KARE 11 Loon Cam Is Back

KARE 11 has their Loon Cam up and running. Be sure to check out the accompanying Larry's Loon Log for questions about their behavior on the nest.

Oh Hai, I Need My Bike

My friend (and beehive namesake) Kitty forwarded me an email from a Jon Freestone who has a robin nesting in an inconveneint spot.
Jon says: "The nest was built between a Saturday and a Wednesday (that is the day it was first noticed) It has been there for about two weeks now, figure I will leave it to just to see what happens."

I think we can get an idea of how often Jon uses this bike.

My Life As A Part Time Park Ranger

So, in April, I got a part-time job as a park ranger for the Mississippi River and it is a great time! I work primarily at the Mississippi River Visitor's Center at the Science Museum of Minnesota but I do get a chance to get out in the field. Last week, a group of staff went canoeing along the Vermillion Bottoms. What a joy to canoe in spring and get to know some of the people who work for the parks like the Historian, Botany Bob, and Rock Girl (nicknames all based on their areas of expertise--although Non Birding Bill said that we sounded like some sad band of super heroes: "The Historian and Birdchick canoe the river using their magical interpretation skills to save the people!")

I had a great time, the birding was fantastic. I couldn't really take my digiscoping equipment in the canoe, but still could watch the birds. Above, you might notice a bright yellow spot in that pile of brush--that was one of about eight prothonotary warblers we saw. You can't really tell it from the photo, but we could see them very well with the naked eyes. We heard parulas (and other warblers), had a flock of caspian terns fly over, saw one sandhilll crane, lots of eagles and I was totally surprised to see a flock of common nighthawks hawking for insects above our heads. I figured these normally nocturnal birds were mid-migration and very hungry.

We stopped for bit and had lunch along the river. We were there at least thirty minutes and a few of us snuck off into the woods to...see a man about a horse. As I was working my way back, I heard a strange noise right about where the above photo was taken. I pished a few times and a few seconds later a HUGE turkey hen burst out of the grass...almost causing me to relieve myself on the spot. All of us should have noticed a turkey lurking in the grass during lunch...unless she was totally hunkered on a nest. I walked over to where she burst forth:

There were the eggs. Poor thing must have been terrified when we pulled up our canoes and started eating. We had finished our lunch so we packed up as quick as we could and left to give her a chance to come back to her nest of fourteen eggs.

You do see quite a bit of litter along the river, one of the most disturbing piece we found was this two liter bottle of 7-Up filled to the brim with used hypodermic needles. EW!

Canoeing isn't the only thing I've been up to. The week before the canoeing, I got to go out and follow along with some of the eagle banding happening along the Mississippi River.

Even though the bald eagle is off the endangered species list, it's a good idea to keep tabs on them. Because they are so high on the food chain on the river, the researchers are using the eagles as an indicator species--if something is affecting them, it's eventually going to affect the humans. The birds all have a bit of blood drawn that's DNA tested and also checked for pollutants. Because the research is still going on, I can't give all the details at the moment...but it does make me want to be a bit more choosy about what part of the river I would eat fish from.

Check out those eagle toes! I will say that it was fun to work with big birds in my banding comfort zone as opposed to those teeny warblers.

Professional tree climbers from out west were brought in to get the eagle chicks out of the nest. It was way cool to watch them work. They used a crossbow with an arrow and string attached. Once the arrow made it over an appropriate branch, a climbing rope was added and then the guys would climb the rope into the trees. It was impressive to say the least.

It was interesting to notice the animals living the trees with the eagle nest. One tree had an oriole nest a few feet away. Above, a guy from the DNR was measuring the circumference of the nest tree when he shouted, "Hey, there's something nesting in here...and it's furry." He didn't want to stick his hand in, so I gave him my camera to stick in the hole and snap a photo:

At first, we weren't sure what they were. I wondered if they were otter, but if you look at the back paws, that gives them away. Do you know? They're baby raccoons--prey, right in the base of a tree with an eagle nest!

There have been requests to see the park ranger uniform:

If you're thinking "Wow, a badge and a cool hat--that's gotta be fun!"

It is.

If you're at the Science Museum, stop in and say hello.

ABA Convention Scholarships for College Students

The American Birding Association (ABA), based in Colorado Springs, CO, is holding its annual convention this year just outside Salt Lake City in Snowbird, UT. The event will run June 23-29, 2008 and involves three days of field trips with professional leaders, two days of workshops and special presentations on bird-related topics, and outstanding speakers each evening. This year’s Keynote Speaker is noted artist and author, Julie Zickefoose. Other speakers include Bill Schmoker, president of Colorado Field Ornithologists and avid bird photographer, Ted Floyd, editor of Birding magazine, and the Migratin’ Raptors String Band of HawkWatch International. Award winners Kenn Kaufman, Bill Thompson III, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and local birder Bill Fenimore will receive recognition during the week as well.

The ABA is offering a limited number of $650 scholarships to ABA birders age 18-23 towards attendance at the convention and participation in the birding events scheduled. The scholarship money is applicable towards the full convention package of activities, meals and lodging. This scholarship is designed to facilitate the introduction of the newest generation of ABA members to seasoned ABA members and encourage their connection with “birds of a feather”. Any student birder can apply for the scholarships, and include a request for Student Membership with their application if not already a member. For more information on the convention, please see our website. For details and availability of scholarships, please contact Brenda Gibb at 800.850.2473 x230. This limited offer will remain in effect until all scholarships are claimed.


