Carpenter Banding On KARE 11

I'm told that my fingernail polish is visible in this video about banding birds at Carpenter Nature Center on KARE 11. I have not watched it. Now sleep and on to some hardcore digimiscopin'.

What I Missed At Carpenter Today

I may be at the World Series of Birding. I may even be feeling a little high on my horse because I got to see a wood sandpiper today. However, Larry Sirvio just emailed over his photo of what came into the banding nets at Carpenter Nature Center this morning:


Arrrgh. I am just pea green with envy! Great photo, Larry!

Actual BBC Headline

Thanks, Paulie, for sending me this actual headline from the BBC!

This post brought to you by the magic of bluetooth technology. I'm posting while on a ferry between Delaware and New Jersey.

Rules for the World Series of Birding

I went out today and did a bit of scouting for the World Series of Birding and went over the rules with Clay Taylor for our team: Swarovski Digiscoping Hawks. It's an okay team name, but I'm having some major envy of the team named Blue Oystercatcher Cult.

We have to try and photograph as many species as possible in a twenty-four hour period. The photos do not have to be printable or even blogable, but the bird in the photo must be identifiable.

A regular WSoB team would be able to count species heard and seen. We can only count what we photograph. I wondered if we could use the possibility of digivideoing. For example, we were hearing clapper rails all over the place, could I take a digivideo with the scope and pick up the audio of the call? Clay says "no" we can only photograph. Fortunately, one of the clapper rails came out of the reeds and I was able to get a photo...let's hope it's that easy this Saturday during the actual event.

These are some of the other general rules that just made chuckle:

A sick, injured, or oiled bird counts--as long as it's alive. However, eggs do not count...unless you see the parent bird.

To avoid disturbing a raptor nest, a team that knows the location of a nest where flushing an adult is possible does not have to see the actual nest. On the day of the competition (and if the species was seen simultaneously by two people from the team during some scouting the week ahead) the team can park in close proximity during daylight hours and wait inside or beside the vehicle for as long as it would have taken for all members to get to the nest...the team must wait a minimum of five minutes.

During the competition, a team cannot find birding help from other resources like birding hotlines, listservs, or any other general alert via phone, pda, or computer. So, Non Birding Bill can send me text messages saying how much he loves and misses me or that he sees a Nashville warbler outside the bedroom window, but he would not be allowed to send me a text reading that a wood stork was found a Higbee Beach. Further, if my team is out and we encounter other birders--even if they are not part of the competition, we cannot ask them, "Seen any good birds?" Now, there is a provision if we accidentally hear about something. For example, if Clay and I were walking by a group not involved with the competition was walking past us and one of them exclaimed loudly to her group, "Oh my! I can't believe I got my lifer blue tit outside the Lighthouse in Cape May!" we could use that information.

Now, what if a team found an eskimo curlew and it was just too exciting of a bird and such a once in a lifetime event that all the other teams should know? Well, it would be okay to tell us and it would b okay for us to hear that information...however, if we went to see the eskimo curlew, it would not be countable for our team because we didn't find it on our own. This is known as the "Outlaw Birds" clause.

Wacky stuff, but if you're going to have a competition, you need to have rules. You can read the full rules and guidelines here.

While doing some scouting, I noticed these two laughing gulls. They started perched on the roof of a shelter and then started fighting each other. A few flaps and then they stayed locked in this position for about eight minutes (yes, I timed it).

The gull on the left that is stuck in the bill hold did not move to much. I wondered if it was nervous about having the sharp tip of the attacker's bill so close to the eye? Just I started to wonder aloud just how long this would last...

In flew a fish crow that flushed the gulls. I don't think it was an altruistic motive to keep peace in the bird neighborhood. I think the crow wondered if the birds were fighting over some food and if it could steal the food during the fight. There didn't appear to be food, but it was an interesting interaction that once again leaves me with questions rather than answers.

I hope I was awake enough for during this entry to only have five typos instead of two dozen.

