This is a trumpeter swan (that is banded, haven't heard back on the origin of the neck band yet). The bird is preening (think of it as brushing its feathers). It's rubbing its head over its preen gland on the back of its body and rubbing the oil from the gland all over the rest of its feathers to keep them waterproof.
Although, between the pooping and the crazy head rubbing, it looks kinda drunk. Needs some wacky music in the background.
Common Western Birds Seen At The San Diego Bird Festival
I thought I had planned my bird festivals so well this winter. Florida and San Diego--what better places could a Minnesota girl go to in January and March? Alas, both were a bit chillier than I expected. Florida had a record setting cold snap. And well, San Diego was still really warm at 50 degrees compared to where I live, but not shorts weather. Part of it was that I did many field trips where it's expect to be chilly, like on a boat or in the mountains.
While on the woodpecker trip for the San Diego Bird Festival in the mountains we looked through my scope, we could see the top of the mountain was covered in frost. Glad we weren't going to the top. It was pleasantly chilly enough where we were. I have to say, I had some of the best field trip grub ever at this festival. The best part was all the Laughing Cow Babybel Cheese. Nothing like enjoying great birds in the mountain and eating cheese.
I'm so excited! I found another photo of a Brewer's blackbird that I forgot I took in my iPhoto stash. He's so pretty, shining in all his iridescent glory of the full sun. This bird was part of a flock hanging out at a picnic area. I got to feed them as I tossed bits of my sandwich to the flock. Ah, one person's trash bird is another birder's treasure.
Another bird I was excited to spend time with was the western bluebird. We get tons of eastern bluebirds where I live and westerns are different because their rufous coloration extends to their backs. Eastern bluebirds just have the sky blue down their backs. I was happy to find a male western bluebird that wouldn't turn around and just show me his back.
Check out this super cute dark-eyed junco (the western version sometimes known as Oregon junco). They were flitting around all over the ground and this one paused to get a sip from a small puddle of water. It's the same species as the dark-eyed junco I see here, just a different color. Dark-eyed juncos used to be divided into five different species, a few years ago, this would have been a countable bird, but now the five are lumped into one. I wonder how long until they are divided again?
There were some common birds for me that others on the field trip where excited to see, like this male purple finch. He's beautiful, but he was a lifer for several people on my field trip. And we had to work to see this dude. I'm used to peering out at the feeders at Mr. Neil's and there they are. This one was singing at the top of a tree and it took some time to find the right angle for folks to see him. I giggled at working so hard for a feeder bird. He was singing his territory song, and I managed to get a video of him singing:
Such a pretty song and it's lovely to hear territory song after a long winter.
Anna's hummingbirds were all over the place and we found a female who appeared to be incubating eggs on a nest. She must be well habituated to humans. This nest was at about my eye level in a bush. The bush was in the corner of a "V" where two well travelled paths intersected and people walked by unaware as we watched.
We saw quite a few red-tailed hawks. Many were grabbing thermals and starting to do pair bonding activities. In Minnesota, these guys are setting up territory now. Females should be laying eggs soon. The red-tails in San Diego looked like they were on about the same schedules.
We did see some mammals out on the trip. This was a ground squirrel watching the birders as we were watching the birds. Something about his posture made it look like he was plotting our demise.
The Woodpecker Field Trip At San Diego Bird Festival
Don't forget that this Thursday at 6pm at Merlin's Rest is a Birds and Beers (Birds and Beers is an informal gathering of birders to sit down, have a beverage, and talk some birds). If you are remotely interested in birds, from the hardcore lister to the backyard birder to someone who saw a bird once, this group is for you.
I was really excited to do the Woodpecker Field Trip at the San Diego Bird Festival. I was hoping to see some new species like white-headed woodpecker or Lewis's woodpecker. I got skunked on both but had a fabulous time--that's the way it crumbles, cookie-wise when birding. Ah well, another bird for another day. I did have a great time with all of the acorn woodpeckers and several other species.
We had a great moment with a western variety of northern flicker (this is a red-shafted variety). Where I live, we get the yellow-shafted version of this species. The red-shafted version of the northern flicker is different, the shafts of wing feathers are red and the males have a red moustache and not a black moustache. Note the above male. Now, here is a photo of the yellow-shafted that I'm used to. See the difference?
We had paused for a break in the trail and could hear this bird in the distance. We played its call once and it flew in and immediately flew in and started to drum on the trunk to announce territory. I got a video of it:
What amazes me most is how little movement the flicker appears to be making and still manages to create quite a sound. The birds look for a good, resonant tree but still the sound is remarkable.
We had a spectacular time, the view was beautiful up in the mountains surrounded by burnt trees. One of the field trip leaders was Steve Shunk head of Paradise Birding. He's got a woodpecker festival going this June in Oregon and says that he could easily get me white-headed woodpecker there...was that his plan? Maybe he was keeping the white-headeds away on this trip, so I'd have to go to Oregon in June? Doubtful, since I've never met a man so gung-ho on woodpeckers...ever. Seriously, this guy needs to be seen to be believed. I have never seen a grown man get so excited over seeing a downy woodpecker, as Steve Shunk.
I did get one new woodpecker species and that was a Nuttall's woodpecker. This is such a cool woodpecker at least the one I was was watching. She was gleaning insects off of the leaves. They do peck like other woodpeckers, but some do go for the bugs crawling on the foliage. I got a video of her foraging. In the background, you'll hear Steve talking about a sapsucker, he's not talking about the Nuttall's--you can hear his excitement (that's the same excitement he would have for a downy woodpecker), he was on the trail of an odd looking sapsucker:
Well, if you are in the mood for something that you know will be gross, but you just can't look away, here is a video I got of a western gull eating what looks like someone's discarded catfish. Warning: entrails ahead:
Back to more fun at the San Diego Bird Festival! Last time I talked about all the wood duck action at Santee Lakes. I did get quite a few photos of wood ducks, but the main bird species seen at Santee Lakes (and my hotel) was the American coot. While we were at Santee, families came to "feed the ducks." I thought about pointing out that they were actualely "feeding the rails" but abstained. The coots get an odd diet of bread and I even watched a kid toss them some gummy bears. Perhaps gummy bears are kind of like the aquatic insects and animals they are supposed to eat?
Santee Lakes is a beautiful little chain of lakes. The palm trees were a welcome site to this Minnesota girl. The San Diego Bird Festival originally was held in January. Last year they were kicking around the idea of moving to March. Someone asked, "Who wants to come to California in March, when it's practically spring?" I added my two cents worth by saying in my area of the US, it's still very much winter in March--and it is. As I type this, it's five degrees in Minnesota.
A treat for me was being able to watch ring-necked ducks up close and not freezing my tail off! Some readers of this blog may remember a series of photos I put in the blog last year from my buddy Clay Taylor of a ring-necked duck trying to swallow a snail. Clay got that footage here at Santee Lakes.
We were so close, we could kind of see the ring around the neck for which the duck was named...again, those wacky ornithologists naming a bird for a hard to see feature and some something obvious like ring-billed duck.
Keeping with the theme of ultra-mellow birds, our group found a rather easy going pied-billed grebe. In many places, you so much as make one furtive sidelong glance and they dive. Not this grebe, it went as far as to go into a ten minute preening session.
Then came the stare down. It was fun and I never really noticed the black chin on a pied-billed grebe before.
There were some ruddy ducks out on the lakes too--but they were much more camera shy, or just tired. Many of the males with the bluest bills were more interested in sleeping and preening. I started to video a male as he was swimming around and towards the end of it, he started doing his mating dance--he raises his tail and two little tufts on his head. He creates some bubbles underneath his body and then slaps his bill against his chest several times while making To attract a female the male swims around her, his tail tilted forward and neck outstretched. He then slaps his chestnut-colored chest with his bright blue bill while making his courtship call. The video didn't capture the call, but you can hear it at Xeno-canto. Here's the video:
The park is used by several members of the public, it's not a quiet park, but there's room for everybody from birders, duck feeders and people who like to go fishing. As we were working the lakes for digiscoping, there was a guy who was fishing--his line even got stuck in the tree and Clay helped him get it out. But we birders must have out stayed our welcome because he started to complain about us. I heard him behind me mutter to his friend, "I think watching birds is stupid, you can just go to the pet store and buy them. Why don't these people go and just buy some birds and leave us alone."
Irritated that he was complaining about us, even after Clay had helped him, I started to defend our group by saying, "You can't buy these birds in a pet store."
And he retorted, "Yes you can, bird watching is stupid."
I turned to look at him and he was not facing me.
But based on what I saw, I chose not to engage any further with a man whose butt was hanging out of his trousers. Perhaps he is not the world's authority on whether or not bird watching is stupid.
I was grateful when a western scrub-jay popped up as a nice cleansing bird.
Well, the San Diego Bird Festival put on by the San Diego Audubon Society has wound down to a a close and it was an action packed festival from workshops, to games to, movie sneak preview to even David Sibley himself. One of the field trips I went on was with my buddy Clay and it was in depth digiscoping. He did a class (above) and the next day he took a group out for field trip that was geared to getting shots of birds in great light. I must admit, it was a refreshing change for me, to just be able to go on a field trip and really take time with birds, not just go out and tick off as many species as possible.
We went to Santee Lakes for part of it and I was going over my photos, I noticed I had several shots of wood ducks!
The wood ducks were used to people coming around to feed them. As I was standing on a bridge looking out at the waterfowl, this male wood duck swam up and gave me an expectant look. I didn't even need to use the digiscoping equipment, he was too close. He stared momentarily and when I failed to produce anything remotely resembling food, he moved on looking for accommodating human.
Everyone in our group found a drowsy adult male wood duck on which to practice their digiscoping mojo. Another case of a bird behaving differently in another state. Wood ducks in Minnesota are rather cagey, but have a friendlier attitude in sunny San Diego.
As we were taking his photo, he suddenly perked up. You can't see in the photo, but not too far in front of him, a pair of wood ducks is waddling by. He started doing his wood duck whistle. As the pair continued without paying him too much mind, he started to settle back down on one foot, but still continued to whistle. I took a video. You'll hear Clay talking in the background as well as a great-tailed grackle:
Did you catch the size of that great-tailed grackle walking behind the wood duck?
I think this is my favorite of all of them. I love head-on shots of birds. More San Diego Bird Fest fun (and Guatemala) is on the way.
Thanks for the reminders about Daylight Savings Time! I'm doing a pelagic trip on Sunday, keep your fingers crossed, I'm might get to see some brown boobies (and maybe even a blue-footed booby)!
I got totally punk'd by my alarm on Friday morning. I was supposed to be at the San Diego Bird Festival headquarters by 5:30 to film a couple of morning live shots for KUSI with Karen Straus. My iPod alarm went off at 4:30 am, I gradually woke up, brushed my teeth and opened my laptop to check the weather. The laptop read 2:38am. I thought that was odd. I checked my hotel room clock and it read 2:36am. It was then that I realized that my iPod was still on Minneapolis time and not San Diego time.
