Redpolls Hittin' The Twin Cities Metro Area

While I was in Florida, common redpolls were being reported in the Twin Cities metro area. Last winter they were showing up in good numbers up at Sax Zim Bog and Mr. Neil even had one at his feeders.

There have been a few hanging out at Carpenter Nature Center. When we were trying to band birds last Friday, we saw a flock of about nine birds. We were almost completely skunked, we only trapped one lone junco and it was a retrap. We would see a redpoll fly into the traps, but one was too light to trip the door closed, so we got completely nooged on banding any redpolls.

I just love the little redpoll goatee--combined with the little red spot on the head that resembles a beret, they look like their about to break out a set of bongos in a 1960's looking coffee shop at any moment. I went back to check what the Winter Finch Forecast had been for redpolls:

"The Common Redpoll is a white birch seed specialist in the boreal forest in winter. White birch crops are poor in the northern two-thirds of the boreal forest, but seed abundance increases southward. In central Ontario, such as Algonquin Park, crops on white and yellow birches range from fair to good. It is uncertain whether the birch crop is large enough to stop the southward movement in central Ontario about latitude 45 degrees. Some redpolls, including a few Hoarys, may get south to Lake Ontario if birch seed supplies run low."

I guess the birch seed supply ran low.

We even got to see some redpolls at Warner Nature Center during Non Birding Bill's Winter Survival Birthday party. His non birding friends also found them cool when pointed out. What was interesting was that unlike all the common redpolls in the photos of this blog entry (which were all taken at Carpenter Nature Center), the redpolls at Warner stayed below the feeders. They only ate on the ground. I wondered if that flock had come from such a remote region that they did not know how to use a bird feeder.

After our time banding was over, I headed to a nearby spot where the St. Croix River meets with the Mississippi River. It has been a bit warmer and the water usually opens up when that happens. You can sometimes see some fun ducks. As I scanned, I only saw some bald eagles jockeying for position for some food on the ice. Suddenly, some friends drove up behind me, shouting. I had them reenact what they did:



Thanks to Jed and Linda who were the great to reference the blog post about my amusement of people who point out eagles when I'm after some small bird that does not seem as exciting. But I did actually look out and the eagles were doing something kind of interesting:

They were eating a Canada goose. There, are you happy? I took a photo of a bald eagle. lol

I joined Jed and Linda a little further down the Mississippi River to search for waterfowl and we found some coyotes on patrol across the river. There was a third, but it was further back in the woods. We got to watch the two above poop and since they were in the boundaries of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, I guess we know who pooped in this park.

Monday Morning Redpoll

A Little Post Holiday Banding A Carpenter

After several days of butt chilling temperatures, we finally had some warm weather. It started on Christmas Day. Non Birding Bill and I noticed the temps were in the twenties and then stepped outside. It was so warm, we took a walk to Lake Calhoun. By Friday morning the temps were down right balmy in the thirties. The snow started to melt and fog took over the landscape as did a little freezing drizzle, but it made for somewhat pleasant weather banding birds at Carpenter Nature Center. We had several juncos in the traps (like the bird above).

I processed one that had a very odd eye! It was oval instead of round. It looked as though there was some type of swelling above the eye and feathers out of place. The bird had been banded earlier this winter, but there was no notation that it was injured when it was originally banded. I had to look at the eye color under a light to try and determine age and the pupil seemed fine. We let it go. I'll be curious is to see if we get it again.

Among all the juncos, we got in a few of the dreaded cardinals. Dreaded because of that bill and their ability to squirm just right and nail one of you digits. Owie. One of the nice things about cardinals is that you can sex them fairly quick--this is a male based on plumage color. But aging is a different story. I wondered if he was hatched this summer since he had a bit of black on the tip of his beak (juvenile cardinals have black beaks). Our banding leader, Jim Fitzpatrick had me look at the iris of the cardinal and it was dark brown. That coupled with feather condition of some wing and tail feathers made this bird an AHY (After Hatch Year, which basically means we don't know exactly how old it is, but we know he didn't hatch this year).

While I was processing the male cardinal, Jim was processing a female cardinal. They came into the traps at the same time. We had some members of the public watching us process the birds and they asked if the cardinals were a mated pair. It's not the breeding season and cardinals are typically in large winter flocks this time of year. However, there can be pairs in a flock and according to Birds of North America Online, some cardinal pairs will stay on their same territory all year. I wasn't sure if these two cardinals were in the same trap, but my guess was that were. We also couldn't say for sure if they were pair, but it was a possibility.

After we processed them, I tried to get one more photo before we let them go. Note the male is still giving my thumb the what for. We opened our hands and off they flew. Sometimes when we release two of the same species like that, they split in different directions. These two not only took off in the exact same direction, but landed on the same branch of a tree! I dashed back into the center to grab my digiscoping equipment.

They adjusted themselves in the tree and by the time I got my scope on them, the female had perched a bit higher. They seemed relaxed with each other and I think it's a good guess that this is a mated pair. They stayed that way for several minutes. The clouds, fog, and drizzle did not make for the best photo, but it's bloggable.

I took a few more shots of the male I had just banded while he perched in the tree. I noticed that he had some brown feathers on his flanks. I showed the photo to Jim and the other banders. I asked if we should rethink whether or not he was a hatch year bird since there was some brown. Jim wisely pointed out that the base feathers for cardinals are brown (I assumed black, since their skin is black). He also reminded me that the male's eye color was dark brown. Had he been a hatch year bird, we would have seen gray brown. Only Peter Pyle can take a seemingly easy bird to id (like a cardinal) and make it a challenge!

After I let the cardinal go, I got a shot of my thumb--check out the indentations he left! It's now turned to a minor blood blister. Thanks, dude. After banding, we went down to where the Mississippi River and St Croix River meet along the Minnesota/Wisoconsin border to look for ducks and gulls.

There had been a a harlequin duck reported and we had little trouble finding it among all the goldeyes. The fog made for terrible digiscoping conditions and I'm going to have to go back to see if I can get it on a sunnier day. That's a cooling looking duck that deserves a better photo.

Birds & Beers & Banding

The last Birds and Beers was a huge gathering. Some regulars and some new peeps came to join in the fun.

We had a drawing from some prizes courtesy of Woodlink. We gave away a few of their "Happy Hour Hummingbird Feeders." They're nectar feeders in the shape of a daiquiri, margarita, and martini--how appropriate! In the background of this photo is Liz Stanley who runs The Overlook Circle Feeder Cam. She warns on her site that images are uploaded every 30 seconds during daylight hours, Central Time. During the winters here, days are short so daylight is only 7:30am to 4:30pm. In the summer, it's much longer, lasting from 5:30am to 9:30pm. If the image is completely dark, please check back in the morning. Check it out! There's also Jim Ryan in the background who runs Jim Ryan Outdoors Blog.

The big excitement came when Mark Newstrom arrived with extra copies of the new Peter Pyle book, Identification Guide to North American Birds Part II. Some readers have seen Pyle referenced in this blog before, it's a sleep inducing tome essential to aging and sexing birds if you are a bander. Up to this point, we've only had Part I which had warblers, chickadees, sparrows, vireos, etc. This year part II was released which tells banders how to age and sex waterfowl, boobies and spoonbills. We took turns doing dramatic readings of Part II. There's a bit more talk of distended cloacas (great band name) and duck penises in this volume, but that's about as exciting as it gets. Here's a sentence from the zone-tailed hawk section:

"Shape and color pattern to the retrices by feather generation and sex in Zone-tailed Hawk. R5 is shown and is usualy the last feather replaced during molts and the most likely to be retained during the PB2 and DPB."

Or there's this on molt in Canada geese:

"PF partial-incomplete (Sep/Nov-Jan/Apr in HY/SYs), PB2 complete (Jun-Nov in non-breeding SYs), DPB complete (Jul-Dec in breeding AHYs); PA absent."

And if you can understand either of those sentences, then you'll want a copy of the Peter Pyle book. If you don't, take heart that you have a life and run before you get sucked in to the point of no return.

Speaking of banding, we had an interesting and busy morning at Carpenter Nature Center on Friday--lots of juncos! I think they sensed the impending blizzard that was about to hit. Above is a Potter's Trap and it has 2 doors and usually only gets 1 or 2 birds at a time. This trap had three juncos in it!

We also got in some chickadees and a blue jay (the blue jay got in the traps before I arrived, so no photo).

We did get another interesting retrap. I was processing this black-capped chickadee that already had a band. When I read the number to Mary who helps us track the data, she looked it up and found that we originally banded this chickadee on November 10, 2006. I checked the archives of the blog to see if I had a photo of when it was first banded, but discovered that I was in Harlingen, TX at that time and wouldn't have been there on its original processing date.

Friday Banding & Birding

It was jam packed at Carpenter Nature Center banding on Friday. It was the day after Thanksgiving and many people stopped by--including a hilarious 4 year old named Dylan. She kept asking to band a bird herself. I was doing a junco when she came to me and said, "I was going to do that one!"

I asked if she took the banding class. She looked to the side and back at me and said, "Yes." Can't blame a girl for trying. My favorite part was a the end of the morning, she was leaving and we said, "Bye, Dylan, it was nice to meet you," and she replied, "Yes, it was."

The big excitement of the day was getting one of the oodles of pine siskins around the Twin Cities. Tom Bell banded this bird and he noted how fine their bills are--perfect for going into those thin slits on finch feeders.

The yellow is subtle on these little birds, mostly in the edging on the primary wing feathers and the tail feathers. I don't think we were able to determine the sex of this bird, but we did determine that it was a hatch year bird.

Ecobirder was also there, he's going to help Carpenter a bit with their website. When we were finished, I drove over to Douglas Point and found him taking photos. I left him peace, I know how I am when I get in a good groove. The weather was so warm, it was 40 degrees that I decided to go for a bike ride when I came home.

I decided to go over to Lake Calhoun to see if I could get a photo of the long-tailed duck in better light. Plus, I've been curious if I could take my whole digiscoping setup with me on my bike. Non Birding Bill and I were both feeling the effects of eating too much and he also joined me for the ride (as long as I promised not to spend an hour trying to get the perfect photo of a duck).

The light was awesome and waterfowl like Canada geese and hooded mergansers were up close...but not the long-tailed duck, it was WAAAY out on the lake and not worth digiscoping.

The light was so perfect that I hated to waste it and took a few photos of geese. I could hear joggers behind me say, "Why would you want to take photos of those ducks?" I wanted to turn around and point out the scaup and goldeneyes and say there's more out there than just mallards and geese, but did not. And of course, since I was birding in a public place, someone came up to me and said, "Hey, is that bald eagle still over there?"

"I don't know," I said, "I'm not looking for that."

"It was over on the north side, in that tree, the lighter one on the left there." He paused and I could tell by the look in his eye that he was waiting for me to move my scope on it. The eagle was out further than the long-tailed duck. I was not on the clock and I was focusing on a shoveler, I didn't move my scope.

"It's right over there," he pointed. "I saw it when I was jogging over there. It was just sitting there."

"That's awesome," I said, "I'm glad you got to see that." I could see NBB in my peripheral vision over by our bikes. He was grinning that someone was pointing out an eagle yet again when I'm after something else.

I showed him the shoveler in my scope and he showed about as much interest in the northern shoveler as I was in his eagle. I explained about the long-tailed duck and he seemed even less interested in that. Finally, he moved on.

It was fun to squeeze in another bike ride in early winter and it was fun to look at the waterfowl and I was only a tiny bit bummed at missing a good photo of the long-tailed duck. When I checked my email this morning I found this report from yesterday about the long-tailed duck from local birder Terry Brashear:

"The Long-tailed Duck was seen at 2PM close to the west shore, but an adult Bald Eagle came by and the group of Hooded Merganser and Common Goldeneye it was with took flight. It spent the remainder of the day out in the middle of Lake Calhoun till I left at 3:30PM."

Which was about the time NBB and I were biking around the lake. That stupid bald eagle that dude was trying to point out is the one that moved the duck so far to the center of the lake.

I'm shaking my fist at that bald eagle and saying in a tone like a villain at the end of a Scooby Doo cartoon, "I would have gotten that photo too if hadn't been for that meddling eagle."

Interesting Recaptured Chickadee

We had an interesting recaptured bird at Carpenter Nature Center last Friday!

We don't have our nets setup right now, it's too cold. Birds tangled in a net can't use their feathers as well to regulate their body temperatures so we don't up them up when it's below freezing. We do set up little cage traps around the feeding areas though. Birds get trapped inside, but they can move around and still use their feathers to stay warm. The above chickadee got into one of the traps and was already banded. These are the birds we really need--recaptures. We can look at the band number, figure out its original capture date, how many times it's been captured, age, sometimes sex, just all sorts of info!

The above black-capped chickadee was banded on July 12, 2002! On its original capture date, the bird was identified as a hatch year bird. So we know based on its plumage that it hatched the summer of 2002. However, we don't know the sex of this particular chickadee. We can only do that in the summer. Females will have brood patches, swollen bare skin for incubating eggs (often called a BP by banders). Males will have a cloacal protuberance for...mating (often called CP by banders).

This six year old chickadee has been retrapped 10 times. Alas, it has always been in the winter. So the first year we banded it, the chickadee was recently hatched and would not have a BP or a CP. And in the winter, males and females are not in the mating mode and they do not have a CP or BP and even though we've had it 10 more times, never at a time when it could sexed.

Still amazing to think that this bird has survived six Minnesota winters. I wonder where it has set up its nesting territory?

The Difference Of Birds In The Hand

Man oh man, the migrants are all over the Twin Cities right now! The trees are just full of them. Above is one of the many yellow-rumped warblers that can be heard if you listen close for their kiss sounding chip note. I had originally planned to go up to Duluth for some hawk banding, but the winds were supposed to be the worst for banding and the winds in the Twin Cities were pretty good for migrant trapping--Friday at Carpenter was pretty amazing.