Checking In

Well, I have arrived in Cape May and have gotten unpacked. The rest of my team is still on route and I'm going to bop out for a stroll on the beach and maybe do some practice digiscoping. Meanwhile, Non Birding Bill alerted me to this tip from Esquire Magazine's 75 Skills For Men:

74. Know some birds. If you can't pay attention to a bird, then you can't learn from detail, you aren't likely to appreciate the beauty of evolution, and you don't have a clue how birdlike your own habits may be. You've been looking at them blindly for years now. Get a guide.

From White-throats To White-Crowneds

This has to be a quick and dirty post, I have an early flight in the morning.

This morning while at banding class at Carpenter Nature Center, I looked around and everyone had a white-crowned sparrow like the above bird in their hands, a little different from the white-throated sparrows a couple of weeks ago.

We did get in one male yellow-rumped warbler. It's still a tad chilly here and the insects are not out in full force so the insect eating birds are still having to improvise. One male yellow-rumped warbler was foraging on the ground at one of the feeding stations. As I watched, a downy woodpecker flew in and began pecking on the suet cage. As the downy pecked, tiny pieces of suet fell to the ground and the warbler would scurry to snarf up the suet scraps.

I was painfully pinched by a female cardinal today. The funny thing was that she was barely caught in the nets. When I walked over to retrieve her, she clamped down on a tiny piece of flesh on my inner hand (worst pinch I've ever had--owie) and pretty much rolled out. Had she not clamped down on my hand, she probably would have easily gotten herself out of the nets. Above, Erin is banding her. She had the genius idea of letting the cardinal bite the bag, while she placed a band on her foot. The cardinal is actually holding the hole bag in her mouth above the ground--that's some bite.

We got in a couple of interesting sparrows too. Above is a field sparrow--check out that pink beak!

And here's a Lincoln's sparrow, migration is really kicking in. Speaking of migration, have you seen the story that scientists may have cracked the bird navigation code?

And now I must go to sleep. Tomorrow I head for Cape May and The World Series of Birding. I don't know what's my favorite part: saying that I'm going to the World Series of Birding or that I'm on the Swarovski Digiscoping Team. And at some point I'm going to have to tell you guys about the rules for this thing...and the handy warbler study aid I've been using from birdJam. I kid you not, thanks to birdJam, I now have a playlist that consists of nothing but warbler chip notes.

The Queen Came Too Soon

When my phone sounds like an oddly mixed flock of birds, I know someone is trying very hard to get hold of me. I was busy being a park ranger this morning and was unable to answer my phone so I heard the following. First, the bobolink song (that means a general phone call). Second, I hear a flock a flock of gadwall (that means someone left a voicemail). Third, a goshawk is screaming (Non Birding Bill is calling from his office phone). Fourth, a pileated woodpecker sings (NBB is now trying to reach me on his cell phone). Fifth, a veery warbles (someone is leaving a text message). All of this in the span of three minutes. Something must have been up.

And it was. When I finally got to listen to the messages, Lorraine said the post office left a message that our queens arrived and needed to be picked up. Queens? Plural? I had only ordered one...why did I have more than one and more importantly, what would I do with an excess of queen bees? Yikes!

We are planning on dividing the Olga hive and starting a new colony (Kitty 2). To do this, you take a box from the strong Olga colony that is full of workers and brood (and make darn sure that Queen Olga isn't in that box) and you place a new queen in a cage in that box and gradually introduce everybody and hopefully in about five days you have a new hive started. The old hive continues growing and if it's strong enough, doesn't miss the box you used for the divide. I only need one queen for this, so having additional queens was a tad alarming.

Well, it turns out that the post office was a tad confused. We did in fact only get one queen and she has a few workers to attend her while in her cage. To the uninitiated, this would seem like a small box of queens. Whew, on only getting one queen. There is still some concern, the queen is a whole week early and Olga is not ready for a divide. Heck, I'm not even ready for the divide. According to my Beekeeping In Northern Climates book, if we keep the queen in a cool, dark place and feed her one drop of sugar water a day, she can live like this for "several days"...does that seven days? Well, we'll find out. I'm leaving town on Thursday and Olga still needs to be prepped before we can do the divide, the queen will have to wait.

