My Scope's Travels

In case you missed the drawing, Saundra Martz is the winner of my spotting scope. Above is her bad bird photo of a Cooper's hawk...can you find it? Saundra doesn't get the scope right away, it's currently being cleaned up at Swarovski.

They sent me photos to show that my scope arrived safely (though I suspect they already started cleaning it for this photo...there is noticeable lack of heron poop on the scope body).

Here we have Dean from marketing (he's the guy who was nice enough to say yes to my crazy idea of giving away my old scope) and Kyle from the repair department.  So, Saundra, your scope is in good hands and getting all spiffed up for delivery to you!

Incidentally, Swarovski does encourage people to send in their optics every 3 to 5 years for a good once over.  They do things like make replacements of parts that might need them, double check the alignment or if they've made a change to the optic since your purchase, make that change in for your piece--this is a free service. All you have to do is pay for the shipping to Swarovski.  It's best to call ahead of time and have your optics assigned a number so as soon as it arrives to the clean up department they can know what needs to be done. Also, it's best to avoid doing this right before spring or fall migration--those are they busiest times.

A Little Kleptoparasitism

 

The fun thing about Florida is you can see both American white pelicans and brown pelicans (the above bird). This bird was hanging out near a boat launch in Titusville. Some of the brown pelicans can be quite "tame" around there.  And I've heard different theories that some brown pelicans learn to beg from people, may just be ill or are almost completely blind from cornea damage sustained from their spectacular dives into the water for fish. I can't seem to find any articles to support that but with a pelican's natural ability to barf on you when stress, I can't imagine a ton of people wanting to line up and study that.

This bird did some half-hearded dives, not from very high up, but at one point the brown pelican appeared to have a fish and a laughing gull was ready to steal it. Certain species of gulls and terns will try to steal food from pelicans as they bring their bills up out from the surface and pour out the water from their gular pouch (the baggy part of the pelican bill). This is called kleptoparasitism--fun word. Laughing gulls who are so adept at grabbing oyster crackers in midair as people toss them are also very adept as hovering or even landing on a pelican to steal their catch.

This pelican was wise to the kleptoparasitism routine and kept its bill in the water until the gull got bored and moved on.

"Is the laughing gull finally gone?"

"Finally, I can swallow my fish in peace."

Photos That Were Too Good

As much as I enjoyed the awful photos for my spotting scope competition, I also enjoyed the submissions of photos that...weren't that bad. Some of them I could see from a photography point.  Ah yes, as a pro photographer, I can see how you would think that minor bit that's out of focus is an awful photo...but some of them were really cool: Poop was a popular submission.  And the poop shots were often in focus. Here are some of the top money shots:

Pam Monahan got an adult eagle releasing a load.

Janet Kissik Hug has a great show of a family of osprey with junior ruining the photo as kids are want to do.

Devin Courture got a cute shot of a shoverler shooting some poop.

Craig Nash got a shot of the elusive woodcock squirt, very nice.

Dead birds were also a popular subject, but most of them were shot in a very artful way--like this coot by Jen Garland.

Kim Robertson got this beautiful dead seabird on the Sunshine Coast in Queenland, Australia.

Here's another kind of arty photo of a crow head from Bonnie Bowen. I will grant you these photos are unique and perhaps wouldn't make the cover of any birding magazines, but they are intriguing.

I thought this was a cool photo from Wayne Price.  But here is my question, what the mantis just chilling out...or was it after the goldfinch?  They have been documented going after hummingbirds.

Mark Robinson sent in this cool and crisply in focus red-tailed hawk.  Not a bad photo..but man, not sure I would want my camera that close to the crap end of the bird.

Liz Stanley got a red-head woodpecker to pose with her good luck charm stuffed red-headed woodpecker. Not bad but definitely a fun photo!