Karen and I did a few segments with weatherman Joe Lizura--he and his camera man were a hoot. I think we may have startled them and they were afraid we would say "I'm here to see a pair of brown boobies!" on air, but we kept it mild. I even managed to video a couple of minutes of Joe interviewing us live (and demonstrate digiscoping). I stop just as he's about to ask me about the World Series of Birding:
Here's an actual digiscoped photo of the black-crowned night heron right outside the festival vendor area:
And now back to the continuing saga to see a horned guan. If you missed Part 1, it's here.
I need to start this by dedicating this post to Gustavo Cañas-Valle of Neblina Tours in Ecuador (that’s him above on the right with one of our local guides, Hugo Enriquez on the left). I had actually met some of the guides from Neblina at the Space Coast Bird Festival, they had a booth there. I have an interest in going to Ecuador, but based solely on the kindness (and humor and bird knowledge) of their guide, Gustavo, should I ever make it to Ecuador, I will use Neblina, you'll learn why a few paragraphs in.
Our local guides up Volcan San Pedro were fabulous. We were escorted by Hugo Enriquez (in the above photo with Gustavo) and Irene Rodriguez of Operador Latino. Irene made sure we were as comfortable as we could be as well as knows her birds. Hugo knows his birds, but I gotta say that if I were a single lady, he’s not a bad companion to have in the woods. He has an easy-going manner, a warm voice with a Spanish accent, and beautiful eyes. When asked about where we’re going to bird for the day, he’ll say things like, “Well, it is up to you, we can do what you want.”
Just sayin', ladies. But I digress from the horned guan!
We started our trek on Volcan San Pedro looking for the horned guan with a few stops to look for local bird specialties, but then we didn’t stop for birds anymore and the trails became much steeper. It was switchback after switchback. It was dry and the volcanic dust made for powdery walking conditions. I toiled up the trail and began to question my sanity. As my pace slowed, the sound of our group ahead became more and more faint, I realized I was loosing ground. There was another person in our group who seemed to struggle with the climb along with me. I was grateful for the company and to not to be the pokiest of the little puppies.
Local farmers loaded with burdens of fire wood, corn or coffee moved swiftly passed us on the trail. Many looked to be twice my age which made me feel worse. I bike ride, I lead nature hikes (not just bird walks), I haul bee equipment and this trail was turning my legs to jelly. It was relentless in its incline. I was desperate for a flat surface.
After much sweat and panting we caught up to the group at another resting spot. I hoped that we were half way up and was saddened to learn that we were only a third of the way, with another three hours to go. It was at this moment that Gustavo from Neblina Tours told me the sweetest lie, “I’m having trouble staying balanced on this steep trail. Would it be alright with you if I took your scope and used it as a way to balance myself on the trail?”
I knew it was lie. He carried more on this trip than I did: he had two massive field guides (yeah, he carried Howell and Webb (a bird guide so thick, it makes the Sibley guide look like a pamphlet) and the National Geographic out in the field besides his binoculars, lunch, water, recording equipment, etc). I knew it was a lie and I was too sweaty and tired to care. I gratefully accepted his offer and continued my slow lumbering walk up the trail.
We eventually made it to a halfway point. I sat on the floor of the observation deck and used the wooden railing to prop my head up and looked out at the beautiful view. It was at this point when I realized how much I hated birds. I likened myself to a drug addict who puts themselves through terrible tortures, for what? For the high of seeing one rare bird. I was not forced to do this, I signed up--willingly. What’s worse is that I could have stopped at any time. I could have just stopped walking on the trail and said, “No more, I’ll wait here in the shade, watch some foliage-gleaners and pepper-shrikes and wait for you on your glory walk down the trail after seeing the guan.” One of our group already had given up the trail due to a bad knee. It was the honorable and safe thing to do.
But I willingly continued. Quitting this steep upward battle was never an option to me. I looked at Jen and said, “I need psychological help. This is like hitting yourself with a hammer because it feels so good when you finally stop.”
We both laughed and Mike Bergin warned that we should probably save our oxygen.
There were three of us lagging behind now, Jen and I practically held on to each other to stay upright. Ana Christina from INGUAT sensed our waning resolve and anytime Jen and I paused she would call in her sweet Spanish accent, “Jen, Sharon, come on, the horned guan is right up here.”
We fell for it once and scrambled up, but realized she was really a cloud forest sprite beckoning us forward. It worked. At every switchback we would pause to try and get some order to our respiratory system, Ana Christina would be another switchback ahead of us calling, “C’mon Jen. C’mon Sharon, horned guan is waiting for you.”
Our group did flush an owl on our way up. I never got a headshot of it, but the back looked like a barred owl. It’s the Guatemalan version called a fulvus owl.
We finally reached the horned guan appropriate elevation. I sat in the dust. Gustavo smiled and pointed out how dirty my face was. I really hated birds and really hated cameras. Part of our group rested, while the rest did an initial search. No guan. We needed to go higher.
WTF?? Higher? Noooooooooooooooo!
Up we went. It dawned on me that we could go all this way and not see the horned guan. Or only see a tiny bit of it. I really, really hated birds now. I couldn’t imagine doing this climb more than once. We actually passed other hikers, oblivious to the guan. They took the trail simply for the view. You know, there are a lot of views out there. I don’t know if I need to go through all of this muscular torture for this particular view.
We paused once more. Hope was fading in the group. Mike of 10,000 Birds (above) still held out some sweaty hope, but the rest of worried that we’d been talking too much or paying more attention to our body and foot aches and completely missed the turkey sized tree chicken that was our quarry.
Then an anxious whisper came from above the switchback in front of us—Mel de Piñeda a participant in our group found the guan (Mel’s an awesome dude, he takes blind people birding in Texas). All of us suddenly forgot body fatigue and dashed up the switchback—where had this new found energy come from? The light broke through the trees and shown down upon us, as we watched the horned guan in all its glory.
Wait, I can make out the body, and the foot! That’s totally a horned guan foot, it’s countable.
Finally, a little head poked out. I see the horn, the little red horn where the guan gets its name! Whoot! And check out at crazy yellow eye. I can’t believe I saw the face and got to digiscope the face. This was a great look, worth the climb. It was a challenge to jockey for position for a photo of the guan on the narrow path with my tripod. But thanks to Gustavo, we got the guan in scope view several times.
Even our police escort was impressed. Did I mention we had a police escort? And that they came with us everywhere in Guatemala? And that they even climbed the volcano as if it were nothing? It was sad the many times I would be doubled over panting, waving the officer on, but he would stay by me so as not to get too separated from the group.
Eventually one of the flock came out into the open and Gustavo set up my scope to get this shot. I would not have gotten it without his help, I would still be struggling up the side of the volcano had he not offered to take my scope. This was more than could be hoped for! The future of the horned guan is uncertain. There is so much we don’t know, but we think we know some things like there are less than 2500 in the wild, their populations are severely fragmented and they face several challenges: farmers using their habitat for firewood or subsistence farming or using the guan themselves as a source of food. You can read more about it at BirdLife International.
At first we thought there were two guan, but eventually, more and more came about. They even started vocalizing, making strange clucks, bill clacks and even a few flatulent sounding tones. Chris Benesh has a great guan photo and recordings of the vocalizations here.
Below is a video I got of the horned guan. You can see the bills moving, but my little point and shoot could not pick up the sounds. I think the horned guan move like dinosaurs, or at least what I imagine dinosaurs probably moved like way back a few million years ago.
So, how did we react?
Well, my little head exploded with birder wonder and awe. It was worth the climb and I got better looks at this rare tree chicken than I ever expected.
And after all of that, we had to go back down! Certainly it would not take the four hours that it took to get up to the guan, but it would still take time. My legs are only used to flat surfaced and had been trudging uphill for four hours non stop. And now I had to go down, something I still wasn't used to. Every muscle in my legs vibrated at any moment I stopped. I kept going, but the decline and volcanic ash still caused me to slide and fall. Every time I did fall, a large cloud of dust preceded me, causing Hugo to cross his arms and shout, "Safe!" as if I were a baseball player sliding into home. Thanks, Hugo. After watching me do this twice, Gustavo refused to give my scope back. He was skeptical that the Swarovski would be able to survive me.
Some way, some how we made it back down the trail to our meeting point with the vehicle, our water bottles depleted and lunches eaten. Ana Christina and Irene took us to a local watering hole for some refreshments.
In our dehydrated state, we should of have water, but what better way to celebrate a rare tree chicken like the horned guan than with a chicken themed beer. Giddiness soon set in with most of us, especially for me--I NEVER HAVE TO DO THAT CLIMB EVER AGAIN. It occurred to me that a horned guan is a bird that I will only see once in a lifetime and I had a pang of pity for guys like Rick who would have to lead a tour here again and take people up that volcano. Ah well, that's one of the many reasons I'm not a pro bird guide, and I'm okay with that.
Our groups' giddiness was soon detectable to the locals and many swarmed our table with scarves, skirts, sunglasses holders, headbands, you name it to try and sell us.
I think almost all of us ended up getting some souveniers. When it was time for us to catch our boat back to the hotel, I stood up and a Mayan woman wrapped a skirt around me and tied it on telling me how pretty it was and it was great because it had pockets. It was beautiful, but I laughed at what a dusty mess I must have looked like with this gorgeous light blue skirt askew on my waiste. I had spent enough money that day and had to decline a skirt.
I felt dirty and battle weary on the ride back. I turned to look at Vulcan San Pedro and the sun shone down on it, almost as if illuminating where we had seen the mysterious horned guan. I couldn't believe we actually went up and had great looks at the bird.
It took a very long shower and lots of scrubbing to remove the dirt. After I finished showering, I took my Swarovski binoculars and scope and ran them under the shower. When you've got great waterproof optics, you can safely run them under the shower to get the dust out. Jen had Leica's and her focus wheel got stuck, I advised her to pop it up and run some water in there to get the grit out. Again, waterproof optics allow you to do that. She rinsed them and the focus wheel was fine for the rest of the trip.
That night we sat down to a fine meal (some of the best food I've ever had). We discussed the next day's birding. After getting our stuff together at 4:15am that mornign and birding almost 12 hours, I was delighted to hear that we were meeting at 7am for breakfast before birding (we'd get to sleep in). Bless Mel's heart who asked, "Hey that means we won't get birding until 8 - 8:30 am, anyone for starting earlier?"
Hugo said, "Well, it's whatever you want..."
There was a pause, I decided to break it. "I gotta say that I'm not in favor of that idea and would rather sleep in and rest after today."
I'm not sure if everyone agreed, but after a day like the horned guan death march, I could live with a later start the next morning.
