Conversations With A Fellow IBWO Searcher

Today, I went out to Carpenter Nature Center to meet with Jim Fitzpatrick and Jen Vieth. Jim runs Carpenter and his brother John is the director of Cornell Lab of Ornithology. For awhile it was said that Jim had seen an ivory-billed woodpecker and his brother who runs the lab had not. I wonder if that is still the case or if it changed this winter?

I had heard many great things about Jim and was eager to finally meet him and it's always a treat to visit Carpenter, which was once voted by City Pages as one of the best kept secrets for nature in the Twin Cities. I was excited, as soon as I got out of the car, I heard my first eastern phoebe of the year and there were a few buffleheads (pictured in blog) hanging out on a nearby pond.

When I arrived, I headed for the administrative offices and stuck my hands in my jacket...it was at that exact moment I remembered that was the place I had decided to store some owl pellets I found yesterday at the woodcock spot in Carver Park. They now had massed into a wad of damp fur and bone. Not wanting to shake Jim's hand with damp pellety hands, I had to seek the nearest restroom when I entered the building.

When Jim and I finally met and sat down to talk, I told him that we had something in common. "You and I have both seen A type cavities."

He eyed me curiously. Jen asked, "What's an A cavity." Jim replied, "A big cavity." I added, "A potential ivory-billed cavity."

Jen asked the inevitable question, "I suppose no one in your group had an encounter?" Jim and I looked at each other, what would the other say? Does he know something that I don't know about the search this winter? Do I know something that he might know? Does he think I know he knows something? Do I know, if he knows if he knows something? The questions in my head got too confusing and I told Jen our pat answer: "I am not at liberty to say if anyone in our group did or did not have an encounter with that particular species of woodpecker."

(Although, I did hear a rumor that recently one of the volunteer searchers in the White River area got bit by a Cottonmouth, but it was a dry bite and they are okay.)

Carpenter is a great place for school groups and for adults just looking for a remote spot to chill out. It's right along the St. Croix River between Minnesota and Wisconsin and will be just chock full of warblers in about four weeks. Today I saw lots of eagles, vultures and red-tailed hawks moving along and even four pelicans. I learned that on Friday mornings when it's not raining, they do songbird banding. I'm going to try and make a point to visit this spring. Next Friday I will be in Ohio and the Friday after that I will be in Utah so it may have to wait until May.

Well, off to dissect some pellets.

Cats and Bird Flu

Bird flu (or avian influenza) is not here at the moment. If it does show up in the United States, and you have a cat that spends time outdoors, you should read the article at the Star Tribune:

People living in areas where bird flu has been found in poultry or wild birds should keep their cats indoors, say scientists who believe the potential role of felines in spreading the virus is being overlooked.

Cats have been known to become infected with the H5N1 virus and lab experiments show they can give it to other cats, although nobody knows whether they can transmit it to people or poultry, the researchers say in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Scientists know so little about H5N1 in cats that it's difficult to assess the risk they pose when infected, wrote virologist Albert Osterhaus and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, along with Peter Roeder of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Still, "we believe that the potential role of cats should be considered in official guidelines for controlling the spread of H5N1 virus infection," they wrote.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Fourth Wild California Condor Nest Found

This just in from the Ventana Wildlife Society! For the first time in over 100 years a California condor pair is nesting in a coastal redwood in Big Sur. It is the fourth pair of nesting condors in the wild this year. This is also the first time a condor has been found nesting in this particular species of redwood. You can watch a news video about the nesting condor at KTVU. Keep your eye (or should I say gelatinous globe) on Ventana's site for condor nesting updates.

Does Cinnamon Have a Drinking Problem?

Repeat Offender

This morning we had a nice family bring in a young great horned owl to The Raptor Center (left). The great horned owl was about a month old and was on his third trip in to the clinic. Young owls go through a "brancher" stage when their feet are large and incredibly strong, but they are still not ready to fly. Since adult owls don't construct a nest and often take over an old red-tailed hawk or squirrel nest, they aren't the most stable of homes to begin with. Throw in one or two rambunctious youngsters and a few windy winter storms and the nest usually falls apart. Young owls use their strong feet and talons to climb trees or "branch out". They are often found on the ground and their parents will still feed and take care of them, even if they are way below the original nest or if the nest is gone completely.