Contact: Tamie Bulow,
Conventions and Tours Manager
American Birding Association
4945 N. 30th Street, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO 80919
(719) 578-9703 x233

I Needed A Bee Moment...I needed lots of them

Okay, the next time a hive goes queenless, I think I'm gonna leave it that way and let it go. It's just too much stress to requeen. Maybe I need some sleep to process what happened today, but the beekeeping today was not so much fun. We noticed on Sunday that there was no new eggs and larvae in the Olga hive and that was a sign that the queen had died or was failing. After consulting some beekeepers, I bought a new queen Monday morning and decided to try and requeen the colony. The queen comes in a cage with a candy door (and a few attendants). The idea is to put the cage in the colony, the new bees generally don't care for a new queen and want to attack her--the cage protects the new queen. The workers start to chew on the candy door to get to the queen and kill her. As they are chewing, the queen releases her pheromones and the workers start to think that this new queen isn't so bad after all. In about three to five days, they chew their way through the candy and in all that time, her pheromone has worked its way the colony and everyone has worked out their differences and loves the queen and hopefully, they show her around and she gets to some egg laying.

For this brilliant plan to truly come together, the old queen must be dead, or she will fight the new queen and possibly kill her and you are left with your old failing queen and soon to be dead hive. So, Fabulous Lorraine and I had to go through the whole colony, frame by frame to see if we could find the old failing Olga queen...and kill her. We were not thrilled with this task and were hoping against hope that we would not find her and not have to kill her. The colony did not sound happy as we started going through each frame, they seemed confused and their buzzing was a little off, I felt certain the queen was totally gone.

We made it all the way down to the bottom an I checked the contents of the varroa mite trap and was surprised at the amount of discarded bee pollen baskets--all colors. It never occurred to me that they baskets could be dropped and forgotten. There were mites mixed in there too--ew. The bottom box had a very small amount of unhatched brood and the Olga bees vehemently defended the hive at this point. Usually we get bonked on our hoods a couple of times in warning, this time, it was a steady pelting of bonks. Because we were out so long, our smoker stopped smoking (which is used to try and keep the bees calm and less focused on stinging us) and we periodically had to step away and relight it, all the while dodging angry and queenless bees.

Poor Cabal learned that hard way that he's not fatally allergic to bee stings. Since Mr. Neil wasn't around, Cabal's been lonely and clinging close to his pack. He came over to us while we were at the Olga hive and got stung by one angry bee (when bees sting, they release a pheromone that tells the other workers something bad is here and needs to be stung) and more soon surrounded him. Cabal did what comes natural to a dog--he started whipping his head around to eat the bees coming to attack him--which is the equivalent to humans flailing which just makes bees want to sting you all the more. I gave Lorraine the smoker and she dashed over and covered him with smoke to mask the angry stinging bee pheromone and make sure he didn't have any bees still attacking him. We think he got at least two stings, one on a back leg and one on a neck, but was otherwise okay.

For some reason, when Lorraine walked back to me at the hives, Cabal decided to follow. We're not sure if he was needing reassurance after being stung or if he was trying to warn us about the danger. As soon as he came over, the bees started attacking him again and he tried to eat them. We had to put him in the truck to protect him.

Have you ever been doing some spring cleaning and you suddenly look around after three hours of work and notice that everything is messier than when you started? That's kind of the way I felt when the above photo was taken. As the bees kept attacking and trying to sting us, Lorraine announced, "I need a moment to de-bee." She sensibly walked away to get away from the buzzing and wipe some bees off. About that time, I felt a tickle on my neck--holy crap, did a bee work its way into my suit? I decided to take a bee moment like Lorraine and confirm bees were not in my suit. Fortunately, it was just my hair brushing my neck. Whew!

After that we went back to work. Lorraine suddenly shouted, "Oh no! Is it on the inside or outside?!" I looked up and noticed that the hood of her beesuit was half unzipped and there were angry Olga bees on the screen in front of her face and a sort of collar of bees working their way to the open zipper. She scampered off and I followed, helpfully shouting, "I'll smoke you! I'll smoke you!"

We go the bees off of her, zipped her up tight and went back to finish our grueling beekeeping task.

We noticed that most of the brood was almost hatched out in the Olga hive and no new brood behind it. Since the other hives were going like gangbusters, I decided we should take a a frame of brood from one of the other hives. The MimiKo hive appeared to have the most brood and so I took a frame from them. We ended up feeling terrible about it. Because MimiKo and Bickman are new hives, they are fairly friendly right now, we can work in them pretty easily. When I took the frame out, I had to take off all the MimiKo workers, the easiest way seemed to be using a bee brush. Boy, bees don't like the bee brush very much. The sweet, docile MimiKo bees suddenly became incredibly angry--even the ones who didn't get caught in the bee brush bristles.

We went through the whole Olga hive with the frame of brood. After going through each and every frame in the hive, we did not find a life queen. We did find one small, very black, shriveled up bee which I wondered was the dead queen--Olga I was very dark.

We put in the new queen cage and the workers looked in and went straight for the candy. We slowly put the hive back together, our backs sore from lifting the heavy boxes and being bent over searching each frame for the nonexistent queen. Lorraine pointed out that if we had found the failing queen alive it would have been easier to kill her after being pelted by angry bees all afternoon.

