Test Post

Deer path in Mr. Neil's woods. Hello, ticks, here I come. Let's see how many photos I can get away with.

Hmm, after much consternation...only one photo. Man, this is irritating.

I Really Dislike Mr. Neil's Bear

I had intended more photos for this post but blogger is acting wonky and I'm getting tired and cranky.

This time last year I was enjoying Mr. Neil's feeders that were just chock full of rose-breasted grosbeaks, orioles, indigo buntings and a whole host of other great spring birds. I had set him up with what I thought was the sturdiest feeder pole out there. Alas, I was living a horrible lie. The very sturdy inch and a quarter pole with and incredibly strong anchor was bent...bent like a cheap twizzler.

Here is the pole now. Why, why, why? Oh, bear, why must you ruin my spring feeder watching?

Look at that, bent and chipping the finish. Mr. Neil has put all bird feeding on hold, we are both hoping the bear will move on. Not only because of the damage to the feeders, but because next spring we are going to start our apiary. I was kind of bummed we missed our chance to get bees this spring, but now that a bear is around, I'm glad we didn't have to worry about our hives getting ravaged.

More On Ivory-bill Press Release

Here's an excerpt from an email I got from Cornell today:

There will be a news phone conference this Thursday, May 18 with Cornell and members of the Fish and Wildlife Service. This information shouldn't appear in the newspapers until Friday. There will be an official press release and announcement about our 2005/2006 season linked with the Big Woods Birding Festival in Clarendon on Saturday, May 20. A formal technical report to USFWS and Arkansas Game and Fish will be issued at some point over the summer. We'll publish portions of this report in upcoming Birdscope newsletters and on our web site. We'll make it available in a pdf version on the web site so you all can download it when it's ready.

Travel to Veracruz with Me!

Okay, all the info is up at Preferred Adventures regarding the Eagle Optics River of Raptors Tour. When you open the link, click on "What's New" and then click on the link for "Mexico! Raptor Migration".

You know you want to go to Mexico with a couple of excited, enthusiastic raptor bums. We'll watch for other Mexican species other than raptors as well. Cinnamon will most certainly not be going on this trip, so no disapproval whatsoever.

In Transit

Non Birding Bill, Cinnamon and I are in transit from Indiana to Minnesota. I will upload more Hoosier stories on Tuesday--and then it is off to Detroit Lakes Minnesota, where NBB and I will be performing Play on Birds. We were rehearsing some new sketches yesterday and kept cracking each other up. I hope that's a good sign. In the meantime, I leave you with some sights seen on our trip:

Hopefully this is the only trailer with out a number.

This was on a sign at a Chick-Fil-A. I couldn't fit in the large headline "Innovative!" I just love how this little girl is in total awe of a waffle fry. Oh sure, they are tasty, but to be in awe of its innovaiton might be a little much.

The last, but certainly not least is a series of signs brought to us by (and this is their spelling not mine) Guns Save Life.com. Who thought of that title, Mongo from Blazing Saddles? Here was my personal favorite poem:

Tested In Peace
Proven In War
Guns In The Home
Even The Score

Not to be outdone by:

When Gun Control
Has Us Beat
Criminals Will
Own The Street

Rainy, Dreary and BRRRRRR

The weather is kind of crap here in Indianapolis. I found a fledging robin outside of Mom's condo. What bummer weather to learn to fly in!

We went to Eagle Creek Park yesterday and didn't do too much birding because it's cold, rainly and drizzly. I was going to do some, but Mom really wasn't prepared for the cold. We did get a great tour of the Nature Center when we first arrived. A volunteer named Kevin showed up some of the education birds they use. In conversation, Kevin and I learned we had a connection, the crew from Eagle Creek got their training in housing and using raptors for education at The University of Minnesota's Raptor Center where I do programs. They have some great programs birds at Eagle Creek including a turkey vulture, a saw-whet owl and a red-tailed hawk. All of their ed birds were in great feather condition, which is a sign that their handlers work well with them and keep them in good housing so the birds don't trash their feathers.

Kevin took a lot of time telling us where to look for birds and even though Mom and I were out that long we did see a northern parula, orchard oriole and Forster's tern. I love going out with my Mom, she's not that much of a birder, so pishing REALLY impresses her. If the weather is nice, we might go out for the bird walk that happens every Sunday at 9am. Hopefully I'll get some better bird photos. It's been too messy to even put out the NovaBird camera. Actually, I could put it out, the birds are so drenched, I just don't want to put pictures of them looking like that on the internet.

Today we are going to my sister Terri's graduation. She's such a type A personality, she even decorated her own party. Non Birding Bill and I were half tempted to go out and buy some decorations and redo it in our own special, tacky way, but we would like to head back to Minneapolis without broken bones.

Cinnamon’s Rampage At Grandma’s

I think for Cinnamon, my Mother's condo is the happiest place on earth. Everything except the kitchen is carpeted so she can run like the dickens all over the place. You will periodically see a streak of brown out of the corner of your eye accompanied by the pitter patter of her tiny feet. When she's too tired to run, she conducts experiments on Mom's cats.

The cats appear to be oblivious as she stalks them (above, she's stalking Copernicus in the distance on the right). I think the cats have chosen to just ignore her hoping this problem creature will go away.

