Birdchick

This week has been fun for watching returning migrants.  One morning there’s the usual winter birds and then the next morning you hear a robin on territory (had our first one singing outside of the apartment today).  I went to Carver Park this morning before work and a flock of red-winged blackbird males were lurking in a cedar tree working on their song.

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There are some birds who are celebrities to me–one would be the potoo.  I was into birds as a kid, I had a ton of books and I remember sitting in my room looking at bird books and there were certain birds that were iconic that I hoped to see one day when I got older and had the means to travel.  The potoo falls in that category.

Potoos are nocturnal birds in the order of Caprimulgiformes and that includes nightjars (like nighthawks and whip-poor-wills) but are in their own family. Nighthawks are also active at night and will roost horizontally on the ground or a branch to hide from potential predators. Potoos do it upright and kind of look like a broken off branch.  If you go to Google Image Search, you’ll find a ton of photos of potoos in action.

When we were birding our first day at Canopy Tower, I asked my guide Carlos Bethancourt if there were any around.  I wanted to see a potoo and when I asked people for bird requests, someone requested that I try and get a photo of a potoo.  Carlos said that they have them but they are not always at the same roosting spot.  During lunch he came up to me and said that a potential potoo has been spotted near the entrance gate to Semaphore Hill (the road that leads to the tower). He was going to check it out to see if it was there and show people on the afternoon field trips and wanted to know if I would like to come along. So I did!

The best part was that Carlos took me to the general area and then had me look for it.  My first attempt turned out to be an ant nest but I found it the second time and we set up our scopes on the cool bird.  I was so excited to see this bird, I wanted to ask for its autograph.  I love when I birds doing what I have read about for years–there was the great potoo perched and erect, looking like a piece of branch like all the guides and online photos show.  And this was a great potoo–it was huge!  The great potoo was nothing like a dainty nighthawk, it was the size and shape of roughly a red-tailed hawk.  As Carlos watched me take photos with my Nikon D40 on my Swarovski ATM 80 scope, he asked to try the camera on his Leica scope.

He got a pretty cool photo of it stretching its wings and I was stunned at how long they were.  The wings were not pointed like a nightjar and I wondered what it must be like to see something like that fly.  They don’t zoom around like a nighthawk.  They grab insects like a flycatcher does.  The potoo will perch out on a prominent branch and fly out at night to grab beetles, moths, grasshoppers and other large insects.

While Carlos used my camera, I handheld an HD video camera to my scope and managed to get a few stills.  Look at that floofy face! And notice all the wispy feathers around the head.  I bet it would be so soft to touch.  Alas, like so many birds, not a good pet but such a cool bird to see up close.  I’m glad Carlos took me out during the break time, I was able to get some gratuitous photos of this great potoo without the rest of a birding group getting irritated that I wanted to lolly-gag. I could have stayed and watched this bird all day.   And that is the sign of what a great place this is.  If you have a birding/wildlife request at Canopy Lodge or Canopy Tower and you tell them what you would like to do, they work very hard to accommodate that request, while still be respectful to the wildlife and environment.  I’ve been to a lot of places that wanted me to cover how great they are for birding, this is one organization that has truly lived up to the hype.

Canopy Tower offers night excursions (which I’ll blog about soon) and while we were out we got to hear a common potoo.  Here’s a link on Xeno-Canto of what a common potoo sounds like (do follow it, that is one of the coolest bird songs ever).  I remembered hearing that on the Biodiversity of Animal Sounds CD from Cornell and always thought, “What must that be like to hear in the wild?” Answer: Pretty damn cool!  We were on Semaphor Road in the dark, no lights, hearing crickets and no traffic.  Then that lonely call (almost like a child on a pipe) comes from overhead and another echoes far in the distance. It was beautiful and I haven’t felt chills like that down my spine since the first time I heard a brown-backed solitaire.

Anyway, I was hopeful that since we heard the common potoo’s haunting song at night that the great potoo would have an equally touching call.  Not exactly.  Here’s a great potoo calling on Xeno-Canto.  It’s rather reminicent of Barney Gumble on the Simpsons.  Ah well, I guess that is the sound would expect an odd bark looking bird to make.

Here’s a video of the great potoo and you can see how well it is hiding in the branches.  It’s only about a minute and a half long:

Did you hear the cars in the background?  The potoo was not bothered.  One of the things I love about my videos from Panama is that you can hear Carlos in the background of some of them and he seems just as genuinely happy to see the bird as you are.  He’s a very enthusiastic guide.

It’s a once in a lifetime bird to see…and I just realized the type of bird that makes my husband shake his head.  I saw all these colorful birds and the one that I’m super excited about is brown and gray.

