Birds and Beers

The next Birds and Beers is Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 6pm at Merlin's Rest.

Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders of all abilities--if you're interested in birds, you're invited. You can meet other birders--maybe find a carpool buddy, ask about where to find target birds, share cool research projects you might be working on, ask a bird feeding question, share life lists, share some digiscoping tips, promote your blog--the sky is the limit. It's low key and it's fun.

Our Texas version of Birds and Beers turned into a blogging meeting. We had some of the guys from Round Robin, Born Again Bird Watcher, Flying Mullet, WildBird on the Fly (pictured above), birdspot, The Birder's Library, and Clay Taylor (also pictured above and who is working on a blog, but not quite ready to debut it).

In this photo we have a brother of a blogger on the left, The Birder's Library in the middle, and Amy on the right who is friends with Flying Mullet (who blogs some great birding down in her neck of the woods in Florida). Amy does not have a blog. We were trying to talk her into starting a birding gossip blog. The rest of us could feeder gossip and she could post it without it ever being traced to us. Due to the uninteresting birder gossip and her lack of interest, it was not started.

Above is Born Again Birder looking sinister next to a smiling bird spot. I told John to look a little more friendly (as I know him to be) and got this:

He looks a little less serial killerish, but birdspot's eyes are closed. Doh! Incidentally, Born Again Bird Watcher did a much better job of chronicling the Texas Birds and Beers, be sure to check out his photos. We had a great time laughing at the Lone Star and then we learned that birdspot is an award winning bird caller. Here is a video so you can hear her do a dead on rock pigeon:



Talented! I have to admit, birdspot and I must be connected on some weird level. We both have cool glasses and not the usual birder fashion sense. We are both on Twitter and she will often write a tweet that I was just thinking about. Before either of us knew each other I was doing Birds and Beers and was doing Birds and Beer (she writes Twitter updates about birds she sees when she's having a beer) Also, we both ordered the same beverage at Birds and Beers: single malt Scotch with water on the side. Freaky! Although, I am not the artistic talent she is.

South Padre Island Birding

Amy, Clay, and I had great looks at other birds besides the osprey starting a nest. We started the morning at the jetty where many fishermen gather, as do birders. We saw so many dolphins, it could have qualified as a starling flock. But we were not after marine mammals, we wanted to scan the birds.

Now, here's an interesting trio. Three different birds, can you tell what they are? I'll save identifying them until the end of the post in case you would like to try and figure out the id yourself. These were three common birds loafing on the beach. Warning, clues will to the id are ahead, so if you want to try and figure out the id, grab you field guide before going any further.

While we were watching the birds on shore, Amy noticed a hitchhiker on my scope--why it was a honeybee. How fitting that she decided to hang on my scope. She was slow and lethargic. I was not sure if she was just at the end of her foraging life or chilled from the cool winds. If you look at the wear on her wings, I think she's old and at the end of her life.

Clay was very excited to see caspian terns (the tern on the right). They are big and flashy terns, with a noticeable red bill. We see them in Minnesota during migration. They are so large that even Non Birding Bill has commented on them when we saw some flying over nearby Lake of the Isles. This tern was next to a royal tern (the tern on the left), a slightly smaller tern compared to the Caspian. And if you ever are feeling bad about your bird id skills, take heart in knowing that even John J. Audubon himself had trouble telling these two species apart! According to Birds of North America Online:

"In his monumental Birds of America, Audubon depicted neither Caspian nor Royal, but instead what he called a Cayenne Tern, Sterna cayana — mostly Royal, but with some ad-mixture of Caspian features."

As we continued on, we found both brown pelicans and American white pelicans. I've seen both, but never together. I knew American white pelicans were huge, but it never occurred to me that they are twice the size of brown pelicans--crazy.

We headed over to the convention center where we found a fun little water feature. You might hear and read that moving water is the best way to attract birds to your yard, that is put to good use in many of the parks and more birdier areas you can visit in the Rio Grande Valley.

At one point, this little water feature had about a dozen orange-crowned warblers coming in for a bathe. They moved so quickly and were so spread out, I couldn't get more than three or four in my view finder at one time. I got a small video of the bathing warblers, it's best viewed at YouTube and if you click on the "watch in high quality" option.

And in keeping with my goal of showing that not every photo comes out great, I'm posting a rather out of focus shot of a black-throated green warbler. There were a couple who flew in to join the orange-crowned warblers, but they were too quick for me.

Just as I got the scope focused on the black-throated, the little terd hopped behind a rock to bathe. Grrr. Curse you, black-throated green warbler, and everything you stand for! I did manage to get the back of the bird's head in focus. Well, it's a start. No one ever said that digiscoping warblers was ever easy.

And now for the id of the three birds: royal tern, Caspian tern, and laughing gull. How did you do?

Arriving In Harlingen

The Harlingen Airport is happy to see birders in Texas--look at the size of that banner! I feel so welcomed for the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival.

We had the opening reception last night, which is a great time to reconnect with friends and eat some fancy foods. There was a new addition to the table--live birds. A small cage full of parakeets was put out by catering company (cause see, we're bird watchers). They startled the dickens out of me, but the budgies seemed to be having a great time preening each other and chirping sweet nothings.

I tried to get a photo of birders using a pair of tongs to get a budgie, but to no avail. I asked Jim from Kowa (above). "No way," he said, "your just going to put it in your blog that Kowa eats birds." He then went the extra mile to put his arm around the birds to prove how much he LOVES birds.

Kevin Karlson walked by and I shouted, "Yo, Kevin, do me a favor, put some tongs to the birds."

He also resisted my request, "No, you'll put it in your blog."

I even offered to say nice things about his books in the blog, but he said that I already do say nice things about his books and he appreciates that.

They're on to me!

So, by the time you are reading this, I'll be a digiscoping fool on the Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park. Then I give my Blogging: The New Nature Journal Program, then do a book signing, and then its Birds and Beers. Such a wild and exciting Thursday.

I've already touched based with several bloggers including Flying Mullet, Round Robin, and one third of 10,000 Birds. Will Mike Bergin sway me to the power of The Nature Blog Network...we shall see...

Oh, and bird banders will get a kick out of this:

Bird bites the cover of the book that identifies, ages and sexes them! And it's a house sparrow too! This sparrow latched on to the corner an would not let go, taking out its frustration on being man handled on poor, poor, hard to read Pyle.

Speaking of the Pyle book, there's a second one out. Yes, the bird id book with no photos, that even uses math equations to id birds, and is the necessary evil of every bander's operation now has a part 2! Here's an earlier post I had about Peter Pyle's Identification Guide To North American Birds and I had to chuckle, Ian Paulsen posted a few months ago: "I think every birder will want Pyle's Identification Guide to North American Birds: part 2!!!"

I hope he was kidding. Pyle is NOT for every birder, it's only for the masochistic Jedi birders that use The Force to identify birds. It's this heavy little book that sits on your back when you're sweating over a flycatcher in your hand and asking yourself if you'll be able to try to identify, let alone age and sex it. Then the book says in a gravelly drag queen voice, "No! Do or do not, there is no try."

Scariest bird book out there, I swear.

Birds, Beers, Bald Eagles, Bees, and Rio Grande Valley Fest

Holy Buckets, I am in love with the boys at the Golden Valley, MN National Camera Exchange. My all-time favorite point and shoot digital camera to use for digiscoping is a Fuji FinePix E900. It's been discontinued and hard to find. They found one for me. I'm takin' that bad boy to Texas. The Canon A570 I'm currently using is okay, but the color quality is just not as good as the Fuji. Thank you National Camera in Golden Valley, you boys are the best!