We tried to wipe off all the bees on or suits, gathered our equipment, and loaded up the truck to drive back to the house. A couple of tenacious bees were still following us and we thought it best to keep the full bee suits on in case a bee was still in the vehicle. As I sat down, I felt a tickling on the middle of my chest. I told myself that it was just my hair and to not worry about it. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I no longer have long hair and that could not be the source of the tickling on my chest...something was crawling there. I was still sealed in my bee suit and assumed it was a tick and I pressed it a bit. The tickling got a little faster.

Lorraine had already started the vehicle and was driving through the field (chock full of dandelions) back towards the road. I shouted, "I NEED A BEE MOMENT! I NEED A BEE MOMENT!" and leaped out of the slow moving truck. Lorraine slammed on the brakes and was in hot pursuit. Trying desperately to have an out of body experience I said, "There's something crawling on my chest." We carefully unzipped my hood and took it off. Lorraine slowly unzipped the front of my bee suit--there, crawling from my chest to the inside of the suit was a bee.

Now, I always thought that when it came to the fight or flight response that I was more of a fight kinda girl. My goodness, was I wrong. I totally took flight. Without a word, I took off running, although, it was hard to run since Lorraine had hold of the arms of the suit and my legs were still in the bottom of the suit. I pushed through the suit and the rest of the zipper ripped open and I tried desperately to keep running while Lorraine pulled on the suit from behind. "I'm trying to save you!" Lorraine shouted. I said nothing but continued to try my awkward run. We got the bee suit off of my legs, along with my shoes. Lorraine, still thinking the bee was in my shirt, helpfully tried to take it off. Overcome with anxiety and and humor of the situation, we just started laughing maniacally.

It's points like this where I'm really grateful that our beekeeping operation is in a remote area and the chances that anyone actually witnessed this strange little tug of war and personal bee removal striptease are incredibly slim.

We took a moment to breathe and then realized that we were still surrounded by bees foraging on the dandelions surrounding us--and I was out of the bee suit and not wearing shoes. We eventually made it back to the house, spent and emotionally drained. Up until this point, the beekeeping had been a fun discovery of cool natural history. Today, it was just hard, messy work.

When we got back to the house, I said, "You know, someone is going to have to check the cage in about three days to make sure the queen is released."

"I like how you said 'someone' like you're not going to be here to do it," she said. We decided it would be best to get some sleep and find our love of beekeeping again before deciding who would check to see if the queen were released.

I am about to collapse from exhaustion myself as I type this. When I came home, I did crawl under a blanket for about five minutes and was a tad weepy. Non Birding Bill came into the bedroom and asked what was the matter and I started recounting the day: we squished bees, we lost the old queen, will the new queen make it, and worst of all, I broke the MimiKo Hive's trust when I took their frame of brood away and used the bee brush on some of them.

NBB started laughing. "You realize that you are upset about breaking the trust of some insects?" NBB asked.

Well, when it's put that way, it does sound kind of silly and I had to chuckle at my self pity.

You can read Lorraine's version here.

Flight Of Nature Bluebird Videos

Flight of Nature has put up a bunch of bluebird videos from inside her nest boxes. You can see them on her website or over on her channel on YouTube. All the videos are really cool and give you a glimpse of the secret life of eastern bluebirds in the nest cavity. My favorite is the male feeding the female while she incubates (although the female forming the nest cup is pretty cool too):

Sapsucker Still Hanging Around

I can't believe it, Mr. Neil still has a yellow-bellied sapsucker hanging around! We've seen them during migration, but they've never really hung out at the feeding station before. I wonder if it's going to nest here and where that will be.

I would like to say I took these photos, but the person who took them would rather remain anonymous to maintain his non birding status.

I have the new queen for the Olga hive. Should be an interesting day tomorrow.

Plotting Some Regicide

I went out and did a hive inspection with Non Birding Bill and Fabulous Lorraine today. Afterwards, we sat down to a cup of tea and talked some treason. I suddenly regret being the head beekeeper.

There's trouble afoot in the Olga Hive. She is now a parent colony, as we split her recently to make a second hive. When we opened Olga up to see if she was ready to add some honey supers, we found no new eggs or larvae in the top box. We down deeper into the second box and still no eggs, a tiny bit of sealed brood that is mostly emerged, but nothing new. We went into the bottom box where I found fresh larvae the day we did the divide and there was nothing but sealed brood...not good.

After consulting some bee books and putting a call for help on the blog, I got in touch with some helpful local beekeepers and the consensus is that Queen Olga has either died (perhaps accidentally crushed during the divide) or was "mated poorly" (maybe only hooked up with a few drones instead of 15 or so) and has run out of fertile eggs. Either way, something needs to be done and now.

Once again, Nature's Nectar is saving my beekeeping butt. Non Birding Bill and I are heading to his place tomorrow morning to pick up a replacement queen...but here's the hard part: I have to totally inspect the hive and if I find the old queen alive, I have to kill her in order for the hive to accept the new queen. I don't know if I can do this. I have to, but wow, this not crushing an ordinary bug, this is the queen who brought forth all the workers. As much as I hate to admit it, I'm attached to my bees and it's not like when a pet is ill and it's time to take it to the vet to be put down (boy, would love to see the face of my vet if I brought in a failing queen bee asking to euthanize her, I know my file is full of odd stuff as it is, this wouldn't help). I have to do this for the good of the hive...as Spock would say, "The needs of the many, out weigh the needs of the one."

