Filmmakers supposedly followed the Mississippi for a year to see what it does and how it interacts with wildlife and people.  I was excited about this because I work for the Mississippi National River and Recreation area and I knew that producers had called our park for info and that the film crew went up with the pilot we use for duck surveys.  I was hoping that viewers would get to see the Upper Mississippi the way we do when we do our fall duck surveys.

I was disappointed.

I will say there is some great footage in there.  The underwater footage of mussels, the shots of eagles, the wild animals and…the great gray owls.  Wait…what?  Great gray owls in a documentary about the Mississippi River?  Who the what with huh?

Above is a screen shot from the review of Wild Mississippi from the New York Times of the filmmakers getting footage of the owls.  Let me say again, that the footage is awesome but saying this is what happens along the Mississippi River in winter is inaccurate. I would expect more from National Geographic.  Also I have to wonder if that owl was baited for that shot?  And this was taken up at Sax Zim Bog, this was posted on the Friends of Sax Zim Bog Facebook Page today:

“This episode will feature some Great Gray footage shot in Sax-Zim Bog last winter…Filmmakers Neil & Laura Rettig shot on the coldest day of the year in Sax-Zim… Minus 36 degrees! They spent about a week filming.

Some of their Great Gray footage shot along McDavitt Road and CR133 will be included tonight.

Their super slow motion footage shot on Creek Road of another Great Gray Owl will be shown next year in another production…I will keep you posted!”

Point A on the above Google Map is Sax Zim Bog.  Point B is the Mississippi water…about 50 miles straight over…well, if you look at the Mississippi watershed, yeah great grays can be found that but the narrator actually states, “Great gray owls hunt the frozen Mississippi all winter long.”

I would recommend watching this documentary on mute.  It would save you on some of the over dramatic narration…although maybe with a beer it will give you good laugh.  Like when the narrator talks about eagle gathering on the river to eat the migrating coots (which magically turn in to ring-neck ducks in some shots) and says, “The Mississippi becomes a river of BLOOD!”

Here’s a sample (the guy sounds like he’s trying awful hard to be Sam Elliot):  See what I mean–super cool footage, super cheesy narration.

I also had to question a scene in particular during one of the other episodes titled “Raging Waters.”  A camera is in a wood duck nest box and the ducklings hatch and begin their jump to the ground to the music of Ride of Valkyries.  Boy that seemed familiar, where have I seen that before, oh yeah, that’s right the 2005 film by Steve Furman Ride of the Mergansers.

I think several crews went out to grab great footage of the Mississippi in a year and then the writers and producers changed several hands and screwed up royally.  It’s not coherent, it’s not accurate and it doesn’t mention my park but it is pretty to watch but boy is the footage amazing to watch.

Oh and for those interested, I also got an email that the footage of wolves and coyotes were staged with the animals at The Wildlife Science Center.  The filmmakers did something I totally would have done, they stuck one of their cameras inside a deer carcass to get some up close crunching sounds of wolves.  Best part is one of the wolves tries to eat the camera.

This winter there have been a whole host of arguments on various listservs but what is different is that people are now filming it and putting it on YouTube. Here’s one from Boundary Bay, British Columbia, Canada:

Here’s another at Breezy Point, NY:

Non Birding Bill and I even took a video and photos of a jerk last winter with a huge lens who was among several people watching a saw-whet owl and decided he needed to be all up in that, not only walking in front of everyone but getting to the point of almost flushing the owl.

I don’t want to pin this behavior to just photographers, there are jerk birders too.  But is this how we are going to deal with the behavior? Is this the best way?

Dan Meisenzahl told Civil Beat, “USDA officials “really are the unsung heros. Nobody hears about those guys until something like this happens. It’s just a real shame. They do an outstanding job and unfortunately they were put in a position where there were no easy answers. I can’t tell you with what a heavy heart this happened.”

Apparently, using Google for info on how to deal with snowy owls was too much of an effort for the USDA to go through.

