Birds & Beers & OpenSky

Birds and Beers is this Thursday, October 29 at 6:30pm at Merlin's Rest and we have something to celebrate.  I've been testing the waters with OpenSky--creating a shop that only has products I like, use and enjoy.  Well, I thought to myself:  all the best bird companies give back to the birding community and I'd love the blog to be able to help with that.  I told OpenSky that I wanted 10% of my share to go to young birder programs for the American Birding Association.  They said, "Great, we'll match that!" What a cool company!  I never had the chance to go to any kind of bird convention or one specifically for kids.  I would love it if the shop gets enough sales to provide a full scholarship to some aspiring kid birder!  So, if you have any birding needs, check out my OpenSky Store and know that all the things in there are products that I love and that you can see in my photos in my blog and that 20% of the profits are going to help fun young birder programs!  I'm so excited about this and happy that the blog can help kids in some sort of way.

To help celebrate, OpenSky is offering discount codes for five products and you'll be able to get the discount code by attending Birds and Beers this Thursday. Wingscapes BirdCam, EZ lift hanger, Aspects Hummzinger Mini, Finch Flocker, Green Mesh Feeder.

As always, Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders to get together and talk some birds.  Anyone from the hardcore lister to the backyard birder to someone who has heard about birding and wants to find out what it's about is invited to attend.  If you have a bird blog--come and tell us about it!  If you are a field trip leader--come and share your upcoming trips!  Have a cool research project--we'd love to learn about what you are doing!  Have a Christmas Bird Count in need of some volunteers--come ask us!  It's low key and fun--many new birders to the area have found some great birding partners.

Young Finches Learning The Ropes At The Feeders

As signs of fall migration make themselves achingly apparent, many of the goldfinches in my area are still holding on strong to breeding plumage.  As I was digiscoping this male yesterday, I noticed differences in the bird calls around me.  No indigo bunting singing on territory or red-eyed vireo--that was first this month.  There were contact calls of warblers.  I did hear a scarlet tanager giving the old "chick-burr" behind me and noted that while the tanager was here, all the orioles were gone.  I know most people in my neck of the woods have lamented our cold summer.  Wearing a jacket in August is crazy, even by Minnesota standards, but I have loved it.  Although, as much as I enjoy cool nights and several days without turning on the air conditioner, I look at all my friends who cannot get a tomato to turn red in their gardens this summer and wonder how this affects the seed crops and insects fall migrants need to head south.  I also wonder if this means an exceptionally long winter as well.

I did notice this male goldfinch on the long tube with kind of a reverse goatee.  He's bald around his beak.  I seem to recall seeing this before in a goldfinch either last year or two years ago.  I wonder if it's an odd molt or some sort of mites (not unlike the bald cardinals we see this time of year).  This particular male had at least one recently fledged chick following him around to the feeders begging to be fed.

The adult male is on the bottom of the sunflower tube feeder and the begging chick is on the upper perch.  The adult would dutifully demonstrate how to get seed out of the port, while the younger bird above continued to beg.  Eventually, the young bird left the adult alone and tried pecking around the feeder.  It ignored the gaping opening of the feeding port, and pecked at the plexiglass tube.  It could see the seed and couldn't understand why it couldn't get at the food.

Eventually, the adult male flew to a different feeder and what does the young finch do? Continue to ignore the open port with food and hang upside down towards where the adult had been feeding and unsuccessfully pecking at the tube around the port.  Not the brightest bulb on the tree.

The young finch followed the adult male over to the Nyjer feeder and begrudgingly began to eat the seed out of that port.  All the while, continuing to flutter its wings in a food begging behavior.

The young bird finally left the Nyjer feeder and flew over to a black oil sunflower feeder.  Soon afterwards, it was joined by a young house finch (who had just a hint of pink show up along his flanks).  Both birds fed in peace, but periodically the larger house finch would lunge toward the goldfinch if it got too close.  I wonder if these will be the last of the fledglings I will see for the year?

Indigo Bunting At The Finch Feeder

I was walking by the kitchen window when a glimpse of blue caught my eye on the finch feeder.  Among the oodles of goldfinches was a male indigo bunting.  I'm not sure why, but he is usually a cagey little fella.  When I see him at the feeders, any movement causes him to take off in a panic.  You would think the other birds chilled out at the feeder would help him keep his cool.  I pressed myself against the refrigerator to try and blend my shape to get some photos of him. I even tried video and you can see in the video for the first few minutes, he is very suspicious.  He takes a few pecks, but then keeps a hairy eyeball in my direction, eventually, he gets a better perch (at least for me and filming):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf2NcClecX0[/youtube]

He stayed for a few minutes this time, rather than me catching a streak of blue fleeing the feeder at meteorite speed as I walk by a window.

I love this time of year--a male indigo bunting next to a male American goldfinch.  There was also a male purple finch bebopping around, but couldn't work him into the shot.

Here's a bit more bunting for your viewing pleasure:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_ZGlDYrn4s[/youtube]

A Few More Finches

I need to burn through a ton of redpoll and siskin photos before I leave. Non Birding Bill and I are knee deep in sorting through the oodles of blog entries that came in. I got a much bigger response to the contest than expected and it's going to be tough to narrow down to the top ten. These will start showing up once a day on February 18 and then post once a day.

I have no idea what my internet situation will be while I'm in Guatemala. If I find a chance to upload a photo or video, I will. However, I have a feeling that my chance to blog while there will be narrow. Watch for updates on Twitter.

I'm watching all the winter finch activity and wondering if they will still be around when I return at the end of the month. When we were at Mr. Neil's last week, there were so many finches descending on his feeding station that when the flock suddenly took off in fear of a predator, the culmination of wings made a jarring "woosh" sound. So many tiny birds makings such a mighty sound just with feathers.  Even the 36" long finch feeder isn't enough perches for them!

The pine siskins went after all sorts of food, from finch mixes to this woopecker mix in the wire mesh feeder above. This mix has sunflower seeds in and out of the shell, nuts, and dried fruit. Many of the pine siskins at the feeder have a hint of yellow, but some really stood out.

Check out the yellow on this male! Oh he's splash of bright during the winter.

Okay, I seriously need to pack for Guatemala. I'll be posting a few more thing before I go, but NBB is telling me to get my pack on.

Finch Fight Club

The other day while we were doing a bee inspection, I kept an eye on Mr. Neil's finch feeder--they were chock full of common redpolls and pine siskins. You can see some of the tracking of pine siskins at Audubon's Great Backyard Bird Count website...interesting that they are calling it a winter finch invasion. I recall a few year ago when the thousands of great gray owls were in Minnesota, a couple of ornithologists' took me to to task for using the term "invasion" instead of "irruption" (apparently the proper term for ornithologists). I did some digiscoping and digivideoing while at Mr. Neils and even set up a couple of different motion sensitive cameras. Check out some of the finch hissy fits I got with the Wingscapes camera:

Redpolls fighting!

More fighting!

And yet more fighting!

And even picking on a poor little junco! Here's a digivideo of some of the sqaubbling on our 36" long finch feeder:

Winter Finches

Here's a video from Mr. Neil's feeders yesterday. You can see goldfinches in winter plumage, common redpolls, and pine siskins. The most fun is the sound of the hundreds of finches in the trees waiting to come down to the feeders. I love the up slurred, "shreeeee" of the siskins!  They are all over the Finch Flocker!