A Little Connecticut Birding

I had a great time speaking Connecticut Ornithological Association last week.  I was honored to be part of a Cornell/Birdchick sandwich.  Marshall Iliff from eBird spoke before me and I was followed by Steve Kress of Project Puffin. I was kind of the cheesy filling that brings the sandwich together.  I tested out some new material for my talk Today's Office (it's a bunch of stories of all the crazy things I do to get paid to go bird watching). Non Birding Bill and I discovered a nude beach in January and well...let's just say that I really needed a photo of a sandwich tern and I regret nothing and it's now part of my talk.

One of the fun things about the Internet is that I have friends EVERYWHERE. When I mentioned on Twitter that I was going to be speaking in Connecticut,  some friends that I've communicated with via the blog and Twitter mentioned that they would come. We have a friend in common and after checking with him, "Yo, Ari, Rick isn't an axe murder, or anything," and getting confirmation from Ari that Rick and his lovely wife Delia were not crazy murderous types, I made arrangements to do a little birding with them. I was anxious to see an oystercatcher again and they knew a spot. American oystercatchers are such iconic looking birds for me. Even though I have them on my list, I will always seek them out when

We got the oystercatchers at Milford Point which was a lovely beach on an early spring day. I was hoping that we also might get piping plovers which were just returning to the area but was content to settle myself with the oystercatcher. My friends aren't hardcore birders, but they know enough out birds to point me in the direction of birds I don't normally see.  We heard a peep and as it was barely registering with me, Rick said, "I hear a piping plover."

And sure enough he did hear piping plovers. What a treat to see these cuties again.  I know some people get bent out of shape about beaches being closed off for their nesting season, but how can you get angry at a tiny little bird like that? They are too adorable for words. It's amazing how well they blend in, even when their running.  At a casual glance, they look like a piece of fluff rolling away on the sand with the wind.

Rick and Delia were happy to help me in my quest for the Big Half Year, even helping me get monk parakeet photos.  They nest in the surrounding neighborhoods at Milford Point. There's a nest in this pine tree.  All the pine trees in the neighborhood were turning brown.   Since this area would have been flooded from Hurricane Sandy, I wonder if that is causing problems for the trees?

Cute little snoozy parrots in their nest! Wonder if in the next year or so if these birds will have to find a different tree to use for nesting?

Early migrants were just returning, I saw an osprey checking out the nesting platform and lots of ducks working the backwaters. And I was able to add some common birds we don't get in Minnesota, like the above Carolina wren.

There's a visitor center at Milford Point and people leave notes of what's been observed...this is a hot spot, there have been some very unusual sitings recently.  Ah, Humanity.

Random Hummingbird Nest

While in a backyard in Los Angeles, we were watching Anna's hummingbirds zipping around. One bird landed and one of my colleagues said, "Oh hey, that's a nest." And looking closely, you could see that had a nest on top of a pine cone. Cute!

Also, this was a western scrub-jay visiting a feeder in the yard.  I just liked this photo and wanted to post it.

Birding In The Arena

Watching as much tv and movies as I do, I frequently find myself in places that are practically celebrities from being used so much as sets so much. My recent project was last minute and I didn't realize where all we would be working and one morning as I was being driven to my daily office, I gasped when I saw something familiar:

Any Star Trek (original series) worth their salt knows exactly what this is and perhaps even hears music.  For those who do not, here's why it's iconic:

It's the set of Arena or as many know it as: the famous Kirk vs Gorn battle! Lots of other movies have used Vasquez Rocks, check out what's on its Wikipedia Page. But the birds were off the hook on this spot. Also, note the little cave directly above Captain Kirk's head? Check out what's really in there:

It's a raven nest! I know for sure because I saw ravens in there several times, but every time I aimed my scope at them, they took off.  Clever birds.