And warblers were the main order in the nets. Here's a rather indignant looking yellow-rumped warbler in hand. It's always amazing to me how different birds look in hand. We use mesh bags to hold the birds after they have been taken out of the net. You look through the mesh to figure out what is inside--the species tells you what size band you use. I at first looked at this bird through the mesh and lamented, "Aw, couldn't I have gotten an identifiable bird?" However, the bird fluttered in the bag, and I soon noticed the yellow rump and knew what it was.

We got in a few Nashville warblers too. After this bird was banded, I went to take a photo before letting it go and it just looked so non warbler like-just not feisty enough, almost looks like a child that's been naughty. Many of the birds take on a much different posture in hand than they do the wild.

But, pish at it a few times and it perks right up--feistiness returned.

And then it gives you as mighty a peck as a tiny insectivore can deliver before flying off.

This golden-crowned kinglet is another example--a bird that is full of vim and vigor when hopping about from branch to branch, but completely deflates when in hand.

Check out that buttery-yellow crown, though--drink that in. And again, as soon as this bird was let go, its sassy nature returned.

One of my favorite birds of the day was a brown creeper...or the hunchback. Looking at the above photo, don't you expect it to say in a Peter Lorre voice, "This way, master." But think about the last time you saw a brown creeper...you never see one perched on a branch like a robin, they are always creeping down a tree, perhaps it is essential for their posture.

It's fun to take a close look at all the little bits that make a creeper a creeper--bits that you don't get to see when they are against a tree. Look at how long the toe nails are--each nail is almost longer then the toe itself, essential for life on the side of a tree. Check out that beak, perfect for squeezing into tiny bark crevices to glean spiders and insects. Hm, between the hunch and the diet, this really is the Igor of the bird world.

The tail is pretty incredible too. It's long with pointy feathers, but unlike woodpecker tail feathers, the creeper tail feathers are quite soft. Perhaps the reason is that a brown creeper isn't chiseling into trees like a woodpecker. Strong, stiff tail feathers to prop the woodpecker body are needed if they are hammering open a hole, but a creeper just needs to slink up the bark of a tree.

After getting a bunch of tiny birds that looked small and sad in the hand, it was kind of a treat to get a robust white-throated sparrow with a little bit of an attitude. These birds feel so beefy in the hand and have a bit more kick to their bite, since they need that heavier bill to crack seed shells.

The whole bird is a lovely palette of brown, rust, white, black, yellow and gray. For a brown bird, it's got it going on. Watch for them under feeders (they actually like millet) and around ragweeds, sumac, wild grape, highbush cranberry, mountain ash, dogwoods, and rose hips.

More weekend banding fun to be continued.

Skywatch Friday With Migrants

Hey, have you sent in your comments regarding the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act yet? Don't let it slip away (and yes, I'm gonna be a pest about this).

Well, it's Skywatch Friday again. You can visit their site and click to all the links to every one's photos of sky and if you wish, you can participate by creating your own blog entry with a photo of sky, adding the Skywatch Friday link to your post and then adding your link to their site. As you can see, the vivid blue skies still continue to enhance the gorgeous fall colors at Carpenter Nature Center.

I tell ya', with the all the negatives adds (on all sides) of the upcoming election and news of the economy it's hard not to get down. If you are anywhere near Hastings, MN make a trip to Carpenter, the colors do not disappoint and the grounds full of birds and a few bees give you peace of mind that money just cannot buy. And if you have a few bucks, now is the time to load up on apples from their orchard--Honeycrisps are in and they have apple cider made right on site (I'm enjoying some now as I type this entry).

The bright blue sky, mixes with the changing reds and yellows of the trees to make the perfect back drop for photographing or just enjoying birds. Not that downy woodpeckers are fugly to begin with, but their black and white coloration is oh so enhanced with the fall colors. I don't know if anyone needs a cleansing downy woodpecker, but here you are.

Later, I'll blog more about the banding bonanza that we had at Carpenter today--I banded a lot of birds and I don't think I worked with the same species twice, it was a parade of sparrows, finches, and warblers and note the bird above: I took my first junco (aka snowbird) of the season out of the nets today. I call this my first junco of the season, but it really is not. I have heard there chip notes in the bushes on the bike trail and I have chosen to ignore the blatant sign of winter.

But if we are talking sky, it's only appropriate that we talk about migration and birds that are pouring out of the skies on their journey south. Carpenter was loaded with white-throated sparrows today (like the bird above) so watch for sparrows lurking under your feeders--and it wouldn't hurt to put out a bit of white millet for them. One of my favorite things about the fall are the nights up at Frank's hawk banding station in Duluth and you can hear white-throated sparrows chipping to each other overhead as large flocks head south. Some of my favorite moments in life have included listening to night migrants with friends...I remember laying on a bench in Cape May, NJ a few years ago do that same thing WildBird on the Fly. Good times.

Here's a tan morph of white-throated sparrow. Look at those gorgeous rufous feathers mixed in with other shades of brown on its back--what a classy little brown bird! Speaking of migration, blog reader Tammy sent over this news link from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about night migration:

"Right around sunrise Tuesday morning the NWS Milwaukee/Sullivan radar (MKX) showed some curious circular reflectivity returns. The echoes developed suddenly and then grew in size between 6:45 AM and 7:30 AM. The MKX staff suspects these to be birds taking off right at sunrise. Some of the echoes initially show returns as high as 30 dBZ, which would equate to a decent shower if the returns were made of rain drops. These are likely dense clusterings of geese heading out early to feed in the fields."

You can read the full story and see the radar images here.

So, keep your eyes and your ears to those fall skies!

The Beauty Of Carptenter Nature Center

I just got the biggest chuckle out of this photo. Apparently a group of people were protesting Scientology in New York (all wearing masks) and two were holding signs that read, "Down with this sort of thing" and "Careful now." This is a reference to one of my all time favorite tv shows...

Father Ted--it's a series about a couple of Irish priests who get into all sorts of scrapes and mischief. In one episode, Ted (guy with the gray hair) and his assistant priest Dougal were ordered by their bishop to protest a dirty movie that came to Craggy Island--and these were the signs they held during their protest. This series is worth a look through Netflix, my two favorite episodes are The Plague and A Song For Europe.

Okay, folks, Carpenter Nature Center is still several shades of gorgeous. It's not too late to visit it yet this fall. The asters are still blooming and the sumac is turning red.

The orchard bees are making the most of the late fall bloom and can be found on asters or goldenrod.

We did not get huge amounts of birds in the nets at our Friday banding session. There were tons moving through, but a combination of strong winds that billowed the nets and a steady stream of sharp-shinned hawks migrating through, seemed to keep the birds away. On very windy days, the nets move and the birds can usually see them.

We watched quite a few birds fly towards and then up and up and right over the nets. Ah well, that left more time to photograph the landscape.

A large flock of bluebirds were hunting for insects in the grassy areas. They just added a little dazzle to the landscape.

So, again, I say, if you have not been to Carpenter Nature Center this fall, do go check it out, it's one of the prettiest spots in the Twin Cities.

Fall Banding At Carpenter

The warblers are just drippin' off the trees in Minnesota. We had a great day of banding on Friday at Carpenter Nature Center. Note this palm warbler giving itself a scratch in among the autumn leaves. Again, I have to say that the color at Carpenter is peaking right now, and it is a GREAT time to visit.

One of this first birds in the nets was this male American redstart. This was one of the easier birds to id--looks kinda like a miniature oriole.

Some were more challenging--even in hand. Here's a magnolia warbler.

I missed this, but my buddy Larry sent over a photo of a Wilson's warbler that someone banded.

A surprise thrush of the day, was this Swainson's thrush...didn't they just arrive, I feel like I was just listening to these guys sing as they were migrating north through my neighborhood. After I downloaded my photos onto my computer, I noticed the weird little spot behind the thrush's eye. I zoomed in on iPhoto, and I think those are ticks.

Here's a little bit closer view--and a shot of the bird's nictitating membrane (extra eyelid that protects a bird's eye in flight or while eating). Man, I'm also just noticing how large this bird's eye is in relation to its head--it could give an owl a run for its money on big eyes.

We got in a plethora of vireos and normally this time of year, it's a bunch of red-eyed vireos, but didn't get any of those. But seemed like we were getting anything but. The above bird just confused me. It had a bunch of yellow, so I thought "Ah, Philadelphia vireo!" Alas, no, it's a warbling vireo. That's a vireo I just don't pay that much attention to, the first time I really worked to get a look (you tend to hear them more than see them) I was rewarded with a really drab gray bird. But they can have some splashes of yellow--these are the birds that some birder's describe saying, "If I could seize one, I would squeeze one, and I'd squeeze it 'til it squirts." Not sure what exactly it wants to squeeze or what that birder had on his mind when they made that one up.

Now, here is a Philadelphia vireo--the yellow goes down the chest. We got in a few of these.

And then we got in a dazzling yellow-throated vireo. Not a bad day of banding.

Random Meowing Catbird

I think this is a young catbird--note it is banded. I digivideoed it at Carpenter Nature Center.

Young Grosbeak

So, I'm in Rhode Island at the moment hanging at the Swarovski Headquarters. I'm eating lunch (real mashed potatoes, thank you very much, Swarovski Cafe) under a large crystal chandalier. Ah life. I'm giggling too because Non Birding Bill has just sent me a link to a limited edition Beverly Hills 90210 iPod Nano. But, if I download all the episodes, will I still have room for birdJam?

Check out this funky bird in hand that we got in at Carpenter Nature Center last Friday (boy am I behind on some blog entries or what. To those who are not as familiar with birds this might be a tad confusing but banding wise this was a fairly easy bird to figure out. We didn't have to debate too much with the Pyle over it. It's a hatch year male rose breasted grosbeak. Normally you have to look at feathers and see if they're truncate and fresh or relatively abraded, blah blah blah. But, because this dude looks like a female grosbeak with pink on the undersides of the wings, that tells us he's fresh from the nest and male.

It this upclose head shot you can see the gape at the corners of his beak indicating a young bird. Don't get me wrong, even though he's young, that beak is still quite capable of breaking the skin. Here's hoping he survives his first migration and visits us again next spring.

Okay, now back to looking at naked binoculars.

A Waxwing And Some Woodpeckers

Check out what we got in the nets on Friday at Carpenter Nature Center. No that's not a female cardinal tarted up with excessive eyeliner, that's a cedar waxwing. There are waxwings around Carpenter, and by their behavior, I'm sure they are nesting, but I am always too distracted to figure out where the nest is.

We were actually able to age this bird. Notice something missing? Check the wings--there's no "wax" on the wing. This is actually a second year bird (it hatched last summer). Waxwings do not get those red waxy tips until their second fall. The waxy tips are the result of a astaxanthin, a carotenoid pigment. We also had to measure the yellow tips on the tail--they are shorter in younger birds than they are in the adult birds.

Here's a female red-winged blackbird. These birds just look kind of like an overgrown sparrow when you see the flying around marshes, but they are quite pretty up close and in hand. Note that she also has reddish shoulder patches, similar to the male of the species.

The big excitement of the day was a male northern flicker in the net. You can tell he's male by his black mustache. I had actually just stepped outside with a male goldfinch that I had just banded and was thinking, "Oh, this would be a good picture for the blog, when I noticed something large in the net with a white rump. I immediately let the goldfinch go (we'll get more, so I can get a photo another day) and walked quickly to the nets.

The flicker started to fly and I noticed that it was actually on the other side of the net than I was on. Also, as it flew, I could see it was only caught by one foot. I heard more banders coming out of the building so I just reached through the net, and put my hand over the flick and secured it against my body. Our master bander, Jim Fitzpatrick got hold of the flicker on my side and I went to the other side of the net. In less than a minute, the flicker was out of the net, and Jim banded him.

The bird was a study in elegant design, beauty--not bad for an ant specialist. Check out the yellow feather shafts on the wing feathers that give this bird the old name "yellow-shafted flicker."

Check out that yellow when it flies.

Another interesting bird that came in was a recently fledged red-bellied woodpecker. It looks enough like a red-bellied woodpecker, but the red on the head is a little weird and doesn't match up with the coloration on males and females.

Another interesting bird that came in was a recently fledged red-bellied woodpecker. This bird just had a small red patch on the top of the head. So, we had to break out the Peter Pyle banding book to see if we could find a clear way to sex this bird. We could measure either the spikey part of the tongue, or the culmen--which is basically the upper mandible of the bird. Females have smaller culmens and tongue tips than males. We came up with female based on measurements.

I also pointed out the gape on the above bird. That's one way you can tell an immature bird in some species, that yellow corner on the bill. Keep your eye open for that with the birds that are showing up at your feeders.

Frisky Finches Already?

I forgot to mention that on Friday at Carpenter, I watched a pair of goldfinches gathering nesting material! They usually don't start that until late June early July when the thistle down is out. Have I just been ignoring them and they do start nest building early if old cattail down is available? I will have to pay more attention.

Longevity

Took a little bit of a blogging break over the weekend. Non Birding Bill and I celebrated our ten year wedding anniversary. Always nice to reestablish the pair bond.

I had longevity on the brain on Friday, not only by anticipating the weekend, but because we got some old birds in the nets at Carpenter Nature Center. Normally, we'll get one or two retraps in a session and one of those birds might be a few years old, but this time we got in several older downy woodpeckers. There must have been something in the air:

A downy woodpecker originally banded 5-2-03 as an after second year bird was retrapped 5-30-08!

Another downy woodpecker originally banded on 11-14-03 as an after hatch year bird was retrapped on 12-19-03, 4-28-06 and 5-30-08.

A third downy woodepecker originally banded 11-5-04 and retrapped 5-30-08!

Though our oldest down on Friday was over seven years old and possibly a record for Carpenter, that's not the oldest down woodpecker. According to the Bird Banding Lab, the oldest downy woodpecker on record was eleven years old and eleven month.

Carpenter Banding In May

We had a great sampling of birds come into the nets on Friday...and lots of people came to enjoy the beautiful day outdoors and watch what we do at Carpenter Nature Center. I have finished my banding class and am an official apprentice--with a certificate. I'm not sure what I will eventually do with this, my primary goal was just to be a better volunteer for Carpenter and I really do feel so much better taking birds out of nets and processing them now--even birds like Bitey McBitersons in the above photo (Bitey McBitersons is the lesser known folk name of the quick to nip northern cardinal). The little boy in the above photo is Aaron. He and his mother followed us around and Aaron was a big help to me--when we would have several birds in the nets, I would put them in bags and he helped carry the bags back to the processing station. Several bags of chickadees, sparrows, and warblers can be heavy. It's always nice to encounter a helpful gentleman in the field--thanks, Aaron!

Check out the awesomeness that is the clay-colored sparrow! Drink in its brown and gray goodness. We had two come into the nets just about a foot from each other. I suspect it was some territorial chasing on their part. Okay, now note the bill of the clay-colored sparrow above. Now, check out the second one below:

It had some kind of nasty gunk on the tip. I wondered if it had foraged and got some mud on the tip or if it had been eating some old berries that crusted up the tips or what was going on. The bird appeared otherwise to be very healthy.

A big highlight of the day was this female Canada warbler. Even though she's not as bright as the male, she is a very striking bird. Another highlight was a chickadee that was already banded. When we looked up its banding number, we discovered that the female chickadee was first trapped and banded in January 2003 and at that time she was in her second year. Think of that--a six year old female chickadee still going strong. Incredible!

Common yellow throats were probably the most common warble we got in the nets. I just love these guys up close. As we were getting birds out of the nets, I didn't have my binoculars or my digiscoping equipment with me, guaranteeing that something super cool would fly by--and it did. A red-tailed hawk with a snake! At first, I thought it was a falconry bird with jesses and a leash hanging down (Jim said some falconers had been by recently tracking a "lost" red-tail, but that bird did not have a leash, just two jesses, or leather anklets attached). Another Carpenter volunteer was smart and had his binoculars handy and could see that it was, in fact a snake. What was strange was that the red-tail disappeared in the trees with the snake and about ten minutes later reappeared and just kind of hung in the air with the snake hanging behind it. The hawk didn't appear to be in any rush to get it to a nest or land and eat it, just kind of slowly grabbed a thermal and glided along. I later asked my buddy Amber if she had any idea why the red-tail would appear to be carrying the snake around, almost as if flying with a type of trophy, showing it off. That's not a smart thing to do, if anything it kind of advertises to other predators to come and steal your food. She wondered if the adult red-tail had young in the nest and it was about time for them to leave and it was advertising the snake to get them to fly out and learn to hunt on their own? That seems very plausible, but once again, birds leave me with more questions than answers.

Carpenter Banding On KARE 11

I'm told that my fingernail polish is visible in this video about banding birds at Carpenter Nature Center on KARE 11. I have not watched it. Now sleep and on to some hardcore digimiscopin'.

What I Missed At Carpenter Today

I may be at the World Series of Birding. I may even be feeling a little high on my horse because I got to see a wood sandpiper today. However, Larry Sirvio just emailed over his photo of what came into the banding nets at Carpenter Nature Center this morning:


Arrrgh. I am just pea green with envy! Great photo, Larry!

From White-throats To White-Crowneds

This has to be a quick and dirty post, I have an early flight in the morning.

This morning while at banding class at Carpenter Nature Center, I looked around and everyone had a white-crowned sparrow like the above bird in their hands, a little different from the white-throated sparrows a couple of weeks ago.

We did get in one male yellow-rumped warbler. It's still a tad chilly here and the insects are not out in full force so the insect eating birds are still having to improvise. One male yellow-rumped warbler was foraging on the ground at one of the feeding stations. As I watched, a downy woodpecker flew in and began pecking on the suet cage. As the downy pecked, tiny pieces of suet fell to the ground and the warbler would scurry to snarf up the suet scraps.

I was painfully pinched by a female cardinal today. The funny thing was that she was barely caught in the nets. When I walked over to retrieve her, she clamped down on a tiny piece of flesh on my inner hand (worst pinch I've ever had--owie) and pretty much rolled out. Had she not clamped down on my hand, she probably would have easily gotten herself out of the nets. Above, Erin is banding her. She had the genius idea of letting the cardinal bite the bag, while she placed a band on her foot. The cardinal is actually holding the hole bag in her mouth above the ground--that's some bite.

We got in a couple of interesting sparrows too. Above is a field sparrow--check out that pink beak!

And here's a Lincoln's sparrow, migration is really kicking in. Speaking of migration, have you seen the story that scientists may have cracked the bird navigation code?

And now I must go to sleep. Tomorrow I head for Cape May and The World Series of Birding. I don't know what's my favorite part: saying that I'm going to the World Series of Birding or that I'm on the Swarovski Digiscoping Team. And at some point I'm going to have to tell you guys about the rules for this thing...and the handy warbler study aid I've been using from birdJam. I kid you not, thanks to birdJam, I now have a playlist that consists of nothing but warbler chip notes.

Migration Floodgates Opened At Carpenter Nature Center

We had so many birds fly into the nets today (like the Nashville warbler above) at Carpenter Nature Center that I did not have a chance to document them all. I really felt more like a helper today as opposed to someone under foot. It was awesome, I was getting birds out nets--even uber challenging ones, I was using my Pyle book and my Pyle dichotomous key and even understanding it to age and sex birds--it was just sweet. Hey, Peter Pyle, have I thanked you lately for making the words "truncate" and "abraded" part of my daily vocabulary? Perhaps next time I get my hair done I will tell my stylist Rachel, "I would like the bangs fresh and truncate and the back to be tapered and relatively abraded with pale to buffy edging."

You can see his little rusty feathers on his crown. Migration was in full swing, as I was taking birds out of the nets I could hear red-eyed vireos singing and Jim Fitzpatrick, our instructor could hear a towhee.

And eventually it was trapped and banded. Jim said that he thinks this eastern towhee may be a first time banded bird for CNC--he got to do the honors of banding this bird. It was an exciting bird to see up close. This particular male's eyes were not bright red, but more of a rust.

Check out how the eyes on this male perfectly matches the rufus on his flanks. Very cool bird. Just as we stepped out to let the towhee go, he made a few odd squealing sounds and from the nearby woods we heard an uncertain, "Towhee?" Jim and I looked at each other--there was another towhee was in the woods. We let him go and he flew in the direction of the towhee call. What a bonus bird.

A surprise today were two clay-colored sparrows. My fellow classmate Sue heard them out on the prairie but we didn't expect them in the nets. Two came in at the same time in the same net, I wonder if this was related to mating? Two males chasing each other or a male in pursuit of a female?

I thought this was going to be my big challenge bird today--a female ruby-crowned kinglet. She was so tiny, it was like trying to get a dust bunny out of the nets. I took a deep breath, grabbed a toothpick to help remove the net tangled around the wings and got it out. Woof. I got her in the bag and eventually got to band her. She was so light, I decided to take her outside to band her. I wasn't used to banding such a tiny bird and chances were could that she could slip from my fingers in process. I thought it would be better to just have her fly away totally than get loose in the building and hit a window. All went well, I got the tiny band on her, measured her wings, and away she went.

But, she was not the most challenging bird of the day for me. It was this male rose-breasted grosbeak (he still has some of his brown juvenile plumage from last year--that made aging him a little easier). At one point we had several birds waiting to be processed but we hadn't checked the nets. I asked Jim what would be helpful, helping to band or doing a round to check the nets. He told me to check the nets and if there were several in one net to give a shout and someone would come out to help. I checked one net and there were four birds--including the grosbeak. We had been warned that grosbeaks and cardinals would bite the crap out of our fingers. I thought about saving the grosbeak for Jim and concentrating on the chipping sparrows, but I realized that I would have to learn on one of these sooner or later, might was well be now.

At first, I tried to hold him so that he couldn't reach my fingers as I tried to get him out of the net, but that just wasn't getting him free, so I changed my grip and she started to bite my hand. When he would get the entire tip of my finger in the grasp of that fat beak--it wasn't too bad, almost like being bitten by a sharp-shinned hawk. However, when he would use his beak to pinch and grab a tiny piece of skin...ZOWIE, that hurt. He also completely scraped off the nail polish on my index finger. But, I didn't have it so bad.

Fellow classmate Kelly worked to get a downy woodpecker out of the nets and he went after her fingers like Homer Simpson in a donut factory. Boy, that woodpecker seemed to know where to strike, right on the cuticle and along a knuckle. Downy woodpecker blood lust, who knew?

Kelly took her banding wounds in stride.

I ended my morning by banding a male brown headed cowbird. When he was in the net, he was incredibly docile, but as soon as I had him in the bag he freaked and was fluttering like crazy. Since cowbirds lay their eggs in the nests of other birds contributing to the decline of many species of birds including thrushes and warblers, it was tempting to do some experimental neutering on this male, I could not. The CNC permits only allow us to place a band on the birds and measure them, so I had to let him go.

The male cowbird really is kind of a striking bird up close. They filled an important niche when the bison roamed the prairie by following the large herds and eating the insects kicked up by the large animals. The traveler lifestyle isn't conducive to raising chicks, so they evolved over time to lay eggs in nests of other species of birds and those parents would raise their young. There aren't any herds to follow anymore, so the cowbirds follow the sedentary humans. One female cowbird depositing 60 eggs while following a herd of bison for miles and miles is one thing. One female cowbird depositing 60 eggs in a neighborhood can cause problems.

I have to admit that after spending the winter banding mostly juncos, I wondered how I would handle doing several species in one day, but I think I'm going to be fine. Can't wait to see what the rest of May brings and who knows, maybe by the end of summer I'll be ready for those difficult flycatchers.

Eagle Nest and Tons on the Horizon

For the readers who don't go to Disapproving Rabbits but would like to hear some of the sounds rabbits can make, check out this video of Cinnamon grunting.

So much to blog and so little time! I got the word from Lorraine that the bees have landed. I was hoping that they would arrive tomorrow or Friday and I would hive them on Friday but they came today. Right now I'm trying to rearrange my schedule to install them on Thursday. I'm hoping Non Birding Bill will come and use his mad video directin' skillz to make a short on how we install our bees. I can't help but giggle and think of two years ago when we first hatched the crazy bee plan. Mr. Neil and I with visions of hexagons and buzzing and Lorraine and NBB heavily protesting. Both saying we were not going into the bee business because Mr. Neil would be out of the country writing and I would be at some bird thing and Lorraine and NBB would be the ones to have to deal with the bees and they under no circumstances would not be helping with the bees...and here was Lorraine dealing with early bee arrival while Mr. Neil was away and I was doing a bird thing.

I stopped by the bald eagle nest at the 5-8 Club to get a last view of it before the trees leaf out. The chicks have hatched and the male and female are stopping by to feed them throughout the day.

Word on the street with the banders is that many eagles are about two weeks behind from last year because of the long winter. Some banding of eagle chicks was supposed to start next week and they are now scheduled to start on May 12. Eagles are usually good with starting early, they don't need water to be open, but osprey do. I know many lakes in northern Minnesota are still frozen, I wonder if they will be late this year too? Speaking of which, the are talking flurries again for the Twin Cities this weekend--for the first weekend in May. If that happens, that means that we will have had a six month winter. Our first snow was last November 5. That's the hardcore Minnesota winter we know and love!

The weather can't put a hold on the rest of migration. We had one intense day of banding at Carpenter Nature Center today, which I will get to tonight. The towhee above is just a hint. Boy, wasn't it just the other day that I blogged about wanting to get a photo of that crazy towhee eye? Sometimes, wishes do come true in the short term.

Here are a couple of other hints: What bird hates black sparkly nail polish more than titmice hate purple nail polish?

And, what bird caused this blood bath? That's not my finger...dodged a bullet with that bird!

Turning A Corner With Banding

Wednesday was a glorious 70 degree day and just a fun morning of banding--I'm finally getting my footing with getting birds out of the net. We got in quite a few white-throated sparrows like the bird above.

KARE 11 came back to film a few more shots for the bird segment they are working on. Jim Fitzpatrick is getting interviewed above. And once again, as I was trying to get a bird out of the net I heard, "Hey, hold still, we're coming over to film that!" Happily, there was no panic attack like last week. I ended up doing it twice and I really feel like a turned a corner in my learning process. I have to admit that after last week, I was questioning whether or not I should keep going--but thanks to some extra practice last Sunday and the patience and teaching of some of the other banders at Carpenter I feel like I'm back on track with little birds. The only thing I worry about is that I don't dress for tv when I'm banding at Carpenter, I tend to dress for comfort--ah well.

The most interesting bird that we got on Wednesday was the last bird in the traps--a junco (quite possibly the last junco I will band this spring). When I was taking it out of the bag, I could see that it had a pink rump. Closer inspection revealed that they were not pink feathers:

The bird was missing a large patch of feathers on its rump. It must have happened a couple of weeks ago, pin feathers are already growing above the tail. You could also see that in the middle of the pink skin was a healed over puncture wound. Something had attacked this junco and it survived! And it was still strong enough to migrate! At this point, the juncos we are getting at Carpenter are ones that spent the winter further south like in Missouri or Texas. Somewhere along the way, something tried to eat it. We made a note about the wound and it will be interesting to see if the junco is retrapped and how long it survives.