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So, I just filmed an interview with WCCO while in Panama via Skype.  It’s for the “Good Question” series and will air tonight at 10pm.  I love it.  Thanks to the wonders of technology, I sat in the bathroom at Canopy Lodge and answered crow questions over the intertubes.  Thanks WCCO for making me feel so international!

Speaking of Canopy Lodge–I am having too much fun with my Wingscapes Camera.  It’s surprisingly packable and I’m able to get some cool photos:

Like another tight shot of this chestnut-headed oropendula!  Is that a banana on his beak or is he just happy to see me?  I can also get video too:

Here we have another crimson-backed tanager, blue-gray tanagers and looks like a euphonia back there too.  It’s almost like you’re in Panama with me.

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A sample of waterfowl at Point Douglas right now.

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I really hate car shopping. When we had to go through the process a few weeks ago, I heard through the MN birding grapevine that several northern hawk owls were reported in northern Minnesota, I decided a day up to Sax Zim Bog with my good friend Amber would be my reward. Besides, what better way to get to know our Kia Pet (the named dubbed to our very beige vehicle because it looks like a Chia Pet before the grass grows out) than by taking it on an all day birding trip?

Since daylight is short, Amber and I left the Twin Cities early to arrive at Sax Zim Bog just after sunrise and get some great photography light. Our plan seemed to work. The light was great when we arrived, and dark clouds in the distance only enhanced the bog’s colorful landscape.

Alas, the sun was a total tease and soon hid behind clouds that brought light snow. On the upside, I got to really test out the Kia Pet’s brakes and refamiliarize myself with driving on snow and a few patches of black ice. Whoopee, I stayed out of the ditches. I do laugh, we’ve had this vehicle for a couple weeks now and I still drive it like our old sensitive Saturn, like pausing before I press the gas to go in reverse. You had to give the Saturn a minute to think about it or she wouldn’t reverse or would jerk violently into it. I forget with this car, I reverse without pause. Ah, the joy of driving a reliable car! But back to birding the bog…

We got a northern hawk owl right away near the corner of 7 & 133 near Meadowlands. If you are interested, there’s a google map of where northern hawk owls have been reported which members of the Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union add sightings to help those who visit the bog. There appears to be a small irruption of hawk owls this year (perhaps a crash in the vole population on their breeding grounds, pushing quite a few owls south into Minnesota). It’s not on the scale of the owl irruption of 2004/2005 but we will never see the likes of that again…or at least not in our lifetime.

This bird put on quite a show for us, as it was actively hunting. It dove down into the grasses, we could see it scurry though and then fly back up. This spot is right next to some railroad tracks and is a road that’s used quite a bit in the bog. I’m always fascinated by an owl’s ability to hear any prey in a spot like that. I must say, I’m loving the Nikon D40 for digiscoping. This photo turned out way better than it should have considering how low the light conditions were. In the past I’ve used point and shoot cameras for digiscoping with my Swarovski scope and I would have gotten blogable photo, but nothing this clear on a cloudy day. We ended up seeing a second northern hawk owl as we meandered around the bog, but it was much further away from the road and flew off to parts unknown. I couldn’t believe we got our target bird so early.

But the blog is not just about owls, there are so many great birds to find this time of year!

We used the MOU’s Sax Zim Bog site maps (particularly the Birding Roads tab) and went looking for birds. Any time we saw a flock of birds land nearby, we pulled over to investigate. We found a small flock of white-winged crossbills working their way through.

We also saw about a dozen rough-legged hawks–each one different (we even saw a couple of dark morph birds). We saw many bald eagles as well but we did note that we did not see any red-tailed hawks, interesting change of buteos. The rough legs are very cagey and hard to get photos of. No matter how far away you park, as soon as the scope is trained on them, they poop (a sure sign they are about to fly)…

This is a different bird than the one perched above–very dark, almost a dark morph. It’s cool to see them in so many different color variations. One of the things I love about living in Minnesota is that a day’s drive at the right time of year can give you a completely different set of birds. In the Twin Cities, we’re loaded with red-tailed hawks. A two and half hour drive north and we’re surrounded by rough-legged hawks. Awesome to have a change of pace.

Speaking of a change of pace, Amber and I started following another large flock of birds. When they landed, I rolled down the car windows and was excited to hear the louder and deeper trills of bohemian waxwings.

Here’s a closer photo of them. Can you spot the differences between these and a cedar waxwing? If you follow this link, you’ll see photos of cedars–they have white butts. The above bohemians have rusty butts. Bohemians also have a red and white patch on their wings. So, cool–a different type of waxwing too! I tried to get a video so you could hear the difference in their calls, but the wind blocks it a bit:

At Xeno Canto, you can also here the difference. This is the sound of cedar waxwings and then this is the bohemian waxwings.

We drove down Admiral Road where a deer carcass is usually hung. In the past this has been a great spot for all sorts of birds. Amber and I found that a deer carcass was already up. Black-capped chickadees and down woodpeckers snuck it for bits of fat and meat.

As did about five gray jays (who kind of look like a balding chickadee on steroids). I showed this video to Non Birding Bill and he said it reminded him of Hannibal Lecter which led to this photo caption. There ended up being about five gray jays who came in for the food source. It was interesting to watch the difference in these jays, the crept in quietly like the snow for the food. I’m so used to blue jays–or even green jays or Steller’s jays who noisily announce their presence before coming into a feeding station. These birds swooped in secretively, very unjay-like.

I loved the contrast of the ragged, bloody cage compared to the soft feathery gray of the jay. I took a ton of photos, but the wind picked up at this point and my eyes were watering, I could barely focus my scope.

We also came across several flocks of common redpolls feeding on birch seeds. It was great to see them eating on a natural food source and not a feeder (not that I won’t take them at a feeder, but I read they eat birch seeds, I enjoy seeing a bird doing what a researcher tells me they do). We’ve already had pine siskins show up at Mr. Neil’s. I wonder if we’ll get redpolls too?

We also stopped at one of the feeding stations open for public viewing at the bog (which was innundated with red-breasted nuthatches). One of the residents has been kind enough to put bird feeders at the end of their driveway and you can park across the street and stand at the end of the driveway and enjoy the birds. In the past, this has been chock full of birds. She came out to greet us and said they had just put the feeders up so the birds were just discovering it. There’s normally a little box requesting donations for bird food, she hadn’t even had time to put that out yet (so we put a few bucks in her mailbox as a thank you).
All in all it was a GREAT day. We didn’t see every bird possible–no boreal chickadee or great gray owl so Amber and I decided that we’re going to have to take another day and bird the crap out of the bog.

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After we did some work at the beehives I took a few moments to get some photos at the bird feeders.  I scattered a little bit of millet since I’ve seen juncos flitting around on the Twin Cities bike trails and along the country roads near Mr. Neil’s.  Sure enough, a junco hopped on the stump with the millet…as did a hairy woodpecker.  The suet feeders were full and I even put some old mixed nuts out and still this woodpecker went to explore the millet pile.  There were some black oil sunflowers mixed in with this, so I’m sure that’s what the hairy was after.  It was fun to watch the two species interact.  The hairy doesn’t appear to care about the junco.  The junco doesn’t mind the hairy, but does keep a close watch on the larger bird and seems to make sure that the woodpecker does not violate his personal space.

I love the nuthatch that sneaks in at the end.

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There are some way cool links out there.  One is over at Round Robin Blog and it’s all about an Albatross Cam!  It is so cool.  One of the photos from the albrotross backpack cam shows them feeding along with killer whales–how cool is that?  Sigh, I would love to hang out at an albatross colony for a day.  I may never see one, but I love knowing they are out there.

Another fun link is about a satellite transmitter on a whimbrel and another is a person’s photos of a great horned owl rescue.  The owl is apparently doing fine, but the photos are awesome, especially just the one eye staring at the photographer from the box.  Sinister box indeed.

Bill and I also completed another video for OpenSky about one of the mesh feeders I really like.  You may recognize it from some of the photos in the blog over the years.  Why even Mr. Neil has taken photos of birds on it.

If you like the feeder, you can get it here.

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I mentioned earlier that I’m partnering with OpenSky.  It’s an online store with birding products that I like. Part of my end of the deal is to make blog entries and videos of the product I like.  Non Birding Bill and I see this as an opportunity to create some short fun birding videos.  Below is one on woodpeckers and suet filmed in Mr. Neil’s backyard. It’s about four minutes long, safe for work and has a great photo of a woodpecker tongue.

If you are interested in this feeder, you can purchase it here.  It really does work well to keep raccoons out and I’ve had great success chaining to to tree branches (with a lock) to keep raccoons from running off with the feeder and it’s fatty booty in the middle of the night.

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Zeiss rep Steven Ingraham posted this video he got with his scope and video camera combo of a great blue heron working a great big fish:

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I need to get back to Spring Mountain Ranch State Park in Nevada.  I blogged earlier that I given the advice by the Red Rock Audubon Society to visit here, since there would be different species than we would see in and around Las Vegas. We saw some great birds and I got a life bird, but I also saw one of the coolest birding interactions I have ever seen.

