This Just Made Me Laugh

While doing some online research for something, I came across an archived article from the New York Times dated September 20, 1896:

A young South American bittern fell exhausted in the rear yard of 411 West Thirty-third Street yesterday. August and Willie Schramm, two boys who live at that number, caught the bird. It fought desperately with its sharp claws and bill and uttered a sound which resembled closely that made by an alarm clock going off inside a box.

The boys put the bird into a box, which they tied securely with twine. They then took the bittern to the Central Park Menagerie and turned it over to Director Smith. It was placed in the pigeon house, where it immediately assume its habitual attitude of quiet watchfulness.

The South American bittern when at home makes relentless warfare on fish and birds of its own size and smaller, which it devours greedily. It is very difficult to raise in captivity.

Boy, they don't write up natural history reports like that anymore! Just looking around at my own personal bird library and online resources, I admire the ability to id an off course South American bittern in the 1890s.

Fun Birds 10 Minutes From Uptown

First, Birds and Beers will continue, I just haven't scheduled January yet. I will get it squared away after the first of the year. I just needed to get the holidays out of the way.

Second, a BIG THANK YOU to Metro Magazine for including my blog in their list of "The Best Homegrown Blogs We Read Just About Every Day." It's nice to know a non bird related magazine is interested in birds...and bees...and disapproving bunnies.

Third, someone reminded me to mention The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up in February. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it. I'm tentatively booked at a bird festival that weekend. But if you're not doing anything that weekend, count the birds in your backyard.

I did have some time to do some birding today and headed over to the Minnesota Valley NWR Visitor's Center about ten minutes from my apartment.

I was hoping I could do some digiscoping from inside, but the visitor's center was closed. I wasn't wearing as many layers I should have for the outdoors, but I had some emergency hand warmers stashed in my coat and tucked those in my gloves and gave it a shot.

Light snow was falling and many birds were tucked in the bushes awaiting their turn at the bird feeders, like this female cardinal. When I arrived, I met a fellow digiscoper out in the parking lot, he was leaving as I was arriving. He showed me photos of a sharp-shinned hawk he had just photographed perched near the feeding station. I was bummed that I had missed that, but a cardinal is still a very cool sight in the snow.

The birds were still very wary about coming to the feeder. That hawk must have been fresh in their minds. The cardinals would come to the feeder, but the slightest chip note would send them flying back to the shrubs.

I found one downy woodpecker with a band on his foot (its male, they way the head is turned, you cannot see the red spot on the back of his head).

I've been trying to get better photos of tree sparrows. This little one cracked me up with its snow mustache over his bill. As I was following this bird around with my scope, I noticed a rusty brown bird about twice his size. I looked it up and it flew to the brush.

Holy crap! Is that what I think it is? Is this a fox sparrow? The upside about finding this bird at this point (besides that I wasn't expecting it) was that I got so focused on the bird, I no longer paid attention to how cold I was. Whoot. Even better, I am super-duper sore right now, I signed up for yoga again and am in severe pain after the first class. The last time I took yoga, I remember having such intense pain for three days after the first class. I thought it was just exaggerated in my memory. No, it wasn't an exaggeration...I'm in pain in places I didn't know could feel pain. At least this time I won't make the mistake of having Non Birding Bill rub Icy Hot all over my entire body to ease the sore muscles. That wasn't pretty. Icy and hot all over, I couldn't get comfortable for hours--take my advice: only use Icy Hot on one body part at a time.

Anyhoo, back to the fox sparrow. At first the fox sparrow started feeding kind of like a chickadee: it would fly out under the feeders, grab at a seed and then fly back into the brush. I usually only see this species during migration when there are all kinds of dry leaves and they do that characteristic kicking with their feet, but this bird wasn't doing that in the snow.

I love looking at sparrows head on (it doesn't have to be fox sparrows, it can be any sparrow). They have such great masks. It was interesting to see how the rusty browns on this bird just popped out of the brush, especially since it was surrounded by the more muted colors of juncos and tree sparrows. At times, this bird was about as bright as a cardinal. Right after I got this photo, my batteries died in my camera and I put in my spares. As I put the camera back up to my spotting scope, the sparrow was gone and I suddenly heard a loud flutter of wings, all the downy and hairy woodpeckers gave sharp "cheeps" and their wings flapped with such intensity, you could hear each distinctive flap. I looked over to the feeders, they were bare. I thought that the sharp-shinned hawk must have returned and I glanced around:

There it is in the top of the tree. Note where my scope is in relation to the hawk. I didn't move the scope from here for the photos--just keep that in mind for the next two photos. Let's look at it through the scope:

It was a haggard bird and I wondered if it was the same sharp-shinned hawk that hunted the feeders here last winter?

When I took the first photo and my camera focused, the hawk turned and looked right at it. There is not beeping sound on my camera, this was just the sound of the lens adjusting. I know harriers have a great sense of hearing...I wonder what the stats are on the sharp-shinned hawk sense of hearing? It was at about this point that the batteries on my camera totally died and I had to go back to the car, which was good because my fingers were numb. I don't know if the sharpie ended up getting any of the birds, it was still perched in the tree when I left.

UPDATE: Check out fellow MN Blogger EcoBirder, he has photos on Dec 13 and Dec 29 at the same spot of an adult sharpie--perhaps the same bird?

Mixed Nuts

Someone asked in the comments what the red-breasted nuthatch is eating in the feeder. This is a mesh feeder full of mixed nuts: peanuts, Brazil nuts, almonds, cashews, pistashios, and the odd filbert. Birds love this stuff. If you can mount your feeders in such a way that squirrels can't get to them and you don't have too many starlings, birds love this stuff. It's fun to watch red-bellied woodpeckers fly off with the Brazil nuts and to watch titmice fly away with an almond and chip it apart.

