Birdwatch Radio

There's a new podcast up for Birdwatch Radio. It's part one of a two part series made during this year's Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival. He talks to my buddy Jim Danzenbaker from Kowa (and Jim even schools you on how to properly pronounce the name Kowa).

Also interviewed is one of the guys from Rockjumper Tours...learn how much money you'll need to go to Africa and some of the cool things you'll do on their trips.

And my personal favorite part of the podcast is the interview with Kevin Karlson and he talks about his book he coming next year on birding by impression. Non Birding Bill was listening with me and when they started talking about "jizz" birding, coffee shot out my nose, and NBB was shaking his head with laughter. In the podcast, Steve asks is if it's spelled jizz and Kevin does say what the real spelling for jizz should be. And if you don't know what the slang meaning for jizz is...well...ask the nearest teenager. They'll probably turn three shades of red and be too busy giggling to answer but you might get the meaning.

Anyway, fun podcast to have on in the background.

Can't Stop Blogging About The Rio Grande Valley!

Can you believe I still have blogging to do about Texas?? It really is one of my favorite birding trips I do all year. I love the organizers, the birds, the food, the temperature--it's tops. Check out this altamira oriole that was just cleaning itself off after using a bird bath at Laguna Atascosa NWR.

I think I have finally caught up from all my traveling. I was trying to catch up all last week from being in Ohio, New Jersey, and Texas. I was home between those trips, but only for brief periods. In that time, the apartment had exploded into a chaos world of bunny fur, cockatiel dust, and hay. Books were staging some sort of coup and weren't returning to shelves, my suitcase refused to unpack itself and a glacier of laundry was moving out of the bedroom. Amid trying to work and catch up on the blog, Non Birding Bill said those magic words: "I'm taking Friday afternoon off, let's go see the new Bond movie!"

But late Sunday, well into Monday and Tuesday I went into a cleaning and organizing frenzy. Interrupted briefly by a one way conversation with my stomach Tuesday morning. Still not quite sure what that was about. Was my stomach getting into the spirit of my apartment purge? I didn't feel sick which is completely out of character when I throw up. I suspect it had more to do with a bad combo of coffee and omega 3 fish oil gel caps.

But back to talking about Laguna! I love the trails and I love the wildlife drive. I took almost a full day to creep along and look for birds to digiscope. I was hoping to get some great shots of a caracara.

But had to settle for the Dr. Seuss stylings of a long-billed curlew! I was showing this photo to a non birding friend of mine (even more so than Non Birding Bill) and he looked at the photo and asked, "What the hell does it use that for?!" The beak is a little striking. I checked out the always fabulous Birds of North America Online. It said that the long decurved bill is used when foraging earthworms or shrimp and crabs. BNA also suggested that the long bill is used mainly when feeding on their wintering grounds as opposed to their breeding grounds. Basically, observers see curlews probing more in winter on the migratory habitat and see more pecking on the breeding grounds. Interesting to have a bill like that and only need it for part of the year.

Osprey were all over the place. The above bird was trying to eat its fish in peace, but had an audience:

This young turkey vulture (it's young because the head is still dark) was biding its time on the side lines, trying to work out a way to sneak in and steal a few bites for the osprey. This bird must really like fish because there's an abundance of fresh roadkill in the Rio Grande Valley. Why didn't the vulture just for that instead?

Laguna had signs posted warning of you alligators. The first gator I ever saw in the wild was at Laguna. I did see a few on my drive:

This one was right off the road. I got out of the vehicle to digiscope it. I took a couple of images through the scope with my phone and sent them off.

Here's a digiscoped image. I have to say, there were a couple of points where I felt like I was in the Blink episode of Doctor Who. When I turned away, it almost seemed as if the alligator was closer. It wasn't long after I took this photo that I looked to my left...

...and found another alligator lounging not too far from me. I digiscoped it too:

Well if that just isn't the most contented looking alligator ever. Realizing that I'm rather short, there are warning signs, and having two alligators near me, I hightailed it back in the car. I love a little adventure in my birding. I love going to places where there are animals that could knock me off a rung or two on the food chain.

All Over The Place Post

Here is a yellowlegs that WildBird on the Fly and I observed at one of my favorite digiscoping spots, Estero Llano Grande. She and I went there a couple of times and I tried to get some lifers and do some digiscoping. I discovered that I need to focus on one thing at a time. If I'm after a lifer, I should concentrate on that, if I want to take pictures of birds, I should focus on that. If I try to do both, I don't know where to focus my attention and I miss good shots and I totally miss birds.

Estero has several different trails and the boardwalk around the ponds is usually a good place for shore birds, like the above solitary sandpiper (who is actually living up to its name, it's by itself).

We some colorful birds too like this little blue herons,

black-necked stilts--love those guys,

least grebes (check out that crazy yellow eye),

and a young male vermilion flycatcher.

We even did our good deed for the day by rescuing a dragonfly (although, after reading Born Again Bird Watcher's post, maybe we should have left it). Amy notice this dragonfly on its back in the water. I couldn't reach with my arm, but used my scope's tripod to fish it out. We took a few photos and then set it down on the board walk to finish drying out.

I generally do not take field guides with me. It helps you focus on the bird in front of you rather than spending too much time with your nose in a book. It kind of forces you to pay attention to field marks. Like the above shorebird. It was tiny, kinda brownish, and the legs were a different color than the bill--that's a least sandpiper.

The other reason why I don't bring a guide is that someone on field trips always has a book, I know many birds and what I don't know, I can usually digiscope and id later, or I'm almost always out with someone who knows the area better than I do and will confirm id for me. Well that bit me in the butt.

We got to a spot with some kingbirds and I wasn't sure what type we were seeing, but I figured I would digiscope it and then look it up later. I have it narrowed down to either a tropical kingbird or a Couch's kingbird. I thougt I would go over to BNA and see if I could work out the difference. Here's what Cornell had to say:

"Couch’s is most similar to the Tropical Kingbird and these species are often difficult to distinguish in the field by appearance alone. In the field, adult Couch’s is slightly larger, with a proportionally shorter bill,"

Hmmm, that would be difficult, the bird's bill is facing right at the camera, can't really tell proportions. Let's try the next one:

"and more olive-green back than adult Tropical, but the back fades to grayish during the breeding season making this character unreliable."

Well, again, the bird is facing me so I can't really see the back.
"The plumages of juveniles are inseparable in the field, and only extreme specimens can be identified in the hand (Traylor 1979)."

Wow, that sounds like I'm totally hosed on the id. Wait, there's a little more to read,

"Vocalizations however, may be used to separate these species reliably in the field. The slowly repeated pit (or kip) and pitweeeer of Couch’s are easily distinguish-able from the rapidly repeated, metallic-sounding pit calls of Tropical Kingbird. The dawn songs are also distinctive. Although T. couchii is probably more vocal than T. melancholicus, silent birds cannot therefore be positively identified as the latter."

Yeah, I totally did not pay attention to the calls and did not take any video. I will have to chalk this bird up to some sort of Tyrannus.

There were some great birds being reported around Estero and they had a great little kiosk in there from ebird called Trail Tracker. You can use it to find out which birds are being reported and where they are being seen. The observations also become part of eBird and includes photos, audio, video and life history information for the birds seen. I tried to use it to find some cool birds being reported like a rose-throated becard (didn't see it) and a paraque (looked at it, but didn't see it, but Round Robin got shots of it).

Skywatch Friday, In Transit From Texas

It's Skywatch Friday again! If you have a blog with a photo of sky, you can link your post up to Skywatch Friday and share the beauty. I thought I'd share one of my "in transit" days.

I never cease to be amazed at the ability to change time and temperature with our ability of global travel. I marvel at my Monday this week. I woke up in south Texas, in Harlingen, near the border. I'm surrounded by warm weather and exotic species.

Not just blue jays here, no, crazy birds like green jays (above), curlews and kiskadees. When I boarded my plane in the morning, it was sunny, windy, and temperatures were in the 80s.

The view of the sky from the plane was an intense palette of blue and white. The sky, so clear and so blue, pushing down on a thin layer of clouds.

Take in that blue for a moment.

The clouds had some fluff but were mostly thin. It's so strange and such a privilege to get to see clouds from above. I try to concentrate on them as opposed to my fear of flying (or rather, crashing) in a plane.

As the clouds gave way, I could see some of Minnesota below, my final destination. The land had been dusted with snow. How strange to start a morning with humidity and 80 degree temps and then end the afternoon in 30 degrees with snow. I never get tired at the wonder of travel and where you can find yourself in a day.

The Heart Breaking Aplomado Falcon

One of the fun parts of visiting the Rio Grande Valley is the chance to see an aplomado falcon. One of the best places to look is Laguna Atascosa NWR. Two years ago I got the chance to chase one down (it practically took half the bird festival to help me get it). The aplomado falcon in this area is a reintroduced species, their populations have been affected by pesticide use and the Peregrine Fund has been releasing captive raised birds in an effort to reestablish the population. They eat mostly small birds and insects.

