Loose Ends To Tie Up

First, my review of the bird flu movie is up at TV Picks. Check it out before you choose to view this film.

Next, remember that beautiful birds meme that was going on? I think over thirty different bird bloggers participated and you can read the complete list here.

Third, the Satellite Sisters are going to talk the New York Times writer who says he saw an ivory-billed woodpecker. He'll talk about his article and the controversy surrounding the ivory-bill. Satellite Sisters are broadcast in several cities across the country, if you don't get them in your town you can listen online at fm 107 (keep in mind that the time listed on the site is Minnesota time so adjust your listening time accordingly). I alas, will be on the road and probably won't get to hear it.

Knowing My Limitations

Today was one of those days.

Fortunately, I got to work with one of my favorite education birds, Ricke (pictured left) the great horned owl. So named because humans raised him illegally and fed a poor diet of hamburger, bread and vegetables and now has rickets as well as being imprinted.

I have bazillion things to do before we head out to visit my mother. To top things off we had a huge group coming to The Raptor Center for programs early, so I had to be there by 8am. When I arrived, I walked out of the parking ramp and there was an adult rabbit on the sidewalk. She hesitated and then slowly hopped to some nearby bushes, leaving something behind on the sidewalk. I walked over and discovered a palm sized young rabbit. It didn't move and looked barely alive. I picked it up and something felt wrong. I could see some scraping marks and heard a crow nearby. I figured a crow had started to attack it and maybe the female rabbit was trying to defend it. People who had also noticed the rabbit were gathering, trying to figure out what to do. The obvious would be to take it to the Wildlife Rehab Center, but I knew this rabbit was too far gone to help, it was either leave it for the crow to finish or put it under. I love crows, and I know their part in nature is to eat other creatures but it's not the prettiest way to go--not quick death like with a peregrine falcon or great horned owl. The worst part was that I could see the female rabbit spying on us from across the street behind some bushes. Since I was on my way to The Raptor Center I said I would take it with me and the staff would take care of it there (and I don't mean feed it to any of the birds there).

I searched out Jane, one of my favorite vets and asked, "Jane, I hate to bother you but I have a huge favor." I held out the young rabbit and she looked weary, ready to send me to the WRC, but then she picked up the rabbit and felt the hindquarters. Just like I knew she would, she understood the situation immediately and put the rabbit down. I knew the back end of the rabbit didn't feel quite right but don't have enough of a medical background to know what the exact problem was with its legs. Later Jane told me that both the back legs were broken, almost crushed. We wondered if someone had stepped on it and that was what caused the crow to step down. When I was leaving TRC I noticed the lawn around the parking garage was freshly mowed. Perhaps the young rabbit got its hindquarters crushed by the mower or by one of the cars leaving the garage.

Then, I headed into downtown Minneapolis to meet Non Birding Bill at work and he asked, "Wrens are small and brown with a long bill, right?"

I answered, "Usually. Why do you ask?"

"There's one in the bush by the door.” he answered.

I looked at him and he knew I would have to investigate. It was a marsh wren (pictured right) that looked pretty scruffy. We've had some pretty significant night migration here so my guess is that this exhausted guy may have hit a window or was just too tired to fly a few more blocks over to Loring Park. It was trying to eat small insects around the windows. It couldn't fly far, not because of any obvious injury, but it just looked really tired. NBB and I made a few attempts to see if we could catch it to drive it to the park, but it was strong enough to avoid us. Gauging the situation: it could fly well enough to just barely evade us, it had access to some insects and a full blown operation to retrieve it would have more than likely driven it into heavy downtown traffic killing it or just plain exhausting it to death as it tried to evade us. We decided it best to leave it be. Sometimes you just have to know that you can't help everything out there and you're not personally responsible for every creature. Or at least that is what I tell my brain when it gets too anthropomorphic.

Ivory-billed Woodpecker Baby Cloths

For the expecting birder.

Bird Blog List

If you are interested in other bird related blogs, John Trapp is keeping a list at Birds Etcetera Blog. If you have a bird blog or know someone who does and they are not on the list, let John know.

One for the Cinnamon Fans

Non Birding Bill and I spent a relaxing afternoon at a nearby park with Cinnamon. I would like to say it was splendid day of cuteness.
Cinnamon loves her dandelions. How could anyone think Chet Baker is cuter than she? Alas, that was a brief moment in the afternoon. Here are her true feelings about me trying to turn her into a flower child:

"Get this frickin' flower off of my head, you stupid hippie!"

Raptor Release Report

You couldn't have asked for better weather for the Spring Raptor Release yesterday. It was gorgeous, although the one downside was that I was down wind from an apple orchard and all the binocular demos kept getting dusted with pollen. It was encouraging to see parents getting monoculars and kid sized binoculars for their children.

TRC released four birds yesterday, 1 Cooper's hawk, 2 red-tails and one hefty eagle. I worked my way through the crowd to try and get different shots of the birds taking off.

Above is a little boy who was sitting on his father's shoulders watching one of the red-tails take off after recovering from a wing injury. It was fun to watch the difference in the birds. The Cooper's hawk took off like a shot in one direction. It didn't try to catch a thermal, it just shot out of there above the tree line. The two red-tails looked for thermals and tried to use those to circle up high in the sky.

After watching which was the birds took off, I decided to find a spot where I thought the eagle might fly low. It was down off to the side of the stage, facing the crowd. There were a few other TRC volunteers there too. As they were making all the speeches about the bird's recovery, Lori, one of TRC's vets came by and told everyone to sit down. This was a big bird and would more than likely need a few seconds to get serious lift.

The eagle was thrown into the air. For second it looked like it might land on one of the speakers. Although, the hoard of people around it, made the eagle change her mind. Then she turned and flew towards the area I was sitting in.