Hey, here's some cool news from WFRV:

A bird that's believed to be the oldest banded bald eagle on record in the upper Midwest has been returned to the wild. The 31-year-old female was hit by a car on state Highway 47 near Fence Lake last month. After recovering, the eagle was released by wildlife officials in Lac du Flambeau on Friday.

According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the bird was among 6,000 eagles banded in 1977. The average age of adult eagles is 10-12 years old.

Before this bird, the oldest bald eagle according to the Bird Banding Lab longevity records was 30 years and 9 months.

So, I think I'm kinda grateful for my insanely busy schedule this fall. Mr. Neil wanted to move the Kitty hive so it would be inside the newly installed "bear proof fence" before the winter. This is our least friendly hive and the best time to move a hive is at night. I'm sure you can tell how fun and exciting this is just be rereading that last sentence. I alas could not go this week but you can read all about it over at Lorraine's blog. Of the four of us: Non Birding Bill, Mr. Neil, Me, and Lorraine, only NBB is not the bee sting virgin. Lorraine got her's last night.

Don't forget, we got a couple of Birds and Beers coming up. Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders of all abilities--if you're interested in birds, you're invited. You can meet other birders--maybe find a carpool buddy, ask about where to find target birds, share cool research projects you might be working on, ask a bird feeding question, share life lists, share some digiscoping tips, promote your blog--the sky is the limit. It's low key and it's fun.

Here are the dates and note that the first date is in Harlingen, TX--in conjunction with the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest!

Thursday, November 6 at 7:45pm (or after the festival keynote speaker is finished that night). It will be held at The Lone Star, they are holding a table for us.

The next will be back in Minnesota:

Tuesday, November 18 at 6pm at Merlin's Rest.

If anyone is on a Texas birding listserv and wants to post the Harlingen Birds and Beers there, please do. It's open to anyone, even if you are not part of the bird festival.

Speaking of the RGV bird fest, if you are a bird blogger and are going to be there, we're going to have a formal Bird Blogger Meeting in the Alcove at 4:30pm on Friday. This is your chance to meet other bloggers, ask questions, share ideas and network. We're a fun group and we're happy to see you be successful. Please come!

AND if you are someone who has no clue what bird blogging is all about or even what the heck a blog is, I'll be giving a program called Blogging: The New Nature Journal on what bird blogging is all about, how to start one, ideas for what you can blog about, highlights of my blog and other great birding blogs you can find on the Internet. The program is on Thursday at 2pm.

If you're in Texas, I look forward to meeting you. It's gonna be a great time!

Monday Morning Carolina Wren

I dedicate the following video to Hasty Brook and hope that she got a Carolina wren before she left Cape May to return to Minnesota.



A posse of bird bloggers gathered again for the Cape May Autumn Weekend and since I ended up working the festival, I was able to see them. They had gathered informally and I didn't think I'd get to meet up with them, but when I ended up coming, they invited me along to a dinner for some hearty laughter. Some, I've met before like Hasty Brook, Somewhere in NJ, Susan Gets Native, and Beginning To Bird, but this time I got to meet KatDoc and DC Bird Blog (he's actually banding birds at Cape May this fall--sweet) face to face. Jay Davis from birdJam came along too.

We must have gotten quite rowdy at the table, I noticed that the bar kept turning up the ambient music to louder and louder levels. However, we were able to keep the talking and laughter to new ear splitting level.

A big bonus to this trip is that I hit my 500th bird--I didn't get to digiscope it but I got. And after I saw it, I saw them everywhere. I needed a black scoter, so after the first day of working the Optics Corner at the festival, Jim Danzenbaker, Jeff Bouton, Jeff Gordon, and Bill Stewart (that really cool guy who organizes the bird a thon to buy up migratory habitat to save the red knot). We watched for lines of scoters and after a few lines of surf scoters flying by--a flock that had both surf and black flew by and I could see the difference. Whew! That hump has been passed. Now to work on getting 600. Although, I suppose I should work on padding the 500 on the off chance the AOU is planning to lump some species together.

Oh, and while we were at the beach gettin' my life, a marriage proposal was finishing up. A man made a sand castle for his sweetie, asking her to marry him. There was a small sand treasure chest next to the sand castle that she apparently had to dig the ring out of the chest. It was very cute. We didn't hear what was actually said between the two, but considering they left hand in hand with smiles on the faces and a bottle of champagne, I thinking her answer was yes. Cute.

Skywatch Friday

Between the excitement of Peregrine 568s recovery and getting ready for tomorrow's book signing, I almost forgot that today is Skywatch Friday. You create a blog with photos of sky and then you add your link to the Skywatch site. While there, you should check out everyone's photos of sky. Some of my favorites this week are at Desert Observer, Jim's Little Photo Place, and Shimmy Mom.

My entry for this week takes us back to Cape Cod for the Swarovski Blogging Event. While we were getting photos of shorebirds, we could see fog approaching us. See the low darker clouds on the horizon?

The fog never overtook the beach, but seemed a sinister dream land just off the shore. It was strange to see it just sit there out of reach of the surf.

It crept in and touched the beach, the sky coming in to touch the sand. Gulls were loafing just inside the mist.


I tried to digiscope them and the black-backed gulls sat in the fog and looked a tad expectant. What were they waiting for? Or perhaps they wondered about the group of humans on the edge of the mist observing them, wonder what it was all about.

New Swarovski ELs & Contest

One of the things I wasn't able to talk about right away from the Swarovski Blogger Event (or Swarblogski as Non Birding Bill calls it) was that we got to see the new Swarovski ELs. They just debuted them at Bird Fair so now I'm allowed to talk. Honestly, I wasn't expecting that much of a change. Swarovskis are really great binoculars and I'm incredibly grateful for all the support they give my blog and I LOVE my 8x32s. Even when I worked for Eagle Optics and people would come up and ask me what the best bino is, I would say that if I were a woman of unlimited means, it would be the 8x32 EL. Optics are subjective and what works for me, may not work for everyone, but the clarity, ergonomics, and light weight of Swarovski really works for me.

The biggest difference that you can see besides the slightly different design is that the eye piece lenses are bigger--and the edge to edge clarity is superior to the current ELs (not that it's that bad anyway). Swarovski has also greatly improved the close focus ability of the binoculars. I was able to focus within about 5 and a half feet with the new ELs. They are coming out with new ELs in the 8.5x42 and 10x42 models, not the 8x32s or 10x32s. They will be available in the US early next year. They'll probalby be at Bird Watch America in January 2009. What does this mean for you? If you're probably going to see current models of ELs going on sale in the US (just in time for the holidays). So, if you've been saving for a great pair of bins, you have a choice: get the current model at a discount or keep saving and going for the new ones. I don't have exact pricing on what they're going to be at the moment.

I also got to hold the new 80mm scope--it's lighter than the current model. There's also a new eyepiece coming, a 25-50 zoom. I currently use a 20 - 60 zoom. I'm curious to play with that for digiscoping.

Also, Clay was telling me how surprised he was that not more people in the US entered Swarovski's Digiscoper of the Year Contest. Here are what the winners get:

The three entrants chosen as “Digiscoper of the Year” will receive the following products from Swarovski Optik as their prize:

1st	Swarovski Optik ATS or STS telescope and eyepiece of the winner’s choice
2nd	Swarovski Optik binocular EL 8.5x42
3rd	Swarovski Optik binocular SLC 8x30

The best 20 images (places 1 to 20) will be published with the photographer’s name in the Swarovski Optik Digiscoping Yearbook 2009. This will attract a publication fee of EUR 300 (that's like $600 in the US).

