Geek A Week

So what is this whole Geek A Week Trading Card thing all about?  Good question!  Here's what happened...it all started at a crazy thing called W00tstock Minneapolis.

This blurry photo is me meeting Adam Savage from the MythBusters at W00stock...and then a whole bunch of people decided to photobomb it including Hans (the groundskeeper who mows around our beehives), Mr. Neil, Wil Wheaton, John Scalzi and Len Peralta.

If you have not been to a W00tstock and one is coming to your town--GO!  It's put on by Paul & Storm and it advertises to be a three hour music and all around geek event, but the Twin Cities W00tstock went on for 5 hours.  Each show has a roster of different guests with some regulars.  Wil Wheaton reads from his books, Adam Savage told stories and sang I Will Survive in the voice of Gollum, the dudes from Mystery Science Theater 3000 sang and riffed some old educational movie shorts, the Science of Superheroes guy did a math demo--really a little of everything and fun.

Non Birding Bill and I hung out backstage a bit (NBB more than me because he was with his own kind). I must admit, my absolute favorite moment of the whole thing was Wil Wheaton asking me, "You're married to the THAC0 guy?  I love that script!"  I beamed with some major wifely pride.

This is me with Len Peralta (getting photobombed by Bill Corbett...who looks remarkably like Father Jack from the Father Ted tv series in this photo).  Len spends the show onstage and creates an original poster for the show--it's different from town to town.  If you order it and pay a little extra, he will even insert you in the poster.

Len is a FANTASTIC artist.  He recently illustrated the Trace Beaulieu book Silly Rhymes for Belligerent Children. Above is one of my favorite rhymes for the book.  I follow Len on Twitter so knew who he was and knew about his Geek A Week project--what he calls a one year art challenge to connect with 52 influential geeks from different disciplines (art, movies, TV, computing, science).  He records a podcast and through the interview, designs a superhero or villain for the card.  Paul and Storm write all the cool facts and geeks attributes for all the card backs.  Some of the other cards include:  the guys from Rifftrax & Cinematic Titanic, Grant Imahara (another Mythbuster) and Weird "Al" Yankovic" just to name a few.

When I met Len, he said, "Birdchick!  I wanted to ask you to be a one of the cards but I saw the tag line on your blog was, 'To show the world that you can be a birder without being a geek' and thought you might be offended if I asked.

Non Birding Bill said, "That's really more of a goal that she fails at miserably."

Len later emailed me and we talked some more about it.  He thinks of geeks something different than I do.  He sees geeks as people who are passionate about a subject and felt birding wise, I was a good card candidate.  So I did it.  Here is the podcast and here is the front of the card:

I'm so relieved I'm not wearing a vest or a Tilley hat!  I feel like I'm in some sort of odd brotherhood and I told Len that he should have a show where all of us dress up as our alter-egos and have a battle royale.  Here is the back of the card:

I love everything about this--I love that the National Park I work for is mentioned in it, I love that my Swarovski spotting scope is my primary weapon--and I'm not wearing a vest!  I don't think this is going to make any big splashes in the birding community, but anything that gets non birders to give birds a second thought is worth its weight in gold, so if someone sees this on Len's sight and thinks, "Yeah, bird watching, maybe I should try that, I'm all for it."

So, thank you, Len for being kind in your illustrations and thank you for including me in such a fun list of people.  I feel like I'm in some sort of weird brotherhood or secret society.

Cruise Ships Potential Habitats For Burrowing Owls?

Probably not, but intrepid burrowing owl sure did try.

The above Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is of a burrowing owl that tried to set up a territory mini-golf course on Royal Caribbean International's "Oasis of the Seas" last Saturday.  The ship was about to depart Port Everglades for the high seas when a crew member called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission regarding this unusual passenger.

FWC Lt. David Bingham and a Broward County Sheriff's Office deputy were able to safely remove the small owl from the golf course. Bingham released the owl in an open field in western Broward County.

"Never in all of my 25 years with the FWC have I seen anything like this, and I have responded to some strange calls," Bingham said. "I am very pleased the owl wasn't injured and that we could get it back to a normal habitat."

As a species of special concern, Florida burrowing owls, their burrows and their eggs are protected from harassment and/or disturbance by state law. Burrowing owls also are protected by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

"Burrowing owls need to be in open, treeless areas where they can dig their burrow," said FWC biologist Ricardo Zambrano. "The artificial turf on the ship's golf course resembles the fields they use for nesting in urban areas; however, it was obviously not suitable habitat for this owl."