But Vasquez Rocks has some classy looking birds. Up until last year, this was a bit of a nemesis bird for me, but now that I've seen it, it has since been very obliging every time I visit its habitat. As if this silky flycatcher didn't have a cool enough name, you can add some colorful metaphors right in the middle of its name making it cooler. It think that's my new favorite profanity now. I did manage to digiscope it with my iPhone and one of my colleagues asked, "So is that an iPhainopepla?" So much fun wordplay with such a great bird.

But I loves me some brown birds and Vasquez has those in abundance.  This California towhee was a treat, lovely dull brown with a few splashes of pumpkin coloring to add a bit of snazziness. These birds were tucked all over around the rocks and they lacked color wise compared to some of the other snazzier towhees, allows them to blend in well with the terrain.

There were some splashes of color like this male Lawrence's goldfinch. I got a female at a bird feeder in Las Vegas a few years ago, but to get great views of a male was a real treat. Another fun thing about visiting different parts of the country is that you get to see different versions of common birds.  I'm used to the American goldfinch and though that is an uber colorful bird in breeding plumage, there's something classy about the minimalist use of yellow on this particular goldfinch.

We found a homestead at Vasquez rocks and that allowed me to get views of a lot of backyard birds like the goldfinch abut also Anna's hummingbird.

And here's a western bluebird...hm...do you think this bird likes to perch on this roof a lot?  Who knew such a small bird could accumulate so much poop?

All in all a great time full of western species and fun to get to bird around a former Star Trek set.

West Coast Beach Birding

The beauty of bird watching is that you have something to do, no matter where you go, no matter how urban.

I had a project in Los Angeles to work on and time spent on a beach is never wasted and there always birds...though many of them were gulls (not my favorite). But I thought I would use it as opportunity to focus on the super common gulls I rarely get to see rather than trying to tease out something rare, hybridish or just odd as--gull experts are want to do.

Here's a nice comparison of a western gull (biggest gull) and a California gull (smaller gull in front). But the beach was a great time.

I was excited to pick out this guy, a young Heermann's gull! I've seen the adults before in San Francisco and though this bird wasn't in breeding plumage, I felt it was a triumph of the human spirit that I was able to pick it out.  I'll never be a true laruphile, but I'm better than I was.

Even more exciting than the beach was all the fun stuff floating just off the shore.  At least exciting to a usually land locked girl like myself.  I have a tendency to take my spotting scope out more than the average birder (yes, that will be me at Biggest Week with a scope on the boardwalk) but spotting scopes are perfect for sea watch birding. There were some loons right off the shore, here's a red-throated loon, but even more exciting was a Pacific loon, that's a life bird for me.  I wasn't able to digiscope it but fun to add a bird to the list.

The best part of the day was getting up close and personal with a surf scoter. These are crazy looking sea ducks to begin with. This particular bird was living up to name by coming in on the surf and then actually landed on the beach. It tried eating whatever is behind it...sea crap? But the bird is quite awkward out of the water...walking doesn't come naturally to these birds.

I think when the bird noticed we were watching it thought it best to sit so as not to embarrass itself any further. Those feet, so perfect for swimming, so not meant for walking on land. But what fun to get such great looking birds so close to the Los Angeles airport. This was my first trip to LA and I cannot believe how everywhere you turn, somebody is filming something.  At one point there was a small two engine plane with a helicopter right next to it racing past.  Was it a high speed chase? No, one of my colleagues pointed out, "They're just filming that plane."

But a fun way to spend the day and to get some more birds for my Big Half Year challenge.

What To Expect When You're Married To A Birder

Having been married to a non birder for a long time, we've had to negotiate certain things. You will find yourself having strange arguments and in hindsight, funny misunderstandings. Here's a video example that Non Birding Bill and I made that anyone considering marring a birder who is a non birder may want to check out.  This will give you an idea of to expect throughout that relationship (also you get to actually see NBB in this video): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ-NDqxVmZI

And yes...Swarovski scopes (and binoculars) are THAT waterproof.  After they are particularly dirty, I do shower with them.