National Winners:
National winners will also be chosen from the five countries with the largest number of entrants (the number of images does not count). The five national winners will receive an award of EUR 200 for publication in the Swarovski Optik Digiscoping Yearbook 2009 in addition to the publication fee referred to above.

You don't have to be a Swarovski customer either. Check out the rules:

Cameras:
Any digital camera format - from a compact digital camera to a bridge or digital single lens reflex camera - may be used.

Field Spotting Scopes:
Any commercially available spotting scopes and eyepieces may be used, with or without an adapter.

The contest closes on September 30, 2008. Read the full rules here. I've seen some of the winning entries from last year, and there are some awesome digiscopers in the US that could totally win the contest. If you digiscope, go for it.

Getting To 499

Hey, on Monday at 3pm, I'll be on Twin Cities Live talking about attracting birds to your yard and the City Birds/Country Birds book signing on August 23, 2008 at Cardinal Corner:

August 23, 2008: Cardinal Corner in West St. Paul Store (651-455-6556) 10 a.m. - 12 p.m. Cardinal Corner in Newport (651-459-3880) 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.

Don't forget, Cinnamon fans, the Queen of Disapproval will also come and hang out at the signing too.

Okay, so I think I'm going to finally finish up my Swarovski Blogging Event posts...oh wait, no, I just realized there's one more thing I can talk about after this, but I have to wait a few days longer before I actually talk about what we got to play with. But back to Cape Cod birding--I gotta a couple more lifers bringing my list to 499. So close to 500, yet so far away.

One was a roseate tern--this very light colored tern with a mostly black bill. That was pretty exciting. Terns are amazing creatures. If I ever transition from point and shoot camera digiscoping to SLR digiscoping, I want to try and capture terns fishing. Terns are such dainty and elegant birds in flight and when they dive into the ocean, it's like watching a delicate piece of origami smacking onto the surface of the water. Loves 'em.

Nice scope posture there, Corey! Corey and I each had a few lifers to catch up on. We both needed roseate tern and we also needed arctic tern. The group watched for them, but at the same time we loved getting photos of all the birds on the beach--dead or alive. I was standing with Corey and Ben from 600 Birds. They had spotted something dead further down the beach. It first glance, we got the impression that it was a dead black-backed gull...but when you looked through the scope, the bill looked all wrong. I wondered if it was a dead gannet. All three of use lit up with excitement and hurried off towards the carcass. As we closed in, Clay called from off in the distance, "Aaaaaaaaartic tern!"

Corey and I stopped, Ben who already had an arctic tern said, "Uh-oh."

Corey and I wavered, we were so close to the gannet, could we get photos of the gannet and make it back in time for the tern, or would the tern take off.

Ben, sensing our indecision said, "Gotta make a choice, dead bird? Life bird? Dead bird? Life Bird? Dead Bird? Life Bird?"

Corey and I finally made a rational decision that between the two birds, the dead gannet was guaranteed to stay in one spot, while the tern was not.

So, here is an arctic tern (masked in some major heat shimmer and non breeding plumage). This is an intense little bird if you think about it. This species breeds around the Arctic Ocean--as far north as Greenland and then winters on pack ice in Antarctica. This bird is about the length of a blue jay and flies pole to pole--that's over 24,000 miles round trip. Then when you look at things like banding records and find that in ten oldest birds found on record--the arctic tern comes in at number seven--a bird documented to have lived for 34 years! Imagine living 34 years and making that trip every single year--that's insane. This may be a small somewhat blurry photo, but the amazing potential in this bird deserves a little attention and was well worth abandoning a dead gannet. It was a good thing too. Not long after Corey and I joined the group, a family coming down the beach frightened the flock of terns and the arctic tern disappeared from view.

And then we hightailed it back to the dead gannet. Based on plumage, it looks like a first year bid. You just can't get close to gannets--they're amazing to watch in flight, but this dead bird was a treat to really look at some of its features up close.

The feet were incredible. They were webbed like a duck but had large white claws on the tips--they nest on ledges of cliffs, in the direction of prevailing winds, perhaps that's why they need the claws for gripping?

Who knows how this bird died: disease, poor hunting, poisoning, eating plastic--tough to say but I appreciated the chance to admire that long, tough bill.

My Amazing Birding Morning At South Beach In Cape Cod

So, Swarovski took all us bloggers out to the remote South Beach section of Cape Cod for some birding and digiscoping.

The morning started foggy and chilly but warmed to a sunny day--a few times, it looked more like we were in a desert rather than the cape.

We saw some horseshoe crabs. They do look like some strange aquatic tank as they truck around.

Here we have the great blogger and science chimp Julie Zickefoose examining a horseshoe crab that young Dakota found--Dakota came along on the trip with Bird Freak and started his own blog this summer: Dakota's All Natural Experience--It’s like the “Jeff Corwin Experience”…Only Smaller. For Julie's wisdom on horseshoe crabs, check out her blog entry here.

And a mini Jeff Corwin he is! Dakota had a knack for finding horseshoe crabs of all sizes. For those curious, above is the underbelly of those funky lookin' crabs. These are also the horseshoe crabs that are central to the red knot debate.

I love birding along coasts on warm days. There's something about watching a bunch of crazy looking birds (like the willet and dowitchers in the above photo). Willets always throw me. I first saw them on the east coast, so I associated them with beaches, but we can see them in western Minnesota and the Dakotas. They always throw me when I see them in the prairie.

We did see an interesting short-billed dowitcher--that's typical coloration of a dowitcher on the left and an unusually light dowitcher on the right.

My buddy Clay zeroed in on the very light colored dowitcher above right away and I followed to digiscope it. At first we weren't sure if it was really light from wear on its feathers or if it's a leucistic bird. I sent the photo to Doug Buri who knows shorebirds better than I do and he seems to think it's a leucistic bird.

While focusing on the shorebirds, the tide quickly swept in. I was digivideoing these shorebirds (notice the different feeding techniques. The largest bird is a Hudsonian godwit and it's surrounded by short-billed dowitchers--note how both species use their incredibly long bill to probe deeply into the sand. You'll also see a colorful ruddy turnstone that has a smaller bill--note how it seems to skim the surface of the sand). Anyway, while filming, I felt a rush of water and the tide had come in. I turned around and many of the other bloggers were overcome with the tide.

Another interesting bird was this herring gull with a beak full of clam. This bird kept flying up in the air, dropping the clam, and then following it to the ground. It was trying to drop the clam to crack it open to have access to the gooey goodness inside. Alas, this is not the brightest gull on the string. Other gulls had figured out that parking lots accomplished this task quickly. This bird seemed intent on dropping the clam over the sand. I watched it drop the clam from high in the air and by the sixth attempt I had lost interest. Not sure how long the gull kept this up or if ever got at the desired insides.

I was trying to get a shot of the semi-palmated plover (the bird on the right) when I noticed the tired sandpiper behind it--the bird is so tired, it can't even tuck its bill into shoulder. I'm not sure of the species, if I had to guess based on size, I would say least sandpiper, but whatever it is, its too cute dozing on the beach.

More later.