The latest installment of I and the Bird is up at WildBird on the Fly. She has managed to work in her love of cars as a theme--quite creative!

I'm just looking over my schedule for early 2008 and it is action packed! One of my favorite emails that I've gotten all year was from Swarovski asking if I would mind if they sent me to Florida in January for a digiscoping workshop...hmmm, let me think about that--OKAY!!! Two days after I get back from that, I'm off to Atlanta for Bird Watch America to see the latest in bird items that could be showing up at a wild birds specialty store near you.

On January 20, 2008 I'm doing an All About Owls program for The Raptor Center using live owls and PowerPoint to talk about Minnesota's diversity of owls. If you want to attend that, I would recommend signing up. Some years it does sell out and we've had to turn people away who just show up at the door.

On February 2, I'm co-leading a trip with Stan Tekiela to go to northern Minnesota to see hawk owls, pine grosbeaks, common redpolls, black-backed woodpeckers, or anything else being reported. Call 952-949-8479 to sign up.

Chickadees Are A Popular Subject In The Star Tribune

The chickadee flies up to the suet log and demands a share of the peanut butter suet.

The downy woodpecker accepts and doesn't fend off a rival for the fat. Must be having an off day.

In the December 18, 2007 Home and Garden Section of the Star Tribune, Minnesota birder Jim Williams wrote an article on chickadees and how they survive the winter. Today, December 26, 2007 TV hunting personality Ron Schara had a front page article in the Star Tribune on chickadees and how they survive the winter. Either the Star Tribune editor was ready for a Christmas break or really loves chickadees. I bet it's the latter!

Our Weird Little Christmas

One of the great things about living in a state that gets a lot of snow is that your plans change. It's not a big deal, it happens, you just have to make adjustments. Non Birding Bill got off work last Friday and we thought we would stop out at Mr. Neil's on Saturday, head home Sunday, do our Christmas Eve rituals on Monday, and celebrate Christmas Tuesday. Well, dusty snow and strong winds arrived which made visibility poor and driving unsafe so we ended up staying at Mr. Neil's until Christmas eve. We brought Cinnamon with us just in case we did get stuck at the house and it was a good thing. We can leave our cockatiel alone with a larder of food, he seems to know how to ear sensibly. Cinnamon will just vacuum up whatever is set in front of her and cannot be left alone. She was having a great time in the carpeted guest room at Mr. Neil's. Each morning she woke us up with all her popcorn impressions (most rabbit owners call this binkies, but I just can't).

I tried digiscoping outside, but the weather was just too cold and the wind too strong that my rechargeable batteries barely lasted five minutes in my camera. So, I tried rearranging feeders to get photos from the kitchen window and the photos didn't turn out half bad like this one of a red-breasted nuthatch on the mixed nut feeder. The birds activity was as intense during the storm, but the next morning when the wind had subsided, the birds were out in full force.

I'm still seeing some of the birds we banded last fall. Check out the chickadee perched on the bittersweet on the right--it has a little silver band on its foot. W00t! Christmas Eve morning was just about as perfect as it could get. Standing at the window in my pajamas taking photos of birds in perfect light, sipping a warm cup of coffee, trading barbs with Non Birding Bill, while periodically, Mr. Neil would come in and say something inaccurate about birds.

It seemed that every bird that showed up to the stump just looked perfect and cute. How could they not with the snow, the pine branches and bittersweet berries.

Then the crows crashed the party. It looks like the crow on the left had a rough night or at least is the low perching guy at the nightly crow roost--note the poop on its left wing. That's going to be fun to preen out later on!

Chirstmas Eve, we headed back to the Twin Cities. We picked up a few last minute items for our dinner the next day and then we headed out to our tradition of watching the last minute shoppers at the Mall of America. I always get a kick out of the restaurant Tucci Benucch, it has "patio seating" which means you can have a cafe table out in the hallways of the mall to watch traffic. We stationed ourselves, had a light lunch and commenced to people watching. We did run into some friends at the MOA and I was going to post the photos, but then realized I may get them in trouble for shopping last minute and decided against it.

We stopped at Urban Outfitters to see if they had Disapproving Rabbits and we found it there. It was very exciting to see our book at your one stop pop culture shop. We also stopped at Barnes and Noble, and they were sold out. W00t! The airport is on our way home and we took a quick drive on Cargo Road to see if we could see the snowy owl. We did, and we almost missed it. It was perched WAY up high on some type of metal tower--I have no idea what it's used for, but I never think of looking for those birds so high up since they come from the tundra and the snowies are used to low terrain, but it was cool way to wind our day.

On Christmas day we got the beautiful snow that you would see in Hollywood movies. It's still snowing this morning. It was a great day. One of the highlights was getting the goshawk hat that I blogged about (it's even pretties in real life than in the photo) and my mother-in-law made me a squirrel calendar--all with photos she took herself squirrels in her yard. She was very proud and said with a maniacal giggle, "I know how much you love those squirrels!"

We had our friend Ari over who is a local comedian and is Jewish. NBB and Ari have such a similar sense of humor and interests, they could be brothers. They were in the middle of conversation when one of them mentioned the Snoopy Snow Cone machine and without missing a beat, both started singing the song from the commercial as if well rehearsed though neither had probably sang it aloud since 1983. At one point Ari and NBB started writing a Hanukkah special that they could perform and as Christmas music played in the background and I looked out the window watching the fluffy snow while sipping cocoa, I realized that this was one of our weirder Christmases...I was loving every minute of it. Later, when the sun set, NBB and I took a stroll around our neighborhood in the dark. Traffic was gone, the snow was still falling and collecting around everyone's outdoor lights. The muted glow of the lights and the soft sound of snow kind of made me feel like we were the last people on the planet and it was magical. I felt grateful for everything that we have and have experienced in this life and look forward to whatever is coming on the horizon.

