A friend of mine, Scott Fraser got a recording of a black-billed cuckoo singing in his backyard. Click here to listen to it. You will hear his guinea fowl in the background, as well as an eastern towhee singing "Drink Your Teaaaaaaaa!" Totally safe for work.
Contest & Another Birds and Beers
Don't forget that there's still time to enter the Birdorable Guest Blogging Contest. Get those blog entries in soon. Hey! We're having our May Birds and Beers at Coon Rapids Dam this Thursday, May 7, 2009. The bonus, Mark Newstrom is going to set up his nets to see if we get any birds. Sure it will be evening, but it's migration, so anything is possible. For the start, my buddy Michelle Anderson (and the hottest naturalist in the Twin Cities) will give us a list of coming programs and then we can talk, bird and have a beverage--alcohol is allowed in this park if you would like to bring your own. We'll start at 6pm.
Birds and Beers is usually an informal gathering at a pub for birders of all abilities to get together, have a beverage, and talk some birds. However, we had so much fun at the tailgating birds and beers, we thought we would do some more outdoors to add in a little informal birding.
Mystery Baseball Game Bird
A reader has submitted help with id. Since I don't live in Missouri nor attend many baseball games, I thought one of you readers could help our girl Veronica. Here is her description: I hope you don't mind me asking you for help, but but I have been trying to identify a bird since last July. Unfortunately I don't have a picture. I saw him at a baseball game in July 08, in Kansas City, MO at the Royals Stadium. He waited until dusk to show up, when the big lights came on, sat on a wire above the seats and then proceeded to swoop and drop down almost touching the field to catch bugs in the air. It was amazing.
He appeared to have yellow on his belly, and his back feather tails spread out when he flew. He was very sleek in shape, and looked long when perched on the wire. I never heard any song from him. Because of the stadium lights I couldn't see any of his markings, just the yellow when he would land above us.
I went to a game last week to try to find him again, but it was so windy and sprinkling, no birds were in sight. I have looked on line and in books and he might be one of many birds to my untrained eye. But I thought maybe you would know of a particular type of bird that likes stadiums-ha!
Coloring wise he could be a Baltimore Oriole, Tropical Kingbird or he kinda of looked like a Scissored Tailed Flycatcher?(His tail really stood out as different/long while sitting on wire). The bird I saw appeared to have a longer beak than the Nighthawk. I remember looking at the beak because it wasn't short and stubby like a Robin's. It was a little longer, thin/tapered-but not curved.
My husband thought I was so funny, I was watching the bird and not the game. But it was so amazing how he was doing his thing, in the middle of this big crowd, and a ball flying around the place. At one point he dropped so low I thought he was going to hit a player on the head. haha Sometimes he would go almost go to the ground.
My guess is a western kingbird. But what about you, readers? Has anyone been out this stadium and seen this bird?
The Boreal Songbird Initiative, along with other environmental groups like Bird Studies Canada, Nature Canada, the David Suzuki Foundation, among others created a petition called “Save our Boreal Birds” a little over a year ago. This petition will be sent to the Prime Minister of Canada and many provincial leaders, and asks that vital bird habitat be kept intact despite the fact that over 30% of the Boreal Forest has already been designated for development.The Boreal Songbird Initiative is launching the petition on May 12th, and they are currently at about 60,000 signatures. They'd like to get up to 70,000 before the launch.
Why should you care about this if it's for Canada?
Because many migratory birds that travel through the US and other countries breed in the Boreal Forest to the north, like the above American redstart...
And all of those pine siskins and common redpolls many of us got to see during the crazy winter finch irruption of 2008/2009...
And some of those warblers passing through our yards right now like the above Cape May warbler on their way to the boreal forest to raise some chicks. Even though this is in Canada, it affects many bird species we enjoy watching.
I have absolutely no idea if online petitions work, but I love what the Boreal Songbird Initiative is trying to do and how much will it hurt to click on a link and ad my name? It worked with the changes to the Endanged Species Act. Remember, the previous president relaxed the rules so that federal agencies like the highway department did not have to consult with government wildlife experts before taking actions that could have an impact on threatened or endangered species?
We signed a petition for that back then ( and okay, so that president didn't listen) but the current president listened and on Tuesday announced that he changed it back and now the government's top biologists involved in species protection will have a say in federal action that could harm plants, animals and fish that are at risk of extinction.
