Birdchick Blog
I'm blogging next to Blue Lizard.
I feel like we're being stalked by plain chachalacas. They are everywhere, lurking, watching, perhaps planning a massive attack. Do you see the one right in front of my scope? I'll put my camera to my scope so you can see:
There's what I got through the scope. Now compare this and see if you can find it in the first photo. Now back to my mojito.
One of the booths here (Bird Uganda Safaris) has an interesting give away. I was handed a clear plastic bag (sealed) full of a clear liquid. "Is this water?" I asked. Closer inspection revealed it to be Uganda Waragi (premium gin). Guess we know where the party booth is! Well, I have seen my requisite great kiskadee (above). More photos to come.
Part of the charm for many who visit the Rio Grande Valley for birding are the numerous butterflies and dragonflies. I never really understood the whole butterfly watching hobby, but being in Texas, it's really making sense--there are so many all over. Above is a cluster of Queen butterflies that I found on our trip this morning. I don't know what they were feeding on, but they were diggin' it.
Well, I have landed in Texas for the Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest. I am again helping out my friends at the birdJam booth. I haven't done much birding yet, but some parrots flew over our hotel and I discovered that Denese from birdJam is a little sentimental over great-tailed grackles. She remembers them fondly from the past and almost gets misty when we pass a tree full noisily roosting grackles. Yeah, she's not strange at all.
The Raptor Project family is here in Texas. Some may remember the awesome gyrfalcon story from a week ago. I wonder what kind of hunting the bird will do here? While they were setting up, they perched out their Asian black hornbill and John was kind enough to pose me near it for a photo. What a goofy looking bird with one dynamite beak! And for fun, I googled "hornbill" to see if I could come up with any interesting info and instead found a photo album of some guy vacationing with a hornbill...and let it clean his teeth...yeah, ew is right.
Well, I'm going to get some sleep and try to digiscope the crap out south Texas tomorrow.
How the heck did I miss this? David Sibley is blogging--he's not updating all the time, I think he had like 8 posts in September, but it's a start.
There's a video of Cinnamon and myself on Showcase Minnesota up over here.
Look who is looking bright eyed and feisty! Yes, it's injured peregrine #568! Today was just a plain busy day, I have to pack for my flight to Texas tomorrow and I had two programs back to back at The Raptor Center (the first was about 70 two year olds and then the second was a small group of senior citizens--talk about shift gears fast!). But in the middle of all that, I managed to pop down into clinic and get an update on the injured female tundrius peregrine falcon we have been following. Things are progressing well!
Here is an X-Ray that Alana took last week. If you recall from last time, they removed the large rod that was inside the leg stabilizing the bone, leaving in the two smaller titanium pins. When Alana took this X-Ray, she noticed that one of the pins had broken in two--note the pin on the bottom. That pin is located just below the healed up break. She's not sure how the bird managed to break the pin, but she decided to remove the remaining stabilizer. A tiny piece of one of the pins remained in the leg, but it will not harm the falcon in the long term (unless she goes through airport security).
The skin on the leg is pink and healthy and her feathers are growing back in (it looks much better than the first day that I saw her leg--bleh). She still has a long journey ahead. She will remain in a clinic cage awhile longer to make sure that she can move around and that the healed bone is stable. If all goes well, they will consider moving her to a flight room, but it's best to take the time to make sure everything is healed up.
All in all, very good news.
I get a weekly Barnes and Noble e-newsletter letting me know about specials and includes coupons. It came in this morning with the Online Holiday Catalog. I clicked on First Rate Reads For The Holidays and went to Humor section and mixed in with Stephen Colbert, David Sedaris, Garrison Keillor, and even Borat is Disapproving Rabbits.
JeffGyr along with the talents of Bill Schmoker and Jim Rapp has put together a video asking birders at Cape May Autumn Weekend what their "spark birds" were. For the non birders, a spark bird is the bird that got you hooked into birding. You may hear some familiar voices in there, including Mike from 10,000 Birds.
So, what's your spark bird?
A personal triumph for me:
Digiscoping an almost completely in focus ruby-crowned kinglet. How the heck did I manage that? Perhaps I am finally becoming one with my digiscoping equipment.
Holy cow! I think this is the most media that I have ever done in one day! I woke this morning just after 6am to a call from Darci, the producer of the Ian and Maregery show asking if I had a few minutes to go on air, after that at 6:45am, I got a call from the producer of Showcase MN, asking if I could fill in as guest host and this afternoon after 4:30pm, I have an interview on WLTE to promote the book--I'm all over the place.
I got a kick out of the crew at Showcase calling me the new diva because the show was just pretty much all about me. I was originally scheduled as a guest this morning and they decided to keep that segment, so I had to film teases for my segment and host--I didn't end up interviewing myself but I was all over--it was fun. They are so nice on that station and Corbin (one of the other hosts) was really sweet to tell me where to stand, making suggestions on what do--it's a real team effort which makes it fun. And what was the best part of my morning--my first interview was for Surdyk's--a local liquor store Non Birding Bill and I frequent! Their chef cracked open a bottle of champagne in the middle of the segment. Champagne at 10am! My goodness I have a glamorous lifestyle for a birder.
Okay, back to the original intent of this entry: frozen birds--and I don't mean frozen as in cold, I mean frozen as in just plain not moving.
This titmouse photo was taken a couple of weeks ago. The bird had been flitting around Mr. Neil's feeders and then just stopped here for several minutes and I got all sorts of fun photos of it. When birds stop moving, that is a pretty good sign that a predator is nearby. When bird's aren't moving, they know something is near that could eat them. I started to scan around the yard and noticed other birds not moving.