And now Minneapolis has declared yet another Snow Emergency and we need to go move our car. More later.

Stranded At Mr. Neil's

Well, our plans got a little derailed today as this puffed up blue jay in the snow hints at.

We got some unexpected snow. Some of the snow was expected, but where exactly it fell and how much was not. We knew some snow was coming but there wasn't supposed be too much falling where we live. We went out to Mr. Neil's to take some photos (I was hoping to see some common redpolls, a few have been reported around the Twin Cities, so I figured it was a matter of time before some would show up at Mr. Neil's.) and spread some Christmas cheer...then the wind picked up and dusty snow fell and then I received an email note from the City of Minneapolis that a Snow Emergency has been declared so we have decided to stay at Mr. Neil's and avoid the treacherous roads. It's not so bad being here, apart from Mr. Neil trying to get Non Birding Bill and me to drink some kind of liquid fungus he's been growing. But on the upside, when my toes get frozen, I can use the sauna.

The wind has been particularly nasty. It's already about 10 degrees, but the wind makes it feel well below zero. Above, this red-bellied woodpecker was trying to position himself in the least windy area around the suet log. I went out to artfully arrange some bittersweet berries and pine boughs. In part to create an artistic back drop for photos, but to also help create a wind break for the birds while they feed.

The feeding stations were not as active as usual. No squirrels showed up, I'm sure they were hunkered for the day, sleeping in their nests. The birds, like the tufted titmouse in the above photo stayed hunkered only moved if hunger absolutely drove them down.

Alas, the wind was so bitter, that not even an extra layer of clothing or my hand warmers could keep me comfortable. The hand warmers have been helpful in the past with keeping my rechargeable batteries going in my camera. But today, they camera kept freezing up. I decided to give up the ghost since all my batteries were failing, my fingers were going numb, and no matter what direction I was standing in--snow insisted on pelting my cheeks.

When I got into the house, I looked out the kitchen window and lo and behold, one common redpoll was among the goldfinches. The feeder is so close to the window that I had tough time getting it in focus. I got as far back as I could and at this point the scope started fogging up after having been in the cold for so long. I managed one photo and then finally my batteries went kaput for good and I hit the sauna.

Pouring More Salt

As if missing the northern shrike banding weren't bad enough, my buddy Larry Sirvio has sent more photos of what I missed at Carpenter's banding this morning!

Hm. I don't think that turkey is going to fit into that Potter Trap...and the next photo I think deserves a caption contest:

Here is a first year sharp-shinned sitting on top of a Potter Trap with a freshly trapped junco. I bet a junco has never been so happy to be trapped in its life. Got any caption ideas? The one who makes me chuckle out loud wins their choice of a Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America or a Lang Elliot's Music of the Birds: A Celebration of Bird Song (with CD)--prizses courtesy of Houghton Mifflin.

Pain And Banding Withdrawl

My schedule has been nuts this December and I haven't had a chance to go to Friday banding at Carpenter Nature Center. This morning I had to miss it because I had a tv segment. I just came home and am going through email when I found the report of what they got this morning:

This photo was taken by Dennis Donath--a shrike, they got a northern shrike and I missed it! Stupid tv segment! It even has fresh blood around its bill from having killed something (that's one of the reasons shrikes aren't raptors--they don't kill with their feet, they kill with the bill).

Pain, withdrawl, gnashing of teeth, lots and lots of whining...

Countable Birds?

I had some errands to run yesterday. I needed to pick up some seed for Mr. Neil's house and I needed some seed to take onto Showcase Minnesota with me. I went to Cardinal Corner in Newport and decided to take a quick trip over to Point Douglas Park to see if I could find a Barrow's goldeneye. Two had been reported in that area mixed in with some large flocks of common goldeneye, bouncing between the Minnesota and the Wisconsin side of the river. Barrow's is an unusual bird for Minnesota and you can see some great comparisons of the two species over at Bill Schmoker's site.

There were oodles of common goldeneye and some trumpeter swans. Note the swan above on the left that is leaning forward? It was trying to break up some of the ice to get through to the other side. It was interest to watch the swan rock back and forth and push its way through.

There were some other species mixed in with the common goldeneye, including redheads and a canvasback (and the ever present Canada geese). I wasn't really seeing anything that looked like a Barrow's goldeneye. Local birder Tom Bell said that you watch for a black thumb mark on the side of the bird. I wasn't really trying that hard either. I don't know, we seem to have Barrow's goldeneye reported every year in Minnesota, but it's not a bird that I try for very hard. So, I just decided to focus on some digiscoping and see what kinds of shots I could get. It was warm(ish) day in the 30s, there was sun and I was just happy to be out on a day when we have only eight hours of daylight.

When I was going through my images on iPhoto I noticed this photo. There is a merganser, but check out the duck in the top center of the photo. Here's a zoom in:

There's a thumb! It's a Barrow's goldeneye! I haven't seen one before and I don't know if I'll count this one. I didn't realize I was seeing it while I was there but found I had it when I came home. However, if this was a bird I didn't know but was trying to id and needed to take the image home to consult some field guides, I would. If you see a bird out in the wild but didn't know it was there, can you count it? I shall ponder this...

More Pigeon Extremists

This past June, I blogged about a pigeon fancier club that was trapping and killing native raptors to protect introduced pet birds aka roller pigeons. I thought it was interesting that the club's official statement admitted the was illegal and didn't condone it, but did feel that they were entitled to get rid of hawks for killing their valuable pigeons--much the same way farmers protect their livestock.