On Sunday morning, as I was driving into Laguna Atascosa, I noticed a car pulled over ahead of me, I slowed to find out what they were looking at. It was an aplomado falcon perched on a fence post about 30 feet from the road. As I slowed, the bird took off, but then perched again on the fence further down the road. Both the car in front and I approached slowly. It was painful. I had all my digiscoping equipment next to me in my rental vehicle, but I knew if I got out to set it up, the falcon would fly off. I so wanted to get an awesome photo for the blog, but rather than spoil the perfect view, I decided to just enjoy the bird in front of me. When I reached the visitor center at Laguna, I took photos of their stuffed bird for the blog entry. It was a kick ass look.

As I birded some more around Laguna, another aplomado falcon flew over my vehicle and landed in a far away palmetto. Such a pretty bird, but gone in a flash. While I was out, I ran into Sam Crow and Hugh Powell who do Round Robin Blog for Cornell. Hugh showed me his photo of the aplomado, they had come across the bird on the fence earlier (I now wonder if they were in the vehicle in front of me). They got a good shot and it was painful for me to see. You can view the apolomado photo over at Round Robin.

Birds and Beers

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

South Padre Island Birding

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Osprey On South Padre Island

On Friday morning, I met up with Clay Taylor and WildBird on the Fly. Clay had a little time in the morning for some digiscoping before working the Swarovski booth at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest. I was anxious to really give my new Fuji FinePix E900 a good workout (thank you again National Camera Exchange for finding one for me). Clay suggested a trip out to South Padre Island. We saw many cool species, but one of the coolest observations we made was of the above osprey.

It flew right over the 3 of us, only about 15 feet above our heads! We could tell it had something in its talons and at first assumed a fish since the bird landed and appeared to be picking at it. However, when we got it in our scopes, the osprey just had a stick. We wondered what that was all about. Did the bird mistakenly grab a stick out of the water thinking it was a fish and started to eat it, only to find it kind of nasty to rip apart?
The osprey kept staring down at the stick, trying to work something out in its tiny little brain. Was it confused about the lack of fish on the stick? No. It suddenly dawned on us what was going on. Maybe this will help:

It hopped on a nearby by branch and began to bite it. Is this osprey going for some massive fiber in its diet? No. We think it's starting a nest. Notice how the added stick fits among the sawed of branches. I wonder how far it will get with this endeavor? I always wonder what a bird sees that makes it think, "Yes, this rocks, I can totally turn this spot into a safe nest!" I know with osprey, they like to to have a good lookout from all sides of the nest, but what factors do they look for that would make them think that a few hundred pounds of sticks would fit there just nicely.

It was fun to watch the osprey's nictitating membrane (extra eyelid that birds have that they can see through) come over its eye as it chewed on the stick, to protect the eyes from debris flying back in.

The osprey kept hopping back and forth between the crotch holding the start of the nest and the nearby perching branch. Take a look at those massive talons on the bottom of those toes--osprey don't play around, they are all business when it comes to fishing. I just love those crazy, big feet.

Here's a video of it trying to work out what the next step should be (although, the video looks better if you go to the YouTube page itself and click on on "watch in high quality.":

Great-tailed Grackle

Great-tailed grackles are in huge abundance in Texas. Many wake me up outside my hotel room. The evening roosts are spectacular, but the sounds the birds make is down right freaky. I tried to get a video to record the sound. Below is a great-tailed grackle puffing up and giving several clicks and whistles--it almost sounds like camera clicking or weird gears going off. In the background you can hear other great-tailed grackles calling back:

Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park

My goodness, I'm tired and just about birded out (as well as incredibly itchy and somewhat stinky). The Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival should almost be called the Birder Reunion Bird Festival since so many of us show up here and connect.

I started my Texas birding adventure with a field trip to Bensten-Rio Grande Valley State Park. This was the first place I birded the first time I came to this festival years ago. I love it because it gives you a good sample of the valley specialties. What makes this area to bird so fun is that for a Midwest Girl, you can find yourself in a tropical and exotic area on the cheap. Look at the water and the palm trees in the above photo--how could you not love that?

And the birds are crazy looking to add to the exotic appeal of this area, like the green jays. I never get tired of green jays. Seeing something like that makes you feel like you're on another planet, especially when your husband calls and tells you that it's snowing at home.

And it's not just the birds. Instead of squirrels under the feeder, Bentsen as javelinas! These guys were under every feeding station we visited and weren't that scared of humans, they must have a sense that we won't hunt them and I would guess they know humans are the ones who replenish the bird feeders.

Feeding javelinas is ill advised, as they can easily mistake a finger for a peanut butter sandwich and no one wants to go home with few fingers.

One of the coolest birds in the park was a roosting eastern screech owl. The bird is perched on the edge of a cavity in the tree trunk. Check out how well the bird's feathers blend in with the bark--incredible. This was a particularly exciting eastern screech owl, park staff told our group that it was a mccallii, and it's quite possible that the American Ornithologists' Union will make it a separate species from eastern screech owl. So, I kind of banked a life bird for another day.

Another specialty of the area is the buff-bellied hummingbird also known on Cornell's Birds of North America as the "least-studied hummingbird that occurs regularly in the United States." It's a Mexican species that breeds along the gulf coast and makes it across the border into the US.

Another part of birding in south Texas that is unique is watching helicopters for the border patrol pass by. This helicopter was really low and kept going down to one particular patch, leading us to wonder if some people illegally crossing the border had been found.

All part of the fun.

Okay, fatigue has hit me, more later.

Random Green Jay

Here's a quick video of a green jay with our field trip leader answering someone's question about javalinas in the background:

Arriving In Harlingen

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

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

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

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

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

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

They're on to me!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Scariest bird book out there, I swear.

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

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

Hey, here's some cool news from WFRV:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next will be back in Minnesota:

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

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

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

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

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

Sky Watch Friday Carver Banding

Doh, it's raining this morning, not sure I'm going banding at Carpenter. Well, I have some banding photos from last weekend and it's SkyWatch Friday, I'll work on that and see if the rain subsides:

Years ago, the summer before Non Birding Bill and I moved to Minnesota, we were on vacation with his family at Virginia Beach. We were flipping around tv channels one night and found a documentary about Minnesota--we thought this would be good prep work to watch. We had heard that we should be prepared for cold and snow year round, but beyond that, not much else. The documentary had an interview with Garrison Keillor and he said something about there are a few days in October which are perfect days (in every possible way) in Minnesota and people visit during those days and get that impression. For some reason, that was what stuck out in my mind and every October, I try to watch for that. If you are an optimist, October in Minnesota is the THE BEST. Sunny days that might require a fleece, glowing fall leaves, local farm bounties, and cool nights perfect for snuggling with your favorite person. As long as you don't think about the impending snow and cold which could easily last six months is right behind this perfect month.

Last weekend, I was going to go to Duluth to do go to Frank's hawk blind, but the wind prediction wasn't good and the sparrows were everywhere in the Twin Cities. My buddy Amber had heard that Mark was going to do some migrant banding on Saturday, so I snuck out to join them. Mark normally does banding programs every third Saturday at Lowry Nature Center. This was not a formal program, so Amber spread out a blanket near the nets, Mark set out his equipment and we banded birds in the beautiful October sun. Above is one of the many swamp sparrows moving through. It's such a pretty sparrow, it's too bad they don't visit feeders as much as house sparrows do--people would really dig 'em. I'm going to save that photo, that would be a good hair color at some point.

We got in quite a few orange-crowned warblers. This is the "drabbest of the drab" first year female orange-crowned. If you are one of the peeps going to the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest next month, learn this bird's chip note--you'll be hearing it a lot. I know we have them in Minnesota, but I always associate them with South Texas. Speaking of which, there is still time to sign up for the bird blogger discount for the Rio Grande Fest. It's going to be awesome, some of the bird bloggers I know are coming include WildBird on the Fly, Born Again Bird Watcher, birdspot, and Mike from 10,000 Birds--oh, it's on! Looks like there's going to be a Birds and Beers too!

But I digress, back to the female orange-crowned warbler (and since it's SkyWatch Friday, pay attention to the blue sky in the back). She really doesn't have much orange to speak of, even in hand. She's a pallet of gray, drab olive, and kinda white.

Here's an adult male--a little more flashy--look at that yellow. And, you can distinctly see the orange in the crown, can't ya? Please tell me I'm not hallucinating, you can see the orange too? Okay, I admit, it is hard to see, so we used the toothpick method to get a look at the orange crown:

Now you can see the orange in that crown! It's never easy to see when the bird is not in hand. I just check Birds of North America Online to find out when one can see the orange crown on the bird in the wild and found this: "Male threat or alarm display can involve elevation of head feathers to display (barely) the orange crown (Bent 1953)."

"Don't make me barely show you my orange crown!!" Maybe these small warblers have a color orange phobia, so a little is all that's needed. Although, I'm not sure what a flock of orange-crowned warbler when confronted with a male oriole. Or perhaps, those orange feathers are so powerful that too much could be lethal? So much more study to be done.