Scott Hawley submitted this strange photo.  He purchased a disc you can put in your heated bird bath that keeps birds from bathing in them in winter.  The black disk is supposed to float on top of the water...unless a female pileated woodpecker decides to land on it and sinks the whole deal. lol.

To see the best of the worst submissions...and well to feel a little better about your own photography skills, be sure to check out the finalists in the Flickr gallery.

Spotting Scope Contest WINNER!

This contest got a little nuts!  It is hands down my favorite contest of all the ones I've ever done, because people made me laugh so freakin' hard! You guys--you are not good photographers.  Out of over 500 submissions, I alas, can only have one winner.  We narrowed down the 512 entries to 151 finalists and you can see the finalist set over on Flickr...along with the hilarious descriptions. From there, we used a random number generator to select five finalists from the 151 and then we assigned our aloof pet rabbit Dougal to select the winner by scattering treats all over cards with the random five names.  Whichever one he ate off of was the winner.  But first! Let's see some of my personal faves from the finalists

...like the above feeder in the Rio Grande Valley by Christine Williams, that is a crap photo!

I noticed that we had some subcategories like...people who were too close to the bird  (they seriously needed a scope):

Dawn Bailey, you were lucky this bird didn't give you pouch lice...

I'm not sure what the turkey had in mind for AJ Zirch.

Deborah Weston, I hope you survived the goose attack.

Chelsea McGlynn claimed this penguin gave her nasty bite.  Hopefully her camera survived.

Another category that cracked me up was the "near miss." We've all been there.

Sharon Hull almost got that bald eagle (incidentally, that was the most submitted bird species).

Almost got that red-tailed hawk Kathy Java!

There were some photobombs, I loved this:

Robin Oxley was trying to get the jay but the lady wasn't thrilled, the jay was stealing her food.

There were some digiscoping fails like poor Melissa Hero's condor picture.

Then there people like Carrie Laben who got shots of their optics as opposed to the actual bird.

Poor Shelley Rutkin had more vignetting in her photo than actual bird.

I loved the people like Saundra Martz who got shot of their screen in focus...as opposed to the Cooper's hawk who is hiding Where's Waldo style in the photo.

This one by Mandy Klehr cracked me up because she labeled it over-exposed gull mouth...which would be a great name for a Courtney Love cover band.

Then there were the photos where I just kind of asked for it (like the guy giving me the bird...well played, sir, I sprayed coffee out of my nose on that one. But other photos from people who have picked up on certain things about me and used photos that they thought would get our attention.

At first, I didn't quite get this photo...then I saw the feet, then recognized my own feet...a birder on a trip with me out in North Dakota submitted of photo of me peeing behind a truck on the prairie...yep, that's a bad bird photo.  You're a dead man, Robinson.  Just sayin'.

Kirk Mona submitted this photo of dead eagle he found...very creative, my man.

And bless Wendy Root's heart.  I do see the eagle, Wendy.  Thank you for pointing it out.  I'm gonna go watch some brown birds now.

Though in focus, Claudia Lee's photo is certainly not the best turkey photo I've ever seen.  Very creative, Claudia!

And there are the ones that just are so cute:

Like people who have to point out exactly where the bird is and yet, I'm still dubious there is an actual bird. Nice try, Deanna Wright.

I love this one because it's a crap photo of a bobwhite and Jen Vieth, bless your little heart, you sent the image in a word document. Some of you may not get the beauty of that, but those who do are shaking their head and saying, "Alright."

This was from Adam Beeler and was supposed to be a bad photo of long-tailed manakins and instead, there was a problem with the encoding of the photo in his email.  I don't know if he sent it to me this way on purpose but either way--THAT is a very lousy photo of a bird.

Be sure to see the full set of the bad photo finalists.

And now, here is the video announcing our grand prize winner! Thanks again to everyone who entered. All of you made me laugh in the best way for days during this contest:

And now for the video of our winner.  Watch Dougal select who wins my spotting scope:

http://youtu.be/A3zadmZv_SQ

Link to the winning photo.