On to happier hive news:

Kitty, the daughter of the Olga Hive is doing well. The workers have accepted the new queen and she is putting eggs in any available cell. Above is a frame with some sealed brood that was from the Olga hive, some new larvae from the new queen, and LOTS of pollen.

The new hives that we installed this year are rarin' to go. Queen MimiKo seems to have little patience for the workers, she's even laying eggs in half constructed cells. I spoke with BeeGirl today about the Olga situation and mentioned MimiKo's impatience. She recommended adding in a frame of drawn out comb without any brood from another hive to give the workers a chance to catch up and a place for the queen to lay eggs. I'll do that when I go out to put in the new Olga queen.

The Bickman Hive was full of fresh eggs and larvae too. I really love hanging out at the new hives. The workers are so docile and friendly, you barely need to smoke the hive to work in it. Ah, young colonies with no preconceived notions of humans and have been untouched by pesky skunks. They are so young, so industrious, so friendly. A perfect antidote for the puzzling Olga.

Olga Hive Has No Eggs Or Larvae!!!!

Okay, any beekeepers with any kind of advice, I could use it now. Our Olga Hive that we overwintered and just divided about a week and a half ago appears to be in trouble. When we took away the box with brood for the divide, we left behind the box that had some fresh larvae in it. We just checked her today and there is absolutely no new brood, no larvae, no eggs. There is some sealed brood but it is all about to hatch. The hive has several workers, but is this a sign that the queen has died or can no longer produce eggs? Should I get a new queen for Olga?

Any advice appreciated, I'm now going to sequester myself into some bee books.

Wild Flowers And Blue-winged Warblers

Last fall, I went on a tear to get rid of some buckthorn and start replenishing the woods with bee and bird friendly plants (with mostly native plants) in Mr. Neil's woods. I've tried to make a sincere effort to learn my wildflowers and if I've learned anything, it's that if I find a flower very attractive, it's non-native.

I got some large-flowering trillium last fall and planted that on the slope where the big fallen oak has been hosting sparrows all winter. Alas, it does not appear to be popping up. As I was feeling sorry for myself and wondering what I could do differently, I noticed this, mere feet from where I planted the trillium:

Nodding trillium! Growing all on its own, without me planting it! Has it always been growing on this hill and since I'm always bird watching that I have just never noticed it? That's quite possible--really, the only wildflower I knew before this was Dutchman's breeches and Jack-In-The-Pulpit (which we have a ginormous amount of Jack's this year). Refreshed and excited, I decided to head into the woods to see what other flowers might be popping up and to try and get some warbler shots. I head to the spot where a major buckthorn removal had taken place and found:

A butt load of garlic mustard. One of the reasons I have never bothered to learn my plants is that I didn't want to know too much. Once you know what the invasive species are and how quickly they spread and how hard they are to get rid of--you begin to see it everywhere and feel a sort of powerlessness about it. This area floods every spring. So if we begin a garlic mustard removal plan, more will just be flooded in. As I was thinking in my head about what I'd read on the Internet regarding garlic mustard removal, I noticed higher up on a hill, a patch of flowers surrounded by garlic mustard...

It was a large patch of native wildflowers including large-flowered trillium and some rue anemone (and if I misidentify any flowers, please someone correct me, I'm still learning and need all the help I can get). I also found spring beauties, wild geranium, phlox, and something I cannot identify in my books and online:

Does anyone know what this is? I have a feeling it's non-native since I find them so pretty. Here's a shot so you can see the leaves:

So, even though there is still buckthorn and now oodles of garlic mustard, there is still some hope in the woods with some native flowers and our bees out there using them for nectar.

After I finished inspecting the wildflower situation, I headed towards the spot where we find giant puffballs because blue-winged warblers have nested there since I have been coming to Mr. Neil's. I heard one singing right away, found a spot with some open areas so I could aim my digiscoping equipment and waited. It wasn't long before a pair of blue-winged warblers were out and foraging. The birds seemed to have a circuit that they would follow from tree to tree, searching for tiny insects. By watching the circuit a few times, I got a sense of their route and could kind of follow along with the scope and digiscope some photos.

The blue-winged warblers were not bothered by my presence whatsoever and a few times foraged for insects about two feet above my head. Blue-wings are an interesting species. They hybridize with golden-winged warblers and may be contributing to the decline of the golden-wing. When blue-winged warblers move into the same range as the golden-wing--the pure golden-wings disappear to hybrids and eventually all become golden-wings. You can read more about it (and maybe even participate in a study) at Cornell's Golden-winged Warbler Atlas Project.

What a pleasant way to enjoy the evening sun with a blue-winged warbler. I even managed to get a video of the warbler singing his buzzy "bluuuuuuuuuuuuuue wing" song and foraging--enjoy!

Fun With An Ovenbird

I think a pair of ovenbirds might be nesting in Mr. Neil's woods. I was on the trail looking for flowers that our bees might be pollinating and nectaring from when some scuffling startled me. I saw a brown bird run and flit away into some low trees. I waited to see if would come back.