It's always so cute when an insect eating bird tries to peck your fingers--those bills are just so soft--look at that orange-crowned warbler go for Mark's thumb. Earlier, his thumb went through much worse:

Before I arrived, he and Amber got a young male cardinal in the nets. After banding it, he opened his hand to let it go. The male decided to get in one good bite before flying off and then got so into it, refused to let go and hung from his thumb for a moment. It flew off and remarkably, Mark did not need a band aid.

Ah, looks like the rain is easing up, I should hit the road.

2nd Annual Bird Blogger Conference

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

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

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

Here are the qualifications for the discount:

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

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

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

Final Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival Post

Really, it is. I swear. At least for this year.

Banding was slow today at Carpenter Nature Center and I spent the morning talking to the Development Director while she repaired nets. Fortunately, I had a chance to observe some banding while at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival. Once again, a Sunday morning trip was scheduled to watch bander Mark Conway (that's Mark in the above photo banding a kiskadee) and his assistants band birds at Los Ebanos Preserve.

Here's a closer shot of the kiskadee Mark was banding. Something interesting that I learned was that all kiskadees have a yellow gape.

I took a photo of one earlier in the festival and I had never noticed that before and thought it was a young bird, but all kiskadees of all ages have that yellow outline at the corners of their mouths.

The first bird of the morning wast a gray phase eastern screech owl. The banders weren't targeting owls, but they had the nets up at not long after dawn and this bird was just flying through and flew into the net.

Here is a long-billed thrasher which I hear way more than see in when birding in South Texas. That bill is not deformed, that's the way they are.

The best part of the day was getting to see a green jay up close. Last year they banded quite a few and I figured that green jays were par for the course.

But Mark said that they don't get green jays in the nets very often as they are members of the corvid family and very intelligent. They had not banded at Los Ebanos recently so the birds were just not used to it.

Mark said that this set a record for the most green jays that they have ever caught in a day: 9 green jays banded--and I never got tired of them.

Another exciting bird of the day was an olive sparrow--one of the hardest birds to see, you hear them quite a bit. I was glad to have a chance to get this photo because, frankly, my earlier efforts were just plain sad:

Behind all those tiny branches lurks an olive sparrow at Llano Grande. This was not bad, just finding an olive sparrow sitting on a branch long enough to aim your scope and camera is feat within itself.

Here, Mark is holding an orange-crowned warbler. These guys are all over in the trees in south Texas this time of year. They're not an easy warbler to see, so when a guide finds one, I think people hear warbler and hope for an exciting/colorful bird. As they search and search, they'll say, "I see a small brownish bird..." Yep, that's the orange-crowned. It's not even as orange as a blackburnian warbler. You may be wondering to yourself, why this bird is called an orange-crowned warbler...

Here, Mark demonstrates the name. When you hold and orange-crowned warbler about six inches from your face and blow on its crown, you can see a kind of orangish color on the underside of the crest feathers--see how obvious that is? Another one of those birds that was named when bird watching was done with a gun, not with binoculars.

Here are one of the many great-tailed grackles in the area. When you get them in the sun, they really are a striking bird. You can hear great-taileds singing all over Harlingen, any time of day--even all night long when they are roosting in the trees--how do those guys get any rest?

They do sound incredibly mechanical as opposed to musical. I wonder how that adaptation sounded, and what must have early explorers to North America have thought hearing those things chatter all night in the trees above them?

There was also a very exciting bird into the nets--a common yellowthroat, which to Mark are not common but something to study in depth. He thinks that there is an isolated population of yellowthroats that could be a subspecies that he calls the Brownsville yellowthroat. Will there a split some day separating this species of yellowthroat from the rest of the common yellowthroats seen around the United States? If so, Mark will have been instrumental in that research.

Okay, this doesn't have too much to do with banding, but there were quite a few anoles running around during the banding program and this guy with the wavy tail caught my eye. I wondered what happened to make it look like that? Did appear to slow it down in its daily travels.

And so, I leave you wit one final green jay photo, because they are just so darn cool looking. I'm very excited, it looks like we will be able to go out with Mark one day on the South Texas trip next year, which would be awesome for the group and great for me to learn different banding techniques from different people.

Estero Llano Grande State Park

And yet more Texas birding goodness. Incidentally, if you have been reading these entries and thinking, "Dude, I so have to get my birding butt to south Texas!" I have been in contact with a friend of Non Birding Bill's who runs a travel agency and we are putting together a trip for next October...

I had so much fun on my field trip to Estero Llano Grande State Park on my first day of the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival, I thought I would go back and do some proper digiscoping before I had to work the birdJam booth on Saturday morning. It really is a cool park--it's new and I think over time will gain in popularity.

I wanted a chance to see and digiscope the black-bellied whistling duck without the fog. These guys were all over the park and they kind of whistle and their bellies are black--boy ornithologists must have been having a bad day--a bird that actually fits its name. Shocking.

The park isn't all wetlands. The path to the visitor center is quite lush and great for watching butterflies. Please don't ask me what kind--I do know lots of people were freaking out because some rare butterfly had been spotted but I can't remember the name. I'm taking baby steps towards butterfly id--I mean, I ranch caterpillars but I don't drop everything to see a hairstreak. I am kinda getting more into it...I must admit that I did pick up one or two butterfly id guides. Man, butterflies have much better names than birds: Shasta Blue, Frigga Fritillary (say THAT 5 times fast), Dull Firetip (kind of an oxymoron name), Definite Patch, Confused Cloudywing--seriously, those are all butterfly names. Ornithologists, if you discover any more birds on this planet, please take note of butterfly names and come up with something creative.

The area also had some hummingbirds. I will mark off a few points from the park for not having their bird feeders filled. Guys, what were you thinking? It's a bird festival weekend, plus you have your own programs going on, how can you not have your bird feeders filled? For a new park, this is not a good first impression--empty feeders on a busy weekend? If you're trying to attract regular birder traffic, that's not the way to do it. I know some of us left feed back on that, so hopefully after the park is open awhile they will have a regular schedule to keep their feeders filled. The empty hummer feeders did put the kibosh on my chances of getting a decent buff-bellied hummingbird photo. Believe it or not, there is a female ruby-throated hummingbird in the above shot. Can you see her? No? She's hard to see? You betcha', so I put my camera to the scope:

There she is. She would fly towards the empty hummingbird feeder, test it out and then sit on the thorn, waiting or perhaps hiding from the buff-bellied, it seemed on constant patrol and ready to chase her off if she even thought about approaching a feeder.

Periodically, a buff-bellied hummingbird would show up, but it never landed in a spot that was easy to photograph. This was the best I could do.

The park did have a nice shorebird selection and after my class that I took this summer, I thought I would try my id skills. It was tough because I learned how to id shorebirds for Minnesota and the Dakotas, not Texas. But I had the time, they were fairly close and it was a good idea to practice. Above we have sleeping shorebirds, mostly dowitchers and stilt sandpipers. But time to break 'em all down and see what I can find.

This one is easy enough--a black necked stilt. Can't really mistake it for anything else.

Here's a family group of stilts. Actually, while I was digiscoping these guys, a rail flew past me. It was so fast and I only saw the silhouette, but I'm assuming it was a Virginia rail. Several soras scooted about the reeds too.

Argh! Here is where it would get tough. Okay, there's a dude in the back with light colored legs and it's smaller than the black legged dudes in front--they guy in back has to be a least sandpiper. But what are the other three? They are either western sandpipers or semi-palmateds. There bills didn't look blunt and kind of down curved--are they westerns? I'm thinking that they're westerns.

Fortunately, as I was digiscoping, I found Clay Taylor (digiscoped above). He confirmed that they were in fact westerns--wrong time of year for semi-palms anyway. Incidentally, he was there for the butterflies.

Now, here was an interesting scenario. The bird on the right is a yellowlegs with a broken leg and the other three are dowitchers. Now which yellowlegs and which dowitchers. Lesser yellowlegs are about the same size as either dowitcher, so this would be a lesser yellowlegs. Now, the dowitchers were very vocal and my shorebird instructor said that if they're noisy, they're long-billed dowitchers. Everyone who passed me called them long-billed as well. Plumage-wise, I just can't really tell. If anyone wants to add tips in the comments on your tips for separating dowitchers--please feel free. I'm calling these long-billed dowitchers.

Or maybe I should call them long-billed bullies, because they would go after any bird trying to feed in their vacinity. Note the posture of the bird in the middle of the dowitchers--puffing itself up and stretching its neck to look impressive. The injured yellowlegs was in no position to argue and soon flew off. But the bird in the middle was not finished.

It made a beeline for a stilt sandpiper (on the right). Again, notice the dowitcher craning its neck as it approaches the stilt sandpiper, major intimidation mode.

But then suddenly everybody flew off--even the thug dowitcher (that's his rump in the above photo in mid take off. I looked up and sure enough, there was a Cooper's hawk cruising overhead. The shorebirds formed a tight flock and circled the water noisily. The Coops didn't dive for any of the birds, but continued over the wetlands in search of less suspecting prey.