Banded American Oystercaters

While birding at South Beach in Cape Cod last week, we found some banded American oystercatchers. Above is number 52. At first, I was going to enter its information to the Bird Banding Lab (where one typically submits found band numbers), but the yellow tags with fairly easy to read numbers usually means there's a specific study. Sure enough, I went to google, entered "banded oystercatcher" and found AMOY Banding--someone is doing a specific oystercatcher study! Based on the yellow bands, I was able to figure out that this bird was banded in Massachusetts. I submitted my siting and today got this info from Shiloh Schulte of the Zoology Department of North Carolina State University :

"The bird you saw was banded on South Monomoy as a chick in July 2004. This bird overwinters on the west coast of Florida near Cedar Key. This is the first report of the bird on the breeding grounds since the year it hatched. Reports like yours really help us understand how oystercatchers move and use habitat throughout the year. Please let us know if you see more bands!"

Looking over my photos, I now see that more oystercatchers were banded, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to read the bands--at least three birds in the above photo are banded. So, if you see any oystercatchers, double check to see if they are banded. The colors are not just yellow, there's green, blue, red, and black as well.

Loves Me Some Ruddy Turnstones

When Swarovski took us birding out South Beach in Cape Cod, I made a beeline for ruddy turnstones. LOVE those guys. They're shorebirds which give them a kind of Dr. Seuss look and they are so flashy looking. Attention must be paid to a turn stone. They are opportunistic and feed on rocky and sandy beaches during winter and on migration, by turning over rocks and pebbles (oh hey, a bird living up to it's name--shocked, I'm shocked I tells ya'). They'll also turn over seaweed, shells, and even garbage. Traditionally, I think they ate invertebrates and tiny fish, but I've seen them around carrion and once watched my father-in-law feed them oyster crackers. I just read on BNA that they will also go for other birds eggs...hm, I wonder if people will dispise them as much as blue jays now?

There were some people digging up clams while we were birding along the beach. When they would leave, turnstones would run over and see if they could find any left overs. Click here (click on the Watch In High Quality link) and you can watch a digivideo of the above ruddy turnstone feeding on clam bits in a shell (keep the volume low, the wind is kind of loud).

And they fight! This is part of the brawl that's in the video I posted earlier (click on the Watch In High Quality link). Now, BNA reads, "Less aggressive during nonbreeding season, though extremely territorial when feeding in flocks." What are they like in breeding mode when they are more aggressive??

I think we can see who had the upper beak in this shot. Check out the dude on the right--completely on its side-belly facing the camera. With that sassy plumage, they could qualify for the WWE.

Upcoming Events

Some fun stuff is coming up. I'm doing a Showcase Minnesota segment Wednesday Morning sometime between 10 am - 11 am for City Birds/Country Birds. We'll talk about the book release event at both Cardinal Corner locations August 23, 2008. Don't forget, Cinnamon will be coming too.

Book Signing Times:

August 23, 2008:
Cardinal Corner in West St. Paul Store (651-455-6556) 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Cardinal Corner in Newport (651-459-3880) 1 p.m. - 3 p.m.

I've had a couple of bird bloggers contact me regarding the 2nd Annual Bird Blogging Conference at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest. Should be a great time. Even if you are not a blogger, this is a great bird festival with green jays, kiskadees, chachalacas--you gotta come! Some bloggers I know will be there include Born Again Bird Watcher, WildBird on the Fly, Jeff Bouton, and JeffGyr. Plus, check out the spanky list of field trip leaders.

If you can't travel in November of 2008, I got a note from the organizers of the Space Coast Birding and Nature Festival has quite the list of guests: photographer Arthur Morris (if you don't know the name, you should I can guarantee you've seen one of his photos at some point in your life). Pete Dunne (you can see him out of Cape May), Bill of the Birds, and Connie Toops. C'mon, birding in Florida in January. Don't say you don't want to, you know it isn't true...

Swarovski's Bird Blogger Event

So, about a month ago, I got an email from my buddy Clay about inviting some bird bloggers to the Swarovski Optik headquarters in Rhode Island. I wasn't sure what exactly it was going to be about, but I figured Swarovski wanted to find out about this whole blogging thing. That was half true, but in the afternoon they pretty much let us loose to just talk amongst ourselves and the meeting ended up being beneficial to bloggers as we talked about everything from why we blog to tips for increasing traffic and dealing with trolls.

The roster of bird bloggers included myself and:

One third of 10,000 Birds
600 Birds
Adventures of Bird Girl
Bird Freak
Born Again Bird Watcher
Julie Zickefoose

Some I knew from the bird festival circuit and others I met face to face for the first time. So for me it was part friend reunion and a chance to connect with some of my favorite blogging colleagues. We talked about how different our blogs were and how we each had aspects that we envied of each other like having a team of bloggers, or being married to your in house tech guy who runs your site, or those who have a knack for editing, the ability to interact well with their commenters (I'm such a non commenter, I don't mean to be, but I am) etc. I have to give Swarovski props for wanting to learn more about bird bloggers and they are certainly ahead of the curve on this compared to most other birding companies.

This is Albert Wannenmacher the CEO of Swarovski Optik in North America proudly displaying the Digiscoping Plaque that Clay and I won at the World Series of Birding this past spring. Swarovski has been great to me, they have given me tremendous support that allows me to blog as much as I do and they invite me to tag along at bird festivals and events. You read about other types of blogs and how companies send them press releases or invite bloggers to visit and meet and create mutually beneficial relationships. The birding industry has been slow to catch on. Publishers (though not all) like Houghton Mifflin have been great as has birdJam by involving bloggers with press releases, but many bird related companies are still quite befuddled by the Internet. I've had some companies accost me at trade shows, "Hey, Birdchick! Why don't you talk about me?" to which I answer, "Because you don't tell me anything."

I'm not saying that blogs need to be all about advertising, but let's face it, bloggers want to provide great content and to that you need time and in some cases money. The dream is to find a way to work with a company you legitimately like and find ways they can help you provide some good content. And there are lots of companies out there that are very involved with conservation projects and have contests. I would love more of them to toot their own horns and let us know about the projects they are funding, both because the projects are often cool and it's nice to know which companies are out there helping birds and not just selling product.

I actually arrived a day early and spent some time in the optics repair department. Above is Kyle and if you have a pair of Swarovski ELs and have sent them in to be repaired or upgraded, this guy has worked on them. Talk about a perfectionist, he walked me through a whole upgrade on an EL, up to and included replacing the casing on the outside--I saw naked binoculars!

It's not every day you get to see a man skin a pair of binoculars or all the components that make them work.

Oh, and ladies, a piece of advice: if you wear cosmetics while birding, take a make up wipe to your eye cups from time to time--especially if you're sending them in for repairs. All that dirt and old make up can't be good for your pores anyway.

Kyle also gave my 8x32 ELs a once over and we took my focus wheel apart. He showed me how it all worked and it was just fascinating to see the gears and grease and all the places my barrels are sealed to keep them waterproof. He showed me one part of my focus wheel that's called a "Flip Flop"--seriously, that's the actual technical term. I looked at him skeptically and he assured me that something just gets lost in the Austrian translation.

The next day, the other bird bloggers arrived and got a similar tour. I love this shot of Corey from 10,000 Birds. I took this photo through one of the prisms that would go into an EL. That's Ben from 600 Birds off to the left. Julie arrived with some ELs to upgrade and I offered to take care of them for her since I learned how to do it the day before. She got all huffy and said I would just get Cinnamon's fur all over her binoculars. I retorted that I don't see how rabbit hair is much worse than Chet Baker slobber. Albert and Clay had to separate us after that.


But of course, being birders, you can only sequester us indoors for meetings and tours for so long before we get antsy and must go outside. They ended the meeting early and took us out for some light birding. We didn't see too terribly much but I did get a fun head shot of a herring gull head. The real birding was to be had the next morning...(more on that later).

One thing I've noticed with Swarovski is that if they invite you to dinner--GO. They always know the best restaurants. Above, I'm sharing a moment with Ben of 600 Birds as he samples his very first lobster.

Part of the fun of eating a lobster is getting to tear it apart. This place was so fancy that the waiter would don rubber gloves and take apart your lobster for you. Not sure I was classy enough for this place and Non Birding Bill suspects I freaked out Helena of Adventures of Bird Girl with my table manners.

It was an interesting group and if you can believe it, some of us were super chatty and had a lot to say, others of us were quiet and listening, soaking the whole scene in. I think we all know which category I fall into. The bird blogging crowd is an interesting mix.

My Crazy Week

Last week was a little nutty. I'm still not even sure how I did it. Below is a little highlight to give you an idea of what's coming in the blog this week.

It started on Sunday when I did a canoe paddle for the National Park Service. One of the cool things about being a park ranger is that you do fun things like take a canoe on the Mississippi River, a downside can be that when your schedule reads "Sunday Paddle" you may not find out until it's too late that it's a 22 mile canoe paddle on the river, part of the Mississippi River Challenge. I went as an interpretive ranger.

It was a great time and it was incredible to see the sites along the river, but I found out the hard way that 16 miles is my limit--the last six were a killer, not unlike hitting yourself with a hammer in anticipation of how good it will feel when you stop. I was in so much pain at the end of the paddle. I was also incredibly light headed and cranky which was due to severe dehydration. The next morning I woke up to a sore back, sore arms, and sore throat.

I'm so glad that I only had to do part of the paddle. The whole thing was actually two days and 44 miles--I met up halfway. Most of the participants did both days (like the guy above who also went the extra mile and paddled standing up)! It was a great time overall and man oh man, I need to canoe the lakes more often.

The next day I packed for some travel while fighting my sore throat. I was hoping against hope that it was just swollen from dehydration, but it was really some kind of bug. I'm sure my weakened immune system on Sunday let some river bug in. I didn't want to travel and meet up with friends with a cold, but was grateful that it was not much worse, like the flu.

I arrived in Rhode Island on Tuesday and when went to check out my rental car, I had the option of waiting in a long line for a person to check me in or checking myself out at a kiosk with no line. I opted for the kiosk, got through it super quick while everyone else was still in line and when I went out to pick up my car, I stopped and reread my printout three times to make sure it wasn't a mistake.

Somehow, the fates conspired and I got a red Mustang. Not only that, when I got inside I discovered that I was the first one to break this girl in. I was a tad nervous, red cars seem to be magnet for speeding tickets and I tried my best to watch my speed, but I felt that I was confusing people on the highways by going the speed limit.

I went to Rhode Island as part of a bird blogger meeting with Swarovski Optik (more on that later). How many bird bloggers can you id in the above photo?

Of course we got to do a little birding while we were there. We focused on shorebirds and it was good practice for me, since the next day I was heading to the Minnesota/South Dakota border to lead a trip to see some shorebirds with Stan Tekiela. I had some stressful moments. I'd gone out with Swarovski on a boat to Cape Cod. The trip finished later than anticipated leaving me only three hours to catch my flight at the Boston airport. I could have made it had rush hour traffic not kicked in. As I got into Boston I was hitting a quadruple whammy of stress: I was going to miss my flight, I had to pee really bad, I was stuck in traffic, and the rental car was below a quarter of a tank of gas. When I finally made it to the ticket counter after my flight took off, I wondered if I was still going to be able to get back to Minneapolis to meet with the shorebird trip the next day. Remarkably, I did. I got a flight that got me to the Twin Cities at 12:30 am, leaving me time to get five hours sleep and still meet my field trip at 6:45 am.

The best part of the evening came when I was self medicating in an airport bar and got a call from WildBird on the Fly. We were chatting and I told her that my birding gear column (that was due that day) was coming as soon as I found some wireless internet. She asked about the other article...whoopsie, what other article? She was very kind to give me an extension on that one.

It was fun seeing some of the same species I had just seen on the east coast in some mud in South Dakota. I had heard that shorebirds were going to be tough to find since a bad storm just moved through the area a couple of days before and all the great mud flats were now ponds.

We didn't find as many shorebirds, but we found enough and fortunately, the group was into other species as well. We joked that we should have called it the pelican or kingbird tour since we saw so many of those. Round about the time the tour ended, my cold finally disappated. It was an awesome week and I got to see some great friends, but boy am I beat.

Piping Plovers Prosh and Cute!

Well, I just finished with a really cool and productive meeting with fellow bird bloggers (so fun to meet some of them face to face) and Swarovski. I learned many things (including the fact that Jeff Foxworthy is a big fan of Swarovski Optik...do you suppose he uses his optics for birding?) and much of what I learned will be part of a glut of blogging when I get home--I have to cover a 22 mile Mississippi River canoe paddle, birding with fellow bird bloggers on the east coast and then barely making it back in time to go on a shorebird watching trip this weekend on the South Dakota/Minnesota border...who knew I would find wireless in South Dakota?

But this entry needs to be short as I should really be using this free time on the shorebird trip to finish an article that's a tad late for one of the bestest, most wonderful, beautiful, most forgiving, talented, even keeled editor I ever had.

Here's a quick sneak peak of birding Cape Cod with bird bloggers:

We found a family group of the threatened/endangered piping plover! This cute little plover is the adult and is about the size of a sparrow. They're so adorable, I think it you got some Cute Overload worthy photos and put those posters up, make some cuddly plush dolls, and a t-shirt line, people would get on board with saving them like they did with bald eagles and peregrine falcons.

Ben of 600 Birds noticed a chick--then three chicks! Julie Zickefoose was also part of the birding group and she noted that the chicks were about four days old. Ben said it best: that the chicks were so tiny and fluffy, it was hard to tell if we actually had them in focus in our cameras. They really appeared to be cotton balls scurrying around on match sticks. Julie noted that this seemed late for piping plover chicks and wondered if these little guys would learn to fly in time for their long migration?

If you looked closely at one of the adults, you could see the plumage was very worn. Was this a second or third time of renesting and the birds were tired and physically worn out or was this typical molt for this time of year? Did they lose an earlier batch of chicks or were they going for the gold and having successfully raised one brood, going for a second? Tough to say, but you could see this adult was tired.

It plopped down on the sand and you could see its eyes start to close (not unlike what I'm feeling right now after such an adventurous week). I sat on the sand with my scope low, taking what photos I could of the soon to be dosing piping plover and marveled at my luck of getting a chance to digiscope such a cute bird, when all of a sudden...

IT YAWNED! Piping plovers are as cute as a button as it is, now make it yawn and it's too prosh for words! And if you thought that was the cutest thing ever, let me leave you with a video of piping plover chicks running on the beach. They are precocial, meaning they can pretty much feed themselves not long after they hatch, relying on their parents to keep them warm and help protect them from predators. Now brace yourself for cotton ball goodness:

2nd Annual Bird Blogger Conference

Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival November 5 - 9, 2008 is the site of the Second Annual Bird Blogger Conference.