Digiscoping In Low Light

I mentioned in a previous post that I went up North to get a look at all the boreal owls that are showing up. The trip was originally intended for just Sax Zim Bog birding, but we spent some time in Duluth first to see some owls.  Speaking of which, there is some major public shaming going on with a few well-known photographers who are accused of baiting birds across busy highways or just being complete jerkwads and walking in front of large groups of people to get closer to the owls and causing the boreals to fly away. So anyone with a camera going to see owls, I encourage you to follow Wheaton's Law.

We didn't have as much time for the bog as I'd like and we didn't get to see everything, but we saw some cool birds nonetheless. I may go back up again later on to try and get photos of the birds I missed photographing like black-backed woodpecker and boreal chickadee.  If it weren't for my Big Half Year Challenge, I would just say, "Ah, next year." But I'm really digging this challenge I've set for myself.  Our guide, Erik Bruhnke took us to the site where Friends of Sax Zim Bog hope to build their welcome center--this is the site I'm raising money for!  They already have some bird feeders (and a port-a-potty) set up but hopefully there will be a building there soon to help people find the best places to visit to see birds.

By the time we got to the bog, I knew that light would be fading fast for photos.  So long as some of the specialty songbirds like common redpolls would hit feeders in sunshine, I knew I would be fine.

The redpolls were quite cooperative, except for one hoary redpoll who only allowed me blurry photos of it (the light colored redpoll with the smaller bill on the left in the above photo).  But I considered it a triumph that for once I was able to pick out a hoary redpoll on my own.

The pine grosbeaks were also very cooperative and readily perched in the sun...though they may also appreciate the little bit of warmth that comes with it.

We had great views of boreal chickadee, but all my shots are too dark and blurry. That's one of the shots of the snowy road at the boreal chickadee spot...the chickadee photos are worse!  I even tried to experiment using my Nikon V1 in video mode while digiscoping to see if that would get a shot. Usually when it's lowlight conditions, video is a great way to document birds.  But the video on the Nikon v1 made them all too dark. I thought about trying the timer on the Nikon, but the boreal chickadee is not a bird that sits still very long...

Then we had an opportunity when two great gray owls appeared right at dusk along the road.  I HAD to try and digiscope that, even though the sun had set.  I played with the settings on my camera and used it as an opportunity to test out the timer features on the Nikon v1.  The upside about owls is that if they are not actively hunting (or pestered by people) they will stay in the same spot and not move too much. So here is what I came up with by using my timer:

Not too bad.  Don't get me wrong--there were several photos of the owl's head facing the other way or the head in mid spin, but I got about three photos leaving the camera attached to the scope and setting the timer to go off 10 seconds haver I pushed the shutter button. It does have the option to take a photo 2 seconds for 5 seconds later, but I wanted to give the camera enough time to stop shaking after I pressed the shutter.

Since there were two owls and they were being stationary, I tried getting a photo or two with my iPhone 4s.  It actually did very well and this is with me HAND HOLDING the phone to the scope and not using a timer.  Not bad considering that it's dusk.  The 4s handles low light much better than the Nikon V1.

I even tried to video the encounter and realized that if the light is this low, get video with the iPhone and not the Nikon V1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQhd69SAaCw

There is some hand shake because it was 12 degrees with a windchill of 6 degrees Fahrenheit. But still, not bad at all for a souvenir bird.

One last thing about visiting Sax Zim bog...make sure you have a high clearance vehicle that and drive gravel roads that are rarely (if ever) plowed. That's one of the perks of hiring a guide...they usually have vehicles that can handle it if you do not. Again, as far as guides go, I can't recommend Erik Bruhnke enough--he's enthusiastic, full of naturalist info and personal observations. After hearing about what he finds here in summer, I may have to brave the mosquitoes and hire him to take me birding up here in warm weather. Plus, I love supporting a young kid making his way in a birding career. Other guides that I've birded with and highly recommend include Sparky Stensaas (the guy who created the Big Half Year concept) and Frank Nicoletti.