A few minutes after the hawk passed, an immature lark sparrow popped up to see what was going on. About this time, I needed to head back towards the convention center. I ran into Clay who was still searching out the butterflies. We talked for a few minutes and one of the visitor center staff came out and said that they had observed a bobcat lurking in the vegetation behind us. Who knew? Stuff like that always makes me wonder what I miss. How many owls do I walk under? How many coyotes cross the path behind me? How often has mountain lion considered whether or not I'd be worthwhile prey?

Portrait Of A Lister

Now, this my friends is a hard core bird lister. If you can't see it, you can click on the photo for a larger version. Note that she has a color coded system as well as a pen to check birds off. I was trying to figure it out. Did the pink just denote birds that were heard and the green was birds heard and seen? Or did the pink indicate birds they group saw, but she did not? Anyway, I admired the listing system, not being a hard core bird lister myself. I have no idea how many birds I have seen in North America. I check off a National Geographic Guide but I haven't counted it in awhile.

Speaking of National Geographic, here is a play of how I stuck both feet in my mouth:

We were all sitting down to a final dinner at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival and I'm catching up with old friends and seated next to WildBird on the Fly who is engaged with and older gentlemen. As the food is winding down and people are leaving the table, I insert myself with WBotF and the gentleman--he's talking about a bird club he started called the Western Field Ornithologists--and we start moving on to other topics including touching on politics and I demonstrated on him a groping handshake that I received from a republican senator and had a good time. Someone came by asking for a book to be signed and I asked WildBird, "So, who's the old guy?"

She laughed and answered, "Um, that's Jon Dunn."

We both started cackling loudly--I know who Jon Dunn is--and have almost all of his books, I just had no clue what he looked. I confessed my ignorance to Jon and we laughed. We ended up on the same flight out of Harlingen and I have to say for someone who co-wrote and in depth gull identification book, he really is a well-rounded and interesting guy and not the big, boring scary scientist type.

More Tales Of Harlingen

If you have not heard about the baby owls using a stuffed owl as a parent, you must check it out at Cute Overload!

I go all the way to south Texas to see things like the Inca Dove above and low and behold there's one hanging out in Two Harbors, MN. Doh! They kinda look like a small mourning dove with highlights. Although, they do fly as though they don't have much control, it' almost as though you can hear a thought bubble in their head, "Yeeeeeeeeeee-ah, how do I control my body?!"

So, I'm going through my photos trying to figure out how to use them in the blog. The Raptor Project was also at Harlingen and I got some shots of the gyrfalcon flying. Right after I got this shot, the gyr swooped down and buzzed the crowd-a thrilling experience. You could feel the wind in its wake as it passed. The bird did not take out any pigeons this time.

Father Tom, the festival president got to hold the falcon for a bit. I tried to get a photo of him with the bird, but you couldn't get him to look up and who could blame him? I'd find it hard to take my eyes of that lovely piece of bird flesh if it were on my fist too.

"Got Pigeon?!"

This is Chris Boswell, the Mayor of Harlingen. It's really incredible to see how the town of Harlingen embraces the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival--the mayor himself came to the opening reception, there were big banners posted welcoming birders, and many of the hotels started a breakfast service early (we were at the Holiday Inn Express and they had breakfast ready at 4:15 am). Even my favorite restaurant, Alicia's was experimenting with later hours.

It's also fun to meet the locals who come in to the trade show on the weekend. This guy had been birding but had taken a break in his life. I just loved his Chuck Norris shirt--I'm a big fan of Chuck Norris Facts.

And Another Thing About Harlingen, TX

I'm currently in the Harlingen Airport--who has FREE wireless(another great thing about this town)! A good chunk of the birding community is here on its first flight out of Harlingen. I'll be leaving the place where you can drive around and randomly see cool birds (and yet another great thing) in parking lots like this long-billed curlew that was chillin' in the movie theater parking lot.

I'll have lots more in depth coverage when I get back.

Great Thing About This Fest

One of the many things I love about this festival is the hospitality. The staff is constantly striving to make sure you see birds and are having a great time. This morning I went to drop Denese off at her field trip and I was walking back to the rental car when the festival president, Father Tom Pincelli shouts from across the lot, "Hey, Birdchick, do you need a tropcial kingbird?"

I said yes and he pointed to one and I digiscoped it on the spot. The tropical kingbird is right below the loggerhead shrike--two great birds, right in the parking lot.

Father Tom also pointed out some other birds on a nearby telephone line. He said that the larger one was a parrot.

Two introduced species side by side: European starling and red-crowned parrot.

The parrots are native to Mexico, but this particular population in Harlingen is the result of escaped birds thriving in a metro area--which works out, red-crowned parrots in their native land are endangered.

Here's an up close shot of that kingbird in the morning light. Great birds, right in the convention center parking lot.

Jeff Gordon's Mad Field Trippin' Skillz

Here are some slightly blurry, but oh so cool crested caracaras:

So on Friday I went birding on the King Ranch field trip to look for that ferruginous pygmy owl. It was supposed to be a chigger-ful area and after last year, you would think I would show more caution. Many were using duct tape to cover up shoe lace openings to prevent a chigger foot infestation:

The field trip leaders provided a plethora of colors for people to choose from.

Some even tried to cover up their sandals.

Some couldn't decide on which color to use.

Others (myself included) decided to throw caution to the wind and try our luck. To my surprise, I didn't get any chigger bites of my feet--whoot!

So Jeff Gordon--aka Jeff Gyr was one of the leaders on that trip. I knew Jeff was a good guy, great birder, all around fun to spend the day with, but I really had no idea of how good a field trip leader he is. Not only does he have a fun and easy going style and will work to get you the bird you want, but he goes the extra mile of really explaining what is going on--where to stand, when to be quiet and for how long--just several little things that really puts him over the top in the world of trip leading.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was this Sprague's pipit above. I had seen these at the Potholes and Prairie Bird Fest in North Dakota and it's not a species I expected to photograph. You usually don't see them until they are flushed or if they are doing a display flight. They kind of circle up in the air, almost as if they were climbing stairs. Then they fly around and do a little kiting (in the breeding season, they give their haunting call) and then they drop like a stone from the sky and land on the ground--not easy to photograph, let alone digiscope. Well, Jeff had everyone line up in a certain way, flush the bird and we got to watch it do its flight routine (without the song). After it landed, he had most of us stay on the other side of the field while he and a small group walked near where it landed. They moved slowly and followed the bird and eventually the bird walked out into the open--and even on to the gravel road--the whole group of 50 some odd people got to see the Sprague's pipit. Well played, Mr. Gordon, well played.

We also found a couple of other interesting things like this small mantis and...

and some sulphur shelf--no, I didn't collect and eat this one. Kind of hard to cook it when all you have in your room is a coffee pot.

Filling In For WildBird on the Fly

So, there's a big book signing going on right now at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest. Amy Hooper who has an essay in Good Birders Don't Wear White is running a tad late so I offered to fill in for her. I don't think anyone noticed that I wasn't her...or that I was wearing white.

Listening To A Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl

Got to experience a ferruginous pygmy-owl today at King Ranch. We heard a few owls, but the birds were so hidden that I couldn't really get a photo. However, the males were tooting so loud I could take a video of the thicket and you can hear one of them singing away:

Birding In Weslaco

We started our birding in the fog this morning. We were in a newer park in the Weslaco area called Estero Llano Grande State Park. This where the northern jacana was located this time last year. Llano Grande has a wonderful deck overlooking a lake. When we arrived at dawn there was a heavy fog and you could hear ducks, dowitchers and kingbirds.


This made for incredible atmosphere, but lousy digiscoping. This is a green kingfisher perched on top of a martin house.

But there were great birds all around like this lark sparrow who was mid preen when I took this photo.

It was very eerie, out of nowhere in the fog, huge flocks of red-wing blackbirds began to descend all around us, coming in for food. You would hear this large squeaky and squawking sound then this cloud of black would just appear overhead.

Gradually the fog began to lift and you could make out more birds, like these three black-bellied whistling ducks. It's interesting, there's been a black-bellied whistling duck hanging out on a lake about fifteen minutes from where I live in Minneapolis (that's a rare bird for that area) but I knew I would be seeing them soon in Texas and couldn't motivate myself to go see the one in the Twin Cities.

As the fog was lifting, several dew covered spider webs revealed themselves.

And the webs became part of the natural scenery in photos. Above is a female vermilion flycatcher perched near a web. Even though she isn't as bright as the male, she's still very attractive.

As the fog cleared, we started getting much better looks at the waterfowl. This bird confused me at first, but I think it's a molting green-winged teal--you can still see some cinnamon color around its bill--and the green on the wing.

I was really enjoying the shorebirds too. Check out that sleeping black-necked stilt surrounded by long-billed dowitchers. Looks like something out of Dr. Seuss.