SIDE NOTE: I just looked out the window while typing this entry and noticed that it's snowing. Sigh.
You can almost hear this female downy woodpecker saying through pursed bill, "If I don't move, you can't see me at all." Now This strategy might work well if she were against a tree trunk, however, up against a finch feeder filled with Nyjer thistle and sunflower chips--she kind of sticks out like a sore thumb.
I mentioned earlier that the idea of a chickadee souped up on sugary donuts is a scary thought--a chickadee frozen in place is just as unnerving. Above this black-capped chickadee and white-breasted nuthatch doing their best statue impersonations. Some further scanning around the woods did reveal a small sharp-shinned hawk lurking in the trees. The hawk eventually moved on, but I'm sure if one of frozen songbirds had moved, it would have stimulated an attack from the hawk.
After the sharpie moved on, normal bird activity resumed and birds began flitting around like crazy. So keep an eye on those feeders. If you ever see a house finch stock still on a feeder, scan the trees, chances are that there is a hawk nearby.
These photos are actually from before I left for Cape May Autumn Weekend, but I totally spaced that I had them. This actually works really well because I'm trying to get some proposals finished before I leave for South Texas Wednesday morning--Rio Grande Valley Bird Fest here I come (although, that is a weird temperature change--when I leave Minneapolis, it'll be about 27 degrees, when I get to Harlingen, it !!)
Holy Crap, just I as I was typing that last sentence, I just got a call from Showcase Minnesota, they asked if I could come in and guest host this morning. So the entry about frozen birds will just have to wait. Hm. I was supposed to have a segment...does this mean I'll have to interview myself?
Hey, check it out, it's Stardust Girl, proudly holding a bag full of angry red-bellied woodpecker. She's visiting from the Hoosier State of Indiana to see friends, watch the banding at Carpenter Nature Center and to attend the Disapproving Rabbits book release party. The party and signing exceeded my dreams. I really didn't expect that many people to show up, it was a blast and you can read about it here.
Another fun Friday banding songbirds at Carpenter Nature Center. It was interesting to note that we got in quite a few ground feeding birds. You have to kind of watch out when you let ground feeding birds go after you band them. Their natural tendency is to fly low for cover.
Unfortunately, that sometimes lands them right back into the nets! Doh! Yes, after I took the head shot of the cardinal, he was released and went right back into the nets. That's Jim Fox, one of the banders at Carpenter getting him out of the nets...again. Not an easy feat when the cardinal is trying to slice open your skin.
Cardinals weren't the only birds having blond moment (oops, did I anthropomorphize, sorry about that). The same thing happened with a few juncos--again, ground feeding birds looking for cover, get tangled in the net when they fly away. I got this guy out of the net and let him go on the other side. He chipped angrily to a tree. Dude, I may be responsible for the little bit of silver on the leg, but don't blame me when you fly into a net the second time in a day.
But let's not focus on that, let's just focus on the junco cuteness when in hand. I just cannot get enough of these guys! There's another species besides juncos who come to our feeders in winter and I saw my first one of the season in the nets at Carpenter on Friday:
Tree sparrows--these guys with the rusty cap similar to a chipping sparrow should be showing up to feeders about now in the north--all you southerns should have them soon enough. It's hard to see in this photo, but tree sparrows usually have a distinctive spot on their chest. I've had tree sparrows come right up to finch feeders, so don't just watch for them on the ground.
This bird was a surprise on many levels--we just don't get brown creepers too often. But the biggest surprise came as I was downloading the photos and my darling husband aka Non Birding Bill looked over and said, "Oh! Disapproving brown creeper!" I gave him a slack jawed look which he immediately interpreted and followed up with, "I've been around ya' for like 13 years--you pick stuff up."
I think it had more to do with one just being on Mr. Neil's window ledge in recent weeks. What's next, cats and dogs living together?
What was interesting was how we appeared to have gotten the creeper in the nets. As I said, it's just not one that we normally get in our set up, but if you notice in the above photo were Jim is trying to get the creeper out of the nets, you'll notice that the nets lean against a tree trunk. Based on where the bird was located, we think it was creeping up the tree and creeped (or do I mean crept, Amy?) right into the nets. Alas, when we let this one go, it too flew right back into the nets, clearly aiming for a tree trunk on the other side. We're excited about retraps at Carpenter, but we like a little more time between 'em.
Our final bird of the day was the handsomest house finch I have seen all year. When I first saw this bird on the feeders, I did a double take. He was so red, he might have passed as a purple finch to some. But that streaking on his flanks gives him away at ye olde house finche.
We did have one male house finch in the nets this morning with a slightly swollen eye-possibly the early stages of the eye disease they sometimes get. This bird was robust and healthy but I still made a point to wash my hands thoroughly after handling it.
Oh! I also have to point out one crazy little chickadee we had on the table. One of the best parts of banding is that we have a donut pool. Every Friday, someone picks up donuts and we all chip in a dollar. Donuts and banding--throw in Daniel Craig reading me Bent books and you have my idea of heaven. Anyhoo, when we take birds out of the nets, we put them in these mesh bags until they are banded. Jim had laid this bag full of chickadee on the table and has he was prepping the band, the chickadee had hopped over to his donut plate and started pecking at it through the mesh! On the one hand I admire the bird's cleverness, on the other the last thing the world needs is a chickadee souped up on sugar. Can you imagine?