What does this mean? Well, a lot of bird bloggers in one place at one time to meet face to face, share ideas, watch some birds, and maybe even meet some potential advertisers and sponsors for your birding blog! Bird bloggers are eligible for a 10% discount and Born Again Bird Watcher and I would like to organize a sit down where we can meet, ask questions and share ideas for better bird blogging--the rest of the time is up to you to go out and enjoy the oh so cool birding!

This is one of the top birding festivals in the country and south Texas is a relatively inexpensive area when it comes to food and lodging. Even if you are not a bird blogger, this is a GREAT festival to attend--here are some of my past entries. Think of it--warm temperatures, green jays, authentic Mexican food, chachalacas, kiskadees, butterflies, javelinas...

Here are the qualifications for the discount:

1. Your blog must have been started sometime before January 31, 2008.
2. Your blog must have regular updates at a minimum of five times a month.
3. If your blog has been inactive for more than 30 days, it will not qualify for the discount.
4. You must promote the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest periodically in your blog--not every day or every week, but periodically remind your readers that you are going and that it would be great if they came along too--seriously, it really is a great thing to come to. I've been going there for the last three years because it's SO fun.

Speaking of readers, this is a great chance for all of you to come and meet some bird bloggers out there. So, start signing up for some south Texas birding now.

Bloggers who would like more info on the discount rate, please email me at Sharon at Birdchick dot com and I'll help get you set up.

Skimming Cape May Autumn Weekend

On the last day of the Cape May Autumn Weekend, a group of bird bloggers came to the birdJam booth and said they were going to go look at skimmers just down the street. I asked if I could come and they welcomed me along. What could be so great about skimmers some of you may be asking?

A black skimmer is a wonder to behold when you see them head up...oh wait, that is probably not the best angle to view a skimmer, you can't see what makes them so spectacular, so how about this:

Is that just a dynamite bill? That's not a mistake, that's the way their bill is supposed to look, extra long on the bottom and they fly over the water and dip the lower mandible down in the water and when something touches it--usually a fish, it snaps shut to get a firm grip on the prey.

Here's an up close shot of that cool looking bill.

There were a couple of large flocks of skimmers on the beach and Jay from birdJam showed Susan Gets Native how to approach birds by crawling--you're not much of a threat to birds if you're on all fours.

When we scanned the flocks of skimmers, we could see other species mixed in. Above is a sampling of skimmers, gulls and terns.

My gull id is a tad shaky, but I'm calling these small masked birds, Forster's tern.

We also found some laughing gulls mixed in with the skimmers. Considering that the birds were out of breeding plumage, I was feeling that being able to id these birds is somewhat of a triumph of the human spirit.

Eventually, the skimmers went airborne, but when they took off, we found another gull that was towards the back of the flock:

With process of elimination, I think this is a royal tern. The bill looks too heavy to be an elegant tern (but I'm open to suggestions). Doesn't look to bad from this angle, even though it's not in breeding plumage. You can see some royalty there.

But then the bird looks at you head on and it suddenly resembles a member of the Stooge family.

Away from the flock was a huge great black-backed gull being followed by a tiny sanderling. I love looking at size and species comparisons on the beach and was delighted to see such fun birds right down the street from the convention center for the Autumn Weekend.

It was great to meet some of the bloggers in person. In this photo we have Born Again Birdwatcher, Beginning To Bird, Somewhere in NJ, SGN, and me. Heading out for some end of festival birding was a great way to bring it to a close.

Birding The Meadows

I started writing this entry last night, and completely fell asleep while typing it--completely slumped over on the couch. Thank goodness I didn't drool on the keyboard.

Ack! I birded this place Sunday, how is it now Thursday that I'm finally blogging it? Ah well, at least I'm getting to it now. When we watched the weather over the weekend and learned that Sunday would be the first sunny day of the festival, we all were planning our morning birding strategies. Clay Taylor recommended going to The Meadows for just loads of birds flying over, so that was where I went.

We found a good sampling of ducks in the above pond. Here we have a mallard, a blue-winged teal, and a gadwall. It's fun to note the size difference of all three of these ducks when side by side.

I think gadwalls have one of my favorite ducks calls of all time. You can find it on this WhatBird (you may have to scroll down a bit when you get there). They sound like Muppets--mer mer mer. As we were taking these photos, a steady line of small raptors were zipping just over our heads--and I mean mere feet above our heads. The change in weather had pushed songbirds down south on their migration and they were landing in the meadows to feed, sharp-shinned hawks and merlins were taking advantage of the situation. While I was shooting ducks, I would look over my view finder and I'd see sharpie, sharpie, sharpie, sharpie, MERLIN, sharpie, sharpie, etc. It was pretty darned sweet.

Ducks were well and good, but being in Minnesota, I was more interested in doing some beach digiscoping. Clay decided to try his luck with warblers, so we briefly parted ways. I love photographing on a beach with little to know humans. You hear the crash of the surf, you feel the wind on your face, you smell the salty air and you just can't help but feel like an adventurer. I was also feeling more confident about my shorebird id skills and photography after taking that shorebird workshop this summer.

Alas, a little tougher than I thought! Well, one of the things that separates sanderlings from other shorebirds that can look similar like the semi-palmated sandpipers is that they constantly run back and forth with the waves. Which makes them hard to photograph--and just plain hard to find in the scope as the waves and birds move.

Fortunately for me, some much slower shorebirds moved in! Not only that, they have a pretty distinctive bill shape, making them dunlins--whoot! I decided that I would just try to follow shorebirds and take as many photos as possible to have a reference of sanderlings in my photo library.

When I downloaded the photos later in the day, I discovered that some of them were banded! I didn't notice it while out on the beach, but fortunately I was haphazardly shooting and got the evidence. I thought I was photographing sanderlings and honestly, from this angle we can't see the front for positive id, but it's a pretty good bet.

And that wasn't the only one! I found a second banded shorebird! This does look like a sanderling, but it's interesting to note that both birds have similar banding patterns to the banded semi-palmated sandpipers we found this summer during the shorebird workshop. I know the green flag on the bird in the above photo means it was banded in the US, but not sure about the other one. I'll turn these photos into the Bird Banding Lab and when I find out more info, I'll post an update in the blog. Well, as I was just enjoying the day and a set of willets just landed, a peregrine flew into view and chased all the shorebirds away. It dawned on me what a beautiful and unusual site this is for me. To see the large dark falcon fly right on the beach--I usually see them around skyscrapers. Since the shorebirds got the heck out of Dodge, I decided to try my hand at the gray hair inducing task of photographing fall warblers.

I never thought I would say this, but it was like shooting fish in a barrel! It was mostly yellow-rumped warblers, but it was just a matter of picking a perch, keeping your scope aimed there and waiting a few minutes for a warbler to land. This yellow rumped perched here for a full three minutes!

Heck, I even managed to get a shot of it nabbing insects when it flew. That is what is part of the magic of Cape May during migration. Oh sure, you may be able to see many of the bird species there, but it's the sheer number and magnitude that consistently shows up during migration. On year, over a million robins flew over in an hour. While I was photographing this warbler, several hundred turkey vultures were moving through.

I even managed to photograph a second species of warbler--this lovely palm warbler popped up. Only in Cape May, folks, can a novice digiscoper manage to get some decent warbler shots.