One has to wonder how long this owl was there and what it might have been feeding on.  According to Cornell's Birds of North America Online, burrowing owls are "pportunistic feeders; primarily arthropods, small mammals, and birds; amphibians and reptiles also reported and may be important in Florida."

Tawny Owl With Mandarin Ducklings

Check out this story and video from the BBC about a tawny owl (which nests in a box they way our screech owls do here in the US).  The box is fitted with a nest cam and watchers were expecting owlets.  However, they were surprised to find mandarin ducklings running around and all over the owl in the box (kind of like a screech owl with wood duck ducklings running around all over). The article paints a prettier picture by saying that the ducklings will hop out but who knows if they will without a female duck below to call at them.  Since these ducks are precocial like wood ducks--meaning they are fully mobile after hatching and follow their parents while picking up food on their own they do not need to be fed by the adults.  Confusion will be had by all if the male returns with a mouse and the female attempts to feed the ducklings who will not beg for it.

A few days before hatching, the ducklings pip from inside the egg, the hen calls back and the imprinting process begins.  If these ducklings heard anything, it's the coos of the tawny owl--will they stay in the box if the owl does?  If hunger forces the ducklings to hop out, will they be able to hook up with another brood?  Will they be able to do it before a fox...or the male tawny owl catches them?  Who can say, but it sounds like that pond had some egg dumping going on and more duck and owl boxes need to go up.

This is similar to the osprey with the Canada goose gosling incident we had happen in the western suburbs of the Twin Cities a few years ago.

Odd Broad-winged Hawk & Odd Warbler

Migration was in full spring today.  It was a brown bird explosion which makes me so happy--new sparrows everywhere and this morning I was especially pleased to notice a small but steady stream of broad-winged hawks over our bee yard.  I noticed the birds were fairly low and trying to get into thermals.  I saw them close to the 10 am mark which made me wonder if this was a small flock that roosted nearby for the night and if this was a morning lift off?

One broad-winged hawk really stood out.  Check out that right wing--it's almost as if something took a bite out of it.  It's missing a chunk of primary and secondary wing feathers.  I don't think this is a molting issue but not sure how it happend--altercation with a larger aerial predator? Attack from some South American predator over the winter?  That's a significant chunk to lose on one wing and it must affect the bird's ability to soar and dive after prey.

As I was digiscoping this bird, I thought about how migration is hard enough, but to do it with a chunk of flight feathers missing must be a real bummer.  However, the bird has made it this far, perhaps it is only going to the northern part of the state--they do breed here and it's journey may be almost over.  As always, this is a testament to a wild bird's ability to survive in nature no matter what.  Kind of puts those bad hair days into perspective.

In other interesting bird news Ryan Terrill posted a link to some photos on ID Frontiers of what appears to be a bilateral gynandromorphic black-throated blue warbler (ie: it looks male one on side, female on the other). As if warblers weren't hard enough--sheesh!  The bird was banded recently in Jamaica.  To make this even more interesting, last fall birdspot posted photos on Twitpic that she took in Central Park, NY of what appears to be a first year gynandromophic black-throated blue warbler seen here and here...is this the same bird? In both Ryan's photos and birdspot's photos the male and female parts seem to be on the same bird...

We have absolutely no way of knowing since it wasn't banded last fall, but it does bring up one intriguing possibility that it could be the same bird.  Gynandromophia is unusual but so is refinding the same bird in a different country on migration.

Project Wildlife's Amazing Red-tailed Hawk Rescue

Sometimes cool stories happen no matter how sick I am!  Earlier this week, I was included on a forward of some incredible red-tailed hawk photos from Project Wildlife.  The bird flew into a forerunner and got stuck! Of course, the email had been forwarded several times and there was little back story on what happened, but thanks to the magic of the internet, I was able to track it down. Outdoor News picked up the story and you can read the full account and see the photos.  They are shocking, but take heart that the bird survived.

If you are moved by that story and a have some spare change, consider donating to Project Widlife, they are a non-profit and they do some amazing work with wildlife and the public!