We interrupt the fabulous guest blog entries for a sampling of Guatemala hummingbirds. This country is amazing and I had no idea how immersed in Maya culture I would be while here.
The other day while we were doing a bee inspection, I kept an eye on Mr. Neil's finch feeder--they were chock full of common redpolls and pine siskins. You can see some of the tracking of pine siskins at Audubon's Great Backyard Bird Count website...interesting that they are calling it a winter finch invasion. I recall a few year ago when the thousands of great gray owls were in Minnesota, a couple of ornithologists' took me to to task for using the term "invasion" instead of "irruption" (apparently the proper term for ornithologists).
I did some digiscoping and digivideoing while at Mr. Neils and even set up a couple of different motion sensitive cameras. Check out some of the finch hissy fits I got with the Wingscapes camera:
Redpolls fighting!
More fighting!
And yet more fighting!
And even picking on a poor little junco! Here's a digivideo of some of the sqaubbling:
Here's a video from Mr. Neil's feeders yesterday. You can see goldfinches in winter plumage, common redpolls, and pine siskins. The most fun is the sound of the hundreds of finches in the trees waiting to come down to the feeders. I love the up slurred, "shreeeee" of the siskins:
I'm trying to corral my photos to use in a future post about birding in a Florida landfill (I tell ya' that Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival takes you to some highfalutin places). Here is a video that I took with my Fuji E900 attached to my Swarovski spotting scope just to give you an idea of the sheer number of birds and the sound they create. You'll hear a din of several species including fish crow, laughing gull, bald eagle, and boat-tailed grackle. Now, here is a question, how many species can you make out in both sound and the video? I'm not sure I know the exact number, but I think you will be surprised at what all you can find at a landfill!
The painted bunting has long been a nemesis bird for me: I'd go to where it was reported and get someone saying, "Oh, it was just here 10 minutes ago!" And it would never be seen again. I knew Space Coast would be my chance to see one but didn't want to put forth too much effort since it's a bird that has a knack of disappearing when I appear.
Word on the conventional hall street was that a local guide for the bird festival lived very close to where the main headquarters of the festival was held. He had bird feeders that were frequently visited by painted buntings. Could I do it. I grabbed WildBird on the Fly late in the afternoon to give it a shot. We played it cool. We didn't rush there, we just happened to drive by.
The gentleman graciously let us in to his home. We watched. In less than five minutes, I saw movement in the surrounding vegetation. Cardinals were coming in, but one flash of red seemed to small. I got my bins on it: it was a male painted bunting! The bird actually exists. After seeing this wondrous creature for years in photos, it was now breathing and moving in front of me--the do exist!
I asked earlier if there were photo requests. How about a video of the male painted bunting:
I woke up this morning with a headache and the news about the selection of the new Doctor Who doesn't help. I think this picture sums up my thoughts on the matter. However, lots of robins were bustling around the tree branches outside the window and that perked me up a bit. I could not resist my digiscoping equipment and tried for some photos through my dirty storm windows:
Every winter we get robins around the Twin Cities. This winter we seem to have more centered in the heart of the metro area and I wonder if our trees are having a bumper berry/nut crop this year. I see flocks on a daily basis in our neighborhood. Sometimes you can hear one robin quietly singing to itself. I wonder if these are birds hatched in the summer of 2008 and practicing their territory songs for the breeding season of 2009?
This robin had a black bill. I wonder if it's from eating berries? I tried to read through some of the food habits of American robins on Birds of North America Online, but was unable to find anything conclusive about winter food habits. In one study, plant material consisted of 90% of their diet, but varied in other areas. I could guess that they could find some animal material. When I worked at the bird store in Wayzata, there was a bait shop in the same mall. They would toss out old minnows and in the winter, robins would fly down and eat them. They are resourceful creatures. I should go out there and see if I could digiscope that.
Mostly, the robins were eating snow on the roof of the apartment building across the way. Birds will eat snow for moisture if they can't find open water. I got a video of it (and you can hear some Ting Ting in the back ground):
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?
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 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:
I dedicate the following video to Hasty Brook and hope that she got a Carolina wren before she left Cape May to return to Minnesota.
A posse of bird bloggers gathered again for the Cape May Autumn Weekend and since I ended up working the festival, I was able to see them. They had gathered informally and I didn't think I'd get to meet up with them, but when I ended up coming, they invited me along to a dinner for some hearty laughter. Some, I've met before like Hasty Brook, Somewhere in NJ, Susan Gets Native, and Beginning To Bird, but this time I got to meet KatDoc and DC Bird Blog (he's actually banding birds at Cape May this fall--sweet) face to face. Jay Davis from birdJam came along too.
We must have gotten quite rowdy at the table, I noticed that the bar kept turning up the ambient music to louder and louder levels. However, we were able to keep the talking and laughter to new ear splitting level.
A big bonus to this trip is that I hit my 500th bird--I didn't get to digiscope it but I got. And after I saw it, I saw them everywhere. I needed a black scoter, so after the first day of working the Optics Corner at the festival, Jim Danzenbaker, Jeff Bouton, Jeff Gordon, and Bill Stewart (that really cool guy who organizes the bird a thon to buy up migratory habitat to save the red knot). We watched for lines of scoters and after a few lines of surf scoters flying by--a flock that had both surf and black flew by and I could see the difference. Whew! That hump has been passed. Now to work on getting 600. Although, I suppose I should work on padding the 500 on the off chance the AOU is planning to lump some species together.
Oh, and while we were at the beach gettin' my life, a marriage proposal was finishing up. A man made a sand castle for his sweetie, asking her to marry him. There was a small sand treasure chest next to the sand castle that she apparently had to dig the ring out of the chest. It was very cute. We didn't hear what was actually said between the two, but considering they left hand in hand with smiles on the faces and a bottle of champagne, I thinking her answer was yes. Cute.
I was watching some fox sparrows while practicing with the SLR. You know, you can take some fabu photos with an SLR camera, but I think for blogging, I prefer my little point and shoot camera. It's easier to tote with all my gear and I can take video! Like the fox sparrow below. Note the kicking--that's one of the fun things about watching a fox sparrow (well, there are many fun things about fox sparrows): the rusty reds, they're so big, and as said earlier--the kicking.
Fox sparrows kick away whatever is in the way to get access to seeds. You typically see them do this in leaf litter, but note what the fox sparrow is kicking around in the video--empty sunflower seed shells. This is a good reminder that it is important to keep your feeding stations clean--not only the feeders themselves, but on the ground too. Empty seed shells can get wet and create unhealthy situations. Would you want to eat some forgotten seeds hidden under a pile of damp sunflower shells?
Can I say how much it tickles me that after my fox sparrow video plays, one of my favorite videos of a fox sparrow is suggested by YouTube (taken by the awesomeness that is Mike McDowell, he totally rocks...hm, I watching too much LA Ink). Anyway, if you haven't seen it, check it out. He was filming a fox sparrow and when he went home and downloaded the video, discovered he captured a bonus on video.
How about a little cleansing--both figuratively and literally. I've been so busy with the state fair, the RNC, and CivicFest I've barely had time to do some digiscoping. I was able to sneak out for a few hours but felt like my mojo was a little off.
I went birding to a place I use to go to all the time but haven't been to in ages--The Old Cedar Avenue Bridge. I got a reminder why during my outing. There's a trail that's loaded with rails and soras. The above photo is not the best ever photo of a sora, but it certainly is a true to life one--isn't this how you normally see them--shrouded in vegetation. That is, if you see them at all.
The most interesting part of the morning was some odd fluttering I saw on the boardwalk trail. At first I thought it was injured and flailing a bit on the boardwalk but I changed my position and discovered something really cool.
It was a juvenile marsh wren. Check out the little bits of yellow in the corners of its bill.
It had what looked to be a small ant in its bill and it would alternate between preening and stretching out its wings on the boards. I think it was trying to figure out anting. For non birders, anting is something some bird species have been observed doing. Birds take ants and either place them on their feathers or sometimes will lie near an ant mound, allowing ants to crawl on them. It's believed that they acquire defensive secretions from the ants (formic acid) and that it's possibly used as a supplement to the bird's own preen oil.
In this shot, the young marsh wren is totally spread eagled (or should that be spread wrened?) on the boards and is even exposing its preen gland--that's the little pink spot right above the tail. All birds have this, they squeeze it with their bill and excrete oil that is then rubbed all over their feathers. Imagine having a large gland right above your butt that you would squeeze to get some body oil to run through your hair to keep it shiny and strong?
The young marsh wren continued to preen with the wings out, although I couldn't see any more ants around it at this point. It didn't appear to be bothered by me at all, I thought I would try to get a video.
I did, but you can hear me yelling at some bike riders in the background. One of the reasons why I don't go to the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge anymore is that some of the trails are narrow and only meant for foot traffic, but many bike riders like to bring their mountain bikes onto the trail--creating a dangerous situation for both the rider and the hiker.
As I was taking the video of the wren, I saw some bike riders approach. I tried to hold up my hands indicating for them to stop but they didn't understand. I then started saying "No bikes." and explaining the trail rules. However, by the time they stopped, they were right next to the wren and it disappeared into the reeds--doh! I think they thought I was some nutty woman and turned around more to avoid me than to follow the rules of the trail.
They claimed they didn't see this sign that shows this is a hiking only trail.
But, I'm forgetting the purpose of this post: the cleansing of the cute, young marsh wren in its preening glory must out weigh idiots who ignore signs putting themselves and others at risk. Here's a link to the marsh wren video. I recommend clicking on the "watch in high quality" and also hitting the mute button.
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.
Well, I just finished with a really cool and productive meeting with fellow bird bloggers (so fun to meet some of them face to face) and Swarovski. I learned many things (including the fact that Jeff Foxworthy is a big fan of Swarovski Optik...do you suppose he uses his optics for birding?) and much of what I learned will be part of a glut of blogging when I get home--I have to cover a 22 mile Mississippi River canoe paddle, birding with fellow bird bloggers on the east coast and then barely making it back in time to go on a shorebird watching trip this weekend on the South Dakota/Minnesota border...who knew I would find wireless in South Dakota? But this entry needs to be short as I should really be using this free time on the shorebird trip to finish an article that's a tad late for one of the bestest, most wonderful, beautiful, most forgiving, talented, even keeled editor I ever had.
Here's a quick sneak peak of birding Cape Cod with bird bloggers:
We found a family group of the threatened/endangered piping plover! This cute little plover is the adult and is about the size of a sparrow. They're so adorable, I think it you got some Cute Overload worthy photos and put those posters up, make some cuddly plush dolls, and a t-shirt line, people would get on board with saving them like they did with bald eagles and peregrine falcons.
Ben of 600 Birds noticed a chick--then three chicks! Julie Zickefoose was also part of the birding group and she noted that the chicks were about four days old. Ben said it best: that the chicks were so tiny and fluffy, it was hard to tell if we actually had them in focus in our cameras. They really appeared to be cotton balls scurrying around on match sticks. Julie noted that this seemed late for piping plover chicks and wondered if these little guys would learn to fly in time for their long migration?
If you looked closely at one of the adults, you could see the plumage was very worn. Was this a second or third time of renesting and the birds were tired and physically worn out or was this typical molt for this time of year? Did they lose an earlier batch of chicks or were they going for the gold and having successfully raised one brood, going for a second? Tough to say, but you could see this adult was tired.
It plopped down on the sand and you could see its eyes start to close (not unlike what I'm feeling right now after such an adventurous week). I sat on the sand with my scope low, taking what photos I could of the soon to be dosing piping plover and marveled at my luck of getting a chance to digiscope such a cute bird, when all of a sudden...
IT YAWNED! Piping plovers are as cute as a button as it is, now make it yawn and it's too prosh for words! And if you thought that was the cutest thing ever, let me leave you with a video of piping plover chicks running on the beach. They are precocial, meaning they can pretty much feed themselves not long after they hatch, relying on their parents to keep them warm and help protect them from predators. Now brace yourself for cotton ball goodness:
So, I'm in Rhode Island at the moment hanging at the Swarovski Headquarters. I'm eating lunch (real mashed potatoes, thank you very much, Swarovski Cafe) under a large crystal chandalier. Ah life. I'm giggling too because Non Birding Bill has just sent me a link to a limited edition Beverly Hills 90210 iPod Nano. But, if I download all the episodes, will I still have room for birdJam?
Check out this funky bird in hand that we got in at Carpenter Nature Center last Friday (boy am I behind on some blog entries or what. To those who are not as familiar with birds this might be a tad confusing but banding wise this was a fairly easy bird to figure out. We didn't have to debate too much with the Pyle over it. It's a hatch year male rose breasted grosbeak. Normally you have to look at feathers and see if they're truncate and fresh or relatively abraded, blah blah blah. But, because this dude looks like a female grosbeak with pink on the undersides of the wings, that tells us he's fresh from the nest and male.
It this upclose head shot you can see the gape at the corners of his beak indicating a young bird. Don't get me wrong, even though he's young, that beak is still quite capable of breaking the skin. Here's hoping he survives his first migration and visits us again next spring.
Okay, how can someone look at this photo and still say that birding is geeky? Seriously, going up a mountain with your digiscoping equipment is geeky? That's my buddy Clay Taylor from Swarovski. He and Bruce Webb took me out in Utah to help me get to my goal of 500 birds.
Here's a lifer Clark's nutcracker. I needed so many basic western birds, it was easy for me to get twenty lifers on a trip--not too many places I can do that anymore. Alas, I only made it to 497, but I'm sure I will hit 500 before the end of the year. I'm going to Rhode Island at the end of July and the Rio Grande Valley Bird Festival in November and there are a few species I can still get in both places. Once I reach 500, I may have to give Ben over at 600 Birds a run for his money...he wants to reach 600 by the January 2010. I'm booked for the Space Coast Festival and San Diego Festival next year already...there are several pelagic species that I need...hm...
There are some challenges to me being a lister. For one thing, I can be kind of picky about how I like to experience bird species. One of the target birds was a black-rosy finch. And the way to find it was to scan the mountainside in the above photo for the flocks. If you're lucky, you might get to see a flock of blackish birds against the snow. But I'd rather have this kind of look at a black rosy-finch. And I don't know how much of an effort I wanted to put up for glimpse of tiny blackish birds.
Bruce, Clay, and I scanned the mountainside for well over an hour. I didn't see rosy-finches but I did get a look at a lifer mammal--mountain goat! Whoot. The longer we were there, and the less we saw the rosy-finches, I decided it wasn't worth it and we moved on. I think I lack the singular tenacity that many listers have and that will prevent me from really getting my list up to where it could be.
Another thing that can slow me down is digiscoping. Take this beautiful black-billed magpie. We have a small pocket of black-billed magpies that live in Minnesota. I've seen them several times and enjoy them. However, this one was perched so perfectly and in such good light that Clay, Bruce and I decided that we couldn't pass it by without trying to photograph it.
When I do see a new bird, like this red crossbill, I want to digiscope the crap out of it too, perhaps spending too much time with the species and "wasting" valuable minutes getting photos missing the chance to see other new species.
Here's a female crossbill--they were so much fun to watch fly in and take apart all the pine cones on the trees. There were so many and they were so close, it almost sounded like a strange bowl of Rice Krispies as they would snap apart the cones to get at the nuts on the inside.
This photo is blurry, but check out that scary looking bill!
You can really see that strange bill that so perfectly designed to get between the teeth on the cones and access the nut meat. And I couldn't just get photos, I had to digivideo the crossbills too:
We found my lifer crossbills when we arrived at the mountainside for the rosy-finches. Clay pointed out the crossbill and we spent quite a bit of time digiscoping and digivideoing them. Perhaps, the rosy-finches were all over that mountain side while we were focused on the much closer trees loaded with crossbills and moved on by the time we went to look for them. No matter, another bird for another day, I always say.
I've always thought that any day with time spent on a boat automatically felt like an adventure, but I think I'm going to have to amend that to include mountains too. Utah is an awesome state and I hope I get to back. The lowlands are beautiful and the mountains spectacular.
Plus, it's fun to be out and about in snow but not bundled up. I had on some pants and a short sleeved shirt and my Keens with no socks and was perfectly comfortable. I think this might finally be my last Utah entry...Have I blogged it out of my system?
Although, I forgot to mention the zip line that was outside of the Cliff Lodge where Amy and I were staying. I really wanted to do it, but I do have a fear of heights. But being the pack animal I am, I knew if I stuck with Amy, she would get my scaredy cat butt up there and on the ride. It was so much fun and I totally felt like a goshawk zipping in for prey--I even held out my feet as if trying to capture unsuspecting prey...
I ended up having a day off today that I didn't realize I had--bonus day! I thought I would catch up on all my ABA blogging...then realized that after some sorting...I have it narrowed down to 92 photos. So, while I'm sorting, here is a video of cliff swallows swarming over mud to add to their nests:
Here is a post from the American Birding Convention for my dear husband, Non Birding Bill:
I stayed at the Cliff Lodge in Snowbird, Utah for the American Birding Association Convention. As you can see in the above photo, they keep a tidy lawn. What's the secret to this well kept lawn? Why the lawn services of Nosey Q. McFurryPants aka a family group of yellow-bellied marmots.
The marmots were a popular attraction outside the lodge. They pretty much looked like what we in the east call a woodchuck, but I think this is a higher elevation species. At any point during the day, you could see six to ten marmots feeding on the grass.
Even the babies were a part of the family business of keeping the lawn nice and trim.
After all that lawn service work, rest is good! Several mammals could be found around the lodge including various types of ground squirrels, moose, mule deer, and I heard that if you took the lodge tram up another two thousand feet, pikas!
WildBird on the Fly and I took the tram up to see what we could find. Note the snow? I must say that this Minnesota girl felt right at home in the still snow covered Utah mountains.
It was interesting to note the hardcore locals, like the above young woman. Note that she is about to ski down the side of the mountain in a mini skirt. Get down, girl, go 'head get down!
The view from the top was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! As of yet, Utah remains the most beautiful state I have visited. Alas, the bird life and the mammal life was a tad on the sparse side.
I searched and searched and did not see any pikas--bummer, but we did find a few golden-mantled ground squirrels who looked quite similar to the chipmunks we have in our yards in the east.
The view was so good, I told WBOTF that it would be perfect for one of those bird author poses. You know the ones I mean, where the bird author is toting a spotting scope and looking over their shoulder, ready for adventure. So, Amy took the photo and called me a Cheese Ball. Here is the Pete Dunne as an example. Above, I tried to do my best Pete.
Alas, no pikas, but he marmots were cute. Here's some video of the yellow-bellied marmots. Here is the adult marmot (FYI, the sound behind the wind is the raging river from the snow melt):
One of the target birds for me on this trip was an America dipper. I've always wanted to see one of these guys and no, not because in the photos it looks like the dullest bird ever. It's super cool.
First, you look for dippers in this type of stream. They actually move around the water's edge and even walk under water to get at all sorts of aquatic invertebrates. I'm actually standing on a bridge, taking this photo and a dipper nest is under my feet. The water is incredibly cold, full of freshly melted snow.
One of the striking things is that you will notice a white eyelid. They use this when they are in the frigid water looking for food to keep insulated. One of the cool things about the American dipper is that they kind of fit their name: they dip...they constantly dip. I went to Cornell's BNA to see if I could find out what the dipping is all about and under the "Priorities For Further Research" it reads, "Why do American Dippers dip? This remains one of the biggest mysteries about the species, with many theories but no answers. Why do South American species not dip or dive? How does the American Dipper compare with other stream birds in North America (Spotted Sandpiper, Louisiana Waterthrush [Seiurus motacilla], wagtails [Motacilla spp.]), in Europe, and in Asia?"
Some things that even Cornell doesn't know. I can't wait until some hard working graduate student unwraps the code of all the bobbing birds out there--what is that all about? And here are some videos I took with my digital point and shoot camera and spotting scope of a dipper dipping and preening and scratching. You can hear our field trip group in the background. If you click on the YouTube link, there's a link under the video that gives you the option of watching it in high quality and see the dipper in more detail:
As if that isn't cool enough, it even dips on one foot:
Someone posted photos on MnBird of a female pileated woodpecker at the Minnesota Zoo. Check out her bill in this photo and this photo--it's crazy long! I wonder if it's a result of the bill not being worn down enough in captivity or if it's part of the larger bird bill deformity problem?
Here is a link to a photo I took of a female pileated--note how much shorter her bill is compare to the bird in the zoo.
Speaking of pileateds, here is a video I got of Mr. Neil's pileated eating cashew suet:
Some Numb Nut at the Pizza Luce across from our apartment building thought it would be a fine idea to hire a crew to redo their parking lot at 3:30am last night. Non Birding Bill and I were part of a coalition of neighbors coming out to get the crew to stop. Boy, was I the old lady of the group--all the younger neighbors were shouting "This is unacceptable! Call the cops!" or "Dude, I can't believe this, you gotta stop!" (although add a few more colorful metaphors) and I was quoting the city's noise ordinance and shaking my fist.
I must say, the woman who came out to meet the tired/sleepy/irritated/slightly irrational gathering didn't give the best initial answer. When a business has suddenly awakened the neighborhood and angry neighbors come out, the response should be, "Oh wow, dude, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that using noisy paint scraping motorized equipment would be a bad idea in the middle of the night! We'll stop immediately! Oh, and here, why don't I give each of you gift certificates for a free slice for your inconvenience!"