Speaking of Dr. Seuss birds, check out this American avocet--they were quite active, there were several who spent so much time chasing each other, it's a wonder that they ever got enough to eat. While I was watching this bird, I noticed some movement behind it. To my surprise and delight...

I saw a sora! This bird was lurking in the reeds and then stopped right before it got to the opening out onto the water. I aimed my scoped just a little in front the sora and focused it. I figured the sora was making sure the ares was predator free before it would walk out into the open. However, instead of walking the bird jumped in the air, flew over the boardwalk and landed in another set of reeds. Not the exact shot I wanted of a sora, but fun to watch the behavior.

This young kiskadee let our group get quite close and many of us had a chance to get a photo. The group stayed still until the kiskadee decided to fly off. You can still see the gape at the corners of this bird's mouth--it's not very old at all. Look how scruffy the tail is.

After Llano Grande we made a couple more stops, one being Frontera Audubon. I thought it was interesting to note that as one of our field trip leaders was crouching to get a better look at a bird, a cat came up and started rubbing on his leg and spotting scope tripod. Silly kitty, birders think you should be indoors, not hanging around a great birding park.

And here's is one of the star feeder birds in south Texas--the green jay. What a treat! But the park was loaded with plain chachalacas:

Boy, you think squirrels can take over bird feeders, you should see a huge flock of chachalacas in action. That made short work of many of the grapefruits set out to attract orioles and butterflies--and they are just all over. You would walk along the trails, have a sensation of being watched, scan the brush and then find a chachalaca casually staring at you through the brush from only a few feet away. I think they're plotting. What, I don't know.

Okay, and now I have to sleep for more birding fun tomorrow.

Best Booth Give Away Ever?

One of the booths here (Bird Uganda Safaris) has an interesting give away. I was handed a clear plastic bag (sealed) full of a clear liquid. "Is this water?" I asked. Closer inspection revealed it to be Uganda Waragi (premium gin). Guess we know where the party booth is! Well, I have seen my requisite great kiskadee (above). More photos to come.

Part of the charm for many who visit the Rio Grande Valley for birding are the numerous butterflies and dragonflies. I never really understood the whole butterfly watching hobby, but being in Texas, it's really making sense--there are so many all over. Above is a cluster of Queen butterflies that I found on our trip this morning. I don't know what they were feeding on, but they were diggin' it.

In Texas

Well, I have landed in Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest. I am again helping out my friends at the birdJam booth. I haven't done much birding yet, but some parrots flew over our hotel and I discovered that Denese from birdJam is a little sentimental over great-tailed grackles. She remembers them fondly from the past and almost gets misty when we pass a tree full noisily roosting grackles. Yeah, she's not strange at all.

The Raptor Project family is here in Texas. Some may remember the awesome gyrfalcon story from a week ago. I wonder what kind of hunting the bird will do here? While they were setting up, they perched out their Asian black hornbill and John was kind enough to pose me near it for a photo. What a goofy looking bird with one dynamite beak! And for fun, I googled "hornbill" to see if I could come up with any interesting info and instead found a photo album of some guy vacationing with a hornbill...and let it clean his teeth...yeah, ew is right.

Well, I'm going to get some sleep and try to digiscope the crap out south Texas tomorrow.

WildBird on the Fly

For the record, Amy of WildBird on the Fly is a fantastic baker. She almost always comes to bird festivals with fresh baked cookies. I love to eat them and many think I share rooms with her at bird festivals out of frugality or even because I enjoy her company, but really I'm just using her for cookies.

That said, sometimes birding gets the better of me and if I'm having a good birding moment, I might go to extreme measures to keep it going. Below is a video of the laughing gulls eating from my hand from the minivan window in South Padre Island. I think I originally called this wild birds on the fly eating WildBird on the Fly's cookies. The quality on Google Video isn't the best, but I don't have to pay for the bandwidth. It looks super cool and ethereal on my computer and I took it with a Nikon P4. It's about a minute and a half and it's incredible to watch how quickly they fly down and snarf the cookie bits.

Rio Grande Valley Fest Odds and Ends

Did I mention that I ran into Mr. Neil in Harlingen? I was invited to a party at Marci Fuller's house and there he was at the kitchen table. Here he is regaling Amy Hooper, Marcie and Katie Fitzmier with his stories. This was the first time I'd run into him at the bird festival.

The fun thing for me when visiting another state is just enjoying birds that I don't normally see where I live, even if I have seen them before. On the lines we have large flocks of great-tailed grackles and starlings gathering to roost for the night. The grackles made so many strange clicks and whistles, they really remind me of dolphins. I really enjoyed seeing some different blackbirds.

Here the blackbirds are coming in for one last bathe for the day in this drainage ditch. When the starlings joined it, there were so many of them flipping water around it created almost a mist and you could barely make them out.

Blackbirds are well and good, but a fancy pants scissor-tailed flycatcher is fun to watch for on power lines too. This one was digiscoped the Swarovski scope and Nikon P4 camera. Here's what it looks like at a distance:

Even at a distance you can't help but notice that bird. I wonder what non birders from the East visiting the western United States think when they see these guys?

Neil appreciated being able to see these guys through the scope.

Here' s a bird that his more Mr. Neil's speed--a butcher bird aka loggerhead shrike! These predatory birds are different from raptors because they use their bill to catch and kill their prey and not their feet like a hawk or falcon would. Theses birds also impale their prey on thorns or barbs to make it easier to hack at and that's where their folk name comes from.

Another fun part of travel are just odd things, like this water tower proclaiming to be the home town of Freddy Fender. It was great to see the town of San Benito so proud of their native son with such prominent 1970s hair and handlebar mustache.

If you ever find yourself in Harlingen, Texas either for the RGV Bird Festival or just going on your own, I can't recommend this place enough. It's called Alicia's and I was introduced to it by the Eagle Optics staff. They are only open for breakfast and lunch and you get large portions for a small price. Think a whole Mexican style breakfast for $3.75. Another great place for lunch and dinner is Pepe's but be sure to specify that you want the hot salsa.

Part of Alicia's charm is the artwork on the wall. Check out all the deep inner meaning. I like how the loin cloth morphs into the mustache.

I had intended to do an entry about the kid's artwork at the festival, but WildBird on the Fly beat me to it so we'll talk about Alicia's art. It's not all religious, there's also interesting takes on the great masters:

The Mona Lisa bunny hands freaked me out at first, but then the growling dog behind her weirded me out more. Don't even get me started on the men in the mountains.

I must say, they had cooler hats at the festival. It's not often you see a black cap and then add such a striking green jay to it. Mr. Neil looked very smart with it on.

I think this brings the RGV coverage to a close at the moment. It was an awesome time and I hope to go again next year.

Non Birds of Rio Grande Valley

WARNING!!!

If you do not like spiders, do not continue reading this post. You really, really, REALLY will not care for this one. Also be warned that at the end of this post are a couple of gross photos of my foot. If my feet and spiders bother you, do not continue. If you have a fetish for large spiders and nasty looking feet, you're gonna have such a good time I'm thinking of charging a fee.

Periodically, I hear people say that "butterflies are the new birds" meaning people are starting to list butterflies and not just birds. Now, if it's a charismatic species like the above--a Mexican Blue Wing, I can kind of get on board with that. We don't have a big variety of butterflies in Minnesota, but visiting south Texas I can see where people get the spark. When I went to see the northern jacana in Weslaco, it was chock full o butterflies. I would pass a flowering bush and a virtual swarm would fill the air. There is a butterfly festival that happens in Texa and even optics companies are responding by making optics that have close focusing abilities to 3 and 4 feet. I'm marginally interested.

I love the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest--it's my number one favorite in the country, but if I could change anything about it, that would be that there should be separate field trips for the butterflies and dragonflies. I'm not saying that I don't want them pointed out here and there, but one of the trips I took we had a guide who was REALLY gung ho for dragonfies and we kept stopping for them constantly. It really irritated me because didn't pay money for an insect trip, I paid for birds. The trip really seemed to drag for me as we stopped for them, it didn't help that it was chigger and mosquito city where we were birding and a good portion of the trip was out in the direct sun. It was one of the reasons why I decided to ditch the Brownsville trip the next day and go out on my own. I could take control of destiny and not have to stop for bugs I had no interest in. We looked at the above which is a dragonfly not typically found in the United States called a Tawny Pennant. I don't know, I can understand getting excited about black dragonflies with red wings or the all purple dragonfly but really, it should be separate trip for people who really want to watch that sort of thing.

Can you see the spider in this photo? There it is, lurking in the grass behind some unsuspecting birders. This guy was GIGANTIC. It was so big, someone thought it was a tarantula.

Here it is next to my Handheld Guide to Birds. That's a pretty big spider. Think that it is a wolf spider, but I have never seen one that big in Minnesota. If this is not a wolf spider, feel free to correct me in the comments section. I'm not the arachnid chick.

Eh, look at those fuzzy appendages at the mouth.

The spider was twice the size of this tiny frog. Any guesses on this species?

Here was cute little anole looking for tasty bugs on a patio--these cute little guys were all over the place.