In other news, we’ve had a snowy owl hanging out at the Minnesota Twins stadium and remarkably…no one has shot it yet.  It’s a pretty cool video staff got from the various cams around the stadium.

If you are interested in owls that are not snowy owls…there are great horned owls in New York! OMG!

In non owl news the Whooping Cranes have had a rough migration and will finish it via truck rather than ultra light.

I’ll be hosting the next one Tuesday, February 7 at the Bryan Lake Bowl. Frequent Birds and Beers attendee Duck Washington will be a contestant as will Bill Corbett.  Judges will be Ian Punnett and Kevin Murphy.  Come for some easy laughs and stay for a beer and the mock duck rolls!

I mean, come on, if you have a friend who has a zombie arm and tombstone in their backyard, of course you are going to put Flat Stanley in it and send a letter home that he was lost in a freak snow zombie attack.  But most of my photos have involved Flat Stanley and compromising photos with bottles of Jameson and I can’t really send those back to his school so I’ve tried to take Flat Stanley birding:

I set him out at a bird feeder with some seed and immediately he had fun with juncos.  I think he’ll be fine so long as a Cooper’s hawk doesn’t shows up.

Psst, Alexis Madrigal, yes science can. Here’s the video:

Explanation: Crow eating something round + peaked roof = sliding crow.  The fact that the bird can’t seem to figure this out really doesn’t do much for me in the whole, “crows are so smart” theory.  But if you want to pretend the crow is sledding, you’ll get minimal judgement from me.

In other news…

West Virginia man hopes to break bird feeder record.

Birds fly faster due to Climate Change.

Over the weekend I took a trip with some friends to Sax Zim Bog, Minnesota. This is a great spot to get boreal species and perk up your winter birding. Thanks to social media, I had a good idea of where specialty birds were being seen but thought I would use the BirdsEye app (the app that tells you what people are reporting to eBird).

Most of the time I find this to be a very useful app, especially when I’m visiting an unfamiliar city or looking for a new place to watch birds. The app has a “Birding Hotspots” tab that lets you see via Google Maps where the best birding spots are. These are highlighted by red dots that you can click on and shows you a name and a list of birds that have been reported there. Generally, it’s different parks.

This is what I found when I looked at hot spots for Sax Zim Bog:

What the frickity frack?? Okay, I know that the county roads can have redpolls, crossbills, hawk owls and what not at any point…but…um, really? Do we really need to mark every 25 feet as a birding hotspot?

I have a resolution this year to use eBird and contribute sightings on a regular basis, but that is a bit insane. I will not be adding in sitings from this weekend’s trip. It’s overwhelming and really, I thought there was the option to say that you went up to five miles on a trail? Unless eBird is going to let me enter in my sightings real time with my phone, I don’t see people who are new to eBird being eager to look at this and figure it out.

I know we want birds to be easier to find but they don’t always need to be an X marks the spot type of hunt. There is something to be said for the thrill of the chase.

This lovely little sparrow is an American tree sparrow, one of the few birds who come to the US in the winter.  Easy to miss in the sea of brown non native house sparrows, but these natives are noticeable with their central breast spot.  I was digiscoping this little quy when I noticed him glance up and right after I took this photo it shot off into the brush pile.  I looked above and a Cooper’s hawk was soaring over. Sometimes it’s fun to watch what the birds are watching.

“The FAA has granted an exemption to Operation Migration that will allow pilots to continue to aid the whooping crane migration. Normally, the FAA limits light sport aircraft and pilots to personal flights without compensation. Because the operation is in “mid-migration,” the FAA is granting a one-time exemption so the migration can be completed. The FAA will work with Operation Migration to develop a more comprehensive, long-term solution.”

Bird Watching has more here.

A Falcated Teal in California is making the news–even in the Huffington Post!

Puffin found wandering the streets of Montreal is sent back to the wild.  That poor bird is way off course from the Grand Banks to Montreal!

What kind of jobs can I expect as an ornithologist?

Some of NBB’s friends created this fan version of The Hobbit trailer: