Skywatch Friday

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

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

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

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


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

New Swarovski ELs & Contest

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting To 499

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Amazing Birding Morning At South Beach In Cape Cod

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More later.

Banded American Oystercaters

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

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

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

Loves Me Some Ruddy Turnstones

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

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

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

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

Swarovski's Bird Blogger Event

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

The roster of bird bloggers included myself and:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

My Crazy Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inside Swarovski

I was in Rhode Island this weekend hanging out with my friend Clay Taylor and got to tour the Swarovski Optik United States Offices. Here's the modest outside. Here's an interesting bit of trivia for you:

Right across the street from Swarovski is a maximum security prison! Hm, I bet they get to test those optics on some interesting doin's a transpirin' when the inmates are outside. As if a hardcore correctional facility isn't weird enought, on the other side of Swarovski is:

A historic cemetary! Wonder if it's ever haunted in the warehouse? But don't let all this creep you out.

The inside is what you would expect, here we have a board room with a scope and feeders right outside and nothing says Swarovski like crystal--check out those light fixtures on the ceiling.

I was very excited to see that they had the fancy crystal pocket binoculars. I've seen these on the internet and just think these would be too cha cha for words. I love the idea of being on a pelagic and then whipping one of these babies out.

I was allowed to handle a pair and try them out. They are beautiful and for pockets these have exceptional clarity, but much like a sexy pair of shoes, they aren't very comfortable. These are meant to be opera glass and held by ladies wearing gloves.

The fun part for me was seeing the assembly and repair area. I got to handle the insides of Swarovski binoculars including the prisms--those were pretty an if put on the proper chain could be worn as jewelery. Above we have a columnizer (I hope I'm spelling that correctly). From my understanding, this contraption aligns your binoculars, I would imagine working here would be like working in mad scientist laboratory.

I didn't realize that if you need to get your binos tuned up, they can do it right here in the United States and have a fairly quick turnover time. Spotting scopes need to be sent to Austria, but the binos can be done right here. I was looking at the repair shelf and they had a pair of binos that had been run over by a truck. The incredible thing was that the case was still intact--the objective lenses were FUBARed and the prisms probably need to be replaced but the casing of the bino was still intact (yes it was repairable).

Okay, here's a quiz for you. What does this machine do to binoculars? It's very important to a quality pair of optics. The first correct answer in the comments section with a name attached to it gets their choice of the latest National Geographic Field Guide or Pete Dunne's Essential Field Guide Companion.