Well, Birder's World blog recently blogged about it and had some of the actual photos from the investigation--including a photo of the live trap with a bait pigeon and freshly trapped (live) Cooper's hawk--that hawk survived, although many did not.

I've said it before and I'll say it again--this is unreasonable. If you have a prey species as a pet and then let it loose in the wild where there are naturally occurring predators and then get upset when the pet gets eaten is unreasonable. If I let my pet rabbit Cinnamon loose along the Mississippi River near Red Wing, Minnesota where there are a bunch of bald eagles, and then she got eaten--that would be my fault. She's been raised as a pet and not to survive in the wild. Just because I have her and love to watch her run does not mean that I have the right to let her run where ever I want and expect nothing bad to happen.

Roller pigeons are not part of our natural ecosystem. And even if decades ago you could fly these birds without hawks taking them--think about the history. We didn't have that many hawks because of pesticides and wanton shooting decades ago. Times change and environments change. Native wildlife puts up with enough trying to learn to live with us. We don't need to take native predators out of the skies because someone insists on flying their non native pet and not want to deal with the consequences.

These pigeon fanciers really should consider switching to falconry, you could fly those birds and not have to worry as much about them being eaten and you still get to watch some cool flying action. Although, last time I put that in the blog, some pigeon fanciers sent me nasty emails telling me (with some creative profanity woven in), "How dare you call yourself a bird lover with an attitude like that! Blah blah blah." I love birds--I even enjoy pigeons, I just want people to take responsibility for their pets.

And if you need something cleansing after reading this, here's the reason why Cinnamon disapproves so much--I make her dress like an elf and dance with birds (it may take a minute for the video to load).

Cleansing Suet Bunnies & Ringed Parakeets

So, it must be the last minute Christmas crunch, tempers appear to be flaring. I'm on some different listservs and all I'm gonna say is that some people are wearing some cranky pants. So, I was trying to find something cleansing, remember the cleansing nuthatch? I was looking over photos that I haven't posted and hoped to find something cleansing there. I thought I found a cleansing blue jay:

But, some people have issues with blue jays and now matter how cute a photo of one may be, they just cannot get on board with a cleansing blue jay. It's not your fault, blue jays, it's that Audubon painting that shows you chugging egg yolks like frat boys around a beer bong. Lot of birds eat other birds eggs, you just end up taking the rap for it more often.

So I continued my search for something cleansing and then Els from the Netherlands who has been a frequent contributor to the Disapproving Rabbits blog emailed me a photo of home made suet bunnies:

Els* writes, "It's winter here now and I'm spending a fortune trying to feed the birds outside. Now I've resorted to making my own feedballs... and somehow I thought just balls would be boring, so there it is: a fat rabbit!"

Els ads, "Can't find any disapproving in the face yet though, so I think he agrees!" People have sent us portraits of Cinnamon, shown us Cinnamon jack-o-lanterns, and now suet bunnies. Life is very strange, and I'm loving every minute of it! Breathe in the suet bunnies, breathe out the suet bunnies. Cleanse with the suet bunnies, cleanse. Let the holiday tensions melt away, like a suet cake in 90 degree temperatures...breathe in, breathe out.

Els also included a photo of some ring-necked parakeets that live wild in the Netherlands. Els tells me that these are the result of pet birds that escaped, survived and multiplied some 30 years ago. All big cities in The Netherlands have them now. This pair of parakeets were eating nuts right outside his window. He blames them for not being able to get his work done. I found an entry about these parakeets over at the City Parrots Blog. Interesting stuff.

* I learned after I did this post that Els is female not male. As always, I blame my husband for this.

Because Amy Asked For It

So, we went to see a preview of Sweeney Todd last night, which was fun--perhaps not the feel good Christmas movie one might expect to see this time of year, but a great movie. This is not a musical for kids or the squeamish! It is a rated R, bloody movie but if you're familiar with the Stephen Sondheim musical, you kind of know that going in.

Johnny Depp is GREAT and sings the songs well (no surprise there, we heard him sing in the John Waters classic Cry Baby. Actually, it was weird because there area couple of shots of him and I started thinking, "Man, Sweeney Todd is hot." but then I'm, "Wait, he's a blood thirsty killer--ingore the Johnny Depp animal magnetism, he's not hot!"

Helena Bonham Carter did a good job, she doesn't have that strong of a voice for singing, but since it's a movie and the camera can make the scenes more intimate and she's a great actress, it works for the most part.

The story is about a barber who gets swindled out of his cozy family and years later seeks to exact revenge...as only a barber can. There is an issue of disposing of the bodies, but fortunately, the barber shop is over a meat pie shop...it's the best bloody serial killer movie with cannibalism and singing that you'll see this year! If you're worried that you can't take the gross factor, the music almost always clues you in that a murder is about to happen so you can cover your eyes, but make no mistake there is lots of blood. Again, not something I would take kids to go see.

And because Amy (who is hosting the next I and the Bird, get her entries in by December 20th) asked for it, here it is. MAC cosmetics was at the preview and offering free "Sweeney Todd makeovers". They asked if I wanted a little or a lot, so I got a lot. Also, Sweeney Todd Hair Salon was there too giving out white hair extensions, so I signed up for that too. Here's the end result:

Born Again Bird Watcher calls this The Demon Birder of Fleet Street...or at least of the Twin Cities. When they started to put the pale make up on to make me look dead, the woman said, "Wow, on everyone else, this looks like deadly pale, it's actually a good color for you!" So she went under the table and brought out something that was just pure white and that gave me the dead person look. Non Birding Bill was confused--he liked the goth look but was not used to me wearing so much make up and found it hard to have a conversation with me. Not a big call for having "smoldering eyes" at bird festivals.