To see my most up to date tally of my birds for my Digiscoping Big Half Year, visit my Flickr set. If you are interested in pledging to the Big Half Year, either to for me or any of the other participants, please do.  It's a great cause for a great birding area and you can even pledge as low as $10.  Thank you to everyone who has donated so far.  I truly do appreciate it!

Still Sorting Contest Entries

I know a lot of you are going to be checking today to find out who won my spotting scope.  There were A LOT of entries--over 500! The winner will be announced to day, but most likely not until the evening.

Nemesis Birds

  UPDATE: The Duluth News Tribune joined us for part of the day and you can see our birding posse and learn more about Minnesota's boreal owl irruption here.

Nothing says winter in Minnesota like snow drifting into a port-a-potty.

I can't really do my Big Half Year fundraiser for the Friends of Sax Zim Bog without at least one trip to the bog. I knew I would get up there at some point this winter and I had made some plans with friends and then last week, things went a little nuts. A tiny owl called a boreal owl showed up in spades. One report from Chris Wood counted seven! Granted that this not on the scale with the great gray owl irruption of 2004/2005 but it's significant none the less...especially since this is somewhat of a nemesis bird for me (a bird I always seem to miss). I finally got to the point of not even chasing one since every effort to do so ended up with the classic phrase, "Oh it was just hear yesterday (or 15 minutes ago)..."

I figured one day I'd get one.  Well, as plans solidified for my friends and I to head to Duluth and pay for the daily guiding services of Erik Bruhnke (a GREAT guide and worth every penny of his guiding fee, this is the second time we've used him). The reports of boreal owls were just too much and everyone in our group needed one for their list. The owls are mostly being seen between Duluth and Two Harbors, MN (and some right in Two Harbors). We asked Erik what our chances would be to go boreal. He said doable, but it would cut into our time for the bog.  I thought to myself, "Do I want to get as many birds as possible for my Big Half Year or do I want to risk that number and get a lifer (and hopefully a photo of it) and have fewer birds for the day. We went for the boreal.

Erik told us that we would have to drive along Scenic Highway 61 which is usually a pretty, scenic highway right along Lake Superior...thanks to some snow and lack of plows, it was a bit slow going, which is great if you have eyes desperate for spotting an owl that's about 10 inches long tucked in the thick brush the same color it is. Also, note Erik in the above photo.  It was 18 degrees and there he is, sweet as you please standing outside with out a coat and his sleeves rolled up. Northern Minnesota show off.

We creeped along slowly on the highway. As the minutes passed, our vehicle became more quiet--would we miss the owl? Were we wasting valuable bog time by going for a bird we wouldn't see? Was I jinxing everyone in the group by making an attempt for my nemesis bird? You know, the typical things that go through your mind when you decided to chase a bird.

Then blammo! We got one! The bird was actively hunting along the highway, not paying any attention to us at all while it flitted from perch to perch. And those of us with cameras were able to get photos.

I don't often get a chance to celebrate a life bird--especially in Minnesota, but when I do, I do it with 16 year old scotch!

What a treat to see this bird, we got to watch it fly, bob it's head trying to listen for something small an furry tunneling beneath the fluffy snow, posing in fabulous light, I felt 15 years of searching ease right off my shoulders.  Whatever would happen the rest of the day was just gravy.

We did pursue a few more birds in and around the Duluth area before heading over to the bog.  Of note was a snowy owl which was the weirdest snowy owl I've ever seen.