Eventually, a pair of ovenbirds started hopping about and singing! I even got a video--do you guys hear the "teacher teacher teacher":

Carpenter Banding In May

We had a great sampling of birds come into the nets on Friday...and lots of people came to enjoy the beautiful day outdoors and watch what we do at Carpenter Nature Center. I have finished my banding class and am an official apprentice--with a certificate. I'm not sure what I will eventually do with this, my primary goal was just to be a better volunteer for Carpenter and I really do feel so much better taking birds out of nets and processing them now--even birds like Bitey McBitersons in the above photo (Bitey McBitersons is the lesser known folk name of the quick to nip northern cardinal). The little boy in the above photo is Aaron. He and his mother followed us around and Aaron was a big help to me--when we would have several birds in the nets, I would put them in bags and he helped carry the bags back to the processing station. Several bags of chickadees, sparrows, and warblers can be heavy. It's always nice to encounter a helpful gentleman in the field--thanks, Aaron!

Check out the awesomeness that is the clay-colored sparrow! Drink in its brown and gray goodness. We had two come into the nets just about a foot from each other. I suspect it was some territorial chasing on their part. Okay, now note the bill of the clay-colored sparrow above. Now, check out the second one below:

It had some kind of nasty gunk on the tip. I wondered if it had foraged and got some mud on the tip or if it had been eating some old berries that crusted up the tips or what was going on. The bird appeared otherwise to be very healthy.

A big highlight of the day was this female Canada warbler. Even though she's not as bright as the male, she is a very striking bird. Another highlight was a chickadee that was already banded. When we looked up its banding number, we discovered that the female chickadee was first trapped and banded in January 2003 and at that time she was in her second year. Think of that--a six year old female chickadee still going strong. Incredible!

Common yellow throats were probably the most common warble we got in the nets. I just love these guys up close. As we were getting birds out of the nets, I didn't have my binoculars or my digiscoping equipment with me, guaranteeing that something super cool would fly by--and it did. A red-tailed hawk with a snake! At first, I thought it was a falconry bird with jesses and a leash hanging down (Jim said some falconers had been by recently tracking a "lost" red-tail, but that bird did not have a leash, just two jesses, or leather anklets attached). Another Carpenter volunteer was smart and had his binoculars handy and could see that it was, in fact a snake. What was strange was that the red-tail disappeared in the trees with the snake and about ten minutes later reappeared and just kind of hung in the air with the snake hanging behind it. The hawk didn't appear to be in any rush to get it to a nest or land and eat it, just kind of slowly grabbed a thermal and glided along. I later asked my buddy Amber if she had any idea why the red-tail would appear to be carrying the snake around, almost as if flying with a type of trophy, showing it off. That's not a smart thing to do, if anything it kind of advertises to other predators to come and steal your food. She wondered if the adult red-tail had young in the nest and it was about time for them to leave and it was advertising the snake to get them to fly out and learn to hunt on their own? That seems very plausible, but once again, birds leave me with more questions than answers.

Owls Near My Home

I'm trying hard to focus on the good. I'm incredibly swamped--I still have a post left from the World Series of Birding but there are articles to finish, emails to deal with, trips to lead, blogs to write, etc. I had every intent to just do my time banding at Carpenter this morning and then come home and write, write, write.

Alas, it was not meant to be. Someone reported a long-eared owl in a park a few blocks from our apartment. Even though the bird was seen this morning and I was reading the report in the afternoon, the owl was roosting in a heavily trafficked park. It had made an informed decision to roost in a city park--it would not flush easily and still be there. As soon as I got to the park with my digiscoping equipment, you could hear the angry robins...oh yes, the long-eared was still there.

Tucked and well hidden in the trees, the long-eared owl tried very hard to roost and the robins were making darn sure that sleep would not be an easy one this day. A few other birders were there and we all stayed back on the trail to watch the long-eared. Some people passing through the trail asked if we were looking at another great horned owl and we showed them the long-eared. They were excited and said that just down the trail was a very visible great horned. I went to take a look a few hundred feet down the trail.

Another birder named Scott was with me and he spotted the sleeping great horned owl right away. Do you see it in the above photo?

Scott also found a second great horned roosting nearby!

Again, these are urban great horneds and they must be very used to people to roost right out in the open. I love having an unexpected two species of owl day just a few blocks from home! It was interesting to note that it was relatively silent compared to over by the long-eared owl. There were several warblers and a few buntings and orioles singing a storm, but they were just territory songs, not alarm songs. Small birds are not high in the list of preferred prey items to a great horned owl. Long-eared owls do eat some small birds and I'm sure the robins are aware of it. It was interesting to note the long-eared roosting so close to the great horned owls...great horneds are known to eat smaller owls, including long-eareds. Hmmm.

And if you are curious about about what angry robins sound like, I did manage to take a small video of the roosting long-eared through my spotting scope. You can hear the angry "cheep cheeps" from the robins. Another interesting note is that this is general robin alarm. When they see a Cooper's hawk in the neighborhood, the robins give a very high pitched down slurred whistle. They did not give that while I was there observing the long-eared:

Bird ID Contest

Okay, I have just a regular feeder to give away, but can anyone id the bird in this photo?? First correct answer in the comments section of the blog with a name attached to it wins!

Good luck!

2008 Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds

This year's Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds was more challenging than in the past. Due to the long winter, migration was about two weeks behind, so instead of warblers dripping from trees and the shorebirds crowding the mudflats we really had to work to get participants their target birds. This year, the organizer added a new trip to Red Lake's Big Bog State Recreation Area--which should have been primo for Connecticut warblers, black-backed woodpeckers, three-toed woodpeckers, and boreal chickadees. However, when we got off the bus and I was not swarmed by insects and the bog was silent, I knew we were in trouble.