Rebirth of the Eagle aka False Load of Crap

The Rebirth of the Eagle PowerPoint is the latest "wondrous" bird thing hitting email inboxes. Not since the movie Caracara have I been so blown away with such blatant lies being made about an animal's natural history. The Caracara movie was where the lead actress was a falconer who had a rare bird to hunt with...a caracara...which looked remarkably like a Harris hawk...that she kept in a parrot cage...and would let loose to hunt from her Manhattan high rise...at night...

But I digress!

I'm not sure where this PowerPoint originated, there's not much up on Snopes yet (the urban legend debunking website) but I'm sure it's a matter of time until it is there. From what I'm able to gather, this was a presentation given at a church about change and rebirth, but somehow has made its way onto the web and people are passing this info off as true. Don't believe me, The Raptor Center has been getting emails asking if it's a true story. The worst part is that some "religious" sites have put it up and when people comment that the information is wrong, incorrect, inaccurate, a load of bull, etc. The web operators reply with "well, you're not an eagle expert, so we can't trust your info." Grrrrrrrrrrr. So, I'm going to post it here with the notes as to why it's wrong and links to where it's appropriate.

Let's assume they are talking about bald eagles and not golden eagles or any other eagle species.

Okay, I can find NO records of a bald eagle living to be 70 years old. According to the Bird Banding Lab, the oldest bald eagle documented in the wild was 30 years old and 9 months. I've tried to look up the oldest bald eagle in captivity, but I can find records of eagles living 21 - 47 years. I can say at The Raptor Center, we have an education bald eagle that was admitted as a first year bird in 1983.

And, the only decisions a bald eagle needs to make are: Can I kill and or eat that? Can I mate with or drive that out of my territory? I wonder if that tree would make a good nest? I wonder how many eggs we should try to hatch this year?

I've yet to meet any eagle, hawk, owl or falcon that has "flexible talons". The talons are always hard and they are always curved.

Whoa! Hey! What's that, we were talking bald eagles and now all of a sudden this is a golden eagle? You can't just switch species like that? Yes, that is a golden, not an immature bald eagle--note the golden hackle feathers (feathers on the back of the head and neck) and for the record, this process doesn't happen with any eagle species or ANY real life bird. Anyway, it reads that "Its' long and sharp beak becomes curved." Um...has ANYONE EVER seen an eagle with a straight and pointy beak like you would see on a heron?? NO! Eagles are raptors, two of the characteristics that make a raptor are sharp, curved talons and a strong curved beak.

Oh, hey, look at that, we're back to a bald eagle again. The only time birds feathers get stuck to their chest is when the bird has been involved in an oil spill. They molt out old feathers every year and grow in new ones. Honest, birds get new feathers every year.

No. This doesn't happen and they don't have to make that decision. Apart from molting into adult plumage, eagles do not go through a process of change. And they don't have a choice, they attain adult plumage in five to seven years if they want to or not.

Oh! Another golden eagle again. The only time eagles sit in their nests is to incubate eggs, brood young, or just do some remodeling. It's not someplace they hang out when there is nothing else better to do or if they have to go through some sort of fictitious change.

Let's just deal with the logistics of that sentence. The eagle is knocking its beak against a rock but it still manages to "pluck it out". If a bird did this, it would die. It wouldn't be able to tear and rip its meat in order to swallow it. Eagles and other birds will rub their beak against a hard surface to help wear it down. Like our fingernails, eagle beaks are constantly growing. Sometimes the vets at The Raptor Center have to trim beaks because they can get too long.

Again, this is not a survivable injury (unless the bird is force fed by wildlife rehabbers). If it waits for a missing beak to grow back, it will starve to death. Why am I justifying this, they don't pluck it out to begin with! Arrrrgh. An eagle's talons are the same, they are like our finger nails--they are constantly growing, they do not need to be plucked out.

No, eagles do not pluck out their old feathers. They go through a natural molting process. Did we go through this already?

An eagle that has not been hunting and eating for five months is a dead eagle and certainly not capable of living for another 30 years.

And you may have gone through this with me and thought, "Seriously, Sharon, did you really need to post this and explain that it's not true." Yes. People are forwarding this and asking, "This isn't true is it?" Here's a link to a blog with just the text and the blog writer seems to think this true. Sheesh.

Now, I'm all for taking some artistic license for a good story but this is just bad. It makes me mad when someone has to make up BS about an animal when their natural history and facts are cool enough on their own.

*UPDATE: Snopes does have an entry up now. I first heard about this at The Raptor Center on Tuesday and the woman who wrote the response from TRC on Snopes showed me the letter. I had no idea at the time that it was going on Snopes.

Hooty Owls Photo and Video

Holy Cow! I am working on a blog entry for the latest piece of inaccurate bird crap floating on the Internet and wow, just wow, wait til you see it--if you haven't seen it already.

Wow...