This is the time of year when we get an influx of young owls at TRC, when caring people find them on the ground and bring them in. Today's owl must live in one of the most caring neighborhoods out there, since this is the third neighbor to bring it in. No matter where it gets put in a tree, it keeps popping up on the ground, it's moving around quite a bit. The first thing TRC does with a young olw is to make sure there are no broken bones, then we will talk to whoever brought in the owl and try to put it back in the nest. We have professional tree climbers on our volunteer staff who will climb just about anything to get those dudes back with their parents. Sometimes, they will just put it on a high branch and let the parents do the rest. If it is not possible to get the young owl back to its original nest spot, we will deposit it into another owl nest (of the same species of course)--fortunately, adult owls can't count and will feed anyone begging in their nest.

Let's hope this is that little owl's last trip to TRC.

Last week I reported about the hormones and vocalizations of the education raptors in the courtyard and the red-tailed hawk who laid an egg. The egg was taken out when one of the cleaning crew members got chased around by the red-tail--one of the many reasons we don't wear open toed shoes around the birds. This week, our education one-eyed golden eagle laid an egg (right). She has that look that says, "I dare ya', I dare ya' to come in and take this one."

Had fun tonight, NBB and I went out to chase timber doodles. I love looking for woodcocks on a cold spring night. It's so fun listening for the first "peent"--it starts right at clockwork, 15 minutes after sunset, you hear the first one--then dozens get going. If you live in the metro area, Carver Park on the west side of town is pretty reliable for watching woodcocks.

Another Ivory-billed Woodpecker Theory

Years ago, a friend long-term loaned me a book called The Ivory Hunters by Greg Lewbart. I took it with me on the ivory-bill search last December and our crew had a fun time reading certain passages aloud. It’s a “what if” type book about the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker—which came out in 1996, so this guy wasn’t even trying to capitalize on the current situation.

Basically, the bird is found and a mercenary tries to sell the location to the highest bidder, which includes a couple who own a zoo that’s about to go bankrupt, a private bird collector and an educational institution. You figure out pretty quick who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, I read it with interest and then shook my head in disbelief when the ivory-billed woodpecker turned unexpectedly violent. Here is an excerpt--Warning, skip past the bolded paragraph if you ever intend to read this hard to find book and don’t want any spoilers:

“…the thick sharp bill of the male ivory-bill penetrated Cutter’s exposed right eye before he even had a chance to blink. The bird’s momentum drove its bill easily through the man’s right gelatinous globe before tunneling past the thick optic nerve on its way to the vulnerable gray matter of Cutter’s brain. With its face neatly buried in Cutter’s eye socket, the powerful bird planted both feet on the man’s face, gripped tightly, and used it legs as leverage in order to extract its blood tinged bill from Cutter’s cranium.”

Perhaps, it’s best that the ivory-billed woodpecker isn’t so easy to see. What a PR nightmare for Cornell to have if the woodpecker is offing searchers right and left! Maybe the reason why it’s so hard to find is that we are focusing on ivory-billed woodpeckers and not bloody red-billed woodpeckers?

Looking over the book tonight got my mind working. When news of the ivory-billed woodpecker rediscovery hit last spring, there was concern early on that the area would be flooded with birders and searched to death. All the people down there would do more harm than good for the birds.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that there are five ivory-billed woodpeckers left in Arkansas, not really enough for a starter set to replenish the population, but definitely some down there. Woodpeckers aren’t known to do really well in captivity anyway, so even if the birds are spotted and tracked, doing a captive breeding program would be out of the question. What do you do then?

So, the rarest woodpecker has been rediscovered and so far only grainy footage is available to the public, leading to speculation that the bird in question was misidentified. Now, all the leading bird experts are proclaiming that the bird isn’t really there based on physical evidence presented so far. They keep saying it’s all a hoax, there’s no ivorybill, causing the public to lose interest and ignore the area where it was seen. Perhaps everyone who is most vocal about the non-existence of ivory-billed woodpeckers are the strongest believers and are their most fervent protectors. It would make sense, Kaufman and Sibley are both guys who believe that a bird’s well being should come before anything else.

Let's take it a step further. Maybe Cornell and The Nature Conservancy have had excellent documentation and photos so far. Maybe they had intended to keep this secret for years, but somehow it leaked and they had to show their cards last spring. Knowing that everyone and their birding brother would want to search the area, they threw out red herrings and poor evidence to allow the inevitable media circus and scrutiny to pass so that the woodpeckers would eventually be left alone in peace. Maybe all the skeptics were recruited by Cornell to aid in the misdirection.

Or maybe my parents watched too many JFK/UFO/Elvis conspiracy theory videos when I was a kid and they rubbed off on me.

Blog With Potential--Edited

I was scanning Fat Birder's Top 500 (although, it's currently only the top 336) and came across Alan's BirdCam Blog. Lots of photos and it appears so far to be about what's going on in his yard. Some really fun photos and video of warblers, thrashers, towhees and grosbeaks at his feeder.