Is it me or does this snowy owl bear a resemblance to Hitler? This bird has been banded as well as marked with spray paint. As I understand it, banders have used spray paint to make sure they don't keep retrapping the same owl, because of the feathers on the toes and the bird's tendency to keep its feet hidden, it's hard to tell if a bird is banded. The spray paint can act as a sort of marker. But here is what I do not understand--note the number "8" on the wing? That's a patagial tag, a marker that allows you to know that the bird is already banded but you can actually id individual birds easily with a pair of binoculars. They are used on California condors, pelicans, old world vultures and turkey vultures.  It seems to me that the patagial tag and the spray paint is a bit of overkill as far as trying to make sure you're not pestering the same owl.

The other thing that bothers me about this is that snowy owls use camouflage to hide form predators as well as prey.  Does this muck it up? I normally side with banders on things, but fiddling around with a bird's camouflage makes me uneasy. Perhaps I would feel better if I could find some published information on this, but I can't seem to.  I found one article from the 1960s about captive snowy owls that were spray painted to id some molt  and then whole bunch of links about Martha Stewart spray painted owl stencils.

I'm currently at 56 birds for my Big Half Year, though that will change a bit in a few days. Thanks again to everyone who has pledged money to the effort to build a visitor center in the bog!

Win My Spotting Scope!!

This is the story of a girl and her spotting scope...

Oh, the adventures I have had with my Swarovski ATM spotting scope. It has literally traveled the world with me. We ascended Volcán Atitlánin Guatemala to see horned guans. We survived rigorous airport security in Kazakhstan to view breeding sociable lapwings on the Kazak Steppes. We got our lifer Syrian woodpecker outside a mine field on the Syria/Israel border. We even delighted in digiscoping tufted titmice at Neil Gaiman’s bird feeders. We’ve showered together when covered in sand and dust. In short: we have had a blast.

But, some partnerships must end and some things are so awesome, they should be shared. Swarovski hires me from time to time to teach workshops, test equipment and help out at booths. That means I need to have the latest equipment to take to events. When equipment changes, I have the option of purchasing the older equipment or I can send it back to Swarovski. With the debut of the new Swarovski ATX scope, it was time to change out my equipment.

This time I asked, “Hey, could I have a contest so one of my blog readers could get my scope and all the great birding mojo that has built up with it over the years?”

And Swarovski said, “Yes!”

So, anyone who reads my blog has a chance to win a FANTASTIC spotting scope. You will receive my ATM scope with 20 – 60 zoom eyepiece and my carbon fiber tripod (and I’ll even throw in my DCA digiscoping adapter). This is a scope and tripod that has been loved hard and used on a daily basis. I will send it in to Swarovski headquarters to get cleaned up before you get it (maybe Gail can finally get that heron poop stain off) and whoever wins it will also get the Swarovski Optik limited lifetime warranty with the scope. I love this thing, it has been such a wonderful birding companion and helped me id so many birds and I hope whoever wins it, gets the birds of a lifetime that I have gotten with it.

I really wanted to come up with a contest that would level the playing field. The logical thing would be a photo contest, but if you can get really great photos, you don’t need my scope. I want any birder of any age to have a shot at winning this magnificent, light-weight beast. I thought about a guest blogging contest but I know not everyone is comfortable writing, so Non Birding Bill and I kicked around ideas to figure out what would be something universal that anyone could do…and we landed on a contest that would truly level the playing field:

 Birdchick’s WORST bird photo contest!

That’s right, kids, send me your worst bird photo: blurry, over exposed, under exposed, funny, weird, get creative. That’s right, I want to see the worst bird photo you can possibly take. There are any number of ways to do it, so you can go bonkers with this.

We will post our favorite images and then those that are selected as our favorites will be entered into a drawing and we will pick the winning name from that bank of entries!

Rules:

1. Photo must be one that you have taken. You can’t just harvest a bad photo off of Wikipedia or Google Image Search. I have strong Google Fu and will find it if you do.
2. Photo must be accompanied by a brief description or what you think the bird was that you were trying to photograph.
3. Photos must be emailed to sharon at birdchick dot com.
4. Photo submissions must include your first and last name in the email and your shipping address (so if you win, I know where to send my scope off to).
5. Photos must be submitted no later than February 8, 2013. The winner will be drawn and announced on February 11, 2013.