In the meantime, while I was at The Raptor Center today, some our education great horned owls were hooting up a storm in the courtyard--well it is December, prime flirting time for great horneds. We have two great horned owls that are housed next to each other that are imprinted on humans (illegally raised by people as chicks and now kind of think of themselves as the same species as human). When you hoot at them, they'll hoot back, so I got a video of Bubo hooting at me (you'll hear me in the background to get hit hoot). Part way through the the video clip, you will hear a bark and more hooting, that is Lois. And I think she's female because her hoot is a little higher in pitch and because she makes that barking call quite a bit. Both male and female great horneds can give the call, but females do it more often:



The hoots may not sound like the great horned hooting you hear on bird cds or in your yard, but this bird is imprinted and sometimes imprints can't do a perfect hoot. And for all those who cannot watch video, here is a photo of Lois in mid hoot:

The best part of watching great horned owls hoot is seeing that little gular pouch puff out. Sometimes I wish I could have a fluffy little pouch poof out...okay that would probably gross out Non Birding Bill. Here's a video of Lois (the bark heard in this video is me trying to get her to bark back) she did it, but not when my camera was on her:

Crow Lovin'

What a weekend of gifts! The snowy owl was pretty awesome, that was such an exotic bird to me when I looked at it in field guides as a kid. And I got to drive underneath one on Saturday evening! Also, artist Marcy Hall sent us a HUGE vibrant portrait of Cinnamon (above). She's selling the image on shirts, bags, mugs and cards and 10% of the sales goes to the Minnesota Companion Rabbit Association.

While I was doing some writing, I looked out the kitchen window to see some crow flirting going on--not behavior I would expect to see in December in Minnesota! It was hard to get a great photo, we have our storm windows in and I didn't want to open them since that would scare them off--crows are so cagey. I did get about seven seconds of video:

Christmas Bird Counting

I helped out with the Eagan Christmas Bird Count today. Most of the trails were fairly well groomed, but the temps in the Twin Cities started out at -5. But it was at least 20 degrees by the end of the day.

Actually, Linda the woman in the above photo had us hiking pretty hard and fast on some snowy hills. All the hiking had us sweating under our multiple layers of pants. And if you're looking at the above photo thinking that it doesn't look so bad, check out where we had just come from:

Yes, that is where we had just come from. Hoo-wee. Linda wore me out but kept me warm.

Since the goal was to try and count birds, I didn't have a chance to do huge amounts of digiscoping but I did get an okay shot of a tree sparrow.

We wrapped up at about 4pm and since it was evening, I thought I would drive by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport to see if a snowy owl had shown up yet. I passed by the glycol plant and there on one of the light posts was a snowy owl.

I got out of the car and tried to digiscope a photo of the snowy, but the light wasn't the best, but good enough for the blog. And it's usually best not to lallygag around the glycol plant at an airport with a spotting scope taking photos.

It's a one way road out of the plant so I drove slowly past the lamp and stuck my camera out the window to get one last photo. I love living in Minneapolis where a snowy owl is less than eight miles from home.

Peregrine 568 Update

Last week when we last checked in on the Injured Peregrine Falcon 568, she was a tad jumpy and we weren't able to peek in. Two of The Raptor Center Vets, Lori Arent (that's actually Lori on the home page of the TRC website) and Jane Goggin emailed over some photos when they did a check up on her:

As you can see, her feisty spirit has not diminished. Lori and Jane were worried because anytime anyone came near the flight room, she would get jumpy and all the other peregrines in the flight room with her would start flapping around. One of the things that make peregrine falcons so fast are their incredibly stiff wing feathers. If the peregrines continued to fly around willy nilly in the flight room, that would risk breaking those feathers and increasing the length of their stay at TRC. (Incidentally, when someone tells me that they had a raptor show up at their bird feeder and it ran on the ground, dove into a bush chasing birds, that is a big clue that it's NOT a peregrine falcon--a peregrine would break too many valuable flight feathers hunting in that way--however, a shorter winged and softer feathered Cooper's hawk is perfectly designed for that type of hunting).

Jane and Lori decided to do some switching around of the peregrines in the flight room to see if that would make all the birds more calm. They removed a male and put in a different one. When I arrived on Tuesday for my shift, Lori said that it would okay for me to peek through a corner of the cover on the flight room window to see how she is doing:

That's Peregrine 568 on the right--note how skinny the foot is on the left--that's where the feathers were plucked to operate on her injured bones. Now she is upright, hanging with another male tundrius peregrine falcon and staying relatively calm. There's also a third falcon--a large female which you can't see from this angle. From this point, she will have to be exercised and her flight progress closely monitored to make sure she will be in peak condition for release. Since she has not flown since she flew into the nets at the banding station, her flight muscles have atrophied a bit. She will need conditioning to get used to flying and hunting on a daily basis. Between that and waiting for the feathers on her leg to grow in, she will more than likely be at TRC until spring.

All in all, things are looking very good.

Bees In The Snow

Thank you to do Stacy Kagiwada for getting this awesome photo of Cinnamon! This is from the Indianapolis book signing, you can see more here--wow, Stacy has really nailed how to get a disapproval out of my bunny. I just love this one below--Cinnamon's totally disapproving of me in the background. Stacy also got a shot of Non Birding Bill and I together--we have so few of us in the same shot, I love it!

Whoa, doggies! Sounds like I'll be signing lots of Disapproving Rabbits books tomorrow. About a month after the book came out, we learned that Harper Collins had run out of the DR book and were going to print more. According to UPS, the packages will be dropped off tomorrow and I'll be signing away so we can mail them out on Friday and get them to people in time for Christmas.

It continues to be super cold here, but very lovely--like this puffed up little downy woodpecker. This morning I woke to 5 degrees but I am assured by the weatherman that it will warm up to twenty degrees before the sun sets at 4:30pm. I went out check on the beehives.

Single digit temperatures are much easier to take in when there is snow. Also, between all of my layers, hand warmers and the marching motion I have to do to maneuver over unplowed paths in the woods, I can work up quite a sweat. It's a strange quiet in the woods, and all you hear is the chip note of a chickadee, the industrious soft tapping of several woodpeckers, and crow caws echoing off of the hillsides. So different from the cacophony of warblers and vireos in spring and the dry humming and buzzing of katydids and grasshoppers in late summer.

I took a very long route to the hives to enjoy the scenery in the snow. The creek on Mr. Neil's property is almost completely frozen, apart from a few pockets that the birds are using for drinking water. I can't believe I've seen some ice fishing houses out already on some of the lakes in town--it's too soon. If there is still some slush on the lake, it's too soon, you crazy fishing people! As I was working my way to the field near our hives, I noticed a strong aroma.

Hoo-wee, you've been warned of yellow snow...how about brown snow? Someone must have run a manure spreader right after our last big snowfall. It was still very pungent--and rock solid.

The path to the hives was dug deep into the snow with splatters of hard poop. I know the kind of enjoyment I get from walking through fresh snow...I wonder if it's the same when one is riding a manure spreader. There's a huge field full of pristine snow and you're gonna cover it with some hot liquid manure. Good times. Actually, I had to chuckle, because the field is part of a network of snow mobile trails...I would wager that there have been some very disappointed snow mobile drivers who were raring to go after our first big snow of the season only to come upon that road block of several acres.

But I made my way to the hives and found Kitty nestled in the snow. I put my ear up to the hive and you could hear all the bees inside buzzing softly keeping the hive warm. Incredible.

You will note that the snow just around the hives is melted away--they keep it that warm! Again--Incredible. And now in French--Incroyable!!

There were some dead bees outside of the hives, here's a little pile in front of Olga. I had closed the entrance reducer, but Mr. Neil read about some Canadian beekeepers, leaving it open a little bit for some air circulation. The bees seemed to have covered the entrance holes with dead bees on the inside, so I'm not sure if they need in ventilation or not. There's a small hole at the top as well, so they can take cleansing flight. I'm not too worried about. After all, our bees have insulation around their hive, in the wild, they don't have anything, but their honey and their little wings to maintain temperature. I put my ear up to Olga and you could hear the humming in there too. Amazing, just amazing to hear them living on the other side of some thin pieced of wood while it's in the single digits outside. Ah, my bees, I miss you. Can't wait to play with you next spring.

Blast From The Past

I was barely home yesterday. I had my shift at The Raptor Center, then a dental appointment, I was in dire need of new snow boots and had to pick those up and then it was back to TRC for a Holiday Party--I barely had time to check email. But everywhere I went, people kept telling me they saw me on TV and asking if the great gray owls were irrupting again (No they are not like they did in the winter of 2004 - 2005). Apparently WCCO reran the story and you can read it and view it here. According to the story... I still work at the Wild Bird Store.

On January 25, 2005, my buddy Amber and I had one heck of a day, we started it at KARE 11 (where we got to meet Donny Osmond) and then headed up north, met up with a news crew from WCCO to film great grays and before the day was done, we ended up with a car full of four injured owls that people had found that we took back with us to the Twin Cities to The Raptor Center (two great grays, one barred owl, and one great horned owl). We have it on the Birdchick Adventure Pages.

Owls Calling In Each Other and Some Digiscoping

As mentioned in the previous post, it's a little chilly right now. But I decided to try some digiscoping at Mr. Neil's bird feeders. Number one, being right outside the house, I could dash in and have some pumpkin spice tea when the layers would begin to fail me (my layering system works great when I'm walking, but it's hard to stay warm when standing in one spot taking photos). Plus, the cold just wreaks havoc on my batteries for my camera. I have discovered that using those Hot Hand hand warmers does help keep them going a little bit longer than just keeping them in a pants pocket.

The berries that were in the blue jay photo are from a bittersweet vine that we planted in the yard. I just love bittersweet, I think it's one of the pretties fall vines out there, so I snipped some off and set it on top of the stump with the snow and tossed some black oil sunflower seed and mixed nuts in front of it so see what type of bird photos I could get.

It's interesting that you hear some people complain about all the manipulation of images with Photoshop, but images can be manipulated just as easily with some well placed foliage and food bribery. I know some who go to great lengths to hide the bird seed used to bring in birds for photos, but I'm not that picky.

It was interesting that this female red-bellied woodpecker had no problem coming down to the stump for the nuts. This species is usually pretty cagey in Mr. Neil's yard. If they do come in, they usually stick to the suet feeder or peanut feeder. But this female decided to risk the spotting scope and come down for some nuts.

Round about 4pm, it started getting darker and the bird activity began to slow down. It was mostly juncos and a couple of cardinals coming in towards the end. I normally would have cropped out the half red-breasted nuthatch on the right, but check out the leg--there's a band, no doubt this is one of the nuthatches we banded this fall. Whoot.

As it was getting darker, something caught the attention of both me and the junco (notice that it looks a bit more alert)--we heard a great horned owl hooting. There has been some hooting on and off in the last few weeks, but they sounded very close. First it stared with one, and then a second, higher pitched hoot came in--male and female. They were hooting back and forth, well it is December, that is prime owl flirting time, but as they were hooting, I noticed a very faint hooting--another great horned was hooting back!

It was almost 4:30pm at this point and that's when the sun sets this time of year. I took a photo and see those tall pines in the back ground? That's where the owls were hooting. After I took this photo, I noticed some flapping and then saw a bird land on top of the pines. I thought I would test my Swarovski's light gathering abilities and see if I could see anything:

There was an owl, perched right at the top of a branch! In the scope, you could make out the colors, but my little digital camera could only just about make out the great horned owl's silhouette.