Instead we got, "Uh, well, I didn't hear anything."
We did get them to stop, but I had a fitful night of very little sleep afterwards, couple that with working all day today and packing for Utah and an early flight in tomorrow morning, I'm feeling like a bit of an anti pizza cranky pants. Or, rather, a bit like this:
Okay, I'm having way too much fun with the jumping spider, I'll stop soon, I swear.
I do need some cleansing, so how about a cleansing American redstart (or as NBB calls them, sample sized orioles) who must be nesting near the feeding station in Mr. Neil's yard. Speaking of Mr. Neil, have you seen the baby raccoons he found in his yard (cute!). I know they nest down by the creek, but this one was singing all over the fallen oak and declaring his domain near the feeders.
Breathe in the redstart, breathe out, in, out, in out. Ahhhh. And now for some video:
On Saturday morning, I woke up at 4am, got my stuff together and headed out to Rapids Lake Education and Visitor Center for the Minnesota BioBlitz (you try to see document as much wildlife as you can in a 24 hour period). It's southwest of the Twin Cities on a bluff along the Minnesota River. It's relatively new and I was excited to find an adult lark sparrow feeding young as soon as I stepped out of my car.
This was a catbird that we banded that morning. There was a band of park rangers on hand to help out with the BioBlitz. I was there to lead a bird walk at 6 am and then we helped out with the center's banding demonstration. There are nesting blue-winged warblers and prothonotary warblers along some of the trails--I was excited to see them...but was defeated by mosquitoes. The staff at the center warned us about them.
I've been around the block in this state, mosquitoes are ravenous here. But usually some appropriately placed DEET products keep them at bay. Not these. The staff advised us to use mosquito netting, but I foolishly declined since I really can't see well through my optics with netting. The bug spray I applied did not create the bug barrier I hoped, but instead seem to serve as a nice hollandaise sauce for the insects. We heard and glimpsed some great birds: blue-wings, prothonotary warblers, black-billed cuckoos, but alas, did not stop to watch them well--the mosquitoes were so bad, I ceased worrying about West Nile and focused on anemia. They flew into my ears, my nostrils, I had so many on my hand, it felt like a soft paint brush dabbing my skin. It was brutal. I still trying to decide if all the bites are some strange poem written in pink Braille or a connect the dot puzzle in the shape of Alaska.
We only banded three birds that day, but the biggest highlight was a male indigo bunting! Talk about a crowd pleasing bird! I didn't plan it, but my nail polish ended up matching his plumage. After I finished with the BioBlitz, Non Birding Bill and I headed out to Mr. Neil's to enjoy some beer butt chicken and check the bees (more on that later). I noticed he had an indigo bunting singing in his yard.
He's had indigo buntings around his property (last year a male would sing right over the Olga and Kitty hives when we would do inspections). This is the first time that I had ever noticed one nesting right in the backyard. He sang as we ate dinner outside and when I headed towards where he was singing, he valiantly defended his territory. Awesome! Here is a a video of him singing his song. Some birders think that they are saying "Fire! Fire! Where? Where? Here! Here! See it? See it?"
This past Sunday was just about as perfect as a day can get for me. It started at 4:15am when Kate and I woke up to load up our van for the ride home at the end of the festival. At 5am, we met up with good friends Kim Risen and Bill of the Birds to have some time to just sit and enjoy some Sprague's pipits and Baird's sparrows. It was rounded out with some fun driving time with my buddy Kate and then finished with a spicy Thai meal and some quality time with Non Birding Bill.
One of the first birds we saw in the wee hours of the dawn--a short-eared owl! And check it out, it's tiny, barely there tufties were erect. Not only did we see the owl...we got to see what it's named for. Take that, historic ornithologists who gave birds names for obscure parts barely seen in the field!
We stopped on some private ranch property (that allows birders to enjoy the sparrows) and headed out. You could hear the cows in the distance and one of our first birds was--
A chestnut-collared longspur just chillin' on the fence. There are brown birds, and then there are Brown Birds. Chestnut-collards take brown to a whole new beautiful level and they still have that bobolink thing going with their black chest. BNA describes them as prairie specialists: "Typical breeding habitat is arid, short to mixed grass prairie that has been recently grazed or mowed...this species avoids nesting in areas protected from grazing, instead preferring pastures and mowed areas such as airstrips, as well as grazed native prairie habitats."
The next bird we heard was a grasshopper sparrow (that's the hunch backed looking bird in the above photo). It's buzzy call was mixed with western meadowlark and about that time we heard Sprague's pipits overhead. I've linked to the songs, but if you have birdJam or any bird cds and are not familiar with these songs--look them up.
It wasn't long after that before we heard the sweet sound of the Baird's sparrow. And I had a video earlier, but here the lovely song of the Baird's sparrow yet again:
You can hear Canada geese and western meadowlarks singing in the background of that video.
There was also a pair of savannah sparrows nearby--above is one of them. The two would chase each other and periodically, the Baird's would get caught up in the chase as well. I don't think Baird's feel that threatened by savannah sparrows, but I have a feeling that their fighting was taking place a little too close to its nest.
The Baird's sparrow kept getting closer and close. Kim suggested that we all get as low to the ground as we could and see how close the Baird's would get to us. It came within ten feet. Here are the photos, it was almost too close to fit into the field of view of my scope.
There we were listening to one of the sweetest bird songs in North America, and even more sweet songs overhead and surrounding us--it seemed amost unreal to hear the Sprague's pipit's descending song right after the Baird's. The prairie was chilly, but gradually warming in the glow of sunrise, giving the wet ground a sweet and musky smell. You could barely hear traffic. Sharing the moment with people who truly appreciate the moment and prairie in the same way is what really made the morning, this is what birding is truly all about for me. As we were enjoying moment on the prairie with the Baird's we heard two vans pull up way back by the roadside where we parked. A quick scan in the scopes revealed the vans were full of people with floppy hats and khaki hats: birders. They unloaded.
Kim Risen and I recognized one of the people as fellow Minnesota birder and Victor Emanuel tour leader Kim Eckert. I always get a kick out of the random meetings that can happen in another state. He was leading two vans for VENT and like us was there for the Baird's and the Sprague's pipits. We went over to say hello.
And as much as I would have liked to have sunk into the ground and just enjoy the sounds and smells for the rest of the day (despite the ticks) we had to head home. So, once again, after a cold, crappy, rainy, windy reception to the state, all is once again forgiven with a North Dakota dawn.
Wednesday morning as I was packing for North Dakota, I could hear a young robin in the neighborhood, begging for food. Throughout the morning it was figuring out this whole flight thing and getting fed large grubby looking things by its parents.
About a half an hour before I left, the young robing had found the puddle on the apartment building across the ally--the same one that hosted a Cooper's hawk last spring. I managed to get a couple of videos. Here is the young robin taking his first dips (you might hear a red-eyed vireo singing outside my window):
Here a second video with a rock pigeon joining and scaring the young robin...and that is the BarryTones doing HipShop in the background (a barbershop quartet singing a medley of popular hip hop songs):
Last fall, I went on a tear to get rid of some buckthorn and start replenishing the woods with bee and bird friendly plants (with mostly native plants) in Mr. Neil's woods. I've tried to make a sincere effort to learn my wildflowers and if I've learned anything, it's that if I find a flower very attractive, it's non-native.
I got some large-flowering trillium last fall and planted that on the slope where the big fallen oak has been hosting sparrows all winter. Alas, it does not appear to be popping up. As I was feeling sorry for myself and wondering what I could do differently, I noticed this, mere feet from where I planted the trillium:
Nodding trillium! Growing all on its own, without me planting it! Has it always been growing on this hill and since I'm always bird watching that I have just never noticed it? That's quite possible--really, the only wildflower I knew before this was Dutchman's breeches and Jack-In-The-Pulpit (which we have a ginormous amount of Jack's this year). Refreshed and excited, I decided to head into the woods to see what other flowers might be popping up and to try and get some warbler shots. I head to the spot where a major buckthorn removal had taken place and found:
A butt load of garlic mustard. One of the reasons I have never bothered to learn my plants is that I didn't want to know too much. Once you know what the invasive species are and how quickly they spread and how hard they are to get rid of--you begin to see it everywhere and feel a sort of powerlessness about it. This area floods every spring. So if we begin a garlic mustard removal plan, more will just be flooded in. As I was thinking in my head about what I'd read on the Internet regarding garlic mustard removal, I noticed higher up on a hill, a patch of flowers surrounded by garlic mustard...
It was a large patch of native wildflowers including large-flowered trillium and some rue anemone (and if I misidentify any flowers, please someone correct me, I'm still learning and need all the help I can get). I also found spring beauties, wild geranium, phlox, and something I cannot identify in my books and online:
Does anyone know what this is? I have a feeling it's non-native since I find them so pretty. Here's a shot so you can see the leaves:
So, even though there is still buckthorn and now oodles of garlic mustard, there is still some hope in the woods with some native flowers and our bees out there using them for nectar.
After I finished inspecting the wildflower situation, I headed towards the spot where we find giant puffballs because blue-winged warblers have nested there since I have been coming to Mr. Neil's. I heard one singing right away, found a spot with some open areas so I could aim my digiscoping equipment and waited. It wasn't long before a pair of blue-winged warblers were out and foraging. The birds seemed to have a circuit that they would follow from tree to tree, searching for tiny insects. By watching the circuit a few times, I got a sense of their route and could kind of follow along with the scope and digiscope some photos.
The blue-winged warblers were not bothered by my presence whatsoever and a few times foraged for insects about two feet above my head. Blue-wings are an interesting species. They hybridize with golden-winged warblers and may be contributing to the decline of the golden-wing. When blue-winged warblers move into the same range as the golden-wing--the pure golden-wings disappear to hybrids and eventually all become golden-wings. You can read more about it (and maybe even participate in a study) at Cornell's Golden-winged Warbler Atlas Project.
What a pleasant way to enjoy the evening sun with a blue-winged warbler. I even managed to get a video of the warbler singing his buzzy "bluuuuuuuuuuuuuue wing" song and foraging--enjoy!
I'm trying hard to focus on the good. I'm incredibly swamped--I still have a post left from the World Series of Birding but there are articles to finish, emails to deal with, trips to lead, blogs to write, etc. I had every intent to just do my time banding at Carpenter this morning and then come home and write, write, write.
Alas, it was not meant to be. Someone reported a long-eared owl in a park a few blocks from our apartment. Even though the bird was seen this morning and I was reading the report in the afternoon, the owl was roosting in a heavily trafficked park. It had made an informed decision to roost in a city park--it would not flush easily and still be there. As soon as I got to the park with my digiscoping equipment, you could hear the angry robins...oh yes, the long-eared was still there.
