The Cleansing Nuthatch

I don't know why, but for some reason I'm have an overwhelming desire to seek out every republican in North America and have my picture taken with them...and I'm not even a republican, I'm not a democrat either but that's neither here nor there. Actually, I do know why, when someone I don't know starts to tell me what I should and shouldn't do and when I should be ashamed of myself, it immediately triggers a rebellion inside and I want to do the exact opposite.

So, I think it's time to embrace the red-breasted nuthatch:

Look at the nuthatch, breathe in the nuthatch. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. I had a gorgeous morning over at Carpenter Nature Center. The temperatures were cool, the sun was shining, and there was not the overwhelming sounds of the state fair. Ahhhhhhh.

It wasn't as busy as last week, but there were still lots of migrants moving through. Everywhere we went you could see flocks of birds flitting around. We got some warblers in the nets like the Nashville warbler above and a Tennessee warblers. I think we banded five red-eyed vireos and I got a video of one being released. With some birds, when you let them go, you can lay them flat on their backs and they sit for a moment before taking off. That's what happens to the vireo when I let it go in the video below:



And since you can't really see the brown eye so well in the video, here is a photo:

Red-eyed vireos don't get their red eyes until they are an adult. So the brown eyes on this bird tell us that it was hatched this summer. Here's an adult red-eyed vireo that we've banded in the past, you can really see the red eyes on that bird. FYI - for an insectivore, this bird really can bite.

Here is a typical male American goldfinch. This is a bird we banded awhile ago, but I want you to get a good look at what the face should look like. Now, take a gander at this male goldfinch:

Yikes! What happened to this guy? I'm not really sure. I banded this one and I couldn't see any mites running around on its head so I don't think that was it. I wondered if maybe it was an odd molting pattern. I asked Jen who works at Carpenter and she wondered if it had gotten its feathers worn off from a bird feeder or something else?

It was missing feathers on both sides of his bill, so it does seem to be a uniform pattern. The bird was molting elsewhere on his body, so it is possible that this is just a weird molt pattern. I'll be curious to see if we get this bird in the nets again.

And now, let's close with the cleansing nuthatch. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, see the nuthatch, breathe out, be the nuthatch, breathe in, love the nuthatch, breathe out, hang upside down on a tree trunk like a nuthatch...

Shameless Self Promotion

Substitute whatever the book is in the first five seconds with Disapproving Rabbits.

Mission Migration

Audubon has a great online game--fun for kids of all ages. Click here to play Mission Migration.

Who Knew He Liked Birds?

This has been a weird day. I'm kind of looking back at it and asking myself, "Did that really happen or did I have too many martinis?"

My goodness, I am beat. The MN State Fair has worn me out. I love, LOVE working the MOU booth and answering bird questions. It's a good chance to talk to people who may not consider themselves birders but have an interest. It's a chance to reach people you may not normally talk to you in your day to day life. One chance to help kindle a tiny spark of interest in birds. Or just shoot the breeze with fellow bird lovers.

However, the sounds (and smell) of the State Fair are catching up to me. Tomorrow is supposed to be the Bald Eagle Recovery Day Event at the fair and I would love to go, but I just don't think that I have it in me. I think I need the peace and quiet of banding birds at Carpenter Nature Center...although last week wasn't too quiet, but at least there's no constant din of fair rides, bands, and kids having an afternoon meltdown.

When I finished the MOU booth, I headed over to the fm107 booth to say hi to Ian and Margery--I do bird segments on their show a few times a month (although I rarely talk birds). I had to thank Ian for giving me some really great advice this time last year and plus I just truly enjoy their company. I have to say, I met some unexpected people. One was CJ, the Star Tribune's Gossip Maven. When I realized who she was, I said, "Oh, I actually read your column." She thanked me for admitting it out loud and in public.

Then, I met a most unexpected bird lover. He loves cardinals and bald eagles. He loves visiting the National Eagle Center and has even had the chance to release rehabbed eagles back to the wild. He would love to watch birds watch more, especially up near his cabin but his job in Washington keeps him too busy. When he lived in St. Paul, he loved listening to Jim Gilbert's Nature Notes on WCCO. His resolution was to watch more birds and enjoy nature. Who could this nature lover be?

Republican Senator Norm Coleman. Who knew he likes a little hot all-bird action?

Showcase MN and Juvenile Hawk Story

That's Rob Hudson of Showcase Minnesota doing a bird segment with me at the State Fair today. I brought Juneau, a female peregrine falcon from The Raptor Center. We talked about the Bald Eagle Recovery Day Celebration that's going on Friday at 10:30am at the DNR Building at the fair. Okay, I know what you're thinking, "Geez, Sharon, why didn't you bring an eagle with you instead of mere peregrine if you're talking about eagles?" Number 1, it's easier to work with a smaller bird in the cramped spaces at the fair and number 2, I don't handle anything that has a wingspan that's longer than me. Besides, the peregrine falcon was just delisted a few years ago like the bald eagle was this year. It's all good.

We then talked general birds and I took some audience questions. It's so much more fun doing the show in front of a live audience than in the quiet of the studios. The fair crowd has such a happy energy, you can say cheesy bird jokes and everyone laughs. The best part is that when you are doing a bird program for the fair, you get picked up by the fair transport system from The Raptor Center and then they drive you to whatever booth you are going to be in. Thousands of people are milling about and you get to ride in a van right through the ocean of people. You get curb side drop off and pick up, just like a rock star. I don't kid myself, it's not for me, it's just that I'm lucky enough to be in the bird's entourage.

And I came across a fun story about a hawk that flew into a screened in porch to get a cat. Don't worry, all involved survived. There's a photo of the bird and it looks like a young red-tailed hawk to me. Those wacky juveniles, they'll try to hunt anything.

Working The Minnesota State Fair

Man, this week has just turned nutty. I thought I had more time than I really did but between Non Birding Bill and myself, we have an action-packed schedule.

I forgot to mention that NBB is doing some children's theater at local Twin Cities parks. Cinnamon and I went out last Saturday night to watch the show. Kids in the audience loved it. Cinnamon on the other hand...If you're looking for some free entertainment for your kids, here's the remaining performance dates.

We did do the State Fair with just the two of us. I tried one of the new MN State Fair foods. Can you tell what I'm eating? Here's a clue:

That's right, SPAM. And not just SPAM bites. I was trying the deep fried SPAM curds. If you love SPAM, you'll love the curds. If you're not a huge fan, well it's just weird. It's cheese flavored SPAM, battered, deep fried and served with ranch dressing. I'll stick with elephant ears. I don't know if you can see it on the SPAM menu, but there's a big note that all of the menu items do not have trans fats. Yeah, because when you think diet and healthy, you think fair food.

We got lots of disapproving rabbit photos in the bunny barn, but we'll save those for the daily dose of disapproval. But above is a sampling.

And of course, no State Fair experience is complete for me without a visit to the crop art room. The big winner this year? A portrait of Dolly Parton!

And it was nice to see someone using their art to communicate an important conservation issue: Cats Indoors!

Al Franken was a popular subject for the crop art since he's now running for the US Senate. My personal favorite was the top portrait with the reason he's running being Franken's Staurt Smalley mantra, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!"

Today, I did my first of three shifts at for the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union. I had so much fun, I ended up staying for part of the shift after mine. We're seeing lots of birds flying over the state fair. I watched a big old honkin' Cooper's hawk flying just above the trees and landing near the midway. We've also seen merlins, red-tailed hawks, common yellowthroats, and chickadees. It's fun to catch up with old friends--and I have some cool friends.

My friend, Kelly Larson showed up with a huge pile of sulphur shelf. Kelly's been a longtime mushroom hunter and we used to work at the Wild Bird Store together. One of my favorite memories was when she sent me some oyster mushrooms that she had found through the inter-office mail system.

This is a little different than the sulphur shelf we found in Mr. Neil's yard. That one was bright yellow and was growing on the trunk of an oak tree. The stuff Kelly brought is a subspecies that grows on the ground near an oak tree, you'll note it isn't as bright yellow on the bottom as the other stuff. Kelly rocks and as I'm typing this entry, I'm cooking the sulphur shelf in some chicken stock right now It always pays to keep some chicken stock on hand.

wAZ!@@@@@@@@@@@@@@^YHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHT!

That little bit up there was Cinnamon hopping on my keyboard to let me know that she would like some attention. I can't believe she actually ended it win an explanation point--seriously, that was her, not me. Anyway, I have to wrap this up.

Blogger Video--Gr

So, Sunday I noticed a new feature on my blog dashboard. I can upload video directly to blogger instead of google video. So, I took a little video of Cinnamon to check it out. I can't upload it and have heard nothing from blogger for three days so I just went to google video myself to load it up. Now, I'm off to one of my MANY state fair shift. I took some bunny photos on Saturday when Non Birding Bill and I went as a date, but Cinnamon insists that I put them in her blog, not mine...



Here's my MN State Fair schedule this week. MOU stands for the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union. If you're at the fair, stop by and ask us about birds.

Tuesday, August 28

9am - 12pm - The Raptor Center
12pm - 3pm - MOU Booth at DNR Building


Wednesday, August 29
9:15am - 11am - KARE 11 Booth (tv segment)


Thursday, August 30
9am - 12pm - MOU Booth at DNR Building


Saturday, September 1
9am - 12pm - MOU Booth at DNR Building

So Jealous--Cute Pandas!

I think I have a pretty cool life. I always thought I was pretty lucky to do the things I get to do like work with great gray owls, having baby pelicans in my lap, playing with my bees, smelling hawks, but I think Mr. Neil has me beat this week.

So Jealous!

Start Saving Your Pennies and check the Frequent Flyer Miles

Hey, want to go San Francisco with me and (brace yourself) Non Birding Bill?

That's right, we are leading a trip to San Francisco for some birding and sightseeing--imagine it pygmy nuthatches, acorn woodpeckers, Heerman's gulls, the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill by day and China Town by night! We're even going to go to a restaurant that features "gender illusioninsts." Oooo. Ahhh.

We've had great times in San Francisco and we want to take you with us, and the beauty is that if you bring your non birding significant other, that's okay--it's not all birds and if you want to do something else while we enjoy the birds of San Francisco--you can! The trip is January 31 - February 4, 2008--a perfect balmy getaway for winter.