Here's a photo pointing out the growing feathers and the scabbed over wound. You can also see the uropygial gland also called the preen gland. They squeeze this gland and oil comes out that is used when preening. I wonder if this wound is from a shrike? Shrikes kill with their beaks? It could also have been a sharp-shinned talon too. I don't think it's from a cat, small animals usually don't survive that. Cats have a bacteria called Pasteurella that will infect the bite or claw wound and kill the small animal within a few days.

So many things learned at banding.

File Under: That Had To Hurt Comin' Out

I was sent this story about a California wildlife rehabber who found an injured hawk:

A hawk was found dead along a California highway with the claw of a songbird protruding from its chest.

It's not clear, however, if the partially digested meal, one claw somehow managing to get back out from a terribly wrong location, had anything to do with the hawk's death.

On the evening of Sunday, March 30, Julia Di Sieno of the Animal Rescue Team in California noticed the dead sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus) while driving a sick night heron to the Solvang Veterinary Hospital. Sharp-shinned hawks are birds of prey and considered stellar hunters. They are the smallest hawks that reside in the United States and Canada.

"So I did a U-turn, put on my gloves and picked the bird up, and immediately rushed him to the vet where he died in my hands," Di Sieno told LiveScience. "Upon examination, we noticed that there was a small bird foot out of its chest."

A pouch in the hawk's chest area called the crop had ripped open and the songbird, which had been a meal for the hawk, was spilling out. You can see this in a larger version of the above photo here. There is also another angle of the hawk here.

"We removed a good portion of this bird [the songbird], which was partially digested," Di Sieno said by telephone yesterday. The hawk had apparently just finished downing what might have been a sparrow, she said. "He [the dead hawk] even still had down feathers and meat on his beak."

However, Di Sieno said she is not sure how the hawk died or what caused its crop to burst open.

I'm not sure what happened. It the larger versions of the photos, the head looks really flat and more like a Cooper's hawk than a sharp-shinned--but the photos are at odd and unnatural angles. Also, the leg looks like a blackbird leg. Either way, I don't think that the prey ripped it's way out. Sharp-shins and Cooper's typically do not swallow prey whole--they are smaller and they rip it apart. I doubt whatever bird it was would have had a chance to claw it's way out of the crop. My guess is that when the hawk was hit by a car, the impact or some part of the vehicle cause the very full crop to get ripped open. But we don't know for sure and it makes for some interesting conjecture.

Speaking of bird feet undigested...

I found some interesting excrement at Carpenter Nature Center yesterday! It looks like mammal poop and that the mammal had eaten a large bird. Do you see the long bird toes in the above photo?

This chunk had shafts from feathers in it. The bird wasn't white, but the shafts got bleached as they were worked through a digestive tract.

The toes were just fascinating. I'm guessing that they are pheasant toes, but turkey is a possibility--both can be found at Carpenter. While I was taking photos I could hear a pheasant giving its old rusty car horn call not too far away. Still there are many questions: What sort of mammal is this from? Red fox? Gray fox? Coyote? Was it a turkey or pheasant? And how much did it hurt to have those bird claws coming through the back door?

Trapped Squirrel

Sometimes squirrels get trapped in the Potter Traps for songbirds at Carpenter. We have to get them out, so I usually use a stick to open the door to avoid being inadvertently clawed. Today's squirrel was a little slow on the uptake:

Spring Birds At Carpenter Nature Center

It was another action packed day at Carpenter Nature Center. Despite the big seasonal movement and warm temperatures, we didn't get huge amounts of birds. Above, some of the guys in the glass are playing with a spectrograph--there's always something scientific going on. At first they were just looking through it, but then Paul (in the pink shirt) tried to take a photo with his digital camera. Can we party or what!

Local weatherman Sven Sundgaard stopped by to film a bird segment for KARE 11. Jim Fitzpatrick (the guy teaching my banding class) is demonstrating how we band birds. I had a minor panic attack today. While they were filming a segment, a chickadee flew into the nets. I need practice getting birds out of the net and chickadees are one of the hardest birds to take out. They grab on to the net with both feet and do not let go. While you are trying to take the small ball of feathers out from entanglement, they peck at your fingernails--usually right where the nail meets the cuticle or between the nail and skin (if you're thinking "ow" you're thinking right).

I thought that I had it easy, since most everyone was over watching the filming, I could practice getting the chickadee out of the nets without everyone staring and making me nervous. After a few moments, fellow classmates Paul and Sue came to help--and I needed it. The wind kept blowing in and out of my face and Sue get reminding me to take deep cleansing breaths to stay calm. I almost had the chickadee out (and cuticles intact) when I hear a shout behind me. "Hey, Sharon, hold on, we want to film you getting the chickadee out of the net."

"Nooooooooo!" was my panicked response. Even though the bird was already mostly out, I could see that the net was twisted and I needed calm to get it out. However, the crew and group was around me before I knew it. Sue continued like a faithful Lamaze instructor, "deep cleansing breaths" but it was to no avail--my hands were shaking and no amount of being told, "Just calm down was going to help." The camera was on my fingers and even though I do tv segments all the time, that's me talking and doing things I'm 110% confident in. I'm still learning about banding and was just not ready for that audience. Sure enough, the bird fluttered and ended up tangled in the net again and I had Jim take over. Too much pressure. I know I'll get the hang of it like I got the grip down, but it's just going to take lots of practice.

But on to some of the other birds. We got in our first robin of the year. Someone else actually banded this bird, but I wanted to hold it for just a second. I have been handling tiny juncos all winter and I wanted to see what a big beefy bird like a robin would be like in my tiny hands--just fine. Whew.

We still have some juncos around. These are not the ones we've had all winter, those guys have already gone north. This one probably wintered in Missouri, Texas, or perhaps Illinois. One of the juncos I had was was missing a talon...or is it claw on a songbird...whatever it's called, the bird was missing a toenail. It looked like an old wound that was well healed over and the bird had adapted to it very well.

We did get in one fox sparrow--wow, this has just been fox sparrow week for me. They're at Staring Lake, they're at Mr. Neil's, they're pretty much all over the Twin Cities. Talk about a beefy sparrow--these guys are robust! And if you're wondering what the big deal is about this brown bird, check this out:

Look at those gorgeous rufus colors on the wings, rump, and tail. That's not just any brown, that's a special brown. Really, it is. Just soak in that reddish brown for a few minutes.

Like Sue says, "Deep cleansing breaths" breathe in the fox sparrow, breath out. Breathe it in, deep cleansing fox sparrow.

Non brown birds will be coming to the blog soon. I swear.

Song Sparrow Video For Fun

I like how the song starts kind of half-assed and then gets more gumption when a neighboring song sparrow joins in.

Early Spring Sparrows

Winter storm warning starts today, April 10 at 4pm! We might be getting 4 - 6 inches of snow sometime within the next 48 hours. I shouldn't complain...Duluth is supposed to get blizzard conditions (not blizzard like, just blizzard).

While I was checking the traps yesterday, I heard my first field sparrows of the year (above). When we finished banding, I took a few minutes to go out and look for them--there were several. That is such a sweet sound of spring and summer.

There were a few song sparrows (above) around too. They've been around for a couple of weeks now. Although, some song sparrows don't leave the Twin Cities in winter. When I worked at a bird store on the west side, we had them at the feeder all winter long.

The field sparrow is such a cute brown bird! I was really enjoying the time with the field sparrows yesterday. Tax time has been rough this year. We put it off (our own darn fault) and we're gonna have to pay and it's going to hurt and we've irritated our accountant--just all those crazy things that many of us go through this one week in April every year. I loved just standing out in the prairie at Carpenter Nature Center surrounded by the sweet songs of the field sparrows, soaking it in. And no matter how late we are with our taxes or how much we end up owing, birds are always a comfort. I tried to take a video through my scope of the field sparrow singing for people who may not know what they sound like (it reminds many of a ping pong ball bouncing on a table). There's a little heat shimmer, but you get the idea:

Junco Processing

I just got a call from my buddy Clay asking if I would be interested in being on the Swarovski Digiscoping Team at The World Series of Birding. Insert giant coffee spray through my nose here. Whoot! I am so excited, I've wanted to be on a World Series of Birding team since I was a kid. This means I'll see some kickin' birds, eat at Al's Pancake House, hang with WildBird on the Fly, and fulfill a childhood dream. May is going to be SO much fun! And after the heartbreak of dealing with taxes this week, I really need this.

Today was another day of banding chock full 'o juncos and not white-throated sparrows. I tell ya' right now, I'm feeling some confidence with a handful of junco, but in a few short weeks, all that comfort of aging and sexing will change to overwhelming and panic. Instead of a mono species day, it will be warblers, finches, flycatchers, chickadees, nuthatches, catbirds, and sparrows--just to name a few. Pile on top of that a whole new confusing criteria for aging and sexing. Yikes. But, while we have juncos, I thought I'd point out some of the things we look for when they are in hand. Above, we have a garden variety junco perched on top of a snag. It looks well put together, clean feathers in place.

But check out the tail of a junco I banded today. This is what Pyle might call "relatively abraded" when asked about the feathers on the tail. Think about watching juncos feed--they're on the ground, kicking stuff about looking for food--the tail is bound to experience some wear and tear. Depending on whether or not a junco has some fresh outer tail feathers or unmolted ones, we can get an idea of age (combined with other plumage differences).

We also use eye color as a means of aging. Younger dark-eyed juncos have gray eyes that get browner and eventually more red. This dude was fairly brown.

Now, here's something you don't want to hear from the person next to you when you have a bird in your hand, "Hey, is that avian pox on that bird's toe?" This bird had white dots on a toe on each foot. We weren't sure if it was avian pox or just some discoloration to this individual bird (any readers out there have any idea). We're not a rehab facility and the bird looked otherwise healthy so we released it after it was banded. Even though I can't really get avian pox and we weren't sure if it was pox, I didn't want to risk infecting other birds or bringing it home to my cockatiel, so I scrubbed my hands after I let it go.

Juncos With White Wing Bars

It was another big junco day at Carpenter Nature Center on Friday morning--we banded 56! I think I'm finally getting to a certain comfort level handling small birds. Of course, I have all sorts of stuff memorized about dark-eyed juncos--wing measurements to tell sex, eye color to determine age...soon it will be a whole new ball game with several new species.

While we were banding birds, a couple of people from The Raptor Center stopped by with an adult bald eagle to release--with a news crew in tow! Above, Al Rasmussen (on the left) is about to be handed a bald eagle he found injured on his property. The eagle was suffering from lead poisoning and had made a full recovery at TRC.

Here's Al releasing the bird. You can see the Fox 9 news crew behind him--I felt bad for the camera man. He had positioned himself about where I was so the sun would be behind us for a well lit shot. However, the on air talent that was with him insisted that he move to the other side...aiming the camera towards the sun. If you go to the Fox 9 website, you can see the video...and that the on air talent apparently didn't know where he was. He wrote that the eagle was release at the Eagle Center in Hastings. The Eagle Center is in Wabasha, the eagle was released at Carpenter. Oh, Fox 9, will you ever learn?

After the release, we went back to banding. I took a junco out of the net and noticed something funky right away with the wings. Funky is a color description in the Pyle book (the bird bander's bible), but looking at the bird, you could see that this junco had white wing bars. I grabbed a National Geographic Field Guide and found that there is a subspecies called the white-winged junco which has two wing bars and is a tad larger than a dark-eyed junco. The white-winged should have a #4 retrice (tail feather) that is white or almost white. This bird had an almost all white #4. It was on the large side and I thought I nailed it and felt proud of myself for using the Pyle book without beating my head against the wall.

Alas, this bird is very dark (and true white-wings are very light) and records for white-wings in Minnesota are few and far between. This bird may actually be a dark-eyed junco with white wing bars, but not a white-winged junco. Confused yet? It gets worse. Juncos used to be divided into five separate species (one being the white-winged) and are now lumped into one species (the dark-eyed junco) so it doesn't really matter--white-winged junco or just a junco with white wing bars--this is still a dark-eyed junco. But why do we need a subspecies of dark-eyed junco that has white wing bars called white-winged junco and yet also have just dark-eyed juncos with white wing bars that are not white-winged juncos? Oh crap, did I just make the universe implode again? The bird is under review and I'm going to go have a drink now. Ah well, this is what training is all about, right?

We heard purple finches singing around Carpenter and even watched a female flitting in the trees. Another woman who is in the banding class with me is named Erin and she caused one of my best belly laughs on Friday. She walked over to one of the ground traps and shouted, "Oh, hey, it's a house finch!" She stuck her hand inside the trap and then we heard, "Oooooooooooooooooooch!" The rest of us looked at each other and said, "Purple finch!" Even though house finches and purple finches look similar, there's much more bite in the large bill of the purple finch. Look at that above photo, he's ready to bite someone there.

Look at that raspberry coloration on the head--just drink that in for a moment--I kind of need that myself after the headache inducing junco. Breathe in the purple finch, breathe out the purple finch. In. Out. In. Out.

After we closed down the traps and nets at Carpenter, I nipped over to the Prescott railroad bridge to see some peregrine falcons. And I got a great shot of a peregrine butt (or should I say vent). The male and female both made a few passes at pigeons, so that was fun. I do have a question for the pigeons--seriously, you guys think that roosting and nesting as the same bridge as a peregrine falcon is a good idea? Really?

I also stopped at Point Douglas to check out the waterfowl. Above is a male redhead displaying to a female. Ah, duck love, beautiful and humorous all at once. I met a fellow birder who I know mostly through email. He was out on his lunch break watching the scaup. In Minnesota, we tend to get lesser scaup, but greater scaup are possible. However, telling them apart can be a bear.