So, let's give a little love to the Boreal Songbird Initiative and birds like this boreal chickadee above (c'mon, how can you say no to a brown chickadee?). Sign the petition--it will show you as anonymous online if you don't want the world to see. Encourage friends to do it too.
Long-eared Owl & Short-eared Owl Hybrid?
I read the coolest article today from the journal Ontario Birds by the Ontario Field Ornithologists by Kristen Keyes and Michel Gooselin and learned that sometimes you can find something really cool buried in a drawer of old museum specimens! Keyes was doing some graduate research on short-eared owls when she came across a most unusual specimen. Check out the bird in the middle in the photo below:
From left to right, we have a short-eared owl, Keyes discovery, and a long-eared owl. In her research, she found that the mystery owl specimen was received in 1991 from Avian Care and Research Foundation. The bird had been found in 1990 with a broken wing. They tried to rehabilitate it, but the bird had to be put down and then the carcass was donated to the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Everything about the bird puts it right in the middle of the two species from coloration to body part measurements. For example, a short-eared owl's wing measurement should be between 283.5 - 307.5mm. A long-eared owl's wing measurement should be between 269.5 - 295 mm. The mystery owl's wing measurement is 294 mm--right in the middle. There are several other interesting features, take a look at the breast plumage compared to the other species--fascinating stuff.
How the heck did this happen? Was a long-eared chasing a short-eared, suddenly realized they were each the opposite sex and much like a predictable sitcom, fighting turned to mating?
You can read more in the April issue of Ontario Birds, published by the Ontario Field Ornithologists (who graciously gave me permission to use a photo and reference the article in my blog). It analyzes the hybrid's intermediate characters and uses color photos of all angles of the birds and of short-eared and long-eared for comparison.
Reference: Gosselin, M. and K. Keyes. 2009. A Long-eared Owl x Short-eared Owl (Asio otus x A. flammeus) specimen from Ontario. Ontario Birds 27(1):23-29.
Thursday Evening Meadowlark
Where are my bees? I take comfort in a singing western meadowlark, back lit by the setting sun.
angry-chickens-3
Best Bird Festival Idea Ever
I have to say, that I enjoy attending bird festivals and events in general (I must, I go to more in a year, than most birders will in a lifetime). But, I was really struck by the Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival in Woodward, OK. Because the festival wasn't just about seeing the festival bird, but we actively helped the bird:
unmarked-fence
Oklahoma is a beautiful state with vast, sweeping landscapes, but it's also divided by several cattle fences. They are everywhere, dividing property lines. The fences have become a part of the many problems facing the lesser prairie-chicken's precarious future. The bird's natural defensive behavior when fleeing a predator, is to fly low, right above the grasses. If they are fleeing a fast predator like a peregrine falcon, the prairie-chickens may not pay attention in their panic and cannot dart the fences that are taller than the grasses. The chickens fly into the fences and die. Look at the above photo, you can see how the fence blends in to the grassy landscape.
lesser-prairie-chicken-female
Research about lesser prairie-chicken mortality conducted by The Sutton Center has found that 40% of the mortality in Oklahoma is due to collisions with these fences! If you follow the link to the lesser-prairie chicken ecology, you can read more about the results. It was interesting to note that female prairie-chickens are especially susceptible to fence collisions and that is a huge concern--they lay the eggs. Sure, they need the males for fertilization of the eggs, but beyond that, the , build the nest and raise the young--you need all the females you can get out there to replenish the population. The Sutton Center, however, has come up with a unique plan!
marked-fence
They have come up with a unique fence marking plan to save the lesser prairie-chicken. By using "undersill" strips (trim strips) of vinyl siding available at many big box home stores, fences can be made more visible to the chickens. Eric Beck, the Oklahoma Audubon Council's Important Bird Area Coordinator was a field trip leader for the festival. However, when not leading trips, he was cutting up strips of trim to be placed on fences.
volunteers
After we watched the lesser prairie-chickens on the lek, we were given a filling ranch breakfast at Selman Ranch, shown how do the fence marking, and set loose with bags of tag to mark fences at a WMA that has prairie-chickens. This was the most proactive bird field trip I have ever been on at a bird festival. What a GREAT idea--show us this cool bird and let's not just lament that it's fate in the wild is uncertain, let's actually have festival participants do something that could actually help the birds. Best idea I've seen at a bird festival in years. I love this as much as I love the Delaware Bird-a-thon that raises money to buy up migratory habitat for the red knot. We need more of this kind of active conservation and birding.
wind-farms-ok
And that's not to say that fences are the only challenge facing the lesser prairie-chicken. Wind farms are popping up all over Oklahoma. Lesser prairie-chickens nest out in the open on the ground, they don't nest next to all trees--red-tailed hawks and Swainson's hawks perch there, watching for some fat tasty prey. Tall windmills look a little too much like tall trees and lesser prairie-chickens will not nest next to the farms, so that fragments their nesting habitat even more.