Details can be found here or you can call Sunshine Travel Company 1-800-926-7185.

New Form Of Disapproving Rabbits

"Ah! My book is coming out in October?! And I can personally disapprove of each one before we ship them out?"

We've changed the format a bit of Disapproving Rabbits. Don't worry, the original pages are still available, but we've decided to continue it in blog form. New, daily disapproval...can you handle it?

Busy Day Of Banding

This is a photo that Larry Sirvio took of Tennessee warbler at Carpenter Nature Center--one of the 47 some odd birds that we banded this morning. Oy.

It was just nuts at banding today--I barely had any time to get photos. I arrived a little late and noticed some of the parking lot was getting ready to be repaved. I thought to myself, "With all this construction activity, I bet it will be slow." As I walked towards the building, I noticed one of the nets hadn't been put up yet. I thought it strange, but figured with the construction, maybe they weren't putting all the nets up.

Larry passed me and said, "They just radioed, there are eight birds in the orchard nets. There's one over there too." I said I would put my stuff down and start helping. Inside, the other volunteers were furiously looking up small flycatcher identifications, and there were already about six bags with birds hanging waiting their turn to be processed (from a quick glance the bags had warblers, vireos, a red-breasted nuthatch, and some sort of small flycatchers). Yikes!

From there it was just a blur. At one point I was at a net with one of the Carpenter naturalists. There were four birds in the net. While we were trying to get them out, four more flew in, and then another two. We decided that it was so backed up in processing that we would close up the nets until we were caught up. By the time we got to the last net, eight birds had flown in. We were running out of bags, but fortunately, they were all mostly goldfinches and we could put more than one in a bag.

This is one of the juvenile chipping sparrows we got in--they don't quite look like the adults, about the only thing that really gives them away is the eye stripe and the chipping noise that the make as you untangle them from the nets. We did get in a rather exciting adult--it had a band and turns out that it was banded for the first time on June 17, 2005 and at the time of banding it was already an after hatch year bird, which means that by now it is well over three years old!

This young catbird looks like it is off to a rough start. First, notice all the pin feathers--it's just growing in its cap. But towards the back of the head, its missing some feather and skin--something poked it, hard. Was it a nest mate? Was it a blue jay trying to attach the young in the nest? Who can say. It reminded me of the red-headed woodpecker we got in last year.

And it's interesting to note how different birds feel in the hand. Above is a male Wilson's warbler that I got out of the net. He felt so tiny, like I would break him. The easiest way to get birds out is to grab the feet and untangle those. Most of the time, if you can get the feet out, you can get the rest of the bird fairly easily. Most of the time.


Volunteer Dennis Donath go this photo of a female Wilson's warbler (note the lack of black cap). Today was good practice for untangling birds from the net, I just kept doing the over and over. The goal is to get birds out quickly. Usually, when a bird is REALLY tangled, I defer to the more experienced banders to get the bird out. However, everyone was so busy today, that a coupe of times I found that I was the only option and just had to muddle through. Sometimes, when I'm trying to get out a really tangled bird, I panic. My hands start to shake uncontrollably and are completely useless. When that happens, I just have to let go, take a step back, take a few deep breaths, understand that my panic is not going to help the situation and then go back to the task at hand.

Above, Jim Fox is handing a Wilson's warbler to a young girl whose family came to visit today. Sometimes, you can place a warbler on its back and it will lay there for a moment before flying away. That gives the kid holding it a chance to marvel at the magic of the the little thing in their hands. I got a five second video. Note the little girl's face.




Tell me that she's not now hooked on birds.

I'm still kind of learning the ropes at banding. I'm now to the point where I can actually band a few birds. I insisted that the first practice birds be ones like cowbirds--let me mess up on a cowbird, not a warbler. But I'm to the point that today, when I got an ovenbird out of the net, I got to band it myself--WHOOT!

First, let me say that after handling other warblers from the nets, the ovenbird is much chunkier. That is one beefy warbler--very chunky. You don't really get a chance to notice that when their flitting about in the wild. I'm happy to report that I banded it, aged it (after hatch year--at least a year old) and sexed it (unknown). We got some photos and let it continue on its southward journey.

Today was the first day of sun after six days of non stop clouds and rain. I finally noticed that migration in Minnesota is sincerely underway. If you have a chance, get out and enjoy it while you can.

Lawrence's Warbler?

As if fall warblers weren't already tricky to identify! Here comes a whopper.

All the photos in this blog entry were taken by bird bander Mary Messerli. She and Robert Fashingbauer were banding birds near Willow River State Park in Wisconsin on August 15, 2007 when they banded these two unusual warblers. Take a look at this:

At first glance this looks like a golden-winged warbler, however it has way too much yellow. If some of you are jumping to a hybrid conclusion, you are right. Sometimes golden-winged warblers will hybridize with blue-winged warblers.

When a golden-winged warbler mates with a blue-winged warbler, you usually get a hybrid called a Brewster's warbler. This bird doesn't look anything like a Brewster's. It has the masking of a golden-winged, but the yellow wash of the blue-winged warblers. This bird is a backcross--one of it's parents was a Brewster's and the other was either a true golden-winged warbler or true blue-winged warbler. When this happens you get another type of hybrid called a Lawrence's warbler. Confused yet? Were you able to follow that? Well, hold onto your hat, it gets even trickier:

That same day, those banders caught this bird--another hybrid. Oy! The banders said that this bird had characteristics of being a hatch year bird (it came out of the egg this year) the bird above had characteristics of being an after hatch year bird (at least a year old). But really, it's hard enough to identify hybrids and even harder to age and sex them. I think this is another Lawrence's warbler backcross (a Brewster's hybrid that bred with either a true golden-winged or blue-winged warbler). The banders felt that this bird is of unknown sex, but with the pale mask, I think it is reminiscent of a female golden-winged warbler, so I'd be willing to go out on a limb and call this female.

I nipped over to BNA Online to see what they had to say about hybrids and found this:

"Molecular analyses of hybridization indicate that Blue-wing mtDNA introgresses asymmetrically and perhaps rapidly into Golden-wing phenotypes without comparable reverse introgression and footprinting of Golden-wing mtDNA into replacement Blue-wing populations."

Holy crap, I though Pyle was hard enough to read. Basically, (I think) this is saying is that all this hybridizing and backcrossing can result in fewer golden-winged warblers and more blue-winged warblers. The hybrids and the backcrosses end up in future generations breeding into blue-winged warblers.

Giant Puffball

Look what I found walking along the trail in Mr. Neil's woods...

Oh no, not another edible wild mushroom post! I just realized that as of this post that I have now eaten each of the "foolproof four"--edible wild mushrooms that cannot be mistaken for anything else in North America. Not only that, I have had all four from Mr. Neil's yard, though I've had them from other places, this is the only yard I know of that has had all four at some point and time. I have eaten morels, sulphur shelf, hen of the woods, and now giant puffball--a first. This friendship is finally paying off.

One note: I have read about edible wild mushrooms and I have friends who are knowledgeable in the field of mycology who I can talk to about my finds. Do not try for wild mushrooms based solely on me. Read up on them, talk to your local wild mushroom club and when you personally feel comfortable, go out and find them. A great starter book is Start Mushrooming (by my buddy Stan Tekiela and Karen Shanberg). That book actually talks about the "safe six" but I'm not comfortable in my identification ability with shaggy mane and oyster mushrooms, so I currently stick with the "foolproof four". Plus, I have some hesitation eating anything "shaggy".

Okay, so in the grand scheme of giant puffballs, this isn't the biggest that has ever been found, but I found it the morning Mr. Neil was leaving for a few weeks and he and I have both wanted to try puffball. We always manage to find them well past their edibility date. I decided to grab it and take it back to the house to freeze it so he could eat it when he gets back or maybe even get a bite before he hit the road for the airport. I checked Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America and found that you can either partially cook giant puffball and freeze it or just freeze it raw. I had enough, I thought I would thaw both cooked and raw slices.

I sliced it up and happily only found one millipede on the inside--there could have been much more. It had an overwhelming mushroomy smell. I can think of no other way to describe it, except that smelled like a bouquet of mushrooms.

The texture was very spongy--kind of like a firm marshmallow.

The book warned to be careful cooking the puffball slices, as they can dry out and burn quickly. After I sauteed them a bit, I cut off a piece for Mr. Neil and a piece for myself. It was an interesting taste. It's not a strong flavor at all--sulphur shelf and hen of the woods both have more personality in their flavor. The texture was surprising soft and wet, almost soggy--not nearly as firm as other wild fungus I've eaten. I think this will go well in an egg dish, maybe a summer pasta dish, or even a ratatouille. Unlike sulphur shelf, I would not eat this sauteed alone. It needs some other flavors to enhance it. However, I can see that if I were someone surviving off the land that puffball would be a hearty meal to be happily discovered.

So, after cooking and sampling, I wrapped each slice in wax paper to separate them and put the slices in freezer bags. I did the same with the raw slices (and took a few slices home for Non Birding Bill and myself--although, he's not nearly as excited as I am over my new found bounty).

Other Bugs At The Beehive

I've gotten a couple notes that some readers are grossed out by bees and by other bugs. FYI, this post is certainly not for you. We have other bugs in this post, and one photo is slightly gross.

This post is the combination of two days of beeing. Mr. Neil is leaving for a while and I wanted to make sure he got a bee experience before he left. Unsure of what his packing schedule would be, I came out the night before he was to leave so I could be up early and ready to beekeep at a moment's notice. When I arrived, I met up with a woman who is assessing the surrounding woods and will help come up with a plan to get rid of some non native plants and managing the woods for native plants, bees, and wildlife. She mentioned that the bees were very active and loud, crowding at the entrances of their hives.

I zipped up my bee suit and stoked the smoker to go see what was happening. Olga bees were all over and swarming out of the hive. When I was about 50 feet away, you could hear the buzzing--usually you can't. From that angle, when you first approach the hives you can see the bee super highway as they head up over the tops of the trees on their way to look for nectar and pollen. There was a pretty steady stream of bees coming and going. I don' think it was swarming, I think it was four days of constant rain--they wanted out and wanted to gather winter stores. I didn't open the hives, but just took some time to sit at the entrance of each hive and watch the bees coming and going.

The Kitty bees were coming back loaded with pollen of various colors. Note that almost every bee in the above photo is loaded with pollen--I love the neon yellow stuff. Goldenrod is blooming all over, so my guess is they are using that.

Now, look at this one. In the middle is a bee with the neon yellow pollen. But, look in the bottom right hand corner. That bee has pollen that is snow white--where are they getting white pollen? Wish I knew my plants better.

This bee is so loaded with pollen, she's practically dragging it in.

When I came to the Kitty hive, there were some grasshoppers (sometimes called by locusts) hanging out. There are always some on one of the hives and I always wonder what the appeal is. Do they like the buzzing? These appear to be two different species. I've been trying to id them with the Kaufman's Field Guide to Insects of North America. I think it might be a two-striped mermiria but am willing to listen to anyone who knows otherwise.

I think the larger one is a differential grasshopper, but whatever it is, I love the yellow antennae.

When I went over to the Olga hive...I didn't find any life grasshoppers. Apparently, Olga has a lower tolerance for these guys hanging around their hive. This is a dead Carolina grasshopper. When they jump/fly they resemble a mourning cloak butterfly with dark wings and a light stripe. I found this species in my Songs of Insects book (I love this book. Not only does it a beautiful picture book, but i comes with a CD that identifies the buzzy insect songs of late summer early fall--I'm paying way more attention to the number of species I'm hearing now. Sometimes I just let it loop on my iPod while I'm writing, it's great background noise).

One of the really cool things of just hanging outside of the hive was that I noticed some things I had never seen before. The dead grasshopper got my attention, and then I noticed a worker from the Olga hive dragging out another dead worker bee. She was trying to fly it away far from the hive--this is part of they hygienic behavior my bees are bred for. Here's a video of it:



This helps keep the hive clean and healthy. I wondered if the workers had been putting some of this off because of the rain or if I'd never just had a chance to sit and watch them come and go from the inside of the hive. of just I noticed something interesting. I scanned the ground just outside the entrance and found a few lethargic drones and workers. Then I found this:

This is a solitary wasp called a beewolf (some books lump it as one word, some make it two separate words) and it's attacking one of my workers. I wondered if this is a lethargic, dying worker and not one of the stronger ones. They paralyze other stinging insects and take them back as prey for their larvae. You can read more about them here.

The next day Mr. Neil and I went out to check what was going on inside the hives. It was very much the same as last week. Again, I think it's because the workers haven't had a real chance to forage and draw out more comb and produce honey. I'm not too worried about Olga, but I'm going to need to give food to Kitty if she's going to have enough food to supply the colony for the winter.

We tried putting the queen excluder in last week and I think I'm done with them. The queen excluder is supposed to prevent the larger queen from going up into your honey supers to lay eggs. However, it's very obvious that workers are having a tough time passing through the bars too. This poor girl was so wedged, I had to push her out. The beekeeping community seems to be divided on the queen excluder, but myself, I'm done with them. My other option is to do what's called a reversal--which we did do and is kind of a mess, but it's better than watching a bunch of workers stuck in a metal frame.

When we opened the Olga hive, about nine moths flew out from just under the roof. One landed on my hood. One concern you have with beekeeping are wax moths (you know the wax worms you get for fishing or sometimes to feed birds--the larvae can wreak havoc on a beehive). The larvae will eat the beeswax and make cocoons in the frames, generally making a dusty, webby mess. This moth doesn't look like a wax moth to me, I think this was more some other type of moth and they were trying to keep out of the rain. Either way, Olga is a nice strong colony and a strong, healthy colony can keep wax moths out.

Coconut: Mr. Neil's Cat

"I said, quit futzing around with your blog and pet me NOW!"

Storms Finally Passing...I Think

It's been non stop rain and drizzle since Saturday. We've been in a drought for awhile and all the rain that hit southern Minnesota this past weekend really blind sided some of the towns near the Mississippi River. Going from no rain to all of a sudden 18 inches over night was just too much for the ground to take. We are fortunate that we don't live anywhere near the flooding that has been reported, but I can't help but feel bad for the families who lost their homes or the man who so bravely got his wife and her friend up in a tree safely and then lost his fight with the rising waters and was swept away.

There was finally a pause in the rain today. Every time it looked like the sky would clear, another storm would pop up out of nothing. Tonight, as another thunderstorm formed overhead, the clouds cast a yellowish glow and it looked like the world was lit with an incandescent bulb (above photo).

When I passed the bees today, the Olga bees were lined up outside the hive, almost looked like a swarm. (It wasn't, but if it was, I'm not messing with it, I learned my lesson from the Kitty hive). But if you watched the bee traffic, it was a very steady stream of bees leaving and bees returning. They haven't really been able to forage with all the rain, so I imagine that they felt the urge to go out and gather massive amounts of pollen and just get out of the dark box crowded with millions of bees (I just want to bee alone, alright!). The bee equivalent of cabin fever.

I love living in the northern states. Last week, when I was driving away from the hives at dusk, all the surrounding farm fields had low clouds of mist forming, they looked like hoards of ghosts meandering through the fields. You can drive down the roads with the windows open, listening to the deafening katydids, crickets, and who knows what other types of buzzy singing insects and take in the fragrant air that is very cool and heavy with moisture. You can smell wet grass, decaying leaves, and that pungent black walnut aroma. Love it.

Tonight, I tried to find the mists before another thunderstorm broke out. I was thinking about how the summer songs have changed from warblers, vireos, grosbeaks to insects buzzing. Then I heard a buzzy peent overhead. A small flock of 40 nighthawks (above photo) were kiting insects in front of the coming storm, soon on their way south.

In a few months, the woods and the fields will be silent save for the occasional crow and chickadee. I can't think about that now, I'll go crazy if I do. I'll think about that tomorrow.

FYI - really cool warbler post and bee blogging is on the horizon.

Screech Owl Looking Rough

Okay, not only is it the season for bald birds, but it's all the season for squirrel cannibalism. I'm suddenly getting a lot of comments on this old post, if anyone is interested in reading about squirrels eating squirrels and birds.

Boy, I would type a caption for what this bird would be saying about getting its picture taken, but I just don't use that kind of language (well, not in the blog anyway). Looks like somebody had one too many jello shooters.

This is the education gray phase eastern screech owl from the Raptor Center. If you saw the bald bird post from earlier this summer, you may have seen a link to Susan Gets Native's photo of her education red phase eastern screech owl also molting out all its head feathers at once. Perhaps we should get together with our ed birds. At least we will have a matched set.

And don't worry folks, like the bald cardinal or blue jay you may be seeing out your window, these owls will grow back all their facial feathers before winter. You know, I just thought of something. The feathers along the owls facial disc are supposed to direct sound to their ears. I wonder if a rough molt like this affects their hunting ability? That's kind of a moot point for the education screeches, they're fed dead and gutted mice. But if this happened to them in the wild, I wonder if they have relearn how they hunt?

Help Promote Disapproving Rabbits

The sad thing is that when I took this photo, I was sining. I don't think she cares for my singing.


Hey blog readers, could I impose on you for a moment?

Because I'm new and unheard of, I'm going to be responsible for promoting Disapproving Rabbits. Could ask y'all a favor? I just noticed on the Ellen Degeneres site that they are looking for weird websites they haven't heard of. If you have a spare few minutes and could put in a note about Disapproving Rabbits (www.disapprovingrabbits.com), that would be awesome. Wouldn't it be fun to see Cinnamon on national tv?

Thanks!

New Bird Seed-- Golden Safflower

There's a new bird seed coming onto the bird feeding market called golden safflower. Note the color in the photo above that give the seed it's name, safflower is normally pure white. This new version claims to be higher in oil content, higher in protein and higher in fat, making it more desirable to feeder birds. It's also supposed to be non germinating and I'm not sure if that's because it's out hull-less or if it's been roasted.

The big advantage to safflower in the past has been that cardinals, chickadees, nuthatches (above), mourning doves, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and house finches really enjoy the seed but grackles and house sparrows do not care for the taste and usually leave it alone. That's not to say that house sparrows won't eat when desperate. Starlings are physically unable to eat it, since they do not have bills that are strong enough to open seeds in a hard shell.

But what about golden safflower--will it now be tastier to house sparrows and grackles? We'll have to wait and see. I first noticed the safflower at Carpenter Nature Center, on of their 20 some odd bird feeders was filled with it and a flock of chickadees preferred it over any other. And went on a search for it. I've found two bird stores in the Twin Cities that carry it (I didn't call all of them) and I'm sure other birds stores will follow suit soon (at the least the good ones will).

I've been testing it out at Mr. Neil's feeding stations and the birds took to it right away--especially the nuthatches and the chickadees. the birds still prefer nuts and sunflower but there is certainly more activity at the golden safflower than at the regular safflower. I tried it at home and the house sparrows just don't know what to do about it. The cardinals and flying squirrels are happy to eat it though. If you're having a house sparrow, grackle, or cardinal problem call your local wild bird specialty store and see if they have it in, if they don't recommend that they consider carrying it.

Remember that if you are going to try a new seed that sometimes the birds don't take to it right away. It's like going to Wendy's for a #1 hamburger special. One day you get there and Wendy's is now a Taco Bell and the #1 special is now three tacos. It's not that you don't like tacos, but when you go there, you were expecting a hamburger. In time, you get over it and start having the taco special.

My Dinner With Disapproval

Click It. Click It Good.

You know how sometimes you just don't want to go outside and fill the bird feeder? Maybe the snow is deep, it's pouring down rain, or you have fifty other things to do and just can't get to it? Well, ClickOn Bird Feeders has the answer for you, my friend:

"Many homeowners with bird feeders - including seniors and the infirm - often stop re-filling their feeders altogether during the cold winter months, and their busy schedules often preclude them from regularly re-filling their feeders during the rest of the year," according to Nathan Arthurs, the founder of ClickON Bird Feeders.

"Winter is the funnest time of year to feed the birds, because their natural resources are depleted, yet, if you look around your neighborhood in January, you'll see that almost all of the feeders are empty," Arthurs said.

Birdchick Note: I would argue that spring and fall is the fun time to feed birds, especially spring because they are in the breeding plumage and let's not forget summer, when you get to watch the adults teach the young how to feed. And another thing, studies show that birds only use a feeding station (at most) as 20% of their overall diet. To say that natural resources for birds is depleted in winter is a bit of a stretch. But I digress. Watch the magical feeder in action below:



That's right folks, for only $495 you too can have the magic of ClickOn in your backyard! And if you still aren't swayed, check out the "easy to install" system.

Thoughts?

For me personally, I'd rather have it the opposite. Suck all the seed out of there when the squirrel gets on there. Deal with that, furball.

I Think The Bees Are On To Us

Just a short update on the old bees. Yesterday, Mr. Neil, Lorraine and I checked on the beehives.

The Olga hive is really expanding with comb honey and I'm very hopeful for what she will do for us next summer. She's got three deep brood boxes (the large ones on the bottom) full of brood and honey for winter, and the top three smaller boxes are the honey supers for us. Two are the Ross Rounds and one is the cut comb honey kit which had some melting issues earlier in the summer and is now full of burr comb. Ah well, in the end it's all edible.

One of the Ross Rounds super is almost completely ready to harvest, almost all the frames are capped. We should be able to take it out next week. Up until this point, we've been putting an extra empty frame in our third brood box. We've just been harvesting it there from time to time. The frame is empty, but the bees are perfectly capable of drawing out comb without foundation.

However, I think the Olga bees are on to us. When I opened the box, I could see comb from the frame attached to the wall. I tried to pull the frame out, but it felt stuck. We took out the frame next to it out for a closer look inside.

Sure enough, the girls had drawn out their own foundation from the wall to the frame, making it impossible for us to harvest. It was as if they were saying, "Ha ha, take that, thieving humans." So, no honey harvest this time, but next week (insert maniacal giggle) we shall plunder the honey supers and no amount of propolis will stop us.

On our way to check the Kitty hive's progress we found a grasshopper waiting for us on the outside. You would think that they could sense all the activity in the hive and would want to stay away. You can hear much more activity before you open the box--the most I've heard in weeks. The brood has definitely hatched.

The girls still have not quite drawn out all the frames in the third brood box, but they are over halfway there and with more workers hatching every day, I feel that they will be ready by the end of August. Above is some of the freshly drawn out comb, see the little glob of bright yellow? Some worker has just deposited some pollen stores.

We found more freshly laid eggs, which means Queen Kitty II was here sometime in the last three days. As we were checking this hive, I suddenly realized that next month I will need to begin preparations to overwinter the bees. They will have to be sealed up in October and I won't be able to check on them every seven to ten days. What on earth am I going to do with myself between October and April?

Needs Me Some Quotes

Hey blog readers, I just got asked to do a very last minute article on trends for water features in the backyard for Birding Business. If you use water to attract birds to your yard can you tell me:

What did you put in? (i.e. just a bath, fountain/pump, a whole pond, heated bath)

How long ago did you put it in?

What was the biggest change you noticed after you put it in?

You can leave your answers in the comments section (although, I will need a first and last name for the quote) or you can email me through sharon at birdchick dot com.

Thanks, peeps!

The Benefits Of A Dead Tree

"Did someone say there's a dead tree? Yum! Count me in!"

We've had some powerful storms in our neck of the woods for the last month. Non Birding Bill and I have been fortunate in not having any storm damage (heck of a light show, though), but Mr. Neil has lost some trees, one being a very large oak near the bird feeding stations--NOT the oak that supplied us with a tasty harvest of Sulphur Shelf--it's still standing tall (although the fungus has dried out).

This oak has been kind of the staging area for all the feeder birds. Up until a large bolt of lightening struck the giant tree a couple of weeks ago, all the birds would hang in there and make sure the coast was clear before coming down to the feeders. Woodpeckers would check for bugs, nuthatches would cache suet and nuts, mourning doves would flirt, and immature birds would beg from parents high in the branches as the adults fed, trying to show the young how to use the feeders. I always thought to myself that if something happened to that tree, it might affect the bird activity. Initially, it was thought that the tree had just lost a large branch, but an arborist came and pointed to where and how hard the tree was struck and needed to be cut down since it was so close to the house. When the yard crew cut the tree, you could see the charred core for the powerful bolt of lightening.

After the tree was cut down, I asked Mr. Neil what he was going to do with it. The tree fell into the woods (away from the house) and he was considering the idea of leaving it there to rot. I strongly favored the idea, though we lost a tree for the birds to hang out in before they go to the feeders, it would become a great brushy area and an awesome food source. Even though the tree has only been down a few weeks, the birds are already digging it.

Here is a black-capped chickadee going for tiny insects working around the dead leaves. This birds kept bouncing from clump to clump of dead leaves. As I was watching this chickadee, I could hear soft pecking from several different sources around me. As the oak had come down, a few other trees came down with it, so there are several dead trees surrounding the oak--an Old Country Buffet of all natural food for the birds (hm...can you have "all natural" and "Old Country Buffet" in the same sentence?).

One of the birds pecking was this tufted titmouse. The bird was really hammering away at this jagged edge of a broken branch. First it started at the top, and then the side. Anytime another titmouse flew it, this bird would chase it off. Something must have been good in there...

Eventually, the bird really started pecking away at the bottom and really excavating. The behavior was so fascinating, I thought I would digivideo what it was doing. Be alert, this clip is only six seconds long:



As soon as I had pressed record on my little digital camera, the titmouse got its reward--did you see the size of that grub?? I couldn't believe my luck of getting a quick video of the bird getting the food. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I can't wait to see what happens over the winter.

Another benefit to the missing large oak is that now the late afternoon sun casts a gorgeous glow on the feeding station--perfect for digiscoping. I found this female ruby-throated hummingbird preening in one of the small trees next to the nectar feeder. Earlier, when I had been filling all the empty seed feeders, she buzzed by head twice (I wasn't wearing red, so it wasn't like she thought I was food). The third time she buzzed, I turned around and followed her with my eyes. She flew twenty feet away to the hummingbird feeder, hovered for a moment and flew up into the tree. Hm, what is it Lassie? Is Timmy in the well again? Or is the nectar nasty in the hummingbird feeder. I took the feeder in, cleaned it out, put in fresh nectar and not five seconds after I hung it back up, she flew down and started feeding on the nectar. This bird has me trained--three buzzes and I fill the feeder. After she fed, she went to the tree to preen. Here's a video of her ablutions. Note how she periodically flicks out that tiny tongue:



And for those interested, a bee update will be coming up later today.

Cape May Autumn Weekend & Blogging Confernece

Are you going to Cape May Autumn Weekend? If you're already on the fence as to whether or not you should sign up for the action packed East Coast migration spectacular, don't forget this is your chance to meet some of your favorite bird bloggers! So far, here are the bloggers I know will be there:

10,000 Birds
Beginning To Bird
Birdchick
Born Again Bird Watcher
Hasty Brook
Hawk Owl's Nest
Mary's View
Somewhere in NJ
Susan Gets Native
WildBird on the Fly
Leica Birding Blog

If you would like to get the discounted blogging rate, the requirements and info can be found here. Some of the above bloggers are going for the conference and some will be there to work booths. It's a great time, with great birders, great birds, great face painting, great pancakes, and beautiful scenery. Hope to see you there.

Banded Sandpipers

Remember the banded semi-palmated sandpiper we found over the weekend along Duck Banding Road on Big Stone NWR? Well, Doug Buri found out where and when it was banded from Nate Thomas, the doctoral candidate working on tracking them:

The first bird was banded about 2 miles south of Salt Lake on the Minnesota/South Dakota border on July 21-23 2004. That means that the bird is at least 3 years old! Since we couldn't read the individual band number, we don't know if it was tagged as an adult or an immature bird but it has been surviving and migrating since 2004! WOW!

I didn't mention that on our final field trip, we found a second banded semi-palmated sandpiper with different colored tags. I can tell you from my other banding experiences that finding recovered birds is unusual, but finding two banded birds in a weekend--that's unbelievably rare. Again, we couldn't read the individual band number, but based on the color marks on its legs, Nate said the bird was banded in either 2003 or 2005, making the bird either 4 or 2 years old.

These birds breed in the Arctic and migrate down to South America for the winter. Think of the thousands of miles they cover year after year--I'm still trying to wrap my head around that one. What is this saying about migratory route fidelity? So, if you are lucky enough to see any shorebirds in your neck of the woods, even if you can't identify them, think about the migratory journey they could be on.

Pishing A Golden Eagle

What happens if you pish at a golden eagle:



This is Andi, one of the education birds at The Raptor Center. She's an adult golden eagle and we know she is female because of her large size (in the raptor world, females are larger than males) and each spring she lays an egg (it's unfertilized, it's just that her hormones are ready to make an egg). She was found injured during a snow storm. Her injuries were consistent with a collision with power lines. When she was brought in, she had porcupine quills all over her face. Though none were in her eye, as she recovered, her left eye clouded up with scar tissue and is now blind in that eye (we speculate that a quill did get in there and she got it out before she was captured). That combined with a permanent wing injury makes her unreleasable and she will spend the rest of her life at TRC.

Shorebird Immersion Course

I told Doug Buri that if he ever offers his shorebird identification workshop again, he should call it a Shorebird Immersion Course. Number one, you're surrounded by shorebirds, up close and personal (like the short-billed dowitcher and pectoral sandpiper above). Number two, you are out in the mud flats and could sink.

Here's my buddy Amber out taking photos of the many shorebirds that we saw. You can see that the ground surrounding her was a tad wet. Doug's motto was that the way to id shorebirds is to get up close, out on the mud flat. The birds would initially fly away and then come back and feed near you--a human shape is not a known predator so they don't worry about us too much. During one of the morning trips, we were walking on the mud flats. As we went along, I felt my feet sink a little with each step. As long as we kept moving, it wasn't a problem. But then the group stopped to watch some birds and I noticed the world getting taller. I looked down and discovered my Keens were engulfed in mud. We stayed and I tried to quietly free myself--it wasn't happening. Doug said, "Well, at this point we can either go forward or go backwards, whatever the group wants to do."

"Maybe we should go back, I'm starting to sink." I said in a calm voice.

Doug laughed and said something to the effect of "How can you tell, you're always low to the ground." Our group was in a line and I was in back, so no one could really see the situation. I tried again to free my shoes and said, "I kind of am sinking." Again, in a calm tone.

One of the group turned around and saw my shoes and said, "Oh!"

"Yeah, seriously," I said. "I'm sinking and can't get out."

It took two people, but we freed my shoes and I continued on, although a little muddy. Fortunately, there were lots of puddles nearby and I was able to rinse of my shoes.

Doug made us work for those birds, whether it be standing on unsteady mud...

Working on id in a coming storm...

Descending loose rocks near a dam...

Or trudging through eight foot high cattails.

But it was worth it! These little least sandpipers were within about five feet of our group. They were too close to digiscope so I just aimed my camera the old school way--point and shoot.

However, I did get some up close shots of the leasts.

This is a semi-palmated plover (above) not to be confused with the semi-palmated sandpiper (below):

And if you're wondering what the heck "palmated" is all about, it's a throw back to when bird id was done with a shot gun. If you hold a dead semi-palmated sandpiper (or plover) in you hand, about six inches from your face, you will see some slight webbing between their toes. Not all shorebirds have this and as a regular birder, it's not something you're going to notice out in the field. The semi-palmated plover is one of the cutest shorebirds out there--kind of like the kid brother of a killdeer.

"I wish he'd quit copying me. Sigh."

I have to say, Doug had some unconventional methods for teaching us id. Here he was doing a slide show on the finer points of sandpiper identification at a local restaurant. The walls were kind of a peachy color and to help keep the colors true, he borrowed a cook's apron to use as a screen.

In our final class he made us identify old decoys. Actually it worked, we used the hints that he gave us and we were able to figure out what species the artist was trying to carve.

Some questions came up in the comments section about the bugs. I have to say that for all but one of the field trips, we didn't have any mosquito problems. My biggest concern was sunburn and heat exhaustion. When I took most of these photos (like the above dowitcher), it was in the upper 90's and high humidity. I was covered from head to toe with my third application of sun block--I could feel my pores staging a large acne protest on my face, and I could feel sweat dripping down my back and my legs. Stinky mud oozed through my Keens enveloping my toes. It was late afternoon and we were watching some of the birds bathe, I risked the spongy mud to dip my feet in the water, hoping for some cool relief only to be greeted with warm bathwater temperatures. But it was awesome and I had a GREAT time. I was in the middle of nowhere, unable to hear any mechanical sounds (no planes, no cars) and just the sounds of calling shorebirds.

But all his torturous techniques worked, I can now identify my own photos with confidence, instead of sending them on to friends to help id:

This is a pectoral sandpiper.

This is a short-billed dowitcher.

Here's another of the oh so cute least sandpiper.

Here we have the diabolical lesser yellowlegs, not to be confused with the even trickier...

greater yellowlegs. Okay, I know some of you out there are saying, "Yo, Shaz, that bird looks EXACTLY like the photo above it! How can it be different?" Well, this bird was 30% larger than the bird in the other photo and if you look close, it's bill is "two toned" it's lighter at the base than the tip. The lesser yellowlegs has an all dark bill. Really, it does. Honest.

All in all, this workshop was a great time, I learned a lot and I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to learn their shorebirds. Part of my block is that there aren't any places where I live that I could watch shorebirds up close several times. I didn't necessarily see several species, but I needed the repetition of the common species in different light to really get them down. Doug has a relaxed teaching style that makes learning fun and helps you feel encouraged. I almost feel like I could take on gulls sometime in the next five years.

An Exciting Day

I'm too wiped out to do a proper entry, but I will leave you with some exciting bits from the day. First up, can you identify the bird in the above photo? Hint: It's not a shorebird. When you're ready to guess, the adult plumaged bird can be seen here. No prize, just glory in the comments section.

Second, I met someone totally cool (in my book) on the trip. Long time readers of this blog may recall that I am a big fan of the crop art at the Minnesota State Fair. One of my all time favorite pieces was a portrait of Jackie Chan in 2005. Turns out that one of the women taking the shorebird workshop not only does crop art, but her husband did the Jackie Chan portrait (I totally geeked out). I told her that her cool points had just sky rocketed in my book. Between that and the fact that there is a Strong Bad sticker on her car, leads me to believe that we could be friends outside of birding--if my overwhelming (but sincere) excitement over crop art didn't frighten her. I'm not sure she wants me to completely out her or her husband as crop artists, but I will say that if you visit Cropart.com they have some work up in the gallery section.

Take note of the above photo. Notice anything out of the ordinary? Note the bird coming in for a landing. Do you see tags on the legs?

We found a tagged semi-palmated sandpiper! Normally, I would say that finding a tagged bird is excitement enough--we'll report it, find out where it was banded, how old it is, etc. But I'm even more excited that when it flew in, I was able to tell the trip leader that we had a tagged semi-palmated sandpiper...I identified a semi-palmated sandpiper on my own (sniff, sniff) I've had a total breakthrough!

Shorebird Workshop Day 1

Today was hardcore! Yes sir, this was some mighty fine birdin' in some sloshy areas. We drudged through wetland vegetation to get as close as possible to some shorebirds--and they didn't care! Okay, some cared a little but for the most part they just probed away at the mud, oblivious to our presence. That's our fearless leader Doug Buri above. I don't know if you can see it in the above photo, but here are some dark specks in the sky--those are swallows, thousands and thousands of swallows (of several different species) swarming over our heads. Doug said that the winds pushed insects from the lake to one end and the birds were above catching them. That's really cool and all, but I did wonder...how may insects are just overhead to cause the skies to cloud with swallows? Eep!

The least sandpipers didn't care about us in the least (har har--sorry, I couldn't resist). A minor problem that I had was that they were so oblivious to us that they would turn their backs to us and ignore the six large creatures and I had to wait to get a head on photo.

Doug has really planned this workshop well. He brought up a common problem that I can relate to. When you go out to watch shorebirds, you will go someplace where there are hundreds, if not thousands (the more there are the easier, right?) and it can be tough to learn id that way--too many species to focus on, too overwhelming. The birds constantly move and it's like watching a pot of boiling vegetable soup--it's hard to focus on just one vegetable. He chose areas for today where there would be 3-4 species for us to really focus and learn--species that I have trouble with like pectoral sandpipers, semi-palmated sandpipers, killdeer (okay, I don't have problems with killdeer--I'm not that bad), and least sandpiper (three of those four species are in the above photo). I really, really needed this because goodness knows I have misidentified quite a few shorebirds in this blog. Doug is also using The Shorebird Guide as our text for the workshop--a book that I love. Not only is it full of useful info, but the photos are just gorgeous--really works of art. It's a great book buy it--it won't teach you shorebirds over night, but it will help.

Killdeer are really helpful in the field, they are everywhere, you see them all the time anyway, so you have an idea of their size and they make great comparisons--how big is the bird in relation to a killdeer? Check out the bird behind the killdeer--we probably would have figured this one out without the aid of the killdeer. You notice the neon yellow legs and you may think, could this be a yellow legs? No, way too buffy...

So it's a buff-breasted sandpiper. We weren't really looking for that today, but it was a great and welcome find.

Here we have a couple of birds, the larger is a pectoral sandpiper and you'll note the gray mottling goes halfway down over its chest and makes an abrupt stop. Next to it is a smaller bird. Ack! What could it be? Doug asked me, "If you have to choose a color for this bird, brown or gray, what would you answer?" I answered gray. Then he asked, "Does the bill look like it's the same color as the legs or do the legs look like a different color?" I said that they looked the same. He said, "Semi-palmated sandpiper."

That's all well and good, but the hard part is how do I tell the semi palm from the least--they're almost the same size. Even though the least is a half inch smaller than the semi palm, that can be a hard difference to see in the field.

We looked at this bird and again, Doug asked, "If you have to choose a color for this bird, brown or gray, what would you answer?" I answered brown. "Does the bill look like it's the same color as the legs or do the legs look like a different color?" I said that the legs and bill did not look like it was the same color. That makes this a least.

These are just some of the great tips we are learning from Doug, we're also learning lots of other id clues. He also had us look at a shore line in the distance without binoculars. You could easily see the whites of the semi-palmateds. In some cases, you could see that the birds were quite gray with the naked eye. When you put up your binos, you could see the browner least sandpipers which weren't so visible to the naked eye. In the scope, you can also notice that the bill on the semi-palmated sandpiper is more blunt tipped at the end and the least comes to a finer point.

So, here we go side by side, can you tell which bird is which?

I have to say there are a TON of frogs and toads here. At our first stop this morning we were totally surrounded. Every time someone took a step, twelve frogs would jump in different directions--sometimes ricocheting off of our legs. I guess lots of frogs are a good sign of healthy water.

There were also quite a few toads. I don't think this is an American toad and am wondering if this is a great plains toad. I sent a photo to Stan, but haven't heard from him yet. Anyone out there familiar with these guys? It was kind of spikey and made me think of Delmar in Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou when he says, "She loved 'im up and turned him into a h-h-hooorny toad."

And now I must rest up so I can soak up more shorebirding knowledge tomorrow. It's a great day when all you do is learn new things all day long. I'm still glad that there are birds I don't know and I can have the "ah-ha" moment and finally understand the difference between hard to id birds.

Doug Buri Wasn't Kidding

We're actually supposed to be listening to a class right now, but we're on a break--the shorebirding so far this morning has been FANTABULOUS! Doug wasn't kidding, we totally got within five feet of a least sandpiper (which was advertised). If we had a net with a pole, we could have caught it. More tonight.

Black Swallowtails Growing Up

Howdy, peeps, I write to you from a hotel in the lovely state of South Dakota. Tomorrow starts our shorebird workshop. I'll blog when I can, but most of my time will be dedicated to unlocking the id secrets of tiny shorebirds.

"You can't see me!"

Time to catch up on the swallowtail madness. Well, if you couldn't find the black swallowtail caterpillar in the last post, HellZiggy did a masterful job of pointing it out. Here's an up close view of the cat:

It's amazing that in less than two weeks it went from a tiny thing resembling finch poop to this big squishy thing. You can really see how the stripes work to hide its lardiness amongst the parsley stems.

Right before I left for Indianapolis, all of our swallowtails were forming chrysalises and Non Birding Bill had to help with the ranching as well as maintain the blog. I wanted to try and get a photo of the swallowtail chrysalis formation because they make such interesting little structures.

The first thing they do is find a place that looks like a good spot to hang for a couple of weeks, then they scatter silk all over to secure themselves in place.

After they have their rear ends secured, they somehow emit two silk strings from either side and use that to help attach to the stem or stick. They lean into it and eventually shed their skin to look like this:

This particular caterpillar decided to form its chrysalis on a milkweed stem and the green and yellow really blended well with the plant. There were times when I walked into the kitchen and couldn't see it right away. I was so fascinated by the silk strings and really wanted to try and see how those formed. I had one swallowtail cat left and kept close tabs on it. Alas, I lost it at one point when it decided to go on a walk about and went behind the radiator in the kitchen, it eventually reappeared on the table:

It made its way to a candle holder in the center of the table. Now, one of the upsides of having a camera with a great macro feature is that you get awesome detailed shots of small objects. The downsides is that you get more detail than you bargained for. The candle holder and cat is coated in a layer of dust. The cat picked up most of the dust behind the radiator the holder is an example of my contempt for house cleaning. But, ignore the dust and not the silk coming out of the black spots--must be a special gland that produces the string that will hold the cat in place. Eventually, this caterpillar shed its skin and if you read NBB's entries while I was gone, you'll know it looked like this:

Whoa! What happened? It's brown instead of green? This the massive amount of dust the caterpillar picked up in the kitchen cause it to turn such a dingy color? No! As someone pointed out in the comments, swallowtails can form their chrysalis into either green or brown--the color depends on where its made to keep it camouflaged. I had read about this, and was hoping I would get my cats to do this--one of the reasons I let them out of the Butterfly Garden and let them go where they wanted, to see if they would change color--and they did! I love it when a plan comes together.

When I came home, the chrysalises started to change color. Just like the monarch chrysalis, the swallowtail caterpillars darkened and you could make out the butterfly wings on the inside about 12 hours before they emerged. See the black and yellow through the green skin?

I put the chrysalis into the Butterfly Garden and the next morning the black swallowtail had emerged, ready to take on the world.

I got a chance to get some photos and really notice the splotches of color on the under wings--so beautiful! Something interesting about the swallowtails--when they first emerged, they smelled like moldy parsley--beauty does come with a price.

The swallowtails took their time to leave. We placed them on the ledge, they pumped their wings and eventually took to the air after about twenty minutes. I tell ya', after this, I'm gonna inspect my parsley a bit more closely from now on. I do wonder how many eggs and tiny cats Cinnamon has eaten.

We still have a few monarch caterpillars left, but I think it's time to be winding things down at the Stiteler Butterfly Ranch. Now, it's off to bed to get ready for shorebirds.

And Yet Another Test

Okay, there's some kind of blogger publishing problem. Several comments and a couple of posts are not showing up on the blog, but people who get the RSS feed can see it...hmm, curious. So, lets do the test again and this time, we'll try a photo. Can you see the black swallowtail caterpillar in this bunch of parsley? You may have to click on the photo to enlarge it to be able to see it.

Test

test test test

Jittery Monarch Release

And now a very jittery video of me releasing two monarchs that emerged from their individaul chrysalises today:

Go See Stardust and A Little About Our Honey

One of the fun things about being a theater major is that from time to time you see former classmates show up in anti-drug commercials, episodes of Law and Order, or live action kid tv shows. It's just fun watching friends get into the Hollywood industry. That's kind of the way I feel about Stardust--it's the Hollywood version of Mr. Neil.

Unlike Non Birding Bill, I had never read any of Mr. Neil's stuff before we met him. I got to know him as this fun British guy who has an interesting job. I think Anansi Boys was the first book that I read (and that was just checking bird facts) and I have read a couple other things since then. I listened to Stardust as an audio book on my travels the last couple of weeks just prep for the movie. Sunday we were invited to the preview and had a great time.

The movie is different than the book--it's a Hollywood version of it--what fun to see something a friend had written turned into a big summer movie with lots of special effects and actual stars--Robert De Niro, Clare Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer. It's about a fallen star that has landed into the fairy side of the world and all the people going after her. If she had landed on the real world, she would have been a cold, hard rock. Since she landed in fairy land, she's a woman who now has princes, a boy in love, and an evil witch all coming to claim her.

De Niro was by far my favorite part of the film. I figured he was just going to be his usual De Niro self which would have worked fine with the book, but they really take the character to another level which I was not prepared for and loved.

I would call this an adult fairy tail, kind of along the lines of Princess Bride (but with much cooler effects) but I think kids would enjoy it. It has some violence, but not nearly what is in the book--the book is far grosser in my opinion. The movie version has some sword play--not a lot--the end has a fun fight scene with some cool effects. There's something for everyone: pirates, magic, pretty dresses, hot guys, a couple of sword fights, unicorns, even a bird--I think it's a magpie jay, but if someone else has seen the movie and knows what it is, please let me kn0w.

So, go see Stardust this weekend, take a friend. Supporting this movie does help support the bees you read about in this blog. If the movie does well, next year we can add more hives--perhaps even making it available for sale or to give away as prizes. I know it's crazy to make blockbuster movies to fund a beekeeping business, but it's just crazy enough that it might work. Speaking of bees, Mr. Neil told me to do a taste comparison between the first frame of honey we harvested and the second. Here is a photo of our first honey:

Now, below is some comb honey from our second harvest two weeks later:

Look at that, it's a little darker and more yellow. The flavor is a bit different too, it's more sweet and not as peppery and lacks the hint of pine that the first harvest had. Still very tasty. Some honey was sent to our friend Malena and she reviews it here...although as much as I love Malena, her bee natural history is a little inaccurate, so don't take that bit too seriously.

And, I have it on good authority that four out of four dead princes agree, our honey rocks.

Feeding a Kestrel

Well, now here is an interesting chunk of fur. It's a chunk of gray squirrel tail--that in and of itself is not all that exciting. However, where it was found is most intriguing: inside the mew of Maxime, an education bald eagle at The Raptor Center (the same one some of you saw at CONvergence this year). Here's the really interesting part: we don't feed the ed birds squirrel...ever. As if that's not enough, this eagle was on a tether (or leash) while perched in her mew, so this squirrel had to come up to her. Strange, I'm gonna guess this was a little bit of the Darwin Effect going on. Although, several years ago, the education golden eagle lived in that same mew and was on a tether and periodically you would find squirrel tails. Must be stupid squirrel corner.

Our new assistant curator, the fabulous Gail Buhl was moving ed birds around and I took advantage of her holding some of them in daylight to get a photo. This is our dark morph red-tailed hawk (this is not a Harlan's red-tailed hawk--it has a red tail and Harlan's do not have red tails). This bird is primarily used as a display bird, it doesn't seem to have the temperament for programs just yet. I normally don't get to see it in good light and Gail was kind enough to pause for a photo. This bird is actually from Nebraska. We don't see too many dark morph red-tails in Minnesota, there's one that has been hanging around hwy 100 near 494 in the south metro the last few winters, but I usually see these guys further west in the US. I always see between 3-5 when I go to Nebraska to watch sandhill cranes in March. I love 'em, they look like they were carved out of dark chocolate.

We have another new education bird--a boreal owl. From what I understand, the bird is still in training and so most of the time is tucked away in a dark mew. For those non birders reading the blog, this is as big as these owls get, it's fully grown. Not much is known, they are found in the boreal forest of Minnesota. I don't know that much about them so I was reading up a little on BNA tonight. I was reading about their usual prey items and it started out as a long list of various types of voles when I came to this part:

"birds, especially thrushes (Catharus spp.), warblers, Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), Red Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra), American Robin (Turdus migratorius), Mountain Chickadee (Parus gambeli), Common Redpoll (Carduelis flammeus), kinglets, and woodpeckers; and insects, especially crickets, are usual prey"

Thrushes? Robins? Crossbills? Some of those species are about as long as the boreal owl. Impressive.

Boreal owls look like a shrinky dink version of a northern hawk owl. This is a vex bird for me, I've done everything legally I can with one of these birds apart from seeing it in the wild, just doing it thang. I've had one perched on my fist, I've held a banded one from a net, I've even had one ride in my car, but I have never, ever seen a boreal owl in the wild. Ah well, another bird for another day.

Later on this morning I got to feed one of our male education kestrels. When I give programs, I just don't always pay attention to how colorful these guys are. This is Jack, getting his lunch on with a mouse head.

He came in to TRC about six years ago. A nest of kestrels fell during a storm and someone took care of them for a few days--just enough time for all the chicks to imprint on humans and become unreleasable. There were three males and because kestrels have a habit of bobbing their heads, we called them the three Bobs--which just became really confusing and we had to color code their jesses (the leather straps on their feet) in order to tell them apart. Eventually, their names settled to Baron, Jack, and Bob. Bob ended up at a nature center but we still have Jack and Baron.

And of course I had to take a video of Jack finishing off his mouse. I opted for him eating the last bit of mouse leg. I did get a video of him eating the head, but there are some serious crunching sounds. This video might be a tad gross for those eating a meal or those who have a weak stomach so be warned before you watch.



I didn't realize how much I was cheering him on while he was eating.

Cute! Jack has a mouse mustache!

I used to take the 35W bridge to and from The Raptor Center, so I had to find an alternate route today. It was weird driving by the exit and seeing the highway I have used so regularly become this strange and mysterious road that suddenly drops out of site. Sunday, they allowed the public a closer view and on Monday a friend and I went to see how close we could get--pretty darned close. This was down by one of the media tents that has been set up to keep reporters and cameras out of the sun or rain as they deliver non stop coverage. I have seen this particular pile of cars numerous times in the media coverage, but it was still jarring to see it in person. My heart goes out to the families of the dead, injured and missing, but at the same time, after seeing how large this collapse was in person, I am so grateful it wasn't worse--if all eight lanes had been open and cars going the usual 60mph, instead of only two lanes open with traffic creeping along, so many more would have been lost. Also, the bridge collapsed on a freight train, what if the cars had been filled with some toxic substance that could have gone in the river, affecting our drinking water or released an ammonia cloud? It really could have been so much worse.