So, after plying NBB with some liquor, I think I have a plan. He'll go out this weekend and on Saturday (perhaps with Lorraine and Mr. Neil's help) prep Olga for the divide. He'll need to open Olga up, check and see that there are five to seven frames of brood in the top two boxes of the Olga Hive, if one has more than the other, he'll need to even it out. Then he'll put in a queen excluder between the top two boxes. When I go out next Wednesday to remove one of the boxes, all I'll have to do is look for eggs. Whichever box has fresh bee eggs will be the box that has the Olga queen and that box will stay put. The box without eggs will go to start the new Kitty 2 hive with the queen we just received in the mail today.

How did spring go from the delightful time of watching warblers and playing with bees to holy-crap-how-will-I-survive-this-season?

Barney Gumble Finch

Spring Bird Banding Around Mr. Neil's

It's been interesting to watch the bird movement at Mr. Neil's. With all the bee installation going on, Non Birding Bill and I spent a few days to make sure the bees were enjoying their new digs and to watch some bird. We put the bees in Thursday and on Sunday, Mark and Roger were coming back to do a bit more bird banding. Friday was rainy and cold, lots of birds were coming to the suet including a few pine warblers, the one above (this bird showed up about the same date last year). Even a black and white warbler showed up--Sunday's banding potential seemed immense.

Saturday, the weather was chilly, but the sun was out and I could hear new bird song. One thing I do love about spring is waking up, hearing a bird song and realizing that I had not heard that song the day before. These birds had just arrived overnight. Over a morning cup of coffee saw the first rose-breasted grosbeaks in Mr. Neil's yard.

Not long after that, a pair of orioles showed up and stayed around the feeders all day. Even though it was a male and female, they did not tolerate being on the oriole feeder at the same time--they fought over it quite a bit. I put out both an orange and grape jelly, they totally ignored the orange and went straight for the jelly. The brush pile was chock full of sparrows, they looked like mostly white-throated sparrows. Pine warbler, rose-breasted grosbeaks, white-throated sparrow, orioles--this banding session was going to be colorfully unbelievable!

Not so much, as evidenced with Ms. Brown-headed Cowbird. Actually, I shouldn't say that--it was awesome as always--it was banding and I always learn something, we just didn't get the birds that thought we would.

We did get in both red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches. I love in the above photo that the red-breasted puffed up a tad when confronted with a larger white-breasted. The red-breasted did have a brood-patch and I have been seeing a pair sticking around. Between that and some excited yanking calls, I have a suspicion that the red-breasted are nesting nearby.

Here is the titmouse from the earlier contest. That was a treat for Mark and Roger, they don't get too many of those where they normally band birds, so something new pecking at your knuckles is always fun.

A surprise in the nets were a pair of mourning doves. We had been using the back entrance of the house, and while I was in there indulging in a cinnamon roll, I noticed to doves on the ground. I wondered if I went out the front door if they would flush towards the nets. Yep. It was a pair too and we were able to sex them by plumage. Above is the female.

And here is the male. Note that he has some blue on the top and back of his head--the female doesn't have that.

Another fun surprise was a pair of blue jays. We did get in a steady stream of birds Sunday morning, so I was not able to get all the info about the birds, I was busy helping to get them out of the nets. But my friend Amber got some great shots of them flying away.

We did get one warbler. This yellow-rump filled the quota for the day. It was interesting to note that while the nets were up, no pine warblers or Baltimore orioles showed up. Grosbeaks serenaded us from the tops of the trees and when they did fly into the feeders, they had a knack of flying in a line just above the nets--clever birds.