Still challenges ahead, but still hope too.
Holding Pattern
I am in such a holding pattern at the moment! One of the fun things about Facebook and Twitter is that I can see in status updates and tweets, but this spring, I realize how painfully slow migration seem when you live in the northern US. At first, I was excited to see robins, notice the little chipping sparrows showing up, hear the peent of the woodcock...but now that I see status updates that include blue-winged warblers, scarlet tanagers, and painted buntings from friends--I can hardly contain myself. Couple that with waiting for my bees to arrive, I just can't stand it!
Spring. Here. Now.
Random Oklahoma Sunset Cow
Birdorable Guest Blogging Contest
I'm going to be heading to Kazakhstan in a couple of weeks and similar to when I was in Guatemala, I'm not sure of what my Internet access situation will be. Since the last guest blogging contest was such a success (I got way more entries than I anticipated) I thought I would do it again. And like last time, one of my favorite vednors is sponsoring the contest.
I bring you the Birdorable Guest Blogging Contest–you could be a writer for my blog! If you already have a blog and would like to get a larger readership, this is an opportunity to show off your content to my readers. If you’re not sure you can do a blog but have an adventure to share, I have a great audience willing to read it.
You can submit a blog entry for my blog. Non Birding Bill and I will read through them and select 10 entries that we feel fit the theme of my blog and well, just ones that we find interesting. We will post one blog entry a day while I’m gone (it will be ten days starting on May 8, 2009). If your blog entry is one of the ten published, you win (from one of my favorite bird designers, Birdorable):
One of my favorites: the Tough Titmice Magnet. After the ten entries are up, readers can vote for their favorite finalist, and the blog entry with the most votes wins:
a Birdorable Spotting Scope shirt! The shirt shows a red-cockaded woodpecker perched on the scope, but they said the winner can choose the bird species. So, if you would prefer something like a Cooper's hawk, cardinal, or shag, they've got you covered.
Do check out Birdorable's line of product--they've got some cool stuff (excellent ideas for Mother's Day or birthdays).
Rules:
1. ANYONE CAN ENTER: If you already have a blog you can enter. If you have never blogged at all, you can still enter. If you do already have a blog and your entry gets selected, I will link back to your site with your entry.
2. BLOG ENTRY MUST FIT THEME OF THIS BLOG: I’m not going to say that you have to write about wild birds for the contest, but do keep in mind what the themes for my blog are - mostly wild bird related (watching, feeding, rehabbing, banding) with some pet rabbits, other wildlife, and honey bees. NBB and I will choose blog entries that are not only great, but fit in the overall theme of this blog. Our decision is final.
3. Content must be emailed to birdchick at gmail dot com by May 7th at 5 p.m. CST. It can include text, photos (web appropriate size) and links to videos. We may not proof read so if you your entry has typos, chances are good it’ll go up that way. Make it look good before we get it. You, obviously, agree to let us post your material in the blog by sending it to us.
4. The email entry with your blog submission MUST include your full name and mailing address. These will not be published in the blog entry, but we need them for the prizes. Also, be sure to include how you would like to be credited in the blog entry. Do you prefer that we put up your actual name or your user name and a link to your website.
5. Content must be original–your own content that you wrote. If you have a blog and you want to recycle and old blog entry from your own blog, that is your choice. If it is discovered that you use someone else’s content without credit or pass off someone else’s photos as your own, not only will you be disqualified, but it will be blogged. One entry per person.
6. If you submitted an entry for the last contest and it didn't get selected, you are welcome to submit the same entry. If you entered the previous contest and you were a finalist, you ARE eligible to submit a new entry. There are no guarantees.
7. Shameless pandering for people to vote for your entry will be deleted if it gets selected, so just don't start.