Tucked and well hidden in the trees, the long-eared owl tried very hard to roost and the robins were making darn sure that sleep would not be an easy one this day. A few other birders were there and we all stayed back on the trail to watch the long-eared. Some people passing through the trail asked if we were looking at another great horned owl and we showed them the long-eared. They were excited and said that just down the trail was a very visible great horned. I went to take a look a few hundred feet down the trail.
Another birder named Scott was with me and he spotted the sleeping great horned owl right away. Do you see it in the above photo?
Scott also found a second great horned roosting nearby!
Again, these are urban great horneds and they must be very used to people to roost right out in the open. I love having an unexpected two species of owl day just a few blocks from home! It was interesting to note that it was relatively silent compared to over by the long-eared owl. There were several warblers and a few buntings and orioles singing a storm, but they were just territory songs, not alarm songs. Small birds are not high in the list of preferred prey items to a great horned owl. Long-eared owls do eat some small birds and I'm sure the robins are aware of it. It was interesting to note the long-eared roosting so close to the great horned owls...great horneds are known to eat smaller owls, including long-eareds. Hmmm.
And if you are curious about about what angry robins sound like, I did manage to take a small video of the roosting long-eared through my spotting scope. You can hear the angry "cheep cheeps" from the robins. Another interesting note is that this is general robin alarm. When they see a Cooper's hawk in the neighborhood, the robins give a very high pitched down slurred whistle. They did not give that while I was there observing the long-eared:
We birded Glendalough State Park during the Detroit Lakes Bird Festival. There were common yellowthroats singing on territory all over. I even managed to get video of them through my spotting scope and digital camera. They are usually described as having a song that says, "witchety, witchety, witchety" but sometimes they can be a little different. Here are two different common yellowthroats singing, the first is the usual call and the second is just a little different (you can go directly to YouTube and watch them in high definition if you want):
This was a yellow-bellied sapsucker doing some territorial drumming on an old rusty drum during the Red Lake trip of the Detroit Lakes Bird Festival. For those not familiar with sapsuckers, they have a distinctive drumming sound. Note how it starts and then kind of peters out. When you hear that sort of drumming, you can say with some confidence to your friends that you hear a sapsucker drumming.
We were serenaded by frogs all weekend! There are wet spots all over Mr. Neil that's just perfect for frogs. The loudest were the chorus frogs and wood frogs. Above is a wood frog in mid...croak. Wood frogs have a special place in my heart. When I first moved to Minnesota, I went to TS Roberts Sanctuary for birding. There was a wet area with this weird barking sound. A woman standing there with binoculars was intently watching the wet area. "What is that?" I asked. She said it was grouse. Not being familiar with grouse and new to Minnesota, I found it completely plausible that grouse would be found in a city park in an urban area. I spent an hour scanning with my binoculars before I finally found the wood frogs--much to the consternation of Non Birding Bill--ah good times.
I continued to scan Mr. Neil's pond for chorus frogs and I found one out of the water puffing away. Such a tiny frog, makes such a loud sound! I took some video through the spotting scope. The first is focusing on a wood frog (the are the kind of barking sound). The second video is on the chorus frog, but again you will hear both wood and chorus frogs. Chorus frogs sound like you are running a finger over the tines on a comb. Now, if only I could find some spring peepers to listen to!
Here's a video I took though my spotting scope of some hooded mergansers. It starts off on a preening female and then goes to a male preening...and working his cresty mojo. I wish videos looked as good on You Tube as they do before compressed, but you get the idea.
I woke up this morning hoping to dash out to look for a grouse drumming log. I put on a cup of coffee and was chit chatting with Non Birding Bill when I looked behind him and saw a male yellow-bellied sapsucker--I was so excited on a nearby pine! It was low and in great light. I grabbed my scope and NBB grabbed my camera and I went to work trying to get a photo. I was getting some okay photos, but it was through a window and it wasn't as crisp as I would like them. Sapsuckers have never been a very cooperative bird for me and I didn't want to scare it off.
But it continued to peck when I went outside so I got some great shots. It's weird, I was trying to find information about sapsuckers and tree health and I couldn't find a conclusive study about whether or not sapsuckers damage healthy trees or go after trees already in ill health. There did seem to be information from tree people calling them pests and information from bird people saying that we don't know for sure and most trees survive. Looks like more study needs to be done.
I did go out to look for grouse and NBB came with me. Mr. Neil told me that a week ago he heard strong drumming. We went to the area he described and sure enough we heard the drumming. We slowly followed a trail up the hill and I spotted this tangle. I saw a log...I saw a grouse shape--we found the grouse! It was frozen, it knew we there and we were not going to get to see it drum. After about thirty seconds it took off.
In spring, male ruffed grouse find a log and beat their wings against their chest to attract a female. If you've never heard it before, let me tell you, it's a crazy sound. It's such a low resonance, I tend to feel it as opposed to hear it. My friend Larry from banding has been giving information on what to look for in grouse drumming sites. This one fit the bill--it was a clearing, but the log itself was surrounded by some branches.
We found some grouse poop, but not a lot. I wonder if this isn't the usual log? I wanted to set up the motion sensitive camera, but the log is on someone else's property and in full view of a cabin. No one was home for me to ask and I momentarily thought of setting it up anyway, but NBB wisely pointed out that leaving a motion sensitive camera for someone to find might freak them out. I'll try again next weekend. Nonetheless, it is a goal realized--I've always wanted to find a grouse drumming log. Now I just need to get some footage of it in action.
And now I leave you with a video of the sapsucker drilling. There's a bee entry coming up, we did our first big spring hive inspection. I also have an idea for another entry, but I'm not sure. NBB says it's gold. I'm worried, that it might be too much information. I'll sleep on it.
Winter storm warning starts today, April 10 at 4pm! We might be getting 4 - 6 inches of snow sometime within the next 48 hours. I shouldn't complain...Duluth is supposed to get blizzard conditions (not blizzard like, just blizzard).
While I was checking the traps yesterday, I heard my first field sparrows of the year (above). When we finished banding, I took a few minutes to go out and look for them--there were several. That is such a sweet sound of spring and summer.
There were a few song sparrows (above) around too. They've been around for a couple of weeks now. Although, some song sparrows don't leave the Twin Cities in winter. When I worked at a bird store on the west side, we had them at the feeder all winter long.
The field sparrow is such a cute brown bird! I was really enjoying the time with the field sparrows yesterday. Tax time has been rough this year. We put it off (our own darn fault) and we're gonna have to pay and it's going to hurt and we've irritated our accountant--just all those crazy things that many of us go through this one week in April every year. I loved just standing out in the prairie at Carpenter Nature Center surrounded by the sweet songs of the field sparrows, soaking it in. And no matter how late we are with our taxes or how much we end up owing, birds are always a comfort. I tried to take a video through my scope of the field sparrow singing for people who may not know what they sound like (it reminds many of a ping pong ball bouncing on a table). There's a little heat shimmer, but you get the idea:
Gorgeous, isn't it? I went to the Minnesota River Valley Visitor's Center to do some digiscoping today. We got some snow on Friday and there were a few flurries on Saturday and I figured I could get some fun shots in the snow.
But the center was closed. Now, come on--the sign reads about bad roads and winter weather and it's true that we got about 3-5 inches on Friday--but, this is Minnesota, that's nothing. I could understand if this was a remote park miles from a town with a gravel road, but this center is right off a major highway in the south metro area of the Twin Cities across from the airport. And to prove my point, here is the road the visitor's center is on:
Pretty darned cleared off if you ask me. I think it was Easter Weekend and the employees wanted an extended weekend off--and who can blame them? But it was a balmy thirty degrees and I went to get some photos anyway. All the feeders were empty and many had been taken down (I assume put away for the weekend to prevent theft), but as always, I have an emergency bag of bird seed in the car and scattered some around the feeding area.
The two platform feeders were way too high for me to fill with seed, so I just scattered it on the ground--and the birds came in for it right away. The cardinal and junco were eating peacefully side by side, but when the female house sparrow flew down, the cardinal wanted none of her. I just love that little tableau above.
Ah, look at this! It's the rarely seen woodpecker worm tunneling out from the snow to get some mixed nuts. It's so weird to see a downy woodpecker hopping around on the ground like a robin. I'm sure there's a Dune reference to be made here, but I can't think what it is. Oh! And that reminds me, someone asked in a previous entry what a snow flea is. They are a bug you can see even in summer weather, but since they come out early while there is still snow on the ground, they are easier to see in winter. You look at the base of a tree on top of the snow and if you see what looks like dust moving--that's snow fleas. You can read more about them here. Believe it or not, there is also a snow mosquito and I've already seen one of those this week too.
I could hear red-winged blackbirds all over and I saw this flock in the distance, but when I looked at them through the scope, I realized they were brown-headed cowbirds.
And the males were wasting no time in displaying to the females. In the above photo, there is a female cowbird on the left and the male is in mid chirp on the right--cowbirds, hold off, there really aren't any nests for you to deposit eggs yet...except for bald eagles and red-tailed hawks and they aren't gonna buy your tiny eggs in their nests. I tried to get a video of the cowbird display through my scope. You can watch it below, but the cowbirds get almost completely muted by the red-winged blackbirds and robins singing around them. Towards the end you will hear a western meadowlark--that's my cell phone, not the actual bird. As migration progresses, I may have to switch my ring tone to a sound I won't actually hear in Minnesota.
Spent the day working my mojo with my new digital camera for digiscoping. I took this video through the scope of a female red-bellied woodpecker eating off of a suet log. It's not the most exciting footage ever, but I really wanted to capture the background sounds--some birds were singing territory songs even with snow still on the ground. You can hear a tufted titmouse, northern cardinal, blue jays, and crows (you might also here a few goldfinch chips and nuthatch yanks too).
You're probably asking yourself, "How much longer is this chick going to go on about Nebraska???" This will be the last post and then later this week I'll be opening up the Olga hive and feeding her some pollen and try and figure out my mojo with the new digiscoping camera at Mr. Neil's bird feeders--I know the new camera is capable of sharply focused photos, that Harlan's hawk doesn't look bad. Perhaps it will get better when I get new glasses?
In an offbeat bit of news, an artist did a rendering of a photo that was on Cute Overload and included a reference to Disapproving Rabbits. I love being combined with one of my favorite websites and sometimes it's weird to think that we coined a phrase that's part of the Internet Lexicon.
One of the fun parts of visiting Nebraska this time of year is watching the cranes fly off of the Platte River from one of the crane blinds at Rowe Sanctuary. The first time I was in one of these was about ten years ago. I had no idea what to expect, we went out in the morning to the giant blind, crammed in with about 30 other people. We were given the lecture to be quiet and not use any flashes so as to not scare off the cranes. We walked out in the cold, you could tell there were quite a few cranes on the river. You stood shivering in the dark, mesmerized by the sheer number of birds. As the skies became lighter you could make out bird shapes and see birds standing on islands and suddenly got an idea of how many thousands of birds were in front of you. Eventually, an eagle would fly over or a coyote run through, frighten the cranes and they would lift off all at once, each individual call merging into a gigantic roar--an overwhelming and powerful experience and something I have tried to come back to every year since.