   

Don't be afraid to get creative! Good luck!!

Picking My Battles With Bird Photos

 

As I do my competition for the Big Half Year, I know this issue is going to come up again and again.  Which photos to count? Above is a very mediocre or what I would call a documentation photo that I got at Pig's Eye Outflow in St Paul this week. There's identifiable common goldeneye in that shot...but would I get a better photo later. Who can say with my crazy schedule and migration. You really never know with birds and this may be as good as it gets goldeneye wise with me.  I know my buddy Craig Nash is insisting that all my photos be in focus to be countable (unlike The World Series of Birding rules). But would the above photo count.

And then I went to Lake Rebecca in Hastings, MN and found a lovely albeit backlit goldeneye. I bided my time and worked my way around the lake to see if I could position myself to have the sun behind me instead of the goldeneye. When I do something like this, I try to walk in a way that the bird doesn't notice. I'll look in the opposite direction of the bird and even make sure that my scope's objective lens isn't facing the bird as I carry it. If I stared at the bird the whole time, the bird might become suspicious as to why I'm staring at it, I'd look like a predator.

I eventually found a better position on the lake...but then the camera flaked out and under exposed the crap out of it. But a few adjustments in the settings and viola:

A reasonable common goldeneye photo and bird number 15 for my Big Half Year fundraiser for a Sax Zim Bog visitor center!

He even found a female goldeneye to hang out with on the lake.

This lake has a large population of mallards and Canada geese (and even a young trumpeter swan) hanging out. It's a popular town activity to bring your kids and a bag of corn or bread and feed everybody. I wonder if the goldeneye notice the mass exodus of waterfowl when a car pulls in and wonder what the fuss is about. These ducks are fish eaters so the corn and bread is wasted on them. But the goldeneye's presence is a good sign for ice fishermen who tempt fate on the frozen-ish side of the lake.

Here's a link to the Flickr  and I cannot say this enough: thank you to everyone who has donated so far. I had absolutely no clue what I'd raise with this thing and seeing it past the $250 mark is an honor. With all the participants, the fund is already at 15%!  That's fantastic--we have until June 30, 2013 to make the goal so to be at this point before the end of January--is fantastic!

Birds and Electrocution

Well I had two very interesting things hit my inbox that are somewhat related. One is kind of a gruesome photo but fascinating:

The above photo was taken by Lili Taylor (woman after my own heart, she takes pictures of dead stuff). In the photo, we have a dead squirrel and a dead raptor on top of a transformer. Based on the tail feathers, it looks to be a hatch year red-tailed hawk. It's a shame, the bird graduated from the nest, figured out how to hunt down tough quarry like a gray squirrel and then landed to eat it only to be electrocuted on a transformer.

I also got a notification that he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Avian Power Line Interaction Committee have released their updated guidance document Reducing Avian Collisions with Power Lines: State of the Art in 2012. This manual is supposed to identify "best practices and provides specific guidance to help electric utilities and cooperatives, federal power administrations, wildlife agencies, and other stakeholders reduce bird collisions." So it seems there are things that can be done to prevent this and it's up to the power company to take that initiative to make adjustments. I think in this case of the hawk on the transformer that you could try and call the power company to alert them so they could at least remove it and encourage them to maybe put a cover over it to prevent further electrocutions.

It's fascinating to follow some of those links. The APLIC offers workshops on this subject and you can even download a copy of an Avian Protection Plan (a working document that states with the risks are to birds and how to mitigate that). On page 30 it gets into construction guidelines.

The document points out what the risk is to a bird landing on the transformer but also points out way that could fix it easily:

The hard part is tracking down the power company responsible for the transformer and getting them to come out and fix it. It's in their best interest to do so, they could be fined or something like this could lead to a costly power outage.