Although birds were scarce, we did find that there are still a few moose here in the bog and that someone has too much time on their hands when they take the time to arrange moose poop in the shape of a heart! The bog was a hard trip for me--as a participant on a field trip, it's frustrating when you come to a festival for a specific species and can get it. It's just as frustrating for field trip leaders who are anxious to help you find those target species. I hadn't been to the bog area for a few years. I was invited on a familiarization tour about four years ago, right before the boardwalk was complete. Depending on gas prices, I will have to get up there again sometime this summer.

The next day I was on the trip for Glendalough State Park and that was exciting for me because Scott Weidensaul was on that trip (can I saw what a sweet guy he is--when I was packing up my Swarovski booth at the end of the festival he helped carry some of the boxes to the car even after he'd been leading trips and autographing books--what a guy). Glendalough rocked--warblers were just arriving to the northern part of Minnesota. Many were singing on territory and I was able to get photos like the above common yellowthroat (and some video as well). This was also the park with the funky oriole (the consensus seems to be that it is not a hybrid but a young male Baltimore growing into his adult plumage).

A big highlight came as we were watching a warbler, one of the trip's participants said, "Oh, there's a common nighthawk sleeping in the tree." Sure enough, there was a common nighthawk roosting! That was a good spot on his part and makes me wonder how often we pass nighthawks on a daily basis.

Something very telling about our times: a bald eagle flew in and landed fairly close and I set my scope up on the raptor right away. I stepped aside so people could line up for the perfect view of an eagle in great light...and there was not a rush for the scope. I commented that are we that jaded in Minnesota that we can't take a look at an eagle and a few people stepped in to take a look. I thought back to growing up in Indiana and how rare and eagle sighting was and now they are commonplace and that kids are growing up with the idea that eagles are easy to see. I think that's great, but hope they don't get taken for granted.

Many American redstarts were chasing each other and a few came close to beaning a few participants. What fun! Our groups broke apart into some smaller groups to make it easier to see birds and a few heard the coveted Connecticut warbler. It wasn't supposed to be at Glendalough, but it's migration and anything is possible.

Sunday we went to Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge. Again, migration was a tad off so we didn't quite get the shorebird bonanza that we did last year, but Agassiz is still a special place to visit.

I got a kick out of a unique use of deer antlers as an oriole feeder. I could hear orioles overhead, but none of them came down for the fun photo opportunity.

Sparrows were all over the visitor's center and one of my favorites was around--the Harris's sparrow--love those guys.

There were several robin nests around the center. Here is one right one a window. On the window ledge to the right was another nest, but I'm not sure if it was also being used this season.

The big stars of Agassiz that day were all the Cape May warblers hanging out in the pines. They were surprisingly accommodating for warblers and everyone got great looks.

While we were scanning the pines for the warblers we came across another robin nest. She remained hunkered despite the 50 some odd birders and half dozen Cape May warblers surrounding her.

So that is a brief Detroit Lakes update. Even though the birds weren't what they normally are, it was still a great time and it was fun to connect with new people and reconnect with old friends. Alas, if we have learned anything in the last few years it's that we really cannot control the weather and certainly not bird migration.

Two Different Witchities

We birded Glendalough State Park during the Detroit Lakes Bird Festival. There were common yellowthroats singing on territory all over. I even managed to get video of them through my spotting scope and digital camera. They are usually described as having a song that says, "witchety, witchety, witchety" but sometimes they can be a little different. Here are two different common yellowthroats singing, the first is the usual call and the second is just a little different (you can go directly to YouTube and watch them in high definition if you want):

The Blog That Kept A Hive

Or, the queen was not getting released from her cage:

The really cool part about blogging the bees is that sometimes readers save our beekeeping operation from potential disaster. When I mentioned this morning that Fabulous Lorraine and Mr. Neil had found a queen cell in the newly divided hive and that the queen had not been eaten out of the cage yet, Bee Girl emailed this:

"At this point, the queen should have been out and laying eggs. It only takes 3 days for the workers to acclimate to a new queen, but the presence of a queen cell means they may have given up on her because they hate eating that nasty dried up sugar plug. I'd get her out of there today!

To give the new queen the greatest chance of succeeding (which will allow you to get the benefits of the purchased queen's breeding, ensure you have a well-mated queen and ensure you get the earliest possible start to the brood rearing season), plan to destroy the queen cell. I would release the queen before destroying the queen cell. If your assistant kills the queen in the process of releasing her, then you will have the self-started queen to replace her. If the self-started queen emerges first, then when your new expensive purchased queen gets out, she'll be killed by the other queen or the workers.

Those candy plugs are notorious for keeping the queens in far too long. I normally poke a large (penny nail) size hole in it to speed the process. The plugs are usually dried out, and there is nothing in the bee's innate programming to direct it to gnaw through something to release a queen. If the bees are slow in figuring this out, its a big problem - the presence of a queen cell indicates that something has gone wrong with the release process."

So, I contacted the Bee Team and they went out to unleash the queen get the Kitty Hive back on track. The queen came out and all appeared to be well. The hive is already Four Queen Kitty, I really don't want to nickname her Five Queen Kitty. You can read Fabulous Lorraine's account here.