I tried to see if I could pick out some greater scaup and thought I had, but my better duck photos are all of lesser scaup. But ducks are a good sign, that means the water is opening up and spring is really coming. It's so fun living here: Monday we get eight inches of snow, Friday it's sunny and 60 degrees.

Bluebird Splosion At Carpenter

Oh, we are getting into dangerous territory. The last few days have been sincerely spring-like in Minnesota: forty degree temps, sun, melted snow and lots of returning birds like the killdeer in the above. What typically happens here is that we will have a few days of this and out of the blue will come either a fourteen degree day or eight inches of snow which leads to extreme crankiness among the citizens.

I headed out to Carpenter Nature Center on Friday for a little extra banding practice. I'm finally starting to feel a bit more comfortable handling small birds. I reported on Wednesday that we saw a song sparrow around the traps but didn't get one in, well on Friday we got two in the traps (that's one in the above photo). Check out that massive central breast spot. I've been so used to juncos and chickadees, that this bird felt quite beefy and robust in my hand. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when it's my turn to do a larger bird like a blue jay or hairy woodpecker. I have small hands and am now used to tiny birds. I've done large birds like sharp-shinned hawks before, but you can't hold a blue jay the same way you hold a raptor. Oh well, that's what training is all about.

Since it was so nice and sunny, many of use walked outside. We could hear distant sandhill cranes overhead, a couple of meadowlarks and lots of eastern bluebirds (above). I followed a pair around the small prairie trying to get photos. The male was excited to show the female any nest cavity he could find. He showed her a bluebird house and then guided her over to an old snag with a few woodpecker holes. He perched atop the snag, excitedly singing as she tried to fit through the hole...alas, she was too large to slip inside--talk a dating disaster: "Honey, I've found a great place to raise a couple of kids! Oh wait, you're too big to fit inside? Awkward!"

I'm sure any man who has purchased the wrong sized clothing for their lady friend can relate.

The bluebirds were singing like crazy trying to decide on territory boundaries. A fight between at least three pairs broke out at one point and then a fourth female flew in for a total of seven bluebirds. They have such a pretty and subtle song, that it's hard to take it seriously when they fight.

I've been anxious to try out my Remembird on some bird songs. I got it in January and have loved it for its audio note taking ability but it also has a microphone for picking out bird songs. Even though the bluebird was some distance away, I was able to pick up his song with the Remembird You can hear it below. It's not professional but wow, did it do the trick. It's not loud, but to be able to record an unknown bird song that I can take home and compare with my iPod--this is fantastic. I can tell, that I'm going to be lovin' my Remembird during warbler season, this is a really cool tool for note taking in the field.

Wednesday

I just had a weird, weird Wednesday. First I read a headline on CNN about a high school teacher in trouble for using a banned book in her classroom. Curious about what backwards school system that was, I clicked on the link and discovered it was my old high school: Perry Meridian High School. And that the teacher in trouble was my old Speech and Drama teacher. You can read about it here. I remember that when I was in school I wore a shirt that read, "Celebrate Freedom: Read A Banned Book" and listed a bunch of classics that had been banned. How did I not get suspended? Well, they did let one student wear a "Hitler World Tour" shirt so the clothing policy was lax.

It was another junco bonanza at banding class at Carpenter Nature Center. This time we could hear them singing all over. Most of the juncos were new birds, not too many retraps. I wonder if the birds that we got on Wednesday morning are from further south: Indiana? Texas? They're heading north towards their breeding grounds.

Here's a junco being let go--this new camera can get some really fun shots. We did see one song sparrow hopping around some of the ground traps and we were trying to use our mind control to get it to hop into the trap. It's funny, we'll get them in the summer, but it's been a few months so a different species is exciting. I'm sure by September we'll be dreaming of juncos again.

When I finished, I drove over to the Prescott Railroad Bridge to see if any peregrines were about and sure enough, one unbanded bird was in the sun. Right after I snapped this photo, it hopped off the rail and disappeared so I wasn't able to digiscope it. I looked around and noted a spotting scope attached to a car. I walked over and found that is was Bud Tordoff. He said the unbanded bird was a male and he was watching for the female who is banded to try and read her numbers. Always a great day to run into that Peregrine Guru.

Raptors were really on the move yesterday. On my way home, I passed several bald eagles chasing each other and even saw a talon grab. Red-tails were chasing each other, I saw two more peregrines doing a fly over and though they're not raptors I did see some turkey vultures catching a few thermals. Spring is definitely on the upswing.

Pouring More Salt

As if missing the northern shrike banding weren't bad enough, my buddy Larry Sirvio has sent more photos of what I missed at Carpenter's banding this morning!

Hm. I don't think that turkey is going to fit into that Potter Trap...and the next photo I think deserves a caption contest:

Here is a first year sharp-shinned sitting on top of a Potter Trap with a freshly trapped junco. I bet a junco has never been so happy to be trapped in its life. Got any caption ideas? The one who makes me chuckle out loud wins their choice of a Kaufman Field Guide to Birds of North America or a Lang Elliot's Music of the Birds: A Celebration of Bird Song (with CD)--prizses courtesy of Houghton Mifflin.

Fall Banding At Carpenter Nature Center

Hey, check it out, it's Stardust Girl, proudly holding a bag full of angry red-bellied woodpecker. She's visiting from the Hoosier State of Indiana to see friends, watch the banding at Carpenter Nature Center and to attend the Disapproving Rabbits book release party. The party and signing exceeded my dreams. I really didn't expect that many people to show up, it was a blast and you can read about it here.


Another fun Friday banding songbirds at Carpenter Nature Center. It was interesting to note that we got in quite a few ground feeding birds. You have to kind of watch out when you let ground feeding birds go after you band them. Their natural tendency is to fly low for cover.

Unfortunately, that sometimes lands them right back into the nets! Doh! Yes, after I took the head shot of the cardinal, he was released and went right back into the nets. That's Jim Fox, one of the banders at Carpenter getting him out of the nets...again. Not an easy feat when the cardinal is trying to slice open your skin.

Cardinals weren't the only birds having blond moment (oops, did I anthropomorphize, sorry about that). The same thing happened with a few juncos--again, ground feeding birds looking for cover, get tangled in the net when they fly away. I got this guy out of the net and let him go on the other side. He chipped angrily to a tree. Dude, I may be responsible for the little bit of silver on the leg, but don't blame me when you fly into a net the second time in a day.

But let's not focus on that, let's just focus on the junco cuteness when in hand. I just cannot get enough of these guys! There's another species besides juncos who come to our feeders in winter and I saw my first one of the season in the nets at Carpenter on Friday:

Tree sparrows--these guys with the rusty cap similar to a chipping sparrow should be showing up to feeders about now in the north--all you southerns should have them soon enough. It's hard to see in this photo, but tree sparrows usually have a distinctive spot on their chest. I've had tree sparrows come right up to finch feeders, so don't just watch for them on the ground.

This bird was a surprise on many levels--we just don't get brown creepers too often. But the biggest surprise came as I was downloading the photos and my darling husband aka Non Birding Bill looked over and said, "Oh! Disapproving brown creeper!" I gave him a slack jawed look which he immediately interpreted and followed up with, "I've been around ya' for like 13 years--you pick stuff up."

I think it had more to do with one just being on Mr. Neil's window ledge in recent weeks. What's next, cats and dogs living together?

What was interesting was how we appeared to have gotten the creeper in the nets. As I said, it's just not one that we normally get in our set up, but if you notice in the above photo were Jim is trying to get the creeper out of the nets, you'll notice that the nets lean against a tree trunk. Based on where the bird was located, we think it was creeping up the tree and creeped (or do I mean crept, Amy?) right into the nets. Alas, when we let this one go, it too flew right back into the nets, clearly aiming for a tree trunk on the other side. We're excited about retraps at Carpenter, but we like a little more time between 'em.

Our final bird of the day was the handsomest house finch I have seen all year. When I first saw this bird on the feeders, I did a double take. He was so red, he might have passed as a purple finch to some. But that streaking on his flanks gives him away at ye olde house finche.

We did have one male house finch in the nets this morning with a slightly swollen eye-possibly the early stages of the eye disease they sometimes get. This bird was robust and healthy but I still made a point to wash my hands thoroughly after handling it.

Oh! I also have to point out one crazy little chickadee we had on the table. One of the best parts of banding is that we have a donut pool. Every Friday, someone picks up donuts and we all chip in a dollar. Donuts and banding--throw in Daniel Craig reading me Bent books and you have my idea of heaven. Anyhoo, when we take birds out of the nets, we put them in these mesh bags until they are banded. Jim had laid this bag full of chickadee on the table and has he was prepping the band, the chickadee had hopped over to his donut plate and started pecking at it through the mesh! On the one hand I admire the bird's cleverness, on the other the last thing the world needs is a chickadee souped up on sugar. Can you imagine?

Carpenter Banding

It was another beautiful day at Carpenter Nature Center--and busy! There were so many birds to band that I didn't have time to get photos of the Lincoln's sparrow, orange-crowned warbler, and the first junco of the season (although, I think I will have ample opportunity of getting junco photos in the near future). It's so weird to see juncos and hummingbirds all in the same day. I did have time to get photos of a palm warlber in the above photo. Here's another:

Thanks to all the readers who sent kind notes about my incorrect id in the blog when I originally posted this as a yellow-rumped warbler, they are correct, it is a palm warlbers. Although as soon as I got out of my car I could hear yellow-rumps thick in the trees--kissing sounds everywhere. I'm now to the point where I get to band whatever bird someone hands me or that I get out of the net. I thought this was exciting until I had to start aging and sexing the fall warblers. And if it's any consolation--it's not any easier to do them in hand than it is when they are in the trees. I think we ended saying this one was an after hatch year female. I would tell you how...but then I would have to kill you.

Here was a Tennessee warbler that Larry was banding. I was trying to help him age and sex this bird by reading through Pyle. We were trying to determine between after hatch year male and female. Here are just one of the differences according to Pyle: male--underparts with a moderate yellow wash and female--underparts lightly washed yellow.

Hmmmmm. Can you tell the difference between those two? Ah, Pyle, I kid, because I love. In all seriousness, Pyle is a helpful book to banders, but sometimes you come across weird bits like that and they just make you want to hit your head and against the table and say, "Huh?"

A fun surprise what a Philadelphia vireo. When it was first tangled in the net, I thought it was a warbler. But when I got it out, I knew it was some kind of vireo. They really are quite small and just to give you an idea, check out this photo at Hilton Pond of a green-breasted mango next to a Philadelphia vireo (that photo was taken in Costa Rica). That's one big hummer next to one small vireo.

We also banded a ruby-crowned kinglet. This little stinker was flashing its red crown like crazy when it was in the bag waiting to be banded, but once it was in hand, the ruby crown became subdued. You can see a hint of it in the above photo. The kinglet, half bird, half mouse.

After banding, I went out to get photos of some photos of unfettered birds among the autumn foliage. The song sparrows were quick to perch up to a little pishing. There were quite a few other sparrows lurking about in the brush: white-throated, Lincoln's, clay-colored, and one or two field sparrows.

I did find this sad looking song sparrow. It looks like it's asking, "Have you seen my tail anywhere?"

Now, off to bed, I have to get up early for a field trip I'm leading to Hawk Ridge in the morning. Also, if you still have not been to Carpenter this fall, it's still absolutely gorgeous. What are you waiting for? Great color and lots of apples on sale. Get thee hence!

Autumn Banding At Carpenter

It was absolutely stunning at Carpenter Nature Center this morning. Really, if you have never been there and live in the Twin Cities area, you should go now. The last of the late summer flowers are blooming, the leaves are changing color, and birds are all over the place!

It was such a pleasure to walk in this environment to the nets to get the warblers out. I was running a tad late to Carpenter this morning (thanks to a Rocky Horror Picture Show discussion on fm107) and all along the way, I could see raptors lifting off the bluffs along the Mississippi River and the St. Croix River. Thursday night, we had some bad storms with funnel clouds right at sunset. I wonder if the migrants were forced down and I was watching them leave. I saw several sharp-shinned hawks (one ambitious fellow was trying to pop a blue jay) and even a young peregrine as well as LOTS of harriers. The songbird banding was great at Carpenter.

We had a puzzling Nashville Warbler (above). The bird showed many characteristics of being male, but had NO rufus cap. But was way too yellow on the bottom to be female. So, take heart new birders, even in hand, fall warblers are tough to id. But, do note the warblers toes--Nashville warblers have yellow toes--cute!

The most exciting birds for me were the two above. It was just about time to take the nets down, and I was doing one last round to check for birds in the nets when I found in one of the nets right outside the nature center, two birds within a foot of each other. Recognized one right away. For some reason, chestnut-sided warblers and bay-breasted warblers get cross wired in my head. I know they are two separate species, but in my mind, there's not much difference in color between bay and chestnut.

I got this one out of the net and confirmed it was a fall male chestnut-sided warbler.

Larry got the second one out of the net and it turned out to be a fall bay-breasted warbler--in the nets at the same time, withing a few feet of each other--so sweet.

It was such an honor to hold these birds for a few moments as they start their trek to South America. Who knows, in a few nights these birds could be lurking in a bush in Illinois and then a week later be in St. Louis. Hm, side by side, these two don't look so hard to tell apart.

We also got in an eastern phoebe today. We've been getting in so many least flycatchers and alder flycatchers, that this looked like one beefy bird. If fooled me at first because it was so yellow. But after we banded the bird and let it go, you could hear a weak "fee bee" call. It's still learning the notes.

I was surprised to see a monarch lurking about on the prairie. It's still possible to see these guys.

I think this is an Atlantis fritillary, although a tad beat up. The last few remnant butterflies before winter sets in.