Wheatus, The Birding Band

I really enjoy Twitter. It's not for everyone, but for someone like me who has friends scattered all over the country, it's kind of like sharing an office with them. I work part time from home and I'm a social creature. Being alone all day gets to me, but with Twitter, I can share daily bits of info with my friends (and some new people). It's like being in a cubicle environment with people I actually enjoy and sometimes you discover cool things like WildBird on the Fly posted on her Twitter feed a link to a one in zillion penguin: it's all black.  Be sure see the photo here and here too. It's the Shaft of penguins! Twitter is also how I got my interview with Rob at Outdoor Talk on Sunday--he asked me through Twitter (who was a blast to talk to with his on air partner Tim and gave a nice promo to this Saturday's Birds and Beers.

But the big reason I love Twitter is the odd random people you can connect with on Twitter that you otherwise would never have the opportunity to know.  Some of you might be familiar with the band Wheatus.  I fell in love with them years ago when Non Birding Bill played me their song Teenage Dirtbag (if you've never heard the song, take a listen, it's awesome).  They've released several albums and they even covered one of my favorite Erasure songs A Little Respect.

There was some kind of weird thread about vegemite going on with Twitter and I saw some retweet a photo from an @Wheatus:

Not a remarkable photo, but for one thing.  If you are a birder, do you recognize anything in that photo?  I spotted it right away and I'm not sure if I should be impressed or not that I recognized it so quickly.  Don't see it yet?  Here's a hint:

This is the back of my Kaufman Guide to Birds.  Take a look at the photo again:

To which I asked on Twitter: Wait a minute, does @wheatus have a Kaufman guide behind him? He birds???

And Wheatus responded: @birdchick Nice spot....best bird book ever.

We then got into a conversation about birds, Kenn Kaufman (and his ability to rock out), potoos.  I shared some with Kenn--we've got to get these crazy kids together.

This discovery has my mind turning.  Most birders are trying to find ways to get younger people interested in the activity.  Many bird festivals are looking to increase attendance.  Wouldn't it be awesome to book Wheatus to a bird festival?  Wouldn't it be magical to find a way to have both Kenn Kaufman and Wheatus at a bird festival?  Some organizers may balk and say, "I've never heard of them."  That's a sign that they are popular with the market you are trying to attract and have been unable to do so.

You can download albums from Wheatus and they allow you to do it free, but you should leave a donation.  It's a new trend among musicians to make their own way in a struggling industry.  So give some love and support to this great band who happens to enjoy birds...and if you organize any birding event, find a way to get some funds to bring them to your festival.

Turkey Vulture Crash & Golden Eagle Attacks Deer

I'm catching up on emails and blogs since I came home--have you seen Julie Zickefoose's new blog redesign? It's fabu! In the world of Holy Crap links, my buddy Amber told me about a helicopter pilot that was supposed to some filming during the Super Bowl and had a turkey vulture crash through his window and land in his lap. The pilot landed safely (and surprisingly didn't get barfed on) and the vulture flew away before animal control could take it to be checked by vet!

And on an Illinois listserv is a a photo series and story of a golden eagle attacking a white-tailed deer! Golden eagles eat dead here in winter and we've had some reports of young eagle especially attacking young deer. There's no way a golden is going to fly off with a deer but attacking and following a weak deer is not out of the realm of possibility. That would be food for a few days.

Also, I put out a request for birds before I left on my blog and on my Facebook page. People gave me a list of birds or mammals they wanted me to try and document while I was in Central America. I got quite a few, but not all. You can check it out here

Yes, I Have Seen The Story About The Burned Hawk

There's an unbelievable story from Chicago Breaking News about a that was badly burned as the result of a plane crash near the Aurora Airport. This was not a case of the hawk flying into the plane, this was the result of the hawk being at the wrong roost at the wrong time. There's kind of a nasty photo of the bird on the news page and the feathers sustained so much damage that the hawk is unidentifiable by wildlife rehabbers. The bird's head shape and location make me think it's a red-tailed hawk.

The rehabbers seem to think that the worst burns are around the eyes and that it is quite possible that this bird could make a full recovery and be released. We'll see.

A hawk flying into power lines and catching fire was the inspiration for the philanthropic wine label Burning Hawk, I wonder if they have seen this story yet?