Sapsucker Drumming

This was a yellow-bellied sapsucker doing some territorial drumming on an old rusty drum during the Red Lake trip of the Detroit Lakes Bird Festival. For those not familiar with sapsuckers, they have a distinctive drumming sound. Note how it starts and then kind of peters out. When you hear that sort of drumming, you can say with some confidence to your friends that you hear a sapsucker drumming.

Catching Up

Just back from the Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds--more to report on that when I am a bit more rested. I've been trying to upload some video I took on YouTube, but for some reason it keeps failing--is it perhaps because I'm using "sapsucker" in the title? I'm not sure, but Non Birding Bill is going to try and see what he can do later today. In the meantime, I leave you with some gratuitous yellow-headed blackbirds:

While I've been away, Fabulous Lorraine and Mr. Neil have been tending the hive and monitoring the divide of the new colony. Here is Fabulous Lorraine's report...the bees haven't quite released the new queen and built a queen cell. Not sure what that's all about and what egg they would use in said cell, but if I learned anything from last year, it's to leave the queen cells alone! When the new queen is finally released from her cage, I'll let her deal with it.

Also, banders Mark and Roger got some more great birds in the nets last weekend at Carver Park--man, take in that orchard oriole!

Funky Oriole

We saw a totally funky oriole today on the Glendalough field trip. There should only be Baltimore orioles here, but this one kind of looked like a hooded oriole (although not quite).

So, this bird is either a hybrid between the two, a second year male oriole who hasn't quite molted into his adult plumage, or sometimes female orioles attain male plumage as they grow older--is this just an old female?

Any thoughts.

Ew!

I'm livin' large at the Detroit Lakes Festival of Birds. I have a fun sapsucker video, but YouTube is being...difficult.

So, here's is your nasty story of the day (a note, don't have food in your mouth while you read this one). From the wacky Brits:

From io9:

"When the Z-Wars get ugly, you'll want a bird feeder made of real human ashes to keep those zombie birds distracted. Luckily, one of U.K. designer Nadine Jarvis' recent projects is this teardrop-shaped bird feeder made of real bird feed and human ashes. It's part of a larger project she's doing on the post-mortem world."

All at once: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew! If you want to know more, click here.

And I know we're all gonna need a cleansing post after that, so check out the warblers that MN BirdNerd has been banding here and here.

Nature's Nectar Saved My Beekeeping Butt

Well, I don't know if you anyone noticed in my Twitter Status Updates or over at Lorraine's blog, but our queen for dividing the Olga hive (who arrived a week earlier than expected) died suddenly on Monday. Arrrgh! I had a back up ordered, but wasn't sure with my travel schedule and plan to divide on Wednesday would be able to fly. I'm not sure I can take the stress of timing spring beehive divides and warbler migration. I think it's going to make my tiny little brain explode!

Fortunately, Jim from Nature's Nectar was at the MN Hobby Beekeeper's Association meeting on Tuesday night and sold me a queen he just happened to have in his vehicle for desperate beekeepers like myself--totally saving my butt. He comes highly recommended from Minnesota beekeepers, I have a feeling he will be getting more bee business from us in the future. For those interested, Jim also has a beekeeping blog, you should check it out and see his grand scale operation.

So, thanks to all the prep work done by my Personal Beekeeping Assistant (Lorraine) and Junior Beekeepers (Non Birding Bill & Mr. Neil), we went out to Olga to look for fresh eggs (that would be the box that had the queen and would stay). The other box with no fresh bee eggs would be used to restart the Kitty Hive. And wouldn't you know it, the queen and eggs ended up being on the bottom box, so that one stayed and we removed the top box with just sealed brood to start Kitty.

We took the new box off and let it sit queenless for a few hours and then took the queen cage and wedged it into one of the frames. Hopefully, if all goes well, her pheromones will permeate the hive and those bees will accept her. She has a piece of sugar candy blocking the entrance to her cage. The first day, all the workers will want to kill her (hey, that's not our queen) and eat at the candy to get at her. However, all the while they chew at the candy and absorb the pheromone and suddenly, she seems like the best queen ever. This will now be the fourth queen for the Kitty hive. Let's hope this one takes.

We had to make the decision when we did the divide to either immediately start exploiting the Olga hive for honey or let her grow into a third brood box and overwinter her again. She's been such a great hive and one our first, we've decided to try and winter her again. Ah, Olga. She's grown up now. As of the divide, she is now considered a "parent colony". Our little girl has matured. I am so proud.

We also did a check of our two new hives. The one on the left was origionally called Kelli hive, but I'm getting Kelli and Kitty confused, so she is now Queen Bickman (which is just fun to say, in my book). Either way, she's named after her artist Kelli Bickman.

Someone emailed and mentioned that I never blogged about the art on the Mimi Hive, I just have an overload of subjects sometimes. But this hive was painted by photographer MimiKo...which I may just end up calling Queen MimiKo because I love to say MimiKo. It has this kind of cool bubble/planetary thing going on.

I'll say one thing, the bees look really cool when they are up against dark blues of the MimiKo Hive.

We went to check on the strange cells that Non Birding Bill found last weekend. He thought it was unregulated honeybee comb construction, but Mr. Neil and I both felt that this was the naughty work for mud wasps and quickly dispatched the freeloaders from the Bickman Hive.