And, I leave you with one last photo of the chestnut-sided warbler. I have to get to sleep. It's now 10pm and I have to wake up at 4am to go up north for hawk trapping. I don't know what my Internet access will be like this weekend, but when I come home there should be some hot hawk banding photos.

Giggity.

The Browniest Of Birds

A cool front has moved in and it's finally starting to feel like autumn. It was another busy morning banding birds at Carpenter Nature Center--when I arrived, they had taken 15 birds out of one net! Incidentally, CNC is selling apples from the orchard (Zestars) and have some you pick raspberries (as if the birding were reason enough to visit).

I'm finally to the point where I'm an actual helper, really banding the birds and taking them out of the nets. For a long time, I just documented the events, but I'm finally to the point where I can be of some real use. I felt like joined the big kid table somewhat because I got to band a small empid flycatcher. They can be agony to id in the fall--even in hand six inches from your face. But with some help it was determined that the above bird was a willow flycatcher. This flycatcher was so young, that as we were taking it out of the net, it started making whiny calls and fluttering its wings--food begging behavior (kind of an odd little avian Stockholm syndrome there).

A surprise for me was a cedar waxwing in the nets. Such a pretty bird, almost like a female cardinal with a lot of make up on...which I think I've probably stated more than once in the blog...an probably will again.

Someone's bringin' waxy back! Check out the waxy appendages on those secondary flight feathers. For those curious, BNA says that the red bits are colored by astaxanthin, a carotenoid pigment and increase in size and number with the waxwing's age. If they don't have any, they are likely immature waxwings.

Later in the morning, someone from the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center came by with about 23 young mallards that had been raised in the waterfowl nursery. They are going to be released in a few days so we put bands on them. Interesting to note: if you hold a duck in just the right way, it can act as a very stinky squirt gun when it poops--just so you know.

The cool sunny day was so gorgeous, that I couldn't leave when we finished banding so I went out to take some photos. The prairie is glowing with late summer flowers. Above is a young song sparrow with its back to the wind. Take a look at the tail--feathers are still growing in.

A field sparrow popped up on some sumac, not too far from the song sparrow. As I was watching this bird, a second field sparrow flew in:

This one was carrying food. Curious, it chipped nervously while I walked the path and took photos. Eventually, it ducked down into the grasses and I could hear faint begging calls. Seriously? You guys went for another brood in Minnesota? It's early September, what's going to happen next week when the young fledge? Will you say, "Great, now that you've mastered flying five feet, you need to know that in the next couple of weeks, we're gonna fly a few thousand miles south...at night." I wonder if any studies have been done on migratory birds and multiple broods? Do birds hatched earlier in the summer that have had more time to master flight and catching food fare better than birds hatched late?

Another interesting thing about the second bird--it's wearing a band, it's been in the CNC nets at some point. Oh, and we had a very interesting retrap today--a female goldfinch who was originally banded SEVEN years ago. Incredible!

That concludes our regularly scheduled update of brown birds.

The Cleansing Nuthatch

I don't know why, but for some reason I'm have an overwhelming desire to seek out every republican in North America and have my picture taken with them...and I'm not even a republican, I'm not a democrat either but that's neither here nor there. Actually, I do know why, when someone I don't know starts to tell me what I should and shouldn't do and when I should be ashamed of myself, it immediately triggers a rebellion inside and I want to do the exact opposite.

So, I think it's time to embrace the red-breasted nuthatch:

Look at the nuthatch, breathe in the nuthatch. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. I had a gorgeous morning over at Carpenter Nature Center. The temperatures were cool, the sun was shining, and there was not the overwhelming sounds of the state fair. Ahhhhhhh.

It wasn't as busy as last week, but there were still lots of migrants moving through. Everywhere we went you could see flocks of birds flitting around. We got some warblers in the nets like the Nashville warbler above and a Tennessee warblers. I think we banded five red-eyed vireos and I got a video of one being released. With some birds, when you let them go, you can lay them flat on their backs and they sit for a moment before taking off. That's what happens to the vireo when I let it go in the video below:



And since you can't really see the brown eye so well in the video, here is a photo:

Red-eyed vireos don't get their red eyes until they are an adult. So the brown eyes on this bird tell us that it was hatched this summer. Here's an adult red-eyed vireo that we've banded in the past, you can really see the red eyes on that bird. FYI - for an insectivore, this bird really can bite.

Here is a typical male American goldfinch. This is a bird we banded awhile ago, but I want you to get a good look at what the face should look like. Now, take a gander at this male goldfinch:

Yikes! What happened to this guy? I'm not really sure. I banded this one and I couldn't see any mites running around on its head so I don't think that was it. I wondered if maybe it was an odd molting pattern. I asked Jen who works at Carpenter and she wondered if it had gotten its feathers worn off from a bird feeder or something else?

It was missing feathers on both sides of his bill, so it does seem to be a uniform pattern. The bird was molting elsewhere on his body, so it is possible that this is just a weird molt pattern. I'll be curious to see if we get this bird in the nets again.

And now, let's close with the cleansing nuthatch. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, see the nuthatch, breathe out, be the nuthatch, breathe in, love the nuthatch, breathe out, hang upside down on a tree trunk like a nuthatch...

Busy Day Of Banding

This is a photo that Larry Sirvio took of Tennessee warbler at Carpenter Nature Center--one of the 47 some odd birds that we banded this morning. Oy.

It was just nuts at banding today--I barely had any time to get photos. I arrived a little late and noticed some of the parking lot was getting ready to be repaved. I thought to myself, "With all this construction activity, I bet it will be slow." As I walked towards the building, I noticed one of the nets hadn't been put up yet. I thought it strange, but figured with the construction, maybe they weren't putting all the nets up.

Larry passed me and said, "They just radioed, there are eight birds in the orchard nets. There's one over there too." I said I would put my stuff down and start helping. Inside, the other volunteers were furiously looking up small flycatcher identifications, and there were already about six bags with birds hanging waiting their turn to be processed (from a quick glance the bags had warblers, vireos, a red-breasted nuthatch, and some sort of small flycatchers). Yikes!

From there it was just a blur. At one point I was at a net with one of the Carpenter naturalists. There were four birds in the net. While we were trying to get them out, four more flew in, and then another two. We decided that it was so backed up in processing that we would close up the nets until we were caught up. By the time we got to the last net, eight birds had flown in. We were running out of bags, but fortunately, they were all mostly goldfinches and we could put more than one in a bag.

This is one of the juvenile chipping sparrows we got in--they don't quite look like the adults, about the only thing that really gives them away is the eye stripe and the chipping noise that the make as you untangle them from the nets. We did get in a rather exciting adult--it had a band and turns out that it was banded for the first time on June 17, 2005 and at the time of banding it was already an after hatch year bird, which means that by now it is well over three years old!

This young catbird looks like it is off to a rough start. First, notice all the pin feathers--it's just growing in its cap. But towards the back of the head, its missing some feather and skin--something poked it, hard. Was it a nest mate? Was it a blue jay trying to attach the young in the nest? Who can say. It reminded me of the red-headed woodpecker we got in last year.

And it's interesting to note how different birds feel in the hand. Above is a male Wilson's warbler that I got out of the net. He felt so tiny, like I would break him. The easiest way to get birds out is to grab the feet and untangle those. Most of the time, if you can get the feet out, you can get the rest of the bird fairly easily. Most of the time.


Volunteer Dennis Donath go this photo of a female Wilson's warbler (note the lack of black cap). Today was good practice for untangling birds from the net, I just kept doing the over and over. The goal is to get birds out quickly. Usually, when a bird is REALLY tangled, I defer to the more experienced banders to get the bird out. However, everyone was so busy today, that a coupe of times I found that I was the only option and just had to muddle through. Sometimes, when I'm trying to get out a really tangled bird, I panic. My hands start to shake uncontrollably and are completely useless. When that happens, I just have to let go, take a step back, take a few deep breaths, understand that my panic is not going to help the situation and then go back to the task at hand.

Above, Jim Fox is handing a Wilson's warbler to a young girl whose family came to visit today. Sometimes, you can place a warbler on its back and it will lay there for a moment before flying away. That gives the kid holding it a chance to marvel at the magic of the the little thing in their hands. I got a five second video. Note the little girl's face.




Tell me that she's not now hooked on birds.

I'm still kind of learning the ropes at banding. I'm now to the point where I can actually band a few birds. I insisted that the first practice birds be ones like cowbirds--let me mess up on a cowbird, not a warbler. But I'm to the point that today, when I got an ovenbird out of the net, I got to band it myself--WHOOT!

First, let me say that after handling other warblers from the nets, the ovenbird is much chunkier. That is one beefy warbler--very chunky. You don't really get a chance to notice that when their flitting about in the wild. I'm happy to report that I banded it, aged it (after hatch year--at least a year old) and sexed it (unknown). We got some photos and let it continue on its southward journey.

Today was the first day of sun after six days of non stop clouds and rain. I finally noticed that migration in Minnesota is sincerely underway. If you have a chance, get out and enjoy it while you can.

Friday's Fun At Carpenter

But first, a wee bit of bragging. My sister, Terri N. Graves has a front page article in the current issue of NatureScape News! If you have a copy, it's the one with the blue dragonfly photo. If you don't have one, go out and buy it right now--it's a great paper and my sister is a great writer, a bit different from me--perhaps a tad more conservative...and not as many typos. Here's her profile on their website, but here is what she actually looks like. I think she's going to be a regular contributor to their publication and I'm so excited for her. She'll write on birds, flowers, dragonflies, or whatever tickles her outdoor fancy. NatureScape News covers the whole Midwest and Terri will be their Indiana field contributor, giving her Hoosier perspective. Go, Terri! Whoot.

Well, it was a mini bogging conference on Friday at Carpenter Nature Center because Hasty Brook and Hell Ziggy showed up to join in the fun. I learned that I am not ready to get black-capped chickadees out of the nets on my own. You would be surprised at how hard they are to retrieve, because they ball up their little toes around the nets, and you have to get their feet out before you get the rest of their little bodies out. Problem is, as soon as you get the toes out, they sneak in and clamp down on more net. My particular chickadee had fluttered quite a bit and was beyond tangled. It had to be cut out, which I didn't enjoy, since banding nets cost about $70--ack. Hell Ziggy did get a photo of me above getting a song sparrow out of the nets--easy cheesy. Alas, I was an over achiever with that bird, for I not only got it out of the nets swiftly, but accidentally let it go before we had a chance to put a band on it. Ah well, easy come, easy go.

While I was working on a chickadee, I could hear that someone else was trying to get a woodpecker out of the nets. Some can be quite squeaky and vocal when you are getting them out. I wasn't sure of the species, but could tell by tone that is was a woodpecker. I was surprised when they walked in with a young yellow-bellied sapsucker (above)! We really haven't seen them around Carpenter this summer, so I imagine that this is a young bird leaving its nesting territory--kind of like a kid leaving the house at about 18 years old and living on its own. Here's what the adult looks like. It's a pretty woodpecker.

It was challenging to try and get a photo, it kept flapping and squealing. I was curious to see if any hawks would come in. I've heard that sometimes playing a "wounded woodpecker" call and bring in hawks, foxes, coyotes, and mink.

We also got in a TON of catbirds. I think they young are finally leaving the nest and we may also be getting a few moving out of territories and pondering migration. I laughed when I was looking over the photos, my shot of one of the catbirds looks rather petulant.

Hell Ziggy's on the other hand looks down right artistic (and completely in focus). I've been hearing lots of reports of catbirds eating grape jelly (and robins too). Though it is possible that these species will regularly come in for grape jelly, I wonder if the increase in reports to me has to do with the dry conditions in Minnesota or more people taking notice?

Here's a photo Hell Ziggy got of Hasty Brook releasing a goldfinch. It almost looks like she's doing the flourish at the end of a magic trick. Hasty also got to release a catbird and appeared to have a magical experience.

Hell Ziggy on the other hand wanted to go for a more hard core, if not masochistic experience of holding a cardinal...

I got a shot of it, pre-crunch. Now, that's what I call a nail biter! Har har. She took it like a trooper though, and was proud of her blood blister from the cantankerous cardinal bill.

Afterwards, we headed out for lunch and I got some much needed fun conversation. Remember, you too could be having this kind of fun, so stop out at Carpenter sometime.

A Milestone For Me

And yet another grasshopper sparrow, they are everywhere I go, I can't escape them. I've seen them before, but not like this summer. I don't know if I'm just paying more attention or if we are having a bumper crop of grasshopper sparrows...or if aliens from some distant planet are trying to send me a message about saving the planet via grasshopper sparrow (although, that would seem to me to be an unreliable messenger).

You can tell this press release about Cape May Bird Observatory's new website was sent by a hardcore birder:
"Since you all have blogs and/or have close connections to Cape May I thought you might like to take a look at the site..... and in the event that you might be looking for something to write about given the slow nature of the summer......."

Slow nature of summer? Not in my neck of the woods! There's always some birding happening (and now bees--and some new caterpillar madness had started which I'll be talking about soon). Oh, how my grasshoppery ways have caught up to me this last week--sheesh. Here it is Monday, and I have bloggin' left over from last Friday.

So, Friday at Carpenter was a first for me--banding a tiny bird. Usually, at Carpenter, I'm happy to lurk and watch the pros but the bands swiftly on the birds. I enjoy trying to get the birds out of the net and bringing them in, but I always felt my place at the table was to just promote all the cool things that they do. I'm used to banding large birds, but not the tiny ones, so I have avoided actually pacing a band on a bird. Friday that changed. There have been offers before, but every time I always answer, "Oh, let's wait for a cowbird, let me practice on a cowbird, not a chickadee or goldfinch."