The Meadows is run by the Nature Conservancy and you do need to pay a small fee (well worth it) to enter. I will say this, about Cape May--it attracts some old school birders...dare I say crotchety birders. One man was very angry about paying for entering The Meadows, "This place is ruined, I shouldn't have to pay." Which I think is utterly ridiculous. Natural space for birds is at a premium, it takes money to maintain it and people should pay to make sure it stays. Of course, this guy also grunted at the birdJam software, "In my day, we just went outside to learn the bird calls." He would have finished his speech, but he had to run after some teenagers to shout, "Get those darn smoochers offa meh property."

Mental note to old schoolers talking to whipper snappers: Starting a sentence with the phrase, "In my day..." automatically induces eye rolling on the part of the listener.

Speaking of old school, another conversation that I had at Cape May about iPods:

Old School Birder: In my day we did this thing called listening to the radio to get our music.

Birdchick: Yeah, but sometimes the Sinatra or opera isn't on the radio.

Old School Birder: My dear, public radio has opera every Sunday, so there you go.

Birdchick: But what if you're jonesing' for La Traviata on a Thursday night, the iPod's there for ya'.

Old School Birder backs away in apparent confusion that a whipper snapper would know the title of a Verdi opera or the possibility of being able to listen to any kind of music at any time of day...or at the use of the word "jonesing".

I wonder what I'm going to be crotchety about when I grow up? What will be the technology that I think is too much or just think it too complicated to use? I seriously ponder this. "In my day, we held the digital camera to the spotting scope to get photos...we didn't have the camera built into the scope."

And for the record: "old school" and "crotchety" have more to do with a state of mind than with age. I know birders older than I am who act younger than me (I like to think I act like a 15 year old, and there are a couple who qualify as 13 year olds--you know who you are) and some birders younger than me that could qualify for crotchety.

Zombie Gadwall?

I'm going through photos that I took at Cape May for coming blog entries and found what may be the first ever documented case of a Zombie Gadwall attempting to suck out the brains of a teal:

Gyrfalcon Antics In Cape May

Some may recall from last year that I blogged about John Wood and The Raptor Project his bird program that he does at Cape May. One of the highlights is that he flies his white gyrfalcon out on the beach. He flies to a lure (an object with some meat attached to a long line that he lassos overhead to get the bird to fly down.

This year, things went a little different. Saturday, as blogged earlier, it was wind and rain, but John flew the falcon anyway. Apparently the bird decided, "screw this" and instead flew after one of the many wild pigeons and to find a nice, warm place to eat. So, off the bird went, it nailed a pigeon and flew out of site. John, being a wise and experienced falconer, had a radio telemetry unit on the bird and was able to track it to town. After the bird flew from sight, it found a shoe store with doors open and landed in the store with a decapitated pigeon and began to rip it apart. Imagine that you know nothing of birds and you are absorbed in shoe shopping when a bird the size of a red-tail, but all white flies in with a headless pigeon--out of nowhere...needless to say, it caused a stir. The shop owner called 911 and Animal Control (I think Animal Control might have given John a hard time about his falcon killing a pigeon--apparently, they didn't know that pigeons are non native and not under any protection in the US). Anyway, John returned to the convention center with his bird safe in hand and with a headless pigeon.

He tried to take the gyrfalcon out Sunday and as soon as he and the white bird emerged from the convention center, the pigeons were off, instantly recognizing the bird from the day before.

John tried to get the falcon to focus on the lure, the bird was having none of it. It tasted pigeon the day before and it wanted more. You can see the bird in the above photo ignoring John and focusing on the fat, winged, tasty delights circling on the other side of the beach.

No matter what John tried, the falcon just really wanted pigeon and kept trying to take off after them. He opted not to fly the bird and risk losing it in town again. Smart move, but still pretty to see the bird in a beach setting.

Birds And Beers: Triumph Of The Blogging Spirit

How many bird bloggers can you identify in this photo?

Friday night was the most attended Birds and Beers yet. I think we had over 30 people show up at Jackson Mountain Cafe throughout the evening. They pretty much just gave us the upstairs bar area (and went as far as to have the tvs tuned into Animal Planet instead of ESPN. I was asked what the biggest surprise of the evening was for me and that was learning what a babe Susan Gets Native is! Holy Cow, she came in with long flowing hair, beautiful eyes and a personality that sweeps you up into a tsunami of fun.

We had more than just bloggers on hand. Hougton Mifflin showed up and I met some east coast birders--one who has a plan to help the red knot. He's been doing fundraisers to buy up private property where the knots can feed on the horseshoe crab eggs. I'll blog more about it later, but it was so refreshing to meet someone with a proactive idea, and who has already got the ball rolling. They already bought a little over four acres this year. Exciting stuff.

There were also bird magazine editors there too. One of whom got the last serving of single malt scotch available at the bar (my drink of choice). When this editor (who shall remain nameless) learned of how he...affected my little birder world...he hid himself and the scotch behind a menu. I proceeded to call him several things including evil, wicked, mean, bad and nasty...I think I just kind of ruined my chances of him accepting the article that I recently pitched...

So, I had martinis (Don't worry Non Birding Bill, I stopped at two). More Birds and Beers coverage can be found at Susan Gets Native and Born Again Bird Watcher. I swear, you would think the restaurant had never seen a bird watching laying on the bar before.

It did dawn on me that I was meeting several of these bloggers face to face for the first time, even though some are part of my daily routine. Beginning To Bird has been a huge supporter of Disapproving Rabbits, and her bun Niblet is in the book twice. Mike at 10,000 Birds was another big surprise. From some reason, from reading his stuff, I had the idea that he would be a quiet, guy--something along the lines of Mike McDowell but was nothing like I expected and a good time (Not that McDowell isn't a good time...he's more of a quiet good time). I guess its weird to have expectations of bloggers. In some ways, it's kind of a DJ effect. You listen to someone on the radio and get a mental picture of what they look like and then when you see them, they look nothing like that. It's the same with blogging, you get a mental picture of the writers look and talk and they take you by surprise.

Cape May Update

Let me tell ya', folks, the weather has not been optimal for birding. I've gotten to sleep in for 2 days in a row. It rained most of the day Friday and Saturday looked to be about the same. And it wasn't just rain, it was wind driven rain that aims to hit your in the face and soak into all clothing. I am such a fair weather birder. I'll bird in the desert. I'll bird in the snow. Heck, I'll bird in ice, but wind driven rain is about as exciting to me as having plaque scraped off my teeth. But, at some point this afternoon, the rain stopped and the sun poked out from behind the clouds. I've been helping out at the birdJam booth and when things started to clear, I headed over to visit Clay Taylor at the Swarovski booth. We looked at the light outside and he said, "As soon as it's five, we're heading to Hawk Watch, wanna come?"

YEAH!

So, I grabbed Jay at birdJam when it was time to close and we headed out. It was clear a few others had the same plan, Born Again Birdwatcher and Jim Danzenbaker from KOWA were also at the platform. We had been pent up in a hot birding destination and needed to watch birds and do a little digiscoping.

I was never so happy to see an American wigeon in my life! Birds! Whoot! The temps were in the sixties, there was a breeze, you could hear the ocean crashing in waves in the distance at watch birds from the platform.

And there, as if on cue was a northern mockingbird, sitting in perfect sun on a bush, about level with the Hawk Watch Platform--which I first called a shrike and Clay corrected, "You northerners aren't used to these! That's a mockingbird." I didn't care, it was a bird, it was there, I wasn't being pelted by rain or abused by wind--it was delightful.

There were quite a few sparrows lurking in the shrubs, the most abundant being the robust white-crowned sparrows (above) mixed in with song, swamp, and house sparrows.