Watching Hummers With Penn Jillette

There are more people interested in casual birding than we realize and you never know who that is. So, last fall I went to Las Vegas with Non Birding Bill, Clay Taylor and WildBird on the Fly to film some digiscoping videos, I think I had my biggest geek out ever--bigger than the time I met Scott Weidensaul. I was a tad inebriated at a bar during an ABA convention and Scott suddenly walked in and all I remember is thinking to myself, "Act sober. Act sober. Act sober."

I must not have been too bad because Scott still welcomes me with a hug when he sees me, rather than darting away in the opposite direction.

But due to some lucky scheduling and total generosity of Penn Jillette, we got to see the Penn and Teller Las Vegas show , hang out backstage (that's Amy and me with Teller), and watch birds at Penn's house--I got a lifer in his yard, a black-throated sparrow.

It was the most surreal moment of my life back stage. For one thing, it was the first time NBB has met some of my closest birding buddies. For another, how weird was it to be back stage with a bunch of magicians, the editor of WildBird Magazine and Swarvoski Optik--and we ended up talking about bees! Penn and Teller told us about a segment where they made thousands of bees appear on stage, you can watch it here (see if you can tell when they get stung).

I said, "Holy crap! How did you do that," meaning how did they work with bees, but they told me how they did it, how the entomologist they consulted backed out because he got freaked out and how many stings they ended up with and how Penn had a rather unusual injury on a rather sensitive area of his anatomy--I'll let you google that one, it's easy enough to find or better yet, if you meet Penn, he will gladly tell you the story much better than I ever could.

Again, Penn had a lot going on that weekend, he was flown to another state to shoots a scene for a movie, had his own Vegas show and still managed to give us some time to talk hummingbirds (I got to make hummingbird nectar in his kitchen). Since we were dealing with brief time and when working with video things like cicadas and air traffic can get in the way it's not perfect, but it's still someone I think is cool showing an interest in birds.

I've also hesitated posting this because I was geeking hardcore on the inside during this segment and tried very hard to keep my geek in check. I think from now on, I'm going to have to just let my geek flag fly because trying to play it cool makes me look like a dork.

So here it is and thank you to Swarovski for making this possible and to Birdorable for making the perfect shirt to wear in Vegas and especially to Penn Jillette and his people for being so nice, so gracious with their time and allowing us a few moments to chat about birds.

You can do some awesome birding in Las Vegas. We still have one more video to go, but here's a link to some of our adventures. Between this, testing Swarovski awesome new digiscoping adaptor in Kazakhstan, and climbing a volcano in Guatemala to see a giant tree chicken I can safely say that 2009 was hands down the craziest (in a good way) year of my life.

Fishing American Robin aka Holy Crap!

One of my favorite parts about this blog is that people email me questions about birds or photos to try and identify something. Every now and then, someone sends in some insanely interesting bird behavior and it knocks my socks off.

I got an email from JJ Golden who was out taking photos of ducks not too far from where I live. There are still a few patches of open water and JJ was at a Twit Cities Golf course when something strange happened. Golden reports, "As I walked around the pond I saw this Robin so I stopped and watched it for a moment. It flew down to the pond, I assumed to get a drink by a small open/slushy spot. At this point I tripped over my own snowshoes, dropped down to my knees and dropped my point and shoot camera (with lens uncovered) into the snow. I was only a few feet from the Robin who paid no attention to my blundering self."

Golden goes on to report, "As I got up I could see the Robin had pulled a small fish out of the water and dropped it on the ice. It flip flopped around for a minute or so as the Robin seemed to be studying how to get it down. It then ate the fish in what looked like one gulp. The open area was very slushy so I'm amazed that the Robin could see a tiny fish from as far away as it was. The fish had a slightly pinkish tinge which made me wonder if it looked like a worm to the Robin."

I know robins will go for some not traditional foods in winter--some will eat seeds out of the shell like sunflower hearts or even go for suet. When I worked at the wild bird store in Wayzata, MN we had a bait shop in our strip mall. They would always toss out dead bait behind the store and we would see flocks of winter robins flying down for tiny dead fish but this is the first time that I have seen someone document an American Robin (Turdus migratorious) actively fishing for food!

So, now I wonder if this is a robin that has grabbed bait fish and somehow put two and two together and figured out how to get slow moving fish from slushy water? Did the robin figure it out by seeing a resemblance between the fish and a worm that it would normally go for?

Has anyone else ever seen a robin active fish for food?