Oh, now this was interesting. These were little pits made by antlions. These are basically little Sarlacc pits targeted towards ants. These little larvae make pits to trap ants and eat them.

A small ant (above) falls into the pit and as it tries to work its way out, that triggers the antlion to grab the ant and then feed on it.

If you look closely in this pit, you can see the front mandibles of the antlion. As I watched these little pits, I noticed that a species of ant that was red with very long legs could easily crawl out of the pits without triggering the predator below. Small ants did not stand a chance.

Here we have dung beetle in search of ...dung.

Now, in Minnesota we try to protect ourselves from mosquitoes and ticks. In Texas we watch for fire ants and chiggers. On one of the field trips we were going to walk through some grass to look for Sprague's pipits--guaranteed chigger bites. We were warned to be very liberal with the insect repellant--which I was. The mistake I made was spraying my feet with my Keens on. I should have taken the whole sandal off and sprayed, covering the entire foot.

If you look at the pattern of the swollen chigger bites on my foot, they follow the straps on my Keens. This looks a lot worse than it really feels. It's an odd little souvenir, I'll be scratching these bites for the next few weeks and thinking, "Ah, Texas." Amy recommended I try something called Chigger X to soothe the itch and it works well. I'm still not really clear on what it going on with chiggers, I've heard so many different things. Hillary the Zeiss rep told me to put nail polish on all the bites because the chigger is still inside my skin and that the nail polish would suffocate and kill them, relieving the itch.

I only had black or pink sparkley nail polish with me and went with the sparkley. They stilled itched. Hillary said I should have used clear, but really the bites looked so bad that I don't thing clear would have made that much of a difference. Someone else later told me that the chiggers are no longer inside me and that whatever they used as an anti coagulant to get blood is still in there causing the itch. I have no idea what' going on. Whatever it is, I'm glad sandal weather is finished in Minnesota and I can keep my feet hidden. Ah, what I go through for a good bird! Anyone else have any insight for the chiggeriness that has taken over my feet?

And Now: Gratuitous Green Jay Photos

In case you don't already feel the necessity to go to South Texas next year, I offer this.

One of the highlights of visiting the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest are all the green jays. They are so gorgeous and about as common as blue jays are for many of us.

Here, guide Richard Gibbons gives a young boy a recently banded green jay to be released. What a cool bird for a kid to get to see up close and even touch. That's a magic moment right there and that's where a kid will get "BIRDS ARE COOL!" burned into their brain.

Now that I look at this bird closer, it really matches the WingScapes logo. Just soak in that bird's color for a moment. I never get tired of watching them when I visit the area. What's fun is that there is a much more rare jay for the area called a brown jay (which I tried for and missed). Non Birding Bill thinks birders are nuts to try and go for the brown one and not just focus on the green one.

As cool looking as this bird is, keep in mind that it is a member for the jay family. And just like our boisterous blue jays, these colorful birds will eat eggs and nestlings of other bird species. I wonder if that's easier to tolerate when a bird is this strikingly gorgeous?

The banders were kind enough to offer to let me hold a green jay. I didn't quite do it right, I'm used to holding larger birds like pelicans and raptors, not tiny songbirds, but I still really appreciated holding something to unbelievably beautiful in my hands. I even got a life bite.

When I let the bird go, you could see all the bright yellow feathers under the wings and on the sides of the tail. Really, how colorful does a bird need to be? What a treat to see a living, breathing emerald with sapphire, onyx and gold accenting it?

South Texas Banding

So, I took a day off from racking up life birds (seeing birds I've never seen before) for some songbird banding. After two days of bus trips and one day of birding around all over on my own, I was ready for some low key activity. On this trip we sat on a patio of Los Ebanos Preserve. We were even served coffee while birds were brought to us! Above we have bander Mark Conway handing a dove to a young lad very excited about birds. Mark is awesome. He's a careful bander who is a high school teacher in his spare time, this gives him the rare ability to educate while doing in the midst of banding.

Mark does quite a bit of work with South Texas subspecies. He's currently working to prove that there are a separate population of common yellowthroats (above) and Carolina wrens (below).

It was a treat to watch banding in a different area and to see different birds come in. Mark and his assistance must do their banding early in the morning before it gets too hot and over stresses the birds.

Here we have a field trip leader by the name of Richard Gibbons. He's reading the bander's bible by Peter Pyle. It's one of the hardest to read bird books out there but is key in aging and sexing birds in the hand. Richard was reading Pyle out loud which is tough on birders and can work as an instant sleep aid. Pure evil.

It was fun to see so many great birds up close, like this female golden fronted woodpecker.

She was a noisy bird, squealing the whole time they had her for banding. She reminds me of a blond red-bellied woodpecker.

Here's something you don't see every day--the yellow eye of a mockingbird. These guys gave a very plaintive "mew" while being banded. Mockingbirds are such fierce defenders of their territory, it was surprising to hear such a sad little cry from them.

Here's a black-crested titmouse. Don't let that cute face fool you...

This bird had bite. The banders were very careful around the titmice. That sharp bill they use for cracking open seeds and nuts is a handy tool for wedging under fingernails.

Here's one of the many white-tipped doves we got in the nets--check out those crazy yellow eyes.

The doves also had beautiful purple iridescent feathers on the back of the neck. From this angle you can really see what a tiny head holds an even tinier brain that governs a very large body. How do doves manage it?

This was one of the cutest doves we got in, an Inca dove. What was so interesting about these tiny guys was how fast they flew and how quickly their wings flapped. I'm so used to the larger morning doves who lumber around, it was a shock to see these zippy little dudes.

It was a nice way to round out the festival.

Laguna Atascosa NWR

I think my favorite area to bird in South Texas so far is Laguna Atascosa NWR. When I decided to ditch one of my field trips and venture out on my own I chose Laguna partly for aplomado falcon but also because there is such a variety of habitat you can see anything from crested caracaras to long-billed curlews. It was a windy and chilly day for Texas and birds were blowin' around all over the place.

I also thought this would be the perfect place to try out the Swarovski 80mm Field Scope and eye piece and Nikon P4 with digiscoping adapator: Verdict--cool camera, sweet scope, futzy digiscoping adapter. I like the macro feature on that camera, but Swarovski has two different adapters for their scope and the one that works with this camera is way more futzy than the other. However, I got some rockin' images with this set up.

Here is one of the many white-tailed hawks that can be seen in this area. You can just assume every raptor here with a light chest is a red-tail. These guys are beautiful to watch fly!

This photo was not digiscoped, but I thought it established some of the terrain and windly, cloudy weather for the day. This turkey vulture sailed right by the minivan window trying to get control of its direction in the aggressive winds. Nice shot with the P4.

Here's another habitat shot with the added bonus of a coyote taking a leak on the side of the road as I was approaching. This was not digiscoped. I was hoping for an ocelot, but I guess a coyote marking his territory will do for mammals on this trip.

Here's a digiscoped white-tailed kite. These guys could be seen all over on brush and power lines. Kites are a treat since we don't have them in Minnesota.

Here was the bird of the day for me: a wood stork. I spotted it on my way to Laguna in someone's yard. At first I thought it was odd yard art. Then I thought it was the weirdest ibis I had ever seen. After much deduction and consulting with the Handheld Guide to Birds, I fell on wood stork. When I got to Laguna, I showed them to images to confirm and to find out if this was unusual. They said that these birds are possible, but should have migrated south by now. I didn't see the bird marked on the official festival checklist, but since I saw it on my own and not part of the official field trip it couldn't be counted. Still, a bird I was not expecting to see and a liver. I even got to watch it labor swallowing a large fish.

Doh, have to go catch a flight. More later.

Racking Up Great Birds

My flight doesn't leave until about 1:40pm today. WildBird has already left for her flight, so I'm thinking of finishing packing and then heading to out to try and see an aplomado falcon before heading out. I've seen so many great birds this trip, some I've seen before and some completely new.

One bird that has eluded me in the wild is a barn owl. I've handled them but I've never seen one in the wild. Someone gave me directions to an old, abandon cotton gin:

Doesn't this just look like the set for lots of slasher type murders? I tried looking through all the broken windows and couldn't find the bird. The door was a ajar and I poked my head in. The wind rattled everything that was loose and you heard creaking and and metal vibrating. The building seemed like it could collapse at any time. I scanned and found a pair of barn owls. I tried to digiscope, but knew it was way too dark. It's enough of a souvenir for me though:

One of the birds flew to the other side of the gin and disappeared behind a rafter, then I heard tiny rasping begging calls--they were nesting! I headed out and left the owls in peace.

Another Quick and Dirty Post

Okay, got my two articles sent off! Whoot. This morning I bailed on my scheduled trip and just drove out on my own. I love going in groups and sharing the birding experience, but I really needed a day away to bird without a group dynamic. I did a quick stop to South Padre Island and had some fun with some laughing gulls. There's something just so fun about feeding gulls. The above photo was taken right outside my minivan window with no zoom.