Here is a younger white-crowned sparrow, note how the crown is a little different on the younger birds.

It was getting almost too dark to digiscope when Clay shouted, "Dickcissel!" Not a common bird for Cape May, but a welcome surprise. Oh, and if Mike from 10,000 Birds is wondering, I did get those lifer brants today, while scanning the ocean, three flew into view of the scope.

And as if word had been spreading to the lagomorph community, a got a feral bunny disapproval East Coast style while birding at the platform. Oh! The best review of Disapproving Rabbits can be found over at Julie's blog.

Sunday is supposed to be awesome birding conditions, so I'm hoping to have some exciting stuff for tomorrow.

Cape May Friday Morning

First bird of the morning', right outside the hotel room! House sparrow! Actually, I took this yesterday, the sparrows appear to be used to hotel patrons feeding them. The sea is crashing, the wind is howling and it's rain, rain so I'm staying in this morning. Last night I went to a dinner hosted by Swarovski with a few folks from Cape May Bird Observatory, WildBird on the Fly, and Jay from birdJam at this wonderful little restaurant called Freda's. When the mussels appetizer was served, it got a little ugly, there was some competition, but Clay Taylor, the Swarovksi rep said that we had to our best black oystercatcher call to get them. I found this unfair as there are American oystercaters on the east coast and black oystercatchers on the west coast. Plus, I also felt birdJam had the unfair advantage--they always seem to have a portable speaker hidden in a pocket. Had it been a behavior challenge and we had to act out an oystercather--I would have nailed it.

WildBird on the Fly and I showed off our nails. She took me for my first ever manicure--I had no idea that was that much dead skin just around my finger tips. I chose Kreme de la Kremlin for my nails, she had something I think called Sparkles in the Snow.

And I was just sorting through some emails last night and found Frank Taylor's banding report from last weekend and this oh so cool shot of red-tailed hawk flying low right into the nets. What a great shot! If I weren't in such a cool birding place at the moment, I'd have total banding envy!

Okay, time to tweak my PowerPoint for Saturday, take a shower, and prep for the bird show this afternoon. I wonder how the other bird bloggers are fairing this morning?

Arrived In Cape May

Well, it took more drama than it needed, but I made it to Cape May. This morning was just a series of little trip ups that suddenly turn what is normally routine travel plans into enormous amounts of stress. First, we went to the wrong terminal to catch my flight and I ended up getting to the right terminal so late, I had to be whisked past the long line of security--to everyone I went in front of--I apologize, I normally wait in line just like you. The folks at Sun Country Airlines really saved my bacon, not only getting me to my departure gate in time, but also getting my luggage on the plane. Then there were some issues with the rental car, which at this point I'm relieved are resolved.

But, I got on the Garden State Parkway, popped in the iPod and had a leisurely drive here. On the way, I saw lots of turkey vultures, an osprey, some (non vulture) turkeys, and deer. When I got to Cape May, it was windy and cold. It's supposed to keep up in the morning, so I may stay in tomorrow morning instead of birding.

Odds and Ends

Okay, this is an on hold post--I just got a call from The Raptor Center, they are going to do a check up on the injured peregrine falcon and said that I can come and watch.

But, before I go, I got a story from my buddy Amber:

Disregarding a plea from his own Fish and Game Commission, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law Saturday a bill that would ban the use of lead ammunition for hunting big game in the California condor range.

Assembly Bill 821, the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act, written by Assemblyman Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara, requires the use of nonlead centerfire rifle and pistol ammunition when shooting big game or coyotes within specific areas of the state identified as the condor's range.

Who knew that Gov. Ah-nold would do something so right?? You can read more here.

Also, Bird Chaser has an entry up about cats being allowed to roam free in Cape May and asking should birders boycott the birding mecca to serve a lesson to the local government for ignoring all of us tourists who come to the town specifically for the birds. He also lists some other options too. It's a little late in the game for me to boycott--the Bird Blogger Conference is next week, but be sure that there will probably be some bloggin' about this issue. I would recommend that anyone going to this be very vocal with business that you are a birder and you are here for the birds and it would be a shame to lose tourism dollars over feral cats.

And if you need a Cinnamon fix, there's an entry over at Disapproving Rabbits Blog--complete with a video of her snarfing down some canned pumpkin.

Cape May Birds and Beers!

As if Cape May Autumn Weekend weren't reason enough to visit New Jersey, or the first ever Bird Blog Conference, there's now another incentive: Birds and Beers--Cape May edition!

That's right, Friday night, October 26, 2007 at 8pm I'm hosting a Birds and Beers at the Jackson Mountain Cafe. Anyone interested in birds is welcome to attend--from the hard core to the beginner to everyone in between. If you want to meet some people, talk some birds and have a beverage or two, this it the place for you.

Here are the bird bloggers that I know are coming to Cape May for the bird festival that you could meet:

10,000 Birds
Beginning To Bird
Birdchick
Blue Lizard Birding Blog
Born Again Bird Watcher
Hasty Brook
Hawk Owl's Nest
Jeff Gyr
Lake Life
Life, Birds, and Everything also does (Birders On The Border)
Leica Birding Blog
Somewhere in NJ
Susan Gets Native
WildBird on the Fly

Man, this bird festival is going to get a lot of coverage and publicity!

Whoot!

I just remembered that it was during this festival last year that our then host service lost their servers and I was freaking out because my blog disappeared. That was some panic. And if you weren't a reader then, here's a link to one of our adventures during the festival.

There's still time to sign up for this weekend long birding party.

Cape May Autumn Weekend & Blogging Confernece

Are you going to Cape May Autumn Weekend? If you're already on the fence as to whether or not you should sign up for the action packed East Coast migration spectacular, don't forget this is your chance to meet some of your favorite bird bloggers! So far, here are the bloggers I know will be there:

10,000 Birds
Beginning To Bird
Birdchick
Born Again Bird Watcher
Hasty Brook
Hawk Owl's Nest
Mary's View
Somewhere in NJ
Susan Gets Native
WildBird on the Fly
Leica Birding Blog

If you would like to get the discounted blogging rate, the requirements and info can be found here. Some of the above bloggers are going for the conference and some will be there to work booths. It's a great time, with great birders, great birds, great face painting, great pancakes, and beautiful scenery. Hope to see you there.

First Bird Blogging Confernce!

Calling all bird bloggers, calling all bird bloggers:

The first ever Bird Blogger Conference will be at Cape May Autumn Weekend October 26-27, 2007! What does this mean--well, a lot of bird bloggers in one place at one time to meet face to face, share ideas, and maybe even watch some birds! Bird bloggers are eligible for a discount and must sign up through me. Here are the qualifications for the discount:

1. Your blog must have been started sometime before January 31, 2007.
2. Your blog must have regular updates at a minimum of four times a month.
3. If your blog has been inactive for more than 30 days, it will not qualify for the discount.
4. You must promote the Cape May Autumn Weekend and the 1st Birder Blogger Conference periodically in your blog--not every day or every week, but periodically remind your readers that you are going and that it would be great if they came along too.

Speaking of readers, this is a great chance for all of you to come and meet some bird bloggers out there. So, start signing up for Autumn Weekend now.

I'm thinking about organizing a Birds and Beers night there on the evening of October 26. Any natives have a good recommendation for a place for birders to get some beer and talk some birds, let me know.

Bloggers who would like more info on the discount rate, please email me at Sharon at Birdchick dot com.