And then I got this shot! I can't believe it, I look like a professional photographer and all I used my little Nikon Coopix 7900. Really, the bird was quite low and I was quite lucky. Boy, I was grateful that Lori had warned all of us to sit on the ground--or that bird would have run into one of us for sure. From there the bird flew right over our heads and into the wild blue yonder. I rolled over backwards as she flew over us and revelled in seeing her talons zoom past a few feet above my head.

And on a weird note, I have a mention in the New York Times. Non Birding Bill noticed in the website stats that we were getting some traffic from there. The link wasn't open to non subscribers until today. The writer was at the Ivory-bill Celebration. I remember Bobby Harrison telling me that he was going out with someone from the New York Times, and the writer apparently came to my beginning birding workshop. It's a nice mention and will make my mother proud. I have to say, it's interesting to read Bobby's comments, which reminds me that I haven't heard from him in weeks. Hmm, has he seen and photographed something and has been taken into the woodpecker mafia custody?

I'm also kind of curious about my status with Cornell...the no talking ban was supposed to be lifted in either April or when Cornell gave me the official go ahead...I haven't heard. Can I start talking about scaling and cavities and if I did or did not see the bird? I don't know. Although, I suppose if given enough scotch, one could get me to sing like a...an ivory-bill?

Sparrow Palooza

It was a brown bird bonanza yesterday at Carpenter Nature Center. I was in brown bird heaven watching all the Harris Sparrows (that's one pictured above) and getting the chance to see them up close and personal during banding. I was hoping to get them on the NovaBird Camera, but alas, all I was a chipping sparrow:

The chipping sparrow didn't seem to be too thrilled with the black oilers on the ground. I should have put some white millet down, that's their type of fair.

I could not get enough of those Harris sparrows. For a little brown job, it's quite striking with that orange bill highlighting all the black around it. The photo below are both a male and a female Harris sparrow. Can you tell which is which?

Yeah, I can't either. The black surrounding the bill has more to do with age than sex. The banders used wing cord ( the length of the wing from the wrist to the tip of the longest primary) to tell them apart. The bird on the left is a female, the bird on the right is a male--according to the length of their wing cords. You can learn all this stuff if you come to Carpenter on Friday's for banding.

As I was working on this entry, I got a call from Kim Kaufman in northern Ohio. She was telling me about the big warbler push they were getting the last few days at their banding station. I told her that up here Minnesota we were getting a big sparrow push here and that's when she told me that she banded 92 white-throated sparrows (pictured below) on Tuesday at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge--sheesh! I'm pooped just thinking about it.

"Even I'm shocked by that exorbitant amount of white-throated sparrow banding!"

Kim was trying to make me drool with her reports of banding cerulean warblers and golden-winged warblers and I told her of our Harris sparrows and she was a little jealous of what we had going on up here.

We are getting quite a few white-throats and white-crowned sparrows up here. After the two birds above were banded I wanted to take a quick photo. As I was doing this, the dude on the right started to squeak a little setting off all of the sparrows around Carpenter. They were like our own personal pishing devices. As soon as the birds were let go, calm was restored to Carpenter's feeder area.

One white-throat in particular really intrigued me. Check out the guy in the above photo. He had some yellow on the feathers around the wrist. I had never noticed that before, but then again, I've never had a white-throat this close before.

These are just classy looking sparrows! I can't get enough of them. For the non birders that periodically check this blog, these are the ones that go "Oh Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody" or according the second edition Kaufman guide "Oh Sweet Kimberly, Kimberly, Kimberly". Kim Kaufman says that they are saying, "Oh band me, Kimberly, Kimberly, Kimberly."

And to be fair, since last week I showed male bird hoohas, I figure turn about is fair play. Here is a female robin brood patch. Female birds get these open patches on their breast to help incubate eggs. Surrounding feathers help keep her warm when she's not incubating.

If there are major typos, I apologize, blogger spell check is down and I'm too tired to look it over. Ah well, at least it's a sign an actual person types this blog and not some corporation.

Harris Sparrows in Minnesota

Yesterday at Carpenter Nature Center we trapped oodles of Harris sparrows. When I came home and checked the MN bird listservs, people were reporting Harris sparrows around the metro area.

I love these guys, the remind me of Pluto from the Popeye Cartoons. They're bigger than other sparrows and adults have plumage that looks like a big burly beard.

More on sparrows we trapped later. Right now, I'm off to set up for The Raptor Release at Carptenter. Word is that they are releasing four birds at 1pm. It's a beautiful day, so spend it outdoors along the river and stop by the binocular booth to say, "Hi!"

Sorry, Cinnamon Fans, she will not be around dozens of birds of prey today.

Woodcock Video Up

You can now download the video "Looking for Mr. Woodcock" at the Eagle Optics website. It can be downloaded onto an iPod or viewed right on your computer. It's only about 3-4 minutes long.

If you listen close, you can even hear Non Birding Bill chuckle when we finally see the woodcock.

(Edit from Bill: You'll need Quicktime installed on your computer to play the video, or iTunes (which comes with Quicktime). The video is formatted for the video iPod.)

Further edit from Bill: Sharon's reporting that some people are having trouble when they click on the link: instead of the movie downloading, they get a page full of gibberish.

Here's what you do: If you have a multi-button mouse, right-click on the link.
If you have a single-button mouse (Mac-type-people): Hold the Control Key and click on the link. It'll bring up a little sub-menu. Select "Save Link As" or "Download Link As" or what-have-you, and the file will be saved on your computer for your viewing pleasure.

Great Birding Shoes On Sale

Men and Women's Keen Newport Sandals are on sale at www.REI.com.