Out of the 40 odd white-throated sparrows in the brush pile, we only got one in the net. This bird is fine. Sometimes, when you finish banding a bird and open up your hands to let it go, they don't quite realize that they're free and just rest for a moment. All it usually takes is for the bander to twitch his fingers or for an observer to cough, sneeze, or move suddenly and the bird takes off like a shot.

We did get in quite a few chickadees. One was a retrap that Mark and Roger banded last fall. What was interesting was that they were unable to determine the sex of the bird last fall, but this time the bird had a brood patch (a bare patch of skin used to incubate eggs, in some species just the female has it--like chickadees, and in other species both males and females have it--like nuthatches). So, since the chickadee had the brood patch, she was female. The chickadees have taken over a bluebird box in the front yard. I'll have to watch and see if one of them is banded.

At about noon and over thirty banded birds later, the guys took the nets down. And what species was one of the first to show up to the feeders? The pine warbler, of course. The orioles never did show up again all day. Roger suspects that they were just passing through and that the previous nights winds pushed them north. Ah well, more will be coming soon.

I spent the rest of the afternoon practicing my digiscoping for the World Series of Birding this coming weekend (boy, I was just going over the rules for that--that's a blog entry). Amidst all the white-throated sparrows and chipping sparrows in the brush pile, I was surprised to find a field sparrow! Wonder where this bird came from? I don't normally find these guys around the yard, I hope it stays, I love that call.

Cough Cough

Digivideoed from Mr. Neil's kitchen yesterday:

Name That Bird

What bird species is flying away in this photo? The first winning answer wins a Woodlink Hummingbird Feeder.

Leave your answer in the comments section. The first winning answer that includes a name gets the feeder. You don't have to have a blogger id, but you must leave a name with your answer to win.

Good luck.

The Cowbird Conundrum

My head cold is starting to subside. Non Birding Bill and I are hangin' at Mr. Neil's this weekend to keep an eye on the newly installed bees and to prep for banding on Sunday. The rain is making for some interesting feeder watching. Outside the kitchen window I can see a pine warbler and a black and white warbler going for the suet feeder. On the one hand this is exciting to see. On the other hand, I know these insect eating birds are desperate on their migration if they are eating peanut butter suet.

Thanks to a note left by Minnesota BirdNerd in the comments, my mind has been totally blown by the brown-headed cowbird theory. For years many of us have spouted the reasonable sounding defense of the brown-headed cowbird: they followed herds of bison on the prairie in North America, eating insects that were kicked up and evolved over time to deposit their eggs in the nests of other birds since their traveling lifestyle meant that they couldn't stay in one place long enough to build a nest, incubate eggs, and raise young. However, nomadic herds of bison are no longer in existence, brown-headed cowbirds follow sedentary humans and wreak havoc on nesting birds.

However, Alvaro Jaramillo who wrote the book about blackbirds (literally, he wrote the book on blackbirds) has this theory:

"This cannot be true. If you look at the evolution of the cowbirds (the entire genus Molothrus) you will find that they most likely arose in South America where there are no bison. As well, the Shiny Cowbird and Brown-headed Cowbird appear (based on the phylogeny developed by studying variations in mitochondrial DNA sequence) to be the most recently derived species in the cowbird clan. Thus, by the time that the Brown-headed Cowbird arose as a species it was already part of a lineage of brood parasitic birds, it was not the first. Cowbirds were 'pre-adapted' to a nomadic lifestyle due to their brood parasitism, but this behavior did not evolve due to a 'need' to follow Bison."

So, what does this mean? Are cowbirds just downright evil? No, they are just trying to find their way in this world like the rest of us. Although, now I have to think back to all the articles I've written and my already-at-the-printer-book City Birds Country Birds that has the bison theory in it. Sigh. Curse you brown-headed cowbirds and everything you stand for!

Bee Movies

Non Birding Bill filmed us installing our three pound packages of bees yesterday since Mr. Neil wasn't in town and this way he could get an idea of the hiving experience. It's in two parts:



Oh, it's a cliff hanger!