Friday, Jen Veith, the Development Director and experienced bander would not take no for an answer and had me band my first tiny bird--a house wren--man oh man, talk about a really tiny bird to band! Larry took a photo of this momentous occasion (above photo). It all happened so fast, and I was so freaked about not breaking one of those tiny wings, or legs that I barely remember it.

Up next was a house finch. Larry helped supervise the banding of that bird. You will note that we are doing these outside. Jen recommended that the first few times I band birds outside, that way, if I accidentally let one go, it won't risk injury by hitting walls and windows indoors. I was much more comfortable putting the band on this one.

Here I am taking the wing cord--fancy talk for measuring the wing. This house finch was a hatch year bird (hatched this year) and we couldn't tell if it was male or female. I measured the wings, all went well and the bird flew away.

Since many of the birds I have banded (pelicans, hawks) it's still hard for me to get the songbird bander's grip down: holding the bird in my left hand with it's back to my palm, it's head between my index and middle fingers, also holding it's chest. With my small hands, the finch and wren fit easily in my hand...

Then came a much larger hairy woodpecker--not so easy to hold in one hand--good grief, how will I ever hold a blue jay in one hand? This bird we could tell was female and were able to determine her age by her eye color (brown to grayish brown indicates that this bird was hatched either last year or this year). She also had a brood patch for incubating eggs and chicks, which she wouldn't have if she hatched this year, so that means she is a second year bird--she was hatched last year.

In between teaching me how to band, Larry got to band an eastern phoebe. I took a picture with his new Sony digital camera--it's got a pretty good macro feature--look at that feather detail. While we were taking this photo, the phoebe flapped a few times, and each time we heard a rapid clicking noise--phoebe's snap their bill when agitated--just like owls do! I never knew they did that. Of course, I've never had the opportunity to make a phoebe angry.

After banding, Jen and I explored the prairie area at Carpenter--loaded with grasshopper sparrows (another one above) and sedge wrens. Jen and I came upon a family of grasshopper sparrows, and the young were just learning to fly. It was a hoot to watch their labored flights around us and then the oh so awkward landing on what looked like a sturdy perch but turned out to be a wobbly prairie flower. About as graceful as a girl in her first pair of high heels.

There was also a pair of eastern meadowlarks scolding us, we must have been too close to their nests. It would be fun sometime to move the banding operation out to the prairie and get some bands on the birds out here.

For Teageeare

Who tells me that I don't put enough Kabuki in the blog:
Here is my cranky little cockatiel, eyeing my inbox, hoping I will not notice if he pulls out and chews some paper. He and Cinnamon are about to go an a small adventure. We're going to dog sit for the next few days and we're bringing the pets with us.

I can't believe blogging escaped from me for a couple of days--it turned much busier here than I had anticipated. Next weekend should be about the same. I took Cinnamon with me to Carpenter Nature Center on Friday. I got an email a few weeks ago from some blog readers who said they might join us for banding. They asked if Cinnamon would be there and originally I had said no, but Thursday night and Friday morning, she was doing all those things that say, "Hey, mom, I need some stimulation." ie - digging in her litter box and sneaking into the kitchen. So, on went her leash and she went with me to Carpenter and found a whole slew of new things to disapprove of.

Even though we can still get her to put on the leash and harness without too much of a fuss doesn't mean she tries to chew and whip it off when she thinks I'm not looking.

We're getting in quite a few of the summer residence. Above is a male robin we have had in the nets twice this summer. You can tell he is male by the dark head and the darker rusty breast. Boy, he really looks unhappy in this photo.

We also got in this hairy woodpecker. Notice anything strange about him? Check out his red patch--it's on the front of his head and not the back--a way you can tell if the bird just hatched this year when it is at your feeder.

Cinnamon was not as impressed with all the banding going on and was way more interested in exploring all the prairie grasses. Just by hopping in a few feet, she would completely disappear.

Apart from the leash, the only other way you could tell she was in there was by watching a tall piece of grass waver for a moment and then fall over as she had chewed its stalk. She was almost on sensory overload with the abundance of chewables at her feet.

To a blade of grass, she's kind of a scary looking monster. Afterwards, she kept me company as i scouted for a field trip that I was leading on Saturday. Which I will blog about later tonight. Right now, I have to go out and check on the bee situation...have I prevented a swarm...will the Olga hive be ready for a queen excluder...what wonderful bee adventures will I encounter this week?

A Wee Monarch Caterpillar Post--and a bird.

The banding has been on the slow side this spring at Carpenter. I'm not attributing that to an overall problem, after all we only meet on Fridays--maybe I would be posting something different if we were banding five days a week. Maybe it's time to change net location--who can say at this point with just anecdotal evidence from banding once a week.

But the awesome thing about Carpenter is that if the banding is slow we can easily find other nature to occupy out time. This week it was the monarch butterflies that caught our attention:

Since I've been noticing so many monarch butterfly eggs everywhere else I've wandered, I thought I would see what the milkweed around Carpenter would yield--LOADS. The leaf in the above photo shows two eggs--believe it or not, there was a third egg on the top side of the leaf too! That's unusual, monarchs tend to lays eggs on the underside of the leaf. These eggs are about to hatch, you can see (assuming you can see the eggs) that they are dark, when they are first laid, monarch eggs are a cream color (like the ones I found last weekend). In case you're having trouble viewing the eggs, here is a close up:

See the dark spot towards the top of the egg? That's the little caterpillar head. This little cat is chewing its way out of the egg. This is also what gives the about to hatch egg a dark color.

Eventually, one of the eggs did hatch! So Tiny! It's hard to believe that in about two weeks this will be a ginormous caterpillar. And yes, in case you are having trouble seeing it...

Here is an up close shot of the freshly hatched cat. It will eat a small bit more of the egg casing and then begin to chew on the monarch leaf itself. They are so small at this point that it will just chew the top few layers of the leaf and may not make a complete hole to the other side.

It is a dangerous world this tiny creature must face. So many things can eat it at this point. If it doesn't get eaten by some other insect or bird, there is still the danger that a wasp or fly will lay eggs inside the cat which will eat its insides, killing the monarch caterpillar when the larvae emerge through the skin. It truly is a miracle that any monarch caterpillar makes to a butterfly.

I was surprised to find a caterpillar that was about five days old nearby. It was all alone, perhaps all of the others its age were eaten? This cat was on a leaf with no chew marks which meant that it was probably shedding--chew marks draw attention to potential predators and lets them know you are nearby. If you want to shed your skin--a time when you are immobile and incredibly vulnerable, you want to be incognito.

If you look close in this photo, you can see the old head sliding down revealing the new larger head behind it. The new head is not only larger, but very yellow. The skin splits right about where the old head connects to the skin on the back. Once the head is off, the rest of the skin will be pushed towards the butt end of the caterpillar where it will collect in a small heap.

After looking through the milkweed, I noticed a downy woodpecker fly to a tree and disappear--then I saw the hole! When the bird would poke his head out of the hole, the black and white feathers totally blended into the tree. He must still be busy excavating the hole, you could see wood chips on the tip of his bill and the top of his head. Cute.

Friday Birds

A quiet day of banding at Carpenter Friday morning--I keep hoping for a big warbler wave in the nets but the timing has been off when we are banding. Some birders are mentioning that they aren't seeing warblers like they normally do this spring, but I think they are there. We had one heck of a leaf out in early May and most the warblers have been hidden. Much my warbler enjoyment this spring has been by ear.

We did get a ruby-throated hummingbird stuck in the nets. We don't have any equipment for banding hummers so when they are in the nets, someone takes them out and we let them go. This girl needed a few minutes for recovery and we got to get a good look at her feathers.

As Jim was getting her out of the net, we noticed that her throat was tinged a light golden yellow. I wondered if this was a plumage variation--the older the female she gets some coloration on her throat? We looked it up in the Pyle book and on BNA Online but could find not mention of gold throats on males or females. The only explanation we could think of was pollen dusted onto her throat from foraging on flowers. Has anyone else seen anything like this before?

The peony garden at Carpenter was loaded with pollen. The gardens are gorgeous right now in various reds, whites and pinks. If you are a fan of the Hoosier state flower and live near Carpenter Nature Center, I'd stop by this weekend.

I did get a chuckle when I found one of Carpenter's honeybees gathering pollen in the peonies. Who knew I'd be paying attention to bees in flowers? Am I losing my birding edge?

Since the banding was slow, I thought I would take some time to try and digiscope some kingbirds with Larry around the property. While walking, I noticed some monarch eggs. Above is a monarch egg on the bottom side of the milkweed--that's my big ole honkin' thumb next to the egg for size comparison. Ah, it's getting to be monarch ranching time. If you would like to learn more about raising native monarchs indoors for release, I'll be teaching a Monarch Ranchin' workshop at Staring Lake Outdoor Center July 7, 2007. Contact Staring Lake for details.

We did find some kingbirds on our walk. Not the best photo ever, but you get the idea. It was so cute, while I was away at Detroit Lakes last week, I could tell Non Birding Bill missed me--he was noticing birds. He sent me a text message on my phone that he had seen a kingbird in Loring Park on his way to work--I didn't even know he knew what a kingbird was.

On my way back to my car, I found myself being spied on by a thirteen-lined ground squirrel. Sometimes they snarf up the spilled seed under the bird feeders.

Larry had posted on the listservs this week that he'd seen dickcissels in Dakota County already. I usually don't see those guys until June. So I drove over to my favorite spots for dickcissel in Dakota County at the Empire Substation on 210th St. There's a small tree farm, power station and Buddhist temple surrounded by farm fields which is great for sparrows and meadowlarks. I didn't find the dickcissels but I did find chipping sparrows singing on territory (above) and lots of singing clay-colored sparrows.

As I was driving home, a sparrow popped up on a tree on the side of the road--a grasshopper sparrow. I pulled over and set my scope on my window mount tripod--which isn't easy to use for short people, but fortunately for me, the Swarovski eye piece rotates around so I can kind of use it with the window mount--it still takes some contorting on my part.

The grasshopper sparrow was incredibly accommodating. It stayed perched in the open even though it took me a few minutes to get the scope up and on it. Maybe this sparrow is ignored so much, it was happy that someone wanted to digiscope it?

Boy, you can tell this has been a good birding month, not many entries on the antics of Cinnamon. She disapproves of her lack of exposure in the blog. Okay, now Non Birding Bill and I are off to celebrate the Holiday Weekend, enjoy the outdoors, irritate a disapproving bunny, grill up some meat, bake some rhubarb pies, and I have to finish up a couple of deadlines. The rain is supposed to ease up tomorrow and I'll try to get out to the beehives and take some photos--our first batch of new workers should be hatched--whoot.

Hope you guys have a good time and enjoy birds where ever you are.

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Kudos to everyone who made a guess at the photo id contest--it was pure evil on my part. The northern rough-winged swallow is not a bird I normally talk about, it's brown and nondescript and just not a bird people pay a lot of attention to--even though they are there and easy to see if you look. A big pat on the back to Leanne for the correct answer.

Here's the original photo of the bird that was zoomed in for the contest. We had two swallows fly into the nets at the same time at Carpenter--near the bird feeders of all places! Since these aren't birds that will come to bird feeders, our best guess is that they were chasing each other over a territory battle and both landed in the nets at the same time.

At first, there was some talk that it might be a swift, but a check of the tail--and running fingers along the wing confirmed that this was a northern rough-winged swallow. The barbs on in the primary wing feathers on a male rough-wing are distinctly hooked and running your finger over them kind of feels like running your finger over a nail file. Females do not have as distinct barbs. I don't think scientists have figured out the reason for the barbs yet--if anyone knows or has an idea, please let me know in the comments. I would have gotten a photo of the barbs, but the birds were flappy and stressed and we wanted them back out on the wing ASAP.

Again, thanks to everyone who guessed. It's not easy to put your name to an id when you aren't sure.

Common Yellowthroat & Another Contest

Okay, I know I wrote in the comments of the previous entry that I would update after breakfast, but truth be told the gorgeous spring day took hold of me. Once outside, there was not going back indoors. I do have enough material for a whole week's worth of entries and I'm not sure when I'll have time to get them up.

First up, the correct answer for the photo id in the eyeball contest was common yellowthroat, a bird we banded at Carpenter Nature Center on Friday. These are those tiny birds in marshy areas that sing "whichity whichity whichity" from the reeds and are very pishable.

Here is the eyeball...

And here is the whole original photo. Aren't they just gorgeous little guys?

I love the macro feature on my Nikon Coolpix 4500, it really can capture the magic of seeing these birds in hand. The photos though make the common yellowthroat look much bigger than it really is.

The winner of the eyeball contest already has a copy of the book, so the prize is still available. So, here's another eyeball contest--however, this one is much more diabolical than the last! Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha:

What bird species belongs to the eyeball? First correct answer in the comments section with a name wins the prize--a paperback Singing Life of Birds with CD (you can use anonymous as a blogger id, but put your name in at the end of the comment if you want the book). The first correct answer with no name wins self satisfaction. Something for everybody!

Fox Snake At Carpenter

Today at Carpenter Nature Center, we found a fox snake right outside on the stairs. Apparently, there are quite a few slithering around.

At first we saw just one snake, but Larry said he saw two slither into a crack under the pavement on one of the building. Fox snakes are nonvenomous and constrict their prey (mostly mice, some small birds and eggs). They will coil up, vibrate their tail making a rattling sound and strike out when threatened. This defense probably developed to keep predators away since they could be mistaken for a rattlesnake. However, humans who don't know and mistake them for rattlers will kill them. Interesting that a behavior that evolved to protect them, now is more likely to get them killed.