Over the years, I've found other places to watch the cranes. Rowe Sanctuary can sometimes provide a closer view but really, if you know where to go, you can watch the cranes outside of their blinds. The above photo was taken from the shores of the Platte River on Tom Mangelson's cabin. It's interesting that at Rowe you are given all these rules--don't stomp too hard in the blind, don't stick your camera lenses outside the blind, no talking inside the blind, no lights period on the front of your camera, etc. When we were on the shores of Mangelson's property, we weren't in a blind, we talked (not loud), we walked around (we didn't dance or do jumping jacks) and cranes flew in and landed without any problem. There was even a big bonfire going on not too far from us and if that doesn't disturb the cranes, I don't know what would.
Check out the five young thugs (immature bald eagles) hanging out in a tree at Mangelson's--are they thinking what this eagle was thinking? Don't get me wrong, Rowe's rules are important. You have several people sharing one blind and a person could conceivably stick their arm out of a viewing window and cause an early fly off. I don't know, I think that since I've been coming here so long and know places to stay and watch free, I'm getting spoiled about how I view the cranes and the geese.
It's interesting to see how things are changing at Rowe. Something to keep in mind now when booking time in a blind is that tripods are an issue. In the past when I took field trips to Rowe, I always tried to get a blind just for our group--it's never been a problem before, Rowe has many blinds. This was the first year that I wasn't given a blind just for our group (even with the offer of paying extra). The morning our group arrived for our first blind visit, a volunteer mentioned the blind they had us in had limited space for tripods for a spotting scope or camera--and we were sharing the blind with another group. When they saw how many tripods our group had, they ended up giving us our own blind. However, when we returned for evening crane viewing, we didn't get our own blind and since all the windows were sold, we were told that our tripod legs could not fall into the space of the window of the person next to us or you wold have to put your scope and tripod away. Our group lucked out a little because we had a couple of people cancel last minute and Rowe didn't refund the money so we had some extra windows for space.
I think everybody should visit Rowe Sanctuary at least once in their life and it's a great place to start off if you've never been to Nebraska to see cranes (and you can get some fun crane souvenirs) but I'm starting to see the fun in hanging out on the Fort Kearney Hike and Bike Trail Bridge for crane viewing.
And I end with one final digivideo of sandhill cranes (and some geese) flying over Mangelson's.
I'm doing another interview on Talk Shoe, this time with a show called Conscious Living on Wednesday. It will be interesting to see if there are the same naughty forum questions as the other show I was on. Then I'll know if it was me bringing them out or just a weird one time thing. If you're interested in listening, go to the Talk Shoe site on Wednesday at 4pm Eastern Time.
This was a massive flock of snow geese that we found on Friday just driving around Nebraska. It's interesting that the focus of the Platte River birding in Nebraska is the sandhill crane, but the sheer numbers of snow geese are more intriguing to me. When Stan asked about doing a field trip to Nebraska through his nature center, I suggested early March. There may be fewer cranes, but enormous amounts of snow geese. And really, the numbers for both are still pretty amazing--60,000 sandhill cranes, 2 million snow geese.
I think this is one of my favorite photos from the trip. This is just a long, long line of snow geese. As cool as this is, it may be cause for environmental concern. According to Birds of North America Online the current estimates of the snow goose population is between 5 and 6 million, a number that may be environmentally unsustainable. When snow geese return to their breeding grounds, they pretty much eat the crap out of the habitat which in the long term could mean that they eat away the habitat so quickly that it won't recover for future breeding seasons causing a crash not only in their population but other species like sandpipers and phalaropes. Despite all of that, it's still pretty overwhelming to witness.
Below is a video of the above flock flying over our heads. You can hear Stan, my buddy Amber and myself giggling like fools. Non Birding Bill says it sounds like we are high.
Well, I'm in Atlanta right now and the drought is still on--the grass is very brown and there are water conservation notices in the hotel rooms. However, as I type this, there is one heck of storm raging outside, so maybe this is a sign for the better? So, time to finish up the Florida entries:
So, Viera Wetlands (again, just a fancy name for a wastewater treatment area--yeah, I mean sewage) wasn't just about the cool bittern loaf. No, there were other birds there, they were just all over shadowed by the cool brown heron like bird. What else could be so cool?
Brown ducks! This is an exciting duck since it can be found in most places around the US. It's a relative of black ducks and mallards and that plumage in the above photos is about as flamboyant as it gets for the mottled duck. I can hear Non Birding Bill smirking all the way in Minnesota.
The wetlands were chock full of herons and egrets. Above is a flock of cattle egrets threatening to block the road as we were driving through.
Here is a pair of sandhill cranes near the road. Again, I would like to point out how birds in Florida are mellower than birds up north. There's no way sandhills would stick near the road if a vehicle slowed down near them. How close were they? For one thing, I didn't digiscope this photo. Here's another comparison:
That's my buddy Clay Taylor in the driver's seat watching the cranes--these birds just don't care about humans. Maybe it's the vacation atmosphere in Florida? Everybody, even the wildife is chillin' out.
Here's another anhinga, drying out its wings in the sun while surrounded by blue-winged teal. It kind of threw me to see it with blue-winged teal, a species we have nesting in Minnesota. Here is an adult anhinga (note the white on the wings). The anhinga is another kind of celebrity bird for me. I remember staring at their illustrations in my field guides when I was a kid, in all the books, there was at least one showing it with its wings out. It's fun to see them when I am in Texas or Florida.
Speaking of birds throwing me, here's a savannah sparrow. I wondered if I was driving Clay crazy by second guessing so many birds. I kept asking things like, "Is that really a savannah sparrow I'm seeing?" I'm so used to seeing and hearing them in open areas around the Minnesota, I wasn't expecting to find them lurking in the grasses of some wetlands in Florida.
The birds weren't all brown at the wetlands. Check out this striking fellow--kind of like a coot in drag. It's a common moorhen. These birds are very grunty, belchy and farty sounding. They make a variety of noises, but it's the grunty sounds that stick in your mind.
The moorhens were mixed in with the coots. Many of the coots formed a tight raft and fed in the water. With the black bodies and heads, accented with the white bills, it was kind of hypnotic. Here's a video:
Here's another Dr. Seuss looking bird. This is the glossy ibis. Viera was just fun, everywhere you scanned you find something cool, if not on the water, then in the grasses and shoreline. There's something for everyone. And you might be surprised what you find as you're scanning:
Oh hey, what's that on the shore? Why, it's an alligator. And this wasn't the only one, they were ALL over.
Now, these birds must like life on the edge. Here are two sizable alligators and near them on the shore is a glossy ibis and a few moorhens feeding away. Are these birds just not the brightest bulbs on the tree or does their diet make them taste so nasty that an alligator just doesn't want to bother.
You could get fairly close to the alligators. Above is a member of our group named Andy getting a photo with his point and shoot. I noted the alligator was longer than I am and decided to digiscope it from where I stood behind Andy (if the gator decided to come our way, it would get Andy first).
Not a bad photo and much like the bittern photo, I could only get a head shot of the gator to fit in my field of view. Perhaps, that means I'm too close to it.
We did see some non lethal animals like this red-bellied turtle and a river otter that came running out of the water and was entirely too fast for me to digiscope.
Here's a rabbit--this poor thing was frozen and hunkered to the ground, there was a young red-shouldered hawk hunting nearby and the rabbit was using its camo ability to evade becoming a mean for the hawk. One of the guys on our trip was a Florida naturalist and he said that this was a marsh rabbit. They can swim, although, I wouldn't advise it with all the gators in the water.
Well, I thought getting some great head shots of the wood stork was going to be the high point of my trip, but hands down, it was the American bittern action, I captured at Viera Wetlands yesterday. Now, the American bittern is a bird I can see in my home state of Minnesota, but not easily and certainly not in good photography light. One thing I am fascinated with birds is how birds respond to human activity in different states. In Florida, the birds are totally mellow: osprey right on the street lamps like red-tailed hawks. Herons and egrets will let you get within 10 feet of them. We have some of these same species in Minnesota, but they are way more cagey--it's just an interesting regional difference.
Bitterns are birds that skulk around in reeds, using their stripey plumage to hide in the reeds--it's hard to find them, you generally hear them more than you see them and when you do see them, it's usually when they are slinking back into the reeds and out of your sight. When I got the above photo of a bittern disappearing into some vegetation with the sun behind it, I considered myself very lucky.
Then we got to this spot and a fellow birder mentioned to our group that there was an American bittern in here that is a real ham. I'm a ham, I would even say chickadees and nuthatches are hams. But bitterns as hams? They are more of the Howard Hughes type. But, the light was perfect, I had a flash card to fill and couldn't resist a chance to digiscope a bittern. We couldn't see it and buddy Clay Taylor said that we were probably going to have to walk around and just work it. Clay and I assumed our positions with our scopes and our cameras and waited. Less than sixty seconds later, we saw the bittern.
It skulked out of the grasses and I got this photo. I thought this was pretty darned exciting and very bloggable--and a good representation of how you usually see a bittern through a scope or binoculars. Part of the bird and obscured by vegetation. I congratulated myself in my head for a digiscope well done. But, it didn't end there.
The bird continued to search the water at the base of the vegetation for fish and seemed completely oblivious to the pack of humans on the nearby road freaking out at how close we were to an American bittern.
Look at that! An almost completely unobscured bittern face? I felt like the luckiest girl in the world!
The bittern eventually came out fairy close to the road. If you look at the above photo, you see the end of the barrel of my spotting scope and at the top center of the photo is the bittern. I was dying at this point. It was sunny, the temperature was in the upper seventies, a slight breeze was blowing and I was watching a really cool and generally hard to see bird.
The birder we met on the road was right, this bird was a ham. Here it is point its head up to camouflage as a helicopter few over (or maybe it was simply watching the helicopter).
And then it poked its head out and continued its "relentless warfare on fish." Some of the members of our group were not birders and did find the bittern cool, but I'm sure they were wondering why Clay and I just planted ourselves for the better part of an hour photographing the bittern.
The bird was so close, I had a tough time getting anything but head shots, so I moved myself further back and was able to start getting the whole body in the frame. What amazed me was look at the size of the head in relation to the body--tiny and skinny head governing a large body in back.
At a couple of point, it puffed up slightly. I wondered what that was about. I once was fortunately enough to watch a bittern give it's call and it's really interesting. They inhale air first and their bodies blow up like a big brown beach ball and the bird deflates as it gives that pumper call. Here, it puffed up once? Is it giving some kind of call that is inaudible to me? What was it about? Still, so much to learn.