Here is the male owl in mid-hoot. I love how they pop their tails up like they are some kind of giant wren. Check out its puffed out throat too! The distant owl kept hooting back to the pair closest to me. This is great, I didn't even have to use the iPod, the birds were calling themselves out! Not long after I took this photo, the female flew up to join him:

Here is the male on the left and the female on the right. You can see the size difference and when they were hooting, you could totally tell that the owl on the right was much higher in pitch than the one on the left. I tried to get a video which will be below. You really can't hear the hooting, they were too far for my sad little mic to pick up. But, some fun things that I did catch on the video: At 34 seconds, the female on the right will hoot (you'll see her cock up her tail) and then right after that, watch the male on the left--he's going to cough up a pellet and you should see it fall at about 51 seconds, then watch the female again because she will poop at 1:01. The who thing lasts about a minute and twenty seconds. I ran in and grabbed Mr. Neil's video camera to see if it would be strong enough to pick out the hooting sounds and if you click here and crank your volume as loud as possible, you can hear the male and female hoot (head phones might work best. Anyway, here is the video of the hootin' nanny:



Ah, one of my favorite moments in life. Listening to owls calling in the dark while standing in snow.

Fun In Six Degrees Fahrenheit

A pair of thigh high wool socks? Check
Two pairs of pants? Check
Two shirts? Check
A Fleece? Check
Winter Coat? Check
Snow Boots? Check
Hand Warmers? Check
Ear Muffs? Check
Gortex Gloves? Check
Scarf? Check

And, what did this get me?

A pretty sweet blue jay photo! How do they do it outside with no layers??

Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton and Turkeys

The turkey posse had taken over the feeding station at Hyland Park the other day and I have all these photos of turkeys that I'd like to post and I'd like to talk about the concert I went to, so I'm going to combine them. BUT I would like to stress that the turkey is not a metaphor for the bands--the bands were really quite wonderful.

Oh, and Non Birding Bill redid my turkey photo to be in the LOL design. Thanks, NBB. So, I never cease to be amazed at how cool life is and the fun situations I find myself in. At the last Birds and Beers, HellZiggy mentioned that she was going to the Jonathan Coulton concert and asked if I was going. I mentioned that I'm on a budget at the moment and didn't know if I could swing it. She mentioned that if I helped at the merchandise table, I could get in free. Awesome!

It was so cool! I got there late (still sometimes have trouble navigating my way around the Twin Cities with the 35W bridge being out) but as soon as I got in and found HellZiggy I got to meet both Jonathan and the opening act Paul and Storm. It's very strange, I've never met either and had only listened to Coulton's music, but there I was talking with them like I just met them at a party and handling their merchandise--that's the wonder of the Internet for you.

I have to say, I really do enjoy Coulton, and had no idea what to expect from the opening act, but I'm listening to them right--Paul and Storm are just delightful. What's really weird is that they perform on Bob and Tom--a radio show that I grew up with in Indianapolis and the have some of the tracks form the show on their CDs. It was so weird to suddenly hear those familiar voices in my kitchen (Bob and Tom aren't syndicated in Minnesota)--but Paul and Storm are such a delight. They do musical impressions--"If Aaron Neville Were Waiting for a Parking Spot at the Mall, But Someone Else Snagged It" or "Randy Newman's Theme to The Lord of the Rings" and they write songs for a barer shop quartet and I have to say that I'm really digging the "Hip-Shop". You can go to their site to download the music and you can listen to the songs --these guys are well worth the listen if you are into Coulton, They Might Be Giants (they even do an impression of them), or nerdy/geeky guys with a great sense of humor--you'll love their music. And I'm not just saying that because they throw out Pop Tarts and Moon Pies to the audience for bribery.

The Coulton part of the concert was fun too. Someone had asked in the comments earlier if he was nice--he is, incredibly down to Earth. He's as nice in person as he comes off in his music. There was some talk before the show if Mr. Neil was going to come to the concert because he'd referenced Coulton songs in the blog. I offered that if he came I would introduce Coulton him and he said something to the effect of not wanting to impose himself on Mr. Neil. When Mr. Neil did show up and I asked if he wanted to meet Mr. Coulton after the show and Mr. Neil said, "I don't want to impose myself on him." So, I decided to be the imposing conduit.
After the show, I did the introduction. It's times like this that I wish I could have some audio control in the blog to give the full effect. The theater was just playing some general after show music and it was at this exact moment that Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" came over the speakers and the following conversation happened as two somewhat geeky men who are fans of each other met:

Birdchick: Excuse me Mr. Coulton, I have someone I'd like to introduce...

Mr. Coulton: (turns around) Hi! I'm a huge fan!

Mr. Neil: I'm a huge fan!

Mr. Coulton: Really? I saw the mention in the blog.

Mr. Neil: I first heard about you through John Hodgeman and had to listen to more.

Mr. Coulton: Wow, thank you.

Mr. Neil: If you like, I can send you some books and things.

Mr. Coulton: That would be great, I'll give you my guitar.

Mr. Neil: Don't give me your guitar, you need it.

Mr. Coulton: You're giving me books, I have to give you my guitar!

Mr. Neil: Then, I'll give you Sharon!

Mr. Coulton has no need for bees, birds, or disapproving rabbits so the conversation ended there.

So, here is proof of the event thanks to HellZiggy's husband: Paul, Me, Mr. Neil, HellZiggy, Mr. Coulton, and Storm. Anyway, if you haven't heard of Jonathan Coulton, do go check out his mad strummin' tunz.

Thanks, HellZiggy for the great time!

Cats & Birds Living Together--We're Talkin' Mass Hysteria Here!

Calling all bird behavior experts!

This video of a crow and kitten hanging out together--even the crow feeding the kitten showed up on Cute Overload. What is going on here? Confused crow? Are birds trying to reach a peace agreement to keep cats from killing them at feeders? Have crows become so smart that they have decided to attempt to join forces with cats to secure their place high on the food chain? Are crows trying to set a better example for Jim Stevenson? Or is this just some weird event that can never be fully explained or understood?