel off of Hwy 52 and 117th Street--just off the exit. That was on our way back to the Outdoor Center, so we decided to stop there, what did we have to lose? As we drove on the exit, I had my window down and I immediately heard, "dick dick cissel cissel" and there on the exit sign was a dickcissel. Stan pulled his vehicle over right on the exit, I went a little further ahead to an area blocked off for construction. We hopped out and everyone got a good look at the dickcissel.

Incidentally, we were across the highway from the Koch Refinery. Even though we were far away, my spotting scope though aimed at the dickcissel, was pointing towards the refinery. Two security vehicles approached us in less than five minutes to insure that we were not taking any photos--I opted to not try and digiscope the dickcissel.

One of the target species (and on that put on the best show was a northern shrike). I had seen one along this stretch of road on Friday and at first I drove past it, but Stan called out on the two way radio, "Shrike." We pulled back and there it was perched on a telephone pole.

Look at that little shrike loaf. The bird was totally dosing off--slacker. It was hunkered down and periodically the eyes would close--certainly wasn't too stressed out by us humans. I even pulled out my Handheld Birds and played the call of the northern shrike versus the loggerhead and it still continued to dose off.

Eventually, the shrike did wake up and went through a series of stretches. Here is your basic wing stretch.

And this? I don't know, perhaps a bird version of downward dog? I'd never seen a shrike stretch quite like this before--kind of a butt up pose. Boy, it doesn't look anything like it does in field guides. After this stretch it flew across the street to some spruce trees and teed up. It looked like it was on the hunt. I wonder if the shrike was thinking, "Alright, you got your pictures, you got to see me, I'm off the clock, so buzz off."

Another highlight of the day was watching some young kestrels that had recently left the nest learning to fly and hunt. The young birds would fly and perch right over us...that is until the adults showed up and started screeching a warning.

All and all a fun time. Up next is a bee entry. Brace yourself, we find out what happened to Kitty.

For Teageeare

Who tells me that I don't put enough Kabuki in the blog:
Here is my cranky little cockatiel, eyeing my inbox, hoping I will not notice if he pulls out and chews some paper. He and Cinnamon are about to go an a small adventure. We're going to dog sit for the next few days and we're bringing the pets with us.

I can't believe blogging escaped from me for a couple of days--it turned much busier here than I had anticipated. Next weekend should be about the same. I took Cinnamon with me to Carpenter Nature Center on Friday. I got an email a few weeks ago from some blog readers who said they might join us for banding. They asked if Cinnamon would be there and originally I had said no, but Thursday night and Friday morning, she was doing all those things that say, "Hey, mom, I need some stimulation." ie - digging in her litter box and sneaking into the kitchen. So, on went her leash and she went with me to Carpenter and found a whole slew of new things to disapprove of.

Even though we can still get her to put on the leash and harness without too much of a fuss doesn't mean she tries to chew and whip it off when she thinks I'm not looking.

We're getting in quite a few of the summer residence. Above is a male robin we have had in the nets twice this summer. You can tell he is male by the dark head and the darker rusty breast. Boy, he really looks unhappy in this photo.

We also got in this hairy woodpecker. Notice anything strange about him? Check out his red patch--it's on the front of his head and not the back--a way you can tell if the bird just hatched this year when it is at your feeder.

Cinnamon was not as impressed with all the banding going on and was way more interested in exploring all the prairie grasses. Just by hopping in a few feet, she would completely disappear.

Apart from the leash, the only other way you could tell she was in there was by watching a tall piece of grass waver for a moment and then fall over as she had chewed its stalk. She was almost on sensory overload with the abundance of chewables at her feet.

To a blade of grass, she's kind of a scary looking monster. Afterwards, she kept me company as i scouted for a field trip that I was leading on Saturday. Which I will blog about later tonight. Right now, I have to go out and check on the bee situation...have I prevented a swarm...will the Olga hive be ready for a queen excluder...what wonderful bee adventures will I encounter this week?