Coast To Coast...almost like a Sade song

Man, if anyone get's that reference in the title, we must be of similar ages. This is mostly a post to let everyone know that yes the blog is still active and I am currently deciding the winner of the Crossley Contest. In less than a week I have been on two coasts of the continental United States:

Here's  a beach from Los Angeles where I got my lifer Pacific Loon.

And here's the east coast via Connecticut. Boy, are my arms tired.

Somewhere in there I managed to have time to get to part of a speaking line up with Cornell luminaries as Marshall Iliff from eBird and Steve Kress with Project Puffin.  I got to be the cheese in a Cornell/Birdchick sandwich!  I also got to test out some new material for my Today's Office program that I give and I learned that the nude beach story goes over better than I expected and I'll most likely keep it in from now on.

Somewhere in there, I have managed to go birding and add birds hand over fist to my Sax Zim Bog Big Half Year like the above western scrub-jay.  I've got to be close to 90 birds, can't wait to get them loaded onto the Flickr Album.

Winter Won't Stop Coming

This time last year, I was kind of freaking out because it was crazy warm and I was tapped to help out with some eagle nest surveys. The leaves were fast approaching and there was concern that we wouldn't be able to see into the nests from the plane, much less if there were eggs or chicks.

This year, March is living up to it's reputation as Minnesota's snowiest month. One weather man said, "You know, we're only 11 inches away from our tenth snowiest March...and we have enough snow events coming that we could actually make that record before the end of the month."

So, as I see my friends in the south rejoicing about returning field sparrows and towhees...I try to keep enjoying the winter finches that are remaining in and around the Twin Cities and surrounding areas. Mr. Neil's feeders are still covered in common redpolls. I hear them sometimes fly over as I'm on my evening run around the Chain of Lakes and watch them devour seed at friends feeders. While I was digiscoping the above birds with my iPhone, I thought I would play around with the Vine app.  This app lets you take 15 second videos that look and viola, you have a gif to share all over social media. I'm not sure how much I'll use it for birding, after all how many people need a 15 second loop of redpolls?

This was digiscoped with the Nikon V1.  One of the advantages to the iPhone with the scope eyepiece is a wider field of view.  But man, the photo quality with the Nikon V1 is fantastic. It occurred to me as I was digiscoping the redpolls that I didn't have a pine siskin yet for my Big Half Year Challenge.

There was a pair of siskins hanging around, but they stayed away from the flock of redpolls, preferring to gather seeds on the ground. So I got bird #63 for my challenge. The siskins may stick around, sometimes they nest around Mr. Neil's house, so I may get a chance for a better shot later on, but wanted to make sure I got at least one before they headed back north.

I also got a cardinal photo too.  I'm so pleased with how this turned out, I may replace the cardinal photo that's already in the Big Half Year album...also, I like how I managed to frame the bird in such away that you can't tell there's three feet of snow on the ground.  With the buds on the tree, it almost looks like spring.

Next week brings a crazy travel jag that starts in LA.  I should get some crazy birds for the challenge a respite from the ice...which I just noticed has turned to snow that I'm getting this week.

Springing Forward

Just a reminder that there is a Birds and Beers next Monday, March 18, 2013 at The Black Forest Inn in Minneapolis. Anybody is welcome, if you are interested in birds--it's for you! Have a birding project, tour or book you want to promote? Bring it! I'll be bringing a box of birding stuff--review items, birding samples from various companies--you may go come with a prize! I'll also be bringing along my first copy of this:

I got my very fist copy of my book 1001 Secrets Every Birder Should Know (coming out May 7, 2013)! Spring is always a busy with birds and bird festivals, but I also have this to contend with (in a fun way).  It will come out right while I'm in the middle of The Biggest Week in Birding which is already an action packed week for me. Looks like I'll be doing a couple of Digiscoping with an iPhone workshops as well as a Birds and Beers and hopefully...a book signing for my new book!

This book is not going to change the world, but my goal is that someone who is aware of birds may pick up a few fun tidbits, maybe some interesting dinner party conversation or inspiration and take their birding to the next level. Hopefully, I won't get disbarred from the birding world for revealing all of the secrets!

The fun thing is to flip through the book and see photos I took and remember where I was and who I was with when that photo was taken.  It's kind of an odd little birding scrapbook of my life. I hope people enjoy it and that it doesn't irritate people too much.

One Tough Old Bald Eagle In Red Wing, MN

If anyone is in driving distance of The National Eagle Center wants to play with the new Swarovski ATX spotting scopes or try out some digiscoping, I will be hanging out at the Big River Optics booth this Saturday and Sunday (March 16 and 17) from 10am  - 4pm. We can practice with a smartphone or SLR. You can even try my Nikon V1. The center has a ton of fun things on tap this weekend, so you can really make a day of it. Also, I highly recommend including a stop right across the river from Wabasha to the Nelson Creamery for some cheesy goodness.

Speaking of The National Eagle Center, I had the privilege of doing a ranger program before Scott Mehus from the National Eagle Center went on.  This was a real treat for me, he is a master at giving programs to kids and all audience ages. When you see a pro at work, even if you already know the information they are going to present, it's a pleasure to watch them in action. If you ever see Scott advertised for your local bird club, even if you think eagles aren't your thing--go.  I bet he could even make accounting interesting!  You can also meet him at the National Eagle Center too.  A great guy...who not only knows his way around a bird of prey, but also makes some very tasty cookies (his wife is a lucky lady).

So of course after my program, I had to do some digiscoping. Colvill Park in Red Wing, Minnesota is a well know spot for watching eagles from November through March.  Though, with the nests in the area, you can see them any time, the eagle numbers are simply larger in winter.

There generally seems to be one adult bald eagle that perches regularly in the park itself, sometimes right over the well used trail along the river. I was digiscoping that bird (as were several photographers) and it seemed completely oblivious. It didn't pay us any mind. As I looked through my scope, I noticed a crack in its beak. I wondered if it flew into something at some point or if it had an altercation with another bald eagle over territory.  It certainly didn't perch near the other bald eagles along the river.

As I was taking photos, the bird would look around and I noticed that on the other side of its face, they eye didn't look good. Let's take a closer look:

That doesn't look like a functional eye.  Then I remembered an eagle that Non Birding Bill and I saw in Colvill Park a few winters earlier.  When I came home, I dug through my photo archive:

I took this photo on January 17, 2011.  I wonder if it is the same bird?  I don't have any shots of the other side of the beak to see the crack, but the eye looks similar and this was a bird you could get fairly close to in the park:

I'm willing to bet money that this is the same bird. There's plenty of easy food opportunities around Red Wing for an eagle that is not at the top of its game. If this is the same bird, it was an adult in this photo from 2011--so at least 5 years old.  I took a photo two winters later, making it at least 7, but when I took the original photo, it could have already been 10 years old.  It's tough to say.

I'm always amazed by a bird's resiliency.  Many wildlife rehab centers wouldn't release a bird with one eye.  The bird could become an education bird or in some cases, euthanized. But more and more, I see examples of birds that appear to do well and even thrive with one eye, here's at least one red-tail that I've talked about and you have you read about Julie Zickefoose's titmouse she calls Scarface that most likely survived an accipiter attack? Here's the initial photo...and here it is over a month later.

So, if you are in the Twin Cities, maybe make a day of it.  Drive down to Red Wing's Colvill Park and see if you can find this eagle, then head a bit further south to the National Eagle Center in Wabasha and say hi to me...and don't forget Nelson for some tasty, tasty cheese.

A Surprise Bird

I got a surprise bird for my Big Half Year fundraiser for the Friends of Sax Zim Bog...a Townsend's Solitaire a mere three miles from my house. This bird is a bit out of range. And normally, I'm not much of a chaser in Minnesota, I've seen this bird before in its usual range and years ago at bird festival in northern Minnesota but when I've tried to chase wayward solitaires in the Twin Cities, I have zero luck. As a matter of fact, Friday was my third trip to cemetery to look for the bird.

I'd seen the report right away on my BirdsEye app and headed out the first day.  No luck.  I tried again...no luck. I saw on Facebook that some local birders were getting it, so I gave it one more try on Friday. We had about nine inches of snow this week and when I arrived at the cemetery, I could see where birders had been looking for the solitaire. I meandered around for about an hour and didn't even see a bird let alone a solitaire. Usually this cemetery has the usual suspects (cardinals and chickadees) and currently a boat load of pine siskins.

Then I found the reason why...what I at first thought was a sharp-shinned hawk. It was large so I figured female. The head looked rounded and it was a smaller bird. This is a photo I took with my iPhone and scope.

The hawk was in no hurry to leave and preened its feathers for quite awhile. This photo was with my Nikon V1 and Swarovski ATX scope. As the bird was moving around, I realized that it may not be a sharp-shinned hawk, but was probably a male Cooper's hawk. Here's a great break down down between sharp-shinned and Cooper's hawks.

Even though while preening the bird's head looks rounded, the back of the head is lighter than the cap and the white band on the tip of the tail is very thick, so it has to be a Cooper's hawk. While it was preening, the poor thing got one of its belly feathers caught in its eye. But I didn't have an accipiter yet for my big year, so this was bird number 61.

Eventually the Coops flew off and I waited for bird activity to resume. Despite all the snow, cardinals started singing cautiously, soon followed by house finches and pine siskins. I watched all the juniper trees with berries to no avail.  I staked out the spots the bird had been reported on eBird and scanned and canned the junipers with the most berries. After two hours of lurking in the cemetery, I decided to head home.  I needed to grab one more ingredient for dinner anyway. I sent Non Birding Bill a text to give him a head's up that I was going to be home soon...some of the following conversation may be edited:

Me: Screw this solitaire

NBB: And yet I know that's not an autocorrect problem

Me: -_-

I packed up my scope, binoculars and camera, put them in my trunk and started the I car. Then I began to leave the cemetery and a robin sized bird flew over the road and I knew, I just knew that was the frickin' solitaire. I stopped and texted NBB again:

Me: Holy crap, I just saw the solitaire!

I scurried to get get my scope and camera out, angle my equipment so the solitaire was in good light and...

As if making up for all the times I'd been out to look for it this week, the bird perched in perfect light. Someone driving by saw me take my scope out of the trunk and pulled over. "I saw you take your scope out, do you have it?"

And I was happy to give him a look.  His wife showed up a few minutes later and they were kind enough to stay with the solitaire while I did a loop around the cemetery to see if anyone else was around to see it. Apparently the three of us were the last in the Twin Cities to get the Townsend's solitaire, no one else was around.

And now I have bird number 62 for my Big Half Year. I was kind of taking a break this week to catch up on work because I have some insane travel coming the second half of March and early April that should really bump up my bird numbers, but a solitaire was too good to pass up.

If you don't know what my Big Half Year is, it is a fundraiser for the Friends of Sax Zim Bog to help build a visitor center for all the birders who go up there to see great gray owls, northern hawk owls, boreal chickadees and well just all the cool birds you can see there.  I don't care if you donate on my behalf or any of the other really cool birders fundraising for the cause, so long as you donate.  The minimum amount is $10.  So if you have ever visited the bog or plan to, consider donating what you can.  The visitor center will help guide people to a better birding experience and help them avoid some of the weirder parts of the bog (like the scary guy who chases you off the public Stickney Road).

My goal is to see how many different bird species I can digiscope from January 1 through June 30 (though I may keep it up for the rest of the year because I like the challenge). To see all of my digiscoped photos for the Big Half Year, check my Flickr Album.

I'm already half past my goal, so thank you everyone who has donated so far!