Cinnamon is fascinated by their tails. She keeps creeping up behind them, sniffing and almost nibbling. Instead of sensibly giving her a bap on the nose with their front paw, the cats swish their tails back and forth further intriguing Cinnamon. Eventually, the just run and cower in a closet in fear.

Mom's other cat, Sappho tried sleeping on the couch as her defense, but even she was not safe from the siege of the lagomorph. At first we all thought (oh dear, I just used "we all", yes ladies and gentlemen, I'm back in Indiana) Cinnamon was just trying to check out Sappho, but Sappho grew tired of this invasion of privacy and evacuated the couch. I though for sure Cinnamon was going to chase after her like she does with Copernicus, but it became clear what Cinnamon's true intent was:

Here she is, Cinnamon Triumphant. She apparently wanted the couch for herself. The really weird thing is that we are having a tough time keeping Cinnamon away from the cat food. I could kind of understand Cinnamon's interest in dry cat food--it's so processed, it kind of resembles a pellet or some type of treat, but now she's going for the wet food. What's that all about?

Hey, Is This An Ivory-billed Woodpecker?

Hangin' At Mom's

The bird in the above entry is a distored blue jay that flew in front of my motion sensitive camera and not an ivory-bill.

One quick note: The current, I and the Bird is up at Bird DC Blog. Word is that if you can id all 27 birds pictured in the carnival, Nick will give you a Peterson Field Guide. I would argue that if you could id all those birds, you wouldn't need a Peterson Guide.

Today, I set my Aunt Lorelei up with a Raven Scope and Radian tripod. For anyone interested the Raven is on special with a free tripod. We did this earlier this year for a little while and now we're running it again. We'll do it until we run out of Ravens, which with this special will probably be soon. If you were thinking of getting one, I would decide soon.

I set up the NovaBird Camera at my Mom's house with some peanuts. Not only did I get a blue jay showing up right away, but I also got footage of a robin. When I first saw the robin hop up on Mom's deck I thought it was odd. It was fighting with the blue jay. Now, I didn't put out anything fancy, just some peanuts in the shell and a mix of peanuts out of the shell, sunflower hearts, raisins and cracked corn. Robins are not what you would call a traditional feeder bird. They have been known to show up for mealworms, grape jelly, dried fruit and in harsh weather conditions they will eat sunflowers out of the shell. Still, this is not something you see every day.

When this dude hopped up I was so excited as I watched it ravenously eating the peanuts out of the shell. When I downloaded the photos, I noticed in one that it was a decent photo, but the leg was out of whack. At first, I thought this was just an oddity picked up on the camera.

Sometimes, when the birds move too fast, they will get distorted and you get these great Salvador Dali looking birds, like this photo that I got of a female boat-tailed grackle in Virginia (pictured above). But every photo of the robin that I have from today had the same distortion on the foot, even if other parts were blurry. I grabbed my binoculars and sure enough, this guy has a deformed foot, it almost looks as though it has broken and healed oddly. The bird is thriving well on it's own, and this probably explains why this bird is eating around my Mom's feeders, it's an easy reliable food source. The robin is big enough that the house sparrows can't give it any grief and the starlings appear to give it plenty of space. Blue jays rarely take crap from anybody and they seem to keep the robin off. But otherwise it appears to be doing as best as can be expected.

My Mom's cats are not thrilled with Cinnamon. It doesn't help that they are wussies to begin with--when it comes to bravery, they are certainly not a credit to their species. They are twice Cinnamon's size and run like...well, like "fraidy cats" when she even looks in their direction.

Above is one of the cats named Copernicus, right after he ran and hid behind Mom's DVD player on Cinnamon's approach. I can't even say he's disapproving of Cinnamon, but more terrified than anything else. Cinnamon has decided to compound their indignity by eating their Meow Mix. Non Birding Bill and I are NOT amused, as we are not sure of what the effect of cat food will be on a rabbit. We've already called our vet who gave us a standard answer of just watch and make sure she eats and poops normally over the next twenty-four hours (basically, they don't know the effects of Meow Mix on the non-meow crowd). Bunny-butthead.

"I disapprove of being punished for eating tasty dry Meow Mix. It was just laying on the floor waiting for someone to eat it. Ce n'est pas ma faute!"

And, I have to show you this! This is some framed art my Mom has hanging in her bathroom.

For anyone who has ever wondered how I learned to be so classy, there's you're answer. I kind of invited my boss to dinner at my mom's when we all come to Indianapolis in June for a Wild Birds Unlimited Convention...maybe I should rethink that invitation.

"Cats are wussies. I can take 'em."

Tomorrow, I go to Eagle Creek park with Mom (Non Birding Bill and Cinnamon will be elsewhere). I haven't been there in ages. Way back when--when I was a single gal, I would get guys that wanted a date to take me there. Can't wait to revisit it.

Where's Birdchick?

I'm in Indianapolis visiting my mother. Indiana birding adventures coming soon.

"Wait, we have to come too? We disapprove of visiting your mother!"

Big News: As of May 20th, I can publicly talk about my experiences on the Ivory-bill Search Team with Cornell and if anyone on my team did or did not see an ivory-bill last December. Cornell will also be announcing their findings on that date. Should be a hoppin' time on bird listservs and blogs.