Below is an 8 second video of the fox snake giving its fake rattle:

Getting Some Work Done At Carpenter

Stopped in to watch the Friday morning banding at Carpenter Nature Center this morning. I haven't been able to go for a few weeks and I was glad to hang with the guys again. I was able to get two birds with one stone (so to speak) since I took the Wingscapes Camera with me to test out. For the moment, those photos go on their blog.

It started out as a slow morning. It was about ten degrees but we didn't have any snow. With it being that cold, we didn't put up any nets, but set out potters traps.

A squirrel managed to find its way into one of the traps. Ooops! It was very perplexed and alarmed--as were the banders. Some birds can be a little nippy when they are in the hand, imagine what a squirrel can do. Larry got a stick and opened the trap and the squirrel scampered to freedom unbanded.

We did get in quite a few black-capped chickadees. One very exciting bird already had a band and turned out to have been banded in 2002! This tiny guy lasting close to five years in the wild--amazing. By the way, is it me or does this bird's bill look a little big for a chickadee? I can't tell if I'm getting overly paranoid about birds with overgrown bills or if it's normal.

Juncoes were busting out all over. I love dark-eyed juncos, they kind of remind me of little penguins. Something interesting at Carpenter is that they bait all of their traps with black oil sunflower seeds and the juncos still go in. Working at a bird store and with personal experience, I have always found these guys love white millet, sunflower hearts and Nyjer and not black oilers. I wonder if they are actually cracking open the sunflower or if they see seed and just check it out?

There was a minor junco tragedy. When the guys went out to check all the traps, a sharp-shinned hawk was flushed and left behind a freshly killed junco. The bird was banded, so this was one of the few times when a dead bird could be fully documented we have an idea of where its life ended and how old it was. I think this bird was in its second year. Don't worry raptor enthusiasts, the dead junco was put back outside and the sharpie did return for it.

Pete vs Pyle

And now, more fun from banding at Carpenter Nature Center on Friday. This time of year with odd molting patterns and juvenile/immature birds, some identification can be tricky. Some ids, with a little deduction, you can figure out pretty quick:

Check out this cardinal. It's mostly brown with lots of red patches--on the surface it shows characteristics of being both male and female. Is this bird a metrosexual? No! This is a male, hatched this summer and is now molting into his adult red plumage. When cardinals leave the nest, both males and females are brown. Half way through the summer, the males grow in all new feathers, ditching the brown and getting the red.

Check out how funky the face is. The feathers are brown like a female with hints of red. You can see the beginnings of the black that will surround his bill. And the bill itself is a whole hodge podge of colors. Young cardinals have black bills--that's one way you can tell a young cardinal from a female--adult cardinals have orange bills. This bill is definitely in transition from black to orange.

Here it is head on. Very psychedelic.

Here was another weird one. A female house finch with one pink feather on her breast. What was that about? I wondered if it was like female orioles. The older they get, the more they start to look like male orioles. However, clues on the bird said that it was a hatch year bird (hatched this spring) so I'm not sure why the one pink feather. Male house finches get their pink color from their diet--maybe this female has been eating like a male? Another mystery for another day.

And here we have a dreaded empidonax! Not the guy, but what is in his hand. That's Jim Fitzpatrick trying to figure out a small brown bird's identification. For people who don't know birds, there's a whole group of flycatchers called the empidonax flycatchers (willow flycatcher, alder flycatcher, etc) and they all pretty much look the same. In the spring when the birds are singing you have a chance to tell them apart by song. But in the fall when they are silent, it's not easy and empidonax flycatchers can bring the best birders to their knees in tears and frustration.

When you are banding birds, you use a very intense guide called the Identification Guide to North American Bird by Peter Pyle. It can tell you how to age and sex many species of birds by looking at subtle colors and feather shape and size. As we were trying to narrow the identification of the flycatcher in the above photo, we of course turned to Pyle. We were thinking it was between an alder flycatcher and a willow flycatcher.

Here is one equation offered by Pyle to determine the two--yes, that's what I wrote, an equation. Leave it to an ornithologist to use math to take all the fun out of birding:

"Formula I is (longest primary feather minus primary feather 6) minus (primary feather 5 minus primary feather 10), the latter value (p5 minus p10) being positive if p5 > p10 or negative if p10 > p5. The thin lines represent a buffer zone of 30% around the optimal equation (thick line on chart). Birds with measurements falling within the two thin lines should not be identified."

Yawn. Basically, this is saying to measure some of the flight feathers and an attached chart to determine if the bird is identifiable. It very well may not be identifiable at this time.

I brought the new Pete Dunne book Essential Field Guide Companion to see if there was any new insight to offer. There were a few hints but the end of the paragraph was tied up with this:

"But in the East, where Willow is more like Alder in all respects, the most helpful characteristic is often humility (on the part of the observer)."

Basically, you're just not going to know for sure. An excellent point, Pete, which garnered a knowing laugh from all the banders at the table.

Going back to Pyle we found this:

"Thus, successful identification of Alder and Willow flycatchers in the hand involves a synthesis of plumage characters, measurements, and wing morphology by age, sex, and geographic variation, and the use of a buffer zone in which birds should be left unidentified."

So, basically, Pyle is saying the same thing that Pete is saying. There are some things you can try, but some birds, you just aren't going to be able to identify.

The flycatcher in question was released without being banded. During the whole time, the flycatcher never struggled and sat patiently for the short time it was with us. If I were going to anthropomorphize (give human emotion to a bird's behavior) I would have said that it look resigned to not knowing quite what it was itself and could we please help it. We didn't want to keep the bird for an hour to try and guess the id and it's important to get the correct id to make sure the correct sized band is on the bird.

So take heart when you're having trouble figuring out a bird in the field. Some species are so complex, that they can't even be identified in the hand, six inches from your face.

Retrapping Banded Birds

So, why is this bird so exciting? What is this bird's id? If you don't know the id, they eyes of this bird should be a hint--note the red eyes. Now is it clicking in? It's a red-eyed vireo. And this particular vireo was in the blog not too long ago!

This bird was banded at Carpenter Nature Center on May 26 and had its photo in the blog May 29th. I was told that the same vireo was netted again at Carpenter in June while I was away, and now here it showed up for a third time in the nets on July 7th. Every now and then I meet people are against banding birds, that it is too cruel and that banders are traumatizing and scarring these birds for life if not out right killing them. If that's the case, why is this vireo showing up in the nets once a month? This bird has made an informed decision about where to set up it's territory. The nets are set up in the same spots when birds are banded, if the bird was so traumatized the first time it was banded, it would have gotten the heck out of dodge and set up a nesting territory elsewhere. At the very least it would have avoided the area where the nets are. And this vireo isn't the only retrap, many species end up being retrapped at Carpenter, it's a helpful tool in determining how long certain birds live in the wild. I'm not saying that a bird's favorite activity in life is to be handled by humans and to be banded, but birds are not as traumatized by it as some would believe. Think about what a bird goes through on a day to day basis: constantly on the lookout for Cooper's hawks, foxes, cats, snakes, never knowing where that next meal is coming from for sure, defending it's territory--violently if necessary from rivals or other species, sitting out storms, getting up and doing it's job every single day--regardless of how it feels--now that's a work ethic. Birds are hardy, tough, resilient creatures. Five minutes of banding is not going to wreck them for the rest of their life. It certainly does far less damage than someone who finds a young bird of prey and feeds it only hamburger and chicken breasts or a young robin and feeds it only bread and milk.

Since the vireo had posed so nicely with a song sparrow in May, I tried photographing it with a nuthatch for comparison this time. Nuh-uh, that nuthatch was not going to have any of that. The nuthatch trashed and snapped and made such strange catcalls that we decided to let it go. When both birds came in the nets, they were fairly low to the ground--the vireo surprised me, that's a bird I tend to associate with the tops of trees and here it had flown into the net only three feet from the ground and about the same time as the nuthatch--hm, I wonder if they were chasing each other?

I was the one who got the white-breasted nuthatch out of the net. I had to stifle my chuckles while I removed her. First she did her caterwauling, but then she started doing that usual nasally nuthatch "her her". I could feel her body vibrate in my hand while she made her yanking calls. Very cool.

Other birds we got in the nets today included a very tiny house wren--we had heard a winter wren that morning and were hoping for one, but got the boisterous house wren instead. It's so hard to believe this tiny guys make such a loud call.

We also got in SEVERAL recently fledged red-winged black birds. The young blackbird pictured above was so fresh from the nest you could still see the edges of the gape that baby birds have.

On a side note, Non Birding Bill just informed me that the Disapproving Rabbits pages are getting more traffic than the blog...Cinnamon is demanding an increase in her parsley allowance and is threatening to hire an agent if we don't comply.

Raptor Release Report

You couldn't have asked for better weather for the Spring Raptor Release yesterday. It was gorgeous, although the one downside was that I was down wind from an apple orchard and all the binocular demos kept getting dusted with pollen. It was encouraging to see parents getting monoculars and kid sized binoculars for their children.

TRC released four birds yesterday, 1 Cooper's hawk, 2 red-tails and one hefty eagle. I worked my way through the crowd to try and get different shots of the birds taking off.

Above is a little boy who was sitting on his father's shoulders watching one of the red-tails take off after recovering from a wing injury. It was fun to watch the difference in the birds. The Cooper's hawk took off like a shot in one direction. It didn't try to catch a thermal, it just shot out of there above the tree line. The two red-tails looked for thermals and tried to use those to circle up high in the sky.

After watching which was the birds took off, I decided to find a spot where I thought the eagle might fly low. It was down off to the side of the stage, facing the crowd. There were a few other TRC volunteers there too. As they were making all the speeches about the bird's recovery, Lori, one of TRC's vets came by and told everyone to sit down. This was a big bird and would more than likely need a few seconds to get serious lift.

The eagle was thrown into the air. For second it looked like it might land on one of the speakers. Although, the hoard of people around it, made the eagle change her mind. Then she turned and flew towards the area I was sitting in.

And then I got this shot! I can't believe it, I look like a professional photographer and all I used my little Nikon Coopix 7900. Really, the bird was quite low and I was quite lucky. Boy, I was grateful that Lori had warned all of us to sit on the ground--or that bird would have run into one of us for sure. From there the bird flew right over our heads and into the wild blue yonder. I rolled over backwards as she flew over us and revelled in seeing her talons zoom past a few feet above my head.

And on a weird note, I have a mention in the New York Times. Non Birding Bill noticed in the website stats that we were getting some traffic from there. The link wasn't open to non subscribers until today. The writer was at the Ivory-bill Celebration. I remember Bobby Harrison telling me that he was going out with someone from the New York Times, and the writer apparently came to my beginning birding workshop. It's a nice mention and will make my mother proud. I have to say, it's interesting to read Bobby's comments, which reminds me that I haven't heard from him in weeks. Hmm, has he seen and photographed something and has been taken into the woodpecker mafia custody?

I'm also kind of curious about my status with Cornell...the no talking ban was supposed to be lifted in either April or when Cornell gave me the official go ahead...I haven't heard. Can I start talking about scaling and cavities and if I did or did not see the bird? I don't know. Although, I suppose if given enough scotch, one could get me to sing like a...an ivory-bill?

Sparrow Palooza

It was a brown bird bonanza yesterday at Carpenter Nature Center. I was in brown bird heaven watching all the Harris Sparrows (that's one pictured above) and getting the chance to see them up close and personal during banding. I was hoping to get them on the NovaBird Camera, but alas, all I was a chipping sparrow:

The chipping sparrow didn't seem to be too thrilled with the black oilers on the ground. I should have put some white millet down, that's their type of fair.

I could not get enough of those Harris sparrows. For a little brown job, it's quite striking with that orange bill highlighting all the black around it. The photo below are both a male and a female Harris sparrow. Can you tell which is which?

Yeah, I can't either. The black surrounding the bill has more to do with age than sex. The banders used wing cord ( the length of the wing from the wrist to the tip of the longest primary) to tell them apart. The bird on the left is a female, the bird on the right is a male--according to the length of their wing cords. You can learn all this stuff if you come to Carpenter on Friday's for banding.

As I was working on this entry, I got a call from Kim Kaufman in northern Ohio. She was telling me about the big warbler push they were getting the last few days at their banding station. I told her that up here Minnesota we were getting a big sparrow push here and that's when she told me that she banded 92 white-throated sparrows (pictured below) on Tuesday at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge--sheesh! I'm pooped just thinking about it.

"Even I'm shocked by that exorbitant amount of white-throated sparrow banding!"

Kim was trying to make me drool with her reports of banding cerulean warblers and golden-winged warblers and I told her of our Harris sparrows and she was a little jealous of what we had going on up here.


We are getting quite a few white-throats and white-crowned sparrows up here. After the two birds above were banded I wanted to take a quick photo. As I was doing this, the dude on the right started to squeak a little setting off all of the sparrows around Carpenter. They were like our own personal pishing devices. As soon as the birds were let go, calm was restored to Carpenter's feeder area.

One white-throat in particular really intrigued me. Check out the guy in the above photo. He had some yellow on the feathers around the wrist. I had never noticed that before, but then again, I've never had a white-throat this close before.

These are just classy looking sparrows! I can't get enough of them. For the non birders that periodically check this blog, these are the ones that go "Oh Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" or according the second edition Kaufman guide "Oh Sweet Kimberly, Kimberly, Kimberly". Kim Kaufman says that they are saying, "Oh band me, Kimberly, Kimberly, Kimberly."

And to be fair, since last week I showed male bird hoohas, I figure turn about is fair play. Here is a female robin brood patch. Female birds get these open patches on their breast to help incubate eggs. Surrounding feathers help keep her warm when she's not incubating.

If there are major typos, I apologize, blogger spell check is down and I'm too tired to look it over. Ah well, at least it's a sign an actual person types this blog and not some corporation.