The gulls were coming from far and wide for bits of sausage. I ran out of sausage and grabbed some tasty chocolate chip cookies that WildBird on the Fly made:

Check it out, a wild bird on the fly enjoying WildBird on the Fly's cookies! Sweet.

Tonight we listened to JeffGyr give the talk as the keynote speaker for the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest. It was his "top ten birds of the last thirty years". The first part was just amazing birds that popped up in North America, the last part was focused more on birds that have caused HUGE controversy. He even brought up the infamous pygmy nuthatch incident from 1996.

Pygmy Nuthatch Incident Sidebar: In 1996, a pygmy nuthatch was visiting a bird feeder in North Dakota right on the Red River border to Minnesota. One intrepid birder played a pygmy nuthatch call and got the bird to fly across the river and become the first Minnesota state record. This lead to huge amounts of debate: you shouldn't call birds, why can't you use calls to attract birds--the nuthatch was visiting a bird feeder and that's as artificial as taped calls, it wasn't a natural movement into the state, it was only a couple of dozen feet the bird flew over to get to the other side of the river it's no big deal, blah, blah, blah.

Jeff added a nice touch of what Minnesota Ornithologists' Union Records Committee meetings are like and showed footage of a cowboy shootout, a huge bar brawl, sword fighting, Civil War battles--it was hilarious and a tad accurate.

The talk wound down to the ivory-billed woodpecker of course. As Jeff was showing the footage of the Lunneau video, I was thinking to the first time I saw it last year at the Rio Grande fest and how I was excited and full of hope and couldn't wait for the adventure of going to Arkansas. Now watching the footage again and being slowed down I was a tad jaded and depressed--we didn't have better footage to show for it yet, I truly thought it would be different this year, hope can be so fleeting sometimes. Plus, watching the slow motion of the wing beats on the video compared to a pileated woodpecker reminded me of the whole "back and to the left" of the Kennedy assassination. Come on, Florida, get us a GOOD photo.

The talk was interesting, but I truly enjoyed listening to all the birding controversies best. I told Jeff he should do a book on it, fascinating stuff. I must get to bed, we're banding tomorrow.

Oh, so I tried out a Swarovski digiscoping set up today...I realized that I have never truly digiscoped, I only think I have digiscoped, I've been faking it until now. Here's a preview:

Black vultures!

Yeah, Baby, That's What I'm Talkin' About

I'm going to get a new digital camera and I'm testing out a Nikon P4. I want something that does great macro and is good for digiscoping. Today I got this photo of a zone-tailed hawk at Anzalduas Park at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest:

Here I took the photo through a Leica field scope (sweet shot of the "I'm gonna poop or maybe just turn around.")

And this one I took through a Brunton Eterna scope (super sweet shot--the zone-tailed staring down the paparazzi). I love how the bird is looking right at us. This is a very good species for the valley, I saw it last year at the ABA Convention in Tucson, still sweet to see. The bird is part of a controversy. On one of the field trips on Wednesday, a pontoon was taken to this area for birding and a common black hawk was reported and photographed (super rare for this area). Now, there's talk that it was actually this zone-tailed hawk (unusual but not unlikely for this area) that people saw. There's some "spirited discussion" going on. I saw one of the photos of the reported black hawk posted in the lobby and it looks like a zone-tailed to me, but I'm not going to arm wrestle over it, I wasn't there when they saw it.

I have more entries planned but discovered that I forgot about a looming Birding Business deadline so all spare time must be devoted to those articles today. Once I get them sent off, I can resume regular posting. Coming relatively soon: bugs of the Rio Grande Valley, more fabulous birds and a very special post: "How Paul Baicich schooled the Birdchick."

Upper Rio Grande

This quick and dirty blog entry is brought to you care of Leica. For some reason, I can only pick up a wireless signal at their booth--a clever plan to get people to come over and look at their optics.

Today was an AWESOME day--lots of new life birds for me. I was worried about heat, but we birded in the morning and it was cool and foggy along the Rio Grande River. The river is very swollen, they've had 40 inches of rain in the last six weeks. It was foggy and I loved seeing neotropic cormorants (above) and ringed kingfishers (they're HUGE) and green kingfishers (they're so tiny)!

We stopped at a trailer park to see an elusive brown jay that visits feeders there. No brown jay, but oodles of great-tailed grackles. For all those people who think they have it bad with common grackles, don't complain--great-tailed are MUCH bigger and MUCH noisier. One was feeding at a tray feeder and about a dozen house sparrows landed around it. The great-tailed hopped in the air and spooked all the sparrows away. So, they are good house sparrow control but only if you only want to have great-taileds at the feeder.

Eventually the sun did come out and I was amazed at how well all the birder khaki blended in with the sandy landscape. I did get some intriguing bug photos, which I will post later.

Side Note - Cinnamon, you are the best rabbit ever and I love you. You'll be getting a huge carrot top when I get home...and stay out of the kitchen.

I'm running into lots of Minnesota people here. One is Kim Eckert (one of the few Minnesota birders who doesn't have a blog).

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Well, I made it to the Rio Grande Valley. Today was just going my way. It wasn't too cold so I was able to go with my plan of wearing a skirt with some tights and sensible shoes and then as soon as I hit Houston, TX I went to powder my nose and ditched my tights and sensible shoes and put on some sandals. As soon as the plane landed in McAllen, TX I grabbed all my luggage got my rental car (and got upgraded free to a minivan WHOOT!--I LOVE driving minivans--police tend to ignore them and who wants to steal a minivan and go joyriding?) and I got a ton of work done on the Minnesota River Guide on the plane.

I followed Bouton's helpful instructions to the northern jacana and found it right away--as well as a whole gaggle of birders I know (Bouton's photos are better than mine). As more and more people arrived from the airports to get the jacana before checking in, it was almost like cheers: "Jess!", "Terry!", "Birdchick!". The bird put on quite a show, lifting it's wings to see the yellow primaries and secondaries, lifting it's giant feet, showing it's super cool wing spurs. Someone told me they could hear me squealing from the other side of the marsh. Terry from Leica casually pointed out an anhinga flying over head and I casually observed a new life bird.

I have always wondered what it would be like to be a hardcore ticker--someone who hops a flight to get a life bird, sees it and leaves after five minutes. That was almost me today. After watching the jacana put on quite a show I had to leave, my body was not adjusting well to going from 40 degree weather to 88 degrees--sweat was literally everywhere on me.

I love being in such a different habitat. Instead of red-tails on telephone poles, it's Harris hawks, instead of blue jays all over, it's kiskadees--I love this bird festival! It's awesome and if you only go to one festival in your life, make it this one.

I did have a close encounter with danger today. While walking towards the jacana with a group we heard loud buzzing and saw a loose swarm of bees moving fast over our heads. Someone warned, "Don't look up and move swiftly the other way!"

"Are those what I think they are?" I asked.

"Yep, Africanized honey bees."

Eep! I hope that the last I report on those this trip. I like adventure as much as the next gal, but it can be kept to a minimum.

Crap, my power is running out. More later.

What Really Happens at Rio Grande Bird Fest

Okay, finally the word on what happened people-wise at the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival.

First of all, there were more kids at this festival than any I had seen before. These two guys were so cute, they came to get outfitted for a field trip. They selected Energy Binoculars, which fit well in kids hands and on kid faces. They were so cute, as Ben (tall guy behind the boys) was taking the binos out of the box and putting the straps on, one of the boys exclaimed, "They come with a case, we get a case?" You know you're getting serious when you binoculars come with a case. Welcome to the fold boys!






On the left we have party animal and Bird Watcher's Digest editor Bill Thompson. On the right is Jeff Gordon who co-wrote Identify Yourself (I'll have to add Jeff to the author sightings list). They were part of a book signing at RGV. Interesting thing, Bill pointed out that Jeff was also selected to go on the Cornell Ivory-bill search. I asked when and he said "First Two Weeks of December." When I asked which team, it turns out we are on the exact same team! I'm so relieved. When you do these things, you never know what kind of mixed bag of people will be involved and if the personalities will be compatible. After meeting Jeff, I will know that there is at least one person on my team who is fairly normal and easy to get along with.

Don't forget, while I'm out searching for "the great cock of the woods", Bill Thompson's talented wife Julie Zickefoose will be guest blogging for me.

There were a number of Bills at the convention--which was nice since I was away from Non Birding Bill. This Bill pictured here is Bill Clark who co-wrote Photographic Guide to North American Raptors with Brian Wheeler. Now I have both autographs in my book. He was offering a trip to band white-tailed hawks during the festival which I had to miss. What would my friends say if they found out I gave up hawk trapping for some birding elsewhere.










This is Dennis Paulson who wrote Shorebirds of North America. Like a dork, I didn't bring my copy of the book to be autographed so I missed out on that. Dennis was supposed to be sitting between Bill Thompson and Bill Clark during the signing, but apparently his talk was running late (or he was mobbed by shorebird groupies, we all know how fanatical those people can get). So I took a break from the Eagle Optics booth between the Bills, and took the seat for Dennis. Wouldn't you know it, but a nice lady came up to have me autograph her book. I was so tempted to continue the charade that a short sassy redhead was the true identity of Dennis Paulson, but I confessed that I was not the desired author. The woman said that she thought it was possible that I could be a "Dennis" since there were other guys with female names at the convention like Kim Eckert. For a moment in someone's eyes I was an authority on shorebirds. Dare to dream.


Tim Gallagher gave a presentation and signing at the RGV Fest too. Watching his footage of the Lunnaeu video was a very different experience than having watched it on the internet or tv news where it's blown up to grainy proportions. Having watched it on a large screen at regular speed, it makes much more sense as to why this is an ivory-billed woodpecker and not an albinistic pileated. Whether or not you believe the bird in the footage is an ivory-bill, I will tell you this, it is for sure not a pileated. It doesn't have the flight pattern a pileated does--this isn't someone speaking from behind a computer, this is someone who has considered a pileated a favorite bird since age seven and has watched it for hours in the field. If anything you could argue that the footage is an albinistic wood duck from the way the wings flap and the speed that the bird in question leaves the tree--it doesn't have the flight pattern of a woodpecker at all. What keeps it from being a wood duck is that you can see the bird clinging to the side of a tree before it takes off.

Oh dear, I just realized that went off on an ivory-bill tangent...sorry, back to the convention happenings.

Anyway, Gallagher was merrily autographing books, I have to say it was a different experience than Bobby Harrison's talk. Ladies weren't lining up to touch Gallagher. Perhaps it was his professorish air (not that that is a bad thing) and Bobby is an incredibly friendly southern gentleman? After I got my book signed I went with Amy Hooper of Wild Bird to Jeff Bouton at Leica and asked what the plan was for the rest of the evening. Jeff wanted to wait for the signing to be over and take Gallagher out for a drink. I looked at our group, even though Amy had a connection with Gallagher through Wild Bird (he used to edit the magazine too), we needed more of a presence. Bill Thompson had gone to Africa with Gallagher so I told Jeff, we should rope him in when we ask Gallagher to add credibility to our offer. Bill informed us that Gallagher would probably be tired from all the speaking engagements, but noted that Gallagher was being shuttled around and would need a ride back to his hotel. The plan was set. We would offer to drive him back to his hotel and perhaps stop for a refreshing beer. We added a few more people to our posse, waited for the signing to be over and ambushed.

Tim Gallagher came out with us. Although, Jeff did have an idea of sneaking him across the Mexican border and demand the exact location of ivory-bill sightings in Florida before returning him. It was a great time and it turns out that Gallagher is even cooler than I thought--he's a falconer. As soon as Jeff and I discovered that, the conversation quickly left talk of ivory-bills and on to the exciting flights of peregrines and Cooper's hawks.

One interesting note: Gallagher has only seen the ivory-billed woodpecker the one time--the famous time. No matter how you slice it, this is not an easy bird to see. But in a way, isn't that the nature of woodpeckers. You don't find them, they find you.

We tried to find a place for karaoke while in Harlingen and if you can believe it, there wasn't a karaoke bar big enough to fit our large group. I think at future bird festivals we are just going to have to make it an official event and hold it at the convention center. We did have a "danceteria" as a festival staff member's home. That's Katie, my coworker at Eagle Optics doing the fish in the middle. She and I are two peas in a pod and are working on an official dance when someone buys binoculars at our booth. It was a good time, especially when Katie, Bill and I did an interpretive dance to Shaft. We're bad mother birders. Right on.

I can't wait to go back next year: November 8 - 12, 2006.

Rio Grande Valley Report on Birds

Yesterday 87 degrees, today sloppy drizzle that has just turned to snow. Wow. I'm not feeling sorry for myself, I love cold wet weather. Yeah snow!

At left is a photo of a Great Kiskadee that coworker Ben Lizdas digiscoped with my camera and Kate's Swarovski scope.

The Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest was a great time. If you have never birded south Texas this is a great way to get an idea of how to bird it. You may not see every target species while there, but that's okay you will want to return. These are places I birded:

Bentsen Rio Grande State Park where some of the highlights for me were Plain Chachalacas (pictured below), Green Jays, Great Kiskadees, Olive Sparrow, Least Grebe, Common Moorhen, Glossy Ibis, Altimira Oriole, White-tipped Dove, Javelina and Black-crested Titmouse. There was so much more, but that's all I can remember at the moment. The park has a really cool hawk tower where you can look down on the Olive Sparrows and ducks, grebes and herons on the water. As it gets later in the morning, raptors come up on the thermals. I so want to go back and watch for Gray Hawks.

Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge was my favorite I think. Lots of birding by car, especially for raptors. Katie, my cohort at Eagle Optics pulled over to some water to look for kingfishers and pointed out an alligator. I thought she was just messing with me, but for sure it was an alligator--sweet! Bird highlights for me included - 20,000 coots, White-tailed Hawk, Crested Caracara, Green Jays, Northern Harriers, Osprey, Loggerhead Shrikes, Merlin, Osprey, Roseate Spoonbills, Reddish Egrets, Sandwich Terns and Snow Geese. I missed seeing the Aplomado Falcons that are possible there, but that just means another bird for another day.

Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge was small but chock full of birds. Hook-billed Kites are possible, but I missed them--again, another bird for another day. Bird highlights here for me were Green Jays (sensing a pattern here-they were EVERYWHERE), Red-shouldered Hawk, Harris Hawk (pictured left), Couch's Kingbird, Ground Dove, Black-necked Stilt, American Bittern, Great Kiskadee, Common Moorhen, Mottled Duck, Olive Sparrow, Altimira Oriole and Golden-fronted Woodpecker.

Frontera Audubon Preserve was a quick little stop but is one of those magical urban oases where you can get a good fallout. Here the highlights were Black and White Warbler, Summer Tanager, Buff-bellied Hummingbirds, Inca Doves, Great Kiskadees, Plain Chachalacas and lots of mosquitoes--still scratching.

Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley

This morning before work Katie and Maren Phillips took me to Bentsen- Rio Grande Valley State Park. It was pretty much sensory overload for me because life birds were literally dripping off of the trees. Birds that I had seen in field guides with outlandish names were all over. I finally got to see in person things like a plain chachalaca and a great kiskadee. Of course green jays (above) were everywhere, apparently they are "trash birds" down here - nickname for birds we see in our own yards all the time like grackles and cowbirds.

Okay, for all you people who think squirrels are a pain at the feeder, imagine having javelinas (right) show up? These wild pigs were all over the place. We watched a line of ten cautiously leave the woods and walk across the road in a very orderly fashion.

I just love being in another state, it was so weird to be in Minnesota yesterday with our 29 degree windchill and to be sweating it up in Texas the next day. There was a nice spicy desert smell in the air too. We ran into one of the festival tour groups down while birding. The trip was being led by Bill Thompson and Minnesota's own Kim Eckert. Thanks to both I got an unbelievably good look at an olive sparrow. This is typically a bird you hear more than see and here we were on this great look out tower watching the greenish brown bird sing on branches and scurry around in the grass looking for food. Yes, Non Birding Bill, I was watching a brown bird and loving every minute of it.

Tonight's festivities were low key. We found a karaoke bar, but they were completely filled up so we had to head down the street for some quiet evening chat at Chuck's Ice House--no singing. Even though we didn't sing, I still had a great time and a totally weird coincidence. I met a guy who is also going on the ivory-bill search, but is also going at the same time and is on the same team. He seems like a nice guy so I'm relieved to know that there will be at least one sane person down there. Part of me worries that with all those people staying in a small research station it might become like an Animal Planet version of the Real World tv show.

The Fun Has Begun

Well, barely off the plane and met up with booth buddies Katie and Ben and already have life birds. My new birds are Harris hawks (which I have seen several times but only in a falconry capacity, so this is a lifer) and white ibis.

There are great-tailed grackles everywhere singing into the night--they sound like dolphins in the trees. Katie and I were just settling into our room when Amy from Wild Bird Magazine called and asked, "Does it mean I'm a birder if I'm sitting in a parking lot of the HEB watching black-necked stilts?" The only answer Katie and I could give was to go directly to the HEB and join her. Sure enough a family group of four black-necked stilts were roaming the parking lot near a gas station for bits of food. I tried to take photos (above), but in the dim light they aren't the show quality. This was, hands down the best view of stilts I have ever gotten but incredibly odd at the same time since they were in such an unnatural environment.

I got to meet Bill Clark who co-authored Photographic Guide to North American Raptors with Brian Wheeler. Always nice to have a geek out moment at a bird festival. Bill Thompson did in fact make it in from Ohio and is busy organizing the parties for the rest of the week with Amy. Looks like karaoke Thursday night, general jam session Friday night and someone is kind enough to host a dancing party in their drive way on Saturday night.

Tomorrow Katie and I are up early to do some birding and then to work the booth. Can't wait to see the birds and to get to work talking to people about optics. Woo hoo!