We're using some different comb foundation in these hives this year. Last year it was white, this year, it's black, which makes the freshly constructed honey comb really pop with color on the frame. But that's not even the best part:

The eggs and larvae are ten times easier to see up against the black as opposed to the white! The Bickman hive seems to be a few days ahead of the MimiKo hive--Bickman has sealed brood, MimiKo does not, but both are full of industrious workers constructing new comb and lots of eggs.

I wonder if we will get honey from either of these girls like we did last year?

All the bulbs that I planed around the woods for our girls were just bursting out all over and it was fun to see bees here and there. As we were finishing up and climbing the hill back into the yard, my nose was suddenly hit with a wall of plum blossom aroma--it was intense. If you looked at the top of the tree, you could see a steady line of honey bees (and a few other insects and butterflies) furiously tackling and pollinating the blossoms. I tried to get a video of it, but I'm not sure how well bees translate onto YouTube:

Distractions

I'm literally leaving for Detroit Lakes in 10 minutes, but I had to get this up. Here are some of the birds that were totally distracting me from my beekeeping duties yesterday:

Not the best angle, but you get the idea: bold black and whites, pinks, indigo, yellow! Couple that with the oriole in the bee equipment, it was a challenge!

I love this lunch date: male indigo bunging and male rose-breasted grosbeak--perhaps discussing female attraction techniques?

The warblers on the suet feeder were really throwing me over the edge. Above is a female yellow-rumped warbler. The birds were so exciting, even Mr. Neil was getting into it.

Look at that, Mr. Neil took the above photo of a male yellow-rump at the feeder--go, Mr. Neil!

Okay, I seriously need to hit the road, but I will do a bee update from the hotel room at some point today.

Oriole In The Bee Equipment

Ug, I'm getting a backlog of blogging and I'm leaving for another festival tomorrow...prepare for a blogging explosion next week. I was supposed to go out and get to dividing Olga into a second beehive, but was WAY too distracted by birds. There were six, count 'em six, indigo buntings on Mr. Neil's feeders--among all the rose-breasted grosbeaks. Not to mention yellow-rumped warblers jockeying for position on the suet feeder. I was trying desperately to concentrate and focus on bees, not digiscoping birds. I went to the garage to the bee equipment shelves.

I heard a rustling and then looked up. There on the top shelf was a male Baltimore oriole. How can I focus on bees when the birds are forcing me to watch them? I opened up the garage doors figuring that he would fly out. Instead, he ran behind the equipment and hid.

Yo, dude, that's not the best hiding spot. The oriole eventually came out from hiding, but instead of flying out the wide open doors, kept flying into closed windows. I took one of the nets from one of our bee hats and tossed it on the not so bright oriole and grabbed it.

Boy, that bander's grip does come in handy. I gave him a look over and he was fiesty--that was good, he didn't hit the windows too hard. He had bent the tip of his beak a tiny bit, but was otherwise okay. He started whistling in my hand--man, could you feel the power of that song--that's a lotta whistle coming from a tiny bird.

I gave him to Lorraine to release and he was off. He preened a bit, roused, and then flew down to the grape jelly. A side door was open on the garage, so he must have flown in that way, probably going after what few insects are out and about.

Oh Hai! That's Not Supposed To Bee There

Can you name what item is not supposed to be with our beekeeping equipment?

Also, six indigo buntings at the feeder right now...must...focus...on...bee...duties...birds...drawing...me...to...procrastinate...eh.

Brits Banning Bread Bird Feeding?

From The Telegraph:

Bread should be banned as a bird food because it is so unhealthy and damages chicks’ chances of surviving to adulthood, experts said yesterday.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said it holds little nutritional value and suggested instead giving them a range of alternatives, including cake crumbs, crushed biscuits, grated cheese, leftover jacket potatoes, breakfast cereal, overripe strawberries and porridge oats.

Granary breads with seeds are marginally healthier than cheap white sliced loaves but still simply fill the birds up without doing them enough good.

Experts say the issue is particularly important at this time of year, when young are being raised.

Val Osborne, head of wildlife inquiries at the society, said: “There are many other household foods that would be much better for them.

“Bread doesn’t actually contain any of the vital ingredients to provide birds with the energy they need to breed and fee.

“The RSPB is asking people to consider alternatives such as porridge oats, cake crumbs and potatoes.”

The advice was mainly aimed at those people who feed the birds in their back gardens.

However, it is also applicable to swans and ducks found on lakes, ponds and rivers which might be fed by the public.

The rest of the story can be found here.

World Series of Birding 2008 Report Part 1

I have so much catching up to do before the Detroit Lakes Festival this weekend--how will I fit it all in? In the meantime, I need to catch you up on all the wacky fun that is the World Series of Birding and some of the photos we got like the above red-winged blackbird.

Essentially, it's a contest that turned 25 years old this year that requires a team to see the most species of birds in the state in a 24 hour period. There are a few different ways to win, like seeing the most birds in Cape May County in a 24 hour period or what our team did: digiscope as many different species of birds as possible in a 24 hour period. Our team was the Swarovski Digiscoping Hawks consisting of Swarovski Optik Rep Clay Taylor, me, and our driver, Amy Hooper (aka WildBird on the Fly). Incidentally, her magazine WildBird sponsored a winning team as well and you can read about that here.

There was on big challenge for the day: the weather! It rained--blah. It's hard enough if you are a team just trying to see and hear as many species as possible, it's even worse for camera equipment. I was hoping to come home with some really hot shots of shorebirds and species I don't normally see like the brant in the above photo, but I had to settle for just getting identifiable.