Here's a final photo, check out the wet feathers on the chin--I saw this bird get at least five fish, who knows how much it was getting as it would periodically disappear into the grasses. Though the above is the last photo, below is a video of the bittern. There is a spot on the lens and yes, I am aware of the spot. I've been uploading some photos to You Tube in the last twenty-four hours to blog about this week. Some people subscribe to the videos on there and see them right away. And a few have felt the need to let me know that I have a spot on my lens. It's a big spot and fairly obvious and it amuses me to know end that the commentors feel the need to let me know, on the off chance I didn't see it. So, as you're watching this, yes, I know that there is a spot on the lens.
Oh! And I forgot to mention, you will hear fish crows calling in the back ground--sounds like a crow that swallowed a kazoo going "ha ha". Also, watch how the bittern wiggles back and forth--that's how it's focusing on what it's about to stab it at. Alas, the flash card I was using when I took the video filled up and the camera stopped filming. Immediately after the video stops, the bittern nailed a fish.
As mentioned in the previous post, it's a little chilly right now. But I decided to try some digiscoping at Mr. Neil's bird feeders. Number one, being right outside the house, I could dash in and have some pumpkin spice tea when the layers would begin to fail me (my layering system works great when I'm walking, but it's hard to stay warm when standing in one spot taking photos). Plus, the cold just wreaks havoc on my batteries for my camera. I have discovered that using those Hot Hand hand warmers does help keep them going a little bit longer than just keeping them in a pants pocket.
The berries that were in the blue jay photo are from a bittersweet vine that we planted in the yard. I just love bittersweet, I think it's one of the pretties fall vines out there, so I snipped some off and set it on top of the stump with the snow and tossed some black oil sunflower seed and mixed nuts in front of it so see what type of bird photos I could get.
It's interesting that you hear some people complain about all the manipulation of images with Photoshop, but images can be manipulated just as easily with some well placed foliage and food bribery. I know some who go to great lengths to hide the bird seed used to bring in birds for photos, but I'm not that picky.
It was interesting that this female red-bellied woodpecker had no problem coming down to the stump for the nuts. This species is usually pretty cagey in Mr. Neil's yard. If they do come in, they usually stick to the suet feeder or peanut feeder. But this female decided to risk the spotting scope and come down for some nuts.
Round about 4pm, it started getting darker and the bird activity began to slow down. It was mostly juncos and a couple of cardinals coming in towards the end. I normally would have cropped out the half red-breasted nuthatch on the right, but check out the leg--there's a band, no doubt this is one of the nuthatches we banded this fall. Whoot.
As it was getting darker, something caught the attention of both me and the junco (notice that it looks a bit more alert)--we heard a great horned owl hooting. There has been some hooting on and off in the last few weeks, but they sounded very close. First it stared with one, and then a second, higher pitched hoot came in--male and female. They were hooting back and forth, well it is December, that is prime owl flirting time, but as they were hooting, I noticed a very faint hooting--another great horned was hooting back!
It was almost 4:30pm at this point and that's when the sun sets this time of year. I took a photo and see those tall pines in the back ground? That's where the owls were hooting. After I took this photo, I noticed some flapping and then saw a bird land on top of the pines. I thought I would test my Swarovski's light gathering abilities and see if I could see anything:
There was an owl, perched right at the top of a branch! In the scope, you could make out the colors, but my little digital camera could only just about make out the great horned owl's silhouette.
Here is the male owl in mid-hoot. I love how they pop their tails up like they are some kind of giant wren. Check out its puffed out throat too! The distant owl kept hooting back to the pair closest to me. This is great, I didn't even have to use the iPod, the birds were calling themselves out! Not long after I took this photo, the female flew up to join him:
Here is the male on the left and the female on the right. You can see the size difference and when they were hooting, you could totally tell that the owl on the right was much higher in pitch than the one on the left. I tried to get a video which will be below. You really can't hear the hooting, they were too far for my sad little mic to pick up. But, some fun things that I did catch on the video: At 34 seconds, the female on the right will hoot (you'll see her cock up her tail) and then right after that, watch the male on the left--he's going to cough up a pellet and you should see it fall at about 51 seconds, then watch the female again because she will poop at 1:01. The who thing lasts about a minute and twenty seconds. I ran in and grabbed Mr. Neil's video camera to see if it would be strong enough to pick out the hooting sounds and if you click here and crank your volume as loud as possible, you can hear the male and female hoot (head phones might work best. Anyway, here is the video of the hootin' nanny:
Ah, one of my favorite moments in life. Listening to owls calling in the dark while standing in snow.
This afternoon I was doing some half hearted buckthorn removal in Mr. Neil's woods. It needs to be done, but at the same time I was making mental apologies to the woods and wildlife that areas of thick brush would go through a drastic change but would be made up to them in future years with better plants. I fell in love with this woods the first time I walked through it. I remember the spot in the above photo being a particularly perfect place to find a saw-whet owl. Every single time I pass it, I comb the branches with my eyes for small owls but have never seen one there. I've even been taunted by a saw-whet owl feather a wren used in lining a nearby nest box.
Today, I found tiny owl poop beneath one of the trees. I started scanning the trunk but didn't have my hopes too high. After all, I have found owl poop before and no owl. I stood right on top of the poop and looked straight up. The branches revealed nothing. I took a step back and to the right. An oval shape and then vertical lines came into view--saw-whet owl! Finally, a saw-wet! I dashed back up the trail to gather my digiscoping equipment to get a photo of this tiny owl:
It was not the best light and the wee owly was not in the least bit threatened by me and continued its snooze. I left the scope on him and called Lorraine to see if she was working at the house. She was and I insisted that she join me on the trail to see an owl. How could she refuse? We both marveled at the owl and then it did the craziest thing! It woke up, faced away from us and started bobbing its head. We changed our position to get a better look. Without the scope, it looked as though it was about to cough up a pellet. But when I looked in the scope it was opening its mouth and moving as though it were making sounds? What was it doing?? Lorraine and I strained to hear and finally we made out very high pitched, almost inaudible squeaks and clicks--almost bat like. I tried to get a video, but there was no way to get the sound on that microphone. Here you can watch it move:
You know, I've worked with an education saw-whet owl at TRC and have never heard that sound or have seen or heard it in the wild. I couldn't find anything like it on BNA. I did find something sort of like it on Cornell's Owl CD (a must have for any person remotely into owls) and there are a couple of tracks on there listed as "unknown winter vocalization". If there are any owl experts out there who would care to share their knowledge of saw-whet owl vocalizations, I would love to hear it.
We waited for Mr. Neil to finish some writing and insisted that he and Cabal come join us to watch the owl before it got to dark. The owl didn't vocalize but took a direct interest in the large white dog. It's now night, and I hope the saw-whet is finding plenty of tasty mice and voles around the feeding area. I put out some extra bird seed on the ground to encourage small mammals for it.
I guess you never know what you'll find when removing buckthorn.
"Did someone say there's a dead tree? Yum! Count me in!"
We've had some powerful storms in our neck of the woods for the last month. Non Birding Bill and I have been fortunate in not having any storm damage (heck of a light show, though), but Mr. Neil has lost some trees, one being a very large oak near the bird feeding stations--NOT the oak that supplied us with a tasty harvest of Sulphur Shelf--it's still standing tall (although the fungus has dried out).
This oak has been kind of the staging area for all the feeder birds. Up until a large bolt of lightening struck the giant tree a couple of weeks ago, all the birds would hang in there and make sure the coast was clear before coming down to the feeders. Woodpeckers would check for bugs, nuthatches would cache suet and nuts, mourning doves would flirt, and immature birds would beg from parents high in the branches as the adults fed, trying to show the young how to use the feeders. I always thought to myself that if something happened to that tree, it might affect the bird activity. Initially, it was thought that the tree had just lost a large branch, but an arborist came and pointed to where and how hard the tree was struck and needed to be cut down since it was so close to the house. When the yard crew cut the tree, you could see the charred core for the powerful bolt of lightening.
After the tree was cut down, I asked Mr. Neil what he was going to do with it. The tree fell into the woods (away from the house) and he was considering the idea of leaving it there to rot. I strongly favored the idea, though we lost a tree for the birds to hang out in before they go to the feeders, it would become a great brushy area and an awesome food source. Even though the tree has only been down a few weeks, the birds are already digging it.
Here is a black-capped chickadee going for tiny insects working around the dead leaves. This birds kept bouncing from clump to clump of dead leaves. As I was watching this chickadee, I could hear soft pecking from several different sources around me. As the oak had come down, a few other trees came down with it, so there are several dead trees surrounding the oak--an Old Country Buffet of all natural food for the birds (hm...can you have "all natural" and "Old Country Buffet" in the same sentence?).
One of the birds pecking was this tufted titmouse. The bird was really hammering away at this jagged edge of a broken branch. First it started at the top, and then the side. Anytime another titmouse flew it, this bird would chase it off. Something must have been good in there...
Eventually, the bird really started pecking away at the bottom and really excavating. The behavior was so fascinating, I thought I would digivideo what it was doing. Be alert, this clip is only six seconds long:
As soon as I had pressed record on my little digital camera, the titmouse got its reward--did you see the size of that grub?? I couldn't believe my luck of getting a quick video of the bird getting the food. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I can't wait to see what happens over the winter.
Another benefit to the missing large oak is that now the late afternoon sun casts a gorgeous glow on the feeding station--perfect for digiscoping. I found this female ruby-throated hummingbird preening in one of the small trees next to the nectar feeder. Earlier, when I had been filling all the empty seed feeders, she buzzed by head twice (I wasn't wearing red, so it wasn't like she thought I was food). The third time she buzzed, I turned around and followed her with my eyes. She flew twenty feet away to the hummingbird feeder, hovered for a moment and flew up into the tree. Hm, what is it Lassie? Is Timmy in the well again? Or is the nectar nasty in the hummingbird feeder. I took the feeder in, cleaned it out, put in fresh nectar and not five seconds after I hung it back up, she flew down and started feeding on the nectar. This bird has me trained--three buzzes and I fill the feeder. After she fed, she went to the tree to preen. Here's a video of her ablutions. Note how she periodically flicks out that tiny tongue:
And for those interested, a bee update will be coming up later today.
And now I present you with a video I digiscoped (or digivideoed) of a black-capped chickadee eating a black oil sunflower seed. Note how it works the nut meat apart bit by bit. Also, note how this bird is not eating at a feeder, chickadees fly away to another perch with their food--presumably to eat it out of a potential predator's view.
When you see the chickadee puff up in the video, another chickadee has landed nearby, and it's trying to look intimidating to protect its food--it's a mini mantle.
The next bird we heard was a grasshopper sparrow (that's the hunch backed looking bird in the above photo). It's buzzy call was mixed with 