After I posted about Alan's blog, a reader pointed out to me that in the comments section of his last entry was this note:

"This was the last posting by Alan. He passed away within an hour of posting this wonderful image. "

I rarely read comment sections on blogs and had completely missed that. Thank you, Lea, for bringing that to my attention. I'm so sorry for his family's loss and even though he is no longer with us, we can enjoy and share in the love he had for the birds at his feeder. For some, he gave the gift of cyber birding.

Yesterday's Open House

The Raptor Center has an open house twice a year. It's part of a University of Minnesota event designed to let the public see what is going on. It's free and well attended by lots of families. One of the projects I'm working on is setting up The Raptor Center to sell binoculars in their gift shop.

For big events like the open house or the spring bird release, I try to be on hand and explain how to use binoculars and what to look for when choosing them. It's a great deal, because people can get GREAT binoculars at affordable prices and purchasing them through The Raptor Center benefits the injured eagles, hawks, owls and falcons.

I've been with The Raptor Center since 1998 and I remember when I first started in education, I wanted to do every event possible to handle birds and because I was so excited to talk about birds with anybody. It almost never fails to be cold and rainy on open house days so after the first two, I made a mental note to never volunteer for the outdoor raptor displays for the open house. Yesterday was no exception--rain and forty degrees. I felt bad for all the soggy volunteers and birds. When I would demonstrate digiscoping from inside the dry, warm building, I would aim the scope on the outdoor raptor displays and I think people got a huge kick out of the wet owls (above), as well as the dripping volunteers. Live and learn.

Speaking of educating the public, one of the things with doing booth programs is that from time to time you run into people who know way more about birds than you do--the information isn't always accurate or correct, but they certainly do know more than you. I was talking about that with Al Batt when I saw him at the Northwest Sports Show. He agreed and said that he sees that especially with young guys who have their sweetie on their arm and want to show off to impress her. He then added, "But, I'm on the guy's side and I want help him look good so I just go ahead and agree--sure, that's not common, but you sure did see a roadrunner in Minnesota. We guys gotta stick together."

I love Al Batt.

Where Did The Weekend Go

I found another roosting sparrow (left) at the convention center, this female wasn't as sound a sleeper as the other dude.

Somehow, a whirlwind kicked in on Thursday and I got swept up. It's unusual for me not to have time for the blog, but I got completely caught up at the Sports Show and at The Raptor Center Open House on Sunday. Whew. I'm kind of dreading the email inbox. I haven't checked it on a daily basis the last four days and I know it is practically overflowing at this point.

I'm feeling a strong need to go out and watch birds, last night I had a dream that I found the first state record of a phainopepla in Minnesota. If you are having dreams about watching birds, you better get out and do it. Actually, with all the talk of woodcocks at the Thompson and Zickefoose household, I think I might take a trip woodcocking tonight or tomorrow. I have a mountain of laundry to do and I save the woodcocks as my goal. I can't go see woodcocks until I've done three loads of darks and one load of whites.

We had a minor trauma for me in the kitchen. Thursday night I made a couple of mugs of hot chocolate to unwind. Friday morning a spider had moved in and webbed out in the spout of our electric kettle. So much for heating up water for the French press coffee pot. I like spiders in my house, they serve a useful purpose. I just really don't want to know about them in my home. Part of it is, that I can swell to Popeye proportions when bitten by certain species of spider. The other part is that they move in such a weird way, it freaks me out. I called Non Birding Bill at work and alerted him to the situation of the spider in the kettle.

NBB: Clean out the kettle.

Birdchick: That's not the purpose of this call. I'll be at the convention center when you get home from work, so in case you want to make yourself some tea, I thought you might want to know about the spider.

NBB: Why don't you just wipe out the spider and clean the kettle?

Birdchick: You know, I think I'm going to just have coffee at the convention center--it's Starbucks and cheaper than the water there.

NBB (laughing): It's just s spider. Wipe it out.

Birdchick: That's not the purpose of this call. Again, I just thought you might find this information useful for when you get home.

NBB: Well, I can clean the itsy bitsy spider out, but it's just going to crawl up the spout again (laughing uncontrollably).

I don't know what happened, but he kettle was cleaned out and ready for use on Saturday morning.

A conversation

Me: Darling?

Sharon: Yes?

Me: If you're going to make a joke about the Pope having bird flu, you should probably spell "flu" correctly.

Sharon: How did I spell it?

Me: As in "The bird flew out the window."

Sharon: A string of profanity.

-posted by Bill