Pigeon Madness--the good kind

There's a new bird club starting in New York called the Pigeon Club of New York City. The initial members appear to have a healthy sense of humor, which I heartily endorse. I highly recommend checking out their video section. Warning, crumb number one is a link to a video similar to the one I linked to of a pelican eating pigeon. This one is much better quality but this time you see a goose chase after the pelican--wonder if that means the pelican has been going for goslings besides pigeons?

Crumb number 2, however is a hilarious prank and worth checking out--especially with your kids. Crumb 3 is a cartoon I'm not familiar with and Crumb 4 is some retro Bert (of Sesame Street) action.

Word On Disapproving Rabbits

Well, I just got off the phone with Harper Collins and got some great news about the Disapproving Rabbits book - both Barnes and Noble and Borders have ordered large quantities of the book! Actually, those two orders are more than half of the first printing--I think that's a good sign. Whoot!

We're now in the process of scheduling signings and appearances. If you think that your local book store or tv station would be interested in booking us (I'm going to try and take Cinnamon with me when I can) then email me at sharon at birdchick dot com. Also, if you know of any publications in your area that might appreciate a press release, please let me know.

The official date the book is ready for sale is October 15--right before Cape May Autumn Weekend/First Annual Blogger Conference.

Shorebird Workshop

Because I am in dire need of improving my shorebird id skills, I'm taking a weekend workshop with one of the best shorebird guys in my area, Doug Buri. Doug Buri has a BS degree in zoology. His interest in shorebirds has led him to pursue them around the globe on five different continents. The shores of Hudson Bay, the mud flats of coastal Columbia, the great rift valley of Ethiopia, and the marshes of central India all attract shorebirds. Doug followed them; intrigued by the challenge of studying and identifying this avian group. He was involved for many years in a multi year research project on Big Stone NWR studying Least Sandpipers and Pectoral Sandpipers. Doug has acted as an identification consultant for the study collection at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and for the Peabody Museum at Yale University in New Haven Conn. In other words, he knows his stuff.

It's a limited group--only ten people are going but I just got word from Doug that he has three spaces available. I know this is last minute, but if you have this weekend free and have wondered if you would ever figure out these little guys--this is the workshop to take. Doug says that his number one goal is to get the group up close looks so you can learn to tell a white-rumped from a pectoral. I just got this in an email tonight:

"My number one priority is to get very VERY close to the birds. Actually I had Least Sandpipers 12-15 feet from me yesterday -- which I consider to be normal. I hear that some people use a spotting scope for shorebirding, but I'm sure it is just a vicious rumor perpetrated by those evil optical goods sellers."

The workshop starts this Friday at 9am in Milbank, SD and runs through Sunday 12pm. It'll be a good time and you'll be able to wow your friends with your mad shorebirdin' skillz. The workshop is $100 plus a $25 non-refundable registration fee includes the entire weekend workshop. It does not include food, lodging, or other expenses. If you are forced to cancel, the registration fee can be applied to future workshops.

If you would like to sign up, contact Doug NOW at dougburi@tnics.com.

Minor Notes To NBB's Guest Blogging

For the record, when Non Birding Bill offered to take over the blog when I had to leave town, I did leave him some photos to use in my absence to help him out, like the one above. Why, my goodness, what is that? Why isn't that a colorful bird? Is it me or is that bird bright yellow and not brown?

Right before I left, we had been at Mr. Neil's and he had tons of young bird coming to the feeders, learning how to eat at the big kid table. Here's a young downy woodpecker--his red cap on the front of his forehead distinguishes him from an adult male who would have the red on the back of the head. Oh, look at that--red and not brown. Harumph!

I even told NBB that he could do a post on all the young rose-breasted grosbeaks hanging out at the feeders. Look, another bird with some color, oh my. Here's a young male fresh from the nest. These guys were just thugs. Perhaps their larger size and demand for food made them so formidable to the other birds at the feeding stations. Titmice, nuthatches, and finches flew away on the young grosbeaks' approach.

Here is a young house finch minding its own business while feeding. This bird is fresh from the nest as well, not the yellow gape on the beak. Anyway, this guy was just feeding on a lower perch, there were plenty of other feeding stations around, and this finch even took the lowest perch--the least desirable to adults who would prefer to be higher up.

But, in flew a young grosbeak to the lower perch and the young house finch flushed. The grosbeak stayed on the perch where the finch had been, but then flew up to one of the higher perches and began to feed. The young finch watched and waited for the grosbeak to feed so it could have access to the food source. I think the adult grosbeaks were no longer feeding the young ones, and they began to feed themselves. They seemed to watch other birds feeding and when they noticed a species eating, they flew to where it was to try the food out. Their larger size flushed the smaller birds. Thugs.

Even though there were tray feeders that had large platforms to fit a grosbeak, all the young came to this tube feeder. Above is young female--now, unlike what NBB asserted, she looks very different from a house finch, she's larger, has different striping and look at that distinct eyebrow.



See how she bends and curves? It's interesting how in some yards, birds won't go the extra mile to feed out of a feeder that is too small, but in other yards they will.

Anyway, I do appreciate NBB filling in for me while I was away. He is a very talented writer and funny, and I'm lucky to married to such a man.

Birdchick and Non Birding Bill Simpson

Courtesy of SimpsonizeMe.com:

More Honey Extraction From Our Bees

It was time to check on the progress of the bees once again, so Mr. Neil, Non Birding Bill, Cabal, and I headed to the hives. Last weekend, NBB checked on the hives and found that the bees were still not using our new comb honey supers. The instructions that came with our Ross Rounds supers led us to believe they were already fully assembled. Well, I did some digging on the Internet and found that they were supposed to have wax foundation on the inside of the rounds to get the bees started. GRRRR. I emailed NBB from out of town and he did some digging. Fortunately, the boxes that the supers arrived in hadn't been recycled yet, so he found the foundation. WHEW!

He put together one of the supers and replaced it with the one that was already on the hive. We're supposed to take the brown plastic pieces apart--they just snap apart easily. Well, even though the bees hadn't been filling that super with comb and honey--they did manage to propolis the crap out of it. But, NBB and Mr. Neil managed to pry them apart with the aid of the hive tool and get the foundation in, so it will be ready if we need more supers this summer. Our goal with the inspection today was to check on Kitty's progress and see if Olga was finally filling the Ross Rounds with the foundation.

Kitty's buzz is much improved. Before, when we would open the hive, it was very quiet and if you did some digging you would find the bees, and there would be a quiet general hum, but here and there would also be a weak solitary buzz. Today the bees just sounded more contented and industrious--they sounded like they had a purpose.

The larvae from the new queen hasn't emerged yet, but I'm not too worried, there are massive amounts of honey stored for the time being (that's the workers eating some of it above), so if there is a shortage of foragers for a small period of time the girls have reserves for the next week or two. Some workers have finally started drawing out comb in top box--that's the box they need to fill in order to make it through the winter. It's the beginning of August so there is still time. OK, maybe I'm a tiny bit concerned, but we'll do what we can when we can.

Olga is in mass production mode. When we took her roof off, we found lots of propolis, these girls are really going to town. I wish I had such a great fix up tool. Got a hole or crack, got a dead mouse? Just cover it with propolis--it prevents the spread of bacteria, plugs up holes, and keeps everything together.

We checked the Ross Rounds and found some very exciting activity. Each compartment was jammed packed full of workers drawing out comb, soon to fill them with honey--WHOOT! Finally, they are using the super! They are also sealing all the frames together with massive amounts of sticky propolis.

Here's a little video:



NBB asked me last night what I enjoy most about bees, and I think just watching their industriousness. They each have jobs and those jobs change over time, they always have something to do, some place to be.

We found that the empty frame we put in the brood box was once again chock full of capped honey for us to harvest. I'm wondering if push comes to shove with the Kitty hive and she doesn't have enough stores for winter, if we can replace some of her empty frames with honey frames from Olga? Of course, that means less honey for us this year, but next year we'd have two hives that would produce nothing but honey. We'll see how things are at the end of August.

Here's another video of some general bee activity while we're getting the frame ready to take back with us:



Did you notice Mr. Neil using the bee brush in back? We're gently brushing off the workers from the frame with the honey. We're taking them off, so we don't take them back to the house with us. Thinking back to the Ross Rounds, we suddenly began to wonder, how are we going to get the bees out of the super when we are ready to harvest it? The frames are all wedged together (and now sealed with propolis), we can't really get a bee brush in there. We can't smoke the frames, that affects the flavor of the honey and also the smoke calms the bees and makes them eat honey, which doesn't help the situation. I've heard of some chemical methods, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm going to have to google that a bit to find out how we harvest the honey.

On the bottom of the frame, the workers had made more comb, but they made larger cells--we know what that meas--drones. The whole bottom of the frame either had squishy larvae or capped drone brood. It was easily cut away from the honey were going to eat, but it got me thinking: The queen has been up here sometime in the last week or two. We did have a queen excluder between this box and our other honey supers to prevent the queen from laying eggs in the Ross Rounds but we took it out when the workers weren't drawing out comb in them, thinking that was preventing them from working in the supers (plus many beekeepers are anti excluder). We also reversed the brood boxes, which gets the queen to start in the third brood box and work her way down to lay eggs. But larvae this small means she's been here in the last two weeks. Is there any possibility she has gone up to the Ross Rounds to lay eggs? I don't want to use the excluder now on the off chance she is in the rounds and that cuts her off from the rest of the hive. Oh well, only time will tell and this year is supposed to be a learning curve.

One thing I am really encouraged about with the beekeeping is that even though this is our first year and I've made some mistakes, we've still managed to get honey for ourselves. Last time we harvested we got seven boxes of frame honey, and on this run we got six boxes of honey--a total of 13 boxes so far and things looks promising that we will get more.

Oh! Here is something interesting. Some say that in nature you never find straight angles--check out what I found in the Olga hive entrance. I think that's propolis on the floor that may have dripped down, I'm not sure, but it's in straight angles. What are the Olga bees up to? Are they defying nature? The Olga bees, always leaving me with more questions than answers. Perhaps that is why I love them so.

Bald Cardinals and Other Bald Birds

All of a sudden in the last two weeks, I have been getting comments to an old post from July 25, 2005 (way back when I worked at the bird store). The post is about bald cardinals.

Every year about late July and early August there are questions from people asking about black headed birds, miniature vultures or bald headed feeder birds. Most of the time, people are describing cardinals without any feathers on their heads, but I've also had reports of bald blue jays and grackles.

While I was down in Indianapolis, my mom had a bald cardinal coming to her feeding station. So, what is the dealio? No one knows for sure, even Cornell Lab of the Big O admits that the case of the bald cardinal is not well studied. There are two possible explanations. Number one, this is the time of year when many songbirds (including cardinals and blue jays) are molting (shedding old feathers and growing in new feathers). For some reason, the birds drop all of their feathers on their heads at once. I've seen this with captive birds like great horned owls and even our education screech owl at The Raptor Center. The birds are healthy, they just molt everything at once (interesting to note that all of those species mentioned are tufted: cardinal, blue jay, great horned owl, eastern screech owl--hmmmmmmm).

Alas, my mom didn't have just a bald male cardinal, she also had a bald grackle (so much for the only tufted bird theory). This grackle was much more wary than the cardinal and this was the only shot I got of it. The bird seemed to sense the spotting scope and flush right as I was about to take a photo. I don't blame it, the bird kind of looks like a Skeksis, I wouldn't want my photo taken either. This bird leads me to the number two reason birds can go bald and that is that they can get feather mites. Generally, birds can use their bills to remove pests like mites when they are preening. However, they would be unable to get to mites on their heads and so the mites eat away the feathers. It's tough to say what really is going on, without trapping the bird and looking for the mites, you really can't tell for certain if it's molting or mites causing the lack of feathers.

There was another grackle coming to mom's feeders that was starting to lose its facial feathers. Interesting to note that the cardinals are dark skinned under the feathers and the grackles are light skinned. Since my mom had at least three birds that were either bald or starting to become bald, I wondered if this was a case of mites being passed around. The birds appeared in good health and were eating well, looking alert--all good signs. And mites don't usually kill a bird. Annoy it and make it look grotesque--yes, but kill birds--not so much. Check out the video I got of the male cardinal eating a berry off of mom's fuschia plant:



Did you note how he scratched the back of his head? That also makes me wonder if mites are the cause. Although, I would bet a bunch of pin feathers growing in at once would be rather itchy.

By the way, don't feel too bad for him, he's still gettin' some play. Not long after I took that video, this female flew in and he jauntily bounced over to her and fed her some of the fuschia berries--very clear mating behavior. She didn't seem to mind his bald pate one bit (perhaps she likes that Christine Lavin song). Although, if you look right behind her eye, there's a small bald patch--mites? Will she be bare headed soon as well?

As I was watching the cardinal, I noticed something new. Check out where his ear canal is. Do you see it? It's that large hole right under his eyeball (there's a small red feather over it). How cool--who knew that their ears were just below their eyes...and about the same size. I wonder if anyone has done any studies and the hearing capability of cardinals? So much we don't yet know...

And just for comparison and to not leave you with grotesque cardinals, here is a photo of a proper male cardinal. Whether the birds in the other photos have mites or an odd molt pattern, don't worry too much. In most cases, the feathers do grow back in plenty of time before the winter sets in and all will be right with the cardinal world once again.

First Bird Blogging Confernce!

Calling all bird bloggers, calling all bird bloggers:

The first ever Bird Blogger Conference will be at Cape May Autumn Weekend October 26-27, 2007! What does this mean--well, a lot of bird bloggers in one place at one time to meet face to face, share ideas, and maybe even watch some birds! Bird bloggers are eligible for a discount and must sign up through me. Here are the qualifications for the discount:

1. Your blog must have been started sometime before January 31, 2007.
2. Your blog must have regular updates at a minimum of four times a month.
3. If your blog has been inactive for more than 30 days, it will not qualify for the discount.
4. You must promote the Cape May Autumn Weekend and the 1st Birder Blogger Conference periodically in your blog--not every day or every week, but periodically remind your readers that you are going and that it would be great if they came along too.

Speaking of readers, this is a great chance for all of you to come and meet some bird bloggers out there. So, start signing up for Autumn Weekend now.

I'm thinking about organizing a Birds and Beers night there on the evening of October 26. Any natives have a good recommendation for a place for birders to get some beer and talk some birds, let me know.

Bloggers who would like more info on the discount rate, please email me at Sharon at Birdchick dot com.

A Little Disapproval Cleansing

After the last twenty-four hours, I thought I might cleanse the blog and give you an online experience of feeding Cinnamon treats and giving her velvety face some scratching--all the while taking in the brunt of her disapproval.

35W Bridge, Who Knew?

Well, this was supposed to be returning to the usual blog antics, but I just don't have it in me to post on some bald birds today.

Before.

After.

Here is a link to a flickr account of a photo series of the bridge collapse taken from a boat on the Mississippi River. A friend of NBB's sent the link. They were having their company party and taking a boat ride along the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities. They were 15 minutes away from being right under the 35W bridge.

My heart and thoughts go out to people still waiting to hear information on loved ones, and for the injured and dead. I think of all the construction workers who have been walking the bridge, wondered how they are from the fall. The number of dead is remarkably low, especially when you think about the bus that was full of 60 kids coming back from a summer field trip. I'm proud of all the Minnesota spirit. So many acts of heroism, especially the people who came from their own wrecked vehicles and ignored their own injuries to get the children out of the bus.

I think so many of us in the Twin Cities are shell shocked about the bridge because it could have been any of us or our friends and family on the bridge at that time. One of the advantages of where our apartment is located is that we are right next to major highways to get anywhere quickly. I used the 35W bridge daily--sometimes several times a day to get to The Raptor Center, to go to Hawk Ridge, Target, my friend Amber's home, Bill used it just 24 hours before it collapsed to visit our buddy Jody the librarian. It never seemed like a bridge--it was a four lane highway, you never really thought of it as a bridge--it was big and safe. It had one of my favorite views of downtown Minneapolis, and I remember once driving over on a winter night and the crow roost had been disturbed. It was 10pm and the overcast sky was kind of purple from the reflection of the city lights and you could see thousands of crows swirling over the bridge in the night sky--an owl must have flown through.

Yesterday, I was taking a long drive home from Indianapolis. It had not been a pleasure visit, and I was chewing on unblogable events on the drive home. I approached a highway bridge in Illinois that was having some construction done, it was very high above a large river. Panic suddenly bubbled up from inside me, I had sense that I could fall off at any moment. My hands were shaking, my heart pounding in my chest. If there had been space to pull over, I would have. There was no place safe to pull over, and I tried to get hold of myself, "What is this? You drive over rivers all the time, you are safe. You already hate to fly, you're not going to be afraid to cross bridges."

The panic passed, and I focused on the birds flying over. This has NEVER happened to me before, I've never been afraid of falling off a bridge. I attributed it to stress from the visit. I entered the Twin Cities at 6pm. Nearing my home, I put in my ear piece and called my mom to tell her that I had made it back to the Twin Cities safely. As we talked and I was on I-94 approaching 35W, I saw news helicopters circling close together. I thought that it was odd, but just thought that there must have been a bad accident. As I passed the exits for 35W that dump onto 94, I braced myself for the stand still traffic that comes at that exit at that time of night. There was no traffic and I made it to my exit with ease. As I hung up from my mom, I thought how odd that I got through rush hour traffic so smoothly, but remembered that lots of construction had been happening and 35W and maybe traffic had been rerouted while I was gone--that would also help explain the news helicopters.

I still had my ear piece in and called out to my phone to call Bill to warn him that I was five minutes away. The phone didn't dial. I tried it four times, each time, the call didn't go through. Finally, the fifth time it went through and I gave him the warning. Finished with my calls, I turned on the radio and heard the unfamiliar voices of tv anchors on my radio station. I came in during the middle of the report. From what I gathered, there was a fire on 35W, several cars involved, sounded like ten cars. Also, it sounded as if part of the 35W bridge had collapsed. I thought, "Well, that explains the helicopters, there's a really bad accident and perhaps with the construction some part of the road fell in the river."

We came in and turned on the tv and saw that the whole bridge fell in the river, during rush hour. I had no idea of the magnitude of what happened. We immediately tried to call friends and family to touch base, and couldn't get our calls out. The news said cell phone companies said to clear the lines, emergency calls weren't getting through, so I put the notice in my blog--which I'm so glad I did. This morning I'm finding all kinds of cell messages that I didn't get from family and friends who couldn't get hold of us last night.

I thought back to my panic on the highway bridge in Illinois earlier in the day. I'm not big believer in psychics or esp. But the coincidence does have me thinking--was it some kind of sixth sense triggering a warning. Probably not, but it was strange nonetheless.

Now the magnitude is really setting in. This was a major connection between Minneapolis and St. Paul, it handled a huge amount of traffic, it's going to take time to figure out new routes. Early reports say that we won't have a new bridge for year...I think it's going to be even longer than that. I'm thinking that we are a few years away from having a bridge again. Authorities have to figure out what happened and then there has to be a redesign and then construction, it's hard to wrap your head around this one.

We Are O.K.

For those who may have just learned about the horrible bridge collapse on the I-35W bridge near our home this evening, Non Birding Bill and I are both safe and were not on the highway at the time.

We're trying to get hold of friends, but as you can imagine cell service is spotty and the media is asking that we not use the phones unless it's absolutely necessary. Friends, please feel free to leave a comment to let us know that you too are okay and alive.

I was driving into town when this happened...

Born freeeeeeee

Three monarchs flapping like crazy, released into the wilds of Minneapolis.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming

Sharon comes home today. Normal blogging will resume shortly, along with your daily recommended allowance of Brown Birds.

First, a bit of housekeeping:

To celebrate Sharon's return, we're having a bit of a sale over at the Birdchic Boutique. We're clearancing out our remaining Birdchick shirts for ten bucks each, plus shipping and handling (no, not the Disapproving Rabbits shirts). Get 'em while they last!

Three of the Monarch cocoons turned black overnight, which means they'll be emerging soon. Possibly today!

Thanks to all of you for your kind words during my guest stint (I typed "stink" there. Paging Dr. Freud!). Sharon tells me that she has an interesting post about bald birds coming up, right after she goes back and corrects every single inaccurate thing I wrote in her blog.

So long, and for god's sake, stop driving while birding!