It started when we reached the actual ranch part of the park. That’s Clay and Non Birding Bill setting up their cameras.  Clay spotted a predator in the grass:

Can you see it?  Believe it or not, there is a greater roadrunner lurking in that grass.  Clay gets them in his backyard in Corpus Christi. Roadrunners are incredible predators that will eat snakes, reptiles and even birds. In Clay’s yard, the roadrunner stalks house sparrows.  He recognized this bird as being on the hunt right away.  Most of my experiences with roadrunners has been watching them scurry along a road, so to watch it in full on skulk mode for the hunt was incredible.

The roadrunner would crouch down in the tall grass and slink along with just the top of its head visible. Almost like a feathered shark fin breaking the top of an ocean. Periodically, it was stop for an insect and gulp it down while using the grass for cover. What was this bird stalking for a meal?

A flock of unsuspecting cowbirds. They were following the cow and the horses in the field. The area was recently grazed and the grass was short for the cowbirds to feed, but nearby the taller grass hid a predator actively stalking them.  Clay, Bill and I all staked out a position to get photos of whatever was about to happen.

One lone cowbird made the fatal error of straying away from the safety of the flock. I tried to line this shot up so that the cowbird was in front of the roadrunner, but the roadrunner had crouched so low, you couldn’t see it.  Suddenly, the cowbirds took flight, some went right over the roadrunner.  The predator leaped into the air, grabbed a cowbird with it’s beak, whacked it a few times against the ground, and took off running.  NBB actually got footage of that, which you will see when we get the videos edited together.

I got a shot of the roadrunner crossing the road in front of us with the dead cowbird in its mouth. I previewed this photo on Twitter with the question, “Guess what’s in the roadrunner’s mouth?” A few were insistent that it was a house sparrow, but this is a young cowbird–note the size in relation to the roadrunner, the white throat patch, the thick dark bill, and the vertical streaks on the breast (young cowbirds have vertical streaks). House sparrows and brown-headed cowbirds are unpopular birds.  House sparrows are an introduced species that can wreak havoc on nesting bluebirds, chickadees and nuthatches. Brown-headed cowbirds are natives, but their nesting habit of laying their eggs in other birds nests has caused problems for species like Kirtland’s warblers. Many people don’t mind a roadrunner eating those particular species. But like any successful predator, roadrunners are generalists.  They don’t go for just he unpopular birds, many in the western US are chagrined to find roadrunners stalking their hummingbirds feeders.

As we worked our way around the trails, we made it to Lake Harriet, which was an oasis of color.  Above is WildBird on the Fly scanning the water for ducks.  It was quiet apart from some young coots incessantly clucking. I think this would be packed on a weekend, but on a week day this was a spot where you could imagine being the only person for miles.

It was weird having NBB along on this trip (my birding and non birding world was colliding, my compartments were getting mixed up).  I sat at this spot and leaned against NBB for a moment.  I’m so used to seeing a beautiful vista and wishing he were next to me or wondering what he’d be doing while I’m and about, it was a treat to have him there to see this with me.  My filmmaker husband did surprisingly well on this trip.  I must admit that I was nervous with how we would handle being around my birding friends for 5 days and out doing some hardcore watching and filming in the heat.  But I think since he was focused on getting footage, he was able to do it.  I’m so proud, he got some great footage–especially that roadrunner.  Editing is going to take longer than I thought, but this video series is going to be so cool, it’s about how you can watch birds anywhere and we’re using a small HD camera while Clay experimented with a cheaper hand held video camera with the new Swarovksi UCA adaptor and I took video with my Cannon A570’s point and shoot video feature and my scope.  On the fly birding videos for the internet, I love making these.

This little lake was chock full of young coots.  They don’t quite look like the black adults, but when this young bird stepped out of the water, those lobed toes gave it away as a total American coot.  Again, I wish we could have explored further, there’s an old cemetery in the park and it would have been fun to visit that too.  This park was a great suggestion from Red Rock Audubon.

We saw signs around the park that wild burros were possible and as we were packing up to leave NBB said, “Look, burros.”

There they were!  Wild burrows…well feral burros…oh heck, we all shouted, “Wild Asses!”

Just what we came to Vegas for!

These are feral burros, they were brought over as a beast of burden by the Spanish because they do well in arid climates.  The ones that roam the west are the result of escapees or released animals from well over a century ago.  They behaved pretty much the way a captive burro would behave and I’m not sure why I got so excited over seeing feral ones.  What is it about seeing an unfettered ass that makes me so happy?

So, this is a very cool park and if you have some time in Vegas, check it out.  You could easily spend a full day here, but we did it in half a day.  It was easy to get in and get out with a rental car.  If you don’t have a rental car, if you contact Red Rock Audubon Society, you could probably find a guide to take you there for a reasonable fee.

I’m going to end this with some video of the cowbirds.  Note how they keep their tails cocked up while they feed.  I wonder if they are releasing heat from their vent area as a means to keep cool?

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